Chapter 1-Everyday is a Challenge with them
Aisha woke up to the sound of clashing swords and twittering birds, occasionally curses being heard from the backyard. She opened one eye lazily, soon to close it back from the powerful light that was making its way from outside through the crack in the curtains. Still sleepy and with no apparent reason to wake up, she pulled the covers over her head and tried to go back to sleep, though with no avail.
All of a sudden, a knock woke her from her dreamy state and a voice reached her from behind the door.
"Aisha, are you awake? Can I come in? It's already 10 a.m., why are you still in bed?" a sweet voice said and soon, a beautiful elven woman made her way towards Aisha's bed.
"Go away Rena! We just finished our job, I am under no obligation to wake up at any hour." Aisha said grumpily from under her covers.
"I know, but we can go home, now that we have finished our job." Rena answered, reminding Aisha of their location and the fact that she was, indeed, not in her bed, but in her room at a lodge they rented for a week. "Plus, if we don't have breakfast and leave now, the guys will soon destroy another house and I swear I'm not paying for any collateral damage again like last time." she added, shivering at the memory where she had to pay almost half of their last mission's reward on destructions caused by Elsword, Chung and Raven.
Aisha couldn't help but giggle at the exasperated elf, realizing that the sounds of weapons in the backyard were, in fact, the boys training again. She stood up lazily, rubbed the sleep from her eyes and yawned loudly. Rena stared at her and laughed, getting up and walking towards the door, but a girl stopped her in the process.
"The chicken eggs are inserted in the pan, the flame is set at 50 degrees Celsius and also the processed meat is ready to be added at command. The entire process will take about 22 minutes and 34 seconds. Any further requests are to be stated now." the Nasod girl said expressionless, standing firm in the doorway. "And seeing you woke up after sleeping for 10 hours, 27 minutes and 45 seconds, I wish you a good morning, Aisha!" she added.
"Morning, Eve!" Aisha said sweetly, also waving to Eve's servants, Oberon and Ophelia, standing tall beside the Queen. They motioned back towards her and left as soon as Eve made her way back to the kitchen. Left alone yet again, Aisha laughed, trying to figure out why she liked Eve that much as she did; maybe because of that poker face she always wore, Aisha could swear the Nasod girl would win a fortune at that game. Or maybe she liked her calculations, which were frighteningly exact and accurate. All in all, Eve's personality could make Aisha feel better anytime.
Half an hour later, Aisha was seated at the table, munching at the breakfast Eve made. She was not excited about having eggs and sausages at breakfast, but she did not want to upset the Queen, because last time anyone criticized Eve's cooking, she ended up sulking in the corner of the room, claiming she was useless, even compared to the 'weak and narrow-minded of humans' and upgraded herself for 34 hours stat, scaring everyone that she went offline for good. But afterwards, her food tasted ten times better, so no one regretted her radical actions.
Not long after, Rena called the boys to eat, resulting in a massive loss of peace and silence, which made the mage girl fret over. Raven came in first, shouted a quick 'Morning!' to Aisha and sat himself near Rena, anxiously awaiting his food to be placed in front of him, just like a small kid. Sometimes Raven seemed just too cute in Aisha's eyes, but he was also a fierce fighter and very protective towards many of them, especially Rena. Aisha giggled at the dirty thought, earning a weird look from Eve. He took off his white coat and placed it carefully on the chair's backrest and started eating hungrily. Chung and Elsword came in and started arguing, probably over some insignificant matter, something which was bound to be forgotten in the next five minutes or so.
"Aisha!" a voice raged through the house, making the said girl choke on her food. "You're standing on my seat!"
"I highly doubt that, El-freak." Aisha responded calmly to the boy's accusations. She was in no mood to be arguing with the red-head.
"What did you call me?!" he kept on yelling. "You wanna fight? I'm warning you, I won't go easy on you just because you're a kid!" he said with a superior tone, which made the mage snap.
"That does it!" Aisha snapped her fingers, rising herself from the table, making a small demon in the shape of a bat appear behind Elsword. The said creature bit Elsword by the hand and started sending electric shocks through his body, making him cringe in pain and fall on his knees, dropping his sword.
"Damn it!" he yelled and tried to take off the creature, only causing the demon to bite harder.
Soon, the armored boy stood up and stated himself:
"Oi, neesan, don't you think you're going a little bit too hard on him?" Chung asked.
"It's not my fault. He said we should go all-out. And this isn't even all-out for me." Aisha retorted.
"Aisha, this is more than enough!" Rena said worriedly, trying to make the void mage stop.
Aisha stared into her green eyes and checked upon her features, before snapping her fingers again, making the bat stop continuingly hurting Elsword.
"Anger, it's enough." she stated firmly, as the bat detached himself from the red-head and flew over to herself. "You can have your stupid seat back." she added and stormed out of the room and outside the front door, leaving her friends staring blankly behind her.
"Did I upset her somehow? I didn't mean to." Chung said sadly, looking at Raven, who, in exchange, stared at Elsword judgingly.
Upon feeling Raven's eyes staring at him, Elsword looked down and pouted, muttering something like 'Man, that bat is really weak' or 'That really didn't hurt at all'.
"The point is not that you're hurt right now, it is that she's hurt right now and you should apologize." Raven said, sighing and getting another bite of egg and sausage.
Elsword stood up and sat at the table gaining a plate with food from Rena.
"Aisha's pulse rose considerably, and her blood pressure rose directly proportional with it, resulting in the so-called 'snapping at a person' phenomenon, common language 'getting pissed at someone' or 'getting very angry' as I prefer calling it."
"You should go and-" Chung started, but was immediately cut off by Rena. "You should just let her be. You did enough damage for now." the elf said and sat herself at the table with a bowl of salad in front of her. "She'll come back when she feels like it." she added and started nipping at her food. She knew that something was off with her friend, be it she didn't feel well or something more important was behind her weird behavior. She decided she would tell the others later.
The rest of the breakfast passed quickly and in silence, and only when they were seated in the living room with their luggage ready to go, Rena started talking with everyone.
"I think Aisha is not feeling well." she finally brought herself to say. Everyone stopped and stared at her. "I don't know why or in what way, but I started noticing the fact that she is not herself anymore. She has that pained look in her eyes sometimes that I just can't stand seeing on her little face." Rena finally let go of everything on her heart and shared with her friends.
"According to my analysis, Aisha's mental state has decreased in the past few days, from content-happy slowly degenerating to depressed-pain. I cannot find the cause, though. I shall run a diagnosis on her once we get home and have the necessary equipment to do so." Eve stated bluntly, operating on a console, which appeared in front of her. "Ophelia, I would like you to schedule a brain operation, just in case, to fix whatever error has occurred in Aisha's processor, um, I mean brain."
"I don't think that will be necessary, Eve, but thank you for your concern." Chung tried to make the Nasod change her mind, while grabbing and fighting Ophelia to stop appointing Aisha to a certain transformation into a latest Nasod creation.
"Maybe she fell in love and she is too proud to admit it and has a whole interior complex with herself whether he truly loves her or not, or maybe she is already broken hearted, or, or-" Rena tried to help herself from crying and started making suppositions on who the guy who broke her heart may be.
"I really think that's not the case here." Chung tried to calm the situation again, while Elsword choked on his drink and was ready to pass on to the other life.
"Or maybe she found another fighting style and is too ashamed of it, or too hurt to give up magic in order to attain another level of power." Raven rubbed his chin, thinking.
"Are we really being serious here?" Chung sweat-dropped and looked at Elsword, who in the meantime, calmed himself down. "What do you think?" he asked, in the middle of the loud conversations that were taking place around him. Elsword looked at him and started thinking of reasons why Aisha would act out of character, but in the end, he sighed, defeated.
"If she really has a problem, she knows that we are her friends and if she wants to tell us, she will. She can handle her own problems." Elsword got up and stated loudly, making everyone stop and look at him.
"Can you be more heartless than that?" Rena asked with teary eyes. Elsword tripped on his feet, but turned around to face her. "It's just that I don't like meddling in other people's business." he ended with a 'humph'.
Before anyone could answer, the front door opened with a shriek and Aisha came in shouting:
"Oi, the carriage is here! Oh, you were here." she said, after she saw that everyone was in the living room and not scattered all around the house.
And just like that, everyone took their backpacks and walked outside, where a large mechanical vehicle was waiting for them, ready to take them home.
Author's Note
Aisha: Void Princess
Elsword: Lord Knight
Rena: Wind Sneaker
Raven: Blade Master
Eve: Code Empress
Chung: Deadly Chaser