The City Lord's Plight

"Umm... I've never raised a child before, so maybe I'm just not aware but, is that normal?"

Lee had a flabbergasted look on his face as he look at his wife, who is feeding their son, Elrion, for the first time. Elrion had a third black and yellow eye on his forehead and an empty bottle in his mouth, still sucking as if there was more to eat. Three seconds ago, that bottle was full. Petra had her brows furrowed as she pried the bottle from his mouth. As soon as the bottle left his mouth, the eye on Elrion's forehead closed slowly and almost reluctantly as if it hadn't had enough.

"Well, he is a growing boy I suppose. It can't be too bad, right?" Petra replied optimistically, even though in her mind she could already see the food bills skyrocketing in the near future.

Months passed and little Elrion's appetite only grew. No matter what milk Petra gave to him, it would be gone in seconds. Every time he was fed, the eye would show up and both Petra and Lee would watch it and try to understand it more. Unfortunately, all they knew was that his appetite was tied to his ability in some way. Maybe in the future, he could eat anything, or maybe his food could be turned into energy or something. They would just have to wait until he was old enough to understand and experiment with it.

During this time, the neighbors, City Lord, school directors and even many, many people from other cities started to approach the family, or more appropriately put, the new Demonic Son. News spread extremely quickly after the event that was Elrion's birth. It caused such a commotion that the Human King and members of the royal family were escorted to this city and made an official announcement of the new Demonic Son of the Human Race. Unfortunately, during the announcement, when the king got close to Elrion his Eye opened and the king had to be "moved to a safe location" as his guards so aptly put it. Soon after the Human King left, another arrival caused a stir in this small city. The Queen of the Amazons, as well as their very own Divine Daughter arrived. The movement of the Divine Daughter causes any force to focus all their attention on them. They are too powerful to leave unchecked and any race who has one, is usually left unprovoked. Only races who each have Divine or Demonic Children occasionally wage war, but even then it will usually be only a battle between the Children first. The reason for this is because in a war, if either of the Children is significantly stronger than the other, that means the weaker will usually be unable to stop the stronger from slaughtering the normal soldiers mercilessly. So unless they are able to restrict each other, wars are only decided by the strength of the Children. The only exception is the Godbeasts. On average, Godbeasts are much stronger than their Children counterparts. Because of this, whenever the Godbeasts start a war, Children from other races or cities will usually come to fight against the Godbeasts as well. During the visit of the Amazon Queen and Divine Daughter, the latter paid close attention to Elrion and, as if sensing another like himself, his Eye opened and stared right back. Unbeknownst to the rest of the people present, when the Eye looked at her, Divine Daughter Kella felt a chill down her spine and had the thought of killing him while he was still a baby. Kella, although she was a Child, she was always paranoid, because she was very weak for a Child. She was 25 years old and still couldn't control her ability perfectly, which she had always blamed on the fact that her ability didn't truly awaken until she was 12. Now, seeing this Child who was only weeks old yet controlling his ability like it was a part of his body, she felt threatened. She knew he would be stronger than him in the future. Their visit only lasted a short while as well and after congratulating Petra and Lee, they promptly left as well. On the way back to their home, Kella told the Amazon Queen, Basil, about her feeling toward Elrion. Basil, who adopted Kella when her mother died during birth shortly after her father died in an accident, truly treated Kella as her daughter.

"Kella, listen to me sweetie. Just because someone is a threat to you, doesn't mean it has to end with one of you dying. Become his friend, become his teacher, become his ally, stay away from him, whatever makes you feel safest is fine. There's no need for you to feel this way. Any problem can be solved in many ways, and if you can't think of a way that you are satisfied with, come to me and we will figure it out together."

With a warm smile on her face, she tousled Kella's hair, just like she did when Kella was much younger.

"Just because you've grown doesn't mean you aren't my little girl. You can still rely on me."

Kella hugged Basil tightly.

"Thanks mom."

Back in the small city of Brecia, Elrion's home, the commotion wasn't over yet. After the Amazon Queen, another even more extreme guest appeared. One of the only Godbeasts that isn't hostile toward humans, the Giant Warthog, Trago, made an appearance for the first time in many years. "You humans, always full of surprises. I never thought you would get ten Children in one generation, but here you are." As Trago spoke, he nuzzled his enormous snout against the cheek of Elrion. To the surprise of the many onlookers, unlike his response to the previous visitors, Elrion's Eye didn't open. In fact the tiny baby actually grabbed at the pig's snout and smacked and played with Trago. Trago actually got along quite nicely with Elrion as well. By the time the giant left the city, he had already given Elrion and his family a few congratulatory gifts in the form of one of his tusks, whose worth is nearly equal to Brecia city itself and a new body tempering technique for Lee. According to Trago, the tempering, Warthog Strength, would condense his muscles simultaneously making him slightly smaller while still maintaining his strength, allowing him higher speed and agility. Trago also told them that Elrion would be the first human allowed to call him grandpa, and that when he gets old enough, he could visit Trago's home in the not too far away territory of Lapos. After Trago's departure, the city finally calmed down once more, and no more visitors came, which allowed the City Lord to heave a sigh of relief. "This is my city, I own it. I run this place with my bare hands. So why is it that I have felt like an insignificant fly here these past few weeks. All of these visitors could crush or buy this city many times over. They didn't even say a word to me, the Human King just nodded once in my direction. I wish this kid had never been... Born... Here." The City Lord slowly had a look of realization bloom across his face. "Born here. He was born here! My city is the city where a Demonic Son was born! Haha! If he hadn't been born here the king wouldn't ever have nodded at me. I would've never hosted these great beings!" The City Lord's plight ended as quickly as it began and as he walked down the street he was all smiles, talking about Elrion to nearly every person he passed.