Author's Note: Okay so this might be very spoilery if you've been following my other story. Read at your own risk. That said, Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 60: The Truth of the Mirror Hero
In the Harpoon territory the man who controlled the territory was currently in the midst of fleeing for his life. He was one of many individuals who wound up with the vassal weapons who was by all means remarkable. Well that wasn't quite true, as the pink accessory that hanged from his weapon indicated. This was unfortunate for both parties now involved because that meant that he was going to have to die and someone else would have to hunt him down.
"What the hell do you two want from me!" With a swing of her sword Raccoon chopped the Harpoon hero's arm off, and watched as he squirmed in excruciating pain as the arm regrew.
"I want to kill you." Naofumi stated as his partner slashed his mirror, pitch black and blood red with the curse of wrath, and watched as the stupid bastard caught fire. "Hurry it up. We don't got all day."
"GAH!" The man who was burning to death was trying to get away, and for his effort managed to crawl into the nearest lake to put himself out.
"I don't think he quite understands how this works." Naofumi commented as he watched the man desperately swim away, hit the border of the cursed barrier, and then come back the way he came.
"H-h-"
Naofumi smirked and tapped his cursed mirror. A claw like grapple and rope combination emerged from the shield and hooked the poor bastard and pulled him onto the shore.
"You have acted to bring about the downfall of this world." Raccoon pulled out her sword and got ready to strike. "Perpetuated the Waves. Offered safe refuge to someone who is attempting to weaponize the flesh of the sacred beasts." Raccoon got her blade ready with the Soul Eater form to stab into the other man's neck. "Die." And so the man did, in one swift blow Raccoon chopped the head of the man off, with another strike shattered his accessory and with a third his soul was no more.
"Come on, there's still a lot of-" The Harpoon that gave the Harpoon Hero his title flew out from the mass of sludge and curse that was what was left of his corpse and flew over the pair before landing in the grip of another. "We destroyed the weapon stealing accessory right?" The pair turned around to face the one that was responsible. "Well that explains it!"
Sadeena was holding the harpoon and was ready to skewer both of them.
"You two know far more than you are letting on, and you haven't even shared that much. So I would appreciate it if one of you told me what the actual hell is going on!" Sadeena knew for a fact when someone was dangerous, sensed every fibre of her being, that while these two might think they had everyone's best interests in mind that their way of acting like it left something to be desired.
"You wouldn't believe us if we told you." Naofumi stated bluntly.
"Oh yeah? Try me!" Sadeena snapped glaring.
"We're both god like beings called Desperado's. Or fragments of them anyway." Naofumi stated as if he was annoyed with something. "I was originally summoned to your world as it's shield hero. She already lived there." Raccoon shook her head and dispelled the illusion magic there, revealing Raccoon Ears, and with them her face was a perfect match for Raphtalia.
"Raphtalia?" She either used illusion magic to alter her features in a way they wouldn't recognise her, or used their Quote Unquote Godhood to keep them from connecting the dots.
"A good trick. Too bad I don't believe in people being in two separate spots at the same time." Sadeena on the other hand had taken the evidence before her and gone in a completely different direction.
"I'm not the same as her. For starters she hasn't gone through this hell even once whereas I have gone through it thousands of times over." The woman who claimed to be Raphtalia stated bluntly. "We have had this conversation at least fifty times so please excuse me if I skip the part where I beat around the bush about it and just address you as the Priestess of Slaughter."
Sadeena turned into her Therianthrope form as she kept the Harpoon levelled.
"What Hell are you talking about? The waves?" The two laughed at that like she said something amusing. Funny enough she recalled them just executing someone for treating the waves that lightly.
"Provided everyone does their part and trains properly, both the waves and the vanguards are relatively easy to deal with. The real issue here comes from what happens afterwards." Naofumi explained bluntly.
"And what happens afterwards?" Sadeena asked suspiciously. "Oh the first time around? The one responsible for the waves finally got annoyed enough that she appeared in person to squish the world's together. She killed three of the four Heroes and left only one so that another batch couldn't be summoned, not that it would've worked if they tried. The weapons by that point in time had finally given up but they did have a couple of Hail Mary passes to pull before completely throwing in the towel." Naofumi raised both of his hands into the air and indicated himself and his companion.
"You two?" Sadeena asked rolling her eyes.
"Not to toot our own horns. But yes." Naofumi stated bluntly. "The weapons opened the way for us to enter the void, the old crucible of the gods and we were as a result able to acquire the power of the gods ourselves. With the help of the other Heroes we were able to nail down the one responsible for the waves and end her and the threat she represented once and for all. Hurray! We won the battle for the Cosmos!" Suddenly the somewhat Jovial mirror Hero took on a much more sombre tone. "And everyone had to pay the price for our hubris."
"What Hubris?" Sadeena asked looking angry and confused. "What did you two do?" Sadeena asked glaring suspiciously at the two.
"Turns out fighting against gods is harder than we thought it would be." Raccoon stated bluntly. "Our first opening was when the Goddess attempted to erase us from the fabric of existence through a reality warping attack. He bounced it back at her with the shield. So instead she ended up erasing herself from existence. As a result everything she had ever done never happened, including erasing herself from existence. So she went back to existing, and then didn't, and then did. That cycle repeated itself until reality broke down."
"What are you doing to fix it?" Sadeena asked looking at the pair suspiciously.
"We revived the monster that started it all, and now we're gonna kill it and make it the foundation of the new universe!"
"You 'Revived it.' As in..." As in the creature that made the waves in the first place was now alive and on the loose, and it was entirely these two's fault.
"Let's go back to the base of operations shall we?" Naofumi patted the whale woman on the back in a friendly manner while he headed back through the mirror.
Now that Filo was rescued they needed to focus on bringing up the stats of the two lowest levelled members of their party, that being Filo and Syrup. One of the Mirror Hero's subordinates already met them there in front of the hourglass, a woman with patches of scaly purple skin, horns and a tail.
"Um... we haven't met before..." Maple started looking at the lizard like woman concerned.
"Call me Demon." Demon wasn't alone either, there was a white haired dog monster with three heads next to her, gnawing on a bone idly.
"What's that?" Maple asked looking concerned.
"An experimental monster the Mirror Hero raised, his name is Miroku if memory serves." The dragon Like woman snapped her fingers and all three heads of the dog stood at attention.
"Right. Goll should be here in a minute." Goll and Glass looked to be in a exceptionally foul mood when they came in carrying Chris, having lost their bet with Sadeena they were walked through adjusting the mutation rate for Chris, and followed that information up with feeding their weapons all of the necessary material to unlock Growth bonuses so that they would be getting the most out of the process.
"Are you good?" Maple asked looking at the pair of native Heroes.
"Huu. We're good. Are you?" Goll stated bluntly.
"Just waiting for your black smith." On cue the woman in question, a jewel person named Romina came in carrying the items she had made for Maple.
"It was a pain in the arse making this stuff." When Romina had been given the task of repairing Maple's equipment she didn't count on the fact that she would be working with material fundamentally incompatible with her own world, have to find materials compatible with that inherent incompatibility and at the same time hopefully restore the equipment's original functionality. By the time she was done she had two pieces of equipment when before she had none. The first was plate mail armour made out of the scales from the Tyrant Dragon Kigurumi. The second was Tyrant Dragon footie Pajama's that was made out of the left over material from taking the Kigurumi and remaking it into armour. "I hope you appreciate this."
"Thanks this'll be great for Raphtalia!" As if she was wasn't going into a battlefield Maple put the armour into storage, followed by taking off the giant Knight Kigurumi she had been wearing and putting on the Tyrant Dragon Footie pajama's before resuming the use of her shield armour. "Okay! I got everything I need now!"
Romina looked directly at Maple, blinked a couple of times, before proceeding to walk away.
"Are you going to be okay like that?" Glass asked looking legitimately concerned at Maple.
"She'll be fine: trust me." Goll stated remembering the sight of Maple trampling through the labyrinth in the form of a giant.
With that all of them were transported through the Dragon Hourglass Network and into the wave.
Goll implemented the first stage of the plan, using the accessory Maple had given her to draw in and bait all of the monsters coming down into this canyon. After that Syrup implemented the use of his garden to fill the narrow passage with de-buffs, along with Filo who released multiple debuffing songs and had them echo throughout the canyon while Glass and Chris prepared to follow up with a rain of range attacks. As for Maple, Miroku and Demon well... they would be going after the boss.
"Let's go!" Maple shouted while her shield turned into familiar white tiger leather. "Savagery!" Maple first inflated into a huge scaly ball, almost a like a egg, before the egg hatched and from that hatching emerged a fifty food tall four armed, heavily armoured draconian monster. Demon just looked directly at the roaring shield bearing monster and stared wide eyed, licking her lips like she had just seen a prime cut of beef. Maple on the other hand tossed, stomped, and threw monsters as she ran pass looking for the wave boss, a rather unfortunate elephant man which was now on the receiving end of a actual literal curb stomping. Syrup was the first to finish levelling up to Fourty, followed shortly thereafter by Chris and Filo after they finished wiping out the enemy hoard. Now victorious the three heroes and four monsters returned to the Hour Glass.
"I didn't realise Filo had turned into a new monster after getting here." Maple stated watching as Filo in the form of a tiny falcon groomed her feathers.
"Humming fairies are pretty handy to have around." Goll indicated Filo's throat. "They have redundant vocal cords that allows them to cast more than one kind of magic at the same time." That was pretty high level casting according to the lectures Sadeena had given her.
"Well I have a offer in mind." Demon unfolded her hand with four gem stones held between her fingers. "In the days before I met the Mirror Hero I had a group of individuals known as the four lords, which represents the four elements." Demon gestured to the three headed mutt behind her. "This is the lord of fire." The dog heads looked at them judging. "I've been looking for strong monsters that can serve as my lords of Earth, Water and Wind. And I think I've found them."
"The four Lords?" Suddenly Goll pulled Chris away from Demon fearfully as she realised at long last whom she had been dealing with at the same time Glass readied her fans for an offensive. "You're the Demon Dragon!"
"The what?" Maple just looked more confused.
"Took you long enough." Demon replied looking offended. "You kill me and then you have the gall to not even recognise me. There's a limit to being insulting."
"I-I-I killed You!" Goll snapped waving her out stretched arm with finger pointing several times at the monster before her.
"Yes I just said that." Demon stated not looking any less offended by Goll stating the obvious.
"How did you come back!?" Glass snapped fans ready to strike.
"You have some balls using the weapons you got from my own core against me." Waving her hand demon locked their weapons into their base form. "To answer your question. Naofumi took the liberty of rounding up as many of my Dragon Cores as possible and stuffing them into a egg thereby leading to my resurrection, and a hundred year truce for the purpose of dealing with the waves. Now put your weapons down before I put them down for you!" Demon growled and Maple saw the dog behind her getting up and growling threateningly at them.
"Everyone calm down!" Maple stated as she stood between them and activated dedicated affection, the effect spread to the entire party which meant that both sides of this pointless argument was now under her protection. "Demon. What's this 'Four Lords' business about?"
"As Demon Dragon I have the right to grant my power to absorb and use the elements to others who are compatible with the power in question. Aside from Fire there is earth." Demon Gestured to Syrup. "Then Wind." Next was Filo. "And finally water." And at last Chris.
"What are you planning on doing to Chris!?" Goll snapped defensively standing between Chris and Demon.
"Only make him a little stronger." Demon stated holding her thumb and finger a hair apart as she walked forward. "That way, the next time you get cornered by a hoard of humans and dragged off to a jail cell, you'll have someone who can save your sorry ass instead of making us do it every week!" The dragon woman seemed to be pretty angry about this while Chris seemed eager. He was created for the singular purpose of protecting Goll and he failed not only spectacularly but repeatedly.
"Ooh... FINE! DO WHATEVER YOU WANT!" The three animals stuck their appendages onto the dragon Hourglass and Demon followed up with depositing her blessing on the level up screens.
"Wah! Filo feels really powerful!" Filo stated as she popped into human form.
"The three of you need to adjust to the new power in your veins. In the mean time the others should be returning soon." It said something about the state of this world that they had to divide into groups to tackle multiple waves at the same time.
Not too long after Maple stomped the elephant man flat the rest of their allied heroes showed up via Return Dragon's Vein. The first group consisted of Raphtalia, Therese and L'Arc, followed shortly there after by Ethanobolt, Myne and Roderick and finally Naofumi, Raccoon, Sadeena and a new figure, a young girl armed with a staff and a deck of cards.
"Everyone Sakura Kinomoto, Hero of the Cards." Naofumi introduced gesturing to the girl in question.
"Good to meet you all." The young girl stated as she gave a curtsy.
"She has some information she would like to give to us." The Three Parties were treated to a hot-meal put together by Naofumi and Raccoon, with stat boosting benefits galore.
"Filo's never seen so much food before!" Filo was practically drooling at the sight of all of the food that was before her.
"Enjoy as much of it as you can, we have six more courses before desert." Naofumi stated as Filo began stuffing her face.
"I'll start things off then." Sakura picked that moment to give her information. "So I'm the Hero of the cards. Which kind of makes me Kyo's boss." Sakura stated before she started slurping her noodles. "Naofumi's and Raccoon's too. Technically."
"That maniac woke up one of the directional beasts of my world and tried to use her to kill everyone." Raphtalia stated making her intense displeasure known.
"Yeah. He didn't do that with anyone's permission or orders. So I'm here helping you guys hunt him down." Sakura stated as she was passed some of the rice. Then she caught sight of Filo's blatant gluttony. "Um. Does she have a eating disorder of some kind?"
"You mentioned something about helping us to hunt Kyo down." Sadeena stated piping up.
"Right. He has a base of operations out in the jungle, but he's been up to some kind of really shady project using the materials and information that he stole from your world." Sakura stated as she started to eat the rice.
"What kind of information? If it's about duplicating skills from legendary weapons then we already know about that." Maple asked as she ate some kind of blood pudding but apparently there was even more horrible things that Kyo had been up to.
"Near as I can tell he took a interest in one of the races of your world, the Demi-humans." Sakura started on the sweet and sour pork as she ate.
"He was experimenting on Demi-humans?" Raphtalia's tail had gone straight and it's hair was standing on end, which was usually a sign that she had entered a especially foul mood. Maple handed her the sushi plate to help her calm down while she addressed the rest of the table.
"Near as I can tell Demi-humans is a broad umbrella term fitted over hundreds of different categories. Are there any specific species that he took an interest in?" Maple asked looking curious.
"Turtles, Phoenixes and Tigers." Sakura replied as she covered her mouth with a burp.
"Three of the top four?" Maple asked looking confused. "Is he trying to make use of the strongest Demi-human species? No that doesn't make any sense." The Aototsu is ranked third whereas the Genmu is the fourth, so it was strange that he decided to try and skip the third strongest of the demi-human species.
"He is using them in reference to the directional beasts." Naofumi stated as the others seemed to be struck by the realisation.
"Yeah that makes sense." L'arc stated and Therese nodded her head.
"So he's what trying to do? Is he trying to make more Anti-monsters like what he did back in our world?" Raphtalia stated looking around confused.
"If we're lucky." Naofumi stated as he began shovelling rice into his mouth with a pair of chopsticks.
"If we're lucky?" Sadeena asked looking concerned.
"Speculation only helps Kyo. It wastes our time that we could be using to talk about things that will help for sure." Naofumi stated in indicating the collective group with his chop sticks.
"Alright Mr. Fancy pants what do you suggest that we do?" Therese asked looking at Naofumi with blatant suspicion.
"That depends on her." Naofumi stated as he indicated Goll. "Your friends ran off to another world to murder it's heroes and left the waves on this side untouched, wearing out the barrier and nearly sparking a inter planetary war in the process. If you cannot corral your subordinates then this conversation has ended."
"Well you see while I do understand and appreciate where you are coming from on this..." Goll slammed her palms down on the table as she leaned over the table and snapped at Naofumi. "YOU THREW ME INTO THE SPATIAL LABYRINTH!"
Everyone, Raccoon included, tilted their heads in acknowledgement of Goll's statement. Kind of hard to play management when you can't communicate to the outside world.
"Ethanobolt tell me how many times did I have to save Goll?" Naofumi asked as he ate from his plate.
"20 times." Ethanobolt replied simply.
"List the highlights for me would you please?"
"Most of the time she was ambushed while fishing." Goll reacted like an invisible force had smacked her in the back of her head. "Other times she rushed head long into human enemies with only Chris at her side to fend off the enemy forces." Goll took another hit. "If memory serves the time that you last rescued her was when she was lured away by one of the reincarnated. With food." Goll face planted from the latest biting remark.
"Are you really a legendary Hero?" Sakura asked raising one of her brows suspiciously.
"You little brat!" Goll slammed her fists into the table as she got into Sakura's face. "I was killing monsters back when you were still in elementary-"
"I am in Elementary School." Sakura countered bluntly. "What were you summoned here to do?"
"I was summoned here to kill the Demon Dragon!" Goll snapped prompting Maple and Sakura to both raise their hands towards Demon. "Yes! Her!"
"To be fair she did succeed in killing the me from back then." Demon replied while she ate some beef.
"Why were people trying to kill you?" Maple asked looking suspicious.
"They took offence to me enslaving humans." Demon stated as she let out a smile to Maple's reaction.
""Is that it?"" Raphtalia and Maple both responded simultaneously.
"Goll. I don't know if you've noticed this or not but Raphtalia is bound to me as a slave." Maple stated bluntly.
"Is this really the kind of thing heroes should be summoned over?" Raphtalia seemed to share a similar opinion on the matter.
"Well Kuro said that Siltvelt used their last Shield Hero in some kind of super demi-human breeding program." Maple followed up to wit Raphtalia had to nod her head to her point.
"How strong were you back then?" Sakura asked directing her question towards Demon.
"Only a tiny little dragon core, no growth bonuses or corrections. I can only call the me from back then a weakling." Demon could only let out a snort of derision.
"Good to know. While you were fighting this weak little dragon I was chasing a series of magical disasters given form all over Tokyo and binding them to my will."
"Dragon Shit!" Goll snapped in response.
Sakura put her eating utensils down and walked over to the docks. Maple and Raphtalia both immediately grabbed onto something solid and nailed down, with Maple activating Dedicated Affection. Naofumi wrapped the table in a cage of Mirrors thereby protecting everyone's meals. Sakura took out her cards and waved them around making several of them float around in mid-air, then she took the key that was hanging off of her neck and it transformed into a staff. Humming a incantation Sakura twirled the staff and slammed it into the cards summoning four entity's made out of Earth, Water, Wind and Fire.
"Put on a show." The Earthy Card tore stones out of the ground and twirled them around in the air, the Watery card created a typhoon of water, the Windy card created a hurricane and the Fiery card released fireworks like blasts into the air. Of course it wasn't like Sakura had the basic common decency to keep her show contained tearing the roof off of the building they were in, hitting them all with hurricane winds, earth quakes, flooding and fire works blasts. Course no one was hurt due to Maple's Dedicated Affection and the food was all sill there thanks to Naofumi's skill protecting everything from the multi-element attacks. Once she was done Sakura walked back, activating another card releasing a spirit that looked like a old man with a hourglass who with a golden glow returned everything back to the way it was like it had never been damaged as Sakura sat down and returned to her meal. Goll on the other hand went over to the corner of the room and curled up into a ball.
"If you two are done with your rod measuring contest shall we go back to talking about things that are actually important?"
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Both of these things are true. Not really no. No more than what there has been.
ReviewerDWJ: *Smirks knowingly*
WitherKing97: Yep.
Galeon82: It's what I was going for. If he didn't need them alive, yes he would, that said the reincarnated are fair game.
Viruz Pinata: Pretty much.
mcstrategist: Perhaps, but it will be at a more convenient time. I don't know much about how Kaleideoscope works.
Nightshadegirl: I don't know what Noble Status is but probably.
Grapefanta: Sorry it was difficult for you to follow.