Episode 2: Chapter 8: Complications

Chapter 8 of Episode 2 of Order of Seasons

Christy was just standing there on the airship not sure what to do. Ty and Vergil were catching up by themselves in the back, Jacob was brooding, and the maiden Zimara was just standing there, not saying anything.

            “Man, this is just boring.” Brooklyn said sitting down next to where Christy was standing.

            “You’re telling me? I’ve been pretty much stuck here in the background for who knows how long.”

            “At least people pay attention to you. I’ve honestly been just bored out of my mind for weeks. I mean, I think Jacob has all but forgotten about our rivalry. Also, he’s just become so obsessed with his family recently I’ve kind of dropped off into the background.”

            “Yeah. I mean outside of just being around Evan and doing some fighting, I really haven’t had a lot happen to me recently.”

            “What do you guys even do as a couple to begin with?”

            “Well, we started out doing some of the traditional stereotypical things. We kissed a lot, we hugged a lot, heck I even convinced Evan to skip through a field of tall grass with me. Granted I almost got lost in the tall grass but still.”

            “Wow. That seems kind of dumb and pointless.”

            “But we did it together. That’s what made it special.”

            “I guess. But don’t you ever feel like you’ve just been left behind for no good reason?”

            “How do you mean?”

            “The thing is, all the problems we’ve had to deal with this past year have revolved around either the Grover siblings, Miles, or Jacob. We’ve kind of just been standing there like we should just take this all in stride.”

            “Are you saying we shouldn’t be there for our friends?”

            “I didn’t say that, but….” As Brooklyn said this, something impacted the airship, causing the lights to go out, then start flashing like a traffic accident. Alarms started going off as the ship began wobbling.

            “The ship’s going down!” The pilot yelled from the cockpit. “I’m going to try and put her down in that gorge over there!”

            “Are you kidding me?” Vergil yelled. “We’ll be sitting ducks down there!”

            “No choice sir! It’s either land in the gorge or crash into the mountains to our right.” Vergil slammed his hand against the wall in anger at the pilot’s explanation.

            “Get us into the gorge safely pilot. If something goes wrong, let us know. I’m not risking the Winter Maiden’s life just because of some freak accident.”

            “Yes sir.” With that said, the pilot pushed a few buttons and began shutting down several engines and adjusting the wings to allow the airship to glide down into the gorge below. As the airship continued downwards, everybody in the back pulled down the emergency seats and strapped themselves in. Since there were no windows, nobody could see what was happening out the sides. But they could certainly feel it. As the airship got lower and lower to the ground, it began hitting some of the stray boulders on the sides of the gorge. Then the entire airship shook and rattled as it finally began sliding along the rocks of the riverbed at the very bottom of the gorge. Christy clasped the safety straps like she was riding a roller coaster, only this time she was actually trying not to die. Finally, the airship reached the end of its skid, and the pilot opened up the door that wasn’t trapped against the ground. As everybody climbed out, they realized that not only were they trapped inside this gorge, but the airship was damaged beyond repair. One of the engines had been crushed and the left wing was sitting in the river about seventy yards away from the rest of the airship. Collecting themselves, Vergil pulled out his Scroll and started walking around.

            “No good.” He said in frustration. “We’re too far out from civilization. I can’t get a signal.”

            “What about the airship’s on board radio? Couldn’t that get a message out?” Jacob asked as he helped Brooklyn out of the airship.

            “Not likely.” The pilot said as he inspected the internal damage. “Pretty much everything and anything electrical has been completely fried. I’m afraid we’re going to have to walk to find help.”

            “Well that’s fantastic.” Brooklyn said slamming her fist against a nearby rock. “Any idea where to find civilization around here?”

            “I might be able to find somebody.” Zimara said as she floated out of the airship. “If I can get high enough into the sky, I might be able to see if there is a town either inhabited or otherwise where we might find shelter at least for the night. Besides, it’s not like we would have any problems fighting Grimm. After all…” before she could finish, a sudden flash of light came flying down and struck her right in the chest, causing her to fall forward and start floating slightly above ground as an electric field floated around her torso. As soon as this happened, everybody drew their weapons and started looking around to try and see where the flash came from.

            “What the heck was that?” Christy yelled more scared than confused.

            “Not sure. Keep your guard up though. It may be that we are being hunted.” As soon as Vergil said this, another flash of light hit Ty straight in the chest, but it did little to nothing as he just stood there.

            “I see them. Looks like a user of lightning dust. And he’s not alone.” Ty said as he pointed to the top of the cliff on the opposite side of the river. Everybody looked up to see four people each with their own weapons suddenly jump down to the gorge below. The giant cracked his whip in the air and all of a sudden he had rocks sticking out of the cliff face to slide on and slow his decent. The woman with the chakrams pointed her weapons down towards the ground creating a blast of air slowly letting herself down to the riverbed. Then a woman wearing a kabuki mask leapt off the side and stuck her sword into the side of the cliff and simply slid down that way. Finally, the person who shot the lightning did a perfect double flip, sent a charge of electricity to the ground and slowed his decent until he landed next to his comrades. Nothing was said for a few seconds until Vergil finally spoke up.

            “Who are you idiots?” They all sort of chuckled at this.

            “Yeesh. I thought the great Demon Slayer Vergil would have a few more manners than that, but what can you expect with a name like that?” The woman laughed with a sick smile on her face.

            “Calm yourself my friend.” The man who controlled the lightning said. “Let us at least be polite. I am Lord Fulgur. These are my comrades Lords Aeris and Hibernis.”

            “Who’s the weirdo in the mask?” Ty asked pointing his sword towards the stranger.

            “An assassin. Nothing more, nothing less.” Fulgur said taking a few steps forward. “Now seeing as you’re all about to die, could you please make this easy for us?”

            “Wow, did he really just say that?” Brooklyn said morphing her weapon into scimitar form. With that said, Lord Fulgur smiled, and created another lightning arrow out of thin air, almost catching everybody off guard. Launching it straight towards Christy, she had to jump out of the way to avoid getting electrocuted. Fulgur pulled back again and launched another bolt, this time towards Jacob, who deflected it with his sword into the cliffside, causing a small amount of rocks to fall down the side of the mountain. Wasting no time, Vergil leapt across the river and started fighting Hibernis, knocking him back a few paces. Meanwhile, Ty and Christy ran out across a shallow ford towards Lord Fulgur, and swung their weapons down onto his bow. Instead of trying to block their attacks, he simply pulled his weapon down and out of lock with his opponents, and took a few steps back while he made his weapon more of a quarterstaff with electric power flowing through the entire weapon. As soon as he accomplished this he leapt forward and took his opponents head on. Meanwhile, Brooklyn and Jacob were about to cross as well, but Aeris leapt across first and started fighting Jacob. Before Brooklyn could try and flank Aeris, the assassin appeared right in front of her as if out of nowhere and began fighting her using twin blades that extended from her bracelets.

            “Where did you get that technology?” Brooklyn asked as she parried a few blows. The assassin said nothing, and continued to push forward on the attack.

            “Fine. Be a jerk.” Brooklyn said as she started getting more and more angry.

 

 

 

 

Vergil continued to clash with Hibernis, trying to use his sword to catch his opponent’s whip and disarm him. However, despite Vergil having the weapon advantage, it was clear that Hibernis was not trying to go for close quarters combat. Instead, he kept striking the cliff behind him with his whip causing several more rocks to fall. Before Vergil could launch another attack at Hibernis, he picked up a rock and punched it, causing it to become several smaller stones. Then, by simply raising his hand, Hibernis caused all the rocks to begin floating in a way similar to Pyrrha’s use of magnetism. Vergil stopped his attack and raised his weapon in defense as Hiberins sent the rocks flying at crazy speeds. While he was able to defend himself from most of them, there were plenty more that hit him and knocked him back onto his back and into the riverbank. Vergil tried to get up quickly, but Hibernis landed a devastating knee attack on him before he could do so.

            “That’s it.” Vergil said short of breath. “Time to go ham.” With that said, Vergil pulled back his right arm and hit Hibernis with a punch that sent him flying into the cliff wall. As he got up, he noticed that Hibernis wasn’t going to be getting up anytime soon, so he turned his attention to Fulgur. He rushed forward looking for a chance to punch him with his back turned, but as he swung his fist, a giant gust of air knocked his hand off target, causing Vergil to lose balance. As he stumbled towards the cliffside, he noticed that Aeris had taken a quick second out of fighting Jacob and sent a gust of air across the river to knock him off balance. The force of the gust knocked Vergil into the wall, which caught the attention of Fulgur, who quickly turned around and zapped Vergil with his staff until he was unconscious. Before he could turn back around however, Christy and Ty both managed to land huge hits on him and sent him flying up the riverbank, knocking him out in the process. Realizing they now had the advantage, they quickly ran over to where their teammates were fighting across the river.

 

 

 

 

Brooklyn couldn’t believe it. She was being outclassed by some weirdo in a kabuki mask. It wasn’t like she was having an off day or something; this person was just completely reading her. Trying to get a quick turnaround, she jumped back towards the airship wreckage and morphed her weapon to rifle form to try and go for more of a ranged fight than close quarters. As she landed on the airship, she tried to take a shot at her opponent, but then the pilot appeared out of nowhere and ran into her line of sight. Having to quickly adjust her shot, she ended up knocking herself back with the recoil, causing her to hit her head against a rock and almost lose consciousness. Meanwhile, the pilot continued to try and escape as he ran past Aeris and Jacob who were still sparring.

            “Ah. Pardon me for a second.” As soon as Aeris said this, she sent out two massive blasts of air. One to send Jacob flying across the river, and the other to knock the pilot to his knees. Walking over to where the pilot now lay dazed, Aeris raised up one of her chakrams and didn’t say a word as she sent the weapon straight clean through his head. As the limp body of the pilot fell to the ground, Aeris started laughing manically. “First kill is mine losers!” She turned to see that not only was nobody paying attention, but two of her teammates had been completely knocked out. “Ugh, they can never get the job done right can they?” But then she noticed that the assassin was starting to walk towards Brooklyn with the intent of killing her. “Oh!” Aeris said in excitement. “This should be fun!” She started walking towards Brooklyn and the assassin, but before she could take another step forward, she felt an intense cold around her legs. Looking back, she saw that Jacob had gotten back up and had thrown an ice dust dagger to immobilize her.

            “Forget about me witch?”

            “Kid, I wish I could!” Ignoring her last comment, Jacob rushed forward and hit her square with his sword, knocking her out of the ice and into the side of the cliff, causing her aura to shatter and knock her out. Wasting no time, Jacob then started running to where the assassin was about to impale Brooklyn. But even if he activated his time dilation state, he wasn’t going to reach her in time. But then, before the assassin could strike, a projectile hit the assassin right in the back of the head. Turning to see what had hit her, all the assassin could see was Ty swinging his sword at her, sending her flying to where Aeris was knocked out as well. They all convened at the airship and helped Brooklyn get back on her feet.

            “You okay?” Jacob asked.

            “I’ve had worse.” Brooklyn replied.

            “Good. Well we’ve lost our pilot, and I don’t know how long that stasis field is going to affect Zimara, so I say we grab her and Vergil, get as far upstream as we can and…” but before he could finish, Jacob was struck square in the chest with another lightning bolt arrow. Before the other three could react, they too were struck by lightning arrows. They all fell to the ground, unconscious. An annoyed Lord Fulgur walked over to help up Lord Hibernis.

            “Seriously, how did these kids take so much out of me that I can’t even make a proper “kill” arrow to subdue them?”

 

 

 

 

After throwing Vergil in amongst the rest of the unconscious bodies in the crashed airship, they then went to grab Jacob.

            “So what now?” Lord Hibernis asked.

            “We follow our orders.” Lord Fulgur said. “We replace the body of the Winter Maiden with the corpse that our scientists prepared, you cause the rockslide that will bury them all alive, and it will look like a freak accident of nature.”

            “Very well then.”

            “Hey guys?” Lord Aeris yelled. “Doesn’t this kid look kind of like Dr. Strohl?” As soon as they heard her mention this, they walked over to where Aeris was inspecting the face of the unconscious Jacob. Lord Fulgur pulled out his Scroll and held it up next to Jacob’s face.

            “It’s an exact match. Looks like the Strohl kid just happened to land right into our hands. What fortuitous timing.” With a flick of his wrist, the lightning field surrounding him caused him to seem more like he resting rather than bound. “We shall deliver him to Lord Mortem immediatly.”

            “But weren’t our orders no survivors?” Lord Aeris asked. “If they don’t find the kids body amongst the wreckage, won’t they start getting a bit more suspicious?”

            “Don’t worry about it Lord Aeris. I’m sure that Lord Mortem will be more than pleased that we managed not only to deliver him the Winter Maiden, but also the potential heir to the power that Ozpin wields.” With that said, Lord Fulgur pulled out his Scroll and made a quick call. “This is Lord Fulgur. Mission accomplished, but with one slight complication. Will discuss further when we have returned to the base. Lord Fulgur out.” He put his Scroll away and started moving downstream where an airship began making its descent into the gorge. “Join us once you’ve finished your work here Lord Hibernis.”

            “I won’t be long Fulgur.” As he said this, Lord Aeris also left with Lord Fulgur towards the airship, but the assassin still stood there next to Lord Hibernis.

            “There is no need for you to be here assassin. Join your lords on the airship.” However, the assassin didn’t even budge an inch at Lord Hibernis’ command. Simply shrugging it off, Lord Hibernis leapt up above the airship and cracked his whip on the cliffside several times, causing a huge rockslide to bury and crush the airship below. As he landed, the assassin still didn’t move an inch.

            “Lord Hibernis!” Lord Fulgur yelled from the airship. “What’s the holdup?”

            “The assassin is just standing here doing nothing. Any suggestions?”

            “Assassin!” Lord Fulgur yelled. “Wheels up in two minutes! Do what you need to and then join us. Otherwise, we shall leave you to your own devices.” As soon as he said this, Lord Hibernis turned and headed back to the airship. As soon as he was out of earshot, the assassin walked in front of the rock pile, and placed a silver necklace on the ground.

            “If you are who I think you are and you are indeed alive, I know you will seek me out and bring this to me.” After saying her piece, the assassin walked over to the airship, got on board and they all took off heading west towards Vacuo.

            “Say, any new info on the Restoration Tournament?” Lord Aeris asked. “We missed the rest of the fights after that weird blonde girl beat the kid from Shade Academy.”

            “I’ll check.” Lord Fulgur said pulling out his Scroll. “It looks like all three Vale teams made it through, which includes the blond, and there’s one more team from Haven still alive in the tournament.”

            “Ugh. At this rate it’s going to be a Vale VS Vale fight. That seems boring.”

            “It isn’t about entertainment Lord Aeris. It’s about knowing who the strongest of each kingdom is so we can better prepare our troops for when we launch our invasion in three years.”

            “Well I want some entertainment!” Lord Aeris said as she sat down pouting in a corner.

 

 

 

 

The rocks continued to sit there in silence. Ten minutes passed. Twenty minutes passed. Then, all of a sudden, a large explosion blasted all the rocks away at the top, and Brooklyn emerged from the wreckage, having used her shield as a way to keep the rocks from falling on top of them, and then created an aura explosion large enough to free her friends. As soon as she was out of the airship, she collapsed from exhaustion since she had just spent up the last of her energy to save her friends. Christy managed to catch her before she fell to the ground.

            “You okay there champ?” She asked Brooklyn.

            “I feel like a rainbow.” Brooklyn said as she dropped to her knees. As soon as she did, she noticed that there was a necklace sitting on the ground in front of the wreckage. As she went over to examine it, Vergil made his way out of the airship.

            “Well, that could have gone better. But I guess I really do have to give it to your team leader, he does know how to pick his friends. Hey, by the way, where is he?” Everybody started looking around and realized that he wasn’t among their number.

            “Why would they take Jacob?” Christy asked. “I thought the Maiden was their target?”

            “Maybe they got new orders while we were unconscious?” Ty suggested.

            “Perhaps.” Vergil said. “But then again, there isn’t that great of a signal down here in this gorge. I mean, unless they had their own personal mini tower available to them, I don’t know how this could have been accomplished.”

            “I think the bigger question right now is where the heck is Jacob and where can we find him?” Christy yelled starting to get worried.

            “I can’t say for sure Ms. Curtiss. They could have taken him anywhere and we don’t have any way of knowing where that may be.”

            “Actually, I think we do.” All eyes turned to Brooklyn as she held up a piece of paper that was attached to the back of the necklace she had picked up off the ground. “I think these are coordinates for where we need to go.” Vergil walked over to her and looked at the paper himself.

            “Well, I don’t know pin point exactly where this is, but this looks like these coordinates are directly in the middle of Vacuo.”

            “Vacuo” Ty said in surprise. “What could possibly be in Vacuo related to this?”

            “Perhaps answers my son. But I believe that our answer and our mission lie at these coordinates. For now, we shall begin walking out of this gorge and towards the general direction of Vacuo. As soon as we get better reception, I will figure out exactly where we are and where we need to be going, and what we shall do from there. Now, until we find your friend, I am the leader of this team. Is that understood?”

            “Of course.” Christy said with confidence.

            “Absolutely.” Ty said with determination. However, Brooklyn remained silent.

            “Is something wrong Ms. McPhearson?” Vergil asked.

            “Look, for starters, just call us by our real names. And second, yes I heard you and let’s go before we waste even more time.”

            “Well said. Let’s get going.” With that said, everybody started walking downstream to try and get out of the gorge. Brooklyn took an extra second to get up and took another look at the necklace she found.

            “How did she get this?”

Author's Note

Please review/enjoy!

Reviews

[Shep]

Well, that was a short chapter with a lot going on and no one died except the pilot. Another awesome chapter as I head on to the next one to find out what you have in store with the bad guys now that our friends are still alive. Please be kind and return the love.