Chapter Text
Vox had won.
As painful and annoying as it was to admit, the demon had achieved victory.
Locked in Vox’s office and stripped of his powers and his cane, Alastor could only focus on the bloodstains contrasting with the dark blue floor. He could clearly see the picture, and understand its meaning: desperation leading up to a grand finale.
All that remained of Velvette’s hair were shreds and dust, which would soon absorb the remaining liquid beneath them. The plastic skin had melted, and the smell only made him want to forget everything Vox had told him that day. It was harsh. Disgusting. Crude. There was not an ounce of delicacy or refinement in this act.
Not that Valentino's appearance was any better. One of his limbs had been torn off and was lying not far behind him. The antenna had been burned, like the doll's hair, and now resembled the one that had been damaged, so long ago. The pheromones had long since dissolved, mingling with the other smells in an unpleasant way.
There were no windows in the room, so Alastor could not see what was happening outside.
He was like a spectator who wasn’t allowed to see what was going on behind the scenes.
If this was to be the finale, then Alastor had already been banished to the credits.
The only indication of what was happening outside was the sound. But it's hard to make sense of anything when all you can hear is noise, shouting and swearing. Occasionally, he could pick out snippets of conversation, but it was difficult to make sense of words like 'bitch', 'fuck', and 'shit'.
Alastor couldn't attract even a shred of attention through these modified speakers located in other segments of the tower. An invisible barrier held his radio waves, bending and playing with them before finally severing his connection. His mind was overcome with even greater irritation; he couldn't even give the princess a hint of his whereabouts.
It was to be expected that she was already at the end of her tether. Her idea had been turned upside down, and as a pacifist, which she unfortunately was, she was not thrilled with the battle that was taking place at that moment. Oh, how they were enjoying themselves there. Clearly, cutting each others' throats, throwing every possible object at each other, and most interestingly, they could see all the damage done to their enemies.
And all without him.
The chair he was tied to did not have wheels on which Alastor could move short distances. It was just an ordinary chair with four legs for balance. There were even fewer ways to escape the dome of uncertainty.
Any attempt to free himself from the cables was accompanied by an electric shock, which felt like nothing more than a tingling sensation. The stitched wound on his chest only stretched further, expanding in size. A single bite on his lip was not enough to distract him from the important things that deserved his attention.
Standing up on his own was not an option either, as Vox, the stupid TV, had tied his legs as well. Annoying as it was to admit, it was clever of him. It caused even more discontent and irritation, as was the intention, most likely.
Still...
At any moment, Vox would break the deal. Out of anger, he would harm Charlie by freeing Alastor. It was only a matter of time.
But it was time that he didn’t have.
The shadow was weak, barely materializing into physical form. It was one of the options for a possible escape.
If only it could thicken and strengthen a little more, Alastor could break these cables with ease. A blue glow was visible, exacerbating the situation and preventing the darkness from fully forming. The whispers coming from the shadows from other sources could do little to help him.
The hand that had formed lasted for a few moments before finally losing its shape and fading to a silhouette beneath the chair.
No one but Alastor could hear the loud thud on the floor and the imperceptible curse that escaped his lips. Just like the electric current that passed through the deer’s shell.
The shadows of the corpses could only assist the interlocutor and witness of the current situation. Conversations, sometimes internal and sometimes written down, allowed his thoughts to focus on something other than that which he could not influence.
His own helplessness only added fuel to the fire, pointing out that despite all the years of hard work, cunning, and intelligence, there would always be a dirty trick that you would eventually trip over and fall flat on your face. And you couldn’t prepare for that.
Behind him, the hanging televisions—the heads of Vox throughout the decades—stood mockingly, judging silently. Without turning his head back, Alastor would not have to see them, let alone acknowledge their existence. Without looking at them, he could avoid thinking about what should not be thought about.
Nevertheless, his consciousness could not help but allow itself small fragments of memories, where he could hear the same voice with static in it. He could not help but imagine how disappointing the technology was.
The shadow continued to twitch and bounce, still trying to find a shell, as stubborn as its owner. The scrawny arm that he had managed to create earlier was trembling and thin, its edges unstable, flickering like a candle before the suffocating blue glow completely extinguished it.
The shadows behind Valentino’s fallen body trembled and writhed, wavering between the desire to crawl toward Alastor and the revulsion of the electronic hum emanating from the floor. Even the room itself seemed to resist him, as if Vox had somehow infected the very walls.
He tried again to draw them to him, to coax even a grain of useful darkness from beneath the corpse. They responded slowly, reluctantly, much like their former owners. Thin black strands gathered together, pale tentacles reaching toward him like hesitant fingers.
Confidently, they grabbed the ropes, pulling sharply toward them, applying suffocating pressure. His legs tensed again, holding him in place, as if the force would send him straight to the floor.
An electric charge shot through the lower half of his body. It was quick, sharp, and strong, scattering the shadows to the sides.
He exhaled sharply through his teeth.
„Persistent pest.“
The shadows beneath Velvette’s shattered shell seemed equally unwilling to cooperate.
They had form, but were unstable, trembling with every flicker of the ceiling lights. Her silhouette, what remained of it, was too distorted to form anything coherent. Instead of hands, she had threads, capable of cutting a finger at best.
She had never been a stable Overlord even in life; after death, her remains offered nothing more than fragmentary whispers.
It was a pity. Velvette was many things—annoying, impulsive, sharp—but at least she was lively enough to be predictable. Bold, without a single regret about her words or actions.
During the time they had been given to get to know each other, he had noticed more than once the tone with which she spoke. She was entertaining. A girl with a loud personality who didn’t let anyone push her around, not even those she considered business partners.
Now she was just another blurry outline on the cold floor. Another corpse that could be stepped over on the streets of Pentagram City.
Behind Alastor, he heard footsteps, hurried and noisy, clearly rushing toward the office. Then the door burst open with a crash.
Stumbling along the way, Vox burst into the room.
"Fuck, fuck, FUCK-" the sinner kept repeating, barely closing the door behind him.
Vox didn’t just walk in, he burst in. Barely keeping his balance with one hand, leaning against the door behind him, which was completely blocked by the same cables that Vox was tied to. Sparks flew from his body, covered in broken paneling and torn fabric. His body was slathered in burns of varying degrees, ranging from those that could be treated with ordinary ointments to those that would have to be endured until regeneration did its work. The screen showed cracks, like a spider web slowly and tightly binding him. Blue liquid flowed from the same fragments, unable to stop the bleeding.
Vox, the one who had decided to go against Heaven itself, was... in less than good shape.
His jacket was torn, the fabric burned by something too divine to be perceived as hellfire. His shoulder was smoking, clearly wounded by something that had caused massive bleeding.
Visibly, clenching his hands into fists, the tele-demon couldn’t stabilize his breathing. His chest rose and fell.
A rumble swept across the floor, slightly lifting everything before returning it back to gravity.
Looking down, one could see the absence of... Vox’s leg. Blood was clearly flowing from the same spot, momentarily releasing sparks around the puddle that had formed.
Interesting.
The tingling was still there, accompanied by sparks and currents, almost turning off the lights in the office.
Alastor was still looking at Vox, though not from an angle many would have called humany possible.
The same could not be said for Vox.
Absorbing every faulty twitch, every static pulse. Ruby eyes that were so sweetly close to complete uncontrollable panic. A little more and the poor thing would completely lose control of an already desperate situation!
But without paying any attention to Alastor?
That wouldn't work at all.
"My, my," he murmured, his voice soft as velvet. "You look... distressed. Is there trouble in Paradise?"
A bright smile spread across his face.
But Vox didn’t react.
Vox didn’t even scream, didn’t throw another tantrum, didn’t burst into one of his theatrical, overblown musical meltdowns.
He just stood there, trembling in the fog of crackling interference, sweating electricity, dripping coolant from the cracks covering his screen.
Still not looking at Alastor.
He barely managed to keep walking forward, staining his heels with Valentino’s blood and Velvette’s hair. Vox didn’t even notice, continuing to crawl toward the table in front of Alastor.
A sound escaped from his throat, a mixture of crackling static and uneven breaths.
"You look... rather out of shape. I wonder if you left other Overlords as you did your partners here, hm?" he said sharply, scraping the four legs of the chair across the tile floor.
Still no answer. It was really starting to get annoying.
Grasping the corners of the same table, Vox was finally able to hold himself more or less steady.
Another squeak.
"Any reports, Vel?" the television demon suddenly croaked.
A screeching sound echoed through the office.
Thin black cables, slightly thicker than antenna wires, slithered across the tiles like snakes awakening from hibernation. First, they wrapped around Velvette’s shattered limbs—hooking under her elbow joints, wrapping around her ribs where the plastic "skin" had burned away. One cable pierced through the cavity formed where her throat had melted. What remained of her hair was held in place by other cables. The clumps kept falling off, as there was little that could be held in place when all that remained of them was dust and fragments. Still, that did not stop Vox from doing it over and over, until he finally got them to stick.
"It’s fucking bad, V! Zeezi, the pussy she apparently is, fled immediately after seeing Maestro lose his fucking head! I mean that guy didn’t have his head in exactly the right place before, so what did it matter if his head flew off after getting axed?“ Velvette’s voice rang out. All of this, was acted out with her mouth closed. Even the source of the sound was further away than was physically possible!
"And don’t even start on that bitch, Carmilla Carmine. Switching sides as quick as that cock she switched from her bitch husband to that elderly spider goon caver. Did you see that? All she had to do was make some eyes and immediately that goody two shoes forgives her, ugh."
"Velvette, we don’t speak about our fellow Overlords like that."
"Come on, Voxxie, you know she’s right." Valentino’s voice spoke now. The cables dug even deeper into his torso, turning what remained of his grace into a grotesque parody of bravado.
His remaining antenna sparkled and bent at a grotesque angle. When he "spoke," his voice became deeper and wetter, as if someone had gargled with oil.
His wings were torn, covered completely in holes, giving him the appearance of a butterfly caught on needles.
"Being right doesn’t mean anything for business," Vox exhaled painfully.
It was pitiful, even for a fool like Vox.
“Being right never keeps you hard, though.”
Vox simply groaned at yet another joke. He shook his head as if everything that was happening was true.
Vox wasn’t ignoring him, he just couldn’t hear him. This couldn’t help but make Alastor grab hold of the cables and once again pull himself out from under them.
"Vincent," he said in a thin voice. "Stop pretending they are alive. You’re the one who left them in such a state after all."
No answer.
Vox still did not respond. He showed no reaction. Leaning harder on the table, he continued to comb the flat surface of his head with his hand.
"How much time do I have left?"
"Fifteen minutes, V, we’re really screwed this time..." was all she managed to say before the cables became gave out and allowed her body to fall back to the floor.
"That really was an out of character act, Vox. It’s not the Vees who have brought this on themselves, it was you."
Valentino’s body was jerked closer to the table, for reasons unknown.
"So it’s really our last time, huh? We didn’t even get to fuck before that. And you know how I hate being left on edge, cariño." Another cable from Vox’s back moved closer to his face and lifted the moth's cheek, giving the false impression of a smile.
"You killed Velvette."
"I know, Val." Vox smiled bitterly, and oh! What did he see, tears?
Valentino followed after Velvette, falling onto the tile floor with a crash. The glasses, which already had cracks in them, finally broke into pieces.
"You killed Valentino."
There was a change on Vox’s screen. Not because of recognition, but simply because the cracks on his face widened.
"You only have yourself to blame. And now? Now it’s the end of your season, old pal."
The cables around him only tightened further.
Still no response from Vox.
Out of the corner of his eye, Alastor could see the cables heading back toward the dead bodies. That wouldn’t do, he decided, directing the rest of his energy into their shadows, completely blocking Vox from using the corpses for his game.
"Ah, no, no, my dear! This just won’t do. I won’t let you dwell into your delusions any longer. It was fun while it lasted, but I prefer you insane to the point where you can still recognize a goose from a duck!"
A heavy lump stuck in his chest, weighing him down with a heavy reminder and feeling. Of what? He didn’t know.
What Alastor did know was how to bring Vox back to his more stable version of madness.
Where he would pay attention to him and to the fact that in the end, it wasn’t him who won, but Alastor.
Vox still didn’t respond to a single word he said. Honestly, he expected more. Of course, the murder of his colleagues was huge and impressive, but not when it didn’t allow Alastor to enter the scene.
"Don’t you want to prepare? Or have you decided to go for a more unfortunate and pathetic way to go out, Vincent?" Alastor continued. "Being defeated by heaven, accomplishing nothing in the end? With no one left by your side? With Charlie on top—"
"She won’t come," Vox said.
"Charlie? With the way you are speaking, it seems like she was searching for me, isn’t it?"
"She won’t find you."
"Are you trying to convince me or yourself?"
"No one. She thinks you are somewhere else." The shards gradually fell away from her face, revealing pulsating flesh. "After all, the princess is such a good friend, isn’t she? When she heard your voice through the speakers, there was no reason for her to suspect a thing. No one could truly replicate your voice after all, right, Al?"
Alastor’s eyes widened for just a moment, before he schooled his expression back into neutrality.
"Didn’t expect that, did you?" Despite all the sadistic tendencies Vox displayed, he looked...
Tired. What remained of his face showed only a weary man. Vox’s hands were busy with something else, one of them reaching into a drawer, apparently looking for something.
"Oh, what I would have given before to see you... look at me like that." Where the screen had just dried from tears, new ones appeared.
"Don’t flatter yourself. Even if Charlie is looking in the wrong direction, these angels won’t stop looking. You are the face of this war, you know." Alastor looked away. "Any moment now, Vincent."
"Then they will have to find our dead bodies..." He took out a bottle of whiskey and a of glowing white liquid.
"Are you serious? Oh, oh!" he chuckled lightly. "And that’s your plan? I knew you were a coward, but this? It’s an even more pathetic way to go out, and here I thought you would at least—"
He was slammed into the table—no, that was too mild a way to describe his face hitting the surface. The cables were still tightly clamped, causing the wound on his chest to gape even further. Alastor barely managed to stop himself from groaning in pain. He wouldn’t give Vox the satisfaction.
His fall caused the table to shake, the bottle of whiskey nearly falling and shattering on the tile floor.
"I prefer you to be silent," Vox hissed.
"And I would prefer for you to be at least creative. But you could nevee manage that, could you?" he asked, slightly moving his head away from the table. "What would the papers say? Vox, the Leader of the Rebellion, found dead by poison he drank himself! The future documentaries will talk about how weak-willed the man was, barely holding off... how many was it? A couple of angels with toothpicks?"
"It wasn’t just a couple of angels, you prick—"
"Even if it wasn’t, you will still be seen as weak." Vox was distracted. Good. "All the other Overlords fought until their last breaths, even your companions put up a fight. Traitors, they are, tried to stop you. Maestro didn’t stop before the angel got to his head, do you truly want to be seen as weak as that overlord Zeezi? Fleeing away from her comrades, only to save her skin."
"No," Vox replied immediately, falling for it like the idiot he was. "I wouldn’t want to be seen as weak as you when you got your ass beat by the first man."
"I wouldn’t call it 'ass beat'." Alastor tried not to roll his eyes at that false statement.
"Then what was it? A little slap on the wrist?" Vox smirked, though not as strongly or brightly as Alastor would have liked. "You still have a wound on your chest, don’t think I forgot."
He would let Vox get away with it. Just this once.
"With the state your head is in, one might think the opposite."
"Fuck you.“ Vox’s eye twitched.
Vox looked more relaxed, his shoulders slumped, not looking like several needles had run through his body anymore. All the sounds coming from his head slowly stopped, and his hands were nowhere near the flask and whiskey.
He was hesitant. He wasn’t completely sane, but he wasn’t crazy either.
With great difficulty, he raised his head higher, now seeing Vox more clearly.
"You know," he said, lowering his voice so as not to hurt Vox’s non-existent ears. "It is... almost admirable to see you standing even without one leg. Despite how injured you are, you still didn’t drop dead!"
Vox’s eyes widened, completely unexpected by what he said.
"..... You’re trying to manipulate me, aren’t you?" Vox said irritably. "It’s your fault."
All his efforts to move away from the table were in vain. After bumping his nose against it again, he could no longer hold back a small cry of pain.
"It’s your fault that I killed Val and Vel." Vox’s hands trembled as he tried to contain all the electricity inside him. Just so as not to give himself away to the angelic offspring. "Just to delay their arrival a little longer, so that bitch would come and save you!"
"Six minutes," the doll’s voice sounded again.
"You... You haven’t changed a bit, have you? Still the same asshole who only preys on others until they are no longer entertaining for you. Until they are of no use to you." With his electrified hands, he reached for the flask and whiskey. Opening it with force, he forced the broken glass into the drink.
"You think you won, waiting for me to get defeated by these worthless bird pricks. Getting rid of my friends, whispering all these sweet lies, knowing that I would fall for it!" Vox grabbed Alastor by the ears, lifting him up before slamming him back onto the table with a crash.
CRACK!
Alastor’s jaw broke, unable to regenerate at that moment. All his strength was focused on preventing the infection on his chest from spreading further.
"5 minutes."
"Well, you know what?" he growled, lifting Alastor forcefully by the ears. "I’m not letting you win this time."
Apart from the cables around his hands, the others began to open his already broken jaw. Before Alastor could fully comprehend what was happening, alcohol was poured down his throat. He immediately felt a bitter, burning sensation on his tongue. He could already feel his tongue beginning to dissolve on its own, burn marks forming.
His body instinctively tried to push away the penetrating liquid, helplessly convulsing. His hands scratched at anything that could somehow harm Vox. Even his tentacles were useless, immediately disappearing after another electric shock.
Vox did not move. Not an inch, he continued to hold him tightly, like cement completely fixed in place.
His throat was already burning in spots, soon showing the holes that had formed. Alastor could no longer understand what was real and what was a stain. Drops of the same liquid penetrated his lungs, tormenting his already dying body.
This time, Alastor tried to hit Vox’s screen with his forehead, wanting only to see his last remaining eye disappear. He was immediately stopped, the cables squeezing him even barder, breaking his already broken bones and burned flesh. He could feel his pulse quickening with reckless abandon.
"Not so funny now, Alastor?" Valentino’s voice said. Vox couldn’t help but show his terrible, disgusting grin. Alastor couldn’t see anything but that pathetic grin, and any attempt to stop it, to distract himself, was accompanied by an even rougher, harder squeeze. "Don’t you worry, I can help you."
The sharp shards of the bottle moved away from him, leaving his bloodied lips behind. All Alastor could do was wheeze, his vocal cords incapable of anything more.
The resistance he tried to offer was nothing more than a reflex, not a deliberate tactic. His arteries were compressed, causing his eyelids to flutter before hypoxia began its work.
His attempts to breathe only caused the alcohol to penetrate further, deeper. Alastor tried to spit out everything that was slowly entering his stomach, but to no avail.
The otherworldly tongue unceremoniously penetrated his throat.
What could have been interpreted as a scream only echoed as a loud rattle. Rattle after rattle, an even larger portion of alcohol penetrated his throat, accompanied by the nasty foreign tongue.
Blood mixed with molten metal flowed from his nose, making him realize why it burned so much.
His lungs weren’t working, completely ceasing any effort to sustain life. His eyes watered, to Alastor’s horror, but he couldn’t prevent it.
"I hate you, Alastor."
That was the last thing that flashed through Alastor’s mind over the radio waves before darkness completely took over his vision. The grip stopped completely, and his body fell into deep darkness.
Darkness.
The first and last thing Alastor saw in his life. Starting from the moment when his consciousness finally returned to him during his time on earth. From the moment the blow struck his mother’s face, who did not even try to defend herself from this monster. His pants were dirty, worn out, already showing signs of how many years old they were. His shirt was torn, thanks to the branches he had to encounter on his way to the main part of the city.
It ended with pain in his throat, darkness in his eyes, and helplessness in his situation. It was similar to his first death, when his body could still feel pain, and the torment of the dog’s fangs on his skin began. His body was disobedient, rebellious, allowing him to do nothing but watch.
And this death was no different. Only the reasons for his helplessness and his inability to do anything about it had changed. He could scream—which sounded more like a wheeze—kick and move, but it had no effect.
Like prey.
Prey that could run away from the predator. That could hide, make itself incapable of being consumed. That could gather a pack around itself, arm itself with anything.
But it would still remain prey.
The first thing Alastor always felt, whether it was from birth or from being in hell, was anger.
Hatred for who he was, for those he despised. And for those who abandoned him, wanting nothing more than to use him.
It always came burning, molten like the angelic metal that had been forced down his throat, and suffocating. Something that could be hidden and kept to oneself, but something that Alastor never allowed himself to do.
Vox.
The idiot who wanted to use him. The idiot who got everything with a snap of his fingers, the idiot who chased after him like a pathetic dog, wanting to taste the very bone that was strictly forbidden.
He should have broken more than just his head back then. He should have torn him apart and kept him for himself.
Rosie.
Who only pulled him in to throw him off the higher ground. Who dragged him into her plans for this little princess. Who refuses to give him back the powers he was meant to have, just to keep him on a leash.
He wanted his powers back. Anything that could make him not so helpless.
He wanted his body back to normal. Without that growing wound that wouldn’t heal no matter how hard he tried.
He longed for the days when his biggest worry was who Mimzy might bump into.
"That’s quite the wish, little one..."
The whisper echoed in the darkness in which Alastor was locked away, completely oblivious to it.
No matter who, these hallucinations would not dictate to him what and how he should desire.
"Do you truly want it..."
More than anything else. Just so he wouldn’t be helpless, wouldn’t be prey.
"So be it."
"Well now, I told him plain as day, you know it, ’No way I am giving you this’! I certainly wasn’t about to bump up his wages simply for a bold claim. Anyone worth hiring in this ring can do it. No company of mine will get a man who will get to earn a little extra nickel for nothing more than knowing how to tie a lady to a railroad track. So—"
Alastor blinked once. Then twice.
He was no longer tied to the chair, and his body was no longer in pain.
His eyes narrowed at the sudden change in light source, from blue to a pleasant orange. He looked around and saw that he was holding a shot glass in his hands.
A moment later, the sound of broken glass echoed through the bar.
"Alastor?" Vox, the first thing Alastor understood. "I know I’m paying this time, but you really didn’t have to throw it if you didn’t like it. I might love you running my budget dry, however—"
Vox.
"Do you even hear me? Hello, Earth to Alastor—"
Long before his brain could process this, his body reacted. He took aim and punched the screen.