Chapter Text
Chapter 1 – “The Bet That Never Should Have Happened”
Vox’s weapon fired.
The sky split open in a blistering arc of shrieking white energy.
Alastor barely had time to feel the pain — just enough to feel the staff’s scream in his bones before everything tore apart.
The pain was all in a flash. The feeling of combustion however so intense it felt like eternity .
Flashes of memories of what he regretted .What could have been
Redemption. The word had sounded like mockery to his ears. Especially after what he did.
for the coward that he had become. For the coward that he was.
he couldn't shed his old persona clinging to it . Clinging to hopes.
Hopes that he could have made husk better under his control. Hopes that he could reforge what he had lost.
All of that hardwork only to find out a dead brain spy did all that in just a several months! Not even a year.
The coward that he was to not order husk to keep away from him .
Knowing well if he did that Husk would take this order as a punishment, As a belief alastor did that because he had NO ONE.
Just like when husk threw himself at danger to try to end his own life when Alastor forced him to stop indulging,
leading to Alastor literally giving husk the right to keep his casino and do whatever he wants there to ensure he keeps living.
A voice — the microphone’s voice — whispered through the static:
“BACK TO THE BEGINNING.”
Then there was nothing.
Then—
There was the bar.
The old bar.
His old bar.
The smell of cigarette smoke and cheap liquor.
The hum of a neon sign flickering in the window.
And Husk — younger, angrier, shoulders squared, eyes hard — staring at him across a poker table.
A soul contract glowed between them like a brand.
Mimzy leaned over Husk’s shoulder, fluttering her lashes dramatically.
“Come on, Al! Teach him a lesson already!”
Alastor blinked.
The world came back sharp, too sharp, colors warped by deja vu and dread.
This was the moment.
The moment everything had gone wrong.
The moment he ruined Husk.
The moment Husk became his property.
His smile held — barely.
His hands trembled — invisibly.
He still had the same level of powers as he did when he died.
His breath hitched when he noted he had no bonds to rosie.
Possibly the fact he wasn't exactly the same soul he was at the time
Or maybe some divine intervention. Something he would have mocked if he was his younger self.
Inside his head, the microphone whispered:
“This is your second chance.”
Alastor inhaled slowly
Then he stood.
“Pardon us, my dear Mimzy,” he said brightly, “but I must borrow our feathery friend for a moment.”
Before she could respond, he grabbed Husk by the wrist and yanked him away from the table — away from Mimzy’s sight, hearing, and awareness.
His shadows swallowed them whole.