Author's Note: Another week done. Remember everyone to pay your respects come Monday to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the second.
Chapter 77: The Old Capital
Tanya had no luck trying to get into contact with anyone from the 'legitimate' government. Makina it seems was very thorough in securing the loyalty of her inner circle, middle circle, out circle and every other circle in the country, when she didn't purge them via the 'Flesh Rending punishment' instead. Well they weren't the only ones who can do a purge.
"We didn't have any luck." Tanya's group plus Sadeena arrived back at the village where they made their base of operations. "What about the others?"
"Maple apparently picked off two wave bosses the government has been quietly ignoring for the past few months. Kuro was able to obtain the local dungeon boss with the head Smith's assistance and Katarina has apparently captured the Heavenly Emperor." Eli Summarised briefly prompting Tanya to let out a sigh.
"Alright lets go have ourselves a meeting." Tanya stated letting rolling her neck like she was trying to prematurely remove neck cramps.
Maple and her group were trying on new armour prepared by the black smith's. Raphtalia's status as the Heavenly Empress meant that they were taking extra care to ensure her continued safety which for the time being meant getting outfitted for new armour. Course they were also working to include Raphtalia's vestments as well, to her protests.
"You people have no idea what armour is suppose to look like right?" Raphtalia let out a sigh, large heavy robes do not lend itself to the type of swift agile movement that she prefers when fighting.
"It is important that the people do not believe that you are backing out of your birthright your majesty." One of the priests explained simply. Would they insist on her wearing those twenty four seven if they knew about the blatant perversion that Maple put them through a while back? No matter. For now their party was having a meeting with the other party's.
Kuro was sitting with the head Black smith from the temple. Katarina's party was sitting with what suspiciously looked like a pet carrier on her lap. Tanya's group had only just arrived.
"If everyone is here now. Katarina you seem to have the juiciest harvest, would you care to explain yourself?" Katarina held up the pet carrier thing she had been holding onto, and the small Raccoon like creature she had trapped inside. "Is that the emperor?"
"Katarina seemed to have broke him. We got his clothes though." Kyurie tossed Kuro a ball of clothes as she started to look through the boy's history.
"Snff!" Her best efforts to the contrary Kuro ended up laughing her head off. "Katarina made him Pee himself!" When she stopped laughing Kuro nodded her head confirming that this was who Katarina claimed him to be. "He's not much good as a intelligence capsule I'm afraid, Makina is intentionally keeping him in the dark on every thing she's been up to." Kuro explained as she tossed the clothes aside.
"We caught him while we were in the middle of rounding up all the monster spawning weapons around Q'Ten Lo." Katarina explained while she handed Eli the cage.
"If that's the case then we don't need to worry about anymore of those blasted immortal monsters." Tanya stated while she held her chin.
"Oh I guarantee you there are worst things than them wandering around these lands." The Head Priest explained while crossing his arms.
"A topic until after the reports are done." Tanya stated bluntly. "Kuro, what did you do?"
"You guys are gonna wanna copy these." Kuro stated holding out seemingly empty hands to the other heroes. "They're invisible. Just stick your hands out and I'll shove them in." Everyone reluctantly held out their hands for the waiting weapons.
'Weapon copy Activated. Spirit Rattan Shield Unlocked.'
'Weapon Copy Activated. Spirit Qiang Unlocked'
'Weapon Copy Activated. Spirit Horned Bow Unlocked.'
"GAH!"
"What the!?"
"Kuro explain Yourself!"
And suddenly the ghost that was sitting in the room the entire time was suddenly visible.
"Ladies, Bason, and the main source of all of these lovely instruments of death." Kuro stated indicating the spirit man in question.
"You could've just had us switch over to the Soul Eater weapons if you want us to meet this... lovely gentleman." Tanya stated looking at the ghost like man in question.
"I wanted to see the looks on your faces." Kuro stated as she let Bason explain things himself.
"Were circumstances ideal I would test your metal in battle to see your worthiness of the power that I hold. But that is not the case. We need to find the woman at the centre of this chaos, and stop her." Bason stated crossing his arms while he looked at the group.
"Does that mean you're the one who's suppose to give us the next divine magic?" Katarina asked raising her hand in the air by instinct if nothing else.
"Beat Makina first, and we'll say that you understand my teachings." Bason looked around the room, he saw Midori carrying the Axe, Fohl had the Gauntlets, and Blitz the claws. "How many of the Vassal weapons have you managed to gather together?"
"Counting Trash and his cane, and Rat with the whip? Five." Tanya stated and Bason nodded his head in approval.
"Good then you should have at least one Longinus unlocked." Everyone blinked stupidly a couple of times.
"Longinus?" Tanya asked suspiciously.
The ghost smacked himself in the face, wiped said face down, before looking at the group seriously.
"Tell me children, do you know why your weapons summon wielders from other worlds to defend this one?" The ghost stretched his arms to either side of himself as if waiting for an answer, and the room fell silent. "It is 'to gather weapons.'"
"'Gather weapons?'" Tanya asked for the sake of confirmation.
"Right like in the temple in Siltvelt. There were hundreds of shields gathered inside of that place." Maple stated pointing with her finger and the others nodded their heads.
"Thousands of worlds have had conflicts with one another over thousands of years. Gods have gotten involved in them on more than one occasion, and thus god killing weapons were borne, the Longinus." Bason explained as he showed images before the group of numerous different weapons.
"The spear in Christianity that killed Jesus Christ?" Kuro asked brow up in the air suspiciously.
"Correct." Bason stated bluntly. "The gods have made incalculable weapons over the centuries, these are known as 'Sacred Gears' but the ones that are capable of killing a god are classified as 'Longinus Class.' The first time I laid eyes on one was in the time of my master, and it was wielded by the Gauntlet Hero." Fohl indicated himself just for the sake of confirmation. "Quite. And as many of you are likely aware, the vassal weapons retain transformations between wielders. Meaning that somewhere in that you have a weapon capable of killing a god. The Boosted Gear and the Dividing Gear. Look it up." Fohl accessed his weapon book, and promptly dropped his jaw with what he saw.
"Yeah I got it, at level 100." Fohl held out both of his fists as his weapons transformed into a pair of red with green jewel and white with blue jewel hand guards covering the backs of his hands.
"This a god slaying weapon?" Kuro asked looking at the seemingly quite unimpressive looking weapons that Fohl had on, they barely qualified as gauntlets. "What does it do?"
"The red one can double a person's power once every second lasting for ten seconds. However if I get hit or hit somebody else I immediately lose the power." Fohl explained letting out a sigh. "The white one can cut a person's power reserves in half but you need to spit out a equivalent amount of power to what you're neutralising." Everyone slowly nodded their heads in understanding.
"See this is why I don't like relying on these things." Aside from stat increases Fohl basically doesn't bother with learning about the skills from the gauntlets, the ones like these ones were too high maintenance to bother, and too costly to use.
"Yes but the Longinus has another power, growth from danger." Tanya looked at the ghost suspiciously. "All divine weapons, without exception, increase their power in response to the desires and actions of their wielders. When placed into a dangerous situation the Divine weapon will gradually increase it's power over a period of time and when peaked, a sudden and dramatic mental change will trigger a transformation in line with the desires of the wielder, a so called miracle known as a Balance Breaker." Bason explained as he seemed to have noticed something before the rest of the people in the room did. "Luckily for you a prime opportunity to begin grinding has appeared."
Gunshots were being sounded in the distance, explosions and the roar of a monster, then the entire room they were in started to creak.
"Everyone out now!" Tanya snapped as Maple noticed the break in the ceiling.
"Air Strike Shield! Change Shield: Cerberus shield!" The skill appeared above them and transformed in time for a giant of a man to slam into the weapon, the heads animating and biting down on the monster that was attacking them, before it smashed the shield to smithereens and landed on the ground smashing the table everyone had gathered around but by then they had all left.
Maple sent the other heroes invitations to join her party and they did so immediately and good thing too, were it not for dedicated affection Eli would've dropped dead from the sniper round to his head. Behind them the monstrosity that destroyed their meeting room charged out, heavy built like a sumo wrestler, arms from a yeti and legs from a rhinoceros the entire thing composed of purple dead flesh with a tag attached to it's to a sack of silk that it had over it's head. In front of them a similarly coloured though vastly more muscular creature had it's arms replaced by large bat like wings and in place of legs there were four length's of dragon heads.
"Friends of yours?" Tanya asked directing her attention to the ghost floating at her side.
"The Jiang Shi corps. Weaponized undead trapping the souls of great warriors in bodies that have been augmented using parts from machines and monsters. Last time I checked there was only five of them, but if that bitch has the master's techniques..." Then there could be more.
"This dragon, that sumo wrestler and the sniper. Are these all ones you recognise or are there more?" Tanya's mind immediately went into over drive from the possibilities.
"There were two more in the corps that I know of."
On cue a length of muscle dropped down from the roof top and wrapped around Eli's neck and hoisted him up into the air. They would help him, but there were more immediate concerns in the form of several heads spewing attacks at the group.
"Get behind me!" Maple sprung in front of the group and held up her shield blocking the attack, which then let out a massive explosion as it came into contact with the fire from the attack.
"What did we say about that shield!?" Raphtalia snapped while she stabbed into the snake like creature that was trying to strangle Eli, not only did the creature barely notice, but another one reached over and pulled Raphtalia up until she was face to face with another of the Jiangshi, this one's arms replaced by snakes while it's legs had been replaced with cheetah legs and a tail. One of the undead abomination's snake arms squeezed out a hand from within the snake mouth holding a knife as it prepared to stab Raphtalia, and then stopped, looking at her in confusion.
"Have you stupid corpses figured it out yet?" Bason asked looking up at the man with snakes for arms.
"Figured out what yet?" Raphtalia asked as the snake man lowered her back to the ground.
"The original Jiang-Shi corps were gifted to your ancestor, the Heavenly Empress, as a gift following the war between the worlds, as ever lasting guards to her bloodline. They recognise her in you." Bason explained as another Jiang-shi made his appearance known.
There were no dramatic extras with this one, at least none that they were aware of, just a man of average height and build filled with stitched taught wiry muscles, and yet he, she or it seemed to radiate with power in a way that none of the others did. It was, in the simplest sense of the word, a monster that could kill all them easily.
"Greetings to the head of the Jiang-Shi corps." Yet it was a monster that this stubborn old beast floating next to them paid respect to.
"Um." Maple looked around at the increasing number of corpses that were gathering around them. "Do you guys want some tea?"
Kuro had to make a new meeting room, luckily she had all the materials from the old one so that wasn't a issue. The Jiang-shi Leader refused the tea, accepting only a note pad and pencil for them to write with.
'What's the situation?' Was the first thing that was written out, and Kuro summarised the situation as told to them by the water dragon and updated as necessary by the other heroes which also reminded them that their meeting from before was interrupted as well.
"You think you found my sister earlier?" Sadeena had a disbelieving look on her face.
"Everyone thought she was you, even Raphtalia and the others." Maple explained which legitimately shocked everyone. "But she didn't have your harpoon, even tied up in her hair like Katarina sometimes does." Sadeena nodded her head, that might've been her sister. "I tried to keep her busy until I got a chance to contact you but..."
"But two wave bosses showed up with their monster hoards and Maple dropped a poison bomb on them." Eclair ruthlessly threw their party leader under the bus. "By the way, in addition to poison, paralysis and acid, it also explodes now."
"I was wondering how that would turn out." Kuro stated finger in the air.
"My heart says 'Assign a baby sitter to you immediately' but my mind and past experience says 'Leave you be and stuff will get done.'" Tanya summarised her conflicted feelings in one go.
"Maple Chan~!" A thick murderous aura enveloped Sadeena. "It seems we need to chat~!"
"Calm down Sadeena!" Maple held out both of her hands as if trying to stop the sheer blood-lust coming off of Sadeena. "She was fighting with Eclair's Charge blade at the time, even though she disappeared after the fighting was done the weapon was still perfectly intact." Which either spoke to the ludicrous durability of the dragon Maple killed, or it meant that the Oracle they had been looking for wasn't caught in the shower of corrosive sludge and took the opportunity handed to her to flee. "She can absorb abilities from things that we touch right? If that's the case she was handling things from me all afternoon."
Babysitter it is.
"Kaede, just to clarify, you not only allowed a enemy combatant free reign of your camp, but you also fed her a steady stream of information about yourself, and then you lost track of her?" Suddenly Maple was feeling a aura of murderous intent from Tanya as well.
The Jiang-shi leader looked around at the room vaguely confused and feeling like he was being ignored.
"Continue please." Kuro stated quietly ignoring the mounting feeling building in the room to repeat what happened in the castle town.
"What I don't get is why would Makina send you guys, who are bound to protect the Heavenly Emperor, to kill a Heavenly Emperor." Katarina asked scratching the side of her head.
Suddenly, the Jiangshi captain froze, looked straight ahead as if he received some kind of revelation, before running out of the meeting room taking their subordinates with them.
"Well even a broken Cuckoo Clock is right twice a day." Tanya commented giving Katarina a vague feeling that she had been insulted.
Makina had long since finished with her blatant pilfering of the tomb. Advance mechanical engineering, culturing tanks, preservation chambers, genetic alteration and enhancement synthesizers, above all else she had gathered together corpses from a wide variety of monsters and people, and souls of a very particular nature, thanks to one time sponsor Takt, a variable treasure trove of super soldier building blocks had been gathered together and now it was all under Makina's control. In short she had a fruitful harvest, and she knew exactly where she wanted to start.
"Well..." Tanya was standing inside of a tomb inside of Q'Ten Lo's old capital, stripped clean of the various items that use to be here for the purpose of building the singularly most terrifying creatures your would ever lay eyes on, now it was all just bare stone. "I'll... just leave you time to process with."
The Jiang-shi had stopped pulling their punches, through out the capital was the broken bodies of Makina's soldiers stationed here to keep anyone from entering the capital, because even though Makina had abandoned the capital there were things here she was not willing to let go, and all her efforts to that end were now little more than broken bones and gore spread throughout the streets of the old capital. The Priests led them to a old temple, and inside of it was something familiar, a Dragon's Hourglass, and the place where Raphtalia would claim her birth right. Raphtalia placed her hand on the Dragon's Hourglass, from there a pink glow enveloped her body and induced a single change. 'Emperor of Q'Ten Lo recognised!'
"Okay..." Raphtalia let the tingly feeling she had just gained a moment ago pass through her body.
"Now what?" "Well now don't you look familiar." Kuro was looking at the wall where a mural had been carved thousands of years ago. It was too faded to understand what it use to look like, but as someone who could see thousands of years of history just by looking at a object like this Kuro easily conjured up a version of it using her magic.
"Do you know that guy Kuro?" Katarina was looking at a block of stone featuring a fight between two groups, one was being led by a black haired man in black armour but wearing a green coat, and the others being the Heroes of the past that they were familiar with.
"I'm pretty sure that he's the one that dragged me off here." Kuro stated prompting the others to look at her incredulously. "You all read a book to get here, I was on death's door my body slowly fading from existence."
So someone else had to facilitate her arrival in this world.
"But didn't he do that to protect this world?" Katarina asked clearly confused. "Why is he fighting against the other heroes?"
"Let's ask the building." Snapping her fingers the contents of the room changed.
All the walls were as good as new, fresh paint depicting hundreds of heroes, and a reoccurring character in the stories of the various clashes of heroes.
"He's over here too, and there!" Katarina stated as she looked around pointing at the various murals. "Just who is this guy?" As Katarina asked that she noticed Kuro just staring ahead. "Kuro?"
"I am Leon Bartfort..."
"...Rudeus Grayrat..."
"...Daniela Fenton..."
One hundred times.
"What are you doing?"
"Why are you doing this?"
"What's wrong with you?"
One thousand times.
"It's burning!"
"Oh Gods make it stop!"
"Why!? Why!?"
I will burn this planet as many times as it takes until I find my way out of this hell!
Kuro stumbled backwards and promptly fell over. When she awoke Kuro was surrounded by her fellow Legendary Heroes, a throbbing headache pounding in her skull.
"Well... I'm never doing that again." Tanya and Maple pulled Kuro to her feet, Maple applied some healing magic to Kuro's head just to make her feel better.
"What was that anyway?" Tanya asked looking at Kuro suspiciously.
"Remember that day back in the castle town when we were all summoned?" Kuro asked before she answered her own question. "That. But instead of us there were a thousand other people. Everything else was the same from the faces of our summoners to the man waiting to greet us, to the man they fought against and what he was trying to get them to do."
"What does it mean?" Maple asked looking genuinely concerned.
"I think that's obvious." Kuro stated bluntly. "If we combine this with the information from the other dungeons, Our friend with the Green cloak has got himself trapped in a paradox, and now he's looking for a way out. No matter how many timelines, and how many heroes he has to go through to get there." And Kuro thought she was being a brute with mage crafting. This was trying to escape a cage by summoning every key in existence and trying them one by one.
"So then this is?" Katarina started and Kuro finished it off for her.
"The man behind the Hero Summoning. That might've not been the way he started out but it's what he is now." This isn't a mural, it was a warning, a memorial made out to every hero yet to come that they are ultimately replaceable.
"And if we can't give him what he's looking for." Kuro made a motion of cutting her throat. "Lovely. Another god dangling a guillotine above our heads." Tanya stated as she let out an annoyed sigh.
"In any case. Has Raphtalia figured out what this empress nonsense is about yet?" Kuro asked looking more annoyed than anything.
"The news can be considered both good and bad." Tanya explained as they led Kuro to Raphtalia and explained the current situation.
"A special class upgrade?" Kuro asked looking at the group like she had heard what they said wrong. "Didn't we go by that like... a hundred levels or so ago."
"Yes but Takt and his group knew how to do one that breaks one hundred levels before they died." What a pity that they already systematically executed everyone who was part of his inner circle already. "Well there's still one person around who was part of his inner circle." The Dragon that they had missed? Unfortunately they still hadn't managed to track her down yet. "Remember that dragon emperor cores retain the memories of the dragons that they were taken from." Tanya explained all of this and the group collectively lit up with realisation.
"So in other words..." Rat has the information that they need, what a shame then that they have no idea of where Rat was at the moment or what she was doing. "Come on. The corpses say they know why the bitch wanted them out of their tomb." Tanya led the group to the leader of the Jiang-shi who was now writing down the contents of the next horrible thing that they would be dealing with in this nightmare country.
"Something that I don't get though, why haven't they tried to attack the village yet?" Maple asked looking genuinely concerned.
"You mean the one we've been using in Q'Ten Lo? I've had Aranaya looking after it with Katarina's shadows." Tanya stated indicating the spider woman who had the latest bundle of lunatics wrapped up in her webbing.
"That's great but not what I was talking about, I meant the one back in Melromarc." Maple explained getting increasingly concerned.
"Oh Trash is looking after it." Tanya explained bluntly as she saw the group of Jiang-shi they had been waiting for.
"Is he gonna be alright by himself?" Maple didn't quite look as convinced as the others did.
"Have you not met the man?" Kuro asked looking at Maple seriously.
Trash's rook piece knocked over Melty's King there by completing the latest of Trash's many victories.
"That's checkmate Melty." Trash stated just a hint of cockiness in his voice.
"You never beat Malty like this." Melty stated looking down at the board where she had been completely dominated throughout the match.
"And look at how she turned out. I even left you several avenues of victory that you could've pursued had you been more daring." Trash stated bluntly as one of the village slaves walked up to the both of them and handed them drinks.
"And you've been distracted." Melty stated letting out a dejected sigh. And then she heard a bell ringing, one that Aranaya had webbed up and rigged to do so whenever the perimeter had been tripped. "Speaking of which."
"Right you are." Trash clapped his hands prompting the village slaves who had been distracted cleaning up the mess that was the previous attempt to breach the village. "Come now children, we have to give our guests a proper greeting."
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Thank you for saying so. I've recently discovered a Shield Hero Cooking side story.
Illya Emiya: Literal cockroaches are better than Medea Pidth Machina.
Dakota Bruder: I have no plans for the ability at the moment, aside from the fact Shildina can use it. It would take a while mind you.
Nightshadegirl: It doesn't have to be the same for it to serve a similar purpose.
Captain Imaginat: The Lion King References were not intentional. Melty wouldn't be the first 'Queen Melty' if that's what you mean.
coolkid0806: Fortunately the fabric of reality is not that sensitive, and to be clear Ruftmelia is only ignorant not stupid.
Galeon82: He'll need some time to process the information.