First Demonic Dragon

*Whisper* "I thought she had multiple mommies…"

*Whisper* "The teacher looks disappointed for some reason. Do you think she wanted to see somebody else?"

The clicking of heels echoed off the classroom floor as a woman took center stage in front of the children.

Wearing a very professional white pantsuit and smart glasses to match, Lailah was her husband\'s sexy professor fantasy personified.

Parents around the room were split in terms of their feelings.

Women were jealous and very disappointed that Courtney\'s famously handsome father hadn\'t shown up.

Men were extremely glad that he hadn\'t shown up and that he had sent such a lovely specimen in his place.

Lailah could hear all of their thoughts quite well and was already planning to curse them with bleeding from every open pore on their body.

But she was here for Courtney and the kids, so all acts of murderous rage were going to have to wait.

"Hello, children! Today I am here to teach you about the exciting field of zoology, or more specifically; herpetology!"

When she heard her cue, Courtney pressed a button on a speaker and turned down the classroom lights.

*Bill Nye theme song begins playing*

The familiar beat to the loveable children\'s tv show began to play; but the lyrics were intentionally dubbed over in favor of Lailah\'s own.

She was also a bit of a showman you know?

She dramatically lifted up her arm and an adorable and rare blue insularis slid out of her jacket sleeve.

The kids went wild.

"Oooh..!"

"She has a snake! She has a snakeee!"

"Kyaaa!"

Some were enamored, some were frightened. But Lailah did a great job of quelling all of their reactions and eliciting only awe.

"It\'s alright, kids, I promise. This is just Mr. Bernie. Will you say hi Bernie?"

All of the parents nearly fell over onto their faces when the snake lifted up it\'s tail and literally waived it at the room.

"See, my babies? He\'s not very scary at all." She smiled.

One little boy raised his hand up with such desperation that you\'d think he was about to pee on himself.

"Oh? A question already?"

"Y-Yes ma\'am! What does a herpes-ologist do??"

Lailah almost dropped Mr. Bernie when she snickered.

"A herpetologist, dear, is a person who studies reptiles and… amphibians!"

*Ribbet!*

The men, and a couple of women who \'played around\' in college were the first ones to notice Lailah\'s breast start moving.

A splendidly colored red-eyed tree frog crawled out of her coat pocket and rubbed it\'s eyes as if it were interrupted from a long nap.

"It\'s a froggggg!!!"

"He\'s so ugly!"

"I want one!!"

Lailah smiled to herself a bit; delighting in the simple revelry of these kids\' attention.

In Tehom, Lailah is quite the feared individual. Possibly even more than her husband.

She is the goddess of domination; making her a turse and cold figure who citizens tended to unconsciously avoid due to her natural dominating presence.

Though she is often showered with praise and admiration whenever she has the chance to speak publicly or give a lecture, her demeanor is still known to be rather frightening.

It was nice to see that these kids were so enamored with her just because she was holding up a few animals.

She ended up pulling out another toad, a baby boa constrictor, and a salamander to show the class.

To keep the children engaged, she used brightly decorated charts and colorful explanations to stoke their interest in the animals.

As she planned, she used real pie charts in her explanations of population percentages and other data, and when she was done, both the children and the parents were allowed to eat them.

Luckily these pies came from a regular old bakery, so no one would have difficulty eating regular food after this.

"Alright, kids! Once you\'ve washed your hands then you can come up here and give any of these good boys a good petting!"

The salamander and the tree frog stared at Lailah.

"A-And good girls too of course." She blushed.

A cute but orderly line full of kindergarteners formed in front of Lailah, all buzzing with excitement.

Courtney sat in her desk and poked at the slice of pie on her plate; unsure if she should try to eat it.

\'Empress swapped yours out with a pie from home, princess. Eating it should be fine.\' Adeline urged from within the shadows.

"Eh? You promise?"

\'W-Well if you don\'t want it, then I could always-\'

"N-No!" Courtney practically buried her face in the pie; finding herself delighted by its warmth and fragrant taste.

"Courtney!!!"

Little Fae came running up to her new best friend on cloud nine; absolutely buzzing with excitement.

"Your mom is so cool! Can I have her?!"

On the wall, a werewolf man turned his head in the opposite direction. Pretending that he never heard anything was definitely the way to go.

Courtney, who was used to being the baby in the house, did not always like sharing her parents.

"No, she\'s my mommy!"

"Eh?! But we could be sisters!"

Courtney visualized that future, and for a moment her jealousy seemed to fade in favor of this plan.

"Hmm… What does your mommy look like? I should ask my daddy if he wants to marry her."

It was getting harder and harder for Fae\'s dad to pretend he wasn\'t hearing any of this.

The little werewolf finally sat down and sighed in disappointment at the sight of an empty seat at their table.

"It\'s too bad that Kaela didn\'t come to school today. She likes weird stuff like this a lot."

Courtney also looked at the empty seat and for a moment it seemed like she was also regretting her friend\'s absence.

"Yea… b-but my daddy says that I can have friends come over and play whenever I want! So I will just invite her over when she gets back!"

Little Fae\'s ears drooped and her eyes became watery.

"W-What about me..?"

"What about you?"

"Why aren\'t I invited?!"

"You are?"

"Eh?"

"Huh?"

The two young girls simply stared at each other in confusion.

The misunderstanding was resolved shortly after, and Courtney had tentatively planned her first ever play date.

-

*Cough, cough*

A small voice echoed along the walls of a dark bedroom.

Despite belonging to a child, the space itself was neat and tidy and displayed an obvious maturity.

In the bed, five year old Kaela Nagumo was sweating profusely as she tried to overcome her fever.

Most kids her age delight in being sick because it means that they don\'t have to go to school, but Kaela was quite the opposite.

She liked socializing and making new friends and getting to do macaroni art and meaningless little projects.

Even though she was a bit of a reserved child, she still had quite a depth of personality despite her difficulty showing it.

\'It\'s a shame I had to miss career day too…\'

It would\'ve been nice to see and hear about what everyone\'s parents did for work.

But then again, would that not have made her feel a bit left out since she couldn\'t bring her own..?

*Click!*

The electronic door slid open on it\'s own; prompting Kaela to sit up.

A man in a wheelchair came wheeling into the room with a tray on his lap; surprising the young girl in bed.

"Father…?"

Shin Nagumo made a pitiful expression as he looked down.

"Perhaps I have done a bad job as a guardian if my own child is surprised to see me at home… I wonder what he might say to me if he could see this state of mine..?"

Kaela didn\'t understand what her old man was talking about, or who he could\'ve possibly been referring to.

And Shin eventually seemed to realize that judging by the way he shook off his thoughts of melancholy.

"I-I\'ve brought you some udon and a bit of medicine… family recipe sort of thing."

"The medicine?"

"N-No, just the soup." The director wheeled forward in embarrassment and approached his daughter\'s bedside.

He\'d asked the chef what sort of flavors Kaela liked best in order to prepare this.

It was his first time cooking in years, but he made sure to season liberally and add a decent amount of spice within.

He also made sure to use a lighter stock so that it wouldn\'t be too heavy on her stomach.

"It smells nice…" Kaela\'s eyes took on a special sort of glimmer whenever she saw food; whether she was sick or otherwise.

"Easy now, girl… Take this medicine first." Shin offered.

He watched as his daughter begin the difficult process of taking pills without choking.

Shin wiped her brow of sweat with a damp towel, and felt the heat coming off her small frame.

"I\'m sorry… Ordinarily your genetics would\'ve been enhanced so that you would be immune to infectious diseases and sicknesses, but I\'m afraid you\'re still too young for the treatments. Your body needs to develop its own immune system before we build upon what you have."

"I understand." Kaela shrugged. "I\'m not mad, father."

"I see… good then."

The father and daughter not related by blood sat in silence for a while.

She was busy eating and regaining her strength.

He was trying to think of something to say after being an absentee guardian for the year she\'d been in his life.

"…Is school good?"

"Yea."

"That\'s good… Are any boys bothering you?"

"Not really."

"That\'s wonderful." He nodded in true satisfaction.

Kaela paused just shy of eating another spoonful and stared down at her father\'s new mode of transportation.

"Why are you in a wheelchair..?"

"Oh, this… it\'s not particularly a story for children. Do you still want to hear it?"

Unsurprisingly, Kaela nodded.

And against his better judgment, Shin found himself telling her.

"I suppose… It all started when I heard about a being named Abaddon Tathamet."