Chapter Text
Alastor De La Rue, formally known as Warlock Dowling who should of had the name something – something Young, watched the interview between the Princess of Hell and the dreadful woman that called herself a newscaster.
Killjoy was a piece of work and she wasn't making it easy on the Princess and he had to hand it to the Princess – she was sticking to her guns. He could see where she was coming from with redeeming sinners. Kind of. If he tilted his head, squinted his left eye, and then looked through three layers of Swiss Cheese with over lapping holes.
It was a foolish dream, redeeming sinners, it was just the wishful thinking of an adult that clung to the dream of a little girl. A sweet girl with equally sweet dreams, but those dreams were just that. Dreams. Redeeming Sinners. Really? Hell was the end of the line. And then nothing, if some poor soul got caught by the Angels. But was it really poor? They were in Hell. Unfortunate, might be the better wording, oh, but what did Alastor know?
He was just the Radio Demon after all.
The Princess's pitch for her 'Happy Hotel' could have gone better. Katie Killjoy could learn to be a less of a killjoy and could gain some semblance of self-preservation; it was the Princess of Hell she was speaking too.
It was be around this time that Alastor should walk away from the show.
The Princess had exited the stage and was regrouping and getting ready for the next scene. Katie Killjoy was nothing of importance and will continue to be a worm and blight in the in the eyes of the Pride Ring; just like everyone else. The party was over, the curtains were closed, and the stage was being reset. There was no reason for Alastor to hang around, to watch the television longer then he needed to, but here he was.
The cameras hadn't been moved and the Princess's little flayer laid on the ground in full view. He should move on. Plan his return after a seven year forced vacation. He had deals to make and contracts to check up on. Places to be and things to do as they say.
And yet...
The flayer laid on the floor of the studio. There was no mind paid to it as Sinners and Hellborn alike stepped on it. 'Happy Hotel', Alastor tapped his finger against his cane as he put his weight onto it. His ring, the only one he wore, hit with a sharp ding with every tap.
The Princess was clearly sheltered, hidden away from Pride and maybe the rest of Hell. She was naive and didn't hold a presence that drew attention: that held attention. She was a princess with no oaths of loyalty, a princess that was publicly undermined by someone she took under her wing and presented as one of her own, she was a princess that had no respect with only the left over fear of her father guarding her. The longer he was out of the picture and put out of the mind of the Pride Ring and Hell as a whole; the less protection he can offer his daughter. Unless, the King enter the fray and personally handled a problem or two with violence – a show of power – the princess was vulnerable.
Someone was going to try their luck.
And the princess was going to welcome them in into her circle if they just ask to enter her hotel.
She painted a target onto her back.
Alastor should walk away. Every instinct that he cultivated in Hell was telling him to walk away, that the princess was a walking disaster waiting to happen – an assassin would be living the dream with her actions! No sweat off his back if he turned away now. Turned off the television or destroyed it – he like that second idea much better, he might actually do that anyway – but here he was.
He tilted his head to the side; his eyes still drawn to that flayer.
The Princess most likely didn't know how to the run the Hotel it's self. How to manage the staff, she would need to learn to crunch numbers, how to actually care for anyone that took her up on her offer of free housing and care. It could be a mess. It would be a mess. If she was going to try to turn Sinners into saints that can get through the Golden Gates, she would need someone to help with contracts and the messy wording that comes with them.
Alastor reached up to fix the non-existence crookedness of his bowtie. He pulled his coat straight and turned on his heel. He stopped, turned around, glared to the television, and then returned to walking when smoke and sparks flew from it.
Bodies of those who died from the extermination and the resulting territory fights were still in the streets.
And if nothing had changed in the last seven years, they would be there at least another three or four days. Really the only placed that cleaned up well and quickly after the Angels fled with more kills under their belts and before the Sinners came out to fight; was Cannibal Town. The town that was run by dear Rosie; of course! The other towns had messes that stayed in the streets for weeks on end. And the smell! Horrendous! Truly something he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy. Well. Could Vox smell? Being a picture box and all that.
Still, the thought counts on some level even if Vox couldn't appreciate it.
Alastor walked down the street with nary an issue.
All the sinners were focused the fighting for the left over scraps of the now permanently dead. None paid any mind the man walking passed with a radio cane in one had and humming a tune that has more at home in a dinner modeled after the nineteen-twenties.
If the Princess had one thing going for her and project was that the placement of it was a perfect defense. It stood alone, on a hill, with no other building in the surrounding area that matched its height or presence. There was something about the building with all its oddities – other then the people it houses – that had a draw.
In a way, it reminded him of 'Zira's Bookshop. Why? He couldn't say. There was just something about the building, that felt like home, and he wasn't even in it or even welcomed yet.
Time to fix that.
Alastor walked up to the door and knocked.
The door opened. "Hel-" The Princess's face peered up at him. The door shut. It opened again. "-Lo." And then shut again.
His smile became a little tight.
Rushed, raised voices, echoed through the shut door and the windows that weren't boarded up.
The door opened up and there stood the Princess. "May I speak now?" He asked.
"You may." She had her arms crossed and her back was straighter. Her chin was tilted up and she was trying hard to meet his eyes but hadn't made it just yet.
"The names Alastor! It's a pleasure to meet you, Sweetheart!" He skidded right around her and enter the hotel with out a by-your-leave. "I saw your fiasco on the Picture Show and well I hadn't had a laugh like that since the stock market crash of 1929!" Alastor moved around the Princess and got a good look around the room. Yes, it was just like what he thought it would: a true mess, a piece of work. But nothing that a little bit of elbow grease couldn't fix. "So many orphans..."
The Princess, though still standing by the door, had her eyes locked onto him. Wide and shocked, yes, but still on him. Which was good. He was the biggest threat to her hotel and to her – he looked at the woman who was wielding a spear and was pointing it at his throat – lady.
"Stop right there." The Princess's Lady lifted her spear a little higher and closer to his neck. "I know your game and I not going to let you hurt anyone here!" She was a tough little thing, looking him in the eye. Her grip and steadiness on her spear could be improved. It wavered and tilted and strayed too far from it's mark too often. "You pompous, cheesy, talk show, shit-lord!" Her speech could also use some work. There were different ways to insult someone; if Alastor was a different Overlord, say a certain Picture Box or someone who was up and coming into the playing ring of Overlords, her words would have provoked him. Which, depending on the out come, could have had the hotel massacred for the slight.
Alastor took the tip of spear – which gave a barely there sting – and pushed away from him. "Dear, if I wanted to hurt anyone here, I would have done so already." The static in his voice and the oddness of his eyes picked up and his magic flooded the area around him and the Princess's Lady.
The Princess was quick to appear behind her Lady and Alastor was quick to back off. "Now, I'm here because I want to help!"
The Princess spoke. "Say what now?"
Alastor tapped his cane. "Testing, testing, is there an echo?"
Alastor's cane's eye popped up and in the static filled copy of his voice. "I hear ya loud and clear, boss!" Oh, did Alastor love that little thing. The cane was to him the same way the Bentley was to Nanny. That was to say, that the thing had a mind of it's own, was loyal to a fault and had it's choice in music and does not like a change in the music.
The Princess's eyes were wide, as most people's were when dealing with him. "You want to help?" She exchanged a look with her Lady. "With?"
"This ridiculous thing you're trying to do!" He stepped into the shadows, it was more like a fall then anything - a misstep going down the stairs – and popped up right behind them. "This Hotel of course!" The Princess' Lady hadn't taken any step back but Alastor didn't like the fear he could feel coming off of her in waves. "I want to help you run it." Maybe he needed to tone it down a little? A bit of breathing room of the women?
"Uuuhhh," The Princess's eloquent response. Alastor would need to nip that a bud when he starts working with them. No Princess should be left speechless, faltering at unexpected moments, it was a sign of weakness – Hell eats those who are weak or seen as weak. "Why?" She settled on.
Alastor laughed. "Hahaha, why does anyone do anything? Sheer, absolute boredom! I've lacked inspiration for decades." Boredom was a sin, idle hands were sin, and many other things he was taught as a child and later drilled into his head as an adult; were sins. Even though he knows better now, and honestly? He always knew, but it was better to lie and smile and carry on with life, then to rock the boat at times. But it was no longer about keeping quiet and swallowing back a biting truth; being bored and sitting idle was not a good look on him.
"My work became mundane, lacking focus," He was a radio host. Doing the same kind of broadcast gets boring, hear the same pleading, and begging, and screams, just didn't carry the same joy as it used too. He pushed the Princess's Lady to the side. There, maybe she get her backbone back. "Aimless! I've come to crave a new form of entertainment!"
The Lady stepped back to the Princess with an narrowed eye and a glare. Good.
"Does getting into a fistfight with a reporter count as entertainment?" The Princess asked with confused and looking at him with weary eyes.
"It's the purest kind, my dear: Reality! True passion! After all, the world is a stage and the stage is a world of entertainment." Everything is a performance and it doesn't stop till the curtain has closed and an Angel's blade has come for you.
"Does that mean you believe in rehabilitation?" She was so hopeful. Eyes wide like a rabbit or an innocent faun. Smile shaky, but she was straightening up some. She awaited his answer like a forlorn wife of a sailor awaiting her husband's return. Despite knowing that he had gained another love while away, but still had a flicker of hope that he was still hers.
He would not lie. But...
"All Sinners in Hell have earned their spot in Hell. All Sinners have been corrupted by Hell just because they need to survive. Everyone in here is here for a reason." He stood in front of the Princess and her eyes were locked on his. Her smile fell but Alastor wasn't done yet. "Rehabilitation is a fanciful thing that will not go anywhere. Because the very being of Hell is hardwire and runs on the sins of everything, to live, one must sin. Redemption is a far as the night sky and there is not changing that. But –" He took a deep breath.
Murder was a one way ticket to hell. But was there were different degrees of murder, just like there were different grades of lies and lairs. Was the murderer of one man, who killed for the thrill, the same as a career soldier? Was someone killed to guard their home, the same as Alastor, someone who killed the worst of the worst who reveled in the screams of his victims, avenged their own victims, but was a killer nonetheless? Who enjoyed it. A woman who killed a man who followed her at night, who she saw as a threat, or killing a john that hurt her a little too much and took a little too much; the same as a man who killed someone in an accident?
A murder is a murder. A dying breath is a dying breath. The killer goes to to hell no matter the reason.
Someone who killed another for self-defense was in the same hell as Alastor who lived for the thrill of killing killers. He climbed to the top Hell's power structure and made himself a home in it all.
They were not equal.
Alastor being a killer is not the same as another being a killer.
The Princess's sailor's wife was watching and waiting and it wouldn't hurt to bring a ship to her would it? It wouldn't be the sailor and it wouldn't be his ship but it would be something. Another ship, another crew, and a new chance at something. A new hope.
"You can not help those who do not want the help. You can be there, you can be prepared for them to reach a hand out but you can not be the one to make the first move in this 'redemption' idea." Alastor leaned onto his cane. "That my dear, is where you went wrong. The system is failure point of any 'non-sinful life' and that's not going to change anytime soon."
The Princess's eyes had watered but they stayed steady and focused on him. "What's in it for you? Why tell me this?"
Alastor leaned away from her. What did he get from helping her? Really, he was doing this on a whim. He, as both Alastor and as Warlock, was never this innocent. For all that Nanny, 'Zira, The Dowlings, and Adaline De La Rue, tried, innocence wasn't something he could keep. Maybe that's why. Maybe spending seven years away from Hell broke away some of the stone and jadedness that built up around as he lived and breathed in the hell that was Hell. Maybe it had something to do with a conversation with a certain Grandmother a lifetime and a world away.
Whatever the reason was, he was here, and The Princess needed an answer.
"It's to see what you can do." He settled on. "To see if you stick to your guns, if you make this dream of yours come true. It'll be entertaining either way, for me, if you fail or succeed." Alastor's words hung in the air like mustard gas about to fall onto the troops in the trenches. A bomb that had already gone off, there wasn't a thing you could do about, but pick up the pieces in the aftermath.
The Princess nodded once. "Then I'll have to prove you wrong." Her voice and with her shoulders back, she had a moment that felt like a true Princess of Hell. She stepped aside and waved her hand. "Welcome to the Happy Hotel." And Alastor was welcomed inside.
Her Lady was pulled into a conversation with the Hotel's lone guest. He could hear The Lady speak of his raise to power and while she was missing quite a bit; she covered the meat of it, and he wasn't going to lie and say the ego stroking didn't feel nice. It did.
Seven years of dealing with certain people who knew how to cut his ego down to size left a mark. It was nice, to say the least, of not having one of them over his shoulder with a remark on the tip of their tongue. Though, the fear and shuddering, the scrabbling to get away, the diving into alleyways – it was all the same and it got boring after a while. Maybe the seven years away was needed to cleanse the palate and bring the fun back in being an Overlord.
The Wild Card Overlord.
The Radio Demon.
The Overlord that could turn the tide in many turf wars or arguments with one chosen action and few well placed words.
He came to a stop in front of the Royal Family portrait and studied it. His eyes fell onto the King, and there wasn't much he could say on the matter of the King and Queen. King wasn't what he expected, from both what Nanny and Adaline told him, he was expecting the classic demonic look – dragon-like, fire and brimstone, – and he got that in the Sins and mainly Satan. It was still jarring, the juxtaposition between the thought and reality, memories and the present day.
Two images but one man.
Can't even call it a mirror image, a reverse of order, or even flip around situation, when there is only one man; one truth in the moment. But so many ideas of what he was to be and how to act, expectations that were pressed onto him and never released. Alastor couldn't say he couldn't imagined it – he had lived something similar – that would a lie and while yes he was in Hell, Adaline would be disappointed.
That smile.
Alastor had no room to comment and it looked nice on the man.
Lilith, who stood by her husband with a smile, was a queen that Alastor could get behind. He didn't know much about her, but if the rumors were true? Alastor would help her in everyway he could.
The Princess and her Lady had a quick talk behind him and he was gracious enough to ignore them.
"So," The Princess popped up behind him, "If you are going to staying you need a room and a position," She paused, looked to her Lady, and then to him. "Right?" She nodded her head to herself. "Right."
"Hotelier." Alastor claimed that spot. Dug his claws in and made himself at home.
The Princess blinked. "Oh, okay. We have a lot of empty rooms. So, you need one just pick one of those."
"Do you have any staff?" Alastor asked and the Princess just looked over at her Lady. He gave a nod, he was expecting that but still a princess should have more staff. Unless, she was doing this without permission. He narrowed his eyes in thought as he snapped his fingers and a brand new fireplace replaced the old one.
Niffty was one his finest and was, well, a nifty little thing, and when she popped out of the fireplace covered in dust, soot, and other undesirables – Alastor smiled. "This little darling is Niffty."
Niffty waisted no time in running around and making herself comfortable. "Niffty, dear, you'll be in charged of keeping this place clean." That lone eye looked but at him with joy and something else he couldn't place. She ran back to him and a small hand that had killed many clung to him softly, desperately, and Alastor place his hand on her head. "You're the housekeeper." He turned her back to the others and the Princess smiled at Niffty.
He snaped his fingers and disappeared into his shadows. His destination wasn't a place that he was known to frequent even before he disappeared for seven years, but one of his own was.
Husker was at the pool table with all seats full and a royal flush in hand. The pot was full and the man was about to claim it all.
Too bad Alastor was a demon.
Alastor stepped into the room as Husker placed his hand on the table. "Read em' and weep boys!" Alastor turned up his magic and the static and he watched as one of Husker's ears twitched.
His hands reached for the pot and but they paused and Alastor would bet money that his fur was standing on the end. With a snap of Alastor's fingers the pot disappeared and all chairs were ripped away from the table and Husker sat alone. "What the hell!" He whipped around.
Alastor's ever present smile widened. "Husker! Good friend! I have a job for you!"
Husker's eyes went from wide and then to a narrowed look and he jumped to his feet. "Don't 'Husker' me! You son of a bitch!" He waved his hand to the table. "I was about to win the whole damn pot!"
Alastor ignored Husker's irritation. "Yes, old friend it's good to see you." He raised his hand and Husker glared. "I have a job for you." And Alastor snapped his fingers.
Niffty had made herself useful in the small amount of time that Alastor was away. Running around and killing any bug that ran near her. With another snap of his fingers, a bar was added into the hotel and Husker had taken one look at it and himself a home. "Once a bartender, always a bartender." He heard Husker mumble to himself.
The Princess immediately tried to interduce herself and her Lady and the Lone resident immediately argued over the bar.
"Boss! What kind of drinks?" Husker called over the chaos as half-heartily listened to the Princess. He was making a list of what they needed and what Alastor had appear with the bar. Not a lot of stock and no small snacks that Husker liked to have on hand.
It was Niffty who answered. "Cheap Booze!" She ran over to the Bar and climbed on top of it. Her feather duster still in hand and swaying to the quiet jazz number the playing from the radio that played on a shelf behind the bar. "And - and - and - Blood!" She threw both hands in the air. "Spiked Apple Cider! And Rye!" Really, the little thing was just listing off things that she had seen Alastor and Husker and others drink.
"Yes! Yes! Darling," Alastor clapped. "We'll be getting all that and more."
Niffty smiled, pulled out a piece of string and a pin, and darted out after a roach that was under the coach.
"Something ain't right with her." The Lose resident stated as he watched her hunt.
Alastor chose to ignore that slight comment against one of his own and turned to the Princess as she appeared at his side. "Alastor," The Princess started out. She was most definitely going to say something, and he was sure it would riveting, and something to know. But she wouldn't get a word out as the Hotel shook and the wall was blasted toward them.
Niffty was under the coach, Husker and the Lone resident ducked under the bar, and the Princess and her Lady stood with Alastor as everything shook and settled. Looking out of the fresh hole in the wall. It was – someone.
"Hah! Well, well, well. Look who it is harboring the striped freak! We meet yet again, Alastor!"
Alastor turned to the others. "Who?" He turned back to the one speaking. "Who?"
The snake man lost a lot of steam. "You don't remember me?" There was a pause before he straightened back up. "No matter! I have the element of surprise!" He pulled a lever and Alastor took that as his que.
With a single snap of his fingers a portal opened.
The portal – a dark abyss where things there should never wake up, sleep, and a place where things that are awake but should never leave – opened and tendrils came out and wrapped around the blimp warship. One of the tendrils reached further down, but with Alastor's shadow going to the warship before it was completely crushed and still being held up in the sky – and giving it a warning pat, it pulled back into the core. He knew seven years was a long time to the living, and he knew in Hell, seven years was even longer but also shorter at the same time. He didn't think They would tell or even notice he was gone.
Well, he would have to greet Them properly then.
"Well," He turned back to the group. "That was fun." And as they walked away and further into the hotel, he tapped his cane. The wall was fixed and the sign that said 'Happy Hotel' became the 'Hazbin Hotel'.
Really, 'Happy Hotel' had a meaning behind it. An innuendo and Alastor was sure that the Princess doesn't want any of that kind of guests around.