Episode 2: Chapter 10: Mountains

Chapter 10 of Episode 2 of War of Seasons

            Several airships flew through the skies of Vale, preparing to begin their search of the targeted area given to them from command.  The pilot of one of these ships checked his systems one last time, then a hologram of General Ironwood appeared on his console.

            “Gentlemen,” Ironwood said placing his hands behind his back, “these are your orders.  We have narrowed down our search to a certain range of mountains just west of the kingdom of Vale.  We are looking for the tallest mountain in the area, but since mountains change overtime and Ozpin got this information centuries ago, there’s no telling whether or not the mountain we are looking for has grown smaller over the years or if perhaps new mountains have formed.  That’s why we are sending you out first to scan the mountains to find any form of energy or land data we can use in order to ensure that we are maximizing our efforts searching the right mountain, rather than dividing our efforts into trying to search every single mountain on foot.  Good luck gentlemen.  The fleet will be right behind you.”  With that, Ironwood ended his communication and the pilots made their way towards the coordinates they were given.  As they got out of range from Vale, the pilot reached into his pocket, pulled out his Scroll, and opened up an app that did nothing except send out a small pulse every few minutes.

 

 

 

            Ironwood stepped away from the holodeck and made his way back to the bridge.  The Atlas fleet was beginning to take off around them from Atlas Academy and started to make their way towards their objective.  Several dropships took off going on ahead towards the mountains in Vale, while the primary air fleet continued to get up to speed and go through their final checks.  As they continued to take off, Ironwood pulled out his Scroll and called out,
            “All teams, report in.”

            “Team Alpha standing by.” Ruby’s voice came in through the speaker.

            “Team Beta standing by” Jaune said over the radio.

            “Team Gamma standing by” Natalie called out.

            “Team Delta standing by” Christy’s said as her airship flew past Ironwood’s ship.

            “Team Epsilon standing by” Bovia said with confidence.  The other teams continued to report in as they took off.  Ironwood continued to watch and listen as the airships took off.

            “Good luck everybody” Ironwood said with a sigh.  “Here’s hoping we aren’t going to need it.”

 

 

 

            As their airship flew through the sky, Natalie put her scroll away and strapped back in.  “All right,” she said as she clicked the belt into place, “so long as everything goes according to plan, we should reach the mountains in a few hours.  Make sure you’ve got all your weapons loaded and ready to go before we get there and not right when we fly in.”

            “First of all Natls,” Evan said in a bit of an annoyed tone, “we aren’t students anymore.  This isn’t our first rodeo.  Second, what makes you think we’re even going to have to fight anybody once we do arrive?”

            “Neither us nor the Order know where the Relic of Life is hidden.  So that means, once we find what we’re looking for, chances are the Order is going to realize what our objective is, and since their goal has been to try and claim all the Relics for themselves, then it will only be a matter of time before the Order attacks us and try to claim the Relic for themselves.  So we need to hope that we either find the Relic before they even realize we’re looking for it, or we need to hope that if they do attack, that we can hold them off before they are able to put troops on the ground and claim the Relic for themselves.”

            “Weren’t you in the briefing for this mission Evan?” Miles asked tilting his head in confusion.

            “I was pulled aside by Professor Oobleck to get some things related to school all tided up and taken care of before we left.  I missed Ironwood’s original briefing.”  They all chuckled as their airship continued to drone on through the sky.  Miles was trying to relax when has Scroll started ringing.  He pulled it out and saw that Blake was trying to call him.  He unbuckled and walked towards the back of the airship for a little more privacy.

            “Hey Blake, what’s up?”

            “Hey” Blake said trying to speak loud enough with the engines of the other airship leaking through.  “Are you doing all right?  That stuff with Nathan the other day really threw us all for a loop.”  Miles sighed and pinched his forehead.

            “Yeah, I’m all right.  I didn’t mean to make everybody upset.  I just had a lot going through my mind that day.  Between everything with Nathan and this whole stinking war, I’m not exactly running on what you might consider rational thought.  Between what people like Ember and Christy have told me to how things apparently went down in the Dark Realm, I was just thinking a bit too hard about everything.  I think I’m just tired and at a point where I don’t really believe that he’s gone.  Even to the point where I would make baseless accusations and assumptions like I did the other day.”

            “I don’t fully think they’re baseless.  Like you said, Christy and Ember have both had encounters with Tenebris that do lean towards information that only somebody like Nathan would know.”
            “Yes, but I think I was getting ahead of myself.  I was just thinking a million miles a minute about a problem that might not even truly exist instead of focusing on what’s in front of us.”  Blake chuckled a little bit as Miles explained all that was going through his head.

            “You’ve always had a tendency to worry about too many things at once” she said, causing Miles to smile a little bit.  “Remember how difficult it was for you to tell me you liked me?”
            “Oh my gosh,” Miles said now full-on embarrassed.  “Do you really want me beet red going into battle just because of something from so long ago?”

            “You were so embarrassed and afraid of me saying no that you almost kept it to yourself despite the fact that it was super obvious to not just me, but all of our friends could tell.”
            “Seriously, why are you doing this right now?”
            “It’s to remind you that despite the fact that you were so nervous and afraid of rejection, you made that leap, and found something you never realized you would have without having tried, and all the while you didn’t lose anything in the process.  I think while not at all similar, you’re facing something like this with this whole Lord Tenebris situation.  You’re afraid that you are just going to hurt or lose your friends just because of one separate emotion that you feared would cause somebody to be mad at you.  But you’ve got a great group of friends surrounding you who care about you.  Don’t be afraid of hurting the people you care about.  Because you do have everyone’s best interests at heart, and everyone knows that.  Especially your daughter.”  Miles smiled, scratching his nose a little bit.

            “Thanks Blake.  That means a lot to me.”
            “Anytime.  Now focus up.  We can’t have anybody having some big crisis of emotion right now.  Not when we’ve got a life to save.”
            “Right.”

            “Love you.”
            “Love you too.”

            “Stay safe out there.”
            “You too.”  With that, they hung up, and Miles returned to his seat, taking a deep breath.  His doubts now washed away, he steeled himself for the mission to come.

 

 

 

            Ember and Gray continued to struggle back and forth with a thumb war, both of them struggling to try and get the upper hand.  Everybody from Team BEAT and Team GASH were on board, watching with excitement and anticipation.
            “You always do this you know Gray” Ember said with a sly smile on her face.
            “What’s that, win?”  Gray said as he tried to go in for a pin while Ember was distracted.

            “No,” Ember said as she easily dodged Gray’s attempt.  She tried to perform a counter, but Gray had managed to slip away before that could happen.  “You always try to slip away if things seem like they aren’t going your way.  You lack confidence little brother.”
            “What I lack is a collection of wins against you!” Gray went in for another attack as he said this, but Ember was already ready for him.  The moment that Gray attacked, Ember slid her thumb beneath the incoming attack, guiding Gray into a false sense of security, which resulted in her slipping out of the temporary hold and pinning Gray’s thumb in a vice grip.  Ember’s teammates cheered while Gray’s teammates groaned in disappointment.  As they unlocked their grip, Gray wiggled his hand in discomfort.
            “I swear, it feels like you break something every time we do this sis.”
            “Look Gray, you need to be more confident.  You’re a strong guy!  And you were chosen to lead this team for a reason.  But you can’t be afraid to fail.  There were several moments where each and every one of my teammates failed during our time at Beacon.”
            “Speak for yourself” Terra said jokingly.

            “But at the end of our time, we were regarded as one of the best graduating teams at Beacon.  We weren’t perfect, and we didn’t need to be.  We just needed to be enough to make sure we succeeded.”
            “Are you kidding me right now?” Aurora said clearly ticked off.  “You guys had it easy compared to us!  All you guys had was a normal four years at Beacon!  And everybody heralded you all as the best since the time of our parents!  Now we not only have our own family’s expectations to uphold, but the standards set by you guys before us!  And on top of that, we are in the middle of a freaking war!  All within our first few months so pardon us if we seem like we are trying to keep our heads above water here!”
            “I didn’t mean it like that Aurora.  I just mean….”
            “Leave it alone Em.” Arri said placing her hand on Ember’s shoulder.  “She’s right.  They’ve got enough going on as it is without us trying to remind them of the fact that they are just freshmen.”  Ember got up and returned to her seat, a bit hurt by what Arri had said to her.  Everybody returned to their seats as well, and continued to sit in silence.  Gray was thinking about what Ember had told him, when Bovia placed her hand on his shoulder.
            “Honestly,” she said with a smile, “I still sometimes feel like I’m not the best person to lead them, either then or now.  But I figured out the important thing is to trust and work with your team, and they in turn will do the same for you.  It’s not all about being right all the time, it’s about understanding how you and your friends work best, and making sure none of you die out there.”
            “A comforting thought.” Gray said with a sigh.

            “Not the most uplifting words, I know, but important ones for any leader to hear.  You are only as good as the support you’ve got behind you.”

            “I know” Gray said with a smile.  “I just hope that the person in front of them is up for the task.”

            “Ozpin hasn’t made a mistake when it comes to team leader yet” Bovia said returning to her seat.  “I’m sure he saw something in you that made you stand out.”

            “Like the fact that I’m related to one of the heroes from the Battle of Vytal?”
            “We all are related to somebody from that battle” Sora said in a mocking tone.  “It’s kind of crazy if you really think about it.”  They all laughed, and continued to keep each other’s spirits up while waiting to arrive at their destination.

 

 

 

            The scout ships finally reached the mountain range, and began to break off and scan the area.  The mountains were mostly close together, but they were big enough that they were separate entities.  Along with that, there were a few mountains a mile west that were also considered as potential locations for the Relic.  The pilot took his ship and made his way towards the mountains to the west, and started scanning.  He got his readings, and then pulled up his Scroll, and pressed three buttons.  With that, he made his way back towards the main mountain range, and called out on the radio,
            “Nothing picking up in those mountains to the west.  Let’s keep looking around here.”  The other pilots acknowledged this, and then the pilot pulled out another Scroll, which he activated and said, “I found the mountain.  Rest of the scout ships think that the Relic isn’t there.  Make the move now.”

            “Acknowledged Agent 21” Lord Tenebris’ voice came in through the speaker.  “We have received the coordinates you sent us, and we are sending the main fleet.  We will be there in about ten minutes.  Be ready for when we arrive.”
            “Yes my lord.”

 

 

 

            The main dropships continued to make their way towards the mountains, Ty growing a bit restless in the back.  He kept pacing back and forth as time went on.

            “Hey pilot!” Ty yelled from the back.  “How close are we?”

            “We’re about two minutes out at our current pace” the pilot said with a slightly annoyed voice.  “We aren’t going to get there any faster if you keep asking me every five minutes.”

            “Take a breath Ty” Christy said with a sarcastic tone.  “This is honestly just going to be more of a fetch-quest than anything else.”
            “Yeah, except the last time we went on a supposed fetch quest, we went to a mirror dimension where Jacob almost got killed.  Our fetch-quests seem to turn into try-and-survive quests.”
            “All part of the job” Brooklyn said twiddling her thumbs.  “We don’t really know whether or not the job is going to become more complicated or not.  We have had our fair share of dealing with things going south on missions more often than not.”
            “I know, but this time it feels worse than normal.  When things go wrong normally, we usually deal with it and move on to the next mission.  Now we’re on a mission to make sure that our friend doesn’t die because of the last mission we were on.”

            “True enough,” Christy said standing up, “but still…..” before Christy could finish her sentence, the airship suddenly increased its speed and caused both Ty and Christy to almost lose their balance.

            “What’s going on?” Ty yelled up to the pilot.   But the pilot didn’t respond.  He simply flew the airship as fast as he could.  Then once he slowed down again, he flipped a switch and the battle alarm came on.  Brooklyn quickly got up from her seat, and opened one of the doors of the dropship.  Just outside of their ship, the entire fleet of the Order was raining fire upon all the smaller ships within the area.

            “How did they get here so quickly?!” Ty yelled as he tried to maintain his balance while the pilot did some evasive maneuvers.

            “Not important right now!” Christy said as she made her way to the cockpit.  I’m calling Ironwood!”  While Christy reported in what was happening, Brooklyn morphed her weapon into sniper form and started taking shots at the smaller enemy fighters, while Ty morphed his weapon to bazooka form and started taking shots at the turrets on the big warships.  They kept doing what they could, but then a turret managed to land a solid hit on one of their wings, causing the airship to start spinning out of control.

            “I hope you managed to tell Ironwood what the heck is going on here” Ty said as he grabbed onto one of the support straps to keep himself from falling over.

            “It got reported in by the scout ships, so Ironwood has already got the warships going at max speed to get here” Christy said as she loaded her weapons.  “He said it would take about ten minutes for our warships to get here.  In the meantime, I don’t think we can stay here.”

            “So what’s the plan then?” Brooklyn said trying to keep her balance while firing a few more rounds at enemy fighters.

            “We need to deal with those big guns on the warships” Ty said as he fired another round of rockets.  “I say we take the fight to them.  Literally.”

            “Do you think we can deal with them all by ourselves?” Brooklyn asked as she reloaded her Dust cartridges.

            “The other teams are right behind us” Christy said as she pulled out her axes.  “I’m synced up with their communications, so I’ll relay the plan to them, and hopefully we can get some help down there.”

            “Sounds good to me” Ty said as he let go of the strap.  “Pilot!  Get us as high as you can!”  The pilot managed to pull the dropship out of its spin, and started climbing up higher above the battle.  Ty looked out the side of the dropship and saw all of the big Order warships directly below where they were flying.  He then proceeded to leap out the side of the dropship, heading straight towards the nearest warship he could see.  Christy and Brooklyn quickly followed suit, with Christy relaying to everyone who could hear her,

            “This is Christy and the active members of Team Delta.  Our airship is going down, and we are taking the fight to the Order.  If you can reach us, we could use the help in taking down these warships.”  With that, the three of them got ready to land on the warship.  Christy and Brooklyn had normal landings, but Ty angled himself towards the nearest turret, and collided right into it.  His Semblance took a majority of the damage, but he was still a little slow to get back up.  Regardless, the turret was down, and the three of them continued on their way to take out more turrets.  For the most part, they faced little resistance at first, since it seemed improbable that anybody would attempt an attack like this.  However, as time progressed, the Order realized they were there and dispatched troops through service hatches onto the exterior of the warship.  Ty and Brooklyn were both preoccupied with slicing up a turret with the sword forms of their weapons, so Christy morphed her axes into gun form and started taking out the Order soldiers as they got closer and closer.  While helping a great deal, this didn’t slow the Order soldiers entirely.  So, to try and combat the oncoming hordes to buy her friends time, Christy charged forward.  She ended up taking some damage, but once she was close enough, she morphed her weapons back into axe form and engaged in close quarters combat.  The soldiers did very little to phase Christy as she cut through them easier than most Grimm.  Most of these grunt soldiers tried to simply shoot her on sight, but she continued to dodge left and right while only taking minimal hits having her Aura absorb most of the side damage.  Suddenly however, a large soldier wielding an electric bow staff approached her.  Christy took a deep breath and engaged the soldier.  The soldier started by doing a sweep across to try and knock Christy off balance, but she parried the attack easily with one of her axes.  The electric shock from the staff did almost knock Christy back a bit, but she used her aura to absorb most of the electric attack.  From there, she caused the soldier to lose his balance when she pulled her main weapon blocking the attack back and dodged out of the way causing him to stumble since he put his body into the attack.  Before the soldier could regain his bearings, Christy quickly morphed her other axe to gun form to get a few quick close-range shots at the soldier.  This caused the soldier to stagger even more and struggle to collect himself.  Christy rushed in at this opportunity and landed several strikes.  The soldier took several hits, but charged up his staff again and prepared another attack.  Christy was prepared to block and counter this attack, but all of a sudden, she was under fire from all the other Order soldiers in the nearby vicinity.  Most of them had decided to break off their attempts of attacking Ty and Brooklyn and had diverted their attention to her.  In that moment, her defense started to break down, and the soldier with the staff saw his opening and struck Christy with the electric end of his staff.  Christy still had a lot of Aura left, so she was able to take the hit.  But it did knock her to the ground, giving the enemy a chance to strike a critical blow.  Christy didn’t panic however, and prepared to launch a counter attack that while taking out a lot of nearby soldiers, it would leave her vulnerable depending on how many shots the enemy managed to land.  But before anything could happen, several shots came flying out of nowhere, knocking the soldiers off balance and into the air.  Looking up, Christy saw that Yang had fired several shots from one of the dropships, while Natalie leapt out of another one and started taking down more of the other soldiers.  Everybody else soon followed in suit, leading to the entirety of the old generation standing together on top of one of the Order’s warships.

            “Don’t think we ever did something this crazy during our freshman year” Yang said jokingly as she fired a shot at a far-off Order soldier.

            “Eh, still say fighting a literal god is a bit more intense than a couple of warships” Natalie said in a mocking voice.  As they got their bearings, the rest of the Atlesian fleet arrived, leading to large scale attacks from both sides against both warships.

            “Don’t think we’re going to be able to stay on here much longer” Evan said as several shots from the Atlesian warships began raining down on the Order warship they were standing on.  With that, the team leapt off their current warship and headed for another one, looking to take it down as well.

            “Bold of the Order to go all out like this” Ty said as he fired several bazooka rockets at Order soldiers on the next warship trying to shoot them out of the sky.

            “Well,” Ruby said with a smile, “that’s their mistake.  And I for one welcome this newfound drastic tactic from the Order.”

 

 

 

            Lord Imperia watched as the battle raged from the bridge of the lead warship.  She smiled once she saw all the Atlesian warships arrive and engaging with their own ships.

            “We have their attention Lord Tenebris” Imperia said over her Scroll.  “You may begin your operation.”

            “At once Lord Imperia” Lord Tenebris replied.

 

 

 

            Teams BEAT and GASH were still on their dropship, flying around the battle.  Their pilot had gotten caught up in some crossfire, so he attempted to evade the fire from the turrets, only to be immediately tailed by an enemy fighter moments later.  He kept trying to shake the fighter, but to no avail.  Reacting quickly, Sora opened one of the side doors, and flew right towards the enemy fighter.  Before the enemy pilot could even react to what was happening, Sora sliced off one of the fighter’s wings, causing it to careen and crash on the surface below.  Sora quickly returned to the dropship with high fives all around waiting for him.

            “Good stuff man!” Hera said with excitement.  “He literally didn’t see that coming!”

            “So long as the shoe fits!” Sora said jokingly.

            “So where to now?” Aurora asked looking out the side of the airship.  “It looks like our parents are down on the enemy warships.”

            “Then that’s where we should probably go” Arri said loading up her weapon.  “We can’t have the old people do everything for us!”

            “Wait,” Gray said walking towards the cockpit, “what’s that?”  Everybody turned to see what Gray was looking at, and they saw a small Order dropship flying away from the main battle and towards the mountain range to the west.

            “Did they forget that the battle is the other way?” Terra asked sarcastically.

            “Maybe they’re deserters?” Aurora wondered aloud.

            “Wait,” Bovia said watching the dropship activate its cloaking abilities.  “Wasn’t that mountain range a part of what the scouts were supposed to be scanning?”
            “You’re right” Ember said scratching her head.  “But didn’t the scouts report that nothing was there?”

            “Maybe they scanned the mountain wrong?” Hera said shrugging her shoulders.

            “I don’t like it” Bovia said with concern.  “Pilot!  Activate cloaking and follow that enemy dropship!”

            “Yes ma’am” the pilot responded.  With that, the pilot activated the cloaking device, and started to follow the dropship.

            “Please,” Aurora said clasping her hands together, “please let it just be deserters and not some crazy jerk who wants to kill us.”

Author's Note

Please read/review/enjoy!

Reviews

[Shep]

Miles was trying to relax when has Scroll started (rining.)

I noticed you had a new chapter posted and wanted to be the first one to enjoy it. Which I did by the way. It was fantastic as they begin to search for the relic of life before the Order gets their hands on it. Love the detail love the battle scene, love the pace of the story itself. All and all nicely done. Please be kind and return the love.