Chapter Text
The Sanctum of Sin was the heart of all of hell.
The massive castle serving not only as the underworld’s capital, looming over all the other seven rings like a foreboding sentry, but also home to it’s most powerful family: the Morningstars.
It was here that Lucifer Morningstar resided with his unbelievably attractive wife Lilith Morningstar and his sickly sweet daughter Charlie Morningstar, whilst ruling hell with an iron fist and a shark-toothed smile. Passing judgement on all the lesser demons that entered his count, passing new laws and rules to deal with an evolving cultural climate, and occasionally pranking his subordinates.
Lucifer's favorite gag had to be the time he forged a love letter from Magnamon and sent it to Asmodeus, the fireworks from that particular incident were glorious and it never failed to put a smile on his face whenever he thought about it. But that was a story for another time.
Currently the palace was totally silent apart from a few guards milling about and the faint screams coming from the torture chambers below, the royal family getting some much needed rest after a long day of governing hell and being completely fabulous while doing it. Lucifer in particular was spooning his beloved, arm draped across her stomach and face buried into her neck, the feeling of her chest gently rising and falling provided him with a sense of serenity not commonly found in hell.
Unfortunately that sort of serenity never lasts long and tonight was no exception. One moment, Lucifer is enjoying a nice dream about his former home and sharing it’s splendors with Charlie and the next, he’s shooting up from bed in a startled surprise; black heart pounding against his rib cage and labored breaths erupting from his chest.
Something was wrong, something was very very wrong. He didn’t know what it was, but Lucifer could just sense that some horrible power had just been unleashed upon hell itself that would shake it’s very foundations. Normally when he felt this sort of way, it was due to the arrival of a particularly strong overlord in hell who set to work establishing themselves as a threat; but this was different, not only did this unknown force feel far more substantial than any of the others in the past to the point that Lucifer was certain they’d be able to rival his own abilities but it seemed to originate in hell instead of arriving from the human world.
Fear and curiosity piqued, Lucifer decided he had to investigate this little issue and deal with it accordingly if the need arose. He didn’t tolerate any threats to his rule in the past and he sure as shooting wasn’t about to start now.
Hopping out of bed, Lucifer jogged over to his closet and started gathering up his usual street clothes. The racket he was making awoke Lilith from her own dream with a tired grumble, the queen of all succubi rubbing her eyes.
“Luci? What’s going on?” Lilith said.
“Nothing to worry about my sweet. Just a bit of a disturbance I feel I need to investigate, no need to concern yourself with it.” Lucifer replied as he slipped into his slacks.
“What kind of disturbance requires you to evacuate the manor at this hour? Can’t you simply assign one of the ars goetia or an overlord to look into it?”
Lucifer shook his head. “No, whatever’s going on seems to be far out of the ordinary and I need to make sure that the situation is handled appropriately. As they say ‘if you want something done right, do it yourself’.”
“Very well, do be careful out there. I know you think yourself invincible but you have been caught off guard before and you did say this was an unexpected situation.” Said Lilith.
“I appreciate the concern but it’s not needed.” Lucifer pecked his wife on the cheek. “You’re talking to the king of hell here, the second most powerful being in the known universe, I’ll be fine.”
“I know, I just don’t want Charlie to be deprived of her father.”
“She won’t be. In fact I’ll probably be back before breakfast, now if you’ll excuse me there is some sleuthing to be done.” Lucifer replied.
On that note, the king of hell exited his private bed chambers and ran through the halls of the castle. Never slowing his pace until he reached his personal study or ‘war room’ as he coined it, which was fitting considering it’s where he engineered many of the conflicts meant to keep the common demon under his heel where they were supposed to be.
In the center of the room, surrounded by shelves of forbidden tomes and artifacts older than time, was a three-dimensional map that allowed Lucifer to see all of hell. The fallen angel used it as a sort of monitoring system to occasionally check the status of hell and it’s inhabitants, making sure the status quo was upheld and all that. Now it would be used to help him locate the source of that power surge he had felt earlier, wherever it originated from.
With a few ancient chants and gestures, Lucifier scanned the seven rings for any anomalies that could explain the strange occurrence. He did not have to search for long however, a massive red blip revealing itself to him and pinpointing the source of the unknown event to be in the wastes of the wrath ring.
That only served to confuse Lucifer further.
He had been expecting something in the pride ring or even the envy or greed rings but not wrath. The vast majority of the population of the ring was made up of nothing but imps, the lowest and weakest demons on hell's social hierarchy, and hardly possessed any form of power in their own right unless it was through sheer numbers. So why in the world would such a spike of power originate from there of all places?
“That does it, I have to go there immediately and find out what’s going on….although I get the feeling it can’t be anything good.” Lucifer muttered to himself.
Quickly summoning up a portal, Lucifer stepped out into hell’s agricultural center and took a quick moment to enjoy the feeling of the ring. He always did enjoy the more rustic, natural feel of the locale; it was a nice break from the bustling cities of the other six rings, but now was no time for pleasure, he had business to attend to.
Lucifer hadn’t teleported right on top of the blip, knowing that appearing right in front of whatever caused all of this would practically be handing it the element of surprise on a silver platter, instead he had arrived several dozen miles away from the area in order to avoid being detected and flew the rest of the way while making sure to avoid attracting any attention. He promised Lillith he’d be careful and that’s what he was gonna do, plus it was far more fun this way; made him feel like a predator stalking his prey and he grew somewhat excited at the prospect of a possible duel.
But upon arrival, Lucifer’s anticipation deflated almost immediately as he quickly realized there wasn’t any sort of fight to be had.
Standing before him was a strange sort of ritual site, a large symbol drawn into the dirt with several rune laden pillars forming a makeshift circle around a large altar that was still glowing with hellish energy. Nothing particularly interesting about it…apart from the fifty or so dead imps surrounding it.
They were everywhere, their little bodies littering the ground like freshly fallen leaves and covering the entire structure. Upon further examination Lucifer realized they were all dressed up in strange, cult-like robes made of black fabric with red frills and nearly all of them had been seemingly drained of their very life force, leaving nothing behind but mummified husks. The only exceptions were the three imps standing the closest to the altar: one wearing old military fatigues appeared to have imploded quite violently, another dressed in a black fedora and trenchcoat was laying in a puddle of their own melted face with their skull scorched black, and the third who was decked out in what Lucifer could only assume to be some sort of ceremonial garb was missing their entire head with bits of skull and brain scattered about. While many would have been distrubed by such a sight, Lucifer was put at ease by it all.
“It was just a ritual gone wrong.” Lucifer said with a sigh of relief. “Nothing to worry about, everyone here is already dead so it clearly didn’t work. I’ll just trash the place and head back home, easy peasy.”
It would not be easy peasy, for when Lucifer started walking away from the altar he heard the sound of gentle sniffling, followed by the wails of an infant.
The king of hell whipped around and ran back to the altar so fast it was almost as if he had teleported to it.
Sitting there on the stone slab, tiny body covered in blood and viscera, was a baby imp who didn’t seem to be too happy about his current predicament. It looked normal enough, a tuff of white hair sitting between two black and white striped horns, but the white scar on their chest displaying the same symbol on many of the cultist’s robes was more than concerning as was the fact was that this child seemed to be the sole survivor of a mass suicide…or maybe that was the whole point.
“Did…are you what woke me up?” Lucifer said to the baby.
The small imp’s only response was to cease his cries and stare up at hell’s ruler with glistening eyes, cooing and reaching out to the larger demon in order to be held. Lucifer could only let out a sigh and oblige, he may have been a sadist but he wasn’t about to leave a baby to die in the middle of nowhere; what would Charlie think of his old man if that happened?
But when he got his hands around the imp’s belly, Lucifer felt another surge of power flow through him and saw the symbol on the imp’s chest glow brightly with ancient energy. The fallen angel tore his hands away from the baby and stepped away from the altar, causing the infant to cry out once more.
‘Okay, well that answers that question.’ Lucifer thought to himself as he steadied his nerves. ‘Looks like the ritual worked after all and this little bastard is the product of it.’
Infantcide was the first solution that popped into his head. It may have been cruel, even by his standards, but Lucifer could already tell that this child would grow up to be an immensely powerful demon that would likely be as strong as his own daughter if not stronger; better to snuff him out in the crib before he became a serious threat.
But as Lucifer gazed upon the baby imp, squirming and sobbing for any form of comfort and care, another idea came to him. Simply killing the child would be such a waste, the imp was bursting at the seams with potential and from such a young age nonetheless! While the imp could wind up being a threat, if he was given the proper guidance and care he could easily be molded into a powerful ally that would serve Lucifer well; guidance that a certain king of hell was more than qualified to provide.
‘Plus Charlie has been a little lonely in the old castle, she could do with a sibling.’ Lucifer thought to himself as he approached the crying imp and pulled out a hanky.
The ruler of hell quickly ran the fabric over the imp, cleaning all the bodily fluids off of his form and leaving him the right shade of red for a young demon. Lucifer didn’t want to get red all over his magnificent suit after all.
“Shush, shhh. It’s okay, papa Luci’s here for you little guy; dry those tears.” Lucifer cooed as he lifted the imp into a soothing hold.
Like magic, the imp calmed down immediately and snuggled deeper into Lucifer’s arms; memories of holding Charlie in his arms the exact same way hitting him with a wave of nostalgia that only solidified his decision.
“Ya know this is no place for a child to be. How about you come home with me, would you like that?” Lucifer asked with a rather silly tone.
An adorable smile came onto the imp’s face as he started making grabbing motions with his tiny little arms, unintelligible baby babble coming out from their mouth.
“Dawww! You are just precious, aren’t you?” Lucifer chuckled. “Charlie is going to adore you and with any luck, Lilith will too. Now come along, we shouldn’t keep your new family waiting.”
Tucking the imp into the crook of one of his arms, Lucifer used his free hand to summon up another portal home and stepped right in; his mind was already buzzing with plots and plans to turn this imp into a proper Morningstar over the next few centuries.
He just hoped that Lilith would take the news well.
*******************
Lilith did not take the news well.
“You are a fucking idiot.” Lilith deadpanned.
“Apple of my eye, demon of my heart, please just let me-” Lucifer began.
“Don’t you dare try to sweet talk your way out of this!” the queen of hell shouted.
Admittedly, Lucifer probably could have handled this with a bit more finesse by easing her into the idea of adopting the imp instead of immediately springing it upon her the moment he got back home. But what’s done is done and now he had to find a way to calm her down before he had to spend a night in one of the other seven hundred bedroom chambers in the castle, away from his wife.
“You could at least allow me to explain myself first before biting my head off lilith!” Lucifer shot back.
Lilith crossed her arms and glared at her husband. “Well by all means, please, explain to me what thought process you went through that made you think stealing a blood soaked, baby imp from the wrath ring and adopting it into our family on what is essentially an impulsive whim was a good idea!” Lilith growled, motioning to the infant who was now gently teething on one of Lucifer’s fingers.
“Hold him.”
Lilith blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Hold him.” Lucifer repeated as he thrusted the infant towards Lilith. “And you’ll see exactly why I had to bring him here.”
“How in the world will holding an infantile imp change my mind about the situation?”
“Just humor me Lilith, please.”
The queen of hell rolled her eyes at her husband’s antics but obliged nonetheless, holding out her arms to accept the baby. But the moment Lilith made physical contact with the imp, she felt a sudden burst of infernal energy rush into her body which wound up startling her so badly that she immediately let the smaller demon fall from her arms and plummet towards the floor; it was only through Lucifer’s quick reflexes that the infant was spared any serious harm from the fall.
“He’s rather…unique, isn’t he?” Lilith said, regaining her composure.
Lucifer nodded. “I’m not sure what that mysterious group in the wrath ring was trying to accomplish, but it doesn’t really matter in the end. We can’t let a demon this powerful just run wild, there could be serious consequences to such a decision, and I find the idea of infantcide rather distasteful.”
“So you propose we take this imp in and raise him as our own? Bring out his fullest potential and, in doing so, ensure his undying loyalty to us?”
“Bingo bongo my dear! Besides, look at him.” Lucifer held up the now giggling baby. “He’s so cute! He’ll make a fine addition to our little family and Charlie will be utterly ecstatic to have a baby brother to play with! I just know it!”
Speaking of their darling daughter, a series of gentle knocks came from the bedroom door. All of the servants knew better than to disturb the royal family in the middle of the night unless it was an emergency and the rhythm of the knocks were too calm for that to be the case, which meant only one particular demon could be behind that door.
“Daddy? Mommy? Are you in there?” Charlie’s voice came from the other side of the wood.
“Yes sweetheart we are, come on in.” Lucifer replied.
The door creaked open and Charlie Morningstar stepped in, decked out in some apple-printed pajamas, sleepily rubbing her eyes with one hand while the other kept a pair of goat plushies she referred to as ‘Razzle and Dazzle’ tucked under her arm. The young princess appeared to have been woken up from all the commotion over the last few minutes and came to investigate all the hubbub.
Lilith reached her first, picking Charlie up and cradling her in her arms. “Darling what are you doing out of bed? You should be getting your beauty rest right now.”
“I was but…” Charlie let out a cute little yawn. “I heard you and daddy yelling and I couldn’t get back to sleep. What’s going on?”
“Oh, we were just talking about the newest arrival to the family. Say hello to your baby brother Charlie!” Lucifer exclaimed as Lilith sat down on the bed with their daughter in her arms.
“Baby brother?” Charlie said, curiously looking over towards the imp in question.
The arrival of a new demon into the room quickly caught the infant’s attention and he returned Charlie's inquisitive glance with one of his own, practically boring holes into her very life force with big yellow eyes. The imp then outstretched his arm towards the princess and started making little grabbing motions in her direction.
Now Charlie was really confused; from her understanding, all boys were icky and gross and mean and logic dictated that a baby brother would be no different. But the demon in front of her was none of these things, apart from the faint blood stains he actually looked pretty clean and his tiny little limbs were cute; the white tuft of hair upon his head made Charlie compare him to a baby possum.
“Come now sweetie, there’s no need to be shy.” Said Lilith. “He won’t bite…I think.”
Shifting nervously in her mother’s lap, Charlie moved to take the imp’s hand in her own as a show of cautious friendship. Maybe having a brother wouldn’t be that bad?
However, something strange occurred the moment their fingers made contact. There was a spark, a flash in their eyes, and a connection was quickly formed. The daughter of the Morningstar family couldn’t quite place it, but there was something special about the imp currently holding her hand with his tiny claws that made some protective ‘big sister’ instincts start to show their head and Charlie decided right then and there that she was going to be the best sibling to her little brother of all time; pinky promise!
“I like him! What's his name?” Charlie asked, looking up towards her father.
Lucifer stroked at his chin in deep thought “Hmm…I know! How about-”
**************************
“Moxxie?”
The thespian imp’s eyes suddenly snapped open, freeing him from his dream and sending him into a semi-awake state; rubbing his eyes, Moxxie shifted around in bed to properly face his lovely wife who appeared rather anxious.
“Yes honey?” Moxxie asked.
“Is something wrong? You looked like you were having a bad dream.” Millie replied with concern laced throughout her tone.
“Yeah, yeah. It was just a dream, some bad memories from my childhood, nothing to worry about.” Moxxie said, waving her off. “I’m fine.”
“Yer sure? You always do get a mite down around this time of year and ah never understood why, even after all these years we’ve been together.”
“Millie, I promise, everything is okay. Just go back to sleep, we need to be up bright and early for work tomorrow, remember?” Moxxie said.
Millie sighed and pecked Moxxie on the lips. “Okay sug, ah’ll trust ya on this.”
With that, the female imp laid back down in bed and soon resumed her slumber; leaving Moxxie alone in a quiet room with nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company.
Millie wasn’t wrong, this time of year was always a bit tough for Moxxie since it marked the anniversary of the day he ran away from home and left behind everything he ever knew to get a fresh start out in hell. Don’t get him wrong, Moxxie never regretted his decision for even a moment and knew in his heart that he made the right call…especially since it delivered him into the arms of the most perfect woman in all of hell.
But there were slight bouts of homesickness that struck Moxxie every now and again, thinking of all the good times he had shared with his family and how heartbroken they must have been when he up and vanished into thin air. On particularly bad days Moxxie found it difficult just to get himself out of bed, thoughts of his father’s bad jokes, his mother’s soothing voice, and his sister’s silly antics occupying his mind and making the symbol on his chest burn with shame and regret.
There was nothing Moxxie could do about it now though, what’s done is done and there was no changing the past. Not that he’d want to, it was nowhere near as glamorous but he much preferred his current situation in comparison to the one he used to occupy. So he merely forced down those feelings of remorse and ignored the pain that came with it, soldering on like he always did.
‘Besides’ Moxxie thought to himself. ‘It’s been over a decade since I left, chances are they’ve given up the search and I’ll never have to worry about seeing them again.’
Unfortunately for Moxxie, he couldn’t have been more wrong; come tomorrow, his life would be thrown into complete and total disarray when the past he had tried so hard to keep buried came back to haunt him with a vengeance.
And it all started with that stupid little commercial jingle Blitzo had come up with.