Author: can't wait to have a baby on my chest instead of zits. Darn you stupid preggy-mones. But August 27th nears...almost there.

It really was going to be a quick job, he thought, as Merlin directed him to a skyriser of city apartments a mile or so from the bar. Dianne, per the usual, rode in the back of his truck, her favorite mode of transportation. Yeah, illegal, but most cops got tangled up in trying to decide if having a girl that big inside a vehicle wasn't a greater crime.

Looking up to the forty-second floor, where their target supposedly lived, Meliodas let out a low whistle.

"Never ceases to impress me how tall these buildings can get," he said.

"Funny, coming from you," said Merlin as she closed the truck door behind her.

"I like it. It's nice being next to something that makes me feel so small and normal," said Dianne chirpily.

"Honey, you're the most normal out of the lot of us," said Merlin.

"You really mean that?"

"I can back that up," said Meliodas, folding his hands behind his head and all but skipping to the lobby doors. And it was true. Besides her size, Dianne had the most normal, healthy personality. She really was just a cute little girl in a big body.

"Wait, we're going to have to take an elevator aren't we?" she paused just outside the glass doors.

"It'll be fine!" called Meliodas. "It's late, we're probably going to be the only ones in there.

"And if you're that scared, I can always just levitate," said Merlin. It might have sounded like a more thoughtful offer if she didn't have that ever-present mischievous, 'everyone-are-just-potential-lab-rats-to-me' smirk.

"No...no I'll probably be okay," she said. "Really fat people ride them all the time, after all."

"Thus probably why they're fat," said Meliodas, chuckling. The giantess really was refreshing to be around.

Into the elevator. Though he could feel their velocity, it was a few minutes before the elevator came to their stop. He kept his hand on Dianne's elbow, which reached the top of his head, as they stepped out and it was obvious her knees were shaking. She turned grateful eyes to him, and he returned it with a welcoming smile. Despite the size difference, they both knew Meliodas had the strength to make his gesture more than just a thought.

The place didn't smell new, nor did it smell old, which meant the building hadn't been around too long, or it was meticulously cleaned. The industrial carpet was clean enough, and the door they came to was as unremarkable as the next.

"Alright, Dianne," Meliodas withdrew his hand and stepped away.

Still trembling a bit, Dianne, whose hair brushed the ceiling, nodded, and crouched down to the level of the door. She reached for the handle, which vanished in her biggie-size hand.

A loud snap issued, but it was brief enough that most wouldn't think much of it. Far more inconspicuous than beating the door down, and with all these electronic keys nowadays, far more efficient. Though, having Gowther around usually was the quickest, quietest way to break and enter places they weren't supposed to go, no matter the lock.

The door opened up silently, thankfully. Meliodas padded in with perfected silence, while Merlin didn't even bother and floated through, her feet inches off the floor. Dianne just crawled in. Worked as good as anything.

She closed the door behind them.

He let his senses loose, which quickly zoomed in on the living presence laying on the couch in the living room ahead. Knowing he probably had the best line of sight, given darkness was his element, Meliodas led the girls behind him. The moment he stepped into the living room, Merlin used telekinesis to flip on the lights.

The woman on the sofa hissed and curled in on herself. He could already pick out the otherworldly beauty, though most of her hid underneath a blanket and her own thick, wavy black hair.

"Yo," said Meliodas.

Every muscle in her body went rigid. She didn't need to see them in order to sense their power levels, and based off what he sensed, they were more than enough for her.

"Sorry to come so late, but we're here to evict you," he said, all happy charm. "You can either return to the Demon Realm on your own volition, or we'll kill you."

The curtain of hair parted and the barest trace of ivory skin and glimmering eyes poked through.

"Your strength alone doesn't give you authority," she murmured, her voice silken and soft, just as he expected it to be.

Something, a memory just out of grasp, tickled the back of his mind.

"You're right," he said, still holding to his positive tone, hoping to play down the threat they obviously were…and just longtime habit. "But these nifty little tattoos from Earth-King Bartra should do the trick."

More of her oval-shaped face appeared as she jutted her chin out to see. Meliodas flexed his arm and lifted his work uniform's sleeve to put the red, round dragon tattoo on display. Dianne followed suit lifting up a leg of her shorts to show a red snake in the same style on her thigh. Merlin just floated there, her matching boar tattoo on her neck already proudly displayed.

He managed to get a quick look of the beautiful, yet familiar features attributed to succubae and incubi before she ducked her face back into the darkness of her hair.

"I've done no wrong."

"I got a terrified employee of yours that says otherwise."

"You need two witnesses—"

"Technically we need none," said Merlin, always willing to step in to dominate. "Your presence on the Mortal Plane is witness enough. Leave or be terminated."

The succubus sat up, slowly, languidly. The blanket drew back to reveal more perfect, ivory skin, displayed by a simple, yet revealing purple tank top and a set of boy cut panties. Long, curvy legs pulled out from beneath the blanket, their paleness practically glowing in the mix of yellow lamp and half-moon light from the living room windows.

"This is my home," she murmured, still low, still all silken smoothness. Then her eyes appeared, almond shape and bright, looking straight at Meliodas. "I don't see you returning." Her eyes then snapped to Dianne. "Or you."

Meliodas shrugged. "We got permission."

"How do you know I don't?"

"Because you don't," said Merlin, bringing a hand from her hip, a black, glass ball appearing just above her hand, where it floated as steadily as she did. "I would know."

Faster than most humans could blink, the beauty attacked, nails thickening to claws, pouting lips thinning with bared fangs, and black wings unfurling like rolls of cloth from her back to paddle the air.

But Meliodas wasn't human either. Faster than she, he stepped to the side and caught the succubus by the back of her hair, eliciting a scream as she jerked to a stop right before slamming into the half-standing Dianne.

"If you hadn't gotten so jealous over your girls' relationships, we probably would have never found you," Meliodas said conversationally before throwing her to the floor with enough strength to vibrate the entire apartment.

She hissed, still managing to be the picture perfect idea of seductress even with her eyes black with demonic fury and her mouth full of knives. Claws raked at Meliodas's hand.

And then, suddenly, they weren't, as his hand released of its own accord.

"Captain," started Merlin tersely.

But he barely heard her. The tickling memory at the back of his mind had burst into light, and the vividness of his remembrance momentarily flooded his senses. Silver hair, smooth skin, a warm, almost divine light…

His breath caught as pure beauty, real beauty, his beauty, stretched out her arms to him, as pure and fair as the succubus had been dark and tempting.

But there's no such thing as reincarnation…

Merlin and Dianne's shouts snapped back to him, ice water over his head. His senses whirled back. The succubus had slithered away from his sight to attack while he had stood there stunned beneath the hit of mind magic. If he hadn't been so, well, old—

He whirled about, all go-lucky pretense gone. Merlin had the perfect cube up to protect the apartment and not alarm any of the neighbors, while Dianne wrestled a very angry, cat-like succubus in the pink, glowing cage. Deep scratches about her body slowly trickled blood, staining her white, grumpy cat t-shirt and dripping into her eye.

"I really don't want to do this," Dianne said above the angry spitting and hissing.

"Like hell," snarled the succubus as she tore out two handfuls of brown hair. It made Dianne flinch enough for the demoness to wriggle free, like some slimy worm, and come down on the giantess's face with all her claws pointing down.

And then Meliodas was in there, hand retracting a blade from the ether of his own darkness, chest hot with rage.

Not taking the time to thank Merlin for transporting him into the unbreakable Perfect Cube, he swung out, black and purple flames lacerating the air to reach the winged vixen pawing at his comrade's face.

The head of beautiful, thick black hair flew back in a screech.

He didn't need to slash again. Instead, he merely tightened his fists.

The flames dove in.

Within a breath, the succubus had been reduced to nothing. Not even ash.

Meliodas crossed the short distance to Dianne as Merlin dispersed the Perfect Cube. He didn't even notice how small his calloused hand seemed against her large face.

"She didn't get your eyes, did you?" he asked, even as he wiped away the blood. Thankfully, he felt no cuts that had met their mark.

"I don't think so," Dianne's gaze fluttered to him and she smiled. "Yep. A-ok, Captain."

"Good. Merlin, think you can patch her up before cleanup duty?"

"Course." She flashed her imperious smile, which looked even more devious in the darkness. "But must I do everything around here? What would you do without me?"

"Meh, probably the same thing I did when you were off doing who knows what. Running the bar, protecting the ladies, on the lookout for good booze."

"Of course, Captain."

Dianne hissed as she got up. "Damn, these sting."

"I'd think so," said Merlin. "Succubae claws are poisonous."

She flinched. "What!?"

"You'll be fine," said Meliodas smoothly. "Giant's blood is thicker than human blood, so you'll be fine until Merlin gets you the antidote."

Once Merlin had lowered down the sound barrier she had put up without their notice, she floated back to the ground and the three of them left as quietly as they came, though there wasn't much they could do about the broken lock.

It wasn't until they reached his good ol' toy truck that he realized his rage had yet to disperse, nor had the silver-haired image faded from his mind.

Ducking his head down, he swore beneath his breath.

For him, it was going to be a long night after all.