I woke up the next morning and to my surprise I wasn't the first one up. Jess was doing stretches and practically fell over when I got off my cot and saw her. I guess she's used to being the first one up and doing her stretches in private. I put my cot back into my weapon and because there was a bit of a chill in the air I pulled out my leather jacket and put it on. It also didn't help that she was only wearing her tank top that she wears under her uniform and a pair of spats that you'd probably wear to the gym.
"Good morning." I said doing some stretches for myself nothing fancy like she was but enough to loosen up a little.
"Same to you." she said finishing up her stretches and getting her fatigues back on.
I didn't really notice it the day before but every one of Linda's teammates was good looking in some way Jess had short red hair and a good body that was toned and somewhat muscular but still feminine. I look over at Mark and Jason and note that the two of them while not being pretty boys as I would define it are definitely attractive enough to be models and Rebecca is to sum it up mildly is cute she's not really womanly perhaps only being a teenager herself maybe a fresh recruit that just got stationed at McCarran.
"You know I'm surprised that you weren't intimidated by Linda." Jess said snapping me out of my thought process, "After seeing her and her big ass gun you adapted to the situation and even deflected the shot back I was kind of impressed."
"I was a little shaken up at first given that I could have died from that and she's big and muscular on top of that, but she is such a bubbly and cheerful personality It was hard to keep my guard up around her."
"That's why all of us like her so much she's a little different from the NCR military and she has such a good personality and strong disposition that they're basically printing posters with her face on it for recruitment efforts." Jess said as the two of us walked down to the lakeside to fill the canteens.
"I can't say I'm thrilled to be summoned by the legion but I think it was a blessing that most of the heroes were summoned in different locations."
"Why is that." Jess asked staring at me with a little confusion.
"There was more important stuff to discuss yesterday but you remember that series that talked about a similar concept to the four heroes."
"Yeah I was going to ask about that but I agree there were more important things to discuss."
"I never watched the TV series or read the books but my ex-girlfriend would tell me about it." I said, "first off the four heroes were summoned to the same location and although it sounds advantageous The first impression of the heroes by the protagonist was less than spectacular given that they all had a bit of arrogance because they knew about the game while the main protagonist had no knowledge of the world at all."
"Why didn't he have any knowledge? To my understanding both you and her and the long gun hero all have a great deal of understanding when it comes to this world."
"Apparently the weapons choose the one who wields them making these things somewhat sentient and the protagonist who is the shield hero was the first choice to shield made so he was summoned not only with minimal understanding but also not having to die to get there."
"so you're saying the four heroes of this world might not be the first choice to be heroes." Jess said shocked, "I mean I guess I understand why you can seal that information but still what determines who's right to be the heroes."
"It's different for each weapon because each weapon looks for a different attribute as far as that attribute goes I have absolutely no idea why me and her were selected or the other two."
"I see but why do you think it's better that everyone with summoned to a different location?" Jess asked although giving her face she seemed to have a pretty good idea but just wanted my opinion.
"Just look at her in the long gun hero when you consider the fact that she has nothing good to say about him based on the initial meeting and she's willing to discuss that with a stranger even another hero says that if we botch the initial meeting It might be more difficult to get along down the road." I said slinging the full canteens over my shoulder, "and even though the long gun hero was boasting a little he was sharing one of the power up methods and she didn't like him from the get-go so she actively ignored him and didn't even attempt to understand it."
"I can't disagree with that if tensions were already bad from the start I doubt any of you would have listened to each other." Jess said putting her own canteens over her shoulder, "if you don't mind me asking how did the four heroes from this fantasy novel get off at first I know you said it wasn't a good first impression but was it that bad?"
I told her the full story that I knew of how the shield hero was framed by the princess of the kingdom by claiming she was assaulted by him and the spear hero outright believed her and was against him from the get-go. the bow hero believe the princess as well and although he had a sense of fairness to him even extending to The shield hero when he did something good he still didn't trust The shield hero. The sword hero was arguably worse when you consider that he didn't trust the princess and although he had no reason to distrust her he didn't fully trust her either in fact he questioned her a few times when she proclaimed her story early on, but he still didn't defend The shield hero except when he believed he should be rewarded for his effort.
To make matters worse all three of them made a mess of things when the spear hero brought a monster plant seed that destroyed a whole village and nearly wiped out the people. The bow hero played some bullshit Robin Hood figure and aided a resistance movement to overthrow a corrupt king but only caused chaos when no one was around to take the leadership position and even worse poverty ensued after that. The sword hero killed a dragon which only caused a pandemic when it's rotten corpse that he neglected to clean up was left to fester on top of a mountain for several weeks and then the winds from the mountain carried down into a town.
"If we ended up with heroes like them we'd be better off just killing them and summoning new heroes." Jess said bluntly just staring at me with a look of if I had to describe it terror at the thought of heroes like that.
"I think someone in the books said that they would do it but that's about all I can remember right off the bat." I said and Jess nodded, although she still looked troubled by the information.
"I will have to tell this to the rest of them you know."
"That's fine I was going to ask you to tell the others like I said we just had other things to discuss I don't really have a problem with her knowing that we might be the backups." I said jokingly which caused Jess to chuckle a little at my self-deprecating humor.
We got back in and I started to prepare breakfast there was still some meat from last night and Rebecca was already in the center of the lobby by the campfire cracking open some eggs to make omelets. Regina woke up and joined us and began brewing the coffee and within about a half an hour we had a simple breakfast with meat stuffed omelettes some bread and coffee which probably would have been my breakfast if I were still in my world although I would have used cheese in the omelet but we didn't really have any. While me and Regina and Rebecca cooked, Jess told everyone what I had told her which got some mixed reactions especially from Linda who to my surprise didn't really care all that much. we all ate before we began chatting but the questions I kind of expected.
"I can't believe that Linda is a backup or you for that matter given your willingness to work with everyone." Rebecca said quietly, "how do you explain that you two got along easily despite the misunderstanding at first."
"I'm not saying we were the last options all I'm saying is what the book detailed and we just weren't the first option." I said shrugging my shoulders, "I could be completely off basis however given that other worlds do exist there could be other worlds with similar heroes In fact that was the case in the series."
"One thing I can't understand is the heroes in these fantasy novels you mentioned having specific characteristics, like what kind of characteristics." Mark asked.
"My ex-girlfriend was kind of ranting about that at one point and the spear hero especially was the embodiment of trust and faith in his allies however this typically only extended to women and more than anything he put too much faith in them trusting the princess who joined his party and blindly following anything they said even after it was confirmed that she lied about the shield hero." I said causing everyone to cringe because let's be real that's just idiocy blindly trusting an obvious liar to the point even after the truth comes out they still believe them.
"What about the other heroes?" Linda asked getting more interested.
"The bow hero represented justice however justice goes a lot of different ways." I said, Linda in particular cringed realizing the gravity of what I just said while the others looked confused by our reactions.
"How could that be bad." Jess asked looking at Linda.
"I agree I know there's differences with the government especially between two factions like the NCR and the legion but justice is justice as in bad people get punished right." Regina said looking at me curiously.
"Maybe on a grand scale like two governments and the differences in their laws however the idea of justice varies from individual people to the next person over." Linda said.
"For example I mentioned how the bow hero pulled that Robin Hood crap in that kingdom and tried to be a hero from the shadows which ultimately didn't work out because he left the wrong people to figure things out." I said, "However if I were there I would have used my authority as a hero to try to pressure the king into easing up on the taxes so that the people could live a little comfortably."
"Yeah and if I were there I would have still assisted the rebellion but probably would have been on the front lines showing who I supported which might have gotten the king to back down." Linda said causing her whole unit to look at her with a mix of emotions.
"Ma'am that seems a little extreme." Rebecca said.
"Sounds fair to me when you consider the king was a tyrant and needed to be put in his place." Mark said.
"ma'am I understand you would care about the people but getting involved in someone else's problems when we all have our own seems like a waste of time." Jess said.
Jason didn't say anything and just shrugged his shoulders not really having an opinion on it.
Everyone spoke up pretty much at one time causing them to look at each other and realize the conundrum with the bow hero and the concept of justice. I finished telling them about the bow hero specifically I covered his flaws being that he was prideful and arrogant and one thing that Maria was pissed about was when he framed a member of his party to have an excuse to kick her out because she outshined him at one point. Everyone grimaced when I said this when you consider that they were all a team if Linda ever tried that none of them would have gone with it and even Linda looked like she wanted to throw something across the room hearing what a piece of shit he was.
"If she ever tried pulling something like that we would abandon her in a heartbeat." Jess said stating the obvious given everyone's reaction.
"I wouldn't really blame them if I was that low." Linda said, "but what about his party did they stay with him after they figured it out."
"The bow heroes party was in on it In fact they were the ones to break the accessory that they used to frame her for breaking while the bow hero was out." I said which caused them to get even angrier.
"I'm almost scared to ask it but what about the sword hero." Regina asked causing me to look at her for the first time in this conversation to see she looked really annoyed as well.
"She didn't really talk much about the sword hero given that he if anything was the best out of the three although he was still arrogant the sword hero embodies I think proactivity and power and the sword hero seemed to encourage his party to gain power however he was completely disconnected from his party because he viewed himself as stronger or superior." I said, "In fact he if I remember correctly he owned up to his mistake when he killed the dragon and didn't clean it up so his biggest flaw was that he just wouldn't think before acting because in a video game you don't have to clean up the corpses of your enemies."
"It sounds like they didn't take any of it seriously I mean the whole world was in danger and they were just goofing around fighting with each other." Jess said an annoyance, "You mentioned the shield hero was the protagonist what was he like."
I told them everything I remembered about the shield hero mostly that beforehand he was apparently a good guy who genuinely wanted to help people and adventure however after the princess accused him of raping her the entire kingdom grew to hate him and he was in a serious depression. After he managed to get out of that and find people he could trust the shield hero started cleaning up the messes of the other heroes made from the plant monster to helping refugees from the country the bow hero ruined and went to clean up the dragons corpse which it had become a zombie dragon that spewed poison and disease that would have wrecked the entire countryside if he wasn't there to stop it.
His biggest obstacles were the king who had an extreme hatred of demi-humans which were people with animal characteristics and the shield hero given that the demi-humans worshiped the old shield hero like a god and the three heroes Church that worshiped the sword the spear and the bow heroes.
"He really did get the short end of the stick I feel bad for him." Rebecca said sadly.
"After he was let go on the streets of a kingdom that hated him he grew so distrustful and hateful of women that envisioning a child dying brought a smile to his face when he thought of the child as the same gender as the princess." I said causing the group to shudder I shit you not they look like they were going to puke.
I explained to them about the duel with the spear hero and how the princess fired a blast of wind from the sidelines to cheat after his partner was taken hostage. as everyone listened they liked the story and even smiled at the end of it.
"You weren't really that interested and you still listen to all those from your girlfriend who was obsessed with the series." Jason said staring at me confused.
"I didn't say it wasn't interesting It sounds like a cool concept but I just never got around to watching the TV show or reading any of the books." I said shrugging my shoulders.
"He actually bought that girl and the thought of her dying because she was the same gender as the princess brought a smile to his face and she still considered him worthy of being a hero." Regina said which when she worded it out it of course sounded strange to be honest even to Regina who's generally pretty kind-hearted that would probably be a bit much.
"He did nurse her back to health and provide her plenty of food while she grew so in a way I guess she was indebted to him and saw the goodness in him despite the fact that he was in a dark place."
"Those Demi humans sound amazing when you think that if you level a bunch of them up you can have in a fully armed and ready unit even if they're only 10 years old." Jason said, "That's the definition of survival of the fittest."
"I only have one more question." Linda said, "Did the other heroes take it seriously at all I mean it sounded like they were playing..."
"That's exactly what they thought and that's why they seem to botch all of their jobs." I said already knowing what she was about to ask, "Just like us they knew about that world from video games that they played so they believed they were just in the game and everything would be scripted and work out the same way."
The entire group just stared at me unsure of how to process that It was obvious to them that this was real It was obvious to me and Linda that this was real but the fact is there are people who would probably be unable to tell the difference.
"Personally I think the only one who had the right to think that was the sword hero at least at first considering like you he was playing a VR MMO."
"Seriously!" Linda said surprised.
"I think it was called brave star online or something similar." I said.
"I don't think I've heard of that one." Linda said taking a sip of her coffee, "of course if we're talking parallel worlds It might actually be a thing somewhere else."
"I'd rather not think about that. It always gives me a headache when I have to piece crap like that together." I say causing her to laugh a little.
We all went and finished our breakfast and cleaned up camp which Linda was grateful for the actual cots to sleep on and the added information I gave about storing items in her weapon.
We did part ways afterward but she went right back to McCarran and handed a message to the men in charge to arrange a meeting between the heroes, but I had one more stop to make on the map Lanius handed to me.
As far as the meeting between the four heroes goes that's a story for another day.