"PAPA PAPA PAPAAAA!"

The excitable, childish voice of a young boy shouted from the tunnel that led into the lab, his voice bouncing off of the walls and getting louder instead of quieter with every echo. As if he was trying to race the sound of his own voice, that very child immediately burst into the lab.

He was like a bundle of energy. Seth had always heard the phrase 'Bouncing off the walls' but this little boy took it far too literally, as he shot across the room in his excitement, planted his little feet against the wall and launched off of it to redirect himself.

He ping ponged around the room, before finally getting his angle right and slamming face first into Seth's chest, sending him stumping back a few steps and forcing the air from his lungs with a soft wheeze.

"Papa! You said we were going to do fire breathing lessons, right? Is it my turn yet? Is it?"

"Yes yes, We will. I promise. I'm still working here, but we can see if we can squeeze in some fire breathing soon."

Seth hugged the young boy tight, giving him an extra tight squeeze when he said the word, which caused the boy to giggle. He ruffled the boys messy mop of raven black hair, before peeling him off with some effort. When the boys vice-like, spine crushing grip was fully released, Seth finally got the chance to breathe once more.

"There's some snacks over there, Why don't you go have some and let me finish up here. I think I even saw some of your favourite."

"Gasp Really? You got me roast mice?! Thank you Papa!"

The boy moved so fast over to the table that he was quite literally a blur, only reappearing when he was already seated on the tall stool, which wobbled from the inertia, not that the boy seemed to care.

He giddily plucked full size, roasted Blink Rats from a plate before stuffing them eagerly into his mouth, snarfing them down without a concern and relishing in the flavour. He especially loved playing pretend, making them cower before him, before biting their heads clean off with his razor sharp, dagger-like teeth.

"Good boy Omelette."

'That boy really needs to learn how to handle his strength.'

Seth stretched, listening to the cracking and popping of his poor spine as he did so. Yes, the child in question playing monster with his food was indeed Omelette the Wyvern, sometimes known to his enemies as The Roaming Shadow of Death. Although that name didn't seem to fit the adorable boy sitting across from him.

He did make a good fire breathing teacher though. While others might be embarrassed to take lessons from someone who appeared like an 8 year old child, Seth simply chose to remember what he was behind that dimpled smile. A dreadful Wyvern capable of untold death and destruction. One who was currently dripping sauce all down his chin.

Taking a moment to grab a napkin and wipe up the sauce, Seth let out a soft sigh. He had asked for the draconic woman to teach Omelette how to transform like she did, and she obliged. But he had expected him to take the form of some towering knight in draconic scaled armour, instead of a young child in black hide clothing and a ragged cloak that made him seem like some kind of abandoned orphan.

It was only when he saw him like this that he remembered, Omelette basically was a child. He was only born a few months ago, honestly Seth felt lucky he wasn't having to hold a baby right now.

Although... even with his slightly aged up human form, it still had brought with it it's own issues. He wasn't entirely human looking. He had little horns jutting out from his forehead, a lizard's tail with an arrowhead tip and ridges along the spin poked out from his behind. Not to mention the scales that littered the edges of his face, and that he still had his normal teeth and serpentine eyes.

He looked exactly like the secret love child between himself and the draconic woman. A fact that resulted in a multitude of enraged lightning bolts being thrown his way when Omelette first appeared, calling him 'Papa' in front of Astra.

It took quite a lot to calm her down and explain the situation to her, he could thank his latest son Carnifex for his help. He was the only one who currently wasn't interested in some 'father-son time'. He seemed much more interested in Astra, who he insisted on calling Mother.

Seth let out another deep sigh. Seriously... He didn't even have a girlfriend, yet he had so many children, one of whom he shared custody over with Astra like they were some kind of Divorced couple!

It was just ridiculous. It was like he was performing a relationship in reverse. Although for that he would have to be dating Astra and... Well, It's not like he hadn't thought of that before... Bah, That's not important!

He glanced at Omelette again and let out a tired groan, rubbing his face slightly. His life was definitely weird, but he wouldn't want to change it either. Although... since even more kids were in his future, it seemed, maybe he could have at least one girl. All these boys were exhausting. A girl would be better, right? Right?

Heh, who knows, maybe one day he'd actually have a child the normal way. Yeah, Who was he kidding... That was never going to happen.

Since Omelette was satisfied with his plate of roasted mice, which were actually quite delicious if Seth was being honest so long as you ignored their appearance, he could go back to the task at hand.

He turned back to the current strange 'Father son' project just as the ghostly girl was entering the first set of armour.

She glanced around the wrong nervously, her head simply turning in the air on its own while her body stayed facing forwards, before she got a reassuring nod from Seth. Taking a deep breathe, mainly out of habit, she put on a determined expression before reaching out a slender hand towards the armour.

As soon as her fingers touched it, her figure immediately disappeared into a mote of light and was absorbed into the armour. Runes along its body immediately lit up with a vibrant and otherworldly cerulean.

They pulsated, growing brighter and brighter with every pulse as more and more of the ghost girls energy flowed through them. Soon, the armour began to tremble and shake, making a deafening racket like a cutlery drawer in a blender. The arms shifted, slowly lifting off of the stand as the fingers curled stiffly.

Beside Seth, Julius nodded as everything was going to his expectations. Words painted themselves into the air, words that Seth could swear had an almost smug tone to them, despite looking the way they always did.

"That is what we were hoping for, true movement. Don't worry about the armour though, even if it looks bad the experiments with inert souls combined into one had similar results, except for the movement of course.

It has been reinforced fully, these are just to test which flows best. They will be able to-"

His painted words were interupted by a ear splitting clang as the helmet slipped from the shoulders of the armour and slammed against the ground, revealing the confused and adorable face of the ghost girl where the helmet used to be.

As if on cue, the rest of the armour followed suit. Like dominoes, piece after piece jostled themselves free and clattered to the ground where they continued to dance and spasm until finally, with one blinding pulse of the runes engraved onto it, the armour simply dissolved into metallic dust.

"-Withstand anything. It seems my calculations were wrong."

Julius let out an annoyed chittering sound, like a spider clicking its mandibles rapidly, as he crouched down by the remnants. He scooped the dust into his hand and let it drift through his fingers back onto the ground.

It was as if it had simply given up on being solid, collapsing all at once until all that was left was a pile of shiny sand and a confused ghost girl hovering there with a befuddled expression on her decapitated head.

Her head bobbed above her body, before entirely tilting to the side like it was about to fall over. Her voice was like a whisper without a true source, sounding like it was spoken directly into your ear as well as from the other side of the room both at the same time.

"Did I do something wrong?"

Seth smiled warmly, speaking with as soft a tone as he could. A paternal tone almost came naturally now.

"Of course not sweetheart, It's all a part of the process. Just need to find something that works, then we'll get onto the next step. That's the part I'm sure you'll love. Think you can help us a few more times?"

Her face lit up and she nodded quickly, so much so that her head did a few flips in the air. Titus moved to the side, bringing out the next armour set, with this one made of a different material, while Seth's mind drifted off once more.

It seemed that the Lightbringer team were having some issues, and he was definitely going to have to check in with them. But hopefully Alfie's team were doing fine.