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Flame was in pain.
He was bleeding and needed help.
Instead of calling out for someone who he knew wouldn’t come, or at least not to the rescue he held his bleeding wound with his already stained hand.
The wound was across his left shoulder from where his opponent had stabbed him with a concealed and very much illegal weapon.
Flame didn’t know the date or how long it had been since his last birthday but he was pretty sure he was still nine.
It felt like it had been ages since his last birthday.
He was given presents and was celebrated for just existing, he doubted something like that would ever happen to him again.
As he laid in raw agony on the dirty stone ground in what looked like a prison he thought back to his parents.
His mother was a human, a normal and beautiful woman.
His father on the other hand was a demon, a nether demon.
He didn’t know what made demons so different, yeah they were stronger and had horns and tails to him they seemed normal.
They lived happily together as a small little family until a few months after Flame’s ninth birthday.
Their house had been broken into during the middle of the night by bandits.
There was a fight as Flame’s father tried to fight back and protect both him and his mom but there was too many.
They killed flame’s parents and tried to kill him too. He didn’t remember how but he survived the attack and was found by some people who brought him to a healer.
After he recovered he was placed in his relatives hands on his mom’s side. Thought that was how he discovered that they hated him.
They hated demons and half demons and hybrids.
None of them wanted to take him in and instead he was sent to an orphanage. Flame soon found out that the orphanage was selling children.
They also hated demons and forced Flame to hide the fact he was a half breed. They forced him to keep his tail hidden in his pants which was incredibly painful for him, wear gloves over his claws, a blindfold over his eyes, and keep his hair all messy to hide his horns.
It sucked.
It got even worse when he was sold to some shady people who forced him to fight in a ring against kids in similar situations, sometimes they weren’t even kids.
They battled to the death or near death for other peoples entertainment.
People would bet on who would win and sometimes even pay to give their pick unfair advantages like the kid who had stabbed Flame.
Flame sometimes got these stupid tricks but he didn’t use them at all.
A loud banging broke Flame out of his thoughts.
“next in 10,” one of the guards said dropping a dirty stained rag through the bars.
Flame watched him walk away then sighed filled with distain.
He scooted over just enough to reach the rag and then went back to his place against the stone wall.
He pressed the rag to his wound and waited.
After a bit someone came to escort him to the ring.
he waited for the count down for the fight to start, watching his opponent on the other side.
“3!”
“2!”
“1!”
He pounced towards his opponent who was evidently much larger than he was the moment the loud bang was heard commencing the fight.
It was true he was disgusted by these dog fights, forcing malnourished children to fight to the death is both grotesque and completely inhumane.
He threw a punch towards the boys head.
However, Flame would be lying if he said he hated the fighting part completely.
The kid blocked it with their arm and kicked Flame’s leg hard.
He hated most things about it, like the unfair advantages, the fact it was for others entertainment, and the fact that even when they are half dead as long as they can stand they are thrown into a deadly and violent fight.
He yelped jumping backwards though his opponent followed quickly getting ready to punch him square in the face.
But the actual fighting part he honestly enjoyed, even when he was being beaten down or broke bones there was a certain thrill of it that he couldn’t ignore.
he anticipated it and tried to dodge.
Though somewhere after going through all of this he started hearing people talking whenever he was alone, just far enough away so he couldn’t quite understand what they were saying.
The leg that had just been injured buckled under the pressure leaving him wide open.
Every time he heard them they seemed to get louder, like they were gradually getting closer to him.
His opponents fist collided with his still injured shoulder, resulting in not only an overwhelming pain but his own counter attack without even realizing it.
Eventually he was able to figure out that they were voices in his head that had developed the thirst for blood and gore.
His claws broke through the worn layers of fabric of his gloves and clawed his opponent across the face.
“CLAWS!”
He stood still in shock cradling his shoulder.
The one thing he had been working so hard to keep hidden for months...
The shouts and cries of the crowd slowly turned to confused murmurs.
His opponent rushed over to him, he tried to keep him away but despite Flame’s best efforts they were able to pry off his blindfold.
The eyes of demon.
Everyone knew what they looked like.
They were unmistakably demon like.
Gasps, shouts, laughter, murmurs, sounds of distain. All of them.
Flame felt tears start to build in his eyes.
He had tried so hard.
He knew what would happen.
These people hated demons, even just half bloods.
He knew they were either just going to kill him with an unbeatable fight or let him slowly rot in a cell for those dirtier than rats.
What he didn’t know was which one was worse.
To no ones surprise the match was cut short, and he was thrown into a cell with a few others.
They were mostly demons, half demons, and hybrids.
Most of them were just sitting down looking miserable and like they hadn’t been fed in months.
Most notably was a hybrid poking a sleeping body.
Wait no. That person wasn’t sleeping, they were dead.
He marched over to tell the kid off.
“Yo bro, that’s a corpse stop poking it,” he told him.
The kid looked up.
“Hm? Oh. Yeah I guess that makes sense.”
The kid had a mess of blond hair, poking out of his hair was a pair of cat looking ears.
He also had a tail and paw looking hands and feet.
“What are you supposed to be? A cat of some sort?” Flame asked tilting his head.
“Did you just say cat? Bro I'm a lion hybrid!” the boy exclaimed looking both astonished and proud of himself.
“A lion hybrid? I've never seen one before,” Flame admitted.
“Ah... yeah, we’re sorta... rare a guess...” the kid replied.
“rare? Why?” Flame asked curious.
“Uh... well my clan got attacked pretty bad, I don’t know who else survived besides me so I'm not sure how many left of us there are.” he explained.
“Oh... I see, is that why you are here?”
“Yeah.”
There was silence for a few seconds.
“So why are you here?” the other boy asked.
“Me?... uh I got sent to an orphanage that then like sold me here bro.” Flame replied.
“Oh... man that sucks. I’m Mane by the way.”
“...Flame”
There was another pause.
“Since this dude is dead do you think we should eat him?” Mane asked poking the corpse again.
“What?! Bro no dude don’t eat him!” Flame replied shocked by the idea, though he couldn’t blame him, this place barely fed them.
After that Mane and Flame became closer, friends even.
Despite their situation and them both going up against completely obscene odds, they enjoyed each other's company.
It was actually absurd how unfair the fights had gotten now that they knew he was a half blood.
At the very least he didn’t have to hide it anymore, he could use his claws during a fight, he didn’t have to hide his tail, if thing got dire he could headbutt them and stab them using his horns.
He kept the blindfold, it’s better if they don’t see the fear in his eyes.
Oh yeah. And the voices had gotten louder, too loud in fact. He could barely sleep anymore, sometimes he couldn’t even hear his own thoughts over them.
They constantly craved blood and death, and when they weren’t asking for some sort of gruesome death, they nitpicked and insulted him. Amazing.
Also due to always coming back and surviving even when he was close to death and the unexpected reveal that he was a half demon he had developed the nickname “Immortal Demon” he hated it, it was a constant reminder of why he was even in this mess. He had survived what his parents hadn’t and had ended up here due to having demon blood.
Mane thought it was cool, he thought everything was cool even Flame’s blindfold was for some reason tuff to him.
“Dude... I don’t wanna die here.” Mane whispered into the darkness.
Flame hadn’t known he was still awake, it was probably around midnight at that point.
“... then don’t die,” was Flame’s tired response.
“Bro I'm serious, I did not survive all that just to slowly die in a place like this. I want to be free not thrown into another cage to fight someone I don’t even know... plus...we’re up against each other tomorrow. Flame if we don’t fight each other they will just kill the both of us.”
He was right, Flame knew it, but what were they supposed to do about it.
“... Then we escape bro.”
“Yeah but how?”
“A distraction? Of some sort?”
They spent the rest of the night coming up with a foolproof plan, which they were putting into effect immediately.
Once the sun rose casting musty yellow rays into their disgusting cell they jumped into action.
“HELP!! SOMEONE! GUARDS! THE IMMORTAL DEMON IS DYING!” they landed on using Flame as bait due to him being well known around here.
After a few seconds a drowsy guard walked over holding a beer bottle.
“What do you want brats?” The guard asked.
“It’s the Immortal Demon! He's dying! And just before one of the most important fights!”
The guard sighed but decided to check it out himself.
He unlocked the barred door and took a step in.
“What’s wrong?” The guard asked.
“He just started dying! I think his heart is failing, his heart rate is really slow.” Mane suggested looking stressed.
The guard took the bait and lowered his head to Flame’s chest to try and hear his heartbeat.
Then Flame bit his ear, ripping the entire thing off, at the same time Mane stole the dude’s guard keyring going around the man and pulling Flame toward him out from under the guard as they made a break for it.
They locked the now yelling guard with one less ear inside the cell and ran as fast they could towards the guards quarters.
It was very early in the morning so not many guards were about, and anyone they did come across they ran straight past without looking back.
They had no idea where they were going but they didn't slow to think it over.
before they knew it they were at the front gate to the prisons with a mass of guards and people who worked for the child fighting arena hot on their tails.
"Flame, how do we get past the gate?" Mane asked as they came to a stop in front of it.
"I don't know bro, figure something out!"
they ran back where they came and went towards a door they hadn't tried to go through before, it was a lounge area for those that worked there, had a table, drinks, an unfinished card game and some untouched and old books, as well as a window.
"The window! go through the window!" Mane yelled charging for it.
Flame followed suit jumping through as well.
Luckily it wasn’t a far drop at all, Mane landed easily and despite the many injuries and that Flame had to suck in a breath at the shock of pain in his legs he landed as well.
“Flame come on! They are still after us just cause he got out doesn’t mean we’re safe!” Mane yelled pulling Flame further.
He was right. So they ran, and ran, and ran.
They ran until their legs became numb, their lungs struggled to provide enough air for them, and instead of one big star in the sky there were many little ones.
And then they walked.
The human inside Flame told him he still had living family, that he should at least try to go see them.
But the human was wrong and instead of despising the demon part of him he chose to embrace it.
He took the name of immortal demon onto himself and accompanied by his brother Mane they became two of the most feared and renowned players to ever live on Unstable.
They both adopted blindfolds both as a fighting strategy but also as a reminder of what they went through together.