Author's Note: Okay looking for new fic ideas, what do you all think about Mass Effect? Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 59: Return and Revelations
Ethanobolt had taken the pair of Heroes over to the Dragon's Hourglass where Maple had been in the middle of something that in her opinion was long overdue. For material she made use of the strongest monster that she had on hand, the Spirit Tortoise, lord knows she picked up enough of it's flesh while inside of Ost's body. Maple combined that material with a bio-plant seed, Ost had trees growing out of her back so why not? After combining those materials and putting them into the machine for making Shikigami the light for the ritual circle lit up and spat out a familiar figure. Well, familiar to Maple anyway.
"Syrup!" Maple shouted joyfully while she hugged the newly reborn Syrup to herself. It was slightly different to the Syrup of her memories, the pattern on the shell was different, and there was a small flower with an eye sticking out of it's back, a miniature bio-plant. "Hahahahaha!" Maple was happily laughing as she hugged the flowery turtle to herself.
"If you two are done, I believe we need to focus on rescuing our associates." Ethanobolt, Head Librarian of the Library rabbits, stated tapping his fingers while holding a map. After putting the map out on the table Chris the penguin was put on the table as well who then walked over the map of the world and placed a flipper on one of the countries. "Harpoon. Of course it is." Ethanobolt stated letting out a sigh. "Well that's serendipitous in it's own way."
"What is it?" Maple asked looking genuinely concerned.
"The eight countries of the vassal weapons are divided into four alliances headed up by one of the legendary weapons. The Hero of the Jewel to whom the Harpoon belongs to is in The Library Labyrinth, home to my tribe." Ethanobolt stated tapping his finger.
"So they can bring us to Harpoon Territory?" Maple asked and Ethanobolt nodded in the affirmative. Which then became extra relevant after Syrup wiggled out of Maple's arms and landed on the map to touch the same spot on the map. "What is it Syrup?" The turtle reached up to Sadeena's chest and tapped on her slave seal before stepping on the same spot on the map again. "You sense my blood there?" The turtle nodded in the affirmative. So that meant either Raphtalia or Filo.
It was a short trip into the Labyrinth in question, mostly on account of the Return Dragon Vein system that turned all of the Dragon Hourglasses into a teleportation network. They found who they were looking for shortly there after, having made a mini-fortress out of books.
"Is that him?" Maple asked looking at the tall man who was standing next to the pile of books in question.
"No. That's her." Ethanobolt stated indicating the blue haired person who had surrounded herself with books. Maple blinked stupidly for a moment.
"Huh. Guess I shouldn't be surprised by that." Maple stated as if she was commenting on the weather.
"What does that mean?" Goll asked looking concerned.
"Well, all of the Legendary Heroes of the world I was protecting are young girls, after meeting you I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the same is true over here." Maple commented bluntly.
"Speak for yourself! I'm eighteen!" Goll snapped sounding offended.
"You're Eighteen?" Maple asked looking genuinely surprised.
"Yes but she was only thirteen when she was summoned." Ethanobolt countered bluntly against Goll.
"Do you mind?" The girl who had sparked this conversation in the first place looked up from her book to address the group directly. "Some of us are trying to read over here."
"Myne, we came to ask a favour, which I believe we are due since you have been squatting in our people's home for over a month now." Ethanobolt pointed prompting the girl to let out a sigh as she closed the book she had been reading.
"What do you need?" After making some arrangements with the people of Hunting Tool Territory Myne used the Return Dragon's Vein to taking the group into the Harpoon territory.
"There now if it's all the same with you..." Myne was about to use the Return Dragon Vein again but was stopped by Ethanobolt.
"You're going to stick around and guide us through the country while we look for our missing people as thanks for the generosity you have been shown." Ethanbolt's face was all smiles, even if the way he was twitching gave the impression of a bear trap wound too tight. "Right?"
Between Raphtalia's and the Shikigami's, dubbed Raph, illusion magic sneaking into the Harpoon Territory was incredibly simple, now the next step would be looking for any sign of their missing people. The territory itself looked like it was mostly lake and ocean front property, which made sense in it's own right when you consider that a harpoon is a weapon for use in the water. Which while moderately useful for them didn't change the fact that they had no idea where to look for their friends aside from the vague directions Raph was giving. Then the Mirror Hero, ever the helpful one when he wasn't being a pain in the butt, found some relevant information.
"Hey guys." The Mirror Hero indicated a poster next to him, featuring an angelic figure who was half singing and half praying. "What do you say we start here?"
One of the consequences of living in a country where most of the territory consists of water is that people tend to get creative where they build things and how. For instance a huge set of docks built out from the shore to cover most of a lake with dirt piled on top and grass growing out of it in a crude approximation of a park. That park had a circus parked on top of it which Raphtalia and the others were now investigating.
"Master...!" A familiar voice cried out from within, course few people present could understand what the melodic voice was saying, after all she didn't speak any of this world's languages. "Raphtalia, Rifana, Keel..." One after another Filo cried out the names of the people who were as good as family to her, while at the same time receiving the lashing of a whip from a person resembling a lion tamer.
"Sing you blasted bird!" The Lion 'Tamer' cursed while unleashing his whip once more. Raphtalia clenched her teeth as her thumb pushed out her katanna from her sheath.
"Stay calm!" Glass stated as she pulled Raphtalia around.
On a unrelated note, the Mirror Hero had cast one of his 'float mirror' skills and sent it high into the sky.
"Do you understand who that is!" Raphtalia's voice had a undercurrent of rage to it.
"Yes I know but there are better ways of doing this then walking in there and killing every one!" Glass snapped as she did her best to remind the other party that they didn't come here to start a war.
On another unrelated note related to the note from before, the Mirror Hero expanded his float Mirror until it was the size of the lake itself.
"Name one!" Raphtalia stated her patience wearing thin. On another un-related note related to the two previous un-related notes the Mirror Hero cast a skill on the lake.
"There are government officials that they have to answer to. If we-" Glass was suddenly cut off by the ground beneath their feet disappearing.
The entire circus had been sucked into the reflection of the lake and was now falling out of the mirror on top back to where it was before.
"Hang on Filo I'm coming!" Raphtalia locked herself into a dive speeding herself up and going through the hole in the circus tent, catching sight of Filo who had been chained to the ground, before catching up with her and severing the chain with her sword. Filo ended up being the one to save her, her now massive wings beating in the air and taking them both to safety.
"Warn us the next time you do something like that!" L'Arc snapped as he attempted to hammer water out of his ear.
Filo collapsed into painful convulsions as she and Raphtalia landed on the ground, the effects of the half baked slave ofuda that had been attached to her. In response, the Mirror Hero whistled and a group of swamp dragon's appeared, the Slave Ofuda from when they were a part of the Circus having become water logged and came off.
"Kill your former owners." The Mirror Hero ordered and walked away, and to the surprise of some the crocodile like monsters did as they were told.
"Something you'd like to tell us?" L'Arc asked looking at the Mirror Hero suspiciously.
"Nope." The Hero in question noted that Filo was feeling better with the death of her abuser.
"Allow me to rephrase that." Glass stated unfolding her fan. "Is there something you're not telling us?"
"Only one?" The Mirror Hero snorted in response. "Wow. You're more behind than I thought." Suddenly the Mirror Hero reached out and grabbed the fire ball that Therese had fired at him and threw it into the lake, he cast a skill and trapped Glass in a Mirror Prison, finally he turned his weapon into a rope grappling hook combination and tied up L'Arc mid swing. "Wow taking a swing at your ally in the middle of a rescue operation. Real bright move there geniuses." The Mirror Hero stated full of sarcasm. "How do you expect us to-"
"You've got that backwards." The Mirror Hero cut off Therese mid statement. "I'm the one who can't trust you. You are the ones who invade other words, fight with and try to kill their Heroes, and hold open the waves on this side continuously wearing down the barrier that we are not capable of restoring. You're actions are petty and self destructive and they will not be tolerated do I make myself clear?" When he got no response the Mirror Hero tightened the rope around L'Arc's neck. "I said. Do. I. Make. Myself. Clear!?"
"Save your grudge match for later." The Katana Hero instructed, pulling out her blade and directing their attention to the group of monsters and people that was flooding towards them from the nearby towns.
"See?" The Mirror Hero clearly blamed L'Arc and the others for this. "Now look at what you've done."
"You're doing what?" Goll asked as she confirmed what Maple was doing with Syrup.
"I'm increasing the mutation rate for Syrup." Maple had noticed that the interface for Syrup's Shikigami menu was identical to the one that she used for her Bio-plants. Noting that Syrup didn't have any levels attached to her Maple made a rough guess as to why and increased the rate of Mutation until a 'Lvl 1' appeared next to her icon. "That's better."
"Syrup was made from the flesh of your world's spirit Turtle! He was already plenty powerful, and you're risking turning him into a horrible monster!"
"Hmm. That maybe true." Maple remembered that the mutation rate for the Bio-plants was pretty high, so the question here was how to find the middle ground.
"Glad we're in agreement." Goll stated, though what Maple would say next was anything of the sort.
"If levelling up is considered a mutation..." The average for a person without any growth bonuses was approximately +3% per level up. To begin with, Maple extracted and fed the blood from the Spirit Tortoise into her shield to unlock 'Spirit Turtle Growth Bonus.' Which was then coupled with her beast tamer shields. Doing something she figured should have been done long ago she then upgraded them to maximum level through the use of Proficiency and Refinement and confirmed that the skills had changed to 'Growth Bonus: Large.' "Alright that should be able to control the rate of mutation a little better." And so of course Maple saw that with all of the growth bonuses applied Syrup's rate of Mutation had increased to about 45%. "There we go you should become super powerful now Syrup!" Maple's statement, having clearly shown she ignored everything Goll had said, made the older girl fume.
"Easy there Goll." Sadeena stated putting her hand on the girl's shoulder. "She's only applying growth bonuses, it's the same with me and I haven't mutated into a horrible monster."
Debatable.
"If that Turtle tries to kill us, I'm putting it down." Goll stated unhappily.
"Deal, and when she proves herself right you are going to apologise to her and then do the same to your penguin." Sadeena stated noting Chris was eyeing Syrup Enviously. "With luck we should prevent you from getting thrown into the Labyrinth again." Well even if that were to happen she now has her fancy dancy portal skill to get her back out again.
"Well if we want her to be of any help before we go we need to start levelling them up." Saying that Maple pulled something out of her pocket, a fishing Lure.
A few minutes later Goll had forgotten all about the apocalypse Turtle Maple had been breeding, as she was far too busy using the lure to fish the various flying monsters in the sky as they passed over the Harpoon territory. Which had the side effect of causing the flying boat to be swarmed by a massive amount of flying fish monsters.
"Paralyzing shout." Maple's skill caused all of the incapacitated fish to hit the deck unmoving, not for the first time some fell down Ethanobolt's robes as he tried to steer.
"I hate you." Ethanobolt stated pulling out the offending fish in question. "So much."
Syrup was doing pretty good as far as levelling went, thanks to Maple dialling up the Bio-plant's offensive power as high as possible the plant was easily able to tear through the fish and feed them to it's turtle counterpart.
"Keep it up Syrup you can do it!" Maple cheered on the little turtle as she continued to munch through fish after fish.
"The spawn of a god vs literal actual fish out of water. I would hope so." Ethanobolt stated as he watched Chris point downwards and looked over the ship's side to see the battle below featuring familiar to him looking white tigers, crimson red birds and dark green turtle monsters Vs. L'Arc, Glass, Therese at least two other Heroes and two people with animal bits who species he couldn't immediately identify. "Are any of those yours?"
"Raphtalia!? Oh and they found Little Filo already too!" Sadeena shouted sounding happy.
"I'll take that as a yes." Suddenly, Ethanobolt's ship disappeared, having transformed back into it's default floating platform causing the various passengers to enter a free fall. In retrospect, the rabbit might have been growing annoyed with their antics.
"Roderick, why is my hair getting in the way?" Myne asked still somehow able to read in this situation, or maybe not hence her source of annoyance.
"I believe that's because we've entered a free fall." Myne's aide replied as if he was commenting on the weather.
"I thought it seemed windy all of a sudden." Myne held out one of the jewels in her hand which then glowed. "Feather Fall." At Myne's command the skill caused a small tornado to pick Myne up, and by extension Roderick who ended up using her as a Mary Poppins styled umbrella lowering them both safely to the ground at which point in time Roderick started carrying her on her shoulders. "Now where was I?"
"A moment of your time sir Hero." Roderick stated directing Myne's attention to the mass of tigers they just landed in.
"Oh fine. Laser Circus!" What followed was the most lethal light show you'd ever see.
Goll loosed her fishing rod and grappled it onto Ethanobolt's platform before using it to lower herself onto a roof top.
"Hang on Syrup! Savagery!" Before Maple entered a proper free fall she turned herself into a giant again and landed on her feet. She was going to catch her turtle shikigami too but she suddenly started floating in midair prompting Maple to blink stupidly. "Could Ost fly too?"
"Maple?"
"Master!"
Raphtalia and Filo were just as surprised to see the giant, along with the realisation of who she was, as she had been to see the turtle float. Speaking of which.
"The Spirit Tortoise?" Sadeena's landing was both rougher and smoother as she used water magic to make a actual literal water slide to lower her to safety next to Raphtalia and Filo.
"Sadeena? What's going on!?"
"I could explain but really: Maple was left alone again." Sadeena stated as if this was the obvious result, to wit Raphtalia had to tilt her head in defeat.
"Mirror Prison!" To the Mirror Hero's shout a cage of mirrors appeared around a group of enemy forces. "Transfer Mirror!" The Katarana hero started whistling into a read and suddenly something that looked like judgement came down from the sky and hit a mirror, which was then transferred inside of the Mirror Prison, which then exploded taking the monsters inside with it. "Does anyone have any idea where the one controlling all of these things are?" Maple's voice echoed inside of the metal giant. The Mirror Hero held up three of his fingers and then counted down to one.
"You Miserable gits!" A man wearing dark clothing was on a nearby rooftop growling as he looked down on everyone. He was a objectively handsome looking man who looked to have had one too many long nights and was under just a little too much stress lately for his own good. His black ankle length coat was decorated with golden thread, which contrasted with the image of a alchemist that the bandolier of rainbow vials strapped to his chest.
"This guy again?" The Katanna Hero asked looking up at the alchemist like man with the overly fancy coat.
"Do we know him?" The Mirror Hero asked looking confused.
"Seriously? You still don't remember his name? How many times has it been already?" The Katanna hero asked brow cocked in the air.
"I don't know, I don't keep track of how many idiots we have to kill." The Mirror Hero stated as he indicated the man who was growing increasingly unhinged.
"You don't even remember who I am!? Your girlfriend stole the Vassal Katanna from me!"
"Sorry, not ringing a bell."
"You sicced a dragon on me!"
"Is that why these critters aren't responding to me?"
"You locked me in a iron maiden and set me on fire!"
"Do you have the slightest idea how many people I've done that to?" Clearly there was a long and storied history between these three individuals, even if one of them could not remember the other.
"Excuse me!" Maple shouted prompting all eyes on the giant figure that probably could have wiped out the entire town all by herself by now if she so felt inclined. "Are these Shikigami's made from the Directional Beasts?" Maple asked indicating the array of monsters that had joined the somewhat familiar turtles.
"Of course!" The man immediately calmed down from his earlier shouting match with the Mirror Hero as he grinned intending to show off his prowess. "These are specially created clones I made and mass produced utilising the Genetic material taken from the Directional Beasts!" Which is to say that he carved up the bodies of the gods for the sake of making playthings for his own amusement. Maple had to breath in deep for that one.
"So you set their mutation rate to Zero then?" Maple asked recalling the lecture she received on properly caring for Shikigami's earlier, and which she then ignored thereby massively increasing the quality of Shikigami that she was able to raise in the process.
"Obviously! They are already the most powerful creatures in this world!" The corpses lying on the ground felt inclined to disagree.
"Oh that's good to know." Maple stated sighing in relief.
"It is?" The man who had been commanding the monsters looked confused.
"Yes. Syrup still needs to level up some more, and luckily for her a hoard of weak monsters just appeared." Confirming that Maple turned back into her regular form and landed on the back of her floating turtle, which the enemy was now realising was not one of his.
"Syrup! Use Garden!" Landing on the ground the mutant tree on the back of the turtle's shell pierced the earth with it's vines and wrapped the ground in a Kudzu-esque field tying up the ground bound Tigers, as if that wasn't bad enough flowers opened up on the vines releasing poisonous and paralytic gas from within causing the tigers to seize up and fall over. "Use Gravity!" Syrup released a powerful green aura into the area increasing the gravity of the area several times over and causing the floating Turtles to slam into the ground like meteor's and crush several of the tigers while forcing the struggling birds lower. "Bullet Seed!" The Bio-plant leaned over and started firing seeds from itself like a machine gun knocking the now immobile birds out of the air and crushing more of the ground bound forces. "Finish it with the Kame-Hame Ha!"
"Ka-me!" Syrup groaned while a ball of energy started to form in her beak. "Ha-me!" That ball rapidly swelled in size while the others ducked for cover. "HHHAAA!"
The energy beam was fired out and conducted a grand sweep of the enemy forces horrifically maiming where it didn't outright vaporise. When the smoke cleared the leader of the enemy forces was standing still eyes blank and mouth hanging open stupidly, mind you he wasn't the only one as he mirrored the faces of everyone else on the other side of the battlefield as well. Course in his case that had more to do with his body soon afterwards falling over and dissolving into black goo. Evidently when some people decide to cut their losses and run they don't cut corners.
"So just at a peak of curiosity." The Mirror Hero started before turning his attention to the young lady who had just committed a astounding act of town ruining terrorism.
"Does anyone know who that is?" The Mirror Hero asked indicating the person of the hour in question.
"That's Maple the Shield Hero." Sadeena stated with no small amount of pride in her voice.
However at her words the Mirror Hero froze up and it almost sounded like the Katanna hero almost sounded like she was trying not to laugh at him.
"The Shield Hero was the 30 foot tall giant?" The Mirror Hero asked his tone thick with disbelief.
"She turned her shield's into guns once and used them to fly around in the air." Raphtalia commented and the Mirror Hero's face only continued to get more warped and the Katanna hero was having a harder time stifling her laughter.
"'Shield's?' As in more than one. "Guns?" As in literally the least shield like things in the world. "Flying?"
"The more you ask the less you know." Sadeena explained amused.
"Normally it's a huge dragon but it seems that isn't working right now, her dragon Kigurumi probably reacted the same way to crossing worlds my armour did." Raphtalia explained sympathetically.
"Kigurumi?" They should probably stop trying to confuse the Mirror Hero now.
"Oh you were the one who was looking after Raphtalia." Maple took off her hood and stuck out her hand to shake.
"Kaede Honjou Hero of the Shield." For once the Hero of the Mirror didn't have anything to say. He simply looked Maple straight in the eye and stared at her like he had seen a ghost, and looking to his side she saw that he wasn't the only one as the Katanna Hero was looking at her the same way. "Uhh..."
"...That Mirror over there will take you back to the Hunting Hero's country." The Mirror Hero stated gesturing over to the nearby mirror in a ruined house.
"We'll catch up to you later." With that having been said Maple simply lowered her hand and went with the others through the Mirror portal. The Mirror Hero started to suck in air through his nose and then exhaled, repeated that process a couple of times while the Katanna Hero put her hand on his shoulder.
"I know. I'm angry too. But getting mad at him isn't going to fix things here." The Katanna Hero stated in a sympathetic tone of voice.
"No." The Mirror Hero opened blood red eyes as his face warped into that of a demon. "But I feel like breaking things."
Back in the Hunting Tool territory there were questions to be asked and answers to be voiced, starting with...
"Do you know what they're names are?" Maple asked recalling that those two were the seemingly nice pair that helped them were the same people responsible for tossing Kizuna into the Spatial Labyrinth.
"If memory serves the Mirror Hero was called Naofumi Iwatani, and he keeps calling the Katanna hero 'Raccoon.'"
"Huh weird." Maple stated as a thought crossed her mind. Later that morning the group would learn about the destruction of the Harpoon Territory by two figures one of whom was wielding the curse of wrath. When asked about it later they only had one thing to say. "Naofumi is the name of my dad."
"We just found out our daughter is in danger so we felt like rampaging a little bit."
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: A lot! Kizuna did in the light novels too, she's great if the opponent is monsters but she's helpless against people which is why she got Chris in the first place, which would be great if it wasn't for the fact that Chris is perpetually stuck at level 1 because Kizuna refuses to increase the rate of mutation so he is also useless. It is. I'm actually surprised people couldn't figure out who he was. Nah, I already got an adorable little furball all to myself.
Captain Imaginat: A lot of things about Malty falls flat. Don't worry, the little Tanuki will be a pivotal part of Raphtalia's power up going forward from now on. Large breasts are nice to look but they can cause back problems, or so I'm told, and they can get in the way when you're fighting, legends tell that the Amazon's or yore use to cut one of their breasts off to make it easier for them to fight. Little bit, only if you squint. I cannot, I can't recommend my own fics for TV Tropes otherwise it woudl become a second fan fiction sight. Now if you want to do that for me, that would be a different issue.
Galeon82: Little more complicated than that, congrats for figuring it out before anyone else though. Theres no need to be jealous about yourself.
Guest: That was the idea. And again if you didn't read it last week Goll is from Record of Ragnarok. You can uncross your fingers now, none of the heroes are Sally.
Nightshadegirl: Hope I've provided satisfying answers for all of your questions.