Kain sat quietly, his internal rage building to a violently volatile crescendo. He was beyond livid, beyond furious, and far, far beyond any hope of calming down. However, it was in this extreme rage that there was a certain sense of clarity. All the time after the obnoxious asshole who had hijacked his telepathic link with his kids was filled with Kain sitting on his throne, dead silent yet still keeping the connection wide open.

“Answer, monster. Will you accept my demands, or must I end the lives of your misbegotten children to make you see reason?”

Kain let out a long, heavy, and rage-fueled sigh. And then he opened his eyes and replied to the person on the other end with all the quiet wrath he could muster.

“Listen here, whoever you are. You will return my children to me, intact, unharmed, and very much alive. Failure to do so in a timely manner can and will result in retaliation.”

The voice on the other end scoffed.

“Ha! You have no power in Arcfira, child of man.”

Kain began to release the internal and mental shackles that usually kept his emotions from flooding through any telepathic connections he established, flooding whoever or whatever was on the other side with enough killing intent that it most certainly understood that it was in no place to negotiate.

“Do yourself a favor, elf, and return my children to me. Fail to comply with this demand and I will go full Liam Neeson on you. Like that man, I, too, have a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my children go now, that will be the end of it. I will not look for you, and I will not pursue you until war is eventually declared between us.”

Kain paused for dramatic effect before continuing his mind-to-mind speech but in a lower, almost whisper-like tone.

“But if you don’t’; if you refuse to do the correct thing? I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”

Kain let his hatred and rage continue to flood the connection, apparently leaving whoever or whatever was on the other side completely speechless.

“Do. You. Understand?”

Kain felt the mental connection sever as the other side ‘hung up’. However, what the person on the other end had failed to realize was that despite Kain being absolutely overcome with maddening rage, he was still of sound enough mind to trace the global coordinates of the being on the other side. Kain stood up from his seat, cracked his joints, and left his capital in a hurry. He did not even bother to tell Alexis what he was up to or that her children were in danger. Time was of the essence, and every second counted.

…

But, unfortunately for Arcfira and, in some ways, for Kain, neither Raziel nor Elizabeth were in any danger at all.

A few hours before Kain called his kids, the twins were walking home from school. Necrograd was a very safe city, possibly being the safest in the world at the time. This could be due to the excellent conditions, the nigh incorruptible police force, the community outreach programs, or any number of other things, but it was also partially due to the fact that Kain and Alexis lived in that city and they could and would occasionally go out for a night or day on the town and make criminals wish they had never been born.

So, it was a big surprise for the twins when a group of elves in shabby clothing (shabby by Darksol standards) tried to approach them offering candy. For the two children of Darksol’s nearly divine royalty, this was one of the most idiotic things they had ever seen, especially since the suspicious elves were acting in broad daylight and in front of a bunch of other people. Hell, there were already people calling the police, not that these elves seemed to notice or even care.

This led the twins to come to a very interesting conclusion and decide to make a very… interesting choice. The twins did not end up going with the elven abductors. They did, however, incapacitate them and decide to play a prank on both their parents and on whoever sent these dumb as fuck elves. It was simpler than expected to ‘hack’ into the minds of the elves, simpler still to convince some big dumb tree that its plan went off without a hitch and that the twins were being taken to it.

When the police arrived, the kids made it clear that they had everything under control and that they and their parents would take care of things. Normally, the cops would have insisted otherwise, but who in their right mind would argue with the children of Kain of all people? When the sound of sonic booms echoed from the citadel in the heart of Necrograd, Raziel and Elizabeth knew that their prank had paid off. With that done, they returned home, only to discover that their mother, Alexis, had never been informed of what was going on.

She was, of course, quickly let in on the joke, and while part of her wanted to inform her husband, another, more vocal part insisted that she join the prank and see what would happen because of it. And so, with Alexis joining in on the fun, only Kain was left out in the dark, seething with vengeful, vindictive rage at a tree who, unfortunately for itself and its people, pushed just the right/ wrong buttons.

…

The God-Tree was quite upset, and nobody could quite figure out why. Surely its plan to abduct the twin sprouts borne from the terrible weed up north had gone off without a hitch, so why was the great and mighty Tree so upset? None of its caretakers knew of what the Great God-Tree had experienced when it had to connect its divine will to that corrupting filth, but if that pest had done anything to their beloved God-Tree, then they would urge all within the ACT to rise for war.

…

If a tree could sweat, then the God-Tree would be doing so right now. It was bad enough that He had misjudged the sheer brutality and fury of that monster up north, but after He had severed its contact with the beast, it had received a connection from its agents.

Oh, if only it had been more careful, it would have noticed that the voices of its followers had changed drastically when they reported their success. That second chat from their impersonators was just those damnable sprouts gloating about how ‘royally fucked’ He was. As if things could not get any worse, it only took a few minutes for the skies above the lands it ruled to echo with the sound of thunder, even when the sky itself was devoid of clouds.

He was in a panic, and there was next to no time to come up with a counter to the incoming mass of blind rage. Perhaps… perhaps the monster of the north could be reasoned with? Perhaps if He told it that its children were safe back in its evil lands, it would leave Him alone? Well, He would have to check if that worked sooner rather than later, as the monster was screaming through the air, firing massive magical blasts in every direction as it drew closer and closer.

Oooooh… This was not good at all…