This is a Full Metal Alchemist and Rising of the Shield Hero Fanfiction only.
The day finally came, the day that we would face our first wave. All the three heroes were doing something akin to a parade, and in truth, I know that this would help the people feel safe, but I can't stand wasting time like these punks, I need to be ready for anything and thus I need every minute I can spare.
I made sure I stockpiled enough medicines, I also added a few yards of bandages and gauze, no telling how badly people will be injured. I know we are facing a horde of monsters and as time began to a rundown on my status, I couldn't help but feel a little angry about how giddy the three punks were looking.
Honestly they look like they are going to a picnic, if I am not careful these idiots might forget that we are there to stop the wave sure, but we need to make sure to save the people also, did they forget that it is important to save as many lives as possible, did nobody teach the idiot King that a country is nothing without the citizens?
I guess I should not be so hard on the fool, it looks like Luge has not changed much since last I met him. As I sat at the shop of Erhard I just kept looking at the time, twenty minutes before the first wave we have to face. At best I came up with a rudimentary lighter and managed to transmute some lamp oil into it after I increased the quality of the oil.
As time went down I walked near Raphtalia and sure enough we both got transported into the place where the wave would occur the way the sky looked with massive swirling vortexes, the red color of the sky all these things sure bring back memories, I think I once protected Mire through an entire wave, come to think of it, I think that is when that wave ended she kissed me.
The last signal rocket showed me that Lute as much as I told them did not manage to do as I told them, to evacuate to the shelters I had them build, "Come on Raphtalia, the people at Lute think that simply by signaling to request aid, the king will send troops to help them, the distance between the castle town and Lute it would take them half a day on foot."
"We got to hurry to get to Lute and keep the people safe, if we wait for the knights to come the people of Lute will die, we can't let that happen." I have to say that I am very proud of Raphtalia being able to pick up the meaning behind what I said, for a little kid she sure can understand things better than some adults.
We ran towards the town and we began to try our best to save as many people and told them to evacuate towards the shelters. They saw us fight against the Zombies, Skeleton troops, and Giant Wasps, they thanked us and did as we told them. "Raphtalia, make sure to keep them calm and safe, I will draw the attention of the enemy."
She looked at me and looked really worried, "But Master Mustang who will keep you safe?" I told her that as a shield hero I was not as defenseless as the people of Lute, they needed her help more than I did, just make sure that we get as many people to the shelters and then she could come and help me.
As more and more people left the area I began to use the shield to block attacks from the monsters, I used shield abilities to draw their attention and to block their advance allowing more and more people to escape into the shelters that we built. Many of them were built in the area around the mine, allowing the rock and soil to be a natural barrier.
As a giant Zombie began to go after a group of men trying to fight using farming tools, pitchforks and shoves would not do much damage to a Zombie of human size much less to one that once appears to be a giant. The good news is that the town was the town due to the fighting and destruction caused by the monsters there were plenty of fires.
The bad news is that there was a very good chance if I used my flame alchemy, pieces of rubble or even of the zombies' bodies would get blown towards the very brave people who were doing their best to fight against the very monsters that want to kill them. So the only thing I could do is use a minor form of flame alchemy and draw their attention.
As I picked up a simple pickax, I realized something that should be pretty obvious, considering how much mining I been doing, the shield clearly considers the pickax to be a tool, not a weapon, well I guess since it is the case, I began to consider all kinds of tools that I could use to kill monsters within case I could not use flame alchemy without causing harm to innocent civilians.
Who am I kidding? Some of these people are my friends and neighbors, no time to think about strategy, I need to save them. I climbed up a watchtower and began to ring the bell this should get the zombies attention, as they came to pile against the watchtower I realized to other things, these zombies are either dumb or they can't climb.
I took the bottle of torch fuel and threw it on the platform, as I jumped off the platform I snapped my finger causing the watchtower to burst into flames falling on top of the pile of zombies that had been trying to get to the top of it, and while I fell I did a downward strike with the pickax, thanks to the height and speed of my fall, I hit the giant zombie dead on his head which was cut in half.
As I landed the people came towards me, I guess they were trying to help me. "Don't worry, I am fine, use this moment to go towards one of the shelters, we can't lose this opportunity, I will keep them occupied but you and the others must get to the shelter."
One of the shop owners looked at me and began to shake his head, "No we can't leave you to face all these monsters by yourself, Roy, we can't abandon our town and not you, the Hero of Lute, it would be our honor to fight these monsters by your side."
I know they have good intentions and I even trust them, but these monsters are nothing like the things that were around Lute before and those monsters were giving them a hard time, I in good conscience could not even think about the suffering their families would go through if these men died.
"You want to fight? Alright, I got a job that is immensely important for all you men to do. I need you to go and guard the entrances of the shelters. Those people inside of the shelters count on us to keep them safe, but if anything happens to me or too many monsters show up you will be the last line of defense."
They both looked at me like they wanted to argue but I know they understand why I am asking them. With a few of the men wishing me good luck, I told them that I know we will survive, that is when Raphtalia finally came to find me. It seems most of the people had retreated to the shelters thanks to her telling them if they didn't she couldn't help me.
"I heard what you told the men, and I got to admit that was awfully nice of you Master Mustang. What I would like to know how much longer will this wave last? It has been hours, any longer and it will take for the wave to end?"
From my memories and what I could guess is that there is a main monster acting as a sort of anchor to the wave unless that monster is eliminated the wave will continue to happen. Considering that the other heroes are not present I hope that they are indeed fighting that monster, the damage to the country would be immense should they be goofing off.
"My guess is a few more hours Raphtalia, if this was not within a town, I could probably use my alchemy to blow them up as soon as they begin to gather, but since we are in a town, that is simply not something I can do, the explosion could send rubble into surrounding buildings causing damage, it could even cause the shelters to collapse, so not a good idea."
As we talked I couldn't help but notice how close she was standing from me if only Raphtalia was a couple of decades older, well no matter, I need to focus on the monsters and hopefully, this will keep the mind of my adorable company.
As we fought more and more monsters, I truly began to wonder one thing, what the bloody hell are the other three so-called heroes doing? Did they decide to have a picnic and a nap? We are fighting to protect these people and I get the notion that they are somewhere laughing and with their thumbs up their ass.
That would make for some rather grumpy pack mules, but then again they are pretty damn stupid for not taking this situation more seriously. What? Do they expect me to end the wave, keep everyone safe, and clear all these toxic corpses by myself? To make matters worse I know I am not going to get a single copper for any of it.
This made me more and angrier as time went by, I really want to use my alchemy, and I mean I Really want to use my alchemy, I want to blow something up or several to blow off my frustrations, but since we are still in town, damn it.
The more those three idiots waste time, the more monsters come through the cracks formed by the wave, we have practically more monsters than people live in Lute and they are still wasting their time? When will they kill the leader of this wave? When the population of monsters exceeds the population of humans in Melromarc?
That is when I saw several lights that looked to be signal flares, but brighter, damn it, I don't like the looks of his, I pulled Raphtalia closer and knelt down as I activated my strongest shield. Sure enough, I was right, seeing how the flames burned a lot of monsters to ashes I knew what I saw, they were not signal flares, they were mortars.
I saw a group of knights come towards us, "See what I told you, a single shot from several locations, and we burned out all the monsters in a single attack, oh, shield hero looks like you actually made it, how very disappointing."
I was angry when he said, "So by what he said, he didn't even care that we would have ended up like the monsters had I not activated my shield." The second I said this Raphtalia went from under my cape and tried to run the idiot that had said that through with her sword.
"Raphtalia it will not change anything, they will never admit doing anything wrong, because to them that is exactly as they did, nothing wrong. Come on, we need to concentrate on the situation at hand and knights it would do you well to listen to my advice, how about you keep an eye on your surroundings for enemy instead of preaching?"
The idiot was about to tell me something when I noticed a large shadow near him, I rushed as fast as I could and stopped one of the giant zombies from taking the idiot captain's head clean off with his rather large sword. "As I said, keep an eye on the enemy, you can tell us how badly we do our job later, knights you might want to get into formation, come on Raphtalia we will buy these knights some time for them to do that."
As we began to fight one monster after another, we each killed one monster, and each time we killed them we got faster and faster, we got to the point we could tell what each of us was going to do next, and so having this nearly perfect coordination we truly began to kill them, but where the hell is the knights? Why is it taking this long to enter into formation and help us?
"FORGET THE SHIELD! WE ARE GOING TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE TO THE THREE HEROES!" Well that at least answered my question, that church really has done a wonderful job to brainwash these idiots, I have to admit, not even when Uncle told me of the so-called Father Cornello, the guys in that place seem a lot smarter than these knights.
We had no time to rest, no time to catch our breath, the monster horde seemed to go on forever, well this just gave me another reason why moving to another nation is actually something that I should consider. "HOLD YOU GROUND, PHALANX FORMATION, WE ARE PROVIDING AIDE TO THE SHIELD HERO!" A squad of knight formed around us and were giving us a chance to catch our breath, this was really not expected.
It was so unexpected that the captain that said they should go help the three heroes call the knights that stayed behind to help idiots before he walked off to what I guess is the place where the three heroes apparently must be having their nap and picnic at. The three morons could at least save me a glass of juice if they aren't doing anything about the wave.
Three hours and even the knights that stayed with us were getting tired, three hours of constant fighting against an almost never-ending horde of zombies, skeleton monsters and wasps that look bigger than a lap dog.
As we kept fighting the shy finally cleared up and I realized the wave was now over, and that is when I saw the scene of the plaza, the countless bodies of the enemy all over the place. I walked over to each of the corpses and began to touch my shield against them, I had no time to butcher them for components.
I simply let my shield absorb the bodies of the monster's whole, if I had enough time I think Erhard would like some of the things I could carve out of the bodies but I simply can not leave as many rotting corpses as I saw lying and festering on the ground, there is a good chance if I do that, the blood of these creatures will sip into the ground and we don't want that to happen, the land could be poisoned if not worse get cursed.
If the ground was poisoned it would mean the destruction of the entire town, we would have to burn out the poison which means the area would be uninhabitable for no less than five years, and if it was cursed depending on the level of curse, we would have to clean every inch of the soil with holy water.
As soon as the new Zombie Shield was shown to be mastered, I could transport the rest of the zombie corpses into my inventory, it might make a good bargaining chip with the other three heroes, I had an entire corpse of each undead monster for each of them, amazing how much I can stuff inside that inventory.
The Bee Shield was also mastered, and it had the very useful ability to improve my resistance to poisons and to shot poisoned stingers when someone directly attacks my shield, and since it was an ability that could be used at any time, every shield gained this ability, the Zombie Shield gave me a thing that pretty much made my inventory the ultimate storage.
Anything placed within it would never rot, would never decay, and would never rust, everything would be kept in perfect condition, meaning I could have five apples for over a month regardless of weather and they would be as new as the day I picked them.
I am truly beginning to understand the shield, and realized something, yes the shield with its many forms had quite a few abilities, but the meat of it, the real benefit came from all these passive abilities, all these abilities when a shield was mastered, and that unlike any other weapon or armor, I could always count on it.
I think I got a few memories left, but mostly I recall everything from my previous life, and now I recall why the hate between me and Luge was very much mutual. I looked at the knights that stood with me and I could see that they would get in trouble for doing so, I was almost tempted to tell them that the evil shield hero threatened their family members in order to gain their support.
Luge would believe that in a second, if someone told him they saw me killing a little girl and saw me devour her with my bare hands as a beast, he would not only believe it, he would pay that liar a lot of money just so that he could tell it as an affirmation of the teachings of the Church of the three heroes.
I stepped near them and the simply smiled, "Thank you very much for helping me, I know you might get in trouble with your superiors but I honestly thank you, with your aide we manage to clear all monsters and with what I have managed we prevented the ground from being poisoned or worse. When asked simply say that you stayed behind under false pretense to keep an eye on me."
The man in charge of the unit looked at him with a stern look on his face, "And why should we tell such a lie to our superiors?"
I looked at him and simply smiled, "Because good people like you should not have to suffer simply because you did me a kindness. Your superiors said the attack was to eliminate the monsters, but that attack was aimed not on the monsters but on me."