Bloodied Magic - Tiz - Helluva Boss (Web Series) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Most people in Hell think that “Ars Goetia” is a family. A surname, like Buckzo or Knotlastname. And in the latest millenia or so, it has become one, of sort, due to marriages mostly. But its origins are hidden in plain sight, in its very name. The word “Goetia” comes from the Greek word γοητεία (goēteia), meaning "charm", or “magic”*. Ars means art, but in the ancient way that also means “skill” or “handicraft”.

The Ars Goetia used to be, in short, the demons who were able to do magic. But only the Sins, the more ancient among them and the oldest Overlord remember those days, when the Ars Goetia were no family and when magic was more widespread among the denizens of Hell. Nowadays, magic goes with Blood, and the Ars Goetia keeps a stranglehold on it.

But Magic is its own thing, whatever it is the demonic Goetian or the Angelic (and more powerful) Theurgia. And when it is mixed with blood, it can do very strange things indeed.

Blitzø Buckzo had died smiling.

The choice had been due to a simple matter of math. He was at the “Blitzo Sucks Party”, and saw how many f*cking people hated him.

Including Stolas.

And it wasn’t as if the thought made something in his heart squeeze painfully, and made his throat burn so the very air felt like acid (more than usual, what with Pride’s acid rains), and his arms and hands tremble. It wasn’t like that at all.

He missed the owl. And no amount of alcohol or sex would stop the hollow feeling, which went together with all the other hollow feelings. The others were labelled “Barbie” and “Mom” and had likely welcomed the one labelled “Stolas” with a nice welcome party in some part of whatever hellborns had that passed for a soul. His was like those fancy cheeses, more holes and hollows than substance.

So, he had decided it was time to make a lot of people very happy, and off himself.

It had felt so good, deciding it. Like a huge weight was lifted off him. There was no need to do anything but make sure it went smoothly and M&M could happily inherit I.M.P. while Loona would get the most money possible.

They would be better without him. He was, clearly, a burden.

Moxxie praised his sudden interest and dedication to paperwork, and Millie smiled and said she was happy he was getting better. She didn’t say after that.

There was no need.

Only Loona, his beloved daughter, looked worried when he sold his more expensive horse stuff, and stuff in general, including Mare-juana and his modified flintlock.

But she didn’t say anything.

(Later, she would wonder if it would have happened anyway, if she had. And another notch was added to her own soul).

Blitzø had written letters to everybody (even Stolas. It had been hard. He had done it), made some investment with his money into Asmodeus and Fizz’s business (Fizz had been pleased. He hadn’t seen where the money came from). It would go to Loona, the dividend. Not enough to be set up, but enough to worry a bit less.

So here he was, a month after the party, sitting cross legged in the shower (easier to clean), with his back to the off-white tiles and a gun in his hands. He smiled at it, feeling as free as he had when he was just an impling, jumping the trapeze with Barbie and Fizz. He caressed it, lovingly, shivering as he felt the coldness of the metal.

Then he put the muzzle in his mouth.

He closed his eyes, his tongue tasting the metal and gunpowder. He smiled, and pulled the trigger.

A bullet is a very fast little thing. Around 2,700 ft. per second.

Magic is faster.

Blitzø’s nerves were not fast enough to feel the bullet shatter the roof of his mouth, crush all the bones between his mouth and brain and wreak havoc on the soft tissue, getting out of his skull between his horns, nipping away the tip of one, and spraying his brain on the tiles like a delicate painting of flowers.

They were definitively not fast enough to feel the red magic coming fast in the back of the bullet, springing from something in his middle, repairing the damage.

He didn’t even feel pain.

When the red portal opened under him, he was too surprised to scream. He tumbled backward, blood-soaked gun slipping from his hand.

“WHAT THE F…”

When the Cleaning People (so called because they cleaned away people, not because they cleaned in general**) came as booked, they found the tell-tales sign of death, but no body. After some swearing, they left the certificate, and then left themselves.

When Loona came the day after, she could smell the blood and brain from the door.

She didn’t even need to open the door to know.

She had been drunk.

She sobered up real quick.

For a second she stood still, hand on the door, her body as made of ice, her teeth icicles in her mouth. Then she ran inside, surging in, running toward the smell.

The bathroom’s door opened with a bang.

Loona stood still.

Then the whole neighborhood was woken by a hellhound’s scream.

*And, strangely enough, “jugglery”.

** A nifty little Hell service. Do you want to kill yourself but don’t want your loved one to find you? Do you want to kill yourself but do not want your body to end up in WackDonald? Call the Cleaning People! They’ll clean you away and leave a certificate!

PS: it is necessary to book at least a week in advance, payment in advance, no refund given.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

In the soft silence of the North Wood, the birds were chirping and the imps were screaming.

Well, one imp at least.

“WHAT THE FUUUUCKKKK!!! WHAT. THE. FUUUUUUUCKKKKKKK!!!!”

Blitzø checked himself. Two hands, two legs, all the scars he could see accounted for, zero holes in his head.

The last was weird.

He looked around, wildly. Trees. Trees, trees, trees. More tree in the distance. Some general green stuff. Grasses. Smaller trees. The sun shone and gave to everything that particular green light that came from sunrays passing through leaves. Blitzø, a lifelong resident of Hell with its reddish light, distrusted it.

“So” he said, aloud. “Either there IS an afterlife and it is green and also boring as sh*t, or I am on Earth.” He glanced down at his arm. No Asmodean Crystal. He had put it on the table, together with the Letters (capital L), and he had also started the process to pass it down to Moxxie.

(See, he COULD plan and think of everything suck it Mox).

Blitzø looked around one last time, scratching the back of his head, then shrugged.

Standing still wouldn’t help anyhow.

He started walking.

__

Hello Loona,

I wanted you to know you are my perfect, most precious daughter and that I love you so so much. This is not at all because of you, you are wonderful and I am so proud of you Loony-Toony. You have grown so much since we met! I believe you’ll continue to grow and make me even more proud, even if I won’t be here to see it. It will be better for you, at least I won’t waste my money in stupid sh*t - stuff. In a month you’ll start receiving some dividend on the investments I made. You’ll be alright, sweetie, even without your stupid old dad.

I love you,

Blitzo the o is silent

(SPEECH TO TEXT)

Loona turned toward the toilet and puked.

He did that for a long, long time. So long that the acrid smell of vomit almost, almost overpowered the stench of blood and brain.

Blitzø’s blood and brain.

She vomited some more, her whole body convulsing under the strength, her paws trying to get traction on the tiled floor, scrambling, as she hugged the porcelain and strips of saliva fell from her fangs and tears from her eyes.

She crawled out of the bathroom, whimpering as she hadn’t in so many years, since she was a pup in the pound, before curling on herself and whining, high and true. She was shacking, her eyes wide, hugging her own shoulders. She kicked once, twice, automatic shakes she couldn’t stop.

Maybe it was ten minutes, maybe a hour before she scrambled to sit, and pressed herself against the couch (it smelled like Blitzø, like sweat and gunpowder and hot souce and safety and love. She whimpered) and got out her phone.

Her hands were shacking. It fell. She looked at it on the ground, and it was blurred and unblurred at intervals.

She took it up again, and called Millie, her tails between her legs, sobs exploding somewhere in her throat.

__

Tree, rock, tree, tree, smaller tree, rock, tree.

Blitzø was getting frustrated.

He had tried kicking a tree, but the tree Didn’t Care and he had hurt his foot, so he cussed it out for good measure, and went on.

He had not tried kicking a rock. He knew better than that.

He had been walking for hours, and absolutely nothing had changed. He was starting to get a sneaking suspicious these woods were, like.

Big.

The sun was setting. It was getting pleasantly dark. He shrugged and went on. He could still see, after all.

__

Millie,

Thank you for having been a friend. Take care of your husband and a bit of my Loony if you can? It has nothing to do with you, at all! It was… a lot of other stuff. Not I.M.P. neither!

You have been… like a sister to me. You are the best fighter ever. You and Moxx get I.M.P. and the crystal. Take care.

Thank you again.

Blitzo the o is silent

(SPEECH TO TEXT)

Moxxie,

Remember you are a good assassin and a f*cking fantastic sniper. And also sometimes you have good tastes in music. Sometimes. Take care of your wife, and keep I.M.P. afloat. It goes to you two, with the crystal. I already taught you how to use it so it should be fine.

This has nothing to do with you, or I.M.P., just a lot of stuff. You have been a good friend.

Thank you.

Blitzo the o is silent

(SPEECH TO TEXT)

Millie and Moxxie barged into the flat, their yellow eyes huge.

Loona was still curled on the ground, sniffling, whimpering. The flat was the same as always: horses and scratched photos and odd cozyness.

And the smell of blood.

Millie’s eyes widened, and she ran for Loona, holding her close as her yellow eyes locked with Moxxie. He nodded and sprinted for the bathroom, his hooves clicking on the tiles.

They were so loud.

Moxxie entered the bathroom, and stopped.

The smell of vomit and alcohol permeated the place, but his sniper eyes recognized the patterns of blood and brain on the wall. He could see, in his mind, where Blitzø had been sitting, the angle in which the gun would have entered his head.

He closed his eyes, swaying in place and holding the doorframe not to fall down on his face, his own guts threatening to spill.

Moxxie’s gaze fell down on the card of the Cleaning People. Trembling, he extended one hand and picked it up.

“As per contract we got the body of Blitzø Buckzo which at the time of reading would have already been cremated and his ashes strewn in the last known place of the Imp Circus, as per his directive. For more information, please contact 666-345-666 Ask for Bob.”

Moxxie put his free hand in his mouth, and dragged himself to his wife and to Loona. Millie looked at him, still holding the Hellhound, a plea in her gaze.

He shook his head. It felt like it was made of lead. He handed her the card. His hand was trembling, he noticed. He was all trembling.

Millie read the card and tears filled her eyes as her mouth moved in the silent word “no.”

Moxxie fell on the ground on the other side of Loona, holding the hellhound as his wife was doing, feeling Loona’s shakes reverberate into himself.

Pain has a way to unite people.

__

Blitzø went on walking.

There was nothing else he could do.

“Perhaps this is Hell. Another Hell. Superhell. A very empty kind of Hell” He groused, looking at a couple of squirrels running up and down a trunk.

It was night. He had walked for hours and hours and hours. He wasn’t tired, not really. But the monotony was getting to him.

He sighed, and went on walking.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

Blitzø woke up to the sound of the blasted birds.

He had fallen asleep in the end, curled on some soft green stuff* by the billionth f*ck-tall tree. The sun was in his eyes, and he hissed at it, his tail slashing the air.

f*ck the sun.

He sat up and looked around.

Trees, grass, green stuff*, grey stuff**, rocks, smaller trees. Birds. Squirrels. Some other four-legged thing with a black mask that was looking at him from up a tree. He growled at it. The thing didn’t seem impressed.

Blitzø massaged his forehead. f*ck, he was thirsty. Not the fun type. The “I-need-actual-water” type. He looked around.

No bottle of water materialized itself.

“It f*cking figures. I cannot kill myself but some water? Nah. I’ll die of thirst instead, whatever-that-is and it is not more pleasant” he bitched, knowingly.

Then he sighed, and started to walk again.

*Moss

**Lichen

__

Fizz,

I wanted to thank you to have become my friend again, it matters a lot. And thank you for having brought me in these deals with your horny rooster, they will be real good for Loony. You have always been… important to me. You know, the day… well, the day it happened, I wanted to give you a letter telling you I loved you? I had a f*cking-for-real flower and everything.

I am rambling, it is the speech-to-text. What I meant is, I am glad if only one of us could be happy it is you. This has nothing to do with you, just… stuff.

Could you send mom’s chocker to Barbie, if you can, and tell her I love her?

Thank you,

Always your friend

Blitzo the o is silent

(Speech to Text)

“Ahahahahah. That was… Funny. Reeeeal funny. It was Blitzø who put you up to it, right? He always had the sh*ttiest sense of humor. Give him the phone I need to tell him what I think in person!”

“… Mr Fizzarolli… it is… it is not… a prank.”

“…”

“He… left a note for you. And his… his chocker. And… the Cleaning People says his… his ash… his ashes have been dispersed on the last place of… the Imp Circus.”

“… th… the Imp Circus? His… his ashes? Oh. Oh f*ck. Oh satan. Oh. No.”

A thud. The phone fell down, the call disconnecting, and Fizzarolli looked at it. Somebody came in, telling him sh*t that clearly didn’t matter. He blinked, tears falling down his face, on his clothes.

The person went away.

Fizzarolli curled his tail around himself, and his robotic arms as well, twice, rolling into a little, pathetic imp-ball as he started to sob and rock and sob.

He was still sobbing and rocking when Asmodeus found him, later, and enveloped him in an embrace.

Fizzarolli cried on the sin’s mane, and his tears frizzed on his beloved’s fire as Asmodeus sushed and rocked him, sushed and rocked him for what felt, and maybe was, hours.

___

“I swear to Satan if I don’t see something that ISN’T a tree or a rock or a green thing* I WILL set this place on f…”

This is when Blitzø rounded a boulder, and almost faceplanted into The Thing.

The Thing was about as tall as a hatless Stolas, which meant almost twice as big as the imp. The first impression Blitzø had was of brown, and long legs, and big big antlers.

He stopped dead.

It had the general shape of a horse, but it definitively was not a horse. Horse didn’t have antlers. Also its long face was all wrong, with an enormous flaccid nose that wasn’t at all like the majestic beauty of horses. And The Thing had a hump. Horses were humpless, because they were superior.

It wasn’t a deer. He had an idea of what deer were, because there were deer-demons, like the radio-demon. This thing was Not A Deer.

f*ck him if he knew what it was.

Still, Blitzø felt all his muscles lock.

The Thing ignored Blitz, and ambled onward. The assassin frowned. He needed water. And maybe the colossal f*cker knew where water was…

Blitzø followed The Thing, slowly, keeping his eyes on the creature in case it decided it was time to swipe at Blitzø with his antlers. There were enough trees to shimmie on, in case.

So the imp followed the moose, deeper into the forest.

*still moss. Blitzø’s botanical knowledge had, sadly, not improved.

___

Stolas,

sh*t this is hard. So, first of all this is absolutely in no way your fault. It is just a lot of stuff, ok. And… well, I can make a ton of people happy this way. Everyone will be happier. You too. This is way better.

Also I am sorry. I am sorry I didn’t save you from Striker. But I did come to the hospital. You were asleep and I didn’t want to wake you up. You had your phone on your right side and were curled up there. And I am sorry for Ozzie, and for screaming at you. I yell a lot. I shouldn’t. I care for you. I care for you a lot. You are a special one, pretty bird.

I hope you’ll find somebody who is worthy of you and who’ll treat you special, like you deserve.

Forever yours,

Blitzo the o is silent

Oh hey I am attaching some money here, can you send them to Verosika for the next “Blitzo’s Sucks” party? They are for a cake, I already sent the pastry guy the info, it is about me with a bullet in my head. I suppose there’ll be much joy there, next year, won’t it?

Thank you, Stols.

(SPEECH TO TEXT)

Loona had disappeared.

Sometimes as Moxxie was calling Fizzarolli, Millie holding him close, she had gone, and was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is she? Oh crumbs… she cannot have gone far…”

Millie was looking at the table. There used to be five letters.

Now there were four.

They both looked at the place, and at each other, and then Moxxie grabbed the Asmodean Crystal, and took a deep breath before opening his first ever portal.

Stolas was kneeling in his garden, gently taking little plants from a wheelbarrow and planting them in the ground, in neat little rows. He tickled a closed blossom, and smiled a little when the tiny teeth tried to snap at him. The garden smelled like always of green things and life. Stolas plunged his talons into the good, rich, dark earth, and breathed in.

That was when he heard it.

“Let us in! His Highness could be in danger!”

“Yeah you f*ck face yer mother would be ashamed of ye! Let us in noo!”

Stolas’ primary eyes blinked and he turned toward the voices, without standing up.

The two little ones from… from Blitzø’s work were arguing with his guards. He frowned. In danger?

A cold hand closed on his guts.

… Striker? Was it possible…

He stood up and cleaned his knees, walking with his usual pace toward the guards. They bowed to him and he dismissed them with a gesture. He looked at the two little ones, they seemed… upset.

Very much so.

“Your Highness, forgive our badgering in but you may be in danger, is she here?”

Stolas frowned.

She…?

“I have no idea who you are talking about, I fear”

“Loona, she left flat and…”

At that moment, a flurry of teeth and claws descended on Stolas. He was slammed on the ground, and for a second he couldn’t breathe, but then he slid into darkness and coalesced away, frowning and unharmed and looking as the female one was holding down…

Blitzø’s daughter?

Loona, that was her name Blitzø mentioned her often, was kicking and growling, tears staining her muzzle, and Stolas had rarely been more confused. Then the hellhound screamed.

“Let me go! It is his fault, you know it is, it was him, it is all his fault if dad…” A sob, wretched and deep.

Stolas frowned more.

“What is happening here?” He asked, while the male imp tried to restrain the hellhound’s feet, and Loona threw something at him.

A ball of paper.

He took it, and opened it.

It was a letter.

Stolas read it once. And then twice. And then he blinked, swaying at his feet because it made no sense, what the paper was implying. It was a bad paper, that was all. A very bad paper. Filled with bad, bad words that couldn’t possibly meant what he was thinking they could mean.

His chest felt cold. His beak felt cold.

“… What… has happened to…” He couldn’t say it, he couldn’t.

It was the male one who looked up from his place at the feet of the hellhound, currently crying on the other imp’s shoulder, who answered him, his yellow eyes pained.

“… B… Blitzø killed himself, Your Highness. Last… last night we think.”

Stolas stared. Because the words didn’t make sense. One by one, yes. He knew them. All together? They were utterly and completely meaningless.

“No.” How sure he sounded. Because it couldn’t be true. Blitzø was certainly… not that. Not what that imp was saying he was.

The imp said nothing, just closed his eyes tight, and hunched his shoulders, and swallowed.

“No” Stolas said again, because what else could he say? There was water where his guts should have been, ice in his veins. He was panting like after a complex spell. He swayed, and sat down. He couldn’t focus on anything.

“YES!! AND IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT YOU f*ckING c*nt NUGGET!!! HE f*ckING LOVED YOU AND YOU THREW HIM AWAY LIKE A USED SEX TOY!”

This time, when Loona pounced him, he didn’t move. He didn’t slide away. He felt it, the pain of claws and teeth and the pain in her howls and tears. He let Blitzø’s daughter maul him, and wished, wildly, that she had a blessed knife.

__

The Thing was too f*cking big, but it did know its stuff.

As soon as Blitzø heard water, he had to restrain himself from running toward the place. The Thing went into the river, and stood there, but the imp put his face in the water and drank deeply.

He sat on the riverbed, more of a stream really, took off his boots and sock and put his hooves in the water, splashing around a little.

He was hungry. He was, probably, on Earth. He had no way to come back.

He sighed and threw himself back, and looked at the too bright light -f*ck the Sun- while he thought about what to do, while the forest whispered around him and red magic, unbeknownst to him, grew inside him.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

Blitzø zipped it up after pissing in the river (water to water, if you will) and looked at it again.

There were things moving in the water. Fish.

He was hungry.

“Sooo… I bet I can do this…” He muttered, wriggling his talons and looking at the darting fishes. Some were too small to be of any interest. There were some others, though. Biggish fella, generally silvery, moving in and around.

Blitzø took off his boots and socks and waded in the cool water. He looked at the fishes, crouching a little, his claws spread out. His tongue darted out for a second, as if tasting the air.

He waited.

The more he looked, the more the river became honestly interesting. There were a sh*tton of stuff going on. Like, tiny insects darting on the surface of the water. Some sort of ugly f*cks with claws and a ton of legs scuttling around the rocks. A fish darted on and gobbled a tiny insect, and Blitzø smiled. The World was the same all over.

There were even smaller things, almost see-through, if he squinted. Like a whole-ass hell ring down there, around his feet. Could there be sinners and hellborns deep in the oceans of Envy that never went up? Uh. Maybe.

Some fish got too interested in the very still hooves.

Blitzø pounced.

The fish was not where it should have been. He could feel it, just a bit up from where it should have been.

The f*cker darted away.

“THE FUUUCKKK” Blitzø screamed.

Then he gritted his teeth and tried again.

The second time, he caught a fish and it slithered from his hands.

He cursed.

The third time, he caught a fish and threw it on the shore, and the f*cker flopped all the way back in the water before Blitzø could reach it. Blitzø had to admire the tenacity.

The fourth time, he threw the fish farther, and pounced on it, and hammered a rock on its head until it stopped flopping, which was very satisfying.

And then stared.

“So, this is like, sushi right” he said, out loud, staring at the fish with the bloodied head.

It didn’t look like sushi.

“Uh.” He scratched his head. “Well… out with the guts I guess…?”

He looked around at the fish, moving it around in his hands. Where were the guts? There was a softer part with softer scales, and Blitzø slid one experimental claw there.

Success! Guts.

He grinned and gutted the fish, throwing the innards in the water, looking with soft paternal pride as other fished hastily gobbled them up*.

Earth was just as freaky as he remembered.

Back to the fish. He looked at it again.

“Well, sushi has no scales, hasn’t it?”

He started scraping the things off, washing the fish in the water from time to time. The white flesh exposed did look rather sushi-like, if not cut in the right way, but beggars can’t be chooser. He picked at it, experimentally.

“Uhm. Needs salt.” He muttered.

Then proceed to devour all of it.

And two more, for good measure. **

* Blitzø didn’t know about the Circle of Life, but would have approved of it on principle.

** Don’t do that. Blitzø is a demon, and also not an outsdoor…demon, but eating uncooked fish is a Bad Idea for humans.

___

The place where the IMP Circus had once stood laid barren, scaffolds of half-begun projects rising from the ashes like zombie from the grave. Nothing has stuck. Not even trash had been thrown in, the place too far from the newer beaten path to make it an easy dump. It stood there, silent, and forlorn.

The red sky loomed over the black ashes. Some tufts of grass hung around, tenacious in spite of everything Hell could throw at it. Fizzarolli looked around, his eyes smarting from something he knew was not Pride usual air pollution.

His eyes saw other times, when the close factories had been opened and churning gadgets for the people of Hell, when the circus’ tent rose high over the sky. He saw the ferris wheel and heard the sound of carousel music. He almost turned, expecting to see old Ian with his organ grinder and cotton candy stall.

No.

He closed his eyes.

Asmodeus’ hand fell on his shoulder.

“Fizzy, if you don’t want...”

“I do” he croaked, walking in the ruin of ruins. It smelled wrong, not like fried food and hellhorse and canvas tents.

It shouldn’t smell like dust and nothing.

He clutched the chocker in his hand, and turned a steel beam that hung crooked and dejected over what had once been Cash Buckzo’s tent place (f*ck him very much).

Barbie was here.

He looked at her, and wondered how much her second name fitted her. She was wire-tense, her hands clenched at her side, every line of her face tense in anger.

She was so much like her brother it took his breath away.

“Barbie” he said, softly.

She turned like a whip to look at him, and he recalled her jumping the trapeze, the same quick-slash movements.

“Why the f*ck here, Fizz?” She spat at him; her voice almost shrill.

He took a deep breath, his throat aching, closing. He couldn’t say it. He must. “Blitzø is dead.”

Barbie blinked, looking at him like she didn’t understand all the words he was saying, all three of them. She barked a laugh. “Very funny. Did he tell you to do this? Another lame attempt to get to me? Well I don’t f*cking care! You ear me, Blitzo? I don’t f*cking care!”

She was screaming.

Fizz looked at her, and wondered why both of them had though Blitzø would fake this. He never had. He…

Wouldn’t… have?

He swallowed, and extended one mechanical hand, opening it.

Inside, their mother’s skull chocker, red and round, gleamed softly, as red as the sky.

Barbie looked at it.

Stared.

She sat down on the ground, on the ashes (Blitzø’s ashes? No, he couldn’t think that), like her legs couldn’t hold her up anymore.

None of them saw the four people, two imps, one hellhound and one goetian, who had come closer.

Asmodeus saw. He didn’t move, hidden in his smaller form behind the steel beam, one hand over the steel, his primary forehead on his own hand, his lips parched as he watched his brave Froggy.

The sin waited.

___

Blitzø licked his fingers and looked around, considering. He wasn’t hungry and wasn’t thirsty, which was better. He was still in green-f*cking-nowhere.

He puts his boots back on and started following the river.

Occasionally, he stopped for a snack or a drink***.

He stopped, eyeing a bush with tempting red berries. Well you can eat berries, right? He had seen them in the market, they were f*cking pricey too, Stolas-stuff. He looked at the bush, squinting, searching for any sign of, oh, teeth or mouth and, finding none, experimentally plucked a berry.

When the plant didn’t try to eat him alive, he plucked another.

Still nothing.

He plucked several more, and threw them in his mouth.

“Uhm. Sweet. Tart. Not bad.” He licked his lips, and went on chewing on berry. “Earth is a f*cking buffet I swear to Satan” he muttered, munching on.

It was after some minutes of munching on the tempting red berries, when he felt… something happening. The light was different.

Redder.

He looked down.

Around his mid-section, there was light glowing. Red light, shining and sparkling. He had seen it before. Like Stolas’ magic. Save that Stolas’ was more… purple-y. This was imp-skin red.

He finished munching the berries, and looked down at his mid-section. He felt nothing.

{He couldn’t feel the magic breaking down the toxins in the berries. He couldn’t feel the cramp in his guts not-happening, or the nausea, or his heart that would have sped up. Perhaps too much. Perhaps fatally}

Blitzø licked his lips once more, turned, and went onward, following the river.

*** Don’t do that, neither. Drinking river water is Not a Good Idea. Blitzø is, again, not very expert and also a bit of an idiot, but we love him.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

“Uh. So this was mountains.”

Blitzø looked down.

The river became a waterfall, falling into a lake. Not like, a big lake. He could see all of it, in fact. It was slightly round, and there was a bunch of sticks on one end. It was very blue, which Blitzø mistrusted. Water in Hell was never that bullsh*t-blue unless somebody had dumped something in it.

Often, something radioactive.

Here everything was green and blue. The sky was blue with puffs of white clouds. The trees were green and brown. The ground was green. The water was crystal-blue. Birds were singing. The waterfall tumbled down the sharp drop in the mountain, creating a thousand of tiny rainbows.

It was all so bullsh*t, Blitzø was getting nauseous.

There were two things he noticed.

One was that there was a cabin by the lake, made of wood apparently, with a similarly wooden pier-like thing jutting in the lake.

The second, more important one, was that the cliff was tall.

Tall enough, at least.

First Blitzø looked at the cabin, squinting in the sun -f*ck the sun-. There was a half-soaked boat downed by the pier. One of the shutters hang down by one hinge.

No hint of any light came from within, nor of mortals. But Blitzø knew very well that people could live in more squalor than that. He waited, listening and watching.

Nothing happened.

Then he sighed, happily, moved himself on the side, and threw himself on the ground, a smile on his face.

The red magic enveloped him, and brought him back up.

He blinked.

“What. The. f*ck.”

He took a deep breath and walked back, then he turned suddenly, took a running run-up, and jumped.

The red-magic enveloped him, like unyielding clouds, and deposited him back.

It tickled.

“WHAT. THE. FUUUUCK.”

Blitzø screamed.

The birds, already used to it, kept twittering.

__

“So it is… it is true. f*ck. Took him… took him long enough.”

Fizzarolli looked shocked at Barbie, his eyes widening. “Are you f*cking joking right now?!”

She laughed, a bark as sharp as barbed wire. She was still staring at the choker, still sitting on the ashes of their old lives, and their old friend.

“He killed mom because he was jealous of you!” She screamed, with everything she had in her, raw and painful.

Asmodeus, small and hidden, flinched.

Four demons of various forms and not trying to hide, but hidden in fact, stopped to watch.

“IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!”

Fizzarolli rarely screamed. He wasn’t the kind. But right now, he felt it in his own lungs, like diamond dust scratching with each breath. Barbie Wire stared. He gulped, and went on, trembling, unable to stop. Unable to let it go.

“Luke was coming with my f*cking birthday cake” he laughed, because it was his last one, he couldn’t get another one, not even with Ozzie, never again, f*ck f*ck f*ck “and that sh*thead pushed him, and the candles were already lit and they fell, and Cash was too f*cking cheap to keep the fireworks as they should have been kept. That was all! That was all of it, Barbie! He tried to save your mom! He burnt his hands and his arms trying! It was bad f*cking luck!”

He panted, tears falling down his eyes, mixing with the dirt on the ground. He was trembling, nauseous. He put an arm on his eyes, sniffing, hating this, hating himself, hating that Blitzø was not here, would not be here anymore, never again, no stupid horses or pirates or…

“Why didn’t he… why…”

Barbie’s voice was more shocked than pained. Fizz laughed, and again it tore at his throat, his arm still on his eyes, his tears soaking the fabric.

“Would we have listened to him, Barb? Cash lied to him, told him I didn’t want to see him. Lied to me. Lied to everyone.” He swallowed. It didn’t help. “It wasn’t his fault. And… and it wasn’t yours, that you weren’t there. That you couldn’t help.”

“f*ck YOU!”

Fizzarolli lowered his arm, looking at Barb. She was still sitting, her hand flexed to show off her talons, all her teeth on show, panting, eyes wild with tears and pains old and new.

He threw her the chocker, like you would throw a wild animal a piece of meat. She caught it, and stared at it, and tears fell from her eyes. For her mother, or for Blitzø, or for both, he didn’t know.

He was too tired to care.

“You know where to find me, Barb” He said, exhaustion setting on whatever bones he had left, and turned.

That is when he saw them.

Millie and Moxxie and Loona stared at him, four different mouths open, four different faces utterly shocked. They looked at Barbie as well. He sighed, deflating. What did he matter if they knew?

Blitzø was dead.

He shrugged and stumbled, his brain feeling as if it was too tired to command his robotic limbs, and went toward Asmodeus, who opened his arms to hold him.

He clung to his love, and wept for the past, for the present, and for the futures that would not be.

Blitzø…

Blitzø.

___

“CANNONBALLLLL!!”

Blitzø ran as fast as he could and jumped toward the cold, hard ground down the cliff, holding his knees close to his chest.

The red magic, incredibly patient with his antics, took him and brought him back up.

“Fuuuuck you”

The imp threw himself down on the green thing, and looked up, mulishly. He had tried several ways to died. He tried jumping. He had tried “accidentally” falling. He had tried walking backwards.

Nothing. The red f*cker always took him back up.

He looked at his hands, examining them. They were the same hands as always. “How the f*ck did I get bloody magic?” He muttered, scratching his temple. “… this isn’t Stolas’. Doesn’t feel Stolas-y.” He knew Stolas’ magic, both the usual one, purple-y and tingly, and the dripping blacks of his eldritch form. This felt… different.

What is more, it didn’t fell… his.

He stood up. “sh*t, how does one do magic? Did I catch magic by f*cking Stolas too much?” He groaned, and gritted his teeth, muttering to himself. “Well, whatever it is, it f*cking sucks.”

Blitzø looked at the cabin.

Well, better than spending another night in the open he guessed.

He went down the cliff, with absolutely no care since the red f*cker would catch him if he fell (which happened. Twice). He had made noises, he knew. A lot of it.

But nothing had happened. Nobody had come out. No movements, in fact. Blitzø stopped where the trees also stopped, and looked, hidden in the shadows.

The cabin was made of logs, perhaps three time as tall as he was, with a door and three windows that he could see (two by the door, one on the side). The windows had glassed which were, by some miracle, intact. The roof was made of some sort of stuff he didn’t know, with a metallic chimney sprouting from it like a weed and another one, made of stone, that came up from the back of the house. The whole place was square, and stocky. The door was closed.

Blitzø listened, and only the damned birds and insects could be heard. He walked to the cabin, quietly, his ears tense for the sound of a shotgun being co*cked, or a gun.

There was nothing. The meadow was full of an incredible number of tiny flowers. Blues and purples and whites and sh*t. He didn’t know their names. Stolas probably did. They were pretty, and smelled nice when he stepped on them.

The door was closed with an outside latch, which would do nothing against anybody but may stop animals, he supposed.

Blitzø opened it and stepped inside.

___

“Wait, I know you!”

Barbie Wire pointed one finger of her free hand toward Stolas. Stolas looked at her, trying to swallow down what he had just learnt, trying to not think…

“I… beg your perdon?” he stammered, his head swimming. Blitzø. Blitzø had thought he had killed his mother. Blitzø had been blamed for…

“You are the goetian f*cker to whom dad sold Blitzo when we were kids!”

Wait.

What?

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Wait.

What?

“I… I… beg your perdon?” Stolas repeated, like a broken record, his eyes fixed on the imp woman who had the same expression as Blitzø’s used to have. She was pointing at him, and if he could have walked, he would have taken a step backward, tried to go away, tried to make everything to away.

“Yeah, I remember. Your old man came and Blitzø spent a day at your place, right? And some time later dad screamed at Blitzo, told him he sold him to the goetian king for five dollars and a slim fit condom, yeah, what the guy had in his pockets I remember, and that it is all Blitzo was worth. That was you, wasn’t it?”

Stolas stared.

He couldn’t see anything, but he stared.

No, it wasn’t true. He could see. He could see Blitzø, darling and brave and beautiful. He could hear…

I was convinced a prince could never love someone like me and I've let my self hatred stop me from apologizing to anyone I could ever care about!

Blitzø had been sold to him for… five dollars and a slim fit condom.

All that he was worth.

Five dollars and a slim fit condom. A grimoire.

Was there a difference?

His beak was cold. It was all he could feel of himself. His throat was squeezing painfully. He couldn’t get enough air.

“Your Highness? Your highness!”

The letter. I am sorry. I cared for you. Forever yours.

Somebody was tugging at his sleeves. He looked down. An imp, white hair, worried eyes.

Stolas folded on himself, his chest caving toward his knees. He looked at the imp. “It was me” he said, and his voice didn’t sound his. “She is right. It was me.” His hands were on the dirt and ashes. He didn’t care. That was all that was left of Blitzø. He would roll in it if he could. Absorb it in his own pores, so he could carry something of the man he loved with him, into eternity.

“Blitzø” he whispered, his hand clutching at his chest, his shoulder hunched. He could feel every breath. Every painful sip of air. Shivers ran up and down his spine, up and down his arms, his feathers fluffing up with each subtle tremor.

“Blitzø.”

___

The cabin was a single room, a square. On his right there was a bed which Blitzø eyed for any sign of corpses, finding none, he shrugged. On the left there was a library, filled to the brim with books. A bit in front of the library was a kitchen, with a stove, and cabinets and drawers. In front of him there was a huge fireplace, its black mouth open, as if waiting for somebody. A small round table with only one chair. The floor was bare, packed dirt save for what was once a rug in front of said fireplace, but that had now given materials for generations of mice’s nests, so there was little left. Cobwebs were everywhere, and dust covered every surface.

Blitzø made a beeline for the kitchen, opening the drawers and…

“Yes! Ah!”

Knives. Kitchen knives, but better than nothing. Small, big and bigger. Three of them. Needed sharpening, but if he couldn’t sharpen a knife with anything, his name wasn’t Blitzø Buckzo, the o is silent. The wooden stove looked rusted. Blitzø opened the door. It was clean, save for some cobwebs.

“Uhm.”

There were cans of food. Blitzø had no idea what year was in the mortal word, but they all looked… not new. Not old-old, but like they had stayed there for a while.

He looked into the fireplace, glancing up. He couldn’t see the sky and snorted. You don’t live in Hell and don’t know of carbon monoxide poisoning. That would need working.

Next, he looked at the bed. The bare mattress was a mice city, and he Blitzø made a disgusted sound. Under the bed, though, there were two big metal crates. Padlocked.

Blitzø went to get a stone.

Once opened, one ended up being filled with sheets, comfy-looking blankets, and pillows. The other had mortal clothes, jeans and shirts, mostly. All of it far too big for him.

“Uhm.”

Blitzø closed the metal crates and went to the library, trying to decipher a couple book titles. He squinted.

“Uhm… The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game: Volume 1 and 2… How to Trap, Skin & Tan Hides of Small Game Mammals: Complete Beginner’s Guide… What’s that, How to Forage for Wild Foods without Dying… Yeah that sounds useful… The Bushcraft Boxed Set….” He shook his head, bemused. “Well sh*t, never knew there were book this useful.”

He walked out, to do an outside tour of the place, and stopped.

In the back there was a lean-to, as closed as the main door had been. He opened it. Half of it was full of cut wood, with an axe. He sighed in pleasure seeing it, and took it for himself. The other half…

There were several pieces of animals’ skins, and a place clearly made to prepare them. But that wasn’t what caught Blitzø’s eyes.

There was a knife, the blade as long as his hand, with a nice leather sheath. It was slightly curved, and Blitzø could see it had been hand-made by a master. He sighed in pleasure once more, realizing with a second glance that there were several, beautiful knives there.

“I like this.”

He looked around, and then went back to the cabin.

He had stuff to do.

__

“There is a five dollars adoption’s fee at the pound.”

Loona’s voice was low. Almost growly. She was looking at… Blitzø’s sister, Moxxie assumed. Loona’s lips were trembling.

“B… Dad, he paid… he paid a hundred, more, I don’t know. Said nobody was worth five bucks.” She whispered, and Moxxie could see her swallow, see her eyes mist over once more.

His own were blurred too.

“Yes. Nobody is worth five bucks.” Or a grimoire. They had all been so keen for Blitzø’s keep f*cking Stolas, even when the Prince made him uncomfortable, even when…

“f*ck” He whispered, holding Millie close. She was swallowing hard, too.

Barbie, if that was her name, looked at them with a sort of wild desperation that was so like Blitzø it made him ache, and then turned and stalked away, not running, but almost, and Fizzarolli said nothing, still clinging to… Asmodeus, he supposed.

There was only silence.

He looked at Loona, lost and trembling. Then at the prince, on his knees, shacking like he had seen leaves shake in the mortal world.

Millie squeezed him, and looked at him in the eyes. She was crying. He was, too.

He had never told Blitzø they were friends.

He never would, now.

It sat heavy in his throat, like a stone, like a glimpse of his mother’s shoe in his father favourite place to take care of “uncomfortable” people.

Moxxie swallowed. Millie held him close. “I think it is time to go home, noo.” She whispered, sniffing, and he nodded. He would bring flowers here, to Blitzø’s and Blitzø’s mom graves.

“I’ll portal you. Just tell me where.” Asmodeus was speaking, his deep voice soft as he held his imp close. Stolas was looking at them, Asmodeus and Fizzarolli, with a sort of wild and aching want. His beak, Moxxie noticed, was trembling.

“Our place, Your Majesty. Thank you” He whispered. Asmodeus just nodded. “It is… it is in Pride, Imp City, Arnaud Amaury St, 5.”

A portal shimmered in the air. He tugged Loona’s hand and, gently, the prince. Stolas turned to look at him, and he tugged again.

“Come with us, Your Highness. It is a bad moment to be alone. And… Blitzø cared about you.”

The prince’s face crumpled, like a sandcastle hit by a bullet. He nodded, once, and stood up on unsteady legs.

“Th… thank you.”

And then, they walked into the portal.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

Blitzø was eating some fish, cooked this time, and with salt, which was a vast improvement, sitting on the threshold of the cabin. The fireplace was lit, since he had found matched. He was kicking his feet, drinking water*. He was in his underwear, since his clothes were drying on the grass, since he had to jump in the water, and he had to jump in the water because he had gone up the chimney to clean it up before lighting up the fire.

Priorities.

He licked his fingers, frowning as he watched the sun set beyond the mountain, tinting the sky a pleasant red color. It reminded him of home.

He had tried several other times to kill himself. Cutting himself up with the knives was a no-no. Axing himself also. He sighed, and let himself fall down half inside the cabin.

“What the f*ck can I do now?”

He had no way home.

… Should he get home?

Blitzø frowned up at the wooden ceiling. “After all… the point was freeing them, wasn’t it?” He whispered.

And they were free.

He closed his eyes, trying not to cry. His Loony. Millie. Moxx.

Stolas.

He swallowed and sat up, before stretching and shacking his head. No use thinking now. He gave his belly a couple of pats.

“Well, at least I’ll eat well.”

His belly moved. By itself.

He stared.

His belly did it again. It felt… peculiar. Like something was… moving inside him.

Blitzø screamed, terror pounding in his chest as he scuttled backward, his eyes wide and set on his midsection, the red and white skin pulsing.

“sh*t sh*t sh*t TAKE THIS PARASSITE OUT OF ME” He screamed, as his back hit the kitchen. His right arm shot back, blindly, grabbing the knife that was on the kitchenette, the metal contraption jangling as he got the blade and tried to stab himself.

The red magic enveloped his arm, holding him.

Blitzø screamed again, fighting with all his strength, kicking and rolling around the floor of the cabin, hitting the stones by the fireplace with shoulder blades and elbow.

Blitzø growled in panic, kicking the wall and hitting the stones in the fireplace (missing the embers by inches) as he tried again and again to stab himself. “NONONONO GET OUT OF ME GET OUT YOU f*ckER YOU CANNOT HAVE ME YOU BLOODY ALIEN THING GET THE f*ck OUT” the knife refused to pierce the skin even as he pressed his belly toward it, face down, and Blitzø screamed again, louder and truer.

“FUUUUUUUCK”

He hit the bedframe with the back of his skull, and a bell rang in his ear. He was panting, and he could smell blood…

Wait, blood?

He had not stabbed himself. He was very, very sure of it.

Blitzø stopped trying to stab his belly and looked down.

A small puddle of blood was coming from his boxers, erasing some magnificent horses that reared there.

… What?

“… What?”

He took his boxers out. His butthole didn’t hurt. In fact, nothing hurt. He was 99.9% the blood wasn’t coming from there. Then where…

He explored his balls. Bloodied, but fine. Then behind them…

Blitzø Buckzo found something.

And stopped.

“What.” He whispered. “the f*ck.”

Tentatively, his eyes unseeing, he searched what was, without a shadow of doubt, a puss*. He had known many and could claim a certain degree of expertise. This was a Grade A Imp puss*. His finger slipped inside, and Blitzø felt, for the first time, how it felt to have something in a vagin*.

“Uh.”

He blinked.

Took his finger out.

Tried again, just to be sure it was still here.

Yep still there.

His brain, behind his completely gazed-out expression, was whirling a mile a hour, his half-open mouth making little chewing motion as the gears turned, turned…

And then the birds in the mountain took wing, as Unholy Screechs came from the so long silent cabin.

“OH THAT MOTHERf*ckING DIPsh*t TRACHEROUS BIRD!!!”

__________

The prince was curled up in a ball, with his back against Moxxie and Millie’s couch.

She had not been expecting this.

She would never have expected that Blitzø…

Her eyes filled with tears. They seemed never to stop. She looked at Moxxie, her Moxxie, who was dragging a blanket from the bed, his own eyes red and puffy.

Loona was curled on the couch. She had stopped whimpering, and was only staring, her body shivering every once in a while. She caressed the girl head, and Loona looked at her with one eye wide and wild.

“Yer family.” She said, and it was a wow. “You don’t worry none, you hear me?”

Loona swallowed, and in some way they found themselves on the ground by the couch, with Millie’s right side pressed against the Prince and Loona curled in a ball on her left. Moxxie drapped the blanket around all of them, and she tried to smile her gratitude at her wonderful husband.

The prince hadn’t moved, or made a sound. His head was hidden in his knees. He was like a cube of misery.

Moxxie draped the blanket around him too, and four red eyes lifted to look at him, vacant and lost.

“Here, Your Highness.” Moxxie sat on the prince other side.

The prince swallowed. “Just… Just Stolas. Please. And… and you are…” A blush came to his feather, like he was ashamed.

Moxxie tried to smile. “Moxxie you… Stolas. And my wife, Mildred. Millie.”

The prince, Stolas, nodded. He looked down again. She kept holding Loona. She smelled a bit like the kennels at home and a bit like ashes, and her furs was coarse and soft both. Her nose pressed against Millie’s neck.

She wasn’t growling anymore, at least.

Or trying to kill Stolas.

Moxxie patted Stolas’ shoulders, and the prince’s eyes welled with tears.

“We’ll manage you… Stolas. We will… manage. Blitzø wanted…”

“He asked me to help you” Stolas spoke, soft and low and bloodless like an overcooked steak. “I will. I promise.”

Millie put her hand around Loona’s mouth just in time. The hellhound’s glare was more tears than hatred, and Millie smiled sadly as she hug Loona harder.

They stayed like that for a long, long time.

__

Blitzø was not, in spite of what many people (himself included, sometimes) thought, stupid.

He was in fact a very intelligent if not educated man. It didn’t take him long to get what New puss* + Strange BellyParassite+Oddly Stolas-like Magic+Having had a lot of sex with a magical bird meant.

So after screaming, hyperventilating, screaming some more, running outside to kick in order:

1. Tree
2. Rock (bad idea)
3. Green stuff (also bad idea, there was a rock under)
4. Dirt
5. Grass
6. More tree

After all of that, and some more hyperventilating for good measure, all of it naked and often checking if the puss* was still there (it was) he eventually calmed down.

A little.

“f*cking bird, daddyf*cker, if he had a motherf*cking breeding kink he should have talked with me!” He took a rock and threw it at another rock. It shattered pleasantly. So pleasantly, he did it again. “f*cking Stolas and his f*cking magic and a f*cking uuughhh cannot say it” more rock throwing. He was panting now. “You don’t impregnate un-impregnable people without telling them! Or their consent! Shiiiit” He screamed, lifting a rock with both arms and flexing it back, before hurling it at the larger rock.

It didn’t shatter, sadly. It just went PLONK and fell in the dirt.

Blitzø stood still, trembling, panting. “He IMPREGNATED me and LEFT me like one of his f*cking HELLANOVELAS!!! OH, ALEJANDRO” he screamed, in falsetto “WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME. SHIIIIT”

It went on like that for several hours.

But he had a finite amount of energy, and in the end he flopped down on the cool grass, panting, shuddering in exhaustion. He curled up on himself, his tail trying to swish around, managing only a weak flopping.

“f*ck. What… what will I do?” He whispered, as the night drew in, his eyes huge, the cool mountain breeze caressing his heated, mottled skin. “What… will I do?”

__

Stolas stared at the documents in front of him, then at the imp who has brought them. He was a shifty character, one recurved horn cracked, his hands dancing as if he couldn’t keep them still, a scar over one eye making him look a bit like…

A pirate.

A stab passed in his heart, the cracks of pain extending outward, toward his shoulders and throat and legs.

“What do you mean?” Stolas asked, his voice sounding distant to his own ears.

The imp shrugged, his leather jacket, stained and old and once beautiful (like him), seemed to hang loose on him. “B.B. paid for all that, and for me to bring it to you. And I have, and now I go. Unless you want to turn me to stone or somesuch.”

The imp looked almost expectant, and Stolas looked away until he sighed, and left.

Stolas looked at the big folder on the I.M.P. desk. Millie and Moxxie and Loona were out on a hit. He stood there, minding the fort as Moxxie would say. He answered calls, and took notes, and had make an inroad with the amount of paperwork left behind (and he tried not to cry when he saw Blitzø’s doodles and he failed when the doddle was of him).

It had no beginning, this strange thing. I.M.P. has just folded around him, Millie and Moxxie’s kindness as warm as baked honey, and even Looney hated him less.

I.M.P. was Blitzø’s legacy. The only thing he ever asked Stolas.

So when he had finished having breakfast with his daughter, he left and went to Imp City, simply dressed.

It was better than being alone.

Now he was staring at the folder, and his heart ached like a wound whose lips had gone hard instead of closing and which will forever ooze blood. He opened it, his hands shaking.

Hi, Stols.

He breathed out, closing all four eyes, his heart squeezing somewhere in his chest.

So I think your witch of an ex and her very c*nty brother are trying something. I used my contact to find some dirt on them, it should help if they try anything on you. There is dirt indeed, did you know your ex had a whole ass other kid? Anyhow, proof is here, and also a couple numbers to call in case you need witnesses. There are people who HATE those two.

Also, Stols I am sorry to say, but Pringles told me they are speaking to Via about, well, you. You should tell her before they do.

Take care, pretty bird.

Always yours

Blitzo the O is silent

(SPEECH TO TEXT)

Stolas stared.

After a time, he turned the pages. Pages and pages of everything Stella and Andrealphus had done that the Ars Goetia would crucifix them for.

He licked his beak, and then his forehead thudded on the folder.

He ached too much to cry.

__

Blitzø was angry.

This was not a strange occurrence. He was very often angry.

The problem is that this time he had no-one to be angry AT.

After shattering several stone cussing out Stolas, that first day, he had fallen down on his back, and looked at the red and darkening sky, and admitted the truth.

“Uh… I don’t think he did it on purpose.”

He had SEEN Stolas with his daughter. If he had known Blitzø was carrying his spawn, he would NOT leave him. He would have wanted the spawn.

A shiver that did not come from the cold passed over the imp’s body and he turned, curling around his stomach, to protect…

He blinked. Wait, why did he wanted to protect the parasite?

… Would it have feather? Horns?

What no. Parasite.

He turned on his back and kicked his feet in the air, muffling more screams by putting his hands on his mouth. His body was changed, and he did not want it!

He had never wanted a c*nt, for christ’s sake! He liked them! On other people!!

It was getting cold. He dragged himself upright, and toward the cabin where the fire now shone, merrily.

“Well it is like… a fake puss*. A magic puss*. I can probably get rid of it, with magic?”

The idea brightened him up considerably.

He shut the door behind him. It was getting warm inside. He eyed the canned food. Would it be bad for the b-parasite?

He shrugged. The creature had seemed good at taking care of themselves.

“And it isn’t as if I care, you are a f*cking parasite leeching on me, and…”

You are nothing to me, boy.

He stopped as he was opening one of the cans, Cash’s voice echoing in his mind.

He didn’t finish the phrase, even in his mind.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

All things must pass, but most of all time.

It is like. Impossible to do otherwise.

Blitzø spent days laboriously reading the books, hunting, fishing and learning how to recognize some of the plants.

He did not, in any moment, think about anything.

Especially not his temporary puss*. His tempuss*. Whatever.

He liked hunting, he discovered. Earth was both brutal and an absolute buffet. Hunting is like assassination, only you are assassinating animals to eat them. And wear their skin.

Which is both cool and brutal.

Blitzø has worn leather all his life but like… not leather from stuff he had killed and made himself. The first time he squished the brain of a deer over the skin he had scraped carefully of all the hair and fat, he giggled happily. You needed a ton of work, scraping the sh*t out of the hide. It was hard, and there was blood and fat and stuff.

He loooooved it.

He hummed a song as he squished the brain in, the sun shining on the lake making it pretty. His tail was swishing happily. He was naked, save for a pair of boxers. No use dirtying stuff, and nobody was here to look at him anyway. His skin felt good in the clean, clear air. The deer’s meat he had cut in thin strips, following the precious butchering book, and put it in the smoker, with chips of hickory and maple. He had read maple could make sugar in spring and how cool was that?!

Hell’s plants did not make sugar. They made poison, sometimes, but sugar? Nah. Earth’s plants were way better. They made poison AND sugar. Beat that, Hell.

Blitzø planned to make something cool with the skin. Like a self-made jacket.

He straightened after stretching the skin and sighed happily, smelling the blood and guts scent of home mixed with the more earthly smell of water and meadowflowers.

Some of which were even good to eat.

He took the skin he had been working on all morning and carefully put it over the smoker. It needed smoking, now.

Blitzø stretched his sore muscles, tensing his tail in a little spear before relaxing. He was covered in blood and brain and fat and deer hair.

“Gross” he commented, happily, then poked at the slight bump in his belly with a pointed finger. “You are making me hungry, Parasite.”

His belly poked back. Blitzø stared. He was getting used to it, but it was still. Weird.

Very.

He turned to the lake and grinned, starting to run.

“CANNONBALLL!!” he screamed, jumping in the water.

The coldness always shocked him, made him feel alive. He opened his eyes as he splashed in, looking around in the lake, at the fishes darting away and the bubbles all around him. He grinned, feral, and kicked his feet to go up.

He washed himself, frolicking in the water, swimming after fishes and laughing, without really wanting to catch any.

Blitzø shook the water out of himself like a dog and went to the cabin. He had put in a venison stew with juniper berries, wild leeks and cattail roots, and let it simmer with bone broth. He was f*cking craving bone broth.

It was probably good for the Parasite, anyhow.

Good for his bones.

__

“What are you doing here, dad?”

“… I think we should… talk, Via.”

“About what?”

“About… the divorce. Your mother, and me.”

“Why? Why now?”

“The divorce is going on and I realized… you are not a child anymore. You are a young woman and… you deserve to know”.

“… Ok.”

“… You… may not know that your mother and I marriage was arranged, when we were… children. I knew it when I was ten. So did she.”

“Yeah, mom told me.”

“I… I don’t think we were every… compatible. Your mother likes parties, and politics. She would have done better with somebody who also had her same interests. I enjoyed, enjoy, books, and, and plants…”

“And men.”

“…and men, yes.”

“… why did you stay married then?”

“Your mother… cherished the appearances and I wanted… for you to have a normal childhood as possible. As happy as possible.”

“Was I an… obligation to you?”

“No! Never! You were the best part of my life, Via! I loved you since before you were laid, you know that!”

“… Yeah… I do.”

“I still love you. Very much.”

“… I love you too, dad.”

“Dad, would you be honest we me?”

“…Yes”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

“Did mother ever… hurt you?”

“…”

“Dad. You promised.”

“She… she is your mother, Via.”

“… and she hurt you.”

“She… Yes. Yes she did. But not when you were young it started mostly… when I asked for the divorce.”

“…”

“I am sorry, my Starfire.”

“Why are you sorry? It isn’t your fault.”

“Still.”

“…”

“…”

“Dad?”

“Yes, darling?”

“… Mother and Uncle Andre want to get custody of me, and get the palace, and everything else”

“They want WHAT?!”

___

“Alright. Let’s be honest. I am going to have this thing.”

Blitzø stood in front of the Pool, the part of the lake that was coolest and calmer, standing under some black willow, which weren’t good eating but you could make baskets with. He was in his boxers, hands on his hips, looking at his middle.

There was a bump.

He wasn’t like, a balloon. The bump was real, tight, and looked rather… well, egg-like. It wasn’t an egg, though, he could feel the little parasite f*cker arms and legs when they moved around.

“Sooo last time with Stolas was…” He squinted. “Full Moon. Seven months ago.”

That was when the horny owl kept going on and on about breeding and kids and his co*ck was not twitching, not sir.

Seven months.

f*ck.

He looked up. A month since he had seen Moxxie and Millie and his Loony. His throat closed and he focused his gaze on the shining surface of the lake until his eyes hurt for the light and not the unshed tears.

They were better without him. They were going to be happy, so very happy, have such great lives.

… Four months since he had seen Stolas, at that “Blitzo’s Sucks” party*.

Blitzø closed his eyes tight.

It had hurt.

He deserved it. He deserved Stolas going there. But it had hurt, Stolas being there, amidst people who were cheerfully maiming cakes and pinatas with his likeness, wishing for hid death.

Well, all of them had had what they wanted.

Including Stolas.

He shook his head, looking down at the bump again. He put a hand on it, slowly caressing the taunt skin. He took a deep breath. It was his skin. This was happening.

As to punctuate it, The Parasite moved inside him.

He hissed, falling on his knees, his hands clenched into the tiny pebbles by the lakeside, small and wet.

“f*ck. I don’t… I don’t know what to do.” He whispered, as his red and scarred white body started shacking, his tail curling around himself. “I don’t know… what to do…”

But there was nobody in the silent lake and quiet woods that could listen.

*I am aware that October + 4 months would technically be February, not early summer as we are here. But there is no reason to believe Earth Time and Hell Time work in the same way instead of being funky, so I am deciding that Earth time and Hell time ARE funky toward each other.