Chapter Text
In the early stages of Hell's development, you were of the first to have fallen into its pits and established yourself within the first ring. You started off listening and keeping to the shadows as you studied up on who you would eventually have to face in order to survive. You noted down your opponents histories, their routines, ticks and pleasures. You stalked till waiting at the ready to battle tooth and nail against opponents largely bigger than your own stature.
Those days you ran solely for your drive to live through this second life- collecting the fallen’s souls that stared back at you with dead eyes or lifeless ones. And it would only be then when you had to murder someone so seemingly similar to yourself, a reflection just younger than you that a mask made its way across your face, one of shadows and souls alike- concealing the pain you faced in having to slay in order for yourself to feel safe even walking out into the street.
This endless cycle of death, murder, and collection continued into the decades, your name to be spread even into the farthest corners of Hell, you were an overlord and with such notoriety. The newly framed royal estate welcomed you through its doors for a meeting with the resident King and Queen of hell.
You wished, thinking back now, for that to be the only meeting you had with the royals- how different your life would have been now if you defied their blood-inked letters but you always found yourself walking back through those tall oak doors and kneeling in front of their thrones.
Every meeting you established with the royals was different- they each demanded a different sacrifice of yourself even if unintended on their doings. They asked to hear of your first-person perspectives on the horrors you slayed, the offhand meetings with bruised angels and the thousands of contracts that drifted around you in a hidden void yet through praises and clapping hands. They demanded most to hear of your knowledge- impressed to find you were nearly as old as they. You knew of their history, Hell's history and of every noteworthy name that held a sibilance of power all the way out to the outer rings.
And that was only the first meeting, the second you were called back it was only Lilith that sat on the throne and to your shock she moved to stand beside you, wanting to hear more of your stories- your adventures and conquests. There was a certain sad glint in her eye, one you read to be of loss- she missed adventure, the adrenaline of discovery and the edge of uncertainty.
You could only shake your head at these observations, holding back in the presence of the Queen- keeping these judgements to yourself within the provided guest suite. The Queen of Hell had everything you had ever been working towards, peace and safety in a land that always demanded otherwise.
On the last night of your stay there, the Queen gifted you a raven- requesting that you write your tales to her no matter the cost as you bowed to her orders. Racing out of the palace walls and back onto the city streets where yet another battle was waged that night.
As time continued, you wrote to the Queen as demanded and by every month you had received a request back to the palace- it felt as if you were working a job, one that you had yet to discover the importance of.
With every monthly visit, it came less about reports like a general to the army head but more of tea sessions in the garden while trying to knit a sweater together. You began as the Queen's confidant, her greatest friend and this was not privately observed but the King, Lucifer saw this as well. It was with great strides that he warmed up to you in the years of knowing one another. He started to often join you and Lilith for your walks around the garden together- confessing that he read the letters you shared to one another in his own study.
He asked you about your life aboveground, surprised to find that you lived a reserved and peaceful life as an artist. You watched as he held onto this information with a sweet smile coating his features, a glass of wine swirling around his fingertips as he called for yours to be filled once more. Lilith would join you both later that evening, gossiping about her meeting with the angels once more.
You nodded your head along, taking notes on the situation as you felt the King's eyes stare into the side of your head. Lilith quietly observed her husband's actions with a smile coating her own features as a ghost of her power whispered into his ear, like them- my dear?
They brighten my day just as they do yours- a wonderful friend we have chosen, the King replies back in a breathy tone as you sit there unknowing, murmuring on about your experiences with angels and the devils of it all.
Centuries went by, and you had expanded from the mere title of overlord to the most beloved member of Hells court. You were the royals confidant, their historian and greatest general, you offered them both advice and didn't even realize when you handed them over your heart as well.
It would be a few days after your meeting with Hell's royalty and court that the official exterminations would become all the more prominent and it would be with the heaviest of hearts that Hell would not partake in the sadistic pleasure of killing one another but of the thought to be angels instead.
Once returning to your office from within the estate, you were surprised to find a more than distraught Lilith teleporting through your door. You watched as her head had fallen atop your desk, her crown presented towards your chest as you eyed her cautiously, your years of observations and killings coming into full effect as you analyzed the Queen.
She took one deep breath in before collecting herself- as if the mere image of her helpless form was only a spark of your imagination. "I am pregnant." Is all she stated, looking at you deeply in the eyes as she watched you process this information with stoic eyes and your mask-covered face.
You snap your eyes to the Queen, a slight shock courses through her features- you rarely if ever demand eye-contact as you state, "then you are to be protected at all costs." Yet what would anyone know surrounding that room, even as the guards were told not to eavesdrop that in the following nine-months one life would be given for another to fall.
An attack had been placed while on a public outing- the announcement of the future Princess of Hell was about to be public as you set-free your powers and hundreds of thousands year long training.
Screams erupted from the crowds, weapons drawn and guns firing widely throughout the air as your shadows caught each stray headed for the royalty. The King tackled Lilith down- teleporting them both from the scene as blood dripped down our nose and from your ears, the ground shook from underneath you as you raised your arms- firing yourself into the air as thousands of spears were summoned. Damming another in their way.
It was only when you had the overlord attacker in your vice grip that a spike of pleasure coursed through your veins with the destruction you caused. A new self emerged from you that day- full of pride for the protection and service you provided- you felt lost internally as disgust eventually washed over you and the actions you made.
Hundreds of thousands of dead bodies covered the streets, their souls joining your powers, you felt that with a mere snap, you could vanish this demon's existence from every plane of existence. A cold shiver ran down your spine, your eyes conflicting only to feel pain erupting from your centre. A poisoned tentacle of theirs created a hole through your very being.
The pain came in waves as you waved your arm, slashing it through the air as you heard their body be sliced in half, blood dripping onto your skin from a flick of your wrist. You threw up upon the various courses that created a deathbed you would soon join. Your eyes fluttering, your breathing steadying once more as you looked up into the red sky as it flickered blue for the faintest second.
Your body laid limp in that pile- you did not feel time pass nor the gateway to an after-afterlife- no. You stared into the void, the blackness coating every part of your existence in an equally suffocating and reassuring embrace. You could not panic, scream, nor enjoy its embrace for it plagued every crevice of your mind as you rested- unknowing of time.
While the King and Queen were ordered around protection from the royal guard you created. They trusted each of your soldiers like extensions of yourself- accepting that these were your orders to them no matter how many times their King pleaded to help you on the front lines. To pray that you were still breathing- Lililth hoped the same as guilt and grief swirled in her like a toxic hurricane.
Days after when they were allowed out once more, Lilith had the child named Charlie- after your middle name- they couldn't wait to surprise you with the news. The royal couple waited for your return from war, waited to find your raven making its way into the quarters, waited for you to teleport into their garden yet you never did.
The royal guard was sent out to retrieve you no matter dead or alive- they were not to return without you. Lilith refused to look anyone in the eyes- the last time she saw you, when you looked into her own with such determination. She couldn't bear to see anyone else's otherwise.
Lucifer turned cold, he loved his family, his wife and daughter to heaven and back yet in any room outside of their company he became cruel, unlistening to any word but your own. He hates to admit to himself but he read your journals- needing a piece of you to guide him once more.
And when the royal guard turned back, lacking in numbers and empty handed, the King of Hell showed true power, grief and overwhelming anger that he slaughtered the room and all Lilith could do was clap at the sight while holding a baby Charlie in her lap.
As Charlie grew up, becoming a budding demon, so did her parents' emotions as they began to stir against one another as time went on. Without you by their side, ruling was yet another continuous learning curve only made more difficult with a curious child.
Charlie held reminders of your determination, a feature both her parents look on to her with bittersweet smiles adorning their faces. There were constant reminders of you everywhere in the palace- at times it felt like you were still alive with them. The thought of you dead has Lucifer struggling for control once more and Lilith had been stretched thin. The couple blew up on one another, words being thrown at one another like tipped blades and bleeding arrows.
Lilith had become increasingly conflicted, though overtime she missed you in waves- she ultimately moved past you, knowing that you would never return and became annoyed when her supposed husband did not. She started to feel neglected in your imagine- even when she was the most powerful being in Hell.
The Queen of Hell expressed these feelings, she was becoming increasingly angered by these constant reminders of you everywhere now- she had decided to carry forward, with or without them and that would be the last straw for Lucifer who refused to give up hope. This stemmed into Charlie's personality as well, which only furthered Liliths resentment. That look even in her own child's eyes had her signing the papers as the King fell even deeper into his depression from yet another person dear to him leaving so soon after the other.
He made no moves to chase the Queen of Hell. They agreed that she would keep her political title yet she was her own figurehead now- choosing to stay away and go off on her own adventures. A motive to spite you- to become you in what others would write about was her transition from love to jealousy. A thin line to cross between passions.
In the following weeks, the King would close the estate- sending all the staff back into the void or to other jobs around Hell for the meanwhile. He raised Charlie alone with the help of a few well-mannered tutors. She had only the best education, reading also from your letters and journals- she was always so inquisitive about you. Asking to know more, begging to meet you. Only to find out as she went into her teen years- that would never be possible.
A sadness coated her adolescence, the lack of interaction with the public, the lack of a motherly figure and as she watched her dad slip further and further away mentally as it appeared. She could only wish to have someone strong like you in her life once more, someone who would know just what to say.
In her first public appearance back, she noted quotes from your book, the History of Hell, she watched as her father smiled happily for a distance as he leaned more on his cane- top hat slipping to cover more of his face as that smile gradually fell.
The public loved the quotes, remembering all the things you did for Hell, they respected you- adored you even (against your wishes). Charlie dreamed of getting to be someone like you one day, helping others even if it goes against yourself.
As she finished up her speech and returned inside. She felt as her father hugged her, little did they know for the last time in a while as Charlie discovered what Extermination day is and became disgusted when she found you were there to help create the modernization of it. A person like you that openly disliked killing yet stood for the mass cultivation of it.
A whiplash of emotions had Charlie reeling back as she could only think to run away from it all. She ran to a rundown hotel- she needed to invoke change, she couldn't care to think about anything going on at home anymore- no. Charlie was going to distract herself by helping others, there had to be another way to this life- and maybe she could even find that escape as well.
Lucifer buried himself behind work with an empty home, he swore to imagine each of your footsteps echoing down the halls. He took up work in your old office, feeling reunited with you in the space as he had placed a few family photos and shots of you wandering the gardens along the otherwise barren walls.
He still attended the necessary court hearings, spoke out to his people and maintained the utmost image yet behind closed doors, the man fell further into himself and the depths of his inner hell space. He craved companionship, prayed to have someone to share the burden of ruling with- to have someone understand his struggles, listen to his interests and protect his heart that he was struggling to resuscitate.
Lucifer would pride himself in developing rubber ducks, a mocking of your favorite animal back on earth. He smiles to himself fondly through a looking glass, ensuring the eternal vocal components are just right as he places the power switch on. The King missed hearing your stories alongside your past-life memories while looking as the mechanic waddled against the desk- stareing ifelessly past him and towards a picture of himself and Lilith sat on their thrones. If you looked just off to his right side, you could be seen- hidden away in the shadows and your smile barely visible to the camera. It was the King's favorite image, placed right beside one of Charlie taking her first walk through the gardens. Shaking his head, he prepared himself for an empty bed and thus a lonely morning when he awoke to hell once more.