So shortly before the last chapter my dog died, so I ended up taking a break. Then the release date for Dragon Age Veilguard was announced so I started playing though the series in preparation.
Anyway this chapter is going to be light hearted. Fun fact, I originally had a different plan in mind for this fic. And this chapter will act as a tribute to the original plan, which I will go over more at the at the end of the chapter.
Also I stream on Twitch, Saturdays and/or Sundays at 2pm eastern US time.
Disclaimer: I do not own fallout or Hazbin Hotel... if I did there would be karaoke.
Chapter 4: Castle of Glass
6 years ago, New Vegas Strip, Ultra Luxe Casino
Dante and Queen were sneaking around the members only area trying to save Ted Gunderson from being Eaten and stopping Mortimer from corrupting the rest of the White Glove Society. Queen said something about hating the idea of cooking people or putting them in freezers. Dante couldn't help noticing that she never said anything about eating people. Best not to confront her about it as it's said people who get on Queen's bad side tend to disappear... wait... surely there's no connection right?... best not to think about.
Anyway they were sneaking when they saw a white glove member approaching. Dante was thinking what to do when Queen suddenly grinned at him. Next thing he knew Queen had him pinned against the wall and was making out with him.
"Oh dear so sorry Queen, carry on with your fun," said the White Glove member as he awkardly starting walking the opposite direction. Once he was gone, Queen pulled her head back with a lecherous grin.
"I call that a fake out make out," she said.
Dante decided to wait to tell her that was his first kiss, they had a guy to save after all.
Present Day
Dante, was invited to a Karaoke bar by Cherri as thanks for helping out Ange. Speaking of Angel he was there too. Cherri had also invited someone named Verosika Mayday, who was famous and whom Cherri met at a gathering of Blitzo's exes, which Verosika hosted.
Verosika was first on stage as she selected her song. "Ooh one of my songs," she said.
(Play Over you Helluva Boss verosika song[full cover by MilkyyMelodies])
"Ever since you went away, I've been haunted. Haunted."
"I always get whatever I want, and I wanted, I wanted you."
"So now I'm drawing circles in the sand, Try'na understand how you do the things you do."
"Baby I'm not over it, but I'm over you, I'm over you."
"Baby I'm not over it, but I'm over you, I'm over you."
"Sometimes it still hurts a bit, sometimes I'm so full of shit."
"But this much is true."
"Baby I'm not over it, but I'm over you, I'm over you." (echo)
"I thought that I could stomp you out, like a fire, like a flame."
"It's done but now I'm covered in ashes, and I still feel the same."
"I guess if I got rid of every sign of what we ever did, there'd be noone left to blame."
"oooh."
"I'm over you."
"Baby I'm not over it, but I'm over you, I'm over you."
"Yeah I try to look ahead, sometimes I look back instead."
"I think I always knew."
"Baby I'll get over it."
"I got over you. I got over you. I got over you. I got over you. I got over you."
(End song)
Verosika drops the mic and walks off the stage dramatically.
"I'm guessing your wrote the song after Blitz," said Dante.
"Yep," said Verosika as Cherri went up next.
"Hmmm," said Cherri looking through the song selection.
"I must say, you're a talented singer," said a gravely voice.
Dante, Angel, and Verosika and even her body guard jumped as they all forgot that James was here as well.
"Ooh Angie it's one of our favorites," said Cherri excitedly not noticing the ninja.
Angel gets up and decides to check it out and smiles when he sees the song.
The song begins to play.
"Oh baby baby," Cheri sings.
"Oh baby baby," Angel sings.
"Oh baby baby how was I supposed to know," Cherri sang, "That something wasn't right."
"Oh baby baby, I shouldn't have let you go," Angel Sang, "And now you're out of sight yeah."
"Show me how you want it to be," they sang in unison, "Tell me baby cause I need to know now what we've got.
"My lonliness, is killing me," Angel sang.
"I must confess I still believe," Cherri sang.
"Still believe," Angel echoed.
They sang together once more, "When I'm not with you I lose my mind, give me a sign. Hit me baby one more time."
And they ended with standing back to back and grinning.
"Dang they are really in sync," said Dante grinning at the performance.
"Yeah those two are thick as thieves," Verosika replied.
"I'll say," James added nodding.
"Quite the dynamic duo," said Verosika's body guard.
It was decided it was Dante's turn to sing, Dante smirked as he saw one of the song choices.
As the music started everyone perked up. Even those not in the group like a couple of rich girls to the side.
(Yakuza Karoke song judgement)
"It's Judgement time!" shouted Dante before bringing the mic up.
"We're starvin' dogs runnin' the rail lines," he sang as everyone even the rich girls bobbed their heads.
"Just getting by on any scraps we can find," Dante sang as everyone started getting into the music.
"The hand that feeds means nothin, to me," Dante sang as everyone started waving their hands in the air.
"This tail won't wag for no one else," sang Dante has everyone put their fists in the air.
"A Yes man has his day that day is dead and gone," Dante Sang.
"Whoa whoa whoa! Whoa whao whoa! We are bad boys," everyone in the Audience sang along at that line.
"A young man left to meet his maker Cries out 'No!' to say 'Justice!'" Dante sang as everyone began to stand up.
"We're breakin' the law! Breaking the world together!" Dante Sang as everyone started dancing.
"Throwing out all Tenderness! We're breakin' the rules! No cause no choice no going back to how it was! No slowing down because," Dante sang as Verosika, Cherri, and the rich girls were just waving their hands in the air.
"We'll keep our heads high," Dante sang as he raised hand up, "Our fists raised till we die," Dante closed his fist, "We're living by our own Judgement!" Dante Sang as everyone applauded.
With that he dropped the mic epicly.
And then some thugs kicked in the door.
"We know you're here Angel Dust," said the lead thug, a shark like from yesterday.
Dante just picked the mic back up, "Listen boys," he said into the mic to make sure he was heard, "You've caught me in a good mood today, so I'll give you one warning, get the fuck out, or I'll kick all of your asses."
The thugs laughed, "And what could you do?" the shark asked.
Then Dante chuckled in a more menacing way, "Clearly you didn't hear what I did to yesterdays group that tried this course I didn't exactly leave survivors, but well I gave to the warning and you didn't take it, so time to face the music," and with that he wacked the stereo and music started playing.
(play yakuza 7: like a dragon ost Recieve and turn you)
He threw the mic at one of the thugs and it bonked him in head and the rest of the party crew joined in the fight.
Cherry grinned as she threw one of her fire crackers.
Verosika winked at one of them distracting him before kicking him in the groin.
Angel pulled out a couple of Tommy Guns and started shooting.
Vortex was going more hand to hand.
Even James was shown to be pretty good.
Dante was also fighting hand to hand as he didn't want to accidentally endanger any of the patrons. For a brief moment while looking a James he thought he saw a flash of Steel. Decided to file that info away for later.
One of the thugs meanwhile saw how outmatched they were especially since he recognized Courier Six, heard enough about him to recognize him.
He also heard that Six liked to avoid getting bystanders caught in the crossfire. He looked at those two rich girls who were now taking cover behind a table, they seemed familiar somehow but he'd think on that later, he aimed his shotgun at them.
Dante saw the shotgun being aimed at the rich girls, he didn't stop to think and jumped in the way of the Shotgun blast and took the full brunt of that as the rich girls and his fellow partiers got wide eyed.
(End Music)
"DANTE!" Angel shouted. He raised his guns while Cherry growled, and James had an intense look in his face.
"Well now, looks like your ace is gone, which means tha..." the thug began before his head got a hole in it as a gunshot went off.
"Not wise to turn your back to the enemy," said Dante's voice from behind the thug's falling corpse.
Angel wasn't sure what was more surprising that Dante was standing with a hole in is gut, or that said whole was apparently regenerating.
"But how?" asked one of the thugs.
"The Wasteland is very treacherous, in order to survive my body has undegone many modifications, in other words, you'll find me more reslient then your usual prey," said Dante as he twirled his guns Sweet Revenge and Old Scratch Cowboy style.
"Grr, we'll grind you to paste," said the leader.
"Bring it," said Dante.
"Hold it!" shouted one of the rich girls, "As of this moment this club is under the protection of the Carmine family."
"That's where I know those two from," said Cherry.
"Grrr," said the leader, "This is not over, but we do not wish for a war with the Carmine Family."
The thugs left and the girls turned to Dante, "You can expect a visit from either us or our mother soon, the Carmine family repays their debts," and they walked before the other turned back for a moment, "Nice singing by the way," and then they were gone.
"Well I think that's enough excitement for one night," said Dante, "I think it's time we all head home, it was nice meeting you two, Verosika, Vortex."
Vortex smiled, "Please we fought together, call me Tex," said Vortex as he and Verosika left and she winked at Dante.
Back at the Hotel
"So how as Karaoke," asked Charlie to the returning guests.
"We got some un expected excitement," said James.
"What kind of excitement?" Vaggie asked with her eye narrowed.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and Vaggie went to answer it. She then came back with an intense stare at Dante, "Dante," said Vaggie, "Mind explaining why there's an overlord here asking for you?"
"... Which overlord?" asked Dante legitimately not sure yet whether this was good or bad.
"Carmilla Carmine," said Vaggie.
"Good news then got it," said Dante deciding to go.
He went to the door while James explained to the staff what happened.
Dante was greeted by a taller verison of those Carmine girls from the club.
"Dante Macleod I presume," said Carmilla.
"Yep," said Dante.
"You took a bullet for my daughters, for that I thank you, my daughters are everything to me. For this I give you two of my company's weapons," she said handing Dante a revolver Pistol and a dagger with a sheath (resembles Majima's dagger from Yakuza) "They Are made from Angelic Steel, the same material the Exterminator's weapons are made of," Carmilla explained. "I graciouslly accept these gifts," said Dante feeling Carmilla was someone he wanted to be on the good side of, and someone he felt was worthy of respect.
"Until we meet again Courier 6," said Carmilla as she walked away.
As Dante walked inside James had finished telling the story.
"So you regenerated like with that Balthazar guy," said Vaggie.
"Yeah how does that work exactly?" Angel asked.
"Yeah," said Dante pointing to his head near his eyepatch, "The thing is getting shot in the head scrambled my memory."
"So What I know comes from people who knew me or what happened before it, so second hand accounts," Dante explained, "My old friend Kira says it's called the Brazil parasite, it makes me into some kind of super soldier, as well as gives me a healing factor of some kind. Where I got it, I'm not sure, but it was apparently dormant before my shooting. Only to be reactivated during one of my previous teleportation mishaps that involved me being experimented on by aliens."
"What could have caused it to be dormant?" James asked curious himself.
"Well I'm not quite sure but my friend Ulysess has a theory, at somepoint I was delivering a package to a place called Hopeville. Unbeknownst to myself the package would activate a Salvo of Nuclear Missles that decimated Hopeville and turned into what is now known as the Divide," Dante explained.
"So it would take a nuclear missle barage to kill you?" asked Husk wide eyed.
"Or at least make me mortal... ish," said Dante, "Ulysses says he's not sure how else I could have survived."
"And with that I think I should turn in for the night, It's been a long day," said Dante going to bed.
"I should turn in as well," said James.
At Verosika's studio
"How was the Karaoke," said another security guy wearing a baseball cap.
"Great, there was the cool guy Dante there, sings as well as he fight, mrow," said Verosika causing the baseball cap wearing security guy to look up.
"Is his last name Macleod by any chance?" he asked
"Yeah how did you know?" asked Verosika.
"Well I'll be Courier Six is in hell, wasn't expecting that," said the man, "He's an old friend, I think I should go visit him when I have the time."
And finished. So my original plan for this fic was Dante was going to appear a couple of months before pilot. He was going to be found by Angel and Cherry and they would become an iconic Trio. Since Angel Dust had been at the hotel for 2 weeks without anyone knowing his fate, which lead to Dante singing in a Karaoke bar like he was in this chapter, only in the original version he was alone. The thugs instead of coming to grab angel were planning to demand Dante tell them where Angel is. And Dante would say he doesn't know and wouldn't tell them if he did, and the rest would happen more or less the way it happened in this chapter.
So funny thing part way through writing this chapter I realized I hadn't been giving James enough moments, so rather than go back and add him to some of the scenes, I thought it would be funny for everyone to forget he was there and get startled when he speaks, considering where I drew the inspiration for him from.
Last thing to go over, the mysterious security guard is not Steven Randall, but he is from another one of Someguy's mods, and another character I had planned to have Dante bring to the hotel.
Now for the next chapter, this is one I have been very excited to write. It involves Dante going up against a certain cowboy assassin.
Pink Plot Bunny: Poyo
I'LL GET TO YOU LATER!
As always if you have any questions, comments, concerns, constructive criticism, suggestions, or you just wanna say hi, please leave a review.