— Year 1550 (Gaia calendar) 2:00 PM, Wednesday, July 6

  Lios Town

  In a world made of golden hues, gray fog that represented the wind blew. The wind blew across a field of golden grass, eventually hitting against the pale yellow feathers of a winged serpent.

  The serpent coiled around a specific point, its massive body created a barrier around that point. Within the barrier of the feathered serpent, a small dark female figure sat in a meditative position.

  From the vision of the figure, the gray fog was filled with many blue lights that flowed like a strange liquid.

  As if sensing that she could now sense the energy, Aries' voice sounded from beyond the golden hued world.

  "Do not open your eyes, try grasping and absorbing the chi around you, I'll handle the rest."

  Heeding his words, Alice kept her eyes closed. She sensed the chi around her and tried grasping for it, and surprisingly, she did.

  Not allowing her surprise to distract her, she drew the energy into herself. To make it easier for herself, she gathered it into a single spot in her chest. After doing this, a foreign energy entered her from her back. This shocked her, but not for long as she realized it was Aires.

  The foreign chi collided with the chi she had gathered and was still gathering and guided it throughout her body. She felt a strange sensation coursing through her being. She had a feeling that with the strange feeling and her limited ability to manipulate chi, this process would be much harder if she had been doing it herself.

  A heavy weight weighed on her mind, her palms became sweaty and her heart beat quickened, she even felt her body quiver occasionally. This was something she couldn't help happening, the more she felt the chi course through her the more she felt excitement creeping up on her, raring to burst out.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  She could feel her heart beat in her ears.

  'So close.'

  She felt the chi reaching the very ends of her being. Her excitement threatened to make her jump for joy but she resisted as that would interrupt the process and that was something she didn't know and didn't want to find out the answer to.

  As the chi approached the end, she suddenly felt it reverse and flow back toward her center.

  She paled.

  'No no no no no no no!'

  This couldn't be happening! She was so close! What went wrong? Panic was overtaking her and her mind was blanking.

  Rustle. Rustle.

  A soft rustling on her back brought her from her panicking state. Looking properly, she could see that along the path of the chi, were vein-like structures that, as the chi reversed, didn't disappear or collapse.

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  "Hoooo… Maybe this should be happening'

  And she was quickly proven right as the chi that re-gathered at her center coagulated into a storm cloud that quickly dissipated. After this, chi messily began to circulate throughout her body.

  A wave of warmth washed over her that turned the messy veins into refined pathways. The foreign chi entered her once more and guided the chi in her body to recreate the storm cloud.

  After a few minutes, it was complete. She felt a change in her entire being, she became sturdier, stronger, she even felt her chi amount and control improve.

  Following this, in her mind, Alice saw a single word, 'Storm' surrounded by crackling lighting.

  Along with this word, a jolt coursed through her, and information flooded her mind, information that allowed her to better understand what was happening

  She opened her eyes which contained a bolt of lighting within them that dispersed after a moment. As the light hit her eyes she could already tell the difference in herself after becoming Null.

  'This…'

  She placed her arm down and pushed herself up. Instead of moving upward, though, she felt her hand sink into the ground.

  "Eh?"

  Audibly reacting, she picked up her hand and saw the shallow indent in the ground that it left behind.

  Alice had been weak and sickly all her life, she knew this from the memories she inherited, even with missing fragments. Her sickly nature often left her bed ridden for long periods of time, which only served to weaken her further. Her constitution always made Alice feel like a useless burden on her parents and everyone around her. She always tried to help where she could but that only worsened her health and caused her parents more problems so she eventually gave up.

  Not only this, whenever she played with other kids, they had to give up the way they normally played so she could too, wherever she went she felt like she was making everyone's life worse.

  Due to this, a deep gratification for her new found strength creeped from the depths of her soul. She couldn't help but smile uncontrollably, she was happy, extremely so but at the same time…

  Drip. Drip.

  …She couldn't help but cry. Tears were flowing down her smiling face. In this moment, on this day, she had fulfilled both her own and Alice's dreams at the same time. She was happy, but she was crying. Not because she was sad, but because she was happy.

  Emotions from both sides of herself, Alice and Sharon, burst forth at the same time in that moment. The emotions that she was feeling in this moment were overwhelming. It took her a long while to regain her composure.

  Aries who saw this was completely befuddled. With his current state and understanding of emotion, he couldn't understand what was happening to Alice. If she was happy, why was she crying? How can she cry and smile at the same time? What was going on? Should he comfort her or congratulate her? He didn't know. The only thing he could do was coil around her and take her into an embrace.

  Feeling this, Alice hugged his serpentine body and cried her heart out.

  After a while of crying, she finally stopped crying, leaving her eyes red and puffy. At this point, Aries had also returned to his normal form.

  Now that she had calmed down she could finally ask about the discrepancy in what Aries had told her and what actually happened. She wiped away a stray tear and turned to Aries who was now beside her.

  "You know how you told me only those who passed the null stage could use their special powers?"

  He nodded.

  "It seems that isn't the case for me."

  "What do you—"

  Cutting him off, Alice opened her hand and gathered her chi. She activated the 'Storm' that appeared in her mind which caused the chi to produce electricity in her palm. That electricity swirled and turned into clouds which were filled with rain, the clouds then burst into rain that swirled into a vortex and formed into a tornado. The tornado then turned into electricity once more then she closed her hand into a fist and dispersed the electricity.

  Seeing this, Aries' eyes widened.

  "It seems we are quite similar."

  "..?"

  He pointed at himself and spoke.

  "We both have special constitutions. While I have the constitution of a Mythical creature…"

  He paused for a moment and licked his dried lips before continuing.

  "...You have the Merlin's constitution."

  Here concludes the end of the intruduction and actual the story will begin from the next chapter on.

  I have been struggling with procrastination and laziness which I have been trying to improve but now, with the start of the actual story I should be more motivated and post more often

  ;)