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"Idiot!" Carmilla Carmine barked at Vox as he clambered atop the glowing, pulsing power chamber of the Might of Lilith. She had never had a good poker face when it came to her mood – Alastor had always been able to tell when she was irked or bothered in Overlord meetings, and oh, when it came to that dead exorcist's head, she was so transparent in her insecurity. And her anger now was audibly laced with fear. "If it overloads, it will blow, taking you, us, and half of the Pentagram with it!"
Double-dying was ideally not on Alastor's agenda right now. The wounds Vox's mechanical pet shark had given him pained him plenty enough, as did the remains of Rosie's hold over had so much to do.
Vox, the petulant child that he was, just laughed. Hysterically. Madly.
"You know what?"he cackled, voice echoing, doubled in octaves."FUCK HELL, FUCK HEAVEN, and FUCK ALL OF YOU!"He was picking up cables, power conduits and hydraulics and computerised connections; Lucifer's drained angelic energy arcing from exposed wires. He wrapped them around his wrists, and he plugged them into the cannon, tying himself to Carmilla's finest creation.
It took a moment for Alastor to put two and two together – this was a suicide. Vox was committing himself to the bit and drag everybody else down with him. All because he didn't get his own way. What a pathetic temper tantrum this was.
But what if it wasn't?
Chest heaving, the television overlord stared him right in the eye, chest heaving, screen glitching. "As long as I wipe that smile off of Alastor's FUCKING FACE…" A static-filled tear rolled down across his screen from his right eye. "…I don't care what happens."
Alastor narrowed his eyes. A tear. Really? His mockery had made Vox cry decades ago, had it done so again?
No, this felt… deeper. This felt serious. Vox had been (or so he thought) on the cusp of godhood, and he had bounced back annoyingly from the setbacks of their duelling broadcasts, the feeble attempt at spying via that pitiful snake, every ego-bruising remark that Alastor had calculatedly made over the past few days to nudge him into putting his hands on Charlie Morningstar's shoulders.
Vox bounced back. Not in the same way Charlie did, not in an admirable way, but it at least offset some of his patheticness. What had changed?
Curiosity got the better of Alastor.
"WAIT!" he called out.
Everyone stopped and stared at him. Valentino and Velvette, creeping up behind Vox, stopped in their tracks.
Vox growled. Alastor could swear there was static foam at the corner of his mouth. like a rabid animal. "Of course you have to ruin MY moment again,"he ranted."You've always got SOMETHING to say, SOMETHING to mess up! Well what is it, Radio Demon?"
"You really intend to destroy the realm you desired so much to rule, and destroy yourself so you can never rule anything…overme?"
"Alastor? Now's not the time for this!" Charlie warned, sounding scared, from somewhere behind him, and oh wasn't this an irony. Now she cared. Now she didn't want him to explore his sense of humanity and take inspiration from her many moral lessons.
"Oh, don't fucking flatter yourself," Vox tried to sneer, but his screen glitching and the tears in his eyes made it ineffective, at least to Alastor. "You're so egotistical!"
"Ah, but it must be, musn't it?" Alastor dragged himself to his feet and took a step towards the TV overlord. "Did I really mean that much to you, that you could set aside your own ego just for a moment? After all, Vincent, you did crave my company, my friendship."
A look of shock and betrayal came upon Valentino's face. He mustn't have known what Vox's name was in life. Vox musn't have told him. Funny. Hiding things from those who were supposed to be his partners, who he depended on to help him fight his fights. That supported the burgeoning theory in his head that Vox's obsession with him ran deeper.
But sayingVox's real name enraged him more.
"Friendship?! FRIENDSHIP?!" he roared. "You think that was all it was?! I opened up to you because –because I WANTED YOU! I wanted you for SO LONG, and it turned out ALL you cared about was hurting people. I should've known. I should've FUCKING known that was all it was, your fake laughter, yourvanity, your buttering me up just to LET ME DOWN!"
The penny dropped. "You were… infatuated with me?" Oh this made sense. The obsession. The touching. The making him watch as he and Valentino fornicated. Making him endure the sight of his member. Vox had been like a deer in rut, or a preening bird. He'd brushed it off as regular old horny, because neareveryonein hell was like that, annoyingly. And Vox had seemed plenty happy bedding the pimp.
It made him feel… brushed off.
Vox's mouth fell open, then disappeared entirely as his entire screen glitched out. "HOW THE FUCK DID IT TAKE YOU THIS LONG TO FUCKING FIGURE IT OUT?!"
"I'm…" he searched for the phrase Rosie had used to describe him when he brought Charlie to her. Contextually, she'd said it after she joked about their age difference as if he was courting her. It must have something to do with sex, desire, or a lack thereof. "…an ace in the hole?"
"Oh, I can't believe it! Newsflash, you hack, that asexual thing's not real! It's just an excuse incels use! You're just a fucking virgin, aren't you, huh? Everyone else too good for you? Or—or—or you have the hots for Miss Sunshine-and-rainbows Morningstar, or that good-for-nothing spider whore! Why else would you be staying with them at that hotel instead of with ME?!"
"W-What?" Charlie whispered shakily behind him.
Alastor blinked. He'd never considered bedding Charlie and he'd actively turned down Angel's advances.
"Admit it, you never liked me!" Vox continued to tantrum. "You never wanted me! It was all a fucking joke to you, wasn't it?" He pressed a hand into his temple. "Why did I ever want you?"
"I enjoyed your company before you said that foolish…"No, he shouldn't say that, that wouldn't do. Insulting Alastor would be counterproductive.
He almost laughed at the irony of what he was about to do. But he wanted to live out his afterlife. He enjoyed the rush of existing, and doing something with that existance. Compliments would surely get him into Charlie's good book, and compliments had worked on Vox before. "You were a good little admirer. You had tenancy. And your impressions were impeccable. You have a keen sense of theatrics, and I can always admire ambition—"
"But you didn't want want me!"
"Is simple companionship not enough to you? Do you have to put a name on it? Do you have to make yourself weak and pathetic?"
"You don't see me as an equal. You never did. I WANTED you to see me like I saw you! "
"Well, if sex all you wanted from me…" Alastor asked, because it was so obvious, "why ever did you not think of making a deal?"
"A deal?! You think I would be dumb enough to make a deal with you now, you backstabbing motherfucker? After what you've done?!"
He cast his mind back to a few days ago, when Vox was stammering and giggling incomprehensably, thinking he'd finally gotten what he wanted."Well, yes."
Vox stammered again, angrily this time. "Well—well—you would've said no!"
What a spoilt brat. Somehow, it made him think of Angel Dust, and that made him think of what Angel Dust might say at a time and in a situation such as this. He quirked a comedic sneer. Now seemed like a good time for gallows humour, more than ever. "Well, if you'd let me top I might have considered it it a moment longer."
Vox's laughter was shrieking, grating, like unwanted microphone feedback. He wasn't amused, he was insane. He laughed so hard he had to sit down. His coat began to smoke and burn away, the heat from the building holy light.
"You're not gonna get a chance to if you keep stalling like dis!" the real Angel Dust hollered.
Alastor glanced for a second at Charlie, meeting her eyes. They were insistent, desperate, pleading. She knew there was no time to make a deal but she wanted him to do something so badly. She inclined her head towards Vox.
Fortunately for her, their interests were mutually aligned. Alastor sighed. This was going to be humiliating, but if he could survive Vox's imprisonment, being put in what he'd called 'the cuck chair', and full frontal nudity, then he could tolerate this for the sake of survival. "If it's what you want to hear? Then yes, Vox, darling, I did hurt you, and now I am sorry—"
"Me estás jodiendo…" Vaggi groaned.
"Darling?! DARLING?!" Vox snarled with the voice of the legion. "You think you can just APOLOGISE for what you've did to me? Laugh in my face, when I offered to be partners? Trick me into freeing you? Take away MY moment with your save the day bullshit? And you expect me to forgive you?! To believe you're genuine when all you want is to save your furry deer hide? No, no. I'm done. I'm fucking done with you, Alastor! I want you DEAD! Now I'M the one who gets to say no!"
By now the cannon's metal surface had heated up so much it was glowing. Vox's feet must be burning, but he showed no sign of pain.
"Val, for fuck's sake, get up there and rip his dumb head off so we can get out of here!" Velvette hissed.
Valentino struggled to climb up to Vox's perch, swearing every step of the way as his hands and feet contacted the burning hot barrel. "Vox,amorcito, listen to reason—!" He stroked Vox's shoulders,
Vox hit him backhanded, not even sparing the moth a glance.
Val landed back on the ground with a squeak and a swear. "Motherfuck—! Las cosas que ago para este pinche pendejo. Ya no más."
"Come now Vox," Alastor placated, starting to feel harried and frantic underneath the mask of a smile he wore. "you can't really want to end your existance like this? I can offer you a deal that will benefit you, I promise…"
But Vox just about screamed. "I'M A FUCKING GOD, AND I SAY UNTO THEE: NO! NO MORE! You should have fucking stayed gone Alastor — BUT AT LEAST THIS WILL MAKE SURE OF IT!"
He kicked the cannon around, aiming it directly at Alastor. The metal plating bulged and creaked as it valiently, yet futilely fought to contain the power within. Rivets and bolts started to pop out and fly across the plaza in front of Vee Tower.
"Not smiling now, are you?"
"Vaggie! I think we need to go!" Charlie cried out, "Where's my dad? WHERE'S MY DAD?"
"Charlie, there's no time,"Vaggi's voice was mournful. "I'm so sorry…"
"We have to… try and stop it…" the seraphim girl said weakly, but there was no hope now.
Valentino tried to take off, but his wings were torn and tattered. came zooming through the sky, smashing in the sides of skyscrapers with his tail, but he wouldn't reach his creator in time, and Alastor doubted those big teeth could do a delicate job like untie a plugged-in maniac from a smoking, shuddering weapon of mass destruction.
The remaining assembled Overlords and the crowd of gathered sinners scattered. Alastor didn't.
Rosie emerged from the shadows, golden power glowing at her fingertips. Was she ready and willing to try and futilely hold back what was coming herself, or was she here to punish him. From the fury in her face, he guessed the latter. "This isn't how it was supposed to go, Alastor you imbecile, what did you do?!"
He'd fallen for a weakness that he shouldn't have. He'd entertained the idea that maybe Charlie was right, and well, clearly it wasn' was a fool.
Was it worth trying to salvage the situation? Not at all. The hotel was a lost cause. Rosie's orders were a lost cause. And –yes, even she was giving up on the idea of punishing him, and turning her attention to their impending doom.
But he couldn't die. Not here. Not here.
He still had the ability to teleport into the shadows, with or without his staff. He could escape, like he always had – not the coward's way out, but the survivor's way out.
With Lucifer and the old Overlord guard all about to die, it would be a fresh start for Hell. A changed landscape, ripe for entertainment and ripe for the pickings. Less competition. More to prove. Maybe he could enact vengance on those angels himself, just to prove that Adam wounding him was a fluke.
But it wouldn't be fun alone.
He needed something familiar to tether him, to ground him.
Someone familiar.
He could pick Niffty, his closest companion. He could pick Husk. He could pick Charlie. He was probably endebted to pick Rosie. He was able to whisk whoever he picked away to a safe distance –he could carry at least one other demon with him as he demanifested into the shadows and remanifested somewhere else. It could probably be only one, given his still aching wounds, but he had had his powers restored.
Against his better judgement, he reached out to take Vox's hand. The man who could challenge him and flatter him in equal measure. Maybe his madness would be entertaining.
He still couldn't fathom wanting to die for petty revenge. "Vincent—"
Vox yanked his hand away and flipped him off, sneering triumphantly. "You don't get to call me that, Al."
"—Vox, please—"
More staticy tears. "You'll never speak again."
Alastor's eyes watered too. For the first time in a century, he wished he could frown.
The cannon belched out an almost–anticlimatic cough of angelic energy from its barrel…
…and then it exploded.
Blinding light. A deafening noise. Vox's silhouette vanished, consumed in an instant.
Burning. A millisecond of the most intense, all-encompassing pain.
That was the last thing Alastor knew.