Chapter 1: The Calm
Jaune Arc
10:00am,
Alliance Trenches,
The Divide
War, is an ugly, messy thing. And unfortunately for Jaune, he was currently up to his ears in the stuff. In fact the entire world was up to its respective ears in war, courtesy of some shadowy behind the scenes group manipulating the four kingdoms of the world.
As it currently stood, it was Atlas and Vale against Mistral and Vacuo, battling it out across the continent of Vytal, Jaune's homeland. And it wasn't going well, at least, not for Jaune and team JNPR anyway.
Vale and Atlas were situated right in the middle of Vacuo and Mistral, cutting the two kingdoms off from one another, and whilst this meant that they couldn't unify their armies, it also meant that The Central Alliance (the name for Atlas and Vale's partnership) was having to fight a war on two opposing fronts.
Soon after the war had kicked off many Huntsman and Huntresses had been drafted to help combat the hordes of Grimm attracted by the war, and of course to help slay the enemy for the good of the kingdom and so on. All Jaune really cared about at the moment though was getting his teammates, and as many other fellow soldiers as he could, out of their next battle alive.
Said next battle was the capture of a large town which had previously belonged to Vale but which was currently under Mistral control.
The town itself was actually quite important, situated on the southern shore of Vytal's northern most island it acted is a bridge between Atlas and Vale, and if Mistral managed to hold onto it they would be able to drive a wedge between Atlas and Vale and turn the tide of the war. As a result the island had been dubbed: "The Divide".
From his position in the trenches, located a few hundred metres away from the town, Jaune could easily make out the first row of buildings. He could also make out what was going to be their biggest problem in taking the town. The fact that he and the rest of the soldiers would have to charge across a nice, long, unprotected and narrow bridge to get to the town.
No airships for them, no the airships were all tied up on the eastern and western fronts, suppressing the enemy armies and preventing them from sending reinforcements to secure their foothold on Vytal. Which was actually pretty smart but it still pissed Jaune off.
He sighed in frustration and ducked back into the trenches, feeling a little bit too vulnerable with his head poking above them, especially with the Mistral huntsman hanging around.
"That guy..." Jaune thought, narrowing his eyes and casting his mind back to a previous battle.
The Mistral huntsman was called Glacial Frost, and he was the most terrifying man Jaune had ever fought. A true killer with no regard for human life, or even his own so it seemed.
"A true soldier." Jaune thought, before shuddering and shaking his head to clear his mind as he emerged into a large clearing full of breakfasting soldiers.
"Jaune!" Pyrrha called, the early morning sun glancing off of her golden head piece and setting her red hair ablaze.
Jaune stared for a moment, transfixed by her before snapping out of it and waving in return. It was happening more and more nowadays, and he found himself wondering whether or not it was the war that was making him feel that way, or something else entirely.
"Good morning fearless leader!" Nora sung, cutting up pancakes whose origins Jaune still failed to understand "Did you come up with some crazy awesome plan again?!"
"Eh kind of," Jaune replied, sitting down next to Ren and across from Pyrrha "the main problem is getting across that bridge, but after that it should be pretty simple."
"Don't forget about Glacial." Pyrrha warned, her green eyes dark with anger as she rubbed her wrists.
Jaune cast a glance downwards and saw that her golden bracers still bore the deep, long gashes in them from an earlier encounter with Glacial. If she hadn't been wearing them he would have slit her wrists and left her to die. It wasn't something Jaune liked to think about.
"Don't worry," he said, giving her hand a friendly squeeze "I haven't forgotten him."
He let go of her hand, suddenly thinking it might be more friendly then he thought, and subsequently blushed.
"The uh, problem with that um, is that," he stammered as Ren grinned knowingly and Nora giggled "is that we don't know where he is or what his plan is. We'll just have to adapt on the fly."
Pyrrha gave Jaune a worried look but before she could voice any of her thoughts Cyrus Lapel came striding up to them.
A tall man in his early thirties, with a kind face, grey eyes and brown hair, Cyrus was the commander of this particular division of The Central Alliance. He was wearing the standard captain's outfit, a silver-white set of slim, sleek armour with the captain's insignia on his left shoulder. Slung over his back was a large, equally sleek looking machine gun.
Jaune smiled at his commander and snapped a salute, as did the rest of team JNPR, he knew the captain thought little of such formalities, most frontline soldiers did, but he respected the man too much to let it go.
"At ease guys, at ease." Cyrus chuckled, his hands clasped behind his back out of habit "Just came by to hand out your orders."
"Are we attacking soon?" Ren asked, straight to the point as usual.
"Indeed we are son, no need to be so eager though, what we're about to do ain't gonna be fun." Cyrus replied, putting extra emphasis on the last part "It's basically a charge."
"Is that really our best option sir?" Jaune asked, as team JNPR looked worriedly amongst themselves.
"Unfortunately it's our only option," Cryus sighed "we've no air support to speak of and only a few more days to capture and fortify our position here. The crux of it is, if we don't take this town and hold it by the end of the week, then we're all dead men. Not to mention all the damage they could do to the rest of The Central Alliance from here."
One week, that was how long they had until the enemy's reinforcements arrived. After that any attack on the town would be a suicidal one.
"So what's the plan?" Jaune asked.
"We'll be charging over at midday today," Cyrus explained, as team JNPR took on determined looks to mask their fear "Atlesian Knights will go first as bullet sponges to protect us. We'll go after them and establish covering fire from our side of the bridge whilst more men move across it. Your job in all of this will be to find Glacial and neutralise him."
Jaune's eyes widened slightly, but he quickly steeled himself to the task.
"That bastard nearly killed Pyrrha," he thought darkly "time for some payback."
Jaune didn't like killing, well killing humans, killing Grimm kind of came with the job, but when it came to Glacial he was willing to make an exception. Or at least he thought he was.
"Midday doesn't give us much time," Pyrrha said, as Nora gobbled up the last of her breakfast "and how are we supposed to take him out anyway?"
"That's up to you and your fearless leader," Cyrus chuckled, injecting some humour into the situation "I'll leave you to finish your breakfast."
"Great," Jaune said, turning back to his team "so all we have to do is survive and overland charge, kill a professional Warcaster and take over and hold a town."
"I'm sure you'll think of something Jaune." Pyrrha said comfortingly.
"Yeah, you always do!" Nora added.
"I have faith." Was all Ren had to say, but then he never really said much anyway.
Jaune smiled and nodded, looking back towards the town and wondering what Glacial was doing right about now.
Glacial Frost
11:30am,
The Town,
The Divide
A tall man just past thirty, with a slim yet muscular figure and mid length snow white hair swept back from his face, revealing handsome features and brilliant, icy blue eyes pulled back the bolt on a massive sniper rifle and checked the firing chamber to make sure it was clean.
Satisfied with the result, Glacial Frost placed the rifle near the opening of the tower's wall, overlooking the bridge that the Central Alliance would have to cross if they wanted to make it into town.
He let out a sigh and leaned back, scooping up a can of warm fizzy drink and cooling it with his semblance. Said semblance being the ability to freeze things and summon ice from thin air.
It was a brilliant morning all things considered, the sun was warm, the sky was blue and there wasn't a single cloud to block out the light. It would have been perfect if it weren't for the bloody Central Alliance.
"Hey, I have an idea," Glacial said out loud, popping the tab on his can "let's impose our policies and ideals on the rest of the world! That'll really help us maintain our individualism! And when that doesn't work let's put together a fleet of warships and robots and station them right outside the other kingdoms!"
"Can't say they didn't try sir," Magenta replied, smiling as she brought a box full of bullets and empty clips over to Glacial "and don't forget the bombings and the breach in our wall or the Grimm attack. Those were pretty bad too."
Magenta was one of Glacial's teammates, around the same age as Glacial himself with hair the colour of smoke, shot through with crimson streaks and spiky, black armour.
"Too true," Glacial agreed, as he put his can down and began loading bullets into clips "Mellow and I can do this, you head back to the plaza and make sure everything is ready."
Magenta nodded and left, disappearing quickly back the way she had come.
Meanwhile, Glacial downed the rest of his drink, popped a small stick of remotely controlled explosive plastic into the empty can, crumpled it up and tossed it out the opening and down onto the bridge below.
It landed with a clatter and rolled out toward the bridge's centre. Glacial scooped up another can and popped the tab, then shook it at Mellow.
"Hey, lover boy!" He called, causing Mellow to straighten up and focus on Glacial "How about a little help here? Don't drink too much though, I don't want you asking for toilet breaks in the middle of a firefight."
Mellow laughed nervously and picked up a can. He was a young man, a boy really, with dull blonde hair and a battle worn uniform. He was the most recent addition to Glacial's squad and, as his name suggested, he was an extremely calm young man with little to no temper and a penchant for keeping his calm.
He had a girl back home, one whose picture he wore inside a locket on his neck at all times and was always happy to help out with whatever needed doing.
Glacial briefly considered asking him about the locket as they drank, but then decided against it. He didn't feel like a depressing conversation about longing and loneliness.
"Glacial, we got movement." Came Shadow's voice, crackling out of Glacial's radio "Looks like their getting ready to charge."
Shadow was the medic on Glacial's squad and it's fourth and final member. He was standing by in one of the other buildings, acting as a spotter for the rest of the men.
"Thanks Shadow," Glacial replied, dropping another explosive can onto the bridge below "have Magenta get everyone into position, then radio me with an update."
Glacial glanced out towards the Central Alliance's trenches, then turned back to Mellow and poured his next can straight out onto the floor.
"C'mon, chop chop," he said brightly "three more then we're done."
Mellow nodded and began pouring out and filling up the next few cans.
"Shadow here," the radio crackled "we're ready to go, just waiting on the bad guys now."
"Roger that Shadow," Glacial replied, before switching off the radio and giving Mellow a thumbs up "Here we go."
The two men grabbed their rifles and lay down prone near the opening, with their guns' noses sticking out over the edge.
The bridge had been rigged to explode as a last resort, Glacial wasn't going to damage such important infrastructure if he could help it. Or unless there were a tonne of Alliance soldiers on it.
On the village's side of the bridge they had set up a massive heavy machine gun, surrounded by sandbags and manned by three men. The rest of Glacial's men were spread out in the surrounding buildings, they had used up a lot of their ammo and resources taking the town and so he wanted them to conserve what little they had left.
To that end the machine gunners had been ordered to fire short, accurate bursts at enemies attempting to cross the bridge. The machine gun was their biggest asset and they couldn't afford to waste its ammo on far off targets.
And that's where Glacial and Mellow came in. Glacial would pick off the Alliance's heavy hitters, huntsmen and paladins mainly, with his high powered rifle, whilst Mellow would go for squad leaders and vulnerable soldiers. His small caliber rounds didn't travel as fast or hit as hard as Glacial's anyway, and so any shot he fired would probably be deflected by the Alliance's huntsmen due to their aura and reflexes.
In addition to that, there were several men with rocket launchers and assault rifles ready to lay down suppressing fire on the Alliance when they advanced.
Glacial took a breath to steady himself before looking through the scope.
"Oh shit," he sighed as he saw an Atlesian Paladin clambering over the trenches "here we go."
Hey Reader thanks for reading this little story of mine. This story will be done in four parts, three chapters and an epilogue which will be released weekly. I hope you've enjoyed it and if you feel like doing so I would be thrilled to see you guys leave a review.
See you all next week and thanks again for reading!