2567 Blood Bonds (Part 1)

"A Bigger Redder Demon!" He raised his arms, conjuring the hologram of a shower of confetti and a huge blinking insignia which said the atrocious name.

"Anything but that!" Tista turned pale, noticing the hilarity in the room one second too late.

Everyone was laughing, showing no sign of concern for her new condition or surprise about her choice.

"Wait, you knew?" She looked at her parents, her siblings, and the children who all rushed to congratulate her. "How? I mean, I didn't know it myself."

"It wasn't so hard, dear." Raaz patted her head. "We assumed that you would have either followed in your brother's footsteps as usual or chosen to retain your human side. If you had turned into a Dragon or a Phoenix, that would have been surprising."

"Yeah." Salaark sighed, slightly annoyed at her bloodline being mistreated like that. "Especially considering that if you choose to merge your life forces, you should be able to turn into multiple forms like Lith does."

"Can you turn into a Phoenix?" Aran's eyes sparkled with excitement. "Dragons are cool but we already have big brother for that. Phoenixes are cool as well and they also sing with a celestial voice."

"Well said, young man." Salaark puffed her chest out with pride. "Also, what do you call yourself? Because if that thing about the Bigger Redder Demon is true, you and I need to have a talk about creativity."

"I have no idea." Tista shrugged. "I was too worried to be bothered with naming something that I might have not even gotten before actually seeing it. Heck, I've no idea how many forms I got either."

"Only one way to find out." Leria tried to push Tista out of the door, her small shoes squeaking on the floor from the futile effort that was soon joined by Aran.

"What's the rush, kids?" Tista ruffled their hair. "This can wait until tomorrow."

"No, it can't." Leria shook her head with determination. "Everyone already knows what Elysia will look like because she will take after Uncle Lith. Aran and I don't know what we will look like because we take from Grandma and Grandpa, like you."

"Mom and Dad!" Aran corrected her, hating those terms because they made his parents sound old.

"Why are you angry?" Leria couldn't

understand his reaction. "Salaark is our Grandma as well, she's way older than your parents, and yet she looks amazing!"

"What do you mean, yet?" Salaark furrowed her brows amid the general hilarity.

"No offense, Grandma, but everyone past sixteen is old." Aran bowed apologetically to her. "You can't have kids of your own and still call yourself a kid. All parents are grown up, hence old people"

"Are you telling me that you consider your big brother an old coot as well?" The Guardian couldn't refute the childish logic so she attempted a deflection.

"Well, yeah: Aran shrugged. "But he's giving me a niece so it's worth it."

"Hey!" Lith didn't like that argument one bit. The idea of soon becoming a parent already weighed heavily on his mind and the fact that his little ones considered him an old man made it even worse.

"If I'm old, then what about..." He was about to point at Kamila, but he instantly realized that she would have either burst into tears or killed him. Maybe both.

Throwing his parents under the bus was out of the question.

Their ever-dwindling life force despite all of his efforts was one of the things that kept him awake at night. They were in perfect health, but without Awakening, even an untreated cold might kill them.

I would like to point out that Tista is older than me even though she has no kids, but the last thing she needs while she has yet to come to terms with her new condition is being called a spinster or an old bat. I'll take the safe route" He thought.

"Grampa Leegaain?" Lith conjured the 9hologram of the Father of all Dragons. "I've yet to have my first daughter whereas he has countless children.

"What? Speak louder, I can't hear you." Leegaain appeared out of thin air, looking like a decrepit old man.

He was sitting on a rocking chair, his legs covered by a heavy blanket. A hand was on his ear, pretending to be hard of hearing, while the other held a handkerchief into which he coughed a few times.

"Grampa Leegaain!" While everyone laughed at the performance, the kids ran to him and started to bawl their eyes out. "What happened to you? Don't die, please."

"I'm not dying!" He immediately reverted to his usual appearance, that of an albino man in his early thirties. "It was a joke. A Guardian can look however he wants."

Despite his youthful form, soothing tone, and plenty of reassurances, it took him a while to calm them down. By the time he succeeded, the mood was ruined and Salaark stared at him with such a fiery gaze that he wouldn't have been surprised if his clothes suddenly caught fire.

"Nice move, jackass.' She told him via a mind link. "Now play along or as soon as we are alone, I'm going to kick your ass."

"It's past midnight and it's my turn with Kami today. What are you doing here?" Salaark actually said while bringing Shargein into the fold to distract the children.

The infant wyrmling was already as big as Aran and had his big eyes sleepy since he had been awoken from his nap. His cute cooing and the puffs of smoke he produced while yawning made Aran and Leria forget about the earlier scare.

"The same thing you are doing" He promptly replied. "Our descendant has embraced her heritage and has become the first of a new species of Demons. It's only natural for me to bear witness to the life force born from the fusion of our bloodlines."

"Don't you mean a new race?" Tista countered soberly. "Whatever I am, I'm not a Tiamat, that's for sure."

"I know, but that's not the point." Leegaain shook his head. "It's safe to assume that a Demon is born from the fusion of the human, Phoenix, and Dragon bloodlines while a Tiamat also needs the Abomination side due to Lith's unique condition.

"Also, Mogar called him the Father of All Demons, not the Father of all Tiamats, which means that not all of his descendants will inherit his Abomination powers. For all we know, Elysia is the exception, not the rule. We need more babies, I mean data."

"Fine." Tista was slightly annoyed at the idea of being once again under Lith's shadow, but all that talking about the possibility of her having four forms as well made her curious. "Let's move outside. I need space."

'If I have a separate Phoenix and Dragon form, maybe I can get the bloodline abilities of both species as my mana core progress. Even with just Dragon Eyes and Call of the Blood, I would be as powerful Lith even without Solus and his Demons! She inwardly crossed her fingers.

Salaark snapped her fingers, bringing everyone to the Blood Desert.

"Why here, Grandma?" Tista asked.