Author's Note: For those of you that swing that way, introducing Granny! Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 30: The Old Master
Maple had no idea what was going on right now. As soon as Sadeena got back from the castle town she suddenly told them that they were going on a road trip of sorts, not half as weird as the king suddenly asking her what all the hero reinforcement methods were though. Maple had been given 'homework' in the form of a rather complicated potion to craft and after several failed attempts was able to feed the material given to her to her shield to unlock a function that let her do it automatically.
"So who are we going to see anyway?" Maple asked looking at the passing mountain road she was taking.
"To see a old mentor to the king, back when he was a lot younger." Sadeena stated letting the children's imagination run wild.
"When he was young?" Keel repeated blatant disbelief all of his features at the implications of what she was saying.
"Quite. Which is the reason why young Maple is brewing that elixir of youth there." A misnomer in actuality, for Yggdrasil cannot make you any younger.
As you get older your body starts to wear down, arthritis, heart palpitations, Alzheimer, all the usual things that happens to you that inevitably serves as a nail in the coffin down the line. Essentially your body reaches the point where it becomes a giant open wound and therefore subject to healing, which is where Yggdrasil comes into play. The singular most powerful healing potion in the world 'healing' all the wear and tear on the body. Course it varies in quality, being such a complicated brew, not to mention the talk about Ki which was apparently so complicated that she couldn't even begin to wrap her head around how that works. The main factor here was Maple's skills that allowed for bonuses to be applied to it's use that would significantly increase the effects behind the potion, however this kind of thing really worked that is.
"Just how badly does this lady not want to be around other people?" Maple asked noting that they were still climbing up the mountain.
"Are her feelings not something you yourself can sympathise with?" Sadeena asked and Maple winced.
"I guess we'll just have to wait and see."
It was getting harder to move these days. In prime of her youth she saw her death surrounded by fire and setting on top of a mountain of corpses, but now? This? She couldn't think of any thing better, nor nothing worst. It wouldn't be long until she couldn't get out of bed anymore, then would come the sleep that would ease her into death's cradle, and she would welcome that old and vicious friend of hers at long last.
"Cataracts are kicking in then eh?" The old woman noted seeing that her vision had gone blurry even as she stumbled forward. Pity. She would've liked another bowl of her grandson's godawful stew again.
"-ranny!" Someone seemed to have noticed that she fell over. Odd, she expected she would stop receiving visitors after she broke... the... last...
"I thought you said she was old." Rifana stated watching Maple check the old woman's pulse. "The King was old, but this lady is ancient!"
"100 years." Sadeena stated and that had said it all. "It's a miracle of the style she practices that she was able to last this long."
Faubrey's king was older, but in horrible shape, how much longer would even his unnaturally long life span be extended if he had kept in shape? Yes she was old but you wouldn't be able to tell that just by looking at her body. It was a taught and wiry thing, for even in her old age there was no room for useless fat on this woman, just pure muscle. Sadeena looked around here, it was a farm but there was no farming equipment. Bloody Hell, plowing the fields, sowing the seed, reaping the harvest, had she been doing all of this by hand?
"The Medicine!" Maple stated and Raphtalia nodded her head, supporting the old woman's neck with both hands and Maple pored the contents of the bottle inside her mouth, along with a ration pill she had made by processing a exorbitant amount of Bio-plant fruit to give the healing process the extra nutrition it would need. The old woman coughed as the light of healing magic covered her body and she woke up. "Are you okay?"
Problem was, she was in fact okay, her previously arthritic joints were healed, muscles that were long since seized up were limber and flexible again and her eyes that should have been seized by cataracts was clear again she felt like she was fifty again.
"Who the heck are you?" The old woman asked glaring at the child before her.
"I'm Kaede Honjou, Shield Hero." The woman looked at the girl suspiciously and stood straight up and began doing stretches, presumably checking the state of her body.
"I can't afford to pay for whatever you used on me if that's what you want." The old woman seemed satisfied by the condition of her body.
"That's not why I did it." Maple stated glaring. "You didn't expect me to just sit there and watch someone die on the side of the road like road kill did you?"
"Well I know you're here for a reason." Granny stated gesturing around the farm around her. "Came for a premium deal on vegetables?"
"The King told me that there was someone here that needed the medicine." Maple stated innocently.
"Ah yes..." Granny had a displeased look on her face. "'The King.'"
"You two have history?" Maple asked legitimately wincing.
"You could call it that." The old woman stated looking displeased.
"Why don't you tell us about it." Maple brought over the wagon and used it as a seat. "I've got no plans for today."
"Eh why not." It's not like she could say she was going to do anything today.
"...so after I managed to corral the little one, I used it to fly up to the Dragon Emperor and split it's skull open using a drop kick!" The old woman was eating supper with Maple and her party at the moment, having a jolly old time of regaling the younger girl with tales of her youth, around fifty years old specifically.
"So cool!" Maple was like a wide eyed child being told about the days of her grandparents glory. She use to do stuff like this back in NWO but that was a game, a human controlled Avatar versus a digital construct in a game riddled with bugs and glitches, not a actual flesh and blood human being going up against a monster of nightmare and legend and it's many subordinates.
"I'd like to say that I was the best of the best but it would be more accurate to say that I'm just the last one standing." The old woman had a sad look of nostalgia on her features as she looked into the sky. "The halls of our dojo were filled with so many young men and women, each of us training in the use of the style the Heroes taught us." She shook her head, and shook off the nostalgia with it. "They're all dead now."
"A hero taught you how to fight?" Maple asked looking confused but the old woman shook her head in the negative.
"Ki manipulation is based on what Heroes are able to do, you may not realise it but just by having that shield on your arm you're automatically stronger than most other people in this world." Granny stated in no uncertain terms. "Ki, the energy of all living things from which mana and spirit is derived, is the energy within your body. Your 'stats' demand that more of it is sent pumping through your body than what a normal person is capable of."
"So you can manipulate the stats and make yourself stronger by manipulating Ki and forcing it through your veins?" Maple asked brow cocked in the air.
"Yep." The old lady stated looking up in the sky. "Though there's also recreating your skills, albeit only a crude approximation. Not that I would know, since I can't do that myself." She seemed like she was thinking about people she was fond of not that Maple knew what she was talking about. "In any case, it's the same as what happens when you equip weapons." Granny then looked at Maple's shield. "When other people equip weapons I should say." As if trying to make her point the old lady picked up a old tree branch and handed it to Maple. "When you equip a weapon, you sink your thoughts into it and through circulating your Ki through it the two of you form a connection to one another." Maple's 'weapon' was spat out of her hand with a bolt of electricity.
"Why does that keep happening though?" Maple asked looking at the stick that was still flying through the air.
"Your connection to your shield is a lot deeper than the rest of us with normal weapons." Granny stated indicating the weapon in question. "It needs to be, in order to do all the little things that it does for you." Granny stated raising her hand into the air as she counted down her points. "Regulating the flow of Ki in your body for you, crafting bonuses, translating languages for you various different skills." Maple nodded her head in thought. Come to think of it she never did figure out how the Skills actually works.
"If I have the shield helping me out then why does everything come out as 'normal quality?'" Granny snorted instead of replying.
"You can't make it do everything for you. Even if you chopped down a tree and divided it into different pieces to use on different occasions can you say that those pieces of wood are going to be exactly the same?" Granny asked passing Maple back the stick.
"Make something out of it." Maple was about to put it into her shield but the old woman stopped her. "You make something out of it."
"Um..." Maple looked the thing over then took out her carving knife and started whittling down on it. Granny watched her all the while. She saw the Ki flow off of Maple and her shield, it seemed to correct her carving in ways Maple would never know, creating channels of Ki through the wood that would conduct and amplify the magic that would be applied through it. It offered correction to her carving with every stroke of her knife like some sophisticated pipe work before it reached the point where Maple had felt satisfied by it. "Alright now for the finisher." Maple took various items out of her inventory and started to sort through them. "No, No... this one?" Maple looked at some stones that she picked up from a river while she was fishing once upon a time, By which she stuck her shield into the water and absorbed the entire river into her shield. The one that she got from the stones was a boost to her mana capacity so it felt like it was a good choice for the staff. "Alright... what do you guys think?" The head of the staff was shaped like a serpent with the stones from the river serving as eyes.
"That's pretty good." Raphtalia stated picking up the staff and looking over it, Maple even recreated the scales of the snake, it wasn't even a after thought, she carved it in the exact way that the ensuing scratches left behind in the wood was exactly like snake's skin. "It says that it's giving me water magic." Raphtalia stated as she swung the staff out and used the ability of the staff. "Water Barrier!" A mass of water appeared before them and shaped itself into a barrier. Looking at the water it wasn't just a wall to block attacks, it rippled and vibrated like it was moving something along the surface, a magical attack later and the girls realised the barrier was designed to break up in coming attacks and deflect them away from the person it was protecting. "Well that's impressive." Raphtalia commented and Maple nodded her head.
"Shame we don't have any more time to talk." Maple stated looking up at the darkening sky. "We better get back to the Castle town and tell the king about what happened."
Granny suddenly put her hand on Maple's shoulder at the mention of the King.
"Why don't you bring me to the king too?" The old woman asked, vein in her forehead popping visibly in blatant annoyance. Maple felt fear for the King now. Filo took the carriage back to the castle town the next morning as they went to have a meeting with the king again.
So much for Sloth eating away at will.
"Float Mirror. Second Mirror." The king had spat out some familiar looking skills as he attempted to block Katarina's attacks every slash and stab with the weapon carving down trees and turning them into rot. Still for all the familiarity of Trash's skill to Maple's there were clear differences, for whereas the Air Strike Shield blocked and deflected attacks the Float Mirror ate them and spat them out through another mirror.
"Air Strike Javelin!" Katarina threw her cursed weapon at Trash who blocked it with one of his two floating mirrors which then sucked up the thrown spear and spat it out through the other one, not at Katarina herself as that would most likely kill the girl. "Would you stop doing that!?" Katarina snapped slamming the butt of her spear down angrily.
"Are you going to calm down yet?" Trash asked in reply.
"Rot!" Katarina's reply sent another wave of cursed energy of Greed at Trash, her attacks had weakened since the start of the battle, her constant attacks had not given time for sloth to build up power. She knew that if she stopped to let the cursed power charge then he would incapacitate her. "Tir-"
"Mirror cage." Trash commanded as a block of mirrors appeared around Katarina. "Transfer Mirror." Which in turn became very inconvenient as the top and bottom Mirrors became connected with each other causing Katarina to continuously fall down the same five feet, rapidly building up momentum as she did so. "Why don't you spend some time there calming down?" Trash asked though he miscalculated in his own right, as though continuously falling she wasn't able to do anything, nor in this situation she had to which allowed her to build up sloth's power.
"Let's try this again! I, The Demon of the Spear-"
"Transfer Mirror." Trash dully gave out the name of the skill and Katarina had gone from free fall and was instead spat out one of the floating Mirror that Trash still had out causing the girl to be spat out several miles into the air. Trash waved his hand and dismissed the skills before he turned his attention to the people who had been waiting out the fight. "Take all of this back to the castle along with the Hero's mount." Trash stated as he walked through the mirror that he had brought with him.
Transfer mirror's real benefit was not it's application in battle, but rather it's possible applications outside of battle. It could be used on a any mirror he comes into contact with, and there were quite a few scattered around the country from the old days. With that in mind Trash emerged from the mirror in the path of Katarina's trajectory and looked up to the sky where Katarina was coming at him.
"Meteor Stab!" Katarina shouted as she threw her spear down at Trash, charged thick with sloth and greed. Trash intercepted the weapon with another mirror and spat it out into the sky. Unlike before it would be some time until the weapon got back to Katarina, for it would have to strike a solid object first and that was rather difficult since it had been spat out straight into the air. In the mean time Trash used himself as a crash bag to catch Katarina and followed that up with healing magic to fix up all of her wounds that she had incurred in the process. "Are you going to calm down now?"
"Let me go!" Katarina shouted slamming her small fists against Trash's body angrily.
"You need to calm down!" Trash stated in reply while doing his best to weather the beating that he was getting from Katarina.
"Why should I!?" Katarina snapped glaring.
"Because I need you to focus on rescuing your friend while I kill the people who took him." Trash stated bluntly. Katarina stopped moving and Trash put her down. A moment later the spear came crashing into the ground and Katarina was able to snatch it back up. "Put that away, there has been enough cursed energy today as is." Katarina proceeded to do so, the spear turning into a spear she had yet to master. After that they portal into a town near the castle town where Tanya was already waiting for them.
"When are we going to invade Faubrey?" Tanya asked brow cocked in the air now that Katarina was present.
"We'll make use of the wave." If Tanya's memory served her then Faubrey's wave should take place immediately after Melromarc's wave. "So we launch a invasion of Faubrey immediately after our own wave is done?" Tanya asked looking at the king suspiciously.
"In short. Yes. Though we should also take into consideration the possibility of them launching an attack on us first." Trash stated as he looked at the map of his nation. "We'll need to make preparations to counter their war machines. For that I will require the use of the Bow and Spear's skill sets, and the Tanuki in young Maple's party."
"Raphtalia?" Tanya asked and Trash nodded his head.
"You and Raphtalia will be necessary to counter the flying contraptions of the Faubrian army, and the Spear's highly proficient earth based skills to beat back their ground forces." Tanya nodded her head in agreement. "After enough traps are set to use against them you should be able to participate in the wave. Though there is at least one that we're going to have to assign to the task without exception." Kaede, this they would not argue with.
That girl has already had to kill enough people already, with luck she would not even learn of the madness they were about to unleash. Ah speaking of which.
"You miserable rat bastard!" Maple appeared in the door way of their meeting room with the old Lady Maple had been sent to fetched.
"Eiraslia, good to see y-ow ow ow!" The old lady was having none of the King's politeness and grabbed him by his ear and dragged him off. As soon as the two of them were outside the room the sound of repeated crashing indicated a severe beating that was taking place.
"They are friends right?" Maple asked wondering if the King in his wisdom had erred in having her fetch the older woman.
"You miserable, good for nothing pain in my butt!" Granny was expressing her displeasure with being summoned by smacking Trash in his face repeatedly, using Ki to enhance her strikes only made it worst. "Over twenty years since we last met and you still haven't changed at all." Granny stated as she dropped Trash to the ground to let him fix his bleeding and broken face with healing magic. "You're still chasing the same grudge, only now instead of the Hakuko it's your brother!"
Trash couldn't even deny that fact. Oh sure don't get him wrong, he understands fully that it was his own blind hatred that led him to pursue his grudge of Demi-humans up until his sister's death at his own hands, much as he would like to blame the blind fit of rage the staff had sunk him into or his brother's machinations to remove him from the line of succession. But someone butchered his home's maids that evening painting the walls with their blood, and set one of them aflame in his sister's bed, and pointed out the suspicious behaviour of what he now understood to be his sister's lover. And while he would never believe the poisonous vitriol spat by his brother, there was no reason to think that he couldn't have bought off the witnesses he had interrogated, assuming that they weren't spies that were working for him in the first place. In retrospect, Trash couldn't believe that he was ever that stupid.
"When are you going to learn how to let. It. Go!" Granny snapped noting that Trash wasn't being repentant at all.
"They already took a swing at one of the Heroes." Trash stated brushing the hand off of himself as he glared at the woman who was at least ten years his senior. "Their actions go beyond being simply despicable at this point, they are destructive on a world wide scale! If their next attempt actually manages to kill one of the Heroes in the process then that means a quarter of the anti-wave fire power will be flat out destroyed."
"You giving justification for your actions doesn't mean that those justifications are the reasons why you are acting." Granny stated glaring at Trash knowingly.
"His actions killed her." Trash stated tightening his grip on his staff. "It wasn't his goal, and she was was never a threat to him, but that only makes it worst. You may think me a monster or as garbage, I certainly do. But that doesn't mean I'm unwilling to dispose of monsters and garbage." The King returned the glare to Granny, respect and frustration mixed in when she had only looked at him with the face of someone who had long since given up on him. His tactical ability was obvious from the get go from how methodically he planned out the defeats of his enemies, if he could do something about his temper he might be able to make something of use of himself and lead the world through it's darkest hours. But even now he was letting the death of a girl decades ago decide his actions and they were going to be the ones that end up paying for it.
"Do you even have good reason for dragging me here and involving me in your madness again?" Granny asked looking at the king suspiciously.
"The self proclaimed Hero of the Whip. Takt, ever heard of him?" Trash asked and the old woman snorted.
"Seven Star heroes are a dime a dozen and most of them are two bit losers subject to political machinations. Kind of like you." The old lady stated making her opinion on the matter clear.
"This one has figured out how to break through the cap." A fact that left the old woman genuinely surprised with Trash's statement. "The women he's gathered around him are not weaklings either, each and everyone of them fully capable to taking a entire army by themselves. So what I need is someone who can take that power and turn it against them."
"So in other words me?" Granny let out a resigned sigh as she looked up into the air muttering.
Review Section:
Spellflame: 'Shrugs shoulders.'
RonaldM40196867: I currently haven no plans to do so.
Captain Imaginat: And you haven't even seen my favourite Mirellia scene in this story yet. Well they do have history together it only makes sense they would talk about it.
drmcgraw186: Basically yes. Most likely. The Queen would never do something as crude as playing assassin, too uncivilised.
Kisame Hoshigaki: Pretty much.
Halo: Don't be ridiculous: Chloe has SSS Ranked BAD LUCK.