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The night was dark, much darker than it had ever been before. Pentagram City was overcast and dreary, the streets quiet and full of misery. It was the closest Hell had ever gotten to endless suffering. Something unprecedented had befallen the Pride Ring and, despite the initial terror during the incident having worn off, the citizens of Hell were still reeling, still utterly shellshocked. The smoldering timbers that once made up one of Pentagram City’s prized districts filled Hell’s skies with billowing towers of smoke that blotted out even the light of Heaven above. There would be no stargazing for the people of Hell tonight. There would be no sunrise to bring about a new dawn, and with it, new hope. The landscape, both political and literal, of Hell had forever, irreversibly, changed.
Those who managed to evacuate searched for refuge in unlikely places and took up residence with unlikely roommates. Imps opened their doors and gave fleeing Sinners food to eat and places to sleep. Gangs that murdered in the name of perpetual turf wars set down their arms to help their foes. The Hazbin Hotel became a place of recovery, and their membership skyrocketed as demons stared obliteration in the face. Redemption didn’t seem so difficult anymore. Still, much of the Hotel’s residents were catatonic, and many of the founding members took up roles of caregivers, therapists, and helpers to those wandering the realm of unreality in their own minds, unwillingly replaying the scenes of obscene amounts of death and destruction and chaos. Angel had made a remark to Husk about the number of vacant faces he saw within the walls of the Hotel. It wasn’t fair, he said, that the people who were given a new lease on their afterlife had to spend their days like this. Gone from the world and trapped in their own minds.
Politics in Hell revolved around the Overlords. Their territory, their influence, and the souls that they owned, all of it an ever-growing web that traps the flies of demons wanting to change the system. Trying to untangle it was a Sisyphean task even in times of peace as the winds of political intrigue caused alliances to shift and backroom deals to be struck. And yet, power plays between the Overlords weren’t common. To exert your power to take over a neighborhood or a street left you vulnerable everywhere else if you tried to get stronger by yourself. And of course, no one wanted to start a Ring-wide factional war.
Fighting still happened anyway. Sinners, packed full of rage, needed some manner to express themselves and work out all the anger bubbling up inside of them, and the fact that they couldn’t die by non-angelic weaponry led to more petty and reckless fights. The most violent of them joined gangs, battling endlessly over nothing, dying and respawning four or five times in a day, all for the thrill of the kill, the bloodlust, and the destruction. And destruction was almost a certainty when Overlords got involved.
No one could have prepared for how intense this particular battle would become when the two behemoths stepped in to duke it out once and for all.
Some people say that someone very close to the Media Overlord was lost. Whether that was intentional or not, no one knew for sure, but everyone knew that he had nothing left to lose after that. The battle turned ferocious as emotion clouded logic. Entire buildings were destroyed. Neighborhoods flattened. Overlords looked on in sheer terror as the Entertainment District was laid to waste. The cloying stench of blood and viscera mixed with dark smoke, casting a miasma across the entire city. The amount of chaos and destruction so immense and innumerable, Heaven could see it from their viewing platform in the sky. The battle didn’t end with a winner that day. And a couple days later, the Overlord showed up at his door, numb and directionless.
Alastor didn’t bother to ask him about anything. Why would he care anyways? Their rivalry had lasted nearly seventy years by his count. The years of fighting, the days of scheming, the battles that tore up city streets with a foe that never seemed to quit, those were the days that he wanted to remember. Not this broken shell of a man that had fallen so far, so fast. This man was no more than someone to tug around, to call on when he needed assistance. This man was no more than a worthless pet. And from the way he acted, it appeared Alastor wasn’t alone with that mindset.
“All this,” the red-clad demon spoke up, the tinny sound of a high-pass filter filling the air around them with crackling static like that of a phonograph playing a decaying record, “just to stay at my side?”
Alastor didn’t want to ask. His new prisoner’s demeanor suggested something much more than an absolute and crushing defeat. He looked into the middle distance, the thousand-yard stare replaying memories stilled burned fresh in his mind, changing something different each time. Maybe if he had said something different, done something new, asked for something else. Maybe if he had been better, been someone they could rely on. A million different maybes circled in his mind. His hands had found their way up to Alastor’s waist. He didn’t know how desperately he was hanging onto him. Alastor’s ear flicked in annoyance. This was the mogul that requested a partnership so many years ago? He could almost laugh, just like back then.
But his eyes scanned the ex-Overlord’s features once more. He couldn’t help it. And for a moment, he felt emotion tugging on his soul like another chain of his, one he couldn’t control. The memories came reeling back to him, slapping him in the face. That night at the bar. Both of them had been drinking. Both had been sharing stories from their Earthly lives. Alastor was intrigued with the man sitting next to him. A charismatic cult leader wasn’t an everyday arrival, especially one as successful as he. He had used this new invention—a telly-vision, they called it—to spread his so-called “words on High”. The power and the wealth that followed was enough to book him a ticket to Sin City, but the things he did with it were more than enough to upgrade him to first class. The stories he told were enthralling, and Alastor wanted to keep the night going listening to more of those stories until even the burn of booze no longer kept exhaustion at bay.
But he popped the question. And Alastor laughed. He laughed so hard. He turned him down. He didn’t see him for a long time after that. It got to a point where he wondered if he would ever see him again. Reasoning with himself, he decided upon the fact that the cult leader was so ashamed of his moment of vulnerability that he went off the air permanently, living out his eternal afterlife in solitude. All the better for both of them. Yes, all the better, he reasoned. They’d never have to have another embarrassing moment again. Alastor would never have to put him in his place again.
The memory, with the events that had just unfolded, stung in a new way. There would be no reasoning with himself now. The man was holding onto him like a child with their mother. He followed wherever he went like a lost puppy. This was the man that, no more than a month ago, had risen once again to his cult leader-like status, had held the entirety of the Pride Ring in the palm of his iridescent-clawed hands, had vowed to form an army and take on Heaven? This was the man who was considered by many accounts to be the strongest Sinner in Hell? Alastor huffed from his nose. What a pathetic joke. He tugged on the green chain that materialized in his hands once again, yet even the sudden jolt could not shake the ex-Overlord from his wandering mind.
“You really have fallen from grace,” he sneered, the sound of chains rattling echoing in their ears. Alastor had won. His status as the strongest in all Hell was unmatched. Everyone was too terrified to take him on. The Hotel was flourishing, which meant he was holding up his end of the bargain as the host of the place. But why was he feeling so bittersweet about it? His eyes scanned over Vox’s features again as his soul contract manifested in his free hand. He looked pathetic. He looked awful. Alastor didn’t need to ask him about anything. He wouldn’t. And yet, a part of him wanted to pry his new pet open, searching and scanning for answers as to why he broke down, why he turned himself in, why he asked for a partnership in the first place? Was all of it really to be close to him once again, like they were before?
He shook his head and walked away, not caring that Vox followed behind him with his head hung low and his body curled in on himself, programmed to obey. It was all he allowed himself to do.