Chapter Text
Abaddon was stalking a carrier pigeon in the woods.
The winged terror had gotten the drop on him, landing on his head and pecking at his hair.
And now, it would suffer his vengeance. He was going to follow that bird back to its roost so he could slaughter its whole family. Then he was going to tell the pigeon the harrowing tale of the decline of its species in the coming decades, breaking its spirit even further. The thought brough a smile to Abaddon’s face and he had to stifle his excitement, lest he scared the bird off.
He hadn’t realised his chase was bringing him closer to town until he heard children shrieking and laughing in the far distance.
Midwitch.
He’d been patiently watching the town’s slow formation. Houses were built, fields ploughed and church established. There was still a hundred years left before the hotel would be built, first as an asylum. Three hundred years until he would meet the Freelings again.
The pigeon cooed and looked as if it was about to take off again. Abaddon got ready to discreetly follow it, trying to keep his giddy bloodlust from making his movements too sudden and noticeable.
He was so focused on the pigeon that he almost missed it. A flicker in the corner of his eye. A great dark shadow moving past his hiding spot.
Abaddon froze.
He thought the frustratingly primitive eyeballs of his vessel were betraying him, because this couldn’t be real.
And yet it was.
Those numerous elongated limbs, dangerous talons and proudly polished horns; the form of the demon in front of him was as formidable as it had been on the day he lost it. He recognised it immediately.
It was Abaddon. Fresh out of hell, sent to earth for the first time to cause havoc. On his way to make the biggest mistake of his life.
The towering demon was stalking the town from the shadows just like Abaddon had been hunting the now forgotten pigeon. Eyes glinting with dark excitement on his otherwise expressionless face. He started gravitating closer to the settlement, which jolted Abaddon into action.
“Halt!” he shouted, scrambling out of the bushes he was hiding in.
Black eyes zeroed in on him. “I thought I was the only demon sent to wreak havoc here.” His face remained impassive, but his tone betrayed his annoyance. Subtly, the clawed limbs on his back rose higher, making him appear even bigger. A sight meant to intimidate a lesser demon.
He huffed, peeved that the other Abaddon hadn’t recognised him yet. There wasn’t another demon like them in the whole world! But he understood the perceived slight to his pride. He remembered how honoured he had felt to receive his first mission on earth. How eager he had been to prove his prowess-
-and how it had all came crashing down around him when he failed.
“You are.” He said, looking at the other Abaddon like he was stupid. Of course, hell wouldn’t have dared to insult him by sending another. “And I am you from the future. I must warn you, fate worse than death is about to befall you!”
The other demon towered over him, studying him like an insect. His usual emotionless façade faltered, eyes widening, when he realised that Abaddon wasn’t lying. The demon before him was none other than himself, the dark essence seeping out of him as familiar as a mirror’s image.
Abaddon felt a certain way about his true, beloved form standing over him, so much bigger than he was now. It made something in his chest tighten and then sizzle, like acid. He discarded the lump in his throat and continue his warning.
“Under no circumstances can you possess this vessel,” Abaddon gestured towards himself frantically, “I did so and his sire, a powerful priest, bound me to this form. I’ve been trapped like this for years and hell did not come to bring me home.”
The large demon blinked and tried to swallow his alarm, mind racing with information. The vessel in front of him was small and feeble. Being trapped in it, powerless, and forced to wonder earth for eternity was a fate cruel enough to make even a demon of his calibre want to recoil.
And wait- ‘home’? Since when did he ever call hell that? Hell was his domain. His kingdom. But demons had no home. They were creatures of chaos, not familiarity. Abaddon’s eyes narrowed at the tiny version of himself.
“Understood. And you… travelled back in time to warn me?”
“No.” The pint-sized demon said bluntly. “I have other business to resolve. I sent myself back to the beginning of time with a magic stone tablet to fix a big mistake. You just happened to be here along the way.”
“A mistake bigger than this?” The demon hissed, gesturing down at him with a big talon, tail twitching slightly.
Abaddon had missed that tail. He missed swishing it around and tripping his enemies with it. Not being able to resist the impulse, he reached out and grabbed the appendage. The scales were pleasantly sharp in his soft human hands. He ran his little fingers over it with fascination, like it was one of the fidget toys Katherine gave him to keep him occupied in the car.
In a flash, the bigger Abaddon yanked the tail out of his grasp, blinking down at him incredulously. The rage such a brazen action would usually inspire in him was muted by sheer disbelief. Distantly, he wondered if he himself had that short of an attention span for conversation and hadn’t ever realised. No, other demons would have definitely used it to their advantage already if Abaddon was that distractable. Perhaps this version of him was simple very out of it from his long, long journey. “You must tell me what your mission is,” he insisted.
Tiny Abaddon hesitated for a second. He couldn’t understand it himself, why this blip in time mattered to him so much that he was willing to go through all of this. All he knew was that he had to save the Freelings. Everything would feel wrong if he didn’t. “I have found a way to get my powers back but it came at the cost of my allies. I need to do everything again and make sure they stay alive this time.”
‘Allies? Interesting,’ thought big Abaddon. He had many allies in hell. His underlings who did his unholy bidding and other demons whom he did not find repulsive and grating. He would give all of them up in a heartbeat if it regained him his status and saves him from the situation this version of him was stuck in. There was no question about it.
And he certainly wouldn’t condemn himself to billions of years of waiting and boredom in that defenceless, weak form. Not for anybody.
…Something was very wrong with this version of him.
Maybe his imprisonment had driven him mad? As much as Abaddon detested the idea of his psyche being so weak as to be broken by something like this, it was an explanation that made sense.
The two Abaddon considered each other carefully.
When he had sent himself to the beginning of time, Abaddon hadn’t foreseen anything like this happening. But now, it seemed so obvious. 10,000 years ago, when he was wondering the earth and waiting for the first human civilisations to emerge, a demon would form from the debts of hell just like he himself had the first time around. And now, that demon was standing in front of him.
Although Abaddon hadn’t intended for this, he knew he had to use the situation to his advantage.
Tiny Abaddon thought about the cult and the ritual and how many things could still go wrong this time around, despite what he knew about the future. Perhaps with a powerful demon assisting him, he wouldn’t even need the cult to regain his full glory.
He straightened his back and tried to make his voice as commanding as possible. “You are in my debt. I demand you help me in my endeavour to regain my powers.”
The larger demon felt incredulous mirth bubbling up inside him at the seer audacity. Did he really think another demon was going to help him willingly? Demons didn’t help one another. They all knew it innately. This Abaddon didn’t anymore.
Perhaps he should be… amicable towards this deformed, confused Abaddon. He clearly couldn’t properly assess the danger in front of him anymore, seemingly not realising the absurdity in asking another demon for help. Of waiting around for years for hell to bring him ‘home’. This Abaddon didn’t just look like a child; he was acting like one. And Abaddon had a sinking feeling about the reason for this.
A part of Abaddon wanted to recoil away in disgust. To attack and bury all evidence that any version of the Cobra King could be brought down this low. The mere notion that this Abaddon was running around in a predicament like this was panic inducing. If other demons saw him, any version of him, trapped in a body of a child… it would be absolutely humiliating. His head burned just thinking about it.
But… disgraced and feeble as he might be now, this demon was still Abaddon of the Gerasenes. And he had saved him from suffering a grim fate.
He supposed he could do him a favour. It would also allow Abaddon to keep an eye on this tiny demon who acted like he didn’t quite remember how to be a demon anymore.
“You have my gratitude,” he dipped his head, “I shall aid you.”
A huge smile broke out on the vessels face. It caught the other Abaddon off-guard, used to concealing his feelings. Yes, this tiny version of him clearly didn’t have the same mental fortitude as he did. Something had broken him and left him wide open for all to see.
And the worst part was, this Abaddon didn’t even seem to notice the degree to which he had been affected. He had looked Abaddon in the eye and addressed him as an equal, but his actions betrayed a certain lack of awareness that a demon of their status should possess. …He really looked and acted like he needed help, guidance, anything.
“Excellent! In about three centuries, a cult of ours will kick-start the end of times. The event will decimate my close allies but also return my powers to me.” He looked down at his little boy fingers and clenched them into fists in frustration. “I wish for you to return me to hell, that should return my powers as it did when the cult brought hell to earth.”
Apocalypse? Abaddon felt a headache forming. The paperwork that would come with that. As much as the idea of chaos and destruction sounded tempting, he didn’t want to be the one responsible for all those new souls in hell. It would create a back-up that would last for years.
He nodded slowly, organising his thoughts. There had been so much he had wished to do on earth before returning to hell, but this was more pressing. “Then let us be rid of this place.”
Tiny Abaddon turned to lead the way, knowing the way back to the hellmouth that would eventually become the site of the Undervale hotel even in his sleep.
He didn’t make it far. Large talons plucked him up from the ground.
“Unhand me at once, or I’ll bite your tail!” He struggled against the grip on his gruff until he was deposited onto the other Abaddon’s shoulder.
“In due time,” bigger Abaddon murmured, musing on the juvenile threat thrown his way by the glowering demon. Nothing like the psychological warfare he was known for in the Sunless City.
He took to the skies and flew them both towards the hellmouth. The tiny demon in his grip ceased his struggling once they were up high and looked down at the landscape with wide eyes.
This was the first time tiny Abaddon had seen the area from up so high. He could see all the cliffs and lakes he knew. His whole domain laid out before his eyes. It was wonderful.
Near the hellmouth, Abaddon lowered them to the ground and the smaller demon hopped off his shoulder.
“This way”. He grabbed one of his large talons and started dragging him towards a cave. The claw was sharp, digging into his palm and drawing blood, but little Abaddon didn’t mind.
Curious, the demon let himself be led forward. The cavern was low, so bigger Abaddon had to lean forward slightly to not scrape his horns against the ceiling.
In the dim light, he saw piles of bones and trinkets. In the corner, laid a nest of dry leaves. Judging by the fact that little Abaddon had some of those same leaves stuck in his hair, this was his resting spot. It made the bigger demon wonder what kind of toll such a prolong entrapment in a human vessel had taken on the other Abaddon. Did he require sleep? Or did he simply like lying down?
Abaddon himself almost never rested in hell; there were always too many duties to fulfil and the immense power always coursing through him meant he never felt the need to.
“I like to conjure curses here, the damp, dark atmosphere is quite conducive to it.” Little Abaddon presented his dirt cave with the same flair that big Abaddon used to welcomed fellow demons into his castle in hell.
“Indeed.” He said, swallowing his disgust remarkably well. This was far below a demon of their status, even in foreign territory. The other Abaddon should remember, no mater how far he had fallen, that he was a prince of the dark realm.
He wondered why the little demon had chosen to reside here.
…Was it because of that absurd thing he had told Abaddon earlier with a completely straight face? That he had been waiting for hell to bring him ‘home’?
Something uncomfortable curled in Abaddon’s chest, imagining this naïve version of himself wait and wait and wait at the sight of his failure. Lying on leaves and dirt, entertaining himself with bones, waiting for a gate to open that never would.
But the little demon already knew they wouldn’t come. He was doing all this for the second time, so why not go anywhere else? Was he waiting for his other allies?
Shaking the thoughts off, he got to work conjuring a portal to hell. Blood symbols swirled around them and a crack formed at their feet. They took a step back, one Abaddon with massive hooved hind legs and the other with toddler sized boots.
Little Abaddon looked at him as if he had personally created earth and hell right before his very eyes. ‘He really needs to reign in his emotions, this is embarrassing for both of us’, thought big Abaddon while admiring his work.
“Let’s go home.”