Work Text:
That shit had gotten this outta hand was a testament to how fragile everyone else had let things become. When this Vox asshole had declared his ‘holy war’ on Heaven, Sera and the rest of the council’s action should have been instant retaliation. Nip this in the bud in an afternoon and head back in time for dinner, not sit around moping. That led to Heaven being shot at by some giant fuck off gun called the Might of Lilith. As if she could ever be as powerful as that shot was.
The barrier over Heaven was the only thing Sera and the rest did right, and it definitely saved folks from dying.
Still, this shouldn’t have been allowed, yes, allowed to occur in the first place. Adam had come back right not long after that, how? Who gives a shit? The first man was back, and after some annoying prodding from himself and Speak, we’re finally able to get Sera to stop moping and let him do the thing she should've been doing.
Assemble an army and crush this rebellion violently.
So they did, that Vox prick assembled everyone for a preemptive victory celebration. Conveniently gathering everyone Heaven needed to wipe out in the open, without much in the way of weapons or security. Arrogant doesn’t even begin to describe how stupid he was or looked when Adam bisected him in half after vaporizing half the table of Overlords there.
Adam wanted to kill the guy personally. After that it was a rather slow and bloody mop-up operation, slaughtering every Sinner that supported this rebellion. Then fanning out for an undeclared Extermination to really drive home the point that Heaven wasn’t to be messed with. As much as Adam wanted to join in, he had a massive gun to destroy first.
The thing truly was gigantic, he supposed it had to be to make the shot the Overlord wanted. The first man wasn’t there to admire it; his axe vanished into thin air and a mighty warhammer took its place. He wasted no time winding up a swing and slamming it into the spherical base. The whole thing reverberated with the force for the barest of milliseconds before shattering like glass. All flying away from the blow as if shot from a… well, cannon.
Adam was about to take off and join in on the fun when a glow from below caught his eye. It was angelic in nature; he knew that kind of light well, which begged the question.
“…What is making that?” He jumped down and got quite the sight.
A confused-looking Lucifer with arms and legs locked within some sorta thick angelic steel cuffs. Connected to a base and top made of the same material… wow, he could sense the glass was somehow infused with the stuff!
Curious gaze met perplexed look as the two stared at one another, as they processed the other’s presence here.
Lucifer broke the silence first. “Didn’t the maid kill you?”
“Got better,” Adam replied. “Were you powering this thing?”
“What thing?” The King of Hell tried to look up, but his view was blocked by the top of his container.
“I guess it’d be stupid to assume he’d be willingly plugged into this thing.” The sheer power that Vox fellow had managed to take and use for that one blast was… Well, okay, so Adam was a little bit impressed now that he managed to use Lucifer like this, but only by a little.
“You’re strapped in that thing tight.” It wasn't a question but a statement of fact as he tapped the glass with his knuckles.
“Yeah, I can't get myself out…” Lucifer tugged at the restraints. “Think you can get it opened from out there?”
Adam tilted his head to one side quizzically, wondering why he’d bother to ask. Why would he let the guy out? Better to leave him in there so he could mess with the stuff Adam was charged with doing after sorting out Hell’s rebellion…
An idea popped into his brain, one that needed zero thought nor consideration before he acted on it.
“Nah,” With a wave of his hand a portal opened beneath it and sent the container falling into his home. “I am not letting this shit pass me up!”
“Ta da!” Threw the sheet he’d hastily put over the container, as much as Adam wanted to show Lute the second they got back.
She had a ton of shattered glass in his office to clean up before he could dazzle her with the new addition to their home.
“Huh…” Lute was left dumbfounded at the sight of the king of Hell now sealed up in Adam’s main office. “Can’t think of a better thing to decorate the place.” She tapped at the glass, and the man within glared at her.
“Adam, come on man!” Lucifer whined, voice slightly muffled. “This is ridiculous, somebody’s gonna notice I’m gone and come looking for me!”
“Eh, sure. Doubt they’d ever think you’d be in this thing and now here!” Adam expected something from little Miss Disney princess when they were wrapping up their extermination. But naw she didn’t know where the guy was, beyond ‘maybe at the rally, Vox said he was’ with nobody catching Adam portaling him away. Adam wasn’t about to announce his new capture too loudly; the last thing he wanted was anyone trying to make him release his new prize. “The only problem you provide now is being a bit too large.”
This thing was gonna take up a lot of space, yeah, Adam had that in plenty here, but he liked it that way. He wished the Vox guy could’ve made this thing any smaller in size or that he could reduce it somehow…
“I wonder…” Like before, once the idea entered his head, there was no consideration, only acting upon it.
Adam laid a hand on the container and poured his magic into it. The angelic steel reacted quickly to what he was attempting. Whoever made this knew how to work the material and mold it into something that would use Heavenly magic, however you wanted. The metal and glass shook briefly, then grew smaller with each passing second. Lucifer noticed immediately and started whining again.
“Seriously!? You’re gonna crush me in this!”
“You’re gonna wish I am shortly.”
The man started chuckling within but it was clearly involuntary as he cried about ‘bad tingles’. It didn’t take the fool long to realize the container wasn’t the only thing shrinking. Adam slowly crouched down after it until he’d gotten it to the size he wanted. Lifting the container now small enough to fit into the palm of his hand. Adam admired his handiwork and Lute even came around to inspect the result with admiration.
The king within had to be about five inches tall now. Shouting something that could be auditable if he or Lute was even bothering to listen.
“Well Lute~” Adam roughly planted the minuscule container upon his desk, roughly shaking the occupant. “How's my new desk ornament looking?”
Danger tits smirked almost as smugly as he felt and marched over to tap the glass. The tiny Lucifer shouted something that was probably ‘hey stop that’ but neither of them paid it any mind.
“Move it a little to the left, sir.” Her eyes gleamed vindictively. “He shouldn’t be before something useful like the pen holder.”
“Ah!” Adam let out the loudest possible sigh of satisfaction before flopping onto his chair with such force it shook the desk and therefore Lucifer.
The king of Hell hadn’t settled into his role till about the seventh day. When he realized his struggling still wasn’t gonna free him, nor was his shouting getting him any of Adam or Lute’s attention. They could hear him and made sure he knew this in preparation for when he finally shut up. They prick was supposed to be the warden of Hell, that was his job when banished to the realm he and Lilith created. Didn’t do his damn job, so it became Adam’s, and it was time to let him know what kinda job he was doing now.
“Welp, Hell’s finally back in its place, no threats to Heaven will be rising up ever again from the top ring!” Adam began, reaching over to take up a pen and for once in a long ass time actually do his own paperwork. “Sinners lost a huge chunk of themselves… What was the full tally again, Lute?”
“A good thirty percent, with Extermination day still in the works in the coming months.”
“Nice, oh and that hotel…” Adam let that sink into Lucifer who growled behind the glass. “Declared an Extermination safe zone with a ton of caveats, but still a safe zone!”
It was fucking hilarious to see the sneer morph into utter bewilderment. But yeah, redemption is a thing, and that place was going to be the place to work on it. Not his first choice, but they’d need somewhere and the embassy needed to be rebuilt. Adam doubted they’d see progress much less anything substantial for several decades, but he was willing to be surprised. As for the caviats, just because they wouldn’t fly in to kill everyone didn’t mean they wouldn’t comb the place for Sinners who thought they could fake it to hide there.
It was that, or the Princess would get nothing. In the end, she did the smart thing for once in her life and agreed for her sake and her friends.
Lute hummed. “The look on her face when you made the offer was priceless, sir.”
“Yeah, might as well throw her a bone now that she believes daddy dearest abandoned her!”
Upon the desk, Lucifer gritted his pointed teeth before calling bullshit on Adam’s words.
“Adam doesn’t lie…”
“Thinks her father left because of a fight and became more of a recluse than before!” Lute voice mocked sadness. “Thinks he’s vanished for good like her mother.”
“Yeah, but apparently, he was already barely involved in her life anymore,” Adam shrugged uncaringly. “So it’s not like anything really changed, except she’d got Heaven’s slight backing. Even thanked me for it, imagine that? A Morningstar listening and thanking me.”
“Truly, the end times are at hand.” Lute added.
Lucifer shouted and thrashed about, spewing warnings and then threats if he wasn’t released that instant.
“Adam doesn’t lie…”
“Good thing too, cause if Lucicunt showed back up, that would complicate things.” Adam scratched at his chin. “Might get the Sins and Hell's other royal shits involved, making her kids' precious dream impossible. Especially now that I talked some sense into Sera and got her to stop her bs lamenting over dead Sinners.”
“Adam doesn’t lie…”
“Ah, yup, things are looking good for that kid, thinking about scaring Sinners towards the place. If she's really serious, she’ll find a way to redeem those shits. Won’t ever get rid of the need for the Exterminations but hey, she might just make a genuine ray of hope in Hell.” An insane idea for so long, but there was the possibility now. So Adam would work and see what could be done, as a good warden of Hell should. “Doing what should’ve been Lucifer’s job… heh, I’ll keep Hell under control unlike its useless ‘king’!”
Except he had to be lying, Lucifer wouldn’t accept the idea that Adam was doing anything to aid his daughter’s dream. Or that he was her being an advocate in Heaven for Sinners redeeming themselves with his position and Heavenly mandate over Hell.
The Golden Angel’s pride wouldn’t let him believe any of this!
No matter how truthful it had to be… because Adam doesn’t lie…
Alternate fate
“I think I have a better idea, sir.” Her eyes gleamed vindictively, and she leaned over to whisper into Adam’s ear.
The first man’s smirk looked somehow even more smug, and he snatched the container back up.
“Lute, you can be diabolical sometimes!”
It took a bit for Adam to get a feel for how power was drawn out of the figure within and to make the container compatible with what he needed, but he figured it out. After that, Lucifer’s cell was shrunk to barely an inch tall and was being flicked up and caught like a coin, disorientating the puny king within.
“Stop that!” At last, Adam did, but not in response to the guy’s request.
The first man knelt and plugged something into the wall, turning the container in his hand so Lucifer could get a good look at it. It didn’t really explain much. The thing was a nightlight, but it wasn’t plugged into anything and there was a translucent door where a battery would go into the front, but it was weirdly shaped for some reason. Said reason became clear when Adam turned Lucifer around and inserted him there with a quiet click, the tickles were back but didn’t feel bad more muted… irritating as a itch would be except he couldn’t scratch at it.
“There we go,” Adam’s voice boomed from above. “Now, when it’s nighttime, I can have a lightbringer-powered bulb to see better!”
“Why!?” The king of Hell asked with genuine confusion. “It’s Heaven, even at night, you gotta put serious effort to make a room dark. A nightlight here also doesn’t make sense with all these windows around it’s the most useless… place you… could have… put…” His voice wound down, and his head dripped as the realization washed over him.
Adam’s face appeared; the man lowered himself down to cover Lucifer’s sight with this shit-eating grin.
“Yup! It’s the most useless thing, placed in the most useless spot ever!” His head tilted at the drawing frustration of the fallen angel within. “Yet, it’s powered by creation’s most powerful battery ever!”
With those parting words, did Adam close the translucent case holding said battery in place. The king of Hell stared out as the first man stood and briskly walked away to do whatever. The fallen angel stared blankly for a moment before growling like a wounded lion, a sound unheard and uncared for as his immense power was used to keep a dim light on.