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The Nightstalker's Bow by LoganMidnight
 Destiny & Rising of the Shield Hero/盾の勇者の成り上がり XoverRated: T, English, Adventure & Fantasy, Ghost, Guardian, Naofumi I., Raphtalia, Words: 86k+, Favs: 589, Follows: 752, Published: Dec 31, 2019 Updated: Jul 8 223Chapter 2
Disclaimer - I do not own the Destiny franchise or The Rising of the Shield Hero
Chapter 2 - A Weapon's Details
"I guess you get special treatment when you're heroes of legend." Those were the first words out of Motoyasu's mouth when the heroes were alone together.
After a dinner provided by the king and his staff, one that Lance didn't eat, the woman led them to four rooms in the same hall all next to each other. As soon as she left though, the four of them decided to go into Motoyasu's room and talk about what was happening.
The rooms were all the same in design. They were fairly large with tiled floors, a few carpets strewn about. A lavish bed with red curtains was on the side of the room. A few feet away, on a large carpet, was a small table surrounded by two red chairs and a red couch. On the table was a tea set and a bowl of fruit. On the other side of the room across from the bed was a dresser with several mirrors. The wall furthest from the door was a giant window overlooking the city that opened up to a balcony.
Motoyasu was sitting on the bed cross legged and his spear was over his shoulder. Ren was leaning on the dresser with his sword strapped to his back. Naofumi sat on the red couch, shield still strapped to his arm. Lance was next to the door, shifting the bow in his left hand.
Motoyasu leaned forward on his knees while smiling before continuing, "The girl who showed us here was a cutie pie, too."
"And our dinner was pretty good, though it did taste a little odd." Naofumi added to Motoyasu's statement, before putting his hand up to touch something invisible to the rest of the heroes, "Hey," He started to ask, "Isn't this kinda like a game?"
Motoyasu laughed briefly at that before responding, "You mean it is one. It's exactly like Emerald Online."
Lance raised an unseen eyebrow at that, 'Really?' He thought in surprise, 'Is that true Shade?'
'I-I don't know.' He responded, unsure, 'I've never heard of it.'
Lance didn't have to ask as Naofumi did that for him, "Huh?" He said in a questioning tone, "What's that game?"
Motoyasu looked at him in pure confusion, "Are you serious? It's super famous!"
"You're wrong." Ren stated matter of factly, "It's a VRMMO. It's pretty much the exact same as Brave Star Online."
Naofumi looked at the hunter in expectation, but he only shrugged in response.
A clang of metal was heard as Motoyasu banged the end of his spear on the ground, "Let's sort out the information we have." He stood up, "Ren, can we take "VRMMO" literally?"
"Yeah." Was his only response.
He then addressed Lance and Naofumi, "You guys get what that means too right?"
Naofumi was the first to respond after placing his hands behind his head, "I've read about them in LNs, yeah."
Shade, meanwhile, spoke to Lance, 'It means Virtual Reality Mass Multiplayer Online, a type of gaming genre.'
"Yeah," He responded, "I've heard of them."
Motoyasu put his empty hand on his chin, "Just to be sure, let's check our general knowledge." He pointed upwards, "Who's the person on the thousand yen bill?"
'Yen?' The hunter thought confused.
The spear wielder continued, "One, two…" He swung his spear forward.
"Yawara Gotaro." "Yuda Masato." "Noguchi Hideyo." The three of them said at the same time.
They stopped before the air was filled with their voices again, "WHO?!"
It seems that they didn't notice that Lance didn't respond.
They kept spouting questions that the three of them had different answers to.
"What won Buzzword of the year last year?!"
"Your favorite voice actors?"
"Which countries won World War II?"
"Who's the Prime Minister?"
In the end they stood around the table while Lance and Shade tried to figure out what they were talking about.
'What do you have on any of that Shade?' The hunter asked his ghost hopefully.
'... Nothing.'
Lance became worried at the ghost's tone, 'What do you mean nothing?'
The ghost responded a little forcefully with his voice escalating, 'I mean nothing. No records of all of those names, no records of a 'World War II', no need for a Prime Minister since the collapse! There's nothing on any of this! It's like they come from a different world…' He stopped, 'Or…'
'What is it?' Lance asked, picking up that Shade might have something.
He didn't respond for a few seconds, '... ask them what year it is.'
Not having a reason to question his ghost he did, "I have a question to add."
They all turned to look at him expectantly, "What year is it?"
They looked confused before Naofumi responded first, "2019, don't you know?"
The other two looked alarmed with Motoyasu talking first, "What do you mean?! It's 2033 since last month."
"You're both crazy." Ren stated matter of factly, "It's 2059."
They stared at each other in confusion.
'I was right!' Shade practically yelled, almost causing Lance to flinch if it weren't for the fact he was trying to keep the fact that Shade existed a secret. 'We all seem to be from the same world, just different times.'
Lance stepped up to them and away from his space at the door, "Well then, it seems that we have an answer for our confusion."
Naofumi looked at him even more confused, "What do you mean by that?"
Ren answered for him, "We come from the same world, but different points in time." He looked at the hunter, "That's what you mean right?"
Lance nodded.
"Woah!" Motoyasu exclaimed excitedly, "That's so cool!" He turned to Lance, "What year are you from?"
They all looked at him expectantly.
The ghost responded quickly, '5327 if the math is right.'
"5327." The hunter relayed, causing even Ren's jaw to drop.
They were silent until Motoyasu spoke up, "Woah dude, that's incredible!" He started to rant, "What's it like in the future? Are there flying cars? Food in pill form? Pills in food form?" He then smiled, "Are there cute cat girls in the future?"
Lance just stared at him before saying, "Your getting off topic." He turned away from the crestfallen spear wielder and looked at the other two before speaking to the group, "Ren, Motoyasu. You said you've played games that are similar to this world right?"
They both nodded at the question, Motoyasu after regaining his composure.
"Yeah," Said the mentioned spear wielder, "Haven't you?"
Lance just shrugged, "Never had time to look into that kind of stuff."
Naofumi spoke up, "At least I'm not the only one unfimmiliar with this stuff." The other two heroes stared at him enough to make him uncomfortable and ask, "What is it?"
"Well," Motoyasu started, "I thought it was because you were the shield hero."
"It's only natural." Ren added.
Naofumi gained a look of worry, "Wh-What're you talking about? Is there something wrong with the shield?"
"That's a good question." Lance followed up, "What is it about the shield that would make you think that?"
Motoyasu gained what could be called a smug grin, "All right. Big Bro Motoyasu is gonna get you two up to speed on the basics."
He started to walk towards Naofumi, "As far as I know the Shielder, the class that specializes in the shield…" He paused for what seemed like effect, causing Naofumi to speak.
"Yeah?" The shield wielder said urgently.
"... is one for losers." Motoyasu said while getting in Naofumi's face, "No high-level gamers play it."
'Reginald would be offended by that statement.' Shade said in a matter of fact tone.
Lance scoffed internally, 'Are you kidding, that exo wouldn't even flinch.'
Naofumi didn't respond for a second before yelling out, "NOOOO!" He frantically looked between Ren and Lance, "How about in your worlds?"
Ren answered in a sorry voice, "Sorry."
Lance on the other hand gained a thoughtful look, even if the others couldn't see it due to his helmet, "I don't know about the video game aspect, but in actual combat…" He stood straighter and crossed his arms, "... they are some of the most ruthless fighters I've ever seen."
Naofumi looked at him hopefully while the other two looked at him confused, "What do you mean by that?" Motoyasu asked confused.
Lance stepped forward once more, "In my time there was a classification of Titans, a type of Guardian, that were Shielders. We call them Sentinels though. They were the best protectors in our ranks, and the best ones could take down a machine the size of this room in a single hit."
He was talking about a Vex Hydra, but they didn't need to know that.
"If you train hard enough I have no doubts that you can be as strong as one of them." The hunter finished.
They all took in that information before Motoyasu responded, "Wow, I guess the future is more different than I thought." He turned to Ren, "How's the terrain here?"
He thought for a second before replying, "Very similar to what I'm familiar with."
The spear wielder nodded, "Each weapon has its own ideal hunting ground, so let's spread out."
While Ren and Motoyasu started to talk back and forth about the similarities to the games, Naofumi got up and walked out to the balcony. Lance saw him leave but didn't follow.
The hunter listened to the two heroes talk about the similarities they noted until Naofumi yelled out, "ALL right! I'm gonna give it my all!"
They all turned to him, "R-Right." Motoyasu started before standing tall, "We have to set out on adventures tomorrow. Head back to your rooms and get a good night's sleep." He gained a thoughtful look, "Do you think they have baths here?"
"It's quite likely you'll have to go outdoors." Ren stated in response.
"Well either way," Lance started as he opened the door to the room, "Sleep well, you don't want to be caught tired in a fight." With that he exited the room and closed the door.
(Transition)
Lance didn't plan on sleeping. In fact, this was a perfect time to test some things and gather some new information.
'Motoyasu seemed a little too outgoing,' Shade stated to his Guardian while they were walking through the castle, looking for a way outside, 'And Ren seems a little too lone wolfish.'
The hunter scoffed, 'More like he's too arrogant.'
He could feel his ghost shrug(?), 'Either way. Naofumi seemed nice enough though.'
Lance found himself agreeing with his ghost, 'He is, but that won't serve him in a fight.' He soon started scowling, 'Why were civilians dragged into this anyway? They shouldn't have to fight.'
'Well, they're here now.' Shade responded, 'We just need to be ready to offer help when they need it.'
They walked in silence for a few moments before Shade spoke up again, 'If I'm right, the next door on your right should lead outside.'
Trusting his ghost, Lance went to open the said door… only for a voice to sound behind him.
"Um, hello? Sir hero?" The hunter turned to the soft female voice and found a young woman in a dress, most likely a maid of the castle.
"Do you need anything sir hero?" She asked in a slightly worried tone.
Lance responded after a second of thought, "No, I just wanted to get some fresh air. Do you know of somewhere I can go outside?"
She looked a little surprised but responded quickly, "His majesty has requested that the heroes should not leave the castle before their audience for their own safety."
'That's a little strange.' Shade noted, 'I kind of get the reasoning, but still, gating our access to the city as well. Seems like a little much.'
The maid seemed to ponder something before coming to a conclusion, "If it's just some fresh air, then I suppose I can take you to princess Melty's personal garden. Although I urge you from doing something that would damage it. Her highness takes great pride in her garden."
That made scene, the princess would likely have a garden and that fit the Guardian's needs nicely.
"Well then," The hunter said with a slight bow, "Lead the way."
(Transition)
The hunter's eyes explored his new surroundings. The garden was bigger than he thought it would be. At least it was bigger than any garden he had seen in the city.
In the center of the garden was a large tree full of life surrounded by a bed of multicolored flowers. The same kind of flowers, a type Lance didn't recognize, bordered the stone brick trails winding through the garden. What seem to be rose bushes were the main display. In front of the center tree there was metal bench, the sides of it made to look like flowing water.
Lance walked up to the tree and, with one final check of his surroundings, stuck out his left hand, palm up.
Not a second later the harpy shaped Ghost known as Shade appeared in his hand, causing said hand to be lowered.
"Ah," Shade sighed while spinning around, "It's good to stretch my rotators again."
The hunter pulled the so called Legendary Bow off of his back, "Now that we have time," He started, putting the bow on the bench, "I want you to scan this, try to find out why it's so special."
"On it." The ghost responded with a bob before floating over to the bow. When he stopped in front of it, a beam of light shot out of his reticle and connected to the bow. The light moved over the bow, taking in every detail of it.
Lance on the other hand reopened his status screen, or to be more specific, the help menu after sitting down on the bench.
9,999 pages of information that the bow apparently saw important enough to lay out for him to read. Too much in his opinion but hey, the more information the better.
He kept skimming through the pages, only stopping when he saw something interesting on the screen. Things like:
"The legendary weapons translate all speech heard by their wielders into a language the wielder can understand."
"Materials infused into the legendary weapons give the legendary weapons forms and abilities relating to the material infused. Materials can include metals, plants, monster drops, and magic items."
"The legendary weapons can copy other weapons of the same type. Copied weapons will be exactly or very close to the same in ability, power, and feel. When a weapon is copied it is not destroyed."
That last one was the most interesting to him.
"And done." Shade spoke, moving in front of Lance who flicked away the help screen, "There are a lot of interesting things here. The most interesting though has to be it's classification."
The hunter raised an eyebrow at that, "What do you mean by that? What's so special about it's classification?"
"Well, it can be classified as a relic." The ghost stated.
Lance tilted his head slightly in confusion, "A relic? What kind of classification is that?"
"It's a very, very rare weapon type made purely of exotic material and most of the time it has a core of what could be called divine material. Something like a shard of the Traveler." The ghost gained what could be called a thoughtful look, "The best example I can think of would be a swordbearer's sword."
"So it's not likely that there would be four different ones in one place is what your saying." The hunter said in understanding tone.
"Exactly!" The ghost exclaimed, "But if it is a relic, that raises another point about the weapon. Most relics start to decay when they perform attacks and, more importantly, come into contact with Guardian energies, but that isn't happening. In a way it's the opposite, linking with your Light instead of pushing it away."
Lance picked up the bow and spun it in his hand, "So it's an anomaly to what we know." He stopped spinning the bow, "Did you figure out if it's affecting my Light in anyway?"
"Yes, actually." He replied, "It's not affecting it in any negative way, but it does seem to be heightening your Light. Just a little bit though, nothing you would notice in combat. To be fair, I don't know exactly know what it affected."
The hunter hummed in response before stating and idea, "What about magic? When I was looking through the help screens I noticed several mentions of magical items, which seems to imply that magic exists. In this world at least." He shrugged, "Maybe the bump in Light means that I can use magic now."
The ghost seemed to think for a moment, "I… wouldn't know where to start with that information. Maybe we should go see a magic user in the morning?"
Lance nodded, "Sounds like a plan." He paused, "On that note, I would like to try something."
He stood up, his ghost moving out of the way but still facing him, "Do you still have that bow we found at the Gofannon forge?"
"Let me check." The ghost replied. A second later he spoke again, "Yup, still have it. Do you want me to bring it out?"
"Yeah." In a flash of light a new bow appeared in his right hand, his left currently having the Legendary Bow in it.
This new bow was a masterpiece. It's top and bottom limbs were a light gray ending with black that held the idler wheel and cam, the pulleys of the bow. A carbon fiber string ran through these pulleys and connected with two other pulleys on the main frame. The main frame was black with red and gold plates. On top of the center pulleys were dark grey, circle plates with golden butterflies on them.
The grip was made of a black plastic. Above it was a light grey arrow rest. Above this was a small holographic sight window. Under the grip was a stabilizer about 9in long, light and dark grey in color.
If someone pulled back the bow string, a light grey arrow would appear. The arrow had an even lighter grey felching ending with a dark grey nock. The arrowhead was dark grey and very sharp, but that wasn't what stood out about it. Connected to the arrowhead was a glowing purple canister filled with poison.
This was Le Monarque. It may not be a butterfly, but it was just as beautiful.
As soon the bow appeared in Lance's hand, a new screen popped up in front of him.
[Would you like to copy this weapon: Le Monarque?]
[YES] [NO]
Lance smiled before tapping yes. The Legendary Bow flashed with a bright light for a few seconds before dying down, revealing that the Legendary Bow now looked exactly like the Le Monarque. New information appeared in his vision.
[Le Monarque - Exotic - Equipment Bonus: +50 Poison Resistance, +40 Attack, +70 Poison Damage, +20 Ready Speed - Arrow Type: Pestilence Arrows - Special Ability: Incurable Shot]
"How…" The ghost started confused, "Did you know that would work?"
The hunter placed the Legendary Bow onto his back, after converting it back into its original form, while forcing the real Le Monarque into his ghost's storage, "I read about the copy ability in the help menu." He shrugged, "Seemed like a good thing to try out."
Shade was silent for a second before saying, "I'll need to read through that then, see if there is anything else we could use." He then floated over to Lance, bobbing in the air. "What's listed on there anyway? Pestilence Arrows? Incurable Shot?"
As soon as the ghost said it, two pop ups appeared in Lance's hud.
[Pestilence Arrows: All arrows shot from Le Monarque will contain a poison vial that will shatter upon impact, spreading the poison in a small cloud. Poison will be more deadly if it is injected or swallowed.]
[Incurable Shot: Requires Light Level 800 - After activated, the next arrow shot will contain a hyper deadly poison with no cure. Can only be activated once every month, unused arrows are stored]
"Hm…" The ghost hummed, "So, the Pestilence Arrow is still the same as we know it, and that Incurable Shot seems really useful."
Lance sat back down on the bench, leaning back. The Guardian and ghost stayed in silence for a minute before Shade spoke, "It's been one hell of a day, huh. First we get call in on our one day off. Then we get ambushed in the Vault of Glass while recovering that ghost only to get brought to this new world."
The Guardian turned to his ghost, "I've been meaning to ask about that." He opened the pouch on his belt and pulled out the deactivated ghost, "Can you turn on this ghost now?"
Shade floated over to the still ghost, "I can, but I would rather not risk it. This world is still unfamiliar. I don't want that ghost to be lost, or worse captured by an unseen hand." He looked back up at Lance, "It would be best to wait until we find someone who can wield the Traveler's Light."
Lance nodded in understanding, "Then we should make that one of our main priorities."
"Agreed." Was the response.
There was another lapse of silence before the hunter sighed and muttered, "I know getting fresh air was just a lie I told to get out here, but…"
His hand went to the base of his helmet were he found two clasps, one on either side, and unlocked them. They hissed, releasing the air lock and making the helmet go loose.
Just before he pulled the helmet of though, a flash of red appeared on the edge of his motion radar.
In less than a second his helmet was relocked, Shade disappeared, Kindled Orchid was in his right hand, and he was pointing the hand cannon in the direction of the motion flash. It didn't stay like that for long though as lightning sparked from his right hand, causing a massive jolt of pain.
The Kindled Orchid went flying into the bed of flowers at the base of the tree, damaging one or two of them. Lance, meanwhile, fell to the ground grasping his right hand.
'Guardian!' The ghost cried in his head.
"I'm fine." He replied verbally while standing back up. He checked the motion radar. Nothing.
"What was that about?" He asked, only for the bow to answer him.
[Legendary Weapon Rule Violation: Holding Non-Assigned Weapon]
'... What?' Shade asked confused.
Seemingly to help with the confusion, a new page of the help screen popped up.
"The wielders of the legendary weapons cannot hold or use non-assigned weapons. Failure to meet this rule will be met with sharp pain and weapon rejection."
"So," Lance started, "That means I can only use bows to fight? That's bullshit."
'It seems like I need to go through the help pages more than I thought.' The ghost said.
The hunter stood up and flexed his still, aching hand, "Yeah, get on that." He turned and looked at his hand cannon on the ground, "Don't forget Kindled Orchid though."
'Oh,' Shade said, distracted by the help screen, 'Of course.' The hand cannon disappeared in a flash of light. Not a second later, the door to the castle opened.
Lance turned to find the same woman who led him here, "Sir hero? Are you alright?"
"Yeah," He replied smoothly, "I was just about to head back inside. Can you bring me back to my room?"
She nodded quickly, "Of course, sir hero. Follow me."
(Chapter End)
Hello readers far and wide, and welcome to the story.
I wanted to thank you for the follows, favorites, and reviews. They make your boy happy.
For the story, I plan on updating every other Monday(even if it is a day late right now), so chapter 3 will be posted on January 27.
I hope all of you wonderful people have a wonderful day.
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