Archive of Our Own

Pitch-black wings carried Corrupted in pursuit of his prey. He didn’t know why they had done the crime, and it didn’t matter. Crime was unacceptable in his city, although the punishment would fit the crime. 

And this one’s transgression was one of the few that would get him immediately killed as soon as Corrupted found out. Abuse of any kind was bad enough, but children were off-limits. That was something he had made very clear early on, and it had done wonders for making him seem more approachable. Those early years had been filled with darkness and pain, blood and death lingering with the fear he saw on the faces of those he saved. But eventually people began to see what he was doing, not what he looked like. 

(Black shadow lacing his body in dark veins did not make for a pretty picture, especially combined with the obsidian that comprised his eyes and his talons.)

He knew he was scary. He had lied and told himself it didn’t matter. (That the flinches weren’t daggers to the center of his heart.) He was scary, and he would be something the criminals feared. That was all that mattered. 

He didn’t mourn how only one being stayed close after meeting him in-person. 

He didn’t. 

(Ember deserved better.)

Corrupted hadn’t always been like this. Once, in a past life, he had been someone people confided in, someone they went to when they needed help. When a friend was in trouble he would help them. Simple as that. 

In retrospect, that was what had led to him becoming who he was now. The story was one not many knew. 

Corrupted’s body moved on autopilot, continuing the chase as he remembered how it had all started.

Ben Mikhaelson wasn’t a particularly special child. He wrote, played with his friends (most of them were online and couldn’t see him in-person, but that was ok) , and did his best to be a shoulder they could cry on. 

(Who was there to be a shoulder for him?)

(Who would help him?)

And then came the day. 

He was at a summer camp, when a friend of his went missing. He had only met her a few days ago, but Monya was already one of his best friends.

(She was broken like he was. She was a shoulder for him, and he didn’t know what he had done to deserve her.)

He couldn’t just let that go uninvestigated. The authorities were looking into it, but the steady teen had watched and read too much to think they would find everything. 

He wouldn’t be any better; the books and shows had lied, not that he knew that. He only went further because they wanted him to.

The operation that had taken Monya was more than happy to experiment on another subject. The more data they could get, the better their results would be. 

Supernatural forces had always existed in their world, but were largely left alone. Tales abounded of those who tried to barter or steal from them only to meet their demise in creatively violent ways. The supernatural world didn’t interfere unless provoked, but took a life for every drop of blood spilt from one of their own. 

But there would always be those hungering for power, always be those who would do whatever it took to advance even at the expense of others. And those others were unfortunately often those who could not fight back or protect themselves from the brutality at all. 

It was something that Ben could not stand and so he attempted to free the subjects, Monya included. He did not succeed. 

The only consolation was that the cells he and Monya stayed in were right next to each other. They could try to distract each other from the hell that their lives had become. 

Many people were trapped in the experiments, and they all grew close as days stretched into weeks into months into a year, a year trapped in a glass cage with scientists poking and prodding as they were injected with various substances and forced through exercises. 

The goals of these scientists was to overcome the barrier that had always existed between the supernatural and the all-too-mortal humans. While humans had developed various means to combat and live with the myths that walked among them, any attempts to fight them ended with resounding loss on the side of the humans. They simply could not compete on a large scale with the range of powers afforded to their enemies. 

At the beginning of the experiments, the supernatural creatures who had been captured were standoffish, constantly trying and failing to escape until their shackles were more like a cocoon of chains. But as time passed they slowly came out of their shells and got to know the other inmates (well, as much as they could with everything going on). 

No one liked to think about it if they didn’t have to; that way they could at least pretend.  

It was over the course of several months that Ben got to know what he suspected to be a shadow elemental. It didn’t say either way, but that was to be expected. No one spoke of anything too personal. They kept things light. 

(That way the scientist couldn’t try to see if an emotional response could force reactions not seen before)

While Ben was getting to know the Dark shadow elemental (who refused to give a Name or any information about itself), Monya grew close to a being of fire Light. 

The two magical beings the twins (they may not have been related by blood, but there was no doubt to anyone there that Monya and Ben were siblings) befriended were surprisingly close to their own personalities. 

Monya was the one who drew the other occupants of the lab closer with her bright personality, but Ben was the one who proved it was not a cruel trick or a joke with his sarcastic sense of humor and his caustic personality. 

But the twins were two sides of the same coin- while Monya was bubbly and happy on the surface even in the face of all they had been through and continued to go through , that happiness was a mask for the darkness that threatened to consume her some days. 

And Ben was no bright flower under a dark facade, but he would comfort anyone who needed it in his own gruff way. If he showed weakness it would not go unpunished. His was not a spirit that could stand by in the face of suffering and do nothing. 

The twins balanced each other out. When Monya was in danger of being dragged under by the fractures in her mind, Ben would pull her out. And when he was too violent, when he got lost in his own head, Monya would return the favor. 

And then came the day that changed everything. The day everyone there was freed, by one means or another. 

There was a reason that “freedom” and “death” were the same word in the language that they had all come up with. “Dukkra ba dukkra” the saying went, freedom or death. But death is perhaps the most freeing thing of them all. 

Monya and Ben’s friends were used in the day's experiments, and their overseers had gone harder than they intended. Failure all this time was getting to them, and they wanted to see results. 

The beings were thrown back into their cells injured and dying, Fading even as they struggled for life. 

There was nothing Ben or Monya could do but watch mournfully as their friends struggled, nothing they could do but try to offer some comfort in their last moments on this plane of existence. 

All the inhabitants of the lab were separated by electric shields that violently shocked anyone who touched them without proper deactivation. The numerous escape attempts in the past had shown that it was possible to push through the pain and get through the intangible barrier, but it set off alarms and left whoever did it too weak to escape. 

So it was a good thing that was not what the two beings had in mind for their dying moments. 

With the last of their strength, they pushed their way into Ben and Monya’s cells, respectively, with the being of Darkness going to Ben while Fire went to Monya. 

What they were doing was something that had only been done a handful of times throughout recorded history. By most knowledge and recording, a human was a human, and nothing could be done to change that. 

But there was something that only the oldest and most powerful supernatural beings knew. The ones who were there when the world was formed from the mists of Chaos, who watched as these curiously fragile and weak creatures came into being. As those creatures who should have died overcame every obstacle in their path to become one of the dominant species on the planet. 

They watched as a select few befriended Elder beings on the verge of Fading, and were imbued with their power as a gift- the last thing these Elder beings could do to help their friends, to repay the friendship they very rarely received. 

The process was lengthy, and was something that most knew better than to interfere with. But the scientists (not that they deserved to be called that, not when they violated ethical laws held by scientists worldwide who would happily turn them in to the authorities the second they learned what was happening) would stop at no boundary, not hesitate to cross any line they found. 

Their interference and tests and poking and prodding where they shouldn’t resulted in something new being born. Something that had not existed before. Monya and Ben were gone. Their friends were gone. 

What was left were two new beings. Not quite of the supernatural world, but not quite mortal either. 

One was Corrupted. He didn’t have a name, and so he chose something that fit. He had been mortal once (or at least part of him had) and then he was corrupted with Darkness. His memories were…spotty, to say the least, but he knew enough to know the gist of what he was and what had happened to him. 

The other was Ember. She retained more of her memories and mortal side than Corrupted (but not all- she was a new being just as he was, not Monya and not the Elder being who died), and was wreathed in flames and Light as he was in shadows and Darkness. 

The two’s transformation was not a peaceful one, and not a soul was left alive in the once-laboratory. The destruction was such that soon the government was swarming the city as they tried to figure out what had happened. 

They found not a trace of the two newborn beings who fled the scene. Opposite in nature they may have been but they had much in common, both in their past lives and now. No other being in creation was like them, and their parents had all been close. 

Parents yes, for that was what they decided the past lives were. While unintentional, their merging had created something new, and was that not what creating a child was?

Were they not something new? Were they copies of those before them, doomed to be the same? Did they not have a chance to grow and improve on their own?

After some discussion, the two came to a mutual agreement. They had been born in blood and pain and suffering, and they did not want to be a part of a world where that was the norm, where that could happen to anyone for no reason other than someone wanting to profit off their pain. 

And so they became the twin vigilantes- the Corrupted and the Ember. 

Like their parents before them, Ember was the public face of the two, offering a smile and hope for all the two came across. Corrupted was the knife in the dark, taking out the scum and criminals with ruthless, brutal efficiency. 

And just as their parents before them, both also weren’t afraid to show the other side they usually kept hidden for some reason or another. 

For Corrupted, he did not care what people thought (he didn’t) and so he made no attempt to appear less threatening. He was the boogeyman in the dark, the one who the gangs whispered about before their last moments became filled with pain and nightmares. 

But if he found someone needing help then he would give it to them as long as they would accept it and not run in fear. 

For Ember, she was more conventionally appealing. Fire and light were both things that the public was more ready to accept as belonging to a superhero. And so she was the one active during the day, taking care of civilians to the best of her ability (which was pretty damn good, in Corrupted’s humble opinion). 

But sometimes she came across someone who sent her rage through the roof, and Corrupted would have to do some quick damage control to ensure she didn’t ruin her image by accidentally harming those they had sworn to protect. 

But regardless, it was not long before the twins (and they truly were twins now; their parents had been as close as twins, but Corrupted and Ember were born in the same disaster that killed those who had brought them into the world) became a well-known factor in the world. 

They largely stuck to their own city, but were not afraid to venture out and provide help if it was needed. If it could be handled by local forces however, then they left them to fend for themselves. If Ember and Corrupted intervened everywhere, then they would never learn to protect themselves and they would not be able to properly devote themselves to the city they had claimed and marked as their own. 

Years had passed, and Corrupted was still largely regarded as a terror of the night by even the regular people of the city. He helped where he could, but would not press an issue if he believed himself unwelcome. 

(Which was all too often, much to Ember’s despair; her brother refused to believe he was wanted unless explicitly told)

It got to the point where Ember, tired of her brother pretending he wasn’t moping because another person ran when he tried to help them, just started telling people that Corrupted may have looked scary, but he wouldn’t hurt them. Not unless they had committed a crime (by the twins’ definition of crime, of course). 

It was only a few months after that that people started warming up to him. 

He was grateful for Ember’s efforts, but he didn’t deserve them. He didn’t deserve her . 

People were saved, and the twins made a concerted effort to try to change the mindset of those they deemed worthy of a second chance, steering them away from crime and negative influences as best they could. 

Policies were changed at their behest (no one was fool enough to tell them no when they asked) , and little by little the city changed into a better place. 

It would take time to achieve the utopia they dreamed of, especially to spread it to the rest of the world, but they were okay with that. 

After all, Ember and Corrupted had nothing but Time.