Blessed by Night

Perhaps due to parental instincts or some grander factor, both Anna and Malachi immediately paused when they felt their youngest scream under the water.

Malachi immediately took his hand out of Anna's bikini and stood up with her in tow.

"Move!"

There was a large rush and all of the water in the lake came streaming upward like a geyser, taking any marine life up in the air with it.

The couple found their infant sitting on the bottom of the lake, completely unterrified and holding a small creature in her even smaller hands.

Once she saw her parents staring at her from above, Cami excitedly held up the creature for both of them to see.

"Ama! Ada! Bu!"

"Ah... yea, we see."

"Wouldn't exactly call it cute though, munchkin..."

Sitting calmly in Camille's hands was a smalll black axolotl the size of a tv remote.

The young child seemed absolutely smitten with the strange new friend she had made at the bottom of the lake, and was adamant about showing her parents.

She teleported from her seat and reappeared beside Malachi and Anna in an instant.

Her little legs waddled back and forth as she carried herself in front of them with the small creature outstretched like she was playing show and tell.

"Bu! Bu!"

"I see it... " Malachi was unsure of how dramatic he was supposed to make his reaction.

He didn't find the damned thing cute at all...

They were nothing like his little scaly friends that were jutting out of his back.

However, he atleast forced a smile onto his face so as not to upset his baby.

It was harder to tell how Anna felt about the creature since she had always liked creepy and ugly things since she was a child.

As if that wasn't noticeable by the large amount of gothic tattoos she had on her body.

"Seems like you found a really cool little friend there, hon. I think these things need water though. Do you mind, babe?"

Malachi brought a small blob of water towards them and allowed his daughter to stick her arms in the blob so that she could hold onto her new pet without having it die on her.

"Wanna keep it?" Anna asked.

"Ama!?"

"Uh.. Anna?" Malachi nudged.

"Sure you can. Your rooms plenty big enough to put a fish tank in. I know your other mom told me she's been looking for a new project to work on, so I'm sure she'd be happy to make you one." (Bianca)

Camille looked like she was going to burst out of her skin with delirious excitement.

She pelted Annalise with so many thank yous in a few short seconds that her parents were worried her lungs would go pop.

Crestfallen, Malachi looked at Anna with a look of betrayal.

'Did you just replace me as her favorite?'

'Yea, but It's alright, babe. You're still my favorite~'

'Don't try to make the pain go away with sex appeal, it won't work this time...'

While Camille was spinning around with her new axolotl, Anna smirked eerily and flashed Malachi a view of his favorite piercings.

And certainly not the ones in her ears or nose...

"...It stings a little less."

"I thought it would."

While her parents were trying their best to console each other, Cami was still excited over getting to keep her new pet.

Suddenly, her mind flickered back to a couple of months ago when she met her cousin Tsath and he showed her and her father how to make creatures be their friends forever!

She shifted the weight of the axolotl to one hand and held out her little palm.

Through concentrating and making little pushing noises, she was able to secrete just a little bit of that special essence from her body so that it could fill her palm.

Bringing it towards her axolotl, she giggled cutely as the small critter stuck it's head into her palm and ingested the dark liquid.

Just like her father had said, she didn't really feel all that strong afterwards since she was turning only a single creature.

If there was any change to her power at all, then it was so small that it would be impossible to notice.

Like a single grain of sand trying to create an anthill.

However, she hadn't really done this to be strong, since her dad already took care of all of that fighting and stuff.

She just wanted to have more friends around the house!

Concentrating, she used the liquid inside of the axolotl's body to alter it's genetic sequence in exactly the way she wanted.

She had to make it even cuter!!

Right before her parents' eyes, the amphibious creature thrashed about unmercifully before it's body started to undergo very staggering changes.

It grew to a foot, then five, then twenty.

It's dark coloring grew even more lifeless like obsidian, and it's eyes gained a nightmarish white glow.

It lurched a bit, and enormous bat-like wings came out of it's back; larger than even a full grown man.

Numerous, small jagged teeth popped out of it's upper and lower jaw like gleaming white rocks.

It lost the legs on the back half of it's body, and it's tail lengthened to around half the size of it's length.

The creature finally recovered from it's metamorphosis and hovered off the ground like some sort of great mythological creature, much to the delight of the infant on the riverbank.

Cami clapped her hands happily as she jumped up and down full of glee.

Her parents however stood there mystified as they took in the sight of the demonic creature circling above their heads.

"I... don't know if that's going to fit in a tank." Anna muttered.

Almost as if it were responding to her comment, the twenty foot lowbreed shrunk right back down to it's previous size with all of it's new changes intact.

"Oh... never mind then."

Camille held out her first N'Kai to show her father and he smiled wryly as he patted her on the head.

"That's great, munchkin. What are you going to name-"

At that moment, the serpents jutting out of his back and the axolotl in Cami's hands started to hiss audibly in agitation.

Malachi noticed it too, but he did not make any rash moves to draw attention.

"Is that..?"

"Yea. We're being watched."