Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“This is all yer fault.”

Blitz scoffed in offence. “My fault?”

”Yes! Yer fault! If you and those two lil pipsqueaks hadn’t stolen my thunder, we wouldn’t be in this situation!” Striker spat, facing away from Blitz, as if unable to look at him any longer.

Blitz growled under his breath. The sheer audacity of this asshole. Not too long ago, Blitz had offered him a job at I.M.P. And Striker had accepted it. Not too long after, the head of the company found the snake-like assassin standing by an upstairs window, about to put a bullet straight through Prince Stolas’ eyebrows. Later that night, after Striker’s escape, he found out that he’d attacked his precious M&Ms, breaking Millie’s arm and throwing her and Moxxie into the basement, where the country girl had landed leg-first into a bear trap. Blitz was absolutely furious. Millie, on the other hand, was always brushing off Blitz’s concern by cheerfully saying that she was fine and had handled worse. Of course, her boss agreed with her. He knew that Mildred Knowlastname was one tough woman. However, he couldn’t help but feel surges of resentment coil in his gut at the thought of the cowboy’s betrayal of his trust. 

Now that he thought about it, perhaps now was the best time to give that sneaking shithead a piece of his mind.

“You’re a right nasty piece of work, ya know that, right?” Blitz suddenly said with a snarl in his voice. “I thought you were a decent guy a while back. I even offered you a job at my company. But no, my offer wasn’t enough for you, was it? Hurting my employees, and trying to murder Stolas? Do you get off to being a piece of shit, or are you too stuck up your own ass to see what you’re doing?”

Striker gave a small scoff.

”Well, maybe you shoulda thought twice ‘bout puttin’ yer trust in someone ya just met, Blitzy.” he stated, the last word escaping his lips in a venomous hiss.

Blitz’s brow furrowed. He turned away from the snake-like assassin and stared at the cold metal door in front of him, which of course, was locked. The red imp then looked to the floor, tapping his fingers against it as he thought of ways he could escape. He’d done it last time, so surely he could escape again, right? But then again, last time he had his employees with him. Now, it was him alone.

With Striker.

And he highly doubted that the assassin would want to help him.

The head of I.M.P turned around again, but this time, Striker wasn’t sitting hunched over. Instead, he was lying on the floor, curled into a ball. He had his tail wrapped around himself, as if to give him some sense of comfort. It didn’t work, however, as the harsh coldness of the metal floor caused him to shiver. 

You could have cut the tension in the room with a knife.

The red imp had enough of the deafening silence, and finally broke it, albeit slightly awkwardly.

“Uhh… you alright, there?”

The snake didn’t move a muscle, but his response was instant.

”Don’t act like ya give a shit, dickhead.” he muttered quietly under his breath.

”Gee, alright, then.” the red imp rolled his eyes. “Just trying to be nice.” 

“Well, I don’t need yer pity.”

Blitz stared at the assassin for a few moments. He began to chuckle softly, his laugh slowly rising a few octaves before he began cackling hysterically, as if he’d just watch Moxxie trip over and land flat on his face.

“Pity? Don’t get your dick in a twist, buddy. I don’t have a shred of pity for you. As far as I’m concerned, you deserve every ounce of humiliation I’ve brought you so far. When I met you, you were nothing more than a slippery, slimy, smarmy prick. And now look what you’ve become.” the red imp narrowed his eyes and a nasty smile spread across his face as he finished his speech. “You’re… pathetic.”

His words, however, soon died on his tongue. He knew at once he had struck a nerve, because Striker’s tail suddenly shot out and was coiled around his neck in an instant. Blitz barely had time to react before he was lifted effortlessly off the floor.

”Now, listen here.” the cowboy said his words quietly, but they were laced with spite. He turned around, looking over his shoulder to face Blitz, who had his claws dug into his constrictive tail, trying to pull it off. Striker did not squeeze hard enough to deny Blitz of oxygen, but he held the imp in a tight enough grasp which would forbid him from escaping.

”What the… fuck… let me go!” Blitz gasped, kicking his legs furiously in mid-air.

“Not till ya shut that hole in yer face.” Striker snarled back, eyes narrowing.

Blitz gave a strangled snarl in return before digging into his pocket and pulling out a switchblade. But before he had time to use it, Striker swung him through the air and smashed his head against the wall. 

“FUCK!” Blitz yelled out as he dropped the blade to the floor. He winced, blinking stars from his sight as he glared daggers at the other imp. “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WAS THAT FOR? ARE YOU TRYING TO GIVE ME BRAIN DAMAGE OR SOMETHING, YOU SHIT-EATING HILLBILLY?”

His words, once again, died on his tongue when Striker pulled him over until their faces were millimetres apart. The red imp felt a surge of fear sweep through his insides as he stared into Striker’s poison yellow orbs, which were blazing with malice, and narrowed into a pair of glowing slits.

“Now, yer gonna listen to me, and yer gonna listen good.” he hissed once again. Blitz was about to open his mouth, when Striker’s tail suddenly squeezed his neck painfully hard. “And if ya try to start yappin’ once more, I’ll snap yer neck clean in half. I’ve done it before, ya know. I’ve crushed bones with this here tail, so you’d do good to pipe down.”

Blitz, for once in his life, had nothing to say. He swallowed his pride, realising that his life was on the line here. He nodded.

”Good. Now… as I was sayin’…” Striker began, his voice low but his face etched in a burning fury. “You may think of me as some slimly, smarmy prick… but ya don’t know me. I reckon there’s things in my past that’d shock ya. Rattle ya to the core. You think yer the only imp around these parts with problems? I don’t think so. You have not the shred of an idea of the shit that I’ve been through that got me where I am today. Ya think I just woke up one day and decided to become Wrath’s most feared assassin? Nuh-uh. This ain’t the type of shit you’d wanna spend yer life doin’. Diggin’ fer scraps. Havin’ to rely on other demons and their petty thirst for revenge for money. Money that barely allows ya to get by. You may have yer successes with yer little assassination business for now, but I’ve been doin’ it a lot longer than you have. You and yer lil’ cronies won’t last long. I’ll bet money on another year or two at most.”

With that final statement, Striker lifted Blitz off the ground once more and carelessly tossed him to the other side of the room. Once again, he curled himself in a tight ball.

Blitz rubbed his head, which was now throbbing from the collision against the metal wall. The red imp stared at the cowboy’s curled up form on the other side of the room, trying to find something else to say.

But, there was nothing.

Chapter Text

Minutes slowly grinded by like old clogs on a clock. Blitz lay flat on his back, staring blankly at the monotone metal ceiling above him. His tail swished lazily in front of him as his brain twisted with ways he could escape. 

Blitz wasn’t even sure how he and Striker had ended up in the D.H.O.R.K.S headquarters. All he could remember from was being engaged in a pretty nasty brawl, resulting in the head of I.M.P using his newly obtained Asmodean Crystal to escape to the human world, in order to separate Striker from the rest of his employees in case he decided to hunt them down as well. Unfortunately, they landed right outside one of the government’s bases. A familiar one at that.

That’s the last thing he could remember, before both he and Striker were shot with tranquillisers, resulting in them being thrown into a barren room. Perhaps, for later questioning or an interrogation. The red imp’s mind squirmed with possible insults and comebacks he could fire at the Agents if they attempted to squeeze any information out of him. Maybe he’d try and entertain them by telling them about the time he managed to beat the Queen of Gluttony in a drinking contest, and they’d be so impressed by his stamina that they’d worship at his feet and set him free…

Blitz pulled out the Asmodean Crystal from his pocket. The one Stolas had lent to him the last time he paid him a visit. He should have been happy that the prince had offered him such a rare gemstone, as he was now allowed to travel back and forth between Hell and the human realm without any contract or bind. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of bitterness at the owl’s gift. Stolas clearly… didn’t want him anymore.

And that hurt.

It really did.

Blitz’s brow furrowed as he stared at the gleaming orange crystal in his palm. His last meeting with Stolas began to seep through his mind, before his train of thought was interrupted.

“So… did yer blue-blooded bitch lend you that there trinket?”

Blitz whipped his head around at the sudden sound of Striker’s voice. The assassin was still curled up in a ball, his back to Blitz. How in Hell did he know Blitz was holding it? He must have some kind of sixth sense…

“What’s it to you? You want one?” Blitz retorted snarkiky, raising an eyebrow. “Cuz if ya do, you’ll have to find your own bird to bone.”

Striker snorted. “I don’t need some dumb fuckin’ crystal to do my job, clown. And even if I did, I wouldn’t stoop to yer level.”

Blitz grunted and rubbed his temple, his frustrations beginning to bubble up in his gut. He could sense another one of Striker’s classic rants about the upper class demons coming on, and he was in no mood to listen to the snake’s detestation of those of higher societal power.

“Look, Striker, I’m in no mood to sit here and listen to you running your mouth about why royal demons suck. You’re not some freedom fighter who cares about the well-beings of his fellow imps. If you did, you wouldn’t be such a fucking bully to your own kind. You’re just some redneck hick assassin who thinks he’s better than everyone else because he blows people’s brains out for a living. You’re not special. Get off that high fucking horse of yours already before you drown in your own shit.”

The cowboy was silent for a good few seconds, unmoving. Like a statue. 

His voice then came out in a low rumble.

“I never said I was special. I never said I was some freedom fighter. What I said… was that you and that cyborg bitch are both disgraces to our kind.”

Blitz let out noise of exasperation.

“HOW? How am I a disgrace to other imps? For sleeping with a blue blood? I was just doing what I had to do to do my fucking job!”

“Oh? Is that so? And what about yer little jester friend? He ain’t sleepin’ with the King of Lust fer some deal like you and yer precious owl. They’re clearly in some sort of top secret relationship. Although…” he scoffs again. “It ain’t so much a secret no more, is it?”

“How… how the fuck did you…?”

“Gossip spreads around these parts like wildfire, asshole. It was all over the news. I saw it live in an old bar downtown.”

“Well, so what if they are? That’s none of your business!” Blitz spat back.

Striker let out a hollow laugh. He was still facing away, but Blitz could practically see the maniacal grin plastered on his face.

“Ya seriously believe that Asmodeus himself would ever fall in love with an imp? The King of Lust? I’ll bet my life’s savings that the shit he spewed at that concert was pure and utter bullshit. He’ll just use that washed-up clown and toss him away once he’s satisfied and then move on to the next poor fucker who’s desperate enough to get between his tail feathers.”

Slack-jawed and shaking, Blitz was absolutely fuming. He had to take a few deep breaths in order to restrain himself from storming over and throttling the smug-faced prick with his own bare hands.

“You’re wrong.” the head of I.M.P hissed. He was fully prepared to defend the honour of his childhood best friend from this smarmy bastard. “You’ve never seen the two of them alone together! I have! And I can tell you know that they’re very happy together, thank you very much!” 

Blitz folded his arms and held his head high. 

“Besides, how the fuck would you know how either of them feel? Fizzarolli may be some worthless jester to you, but he’s more successful than you’ll ever be! Even after…” 

Blitz’s voice wavered as he remembered the accident. A wave of guilt rushed over him, but he attempted to hold it back.

“Even after… his accident… he managed to build up something you could only dream of having. You’re probably just bitter that unlike you, he found success as an imp, and someone who actually loves him!”

Blitz finished his rant, panting from the exertion of his words. He then narrowed his eyes, and spoke his next words.

“And don’t act like your pathetic cowboy ass has any idea of what it’s like to be in love.”

Striker’s body immediately tensed up. Blitz’s words were slow and quiet, but they bounced off the walls of the metal room in a taunting echo. The boss of I.M.P grinned in triumph when the cowboy didn’t shoot back with a quip, but that smile slowly melted away when the silence dragged on for a bit too long.

“Well? Aren’t ya gonna say anything? Aren’t ya gonna clap back at me about how disgusting blue bloods are?”

The snake-like assassin did not say a word, but Blitz could see his body beginning to tremble.

“Well?” the red imp repeated, growing increasingly more irritated by the lack of response. One part of him was prideful that he’d managed to throw Striker into a corner, but the other part of him still wanted to give the cowpoke a verbal beat down. But he didn’t want to take him down without a decent argument, at least.

“Go on, then! Tell me, Striker. Tell me why you’re always bitching about the upper class. Tell me why you feel the need to constantly run your mouth about why you hate them so much. TELL ME. WHY DO YOU HATE ROYAL DEMONS. SO. FUCKING. MUCH?”

“ITS NONE OF YER FUCKIN’ BUSINESS WHY!” Striker suddenly yelled back, spinning his head around at breakneck speed. His eyes were glowing with some sort of mad fury, tail rattling dangerously like a deadly maraca. 

The silence that followed was deafening.

The red imp was taken aback by the outburst. Striker was glaring at Blitz with blazing fury. He stuck his forked tongue out and hissed menacingly at him one last time before turning back around once more and curling into a shaking ball.

Before the boss of I.M.P could register what had just happened, his nostrils picked up on a foul stench coming from behind him. He spun around, and saw a cloud of green gas slipping underneath the crack of the metal door. His eyes went wide as the gas began to cascade across the floor, slowly rising and threatening to drown the room in its fumes.

The truth serum had been set off once again.

Chapter Text

“Oh, shit.” Blitz muttered, stumbling back as his eyes popped in fear.

“What?” Striker grumbled, raising his head slightly. Once he caught sight of the gas, however, he immediately jumped up, as if on high alert. 

“What in fuck’s name is that?!”

“Truth serum.” Blitz stated in a slightly panicked voice.

Striker stood motionless for a few moments, trying to comprehend what the red imp had just said.

“Beg yer pardon?”

“Truth serum! It’s not the first time I’ve had a run in with this shit. If you get a whiff of it, it’ll force ya to tell the truth.”

The cowboy imp narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t believe ya.”

Blitz glared at him with a hardened expression for a few moments before a devious smile crept upon his lips. 

“Oh? Ya wanna test that, do ya?”

Striker glared straight back at him, clenching his fists and swishing his tail behind him like a pendulum.

“Test what?”

Blitz jammed his hands in his pockets and causally swung back and fourth on his heels.

“Once this room is filled with truth serum…. maybe I’ll… ask you once again why you hate royals so much. And maybe… just maybe… I’ll get an answer.”

Striker’s expression changed to one of sudden fear. He looked at Blitz with wide, terrified eyes. The red imp bad never seen him look so distressed, and his sly grin was quickly replaced by a look of both concern and perplexion. The cowboy then spun around, and began frantically scraping at the metal walls like a deranged cat.

“What the actual fuck are you doing?” Blitz yelled. “Those walls are bound to be at least a solid six inches thick. Those crusty ass nails of yours won’t do shit!”

Striker, however, wasn’t listening. He continued to scrabble away, his claws leaving frantic gashes in the metal in a desperate attempt to escape. The head of I.M.P swung his head to and fro from the gas to Striker, until it was too late. The clouds of gas reached his face and slid up his nostrils. The imp gagged when the foul smelling serum caked his senses, and he waved his hand over his face to try and rid the stench. 

“Christ on a stick! I don’t remember it smelling this strong before! FUCK!”

Striker turned around and, his face was immediately engulfed in the smog. He coughed and choked slightly as it ran down his throat. 

“Shit… shit!”

He clutched his throat as if he were choking to death.

“Jesus H. Christ, cowboy, don’t be such a baby!” Blitz snapped as he watched Striker’s dramatic display. “It’s not poisoned!” 

He paused.

“Or at least… I hope it’s not.”

“I don’t wanna be here anymore! I wanna go home!” Striker whined loudly, burying his face in his hands.

Blitz didn’t know whether or not to laugh at his childish statement. He clicked his tongue.

“Too bad, buckaroo. You’re stuck here.”

The red imp’s mind then began to race with questions he could now ask the assassin, as he knew whatever answers he received would in fact be the truth. Should he ask him why he despised royals so much? He so desperately wanted to know. But…

That look on his face.

Maybe he shouldn’t push it.

However, before Blitz could even open his mouth again, his mind began to grow hazy. He looked back over to the other imp, who’s eyes had glazed over, and he looked as though he might faint.

“Striker…”

Was the last thing Blitz managed to utter before they both collapsed to the floor in unconscious heaps.