Chapter 6: Not OP? Just Do What You Can Do ( ͡^ ︵ ͡^*)
One minute Max was getting ready to die by either suffocation or gutting the next minute she was flying. Ah, the breeze on her face felt so nice! Eh? Wait a moment. Flying? Breeze?
...???
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! Max screamed internally as the forest below passed in a green smear of colors. Why! Why! She just wanted a little bit of help. Nothing too complicated was this necessary? Max felt a scale on her brow crinkle as she tapped her jaw with her tail. If only she could remember what had happened.
Between her strangulation and future gutting, things were kinda' hazy for her. If Max were being honest with herself, she had thought she was a goner. It was frustrating. She had done everything she could to escape but it hadn't been enough. That particular thought was disconcerting and scary truth be told. Doing everything in your power to live and you survived by either dumb luck or the grace of Sage. Most likely, Sage, Max settled on.
Max let out a sigh or rather hiss of displeasure. this was not acceptable. She had learned from a young age, even though handouts were great, they were like little deals. If I do this for you then you need to do "blah". The askings were not always bad or negative, and sometimes it had really benefitted her but that had only been some of the time though. Before Max had been taken in by the government, Max had lived a less than wholesome life.
Before you judge, Max didn't know any different. Sure some of the things she'd been asked to do felt wrong but what was that in the face of surviving? Her environment dictated the requirements to live to the next day and Max met them. Enough said.
That changed though when a caseworker picked her up. Max had to not relearn, but adapt to a completely different type of society. The two ways of living were so different. It was here that Max learned that she could not just survive, but live. That there was more to life than the small joys of having a full stomach, although Max loved that feeling most, even to this day.
The point was that she did not have to be indebted to anyone or required to do things for others just to make it to the next day. There was no need to ask others, to make deals. She could live on her own terms and she had the luxury of saying "No."
Max nodded her head. Yes, it was best if she was independent. Her shamelessness when it came to Sage was different of course. Max was thick-skinned enough to admit this to herself. To be fair though, Sage was not human and lived by a different set of rules than any human Max knew. Which was obvious because Sage was not human. Therefore her reliance on and backing of one Nature deity was not applicable to Max's somewhat hypocritical and murky code of living.
Over the time that Max 'developed' Sage as a character, she got to know them inside and out. Maybe her Sage reliance wasn't hypocritical if she considered the fact that Sage had been with her long enough for their personalities to sort of mesh. Like the type of friendship that is so deep that it just seems like it's one soul, but two bodies.
Weird? Yes, yes it was, considering that until recently, Max had thought that Sage was a made-up character. The scale crinkled more as Max's azure eyes became slits. That was unlikely though. This whole situation was definitely beyond her capacity to make up for one and it just felt too real to be anything but real.
That said, Max wriggled happily, it was time to focus on more current pressing matters. Max tapped her scaley brow with the end of her tail in thought. That boom though? Multiple scales crinkled as Max shut her eyes, her brain hurting to piece together what had happened.
Hmm... Nope. She's got nothing. Might as well focus on what she can do right?
Right. The little snake slumped. She was still flying through the air and frankly, she was starting to get a little worried. It certainly made more sense that this was an act of Sage, and if Max was correct then either she or the vegetable crew had pissed off a veritable force of nature.
Max looked down at the green smear below and concluded it was most likely a bit of both. Great just what she needed. Max internally sighed despondently and added it to the growing list of issues to be dealt with at a later point in time and mentally shoved it into a filing cabinet for a later groveling session. That done, Max could deal with her biggest issues at hand:
1. When would she land.
2. How would she land.
3. If she'd live to enjoy the landing.
Given the constant green smear below with no visuals on any other potentially crazy village places that sadistically choked out poor defenseless snakes before gutting, Max needed to find an upgraded 'starting point' for herself. Max let out a hiss-like sigh and straightened out. Might as well enjoy her super-snakiness while it lasted especially since her small but aerodynamic form is still going strong.
Weeeeeeeeee!
The small black snake's azure eyes sparkled, and her eyes curved up while her inky scales reflected the heroic red sunset. Max couldn't help but imagine how her glorious self must appear to be. A dashing figure clad in black scales, flying into the sunset of a new land. Yes, this is what adventures are made of. Max could imagine it now. All the gold, and lovely-
ACK!
And just that quick her dreams of carefree OP adventures were destroyed.
'Ah. Hello Sage!' Max called out cheerfully she wrapped herself up as the angry nature deity's wrist while they glowered.
"Really? Not even a week." Sage gritted, their eyes literally on fire from irritation. If it wasn't for the fact that Max was, well Max. Sage would not have even lifted a finger. This was ridiculous. Not even a week had passed and she was almost killed. Something about that made Sage uncomfortable. Strange.
When Neith had first approached Sage about her ploy to bring Arin back to their world Sage had disagreed. It was only when Sage found out that Arin had forcibly kept herself on Earth, avoiding their tricks to bring the little she-devil back. At last count, a total of 3,237 others had ended up transmigrating or reincarnating in Arin's place due to her god-level abilities to dodge and evade. That in and of itself had been catastrophic. Eventually, Neith had made an agreement with Sage and thus Sage started the process of bringing Arin and a +1 over to their world.
Sage had only spent a few years with Max but sometime during their adventures, Max had become, important. There it was again, that feeling. Irritated, Sage focused back on Max, they'd figured out what was wrong with their chest later.
"Ah Sage, be careful! Make sure not to grit your teeth so hard. What if you cut yourself with your teeth!" Max thought. Her Sage was far too lovely for even a single scratch.
Sage's fiery gaze widened and their eyes cooled down in surprise taken aback by the little snake's thoughts. That hesitation was just what Max needed to shamelessly slither coyly around their hand.
"Ah, my lovely Sage, how I missed you, come let us journey together!" Max fluttered her non-existent eyelashes at the deity. Max may not be OP but that didn't mean that she could not cling to the OP.
The fires that had cooled blazed anew at the audacity of this young mortal. Ah so perhaps that achy chest feeling was just irritation. The urge to smite the irritating snake was so strong that Sage could feel the very fabric of the existence begin to warp.
Max started backtracking as the air around them cooled exponentially. Her azure eyes misting up like a white lotus wronged by a thousand tragedies, as she put her all into surviving Sage's wrath. For her future, she can live with the OP. For her life, she can soothe the OP!
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone