Write

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Estelle Sidos Heurassein - Defending a Caravan

Estelle felt the Death Stalker crumble underneath her added weight and her blade pierce it truly. She wedged her blade between the carapaces perfectly, with a warm smile she took hold of her sword, twisting it until it pulled free. She looked over to Sterling who seemed to be okay, she gave him a chuckle when he called her babe. She waved at him, before realizing that her two teammates had not faired as well as Sterling and herself had.

She watched as he attempted to save their teammate, which only made Estelle realize there was one unaccounted for. She scanned the surrounding for Sarina and as soon as she saw her, she took off. She heard Sterling call out to her telling her what she had already chosen as a course of action. She saw the five Nightmares and immediately began preemptively increasing her weight. She had a semblance of an idea on how to defeat them while protecting Sarina.

She barreled into one of the nightmares, attempting to push it onto its side, leading with her blade. She knew that for her and Sarina to stand a chance against the Nightmares, she had to thin their numbers quickly. Estelle planned on strengthening her weight in order to hold her ground against the potentially charging Nightmares. Estelle felt her body collide with the dark hide of the Nightmare and silently cursed under her breath. When Bianca had told her of the wonders that Beacon held, this was not one of them.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Estelle Sidos Heurassein - Team JESS - Defending a Caravan

Estelle looking to her right as her male teammate attempted to distract the deathstalker below them. The air attempted to push her back but she did not stray. Her advanced, owl-like eyes taking aim at her target. She unsheathed her weapon, placing the blade horizontally in front of her. She channeled her aura for a few seemingly silent moments.

“Cover me.” She shouted out at her teammates over the whirring of the aircraft. She leapt out into the air, using her semblance to increase her weight, quickly plummeting down onto the surface, her aim to provide a killing blow to the deathstalker below them.

---

A Friend in Need

The airship transporting VGNB set them down just outside of a large city, known to the team as Zephyr. It was well known for being part of the region where many noble houses were located, Nuit, and Dodici being the chief two. The flight over had taken awhile and for some time, they were able to see another Beacon airship transporting team JESS not too far from there own, as it was also headed towards Beacon. The intel that had been available was, they had Bianca's letter and their wits.

A message would be sent to Napoli's scroll from Ozpin,

To: Napoli Fiordilatte
Subject: RE: New Mission
Message:

Mr. Fiordilatte,

Strings have been pulled. I expect a full debriefing upon your return. Best of luck.

~Ozpin

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

curse you @Write I have other things to do besides working on this contest entry but it keeps pulling me back

@Kaithas

It's here that I simultaneously cackle and apologize.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Estelle Sidos Heurassein - Team JESS - The Arena

“Are you guys the senior team? Jessica or something?” Someone said from Estelle’s flank. She turned to meet the younger man brining a hand up to her face to gently move her hair behind her ear.

“Team Jessant, that’s us.” Estelle said looking at the boy. He had his scroll out and he seemed to be reading instructions from it.

“I have a message for you, all. Professor Ozpin has requested that you take on a mission, it has just come through and it’s not going to be easy. Ozpin’s message is this: We need a senior team to tackle this one. We have a trading caravan coming in from Mistral that is a biannual flow of resources moving between our countries. However, we’ve been told there are large groups of Grimm moving on the Caravan’s location. We need to move swiftly and with tact. Your objective is to figure out what is drawing the Grim to the caravan and defend it, we don’t know when exactly the Grimm will arrive, so you’ll need to have at least one team member awake at all times, this job should last a full 24 hours. As this is so last minute, we have no time to send you back up. Good luck.” The young man took a second to catch his breath before coming to the realization that he was finished giving Ozpin’s report.

Estelle glanced back at her team, she felt as if they were ready. Even if Estelle hadn’t slept much and had just partaken in two training matches. “Very well, we’ll leave immediately.” Estelle said putting a hand on her weapon. She turned back to the rest of her team and garnered their attention. “Is there anything anyone needs to get before we leave? Remember we’ll be gone for a couple days.” Estelle took a step forward towards her teammates. "If not we'll head to the helipad now."

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

<Snipped quote by Write>

See, I'm the opposite of PoS. I have so much trouble getting long stories. I seem to always unconsciously skimp out on details like appearances, character's emotions, etc. that are always so important to a story and that's why I think I don't win as often, despite always seeming to get high praise from readers. They understand what I'm trying to achieve but I don't seem to hit the mark exactly, making a great idea become only a good entry.

@Guess Who

The best I can give you is to work on it and know your patterns. If you find that you always cut stuff out, leave it in and revise it later. You have just over half the month, there's no hurry.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

<Snipped quote by Write>

Wow, my entry is way under the word limit now.

@Guess Who

It's a limit, not a bar you need to hit, please do be aware of that and it's in place for people like PoS, who mentioned that he has trouble not writing a ton. Any amount of words is fine but you wouldn't want to submit anything under 500 for sure, unless it was pure gold. Either way, you have a ton of time. Until nearly the end of the month.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Kaithas @Prince of Seraphs
I've changed it to two thousand, hopefully this is doable while still remaining a challenge.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

<Snipped quote by Write>

I totally understand the need to not have filler. My personal difficulty with the word limit is that I have to contrive, plot, and show a death scene all while involving the reader emotionally in an extremely short story with very little buildup. Other than that I agree.

@Kaithas

I guess that's fair, I suppose I could bump the limit up a bit. But the point of the challenge is to really do a great job with as few words as possible. So I guess I can change it to 2,000 or maybe a little higher. But I don't know, opinions anyone?

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Prince of Seraphs

To be completely frank, that's the point. The challenge is to sell me on a death in one thousand words. Use every word wisely, I don't want any filler, nothing that doesn't belong. It can and has been done with great success before and is a completely different talent than 'write as much as you can and sell me on your idea.'

So yeah I'm super serious. Sell me in a thousand words, it requires careful thought and planning moreso than doing it in ten thousand words.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@HereComesTheSnow

Of course I do. Now go to sleep.