Vox rubbed the sides of his monitor in annoyance, looking away from the annoying presence streaming onto his monitor. How in all the nine circles of hell did this asshole get my number? He asked himself. Actually, fuck it, I'll ask him. He raised his head to look back at the screen before him, Pentious was rambling about something but Vox wasn't paying attention. He decided to cut off Pentious mid-sentence.
"How the hell did you get this number?" he asked, annoyed.
"I have come t- what?" Sir Pentious stopped his speech confused.
"I'm not repeating myself Pretentious, tell me how the hell you're calling me," Vox responded with an eye-roll.
"I… that doesn't matter!"
Vox cut him off again, pointing a finger at the screen, "The hell it doesn't, seriously who was it? Was it Velvet? Oh I bet it was her, that little troll, she knows I don't like random people knowing my number." Vox looked away from the screen again, keeping his annoyed expression. Breathing out a sigh he sat back, the ground beneath him rose up to form a stool to catch him. The stool formed a back for him to lean into as he continued, "Had to block over a thousand people last month after that episode."
"Enough! Shut up you… you… outdated piece of hardware!" Pentious weakly retorted.
"Tch, says the guy flying a blimp," Vox retorted.
"It's an airship!" Pentious exclaimed.
"Whatever," Vox muttered under his breath.
"Neither the nomenclature of my dirigible, nor how I obtained this number, is why I contacted you," Pentious continued, ignoring Vox's mumble. "I wanted to make clear what occurred when we crossed paths a couple days ago."
Vox cocked an eyebrow, amused. "Well, I'm listening then Pent."
Pentious put his hands together and closed his eyes. Opening them he said, "I wanted to correct the error my minions made me commit. When I asked them to find the best ways to challenge someone they gave me an OUTDATED method."
Pentious glared off-screen at someone. A slightly distant voice came through the call, "Sorry boss, it sounded good at the time."
"I'll have no more excuses, now back to work!" He shouted. Returning his attention to Vox he continued, "So I'll simply clarify that I have every intention of dueling you, and inevitably replacing you as the new overlord!"
Vox shrugged and smiled, "Well hey, it's good to have aspirations. Anything to trick you into thinking your life is meaningful, right?" He pointed a finger gun at Pentious and clicked his tongue.
Pentious's hood flared open as he seethed with frustration, "Are you taking any of this seriously?! I just threatened to kill you and rob you of all your power!"
Vox was staring at the ceiling now, wondering if he should continue entertaining Pentious or hang up. Opting for the former, he replied, "No no, I am, truly. Look, if you do plan on flying that metal ball of garbage over here, just don't blow any holes into my tower."
Pentious's hood closed and he looked at Vox with confusion, all he could ask was, "What?"
Vox sighed and shifted in his seat, "Yeah, I know I said on tv you should blow up my place to make it exciting," he said, waving his hands. He heard Pentious ask "tv?", but he ignored it and continued his point, "But thinking about it, I just added a new floor to this place and getting any damage repaired would just be a huge pain in the ass. So, yeah, I'd prefer it if you didn't."
"Oh I see," Pentious said, putting a finger to his cheek, trying to sound condescending, "and what do you propose I do instead?"
"Well for starters you can drop the voice, you sound dumber than you already do. And secondly, you got two options, the way I see it," he said, holding up two fingers. "You can stop this embarrassing waste of my time and go play with those two friends of yours some more, or, you can park outside and wait for me to kill you." Vox made a sweeping gesture with his hands, "I don't care either way."
"Hmmmm," Pentious hummed aloud, pretending to think over what Vox said. "Or," Pentious continued, "I could attack when you least expect it, and fill your towering abomination with as many holes as I damn well please."
Vox chuckled darkly in response to this, "No Pent, you won't do that. Cause if you do, then I'd have to actually take this seriously." Vox stood back up and the seat he was in retreated back into the ground. "Which would mean killing you again and again, unendingly torturing your pathetic body. Recording it for all of Hell to see, I'd make a damn series out of it. And once I see ratings start to dip, I'll put an Exterminator's spear right through your skull for a season finale. Then your corpse will be used as a prop in my studios, I'll make sure you're remembered more in death than you were in life."
Silence carried through the room for a moment. Pentious just looked into the screen, his eyes slightly wide after hearing Vox threaten him without a hint of acting facetious. Then it was his turn to chuckle, causing Vox to raise a brow.
"Did I say something amusing just then you talking pair of boots?" Vox asked.
"Actually you did. That was a nice attempt at intimidation, but I think you'll find there's no one out there that can scare me, not even you. I'll thank you for your suggestions, but I'm ignoring all of them." Pentious's hands began moving off-screen.
Vox noticed this, but since he couldn't see what he was doing he ignored it for now, returning to his blasé demeanor. "Well, at least you can't say I didn't warn you."
Pentious laughed again. "Please, as if I need the warning. All I need are my mass amounts of lethal inventions, and the element of surprise."
"Surprise?" Vox asked with a smile. "You're in a giant flying metal ball, I could see you coming from across the entire city."
"Can you now?" Sir Pentious asked smugly.
The change in Pentious's demeanor gave Vox pause. The whole time he was whining like the loser he was, pretending to be on my level, he thought. Why is he so cocky now? Vox snapped his fingers and the monitors moved out of the way, giving him a view of the window in front of him. The skies were clear, nothing was flying through their characteristic red, like they were when he arrived.
"Why the sudden silence Vox?" Pentious taunted.
"Shut up clown," Vox snapped back, looking through the window behind him. Still nothing. I don't get it, Vox thought. Unless…
"Give me overhead," he said.
"What?" Pentious asked confused, Vox didn't respond. On the monitor next to Pentious a camera feed appeared. It gave a clear view of Vox Tower from above, and from there Vox saw something that managed to get under his skin. He saw Pentious's airship, docked right above his tower and hooked into it. For what purpose, he didn't know, but he needed to run a full diagnostics check on the building immediately, and deal with the intruder at the same time. His fingers audibly scraped along the metal console that was in front of him.
"Pent you stupid son of a bitch," Vox said, his head lowered.
The change in tone was clear to Pentious, and he could see he crossed a line. With a slightly nervous voice he said, "Ah, I assume you've finally figured out where I've been this whole time," looking past the monitor at something, he smiled and continued, "looks like my job here is done then. I'll be taking my leave-"
"You ain't moving that fuckin eyesore anywhere Pent." Vox pressed a key on his console, keeping the ship locked onto his tower, "Not until I figure out how the hell you shut off all my proximity alarms, and why you're connected to my tower." A cable descended from the top once again and hooked back into Vox's monitor, lifting his head up to face Pentious. It was completely serious now; as Vox's fingers flew across the buttons on his console he continued to talk to Pentious.
"I told you, you do anything to my tower and I would have to do the last thing I'd ever want to do. Take you seriously. Now, I'm going to have to kill you. Repeatedly. I'm already drafting show ideas, the first one being each episode ends in you dying in a different way, I can get the first three seasons greenlit right away. Or maybe I can finally give Velvet that show she wanted, maybe she can make some new clothing lines out of you. Or- well that's interesting," Vox said, his tone changed to one of bemusement and he paused his rapid typing. While he was connected to the tower he searched all his databases for any missing files, yet found they were all accounted for. Looking at the security system he found only one hole in it, a faulty alarm that was connected to the rest but the loop wasn't complete. Even an idiot would've been able to crack that flaw. Thankfully, thought Vox, that idiot was Pentious. He looked back at the snake with a stunned smile, Pentious was still on-screen, waiting for him to say something. Just what was this dumbass thinking pulling this stunt, Vox asked himself.
The cable unhooked from the back of Vox's head and snaked back up to the ceiling, while Vox broke out into laughter. He smacked a hand to his forehead and leaned back into his seat, having extended back out of the floor. "Alright," Vox began calming himself down, speaking through laughs, "alright, I'll admit, you got me for a second. I genuinely thought you were calling me, turns out you were above me the whole time! Managed to get right up nice and close to my pad without raising a single alarm too. Pretty sneaky Pent." Vox played to Pentious's ego, he still hadn't figured out he trapped him on top of the tower.
Pentious continued his cocky demeanor, thinking he still had an advantage. "I'll take the compliments Vox, now I'll be-"
"Leaving?" Vox asked, intentionally interrupting him. Shaking his head with a smile, he said, "So that's what this was? A show that you could infiltrate my home, get into my system? Intimidate me?!" He shouted, slamming his fists onto the console, putting dents into it that started to self-repair when Vox retracted his hands.
Continuing, in a calmer tone, he said, "Cause if so you made several mistakes in doing that. For one, you let me find out. Two, you had full access to my entire building and did nothing. Three, you managed to point out flaws in my security, and give me time to fix them. Which leads me to my last point, you picked the absolute worst place to park."
Taking his right hand, Vox slammed it down onto his console, fingers splayed out. Markings began to etch around his hand until they formed a perfect outline, then the console flashed green.
"Preparing rooftop laser cannon," a deep robotic voice stated.
"What was that?" Pentious asked, hearing that voice, suddenly filled with concern.
"Hmm? Oh that's just my voice but I put a filter on it, thought it sounded intimidating. What do you think?" Vox responded.
Before Pentious could respond saying that's not what he meant, one of his minions spoke over him. "Boss! We can't unhook the ship, we're stuck to the building and something is coming out of the top!"
Pentious could be seen on the monitor looking towards something in front of him. His eyes then grew wide and he began uselessly pulling levers, trying anything to escape the building or turn the ship. Reaching beside the monitor with his hand, he pushed something and said, "Egg basket, get me out of here!"
Vox sat amused, watching the snake toy with his ship uselessly, eager to see what would happen next. His screens were recording every second of this, at multiple angles. "This would be so embarrassing if it wasn't so entertaining. Honestly Pent if it makes you feel any better, you'll be a tv star soon. I'll be sure to collect the pieces of your corpse once my defense systems are done with you, and wait for you to put yourself back together so we can get started. Consider this the pilot episode."
"Laser cannon ready," Vox's other voice stated.
"See you soon Pent," Vox said, pointing a finger gun towards Pentious on the screen, then jerking it back.
At that motion, he heard the sounds of laser fire tearing through metal, and saw blue lights flash all over Pentious's monitor before cutting out completely. "Oh shit, before I forget," Vox said with a slight jump, pushing a button on the console. He heard the cable Pentious was connected to disconnect from his ship, moments before the burning wreck that was left behind fell past the window straight towards the ground. That would've done some damage to my place if it was still hooked in, he thought, tisking out loud. Getting back out of his seat he walked towards the window and looked down, seeing the still-burning wreck far below him, a single car peeling away rapidly from the site. Lucky guy managed to avoid getting crushed, Vox thought to himself with a smile.
Sighing, he spoke aloud, "Might as well go get him before he turns to ashes, then it'll be impossible to collect all of him." Walking towards the elevator, he stepped in and told the elevator to go down, beginning his descent towards what was left of Pentious.
-A few minutes earlier-
"Egg basket, get me out of here!" The voice of their boss came through the radio of Egg-boi #702. He was sitting in the passenger seat beside Egg-boi #621, who was at the wheel of an unsuspecting black vehicle parked in-between two buildings close to Vox Tower. Looking up through the windshield they watched as the spare airship got torn apart by rapid laser fire. Then they saw it fall quickly to the ground, slamming down a few feet in front of them. 621 started the car and drove close to the wreck then put it in park. Both Egg-bois hopped out and went over to look for their boss, who they found towards the center of the wreckage, no one else was on the ship. He had multiple cuts and bruises, and shards of glass stuck out from all over his body. Navigating through the shards of broken metal, they picked him up and carried him to the car, not too gently throwing him into the back. This elicited a pained "ow" from the battered snake. They winced at their mistake, and quickly went back to their seats, shutting the doors and driving away as fast as possible back to their hideout.
"Good work for once… you two," Pentious spoke. Turning to face the two eggs, he asked, "Did the data… get delivered?"
"It sure did, boss! Good thinking on you copying the files instead of taking them, he didn't suspect a thing and we got all kinds of information back at the hideout!" Egg-boi #702 responded happily.
"Your acting was really good too boss-man, there's no waayyyy he knew what you did," Egg-boi #621 complimented, reiterating his partner's point.
Pentious smiled, "Excccccllent. I was hoping I wouldn't have had to do all that… but he came back sooner than anticipated. With him… moving through the wires like he does… he would've found me sooner had I not stalled. But I didn't know how… painful it would be." Pentious paused, wincing a little, "That's why I had you two on stand-by, just in case."
He grew silent for a moment, staring up to the car roof, then continued, "Flaws in your security? Hardly. Didn't bother to think… that I created the flaw. They all underestimate me. And now, I have some idea of your defensssses, and once I review that data… I'll know everything. And my project can be completed. Soon, you will all be calling me… overlord."
"Hooray!" The egg-bois cheered simultaneously. The car continued on its way, carrying Pentious far from Vox, who had begun walking through the remains of the airship.
-Later, even further away from Vox Tower-
My dreams were restless, as they often were, but something about them this time was different. For one, they didn't involve Batman being put in several different embarrassing outfits while I beat him to death. And mainly, all I could see was this dark tall figure. Every time I tried to look closer at him, his shadow grew darker, covering what it could be. Whatever it was, its shape seemed human, and yet… it was so tall, it practically loomed over me. I was stuck floating in this vast dark void, the feeling of insects ran up and down my spine. I felt a tinge of something I haven't felt in a while. Fear.
The figure then loomed closer, the head of it bent down so low, until it stopped right in front of my face. Even when it was this close I couldn't see what was holding me here. Then, it spoke in a familiar voice. One that I haven't heard in what feels like a lifetime ago.
It's voice came out in a hushed whisper that seemed to echo all around me, "Jack, you have used your gift well. I was right to choose you. Continue your business with the one called Vox. Once it is finished, we will meet."
Once it finished talking, its head drew closer to me, growing larger and larger until I was enveloped in complete darkness. The silence that followed was overwhelming. Maddening. It was like I had been in solitary confinement for an entire lifetime in the span of a few seconds. I couldn't talk. I couldn't breathe. I struggled to move but to no avail; it didn't matter where I went, all there was was the unending darkness. I could feel it creeping around me, it's dark tendrils snaking along my body. It was grabbing me, or was it? No, I can feel it, there's something in here with me, or was it the darkness itself? I looked frantically for any escape, but there was nothing. No light, no sound, nothing. I did the only thing I could logically think of at the moment. I grabbed my hair with both hands, arched my back, and silently screamed into the void.
And then I woke up.