"Why do you look like an old woman?"
The air froze after the tactless question, Anubis's eyes widening as he tried to send a very large telepathic signal to Jörmungandr to retract that statement, immediately, while Fenrir furiously shook his head at his very socially inept brother.
"... Huh?"
Shivers curled up everyone's spine at the low pitched voice that emanated from the awoken Priestess who appeared in her mid-30s now and pissed. Very, very pissed.
"What did this serpentine ibn kalb just call me? 'Old woman'? Jackal, you heard it too, did you not?" Ain asked as she rounded on him, fury in her gaze sending shivers down his spine as he meekly replied, "Y-Yes, Ain. I-It appears he did, but, he doesn't... mean... ill..."
His voice slowly faded into nothing as her dual-colored glare obliterated any courage or charm that could be found, leaving him clumsy and unsure, like a child being reprimanded by a mother.
At this point the tension in the air was reaching a crescendo, and even the socially dense and obtuse Jörmungandr had caught onto his blunder.
"Oi, kid, you wanna fight?"
"...Um," was Jörmungandr's intelligent remark before his consciousness faded from him yet again, a recent occurrence that started to become almost a habit at this point. Funnily enough, the reason for both bouts of unconsciousness seemed to come from women, though the most recent one by Ain was decidedly the most violent so far.
A solid whack to the head was surprisingly effective.
However, Fenrir, surprisingly, was not laughing right now despite his brother's poor fortune. In fact, he was sweating buckets, the solid crack of a pole made of black and gold energy smashing against his brother's skull still reverberating through his ears, even after Jörmungandr's collapse.
Perhaps what really set his fur on edge was the casualness of the blow, the controlled fury yet ultimate boredom from exacting her revenge, and the sudden calm she held when she sat down, pulling her god with her before commanding, "Explain everything. Now."
""Yes ma'am. Sorry ma'am.""
"...So basically, while I collapsed due to trying to find this piece of garbage," she wacked Anubis over the head, "an entire melodrama started happening between this child," she pointed towards Asta, "and this incorrigible piece of Isfet," she kicked Jörmungandr who was still passed out after insulting her, "because the gods had the bright idea to piece together a war conference on little notice."
Fenrir, who was several feet away from her and ready to bolt at any moment after seeing the casual display of violence nodded obediently, sweating buckets behind his poker face. Aspen glanced towards him anxiously, wondering if he was alright or not between his unusually stiff posture, and yet collected expression.
Gently, she sent out a mental probe of inquiry before Ain's gaze snapped towards her, black and gold eyes wide and analytical before she demanded, "You, did you do something just now?"
Poor Aspen nearly jumped out of her own skin while swiftly answering, "Y-Yes?"
A caramel finger pointed towards her. "You, you just used an ability, didn't you? Don't lie, I felt it just now, a sliver of power similar to that boy's. What were you doing?"
'Boy?' Fenrir wondered mutinously to himself as Aspen hurriedly explained, "W-Well... um, I was just... reaching out to him... mentally, I suppose...?"
"Hm," she grunted, expression contemplative before her unsettling eyes focused back on Aspen, "and when you did so, did you facilitate such action through this... 'System' thing, or did you just... do it?"
"...I don't know?" Aspen supplied helplessly, evoking a sigh of exhaustion from Ain.
"Well, you're going to need to find out, and soon—otherwise you'll be a sitting duck hiding behind you little dog in hopes of keeping safe on the battlefield. Learning to source of your power is the first step in accessing it freely, as I can."
"Oh?" Aspen blinked, curious. "And what it the source of your power?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Ain sneered, brow raised in judgement. She pointed at the half of her hair that was dark and her golden eye before stating the obvious.
"The source of all Priests and Priestesses power is their god, of course. In fact," she continued boldly, clapping her hands together before pulling them apart to reveal a black and gold staff with a curved tip, humming with energy, "the 'System', as it enjoys calling itself, is actually obsolete for us Priestesses when we know how to use our powers. The same could be said about the gods and their powers, though they seem to be more tied up than we are..."
"Although," she turned to glance at Asta's sleeping form, a furrow entering her brow as she remarked, "this little one seems a bit odd—a different breed from us. Maybe it's because I was close to the Duat, but I feel an anomaly within this little one... like a seed, slowly beginning to flourish where it does not belong..."
Anubis's expression mirrored his priestesses at her statement. Now that he looked at her more thoroughly, there did seem to be something implanted within her, something that wasn't there when he first resurrected her. Was it because he had been too focused on Ain? How could he fail to spot such a clear difference with her.
He thought back to the brother's older sister, Hela, and the feeling she evoked; with the way she moved and acted, it was very difficult to hammer down his suspicions of her involvement within this incongruency in Asta. On some level, he was convinced she was involved—a woman who wore her secrets like dresses was one not be trusted, and yet he could find no moment in which she could have preformed an act of manipulation without him sensing it.
'...A third party then? I did not sense the System, and there were no other gods within the vicinity... then who...?'
Prickles of fear washed up his spine as he suddenly came to a disturbing, rapturous conclusion.
'Within this game, someone else is watching us. And none of us have noticed anything out of the ordinary... not a single god, until it made itself known through our priestesses...'
Suddenly, the prospect of the conference was even more dark; he felt that something more—something else—would occur at the conference, and not just a declaration of war.
Anubis quietly gazed upon the small group, from the Priestesses to the Monsters, and wondered if they would be able to survive the coming storm that was beginning to brew.
He hoped so.