Pre-Chapter Note: Disclaimer
I in no way oun any of the original works depicted and/or referenced in this work of Fanfiction. Nor do I receive any form of monetary currency of any sort associated with said work.
Chapter 1: The Summoning
As the last of the acolytes take their places within the outer circle of the ritual array, High Priest Dairmuid begins to lead the chant for the Grand Summoning. Several moments in, as the archaic energies swirl and coraless, becoming a visible radiance within the ever darkening chamber, as torch after torch flickers and falter beneath a fell wind. Manny a robed figure become stupped beneath the strain, faltering at the apex.
As one, our voices reach a grand crescendo, unleashing the might and majesty of our Faith upon the alter; And we as thou a single entity gaze upon our world's salvation within the fading incandescent brilliance.
I know not who first stirs from their reverie, for tis not the elderly High Priest, but a youthful fellow who greats our Divine Saviors to this mortal realm.
"Oh Heroes! Please save our world!"
"What?!" Shouted the three in unison, before a single question arises from amongst them. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"There are many complications in this situation, but to offer a simple answer, we have just completed an ancient ceremony and summoned you forth Oh Heroes." Calls High Priest Dairmuid with but a half stride forward as the ethereal glow begins to fade from the array.
"Summoned?" Inquires another Hero.
"Our world teeters on the brink of destruction. Heroes, please lend us your strength," beseeches our spokesman with as regal a bow as he can muster.
"I don't think so." Scoffs one.
"Yeah, me neither." Agrees another.
"We can go back to our world, right?" Muses the third. "We'll talk about your problems after that."
"Don't you feel any guilt for summoning people without their consent?" The first all but shouts while raising his blade before us.
"Besides," said the one on his left with a glare, "Even if we save you and bring peace to your world, you'll just send to our old world empty-handed, right?"
"You guys don't seem to take much consideration of our opinion on this, do you? Depending on how the conversation goes, keep in mind that we might end up enemies of your world." From the rightmost man.
"Yes, well, we would very much like you to have an audience with the king. He will discuss your future compensation with you then." High Priest Dairmuid respectfully mediates whilst rising to his full stature to lean against heavy door until it opens. " This if you'd fallow us…"
"…Guess it can't helped"
"Fine."
"I don't think it really matters who we talk to, but our demands will stay the same."
With a stirring of cloth, the five fallow in our wake from the shadowed chamber after but a moment of murmuring amidst themselves.
None noticing the still bodies cast in shadow.
* * *
Having gathered amidst the noble crowd, those of the King's Court watched as several High Priests lead the summoned before the Throne, before taking position to either side amidst the Guard.
Halting their stride but a moment, the Heroes moved to stand arrayed before His Highness.
"So these are the cardinal heroes of ancient legend?" He dully intoned as though disinterested, "This is the great land of Melromarc, and I am her king, Aultcray Melromarc the 32nd, and this country- no, this whole world- is on the brink of destruction. Roughly a month ago, the sands of the Dragon's Hourglass began to fall as a sign that the prophesized Waves of Destruction would soon be appon us." Here his Highness, slumped ever so slightly. "-and have already suffered the first of what is prophesized to be many, with each wave said to be worse than the last. We paid dearly for ignoring the warnings when the sky opened up and began to release thousands of monsters into this world.
"While my knights and this country's adventurers were able to eventually kill the majority of the monsters, several towns and villages were destroyed, and many lives lost. Legend speaks that if the waves are not stopped, then they will continue until there is nothing left of this world. So after ignoring it once and suffering the consequences, we decided to heed the legends and have you summoned, Oh Holy Heroes, please hear our plea and save our world from the Waves of Destruction!"
Back straight and brow furrowed, he looks towards the Heroes once more. "Heroes, raise your heads and name yourselves."
"All right, I think we understand where you're coming from." Mused the Swordsman. " But does that mean you expect to summon us expecting to save you for free?"
"Hmmm…" His Majesty shot the attending minister a quick glance. "Of course, once you repel all the waves, you would be compensated for all of your efforts."
"will you now?" The Spearman smirked at this. "Well as long as we have your word."
"We'll work with you," the Swordsman continued with a flourish of his Legendary Weapon. "Provided you don't turn on us. But don't think for a moment that you can tame us."
"Exactly," Nodded the Archer, eyes gleaming with passion. "We can't have you looking down on us."
"Naturally," His Majesty confirmed thoughtfully. "I've made arrangements to support you financially, and with whatever else you may require, in thanks for your efforts on our behalf."
"Oh yeah? Well, as long as you'll promise us that, I don't think we'll have a problem." The Holy Sword was once again lowered to it's wielders side.
"Don't think you've bought us off. As long as we aren't enemies, I'll help you out though." The Archer commented with a shrug.
The last man voiced his agreement while lazily resting his Legendary Spear upon a shoulder. As he and the other young men looked rather pleased about this, the other two seemed a bit troubled by the shared tightening of their lips.
"Very well then, Heroes. Tell us your names." His Majesty called, almost eagerly.
"My name is Ren Amaki. I am 16 years old, and a high school student." The Sword Hero, stepped forward with his introduction. He was an attractive young man with the dark hair and sharp eyes of a foreign beauty, and seemed to be relatively short in stature and lean of build.
"All right, I'll go next." The Spear Hero took his step forward as well. "My name is Motoyasu Kitamura. I'm 21, and a college student." He was rather tall with his long pale hair pulled back in a high ponytail as though to accentuate his aristocratic features, somehow giving him an almost light-hearted and kind continence.
"Ok, my turn. I'm Itsuki Kawasumi. I'm 17, and still in high school." The Bow Hero, looked rather calm, with a noble air about him, what with the wavey lengths of a well groomed perm framing eyes that seemingly held some unrevealed strength. There was something indefinite about him. Something vague. He had the shortest stacher and was the softest spoken amongst the men.
As one the last two stepped forth to speak in unison, before completing thier separate introductions, causing His Highness a slight start with apparent unease as he not so subtly scrutinized them; as though seeing them for the first time.
"Ah, yes, well…" With a glance to the minister for but a moment, His Highness coughed slightly into his fist, as though to regain his trail of thought. In his eyes, I saw but a hint of hesitation and confusion, as many in attendance stirred with whispers and murmurs.
"Now then, Heroes. Please confirm your status, and give yourselves an objective evaluation."
"Huh?" Sir Motoyasu voiced his confusion.
"Excuse me, but how are we supposed to evaluate ourselves?" Sir Itsuki inquired.
Sir Ren sighed, as though exasperated. "You mean to say that you all haven't figured it out yet? Didn't you realize it the moment you arrived here?
"I mean," he continued after a short pause, "haven't you noticed any weird icons on the periphery of your vision?"
Another moment passed as the others all made sounds of consent. And he instructed them to focus thier attention upon it.
"You are experiencing [Status] magic. Everyone in this world can see and use it." The king explained after several murmurs from the five arrayed him. "Do these things not exist in your worlds, heroes?"
"And what are we supposed to do? These numbers seem awfully low." Sir Ren confessed almost dejectively.
"Yes, well, you will need to journey further polish your abilities and develop the Legendary Weapons in your possession." His Majesty confirmed.
"Develop them?" questioned Sir Motoyasu, lazily spinning his spear about.. "You mean these things aren't strong right from the get-go? Why don't we just use different weapons until these are usable Seems smart to me"
"The summoned heroes must raise the Legendary Weapons by themselves. That is how they will grow strong, along with the heroes themselves." The minister countered. "That is what the legends say."
"We can work all that out later on. Anyway, it looks like we aught to train ourselves." Sir Ren cut in.
"We'll have to level up as much as we can." Sir Itsuki confirmed.
"Are we going to form a party? The five of us?" Sir Motoyasu asked in excitement as the girls looked slightly confused at the term party.
"One moment, heroes." His Majesty interjected, just as the three men seemed ready to leave. "The Heroes should set out to recruit and adventure separately.
"Why is that?" Sir Itsuki asked quickly.
"According to the legends," the advisor continued to explain. "The Legendary Weapons will repel one another by their nature. If you work together, it apparently hinders your growth and their development.
"So, if we stay together, we will not level up?" Sir Motoyasu asked before the five all but jerked back near instantaneously, thier eyes aglow with power.
I guess it's true then," Sir Itsuki muttered.
"The sun is about to set," His Majesty noted. "Rest up tonight, and set forth on the morrow. In the meantime, we'll secure companions from the village below to form your parties."
At this declaration, a young lady dressed in brown and orange skirts offered to lead the Heroes twords there rooms.
Sometime afterwards, the chamber soon emptied and I set forth to send Her Royal Majesty this latest report.
After a rather quiet dinner, the male heroes were lead down a separate corridor from the girls by a different young woman in similar attire.
"These are The Lord Heroes's chambers," she said, indicating the lavishly ornate common room with it's plush furniture arrayed before a large fireplace. "Your bedchambers are through those doors to the side, and the privy is at the far end of the corridor."
Kitamura-kun stole a quick glance down her decologe as she gave a rather deep curtsy before departing with the click of the latch. He couldn't help but to voice his thoughts on how cute she was before flopping onto the couch.
Soon, everyone appeared to be lazing about, closely inspecting their weapons, and/or letting their vision drift absentmindedly while checking their status screens.
As the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, Amaki-kun murmured something about a beta and unnecessary updates.
"Updates?" Kitamura-kun inquired from his prone position.
"Yeah, you really aren't that observant are you," Amaki-kun nonchalantly replied before elaborating. "I'm talking about Brave Star Online, that's the game we're in after all."
" Brave Star Online? Don't you mean Emerald Online! This world is exactly like it!" Kitamura-kun proclaimed proudly.
"What are you two talking about? It's obviously Dimension Web." Kawasumi-san argued.
The others disagreed vehemently, leading to a rather lengthy discussion about the details around them, each thinking that the world represented a different game.
"Wait a second. Let's try to collect what we know for sure." Kitamura-kun sighed, resting his chin on interlaced fingers. "Amaki-kun, This VRMMO thing you're speaking of means exactly what we said, correct?"
"Yeah, Virtual Reality's been around for ages!"
"Itsuki, you understand what he means, right?"
"I think it sounds like a game from science fiction, but yes."
"Fair enough. That's about all I can think of too. Okay then, Amaki-kun. The game you mentioned, Brave Star Online. Is that a VRMMO?"
"Ah, right. The VRMMO I played was called Brave Star Online. The world felt very, very similar to this one."
"Ok fine. Well, if that's true, Amaki-kun, in the world you come from, do they have any games similar to the things we have mentioned? Like maybe in the past?"
Amaki-kun shook his head. "And just so you know, I consider myself pretty well-versed in the gaming history where I'm from. I've never heard of anything like what you're talking about. But these games… You both consider them really well-known titles?"
The other two voiced their agreement.
"Ok then," Kitamura-kun palmed a fist. "Let's start with some common sense questions. You can all name the current prime minister, right?"
After nodding in agreement, some confusion followed with each separate answer given for each of the following questions.
"It kind of seems like all of us came from different worlds. We're all from Japan , but our Japans are completely different," Kawasumi-san sighed.
"Yea, looks like it," Amaki-kun agreed, sagging into his seat. "They sound nothing alike."
"I thought we might just be from different eras. But nothing matches up, so that can't be it." Kitamura-kun sat back down as well, idoly tapping the butt of his weapon upon the table as though in deep thought.
"You know. I wonder what kind of world those Kobayashi girls came from." Kitamura-kun continued with a Lecherous grin.
"Don't be weird, Kitamura-kun" Kawasumi-san scrawled. "They're Eleven."
"Precisely," Kitamura-kun exclaimed. "With how those two look, imagine what kind of beauties their world must have!"
After staring at Kitamura-kun for a moment, Kawasumi-san conceded the point. Much to Amaki-kun's confusion.
"You know, you guys can just call me Motoyasu, right?" Kitamura Motoyasu requested. "I mean, we're going to be saving the world together after all."
"All right," Amaki Ren Acknowledged. "You can use my given name as well, I guess."
"Mine as well," Kawasumi Itsuki confirmed.
"Speaking of names, which was the Shield Hero again?" Ren asked after a moment of pause.
"Kagami-chan," Motoyasu answered immediately.
"I thought it was Hannei-san who held the shield?" Itsuki confessed. "Why the sudden interest?"
"We'll, I feel kinda bad, ya know, what with one of them being a shielder and all that."
The other two stared for a moment before Itsuki nodded before agreeing with an, "I can understand that."
"Of the four Hero classes, they've got it pretty hard," Ren agreed redally. "Especially if her sister doesn't have Hero Status."
"How's the terrain here?" Motoyasu suddenly asked.
"Very similar to what I'm familiar with," Ren answered over Itsuki's yawning.
* * *
In another part of the castle, one of the Kobayashi Sisters found herself gazing out one of the tall windows lining the corridor from the privy, admiring the luminous silvery blooms swaying beneath the full moon surrounded by a vast array of stars. Turning away, she continued towards her assigned chambers when she heard a voice from around a far corner.
"Pathetic! Not a single good wine in sight!" Grumbled a tall and heavyset man who's thick mustache stood out prominently against the pale cheeks of his flushed face.
He took a swig from what in all appearance was an earthen sake bottle and swaggered about with broad steps, raising more complaints as he went, before spying her silhouetted against the glass.
"What 're you lookin' at?" The man growled, breath heavy with drink. Suddenly a meaty hand lashed out, missing her hair by a mere breadth as she made a hasty retreat.
Grumbling to himself some more, he turned about and spied a portrait of the Royal Family, a veage sence of recognition flittering within his mind before he shrugged.
It's not important, he thought, he'd remember if it was after all.
Post-Chapter Note:
Just so that everyone knows, Naofumi won't be making an appearance for quite some time.
Also, I'm uploading this through my phone, so auto correct is playing havic with my spelling and grammar. So sorry about that.
(Edit: Removed some cringe dialogue)