Episode Miles: Chapter 1: Solemn

Chapter 1 of Miles' story.

All That Was

Is Changed Forever

Either Wallow in Your Misery

Or Keep Moving Forward.

 

 

 

Aequo

The Morning After the Fall

 

 

 

            Miles shot up with a start, gasping for breath.  His body was covered in ash and soot.  Looking around, he saw the smoldering remains of his hometown.  Everything was destroyed.  Where once stood a beautiful village was now nothing more than a smoldering memory.  There was no greenery, no flowers, nothing but the gray.  It was all gone.  Suddenly, Miles’ head started hurting.  He tried to recall what exactly had happened, but all he could remember was leaping into the fray of battle, getting caught by the soldiers that were attacking his home, then their leader pulling out his red blade and killing all the prisoners they had captured.  From there it almost seemed like there was somebody else who leapt in holding two sticks, but at that point his memories started to get hazy.  Miles shook himself and got up.  He ran towards where his house used to be.  Even though he knew what he would find, he didn’t care.  He just kept running.  The soot was thick like snow.  The ash hung in the air and made it a challenge to breathe.  But Miles didn’t stop.  He finally reached what was left of his old house. Everything was gone.  All that remained were the withered skeleton of the bones of the house.  And even that appeared that it could fall at any moment.  Miles fell to his knees and screamed at the top of his lungs.  His voice echoing for a full minute due to the fact that there was nothing left to deafen his voice anymore.  He punched the ground until his fist was gray from all the soot on the ground.  He then stood up, while the tears ran down his face and made his way inside what used to be his living room.  From there, he started sifting through the ashes.  Pushing piles and piles out of the way until he finally found what he was looking for.  A long box that was sealed tightly by two small metal clasps.  Miles shook the ash off the box and opened it up, revealing a single sword.  It had a golden pommel and guard, with a brown grip.  The blade itself was pure silver, and emblazoned across the blade.  It was two old character letters, which displayed “先に”, which could be pronounced as “Sakini”.  Miles never knew what it meant, and now that his family was gone, he probably never would. Only that his father always told him “this blade will always remind you where you must look in your life.”  Miles took the blade out of its box and tied the sheath around his belt and placed the sword inside of it.  He then looked around one last time at what remained of his old life.  He finally dried his tears, and started making his way out of the valley where Aequo used to be.

            “I promise.  One day, I will set things right.”

 

 

 

Three Years Later

The Kingdom of Vacuo

 

 

 

            Miles fanned his face with his hand while standing in the shade of one of Vacuo’s many alleyways.  He didn’t have many clothes to work with ever since Aequo fell, so he had to make do with what small scraps and remains he could find.  He was wearing a faded white t-shirt with a pair of torn cargo shorts, a pair of blue tennis shoes that were somehow still holding together despite having several holes in them, and a thin yellow scarf wrapped around his neck he would use sometimes to trek through the sandstorms.  He surveyed the crowd as the common folk went about the hustle and bustle of their daily lives.  Haggling for items, screaming at the top of their lungs if they found something they thought was unfair, or pulling weapons on one another threatening to act if they felt they had been wronged.  But Miles wasn’t taking in the sights and sounds one would expect from a normal trip to this part of the world.  He was waiting for somebody to appear.  After years of searching and trying to find out what had happened that night in Aequo, he had finally come across a lead that truly had some weight.  Most of his previous leads had been either dead ends or traps by bandits to attempt and steal his goods or his life.  But Miles managed to hold his own no matter how tough things got.  But this one was different.  He had finally managed to find a Faunus who had enough shady business dealings to squeal about the location and daily proceedings of Sienna Kahn, the current leader of the White Fang.  While Miles’ previous attempts at finding direct answers had never come through, the name of the group The White Fang always lingered in the air every single time.  A common thread.  And finally, Miles had found where that thread lead him.  He even managed to find a wanted poster of Sienna on his way to help him recognize who he was looking for.  As the marketplace continued to buzz and go about its daily business, Miles saw a group of people wearing black hoods start to make their way through the crowd.  Realizing this was it, he took his scarf and brought it up over his face to make sure he wouldn’t be recognized.  From there, as soon as the group of black cloaks walked past him, he started to follow them through the city streets.  They continued on like this for a while, Miles sometimes having to pick up his pace to ensure that he didn’t lose sight of his target.  But eventually, he saw them make their way into a building with a sign that read “The White Wolf”.  Miles quickly followed in after them, and managed to slip inside the building without them or anybody else noticing him.  He watched from near the entryway as the four figures walked up to the bartender, and whispered something that Miles couldn’t hear.  As soon as the bartender heard this, he motioned towards the door leading to the back of house, and pulled the curtain back to let the hooded figures in.  Miles took a deep breath and walked over towards the bartender.

            “What can I get you?” the bartender asked as he was cleaning a glass.

            “I was hoping to get a peek into that exclusive club your friends seemed to just roll into” Miles said tapping his fingers.

            “No club, just some employees finally showing up for work” the bartender said slowly putting the glass down.  “Don’t see what business it is of yours.”

            “Nor do I care if you know about my business.”  As soon as he said that, Miles leapt up from his chair, drew his sword and held it at the bartender’s throat.  There were a few gasps and chairs rattling in surprise across the bar, but nobody made a move to try and stop what was happening.

            “You’re crazy” the bartender said as sweat dripped from his forehead.  “If the people inside….”

            “I’m not interested in you stalling while your friends slip out through some secret passageway since you clearly pressed a hidden alarm.  All I’m going to do is make this really simple.  Open the door and let me in there, and I might let you keep your ears.”  The bartender swallowed heavily, and pressed a small button beneath the register.  As soon as he did, Miles heard a door unlock behind the curtain.  He smiled, and proceeded to throw the bartender over the bar and towards the front door.  He then waved his hands, and adjusted the gravity so that the bartender instead of hitting the ground, flew straight out the front door and into the streets.  Miles laughed a little bit but then started to cough.  He quickly smacked himself in the face and ran through the archway and saw the hidden pathway behind the kitchen.  He started running as fast as he could.  The hidden pathway was a descending slope leading deeper into the ground illuminated by torches.  After about a solid minute of running, he saw daylight, and realized that the pathway lead to an old abandoned Schnee assembly factory on the lower levels of the city and he was standing up in the rafters.  It was filled to the brim with weapons, training equipment, and a handful of different types of transports.  However, some of those transports were starting to leave.  Miles saw several soldiers throwing several different boxes of supplies onto the back of a pickup truck.  He leapt down from the rafters and landed perfectly on one of the boxes.  The soldiers jumped back a short ways when he did so.

            “Going somewhere?” Miles quipped as he spun his sword around.  The soldiers quickly pulled out their guns and opened fire.  Miles leapt up into the air and spun around using his sword to deflect the bullets.  From there, he angled himself and changed the pull of his own gravity towards the horde of soldiers right in front of him.  The moment he got close, he made a giant swing with his sword, and knocked over all the soldiers like bowling pins.  They went flying in just about every possible direction.  Miles then started scanning the room trying to spot Sienna Kahn, but had to quickly change his focus when the sound of even more guns opened fire on him.  Several soldiers up in the rafters having arrived from assumedly other tunnels were now firing down on him without letting up.  Miles jumped up in the air, and angled his gravity to fly up to the rafters and cut one of the catwalks cleanly right through the middle.  The beams started to buckle, and the catwalk began to bend down as the soldiers grabbed on to the railings to keep from falling to the ground below.  Miles then let the momentum of the changed gravity carry him to the ceiling, where he landed perfectly, then leapt back down and cut off the other end of the catwalk sending several soldiers screaming down to the ground below.  The others continued to hang on for dear life, but Miles simply landed back on the ground and looked up to see a woman matching Sienna Kahn’s exact description jump into a van that was already leaving the warehouse.

            “NO!!!” Miles screamed as he started to give chase.  But just as he was about to go into a full sprint after the truck, a tall muscular White Fang soldier holding a giant chainsaw leapt in front of him.  Miles didn’t have time to course-correct, so the soldier swung his chainsaw and hit Miles square in the chest.  Miles slowly got back up, and cracked his neck.

            “Unless you can tell me what I want to know,” Miles said with a smirk, “I suggest you move.”

            “You will find that moving me will be quite impossible” the soldier said revving the engine of his chainsaw blade.  Miles charged forward and tried to slice the soldiers’ knees, but he saw this coming a mile away, and blocked it easily.  Miles tried to reposition his body so that he could use his blade to block an attack from the chainsaw, but before he could even start to move, the soldier punched him with his free hand and knocked him so hard into the ground that it created and indentation.  Miles felt the air get knocked out of him as he fought with every fiber of his being to keep his aura intact.  However, the soldier did not wait for Miles to collect himself.  Instead, he took his chainsaw blade and landed another powerful strike across Miles’ chest.  It almost completely broke his aura, and Miles was starting to panic.  Just as the solider was about to strike him again, Miles held his hand out, and the soldier suddenly started to float away from Miles and towards the factory doors.  Like he was being pulled on a string off a stage play.  The soldier started flailing and kicking his legs to try and get traction on the ground to stop slipping, but to no avail.  However, just before he reached the doors, Miles felt something pop in his chest, and he started coughing up blood, releasing his grip on the soldier.  The soldieralmost lost his balance when his gravity was restored, but he simply looked over at Miles’ struggling body and smiled.  He then revved the engine of his chainsaw blade and got ready to attack, when all of a sudden, several people wearing black and gold trenchcoats with hoods rushed inside opening fire on the remaining White Fang soldiers.  Some of them tried to fight back, others decided to turn tail and run.  The soldier Miles was fighting was one of the latter, finding another truck that was making a break for it and jumping on board.  Miles could barely tell what was going on, his vision was getting blurry.  But just at it looked like it was starting to fade to black, he saw a stranger approach his body and fall to one knee.  Just before he lost consciousness, he heard the words,

            “What are you doing you stupid kid?!”  And with that, Miles’ whole world went black.

Author's Note

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