Chapter 1 – The Next Step
(Ice's POV)
So... It's been a few months since the Fall of Beacon as well as the disappearance of Silver, we have been staying at Taiyang's place as he offered to let us stay over as long as we helped out with keeping the house stable since he can't manage 5 people all by himself, the team including myself have taken it hard since we lost Silver and we have no clue on where the hell she is although I firmly believe that we will find answers for when we go to Haven Academy which Ruby has agreed to join us on the journey there.
It was a spring morning for when we all decided to set off on our journey to Haven, I now wore a black trench coat with red lines that streaked from the large collar down to the end of the coat, I had dark grey pants on and wore a red shirt plus now got a sword sheath for my katana Hito and a holster for the gun.
Neo went back to her usual design with her ice cream coloured hair, jeans with the belt, knee high white boots, the lined shirt she wears underneath the white and pink jacket, her black gloves and the necklaces she has as well as reverting back to her umbrella as her weapon.
Naniele had a change of style too now she was wearing a light pink shirt, a white jacket with yellow lines at the zips and the cuffs of the jacket along with breast pocket with a gold button, she wears white pants and 2 sheaths for her daggers on each side of the pants and she now has a butterfly hair clip in her fringe.
"Hey Taiyang, thanks for everything up to this point." I walked up to him and thanked him for everything he has done for us and handed him an axe with a sun engraving on it.
"It was nothing, in exchange keep my daughter safe." He took the axe happily and smiled at me, I just smiled back and turned to the team.
"Alright are we ready?" I asked the team as we are now team IRNN.
"Yeah, as good as ever, we need to get Silver back." Naniele spoke first, showing a much more confident face which I am happy to see.
"I wanted to go to Haven anyway so I'll come with you all the way also thanks dad for letting me go!" Ruby waved to Taiyang and he just stood and watched with that damn proud father face.
And Neo just nodded yes, she still looks a bit down from Losing Silver.
Just as we were about to leave the place, "Wait!" Yang shouted from the living room as she ran to see us off with Zwei and the three legged Heathen, we all turned back to see what she had to say.
"… Bring me back a souvenir from Mistral." She smirked as she stood in the hallway besides Taiyang, I guess that was her way of saying goodbye to us.
"Sure thing!" I gave the thumbs up as we all left to begin our adventure to Haven.
"Ruby, are you sure about coming with us?" Naniele ran up besides her as we walked on a path through the woods.
"Yeah, I wanted to go to Haven myself and I want to find Silver too, she's my friend as well." Ruby gave her answer.
"I want to find Silver too, I'm happy you are coming with us." Naniele said with a cheerful smile, it's nice to see that she has developed so much since I found her almost 2 years ago now if I'm right.
Skipping to a few weeks later and a sea journey after finding out that Naniele has never been on a boat before was amusing as she was surprised with seeing the sea life and then getting sea sick which is not surprising since it's her first time, we finally got into Mistral to start out journey to Haven.
A week in and we took a job from a village to take out a Geist Grimm that has been causing trouble for the village for the past few weeks which turned out to have taken rocks to be its body... great.
I drew it's attention by firing a couple of shots at it the Geist golem and ran away from it by swinging through the trees and dodging all of its damn attacks until we came into a open area where Ruby and Naniele ambushed with a quick flurry of attacks all over its body where the Geist went into a defensive position to protect its face but the 2 wasn't strong enough to break any of the rocks on the thing. Neo came in from above to strike at it's face but she was launched away by an attack from the Geist golem.
"Crap, I forgot I need to hit this thing hard if I remember." I muttered to myself now that I hid behind a tree while the golem was busy with the other two.
I charge my flames into Hito and ran with the sword ready towards the Grimm, it came down with a heavy swing on me but I sliced its arm in half with the blade to stagger the thing, just hope either Ruby or Naniele get's the memo to shoot the face.
Ruby jumped from tree to tree, shooting its body and so did Naniele... they didn't get the memo...
"Guys! Attack it's face, we need to destroy the body!" I shout to them while dodging the next attack from its arm, the Geist went ahead to pick up a fallen tree trunk which is it's new arm now.
"Ice, how do we do that?" Naniele asks me from the trees.
"I'll have to use my power attack on it and when I do, you two shoot it once it pops out!" I got the plan sorted, charging my flames until they explode into blue light, I pulled out a gauntlet and slipped it onto my hand and put Hito back in it's holder, ready to pound the thing.
I jumped onto the Geist's arm as it swung for me again while Ruby was shooting it's face which forced it to take a defensive position, I ran up the arm, jumped into the air, my arm shone blew as my blue flame bomb was ready.
"Blue... Flame... Bomb!" I did a twist in the air as I hammered down on the Geist, completely shattering it's body in a large explosion of flames that shook the air nearby and lit up the area. I landed on my feet away from the explosion radius that luckily didn't reach far enough to hit the other trees, the Geist appeared from its broken body and went to escape before Neo came out of nowhere and stomped on the thing, it tried escaping from her boot where it struggle was in vain as she drew the hidden blade from the umbrella slowly and struck into it's face which ended its miserable life.
"What a way to steal all the credit Neo." I joked, walking up to her.
"Only natural." She signed and chuckled slightly, nice to see a smile is coming back to her for once.
"Well, time to tell the village that they are safe now." Ruby walked up to us with Crescent rose in her arms.
"Yeah, let's go." I agreed.
Back at the village, the elder came up to us with his 2 guards.
"Thank you for doing this for us, that Grimm has been causing us grief for a long time now, we don't have much but please accept this as a token of thanks." He passed us a map, some food and water to help us on our trip.
"Thank you, that's plenty." I thanked him with gratitude.
"So you not going to hang around for a bit?" The elder asked us.
"Nope, we got somewhere to be." I said, starting to take a walk off.
"We are happy to be of help, stay safe." Naniele commented to him, now walking off with him and then the rest of the team followed.
"Alright guys one pit-stop before we head off." I announced walking up to a blacksmiths.
We walked in and I walked up to the counter where the smith was there reading a news paper about the reconstruction of Beacon.
"Yo, is the dagger ready?" I asked.
"Yeah give me a moment I'll bring it out." He walked into the storage room and quickly came back out with a dagger with a leather grip and on the hilt was Silver's emblem etched onto the hilt on the blade.
"That metal you gave me was mighty fine, where did you get it from?" He asked me curiously.
"Heh... I got it from a place we can't go back anymore." I answered, slowly turning to Neo, giving her the dagger.
"Well that's a shame, if you can go back, make sure to bring me some of that metal back." He said to me one more time.
"Sure, will do." I answered and looked over at Neo where I noticed she had tears streaming down her face while she stared down at Silver's emblem with tears hitting onto the blade, I put my hand on her shoulder and gave a warm smile to her.
"Sorry, I thought you'd like it." I apologised, I think I made a mistake here.
Neo just shook her head to disagree and jumped into me to make a hug as she softly and quietly sobs, I was taken by surprised at first but then I just hugged her back.
"...We will get Silver back, I promise that." I promised her and swore to keep it.
Neo slowly broke the hug and just gave me a smile of determination, I have her the sheath for the dagger which she tied around her waist and carefully slides the dagger in.
"Ice..." Naniele silently spoke.
"Don't worry our mission is still the same, lets keep going!" I shout out loud with my head looking up to the adventure that awaits us.
"Hey no yelling in my shop!" The blacksmith scolds me.
"Sorry..." I apologise.
