Chapter Text
She wakes up to someone dragging her from the rubble.
“You found her, Beel?” She hears someone (Asmo?) say. She can feel his strong hands on her shoulders as he lays her down on the pavement.
Considering that she’d had a building fall on her, she felt pretty alright. Sure, her head hurt like hell and she probably had several bruises at least, but nothing felt broken. She squints her eyes open and can see everyone looking down at her. Someone reaches a hand down, but she refuses it, and stands up on her own, and tries to ignore how dizzy she feels.
“Are you alright? Do you need-“
“I told Mammon to go get Simeon, he should be back soon, hopefully-“
“Viola, did you blow up a bar? That totally isn’t normie behavior-“
“Oh darling, your bleeding, you should-“
“Everyone.” Lucifer's sharp tone cuts through the cavalcade of questions. “Be quiet.”
“Viola,” Lucifer says, looking at her and the wreckage of the bar. Everyone else seemed to have run away when the fight started, thankfully. “What happened here?”
They’re all standing in front of her, looking at her with expressions ranging from confusion to concern to slight irritation.
“Viola.”
She sighs, takes a breath, and thinks about how she got here.
“I’ll explain, just give me a second.”
-
Things were fine.
She had a few months left until her year in the Devildom was up and she’d done….a lot. Had her life threatened, actually died and came back because of time travel, and finally asserted herself to the seven avatars of sin that she lived with. She had proved that despite her small frame and her seeming lack of magical talent that she was more than some weak little human girl. She held six pacts and had friends and allies among the three realms. She’d clawed her way through hell (pun intended) and come out on top. Things were better now.
But something still bothered her. And that “something” was the voice on the other end of Mammon's phone demanding that he go somewhere and buy them something.
She’d heard about the witches before, heard the story about how ten of them were fighting over Mammon and how they would’ve ripped him apart if not for Lucifer's intervention. But despite that story, none of his brothers seemed to care about the fact he was being extorted, if anything, they all found it funny and thought he brought it on himself.
At first, Viola might have agreed with them. But one thing about having Mammon assigned as her guardian was that she got to hear most of his phone conversations with them. She’d even heard their voices through the receiver a few times, shrill and demanding. She saw Mammon offer her a weak smile time after time before he told her that he had “somethin’ to take care of” before he’d leave to go buy them whatever they wanted.
Viola was sick of it. She knew that he didn’t need her help, that he was the second most powerful brother and could probably flatten the witches and the rest of his brothers in a heartbeat, but he chose not to. His brothers all called him a scumbag and a moron and several other unfavorable things but she knew that there was more to him than the devil-may-care bad boy image he tried to project. She knew that he cared ever since that day he tried to rush between her and Levi without a moment's hesitation. She was closest to him, that was true, and that's why she was sick to death of seeing Mammon getting extorted like this.
She knew that nobody else thought that way and that all of his brothers would sooner choke than help him. Which meant one thing.
She was going to have to take matters into her own hands.
She can’t just sit around and hear him getting extorted and she can’t ask, or command, his brothers to help because they would do nothing but complain, gripe, or tell her she was wasting her time or use it as another excuse to make fun of him.
Even if she couldn’t do magic, even if she couldn’t use her pacts, even if she couldn’t reverse whatever was going on, even if she wasn’t strong enough to go toe-to-toe with the witches, she could still figure something out. Because she’s meddlesome and wants to help, and this was something she just couldn’t let go.
So Viola does what she always does when she’s faced with something she can’t figure out. She studies.
She knew the witches' names easily enough, Mammon had mentioned them a few times and she’d managed to pull up some various social media accounts they’d all had. Based on her findings these three were friends, their Devilgram pictures had shown them all together. Based on some stories and reels she’d watched, two of them saw themselves as proper ‘influencers’ making videos showing their “hauls” from Majolish and other stores, flaunting their wealth to the camera, even if it wasn’t theirs.
The one major thing she noticed was that they’d all gather at this one bar on Monday night, because according to one post it was “totally dead, LOL. This place is insufferable when it’s crowded.”
So she had a place and a time. Now all she had to do was figure out how the hell she was going to get them to let Mammon off the hook.
That was the tricky part. According to Mammon, he had to “pay them back” which explained why they were doing this but all of the calls and the demands just felt sadistic. Plus it wasn’t like Mammon would have the means to pay them back or buy them fancy things forever, especially if he kept getting caught stealing-
Something clicked in her mind. It had a slim chance of working, she didn’t know if they’d even entertain her thought, but it was better than nothing, so it should be worth a shot.
A shot in the dark, but still.
-
In order for her plan to even have a semblance of working, she knows she has to do several things.
1. Make sure nobody knew what she was going to do.
2. Make sure she had a way of countering any magic flung her way
Using her pacts was out of the question unless worse came to worse, all of the brothers would gripe, and Mammon….Mammon wouldn’t want to know that she was doing this. He’d probably try to dissuade her by telling her that “The Great Mammon” had it all under control and didn’t need her help, that a human couldn’t do anything.
Also, there was a pretty good chance that she’d be in major trouble if she was found out. But what other choice did she have?. She thought about asking Solomon or Simeon for advice but she was afraid of getting anyone else involved in this plan, plus Simeon is an angel and she was pretty sure he’d try to talk her out of it. Solomon might be more willing but that would mean he’d be risking himself in the event he was caught assisting her. She knew him well enough and even trusted him now so she knew he wouldn’t rat her out, but she was also afraid that he would dissuade her or, worse, ask her why she was even bothering to help Mammon. The idea of Solomon trying to tell her that this wasn’t worth her time stung in a unique way she couldn’t wrap her head around.
Viola wanted to solve this diplomatically, she really did. And hopefully, it’d just boil down to a mostly diplomatic exchange of words. But she hadn’t stayed this long in the Devildom to think she should just hope that using her words would be enough. Not without some fight.
“Hello, Viola.”
She can’t help but jolt upright in her seat at the library before turning around and seeing Barbatos standing behind her. He always managed to sneak up on her every time. “Hi, Barbatos.”
“Are you researching something?”
Viola looks down at her book, a list of counter-spell wards that she can’t even begin to wrap her head around. “Something like that.” She says, before just looking at Barbatos and sighing. “You know already, don’t you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but…” Barbatos says as he puts a finger on his chin. “There are ways to ask for things without divulging everything, Viola. You can always be selective with the information you give.”
“You’re not going to try and stop me?” she asks, even though the one thing she’s dying to say is “Do you think he deserves this too? Is this how things are supposed to be for him?”
“Is there a reason why I should?”
Viola can’t help it, she smiles. “No. Not at all.”
-
She finds Solomon a few tables away at the library. He liked to spend time here between classes, he told her it was because even he’d never seen some of the books in the RAD library before. Viola wasn’t completely sure if she fully believed that, but in the end, it wasn’t any of her business.
“Hello, Viola.” He says, looking up at her from his spot at a table. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I need some help.” She says, and she sees Solomons's eyebrows raise at that. “I’m doing some...research for a paper I’m writing. I need to know how to defeat a witch.” She says, before adding “Without counter-spells or any sort of...magic deflecting device or the like.”
“That's an...oddly specific thing to write about,” Solomon says, but he doesn’t seem worried. If anything he seems intrigued and a little...proud? “What sort of paper is this, anyway?”
“It's...about how someone like me could defeat a witch. Hypothetically.” She says. “I wanted to see if it was possible, and if I can prove that it is I’ll ace it.”
Solomon smiles. “Well, I don’t know if a normal human can defeat a witch, per se, but you have all of those pacts, do you not?”
“Yes but in this uh. Hypothetical situation, I wouldn’t be able to use them. It’d just be me.” She says. “Let's just say that they wouldn’t be willing to help me.”
It comes out more bitter than she intended, and it does seem to give Solomon pause. He looks like he wants to ask, but thankfully he lets it go.
“Hm,” Solomon says as he lifts his fingers to his chin, striking his standard thinking pose. “Well, I don’t know if this applies to any regular human, but you have something in your corner beside your pacts.”
She just blinks at him. “I...do?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Solomon says, looking at her with a hint of a smile. “-but Asmodeus cannot charm you, correct?”
“No. He can’t. Its almost as if whatever power he has doesn’t work on me-“
The pieces click together in her mind as the realization hits her.
“Thanks, Solomon!” She says as she stands up and grabs her books. “You’re the best!”
He looks a bit flustered that someone in this school is showing him some positive attention, but he smiles nonetheless.
“Viola?” He says. “A word, before you go.”
“Yes?” She says, turning around to look at him.
“Be careful, research can be...dangerous sometimes.”
She just smiles at him. “Don’t worry, I’d never bite off more than I can chew.”
She leaves, and Solomon just smiles to himself.
“Good luck on the paper, Viola.”
-
People are staring at her.
She’s at Binsfields, sitting at the bar. The seats around her are empty, but a few of the (probably demonic) patrons are looking over at her with curiosity and perhaps hunger.
Getting out of the House of Lamentation unnoticed mainly relied on luck. Lucifer was busy with student council and probably wouldn’t be home until late at night, and Mammon was once again called away by a witch (Not one of the main ones this time) to a casino. Asmodeus was taking advantage of Lucifer being gone to go out clubbing, Beel had decided to head over to Hells Kitchen to try their new All-Day Breakfast menu, and Satan and Levi were staying in tonight, no doubt reading and gaming, respectively.
She knew that going alone and sneaking out of the House of Lamentation was incredibly risky, Lucifer would probably hang her from the chandelier if he found out, but it wasn’t like she could let anyone know about this. She’d known from the start that she’d be on her own for this, and she’d accepted it.
She’s drinking a glass of water (not that she didn’t want something stronger, but she didn’t want anything she did tonight to be blamed on her being intoxicated) and trying to ignore all of the stares. She was aware that people knew who she was, she’d managed to form pacts with five out of the seven most powerful demons of hell, after all. That sort of thing didn’t go unnoticed. The other students at RAD stared at her and gossiped about her behind raised hands, but none of them ever bothered her directly (mainly because she always had at least one of the brothers with her at all times).
But she wasn’t at RAD anymore, she was alone in a bar in the Devildom, and everyone in the bar was looking her over like a piece of fresh meat.
She pretends that she doesn’t feel the eyes on her as she sips from her glass. There was a good chance that none of them would try anything, seeing that they knew that she could call down several of their lords on them at any time. She knows that they’re no doubt curious, wondering what “the human” was doing alone at some bar on a weeknight.
She doesn’t think that they’d guess she was on a stakeout.
She’d asked the bartender about them, and they’d told her that they came in a lot, and usually showed up at around 9 PM (or the Devildom equivalent of it). And they usually frequented the table at the back.
“Are you guys friends?” The bartender had asked.
“Something like that.” She’d said. “We all have a…mutual acquaintance.”
-
She sees them all walk in at 9:01.
That's what the time on her D.D.D said, anyway. She also hadn’t received any texts which meant that her little disappearance hadn’t been noticed, and she involuntarily let out a sigh of relief.
She doesn’t make eye contact when they go to the bar and order their drinks, just sipping on her water and staring straight ahead. She knows it's them, everything she can see from her peripheral vision matches up with all of the pictures she’s seen on social media. The bartender looks at her when they leave, and she pretends she doesn’t see it.
She waits about 15 minutes before she stands up from her spot and walks toward their table. They don’t see her coming until she's standing right in front of their table and clears her throat.
Their heads all snap in synch to look at her, two of them looking at her with confusion and the other with a sliver of recognition.
“Can I...help you?” One of the witches says, looking her over as she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I haven’t seen you around here.” The other witch says, and Viola can tell that she's a hairs breath away from saying ”why the fuck are you here?”. The third one looks between them and says. “Guys, she’s the exchange student.”
*That* piqued their interest, and now they were all looking at her with a sort of curiosity. She couldn’t tell from their expressions if they were impressed or disappointed to see her in the flesh.
“Oh, the one at RAD?” The witch that greeted her first says. “Didn’t know they’d let you off campus.”
The without demonic supervision hung in the air, but Viola just shrugs. “They have other things to do besides escort me around all day.” She says. She knows it wasn’t an answer to the question, but they didn’t seem committed to pushing it.
“So...what are you doing here?” The witch to her left said. “You aren’t just here to flaunt your status, I hope.”
“There isn’t much to flaunt.” She says with a shrug. “I’m just here to talk.”
“About what?” The witch to her right, the one who knew who she was, asked. “We can’t help you with your homework, kiddo.”
Viola tries not to let her eyebrow twitch at that, and she just smiles. “Oh no, I’m perfectly capable of doing my homework myself. I just came here to talk about Mammon.”
Their eyes all lock onto her at that, and Viola just keeps smiling.
“I’m here to ask you to lift his debts.” She says with a smile. “And release him from your service.”
For a second, there was silence.
And then laughter.
The witch sitting in the middle (Viola had mentally marked her as Witch #1, if only because she seemed like the ringleader of the group) was laughing the hardest and the one on the left (Witch #2 in Viola's head) was chuckling as well. The one on the right (Witch #3, because what else would Viola call her) was just sitting there in shock.
“Ladies,” Viola says when the laughter finally dies down. “I’m being serious. Do you think this is sustainable? The man is drowning in credit card debt and god knows how many canceled bank accounts. Do you think that he’ll be able to pay for your limos and your casino trips forever? You’re grifting money from a demon who’s constantly getting his card frozen by his older brother and has a billion overdrawn bank statements. I’d think you’d make a smarter choice for a piggy bank.”
“Hey, we lent him money first.” Witch #1 says, jabbing her finger at Viola. “There’s no ‘grifting’ going on here. Stop making up stories to defend a literal avatar of greed. Or is he so desperate to avoid our summons that he’s having a half-bit like you come in here making up lies?”
“He’s not involved in this.” Viola says, her tone more severe than she’d intended. “I’m doing this because I want to. He’s not making me do anything. That’s what you do.”
The witches don’t say anything to that, but she can feel their glares digging holes in her head.
“You say I’m lying,” Viola says, her gaze unwavering. “True, he owes you. But you could just have had him pay you back normally, not drag him around on a leash and have him buy you a million pretty things you don’t even need. What are you all behind the Versucci and the Gucci? What have you done with your lives besides drowning yourselves in excess by using the wealth of a demon? Do you think your Deviltube and Devilgram fame will last forever? What about when he runs out of money and can’t pay for all of those fancy, useless things? What will you do then?”
“So you’re saying,” Witch #3 says. She’d been quiet all this time, but her two friends were glaring at Viola with their jaws set. “That….he’s gonna run out of money? Because his family keeps catching him and freezing his accounts?”
“Exactly,” Viola says. “It might not be much of a problem now, but they know what he’s up to and will probably be doing more to counter his stealing and start letting it slide less and less. I think it’s better to quit while you’re all still ahead before you lose everything along with him.”
“So what?” Witch #2 says. “Even if what you’re saying is true, we’ve still got some use for him. We know the well’s gonna run dry, little girl. We just want to get as much water as we can in the meantime.”
“That’s true,” Viola says. “But who says the well won’t run dry when you’re at the checkout at Majolish and everyone sees it? Who says you won’t get a call from the limo company saying they can’t send one to pick you up because the payment was declined? What would you do then? Will you be able to handle it? Not getting what you want? Plus-” Viola says, holding out a finger. “He owes you money, and he’s been paying for things for you. Have you ever tracked how much he’s paid off of the loan? Have you ever informed him of his current amount owed? Have you charged any interest and did he ever sign any terms and conditions on how he was going to pay you back? The Devildom financial commission has guidelines on this. It might be better to quit now before this turns into a fraud case.”
“Fraud? Really?” Witch #1 scoffs. “We’re in the Devildom with demons, girlie. He’s the Avatar of Greed. Do you think anyone's going to care about fraud down here? Especially with him? He’s probably defrauded half of the realm by now.”
Viola wants to say that planned-out fraud isn’t in Mammon's repertoire, that he mainly deals in theft and selling and trying to make a quick buck and get his cards back from Lucifer, that fraud itself takes thought and patience and that Mammon is ruled by Greed. Greed just covets valuables and things and a desire to possess instantly, while fraud required planning and trickery, something Mammon was capable of, but it was too much effort for a reward that might not even come in if it was caught. But Viola knows that they won’t care about that.
“You’re right, I have eyes and can see that I’m not in some bar back on earth,” Viola says, trying not to roll her eyes. “But there are still rules down here. Do you think the Devildom would run as smoothly as it does if there weren’t some form of financial oversight?”
Witch #1’s mouth hardens into a line and Witch #2 is glaring daggers at her, but after everything she’s seen and been put through, she doesn’t feel a thing.
“You,” Witch #1 says. “-are trying my patience. I’ve entertained your little speeches because I thought it’d be funny to humor you, but this moral high ground shit is getting tiring. And now your waltzing in here talking about fraud. You should leave before we make you, little girl. Why are you even doing this-“
Witch #1 stops herself, and her face seems to light up. She’d realized something in the middle of her sentence, and she smiles, wide and predatory and briefly, Viola feels like a lamb cornered by a pack of wolves.
“Oh how cute.” Witch #1 said, venom and mockery dripping from her voice. “You like him! And you think he likes you and now you’re trying to save him. That's adorable!” She claps her hands once, and the fake smile leaves her face. “Look, you’ve got guts, I’ll give you that. But do you think you’re the first girl he’s gotten to like him? Do you think that he’d settle for you? Honey, you seem like you’d be smarter than that.” She starts laughing again, and the two others join her.
Viola doesn’t say anything. She knows that they’re trying to get under her skin and rile her up, and she tries to keep her face as neutral as possible. They think she’s some pathetic girl in love, of all things, but she’s just here to help her friend. Her feelings have nothing to do with this, even if she felt nothing for him she’d still see this all as wrong.
Really.
“Do you think I’m scared of you?” Viola says, crossing her arms. “You have no idea the things I’ve dealt with this year. Give me your best shot.”
“Well then.” Witch #1 says Witch #1 fixes her with a glare, and points a finger at her. and Viola feels the air crackle with magic. “I’m getting sick of you, you should go”
“What are you doing?!” Witch #3 says, panic in her voice. “She’s the exchange student! Lord Diavolo will-“
“Relax.” Witch #1 rolls her eyes. “I’m not gonna *hurt* her, I’m just going to make her leave.”
Viola just stares at the witch and waits.
And waits.
And waits.
“Uh.” Witch #2 looks over at her leader. “Did you...cast it?”
Witch #1 is red in the face and staring at her with utter rage, but Viola has stared down Lucifer, and she’s no match for him.
“What did you do, you little freak!” She snaps, and Viola hears the all too familiar shrillness. “Do you have some sort of fucking charm or something?!”
“Uh.” Witch #3 says as she looks uneasily at her leader. “She...doesn’t. I don’t sense any on her. No counter-spells, either.”
“I didn’t fucking ask you!” Witch #1 shouts and Viola can hear murmurs behind them, the other patrons of the bar realizing that something was going on. She’s half tempted to look behind her, but she knows that turning her back on them would be a terrible idea.
She thinks she hears someone walking over when Witch #1 lets out a primal scream, and Viola feels a rush of magic fly past her. She hears several patrons yell and start to run, she hears the other Witches yell at their leader to stop and that this spell was “way too much for this bar”, and she can feel the ground start to rumble underneath her.
The last thought she had before the entire building collapsed on her was “Well, that escalated quickly.”
-
And that was what led up to this moment, her and Six of the Seven Rulers of Hell standing in the parking lot of a wrecked bar, Lucifer still looking at her and waiting for an explanation. He didn’t need to tell her that they weren’t going to leave until she’d given them something, possible concussion or not.
“I got into a…dispute with some witches,” Viola says. “And for the record, I didn’t do anything to hurt them. They attacked me first and made the bar collapse. I wasn’t expecting them to go that far but-“
The ache in her head is getting worse, and she stops and grits her teeth. She can’t afford to fall apart now. Not without telling the whole story.
“-but they did. They didn’t like what I had to say, so they started trying to cast spells on me. The spells didn’t work so they kept trying stronger and stronger ones but they deflected and destroyed the bar, which then collapsed on me until Beel pulled me out.” She says. “And that’s what happened.”
“What did you say to them?” Lucifer says, his gaze still heavy on her.
“Does it matter?” She cuts back. “I was trying to have a civil conversation, and they were the ones who escalated. I did not raise a hand against them, I did not threaten them, and I did not try to summon any of you to fight them. There is no reason to pin the exchange program on this.”
“It matters when it leads to the destruction of property,” Lucifer says. “You snuck out of the house unsupervised, to speak with witches whom you knew nothing about alone. Why would you do something so reckless? ”
Viola just looks to the side. She's a little embarrassed, her plan was honestly half-baked at best, she wasn’t sure what she was trying to pull off besides “intimidate the witches with my supposed magical immunity into letting Mammon go”. She was blinded by frustration and her sense of righting this wrong.
“Is now the time, Lucifer?” Satan snaps back. “She’s bleeding.”
Satan’s telling the truth, blood is trickling down her temple but she doesn’t care. If Lucifer wants her reasoning, he’s sure as hell going to get it.
“Because I had to!” She snaps. “I had to do something. I couldn’t just stand to the side and let this keep happening! And I knew none of you would help me!”
Lucifer’s anger fades into confusion and everyone is looking at her with varying levels of bafflement. It’s almost as if they don’t even know what she’s talking about, and that just makes her angrier.
“Viola…” Asmo says. “What do you mean, we wouldn’t help you? If we knew something was happening we’d-“
“You’ve known this was happening the entire time!” She snaps back. “You all knew! And all you ever did was roll your eyes and act like it wasn’t your problem! So that’s why I’m here! Because none of you cared! None of you cared because it was happening to Mammon and you all hate him!”
She’s expecting someone to correct her, but in what way she doesn’t know. To tell her that she’s wrong? That she doesn’t understand? Maybe she doesn’t fully understand them but that doesn’t make the things she’s seen any less wrong. And she doesn’t want to hear any excuses.
“You’re all so-so fucking awful to him!” She shouts across the parking lot. “You just- you just insult and belittle him all the time and punish him for-for stealing even though several of you have almost killed me because of your sins! Why didn’t Satan get strung up for destroying our wi-fi every week?! Why didn’t Beel for demolishing the pantry!? Why is it him?! Why is it always him?! Why do you hate and punish him so much?! He’s-he’s the one who’s always tried to protect me and he’s done a way better job than any of you have! So why do you hate him so much?! Tell me! Tell me!” Her voice cracks, but she can’t stop. “Why do you tell him to die? Why do you tell him to kill himself?! Why do you always make him out to be your biggest shame when you lost a fucking war?! When Belphagor wanted to ruin the exchange program and kill all humans!? How is he worse?!”
She doesn’t realize she’s crying until she feels the tears running down her face, fast and hot. “He’s just a convenient scapegoat for you all! A punching bag because it's easier for you to get mad about stolen things than things that matter! How is that okay?! How is that a good way to treat your brother?! If anything bad happened to him, would you even fucking care?! Or would you throw a party because-”
“Viola.” Mammon’s voice comes from behind her. “Please stop.”
She hears him, but he sounds different, his usual accent is gone and she’s not sure how he sounds. Mad? Tired? Sad? She wants to say “I’m sorry.” Because he probably didn’t want some human doing all of this for him, saying all of this to his brothers but he just leans down and hugs her.
“Yer gettin’ all wound up again.” He says. “Just breathe.”
“I…” She says. “I don’t understand. I just don’t.”
Everything is getting fuzzy around the edges and she hears yelling, but it all dulls out into a ringing noise inside of her eardrums. Her head hurts and it feels like her whole skull is throbbing. She’s dizzy, and she closes her eyes as everything fades into a merciful silence and finally, she stops thinking, stops feeling. She feels someone touch her, and a wave of warmth washes over her and she slips into unconsciousness.