Author's Note: Not a lot to say right now, I am really enjoying writing this story and all the positive feedback I am getting. Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy and please stay safe! I have less than a week before I'm vaccinated and I am not getting sick now!
Chapter 4: Things Are Going To Be Okay
Two things had saved Maple from instant death, the cell door and her innate durability from the Legendary Shield. She was blow clean of the dungeons and into the section of sewers that were behind her where she ran into a group of homeless demi-humans. The bad news was that she had been badly wounded by the blast. Realising what had landed in their lap the Demi-humans carried her away on a makeshift stretcher using animal furs as they sought to take her somewhere safe.
Katarina and Kuro were both inside of the throne room waiting for the reports from the excavation team along with the king, the mass of rotting hamburger from before had been removed thank the gods. Then the doors slammed open.
"What's the situation?" Tanya asked glaring through the throne room and demanding answers. She leaves for a few hours to oversee some hard training and suddenly a messenger comes in to inform her that Maple demolished half the castle town. That demanded some answers.
"Maple was buried under a chunk of the castle earlier today." Kuro explained bluntly. "We haven't been able to dig her out yet."
Tanya cocked a suspicious brow as she turned to the king.
"We believe that she confined herself down there after one of her shield transformations resulted in the death of several men, one who attacked her on the behalf of our more conservative elements, and others during the ensuing attempts to apprehend her. Were it not for a emergency measure meant more as a bluff to prevent riots down there she might be standing before the three of you explaining to us what happened." The King explained having come to the correct conclusion as to what transpired.
"TSK." A click of her tongue indicated Tanya's dissatisfaction. "Explain these 'conservative elements.' Now!"
"You've already been to the church, so you should be familiar with the Church of the Three Heroes." The King opened his hand up dropping the three weapon combo rosario taken off of the corpse from earlier for the girls to see.
"'Three Heroes?'" Kuro knew where this was going already.
"The Shield has been a long standing ally of Demi-humans, you might've seen a couple of them around town, their most distinctive features is that they usually have the tails and ears of a variety of animals, depending on their species." The King explained while watching for reactions.
"Wah? There was something that cute around town?" Katarina looked to be quite surprised. Malty should've been making a direct effort to keep her from interacting of any of them, provided the rare instance that she actually obeyed a order he gave her.
"The Church of the Three Heroes, and for that matter the founding scriptures of our nation, maintain that unless directly opposed Demi-humans maintain a severe threat to all of man kind." The King stated curling the necklace back into his palm.
"Which is the reason why Maple was being treated differently." Tanya stated making her suspicions known to wit the King gave a nod of his head.
"Make no mistake, we did not lie to the four of you when we summoned you here. But it was the intention of my wife the queen to use young Maple to sort out our rockier foreign relationships." And now odds were good that she's dead, what's worst that she was dead at the Kingdom's hands. "In the days to come you will be approached by officials of the other countries. I will give you the warning I should've given to young Maple: Shieldfreeden's and Siltvelt's Church of the Shield is just as fanatical as our Three Heroes Church. However much weight my words hold at this point in time."
Tanya and the others nodded their heads before continuing with business.
"You've lied to us already." Tanya stated bluntly. "The best of the best you promised us are little more then whiny little losers with a appalling ability to keep pace."
Kuro mentally noted that together with the two Katarina reported earlier that was roughly half of the people that the King had picked out for them, the other half near as she could tell were merely mediocre, no reason to get rid of them but a far cry from 'the best of the best' at least she hoped not.
"Huu." The king breathed an exasperated sigh before turning to face Kuro.
"No complaints." Kuro stated simply, that was due in part to not seeing them in action yet.
"My apologies, it was our wish to keep you from feeling overwhelmed. I'll pool resources from the army and the prisons and contact the mercenary guilds in the morning." The king indicated Eclair who had been standing at attention all this time. "You can start with her."
The three of them reported back to the room they had been staying in the day before, before opting to switch over to another room when they started thinking about Maple.
"This is the second time I've been brought to another world." Tanya stated after she locked the door and she and Kuro did a sweep for any spies or listening devices. "I originally lived in a nation called Japan where I worked in Human Resources before a man I fired pushed me in front of a train." The other two girls blinked in surprise at Tanya. "A entity calling itself god reincarnated me into a world in a similar state to world war 1 and told me if I didn't die of old age or learn to worship it I would cease to exist. I haven't seen any sign of it since coming here."
"I was reincarnated too." Katarina stated hand raised in the air. "The world I landed was astonishingly identical to a game I use to play down to it's characters. Including me which I quickly realised was the villain, before I bumped my head as a eight year old anyway." Having spoken her piece Katarina turned to face Kuro, and Tanya soon followed after.
"I'm not human." Kuro stated bluntly. "I was originally a magical construct based on the body of a humonculous named Illya Von Eisenberg and a Heroic Spirit, a living magical construct based on a famous historical figure, named Emiya." Kuro flicked her wrist and created a blade that was not her Legendary sword. "I have a vast arsenal of thousands of weapons that we can copy, several of which could destroy an entire nation that are known as Noble Phantasms. The consequence for that though is that they cost an absurd amount of mana to create and have a high level cap."
"Give them to us." Tanya stated bluntly.
"I can't make any more than one at a time, not with just my own Mana reserves anyway." Kuro explained as she manifested the black bow she use to use when she could treat Noble Phantasms as arrows and gave it to Tanya.
'EMIYA Level Locked 90'
"How can you get more? Potions?" Tanya asked suspiciously.
"Probably, but I can take more from another person by kissing them." After Kuro finished explaining Tanya leaned over and locked lips with her causing Kuro's eyes to go wide with surprise.
"Problem?" Tanya asked looking at Kuro suspiciously.
"I'm usually the one doing that." Kuro stated as her Mana replenished itself.
"Do one for Katarina then." Tanya stated as she started to feel exhausted.
"Right." The bow dissolved away as Kuro next made a bright red spear and gave it to Katarina to copy.
'Gáe Bolg Level locked 100.'
"It's going to be a while before we can unlock these things I assume." Katarina stated watching as the spear dissolved away.
"Your turn." Tanya stated as Kuro pulled Katarina over and gave her a kiss on the lips causing her to fall asleep. "Thank you for the meal." Kuro stated as Katarina fell asleep. After that Kuro copied the Nine Lives and went to bed.
Maple woke up bleary eyed on some rich person's bed, a grey dog tail within arms reach, the maid that it was attached to soon ran out of the room.
"There are people here?" Maple attempted to move away but noted that her body creaked when she tried to move, and ultimately resorted to lying in the bed in defeat, the sclera of her right eye red and bloody if the nearby vanity was of any help.
"I know that we have magic, but there is a limit to what we can do if we want to avoid long term damage." A man with smiling eyes walked into the room a few moments after the dog maid left.
"You should stay away from me. The last five or six guys who touched me died horribly." Maple stated realising there was nothing she could do about this situation.
"Then I feel sorry for the people who brought you here and provided you with first aid." The man in charge around here stated with a smile. Maple looked down at her arms and body and noticed the presence of bandages. She might be upset at the loss of her clothes and armour if she was in a better mood right now.
"Touche." Well it had been a while since she finished with the last shield, might as well get another one unlocked so the iron shield became a wooden one. "I would ask if you need anything from me..."
"Right now I need you to rest up. Our healer will be back later with some fresh bandages for you." Maple nodded her head in the affirmative. "Once you can actually move again we'll resume this conversation with some people who want to meet you."
"Huu."
Three days passed before Maple's attempts to get out of bed bore fruit, once she could stand again she was led to the Lord's, Van Reichnott's, living room where two more men, and she uses the term loosely, were waiting for her. A man with arms covered in red feathers and ending in a pair of bird talons along with a broad shouldered dark skinned elderly person with a long snake like tail.
"Is this her?" The bird man asked eyes filled with disbelief.
Humorlessly Maple dropped the shield, currently a tower shield made out of black rough metal, onto the floor a little way from her and sat down as it reappeared next to her.
"That would seem to be the case." The old man noted amused. There goes Jaralis's plot to treat her like a Filolian stud, for that matter the same could be said for Melromarc's Queen's plan as well.
"Can I help the two of you with something?" Maple asked looking at the two of them.
"We are representatives of a nation known as Siltvelt." The old man explained in simple terms. "Come to address the issue of the Wave of Calamity about to hit our nation." Maple's bloody red eye, god she's had a rough week, trailed over to the timer in the corner of her vision to see that it was still slowly counting down. "How long?"
"Six days." The bird man stated in no uncertain terms.
"They really hate you don't they?" Maple has had three days and nothing to do, it was only natural that she had the chance to think things over. "I saw some, what did you call them demi-humans?" Maple's attention turned to Van who nodded in the affirmative. "In the castle town. For some reason they couldn't leave the cart I knocked over. At first I just chalked it up to being that guy's employees but then I learned about magic that can kill a person if they leave a area. It was attached to a prisoner in a dungeon."
"The slave seals." The old man stated breathing in for a moment and labelling Maple as clever in his head. "Our relationship is rocky, but we are trying to mend it."
Bleary eyes with something dead inside of them closed for a moment before opening again.
"I don't want to fight people again." Maple stated as she curled into a ball on the couch.
"That might not be possible, no matter where you go or if you stay."
Maple was given a quick run down of the five major countries of the world and they go as such.
Melromarc: Human supremacist nation, strong anti demi human feelings, and by extension anti-shield feelings due to their association, which explained a lot.
Siltvelt: demi-human supremacist nation, strong pro-shield anti-other three weapons/human feelings.
Shieldfreeden: mostly demi-human hybrids and humans, strong pro-shield feelings, they and Siltvelt hate each other.
Zeltoble: criminals, merchants and slavers, less said about that the better.
Faubrey: strongest nation on earth, very powerful military, lots of technology from the worlds of the Heroes, one slight wrinkle though...
"Pig king?" Maple was not sure she was hearing this correctly.
"His taste for women is well documented, you are within his strike zone and his fetishes lean in a very narrow and highly disturbing direction." The old man stated prompting Maple to shrink away in despair.
"So no matter where I go I'm going to have to fight against people?" Maple asked sinking further and further into despair the longer that this went on.
"Most likely." Was the sad unfortunate truth of this situation.
"Guu." It wasn't long until Maple started to cry. "I want to go home. I want my friends. I want my family. I want to hug my turtle and forget this nightmare ever existed." The three adults left the room, they weren't getting any help along this avenue. At least not yet.
"We should go to the castle town and try one of the other three, assuming that the king hasn't poisoned them against us yet." The old man stated as he walked away.
"You did plenty of that already." The bird man stated displeasure blatant on his features. Reichnott waited until Maple's tears had gone dry. She was avoiding sleep, the faces of dead men pulled into her shield came for her there.
"If you want to help calm down the rising political tensions in the air, I have a suggestion that might help." Van Reichnott stated as several shadows appeared into the room at his side.
Cart tipping as she had started to call it was a sport that Maple was getting familiar with. Standing in the road in front of the oncoming bird pulled vehicle Maple intercepted the bird's foot with her shield before tossing it to the side along with the cart it was attached to sending the soldiers riding it flying.
"Hey what's the big-guk!" Maple by now understood what the sound of being cut off by flesh squelching meant and opted to ignore it. For now she used the pseudo Devour ability to rip the hinges off of the cage where a young child with Raccoon Ears and Tail could be located.
"Don't worry. Calvary's here." Maple stated doing her best to force a smile through her depression.
The girl, Raphtalia, was soon brought back to the Reichnott manner where she had been given medicine for a rather nasty cough she developed and fill them in on her situation. Apparently she lived in the village that had been hit by Melromarc's first wave, and was subsequently taken captive by one Idol Rabier.
"There should be two adults left inside of the dungeons, and two other kids aside from me Keel and Rifana. She has the coughing sickness too." Raphtalia explained while she was getting groomed by one of Reichnott's maids, and checked for bugs. "Everyone else have already been taken away in carts."
"A difficult situation." Reichnott stated looking outside of his window to where a group of Demi-humans were working the fields. "My shadows should be able to maintain some stealth through that area but they do not know the territory."
"I-I can show them." Raphtalia stated slowly raising her hand into the air. Great, another one with post traumatic stress. Maybe she and Maple could start a support group. That wasn't actually a bad idea but onto the main point.
"You are too young and not trained." Reichnott made his opinion known in no uncertain terms. "The thought of going back there alone is enough to have you quaking in your boots from the fear it brings you."
"Well can she?" Maple was sitting with her shield on her lap poring the contents of the dish from when Raphtalia was reassigned as her slave, which would prevent any legal loopholes that would give some enterprising slaver the chance to try and take her again. "Be trained I mean." Maple read the notification the shield just fed her. "This says that it'll make her stronger than usual if we level her up."
"While that is useful in by itself, it is not enough." Reichnott stated as he breathed deeply. "Two days, any longer then that and we won't be able to reinforce Siltvelt's army for their wave." Maple nodded her head while Raphtalia finished with her haircut. "In the meantime our friends from Siltvelt left a gift for you." The armour was mostly chain mail, with heavy shields attached around the waist, serving as a chest plate, and shoulder plates on top of that. It was like someone tried to recycle half a dozen shields into a suit of armour and by all accounts was moderately successful. It was however intended for a adult male and thus still way too big for the still short for her age Maple to make use of. "Try copying it." Maple did as instructed and put her hands on one of the shield Plates.
'Weapon Copy Activated. Iron Shield Armour. Main Bonus: Multi Shield Equip Bonus: Size adjustment 7Hours 30Minutes'
Maple switched over to the new form and to her surprise the damned thing turned into a suit of armour.
"Well... this could be useful."
Cue training montage. Raphtalia had been taken in by the Reichnott shadows and taught everything she needed to know about remaining out of sight. Instructors among the Demi-humans shared with them their knowledge of Magic, Light and Shadow for Raphtalia, and healing and support for Maple, as well as instruction in a particularly brutal line of swordsmanship referred to by it's detractors as 'mad dog style.' Also Raphtalia could turn into a cute little raccoon now, which had it's benefits for stealth but served as a detraction for everything else so she tried not to use it too much. Less pleasant though was when one of the skins from the monsters that attacked Raphtalia's village sent the other girl skittering behind Maple in terror.
"Not easy to look at are they?" Maple asked as she passed Raphtalia some jerky. "The guard's are mine." Maple stated as she stared off into the distance. "There was so much blood, and they just kept coming. I was doing everything I could to not hurt them and they just refused to stop." It was all so hazy, Maple could barely remember who started it or how.
"You're still going out to try and help us?" Raphtalia asked looking at Maple nervously.
"I'm not going to kill Rabier or his men for you." Maple flat out stated. "But I'm not going to stand by while more innocent people gets hurt too."
By now Maple had unlocked the equip bonus for the shield armour which led to it to adjust itself to her size, as a added bonus she learned that the armour for some reason came with the power to change it's colours, so Maple had opted for a black and red colour scheme and stencilled a rose onto it's chest plate. A armour of good memories to chase away her nightmares. She was putting it's Main Bonus to good use too, each of it's half a dozen shields serving as a slot for a transformation to unlock though at a massive uptake of SP. Maple had a SP Potion shield out ever since she unlocked the damned thing for this exact reason.
"I think you might be too good for this world." Raphtalia stated as she smiled while still hiding behind Maple.
"Same to you." Maple walked over and fed a portion of the two headed dog into her shield armour. "Come on. Mr. Reichnott wants us to go hunting today."
Raphtalia's level had risen in those two days but not by much, the sight of blood unsettled both her and Maple still. But the time of the assault on the Rabier territory had come, and when it did they did not hesitate to get onto the carriage and go out and fight.
The guards fell easily before the shadows, Maple did not question the cause only that they were removed from the area's as they passed through first the town and then the estate until they were within the dungeons proper. The cage door was as easily removed as everything else that was absorbed into the shield for materials, freeing two demi-human children in the process and later two adults as well. Raphtalia had paused in front of one of the empty cells. Not so empty. Maple had been tasked with carrying out the bodies in her hammer space for proper funerals later. Even a pyre was better then being left behind in this hell hole.
"We could leave." Maple stated unprompted. "We found your friends, saved them from Rabier, and he... won't be a problem." Maple had that look in her eyes, and it wasn't just the way the orb of blood in her face glowed under her chain mail hood, not the bright and cheerful young child, but of something that had died. "But you won't be satisfied with just that will you?" Maple, Kaede Honjou, as painful as it was for her to admit it, had to live here now. She wouldn't see her family or her friends again until the waves were over, even the imaginary turtle that only exists inside of a video game was leagues out of reach now, and that was just assuming she lived through this world. But Raphtalia was worst off, she had no convenient back up world to return to, no house with loving parents inside it, and barely anyone who would bat a eye if she ran off on a suicide mission and got herself killed. "I won't kill him for you, but I'll stop them from hurting you."
Raphtalia knew the layout of the estate better then she let on, she knew the way to Rabier's private torture chamber better than anyone. And she knew how she would kill him. They met the shadows on the way in, and so Raphtalia's graduation exam began. Illusion magic granted invisibility to let her sneak into the fat frog's office and strip him of his sword and his whip. By the time he learned what had happened the blade had gone through the back of his tendons, leaving him crippled and bleeding out.
"What the Shield is go-ACK" Raphtalia silenced Rabier's profanities with his own blade to his neck.
"Do you remember me?" The Tanuki girl's eyes were dead inside, appropriate, in his own way Rabier had killed her. "I remember you." Raphtalia gave the fat bastard a kick to his groin sending him flying through a window a wet squelch indicating that he landed.
"He isn't dead." Maple noted no XP notification for Raphtalia's act of cold blooded murder.
"He doesn't deserve a quick death." Raphtalia stated sounding like she had just broke a little more. Well as long as she was satisfied.
"Fine fine, let's get out of here." Maple was so done with this country now.
They almost made it out too, then the black light pierced the sky. Rabier had crawled his way over to a obelisk left to the Four Heroes in his territory, and in doing so left a very important lesson to the young Shield Hero. Do not strip your enemies of everything they have left to lose in the middle of their own territory, less they unleash a flipping T-Rex to seek revenge on their behalf.
"I hate this country."
"RRROOOAAARRR!"
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: Ah but it get's better, Malty makes for such a fine chew toy don't you all think? I have a few ideas. He is. 22 out of 10.
ptl: Basically, picture what would've happened to those players who attacked Maple during the first event. She got them. Not a lot, she just went farther than anyone else and thus it took longer to reach her and longer to bring her back.
Kozaki: Don't worry, Maple will have all the hugs.
Captain Imaginat: It'll be a slow process but she will get better. They don't know what's going on, so they wanna find out as soon as possible. Don't worry, the girl's will be getting along with Melty rather nicely. With Aultcray not actually being in on the scheme to frame the shield hero without said scheme he's able to deal with things a lot more rationally. Well after the first false rape accusation, because make no mistake Malty has done that before, if I was Aultcray I would assign one of the many shadows under my command to watch Malty the next time she went out and keep an eye on her throughout the event. As Aultcray is supposed to be both insanely overprotective and not as stupid as he's often portrayed it occurred to me this would be something he'd normally do and thus leaving me to wonder how Malty was able to get away with it for so long. Yes, the King was the one who arranged the summoning, but Faubrey's King still wants Malty as compensation as he did in Canon. Don't worry they'll get along swimmingly.
drmcgraw186: That she does.
Darkjaden: With more to be seen down the line. Agreed. She has to find her first. Aside from Dragon/wrath and Boar/gluttony the others from what I read are fox/greed, scorpion/lust, snake/envy, lion/pride and bear/sloth at least that's the way they are in canon. Personally I think a actual sloth would be a better symbol of sloth but that's just me. This is true. On her way back from a eight hour hike.
Halo: Good to know. Slightly different, maybe I'll touch upon it in this story. If a situation pops up where they fight together, then yes.
King of Fans: If she hadn't already fired her old party that would probably be the case. The cursed series is unlocked by suicidal depression not by being impure of heart, thus the first one to unlock it is the one that's easiest to break. Wait and see. I'm getting told that a lot right now. To be fair thanks to the blast pushing her out of the way Maple didn't actually have the castle fall on her. And when has common sense ever governed Bitch's decision making processes? No idea what that is but I'll look it up later.
BKL777: I think people actually made a fic like that already, Ambition of the Red Princess. No Katarina here but Malty is both the main character and also not a stupid psychopath. Maple will get Filo. I've already got ideas on everyone else's animal companions.
Crazybuu: To be fair Savagery is a thing.
REINozomi: Patience!
xerad: All of this is true. All the heroes have skills from throwing weapons, or at least they will