#my token chaotic evil alfred but it ain't his fault

[usuccc]

Please talk more about that au, villain Alfred is a guilty pleasure 🙏🏻

*sweats* You and me both! Oh man, where to begin. First of all, thanks for the interest! It means a lot. I can’t be concise, so I’m gonna put this under a huge ‘Keep Reading’ for whoever is interested. Like for real there is a whole ass essay below that cut. I left some stuff out cause it’s already a ridiculous length, but I got the gist of it.

Leave it to me to take a silly gag au and go completely off the rails with it. It’s honestly hilarious gg me.

This au takes place in some fake big city with dark synthwave-y aesthetics where the skies are constantly gray in the daytime from smog and pollution. Over the last ~20-30 years, Jones Enterprises has risen up as the most influential and powerful company in the United States, with their headquarters in (fake big city’s name). They have hands in many industries, spanning the manufacturing, retail, and technology spheres. Over the past 5 years, especially, they’ve seen massive, nearly unbelievable growth, and unfortunate events or sell-outs have conveniently fallen upon their competitors, allowing them to create monopolies in several industries. They also have the government in an iron grip and no one is willing to stand up to them for fear of the consequences. Most people mysteriously feel compelled not to confront them anyway, especially those who live closest to their headquarters.

Francis was an employee for Jones Enterprises’ main headquarters. He saw how overworked and underpaid his colleagues were. Bogged down by overwork in his first year, he eventually tried to get away with slacking as much as he could. After witnessing one of his close coworkers have a heart attack and almost die from the stress of working there, he changed gears and started speaking out on behalf of his colleagues. Some of his motivation came from feeling partially responsible for what happened, and he wanted to evoke positive change across the company instead. He tried time and time again to organize strikes after his attempts to organize a union were completely shattered. The turnout was very little in the beginning, and soon fizzled out to just him. He stubbornly pressed forward on his own anyway and was fired for it. Finding other work turned out to be impossible, his firing acting as an unemployment death sentence. It was not uncommon for employees fired from Jones Enterprises to be shunned from ever finding a decent job again, and Francis’s situation was even worse given the bad publicity he received from his strike attempts.

Ready to resort to desperate measures, Francis started seriously considering moving back in with his parents in France and figuring out a new plan. Jones Enterprises had gained significant influence in Europe too, so there wasn’t a guarantee he wouldn’t experience similar problems there.

Before he could buy a plane ticket, he was visited by Kiku Honda, a stranger with an unassuming appearance. Long story short, Kiku had come to the US with the alias as a simple tourist. His family was presently responsible for safekeeping a secret and powerful magical artifact with mysterious origins. 

The artifact was one of two powerful stones, both of which were in existence since the beginning of mankind. These stones were antitheses of each other, representing and contributing to major moral conflicts throughout history. They were both drawn to chosen human hosts who were destined to face each other. The pink stone, which Kiku was in possession of, gained and gave magical power through love, equality, and hope/healing. It formed a positive, nurturing, non-invasive connection with its host, and gave them the power to protect and inspire hope in others. The other (purple) stone gained and gave magical power through greed, subjugation, and fear. It gave great wrath and influence to its host, whose powers would grow exponentially over time as the two stayed connected. This stone would physically embed itself in its host’s heart, eating away at their mind slowly to bring out the absolute worst in them and shave away at their morals and inhibitions, until they were nothing but a heartless monster. Tendrils would spread out from the stone throughout the host’s body, growing in size and number the longer they were connected.

Kiku had long suspected that the unnatural growth of Jones Enterprises was connected to the purple stone. He had gradually implanted connections in Jones Enterprises and had been monitoring the situation for clues of a potential host. The senior leadership of the company was very hard to crack, however, and the CEO had significantly limited his public appearances in recent years, but Kiku would not let it rest. Any of the higher ups in the company could be a candidate for suspicion. While investigating, he heard of and even saw some of Francis’s brazen attempts to challenge the seemingly invincible company. He was impressed with Francis’s ability to stand up to an insurmountable foe, especially given the influence of the mysterious compelling force that kept most others in the city silent. He wanted to get information from Francis about his experience at Jones Enterprises and to offer him an opportunity to rebuild his life for his bravery. The stone, which Kiku always kept on his person, ended up choosing and bonding with Francis to both of their surprise, and boom Magical Strike was born.

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Now onto Alfred and Arthur. Alfred is the son of the founder and CEO of Jones Enterprises and his ex-wife. His parents divorced when he was still a baby, and his father did not remarry. Alfred’s mom remarried right away and had another son, Matthew. 

In his home life, Alfred often felt neglected and overlooked compared to Matthew, whom his mom and stepdad preferred and doted on. His birth father ignored him in favor of growing his company as well. This caused Alfred to act out at school and extracurricular activities, always overshadowing Matthew whenever possible and rubbing it in his face. He often got in trouble at home later for it. When Alfred got a little older, he frequently snuck out after these fights and went somewhere to be alone. One night, he walked down to the neighborhood park and saw another boy alone by the swings where he usually liked to go to mope. This boy was a few years older than him and muttering angrily to himself. Feeling a sort of weird camaraderie for this other pissed off dude, coupled with the fact he’d never seen him before and was curious, Alfred took the plunge and went over to talk to him. Alfred and Arthur’s first meeting was a little rocky, but the two quickly found themselves warming up to each other. Many coincidences found them meeting in the same park after a bad day, and the two eventually bonded and made a thing of it. Alfred found that with Arthur he could open up and be more authentic than he let himself be with his other friends.

By the time he hit high school, Alfred emotionally detached himself from his mom/stepdad, and tried to be a little nicer to Matthew, although their relationship was never close. He and Arthur still met often outside of school, and Alfred tried to reach out to him at school too, but Arthur limited those interactions due to his unfavorable status as an irritable loner. Alfred continued to seek out other people’s attention, forming a ton of superficial friendships with his classmates. He became obsessed with being number one at everything he did and getting everyone to like him to patch up his residual feelings of loneliness and inadequacy, and also to hopefully impress Arthur, whom he secretly had a crush on. Excelling in his sports clubs, and even skipping a grade in his academics, Alfred felt like things would be okay if they kept going the way they were.

Then Arthur abruptly confided halfway into Alfred’s freshman year that he was moving back to England that year after he graduated for family reasons. Alfred didn’t take the news well, and when the time came for Arthur to leave, it hit Alfred hard. They promised they’d keep in touch via phone and online, but that did little to comfort him and his other shallow friendships often made him feel worse. The feelings of loneliness and inadequacy returned tenfold. It was around this time that Alfred was contacted for the first time by his birth father in years, asking to meet and catch up. Alfred readily accepted, not taking a moment to think it through in his low emotional state.

Alfred’s dad was getting into some weird shit since the divorce. He’d been putting obsessive efforts into expanding his company, making strategic partnerships, attending all kinds of rich, bougie events for networking purposes, and exploiting his workers to maximize profits. Despite his efforts, his returns were decreasing and the existence of some key new competitors put him in a tough spot for future growth. When conventional methods didn’t appear to be making any progress, Alfred’s father started hanging around some wealthy, sketchy social circles. It’s through a series of events with these groups that he learned of and obtained the purple stone. After seeing it reject and devour an unfit host before his eyes, he decided he was in desperate need of its supposed power, but he couldn’t risk using it on himself in the case he was judged to be unfit. He had to use it on someone inconsequential if things went wrong, but at the same time malleable, so he could ensure they used the power to further his goals. 

Alfred’s dad put on an act when Alfred arrived, making it seem like he wanted to bring Alfred back into his life, raise him up like he should have been doing all those years. Alfred soaked it up like a sponge, and his dad appeared to follow through on his promises, engaging with him and frequently making secret visits so they could spend quality time together. After a whole year of building Alfred’s trust, his dad was able to convince him to put the stone to his heart, assuring him that only he could do it and he trusted Alfred to make their company and the lives of so many people who depended on it great. The stone embedded itself in Alfred’s chest, causing him to pass out from the pain. When he woke up, still in one piece, his dad was able to calm him down and convince him to keep it a secret, even from the people he was closest to.

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Some other tidbits of info:

Arthur and Alfred did keep up communication after he left for England, and he considers Alfred his closest friend. Life got in the way plenty of times, though, and they couldn’t always keep up the most consistent communication. Still, they did what they could and were able to meet in person a few times even. Arthur obtained a degree in England and worked his first job there. But after that, he moved back to the states and got a job at Jones Enterprises, thrilled to surprise Alfred about it. They have a heartwarming reunion. Alfred, himself, graduated high school early, got accepted into an Ivy League college on a scholarship, received his degree in finance and business management due to his piece of shit dad’s wishes, and was being directed by his dad to start using his powers of influence on their competitors. At first, he justified to himself that the outcome would be good and that the competitors he was going after were bad people—which some of them definitely were—but over time, he found himself doing things he never would have before (to unhappy employees for example), caring less and less about the people that were impacted.

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So yeah, the main events take place about 10 years after Alfred becomes the host for the purple stone, having plenty of time to grow his power and lose himself to the stone’s influence in secret. When Francis makes his debut as Magical Strike, Alfred starts infusing some of Jones Enterprise’s key weapons tech with his magic and sending people after Francis, who is still learning his abilities. Then, in the latter half of this arc, Arthur becomes the main antagonist against Francis, having just scratched the surface of what’s really going on with Alfred and thinking (in denial) this will somehow help him. At the beginning of the second arc, there would be growing tension between Alfred and Arthur when Arthur can’t explain or keep excusing Alfred’s actions anymore. Alfred would lose control and almost hurt Arthur, whom he had taken the most care to hide his darker side from, which would cause Arthur to join forces with Francis, desperate to find a way to get the purple stone out of Alfred and save him somehow. Alfred mcfuckin loses it when he finds out.