Mother Malice

Disclaimer: I don't own Riviera nor any of its makers… blah blah blah don't sue me please.

Author's note- First chapter starts one day before Riviera begins, just to let you all know. This chapter will be told like a 3rd person following Ein, then it'll be Malice in later chapters (since the story is supposed to be about her), I'll let you know. Again, this is my first fanfic so please please PLEASE leave a review with constructive criticism; thank you ^_^

Chapter 1: Waking Up

Ein was tired, same as always. He woke up tired and went to sleep tired; and his fatigue had no mystery as to its origin: he was in a state the doctor he visited described as "Rookie's First Big Mission Syndrome", a very self-explanatory title. Tomorrow was the big day: the day he was to begin a long and most likely fatal mission across the heavenly island of Riviera to begin the Retribution, and see it through to the end. Ein was often anxious, nervous, depressed, all unhealthily mixed with confusion.

"Why me? Certainly there are many other angels who could do a much better job than me… I'm still new…" Ein often asked himself.

Ein's companion for the mission was Ledah, an angel infinitely more qualified and skilled compared to Ein. Ledah felt no fear at his first mission during the times of Ragnarok, which Ein wasn't even born until long after; making Ein feel still more inferior to his colleague.

If you put the two of them next to each other, their many differences become very apparant. For one, Ledah was at least a foot taller than Ein; two, Ein had brown chestnut-like hair, an oddity compared to Ledah's typical angel blond; and three, Ein was very... inexperienced looking just by himself, with Ledah Ein looked like a child wearing adult clothes with an angel's weapon- clothes that were too clean to have been in any sort of battle, shaky sword arm, and he had a very naive and innocent air about him. Ledah by sharp contrast was very imposing- his clothes were clean enough, but every few inches there were cut marks and stains (blood and/or dirt) placed in an almost uniform fashion; very calm, composed stance: both while fighting and when not; and an air that seemed to choke anyone nearby with experience, wisdom, strength, and authority. Clearly the two shouldn't be working together- just by a glance you could tell all that; A much better partner for Ledah would be Malice, Ein's mother.

Malice was just a hair shorter than Ledah, but she looked just as intimidating. It seemed Malice permanantly held a disgusted or angry look on her face (or at least most of the time), but especially when she was yelling at Ein for doing something foolish and when she talked to strangers, like Ledah. The two only met once before, and they were more alike than they seemed at a glance. Both were vastly ahead of Ein in experience and... age (just don't say that out loud), both had golden blond hair and fair skin, both were held in high esteem by the magi and both had some sort of connection with Ein- which was the only reason they met at all. Like Ein, her clothes were all clean almost to a point of obsession (she did all of the cleaning since Ein was often too lazy) but, unlike Ein or Ledah, she had a violent streak about her- she was never afraid to throw the first punch or to provoke it; a quality seen as very odd among disciplined angels- especially to both timid Ein and stone-faced Ledah. But her violence often stems from fixing Ein's mistakes or to protect him, once a fellow angel dared to call her "mama bear", which she took as a compliment; greatly surprising Ein who expected her to take his head off.

Few angels even tried to cheer Ein up from his depressed state- they mostly avoided him like he had some plague, mostly to not make themselves feel any worse- all except for Malice, but she always said words that Ein didn't always listen to; mostly including: "You're overreacting", or "It won't be as bad as you think". Rose also tried to cheer him up, and like Malice, had no success in doing so.

Today was Ein's last day on Asgard, probably forever, why should today be any different? Ein woke up the same, took a bath the same, got dressed the same, and didn't eat his breakfast the same and looked at the clock the same- 5:27 am; all before Malice or Rose even woke up, as usual.

Ein walked into the silent street, then promptly turned around and ascended the stairs to the roof of his whitewashed apartment building, where his holy diviner Einher Jar laid, ever so carefully with a clean white cloth wrapped carefully around its every curve.

Ein very carefully unwrapped Einher Jar and simply stared at if for a while, taking in its unique shape, color and shine. Something about the diviner just mesmerized Ein every time he saw it; it didn't seem to affect Malice the same way, or Rose or any other angel for that matter.

Once Ein was satisfied and utterly convinced in his still-tired mind that the diviner wasn't going to change no matter how long he looked at it for, Ein simply stared out at the street, now finally woken up and bustling with people going about their daily business. Ein was surprised, to say the least; he must've been looking at his sword for at least a couple hours.

Ein stared out at the street just for something to do, and as always he found something to gawk at at the hot springs just across the street.

Three radiant beauties were sitting in the women's section of the springs, talking ever so softly and blissfully unaware of Ein staring at their every movement, listening to their every sound. Ein couldn't recognize any of the three, but that didn't matter. Ein guessed that the three were all sisters, two of them probably twins due to their uncanny resemblance to one another (at least from what Ein could tell from no less than 30 feet away).

Ein reminisced about when he was young and wanted to live in this particular apartment because "it had a nice view" once Ein grew up he realized how true his words were as a child- and so did Malice sometimes.

Ein refocused his attention on the springs. Like most angels, all three had golden blond hair- two with long hair just past their shoulders and one with extremely long hair past her… perfect… waist area… (Ein stared at her the longest) Other than hair length and other… more perverse features; Ein could see little detail due to the steam from the springs and distance between them.

Ein stared for what he supposed was at least 15 minutes, and none of them even thought of looking up and seeing his face not 50 feet away. Unknown to Ein, however, he was already discovered; Malice was right behind him and waiting for the right moment to finally sink her boot into his back for peeping (again). But she hesitated; the perfect moment didn't seem to come, so finally she decided to kick him repeatedly anyways. Ein was caught completely by surprise, then as a reflex he turned around and got a punch to the face, causing his second nosebleed for the day and effectively knocking him off his feet.

"Don't you ever learn?" Malice barked once she dragged Ein back inside. Malice was way past angry, as she often was with Ein whenever he did something like this.

"No" Ein said simply, he didn't care, he decided a while ago that if he died on his mission tomorrow it didn't matter what he did today.

Malice was caught slightly off guard from Ein's simple reply to her demanding question (normally Ein's excuses are some crazy story like he was walking in the street and a giant kung-fu trained talking snail attacked him blah blah all lies, more than 95% of the time made up on the spot), but it didn't really surprise her at his simplicity, he was clinically depressed.

"Ein, this isn't the best thing to do on your last day before your mission; you should be preparing and getting everything together so you don't forget to bring anything essential..." Malice continued lecturing Ein on the importanceof being prepared, but it was all mostly repetition of what she just said, so Ein sort of spaced out subtly, he didn't want another beating.

"If you were to forget something like... Are you even listening!?" Malice yelled, probably as loud as she could muster this early in the morning.

"Of course I was, last time I didn't listen you yelled even louder." Ein said back, relatively calmly.

The last time Ein dared to not listen to Malice was when Ein first took the test to become a Grim Angel, just after the physical examination part of the test. Malice was much stronger than Ein, and while she was proud of him that he passed, she told him all of the things he should have done, a lecture which lasted for a few hours. Ein decided not to listen after the first few minutes, so once she figured out she did more than just yell, she punched him square in the stomach; after which he listened carefully to everything she said.

"What did I just say then?" Malice demanded, quite coldly.

"Does it matter what your last words were?" Ein said, feigning sadness to cleverly manipulate Malice to re-focus her attention on his depression rather than his recent actions.

While Malice was busy apologizing, Ein quickly glanced around the room for Rose, and had no luck in doing so.

"Where's Rose?" Ein asked

"If you were paying any attention at all when I told you not to forget important things, then you would know Rose is in the kitchen eating her breakfast, like you should be!" Malice scolded, not quite as loud as before.

"Yes, mother" Ein said pathetically (he only called Malice his mother when she acted like it, like if she constantly nagged him or demanded him to do domething in a bossy way- this time was both) there was really no point arguing against eating; after all this excitement this morning he was quite hungry, maybe a bit of food will do some good... or not...

A slice of bread (stale), 3 pieces of charred black bacon, and a hopefully fresh piece of fruit made up the whole of Ein's breakfast; a bit better than usual. Rose enjoyed the fact that she ate better than Ein, and she often teased him about it, to both her own and Malice's pleasure.

With a valiant effort Ein managed to finish his meal, then he left to go to his last day for battle training; which most angels enjoyed.

At least it's gotta be more exciting than anything going on here. Ein thought as he left. Since ma expects me to peep again.

Author's Note- reading my reviews (or review for now), gave me the impression that I didn't clarify why Malice was hitting Ein, so I will endeavor to explain that now. I don't support hitting children, but this is a different world I'm writing about with different measurements on what is ok when it comes to parenting; since angels are expected to be disciplined, they need strict punishments as children- in other words: hitting. Besides, Ein is pretty much an adult doing adult things (I can think of a few off the top of my head- saving the world and peeping on girls included, although I suppose it doesn't take an adult to save the world) Obviously that doesn't mean I think it's ok... in most cases...