First Demonic Dragon

In the moments before Abaddon and his companions left the scene, Director Shin Nagumo braced himself for many things.

Perhaps there would be a sneak attack of some sort.

Maybe Abaddon was just pretending to leave and then he would appear in front of him at the last moment and plunge his fist through the Director's chest.

'But he should know that I would be prepared for something like that… so what is the meaning of this??'

Even if he was told Abaddon's reasoning, the Director wouldn't believe it.

In the eyes of the dragon, he and the Abyss Hunters simply weren't enemies.

They were right to hunt the inhabitants of the abyss so fervently.

After all, Maliketh had foolishly opened the gate and let a creature out into the wild.

And even worse than that, he made a tradition where every newly crowned Uma-Sarru would do the same.

All because the foolish warmongers had horribly misinterpreted his will.

But Abaddon had regained control of his domain now, and was steering it in a new direction.

Their role was to guard the cage of the elder horrors and prevent them from getting out.

…They may participate in a little bloody war every now and then, but it was hardly unprovoked, or just for the sake of it.

And even with todays events, all Director Shin and his team had done was inconvenience the lives of a few creatures who never had lives to begin with.

In the grand scheme of things, it was kind of like whack-a-mole.

Nothing of any significance had been accomplished.

And despite being fully aware of that harsh reality, the director didn't like it.

{Director, it's ready.}

A sudden audio transmission into his earpiece gave the stunned old man the very kick in the pants that he needed to get himself back in gear.

"Deploy the formation, now!!"

However, it was too late.

Before any particularly noteworthy phenomena could occur, Abaddon and all of his associates had vanished from the clearing without so much as a goodbye.

"…Damn it..!"

The director roared loudly into the heavens above for all in the ruined town to hear.

Unbeknownst to him, the moment would become even more infuriating when he took a single gander at his surroundings.

The town full of abyss walkers that'd been left behind were all standing about motionlessly.

Almost as if to ask the Director, 'So what we doing, bro?'

This was how the very first meeting of the Seventh Ruler of the Abyss and the 170th Director of the Hunters ended.

With the former uninterested in battling the latter, and instead leaving him behind with a boatload of glorified training dummies to smack around and vent his anger.

But the meetings they would have in the future would hardly be so tame.

"D-Director…? What are your orders..?"

Shin Nagumo ground his teeth together in annoyance as he made an egregiously frustrating decision.

"…We're pulling out for now. Prioritize rescuing survivors and saving any lives that we can."

Director Nagumo started to walk away before he remembered but a few of Abaddon's words.

"…And someone get me a report of this planet's history and it's societal structure. I want it so detailed that it tells me the number of wrinkles on their founder's foreskin! Clear?"

"Yes sir!"

"Move out!"

-Two Days Later : Earth 3,1167…

"Alright, kids, it's time for lunch! Remember the food pyramid we discussed in class, and please don't go around to other tables asking if they're going to eat something again…"

A parade of children no older than six years old all fell into a neat but giggly little line as they exited the classroom.

Taking up the rear all by her little lonesome was a slightly gloomy looking Courtney.

Her earlier excitement over going to school seemed to have been long stripped away from her, and now all that remained was a cute, yet moody withered husk.

'Please cheer up, princess. Your parents would be terribly upset if they saw you like this.'

Courtney looked at her little shadow out of the corner of her eye.

Though she was unable to actually see anything out of the ordinary within it, she was fully aware of the very powerful entity lurking within and acting as her protector.

She returned her gaze to the back of the line in front of her- the distance between them increasing more and more with every passing moment.

"Maybe, but I hate going to lunch, Ade… Nobody wants to talk to me."

Adeline fell silent again and Courtney could tell what she was thinking.

"You can't mind control people to make them talk to me either…"

'Xsiol..!' (Damnit)

"Swear jar…" Courtney muttered.

Adeline cleared her throat from within the shadows as Courtney finally reached the cafeteria table.

She sat down with her own special lunchbox that had been handed to her by Ayaana before she left the house.

She could always tell which of her mothers made her lunch based off what was inside.

Her fluffy mommy typically packed heavier things that nearly made her want to go to sleep for the rest of the day. (Bekka)

Her smart mommy typically filled her lunch with cut vegetables and things that would keep her focused throughout the day, but weren't always the best thing to eat to a child like her. (Lailah)

There were little idiosyncrasies among all of the girls that typically gave them away, but by now Courtney had them all pegged fairly well.

And as she unzipped her lunchbox, her eyes glimmered with delighted recognition once again.

"Thunder Mommy..!" (Lisa)

'It seems Empress Lisa has truly spoiled you, Princess. I'm actually quite jealous.'

"Who is Lisa?" Courtney cracked open a thermos with warm soup inside and proceeded to drink it like a smoothie.

"Erm… Your mother? The third empress?"

"Third??"

It was then that a surprising realization dawned on Adeline from within the dark.

'Princess… do you not know your parents' names?'

"Mommy? Daddy?" Courtney did not understand the question.

'I… W-Well yes, but they have birth names, you know… how do you not know this?'

"Uhh…"

In fairness, it wasn't really Courtney's fault.

Abaddon and his wives just refer to each other as honey, sister, or my wife / husband.

Even her grandparents just refer to them as my son / daughter.

She never really paid attention to their conversations with anyone else.

It has quite honestly never occurred to Courtney that her parents had names before.

But now that she knew, she was unbelievably interested.

"Whoa… What's Daddy's name?"

'Abaddon.'

"Oh… Is that why Aunt Lusamine calls him Aba-Daddy?"

'P-Partially…' Adeline coughed.

"Well what about my mommies and stepmom??"

Initially seeing no harm in it, Adeline proceeded to tell her all of her parents names and made sure she could match them to their faces instead of just going by characteristics like before.

She had no idea of the harm she would wreak later on when Courtney got home and proceeded to call all of her mothers by their first names; breaking their hearts in one swift motion.

"Why do you talk to yourself all the time??"

Courtney nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard a new, much more childish voice.

Looking up from her lunchbox, she found two girls standing in front of her with trays in their hands.

One girl was a werewolf, the other was entirely human.

The werewolf girl had short, sandy brown hair framed around her face and lightly sun-tanned skin to match.

Her eyes were a bright yellow color and glittered with an interest that Courtney recognized all too well in beastkin.

Hunger.

"That soup smells so good… Can I have some? Pretty please??" She asked.

Courtney was too flabbergasted by the sheer unexpectedness of the situation to properly respond.

Atleast not externally.

'Adele! People are talking to me! It's not the teacher!!'

'D-Don't panic, princess, we practiced this! No matter what, you absolutely must keep CALM!'

'You're panicking right now too!'

'Y-You have no way to prove that!'

"I-Is that a no..?" The wolf girl's ears drooped.

Courtney finally shook her head hard and tried to recover from the embarrassing tailspin she had found herself in.

"S-Sorry… I'm have a special diet and I'm not supposed to share my food…" She responded quietly.

The werewolf girl looked somehow undeterred.

The smell of the soup was simply too inticing.

"W-Well maybe we're on the same diet so then it wouldn't be bad to share a litt- oof!"

Finally, the girl who had remained silent all of this time gave her friend a hard nudge.

"She said she can't. Don't be greedy, Fae."

Courtney finally observed the other girl standing over the table.

She was angelic looking, with colorful butterfly barrettes in her dark hair and an adorable little white dress.

Her dark skin had two star stickers on each of her cheeks- no doubt stuck there by the hungry little werewolf girl.

"I'm sorry about her. She's just ruled by her stomach most of the time."

"I-It's fine." Courtney smiled shyly.

The werewolf girl still sat down right in front of Courtney and continued to steal glances at her thermos.

"Y-Yea, sorry for the shake down." She apologized.

"It's okay… Are you going to eat lunch with me?"

"Can't we?"

"N-No, you can!" Courtney shook her head so hard that she almost sent all of her hair flying across the table.

"Your name is Courtney, right? They said you're adopted just like Kaela here." The wolf girl pointed to her friend.

Courtney stared at the quiet girl with even more excitement than before.

"K-Kaela?? Is that your name??"

The human girl nodded as she finally sat down at the table with her two young classmates.

"Mhm. My name is Kaela Nagumo. What's yours?"