Author's Note: Okay so then... Yeah nothing going on right now. Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy and please enjoy the holidays responsibly.
Chapter 38: Cal Mira Part 0
Tanya and the others hadn't quite made it to their own ruins when they saw the signal flare. They left their parties behind to keep looking for the ruins but for now the important part was that Maple had found something that could be the entrance to the dungeon. The floating black ball that apparently has the power to resurrect dead monsters made them feel inclined to believe that she had been correct in that assessment. That and the fact that she and Raphtalia appeared to evaporate into thin air after stumbling across a magic circle that only reacted to Maple. Katarina attempted to chase after them but the magic circle wasn't reacting to her either. Therese and L'Arc, the two adventurers who stumbled across the scene, were just staring ahead confused looks of disbelief on their features as they watch everyone work. More specifically as they took orders from a small child.
"Now this is suspicious." Tanya didn't know much about this world's ancient languages but she was fairly certain that was a shield and bow engraved over the entrance to the ruins that Maple and Raphtalia disappeared through perfectly explained the reasons why Maple was teleported away and Katarina was not. And the only one of the three of them that would be able to follow after them. "Do we know what happened to them?"
"Should we establish that the orb that un-killed the monsters from earlier is suppose to be some kind of clue?" Kuro asked looking at the black orb in question and poking it with her sword. There weren't a lot of plausible explanations for that. It wasn't healing magic, because healing magic can't heal the dead, nor can it make people disappear, so in terms of things that can do both... "Split up, look for any messages Maple might've left us." Tanya concluded as she looked into the air to see that her people were firing off a similar signal of discovery, not unlike the one Raphtalia loosed in order to get their attention.
The Cerberus shield tore in half one of the monsters that was coming down from the sky as Maple and the others were making their way through the island. Getting to the shore the mystery they were in was getting deeper when they saw that half of the islands were flat out missing.
"There was a mountain that could be a volcano on the island." Maple commented looking at the mass of rock in question. "So volcanic islands could mean that the reason why the islands aren't here is that they didn't exist at the time."
"Time travel?" Raphtalia asked looking deeply concerned.
"Aye. We need to be careful here. One wrong move and everyone in the future has flies for heads." Maple stated as she looked deeply concerned. Of more important information though was the fleet of ships that was fighting against the wave monsters, and how one particularly nasty piece of work crashed down and splitting one of the ships in half.
"The boss is suppose to be the first one that comes down right?" Maple asked and Raphtalia nodded her head.
"Yeah that was the way it was back in my village." Raphtalia stated nodding her head in confirmation.
"So that means that was..."
"A hero from another world." Raphtalia finished the sentence as she let out a tired sigh. They weren't entertaining the idea that it was Glass, if their theory that this was the distant past was true then it shouldn't be the relatively young looking woman they saw before.
"There's no magic circle inside of that building is there?" Maple stated looking at the abandoned building they had exited through. "Which means that just staying put isn't going to get us back to our time period."
"How are we going to get over there?" Raphtalia asked looking at Maple. "I'm too low level for the Beast King shield right now so Savagery is out." As Maple said that another monster crashed down not too far away. Raphtalia simply got behind Maple and watched as she held up her shield, triggered Provoke, and sucked the bugger inside. "Level..." 200, and it was divided between the two of them too. All that Maple could really say is... "This is going to be fun."
Katarina and Kuro were at the second temple. Floating Black Sphere? Check! Mystery temple with sword and Spear on top of the entrance? Check!
"So I was right." Tanya and Kuro were currently using the communication type magic crystal to coordinate information with one another. "There are separate entrances for us."
"Why though?" Katarina asked even as Kuro was busy looking at the temple proper with her magical eyes. "Let's ask our resident historian."
"I haven't been able to find any suitable old weapons since the Shield of the Beast King in Siltvelt." Kuro stated as a thought occurred to her. "Though that was pretty informative in of itself: the Shield Hero holding it mentioned the Axe Hero from another world nearly axing him." Who should be one of the heroes of this one. Which implied...
"Did the Seven Stars originally come from different worlds?" Katarina asked which in turn prompted another question.
"Maybe the legendary weapons did too." Tanya added prompting the others to have a look at the ruins before them. "It seems that only I can use the same portal that will take us to Maple, I am going to have to take mine and what's left of Maple's party and go after her, you two are going to stay put, level grind with the monster woman and your parties and look for the report I will leave you." Katarina and Kuro nodded while Tanya's people left to go join her.
"I missed doing this!" Maple stated as she let out a excited voice.
"Really? You use to do this kind of thing!?" Raphtalia on the other hand had a much different opinion of the situation.
A few moments later a giant machine with it's limbs made out of guns crashed into the deck of one of the few remaining intact ships. Maple had weapon copied the mech that seemed to be made out of shields that was known as the Adelecumber and given it a custom paint job via the colour function of the Legendary Shield. Why the shield has a colour function Raphtalia wasn't sure since it didn't give them extra equip bonuses: maybe to make it harder to see under some circumstances? Either way the mech that was made out of shields was now made out of guns on account of the shield Turret Maple copied from the Machine god. Said guns were being treated more like rocket thrusters as Maple propelled herself through the sky, Raphtalia joining her in the cockpit as thankfully it was made for someone much bigger than Maple herself, and would only now be putting them to their intended use. The deeply confused sailors on the deck wisely moved out of the way when the guns started cutting down the various monsters on the ship only to put up a pittance of retaliation striking against the Charge Blade Maple had out for dealing with monsters in close quarters.
"Oh you're another Knight runner sent by Ernesti?" One of the sailors seemed to gain some comprehension of what was going on.
"Who was that again?" Maple asked after muting the microphone inside of the cockpit.
"The Sword Hero that founded Faubrey." Raphtalia stated letting out a sigh.
"Oh so he was the one who designed this thing." Well the thing that he designed and Maple then heavily modified with a neadlessly dark paint job and several weapon transformations but that was beside the point. "Do you know where the heroes are fighting?" Maple asked after turning the microphone back on. The Sailor pointed towards a trail of wrecked ships that led all the way back to the shore of the main island, and a dust cloud of fighting that was going on at the same time.
"Thanks." Maple stated as her mech leaned over.
"Here we go again." Is all that a dejected Raphtalia could really say before Maple took off through the air again. This time when Maple crashed down in the middle of something she was aiming specifically to break up the fight between the two combatants. "I understand that the two of you are in the middle of something..." Which was probably why they opted to ignore her resuming their clash at a speed that Maple could barely see let alone stop. "Well, I suppose that's what happens when your stats exceed two hundred levels." Maple stated as she thought about how she was suppose to break the two of them apart.
"Sand's a inorganic material right?" The two of them didn't even notice the pulse of light that went through the sand dunes, most likely because they were too busy trying to kill each other.
Their constant fighting and movement through the sand was kicking up enough of a dust storm that the sand that had been made as sticky as the Spider Silk Shield was building up around the two of them in increasingly thicker amounts slowly immobilising the two of them. It was enough to get a proper look at them. The Spear Hero of the past features leaned more to Chinese than they did Japanese, his black hair held in a topknot through the use of purple gel while he wore form fitting martial artist's clothes. He however wasn't half as interesting as the Hero of the Hammer, whom Maple was now realising was wearing the clothes of a Miko Priestest, also the fact that she was Raphtalia's spitting image was kind of a red flag.
"Now do you both understand what I am saying?" Maple asked looking between the two of them.
"I would understand you even without the automated translation medallion you people are so fond of." The sandy cocoon around the Spear Hero burst open as he went twirling around his spear in annoyance. "Your Japanese accent was a dead giveaway."
"Ren Tao..." The priest woman started before being interrupted.
"It's Tao Ren you miserable wench, the family name goes first!" The short Spear Hero snapped after pulling more sticky sand off of himself.
"Tao Ren, can we agree on the need to finish our business after we've dealt with this pest?" The Miko asked indicating Maple with her hammer.
"Wait how am I the bad guy here?" "Fine!" Tao Ren snapped as they none the less proceeded on the offensive. Maple had the Meteor barrier out just in time to block their attacks, but the somewhat familiar point attack shattered it like so much glass. "Where did you get that?"
"The Legendary Shield's Reinforcement method is called relationship meter!" The Raccoon woman snapped out her hammer and blocked the strike of Tao Ren's spear. "The Legendary Spear's Reinforcement method is called Enchantment!" Maple continued to blurt out causing Tao Ren to raise a suspicious brow.
"It would appear that we are listening." The woman who could be Raphtalia's ancestor stated prompting Maple to sigh in relief.
"We got hit by time travelling magic while we were on one of the islands, now we're here!" Maple explained prompting a scowl from Tao Ren.
"Time Travel? The deuce are you on?" The Spear Hero didn't seem to believe her. The Hammer Hero looked more suspicious.
"And why would Time Magic be installed on this side?" The Raccoon woman asked looking at Maple suspiciously.
"Are you serious!?" Tao Ren asked but the Miko woman zipped around him and threw him away.
"Continue." The hammer wielding woman stated unamused.
"We went looking for the dungeon in Cal Mira when we stumbled across some ruins on one of the islands. Then a Magic circle suddenly sucked us up and then we were spat out here." Maple explained while the Hammer wielder rubbed her chin in thought and consideration.
"I see. Take me to these ruins then." The group met up with Tanya on the way over, to be more accurate they met with the arrow ridden corpses of the various monsters that they had killed.
"Why are you people so obsessed with Echevelier's abominable contraptions?" Ren Tao asked looking up into the air as Tanya flew down to meet with Maple.
"Easy for you to say, you look like you actually have business being summoned to deal with situations like this." Maple stated as she turned her attention to Tanya.
"It's okay, I already settled everything." Tanya looked up to the air so see the monsters still dropping out of the air.
"Clearly." Tanya's child like voice stated full of sarcasm. Tao Ren didn't need to know why she was in a mech suit now. "Have you established a means of returning to our world yet? If not then the beach head I arranged for with our parties was well warranted." Tanya explained bluntly.
"It would seem that is my job then." The Hammer Hero stated slamming her weapon into Tanya's chasis. "Come then Heroes of the future. Let us test your worthiness."
"What are-GUH!" The hammer hero turned her hammer into a rocket thruster and used the extra power to smack Maple into another ship.
"Mind explaining what's going on here?" Tao Ren asked cocking a suspicious brow at the Tanuki woman.
"The power to manipulate the fundamentals of the universe are not the playthings of children. If they wish for power then they must prove that they deserve it." Unfortunately for the Tanuki woman she chose the wrong shield to hit.
Maple rocketed back into action on half a dozen gun thrusters the Charge blade held between mechanical hands as the Tanuki made no effort to defend herself. Course she didn't have to since all that Maple cleaved through was an illusion and the real thing was soon able to blast her in the face with light magic. Not the blinding kind that Raphtalia was fond of, more like the burn a hole through your chest that Kyurie was more accustomed to. By the time Maple could get shots off again the tanuki woman had already moved out of the way, and into another hammer strike this one to the back of the shield Mech. While the turrets were decent guns they made for horrible shields so they were promptly smashed into pieces. Of course at that point in time Tanya had regained her senses and levelled a glare at the Raccoon woman who had launched a unprovoked attack on them. Luckily the harvest of XP had been rich here as Tanya revealed the form of the EMIYA. As it turns out this one was rather personal for Kuro, the weapon belonging to her 'brother' of the same name that provided the template of her powers. The bow apparently used another Noble Phantasm of the Spear classification as a arrow, the Caladbolg albeit suitably modified and thus weaker than the real thing.
"Alright you. Let's see what you can do!" Tanya release the shots from the EMIYA at the hammer wielding woman who in turn only cocked a brow unamused as she held up a single palm in response.
"Collect." The projectiles suddenly went eschew and rotated around the open palm at an high speed. "Ball." Then they were sent flying back at Tanya who only narrowly avoided them.
"That's cheating!" Tanya snapped while looking down. Luckily she knows a better cheater.
"Alright so I'm level 250 right now right? That should be high enough." Maple stated while she pulled up the list of weapons she had yet to unlock. Max out proficiency with that, max out proficiency with that and done!
"Alright I'm all set!" Maple stood up and locked eyes onto the Raccoon woman as she was in the middle of another shooting match. She wasn't falling for that again. Maple aimed downwards and fired her weapons destroying the ship itself instead.
"Now that was rather rude." The Miko woman was lounging about far away from where her illusion was being shot at by Tanya, smoking a pipe of some sort that Maple suspected she didn't want to know the contents of.
"Also pointless." Another of the Miko women appeared to Maple's left and snapped her fingers. Suddenly the ship that Maple had just sunk un-sunk itself, having been repaired to pristine condition.
"Time Magic?" Maple questioned as her left eye twitched.
"Try harder!" And on that note the Tanuki woman slammed her fist into the head of Maple's mecha causing the force of the ensuing Point attack to bounce around the inside of the cockpit smacking around both Maple and Raphtalia.
"If you insist." Bleeding from the head and blinded by dripping blood but that was alright. Maple couldn't trust her eyes right now anyway. "Shield Wall!" The Thermopylae Enomotia, or The Guardian of the Gates. There was once a great Spartan general named Leonidas who led three hundred men in battle against upwards of 100 000 and reportedly won. According to Kuro the real thing could summon the three hundred men to defend and retaliate but there's only so much that her shield could do, instead the battlefield had been split by three hundred shields which Maple then had in-circle them.
"This is new." The Hammer Hero commented genuinely impressed.
"Change Shield: Shield Turret!" The shields transformed as three hundred guns locked onto their targets. "Fire!" And so the guns did in a massive bullet hell covering every inch of the area within the shields in projectiles.
In the mean time the Shield Turrets on Maple's person were changed into a pink diamond colour and split into sevens that floated around her body to protect herself from the bullets. In the mean time Maple spotted what they needed, a swirling mass of the bullets that were being gathered together into a attack. Which meant Tanya could see it too.
"Men the other worlder has invaded the battle once again!" Tanya made her voice as deep as possible and broadcasted it to all the soldiers. "Prepare ritual class magic to strike her down! I will lead the offensive!"
That should keep the enemy forces from striking them for a while, now to prepare an offensive of her own. Tanya used her magic to tear out a nearby chunk of island and used creation to make a few adjustments to the stone. The Poison from the hydra will do in his case, add a few tonnes of weight via her own unique brand of magic and done. The Stone, spewing a massive amount of poison, was dropped directly onto where the bullets had been swirling. The Tanuki woman saw the stone falling and so shot the bullets upwards to utterly obliterate the stone, but by then the explosion had spread poison all over both herself and the area around her.
"Detonate!" The skill of the Yew Bow of Robin Hood, a simple name from a simple weapon for something that was so inherently spectacular in it's execution, for the bow made from poison wood and said to be the key to the gates of hell itself caused all the poison that Tanya just splashed to detonate like nitroglycerine. Then Tanya felt her machine dip like something just landed on it. "So why can't our Tanuki do any of that?" Tanya asked brow cocked suspiciously. "Practice." The Hammer Hero slammed her weapon down on Tanya had enough to smash her mech to pieces and directly on top of Maple's own sending them both into the water. They had to abandon the mech transformations less they drown and so the three of them were left to swim back to shore. The tanuki wasn't having it, having already somehow created a invisible platform beneath her feet while some kind of magical construct formed from the water above their heads.
"Maple." Tanya stated looking at the construct in question. "Savagery?" Maple nodded her head as she activated the skill and transformed into a familiar giant four armed monster.
"This is new too." The Tanuki woman fired off her magic and produced something like a wave motion blast as Maple manifested her strongest shields to try and blow the blast, and there for did not see that the Raccoon woman had already made her way around delivered a hammer strike to the back of Maple's neck hard enough to knock her out and send her flying towards the nearest island along with her two passengers. "Impressive." The Tanuki woman stated even as Raphtalia and Tanya quickly got to their feet to strike at the hammer wielder again. "But you have much left to learn. Sadly you've pushed me to my limits in more ways than one."
The woman waved her arm and the two combatants fell asleep. Her magic having finally run out the illusion around the Tanuki woman disappeared revealing a body covered in fresh burns both fiery and acidic, one arm and one eye was a ruined mess. Even for the Shield Hero this would take a while to heal, none the less this situation had been worth the interruption of the battle against the hero of this world, particularly since the other Tanuki had witnessed it. With luck this will light a fire under them and by the time it reaches this point in their time they will have not made as many mistakes as they had.
"I offer you a gift, fairly won." Two kinds of magic activated one entering their bodies and the other altering them so that they could use it. Then with a wave of her hand the three time Traverlers disappeared into the light of another magic circle. "Now than. The group from the future." The Tanuki woman opted to search the islands while waiting for her magic to recover. She had less than a hour before the wave was over and she was not fond of the idea of being stuck here, or having to deal with the group down the line.
"So this is Tanya's then?" Kuro concluded having found a fortress that had both been there for thousands of years and yet only just appeared, carved out of the mountain as it were. She didn't see any grave stones, so they had to assume that they would ultimately make it back. On cue the two parties of Maple and Tanya had appeared, with the exception of Tanya, Maple and Raphtalia that is. "What hit you guys?" Kuro asked noting that their allies looked like they had been hit by a semi truck.
"A hammer." Keel stated as he went about the process of resetting his dislocated shoulder. Rifana retched before rolling over and collapsing on her back several members of Tanya's party provided first aid either in the form of potions or through healing magic, Ake had to be peeled off of the side of the wall. "A really big hammer." The group was able to meet with Maple and Tanya who appeared on the beach of the island, mostly in order to discuss what they had picked up while they were in the past. Surprisingly Maple seemed to have the greater affinity for time magic than Tanya as she used that magic to attempt to revive a corpse that she had been keeping inside of her shield.
"You probably should have picked a different body to experiment on." Tanya stated looking down at the corpse of one of Melromarc's town guards. It was pristine, it was even breathing like it was a proper living thing. But it wasn't, it didn't have a soul: Maple's Shield ate it.
"Well you can't resurrect the dead now." Kuro stated, leaving the implication of later open in the air.
"I had to know Kuro." Maple stated letting out a sigh. Even though they had attacked her, even if she was just defending herself, even if it was a accident.
"Better them then someone else." Tanya stated shrugging her shoulders. "So me and Kuro are the ones with the greatest affinity for Creation Magic." Kuro thanks to the Infinite Sword Sea, and Tanya due to Earth magic. "What was Maple's affinities again?"
"Healing and Support." Maple stated as she turned her attention to Katarina.
"As in 'return a person to the state that they were in before being injured' kind of heal." Katarina's eyes went wide with the realisation. "I'm going to have to go back in time next aren't I?" Katarina stated as she already knew what was happening here and liked absolutely nothing about it, as shown by her eyes trailing over the bodies of Tanya and Maple's companions.
"Two for the trek into the past please!" Kuro stated as she grabbed Katarina around her shoulders and cheekily put her finger up into the air.
"Does this have something to do with the Noble Phantasms?" Tanya asked looking at Kuro suspiciously.
"The older that they get the stronger that they become." Kuro stated as she smiled cheekily.
'The Legendary Sword can copy swords held by the Hero.'
"Oh that's enough you. There isn't even any that can upgrade my crafting." Kuro's mood soured as she chewed out her sword.
"Yes well good luck with all that anyway." Tanya stated waving them off. "If you need us me and Maple have some work to do."
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Can't say I'm fond of pets that outweigh me by a significant weight class, especially if they eat meat. As in which of my original characters? Otto.
Kisame Hoshigaki: You mean that Raphtalia is acting the big sister even though she's five years younger than Maple is? Yeah I understand that.
Captain Imaginat: Can't disagree about the vacation. I found myself questioning the amount of times that you bring up Rino, I understand that you like that her situation has been improved but do you you feel the need to bring it up every other chapter? And yes Faubrey is less a country and more a mass of warring states held together only but it's tendency to implode on itself.
Onishin Tsukitenshi: I meant I don't see how Hajime having a missing arm with a mass of machinery in place of it would come up in conversation into the modern era.
RedBurningDragon: Not really, everything probably only took a few days to resolve, remember in Canon they had to deal with this church before going to Cal Mira.