Episode 2: Chapter 12: Reveal

Chapter 12 of Episode 2 of War of Seasons

            Lord Tenebris slowly turned away from Ember and faced Miles.  His fists clenched tightly, and his aura burning even brighter than before.

            “I had hoped that perhaps one day you and I would face each other alone in battle” Lord Tenebris said as he started walking towards Miles slowly.  “The day of reckoning has arrived.  Our long awaited meeting has come at last.”
            “Glad I gave you something to look forward to” Miles said as he checked his aura levels.  He had managed to burn through all of the boost that Jaune gave him without using up any of his own aura in order to reach the cave.

            “We need not be adversaries” Lord Tenebris said continuing to pace around the cavern with Miles matching that same pace.  “You may have strayed from the true path of Aequo, but that can be absolved if you cast aside the traitors and pretenders and join me and the Order.”

            “The true path of Aequo was about the acceptance of others and welcoming all people from all walks of life.  It was a refuge separate from the Four Kingdoms that allowed people to live in peace.  What you are doing is inciting war and despair.  Striking down those who simply don’t agree with you without hesitation, consideration or remorse.  You may have been from Aequo, but you and what you represent are far from what Aequo stood for.”

            “No, you have twisted the meaning of Aqeuo to fit your own perverted view of the world.  You have been tainted by the world and the kings that Aequo removed itself from.  As a result, you have forgotten the true nature of what Aequo was.  It was a paradise.  There were only those who supported one another.  Not traitors and fools tearing others down so that they could be at the top.  It was a place where everybody could be properly supported and honored, not a place where people let their fear of another ascending higher than themselves consume them and let their jealously and hatred stop others around them from becoming what they were always meant to be.  Those who truly cared for their fellow man were honored and supported, and those who would even dare speak a word against the truth were cast out and recognized for the traitors they were.  I was almost like you, willing to listen to Ozpin’s lies.  But I saw the truth, and knew that if I were to become my true self, I must cast aside everything and everyone who tried to wrong me.  Everyone who mocked me, ridiculed me, refused to accept me.  I will bring this world to its end and return it to its proper, superior state.”

            “I was beginning to think I knew who you were, behind that mask” Miles said with tears forming in his eyes.  “But it’s impossible.  The man I once called brother could never be as vile as you.”

            “Nathan Grover was weak.  I destroyed him.”

            “Then I will avenge his death.”

            “Then you will join him in the abyss” Tenebris said pointing his sword at Miles.  With that, Miles rushed forward and swung his sword at Lord Tenebris.  Tenebris blocked the attack easily, and it resulted in a shockwave of sound being emitted, causing the entire cavern to shake.

 

 

 

            Ty fired several rockets towards the Order soldiers and continued to press forward towards the main force of the enemy.  As they continued to move up the mountain, it became apparent that the Order soldiers did not have much in the ways of reinforcements.  They were simply fighting to try and stay alive despite being overwhelmed and in dire need of support.

            “Why can’t it always be this easy?” Ty joked as he fired another round towards the enemy.

            “We aren’t done yet” Evan said as he fired a few shots at the enemy.  “For all we know, we’re playing right into the Order’s hands.”

            “If we are,” Christy said as she morphed her weapons from rifle form to axe form, “then they’re doing a terrible job of making sure we remain in this position.”  With that, she rushed forward and started taking out soldiers left and right.  Gray watched on with surprise at the amount of speed and precision with each of Christy’s attacks.

            “Was she always this powerful?” Gray asked scratching his head.

            “What?” Arri said with a chuckle.  “You didn’t honestly think that a professor at Beacon would go full tilt against you guys during classes, did you?”

            “I mean….”  Arri laughed as Gray continued to try and put things together in his head before returning to the battle.

 

 

 

            General Ironwood continued to monitor the situation from the bridge as he watched several different attempts by the Order to slip past their blockade to aid the soldiers on the mountain fail one after the other.  It almost seemed that the Order was just throwing everything they had at Ironwood and hoped that maybe something would stick.  But nothing did and attempt after attempt failed and Atlas pushed back against the advances of the Order.  Ironwood watched as another fleet of enemy airships went up in flames and crashed to the ground below, when two soldiers arrived on the bridge dragging one of the scout pilots behind them.

            “Sir,” the soldier yelled when they entered, “we’ve found the pilot that was tasked with scanning the mountain that the Relic is hidden in and reported back no signs of the Relic.”  Ironwood stepped away from the command center and approached the pilot.

            “It’s always boggled my mind,” Ironwood said as he grabbed the pilot by his shirt and lifted him up in the air, “how somebody would be so disillusioned by promises of grandeur and power that they would rather throw the entire world into chaos rather than be content with the peace and prosperity we currently have.  What compelled you to betray your brothers of Atlas and Mantle to serve the Order you traitor?”  The pilot smiled and spat in Ironwood’s face.

            “Oh Ironwood, we were never loyal to you to begin with.”

            “We?”

            “Execute Order 822!”  As soon as the pilot yelled this, a pair of techs leaped out of their seats, stole the guns from the soldiers, and opened fire.  Ironwood quickly pulled out his own pistols to combat the new threats, but when he rushed forward to combat the traitors, another tech that didn’t start attacking snuck up to the command bridge and placed his Scroll in the receiving slot of the command center, pressed a few buttons, then all of a sudden, the Order’s symbol was on every single screen in the ship.  A second later, Lord Imperia appeared on all the screens and said,

            “My loyal soldiers.  You have endured long enough.  Execute Order 822.”  Ironwood saw this and immediately fired a shot at the Scroll in the command center, causing the feed from Lord Imperia to cut out.  But it was too late.  The doors were busted open and several Atlesian soldiers were defending themselves against Order soldiers dressed in Atlesian armor.  Everybody who was loyal to Atlas fought hard to keep the attack from fully breaching the command deck, but Ironwood could already tell that it was doing the job the Order needed it to.  With everybody busy dealing with the attack on the inside, the Order was starting to send ships towards the mountain, passing the blockade.  Ironwood quickly fired several shots towards the incoming attackers, forcing them back out of the bridge, and then quickly activated an emergency protocol, sealing the bridge from any form of entry.  Ironwood then ran to the communications and quickly sent out a message to those fighting at the mountain.

 

 

 

            Sora flew up into the sky and morphed his weapon into blaster form, and then fired several shots towards the soldiers.  The Order soldiers were clearly on the cusp of being completely obliterated.  Sora prepared another round to fire on the enemy, when suddenly, a crackling noise came through his communicator.  He didn’t hear anything but static, but it definitely struck him as odd.  Looking back towards where the Atlesian ships were supposed to be holding the line, he now saw that the Order’s warships were past the blockade and were moving swiftly towards the mountain with nothing standing in their way.  He quickly flew back down to rejoin his friends, where everybody continued to push forward.

            “Did anybody else hear that static in their communicators?” Pyrrha asked as she fired a few more rounds at the enemy.

            “Probably an error” Evan said reloading his rifle.

            “It wasn’t an error!” Sora shouted, causing everybody around to turn and look at him.  “The Order’s broken through the blockade!  We’re almost out of time!”

            “What?!” Ty said as he looked back to confirm what Sora was saying.  “How is that possible?  And why didn’t Ironwood warn us?”

            “I think he tried to” Yang said as she fired several more shots at the Order soldiers, who were now much more invigorated knowing that reinforcements were on their way.  “But it may be possible that the Order is jamming our communications with the warships”

            “So we can’t contact the fleet?” Blake said as she got back from slashing an Order soldier.

            “Well, you heard us over our short-range communicators” Yang said as she pulled out a special round and loaded it into her left gauntlet.  “So it stands to reason that we can still talk to our friends who are in the vicinity.  It’s just the fleet we can’t reach.  Regardless, we need to hope that the kids and Miles got their hands on the Relic, because we are out of time.”  With that said, Yang fired a shot into the air which turned into a flare, causing the airships that brought them there in the first place to begin their approach to pick everybody up.

            “Miles,” Yang yelled into her communicator, “I hope you can hear me.  The Order is right on top of us, and we need to get out now.  Get the kids and get out of there now!”

 

 

 

            Miles steadied himself after another powerful strike from Lord Tenebris sent him skidding across the cavern.  He then placed his hand to his ear as Yang’s message came through, and he realized how much trouble he was in.  He slowly made his way towards where Aurora was slowly getting up from the attack that Lord Tenebris had landed on her earlier.

            “How you holding up champ?”

            “I feel like a rainbow dad” Aurora said sarcastically as she drew her own two weapons.  Meanwhile, Lord Tenebris started making their way towards them, while Ember quickly joined them and looked over Bovia’s unconscious body.

            “I don’t think Bovia is getting back in this one guys” Ember said as she joined them and pulled out her own weapons.

            “Well given the news I just got,” Miles said as he made sure that Tenebris wasn’t about to launch another sound wave attack, “that’s not good for us.  The Order’s broken through the blockade, and we’re on the cusp of being overrun.”

            “So what’s the plan from the outside then?”  Ember asked growing more and more concerned.

            “Your mom signaled the airships to pick us up.  But we need to get out of here.  And I don’t think there’s a cavern as big as the one we came in through that we could escape through.  And without Bovia, I don’t think I have enough Aura left over to get us out the way I got myself in.  And that was without this guy breathing down our necks.”

            “So we defeat this guy and get the heck out of dodge?”  Aurora said with a smile.  “Easy enough.  You with us Ember?”

            “Of course” Ember said with a smirk.  Miles was about to protest, but Aurora used her Semblance to run straight at Lord Tenebris, while Ember launched herself forward with her weapons towards Tenebris as well.  Aurora was going too fast for Tenebris’ defensive Aura burn to activate, so she quickly got some fast strikes in before he had a chance to realize what was happening and recover.  In that moment when Tenebris focused his defense on Aurora’s frontal attack, Ember reached Tenebris’ and started hitting him left and right, causing him to stagger.  He tried to recover and focus his attempts on Ember, but in doing so, he left himself venerable to Aurora’s attacks.  And that lead to him trying to fight on two fronts which gave the two girls plenty of openings to hit Tenebris everywhere they could, even causing his mask to crack a little bit as well with some of their strikes.  Miles also rushed forward to join in on the action, but as he got closer, while the three of them were anticipating Lord Tenebris to activate his defensive Aura burn, he instead activated his black attack burn, causing Aurora and Ember to pull their arms back in pain when their continued attack ended up hurting themselves.  Miles had not yet joined the fray when this occurred, so he quickly adjusted his strategy to defending himself from the growing burn with his swords, but Tenebris predicted this, and immediately launched a powerful counterattack.  He used his tuning fork sword to hit Miles’ swords and break his guard, then quickly followed up with a powerful sword strike to the gut that sent Miles flying to a part of the cavern a good distance away from where Bovia was still unconscious.  In that moment, Ember and Aurora tried to switch to ranged attacks to hurt Tenebris, but all their projectiles ended up just annoying him.  He then struck his sword into the ground, causing a powerful shockwave to hit Aurora square in the chest, knocking her down to her knees, while he ran over to Ember, who wasn’t expecting that move, and immediately started using hand-to-hand tactics against her.  She tried to defend herself, but with three moves, Tenebris knocked both her tonfas out of her hands and behind her, then he kicked her square in the face.  Causing her aura to break and knocking her down to the ground.  This took a lot out of Ember, but she still tried to grab her weapons and reset herself.  However, as she reached for one of her weapons, Lord Tenebris’ foot came crashing down on her arm, shattering it in an instant.  Ember screamed at the top of her lungs in pain, while Lord Tenebris calmly took the Relic from Ember and made his way towards one of the cavern walls, pulling out a remote from his cloak.

            “I had high expectations for you three” he said as he put his tuning fork sword back on its hilt.  “Especially you, the traitor son of Aequo.  But you have disappointed me.  You are responsible for the loss of everything and everyone I held dear.  Now, I will take that which you love most from you.”  As he said this, he pressed a button on his remote, causing one of the charges that the Order had planted to explode.  A giant hole appeared in the side of the mountain, revealing the Order’s fleet practically on the doorstep of the mountain, already opening fire on the small airships that everybody was trying to escape on.

            “Such a pity” Lord Tenebris said as he grabbed his sword and continued to walk towards Aurora, who was only then starting to regain her bearings after that last attack.  “You will have yet another soul to add to those who you failed in your life.  And yet it will not be proper enough punishment for your crimes.”  But before Tenebris could strike down Aurora, an Atlesian airship flew up alongside the opening in the side of the mountain, the door flew open, and Ruby, Yang and Natlaie opened fire with their weapons at Lord Tenebris, who quickly leapt away from Aurora, and started defending himself with his Aura burn.

            “Come on!” Gray yelled from the airship waving at the three of them.  Aurora slowly got up, looked around and regained her bearings.  She saw Tenebris trying to fend off the attack from the snipers, the agonized body of Ember, the unconscious body of Bovia, and her father picking up his swords once more.

            “Save me for last!” Miles yelled at Aurora.  “Get those two out of here!”

            “I don’t think I have enough Aura left for three trips!” Aurora yelled back.

            “I’ll make up the difference!  Get going!”  With that, Miles started running towards Lord Tenebris, who was completely engaged with defending himself from Ruby, Yang and Natalie.  Aurora then quickly ran over to Bovia’s body, picked her up, and ran towards the opening.  She then tossed Bovia into the air by the airship, and Gray caught the limp body by morphing the metal on his arms to grab her and bring her safely onto the ship.  She then ran back to Ember, picked her up, and instead of tossing her up in the air as Gray was still busy with trying to get Bovia secure, she started preparing to make a jump into the airship herself while still carrying Ember.  Tenebris saw this, and for a brief moment, drew his sword once more to try and strike them both down with another energy strike.  But in that single moment that he left his guard down, he never noticed Miles rushing towards him, and Miles struck Tenebris in the side, forcing him down onto one knee, and then landed a powerful cross slash across his mask.  In that moment however, Lord Tenebris also reactivated his attack burn, and that knocked Miles down onto the ground a few feet away.  Aurora safely made the leap and landed on the airship without any trouble.  She handed Ember off to Yang who had stopped firing once Miles had taken down Lord Tenebris, and helped get Ember safely strapped in.

            “Dad!” Aurora yelled at the top of her lungs.  “We’re clear!  Come on!  We have to go!”  Miles slowly got up, trying to fight through the pain, and slowly began to turn towards the sound of his daughters voice.

            “Miles!”  Miles stopped in his tracks, turned back towards Lord Tenebris, and saw the part of the mask he had destroyed crumbling into the water.  Tenebris then looked up at Miles, his mask partially broken, revealing almost the entire right side of his face, save for his mouth.

            “Miles.”

            “Nathan…..” Miles said, his face turning white once he saw who was beneath the mask.  Nathan then slowly stood up, clutching the side where Miles had struck him.  His face now clear to see, as everybody in the airship looked on in stunned silence.  Miles then took his blades and returned to a battle stance once again.

            “I won’t run” Miles said with determination.  “Not this time.”  Nathan looked at Miles, and looked up at his family on the airship, who were still shocked at what they were seeing.  His eyes showing a hint of sadness, looking at all the horrified faces that were staring at him.  He then looked back at Miles, then his anger returned.

            “Then you will die” as he said this, he grabbed his sword, and also pulled out the detonator, activating the rest of the charges, resulting in the cavern beginning to collapse.

            “DAD!” Aurora yelled.  She tried to leap off the airship to try and grab him, but Miles turned back and used what little Aura he had left to use his Semblance to push his daughter back onto the airship, and to push the airship itself away from the explosion.  Nathan tried to land a blow with his sword on Miles while he was distracted, but Miles blocked it with his free hand.  And once he was sure that they were away, he returned his attention to Nathan, the two of them exchanging parries and blows while the mountain collapsed around them. Aurora screamed at the top of her lungs, trying to reach out for her father, while Ruby held her back in a tight grasp, trying to keep her from jumping out the side of the airship.

            “Take me back!” Aurora yelled at the pilot.  “Take me back!”

            “The mountain is going!” the pilot yelled from the front.  “And the Order is right on top of us!  We have to leave now!”  With that, the pilot had the door automatically close as they flew away from the mountain as it continued to explode.  Aurora cried uncontrollably while Ruby squeezed her tight.

            “There was nothing more you could have done” Ruby said crying as well.  She repeated this all the way back to Beacon.  The Xiao Longs sat there in silence, tears rolling down their eyes.  Ember wasn’t even bothered by the pain from the fight anymore.  She couldn’t feel anything except numb.

 

 

 

            When the airship finally touched down at Beacon, everybody else had already returned and were just waiting on the last ship containing the others.  As they stepped off, medical personnel rushed towards everybody.  Ember brushed off every medical person that attempted to help her, Gray continued to sit in the airship in absolute shock, Yang was on her knees crying, and Aurora was in a daze as Ruby helped her get off the ship.  Blake ran up to Aurora, then looked around hoping to see Miles as well.  When Ruby broke the news of what had happened to Miles, Blake seemingly shattered, falling onto her knees as well.   Aurora finally broke and fell to her knees as well, she and her mother holding each other as tightly as possible while the tears flowed..  The two of them continued to remain there crying.  While everybody wanted to be there to console them in that moment, they let them be and helped get Bovia off the airship while offering Gray and Yang a hand as well.

 

 

 

            Ember slowly made her way towards the plaque that was erected right by the cafeteria, where it listed off the heroic names of the members of Team NEMN, TEAM JCTB, and all the others who fought at the Battles of Beacon and Vytal.  She continued to read it as it inscribed the names of all those who fought against the evil of the Order.  She then saw her father’s inscription and punched it causing the memorial to crack.  She screamed at the top of her lungs in anger and sadness, and collapsed, finally succumbing to the injuries she had sustained.  Paramedics weren’t too far behind, and finally began treating her.

 

 

 

            The lead warship of the Order landed not far from the rubble left over from the explosion that destroyed the top of the mountain.  Several Order soldiers were already scanning the area, trying to find any signs of the Relic.  The main doors opened, and Lord Imperia walked down and surveyed the damage.  Looking out, there was nothing but a smoldering pile of rubble and destruction as far as the eye could see.  Initially believing she had seen all she needed to see, she turned to return onto the warship.  But in that moment, there was a small rumbling in the ground.  Turning back around, she saw black flames creeping out from beneath the rocks towards the center of the pile.  A second later, the rocks were knocked away as if they had been hit by an exploding punch.  Moments later, Nathan emerged from the rubble, his mask completely destroyed, and his armor with several chinks and holes in it.  However, his face and body were perfectly fine.  Lord Imperia noticed a few small scratches on his left cheek, but then they slowly faded away.  Clutched tightly in Nathan’s left hand was the Relic of Life, glowing brightly and healing Nathan’s wounds.  And in his right hand, he held the collar of a bloodied and broken Miles.  Saying nothing, Nathan dragged Miles across the rubble and towards the airship, Miles coughing up a bit of blood as they went along.  Lord Imperia smiled as she saw the look on Nathan’s face as he did nothing but let Miles drag on the ground through the doors into the warship.  She activated her communicator and returned to the interior of the warship itself, as well as all the soldiers who were scanning the area.  As soon as everybody was aboard, the airship closed its doors, leaving the cargo hold in darkness.

 

 

 

Roll Credits

Author's Note

Please read/review/enjoy!

Reviews

[Shep]

please tell me that's not the end dam it I want more. now what I am going to do now the Order has gotten another relic. And poor Miles what's going to happen to him and the ones that saw his true face. Awesome story. love the detailed love it loves it. Please be kind and return the love.

[Miles W.]

Taking a few weeks off for a break. Episode 3 will be the final part of this book.

[Shep]

that's good to hear i feel better now LOLO