Clang! Clang! Clang!

Vicious sounds of metal striking metal rang out in rapid succession throughout the dimly lit training hall. Amid the cruel shrieking of metal scraping savagely against metal, sounds of deadly combat could be heard emanating. A harrowing, clearly one sided fight slowly came into view.

"Huff, huff, huff," the ragged breaths of a girl grunting as she swung a heavy tungsten sword almost twice the size of herself. Her breaths came in ragged bursts. A tall man in a loosely buttoned, egg white shirt, wearing long gray slacks, parried her every blindingly fast, savage attack. All the while, he was being blindfolded, and was only wielding a butter knife.

The parried blows came reverberating loudly, like explosions in the girl's ears, as she struggled to find a way to break through the man's defense before she ran out of stamina... again.

Except, the tall man wasn't just any man. For the past week since her adoption, she'd come to learn a lot about the tall man that had adopted her. Firstly, he was royalty of some kind, a relative of one of the Great Disasters. Secondly he had a cool, detached and aloofly unbothered, outward personality. And a deeply sore temper.

He was usually cool and reserved, a large man of few words and a too-charming, studied disposition.

Finally, he was also a werewolf deity.

A mortal who'd ascended to divinity. A lord of a massive pack the size of an entire kingdom, even including its own few islands. He was a gentleman mage known as Amos Jeras, and an unholy force of arcane devastation the girl had later come to know, as The Ruby King.

He had inherited the nation as its supreme sovereign, as birthright from his grandfather, the great Iron Wolf, for completing the sacred were-being task of creating one's own art.

A feat, the girl had learned, was apparently a one in a billion possibility for even the pinnacle of most were-being mages.

The majority of the kingdom was hidden in a pocket realm, deep in the forests of Columbia. Its citizens lived life in abject peace and splendor. Not only were they hidden behind the deep forests of Columbia, teeming with viscous wildlife, and the portal gate that was both hidden behind a vast blanket of glamorous and traps. They were also protected by miles upon miles of transcendental magic woven by the many deities that resided within the nation in patriotic service to their country. The kingdom was known as Elorra, The Ruby Kingdom.

And a week ago, the girl Jessica, had become its one and only, Ruby Princess.

'He's also a massive asshole,' Jessica muttered to herself in thought, fighting through the screaming pain of her tired muscles, as she continued her barrage. Flowing through hundreds of forms and steps that had been ingrained into her over the past week, she attacked seamlessly, only stopping for mere seconds in between rotations to rest before continuing her assault. Despite the massive blade she wielded.

Amos was a creature of rigid routine, and as such Jessica's life since becoming a princess had been sectioned off and pre-planned for her long before she'd even gotten to the Ruby Palace. It wasn't all that bad she reasoned. After all, for the majority of the day Jessica was free to roam the palace as she chose. But, from the hours of 5pm-10pm every night, she'd be locked in brutal physical and magical conditioning with the divine wolf and his battalion of equally severe trainers, coaches, and sparring partners. It was during those moments, Jessica had come to learn to hate his cocky, know it all suaveness. It didn't help that this particular exercise was something Amos would only let her do against him. Not to mention that it would only stop the moment she hit him once. Allowing the entire training hall to witness her failure. It had been almost an hour and she hadn't even come close to grazing him once.

Oh and Amos was currently blindfolded, fighting against her massive broadsword. With a butterknife...

Jessica kept her senses peeled as she pressed on, constantly pushed to their brink. It was all she could do to avoid the humiliation of suffering a ring out from a defending opponent.

Hyper augmented by her hotly burning aura, Jessica's senses transformed the world around her. Everything could be seen, heard, smelt, felt, tasted, in hyper definition. Currently she was giving it everything she had, just to stay in the spar. The world around her had long faded from view, and all of her exalted senses completely zeroed in on her opponent. Subconsciously, she'd long given up on scoring a hit on Amos.

Consciously, she'd keep trying until she couldn't move anymore.

Jessica hated to admit it, but just trying to perceive even the god's slowest movements, in hopes of parrying his devastating counters was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. And the resounding force of even his most gentle blocks, would always send her flying uncontrollably. Left to do her best to catch herself lest she ring out.

Oh and she wasn't allowed to ever drop the massive sword. Ever. The last 20 laps she ran had drilled that fact sorely into the princess' legs and abs.

The werewolf princess had long decided, if she was going to be rag dolled, she might as well try and use it to her advantage. Executing her next series of movements perfectly, she launched herself backwards. Blasting away from Amos in a loud bang, from a fake hit she'd swung at him using the broadside of her sword. Her plan had been to taunt the deity into parrying so she could use the unfair momentum of his causal, monstrous swings to create space. But, as always, she had largely underestimated the sheer amount of force the Ruby King could output, even with such a simple action.

Crashing in a tight bundle meters away, Jessica was once again thankful for the massive battle stage she was currently sparring Amos within. It kept blowing her mind that the even more massive training hall was even a possibility.

She skidded violently, careening and tumbling painfully, as she tried desperately to keep her body inert. Sadly, the sea of momentum had other plans, as it dragged her flying backwards.

The princess began panicking as she noticed she was racing towards the edge of the battle stage.

If she fell off the edge she'd lose.

She wouldn't allow that to happen.

Jessica tensed every single muscle in her aching body. As she had practiced hundreds of times since leaving the orphanage, she strained every last drop of physical strength she could manifest, hoping to arrest the momentum of the massive sword without breaking from the coiled position she was currently in. Digging her arms down, she plunged her massive sword into the floor of the stage, digging a savage trench in her wake.

At the last moment, mere centimeters from the edge, many meters from where she'd collided with the Ruby King, the princess managed to stop the insane momentum of the heavy sword. Her white knuckled grip never faltered once, though it was heavily damp with sweat.

Building up her energy in her shaking legs, Jessica began burning her aura even hotter, despite her wet, hoarse breaths.

She had learned during her 2 years training with Ma LaCroix, that it was how werewolves and other were-creatures not only cultivated their auras to grow stronger, but it was how they summoned their auras to wield the various, monstrous energies they commanded, guided by their intents.

The Great Disaster had taught her that a were-being's aura was akin to an engine, and so they themselves were in their element during a war of attrition. The longer and hotter a were-being could sustain burning their aura, the more devastating their magical output, and the more refined it would be the next time they called upon it. But among the tradeoffs this way of aura cultivation brought, and there were many, overtaxing her aura was one of them, and it could leave her feeling sluggish and disoriented. Or it could completely torch her from the inside out if she really got cookin'. Yet even despite the racial drawbacks of her aura cultivation, under even the brief tutelage of Amos, Jessica's control and use of her aura and magic had grown tremendously.

The young princess' aura roared to life, allotting her up to 40% of her full magical output. And yet, its leviathan-like size allotted her a truly massive output of magical power. It multiplied whatever amount of energy she held within her soul combined with whatever she was channeling from the area around her, by the insane base number that was her unnaturally large aura. Even if her aura was still comparatively very weak and diminutive when held against any sage, much worse a deity like Amos, for Jessica's age regardless, it put her completely in a league of her own.

Peering her enhanced werewolf eyes, Jessica's racially given 20/20 vision could now track the slightest sway of singular hairs on Amos' mustache, even from many meters away. Her enhanced wolf nose could detect the slightest pheromones emanating from the divine wolf's sweat, indicating his emotions to the princess before his stoic face gave anything away. She could even feel the slightest tremors of his heartbeats in the ground beneath her clearly, even while wearing heavy combat boots with her enhanced sense of touch. Her aura boosted senses were constantly alerting her at any time if he was even slightly unsure of a move, or when he was about to make one. Giving the princess a beacon to direct a surprise attack. And now, her previously monstrous physical strength, had reached ballistic levels of force output.

'Too bad it doesn' mean jackshit to this guy,' Jessica thought to herself glumly as she slowly readjusted the massive sword she wielded. Noting in wonder yet again as the thoroughly ruined stage quickly mended itself. She tried her hardest not to break her poise as she silently and quickly pondered her next action. She was comfortable burning her aura at this rate after her 6 days of hellish training, but that didn't mean she had infinite time. Aura burnout still steadily crept towards the princess, and she needed to move fast.

'For every enhanced sense I got, he's not only got them in spades, but since werewolf genes get stronger with age he'd never even get rusty even if he sat on his ass all day,' the girl whined to herself glumly. Her brow furrowed with annoyance as her body temperature slowly rose, and the sweat that had long been pooling on her brow, began freefalling, yet hardly obscuring her enhanced, perfect vision. 'And don't forget! ...the bastard's a god as well... a fucking Outer Deity.... Yay. Their senses are so refined I don't even want to think about what they can notice about me that I'm missing.' Amos wasn't the only Outer deity that was currently in the training hall, and certainly, wasn't the only deity in the hall. The veritable sea of bodies that felt utterly devoid of all aura and energy to Jessica, even amid the menagerie of auras of all levels she could perceive, deeply terrified the princess inside. She tried her hardest to never show it.

Amos, the king of the Great Ruby Pack, chuckled to himself, as if able to read Jessica's thoughts even while blindfolded.

"Come Jessica," the king taunted, "I know those weak little arms of yours are getting tir-" Amos never got to finish his provocations as Jessica suddenly exploded forward with tremendous speed. Carried forward by a thunderous bang. Her legs glowed a deep emerald green with the enchantment she wrapped around them, super increasing the amount of force they were able to hold and exert. Hoisting her massive sword like a comically large lance in front of her, Jessica flew forward impossibly fast, in a straight line, towards Amos's head.

Time slowed to a crawl. Everything faded to black except Jessica and Amos as her focus sharpened even further, causing her wolfish, golden green eyes to turn more animalistic. Before the princess impacted the Ruby King, giving a wild grin, all the young girl could think of, was victory.

"Parry this jackass!" she screamed as her sword nearly burrowed itself into Amos' blindfolded face.

Instantly, Jessica was blown back. She hadn't even been able to see Amos' counter attack.

He'd moved too fast.

The blade of her gigantic sword exploded into millions of pieces that rained down around her, bouncing harmlessly off a ruby colored sphere of energy that had manifested instantly around her.

The insane force sent the young princess blown forcefully through the air. Slamming into the heavily padded, heavily enchanted for safety, walls on the far side of the massive training hall, almost instantly, deeply embedding her body firmly into them... again. Far from the edge of the large battle stage.

As the princess eventually wiggled herself shamefully free of the wall mats, she noticed Amos had dropped his butter knife, and had started rolling up his sleeves.

Despite her shame amidst the jeering looks and snickers, Jessica smiled.

Her favorite part of their nightly 3 hour training ritual was fast approaching. Not only was it her favorite because it signaled the final 5 minutes of training before the two werewolf royals could head off to dinner, fighting barehanded with their claws, fangs, fists, and kicks, was Jessica's most preferred method to fight. And everyone else had to clear out of the training hall.

This was their time to practice magic that the others would probably never be privy to, the very reason for which Amos had earned his epithet as The Ruby King.

After the last trainee and staff member had left the massive hall, all that were left were Amos and Jessica, Amos' personal attendants, and Jessica's own Ladies-in-Waiting.

The princess slowly stretched, alleviating some of her body's numerous aching pains while softly applying a healing spell to herself to un-dislocate her left arm. She had let her aura cool off after being firmly planted into the wall, so that she could preserve whatever strength she still had left for their final bout of the day.

Slowly, Jessica shook her worn, dangling arms. She began to let her claws extend as her fingernails began turning into wickedly hooked weapons.

Obviously, they wouldn't begin practicing until both had reached their partial transformations.

Every were-being was born capable of two transformations despite what animal manifested in their family's genetics. A partial transformation, and a full transformation, were both hidden within the auras of every last were-being. The partial transformation would have the were-being mage adopt characteristics of their particular animalistic trait, but still largely maintain their human forms. The fully transformed state however, differed for every were-creature and thus was activated differently for each. But in every fully transformed state, the were-being became a viscous and monstrous version of their animalistic genes. Werewolves had a very commonly known start condition for their full transformations, the full moon.

Amos forbade combat with their fully transformed states for at least the next 3 years under his current training plan, but the king at least allowed her to fight him with her partial transformation, using whatever martial art or magic she wanted to try out on him. In fact, he demanded she master at least 15 various human and werewolf martial arts and magical forms to at least grandmaster-hood and archimage-hood by the end of those 3 years in both her partial transformation and her non transformed states.

He was dead serious.

Jessica was silently thankful to be free of the insane weight of the massive, cumbersome sword. Heaving a relieved, grateful sigh she swung her arms and twisted her transformed body to stretch. She knew the weapon was a subtle effective training method to address her unnaturally monstrous strength, it allowed her to not have to worry about using too much strength while fighting since even lifting the damn thing took every last bit of energy she was able to muster. Serving as a double plus, fighting with the steel door disguised as a weapon would also offer her the chance to simultaneously curate impeccable control over her own body's muscle control, magical output and aura were she ever to master fighting Amos with the gigantic sword, but it would also serve to help her in a way that felt like a legitimate challenge for Jessica. Something she had been sorely lacking at the orphanage, especially since Damien would never seriously spar with her.

That being said, the princess was bouncing with joy at finally being able to fight Amos with her true strength and speed, and magic. At least, with what remained of them. Her eyes had become more animalistic, and her teeth and canines had morphed to wolfish dentures and fangs.

Partial transformation.

The princess then began to emit a rush of ruby colored power around herself as their auras began burning hotly. Sending their intents bursting forth, preparing for battle. In her partially transformed state, her aura had also changed. Becoming a more robust and stronger version of its previous state, allowing her access to a full 50% of her full aura output. Something that the princess' magical output, deeply appreciated.

Jessica's claws, teeth and fangs and eyes suddenly began to take on a pinkish hue, signaling she was successfully channeling a portion of the Ruby Force. Albeit, a very small portion. But the incomparably tremendous boost of magical output the princess was blessed with when she stacked her slight connection to the Ruby Force's energy atop her own normal energies with partial transformation, far made up her shame at her lack of aptitude with thrill at the level of power she was currently wielding.

Despite the massive strain using the Ruby Force put her already ragged body under.

Amos however, his claws, teeth and fangs had all transformed into actual Ruby-fied versions of their previous selves. The sign of true mastery of the Ruby Force being channeled through his own partial transformation. Though Jessica couldn't see his eyes from behind the blindfold, she knew they were "rubified" too. And at his level even though the deity had the force fully manifested, it hardly drew anything out of him.

Whereas Jessica was going to experience hell just trying to not drop the form before the timer rang out.

Seeing his rocky, red, wolvish teeth always freaked Jessica out.

'Oh well,' the young princess joked to herself, attempting to calm her shooting nerves, 'guess I'm gonna have to get a sick set of ruby grills too if I want goddess-hood, and I really wanna be a goddess!'

The 13 year old giggled to herself, the absurdity of the thought was too much for her to not laugh despite how much pain she was under.

Amos just raised an eyebrow from behind his blindfold.

In the next moment, almost immediately, Jessica transformed into a maelstrom of fury as she raced forward towards Amos with incredible speed. In a blinding torrent of blows, much much faster than her earlier sword barrage, she sent an endless combo-ed chain of a random mix of light and heavy attacks at the divine werewolf king, throwing every ounce of energy and power she had into her onslaught. For her efforts she was rewarded with her every hit delivering hundreds of pounds of force racing forth, as a tidal wave of angsty teen malice rained down murderously upon the Ruby King.

However, just when her pride was starting to solidify, Jessica noticed Amos had been blocking her every savage attack, with a single claw.

Never once had even a droplet of sweat even dotted his perfectly kept brow.

The buzzer rang aloud, signaling the end of their workout.

Jessica immediately collapsed on the floor mats in utter exhaustion, immediately dropping her partial transformation, back to her base form as a team of her personal after workout attendants teleported by her side. Proceeding to see to all of her many after training needs. Her Ladies-in-Waiting readied their princess enough for her to be half-levitated, half walked, back to her room to shower, and later appear in the royal dining hall for supper and her evening activities.

Jessica allowed herself to be carried off, glumly pouting. She hadn't been able to hit Amos, even a single time. However, the young princess noted contently, she was getting a lot faster, and much stronger.

'One day...' she thought to herself silently. The princess sighed, and smiled. 'Still,' she admitted silently, pride in herself swelling, 'it's the first time I lasted the full 5 minutes!' She began to laugh wildly despite being unable to move properly. Causing some of her Ladies-in-Waiting to exchange worried glances.

Amos untied his blindfolds while he de-transformed. He silently watched his newly adopted daughter be led away with her ladies in waiting, cackling like an idiot. Coming to a decision after a brief, but fierce inner war with himself, Amos' usually relaxed demeanor slightly broke. Closing his eyes, he sighed loudly, causing Jessica's still wolfish ears to perk up.

"Jessica," Amos called out in his heavy, Colombian accent, "I've received word this morning from the orphanage regarding your... friend, Damien..."

Jessica immediately whirled around, despite her attendant's shocked exclamations and attempts to block her. Stopping dead in her tracks.

"You mean my boyfriend Damien, right?" the princess asked in an overly fake, sweet tone. Leering at Amos she hissed, "now spill."

"Ah ah," the divine werewolf king admonished, waving a finger, "you know how I feel about that."

Jessica stuck a grubby, small middle finger up at him. She willed all her magical control and remaining energy on the claw protruding from her finger. Briefly she fought a deep headache, and for her efforts, the nail manifested for just a moment, as a single, completely ruby claw.

"Up yours old man," the princess said dismissively, causing many of her ladies in waiting to gasp in horror, while she absentmindedly wiped a small streak of blood that began flowing from her nose on her training uniform sleeve. "I was dating him months before you adopted me, so your feelings don' mean jackshit to me!" She grinned satisfied with herself. Crossing her arms over her chest she went back to glaring at her newly adoptive father. "Last warning, spill."

"Fine," the wolf deity grumbled as he reluctantly agreed despite his annoyance, rolling his shimmering golden green wolfish eyes, "I guess you were with him first."

Amos rubbed his temples as one of his own attendants suddenly teleported next to him. The attendant had lightly tanned skin and long black hair. It was pinned up and preened perfectly, allowing all to see her stony gray eyes, a were-rhino. She offered the king a fresh, moist towel that Amos used to vent his frustration through wiping off his face, while the attendant gently took the blindfold Amos had unknowingly been holding in a white knuckled, vice grip.

Handing back the towel with a thank you to his attendant, the king returned facing the princess, who was still posed expectantly, hands on her hips, food tapping, waiting for her gossip.

"Your boy is royalty," Amos said with a pained expression as Jessica began whooping and hollering with joy. "In fact he's the gods-forsaken heir to the Empire of Gera, so in terms of royalty... he's the same rank as us... Technically, he's actually a little higher currently since my grandfather is the 9th Great Disaster, but his mother is the 1st Great Disaster..."

Jessica had doubled over laughing loudly at initial news, now she was howling harder at the angry, embarrassed, and defeated look on Amos' usually content and perfect face. She pointed jeeringly at her adopted father as she hollered shamelessly. For the last 6 days they had been arguing hotly over the official status of her relationship with Damien during the few moments they were able to spend together. Arguments that had resulted in both of them not talking to each other much outside of training.

Truly family bonding done right.

Amos had brought up the eventual, inevitable topic during the flight, of introducing her to other magical royalty her age and rank, and Jessica had introduced him to the idea of fucking himself with his own spear.

After much circular, vicious, loud arguing and screaming that had eventually gone nowhere, they eventually landed on a topic Amos knew Jessica couldn't refute him on. They had no clue what Damien was, and if he wasn't royal, or at least a high noble, then a relationship with Jessica, as a princess, was impossible. Unless Jessica was ok with giving up the possibility of goddess-hood and being royalty.

Jessica, in order to not find out what was the current were-being punishment for hitting the ultimate bingo roll of patricide, deicide and regicide all in one go, had agreed to submit to the rules of the reality they belonged to. Instead, they had agreed not to bring up the topic again until they knew for sure what Damien was...

Now she was squirming on the floor of the training room, cringing in pain from her own ceaseless laughter, hugging her aching stomach, while Amos fumed silently to himself. Vindication kept her reveling in her victory, despite whatever anyone watching may have thought of her because of it.

"Oh this is perfect!" she wheezed, finally coming to a glorious break in her laughs, tears of happiness and pain cascading freely drenched her small cheeks. "You've really outdone yourself this time D! Never doubted ya once! I told you Anna! There was nuthin to worry about!"

The princess laughed out loud deliriously from the floor. The deity watched his heir squirm around laughing while he stood aside in deliberation. He felt his wolfish anger bubble up within him at the blatant disrespect from his subordinate. Yet, upon hearing the name of his adopted daughter's likely dead friend, the Ruby King immediately put together that Jessica was probably so deeply out of her element, she was forcing the memory of Anna to be her solace in her time of need.

Despite his rage at being bested, Amos couldn't deny the resounding inner feeling of guilt and shame that this was all his fault. After all, if he had said he had a secret son instead of uncharacteristically panicking and saying he had a secret daughter, Jessica wouldn't be here right now. She wouldn't be separated from the one friend she had left. Boyfriend or not.

Amos sighed, rebuking himself for his selfishness, as he sent waves of calming, peaceful feelings towards Jessica, through his divine intent. The young princess, upon feeling the energy signatures from the deity wolf, sat up curiously from where she had been previously laying, staring at the ceiling.

Now she stared at Amos, unblinking as he sat in front of her taking one of her small hands in one of his massive ones. For a moment they held the pose, and when Jessica didn't jerk her hand away, Amos gave her a slight, encouraging smile and began to speak.

"Damien is a Nephilim, he is the half angel, half something child of the one called The Terror of Heaven, Empress Hoaquin. She is the 24th Ruling Monarch of the Earthly Host, Empress of the Empire of Gera," Amos said, his divine, ancient golden-green wolfish eyes peering deeply into Jessica's own golden green wolfish eyes. "She's also the current strongest being within the Mortal Realms."

Jessica said nothing for what felt like ages. Intently she stared at Amos' face, searching diligently for any sign he was lying. But in it, the princess could ascertain, there was not even a hint of deception.

"Well damn," was all she could manage, weakly. A few more moments passed as the princess looked down and thought to herself. "So... I don't have to break up with him, right?" She asked hopefully? Her usually sour face was on the verge of tears, lacking all prior edge and fury. Her eyes which usually projected animosity and distrust, now were large puppy eyes, laden heavy with sorrow and plea.

"Sadly no, mi hija, you can keep him" Amos said softly, smiling as he gently patted the princess on her head while she softly, quietly, wiped her tears. "Although whether or not the two of you will ever even have any free time to even meet later in life is very much up for question." He gave a resigned sigh.

"Why do you say that?" Jessica asked softly, hiccupping softly?

"Because child, not only is his mother ruling empress of a very, very large empire," Amos began, "she is also the 1st Great Disaster, sitting at the helm of a conference table bearing the 12 of the most powerful, deeply insane creatures in the entire Mortal Realms. Not to mention many of them are completely evil and have their hands deep in more than a few crimes that would curdle your soul to know about, to say the least. To top it all off, she's also Supreme Commander of the United World Military, so lord knows she has more than enough on her plate to deal with without having to process maybe becoming in-laws with the fucking Iron Dipshit known as my grandfather." The wolf deity rubbed his forehead in frustration. "Don't forget, once the world learns of Damien's or your existence properly for that matter, all hell will break loose. Many who want Lady Hoaquin's positions as Empress or 1st Great Disaster and Supreme Commander of the UWM, will now have the biggest nightmare and rival of their lives to deal with, and deal with expeditiously."

"The heir of the monster... her actual flesh and blood..." Jessica whispered horrified, her inner sense of impending doom began to grow as she continued to comprehend the true depth of her adoptive father's words.

"Precisely," Amos said gravely, "as someone who was also born with an endless valley of enemies before I could even walk, I feel for him, but I know that boy is going to have to endure a life I wouldn't wish upon my worst of enemies. Those Nephilim guarding him better train him and train him well. For his sake."

Jessica sighed and closed her eyes. Taking a moment, the young princess resigned herself to the future she was choosing despite the vastly myriad, very valid, potential horrors Amos had just awakened her to.

But what choice did she have?

"Better master this Ruby Force as soon as possible then," she grumbled to herself, staring at her palm as she flexed her fingers, "someone's gotta be there to beat off the crazy bitches when they start getting too uppity, and I heard it takes one to spot them."

She made swatting motions with her hands together, softly repeating, "pow! Pow! Pow!" with each swing.

Amos lightly bonked the princess on her head.

"No," the king said sternly, "you need to go wash up and appear in the dining hall for dinner in an hour." His face lightened up, "then we can talk more about how to get you stronger," he said with a gentle smile.

Jessica looked up at the powerful divine wolf in his suave, too perfect, divine face. The young princess studied him for what felt like ages. Slowly, she lifted up a hand to him awkwardly and tentatively. It was a simple palm, relaxed and outstretched. Shocked, but understanding quickly, Amos slowly lifted an outstretched hand to meet hers in return. Gently they placed palms against each other and held that pose for what felt like eons to the two. They were no longer enemies, but now father and daughter, and in that moment, both established a new bond between them that only they would ever know of. Jessica didn't notice it, but a few of her ladies in waiting were silently crying tears of happiness while others had looks of relief and exhausted peace, all 10 of them were celebrating, while Amo's own attendants had looks of utter shock embedded deeply upon their faces.

Throwing her arms around his neck briefly, the princess said, "ok dad." Then twirled off skipping after her ladies in waiting, loudly and excitedly telling anyone she could see quite loudly that her boyfriend was the son of Hoaquin of Gera! From the screams and sounds of falling objects that seemed to follow the news as it registered to all who heard it, Amos smirked at the receding image of his adoptive daughter. It seemed like she was determined to get the entire Mortal Realms aware of Damien's existence before anyone else could.

Amos chuckled softly to himself. "That's the first time she's called me dad," he pondered aloud as he remained sitting. Thinking by himself for a long while.

"So many are going to die," he grimly conceded, murmuring softly after almost an hour of silent meditation. Heaving another deep sigh, he teleported himself to his quarters in a massive flash of ruby energy.

***

"Fucking dammit," the princess swore under her breath.

It was the third fork that night she had destroyed. She hadn't meant to, but at this point, that sentiment hardly mattered. Ever since turning 13, Jessica couldn't help but notice that her normally hard to control strength had turned from passive misery, to ultimately unbearable.

She couldn't stop her aura from buckling randomly, which was just something that apparently happened often to all beings in the Mortal Realm while in puberty. Unfortunately, this also meant that she couldn't yet control when her strength and magical output would go from reserved and maintained, to rampaging force of destruction.

The werewolf princess now found it almost impossible to do anything without causing mass destruction whenever her mind slipped and her aura saw it as an opportunity to cause chaos. Even turning over in her sleep one night had resulted in half of her massive new bed collapsing in on itself in a deafening, sudden explosion, as her sleep laden arm struck her bed when she turned over in her sleep. She had even had to eventually accept Amos' continuous insistence that a proper princess should have a troop of annoying, stuffy Ladies-in-Waiting. This was due to the fact that she had almost destroyed all her dresses, robes, and clothes that the chief royal tailors had pre-prepped for the arrival of their new princess.

In 1 day...

It happened 3 days after her adoption. After a particularly heated argument Amos and Jessica had been having about her inability to control her strength and the possibility of running her clothes validating other people dressing her, Jessica stormed out of the sun room they had been sitting in together. In a desperate attempt to prove the 13 year old didn't need to fully separate herself from any remaining notion of her self respect and pride, she attempted to change from the overly frilly ornate school-girl dress she'd been wearing into a day robe.

She ended up with almost no more clothes intact before she was frantically ordered to stop by a sea of rushing attendants while Amos nursed a coffee and attempted to convince himself not to kill his daughter.

The entirety of the Ruby Palace then had the pleasure of witnessing a titanic screaming match ensue between the king and princess. Eventually, it culminated in Amos threatening Jessica to choose between either walking around naked, which would task her with the simple endeavor of figuring out how to execute and maintain her full transformation at will, without losing her mind to the form's control, or suck it up and accept the help of the Ladies-in-Waiting.

Jessica was bold, but not bold enough to become known as the first publicly streaking princess of the modern era. Especially not one that was supposed to be the new great-granddaughter of one of the 12 Great Disasters. So, from now all her Ladies-in-waiting went wherever she went, and attended to her every need. Adding insult to injury, until next week, the princess now also only had 3 battle robes and 1 solemn dress remaining in her many massive, walk-in closets that had previously been stacked to the brim with priceless garments. And dressing herself was now out of the question until she could fully control her strength.

Amos hadn't spoken to her for an entire day afterwards, not even at training. But, thanks to her werewolf hearing, Jessica could hear him throughout the day yelling obscenities in Spanish for hours from the king's quarters, while her royal tailor tried in fear to hide herself against a wall, masked behind layers of glamours, till the Ruby King cooled off.

Bringing her mind back to her task at hand Jessica threw the shards of fork away in a fury, resigning herself to eating her dinner with her bare hands. She glared death at her own personal dining attendant when the fool attempted to approach her tentatively with a fourth, ornate fork. Causing the poor man to yelp in fear, he quickly bowed to both royals before teleporting away nearly as fast as he had appeared.

Amos watched Jessica silently as the suave, older werewolf silently munched on his own food. Across the great table from her he sat, yet her sour mood made the distance feel like they were galaxies apart. Lifting up a finger, the Ruby King was about to comment on his new daughter's eating habits, but was immediately cut off.

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"Don't try it pops," she growled in frustration, reading his intent, "you only just got off my chopping block."

Amos just arched an eyebrow and shrugged, choosing instead to return his attention to his own meal when a loud, exasperated sigh brought his attention back to the young princess.

"Ugh... fine," Jessica exasperated as she slumped backwards into her massive, throne-like dining chair, throwing the food back onto the table as she folded her food stained hands, staining her evening robes. One of her two chief ladies in waiting, Margo, a were-viper, gave a quick painful, horrified gasp and nearly fainted at the sight of yet another ruined article of the princess' clothing. Other's caught her, while trying to reassure the woman that the robe could still be saved with a proper wash.

Jessica glared daggers at an attendant that suddenly manifested himself in the space beside her offering her a glowing towel. Then giving it a thought, the princess' gaze softened as she looked downcast with shame.

"Sorry Cristóbal," the princess muttered as she solemnly took the enchanted towel.

The attendant's soft green, cat-like eyes widened slightly in shock, he hadn't even expected that the princess would remember his name, given they had only met once days before in passing. Cristóbal gave the young princess a wide, warm smile, his green eyes beaming from behind his thick mane of curly black locks.

"Anytime Your Highness," the were-jaguar said in a heavy boyish Columbian accent, giving a slight bow towards her. Turning towards Amos, Cristóbal bowed again. "I take my leave, Your Majesty."

Amos gave a slight nod to the attendant and the young man vanished just as quickly as he had appeared. The Ruby King remained silent as he watched Jessica dab at her robes with the clearly enchanted cloth, wondering what it did. He chuckled slightly at her rapt fascination, staring as her horrific stains would disappear from the robes as easily as if she was wiping chalk from a chalkboard.

Amos huffed slightly, rubbing his temples in slight irritation as another inner debate broke out within his psyche. Watching Jessica sink deeper into her inner frustrations while trying everyday to boast a brave face to mask her oceans of loneliness and depression, tore the deity's conscience to shreds. a war raged behind his stoic, divine, wolfish eyes. With every aspect of his being, Amos detested the pairing of Jessica and Damien. There was nothing wrong with the boy himself, from what the deity had gathered, indeed he was one of the seldom few people his foul-mouthed daughter seemed to have nothing but good to say about. But Amos knew the darkness that lay dormant in the hearts of mortals and deities alike when the lure of power and recognition was thrown into the mix.

The Ruby King had never even felt safe for a second within the halls of the Iron Palace during his childhood. He only felt a bit safer in his own Ruby Palace, but even then, the amount of his subjects Amos could say he trusted, could be counted with only his two hands.

Since his infancy, Amos had been painfully aware of the drawbacks that came with being a direct descendant of one of the Great Disasters. There were many, many factions and groups wielding great power within the vast expanse of the universe, but none held more consequences as far reaching as the 12 Great Disasters. His own grandfather was the Iron Wolf, an insanely powerful deity, the High King who lorded over every were-pack and were-kingdom on the planet Earth. He was the creator and master of the terrifying Iron Force, and an absolute egomaniac tyrant. But now that tyrant was also Jessica's great grandfather, and it was a legacy Amos had sworn before Great Taboo itself, to protect her from.

But the great deity realized, protecting his adoptive daughter would require trusting her, even if it went against every last instinct in his ancient body.

"Jessica," Amos started gently, but the princess said nothing in return. A single arched eyebrow was the only indication that she had heard him, but never looked up from her task of de-staining her clothes.

Amos gave a slight huff. He felt his wolfish irritation building but he stilled his anger. Reaching out with his intent first this time, the Ruby king sent waves of soothing energy towards Jessica. Oceans of great tenderness and understanding came riveting from The Ruby King's aura, swamping Jessica's frustration and sadness in a tender hug. Even the princess' wildly bucking aura that had been reverberating unconscious, sporadic waves of anger and pain through her exhausted intent, eventually began to still as Amos waited for what felt like centuries.

"Would you like to have a little lesson right now? not combat oriented necessarily," Amos said quickly, holding his hand up in defense to Jessica's unamused stare, "but it might make eating and sleeping at least a little easier for you."

Jessica said nothing for a while, hanging her head in silent deliberation. Giving a small nod, the 12 year old looked up softly then whispered in an uncharacteristically meek voice, "yes please..." Amos smiled warmly but was stunned to silence by her next words. "Thank you... father..."

Amos choked on his words. His perfectly crafted lesson was momentarily forgotten. For the first time in the incredibly long and taxing week it had been for the both of them since Jessica's adoption, she had properly acknowledged the old wolf as her father. Amos didn't know it, but in that moment, he ingrained a promise upon his heart. He had already sworn to protect Jessica upon sacred Taboo itself, but this was different. This was personal. It was the promise every father made upon seeing their newborn for the first time. The world itself would burn if it meant protecting his adoptive daughter, even if it was against his grandfather.

Shaking his head slightly, Amos shook himself from his stupor. Regaining his composure, he coughed into a curled fist and rolled up the sleeves of his familiar egg white, button down dinner shirt.

The white shirt and gray chino pants seemed to be the only thing Amos wore. Jessica wasn't sure there was enough of a difference between the shirts to merit calling some dinner shirts, but she'd been sternly warned from approaching that conversation with Amos.

"Mi hija," he began softly but clearly, his rich Colombian accent pairing beautifully with his deep, voice, "all magic is like one big equation where-"

Amos stopped briefly as a long groan came riveting from the young princess. The Ruby King merely raised a single, unamused eyebrow at her outburst. After she murmured a quick apology for her rude behavior Amos continued. Jessica hated math and all of its abominable forms, but she wasn't stupid enough to mock a lesson given from an incredibly powerful deity, especially not one being given for free.

"Where it is an amalgamation of three core principles that happen inside one's aura regardless of their race," the king continued as he flexed an arm that began to glow with red energy. "These core principles make up the grand equation we call spell craft. However it isn't always a linear equation."

Jessica had at some point crossed her arms over her chest, a look of deep pondering was welded upon her face as she tried her best to comprehend what the deity was saying while never once removing her eyes from what was happening with the red energy encircling the Ruby King's arm.

Amos clenched his thick, milky brown palm suddenly and opened it, revealing a small, incredibly beautiful crystalline flower. It slowly spun as it levitated in his palm emanating hundreds of softly changing colors while the flower radiated a soft gentle singing voice.

"The magic I just used to conjure this flower can be understood simply as y=((Mx)+z)(B)). Let me break this down for you. Y is the product of our grand equation, it is the manifestation of your spell or magical output," Amos explained as Jessica nodded absentmindedly, this had been explained to her before by Ma LaCroix. "M is known as the cast factor, the variable x is the collect factor, and z is the contain factor. and the B they are all multiplied by is the grand base known as?" Amos asked expectantly, waiting patiently as Jessica shook herself from her deep train of thoughts having eventually realized she was expected to give an answer.

"B is the mage's aura" she replied simply, as hours of Ma LaCroix's lectures came pouring back to the forefront of her mind.

"Brilliant mi hija!" Amos smiled warmly at the young princess, causing her to smile with pride despite herself. "As expected after all, seeing as you received your preliminary training from a Great Disaster as esteemed as the Great Witch of Pestilence."

Jessica said nothing she didn't want to detract from the lecture, she could tell that the key to finally being able to live alongside her abnormally massive strength and aura, was hidden in what the deity was saying. For as much as he annoyed her deeply at times, Jessica had to admit, Amos rarely ever uttered a wasted word. And so, upon hearing the title and rank of the deity she could only assume was Ma LaCroix, her eyes grew widely in silent shock. Like every other orphanage student, she'd always been suspicious of their head benefactors' true pedigree, but none of their guesses had ever come close to what Amos just said.

The 5th Great Disaster, had been her benefactor and first mentor.

Absent-mindedly, she nodded a grateful "gracias" towards the deity. Her mind was racing a million miles an hour in every direction, but nothing would distract her from hearing the rest of what Amos had to say.

Giving a deft nod, Amos smashed his large hands together, creating a massive thudding boom that quickly morphed into glinting, falling lights. Loudly the many soft lights proclaimed a thunderous symphony of gently ringing bells. Spreading apart his hands slowly, now a soft, radiant white light poured forth from between them. Now, where the mystical looking, crystalline flower of lights had been previously, was a... a strange shape.

It was spinning, Jessica was sure it was spinning, but it also didn't appear to be moving. But that wasn't even the only part that disgusted, no disturbed Jessica about the figure.

She could see inside it.

Well, more like she could see through the surface of the shape. Which, if anyone was wondering, she did also know was definitely there, though like the spinning it was also not really visible at the same time.

"Tell me," Amos said aloud, in a commanding yet inquisitorial tone, "what is the equation that created this?"

Jessica scrunched her brow in frustration as she began attempting to comprehend what she was looking at. Slowly as her doubts and anxieties mounted, and with every dead-end train of thought she attempted, her irritation began to climb. The princess felt dangerously close to lashing out at Amos again, threatening all the work they had been doing recently to understand each other. Jessica knew that she was being irrational, but she couldn't let that be shown through her intent, she wouldn't let it. She couldn't afford a situation where she wasn't just completely isolated from everyone she'd ever known and loved, but also one where she was completely pitied as the dangerously destructive, simple headed, brute-girl princess.

A far cry from the mighty, royal goddess she had sworn to Damien she'd definitely become.

Jessica sighed softly as she thought forlornly to herself, 'wouldn't be the first time we've crushed his hopes and dreams now would it Jessie?'

Shaking herself from her depressive slump as best as she could, Jessica brought her mind back to the task at hand. Amos hadn't said a word since he asked his question, in fact except for breathing, Jessica wasn't sure if he had even moved. He hadn't even blinked. He was just staring at her with a suave look of mild patient curiosity.

Jessica realized nothing was going to happen unless Amos got an answer. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples as two indisputable truths settled in her mind. Firstly, Amos fully expected an answer from her, and not just any random one, the correct answer. And secondly, Amos never asked anyone a question he didn't think they could actually answer.

It was one of the few things that Jessica was forced to admit she actually admired about the aloof, too cool for school, royal werewolf deity. It seemed like Amos not only found the mere thought of hypocrisy unfathomable, he absolutely abhorred being in the presence of any he judged to have that trait.

Heaving a defeated sigh, the king's eyebrow somehow seemed to arch even higher in question, as the princess resigned herself to deciphering the magical equation that would, 'derive that uppity, overly loud, annoying ass shape,' Jessica thought murderously, throwing one final death glare towards the magical construct.

'I'll be damned if I lose to geometry,' she thought.

She rubbed her temples in frustration.

'What about this fuckery, does that hijo de puta rata think I already know?'

She began humming a gentle tune she'd often used to soothe Damien to sleep on nights he would wake up crying about Sister Hua's departure. Bittersweet as it was, it was keeping her held together long enough to figure out she was currently making a fool of herself.

'Oh, no... really?' she realized.

"It's the same equation?" Jessica replied suddenly? Half sure, half still attempting to convince herself.

Amos just stared at her. What felt like eons slowly passed as the great Ruby King stared down the ruby princess as she slowly squirmed in place, arrested by the mounting awkwardness of the situation. Slowly, a smile crept across Amos's milky brown skinned face. A satisfied smirk accompanied a slight chuckle as he rested his chin on his fist.

"Excellent work, mi hija."

Jessica huffed. Annoyed as she was with the entire ordeal, she took her praise in stride and simply just sat back in her chair, arms folded, nose turned up at the king.

"Explain," was all she said.

Amos gave another one of his annoying chuckles.

"The flower I made was majestic, yes, it had leaves of myriad colors, shimmering beams and sparkling effects. It even hummed with power, this does none of that, yet arguably... is it more complex?" Amos mused gently, his accent making his words hum poetically. "Within universes, there exists dimensions," the king went on, leaning backwards in his chair. Slowly, the hand that had previously been lifting his head, now was slightly raised with his index finger remaining solely standing. "Dimensions have energies that are constant between them, and energies that are unique to each of them specifically. These unique energies have properties that appear when manifested in lower dimensions," Amos said as his index finger began to glow with a faint ruby energy while a claw began to rise from his fingernail.

"The common energies are known as the physical energies," Amos went on, "they're generally composed of kinematics: kinetic energy, potential energy, inertia, acceleration, collision and momentum; but they also compose of: gravitational energies, electromagnetic energies, thermodynamic energies, quantum, chemical, light and nuclear energies. As they are common, they can be found and manifested in any dimension lower or greater in usually the same form." As he spoke small images representing the different physical energies began slowly emitting from his glowing finger.

Jessica couldn't help being amused at the display the images made, though his spiel was all stuff she'd already heard before. It was the stuff he had to say about the unique energies of other dimensions that Jessica was waiting, uncharacteristically patiently, to hear. After all, it was a topic of discussion that Ma LaCroix forbade to teach the children under her care nor for any adult to speak of to anyone that wasn't at least 17 or older.

"This is where it begins to get interesting," Amos said with yet another smirk and chuckle combo. Jessica rolled her eyes, but sat forward in her chair nonetheless.

Amos brought both of his hands together suddenly. Dispelling the images produced from his left hand, yet leaving the odd shape that had been previously resting in the king's right hand, to float idly by. A loud boom suddenly erupted along with a wash of purple light that consumed the entire dining room as the god clapped his hands.

***

When Jessica could see again, the dining hall was now instead of within the Ruby Palace, resting within a wide starry pasture. The floor of the dining hall had remained, along with the massive, ornate dining table, perpetually stacked heavy with food that the Ruby King and the Ruby Princess had been dining at.

Jessica noticed that the pillars and arches that had been dotted around the room had also remained. Although, through the many archways that led into and out of the massive, lavish dining hall, Jessica could still see into other parts of the Ruby Castle.

"Wow," Jessica breathed aloud, despite her usual feelings of pure vitriol at the thought of feeding any more into Amo's already massively overfed ego. Even she couldn't not be shocked at what she was seeing, after all, there weren't any walls anymore, nor a ceiling over their heads for that matter.

Where previously there had been a massive, domed ceiling, sporting a heavily painted, beautiful sprawling mosaic of the Great Wolves' entire family lineage, lined with riches and dotted with gigantic chandeliers, was now the starry night sky. The walls had given way to show the vast seas of beautiful, carefully planted wildlife that was in full bloom all around them. A massive garden of various flowers laden with nightly dew, swayed softly all around them and a gentle night time breeze swept through, tickling Jessica's nose, causing her to sneeze quietly.

However, her attention gradually became grabbed by a source of gentle silver light. It was the moon, a full moon. Jessica felt the world start to melt away for a moment. Her perception shrunk to just her and the great celestial object. Her lupine genetics stimmed beneath her, causing her eyes to dilate and her teeth to begin to grow, morphing more sharp as her canines slowly expanded beyond the other teeth, sharpening into wicked, razor sharp weapons. She was feeling the call of her full transformation, and it felt... nice.

Amos chuckled again, snapping Jessica out of her unintentional partial transformation. Hurriedly she de-transformed while hiding her face to mask her shame, giving a small grunt.

"My private garden," was all the king said, as the deity continued his lecture. Jessica took a mental note that Amos apparently couldn't be bothered to elaborate any further on whatever it was he had done to the dining hall.

"Now onto the unique energies," Amos said as he also gazed up at the moon. "In our lowly third dimension," he started, his accent again making his voice sound oddly poetic in the moonlight, "there are many unique energies. These energies affect the metaphysical realm, within the third dimension, they are known as the mortal energies. They are the highest dimensional tier of energy beings that reside within the Mortal Realms can normally manipulate. The list is as follows: Aether, Mana, Nature Energies, and Mortal Dharma, Belief, and Impel."

This time, again as with the physical energies, images appeared every time Amos named a mortal energy group, a figure manifested above the two royals. Jessica noted that The figure for Aether was a Tree with burning vines, Mana's was an oasis with pristine, beautiful... purple water? The image for the Nature Energies was a dense cluster of 12 orbs, all with their own individual constitutions, and textures, and Mortal Dharma's was a large, golden scale, a silver feather was on one side and a burning, black skull was on the other. Belief's was an altar with a sword plunged deeply into it. Finally, the image representing Impel, the energy of impurity and negativity, was a sick-looking bubbling tar pit.

"Remember mi hija," Amos began again, "magic is the process of manipulating these energies either stored within your body or taken from the world around you, by sending them to your aura, channeling them into and through your equation, then shaping them with your willpower, and finally casting them as spell craft." He continued as Jessica passively nodded. "Any action or phenomena can be done in the Mortal Realms by employing either the physical energies or the mortal energies. Physical actions are usually done without the need to employ any of the mortal energies, but any act of magic must employ some mix of both the mortal energies and the physical energies. In fact, most creatures in the Mortal Realms employ at least two of the mortal energies to perform any sort of magic at all."

The floating figures then suddenly raced inwards, mass colliding into each other. Then, with a soft explosion that briefly blew Jessica's hair about wildly, hundreds of thousands of spheres, all with their own individual looks came flying about. Gently, the mass of small, ethereal spheres came to rest above the heads of the two royal werewolves.

"And throughout billions of years of existence, of countless creatures and countless intelligent minds interacting with these energies" Amos went on, his voice now emanate a strange resonating effect it had not previously had, "these 6 groups of metaphysical mortal energies, through various combinations of the different forms of these mortal energy groups, applied to various, arbitrarily different steps, gave birth to countless forms of Mortal Realm magic."

Slowly, one by one, the images began to vanish. The gently swaying air became very still, Jessica softly shivered. Her body was chilling slightly more as there were still no walls in whatever weird meadow they were still currently sitting in.

Even then, Jessica couldn't stop herself from rubbing her hands together in obvious anticipation underneath the massive table while she kicked her short legs expectantly and happily.

'Finally, it's here,' she thought to herself with glee.

After every image had dissipated, the mighty lupine deity, the Ruby King, Amos Jeras, hung his powerful head in silence. Slowly, massive rainbow colored orbs began to form.

'One, two, three...' Jessica thought, slowly. It was all she could do, she was at a loss at how many of these colossal orbs were forming.

"Every structure with its own floors needs support beams," the Ruby King began suddenly, breaking the princess from her thoughts. "If the different floors are the different dimensionalities, then the glue that binds not only the many, many floors together, but also an entirely separate, equally massive building with equally endless floors, tied together for all eternity, are the fundamental energies. They are the great exalted energies, the oldest of the old, strongest of the strong, the bedrock and building blocks of the universe itself."

The large orbs began to arrange themselves in the vast expanse of the night, starry sky above the Ruby royals. Jessica forgot how to breathe. Well, her body remembered the process pretty well, and was sure it could pull it off, except starting to do so was currently escaping her. A mystical representation of many answers to the young princess' deepest questions, finally stared her in the face, as if taunting her.

Transfixed, all Jessica could manage was a half squeak, half hiccup as her completely overloaded brain struggled to burn every last thing she was seeing to memory.

From each of the mighty, luminous orbs emerged a figure. Sometimes two figures or more emerged from a single orb. Some of these figures looked like animals, some like dragons and phoenixes, some like dark amalgamations, some were humanoid with animalistic features, some were small, some were massive. All were clearly far beyond incredibly powerful. And Amos' next words proved that beyond any doubt.

"The fundamental energies are these byproducts of these esoteric beings. The energies exist, and our universe exists, because they do. Their bodies, alive, animated, dead, or inanimate are the actual building blocks for all of creation. Hark, for they are the primordial deities," Amos proclaimed, lifting a hand.

The figures all seemed to come to life at Amos' words and stare down at Jessica. She knew it was merely a representation of the exalted deities, but even the representation of these apex beings of pure change and energy made her feel an innate sense of fear she wasn't sure she'd ever felt before.

"The existence of the primordials and by proxy their fundamental energies, allows our incredibly ass backwards and mangled universe to exist and function. Through these energies, the unique energies and the physical energies exist to begin with," Amos lectured on, "though there are a great many of them, only a total of 12 fundamental energies are currently known to be permitted by Great Taboo to interact with either the Mortal Realms." His voice became grave and dark, "however, it is possible to find not only most if not all of the fundamental energies by traversing the Divine Realms, but one just might fuck around too much and find themselves facing one of these actual primordial deities."

All the young princess could do was give a long, dry gulp of fear as she continued to stare, rooted in place by fear.

Slowly, the vast sea of primordial gods standing before massive spheres, receded, leaving a solemn 12 remaining. Amos continued to speak, "these 12 energies are Heavenly/Angelic, Hellish/Demonic, Draconic, Fae Madness, Earthly and Heavenly Dharma, Lustful Good, Pacifistic Evil, The Energies of the 4 Great World Trees, the Earthly Forces that only we were-beings can inherit since the primordial that created it was the first were, the Celestial Wolf; Djinn energy, Void Energy, and finally Old Aether."

Of the 12 remaining spheres, standing before them, Jessica saw deities she'd recognized from her and Damien's many mythology books that they would take out from the Orphanage library. The absolute fear on her face from learning that these gods, some of whom were exclusively known for their depraved actions, were real, was palpable and thick. As she was eventually able to put names to faces, the princess soon began identifying members of the group.

"Those are the Seelie Queen and the Unseelie Queen," she said, pointing at the Fae Madness sphere. "That's the Trimurti!" Jessica breathed, truly mystified as she pointed at the sphere representing Dharma, where three powerful gods stood. "Shiva the Destroyer, Brahma the Creator, and Vishnu the Judge..." There was also the first were-being, Jessica realized as she spotted the large, hairy, caveman looking primordial, The Howling One. It was ultimately through him that Jessica was able to wield the Ruby Force, even though it was technically a Force created by Amos. In fact, any and every were-being lucky enough to be permitted to learn any of the numerous but incredibly guarded and well hidden Forces, were only able to do so, because of The Howling One.

Turning to look at the sphere representing Hellish and Demonic Energy, she studied the figure she saw standing before it intently.

It was a male. It was also tall, very tall, likely 7-8 feet. He had long, oily, disheveled, jet black hair. The male had pale gray skin, but also had an impossibly beautiful face. A simple red crown of bones sat atop his hair and in his left hand, he held a long, simple black trident tipped with golden spikes. Behind him, a soft halo of blinding white light emanated. A simple robe that was darker than the most pitch black of starless nights was draped over his slender, emaciated frame. His eyes... his eyes hurt to look at for long. It hurt badly, and was slowly driving her insane. They were peaceful, yet at the same time, wrought with unending madness, insane depravity, and endless suffering. Silver ram horns protruded from the sides of his head, and massive wings boasting an impressive array of beautifully preened pitch black feathers and a thin devilish tail made her breath catch in her throat.

"...Is that... is that The Devil? Like... the actual Devil?" Jessica asked, wracked with disbelief and deep confusion as she pointed at the being. A chill ran down her spine as Amos just silently nodded. Slowly turning her head back to the figure, she stared for what seemed like a long while before she spoke again. "He seems so weak, but he feels like one of the strongest among the primordials," she mused.

"Your intuition is impressive mi hija," Amos said with another small smirk. Jessica nodded in thanks. "He is indeed among the strongest of the primordials, but there still exists a pecking order above even the likes of him."

Jessica raised an eyebrow in confusion and Amos laughed again, his cheeky, know it all laugh.

Amos pointed to the sphere representing the Heavenly and Angelic energies. In front of it, there were 9 figures. Two massive lights, though one was significantly larger than the other, and 7 human figures, all sporting 6 white wings and burning halos.

"Technically I lied with that one," the Ruby King said with another small chuckle, "because as it seems you've started to realize that if the devil was in front of the other sphere, this one must be..."

"Big G god," Jessica whispered.

Amos roared with laughter.

"The Big G god indeed, who technically doesn't count as a primordial since it is so far above every other existence in the universe, and was part of the union that created the primordial deities in the first place" he said, wiping a tear from his perfect face, "otherwise known as The Almighty. The other 7 winged figures are the Blessed Saints, the Illuminated Princes and Princesses of heaven, the Archangels."

"Who's the other big light then?" Jessica pondered aloud.

"That annoyance is the reason your boyfriend and his entire particularly annoying subsection of the Nephilim races exists," Amos said, breathing a sigh of frustration, "that light is the Great Angel of the Lord, the Angel of Death, the Grim Reaper, Metatron, formerly known as the Archangel Azrael. Legends say he is the only angel allowed to stand before the throne and scribe the words of The Almighty itself directly, earning the esteemed title, The Second Authority."

Jessica was silent for a time. Carefully she pondered everything she had heard before responding.

"Hm... I guess that all makes some sense..." she reasoned, "but what does any of that have to do with the shape? Are you saying that you just changed the dimensionality of the energy you put into the equation? Did you just use the fundamental energies to create the shape the second time, as opposed to using the mortal energies to create the flower?"

She had been rambling, thinking as she spoke. Finishing her train of thought, she looked up to see Amos, still leaning back in his chair, drinking something from a short, heavy glass tumbler.

"Seems like you answered your own question," he said as he stared passively at his tumbler, swirling around the contents in the glass.

Jessica just stuck her tongue out at him. But then the 13 year old began to think to herself.

"Ok... so energy from a higher dimension takes on a unique property as it manifests in a lower dimension, whereas energy that exists in every dimension does so no matter what dimension it manifests in, since technically everything is in a lower dimension relative to the fundamental energies themselves..." Jessica bit the side of her lip in thought. "What were you even trying to create?" she asked the deity.

"A Cube," was all he said.

"Uh huh," Jessica simply nodded, accepting that this was her life now so might as well get used to it. Then another thought occurred to her.

"Hey pops, so the reason my nails turn into ruby's when I'm channeling the Ruby Force, is because that's the property the fundamental energy takes on as it manifests right?" She suddenly asked Amos.

"Si," Amos replied with a slight head nod before resuming tenderly tending to his drink.

Jessica realized he was doing this to allow the princess to come to her own conclusions. Giving a small burst of thanks towards Amos from her intent, she continued, "So I'm using a fundamental energy when I'm using the Ruby Force, even if I'm not fully manifesting it and can only manage the pink glow. Hm... I'm guessing that's the direct pipeline to goddess-hood I'm supposed to inherit from you that you were talking about at the adoption meeting."

Amos nodded again silently.

"So Damien's chanting, rainbow, rose gold fire is also a manifestation of him using a fundamental energy then too right? It should be Heavenly or Angelic energy right?" She asked, though her neck snapped upwards as a crashing and breaking sound reverberated through the calm meadow and dining hall.

Amos was staring at her, refusing to blink.

"He can use the Heavenly Fire?" Amos asked almost in a whisper. Croaking from nearly choking on his bourbon.

Jessica snorted and rolled her eyes, missing the change in Amos' demeanor.

"Control it? No. Spurt it everywhere like some homicide bent, pyromaniac's ultimate fetish, human torch? Yes." She threw her hands up in frustration, "ya know, I've always wondered, where does he fit so much fire inside himself, he's not even that tall!?" Falling backwards into her chair, she crossed her arms over her chest, "and furthermore, its so damn loud, I can't even understand what it's saying but it keeps repeating it incessantly, over and over and over, it never friggin stops" Jessica said incredulously as she used an annoyed breath to breath a stray lock of hair off from her nose, "D always says its telling him to pray or something."

Amos stared, glass eyed.

For the first time since Jessica had met him, he'd openly, heavily skirted from his usual steady, suave manner. But it wasn't only the king that was having such a reaction. The two attendants that had been constantly standing behind Amos as he ate, had been trying to not show their reactions to the "dynamic" conversation that had been playing out between the king and his daughter. But even they now equally looked like all the blood had been drained from the were-creatures' faces.

'Huh so that's what a Columbian vampire would look like,' Jessica thought to herself, the irony not escaping her.

Jessica's Ladies-in-Waiting, whom had all been attempting to find God while listening to their princess cuss out the Ruby King like her life depended on it, were now silently weeping. Trying to come to grips with the fact that the princess they were tasked with protecting, was hell bent on dating someone who could not only wield fundamental energies earlier than should even be physically possible but was also not yet in control of when he did so, was not an easy task.

None of the attendants were having a very pleasant time, but the Ruby King clearly looked to be the one taking the news the worst.

"... He can... manifest.... large quantities of Heavenly Fire?" Amos asked fearfully, hand slightly shaking, "explain, now."

Now it was Jessica's turn to just silently nod, eyes wide as she waited to see what was wrong with her adopted father. She'd never seen the deity this outwardly shaken before, none had.

Amos' dropped drink had been long forgotten, seeing as his jaw had dropped further. The fact that Hoaquin's son was using fundamental energies before Jessica, filled him with competitive wolfish rage. But the fact that Hoaquin's son, his new daughter's boyfriend, was apparently also gushing out large quantities of fundamental energy, well before his 13th birthday, while being trained by a Great Disaster, filled him with insurmountably more stress and fear.

Jessica began regaling the group with stories of her and Damien's training and the events of his latent abilities appearing. For a while the only sounds were Jessica's words and the sounds of sweat cascading freely from the faces of those who heard the princess' words. Amos' attendants and Jessica's Ladies-in-Waiting were all powerful were-creatures. Being sage tier mages at least, some even being gods, they all had access to powerful magics and so were trusted to know the truth of who Jessica was. They knew she had actually been raised in an orphanage ran by the Great Witch of Pestilence. What they didn't know, was anything about Damien, it seemed.

Neither did Amos.

Leaning back in his chair Amos closed his eyes and softly massaged his aching temples while allowing healing magic to flow from his fingers to his migraine.

"That little jackass is definitely her son after all," he grumbled, "show off."

Jessica smirked, and gave a laugh. She couldn't help feeling proud of her little insurance write off.

"Don't start laughing so fast," Amos said, waving a finger at Jessica warningly, "this is dangerous, very dangerous. Child, there is another reason for the difference in the shape, I lied when I gave you that first equation."

"I figured," Jessica replied. A nagging feeling had been weighing on her for a while that simply changing the tier of injecting energy shouldn't change the property of the output magic that much.

Amos nodded. "When one employs the fundamental energies, they are added to the grand equation as exponential energies," Amos began, "that is why they are both far harder to control and why they amplify the magic you cast by so much more. A linear increase in the amount of fundamental energy applied, gives a tremendous increase to the magical output of the mage, but it also tremendously increases the risk to the mage's body. Be it from excessive energy strain, energy drain fatigue, aura fatigue, or worse, losing control of the spell and suffering magical backlash."

Jessica gulped, but said nothing as she nodded, waiting for the king to continue.

"So now our grand equation now becomes Y=((Mx)^E + z^E)(B^E))+i," he said. "Oh," he added, "I double lied, the original equation was actually Y=((Mx)+z)(B))+i, with the I variable bein-"

"Intent," Jessica said, staring unimpressed at Amos, she had figured out his duplicity a while ago and had chosen to refrain from mentioning it. Amos just flashed her yet another signature smirk, to which Jessica returned to him one of her signature, casual middle fingers.

"Si intent," Amos continued after a brief chuckle. "And the E variable stands for the fundamental energy used. See how it didn't replace where the physical energy or mortal energy interacts with the equation, it just expanded upon it," his voice became very serious, something that only happened when he had actual wisdom to impart. Jessica leaned forward in her chair. "Remember child, all energy is important, and understanding not only how to use it, but where its place is in the grand equation, not only naturally purifies your magic, it protects you, it makes you stronger than others will become, faster than they will, and stay stronger than them for longer," he said, staring deeply into the princess's wolfish, golden-green eyes. "It also protects you from hexes and curses. They are magics that function with extreme efficiency to produce horrifying effects by preying on the vulnerabilities commonly found in the magical equations of mages who do not truly understand the magics they cast nor the energies they wield. Yet a mage with a deeper understanding of their equations can shrug off these effects by simply refining the weak point of the equation in real time, or the hex could simply fail to take any effect at all."

The king sat back in his chair, letting out a massive sigh, "mi hija, have you heard the saying the larger one is, the harder they will eventually fall?" Jessica nodded. "Well subsequently," Amos mused, leaning back, "the more powerful a mage becomes, eventually reaching sage-hood, hopefully reaching godhood..., if that mage waits to build a proper power base while they are still green and malleable, instead choosing to do so after they have become rigid, set in their ways and having already amassed their powers and influence, it will become nearly impossible to do afterwards. This will always leave a giant, gaping vulnerability. And it will only take one person who knows how to exploit that vulnerability to kill you. No matter how powerful you are. I've seen it happen to greenhorns and I've seen it happen to eldritch horrors and even the primordials themselves."

Amos began to draw on the section of the large table before him absentmindedly, with a single finger.

"Jessica," he started, calmly, "do you see now what I'm weary of? As news of this boys very existence is currently making its way around the Mortal Realms at this very moment, many already have made up their conceptions as to who or what this boy is and are already plotting to either use or kill him. Nothing will sway them, they will only be emboldened to seek to end his life or try something else equally as stupid faster, if news of what you just told us ever becomes common knowledge." Amos took a moment to stare into the eyes of each of his attendants and Jessica's ladies in waiting, before returning his gaze back to the princess. Jessica just stared back, shellshocked. She didn't know what to say. "Many will assume he is much further along in his magical development and aura cultivation than he actually is. They will assume he knows far more than he actually does about their politics and about secrets to whom he's never been privy. Many will even sadly see him as their messiah, their rallying figure. Some will radicalize and kill untold millions in his name, no matter if he wants them to or not. Some will kill untold millions, in order to kill him and besmirch his name. They will believe he is far more prepared for the horrors of this universe than he actually is, instead of seeing a poor, defenseless, scared boy, they will only ever see a monster in the making, the perfect puppet of Hoaquin. He will never get a choice in this matter, never get a chance to reason with any of these endless sea of depraved and insane forces, all because of who his parents are."

Amos looked down at her, "and neither will anyone who ever chooses to publicly tie themselves to his eternally sinking ship." A look of great sadness came over him, "I'm not trying to be evil to you daughter, but with people like him are born not only a cloud of death following him, but also death literally running in his veins as a descendant of the Grim Reaper. Someone close to a person like him, always dies eventually. It's only ever just a matter of time. I just don't want that someone to be you."

Jessica tried to absorb the depth of the king's words. As she sat in her chair, her mind was a million miles away. The 13 year old gave a long, low sigh of her own. Her bottom lip trembled. At that moment, she was not a 13 year old young princess, a young girl, but instead, she was an old crone, hundreds of years old. She was hunched over, dragged down by all the fear and sadness she constantly had to go through all throughout her short life. She was all alone, bitter, distrustful, yet afraid, longing for touch. Desperately seeking the warmth of familiar affection, instead finding nothing but the coldness of the void.

Jessica never allowed herself to ever think too deeply on those thoughts that would randomly appear to her as she never wanted to seem ungrateful for the magical heaven the orphanage was, compared to growing up in the real world homeless. But now, all Jessica felt was extreme fatigue. Her head splintered and threatened to explode with pain from all the thoughts about how this would only end badly and in the bloodshed of many. But the princess refused to buckle, choosing instead to stare her father definitely in his divine Golden-green, wolfish eyes with her own mortal ones. In that moment she summoned all of her remaining strength, banishing all of her fears. Her usually golden-green, wolfish eyes slowly started turning more intense and animalistic.

Then, they began to glow red.

Slowly the energy collected itself as Jessica struggled to maintain her concentration, sweat pooling on her forehead as she grunted with frustration. Yet still she pushed herself. Now her head threatened to split from exertion and pain, but onwards she pushed, holding the energy, forcing herself to shape it despite the pain. Her nose began to slowly leak blood, and eventually both nostrils were freely cascading the princess' blood. Yet onward she pushed. Until eventually completely ruby versions of Jessica's wolfish eyes, crackling with rocky texture, humming deeply with power, stared defiantly at Amos's, despite being covered by a mop of sweat laden, curly brown hair. Jessica looked like the 13 year old had attempted to run the Tour De France in a 30 pound jacket, yet she stood up slowly and painstakingly to stare down at Amos' sitting figure. Though she was using the edge of the table to keep herself upright, gripping it for dear life as her extended nails embedded themselves deep into the wood.

"They better watch themselves then, he isn't the only one that can use the fundamental energies at 13 years old," Jessica said. Raspy and painfully strained as her voice was, it was still heavily lacquered with violence and determination. "Damien and I can take on anything!" she yelled despite her fatigue, wresting a hand free from the table and jabbing herself in the chest with a thumb, "So let them try it, we'll maul 'em sons of bitches! Then we'll wear 'em like scarfs!" She gave a triumphant, crazed grin as the young princess reached the end of her stamina and crumpled like a paper bag into her chair.

Despite themselves Amos' attendants grinned wildly with pride in their princess, and even her ladies in waiting hid satisfied smirks behind their robe sleeves as they rushed to help rejuvenate the collapsed princess. Amos bore his own instinctive grin of pride in the girl, despite everything yelling at him internally that he was making a horrible mistake. She might not be his blood, but at that moment, Amos was proud to say he had doubts. Despite the lose-lose situation she faced, the thought of breaking the trust of her loved ones didn't even occur to her. Amos smiled inwardly, she was too much like he himself was.

'Good, at least that will help keep her safe from my Grandfather and family... for now,' he thought passively.

Shaking his head as he got up from his seat finally to retire for the night, the king said one last thing as he stared down in challenge at the sweaty mess that was his new daughter, who although swarmed by her attendants and despite lacking the energy to continue to manifest the ruby eyes, still glared back at him defiantly.

"You want to date him? Fine, but absolutely no falling behind. Your training gets redoubled starting tomorrow," the Ruby King growled, as his own eyes easily turned to rubies, while his teeth simultaneously morphed into a set of large, glinting, ruby wolfish teeth. "God help you if you fall behind in creating an Art before he does too."

Jessica just nodded, too tired to annunciate anything. Yet a wicked grin grew on her face. As terrified as she was, and as much as she wasn't looking forward to the prolonged body aching and magical exhaustion, she would never back down from a personal challenge, especially not this one. Not when she stood to lose so much, she would never forgive herself if she didn't at least give it her best shot.

'Soon,' she thought to herself as she felt sleep come over her, the adrenaline and stress finally giving way to her immense fatigue, 'soon I'll be able to wield the Ruby Force that easily too, then I'll smack him on his big dumb, suave forehead.' She giggled to herself as she started to close her eyes. Her ladies in waiting began chanting a spell to softly levitate the princess between them as they started to walk her from the table.

Amos waved a hand and the room returned to normal, his shattered tumbler had even reformed in his hand. He was about to leave but the princess had just recalled something very important.

"Wait!" Jessica called out suddenly, startling her ladies as she suddenly burst upright. "You never told me how to control my strength! Wasn't that the whole point of this?" she called out from the sea of Ladies-in-Waiting around her, half confused, half annoyed.

"Oh," Amos said, turning around nonchalantly, "just imagine your aura covering your body, and try to keep the burn heat the same as it covers you."

"That's it?!" the princess screamed, "you tricked me into sitting into a long ass lecture for a two second answer? I could've had clothes to wear and a bed to sleep in, DAYS AGO?! over a TWO SECOND ANSWER?!"

Amos shrugged, holding his hands up "two seconds is a lot when it's you nagging me," he said, laughing evilly as he walked off, trailed by his attendants.

A plate full of spaghetti suddenly raced at Amos's head from behind, yet the Ruby King didn't even attempt to dodge. In fact, the plate seemed to just... phase through his head and disappear. It then promptly appeared from a portal that had suddenly opened above Jessica's head. Amos's laughing got harder as he walked away from Jessica's shrieks of murder and vengeance as her attendants fought valiantly to keep their princess from assaulting the king, especially while covered in spaghetti.

'Good mi hija,' Amos thought to himself, 'get mad and stay mad, then use that anger to get stronger, quickly. This might all go to shit faster than I thought...'