#so I guess they'd all have little naked humans riding on their shoulders?

[sufficientlylargen]

Concept: His Dark Materials AU for Redwall where all the sentient animals have daemons and all the daemons are little tiny humans.

[augment-techs]

Single parent au with Ryan and Olympius/Impus?

"I know a guy."

If there was ever a phrase Ryan Mitchell was more grateful to hear out of Miss Fairweather's mouth after acquiring Olympius, tiny and frail and saved from his disgusting fate because Ryan maintained his human heart throughout the years in the care of demons, it was unlikely that he could recall it. More-so after he was introduced to Dr. Cranston and his steadily inclining in popularity musician boyfriend (a joke that Fairweather and Dana snorted at every visit; "The only reason they won't get married is because Billy thinks the concept is ridiculous and Eugene thinks he's a jinx,") and little Spike. They'd assured him that at the age of twenty-one, taking on a child wasn't the end of the world as he knew it. Especially since it was an adoption, Ryan had a support system, a job, and a place to live while raising Olympius. "I can guarantee that you'll do better than this little guy's original mother," Billy had reassured, checking the demon toddler over before loosing him to eat lunch with Spike, Skull observing them much like an oversized barn bird from his place on the sofa. The punk's smile infectious as he observed his four year old break a cookie in half and offer it up to the waddling demon prince. Ryan himself grinned triumphantly at Olympius twitching his wings and tail at the unexpected kindness from someone he had only just met. It took him a moment, but he took the offered cookie and chirped something like a game bird, perhaps a thank you (which Ryan never heard in the demon realm, but had no reason to believe differently) and a nod, before nibbling at the treat and flapping his wings a little more in happiness at the taste. It was still terrifying, getting his sea legs, as it were. Bedtimes were odd, because demons didn't need to sleep more than four hours and Olympius was a high born from Bansheera's bloodline, so he had energy to spare at any given moment. Feeding him was tricky, because while he liked meat and could carry on with it splendidly for every meal if Ryan let him, the Titanium Ranger knew that letting him eat only blood and flesh would possibly set off the hunting instinct, which brought on the need to dominate and claim a territory and nobody needed that. Thankfully, Billy and Fairweather spoke often enough, and met up once a month and Billy usually brought Spike if Skull was at a demo or gig; more often than that, Ryan would find Skull looking for Ryan and Olympius himself, Spike riding his shoulders or standing in a backpack like some grand high royal. They helped Ryan plan out a diet by offering up the food to the kids after they played around--Ryan nearly had a heart attack the first time Olympius used too much strength rough housing, almost knocking Spike on his rear; except the youngest Skullovitch was suddenly not a human, but a penguin chick. He bounced out of his clothes like a plush toy and delighted Olympius by turning then into what Ryan was told later to be an ostrich chick who skittered around on too long legs, circling just out of the toddler demon's reach, before reforming again and again. Spike managed a goat kid that climbed the couches, a leopard cub that twined around Ryan and Skull and the prince's legs, a slick hippo that sat on Olympius (perhaps to show him how big he could get), and something that Ryan and Skull guessed must have been Spike's idea of a chimera (lion head and body, snake tail, goat legs and tiny budding horns)  that yawned a small lick of flame; all before he'd worn himself out and fell asleep back in human form, butt naked, resting against his friend's side like it was nothing. "Well, that was quite a show; usually he wears himself out after three changes," Skull had smiled, entirely serene, putting Spike's clothes back on expertly without waking him and allowing Olympius to pat his son's messy hair like an apology for the first fall, "Of course that means he's gonna be hungry as an elephant later, but I try not to deny him small pleasures. And he needs the experience or Billy thinks one day he might get stuck." He'd let Ryan keep

the cookies made with blood instead of eggs and the yak milk he'd gotten on his last tour that tasted fine and he'd thought the little prince might appreciate better than cow milk before taking his leave with the promise of another play date the next weekend in case Olympius started to go stir crazy. "I guess it's just good luck you met someone with a not-quite-human-child through the Rangers," Ryan grinned, recalling the episode with Fairweather the next day while Olympius was napping, having entirely enjoyed the yak milk a little too fast; small blessings. The scientist and no-nonsense woman had looked at Ryan a little bit like he'd grown a second head, before her eyes went out of focus, just for a moment, and she corrected him with a shake of her head, "No. Actually I met Billy through Skull when I worked for Promethea." "Promethea?" "The private science and technology company that was responsible for Terra Venture and...well, it was the starting place for an awful lot of our tech here. Grace Sterling was my mentor; she owned the company and started me off on my duties there taking care of Skull and Spike." "Taking care of them? Like, because Spike was born differently than other humans?" "Spike isn't technically human. True, most of his genetic material came from Skull, but that was more incidental to necessity than anything else." Ryan must have looked completely out of his depth and the woman took pity on him (thankfully). "Talk to Billy; he can explain it better than I can without divulging information that I'm not sure qualifies as confidential or not." So, Ryan did. (He wished he hadn't.) * * She felt odd, not telling her guardians directly when the two young ones that had nothing to do with the Samurai Rangers found their way onto the property. But even though one of them was all scaled with wings and claws and breathed fire when he got over-excited or defensive, he was also very soft spoken and sweet; and the other one kept changing into soft things--a fawn being the first thing she saw wading through long grass, a fluffy calf that butted at her knees, a snowy owlet that had to waddle in exaggerated steps over terrain, a polar bear cub that brought her fresh fish from the nearby river when she'd been left to meditate without being checked on for a full twelve hours, and a Clydesdale foal that playfully found its way into carrying his two companions around until the sun set. Lauren's teachers and the Council were not happy about the little creatures finding their way into the compound that had been hiding the heir to Shiba for her training. They were even less happy when the little monsters, that introduced themselves to her as Spike and Olympius, ran off when her teacher noticed them and thought them dangerous or insidious, only for them to returned the next day looking much more human; their parents following after them looking very irate to find that the two hadn't been exaggerating Lauren's situation (plight). Lauren wasn't used to having people talk about her in a way that didn't involve her training, or her duties, or saving the world some day with the team of Rangers she would have to take up from her brother once she was back at Shiba House.  She was completely unaccustomed to anyone speaking up for her like she was an actual child and not just an adult walking around being much too small to do much of anything but go along with what higher authorities told her to. At eight years old, there were a lot of things she wasn't prepared to hear come from adults that didn't know her, but knew plenty about the Samurai Rangers and their roles in the world. "You're fucking ridiculous, that's what you are. Do you hear yourselves and how insane this plan actually is?" Lauren flinched a little from where her new companions--"When you're ready, you can call us friends,"--and she were waiting for the shouting match to end inside the deepest part of the dojo where the adults had disappeared. She wasn't all that afraid when one of the councilmen came out, anger

painting his face even with his perfect posture and his composed march towards her, speaking under his breath about tradition and how things were and, "What business queers and demon scum have getting involved," as he made to grab her and probably bring her into the adjoining room to use her as a prop. Show them how she was coming along in training. Remind her of her duty as Shiba heir. She was a little surprised to find Olympius ("Call him Prince," Spike would smile and coax her days and weeks later when she fumbled with the name on her tongue, gentle and kind and more patient with children older and younger and the same age as him due to being the oldest cousin of all the kids in his extended family, "A lot of us go by nicknames, and that one suits him just fine,") turned from the human child visage he'd been occupying--back into a small demon of her size, still growing into leather wings and out of dull claws, but with teeth no less sharp and fire no less able to burn. The councilman paused in his motion at the growling and bared teeth, eyeing the demon child, but dismissive once he noticed the prince's wings were still thin and the fire was red instead of blue. Spike was another story entirely when the councilman took Lauren's arm in hand, much too tight.  There was the sound he always made when he slipped out of his clothing that she got used to as she got older--like wet clay on a spinning board used to make pots and vases and cup--and then there was the unexpected force of him slamming into the councilman's face. He was still young, and in all his changes, was restricted to the age of the form he inhabited and their abilities (Ryan read Lauren and Prince books by masters of horror and sci-fi and fantasy once the small army of past and present, current and on-call rangers got involved and it was decided that Spike's uncle Bulk and Billy's friend Kim would station themselves in Panorama City to help and keep an eye on Jayden, and Lauren would stay with the man raised by demons and the demon prince himself; he read them Neil Gaiman and Stephen King and Ray Bradbury and it helped them understand a lot of things in the world around them that they never would have in another life where Lauren was left utterly alone for years and Olympius never got a chance to have a life of his own). Spike was also brilliant in his own ways, so instead of turning into a young snake or wolf pup, he went for something that grew quickly and had defenses. The councilman was on his ass and clutching his face before pulling his hands away just as bloody and in pain as he cursed the little black porcupine that stood protectively in front of Lauren and Olympius; most of the adults from the council rushing from the dojo with weapons drawn, but the three parents were quicker--Ryan and Skull especially. With Ryan's Titanium Morpher out for the council to see, shining on his wrist and at the ready, and a coin only Lauren saw as Skull crouched calmly (painfully) next to the children; it looked important, but understated as it hung down his neckline on a delicate--but absolutely not--chain around his neck. Billy was on a phone that really shouldn't have been able to work in the dojo, but she would learn that he could make a lot of things happen if given the opportunity. (Lauren didn't know how to feel about seeing Ji for the first time since she was six, looking exhausted hours later with a dozen Rangers from different teams in the dojo looking increasingly displeased with how the plan for the Shiba children's future had been planned out. He looked apologetic after The Plan had been discussed among all those there; Billy Cranston and Bulk and Tommy Oliver, Andros and T.J. Johnson, Kimberly Hart and Aisha Campbell, Carter Grayson and Dana Mitchell, Violet Arias and Zack Taylor all pointing out the flaws in assuming that a demon lord wouldn't find some loophole in the sealing symbol in his rest period. She'd been emotionally drained from listening to all these people telling her that her teachers were flawed, tradition was all well

and good in its place only if it worked, her father and his team needn't have died or been severely injured if they'd only asked for help. But she was still wide awake in the kitchen with the two boys curled up around her and their parents making them tea and dinner when Ji came in, looked at her in sorrow, and bowed low to her for a full minute before asking if he could give her a hug. She still had to be trained in secret, still had to be taught the sealing symbol, but Lauren found herself packing up the few belongings she had the next morning, tucked into the vehicle Dana had brought for Ryan, and found herself registered as the foster child of Prince's dad--others had offered, but Ryan was suggested by both Carter and Skull on the basis that he was both powerful and was better suited to the girl's temperament and training when it came down to it.) * * Olympius wasn't sure how he felt about Spike being sent off at seventeen to basically spy on Lauren's brother Jayden and his team with Bulk already acting as a second teacher and waiting ear for the Red Samurai Ranger, but Lauren thought it was both genius and funny--especially when they received his first report and message during breakfast a week later and Ryan came in looking for coffee wondering why the two of them were basically falling out of their seats laughing. When Lauren and Olypmius were called properly to Panorama almost a year later by Kim in a text message that had them both in a flurry to get there quicker, 'There was an incident with one of the demons and Spike had to change into something big that has all the Rangers in edge. The sooner you get here the better,' Ryan had to stop Lauren from packing nothing but her tampons, track suit, and morpher in a gym bag. Prince was already waiting in his human guise (very pretty; he looked a bit like if Joel and Chad had a baby with more of Ryan's facial features and was allowed to get tattoos that spoke of Islander cultures) with the keys to Ryan's range rover in hand and was immediately scolded by his dad, "No, no, no, you are not driving my van--that technically belongs to your aunt--when you're like this. Spike is fine--I talked to Bulk and Kim; he just couldn't go back to where he his clothes on the Shiba property were hidden and has to stay a snake around Bulk's neck for a bit." "Was it really that bad?" Prince asked, jumping immediately to the wrong conclusion as he at least agreed with Ryan that Lauren couldn't go to Shiba house with just the barest of the bare essentials; completely unembarrassed in taking the tampons out to help her add at least a few weeks' worth of clothes while their foster father looked away from the sanitation materials like he'd walked in on Dana and Carter in the middle of sex.  "No," the adult sighed, folding Lauren's pants and socks and looking very put upon; like this was the first time his kids had jumped into a tizzy about their friend that was more than capable of handling his own issues, and his cousins, and their own, "Jayden overestimated himself when fighting Deker and Dayu thought she'd take advantage of the situation while the other Rangers were fighting elsewhere. Spike had to bail him out." Lauren tried, she really did, but she had to prepare herself for the inevitable annoyance that she would feel as she asked, "How?" "Fire and flying." "...So, something that expands way more of his energy than teaching Mia what people can and cannot eat in the form of a chicken?" "While calling Jayden and Ji out when they're being stupid!" Prince added in, pointing like a game show host, trying for levity, "Can't forget that." Ryan almost--almost--told Olympius to be nice. But...no. He was right. All of them knew it. …They'd get into it when they went to Panorama. Ryan was comfortable lying to himself that his kids had some restraint.