Yeah, this actually DOES feature some people from Seiken Densetsu III, too!

Chapter 5, Darkness Spawn

Some time later...

Rakadra sighed, resting his chin on his fist and elbow on his bent knee as he sat back on his feet to watch the mess before him.

"You really aren't out for anything else than causing me trouble, are you?" he dryly said.

"It's not MY fault, you know," Slither pouted while brushing the black remains of the shattered eggshells from her tail.

He gave her a disdainful glare that made her smirk in return.

Sighing again, Rakadra reached into thin air and pulled out a grayish scroll.

"I will have to leave a message because of this," he grunted.

For once, he managed to leave Slither surprised.

"A message?" she repeated while plucking the last shards from between the folds of her curled up body.

Rakadra had meanwhile unrolled the scroll and was scratching what was supposedly leathery parchment with his pointing finger claw. The talon left dark lines wherever it went, which bit by bit formed peculiar runes as the half-blood continued to write.

"That," he muttered, "you will never be able to figure out."

"Aww, come on Raka- stop that, sweetie. I said stop that."

The last two sentences were not aimed at the demon lord. They were however accompanied by a rather nasty, scratching sound.

Rakadra absentmindedly reached out with his free hand, grabbed a small body and lifted it, ignoring the angry squeak.

"Sciel!" he shouted without even looking up.

A few moments passed, filled with the angry squeaking. Eventually the demonette melted into existence beside Slither's human parts.

"Don't tell me you..." she started.

She paused. And squealed.

"Adorable!"

Rakadra still didn't look up as he dropped the little squeaker in Sciel's grip. The carmilla easily fended off the violent protests and managed to grab her armful in a way that kept it from attacking further.

Slither intently watched this, resting on her upstretched arms with the hands planted on her tail's hightest coil.

"Don't worry dear, I'll give you a few pointers," the carmilla kindly promised.

Slither started to smile when the rolled up scroll almost hit Sciel straight in the face. She stopped it with a glare however, and it was left hanging in the air.

"First of all, bring that to its recipent," Rakadra rashly ordered.

"Aww, why the haste?" Sciel protested.

Rakadra stood up, grabbed the scroll again and turned it so that she could see what he had written on its outside; the destination. He grinned widely as the carmilla's eyes bulged.

"Because you might want to get it over with, my dear friend," he smirked.

"You're not serious."

She glared at him.

"You're not serious."

He grinned.

"You're not... WHY?!"

"That," Rakadra replied, pointing at the squirming shape that she held.

Sciel blinked.

"I'm not taking any chances. Get going!" the male demon snarled.

"You're missing a few, Rakky..."

With a deep sigh at his resolute glare she handed her burden over to Slither, grabbed the scroll and vanished.

"Come on now," the naga complained while wrestling the reason for the whole conversation, "who are you contacting?"

Rakadra spoke, and Slither literally dropped her problem.

Rakadra felt a nice, fuzzy smugness over the fact that he for once had managed to baffle the two gits completely. It didn't happen as often as he would have preferred.

~*~

Sciel exited the portal, muttering under her breath as she stalked off into the air, grasping the scroll so tightly that it almost crumbled. But it would take more than a highly distraught carmilla to break one of Rakadra's insignias.

She angrily grunted at the daylight, grateful that it at least was a cloudy day. Upon spotting a certain cave she landed and hurried into the blessed darkness of the tunnel, while she ruefully passed the shadows changing her appearance.

Her pale skin darkened to a healthier hue while her claws and teeth shrunk. The black, revealing succubus attire melted into a simple grey dress, fit for a traveler from Maia or Forcena. Oh how she hated this kind of clothing, but at least she could keep the cloak - even if that too had to change into grey wool, something to protect against the mountain winds. Her beloved high-heels became a pair of leather boots. Always something.

Sciel trotted up the path, completely ignoring the depths to her right. She didn't have to fear falling like any puny mortal.

Reaching the first destination was simple enough. It could of course be rather uncomfortable later.

Very uncomfortable.

And she really preferred uncomfortable down in the Netherworld, up here the risk of getting stuck in limbo was greater.

On top of that she had a sulking feeling that Rakadra just would grin triumphantly if she got sliced to pieces. Not that she would. But damn ungrateful kid...

She looked up as a greeting sounded through the air, smiling wearily at the two women on the higher plateau.

"I bear a message from Maia..." she hoarsely said, perfectly faking exhaust as she held up the scroll.

One of the guards even came to support her while the other opened the gate.

This would be the trickier part.

Three minutes later she threw the scroll on the green carpet covering the floor and leapt out of reach for the fist coming her way. While she took flight she wrapped herself in a veil of invisibility, but knowing that wouldn't fool the hunter she clung to the roof while watching the show and waiting for a good time to get out again.

At least he was easily distracted.

The scroll rolled open and grey smoke erupted from it, flowing over the floor like a muddy stream. The surprised shouts from the people of the room qucikly became shocked as an all too familiar figure rose from the origin of the dust.

"Hello, Kevin," Rakadra said, the corners of his lips tugging further upwards at the speed of which the king moved.

The half-beast was between Lise and the rest of the room before the half-demon had finished the greeting.

The valkyries reacted a little slower, but still quickly. Of course, if Rakadra had been able to, he would have been at Kevin's throat long before the female warriors had finished lining up between their royalties and the half-demon.

Rakadra held back a longing sigh at the thought. Oh well, that would have to wait...

"What do you want?!" Kevin snarled, his arms protectively spread out and his back to Lise.

The queen had pulled her spear from behind her throne, but stayed behind Kevin - more because he waved his hands in alarm whenever she made a move to step up beside him instead.

"As much as I want to rip out your guts, I'm afraid I can't in this shape," Rakadra said with a mirthless shrug, "this is nothing more than an illusion for messages."

Kevin growled, hardly about to lower his guard just because of a reassurance from his enemy. Nobody moved for a moment.

"Actually..."

Rakadra couldn't keep himself from grimacing.

"... I wouldn't do this unless I had a really good reason, you know."

No reply.

"My, how cold you people are. Oh well..."

He bent down and rummaged around in the smoke still covering the floor.

"Come here you little bastard... here I said!"

That one raised a few eyebrows. And far more than that as Rakadra with a triumphant snarl shot his hand forth and dragged a long, black and most notably twisting shape out of the mist. Even as he straightened up and raised his hand above his head, the snake tail of the new monster disappeared in the clouds below.

It was a snake. With a human baby's upper body, which was what Rakadra held.

Even on the distance, Kevin noticed with a sinking feeling that the demon spawn's eyes were horribly familiar.

"My daughter," Rakadra announced, his smile twitching as Lise and several of the valkyries pressed at least one hand against their mouths, eyes wide in horror.

Kevin's glare merely turned darker, which in itself was an accomplishment.

"Spawning," he grunted, with notable disgust.

The baby, meanwhile, curled her tail masterfully around her father's body and used that to wriggle out of his grip, moving her human part to his shoulder. Rakadra didn't move to stop her. However he did throw up two fingers of his right hand to block her attempt to claw out his eyes. She giggled at this, a creepy screeching sound.

"You seem surprisingly literal today," the half-demon smirked at Kevin, who scoffed, "but in any case, the thing about female demons are that they never do what they are to- YEOW!"

Even Kevin blinked in disbelief as Rakadra stumbled, with a snarl clawing for his triumphantly hissing child as she threw herself off him and dove for the smoke.

"Give me that!"

He got a hold of her neck and ripped his pointing finger from her tiny fangs, ignoring her protesting squeaking.

"Take your child, woman!" he snapped, shoving the baby backwards and leaving her hanging in the air.

Cursing under his breath he pressed the finger against the stump on his hand. Black sparks flew from the connection and after a couple of seconds Rakadra let go of himself, experimentally flexing all his fingers.

While he was doing this, a pair of hands holding the baby materialized, quickly followed by the arms. And then the rest of the body, the impossibly long form that was Slither. More than half of the valkyries took a step backwards, and even Kevin tensed in shock.

The grown naga had curled most of herself in a two-store circle around Rakadra, tilting her head with a faint snicker.

"My child?" she said, "she got all her color from you."

"You shut up."

The baby meanwhile curled up along her mother's tail and up on Slither's back. The grown demonette turned her head completely around and glared threateningly at the little form scratching her back.

"If you try to bite my neck I'll break your little backbone, understand?"

There was a sour squeak.

Rakadra glared at the two females for a moment, then began turning back to the more human part of the room while speaking.

"In any case, as I was saying..."

He paused, raised an eyebrow and smirked, crossing his arms.

"Nice shade of green, Kevin."

The king tried to growl, but the sound was rather muffled by his own hand. Lise held his right shoulder, glaring daggers at Rakadra as she tried to banish the mental images that plagued her husband's mind. Her own were very forcefully pressed down, but she wasn't sure how long she could keep them away.

"Did you come here just to make us nauseous with your love life or did you have something to say?" she snarled.

"Ah yes, what I came to deliver was actually a warning for this little eel," Rakadra said, pointing at the baby - from a safe distance.

He was met with a complete wall of silence. After spending a moment at chuckling hoarsely at the looks he was recieving, the demon half-blood picked up the speech again.

"Demon females are in their own way far worse than the males," he said, giving Slither a glare which she answered with a snicker, "they never do things as they should. This little bastard WILL doubtlessly go after YOUR little bastard as soon as she gets older, but I dare say that it won't be in the way that anyone of us wants."

"Wants?" Lise snarled in disbelief, unable to follow his reason.

Not that she was alone, or anything.

Rakadra rolled his eyes at the stupid humans' failing to understand.

"It's rather simple, fools," he said, "Kevin, you just teach Jason how demons smell so that he's cautious."

He once more pointed at the baby, who now was hanging from Slither's arm - in her teeth. The mother watched this with twisted pride.

"She's going to be some sort of siren demon, I assure you. So keep Jason on guard, I hate you people enough as it is. I don't want us to be..."

He had to pause and pinch the bridge of his nose before he could continue.

"... To be family as well."

And with that verbal bomb, he waved his right hand at the in a heartbeat ashen-faced crowd.

"Ta-ta for now. Hope to see you all in my clutches soon."

As he snapped his fingers, the images of the three demons shattered and dissipated as they fell towards the ground. Within a few seconds the smoke had settled, and left on the ground was only a charred carpet and a small heap of ashes that had been the parchment.

There was a few moments of silence.

"I..." Lise finally began, "I... need to... sit down..."

She crashed on Kevin's throne, which allowed the valkyries to seat themselves on the platform of the royal chairs as well. The king of Rolante, meanwhile, was rubbing his forehead with both hands.

"I'll be... right back..." he finally muttered and dashed towards the exit.

Sciel, who had thought that she would make it silently and invisible, desperately turned into a bat and just barely managed to flutter out of reach, diving for an open window and safely making it out, cursing Rakky all the way.

Muttering curses, Kevin stalked back to the throne room, shaking his head at the puzzled gazes he got.

"Lise," he eventually managed as he reached her slumped form.

"Yes?" she replied, pressing a hand against her stomach.

"I'll train with Jason now."

"Good... good, do that..."

Kevin slowly nodded and walked out of the throne room while pondering how much it would hurt to ask his father to help out in the training of the youngest generation.

E... n... d...?

I hope the fans of my older fic Those not Chosen enjoyed this, and of course any other readers of this as well.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to church and pray that God will have mercy on my soul for writing this.