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Living in hell was certainly not good, even for the most powerful Overlords. For the plebeians it was a real shit; for the Overlords it was a little better, since they could enjoy fame and wealth, but it still meant living in constant fear of someone stabbing them in the back. There was no one to really enjoy life there; after all, that was the realm of pain. If someone was happy there, then how could the place be called hell? Everyone, more or less, had their problems, and sometimes they considered whether to take a nice gun loaded with angelic bullets and shoot themselves in the mouth.
For Velvette, that self-defeating feeling arose practically every time she found herself in the same room with the ones that on paper should have been her two father figures since they were decades older than her, but who in reality each possessed the mentality of a six-years-old child.
"I told you that trusting that snake was fucking stupid! But no, you wanted to do as you wanted, and now we've lost the element of surprise!"
"Since when do you know what the element of surprise is, Val!? You were the one who wanted to go there shooting just like the violent idiot you are!"
"Oh, so now it would be my fault, Voxxy? Strange words from someone who let himself be humiliated live by the radio demon!"
“What the fuck did you say!?”
“You heard me just fine, you fucking little shit!”
"Fuck you!"
“Fuck you!”
"FUCK YOU!"
Velvette sighed deeply. There they were, two of the most feared Overlords in all of hell, intent on bickering as if they were two twelve-year-old kids fighting over the last video game left at the electronics store.
Vox, the brain of the Vees. A guy with a television for a head who controlled practically every technology in the entire Ring of Pride, and who was supposed to be calm and pragmatic, but who as soon as something didn't go his way he started to completely short circuit and act in impulsive and idiotic manner.
Valentino, the muscles of the Vees. A moth-looking pimp whose mere smile was enough to make everyone tremble. In complete control of much of the criminal world of Pentagram City and other cities in the Ring of Pride. Manipulative and calculating, capable of making anyone do what he wanted... and that when someone challenged him or even just did something he didn't want, he became an imbecile who vented his frustration on anything he found in front of him, often ruining the other people's work, including Velvette's as he destroyed her things and took out her employees.
Put these two demons in the same room while they are both in that mental imbalance situation, and you can imagine what you will get. And of course then it would be up to her, Velvette, to solve everything. The backbone of the Vees, and the only one in there who hasn't forgotten her brain inside her mortal body. Or at least, a functioning brain. "Sorry, but did you understand that I literally found the head of a dead angel!?" Velvette blurted out, raising her left arm for the umpteenth time where she was holding the severed head of an Exorcist by the horns.
Anyone at that sight would have been shocked, amazed, at least struck. No one had ever managed to kill an angel, so that head was definitely important stuff. They would have to discuss the matter carefully and consider what to do, especially since Carmilla had called a meeting of the Overlords the next day and they would therefore have to show up there with an idea of what to do. But of course, as had been the case continuously for the last forty minutes, her words went totally unheeded and instead Vox retorted: "Shut up, Velvette! We don't have time for your nonsense!"
"Yeah! We're talking about important things!" Valentino said in turn, and finally the two Overlords seemed to agree... too bad that this only lasted three seconds and then they started arguing again: "Anyway, as I was saying, you suck at planning!"
"Coming from you, Val, it's like the ox calling the donkey a cuckold!"
"If you were smarter Alastor would have been in his grave by seven years already!"
"What... you piece of shit, don't try to get that son of a bitch involved!"
"Why? I was just remembering that wonderful time you never defeat him!"
"I swear that..."
Velvette rubbed a hand over her face. Yes, that was definitely one of the days when she really wanted to take a gun loaded with angelic bullets and shoot herself in the head. Or maybe shoot at the heads of the two idiots in front of her, she still had to decide.
Bored, she got up from the table and headed towards the entrance, so as to hear the screams of the two Overlords as little as possible. She played a little with the angel head in her hands. Well, she would have done better to think about how to handle the situation on her own. She certainly had a bomb in her hands, so it would be wise to use it wisely. For starters, who could kill an angel? She would have liked to ask Vox to use his cameras to see if they had captured anything, or ask Valentino to send his henchmen to interview some witnesses or used his whores to gather information, but obviously the aforementioned two people were too busy solving their personal grievances rather than thinking about bigger things.
Finally she heard a series of thuds and broken glass, which meant that someone (with ninety percent of probability was Val) had decided to stop talking and get down to business. And sure enough, just a minute later the Pimp Overlord arrived at the entrance, with a black eye and a bloody hand with several shards of glass still stuck in it, and his body shaking continuously due to an electric shock. Without even looking at her he went out slamming the door and from the sound that was heard outside he must have started his limousine at full speed breaking down the garage door and knocking out all the pedestrians.
Velvette rolled her eyes more tired than ever. She had experienced that scene so many times that she now knew it by heart. Now it was her turn to put the pieces back together and make sure that the relationship between the two was strengthened.
She sighed deeply as she hid the angel's head in her personal safe. Looking at it, Velvette thought that maybe the next day at the meeting she should screw everything and team up with Carmilla; maybe she could have seduced and fucked one of her daughters to force her to accept her as a partner. Carmilla was a bitch, but she certainly had at least a hundred times more reasoning than the two idiots she'd made the mistake of associating with.
"... do you realize!? He dared to criticize me because I chose the wrong spy! As if he hadn't done it at least a billion times! I can't tolerate him, he's really a..."
Vox had been ranting for twenty minutes, and Velvette was pretending to listen carefully to what he was saying while she was busy fixing his broken screen. She had chosen to try to talk first to what presumably should have been the more rational part of the couple, but obviously she had been totally disillusioned. "...and then he was there too, wasn't he? He was there when I said I wanted to hire Sir Pentious, and he even said yes!"
"I know, Vox, I was there too" Velvette reminded him.
Vox looked a little embarrassed to hear her disappointed tone. "Well... obviously I remembered that. What I mean is that he agreed, but he acts like it's just me who made a mistake!"
"Technically, it's your fault" Velvette pointed out. "Neither Val nor I knew who that Sir Pentious you mentioned was. We only said yes because you seemed sure of what you were doing"
Vox let out a growl and his face flickered in his still half-broken screen. "You asked me for someone pathetic, desperate and in no way attributable to us! This is the profile you gave me!"
"Yes, but it was implied that he had to be smart enough not to get caught after the first day!" Velvette replied, and she was strongly tempted to give a couple of blows to Vox's head as if he were an old malfunctioning television, and she stopped himself just because she knew how much this would hurt the pride of the Media Overlord.
Vox tried to say something, but he immediately closed his mouth; he let out a couple of grunts and then he said: "Um... well... all of this could have been avoided if Val had been able to keep Angel on a leash! We would have had a spy at the hotel without the slightest effort! But of course Val can't even handle that little bitch!”
Velvette closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to give herself the strength to not scream. "Look, Vox... I know your hatred towards the radio demon, but maybe now is the time to take a break and forget about him..."
"What!? No way! What's on your mind!?" Vox screamed as he jumped up, resulting in him nearly dropping the pieces he had just reattached to his screen. "We can't stand by and watch him play havoc! That demon has to disappear before he does anything!"
"Vox, we have no guarantee that he is planning anything. To me he just seems like a jerk who wants to have a laugh. And if he wanted to make a deal or take advantage of the situation to get favors from the princess, he certainly would have done it already" Velvette told him. She didn't know Alastor very well, but he certainly didn't give her the idea of someone who liked to wait a long time, so either he didn't intend to make any deals or the princess of hell was less stupid than she seemed and hadn't let herself be fooled. In both cases, this means that the radio demon was a decidedly negligible problem, especially when compared to the anticipated extermination or the angel's head lying in her safe. "We should worry about bigger problems now. Carmilla wants us at a meeting tomorrow, and I found..."
"You mustn't underestimate him, Velvette!" Vox interrupted her without any restraint. His left eye was blazing with anger. "I know that demon is up to something! I know it and I have to find out!"
Okay, she was thinking more and more that putting a bullet in her head wasn't such a bad idea. “Can you at least call Val and make up so we can discuss something over dinner?” she almost begged.
And of course Vox's reaction was: "Don't even talk about it! He's that asshole who made a mistake, now he can rot as far as I'm concerned! He can go fuck himself, and not in a good way!". And having said that he returned to his technological tower, locking himself inside to cool off his anger in who knows what ways.
Velvette shook her head and had to summon all her self-control not to grab every object in the room and throw it out the window in anger. "Ok... now relax. If you too lose your clarity it's the end for all three of us" she said to herself in her head. She had to remain rational. Maybe she would have better luck with Val.
Even she didn't believe it. And in fact she had not been disillusioned.
“I'm not mad at him for that imbecile spy, but for being such a fucking hypocrite!” Valentino was yelling continuously while she treated his hand, removing the shards of glass stuck in it, and at the same time passed a wet sponge over his black eye. "He practically forced me to give up on going to get my star back, telling me all that bullshit about our position and reputation, but the moment he found out the radio demon was at the hotel he didn't hesitate to make a fool of himself in front of everyone! He preaches well and scratches badly, the asshole! Ah, fuck him... OUCH! It hurts!"
"If you stayed still instead of continuing to fuss it would hurt less!" Velvette answered him back. She could have finished to do that five minutes after entering the Pimp Overlord's porn studio, but obviously instead of letting her do it he kept moving like the idiot he was. Until she removed all the glass, Val's hand couldn't regenerate, but he seemed to do everything he could to make her job more difficult.
Valentino gritted his teeth in fury. "Vox... he's nothing more than an asshole who thinks he's superior to everyone, and thinks he can control me like I'm his fucking property, but I refuse to let him do that! If he screwed up, I'll tell him to his face, and damn his inferiority complexes...!"
His voice was cut off by a groan of pain as Velvette tightened the bandage on his hand without much gentleness. “I don't deny that Vox is a hypocrite" she said as she finished the medication. "But perhaps now it would be time to bury the hatchet since..."
"So I'm supposed to go back to him like a loser? No way!" Valentino replied annoyed. "He is the one who must come crawling back to me, not the other way around! Indeed, as well as crawling he should also kiss the ground I walk on!"
Velvette ran a hand through her hair and tightened it; one of the advantages of being a doll was that she didn't risk tearing them out in frustration. She had waited a good two hours before going to the pornographic studio where she knew she would have found Valentino, hoping that this would at least ease his anger a little, but obviously that hadn't been the case. "Can't you get back on good terms even just until tomorrow evening? Just enough time to have that damned meeting with Carmilla and listen to me while I explain that I found..."
"Talk about it with Vox, I don't intend to play the part of a do-gooder" Valentino replied without letting her finish, extracting at least three joints from his cloak and putting them in his mouth at the same time. "I broke up with him, seriously this time"
“Oh, for the love of… URGH!” Velvette was seriously starting to get impatient. "Look, I don't know if you've noticed, but you two are so attached to each other that you could argue forever and never actually break up. Instead of continuing to play out this couple-in-crisis sitcom of yours, can you use your brains just once? Do me this courtesy, now stop smoking those joints, have a fuck with Angel, and then call Vox and settle this once and for all!"
Her last words went completely unheard, because Val had put on an idiotic expression as soon as she had mentioned his favorite whore. "Angel...?" he murmured as if he had just remembered something important, and then his eyes widened and he ran towards the window: "ANGEL!"
Velvette was speechless for a moment. "Um... Val, what's wrong with you?"
"Angel! He's up there with the parachute!" Valentino replied looking towards the sky.
Velvette walked over and looked out the window too, and she saw a dot in the sky that kept turning in circles. "Wait... is that Angel?"
"Yes, exactly!" Valentino exclaimed.
"But... I saw him even on the way here! He has been up there for half an hour at least... I thought he was a crazy harpy!" Velvette said. "What is he doing there?"
"When I arrived everyone was pissing me off about the fact that we had to shoot, so I told them to go and prepare everything and then I'd join them... but I forgot!" Valentino explained to her. "Today we had to play the scene in the air from our new movie... I had to throw the grenade at Angel to show him where to land...!"
"The grenade... the smoke signals! He is already in the air, do you even want to make him explode?" Velvette replied annoyed. "Let me get this straight: in the whole conversation you and I have been having for half an hour, he's up there, at least a kilometer off the ground, alone, with a temperature of forty degrees in the shade, going around in circles without knowing what to do? He probably had already fainted, he's risking his life! Go and help him!"
"Yes, yes!" Valentino hurriedly took a canister of smoke signals from his drawer, but then he stopped: "Um... where will I throw the grenade?"
"And you ask me!? It's not my plan! You had thought of something, I hope!" Velvette ranted.
Valentino's face clearly showed that he hadn't thought about it at all. "Okay... I'll look for the first big enough square and throw it there, I'm sure he will manage to land there!" he said as he quickly walked out the door.
Velvette sat down on the desk and immersed her face in the palms of her hands, summoning every trace of calm she had left to keep her psychopathic side from taking over, even though it was quite difficult now since it was gnawing at her mind as if it were a worm. She wondered if Val remembered that he was a moth demon and could just fly and go get Angel, but that would probably be too logical for his brain and he would screw up by crashing the poor guy with the parachute. Oh, and of course she'd gotten nothing again, and Val and Vox were still at loggerheads. She was seriously struggling to maintain mental clarity and found herself giggling as her psychopathic side managed to take control of at least her lips. She really would have needed a miracle to put everything right...
THE NEXT DAY...
Valentino was sitting in the kitchen, intent on eating a hearty breakfast. He had returned to the house he shared with Vox and Velvette very late and had done everything he could to avoid crossing paths with his so-called boyfriend. At least a night's sleep had helped him: now he was decidedly calmer... even if he still had no intention of talking to Vox.
Just the thought of the Media Overlord was enough to make him gnash his teeth; he lit a new joint to calm himself down. Vox was such a hypocrite, how could he even contemplate staying with that broken television? He should have packed his things and left once and for all, but he wanted to see him break down and beg him to come back to him. He certainly didn't stay there because he didn't actually want to leave either, absolutely not.
He was immersed in these thoughts when suddenly he saw Vox enter the kitchen pushing a yellow package sealed with several meters of adhesive tape that covered it almost entirely, so large that it reached the base of his pelvis, and which must have been quite heavy given the effort that seemed be doing. Valentino was amazed, and for a moment he thought that it was some bizarre attempt at reconciliation, but then looking at the furious expression of the Media Overlord he understood that this was not the case at all. “Um… is a gift?” he tried to say.
"A gift, of course! A gift from Hannibal Lecter, perhaps! Or from Jigsaw! Does this seem like a gift to you!?" Vox ranted, then he pulled a letter from his pocket and slammed it on the table. "I knew that sooner or later you would really put me in some fucking trouble!"
Normally Valentino would have reacted very badly to those words, but at that moment he was too confused. “I want an explanation” he said.
"Well, here's your explanation: this morning I found this on the doorstep! A beautiful package that looks like it was wrapped by a serial killer, with this letter attached to boot!" Vox replied. "And in this letter is written an accurate description of things that YOU have done, things that if known to other Overlords would offend them enough to make us the public enemies of hell! Oh, and of course there's also a list of proof that the person who sent us the package, who as you can imagine remained anonymous, possesses and which further incriminates me as your accomplice, given that you did these things in my house..."
"Our house" Valentino corrected him.
"Yes, 'our' my ass! I paid for it, the name on the property deed is mine!" Vox retorted, and he let out an electric shock as he threw the letter in his companion's face. "Read, it's a list of at least ten lines of just proof! I didn't even know you had done all these things!"
"Oh, come on, they must have made it all up! This is probably just a joke!" Valentino grumbled, although the fact that the letter was written using letters cut from newspapers didn't bode well. He began to read it and his eyes narrowed at each line: "Okay... I did this. This too. And this too... damn, how do they know!?"
"I would like to know this! For starters, why didn't I know anything about it? And who did you invite who could blackmail us now?" Vox asked him in a rather pissed off voice.
"I didn't tell you anything because I knew you would be against it! You never want to have fun!" Valentino replied in the same tone of voice.
"Sorry if I have any sense of self-preservation! What crazy maniac would organize an orgy whose theme is the Overlord Zestial!?" Vox exclaimed. "Do you have any idea how he would react if he knew that you had fucked at least ten whores dressed up as him!?"
"Oh, come on, it only happened once! I was pissed at him for something I don't remember and you were out of town, so I took the opportunity to vent!" Valentino protested.
"Well, I hope that you vented well and it was worth it! Look at the situation we're in now! Come here, listen to it!" Vox responded by pointing to the package; Valentino approached and placed his ear on the cardboard, and he clearly heard a ticking sound coming from inside. "It's surely a bomb! We will blow up!"
Valentino was starting to worry a little too. "Well... what are you waiting for? Throw it out!"
"Of course, so instead of getting killed by the bomb we get killed by a horde of angry Overlords who have come to our door to kick our asses! Are you able to read!?" Vox growled, snatching the letter from his hands and pointing to the final part that Val hadn't read yet. “Look, there are specific instructions!” he exclaimed, and then he read aloud: "Don't let the package out of the house, don't leave the house, don't let anyone enter the house. If you violate these rules the information reported on this paper will become public knowledge. Don't try to get out of the line, we're watching you!". In a fit of anger he tore the letter in two. "Do you really want to go ahead and throw it out!?"
Valentino swallowed. Technically a bomb wouldn't have killed him since he was a demon, but he didn't like having to blow himself up since it wasn't exactly a painless process, and he didn't want to risk losing his house and all his belongings. Sure, he had enough money to buy everything back, but there were many things inside that building that he was fond of.
Before either of them could say anything else Velvette appeared in the kitchen, completely wrapped in her pajamas, and judging by the look on her face she must have just gotten out of bed. "Yawn... do you even have to scream in the early morning!?" she grumbled.
"Tell this moron, look what he's done!" Vox replied pointing to the package. "We are in the midst of an attack!"
Velvette raised an eyebrow, then she picked up the two parts of the letter and put them together, and she quickly read what was written there. "Well... that's... somewhat problematic" she said with an expression that grew more and more worried as her gaze moved down towards the end of the paper. "Val, I told you it wasn't a good idea to do these things!"
“Wait, you knew that!?” Vox exclaimed.
"Of course, this is my house too! Why, didn't he tell you?" Velvette replied, and Vox's expression confirmed her words. "Well, let's think careful about this. The letter doesn't say that we can't defuse the bomb, so I assume this is the sick game of some maniac Val knows, who wants to see us panic while trying to save ourselves"
Valentino and Vox looked at each other, and had to agree that Velvette's hypothesis wasn't far-fetched at all. "So... what do we do?" Valentino asked.
"First, let's open this package and see what's really inside" Velvette said as she grabbed a pair of scissors and started cutting the tape.
"I can do it in an instant..." Valentino said as he raised a finger to use his powers.
But Vox stopped him immediately: "Don't even think about it! We don't know the mechanics of that thing! You could make us explode!"
"Oh, come on! Do you really think someone programmed this bomb to resist the powers of an Overlord?" Valentino asked sarcastically.
"It's US that they sent it to! Are you really that stupid to think that they didn't take precautions against our powers!?" Vox replied back.
"Guys, I opened it" Velvette called attention to herself before another argument could begin between the two.
Under the worried gaze of the three Overlords, the cardboard walls opened and fell to the floor, revealing an object at least half a meter wide similar to an egg. As soon as she saw it, Velvette turned pale. "Oh fuck..." she whispered.
Valentino and Vox looked at her surprised. It wasn't often that Velvette showed such emotions. "Do you know what it is?" the Media Overlord asked her.
Velvette nodded. "Yes... I saw them once while I was visiting Carmilla's angelic weapons factory a year ago. They only built a few, there aren't many in circulation... whoever sent it there certainly has a lot of money in their pockets..."
The two Overlords were liking the situation less and less. "Get to the point! What is it?" Valentino barked impatiently.
Velvette looked them in the eye, then she replied: "It's an angelic nuke"
Vox and Valentino literally threw themselves on the floor and crawled until they hid under the table.
"I mean, let me get this straight" Vox murmured, trying to keep his head together. "Atomic bombs made with pieces of angelic weapons and which can therefore kill demons have come into production, and some crazy maniac sent us one!?"
"Keep calm!" Velvette was quick to tell him. It had taken a good twelve minutes to calm the Media Overlord enough to allow him to think straight, and she didn't want to risk wasting any more time. "It's not a real nuke, it's just called that to be cool! It can't destroy the city, at most it will wipe out this neighborhood..."
"Oh, so the city is safe, wonderful! So everything is fine!" Valentino exclaimed; unlike Vox he was still in the midst of an emotional crisis. "Enough, I'm not staying here! I'm trying to escape!"
"Don't even try!" Vox screamed, jumping at him and knocking him to the ground before he could run away. “I would rather die from a bomb than from what Zestial and the other Overlords will do to us if what you have done here becomes known to all of hell!”
"We'll run away from them too! Let's leave now and build a new identity!" Valentino stammered.
"Yes, and where? Do you really think they won't find us? Where do you want to hide, at the princess' hotel with Alastor? Because that's probably the only place they'll never look for us!" Vox pointed out.
Valentino bit his lip; clearly that possibility disgusted him quite a bit, but nevertheless he said: "Well... it's better than dying...!"
"Listen to me, you piece of shit!" Vox growled, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck. "I'm not giving up the economic empire I built because of you! Do you like living here in luxury, having a lot of whores every night and being feared and revered by everyone? Well, then come to your senses and try to make yourself useful! You made this mess and you help us fix it!"
Valentino seemed a little less intent on trying to escape than before, and indeed he was clearly weighing his options well. He didn't want to give up all the fame and money either, and he certainly didn't want to live in the Hazbin Hotel. "But... what should we do? I mean, we don't even know how that bomb works...!"
"Maybe I can turn it off" Velvette said suddenly.
The two Overlords stopped glaring at each other and turned sharply towards her. "Are you sure?" they asked her.
"Well... I can try. I mean, I've been watching the construction process, I just have to do it in reverse, right?" Velvette replied. "But I need you two to hold it up for me, because it opens from underneath and if we turn it over we risk making it explode early"
The eyes of both the Overlords widened. "We're supposed to be holding an angelic nuke ready to explode!? No fucking way!" Valentino screamed.
"This time I agree with him! I care about my life!" Vox said back.
Velvette rolled her eyes. "Look, do you want me to deactivate it or not!?" she exclaimed impatiently.
Vox and Valentino looked at each other. They both had a devastated look on their faces. “Okay…” Vox murmured. "Shall we make heads or tails?"
"It's no use, it's too heavy for just one of you to lift. You have to do it together" Velvette pointed out. "And don't use your powers, it's specifically programmed to sense demonic energy, any magical attempt would anticipate the detonation"
The two Overlords swallowed loudly, then with extreme reluctance they went to the side of the bomb, stood facing each other, and then took it and with a little effort lifted it about half a meter off the ground. Velvette in the meantime went to get a bag full of wrenches, screwdrivers, drills and pliers and had put on two protective glasses. She lay down on her back and crawled under the bomb, and there she began to fiddle with the tools... or at least, that was the intent, since the two Overlords were shaking and consequently making the bomb shake as well. "Can you stay still!? How can I work if you keep moving!?"
"We're doing our best, okay!? Do your job!" Valentino growled. Clearly he was about to push the limits of his endurance. "How much time we have, by the way?"
Velvette glanced at the timer. "Plenty of it. Fifty-three minutes left". She began unscrewing the hatch to access the internal cables. "Now shut up, I have to concentrate!"
Not even ten minutes had passed, and the silence had become so oppressive that it had taken on its own consistency. Val and Vox stood looking into each other's eyes without saying a word, and they seemed almost afraid that even a sob could cause the bomb to slip from their hands. The only sound left was that of Velvette fiddling with the device. At a certain point Valentino was about to remove one of his four hands from the bomb, but Vox glared at him: "Don't even fucking think about it!"
“I just wanted to scratch my head!” Val protested.
“Then hold the fucking itch!” Vox growled. "You want to unbalance this thing just as Velvette is getting her hands in it? What if she touches the wrong wire because of you?"
"I have four hands! It wouldn't have thrown itself out of balance!" Valentino said back in an even more annoyed tone than before. "Don't act like I'm just doing damage!"
"Just damage!? It's your fault we're here, asshole!" Vox reminded him.
"No, instead! It's the fault of a sadistic jerk who is having fun behind our backs and who as soon as this story is over I will find and shoot him in the balls!" Valentino replied.
“We wouldn't have had any problems with any sadistic jerks if you hadn't made a mess in this house!”
"I was just having fun! Unlike you, I enjoy life!"
"Enjoying life doesn't mean not having the slightest prudence! You're just an idiot!"
"Well, at least I'm sincere! Not like you!"
“What the fuck did you say!?”
"You heard me! I may be an idiot but at least when I want to do something I don't hide it! If I want to shoot someone I say it out loud and I do it! Not like you, who first act as a moralist and then are ready to throw yourself into the fray as soon as the radio demon comes out, and that you try to lie even to us, to me, about your motives! We should be afraid that Alastor will make a deal with the princess of hell, come on... you just want to beat up Alastor, but you are too cowardly to even admit it to us and you use excuses to get our support!"
It was incredible to say since Vox's teeth were pixels on a digital screen, but it was possible to hear them gnashing when he ground them. "You filthy piece of shit..." he hissed.
But Valentino assumed a triumphant expression. "See? I was right!" he exclaimed. “I know you, Vox. When what others are saying is false, you don't hesitate to say it to their faces. But when what they say is true, you resort to insults because it's your way of masking your insecurity with anger! So the the simple fact that you called me a filthy piece of shit confirms to me that everything I said is true!"
Vox was snorting like a bull, but then an evil smile formed on his face. "Okay... if you know me so well, then I know you too. And that's why I know you're a coward!"
Valentino narrowed his eyes. "Excuse me, what are you raving about!?"
"Oh, you know that very well!" Vox replied to him. "You actually don't give a shit that Angel went off to stay at the hotel! You don't give a damn about him! You're just angry because you feel like your control over him is diminishing, and that scares you! Because you, Val, are nothing more than a coward who convinces himself that he has control of everything, and when something gets out of control you go crazy! Even the slightest thing out of place makes you angry, because it reminds you that you actually have no control, and that if you are in your position it is only because everyone is afraid of you, and you know that if one day that fear ceases you will be exactly what you have always been: nothing!"
"How dare you..." Valentino growled, and the growl sounded like that of a beast. "I am not 'nothing'! I am the Pimp Overlord!"
"You are only because I made you so!" Vox told him. “I'm the one who picked you up from the streets and allowed you to use your abilities to become an Overlord! Without me you wouldn't even know where to start! You were nobody before, nothing more than a low-cost porn producer, and you were always in trouble because you lost control and destroyed the sets and killed the actors, and you were forced to pay for more! And you know it very well, and that's why you don't tolerate the slightest change in your lifestyle, which is why even a stupid thing like a change in your dear little slut's resistance makes you so angry! Because it constantly reminds you that you will never be able to control everything, and you only really need to go wrong once to go back to being the miserable one that you were! And the same is true in our so-called relationship, which is why it's always you who break up with me when you understand that I'm about to do so, which is why you always wait for me to come back to you even if I know from certain sources that you go into depression when I'm not with you, that's why when I say something you can't reply to you immediately use your fists!"
Valentino was starting to blow smoke from his mouth. His body was stiffening and slouching slightly. “You…” he hissed. "Voxxy, honey... you're nothing but a worm. A hypocrite whose head is just as full of shit as everyone else, but who acts superior as if he were different. All you do is make yourself ridiculous by acting like a serious and respectable person, when in fact everyone knows that you are just a child who wants revenge on the radio demon at all costs!"
But Vox was not intimidated. "What you do instead, my dear Val, is refuse to face any situation that can't go exactly the way you want, and you mask your fear as a constant problem of being angry, and if something gets out of your control you just destroy it and then you put all the blame on others because you're even scared of taking your own responsibilities. I'm a hypocrite, okay, I don't deny it; but you're pathetic"
Touche.
It's a shame that Valentino wasn't someone who loved to lose, and when he couldn't respond with words he used strong methods; he was about to punch the Media Overlord hard in the face, but just then Velvette shouted: "What are you doing, you idiots!? You'll drop the bomb!"
Both Overlords froze and remembered that they were holding a device that within a few dozen minutes would likely erase them from existence; Valentino immediately abandoned all aggressive impulses and went back to holding it with all four of his arms, and Vox tightened his grip on it in turn. Valentino gritted his teeth; as long as he had that bomb in his hand he couldn't react the way he wanted, and he couldn't punch Vox, which pissed him off like a beast. And of course that only made the Media Overlord smile. "See? Exactly as I told you. You don't know how to answer with words so you try to use your fists, because it burns you that you can't silence me!" he told him amused.
Valentino was barely holding himself back. "You're an asshole. As soon as this is over, I swear I'll stick a pole up your ass and a kettle through your head"
"Sure, go ahead. Maybe this will convince you that you have some control over me" Vox mocked him, making him even more furious. The Media Overlord knew that Valentino wasn't crazy enough to drop the bomb, so as much as he would have preferred not to be in that situation, he was still intent on using it to his advantage.
For once, Val couldn't silence him with his fists.
Vox regretted such thoughts not even five minutes later. Being stuck holding a bomb meant that Valentino couldn't hit him in any way... but also that he couldn't leave when things started to get unpleasant. And Val had found the perfect topic to irritate him: Alastor.
In particular, he began to list all of Alastor's extraordinary qualities, even going so far as to exalt his clothing even though he himself had always considered it terrible, anything to make him furious. "And those horns! They're so beautiful and shiny, and when they grow on the antlers! Ah, he smells like an alpha male even from a mile away... it's obvious he's not the least bit concerned about seriously covering beta males like a certain television head... "
"Can you end this!?" Vox roared, now sending sparks from his screen. "Stop pretending that he's somehow endearing!"
"I never pretend, Voxxy. Maybe I'm pathetic, but not a hypocrite" Valentino replied, using his own words against him. "What I'm saying is just the plain truth. I wouldn't mind fucking the radio demon at all, I think he's very attractive..."
"It can never be true! No one could find that walking carcass attractive!" Vox protested.
"Oh, come on, where do you live? Everyone wants to fuck Alastor, Voxxy" Valentino replied.
Vox's left eye twitched slightly. "What you're saying doesn't make any sense!"
"He's actually right" Velvette interjected as she continued to fiddle under the bomb. "The internet is full of fanfiction and fanart about Alastor... some far beyond reality"
“Yeah, I can confirm that. I'm not a fan of this stuff, but I've looked at some… and damn, they are super interesting" Valentino said, and he chuckled heartily when he saw the Media Overlord's shocked expression. "Do you know that they also ship him with the princess herself?"
Vox looked like it was about to explode. “Seriously, why is this world full of miserable perverts!?”
"Because we are in hell" Valentino reminded him.
Vox didn't even listen to him: "For starters, Alastor is asexual! It doesn't even make sense to ship him with anyone!"
“Oh, are you perhaps jealous, Voxxy?” Valentino told him in a rather captivating way.
Vox froze. "What do you mean!?"
"It seems obvious to me. You know, I always thought your obsession with the radio demon was a little too great. And now I also find out that you know for a fact that he's asexual, and that you don't like anyone fantasizing about him... do you have to confess something to us?" Valentino asked him with a grin. "I've always thought that you're bothered by something more than simple hatred..."
"Are you telling me you think I like Alastor!?" Vox was blazing so much he looked like he was about to short circuit. “From what sick corner of your mind did such nonsense come out!?”
"Actually, many people think so" Velvette interjected again.
Vox seemed to turn into stone. "What!?"
"I didn't know this!" Valentino exclaimed, barely keeping himself from bursting out laughing, and only the fact that he didn't want to risk moving while he had a bomb in his hands held him back. "Tell us, tell us!"
"Well, like I said before the radio demon is shipped with everyone" Velvette explained. "There are so many fanfictions on the internet about Vox and him in intimate attitudes"
“What problems do people have!?” Vox shouted, while Valentino was biting his tongue to avoid bursting out laughing like an idiot. "Alastor is my eternal rival! Everyone knows it!"
"Yes, but everyone saw more than just rivalry between you" Velvette told him. "They think you are secretly in love with the radio demon, and therefore your constant fighting with him is just an obsessive desire for attention"
"Are you kidding me!? I rejoiced for seven years that he was gone! How can people think that!?" Vox growled.
"If it's any comfort, there are many fanfictions where such love interest is mutual. I mean, you're still humiliated, but at least you're both humiliated" Velvette informed him. "And some of them are really well made. I could recommend a couple of them..."
“I don't want to read that garbage!” Vox protested.
"Send them to me, I'm very interested" Valentino said instead, who was already anticipating a long series of epochal laughter.
Velvette nodded. "Of course, Val. If you want, I'll send you the links to certain sites directly, so you can..."
"Okay, that's enough! Continuing would be damaging to the brains of most of those present!" Vox snapped. "Velvette, can you focus on this bomb instead of talking? We're about to explode in case you forgot!"
"Send them to me" Valentino repeated smugly.
"Okay, okay, I'll stop talking" Velvette said as she went back to fiddling with the bomb. But then she added: "Anyway, Val, you'll be spoiled for choice. The fanfiction and fanart about Vox and Alastor are endless... certainly more than those about you and Vox"
Valentino's smile vanished from his face at those words.
Silence reigned supreme again for another ten minutes, which surprised Vox quite a bit: it was rare for Valentino to take on such a thoughtful expression... and strangely he also seemed a little hurt. Finally the Pimp Overlord asked: "Is there really more fanfiction about the radio demon and Vox than it is about me?"
"Do you think it's time to worry about these things!?" Vox exclaimed. He couldn't understand whether Valentino was contemptuous of the danger or simply stupid.
"Well, yes" Velvette replied ignoring the Media Overlord. "There are actually very few fanfictions about you and Vox, and in most of them it's a toxic relationship, and you're the abuser"
Valentino's eyes trembled slightly. "How is it possible!?" he said, gritting his teeth. "Vox and Alastor spend half their time here in hell fighting and people write tons of fanfiction about them, while I've been dating him for decades and yet have very little about it?"
"Well, maybe if you stopped constantly acting like a couple in crisis and picking on each other, then people would start considering you a decent ship" Velvette replied. "You can't blame people if they don't see you as being good together, if all you do is yell at each other and never try to talk. No one is interested in reading a story about two assholes who do nothing but fight and fuck"
"You remember that there's a bomb here, right?" Vox grumbled, even though he too was a little annoyed by Velvette's statements.
She totally ignored him. "Vox and Alastor hate each other, but no one ever sees them interact except when they clash, and most of the aforementioned clashes are verbal, so everyone can indulge their imagination and imagine that in reality deep down they both would like to be in a relationship. The two of you, on the other hand, are always together, but you're never on good terms. Except when you plan something, all you do is ignore each other or scream at each other or make sexual outbursts. It's easy to imagine that yours is an absolutely toxic relationship... and this is not that far from reality technically"
Valentino let out a grunt. “And why do I play the part of the abuser?”
"What questions, because you are the Pimp Overlord. People fear you and know you as someone who does nothing but abuse his employees" Velvette answered him in a tone that suggested that she considered such a stupid question. "And since it's easy for you to lose control in public and crash Vox's screen, it didn't take long for people to consider you the asshole of the couple". Velvette emerged from under the bomb and stared Valentino straight in the eyes: "Like Vox said, he's a hypocrite and you're pathetic. This also applies in your relationship. Vox avoids showing himself to be an asshole in public, and in fact no one considers him as such even if he really is. You, on the other hand, don't know how to control yourself and as a result everyone considers you an idiot"
For once, Valentino didn't react at all; he simply stared at the floor with a dejected look. He seemed to be thinking carefully about something.
Vox was also hurt by Velvette's words; it was one thing to hear Valentino call him a hypocrite, for whom he could pretend it was an insult due to the tension of the moment, it was another thing to hear Velvette say it, and with that condescending tone to boot. “Can we focus on the main problem, please!?” he exclaimed impatiently. "Can't you see that we're in an emergency situation, and that we're holding a bomb in our hands, with a woman under it who I hope she know what the fuck she's doing!? How long until you defuse it, Velvette!?"
"Don't worry, I almost did it! I almost got to the detonator, then I'll just have to cut a couple of wires and we're done!" Velvette responded by crawling back under the bomb.
"Phew! Thank goodness" Vox said with great relief. With a bit of luck, within a few minutes their lives would no longer be in danger.
But Valentino didn't seem to share his enthusiasm. "Voxxy, doesn't it bother you?"
Vox closed his eyes and took a deep breath to give himself strength. "Val, if you don't mind, this isn't exactly the time to worry about not having a lot of fanfiction about our relationship! It's not important!"
Incredibly, Val seemed even more hurt than before by those words; but immediately his expression turned furious and he exclaimed: "Well, it's important to me! It's not fair that I always play the bad guy! You're a manipulative asshole too!"
Vox felt that this wasn't the time to discuss certain things at all, but that didn't stop him from responding in kind: "Well, maybe you wouldn't just be the bad guy if you avoided hitting me every time you can't counterargue my arguments more than logical!"
Valentino's eyes trembled with anger, but then he grinned evilly: "Well... it seems that at least we both agree that you are a hypocrite, since you know you are cruel and mean even more than me but you hide to the public!"
"Yeah, and we both agree that you're pathetic, since you let your emotions rule you and in fact everyone sees you as the one in the wrong, effectively making me the strong part of the couple!" Vox said grinning back.
"Nonsense! Since when would the abused be stronger than the abuser?" Valentino asked him.
"Since the abused is actually the real abuser, but he hides so well that the rest of the world doesn't consider him as such and puts all the blame on the other!" Vox retorted.
Sparks seemed to be flying between them; both of them had never thought that one day they would find themselves arguing over who among them was the most abusive, much less over something as silly as a fanfiction, and yet here they were bickering intensely over such idiocy. But before the conversation could continue Velvette exclaimed: "Fuck!"
The attention of both Overlords was immediately on her. "What's going on!? Is it about to explode!?" Vox exclaimed.
Velvette crawled out from under the bomb and got back to her feet. "No, don't worry, we still have time. But we have a problem" she replied. "Whoever sent us this stuff modified the detonator. It's completely different than how I saw it at the Carmilla factory"
“So you can't turn it off?” Valentino asked her worriedly.
Velvette shook her head. "I can't do anything anymore. We need to call someone who knows about mechanics. Someone with super balls"
"Of course, and how do we do it? I remind you that the letter said that we can't ask for help!" Vox reminded her.
"The letter said we can't let anyone in the house" Velvette told him. "It didn't say anything about calling someone. If we call someone and they give me instructions on what to do, that should be fine, right?"
Valentino and Vox looked at each other. Neither of them was very convinced, but they were literally out of options. "Okay... let's do it and hope that the maniac who sent us this stuff doesn't consider it a violation of the rules and spit us out in front of all hell" Vox replied. “So, who can we call?”
"I'm sure that won't happen. Trust me, it's not the first bomb-sending maniac I've seen... I've done it a couple of times too" Velvette said, then she giggled: "Val, do you remember that time did we stage an attack in your office to convince your employees to sign a contract with you for protection?"
"Pff!! Ha ha, that was fun!" Valentino burst out laughing. "I still remember the face Summer made when..."
"Who can we call!?" Vox blurted out trying to maintain a minimum of mental clarity.
"Come on, it's obvious, that one!" Velvette replied. "What was his name... C4!"
Vox's eyes widened in disbelief. "C4?" he repeated with an expression that would have been an understatement to define as stupid.
"Wait... who, the one who continuously burp? Seriously?" Valentino muttered skeptically.
"Continuously burp? Val, he's a world champion of burping!" Velvette replied with a hint of offense in her voice.
"Let me get this straight, so you want to call someone who burps to defuse a bomb?" Vox asked not believing his own words.
"We have a VIP available, let's not throw him down the toilet!" Velvette answered him.
Vox sighed deeply. "Val, give me a name. Possibly a better alternative"
Valentino thought about it for a moment, then he proposed: "We can ask to Trick-and-Track"
Vox didn't slam his hands in his face just because he didn't want to drop the bomb.
"Are you sure? I'm kind of pissed off by that guy" Velvette replied.
"Yes, I admit that he has a particular character" Valentino told her. "But you can't deny that he's good"
“I can imagine how good someone called Trick-and-Track is” Vox grumbled.
"Oh, Voxxy, don't be so harsh! All the best people have had nicknames" Valentino told him.
"Of course. I imagine this man's business card: 'Trick-and-Track, I defuse bombs, call me'. A true expert in the field" Vox said now on the verge of an aneurysm. “Do we have anyone available who doesn't sound like a total idiot just by name?”
"Well, if you don't want celebrities with a cool nickname, I'm afraid we only have one option available" Velvette replied to him.
Vox was almost praying that she wouldn't say another idiotic name. "And that is?"
Velvette shrugged: "Let's call Sir Pentious"
Okay, that was even worse. "Are you kidding me? Shall we ask that idiot for help?"
"He may be an idiot, but he's a mechanical genius" Velvette reminded her. "He's the only expert in the field whose number I have. And then I looked at his resume, and he seems like someone who knows what he's doing... at least when it comes to machines. And he has a certain reputation as a defuser of ordnance, how do you think he manages to pay for all his gadgets?"
"I hate to admit it, but she's not entirely wrong" Valentino said.
If he could, Vox would have bitten his lips, his tongue, and even his uvula. “Okay, we don't have a lot of time… so be it, Sir Pentious is the chosen one"
"Don't make that face, I told you he's famous in this field! Trust me, he's packed with work! In fact, I'd better call him right away, he's capable of keeping me on hold for three days" Velvette said taking out her cell phone.
"Three days?" Vox's eyes widened. “How many bombs are sent in this city?”
"Voxxy, you're not in the criminal world, you don't know these things!" Valentino replied to him.
"I'm not in the criminal world!? Living with you I've seen more crimes in this house than the entire Russian mafia in the span of fifty years!" Vox exclaimed, then he shook his head. "We rely on Sir Pentious... why the fuck am I still talking with these two?"
It took two minutes of voicemail before Sir Pentious answered the phone. "Hello?"
"Hi, Penty! Here's Velvette"
"You? What the fuck do you want? If Vox sent you..."
"No, don't worry, Vox has nothing to do with it! I called you because I need advice from a technology expert, and you came to mind"
"... context, please"
"We have a bomb in the house, and we are trying to deactivate it. I have already done most of the work but the detonator has been modified"
"Excuse me, but don't you have legions of minions who can take the device away?"
"We have also received a threatening letter, we cannot let anyone into the house and we cannot throw the bomb out"
There was a moment of silence, then a hearty laugh came from the other end of the phone. "Ha ha ha! So you're about to blow up, huh? Serves you right! Thanks for letting me know, I'll sit at the window and watch your house with binoculars so I can enjoy the explosion in real time! In your face, assholes! Especially yours, Vox!"
“Go fuck yourself, Pentious!” Vox didn't hold back from saying.
"As you wish, I'll go fuck myself; in the meantime, you guys will go meet the Creator! No, wait... that's not going to happen! Ha ha!" Sir Pentious answered him. "Now I'll call Alastor, I'm sure he'll laugh loud too!"
"Wait, wait, wait!" Velvette was quick to tell him. "Look... I admit that there have been some... deplorable misunderstandings between us..."
"You have used and abandoned me!" Sir Pentious reminded her.
"... but if you help us, I will pay you handsomely!" Velvette proposed.
Sir Pentious laughed again. "Who do you take me for? I'm certainly not someone who sells himself for some pennies!"
“I'll give you a hundred thousand hellish dollars" Velvette told him.
Sir Pentious was silent for a moment. "Really?"
"Really" Velvette confirmed.
"... fine. I admit that under the circumstances I may become someone who sells himself... like now" Sir Pentious told her. "Let's get busy then. So, I can't come to your house?"
"No, the letter forbids it" Velvette reminded him.
"Good, because I wouldn't have come anyway. Today we have a group activity and I don't want to be late. And then I don't want to see you again, let alone blow up" Sir Pentious grumbled. "Listen, activate the video call and show me the detonator, and then follow my instructions"
Velvette crawled under the bomb again and showed Sir Pentious the detonator. The snake looked at it carefully, then he commented: "Well... whoever built it knew what they were doing. They created an intricate system in which just cutting one wire before the other is enough to make everything explode". He cleared his throat: "Okay. Listen, first you need to unscrew that..."
Velvette began to follow Sir Pentious's instructions to the letter; Vox and Valentino initially feared they would explode at any moment given the rather unencouraging words the snake had said, but fortunately he at least seemed competent in the field of mechanics and didn't make a single mistake. However, both Overlords had now accumulated a considerable amount of anxiety. To distract himself, Vox asked: "So... did you and Velvette really stage an attack?"
Despite the tension, Valentino smiled slightly: "Oh, yes! It was very funny. We practically faked a terrorist attack with no possibility of escape, and all those imbeciles immediately ran to sell their souls to me in order to save themselves! I was bursting with laughter that day"
Vox managed to laugh a little too, even though he was sweating a lot. "It must have been a beautiful scene... why didn't you invite me? I would have liked to see it!"
"Oh, come on, you know better than me that you would have tried to stop me" Valentino replied. "You would never have approved of something like that. You would have pulled out all your bullshit about the importance of looking respectable and perfect..."
Vox grimaced. "I admit that... I would have had concerns about maintaining our image" he said. "But it is important! If we acted without thinking like you do, we would never have created this economic empire!"
"Maybe, but if we always acted like you do, we would really have a miserable and monotonous life!" Valentino replied annoyed.
"Well, considering that my miserable and monotonous life would have spared us having a bomb in the house, I would say that this establishes my superiority regardless!" Vox replied.
"You two have problems" Sir Pentious commented.
"You have no idea" was what Velvette told him.
"Shut up, you two! Think about defusing this damned device, so I can finally drop it and give Val so many slaps that he'll regret ever being born!" Vox growled.
"Uh, you put it that way? Well, dickhead, you just won a long dose of broken screens in place of that shit you dare call face!" Valentino hissed angrily.
“If I can speak, my dears, this is no way to resolve conflicts” Sir Pentious interjected again. "You need some dialogue"
"Good luck, I've been trying to make them understand it for twenty years" Velvette grumbled.
“Can you please focus only on this damn bomb!?" Vox shouted. “We don't give a fuck about your opinion, Pentious!”
"Well, I have self-respect and I don't take orders from you, so I'll say it anyway!" Sir Pentious replied. "If there's one thing I've learned here at the hotel, it's that you need to talk to each other and express your feelings so that the other person understands how you feel! Certainly don't hide behind insults and anger! This is how the princess managed to understand me and conquer me, and trust me, there is nothing more beautiful than being sincere, becoming an oak of your feelings!"
"Ugh... my blood sugar is rising" Valentino grumbled, almost vomiting.
"Damn, Pentious... I knew you were a desperate loser, but I didn't think you were that sugary" Vox said making a noise of disgust.
But Sir Pentious was not intimidated. "Oh yeah? Well, you know what's funny? I may be a desperate and sugary loser, but at least whether or not we manage to defuse this bomb I will live the rest of my life aspiring to something better and close to at least one person who understands me and who listens to me, while you will either die here in regret or continue to live with nothing but regrets, and will make each other unhappy for eternity!"
Valentino and Vox turned red and gnashed their teeth at the same time, and seemed to be about to shout something, but just then Velvette asked: "Penty, what thread should I cut now?"
Sir Pentious seemed to only then remember what they were doing. "Oh, right! So, cut in order first the blue one, then the orange one, then..."
That sudden distraction was enough to return silence, interrupted only by Sir Pentious's explanations, and Vox and Valentino found themselves speechless again. Neither of them met the other's gaze again for a long time.
The next twenty minutes passed without either of them saying a single word. Every now and then they met their gaze, but immediately turned it away, assuming an annoyed expression. The sound of Sir Pentious and Velvette's voice fiddling with the bomb was becoming terribly annoying, but both Vox and Valentino didn't say a word even though they would have very much liked to focus their attention on something else.
The truth was that neither of them was used to that kind of confrontation. Their arguments always lasted just ten minutes, and ended with them hitting each other and going off on their own in a huff, breaking off their relationship only to get back together within a few days. But this time they couldn't do it: they were literally stuck in the house, in that room, and moreover in front of each other since they had to hold the bomb up, and they couldn't hit each other or leave. If you added to this all the tension they were feeling, it was clear that it became very difficult for them to contain themselves. This had already led them to have a much longer and deeper dialogue than normal, and this was bringing out feelings that they didn't want to express at all costs. But ironically, at the same time they were feeling better about letting off steam more than usual. This was confusing them more than they ever remembered being.
Finally it was Vox the one who broke the silence: "Hey, Val... do you remember what I told you when we first met?"
Valentino let out a snort. "How can I remember? I was high". False: he was high that time, but that didn't mean he didn't remember it very well.
"Oh, you sure were. You smashed my tower door in with your car" Vox grumbled, but he didn't do it in an annoyed voice. "I was already going to kick you, but you came out and proposed some ideas for a film. They were... brilliant. Revolutionary. You had never been able to implement them because you didn't have enough money available, but you had the ability to change the entire porn industry. That day I told you that I saw an extraordinary talent in you, and that I wanted to partner with the Overlord I was certain you would become"
Valentino bit his lip. "Well, you certainly got your predictions right" he grumbled, feigning indifference. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything now?”
"It has to do with it, because that day you were... well, you were high, and thus more free. You didn't pay attention to control everything. You didn't want to always be the one in charge. The drugs had clouded your mind and you had the courage to come from me, knowing that I could give you the means you needed, even if it meant being temporarily at my service" Vox told him. "When you came to your senses... you were pissed off like a beast, but you couldn't go back on your word because we had already signed a contract. You sulked for months, or rather years, and only when you finally became an Overlord and once we became equal partners you became more relaxed and smiling again. Only when I gave you back the illusion of being in complete control of your choices and those of all your employees did you finally relax. But in any case, I have never seen you so relaxed like when you're high or drunk and have no brakes, because you're always careful that nothing escapes your gaze" Vox let out a long sigh. "What I mean is... I wish you were able to be relaxed in the same way even when you're not high. I wish that when you feel something is getting out of your control you would stop and reflect, and not act impulsively and destroy that thing or turning your insecurity into anger. And that when we break up and you realize you want to come back to me you just tell me, not that you wait for me to come back. I know how you become when I make you wait too long, they told me, that's why even if I'm angry I swallow my pride and pretend to admit I'm wrong. But sometimes I would like it if you... well, if you would try to give up controlling everything at least with me. I wish you admitted your mistakes and didn't hide behind your anger"
"Look look, do you also want me to paint you nail polish, sissy?" Valentino said trying to sound contemptuous, but he did it with such a false tone that he didn't even convince himself, and in fact Vox wasn't offended at all. There was silence again, and then Val murmured: "Well... maybe I would be less obsessed with control if you were more sincere. I understand being a hypocrite to others but... I wish you would at least tell me what you really think. I don't care if you just want to beat up Alastor or if you have some kind of interest in him or other shit, I don't give a damn, I'd be happy to help you either way; but I wish you would tell me to my face. I wish you tell me 'Hey, Val, I want to kick the radio demon's ass, do you want to come too?', and not 'We have to be careful about the radio demon because he is probably planning something even if even I didn't know what'. I was honest with you about why I wanted to go to the hotel to pick up Angel, but you weren't honest with me about Alastor. And this hypocrisy of yours... it bothers me. It gives me the idea that it doesn't matter what I do or say, I will never be able to trust you completely, that at any moment you could decide that it is no longer worth having me around and throwing me away as you have done with countless others. How can I be calm and give up controlling everything if I'm next to a person who is never totally honest with me?"
Vox's screen flickered slightly, and he looked down. "Yeah... maybe you're right" he admitted. "The fact is, Val... I got to where I am now because I always made sure to think before I acted, and never show my true intentions. Arguments between us Overlords are like chess games, if you want to win you have to think several moves ahead and take everything into account. And perhaps... instinctively I also take your potential betrayal into account, which is why I am never sincere and try to maintain a serious and respectable image of myself"
"Vox, we have been partners for decades. If I wanted to betray you I would have done it a long time ago" Valentino pointed out. "I've had countless opportunities to betray you, opportunities that might have taken me even higher than where I am now, but I've never done it. And the fact that you still fear it... offends me"
"Well, if you put it that way, the fact that after years you still fear that I might throw you away like garbage and destroy everything you have offends me just as much" Vox replied.
Both Overlords were silent again. They seemed to have at least a thousand thoughts in their heads, but neither of them had any idea how to express them or even understand them. It was at that moment that Sir Pentious said: "See? Sometimes dialogue can make the difference. Don't you feel more in tune now?"
"Shut up, rattlesnake!" Vox and Val barked in unison.
"Ugh, you're really obnoxious! It wouldn't hurt to admit that you love each other, you know!" Sir Pentious grumbled.
Vox and Valentino were about to reply, but just at that moment a siren was heard and the bomb lit up with several flashing red lights. "Um... Penty, is this normal?" Velvette stammered.
"Of course not! What the fuck have you done!?" Sir Pentious exclaimed.
"I cut the red thread, like you told me!" Velvette replied.
"The red thread on the right, not the one on the left, you idiot!" Sir Pentious was becoming almost shrill from how much he was shouting.
"Well, you had to specify!" Velvette replied in a cold sweat. "What do I do now!?"
"Nothing! It's over, it's about to explode! There's nothing left to do! You only have twenty seconds left!" Sir Pentious exclaimed as he began to cry. "It was nice meeting you! I hope you don't have any unfinished business!"
"WHAT!?" the three Overlords shouted in unison.
"No, no, no! I'm too young to die!" Velvette screamed as she crawled away from under the bomb, and then she put her hands in her hair. "I loved you guys, goodbye! You were terrible fathers, but I really enjoyed the time we spent together!"
"Hey hey hey, let's calm down! There must be something we can do!" Vox screamed; neither he nor Val had let go of the bomb yet, and they were feeling it tremble in their hands.
"No... it can't end like this!" Valentino was already hyperventilating. "Voxxy, I really like you! I want to be buried with you!"
"There will be nothing left to bury, but thank you Val! And I like you too, knowing you is one of the best things in my life!" Vox screamed with tears in his eyes.
"In my life too! I will never regret crashing my car into your tower even if I practically had to cover the car dealer in gold!" Valentino was now crying.
“And I will never regret hiring you that day, it was the best deal I ever made, I couldn't have found someone like you in a million years!” Vox replied. “I'm sorry if I was a fucking hypocrite to you!”
"And I'm sorry for acting like a pathetic idiot!" Valentino screamed. Just then a whistle was heard coming from the bomb, and they both closed their eyes expecting it to explode within the next second.
"I love you, Vox!"
"I love you too, Valentino!"
A 'POP' was heard, and both Overlords nearly died of heart attacks; but then nothing happened. Reluctantly, they opened their eyes and discovered that the egg-shaped bomb had opened, and inside there were two action figures of themselves holding hands under a banner that read: 'Well done, you made up!'. They were both petrified at the sight, and they looked at each other with more confusion than ever. "What the...?"
An epochal laugh filled the house, louder than any laughter had ever been heard within those walls. Vox and Valentino's eyes widened and understanding dawned in them, and very slowly they turned to Velvette, who was rolling on the floor holding her belly and laughing so hard her jaw almost fell off, all while her cell phone had fallen to the ground and through the video call Sir Pentious could be seen laughing like an idiot. "Finally! Did it take that long to say?" she asked when she was able to articulate the words again.
Vox and Valentino were totally motionless; they hadn't even let go of the fake bomb they were still holding in their hands. "Velvette..." Vox whispered. "You aren't the one who send us this stuff, did you?"
"Oh, no, I'm totally ignorant in mechanics! I was just the mastermind behind it all. This little toy was built by the brilliant Sir Pentious here, who did a masterful job as both an inventor and an actor!" Velvette said holding up her phone and showing Sir Pentious's face to the two Overlords.
The snake demon was also trying to hold back his laughter. "You can consider this my revenge for using me! Now we're even!" and with that said he turned off the video call and disappeared from the screen, but not before giving them one last laugh.
“Ah, that was really fun!” Velvette commented. "Luckily I had hidden some cameras and filmed everything, your faces are like a photograph!"
There was a moment's silence. Then... "As the so-called brilliant Sir Pentious said a little ago, you only have twenty seconds left" Vox said.
Velvette's laughter died. "To what?" she asked with a little fear.
"To increase the distance between you and us. Running" Valentino replied in a threatening voice, and then he started counting together with Vox: "One!"
"Hey, hey, guys, let's all calm down..." Velvette muttered as she backed away.
"Two!"
"It was just an innocent prank, I just wanted to help you..."
"TWENTY!"
The two Overlords threw the fake bomb away, completely ignoring all the other numbers in between, and jumped on Velvette who wasted no time and started running throughout the house.
An hour later, the entire building was half destroyed. Fortunately, the house was specifically designed to resist attacks from an Overlord from both outside and inside, but this could not be said of the furniture or upholstery, which was now reduced to a few disjointed pieces on the floor. The three Vees were now sitting in the middle of what had recently been the kitchen, of which not even a single piece remained intact. All three of them were dented: Vox had part of the screen broken, Valentino had a pair of black eyes, and Velvette had practically her entire body broken in several places and couldn't even move. It had been a rather intense battle: even if Velvette was the weakest of the three Vees and had no chance against Vox and Valentino together, that didn't mean she was a pushover, and even if she almost always found herself taking the hits she had however returned some. Luckily she was a demon and also an Overlord, which meant that even though her body was now reduced to a sieve she could fully regenerate within half an hour, even if that meant she had to use a lot of her power.
This was exactly what happened: in just thirty minutes, Velvette was completely intact again, although she still had several dents and bruises, but even those would disappear in a short time. "Are you still mad at me?" she asked the other two.
"Do you even have the nerve to ask!?" Vox snapped.
"We're super pissed at you" Valentino growled as he smoked a joint to relax at least a little. "You put us through hell... hell worse than this one, I mean! What was in your fucking mind? I mean, a bomb! A fucking bomb...!"
"But it wasn't a real bomb!" Velvette defended herself.
"Yes, but we believed it was!" Valentino exclaimed, almost spitting out the joint he was holding in his mouth. "It makes no difference!"
Velvette sighed. "Guys, come on, think about it. In your opinion, why did I do this?"
"Because you're a mental deviant" was Vox's dry reply. "You cannot have been born human and on Earth, I have my theory: in a cave, somewhere in hell, after an orgy based on howling monkeys and prehistoric dragons, you were born, and right in that moment the Extermination was taking place, and as soon as the leader of the angels saw you he grabbed you and said: 'Hey, guys, do you see this beautiful little girl? Well, she will completely wipe out the demonic race'! That's the only damn explanation that I can give myself to accept that a person with your mental problems may exist!"
"Behind every action of mine there is always a brilliant idea" Velvette replied. "I did this for you!"
"Why? Let's listen, I want to know what sweetened philosophical thought led you to almost make us die of a heart attack" Valentino asked sarcastically.
"Because you guys are idiots" Velvette replied. "All you do is waste your time arguing, and every time you repeat the exact same arguments over and over again. Sometimes you have to talk to each other in order to understand each other, and you never do that and you behave like two spoiled children. So I decided to implement the classic method of locking belligerent people in a room and leaving them there until they clarify... but since you two are known for being aggressive and irritable, I also had to find a way to keep you still and motionless, and I also added a little tension to speed up the process and make you blurt out what you really thought about each other. So, I am a genius, right?”
“No, you're a crazy psychopath” Valentino told her. "I mean... the concept perhaps is right, but there are many other ways to say it!"
"Thanks to this little performance of mine, you have finally clarified yourselves! And you have clarified yourselves decidedly more than usual" Velvette pointed out to him. "You'll see, this will change your life!"
"Oh, you can say it loud. Now every time we see a package arrive we'll shit our pants" Vox grunted. “How did you convince Sir Pentious to help you, by the way?”
"Oh, it wasn't difficult: I still had his number from the last time and so I called him. All I had to do was explain to him that I wanted to prank Vox to convince him to help me. He was happy to build me the fake bomb and deliver it secretly, but in exchange he demanded to have an active part in the play so he could see your faces" Velvette replied. "In a certain sense I didn't mind his help at all. As much as I think the Hazbin Hotel is a ridicolous joke, I can't say that what they teach there is completely nonsense"
"Go fuck yourself" was Vox's answer.
"Yes, do us the courtesy of disappearing" Valentino told her sourly.
"As you wish. But you can't deny that it's my credit if you two get along now!" Velvette got to her feet even though her legs were still a little unsteady. She was almost completely healed by now. "I'm going to change, I hope that at least one of my clothes is still intact. You should do it too, the meeting with Carmilla is in an hour..."
“Fuck the meeting” Vox grumbled. "You can go alone. Now I just want to lie down and have a sleep"
"Me too. I've already had too many emotions for today because of you" Valentino added in turn. "Act for us. You have our permission"
Velvette shrugged. "I hoped to have you to form a united front... but if my word will also be yours, then it doesn't change much for me. Okay, I'll go alone, you can think about doing dirty things. Ah, what would your life be like without of me?" and with that said she headed towards her room to look for some clothes that were still intact, or at least to recover the pieces of them and reunite them together with her demonic magic.
Valentino and Vox were left alone. "A life without her? Sometimes I dream about it" Vox muttered to himself.
But unlike usual, Valentino didn't laugh or comment. He just stared blankly in front of him as he smoked continuously. Vox was a little surprised by that behavior. "Val?"
"I'm sorry"
Vox turned to him abruptly. Valentino wasn't even looking him in the eyes, and had a heartbroken expression on his face; and from the way he ground his teeth, it was clear that every word cost him an immense effort. "Our fight yesterday was my fault. I acted like a fool. And... I'm sorry"
Vox was amazed. It was the first time ever that Valentino apologized to him, and he didn't seem to be faking it. Realizing that he would have to give an answer, he quickly said: "Well... I'm partly to blame too. I should have admitted right away that I just wanted revenge on Alastor and didn't have any big goals in mind, not trying to get your help with falsehood"
"Yeah..." Valentino murmured. "We were both idiots"
"You can say it loud" Vox said. There was a long pause, and then he whispered: "This is strange"
"Yes, I feel terribly uncomfortable" Valentino admitted. "So... now what do we do?"
Vox wasn't sure it had an answer to that question. "Well... I think we could try to listen to each other more... I could try to be less hypocritical towards you... and you could try not to lose your temper too easily"
"Yes... and maybe I could try to be less obsessed with controlling everything, and you could be less obsessed with our public image" Valentino said.
There was a moment of silence, then Vox said in a worried voice: "But whatever we'll do, we must not tell Velvette"
"Absolutely not" Valentino confirmed in complete agreement. If Velvette had convinced herself that sending them bombs was the right way to make them make up, who knows what she would have come up with the next time.
The aforementioned demon returned in front them them a few moments later, fully dressed and without any scars on her anymore, and with an angel's head in her left hand. "Well, I'm going to the meeting. See you later guys!" she said as he left the house.
The two Overlords sat on the ground staring at the spot where she had gone. "Well... she may be a psychopath, but she was right about some things" Vox admitted. "Despite everything I don't mind having her at home"
"Yeah... I don't dislike it either" Valentino admitted.
The two Overlords remained silent for another two minutes, then they both remembered something and exclaimed in unison: "Wait, was there an angel's head in her hands!?"