First Demonic Dragon

Chapter 1068: The Faces of Abaddon

Little Askari and Reken were already walking. And they were good at it.

As such, it wasn’t super uncommon for them to wander about the house when their mothers sent them to stay with their extended family for a night or two.

The house was enchanted with a very low level of sentience so that the kids couldn’t accidentally hurt themselves by wandering into the armory or the oven. Their paths would be redirected.

As long as they didn’t wander anywhere near Satan, they were pretty much fine.

No one intervened much because they believed they were encouraging a child’s natural curiosity about the world.

When Askari and Reken got together with their baby, Aunt and Uncle, who were also very mobile, the sky was the limit.

The four of them found themselves wandering all over the place quite often. Usually with limited supervision.

Today, however, they at least had Camazotz watching them. If only because he felt a need to quell his own boredom. Watching Mira sleep wasn’t terribly exciting after all.

However, apparently neither were the kids. Because for the past three minutes, they had done nothing but stand still and stare at the front door.

Or more accurately, the people they didn’t recognize standing in front of it.

A white robed man and woman floated just inches above the ground. As if they couldn’t allow for their radiance to be stained by such a dark place.

They both had a deceptively youthful appearance. The man had raven black hair that fell below his waist, and a long grey beard to match.

Beside him, the woman was almost the spitting image of Amaterasu. She had long steel-grey hair and piercing yellow eyes instead of orange ones.

Her features were soft and subtle, but impactful. If she had left the house more, she could have perhaps given a goddess like Aphrodite a run for her money.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light behind them, and Ammaterasu herself appeared behind them.

Her usually expressionless face contained minuscule traces of frustration.

“…Ojisan. Obasaan. I believed I asked you to wait for me-”

“Why do they stare at us..?” Omodaru’s voice reverberated like a deep echo. It was a mystic and powerful sound.

Amaterasu followed their gaze downward, to where a small fleet of toddlers and infants stood.

She understood even less about what was going on than her parents did. “I… erm..”

“Gaba.” K’ael pointed.

“They say you are all small.” Camazotz informed. “Take no offence to it, they are known to do it to a few household members after all.”

“…What do you mean we are… small?” Kashiko-ne questioned.

“Height-wise.” Camazoztz shrugged. “You know how children are. They stare at anyone who seems a bit different from the norm they are used to.”

“Amu.” Reken touched the bottom of Odomaru’s foot.

Camazotz nodded approvingly. “The golden boys don’t have a problem with it, since two of their mothers are pretty short as well. They want you not to be ashamed.”

Odomaru’s brow twitched.

“Do you mean to tell me… these children have been staring at us because they believe we are afflicted with dwarfism..?”

“That is exactly what Camazotz is saying, yes.” The bat nodded fervently.

For the first time, Amaterasu covered her lips so that she would not laugh.

Her grandparents expanded themselves without waiting for another second. They went from being around 5’9, to well over six feet.

The children lost interest almost immediately.

They started to waddle off to another corner of the house with Camazotz acting as their escort.

“Ah, wait a minute…”

Amaterasu appeared in front of K’ael to stop him. He stared up at her innocently.

The goddess reached inside the folds of her sleeves and removed a small children’s toy.

“For you.” She handed it to him.

K’ael’s response to this was, of course, to take the toy and inspect it curiously.

After finding it sufficient, he put the leg of the figure in his mouth and proceeded to gnaw on it.

Amaterasu figured that was about as big of a seal of approval as she was going to get from someone who couldn’t write their own name yet.

“How sweet of you. I’m touched.”

In a flash of light, Izanami appeared in the room with a smile on her face and the aura of a true empress.

For a moment, neither her father nor her mother recognized her.

They say you glow a little bit differently when someone’s loving you correctly. Izanaki was proof that there was more than a little bit of truth in that old phrase.

Omodaru and Kashiko-Ne surveyed her very carefully. They were surprised at how tall she was, or how tall she was making herself.

They also half-expected to see horns coming out of her head…

Izanami took Amaterasu’s hands in her own. “I didn’t know you were coming, daughter. I’m sure Apophis will be thrilled to see you.”

*Ahem* “Well, be that as it may… It’s not as if I’ve come here for him.”

“Oh? I see.” Izanami giggled.

She turned her head from her daughter and faced her parents with a coolness that was not at all indicative of how panicked she felt inside.

“Father, mother. I am pleased to see you are both well.” Izanami lowered her head.

Her parents bowed back, if only because they were in the domain of another monarch and did not wish to be rude.

“It took you some time to respond to our summons. We thought you dead until Asherah informed us that was not the case.”

Izanami nodded. “Yes, I was away on business at the time. I would not have ignored you otherwise.”

That was a lie. Izanami had been ignoring them since she got back, and it had only been a few days.

Omodaru looked around.

“I assume he can see and hear us… Yet your husband does not show himself?”

Izanami’s brow twitched.

“He’s… indisposed, at the moment. But it is my hope that he will join us before long.”

“In that time, you’ll have to settle for us.”

Ayaana and Sif finally made their presences known, and Izanami became significantly less fretful.

“….It makes no difference to us.” Omodaru shrugged.

“Wonderful. Allow us to show you to the terrace then.”

Ayaana held out her hand and opened up a portal for them to step through.

As Ayaana had said, they arrived on a grand terrace made of black stone.

A metal table sat outside with twelve seats that pulled themselves out every time they sensed someone coming close.

There were two large window doors that provided a view into the living room’s interior.

Ayaana, Sif, and Izanami sat down together. They waited for Omodaru and Kashiko-ne to do the same.

However, they stood just above their seats. Their eyes were trained on something behind them.

Omodaru pointed. “Is that… Nyx and Hera? And…”

Slowly, the wives turned around and stared into the living room.

What seemed like an innocent conversation between three women was a bit more eye-opening if one took a second look.

Hera and Nyx both had their hair wrapped up and wore some type of white face mask. They also did not appear to be wearing bras, and their only clothes were oversized sweatshirts that looked like nightgowns on them.

That was fine. It was basically how they were always dressed at home.

Karliah was the real problem.

Not because she only wore a sports bra and sweatpants, those things were normal.

It was the fact that she had two men and a woman on leashes that made everything seem so chaotic.

“…” Sif waved her hand, and a wall of frost covered the window.

“W-We just like to be comfortable here, y’know..? Our family is very close and doesn’t really bother keeping up appearances. That’s what life outside is for.” She smiled nervously.

“Yes, but the-” Kashiko-ne began.

“Y-You’ve traveled a long way; we’re sure you must be famished. We weren’t sure what you might like, so…”

Ayaana snapped her fingers, and an array of different dishes appeared on the table.

At the same time, Ayaana telepathically yelled at her mother, who knew better than to bring the subs she was training into the house.

When Karliah realized she’d been spotted, the color drained from her face.

She picked up her conquests with one arm and ran out of the house with them on her shoulder. One could hear Nyx and Hera laughing from outside.

“S-S-Shall we eat..?” Izanami smiled nervously.

In the back of her mind, she prayed that Abaddon would show up quickly and save her from this flaming disaster.

–

“I’m going to be stuck here forever.”

In a dark plane of existence, Abaddon was on the verge of going insane.

He stood above a sea of jagged puzzle pieces that looked to be numerous enough to fill his entire living room.

When together, he had no idea what they would show him, but he was quickly learning that he didn’t like puzzles.

They were fine when he was doing them with the children, or when he had telekinetic powers, or his mind worked incomparably faster than a supercomputer.

But when it was just him in a weird mindscape? Ass. That was the only word he could think of for whoever had come up with this nefarious torture.

And due to Valerie’s little blue key, things were becoming much more surreal…

“That piece doesn’t go that way, you fucking idiot!”

“How the hell do you know, tubby? I don’t even have a clue!”

“I’m the version of us with all of the brains, idiot!”

“Hey guys, I resent tha-”

“”No one asked you, make-a-wish bastard!!””

Abaddon watched as nine other versions of himself from the past engaged in heated squabbles with one another.

Everything from fights to name-calling to fire-breathing had been done.

When Abaddon got out of here, he was going to put a lock on Valerie’s forge. It was the only way he could see to prevent her from making calamitous trinkets in the future.

“Mes, mes, please calm down. Let’s figure out a way out of this…or kill ourselves. Whichever comes first.”

Some of you may think that my self insert is Oblivion. You would be incorrect.

My true self insert? One of the men Karliah keeps on a leash.