First Demonic Dragon

Asherah was embarrassed to have found herself needing to eat her words.

The very last thing she had anticipated was that Abaddon would come here requesting… everything.

Although that might have been a failure on her part. Thinking more on Abaddon’s personality, she felt that it made perfect sense. He was just that type of person.

“You… spook quite easily for a dragon.”

Abaddon’s brow furrowed. “Asherah, this isn’t-“

“I suppose I can understand why. As a man who can hold universes on the tip of his fingers, I imagine that the unknown and things outside of your control must terrify you a great deal.”

Abaddon could already feel that this wasn’t one of those conversations that ended with him getting what he asked for.

“Look at this.”

Abaddon pulled out a black short sword with a golden pommel. At a glance, Asherah knew such a gaudy weapon did not belong to him.

“Audrina took this off of Dagon after subduing him. Look closely at what it’s made out of.”

Asherah leaned in closer with curious eyes.

She washed her senses over the weapon, and almost immediately leaned back in revulsion.

“This…”

Abaddon spoke through gnashed teeth. “A weapon made from my artifacts… You know, I thought that he might try something foul when he started searching for them, but this is…” He couldn’t even finish the thought.

He shuddered to think of what could have happened if Isabelle or one of the others had been stabbed by that weapon instead of whatever else had happened to them.

Would he have been able to revive them? Would their souls have even made it to oblivion, or would there have been some fouler and more nefarious plot to keep him from accessing his people?

If Isabelle had been cut down, would his wife still have hope that her sister could be saved? Would the families that he had spoken to today be having a very different reaction?

The very thought of that was almost enough to run him mad again.

Merging all of the realms into his own would give him a greater degree of control. Percival wouldn’t be able to hide from him when he was outside of Gulban’s little realm.

Asherah knew his line of thinking, and yet she seemed no closer to giving Abaddon what he wanted.

“…I’m sorry. This is truly distressing.” She said genuinely as she turned her gaze away from the knife.

“Distressing? This is-“

“Something I cannot help you with, Tathamet. The permission you’re asking for is neither mine to give nor yours to bear.”

A small light of betrayal showed up in Abaddon’s eyes.

“Do you think me unworthy..?”

“Oh, Abaddon…” Asherah placed her hand on the dragon’s cheek. “That’s hardly what this is about. My belief in you is absolute.

But I cannot give you something when I know you only seek it to alleviate your own paranoia. Not because you truly think it’s right.

You need to find a better way, my dear dragon. You came to Yesh, and you instructed him to watch over everything you did. Would this be what you want him to see?”

After all of these years, Asherah knew Abaddon extremely well. Perhaps better than he knew himself.

That said, she also knew when she wasn’t quite getting through to him.

So it didn’t surprise her when, instead of responding right away, he closed his eyes and lowered his head.

“…I understand. Sorry to bother you.”

He left with no further words being exchanged between the two. Asherah sighed helplessly as she resumed her walk to her cottage.

‘If he’s good for nothing else, he’s good for a headache…’

–

The sound of fists striking against something solid continued at regular intervals.

Every so often, one could hear a bone snap, and it would be followed by a muffled cry and then twisted laughter.

Satan wiped his brow of sweat as he looked down at the mangled body before him. Dagon, huffing on one knee, was nearly unrecognizable.

He was covered from head to toe in his own blood, hair matted and eyes brimming with hate like a feral dog.

Dagon had seen the introduction of eldritch DNA into his body at some point. He thought the addition would have made him Audrina, or Abaddon’s match.

It hadn’t.

Far from the two of them, he still couldn’t even best Satan. For the red devil fed on hate, anger, and wrath.

Dagon was brimming with all three.

The former vampire king could not so much as take a step without feeding Satan’s muscles and power.

It had taken him seven hours to reduce Dagon to this state.

If he hadn’t been playing around, he could have done it in two.

His goal was information, but the vampire was a tough nut to crack. If this took much more time, then Satan would have to turn things over to the little princess.

And if Dagon knew what icy peril was waiting for him, he likely would have spilled everything he had seen from his birth till his dying day.

Suddenly, Satan heard the metallic whine of a heavy door opening behind him.

He glanced over his shoulder to find Abaddon entering, his eyes a special tint of red.

He shrugged off his robe without a thought and continued walking towards Dagon while cracking his knuckles.

Satan stepped in his path.

“What are you doing, Uncle..?” Abaddon barely looked at Satan when he asked.

“Was about to ask you the same thing, nephew.” He tipped his head.

“I needed to hit something.” Abaddon cracked his neck. “Better him than you, yes?”

Satan eyed his nephew carefully.

“…What?” Abaddon asked impatiently.

Satan just shook his head. “Nothing. Go back and leave this to me.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re excused.” He sighed. “I know you’re chomping at the bit, but you oughta’ pick another way to channel that impulse. Wouldn’t want to start taking steps backward now, would we?”

After his conversation with Asherah, Abaddon was quite tired of thinking. He just wanted to hit something and let his mind go empty for a short while.

The last thing he expected was for Satan, of all people, to tell him to go find something else to do with his time.

“Are you drunk?” He asked plainly. “Since when do you try to talk someone out of acts of violence?”

It was a fair question, and one that Satan surely should have anticipated.

He shrugged and stepped around his nephew to pick up his discarded robe.

“I love a good thrashing more than anyone, that’s true. And I feel damn good when I can incite someone into indulging their baser urges.”

“Then you’re standing in my way and getting on my nerves for what reason…?”

Satan tossed Abaddon’s cloak back towards him. His next words came out in a low manner, like they were a closely guarded secret.

“…Because I believe you alone might be better than your baser urges. All that nobility and dignity crap you’re always spewing about isn’t just a load of bull.”

For the first time in his entire life, Satan placed his hand on Abaddon’s shoulder.

He didn’t punch him. Didn’t jostle him roughly. He just placed his hand there.

Abaddon was convinced that his anger had reached his brain and infected it like a virus. It was the only logical explanation he could see.

“Your hands ain’t for this kind of work anymore, kid. Leave this to us baser individuals.”

Abaddon was stunned. Satan capitalized on the opportunity.

He opened a portal behind the dragon and gave him a ‘light’ push through it.

Abaddon went through the opening without a fight, and Satan closed the portal so that he didn’t step through again.

A low chuckle rattled from behind him.

Dagon shakily pulled himself to his feet, laughing dryly through broken fangs.

“He is weaker than I thought… It’s a miracle that he has managed to live this long, but he has no idea of the horror that is to come. The horrors of the unknown will rend his soft heart into nothingness.”

Satan gave Dagon a long, pitying look.

“Bunch-of-boneheads, all of ya.” he tsked. “If you wanted to be king of something, you probably should have just tried to kill him first. Because at the rate you’re going, there won’t be anything left for anyone to rule.”

–

Abaddon was still blinking, even when he appeared in an entirely different room.

There was nothing like having the worst, most unbalanced individual you know telling you to chill out and take a breather.

It left Abaddon feeling like he needed to take a hard look at himself.

“There’s Daddy… do you see him?”

“Ah!”

Finally, Abaddon broke free of his trance and realized that he was far from alone.

Satan had purposefully sent him into his kids’ nursery room, where Valerie and Izanami were putting their youngest children down for bed.

Izanami let out a huff and turned her back when he entered.

He ran his hand over the back of his neck as he dropped his gaze to the floor.

“Do you girls think you might have some time to… talk?”

He couldn’t see it, but a faint smile spread across Izanami’s lips.

On the opposite side of the hall, while Abaddon was trying to get himself back on his path, Thea was in her realm, listening to one of her wives as she attempted to explain something of which she had a great fascination.

“So you see, ‘The heart of the Cards’ was really just a bullshit excuse for plot all along. But of course, when we were kids, we didn’t know that, so..”

Thea had next to no idea what her loved one was even talking about anymore. But so long as she continued to look cute while babbling, she would listen for days on end.

As Thea’s eyes became filled with pink sparkles, Aisha continued her lecture.

And at first, things were going quite well.

But then, Thea began to develop a slight headache.

This immediately alarmed Aisha, who noticed instantly. “B-Babe? What’s wrong??”

After a few seconds of holding her head, Thea looked up again with her usual smile.

“Sorry about that… I guess I’m just feeling a little bit under the weather.”

Aisha was a good wife, so she was naturally skeptical. “You sure you’re alright…?”

Thea nodded insistently.

“Yep. Totally fine. 100,000 percent fine.”

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