Something

The I.M.P. office was uncharacteristically quiet, the kind of heavy silence that only occurred when Blitzø wasn't there to puncture it with a dirty joke or a dramatic entrance. Moxxie was meticulously organizing his weapons locker, humming a tune that was slightly out of key. Millie was perched on the edge of the desk, sharpening her favorite combat knife with a rhythmic *shink-shink-shink* sound.

At the reception desk, Loona had her feet up, her eyes glued to her phone as she mindlessly scrolled through Hellgram. She looked bored, but there was a subtle tension in her shoulders. Her father had been gone longer than usual on his "private business," and while she’d never admit it out loud, the silence of the office felt wrong without his constant, grating energy.

Suddenly, the wall-mounted television—usually reserved for obnoxious advertisements or 666 News—flickered to life with a burst of static that sounded like a physical blow.

"Ugh, what now?" Loona groaned, not looking up. "Did the old man forget to pay the cable bill again?"

"I don't think that's a commercial, Loona," Moxxie said, squinting at the screen.

The screen didn't show Katie Killjoy or a flashy product. Instead, the image was grainy, sepia-toned, and smelled of digital age. It was a recording of a circus. Not the polished, flamboyant spectacles of the Greed ring, but a grimy, run-down traveling show.

The camera panned down to a small, lanky imp. He couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old. He wore a tattered clown suit that was several sizes too large, his tail twitching nervously behind him. His eyes were wide, bright, and filled with a desperate sort of hope.

"Is that...?" Millie gasped, dropping her whetstone. "Is that Blitzø?"

Loona finally looked up, her phone slipping an inch in her grip. "No way. Look at those stupid ribbons on his horns." She rolled her eyes, trying to maintain her usual facade of indifference. "The old man was a theater geek even as a kid. Typical."

But the atmosphere in the room shifted instantly. The audio on the tape crackled, and then a voice boomed from the speakers—a deep, gravelly roar that seemed to vibrate the very floorboards of the office.

"Get out there, you useless little shit!"

The young Blitzø on the screen flinched so hard he nearly tripped over his oversized shoes. A tall, imposing figure stepped into the frame. It was Cash Buckzo. He looked younger, but his expression was twisted into a permanent sneer of disappointment and malice. He didn't just walk; he loomed, casting a shadow that seemed to swallow the small boy whole.

"I-I'm sorry, Daddy," the young Blitzø stammered, his voice high and trembling. "The unicycle, it’s—it’s broken, I can’t—"

Cash didn't let him finish. He backhanded the boy with a sickening *crack* that echoed through the I.M.P. office. The little imp spun and hit the dirt, shivering in total, primal fear.

"I don't care about the bike!" Cash screamed, his face turning a dark, bruised purple. "I care about the money! You're a failure! A pathetic, talentless waste of skin!"

Moxxie’s jaw dropped. He had always known Blitzø had a "complicated" relationship with his father, but seeing the raw, unbridled cruelty was different. "Oh, Satan..."

Millie’s grip tightened on her knife until her knuckles turned white. "That monster," she hissed, her eyes glowing with a protective fury. "He’s just a baby."

The screams began then. Not from the audience on the screen, but from the elder Buckzo as he began to lay into the child. The audio was distorted, but the terror in young Blitzø’s voice was crystal clear. It wasn't the sound of a child being disciplined; it was the sound of a soul being systematically broken.

Across Hell, the broadcast wasn't limited to the I.M.P. office. In the Lust Ring, Asmodeus and Fizzarolli sat in the private lounge of Ozzie’s. Fizzarolli, who usually had a quip for everything, sat frozen. His mechanical limbs whirred softly in the silence. He stared at the screen, his gaze fixed on the boy he once called a brother.

"Fizz?" Asmodeus asked softly, placing a massive hand on the jester’s shoulder.

Fizzarolli didn't answer. He just watched the screen, his throat tight. He remembered those screams. He had heard them through the thin walls of the circus tents for years. He felt a sudden, sickening urge to reach through the glass and pull the small imp out of the dirt.

In the Pride Ring, in a lavishly decorated balcony, Stolas stood paralyzed. He held a glass of wine that trembled in his hand until it shattered against the marble floor. He didn't notice the red liquid staining his boots. He only saw the light in Blitzø’s eyes—the same light he had seen glimpses of during their private moments—being extinguished blow by blow.

"Blitzø," Stolas whispered, his heart aching with a grief he couldn't name. He knew Blitzø was guarded, knew he was prickly and pushed people away, but he had never imagined the foundation of that trauma was so deep, so violent.

The video on the screen began to fast-forward, a montage of the years passing. It was a timelapse of a tragedy.

The wide-eyed boy grew taller, his frame filling out, but his expression grew colder. The vibrant red of his skin seemed to dull. With every clip—another failed performance, another screaming match with Cash, another night spent sleeping in the dirt—the light faded further from his eyes. By the time the footage reached his late teens, the Blitzø on screen looked like a ghost. He moved with a mechanical precision, his smile a jagged, practiced mask that never reached his eyes.

Back at the office, Loona was no longer looking at her phone. She stood right in front of the TV, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Her ears were pinned back against her skull.

She watched a twenty-something Blitzø sitting alone behind a tent, stitching a wound on his arm with a sewing needle, his face completely blank. There were no tears. He looked like he had forgotten how to cry. He looked like he was already dead inside.

"Why didn't he say anything?" Loona’s voice was small, cracking in a way it never did. "He... he acts like such a loudmouth idiot. He talks about himself constantly."

"He talks about the version of himself he wants us to see, Loona," Moxxie said quietly, his usual irritation with his boss replaced by a profound, heavy sadness. "He’s been performing his whole life. He probably doesn't know how to stop."

Millie walked over and put an arm around Loona’s waist. "He was protecting you, sweetie. In his own messed-up way. He probably thought if he told you, you’d look at him the way his daddy did. Like he was broken."

Loona bit her lip, a surge of hot, angry tears prickling her eyes. "I wouldn't have. I'm his daughter. I'm supposed to know."

She felt a sudden, crushing weight of guilt. All the times she had snapped at him, called him a loser, or pushed him away when he tried to be affectionate—she saw those moments reflected in the hollow eyes of the teenager on the screen. He had spent his whole life being told he was worthless, and she had spent her time at I.M.P. reinforcing it, even if she meant it as a joke.

The screen suddenly cut to black. For a moment, the reflection of the three imps was all that remained on the glass. Then, the office door creaked open.

Blitzø stepped in. He looked tired. His coat was dusty, and he was carrying a bag of cheap takeout. He didn't notice the atmosphere immediately.

"Alright, losers, I got the 'Meat-Tastic' bucket because they were out of the—"

He stopped. He saw the TV. He saw the way Moxxie and Millie were looking at him—not with their usual mix of annoyance and loyalty, but with raw, bleeding pity. And he saw Loona.

Loona, who usually wouldn't look up if the building was on fire, was staring at him with an expression that shattered what was left of his composure. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

"Blitzø," Moxxie started, his voice soft.

Blitzø’s eyes darted to the blank TV screen, then back to his crew. The takeout bag slipped from his hand, hitting the floor with a dull thud. The mask didn't just slip; it disintegrated. For a split second, the man standing in the doorway was that seven-year-old boy again, shivering in the dirt, waiting for the next blow.

"Who saw?" Blitzø asked. His voice was a raspy whisper, devoid of its usual theatrical flair.

"Everyone, sir," Millie said gently. "It was... it was on every channel."

Blitzø’s breath hitched. He looked at the floor, his hands beginning to shake. The shame was a physical weight, a suffocating heat that rose from his chest to his throat. All the walls he had built, all the jokes, the bravado, the carefully curated image of the "badass assassin"—it was all gone. They had seen the truth. They had seen him small. They had seen him weak.

He turned to leave, his boots scuffing the floor, but he didn't get two steps before a heavy weight slammed into his back.

Loona didn't just hug him; she tackled him. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her face buried in his shoulder. She was shaking, her fur damp with the tears she finally let fall.

"You're an idiot," she sobbed into his coat. "You're a total, complete, fucking moron."

Blitzø stood frozen, his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. He didn't know what to do with genuine comfort. He expected a punch, a scream, a lecture on his inadequacy. He didn't know how to handle a hug.

"Loonie?" he choked out.

"Shut up," she snapped, though there was no heat in it. "Just shut up. Why didn't you tell me? I could have... I would have..." She trailed off, unable to find the words to describe the protective instinct roaring inside her.

Slowly, tentatively, Blitzø raised his shaking hands and rested them on her back. He gripped the fabric of her jacket like a drowning man clutching a life raft. He closed his eyes, and for the first time in decades, he let the breath out that he’d been holding since he was seven years old.

Moxxie and Millie stepped forward, joining the circle. They didn't say anything. They didn't need to. They just stood there, a silent barrier between their boss and the rest of the world that had spent so long trying to tear him down.

Outside the office, the city of Dis roared on. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed, and the neon lights of the Pride Ring flickered. But inside the cramped, messy office of I.M.P., the silence was finally different. It wasn't the silence of secrets or the silence of fear.

It was the quiet beginning of a long-overdue healing, fueled by the realization that while the past had been recorded, the future didn't have to follow the script. Blitzø wasn't the little boy in the dirt anymore, and for the first time, he realized he didn't have to be the ghost of the circus ring, either. He had a family that saw the cracks in his soul and chose to fill them with something Cash Buckzo could never understand.