Episode 2: Chapter 6: Sever

Chapter 6 of Episode 2 of War of Seasons

The Grimm continued to lead the team further along the plains towards a deep valley.  Everybody remained silent, not sure what to say.  They just kept walking further and further as the valley in front of them grew larger and larger.  Gray kept fidgeting with his fingers as they walked along, trying to keep to himself.  Sora noticed that he was struggling a bit and walked over next to him.
            “You doing all right man?” Sora whispered to Gray.
            “No, I’m not doing all right!” Gray whispered back.  “Let’s put aside the fact that we are literally freshmen being tasked with missions to other dimensions, but apparently my cousin has the soul of our headmaster’s sister inside of her, and now apparently she can control Grimm!  Does that sound like something you can wrap your head around in a short amount of time?  We just woke up and all of a sudden everything’s gone absolutely crazy!”
            “Yeah,” Aurora said as she walked over and joined them as well.  “I’m honestly curious how my parents are going to try and spin this about how they had it tougher when they were my age.”
            “For real though!” Gray said tossing his hands in the air.  “It seems like the adults get the easy work as Huntsmen and Huntresses and the kids end up with all the crazy secret society junk that makes absolutely no sense!”
            “Hey,” Yang said as she put her arm around her son, “we’re in the same boat as you.  And we’ve been dealing with this secret society nonsense even before you were born.”
            “I can admit though,” Ruby said as she joined the small group, “this is a bit much to start with compared to how we all first dealt with the Order.”
            “Speak for yourself” Brooklyn said as she slowed down to join the now growing conversation.  “During my freshman year, I had to kill my mom who I didn’t even know was still alive.”
            “Not that I’m trying to flex here,” Jacob said joining in, “but I had to deal with both my parents being killed because they were on the wrong side at the wrong time.”
            “This isn’t exactly the best time or place to be trying to make brags about who had the worst experience their freshman year” Evan said as he put his hands behind his back.  “We have enough on our plates as it is.  Besides, We shouldn’t try to use our losses and our failures to measure how much we have had to endure compared to others, but use it as motivation in order to move forward and be better to ensure that something like that never happens to anyone we love ever again.”
            “That is truly the way you should look at this job” Ozpin said chiming in from further ahead where he was standing next to Hera.  “This isn’t about who has endured more, it is who has faced adversity and found the strength to overcome it in place of using it as an excuse to have people pity and pamper you.”
            “True enough” Ruby said as she smiled.  “All we can do is move forward for those we’ve lost.”
            “Right” Jacob said cracking his knuckles.  “For everyone we’ve lost.”
            “Such a sweet sentiment” Salem said speaking through Hera’s body again.  “If I had known more humans like you during the early years, I probably would not have fallen down the path that I did.”
            “The humans of yesteryear must have been pretty bad if they made you fight your brother and command an army of monsters from another dimension” Yang said with a chuckle.
            “You’d be surprised” Salem said with a sigh.  “But enough about what was.  We have arrived.”  The group reached the edge of the deep valley before them and saw that it was more like a crater than anything else.  Everything was slanted down into the center, almost like a meteor had slammed into it.  The ground leading to the center of the valley was loose and slippery, but everybody could see it even from as high as they were.  The base of the valley was a smooth glass-like surface that reflected everything.  And floating in the center of it was a black scythe.  The scythe itself didn’t look as sophisticated or as complex as Ruby’s or Natalie’s, but more like an old farming tool made of wood.  The blade however, stood out immensely.  It was pure black, darker than any night that could be conceived.  And even from all the way up at the top, everyone could feel the immense pressure that this blade emitted.  Everyone shuddered due to this pressure.
            “It can’t hurt us, can it?” Brooklyn asked as she took a step away from the edge of the valley.
            “The Relic itself while powerful,” Salem said as she started walking down into the center of the valley, “cannot harm the user so long as they don’t cut or harm themselves with the blade.  The handle is more of a vessel for the blade, to make it safer to transport and use.”
            “So if we touch the blade we die automatically?” Jacob said as he followed Salem down into the valley.
            “Not quite.  The power of death also includes decay, and unless one uses the blade to strike a convincing blow to a vital organ like the heart or lungs, a touch or stab anywhere not vital will simply cause the victim to begin to decay and fade into death.”
            “Pleasant thought….” Ruby said as she tugged at her collar.  As they reached the bottom of the valley, everybody stood around the Relic, just staring at it in awe and fear.
            “Not it” Yang said with a nervous laugh.
            “I’ll take it” Ozpin said as he stepped forward.  “I am the main magic user amongst our group, so I should be safer than the rest of you.”  Everybody smiled nervously as Ozpin took the Relic like he was simply picking up a stick.  He very carefully took the Relic, took some spare rope and cloth he was carrying with him, and tied it around his back, ensuring that the blade itself was covered in the cloth as to not be able to touch him or anybody else.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad was it?” Ozpin said jokingly.  But everybody was still feeling overwhelmed by the pressure of the Relic.  Ozpin nodded his head in agreement.  “This is a bit much.  Let’s regroup with the others.”  As he turned to head back up the valley, he saw Hera placing her hand on her head.
            “What’s wrong sister?” Ozpin said as he walked over.
            “It’s your friends” Salem said.  “My Grimm tell me that they are under attack.”
            “The Order found them?” Evan said with concern.  “Why did they go after them and not us?”
            “They must have thought they were heading to the Relic” Jacob said scratching his chin.  “It’s possible they don’t have enough troops here to have two search parties, so they took a gamble as to which group was going to claim the Relic and which group was the decoy.  And they must have chosen wrong.”
            “Assumptions are nothing without evidence” a new voice cut in.  Everybody looked up to see that on the ridge opposite of where they entered stood Lord Tenebris with a squad of soldiers with their guns pointed right at them.  “You aren’t giving the Order enough credit.  We have more than enough to deal with the likes of you. Open fire!”  As soon as he said that, the soldiers fired upon everyone in the center of the valley.  Brooklyn quickly morphed her weapon to shield form while Gray took the metal around his arms and formed a shield as well.  Sora was able to use his shields as well, but since they weren’t as big as Gray’s or Brooklyn’s he reserved himself to make sure that he could find some cover behind either of the two.  Ozpin stepped out into the fray of bullets and seemed to move so fast that his cane blocked every single bullet fired at him.  Aurora drew her swords and kept watching to see if she could find an opening to run up and start taking the soldiers down.  Evan, Yang and Ruby were all firing back at the soldiers, while Hera was struggling a little bit.
            “Let me fight!” Hera said as she grabbed her head.
            “I’m stronger than you child!” Salem said to Hera internally.  “And I control the Grimm!  I am far more useful than you!”
            “This is my family!” Hera said loading her weapon.  “This is my body!  And if you’re stuck inside me, then I suggest you figure out a way for the two of us to work together so that we can take care of these jerks!”
            “Fine.  Just don’t do anything too reckless.  You are responsible for more than just your own life now.”
            “As if I would start neglecting my own life just because I had an extra one in my head?!”  With that, Hera took her iron gloves and started firing at the Order as well.  Lord Tenebris just stood there, watching everything unfold, occasionally sidestepping return fire here and there.  After a few minutes of this, he leapt into the valley and started sliding down the side towards the center.  The team concentrated their fire on him, but the moment that they did, Lord Tenebris took out his sword, and struck the ground sending a powerful soundwave back towards the team.  Most of them managed to defend themselves against this blow, but Sora and Aurora lost their balance and got knocked back a few paces, with Sora getting a little airborne.  He took this opportunity to take to the skies and fly up towards the enemy soldiers that were still raining fire down on them.  He took his shields, and initially used the gun portion of them to return fire on the Order soldiers.  As he came in closer to the soldiers, he took his shields and morphed them together to form one short sword and began engaging the enemy.  Aurora realized what Sora was doing, and activated her speed to run up the side of the hill and prepared to attack the soldiers.  But just as she was about to clear the lip of the valley, a flurry of rose petals flew past her and started attacking the Order.
            “Oh come on!”  Aurora said as she drew her swords and started attacking another group of soldiers.  She started engaging the enemy while Ruby finished up the group of soldiers that she had started to take care of.
            “You’re still too slow kid!” she said with a grin.  They continued to deal with the grunt soldiers up top. Meanwhile, Lord Tenebris finally reached the bottom of the valley and started fighting off everybody down there. Every attack that the team tried to land, Lord Tenebris had already anticipated and dodged them with ease.  Yang rushed forward to punch him with her gauntlets, but he blocked the attack with his sword, and the impact from Yang’s attack caused a small shockwave from the sword to knock her back.  Evan tried to distract him by sparring with him while Brooklyn snuck up behind him having morphed her weapon from shield form to scimitar form, but Lord Tenebris trapped Evan’s spear in between the prongs of his sword, and spun him around knocking him into Brooklyn.  Ozpin and Jacob both tried to face him next, Ozpin facing Tenebris head on while Jacob tried to knock Tenebris off balance with some well-placed Dust kunai.  But every single kunai that was thrown, Lord Tenebris managed to throw back at Jacob before the effects could take place, forcing Jacob to fall back after a few kunai nearly exploded in his face.  Ozpin managed to hold his own, trading blow for blow with Tenebris. However, Tenebris stabbed his sword into the ground creating another shockwave that hit Ozpin hard.  He stabbed his cane into the ground, reducing the amount of knockback from the attack.  In that moment, Gray and Hera rushed forward and started attacking Lord Tenebris as well.  Gray morphed the metal of his shield, giving himself a sword while shrinking the shield he already had to ensure he could defend himself while fighting.  Hera used her own Semblance and stretched her arms out to punch Lord Tenebris in the gut, causing him to lose his balance.  Gray saw this window and rushed in for a quick attack, slashing the armor that protected Lord Tenebris.  In that moment, Hera launched herself by making her legs like springs towards Lord Tenebris, and then like a spring, coiled her arm back and landed a powerful punch on his mask.  The mask cracked, but remained intact for the most part.  Ozpin quickly started to run back into the fray, as did everybody else, trying to capitalize on the opening that Hera and Gray had created.  But the moment that they all got too close.  Lord Tenebris was suddenly engulfed in a black aura blaze, which burned almost across the entire width of the valley.  The flames were so powerful, that everybody was knocked down almost immediately.  They all struggled to get up while fighting the effects of the black aura burn as it resonated all around Tenebris, forcing them to try to retreat and defend themselves at the same time.  Ozpin tried to use his cane as a support, but Lord Tenebris, still covered in an aura burn, but not burning as powerful as it did a second ago, kicked the cane away from him causing Ozpin to collapse on the ground.  He then grabbed the Relic off of Ozpin’s back, removing the protective cloth and walked over to where Gray was laying, fighting for consciousness.
            “Pathetic” Lord Tenebris said as he raised the Relic to strike.  “You were never meant to exist in the first place.”  In that moment, Jacob managed to get enough strength to stand back up and activate his time dilation.  He started to run towards Gray, drawing his blade at the same time.  The scythe continued to descend slowly, but Jacob managed to get there in time to use his blade to redirect the attack into the ground.  There was a powerful clang as the blades collided, but in that moment, Jacob’s time dilation ended, and Lord Tenebris was clearly getting more agitated.  Without saying a word, Lord Tenebris pulled back the scythe to attack again, and Jacob thought he had an opening to take Lord Tenebris down before he could attack.  However, when he tried to run Tenebris through, the blade bounced off the aura burn, and Jacob was left wide open.  The recoil from the blade hitting the aura burn caused him to stumble backwards a few paces, and it left him wide open as Lord Tenebris sliced the Relic right across Jacob’s chest.  In that moment, Jacob screamed in pain like no living thing had ever screamed before.  He fell to the ground, clutching his chest, unable to quiet the sounds of his pain.  Lord Tenebris stepped on his chest and scoffed.  He leaned over, placing the tip of the scythe on Jacobs chest and said,
            “How pathetic.  You think you are in pain?  Your pain now is nothing compared to all that I have had to endure.”  Having said that, Lord Tenebris slowly pushed the blade into Jacob’s chest, causing him to scream even more.  As he pulled the blade out, Jacob passed out.  The pain was too much.  Lord Tenebris turned his attention back to Gray, but at that moment, an airship flew overhead, kicking up all the loose dirt and sending it flying.  Ropes then descended from the open doors of the airship, and the Order soldiers on the ground ran over and grabbed them and started making their way up.  Lord Tenebris was shouting something at the airship, but Gray couldn’t make out what he was saying.  After a few moments of shouting, Lord Tenebris simply stomped over to the rope and ascended to the airship.  After he was aboard, the airship took off, leaving everybody to recover and see the aftermath.
            “Is everybody okay?” Ruby asked as she tried to regain her bearings.
            “All good on my end” Evan said as he brushed the dirt off of his body.  “But they got the Relic.”
            “What should we do now?” Yang said as she fixed a few loose bolts on her robot arm.  But instead of answering any of them, Ozpin immediately ran over to where Jacob was lying unconscious.  Everybody then finally saw what had happened to him and rushed over to his side.
            “What happened?” Brooklyn asked, her breathing becoming much more erratic.
            “He’s been stabbed by the Relic” Ozpin said as he started preparing magical incantations.”

“That kind of spell will only work for so long brother” Salem said walking over to him.  “You may not even have enough power to get yourselves home at this rate.”
            “It will have to do until the healers get to our location” Ozpin said as he turned his attention to the spell.
            “What do we do?” Gray said as he ran his hands through his hair, trying not to freak out more than he already was.
            “Yang!” Ozpin yelled as he continued to pour magical energy into Jacob.  “Fire a flare!  Let our friends know where we are!  Ms. Watson!  How much aura do you have left?”
            “Enough for maybe a few miles, why?”
            “Get Christy or Bovia!  We need a healer to keep Jacob alive!”
            “Got it!”
            “I will have a Nevermore in the skies to show you where they are” Salem said.  “The flare will help guide them to us, I will guide you to them.”  Aurora nodded her head, and ran off following a nearby Nevermore that flew in from a nearby mountain.  After she left, everybody huddled around Ozpin and Jacob.
            “What can we do Professor?” Brooklyn asked as she knelt down beside him.
            “If I’m being perfectly honest here?” Ozpin said starting to get short of breath.  “Pray.”

Author's Note

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Reviews

[Shep]

Pray is right as the battle continues as the Order not only has the body of their old leader but the relic. now, what are they going to do? Awesome chapter. Please be kind and return the love,