“So Alicia, what did you think?” While Rias had a face of elegant pride, she was jumping up and down giggling at how well her Peerage had eliminated the stray devil. It had to be one of the most efficient missions they had ever done and her Newest pawn had managed to unlock his sacred gear in the process.

 

Alicia calmly sipped the tea Akeno had made for everyone, thinking of the right words to say.

 

“Truthfully? I must admit I was… underwhelmed with how you handled it.” Alicia grimaced as he thought about the fight. “You had the opportunity to end the stray devil in a few moments but instead the fight was drawn out and you could have very well gotten injured or even killed because of that.”

 

He wasn’t wrong, Kiba could have ended the stray devils life the moment it showed itself but had instead disarmed, literally, the stray devil. Koneko had let the stray swallow her before she acted, potentially harming herself in the process. Akeno had taken to ‘playing’ with the stray rather than ending it in an instant. Rias had a lot of power behind her spells but from what he saw not a lot of precision. 

 

“But we weren't hurt and we got to punish the stray?” Akeno said with confusion. Alicia internally sighed and reminded himself that despite the fact they were devils they had never actually been in a war like he had, only going after the stray devils that entered their territory.

 

“Thinking like that can and will get you or someone else Killed. Believe me i had seen enough guards and soldiers get torn apart because they got overconfident all because they had defeated enemies weaker than them.” Alicia’s frown turned down further as a thought occurred to him, one that could make a lot of sense. “Actually now that i think of it, barring the impromptu training session Issei earlier, when was the last time any of you trained, as in against someone other than a stray devil.”

 

…

 

…

 

...

 

Alicia felt his eyebrow twitch as the silence that had envelop the room. The devils, barring Issei, looked as if they were trying and failing to remember judging by the faces they were making. 

 

“I… think we did last year?” Kiba was the first one to speak, and that was hesitantly. Joining the Kendo club would technically count but that was just for a few sessions.

 

“No… it was before we joined Kuoh academy.” Countered Akeno.

 

“You have got to be kidding me.” Alicia muttered in disbelief. They hadn’t done any sort of training for nearly... He wants to say 2 years but he was unsure of how long ago they had left the underworld. Yes you could counter with the fact he hadn't done either for a year but it was a lot harder to use a warhammer with only one hand. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, it definitely explained the poor tactics they showed him. “Why!”

 

“Alicia please understand that we can’t exactly go back down to the underworld everynight to train, there are certain rules that prohibit dimensional teleporting so we would have to take a train everytime we wanted to go to my families sparring grounds.” Rias explained to the Fallen Celestial that was becoming irritated. “That would greatly hamper our studies if we had to do that.”

 

Alicia had to rub his temples and he absorbed that information. He knew he couldn’t get too mad with Rias and her Peerage but they seriously couldn’t spare at least one day a week to go to those grounds?

 

“If you can’t go to the underworld every few days why haven’t you picked a spot on the Protectorate? Surely there is somewhere you could use your magic.”

 

Rias thought about it for a moment before answering. “There may be but I'll have to check with my parents or my brother as they have a better understanding of the properties the gremory family owns. If there isn’t, something I doubt, they could at least be able to point us in the right direction.”

 

The princess of ruin was also trying to remember the last time she actually practiced with her powers of destruction beyond using it to finish off the stray devils that entered her territory. She honestly couldn’t remember sitting with either her mother or her brother and well learning about the very dangerous power she wielded. Most of her childhood was spent playing with whichever servant would be willing to play with her, watching anime and trying to get the figures, or playing with her peerage whenever they got the chance..

 

...maybe bemoaning the fact she had a blonde haired jackass for a fiance as well.

 

But she couldn’t remember doing any actual training beyond the necessary lessons her mother forced her to do once her PoD awakened so she could control it without destroying anything by accident. If her mother ever told her friends of the destruction she caused when she started she would be mortified.

 

“Please do, it would be in our interests if there was an area I could see you and your Peerage use all of your power without the risk of property damage.”

 

“If you don’t mind me asking Alicia.” Kiba spoke as he took a snack from the table, earning a pout from Koneko. “Why exactly do you want to know how strong we are?”

 

Alicia thought about it for a second, to him it seemed simple and was born from years of fighting with his party but it might not seem so simple to someone who has never done such a thing before.

 

“Well not only is there a group of fallen angels residing on the edge of Kuoh inside a ruined church, I fully expect them to try and attack me again for thrashing them around when they tried to kill me or to do something along those lines.” The Celestial explained, ignoring Rias who was summoning her Familiar to check the church. “In doing so i can look over your equipment and how well you fight in them, i can also give you any pointers should you need them since i’m sure you simply didn’t grab them when you fought Viser.”

 

“What kind of equipment?”

 

“Your armor, weapons, accessories, that sort of thing.” Alicia replied calmly as he took a sip of tea, not noticing the nervous look most of the Peerage shared.

 

They were not going to enjoy telling that apart from Akeno changing her outfit, Koneko putting on a pair of gloves, and Kiba’s swords, they didn’t use any armor or artifacts. Or that most supernatural beings don't use equipment like that…. Or less...  

 

(TCOD)

 

He did not take it well. 

 

Alicia had given the group a very thorough lecture about the necessary equipment they should have on themselves whenever they fought… anything. Yes it was good to have a outfit that wasn’t a heavy piece of metal or organic materia that you were comfortable wearing, just look at the dozens of outfits and armors he had, but when you are fighting something that that can launch torrents of fire, freezing cold ice, jagged rocks, or fucking acid! You want something between whatever is trying to kill you. His party had learned that the hard way after Beatrice had decided to wear a swimsuit into combat for some reason and ended up dying after a ragged reaper sliced her stomach open and they couldn’t heal her in time.

 

So while Rias hopefully found somewhere they could train he was going to dig through the mountain of armors he had to see if any would be able to fit with them. At the very least he could give them some minor artifacts that could help them. 

 

Right now Koneko and Alicia were going to a local bookstore to find a hand to hand book for the girl so she has a better base to use in combat.

 

“Come on Konny, it's not that bad.”

 

“Look stupid.” Koneko might not have shown any emotion but the sight of a rather short girl inside a hand to hand section was an odd one to put it lightly.

 

“I can think of worse, Issei could teach you how to fight.” The look the petite girl gave nearly made Alicia laugh, what he had planned for the peerage was going to hurt. Not him of course but semantics. “Come on, you said you never looked it up before and this will help you in the long run.”

 

Koneko sighed. “Fine.”

 

And thus the two least likely people you would see in a fighting section searched for a book suitable for someone of Koneko’s stature. Surprisingly Koneko steered away from the ‘traditional’ martial arts books like you would expect, instead she gravitated to the meager section containing other types of fighting. Now Alicia will say with no hesitation that he knew little about fighting with his hands, while he could do it, chances are it won't be pretty.

 

(TCOD)

 

“Where did I put it?” Alicia said as he pulled out armor pieces, weapons, and accessories out of the crates he had put them in. After the realization that most of the supernatural world had decided to forgo armor and... clothes in some cases… Alicia had come to the conclusion that some of his armors would be rather important when he eventually has to fight someone. Take his galaxy axe for example, the patterned axe could cleave clean through an adult dragon in just a few swings and even after using it to go through a solid stone wall it didn’t even chip the edge. He didn’t know just how valuable his stuff is but considering some of them were forged by his goddess and/or lord with their own blood he was willing to bet a lot.

 

… he just had to find it first. 

 

The ‘fight’ with the stray devil had cleared up some of his questions on the abilities of the devils in general. The fact that this was supposedly a low class devil worried him when it came to the supposedly vast difference between the classes. From what Rias had told Issei and him her brother was among the strongest in the entire Devil population. While he may have fought Corvus before ending up in this world, he not only had his party with him, but has died multiple times, was casting buffs left and right, and used around two crates of mana potions and healing herbs. Alicia didn’t want to fight her brother unless he absolutely had to.

 

“Aha! Here it is.” Alicia pulled out a red and gold battle triangle patterned axe covered in spikes. The shaft is a little bit short of 4 feet or 111.76cm and had one large spike at the top of the shaft and five smaller ones on the bottom, one of the patterned heads was larger than the other. The inside of the heads and the leather grip were red while the shaft was gold. This was his Galaxy axe, the strongest axe in his collection, second only to his Hypernova sword and tied with his seraph's bow in power. This was going to be his weapon of choice for the time being as his Hypernova was chipped to the palace of Celestria and back and the only way he could fix it would be if he had Krak pot with him or a VERY good blacksmith. Neither things he has access to for the time being.

 

He had the materials but not the capabilities to fix it himself.

 

Anyone who was bitten by its elegant blades would find it more difficult to attack as the special ability of the galaxy axe messed with their ability to attack, from what he understood it messed with the tension of beings. Something he hoped would come in handy should he need to use it.

 

(TCOD) 

 

Alicia lazily looked up into the night sky, watching Rias and her peerage help teach Issei how to actually fly and not float off the ground and had to resist the urge to yawn. It was very boring for the Celestial to watch but he could understand why they were doing it, besides it's not like he had anything else planned for tonight. 

 

“That’s it Issei, move your wings just like that.” Rias said in an attempt to encourage the newly reborn devil. Slowly Issei managed to move forward, he had a wide smile on his face as he did so.

 

“I-im doing it! Haha.” Issei cheered, even as he moved about as fast as a turtle in the air. The Fallen wasn’t really impressed with the fact the training, if it could be called that, he was doing looked like it was for a child.

 

“Hey Rias?” Alicia asked after watching for a few more minutes, at her questioning look he continued. “Is it ok if I take over for a few minutes?”

 

“Hmmm, ok.” Rias nodded and the rest of peerage barring Issei flew back down to the roof, crossing her arms as she asked her question. “What are you planning on doing? I think Issei is doing great for someone who gained a few new limbs a few days ago.” 

 

“He is, but I want to see if he can do something before we call it a night. Hey Issei!.” Alicia yelled at the Devil slowly floating around. Said devil looked down from the dozen or so meters off the ground with a look of confusion. “Dodge.”

 

That was all the warning he got before Alicia then tossed an ice ball into the air and lobbed it at the devil as hard as he could without risking Issei’s life. Issei squashed like a bird and he attempted to dodge it. Sadly for him he was still moving as fast as a turtle so the ice ball slammed into his stomach hard enough to nearly make him puke. Thankfully he didn’t spew chunks over the rest of them and had managed to stay up in the air. Instantly the Peerage had their jaws on the ground.

 

“What the heck was that Alicia!” Rias didn’t scream but it was close enough. Alicia barely blinked before throwing another ice ball at Issei, having decided he had recovered enough,

 

“Teaching him how to dodge.”

 

“And that involves throwing things at him!”

 

“Yes, do devils not learn by getting first hand experience?” this time Alicia gave her a look of confusion. Rias tried really hard not to balk at the question but she couldn’t stop her sputtering.

 

“Well yes… wait was this how you were taught?” Akeno answered in her kings stead.

 

“Of course it was, Apus major put me and the rest of my kin all went through the same type of training when we were under his tutelage.” Alicia cocked his head as a thought accrued to him. That had nothing to do with him nearly hitting Issei in the privates with another ball. “Granted i was also far younger than Issei and i was also inside the training hall of the observatory with about… 20 other celestials if i remember correctly.”

 

“Your training was like this? How old were you if I may ask.” Kiba was of course curious about this training hall and what his friend had gone through. Maybe later he could ask about it, see about comparing notes so to speak.

 

“I believe I was… 8 years old at the time? I truthfully had never kept track of the days when I was being taught how to wield a sword and how to use my wings. In fact not many Celestials do keep track of time unless it is in regards to the time of day.” 

 

Now that Alicia thought about it, when he was going over the brief history of his kin how long had his lady been Yggdrasil was he correct?. Apus Major was one of the oldest Celestials but no one really knew how old anyone was, instead focusing on either their charges, keeping records on the many, many monsters that roamed the protectorate, or guarding the most dangerous things they had collected and locked up deep in the vaults of the Observatory. Keeping track of how old they were wasn’t very high on the list of duties the Celestials did.

 

“How old are you?” like always Koneko was blunt. Alicia shrugged and went back to throwing ice balls at the slowly improving Issei, he had zero idea.

 

“Come on Issei, the faster you learn how to dodge the sooner Kiba and I don’t have to carry you.” Alicia called out, now ignoring Rias who was still trying to wrap her head around the ‘training’ the Fallen had went through and had decided the best way for her pawn to learn was to put him through the same type of training.

 

“Easy for you to say!” Issei nearly threw up again as another ball hit him in the side. He was getting better already, he had managed to nearly dodge that one. “You're Not the one getting hit in the stomach! hurrh.”

 

Just for that Alicia made sure the next ball hit him in the chest, knocking the air out of his lungs and finally sending Issei to the ground. Rias and Akeno gave the Celestial a look silently asking if that was necessary, which he answered.

 

“You do remember I was trained to protect my charges from enemies, that includes monsters that could fly or throw things a lot more dangerous than a ball of ice, right?” Alicia said with a hand on his hip and a cocked eyebrow. “I had to dodge arrows while I was on the protectorate, some of which were on fire.”

 

“Oh right…” 

 

(TCOD)

 

The next day most of the group were back in the occult club, Issei was handing out flyers again over by the park and Alicia was heading over to the custom repair shop that was recommended to him a few days ago. It was time for the group to have a very important discussion. 

 

“What are your thoughts on our resident Celestial” Rias started with her fingers intertwined beneath her chin, nervously anticipating her peerage’s responses 

 

“He’s dangerous.” Koneko was the first one surprisingly, they thought she would be the last one to admit that. As much as she enjoyed spending time with her friend she still had to acknowledge the fact that Alicia was far, far stronger than her. 

 

“I agree, and you heard what he said. He has more experience than all of us, even if you discount his ‘training’ that he did before he became a guardian.” Kiba made air quotes as he said training. “The fact he was unimpressed with your power of destruction paints the picture that he has seen someone or something use a power similar to it before.”  

 

Rias hummed as she leaned back in her chair, agreeing with her two friends, before noticing Akeno had said anything. Looking at her closest friend she saw the beauty had a pinched expression on her normally peaceful face and was oddly tense.

 

“Akeno, is something wrong?” Rias asked worriedly.

 

Akeno sighed and some of the tension left her shoulders, she put the tea tray on top of her king's desk as she tried thinking of what words to say. 

 

“Truthfully I do not know what to think of him. On one hand he is helping Issei even if its in a… unusual way and has told us there is a gathering of fallen angels hiding on the outskirts of town. But…” Akeno grimaced but continued speaking. “On the other hand I can't figure out why he has decided to ‘train’ us, what does he stand to gain from this? We know he doesn't know who your brother is, or the 72 pillars for that matter, so it can’t be him trying to get a favour from your brother or gain something from your parents. So what could it be?”

 

The three blinked as they processed what Akeno had said. What did Alicia gain from helping them? They knew he knew nothing about the supernatural society barring what they had told him so it couldn’t be him trying to gain some sort of standing with the devil community.

 

“He has great weapons and I don't believe he wants anymore of them to keep track of.”

 

“Has a lot of clothings.”

 

“Right, and I'm pretty sure he doesn’t want any magic tomes, well except those that explain our magic so he can figure out the difference between the two and how his magic could affect… anyone.” Rias mused.

 

“Excuse me president, but should we really look a gift horse in the mouth?” Kiba asked with a raised eyebrow. “Maybe he’s doing this because he wants to?”

 

“Familiarity.”

 

“What was that Koneko?” 

 

“Familiarity.” Koneko took a bite of a cookie before continuing. “Reminds him of home.”

 

The group thought about it for a second before deciding that it made some sense. Rias snapped her fingers as a thought accrued to her, before wilting.

 

“I don’t think that's healthy, mentally that is.” Rias muttered, Akeno heard her however and nodded.  “For now let's keep an eye on him, don’t worry Koneko this is so we can make sure he is ok.”

 

Koneko nodded and slowly relaxed, For now that was all they could do. She knew her friend was still hurting from the deaths of his closest companions and this is going to take his mind off of it for the time being. She just hopes he doesn’t get too into it, unlike that time they played video games together and Alicia lost track of what he was saying.

 

She still doesn’t know what a Maoi minstrel is except for the fact that it has something to do with clowns and the easter island heads...

 

(TCOD)

 

Alicia blinked and cocked his head as he stared at the scene in front of him. Once again in front of him Issei was walking with a girl, this time she was blonde. There was something odd about the way Issei seemed to get in these strange situations, almost like the devil had this sign that said ‘look at me!’ taped to his back and it had neon flashing lights around it.

 

‘I wonder how Rias is going to react to Issei spending time with a nun.’

 

For some odd reason he felt like things were going to get a lot more complicated.