Episode Sage: Chapter 4: Stand

Chapter 4 of Sage's adventure.

            Sage kept running as fast as he could.  The ground around him was shaking more and more as he got closer to the surface.  The once mostly docile Grimm goo pools were starting to bubble and spew out more Grimm, the normal foot patterns of the hordes were becoming erratic, and Sage could hear the scream of the Nuckelavee despite still being rather deep below the ground.  He finally emerged and saw exactly what he had been hearing and what the Lost Master told him in the ruins.  The Grimm were beginning to panic and go off in different directions.  Some of them ran off into the wilderness, others seemed to fly around trying to get their bearings, and a few started making their way south towards Portum.  But as soon as Sage was back on the surface, most of them turned their attention to him.  Sage took a deep breath, and pulled out his weapons.

            “Well, at the very least, him monologuing at me got my aura back up” Sage said with a sigh.  He then ran towards a herd of Beowolves that started snarling and bearing their fangs at him.  Sage quickly leapt forward and started to carve up the Grimm that were right in front of him.  He was mostly confined to the northwest corner where he initially began his descent, and most of the Grimm seemed to be further away from him.  So a good portion of them were still regaining their bearings and animalistic natures, but those who could sense him charged right at Sage.  But due to what appeared to be the stress involved with whatever magic Grimm biology that happened with the cocoon, most of them charged forward without thinking of the consequences.  An Alpha Beowolf with more signs of age and experience than any Grimm Sage had ever seen charged straight forward just like a newborn Grimm cub would.  Sage had to deal with the bone armor that had grown on the creature’s chest, but with a quick slide beneath the legs of the creature, Sage stabbed both the front and back paws, resulting in the Alpha collapsing and howling in pain.  Sage quickly turned back around and stabbed the creature in the back, causing it to dissipate before its howl could grow even louder.  But it was too late.  The cry had been made, and every last Grimm turned their attention to their fallen comrade.  Sage had taken care of most of the Grimm in that particular corner, so he tried to make a beeline for where he and Chosa initially arrived to see if he could try to escape.  There was no way they could make it back to Portum in a day, but hopefully some patrols were out and about and could warn the town and send reinforcements.  He started running through the graveyard of blades, but then realized there was now nothing but easy laid-out paths for the Grimm to use to close off his escape.  To the east, a small band of Sulfur Fish began crawling through the sand towards Sage.  To the north behind him was a herd of Jackalope Grimm, bunny-like Grimm with sharp antlers.  To the west was a herd of Stalkers, and to the south, blocking Sage’s best chance of escape, was the Nuckelavee.  It roared as loud as it could, causing the Grimm in the surrounding area to get riled up as well.  Sage quickly pulled out a giant red dust crystal from inside his pack and flung it into the air as high as he could.  He then quickly morphed his dagger into pistol form and fired at the Dust crystal and caused it to ignite and fly higher into the sky until it exploded as a large flare.  The Grimm initially reacted to the explosion, and Sage took that opportunity and charged forward.  He started with the Sulfur Fish to the east, and they were all still enthralled with the flare that Sage fired which allowed him to strike many of them down with one blow.  But the creatures realized what was happening quickly and began to retaliate.  Sulfur fish were similar to Stalkers since they looked similar to scorpions, but they had three stingers on their tails and one large exposed eye.  They were easy targets, but the speed of the stingers didn’t make them the best options for safe and effective destruction.  Thankfully, these Sulfur Fish were not that old, so their armor was extremely lacking across their body, allowing Sage to strike virtually anywhere on their bodies and cause them to dissipate.  He ran full force down the eastern lane from the center of the graveyard slashing any Sulfur fish in his way.  He was making a serious dent, but only within the range of his blades.  From above, it looked like a nail had been driven into a wall, and there was far more wall than nail.  And the deeper he continued to go, the denser and more aggressive the Grimm became.  What initially began as Sage just blindly swinging his swords without repercussions soon became a growing onslaught of attacks.  He was able to block most of them, but they were becoming greater and more frequent, beginning to chip away at his Aura.  Sage quickly realized this mistake and attempted to retreat back to the center of the graveyard.  The Sulfur Fish kept striking with their stingers, resulting in a bit more Aura lost.  And as he grew closer to the center, the Grimm were growing closer and closer to the center as well.  Sage initially prepared himself to try taking out the herd of Jackalope Grimm to the north as they were the closest to the center.  But then the words of the Lost Master echoed in his ears about leaving the Stalkers for last.  He contemplated it, watching the Jackalope Grimm grow even closer, but then decided to divert his course and make a beeline for the western path where the Stalkers continued to march.  There were a few stalkers that were near full-maturity to the Death Stalker status, but most of them were no bigger than perhaps a small house cat.  But these types of Stalkers while small in stature usually made up for it in their numbers.  And this was no different.  Their pincers were powerful, and even a small claw could crush a boulder if applied correctly.  But since they were so tiny, Sage was able to kick some in the air and impale them, others he could just swing his swords like blades on a fan and cut them to pieces.  But then one of the larger ones arrived and managed to catch him by surprise, locking him in one of its pincers.  Sage managed to raise his blades to his sides to block the sharper parts of the pincer, but the pressure was forcing him to pour his aura into the center of his body to keep himself from being crushed like a yogurt tube while his legs took a few cuts and stings from the smaller stalkers below.  He took a deep breath, pushed back on the pincer as hard as he could until he could feel a small amount of space being created.  As soon as he felt that, he engaged his Semblance.  Since he pushed the pincer back enough, he could then slip down and out of the grip of the Death Stalker and quickly stab all the eyes out of the creature’s face, all the while the pincer slowly closed in and began to crush the after image.  Sage made every move count, and snapped out of his speed, which resulted in the Death Stalker roaring and stumbling backwards in pain.  Sage was gasping for breath but had to quickly divert his attention back to the growing swarm of Stalkers that were now without their alpha and a bit hungry for animalistic vengeance.

            “Why did…. I trust…..some Evangelion looking old guy…..in the middle of the desert?” Sage pondered out loud trying to stave off the hordes of Grimm and conserve what little Aura he had left.  He kept slowly walking backwards, defending himself and killing whatever Grimm he could, but he was clearly out of gas.  He found himself pressed up against one of the ruined buildings and prepared for the worst.  When suddenly, there was the roaring of an engine just overhead.  Looking up, several Atlesain airships began flying over the sand dunes firing rounds into the hordes of creatures below.  The creatures turned their attention to the new threat, as several Atlas soldiers and a few Huntsmen leapt out and began fighting back against the hordes of monsters.  Even the Stalkers right on top of Sage turned their attention away from him and towards these new arrivals.  Sage slowly walked forward, and then felt a hand touch his shoulder.  He looked over and saw a woman with blonde hair and glasses wearing a jacket with the insignia of Vale on it.  Moments later, he felt his Aura returning to him at an impressive rate.

            “This is a restricted area as declared by the Four Kingdoms” the stranger started telling Sage off.  “I hope you have a good reason….”

            “Hold the speech Christy” a new voice that Sage immediately recognized.  “If I know Sage, he’s got a perfectly good reason to be here.”

            “Jacob” Sage said with a big grin.  “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

            “Word gets around pretty quickly in this part of the world” Jacob said with a smile.  “And top it all off, I still owe you from before.”

            “I’d say helping me get out of here alive makes us more than even” Sage said as Christy finished patching him up.  “But I don’t think your reinforcements are capable of taking down the big bad over there.”  They both looked over at the Nulckleeve across the way and drew their weapons.

            “Ready when you are” Jacob said with a smile.

            “Trust me, I’m ready” Sage said leading the charge.  The two of them then charged forward and did what they could to ensure that the Nulckleeve did not do anything to try and hurt anybody else.  Jacob quickly entered his Time Dilation mode to dodge the incoming attacks from the arms of the creature, while Sage held off on using his Semblance for the time being.  Jacob was making quick and easy work of landing powerful blows on the creature’s arms.  It wasn’t quite enough to cut them off with one strike, but the hands were starting to flail around hanging on by a thread of dark energy.  Sage then took advantage of the creature’s fixation on the one who hurt it to take his sword, plunge it into the gut of the horse-Grimm and drag it all the way through to the back.  This caused the monster to keel over in pain, struggling to keep itself from dissipating into nothing.  Sage then activated his Semblance and ran around the downed monster towards its now easily accessible head.  Not wasting a second, he plunged his sword into the creature’s skull, causing it to scream out once more, then fade away into nothingness.  Sage quickly took a few fast breaths to keep himself upright, then prepared to fight whatever remaining Grimm were still standing.  But he was surprised to see that about the entire remainder of the horde was gone.  Nothing but ash in the wind.  Sage let out a gasping laugh in relief, then collapsed on his back, exhausted.

            “Man, what a day”

 

 

 

Three Hours Later

 

 

Portum

 

 

            Sage chugged a tall glass of water in no time flat, and kept signaling the bartender to bring him another one.  He didn’t even care that Jacob was sitting beside him laughing his head off watching Sage chug water as if he had never tasted it before that day.  Sage finally got to a point where he felt like he had made up for all the water he had lost in the desert sun, and took a breath.

            “So you really didn’t find that guy who hired me?” Sage said scratching his head in confusion.

            “Nope” Jacob said taking a drink of water himself.  “You were the only life form we could detect on our scanners within a few hundred miles.  Not sure what to tell you.

            “I’m not even sure what to believe anymore given what happened out there.”

            “You mean that stranger you mentioned in your report?”

            “Yeah.  He was super weird.  Kept talking about all this weird stuff about Salem and reincarnation and things like that.”

            “Strange.  What was your biggest takeaway about the guy?  Did he seem like he was trying to throw you off his scent, trying to pry you for information or what?”

            “I’m not entirely sure.  He seemed to know more about not just what was happening then and there, but also what was going to happen.  I honestly was planning on taking on that northern pack of Jackalope Grimm initially, but he said something about fighting the Stalkers, so I tried that.”

            “Well, it’s a good thing you did.  Given our arrival, it’s entirely possible you could have either been hit with our bullets, or been too surrounded by Grimm that we couldn’t reach you in time to heal you up.  You got lucky.”

            “That guy was lucky to know what was going to happen.  But I don’t think he’s entirely on our side.  Just a gut feeling.  I need to know more about him.”

            “Any way I can help?”

            “Just keep your ears open.  Let me know if you come across anything.”

            “Will do old friend” Jacob said with a smile.  “By the way, I’ve been meaning to give you this.”  Jacob reached into his pack, and pulled out a shiny medal.  “I know you’ve already got one of these from Ozpin for fighting in the Battle of Vytal, but this one has some special security clearance.  I have a feeling that if you’re going to go after somebody like this, you’re going to need more access than what your original medal can get you.”  Sage took the medal from Jacob and gave it a quick once over.  It looked the exact same as his old one, but he saw the few extra pieces of NFC technology that he could use to scan into certain locations without issue.  He simply smiled and put it in the bottom of his backpack.

            “Not sure if I’ll use it all that much, but I appreciate it.  Thanks Jacob” Sage said raising up another glass of water.

 

 

 

A Warrior on a Path

To Find Answers of the Past

Stands on his Own Strength

Time is a Strange Piece

Some Say it is Constantly In Motion

Others Say it is Fixed

On a Path to the Inevitable End
Find Your Own Voice

And You Can Find Your Own Path.

 

 

RETRIBUTION

SAGA OF SEASONS

 

 

 

Episode Sage:

 

END

 

 

 

Authors Note:

 

When I initially began writing “Order of Seasons”, most of our group was just starting to really get into RWBY (or they already were and I was just late to the party, I’m not entirely sure), and I came up with the original idea of “Order” and pitched to the group like I mentioned in my introduction.  I asked permission from people if they were cool with being characters in the story, and I built the story around those who gave their permission.  However, Sage and another who you will meet later on in this Anthology, while much bigger fans of RWBY than some of the others who have characters in this story, did not express interest in time for me to include them in the first book.  I debated introducing them as new characters in the second book, but given the subject material I elected to keep it to previously established characters for that story.  But once I got the idea for this anthology series, I knew this was the best opportunity to introduce some new characters based on my friends.  Sage is somebody who while perhaps doesn’t interact with us as often as others, is still an integral part of this group.  He has been an amazing friend over the years and provides great insight on many situations.  He is a hard worker, and remains true to himself and his friends no matter what.  I do hope that perhaps I can work with his character again be it in another anthology or perhaps another full-fledged book, because one single episode is not much compared to the rest of the group.  And while I do like the ideas I played with here, I feel like I could do better showcasing the amazing person that Sage is through this story.  I hope I did him justice in this piece, and I hope we will get to see his character again.  Perhaps soon depending on how I approach these other anthologies, but we shall see.

Author's Note

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