Chapter 20: Tomoe Fubuki
If anything, Aaricia had things going just right for her.
In less than a day, not only had Steve Rogers dared to hit Anubis, but he had actually listened to the electric teenager's advice on how to positively approach her sister. It worked and she had the best news ever when Steve admitted to liking her sister.
As if it wasn't obvious enough that Kory was in denial when it came to her own sentiments for the super-soldier. Then they managed to snatch that pendant, which Aaricia still had in a plastic bag hidden in her room. Kory had agreed to join Steve on his morning jog at Central and the two would go grocery shopping before the Frost Giant chiefs came in for the meeting. (Lesson learned by Aaricia: when Frost Giants chiefs are chummy enough with one another, they host potlucks during their meetings, so get ready to feed eleven Frost Giants that each eat for nine people.) So, while these two went out, Aaricia 'volunteered' to stay pack to keep an eye on the others, when in reality, she had plans on asking Banner to have a look at the pendant of evil.
And there was another Jotun that she wanted to meet with.
This definitely was her plan.
Of course, she had to hope things would work. Around 3am, way before Kory and Steve had to leave, Kory had gotten into Aaricia's room and awakened her.
"Aaricia, I think I experienced a hallucination while awake. I didn't sleep. I just laid on my bed staring at the ceiling," a somewhat freaked out Kory had said. "Was it a dream, a nightmare, or an actual mistake? Did I… kiss Steve?"
"Man, I envy God and his seemingly permanent all-nighter existence…" Aaricia had yawned and refused to sit up on her bed. "He did it because he likes you. You like him. Get over it…"
"Get over it? Steve's too nice for me!" Kory had quietly hissed before shaking Aaricia. "And liking me lead to Abimbola dying! What is wrong with me?"
"Get over yourself!" Aaricia had pushed Kory to keep her from shaking the teenager. "Just do stuff with him, take it slow… and let me sleep… I'm sixteen…" To that, Aaricia had dropped her head back on her pillow and fell asleep. When she had woken up around 6:30am for, Kory had left a note by the nightstand, confirming she and Steve had left. Just as she got up and stretched, her iPhone vibrated on the table with a text from her own account on WORLDBUDDIES.
YOKAIGIRL1995: Sister out of the tower yet?
Aaricia texted back.
ZZZAXROCKS1997: Out jogging and shopping with the 'American Dreamboat'. Definitely back before the chief meeting and potluck.
YOKAIGIRL1995: :D
YOKAIGIRL1995: Be here at 7 with breakfast. You got something to soften my landing?
ZZZAXROCKS1997: Use an elevator for once.
YOKAIGIRL1995: Love ya too. See ya in a bit.
Aaricia rolled her eyes. Her connection really had a thing for making dramatic entrances. She put on her suit for the day: her Union Jack blazer, a black turtleneck with matching miniskirt, magenta-and-blue striped leggings, and her checkered sneakers accompanied by small yellow socks. After tying her long blonde locks in a ponytail, Aaricia walked towards the nearest screen on a wall animated by Stark's more-than-entertaining A.I.
"Good morning, Ms. Ikolson. Is there anything you need help with?" J.A.R.V.I.S spoke up.
"Sure thing, Jeeves." Aaricia leaned against the wall. "Is there any chance that the Avengers Tower has a massive mattress like, say, double the Queen-size, very soft but still sensitive to static electricity, and close enough to that helicopter-landing space the balcony has?"
"Dr. Banner's level is at the same level as the landing area and his mattress is big enough should the Hulk sleep in. Why do you ask?"
Aaricia gave her answer to J.A.R.V.I.S by sinking her fingers into the screen. Bolts of orange electricity grew and crackled around the walls. The teenager felt her body slipping through the wires and electricity until she found herself materializing on the balcony. Just then, a window was destroyed and Aaricia caught the flying giant mattress after making a jump to catch it. She then started moving around at lightning speed, using a blue spray paint bottle to mark X signs on the balcony, the windows, and the helicopter-landing space.
"WHAT THE HELL?" Aaricia looked to see Dr. Banner, already dressed up but with messy hair, looking over the broken window. "Aaricia, what are you doing?"
"Using the Hulk's mattress and triangulation to soften the landing of someone moving in at typhoon speed," Aaricia said matter-of-factly. "What time is it?"
"6:55. Why?"
"You might want to hit the deck, Doc!" Just as Aaricia shouted that, the wind was becoming agitated. Something was coming in from the East at lightning speed, pushing the winds away from its direction. When Aaricia saw the comet-like thing approaching, she positioned herself, steadied her hold on the mattress, and tossed it in the air. The thing landed on the mattress, dropping a couple plastic bags in the process. Aaricia jumped, grabbed the bags, and landed on the X sign she had sprayed on the balcony. The thing forced the mattress to land on the X signs on the window, shocking Dr. Banner as he realized that the thing landing on his mattress as actually a teenager. The teenager bounced off the mattress, leaving it to fall a hundred miles down as she flew towards the helicopter-landing space, landing on her feet and causing some scratching sounds as her shoes slid on the surface. She landed perfectly straight.
The teenager jumped away from the helicopter-landing space and onto the balcony, facing Aaricia. She was about seven-feet-tall, nearly the same height as a bear standing up, though that could have been due to her black wedge sneakers that constantly made taiko drum beating noises every time she put her foot down. Her pants were torn and had black-and-white vertical stripes, her white sweatshirt was big enough to hide her figure but lacked sleeves, and her black hair was cut just below her ears and dyed in numerous shades of pink from the middle to the tips. Her bare arms revealed tattoos, her left one representing some Japanese mythological figure beating drums and summoning lighting and the right one showing a female samurai leading an army. Despite the cloudy sky, her sky-blue skin and red eyes stood out.
"6:59. You're one minute early," Aaricia pointed out casually.
"Kuso!" The Japanese Frost Giant teenager cursed. (Fuck!) "I was aiming for 5 seconds early."
Aaricia pried the plastic bags open and sniffed. "Pancakes… chocolate chip and strawberries. Maple syrup. Turkey sausages. Hot peppermint tea. You remembered." She let out a big grin.
"For you? Anything. I still find it a miracle that I was able to find a decent immortal pancake house in Manhattan. You realize that some lowlife immortals have the audacity of drugging their clients' food in America?"
"Yeah, well, so far I haven't really met a decent American immortal…" Before Aaricia could continue, Banner had opened the door to the balcony.
"Aaricia, get in here this instant! It's getting too windy!"
"In a minute!" Carrying the plastic bags, Aaricia led the Japanese Frost Giant teenager out of the balcony and into the main floor of the higher levels. Banner had his arms crossed and gave her an expecting glare. "I'm sorry for the mattress, Doc. I had to use it to soften Tomoe's landing. She's rather bad at landing."
"You could have ended it at 'I'm sorry for the mattress, Doc'!" Tomoe frowned. "I had to deal with the bills the other chiefs sent me every time I accidentally broke their property just for landing."
"Other chiefs… Wait." Banner was confused. "You're one of the Frost Giant chiefs?"
"Tomoe Fubuki." Tomoe bowed in greeting. "Chief of the Rikubetsu Clan in Japan. Descendant of Tomoe Gozen, the legendary mortal female samurai, and Raijin, the god of thunder." She quickly glanced at the window. "Ironic, I know. I'm probably the only Frost Giant who can summon both ice and lightning and fly, but Aaricia's right. I'm bad at landing."
"Not to sound rude, but… How old are you?"
"18. Why?"
"I think he asks that because so far, most of the Frost Giant chiefs the Avengers know are older than they look," Aaricia said as she put the plastic bags on a coffee table.
"Yueqiu-Bing is 50 and she looks her age." Tomoe frowned.
"So I've heard…"
"So you're literally a teenager?" Banner was still shocked. Tomoe rolled her eyes. In a matter of seconds, her sky-blue skin and red eyes changed into warmer hues and dark eyes respectively and Banner was now facing a human Japanese teenager. Her arms' tattoos received darker, saturated hues to stand out.
"I am 18, I look like I'm 18, and I have every hormonal problem that comes with being a teenager! Jeez!" Tomoe rolled her eyes and walked to the coffee table, taking off her sneakers before kneeling on the ground by the table, Aaricia imitating her. "Babe, could you pass me pumpkin muffins?"
"How many of those did you order?" Aaricia pulled out a carton box, her eyes widening. "45 mini muffins?"
"What? It's good!" Tomoe said defensively. Aaricia passed her the box and the teenage Frost Giantess began taking 25 mini muffins. Still perplexed by the situation, Banner sat on one of the nearby chairs as the teenagers ate breakfast.
"Now I'm really confused…" Banner admitted. "Aaricia, is Tomoe one of Kory's allies or she just your friend? And if it's the latter, I'm definitely curious as to how you're friends with the Japanese Frost Giant chief and you had to wait until Kory was out to bring her over."
"Frankly, I'm only associated to Koryanna Ikolson because my parents are on fine terms in her. Especially my mom." Tomoe took a sip of her own herbal tea. "They met in 1985 after some crazy man-hating, bloodthirsty Amazons managed to kidnap Kory. Since Amazon lands are forbidden to males, they get killed on sight, so 'the Big Guy'," Tomoe air-quoted, causing Aaricia to almost choke on her pancake in laughter, "had to ask nearly all the lady Frost Giant chiefs to interfere. Long story short, it was probably one of the most glorious warrior women battle in history, there are no more Amazons in Corsica, and Koryanna's phone number is on my mom's list of contacts. It's kinda sad since… well… Aaricia, you want to put nicely? I don't think I have the nice words?"
"My sister has zero social life. She only interacts with the Frost Giant clans when she feels like she has to. I had to push Kory into joining WORLDBUDDIES to make friends." Aaricia made the list. "By the way, thanks for the suggestion, Tomoe."
"Eh, it was no biggie." Tomoe shrugged. "After all, my family invented the app."
"Given that Yueqiu-Bing is into cryokinetic technology, I'm guessing that you invested in technological domains as well?" Banner asked. When Tomoe offered him a mini muffin, he gladly accepted it.
"Robots, video games, social media networks, or any tech where we can use cold power or liquid nitrogen to our advantage." The teenager nodded. "And given that my maternal side of the family is descended from the Japanese thunder god Raijin, we own the biggest electrical power plant in all the Frost Giant communities."
"I couldn't help but notice. Why do the Frost Giants chiefs on Earth, creatures from Nordic mythology, happen to be descended from legendary humans or gods from the local cultures?"
"Excellent question, it's just pure dumb luck!" Tomoe chuckled. "I mean, there was the whole Frost Giants from Jotunheim who managed to stay on Earth since the 900s while the rest of Laufey's people went on war with Asgard. And then there was the faction creation that separated the gammeldag from the nybergynnere. The gammeldag faction was pushed and exiled to Antarctica, the one coldest landmass to never be occupied by humans…"
"Right. Because of how these two factions have separate opinions about mixing with humans." Banner nodded.
"And then the nybergynnere had to leave Norway."
"But Norway is awesome!" Aaricia frowned.
"I don't disagree with you, but Norway is a small country."
"Uh, isn't Japan…"
Wanting to avoid hearing Aaricia make a potentially offensive remark, Banner took over. "So, because of the reproductions with humans, Frost Giants began to overpopulate. They wanted to go to other countries," he said.
"Yep. And obviously, we went to the cold areas of the world." The food was finished, Tomoe snapped her fingers and the remaining junk suddenly disintegrated, curtesy of tiny yokai-shaped lightning bolts popping from Tomoe's fingers. Once the lightning disappeared, she blew at the remaining ash, causing it to fly in swirls towards the nearest trash bins.
"But traveling must have been challenging." Banner was amazed by what he had just seen. "Did Frost Giants have the technology Asgardians have for teleportation? Because traveling around the world by foot could have cost your ancestors to suffer from heat exhaustion if they traveled for years…" He stopped talking when Tomoe started beating her hands on the coffee table in a drumming rhythm. Frost grew from her tips, spreading all over the table and causing a miniature ice sculpture of a tree to grow. It stopped when it could stand on its roots and spread-out thick branches. 8 orbs settled themselves to be impaled by the branches and roots while a 9th was impaled at the center of the tree.
"Neat reproduction of Yggdrasil the Tree of Life, Tomoe," Aaricia complimented.
"Been practicing for the elementary school guest lectures." Tomoe smirked. She poked her finger into the ice bark, causing lightning bolts to move within the bark. They flowed through the orbs in the branches and trees but intertwined into a mashed-up pile of snakes in the central orb. "Babe? A little touch?"
Aaricia nodded and snapped some rainbow lightning at the tree. Soon enough, they flowed in to match Tomoe's lightning movements. Each colored lightning bolt was connected to an orb and flowing towards the central orb, nearly creating a rainbow net.
"Is that a network of energy currents intertwining in one general relativity core?" Banner bent down for a better look.
"The Tree of Life is a general concept to explain the connection of the Nine Realms in the universe," Tomoe explained. "Technically speaking, it does exist, but the whole tree thing was the best way to explain to primitives at the time that Yggdrasil is actually a network of Einstein-Rosen bridges. It doesn't teleport to other realms the way the Bifrost does, but these bridges form 'currents' for magic to flow from the other realms to Earth. Given that Earth is literally the heart of Yggdrasil, the magic of the other realms will flow from the 'branches' and 'roots' to mix up."
"As if the tree's central bark, cambium, sapwood, and heartwood were twisted up due to the mixing magic coming from the other realms." Aaricia nodded.
"Can you enlarge this?" Banner asked. Tomoe clenched her fist and managed to enlarge the ice-and-lightning sculpture until it reached the ceiling, crushing the coffee table, but Banner didn't care as he got to see a more detailed, enlarged depiction of Earth with the intertwined rainbow bolts covering the planet like a ball of yarn. "So you use the blue lightning to show the magical energy that comes in from the Einstein-Rosen bridge that connects Jotunheim to Earth. If I'm understanding this, the tree's pith is literally on Norway, but because Earth is the heart of the Nine Realms… The intertwining causes the magic to cover the world…" He squinted to have a better look at the blue lightning energy going through Norway. "The Jotunheimen is here… So, your clans are specifically located where the flux of energy coming in from Jotunheim are located. In a strange sense, the clans are located… where the Frost Giants have the closest connections to their home world."
"Literal branches with Jotun magic. Yep," Tomoe said. "All our ancestors had to do was to follow the branches and use their magic for safe passages. So yeah, if they were walking, sticking to the trails protected them from the heat. Many clans were formed in Europe, Asia, and some bits in the Middle East, simply by foot, but the Americas was a whole other story. American Frost Giants came in either from Russia using the Bering Strait or by boat when Leif Erikson sailed to America."
"And your clan is based in the one area in Japan where you're connected to the 'branch from Jotunheim'. I suppose that makes sense." Banner polished his glasses a bit when his lenses picked up some frost. "But I still don't understand why the clans decided to adopt the local cultures?"
"Bias confusion or because of the general human bullshit of white heterosexual guys conquering everything, killing everyone, and forcing locals to adopt their perspectives?" Tomoe asked.
"Both… I guess?"
"Did I just miss out on some kind of high school science fair?" Banner, Aaricia, and Tomoe got up when they saw Tony Stark come in, followed by Thor and Natasha. "Seriously, how many more teenagers are going to break into my tower?"
"I was invited. I'm just hours early for the meeting." Tomoe shrugged.
"She's the chieftess of the Japanese Frost Giants," Banner told Tony.
"You must be kidding… OW!" Tony's scoffing was interrupted when Tomoe turned into her Frost Giantess form and snapped her fingers, causing a lightning bolt to fly towards his chest and for his arc reactor to send out to his body mixed signals of electrocution and cold shock waves. "OW! Man, that was cold!" He panted when the pain stopped.
"Ice is just frozen H2O that can become a more proliferating conductor for electricity," Tomoe rolled her eyes. "Quit mocking and start respecting nature."
"Lightning and ice…" Thor was awed before noticing the ice tree with internal electricity and then Tomoe's tattoos. "Raijin? I've heard of him. You are his descendant?"
"Yeah, don't wear it out." Tomoe shrugged. "And yeah, I was among the chiefs who tried to maul Loki back in DC. It's nothing personal. We really don't like him. Frost Giants don't like Asgardians."
"I can understand." Thor nodded.
"My ancestors' autobiographies constantly described your people as self-centered, over-competitive, bloodthirsty demons. I'm going to do my best to stay clear of biases, but my parents would try to kill me again if I was friends with you, so I'm going to be very disrespectful in the most diplomatic way possible. You know, since I'm in the same building as the guy who also has the same capacities as me to create a blackout."
"That is probably the kindest insult I ever heard," Thor smirked in amusement.
"Been workshopping."
"And remind me again, you're here… why?" Tony frowned as he checked his arc reactor.
"Just to spend time with Aaricia."
"Didn't your sister forbid you from flirting with the heirs of the clans?" Natasha asked Aaricia.
"Her fault, not mine." Aaricia pointed at Tomoe.
"Not disagreeing there." Tomoe paced around the floor a bit. "My family was visiting Ingrid Aybeer and her son Axel at the Jotunheimen Clan when Kory had to introduce Aaricia to the clan after adopting her. Even though she has no 'legal citizenship' with the communities, Kory still had to follow protocols when it comes to immortals adopting mortal children."
"There are protocols for that?" Banner asked.
"Man, you guys really see us as savages." Tomoe crossed her arms. "Of course there's protocols! Introducing mortals to an immortal community is basically trusting them to assimilate and protect the community! What, you think we waltz around kidnapping mortals just for reproduction? No, they come willingly! It's a matter of bureaucracy! We even have protocols for handling humans who try to force their way in!"
"Force their way in?"
"Invade the clan borders, physical aggression on immortals, or desires to exploit the resources," Aaricia listed. "You know, like the way SHIELD barges in, claiming alien relics as their own and experimenting on them to make weapons without caring that they could provoke gods?"
"And as backwards and controversial as it sounds, mortals with negative intentions against the clans face the protocoled punishments: retribution via experimentation, discrimination, and, at worse, slave labor."
"And here we go…" Aaricia muttered when she saw the dark expressions appearing on the three Avengers' faces.
"You persecute humans?" Thor demanded. "As if they weren't better than anything else than subjected servants?"
"Because they treat humans as equals on your world?" Tomoe asked, a pinch of sass in her voice. "What? You thought that just because we mix we humans, we're gonna trust them one-hundred percent even though humans got a track record of persecuting and murdering what they deem unfit for their society? We're Frost Giants, not idiots. You think that if we fully trusted humans, Yueqiu-Bing and Joseph and the leaders of other larger clans would have force fields to protect their territories? My own clan is in a pocket dimension so unwanted humans don't barge in!"
"But if you have defenses to repel humans away, how do you manage to get them involved in your clans?" Banner asked. "Which leads back to my initial question of why you chiefs seem to be descended from gods or legendary humans."
"Dumb luck, really."
"Excuse me?"
"It wasn't in the original agenda, really." Tomoe sat down on a couch. "When we started creating clans, we went for what we call appeasing assimilation."
"It's like the reverse of when Asgardians, Europeans, or the general white male, Christian heterosexual conquerors try to show whose boss," Aaricia said. "They come over, they conquer, they steal lands, and they tell the locals 'Ya wanna survive? Then abandon your cultures, your faiths, and your languages in favor of ours. Ya know, because our society is better than yours.'"
"Yep." Tomoe gave Aaricia a fist bump. "While your type of people goes that way, we Frost Giants go for appeasing assimilation. We go, we interact with the locals, and we say 'We want to settle here but we understand this is your land as well. Let's talk it out. To prove to you that we can make this work, we will adapt to your setting, your culture, your language. We'll work on rules that will make things work. Let's walk through it so we can make some ground rules.' So, yeah, cue the thousands of years of appeasing assimilation… And again, we didn't plan out that chief quirk. It just happened where our ancestors managed to stumble on mortals who descended from great figure, and those traits just got stronger when said legacies mixed with the blood of the chiefs. And sometimes it's not so much about blood heritage. I mean, Noah's the Chief of the Israeli Clan, second one in a row, and he's more of a spiritual descendant than a blood one."
An awkward silence of ten seconds lasted between everyone. "I know it's too hard to believe, but don't you have Avenger thingy stuff to do?" Tomoe asked.
"I do, actually." Thor started making his way to the door. "I must return to Asgard to discuss with my father. I want to hear his word on the matter. With what I have witnessed, I refuse to believe that he allowed such tragedies, even if it involves Loki. I don't trust Anubis as my niece's patron god."
"Wow." Aaricia clapped her hands in a deadbeat rhythm. "Super Hammer finally joins the club."
"The guy's a douchebag…" Tony muttered.
"Douchebag? The guy acts like a stereotypical death god both for laughs and because he's a sociopath!" Tomoe's frustration caused the ice Yggdrasil sculpture to crumble into ice cubes. "I don't know what stories you've heard, but none of the Frost Giant chiefs trust the last Egyptian god who so happens to be a death god and a pyromaniac. The chiefs coming over are those who REALLY don't trust him, 25% for him being a douchebag and 100% for his grasp on Aaricia's sister. Besides the Chitauri and Jotunheim problem, things are getting too out of hand; Noah insisted that we use the meeting to deal with that problem."
"If you saw a problem, then why didn't you guys do anything about it?" Tony asked.
"Cut me some slack, I've only been chief for two years! I'm still new at this!" Tomoe protested. "Anubis' is 100% firepower. Captain America can tell you all about it, he was there when Anubis burned up the Italian Frost Giant chief! And Koryanna is also her own problem!" She turned apologetically to Aaricia. "No offense to you or your sis…"
"Kory doesn't have a problem? I was NEVER aware!" Aaricia gasped in mock sarcasm before scowling. "I'd have to be a moron for eight years straight to not notice that my sister's skull is thicker than the iceberg that sank the Titanic. Speaking of thick heads, I wonder when Bacchus and Maui are coming back. Also, besides Ingrid and Noah, who else is coming?"
"Yueqiu-Bing, OBVIOUSLY. Tragically, Nikoletta." Tomoe gagged on the last one. "Yeah, you might want to dull out your senses when she comes, Avengers. Nikoletta can make things ugly when she uses her capacities."
"Internal frostbites?" Tony joked.
"Just keep yourself safe!" Tomoe snapped. "You're dealing with more Frost Giant chiefs: more capacities, more tricks, and anything that they'll use to keep anyone who bugs them in line! Ingrid could strangle you with ice vines, Noah is the only one who could probably pull off any damn miracle…"
"You with the lightning. You could easily put a virus on the Internet," Aaricia pointed out.
"Or hack someone's private safe drive." Tomoe nodded. "What else? Oh yeah, Yueqiu-Bing can easily manipulate somebody's essence based on their zodiac signs ESPECIALLY on a full moon, Joseph controls anything aerial or voodoo, Cyril is a great healer but he's also a spiritual medium, so piss him off and he could send some death spirits on you. Emma is also a green-thumb like Ingrid, but one yodel or one blown horn and she knocks out Manhattan. Otto's a bit of a pacifist, but don't underestimate him. Kunal's an expert strategist. Gawain is another trickster Frost Giant like Koryanna, but he leans more towards the Fae and demonic. Speaking of demonic, be VERY careful with Nikoletta. That archer is deadly."
"Clearly she hasn't met Clint," Natasha smirked.
"I'd personally prefer that Agent Barton doesn't meet Nikoletta." Tomoe grimaced. "She's the only other Frost Giant hybrid oddball besides Koryanna. ¼ Jotun, ¼ human, and the remaining half succubus."
That put all the human Avengers on edge. Even Thor looked uneasy.
"Oh, is she the one that Kory keeps calling a 'grass snake pheromone stench, sin spreading bitch'?" Aaricia casually asked. "No wonder she doesn't speak Swedish."
"Yeah, out of the batch, Koryanna's probably more uncomfortable around Nikoletta. She can hit any target with her arrows, but her nastiest trick is when she soaks her arrows' tips with any of her succubus aphrodisiacs," Tomoe agreed. "My mother said that one time, when rock giants tried to invade the Kebnekaise Clan, all Nikoletta was shoot one of those arrows at the invaders' leader and they all started getting tangled like male grass snakes fighting in dozens over a female." The teenage chief shuddered. "Total orgy."
She and Aaricia both gagged.
"I'd better wear my armor," Tony started making his way to the lab.
"The rock giants apparently said the same thing and their bodies are thicker than titanium!" Tomoe called out.
"Still protecting myself!" The door closed behind Tony.
"Huh. I'd say that if things were different, Loki would actually fit in well with those magically-talented Frost Giants," Thor said.
"Hardly. None of the Frost Giants on Earth-like him. My mother says that him just being a disguised Jotun raised by barbarian propaganda spreaders is a dishonor to his own species, doubly-so since he's Laufey's son."
"Must be a miracle for you and the chiefs to tolerate Kory then…" Natasha said.
"Nah. Koryanna's cool. Unless you force her to, she's not much of a spotlight hoarder or power-hungry like her relatives. The others coming over either tolerate or like her. Any other chief that's not invited is either a biased bitch or those who see her as a ticket to boost their clan's rep." Tomoe crossed her arms. "Yeah, definitely morons out there who actually think that her 'princess' title is really legit."
"I would have thought that 'Princess of Mischief' was her title, given that Loki is the God of Mischief…" Thor said.
"Childhood nickname from her mom turned into an unwanted professional moniker." Aaricia shrugged. "I mean, she'll really get mischievous when you get on her nasty side. You saw the way she backstabbed Loki on Ellis Island. She's even better than her old man when it comes to casting illusions. Hers are more physical and capable of direct attacks. When she cleans the house, her illusions help her get it done in 10 minutes. At the Upper Bay, she fought the gammeldags on her own but used an illusion to sneak up on Loki."
"So, she didn't really try to kill him?" Thor asked, perhaps a bit too hopefully, since it caused Tomoe and Aaricia to laugh hysterically.
"You're hilarious!" Aaricia wiped away a tear of laughter. "Kory has no forgiveness towards Loki. Besides, along with the capacity of physical proactiveness, her illusions are also projections of her desires."
"Which means that obviously, Koryanna had the desire to kill him." Tomoe's eyes widened when she saw something howling in the balcony. "GREAT YOKAIS OF JAPAN, WHAT IS THAT?"