Armory of the Forgotten Hero

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Unknown Mountain Range

An eerie quiet currently characterized the mountainous area as mist drifted in and out of the tree line. What finally broke the silence was the sound of light footsteps as a lithe but agile figure gracefully stepped from one rocky outcropping to the next. At first glance she seemed like an ordinary girl, save for the leather armor she wore that left her upper arms exposed, while a pair of armored gloves covered her hands. Her light grey pants were the slightest bit baggy, allowing her a better freedom of movement, even despite the kneepads and shin guards tied around them.

But that was were all normalcy ended as for whatever reason the girl sported a tail flitting about from the back of her pants, very much resembling a light yellow weasel's tail. A set of weasel ears the same color as her tail sat upon the top of the mysterious girl's head as well, flicking from time to time in an attempt to hear anyone sneaking up on them. But the strangest feature of all, to some at least, was the large studded club she held in her right hand which was currently balanced on her shoulder. Despite its size, the cat girl had no trouble toting it along as she arrived at her destination, a cliff overlooking a misty landscape full of greenery.

Several feet back from the cliff's edge stood another mystery. A small collection of weapons was embedded in the ground or in strange creatures resembling mountain goats, but with serrated and gnarled horns as well as horrendous fangs. A figure stood over the largest one, which had a decorated silver ax with runes on the handle buried in it. In contrast to the arriving cat girl, the stranger was most definitely a young man with brown hair that sported silvery streaks on his bangs.

He wore a very short, faded white cape that rested on the back of his neck and a piece of cloth falling down from each shoulder. A flexible armor chest plating covered his front and back while studded shoulder pads covered down to his elbows. He wore armor over his boots and shin guards that protected up to his knees. A belt with a number of pouches and a silver saber in a sheath adorned his waist. His look was rounded out with a pair of grey gloves and black bands which appeared to hold some type of white jewels.

With a grunt, he yanked the ax out of the monstrous goat and rested the weapon on his shoulder while also pulling a three-pronged spear from the ground before turning to the arriving weasel girl. The two seemed familiar with each other as the blond-haired girl smiled at the weapon wielder. He returned a small smile of his own before turning to look back out over the landscape.

Alternate America: Present

'Oh what in the world,' Darius thought groggily as he suddenly stirred in his bed before finally forcing his eyes open. 'Another night, another showing of that weird dream.' The twenty-year-old glanced at his clock, hoping he could roll over and go back to sleep. But as luck, or lack thereof, would have it he'd managed to wake up at 7:45 am.

'Well not much point in going back to sleep now, not with the rest of the family about to wake up.' In this case, the rest of the family also included an insistent torte-colored cat who was scratching at his door, ready to get her breakfast. "Alright, I'm up, I'm up," Darius said as he forced himself out of bed to feed the hungry feline. It was a familiar scenario which often happened on the weekend, especially during the summer when he was home from college. He'd wake up or would be woken up by the cat before proceeding downstairs for breakfast.

He'd then spend time downstairs with his parents, engaging in a bit of friendly with friendly conversation before heading over to his laptop or back to his room where the videogame console was. Now if this had been a few years ago, he'd be called a shut-in or something else along those lines. But it was something far more common in the day and age they were living in right now. The reason for the current state of affairs occurred five years ago, when a number of domestic terrorist cells managed to pull off a few coordinated attacks which almost knocked out the power grid to the east coast.

The police, FBI, and other anti-terrorist government forces managed to stop them before the damage became severe, saying they owed much to the new drone tech which was used to locate and plan a quick counteroffensive against the threat. So thanks to the incident it was almost no problem at all for the government to push through a bill allowing mass production of the drones to monitor the streets and skies of cities and towns alike. It seemed alright at first with everyone feeling safe knowing that there were people watching over them and keeping them safe. But it soon became clear that the technology wasn't perfect, nor were the people who operated it.

A year and a half after the drones were signed into law and a substantial number were in the air, incidents began occurring. Cases of mistaken identity or people being wrongly arrested because the drones mistook them for committing a crime began popping up. Others began reporting harassment as some drones seemed, according to them, to focus more closely on certain areas or certain people. So the mechanical watchdog's systems were made more and more automated with specialized difference engines to help identify whether or not crimes were actually occurring.

Despite the attempted fixes, however, problems still persisted over the next two and a half years as the drones continued to have the occasional case of falsely identifying a crime in progress. A lot of people began spending more time indoors as a result, fearful that a drone might spy them and mistake them for someone committing a crime. Making matters worse, four years after the drones became a part of everyone's lives, the not-so-wise powers that be declared that in order to make the system more efficient a curfew would be issued around all major cities and towns. The hope was that the drones would be most effective observing crimes at the hours they would most commonly occur, but at the same time, it meant anyone unlucky enough not to make it home before then was almost always arrested.

So Darius, like many others, began looking for more indoor hobbies. He was already familiar with video games and comics, but the real gem for him came in the form of anime and manga. It gave him an entertaining escape from a world which had become all too similar to a police state. But even with a mass of entertainment, one can only stay in the same place for so long and that's why today, Darius decided to venture out of the house for a little event known as an anime con which just so happened to be near his place of residence that year. In hindsight, he should've planned his day a little better.

A Block from the Local Library: That Evening

'Crap, crap, crap, crap!' thought Darius with a mix of annoyance and concern for his own well-being as he walked quickly, but not too quickly down the sidewalk. 'That signing at the end of the day took way too long. Why, why, why did I not leave when I had the chance?!' Well truthfully it was obvious why he didn't leave beforehand. The author of one of his favorite manga did not make a lot of public appearances, meaning he might've missed out on a once in a lifetime chance if he'd left then and there.

But between that and getting through the crowd at the convention, he'd lost all track of time and was now hurrying home in an effort to keep from getting caught after curfew went into effect. Problem was, said curfew would be occurring in five minutes and he was at least fifteen minutes from his house. 'Alright think,' Darius pondered as he tried to stay calm, 'the patrols become more intense the moment curfew starts, but the main force of the drones still goes block by block. So if I can hide somewhere for a bit, I might be able to avoid them before heading home, but where can I hide?'

His answer came as he turned the corner to see the local library, one of the few places in the neighborhood allowed to be open past the curfew thanks to being an entity of the state. Wasting no time, Darius broke into a quick run before ducking in through the front entrance. He quickly closed the door behind him and peered out the window for a moment, trying to spot any drones flying in the air. He held his breath when one actually did fly by, but it only hovered around the area for a few moments before continuing on its programmed route. 'Whew,' the tired college student thought, 'that was too close.'

The twenty year old then proceeded to move away from the door and into the practically deserted library. He made a quick call to his family in hopes that they might be able to contact the authorities and explain why he was out past curfew before proceeding into the main part of the library itself. 'It's pretty much just me and the librarian behind the desk until my family's able to get this mess straightened out, so I may as well pick out something to read for a bit.' Now he could've read the manga he'd also purchased that day, but he decided it might be a bit rude given that he was in the library and not a lot of people stopped by here these days to read the books within.

So his eyes roamed the shelves for the first interesting sounding title he could find until landing on a white book in the fantasy section. 'The Record of the Five Cardinal Heroes,' Darius thought as he pulled the book out and opened it up to the first page. 'What the heck, haven't looked at a good fantasy in a while.' He took the book with him and sat down at the nearest table, quickly noting that the inside pages had strange black pictures accompanying its words.

'Now let's see,' Darius mused as he began to read, 'In order to save the world from waves of apocalyptic catastrophe, four heroes will normally be summoned. Each of them will be known by the distinct weapon they wield: The sword hero, the bow hero, the shield hero and the spear hero. However, should the state of the world become too unbalanced before their summoning, a fifth hero shall be called, one who has wielded numerous weapons whenever they appear: The Armory Hero.'

'Now that's certainly an odd title,' Pondered the twenty-year old before flipping through more of the book. Each hero had their own page with detailed information about them, but when he got to the page about the Armory Hero everything but the title page was blank. 'I think I'd better show this to the librarian. It's not good to leave an unfinished bo-what the?!' For some reason, the book had begun glowing as the pages started to turn rapidly of their own accord. The light grew brighter and brighter until Darius was forced to close his eyes.

Suddenly, the book flew out of his hands as the floor seemed to disappear underneath him. The confused Otaku opened his eyes and immediately regretted it as he saw that he was now falling through some kind of tunnel made of light. "WHAT'S GOING ON?!" he yelled at the top of his lungs before his back and head suddenly impacted against something solid.

He hissed in pain a bit as he slowly got up to a sitting position, rubbing the sore spot on his head. "What in the world just happened," Darius thought aloud before glancing at something on his wrists, "And where did these come from?" At some point during his fall, a pair of black bands had appeared on his arms, each with a white pearl-like jewel on the tops of them. He tried pulling and tugging on them, but found that while he could move them up his arms and even take them off, he couldn't separate the bands from his person. He even tried throwing them and found that they were stuck to his hands.

"Oh please tell me I just fell asleep at the library," Darius groaned as he climbed to his feet and dusted off his jeans. The weather had been on the cooler side that day, so he'd decided to go with a green jacket vest over a grey shirt with short sleeves, which he was now even more grateful for as it appeared to be relatively cold wherever he was. 'Definitely not at the library anymore,' he thought with equal measures of wonder and concern as he took in his surroundings. He appeared to be in a large brick room that had apparently been abandoned for some time, and the dank feeling given off by the air seemed to indicate that he was underground.

But what caught his attention was the large stone in the middle of the room and the racks of numerous weapons lining all four of the walls. Looking down, he also noted a large magic circle on the floor. 'Gee, I wonder what kind of occult happenings used to take place here,' thought Darius as he walked to the back wall and picked up one of the weapons. Much to his surprise, words suddenly danced in front of his vision. 'What the heck, weapon copy proceeding, and what in the world is this, store weapon?' He didn't understand it fully, but for some reason his vision now looked like the HUD of an RPG game.

Curious as to what would happen, he reached out in front of him and pressed the spot in the air that looked like the 'yes' button. The screen changed then as the weapon was suddenly absorbed by some kind of white light coming from his wrist bands. 'Storage complete,' read the HUD as Darius tried his best not to freak out at the fact that he just made a weapon disappear into thin air. "Okay, so I can make weapons disappear somewhere, I wonder."

He picked up another weapon, this one an old sword and repeated the process. As before, the weapon disappeared into what he believed to be some kind of inventory displayed on the HUD. "Alright, so it seems the weapon copy thing works automatically but I've got to decide whether or not I want to store something," the casual gamer mused aloud, "And given the fact that everything so far seems to be working like a video game." He reached up into the air again and pressed what appeared to be some kind of inventory button in the bottom right of his vision, which brought up everything he'd made disappear so far.

Taking a deep breath, Darius selected the first weapon he'd picked up earlier, a worn battle ax. As if by magic, the weapon reappeared in his hands, though he almost dropped it out of surprise. "Hello, someone's got a new trick," he said almost happily before using the store command to make it disappear again. "Well if it's a video game I've wound up in, then let's test the limits of this inventory system." It was apparently a large inventory as he was able to copy and store every weapon in the room before finally turning to the one and only exit, a staircase that went upwards.

It was a rather lengthy walk but after a few minutes he reached what looked like an exit. There was one problem, however, it seemed to be sealed. 'Okay,' he thought as he looked around the edges of the door, 'these things always got some kind of hidden switch or condition that allows them to open, so where's the one for this door?' Darius wondered for a moment if he could scan it with the HUD before a sudden noise caused him to back away from the door.

Some kind of seal with wings had appeared on the door, causing it to slide upwards and letting in fresh air from the outside. 'Huh, well that didn't take too much work,' Darius almost laughed to himself as he poked his head out the door, noting that it was dark out while checking to make sure there was nothing there before stepping forward. In hindsight, he probably should've remembered to look up. A giant foot suddenly slammed down on the ground to his left, kicking up a large amount of dust and nearly causing him to stumble.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" exclaimed Darius as he looked up to see that the giant foot was attached to a massive, round bird with some kind of feathers protruding from the top of its head. In fact the bird was so large that he realized its looming form was the reason he'd assumed the moon wasn't out at first. 'If this is like a video game, then this is one of those bosses you're supposed to run away from in the tutorial,' he thought as he turned and ran in a zigzagging pattern, hoping that if the monster bird did notice him it wouldn't be able to peck him off the ground easily.

But as it turned out, the giant fowl wasn't alone as a number of large birds about the size of ostriches suddenly began pouring out of the woods where he was running too. Each of them came in a different color, with some being blue, others yellow, some white and even a few pink ones. What was worse, the pack of birds was clearly coordinated as the line of them split up in two directions, cutting off any escape route he could see as they all formed a circle around their fleeing prey, forcing him to stop in the center. "Well this is definitely not how I wanted to die," Darius said as he turned back to look upon the giant approaching bird.

He couldn't tell for sure but it almost looked a little irritated. "Alright then, guess I got no choice," he thought aloud as he quickly opened his inventory and selected the best weapon he currently had, "Bring it on you giant canary!" A battle ax materialized in his hands as he took the best form of a fighting stance that he could. For some reason, the giant bird stopped after witnessing this feat, its head tilting in slight confusion.

"How did you do that," said a clearly female voice from seemingly out of nowhere.

"Huh," was Darius's response as he looked around, trying to find the source of the voice.

"That weapon was left in the temple, how did you summon it?" questioned the voice, this time more direct. Darius looked up towards the source and realized that the voice was actually coming from the giant bird.

"Did you just talk," he questioned with a bit of skepticism in his voice, "How in the world can you talk?"

"I have learned many things over the centuries," replied the giant bird, "but it has been some time since I last spoke to a human, so allow me a moment to take a form better suited for conversation." The giant talking bird began to glow as her form shifted and shrank down several sizes until she was actually shorter than him. As the light faded, a little silver-haired girl with wings wearing a white dress characterized with robed sleeves and red markings stood before him. "I am Fitoria, Queen of all Filolials."

"Uh, pleased to make your acquaintance, your majesty," said Darius as he sent his weapon back to the inventory before bowing. "Sorry if I'm trespassing, but I didn't really come here by choice-."

"Your wrists," said Fitoria as she pointed at his hands.

"Beg your pardon," questioned the confused college student as he held up his hands.

"That temple is a tribute to the fifth cardinal hero," explained Fitoria, "It is sealed so that no one else may enter freely, yet you appeared within it. If my suspicions are correct, then you should also possess the jeweled bands."

"Oh you mean these things," said Darius as he held out his wrists for the Filolial queen to inspect, "They somehow clamped onto me when I got transported here and-."

"So it's true," Fitoria said with a tone of surprise and, relief possibly, "you've appeared, which means the world is in worse peril than I thought."

"Uh, you're gonna have to explain that one," said Darius as he rubbed the back of his head in confusion.

"Those bands are the weapons of the fifth cardinal hero," explained Fitoria, "One who is only summoned when the forces of the world are greatly imbalanced. They are what mark you as the current Armory Hero." It all clicked then. Some way somehow, he'd been summoned to the world within the book he'd been reading, a world which he would soon realize had more problems than just the monsters.

And welcome everyone to my newest story! Credit for the story idea and character go to fellow reader Noble Eight (Sorry I'm late on doing full fan recognition. Promise to do it more in the future). Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter of this Rising of the Shield Hero fanfiction and feel free to leave a comment or review about what you liked/disliked or if you've got any neat ideas for future chapters. Be sure to stop in next time as Darius learns about his new job. 'Til then.