Chapter Text
Blitzø took another sip of his spiked coffee, cup in one hand and phone on the other, while sitting in his little office room. It was one of the few luxuries that he could afford to comfort himself with on the daily, and he enjoyed every drop of the brown liquid immensely. Hell was as cold as usual, even though the sun seemed to be constantly above Imp City, shining its blood red rays all over the town, Blitzø had never experienced summer in Hell over the several decades of living in the underworld. So the warmth provided by the shot of alcohol infused into the coffee helped quite a bit, a tingling sensation spreading all throughout Blitzø’s body like a warm fireplace right inside his body.
He was busy scanning his phone for any new toy horse models on sale on Ebay, scrolling through the infernal website in hopes of catching wind of a new figure that had just been released. The amount of attention Blitzø granted to his hobby was frankly bordering on obsession some days, like some blood-starved vampire in search of another fresh hit of blood from a new victim. His employees had given up on convincing the taller imp to control himself long ago, with Moxxie proclaiming that, “Even the infinite wealth of King Midas couldn’t satiate your obsession with horses, sir.”
But Blitzø would have none of it, not after he missed that limited edition run of his favorite pony, Mare-juana, while on the job murdering some billionaire prick in Russia. Needless to say, he was inconsolable for days, threatening to burn down the whole Kremlin with “enough gasoline to make FUCKING ExxonMobile look like a starved Santa Claus on Christmas” before Moxxie and Millie dragged him back to the office.
Not that he could’ve bought it anyways though, between the office and his daily life, there wasn’t really much cash left for the horsies.
Ok, maybe Moxxie was right about that advertisement being way too expensive for the small company, but Blitzø would never admit that to the fatass’ face. Besides, he liked the jingle.
Speaking of which, Loona and M&M were doing their usual routine of bickering in the break room, something about Moxxie’s avocado salad that he’d brought for lunch. Blitzø smirked at the thought, the lovey dovey asshole was at least trying to lose some weight, though he doubted some dieting would be able to get the sedentary imp to lose a few pounds. Satan wonders how the slob picked up Millie, his loveable wife.
Outside of the regular office dynamics though, it was a slow day at the IMP headquarters, very rare considering most sinners would have no problem walking up and bitching about their targets that Blitzø would gladly be paid to kill. Though as much as he loved this job, it was almost tempting to put a bullet through the client’s head as they started going through an entire life story of events that led up to them appearing on his doorstep.
But Blitzø was bored out of his mind, so why the hell not? Putting down his phone after deciding that maybe today wasn’t the day that he’d be able to add a pony to his collection, Blitzø looked at the main entrance, the frosted glass in the frame of the door showing no signs of life on the opposite end, just the drab dark pinks of the office building splaying through the distorted light.
He willed for someone to walk in to at least entertain him with some crazed ramblings and waving his hands like some sort of space wizard. He closed his eyes as he lingered on that final thought,
Fuck, if only I could shoot thunderbolts outta my fuckin’ fingers…
“C’mon you motherfuckers, show daddy some green!” Blitzø said to no one in particular, eyes squeezed tight like a stress ball before slowly loosening up and eventually allowing for the dim yellow light from his eyes to shine back into the real world. Lo and behold, the door did not open.
Of course no one would come in, there aren't any miracles in Hell dumba-
Blitzø was about to finish the thought when the door finally swung open, a potential client revealing themself.
The perso- no, Blitzø would settle with the “shadow” for now, that was standing at the door was draped in complete darkness, the only thing giving his silhouette some form a brown coat and fedora hat that could’ve come straight out of a Detective Noir film. It was also surprisingly short, only slightly edging out Blitzø’s horns by a few centimeters, though that was possibly because of the hat.
Of course, in his typical ‘I do not give a fuck’ attitude, Blitzø simply started rushing to introduce himself as soon as possible with his best snake oil salesman voice. Prattling off the regular introduction line he’d so carefully rehearsed with Moxxie, “Well howdy there, I'm Blitzø and the ø is silent, we'd like to welcome you to I M -”
“Hello to you too Mr. Blitzø, I am Sir Reficul. I know very well what your line of business entails, so I am here to acquire from you your services.” the shadow said with a slight rasp in his voice, cutting the imp off before he could continue his spiel. Blitzø was a bit miffed by that, but carried on within a heartbeat.
“You do? Well come on in pal, lets see if we can get ourselves a good deal for the both of us.” Blitzø quickly closed the door and escorted the client into his office, silently gesturing to his employees to get ready for a job as he passed by the break room. They all silently took the hint, starting to clean up the mess they’d made during their little “Avocado freakout” session.
Thankfully, the client either did not notice or did not care about the state of the employees as he glided past the three with the same rhythm, his face still a permanent black, showing no discernable emotions.
Sitting Sir Reficul down before getting comfortable in his own seat, Blitzø patiently waited for the client to give him their whole life story about how their target had screwed them over. Luckily, or maybe not considering this might be the only client Blitzø would be seeing today, the shadow simply pulled out a document from beneath his coat. It was relatively thin, which would make it blessedly easy for Loona to handle documentation for this job.
“I would like for you to aid me in terminating these two individuals,” Sir Reficul revealed two photos and an address from within the document for Blitzø to look over, a man and a woman, probably husband and wife. No names were mentioned, but it probably didn’t matter since they were gonna be dead anyways. Neither looked particularly well, their best clothes looking more like a farmer’s hand-me-down than anything remotely comparable to whoever this noble-sounding figure was.
Who the hell did they piss off to get the attention of this royal asshole? Eh, who cares? Blitzø thought to himself, but that wasn’t his biggest problem,
“Where the hell is this place, ‘Berun’? Sounds like someone fucked up their spelling of Berlin or some shit.” Blitzø said as he furrowed his forehead, knowing immediately he was just talking about himself, “I don’t know if you’re trying to fuck with me but-”
“Oh yes, you’ll find that that book of yours will be able to guide you to the location, just make sure you have the whole address and you’ll be right in front of their location.” Sir Reficul cut off Blitzø before he could start drilling a barrage of slurs into his potential client.
Blitzø raised his eyebrow, wondering how this client knew about Stolas’ book. Sure, the Prince had allowed IMP to use it for most of the month, even if it was at the cost of Blitzø’s libido for fucking anything else. The bird had a way with making Blitzø feel completely spent for however long it took until they met again. But even so, the Prince had warned them that the grimoire was supposed to be kept secret, since even the Prince was not usually allowed to use it to cross over into the living world.
Perhaps if Blitzø had an attention span longer than a goldfish, he would’ve pressed that issue with the client, but he was completely sidetracked by the next thing the client said.
“I will be paying five hundred thousand souls in advance, with another five hundred thousand should you succeed in terminating the targets.”
The shadow said it with such calm that Blitzø thought he misheard it initially, mind going completely blank for at least five seconds, before dropping his jaw open and managing to let out a weak “Oh”, much to the client’s apparent amusement as Sir Reciful’s shoulders shook slightly.
With that much money, the company would be able to get on by without another job for at least, fuck, a year even. Not that he would’ve even considered stopping for that long, Satan only knows how much Blitzø loved the murdering part of the job. More importantly, M&M could finally move into a proper house where he could spy on them more efficiently, he and Loonie could even consider moving out too, if he didn’t blow the payout on horse riding lessons again. The last time they got a check this big he’d first gone blind drunk with the crew in the city before disappearing into the Ring of Wrath to, “live with the horsies”, as he put it.
Regardless though, that was money people in Imp City would kill each other for, and probably have. They’d be living life like fucking kings.
Blitzø quickly tried to shake himself out of the initial shock, going back into business mode with haste, “Okay, no way you’re offering that much fucking money for just these two shitheads pal, so what’s the catch?”
Blitzø could’ve sworn he saw the shadow smile as the tiniest of white lines appeared on Sir Reficul's face, vanishing as soon as it came. “I am a wealthy man, this is simply my way of ensuring that you understand how important this job is to me. I truly hope you understand, Mr. Blitzø.”
The shadow offered a hand out to the imp, “So, do we have a deal?”
Blitzø gazed at the hand suspiciously. After all, this was Hell for Satan’s sake, nothing good ever came from a handshake, so he simply chose to pick up the documents. “Sure, just make sure to pay the deposit by tomorrow alright? I’m a busy guy, I’ve got a business to run goddamnit.”
Sir Reficul cocked its head back at the rejection for a handshake, almost as if he was amused, “Of course, I will have it arranged immediately, thank you for having me.” He walked out of the office silently, quickly vanishing after going out into the main hallway like a dispersing morning mist.
Well, I gotta admit, that WAS interesting. Blitzø thought to himself before finishing his drink absentmindedly, there was work to do.
———
The client wasn’t lying when they talked about the address, as the team walked out into a forest right outside of the targets’ housing area, revealing at least a mile or two of squatter homes that would make even the worst hovels of Imp City look downright homely. Rusted zinc roofs threatened to collapse at even a light gale, wood walls infested with termites and rotting down to their cores giving every guarantee that whoever lived here was definitely not having the time of their life.
Beyond the small settlement, the crew could see the smokes of industry in the far distance, a dark smog spewing out from the aether like some poor facsimile of Hell, covering the skies of this place in shades of grey and brown. It reminded Blitzø of the few times he was commissioned for a hit in China, almost missing their target during one particularly bad smog day. The smell around the settlement was awful too, a mix of human and regular waste around, a clear sign of how little thought was given to anything close to a sewage system.
And that was before the gang saw the people shambling around the little community, vaguely Scandinavian, but all shriveled and dirty into their bones, food and basic hygiene long being an afterthought for most of these folk apparently. It looked like they’d been dropped straight into one of those shanty towns from the 1930s on Earth.
“Sir, are you really sure we should go through with this job?” the white haired imp asked, tugging his bowtie around his neck, “It seems a bit too easy don’t you think? I mean, everyone here looks like they’d drop dead if we looked at them wrong.”
“Moxx, I might be inclined to agree with your little limp dick if we weren’t sitting on a million soul jackpot for this job,” Blitzø raised his head with a cocksure attitude as always, “And who knows, you might finally be able to move out of that shitass apartment you’re always complaining about to something more fancy, or treat Mills with a good dinner.”
“Sir, the only reason we complain about the house is because you keep stalking us like a creep!” Moxxie cried in protest. There was a whole bucket of truth in that statement, not that Blitzø cared, Millie always sent him her “purchases” for their nights anyways, it was as if she was inviting him to the couple’s nightly activities.
But before Moxxie could continue, Millie intervened between the two bickering imps, wrapping her arm around her husband, “C’mon darlin’, Blitzø’s right, we’ll just make sure that we get outta this place as soon as we’re done, m’kay?”
Moxxie begrudgingly went along with his wife’s suggestion, though still grumbling about this and that as always. But soon enough they were back to their lovey dovey routine, little whispers of praise passing between each other.
Yeah, she definitely pegs him.
They barely had to hide themselves from the humans around here, most either too tired to care or shrugging at the sight of the Hellspawn. The reactions amused Blitzø, seeing for the first time what the humans thought of the imp trio.
Considering no one would ever take the word of these people seriously, and they were probably about to enter Hell themselves considering the state of things around here, Blitzø decided to just continue on his merry way scouting for the targets.
After a few minutes of scouring about, they found the exact place they were looking for. The targets’ house looked even worse than the others, though it was admittedly the largest one around, the structure consisted of a couple of torn tarpaulin canvases forming both the roof and walls of the house, like some weird blue circus tent.
“Goddamn, this place looks shittier than the circus, and that’s sayin’ something,” Blitzø whistled to himself as he said that. Cash Buckzo was, if nothing else, a shitty ass businessman, but even the farce of a circus Blitzø’s dad ran wasn’t always looking like it was on the verge of collapse, emphasis on always. He also hoped the large size didn’t mean they’d take long to find their marks.
The trio walked in through one of the entrances, immediately hit with a pang of stench even worse than the smell outside. A nauseating swirl of sweat, dirt and something worse, like they’d just been air blasted right in the face by a waste treatment plant’s contents. Blitzø was about to say something witty about it when he felt something warm beneath his feet, immediately screaming and pulling out his flintlock pistol.
“MOTHERFUCKER! I just had these clothes drycleaned! I’m gonna bleed these two fucks dry like goddamn pigs, who the fuck leaves shit littered around their house!”
Blitzø tried desperately to shake it off of his left foot, giving up halfway through as blind anger took over with ease. In his rage, Blitzø started smashing anything he could find, chiefly some sort of rocking bed in the next room, flinging it around like a morningstar.
Moxxie and Millie wisely chose to ignore their boss’ screaming and shouting, hoping that he wouldn’t try to set everything on fire in his rage again. The amount of obscenities hurled by the taller imp could have filled an entire dictionary, if Blitzø actually knew what that was. They kept on walking through the house, scouting out for their targets.
The inside was remarkably more structured than the outside, with wooden planks forming internal walls and rooms, sometimes the wood being replaced by simple cloth. They managed to catch a glimpse of some pictures of their targets, showing that the two targets were in fact a couple and that they were perhaps part of a former traveling troupe before arriving here.
Most importantly though, they looked… happy, content, like him and Millie when they were first starting out. Sure, they were both still happy to be in each other’s company, but they still lived in that dirty heap of an apartment, still trying their damndest to get a kid, even if Blitzø had front row seats to the whole process every time.
They never blamed each other, but there was a distance between them that couldn’t be described, growing with each year. It was slow, but something would have to be done before long.
Moxxie started to falter, he was never really great with targets like this, not to mention just the state of this whole place, why the hell was their client paying a million souls for these two? It just didn’t make sense to him.
Millie noticed her husband sagging slightly, gently rubbing his shoulders,
“Hey Moxx, you alright?”
“No, not really, I mean, these people, they’re obviously already going through a lot, should we be doing this?” He gestured to just about everything around them, picking up the photos, “Look at how happy they are, I don’t want to be the one responsible for destroying that!”
“I know this is tough on you darlin’, I’m a lil’ worried about this whole thing too, but there’s gotta be a good reason someone paid a million souls for their heads right? Maybe they’re just like that cannibal family we killed a while back!”
Millie tried to reassure Moxxie with a small smile, grabbing her husband by the chin, “Look, you don’t have to be the one to deal with the targets this time if you really don’t feel like it, y’hear? Me and Blitzø can deal with them!”
Moxxie smiled awkwardly, “Well, I suppose I could sit this one out, thanks Millie.”
Unfortunately for the both of them, fate did not smile easily on the impish couple. The targets had apparently heard Blitzø’s shouting, much to no one’s shock, and decided to check out what was happening in their tent house. They caught Moxxie and Millie right as they finished their little heart to heart session in the middle of one of the hallways.
Of course, the two targets didn’t know anything about this, simply perplexed at the sight of two vaguely human figures in their house. The two sides looked at each other for a moment, before Moxxie’s voice decided to do the honors of breaking the silence.
“You guys look skinnier than I expected.” was the only thing he could conjure up, he and Millie were both shocked at the state the targets were in, they looked even worse than the pictures the client had given the assassins.
The man had obviously seen better days, wearing a buttoned shirt that would have fit right in with a good tuxedo suit and tie, if you could forgive the soot and dirt splotches all over the place. His cheeks were sunken so far that his eyes seemed like they were almost about to jump out of his eye sockets.
The woman fared a bit better, though she looked far weaker, probably because of what she was cradling in her frail arms. Perhaps the connection should have been made between the two when Blitzø started swinging that small bed around, but to be honest, that was far from the minds of Moxxie and Millie at the moment.
The target had a newborn child in her arms, barely even one year old, its big blue eyes staring back at the two imps for but a moment before it started turned back towards its mother in silence.
“Millie, i-is that-” Moxxie barely whimpered it out.
“Yes, yes it is Moxx.” Millie squeezed his arm with a bit more strength than usual, lost for words as to what to do.
Their targets were in front of them, they could just kill the both of them right then and there, but the baby? That was a bit too far for either of the imps.
“Who are you two? Why are you h-here?” the woman spoke softly, trembling slightly while still rocking the babe.
The man noticed the two staring at the baby, immediately walking back slightly to find something as a weapon, settling on a broken piece of wood laying beside the wall.
“I-if you think about doing a-anything with our child, I will use f-force!” he said with as much strength as he could conjure up, holding the plank like a sword in a futile attempt to appear threatening.
Moxxie took a sigh, crumbs, this was going to be tough to handle.
“Hi, my name’s Moxxie, and this here’s Millie. We’ve been hired to uhm…” he pulled on his bowtie again, glancing at Millie before continuing, “kill you two.”
The imp expected some sort of explosive response, as the last few times they had revealed themselves the crew was almost killed by a cannibal family, or kidnapped by that weird human organization. Moxxie could only hope that his wife wouldn’t immediately try to ax them in her rage, one of her less than ideal personality traits that carried over since migrating out of the Ring of Wrath.
What came next however was definitely unexpected.
“Oh… wait, just us two? Not the baby?” the woman spoke up softly, the baby finally settling down.
“Uhm, y-yes, the client didn’t mention a child.”
The human couple looked at each other, an almost accepting gaze between each other. They spoke with each other in hushed tones for a few minutes before looking back at the two imps, light smiles on their faces.
“Before you go through with this, could we ask you both a favor?”
The two imps looked at each other for a brief second, their gazes at each other saying all that they’d need to know. They both nodded.
“We’ll certainly try.”
“Could you two… raise our child? As you can see, we aren’t exactly living in paradise here,” the woman chuckled slightly, giving way to a sudden coughing fit, the man helped to prop her up, “and you two certainly look like you’re doing much better than us, so…”
Millie’s eyes lit up, barely containing her excitement as she turned towards Moxxie with googly eyes. Moxxie looked at his wife with some slight exasperation, but that wasn’t to say he didn’t feel a bit touched either. Perhaps Hell had miracles for its residents after all.
“Y-yes, of course! We’d be glad to do this for you.” Millie tried to give them a reassuring smile, and it seemed to work as they slowly handed the child over to the two imps.
“Keep her safe,” the woman said with a tear, smiling as the two imps held the baby with their utmost tenderness. They were both absolutely enamored with the little creature in their arms, playing with her fingers and limbs, yet still taking absolute care to make sure the babe was not hurt.
Perhaps with these two, she’ll be happy.
“W-wait, what’s her name?” Moxx asked with genuine concern.
“Tanya Degurechaff.” the woman walked back to hold her husband, before looking at the two again.
“Well, I suppose it's time for you two to do what you’re here to do, isn’t it?”
The imp couple looked at each other, still slightly conflicted, why did their client want them dead? If only Blitzø had bothered to ask their clients like Moxxie asked, documentation was easier that way, and right now they would have given everything to know.
“Well, maybe we could-”
BANG
A gaping hole appeared in the middle of the woman’s chest before Moxxie could continue, the two imps frozen in shock.
“Fucking FINALLY, thanks for findin' 'em Moxx, maybe you weren’t so useless after all! Goddamnit, I can still smell the stench of that shit, Loonie’s gonna be fuckin pissed.” Blitzø’s rant was about to start before he noticed his two employees’ collective face of shock and horror, raising one of his eyebrows,
“What? Why’re you two looking at me like I just murdered your parents?” he said as he shot the other one without even looking, finally noticing the baby in their arms.
“Whose baby is that?”