Abaddon knew that Leroy was praying to a higher power a few moments ago, but due to his rage he didn’t really care.
There was nothing that could have saved him, and there was nothing that was going to change that.
Not even the most famous loa in the voodoo pantheon.
“G-Great forefather! S-Save me from- Urk!”
Annoyed by Leroy’s sniveling, Abaddon put just a bit too much force into his grip and snapped the human’s jaw like it was a piece of plywood.
“Easy now, Godbeast.” Papa Legba suddenly pulled out a pipe from out of nowhere, and started smoking it right away.
“Witches are hard to come by in this world, you know? The vampires and wolves hunt them because the consummation of their flesh and blood gives them the ability to do magic. You can see why they wouldn’t want to pass that up.”
“I can indeed.”
CRACK!
“Gaahhh!!!”
Abaddon shattered every bone in Leroy’s hand with only the subtlest of squeezes.
“You see though… I am not interested in his rarity. He tried to sleep with my mother then sealed her inside of a pond for over sixty years when she refused him. I don’t care if he’s as rare as a shiny Darkrai, he’s not escaping me.”
“A what?”
“Sorry. I’ve been playing a lot of video games since I came back.”
SNAP!
“UAAHHHH!!!”
Abaddon twisted Leroy’s remaining arm until his ulna and radius were snapped cleanly and piercing through opposite sides of his skin.
“Look at her as you die, human. I want you to go to the afterlife knowing just why I sent you there.”
Though tear-filled eyes, Leroy glanced at the green skinned woman standing behind her son.
Her golden eyes were so unbearably cold, yet they were burning with unimaginable hate.
Why was she looking at him like this?
All he had ever tried to do was love her!
How could she just stand there and watch as he dies so miserably like this?!
Abaddon snapped Leroy’s neck with less force that it would have taken one to kill an ant, and dropped his body over the figures of Ray and Beau who were still enchained at his feet.
Once he was done, he turned back to Imani and pulled her in for a gentle hug.
“It is done. No one is ever going to hurt you again, and I will make sure that you have whatever you want, for as long as you want. I give you my word.”
Imani smiled softly as she returned his hug with all of her ability.
“Komik ti gason… I don’t need anything more than this.” (Silly boy)
Smiling, Abaddon opened a portal that was slightly different from the one that his mother had come through earlier.
“Go now and let me deal with a bit of business on my own, hm? Your baby boy is a man now after all.”
“I see… I wish you luck.”
Imani pulled away from her son and gave him one last proud look before stepping through the portal and leaving him alone with Legba and the humans.
–
When Imani passed through the portal, she immediately knew that she was not on earth.
The air was significantly cleaner and seemed to be coursing with so much nature energy that it made her head spin.
She was standing in what looked like a living room, in some sort of grand mansion.
Before she could call out for someone, a figure appeared in front of her miraculously.
He was the second most handsome man she had ever seen, with soft grey skin and long silver hair like spider’s silk.
There were two proud oni horns on his forehead, and his golden eyes were full of curiosity and mischief.
“Ah… Who are you?”
“I… my name is Imani. I am Carter- I mean Abaddon’s mother. Who are you?”
“His what now?”
Asmodeus turned around as he closed his eyes to concentrate.
‘Son, might I know why you have dropped this, admittedly beautiful, but unknown cymbee into my living room?’
Almost immediately, Asmodeus could hear his son’s voice come out with a response, and it was even less charming than normal.
‘She is my mother from earth, and I was hoping she would run into mother first instead of you, but no matter. Take care of her, get her accustomed to life in Sheol, and do not tell her anything embarrassing or I will beat you until your face resembles a gravel road..!’
‘You bra-‘
“Husband?”
Asmodeus suddenly froze in his tracks as his eyes slowly panned towards the staircase.
There, his lovely wife Yara was standing in a thick black bathrobe, and wearing a smile that was most certainly not a smile.
“Tell me… Who is this woman you have in our home?”
Asmodeus made a discreet gulping noise as he swiveled his head back and forth between Imani and his Yara.
‘…Bad news, boy. I won’t be able to do what you’re asking…because I’ll be dead!!’
‘Yes, yes. Bad news indeed.’
‘You brat-‘
–
Abaddon pushed the sound of his father’s whining out of his mind as he returned his attention to the loa in the room with him.
Papa Legba shook his head disappointedly as he stared at the fallen body of one of his believers.
“They speak only of your barbarism in the heavens.. I must admit to hoping that you would prove them wrong, since I do not sense overbearing evil from you.”
“That is because there is none… Or I should suffice it to say that it only shows itself as needed, and at those deserving…”
“Like him for example.” Abaddon kicked the body of Leroy and sent it flying across the shop.
Daggers of ice impaled his body in midair and stuck him against the wall like a piece of avant garde artwork, and he smiled at his handiwork.
“Interesting…” Papa Legba waived his hand over the area in front of him, and a wooden table with a table cloth over it appeared from midair.
“I’ve always wanted the opportunity to sit down with you personally and chat, so I hope you’ll join me for a meal.”
Abaddon, who was a lover of both food and voodoo mysticism was having a hard time finding a reason to refuse.
“I hope you don’t expect me to eat after those humans.” he said distastefully.
Legba brought a hand to his chest and made a face like he was insulted.
“My dear Godbeast… do I look like the kind of man who takes tainted offerings? You wound me.”
“Hahaha! My apologies!”
The two men sat at the table, and Legba rubbed his chin as he thought about something seriously.
“I’m thinking Italian. That work for you?”
“I do not see why not.”
The loa snapped his fingers, and a spread of classic dishes appeared on the table.
Pork ragu over polenta, tiramisu, spaghetti carbonara, fettuccine Alfredo, caprese salad, marinated zucchini with hazelnuts and ricotta, and even bread that was still steaming.
Abaddon smiled wryly as he admired the spread in front of him.
‘Bekka is going to be pissed at me…’
His darling hellhound wife had made a pledge to eat her fill of every delicious human dish that she came across, and it was a commitment she was taking very seriously.
In one afternoon she had finished of an entire bucket of Auntie Anne’s cinnamon and sugar pretzel bites and twenty orders of chicken wings and fries, all a different flavor.
‘She’s so cute when she’s being gluttonous.’ he thought fondly.
Abaddon fixed his own plate and prepared to start eating, when he suddenly looked up in the air above the sky.
“Are we going to eat with all of them watching?”
“I don’t mind them… Do you?”
“No… I want them to know the answer to anything you could possibly ask me.”
Gathering a medley of things on his plate, Abaddon started eating with a rather blissful smile on his face that none of the gods had ever seen from him.
“Fuck this is good..” he muttered.
“So I must ask you..” Papa Legba spoke between bites. “You say you are not evil until it is required. Do you not see the annihilation of an entire group of beings as an evil feat that can be avoided?”
“Not at all. I mean I would if they were a simple and defenseless group with no way to defend themselves, but you all… you are gods.”
“And why does that act as the determining factor?” Legba asked as he poured Abaddon a glass of white wine. “Are you not letting your past negative experiences affect your outlook?”
“In a way I am, but I am surely not blinded by it.”
“Oh?”
“In Dola, I learned that you all are unbearably childish and selfish beings. Though my negative experiences are only with a few, it speaks volumes to a larger problem.”
“And that is?”
“You gods… some of you have forgotten what it’s like to be mortal. Some of you never knew at all. You don’t know just how much mortals rely on you and count on your existences to keep them afloat… or you know and just don’t care.
You’d rather spend all of your time dicking around, like overgrown children in the lands above. You either ignoring the plights of those below, or outright do your best to exacerbate them even further.
Do you know why Lucifer, Jaldabaoth, and Samyaza interfered with my life so? It is because they could. Because there was no one among you looking to keep each other in check, and focused upon the responsibility that our kind of power demands.
So for those who simply sit in silence while mortal lives are kicked around… I am your reckoning. You cannot run from me. You cannot hide from me. You cannot escape me.”
“So that is why you do all of this? Because you were aggrieved by a few?”
“Aww… I am disappointed that is all you took from my words just now.”
Abaddon leaned forward, a rare deadly serious light within his eye.
“I do this so that the powerless few need not ever suffer under you gods ever again. For those beyond redemption I am going to wipe the slate clean, but for those of you who can be saved… you will be free to live as you are.”
Unknowingly, Abaddon’s view on the gods stemmed from the way he first died on earth.
Beaten down while the rest of the world watched, all of them too afraid or uninterested in coming to his aid in the moment where he needed it most.
No one would ever live like that with him around ever again.
Papa Legba pondered over the last words exchanged by Abaddon, as he stared absentmindedly into the bottom of his glass.
“Now I must ask out of my own curiosity… What are your intentions for those in my panth-”
BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!
Out of nowhere, the entire swamp started to tremble as two gods descended to earth outside of the shack.
“ABADDONNN!!! HOW DARE YOU SPEAK OF CULLING THE GODS LIKE WE ARE CHICKEN?! GET OUT HERE AND FACE ME!!”
“NO, FACE ME!!”
“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?! I’D SOONER TEAR THOSE HORNS FROM YOUR HEAD THAN LET YOU HAVE THIS FIGHT!!”
“THE HATED CHILD OF OLYMPUS DARES TO THREATEN ME?! LAUGHABLE!”
“WEAKLING!”
“DIE!”
Abaddon and Papa Legba sighed unanimously as they stared at their table.
“War gods… so undeniably loud.”
“My wife possesses a certain charm with her volume, but I must admit that these two fall very short of that…”
*Unanimous sighing again*
Suddenly, Abaddon stood up from the table with his plate in one hand and a fork in the other as he headed out the door.
“You’re going to offer them a bite to calm them?” the loa laughed.
“Hell no, I’m going to make these bastards behave while I eat. I don’t waste food and I don’t like having my mealtimes interrupted.”
As he watched Abaddon continue walking seriously, Papa Legba came to one very inescapable conclusion.
‘Manman sa a fou…’ (This motherfucker is crazy…)