Part 35
It was odd to hear the door be knocked on in a predominantly empty hotel this early in the afternoon. Three knocks. After a moment or two, three more knocks.
With her nails pressed to her palm, Charlie paced into the foyer. "Just a moment. Give me just a moment!" her voice was a mixture of enthusiasm and fatigue from the morning. As she reached the front, her palm pressed to the door surface, and with a little effort, she pulled open the wide and heavy wooden doors and smiled at the short bird-like demon at the door. "Hello! And welcome to the Hazbin Hotel! We are so excited to welcome you into the arms of our caring establishment. Can I take your name?" She was tired, but it wouldn't be the first time, nor the last, that a demon tried to blow their way into the hotel and ruin everything she hoped to accomplish.
The demon stared up at her, confused, before looking down at the clipboard in its hands. " Uh...Charlie Morningstar?"
The excitement suddenly faded from her eyes, mouth, and body as Charlie began to deflate, her shoulders slumping slightly. "That's me..." Charlie kept a half-smile on her lips, "How can I help you?"
"Package." He turned the clipboard towards her and looked back to the blue truck parked just outside, "this is it, boys! Bring it in!"
She tried hard not to sigh, "OK." She forced a happier demeanor for the small avian as four more rushed past her and carried in a giant box wrapped in plastic wrap and sealed. There was a moment where she thought, 'Who the fuck is ordering large shipments?' It was just one large rectangular box.
"Uh...I didn't order anything."
"Look, I just deliver where my paperwork tells me to. Charlie Morningstar, Hazbin Hotel. Please sign here."
With a final piece of tape put over the edges, Charlie was handed a pen and signed her name at the bottom of the document, and the bird looked at it. He didn't seem too sure that the signature was authentic but eventually let it slide, "All right. Have a bad afternoon, yea?" he lifted his little blue hat and headed back for his van.
Charlie stood there as they shut the door, the entire hotel staring in confusion and shock at the object left in the middle of the room. Husker was the first to look at it. "Fuck is this?" he held out the end of his bottle.
Charlie stepped up to it and started peeling back the plastic. " I have no idea. I didn't order anything." The last bit of tape popped, and Charlie unwrapped a giant television screen, rolling her eyes. "Alastor!"
The demon seemed always to be waiting around the corner as he appeared on the second floor, smiling from ear to ear until he saw the massive television. His smile remained, but his distaste was evident: " Yuck. One might have believed the standards of this hotel couldn't get any lower, and then you go and order a television. I'm hurt, Charlie." He began to make his way down the stairs.
"Wait, this isn't yours?"
"Why in all of hell would I waste my time with such a ludicrous trifle? Everyone knows radio is the preferred method of self-expression. Not this...thing." He flicked a wrist dismissively at the electronic as though he was too disgusted to give it any further scrutiny. Alastor sidled up next to the box, his brow creasing momentarily at the printed sticker on the corner.
The little silver box with a large red 'V' across it. He scowled and peeled it off, examining it. "Charlie, my dear, the receipt was left behind upon delivery; does it say who this abomination is from?"
"Wait," Charlie dug through the wrapper a few times until she found a folded paper and pulled it out, looking at it. " Uh..." she flipped the page, "It says...direct from manufacturer."
It was enough to make his lens flash bright with a bold, white static, his eyes focused on the TV, brow furrowing before he clicked his fingers, the sticker crinkling in his grip, "Vox, you piece of shit..." his smile remaining, his eye's turning bright red.
Nifty scrambled over the surface of the large package and slid down it, sniffing it. " Wow," she said with a goofy smile, "TV? Is that TV? I haven't seen one in years! These ones are nice, too! Look how big it is! Is it an Icon?" She scrambled over the package in an attempt to touch it. " Can we watch the cooking channel?"
Alastor sneered, standing beside the rest before it, looking up at the gaudy monstrosity, "We're not keeping it, my dear. Not as long as I'm around."
Charlie glanced up at him with a quick chuckle. She almost didn't want to admit that much had been said about the relationship between the radio and TV demon, even without being involved. Though she felt much better seeing his hate about the situation, she knew now that most were probably true.
Then the TV flickered for a moment, and the screen blazed on in a screen of blue. Husker glanced over to the box, the power cable sitting inside of it still. Alastor sneered, "What are you doing, Vox..."
The dust had barely settled elsewhere at the warehouse before dozens of demons flooded the facility. Boxes were knocked over, and their contents spilled onto the ground, trampled underfoot and claw and hoof as the trio were ambushed.
A few creatures wore gasmasks and carried thick, red cylinders, popping their ends and letting the black smog spill out, filling the air quickly. Alex's sutures lashed out to form a barrier, knocking some of the creatures back, but the demons kept pouring in, and there were too many to counter.
Angel took position behind Alex, unloading his new toy into the assault. Finally, he was going to have some fun! Each pull of his trigger was more of a rush than the last, pulling his legs further and further down into the kickback to support the large gun, and when one went dry, the spider would grab the next with little hesitation, one set of hands unhooking the clip, and another hooking the next one in. Alex had to admit, he did look pretty sexy with a firearm.
Cherri ran along the frontlines, laughing and using her weaponry to explosive and devastating effect. As her grenades went off, large plumes of red and pink smoke erupted in the small war zone. She was having a great time.
But things changed with each wave. They were only able to take down about ten of them before a shot rang out and clipped Cherri in her upper thigh, causing her to stumble. It was enough of an advantage for two more shots to hit her, the one in the shoulder flinging her back.
Angel panicked and lost track of everything, but he caught a glimpse of blood hitting the table, dowsing it as she fell backward over it and landed on her stomach, "Ah...fuck! Bugger me..." the cyclops groaned as the arachnid kept shooting to protect her, running the safety and slinging it over his body in a crude, self-defense strategy to defend her with the butt.
Another gunshot fired off and, thankfully, went wide as Alex struggled, the tiny creatures screaming as they were lashed by the sutures, burning, searing, smaller ones flying away with the force of the strikes, but it was too much.
Then Angel heard a sound, a sound he was familiar with but couldn't remember where as the metallic tink tink tink broke the rest of the sounds, and from the smoke, Carmilla Carmine seemed to almost fly through it spiraled through the air, driving both her knees into the chest of Alex which sent him backward into a stack of boxes. The tower fell backward, almost exploding in a shower of wood and its contents: old computer monitors.
She didn't give him a chance to do anything, pouncing atop him and slamming his sutured hands into the ground, pinning him there, her eyes on his, "Tell your friends to stop, or I'll kill them both!" She grabbed his shirt, lifting him and shoving his back onto the floor, "Now, boy!"
Alex grimaced and turned his head a little, "GUYS, STOP! STOP!" he got her attention, but she wasn't finished yet. Alex took the first hit, her claws slashing open his cheek, leaving bloody stripes up his face and catching him under his right eye, "and that's for make me hunt you down." She glanced back to Angel, then back to Alex, "he escaped. You want to take his too, or do you prefer I mark him up?" Her growling voice a piercing threat.
Glancing over to Angel, who, at gunpoint, tossed his new toy rifle to the ground. Alex sneered and closed his eyes, "Do it." She slashed again, this time at the side of his neck. "Fuck! AHH! Come on, that's...shit..." A low and painful cry came from his lips as he screamed, but a firm palm wrapped around his mouth.
"Shut up! Do you idio-" The lizard's jaws opened and tried to bite her, but she pulled her hand back and slapped him hard across the face. "Now you listen to me, you fucking little brat, I am not your enemy, and you are working very hard to make me your enemy. People are trying very hard," she squeezed his jaw tighter, "to ensure you succeed. So stop. Being. A. Little. Bastard." She let him go and stood up, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt to lift him to his feet. She was stronger than she looked.
Cherri gave a faint groan as her eye looked at Angel, her breathing heavy but steady. Angel knelt, and the girl could see her blood splattered across the floor, staining the wood and their clothes, "Ah...god dammit..." the bomb demon hissed, her vision closing.
Alex blinked and tried to follow her, but the pain in his skull made it impossible. Her words came as nothing but incoherence to him, like water, nothing but empty, shallow words.
"Help her." He glared up at Carmilla, who was grabbing his wrists. "You need me for whatever fucking project you monsters are working on. And I won't help if you make him cry. You will HELP HER!"
Carmilla wanted to yell back, to smack him again for daring to raise his voice at her, but...the damage was already done. With a deep breath, Carmilla growled, "Fine. I'll patch the girl up. I won't do much without proper equipment, though. This was never the plan, but...a situation is what it is. You two!" She indicated two of the demons in gas masks, "Stabilize her and bring her back with us. There is a change of plan, it seems."
Alex limped a bit as he approached the table where the girl's blood was everywhere, kneeling a bit as he gently pressed a suture to her wound, looking at Angel Dust with a soft gaze, then up to the overlord, "You make him cry, and we are done. You keep her alive."
Those eyes of hers glared knives sharp enough to cut glass, and Carmilla was about to speak when there came a sudden chime from elsewhere in the room; the monitors that had fallen over in the boxes lit up in blue light, and a jingle began to play over their tiny but combined speakers.
'Welcome to the show!"
