Chapter Text
Fizzarolli did it. As he stood there on the stage and took it in, he felt validated that all of his hard work to get it together for Mammon’s clown pageant had paid off.
His stubs ached inside and out, his cheap prosthetic arms not built for juggling. But with them and the springs he had soldered onto his knee joints just for this show (something he would have to painstakingly undo on top of figuring out how to reattach his lower legs after getting home), he had managed to perform a truly spectacular act. With these mods he had bounced around almost like he used to, doing trapeze using only his upper body, springing to extreme heights above the crowd, and riding a unicycle upside down with his arms on the pedals. With these and his jokes and roasting the audience a bit, Fizz took the crown.
As he bounced off the stage and the curtains closed behind him, Fizz collapsed, one of his prosthetic arms falling off of him as he collapsed to his knees.
“Fizz!” called Barbie Wire as she ran up to her lifelong friend, pushing a wheelchair in front of her with balloons tied to the handles.
“Barbie I’m fine, I-” Fizz started to object, automatically brushing away concern, but Barbie cut him off.
“You won!” She got to helping him up and putting him back into his wheelchair immediately, not making a fuss as she situated him. Fizz hated the damn thing, but he had agreed to allow Barbie to bring it for after the performance, aware that bouncing on springs all the way home on his bad prosthetic legs would be too painful.
His caregiver and friend had learned to recognize his signals and not ask if he was okay, but to just do what he needed. She was the only one who he had allowed to see his horns when the bandages finally came off. The only demon Fizz felt truly comfortable around. He hoped that now that he had won, he could repay her for all she had done for him over the past five years.
She got him seated and then handed him his arm back, and Fizz made a joke about already getting a hand from the audience before putting it back into its socket at his shoulder.
“Silly, You won, I knew you would. Oh my Satan!” Barbie turned him toward the roped off areas of backstage and Fizz relaxed against the back of his seat.
“I did. I really did,” he mused as Barbie wheeled him back to his dressing room, feeling the warm glow of satisfaction growing within him.
She opened the door to the dressing room and wheeled him inside, freezing when she saw Mammon. The Prince of Greed, sitting on and frankly, crushing the imp sized couch that had been placed against the side wall. Next to him stood another Deadly Sin, and both Fizz and Barbie Wire bowed their heads in respect for the King of Lust.
“Fizz, my boy. My beautiful, sweet crippled clown champion. You are gonna make me, I mean us, so much money!” said the king of greed, towering over the little imp as he stood.
“I’m just grateful for the opportunity, Mammon, sir,” said Fizz, still intimidated by his idol.
“We just need to do something about, eh, this,” Mammon gestured at the wheelchair, making Fizzarolli blush. His white cheeks turned pink and a few beads of sweat started to make his cheap concealer cake up on his forehead.
Barbie was about to step in between the two when Fizz cut her off. “Yes sir, I agree. Need better limbs to work with and I’ll be able to perform like I just did every day.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” said Mammon, turning and gesturing to Asmodeus behind him.
“And that’s where Asmodeus comes in. He’s gonna design you new prosthetics, and then make robots of you. He has his sex toy factories and already makes realistic dolls and robots, so he’ll be able to make something fabulous for you! Something unique to the Fizzarolli™ brand. Now, I normally supervise closely with people who work for me until they’ve proven themselves, but you won the pageant and I know that Asmodeus is good at what he does. So, if you agree to compete again next year and appear to promote the bots when they release, I’ll not interfere while you’re designing the prosthetics and only give final critiques to the Fizz bots. Sounds good?”
“Thank you, sir,” said Fizzarolli, smiling with uncertainty. He had been working on his own prosthetics since he had gotten his first set after the fire. He knew that sex bots had been a possibility after winning, but having the King of Lust himself waiting for him there just reinforced that this was gonna be a thing.
He reluctantly shook hands with Mammon, knowing that this demonic deal would bind him until at least the next year's pageant, but also put some limits on what Mammon could do, since Mammon himself said he’d let Fizz have creative freedom.
“You’re a prince, Fizzie. Now, I’m gonna go remind the crowd to buy my merch. You should get to know Asmodeus. You’ll be working very closely together from now on. Ozzie, take good care of my little clown.” And with that he made his exit, and both imps let out sighs of relief when he was gone.
However, their attention quickly turned to the Deadly Sin Asmodeus, who was standing silently with his right hand under his chin, as if thinking things over. After an awkward silence, Asmodeus got down on one knee in order to be more at the imps’ level. Barbie Wire drew back in fear, but Fizz sat up straighter in his wheelchair, looking the sin straight in the eyes of his center face.
“I’m not gonna fuck you, you know. I’m not just some flesh light with a pulse,” said Fizz, looking deadly serious as he said it. However, the moment the words left his lips, the lingering adrenaline from his performance felt like it drained away in an instant. He had just mouthed off to a Deadly Sin, and the sudden realization of how utterly fucked he was hit like a ton of bricks.
This took Asmodeus aback and he had to think for a moment as he processed the sight of this tiny imp talking to him like this. Taking advantage of anyone sexually was not his thing, and in fact rape and sexual assault of all kinds were seriously prosecuted in his ring, at least when reported and investigated. However, being demon royalty, he also didn’t get spoken to like this by normal residents of Hell very often. He sat back on his haunches and gave the imps some space, realizing his crouching might have seemed threatening to them.
“And you don’t have to. I wasn’t even going to suggest it,” said Asmodeus, taking his hat off and holding it in his hands, hoping that would make himself seem less intimidating.
Barbie gave him a distrustful look, putting herself between Fizz and the deadly sin. She felt ashamed for hiding behind her circus brother, but was determined to protect him from this new potential threat.
“Now, because it’s safer in my Ring, you two are moving to Lust. I talked it out with Mammon during the show, that the winner would live in Lust with me since it will take weeks of planning to get these bots into production and I really don’t like traveling to Greed. I prefer being more, hehe, hands on, in my approach to things in Lust.”
“Did you just say the two of us?” asked Barbie Wire, skeptically.
“Well yes. You’re his manager, correct?” asked Ozzie, and Barbie perked up a bit at the implication. The title of manager sounded like an important enough position to justify her sticking close to her circus brother and continuing to protect him, despite Fizzarolli always insisting he could handle himself.
“Yes, that’s me. Barbie Wire, manager of the great Fizzarolli,” she said with a curtsy, careful to never shake hands with a demon she didn’t know or trust.
With a chuckle, Asmodeus nodded to her and then stood up, putting his hat back on his head.
“Okay, so I think we should pack your bags and get you back to Lust,” he said, and creating a magic portal, he led the imps through it and into their apartment which they shared.
“Mam gave me your address. I’ll text my driver and let them know where to pick us up. Portals don’t work as well when you’re transporting a lot of stuff,” he said looking down at his phone, tactfully not commenting on how sparsely the apartment was furnished. A tiny wire bed frame and thin mattress was pushed into one corner and a sleeping mat sat on the floor next to it. A few circus props, a chest of tools and spare parts for prosthetics, an old, battered laptop computer, and some clothes piled up in baskets or hanging from the wall on hooks made up the imps' meager possessions.
A small albino queef came zooming out of the half-closed closet in what was clearly a makeshift wheelchair, yipping in interest. She stopped right before Asmodeus and sniffed at his feet, the sin looking down at the tiny animal with a raised eyebrow.
“I guess you’re coming too, huh?” asked Asmodeus, but before he could reach down and pet her, Barbie Wire had scooped up the quieve and set her in Fizz’s lap.
“We can keep her?” asked Fizz with a worried voice, and Ozzie shrugged.
“I don’t see why not. I’ve had pets before… although usually of a different kind,” he added at the end, making Barbie Wire look up from where she was grabbing the quieve’s stuff from out of the closet.
“Not funny, king of horny. Please be nice to Precious, she’s not certified as a service animal, but she helps Fizz,” and with that she finished throwing the remainder of their meager belongings into a box.
Barbie was clearly stressed out, trying to seem brave enough to stand up for Fizz despite how dangerous it was. Fizz cringed as she had said this, clearly regretting his outburst from earlier.
Asmodeus tried to ignore this, hating how utterly broken those who belonged to Mammon always became. He didn’t want anyone working for him to be so afraid of him. At least, not unless truly necessary. That wasn’t his game, so he ignored Barbie’s remarks, hoping that she’d settle down over time.
”hahaha, listen to her, trying to outjest the jester!” said Fizz, freaked out that Barbie Wire would so blatantly antagonize a Deadly Sin.
“I guess we’re ready,” said Barbie, rolling her eyes at Fizz for trying to cover for her.
Fizz took a box from Barbie and settled it in his lap, letting Precious sit in the box’s open top.
“Okay, let’s get going then,” said Asmodeus, picking up some of the boxes with ease and following Barbie out into the hall and down to the waiting car outside.