Chapter Text
“Go on! Tell everyone he’s the strongest.”
The grin on Alastor’s face was nothing short of malicious. He took great pleasure in watching Charlie struggle against their deal. His little arrangement with Rosie had caused him a great bit of trouble, and now it was finally time to free himself of it. Alastor could practically taste his freedom as he watched each of Vox’s drones lower to catch Charlie’s face.
“Vox is.. the strongest sinner in Hell.” The shameful words tumbled from Charlie’s lips as all of Hell seemed to erupt into raucous applause for the overlord.
Alastor's grin shifted into a sneer as the chain around his soul snapped. His connection to Rosie was at last severed and his next move was swiftly under way. Vox had already begun to boast his new-found power over Charlie. He whipped the wires originating from his spine to connect with the outrageously over-sized cannon he commissioned from Carmila Carmine.
At last, he made his ever-so-predictable move in Charlie’s direction, lowering himself back onto the stage and taking confident steps in her direction. “Oh, Charlie! You have no idea what you’ve done for me. All I can say is,” Vox chuckled between words, “Thank you! For sucking so much at.. everything you try to do.”
There it was, as Alastor watched with hungry eyes, Vox clasped his hands together just behind Charlie. He was so close, he could already see what his next move was going to be. He would destroy Vox’s pride and watch as the pathetic man would grovel to prove himself, sacrificing his reputation in the process. Alastor’s position as the most powerful sinner in Hell would be restored in only moments..
If only Vox would just grab her already. He always was a creep, he loved doing that. This time though, for some unknown reason, Vox instead moved to the edge of the stage to draw more praise from the crowd. The greedy pig. Why was he so goddamn desperate for attention that he felt the need to heighten the applause? Did he have some end goal? Some reason for sticking his hand into the crowd as though he were some celebrity on tour? As though this was just another public appearance on a normal work day? Of course he didn’t, Vox was just as desperate for approval as Alastor was for power.
That was it. Alastor had relied too much on what he perceived as an obvious action Vox would take. He failed to account for Vox’s pathetic hunger for public praise, and now it was going to cost him. As he sat there, tethered to a chair like some low-life, bottom-of-the-barrel sinner, Vox was climbing atop his angelic weapon.
“Sinners of Hell!!” Vox’s voice boomed through speakers above the crowd, “Too long we’ve been slaughtered by these “angels”! It’s time that we bring the fight back to them!!”
The crowd below practically exploded with anticipation, small pops of demonic powers appearing among the sinners. Vox had never been so sure that he was meant for something in his life. He watched with pleasure as several of his own assistants distributed truck loads of angelic spears, swords, daggers, or grenades to his ever-growing crowd.
“Once I shoot this thing straight through Heaven, again,” Vox chuckled at the statement, “those self righteous pieces of shit are gonna rain down here to try and silence us like they always do. But this time, we have something they don’t.” Vox pauses his speech to gesture to his audience, ever so animated, “We outnumber them ten to one, with angelic steel to match! No matter how many they send down here, we’ll demolish them and move onto the next!”
The crowd roared in agreement, several hell yeahs dispersed among the raving sinners. “We’ve already tried redemption,” Vox cast a condescending and obvious glare in Charlie’s direction, “which clearly is no longer an option. Now…” He practically growled, “let’s kill some angels.”
Alastor watched as Charlie leaped off the stage and into the crowd, waving her hands about and shouting like the idiot she was. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Vox, of all demons, was keeping him from his rightful position as the strongest sinner in Hell. The only thing that stood between him and his power was a man motivated solely by his own insecurity and yearning for approval. How did he let this happen? Alastor, the Radio Demon, most feared sinner in Hell, was tied to a chair. He was tied to a chair on a stage, watching as the one demon who managed to best him, (with his own stupidity at that!), activated an obnoxiously large death laser.
The weapon glowed and pulsated underneath Vox, who laughed maniacally as he aimed it towards that haloed orb above. After a brief moment of suspense to charge up the cannon, an agonizingly bright beam of energy hurled from the end of the machinery into the red sky above. The crowd watched in anticipation as the golden stream blew straight through the walls of Heaven, just as it had before. Only this time, a dark blot appeared instantaneously from the holy realm’s gates. Exorcist angels, and thousands of them.
The army rained down onto the sinners, some met immediately with a blade to the head. The previously excited crowd soon turned into an aggressive militia. Alastor watched as a sinner ripped the wings clean off of an angel, only to then be impaled from behind by another. Gold and deep red blood quickly covered the impromptu battle ground, complimented by the screams and battle cries of sinners and winners alike. Using both his feet and his shadow, Alastor pushed himself off of the stage, sending himself tumbling to the ground. The move cracked the back of the chair, just loosening the constraints around him enough to wriggle out of the cords, which had gone limp. He dared not wonder why. Alastor watched overhead as an angel divebombed a sinner, quickly and quietly beheading them before moving to the next. He shrank into the shadows, moving far across the pride ring to avoid all possibilities of an encounter.
Vox whipped the cannon back and forth like a maniac, taking out angels, and buildings, in mere seconds. Truthfully, he didn’t care how many sinners died this way. This was his moment, his opportunity, and he wasn’t going to let it go to waste. Every angel melted in the ray in front of him was just another stepping stone to becoming God.
He aimed his beam towards an angel, taking their arm midair. He repositioned himself over and over to change the direction of his weapon. Just as he was about to aim for an exorcist approaching the stage, he was met with an excruciatingly sharp pain in his left side. He slipped off of the cannon at the force, his back colliding with the ground and taking his breath with it. An exorcist jumped after him with their blade outstretched, which he narrowly escaped by rolling to the side. Immediately he flipped himself onto his feet with the help of his wires. Using the reinforcement, he launched his body at the angel, charged with what must have been 2,000 watts of electricity. The attacker let out a shrill scream before their skin burned and rippled with the force. Vox almost chuckled at the ease of the encounter, then the angel sliced open his forearm, exposing both blood and wiring beneath the skin. Without angelic steel, his attacks were useless. Like sticking a lit match into water to light a fuse.
He could hear Velvette’s voice shouting somewhere in the crowd, but he had no time to check if she was safe. The angel pounced on him again, this time knocking him back to the ground. He felt something shatter in the back of his monitor as error messages clouded his vision. He thrashed desperately at the Angel above him, charging them with what should have been a fatal blow of electricity. They staggered for a moment and he was able to wrap a wire around their throat and pull them off of him. He quickly scrambled to his feet, holding the angel’s throat tightly in his grasp with a wire and raising them off of the ground. Vox watched as the exorcist struggled and kicked against his hold, not quite suffocating but still in pain nonetheless. This would do to buy him some time. A faint metal clattering alerted him to the demons fighting for their own lives just behind his back.
This was not going as planned.
In the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of several overlords retreating from the field, shaking their heads as they vanished into darkness. Shit.
Hot pain raced through his spine down to his legs as the angel he had restrained sliced the wire connected to him. Before he had time to react, they were ripping into his torso. He hardly held back a scream as his blood spilled out in front of him. His flesh burned and his head spun. He couldn’t win. Not without his canon, not without his weapons. More error codes appeared on his screen as the exorcist slammed their knee into his bleeding chest. His face glitched and blue screened before he was able to muster up enough charge to briefly free himself from the angel.
“Sinner scum.” They grit through their teeth. The stench of singed skin filled the air as the haloed menace staggered away from Vox.
Some sinner had caught fire to a building about a dozen yards from where Vox stood. His fans were already malfunctioning, and now his gills screamed with the effort it took to keep his internal temperature above melting. His trench coat wasn’t helping.
He needed a way out.
Vox sprinted away from the angel and the incinerated building. He needed to get out.
Corpses of demons and angels alike littered the ground that he trudged through in an effort to put space between him and his exorcist pursuer. Golden blood splattered on his face as a sinner slit the throat of an angel in their grasp. He could only hope his screen was still intact enough to keep the liquid out. He could faintly hear a gust of feathers overhead and didn’t dare to look up. While running through the crowd a reptilian sinner shouted for help just before an angel above him pushed a spear through his sternum. Vox gulped, his throat dry and coarse. His head spun, vertigo getting the best of him.
His knees buckled and met the ground, sending an aching jolt through his bones. In an effort to flee, a demon ran directly into his side and their foot met his ribs. His body fell to the side and the corner of his monitor collided with the ground with a sickening crack. He groaned in pain and sent a deadly surge of power through them as punishment. It was a foolish waste of energy and he could feel his monitor overheating, but the reaction was near involuntary. The sinner lay twitching on the ground, and he wondered if that’s the way he would look by the end of the night. No. He pushed himself off of the ground, nearly collapsing at the effort.
He surveyed his surroundings. A nearby powerline had fallen and the wires snapped, the exposed copper could get him back to V-Tower. He just had to get to it.
Error messages were appearing at increasing rates and he panted as he limped towards the open line. He reached a small gap in the crowd. He pushed himself, further, faster. His chest ached and burned, his gills swelled, and he could hardly see.
All he heard was a heavy beat of feathers and he was on the ground again. His back scraped against the asphalt as the exorcist he had previously evaded pinned him down. A cold blade met his throat and he attempted to gather enough charge to push them off again, but the effort nearly caused him to black out. The angel over him laughed coarsely, their voice like gravel.
“What’s wrong?” They drawled, “Can’t get it up?”
Vox kicked his legs on the ground underneath the angel, who cackled at his struggle. The wire was only a few feet away, if he could just touch it he could escape.
Could he?
He couldn’t even summon static energy, who’s to say he wouldn’t touch the wire just for nothing to happen? He would lie on the ground, humiliated and bleeding as the exorcist above him took pleasure in slitting his throat. He would die irrelevant and forgotten. His chest heaved, and his head throbbed. God. Alastor was right. He hated that Alastor was right. He always was, and Vox knew that, but for some reason he just had to ignore him. He had to pick a fight with Heaven. Now he was on the ground with a dagger to his jugular, grunting and kicking uselessly.
The exorcist laughed darkly, sliding the dagger just deep enough into his skin to draw blood. “I’m going to kill you, and turn your claws into a necklace.”
Vox’s fans sputtered and struggled to keep his temperature regulated. He swung his arm around to the angels' mid back and pierced their skin with his claws. Golden blood dripped down his arm as he drew what little energy he could into a final shock. It was hardly enough, but the angel’s muscles contracted and stiffened at the current stemming from his arm. The blade at his throat lifted, just long enough for him to lurch his arm over the wire just feet away from him.
His bones ached and he could feel his internal components blowing, but he forced himself into the copper wire, disappearing from underneath the angel in a blue flash.