Episode 3: Chapter 9: Cavalry

Chapter 9 of Episode 3 of Order of Seasons

Everybody just simply stood there agape at what they were seeing. Natalie Grover, left for dead at the base of Beacon tower, now standing alive and well, looking at them like they were all crazy.

            “Guys, I said I’m back. You gonna pick your jaws up off the ground anytime soon?” Before anybody else had a chance to react, Nathan had run up and had started poking Natalie. “Um….bro?  What are you doing?” After a few seconds of this, Nathan then looked Natalie straight in the face with tears in his eyes.

            “I’m so glad I’m not dreaming,” he said as he gave Natalie a huge bear hug. Natalie returned the hug but then was knocked flat on her back by everybody else rushing forward to give her a hug as well. It took a minute for everybody to get off her and help her back to her feet. After which, Nathan ran up and gave her a huge hug as well. She returned the hug and noticed Miles standing off to the side with clear signs of the fact that he was crying. She walked over to him and punched him the shoulder jokingly.

            “Can’t get rid of me that easy I guess.” She said with a grin on her face. Miles didn’t say anything but threw his arms around her and cried uncontrollably.

            “Don’t scare us like that again.” Natalie was about to make another joke, but then decided against it and simply returned the hug. After the quick little reunion, a small number of medics and soldiers from Atlas rushed out and dispersed into the camp, helping whomever they could.

            “Natalie, what’s going on?” Miles asked as he watched several medics beginning to bring Christy aboard the airship.

            “Well, I kind of woke up from being dead, then I was walking around and found Beanie pretty darn close to being dead, then all of a sudden, we were picked up and saved…”

            “By me.” Everybody turned to see that walking down the ramp now was General Ironwood, the supreme commander of the Atlas military. “Well, to be more precise, our scouts who were on the lookout for any signs of life in the remains of your battle at Beacon a few days ago. To be perfectly honest, we weren’t sure if we would find anybody ever since the Order’s supreme leader went out and completely dismantled any remaining public resistance on the face of Remnant. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is the fact that we have managed to find people who can still fight. Or at least can fight once they are given proper treatment.”

            “Wait, you’re planning on still fighting the Order?” Miles asked. “What’s the point?  I could tell from the few seconds when we ran away from that one guy that he has a power that we can’t even begin to compete with! It’s uncanny! Not even the Maidens were this powerful!”

            “I won’t deny that the supreme commander of the Order has gained some impressive powers, but the fact remains that we still have to try. Plus, your sister brought us some intel from the afterlife that may prove useful to us.”

            “You brought back information from the afterlife?” Nathan asked completely confused. “How’d you pull that off?”

            “Oh yeah! I almost forgot!” Natalie said with a big smile. “Ember says hi!” Nathan’s expression changed from confusion, to surprise, to happiness, and back to surprise again.

            “Huh.”

 

 

 

 

Lord Mortem lowered himself onto the island of Vytal right next to the large old capitol building. He walked inside the building and made his way to the central chamber. As he opened the doors, he saw that Lord Aeris was already inside. As soon as he entered the room, Aeris fell to one knee.

            “Welcome Lord Mortem. I’ve been waiting patiently.”

            “Rise Lord Aeris. What is the status of the world leaders?”

            “All of them will be brought here as per your request in a few days. The current ruler of Mistral was not willing to comply at first, but I persuaded him.”

            “Very good. What of the remaining pieces of resistance?”

            “We have yet to locate General Ironwood and his small batch of Atlas soldiers, but Lord Hibernis assures me that the assets we will not have here on Vytal are using every resource necessary to find them.” Lord Mortem smiled, and walked to the center of the room.

            “Did you know Lord Aeris, this is where the leaders of the world came together to try and ignite change? They decided that they had enough of the senseless violence and decided that they would create a system that existed in limbo. A limbo that ignored the fact that entire nations and ideals had been crushed during their mindless conflict. The creation of the Huntsman Academies was nothing more than a shining monument to that limbo. Buried beneath the grand bravado of the students and teachers of the academies were the skeletons of all those who sacrificed everything only to be forgotten to time. The leaders of the world had the power to make real change, but refused to take the initiative. I will not tolerate any form of weakness in this new world. I will erase the limbo that the leaders created and replace it with reality. The reality that this world cannot function by ignoring what is. You can only move forward and embrace the pain of reality.”

            “So…did you like have a rough childhood or did your family have an ancestor who was lost in the war or….”

            “My life has always been about order. I will instill order upon the world. I will bring the four kingdoms as different as the seasons and make them one single entity.”

            “It’s control you desire then?”

            “Do you have an issue with my reasoning to bring about the greatest revolution this world has ever seen?”

            “I follow your commands until the day one of us dies, and at this rate, I think I’ll be dead long before you even get close to looking middle-aged. I was just curious since you randomly started to monologue in the middle of this giant government building.”

            “I guess that could come off as a bit strange. My apologies.”

            “No worries.”

 

 

 

 

The airship began taking off from the forest and heading towards the mountain ranges to avoid any form of detection.

            “If all the team leaders could come with me and anybody else they feel that can help follow me to the command deck.” As soon as General Ironwood asked this, Natalie, Miles, Jacob, Ty, Ruby, Blake, and Nora followed General Ironwood to the top deck. Evan stayed behind to stay with Christy while the doctors helped get her what she needed to recover faster, Nathan stayed behind while the few Atlas technicians worked on a new cyborg arm for Yang, and everybody else either got some much needed food in the cafeteria or decided to take a nap. As the airship got closer to the mountains, Nora started shivering a little bit.

            “Couldn’t we hide somewhere a bit warmer please General?”

            “We don’t have time for niceties. The Order has conquered the entire world overnight and their supreme leader, Zenoma Mortem, has ordered that the current world leaders meet at the government building where the World Hunters Accords were signed to end the Great War. If we didn’t have the cover of the mountains, we would be detectable by radar and noticeable even with our cloaking device working.”

            “Ok, so what are we up against?” Miles asked as he walked over to a nearby holo-table. “When we fought against them a few days ago, they had White Fang soldiers as well as some of their own soldiers. Can we expect perhaps a more powerful fleet of soldiers guarding this event?”

            “Yes, alongside that the Order has managed to take control of all our Atlesian Knights and Paladins once again.”

            “You have got to be kidding me!” Blake said as she took a seat in the captains chair. “I remember fighting those things a year ago, and they were tough back then! What chance do we have now that they have been upgraded?”

            “Well, that is actually the first part of the plan we have been preparing.” General Ironwood then pulled up a holographic image of the government building on Vytal and zoomed in on the airships. “This event that Mortem is planning is supposed to scare the world leaders into submission, so he has brought some of his finest ships in to intimidate them. But that may be the first piece to his downfall. After the attack on Beacon a year ago, Ozpin and I along with several programmers in Atlas developed a code installed in the very core of every combat android under Atlas control. The Prime Directive. A basic code that if activated, the androids are to fight and protect the interests of the four kingdoms. If it seems that different kingdoms are at war with each other, then a kill code is initiated so that nobody can use them for the wrong reasons ever.”

            “So how do we activate this program?” Ruby asked.

            “According to our intel, when Roman Torchwick captured one of my ships last year, he installed a program that gave him and Cinder control of the entire Atlesian force stationed in Vale. That should hold true for the airships of the Order. If we can get a small strike team into one of the airships, we can activate the directive as well as install a set of instructions for the knights to fight only when we give the command.”

            “Why wouldn’t we have them wreck havoc the instant we get them back on our side?” Ty asked. “Wouldn’t it make sense to just let them run lose and we can clean up whatever mess they made?”

            “Not if we want to win the battle at the end of the day. What we need is a tactical attack. If we let the knights run wild, they will be wiped out in an instant. But if we upload a command to wait for our signal, the enemy will rush forward with the knights on their side and then in a split second will be surrounded on and completely stuck.”

            “What about the remaining troops?” Jacob asked. “Just because we take the androids back to our side won’t guarantee an easy cakewalk. The instant they realize that they are under attack, they’ll send down all their available troops on the other airships to take us down.”

            “You have a suggestion?” General Ironwood asked.

            “I say we have the stealth strike team also be an attack team. They install the directive into the system, then they take over the airship, and once they are given the signal, they can open fire on the other airships, and maybe even use the airship as a kamikaze missile on the other Order members.”

            “Not a bad strategy. It could work.”

            “One problem though” Blake said as she stood up and walked over to the table. “If we rush in while all the world leaders are still inside, then Mortem could just hold them hostage and this will all be for nothing.”

            “She’s right. Any ideas?”

            “This fight isn’t just to defeat the Order.” Natalie said walking forward. “It’s about saving the world. I’ll spare you all the over the top details about why we need to defeat Mortem other than the fact that he’s evil and needs to be defeated. But the main thing is that the only way to defeat his requires help from the afterlife. All we have to do is beat the tar out of him and weaken him to the point where we can destroy him. What we need is to get him isolated from his subordinates and fight him head on. The nice thing is, with the main attack, they should be too busy to do anything else. I suggest we have a team of six people dive into the main government building.  Two to fight Mortem, the rest to check the building and make sure there isn’t anybody else.  Perhaps to even evacuate the world leaders if we get lucky.”

            “Did you somehow become a better strategist when you died?” Miles asked in a mocking tone.

            “I had my moments before then!” They both laughed, and then everybody joined in. A moment of levity in light of what they all knew was about to happen.

 

 

 

 

Evan sat there as the doctor walked up to him removing his mask.

            “Her aura should be kicking in right about now. It was already doing the job, but by manually healing and mending some of her injuries, she should be able to recover a lot faster now. You can go see her if you’d like.” Evan didn’t say anything in response. He simply got up, walked into the room and saw Christy sitting there hooked up to several different machines.

            “You doing okay there cutie?” Christy blushed and laughed at Evan’s comment.

            “A bit cornier than usual, but yes. My back hurts a little, but other then that, I’m feeling a lot better than I was earlier.” Evan smiled, and sat down next to her. They both just sat there in silence, letting things move forward without fighting it.

 

 

 

 

Nathan was looking out the window, lost in his thoughts. He then felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to see Yang holding a robot arm.

            “Can I give you a hand Nathan?” Yang started cracking up as she waved the new arm around like it was a toy.

            “Yang, the doctor said you shouldn’t take that thing off and use it so carelessly!”

            “Oh come on. You’d do the exact same thing if you were in my shoes!” Yang then put her new arm back on and sat down next to him. “I was trying to lighten the mood Nathan. No need to be so sullen about it,”

            “You’ve been taking this way too well.  You get your arm cut off, and you can still make jokes like this?”

            “I keep telling you, I’ve got you here with me to help me through it. I’d do the same thing for you.”

            “Thanks Yang.” They gave each other a quick kiss before looking out the window into the sky.

 

 

 

 

Brooklyn walked into the cafeteria and saw Weiss eating at a table by herself. She grabbed a drink and sat down next to her.

            “Hey Weiss?”

            “Yeah?”

            “What does family mean to you?” Weiss was a bit thrown off by the question.

            “How do you mean?”

            “Like, you are somebody who has had your family with you your entire life. What was that like?”

            “Well, I don’t think I’m the person to ask about that. Everybody has different experiences with their families. I lived with my father, but he always was just pushing me to take over the family company. But I wanted to become a Huntress and help the world. We still have our differences, but I think that even after everything that has happened, he still loves me no matter what.”

            “No matter what, huh?”

            “Something significant about that?”

            “Not really. Just gives me something to work with I guess. Thanks Weiss.”

            “Hey, I’m not doing that much right now. Anytime.”

 

 

 

 

As the sun began to rise, Lord Mortem stood atop the government building and watched as the small transport ship lowered itself to the ground. Lord Mortem smiled and began floating towards the world leaders.

            “It is time for the final great change in this world.”

Author's Note

Please read/review/enjoy!

Reviews

[Stars and Whales]

Hey so this took me a while to read. It doesn't all make perfect sense to me, because I guess the genre is somewhat foreign to me, but I liked certain parts. I think you'd make a fine film director! Just keep working at what you love to do and it'll happen. I'm working on a screenplay actually, right now, could I share it with you on google docs or something? Maybe you can produce it someday, with my help. If you could edit it and give me some advice, or maybe if you think it would make a good film or not, I would love that! I want to be a screenwriter, and you, a film director, so maybe we can work together. How old are you? I'm 15. Anyways, I'll send this to you in your mail as well. I read your RWBY story in parts, and my favorite thing about it was your descriptive language. It was great! It was good writing. Let me know about the script and all that! Good job!

[Shep]

Another excellent and short chapter and it was nice to have a quick breather in between the battles. love the little droplets of information and the detail that places me right into the story itself. Moving on to the next chapter Please be kind and return the love.