Infinity: Rising of the Soul Weavers

* Neffex - New Beginnings *

- A Few hours earlier, in the morning after Raven's fight in the forest -

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

"Hm, not bad, you hit all three targets while flying midair, that's a lot of improvement!" Maria encouraged while clapping her hands.

"Hehe, thank you!" Maya replied with a smile while clutching the Wingman gun, that was created by Raven, with her two hands.

While Maria was observing with huge noise cancelling headphones, Maya was floating midair with two pure white wings behind her. Although they weren't beating, they were what enabled her to fly.

In addition, while her wings were out, Maya gained the ability to analyse everything in her field of vision, meaning that every little detail, movement or contrast wasn't hidden from her.

She could spot almost anything, even a tiny fly moving across the distance. Right now, her limit was around fifty meters far. Beyond that, she'd slowly start losing the analysis skill.

Furthermore, she found that she can use short distance teleportation. Meaning that she could focus on anything within her field of vision, within her fifty meters of influence, and teleport near its vicinity. While she hasn't mastered this ability yet, she was pretty close.

The two have been practicing together for a while now, behind Raven's back. It wasn't that they wanted to hide this from her, but more like surprise her when she becomes good at it.

'I am aware that this would be withholding information from Raven, just like she did with us, hiding Kayla and Tu… but she deserves it,' Maria shrugged her shoulders since a part of her wanted to punish Raven for that.

"My turn now, hehe," she chuckled while watching Maya descened near her and fold her wings.

"Ok, be careful, mom," Maya said with a smile while handing her the gun. Unlike Raven or Maya, she didn't have any special skills even though her race was converted into soul weaver by Raven, a long time ago. But that didn't prevent her from practicing with the gun.

"Hehe, here I go!" Maria said while focusing on the moving targets.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Right now, they wanted to practice with three consecutive shots to get better at recoil and constant target movement. 

The Wingman gun didn't need physical ammo, but rather, needed to be charged either automatically using the world energy, which would usually take some time. Or with one's own mana which was usually the fastest way.

Needless to say, the recoil was anything but easy to handle. The girls used the fact that you can switch the settings if recharge in order to allow each shot to charge for about 30% only. They didn't want to destroy the basement after all.

"Three targets evaporated out of three previously normal targets hehe," Maya chuckled.

In terms of aim and recoil control, Maria surpassed Maya by far, thanks to her past self training with all weapon types, back when she used to work in the criminal world. 'Funny to think that my work as a criminal master-mind gave me a chance to meet Maya and Raven,' she muttered to herself while feeling her mouth curving into a smile.

Maya, on the other hand, had the ability to detect almost anything in her field of vision, as such, it was easier for her to catch up to Maria's level of skill.

In terms of final output, they both were equally good.

***

"Haa... that was so much fun!" Maria said after finishing her shower. 

"Yeah today's training was pretty good!" Maya smiled for a brief second before looking down and releasing a heavy sigh.

"What's wrong dear?" Maria asked, concern visible in her voice.

"Oh, I'm just wondering whether Raven is having so much fun now, or if she misses us, you know…"

"Hahaha," Maria chuckled. "Why not both? She's probably having fun, but she also probably misses us, no?"

"Uhm, true," Maya said with another sigh. "Can we call her?"

Thinking about it for a second, Maria nodded. "I think she forgot her phone here, but I have Joey's number, let's give it a shot!"

…

"Hello, Joey?" Maria said with a frown. The phone has been ringing for a while now and she was starting to get worried.

"Hello, aunt Maria? How are you do-"

"Call me aunt Maria one more time…" 

Even though they were talking on the phone, Joey started sweating, just by imagining her 'smile'.

"I'm sorry, it will never happen again! Maria!"

"Pfft, anyway, where's my lil Raven? Can I speak to her?"

"Oh, actually she's asleep, everyone is…"

"What? It's nine in the morning! Why are you still sleeping this late in the morning? Were you up late? Why did you take so long to answer? You better pray she didn't go to a club or I'll-"

"No, no, nothing like that, please calm down. What actually happened is that we've been fighting monsters all night yesterday." Joey said, trying to defend Raven and himself.

Hearing that, Maria winced, feeling her heart stop for a second. "Fighting monsters? Is she injured?"

"Haha of course not, she's her highness, Raven, after all." He said, making both Maya and Maria feel a little bit more at ease. "She's merely tired, like all of us, since we didn't get much sleep, trying to stay alive and all, you know." He joked.

"I see… well if that's the case, I'll let you go back to sleep, but hey you better let her call us whenever she wakes up, ok?"

"Yes, I'll try my best to remember that-"

"Oi, you... will remember!"

"Yes, Ma'am!"

"Hehe, ok bye!"

"Take care!" Saying that, Joey instantly fell back into his bed. He was lucky he had avoided fighting the giants last night, otherwise it would have been a mess. 

'I have to remember to let her highness know that her mom…' before he could finish his thought process, he fell asleep. Needless to say, this call was already forgotten the moment he closed his eyes.

…

"Hm, so what do we do now?" Maya sat on the couch and hugged her knees. "I really wanted to talk to her, I- really miss her…"

Hugging her daughter, Maria smiled. "I miss her too, but hey we're together, right? Axane will be awake soon, do you want to go shopping?

"We can go to the mall, watch a movie, play some games, you know… there's a good bowling place in the mall near us, we can have some fun while waiting for Raven.

"You have to remember that she's having fun too. I'm pretty sure she misses us a lot, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't enjoy her time, right?"

"Hm… ok for sure," Maya said. She didn't didn't feel like going out, but since Maria was trying to make her feel better, she didn't want to disappoint her.

***

"Hahahaha!!!" Maya suddenly burst out laughing in front of everyone in the bowling place, unable to hold her tears even.

"Axane honey, this is a bowling ball, what are you trying to do?!" Maria was struggling really hard, trying to keep her posture and prevent herself from laughing, especially with Baby Rituxi within her arms.

They've been playing for a while now, and both Maria and Maya had noticed Axane eyeing the bowling ball as if it was some sort of delicious food.

Every time she held the ball, she would almost start drooling, before shaking her head and focusing back at throwing it in the right track.

But apparently, after a while, even the collected Axane couldn't hold her instincts for too long and tried munching at the hard bowling ball.

Obviously, the result was that the ball won't fit in her mouth, instead it made her teeth hurt. Realising that biting it wasn't an option, and being as determined as she was, she decided to start by licking it. Maria obviously stopped her before doing so.

"Please stop, you Can not-hahahaha!!" Not able to hold herself any longer, Maria burst out laughing as well.

Suddenly, focusing back at the world around her, Axane realized that everyone was laughing at her, including Maya and Maria, which made her look down with a sad expression.

Looking at baby Rituxi, she saw her smile as well. But unlike the rest, her smile was pure and wasn't sarcastic laughter.

Taking baby Rituxi into her arms, from Maria's, she sat back in her chair without minding the others.

"What the hell was that? AHAHAHA!!" Maya kept laughing while banging at the wall behind her, unable to stop.

"It looks like a really delicious type of fruit from planet Malaian, ok?" Axane said with red cheeks. She didn't care about people, but coming from Maya and Maria, it lowered her confidence and self-esteem.

Forcing herself to stop laughing, Maria left them and went to wash her face. 

"Even you Maria?" Axane asked with tears in her eyes. "Raven is better than you two."

Baby Rituxi seemed to hold her fingers, trying to let her know she was with her. 

"Thank you, Rituxi, you're so kind, like Raven too," she smiled.

"I'm sorry, I'll stop!" Maya wiped away the tears and started to focus on keeping a straight face. "I'm sorry, ok? It was just so funny…"

"Are you really sorry?" Axane asked while narrowing her eyes. 

"Uhm, yep I am." Maya said, trying to cover her mouth. Only after taking some deep breaths did she actually calm down.

"Oi, keep your fingers to yourselves if you don't want them cut and fed to the pigeons outside!" Maya threatened with a 'smile' the people that were still laughing.

"Thank you," Axane muttered.

"Hi, I'm back, sorry," Maria apologised while handing something to Axane. "Here, this is a little something to let you know that I'm sorry, ok?"

"What is this?" Axane narrowed her eyes at the ball in her hand. "Are you trying to make fun of me again? Humph, I like Raven better after all…"

"Hahah no no, trust me," Maria said, "this is something that can actually be eaten. We don't have whatever you have on your planet, but this should be really tasty. It's called jawbreaker candy!

"To make you feel better, I brought one for me and another for Maya too. And here, this is a cooling teething toy for baby Rituxi, took me a while to find, but there you go!"She smiled while handing each their respective item.

Seeing that Maya had already started licking her own jawbreaker candy and no one was laughing at her, Axane decided to trust them.

Trying it for herself, her eyes widened at the burst of sweet and sour flavours in her mouth. "Hmmmmm…" closing her eyes and savouring the moment, Axane wished that Raven was with them so she can either have her own candy, or share one with her.

"Can we buy one for Raven?" She asked Maria who was surprised at this request.

"Ah, for sure," she smiled sincerely at Axane's comment.. "You're so sweet, Axane," she said while giving her a quick hug.