>>191510
“I did” said Charlotte and Carmilla at the same time. They stared at each other. They shrugged. “As princess of Hell I’ve decided someone should be overseeing these talks and I get to bring a guest” explained Charlotte.
“And I’ve come into possession of information that may be. Useful. After Adam’s trial. The price is absolute discretion” said Carmilla icily.
“Granted. Oh look, it’s the one that got away. Hey there, old timer. Still keeping your hand in the game?” I said to Zestial.
“Always, O lord of the pit” he greeted me from the teacup he was lurking in, tipping his hat. “Mayhaps even thou mayest yet be surprised by revelations yet to come”
“Well if you’re coming along as her plus one, you don’t mind if I bring Charlotte do you?”
“Okay hold on, HOLD ON, you two know each other?!” yelled Vox, desperate to be the centre of attention again. “YOU! Our so-called, respected and venerable Overlord, are on speaking terms with our repressive fascist DICTATORIAL OPPOSITION-“
“So, here’s a thing most of you Overlords never live long enough to understand” I interrupted, turning the TV off. Literally. Vox flailed at his screen as my elite Christian hacking put him on mute. “Individually, in the here and now you mean nothing to me. I dealt with all of you who did matter a while ago. I see some murderers, yes, even a few cult leaders, some pimps at the back. But you’re not actually the REAL purveyors of human misery and manifestations of evil’s impact on the universe. Nor are you Roo but we don’t talk about her here”
“Tis true enough” admitted Zestial. “Long have I known the Destroyer, and just as he offered our radio enjoying friend” he said, nodding at Alastor who did his best not to act smug. He didn’t try all that hard. “a certain work for hire relationship of enlightened self-interest, I too have survived his passing long enough to profit from it. You know full well mine crimes, but spine-chilling though they be I am no Goebbels”
“Hey, you played the game well, won and stopped bothering anyone. Certainly better behaviour than, oh I don’t know, anyone who thinks pointing a gun at HEAVEN is a good idea. As much of a mess this place is, I don’t begrudge you from enjoying your retirement” I admitted. “Anyway, do you know who was the last guy I made a personal appearance for?”
“Uh, NO?!” shouted Vox, finally switching himself back on. “Nobody knows SHIT about you man, every couple of decades some kind of mass extinction hits the Overlord population every time a dictator or religious leader comes down here and…o-oh” he said.
“Yeah, pretty much” I agreed.
“I, um. I need to revise my script Val” he stage whispered.
“Take your time. We’re not going anywhere” I said, disappearing backstage.
Carmila’s steely demeanour lasted all of the five minutes it took to talk into the most angel metal-filled place in the factory she could think before she got on her knees and blurted out “Look I know it was me, you know it was me, punish me if you want, but on Heaven’s oath I am begging you to spare my daughters from-“
“Carmilla, I’m not going to lie” I said tiredly, “I WANTED to do something about” I waved my hands at the angel metal weapons factory “this actual existential threat to Heaven once. But the time to do it was more than seven years ago. And now it’s a fixture in Hell, and the products are found on every layer. Let’s say I blow up Carmine Industries today. What do you think happens tomorrow?”
“The miscreants and opportunists teeming about would simply abscond with the caches and sell them elsewhere to less seen hands” mused Zestial.
“Exactly. My interests are Heaven’s interests, and Heaven’s holding out an olive branch while they sort out the military chain of command” I said as Carmilla looked up with disbelieving hope. “NOW, Hell does not and MUST not have a standing army but Charlotte. What do YOU think might be a peaceful and non-lethal use for all this angelic metal lying around before anyone finds out it can kill angels? Somewhere, oh I don’t know, even the average demon would be an idiot to rob? Where it can be tracked easily? And, AND, where every demon in Hell can be socially pressured into donating theirs towards? Potentially with some kind of backroom lobbying arrangement for imp rights and such, quid pro quo, angel metal for votes…?”
“Okay so hear me out: The Carmilla Carmine Memorial Museum for Orphaned Sinners…sponsored by Carmine Industries!” said Charlotte, distributing crayon drawings.
“Uh, we’ll have to workshop that but…yes! YES, I can work with this!” she said, eyes shining with happy tears as a lifetime of enabling double murder suddenly featured a light at the end of the tunnel. “O-okay, now I just need to find some land. I was thinking near Cannibal Town-“
“Lucifer, it’s time for one of those favours” I said to the empty air. Lucifer popped into existence. Carmilla fainted. “Whoa! Lot of scrap metal in here, this some kinda pawnshop or…?”
“It’s the largest industrial-military complex in Hell”
“Eh, close enough. Anyway whaddya want?”
“Land for development in Lu Lu World. Big open air park. Memorial museum for the exterminations that will use up ALL this angel metal as big, politically sensitive statues”
“Oh yeah! This stuff’ll look GREAT! Alrighty, just sign here and here and-ah fuck it mind if I just grab it all and go set up everything?” he said as Carmilla woke up. “My people can talk to your people if you want them to be less duck-like“
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“Hababawha?” said Carmilla.
“CLOSE ENOUGH THAT’S A YES BYE” shouted Lucifer, disappearing in a hail of confetti.
…
“What just happened?” asked Carmilla.
“Congratulations, Lucifer just bought you an amnesty with me” I told her.
Something exploded far away.
“And someone else is about to have a really bad day”
9/10
You had to hand it to Vox. Even after it was clear in my absence that he botched his meeting with Carmilla with the maracas, EVEN after seeing an angel show up to an Overlord meeting, the man was no quitter. There he was, on a big stage, shouting about how Heaven’s HYPOCRISIES demanded STREET JUSTICE “or else, these streets are gonna run with GOLDEN ICHOR when we tear your fucking wings off!!” he was screaming in Heaven’s general direction.
The giant energy cannon behind him tentatively named the Middle Finger of Lilith was nowhere near as sleek, nowhere near as safe and nowhere near as stable as the one Carmilla could’ve whipped out in like a few days max. The crowd behind him was less zealously up in arms and more having a good time and wanting to see where this was all going. To nobody’s surprise, while I was away Vox managed to run a smear campaign on an overworked hotel (while completely ignoring the one without Alastor in it) based on
It didn’t need to be though, because Vox simply HellGPT’d the schematics. And while Lucifer was too consistently occupied by juggling his daughter’s hotel and now a museum to be baited, he’d found a power source of his own that was almost as good. A very overworked, very naive power source that could be easily, easily duped by a certain sissy hypno’d spider asking her to come pick him up at what turned out to be a power core, who was currently screaming in panic and getting forcefully penetrated. By angelic metal power cables.
“Well, that sounds like a declaration of holy war to me” I said, manifesting.
“Oh, so WHAT, bitch?! You think I’m scared of you with your, your meaningless declarations and your VAGUENESS!” he shouted, desperately bluffing. “This is my-OUR time! You know it, I know it, you winged fucks CAN BLEED and I’ll bet every soul I’m worth my baby here can do it too! So either come on down here to DO SOMETHING about it, or GET. FUCKING. WRECKED while I calibrate!” he shouted as he started wheeling the thing towards me.
“Yeah, that’s pretty scary” I said dryly. “After all, we’ve made the determination that the killer of that angel can be tracked directly back to your business dealings”
“Haha yeah, that’s WAIT WHAT?” shouted Vox.
“You recording this? Of course you are. Let me say it again: Whoever SHREDDED our poor Exorcist like a broken doll had to be someone POWERFUL and INFLUENTIAL to not just rule the Ring of Pride, but DOMINATE ALL OF HELL” I said loudly for the camera, not technically lying through my teeth as Charlotte looked back at me in confusion. “I bet they’d have to be the STRONGEST SINNER IN HELL, no-maybe even an EIGHTH SIN because as you all know, we have the biggest sinners in the Ringe of Pride, the biggest and the brightest. Probably twisted her head off with his bare wires. I mean, hands”
“Well, I mean, haha shucks that’s, that’s…REALLY GETTING ME GOING!” said Vox, grinning like a madman as demonic social media suddenly blew up with the belief he was the first sinner to ever kill an angel. “Yeah, w-who knows just WHO could’ve done that?! Probably someone STANDING UP FOR HELL, HMM? Feeling scared yet, Mr. Eye and Mighty?!”
(And so, for the next 1 minute 45 seconds, Vox became the strongest sinner in Hell)
(Far away, Alastor was doing the dishes and grumbling at them. He had security, but no upward mobility. He’d backed the right horse, but was far behind in the race. Things were moving along without his say-so and he didn’t like that. Even HUSK was getting more out of life, even if it was just spider bussy, and Nifty had been ranting about “giant enemy bugs” in the sewers more than usual, but he’d consistently failed to make any kind of progress shucking his leash! What was he supposed to do? People kept handing Charlie free passes before he had time to cut a deal with her! There had to be something, ANYTHING he could do to-)
(Poof)
(And just like that, suddenly the leash on Alastor’s soul disappeared, much to Rosie’s surprise. “WELL now, isn’t THIS quite the feather in my cap!” he said brightly. “Now I’m off to…” he hesitated, looking at the Sins, and the Goetic demons, all of whom he was so much less impressive than magically even though he was almost certain he could take one of the faggot owls in actual fight blindfolded. “…do what now, exactly?”)
(Alastor slumped next to the dishes as he tried to think of somewhere better to cultivate his reputation in the Ring of Pride than the place full of people he couldn’t intimidate, and failed. “Now what?” he said, stumped.)