Sadly, while fiends were not bound by the laws of space-time while outside the physical plane, they were not God, and couldn't see and hear all that happened. Just a very good deal of it. But not quite enough today it seemed.
The fiend's council was not pleased with the lack of reports from Janith, more so on her lack of corrupted human souls to be presented to them. They were even MORE concerned when she had effectively fallen off the map. Was she trying to go rogue? Like any rebellion, the only rebellion the fiends approved of was their own.
They needed to find her, and teach her loyalty to the council was not optional.
"Who is up for assignment?" Asked one of several towering terrors in a semi-circle. Each one the size of a sky-scrapper.
"... Aliza."
"Her?" Ask a third. "You know how she gets. So goes alone but she never comes back alone."
A forth said, "Indeed. But given she will be on a search mission for our missing succubus, this is one time her talents and tastes will be useful."
"… Very well." Said the third.
"Aliza! Come forth!" Said the first speaker.
A spiral of fire instantly appeared on the island sized table. "Yes my masters?"
The figured appeared at first glance to a young child. But only at first glance. Her skin was as red as crimson. Her eyes were a swirling yellow. And her nails were pitch black and pointed. A thin pointed tail swished behind her. A pair of curled black horns topped her head pointing upwards. Her hair was short and ghostly white. She grinned at the titans of evil before her with a pair of fangs. She was barefoot, she wore a pair of bandages in an 'x' around her chest, and a white loincloth.
"Aliza. . . . Janith has failed to report in for far far too long. This can no longer be ignored. We have reason to believe she had gone rogue. Bring her back here."
"Yes sir." She bowed, hiding her boredom at a search and retrieval.
"Also . . . give the nature of your assignment . . . you're free to indulge in your, particular style of collecting converts, IF they're used to find Janith and bring her back."
Now Aliza grinned for real. After all, it was her area of expertise, corrupting the innocent. "YES SIR!"
She vanished in a swirl of flames again.
-
In the city Janith called home, stood a young lass. She had short black hair, fetching yellow eyes, and wore a white dress, somewhat pale, and looked at everything with a cute smirk. She saw a couple children her age playing and began to walk towards them with her bare feet.
Children were fun, what may didn't realize, was that children were the best of monsters. Humans didn't want to admit it, but empathy was a learned trait, it wasn't something they were born with.
"Hiiiii," she said, a distinct charm in her voice. These children still at the age where they'd be willing to accept newcomers into their mist without a second thought. "My name is Alli," she said with an almost musical tone. Her voice drew their attention. "What are you doing?"
"We were gonna play hide and seek," said one of the boys.
"That so? Can I play?" She asked innocently.
"Sure!" The three children replied.
'So we have an agreement.' Alli thought. But that was just step one. "Hey! I know a extra-special way to play hide and seek, it can make it lots more fun. But . . . " She added some spice to the bait, "It might be a little tricky to play."
"Hey, we can do it," said the other boy in typical child bravado. The other two nodded.
"So you'd like to try hide and seek by my rules?" She asked, putting on her most disarming expression.
"What are your rules?" The girl asked.
"It might be easier to show you than tell you, do you mind?" Alli asked.
"Well can you show us?" The other boy asked.
"Oh that's easy, but first, what are you name?"
"Trisha."
"Robert."
"Wesley."
"Okay, first, in this game of hide and seek, there's one hider and the rest are seekers. And when you find them, it's your job to bring them back to home. So the hider has to be super good, that's why there are lots of seekers. So, do you want to play my game, by my rules?"
"Sounds kinda easy, but alright." Wesley said, the two two nodded.
"One last thing . . . this game can only be played with friends. Will you be my friends?"
The three again agreed.
Then came the tricky part, Alli pricked her thumb with a thorn, making her bleed, then said this was her special hand shake only for her friends. And so she shook their hands.
"Now. Close your eyes. Now turn around. Now lower your heads. Count to ten, you feel your mind bend. Count to nine, you feel just fine. Count to eight, now let's rewrite fate. Count to seven, the darkness in you I'll now leaven. Count to five, your souls take a dive. Count to four, you couldn't care less about before. Count to three, now you're like me. Count to two, if only you knew. Count to one, now THIS will be fun!"
She flapped her hand six times.
The three children stood up stiffly.
Alli reached up and pulled on three zippers that had had not been there before. The children's form split open like a costume, clothes and all, the dress, pants, baseball cap, all connected to a single piece, the inside look like simple velvet. She took the three 'costumes' and tossed them in a garbage bin. She looked with satisfaction as it was picked up and thrown into a garbage truck and taken to the city dump. None of the adults or other children around noticed anything strange going on or even really noticed the four anymore. They were beyond their perceptions.
Aliza shed her disguise and strolled around the three coming to face them. Their colors were now the same as hers, white hair, red skin, yellow swirling for eyes, fangs. But they were unique.
However they were now all girls. But Aliza didn't care for boys. She preferred girls as friends.
"As part of the game, Trisha, Robert, Wesley, those names don't mean anything to you anymore. My name is Aliza. What are your names? What are the only names you have? What are the names of my new friends? What are the names of my three new imps friends?"
"I'm Tizlira." Her hair had stayed along, and her new headband was as black and night, then you realized it was actually her horns that criss crossed from each other then curled around her ears, her tail split in two near the end, all she wore was a white poncho.
"My name is Ra-Barbus." She said, she was the only one of them to wear foot wear, a pair of bone white sneakers with no socks, and a pair of white wrist bands, her torso was covered by a white playboy bunny dress minus the rabbit ears and tail. Her tail ended in a spiked ball, and her horns pointed straight up like antenna at the back of her ears. She also had a large spiked metal club shaped like a baseball bat. Her hair was now in a braid that went all the way down to her ankles.
"I'm called Wicked." She wore white shorts as a white tube top. Her hair was in a pair of pigtails with the clips being little black horned smilie faces with fangs like a jack-o-lantern. Her tail swish back and forth like a lizard's tail. She had three small black horns sticking out of her forehead.
"Remember the rules of the game, find others who want to play, and add them to our numbers, until we find Janith, and bring her back to our home."
"This'll be super-fun!"
"We're gonna make so many friends!"
"We'll find Janith, don't worry!"
"I'm happy to have you as friends, and you're happy to have me as your friend, yes?"
"Yes!" She said together.
"You don't want to be icky humans again right?"
"Right!"
"You LIKE being bad!"
"YES!"
"You're gonna love meeting all my playmates at home after we grab Janith and get back."
"As long as one of them plays baseball."Ra-Barbus said.
"Oh I'm sure Bad-Mitten does. Oh, and what do you think of your families?"
"You're our family."
"Your human families?"
"What about them?"
"Who cares?"
"Forget'em."
"Perfect! Nice to see I've still got the touch! Now let the games begin!"
Unseen unless they chose to be otherwise, the four imps began to spread out in search of Janith who the fiends knew was in the city.
While Angels didn't mind showing themselves if need be (a public miracle was always good press for them), fiends didn't like humans KNOWING there were forces of darkness seeking to add humans to their numbers.
So in this new day and age, with missing children reports, the internet, and all those annoying things, Aliza's fun and games had been heavily restricted in the modern world.
But the longer these three were imps, the more their human existences would fade, until no memory or record of them remained, and they would be the latest in Aliza's fellow imp playmates, she had quite the collection as it was, but she could always do for more. Besides, it was technically her job to lure humans into damnation, they should thank her for giving them a special place there.