Chapter Text
Alastor couldn't get up.
The cannon’s dark, gaping mouth was turned in his direction, and he couldn't crawl away, couldn't even will his shadows to answer his call and swallow him. He just clutched at his bleeding wound and watched helplessly as Vox, with that overly wide grin overtaking most of his screen, climbed back on top of the weapon and began tinkering.
“Vox, stop! Firing anymore will overload the weapon.”
“Then I’d better make this shot count!”
“You idiot! If it overloads, it’ll blow, taking you, us, and half the pentagram with it!”
“You know what?” Vox stood, his cackle unusually high, ringing deranged instead of amused. He turned back to address Alastor. There were multiple wires connecting him to the Might of Lilith; so that's what he’d been tinkering with.
A familiar hum started up as the weapon began gathering energy for a shot.
Vox’s smile widened even further. “Fuck Hell, fuck Heaven, and fuck all of you! As long as I wipe that smile off of Alastor’s fucking face… I don’t care what happens.”
The sheer drama of that declaration was laughable.
To laugh would have re-established Alastor as the one in control of the situation. But for some reason, he didn't seem to be able to tear his eyes away from that single tear running down the side of Vox’s face, and his laughter died before it had the chance to be conceived.
That tear. A rare, brief glimpse at sincerity from a man who had made his existence into a constant performance. Evidence of how far Alastor had pushed him.
Pain spread from Alastor's wound at the sudden involuntary clenching of his gut, and he grit his teeth around a sound of pain. All he managed was a wide, tight grin.
It felt forced even by his own standards.
Threatening murder-suicide, just to one-up him one last time.
How desperate can you get? You won't dare. You love your power and empire too much.
I can't have pushed you to the brink. This can't have been it.
Alastor held Vox’s eyes. He would not give him the satisfaction of letting him see his expression crumble.
If Alastor was to die tonight, he’d die with his dignity intact.
The next moment, Velvette landed a kick square in Vox’s side, strong enough to send him stumbling to the side and snap a wire free. At the last moment Vox caught himself, claws screeching sharply on the metal shell of the Might of Lilith as he held on, dangling in the air.
Velvette landed perfectly on the ground. Clutching at the weapon, Vox turned his head to snarl at Velvette, all the previous warmth between them evaporating.
“Fuck! What are you doing?”
The moth was there in a flash, grabbing Vox by his collar, struggling to yank him free with two pairs of hands. Vox’s wires kept him snugly connected to the weapon like an umbilical cord.
“You are. Not. Fucking killing us over that stupid deer!”
“It's over! You dumb fuck!” Velvette began circling him like a predator. She was just waiting for the right moment to pounce, her body wound tight like a whip.
For a split second, Vox appeared hesitant, reason getting through him.
It wasn't enough. The next moment, his anger was back tenfold. The frantic energy shone from his eyes bright enough to blind. “Fuck that. This is my moment. My fucking destiny. I’m a fucking god!”
Valentino leaned in with deadly speed, his hands all over Vox, but Vox was quicker and thrust his head forward to meet him in a headbutt. The resounding crack Alastor seemed to feel in his own skull. The moth staggered back, clutching his head.
Vox laughed. His grin a feral snarl under the blood and the spider web cracks criss-crossing his screen, he seemed to be gone to the point of no return.
He lashed out with his wires, sending Velvette and Valentino flying. They crashed into the wreckage surrounding Vox.
Behind him, the Might of Lilith groaned.
The momentum of swiping Velvette and Valentino aside finally carried him plummeting to the ground. Still hooked to the weapon, he staggered to his feet, flailing with his arms as if he were fighting off invisible foes in the air.
“Get the fuck out of my way!” he snarled. “I’ll finish this. I’m sick of it all. I’ll finish him.”
Power surged, golden energy crackling on the surface of the Might of Lilith and carrying onto Vox through his wires, mixing with the blue sparks firing off on his body.
He never looked more powerful than in that moment; never more terrifying. Beyond the frantic beating of his own heart, Alastor was almost impressed.
Vox grinned at Alastor. For a moment it felt as if a hush fell over the theatre—everyone else had left, leaving only the two of them present in all of Hell.
As if everything had been leading up to this moment.
Vox spoke slowly, and addressed only Alastor. “Are you ready?”
Alastor met his eyes directly and returned the smile, mask perfectly in place. “Show your worst,” he said. “Old pal.”
A minute twitch at the corner of Vox’s mouth. But instead of his expression crumbling, something seemed to harden in Vox’s gaze.
Resolution.
The energy rose to a new cadence. The hum Alastor seemed to feel in his very bones.
Several things happened in quick succession.
Velvette jumped to her feet, and started towards Vox, unwilling to give up. Vox’s eyes cut to her, his lips curling and his shoulders hunching in expectation of another attack.
Velvette yelled, voice raw, “Now!”
From the other side, a great dark shadow appeared over Vox. Vox raised his head, his eyes wide. Before he could put up his hands in defense, his pet shark was already on him.
“Shock.wav?!”
The precision of the bio-mechanical creature was impressive. Its large jaw closed around the wires connecting Vox to the Might of Lilith with ruthless zeal, but its teeth did not even graze Vox.
Sparks flew and wires snapped as it chewed, while Vox hung from its mouth like a fish on a hook, a self-proclaimed god reduced to a small, flailing ant. He didn't seem to be able to get a hold on the creature’s body.
“Wait! Fuck! No, bad boy, drop me! Shock.wav, get the fuck away from me!”
Before it could fully separate its master, the power gathering in the weapon was suddenly cut off. It had to have been Vox’s doing, Alastor thought.
But he didn't account for the energy needing to go somewhere.
The next moment, it broke free.
Like a dam breaking, white light unfurled. It imprinted on the insides of Alastor's eyes, momentarily blinding him. The boom followed a moment later, a powerful roar, as did the burning heat of the energy, washing over everything and sending Alastor flying backwards and crashing into rubble with a force that sent blood projectile spraying from his mouth.
The echo of it rang in Alastor's ears long after the world quieted. He raised his head slowly, feeling bones creak and snap inside of himself, and stared at the aftermath of the explosion. A disoriented Lucifer was in the midst of climbing out of the giant steaming crater, the only thing left after the weapon’s combustion.
Vox was nowhere to be seen. Neither was his pet.
Some distance away, Valentino made a noise. It registered slowly due to the ringing in Alastor's head, but it was a choking sound.
Alastor's head followed the sound unconsciously, and he watched, as if the world was slowed by a magical force, as the demon emerged from his cradle of cement and ruins with tears streaming down his face. Mouth pursed around a curse, the demon’s pupilless eyes narrowed and began to tremble, fixed at where the weapon had been a moment ago. “No. No, no, no, no!”
A cry of disbelief. Pain. Grief.
Alastor’s mind was slow and jumbled, and he did not understand the source of that grief. Until it clicked.
Right.
Vox was dead.
The world snapped into action the next moment, and sound rushed in with staggering speed.
Carmilla got to her feet, supported by Zestial. Charlie helped Emily up, her feet trembling, wide eyes searching still for danger.
Everyone appeared to be virtually unharmed.
Velvette got up like a puppet suddenly yanked to its feet by strings. At an incline of her head, other sinners emerged from the wreckage around them. Voxtech employees, waiting for directions.
“Look around! Search the rubble! He can't have fallen far!”
Her eyes were terrifyingly empty, but her movements were the picture of composure.
“Velvette…” The voice came weak, almost gentle. Alastor had never heard the demon speak in such a soft way, didn't even recognise it as Valentino’s a second too long. “Ven aquí. Cariño. He's gone, Velvette.”
Velvette stood entirely still for a moment. Then she ran to Valentino and fell into his arms, violent sobs wrecking her body.
They clutched at each other like an explosion was still coming and all they had was the other before they were inevitably swept away.
Alastor might have hit his head hard for his thoughts came in a sluggish manner and felt foreign to him. Seeing this, what popped into his head—these two truly, actually loved him. How strange. He didn't manage to drive them away, in the end.
Then, as if he hadn't already made the observation: Vox is dead.
He felt nothing, of course.
Vaggi ran to Charlie next, throwing herself in her arms, tears running down her cheeks. “Are you okay? Are you unharmed? Charlie, I was so scared.”
Charlie spoke slowly. She seemed to be still in shock, her face pale. “I’m fine, Vaggi... I’m okay. Are you alright?”
“I’m okay. God, I couldn't do anything…! I almost lost you!”
Besides them, Emily appeared to be shocked to the point of reticence, one of her six wings a thin, golden stump. She stared at the giant crater with brows slightly furrowed, eyes focused, mouth slack. Alastor had trouble discerning her expression for a moment too long, and when he at last realized what it was, he felt as if he were punched in the gut.
It was regret.
Pain bloomed in several parts of his body from how roughly Alastor shook his head. What did he care if the angel felt regret for the death of someone like Vox? What business was it of his?
He forced his throat to work and swallowed around a mouthful of blood. Climbing to his feet, he felt his injuries beginning to snitch themselves together at last. All around, demons were getting up, still disoriented from the explosion, still unsure if the danger was actually gone or not.
He did not care about some pollyanaish angel’s regret. No, for a moment, and the realization hit him harder than before, making Alastor suck in a sharp breath—he felt her feelings mirrored in himself.
Her regret at this moment was that of his own. Alastor could have laughed.
What a joke. What a fucking joke. This can't be the end of this hellish circus.
From the side, Carmilla’s voice came muted, tinged with disbelief. “I can't believe it. He and his robot absorbed the majority of the weapon’s energy. We were incredibly lucky. The last casualty is him alone.”
Complete and absolute detachment descending on Alastor against his will, he watched, as if through a glass, as the rest of the hotel residents found each other amongst the chaos. They embraced, crying tears of joy. Relief was written across happy, exhausted faces. Some sinners were cheering, pulling others out of the rubble, hesitantly saying things like, “Is it over? I can’t believe it.”
The empty crater was in the middle, deep and blackened, rapidly cooling.
Then there was Velvette and Valentino, still holding each other. The only ones to grieve Vox.
Valentino stood slowly on trembling legs, one of his wings in tatters behind his back, and began pulling a silent Velvette away. The once powerful triumvirate reduced to a frail duumvirate.
It was over.
Alastor had no business left here. He slinked back into the shadows, his smile like a ghost on his face.
Vox fancied himself a shark, but he had always been a dog. One that was starved for an owner, a leash and collar.
Seventy some years ago, he had attached himself to Alastor. One feeding was all it took. And Alastor was not heartless—even he could find joy in a pet. The easy companionship it provided, the tricks it happily performed after training. Sit, roll, lie down, bring it. Kill those sinners, get their souls, won't you? You're growing your power. Good boy.
He had potential to even surpass Alastor. Alastor had never been blind to that.
But even dedication, time, training, and yes, plentiful treats and affection could not change the heart of a stray.
It could not permanently correct unruly behaviour that had become nature. This dog bit—this dog bit the hand that fed it. This dog chomped down and pulled with all its strength, not content with the arm it got its slobbering jaw around, hungering for more. Whatever it could reach and eat of Alastor.
The dog fancied itself not a pet, but a friend of Alastor's. The dog, instead of chasing squirrels and its own tail, dreamt of a partnership by Alastor's side. Its hands, forever wound around Alastor, carried intention. Need.
More, more, more.
The respect Alastor once held for the dog, the potential he saw in it—it was misplaced.
Alastor did what a responsible owner ought to—he disciplined the dog. Excitable, feral thing it was: it ran off growling, tail between its legs, ego bruised.
Good riddance. Alastor had no time or patience for ill-behaved pets anyway.
Even in its last moments, it behaved like a small pup chasing after a much larger dog—barking up a storm, confidence oozing from its body, forgetting itself—until the larger dog, sick of indulging it, turned to do the chasing. The small pup then, painfully aware of its inferiority, descended into hysterics.
Screaming, clawing at everything it reached, intent on destroying everything around itself. An entertaining sight if it was not so endlessly pathetic.
The dog, despite its loud voice, died with surprising ease.
Alastor materialized in his room in the hotel, far away from the commotion. The hotel was empty. He did not quite know why he came here; he was free to go anywhere in the pentagram. He had no more business here, with these people and their failed ideas.
He loosened his tie with slow, methodical movements and then caught sight of his own tired and sunken eyes in his mirror. He held his own gaze for a moment, then he forced himself to walk to his cabinet and pour himself a finger of whiskey. He knocked it back and didn’t feel it burn going down.
A celebration was in order. Alastor broke off not one, but two chains today. One of them was as old as his afterlife.
He was supposed to feel light enough to sprout a pair of wings and take off like an angel of death.
Instead of the relief he saw on the hotel residents’ faces, Alastor felt frustration, raw and bitter, crawl up his throat.
They turned Hell upside down today. Alastor could not deny his part in the destruction. He usually revelled in it. But Vox took it too far, he always did. He never ever knew where the boundaries were. He lacked something, that demon, something indispensable; leaving behind nothing but a bottomless void. This had been his fall.
Alastor had always known that nothing could ever satisfy Vox.
What a fool…!
It had all been just a tantrum. A pathetic, childish, over-the-top tantrum. Alastor's mind kept conjuring up the image of the pup losing its mind when faced with its inferiority, gnawing off its own leg to escape. Dying from its injuries.
The cup shattered in Alastor's hand, but he could not feel pain or his own warm blood bloom around the broken glass. His thoughts were too loud, shutting out everything else; he was seething, teeth clenched hard enough to cause pain to bloom along his jaw.
There was hardly any need for excessive theatrics! Bursting into tears! Attempting murder-suicide!
Just at a chance to wipe off Alastor's smile!
How utterly pathetic can one soul get?
Yes, the entire fiasco was ridiculous. Coming to this realization finally felt somewhat like relief. In his last moments, Vox had acted ridiculous. He didn't need to make sense of something ridiculous, as it was inherently nonsensical.
A chuckle stirred in Alastor's gut, finally able to find amusement in the sheer pettiness of his former enemy, but moments passed by and he was silent, his perennial grin rigid, his teeth still tightly, painfully clenched.
He was alone. Why was he smiling now, even in the comfort of his own domain? There was no enemy to trick. Just himself, staring pallidly back from the mirror.
The smile did not leave his face. Neither did a laugh emerge.
He was supposed to be celebrating, he reminded himself. Assessing the ruins of Pentagram City, taking stock of the dead, perusing his new options. He gained back his freedom; he could do whatever he wanted now. Raise hell, sprinkle fear in the hearts of sinners, gain back his reputation and reclaim his lost domains.
His frustration, anger and amusement left him in a breath, leaving him feeling bereft. His head felt suddenly heavy.
He must have been sick. He raised the shards of the cup clutched between his fingers to his eye and inspected the drop of orange liquid resting on top of the blood. He wondered distantly if someone had poisoned him.
That couldn’t be right.
Alastor dropped the shards mindlessly and collapsed into a chair, letting his head fall back over the headrest. His eyes burned with exhaustion.
He did not notice the tremor gradually increasing in his entire body. He only noticed the heaviness. He waited for the wave of sickness to pass, but no matter how he waited, his good mood did not emerge.
With the help of a shadow tentacle, he grabbed the opened bottle of whiskey and shattered it against the wall. Alcohol, no, poison dripped down the walls, yellowing the wallpaper. Next, he grabbed furniture without conscious thought, ugly and useless things, and began to break them apart one by one while sitting serenely in his armchair. He was deaf to the sounds of destruction.
He was free. In almost a century, for the first time, he was free. And he felt nothing. He should have been euphoric—he should have been filled with feeling.
He ruined it all.
Alastor went still, his shadows rigid. Wooden shards and padding rained to the floor of his room.
Could it be…
But of course. He was having a reaction to Vox. His frustration made sense; he didn't even get to finish him the way he planned to before the fool went and blew himself up in one last act of suicidal narcissism.
Alastor had endured an incomparably tiring and irritating time as Vox’s prisoner, and though in the end he was freed, his anger did not find an appropriate outlet. Vox had selfishly rid him of it.
What pitiful vengeance.
He won't give him the satisfaction of letting him have the last word.
Alastor ran a hand through his hair and fumbled for a cigarette. He lit it with the help of a shadow and friction, and for a moment, he saw the smug grin of a box-headed Vox, leaning away just after providing a flame for Alastor with a snap of his fingers. “New trick. How do you like it?”
Alastor had hummed languidly and watched familiar blue sparks go off between Vox’s antennas with unconcealed amusement. He squinted at Vox, at his greys and blues tinged warm in the yellow lights of the bar. “How about you keep at it, pal, and we’ll see if one day you’ll be useful to me.”
Vox rolled his eyes and his grin had soured, but he did not lose his playful energy. “Will lighting all of his cigarettes for the next century satisfy the mighty Radio Demon?”
A century. A ridiculous joke, but Alastor unwillingly imagined that stretch of time with Vox following him everywhere, wagging his tail.
He should have been appalled.
It had perhaps been the alcohol that made his belly feel so very warm, made him as relaxed as a cat dozing in a patch of sun. “Perhaps. We shall see.”
Vox’s grin was wide and giddy. He looked like he’d run a lap around the pentagram if Alastor only hinted he wanted him to. He looked like he truly wanted to stick around for a hundred years. Ridiculous creature. “Great prospects for the future,” he drawled, prompting a chuckle out of Alastor.
From then on, Vox had grabbed every chance to light his cigarettes for him, the opportunistic bastard.
His mind back in his hotel room, Alastor took notice of the ash steadily accumulating at the end of his cigarette. He took a slow drag and let the smoke escape his mouth in a lazy swirl, the simple act finally successful in summoning a semblance of calm.
He had been a fool to suspect poison. He had been injured, after all. He was injured and that was making him weak. He would heal in time.
In the meanwhile, he should be making plans.
He dreamt of this day for decades, he reminded himself again, persistent. The day he finally broke free. The destruction he was going to unleash.
Still nothing. Alastor tried to take another drag then, and upon missing his lips due to the trembling of his hand, leaned over and killed his cigarette on the wood of his cabinet, his frustration controlled.
Nothing seemed to help.
Nothing remained of Vox. Not even a finger or a strip of cloth. He knew that without inspecting the crater. If Vox survived, it would be months before Alastor even knew.
He physically recoiled from his own thoughts. Had he lost his mind? Vox was dead. That was an irrefutable fact. The weapon that had previously shattered Heaven’s defensive barrier in a single strike couldn't have failed to destroy a sinner for good, not with that amount of pure unrestrained angelic energy. Even if said sinner had been powerful, as powerful as sinners get.
Alastor could just imagine the face Vox would have made at hearing him call him that. Pleasure would have overridden his pride immediately and twisted his face into a smug, lazy smile.
He had always been an open book, unable to hide even a fraction of his inner thoughts. That was part of what made him so entertaining to Alastor, a master of his own emotions.
He went still again, his amusement evaporating into thin air. His chest felt tight. Why did his thoughts circle back to Vox again and again?
The thought of this being a part of Vox’s plan popped into his head unwittingly: pretending to kill himself to lodge himself in Alastor's brain was exactly the kind of excessive revenge plan Vox would come up with. Intent on driving him crazy while laughing himself hoarse in the shadows.
No. Alastor stood and began pacing his room, hands twisted in his own hair. No, the exhaustion was just getting to him. Vox couldn't have played a trick like this on him; he had been bending to Alastor's will since the day of Alastor's capture. Every decision of Vox’s from that moment on had been overseen by Alastor.
Vox was gone for good.
All of a sudden, Alastor became too aware of the unnatural quiet of the hotel, the gaping emptiness of the rooms on his floor and in the entire building. The sounds of rats scurrying and chattering in the hallways, the clanking and groaning of the pipes inside the walls as they struggled to heat the building; it was all absent. Alastor felt himself break out in cold sweat.
He knew what he needed.
Simple; to stretch his legs and his shadows. To air out his head and drain the mystery poison from his system. Some well-deserved fun was in order for the Radio Demon, far away from the suffocating air of the hotel.
Alastor's grin stretched impossibly wide, genuine for the first time in hours.
His chuckle reverberated in his empty room long after he melted into his shadows.