Chapter Text
***Present***
Moxxie looked back in shock at the hallucination of his boss, and he realized that he was indeed, tripping balls because of the truth gas
Deciding to play along with the hallucination, the musical imp began singing his frustrations about their current situation
No! What?
How could this be?
I've never tried acid, shrooms, or DMT
It's a bad trip, oy gevalt!
Of course, Blitz, this would be your fault!
The phantom of the opera-esc version of Blitz began playing the organ louder as Moxxie continued singing his mind to the apparition of his boss
My lungs are full of honesty
Would you promise me
That you won't judge?
“Yes biitch!” The phantom Blitz sang as he pressed down harder on the keys of the organ. Moxxie steeled for what he was about to say and told his boss what was honestly on his mind
Not trying to divulge too much
But I'm in too deep, so first of all
f*ck YOU!
“Whaaaat?” The illusion-Blitz yelled dramatically toward the thespian imp
Moxxie pointed an accusatory finger at the hallucination of Blitz, and began calling him for his constant misbehavior, antics, and for getting them trapped in this situation
This is just typical
Well, two can play at this game of dismay
'Cause if you're here causing frustration
I'm torturing you with your hallucination!
—------------------------------------------------
True to Moxxie’s words, Blitz was indeed being tortured in his hallucination
Blitz had no idea where the f*ck he was. Only that he was on some sort of “bad trip” due to the truth gas the human agents had dosed them with
The circus imp was sitting in a chair in the middle of a goopy inky wasteland, dressed in his old circus attire, and watching four blobs float above him: Brown, pink, red, dark red, and black
Standing up quickly in fear and shock at his surroundings, Blitz nearly fell over into the pudgy landscape under his hooves as he did so. The chair he was sitting in sunk into the earth as soon as he stood up
Blitz turned his head and saw that the red blob took the vague form of Moxxie and screamed at him in a garbled voice, and got covered in the blob’s substance as it passed over him
Blitz looked back at his hands and saw they were covered in red sludge. He tried to lick it for a moment before the red blob circled back and frightened the circus imp, knocking him on his ass and onto the slimy terrain
As he looked back up, he saw the red blob take the shape of his sh*ttydoodle of Moxxie, who began pointing at him and criticizing his boss for all his mistakes
“I simply follow your orders! It isn't my fault that your orders are as nonsensical as a sun tanning bed left out on the cold, rainy porch of a fresh April shower!”
Blitz pointed at the doddle of his employee and asked him what the f*ck was going on, and why the f*ck he was acting like this
“Why are you talking like that? What the f*ck does that even mean?!”
The apparition of Moxxie began shifting between the doodle and the real version, his voice becoming muffled and unmuffled as he did so to Blitz’s ears
“I am simply speaking Satan's plain English! Perhaps you should crack open a dictionary sometime! And then maybe you can understand half of the frivolous things I carry on and on about on my many rants about–”
Blitz stopped hearing his employee as the music and noise inside his head got louder and louder, and he looked up to see that the other globs of slime were circling overhead, like f*cking vultures
Finally, the white noise and music in Blitz’s head were too much for him to take, and he screamed his frustrations at the doodle-hallucination of Moxxie
“SHUT UP!”
—--------------------------------------
Moxxie and the hallucination of Blitz began singing in unison as the thespian imp questioned Blitz on why he was always so cruel to him in particular
Why do you hurt me so?
(I know)
Why must you push your friends away?
(I push my friends away)
The musical imp climbed higher up the stairs of his hallucination and continued to question his boss’s toxic behavior and routine
Why does it seem like a recurring theme
That you alienate with your toxic routine?
“I don't know, eventually, everyone goes!” The apparition of Blitz sadly proclaimed
'Cause you're thoughtless and cruel and you'll end up alone!
The phantom-Blitz’s eyes turned from red, back to their normal imp color, as he looked in shock at what Moxxie truthfully told him
—-----------------------------------------
“You’re not real!” Vesper choked out with tears falling from his eyes, neck still held in the noose by the lasso, which was being held by the hallucination of his brother above him, who darkly chuckled and told him that it didn't matter if this was real or not
“Does it matter if I’m real, little vermin?” The illusion of his brother spoke with a deep western accent, the same accent Vesper could still hear in his nightmares, and the one he mentally blocked himself from having
Even if Vesper didn't realize it
The imp-hybrid tried to tear his eyes away from the visage of Reightful again but found that the hallucination itself was pulling his head to view his brother
Vesper saw through his tears that the hallucination of his brother was made of some dark red and black substance, with no discernable features apart from the obvious eyes, shape, and voice
This isn’t f*cking happening! Vesper yelled in his head, and the hallucination around him seemed to distort and warp, as his brother stood up and began to laugh madly
“OH BUT IT IS, LITTLE VERMIN!” Reightful cackled to Vesper, who turned back in surprise, because his brother somehow read his thoughts
The illusion of his brother kneeled closer to Vesper’s face and pulled something out from behind his back pocket. The imp-hybrid immediately recognized what it was, and struggled harder to get the noose around his neck off
“Get the f*ck away from me!” Vesper yelled as he fought against the rope lassoed around his neck. The apparition of his brother only smirked and brought the instrument out of his back pocket fully
The same instrument that was responsible for Vesper’s eye scar: A blowtorch
The imp-hybrid’s eye scar began to burn in agony, like it was the day it was burned onto his face
The hallucination of his brother pressed a switch and turned on the instrument, flipping it in his hand as he did so
“Oh don't worry, brother" The hallucination began, still taunting the imp-hybrid with his words
“This will only hurt a lot…”
Reightful brought the torch closer to Vesper’s face, and the imp-hybrid began panicking, something he ever rarely did
NONONONO! Vesper screamed in his head, begging for the hallucination to end right now
He couldnt get out of this, he didn't have a plan
It was going to happen again
Reightful brought the blowtorch right next to Vesper’s eye, and the imp-hybrid flailed against the knee and pressure against his chest, desperately trying anything to get out of this situation
Luckily, that seemed to work for the time being
As Vesper flailed, he knocked his brother’s hand off-course with his face, sparing him from experiencing the same pain twice
As Reightful’s hand turned with the blowtorch in it due to Vesper’s flailing, the instrument leaned over to his other hand, and burned the rope in it, causing the lasso around his neck to go slack and provide an escape and an opportunity to breathe
Acting fast, Vesper headbutted the appreciation of his brother in his nose, causing him to let go of the blowtorch, what remained of the rope, and take his knee off of Vesper’s chest
“AH! You little f*cking vermin!” The hallucination yelled in pain, as Vesper scrambled to get out from underneath his brother
He f*cking bolted and ran, trying to get far away from the trauma that was trying to follow him
But Vesper stopped for a moment and turned back, watching as Reightful slowly stood up, picked up the lasso, and f*cking laughed
Vesper could swear it was still the same laugh from all those years ago. Even several dozen feet away from the appreciation of his brother, the imp–hybrid could hear it clear as day
The western imp wiped the tears from his eyes and tried to control his breathing for a moment, before screaming a declaration to the hallucination of Reightful
"I could never call the f*cker who ruined my life, MY LUCFIER DAMNED BROTHER!"
When Vesper yelled that last part, however, the hallucination got so much worse
There was an audible silence after Vesper spoke those words
After that, his childhood home f*cking exploded right behind Reightful, just as it did so many years ago
Vesper was knocked onto his ass and deafened by the explosion and looked up to see the same image that was burned into his mind and armsall those years ago
His home in pieces, white holy flames burning down any remnants to the last molecule, and his brother f*cking laughing, as it all happened
“NOOOOOOO!” The imp-hybrid gutterly screamed. Tears poured from his eyes as he watched his home burn down all over again, all because of his brother
The landscape around Vesper’s hallucination became even more warped and dark after the explosion, with the sky turning a dark red, and the ground becoming sludgy and slippery, like blood
Vesper suddenly felt an excruciating sharp pain in both of his arms, and he looked down through his tears to see what was happening to him
Turns out, something f*cked
The imp-hybrid saw that his bandages, the wrappings that essentially sedated and kept his holy burns docile, were f*cking gone, leaving his blessed burns open and exposed to the hellish air
The sharp pain continued further as Vesper hugged himself on the ground, trying to control the pain and pressure he was feeling throughout his entire body
He hadn't felt pain like this since they were freshly burned onto his body, twenty years ago
f*ckf*ckf*ck! Vesper yelled in his head, not being able to form any coherent thought due to the pain in his arms, which seemed to magnify with each passing second
The illusion of his brother didn't seem to mind the f*cking huge explosion behind him, however, and decided to taunt Vesper further
Vesper brought his head up and watched as Reightful took a whiff of the air, which smelled like smoke, metal, and angelic magic
“I can smell theburns on you, little vermin…” The apparition of Reightful taunted, and Vesper’s eyes widened in horror at his brother in front of him
Even twenty years later, the imp-hybrid was baffled, at how someone could do something so horrid, something so traitorous, to their own family
This is Hell, Vesper’s inner voice began, sounding a lot like his voice used to be when he was the Royal Ripper
People are f*cked the second they’re born down here
After the voice in Vesper’s head went silent, he tried to control his breathing again to calm himself down. Unfortunately, the hallucination he was in, was just not going to give him a moment’s rest
Vesper began to feel a rumbling under the ground, and touched his still shaking hand to it, to feel what was happening
That’s when the hand popped out of the ground
Vesper scrambled back in fear at what he just saw, and witnessed another hand pop out of the ground as well, the both of them clawing their way out of the hellish soul
The imp-hybrid noticed as well, that both of the hands were burnt. So burnt, that you could actually see the bone and black blood flowing out of their palms
“No…” Vesper stated, his voice incredibly fragile, as he watched two charred corpses claw their way out of the ground
When the figures fully emerged Vesper's heart nearly exploded. Both of them were burned beyond recognition, with their eye sockets being hallow and empty, and their flesh being burnt and charred to the point where the imp-hybrid could actually smell their flesh
But Vesper recognized them in a heartbeat. A familiar set of horns on the right corpse, and the vestiges of cherry-red skin on the left corpse
His parents
What stood before him, were the still-burning corpses of his parents, an image that had been burned into his mind into his mind, just like his home burning down
The white flame still danced on their flesh as they climbed their way out of the ground fully, and stood before Vesper
He tried to move but, just couldnt
Vesper was forced to watch as the corpse on his right spoke to the imp-hybrid in a voice that sounded hollow, dry, and bloody
“VESP, Ȑ̵̘̱͖̞̞̫̊͊͒͘Ṳ̴̧̠̲͉̰̽̉̂̏̈̚N̴̡̖̣̟̽̽͗̂!̸͂͝"The corpse of his father yelled to him, the imp-hybrid recognizing that those were the last words his father spoke to him so many years ago
But Vesper couldnt move, he was frozen by fear
Because it was happening again
His parents' corpses are in front of him, burning, and his brother is laughing maniacally in the background as his home burnt to the ground from holy fire
Vesper looked past his parent's corpses and saw that his brother was nearing him with blessed rope in hand, along with the blowtorch
“RUN LITTLE VERMIN, MAKE THE CHASE FUN!” Reightful delightfully yelled to Vesper
And so, that's what the imp-hybrid did
Vesper f*cking ran
He ran as fast he could, tears falling like waterfalls from his eyes, and still hearing his brother’s maniacal laughter, even from so far away
“We’re only just getting started…”
—---------------------------------------
Blitz stood motionless as the inky creatures swirled above him like vultures, and the hallucination of doodle-Moxxie kept criticizing his boss
“Admit it, my dear boss: you don't know what you are doing half the time... and you depend on me and the missus to manage your foolish flights of fancy!”
The circus imp got fed up with his employee’s ramblings quickly and turned to confront the apparition of his employee behind him, telling him that he didn't need his employees
“I don't need you!” Blitz angrily began, “I can do this sh*t on my own SO easily!”
Suddenly, the brown blob appeared behind Blitz and wrapped its tail around his neck, pulling and flinging him away from the doodle-Moxxie, and slamming him onto the slimy floor before
Blitz held his throat and coughed before he looked up to see that the brown blob had formed into the visage of Striker standing before him, southern accent and all
“But ya don't wanna do things alone, Blitzo!” The Striker hallucination boasted in a warped voice
Blitz was then grabbed by the gray blob that had turned into Fizz and was pulled away to face another one of his past mistakesinner demons
“You tried the solo act, it didn't work out so well!” The black-and-white visage of his former best friend taunted, before twisting himself and throwing Blitz away from him
Like most of the people in his life
Only a few seconds after he was thrown by Fizz, he collided with the dark-red blob, who took the image of Vesper. The apparition of his western employee looked down at him with contempt and anger, before grabbing his neck, hoisting him in the air, and began choking his boss
“And you still need to get help from others because you can't f*cking protect those closest to you!” The hallucination of Vesper spit out towards Blitz, before he squeezed his boss's neck harder and threw him to the floor
Blitz rolled over and spit out the sludge that had made its way into his mouth before the pink blob appeared and took the form of Verosika, right before he left her
The hallucination of Verosika crawled toward him and called him out on his toxic routine regarding relationships, speaking with pure vitriol in her voice
“Yet you still shove away anyone who gets too close until they resent you for being a selfish, sh*tty, sh*t f*ck!”
The illusion of Verosika grabbed his face, and her voice gradually became more and more distorted and warped as Blitz tried to escape her grasp
The circus imp turned and saw that a staircase had materialized behind him, so he kicked the hallucination of Verosika away and desperately tried to climb the stairs to escape this nightmare
Every step he took of the staircase, however, golden feathers seemed to fall from his body, with the imp himself nearly slipping once or twice on the black ink that was staining the gold and pristine staircase
“Are you afraid to love people, Blitzy?"
Blitz looked up in horror and want, as he saw Stolas sitting on a golden throne, being fanned by inky creatures that looked like Blitz, and the owl-prince enticing the imp himself towards him
Blitz continued to desperately crawl up the stairs to escape the illusions
As he did so, golden shackles appeared around his arms, and his circus attire transformed back into his usual murder suit
Moxxie’s words continued to be heard throughout Blitz’s hallucination as he crawled up the stairs, the voice still muffled, but absolutely audible
“I believe your subconscious is trying to tell you that you simply cannot fathom proper intimacy, but... also crave it as well”
When he reached the top of the royal staircase, a golden choker appeared around Blitz’s neck, and the appreciation of the Stolas pulled the chain latched onto the imp’s neck, causing him to grow closer to the royal owl
Their faces were now only a few inches apart, the owl prince slowly stroking Blitz’s chin, and devilishly smiling at his impish little plaything
Behind Blitz, the various appropriations of Striker, Verosika, Fizz, and Vesper turned back to goop and flew away, while the doodle Moxxie transformed into a more realistic-looking version of his employee wearing a dress and taunting his boss
“Are you worried I may have enough of it one day as well?” The drag-Moxxie asked, and Blitz got sick of everything around him and angrily retorted the hallucination of the thespian imp
“STOP f*ckING TALKING, ALL OF YOU!” Blitz yelled to, well, everything
The hallucination of Moxxie closed his fan and gave his boss a look of disappointment before the apparition itself turned into gold dust and floated away
Blitz looked back at Stolas and saw that the owl prince, his throne, and his feathers, began to disintegrate into gold dust and blow away in a vortex all around Blitzo, before floating up in the air
“You're going to die aloooo-one!” Blitz heard Stolas sing to him as he disintegrated, and he stepped back and looked up to see that all his tormenters were forming into one huge spiral above him, and all of them telling him the same exact thing
“You're gonna die alone, Blitzo!”
The hallucinations kept taunting and torturing him loudly, as the inky vortex in the sky grew larger as the golden dust that was once Stolas, joined the choir of torturing Blitz
“You're gonna die alone, Blitzo!”
The multi-colored vortex suddenly came down onto Blitz and he tried to fight it, and the voices, as best as he could
But he just couldnt
The vortex swirled faster and faster, as gold feathers stuck and clung to his body and face. Blitz tried to swat them away but found they began binding his hands together and sealing his mouth shut
The voices kept getting louder and louder as the circus imp struggled with all his might to escape his golden binds
“YOU’RE GONNA DIE ALONE, BLITZO!”
The tornado of golden feathers completely engulfed Blitz, and he let out one last scream to get the voices to leave him alone
But his scream was completely silent
—------------------------------------------------
Run, RUN, f*ckING RUN YOU IMP BASTARD! Vesper’s inner voice screamed to him as he ran through the fields of Wrath, desperately trying to run away from the hallucination of his brother who was chasing him
Vesper looked around at the environment as he ran, and he watched as mountains and volcanos in the distance melted into some sort of sludge creature, and flowed toward his current location
The imp-hybrid picked up his pace quickly to avoid the oncoming sludge… thing, as he begged his mind to end this nightmare quickly
Unfortunately for him, it would not
Suddenly, he tripped and fell over into something dark and sticky
Vesper tried to get up, but the strange substance had gotten into his scars, which reacted violently, causing him to cry out in pain
“AHHHHHHHH!” He screamed, as he curled up on the ground and felt his tears fall to the ground
Through his pain, the imp-hybrid touched his hand against the substance he had fallen into. When he took his hand out and saw the color, he knew what it was immediately
“Sinner and Hellborn blood…” Vesper said with a fragile voice, and he saw that his hands had begun shaking as well. Most likely from the combined pain of the demonic blood, and the blessed burns on his arms
He regained his composure quickly after steeling himself, and stood up slowly to try and keep his balance, knowing that he had at least a minute before the apparition of his brother caught up with him
But that wouldn't matter
The ground suddenly started shaking once more, and Vesper nearly fell over into the pool of blood again. But he managed to keep his balance and stand up straight, and he watched as something grotesque rose out of the pool of blood before him
It was something out of his worst nightmares, and that was saying a lot
The creature that emerged was at least the size of a small building, with its entire color being the dark mix of black and red blood, something Vesper had plenty of experience with
But that's not what scared the hell out of Vesper though
No, it was the face of the creature
Or more accurately, the faces of the creature
Vesper stepped back in horror as he saw that the… thing in front of him, was covered in dozens of different faces. Some of them fully formed, some mangled and missing parts like eyeballs and ears, and others completely skinless, with black and blood running down their face like a waterfall
He was frozen again, terrified of what was in front of him, because he knew what the giant creature of blood mass was supposed to represent in his mind
My victims… Vesper weakly thought, and he recognized at least a dozen or more faces he had either killed, maimed, or mutilated, throughout his time as the Royal Ripper
Overlords who weren't heard from anymore, royals who had mysteriously died in the night, and imp gangsters who had been killed suddenly and without reason, all combined into one massive creature of flesh, blood, and anger
An emotion Vesper was all too familiar with
“What's wrong Ripper, ś̶̨̚c̷̢̼̽̌â̸̞͛r̷̡̡̆̾e̴͈̔̕d̷͈͝?̴͚̼̂̇” The creature spoke to him with a monstrous voice, sounding like a dozen people screaming and drowning in their own blood at the same time
For the second time in Vesper’s bad trip, he f*cking ran
He ran so far
Because for all of the royals and overlords he had killed over the years, for all of the skills and abilities he had acquired and been taught, every single instinct of his told him to run
Vesper kept running, but he knew couldnt outrun the literal blood of his victims forever
He looked back and saw that the creature had grown in size, gaining more and more mass as blood from elsewhere flowed into it, causing it to grow to the size of a tidal wave, and all of its faces still screaming at Vesper
After running from the entity for another solid minute, Vesper ran straight into a brick wall. Or, more accurately, an illusion of his mentor
But what was pretty much the same thing as running into a brick wall
Vesper was knocked onto his ass as he saw the appreciation his mentor stand before him, built like a brick sh*thouse he was, and cloaked in shadow. The only part that was visible on Stan’s body was his bright glowing veins, and the cowboy hat he always wore
The hallucination of Stan gave Vesper a sneer and waved his hand dismissively towards his adopted sonpupil, telling the imp-hybrid that he was a disgrace to him
“You’re a disgrace…”
Vesper could’ve sworn those words knocked the air right out of his lungs. He tried getting up from the ground again, but the hallucination of Stan kicked him back down onto the bloody soil
Suddenly, the blood monster reappeared behind Vesper and split apart into multiple pieces, all of them surrounding and blocking off the imp-hybrid’s escape
One of them formed into the vague image of Blitz on his right side, disappointedly told Vesper, “Can't believe I hired a f*cking monster like you. Beneath all the anger and guns, you’re just a sad little imp throwing a tantrum for mommy and daddy. I’d laugh, if it weren't so f*cking pathetic"
Vesper kept telling himself that this was a hallucination, that none of this was real, and that none of what the creatures told him meant anything
But it was hopeless, because he knew exactly what his mind was trying to tell him
Another portion of the blood monster that had split off took the image of Moxxie and Millie. The only problem with that though, was that they were combined
“You really think we’d be friends, with you?!” The both of them spoke in unison, their voices conjoined and twisted as they yelled at the imp-hybrid, who tried covering his horns to block out the noise
It's not real, It's not real, It's not real! Vesper kept repeating in his head, as one final blob of the blood creature took the form of Loona, and got right into the imp-hybrid’s face
“Poor little Ripper. Blessed burns on his arms and trauma stuck in his head, so he takes his anger out on the rest of hell” The hallucination coldly stated
Vesper gasped in shock as suddenly all the air left his lungs as he was confronted with the truth . He kept his head and face down to not see and hear the apparitions of his friends and mentor, mentally torture him
But even after he covered his horns, he still heard their voices
“What are you gonna do boy? Swallow another bottle of pills to make the pain go away?” The hallucination of Stan mockingly asked Vesper, who raised his head in shock at the illusion of his mentor
Vesper hadn't thought about that “incident” in years
The incident when he tried to kill himself
But, before the nightmare could take him down that particular road of memory lane, however, the hallucination of his mentor melted into the ground and flowed back to the blood monster, who had re-combined into one giant mass
“Oh f*ck…” Vesper said out loud, as he watched the blood mass conjoin and twist around its shape before transforming into into more faces the imp-hybrid recognized
Kara, Lester, Angel, Stella, and his various exes, all looking down on him
“What makes you think we wanted to have a monster as a friend?! ” The twisted image of Angel, Kara, and Lester, fused together, mockingly asked him with their voices mixed together into something monstrous
“What made you think we would love a monster suchas yourself?! ” The twisted fusion of Stella and his past exes questioned him, and Vesper himself shut his eyes and covered his horns again in a desperate attempt to block out the noise
“NO NO SHUT UP!” Vesper screamed at the warped version of his friends and exes, as they continued to taunt and torture him
—------------------------
Why, Moxxie, why
Have you held your true feelings inside?
I am scared of rejection
Why, Moxxie, why
Do you have Millie put it in your butt?
It gives me an erection— Hey!
No need to hide
We accept your true feelings, so promise me
That I can do, to be true
Moxxie walked up to the hallucination of Blitz and sat down next to him, and they both began harmonizing with the song they were singing
The thespian imp took the reins of the organ and began playing along with the phantom-of-the-opera appreciation of his boss
The world is your anus, so peg it with honesty
Oh!
I've been a jackass, it's true
You've been a jackass, it's true
But soon as we're back as ourselves
I will be a better friend than I was before
Be better at speaking my mind
And together, we can begin
To become fiiine~
Moxxie and the hallucination of Blitz smiled at each other, promising the other that they would both be honest once this “bad trip” was over
—-------------------------------------
Meanwhile, in Vesper’s bad trip, the blood monster’s voices only got louder and louder, as it brought up all of the imp-hybrid’s worst trauma and memories
“VESP, RUN!” He heard his parents desperately yell at him
“Little vermin~” He heard his brother taunt him
“Why did you kill my daddy, are you a m̶̧̉ö̵̹́n̵̻̈́s̵͙̕t̵͒ͅe̴̦̎r̷̟͆?̵͔͐” He heard the voice of the royal child, whose father he killed right in front of her
Vesper at this point had collapsed onto the ground. His legs and tail were curled up against his chest, his hands grabbing his horns as tears flowed from his eyes, and his entire body was shaking like a f*cking leaf
“Please let this end…” Vesper cried out as the voices kept taunting and torturing him with his past acts.
Ripping a sinner’s head off clean off with his bare hands
Gouging out another imp’s eyes for insulting his parents
Killing a f*cking royal in front of his own daughter
How the f*ck am I any better than him? Vesper asked himself, wondering if he really was a monster, just like his brother
The voices kept getting louder and louder, as the blood monster circled Vesper and continued taunting him with the same word over and over again, in its distorted and warped voice
“Monster”
Vesper couldnt take it anymore
If this didn't end soon, the imp-hybrid was pretty sure he was going to mentally break
“Then f*ckin’ end it yourself…” Vesper heard his brother’s voice in his head sarcastically suggest him
Suddenly, all the voices went dead quiet, like they all up and vanished
The imp-hybrid opened his eyes and stood up to see why everything had gone silent. Vesper discovered quickly what his brother meant when he looked to his side and saw what was there
Or more accurately, what wasn't there
Vesper was now on the literal edge of the Wrath ring, with the edge leading to the void being on his right
He took a step, still in massive f*cking pain from his burns being exposed, and peered over the side of the edge
There was nothing
Nothing but the inky black void of oblivion waiting for him, where demons who were killed by holy arms went
The imp-hybrid turned back around, seeing that the blood monster was gone and that the hallucination of Reightful was only a few feet away from him, blowtorch and blessed rope still in hand
“What’s it gonna’ be little vermin: Try and fight me, or accept the fact that you’re a monster, just like me?" Reightful questioned Vesper with a monstrous voice at the end, as he stopped in his tracks and stared down his half-brother
Vesper only looked at his half-brother with disgust and contempt as dried tears stained his eyes, before letting out a tired sigh, because he was f*cking done
Done with everything this hallucination had forced him to confront about himself, done with the countless tears he had shed, and absolutely f*cking done with the apparition of his bastard half-brother
He just didn't have any anger left to fight the visage that stood before him
Vesper just wanted to end it all
The imp-hybrid took a step back toward the edge of the ring, and the hallucination of his brother took notice
“Really?” The apparition began, “You’re offing yerself cause you can’t fight me, and accept what you are?” Reightful mockingly asked Vesper, who surprisingly chuckled in response
“I’ve tried fighting my whole Satan-dammed, Reightful” Vesper spoke with a tired voice, and for the first time using his brother's full name, as well as taking his mentor’s name in vain as well
Something he never did
But he just didn't care anymore. Vesper just wanted it all to end
“All I’ve done for ten years is fight. I’ve fought royals, overlords and even f*ckin’ exorcists. My entire life since the fire, I’ve used violence, fighting, and murder as an outlet for my anger toward you”
Vesper took another step back towards the edge
“But even I can't fight my stupid f*ckin’ nature” Vesper told the hallucination of Reightful with a broken laugh, who pocketed his blowtorch and merely chuckled at the imp-hybrid’s confession
“Glad ya’ accepted it” Reightful smiled, and Vesper smiled along with him
It felt good for a moment, laughing with his brother
It was like back when they both promised each other long ago, that they would fight against Hell itself one day
If only it had turned out that way… Vesper depressingly thought, as he took a deep breath and stared down the hallucination of his brother right in his eyes
“But don't make any sort of mistake, brother” The imp-hybrid began a warning to the illusion of Reightful, who raised his eyebrow in curiosity at Vesper’s threat
Vesper took another step back, his feet teetering on the very edge of oblivion itself
“When I find you, the real you,”
He took one last deep breath, and spoke a final time to the hallucination of his brother, using his Royal Ripper voice as he did so
“I’m going to kill you with my bare hands, and nothing else”
And with that, Vesper let himself fall tight off the edge of the ring, and into oblivion's grasp
He didn't care whether this death would be real or not
Either way, it would be an escape from this nightmare
As the imp-hybrid fell towards the void, he heard the apparition of his brother tell him one last thing
“Ya’ f*ckin better, little vermin…”
Vesper then fully submerged into the inky-black void of oblivion, not caring if he died in the real world or not
