Nuclear Winter

The cool gray clouds cast mild shadows in the lush evergreens, their unchanging pines waving gently in the harsh breeze.  It was the kind of cold you could feel travel all the way to your lungs, chilling your insides with crisp mountain air.  The quiet clouds blotting out the sun heralded potential rain, seeing as it wasn’t cold enough for snow, but despite the conditions a lone hooded traveller still sought to venture through the evergreen forest.  The pines towered into the sky, their dark branches brushing against the fast moving clouds.  And yet amongst the maze of green a blot of red walked, their eyes glued to the forest path.  Of course, this was none other than Althea, dressed in a crimson hoodie on top a black one piece.  Her usually free falling blonde hair had been tied up, the ribbon she usually wore in her hand nowhere to be seen.

Usually, the youth had an absolutely atrocious sense of direction, but seeing as she was back in the mountains she called home navigating was no longer a problem.  Of course, she wasn’t overly familiar with the path to Mountain Village, but she’d been there once before and that was enough.  On the occasion she had last visited the remote village, it had been back when she was much weaker.  A job had been sent out to subjugate a group of chupacabras who’d been terrorizing villagers, and they were actually rather simple to deal with.  Then again, everything Althea had come across as “easy to deal with”.  She never had the ability to take jobs that were outside her ability denoted by the Council.  And yet she had grown to a degree where she was considered to be a “S-rank mage”.  For many, this was as far as they’d ever hope to get power-wise, but Althea refused for that to apply to her as well.  But then again, if you left every fight with minimal injuries, how are you going to grow?  Honestly, the most challenging job of her career had been a certain incident in Hargeon.  But even then it wasn’t the Magic Council’s ranking system that had dictated her participation.  She just happened to be there at the moment and was forced to adapt along with the situation.

Her heart warmed at the memories of going around the mist-covered down, faced by enemies much stronger than her.  Unfortunately, as time went on in those conditions, she got used to things so quickly that soon things were as easy as they always were.  Little did she know that that was due to her traversing a bridge in power during that time, increasing her abilities.  Still, the feeling of being backed into a situation she couldn’t just punch really hard to go away was nice.  Punching above her weight class was one of the most enjoyable things imaginable for Althea, next to -- of course -- juice.  The incident of Hargeon wasn’t perfect, however, in fact it was kind of the reason she was on Phoenix Mountain in the first place.

Either way, that was just one of several reasons Althea was bumming around the mountains, but for the moment she actually had a specific destination.  The girl strode through the quiet streets of Mountain Village, but this time around signs of life such as smoke billowing from chimneys signalled the presence of life.  She pulled her hood even farther down her face, tucking both of her hands into her sweatshirt pockets.  Unfortunately, Althea’s face wasn’t completely unknown, especially in places such as this where she significantly helped out the populace.  In the state she was in, the slayer really didn’t want anyone realizing it was her just walking away.  The gray clouds above whirled about above as the blonde entered a rather homely looking shop.

Last time Althea was there, a chestnut haired lady who requested the chupacabra slaying job for the village had been the one at the bar head.  But now, she was surprised to see the lady was now replaced by an older, silver haired man, although by no means did he seem human.  His hair was slicked back neatly, allowing for anyone to see his long, pointy ears.  And despite his rather slim build, with his neat white gloves wiping a glass with great care, he emanated a large amount of magical energy.  His neatly tended for beard and spectacles suggested he came from a much more acclaimed background than his surroundings suggested.  Of course, it was nothing compared to Owatatsumaki, whom Althea had just been acquainted with recently, but who would like being compared to a literal dragon?  But either way, if was much more than the everyday mage had.

“I haven’t seen you enter this shop before, miss, are you perhaps a traveller?”  The older man smiled jovilly at the girl, setting aside the newly wiped glass.  In that warm, inviting grin of his were two slightly elongated canines.

Althea nodded silently, sliding into a bar seat.  “...just some juice please.”  Althea barely managed to say, her voice coming out in a slightly lower octave than usual.

“Any preference?”

Choosing not to speak again, the blonde simply shook her head.

The older man smiled, “Alright, hope you don’t mind orange then!  It’s one of the few juices we have in there parts.”

In fact, Althea didn't mind orange juice, but she didn't say so aloud.  Instead she just sat there silently, awaiting the arrival of her beverage.

“Here you go, a tall glass of orange juice.”  The mug was slid over to Althea, the teen catching it before it slid right off the counter.  Fishing some currency out of her sweatshirt bucket, she went ahead and slide it over to the bartender’s waiting hand.  The older man deftly looked over the jewels before offering Althea a charming smile.

Althea let out a sigh, reaching for her juice.  She hadn’t really been able to sit down and enjoy some nice juice in a while seeing as a mass amount of jobs prevented her from returning to Fairy Tail too often.  Especially this time around, where she really didn't expect to be back at the guild hall for a while.  However, instead of grabbing the mug like Althea instructed her body to, her hand simply slapped the thing right onto the floor.  The loss of the orange juice was indeed something quite horrible, but her stiff body and shaking hand really left a lot to be desired.  The room twirled, doing a few leaps, bounds, and pirouettes around Althea.  The lights suddenly became too bright to bear one minute and completely absent the next.

“&#(, /$% !*@ ^%&#?”  The bartender’s mouth opened, but nothing but static came out. The water mage narrowed her eyes, trying to force her vision to stabilize to no avail.  Sadly, it seems like this episode needed to be solved with something more than just simply focusing.  Getting to her unsteady feet, Althea moved as fast as possible out of the bar.  Of course, it was only reasonable that she was using a spell for instantaneous movement.  But somehow a stinging pain was felt in the blonde’s face, her feet leaving the tense ground.  What an embarrassing fall, did she accidentally ran into a branch at high speed or something?  No good, she couldn’t see anything either way, might as well administer her temporary cure and hope she didn’t cause too much damage.

Still being assaulted by nausea, the slayer struggled to her feet, using a tree as a support.  It was lucky for her that a cliff was right in front of her, dropping off into a right there and she hadn’t run off it.  Repressing the bile that sought to travel up her throat, Althea used one hand to cover her mouth while the other was stretched shakily towards the cliff.  Pillars of water erupted from the earth below, one after the other shooting up into the sky before dispersing.  Again, again, again, an endless onslaught of magical spells at full power.  However, by the time she stopped casting corinthian order over and over again, she wasn’t close to done with her magic power.  In fact, she had only made a sort of “dent” in her total pool.

And that was exactly the reason she had come out to Phoenix Mountains.  Her magical energy was going absolutely haywire, alternating to an unearthly level to a miniscule amount at the snap of the fingers.  It started happening to a much lesser degree right after her Clarity had assumed its most recent form.  Often, changes to her core resulted in several unforeseen altercations to Althea’s being, but she hadn’t really been worrying about it when she changed it.  Having an external core was an absolute pain, so she took the opportunity to fuse a human heart compatible with her and the key.  Honestly, a lot could’ve gone wrong while doing something like that so suddenly.  Althea’s Clarity served as the very base of her existence, a big red flag being that it technically wasn’t even her’s.  Before the aether-based object belonged to her, it was someone else’s.  And thus when it was passed onto her when it was supposed to disappear with its original owner, Althea’s being automatically shifted to reflect the original owner’s.

Back then, Althea really didn’t mind seeing as she was literally a blank slate anyways, but nowadays she’d prefer if she didn’t accidentally change her personality.  Said original owner would’ve had zero problems manipulated Clarity however they saw fit seeing as it wasn’t their base, they were its base.  But now Clarity was basically attempting to keep her in a state where she retained both her and the original owner’s affinity, although sometimes some whoopsies result in shifts.  If could be triggered by just about anything, but it’s basically when Clarity tries changing her personal affinity.  Why does the slayer even have such a volatile thing?  Well, that’s even more complicated than how the thing actually works.

What does matter at the moment was the fact Clarity this time wasn’t shifting her personality, just her magic.  It was the center of her magical power, as well as made of an entirely unique magical resource.  And so for some reason during the exchange, the ting starting going all wacky doo.  The thing is that the reason Althea thought it to be alright to go along with the change in Clarity’s form was because of her magic.  Specifically, her practice of water dragon slaying magic.  The blonde would never knowingly jeopardize her humanity, seeing as a change in Clarity could inadvertently force her to discard it.  With that in mind, she learned slayer magic as fast as possible and set out on her journey proper.  However, the dar thing wasn’t even doing its job as a buffer!  What kind of cheap dollar store garbage did Tethys saddle the young girl with just to make her go away?  The neutral affinity of dragon slayer magic was meant to prevent Althea’s different magic affinities from crashing while helping stabilize Clarity to her personal being.  Instead, Clarity shifted when it shouldn’t have, and now her magic wasn’t even working.

Motivated by her agitation over the whole situation, Althea got to her feet.  Tethys should still be bumming around somewhere on Phoenix Mountain, so she was going right up to that blasted hermit’s cave and having her fix the situation for her.  One may wonder why a water dragon was even set up on a bitterly cold mountain, but Althea didn't really get it either.  Apparently it had something to do with the fact that Tethys thought the ocean was kind of boring?  When Althea asked, she said something along the lines of, “once you’ve seen the entire ocean and all the streams, you’ve seen it!  There isn’t even anyone interesting down there, so I prefer land.  Either way, isn’t snow basically water?!”

Althea sighed, beginning to walk through the pine forest towards the peak of the mountain.  It was kind of ironic that the slayer thought of her mentor as a “disappointing person”, even though they were really similar.  The ribbon wearing mage would be horrified to hear so, but things like their deposition, thought process, and inclination towards isolation paralleled each other.  Eventually, the downpour suggested by the dark clouds occured, but seeing as Althea had travelled quite a ways up the mountain it actually ended up as snow.  Perfect conditions for Tethys hunting, the forecaster was glad for her tendency to predict weather before it happened.  As the wind raged and snow piled up, Althea found herself basically on the mountain peak.

She glanced at the snow covered ground, lowering her hood, “This seems like a good place.”  She murmured before laying down right there for a nap.

“Oi.  Oiiiii.”

A feminine voice droned into Althea’s ears, but the young girl simply turned her back to its source, snuggling up in her blanket.

“Hey, you gonna wake up or what?”

The voice began to show signs of agitation, but so was Althea so no sympathy for you.  Instead, still asleep, she threw her pillow at full strength at the voice’s source, a loud “Ack!” emanating through the room.

“What the he-?  You’d BEST BE WAKING UP!”

Suddenly, Althea felt her body leave the bed and enter the air.  Actually, when she opened her eyes, she realized that the bed was also airborne as well.  Sleepy and uncoordinated, Althea just kind of rocketed into the wall, the cloud of dust from the impact clearing to reveal the blonde curled in the blanket burrito-style.

Before her was the one who RUDELY woke her up from an extremely pleasant nap: queen of the Euphyllia water dragons, Tethys.  At the moment, she had assumed a much smaller size than her typical one.  You were able to compare her to the likes of a horse instead of a castle.  The water dragon’s pale blue scales shimmered in the artificially lit room, her serpent like body floating through the air towards her mentee.

“Geez, you’re still super annoying, what would that older sister of yours say if she saw how you just treated me?”

“‘Oh wow, Ku, you really did nail her with that pillow!  Could you do it again so I could get it on camera?’”

Tethys’s slitted eyes narrowed, the eastern style dragon biting back a retort.  Instead, she cleared her throat, choosing to assume the role of the mature one in the exchange.  “Well, anyways, why were you taking a nap on top of a freezing mountain AGAIN?  I know you seem to have gotten stronger, but you may be able to tell I’m very busy.”

Althea’s eyes clearly displayed how little to a degree she actually believed the dragon.  “Yeah, okay, sure.  Well, maybe if you gave me your address I wouldn’t need to do stuff like that.”  It was in fact true that before she became a mage Althea had collapsed on the peak of Phoenix Mountains.  And it was then that she first met her mentor in water dragon magic and crammed it within the span of a week.  Apparently people weren’t usually supposed to mash an entire slayer magic into their system like she had, but that didn’t actually matter at the moment.  What was topical was the fact Tethys escorted her off the freezing peaks via teleportation, meaning Althea never actually learned where the dragon lived.  So, she just reckoned if she collapsed in the snow again Tethys would just find her again.

Tethys averted her gaze from Althea’s accusing one, “W-Well, I didn’t know if I could trust you or not, you know?”  The young girl’s gaze continued to burrow into the dragon, “It’s… a long walk down the mountain!  Didn’t want you to collapse again!”  At this point Tethys should be able to feel the pressure from Althea’s gaze, “Erm, anyways, what do you want?”

The ribbon wearing mage unfurled herself from her burrito-like blanket.  “Well, I’ve been having some problems with my magic and-”

“OH MY- what's wrong with you?!”  Tethys’s face reflected one of true horror, her deep blue eyes fixated on Althea’s visage.

“Eh?  You’ve insulted me before, but this time you’re going way too far.”  The dragon shook her head roughly, using magic to conjure up a floating mirror of water.  Ah, and it was properly reflective and everything!  But that’s weird, in place of the reflection Althea expected, there was this red eyed teenager standing there, looking at her with a confused expression.  “Huh, what a funny mirror.”

“Thea, that’s you.”  Tethys shouted, a dark shadow lingering behind her eyes, “You’re a bishojo now.”

The blonde silently looked from her reflection to Tethys and back again.  “Oh, this hasn’t happened before.”  She murmured aloofly, looking at her newly matured body.  True, the red eyes have been a thing before, but that was usually only one at a time.  But the curves in Althea’s body were something completely new.  “Anyways, what’s a bishojo, and can you fix me.”

Tethys looked over her with an odd expression, “I don’t think I want to change you… at least for now.”  The dragon smirked, “Lolis are nice, but I’ve always wanted to play around with a proper girl y’know?  What should I try first, school uniform?  Bikini?  Maid outfit?”  If Tethys could drool, she probably would be by now.  “Ohh, I can already imagine the short skirts!  Ahh, thigh high stockings would look great on you!  And you already styled your hair in a way that fits you!!!”

Althea sighed, now her dragon mentor was in one of her weird moods.  It happened every once in a while, so she was already used to it by now.  The usual course of action, as always, was just to wait for her to stop talking.  However, the teen was on a bit of a time crunch now.  Her current looks greatly resembled her old OLD appearance, meaning something else could also change to reflect it, and that would spell the end of her humanity.  So, there was no time to waste!  Tethys needed to get into gear!

“TETHYS GET INTO GEAR.”

The water dragon actually managed to stop talked, her dark expression gone in favor of an annoyed one, “Wow, you are super rude.  Y’know, I was really getting into the mood for dressing you up and everything.”

“I don’t even understand why you like that stuff.”  Althea replied frankly, “Now tell me what you think is wrong with me.

The dragon sighed, closing her eyes in thought, “Well, it seems like you’ve got a few ‘kinks’ in there.  Like a threat, your magic kind of got… tangled.”  She murmured, nodding as she assessed the situation, “Yes… let me see… it’s entirely your own fault.”

“Eh?  My fault?”

“Yeah that’s what I said.”  Althea’s gaze implored for an explanation, the dragon begrudgingly complying.  “You see, water dragon slayer magic acts as a sort of buffer between your two magics.  One is your innate one, the one you can’t get rid of no matter how much you try, is always trying to eradicate Today’s Forecast from your magic signature.  After all, that little magic of yours is rather finicky, and your sister’s weather magic is really an oddball, so them being incompatible is expected.  However, dragon slayer magic is associated with higher beings enough that your old magic won’t make you unable to use it, and using a water affinity on top of that protects Today’s Forecast as well, right?”

Althea nodded, “Yeah, but you’re just telling me stuff I know already.”

Tethys sighed, “How impatient.  Well, let me just say this: do you know if you can still use your old magic?”

“Nah, I haven’t tried for years.”

The dragon’s face twitched, their annoyance only just hidden under a forced grin, “You know, that magic’s really being wasted on you.  Its potential is amazing, but you refuse to use it on principle.”  The magical being needed to take a deep breath to tame her agitation, “Well, you should really start using it, ‘kay?”

“No thanks.”

“Hey, if you really want to fix your situation, you seriously have to.  Instead of that magic eradicating Today’s Forecast from your signature, Today’s Forecast is trying to get rid of the old magic.  At this point, you only use me magic and your sister’s magic, right?  That means that your magic is in a place where that fickle magic is able to go ahead and get rid of it.  And since it’s being forced out of your magic signature, your mana’s going absolutely mental and the magic is manifesting itself through your physical appearance.”

Althea’s gaze was blank, the only words that managed to escape her mouth being, “But why?”

“Well, Today’s Forecast was made by an absolute maniac, as we both know.  And so it has all sort of ‘automated reflexes’ to things regarding magic.  For example, you may be aware of how it goes ahead and draws your attention to extreme weather all by itself, right?  The same thing with your old magic, except it’s… you know… trying to destroy it.”  Tethys sighed, “That vixen really had the craziest ideas.  Your magic being allergic to magic not crafted by certain beings makes sense, but how did she do that to her own?”

“You sure do talk a lot.  Weren’t you supposed to tell me how to fix it?”  Althea asked lethargically, laying sleepily on the ground.

In an attempt to prevent the young girl from falling asleep during her monologue, Tethys used a claw to easily pick her up by the shirt, dangling her around.  “Well, just use your old magic, duh.  It’s the kind of magic that once it shakes the dust off it, it’ll start functioning at 100%.”

“Eh?  I don’t want to~”

The agitation in Tethys’s eyes returned, “I guess you’re okay with looking like this forever then.”  She abruptly dropped Althea on the ground.  “But as you’re making up your mind, go ahead and do me a solid.”  The girl  had once again made herself comfortable on the ground, resting her face in her hands.  “You see, there’s this place on the mountain that I can’t actually enter into.  It’s referred to us water dragons as the Euphylliidae Shrine, but it’s basically just this big holewith a building at the center.  You must’ve at least gotten a glimpse of it, right?”

Althea nodded absentmindedly, “Yeah, I know about it.  But how come you can’t manage to enter it?”

Tethys stiffened, averting her gaze from her young mentee, “W-Well, the same reason I don’t have any high dragons under me even though I’m an elder dragon.”

“Mhmm, and why’s that.”

“Ermm, I kind of… well…”  The dragon began to trail off, “It’s none of your business!”

The blonde nodded lethargically, her ruby eyes filled with disappointment, “I understand, you are such a big disappointment you were probably banned from entering there, huh?”

“Don’t call the person who taught you magic a disappointment!”  The queen yelled, hitting the top of Althea's head with her tail.  “Anyways, I thought that by now you should at least be strong enough to force your way through and remove the thing stopping me from coming in.”

Althea turned so that her back faced Tethys, “Ehh, but why should I?”

“Huh, you really have zero respect for me.”  The blue scaled dragon mused, floating around Althea so that she met her face to face.  “Well, all you have to do it find the big shiny rock at the center and break it.  Oh, but there are a few deterrents, so you’ll have to be care-”

Althea perked up, changing her position so that she sat cross legged, “Wait, what kind of deterrent?”

Tethys’s expression slowly let her disdain show, “Oh, you really haven’t changed huh.”  She sighed, “Well, there are dragon automatas, but that’s basically it.  The big rock itself makes it so that only a being with a high draconian affinity can be near it without disintegrating, but you should be fine.  I am your mentor after all!”

Althea got to her feet, eyes sparkling with the apprehension of being able to fight some cool stuff.  “All right!  I’ll go right in there and punch the snuff out of those auto-whatsits!”  She moved to dash out of the room, only to pause right at the door.  “By the way, I got a new mentor by the way.  His name’s Mura, so stop calling me your mentee.  It’s gross.”

“Wait, wha-”

The ribbon wearing mage closed the door behind herself, letting out a deep sigh.  Talking to Tethys always ended up frying her brain cells, so being able to finally get out of the room was a blessing.  The girl found herself in front of the opening of a cave, and although she had just before been in a cabin-like room there was zero signs of it.  Even with her relatively high degree of magic sensory, she couldn’t feel a thing from the fake cave.  The girl couldn’t help but feel annoyed at this fact as she cast her gaze onto the snow laden area.  Tethys once again proved to be the biggest disappointment by having such flawless magic but a horrible personality.

Althea dashed through the snow-covered peak, clouds of snow being kicked up as she moved.  Honestly, for her this was a light jog despite moving much faster than many lacrima vehicles could ever hope to.  If she really went all out, she’d probably be moving three times the speed of sound.  So, like, no thanks.  Either way, in no time she saw the “hole”, a gaping black pit into nothingness with a diameter of about an entire block of houses.  Seriously, who the heck decided to make such a foreboding place in the middle of sparsely populated mountains?  Contrary to any sane person’s decision making process, Althea didn’t speed down as she approached it, simply leaping right into the darkness.  After all, if she squinted really hard, she could spot this foggy blimp at the bottom.  That was probably the place where the big ol’ rock was, but despite her really great eyesight she couldn’t actually see through it.  Thus, all that was left was to adjust her trajectory right into that big cloudy ball and see what’s in there right away!

I know amazing idea.

Althea landed roughly, wiping off the dust from her violent landing.  Despite the speed she come in at, she only made a small ditch in the ground.  Looking around at her surroundings, the youth found herself standing before the red arch, her eyes inspecting the land that laid beyond it.  Under regular circumstances, she would've rushed right into the mysterious establishment.  However, this time around something big was amiss.  Althea's eyes narrowed as they remained fixated on the gate.  It was absolutely exuding holy energy, almost as if the one who made that place purposely made it stuck out t such a degree.  Tethys had mentioned a deterrent, but there were probably other things besides the dragon automatas.  After all, for a person who can't actually enter this place, she wouldn't know much about it.  Another curious fact about her surrounding as that as soon as she had entered the misty dome, her environment seemed to have changed.  It would seem like she was stuck in an isolated environment, rendering even Althea's current level of Today's Forecast unable to detect things from the outside.  Instead, When Althea looked up there was a picturesque pale blue sky, contrasted the snowy blur of Phoenix Mountain.

Along with that was the structure itself.  Althea knew that Tethys looked a look like an Midian dragon rather than the ones found in Fiore, but she hadn't expected to see a Shinto shrine in the center of the hole.  Seriously, the red arch, the stairs leading to the building, everything was made to match shrines in Midi.  Either way, there was a dense magic field that prevented her from entering through anywhere but the front entrance, so she'd just have to suck it up.  She was mostly just there to punch some fake dragons really hard in the face, so there was no helping it.  However, once the blonde stepped through it nothing actually happened, mount her feel really dumb for all that concern she put into it.  She glanced around just to be sure no one witnessed her staring seriously at the arch before moving to climb up the stairs of the shrine.  However something was wrong, extremely wrong.  The moment the youth placed her foot on the first stone step, an intense pressure forced her to fall onto her palms.  Evidently, there was some sort of intense gravitational magic that had been cast on the staircase of all things.  Falling onto her back and off the stairs, the girl let out a sigh.

If it hadn't been her, that magic could instantly turn someone into jam in an instant.  Why was something so dangerous on this solemn mountains?  You know what, it's always the quiet ones that secretly have jammifying staircases, at this point she really shouldn't be surprised.  Instead, now that she knew the staircase’s whole gimmick it would be pretty simple to climb right up.  All she had to do was equip her shields and let her natural strength do the rest.  The youth covered herself in a transparent layer of magic before stepping right into the stair.  And that was when… nothing really happened.  Or at least, to an outsider that's what seemed was occurring.  Althea was simply bearing with the pressure put into her, climbing up the staircase as if it were perfectly normal.  But yet another problem occurred she stepped on the trail to the shrine.  The blonde felt her vision shift, reminiscent of the attack of nausea she had in Mountain Village.  Except, unlike then it was accompanied by absolutely atrocious pain.  It felt like someone was slowly prying apart the wizard’s skull before reaching in to strangle her brain.  Seriously, it was unbearable even by Althea's standards.

She was extremely resilient to pain and then the feeling of it ebbing away, but the path was seriously torture.  Who the heck decided that puttin such a mean thing en route to the shrine withers the big rock was was a good idea?  Althea attempted to take a step, her entire world swirling as she did so.  The pain didn't stop either, no matter how many staggering steps Althea took.  Her expression displayed her displeasure plainly, she literally couldn't think.  Her entire head was filled with thoughts like “Wow this hurts!” and “Does this last for the entire path?”.  The girl let out a sharp exhale, diving to her left and off the path.  The pain subsides the moment her feet left the path, leaving the girl laying on the grass and catching her breath.  She didn't know what the heck that was supposed to be, but she wasn't for that life.  Now she actually had an opportunity to look over things and you know, not traverse the brain melting path.  She could just try and will her way through, but Althea really hating the feeling of nausea.  Why would she ever make herself want to throw up?

Well, on the side of the grass Althea was on was this small building of sorts, the youth reckoning it was one of those purifying things that you were meant to use before a shrine.  Thus far, everything on the grounds of the Shinto Shrine had attempted to murder her one way or another, but she still had hope!  Althea approached the small station stealthily, straining her neck to try and see what was waiting for her.  However, the half-wall that stood between her and whatever the structure contained was taller than her.  The blonde sighed, her stricken expression showing her dismay.  Even though her body was a lot more mature than usual, her height hadn't changed.  Didn't that mean that she wouldn't ever grow from her measly height?!  The magus shook her head, expression paling as she contemplated the horrific possibility, moving away from the station.  Honestly, now that this thing had revealed a dark reality she wasn’t all too fond of discovering what was inside.  But at the same time, how about if this was the site of the dragon automatas?  Althea crossed her arms, deliberating over her next course of action.

“Well, I could…”  She finally decided, she’d just destroy it!  Seriously, if the dragon robot things were even worth fighting, they wouldn’t just fall apart after only one hit, right?

She layered strength-enhancing magic as she pulled back her fist.  Then, with a single magically powered up punch, the entire structure collapsed.  It ended up being a whole lot brittle than expected, so the air pressure from Althea’s punch just ended up creating debris as well as clearing the said rubble away.  So, all that was left was dirt laid bare and a suspicious hatch jutted partially out of the earth.

Without minding traps, Althea stomped on the metal door hard enough to take it off its latches completely.  It clanged on the concrete floor below, and Althea followed suit behind it.  The room was pretty dark, but that served as no limiter for Althea’s eyes that could easily see in any conditions.  And there, right in the center of the concrete room -- wait, it couldn’t be concrete, right?  Althea didn’t direct the force of her punch directly towards the earth, but it still caused a few tremors.  There should at least be a crack or two.  Speaking of which, what was this entire “shrine” made of anyways?  Despite being old enough that granny Tethys calls it ancient, there were no signs of wear and tear.

However, Althea’s trail of thought was interrupted by a hollow, androgynous voice.  “Hatch… unlocked… why?”

Oh right, Althea almost forgot about the thing in the middle of the small room.  The state of the weird walls was just too intriguing that she overlooked the 10-foot tall statue.  It depicted this odd mix between a lion and a dog, the creature having its fangs bared in a show of raging fury.  The material was black and glossy, the air around it was frozen stiff, and the statue's eyes bore into Althea.  From Althea’s experiences vacationing in Midi, they were referred to as komainu and as they were found in shrines it made sense for it to be there.  Wait, maybe not seeing as it was being chained to the floor by chains emanating magical energy in the basement of this suspicious crater shrine.

“So… forceful… why?”

Ah, now that Althea looked at it that statue totally contained some sort of weird soul.  It must be using its sparse magic reserves to speak in such broken sentences so she might as well answer.  “Hola amigo!  I’m just here to run an errand and fight some automatons, don’t mind me!”  The youth chirped.  “Automaton…?”  The soul residing in the komainu seemed to deliberate something for a moment.  “Looking… for… shrine guardians?”  Althea’s ruby eyes sparkled with excitement, “Yes!  Yeah!  It’s probably those guys!”  To be honest, the blonde was a bit impatient that the soul spoke in such a slow, disjointed way, but after hearing that it knew of her objective and where to find it, waiting around was worth it.

“Glad… to help… soul… can’t leave… be safe.”  The komainu statue soul thing sputtered, the hollow room being filled with their voice before it fell silent.  However, something about this room seriously ticked Althea off.  For just how long was this soul left in this chained up statue to rot in the basement in this shrine?  In the first place, finding the darn place was more than annoying, so Althea doubted they’d be getting another visitor soon.  That’s probably why it used mana reservoirs to speak, seeing as there’d be time to gain even more.  However, why the heck didn’t it ask for Althea’s help?  Did it think she had no means to free it?  Was it underestimating her?  If Althea put her mind to it, she was pretty sure dealing with a soul of its nature would be a snap, but it never even bothered to ask.  Perhaps it simply forgot about it but would remember any second now.

Yep, any second…

“GAH!  If you want help then you’re supposed to ask!”  Althea’s patience ran extremely thin, and after a few moments of silence from the statue she stomped up to the soul’s residence and reached out to touch the chains.  “Wait!”  For once the soul’s response came immediately, probably at the cost of even more mana.  However, Althea ignored the stupid soul and gripped the ebony chains with her bandaged hand.  “No… your soul…!”  Indeed, Althea did feel a little something or whatever pricking her soul, however…

“It’s no big deal.”  She murmured as the chain simply shattered in her grip.  For once, this was not a result of her gorilla strength but instead the magic power she had that just happened to be in the perfect state for breaking stuff!  If her body was having so much trouble with Water Dragon Slayer ethernano and that of Today’s Forecast to a degree it shifted its appearance, there was zero way the chain could handle containing the opposing magic particles.  It was a bit tricky to filter magic out of herself in her current state, hence why she was only using magic on herself through enhancements, but in the end, it was an easy job.

“...what… in the world… your soul…”  “Hey, I can’t carry this entire statue out of here, so condense your soul to a single point.  I mean, I probably could but it’d be annoying.”  “...”  Silently, the soul restricted itself to the komainu’s paw, and with a magically enhanced finger, Althea drew a line through the air, cleanly slicing it off.  Yes, with her hand instead of crushing she sliced.  To be honest, she probably wouldn’t be able to do something without the combination of the Owatatsumi’s teachings and her magic’s destructive power being to a self-harming degree.  “Welp, nice to meet you, random soul!  I’m Althea, but you can call me Thea.”

“My… name… can’t…”  The soul hesitated with every word, but after having direct contact with it through the glossy stone she was able to fully comprehend its current state.  Althea assumed the soul had been damaged in some way, but it actually went far beyond that.  If a soul were to be described as glass encased in a shell acting as its body, then it would be accurate to say the soul became utterly shattered from the inside.  Typically, to harm someone’s soul you’d first have to puncture through the body and many other deterrent forces, but this person’s soul had somehow been shattered without any harm done to their body.  Hence, it most likely had many of its memories lost, and just continuing its existence cost a hefty price.

Unconsciously, a soft smile emerged on the young girl’s expression.  The komainu statue must’ve been yet another trap, but those mysterious chains were probably keeping it put one way or another.  But hopefully, the one responsible was still around -- fighting them would truly be interesting!  However, that would have to wait.  Dragon robots first, soul-shattering second.  “Man, you’re a hot mess!  Why didn’t you ask for help when your soul’s in tiny, itty bitty pieces?  Anyways, point me in the direction of the dragons~”  “...gladly.”

Althea leaped directly out of the basement that was really more like a hole in the ground.  There was no building on top of it, nor a hatch to protect it from the outside elements… because she destroyed both of them.  “This place… unchanged…”  The soul murmured within its gem-like prison.  “Oh, that’s good.  I broke a few things here and there, but I didn't think things have altered all that much.”  Althea honestly didn’t know what kind of weird history the rock spirit had with the temple, nor did she care to ask.  It was due to these dismissive feelings towards others that one may be surprised to learn Althea is a “social butterfly”.  I mean, she is unable to communicate like a proper human being most of the time but enjoyed the company of others.  It was just the way she enjoyed said company that was rather odd.

Personal traits are insignificant.  Who cares about your hope and dreams?  Althea surely wouldn’t ask someone something she wouldn’t want to answer herself.  And hence the only information she asks is for their name, and some may say the one she was currently going by wasn’t her real one anyways.  Despite that, Althea truly enjoyed talking to others, or even just being around them in silence.  As someone who spent almost the entirety of their life around either a singular person or completely isolated, simply being in the presence of someone else was comforting.  Speaking of which…

“Carrying you around like this is inconvenient, I’m going to remove you from your container, ‘kay?”  Althea chirped, grasping the polished black stone.  “Wait… damage…”  “Don’t sweat it… wait, ghosts don’t sweat… whatever.  I’m going ahead with it now.”  Removing the spirit from the thing its dwelling in should be a precarious endeavor, but for Althea, it was a cinch.  In the first place, a soul wasn’t meant to be away from a body.  But then again, it also wasn’t supposed to be broken into pieces either, but here is this komainu soul in ging around while in absolute tatters.  Althea’s magic signature was literally self-imploding, but thankfully as long as she kept magical operations internal nothing would… you know… break.  It was kind of like having two giant kaiju fighting in a city when they were really purposed to be managing it.  The kaiju are battling on the outskirts of the city, so while things like the public transport system aren't operational, citizens still have food and electricity.  But with that analogy, Althea started thinking of Godzilla in a suit and tie shifting through paperwork, but how else was she going to describe the turbulent relationship between Today’s Forecast and her old magic?  Either way, the important thing to take away was that although at times her magical signature went all wonky, she was perfectly capable of using magic to some extent.

Not that that really mattered in regards to the broken soul seeing as the technique Althea had been using to manipulate it had nothing to do with ethernano, although it kind of did.  Instead, it was all applications of sorcery from her old magic, but not really.  That stuff involved aether from her old magic, which was kind of the reason why the ethernano oriented Today’s Forecast was being too hostile towards it, but that was all too complicated to describe a very simple thing.  “How…”  With only a bit of concentration, Althea was able to release the spirit so that she didn’t have to hold a rock forever.  Its current state would allow it to be referred to as a spectre that just has to stick by her, but its broken state would beg to differ.

Tossing aside the useless lump, Althea grinned and placed her hands triumphantly on her hips.  “Okay, now point me in the direction of the thingies!”  “I-”  The soul spectre thing seemed to sigh, “Follow… dirt path.”  Althea spun around looking for the aforementioned path, quickly spotting a vague trail between two blossoming young trees.  Except, those trees were probably lying about their age too...

Following the spectre’s instructions down the dirt trail led Althea to a small building sporting traditional Midian architecture. Kind of made Althea wonder it Tethys really did come from the east, but she didn’t actually care enough to ask. Additionally, Althea made it her policy to not ask questions she wouldn’t like answering, so it would never come up in the first place. Likewise, Tethys had a similar train of thought, so they were able to flawlessly retain their current relationship status indefinitely. Either way, Althea brashly stepped through the shrine’s sliding door only to find that the humble-looking shack-like structure was actually rather spacious inside. “Wow, is this an optical illusion?” Althea chirped, glancing around the room. “...magic.” The spectre answered plainly, leaving Althea to further investigate her surroundings.

Within the room stood two stone statues, the left one depicting an eastern style one while the other was western. The architecture and fine detail on the meter tall stones were frankly amazing, but Althea wasn't the kind of person who'd notice that kind of thing. Instead, the faint yet unmistakable presence of magic was what pulled her in.

“High… dragons… be careful.”

The damaged soul once again said her customary warning as the blonde approached what she fully knew was one of the shrine’s many traps. After all, the whole reason she put up with Tethys’s request was because of them. If Althea’s memory served her right, the hierarchy of dragons went minor, major, high, elder, and the undisputable top: supreme. Each element of dragons should have their own, but water dragons are too finicky to go out for the sake of battling each other. So, the spot’s been empty for who knows how long.

Perhaps if it were another person, they'd be hesitant to approach the magical statues, but Althea wished to fight them head-on. Upon coming within two yards from the door to the next room, the statues began to shift. The rock eastern dragon lifted itself off the ground, swaying in the air in that serpent-like fashion of it's. The western dragon’s wings unfurled getting on all fours before releasing an ear rupturing roar. The girl covered her ears as pain coarser through her head, but a grin still remained in her visage. The sound-based attack of one of the automata's had prompted blood to flow from her eardrums, clogging up her already damaged auditory detectors. But if they could already cripple one of Althea's senses with that alone, she couldn't wait to see how their real attacks were like.

However, the moment that the western dragon moved towards the slayer, she suddenly realized their dynamic was between attacker and supporter. However, the speed at which the giant moved was more akin to teleporting than simply running. Surprised that such a large creature could move so suddenly, all Althea could do was jump backward and put up a guard to protect her face, the western dragon whipping around the swipe the girl out of the air with its great rock tail. Althea was flicked into a pillar, the collapsing structure prompting a cloud of pale debris. The ornately decorated pillar had a width of approximately 3 feet, but the force of the blow was so heavy that it broke apart immediately. Out of the mass of dust came the blonde slayer, a fragment of the pillar held with both of her hands. Even though it wasn’t too much of a problem to carry weight wise, the thickness and height that far exceeded her own caused a slight hint of impracticality to the whole thing.

Personally, Althea tended to refrain from using any particular weapon, and mostly just improvised one when needed. The pillar was by far the largest and heaviest thing she ever had the pleasure to lug around, the slayer heading straight for the western dragon. But from the back came a spout of water, Althea fluidly leaping out of the way, holding the pillar in a protective reverse grip. The source, of course, was the eastern dragon, but it was nice to know that the affinity of both of the dragon was most likely water.

“Hup!” As Althea was still airborne after her evasive leap, she thrust the pillar at the western dragon, allowing it to fly at a tremendous speed towards the creature’s maw. However, before the pillar properly met the stone beast the slayer had a small maneuver to pull off, getting on top of the rocketing pillar. Technically speaking, the speed that an object can fall to the earth is capped off unless some other force acts upon them, but magic hs no such limitations. All Althea really had to do to quickly get from midair to the pillar was cast one simple spell.

Said spell was meant to speed up her movements to the point of making her practically teleport, so it was only natural the bending of time and space was apart of that. So, when that spell was cast, the speed Althea fell towards the earth accelerated to such a degree that is a single moment she landed and jumped upon the flying pillar. Rather complicated measures used in such a simple yet effective way.

Now ontop the pillar, she sprinted across it as it flew through the air, meeting the western dragon’s head te moment the pillar crashed down its throat. The slayer fluidly leaped into the air as the dragon simply crushed the monumental structure in its mouth, the portion she had just been standing on crumbling to pieces in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, not that the blonde was directly above her opponent, it was far too late already. She applied layer upon layer of physical enhancements before landing an ax kick to the top of the automata. With a single loud crack, the false dragon began falling apart, the slayer neatly landing next to the mass as she faced the other dragon.

Althea couldn’t help but beam, her red eyes sparkling with gleeful excitement, turned towards the eastern dragon. Its lack of the previous action was most likely due to a small kink in the automata’s production, the way through which they sense. Obviously, stone statues don’t have eyes, but usually, robots have sensors, right? Well, obviously since they were the guardians of the room, it only made sense that the room itself was the sensor. So as long as Althea didn’t step on the sensor, the dragons could execute their spine crushing attacks. Of course, the slayer had taken one attack as a test, but the degree to which it ruptured her defenses told her that she wouldn’t be able to defend against another one. But now there was only one opponent left, and now that she knew the trick to preventing attacks, it would be pretty to finish this, right?

Actually, the moment Althea tried to take a step she realized something was off with her movements.  Her ruby eyes burned with excitement as she recognized the familiar sensation of this sluggish, mudlike feeling.  Often during training with Tethys, her dragon mentor would cast all sorts of debuffs to peer Althea’s capabilities, and she was glad a similar-looking dragon could do the same.  The blonde’s running speed had decreased considerably, making an easy target for a bone-crushing blast of water.  Additionally, even if Althea landed a hit the dragon could quickly heal itself indefinitely until it eventually found victory.  Althea had no idea how the automata’s programming actually worked, but whoever decided had a pretty good grasp of battle tactics.

But that was as far as Althea could complement the artificial life form.

It seemed that they had more so been built for using their high firepower to defeat their enemy and if they managed to bypass that the dragons could easily outlast any opponent while sapping away at their vitality and strength.  But that would only be the case if the opponent could quickly bridge any gap between them and the dragon.  Ethernano, typically invisible to the eyes, began whirling around in pale blue spark around Althea, her red eyes fixed on the eastern dragon.

Then, in a blink of an eye, it was over.  The automaton’s severed head dropped to the ground before dissolving, the rest of the dragon's body the following suit.  “...defeated… amazing…”  The damaged soul complemented Althea, although their monotone voice would suggest they were being sarcastic.  “Yeah, well that was the first time I tried doing that.  It's kinda like dragon force but not really… anyways that was worth it for the trouble of coming here!”  She chirped, massaging her muscles as she walked towards the ornate door the dragons had been situated next to.  She defeated the dragons rather quickly, but it wasn't like it would be easy.  As stated before, it was pretty darn hard to win an endurance match with a robot.  So, just dealing one big ol’ blow would be the only good way to penetrate their defenses.  That semi-dragon force helped to serve that purpose, allowing Althea to in an instant cast many magical algorithms for one large impact.

“Welp, guess it’s time to do the old lady’s chore.”  Althea murmured as she pushed open the ornate door.  Admittedly, she had assumed it would be difficult to move, but opened with great ease.  She had her fun, but she wouldn’t be able to leave before doing as Tethys requested of her.  “Main… core…”  The spectre murmured, their voice having become noticeably more wavering.  Maybe the crazy wavelength the shiny rock was giving off was dissonating with its own.  Honestly, the young girl wasn’t worried about it, it was like a little tickle for a soul.  Nothing to worry about.  What should be occupying her attention more would be the rock that was propped up on a pedestal in the same fashion as a globe would be.  Well, she said “propped up”, but really the thing was just floating a few feet above the ground.  Althea sighed, approaching the weird rock thing.  “This place is weird, the dragon robots were fun, but now it's time to end this whole adventure-”

“Foolish human, what sort of deed do you think you’re about to perform?”  The blonde sighed once again, turning her disinterested gaze towards the source of the voice.  Right in front of the doors stood an elegant woman, her neat, straight hair reaching to her shoulders.  Despite being dressed in a shrine maiden outfit, Althea would liken her appearance to a cosplayer more so to the real thing.  Her electric blue hair for one really didn’t give off the native Midi vibe.  Also, the way she conducted herself really didn’t fit the mature, modest aesthetic of the clothes she was wearing.  Her arms were crossed, feet were spread at shoulder width, and was showing off a nasty glare.  Tethys had once said you can’t just expect the clothes to fit you, you needed to fit your clothes.  To Althea, it didn’t make a lick of sense how an inanimate object had any personality, but the dragon was uninterpretable in other ways as well.

Also, said woman obviously wasn’t human seeing as she had pointed ears, vertical pupils, and Althea could see right through her… literally.

“Well, human?  Are you just going to stand there in silence?”  The woman hissed, her snake-like eyes narrowing even more.  Being faced with such a person vaguely reminded Althea of this other individual she meant during her vacation.  It was in a cave within Sakuramori, wasn’t it?  It was the spirit or nymph or whatever, and it called her human too.  She sincerely couldn’t remember a single real detail about them except that they talked to her in the same tone.

Honestly, she wasn’t sure why being called “human” was likened with an insult.  Were other people embarrassed by their species?  One of the most popular pet names for a cat was “cat”, so how is this any different?  If you don’t know the name of someone from another species, it is only logical t refer to them as their species name.  The only thing is that calling someone “Mr. Dwarf” was somehow more acceptable than saying “Mr. Human”.  Maybe it was due to the prevalence of the human race, so when you call someone a name that could apply to such a brad amount of people, it comes off as you not seeing them as an individual but instead part of a collective.  Well, either way, she was speaking like that because she was probably looking down on Althea.

“Human!  Human?  You are giving me such a blank stare, are you perhaps enamored by my beauty?  I do admit that this form is of the highest quality, not one that a low-class mortal such as yourself would’ve ever had the pleasure to feast your eyes on!”  Nevermind, she was just an idiot.

“Uwah!  Your gaze just changed, human!  Hey, I’m not used to the human form, so I can’t actually read your facial expressions.  Mind just telling me what you’re thinking?  Hey?  Hey!  Don’t ignore me!”

For a brief moment, she had thought she would just ignore her, but now she would just ignore her. Wait, weren’t those both the same things? Either way, the woman was giving her some “Tethys vibes”, so that must be a signal to not engage. And thus, the young girl simply turned around, softly poking the globe rock thing before clenching her hands into a fist. “Wait, are you- hey stop!” The woman suddenly, out of nowhere, tackled the blonde to the ground. Despite Althea’s current level of power, she somehow wasn’t able to detect any magic emanating from the see-through woman even though she could instantaneously move across the room. Maybe she was some sort of weird soul? Or maybe she was around Tethys’ level of power? “Don’t you know what destroying the shrine core will do? I knew you were a suspicious character!” Nevermind, she was literally just an idiot.

Althea grabbed the arm of the angry lady on top of her and did a martial technique to throw her off. “Geez, so aggressive… hey rock soul, do you know anything about this lady?” “I’m… not… in a… rock…” Their monotone voice droned, “Also… no.” “Ah, well the old croon never mentioned another obstacle other than the dragon automatas. Then again, she didn’t mention all the other deterrents either…” Althea pondered, ridding her hoodie of any dirt that might have attached to it during the fall. The woman, who still had that glare of hers transfixed on Althea, clicked her tongue in agitation. “Human, if you are intending to harm the temple…” She hissed, a katana made of pure water suddenly materializing in her two outstretched hands. “I will-”

“OH WOW! You use a SWORD?” Althea chirped, immediately becoming giddy from the mere sight of a blade. The last time she had the pleasure of being close to a sword of any sort was during a job with a pair of twins, and that was ages ago. “Oh, erm, yes, are swords a rarity in human society nowadays?” Althea pondered for a moment, trying to think of all the people she had seen carrying around swords. The problem most likely lied in the minority magician population. And even when someone possessed magic fit for combat, even fewer people bothered themselves with physical weapons. Of the people she saw carrying around swords, it was mostly just the local Rune Knights, but they really don’t count. You can’t just have a sword and call it a sword, there was a real difference between using a sword because that is the best option for you and using a sword because you want to. The woman before her, as stupid as she was, was clearly the latter type of person, elevating her in likability from “equal to Tethys” to “pretty nice dude”.

“Erm, hello?” Oh right, Althea hadn’t actually said anything regarding the woman’s question. “Hi! My name is Althea, but you can call me Thea! A pleasure to meet you!” The youth gleamed, quickly approaching the older female and outstretching her hand for a handshake. “Oh, that’s done like this, right?” Her noble features clearly displayed her confusion, but soon enough she got over Althea’s sudden change in mood. “Ghost!”

“Not… a ghost…” The soul murmured in that same monotone voice of theirs.

“Whatever, this girl is incomprehensible. Please tell me what you intend to do within my shrine.” The woman said dismissively with a flip of her straight blue hair.

“I… don’t…”

Before the soul could say more than literally two words, they were interrupted. “Ew, do you really have to talk like that? It’s seriously bothersome.”

“...” The soul, who was getting more human interaction then they had in decades, was stunned to silence. Althea felt for them too, she felt like the angry lady was pretty crazy as well. She popped out of nowhere, copped this big old attid\tude, but was super stupid.

“Oh, so you two really don’t plan on answering me? I suppose now that I degraded my form you measly humans wouldn’t be able to tell who I am…” She murmured to herself in contemplation, her glare replaced once again with a look of confusion. Then, she cleared her throat, her bare feet leaving the floor. “Run in fear, mortals,” Her hair was a glorious swirl of blue, neatly framing her equally blue eyes. “Know the name of your maker, a being that stands upon all others,” She spread her arms out in a graceful, regal pose, “I am Zelus, Queen of the Cataphyllia Water Dragons. You must be a fool to-”

“WAIIITTT!” Althea cried, her bandaged hand extended to make a “stop” gesture. “You said queen of the what?”

The woman, apparently called Zelus, had a slightly miffed look that completely ruined her previous air of regality. “Were you not listening? I said Queen of the Water Dragons. Do you not know-?”

“YES!!!” Althea cried, true and honest tears of joy running down her childlike face. She had been stuck with Tethys for so long, and yet now it was finally time to switch camps. Zelus might be a bit of an idiot, but who knew? With a bit of training, the blonde might not be so disappointed in her that she would actually refer to the dragon as her mentor. Being the mentee of that deranged water dragon had been absolute hell. Her older sister trusting her with such a worthless person was one of the few things she still double guessed her on.

“Y-You’re crying!? This has never happened whilst I was introducing myself before! Maybe you were just so shocked by my majesty it brought you to tears…? Either way, human, are you alright?!” The Cataphyllia queen murmured to herself, lowering herself back to the ground before putting her hands on Althea’s shoulders. “Hey human! Human? Huuuumaaaaan~”

“I’m just… so glad…” Althea said between sobs, wiping the still flowing liquid from her face. “More importantly…” The tears suddenly stopped as soon as they started, “Will you be able to mentor me?!”

“Eh? Mentor you?” Zelus tilted her head slightly in confusion, “Like, as in mentor you in water dragon slayer magic? I mean, you must have a strong draconic affinity to be able to enter here without getting ripped to shreds, but...” There she went with her stupid tendencies again, you just have to say yes angry lady~

However, this didn’t dissuade Althea in the slightest, her eyes shining in apprehension, “Oh, you don’t need to teach me, I already know it!” She chirped lightheartedly. Indeed, it was the best kind of deal! Get a nice, well-mannered apprentice such as Althea, but you don’t have to teach her a single thing! It wasn’t like Tethys ever taught things beyond how to do all the basics, so it wouldn’t be much of a difference for Althea in that sense.

“Eh?! You already know it?” Despite the amazing deal, Zelus took a step back from Althea, seeming to be slightly nervous now. But after a moment of thought, her electric blue eyes once again became hostile. “Did an elder dragon teach you? If so, which one of the queens sent you?”

Althea let out a sigh, it seemed that the fact she was already someone else’s apprentice had caught on. If possible, she had been hoping to get through this encounter without having to say Tethys’s name, but oh well. “Tethys.” She said plainly in response to the Catalaphyllia dragon queen. In her honest opinion, even the stupid, angry lady before her was far more regal than Tethys ever could be. She claimed to be an elder dragon but didn’t measure up to the dragon god Owatatsumaki at all. They were basically on the same level, right? Even though Owatatsumaki’s title sounded greater, the “god” part only really denoted his magical affinity being a mix of draconian and heavenly. And yet Tethys didn’t even have a single dragon to do her bidding, acting like some sort of NEET in her illusion protected den.

“WHAT?!”

“...what?”

Even though Althea definitely didn’t think Tethys left her house often enough for people to know who she was, the young girl had gotten not one but two surprising outbursts! Perhaps that useless dragon got around in the past, but had only more recently become a hikikomori. But a much more interesting thing to note was how not only the dragon queen but the broken soul were familiar with Tethys.

The first one to recover, as expected, was Zelus. “T-Tethys?! How could she- How did she…?” She was now stuck in her own world, but Althea sincerely wasn’t in the mood to wait for her t return to Earthland.

“Hey, so this means you won’t take me as your apprentice?” She asked plainly, her arms crossed.

“I- N-No! I’m not even sure how you’re okay right now, human! Seriously, just what are you for your soul to be okay despite the burden of being under Tethys’s dominion?”

“...I… wonder that… too.” The broken soul said hollowly, apparently having recovered from Althea’s words from before.

“Oh, I guess I’m just… lucky.” Althea said dismissively, now feeling a strong desire to just break the darn globe rock and go back to Tethys. However, like a dragon with power around that of the said useless dragon, Althea couldn’t act carelessly despite how much she wanted to. And that very thought was what caused even further discomfort for the teen.

“To go under the direct apprenticeship of a water dragon means for you to establish a connection via the soul. After all, there’s no way for a non-dragon to gain dragonlike mana despite how high their affinity is. It’s more or less a symbiotic relationship, an apprentice increases a dragon’s power, thus increasing their power. The only catch is if the mentee’s soul can stand the strain of being connected to that of a dragon. But unlike all the other queens, Tethys… well, even a few of the high dragons would be unable to form a connection with her. Doing so would turn the soul into a bunch of scraps. Kind of like that annoying ghost of yours!”

“Not… ghost…” The ghost muttered. However, Althea was just thinking about how Tethys had the chance of juicing the soul of people she made her apprentice. That was probably the reason for no dragon servants, wasn’t it? It probably required some sort of linking of the soul. It was a reasonable and logical conclusion to come to, but for some reason, the fact it was coming from herself really rubbed Althea the wrong way.

“You can shush, ghost. Can you even remember your name?” Zelus said haughtily, placing her hands on her hips. Come to think of it, Althea had never bothered to ask the spectre’s name, only referring to it as a rock spirit despite the fact it was no longer bound to a rock.

“... I…”

“What was that? You can’t even project your own form like myself! You see my beautiful visage? This is the result of pure ghost skill!”

“My name… is Psi.” The name gave Althea chills, but she still kept up her innocent smile. Zelus, on the other hand, let her confusion show on her face.

“Erm, I know it’s not right of me to assume but are you perhaps-” Then an explosion erupted within the room, the shockwave prompting Zelus quickly turn to its source. “T-The shrine core…!” Althea, despite her current magical condition, had manipulated magic outside her body. However, she was left unharmed due to using that detestable “old magic” of hers. The shiny rock, on the other hand, had been blasted to smithereens, a large hole had formed in the shrine’s floor. “I should’ve known! What has become of the state of the queens after I began by hibernation?” Zelus said, her eyes showing her absolute fury. Now, instead of suppressing her magical energy to an undetectable point, she let it pour out over Althea.

“If you’re worried about the state of this place, don’t worry.” Althea said in a light-hearted tone, “I already set up a more practical anchor for this place~”

“If you plan on deceiving me with nonsense, I’m sorry to say I-” But then she paused, her blue eyes widening in shock, “What in the world-? My shrine’s state is solidified in the world to such an extent that a new core is unnecessary…” Her magic power settled down, but her raging anger still remained.

“You, what are you?”  Zelus hissed venomously.

However, Althea kept up the childish demeanor, simply raising her bandaged hand in yet another “stop” gesture.  “Hey, I don’t know anything.  I just came here cause I wanted to fight some cool dragon automatas.  Tethys was the one who asked me, go ask her.”

“I- She-”  Zelus finally pursed her lips, her knuckles whitening as she clenched her fists.  Then, suddenly, the scenery around the two - no - three individuals changed.  They had gone from a room within the shrine all the way to a ledge right next to the crater inside which the shrine laid.  “Take me to her.”  Without saying a word, Althea turned around and took off, the ghost-like Zelus sprouting dragon wings to follow.  Although the snowstorm was still going strong, it still failed to serve as a navigational challenge.  Soon, pair, plus the spectre, arrived at the false mountain face that served as Tethys’s residence.  “That little- She set up camp in my territory?!  Who does she think she is!”  Zelus cried, her anger still burning.

“Hey, more importantly, are you cold in that?”  Althea remarked.  Zelus was going around with bare legs walking around in the snow, which wasn’t recommended by any doctor.

“Speak for yourself, human, or whatever you are.  I’m a dragon.  Worry about yourself.”  Zelus hissed back before turning towards the illusionary mountain.  Truthfully, Althea too was walking around with her legs bare, so perhaps it was silly to concern herself with the dragon.  “Alright, I need answers, so I’ll be busting in,”  Zelus said suddenly, placing her hand against the false rock.  Once someone became so flawless at creating gaps in reality as Tethys had, it became almost indistinguishable from the real thing.  You could touch it, smell it, heck, some plants even took the soil for being real and were growing without care.

However, it was just as impressive that the Catalaphylilian queen could recognize and dispel the illusion almost immediately.  She seemed useful to have around in that regard, too bad Zelus seriously disliked Althea at the moment.

“Well isn’t it everyone’s favorite little princess, Zelus-chan!”  As if she had been waiting, a woman was sitting right there on the steps to Tethys’s hermit hut.  Her age was around that of Zelus’s, that being in her late teens, but she still retained slightly childish features that would prompt you to describe her as “cute” rather than “beautiful”.  She had dull cyan eyes and hair of the same color and said locks were styled into twintails that only reached to her shoulders.  She wore a loose-fitting t-shirt and murky red jacket, black sneakers, as well as baby blue skinny jeans.  On the top of the head were a pair of sunglasses that really didn’t fit the cold weather of the Pheonix Mountains, but that still wasn’t the strangest feature of the woman’s appearance.  Her eyes were pointed in the same way Zelus’s were, and her pupils were vertically pointed as well.

“Tethys!  How dare you encroach on my territory!  Setting up camp here and sending your apprentice to break my shrine core, the nerve!”

The cyan haired teen laughed dismissively, her visage clearly displaying her smug smirk.  “Well, obviously my little Thea already set up another anchor, so alls well that ends well!”

“Don’t call me that.”  Althea shot back icily, her patience for the person who apparently was Tethys already wearing thin.  “More importantly, since when were you able to do this?”

“Well, we had some special guests over, so I thought I’d look nice for them!  zHowever, I’m kinda sad you didn’t get all surprised and stuff.  After all, you’ve never seen me in a humanoid form before.”

“It never occurred to me it was a possibility until I met Zelus here.  She’s far more reliable than you, I’m thinking of switching over to her side.”  Althea said plainly, gesturing towards the other water dragon queen.  “Why didn’t you bother doing this earlier?”

Tethys pondered for a moment, before raising and lowering her shoulders in a slow shrug.  “I wasn’t able to until now.  You see, a while ago-”

“You know what, I have somewhere to go,”  Althea interjected, turning away from the group.  “I’m binding the spectre to your house.  You can find me at the summit of the mountains if you need me.”  Then, the blonde turned around and disappeared into the snow.

- ♢ -

Tethys let out a sigh, settling herself down on her newly created sofa.  “That girl, this is the reason she wasn’t able to explain anything to you Zelus, Queen of the Catalphyllia Water Dragons.  She even brought back a little blast from the past~”

By now, after having watched the almost comedic interaction between apprentice and master, the woman had seriously calmed down.  However, she was still miffed by how little she was informed about the current state of the queens.  “Alright, I want an explanation, what warranted you breaking my shrine core.  If she hadn’t been able to replace it, my entire domain would’ve bee sentenced to limbo in Aether.”

“Well, the other queens decided to seal my power, and it was getting kind of annoying to be stuck up here.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sen- WAIT!  They sealed you on this mountain range using my shrine?!”

“Well, yeah.  Zelus, you by far have the most magical power of us queens, so they needed some of it to help seal me.  However, you, obviously, were and still are hibernating or whatever-”

“Hey!  It’s not my fault!  It’s Oceanus’s that he made me require millennia just to recover ethernano to maintain my existence!”