Author's Note: Another week has passed, and as such, I welcome you to another installment of Drifters… along with the knowledge that my list of ways to say hello has dwindled XD
P.S. I apologize about the two day delay in publication. As you guys probably know the site was down since Thursday, and I did not want to go through the hassle of updating another chapter from the app XD
Just a heads up, I apologize for how angsty the chapter gets. One of the best parts of this fic for me has been being able to write a comedy, but it seems some of my old writing style snuck its way into a few paragraphs… so buckle up for some over dramatic prose.
With that quote on quote 'warning' out of the way, onto reviews!
An Angry Green Boss: To play devil's advocate, I'd take the opposite position and say Alastor isn't a dick… but considering this chapter exist, I'd be nothing more than a hypocrite to adopt that viewpoint XD
Along with your Alastor comment coming at the perfect time, thank you for the review man! And I'm glad to know the characters in this fic are still coming across as natural and in line with the show!
Montykinomovie: You're definitely right about my over use of adjectives. And I'll definitely try to make more of a conscious effort to cut down on their use so the story's easier to read.
Unfortunately for me, I had gone to the Type Moon Translation school of writing. And as such, started my author's journey under the assumption that if I wanted to make something sound good, all I needed to do was describe every noun I wrote with five adjectives XD
That tangent aside, thank you for the pointer man! And I'll try to make sure my descriptions have the proper adjective, noun, and verb ratio going forward!
JCINNABAR: Lol, no worries dude! Thank you for the support, and good luck with your mosquito battle!
Alright, comments appreciated and accounted for!
So without further adieu, besides my traditional apology revolving around any grammatical mistakes that may pop up along the way, I welcome you back too….
Drifters
A Hazbin Hotel Fanfic
Chapter 23:
The Original Sin
"… what do you mean you don't know?" Vaggie's whisper echoed across the all but vacant lobby.
Charlie felt her ears start to strangle the question. As if it was so pointless to ask, it wasn't worth hearing. But with her face frozen, and her father's expression melting, her girlfriend had simply voiced what they'd all been thinking.
Hell, it was probably what all the residents of the hotel were thinking.
"I… I honestly don't know how to make it any clearer." her dad admitted. His tone was defeated in both volume and passion.
"Y-you're going to have to." Charlie's words left her slacked jaw unimpeded.
"How's that even possible?" Vaggie's shock prodded the smaller blonde before he could hide behind his nonchalant exterior, "Weren't you one of the original Angels?"
Charlie noticed her father wince at the past tense. And whether out of confused pity, or her need for them to focus on one problem at a time, the daughter tried to rephrase the question.
"You watched over the Earth from Heaven dad, and you rule over the damned in Hell, surely somebody must have told you why a soul would go to one place and not the other."
The elder Morningstar slowly raised his head. And Charlie tried her best to lighten the weight of her stare.
"I'd say it's not that simple…" her father began with a deep breath, "But I guess for me it is."
Charlie watched Lucifer bite his lips. Causing a small frown to write itself upon her own. As for the first time since forever ago, her dad appeared… almost human in his recollection of the past.
"Heaven, Hell, and Earth… they've been around a long time." he began, his voice taking on a reluctant tone of wisdom, "So long, that for the first of us Angels that have ridden times flow the farthest, we sometimes forget the current moves at all. And instead view the temporal river as an endless ocean. That has no beginning or end, and, like us, is simply eternal."
"… obviously." even in her shocked state, Vaggie's whispered tone couldn't help but be traversed on a rolling eye. Pulled forward by Charlie's father's 'simple' poetry.
"For mortal beings like you, time's true effect is easier to see." He replied. Evidently oblivious to sarcasm as well.
"What do you mean by that?" Charlie asked, trying to get both of them back to the point.
"A human on Earth goes through a complete life. No matter how long or short they live, they all will experience a beginning in birth, and more importantly, they all will experience an end in death. And as such, have an intuitive understanding of cause and effect."
Charlie would say her dad had a pretty good grasp on it as well. But given how hard it seemed for him to orchestrate his point, the younger Morningstar began to realize her father's doctoral explanation on the subject was produced because he lacked the instinctual understanding needed to explain it more simplistically.
"My siblings and I, we've only ever experienced a beginning. And without any idea what an end really is, we often forget that the placement of history's chapters have just as much meaning as the events written."
"I… think I get it," Charlie said. Needing an added second to figure out if she did or not, "But I'm still confused on how not knowing the order of history means you don't know the rules for getting into Heaven and Hell."
"Doesn't it?" Lucifer's smile oozed with sadness, "Because just as I'm bound to time despite having no end, the realms we traverse time through have also only experienced a beginning. And even if my story in creation has no conclusion, the order of my life's chapters still matter."
Vaggie blinked, and once again Charlie had to join her girlfriend in confusion at her dad's… philosophical explanation of something she knew would, ironically, end up being obvious.
"Heaven came first, and was created the moment before my siblings and I were. Now, other high level Angels and, thanks to your mothers influence, myself have all come up with reasons why we think Heaven exists. But whenever I asked my brothers and sisters for their opinions, they felt there was no point in answering a question that wasn't yet finished." Lucifer shrugged.
"But…" Vaggie tried to rejoin the conversation, if only to give voice to her inability to make heads or tails of it, "Even if you and the other Arch Angel's don't know why Heaven exist, as its first inhabitants, and the creators of Earth, shouldn't you have observed what it takes for a mortal soul to get in?"
"Absolutely, and all those years ago when the Earth was formed, I did know what the requirements to live in Heaven were." her dad's down trodden demeanor made his instinctual laugh to lighten the mood rather pitiful, "To live in Heaven, all you had to do was be from there. Because back when Lilith, Adam, and Eve were made, the concept of 'mortality' wasn't a thing. And the other Angels and I didn't even know it was possible their souls could leave their bodies, let alone depart Earth."
"But… they can." Charlie tried to blink the biography into order, "Mom's told me the story of how you guys met thousands of times. And it ends with…"
The blonde cut herself off, when her dad's frown winced at the sharpened memory.
"It ends with you and mom leaving Earth to be cast down here."
"Otherwise known as Hell's beginning." Lucifer's eyelids blinked away a vision not in front of him, "But that's just the thing Charlie, I entered Hell the identical way I entered Heaven."
"… the moment after they began." Vaggie's eye strained, but her voice finally seemed to pick up on what her dad was saying.
"And much like Heaven, I don't know why Hell actually exists." His nod confirmed the impossible, "I've come up with my own theories on the subject for sure…"
Lucifer's tone trailed off the corner of his eyes, but where time's flow took it Charlie did not know, for her dad chose to look away before she could see.
"But I've never bothered to ask Heaven. Because regardless of how the other celestial beings interpreted things, the only answer I want to hear is from the people who struck me down. And unfortunately I know my sibling won't give me one. After all, in their minds there is no use in providing justification for a sentence they're still enacting."
"But mom always said the Angels punished you for the apple. Because it granted people free will, and that free will is what created Hell." Charlie's storybook answer was interrupted by the primary source.
For a moment, her dad's lips soured. As his awkward personality made a brief return. If, for nothing else, then to relieve him from the stressful memory.
"W-well, technically speaking, I think Eve's action of taking the Apple proved humans already had free will. But your mom was very adamant that she herself was the sole human who naturally had free will. So Lilith always supported the idea that her plan with the apple had been the catalyst for Eve's own access to independent thought… and was rather passive aggressive to the notion that our plan had only proved Eve, and therefore all humans, could figure it out on their own. Of course, she probably also didn't like all the compliments I had sent Eve that day when I found out just how creative she actually was. But in my defense, when I went over there to give her a pathway to knowledge with the apple, I thought she'd either eat it or run away from the talking snake. Not ask me if the thing had seeds, because she apparently already had enough knowledge before meeting me to invent agriculture! I mean for God sake, what was I supposed to do? Say this ingenious idea you've come up with to control your food source is stupid? Lilith's whole plan was to encourage her to think independently, so I don't know why she ended up getting so mad at me for praising Eve's ability to do so already-" Lucifer tangent stopped, when Charlie's and Vaggie's heavy blinks showcased just how far off track he'd gone.
"P-point is, from our point of view, after the whole apple thing, free will started to take off faster than Eve's orchard. And as either a constructed or natural consequence, potential for all the world's evil spilled out too. Including the reality of death… and droughts." Lucifer coughed his original point into his closed hand. And despite his disdain for the matured aftertaste it left behind, he choked down his happy go lucky side, "And since Lilith and I were cast down into Hell without so much as an explanation, she assumed the Angels were under the notion that Pandora's box was artificial. And that as its creators, we were being punished for things that, by definition, were always out of our control."
"…" Charlie went silent. The obvious question for her to ask did not come easily. And as her breath came in faster and faster, she began to realize it was due to her fear of the answer.
"Has Lilith been lying?" Vaggie asked on her partner's behalf.
"Without knowing the actual truth, I can't say." Lucifer shrugged, before turning a sympathetic gaze towards Charlie, "But what I can tell you is, the fact your mother told you that version of the story proved she never regretted her action. That she was proud of her ability to control her own life, no matter what the consequence of standing by such an ideal would bring."
The devil took a deep breath.
"Unfortunately, what my version proves of me, echoes the answer I told you earlier." Lucifer said. And without end, concluded his point how he began it.
"That you don't know Heaven's rules," Vaggie's eye followed Lucifer's nod down, "because it would be pointless to ask the ones still making them."
Charlie's head spun, as her view of her parents collided and crashed together violently. Long held beliefs broken, others merged, and some even swapped. And perhaps it was in her inability to cope with the destruction of her childhood outlook, that she found hope in the other reality that crumbled.
"But it isn't pointless to ask." Charlie turned to her girlfriend's confused stare. And much like her dad, ended the night with how it started, "At least, it wouldn't be pointless to ask the other beings of Heaven who have been making rules based on your siblings' actions."
"…" Lucifer's mouth opened, but words only came out when he realized they couldn't, "I've certainly avoided asking the Seraphims' court for their opinion…"
Charlie's eyes turned towards the man, until she forced them to look up at her dad.
"Can you set up a meeting to fix that?"
"Charlie…the Seraphims and the other Angels-" and because he was her father, his lips sucked in, "You don't understand them like I-"
He paused, cut off by his own proven point.
"Well, I don't suppose I understand much about them either…" he trailed off.
"But don't you deserve to?" Charlie softened the initiative she took, and instead of marching up towards her dad with furry, she quietly approached. Resting an arm on his shoulder. "Because whether we're afraid of the answer or not, we shouldn't fear talking to our family. And we definitely shouldn't deny ourselves the right to question the people talking on their behalf."
Charlie… Charlie didn't often hear her own words. Yet in her dad's connected gaze, she had them reflected back at her. As the smaller blonde's roundabout answer for something simple provided not only multiple solutions, but also a new viewpoint to see him in as well.
And while it wasn't one she could fully understand, it was one she didn't have to imagine.
"I… I haven't reached out to any of the other Arch Angel's since before the fall," her dad choked back his denial, and against his own wishes, offered out hope for his daughter to make her own, "But after Adam started coming down here for his 'meetings', he gave me a way to contact the Seraphims. I'm only supposed to do so in an emergency…"
His trailed off words were hooked back by Charlie's growing smile.
"Which Exorcist potentially killing redeemable souls definitely qualifies as."
Her father awkwardly finished, which was a good enough end for Charlie. As for the first time since she was a child, she decided to try to start their relationship anew with a genuine embrace.
"Thanks dad."
XxxxxxX
Even if the silver steel Odette had brought into the hotel held all the power of a nuclear pocket knife, a weapon was only ever as good as its user.
A point Alastor knew all too well, but was happy to be reminded of when he plopped the catatonic Carmine on her recliner. The danger of whatever outburst she might have when she came too tucked safely in his hand. Meanwhile, his open one quickly straightened her on the chair.
While the Radio Demon considered himself a gentleman through and through, the only reason he bothered making the effort to prop up the pale blonde's comfort was because of the presentation he needed to show the explosion he was about to call.
"I don't suppose you have a phone I could borrow?~" the deer's smile hummed through the woman's far off stare, "Kidding, kidding~"
He raised both his hands in mock surrender, as a twin set of shadows kept Odette straight.
"The collect call will be on your mother's dime, not yours. Let me just~" Alastor chuckled. His hand reached into a puddle of shade that floated about mid air. Before his claws could enter, five gloved digits came out laxed. As they dropped a shaded cell into his hand, "Oh, thank you kind sir."
The wendigo bowed, smiling at his own performance. When he whipped himself up, his spindly form flicked the body guard's appendage back into the void. With a snap of his fingers it was gone.
"Now why don't we check in with dear old mother." Alastor scrolled through the worker's contacts. His smile glowing with the reflected light of the word 'Boss', "She must be worried sick."
Tapping the video button, the Overlord pointed the camera towards the heiress. Unconcerned with the lack of pomp the shell shocked Odette provided the circumstance.
After all, as the phone managed to ring a grand total of one time, he himself gave it plenty.
"What is your status- Odette?!"
And whatever little he lacked, his fellow lord of Hell would give.
"Odette what is going on, the patrols have gone silent?!" Carmilla sounded, if not panicked, then cautiously enraged.
Unfortunately for the weapons dealer, her daughter's neck barely had the strength to keep her head upright, let alone the power needed to choke out an answer.
But that's what the radio was here for. As he snaked his head over the cell, and smiled a frown towards a wide eyed Carmilla.
"Hello~"
"Alastor!" the woman hissed.
Casting down a set of fingers to twiddle off a wave, the deer had to give the Carmine credit. Not many Sinners would be able to see him before a family member and produce a threat.
"The one and only~" he bowed, briefly filling the screen with nothing but his choppers and the floor.
"What is the meaning of this? Where have you taken my daughter?!" the CEO growled.
"Her room." Alastor smiled innocently, "All to ensure her own safety I assure you."
"I'll be the judge of that." Carmilla's voice ordered. Filled to the brink with the demanding presence only a mother could have.
"You're welcome to," the radio grinned, "but I must warn you, Charlie's having a heart to heart with her father in the lobby."
"… Lucifer?!" For the briefest moment, Carmilla's eyes flicked from her child to the ground. Unable to believe such a claim, "Why would he choose now of all times to leave his manor?"
"Perhaps he simply wants to rekindle his and Charlie's relationship~" Alastor teased, "That, and his daughter's hotel has just been sieged by a wandering herd of prehistoric reptiles."
"Zeezi attacked the hotel?" the mother narrowed her eyes.
"Her underlings certainly gave it a go," he grinned daggers, "but outside of scaring the day workers, all those ancient chickens managed to do was stretch my muscles. By the time the King of Hell arrived, I had already subdued nearly all the intruders."
"So is that why you called, and on my missing guard's phone no less," Carmilla crossed her arms, not believing anything Alastor said as the whole truth, "to inform me that you are the shining knight who protected my daughter."
"Oh Heaven's Hell no~" Alastor whistled out through his teeth, "I've called you, because the one reptile I didn't fossilize, your daughter made extinct."
"… what are you-"
Not one to let other people toy with a conversation, Alastor flicked down the knife in his hand, and cleaved off whatever ignorance Carmilla planned to hide behind.
And with no mask present, the weapons Overlord's eyes grew to full body mirrors. Reflecting the glint in the deer's hand towards her daughter. Whose own eyes, chiseled by guilt, proved the sight before them real.
"I-I'm sorry…" Odette's first words since the incident, stuttered out the final note of tonight's opera.
For a full minute, Alastor treated the Carmines' silence as a roaring sea of applause.
"What was it you said last time we met, that we both should respect the other's wish to avoid conflict?" The radio teased the mute ballerina, "Well, forgive my intrusion, but your daughter sending a loyal servant of Zeezi to oblivion doesn't exactly seem like a sure fire way to keep the peace."
Although Alastor kept himself the center of attention, he made sure the camera picked up Odette tense in fear.
"Not to mention how the other Overlords will react when they find out that, not only do the Carmines have a stash of Angelic weapons, but they're willingly to use them against other Demons." the radio tssted his frequency, "Why, if I was them, I'd feel my only choice would be to raid your headquarters and take the weapons for myself. After all, who cares what the cost to acquire them would be if your daughters are already picking them off one by one-"
"You've made your point," Carmilla had just enough wherewithal to whisper her snap, "and you've proven your lie can be taken as a truth."
"More so my hypothetical~" Alastor shrugged. Although, much like the forked haired woman's narrow gaze, he didn't care for the difference.
"So what is it that you want from me?"
"The weapons of course." Alastor threw his arms wide until the phone's camera circled back on him, "A detailed list on the amount you have stockpiled, how you've kept them hidden from Heaven, as well as your logistical skills on how to distribute them amongst an army."
"Are you planning to build one up?" Carmilla sneered, "Because if that's the case, it seems like neither of us planned to avoid conflict."
"My dear," Alastor's tongue flicked the roof of his mouth, "I have no intention of spurring war between the Overlords. If I did, I would be talking to Zeezi right now."
"So I'm to believe you wish to arm a legion of Demons with the most dangerous weapons known to Hell, for what? Humanitarian reasons?"
"In a sense, yes." Alastor mused, deciding to commandeer Carmilla's jest. "To fight off the one threat none of us can bargain with."
His pupils brought the wardog's up to the ceiling. Confused, she simply saw oak for a moment, until her eyes widened in realization.
"You cannot be serious."
"Oh, I very much am," Alastor set the phone down as he stepped towards Odette's side. Patting the shocked woman on the back as if they were old friends, "and as much as I'd love to hear your opinion on why such a fight would be suicidal, I'm afraid it doesn't matter."
"Because you're holding my daughter hostage." Carmilla growled as Alastor brought out the steel knife. And he heard the CEO's digits crack her phone's case as if it was his windpipe.
"No," Alastor spun the silver between his fingers, before silencing Odette's gulp… by gently placing the handle of the blade in her palm, "You two are going to help me, because Zeezi is holding her hostage. After all, as much as she'll hate the fact I've imprisoned all her little spies, who do you think she'll come after first, if she found out you're the reason one's never coming back."
The radio smiled and drummed both hands on Odette's shivering shoulders.
"Who's to say she won't find out on her own?" Carmilla tried to reason.
"I suppose she could." Alastor hummed, "But in that case, I'd imagine you'd be even more inclined to have me as an ally."
"And why's that?" the CEO gritted through clenched teeth.
"Because Odette will be helping me prepare here at the hotel. And as such, she'll be under my protection." the wendigo whistled his sharpened fangs, "And clearly the safety I provide,"
Alastor's fingers played a tune at his side, and a puddle appeared in the air. But instead of an arm dropping out, the entire crushed body of the guard did.
"is better than yours."
Odette's breath hitched. And if nothing else, the pale blonde had rebooted herself back into the here and now.
Which was good. The deer would need her expertise if he was to navigate more than just a staring contest with her mother.
"I was wrong," the arms dealer's low voice admitted, "we both may have wanted peace, but you never wanted to avoid conflict. Only control it."
"Carmilla," in a rare moment, Alastor provided her name with clarity, "if I have learned anything from my seven year hiatus, it's that controlling conflicts is the only way to avoid them."
"Not…" the head Carmine gave her daughter one last concerned look. Before she closed her eyes beneath Alastor's victorious grin, and exhaled her surrender, "when you're the one being controlled."
XxxxxxX
Isolated in mind, body, and soul, Amp stared at the display her drone had dragged up from Hell. Its last frame flickered before her like stone, and her eyes had remained petrified to it for the past hour.
In the golden machine lay the answer she had sought to find regarding her sisters' death. The answer Lute and Adam had said they would need to ensure justice for their fallen comrades.
The answer she should have reported to the lieutenant the moment the Angelic dagger glinted on the screen. The answer she, the commander, and her fellow Exorcists should be analyzing second by second. The answer that could save all of Heaven, that she should have rewinded and watched through again to confirm all the dangers presented.
But for the first time since she achieved her wings, what Amp should do and what she was able to do did not align.
If she had only watched the lab coated Demon kill a Sinner with one of her fellow soldiers blades, perhaps such a feeling of immobility would have just washed over her for a second. When she ultimately came to the conclusion that the same weapon was likely the one that killed her fallen sister, perhaps the reveal that their own Angelic steel could harm them would have made most inhabitants of Heaven freeze in fear for a full minute. When the dust settled, only for the incarnation of evil itself to burst through the door and prove himself connected to all of this, maybe even the Arch Angels themselves would be left speechless for a full hour.
Yet staring ahead, it wasn't Amp's sense of duty, alarm, or even fear that locked her in place. Rather it was her pain.
One so agonizing, her body had yet to figure out a way to express it as a sensation.
Unfortunately, lips parted at the speed of the glacier numbing her senses, her memory knew what to call it.
"V-Vaggie."
No- That- That wasn't possible. Lute and Adam had said- The outcome of her disappearance had been confirmed with the murder that took place on its third anniversary.
Vaggie, her comrade, her sister, was supposed to be dead. The film she watched had just revealed the tool of her killer! It wasn't supposed to show her alive in Hell!
Yet there she was.
"Oh my God." Amp whispered. She felt her eyes start to flood. An ocean of distortion blocked her vision.
When she saw Vaggie could now only see the world through one sea. When she saw the length of time her sister had spent in damnation stretched down over a wingless back.
"Oh my God." the Exorcist's voice scratched her throat on the way out. And feared the pain slashing up her neck was a precursor to what her fallen sister had experienced.
When she saw the company Vaggie had around her. When she saw the sympathetic gaze she trained onto the devil. When she saw the loving hand she entangled around his daughter's.
"Oh my God." Amp fell to her knees, choking on her own breath. Terrorfied at the fate worse than death presented before her.
When she was weighed down by the shame of Vaggie's betrayal. When she was struck by the fact a righteous soul had fallen to corruption.
"Oh my God." Amp bruised the hands she doubled onto. Years of mental training and fortification coming down in an instant.
When the thought of having to tell Adam and Lute of this treachery made her nauseous. When the thought of having to inform all of Heaven of the Exorcists' crime bit into her an illness.
"Oh my God." Amp's cheeks rained puddles down onto the floor. An embodiment of a surrender her body experienced before her soul.
When she realized she was unable to inflict the pain she felt now onto anyone else. When she realized she was going to fail her duty.
"Oh my God!" She felt like she would flood the entire floor. As if the emotions she produced were the horrid Sins of the past that had to be drowned by the divine torrent.
When she realized she was going to provide her lieutenant with only the information they'd need to defend the realm from the Morningstar wishing to meet them. When she realized she was going to alter the tape to show Hell's sickness not Heaven's
"Oh my God!" she splashed her fist through her sorrow until the tile beneath broke. Beating away her own reflection, less it be distorted into a mirror image of her damned sister.
When she realized she was going to have to destroy the evidence of the traitor. When she realized she was going to have to erase the stain upon her order.
"Oh my God." her final whisper reeled back in defeat and acceptance. As her gaze lingered over to the golden winged treasure that had proven itself a mighty poison.
When she understood that the forsaken tape it contained, showed her exactly how she could kill Vaggie.
XxxxxxX
Alright Amp, appreciate the acting. But if you go any further up the angst meter, you'll risk being so compatible with Drake, he might accidentally summon you for the Grail War.
That library inside joke aside, thank you to all those who have read through the twenty-third chapter of Drifters!
I will try my best to upload a chapter every Friday. But until next week, please feel free to leave a comment! Criticism is always welcomed, so long as there's an attempt for it to be constructive.
As of this moment I am still looking for a beta reader, so to anyone interested please feel free to shoot me a PM.