Wubby Wubby in the Dubby [event, solo]

Althea couldn’t help but let out a sigh as she leisurely sat on top of a roof, overlooking Magnolia while lethargically eating a double-decker burger.  Despite the fact it was rather late into the night, cheers and music could be heard from crowds below her.  Well, it was only expected when the government of all people helped fund a humongous block party.  From where the blonde sat, she could see all sorts of colorful sights, but she really wasn’t one for a rave.  Parties, in general, weren’t the most comfortable place for the mage, but these moonlit parties especially.  It was dark, lights were always flashing, music was just loud enough that she couldn’t hear whatever people were saying--and whatever came out of their mouths was drunken nonsense anyways.  But the worst part had to be the fact Althea had no idea what to do at a party.  People just said to “have fun”, but her idea of a good time greatly differed from the rest of the general populace.  Sure, she appreciated the atmosphere, but actually dancing or whatever?  Nah fam.

However, since there was such a large party occurring right in the heart of Magnolia, there really wasn’t anything else for her to do.  But since all the food places were doing their best to cater to the massive rave, wasn’t Althea by extension already participating?  Dancing and eating were both perfectly reasonable activities to do at an event such as “Urban Nights”, she was just doing a lot more of one rather than the other.  The slayer smiled to herself, energetically taking the last bite of her burger.  Since she was already committed to eating all night, she might as well purchase a large horde of the greasiest food available.  Cheerfully, the young girl slipped herself off the roof, gently landing in the streets below.  A few passersby seemed surprised by her sudden appearance but quickly resumed their partying.  Althea too had a lot to do, navigating her way to the nearest source of food using her nose alone.  The sounds of all the people and the music were hard to distinguish, but the scent was a lot easier.  Even if the slayer couldn't hear the sizzling of the grills, she could still find her way to a food joint.

But while navigating the streets, she found herself funneled into a packed alleyway.  From the sounds of it, a crowd formed due to some form of musical performance, but Althea held no interest to investigate further.  She was only focused on navigating through the dense crowd of partiers, trying to make sure she wasn’t knocked over in the process.  However, the moment she broke out of the mass of bodies, the blonde found her right in front of paint-covered drums.  Before she had enough time to slip out, one of the drummers already made eye contact with her.  The drummer grinned upon seeing Althea’s rather flustered expression before thrusting the drumsticks into her hands without a word.  Maybe he thought she was interested in trying out the drums?  But now that the mage was placed in such a situation, it’d only be appropriate to take the drummer up on his offer.

Althea’s gaze was heated as she gazed at the drum, her hands tightly gripping the sticks.  She had a very negligible musical experience, so it’d be super embarrassing if she messed up somehow.  But the expectant gaze of the other drummers and the crowd meant there was no backing down!  The blonde just tried out copying her fellow paint drummers, completely ignoring the actual music in favor of simply mimicking.  Arcs of paint danced into the air and stained her previously plain hoodie with neon splatters.  And the more the slayer hit the drum, the more she began to grasp what the heck drumming even was.  But just as she was really getting into it, Althea’s drum has been knocked over.  And it wasn’t just her’s, somehow every instrument had been overturned by a group’s drunken frolic.  Frankly, the youth didn’t know what to think.  Her mind had been completely wiped blank from the pure shock of the whole situation.

“Sorry, lass,”  The drummer who handed his sticks to the mage gently placed a hand on her shoulder, “Drums are broken now, but you did pretty good!”  Althea was struggling to utter some kind of thanks when a scream suddenly echoed through the crowd.  Confusion rippled through the party-goers as everyone -- Althea especially -- searched for the source of the sound.  But from where the blonde stood in the center of the crowd, it was far too difficult to see much of anything.  However, from the terror slowly filling the air, it seemed something fun was happening!

And lo and behold, at the center of the terror were two casually dressed individuals.  However, the fact they were unflinchingly standing over the twitching body of a partygoer wasn’t a positive sign.  One was a demonic-looking teen tapping on an iLac while the other was… a robot?  There was a music thingy on their chest, but Althea couldn’t tell if it was a part of their body or an external thing.  But either way, Althea was only interested in one thing, using these guys as stress relief.  The blonde couldn’t suppress her grin as she unzipped her paint-stained hoodie, revealing the plain black t-shirt underneath.  It seemed that the robot guy got the hint because he began to nudge his female associate to the side.

“WTF man??  You messed up my combo!”  The demonic teenager hissed, glaring darts at the robot guy, “I was legit steamrolling that shizzle, homie!”  The mage was slightly put off by her… wrong way of speaking, but her associate seemed much more distressed.

“Orcana, there’s someone who’s trying to fight us here.  I guess that’s what we get for attacking someone this early in the night…”  He replied in a slightly cybernetic voice, resuming his attempt to move the demon out of the way.

“Bro, no cap, but she looks twelve!”  She screeched, pointed a manicured finger at the water mage.

But Althea for one wasn’t in much of a mood to just wait for the pair to finish their conversation.  Still smiling, she launched a volley of water droplets in their direction.  But before any of them found their mark, all their momentum was killed as if a strong force had acted against their movement.  The cyborg guy roughly shoved Orcana out of the way, approaching Althea with strong yet steady steps.  From the looks of it, the guy had some sort of ability that completely negated her projectiles, but that was no reason for worry.  Althea was more of a close and personal kind of fighter anyways.  And thus it was only appropriate for her to close the distance between her and her opponent, swerving irregularly as to avoid any incoming attacks.

However, that proved to be useless the moment the loudspeaker on the robot guy’s chest blasted to life.  The sound assaulted her senses, and Althea could barely hold back the urge to vomit.  It felt as if vibrations were traveling directly through her bones.  She could barely breathe, not to mention stand on two feet.  Was this the ability that left that partygoer in such a sorry state?  Still, it wasn’t a favorable matchup for Althea, who had senses more acute than the average person.  However, the intense music just continued to get louder with each of her opponent’s steps.  It wasn’t like Althea could just back up and attack from afar either, the guy had some kind of special soundwaves that protecte3d him or something.  And being so close to him rendered the slayer in a state unable to utilize hand-to-hand techniques.  Still, if she just kept healing herself and waited until her opponent was close enough…

“Well, that was over quickly.  I was a bit spooked when you started running at me, but in the end, it didn’t amount to much.”  Althea struggled to hear the robot dude’s voice over the booming music.  Through the dizzying lense of her vision, the mage could barely make out a figure squatting down next to her.  “Still, at least the--”

Pure white flames exploded outwards with Althea as the center.  The robot guy’s speaker overheated almost immediately, and the youth didn’t even grant him time to scream before thrusting a fist into his metallic chest.  Her opponent wordlessly fell backward, his armor already melting into his skin.  Perhaps he had died right away, perhaps he had been rendered unable to breathe, Althea didn’t care much.  She had successfully mitigated the amount of property damage caused by her explosion, so it was a job well done.  The youth quickly healed her eardrums before walking out of the white inferno, her clothes free of a single hint of ash.  Her eyes quickly found the robot guy’s associate, and before the demonic teen could utter a word Althea had already kicked her to the ground.  And just in case, the young girl squarely placed her sneaker on the teen’s back to prevent them from escaping.

“Bruh.  What even.  I’m not even doing anything, just let me have my fun.”  The female squirmed underneath the blonde’s foot, somehow unable to grasp exactly what the blonde’s intentions were.  I mean, Althea was letting out a fair amount of killing intent, y’know?  That’s how the robot guy knew she was looking for a fight right away.

However, the mage simply sighed, “Yeah yeah, I’m not in the mood for dialogue.”  She moved her foot from Orcana’s back to her head, shoving her face into the concrete.  “Have fun being dead though.”

“Wait.”  A voice cut through the warm summer air, Althea lifting her gaze from the fallen demon to see who exactly approached her.  One of the civilians coming back was rather far fetched, so the chances were that the man standing before her was an opponent.  He wore the garb of a traditional Midi samurai, the only difference being the luminescent cyan circuit patterns on his robe and skin.  However, the most eye-catching thing was his neon pink flaming sword.  Wait, that was a bit misleading to say.  It wasn’t just a sword on fire, it was a sword made of fire.  Althea couldn’t help but get excited as she looked at the ultra-cool blade, but it wasn’t likely that the samurai would let her touch it if she just asked nicely.  “I request that you hand over Orcana in one piece.  My crew, PLA4GUE, only wanted to ruin the party.  Causing any deaths was not our goal.”

“Oh, so the robot dude was with you too, huh?”  The youth murmured, sliding her hands into her sweatshirt pockets.  But despite her lax attitude, her white sneaker still remained ontop of the teenager.  “Well, you don’t have to worry about any deaths.  I’ve seen one guy get hurt, but that’s all.”

The neon samurai seemed taken aback, “If that’s the case, then why did you go to such extreme lengths??  I’m willing to withdraw as long as you release the captive.”

“Oh, y’know, it hasn’t been the best night for me.”  The blonde replied dismissively, her innocent smile unwavering.

“Don’t tell me… is PLA4GUE Beta dead?  But why would you-”

“As I said, mister, it’s been a rough night.  Let’s have a party of our own, ‘kay?”  Then, without any prior notice, Althea finally shifted her foot downwards, having a predictably gore-y impact on the state of Orcana’s head.  Instantly, the samurai created a wide, raging arc of fire with his sword, the flames quickly spreading scores the nearby buildings.  However, Althea didn’t have much leeway to worry about property damage when that same sword was quickly approaching her neck.  The youth deftly angled her body to let the katana pass by her before dishing out a blow of her own to the samurai.  But somehow, he was fast enough to intercept his sword with her fist, sliding both his sword and his body to once again target Althea’s neck.

The water mage quickly swerved out of the way but wasn’t allowed enough time to make a counter-attack of her own.  Instead, the blade master made slash after slash, each movement of his sword artfully connecting into the next.  She was able to dodge the more lethal attacks, but that didn’t mean she was unable to avoid receiving cuts here and there.  Watching the performance actually reminded Althea a bit of her older sister, how bittersweet.  But the battle wasn’t so leisurely that she had the leeway to be retrospective.  Changing up her stance a bit, the blonde began to intercept her opponent’s vicious swings with kicks.  After all, she couldn’t keep being wholly defensive.  And suing her body like a blade soon bore fruit because a blow of Althea’s finally connected with the samurai’s shoulder.

The neon warrior quickly increased the distance between him and the youth, one hand holding his dislocated shoulder while the other held his flaming sword.  The slayer was just about to reassume the close-quarters combat when five fluid-like beings emerged from below.  They had a slightly humanoid shape, but the fact they were made of neon water suggested anything but normality.

Still, now Althea was outnumbered.  She had already healed her injuries, but her mana pool wasn’t infinite.  Might as well just clean everything up at once, right?  Sure, it wouldn’t be as satisfying, but at least things wouldn’t get any more chaotic than they already were.  The slayer leaped onto a nearby apartment complex, a magic circle appearing underneath the youth’s feet.  But it wasn’t like she was applying magic to herself.  No, the product of her spell had been the seismic wave rising behind her opponents.  The clear water, lit by the town’s neon lights, cast a shadow over the samurai and his summons before engulfing the block with a thundering crash.  Even from her vantage point, Althea still got a bit battered by her own spell.  But given a few moments, all that was left of the wave was the soaking wet concrete, smoke from smoldering flames, and the lifeless body of the samurai.  Of course, it was obvious that she’d done her best to limit any property damage, so no civilians had been harmed.  Had a few houses been damaged?  Sure, but at least the homeowners weren’t dead.

Grinning from a job well done, Althea dropped back onto the streets and resumed her search for food vendors.