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duckybeth99 · 6 years

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From Life to Death (Past!Fic)

I’d like to call this from life to death, here and there, but that’s too long lol. really short compared to my normal stuff; literally tiny fics strung together with a similar theme. wasn’t a real order to this? but I did put the most surprising one at the end

—

To become a demon of Hell requires two things: either to commit some great sin or make a demon deal, and die. This is true for every non-born demon, even the most kind of them. Some choose to move on once they have suffered their punishments or reformed. Some choose to stay.

A few who have chosen to stay are Mabuz, Vincent, Elliot, Sharp, Valerie and Violet. What got each of them there is different. Who they once were are all different. Some from Earth, the UpSide, Realm Prime, whatever one wants to call it. Others from different Realms, always from the UpSideDown, always otherworldly. There was little to no difference, though.

They all did something that brought them here.

—

He was the first of his kind. One of his parents, a grand dragon, wild and free. The other, domesticated, raised and cared by humanoid beings, and learned to be small like them. To walk on two legs, to hide their wings when not needed. So he was an oddity. No one quiet knew how he came to be. Some say it was fate. Some whispered of changelings and shapeshifters blood or malicious magics. Some say he was just born unlucky.

But there was their son, hatched from one of several eggs. He was the runt. Cracked his egg a day later than the others, who all appeared as, while smaller than the grand dragon, still as dragons. But the last one was different. Meek horns, tiny height among his siblings, scales that were uneven with some too large, others so small they looked like freckles across his body, and looked more humanlike than the rest. Than even the domesticated dragon. He was pathetic compared to his family. Nobody outright said it to him, but he could see it in how they treated him. His elder siblings, the disappointment his great dragon father showed. He knew he was lesser. To use his family name on itself would bring shame to them.

So he never did when he could prevent it. He only went by the nickname Sharp, and only to those who weren’t in his family, for they were the ones he showed his skills to.

While his brutal strength lacked due to his diminutive stature compared to his family, he was still clever. Sharp has a focused mind, speed, persistence, all on his side. What he didn’t have in raw power, he compensated in those skills. While his siblings used their dragon strength, their abilities over elements in combat, Sharp humbly took to a simple bow and arrow.

The day he discovered his first one was when he was a child. These weapons, laid about next to the carcasses of mortals who tried to hunt for his kind in sport. The swords were too heavy for him, too big to hide from his parents who would be angered by his wandering near fallen hunters. So he stole a bow and pouch of arrows from one body, and began to teach himself.

But still, he was looked down on.

His brothers and sisters mocked him, and the grand dragon said he was worth nothing as a misshapen. While he had the grand dragon’s blood, no symbol of it showed. He was still seen as weak, weaker than even the domesticated ones of his kind.

The pressure and rage built up in him until it reached a fever pitch. And that’s when the stranger came and offered Sharp a deal.

To find acceptance, the stranger said, would be to find power and end his weakness. Sharp listened to the stranger and they revealed a magic arrow he could use to end it all. The stranger warned the damage would be permanent. Sharp wasn’t worried.

Ready to display his power, Sharp took the magic arrow and called for his family to watch. But as they gathered, the grand dragon scolded the son for waisting his time with the power that even humans had at their disposal. Sharp begged for the attention, but the grand dragon showed disapproval still. The children soon joined and were about to make their exit.

Sharp pulled out his arrow, planning one shot to gain their attention. But the arrow in his hands was the magic one given to him. In his rage, he didn’t check the arrow, only drawing back and shooting.

When it released, he realized he was too late.

The magic arrow released its power, slaughtering Sharp’s brothers and sisters, his parents, including the mighty grand dragon. Their souls were ripped from their bodies as the arrow flew near them, as they tried to rush away. It landed straight into the grand dragon’s heart.

Sharp ran to take the arrow out, to try and save his father, but it was to no avail. The arrow disappeared, it’s mission complete. Sharp screamed in agony as his family laid dead around him. At his young age, Sharp wanted to run from the crime he committed. He tried to. But running doesn’t work if it’s the guilt that follows you.

Never the one to do well with a sword, he chose the weapon best wielded by his eldest sibling, the daughter who was the pride and joy of the grand dragon. Forged from his own fires, Sharp took the weapon that marked the crime he committed, the symbol of all his shortcomings an failures, and stabbed himself.

He waited for the pain to overtake him, to bleed into unconsciousness, before his life ended. Soon after, transformed into a demon, he served the same being that gave him the magic arrow that sealed his doom. It was only when a stranger of flaming red hair teamed with an old demon, did Sharp join in support and win his freedom, and became a knight in the new kingdom.

———

Fate was not always fair or kind. Sometimes, fate offered only cruelty to those who did nothing. Many demons found themselves in that position, defined as sinners by archaic reasons, or for deals made in desperation, ones made in attempt to do good.

For them, the girls paid the price for choices not made by them. Their names were Valerie and Violet, twin girls. The elder with darker hair and lighter eyes, the other with lighter hair and darker eyes. They thought they had peace in their life. Happiness. Love. But a deal was made behind their back.

The parents of these two had little love for them in their hearts. So in exchange for long life and wealth, they offered their girl. But soon, as young women when a demon came to take their souls, the brave older sister chose to fight for her and her sister’s life. She offered her parents lives for theirs, and they would do the harm themselves, not ask the demon to do it themself. So they agreed, never being one to pass the chance for more chaos and ultimately, more lives taken.

Valerie promised to keep her sister safe from the chaos, so lied of her plan to carry out the deal. In the dead of night, Valerie slit the throats of her parents in their sleep. The stains on her cheeks followed her into her death. As Valerie left the old home to find her sister, cloaked for the night, the younger sister, confused and mistaking her for one of their parents, killed her.

Valerie forgave her sister as she felt herself die. But Violet didn’t forgive herself. With splatters in her own face now, villagers came to try and see what the screams and chaos was caused from. Violet, knowing what would happen next, allowed the people to come and take her, to kill her for the murder of everyone else in her family.

Only hours later, did she awake as a demon, skin purple, with the slashes of blood now marks on her face and neck, matching her sister. Their deal meant nothing to the demon, but in truth, they upheld their end of the deal: the girls wished to undo their parent’s deal and live longer than them.

They got just as they wished.

Along with so many others, they were tortured for their crime, then made slaves in the palace of Discord, abused servants who knew no freedom, no true peace would ever come to them.

Or so they thought.

——

A legend when it came to building weaponry. That’s how he was seen. An ex-soldier named Elliot Edgar, a brave, hulking man who was a gentle giant. He retired early in his work as a soldier, preferring to be a man who crafted instead, but still desired to aid his friends and allies.

As a gentle giant, he stood tall with arms thick with muscle, but a stomach plush enough for hugs, and had an affinity for caring for others. He went so far as to sacrifice his own eye when rescuing a fellow soldier in battle.

Hair tied high in a bun on his head, he took in the trade of blacksmithing, crafting only the finest weapons for the finest knights, each playing to their own strengths and targeting an enemies’ weakness. But a battle is never one sided.

For his skill and expertise, other kingdoms and empires envied him. They desired to take him for their own, or steal his work, or sabotage it. They continued to try and continued to fail with each and every attempt. Elliot remained loyal and clever.

That was, until a stranger slinked through the shadows of his workspace, and whispered an idea into his ear, before vanishing into the shadows as though they were never there.

The idea was a grand weapon, one to end the current war for good, for all the people to move on and progress in peace. So Elliot stayed awake, day and night, crafting a spectacular piece of work that only lacked one quality. It had all the power man could create, but it needed more. The power of magic. The power of a god.

So Elliot turned to people who lurked in the night, asking for help, begging for their wisdom and resources. All turned him away, saying he could not handle the price of his actions. That is Dream was only fantasy and would lead to a dangerous end. Elliot held faith in himself and his creations. Soon enough, a stranger stepped forward to offer their wisdom, one with ginger hair and mismatched eyes.

Offering no name, they cast their magic, promising incredible strength and the final end to come, and the device was ready. Too excited and not wanting to even consider any more rejection, Elliot brought his grand machine, his grand weapon to the field to carry out its task.

Just as the stranger had said, it filled the sky with its power and the final end came. But the end was not the kind he had anticipated or wanted. His homeland, the enemies’ homeland, and all those neighboring were slaughtered. The machine destroyed. No life remained.

Elliot lived for only a moment longer to witness the ruin he brought, his tears sliding against his face before his eyes closed for good. His mortal life had ended. His demon life had him born anew, with violet skin, monstrous teeth and hands like a bear, claws and blank eyes. Though, despite his change, he kept love in his heart. He worked as the cruel Discord commanded, who built their elaborate palace and their empire, but where he could, he showed kindness to the others suffering under their rule.

He hoped he could make up for what he did one day, and craft for good again.

——

Vincent was always considered a smaller man. He was five foot four, not the smallest person, but the smallest boy. However, his ego easily compensated his height. His pride. It wasn’t undeserved, though.

He was a clever young man, one of the smartest people in the town. An orphan who took advantage of his time to educate himself past what schools taught him, continuously advancing his mind and leaving little time to work on and maintain humbleness. He was fairly handsome as well, with lovely red hair and vivid violet eyes. Fantastic with math and arithmetics, biology and sciences, and he was also very formal but blunt. Arthur Archibald Vincent achieved much in his education at a young age, and took quickly to earn the title of a doctor. His skill was incredible for his young age, his studies and papers captivating to his fellow peers. It captivated an employer, too.

He forgot the name of the place over the years, as though erased from his mind, but the men who represented the laboratories remained enough. They came to his current working place, helping maintain and curate a museum containing feats of science, and he introduced them to his private lab. He impressed them with his own studies, own experiments, his own creations. They offered him the job at their mysterious labs. He happily accepted.

He worked alongside plenty of other scientists during that time. Vincent was but another great mind behind the top secret work that was being done, in the discovery of monsters and creatures. Albeit, he did garner plenty of looks when first hired for his young age. The youngest at the labs, the youngest certified doctor. He worked towards the advancements he dreamed of and was promised he would help create. He worked for his patrons to create advancements including some devices used to study creatures.

What the labs deemed as the most valuable, though, was a serum he invented, which with a small device would inject it into the brain.

Initially created to distract a subject’s mind and make it easier to test on them without opposition, it instead intensified and projected fears to their fullest extent. Mental torture. Vincent only realized its flaws on his first test of it in front of many of his superiors. But they didn’t see the mistake.

They saw something fascinating. Something more powerful than they had even asked for.

Vincent was shortly promoted to a supervisor and lead scientist position, the same level as his former boss, Dr. Collins, much to his jealousy and annoyance. But as his ties with the labs became tighter, so did their watch. The torture he saw to the monsters increased. Passing by one of the experiments one day, he realized his serum was being used without his knowledge on the subjects. He heard it be threatened to be used on his coworkers.

Vincent slowed his inventing. Tried to impede on progress where he could. Slow down his research team, try to lose data and hide his findings. The superiors were starting to take note of his disloyal, suspicious behavior.

It came to a head when Vincent released a child.

He didn’t care what the species was, he didn’t ask for a name, nothing. He opened the cage and told it how to escape.

Little did he know, he was watched while he did it.

Soon after, alone at his home, people in the dark were watching him. Stalking him. One night, they broke in. Using his own device, his own serum, they tried to inject it into his head. Vincent fought back, accidentally injecting it into the attacker’s head. As the man screamed and wailed, he stumbled around and knocked a candle down. Vincent tried to escape, but couldn’t make it out of his home. The heat sweltered, the screams continued, and seemed to layer and layer atop itself.

The screams weren’t just the attacker’s. The screams weren’t his.

It was all the screams he heard for all his life.

The air turned worse, smoke filling his lungs. He fought to keep his eyes open, fought for his body to keep moving before he fell, before his eyes closed and he felt his body turn weaker.

Like a candle itself, he went out in an instant after.

When he awoke, he was changed forever. Smaller, meeker than he ever was before. Short like his temper, small like his forethought, his body both there and not. Not entirely physical like a human body, instead the element of fire.

In the past, he bragged about his name, his title as a doctor, his achievements in science.

Here in Hell, nobody knew him. Nobody except Discord, who had knowledge on all they possessed.

Vincent made a choice that day he was brought to Hell. He refused to refer to himself as a doctor. He refused to use his full name anymore. He wouldn’t be Dr. Arthur Archibald Vincent, famed for his science.

He would just be Vincent. Fade into the crowd the best he could.

Be nothing.

#Beth writing #welcome to riverview #sharp #elliot #vincent #valerie and violet

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