> BEFORE DEATH

Oliver Halliday was a sickly kid who grew up in a farmhouse during the early 1600s. His father had just passed before he was born and he had no siblings to recall, leaving him to be the one to take on all responsibilities alongside his single mother. While he was young, he would go into town on his mother’s request in order to retrieve goods and such. Back then, he overestimated his own strength and would get into fights a lot with other kids his age who were much stronger than him. He would almost always return home covered in bruises and empty-handed, and his mother scolded him harshly, though she also grew extremely concerned as time went on.

The kids who would always beat him up teased him constantly for his weakness, wondering how he had survived for so long. They always told him his luck was running out. That was when he met her, a beautiful maiden from a rich family. She defended him, chasing the bullies off, and offered to walk him home no matter how far his house was. She even bought extra food for him. Since that day, she would meet him on his outings and walk him home, and they began to grow close.

He doesn’t quite know how it happened, but over time, he fell for her. She was different, much stronger, brighter, and independent. It sparked a new light in him and his personality. As they grew older, her family helped his mother open her own business, and they finally gained enough money to live comfortably. He and the girl became dearest lovers. Of course, the ring he’d used to propose was his mother’s, given to him on a sparing of budget, but his dear lover didn’t mind at all.

The day it all changed was the day they were to be married. The bullies who had teased him as a child were now men who cared solely about money, and they were jealous of his sudden rise in riches when they had only grown poorer. And so they lured her into the woods, killed her, and perfectly pointed all the evidence towards poor grieving Oliver. The whole town had suddenly turned on him, and his own fiancé’s family began to claim that he took advantage of her for her family’s money and killed her hoping to get more. The only person who sided with him and believed his innocence was his mother, she trusted him and was willing to defend him, but she didn’t have the power or authority to do such a thing. He told his mother to flee town and persisted until she did.

He knew he would be sentenced to death, stuck in a cold, dark cell, awaiting inevitable execution. All his fears and his heartbreak began to weigh down on him, until eventually he could no longer take it. Before he could be arrested, he ended his own life.

Unbeknownst to what awaited him in the afterlife.

> AFTER DEATH

That was when he first awoke a reaper, learning of the "sentence" he must serve for the sin he committed. Though disappointment was felt at first, it was quickly replaced by curiosity. He found that he actually enjoyed working with the dead, had a passion for acting as somewhat of a detective on unusual cases - much to the annoyance of his fellow reapers.

At the time when he began training as a reaper, they'd still learned and spoken the Language of the Dead (the ancient language of the reapers), though it was dropped/phased out before he became a proper reaper. He was made aware of a religion of sorts amongst a select bunch of reapers, who still believed in respecting the ancient creatures known as the Grim as the only way to atone for the sin the reapers had committed back some few thousand years by driving their original kind to extinction in pursuit of replacement. He became fascinated with this lesser known history after finding out that the Grims were the ones to grant the first human reapers their second chance and abilities, and that the humans they had blessed as reapers had later turned on them.

Around 300 years into Oliver's time as a reaper, knowledge spread within the immortal realm that the current angel of death had resigned very recently (a position they had held since the dawn of time when the first Grim had awoken them, until just recently) and a replacement was needed. However, there was no trials or tests, the angel of death would be chosen by the higher powers from amongst the current grim reapers based on mysterious criteria no one knew. Reapers from all over the world began to step up with claims that they had received the powers of the Lord Death, and some made it quite far before they were discovered as fake. Calamity and conflicts began to grow in the reaper realm with lack of the presence of a leader.

For Oliver, it began with strange dreams, dreams in which he was a Grim, collecting the souls of the dead. Then, reports began arising of a massive creature that was claimed to have been seen all over the cities of England, always there at the sign of death. The creature was described much like the one in the dreams he was having. He became frustrated, intent on figuring out the mystery. The Grim were dead, it was impossible.

Amidst all of this he still remained one of very few reapers in present day who still worshipped the Grim. Except now when Oliver sought to ask the ancient Grim what to do with the dreams and strange mystery that plagued him, he realized that he was able to hear it speaking back to him. Being able to speak the language of the dead is one of the things that would help him communicate with what would reveal itself to be the spirit of the long dead Original Grim - the very first of its long dead species of prehistoric reapers. It would tell Oliver the truth, who he was chosen to be and what he was becoming.

That was when Oliver learned that the higher force, the one that grants them the achievement of the afterlife, the achievement of forgiveness every reaper strives to reach without knowing what was beyond it, that very higher force deemed Oliver the best candidate, seeing as he was the only reaper truly free of sin. He felt conflicted, torn with the truth of this knowledge, unsure what he should say or how he should break the news. He knew this would spark outrage among many, as he was one of the weakest and the least capable of leadership, yet he was the one granted with unimaginable power. In his eyes there was no way they would accept him, and these higher powers had most certainly made a mistake. He doesn't believe he can take on a leadership role at all (he can't even fight and he has been a follower and an outcast his whole life) and being forced to be in such a position leads him to seek out a way to rid the thoughts of everything troubling him if only for a little bit.

He ends up at a bar in the mortal world, where he is approached by a woman going by the name "Vixen", with a flirtatious invitation, and accepts. Vixen, a demon who usually uses this as a tactic to consume the souls of her victims (unsuspecting men and women) gets the surprise of her life when she tries to consume his soul only to find out he doesn't have one. After learning that they're both immortal beings, rather than being dettered, they continue to meet. Oliver is grateful that she thinks he's just another reaper. Time goes on as he is forced to debate his next move while the political tensions between the supernatural worlds continue to grow.

When Vixen is called back from the human world, Oliver agrees to go with her back to hell as her "servant" of sorts as the appeal of a total and easy escape from his responsibilities presented itself so perfectly.

In the time he spends working there, 10 years pass in the overworld - consequently 100 years in hell as the time passes slower there. In those 100 years he trains in combat and goes from weak and powerless to confident and strong, becomes a well known figure in hell (no one messes with the reaper who works for the high demon Lady Vixen), and he also starts to dress more like a demon. As time goes on he finds himself getting dangerously more feelings for Vixen than intended, but keeps these feelings at bay as it would trouble their relationship.

Then a raid of heaven on hell starts, there's a war starting between the two regions as, in the absence of an authorative figure to judge the souls of the dead, the two realms are fighting over rulership rights to the realm of Judgement and this ensuing battle is the last straw of ever growing tensions. Oliver is given a moment to escape hell as Vixen is badly injured but he instead chooses to leave the opportunity behind and save her instead because he has grown to care dearly for her and cannot bear the thought of losing her.

When she wakes up a few days later she scolds him for not escaping because even she can't understand why he would stay. Then Oliver confesses his feelings and they agree that the current state of their relationship is incredibly uncertain, but they like where it is now.

The topic of the brewing war comes up again once Vixen recovers. As a high demon she is dragged into political matters, and Oliver struggles to bear hearing what his absence has done to the overworlds.

That is when he is forced to tell her who he really is, the truth about him being the Angel of Death. Expectedly, she pushes him away harshly but only because he's a fool who has no idea what damages he could've caused in his absence and she cares about him and basically sets him free from servitude and tells him to go back and restore order.

Oliver almost returns alone but it doesn't feel right to just leave. Turns back, asks for her help, and the two deviate a plan. A plan that involves Oliver returning in a great show of combat and power, with an army of demons from hell by his side and establishes his power as the angel of death as an even better and more confident version of himself. Now, with support of both heaven and hell, and Vixen there at his side, he can serve successfully as the figure of union between realms.

The "criteria" for the Angel of Death those higher powers sought was in fact: One with the soul of a reaper, the heart of an angel, and the mind of a demon. One who has never killed another, but is strong enough to overcome death. The young reaper Oliver fit those criteria now even more than ever.

Oliver would take on the name of Azrael in honor of his predecessor, the previous angel of death, and finally accepted his place on the council of angels. The ancient Grim that had spoken to him 100 years prior would grant him the ability to take on its form (See: "Azrael - Grim form").