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Mefodiy Buslaev | Mefodiy Buslaev Characters | Mefodiy Buslaev Recap

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On Call Demon

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When you sell out your soul, you're allowed to keep it for yourself until the time comes to pay your dues. And that's when Abifasdon comes in, to take what no longer belongs to you; he's the on-call demon, tasked with taking the sinners to hell. But he's not as bad as his job may imply, and may even help people who clearly don't deserve hell yet and should receive a second chance. He even has a friend, angel Albert, whose job is quite opposite (stop the sinners from making grave mistakes), which occasionally puts them on different sides.

Abifasdon is in happy marriage with demoness Azriella, who's working in seduction department, but they have a problem: they can't conceive a child, and nothing seems to work. One of Abifasdon's "clients" suggests that babies can't be made without love, and it gives Abifasdon an idea: make love in human bodies. This works, but rises plethora of new problems: it's not easy to preserve a baby when you're demons, and even harder when the baby is gonna be human...

On-call Demon is the comedic novel written by the Russian writer Andrei Belyanin.

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Tropes

• The Alcoholic:
  • Konstantin Petrovich, one of Abifasdon's "clients", in his thoughts, sold out his soul to get money to buy a bicycle for youngest son. To fulfil their part of agreement, demons dropped a purse with money for him, with exact sum he needs... but he wasted it on booze. They had to repeat it five more times before he finally used it the intended way.
  • One guy named Fyodor has sold his soul for twenty five years of non-ending vodka binge. When Abifasdon comes to take him, he finds him in the bar with his alcoholic friends (who gets enthusiastic about idea of selling their souls the same way).
• All for Nothing: Abifasdon spends entire chapter looking for sport mat for Azriella. When he finally finds it, with Albert's help... she eats it. Abifasdon covertly disposes of Azriella's magazines whence she takes ideas like these, with her not paying attention and quickly forgetting about their existence.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Cassandra Farr starts feeling sexual attraction to Abifasdon (in both human and demon form) when he starts threatening and insulting her. At first, it weirds him out, but then he decides to play along (demons don't treat sexual infidelity as something significant), and even sends Azriella some photos (this offends her, as her pregnancy slowly makes her psychology more human-like; normally, demons are fine with that, and Azriella works in seduction department). When in Hell (she didn't bother to even dress before leaving), Cassandra tries to seduce Abifasdon's boss, of all people, so they have to take her away by force.
• And the Adventure Continues: According to postscript to the final chapter, Abifasdon's son, once he grew up, was tempted by both Heaven and Hell to pick their side, but chose to Take a Third Option instead... which is a story for another time, which Abifasdon isn't gonna tell... or maybe he is, who knows.
• Asshole Victim: Askold survives assassination attempt, but turns into vegetable. Given that he was blatantly and shamelessly selling weapons to the terrorists, and refused all attempts to give him another chance, he had it coming.
• Ass Shove: The scammer is about to get away with everything, but he panics and shoots Abifasdon and then Albert, leaving him without protection he just barely gained. Before taking him to hell, Abifasdon shoves his pistol right into his ass.
• Authority in Name Only: Warlocks don't actually have any power over demons they summon; the demons just play along to keep them believing in their power, it's a tradition. Climent learns this the hard way.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • When Abifasdon suggests Albert to take the trio of Dumb Blondes on excursion, Albert (with barely hidden hope) asks whether he would take them to Hell; nope, it's Albert who would take them to Heaven.
  • Some guy named Veniamin tries to convince Abifasdon to introduce him to the devil, so they may join forces; he wants Hell's support, so he may take the lead in a dangerous scientific project, not really caring about possible risks of destroying the planet. Abifasdon actually sends him to his boss, but when Albert calls him out on being irresponsible, he says that neither he nor boss are stupid enough to give some moron the world-ending powers (especially while Abifasdon's wife is pregnant): the boss just ate him.
• Batman Gambit: When Albert refuses to save a woman whom Abifasdon is tasked with taking to hell (she's sold her soul to avenge her little sister being raped by pedophilic priest, who managed to get away with his crimes), as she's deemed "unsalvageable", Abifasdon tries to provoke Albert by describing in details how he's gonna take the woman to hell, hoping that Albert would just beat him up and save her, rules be damned; unfortunately, Albert points that while he would beat him, he still can't save the woman if that's his plan. The conflict becomes moot when the God himself changes his mind and pardons the girl, answering to Abifason's prayer.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • Abifasdon's third client is a fat bald guy who tries to do amateur porn; unfortunately for him, Azriella was the first one to answer to his ad, and change into her true form in front of him right after him signing the soul-selling treaty, which caused him to fall into catatonic state. He gets taken out of it by some... unconventional means.
  • Abifasdon gets annoyed by a couple of Jehovah Witnesses, who're insisting on preaching to him. When they learn about his wife's profession, they insists on preaching to her, too. Abifasdon lets them try, which results in both getting eaten.
• Berserk Button: Abifasdon was just making fun at Cli(o)ment's expense up until now, but when he sees that the warlock is about to sacrifice a baby, he goes ballistic and only gets stopped from going close and personal with him by his body feeling extreme pain (the devil feels that the sacrifice is offered, and wouldn't allow some demon to deny him that blood!). It's noted by Abifasdon himself that such reaction is due to his wife's pregnancy affecting him in such a way that he can no longer tolerate children being hurt in any way.
• Black Comedy: Everything that has to do with demon everyday life is full of absurdity and dark humour — them casually beating and chewing (literally) each other, setting up bear traps against mother-in-law, eating a hunter stuffed with his own ammo, demon hospitals having treatment for pregnant which amounts to "if they can survive the abuse we put them through, then all is fine", etc. Also, Abifasdon regularly chains up his wife Azriella... so she can't hurt him.
• Black Shirt: Veniamin thinks that he should deliberately join forces with demons to gain some benefits; when he fails to get recruited in Hell, he asks to start cooperation on Earth instead. In the end, he just gets killed; Abifasdon, not willing to let some madman risk destroying the world (when his wife is pregnant!), sends him to his boss, who just eats the guy.
• Brick Joke: Early in the sixteenth chapter, it gets mentioned that Abifasdon's father-in-law was eaten by his wife. In the end of the same chapter, Abifasdon's mother-in-law marries the sinner whom Abifasdon just took from Earth (she considered him being funny), only to eat him two days later, which is Played for Laughs.
• Cassandra Truth: When visiting (human) doctor about pregnancy, Abifasdon and Azriella don't even bother with hiding their unnatural diet and details related to their Bizarre Alien Biology, but it all gets interpreted as jokes, and taken as a good sign (if they can joke about pregnancy, then they're likely fine).
• The Cavalry:
  • Abifasdon gets stuck dealing with one sinner, and can't convince his boss that he has to go to rescue his wife from assault by particularly nasty demon neighbour (a former nazi and current psycho) who (accompanied by her equally insane friends) literally tries to siege their house and kill Azriella. In the end, Azriella receives help from... Albert, who arrives at the last moment and deals with surviving attackers, neighbour included. Abifasdon remembers that in special cases, angels are allowed to enter Hell to bring justice.
  • When Abifasdon (and Azriella, who decided to visit her husband on his job, despite him directly asking her not to multiple times before) gets cornered by Nora, who's about to shoot them with a gun (loaded with something anti-demon, just like the rest of her house), Albert shows up and tries to talk her out of it (not even bothering with protecting her soul, as it is damned). He provokes her into shooting him (obviously with zero effect), which gives Abifasdon just enough time to jump on the old hag and teleport to hell together.
• Child of Two Worlds: Abifasdon's and Azriella's son; he was conceived by demons, but in human bodies (thus making him human too), and, according to Abifasdon's postscript, he was baptised (with Albert, an angel, as his godfather) afterwards. According to aforementioned postscript, both Heaven and Hell have tried to push him to pick their side, but he chose something else instead... which is a story for another time.
• Conspiracy Theorist: In penultimate chapter, Abifasdon deals with a trio of "researchers" (they aren't even related to literature, with one being a mathematician) who tried to publish a book which "uncovered a lie" about And Quiet Flows The Don novel series, which, as they state, wasn't written by Mikhail Sholokhov; they can't agree on who was the writer, only that it wasn't Sholokhov, putting all three versions they had into same book, resulting in a mess of blatant self-contradiction, which they didn't bother to systemise and put it entirely on the reader to "pick" which version they like more. They've sold their souls to actually publish the book and give it the aggressive advertisement everywhere, but, as Abifasdon points out, no amount of advertisement would cover for the fact that it was just crap which no one liked (resulting in them failing to sell all copies). Abifasdon, for giggles, offers them a chance to talk with Sholokhov himself (he's in Purgatory now), who promptly kicks their asses once he hears their accusations, before Abifasdon takes them to Hell. They still refuses to acknowledge being in wrong, and instead calls Snolokhov "a barbarian who can't use civil arguments"; Abifasdon says that they're lucky that their vendetta wasn't against Lermontov: he would've likely just shoot at them.
• Could Say It, But...: Abifasdon tells Albert what he needs to smuggle for Azriella in the "don't dare to do X, Y and Z!" format, to fool hellish security service (angels are more forgiving in this regard).
• Crazy-Prepared: Nora Famusova installed massive number of anti-demon traps all around her house, with the only non-lethal place being the celling, and even then Abifasdon survives only because demons can actually crawl on it, risking falling down at any moment and likely die. And then turns out that she has a gun loaded with holy water.
• Critical Psychoanalysis Failure: Abifasdon visiting psychologist allows him to deal with stress, but seriously scares the psychologist herself (it doesn't help that Abifasdon turns into a true form mid-session when he loses control), to the point that she can only sit under her table, whisper a prayer and quietly beg him to leave.
• Dirty Old Woman: Nora Famusova has sold out her soul for "having all the boys" back when she was still 17. She didn't stop gaining new "boys" all the way until she hit 70, with the latest one being 18 years-old. And ten years ago, she used twelve years-old boy for her "entertainment", only do dump him when she grew bored (which resulted in his suicide). Not even Albert bothers with protecting her.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Warlock wannabe Climent Vitalievich insists on being called Clioment; Abifasdon consistently ignores him, and at one point outright says that he doesn't give a crap. He only plays along when Cli(o)ment prepares to sacrifice a baby, to trick him into lowering his guard down.
• Dumb Blonde: Entire nineteenth chapter is about Abifasdon and Albert being annoyed by trio of dumb blonde girls being unable to agree on anything (and preventing Albert from ordering anything, as they "would finish in a minute"). Abifasdon offers Albert to take them into Heaven on excursion, to show what they would miss by such behaviour, but that seemingly fails to teach them anything.
• Epic Fail: Amongst the stories about botched contraception methods is one about the girl who tried to use pills, but was consistently forgetting to actually take them, resulting in pregnancy. After giving birth, she tried the other ones, but was unable to remember whether she should take them before or after sex, resulting in a second pregnancy. She tried yet another ones... and managed to mismatch them with the ones against heartburn, only realising her mistake after three months of use; according to the test results, it's gonna be a boy...
• Every Episode Ending: Almost all chapters ends with postscript from Abifasdon about something related to the chapter's events.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Abifasdon may be a demon who's tasked with taking the sinners to Hell, and quite often acts like a jerk and troll, but he has his own rules which he would never break:
  • Abifasdon never hurts anyone who didn't sign the contract, even when he can get away with it, and may actually assist someone who were clearly scammed (even by the hellish standards); his job is taking the souls of those who have wasted all their chances, not damning them himself!
  • Abifasdon quickly becomes extremely uncomfortable with anything involving harm to children or (future) mothers. Woe to sinner who dares to do it in front of him.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Azriella runs into problems with one of her clients (her unborn baby at the last moment "objects" to her sleeping with him); she panics and summons both Abifasdon and Albert. After several futile attempts to make the client agree on something else (not even Azriella changing into her demon form kills his interest), the guy suddenly changes his mind when he sees Albert removing upper clothes, showing muscles below, and decides that he wants him much more. The scene deliberately describes Albert to accent how attractive he is.
• Even the Rats Won't Touch It: Demons are known to drink literal acid and being fine with it, but Abifasdon wouldn't touch cheap coffee from the market, as it's beyond disgusting even by demon standards. He also makes very negative comment about cheap booze Konstantin Petrovich drinks, in same vein.
• Everyone Has Standards: Azriella's client, once he sees Albert without upper clothes, insists on sleeping with him, and Albert reluctantly plays along. But when the guy realises that he's about to rape an angel, even he fails to proceed with it.
• Extreme Omnisexual: Azriella's client in the chapter 8 is an Armenian goth who insists on fulfilling the agreement (he requested a succubus) even when offered something else in exchange, or warned about Azriella being pregnant, or even her showing her true form (tall blue-skinned demoness with three boobs); in fact, the last one makes him want her more, due to exotic factor. He only changes his mind when he sees Albert without upper clothes, and decides that he wants him instead. He doesn't proceed with it once he realises that he's about to rape an angel.
• Extreme Omnivore: Demons can eat or drink almost anything. Azriella, in particular, is shown eating chalk (whole basket of it!) and even a mat.
• Fate Worse than Death: Weapons trader Ascold Vitovtovich suffers from a stroke after something explodes, and turns into vegetable. This happens right after he disregards Albert and Abifasdon trying to convince him to change his ways (he's selling weapons to the terrorists, dodging taxes and blatantly dismissing both Heaven and Hell). On the bright side, this gives Albert the chance to save the soul of Ascold's secretary instead.
• First Person Narration: The novel is narrated from Abifasdon's perspective.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: On Albert's request, Abifasdon takes two stubborn "scientific atheists" to Hell, on excursion. While it clearly impresses them (to the point that they comes back with prematurely greying hairs), they still insists that it was merely hypnosis. Abifasdon thinks that it was all for nothing, but Albert is more optimistic.
• Good Feels Good: Halfway into the story, when Abifasdon helps a girl harassed by pedophile, she, after seeing him in his true form, calls him "beautiful", not actually being afraid of him, which makes him feel good. Later in the same chapter, he notices that female officiant in the caffe which he regularly visits sincerely smiles to him for the first time, as if she feels that he's changing for the good (it was previously stated that the humans feel instinctive disgust towards demons, regardless of their form).
• Greater-Scope Villain: One chapter has Abifasdon trying (and ultimately succeeding, due to the God's intervention) to save the soul of a woman who'd killed a priest who've raped her little sister. The pedophilic priest isn't directly involved in the plot, but it's his fault that it happened in the first place.
• Groin Attack: Allegedly, there was an old tradition: tying woman's leg when she's giving birth to her male partner's reproductive organs. The idea was to make the man share the pain with his wife. Abifasdon imagines what would happen if he tries it with Azriella (being a demon, she's much stronger than a human), and realises that it's not gonna end well for him; it makes him feel sick.
• Human Sacrifice: In attempt to postpone losing his soul, Clioment tries to kill a baby whom he stole from an orphanage, as a sacrifice to the devil. The plan fails utterly due to Abifasdon's intervention.
• I'm a Humanitarian: It's not uncommon in demon society to try to eat each other; Abifasdon's father-in-law was eaten by his wife, and she nearly ate Azriella, who survived because her mother went too greedy when waiting till she grows bigger and missed the point when she became capable of defending herself. According to Abifasdon, above 70% of demons have exactly the same upbringing.
• Karma Houdini Warranty:
  • Twenty years ago, foreman Voytyuk has sold his soul for the profitable position in the road police, not really believing that soul, Hell, etc exists. Soon after scamming Albert for money several times in a row (not taking any clues even when Albert demonstrated him that he's an angel, and Abifasdon is a demon), his time runs out, and Abifasdon comes for him; Albert "accidentally" runs into another cop, who slows him down just for long enough for Abifasdon to arrive first.
  • Nora Famusova has sold her soul in 1958, at the age of 17 (the novel is presumably set in the same year when it was published, in 2011), in return for being not disturbed until 70 and "having all the boys" (at least one of those "boys" was actual twelve years-old boy, who offed himself when she grew bored of him and kicked him out). She found a way to avoid payback by exploiting demons' vulnerability to holy water and other holy things (it doesn't mater that Nora herself isn't holy at all), with three demons sent after her ending up in reanimation, one getting crippled and retiring, two deciding to not even bother once they learned about their task, one crippling himself just to dodge that task, and another one being burned, possibly to death. This streak of luck ends when Abifasdon comes after her, as he gets assistance from Albert at the last moment.
• Love Redeems: Entire plot shows that Abifasdon and Azriella slowly changes for the better (mostly Abifasdon), with their love to each other and their yet unborn child being the triggering factor. A reviewer (whose review was put in the end of the book by publisher) even points that it hints at the hope for salvation for demons who sincerely tries to start their path for redemption.
• Made of Iron: Demons are extremely tough; this is innate trait, specifically because they're supposed to be beaten by angels on regular basis, so this ensures that they would survive that; even that isn't always enough. That toughness is also the reason why they're okay with playfully beating up each other.
• Monster of the Week: Most chapters' plot centres around one-time sinner whom Abifasdon deals with, either finding a way to send them where they belong, or to cancel the soul-bidding contract to give them second chance (of those, most chapters have someone else to qualify as the villain instead). None of them reappear in subsequent chapters. The only exception is Konstantin Petrovich from the first chapter, who gets briefly mentioned again, confirming that he avoided going to hell for now.
• Must Be Invited: Even when going for someone whose soul he must claim, Abifasdon has to ask for invitation, and receive confirmation thrice.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Abifasdon, by that point suffering from ever increasing stress, finally snaps at Azriella over minor thing (her suggesting to visit psychologist), and realises that he's actually strangling her at the last moment, almost killing her. He runs away in fear (she realises what almost happened and started shooting at him — demons are rather casual about firearms), realising that he has to visit that psychologist, now. Things goes back to normal by the next chapter.
• Never Mess with Granny: The phrase "god's dandelion" normally means "old, frail and vulnerable person"; but the demons use the term for very specific kind of old people — those too vile and cunning to being taken by surprise, and having the means to fight back. Nora Famusova is a paranoid woman infamous for killing and/or crippling for life multiple demons by setting up elaborate traps in her house; Abifasdon barely avoids them even with his demon physiology which allows him to crawl on the celling. And then turns out that she has a gun loaded with holy water...
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Entire seventh chapter is dedicated to the topic of mothers-in-law and how husbands tend to be at odds with them:
  • Azriella gets visited by her mother (extremely ugly, both visually and personality-wise), who has very hostile relationship with Abifasdon, whom she openly despises and even hints that she would be happy if Azriella's baby is not from him.
  • Abifasdon escapes from his mother-in-law as soon as he receives a call about client, only to learn that the reason why the guy has sold his soul was to get a chance to deal with his mother-in-law (she ruined his relationship with wife — a pregnant wife!); Abifasdon, once he hears the guy's backstory (it touches some very sensitive buttons in his mind, as he has a pregnant wife himself — and hostile mother-in-law who wants to sabotage their relationship), gets angry and offers his help with both restoring relationship and cancelling the dark pact (which was actually a scam).
• Odd Friendship: Despite being from... concurrent agencies, and regularly ending up in conflicts because of that, Abifasdon (a demon) and Albert (an angel) still considers each other to be close friends.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Abifasdon volunteers to replace Azriella (who gets put into hospital for pregnancy-related reasons for short time) on her task, and only halfway towards the client realises that Azriella works in seduction department, and her client is male. His entusiasm dies out immediately.
  • After dealing with Armenian goth, Albert calls Abifasdon and informs him how it went (the guy didn't go through raping Albert once he realised that he's an angel), then tells him that the time has come and Abifasdon has to go to claim the guy's soul. When Abifasdon realises that Albert is still there, and that it means getting his ass kicked, he angrily throws his phone into a wall.
• Our Angels Are Different: Angels were created as inherently stronger than demons. Not much is known about their social structure, but it's known that there're so called "Swift response angels" (like Albert), who're specifically tasked with going for people who're supposed to get a last chance to avoid Hell, to convince them change their ways just when they're about to lose their soul to demons — which, naturally, puts him at odds with Abifasdon, who comes to claim the sold out souls. Angels are incapable of reproducing, though they still form families. They can disguise their wings when needed, to not weird people out.
• Our Demons Are Different: Demons are all but explicitly stated to be created alongside angels, tasked with tempting the souls so they would choose the good over evil. They decided to rebel (Satan somehow developed ability to envy), but lost, due to being inherently weaker than angels — they're intended to lose in any open fights, to show mortals that evil never truly wins. They're still technically fulfilling that purpose, albeit now most of them are doing it for malicious reasons. As they're intended to always getting beaten, they have very tough bodies to actually survive all that violence, albeit it's not always enough. Demons can change into human form at will. Unlike angels, they are capable of reproducing, albeit they have serious problems with it, both with fertility and infant mortality (they have bad habit of eating their babies).
• Panicky Expectant Father: When Azriella is about to deliver in the last chapter, Abifasdon goes into near panic, and even accidentally transforms into a demon form; a nurse reacts to it as if it's nothing unusual (only calling him "shaitan" in unfazed tone). When everything ends, Abifasdon outright faints.
• Pay Evil unto Evil:
  • Before taking Nicolai Stepanovich, Abifasdon asks Albert for permission to have some fun, and, when receives it it, trashes his entire house in under one minute.
  • The scammer who panics and ruins his only chance to get heavenly protection gets his pistol shoved into his ass for causing so much trouble and for his general idiocy.
  • One dude tries to team up with the devil, to their mutual benefit. Abifasdon tricks him into being eaten by another demon, to not risk him actually getting any power and endangering the world.
• Pet the Dog:
  • When Abifasdon's (originally Azriella's; It Makes Sense in Context) client, Vitaly Borisov, learns that Abifasdon is male, and the backstory behind him going in place of his wife (basically, no one cares that she's pregnant, and if she doesn't do her job, she would get fired), he firstly offers to pay much higher than standard price (forcing pregnant woman into prostitution on the threat of being fired disgusts him), and then outright offers to pay a visit to Azriella's boss and kick her ass. He actually does that, to the point of sending her to the hospital (she literally chocked on that contract), but not before forcing her to mark contract as fulfilled.
  • Abifasdon may be a demon, but he's willing to help when it's indeed needed, especially when it's not his client who's in troubles (and sometimes even when it is).
    • Abifasdon reluctantly agrees to replace Albert as godfather for Albert's friends' daughter. In the end of the chapter, Abifasdon wonders whether he was convinced by Albert — or by the child.
    • Vladimir Fedorovich has sold his soul for a chance to kill his mother-in-law who'd ruined his marriage by putting his (pregnant!) wife against him for no good reason. Abifasdon gets angry — at the woman, for making such a dick move (Abifasdon is a husband of pregnant woman himself, so he knows how it feels); and at the demons who let him sign such a contract, as something so unfair, besides blatantly scamming the guy, would get Abifasdon himself into troubles if he runs into any angels: no one would believe that it has any actual power. Instead, he offers to cancel that treaty (and get responsible ones into troubles) and deal with the mother-in-law non-lethally, by showing up in his true form and scaring her into compliance. He also suggests the guy to change his ways, so once he reconciles with his wife, his regained happiness wouldn't be short-living.
    • When Albert fails to convince a girl to not do abortion (she's still in school, and just broke with her boyfriend over it), as she reacts aggressively to him saying that he's an angel (thinking that it's his pickup attempt), Abifasdon intervenes and in rather harsh terms tells how it's gonna end if she proceeds, and that the imps are highly likely to show up if she doesn't calm down (they indeed shows up, but gets their asses kicked by Albert); he then calls Azriella, who shows her the fates the of child-killers in Hell, and (in her true form) warns that she would watch over her. After making sure that this "excursion" indeed changed the girl's mind, Azriella asks Abifasdon to find her boyfriend and convince him to go back, as it's clearly just a mistake.
    • When going into pharmacy to buy vitamins for Azriella, Abifasdon runs into a junky robber. When robber's aggressive behaviour starts causing harm to visibly pregnant woman, Abifasdon snaps and tries to scare him away, and, when the guy shoots at him, prepares to kick his ass. Then Albert shows up (his higher ups believes that this guy still has a chance to change his ways), but pretends to lose the fight, so backup arrives and, while they're busy with Abifasdon, Albert evacuates the pregnant woman (who was the reason for entire conflict). As for the robber, he gets arrested on the way out.
    • Abifasdon meets a little girl who's hiding from a pedophile/exhibitionist. After failing to summon Albert (he's busy), Abifasdon decides to help by his own, and, after failing to have any kind of civil dialogue, just turns into his true form and loudly threatens the guy (which, as Albert revealed later, resulted in him running in fear to the nearby church to confess, without bothering to even dress); when he realises that the girl just witnessed everything, he apologises for potentially scaring her (she instead says that he's "beautiful"), and warns her about never trusting anyone trying to convince her to sell out her soul.
    • Abifasdon comes to take yet another sinner — a woman named Lena who has sold her soul for a chance to kill a pedophiliac priest who has raped and killed her littler sister; she didn't believe that it was possible to prosecute him, and Abifasdon comes to conclusion that she's right: everyone would likely believe that asshole, as he's a priest from parochial school, and even if he does get prosecuted, he wouldn't stay in prison for long. Angry at such unfairness, Abifasdon calls Albert, expecting that he would kick his ass and save Lena... but Albert can't: he can't do it without direct orders, no matter how much he wants to. Abifasdon even tries to provoke him into breaking the rules and attack by making him angry, to no avail. And then... the miracle happens, and Lena's contract turns into a blank paper. Both Abfiasdon and Albert realises that it was direct intervention from the god, on Abifasdon's request.
    • In attempt to postpone losing his soul, Clioment tries to kill a baby whom he stole from an orphanage, as a sacrifice to the devil. Abifasdon tricks him into letting to hold that baby, and when Clioment stabs, puts his arm in front of a knife, resulting in warlock spilling his blood instead — which angers the devil, who sends the demons to take Clioment to hell after all. Later, through Albert, Abifasdon gives the baby for adoption to a childless couple (turns out that it was a girl).
• Pregnancy Does Not Work That Way: When visiting policlinic regarding her pregnancy, Azriella talks with other pregnant women while waiting her turn, and hears some of their stories about stupid methods of contraception (none of which, obviously, works), ranging from silly to downright insane.
  • One woman's mother thought that she can avoid pregnancy if she jumps from somewhere (so it would leak out); she still believes that it works, despite having three children: she thinks that otherwise, it would've been six.
  • One of the women tells the story about people she knows putting various things there, ranging from a lemon to a piece of carbide (the last one produces lots of foam).
  • One woman's husband (despite being a scientist) sincerely believes that if his wife would be on top during sex, it somehow wouldn't result in pregnancy, cause physics. He still insists that it's "unscientific", despite said wife being on the fourth month of pregnancy.
• Pregnancy Makes You Crazy: Even taking into account that demons tend to be weird by human standards, Azriella is tend to act crazy and do eccentric requests, especially when impressed by silly literature for pregnant women (which often gives stupid advices). Those are mainly used to kickstart the plot of certain chapters.
• Pun-Based Title: The novel's title is a pun on the euphemism for prostitutes.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Abifasdon doesn't tempt people, his function is to come for those who've sold their soul for one reason or another, once the time comes to pay their due, and takes them to hell. It's just the job, nothing personal, and he sees no reason to cause you any more harm than you've caused by yourself by signing that contract in the first place. And in the cases when there's no signed contract (and sometimes even when there is), he may actually try to help you to get out of this situation.
• Really Gets Around: According to Azriella's mother, Azriella's father didn't miss a single hole in his life, "including keyholes".
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • Albert has to go, so he asks Abifasdon to replace him as godfather for Albert's friends' daughter, at the literally last moment when it's too late to refuse. Abifasdon takes the procedure as well as may be expected, given that he's a demon. His boss covers for him before higher ups by claiming that it was a risky attempt to corrupt the child, but even that just barely saves Abifasdon's skin, as the higher ups pretends to believe, but forces him to take a medal with a cross on it, as reminder: "never trust an angel".
  • Crooked road policeman Voytyuk consistently stops Albert and "milks" him lacking documents (angels don't bother with documents, as they can't neither lie nor use forgeries; the car isn't Albert's, it's provided to him as a part of his job) for all its worth. Every single time. Knowing full well that he's an angel. It ultimately backfires on him.
  • The sheer absurdity of Albert (an angel) bribing a crooked cop makes Abifasdon unable to say anything for a whole 15 minutes.
  • One sinner, realising that he's about to lose his soul, tried to claim that it was "the devil's mistake". It didn't work, and he was taken right after exiting the church (he tried to confess, without mentioning selling out his soul).
• Rule of Three: When Abifasdon has to stay with drunk Albert (Albert had a crisis of faith and got wasted, despite usually staying away from booze, like all angels), he calls Azriella to warn her that he must stay with Albert, who got drunk. Yes, he. Yes, drunk. Yes, Albert!
• Seen It All: One of the nurses in the hospital where Azriella gives birth (chubby Tatar woman) reacts to Abifasdon accidentally changing into demon form as if it's nothing unusual, only making unfazed comment about him being a demon.
• Shout-Out: When introducing himself to the readers in the first chapter, Abifasdon says that he's "standard demon, not Asprin's demonstrator".
• Sleazy Politician: One of Abifasdon's early "clients" is a corrupt politician Nicolai Stepanovich, who has sold his soul at some point to get successful. He somehow managed to get a second chance in return for donating money to the church, but he wastes it immediately by trying to rape an underage girl, right after learning that angels and demons are real. He fails to bribe his way out of troubles after that screwup.
• Sold His Soul for a Donut: One of Abifasdon's clients has sold his soul for ability to always stay at home and care not about anything (bills, internet, etc), so he can use social networks and read Wikipedia non-stop. When he's about to be taken away, his only concern is what would happen to his social networks, and (futile) attempts to impress Abifasdon by quoting Wikipedia from memory. In Hell, he gets called "Wik", and somehow impresses Abifasdon's mother-in-law enough to become her husband... right until she got hungry two days later.
• Spy Speak: To fool the hellish security service, Albert and Abifasdon talks in very specific manner when on phone: Albert asks him something, and Abifasdon replies in very rude, "go screw yourself" manner... which actually means "yeah, I agree", if one pays attention to the words chosen.
• Straw Character: Entire 25th chapter is dedicated to convincing two guys that Digital Piracy Is Evil, with them using "arguments" consisting of the mix of Insane Troll Logic and Double Think, like "everyone's stealing", "there's no law which forbids it" or "after reading favourite authors' new books, we would recommend them to the others, and they would buy them... maybe". Abifasdon easily turns the tables on them by saying that he likes them and taking their money, and promising to pay them a visit again later.
• Sympathetic Murderer: One of Abifasdon's "clients" is a woman who's sold her soul to kill a Pedophile Priest who's raped and killed her little sister, but avoided justice due to everyone believing his lies. Abifasdon actually sides with her and tries to push Albert into saving her, rules be damned. Ultimately, the God himself intervenes and pardons the woman, listening to Abifasdon's plea.
• Take a Third Option: Abifasdon's third client (the guy who tries to use making amateur porn as excuse to sleeping with women) falls into catatonic state after seeing Azriella in her true form. Abifasdon can't take him to Hell like that, as the treaty wasn't fulfilled; Albert can't defend him as there's no sanction to do that; and they can't just leave him lying like this either — Abifasdon due to treaty, Albert due to being an angel. The situation resolves by itself when the other women comes in, following the "director's" ad, and Abifasdon tells him to show their "talents" to awake the guy, so he can cancel the (clearly unfulfilled) treaty, by eating it. It saves his skin, but only temporarily, as he soon makes the very same mistake again.
• Take That!: The ad asking for young women "without complexes" for "amateur videos" (read: porn) with "hourly payment" ends with the hand-drawn line "not Oriflame!".^note  In Russia, "Oriflame" has undying reputation for aggressive advertisement, to the point that their sales agents are stock characters in various jokes, interchangeable with Jehovah Witnesses.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: First Abifasdon's "client", Konstantin Petrovich, has only one notable "skill": his ability to make children. This actually works in his favour, as Abifasdon and his wife Azriella wants to make babies, but don't know how, and Konstantin gives him an advice (no babies can get born without love!) which gives Abifasdon an idea: try to conceive while in human bodies; it works.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Sleazy Politician Nicolai Stepanovich just barely gets a second chance and avoids Abifasdon claiming his soul, because Albert comes in at the last moment and says that he did donate some money for renovating couple of churches, and thus was considered not beyond saving yet. Then Nicolai (already knowing that angels and demons are real) goes to his room, and tries to "celebrate" his rescue by raping an underage girl, which revokes all his protection and allows Abifasdon to take him after all. It takes Nicolai several moments before he even realises that he screwed up, and then he, after trying and failing to say a prayer, tries to bribe Albert, firstly by promising some more donations, and then trying to promise some money to Albert himself.
  • The amateur porn director fails to learn anything from his situation (which nearly resulted in him going to Hell right away), and tries to sell the story that happened to him to the Hollywood (on condition that he would be a director and main actor, which clearly indicates that he plans for another attempt at making porn), so Abifasdon decides to finish the job after all: it would be easy to "reactivate" the treaty, as the text sealed on the dude's stomach. Abifasdon comments that some people just never learn.
  • One of Abifasdon's clients is a scammer who tried to escape justice by changing the name and location, which obviously didn't work. When Abifasdon comes for him, he barely manages to get Albert on his side as he comes with (actually good) idea to call a priest instead of lawyer, but then he panics and... threatens to shoot both Abifasdon and Albert, as he's afraid to get indebted to the angels as well, and he "doesn't want to leave witnesses". When he actually shoots, Albert leaves, allowing Abifasdon to take him away after all — but not before shoving that pistol into his ass.
• Troll:
  • When Abifasdon gets "attacked" by a couple of Jehovah Witnesses, he plays along and almost blatantly tells about "hellish" conditions, boiling pots and pitchforks, his wife's "job", etc, giving them just enough information to want to go and preach to Azriella, while not revealing too early that they're demons from hell, so they would actually go there and "entertain" Azriella, who's bored. Needlessly to say, these women don't survive the visit.
  • When going to take Cassandra Farr (it's a stage name; real name is Zinaida Mamykina), Abifasdon shows the suspicious security guard his documents from Hell. When the guy smirks and says that he doesn't look like on photo, Abifasdon shifts into his true form and asks whether he does now, scaring the guy shitless. He then tells him where's the closest church, and the guard runs away.
• Verbal Tic: Nicolai Stepanovich has tendency to insert at least one "mn" in the middle of every sentence he says.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Abifasdon and Albert are on the opposite sides and thus frequently have to fight over sinners (with Abifasdon consistently losing), and, besides that, Abifasdon tends to tease Albert all the time. They still consider each other best friends.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • A pedophile harasses little girl, with no help in sight. Fortunately, Abifasdon shows up just in time to help her (and scare the dude into rushing to the nearby church to confess).
  • Warlock Clioment tries to use a baby whom he stole from an orphanage as a sacrifice to the devil. Abifasdon goes ballistic when he sees it.
  • Ten years prior to the start of the story, Nora Famusova decided to try something new, and seduced a twelve years-old boy. She dumped him when she grew bored, which led to him jumping from a roof. This is the reason why Albert didn't even bother with trying to defend her, and actually came to assist Abifasdon, as that monster was consistently avoiding justice up until then.

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Dragon Tale

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Tropes

Lonely Dragon

The Last Sovereign

The Long-Forgotten Planet

The Dragon from Kong Castle

To Become a Dragon

• Acrophobic Bird: Lobastik's mental trauma of falling from the skies and then being partially devoured by vultures made her dreadfully afraid of bright light and height. While she quickly overcomes the first fear, the only thing that makes her overcome her fear of flying is the fear for her adoptive family being hurt.
• Affectionate Nickname: Both Platan and Dorian call Katrin "queen", as a sign of their respect towards her.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Katrin, in attempt to save Maggie's life, stands on her knees in front of Dark and starts begging him to spare Maggie, forcing Maggie to do the same, as well as apologise for prior behaviour. Dark finds it disgusting, but lets Maggie live (though it has more to do with her being Katrin's friend, as he can't afford to ruin his standing with his Secret-Keeper), on condition that she wouldn't leave anywhere.
• Alien Non-Interference Clause: Dragons are banned from intervening into human affairs outside of making sure they don't get any forbidden technologies.
• And Then What?: At certain point, Dark starts wondering himself, just what he would do if he does manage to escape the Zone: he hates living in big cities, comparing them to the cage; nor he can join the space explorers, as much as they fit his adventurer mindset: he hates following orders, and even more hates giving them himself. To his surprise, he realises that the only place where he can get desired freedom is... actually the Zone.
• Arc Villain: Chinese, twice:
  • When Dark tries to install Bugor into power within Town, one of the major obstacles are Chinese and Tungus, co-owners of the bank, who sends assassin after Bugor. When assassination fails and would-be killer gets captured himself, Dark forces him to kill Tungus instead, lying about him being poisoned and promising antidote. He doesn't stop at that, and later goes into conflict with Chinese, forcing him to accept Bugor as new co-owner.
  • Once Dark abandons any hope to escape the Zone and concentrates on giving Lobastik normal life instead, Chinese, when spying on Bugor, learns about Dark's hideout and him having the dragon whelp, long deemed dead. He decides to take Lobastik for himself, hoping to reap reward for her, while also killing Dark, leading to the story's final conflict.
• Batman Gambit:
  • To cover for killing Toddler, Dark fakes his injuries, nearly-desperately asks for help, and gathers entire group of volunteers, who then proceeds to marauding the house when they find out that Toddler is already dead, also leaving so many traces that investigating the crime scene becomes impossible.
  • Dark uses attempt to expand green zone further into desert as a cover for his plan, knowing that the dragons would get interested and offer their help. It works, not in the last turn because the project he describes is so horribly planned, it would damage ecology rather than improve, so the dragons just had to intervene to avert the disaster.
  • When Dark believes that Katrin was dragons' spy, he doesn't let her on the airship when leaving the base, and even shoots at her. As he explains to Conan afterwards, he deliberately missed every shot; he doesn't want to see Katrin ever again, but maybe dragons would believe that he did try to kill her, and decide to not return her to Town, or even take off-planet.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Toddler spies on Dark behind his back, and learns about dragon whelp. He tries to poison Dark's food, but Dark finds that something is wrong, and knocks Toddler out. He then starts force-feeding him, checking which dish was poisoned. When Toddler eats everything but gruel, Dark just tells him his real name, Stan Fred, which scares Toddler enough that he agrees to eat the gruel. But Dark comes up with more interesting idea...
• Beware the Nice Ones: As Dark learns in the hospital, the guy who threw grenade that killed Katrin and nearly killed Dark himself, was finished off by Lobastik: the little dragon didn't take well him threatening her adoptive parents, and tore off his throat all the way to the spine.
• Big Damn Heroes: Katrin overhears Chinese sending huge team to kill Dark and capture Lobastik. She barely manages to outrun them (killing one in process), and alert Dark, after which she assists him in fighting back.
• Bilingual Bonus: Some terms are taken from English instead of using their Russian analogues: the local settlement is actually called "the Town", and the local government is just called "the government" (the term refers both to organisation and their residence).
• BFG: One of Chinese's men tries to attack Dark with a rifle so huge, Dark presumes that one can kill a dragon with it with one shot, let alone a human.
• Blatant Lies: To justify why he needs a biologist, Bugor lies to the government that he wants to create a new breed of horses, which can be used for industrial milking. Despite not even Bugor himself believing it to be even remotely plausible, they fell for it and approved his request.
• Bloody Horror: We are provided with "lovely" details of Lobastik's injuries when Dark finds her body in the desert, half-eaten by the vultures.
• Brain Upload: The technology that allows transfer human mind into a dragon body, plays crucial role in the plot:
  • Dark's original plan involved raising the dragon, so he can transfer his mind into his body once he matures up. When he learns that dragon is female, he decides to transfer Katrin's mind instead (she refuses, calling it child murder), and later comes up with idea to somehow obtain the seed from other dragon and just grow new bodies. Nothing ultimately comes out of this.
  • Years after being taken away by her biological parents, now-adult Lobastik transferred Katrin's mind (preserved shortly before her death) into the body of her own daughter (whom she put into incubator), thus resurrecting her as a dragon. She also stole another body for Dark, and now offers him a chance to leave with her.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: When asked how he ended up on the Zone, Tyson jokes that it was over him trying to fish by using the dynamite; the catch was poor — three small fishes and two divers. Conan actually believes that the story was real and feels horrified, before Dark explains that it was an old anecdote.
• Brutal Honesty: Bugor tells young and naive Tonara that she should opt out while she still has a chance, as she's gonna work with worst of the worst, and she's not prepared for it.
  Bugor: Listen to the old man, babe, go to the Warm Vale and ask to get replaced.
  Tonara: Did I do something wrong?
  Bugor: It's not the reason. You're cute, naive girl. And this is Zone. Here are criminals, murderers.
  Tonara: I know. I was briefed very detailly... Don't kick me out, you can't kick me out. I was asking that they would assign me specifically. It's my last chance...
  Bugor: It's not me who should worry, don't regret it later yourself.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: For Katrin, Dark killing Simone was his most horrific atrocity he ever committed on the Zone, for which she only forgives him once she realises that he's changed since then. For Dark, it was just one of many victims (there's no innocents on the Zone, and bad people have it coming), and he actually remembers garrotte he used to kill her better than the girl herself.
  Katrin: You better kill me, Stan Fred. Or I would kill you. Not now, but when you would think that you've won. I would turn your dreams into dust!
  Dark: You look pretty when you're angry. Kat, when did I annoy you so much?
  Katrin: You killed Simone, bastard!
  Dark: When did it happen?
  Katrin: Forty years ago. You raped and killed her!
  Dark: Ah, I remembered. I had no money, and she started making too much noise. But... "Raped prostitute" just sounds ridiculous.
• Catch-22 Dilemma: To reprogram a cyborg at even remotely tolerable speed, Conan needs a computer. To make a computer, Conan needs a working cyborg. Fortunately, Dark finds where he can get the computer: as Bugor is now a mayor, Conan can just take computers he needs from the Government.
• Chekhov's Skill: Maggie confesses to Dark that she was a surgeon before the Zone (which is related to why she ended up here: she used to abduct and cut children, even if non-fatally and under anaesthesia). It comes in handy when operating to threaten Chinese into compliance ends with bloodbath, as three men arrives seriously wounded, with one requiring leg amputation in order to survive.
• Compliment Backfire: Tonara (who was strongly impressed by Dark) tells her uncle Platan that they "have a lot in common", meaning it as a compliment. Unknowingly to her, Platan knows Dark's old self, Stan Fred, who was a monster, and believes that he didn't change a one bit since then, just put up a disguise. He takes this comparison as an insult, and tells Tonara about Simone and how Dark has killed her, which hits Tonara hard.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Some time ago, four not-so-bright guys set up a landmine in a place favoured by one of the dragons, causing him to lose a front paw. They were quickly found, and punished: to each one, was assigned a cyborg, tasked with following them everywhere and zapping them in the hand at random intervals (six times per day total), painfully; attempt to destroy the cyborg leads to another one replacing it and doubling the norm for two days. Of those four, one went insane, another committed suicide; the other two just cut their hands. The cyborgs gave them first aid, and leaved alone. When the dragon recovered, they received regenerin to restore their hands: that's how dragons see justice.
• Death World: The Zone was originally a lifeless planet, that the dragons tried to terraform through incredibly complex process. They weren't allowed to finish it, because the humans claimed planet once a small "green zone" was created, to use it as penal colony for worst of the worst. Now, that green zone is inhabited by mostly utter scum, while outside, there's endless desert with no plantlife, animals or water, untraversable landscape and horrific hurricanes. Due to human presence, dragons can't properly finish the process, and it only improves when Dark decides that ecology is a great cover for his plan.
• Despair Event Horizon: After having his dream to escape the Zone crushed, Katrin killed, and Lobastik taken away, Dark has nothing left to live for, and he just goes into self-imposed exile, intended to die alone somewhere far away from everything that would remind him of the old life. He only recovers when now-adult Lobastik finds him and offers new life — and even then, he refuses at first, growing to be afraid of immortality.
• Determinator: Dark acknowledges Lobastik as very stubborn survivor, when she manages to survive all her injuries against all odds, and tells that this certainly deserves respect.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • When Dark tries to push dragons into leaving, Platan explains that the dragons are the only ones who keep the green oasis alive, as without their terraforming equipment, it would be consumed by desert again. He threatens to actually leave (not forgetting to tell people who's to blame), but Dark calls him on bluffing.
  • Platan points that if Dark planned to use Null-T to escape the planet, it would actually be suicidal, because without proper preparations, he may end up anywhere, with absolutely no guarantees that he can survive there, and no way to go back if plan backfires.
• Establishing Character Moment: Dark's interaction with Toddler establishes many of Dark's key traits: his cunning mind, his ruthlessness, and his bleak sense of humour.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • A lot of people on the Zone (everyone here did something in the past to warrant a life sentence) shows that even they have standards, often — in contrast with Dark, who either shows no such concerns, or is the one who does something so vile, the other criminals call him out on it.
    • When Dark suggests to just kill a mayor, so Bugor can run for mayorship himself, Bugor comments on him being a little too casual with ending someone's life like this, in negative tone. This comes from a mafia boss.
    • When Chinese and Tungus sends assassin after Bugor, Dark captures said assassin and, after lying that he's poisoned, sends him to bring Tungus' head, promising antidote if he does; assassin does exactly that, bringing Tungus' severed head in the bag. Both Bugor and Tyson reacts very negatively: Bugor calls it barbarism, while Tyson by that point grew to believe that they're actually fighting for the better tomorrow, so Dark harshly reminds him that they aren't good guys: they're only playing good guys to advance their goals.
    • Dark sends a team to scare Chinese into compliance — the cowboys would bring him their ultimatum, while snipers would provide cover fire if something goes wrong. Chinese retaliates, which results in him losing twenty six of his people, either dead or injured, while Bugor's cowboys loses six horses and one of them loses his leg (fortunately, Bugor has regenerin for him). The snipers' commander finds the experience extremely traumatic, and refuses his reward, saying that he would donate it to the church — for those whom he and his team have killed. Dark shows no empathy, and suggests to just get wasted.
  • Subverted with Dark's treatment of Lobastik; he at first suffers a breakdown when he learns that she's a girl, and rejects idea of transferring his mind into her. But later he comes up with idea to transfer Katrin's mind instead (which she rejects with disgust, calling it child murder), and then decides that if he manages to obtain male dragon's seed, he can just breed new dragon bodies. Nothing ultimately comes out of either plan.
• Everyone Has Standards: When the dragon whelp accidentally craps on the bed, Dark angrily calls it out on it. When the dragon tries to eat it, Dark reacts with shock and say that self-humiliation of that magnitude is unnecessary: it would be enough to just not do so again in the future.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The sole town on the Zone is called simply "the Town", and the biggest river on the Zone is called simply "the River".
• Face Death with Dignity: Maggie expects that, after turning her into main suspect for murder, Dark would now quietly dispose of her as dangerous witness, if not personally, then by proxy. She confesses to him in what got her sentenced to the Zone, and tells that she's no longer afraid to die; she just wanted to let it out of her system.
• Failure Is the Only Option:
  • Dark's escape plan frequently runs into dead-ends:
    • Right at the beginning of the story, Dark realises that if there are so many dragons, it means that there's a Null-T chamber on the planet. He tries to come up with a plan how to storm the facility and escape, but realises that even if he somehow breaks through (and it's gonna be protected by cyborgs), the Null-T would certainly be controlled by someone on orbit, who would just refuse to help him. If he finds a hacker and engineer to sidestep it, it would take so long that they would be caught red-handed.
    • Dark gets asked for help in searching for lost dragon baby, in return for huge reward of his choice. Dark asks to get freed, and dragon indeed checks his dossier, but then refuses, saying that he leaved way too many corpses behind to just let him out. Though, in light of later revelation, it's unlikely that dragons had any power to release him regardless.
    • Initial attempt to steal a computer from the hospital fails because self-destruct mechanism caused it to explode. When later Conan tries to open another computer right in the government building (by that point, it's under their control), he achieves the same result. Several alternative solutions gets offered, but all gets rejected without even trying. Cut the computer in half, so the self-destruct mechanism would be separated? There are at least four of them in different angles. Fill the computer with water? It would explode like a boiler. Fill it with water and then freeze? It would explode like a frag grenade. Put it in the acid? The first thing it would destroy is the actual tech inside. Dark then suggests to use liquid nitrogen — which almost gets rejected as impossible, before he remembers that they do have an option to obtain it — a weapon factory.
    • At one point, Dark learns that the memory upload requires the dragon with completely empty memory, or the dragon's personality would suppress the human's. He quickly realises that it's already way too late with Lobastik. He suggests to capture a dragon with knock-out gas and use him to clone new bodies, but it gets rejects because trying this would alert the other dragons. He then suggests to, instead of capture, take male seed and use it to breed new dragons (he "just so happened" to know one female dragon who's on their side), but no one takes it seriously.
    • On a bigger scale, at the end it gets revealed that any plan involving using abandoned dragon base was doomed from the start. Even if all his schemes would go exactly as intended and he would reach that abandoned base and reactivate it... the dragons would be able to sense the Null-T and shut it down before he can use it (and then shut down the base itself). And even if he somehow ends up using teleport anyway, he has no ways to ensure that he would end up somewhere survivable, as one-way Null-T requires very cautious preparations to not teleport somewhere random; it's entirely possible to end up in a place worse than the Zone, and have no ways to go back.
  • Dark's attempts to teach Lobastik how to fly. No matter what he and Katrin tries, it invariably fails. Games, exercises, a pet parrot (that one she ate out of curiosity; she didn't like it, but it was fun to hunt for it)... In the end, she ends up flying on her own to protect Dark from one of attackers, though.
• Fall Guy:
  • To make his story that Toddler was his business partner, until he was killed by a third party, more plausible, Dark recruits the local gangster Bugor and, with his help, gets rid of another gangster, Tungus (he tried to kill them first, anyway), on whom they drops all the crimes posthumously, since the dead never talk.
  • Dark puts all the blame for mayor's death on Maggie. Since he was forced to include her into the team and keep her around, that wouldn't cause her any troubles unless they gets busted (one more reason for her to cooperate and not rat them out).
• Female Monster Surprise: Mid-story Dark learns that the dragon whelp is actually female (previously he thought it's a male). It shocks him, as he originally planned to transfer his mind into it. it makes him come up with alternative plan instead.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When Dark starts going too deep into remembering his Start of Darkness, to the point that he starts devolving into his mindset at the time and goes nearly hysterical, Katrin snaps him out of it with a slap. Dark, after resisting the instinctive impulse to kill her, thanks her for that.
• Gossip Evolution: Dark's initial lie about him trying to "save" Toddler (while in truth he was the one who killed him) evolved so much, it's now impossible to tell the truth from lies, featuring the two taking a Last Stand against the overwhelming foes.
• He Knows Too Much:
  • Toddler gets killed due to learning too much about the dragon whelp — and for trying to backstab Dark over it.
  • Dark is ready to kill Katrin for sneaking into his bunker and finding Lobastik, but quickly gives up on this, instead making her his Secret-Keeper.
  • While Dark can't just kill Maggie, given her friendship with Katrin, he can't let her go either, since she knows too much about their operation (and soon would know even more).
• Hostile Terraforming: When Dark and Bugor starts pushing "Zone is ours!" slogan, threatening to shoot at dragons if they wouldn't leave humans alone, Platan suggests to just do as they want — and take the terraforming equipment, which would destroy the sole green zone in just few years, as it's actually highly unstable. Dark immediately backs down and agrees to negotiate.
• Humans Are Bastards: Platan, when asked to release Maggie, points out that it were humans, not the dragons, who created the Zone and made it into the hellhole it is now, and it was their idea to make all sentences here permanent without a chance for parole. Dragons are only the observers, without much rights to intervene — and it's the only thing which prevents Platan to indulge his hatred to Dark and end his miserable life.
  Platan: Does the term "lifetime sentence" tell anything to you? This sentence was passed by the humans. This damned Zone was created by humans! The laws of the Zone were created by humans! You've brought this hell upon yourself! We're merely observers. Ob-ser-vers. Got it? Our actions on the surface are regulated by countless laws and restrictions. Otherwise, I would've splatted you like a poisonous scorpion long ago.
• I Did What I Had to Do: When Dark tries to refuse Lobastik's proposal and stay on the Zone, believing that he belongs here, she tells him to shut up, and explains just at what cost she achieved all this; not only she sacrificed her firstborn daughter to resurrect Katrin, but she pressed her (now former) friend to do the same (appealing to her owing Lobastik her life) with her first son, so she may rescue Dark. And now the other dragons are about to catch up with her schemes. But she doesn't regret it, as she did all this for her family — her true family.
• Impeded Communication: For his final rush towards the abandoned dragon base, Dark asks Conan to use his computer virus to shut down all communications within the star system, so dragons wouldn't be able to raise alarm and stop them. The virus gets discovered and disabled prematurely, though as it turns out, it wasn't gonna help them anyway: powering up the base by itself would've alerted the dragons, while blind jump with Null-T is suicidal.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: When attacked by the guy with massive riffle, Dark shoots it right into muzzle hole, making it explode right into owner's face, killing him.
• Inn Security: The moment Toddler (an owner of the inn where Dark stays) learns that Dark has a dragon whelp with him (the dragons promised a good reward for it), he tries to poison his guest. Fortunately, Dark has busted him spying earlier, so he kills him first.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: After seeing Dark's moment of weakness, and that Lobastik genuinely loves him, Katrin presumes that he did change during those forty years after all, and, despite all darkness still inside him, he has a good side too. She explains her views to Dark as him starting (re)developing conscience once he stopped killing. Dark thinks that she's wrong (what he did to Toddler disproves it completely), but remains silent.
  Katrin: I know that happened to you. When pain gets too high, the nerves shuts down, and stop transmitting signals to the brain. Same is with your conscience. You overworked it, and it shut down. But then you spent ten years living fairly, and it started working again.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk:
  • When Katrin tells Dark that he has changed for the better, Dark thinks that she doesn't know him well enough and how much darkness there still is; him killing Toddler already disproves her theory about him redeveloping conscience. He remains silent, however.
  • While initially she started believing that Dark may be not as bad after all, Katrin gets disillusioned with him after observing his subsequent actions, realising that she just let herself to be fooled. Unknowingly to her, it's exactly the moment when Dark himself started doubting himself and his motives.
• Jumping on a Grenade: The last surviving member of Chinese's hitmen throws grenade as the last ditch attempt to kill Dark; Lobastik runs to sniff it, not aware what it is. Katrin jumps on the grenade as desperate attempt to protect her. Dark manages to throw Lobastik away in time, but when he tries to save Katrin, both of them gets caught in the blast; while Dark gets saved, Katrin dies on the way to hospital, and only memory matrix gets preserved.
• Kick the Dog: Both Bugor and Tyson objects to Dark's bloody methods, with Tyson specifically saying that they shouldn't build better tomorrow on blood. Dark bluntly reminds him that Bugor's mayorship isn't about building "better tomorrow", it's about getting excuse to take a computer for Conan, and that he sees zero value in helping anyone else.
  Tyson: Dark, your methods are... We're fighting for the freedom of Zone. Should we really build the better tomorrow on blood? Can we at least not cut heads?
  Dark: What freedom? What better tomorrow? Wake up, Tyson! I don't give a crap about future of the Zone. I want to get out of it. Didn't you get what this all was for? Conan needs a computer. That's the reason! The only one! Building it from cyborg parts would take him five years, while government has crapload of computers. All the rest – elections, freedom – are empty words. We need to get into government, and put Conan at computer. That's all!
• Killed Offscreen: As Dark learns in the hospital, the last of Chinese's men (the one who threw grenade that killed Katrin) got his throat torn out by Lobastik while Dark was unconscious. Then, while Dark was still in coma, Tyson and Conan told the citizens of Town that Chinese tried to kill Dark, their hero, it caused the angry mob to storm Chinese's house, nail him to the wall and burn alive.
• Like a Son to Me: After spending so much time and efforts trying to make that little dragon to survive, Dark grows attached to Lobastik as his own daughter (Katrin even more so). Once he loses any hope to escape the Zone himself, he concentrates on educating Lobastik, giving a promise to himself that she wouldn't become "a Mowgli".
• Lima Syndrome: Dark initially only rescued the dragon whelp with intention to sell it for gold, then decided that much better use would be to transfer his mind into it. Over the months spent trying to cure and then raise that dragon, he slowly grew attached to her (it turns out to be a girl) like his own daughter. When it turns out that he would never leave the Zone, he still decides to at least help Lobastik to have a normal life, to not drag her to hell with him.
• Love at First Sight: Katrin falls in love with Dark almost immediately, to everyone's surprise (especially Bugor's, since he knows her as smart, pragmatic woman who's much older and more experienced than all of them combined).
• Mr. Exposition: Dorian tells Dark and Katrin backstory behind the Zone, how it was terraformed by the dragons, and how humans "temporarily" rented it to make it into a Penal Colony.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Played for Laughs in one scene. Tyson constantly trolls Conan by calling him "Conan the Barbarian". When Dark asks Katrin why, he only learns that he's from some place called "Cimmeria", and tries to learn more from Tyson himself. Turns out that he was unaware of the fact, and revelation that Conan is actually from Cimmeria makes him outright hysterical.
  • Katrin tells Tonara that her child survived, that it's a girl, and that she would meet her if she just has some patience and quit actively searching for her and not tell anyone (otherwise, everyone can get hurt). Tonara shares it with Platan, believing that Katrin as "true witch" and can see future. This makes Platan investigate whether Katrin actually has some strange abilities, or this knowledge has more mundane explanation. This indirectly leads to Dark kicking Katrin out of the team, misinterpreting her friendly chat with Platan and Dorian just after Dark's plan failed as her being their spy, and then quitting himself. Tonara later thinks that it's the result of her telling Platan, thus breaking Katrin's instructions.
• Not So Omniscient After All: At first, when Platan and Dorian visits them after the death of the mayor, Dark thinks that they are on the verge of a failure, and that the dragons knows everything about them, but then Bugor points out that they just proved that they don't know everything. They know about the death of a mayor, which is logical, since someone like him would be under surveillance, but it was a surprise for them that Dark spared Maggie; they know about attack on the hospital, but still struggle to understand what it was purposed to achieve. That means, they have no means to spy on their base of operation.
• Not So Stoic: Katrin was ready to become Dark's mortal enemy after learning that he's the same person as infamous Stan Fred, who've strangled Simone with a string, but after seeing his vulnerable and human side, and how Lobastik immediately rushed to comfort him, she realises that perhaps he has changed somewhat during those forty years which passed since then.
• Not What It Looks Like: Dark mistakes Katrin for the spy, who sent Platan and Dorian to ruin their plan to use abandoned base for escaping. She's not; the dragons learned about it from another source. Still, even then, instead of killing her, Dark just leaves her behind (expecting that the dragons would pick her up), and pretends to shoot at her, deliberately missing all shots (so they wouldn't risk bringing her back). That alone is a sign of him changing a lot since his old days, as the old Dark would've certainly killed her.
• No Woman's Land: The only thing worse than being a man on the Zone is being a woman there. It's a penal colony for worst of the worst of humanity, and since women are statistically less likely to commit serious crimes, and more likely to avoid lifetime sentence, they're a minority there. They're treated more as element of status than free human beings, though exact crappiness of life can vary. The dragons are aware of this, and are trying to mitigate the damage, by not charging women for rejuvenation procedure (as their beauty is the only thing they have, their well-being often depends on preserving it): as the locals are sterilised, and men gradually kill each other, slowly gender balance would shift and women would be treated better if they would cease being a minority.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: After Bugor's attempt to intervene in his schemes, Dark finds him and gives him a choice: join forces, or die right here and now. Bugor agrees to work with him. Despite initial uneasiness, they come along later, with Bugor becoming a valuable ally of Dark and the first person whom he tells his plan to escape the Zone (albeit withholding the info about actually having a dragon whelp).
• Off with His Head!: Once Bugor won the election and became a mayor, one of the bank co-owners, man called Tungus, sent an assassin after Bugor, only for that assassin to get captured. Dark scares him shitless by just mentioning his old name, and offers him to redeem himself by bringing the head of his client to Bugor (for extra motivation, he tricks him into believing that he was injected with a deadly virus, and has only limited time to exchange the head for the cure). He does as ordered and brings Tungus' severed head, to Bugor's and one of bodyguards' disgust.
• One-Man Army: Dark tells one of the stories about his adventures as Stan Fred, and how almost an army of people tried to hunt him down in the mountains. He wiped them out to the man, all by himself. He later, with small aid from Katrin, kills entire team of Chinese's men, with only four people being killed not by him (of those, one died before reaching Dark).
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Every prisoner on the Zone has a dossier which states their typical behaviour pattern, Dark included. Dark is so well-known for his hatred towards the dragons, that just one friendly conversation with one of them (when Dark takes a couple of photos of him) alerts the system as highly suspicious. Bugor suggests to continue acting out-of-character and become so unpredictable that they would throw that dossier out, with options varying between unexpected charity to outright weirdness like peeing into fireplace (Dark talks him out of the last one, saying that he once tried, and the stench was insufferable).
  • The dragons are normally quiet, friendly and pacifistic creatures. But Dark is so vile, interacting with him makes Platan barely resist temptation to just smash him like a bug, in which he openly confesses. When Dark shoots at Katrin when he mistakes her for spy, Platan warns him that if he kills any woman again (clearly remembering his treatment of Simone), he would kill him, rules be damned.
• Penal Colony: The Zone is a Death World where only a small portion is survivable thanks to the half-finished terraforming procedure, and the rest is just the wast desert torn apart by horrible hurricanes, used as the the place where humanity sends the worst of the worst of their criminals, to never see them again (all the locals receives life sentence with no right for parole). They are trying to build at least some resemblance of the civilisation, but many people are still just too wild to fit into it.
• Pet the Dog:
  • When, during their travel by the river, one of their horses (Tyson's mare) gets flushed off the draft, panics and tries to swim away from their draft, Dark jumps into the river and rescues it. Even Tyson tells him that this was, while noble, still unnecessary risk: he's their leader and the one without whom whole plan would fall apart. Dark is surprised himself by this sudden outburst of heroism. Though later the other characters manages to find a rationale explanation for this, because it's just easier to believe into that than Dark not being an asshole.
  • When Dark decides to dedicate his time and efforts to raise Lobastik, so she would be able to return to society, even if without him, he does it without strings attached; he's doomed, but he can still help her, and not let her go wild, or spend the rest of her days on the Zone.
• Place Worse Than Death: Since the Zone was made into a Penal Colony, death sentence was abolished entirely; instead, the people whom society wants to get rid of permanently gets dumped on the Zone, from where they would never return. People who ever ended up there thinks that it's a Cruel Mercy at best, and considers the Zone to be the closest place to hell one can find. Why? Well, it's the dumping site for the worst of the worst, so of course they are not gonna make fair and pleasant society, no matter how hard they try. However, they may have a chance to make a better future for themselves right there, on the Zone, after all what Dark did while attempting to escape, even if unintentionally, especially since current government consists of his former allies.
• Plausible Deniability: Dark puts much efforts into ensuring that, if asked, he can deny everything and the dragon would be unable to prove anything (they do have lie detectors, but can only use them on someone who willingly agrees).
  • To cover for the real circumstances of Toddler's death — and to prevent people from being interested in looking for him to find a dragoncub — Dark invents a new story, which would allow him to look like a victim, not a killer. According to it, he and Toddler were business partners (Dark was unable to deal with the dragons on his own after telling them to go screw themselves), and intended to sell them the information they found about the lost dragon whelp, but someone tried to get rid of them so they can sell the information.
  • To make sure that the dragon whelp develops in the right way, Dark needs the photos of the other dragons, for comparison. To make himself taking dragon photos less suspicious (he's known dragon hater), Dark also started taking photos of all animals he can find, including very specific photos, such as certain body parts, or animals in certain situations, so couple of dragon photos amongst them wouldn't look out of place. In case someone asks why he's doing this, he may just say that it's his new hobby.
  • Normally, someone trying to obtain a computer (or something which can be remade into one) on the Zone would be very suspicious, as it's highly illegal. After attempt to just steal the computers from the hospital failed, Dark (with Bugor's help) throws an anti-dragon meeting, which quickly ends up with mass fighting. The fact that the fight resulted in several cyborgs being damaged beyond repair and some even went missing, doesn't even surprise anyone, so Dark and his plan attracts no unwanted attention. To make it even more plausible, abducted cyborgs would be thrown out at later point, with most key parts missing, and others damaged, making them look like just yet another victim of vandalism. Then it turns out that the stolen cyborgs were put on black market, so covering for it becomes unnecessary.
  • After learning that all stolen parts were put on the black market, meaning that they were able to make at least two working cyborgs instead of just one, Dark suggests to... win the rest via gambling. Why not just buy them? Because that would be suspicious: you buy the things you need; while anything you win via gambling can be just reused for more gambling, it's the process of gambling that matters, not the prize.
  • Dark intentionally organised the operation to scare Chinese in such a way that it would look like it was Chinese who attacked him first (even thought it was a provocation), so no blame can be put on them: they just retaliated.
  • To not alert the dragons that he's trying to reach abandoned base in the desert, Dark plans small oasis in the desert, to make their recon expedition look like ecologist one. He continues with ecologist facade to explain why he started producing airships and why he needs to fly to the desert.
• Poison and Cure Gambit: When assassin sent by Tungus and Chinese gets captured, Dark injects him with "deadly virus" (actually just dud), and offers to give him "vaccine" if he terminates Tungus and brings his head. When he does what asked, Dark injects him with sedatives (lying that it's because adrenaline can destroy vaccine in blood), and sends him to Chinese along with his companion's severed head.
• Population Control: On the Zone, females are sterilised to prevent the locals from reproducing. To prevent them from reverting the effect, regenerin is outlawed outside of the official hospitals (albeit the dragons are unable to shut down the black market). Females are allowed to use rejuvenation procedure to keep themselves young, both because it's the only thing they have of value here (without it, the males wouldn't keep them alive), and because there are too few of them comparing to the males, so have to keep at least some gender balance. Males can use rejuvenation, too, but only if they sacrifice all of their savings (with even minimal price being very high), with no ways to cheat, as memory reading is mandatory in such case.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Just before killing Johnny the Barnacle, Dark asks him to "solve a riddle", with the answer being the crowbar which Dark throws at him. It doesn't pierce him, but it does break his ribs.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: Inverted with Dark. He starts his way as outright Villain Protagonist, but as time goes on, he actually makes the lives of the people around him better, even if it never was his intention, gaining their genuine love and respect. He grows genuinely attached to people around him, too, and gets changed by them. While his plan ultimately collapses, he dedicates his efforts to help Lobastik to gain a chance to reintegrate into society. In the end, he leaves the great legacy and makes people regard him as their hero, while the loss of his new family — and the sole chance to escape the Zone — finally kills the last traces of old Stan Fred, his hatred, leaving him at peace, including with himself.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Invoked. Platan and Dorian visits Dark some time after the first expedition to the desert, and tells him that the dragons are considering to play along with humans wanting them off the planet (while making sure everyone knows that they have Dark to blame for this "victory") — and shut down the tech which maintains the climate, dooming humans to die in four years at best, leaving the planet empty, so the terraforming can be finished peacefully. He doesn't fall for their bluff, forcing them to leave.
• Retired Monster: As Stan Fred, Dark was known as infamous killer, knee-deep in blood. As Dark, he keeps low profile, living far away from civilisation, barely interacting with people and making living by selling gold sand he gathers on the river. He goes out of "retirement" when he finds Lobastik and sets up the new goal: to escape the Zone... and to become a dragon.
• Revealing Cover-Up: Dark spent so much time trying to screw over the dragons by making them unable to use their old model to predict his actions, that Platan actually guesses that it was indeed Dark who killed Toddler precisely because it goes against the model. Platan also comes dangerously close to guessing that Dark and Catrin are hiding something, although he mistakes their secret for illegal baby (though it's not that far from being true).
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Platan guesses that Dark's weird behaviour is his attempt to cover for him and Katrin having a secret child, as it would be the least weird explanation. He's not that far from the truth: they indeed have a secret child, just not a human child.
• Running Gag: Conan gets mockingly called "Conan the Barbarian" by Tyson at more than one point. And then it turns out that his homeplanet is called Cimmeria!
• Secret-Keeper:
  • Katrin discovers the bunker — and Lobastik — by accident, and keeps secretly visiting it to take care of Lobastik. At first, Dark is ready to kill her, but changes his mind and lets her stay and help to raise a dragon together.
  • During Dark's absence (when he, Tyson and Conan were on the expedition in the desert), Katrin was forced to reveal the secret to Maggie to have at least someone to help her, and to take care of the dragon if something happens to Katrin herself. As Dark refused to listen to Katrin who tried to explain this, insisting on her going to Tyson who awaits her, it causes conflict when Dark busts Maggie in the bunker. Fortunately, Maggie explains everything before Dark decides to just shoot her, and he agrees with her arguments.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Dark's dream of escaping the Zone ends up crushed when he finally arrives to the abandoned base, only to find out that Platan and Dorian made it there first and deinstalled the equipment he wanted to get, particularly Null-T chamber; later he learns that even had he maid it there first, it wouldn't have worked, as the dragons would've felt the base going online, and not let him teleport anyway. He gives up on that plan, and decides to at least educate Lobastik, so at least she would have normal life... but then Chinese attacks, resulting in Katrin dying, and even Dark only surviving due to dragons arriving for help. He has to give up Lobastik, reluctantly admitting that he can't give her normal life here, on the Zone, after which he goes into self-imposed exile, wishing to live the rest of his life alone. Then, years later, now-adult Lobastik visit him again, revealing that she saved Katrin by transplanting her memories into dragon body (of her own daughter), and now she offers Dark to escape together: his new body is already prepared, too.
• Skewed Priorities: Realising that the horses wouldn't survive the further journey, likely breaking their legs in the desert, Dark sends them away; he comforts Tyson, sad over the fact, by saying that the horses would use the oasis they have found to survive and procreate, eventually becoming the mustangs. When, after returning, Dark learns that the dragons have returned the horses, he realises that the dragons have spied on them. Tyson, meanwhile, is more sad with the fact that there would be no mustangs.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Dark interrogates Toddler while speaking in a gentle, playful manner, like with actual toddler. Even when he threatens to shoot him in the mouth. Though, it's hard to feel sorry for Toddler in that scene.
• Spotting the Thread: Dark realises that Toddler spied on him when he notices a wet shoe trace near his room (Dark was shoeless at the moment), and remembers that the beer mag where he put a dragon whelp used to point its handle in a different direction than now (he leaved it with a handle towards the window, now it points towards a wall), meaning that someone had touched it and did a poor job at covering their traces... and since Toddler had no guests in two days...
• Start of Darkness: Dark reveals to Katrin the event which made him who he is. He was a normal colonist once (then called Stan Fred), until their small colony was destroyed, and he was made a scapegoat for ten thousand deaths, and was sentenced to death, without anyone even listening to him. He wanted to live, so they only got two more corpses. Then they started hunting for him like an animal, while Dark disguised himself until he was able to fix a mining equipment and cause a landslide, ruining all equipment and gear of his enemies, then make an avalanche and trap them in the mountains. Then, he started hunting them, killing them one by one from the shadows over the course of three days; once the panic grew too strong, they started killing each other without any help from Dark, out of sheer paranoia, to Dark's amusement.
• Take a Third Option:
  • Dark can't steal a computer for Conan due to protective systems installed, nor he can left Conan without one, because otherwise he would run into Catch-22 Dilemma (to make his own computer, he needs a cyborg, and to reprogram a cyborg, he needs a computer). The solution? Get rid of the current mayor and install Bugor as a new one, so they would have legitimate access to the government computers and can experiment until they find a way to disable the self-destruct mechanism.
  • Dark can't keep Maggie around because she's a dangerous witness without any loyalty to them. He can't kill her either, as it would ruin his standings with Katrin. He can't even send her away, since she already knows too much. Then, after learning her history, he tries to ask Platan and Dorian to take her off-planet, which would be beneficial for both of them (Dark would get rid of the witness, Maggie would get her long-deserved freedom), but they refuses, as it's against regulations, installed by humans, not the dragons.
• Tap on the Head: Dark comments on Toddler having unusually thick skull to survive being hit with a stone and even remain capable of thinking straight once he awakes.
• Time Skip: The main story takes place within roughly one and half year. The epilogue takes place at least two decades later.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: According to Katrin, Simone was the only girl on the Zone who was able to enjoy her life — and "emit" that happiness around her. Then she'd met Dark, who mercilessly strangled her with a piano string, almost beheading her.
• To the Pain: When interrogating Chinese's assassin, Dark doesn't cause him any physical harm; he just scares him with subtle promises of doing it, and letting his imagination do the rest. Firstly, assassin gets stripped naked and tied to the table, being able to see a brazier. Says aloud that everyone who just ate must leave, or they're gonna vomit when they see the guts. Loudly touches the torture tools, puts some on brazier. Then tells the prisoner his old name (with predictable reaction), and vaguely threatens to do something horrific to him unless he confesses right now. Then he injects him with some syringe, which Tyson describes as some virus, using the medical terms prisoner can't understand, but which sounds scary, and tells that he would die unless injected with vaccine very soon; extra safety measures, like only taking syringe in gloves, and then disposing of syringe, box and gloves by throwing them into brazier (causing incredibly nauseous smoke) only adds the scare factor.
• Villainous Breakdown: When Dark learns that Lobastik is a girl, he snaps into tears, believing that this is the end of his hopes to escape the Zone, as he just can't transfer his mind into a girl. He quickly recovers from it, however, and instead suggests to transfer Katrin's mind.
• Villains Act, Heroes React: Dark (a Villain Protagonist) works to progress with his schemes, while Platan and Dorian (duo of Hero Antagonists) are trying to catch up with his plans and counter them, slowly, but surely learning more about Dark's true secrets. By the end, right after Chinese's last attempt to get rid of Dark, they succeeds; shortly before this, they also stopped his plan to escape via Null-T.
• Villainous Rescue: In the start of novel, Dark arrives just in time to save the nearly-dead dragon baby from the vultures.
• Villain with Good Publicity:
  • Dark puts much efforts into building an image of a hero, liberator of the Zone. While he does achieve many actual improvements for the locals, their well-being never was his intention: his true goal is to escape the Zone, alone.
  • Tonara immediately trusts Dark, believing him to be very wise (true) and moral (not true) person. Dorian tries to break that dangerous illusion by telling her about all the deaths caused by Dark during the last year (Toddler, the old mayor, Chinese's people), and, when it fails, shows his niece the photo of Simone, and tells how Dark has slept with her, and then strangled with a string, almost beheading her.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In the epilogue, when Dark tries to convince Lobastik that he doesn't worth rescuing and deserves rotting on the Zone, she gives him a story of what she went through, including doing some really despicable things, all so she can save and reunite her family — her true family. If he would reject her offer now, it means, he sees zero value in her efforts.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?:
  • Katrin was ten years-old when the Zone colony was just created, which was centuries ago. She says that she's very tired of of life, seeing that nothing ever changes, and neither do people; the pressure of the years she lived is unbearable, and she would likely just off herself if she would actually leave the Zone. She only found some new meaning in life when she met Lobastik.
  • After losing both Katrin (who got killed) and Lobastik (who got returned to her parents), Dark loses any interest to life, or leaving the Zone. When, years later, now-adult Lobastik finds him and offers him to leave the Zone in dragon body, just as he dreamed, Dark at first refuses, saying that immortality is "too long": by now, he grew to see it similarly to Katrin, and thinking that he already lived for too long. He changes his mind when he realises that Lobastik (and Katrin, who was resurrected in a dragon body) needs him.
• Wild Card: Invoked by Dark as attempt to screw the dragons; they have dossiers on every person on the Zone, which they use to predict their behaviour through specially-made "programs", so Dark deliberately acts as chaotic as possible, making the program useless. The plan only works for some time, before Platan realises that this is a facade, and starts analysing what person like Dark may want to hide by acting like this.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Dark spent a year trying to escape the Zone, only to utterly fail. When he accepts defeat and goes into self-imposed exile, he does gain a chance to escape the Zone in a dragon body, and not alone, but with his family. Ironically, when offered, he refuses at first, now believing that he deserves staying on the Zone, as well as growing being scared of immortality.
• Wretched Hive: Played With. The Zone is entirely inhabited by the convicts who did something to deserve life-time sentence without parole, but the sole local settlement, the Town, still tries to maintain some order and law, and people living here indeed wants to just live in peace (when offered a chance to build a better tomorrow right here, on the Zone, they gladly jump at the call and start working on the improving ecology), so people like Dark or Chinese stands out even amongst them.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In the epilogue, when now-adult Lobastik visits Dark years later, Dark tries to convince her that he's not someone worth looking after, as he was only interested in the dragon body for escaping. Lobastik points out that it doesn't matter what he planned at the time, only what he actually did — and Dark did raise her as his daughter.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Original plan involved escaping the Zone in a dragon body. Since Dark has only one dragon, everyone else is supposed to die once the plan gets finished. He quickly realises that it's harder than it sounds: Katrin would go hostile when he tries to hurt Lobastik, hurting Katrin would alienate Maggie, and hurting Maggie would make Conan, his sole programmer, unreliable. He quickly realises that he may as well waste everyone, and stay with nobody to do the job.

The Shards of Eden

Go, Catch Your Star

Caravan of the Dead

Adam and Eve 2

Duty for the Species

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Introduced in To Become a Dragon

Dark

Infamous killer who ended up on the Zone for his crimes, but intends to become a first one to escape it — no matter the cost. Even if it means to become a dragon himself.

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• Anti-Hero:
  • Starts To Become a Dragon as outright Villain Protagonist, interested only in his own survival and escape from the well-deserved punishment, but turns into Nominal Hero, who actually changes lives of the people around him for the best in process of fulfilling his plan, even if he never intended to, and achieves what was deemed to be impossible — unifying humans and dragons to work together to finish terraforming the Zone. By the end of the novel, after not only failing to escape the Zone, but also losing the people he grew to view as his family, he finally accepts his fate and goes into peaceful self-imposed exile.
  • By the start of The Shards of Eden, he became the Unscrupulous Hero, willing to use any means necessary to protect his family and people he grew attached to, but no longer being so casual about ending someone's life as he used to be, growing tired of needless blood-spilling. This "doing good by ugly means" approach would persist in his subsequent appearances.
• Anti-Villain: Before and during his imprisonment of the Zone, Dark was willing to do horrible things to achieve his goals, having nearly non-existent moral standards, but, while pursuing his goals, he actually changes the lives of the people around him for the better. Also, most of his crimes were committed against people who either had it coming, or did something to cause their (perfectly avoidable) deaths by trying (and failing) to exploit him (such as Toddler or Simone).
• Character Catchphrase: Whenever someone says that his plan is risky, Dark points out that "they can't send you further than the Zone", meaning that they have nothing left to loose — they already have lost everything.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He used to be a perfectly normal colonist, until one day a catastrophe has happened, killing ten thousand people — and he was made into a scapegoat, without any chance to explain himself, and sentenced to death. In self-defence, he killed two more, but that only made his enemies angrier, as they sent a hunting team after him. Dark went into hiding, then used mining equipment to leave his pursuers without their equipment and trap them, and started killing them one by one over the course of three days. He became only worse starting from there, and only started regaining his humanity once he was sentenced to spend the rest of his days on the Zone.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": According to him, he gave up on the name "Stan Fred" because "it was not made by him", replacing it with his own name of choice, "Dark". It certainly helps that the old name is so infamous by now, it would be impossible to survive if he keeps using it.
• The Dreaded: He was so infamous as Stan Fred, that simply mentioning that name can either scare people shitless — or make them go for his throat.
• Genius Bruiser: Downplayed. People always think that Stan Fred is some brute with too much brawn and too few brains; Dark always surprises them with that he's not only much smarter than they think (and not only when it comes to tactics), but also has some Hidden Depths, like random philosophising outbursts.
• Hidden Depths:
  • He's prone to occasional philosophising; Bugor at one point comments on it.
  • Dark turns out to be surprisingly good with making wooden figures (albeit it took him some time to develop this skill, with early results being bad), both humans and dragons. When Katrin was (temporarily) killed, he made countless figures depicting her to cope with his grief.
  • After becoming a dragon, Dark eventually develops interest to science, particularly sociology.
• Irony: Dark spent so much time trying to run away from the Zone. Ultimately, he returns there willingly, realising that it's the closest he has to a home and the only place where he can be truly happy.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: For all his ruthlessness, Dark is still better than majority of his victims (at least on the Zone), as he mainly targets organised crime, with specific intention to physically wipe it out. In the story, nearly all of his victims are related to Chinese (a gangster and corrupt bank owner), and of those who aren't, only the mayor Gustav is maybe "innocent" (by the local standards), with the other two being the Toddler (an innkeeper killed after attempt to poison Dark, his guest) and Johnny the Barnacle (one of Bugor's henchmen, killed during attempt to spy on Dark).
• Love Redeems: It's his love for Lobastik (his adoptive daughter) which causes him to awake the last traces of good left inside him.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Few people ever learned that "Dark" is the same person as the infamous Stan Fred. Even fewer survived that revelation.
• Really 700 Years Old: His exact age is unknown, but he spent more than sixty years on the Zone (undergoing rejuvenation twice), making him around ninety years old by the time when he managed to escape it. If counting the years he spent in the dragon body, he's more than a hundred years old.
• Retired Monster: He was the infamous killer/terrorist known as Stan Fred (or "Cool Fred") in his past life, with number of victims being measured by three-digits number. However, at one point he grew tired of such a life, and chose to lay low, changing his hame to "Dark" and going far away from the civilisation. He temporarily "un-retires" in To Become a Dragon, going back to his ruthless old self willing to go any mile to achieve his goal (to escape the Zone), but snaps out of it when his plan fails. By the time of The Shards of Eden, he's in process of recovering, albeit he never becomes the truly nice guy either.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: The state of endless war against the whole humanity took a heavy toll on him, making him unable to coexist with "normal" people. By the time of The Shards of Eden, he shows the signs of being fed up with such life, wanting to finally live at peace with people he cares about, being tired of killing, but not knowing the other ways to deal with problems, and wanting to finally trust someone, rather than seeing enemies everywhere.
• The Stateless: Dark was born in space, on a ship which is long since was decommissioned and destroyed. Dark was always a nomad, with no place he can call home. Ultimately, he gained a home of choice — the Zone, to where he returned as a free man (or, rather, a dragon).
• Stopped Caring: In backstory, he spent the first forty years on the Zone cleaning up the organised crime, wiping out the gang after gang for the reasons known only to himself, which, while ruthless, still made the life there a bit safer. At some point he realised that such culling is an endless war, and lost interest. This is when Stan Fred has "died", and the Dark was born. It took him two decades more to find another goal in life when he met Lobastik.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Dark wasn't guilty of the colony's destruction, he was just scapegoated for it, and even the first two deaths he caused were in self-defence. However, he thoroughly prepared to kill the rest of the people sent after him, trapping them and hunting down like the animals, while taking the pleasure at their fear once they recognised how screwed they are. After this, he stopped caring about the lives of the others at all, which became even worse once he was captured and sentenced to the Zone, as now he operates on the principle "there're no innocents on the Zone", and kills not only his enemies, but also any witnesses. Or potential witnesses.
• Token Evil Teammate: Pretty much everyone else in the team Dark creates to escape the Zone (even Bugor) have higher moral standards than Dark himself, and certainly have shorter list of victims. He remains unscrupulous even when he becomes a dragon and switches his attention to science.
• Two First Names: In his pre-Zone life, he was known as Stan Fred; his surname can be used as a first name as well.
• The Unfettered: He's very ruthless and goal-oriented, other people and their feelings be damned; he wants to escape the Zone, and he would do anything to achieve that goal, go any mile and do any crime. He would tone it down after becoming a dragon, but only to a degree.
• Villain Protagonist: In To Become a Dragon, he starts with few positive qualities, and even his goal involves just running away from the Zone rather than help people on it (with whatever allies he makes being only temporarily and disposable). He becomes (slightly) more heroic as the story goes, and develops into Anti-Hero by the end of it.

Lobasty

Grievously injured dragon whom Dark has found in the desert and raised — firstly as merely a part of his plan, but later as his adoptive daughter.

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• Combat Pragmatist: She never trained to fight for sport — she trained to fight to kill, to win at all cost, when no tactic is "too dirty". For that reason, she was not allowed to participate in any tournaments (not that she cared).
• Determinator: Just like Dark himself, when she sees the goal, she doesn't give up until she succeeds at it, or dies trying. Dark notices this trait at the very firsts days, when she survives her horrific injuries that would've killed anyone else, and doesn't let them break her, and it later becomes innate part of her character, especially when she has to save her family.
• Her Name Really Is "Barkeep": Her (biological) parents let her keep the name "Lobastik" (silly name Dark came up with due to her disproportionally large forehead which she developed while recovering from injuries), finding the closest-sounding analogue, "Lobasty" in some of the languages.
• Jack of All Trades: Dark raised her by providing her with all knowledge and training he was able. Commodore later acknowledges that, had they not taken her away, she would have grew as an omnidisciplinary genius, and laments the missed opportunity.
• Like Parent, Like Child: She inherited the best qualities of her adoptive father Dark — the key of them his unbreakable willpower and willingness to fight till the end.
• Named After the Injury: Dark called her "Lobastik" ("lob" means "forehead" in Russian) because, while recovering from her injuries, she grew disproportionally huge head on otherwise-small body; Dark jokingly compared it to T-Rex. Her head became mostly normal in time (albeit with still slightly bigger forehead than normal), but the name sticks, to the point that even her biological parents agreed to let her keep it with minimal modifications.
• Photographic Memory: It's somehow related to amount of regeneration required to cure her trauma at the very young age, but Lobasty has absolute memory, and can remember everything from very early age. The sole thing she doesn't remember is the moment when Dark just found her in the desert, as she was unconscious until they reached the bunker.
• The Unfettered: Similarly to her adoptive father Dark, she would do anything and go any mile to protect her family, no matter how much it would cost her and what damage it would make to her reputation and connections.
• Universal Driver's License: She's trained to use any and all transport, just in case it would ever be needed.

Toddler

An innkeeper at the outskirts of inhabited land of the Zone.

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• Asshole Victim: The sole reason why he dies is because he tries to backstab Dark and poison him so he may steal the dragoncub, but fails. Before that, he acts rudely, and later we learn that he's former gangster.
• Ironic Nickname: Two meters-tall guy has a nickname "Toddler".
• Only Known by Their Nickname: He's known only as "Toddler", his real name never gets revealed.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He dies shortly after his introduction without receiving any meaningful development. The only extra bit we learn is that he used to be a gangster, Bugor's former business partner.

Bugor

The local mafia boss and, later, a mayor of the Town.

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• Bait-and-Switch Tyrant: It's hard to expect something good from a gangster, especially since Dark only intended to use Bugor's mayorship as a tool to exploit, but Bugor indeed ends up being a good mayor, installing new, fair and democratic rules, and changing the life of citizens of the Town for the better, something that even the dragons acknowledge. He's also the one who later calls Dark out on not living up to his promises.
• Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters: Despite being the criminal boss, he's friendly to Dark and his crew, opposes some of Dark's darker schemes and actions, and stays a valuable ally throughout the entire story. He remains a friend with Dark even when he returns to the Zone as a dragon.
• Honorary Uncle: Judging from his interactions with Dark's daughter Shallah, they have uncle-niece kind of relationship.
• Meaningful Name: "Bugor" is a slang term for high-ranking The Mafiya members. He's indeed the boss of one of the two strongest local gangs, and later, with Dark's help, becomes a mayor.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: He only gets called by his real name — Yegor Dubov — twice, once by Dorian and once by Tonara; the others know him as Bugor.

Katrin

Bugor's woman, whom he allowed to visit Dark whenever she's not tasked with something, as they clearly like each other.

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• Accidental Murder: She only intended to poison her husband (an old jealous jerk); unfortunately, he invited his friends, who became the unwanted collateral damage. Katrin actually tried to poison herself after seeing the consequence, but was rescued — and sentenced to the Zone. Almost everyone believes that she long since redeemed herself, but alas — who goes to the Zone, stays on the Zone.
• The Lancer: As the second person sharing the secret of Lobastik's existence, she's allowed to be much closer to Dark than anyone else (who only knows what they are allowed to know). She not only supports Dark in raising the little dragon, but also balances his more pragmatic and serious treatment of her with gentler, warmer approach, essentially becoming the mother figure for Lobastik.
• Living Lie Detector: She can sense when someone lies when she holds their hand, be it human or dragon. She developed that skill over years; according to her, it works by analysing how muscles move when the people talk. It seems to only get better after her becoming a dragon.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Her unique ability to see the person's inner world often gets called "supernatural", some even speculate that she can see the future, and call her "a witch" (in excited tone). It's not entirely clear whether it's just her having great knowledge of psychology and having decades, if not centuries of experience (like her lie-detecting skill she developed by observing people), or there's indeed something strange with it; not even the dragons are sure.
• Really 700 Years Old: Women undergo free rejuvenation on a regular basis (once per 10-12 years), so it's impossible to say how old she is (given that women generally quickly quit bothering to count years, considering it attracting bad luck), but Bugor at one point says that she's "older than his great-grandfather". It turns out to be not an exaggeration, because she reveals to Dark that she was ten-years old when the Zone was made into a Penal Colony. Exact time when it happened is unknown, but the dragons started working on terraforming more than three hundred years before the events of the story. In Caravan of the Dead, she confirms to be almost three hundred years old.
• Token Good Teammate: She's the only unambiguously good person in the Dark's crew, to the point that her morale standards started interfering with his schemes, forcing him to kick her out (it didn't last).
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Katrin, once she learns about Lobastik, gets vehemently against the plan to transfer her mind into her body, comparing it to killing a baby.

Conan

The computer specialist of the Dark's crew.

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• Butt-Monkey: He constantly suffers from the jokes at his expense. Mainly from Tyson, who calls him "Conan the Barbarian".
• First-Name Basis: Unlike most locals, he uses his actual first name. His last name never gets revealed.
• Gadgeteer Genius: He's great with tech. Any tech, be it human or dragon.
• Ironic Name: Despite so much emphasis being put on "Conan the Barbarian" jokes, he's remarkably weak and nerdy.
• Non-Action Guy: Unlike Tyson, he lacks any physical training, and is very weak and frail. Eventually, Dark grows tired of this, and forces him to exercise, so he wouldn't be a deadweight when outside of his basement.
• Third-Person Person: Conan has a habit of addressing himself in a third-person when he talks about his accomplishments.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: He exploited his position to make a breach in security for personal profit. When police arrived to arrest him, he panicked and started blindly shooting with his laser. He killed three and injured two cops; that was enough to earn him life-time sentence on the Zone. Judging from Dark's reaction, if not for that wild shooting, he would've likely avoided the Zone.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Conan was born on a planet... Cimmeria. His parents were either oblivious to the implications, or, worse, made it in purpose. Tyson started mockingly calling him "Conan the Barbarian" from just the name alone, and then Dark tells him that he's actually from Cimmeria...

Tyson

The biology specialist of the Dark's crew.

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• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: For all his immatureness, he's still decent specialist, and can be professional when needed.
• The Gadfly: Always cheerful and prone to random jokes, often at others' expense. He takes particular pleasure from teasing Conan about his name.
• Honorary Uncle: He remained the close friend to Dark's family long after the events of To Become a Dragon; Shallah and Artyom even calls him their "uncle".
• The Only Believer: He quickly starts believing that they're indeed working to make the Zone a better place, forgetting that Dark simply wants to escape. Dark rudely reminds him.
• The Pollyanna: Taison is always cheerful and optimistic. He's one of the first person to actually believe in their cause rather than seeing it as facade; Dark crushes that optimism when he thinks that it may interfere with their goal.
• Riddle for the Ages: What he did to warrant life-time sentence? We would never know. When asked, he replies with a silly joke.

Platan and Dorian

A duo of the black and green dragons, respectively, working on the Zone, particularly, on Dark's case. Later joined the Squad.

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• Foil: Not only they are differently-coloured, they have different personalities as well. Dorian is friendlier and more cheerful and optimistic, while Platan is cold and logical. Also, while Dorian comes along with Dark, Platan openly hates him for most of the story (and vice versa).
• Hero Antagonist: If Dark is Villain Protagonist, trying to escape the Zone from his well-deserved punishment, no matter the cost, they are the ones who're trying to ensure that his plan would fail, without breaking any of their regulations.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Platan is cold, logical and always professional (unless provoked). Dorian is more cheerful, friendly and prone to make a joke or two.
• Those Two Guys: They nearly always stick together, appearing in some plot-crucial moments, and commenting on the current situation, each according to his personality.

Simone

A prostitute on the Zone whom Dark allegedly raped and killed.

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• The Dog Was the Mastermind: Simone was believed to be a prostitute. In truth, she was the leader of a strong gang, having at least fifty guns under her control, the brothel was her own, and her being a prostitute was merely a facade to hide her being in power (only four people were aware, and Dark was supposed to become the fifth one, had he didn't kill her).
• Gone Horribly Right: Her plan involved convincing Dark that he's indebted to her, to make him panic, and be willing to do anything to get out of the problem. That's exactly what happened, except Dark's solution to the problem was to kill her and wipe out the gang.
• Noble Demon: She may be a gang leader, but she did treat the women underneath her fairly, providing them with safe haven in the cruel world of the Zone.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Subverted. Most people knew her as nice, friendly and cheerful girl, the only one on the Zone capable of remaining happy despite everything, and projecting that happiness to the people around her... until she run into Dark, who gruesomely killed her. The truth is more complex than that: she was a gang boss, and her death was direct result of a failed attempt to recruit Dark.
• Villain with Good Publicity: People often see her as a victim of Dark's cruelty. In fact, her death was caused by her own schemes backfiring on her: she wanted to manipulate Dark into being indebted to her, so she would have a strings to control him. Instead, Dark panicked and killed her with the first weapon he had available — a piano string.

Maggie

Late mayor's girlfriend, whom Dark was forced to include into a team to prevent leaking any secrets.

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• The Medic: She was a surgeon in pre-Zone life, so once she was accepted in a team, she became their dedicated medic.
• Older Than She Looks: Similarly to Katrin, she can't remember how old she is, only that she did undergo six rejuvenation sessions, which means she's older than seventy. According to her, women on the Zone never keep track on their age, because not knowing it makes it easier to keep hope that the life would change one day.
• Retired Monster: She was a horrible person in her pre-Zone life, but left it all behind and no longer wishes any harm to anyone.
• Would Hurt a Child: Downplayed. In her pre-Zone life, she used to make money by abducting children and, after sedating them, sending their parents their body parts until they give her money. She put much efforts into not doing any fatal damage or causing them any pain, and anything less can be undone by using biotubes. Despite never killing anyone in her life, she was sentenced to the Zone, and now, in retrospect, she thinks that she deserved it and belongs here; almost everyone else disagrees.

The Chinese

One of the two co-owners of the local bank (with his first partner being Tungus, and later him being forced to share it with Bugor), antagonistic towards Bugor and Dark.

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• Arc Villain: Subverted. At first, it looks like he's just a temporal problem, and relatively easily gets scared into compliance, after which everyone swiftly forgets about him. Except, Chinese never forgets about them. Eventually, his scheming against Bugor results in him learning about Dark's bunker by spying on Maggie, and sending his men to kill Dark and abduct Lobastik, initiating the final conflict.
• Ironic Nickname: "The Chinese" is anyone but. Bugor lampshades it.
• Karmic Death: His reckless attack on Dark's bunker results in his undoing, as, the moment citizens of the Town learned about him trying to kill their hero, they marched to his house and lynched him.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: He's only known as "The Chinaman". His real name is unknown.
• Unseen No More: He briefly appears in person right before the climax.

Tonara

Platan's niece, and Lobastik's biological mother, who had lost her in the wilderness in the beginning of the story (the dragons gets born very small, and Lobastik was born literally on the fly, so she just fell down), and at first opportunity joined the ecologists team in hope to find her.

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• Missing Child: Entire reason why she volunteers to work with Dark is because she hopes to find her child, who was lost after she accidentally gave birth on the fly. It's also why she volunteers to join the Squad in Go, Catch Your Star, as one of the dragons missing is Lobasty, aforementioned child (even if now grown up).
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: She's very young (she's fourteen years old by her introduction; dragons reach adulthood in ten years) and inexperienced. That makes her all the easier to manipulate, which Dark readily exploits. Bugor, at least, straight-up suggests her to leave, as she's too innocent to work with the locals.

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