Chapter Text
He didn’t seek shelter. He stood above it all, on the very back of the Might of Lilith, feet planted on the humming spine of the artifact as it sang and groaned beneath him. The weapon was monstrous, stretching across asphalt and dead neon, cables like veins snaking into the city’s ruined heart.
Vox balanced on its curved metal shell, smoke curling around his ankles. Heat pulsed up through the gun, searing through his boots. There’d be blisters, burns, but he didn’t care. Pain was a distant signal, static at the edge of a dead channel.
He laughed, the sound torn away by the winds and the shriek of a lethal machine. Below, the Entertainment District boiled in light and the noise of death. Sinners scattered, shadows vanished, buildings dissolved beneath the weapon’s indifferent sweep.
Somewhere, Carmilla’s voice rang amidst the chaos, cursing him, screaming warnings he didn’t bother to process.
Useless bitch.
She had no right to address him. A lowly sinner had no right to interrupt the birth of a god.
Vox ignored her and kept firing.
The machine’s core whined, reflecting ruin in every glass shard and melted screen. Vox felt his hands tremble, not with fear, but with anticipation, the kind that makes the world shrink to a single, burning point.
He heard his name yelled and spat from a thousand throats. He heard the city’s bones break under his heel. It was Lilith’s song. The rest was static.
Alastor was somewhere in that storm, and Vox would find him, burn him out, erase him.
Vox laughed. The Might echoed his voice, splitting Hell open, carving his vengeance into the streets and buildings of Pentagram City.
He locked onto the deer, focus steady on the distant red disease. The Might of Lilith shuddered, warning lights shining crimson, heat climbing his claws and screen-face. This was the last shot, the final pulse. He could feel it boiling, the metal underfoot ready to tear itself apart.
Vox didn’t care. Let it explode, let everything burn. Let it all end if it meant Alastor would finally be erased.
Fuck it. Fuck Hell. Fuck himself.
The Might of Lilith breathed one more attack, a blinding line of light piercing through the air like God’s finger.
“ALASTOR!” Charlie Morningstar cried, but it was but a futile sound in a withering world.
It hit.
Vox couldn’t believe his eyes.
Alastor.
It hit!
Vox stared, frozen atop the burning gun, like a soldier standing atop the corpses of his fallen battalion.
Did he really do it? Was it over?
He looked at his hands, shaking, burning, alive. He then gazed at the place where Alastor had been, and saw only scorched buildings and settling dust.
He’d done it.
The deed was done!
The deer was dead!
The Radio Demon was no more!
Vox laughed, tears sliding down his faceplate, real, digital, both, it didn’t matter. He swallowed them, savored them, let them shimmer and vanish on his tongue.
They tasted nothing like the tears he’d shed all those years ago, when Alastor mocked and rejected him, when Vox’s offer of friendship was spat on and left to rot. Those tears had been vinegar.
These tears were sweet, like preserved wine, like a victory bottled up for too long, sealed away and now finally uncorked. As he drank them, Vox kept cackling, maniacally, triumphantly.
He could feel the gun’s death throes, the core about to rip itself open. It didn’t matter. He would die, and it would be worth it.
This was his fate.
To die after killing Alastor.
Such was the fate God had chosen for him.
And Vox loved it.
That was when he heard them.
Velvette and Valentino, their voices cutting through the haze of his euphoria. They were calling his name, but not with love.
Vox turned, still perched on the dying back of the Might of Lilith, and saw their faces twisted in fury, eyes bright with something past betrayal.
They hated him.
Of course they did.
They despised him now, maybe always had.
Vox felt the last of his manic high slip away, replaced by a cold, clean clarity. This was the price he’d pay.
Their hatred for his victory.
He accepted it. He’d pay it a thousand times if it meant Alastor was gone.
Vox chuckled, wiping at his face, tears and electricity sparking on his fingertips like tiny fireworks.
“It’s okay,” he croaked, “It’s okay! Val, Vel… don’t you see? We did it. I DID IT! He’s gone. Alastor’s dead! Now we can move forward, now we can finish our plan! We can take everything. Heaven’s next. We’ll be gods. Don’t you see? It’s all okay now!”
He was still laughing when the Might of Lilith let out a hideous, unnatural shriek, a shockwave tearing through the air. Pain exploded through his leg, as if he’d stepped on a long-forgotten landmine in a flowery field.
Vox let out a hideous howl and fell sideways. Suddenly, there were arms around him.
Velvette’s arms. She wrapped tight around his shoulders, pinning him down. Above them, Valentino, broader and stronger, shielded them both, wings outstretched, body braced against the coming storm.
They made it to him. They were there. They were covering him, protecting him.
Vox, delirious, hugged them back. He buried his face in Velvette’s shoulder and clung to Valentino’s shirt, laughter becoming one with the honeyed tears.
“See? See? Everything is—”
He never finished.
A second shockwave, far more violent, ripped the world apart. The Might of Lilith tore itself open, flinging all three of them into the burning, shattered building that once had been the V Tower.
As he flew weightless, surrounded by the warmth of Valentino and Velvette, Vox heard a thought.
This is it. This is how I go.
But it was perfect. It wasn’t a tragedy, but a glorious end. He had Val and Vel with him. They were together.
He killed Alastor.
He’d won.
For a final instant, Vox realized God must have loved him after all.
God was good, for his fate was great.
Oblivion wasn’t the total darkness he imagined. It was pain, the sort that gnaws at the marrow. It was pain that blooms like fire in his ruined legs, pain that radiated from his cracked face.
Vox tasted blood, smelled his sweat and burnt plastic. Underneath, there was a stronger scent.
Resentment.
It coated his tongue and seeped into his wounds, made him want to retch.
Why was he aware of this? Wasn’t he dead? Wasn’t that the deal? He blinked, searching for the peace he was promised. But the world hadn’t dissolved.
Hell refused to let him go.
He lingered there.
It took time for the shapes to make sense. His vision swam, pixelated, then became clear again. In the distance, a circle had formed around the wreckage of the Might of Lilith. Overlords, every one of them, Carmilla’s eyes hard and pitiless, Zestial’s wings, green, bright and implacable.
At the center of it all, radiant, untouchable, stood Charlie Morningstar.
That fucking bitch.
Those fucking assholes.
They were tearing his weapon apart. Piece by piece, dismantling his triumph, grinding it into slag, erasing it from the universe.
Rage rose up his throat.
Vox staggered upright, agony travelling through his shattered body. He shouted at them, ordered them to stop. He screamed until his voice broke. Then he threatened, pleaded, but nothing worked.
He needed reinforcements.
He needed his allies.
“Valentino! Velvette! Where are you?” his voice cracked, desperate. “Come here now, dammit!”
He urged them to help, to fight, to save what remained, but only silence answered him.
Vox looked around, panting, and he finally saw them, not far away, sprawled in the rubble. They weren’t moving. They weren’t obeying his commands.
He dragged himself to them, fury at the insubordination guiding his way, each movement heavier, as if the universe tried to slow him down.
He dropped to his knees between them, reaching out, his hands trembling uncontrollably. “What the fuck are you doing? Get up!” he ordered heartlessly. “Now! We have to stop them. We have to—”
It was then he saw them.
Really saw them.
Their skin was pale, eyes dull and unfocused. There was no breath or spark, just the faint echo of what was.
The singing rose behind him, the chorus of Overlords, angels and Lucifer’s daughter, all triumphant, all oblivious to his personal hell. Their voices blurred into nothingness as Vox whispered their names again, softer now.
“Val… Vel…”
But only the song replied.
Vox felt lost amidst it.
It was almost funny, he thought, how the city grew quiet just as the anthem came to an end. As the threat of his exploding weapon was finally neutralized and the crowd began to disperse, his own private apocalypse was only starting.
Valentino lay flat on his chest, his moth wings incinerated, his lean figure spreading on a pool of his own blood. His eyes were open, glassy, but still searching. Still there. Barely.
Velvette was slumped against a broken girder, breathing hard. She had a hand pressed against a wound on her stomach, so deep it looked like it could split her in half. She was missing an arm. Both legs were gone. Her edges were flickering, as if the world couldn’t quite hold her shape anymore.
They were dying.
Fading, dissolving, succumbing to the fatal touch of the Might of Lilith, turning to ash against the wind.
Vox’s mind rebelled.
This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be real. It was a trick, a cruel joke, punishment for something he couldn’t name. He snarled, rage overtaking him, ready to accuse them of melodrama, of petty vengeance, of making him pay for every slight, every careless word, every time he’d pushed them aside.
He was about to shout, about to demand that they stopped this nonsense, when Valentino stirred.
His voice was weak, just a whisper, but it echoed above everything else.
“Vox…”
His hand, slick with blood, reached for Vox. The gesture was clumsy, desperate. It was all he could manage.
Vox shattered. A fresh batch of tears streamed down his screen. They had the taste of a heart that had finally broken.
He screamed, louder than before, and grabbed Valentino’s hand, squeezing it tightly.
“I’m here,” he choked. “I’m here, Val. It’s okay, I’m here. I’m here, I’m—”
Valentino blinked, unfocused, the hint of a smile ghosting across his lips. “Vox…Are you… okay?”
The answer died in his throat, replaced by a sob. He bowed his head, shaking, holding onto Val as if he could anchor him to reality, to afterlife.
Velvette’s voice reached Vox too, so harsh and so familiar it hurt.
“Shut up, Vox. Just… shut up.”
For a moment, Vox calmed down, her fierceness grounding him. He almost felt reassured. If she was still biting, still angry, everything must be fine.
Yes… Everything would be okay. She would—
But Velvette’s body continued to lose its shape, the fade accelerating. The confidence Vox clung to evaporated, leaving only the terror beneath.
I’m…
Useless.
He could do nothing but watch as the two people he hung on to, sometimes too tightly, sometimes not enough, kept slipping through his fingers, vanishing into a fate he never wanted, a punishment he never expected he’d live to endure.
Vox felt his mind slipping with them. He disappeared from Hell and found himself somewhere softer, brighter. In this fleeting paradise, he saw them.
Valentino and Velvette.
Laughing, alive.
He remembered the last time they’d danced together. Velvette’s hand, impossibly small and delicate in his, her laughter bubbling out when he raised her above his head. She weighed nothing, feather-light, all energy and light. She looked so young then, so free.
Then Valentino.
Tall, strong, gazing at Vox with unguarded trust. Love, simple and shining, in every glance. He followed Vox’s lead, always. He learned the steps from Vox, and together, with Vel between them, the three of them spun in a circle, hands joined, hearts beating in time.
Vox recalled the feeling of all their fingers intertwined, his entire being reduced to a ring of warmth and belonging.
Now, in the ruin, Vox held Valentino’s hand, then Velvette’s. They were cold, escaping his grip.
“Hang on,” Vox uttered, shaking. “Both of you. Don’t say anything. Just hold on.”
Valentino was crying. His breath came in gasps, every one a struggle. “Vox, I’m scared.”
Velvette tried to talk, form words, but pain stole her voice. Her eyes said what her lips could not: she was scared too.
Through their hands, through their gentle connection, Vox felt their heartbeats, faint, fluttering, desperate. He cried harder and did the only thing he could think of: he sent static through their bodies. Healing static, he told himself. He poured every last watt of his power into them, forcing energy into wounds, willing torn flesh to knit, for gashes to close, for life to come back.
He could do this. He was powerful. He was Vox. Just watch.
But the current burned. Valentino cried out, Velvette’s fingers spasmed in his grip. Vox apologized, again and again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know it hurts, but you have to be strong. Please, just a little more.”
He kept going, every surge and act of hope and denial, a refusal to let them go.
Until Velvette, with the last of her strength, squeezed his hand tight.
“Stop it. Vox. Enough. Please… you’ve done enough. Stop.”
Her words broke him. Trembling, he stopped. The static faded. The wounds failed to heal. Their bodies still succumbing to the hellish winds.
Valentino was already half gone. Velvette too.
Vox was sobbing. He only let go when their hands dissapeared, dissolving as if he’d never held them at all.
Panic seized him. He crawled forward, dragging himself between them, refusing to let them go. Gently, he lifted what remained of Val, just a torso now, and clutched him to one side. He wrapped his other arm around Velvette, pulling her close, pressing them both against his chest.
“You can’t leave,” he choked out. “I forbid it! You can’t, not now. Please… don’t leave me alone.”
Val couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, but somehow, impossibly, he leaned in and pressed a sweet kiss to the side of Vox’s face-screen. The touch was soft, too pure for Valentino, but it was all he had left.
A parting gift.
Velvette stayed quiet, but Vox felt her silent tears as they fell down into his hands and claws, warm like spring rain.
Desperate to comfort them, to fill the silence, Vox forced a smile and started listing all the things they hadn’t finished, the little, unfulfilled promises that remained:
“The card game, remember? I know you were cheating, Val, and you owe me a rematch. And Vel, your runway show, it’s next week, right? I can’t wait to see your new designs. I’ll be there, I promise. Don’t forget your new movies, Val, they’re going to be incredible. You always make me proud. You both do. That’s why you can’t leave. We’re not done yet. We’re only getting started. We..”
“Vox…”
He held Valentino closer, what was left of him.
“I’m here,” Vox said, as if it could change anything.
By then, he was holding almost nothing. Everything was shrinking, colorless and silent.
“Vox... Look at me.” Velvette ordered, mustering the last of her strength.
He complied.
Vel.
She always knew what to do.
But this time, Vox couldn’t read her face. He saw no anger, forgiveness, or anything he could name. Just finality.
“This…” She held his gaze. Then, she quietly added, “This was our fate.”
With that, she disappeared. Val followed her a second after.
Vox was left alone with the shape of their absence.
“Val?”
Memories shattered through him, kaleidoscopic.
“Vel?”
Valentino’s lips as he lays beneath him, surrounded by the perfume of smoke and sweat.
Velvette, eyes half-lidded, smiling at something on her phone.
Val’s laughter, full, loud, teasing, a cocky grin thrown over his shoulder as he ruined the punchline just for Vox.
Velvette, muttering insults as she puts a blanket over Vox as he, half-asleep, realized he’d collapsed on the couch again. He never made it to bed, but he was warm, and it was fine.
The three of them, sitting at the table, dinner cold and not fully eaten, plotting, talking, arguing.
Together.
Existing.
He reached out, but there was nothing left to hold.
He screamed.
He cried.
All that was left was the echo of their names.