Ice Spirits Attack

"Looks like we have eyes on target."

"Where, I can't see anything?"

Winter's terminal blindness made Akari grab his head and face him towards the group of enemies setting up what looked to be their base camp in a cave they cleared out using earth magic.

The two snow spirits basically watched at a distance far enough away where they could be seen but not completely made out. They wanted to be seen, to instill the parts of fear that they were being watched, sadly, they hadn't been noticed.

"This is gonna be fun, how should we scare them first? Erwin, get a drone down there, we need to know their every movement."

"Roger, Major. Shall I send word back to everyone else that we're about to get scary?"

"...Yeah. Oh? Akari, they're sending someone over here?"

They had been spotted and Winter wanted to know if they should do something to this guy and his buddy, after all, this could be a great start.

"Wait, I have an idea. Major, I hope you don't mind a bit of brutality."

"...What the fuck is that? No, what are those?"

Walking up a semi-step hill, Breidalian soldiers were told to go and check out some "figures" staring at them from a hillside. At the moment, they were armed and more than ready to use force, what they were doing required no witnesses, especially Imperial witnesses.

"I don't know man, they seem pretty strange. I mean, is there any person in their right-"

A gust of snow and wind shot across the figures they were more than prepared to kill as soon as they reached the top, the figures quite literally vanished.

To their knowledge, there were no spells to simply make a person vanish, there were invisibility spells but those were more like really, really, good camouflage. One of them quickly fired a spell at where the two people should be standing to see if it really was camouflage but they were gone like the wind, they bolted up the hill and looked around to find anything but they found nothing except the cold and more snow hitting them.

One of them opened up a magical cell and looked at the meter to see no magic was active in the area, that meant those things straight up vanished, gone. Actually into thin air.

"...I told the Major this was a terrible plan, now we have spirits and shit chasing us! What the fuck!!!"

The magic gauge then shot to the very top as the snow was beginning to swirl around them. They weren't stupid, they tried to run off the top of the hill only for them to run into a wall of nothing, they had yet to find what was doing this.

"Jazzy, stay together!"

The small blizzard was starting to blind them, the soldier quickly reached out for his friend's hand but they were literally yanked off with their screams being louder than the howling wind.

He tried to give chase but found himself being lifted into the air by nothing. If he wasn't scared out of his mind, he would've noticed the flashing flames just behind him and the ceasing of his friend's screams.

"You shouldn't have come here. Leave...!!!"

He was suddenly dropped into the snow and was obviously hyper-ventilating. He dug himself out of the foot of snow and looked around to see his friend's body somehow sitting perfectly on top of the snow with no imprint at all. The words "leave" and "get out" were carved into his chest from what looked to be fire, his head was missing at that.

Even through the mask, you could feel the fear coming off of him, his body was frozen, but once he was back in control, he ran.

He ran right back to where he came from, even with the snow in his way, he bolted as fast as he could.

But, back on that hilltop, Winter and Akari sat up throwing snow off of their bodies. To vanish in front of the Breidalians eyes, Winter dug holes using his wind magic and covered them over, Akari had killed the scout, tossed his head, had Winter bury it, all while the Major was creating a blinding snow effect in front of the planned survivor.

He'd probably be returning with others, so, both Imperials got out of their snow graves and started to book out themselves with Winter using his magic to replace any displaced snow.

It wasn't long before they met with everyone else about halfway back toward their base, Winter had wanted to have a little fun in the night, he thought their first day on the job would be the perfect time to scare the hell out of these Breidalians.

"You found them quicker than we thought you would, Major." Chisai was the one speaking for everyone else, they were quickly distraught at having to come outside again.

They were all warm inside the cave thanks to the body heat and having to come out, spoiled their mood. Not like they would show Winter or Akari that as they would probably be yelled at for slacking or something of the sort, if there's anything they didn't want, it was that.

"Thank Lieutenant Akari, I couldn't even see them. But besides that, we want to give them a first night fright. Any ideas?"

"The Receptionist briefed us on what you did to the scouts, I think I might know what to do." Chisai stepped forward with a smile under her ski mask, she was hoping this one would get them good, "Also, Major, do we want to avoid direct combat?"

"...From what I can tell, you might want to. They outnumber us, though we may have an advantage in running away, in a head-on conflict, they have an advantage."

Said advantage would probably be the movement debuff they had while walking in the snow, the only person who wouldn't have problems is Akari since she could just melt it away.

But for now, they wanted to avoid a fight against the entire group. That should be easy enough seeing as the enemy doesn't even know they're here yet, Chisai's plan would be put into action, and Winter hoped it was a good one...

Later that very same day, the Breidalians were overlooking a map of the area, or at least what could be considered a map. Most of the terrain out there was either hills or mountains, most of it wasn't traversed and what was, probably wasn't holding what they were looking for.

"This is no help at all? What am I supposed to gain from this? Not to mention half of this doesn't even describe elevation change..."

Even while doing this, the mental note of what happened earlier was still in his mind. Two scouts went out and only one came back with reports of Ice Spirits telling them to leave, they were able to calm him down but the once excited man was now fearing even going outside.

It was problematic to lose one man and have one not wanting to go outside anymore. He didn't know what to take away from his story either, it was obvious that at least some truth was in it seeing as there was a decapitated body and words burned into his chest so he couldn't just pass it off as snow madness.

If he did, they might as well all turn back seeing as that would be some serious mass hysteria. Most felt sound in mind so it was fine for now. He even doubts these so-called snow monsters coming back at that.

"Commander...! We- we have a guest..."

The soldier moved out of the way as "snow spirit" pushed the man out of the way.

"What the hell!" The commander swiftly brought up a spare wand sitting on the table and a spell of flames flung across the room exploding on the figure but once the flames dissipated, it remained unhurt.

He could now see how it made it this far unharmed, it was invulnerable...

"...What... what do you want?" The commander steeled himself to the thing standing in front of him, if anything, it was a humanoid form, if magic didn't work, physical attacks were the next best thing.

If it came down to it, they could dogpile on top of it and try to kick the hell out of it or stab it.

In fact, the thing standing in front of him seemed to be made completely out of snow, the magic readers were going off so he was determined this thing was magic of magic. That didn't help though, they needed to know if there was a human controlling this or if it was some type of monster that was out here.

"We want you. To leave."

It didn't speak, instead, a stiff breeze carried the voice in chilling the room momentarily.

"You know, as much as I'd love to, we'd lose our jobs if we left, or even worse, we'd die."

"Stay here. Die anyway."

"There's a sure chance of something happening back home. With you! There's only a maybe, I think I know which odds I like better." He kept his stance, which was to be expected.

In some odd way, he was right. Home equaled an instant punishment, here in the tundra, the unknown factor of what this enemy was capable of made him think they have a chance. Even while sweat dripped from his chin, the smile of someone who wasn't going to give up was still on his face.

"In the face of death. You smile. You have made your choice."

Heavy winds burst into the cave knocking out any lights that were up and the figure was seemingly tornado'ed and carried out with the wind. The soldiers for one, no longer wanted to do this but their commander was right, these beings haven't done anything spectacular except maybe some blinding fireworks.

It was the tundra, getting blind wouldn't be a problem. Besides, the two that went out earlier didn't have their cell trackers on so it was no wonder the soldier earlier lost his partner.

The idea of winning was still in their minds and so, they would roll with it until they couldn't. One thing was for certain, these spirits were gonna need a strong showing of power to make these guys want to leave.

But, back with 102nd, they were resting on a hillside as a cloak flew over and Winter grabbed it out of the air then got back into his crouched position while putting it on.

"The idiots wanna brawl with some damn snow creatures...?" Chisai was even surprised that didn't work.

She was super confident in her plan, for it not to work, she was slumped in what to do.

"We should've had Winter grab two of them when he was bringing them back. There's no reason to show mercy to Breidal and its people!"

Never mind that Akari just said that with a Breidalian in their group. They didn't mind though, they knew they weren't part of the group she was talking about.

But, as evil, as it sounds, she was right in that regard. Snatching two of them up would've helped immensely in their little play. It was a little late for the moment to do so but if Erwin was right about his guess, they would be going out for a bit of night exploration.

They didn't want to kill them too slow or too fast, getting two or three tonight would be a good number.

"I should've just listened to you." Winter glanced over to Akari who smiled under her mask as she was finally right against Winter.

"I know, right?"

A lot of his students were going for pretty violent methods in scaring the Breidalians away. It just showed how well they were taught in terrifying their enemy into submission, some of the things they said sound like it would come straight out of fiction/movie. It was genuinely surprising.

This was him trying to be merciful for once but it's obvious that wouldn't work, if they were sent to be like monsters, they might as well do it.

"They're moving in the next twenty minutes. You might wanna start coming up with plans now."

Erwin came through making the relaxed soldiers stand with their Major.

"They didn't want to go peacefully, we'll just tear them limb from limb and beat them into submission."

""""Right!!""""

They cheered in unison as they started brainstorming ideas to try and kill their enemies in ways that certainly aren't allowed on a battlefield full of soldiers. But, right now? They aren't soldiers, they're monsters.

And if the Breidalians wanted to face steel, these Imperials were more than happy to give it to them...