Episode 1: Chapter 2: Start Up

Chapter 2 of Episode 1 of Order of Seasons

The airship finally touched down and the six friends got their first look at the prestigious Beacon Academy. It was inspiring. Despite the damage done to it by the attack on it during the Cinder Fall incident, Glynda Goodwitch and her team had put it back together seamlessly. As everybody started walking towards the amphitheater, some clouds started to roll overhead. As quickly as they appeared, the clouds suddenly erupted into a rain shower. A lot of the new students started quickly running for cover in the amphitheater, but to not much success. Then, a pool of water started forming over those still outside the enclosure. Then that pool formed into more of a shield of water, stopping the rain from falling on those still outside. Looking over, they saw a faculty member who looked more like he was Nathan’s age than anything.

            “All right children! Just keep on moving!” the stranger said in a bit of a sarcastic tone. He wore a pair of glasses and had on a run-down beach hat. He had in his hand what looked like a whistle.

            “BEANIE!” Nathan shouted with excitement! The stranger turned to them, and then gave smiled from ear to ear.

            “NATHAN! EVAN! JACOB! HOW ARE YOU GUYS?” He started walking towards them, and then the giant pool of water started falling towards them, which he quickly caught once again with a sharp whistle.

            “Hey Jacob, who’s this?” Brooklyn quickly asked.

            “Ah. Forgive me” Jacob said. “This is Eric Hallfrisch. But we all call him Beanie.”

            “….Why Beanie?” Asked Christy.

            “Even I don’t really know that one.” Evan answered. “And I’ve known him for all these years.”

            “Anywho, what are you crazy kids doing here at Beacon? You all becoming students here?”

            “Yep” Nathan said. “We’ve all been accepted. Even Natalie here was accepted to….” Nathan never got to finish his sentence, because Natalie was gone. He could feel her hiding right beside him, but couldn’t see where she was looking, as she was invisible. “Natls, it’s okay. It’s Beanie for crying out loud!”

            “That’s not what I’m hiding from.” Looking over towards the airship, Nathan now saw that Miles and Ty were only about 15 feet away from them, with Miles looking on with confusion. The two of them started walking towards the others, and then joined their little circle. A few seconds of awkward silence followed, then Miles finally spoke up.

            “You know, when you told me you were getting a job as a lifeguard Beanie, I thought it was for an actual pool.”

            “Holy cow, Watson? What are you doing here?!” Everybody then turned and kept looking at the two of them completely astonished.

            “YOU TWO KNOW EACH OTHER?!” Natalie yelled, having revealed herself standing right by Miles. Taken back by her yell, he jumped back a foot, then quickly collected himself.

            “Wait, you guys know Beanie also?”

            “How could we not?” said Nathan. “We grew up together in one of the towns here in Vale!”

            “We attended school at the local general education building together until we hit Combat Academy age.” Jacob added.

            “And he was such a teachers pet that he ended up getting a job as an intern for Glynda Goodwitch.” Evan finished off.

            “Yeah…I already knew that….”said Miles.

            “HEY!” Beanie yelled. “Extremely talented and teachers pet are two different things that may have played a factor in me getting this job!”

            “Says you.” The six started laughing, and even Miles himself chuckled a little bit.

            “Uh, hey Miles? I’m a little lost here.” Ty spoke up.

            “Ah. Yes. Beanie, this is my friend Ty. He grew up in Vacuo. Ty, this is Beanie. He grew up in Aequo just like I did.”

            “Wait, YOU grew up in Aequo?” Natalie yelled.

            “By your reaction, I guess we all have a place that we used to call home.” There was a few seconds of silence, and then Brooklyn stepped forward.

            “Look, this is definitely something we need to talk about later, but in case you haven’t noticed, we are kind of all alone out here.” They all started looking around, and realized she was right. Everybody had already made their way into the amphitheater, and Glynda Goodwitch was marching towards them with an annoyed look. They immediately started running towards the doors, while Beanie took the giant pool of water he had collected and threw it into the river below the cliffs. As the eight of them made their way inside, there were very few open spots left. Miles made a sharp right turn, then started walking up the wall a short ways and “laid down” for the lack of a better term. It looked like he was just sticking to the wall like he was lying on the floor. Ty stood next to him on the ground, while the main six were forced to stand right in front of them. Natalie made sure to distance herself from Miles as much as she could. Then Professor Ozpin stepped up to the podium and turned on his microphone.

            “I’ll keep this brief. You are all here because you want to learn how to fight monsters. You want to become stronger, to gain knowledge, and to discover more about yourselves and what you hope to accomplish in life. But in time, you will realize that this profession goes beyond yourselves. You can’t always rely on your own strength to get through life. This will be most prevalent tomorrow during your initiation. Be ready.” He then walked off the stage, and Professor Goodwitch took his place.

            “You will all sleep in the ballroom tonight. Tomorrow at promptly 9:00 A.M. you will board the transport for your initiation. Be ready.” With that said, everybody started walking towards the ballroom.

            “SERIOUSLY?! WE RUSH OVER HERE FOR LIKE 30 SECONDS OF TELLING US WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW?!” Natalie yelled, clearly upset. Jacob put his hand on her shoulder.

            “Patience young one. Not everything has to be a big, long and grand speech. Although it did feel a little preachy to be perfectly honest.”

            “Oh please.” Miles said as he dropped down from the wall. “It was just his way of saying “It’s all about teamwork” and “The overall goal of being a Huntsman/Huntress is to protect the people” and all that good jazz.” Miles looked at Jacob who was looking at him like he was stupid.

            “It’s called sarcasm knucklehead,” Jacob said. “Most of us don’t need it explained out loud.” Natalie started chuckling at this, while Miles was clearly flustered. He then turned and started quickly walking away towards the ballroom, Ty close behind in suit. Then the other six realized that once again, they were the last in the room, and quickly started heading towards the ballroom as well.

 

 

 

The sun had finally set, and people were setting up sleeping beds for the night. A few people were still up just chilling and talking, others were finally winding down and falling asleep. Once again, the ballroom was divided into the two genders just to make things easier, but there were still people from both sides hanging out. One of these groups was a bunch of people who were playing “Soaring Ninja 2” and had a huge tournament going on. Jacob was totally dominating the competition, while Natalie managed to hold her own, but still was knocked out. There was a second screen for games outside the tournament, so she went over to that. She started playing, and was winning fight after fight after fight.

            “I call next.” She turned and half expected to see Miles standing right behind her, but instead it was Ty. He sat down and pulled out his Scroll, and started the game. The two of them were pretty evenly matched, but Natalie managed to sneak out the win.

            “You’re pretty good.” She said.

            “Yeah. Still lost.” The two of them chuckled a little bit. A few people behind them started getting annoyed waiting for their turn. Ty then logged his Scroll out to let the next fighter in, and then Natalie followed in suit feeling a bit tired and ready for bed.

            “Hey, sorry about my friend/boss earlier.”

            “Your boss? That doesn’t sound very friendly. Most people can’t stand their bosses.” They both laughed at this, but then Ty took a bit more serious tone.

            “Tell me, how long had you and your friends lived in Aequo?”

            “Where’s this coming from?”

            “It’s just that Miles won’t ask or care about it unless I bring it up to him. You see, he actually was living there at the time of “that” incident.” Natalie stopped walking.

            “We lived there our whole lives.” She said. “My brother was gone when it happened.”

            “Anything else you remember? Like who it was that was attacking?”

            “I’m sorry. It was about seven years ago now. I don’t really remember it all that much.” Natalie said, clearly uncomfortable.

            “All right. Sorry to bother you.” Ty said as he started walking away.

            “Wait. Ty, right?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Thanks for talking to me. You know, instead of blasting a bazooka by my head.”

            “Actually, I was the one who fired that rocket past you.” Natalie gave a look of confusion.

            “Why shoot if you knew you could just talk to me?”

            “Look, Miles is a huge drama queen. And normally I wouldn’t go along with it, but frankly, it doesn’t really bother me.”

            “Really?”

            “Yeah. He’s just a guy with some ideas of grandeur, and just comes off in the wrong way.”

            “What are you trying to say?”

            “I’m just saying, don’t hate him. He’s a kid, just like all of us. He just thinks that he doesn’t deserve friends after what happened during “that” event.”

            “Really? What?”

            “Well…” suddenly a black sword appeared right at Ty’s neck. Standing behind him was Miles, with a look of clear anger.

            “Ty, what have I said about revealing my backstory to people you sympathize with?”

            “Look, you scared the kid half to death, nearly beat her to a pulp, and pretty much declared her your rival all in one airship ride. I’m pretty sure at the very least she needs to know she won’t be killed in her sleep tonight!” Miles chuckled a bit at this, then put his sword away, and walked over to Natalie. She took a step backwards at this.

            “I’m sorry. I guess I got too carried away today. I’ll be honest; you do have a ways to go before I can even say you’re on my level. But, you do have what it takes to be here. You aren’t just some kid. You’re somebody who’s willing to fight for what is right. I respect that.” He stuck his hand out for a handshake. Natalie looked down, then back up at Miles. Then looked over at Ty.

            “Is he bipolar or something?”

            “Nah. One minute he could think he’s a warrior of light, the next minute he thinks he’s one of those crazy anti-heroes destined for loneliness or something. Just like every anime character ever.” The two of them started laughing, leaving Miles, once again, fuming with embarrassment.

            “Ugh. I’m going outside.” Miles said as he walked away. Natalie then walked over to Ty, and shook his hand.

            “When he’s done pouting, let him know I accept his apology.”

            “Will do.”

 

 

 

Miles stood out on the guardrail of the Ballroom, the wind now having a warmer feel to it. He hung his head down. What was it about her that caused such a shift in his mind? He tried thinking back to that day seven years ago, but again couldn’t focus on anything but that moment. He slammed the guardrail in frustration and turned to leave. He only took two steps before he ran into something, or rather someone, and fell right over. He looked up and saw Blake standing right above him, giggling a little bit at him as he scrambled to try and get back up, but promptly fell right back onto the ground. She offered him a hand up, which he reluctantly accepted.

            “Wow. Only known you for a solid few days and I’ve already got you falling at my feet.” Blake joked. Miles held back the urge to come up with a retort because he knew none of them would work.

            “What do you want Blake?”

            “Hey! You actually used my first name this time! That’s progress!”

            “I’m not in the mood Blake. Can you please let me go back inside?”

            “Look, I know today was a bit of a long one for you, but in all fairness, you started it. I mean, some random girl on the flight deck is practicing, and you launch a bazooka rocket at her, insult her honor, and almost try and kill her? What were you thinking?”

            “Honestly, nothing at first. The bazooka thing was just me being a jackwagon, but then when I saw her face, something about it was familiar. Like I’d seen it before.”

            “How so?”

            “Well, apparently she and I lived in the same village. But, that’s not what bugs me. I see something in her eyes. It mainly struck me when I basically insulted her honor as your said. She looked not like somebody who would want to hide, but somebody who would want to tear me into pieces.”

            “Well, that’s normally the common response to something like that.”

            “Yeah, but it’s like she found some hidden power. Like she knows it’s what most people think, but she’s willing to fight against it. Change her destiny if you will.”

            “…Okay that made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.”

            “It doesn’t make much sense to me either. I guess…she just reminds me of when I was able to fight for my friends.”

            “You have Ty, don’t you?”

            “Yeah, but he could take care of himself if he really wanted to. I call him my “friend” for public speaking because, well in reality, we don’t know that much about each other. All he knows about me is that I was apart of the Aequo incident and all I know about him is that he has some connection with the Great Demon Slayer Huntsman Vergil. But other than that, it’s just been us going about our business trying to take down the White Fang.”

            “What is your business with the White Fang? I never got that part from you.” Miles sighed, and then turned back towards the guardrail.

            “I really don’t like talking about it.”

            “Maybe if you told me, it could help you figure out what it is that’s bothering you so much.” Blake said, putting her hand on his shoulder.  Miles looked up, then lowered his head.

            “I honestly don’t remember that much. I always end up focusing on one particular part. They had captured my family and all the neighbors and rounded them up in the town square. I was hiding, trying to figure out what to do. Then I saw him. Adam. He was giving orders to everybody, and had his back turned to me. I could have killed him right then and there. I could have cut him right in half, but then I thought I could save everybody. I thought I had the strength. The speed. But I was wrong. As I tried to save them, Adam killed all of them right in front of me. He just, ended them. Right then and there. After that, I don’t remember much. I think the Atlesian military showed up soon after or something. But all I know is that since I didn’t kill Adam when I had the chance, now there are hundreds more dead now and probably hundreds more before we even get close to capturing and killing him.” There was a few seconds of silence after Miles finished. Not sure what to say, Blake leaned on the railing as well and looked to the stars.

            “Look, you can’t always know what your actions are going to create. I mean, take me for example. I was trained by Adam to be a killer. I was trained to fight by the person who’s now become my most hated enemy. But without him, I couldn’t have found the path I’m on now. We can’t predict the future. We can only do what is right in the here and now.”

            “And here I thought I was preachy.” The two of them laughed as some of the awkwardness finally dissipated. “Thanks Blake.”

            “For what?”

            “I guess, for just being willing to listen to me. Or at least for making an effort to. Not many people are willing to just talk to me in general.”

            “I’ve found that it’s usually not that people don’t want to talk to you, but rather they are waiting for you to talk to them.”

            “Heh. Beats me. Look, the thing is, I just don’t deal with people very well. I sometimes feel like I’m imposing myself onto others rather than joining the conversation.”

            “Look, we could argue this until the sun rises, but you need some rest. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day for everybody in that room. Yourself included”

            “Ha. Fighting a few Grimm, I can handle no problem.”

            “Careful though. The first person you make eye contact with in the forest is your partner for the next four years.”

            “Fine. I’ll just keep an eye out as to where Ty lands.”

            “Not going to be that simple. Trust me on that one.”

            “Great. We’ll see what comes to fruition tomorrow. My view of looking ahead, or your idea of the here and now.”

            “What’s that got to do with anything?”

            “I don’t know. Fit the discussion I guess.” They both turned to leave, Miles heading back inside, Blake using her weapon to hop back onto the roof and make her way back towards the dorms. As the two of them left, a small figure appeared out of thin air and stood up. After looking out at the stars, Natalie decided it was time to turn in for the night.

 

 

 

As the sun rose the next morning, Evan started putting his gear on, preparing for initiation.

            “Remember Christy, even if we don’t end up being teammates by the eye contact rule, we could still end up on the same team as long as we figure out this years Relic system.”

            “Yeah yeah. You keep reminding me even though you’ve told me like A THOUSAND TIMES!”

            “Just making sure you’ve got it memorized.” Evan said tapping her forehead. She knocked his hand away sheepishly and blushed a little bit. She then grabbed her two axes and put them in the holsters, and made her way to the transport. Evan started following in suit, then noticed Nathan and Natalie.

            “Hey, how you two feeling this morning?”

            “I’m feeling like I’m ready to crash some heads!” Nathan yelled in excitement!          “Meanwhile, Natls here is still being all, well, Natl-ey.” Natalie was busy just sitting there deep in thought.

            “Hasn’t she always been like this though?” Evan asked.

            “Well, before yeah. But then when we hit the road she became a lot more open to adventures and the like. Now she looks like she’s contemplating the answer to life or something. Hey! Earth to Natls!” Natalie snapped her attention towards her brother, and realized he was all ready to go.

            “Oh. Sorry Nathan. I’ll be right with you guys.” She quickly got up and grabbed the last of what she needed. She made sure all her cartridges were loaded and there was one full clip on both sides of her weapon. As she got up, she saw Miles and Ty conversing together as they started heading towards the transport. She started to walk over to them when a hand was placed on her shoulder.

            “Hey, don’t worry about that guy.” Brooklyn joked. “He’s all talk and no bite. If you could kick his can, then ho boy, I can’t WAIT to see what I can do against him!”

            “I’m sorry, who are you again?”

            “Oh. Sorry. I’m Brooklyn. Jacob's friend.”

            “Aha. That’s right. Sorry. Names don’t really stick at first. I’ll get it memorized though.”

            “Good. You’d better. After all, there’s a possibility we could be teammates.”

            “Really?”

            “Sure! I mean, I don’t know how the forest will work, and I’ve heard they are trying to be a bit more random this year, so who knows what will happen!”

            “Right.”

 

 

 

The transport finally reached the edge of the Emerald forest, and all the students poured out. They then reached the cliffs that overlooked the forest, as well as the launch pads. As each of the students picked a platform, Professor Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch stood in front of them.

            “Now I’m sure you are all aware as to how this works. But a refresher could never hurt. You are to go into the Emerald Forest and reach an old temple to the north of here. There you will find ancient Relics that you will retrieve and bring back here. You will be graded during the duration of the trial, and during that time, you will form your teams. Let me be clear, the first person you make eye contact with in this forest will be your teammate for the next four years. However, this year we are making things a bit more interesting. Rather than launching you all at once, we have something different in mind.” As he said this, giant walls popped up in front of each of the students. “I know that some of you had plans of attempting to choose your own partners while in this forest. But to ensure true randomization, we will launch each person one at a time until they land, and none of you will see where or how they have landed. Good luck to you all.” As soon as he said that, the platforms began launching students into the forest one at a time. Miles was a bit nervous as now rather than being able to plan out how to meet up with Ty, he would have to go with chance, and that could end poorly. As his turn came up, the wall dropped, and he was launched sky high. He flew without changing course whatsoever. He then started falling into a grove of trees, and went straight into a dive feet first. As he started quickly approaching the ground, he then changed his gravitational pull to straight up about 5 feet from the ground, greatly slowing his momentum as if he was on a bungee cord. As he reached his slowest point, he reverted his gravity to normal and landed on the ground, brushed his shoulder off and started making his way to the north.

 

 

 

Natalie noticed a slight flaw with Ozpin’s system. Even though she couldn’t look straight ahead, she could peek past the wall to see what was going on. But as her brother was about to be launched, Professor Goodwitch caught sight of her and made a snapping sound with her Riding Crop, to which Natalie quickly hid back behind the wall. She then turned invisible to peek around the corner and noticed her brother using his Billy Clubs to basically slide down between two trees, and disappeared into the foliage. Next up was Jacob. He was launched sky high, and then pulled out one of his knives and spun around the tree like he was going down a slide. Next, Christy went flying into the forest, and landed on the top of one the trees with her axes as handles. Then Evan went flying, and threw his spear ahead and used it as a springboard to land on the ground. Ty was launched next, and he nonchalantly just flew straight into the forest without seeming like he needed to slow himself down at all. The landing created a crater pretty wide from Natalie’s perspective. Finally, Brooklyn was launched, and she used her scimitar to spin around on a branch until she slowed down and landed easily. There were a few people that had to go before Natalie, and she started worrying that the others would have already found partners before she managed to land. But she put that all behind her as her turn came up and she was launched sky high. As she started descending towards the tree line, she pulled out her weapon, fired a few shots to slow herself down, then split the weapon into two, and used them as picks to claw into the tree. She then dropped down, reformed her weapon into one, and turned invisible. She knew if she stayed hidden, there was a greater chance that she would find somebody she would be willing to work with rather than just running the chance of being paired with somebody she didn’t want to be teammates with. As she started running, she noticed that there was hardly anybody around. She kicked herself for not adjusting her trajectory towards where she saw Nathan land more than she already had. She then came up on a clearing, where she saw a giant Ursa. The Grimm hadn’t noticed her, rather was looking in a completely different direction. She prepared her weapon, and rushed in to slice it in half. She was about 12 feet away when she ran into something. It was a pretty bad collision, as she tumbled right to the feet of the Grimm, and turned visible again. As she tried to regain her senses, the Ursa raised one of its massive claws and prepared to slice her right in half. But suddenly, the hand fell off as it had been sliced cleanly away from the body, and just as swiftly as that had happened, a sword stabbed through the Ursas head and into the ground. Natalie couldn’t see her rescuers face, as the disintegration of the Ursa got in the way. But when the darkness flew away, Natalie cursed herself for not turning invisible again. Right in front of her, looking her dead in the eyes, was Miles, who seemed just as surprised as she was. They blinked, looked at each other for another few seconds, and then simultaneously face-palmed.

Author's Note

Please review and enjoy!

Reviews

[Shep]

Oh, you got to love karma when it comes to Miles and Natalie they were made for each other. I loved this chapter the detail was amazing so was the pace of the story ana d the way the characters bounce off each other like old friends. Moving on to the next page, Please be kind and return the love.