"So, whaddaya think?"
"This is amazing!" She could hardly contain her delight! In just a single day, the hotel already had three new guests! Well, technically all staff, one of whom was less than willing, but Charlie would take her wins where she could get them.
"It's… okay." Vaggie added, her arms crossed and looking less than enthused. Charlie could understand where she was coming from. Alastor was not to be taken lightly, but he represented the hotel's best hope of being treated seriously. And it'd be a big spit in the face to their goal with the hotel if they turned him away just because of his less-than-ideal history.
And to his credit, Alastor didn't seem all too deterred by Vaggie's attitude; if anything, his Cheshire grin only widened.
He wrapped his arms over both of them, drawing them close. "Hahaha! This is going to be very entertaining!"
With one last laugh, he let go of both of them and extended one arm, summoning a ball of fire in his palm.
Charlie could hear the melody of a vintage song come to life just as Alastor threw the fireball up in the air and—
There was a knock on the door.
The music screeched to a halt like a record getting scratched, and the fireball went out in tiny embers. Alastor's grin remained, albeit looking somewhat more… forced.
"That must be someone else looking to join the hotel!" Charlie announced giddily, walking to the door. As she did so, she noticed Vaggie getting up from the floor as though she had tripped. Weird. She wasn't normally one to be clumsy.
That didn't deter her though, as she opened the door to their new guest. This proved there were people in hell who wanted to better themselves. Suck it, Killjoy!
"Welcome to the Happy Ho-" Charlie paused as her eyes took in the person by the door's entire figure. Their painfully exposed figure. "-oooh-oh my god, you're naked! Why are you naked?!"
Charlie's hands went to shield her eyes, but the damage was done. The image was seared into her brain and would stay there till her final moments. Which sucked, because she was pretty sure she was immortal. Thanks dad.
"Oops. I saw the sign outside and just assumed this was just some sort of sexy funhouse. You know, happy hotel. A hotel guaranteed to leave you happy and satisfied."
The man—definitely a man—before her said it almost conversationally, leaning against the doorframe. He was a humanoid sinner similar to Vaggie, and if she had to say, Charlie would confess that he was in the shorter side, about as tall as her father without his signature hat. His skin was pitch black from head to toe, with the exception of two bright white pits he had for eyes and a half-moon white smile that seemed just as persistent as Alastor's.
If Charlie squinted a bit and made sure to keep her eyes above the waist, she could vaguely make out. were those pixels on his skin? Was his skin made of pixels?
Charlie couldn't stare at him for too long, as her eyes were instinctively drawn away, and surprisingly enough, it wasn't purely out of disgust. There was something about the man that just seemed off. Looking at him for too long gave a strong feeling of wrongness. A deep uncomfortable feeling that wasn't quite painful, but just about unpleasant enough that you wanted to avoid it.
The sinner cocked his head and leaned awkwardly near to her. "Huh. You look familiar. Like your hair and face scratch a part of my brain meat. Have we ever…?"
Before he could finish his thought, a silver spear tip shot from Charlie's side, halting inches from his face.
Vaggie growled. "Hookay, step away from the princess. This isn't that type of establishment. So piss off."
"Ooh, look at you getting all protective." Angel Dust commented with a laugh, standing along with Husk, Niffty, and Alastor, all attracted by the commotion and seemingly enjoying the show.
"Okay, what the shit?! You were not carrying that before. Where were you hiding it?" The sinners eyes looked Vaggie up and down before landing on her skirt. "Unless…"
Vaggie turned red. "Don't you dare finish that sentence unless you want to get stabbed in a place you'll never forget!"
Charlie finally caught herself and placed a hand on both of them. "How about we try and avoid killing each other, alright?"
She turned to the random sinner. "And could you put on some clothes?"
"'Fraid not, miss. I'm a tad new to this Hell business. I only woke up here a few hours ago, bum ass naked, so I have nothing on me."
It wasn't impossible. While most sinners wore clothes that, like their new appearance, represented who they were in life as well as their sin, a few sex-averse or non-anthropomorphic sinners did not. However, they tended to lack genitalia, which was definitely not the case here.
"Wait, you get to hell, and the first thing you try to do is hit up a sex club?" Husk asked.
"Nah, the first thing I did was try not to die, because for whatever reason some hot cyclops chick and a bunch of randos started bombing the shit out of where I woke up." Charlie noticed Angel turn to the side, whistling innocently, out of the corner of her eye. "But yeah, right after that, I searched for a sex club. I wanted to test out what this fine old dick can do."
"Meh, I've seen bigger." Angel Dust spoke.
Turning to face the spider demon, the sinner shrugged. "I'll have you know, miss, I'm a grower, not a shower, in more ways than one."
The sinner giggled to himself, as if he'd made a funny joke.
"Uh-huh. Just one thing." Angel pointed at himself. "I'm a guy."
"No shit?" The sinner's gaze lifted from Angel's and to the space over his head. "Huh. That you are… You make my dick confused."
"I have that effect on men."
"Can we please get back to how there's some nude exhibitionist at our front door?" Vaggie hissed, jabbing her spear closer to the sinner's face, who, for his part, looked more than a little amused.
"I'd leave if I could, Ms. Cramps, but like I said, I just got here. I have nowhere else to go, and if this really is a hotel, I'd prefer to stay somewhere where I won't be shanked. I don't have any money, but I can compensate you with blowjobs and odd Pokémon trivia"
"Well, that's not our prob-"
"Of course you can stay! We'd love to have you at the Happy Hotel!" Charlie stepped in, shaking the sinner's arm violently before letting go. "I'm Charlie. Charlie Morningstar, and I'm the owner of the hotel."
"Morningstar," the sinner raised a white eyebrow. "Any relation to the Big D in charge?"
"Yeah, he's my father and ruler of the Pride Ring," Charlie said, noting the sinner's confused expression. Yeesh, he really was new to all this. They'll have to be responsible for catching him up on the basics of Hell. Speaking of basics, "we should probably find something for you to wear."
"Allow me to help," Alastor said, before snapping his fingers. Clothes began to emerge from the ether, wrapping around the sinner. First, he wore a spotless white dress shirt with sleeves pulled up, then a black vest and slacks, and last black leather shoes.
"Nice threads," the sinner admired. He looked under his pants. "Damn. You even gave me some nice underwear. And it all fits snuggly. How does that even work?"
Alastor grinned widely. "Ah, my dear fellow, a gentleman never reveals his tricks."
"Whatever you say, Karen-cut," the sinner turned to Charlie, ignoring the slight but visible twitch in Alastor's eye. "So what's up next?"
"Uh, well, as a guest of our hotel, I guess you should know that what we aim to do here isn't exactly normal. Our goal in the Happy Hotel is to rehabilitate sinners and help them achieve redemption." Charlie finished, adding, "And I hope you'll be receptive to that going forward."
The sinner hummed to himself. His eyes swept over her again, just as they had when he described her looked familiar. Charlie guessed that he must've remembered her from her disastrous interview at 666 News.
After a second or two, he finally broke his silence. "Sounds fucking stupid. I'm in."
Charlie paused. "… Really?"
"Pretty much. I've got nothing better to do."
OK, Charlie. Stay calm, Charlie. You know what to do. "Alright! Well, first things first… I'll introduce to everyone here."
She went to Vaggie, giving her a tight hug in the process. "This is Vaggie, my partner and best friend. There is no one in the world who I trust more than her."
Vaggie patted her hand soothingly. "Love you too, babe."
"Next is Angel Dust," she said, gesturing to the individual in question, who gave a lazy wave. "Here's our first guest here—you're our second—and he's already made a bunch of progress here!"
Excluding when he joined a turf war.
"Then there's Alastor." She gestured to the radio demon, who gave a polite bow. "He's almost as new as you, and he's agreed to help me run the hotel with the help of his employees, Husk, our new barman, and Niffty, our housekeeper, who I'm pretty sure is safe to be around."
The housekeeper in question had already gotten on the sinner's leg and was crawling her way up. "You look good without pants."
He raised his leg, peering down at the tiny girl. "Huh. Talking to you feels illegal." He promptly kicked her off.
"And that's everyone in the hotel. Hopefully we can expand and reach more people, and uh," Charlie slapped her head, realising she had missed something. "Sorry. With all this mess, I forgot to ask your name."
"It's cool," the sinner said. "I don't have one."
"Oh, you're still in the process of looking for a new one," Charlie replied, nodding. For one reason or another, most sinners preferred alternate names or aliases to those they used on Earth. Sometimes it was a nickname, and other times it was just random phrases strung together.
"Nah. I just can't remember it."
Wait. What?
"Seriously?" Angel asked.
"Yep," the sinner knocked on his head. "I woke up here with no idea who I was. No name. No family. No memories outside of my highly specialised set of quirky hobbies."
"How convenient," commented Vaggie, in a tone that very much said she didn't believe him.
And it admittedly was hard to believe. A sinner with amnesia? Would a sinner's regeneration even allow for that to happen?
"I know right," the sinner chuckled, seemingly not noticing Vaggie's distrust. "Shit, it's like I'm some sort of… TV show… character…."
Charlie clapped her hands as he trailed off. "Alrighty then, we'll do as much as we can to help you with that. But for now, we should probably-"
"That's where I remember you from! You're that Verbalase chick!"
Charlie blinked. Wut?
"The outfit is different, but bend me over and fuck me raw; you're the fifty-grand girl. It's an honour to meet you." The sinner proceeded to salute her.
"Hold up. The hells a verbal-what's it?" Angel asked.
"A man with unparalleled financial genius I knew from earth." The sinner answered solemnly.
"And you remember him but not your own name," the incredulity was hard not to hear in Husk's tone.
"There's just some things that the soul never forgets."
"Okay, this is stupid," Vaggie said, touching the bridge of her nose. "And why exactly did that remind you of Charlie?"
"Well, because it was her but also not her at the same time," the sinner held his chin almost like he was trying to think of a way to explain it. "Basically, there was this character that looked a lot like Char-Char over here, and she was his waifu."
Before anyone in that room could ask the cursed question of what exactly was a waifu, he thankfully exploded.
Or more exactly, the door behind him did.
He was the nearest one to the blast radius and the closest to the door, and he was sent flying across the room.
"Oooow," the heard the sinner groan in the distance. "My one weakness… doors. How could they have known?"
"What the heck is up in that head of yours, man?" Angel asked.
"I may or may not have picked up a bag of sugar off the ground on my way here. And I may or may not have tried it. And it may or may not have actually been sugar."
"That makes too much sense." That was something everyone could agree with.
After that, they all took a look outside, where a banged-up warship flew above the hotel.
Manning it was a snake sinner, Sir Pentious. Charlie recognised him as the one to have started the turf war with Cherry Bomb and Angel Dust.
"Hah! Well, well, well. Look who it is harbouring the striped freak! We meet yet again, Alastor!"
The radio demon tilted his head. "Do I know you?"
Sir Pentious deflated from that comment, only to snarl back, "Oh, yes, you do! And this time, I have the element of surprise! Ahaha!"
Re-entering his machine, he unloaded a gun before them.
Only to promptly get his shit wrecked when Alastor snapped his fingers.
Go figure.
[Name: N/A]
[Class: The Gamer]
[Gender: Male]
[Job: Homeless Nudist]
[Level: 3] (Next Level: 4.07%)
[Title: None]
[Age: 0]
[Species: Sinner]
[HP: 50/50]
[MP: 25/25]
[Power: 5]
[Stamina: 5] (1 UP!)
[Agility: 7]
[Intelligence: 6] (8 – 2)
[Wisdom: 1] (3 – 2)
[Luck: 1]
[Elemental Affinity: None]
[Points: 0]
[Money: 0]
[Status Effects: Angel Dust (Intelligence & Wisdom drop by 2.)]
And fin.
Just watched Deadpool & Wolverine, and it reignited my love of Jesus; thus, I proceeded to shit this fic out.
I'm somewhat dissatisfied with how this first chapter went, but oh well. I'm not good at beginnings. Or endings. Or anything in between, for that matter. Any ride with me is guaranteed to be uncomfortable and long. So if you're into that, hop on, folks!
I guess my main problem is the SI's introduction; I felt a tad too: "Hello sirs, I'm Angel Dust's distant and unmentioned nephew, Johnny Five-Dicks, and I will be joining y'all in your day-to-day adventures while having awkward sexual tension with Alastor."
But… I guess that wouldn't be bad with what I'm going for with this SI. In case you can't tell, he'll be my attempt at playing with the "instantly all knowing, instantly beloved by all" trope that many SI's walk into.
Hazbin is all about redemption, so why not introduce yet another fucked-up and annoying person to the hotel? After all, if you end up at rock bottom, the only thing you can do is fly up or get a drill to dig yourself deeper. And the drill is easier to acquire.
Anyway, we'll meet till the next chapter… whenever the fuck that is.