Prelude to Order: Hope

Trailer 3 of 4 for Order of Seasons

Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren continued to walk through the Forest of Forever Fall, but all the while continuing to be on alert. Ever since the Cinder Fall Incident, more and more Grimm had been making bolder moves towards the boarders of Vale. Since the situation was an isolated incident, the Grimm had all but abandoned their surroundings of other cities and towns, making life much more difficult for the Huntsmen and Huntresses both official and students in training. Alongside that, with the recent activity from the last remnants of the White Fang, sleep was a very rare thing for most who were considered exceptional.

            “OH MY GOSH REN, I AM SO TIRED! I mean, seriously, we’ve been out here for like 10 minutes and hardly anything has happened! I mean, come on, Ozpin told us there would be Grimm out here for us to fight, but all I’ve seen is nothing but orange, orange, and more orange!” Nora continued to rant and rave, while Ren just simply rolled with it. At this point, he was used to her constant complaining, and even agreed with her a bit as he too was tired and bored since the two of them and their teammates had been completely swamped with missions within the last few weeks. Even Pyrrha, their most skilled member, had been showing signs of fatigue within the last few days. So the two of them kept walking, and continued to have no luck in finding any packs of Grimm, which lead to Ren’s eardrums becoming ready to explode from the sheer amount of nonstop talking from Nora.

            “And I mean SERIOUSLY! It’s great that Jaune and Pyrrha are finally dating and all, but even THEY have to deal with all this bull as well! I mean, you and me finally put two and two together and start going out, but just as we start doing so, BOOM! WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK!!!!! I just want a chance to have a nice night out with you and a chance to get some sleep and some pancakes, and some…

            “NORA!” Ren shouted, which caused Nora to take a few steps back caught off guard. Ren sighed, with his hand on his forehead.  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just, please. My complaints are the same as yours, so you don’t need to scream them all at the top of your lungs.”

            “Sorry Ren. Didn’t mean to ramble on like that.” Ren looked back at her with a small smile on his face.

            “Eh. I’m used to it.” Nora giggled a bit at this and the two of them continued on their way, surprisingly, without saying many words at all. As they got further into the forest however, their frustrations began to form once again. Nora was a bit less irritable this time, but Ren knew it wouldn’t be long until she started another one of her talking sprees.

            “I mean come on! At least the White Fang missions would have had something to DO! But here, we’re literally just walking about, waiting for something to happen, and so far NOTHING has happened!” She pulled out her hammer and whacked a random nearby tree. Ren took a few steps back because he knew that no matter what he did or said, it wouldn’t matter. She just needed to get this out of her system. But then a most curious thing happened. When Nora swung her hammer, rather then hit the tree, it rather stopped a few inches away, with her hammer right over a rock. As she pulled her hammer away, in that area where she hit, it seemed that paint started to melt away from that specific area, revealing a person in place of the rock that used to be there. A person, who while was still breathing, had clearly taken the full brunt and force of the hammer.

            “OH MY GOSH ARE YOU OKAY?!?!” Nora shouted as she rushed over to the stranger.

            “LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Another voice called out. Suddenly, dropping out of a tree was a small, blonde haired girl. She held in her hand a pair of twin mini shotguns, with an axe tip sticking out of the bottom. Nora put her hands up in the air and dropped her hammer.

            “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to! I was just letting out frustrations about life and didn’t even see him! I didn’t even know he was there!”

            “Christy, it’s all right.” The injured man spoke up. Christy ran over to him, holstering her weapons, and then placed two hands on his chest. As she did this, a glow emanated from her body. Then, like flowing water, the light traveled down her body and into the other person. He let out a deep breath, and then slowly got up. Christy then turned to Nora, and pulled out her weapons once again, but this time they had morphed into two axes, each about 2.5 feet long. She started marching towards Nora.  Her blades to the ready, with a look that she wasn’t willing to talk or forgive, and slashed down at her. Nora, too shocked and overridden with guilt, didn’t even make a move to block the blow. She closed her eyes, willing to take the full brunt of the attack and hoping that her aura would be enough defense. But no attack came. She opened her eyes and saw the other stranger had blocked the axes with a golden gauntlet.

            “Christy, you know as well as I do, I was in my illusion state, and was just as much at fault for getting smacked as she was. I don’t think that randomly attacking people is going to solve any problems here.” Christy lowered her axes, took a deep breath, and then lowered her head.

            “Sorry Evan. You know how I feel about things like this.”

            “I know, but I keep telling you, I can take care of myself.”

            “Yes I know but still….” The two of them continued talking all the while Nora was just standing there completely confused. Then Ren walked up next to the three of them and placed his hand on Evan’s shoulder.

            “I apologize for my friends lack of self-control, but could you possibly please tell us who you are and what you are doing here?”

            “Of course. My apologies. My name is Evan, and this is my girlfriend Christy. We have been sent out on a mission to exterminate Grimm by Professor Branwen at Signal Academy.”

            “Branwen? Isn’t that Ruby’s uncle?”

            “You mean that Qrow guy? C’mon Ren, I don’t think that HE is the type of person that would do well as a teacher.” Nora chimed in.

            “He did help with the Cinder Fall incident, so there’s that.”

            “Yeah, but still….”

            “It doesn’t matter Nora. What matters is that it seems our two missions have fallen in alignment with each other.” He then turned to Evan. “We have been tasked from Beacon Academy to exterminate Grimm as well. Did your professor give you any information as to what types of Grimm to expect?”

            “Not exactly. He just told us to “go kill some monsters. It’s good exercise” or something like that.”

            “Sounds like something somebody related to Ruby would say." Res said scratching his head.  "What say we just work together and make our jobs a lot easier?”

            “That suits me fine. Christy?” Christy looked at Evan, then looked at Nora, then nodded her head.

            “You fine with this situation Nora?” Ren asked. Still a bit upset about earlier, she just nodded her head yes as well.

            “Very good then. It seems we have an arrangement. By the way, we never properly introduced ourselves. My name is Lie Ren, and this is my girlfriend Nora Valkyrie. My apologies for not doing so when you two introduced yourselves.”

            “Eh. No harm no foul.” Evan replied. “Now then, shall we continue?” Ren nodded, and the four of them continued on their stroll through the forest. As they were walking, Nora walked over to Christy.

            “Hey, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for what happened back there. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I mean, I didn’t even know he was there.”

            “That’s okay. I definitely overreacted. It’s just, I’ve had this thing in the back of my head ever since he got himself seriously injured that tells me, “don’t fail him again” or something along those lines. Heck, I found my semblance because something horrible happened to him.”

            “Really?”

            “You see, I’ve never been good at fighting. I’m still not that great to this day. But I tried to enroll and endure a Fighting Academy because I didn’t want to be alone and just standing on the sidelines. I wanted to help people in whatever way I could, and the only way I knew how, was if I became a Huntress. But since I couldn’t use my aura, I’ve always had to be doing nothing but staying back and mainly just shoot enemies from sniper positions. I didn’t like it. I felt like I was just sitting there while everybody else fought for me. Then I met Evan. He helped train me a bit, but not even he could help me discover my Semblance. But, at least we found each other.” Christy kind of stopped talking for a few seconds, seeming like a cartoon in love, and almost floating in the air for a few good feet. Nora looked at Christy kind of strangely, then back at Ren.

            “Am I ever this bad when I mention you to somebody new Ren?”

            “In a way. You just replace all the visual with verbal.” Nora pondered this for a second, and then agreed. She then tapped Christy on the shoulder to bring her back down to the ground.

            “Ah yes. Where was I? Oh of course. So we started dating like, for real. Then came a certain mission. We had gone out with Professor Xiao Long, and things turned ugly rather quickly. The Professor got knocked aside and surrounded by Beowolves, and an Ursa claw had impaled Evan. And then, it happened.”

            “OOH! IS THIS THE PART WHEN YOU GO SUPER SAIYAN AND DESTROY ALL THE GRIMM?!” Nora asked excitedly.

            “No. I ran over to Evan, Professor Xiao Long destroyed all the Grimm in two steps, and I was clasping the slowly dying body of Evan like I was trying to keep him from falling.” Nora looked at Christy confused, then looked back at Evan. Then leaned over to Christy and whispered,

            “Is he a zombie? I mean, he’s standing there right now, right? That would explain how he survived my hammer though…”

            “Yes, he was dying, but then I passed out. When I woke up, they told me that I had pretty much poured out whatever Aura I had left in my body into his to heal his wounds. We didn’t understand it at first, but through practice at the local hospital and with smaller injuries, we figured out my semblance was Healing.”

            “Wow. I’ve never heard of a semblance like that. I’ve always seen a Semblance that is cool and awesome and sometimes containing explosions!” Nora then looked back at Christy, who was clearly bummed out at this information.

            “Even still, I guess healing can be a…helpful Semblance!” Christy kind of smiled a bit at this.

            “I’m sorry about earlier. I, just…. you know.”

            “Hey, I understand. Don’t worry about it too much.”

            “Hey, it’s great that you two made up and all,” Ren said as he and Evan walked in between the two of them, “But if you take another five steps, you are going to walk into the range of a Nevermore.” The two girls looked up and saw a giant Nevermore flying in the sky preparing its piercing feathers attack. Everybody dived for cover with their respective partner, and drew their weapons.

            “Have you ever faced one of these types before you two?” Ren asked.

            “Not in our experience, no.” Evan replied back. “You two”

            “For a brief instance during initiation, but that was taken care of by another team. But if I recall correctly, the neck is the weak point. I suggest me and Christy distract it with gunfire while you and Nora knock it down to the ground.”

            “We can do that. Shall we begin?” Evan replied before rushing toward the Grimm, with Nora in hot pursuit. Behind them, Ren and Christy started blasting the Nevermore from a distance. The beast was able to take the hits, but was also unable to really move anywhere. Evan started jumping from tree to tree and managed to land on the back of the Nevermore. He started slashing away at the neck, using his spear like he was wielding a quarterstaff, but also a sword at the same time. However, he didn’t make much progress. He was about to do another slash when he had to jump out of the way of Nora’s hammer as she brought it down on the Nevermore’s head. The Grimm started to wobble, tried to keep itself aloft, but was knocked to the ground when Evan and Nora both blasted the beast with their gun forms of their weapons. It fell to the Earth, and crashed right next to Ren and Christy. As it began to stir, Ren quickly jumped up and slashed the neck with his gunblades, and Christy followed up rather quickly, slicing off the head of the beast with one of her axes. The head slowly rolled away from the body, as the Grimm began fading from existence.

            “I’ll never get used to that sight.” Evan said as he walked towards the rest of the group.

            “You’ll have to. It’s part of the job.” Ren replied. “Anyways, I do believe that we should be heading back now. It would seem that there are no more Grimm in the immediate area and….” He was cut off by Evan drawing his spear back out and throwing it straight at Ren! Only, without Ren needing to move, it whisked past him about a few inches away from his head, and managed to impale a Beowolf right as it was about to attack the group.

            “Okay, now it’s done.”

            “So, CHRISTY YOU WERE DOING GREAT OUT THERE TODAY!” Nora shouted.

            “You really think so?”

            “Um, hello? You kind of BEHEADED A NEVERMORE!”

            “I did, didn’t I? THAT’S SO COOL!” The two of them continued to chat and express their excitement. Ren walked over to Evan and placed his hand on his shoulder.

            “On a scale of one to ten, how loud and annoying can she be sometimes?”

            “Eh, I’d give it about an 8.5.” Evan said with a sigh.  “How about your lady friend?” Ren chuckled at this.

            “Nora breaks every record and rating system ever known to man when it comes to talking.” They both laughed and joined the ladies as they started to make their way back to civilization.

            “So what’s the plan for you two once you get back to Signal?” Ren asked.

            “Hopefully, we can get permission to move on to Beacon Academy when the new semester starts up next fall.” Christy chimed in.

            “That’s GREAT!” Nora exclaimed. “We can TOTALLY give you two amazing recommendations to the professors!”

            “Is that okay?”

            “OF COURSE IT IS! You guys are going to LOVE IT at Beacon! The people, the weapons, the pancakes…”

            “Pancakes?”

            “Don’t expect any syrup if you end up being behind Nora in line.” Ren chimed in. They all started laughing and continued walking into the sunset.

 

 

 

Hopeful hearts filled with love

Hopeful minds flooded by dreams

One, a desire to be stronger

Another, an ambition to protect

Noble pursuits each in their own right

But all that can be for naught

Without proper Balance 

Author's Note

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Reviews

[Shep]

Another awesome chapter the only thing I would change would be the font size to make better to read so we don't have to have our faces so close to the screen. I love the characters as you bring them into play and the descriptive detail placing into the story. Good Job all around. Please be kind and return the love