Chapter Text
“Just one drop of acid into this solution and I will have finally completed my height increasing potion! Angel and Pentious won’t be able to mock me anymore when I’m taller than they are! HAHAHAHAH!” Baxter laughed to himself. “Just… one… drop… and goodbye short jokes.”
He opened the stopper slowly, slowly, slowly… and then… two drops came out at once.
The solution exploded in a cloud of yellow smoke, billowing through the hotel.
“Shit,” he groaned.
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Walking through the hotel with a battery-powered fan, he announced “Hey everyone, sorry for the smoke. I was just doing some experiments. Hello? Don’t worry about me, I was wearing my gas mask. Not that any of you would worry about me, that is,” he grunted.
As he was blowing the smoke out of the front entry, he heard a very tiny meowing sound. He looked around, confused. Where was that coming from? Something brushed his leg and he looked down. He jumped in surprise when he discovered a demon kitten rubbing against his leg. “Hey there,” he said, setting down the fan and picking it up. “Did you get in when I opened the door? Huh. You sure look like Husk. I mean, you even have the same… wings… Oh, my, Satan. Are you Husk’s child!?” he asked.
“Guys, hey guys, I found Husk’s kitten! Where are they?” he asked, looking around. As he entered the main lobby, he tripped over something. This caused him to toss the kitten, which fortunately grabbed onto the drapes and hung there, safe and sound.
“Ow, what did I trip on?” he asked.
“Bad man hurted me tail!” a demon snake hatchling whimpered, breaking into tears. He looked like Pentious. He even had a tiny little one-eyed hat on his head.
“What in the…? Was there some father-son demon meeting I wasn’t told about?” Baxter asked, scratching his head. “And why are you sitting in a pile of… a pile of… Pentious’ clothes… Oh no. Oh no. Angel! Alastor! Where are you?!” He knew the girls had gone out for a girl’s day out, so he wasn’t worried about them, but he didn’t know who else might have been in the hotel.
He felt something dripping on his head from above. He looked up to see a small and very naked white spider demon clinging to the ceiling, drooling as it sucked on one of its hands. “Ew. Arg! A… Angel, get down from there! You get down right now!”
The small spider blew a raspberry at him and continued to cling to the ceiling. “You get down here right now young man! Don’t make me get a ladder!”
The spider demon giggled and skittered across the ceiling. “Gotta cath me firs!”
“Wait, hey, wait! Get back here! Get…” He looked around and realized the kitten was tearing up the curtains with his claws and the snake hatchling was quickly slither-crawling away. “Stay… stay put, all of you!”
He ran to the laundry room and grabbed one of the big bins that was used to carry comforters. He caught the kitten first, putting it in the pin. He snatched up the little snake on its way up the stairs and put it in the bin with the kitten. He set the bin down in the center of the lobby and got a broom. “Okay, little spider. Here, itsy bitsy spider. Where are you?”
He heard a wicked giggle and chased after him, finding the baby spider hanging from one of the kitchen cabinets, mouth full of candy. He was shoveling pixie sticks in his mouth like he’d normally snort cocaine. “Get down here,” he ordered, chasing after him. Finally, after a very frantic chase up, down, around, and over the dining room tables he managed to catch the spider and put him in the basket. When he got there, the snake had his mouth on the kitten.
“No, no, not food!” he said, separating them. He was panting. “Okay. Is that all of you?” he asked.
He noticed all of them were looking over his shoulder and giggling. He turned around quickly. Nothing was there, and they stopped giggling. The minute he looked back at them, they started giggling again. He turned around again to still see nothing. Looked back at the toddlers, the laughter started again. “What’s so funny? What are all of you looking at? What is…”
He turned around this time and came face to face with a floating red fawn, which caused him to scream and fall backwards, knocking over the basket. All three previously captured toddlers took off in different directions. “Did you get a boo-boo?” the floating deer asked calmly.
He was absolutely panting, his heart pounding like it was trying to escape from his chest, but he’d managed to catch all four toddlers and place them on a couch together. The front door creaked open. “Hello everyone! We’re back from the mall!” he heard Charlie call.
“PRINCESS! PRINCESS, COME HERE! I NEED YOU! I NEED YOU!” he screamed.
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“BWAAAH HAAAA HAAAA HAAAA HAAAA,” Cherri laughed, nearly busting a gut. “Look at old man as a little man! Oh, oh, this is too good! I’m going to die! And look at the scary Radio Demon’s little tail! HAHAHAHA!”
Niffty has put garbage bags under each confused toddler, as she just had the upholstery cleaned and she wasn’t about to let undiapered toddlers ruin that situation. Toddler Pentious kept trying to chew on Toddler Husk, who wanted to rub his cheek on Toddler Angel. Toddler Alastor preferred to stay off on his own, his radio staff having been transformed into a radio rattle for some reason. That he was still fully capable of using to bean anyone he didn’t like, as Baxter’s aching head could testify.
“Okay, I’ve ordered a bunch of toddler sized shirts and diapers from Baby Imps R Us. I paid for super-express rush delivery.”
“The… the solution I was creating to make me taller… it must have backfired and made them smaller! I… I’ll have to create a counter solution to turn them back to normal. But until then… someone’s going to have to watch them.”
“Aw, they’re so adorable!” Charlie said, her eyes glowing. “Watching them shouldn’t be any problem!”
“Are you sure? They are still demons, even if they’re small demons.”
“I’ll even help,” Cherri volunteered. “Four baby demons, four of us girls.”
“I’ll take Husk!” Niffty said, waving her hand.
“I’ll take baby old man. That’ll really piss him off when he’s back to normal,” Cherri volunteered.
“Charlie, I hate to do this to you, but why don’t you take baby Angel and I’ll take baby Alastor?”
“I’d be fine with any of them. They’re just so precious!” she said, picking up baby Angel. He immediately threw up the excess candy he’d eaten on her shirt. “But maybe we shouldn’t pick them up until the diapers get here,” she changed her mind, setting Angel back down.
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“Okay, I think I want to change my mind,” Cherri said once the supplies had arrived. “How do I diaper this?! I don’t even know where to put it! Hey, you handsy little demon! Fingers off the goods! Snakes don’t breast feed and I know it!”
“You think we’re having an easier time?” Vaggie asked, as she’d just had to chase down her floating charge. She’d been bonked on the head with his rattle for her effort.
“Aaaah, Angel, stop!” Charlie cried. “I just changed shirts!”
“Woah, what a little fire hose,” Cherri commented.
“I don’t know why you’re having trouble,” Niffty shrugged, as the kitten Husk was purring and snuggling against her.
With Charlie on her third outfit of the day, they finally got all the toddlers settled down for dinner. Cherri had just given up and put three diapers on the snake’s tail and figured whichever one got dirty was the one she’d have to change in the future.
“Come on, it’s yummy food! Look, there’s a picture of the turkey on the container! I know you eat turkey!” Cherri tried to encourage. The snake had his mouth sealed shut and kept turning his head away from her spoon. “Ugh, why won’t you EAT?! Fuck this, I’m going to check a parenting website,” she said, pulling out her phone.
“Fuhk dis,” Pentious repeated, laughing.
“FUHK DIS!” Angel shouted in agreement.
“You little… huh. It says it can be difficult to get cobra hatchlings to eat in captivity. You need to convince them the food is still alive. Great. How am I supposed to make baby food look alive?!”
“… You’re really complaining that your toddler is the hardest?” Vaggie asked, Alastor having teleported the container of baby food onto her head, upside down and open.
“Do not want veggies,” the fawn shrugged.
“Mine is on the ceiling,” Charlie said dismally.
“Here’s the broom,” Vaggie said helpfully.
“I still don’t know why you guys are having so much trouble with this,” Niffty shrugged, as her kitten Husk was eagerly chomping down his dinner and purring.
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“It says on the parenting webpage that we should give the toddlers intellectual stimulation and play so they’re tired enough to go to bed at night,” Charlie read off her phone.
“What do we play with them?” Cherri asked. “What can I drool on isn’t exactly the best game I’ve ever heard of.”
“We should do something educational. Like teaching colors or shapes!”
“They don’t really need to be educated, since we can assume they’re going to go back to normal once Baxter makes the counter solution.”
“Then how about… puppets!” she said, pulling her hands out of the baby pack she’d ordered with a rabbit puppet on one hand and a mouse puppet on the other.
Pentious’ and Husk’s eyes dilated. With a dual wiggle butt, they pounced. Pentious chomped onto the rabbit, and Husk snapped down hard on the mouse.
A tear dripped down Charlie’s cheek as she tried not to scream or jump and accidentally hurt the toddlers. “Oh sure, NOW he wants to eat!” Cherri cried in frustration.
“Please get them off,” Charlie said in a high, pained voice. “They have very sharp teeth.”
“Maybe we can just put on a Didney movie?” Vaggie suggested as she helped pry the sharp-fanged toddlers off Charlie.
“No, we need to give them brain stimulating play, not set them in front of a television screen!” Charlie insisted. “And we… um… urg…” she said, turning slightly green.
“Charlie! Are you okay? What’s happening?” Vaggie asked.
“Huh, internet says cobra hatchlings are fully venomous,” Cherri informed them.
“No, Charlie, you’ve already changed outfits several times today!”
“BLAAAAAARGFF.”
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“Is the water the right temperature?” Charlie asked nervously. A sizeable amount of anti-nausea medicine had been consumed.
“I’ve checked it three times. Let’s get them all in for a bath,” Vaggie responded to her.
The moment he saw the bath was the moment Husk’s run as the perfect toddler was ruined. His eyes got huge, his fur puffed up, his claws came out, and he hiss-yowled enough to scare even a hardened sinner. “Who, Husk, Whoa! You have to take a bath!” Niffty said, barely keeping him far enough from her that his claws were slashing up their air inches in front of her face instead of her actual face.
“HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSS” was the response. “SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.”
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“They’re the ones in the bath, aren’t they? So why are we the ones who are soaked?” Cherri asked. Massive amounts of splashing were coming from three playing toddlers. The last one was just barely being held down by a scratched-up, less than pleased looking Niffty. “HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS” continued to escape from him.
“HISS!” Pentious hissed back, thinking it was funny.
“HISS!” Angel mimicked.
“Boo!” Alastor contributed.
“… Boo?”
“You know, boo, hiss?” Vaggie shrugged. “He just has to be contrary. Pentious! Don’t you dare!” she said quickly, stopping the snake from biting Alastor’s tail.
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“Now, it says on the webpage that getting young children to bed at a consistent time is the key to teaching them to sleeping through the night.” They’d wrapped elastic ropes around a four-post bed to make a form of a mock-up crib to hold them temporarily.
“Story time?” Angel asked.
“Story time?” Pentious also asked, nodding.
“Do you have any good stories that your parents used to tell you, Charlie?”
“I remember a few,” she said.
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“That’s a version of the Dante’s Inferno I’ve never heard before,” Cherri whispered as they left the toddlers behind, quietly closing the door.
“Dad would always get really mad that book got so much wrong, so he made his own version,” Charlie whispered back.
As they were sneaking away, Vaggie accidentally stepped on a creaky board. Immediately, four sobbing voices rang out from the room behind them. Vaggie groaned. “Back we go,” she sighed.
“Wait, it says to let them cry for a bit, so they learn self-soothing skills and not to expect you to run every time they cry.”
A moment later, the door was blown off its hinges. The toddlers, standing up in bed, looked expectantly at them. “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeexcept one of those children is a baby Radio Demon,” Vaggie noted.
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“Did anyone sleep last night?” Charlie asked.
“Even my teeth are tired,” Niffty responded.
“Baxter had better get that solution ready soon,” Cherri agreed.
“How can they still be at full energy when they didn’t sleep?” Vaggie added, referring to the toddlers. Pentious, Angel, and Husk were chasing each other all over the lobby while Alastor observed.
“Maybe we should take them outside, so they can work off some of their energy and get some fresh air.”
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“I know you’re not happy about it, but you can fly,” Vaggie said to the huffing Alastor, who did not like being on a leash. “I’m not going to have you fly away and have to chase you.”
“Angel, must you climb on everything?” Charlie groaned, exhausted as she tried to keep up with him.
The terror of the bath forgotten for now, Husk had returned to his normal kitten-like persona and was eating grass while Niffty looked over him. He would get an elevator butt when she petted him, and she thought that was hilarious.
Cherri decided to check her phone for what she thought would be one harmless, quick moment. Problem was, in that time, Pentious spotted a small creature slithering through the grass. In his toddler-sized mind, that was lunch. Getting down low, he stalked after it.
Cherri looked up what she thought was a moment later but was actually a little over five minutes later. “Oh shit, where’s old man?” she asked in alarm, looking wildly around. “I only looked at my phone for a second!” No one else had noticed she was distracted as they were too busy trying to keep their own charges from escaping.
Charlie held all three of the other toddlers while Niffty and Cherri did an immediate sweep of the perimeter. “He can’t have gotten far in this short amount of time, right?” Cherri asked, huffing from the exercise.
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Just outside of the hotel, a stalking Pentious had followed the crawling thing up onto the sidewalk and a good distance down it. He’d crashed headfirst into another demon’s legs, since he was only paying attention to his prey. “Ow!” he complained loudly, rubbing his head.
“What in the…?” the female imp said, bending down and picking him up under his armpits “A hatchling? All by itself?” The snake looked at her with his head cocked and coiled his tail up, sticking the end of it in his mouth. “You are so adorable! Look at your tiny hat!” Looking around and seeing no one, she bundled him up in her arms. “I’m going to adopt you,” she said, taking off before anyone could appear to contradict her decision.