Episode Ty: Chapter 4: The Paths That Lead

Chapter 4 of Ty's story.

            Ty quickly ran over to where his Speeder Bike was still parked while slicing through any Grimm that were still on the island.  Strangely enough, the Grimm didn’t seem to pay much mind to Ty, they just kept marching across the now activated Hard-Light bridge as if they were going home from work.  Ty slashed through another Beowolf and saw through its evaporating remains that his Speeder Bike had actually been trampled by the horde, leaving nothing but a bunch of pieces.

            “Great, how am I going to explain this one?” Ty groaned as he morphed his weapon into bazooka form and destroyed another small pack of Grimm.   And yet still, the horde kept marching as if nothing was standing in their way.  Suddenly, Ty noticed that Miles had gotten himself gathered back up and was running towards him.

            “I don’t suppose you have a way off this rock, do you?” Ty yelled as Miles got closer.

            “Yeah, but it usually only works well for just me” Miles responded as he cut through a few more Grimm on his way to joining Ty.  “How about you?”

            “Crushed by our friends here” Ty responded running his great sword through the guts of an Ursa.  “I don’t care if you have to stuff me in the trunk, just whatever you need to do to get us off this rock and stop these things I’m game.”

            “Fine” Miles said as he grabbed Ty’s shoulder.  “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”  Ty looked at Miles in surprise at the gesture, but then all of a sudden, he felt his feet fall out from under him and the two of them started falling sideways.  Ty started screaming in surprise, and started to try and wriggle free, but Miles just tightened his grip on Ty’s jacket and the two of them careened into the shoreline of the mainland away from the island.  Ty rolled with the landing but stumbled a bit, while Miles landed as he had likely done several times before, but fell to one knee in pain.

            “What on Remnant was…..” Ty started to exclaim.

            “Semblance” Miles responded, “just roll with it.  Over there!  The power supply for the bridge!”  Miles pointed to two small towers that were radiating with energy that seemed to be keeping the Hard-Light bridge intact.  Ty immediately started running towards the two.  He morphed his sword to bazooka form and fired a round destroying the first one, then he leapt over the marching horde, morphed his weapon back, then brought it down slicing the conduit in half.  The energy sputtered for a second, then faded, causing the bridge to disappear and resulted in a vast majority of the mutated Grimm to fall into the waters below.  Those who were still on the island just kept marching into the depths as if they were still programmed to their demise.  Despite not having any known organs, Grimm still operated similar to normal creatures and could not survive in the water unless they originated from there.  The Power Blood floating to the top confirmed this.  But then the few that managed to fall into the water close to the shoreline emerged from the water and continued their march through the woods.  Ty looked back and saw that Miles was still under the weather.

            “You going to do something?” Ty yelled at Miles.

            “Haven’t…..moved more than myself….like that in a while” Miles said coughing up blood.  “Give me a second.”  Ty recoiled seeing Miles cough up blood, but quickly shook it off and charged at the Grimm Horde.  He tried to cut his way through to the front to try and gain the advantage, but as soon as he did, even when he started slicing Grimm left and right, they continued to march without hesitating, forcing Ty to kill a few Grimm, run ahead of them again, rinse and repeat.  This continued for a while.  And then something clicked in his brain.  These Grimm had been programed to follow orders, maybe when Adam destroyed the computer, it caused them to glitch out and resume their attack on the nearby village.  Ty quickly broke away again, but this time he didn’t slow down to try and kill more Grimm, instead he pulled out his Scroll and called his father.

            “Hey, how’d it go?” Vergil asked as he picked up the call.

            “Not over yet” Ty said trying to keep his breath moderated.  “How soon will reinforcements from headquarters arrive?”

            ‘They’re a few minutes out.  Why?”

            “Tell them to book it.  We’ve got a fight on our hands.”

            “How bad?”

            “Remember how I got my nickname all those years ago?”

            “That bad huh?”

            “They’re coming back the way they came, so get everybody ready.  I’m almost there.  I might have one other person in tow if he gets his act together.”

            “Sounds good.  Be safe.”

            “Will do” Ty said hanging up.  He quickly turned around and fired another rocket before turning back around and running again.  After several minutes of rinse and repeat with trying to dwindle the Grimm’s numbers, Ty could see the outskirts of the village, as well as an airship emblazoned with the symbol of the Demon Hunters coming in for a landing.  Ty pulled out a flare gun from his equipment belt and fired it in the air to signal everybody he was almost there.  As soon as he reached the village perimeter, several shots rang out as the Demon Slayers started taking aim at the majority of the Grimm charging.  Ty finally was able to slow down and catch his breath, but he only did so for a moment before he drew his sword and joined his father and comrades in fighting back against the Grimm.  They were many, but due to the apparent glitch, they were not as effective.  Some of them recognized they were at their objective, but some of them did not know what to do having arrived there.  There were some who wandered around the battlefield like a robot knocked off its set path trying to find out where they needed to be, bumping into buildings and tripping over themselves and then attempting to crawl into the ground.  Others seemed more akin to their basic nature of charging towards negative emotions at full power resulting in several charging forwards into a barrage of bullets without hesitation.  As a result, the horde began to thin out, and things seemed like they were finally about to wrap up, when all of a sudden, several crashing trees were heard falling in the distance.  Then, out of the foliage Miles came flying and tumbled into the ground.  He slowly got up and looked around.

            “We got most of them” Ty said pointing at the piles of dissipating Grimm.

            “We missed a big one” Miles said pointing at the tree line.  Moments later, a giant mutated Death Stalker appeared and knocked down some of the trees that formed the perimeter.  It crushed a handful of the houses built on the perimeter and was slowly lumbering its way towards the town square.

            “How did he find a Grimm that big?” Ty pondered staring in awe at the Death Stalker.

            “Maybe he imported it from Vacuo?” Vergil said scratching his head.  “Everything that wants to kill you is always bigger there for some reason.”

            “So how do we kill it?” Miles asked.

            “Most Death Stalkers are pretty powerful but are weak underneath or if you can find the few openings around their head and neck” Vergil replied.  “But at best, you would need to be falling at maximum velocity to even have a chance of cutting through that thing given its size.”

            “Wait,” Ty said turning towards Miles, “is your Semblance Gravity related?”

            “Yeah why?”

            “So in theory, you could also increase my mass normally instead of just changing it.”

            “Dude, getting us both across that lake nearly drained me, I’m not sure if I have the energy to pull this off.”

            “It’s either that or this thing kills us all.”

            “Fair enough.  Try not to scream this time.”

            “I’m expecting it this time.”  Ty said spinning his sword around.  Miles then poured all of his energy and directed it at Ty, causing him to float up into the sky high above the treeline.  Then, Ty felt himself falling extremely fast.  He angled himself and readied his blade, and with one mighty chop, the head of the Death Stalker came clean off, causing it to disappear and gush Power Blood all over Ty’s body.  He quickly scrapped it off as he could feel this substance was cutting through his Semblance and Aura and was already starting to burn his skin.  The last few stragglers were dealt with, and all that was left was the mess that was made.

            “You brought them,” Vergil said jokingly to his son, “you clean it up.”

            “I hate you dad….” Ty said with a wry smirk.

 

 

 

 

            As the grunts continued their cleanup, Ty and Miles continued to sit off to the side just sipping their cups of tea.

            “So you worked for the Golden Cougars,” Ty said with a smile, “but you don’t wear their symbol anymore?  Most people I know who worked for them and found other work refuse to get rid of the sigil.”

            “We’ve known each other for a few hours now, do I seem like a normal person to you?”

            “If you think you aren’t normal, you haven’t been around me long enough.”  The two of them laughed, but then saw Vergil stomping towards them in a huff.

            “What’s happened?” Ty asked standing up.

            “It’s Lionheart” Vergil said fuming.  “The idiot is telling us to get lost and he’s going to have his own team handle the investigation.”

            “Are we even going to be questioned or anything like that?”

            “No, he’s just going to do his own thing.  Again.  I swear, what does that idiot think he’s doing?”

            “From what I’ve heard,” Miles said scratching his chin, “Lionheart is in deep with some bad people.  People I’ve been tracking for the past while.”

            “You got any proof of this?” Vergil asked.

            “No, but given what you’re describing and the fact he wants everybody out of here, I think Lionheart is trying to make this whole thing disappear.  Hide it so his bosses don’t get too mad at him for almost having their operations ruined.”

            “That coward” Ty said with clear anger in his voice.  “And there’s nothing we can do.”

            “That’s why I fly solo” Miles said with a grin.  “Nobody to hold me back.”

            “That might actually not be a bad idea” Vergil said scratching his head.  “The minute Ty went off-book to investigate without prying eyes to watch him, we got results.  Meanwhile I was stuck with bureaucrats trying to play mind games because Leo’s in over his head, and couldn’t do anything.  For all we know, if you hadn’t gone out to investigate the island Dante, we might have never found out about all of this.”

            “So how do we proceed?” Ty asked crossing his hands.  “You can’t just break off from the group and do your own investigating.  You’re the head of the Demon Slayers.”

            “Who said I was going to go?  Clearly, you’re best suited.  You aren’t super famous like me, so you and your new friend here can become vigilantes, taking down corruption without the law stifling you!”

            “Are you sure you’re okay with that?”

            “Of course!  You can take care of yourself, you could probably give this new kid some pointers, and best of all, you won’t have stupid attendants breathing down your neck!”

            “Excuse me sirs,” one of the Demon Slayers attendants interjected as if on cue, “but Professor Lionheart is on the line wishing to speak to you some more Vergil.”

            “Case in point” Verigl said with a sigh.  He walked over to his son and gave him a big hug.  “Take care of yourself, all right?”

            “Will do old man” Ty said with a smile.  As Vergil turned to go, he quickly turned back and said,

            “Oh, and don’t forget you’re eligible for one of the Huntsman Academies in a few years.  I’d recommend you enroll at Beacon.  You know Ozpin will take you in a heartbeat with a letter from me.”

            “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it, but thanks old man” Ty said with a smile.  With that, he looked over at Miles, and smiled saying,

            “You’re stuck with me I guess.”

            “I guess” Miles said as he stood up.  “You sure about this?  This is a pretty nice gig.  A good place to sleep every night, great food, this that the other…..”

            “Something’s going down” Ty said cracking his knuckles.  “And if rulemakers are going to stop us, I guess we just have to be rulebreakers.”

            “I like the way you think” Miles said as the two of them gathered their supplies and began to go off on their way.

 

 

 

Three Years Later
The Island of Patch

 

 

 

            Ty and Miles studied the warehouse very carefully.  The lights indicated that there were people inside, but they weren’t sure how many.

            “Do you think he’s here?” Miles asked trying to see if any airships were coming.

            “A lot of Dust was still unaccounted for after the Cinder Fall Incident last year” Ty said going over a dossier his father had sent him.  “If Adam is intent on trying to increase the power of his terrorist cell, then we should probably make sure we secure the Dust so he has less leverage.  Several Faunus are starting to turn away from his faction and are retreating to Menagerie, so hopefully our actions will help deter them even further.”

            “Sounds good.  You ready to roll?”

            “Always” Ty said as he raised his bazooka.  He then fired a rocket, opening a giant gaping hole for the two of them to walk through.  As they entered through the dust, they saw several White Fang soldiers gawking at them.

            “Ty my friend,” Miles said with a smile, “go say hello.”  Ty smiled, and charged forward, prepared to take down his opponents.

 

 

 

Forge Your Own Path

It May Not Be Seen By All

But Stand Tall

In Yourself

And Claim Your Place

In the Next Steps On the Path

Of Destiny

 

 

 

Episode: Ty

END.

 

 

 

 

 

Authors Notes

 

 

            So fun fact, the way that the characters of Miles and Ty were introduced is actually a reference to how Ty and I first became friends in a strange way.  Like many of my friends in real life, we met through band, and had several classes together.  And as time went on, we found we had similar interests, and began a weird, goofy dumb joke where we would attempt to “kill” each other be it with guns, or fictional weapons, or what have you.  Some days we would try to see who could think of the biggest weapon to counter the others as a back and forth.  I don’t remember if this is exactly how this went down more often than not, but who knows.  We were young, we were stupid (arguably still are), and we were having fun.  Regardless, Ty has always been a stalwart friend over the years.  He is somebody who will stand face to face with you and tell you the truth even if you don’t want to hear it, because he knows that if you don’t want to hear the truth, that means you most likely absolutely need to hear it.  His sarcasm levels might clock in at over 9,000, but his steadfast nature matches it when it comes time for him to put his best foot forward.  Over the years, he has had many ups and downs with his personal life, but recently he has been taking massive steps in ways to help his own personal health and well being.  During the past year at the time of writing this, he has been making an absolute mammoth effort to lose weight and get himself in good physical condition and let me tell you, I watched his progress on facebook digitally due to the pandemic, but pictures did not do him justice when I saw the results of his efforts in person.  And at the time of writing this he continues on this journey to keep moving forward having moved to Texas to be closer to his girlfriend.  I am lucky I get to call this man one of my best friends, and that he is somebody who will stay true despite the world trying to pressure him against that path.

Author's Note

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