𝔻𝕠 𝕦 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕜 𝕀 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕓𝕖 𝕣𝕖𝕕𝕖𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕕? (𝕀)
ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: ᴠɪɴᴄᴇɴᴛ ᴡʜɪᴛᴛᴍᴀɴ/ᴠᴏx x ꜰ!ꜱɪɴɴᴇʀ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ
ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: ᴍᴜʟᴛɪᴘʟᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰᴀɴꜰɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ, ᴘᴏꜱᴛ-ꜱᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ 2, ᴀɴɢꜱᴛ, ꜱʟᴏᴡ ʙᴜʀɴ, ꜰʟᴜꜰꜰ ᴀɴᴅ ꜱᴍᴜᴛ ɪɴ ꜰᴜᴛᴜʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ, ʜᴜʀᴛ/ᴄᴏᴍꜰᴏʀᴛ, ᴇɴᴇᴍɪᴇꜱ ᴛᴏ ᴋɪɴᴅᴀ ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅꜱ ᴛᴏ ʟᴏᴠᴇʀꜱ, ꜱᴜʙ/ꜱᴡɪᴛᴄʜ ᴠᴏx, ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀʟᴇꜱꜱ ᴠᴏx, ʜᴜʀᴛ ᴠᴏx, ᴠᴏx ɪꜱ ʙᴀᴅ ᴀᴛ ꜰᴇᴇʟɪɴɢꜱ, ᴛᴏᴜᴄʜ-ꜱᴛᴀʀᴠᴇᴅ ᴠᴏx, ʙᴜᴛ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴠᴏx ɪꜱ ɪɴ ʜᴇʟʟ ꜰᴏʀ ᴀ ʀᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ, ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ʜᴀꜱ ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀꜱ, ᴘʀᴀɪꜱᴇ ᴋɪɴᴋ, ᴠɪᴏʟᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴛʏᴘɪᴄᴀʟ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴇʀɪᴇꜱ.
ɪɴᴛʀᴏ: ᴠᴏx ʜᴀꜱ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴅᴇꜰᴇᴀᴛᴇᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ɪᴍᴍᴇᴅɪᴀᴛᴇʟʏ ᴀʙᴀɴᴅᴏɴᴇᴅ ʙʏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴠᴇᴇꜱ. ᴜɴꜱᴛᴀʙʟᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴀ ᴘᴏᴛᴇɴᴛɪᴀʟ ᴛʜʀᴇᴀᴛ, ʏᴏᴜ — ᴀ ꜱɪɴɴᴇʀ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴜɴᴜꜱᴜᴀʟ ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀꜱ ᴡʜᴏ’ꜱ ᴛʀʏɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴅᴇᴇᴍ ʜᴇʀꜱᴇʟꜰ — ᴇɴᴅ ᴜᴘ ɢᴇᴛᴛɪɴɢ ᴅʀᴀɢɢᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱɪᴛᴜᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ʙʏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴀᴢʙɪɴ ʜᴏᴛᴇʟ.
𝘈/𝘯: 𝙄'𝙡𝙡 𝙩𝙧𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙗𝙤𝙩𝙝 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙊3 𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙠
⏩️ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪɪ
You had seen Vox use his destruction machine to carve himself a path to Heaven; you had seen him throw a grand party, clearly puffed up with confidence and convinced of his victory. And, with the same clarity, you had seen him fall.
Defeated by none other than those he trusted the most (if Vox had ever truly been capable of trusting anyone but himself).
All of it, incredibly, within the span of a single song.
You had watched the Overlords join the little angel to stop the weapon of destruction from exploding, and in the end, they had succeeded. Then the broadcast had cut back to Katie Killjoy and Tom’s studio, where an avalanche of useless comments tried to divert attention from Vox’s disastrous flop.
You turned your back to the TV and approached the hotel’s small bar. Husk was down there with the others, with more important things to do than serve you, so you leaned just slightly over the counter to grab a glass.
The hotel had been deserted for hours. Maybe you’d seen a rooster-shaped sinner wandering around the lobby, but now you weren’t so sure.
Vaggie had practically begged you to watch over the hotel while she fluttered out with Emily, Husk, Cherry, and Niffty on her heels, all led by a furious and determined Charlie.
There seemed to be a strange connection among them. Not as if they were friends, but not complete strangers either.
You, on the other hand, had arrived far too recently to understand their dynamics. In truth, you hadn’t even paid much attention to the whole Heaven-versus-Hell conflict: you’d been far too busy trying to survive in this new universe of souls to indulge in matters far bigger than yourself.
Your gaze lingered on a bottle filled with amber liquid a little further away. With a sigh and a shrug, you brushed the temptation aside.
You turned on the tap and waited for the glass to fill with water before closing it and bringing the drink to your lips.
You listened absentmindedly to the shouts and commotion coming from the street as you slid onto the stool, finally distant from the chaos that had hounded you for days before you’d met Vaggie.
But of course fate—that damned fate—still seemed intent on toying with you. Even now. Even in death.
You were just about to retreat to the room assigned to you and lock yourself inside until the next day when the main door burst open, making you jump on your stool.
Charlie and Vaggie were the first to enter, both struggling to support none other than the King of Hell, Lucifer, by the shoulders. He didn’t look in great shape—pale, staggering—but at least he could still stand on his own legs.
The same couldn’t be said for the second arrival, who made his entrance in a way you never would have imagined.
“L-let me — zzzzt — go, you ugly son of—zzzzzt—!”
Vox dangled five feet off the ground, wrapped in thick black tendrils like the tentacles of a giant octopus. Alastor followed behind him with his usual shit-eating grin, his cane spinning with the theatrical elegance of a stage conductor.
It was the first time you had seen him so genuinely pleased since you’d set foot in the hotel and accidentally crossed paths with him in the hallway.
A symphony of static-filled the room: a faint crackling, like exposed wires sizzling, mixed with the whine of an old faulty radio. You felt the hairs on your neck stand on end, and you could have sworn the metal bottle cap just inches from your hand had given you a tiny shock.
Charlie nodded at something Vaggie must have whispered urgently and together they helped Lucifer over to the large red couch on the side of the lobby. Despite his regal appearance, the short King suddenly looked fragile, almost human beneath the exhaustion weighing down his gaze.
He let himself fall onto the cushion with a stifled groan, and as Charlie adjusted another pillow behind his head, he lifted a trembling hand to caress her cheek. That gesture—so simple, so intimate—was enough to make her eyes shine with a relief she had probably not had the chance to feel until now.
You were about to move, to go see for yourself whether the King was truly all right, when a sudden figure filled your field of vision, just inches from your nose.
You froze in fright.
“Vaggie… what—?” you tried to say, peeking over her shoulder to see a grim-looking Husk with his arms crossed and his enormous wings folded along his back.
She silenced you immediately, pressing both hands onto your shoulders and forcing you to look her in the eyes. It was not a violent gesture, but her gaze—oh, that was violent: sharp, firm, filled with a determination that seemed to vibrate like a cord pulled taut to the point of snapping.
“We need your help.”
Your brow furrowed automatically.
“My help?” you repeated, incredulous. With everything happening around you, you couldn’t even begin to imagine how you could be useful.
“Yes, you need to do that thing.”
“That thing?” you huffed, lifting a hand to your temples, where a pulsing ache was already starting to knock. “Vaggie, I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about right now…”
“Ay, madre mía!” she snapped, exasperated. “That thing you did to that sinner when I first saw you!”
Your stomach clenched.
That thing.
Not something you were particularly happy to remember.
Not now.
Not ever, if you were being honest with yourself.
The sinner had appeared out of nowhere, as if he’d sensed your presence from afar. And in some absurd—and deeply unlucky—way, he had recognized you.
In life, you’d been a criminal defense attorney, and he… well, he had been one of the hopeless cases you had tried to defend. Judging by the hatred in his eyes when he spotted you, he had not appreciated your work. And he seemed determined to take justice into his own hands now that you, too, were in Hell.
He had grabbed you by the collar with clawed fingers, yanking you toward him so hard it knocked the air from your lungs, and he’d raised a fist wreathed in flames in front of your face, ready to unleash all of his rage.
It all happened in a flash.
One second, terror was flooding your veins, the heat of his fist brushing your cheeks—
And the next… darkness.
You don’t remember what came first: instinct, fear, or that unknown force you still couldn’t define.
You only remember your hand closing around his wrist, then a deep pang, a dense, heavy sensation, as if the very air around you had suddenly coagulated.
You must have closed your eyes for just an instant, because when your vision returned, the sinner had stepped back a few paces, his hands stretched out in front of him as though he didn’t recognize them. He was staring at his fingers in genuine terror, as if whatever he had just experienced had left him confused and shaken.
Vaggie had burst out of the alley before you could question what had happened any further, and the sinner had fled.
You’d believed she hadn’t seen anything. That she had arrived too late to catch the moment your power—whatever it was—had exploded.
You had accepted her invitation to the hotel, convinced she was simply offering you shelter.
But now, looking into her eyes as she asked you to do that thing again, you understood just how wrong you had been.
“Vaggie, I don’t know…” you began, but she gave you a small shake, as if to stop you from trying to escape the conversation.
“Listen to me, please. Vox is still dangerous. Even like this.” She pointed toward the other side of the room.
Following her gesture, you turned to take in the full scene: Vox had been strapped to a chair, still trapped and bound, emitting nervous bursts of electrical energy that sputtered chaotically from the deep cracks running across his screen.
He was a supreme overlord, true—but in that state, he didn’t look like much of a threat.
“His friends were rough enough with him. I don’t think he’ll try anything again…” you murmured, more to yourself than to her.
“You don’t know him!” Vaggie shot back, raising her voice slightly. “I want to stop him from getting back up. From doing it again. From hurting someone—or worse…”
She cast a sideways glance toward Charlie.
With your eyes following hers, you saw it. The fear. Not the fear of Vox himself, but the fear of losing someone she loved deeply.
You swallowed. Your throat felt dry.
“Vaggie… I don’t know if I can do it again.”
Your voice came out lower, more fragile than you wanted. But it was the truth. That thing wasn’t a power you controlled, nor an ability you could summon at will. It had been an uncontrolled outburst, an instinctive, almost animal reaction.
It had happened because you were terrified, because your back was against the wall. Not because you had chosen to do it.
“You… you can do it. At least try!” she insisted. “Help me protect them.”
You took a deep breath.
You could feel the shadows all around you, the ceiling vibrating slightly with each discharge from Vox, the smell of sulfur mixed with the iron scent of someone’s blood you couldn’t quite locate.
Lucifer lay on the couch, eyes closed but alert. Charlie dabbed the sweat from his forehead, casting worried glances toward you and Vaggie.
Alastor, unlike everyone else, seemed to be enjoying himself like a child watching his favorite show. He was even whistling, the sound warped like it came from a 1930s gramophone.
When you turned toward Vox, you found one of his eyes fixed on you.
He seemed to be scrutinizing you intensely, as if he had heard everything Vaggie had just asked you to do.
“All right. All right, Vaggie… I’ll try.”
Your voice trembled slightly, but it was enough.
Vaggie let out a breath of relief that seemed to melt part of the tension that had locked her shoulders for endless minutes. She placed a warm, steady hand between your shoulder blades and guided you forward like someone leading another across a dangerous threshold.
“Thank you,” she murmured, barely audible.
Then she gave you a small push, encouraging you to take the first step.
Each step you took toward Vox was a hammer blow to your ribcage.
The floor seemed to stretch endlessly, as if the hotel itself were trying to discourage you, as if the very air were becoming heavier, denser, more electric.
When you were only a few meters from him, you noticed details the distance had blurred.
The screen on his face was not intact: an entire side section had blown out during the fight, leaving behind a jagged void from which some kind of red liquid—digital blood—was oozing.
He had only one functioning eye, a menacing aqua-green and red ring that pulsed with the rhythm of his electrical surges.
And that eye… was pointed straight at you.
“Who the fuck are you?” Vox hissed, his voice distorted, frayed like a signal lost between frequencies.
Static thickened in the air, stinging your skin.
You froze for a moment, stupidly, not expecting the demon to speak to you.
“Vaggie, I don’t think I—” you began before being interrupted.
“As if— zzzzt —a fucking insect like you could— zzzzt —do anything…” he snarled.
The red eye spun once, lightning-fast… and suddenly the inner circle dilated, twisting into a spiral.
Hypnotic. Devastating. Built to capture.
Your breath stopped.
The spiral seized you like an invisible vortex. For a second, two at most, you lost the sense of existing—of your body, of the hotel, of Vaggie’s voice behind you.
Vox smiled. It was a crooked smile, scratched into the pixels at the edges of his screen.
CRACK.
A black tendril snapped taut like a whip and squeezed his metal chest with a sharp crack.
Vox screamed, a howl of interference that filled your skull, and his eye snapped shut, breaking the hypnosis.
You gasped for air.
You staggered back a step or two before finding yourself, once again, in your body.
Here. Now.
Alastor, behind Vox, tilted his head just slightly. The smile was unchanged, but his eyes betrayed a surgical precision—striking at exactly the right moment.
“No more tricks from you, old pal,” he chimed in his vintage radio voice. “We’ve quite had our fill, I fear.”
Vox panted, emitting a distorted signal-blur of a sound.
“Alastor, you son of— zzzzt —bitch— you—”
The tendril tightened again, not enough to break him, but enough to choke off the rest of the sentence in another burst of frantic pixels.
Summoning your courage, you took the final step.
Every muscle in your body screamed for you to stop, but your hand still rose—steady, trembling—toward the only part of him not crushed by tendrils: his screen.
Sensing your approach, the metal eyelid snapped open, forcing his eye to reveal itself despite the pain. You expected to be dragged back into that hypnotic spiral—you were ready to look away, to shut your eyes before it was too late.
But nothing happened.
Instead, you found an expression of melancholy.
Almost… fear.
And in that instant—that one brief instant—Vox no longer looked like a tyrant made of pixels and arrogance.
He looked like a wounded creature.
A creature that had realized, too late, that you truly had the power to hurt him.
And that he had no idea how to stop you.
“No…” he murmured, his voice a distorted whisper. “Wait…”
That fear, that unexpected crack in his façade, hit you harder than any shock he had produced so far.
“We can— zzzzt —we can talk about this! We can— make a deal, yes? Anything! You don’t—”
And still your hand kept moving.
As if it no longer belonged to you.
As if it had been summoned by something greater than you, than him, than the moment itself.
Until finally, your fingers touched the smooth surface of his screen—and the world around you went dark.
You opened your eyes, and the world you knew vanished like a distant echo.
No hotel. No familiar faces. No chaos, no shouting, no Alastor or Vaggie or Charlie.
Before you stretched an endless room—a celestial void that seemed to breathe.
The light pulsed like a massive living heart, expanding and contracting, wrapping you in soft glows that shifted with every movement you made. When you dared to take a step, the glow vanished completely… only to flare back on with a sudden snap, like an eye blinking open.
In an instant, where there had been nothing, the figure of Vox appeared—completely free of restraints, no longer damaged, and advancing rapidly toward you with heavy, determined steps.
“Stop! Stop!” you shouted, instinctively raising your hands to shield yourself—yet your fingers met nothing.
Vox passed straight through you like smoke, like a weightless shadow.
You spun around, watching him advance without hesitation, as if you were the one who didn’t exist.
He was moving toward another figure—one sculpted from the very light around you.
Valentino.
He was immaculate as always: wrapped in his red coat and pristine fur.
Vox screamed, “And when, exactly, were you planning to tell me?!”
His voice boomed through the infinite space, distorted by hundreds of overlapping echoes.
Valentino didn’t even glance at him. He took a drag from his long gold cigarette holder and blew out a ring of smoke that dissolved into the living light around them.
“Since you lost your damn mind and everything became ME, ME, ME for you,” he replied with cutting coldness. “You’re unstable. And above all, you’ve become unreliable.”
At last, he turned, and though his expression held no surprise, it carried a deep, time-worn annoyance.
Vox faltered—just for an instant.
Then he steadied himself, and the electrical cables behind him writhed like enraged serpents, snapping at the air with threatening cracks.
“If you think I’ll sit quietly while you and that bitch Velvette take what I built—”
“You what?” Valentino cut in, with a smile that promised violence.
He stepped forward, leaning down slightly to reach Vox’s eye level, baring his sharp teeth.
“What then, Vox?”
The light pulsed faster, the tension between them condensing into something almost tangible.
Vox didn’t back down, but his body flickered, as if an invisible fracture ran through him.
“I—”
He never finished.
Valentino lunged at him with the speed of a predator tired of playing with its prey.
His fist slammed into the center of Vox’s screen with a loud, terrifying crack—like glass shattering under unbearable pressure. Half of Vox’s screen fractured instantly, a spiderweb of glowing cracks spreading across it.
A glitched scream tore out of him, splitting into a thousand overlapping tones.
The room’s light flickered violently.
Valentino grabbed the sides of his screen in a crushing grip and yanked him close.
“I already tore your head off once,” he hissed, his voice so low it sounded like a venomous growl. “And if I have to, I’ll do it again. I’m done being your lapdog. From now on, if someone here has to sit and obey… it’ll be you, papi.”
He hurled him away, letting Vox tumble through the light like a puppet stripped of dignity until he came to rest almost at your feet.
Vox struggled to rise, supporting himself with trembling arms. His eye flickered wildly, shifting from bright red to a faulty, pale white.
“Val… Val, please—” he croaked in a broken voice. “Don’t leave me.”
You bent toward Vox instinctively, as if in this unreal place comfort could still matter. His expression was dull, defeated, vulnerable in a way you never could have imagined from him. For a moment, it felt natural to reach out, to place a hand on his shoulder, to say something—anything—to pull him from that misery.
But then reality struck: he wasn’t really there.
Not in the way living beings are, not in a way you could touch.
You pulled your hand back—but too late.
One of his electrical cables snapped forward with the precision of a snake, coiling around your wrist. It wasn’t smoke. It wasn’t an illusion. It was solid—rough and vibrating. You felt the shocks crawl across your skin like burning needles.
The room—or whatever it was—turned a pulsing red.
An alarm blared in the air, a sharp, mechanical wail that burst through your ears.
Vox lifted his head, and the blind rage you’d seen earlier returned to his lone eye.
“Get out of my fucking head,” he growled.
The alarm swelled, becoming a roar.
The ground beneath you—this endless plane of light—began to shake.
“Shit… shit…!” you thought, yanking at your trapped arm.
The cable tightened, dragging you forward like a snare, while Vox rose fully, his form distorting in waves of static. He wasn’t the fragile image he’d been before.
He was a monster—a warped caricature of himself—driven by pure survival instinct.
“Don’t worry,” he hissed, towering over you. “It’ll be quick.”
The blast came suddenly.
A bolt of energy—an electric spear—struck you in the chest with explosive force. You flew backward, landing on a surface that wasn’t solid—like burning snow, a weightless matter that bent under you.
The air fled your lungs in a single blow, and for a moment you felt nothing.
Then the pain arrived all at once.
Throbbing. Sharp. Alive.
It forced you back into motion.
You tore your arm free with a desperate yank and staggered to your feet.
Vox charged toward you, each step accompanied by bursts of lightning forming along his arms like incandescent whips.
“You can’t run,” he said with a doubled voice, the distortion echoing every syllable. “This is my place. MY rules.”
Another blast.
You dodged by a hair, feeling the heat skim your side. The floor beneath you split open for a moment into a mesh of fractured code—lines of numbers and symbols intertwined like glowing veins.
Run.
The word exploded in your head—clear, visceral, louder than fear.
And you ran.
Lightning tore through the air behind you, clawing at the ground, shattering invisible walls that formed and dissolved with every step you took.
The celestial horizon warped as you moved forward, as if the entire world were a projected image Vox controlled… and was now trying to rip apart to stop you.
Maybe he was right.
Maybe you really had no way out.
Maybe you were just running toward the end of something you didn’t understand.
But your instinct screamed at you to keep going.
The lights pulsed faster and faster, almost unbearable. The ground beneath you felt liquid, like a shallow pool reflecting your movements with a delay of several seconds, leaving you with the nauseating sensation of running over your own shadow.
Then you saw it.
A door.
A simple, gray, rectangular door. Suspended in absolute nothingness—no walls, no frame, no logic.
But you knew.
Deep in your chest, in the place where fear turned into determination, you knew that this was your way out.
You reached it just as a bolt of lightning struck your back.
You screamed.
Pain tore open along your spine, stealing the air from your lungs. You collapsed against the door, trembling fingers searching for the handle. The world vibrated, distorted, as if Vox were trying to erase the very corridor beneath your feet.
“STOP!” he roared, his voice now gigantic, as though coming from a thousand speakers around you. “DON’T YOU DARE!”
You opened it.
The door exploded into white light.
The room on the other side was completely different from the rest of the subconscious. Small, dark, silent. A circular chamber, the air thick with a low, continuous hum. You were surrounded by towering server racks—metal monoliths stretching to the ceiling, blinking with green and blue lights, pulsing like living organs.
In the center of the room stood a glass case.
A simple, square case, glowing faintly with a bluish light from within.
And you knew.
There was no logic here. No physical coherence. But something—some sixth sense you never knew you had—told you this was the heart.
The nucleus.
The exact point where everything began and to which everything returned.
Vox’s core.
Your target.
“DON’T TOUCH IT!”
The voice exploded behind you like thunder. You turned just in time to see Vox burst into the room, distorted by fury, taking the shape of a monstrous giant spider made of electrical cables and video devices.
Lightning surged toward you from every direction—streaks of white and burning red light leaping from the servers, the cables, even the walls themselves. One struck your side, another hit your shoulder, a third slammed into your leg.
Each blow felt like being pierced by a heated iron bar.
You screamed, but you didn’t stop.
You had to reach it.
You had to.
Even when the lightning forced you to your knees, your hands trembling, your skin burning like living paper, you kept dragging yourself forward. The case was only a few inches away.
The servers shook.
The light vibrated so intensely it seemed ready to explode.
You raised a hand.
Your fingers brushed the glass.
And when you finally touched it— Total silence.
