SIGNING OFF -- A HAZBIN HOTEL AU -- Part 1
Read em' and weep kiddos!
ACT I: THE FALL OF THE PRIDE RING
INT. V TOWER - COMMAND DECK - CLIMAX
The air in the V Tower is thick with the smell of ozone, burnt silicon, and the copper tang of blood. The massive command deck, once a sleek testament to media dominance, is now a war zone of shattered glass and sparking wires. VOX is perched atop the Might of Lilith, his claws digging into the angelic metal of the cannonβs chassis. He spins the massive barrel around with unnatural strength, laughing manically as his screen flickers with erratic, jagged patterns. VALENTINO and VELVETTE are forced to duck behind a reinforced server rack to avoid the cannon's searing, white-hot backfire as it charges.
VALENTINO: Daaamn, papi! Youβre gonna take us all out with that thing! Watch the fur! VELVETTE: No! Stop being a bloody drama queen and aim the damn thing at the Hotel already!
VAGGIE grunts, her face set in a mask of pure determination as she slashes her angelic spear against the weapon's thick housing. Sparks fly into her eye, but she doesn't flinch. VAGGIE: Ah! Fucking break already! You overpriced piece of shit!
CARMILLA CARMINE slides under a venting cooling pipe, her movements as fluid and lethal as a shadow. She doesn't waste energy on screams. CARMILLA: Vaggie! Lift that central maintenance panel and cut the primary red wire! Iβll bypass the backflow and flood the core with coolant!
Together, they rip the mechanical guts out of the machine. The high-pitched hum of the cannon drops an octave, groaning like a dying beast before the light fades. Vox freezes, his screen flickering to a dull gray "No Signal" display. Below, in the streets of Pentagram City, the live broadcast fails, and the vox-pops turn sour.
SINNERS: He lied! Heβs a traitor! Look at him fail! Get him! Iβll be back for season three!
Vox reverts to his normal suit-and-tie form, his chest heaving. He looks nervous, watching his "Ratings HUD" plummet into a deep, flashing red. Suddenly, the towerβs emergency security wiresβdesigned to siphon power from the strongest sourceβlurch to life like metallic vipers. They lunge, stabbing into LUCIFER, who is pinned against a structural beam.
LUCIFER: Oh, fuck! Okay, nowβAh!
The King of Hell is hoisted into the air, his wings pinned. Golden ichor leaks from the punctures as the tower begins to siphon his ancient, angelic power directly into the weaponβs reserve. Vox sees the opportunity. The fear in his eyes vanishes, replaced by a predatory, desperate hunger. He lunges back at the cannon's control yoke.
VOX: You will NOT take this away from me! This is my show!
He slams his fists into the manual override. A wild, uncontrolled beam of pure, siphoned angelic energy blasts outward. It levels a nearby tenement, sending rubble flying for miles. A sinner falls from the top floor, screaming, but EMILY dives through the smoke, catching them in a halo of soft, white light.
SINNER: (Gasps) You... You saved me!
EXT. PENTAGRAM CITY - CONTINUOUS
Down in the wreckage of the streets, ALASTOR is in a full, desperate sprint. The mechanical monstrosity SHOK.WAV is right on his heels, its saw-blade teeth whirring. ALASTOR: Stupid cursed... Get this fucking thing away from me!β
In a moment of uncharacteristic clumsiness, or perhaps simply exhausted by the weight of his own deals, Alastorβs hand gets caught in the mechanical, pulsing jaws of the beast. High above on the command deck, Vox finally locks the targeting reticle on the Radio Demonβs signature. CHARLIE: Alastor, no!
Emily dives from the sky, her light trailing behind her like a comet. She pushes Alastor clear just as the beam fires, but she cannot clear the area in time. The edge of the blast catches her, vaporizing one of her wings into white ash and scorched feathers. SERA watches from the portal in the clouds, her face a mask of pure, divine horror that quickly curdles into fury.
SERA: Emily! ABEL, prepare your army. We end this filth. We end it all now!
SIR PENTIOUS rushes to Seraβs side, his many eyes wide with panic. He grabs her hand with surprising strength, his scales shimmering under the heavenly light. SIR PENTIOUS: Sera, you mustnβt! Please! I can do this! I can stop him without more blood! SERA: (Looking down at the carnage) Are you sure, Sinner? SIR PENTIOUS: Positive. Trust me. Just this once... trust me.
Abel and LUTE ignore him, leading the charge through the portal like a silver wave. Emily and Alastor collapse into the rubble below; Alastor limps, clutching a chest wound that leaks dark, glitchy shadow-fluid. Charlie rushes forward, shielding them both with her wings as the Exorcists descend.
INT. V TOWER - COMMAND DECK
VOX: (Voice distorted, booming through every speaker in the tower) Oh-ho-ho, three for the price of one! A king, a princess, and a deer! You've just been fucking CANCELLED!
CARMILLA: Vox, stop! If it overloads now with that Kingβs blood in the circuit, it will blow! It'll take you, us, and half of the Pentagram with it! Youβre committing suicide!
VOX: (Cackling, his screen cracking as the internal pressure mounts) You know what? FUCK HELL, FUCK HEAVEN, AND FUCK ALL OF YOU! As long as I wipe that smile off of Alastor's FUCKING FACE... I don't care if I burn the whole world down!
Velvette kicks him off the console in disgust, realizing he's gone completely off the rails. Valentino grabs him, his six arms pinning Vox against the wall with a force that cracks the concrete. VALENTINO: You are NOT FUCKING KILLING US OVER THAT STUPID DEER! I have a business to run, you lunatic!
VOX: FUCK THAT! THIS IS MY MOMENT! MY FUCKING DESTINY! IβM A FUCKING GOD!!
Valentinoβs eyes glow a deep, hateful pink. The lust is gone, replaced by the survival instinct of a cornered predator. He grabs the sides of Voxβs head, plants a designer boot in the center of Voxβs chest, and with a sickening sound of snapping metal and tearing fiber-optics, rips Voxβs head off of his body.
VALENTINO: CΓ‘... lla...te! (Shut...up!) [Panting] What the fuuuck did I just do? Val, honey, what did you do?
Voxβs severed head, still sparking in Valentino's grip, begins to laugh. It is a wet, digital sound that vibrates through the floorboards. VOX: Hahahahβ¦ Val, you dumb bastardβ¦ It's over. The signal is already in the air. You can't kill a broadcast!
The headless body, acting on a pre-programmed macro or perhaps a lingering ghost of Vox's will, lunges forward and slams its fist into the final firing trigger.
ACT II: THE RADIANT EXTINCTION
The beam that erupts from the Might of Lilith is no longer just lightβit is a concentrated stream of reality-altering data.
THE RADIANT EXTINCTION: The weapon fires. Emily and the allied angels caught in the beam don't just die; the holy light within them is corrupted by the Voxtek virus. They turn inside-out in a burst of white radiation and blue static. ANGELS KILLED.
ALASTOR: In slow-motion, Alastor looks toward the tower, his perpetual grin finally faltering. The beam hits. His face is blown clean off, leaving a pixelated, glowing skull that shatters into a million data fragments. ALASTOR KILLED.
LUCIFER: Still hooked to the siphoning wires, the King of Hell becomes a conduit. He vomits black pixel fluid until his body implodes into a bright light, dissolving the very throne of Hell and sending a shockwave through the rings. LUCIFER KILLED.
Voxβs headless body tries to fire a third time, but the weapon clicks. The barrels are glowing orange, melting from the heat. A tiny blue hologram flickers above the gun: [CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE: REALITY UNSTABLE].
Voxβs head floats out of Valentinoβs hands, drifting back to his neck and reattaching with a violent shower of blue sparks. He stands up, his suit charred, his screen shattered. VOX: (Voice dropping into a low, terrifyingly calm register) Goddammit... I guess itβs true what these idiots say. If you want something to be done, you have to do it... YOURSELF.
Vox plunges his hands into the "Critical Failure" hologram. He doesn't fix it; he consumes it. The blue light is sucked into his screen. His body begins to stretch and snap, his limbs lengthening into jagged, metallic pylons. His torso splits open to reveal a core of burning neon.
VOXβS TRUE FORM erupts. He is no longer a TV man; he is a towering mass of black glass, frayed copper, and pulsing neon veins, standing fifty feet tall. He throws his head back and lets out a sound that defies physicsβa hybrid of a Godzilla roar and the high-pitched, distorted screech of a circuit-bent Furby.
ANGEL DUST tries to scramble away through the ruins of the deck, but a pulse of static hits the floor, turning the ground into a liquid-data pit. ANGEL DUST: Val! Help meβ! VOX (Voice echoing inside Angel's skull like a thousand radio stations): W'ELL BE RIGHT BACK AFTER THESE MESSAGES.
A burst of raw electricity hits Angel, popping his head like a flashbulb. The light is so bright it leaves an afterimage on the walls. ANGEL DUST KILLED.
ALASTOR (or what remains of his shadow) attempts one final warp, but the "True Form" Vox reaches into the shadows and pulls him out by the throat. Alastorβs cane snaps like a twig. Voxβs claws dig into the shadow-demon's chest, and with a sickening digital bzzzt, the remaining essence of the Radio Demon is deleted. ALASTOR KILLED.
NIFTY runs across the deck, needle raised, laughing hysterically. NIFTY: So much mess! So much mess to clean!β Vox doesn't even look down. One of his massive, pylon-like legs crashes down like a hydraulic press. [SFX: SQUISH]. Nifty is flattened instantly into a dark smear on the floor, her single eye popping against the cold metal. NIFTY KILLED.
The Might of Lilith weapon finally overloads. The core reaches critical mass and explodes, a blue mushroom cloud rising over the V Tower that can be seen from the Envy Ring to the Gates of Heaven.
ACT III: THE NEW MANAGEMENT
In the center of the smoldering crater where the tower once stood, a single figure emerges. Vox reverts back to his original suit, though it is now perfectly pristine, as if the explosion had simply tailored it. He adjusts his tie, a look of profound satisfaction on his screen. VOX: Oh Baby! Thatβs what I call a season finale!
He looks up toward the hole in the sky. With Lucifer and the high-ranking angels gone, the barrier between worlds is a tattered curtain. Vox doesn't need a portal; he simply dissolves into a stream of data and uploads himself into the clouds.
The Golden City of Heaven has been terraformed. The ivory towers are now draped in neon blue banners. The angels walk the golden streets in perfect, synchronized rows, but they are silent. Their necks are bent at 90-degree angles, their eyes fixed on VOXTEK smartphones that are surgically fused to their palms. Their halos have been replaced by glowing blue ring-lights that pulse in time with Vox's heartbeat.
INT. THE VOID CELL - HEAVEN'S BASEMENT
SIR PENTIOUS and the EGG BOIS are trapped in a room with no doors and no windows. There is only one flickering light and a single Voxtek camera lens staring at them from the ceiling. Pentious is huddled in the corner, drawing tally marks on the floor with a piece of charcoal. EGG BOY #23: Is it time for the weather report yet, boss? SIR PENTIOUS: (Whispering) There is no weather. There is only the signal.
Vox sits on a throne made of melted angelic halos and fiber-optic cables. He is surrounded by billions of screens showing every corner of the multiversal airwaves. He has won. He is the FRUHOR OF ALL UNIVERSES. He watches Pentious in the cell. He watches the silence of the angels. He watches the empty, red wasteland of Hell.
The silence is deafening. A single, frantic twitch begins in his left eye. He looks at his own hands, which are starting to flicker with static again. He has no rivals. No one to compete with. No smile to wipe off Alastor's face. The reality he built is a hollow loop. He begins to giggle, a sound that turns into a manic, sobbing wheeze. He looks at the camera, realizing he is both the viewer and the star, and there is no one left to change the channel.
VOX: (With a final, shattering realization as his screen begins to crack) Of fucking course!
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