Sondrox's cabin

I’m just a fanfic writer, if you are looking for something to help you through tough times then maybe I have something that will help you.

Here I’ll talk about what means my fanfics to me as I publish them and nonsense stuff.

I publish my fanfics both in FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/6249442/Sondrox

Synopsis: Vagatha escaped her mission alive and she gets the closest thing to a respite, but her problems are far from over. She encounters old and new faces and receives unpleasant news left and right.

FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14242641/5/Cops-and-Thugs

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47774716/chapters/229437521

Vagatha acted on autopilot. Her eyes fixated on the blood she so eagerly tried to keep inside.

Husk's voice was just as distant as the rest of the world around her. She could not hear him fully, yet her body acted on his orders. For a moment she could see some fingers snapping in front of her, but she remained frozen.

She had seen countless cop partners get shot all the time. Why this one time—

Husk slapped Vagatha in the face and groped her hair to keep her head up.

"Who's the first person that will notice you're gone?"

Vagatha blinked in perplexed shock. "Dond-wh-where are we-"

"WHO. IS. IT?" Husk clutched her hair harder. Vagatha struggled to keep the pressure on Charlotte's wound, but Husk also put his hand on top of hers.

"Arackniss... Arackniss Ro-“

"Can you two idiots quit bitching? We are almost there."

"Where—" Vagatha froze once she looked through the driver's window and recognized where they were at. The side of the city cops purposefully avoided at all costs. Vagatha didn't know whether to be relieved or anxious they blended in with the streets.

The fact they stopped at a veterinarian did not help calm Vagatha down.

Her agonizing thoughts in spiral halted when the van stopped only for two seconds as Husk pulled her by her shoulders out. Then the van continued to drive off behind the place without missing a beat.

If her heart were not already beating as if was about to break itself a leg, Husk's clutch would be having her gritting her teeth at his fingers almost digging his nails in her skin.

They walked into the reception and Husk had Vagatha sit down on one of the waiting chairs.

"Husk, Husk is it, right? Where are we? Where's Cha–

For a second she saw Husk lift his fist aiming for her face. Despite she managed to block herself, the sheer strength difference overpowered her, and she received a good part of the hit.

"You will stay here until you are told you can leave, if at all. I find you stood up, you're dead sooner."

He walked away, past the doors with a half-vanished "staff only" sign.

Vagatha sat there unblinking and frozen, except for her shaking body. She forced herself to come back to reality, but that didn't unfreeze her.

She could really not stay here. Arackniss would for sure know by now she was missing, that is if half of the police force were not looking for her too.

She could try and go for a run.

But what then? Would she run to her apartment? A place they already knew she lived in? The police station? Where they could easily bribe anyone or straight up infiltrate with disguises?

Would they be looking for her as a missing person? Or as a suspect?

Could she maybe just run away–

Her spiraling thoughts were forced to be melted away at the new sound of footsteps. Multiple footsteps.

Vagatha turned to the entrance and saw a man walking in with two retriever dogs on a leash. He wore a shiny white suit. The dogs were so big, the kind of big dog one would always worry they'd attack you whenever so much you stared at them, that Vagatha only notices how short the man was until he sat next to her; the dogs too in the floor, the man only stared to the front, no words spoken, no acknowledgement.

Even if she didn't already know who this man was, she could have connected the dots and figure out he was Charlotte's father, Lucifer Morningstar.

The dogs both stared at Vagatha the whole time. They didn't growl. That somehow made it worse for her.

"You want to pet them?" he said.

Vagatha gulped heavily. “Wh-what?”

“Isn’t that what you do? You see something cute and want to pet it? Poke your nose on matters that are not yours?”

“I swear, this is just a misunderstanding.”

“Do you think they bite?”

“I… I don’t follow.”

“Bite. Do you think they bite?”

“No! No, is just-”

“Why not? Some may say it’s not a dog’s fault, rather, it’s the owner’s fault. It hardly seems fair to put them down when they bite someone when it’s the owner’s fault. Surely it’d be better a dog that’s all bark and no bite—never said better!” Lucifer chuckled shortly. “But of course, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that, you’ll prefer to care for a dog that it’s all bark and no bite, than a dog who barks AND bites.” Then, he turned lightly to her and looked at her sideways, “Do you?”

“Sir?”

“Tell me, do you think they bite? I mean it, actually tell me, what dog would you prefer?”

“The… the former.”

“Why?” He asked immediately. No room for her words to breathe.

“A-a dog… can be trained.” Her every word struggled to leave her mouth. She had to physically push them out loud enough so she didn’t choke with them. “They… can be educated, and… I don’t think you, sir, with all due respect, wish to wake up a day to… put down one of your own.”

After that, Lucifer didn’t answer. She could tell he was contemplating her answer.

“Big talk for someone so reckless.”

The “Doctor’s in” turned on red. What idiot thought that color was a good idea?

“Oh! Looks like it’s my turn! Come on, Dazzle, bone." The dog jumped off the chair and Lucifer walked it through the door, leaving Vagatha alone in the waiting room.

What? Did that mean she was dismissed? Good to go? Husk would come out and put a bullet right between her eyes?

Fuck. She hated not knowing what to do. She also hated making her own decisions. She had agreed to this suicidal mission, and look where it got her. She worked her ass off at the police, and look where that got her too.

A buzz on her phone drew her out of her thoughts. “Charlotte?” she thought. It was a text message.

she’s stable for now toots.

The phone number was unknown to her, she could only suppose this was that Angel guy… jerk.

She waited for more messages, but none came.

Wait, if Charlotte was not being treated her—which filled her with a weird sense of relief—then what was she doing here?

The doctor’s door opened and Husk walked out. Wordlessly, he put himself nearby Vagatha. Shortly after, Don Morningstar came out too with the dog still in his leash. Vagatha had the instinctive urge to stand at ease like a soldier, but Husk sat her down half a second later after she began to do just that. At the same time, the dog barked at her, sharp teeth showing.

Husk grabbed one of the chairs, wiped the dust of it and put in front of Vagatha. Don Morningstar sat down. He was smiling, but Vagatha could tell he was not happy.

“The only reason you’re still breathing and not drown in cement at a construction site is because I trust this man,” he gestured with his palm to Husk, “and he assured me the reason why my daughter’s life is hanging by a tiny thread is because she CHOSE to put herself between you and a bullet. And I don’t know why, I mean, who can guess what’s going through the mind of a kid, am I right?” he chuckled towards Husk, then Vagatha, and Dazzle at last, only to find everything but reception. “Tough audience, I see.”

“S-sir, Don Morningstar, if you’d only allow me to explain, I—"

“Uh, uh, uh,“ Lucifer lifted and wiggled his finger, “There is no need. Husk has already explained everything to me, or well, nearly everything, except a thing or two, such as why my daughter chose you, but that’s something I can ask her myself when she wakes up, and if she doesn’t…” From his suit, he drew a revolver and aimed it at her, “Would you be kind enough to send her my regards?”

Vagatha gave the heaviest nod of her entire life.

“Thank you!” And he put the revolver back inside his suit.

“The-the job, sir, the USB—“

“Already accounted for. I can have someone crack it open and see what my daughter thought was worth risking her life for.” He leaned back in his seat, chin raised up and fingertips connected. “That leaves us with the subject of you. If you leave this building, would you run straight to your superiors about your… unlawful escapades?

“Not when I leave?”

“Oh, no, dear. I can still absolutely kill you today if I deem it appropriate.”

“But Charlotte—“

“She’ll throw a tantrum or two, but I’m sure she’ll come around.”

“I won’t tell anyone, I swear!”

Lucifer squinted his eyes and tilted his head. “Any other day that would have been enough but no, no. Not today. What else?”

Think, Vagatha, think!

Money? Even a whole year of her salary was pocket change for Lucifer.

Information? What could she possibly know worth her life AND that he didn’t already know?

A favor? A favor would turn into another, and that one into another, and so on and on, until she wanted to leave, and then he’d blackmail her ass all the way to hell.

“I can see the gears in your head working overtime. Apologies,” Lucifer said, pulling Vagatha out of her head. “Allow me to make it simpler for you: You work for me, you live. You refuse…” Husk opened his coat, showing his own pistol at his belt.

There was a question crawling inside her throat, choking her. She didn’t want to say it. She shouldn’t. It was bare stupid.

“For how long?”

Stupid, stupid!

“Until I feel like it, silly! Any more questions?”

Trick question. She shook her head.

“Excellent, you start when I tell you.” He stood and stepped aside, next thing Vagatha saw was Husk’s fist straight to her face. Then the whole word became black.

Vagatha’s body fell to the ground. Lucifer stood up and smoothed his suit like he was just getting ready for some evening walk.

“Make her look like she had a rough night. Then, drop her somewhere that can’t be traced back to us. “Lucifer ordered. “Her cop partner, what was it? Arani? Aranisik?”

“Arackniss, sir.”

“Right. Do you think he might mean trouble?”

“I investigated him based on his career at the police force . He’s fallen off his game a long time ago.”

Lucifer nodded his head to himself with comprehension. “Well, you know the saying: ‘Once a problem, always a problem’. Run a more thorough background check on him and tell me what you find. Now, with that settled, there’s only one more matter to discuss.” From his coat, he pulled a garden cutter and gently sat down Husk in the chair his guest just sat at.

“You’re going to tell me the why, the when, and the what of everything you’ve been doing with Charlotte behind my back.”

___

When Vagatha opened her eyes, the sky revolved around her. She had just woken up, and she felt like throwing up. She didn’t want to choke on her own vomit, so she rolled over herself to the left and fell. “Ugh!”

“You awake?” A voice called her from somewhere she couldn’t see. In fact, she could only see the floor. It was trembling.

Groaning and out of spite, Vagatha forced herself to open her eyes and focus. She found she had fallen into the legroom between the back and front seats of—A CAR!?

Not this shit again!

Springing up from the small space, Vagatha hit her head on the headliner and it felt cracking open like glass. She saw double and pushed through the headache pain, setting her blurry sights onto the driver and grabbing him by the neck.

“Wait! The fuck you’re doing!?” The car immediately jolted in resemblance of a zig-zag, all while other cars honked and people cursed at them. Several trash cans dying in the road rage until the car embraced impact into a street lamp.

Said impact made Vagatha lose her grip, and she fell right back into the backseat. She landed on soft cushions, yet Vagatha felt like she hit her ribs against a wall of rocks. She instinctively held her side to soften the pain for a second before she got back on her feet to beat the shit out of her capturer, who happened to be her police partner.

“Arackniss?”

“What is wrong with you!?”

“What-when-where have you’ve been?”

“Me? You were the one who disappeared yesterday!” He pointed at her sharply. “I thought you were dead! Do you have any idea of the day I had?”

Vagatha clutched her teeth. “The party, what of it?”

“That shit later, bitch, where were you? You look worse than when I visited you at the hospital.” It wasn't until Arackniss mentioned it that her body felt... like shit. Her everything hurt. At least her face hadn't been beaten the shit out of. Once the adrenaline wore off, the pain took over, and Vagatha slumped down in the back seat, her hand clutching her shoulder.

“Where… where did you find me?”

“None of that! Answer me first!” He demanded. It was clear Vagatha could not distract her way out of this one.

“I was… kidnapped. At the party I found some strange guys, but… I was spotted.” She knew she needed to be extremely cautious with her version of events. As if telling Arackniss wasn’t enough, most likely she’d have to give an official statement at the station.

“I think I know what scumbags may have done it.” From his phone, Arackniss showed her pictures of wanted criminals. Her heart dropped a bit; she fought the urge to massage her chest. She recognized Moxxie, alongside with who had to be his other crewmates.

Should she lie? Could she get away with this one? Making things harder for them could make things harder for Stolas, and by extension for Charlotte—

Why did she care not to be a problem?

Her father. Yes, of course. To give him the least possible amount of reasons to be displeased with her. A favor, that was all there was to it.

But she’d return it another day…

“Yes, I saw them.”

“Shit, and they didn’t kill you. N' here I thought you’d kicked the bucket for good.”

“Fuck off, Arackniss.”

“I mean that as a good thing! ‘Sides, do you have any idea of the amount of paperwork I’d have to deal with if you die?”

“Actually yes, I do.” She hardened her glance at him.

“I was not dead! I just had a terrible hangover I thought would kill me.”

She waved a hand at him dismissively. “Doesn’t matter. Where are we anyway?"

“Middle of second and enemistad.”

Vagatha looked around. She wasn't as familiar with this area as she would've liked. She just knew it was in the middle of everywhere. Ideal for difficult pinpointing her and those fuckers’ whereabouts. She asked Arackniss how long she had been out, and he replied several hours since she last saw her, to which he added:

“Think you should avoid mentioning you being kidnapped.”

Her head snapped. Have they two shared a single brain cell for the first time in history? “What? Why?”

“That shit wouldn’t look good on me, ‘sides, sergeant would kill us if he finds out this fuckshow and we split up again.”

That… actually made sense. The fewer people knew about her own mess, the better, and if her partner was eager and willing to cover her own disaster without them knowing it… fuck it.

At the end, Vagatha and Arackniss agreed to an alibi where they persecuted the to-be-known as the I.M.P. ORGANIZATION. The chase led them to an abandoned building where they fought—the part where Vagatha had the shit beaten out of her was a pivotal part in their declaration—only for I.M.P. to run away. A sting of guilt made its way to Vagatha’s chest as she lied to her sergeant with a straight face.

Vagatha was given some time off; not before being told by the time she returned, she’d be assigned a new partner, the “talk” gave her the impression said partner would be a rookie.

Great. Dead weight. She may as well be given a boxing bag.

___

Ever since she received Charlotte’s gift, her apartment had not been a place Vagatha could truly relax and let her guard down. With each passing day, it became less a home and more a storage unit, giant furnished coffin and a 24/7 death wish open establishment, all three-in-one. The mere act of approaching her door filled her spine with a mind-consuming dread. She was no stranger to those ridiculous movie clichés about traps or assassins waiting the moment she unlocked the door to put a knife or a bullet right between her eyes.

Against her better judgement, those clichés didn’t seem so ridiculous no longer.

She opened the door, as quietly as a mouse, and made sure her head was not in sight through the door gap, should a gun peek right through. When that never happened, the next thing she did was pick up the TV control she had in her drawer right next to the door, and with an angle where she barely showed the tip of the remote, she turned on the TV in the living room. Always set in a volume that could be heard anywhere across the entire apartment.

Immediately after, Vagatha dashed swiftly to the kitchen/washing machine room, drawing her gun in a shooting stance just as swift. Nothing yet, neither in the living room, she noted.

Her eyes turned to the bedroom. The only place whose lights she let on whenever she left, as well as the door opened the slightest bit. Just big enough she could stretch her hand and turn the lights off. Then she slammed the door open and merg herself into the darkness, gun aimed at every corner beyond the door. Only when she found nothing among the dark, she deemed it safe. Vagatha turned around and turned the lights back on.

This has been her routine since she returned from the hospital after Charlotte shot her. A man that slept with a machete was a fool every night but one. The more time passed, the more she related to that saying.

“Vagatha.” A cold voice spoke behind her.

Every alarm within her body sprung back to life. Her first instinct was to swing her arm to hit the intruder with the butt of her pistol, but the intruder trapped it with their elbow with a wrestling key with one arm, forcing Vagatha to extend her arm to its full extent, allowing for an easy and effective disarm on Vagatha’s end and disgrace.

She turned to face her attacker and stomped their forearm with the back of her fist. The two of them took a quick back step. Vagatha braced herself to charge head-on.

CLICK!

“Stop.”

The intruder had her gun aimed in a precise posture at her chest. This halting allowed Vagatha to see the intruder was—

“Carmilla?” Vagatha lifted her head upwards to see the woman with her imposing height at her face. Woman who currently had her gun aimed at her. As if assessing the look of the situation, Carmilla put the safety lock and extended the pistol with an open palm, to which Vagatha accepted and Carmilla folded her arms behind her back.

“How come I didn’t see you when I entered?”

“Most people never look up, you included. Useful if you’re flexible enough, but I see you’re still a knife. Sharp and short-sighted."

“I can infer by the fact you’re here because of my… escapades.” Vagatha tried to get back at Carmilla, who in exchange nodded in agreement.

“And what would be the purpose of my visit?”

Sigh. She walked into that one, did she not? “I don’t know.”

“Shortsighted as I imagined. I heard about the rumors some of my buyers from this city shared with me. I heard about the four people that escaped Vox’s penthouse party from what was most certainly a guaranteed death and yet survived. I was interested in seeing who had such a set of talents myself, and I see your recent discrepancies, and on top of that, I see you had a meeting with Don Morningstar.”

Vagatha blinked, surprised and took a step back. “Wait, you knew? You had me followed?”

“From a prudent distance. I could only observe so much, and of course, I could not intervene. I know what Lucifer is capable of, and his resources. So I know even a discreet challenge would have been ill-advised. I can only assume you left the meeting alive by accepting a deal of some kind, I take it.”

Vagatha explained as much, as well… most of her situation up to the current day, leaving some key moments out, such as the picture of Charlotte invading Vox’s office on her phone. How Charlotte had taken a bullet to save her, only saying she was injured as a form of collateral damage, bound by the nature of the job.

During the retelling, Carmilla remained composed. “I can arrange our departure in a day’s time, maybe two,” she said.

“Departure? No, I can’t leave! Not now, not like this!”

“Worry not for Lucifer. He’ll be too busy with her daughter, and us too far away to be worth the trouble.”

“You-you don’t know that! It’s simply too much risk. As far as we know, Lucifer could have eyes over us right now.”

Carmilla stepped closer and put her hand on Vagatha’s shoulder in a comforting manner. “If that were the case, I would not be here. You’ll be safe, child. I will see to it.” For a moment, Carmilla seemed to weight her words. “We can be together again. Odette and Clara miss you.”

“I don’t want to go back into your organization.”

“I’m not asking for you to join me once more. I know you’ve made your wishes more than clear, and I shall respect them. All I wish is for you to be safe and smart about this.”

“At least now I’m smart enough to know this is my own choice.”

When Vagatha saw Carmilla in the eye and saw the shock on them, she knew she had taken this one step too far.

“I’m-I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. You’re right. You didn’t really have a choice back then. Even if I told you you always had the last word, I know what it feels like to know you don’t have another option.”

Was Vagatha really willing to abandon Charlotte like that out of the blue? After she saved her life? It was her who dragged her into this mess in the first place. Nothing of it all would be happening if it weren’t for her. To live probably never knowing if Charlotte made it or not was something Vagatha was not sure she could do. On top of leaving yet another life behind. One of her own choosing, she may argue. A life she chose for herself, and look where that got her.

Was it possible going back with Carmilla was the right move?

Even if she did everything right, what guarantee did she have Lucifer would let her go by the end of this, whenever that was?

“I just need time,” she said. “I’ll sort this on my own.”

A sigh left Carmilla. She knew better than to argue with a daughter who had made up her mind, especially Vagatha out of all. “Fine. But if you need help, you can find me at this address.” Carmilla handed her a business card for her weapons company, located in the upper district of the city. The company the card presented was a fake tailoring one. After that, she made her way to the firefighter stairs outside the window, which happened to be the same window Charlotte entered through. Vagatha’s eye twitched.

“By the way,” Carmilla added as she was halfway out, “Lower the TV volume when you play your distraction ploy. Too high and you’ll be the one to not know what’s happening in your surroundings.” And she left.

Vagatha sighed. More often than not, Carmilla was correct.

___

“I don’t want to go back into your organization," Vagatha had said.

When Vagatha was just a child, the orphanage she lived in had the misfortune to be in the crossfire of two gangs.

The caretakers had tried to keep the kids safe inside the building, but there were only so many bullet holes a wall could take before it stopped being a cover. A great many members from one gang, seeking shelter, stormed into the orphanage. Either to stay out of bullets’ way or looking for the closest thing to medical attention.

Vagatha particularly remembered one gangster who had been carried by two of his… friends, into the dining room. From the wall she ducked at, among a few other dozen children, Vagatha couldn’t see what was wrong with him or why he writhed in pain. He lay down on the table, mumbling unintelligible blabbering; meanwhile, his friends tried to hold him still. At the same time, they barked at the caretakers to do something. It was fruitless. None of them had medical experience. The worst injury they could treat was a scrapped knee or a knife cut.

The blood made it difficult to get a hold on him; the injured thug twirled off free from his hold and inadvertently drew himself to the edge of the table and fell to the floor. It was then Vagatha and all the other children saw it. The thug had a giant hole on the other side of his face, right through his cheek. His teeth greatly exposed, they could even see the tongue covered in blood moving like a snake through the oral cavity or lack thereof.

He crawled towards the children, Vagatha up front. The caretakers practically hauled themselves on top of him and pinned him down before he could reach her. His mindless screams spat blood, tainting her and some of the other kids. One of them couldn’t take it anymore and, amid a deafening scream at the top of her lungs, ran off.

Before anyone could do anything to stop it, another boy ran away as well in a random direction, followed by another, and another, and then all of them broke loose.

Vagatha couldn’t remember when or how; the next thing she knew was that she ran past the main entrance to the orphanage, across the playground garden, and straight into the street and gunshot sounds. The nearest thing remotely close to a shelter being an alley a couple buildings down the block.

As Vagatha ran, at the very end of said alley, three thugs appeared around the corner. She only managed to stop on her tracks before she stumbled over her own feet and fell on her back. One of the thugs raised the metal pipe in his hands; twisted smiles grew on his face. He rose the metal pipe as high as he could before he slammed it down onto Vagatha. She moved out of the way just in time, and the pipe missed her leg by mere centimeters. Still on the ground, she tried to hold onto it, as if she wanted to take it away from him, but the thug was much stronger than her and rendered her efforts futile with a simple pull.

The thug stomped Vagatha’s tiny leg, keeping her in place for the next swing, but before he could do any other move, a shadow appeared over his figure.

Two shots flashed bright in the alley, and two corpses fell to the ground, one of them being the thug with the pipe. By the time the second shot had been fired, the last thug left had already ducked to grab the melee weapon. Just as he began lifting it up, Carmilla kicked him right in the wrist hard enough that the back of his hand was centimeters away from touching his own forearm. A scream just escaped his lips for a second, but Carmilla silenced him with a wide, horizontal kick straight to the temple of his head. The thug flew like a sack of potato into the wall, and then he did not get back up ever again.

With casual grace, Carmilla stood at ease, blood straining and dripping from the tip of her heel. She threw one quick, almost dismissive glance at her work, not fully dismissive, as in uncaring, but not uncaring—never uncaring, never fully dismissive. That’s one quick way to get herself killed in this world.

Once she assured the thread was gone for good, she set her eyes on the little girl. She could tell by the state of her clothes and how thin she looked, this girl is from the orphanage.

“Was,” she thought to herself.

With care and patience, she kneeled in front of her, making sure she hid the blood from her.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Vagatha stood from the ground, her face filled in shock. Her eyes bounced to the corpses next to Carmilla.

“Hey, hey. Don’t look at them,” Carmilla said. “Look at me. Are you okay?”

Was she okay? Was Vagatha okay? Was she unharmed? Did she have a roof over her head? Did she feel safe? Did she know what her next meal would be? Did she have a bed to sleep in? What did her future look like?

These and a dozen other questions. How could she answer them, and how did they all together determine if she was or would be okay?

“I can take you to a safe place.” Carmilla extended her hand.

So much for being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Vagatha later came to learn, after being adopted and began training, Carmilla sold the weapons to both gangs in the first place.

___

A few days have passed, and Vagatha had to return to work. Upon returning to the station, the very first order she received was to meet her sergeant, who told her to get the fuck out of the station, and meet her new partner, a rookie who had just, in his words: “Been put up to speed to our procedures." Whatever that meant.

He had given her an address where she’d meet this new partner, a restaurant she sometimes frequented in her patrolling, and was dismissed.

Vagatha took off in the patrol car and drove to the address.

She had just arrived to the place but found no one. Her sergeant had given practically no information on this person. No name, no description, no background.

It was then that her phone received a message.

In the alley next to the shopping store

She couldn’t help but notice this was not the first message she received from this num-No. Nononono.

Anything but this!

With great dread, Vagatha drove to the indicated alley and got down from the patrol.

Once there, she found a man already waiting for her, dressed up in the police uniform and with the cop badge on the left side of his chest, sucking up a lollipop and scrolling on his phone.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14564242/2/The-Not-Amazing-Not-Digital-Not-Circus

AO3: https://archiveofourown.gay/works/84111211/chapters/225322606

"A cosmopolitan, please," Agatha asked as she sat down at the bar, that being the first time she got to relax since early in the morning. Her face buried in her hands. Agatha did NOT want to be here so bad.

She took a look outside the bar at her mother's backyard, a big band at the extreme above a stage whose materials she helped carry. The ground that would normally be used to train horses at leisure now hosted over 200 people for her sister's wedding.

Her third wedding, mind you at that, and this time, Agatha had not managed to find an excuse to skip the whole ordeal. Each time her mother happily threw a small fortune for the happiness of her younger daughter, Agatha should consider herself fortunate to be allowed into the wedding.

Aaaaand by that, her mother meant Agatha was fortunate enough to help the the two Michelin-star chefs' team prepare the food—since 6AM—help Vanessa get on her dress, attend guests, serve drinks, and clean messes too, including vomit. She couldn't ask actual waiters or any other party staff to clean those because her mother would argue, and quote: "How can you even suggest such a thing? You better do it."

1 PM so far, the sun shone to a crisp, Agatha knew she still had a way to go into the ungodly hours of the night.

"Here," the bartender gave her the drink. She immediately gave her glass a big sip, then buried her face back in her hands. Her right eye peeked through the small gaps between her fingers, her gaze losing itself in the distance, in the people dancing. Friends, families, sigh... and their couples.

Agatha couldn't help fantasize she intended to walk out of the wedding, but in her way, she stumbled upon someone and she fell to the ground. She'd curse to herself; maybe her hair would get ruined, but then, a person's open hand would be in front of her, gentle and patient.

Agatha would look up and see the handsome man who bumped into her. Tall, blonde, she liked them thin, with one of those smiles that could drive her mad.

"Can I take you for this piece?" he'd ask her to make up for his mistake, and then they'd playfully argue, "It was my fault/No, it was my fault," back and forth until they got a bit too fed up with each other and pretended to make up a stand as if saying, "I am not backing down," followed by probably the fiercest and certainly most joyful stare contest in their life...

Only for them to give up at the same time and laugh it off to go dancing.

In reality, Agatha had her gaze lost upon a wall, smile spread like a dummy all across her face. It was only the not-so subtle whispers of people nearby that snapped her back to reality. Were they talking about her?

She found out the people whispering were her mother's friends, so chances are they indeed talked about her.

They did not see her daydreaming, did they?

Agatha grabbed her loose hair and made sure it continued hiding her right eye; which she spent over twenty minutes in the morning applying makeup to hide to hide the black eye her mother gave her and then twisted into making it her fault.

She brushed her fingertips across her hair, softly, with deep breathes, as if an eyepatch wanted to fall off. She took her drink with her free hand and walked her way out of the bar into... anywhere. Anywhere but here.

She was turning around a pillar when she bumped against someone's back. She spilled her drink over herself and her dress.

"Oh, crap."

"Agatha!"

Oh no. That hair, that dress... that voice.

"Mother."

"Look at you, what do you think you're doing? You even ruined that thing you insisted on wearing."

"But I like this dress," she thought to herself. She had picked it up herself, contrary to how her mother picked how she dressed nearly on a daily basis, especially when she was younger.

"Do yourself a favor and change—"

"Maaaaa!" Vanessa stomped angrily towards them across the guests, many of them making room not just for her but for her dress tail, dragging across the floor several feet behind her. "Where is my photographer!? He was supposed to be here ages ago, and he still doesn't arrive!"

"Oh, my sweet Vanessa," she fondled her daughter's hair. "The photographer is here; he's just very busy capturing the beauty of your wedding."

"What's the point if he doesn't capture my beauty? How am I supposed to let everyone know I got married!? I may as well just give this whole thing up as if it never happened!"

"Jeez," Agatha thought, "I don't want anything to do with that." She turned around, fully intending to leave them be and probably lock herself in her room until next week.

"Agatha!"

Bitch you thought.

She turned around, but she didn't fully face her mother and remained silent. All for the remote hope she misheard her or her mother would dismiss her just because.

"Get over here and help your sister."

A deep sigh escaped her lips. "What now?"

The first answer she got was a camera thrown at her hands that almost fell to to the ground.

"Vanessa's photographer is busy. You're going to pick up his slack him."

"What? But-but, I'm not a photographer."

"It's just taking little pictures. How hard can that be? Didn't you have a photographing phase or something?"

It was painting, and it was not just a phase. She just stopped talking about it and Agatha made sure to go out of her way so her mother never saw any of it. She just kept making herself smaller and smaller. To the point she felt she was not there in the first place. Her family knew and they seemed to... not care. They seemed to be eneven happier.

"Take that thing and take pictures of the important stuff."

"And... what is important?"

"Everything, duh. We are going to frame the pictures in our summer house at Venice, so go, chop-chop, you."

"For how long?" she asked.

Her mother took a cigarette out of a box in her purse and lit it up, taking her time. "I don't know, until the photographer shows up, I guess."

"Can I at least change my dress into a clean one?"

"All single ladies! Make some noise!" The band's singer spoke through the speakers as they would begin playing. Big parts of the crowds made their way to the dancing floor in pairs or groups of friends.

That painfully reminded Agatha she had few friends herself, and those few she could invite, she preferred to spare them the pain in the misery of seeing her like this.

"Come on!" Her mother shooshed her away, "You're gonna miss it!"

Agatha's first thought upon being left alone amidst over two hundred people was she wanted another drink, but she'd miss the band, and she didn't want to anger her mother—not anymore than her existence already did.

The air vibrated through the music, and the music vibrated through the air.

"Excuse me, hi sir, coming through; excuse me, if you could only-sorry, thank you..." Agatha struggled to make her way through the crowds. Her only good eye working to be in three spots at the same time, keeping herself alert in case she had any pictures worth taking. The first pictures were of Vanessa dandcing with her friends, then with their mother. Mother danced with Agatha's stepfather and then with her friends.

Over time, the waiters began serving the first main dishes. Agatha had been starving all day long, so she went up to pick her own plate. Maybe she could eat in a somewhat private corner, though that'd mean leaving her mother and sister alone now of all times, but it was not like they'd really be talking to her, and she was not in the mood to have her mother nagging her about when she was going to get another boyfriend.

Her paltry dilemma stopped when one of her mother's friends gave her a tray with five dishes in her hands.

"Take these to table 3.

Agatha choked momentarily with air. "W-what? No, sorry, I just wanted a—"

The old lady sighed. "Table 3 is over there, girly." She pointed at the table itself, as if Agatha herself had not spent the entire morning arranging seats or organizing who would sit where.

As it couldn't be any other way through divine intervention or a bad joke or cliché writing or a mix of all of the above, her mother and Vanessa and other family members sat at that specific table. She approached them. None of them stopped talking or could be bothered to pick dishes once Agatha held the tray in front of them so they could pick the food themselves. None did. Agatha had to awkwardly maneuver her weight as she put the entries down.

"Don't we look adorable?" Her mother put her arm over her shoulders and pinched Vanessa's cheek as Agatha left them their food.

She just finished with the food and set the tray down on an empty table. "Yeah, totally. Maybe we three could—"

"What are you waiting for? I don't want to forget this moment on the special day of my daughter." 

The smile on Agatha's face dimmed, and awkwardly she did as told.

As soon as she did just that, a group of Vanessa's friends at table 5 screamed and pleaded for pictures for themselves.

"Oh, think you can do me a favor and photograph them?" her sister asked. "I promised them weeks ago and if I don't do it they'll never gonna let me hear the end of it."

And by "I" she meant "you".

"You need to lose a few pounds anyways," her mother said as she shooed her away with her hand, not even looking at her.

Agatha resigned and made her way to the other table. She tried to look at the bright side. Surely she'd be done with this before she knew it. Some sort of "Hi, picture, goodbye."

___

It turned out, to her disgrace, that what should have been one big group photo instead diverged into a plethora of over a dozen of combinations based on who took pictures with whom. This girl with this boy, now this girl with this girl, now the other girl with the boy from the first photo. Now one each alone, now all three of them together, except that one didn't count because one of them blinked. The next after that one didn't count because the other person put two fingers behind someone else's head.

And the ONE that came out good didn't count because they didn't like it.

"Give it more cinematography," they said.

Like, WHAT does that even mean??????

Agatha spent the next thirty minutes doing the same nightmare of combinations when another six people joined the photoshoot in everything but name.

By the time she finished, all of them wanted to give their numbers to Agatha so she could send them the photos once the wedding was over. Agatha tried her best to write them all down, but she couldn't make a sense out of all the numbers and names; especially for thse who had more than one phone, she never really understood that.

She, instead, gave her number instead, only to, consequently, excuse herself most hastily. She made her way to the bar and asked for another cosmopolitan. She just prayed the small spot she sat at would be private enough to give her five minutes alone.

___

Vanessa climbed onto the stage and grabbed the mic. "who wants to get marrieeeeeed!? She screamed as she lifted a flower bouqet as high as she could. Immeidately, over a dozen women rushed to get in line in front of the stage.

Agatha, too, found herself excited to participate, even though chances were she would not catch it-but what if she did? Oh, that'd be super adorable! What if someone asked her out because of it?

She didn't take long to make herself a spot among the agglomeration of guests. Agatha tried to strike some talk with the ladies around, but they were all too caught up in their own groups of friends, leaving her alone.

From the corner of her good eye, she saw her mother walking toward her. Maybe she would join them to catch the bouquet?

"Ah, Agatha, there you are. I've been looking for you everywhere."

"Mother... do you also want to try and catch the flowers?"

"Quit fooling around, Agatha. You are a big girl already and don't have time to waste in such indulgences. Let this young ladies have some fun. I want you to make sure you capture this moment." Despite Agatha still had the camera strip around her neck, her mother grabbed the camera and put it on her hands. "Come with me, I know just the spot."

"B-but I wanted to give it a try. Vanessa and I have barely spent any time together today."

"If you don't take the picture, who else will?

A single, involuntary chuckle escaped Agatha. "The actual photographer?"

"He's already busy with other stuff, so it's up to you." she waved with her free hand lazily.

"You can ask literally anybody else."

"Agatha. These people came here to have a good time, not pick up your slack." She put her hand on her hip. "How do you even have the nerve to suggest such a thing? I don't know where you got it from, but it was NOT from me. Now, come." Her mother began to turn around, but Agatha spoke before she could finish.

"I've been helping around literally all day! I just want to do something for myself! It doesn't feel fair-it-it's not fair!"

"AGATHA!" Her mother shouted. Loud enough in that tone that made a kid's friends coming over stop playing on the console. People around them stopped talking and stared at them. "Do you seriously want to cause a scene, NOW, of all times? In the middle of your sister's wedding?"

"I-I'm not causing a scene! You are!" Agatha quietly whispered.

"You're being incredibly selfish. You can't spend five minutes without thinking on yourself, can you?"

"Selfish how!? I'm barely asking for something, and you-and you get like I'm asking you to lay your life for me!"

"Why can't you be more like your sister?"

"Because I'm not her! And even if I wanted to be, you haven't given me a fraction of what you've given her! And what for!? She's spoiled!"

"Why do you even want that stupid bunch of flowers anyway? You will never get a man to marry you."

The whole party around them ceased to exist, and the life in her limbs escaped Agatha. She stood still, still and frozen. "W-what?"

"Don't act surprised, dear. Just look at you. You are simply getting too old; it's only natural men look for better options-oh. Are you seriously gonna cry now?" She said as she saw her eyes water up. Her mother would only continue to put more salt in the wound. "That is your fault, like always. Give me that." She ripped the camera off Agatha's hands.

"You can't even do this one thing right."

A swarm of emotions bottled up inside her head as the girl tried her hardest to keep her breaths as deep and quiet as she could. Agatha managed to rip her feet off the ground and walked backwards away from everything. The whole time she wanted to put as much distance between herself and her mother as she could. She felt unsure. Should she say something? Try to fight back? But her tears swiftly washed that idea away. The more she struggled to contain her cries, the faster she speedwalked her way out. Agatha ignored the stares; she ignored whoever she bumped into. In a way, she was glad she couldn't see the people looking at her.

She walked on a beeline for her room and slammed the door and locked it as soon as she entered. Time of sense flew out the window. When did Agatha fall asleep? She could not tell. She only knew she woke up at around 2AM as she checked her phone. No messages. That was... something.

The party outside had ended, she could tell as she checked through the window.

Eventually Agatha climbed back downstairs, only to find the house empty. She checked her phone with the idea if she should message a friend, but quickly discarded the idea. It was too late, and she felt guilty at the idea of calling them only to vent her family drama, but upon seeing her phone, she also saw the photographer had sent the wedding photos, so her mother said in the family group chat. To this day, Agatha was convinced they didn't know she was meant to be in that group, and they simply forgot to remove her.

One by one, she scrolled through the photos. Her lips pressed into a line on unease as she saw the ones she herself took. The composition was blatantly obvious. She didn't even know if she really wanted to see herself in the photos. God, she must look embarrassing.

Scroll, scroll, scroll. Oh, what if the photographer took her pictures when she spilled her drink over herself? Scroll, scroll, scroll. Was that really going to be her best side through the entire day? Scroll, scroll, scroll. The longer it took to spot herself, the heavier her dread grew.

Okay, at this point it was getting ridiculous. Agatha had passed through well over a hundred photos and not seen herself once. She scrolled faster and faster, but before she knew it. The photos were over. No, that couldn't be right. She had to be somewhere. She was not the only photographer; there was the other one. She knew.

Several minutes passed by, where Agatha carefully checked each photo with great care and zoom, but no matter how much she searched, she couldn't just find herself. She found everyone else. Vanessa, her mom, and her stepfather. Vanessa's friends. The neighbors. Classmates that bullied her at high school, Vanessa's stylists and seamstress.

But not her. She was nowhere to be found. As if she didn't exist.

The phone lay down on the couch, her expression sullen and dull, with no energy to cry or be angry.

No, of course not. Why would she?

Her family was too happy pretending she didn't exist.

Agatha spent the rest of the night on that couch sinking in that fact, still like a doll. She should have known better.

___

Synopsis: A compilation of stories focused on the circus members' real life before they entered the digital circus.

FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14564242/1/The-Not-Amazing-Not-Digital-Not-Circus

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84111211

Okay Zoey, you got it. Today's going to be an easy day. You're going to have a great time, really enjoy yourself working today, and when you get home, you'll buy those instant noodles you love so much, watch the new episode of your favorite anime, and make great progress on that webcomic you've been working on for months! You're bursting with ideas! What more could you want?

No… don't answer that…

You're overflowing with ideas.

You are a creative person.

You've been eager all week to release some tension.

You will do it… tonight.

All you have to do is finish your shift today.

Today… and next week… and the week after… and the week after… and the week after…

Is it still too late to call in and say you're sick?

Her phone alarm went off, and Zoey jerked her head up from the steering wheel, as if she'd woken from a bad dream. She looked up at the parking lot; she'd arrived early. So early that even the men and women who usually went for runs in the parks weren't up yet. Zoey always wondered what on earth those people did for a living to have the time and energy to do that.

She saw the fast food restaurant at the other side of the parking lot and her stomach twisted over itself.

Oh no… no, no, no, no, no, please, let's not get started. Not one of those days you want to be over before it even begins.

She took a deep breath and got out of her car, walking across the parking lot. She loved watching the stars that still lingered in the sky, in that liminal space between night and dawn. Whenever she could, she would stand there until she saw the sunrise.

Today was not going to be one of those days.

Zoey was an sub manager at McDonald's, and as such, she was one of the first people to arrive. Her duty was to get the day started and get "this team to work!"

His boss? Oh, he would arrive four hours later.

It was fine, it was fine. She had the morning shift. Early start, early finish, and a well-deserved rest.

That particular day, Zoey was in charge of checking and verifying the inventory and new merchandise on the trucks. She had learned to enjoy immersing herself in her duties; it was an excellent way to lose track of time. Few things pleased her more than looking at the clock and realizing that two hours had passed.

At that moment, her phone rang.

It was Ronald, one of the cashiers, whom had sent a text message saying he couldn't come to work because he was sick.

He sent that message: 5:54 AM.

His shift started at 6.

That left Zoey with no alternative but to take on the role of relief cashier herself, while juggling her duties as assistant manager as best she could.

___

“Next.” Zoey announced to the line.

The next customer to arrive was an overweight man with disheveled hair, his shirt so short Zoey could see the bottom of his belly. His eyes were barely open his mouth was a perfect breeding ground for flies. He seemed like the typical kind of customer who came in drunk or even high. Just thinking about it made Zoey 's feet twitch.

“Good morning, sir. What will you be ordering?”

“Givemeanumberfour.” He said while tilting his head, as if speaking were so tiring and tedious for him.

Zoey blinked. “Excuse me. What did you say?”

“I said I want a combo four. Don’tcha hear or what? Don’t you have ears or somethin’?” He tapped his own ear lightly with his finger.

She decided to ignore that. “Of course. That will be $9.29. Would you like a large or medium soda?”

"Yeah."

“Yes… What?”

"Yes, I do want it, girl."

“Yes, that’s what I’m asking. Would you like a medium or large soda?”

"Large! I said!"

In the end, the order totaled $11.50, and Zoey told her customer.

“Put a frequent customer discount there.”

Zoey’s eye twitched a little.

“I’m sorry sir, we don’t offer those types of discounts, but with your purchase there are coupons you can use for your next purchase.”

The old man grunted. “Don’t be a jerk, girl, type somethin’ in that machine.” From his side of the counter, the man tried to touch Zoey ’s screen.

“Sir, please don’t do that.” She said, “The system won’t let me give discounts.”

“I already got a discount the other day.”

"Who gave it to you, if I could know?"

"My buddy. The one who works here."

“…And …what’s the name of your… buddy? ”

"The tall, black one. The one who comes on a motorbike. Wears a cap."

There was absolutely no one in the restaurant who came on a motorbike, and everyone else used cap as part of the uniform. Zoey had no idea who was talking about.

“I assure you, sir, we cannot offer a discount even if we wanted to.”

The man clicked his tongue and turned to the cashier next to him. “Hey, guy, can you help me out? You seem to know more than her, help me out.” He went into the other line, leaving Zoey ’s line free.

“No, sir, wait!”

“Can I have combo 2?” another customer said as he arrived at Zoey’s checkout.

“Yes-no, one moment, sir, I haven’t finished taking your order!”

The encounter dragged on for several minutes as Zoey tried to manage the line at her register. The man eventually left, muttering things about knowing the owner and being able to bring the place down with only a phone call, among other things Zoey couldn't hear as he walked out of the door.

___

Suddenly, a woman with a baby in her arms cut in front of the line and threw down a wrapper and more than half a hamburger she'd eaten. "Hey, excuse me! I want a refund!"

Her eye twitched, and she tried to maintain her customer service smile. It was difficult when she heard that castrating, overbearing tone. Zoey took a deep breath.

“Excuse me, but as you can see, there’s a line—”

"I don't care! I want a refund! I didn't like the burger, plus it was really rancid. I mean, it was disgusting. Did they make it with trash or what?"

“I-I’m sorry you didn’t like it, however you’ve already eaten most of the burger. There’s nothing I can do. If it helps, I can give you some coup—”

"DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?! I post a story on Instagram and this stupid little restaurant goes bankrupt!"

Why does everyone think I should know who they are?

“Ma’am, you already—“

“Miss, you old hag!”

But you're older than me!

Zoey took another deep breath, her arms feeling tense. She wanted nothing more than for him to be quiet. “Miss, you already ate the hamburger. Even if it were true that it was expired, there’s nothing I can do now.”

“ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR!?”

When did I do that!?

“No, and honestly, I understand, something funny happened to me last week in the—

“I WANT TO SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER!” She shouted louder

Tears began to form in her eyes while Zoey could only perpetually shrug and fidget with her hands.

Why do people always get like this, for heaven's sake?

“I-I’m the manager. C-could you not shout, please?” Her voice rose to a shriek. She couldn’t help but look around, as if searching for something or someone who could support her, but she found no one; everyone was busy with their own tasks.

“I want to speak to the owner!”             

"What, do you think I have his number to call him whenever I feel like it?"

“WHAT DID YOU SAY!?”

Zoey's eyes widened. Had she said that out loud?

The next thing she knew, a nearby customer's soda was flying into her face and soaking her uniform, and then the lady stomped away.

Between the soda dripping through her hair, tears finally began to slide down her face. Zoey walked quickly to the bathroom, locked the door, and curled up in the fetal position, burying her head between her knees.

She just wanted to go home. She wanted to hide under her sheets and forget the world and sleep for ten years straight. She wanted to turn off the lights and never turn them back on. She wanted a love like the ones she saw in slice-of-life animes. She wanted a love that would welcome her the moment she walked through the door of her damn tiny apartment. A love that was interested in her drawings and her art, not a family that would tell her to stop being stupid and find another career if she didn't want to be stuck in that job for who knows how many years.

A love that gently and playfully told her it was time to sleep when Zoey stayed up drawing until 2 in the morning, and wasn't going to take no for an answer while tickling her.

Even a stupid love like those where her partner would complain in a restaurant, "Excuse me! She ordered no pickles!"

Zoey laughed for a second, before the reality of the situation would only wait for the microsecond to return to her center of attention.

She cried even harder, but still in silence.

___

With sticky fingers, Zoey opened her car door and from the dashboard drawer took out a package of personal hygiene towels and a clean, dry spare of her uniform. She went back to the restaurant and cleaned herself up as best she could in the bathroom with the towels and the sink.

She was returning to the restaurant when her phone rang. This time it was Marcus, her manager.

“Hey Zoey, I was calling to let you know I won't be able to come today.

“What? What did you say?”

“Yes, I’m sorry, but the boss called and invited me out for drinks. Anyway, that means you’ll have to stay and close up. Is that okay?”

"Wait-"

"I'm glad we understand each other. Well, see you tomorrow." And he hung up.

Zoey stared at her phone, as if it might suddenly come to life and talk to her.

Stay until closing? But they closed until 10 pm, and it would easily take another hour to get home, not to mention everything I had to do at my apartment. Food, laundry, sleep…

And what about her webcomic?

___

While the others were cleaning the kitchen and the tables of the place, Zoey was doing the cash register closing and counting the money from each register.

Tadeo had 4 dollars to spare, so there were no problems.

But when it was Melissa's turn, Zoey realized she was short 93 dollars?! How could she be missing so much money?

“Melissa?” Zoey called, trying not to sound harsh, and informed her of the missing money. “Don’t think I’m scolding you or anything, I just want to know if by any chance you know where the missing money is.”

On the other side of the counter, sitting in the chairs that should have been arranged, Melissa was simply checking her phone.

“Melissa?”

“Huh?” He lifted his head lazily.

Zoey repeated her question.

“I don’t know. What about it?”

“If you are short of money… it will have to be deducted from your check.”

Melissa grunted. “Isn’t there anything you can do? Like, I don’t know, something?”

Zoey took her wallet out of her pocket. She could leave a fifty-dollar bill and put it with the rest of the money. “I can put in half, and you can put in the best, but I’ll need you to be more careful from now on.”

With her eyes rolled back, Melissa let out a lazy groan at the ceiling. “Whatever. Can I go?”

___

“Good night, Melissa, Tadeo, be careful.” She waved goodbye as they left the restaurant. Her coworkers didn't hear her, or pretended not to.

She got into her car, closed the door, and the first thing she did was crawl like a slug to the back seat. She was only going to close her eyes for five minutes.

And then, she was going to go back to her apartment and do all the things she'd been waiting for, literally all damn filthy, dirty, miserable day.

She tried to cheer herself up by playing her favorite anime openings while she drove, but the music might not have been there from the start with the nonexistent smile on her face. Zoey wasn't in the mood to sing along. Not even to bob her head in a cute way.

The streets were so empty at that hour. As much as Zoey tried to see the positive side of driving not being so stressful, she couldn't help feeling just as alone as when she was at work. She always felt so lonely these days.

She had stopped in front of a red light, but when it turned green, Zoey didn't accelerate; she just stood there staring into space.

For some reason, the idea of the car exploding for no damn reason seemed funny to her. Or a piano falling over her out of nowhere.

Or another car would come and hit her from behind.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

Zoey continued after the light turned green for the third time.

Unfortunately, because she got off work so late, the store where she usually bought her favorite noodles had already closed. Looking around, the only place she found was a pizza place, and again, because she'd left so late, all the pizzas they had left were cold. Besides, with what she'd put in to cover Melissa's cash shortage, she only had enough money left for the cheapest pizza. Zoey had absolutely no desire to go home and cook, so this was her best option.

She parked her car. Her feet were heavy and he had trouble keeping her balance while holding the pizza box.

She reached her apartment door and had the awkward moment of having to balance the pizza box with one hand while searching for her keys in her pocket with the other. She searched through her tact sensing, until she found them, but the tip of one key got stuck in her pocket. Zoey tried to pull harder, but with the final tug, her hand lost its balance and the pizza box fell to the floor.

And it fell face down, opening up during the fall and spilling all of the pizza onto the floor.

Zoey immediately knelt down in an attempt to salvage what she could, but as soon as she managed to flip the pizza over, she saw that the entire surface was covered in dirt and things she didn't even want to begin to imagine what it was.

Something inside Zoey snapped, and she decided to just drop the pizza on the floor and go inside her apartment; she didn't even feel like turning on the light. On almost every piece of furniture, piles of Monster cans or boxes of noodles lay scattered everywhere.

She walked straight to her bed and collapsed onto it. Ten seconds later, her mind was flooded with all the things that, uh, “a responsible adult” had to do. Her greasy, sweaty uniform, the dishes piling up in the storage room, the stacks of unwashed clothes.

Her eyes landed on the clock on the shelf beside her bed; if she fell asleep in that very instant, she would have 4 hours and 11 minutes of sleep before her alarm would wake her up again to start another… monotonous day.

It wasn't until her mind brushed the edge of the realm of sleep that she remembered at that precise moment the absolutely ZERO progress she had made all day for her webcomic.

Ah, look at that, Zoey had forgotten to turn off her computer and drawing tablet the night before. Now they glowed through the darkness, as if calling to Zoey. But she was so tired, so tired that she didn’t even feel like complaining about being tired.

She was embarrassed just thinking about the last time she had drawn something. She couldn't remember.

Zoey didn't even have the energy to sob or whimper; more tears escaped silently, staining her pillow as she buried her face in it.

Was this how the rest of his life was going to be?

Zoey let out a big sigh.

Synopsis: Sherma gets his hands tainted red

FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14556908/1/More-Than-Holy

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81995586

Cover art made by mariolamariaart!

More Than Holy

Sherma just finished applying the bandages in the leg of his fellow pilgrim, Harloh.

“Does it hurt when you move?”

The wider pilgrim just tested lightly, and he frowned in mild pain.

“Foolish me. What was I thinking? This shell should have known better than cross through that pesky fog.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, brother,” Sherma reassured, “Faith has a high price, yes, but what we pay for it’s worth the price. I’ll show you. At the other side of The Citadel, resides the warmest and most soothing of hot springs.”

“How do you know of this?” he asked.

“Why, I found them myself, of course! Upon my first day arriving here, no less.”

Once Sherma decided Songclave would be his home for the time being, the Caretaker and Hornet—mostly Hornet—asked him to find ways to help the other pilgrims.

The location itself wasn’t a problem per se. The hot springs were relatively safe grounds; its outskirts too, even.

The problem was the trajectory to get there all the way from Songclave. The path Sherma took on his arrival had been a blind one. Much unable to have a reliable sense of direction.

Since two weeks ago, Sherma and others had been working to find a safe passage to connect the two places, but every path they had found and tried so far had haunted bugs by the dozens.

Lady Hornet had been kind enough to escort them in a round trip, and even clean a couple of times some of the most promising routes. But sooner than later, her efforts rendered meaningless, for new haunted bugs replaced the slayed ones, or by the time they returned, those very same ones returned to what little life they clung to, no matter the injuries.

Sherma knew they couldn’t always rely on her kindness or availability. She had far more pressing matters to attend to elsewhere at any given time.

One of his fellow pilgrims had suggested to wield weapons. Immediately after, a few of them shouted outraged.

“Have you gone mad?! Next time you so much mutter a madness alike, I’ll smite you before this holy places does!”

“Brothers! Brothers! Please, fighting won’t help us. We are not the trials we are meant to overcome,” Sherma said.

He succeeded in pacifying the turbulent waters in the group, but the words of threat, they lingered on his head; he thought... “If we are not meant to use weapons, how would you realize your words true?”

The time to probe another path had come again. Sherma, Harloh, leaning on the former to walk, the two pilgrim that discussed, Silic and Purb, and a bunch of other bugs with somewhat severe injuries. These ones being most new at The Citadel, so they had the most up-to-date information to the state of the dangerous floors in The Citadel; vaguely, if anything.

The two newest members affirmed they had come in through an area that consisted on a point where the Choral Chambers and the Lowers Workshops merged together.

They walked right below the surface of the former. So close in fact, they could still see rays of bright light shining through the cracks and whatever small vents there were in the place. An extensive seemingly never-ending armory extended across five halls.

The three middle ones being the most standard ones. Swords, spears, bells, staffs, a full built in forge at the end of the hall they entered through.

The bottom hall was filled with massive blackboards. Each containing tasks in different areas across The Citadel, all in excruciating detail filling the blackboards from top to bottom. At the end of the nearest end of the hall, there were different mountains of nothing but working tools; the ones at the bottom of said mountains were covered in both rush and cobwebs.

One of the Pilgrims, Shean, approached one of these mountains, his hand hovered one inch to close when a thundering sound broke the silence across the halls.

“What was that?” he said.

“Shhh!” Phean said replied as he stretched one hand on his direction. His singular horn turning to every direction every few seconds.

The rumbling returned, closer and the walls trembled.

On the ceiling, one, single, small lightbulb turned on, illuminating the conducts above the mountains of tools. A brand new lot of tools fell on the very top of the mountains.

Even if there were not enough workers, the ones remaining were not to be relieved from their current duties.

The top hall had by far the best gear. Not only the weapons of a higher quality next to stands with bright armor.

For a time, Sherma considered to acquire some armor for himself. During his path across Deep Docks, a couple of times did he find armor equipment littered on old abandoned rooms.

Little did he know how heavy even some mere shoulderplate hindered him. And the size, sigh, all too big and loose for him.

He remembered the one time he asked Lady Hornet why she did not wear armor. Her red cloak, while it had its uses—Sherma thought—did not believe offered the greatest of protections. Not to mention, unlike most of them, she could actually afford it.

“The costs outweighs the benefits, never said better. For speed and agility are pivotal to my combat style. All in purpose to favor my strengths and talents,” she had said.

“…” Only then Sherma realized, that was not the answer he was looking for, but then again, what was he looking after?

Hornet seemed to pick on that, “There’s no shame in resorting to magic, Little one, should you harbour the talent.”

Magic.

Well, he believed in the power of music. He knew Pharloom had songs with the power to turn the impossible possible, fulfill the wildest of dreams and grant wishes, but…

If weapons were forbidden for Pilgrims, magic was considered taboo for them to use; they could be victims in its receiving end, but never be the ones to cast it.

Exploring further, they also found Robo-bugs. All in different states of completion and deterioration—all wide open like a grub to a butcher.

Sherma and the others picked what they could carry with their hands and bags. At the end of the top hall, there hang more Robo-bugs from chains several feet off the floor. One of them struck Sherma’s eyes, for it held in its golden hands a pair of tools that remarkably resembled his own chime and pin, if anything somewhat bigger.

He surveyed around until he found a lever next to the post from which the chains was attached to. He pulled the lever down and the whole place shook for a second.

Everybug froze their searches in fear. Next thing they all knew was the chains snapped and the robo-bug fell to the ground with a loud THUN.

The robo-bug’s eyes lit white for a moment, before what little body it had trembled and exploded in a wave of soul. The whole room brightened for a moment as the silk escaped through the gaps and vents that shone down on them. For ten eternal seconds, the whole Citadel fell into silence, and all the other bugs in the armery had their own breathing buzzing their ears and lungs.

Phean moved first and peeked through the vents into the Choral Chambers, but he saw nothing and no one nearby.

He turned around to his companions, “I don’t think someone—“

SQUELCH!

A pin pierced through his face, and he fell flat to the ground.

“Phean!” Shean rushed to his brother’s corpse. Right as it was within his reach, a large growl came through the vents, followed by a rumbling quake across the whole building.

Before anyone knew it, haunted bugs by the dozens hurled themselves with no care at the gratings. The ones at the very front trying to sneak their fingers, only for them to have them broken, if not lacerated by brute sheer force.

Web-like cracks grew on the frames from which the vents were fixated into. The haunted bugs hit and stomped the wall with their fists, claws and weapons relentlessly. The sound of their slamming overlapping one on top of another dozen every second.

One dreg husk, out of the several huddled in the crowd, had his face pressed against the grill. His face already deformed until one of the maidens had their knee push in one strong motion, severing a chunk of the husk’s face covered in cursed silk through the holes, his rotten face falling flat to the floor at the same time the silk in his flesh faded away. All except for one meager drop of silk, descending slowly to the ground in front of a robo-bug’s feet.

Its eyes immediately turned on white and his mechanic heart rumbled to life, followed shortly after for all the other automatons in different states in unison.

The wall gave in and the haunted bugs flooded in, and Shean ended up squashed over the haunted bugs. Silic and Purb, rushed down the extensive hall fast as their legs allowed them to run. Sherma and Harloh tried to do the same, but they could only move so fast given Harloh’s condition. As they sprinted, the haunted bugs hurled themselves to catch them, only for the automatons to stop them in their tracks by cutting them down.

The haunted bugs did an effort to catch the pilgrim members, only for the automatons to stop them in their tracks, the three groups descended more and more into the large hall.

But damaged metal could only do so much against attacks coming from all directions. By every time they saved a pilgrim’s life, they took a grave hit to their cold shell.

The first to fall was Silic when a silk thread wrapped itself around his leg, making him stumble and fall. The husk that chased him hauled himself over him and his silk-engulfed face merged with his. Silic tossed and screamed until his limbs fell flat to his sides.

As the Citadel Chamber bugs flooded the area, the automatons tried their best to keep them at bay, slaying them efficiently as possible, but by every one of them slayed, another five overwhelmed the automatons by brute force, throwing themselves at them. Even those with no weapons, using nothing but their fists with absolute absence of self-preservation, hitting the metal shells as their knuckles broke, yet not stopping there.

Furniture and bodies alike dashed right and left across the halls. A cog half as big as Harloh almost hit him and Sherma, they just managed to get out of the way to get an impact each on their side respectively. They rolled out to the ground and Harloh whined in pain as he fell over his injured leg.

“Harloh? Harloh!” Sherma crawled towards him for just a second before the head of a bug flew past him, followed by the rest of his body, and then followed by the automaton with two other haunted bugs over himself. Sparks flew out of his eyes as its head smashed the ground before.

His feet stumbled with the weapon stand and fell over his back, Harloh right behind him falling alike, the weapon stand itself tilted shortly after. Only stopping as its head fixated itself against the wall.

Before Sherma could react, a haunted bug hurled itself against him, but he was too big to pass through the bars in the weapon stand. Mindlessly, it stretched its arms in an attempt to reach Sherma, its blood-soaked hands inches away from his face.

Sherma tried to hold onto the weapon stand to keep the creature away from him, but he would be bound to get tired. The haunted bug smashed the weapon stand with its face and fists until it broke the upper part of a spear in the stand, falling on Sherma’s lap.

“G-get back!” He exclaimed. “Please! Leave us! Get back!”

Before he knew, the broken spear appeared in his hand, arms trembling with an earthquake inside his bones, if not across his whole body.

“I don’t want to hurt you! I don’t-I don’t!” The growls and snarls only grew louder, as his pleas did, but they were overpowered. The strikes and slams intensified, the wood crunched, cracks and splinters grew before his eyes. He was clutching the broken spear even harder. Tighter, tighter, tighter…

CRACK!

The weapon stand broke and the haunted bug fell over Sherma. So soon as the body landed over Sherma, it stopped moving; at the other side of its torso, the smallest tip of metal pierced through the dirty old clothing.

Slowly, very slowly, the now corpse slid off to the ground. As the body hit the ground, so did the realization he had used a weapon, not only that, he had killed someone, he had used harm and tainted his hands, and gone against what could be the most important rule for the Pilgrims.

“No,” He thought. “It’s not… That’s not what I meant…” But he couldn’t lie himself out of what he had done. The weapon was his, and so was the blood. He stared at his hand, covered in red and redder. His eyes drifted towards the rest of himself.

Almost the entirety of his torso was coated in blood. His garments as crimson as his eyes were devoid of light and paralyzed, only to be brought back to life by a Lower Workshop bug cut in half with its mouth wide open aimed at him. It hurled himself over Sherma, but he stepped to the side at the same time he threw one quick cut at its face with the broken spear out of instinct, it barely slowed it down. Instead, it propelled a new bite that grabbed Sherma by his cloak collar and tossed him far away from Harloh.

He rolled over himself as he hit the ground. Instinctively he crawled; his hands staining the floor with more blood, as he could hear the bug’s growls growing louder in his head. It grabbed him by biting one of his boots, but Sherma quickly freed himself by kicking it in the face with his free foot. This only bought him a few seconds before it leaped onto him. Sherma turned himself around, his back against the floor and stopped the bug and its bite attacks by putting the broken spear’s staff like a chew stick.

Sherma used all the strength he could gather to push the staff against its mouth. The two struggled and tried to throw each other off balance, but he could only last so long before his arms grew tired. The more his arms weakened, the closer the bug’s hungry jaw drew to his face.

Sherma closed his eyes waiting for the worst and turned his head away, as if that would make the bug magically dissap—

“SHAW!”

A bright burst of light blinded his eyes, all of a sudden the weight above him was gone.

So was the bug that wanted to kill him.

What followed was a blur of adroit red, blinding white and cold grey flying through the air. From one end of a corridor to the other. All Sherma could do was have his eyes try to follow up incredible lag.

It took him several seconds to process the fact Hornet had lured all the fight away from them until the mighty metal clashes could only be heard through eco. A piece of his mind knew where they were. Their corpses. They had died for his fault. He had dragged them here. For a stupid trinket.

All of them… blood in his hands. He tried to wipe it away, only to smear it all the ever more. He used his own clothes, adding more red to red.

He knew these insects weren't themselves, and that it was all the fault of the curse plaguing Telalejana. But Sherma fervently believed in the day when it would all end and be left behind.

But for that to happen, the haunted bugs had to stay alive.

And he had just snatched that future away from one of them…

Sherma was so frozen in his thoughts he had not realized when the screams and the fights actually stopped.

Hornet finished the last bug. She gave a quick probe of the place, finding nothing but yet more obstacles overcame waiting for new ones to take their cold places. Her eyes darted to Pilgrim closest to her and walked to him.

Moments before standing in front of him, Hornet had to remind herself to put her needle back on its sheath.

“Are you injured?” Harloh’s breath began to slow down. He shook his head. “Good. Stay put just a moment here. Then we are going back to Songclave. Can you do that for me?” he nodded his heads eagerly.

Hornet turned her attention swiftly back to Sherma. His eyes still fixated at the blood on his hands and the empty space beyond them—the space beyond them that had life just a few minutes ago.

She sighed and prepared herself mentally.

“Sherma,” She called firmly, but his mumbled babbling didn’t falter. Hornet kneeled in front of him, “Sherma. Look at me, Look at me. Where are they? Tell me where Harloh is? We need to find him.

“…H-him… I ki-ki-ki-lled him…”

“You are safe now. Harloh too. Thanks to your action. Now all you have to do is find him.” Hornet grabbed him by his shoulders but Sherma jerked his arms towards her. His hand still clutching the broken spear piece, slashing a cut into Hornet’s left arm.

The weaver barely reacted. If anything, she checked her new wound briskly so she could determine it could wait.

“Sherma. Hand me that. I’m not mad, nor I’m going to hurt you. No one is going to hurt you so long I’m here.” Upon extending her hand again Sherma lashed out as well, the adrenaline still kicking on. His stab attempt flying straight on a very stiff arm, only reaching half way before he couldn’t reach any further.

The broken spear flew out of his hand with one swift disarm motion. She made sure to do it as gently as she could, so not to agitate Sherma any further.

“Tell me what happened. Nothing is going to happen until you tell me.”

“I-I wa-wanted t-to run, I Heard s-screams everywhere,” He shut his eyes tight and turned his head away, “I wanted to help them-I couldn’t!”

No matter how patient Hornet wanted to be, a big part of her told her to get this over with. There was one option she could resort to, but she didn’t even know if it would work—not to mention, she didn’t want to do it.

But there were a great many things Hornet didn’t want to do across her life, regardless of her feelings.

SLAP!

That never helped settle with the guilt.

Hornet slapped Sherma just like she did with Nuu and Grindle. “From the top, tell me what happened.”

Sherma breathed heavily for several seconds, his back against the wall, as close as he could physically get himself to. “T-They came from everywhere. I tried to help… Silic and Purb… oh, absolution, where are they? Where are they?” He got up his feet, only to stumble over himself shortly before Hornet caught him, but he immediately struggled to get free from her hold.

Hornet looked to the side where she had left Harloh and signed them with a nod to step closer.

Suddenly upon seeing them, Sherma breathed a lot easier. He struggled one final time against Hornet’s hold as he attempted to rush to Harloh. Hornet only allowing him to go slowly, bit by bit.

The two pilgrim immediately merged into a hug with intelligible babbled words of relief.

For a while, Hornet stood there awkwardly. Despite the near-death experience Sherma just had, he still had the soul within him to be happy. After tragedy had struck and after the dust settled and dirt and blood stuck in his fingers.

A part of her wondered how long until he found being alive only a reason to be less irritated.

And how long until being alive was a reason to be irritated.

Lazily, Hornet pulled herself out of her mental gutter, lured by the sight of Sherma’s hand. “We must get going. Better not to give corposes a chance to strick back.”

“Oh, yes, yes. Harloh, can you walk back to Songclave?”

Harloh just opened his mouth when Hornet spoke first:

“We are closer to the hot springs. Your friend will need it. So do you.”

“I’m not hurt, I assure you red lady, I was only agitated. I just need some—“

“Your hand.” She signed with her hand; she resisted the instinct to point with her needle.

Sherma lifted both of his hands in hurried disbelief, as if wanting to say she was mistaken, or she was seeing things, or that that blood was not his-

B-blood?

Not his?

Then whose?

His right hand had a cut across almost his entire palm.

When had it happen? How did he not notice?

Likely from the struggle or when he the haunted bug impaled himself in his the weapon. From her cloak Hornet pulled a roll of bandages and a small needle with plasmium. She kneeled in front of him with and laid her needle don the ground—within reach. Hornet extended her palm towards Sherma, the little pilgrim understood and rested his arm on her hand.

“It will hurt?”

“Yes, but only for a moment.” Hornet inserted the needle in Sherma’s shoulders. Afterwards she applied the bandages on his hand until the blood stopped almost entirely. “This will suffice until we get to the waters,”

Said and done, the trio resumed their journey and arrived their destination with no further complication. Harloh’s face became an amazed poem and his eyes turned into high notes. Hornet and Sherma helped him undress most of his clothes and enter the water.

“This is beyond anything I have ever felt in the entire kingdom!” Harloh deligheted.

“Ha-ha! I told you it would be most soothing!”

Silently on the back of the room, Hornet grabbed a small bowl nearby and filled it with the healing water and prepared new bandages.

“Sherma.”

The little one hummed in confusion before he understood. “Oh.”

The process carried on mostly unspoken, saved by the occasional sound of eddies in the pool caused by Harloh. Sherma, lost in thought, did not requested reassurance, and Hornet offered none—or that’s how it would have gone, should Hornet find herself in this same situation with almost anyone else. But Sherma struck Hornet as two types of bug.

The type of idolized bug Hornet grew up wanting to serve and protect back at Hallownest when she trained to be like one of the guardians she read or heard so much about. The kind of bug Hornet saw on the world her every mentor wished for her to carry on.

And most importantly as the second type:

The type of bug that wouldn’t last a day in Deepnest.

Her mother tried to educate her the best she could, but Herrah only had so much time before she became a Dreamer. Only time for lessons on the world that would await for her. Or in other worlds, the world she’d come to face. Not how to actually live in it.

“You just killed someone. Do you want to get something off your chest?”

It almost seemed Sherma hear her not. “I-I don’t know…”

“I was under the impression you pilgrims could not defend yourself.”

“That’s not… We don’t-I… is not that simple…”

Hornet nodded. “Are you to tell someone of your transgressions? The caretaker, perhaps?”

Sherma shook his head tiredly. “We are meant to hold ourselves accountable, first and foremost. Only we… Only we know how pure and noble to our ways we remain.”

“And your ways say there no exceptions?”

“No.”

“Even if it’s not your fault?” She said as she glanced at Harloh from afar. “What of him? Is he to be hold accountable?”

“I-it was not his fault! He did nothing wrong! He… he just…”

“Sounds like an attempt at an exception.” There was no judgement in her voice. It was all matter-of-factly.

What did Sherma needed? This was a question both Hornet and Sherma himself asked. These kinds of dilemmas were not what he expected when he decided to become a pilgrim. So much for being a pilgrim saving him.

So, if being a pilgrim was not ideal in this situation, what was it?

“What… What would you do?” Was all he managed to think of to say.

Hornet thought for a moment. “Let me tell you a story about where I come from, a time when a large deal of citizens committed atrocities in the name of the royalty when an incurable illness struck the land. People turned on their neighbors at the smallest chance of contagion, putting everyone to prey for the weaker ones. Piles of burned bodies amassing in every plaza, growing larger by the day until they had no one but themselves to throw into the pile once the infection got a hold of them.

“I, for as long as I could remember, had been training my entire life to serve and protect my kingdom by becoming a knight. The other knights and I tried to keep peace as best as we could, but we were stretched too thin at every end. Some turned on us, deserting their loyalty to the crown to try and take control by themselves. Those of us left tried to remain loyal, only for laws to become harsher and harsher. We became judge, jury and executioner in all but name. Only some of stepping to fill into said roles.

 “Eventually, we did things—I want to believe—most of us were not proud of.”

“What did you do?” Curiosity got the best of Sherma before he bowed his head. “Apologies. I shouldn’t have…”

“It’s funny,” Her face showed bitter amusement, “Often I was asked that question. Do you know what I said?”

Sherma shooks his head.

“Nothing. I said nothing. I did nothing. I let them commit atrocities and crimes trusting their judgement. I believed at the time in what we did and what we stood for, so I allowed it until we were the ones the cause for the piles of bodies we had to burn. All of this so I could still have a hand on protecting the kingdom, until at one point they began to kill citizens by the bidding of high nobles, nobles that had been sheltered in their towers, away from the looting and kingdom decay. I let it all occur, so I might as well have done it myself.

Until one day I couldn’t take it anymore and I took the personal task to hunt them down by my blade. One by one I hunted them until I stood alone. I killed many who deserved it, and many who did not.             Over time, I grew tired of lamenting my regrets.

“Why are you telling me this? What made you change your mind?”

“I had the wrong blood in my hands to be the protector I wanted to be. A mistake I promised myself to never make again.” She tilted her head and leaned closer to Sherma, “A mistake you have not committed.”

Sherma swallowed a heavy gulp. “If I ki… do it again, how will I tell one bl-blood from another?”

From behind him, with the same hesitance, Hornet extended her hand towards him, stopping momentarily for a few seconds before she pat his head lightly. “No one but yourself can tell that, little one. Truth be told is, if you follow this path, you will be bound to end up with the wrong blood in your hands regardless.”

Sherma fell quiet and Hornet joined him, sharing the silence. They remained like that for several minutes, overseeing Harloh and occasionally checking Sherma’s bandages until the little pilgrim said:

“Am I not holy enough?”

There it was that question again. The first time Sherma doubted like that was back at the Whiteward, after Lady Hornet had saved him.

First his illusion on the world around him had fallen to leave him stranded and stripped of everything that ever ignited his optimism and faith.

Now, he had taken his faith with his own hands and crushed it himself.

“No,” Hornet said.

Sherma shrieked and his hearth shrank.

Of course, how could he expect to remain holy, now of all-

“You are more than holy.”

He turned his head in disbelief. “W-what?”

“You are far more valuable as you are than all the holiness you could strive for. You can still strive for said holiness, but keep in mind who you want to be can lead you to path you never intended for yourself, and you may not notice it until it’s too late, if you ever do, that is.”

A while after, the group returned to Songclave. Harloh was the one to tell everybug about the thermal waters as if it were a miracle. Contrary to Hortnet expecting Sherma to do just that as far as she was concerned.

They had arrived right at the entrance to the shrine where Sherma had his own tent, like a couple of other pilgrims.

“T-thank you again, Lady Hornet for… saving me, saving us, for everything. I don’t even know how to begin to repay you.”

She hummed simply, and stood pondering. “I may have an idea. Wait for me, will you?”

Hornet walked to Jubilana’s shop at the other extreme of the place. Sherma saw them talking briefly. Jubilana searched through her wares and pulled out a small shield. Hornet drew a small bag with rosaries from her clock and gave it to her. Then she returned to Sherma and handed him the shield.

“You can begin to re-pay me by using this in service of others.

His fingers had just finished holding on to it and taking its weight when she heard Hornet’s words. The shield almost fell from his hands. “B-but-! I have no strengths as a warrior! I cannot even fathom beginning to use it for attacks.”

“Who said anything about attacking? Or using violence on that matter. As far as I’m concerned, you only defended one of your contemporaries. You can focus on that, or wish he had died without your aide, if that means your hands stay clean. Look, I wish I could offer less crude advice. Nonetheless, this is better than the alternative. I can’t choose for you. I can only do like you do and pray. To dwell on the dead is to wish to join them. I’m not asking for a miracle. Today you saved one life, I just pray tomorrow you may save one more.”

Hornet marked her leave and he was left alone.

Sherma looked at his reflection at a dim shining wall, lit by holes in the ceiling. The shield in his arm across the handle and the straps in a poor attempt of a heroic pose. It was heavy despite its size. So were rosaries, often it was said among pilgrims, the more rosaries one had, the heavier the load, and thus, a grander devotion.

Synopsis: A collection of moments focused on the characters of Hazbin Hotel on the deadly Squid Games.

FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14500133/1/We-are-all-idiots

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69341276

"These calluses are not from Tug-Of-War" Charlie said as she held Vaggie’s hands. It was not a question. Her tone was matter-of-fact.

Vaggie, Player 379, wanted to die.

Okay, not maybe not literally, but that would have been a preferable alternative to being unable to catch sleep in the dark. It’s been hours since she played and won Tug-Of-War and breath still escaped her lungs as if she had been the one to...

Better not to think about it.

She sat against the wall in her bed mattress. She forced herself to stare at the front in case someone tried to try funny shit, but she’s lost the count on how many time she dissociated that night, until Charlie, Player 456, not trying at all to be subtle, sneaked up to her and almost scared the soul out of her.

"Yours look...barely scratched. Ever did hard work before?"

Charlie grimaced and looked away briefly.

"Sorry," Vaggie said, "That was a dick move for me."

"No, no, it's okay. You're right, I mean, not that kind of hard work."

"Fancy executive office job?"

"Sort of.”

"Then why are you here? Can't you get like, enough money to retire for life in no time?"

"Rich people can also be very silly."

"Idiotic is the word you're looking for."

"I will not disagree." She laughed. "If anything, I'd bet that money up there," Charlie glanced at the piggy bank, "That you were the reason our team won."

"Rich people are truly so idiotic."

Charlie did her best to not laugh, but chuckles escaped her lips every few seconds. Her body still folded over herself.

“May I?” Charle said.

“What…?”

Charlie caressed Vaggie’s hands with her thumbs, she had to pressure her fingers against her skin. Vaggie did not only had callous or sore spots. She had cuts, scars, and burns marks in her palms. The tougher Charlie found those hands, the harder she massaged them.

As if Vaggie already lacked air, always needing just a little more, all of this helped her and made her struggle at the same time.

Charlie wrapped both of Vaggie’s hands in a soft fist and gave them a warm, soft kiss. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” “Please don’t.” “I don’t deserve this.” Vaggie wanted to say, but she became just as wordless as breathless.

“Can I sleep with you tonight?” Charlie said.

Vaggie’s first instinct was to look around, as if she were worried someone may have heard them. “Are you sure? What if someone…”

“Oh, come on, I’m sure no one is going to try anything.” Charlie tucked one of Vaggie’s hair out of her face. “Besides, are you really going to make go back to my bed all alone?”

A heavy lump went down Vaggie’s throat. She stared around once more, this time focused at the door. If the players didn’t try anything, what about the guards?

She stared at one of the cameras, she hated being watched. Just…what if…?

She shook her head to herself just in time as Charlie held her wrist and stared at her with those big eyes that shone in the dark.

If she was going to die…

Just once…

“Are you the big spoon or little spoon type?”

Charlie squealed so loud Vaggie thought she’d wake up everyone up.

Turns out, Charlie was the big spoon type, while Vaggie was…

Something.

Definitely something.

She couldn’t help but shrink herself in Charlie’s embrace as she caressed her hair. “You have such a beautiful hair. It’s a shame it’s so short. You’re always so tense, as if heaven may crack over your head from one second to another.”

Vaggie threw a weak chuckle. “That…may not be too off the mark.”

“Why?”

Her eyes stared at the ground. “I…just don’t know otherwise, I guess. I was never taught that.”

“Well there’s no time like now, and if you ever want to repay me, ‘cause I know you’ll want to, you can…” Charlie hummed in a melodic tone, “My knight in shining armor.”

“Take a bullet for you?”

“Cross a burning bridge for you?

“Push the spear out of your side?”

“All of that silly stuff. Now you go and sleep first and I’ll keep watch. You’ll need it to protect me for the next game.”

Vaggie had just began closing her eyes when those last words ringed her ears.

“Charlie?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you truly believe we can make it out of here?”

Charlie spent an awful amount of time as she caressed Vaggie’s shoulders. “You mean, you and I?”

“Yeah.”

“I would really, REALLY, love to get out of here with you, Vaggie.”

Jun-ho arrives to the island only in the second day of the game. (And doesn't waste two fucking seasons playing Dora the explorer). He prepared suits he made sure to be identical in apperance to In-ho's Frontman uniform and to that of the pink guards, complemented with with Circle, Triangle, and Square masks to blend in.

Synopsis: Psychiatric Hospital AU. A common day with Vaggie and Charlie

FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13958950/14/Infernal-Tales

AO3: Infernal Tales - Chapter 14

Warning Content: The author pleads to the fifth of not knowing what the fuck he's doing Viewer discretion is advised? Implied past suicide attempt and small sexual topics.

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A grey dark figure in a white patient uniform dragged her feet in an even grey darker hall of a psychiatric hospital, repressed coughs filled the place, Vaggie did not know what she wanted to rip more with her hands: Her feet or her throat.

Her feet carried themselves with just barely self-sufficiency so she would not be called out by that.

Contrary to many of the mildly refreshed patients, whose voices she could hear around the hall beyond the darkness, Vaggie had been awake by several hours by that point. A familiar ache in her chest kept awake through the night staring at the ceiling in the room, her only company being her thoughts and her strained breathing.

Even so, with all the piercing throb and tossing and turn, she preferred the solitude only the night could give her.

Said solitude and silence ended as she dragged herself out of the hall into an open recreative room. The shining white of the tiles hurt her eyes, making her wish she could return to her room, but she could only do that for so long.

A group of patients sat on chairs in a circle, all except but one currently running around the circle as she tapped everyone’s heads, or at least intended to do so as they tried to avoid her.

“Duck! Duck! Duck! Duck! Duck!”

“Charlie, just take a sit!” A guard staff chased behind the blonde girl, but Charlie always remained at the opposite extreme of the circle; if he turned, so she did.

This cycle continued until Charlie spotted Vaggie and her face lit up brighter and her eyes grew shinier.

“Vaggie!” She waved her arm as high as she could.

“Gotcha.” The guard put his hands over her shoulders and forced her to sit down next to an empty chair; Charlie had her eyes over Vaggie in the whole restraint.

“I’m glad you could join us today, Vagatha,” The doctor in charge of the reunion said and gestured his hand to the empty chair next to Charlie. “We all do appreciate your company.”

There was an awkward silence as everyone waited for Vaggie to take her place. Only Charlie’s eyes burning a hole into her face compared to everyone’s else stare. As soon as she sat next to Charlie she greeted her with a huge bright smile. Vaggie couldn’t help herself but to smile back fondly.

For a moment her ache weakened.

“Now, let us continue, does anyone wishes to speak?”

Charlie immediately raised her hand as high as she could while shouting high-pitched: “Me! Me! Me! Pleasepleasepleaseplease!”

The doctor closed her eyes tiredly. “I believe it’s better if we let someone else have the chance to speak, Charlie.” She turned her head to Vaggie. “Like your friend here.”

Vaggie’s respiration halted completely for a moment and fought against the urge to cough.

“How are you feeling today, Vagatha?”

She failed shortly after, mucus fell to the floor and she awkwardly cleared her throat.

“Nothing.” She failed for her voice to not come out hoarse.

“That’s understandable. Sometimes our brains shut down in order to—“

“I want to feel nothing.”

Charlie turned her head ever so slightly, glancing at Vaggie for a second.

The doctor continued. “That sounds like your recent…relapse didn’t go as well as you wanted to.”

“Do you think I wanted this? Of course not!”

“Of course not, that’s not what I meant, but you can always work on seeing the bright side of things. I’m sure Charlo…I mean, Charlie, already helps you with that.”

Vaggie reluctantly turned to her right, only to find Charlie staring all over her, those bright, glowing eyes eerily still, fixated on her. She had that expression Vaggie could not figure out what she was thinking.

Right as a familiar weight began building in Vaggie’s shoulders, Charlie tilted her head and smiled at her with closed eyes like a cartoon character and giggled.

All of a sudden, that weight on her shoulders lifted off and Vaggie found it easier to breathe.

“I guess.”

“Let’s change the question. How do you want to feel?”

Vaggie spoke without missing a beat immediately. “Can we skip the part where you tell me what I want to feel is wrong and that life will always be filled with shit so I must learn how to cope with it?”

“Vagatha, you know that’s now what we teach in these—“

“No estás pinche escuchando…”

“What did you say?”

“I fucking said: What is the point if you, any of you, will not listen!? You believe-you,y-you come and…you.” Vaggie growled at herself for all of a sudden being so stupid she could not speak straight. “You m-make us be here, as if we didn’t know something was wrong with us. Last thing I need is a fucking piece of paper telling me what I already know? Nothing changed my whole life, why would it change now? What is your work gonna be good for once I’m outta here?”

The doctor sat there in an awkward silent until she saw her clock, maybe out of a tic or as a way to get out of there.

“How about we end the session here?”

Whatever relief that may have given to Vaggie soon turned away knowing lunch in the cafeteria was next. The mere thought of entering the place already made her stomach twirl over itself.

She spent the next fifteen minutes nibbling her food tray with a plastic spoon, barely able to eat something close to a mouthful.

With half open eyes, she lifted her head and saw Charlie delighting herself on the cafeteria food like it was the most delicious crap she’s ever tasted.

“Vaggie! This taste incredible, you have no idea what you’re missing out!” Charlie said sitting in front of her. They were allowed to sit together as long as they behaved. A.K.A not try to kill each other.

Vaggie dived in her spoon into the mashed potatoes, it bended at the pressure she had to put in to grab a spoonful. The way the potatoes stuck to the spoon even when upside down didn’t charm her in on what “she was missing out.”

But…

“I’m just glad you’re enjoy yourself, hon.” The monotony in her voice was crystal clear, yet saying took all the strength she had in thar moment. She stared down at her jelly cup, probably the only salvageable thing out of this entire…thing they dared call meal. She grabbed it and left it in Charlie’s tray. “You can have it. It’s not like I’ll eat it anyways.”

“Owwww, thanks Vaggie! This is just like Mom makes it! We should visit her sometime soon. She’ll love you like the mom you never had.”

How the fuck was Vaggie supposed to take that. She knew Charlie meant no ill will, but… “Right.” That did not help too much. “Of course Charlie, that would be nice.”

Charlie slammed her fist against the table. Vaggie failed to startle as little as possible, only to stay still where she sat, her eyes avoided Charlie’s burning glaze. She did not move, that would only made it worse.

“What do you mean?” The joy in her voice was all gone.

“I didn’t mean nothing, Charlie, I just agreed with you.”

“No, you didn’t!”

“I meant it would be nice to meet your mom.”

“So you did mean something!” her voice raised enough the people around her started to notice.

“No! Charlie, please, just…finish your food. I’m sure yo—“

“You’re not her!” Charlotte threw both of their trays to the floor. “She is gonna visit me soon! She’s gonna be here! She will ground you!”

Before Vaggie could open her mouth, Charlie slapped her with the back of her hand, she fell to the ground like a brick.

Her arms tried to raise her back up, but they kept shaking and shaking.

“You got nothing to say now?!” Charlie said. Vaggie immediately shrunk over herself.

“Charlie…please…”

A doctor walked in to intervene.

“Charlotte, I think it’s time for—“

“DO NOT CALL ME THAAAAAA—“

If Charlie threw Vaggie to the ground with one slap, she outright tackled the doctor to the ground as she hit her over and over again senselessly.

The guards rushed in and they dragged her away between screams and curses until Vaggie finally could no longer hear her. Another doctor approached Vaggie.

“Vagatha, are you hurt?”

Her face burnt and she still trembled, unable to look the doctor—anyone—into the eye.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

This encounter drained Vaggie’s energy for the rest of the day, and unlike any other patients, she dreaded nighttime more than she should.

She returned to her bedroom later that day and fell head first into the mattress, climbed the rest pf her body over the bed and curled up in a ball; the whole while she psyched up herself for another night of insomnia.

It hurt to stay in the same position, it hurt to move. Her shoulders ached, and what the fuck was the point of closing or opening her eyes if she could not fall asleep!?

Then the cough returned. Every breath sounded like a broken accordion, begging to be put down. Each inhale always lacked too much air and somehow she choked the same time, leaving Vaggie hanging on the edge of her bed, as she coughed and spit her soul out of her body to the floor every few minutes.

Keys jingle right outside of Vaggie’s door. Before she could know, she already had pushed herself into the corner of her bed and her eyes wide open.

The door opened and…Charlie entered?

Vaggie’s first instinct was to back out until her back hit the wall. “Charlie? What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you, silly!”

It was only once Charlie reached the moonlight that she could look at her properly.

Her patient uniform was a total mess, dark patches of sweat soaked her torso and abdomen, not to mention, the whole thing had wrinkles everywhere. Her blonde hair had several strands sticking out like lightning bolts.

The worst part came when she got close enough to Vaggie she could see—hickeys!?

“Charlie! What the fuck happened to you!?” She lifted her hand to touch Charlie’s neck, hoping she was hallucinating or that they were something else, but she stopped herself, as if Charlie were made of glass and she’d break her with a single touch.

“Oh, this? Is nothing! Just Angel being Angel.”

“He did this!? That pervert...when I see him I’m gonna—“ a fit of coughing stopped Vagatha on her tracks with full force. She bent over her bed as she coughed the mocus into the floor. Immediately after, Charlie knelt in front of the bed and her warm hands held Vaggie’s shoulder and pet her back.

“There, there. Let it out.” Her voice alone did wonders to lift boulders off her shoulders. It took all of her strength to not melt under Charlie’s hold.

“Why…why he did it?”

“He offered me to have sex with him in exchange for the key to your room!” she explained as if she just told Vaggie she had catch up with an old friend.

Something inside Vaggie revolted and before she knew it, she threw up whatever little content her stomach had.

Charlie tightened her grip on her. Still soft enough so she wouldn’t break her, strong enough so she wouldn’t fall apart under herself.

“But why? You…after…after lunch…you…your parents…I thought you…”

Charlie’s smile vanished from her face and in its place there was once again that expression Vaggie could never tell what she was thinking, how she felt, how she reacted to…anything. From one blank expression she could go to lash out at her without warning.

“Let’s get you comfortable.” Charlie instead said softly. She helped Vaggie lay back on her bed, covering her with her blanket until it was tight fit like if Vaggie was a burrito. Charlie giggled at the thought.

Once she was done, she gestured at Vaggie’s bed with the palm of her hand. “May I?”

Vaggie clutched her blanket against herself. She nodded.

Charlie climbed to the bed, laying behind Vaggie, inching closer until her torso almost touched Vaggie’s back.

Another fit of cough hit Vaggie, beding over herself. Charlie began caressing it in slow circles. “Does it hurt? Your neck.” She asked.

Vaggie replied yes in a voice so low she was convinced Charlie would not be able to hear her. Tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t tell if it was because of the black scar on her neck, or how embarrassing it made her look. She tried to cover her whines, she put a hand over her mouth, but her cough got the best of her, and she felt disgusted with the mucus on her hand.

She wiped it away desperately against the bed, but then, Charlie reached for her arm.

“Are you not tired yet?”

“It’s…hard…to sleep at night. I just lay here like an idiot until I’m forced to come out.”

“Vaggie…”

“Please, don’t…don’t-don’t ‘Vaggie’ me like that. Not you.”

“It’s okay sweetie. It’s all over now.”

“How can you speak to me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you didn’t slap the shit out of me earlier, and…” Out of nowhere, Charlie began stroking Vaggie’s hair softly. “…and…when-whenever someone mentions your parents—”

“Mom did ground you, but it’s okay, I spoke with her, you’re still grounded, but she’s not mad with you anymore.”

Vaggie did not know if she was hurt more by Charlie’s unawareness or how she could speak so sweetly. Like if Vaggie had to wonder half of the time if Charlie was there or not.

What was she supposed to do with these broken shards of herself that she could not piece together?

She did not know, and Charlie was not going to tell her.

It…it…

“♫I know, it hurts, it’s hard to breathe sometimes…♫”

“♫These nights…are long…you’ve lost the will to fight…♫”

“♫Is anybody out there?♫”

“♫Can you lead you to the light~♫”

“♫Is anybody out there?♫”

“♫Tell me it’ll all be alright.♫”

Charlie sang with an angelical voice that shocked Vaggie as she continued fondling her back. She had no idea she could sing like that.

“♫You are not alone~♫”

“♫I've been here the whole time singing you a song~♫”

“♫I will carry you♫”

“♫I will carry you~♫”

Maybe sleeping like this would be easier, maybe she could forget everything just for a little while, but truth be told, Vaggie did not want to miss any of this moment. She reached for Charlie’s hand and held it close to her mouth, taking a deep breath.

“♫I know you can't remember how to shine♫”

“♫Your heart's a bird without the wings to fly~♫”

“♫Is anybody out there?~♫”

“♫Can I take this weight of yours~?♫”

“♫Is anybody out there?♫”

“♫Can I lead you to the light~?♫”

They would drag Charlie out in the morning if they found out about this, but until there wasn’t anywhere else she wanted to be at.

The whole while, Charlie’s eyes rested over the window in the room. Past the trees nearby the hospital in the middle of a forest. Past the moonlight, once again in that expressionless, open and yet closed face.

AO3: Cops and Thugs - Chapter 4

Summary: Whereas Charlotte tried for their little mission to not blow up on their faces, Vagatha tries a bullet doesn't end up in the middle of their heads. Somewhere along the way they receive unexpected help.

Arackniss.

Where the FUCK is Arackniss?!

Vagatha wondered where the fuck her partner was at as she recovered from the shock. She laid down on the ground and saw how Striker raised his gun towards Charlotte. While still on the ground, Vagatha drew her gun from her back, tucked on her pants and cocked it.

Striker reacted to the mechanical click just as fast as Vagatha performed it.

BANG!

He stumbled a step back before he rushed back to the protection of the walls.

Vagatha fired multiple times, following Striker with her pistol as he retreated. As soon as Striker was out of her line of sight, Vagatha stood up, put on back her party mask and gave chase after him, only to be greeted by the harsh stares filled with killing intentions of at least five more guards outside as they all raised their guns at her.

Her first instinct was to run back to Vox’s office straight to the desk for cover and duck next to Charlotte. The blonde woman was painfully attentive to the screen as the copy process was completed, just in time for her to pull the drive seconds away before the bullets opened several holes on the monitor and tossed it to the floor.

Nothing stood in the projectiles’ way to shatter the large window in the office. Countless of glass shards fell all the way down to the street where a bullet hole laden van parked.

Some of the crystal fragments fell right over the windshield, but the driver remained unfazed—amused even—he fixed the bowtie in his black with red suit and stood up from his seat to see his workers.

“Alright! You know the deal! Quick, easy, and get everything wet! Like a hoe giving a blowjob.”

“That doesn’t sound cheap, boss.” Millie said putting on a bulletproof vest and stuffing a pair of knifes on her belt.

“Neither are we, Millie! Killing doesn’t pay itself.”

“I’d very much prefer a commission in advance to avoid getting ourselves killed, sir,” Moxxie complained in a formal tone. “I thought we talked about these urgent last-minute jobs. No matter what the price is, they are simply not worth the risk.”

“Urgent means we can charge that prick snob whatever the fuck we want. Are those damn weapons ready?”

“Yes, yes, they-Millie! You forgot your magazines.” Moxxie reached for as many his two hands could get a hold on and tossed them to her.

“Awww, thanks Mox! What I’d do without you?”

“I’d rather not think abou—“

“Not puke every time I see you two. Now let’s get started. Stolas will pay us extra if we get the girls he told us ‘bout alive.”

“And who are they, again? The lack of details is just one of the reasons I was opposed to take this job. How will we tell them apart from the henchmen inside?”

“That’s easy,” Blitzo said as the three of them walked up to the double doors to the penthouse warehouse and cocked his sub machine gun. “Shoot whoever shoots you back!”

Blitzo kicked the doors open wide and hellfire rained.

What started as a two-way shootout soon turned into a free-for-all in order to survive.

The shootout between Vagatha and Vox’s guards paused for an unspoken and reluctant trace when both parties became aware of the chaos unleashing downstairs into the ball room.

Vagatha, not wanting to stay and find out what the hell was going on was the first to forsake the uncertain trace and fired at a guard who let himself exposed enough so she could shoot him in his knee with precision. He fell to the floor over his back, giving Vagatha a bigger body target to aim at.

As the henchman fell to the ground, his gun escaped his hand, bouncing until it was Vagatha’s reach. She managed to take it before the rest of the guards retaliated and she ducked once again into the desk. She knew she couldn’t last much longer like this, either she or her cover would give in. An ache in her low torso ripped through her skin right where the stiches of Charlotte’s bullet wound posed.

She turned to Charlotte, curled up in a ball while sitting as she tried to make herself as small as possible and covered her ears.

Vagatha rolled her eyes and growled.

“Take this and watch my back,” she said as she handed her the henchman’s gun.

“I-I have never practiced! Only time I fired one was when you—”

“Just shoot whoever I’m not shooting at!” She instructed, “Cover me! You know what that is, right!?”

“I was not born yesterday!”

Their shouting was interrupted by a new bullet hole in the wood of the desk, located right in between of their heads.

Vagatha gnarled under her hardened breath and launched herself to the floor, using the couch in the room as cover as she clutched her teeth and fist.

Charlotte could only stare with terrified eyes, but she gulped down her turmoil of emotions, she rested the cannon of her gun over the edge of the desk while showing as little of herself as she could.

She fired, eyes unfocused, she fired without a care multiple times and all of her bullets hit everything but her target.

The guards at the door receded still. Vagatha took no time to cut the distance between them down and force them to retreat further. She knew defending wasn’t as effective as attacking, the small bunch of corpses already dripping the floor were proof of that.

Numerous red stains now decorated the walls of the halls to Vox’s office. Vagatha shot at everyone and anyone who ever dared move against her. She reached the balcony she and Charlotte had first entered, looked down into the first floor and saw Vox’s henchmen falling one by one like cockroaches.

Blitzo and Millie had made out of the dancing floor their personal playground. Blitzo rained hellfire over anyone on his line of sight, followed by the building receiving the same treatment. Millie, a bit too brisky gutted the life out of anyone within her reach.

“Who the hell are those guys?” Vagatha said hawking with her mouth half-open and turned to Charlotte, “You know who they are?”

“No…”

Among the plethora of henchmen corpses, one of them remained alive and crawled to reach for his gun. His blood-soaked hands reached for his pistol and he lifted it with his last strength.

BANG!

Both the gun and the guts of the guard’s head dropped in a wet splat to the floor.

Vagatha raised her gun at a man without mask, followed by Charlotte with an amount of delay that could have get them both killed, the cop noted.

A curious Moxxie, now wary with his shotgun readied against them. “If you are who I think you are, I’d rather very much we both lower our weapons, and not make this any harder than it already is.”

“And who in hell are you?”

“I and my partners are Immediate Murder Professionals. We are the ones supposed to get you out of here; in one piece preferably.”

“Stolas sent you?” Charlotte asked. Her words tasted of hope.

“You said you didn’t know them!”

“I meant it, but—”

“EAT BULLETS, MOTHERFUCKERS!” Blitzo shouted to the top of his lungs as he emptied his Thompson machine guns.

Charlotte gulped deeply, “Will, er, your partner be fine?” She asked to Moxxie.

“Not for long if he’s about to do something stupid.”

Blitzo was, in fact, doing something stupid.

He had charged against Vox’s reinforcements. Having him be so distracted on one objective delegated to Millie to fend off the rest of their targets, soon proving a near impossible task and a failing one as Blitzo and Millie ran out of space to fight in.

“I’ll go for my him. You two focus on get yourselves out of here so we can do our job,” Moxxie said before they departed different ways.

He rushed downstairs, Vagatha followed suit at a cautious distance—unlike a certain someone who walked so close to her like a stray dog.

Once at the ball room floor, Moxxie took the right, in direction to his team, Vagatha instinctively took the left and duck hidden behind a pillar.

Peeking her head, she could see Vox’s gunmen running to get rid of I.M.P. She was impressive to see the short woman take care of that many people without a proper gun, just knifes and her hands.

Reminded her of someone…

She shook her head. She readied her gun and aimed at three guards approaching at Millie by behind and with deadly precision she took down two of them. Two down, thirteen to go. Then her magazine ran out of bullets. She went back to cover behind the pillar and swiftly drew a new one from her pants beneath her dress to reload. The whole process took her less than four seconds. She went back to the fight and recounted the twelve heads—

Twelve heads? The snake-tattooed guy!

Striker! Where is Striker!?

CLICK

Vagatha had less than a few moments to look behind her and see the barrel of a gun inches away from her head.

BANG!

Charlotte startled at the gunshot. So much she even let go of her own pistol to fall to the ground. She looked to her side and caught Vagatha charging against Striker, only for him to stop her right at her tracks. He grabbed her by her waist and gave a knee straight at her stomach.

Air escaped from Vagatha’s lungs and she fell on her knees, back bended upwards like a sharp-ended rock.

Charlotte gulped a shriek half-way through her throat, immediately, she covered her mouth at the same time Striker fixated his eyes over hers.

Pupils shrank. Heartbeats fastened.

One’s blood ran cold.

The other’s blood ran hot.

Charlotte tried to raise her dead weight-like arms just a second too late.

BANG!

Charlotte's shot hit a wall as Striker tossed Vagatha to her like a ragdoll, both of them falling to the floor, the two of them hitting one of the tossed around tables.

Striker raised his gun ready to finish them off, before Vaggie grabbed one of the chairs near her and used it as a shield as three quick bullets hit the seat. She threw the chair at him to give herself enough to stand up, she got Charlie off her and ran towards Striker with her retractable stick.

At the other side of the ballroom, a group of three of Vox's guards were occupied moving all the guests out of the building.

“Sir! Sir!” Moxxie reached to them with a case from the musicians where he had hidden his shotgun. “I need to find my wife! Have you seen her?!”

“You must le—!"

Moxxie drew one of his pistols from his back and shot him in the abdomen twice as soon as he approached him. The other guards turned to them, by the time they noticed his colleague slouch it was too late. Moxxie had drawn his second pistol and eliminated them both at the same time. He put them back on their holsters and drew his shotgun from the case.

It didn’t take him long to get to both of his partners in crime, joining them in the effort of keeping whatever and how many guards Vox threw at them. Moxxie first flanked them from behind, so he and Blitzo and Millie would sandwich them, unable to cover all their angles, and when the time was right, he joined them in their line of fire standing next to them.

While I.M.P took care of Vox’s henchmen, Vagatha and Charlotte dealt with Striker.

Vagatha swung her stick at Striker while trying to keep her distance, the thing she was scared more of was her mask falling off. She didn’t want to use her gun and potentially waste so much ammo on one person, not to mention the possibility of Striker taking it from her.

Charlotte kept her distance, trying both to keep her distance, as well aiding Vagatha whenever Striker didn’t slap the life out of her lungs.

It had been so long Vagatha has been this physically active in a fight since…she couldn’t even remember.

At the right moment, Striker charged forwards straight at Vagatha and choked her by the neck, only for him to slam her against the floor, as he still kept the pressure on, putting his body on top of her to prevent her escape.

Vagatha punched his arms, but she might as well be hitting a brick wall. She found herself unable to do the same with her knees due to her position. She tried to return the same favor to Striker by putting her stick at his throat, but the advantage he had over him told her in every way he’d win before she could come to anything closely resembling to a chance.

Her arms began to weaken and fall slowly, her fingers dug in his arms letting go.

Then Charlotte came from behind with a chair and hit Striker in the head. He fell to the side, followed by the chair as Charlotte let go of it. As he laid on the ground, Charlotte could spot his gun on his belt, she rushed to grab it, but the second she even so much pulls the belt, Striker retails back, only for Vagatha about to charge at him herself right before Charlotte stopped her and pulled her behind the pillars.

Without thinking, Vagatha had pinned Charlotte’s back to the pillar while she pressed her elbow against her neck, only to realize it was her.

“What—”

Bullets came at them from the other side and Vagatha immediately covered herself next to Charlotte. The former quickly counted her bullets. Only four left.

“How many you have left?”

Charlotte’s hands quivered trying to open the magazine. No matter how much she focused, her fingers couldn’t stay still. Vagatha threw a quick grunt, “Give me that,” She took her gun and handed her her own. She quickly checked:

Ten bullets left.

That would have to do.

Vagatha took off her mask and wiped the sweat drenching her face with her arm and put it the mask back on. “Cover me,” She said, “I will run to the warehouse and then I will cover you, got it?”

The muscles in her face tensed, Charlotte had to gather all of her will to muster a hesitant, almost stammering “I will!”

Vagatha nodded. She raised her gun. “Ready?”

Charlotte imitated her stance and nodded back.

“One, two…three!”

Vagatha ran off rom the table as Charlotte peaked out of her own cover as secretly as she could. The adrenaline and panic in her veins drove her to shoot before she could even lay her eyes over her objective, any at all.

As soon as it was within her reach, Vagatha threw herself to the ground and took cover one of the closest pillars to the warehouse entrance. She fired once peeking off the pillar, landing a hit on one of Vox’s guards on his chest. She looked at the other side of the pillar and whistled above the chaos.

Charlotte took a glance in her direction, she saw Vagatha waved her to come to her. Vagatha didn’t wait for a response before she hid again, she inhaled and exhaled deeply as she held her gun up close to her chest.

She was going to get out of this alive…

Which may be easier if she didn’t have to drag a mob’s daughter’s ass alongside her or else pulling this one off would be worth shit!

“Calm yourself. Calm yourself. Head cool, blood hot.” She waited until the very moment fire started to rain again to make her move immediately after. Vagatha aimed her gun with concealed terror, if she was not fast enough, they would kill Charlotte and she’d be a dead woman walking. But she used said terror to keep her senses sharp, her vision above all.

She hit a guard, Charlotte ran as fast as she could and found herself only a few tables away from her.

Vox stomped out of the elevator with two guards and witnessed first row how Vagatha and Charlotte were getting closer and closer to the warehouse in the building.

“GO GET THEM! I don’t pay you to stand and do nothing!” He shouted and shoved one of his guards forward, the other one followed suit. Vox pulled his own pistol from his jacket, painted in bright silver and deep blue touches. She could see Vagatha, with the snake mask was the real problem and aimed directly at her, and followed her with his eyes as he aimed his gun.

For a good while he didn’t shoot, Vox waited for the right moment.

Charlotte had managed to enter the warehouse, she looked back to stare at Vagatha, but as she turned, the shining silver of Vox’s gun shone at her eyes for a moment, then she could see him in all the way back of the ballroom.

Her stomach dropped.

Vagatha took a run to enter the warehouse.

Charlotte sweated cold, she hurried to reach Vagatha.

“WATCH OUT!”

Vagatha only had time to look how Charlotte pushed her aside.

BANG!

Vox fired.

Something hit Vagatha at her side as soon as Charlotte had put herself in front of her, and then the two fell to the ground.

“What the-“ Vagatha quickly worked to get Charlotte off herself, and then saw how her blue dress had a huge red stain of blood on her side, only to find Charlotte had an even bigger, growing, stain on her abdomen, tainting her black clothes and quickly expanding. “Shit, shit, shit! Hey! Hey!” Vagatha grabbed her by her shoulder and tried to shake some sense into Charlotte.

Her efforts were soon cut off by the guards quickly approaching them, with no other option, Vagatha had to drag Charlotte inside the warehouse.

A bullet hit the wall, just barely a few inches away from her face, debris flew and Vagatha fell to the floor under the shock and Charlotte’s weight. In the fall, her gun escaped out of her hand and she could see the first bunch of guards entering the warehouse, raising their guns to shoot when—

A dozen of shots pierced through the thick air and the guards dropped dead to the floor.

“Get up.” Vagatha looked back only in time to see Husk with a Thompson machine gun and Angel Dust rushing to her to help her carry Charlotte. “Go to the exit. We have a vehicle ready to escape.”

“Qué-where were—”

“Stop fucking wasting time! Go!” Husk insisted as he kept the pressure on the guards.

Angel led Vagatha to a grey van prepared to take off at a moment’s notice. He opened the back doors and they laid Charlotte on one of the benches. Angel drew a first-aid kit from the dashboard and began banding up Charlotte, with Vagatha helping him whenever he needed, then she removed her mask.

Charlotte’s white skin had been painted in a concerning grey and her unfocused eyes somehow penetrated Vaggie’s.

In the distance, Vagatha could discern the police’s sirens and voices away in the street.

She could run. She could forsake them and get the hell out of this mess.

Fuck it, she could even arrest them. Right here and now, she had everything in her favor. Maybe earn some long-due promotion. Damned be sleeping with the fishes.

She could start with Husk…next Angel, then Charlotte, she…

Vagatha looked at Charlotte, she couldn’t tell if they made eye contact or the blonde girl was already beyond gone.

She had saved her from the bullet that now had her on the brink of dead. She did save her again when they first met…even though she shot her…but then again, she had no reason to bring her to the hospital and she still did anyways…

This girl had had already at least a dozen of opportunities to kill her, but didn’t.

“Give me that!” Vagatha took the bandages from Angel. “Get in the wheel. I’ll tell you when we are good to go.” She opened an IV kit and inserted the needle on Charlotte’s vein in her arm. She kept an eye on the back of her head until Husk climbed to the van with them and shut the door closed behind himself.

“GO!” She shouted and Angel drove off as quickly as he could, the wheel tires burning against the ground, and both she and Husk groped to whatever they could hold onto as the van accelerated.

Husk wasted no time and went to take Vagatha’s job on caretaking Charlie and finishing setting her up. This gave Vagatha perhaps the first moment to breathe in peace in the last hours.

The full picture of her situation sunk in, leaving her the dreaded question of where the fuck they were heading to.

FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14146784/24/Through-Rocks-and-Snow

AO3:Through Rocks and Snow - Chapter 24

24. Moon Berry

Prompt: Faulty

Old habits die hard.

So far away as to before Madeline first climbed Celeste Mountain, she still distracted herself from her problems with more problems, those problems being of her own making was nothing but a bonus.

And trying to solve those problems while at the same time having no foreseeable solution at hand? Cherry on top of the cake.

It was like an addiction to her, truly.

And what’s the worst possible solution to get rid of an addiction?

Replace it with another addiction, of course!

Or in this case, another problem.

Madeline’s inability to grieve properly Granny’s death led her to recede to an even worst position she had started with in the beginning of her journey.

It is ironic how inside one’s mind is the best place to lost it, as Madeline did in her dream.

A lowkey part of herself wished she could say only a dream could make her see following a bird through actual freaking space as a logical thing to do.

That was not the case.

Was her volition to chase after a bird out of a hopeful wish—nonsensical but hopeful nonetheless— to see Granny again, or it was because problems were all Madeline knew.

Problems are like the past, everyone can visit them all the time, but you’re the only one there.

She reached the moment where she was on the verge of completing this one journey, hopefully find Granny and go back to her life. That moment where the end is visible and everything comes down to doing just one more thing, one final step.

All so she could go back to her life, a life that was empty of problems, and therefore, empty of direction. Ironically, a life out of life.

Among all the rush, an outsider would think choices were made in a split second. Choices like taking a step back. They were not.

Problems being all Madeline knew, it was a language she was fluent in. A world she knew how to live in, comfortably in even so.

A step back turned into another, another step back turned into a jump, a jump into a sprint, and a sprint into a dash.

Dashing away not from her problems, but into more of them. Just in the utmost particular way she had learnt in those past years.

If only she had a resemblance to the mountain, a souvenir of some sort…

Thit was her dream, a mindly mindless one, but hers; she could have anything she wanted.

Or, almost anything for that matter. Hah.

The sweet smell of strawberries mixed with stardust filled Madeline’s eyes. She could smell the supernovas and taste the grey of the rocks. She could hear the stars moving light years away from her in all directions.

And so she was.

A dream highlighted and enhanced a person’s psyche. This whole…seeing what otherwise you would not see, maybe it made all this trouble worth it.

Aaaaand…there it is again.

Even among dreams, reality leaks in.

And how does reality leaks into a dream?

By telling you, this is, in fact a dream.

And dreams are meant to finish when you wake up, and you go back to reality, and your problems are not as lifeful as you would want to imagine in a dream, they are bland, they are boring, they are monotonous, they are wearing…they are soul-eating.

And then, the new problems you face your old problems with are this lot of wonderful, awing scenarios and places and worlds and feelings only for so long.

How much was enough? What did draw the line? How one beat the game one created?

Because winning definitely was not the solution.

Madeline dived deeper and higher into space, the sweet and cosmic tastes continued to ravish her senses, until her eyes laid upon a strawberry unlike any other she had seen before.

A strawberry green as grass with blue leaves over it. A ring of stars surrounded it like if the strawberry was a planet. Full of life, full of potential.

Summary: Vaggie teaches Charlie how to fight.

FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13958950/13/Infernal-Tales

AO3: Infernal Tales - Chapter 13

Vaggie found herself in one of the many rooms in the hotel. She finished the last touches on a wooden replica of her spear she had carved herself. Next to her there was a wooden trident, also carved by herself.

At Charlie’s insistent request, Vaggie had agreed to teach and walk through the basics on how to fight. The hellborn princess had come up with many ideas on how to carry on with her request.

From having it be a hotel bonding activity. Ask help from patrons and some of their acquaintance, and even going into turf wars for some real-world experience.

Hell no that last option, not after the first and last time…

Even though Vaggie’s pragmatic mind could see the painfully obvious benefits on Charlie learning to defend herself, she knew for a fact Vaggie could never be calm in the slightest if she didn’t find herself standing on between Charlie behind her, and whatever danger they could face.

But she had postponed this long enough, and after she had accepted, Charlie wouldn’t let her back down.

They have arranged an hour early in the morning to stray from her management activities to practice. No distractions, just them two.

They’d be using one of the many still unused rooms on the upper floors of the hotel.

Vaggie had finished pushing all furniture to the walls to make room for the mat on the floor when she heard the door opening and Vaggie saw Charlie walking in.

She was wearing a pink with yellow workout shirt and some red with white lines on the sides. Vaggie herself opted for some simple white undershirt and shorts she had not used in a long time.

“Hi Vaggie!”

“Hello hun. Are you ready?”

“You bet! What are you gonna teach me first?! Are we going to do karate? Flying kicks? Oh, maybe we are gonna dodge bullets like in that movie super sloooow—“ Charlie swirled her arms backwards in circles as she bent her back as well doing repeated “woosh” noises.

That was until Vaggie handed her the wooden trident she has made.

“Oh, what is this?”

“Your weapon.”

“But I already have a weapon,” Charlie summoned her real trident in her other hand, “See?” She smiled at her with pride, as if she was a child showing her mom she could do a backflip on a trampoline.

“I meant your TRAINING weapon,” Vaggie took Charlie’s spear with an unnatural calmness and put it on a wall, “And to start things off, I want to see how you fend for yourself. Get on the other side of the mat. Ready your weapon. Show me what you can do.”

Vaggie repped herself in a defensive stance. One that, for the first time in a long time did not tense every muscle in her bod. This was Charlie she was talking about. What was the worst thing that could happen?

Charlie mimicked her approach by adopting an offensive stance as scenic as her smile was beaming in excitement.

Charlie’s first strikes were just as Vaggie predicted: Wide, easily telegraphed, left many parts of herself exposed, and her body shifted over the weight of her trident swings.

A few quick backsteps were all Vaggie needed to avoid Charlie’s attacks. Seeing her efforts were not working, Charlie thrusted her wooden trident to poke Vaggie, but the one-eyed sinner stopped her weapon by inserting her spear in between the trident’s pikes. Vaggie shifted her weapon so the sharp end of Charlie’s trident ended up in the floor while Charlie still held onto it tightly, bending over alongside her weapon.

Seeing her opening, Vaggie moved swiftly behind Charlie and slashed her back with her spear. Despite she attacked as gently as she could, Charlie startled gravely.

“Hey! That’s cheating! I couldn’t defend myself!”

“The enemy is not gonna play fair, hun.” Vaggie didn’t even try to suppress the small taunting smile crawling up her lips. “Can you tell me what you did wrong?”

“Agreeing to this?”

“Besides of that.”

Charlie stuck her tongue at Vaggie for a second. “Well, I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

Weird. Vaggie thought. Usually it’s the other way around in training. “It’s a bit more complicated than thinking or not thinking during combat, but we can get into that later.” Vaggie reached into Charlie so she could stand straight and put her weapon in between them. “For starters, you did not consider thoroughly your weapon’s assets. It’s a bit like mine, actually.” She inspected her own replica. Vaggie found herself smiling with melancholy for a second, before shame filled her veins, but she shook her thoughts away and anchored herself to the present.

“It’s great at keeping enemies at bay, but what is a strength can also be exploited as a weakness. In your case, what easy comes, easy goes. What do you think is a strength of your weapon?”

Charlie stared at Vaggie for a second mind-absently as she tried to process what she was saying. Then she turned her attention to her trident. She had three pikes when Vaggie only had one. “More stabby stabby?” She shrugged her shoulders.

“Show me.”

The two of them got ready for another round. This time around, Charlie was more hesitant, she kept her distance. Vaggie could notice the tight grip Charlie had on her weapon.

The gray moth threw a few quick pecks with her spear, Charlie rightfully moved swiftly, but she also retreated too much, losing her ground. Vaggie swung her spear horizontally with wide movements left and right, slow enough so she could be sure Charlie had enough reaction time.

In the fourth swing, Charlie blocked her spear with the exterior of her trident. She could tell Vaggie wanted to try the same trick she used just minutes ago. She pressed just a bit harder and that did the trick, for Vaggie went off balance, outpowered by her and giving her a clear opening to strike her shoulder and landed a clean slash right in her forearm.

“Yes!”

“Ah, mierda…”

“Oh my god! Vaggie!” The realization Charlie had actually struck Vaggie fell over her just as quickly as she celebrated and let drop her weapon to the floor as her face filled with horror. “Sorrysorrysorrysorry! Are you hurt?! Do you need to go to the hospital?! Are you about to faint?! How many fingers you see?!”

Vaggie checked her faint scar superficially with the same casual sense someone checked if it was about to rain or it was just their imagination. She was no stranger to pain, and this was waaaaay below on her worst pains tier list.

Her introspection soon came to a halt as Charlie embraced her with her hands checking on her, which Vaggie could only find hilariously cute. “I’m okay Charlie. You did a good hit, that’s all. And I see two fingers, the other two you have behind your back don’t count.”

“But, aren’t you hurt?”

“No, not at all. That’s why I made these replicas. Well done.” She smiled at her.

“That means I’m already as good as you?” She jester, but her voice also had that tone of approval-seeking.

Vaggie could only roll her eye pretending to be annoyed. “Half way there.” And then Charlie’s smile became wider.

The next sparring sessions took the weight of fear off Charlie’s shoulders. Now her attacks were faster and aiming to actually hit her, alongside with her reflexes getting sharper.

Though this also meant Vaggie had to increase her effort, entering into a mild version of her combat-state of mind.

Seeing her doubled efforts were of little use, Charlie’s attacks were getting faster in desperation, still Vaggie managed to counter them, but she did little else than parry, block, dodge or push her.

In a desperate last attempt, Charlie took a few steps back before she charged straight to Vaggie, trident first running.

Adrenaline flashed through her blood, Vaggie clutched her hold on her spear and used the staff as a shield just in the right place to block Charlie’s trident, for the first time facing an actual threat for the strength of the impact almost swope her off her feet.

In the brief moment created by the impact, Vaggie reached to hold Charlie’s weapon by her handle forcefully and aimed her weapon to thrust through her partner’s torso, but Charlie acted faster and lifted her weapon over her shoulders while Vaggie still held onto it having her arm be jerked upwards. The sudden movement drew Vaggie closer to Charlie, so much so their torsos bumped into each other.

For the briefest of moments, the two of them shared eye contact, Vaggie with the awkward necessity of having to lift her head up to see her lover and having her face run hot in a yellow blush, only intensifying for a moment just as brief when Charlie smiled at her…

Before one of her dancing legs tripped Vaggie’s feet, throwing her off balance and using her height advantage to do a leg sweep and her whole world turned upside down. Somewhere amid the fall her wooden spear flew off her hand.

Vaggie’s back hit the mat like concrete. The next thing she knew was she had Charlie on top of her, both of her hands pressing her own arms against the floor, one of her hands still holding her trident. Their perpetual eye contact burned their bodies. If the hit she just took had not taken her heart out through her throat, her futile attempts to break free did. The fact Charlie giggled at her failure to do so didn’t help her at all.

Both of them panted heavily. Charlie’s smile full of victory did not drop one bit. The smaller Vaggie shrunk herself at her helplessness, the dirtier Charlie’s smile became.

Summary: Vaggie returns with Charlie after resurrecting from their last misadventure.

Waking from death was always a bitch.

When Vaggie opened her eye, her whole body crunched at the slightest movement. She didn’t know if that was because of how she died, or the cold wasteland stone floor she slept on for an awful amount of time.

As a habit of hers, Vaggie endured through it. She inspected around her, seeing nothing but the reddish wastelands of hell expanding on every direction for miles. Red hills where little to no life grew up, it reminded Vaggie of the desert.

She hoped she could spot Pentagram City upon waking up, but her luck would not grant her even that after literally dying and resurrecting.

Stretching her arm more than she really had to, Vaggie summoned her spear, her underlaying anxiety dissipated, if just a bit, and used it as a walking stick.

It took Vaggie half an hour of walking aimlessly before she could finally spot Pentagram City on the horizon, after she had climbed to the top of a cliff, standing on the edge of it. Now if only she could only find a way down that didn’t take her forever.

Vaggie considered literally jumping off the edge and throw herself into the void out of pure spite.

…

She had lost track of time by the time she finally walked into streets she recognized.

Her legs weighed as if they were bags of gravel and her feet burned. A part of her, one that had not come with her to hell, told her she could—she should—take a break. It was not like the hotel was going anywhere, and Charlie was already waiting for her for…however long Vaggie took to respawn, she could wait just a little longer.

But her truth be told, Charlie was both Vaggie’s blessing and curse. Only Charlie was her safe heaven. Nowhere else, nothing else.

After what felt like an eternity, Vaggie had arrived into the hotel’s territory. That alone allowed her to breathe easier and mitigate her pain.

When she stood in front of the hotel’s doors. She took a deep breath and raised her fist.

KNOCK-

“VAGGIE!”

The door opened immediately and before Vaggie knew it, Charlie embraced her in a hug that lifted her feet off the ground with a strength comparable to that that killed her before.

But she was not in condition or mood to complain about that and only tried to enjoy the moment.

“ImsorryImsorryImsorryImsorryImsorryImsorryImsorryImsorry. I’m SO SO SO sorry! I promise I will listen to you more from now on. It was all my fault-Aghhhhh.” Charlie’s voice broke down on a cry as she let Vaggie down and buried her head on her partner’s shoulder bending her back.

As second nature, the sinner put her hand on the demon’s back and gave it pats. “Calm down, hun. I’m here now, that’s all that matters.” Vaggie rested the side of her head on Charlie’s head for a moment as she reciprocated the contact, lingering on it. Charlie was like a perfect bed, soft, relaxing, and so goddamn warm and comfy. “Shh, shh, don’t cry, honey. Right now-oooow…” Vaggie had lifted Charlie’s head so she could see her face.

Charlie’s eyes were still crystalized, tears brimming on the edge of them, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. Her cheeks were soaked in strong defined trails of tears rolling down all across her white face, not to mention her eyes were red, but not as they would be in her full-demon form. A clear sign she has been crying since Vaggie died; probably non-stop.

“Right now I’m here,” Vaggie continued, “You can take care of me all you want, only if I can take care of you.”

Somehow Charlie’s eyes filled with even more tears for a second before she became a pool of tears once again. “What I did to deserve you!? Ah-oh-oh-oh-oh!”

“More than this place and I deserve,” Vaggie thought, “Let’s go to bed, hun.” She wrapped her hand softly on Charlie’s hand and they walked to the elevator, leaning into each other straight to their room.

Vaggie and Charlie did not let go of each other for a single second all night long.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I really had no plans to write this tonight. I was working on another project when I got fed up with it and wrote this out of spite. I had this idea behind the scenes for quite a while now. I wrote all of this in one setting.

FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14146784/23/Through-Rocks-and-Snow

AO3: Through Rocks and Snow - Chapter 23

23. Farewell

Prompt: Superb

Since Madeline first slept at Celeste Mountain, each and every single one of her dreams has been completely lucid. All full of detail and vivid.

It got to the point Madeline could not discern reality from dreams until she was too deep in them. That on its own would not have been too bad, if it wasn’t for the fact Madeline started to sleep more, and more as the months passed after her latest climb of the mountain.

After she received…

…

…

…

This night’s dream began with her waking up in Granny’s cabin, but the old lady was nowhere to be seen. The first thing that caught her attention was the forsaken city she could see through her window, instead now she could hear a myriad of muffled voices in the distance, even cars clashing against the urban background common life. So bright and filled with life.

To her surprise, in the distance, Theo was driving towards her in a car. He parked next to the cabin.

“Theo? What are you doing here?” Madeline asked as they walked to each other in Madeline’s front yard.

“Hey Mads, are you alright?”

Madeline blinked confused. “Me? Eh, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You freaked us all when you left Oshiro’s hotel so suddenly. You looked like you had seen a ghost or something.”

A ghost? Did he mean Oshiro? Yeah, he being a ghost freaked her out the first time…or times…but she obviously knew that by now.

“Are you sure you are alright? You can stay at my place a few days if you want. You know, not to be alone. I know you’re the loner type, though, so…”

“Your place?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know I’m not the cleanest guy, but I can, like, clean the dust—”

“No, no. I mean, your place, here? You live in the city?”

Theo left a single chuckle. “Uh, yeah, duh. You already knew that, Madeline.”

No, this was not right. Madeline began looking around her, at the city, at the forest nearby. Past all of it. This was not right. Why the horizon looked so…foggy?

“But, what are you doing living in the city?”

“I helped build it?”

“No you didn’t.” The words escaped her mouth before Madeline could fully organize her thoughts.

“There you are! I’ve looked for you everywhere! Did you miss me?” A too familiar voice said behind her. Madeline’s already sensitive skin became as fragile as paper as she turned her head, and found Badeline running at her, eyes replaced by purple empty voids and tentacles emerging from her back at lightning speed in direction to Madeline.

In less than a second the tentacles embraced in a tight hug that gave her an uncomfortable warmth. Madeline sweated hot and cold at the same time. Her airway began to lack oxygen. Badeline worked her way through her own tentacles to get her bare hands in Madeline, until they covered her view in darkness. If the tentacles around her already worked on grilling her. Badeline burned her as if she was made of fire, alongside with some last words.

“You’ll never leave my side again.”

Madeline jolted herself up from her bed. Face drowned in sweat as she looked around. Everything was still darkness. Her arm instinctively fumbled through her nightstand until she turned a lamp on.

She was in her bedroom in her apartment. Everywhere in the place was a mess as if a storm had, ironically, stormed through. It had been like that for weeks, if not a few months already. The curtains on the window were closed off, but Madeline could note it was still day outside. She looked at the alarm clock on her nightstand.

4:09 PM

She could not even begin to remember at what hour she went to sleep last night.

The worst part of it?

She was still tired.

Madeline let herself fall back to the comfort of her pillows as she swiped off the sweat off her face with her arm multiple, multiple times. She tried to go back to sleep, but her senses were as sensitive as leaves fluttering unsettled. Even with her eyes closed, she could still see the light filtering through the edges of her curtains.

She tossed in her bed, away from it and wrapped her head with her pillows in an attempt to draw away the notion of the light and the urban noises, but her new position was as uncomfortable as it was pointless. Even as Madeline was aware of it, she kept trying growing impatient until the heat on her body just gave her the drop that spilled the glass that was her patience.

Madeline tried another position, then another, then another, until she threw the blankets high in the air in a fit of rage, she stood up from the bed, walking straight to the window, the blanket now on the floor being dragged along the floor by her feet.

Her hands pressed against the curtains, only blocking the sunlight coming through momentarily, before even tinier rays of light filtered through gaps just as small. Madeline tried again, pressing harder over each spot the light came through, to the point she just hit the window through the curtains, and then the curtain itself fell.

The sunlight flooded Madeline’s apartment, blinding the red-haired girl. She covered her eyes with her palms as she walked backwards, until her feet stumbled with themselves and Madeline fell, her side hitting the cold wood planks first.

After a long while in which her eyes readjusted to the light, her eyes scanned over the mess that was called her apartment. Who knew how long would it take her to get back on track, even if she started at that very second—only if the stars aligned.

Eventually, her eyes fell over her kitchen counter, where an enveloped laid open with a letter on top of it.

“Kid

I never liked every time you came back to the mountain, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks the same.

Coming to the mountain was a mistake for me, as returning was for you.

Mountains are supposed to be climbed over, not carried. Fire can keep you warm, but once it’s gone, don’t dwell on it.

As much as I enjoyed your progress and your failure, and your company, it hurt my heart each time I saw you.

There’s something this old dumb rock and I have in common, and that is we are not meant to stay close to. Ever. We destroy what we get our hands on, for that is how we can help, but that help doesn’t always have the intended effect, such thing is not something the mountain gave me.

Though I can’t stop you, I never could and I never wanted to.

Here’s one last piece of advice unrequested from an old fool.

Is not about what you get over. Is about how you get over it.

You chose to become strong, dear. All the mountain did was allow you to see it. Now it’s time you see it with your own eyes and hands.”

Small yet numerous drops dampened the yellowed old paper, joining already dry tear marks. All of Madeline’s efforts went to keep her breath steady, leaving absolutely nothing to stop the tears overflowing from her eyes down her face.

This was the fourth time she read the letter, and each time never failed to make her cry inconsolably. Not like she would have wanted someone to do just that. She had seen no one in days.

Except…

Technically, she had neither seen Theo, but he had messaged her numerous times in her computer. So many unread, so many unanswered.

TheoUnderTheStars: Hey Mads! Guess who has 2 thumbs and is living life better than ever?

TheoUnderTheStars: Alex says hi too!

TheoUnderTheStars: She says you’re badass for doing archery, says if you can teach her

TheoUnderTheStars: Hey wanna come over my place some time

TheoUnderTheStars: Hope you’re doing alright, just know you can talk to me about anything.

TheoUnderTheStars: Hey

TheoUnderTheStars: Hey part 2

TheoUnderTheStars: Wanna facetime tonight?

TheoUnderTheStars: Hey Madeline, I don’t know how to say this, but I think you should really come with me to visit Granny. She has not been feeling the greatest last time I saw her.

TheoUnderTheStars: She asked about you again.

TheoUnderTheStars: I’m running out of things to say for your absence.

TheoUnderTheStars: She’s gone in her sleep.

TheoUnderTheStars: Me and Alex managed to arrange a funeral…

She said she left a will for us…I’m surprised she…even for Alex even though…only twice…and for me a whole lot of…she said…your part on the cabin…we buried her close to the…next to the entrance of the…after you leave…resort. Right in a spot where a lot of snow doesn’t come in…do you happen to know her age or something…? We…

She re-read that last part over and over again, or at least what she could with tears, mixed with the bright, almost blinding light of her screen in her ill-adjusted eyes. Each time the aching need to beat her heart out of her chest with her fist became stronger and stronger.

A few more messages followed before Madeline caught up to the most recent ones. The ones detailing how Theo and her sister left and how they felt.

Madeline felt like shit. With stumbling steps and almost falling back to the floor a couple of times, Madeline dragged her feet back to her bed. She just hovered her blankets over her face, while leaving the rest of her body uncovered. Her eyelids fell like two anvils,

Yet she remained restless for a good hour before she managed to fall asleep.

That night’s dream started with Madeline at the edge of a cliff with a withered tree, blackened pink leaves scattered al over brown grass, only humified by a rain pouring down on her. Yet she never became wet.

Summary: In a trust exercise led by Vaggie, Charlie tags along and everything goes horribly, horribly wrong. More than any of them two could have imagined.

FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13958950/11/Infernal-Tales

AO3: Infernal Tales - Chapter 11

Alright Vags. You've done this before. You can do it again.

Vaggie saw the group of patrons on line waiting for her at the lobby.

Deep sigh...square shoulders...firm voice.

"Alright people! This week's activity will be about trust exercises. In 72 hours we will participate in turf wars with the sole objective of surviving and protecting your comrades in arms!" She walked in front of them with her hands on her back and with the most authority voice only 3 little sisters and 2 big sisters could give anyone.

"Until then you are to prepare and gear yourselves with what equipment you can carry to the battlefield! Accept is mandatory! If the heat of battle doesn't make you wish to want to die, I will!

"The next participants are as follow: Arackniss. Baxter. Cherri. Angel Dust–"

"I ain't coming for that shit again–"

"–You ARE coming and that's final! And Husk. Pueden irse." She was about to walk out, but felt a strong burning feeling on the back of her head. She turned around, looking down and saw Niffty, unblinking bloodshot eye directly at her, with an unnatural big smile for someone her size.

"You can come too."

Niffty immediately ran away while laughing and repeating "Stab!" Over and over again until her voice faded from her ears.

As Vaggie walked away, her senses failed to detect the pair of eyes and stimming hands watching her walk away.

Once at her room, Vaggie put a map of Pentagram City over a table. Extermination day has been just a few weeks ago, overlords lost power, gangs and their wannabe counterparts lost lives, creating a vacuum of power. New territory was fought for more on this time of the the year than ever.

New faces, unpredictable hazards. Vaggie wanted to label potential areas were conflict, while palpable, would not be as dangerous. She'd have to discuss it with Cherri Bomb and maybe even Husk for a second opinion.

She already hated the idea but maybe she would need a cup of cof—

"I want to go too," A soft voice said behind her.

Vaggie turned around and saw the only person she did not want to come to this exercise standing on the door frame. She has not even heard it open, when did she come in?

"No," Her mouth said before her mind could have a chance to speak, and even then it did not disagree. Vaggie turned back to the table.

"Why noooot?" Charlie tilted her head disappointingly as she walked to Vaggie. As soon as she was within her reach, she grabbed Vaggie by her shoulders and sat her chin on top of her head. "Pleaseeee. I'm the owner of this hotel. I'm supposed to get my hands dirty like everyone else."

"First. You're not really supposed to get your hands dirty." That's what I'm here for. "Second, we are ACTUALLY going to get our hands dirty. Blood, guts..."

"I can handle some blood!"                                                     

"Hun, you almost fainted when I cut my finger while cooking."

Charlie pouted. "That only happened once!"

"Once is more than enough. The point is, it's gonna be dangerous for you."

"And it won't be for you?" Charlie reached for Vaggie's hands and wrapped them softly. "I wanna learn how to face danger. Real danger,” Her hold tightened Vaggie’s hand, her eyes closed heavily for a moment. “The kind of danger you don’t talk about.”

Vaggie’s heart dropped to the bottom of her chest. She wanted a myriad of words to spurt out of her mouth.

Yet they all stuck in her throat and only a wordless stutter came out.

“I’m not saying you should! If…you don’t want to, you know I won’t pressure you. Is just…sometimes I feel like there’s a lot you don’t tell me about you. You rarely talk about your life in the living world, what it was like. If this way I can know you just a bit better, that’s enough for me.

“You’re always what I need, even if I don’t think you are,” A weak smile lit her face. “Especially when I don’t think so. So, let me be what you need, at least once.”

Charlie drew her face near Vaggie’s. Close enough they could feel each other’s warm presence, each other’s warmer breaths. With the gentleness one held a house of cards, Charlie drew herself closer and closer, until her forehead touched connected with Vaggie’s.

Charlie could feel how Vaggie’s feet trembled. The feet that could not be sweep off the ground even if the whole world cracked apart, those very same feet trembled as they spent the next few minutes in silence, eyes closed sharing each other’s presence.

“I don’t want you to be hurt.” Vaggie whimpered. Fragileness filling her every word.

“I don’t want you to be alone. Not like this. Not in this little head of yours you’re so…trapped in.”

Right. She was right. Vaggie thought. Sometimes she was so mind-absorbed, she let the world out. She let Charlie out.

Vaggie breathed deep. Her brow frowned while she tried to blink away the overflowing tears from her eye—

“Nuh uh, not yet, missy. Let it out.”

Vaggie’s eyes snapped open, staring into Charlie.

“I know you. Let it out. Let it out.”

She let a one, single, solitary wimp before she broke and fell apart, only for Charlie to hold her together the whole time while the quietest cries filled the room.

After what felt like an eternity—though they wouldn’t have minded if that had been the case—they separated. Hands still locked tight.

“Alright. You can come—”

“Yay!—”

“—With conditions. You follow my every command, no questions. I want you on my sight at all times, and stay behind me. And if I tell you is time to leave, is time to leave.”

Charlie tilted her head puzzled. “How can I be on your sights if I’m behind you?”

Vaggie.exe stopped worked just for a second before she shook her head. “Just!...Stay near me. Blood hot, mind cold. Quick feet. Got it?”

“Yes sir!” Charlie saluted like a soldier with as she feigned a male voice and a harsh face, eyes fixated to the front.

Vaggie sighed. “You’re so silly, hun.”

“That’s why you love me~!”

“Yes, I love you too.”

Charlie hugged Vaggie, making sure to wrap her around her arms. She stared through the window into the city. She couldn’t wait to go, while on her face grew a smile.

...

Charlie’s smile had become a myth by the time she and everyone else had spent little more than five minutes into the battlefield, but to them altogether, it already felt both it had been an eternity.

A scream overloaded her ears. She turned just in time to block a bat with nails from a fish-like sinner with her shield. The nails dragged against the shield’s metallic surface, creating a chirring, deafening sound.

A flashing piece of metal hit the bar, throwing it away from the shield. Vaggie used the aperture on the aquamarine sinner’s stance as he lost balance, to land a clear cut on his leg, making him kneel, and in one large, vertical swing, Vaggie cut his throat. The one-eyed sinner stood back from the spurt of blood before the corpse fell to the ground, and quickly focused back on the battlefield looking for new threats.

So far, the Hazbin Hotel crew had divided into three groups.

Cherri Bomb and Angel Dust were by far the more well accustomed. Cherri threw grenades across the dark clouds of smoke, while Angel took care of finishing off whoever survived the explosion with multiple Thompson machine guns. Though dangerous as fuck, Vaggie appreciated they two drew the more attention out of everyone.

To her surprise, Baxter was with them. Much like Cherri, he was throwing chemical grenades he prepared on the spot with several substances he harbored in his purse, even giving some to Cherri for the trickier shots.

Husk and Arackniss were trying to get by. Arackniss, much like his brother, shot with dual pistols without a care, being the one with the highest kill count on his group and raising while shouting curses left and right. Husk served as some sort of sniper, focusing on the gang members that were too far away and on those Arackniss’ bullet rain didn’t hit.

Vaggie was sure Nifty was…somewhere. She could hear her crazy laugh from time to time above the gunshots, explosions and screams.

She remained on the skirts of the turf war territory. Just close enough so she could see her people, and intervene if it was absolutely necessary, and far away so Charlie was not in great danger, but still able to taste the heat of battle.

After a while, Baxter had succumbed to the fight, he had gotten away just a bit too much away from his group, where he became easy prey, before he was dragged through the thick clouds of smoke, only for his glasses to be the only thing that came back.

Angel Dust ran out of bullets, and his current enemies knew about this. Husk too, and when he tried to cover Angel into safety, he became the first cannon fodder, followed shortly after for Angel.

Cherri saw the death of her friend, and when she hurried to check on her, grenade on hand, a gang member threw themselves over her, causing her to fail to throw the grenade on time.

And all of a sudden, Nifty’s maniacal laugh was no longer audible.

Vaggie saw all of this, and she only sighed tiredly. “This was prone to happen,” She thought to herself. She was too busy watching over them for a moment she forgot to keep an eye on the most important person there.

It had all happened too fast.

Vaggie heard the scream of the one member of the group who should have never come in the first place.

In one second, she was looking at the crew, fighting together.

On the next, she saw Charlie laying on the floor, shield far away from her. She could see blood running down her face. Four sinners strolling at her with wicked, twisted, dark smiles.

Her feet began running before Vaggie could even command them to. She ran fast, faster, as fast as she could, yet it never felt fast enough.

From her back, a set of gray wings with dark gray edges sprang, allowing her to take a large leap into the air, large enough so she could fall over one of the gang members enclosing Charlie, piercing her spear right through his chest and tackle him death right into the floor.

The other three took little time to react and raise their weapons, but Vaggie was faster and cut the hand with one flash vertical swing and kicked him in the face. She was about to charge straight into the one in her left, until he raised his gun at her.

Vaggie set off fly into the sky, leaving a small cloud of dust where she just was. Bullets followed her trail as Vaggie flew over their heads, dodging them like if she was an aircraft in a dogfight, just as fast as one, and lethal.

The moment the gang member ran out of bullets, Vaggie threw her spear from the sky with deadly precision, striking him right in the center of his chest. Blood tainting the tip of her weapon now.

Vaggie descended downwards in direction to her spear to retrieve it, her hair fluttering violentlyas if they were a bunch of snakes, ready to strike, but just as she was about to grab it, the last gang member left hit her with a rusted crowbar as she was reaching the floor. Vaggie hit the ground, shoulder first, and rolled through it like a ragdoll several meters. By the time she stopped, she had no time to gather herself, as the gang member had pushed her head against the floor with his hand on her face.

For a moment, Vaggie glanced at her spear, still impaled at the now dead gang member, so, so far away from her.

Vaggie managed to overpower the gang member by grabbing him by his neck and lifting him enough so she could switch places. The process repeated back and forward a couple of times before the gang member stabbed Vaggie’s hand with the sharper end of the staff on his crowbar, followed by him choking her.

Only one hand was not enough to take one of his hands off her, and even if it was, she’d still have the other fist around her neck.

Right when the lack of air began to burn her lungs, and her sight darkened more and more, Vaggie snapped her fingers, the spear on the corpse of the sinner vanished into thin air, and popped up right into existence at her free palm with a quick spark of light. Just when the last gang member noticed it, Vaggie already stabbed his abdomen, ripping his flesh open. His fist around Vaggie’s neck opened in pain and Vaggie stood up from the ground in an instant, both hands wrapped at the staff of her spear, lifting the gang member, still impaled, up in the air, only for her to smash him into the ground right back, leaving him in a small puddle of his own blood.

Once she made sure he was dead, she didn’t even allow herself to catch a breath before she checked on Charlie, still laying on the floor.

Vaggie rushed to her side, dropping her spear on the floor like it was nothing and gently grabbed Charlie by her shoulders, despite her bleeding hand.

“Charlie! Charlie! Are you okay!?” Vaggie checked her. She couldn’t decide whether to feel relief or shame on the fact Charlie only had a relatively small wound on her forehead. A thin trail of blood running down her face.

God, how could have she been so stupid?

Charlie slowly opened her heavy eyes. “Wha-what happened? What-Oh shit! Vaggie! Your face!” Charlie lifted her upper body off the ground. While still sitting, she grabbed Vaggie’s face with her hands, wrapping them softly. Her eyes opened so wide for a moment it looked like they would pop up.

The one-eyed sinner could only imagine what she looked like. Covered all in dirt and blood and who knew what else. “I’m okay, hun. It was just—”

“No, you’re not! Heavens, this is my fault, isn’t it? I got distracted a second and then…and then—”

“Is not your fault. These things happen.” Vaggie reassured, trying to come back to her commanding, firm tone. “I’m fine. I promise.”

“Vaggie,” Charlie sighed. “Alright. How are the others doing?”

Vaggie gulped down, but kept a stoic face. “Baxter and Cherri died.”

“Oh my—!”

“But is okay!“ Vaggie held Charlie firmly by her shoulders. “They are sinners, Charlie. Remember. They will come back, eventually. Perfectly safe and sound. Like if they have never left. Just like you would have wanted.”

Vaggie could still see the panic in Charlie’s eyes, just as her words sunk in her. She could feel in her hands how her shoulders softened bit by bit, alongside with her dreadful expression.

“Right…right. So, I guess this means…”

A tremble nearby interrupted Charlie. One big enough they could feel the floor beneath them shake momentarily like an earthquake. It came from one of the abandoned buildings. By the time Charlie was just wondering what was that, Vaggie already held her spear in a offensive stance, standing in front of Charlie.

The rotten doors leading to the abandoned building trembled. Whatever was happening inside was coming closer. Next the walls shook down to their cements as well. The old dust in every surface of the place fell off its edges. Their hearts dropped too.

Before any of them could have truly prepared themselves, a life-sized T-rex sinner busted out of the frontal wall of the buildings, flesh and viscera from countless sinners and hellbornes hanging from their blood-stained teeth. It charged straight at them, each step louder than the last.

Vaggie pushed Charlie out of the way before the T-rex grabbed Vaggie by her torso. Their hand being big enough to wrap her torso completely, but Vaggie could still use her arms, and by extension her spear, which she did not waste time to use and stab the T-rex’s hand, but no matter how much she tried, in comparison it was like she was a mosquito poking them with a toothpick.

A tiny part of Vaggie’s mind wished that could have been the case with her as well, but no. That couldn’t be the case when she felt like her bones cracked like the toothpick she was stabbing the T-rex with.

Just as fast as the T-rex had come, it opened its mouth with every intention to devour Vaggie. The one-eyed sinner could already see their dozens of teeth and smell its metallic breath.

As she was inches away from entering fully into their mouth, three large red sharp-pointed cones teared through the T-rex tongue, all the way to the ceiling of their mouth.

Vaggie could already tell what had happened.

That was Charlie’s trident.

She had never seen her use it like that with such power…

Before she could question any further what in the actual hell was happening, Charlie rammed her trident even further within the T-rex’s mouth through their chin, before drawing it out completely in one swift swing.

The T-rex dropped dead straight into the floor with a thunderous thump. Immediately, Charlie rushed to the T-rex’s hand Vaggie was still trapped in, wrapped between its fingers. Despite the sheer size difference between Charlie and the fingers, the princess opened them up like if she was only moving somewhat heavy boxes, not the weight of rocks.

Vaggie fell like dead weight from the fingers of the T-rex before Charlie caught her. Unlike when Vaggie found Charlie, Vaggie was moving so little it was unsettling Charlie. She was just barely breathing so quietly as if she did not want anyone could hear she was…there.

“Vaggie! Please, talk to me!”

Everything hurt. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to try and shift to make herself any more comfortable. Her bones were acid against her flesh.

As she laid on the ground, she could see Charlie returning from her demonic transformation, right as her horns finished vanishing and her red fire eyes turned to a soft yellow.

Charlie’s voice thundered against her ears and rest of senses.

It was fucking ironic.

Charlie’s touch hurt like fire, but it was also the only thing that brought her comfort.

“Charlie…I think it’s time to leave,” She said with some of her last remaining strengths.

Charlie opened her mouth, she wanted to protest, Vaggie was in no condition to move, but she had abided to not question her today. She gulped down.

“Alright.” Charlie complied with shaking voice. “Let me just…” Charlie was unsure how to proceed. She put one of Vaggie’s arms over her shoulders, and lifted her as carefully and quickly as she could, making her best so that all of Vaggie’s weight rested over Charlie. “Are you ready?” Charlie asked.

If it was not because Charlie was watching every feature of Vaggie, she would have missed the tiniest of nods she gave her.

The Hazbin Hotel was on the outskirts of Pentagram City, and Vaggie had had the brilliant idea of taking the crew to participate on the turf wars happening on the opposite side of the city.

But, sooner than later, Vaggie knew she was not getting to any other side. Her every step pounded nails on her body. Making the smallest of movements sent excruciating pain to every part of her body. She was no stranger to pain, and even less of a stranger to put up with it.

But this, this rose quickly to her limit.

They had not been going on their way for too long when Vaggie had enough.

“Charlie put me down! PUT ME DOWN PLEASE! FUCK!” Vaggie cried.

Charlie complied as quickly as she could, laying her down back on the floor on an alley. She took Vaggie’s head and placed it down on the ground as if it was made of crystal. Tears were brimming on Vaggie’s eyes as pain was getting the best of her.

“Do you need me to do anything? Anything at all. Just say it and it’s yours.”

“I want to…I want to go home. I want to—” Vaggie coughed blood. Somehow Charlie’s white skin paled even more.

“I-I know. I promise I’m trying to take you there as quickly as I can. I-ah, I’ll call my dad! Surely he can get here in no time, he can—!” It was then Charlie realized. She had left her phone on the hotel. It was prone to break due to the nature of what they had just done today.

And even if she had brought it with her, there would have been no time for anything.

Anything except…

“Charlie…”

“Yes, Vaggie, anything!” She held her hand firmly with both of her own hands.

“I…I need you to kill me.”

“W-what?!”

She must have misheard her, she must have—!

“Charlie…please…you’re the…only one I can…trust with this…” Vaggie now only had strength to turn her eye to Charlie. “…It hurts too much…”

“I…I—!” I know. I understand, she wanted to said. No, obviously she did not, she did not understand a great many things, but now was not the time for that.

“It’s okay hun…I’m a sinner…I’ll come back…like if I have never left…” Vaggie smiled at Charlie with her eye closing in. She stroke her thumb against her fingers. “Then…you can take care of me…as much as you want…”

The mere thought of killing her…despite Vaggie was giving her complete permission to do it. Heavens above, not even in her worst nightmares she would have imagined of something like this. Charlie was already crying. She knew she didn’t have a reason to. Vaggie was right. She’d return, like if she had never left at all.

“I’ve trusted you…with my life since…I met you. I know…Charlie…I know I can trust you with my death. I could trust you with a thousand lives…”

Charlie’s tears didn’t take long before they started dripping. Charlie pointlessly wiped them with her arms. “I trust you with my life too…”

“Please…”

Now was not the time for niceties. Charlie needed to be strong. Charlie tried to focus her mind and bottle up her feelings. She failed miserably, yet she kept trying.

“How do you want me to…do it?”

Fuck.

Vaggie had clearly not think this through.

Life escaping through her fingers so slowly made Vaggie reminiscent about her grandma. She died of age. In her sleep. The whole family was there. That sounded nice.

“Choke me.”

Charlie’s eyes snapped open for a moment, alongside her mouth to protest, but then again, no arguments. What other way could she think of in time to make it as painlessly as she could for her?

She would do it. Easy and simple.

Charlie’s hands lifted towards Vaggie’s throat.

With the smallest amount of pressure she could come up with, she—

“No.”

Charlie’s hands stopped touching Vaggie’s throat like if it was made of knifes, and she turned back to Vaggie, eyes full of worry, unable to blink.

“Quick.”

For the umpteenth time today, Charlie’s heart skipped a painful beat. She understood. The completely unspoken “I know you” mauled her heart.

Her hands placed themselves back on her throat, resting, as she prepared herself.

“Until we meet again…” Vaggie said before she closed her eye.

And then, she squeezed.

In one moment, Vaggie was laying peacefully on the ground. In the next one, her body tossed and turn like if she had been lit on fire.

Charlie wanted nothing more than to let go of Vaggie, more than ever when her lover’s hands held her own. She did not realize at the moment, but that was not Vaggie and her basic instincts trying to survive.

She was making sure Charlie did not let her go so she could finish the job.

It took less than a minute before Vaggie’s body stopped moving. For Charlie it felt like she had lived four lifetimes. And another four for the time Charlie spent crying for what she had just done. No matter how much she knew and reassured herself, in the grand scheme of things, everything was fine, she could not stop the tears.

Charlie could not even begin to guess how much time she actually spent in that alley, next to her lover’s corpse. By the time she stood up, her knees cracked badly, but she managed to become numb to that pain.

Maybe she was beginning to understand Vaggie a little more now.

Charlie’s now lifeless eyes watched at Vaggie’s corpse.

What was she supposed to do with her? Leave it there so some cannibals could feed off her? This was hell. Graveyards for sinners were as common as non-acid rain. Not to mention a fucking joke.

“Fuck them.” Charlie thought. She kneeled and lifted Vaggie’s corpse from the ground. She will bury her on her family’s palace. Maybe her dad would protest but she was going to do it.

Charlie took a moment to appreciate Vaggie finally at peace. Even dead she was a ray of light to her. Her eyes turned to the red sky of hell.

“Until we meet again…”

And Charlie walked off with Vaggie in her arms.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Synopsis: In the heat of Charlie and Vaggie getting down to it, Vaggie commits one small slip up, Charlie takes an unfair advantage out of it.

At the hotel—and even before that—Charlie and Vaggie’s nights together usually went two ways.

They went happy sappy and ended quiet.

Or they went quiet and ended happy sappy.

That night it would be the latter.

Vaggie had arrived to their room, but didn’t see or hear Charlie’s cheerful presence nowhere nearby.

She grunted mildly to herself. That on its own was nothing strange. That had become sort of an occurrence between them since they started Charlie’s redemption program. She carried on and went to the kitchen to prepare dinner and spend the end of the day together.

Shortly after, Vaggie could hear the door open and close softly, followed by steps just as soft, caught by Vaggie’s vigilant ears.

It was not like she even needed any of those sensorial clues. Charlie just emanated such a presence Vaggie could almost detect her by just being near her.

What she couldn’t detect, however, were the sinister eyes narrowing on her with malicious intentions.

Said sensation only amplified as Charlie walked up to Vaggie’s back. Deep giggles followed by a touch just as deep on her arms, thin and long white fingers met wary grey shoulders, giving a light massage as Charlie rested her head on top of one of Vaggie’s shoulders and her face on her neck. Skin against skin.

“Hey hun,” Vaggie greeted a worn smile instinctively raised.

“Smells delicious.”

“Well missy, why don’t you put the plates and I’ll—”

“I wasn’t talking about that.” Her words smiled—if that was even possible.

Before Vaggie could wonder and ask she meant, Charlie embraced Vaggie in a hug, stretching her arms across all of her torso and pulled her closer. Close enough Vaggie could feel her back against Charlie’s chest and her warm breath before she gave her neck deep kisses.

“I’m hungry of you.” Charlie grumbled as she began to drag Vaggie alongside her out of the kitchen.

The way Charlie fondled her hands against Vaggie’s sides made her legs melt like jelly, making her later attempts to resist fall in vain.

Charlie’s fingers running so lightly across her skin made Vaggie shiver as she put her down on the bed.

“That’s not fair…” Vaggie panted as she failed to keep her stare grievous and strong, her own smile betrayed her.

“Is not my fault you have ticklish skin, my itty-bitty moth.” Lust filled her every word. Her voice deepened the longer she maneuvered Vaggie like a doll.

“I’m not sm-small!”

“What was that? Your voice sounds so cute when you’re nervous.”

Vaggie managed to make her brow turn bold. “If I was nervous, could I do this?” Vaggie put her hands at Charlie’s waist and drew her closer to herself. Charlie now sat on top of Vaggie’s hips. Close enough Vaggie connected her lips to hers, at the same time she began to work up on unbuttoning Charlie’s tuxedo. Experience allowed to do just that with her eye closed.

Charlie did not lag behind and began to do the same; she had an easier time, Vaggie was not the one who spent fifteen minutes in the mirror just to make sure she looked stupendous, not to mention her clothes were also easier to put on and to remove; much to Charlie’s glee.

Sooner than later, the two of them were wrapped intimately between blankets, flesh, sweat and panting gasps every few seconds.

“Fuck…Charlie!” Her eye rolled to the back of her skull as she arched her back, hands wrapped tightly around at the large bump Charlie’s head made in the blankets. Said bump moved forward until Charlie revealed her face and she rested her head slightly above Vaggie’s chest.

“You like that?”

“Y-yes!” She panted. Each sigh drained all the lungs out of her lungs.

Charlie narrowed her eyes in amusement and poked one of her pink cheek with one of her fingers. “Hmm…I don’t think I believe you! You’ll have to try a little harder than that.”

“Charlie, for God’s sake! Please!”

“What does God has to do with this?” Charlie said with an unfitting natural tone.

Suddenly all of her warm—and more than warm—presence vanished for a second.

Struggling and gasping, Vaggie opened her eye and stared confused at Charlie across their bed. Did she do something wrong? It was her time to top now?

“Is something wrong, hun?”

“Hm? Oh, no! No, is just…it feels weird to mention…him now out of all moments.” Charlie’s eyes fell into nowhere specifically at their room, lost somewhere in between their bathroom and the balcony. Her face filled with that expression she had when the bolts inside her brain turning.

“Charlie, what are you even talking about?”

“I’m saying it feels weird for you to mention my grandpa.”

Vaggie blinked. “Your wha—”

It was then it hit her.

Charlie was Lucifer’s daughter. And Lucifer’s father was…and therefore Charlie’s grandfather was…

Oh.

Oh.

“Oh fuck…so when I…”

Charlie bit her lips trying to suppress her laughter before she burst it all out, still laying in top of Vaggie’s torso.

“I killed the mood, didn’t I?” Vaggie’s face filled with wrinkles in shame.

“Hey!” Charlie said. “You may be as wrinkly as a dry grape someday, that doesn’t mean I won’t still drag you to bed every night!”

In Vaggie’s mind, the mental image of herself being as old as her actual grandpa when she was alive was certainly NOT helping her right now.

“Should I start saving up for oxygen tanks from now on? One day you’ll walk into a room and you’ll just take my breath away!”

“Charlie, that was a horrible pun.” Her face started to blush in a dark grey.

“Oh My,” Charlie feigned an old lady’s voice while smiling from ear to ear. “ThE yOuTh NoWaDayS iS sO dIsReSpEcTfUl!”

“You are literally TWO HUNDRED years older than me!” The blush increased.

“ThAt’S nO wAy To TrEaT yOuR eLdErS!” Charlie waved her index finger from side to side pseudo-scoldingly.

“Please stop!”

“WhEn ArE yOu GoInG tO vIsIt Me? I gEt AaAaLl LoNeLy HeRe In ThIs OlD hOuSe!”

“I’d rather drink coffee all week!”

Vaggie got off Charlie and laid next to her, hands covering her face as she tried and failed to hide her embarrassment.

“BaCk In My DaY, MeN UsEd To Be MuCh KiNdEr!”

“Charlie, I’m not—!”

A knock came into their door around at 2AM. Vaggie managed dragged herself out of Charlie’s playful and unwilling-to-let-go hold and dressed up as quick as she could. She opened the door as she rushed to put up the straps of her undershirt and found Husk, Angel, Cherri and a few other patrons at their door. Various degrees of baggy eyes and tiredness filled all of their faces.

“I can’t believe I’ll be the one to say this,” Angel said, wearing a large pink robe. “But can you two goddamn quiet it down?”

“Vaggieeeee! I’m all lonely hereeee! Come back to bed!”

FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14242641/3/Cops-and-Thugs

AO3: Cops and Thugs - Chapter 3

Summary: Vagatha finds herself WAY out of her element, in multiple ways, under pressure, and with a shaking, ambivalent trust. Charlotte tries not to blow up her furtive operation and the officer's trust on her face.

The lobby in Vox Tower consisted of a large party room. A free bar to the right, and a casino for all the guests to the left. In the center, staff had place down tables for all guests to eat, while at the very end of the room there was a dancing area with a small orchestra playing on top of an scenario. Sandy and autumn colors predominated around with some red and black splashes.

The party room was crowded with several small groups built by important figures. Lawyers, judges, politicians and doctors.

All of them had one thing in common.

They were highly profitable if exploited or manipulated.

But there was one kind in that party any criminal would kill an honest working family man to get their hands on.

Cops.

The perfect option when someone didn’t want to get their hands dirty and a more than ideal pair of eyes in low streets. Perfect to send regard and messages with an intimate touch.

Meanwhile, Vagatha struggled to maintain herself composed, cool as metal. Such task was easier said than done when Charlotte insisted on dancing, her eyes bounced to every person they ever came close to and saw her face and could recognize her if she ever messed up this up, or with any of them or her mask fell.

“Is this an actual part of the plan?” Vagatha said as she adjusted her snake mask over her face. At least she was grateful. That ridiculous mask covered her embarrassment as they danced their way through the other guests nearby. The same thing could not be said about her chest and shoulders in the blue dress Charlotte got for her. At least she calmed herself by wearing some actual blue jeans beneath her dress.

“Would you believe me if I say yes?” Charlotte failed to contain a few chuckles. Despite she wore a wolf mask, it was difficult not to notice her glee. In the same way, it was hard for her not to shine on her own light despite she wore a black formal shirt and pants.

“You do not really think that is a good idea, or yes?”

At the other side of the party room, dozens of tables were set and about a third of the guests were at them, drinks on hand and laughs rolling off tongues already. At the same time, a bunch of services carts came in and out with full and empty plates and a group of waiters and waitresses took care of the guests. Knowing who was hosting the party, Vagatha wouldn’t eat nothing even if she was at the brink of starvation.

Charlotte tilted her head enigmatically. “Don’t worry. People in these parties are like, those small towns in the middle of nowhere, where everyone knows everyone…?”

“Aja?”

“Well, these parties are like that, but the opposite. Everyone is busy with their own stuff.”

“So it is like apathy.”

“I’d rather call it uninterest. Is like that saying goes, no one is truly lazy, they just don’t have the right motivation.”

Charlotte made Vagatha spin beneath her arm. The double agent cop stumbled with her own feet, and she would have fallen if not by the swift hands of her fox-masked companion. Charlotte grabbed her by her waist, putting her hand at her low back and she let out a small muffled yelp at the unexpected touch.

Vagatha lifted her eyes from the floor she almost fell to. When she looked back up to Charlotte, sunlight hovered upon her blonde hair. It shone as if it was made of gold.

Despite the masks covered most of their faces, Vagatha found herself making an effort to encapsulate that moment in her mind. She was unsure if Charlotte was doing the same, but the way she took her time to lift her up gave her mind time to wander.

“What are those?” Charlotte broke the silence.

“What are what?” Vagatha made an effort to keep her voice neutral, though she doubted she did a good job.

“This…” Charlotte tapped gently her fingers at Vagatha’s back, until she could feel them against a small bulge at one of her back pockets in her pants.

Hard. Circular. Small. Thin.

“Are those…handcuffs?”

Vagatha didn’t know if she should feel angry or embarrassed, she just asked: “Did you expect me to come into this place without something to defend myself?”

For an awkward amount of time, Charlotte just stared at her, while still holding and keeping her from falling to the floor with just the lightest degree of gritting her teeth, then she chuckled, shrugged her shoulders, and pulled her up, but as she did just that, Charlotte grumbled in pain, she rushed to hold her left shoulder tightly and turned away from Vagatha.

“Are you okay?”

“Y-yes!” Charlotte smiled at her. “You don’t need to worry about me! Just my shoulder, is still sore for our last…encounter. It doesn’t hurt as much as it used to! Don’t worry!”

“You already said that. I guess I should thank you for saving me. Even when you did not have to.”

“Oh, please! Don’t beat yourself like that. It was not your fault,” She assured as she insisted on ignoring and smiling through the pain. She adjusted her steps as they went back to dance to move her shoulder as little as possible.

“It WAS my fault.” Vagatha quickly turned her head around once she realized she had risen her voice. I was the one who shot first.”

“And you wouldn’t have shot in the first place if I had not, er, incited you to come to that…” Charlotte lowered her voice for a brief moment. “…To that abandoned school. It’s quite simple logic.”

“You cannot not blame just because I did something because you did something first.”

“Okay, I hear you, but! What if, it was the other way around?” Charlotte stared at her expectantly, praying for her to play along.

“What do you mean?”

“Is like, I build a hospital. That hospital saves a cop, and that cop saves a person. Technically, one could say I saved that person, right? So if something good happened because of me, all is well! But when not, I can only deal with-augh!”

“Did I pull too hard?”

“No, no. Is just getting harder to ignore this shoulder soreness.” She stretched her arm stiffly but it only worsened her pain.

“Mind if…I…help you? When you pass enough time with cops, you get to hear how they complain from muscles pains. If you are lucky, you get to hear some of their, eh…remedios. I forgot the word.”

“Solutions?”

“Right. Let me try something.” Vagatha separated herself from Charlotte. Suddenly she was a lot colder than she knew, she walked behind her and put her elbow right beneath her shoulder. Then she moved her elbow in circles against Charlotte’s muscles.

“Oh!”

“Did that hurt?”

“No! Is just…a little higher. I can take it!”

Being so close to her, Vagatha could see a little pass Charlotte’s black clothes and spotted where her bruises started. Reluctantly, she put her elbow over her shoulder and moved again in circles.

“Oh-ho! Ha! Hahahaha! It tickles!” Charlotte tried and failed to contain her laughs just as she failed to keep herself from twirling and curling over herself. The people around them looked at them weirded, as if they had grown a pair of limbs each right there.

Vagatha would have been too self-conscious and embarrassed, if it had not been for Charlotte’s laughter, sweet as the catchiest song that became a summer hit.

Vagatha found herself enthralled by it and wanting to hear it as long as possible.

“Higher! Ha-ha!” A little higher! I can take it! Yes, right there, ah. Okay, okay. I think that’s enough for now.” Charlotte turned around and took Vagatha’s hands between her own.

“Thanks.”

“No need to mention.” Vagatha reciprocated awkwardly. “But seriously, I would appreciate it if you keep it a secret.”

“Only if you keep mine.” She winked at her and a finger over her lips.

“What? What secr-oh. Oh.”

Charlotte couldn’t help herself but giggle. “Has anyone ever told you you look cute when you get nervous?”

“No.” Vagatha’s eyes half-closed. “Because when I get nervous, someone ends up hurt.”

“Mood.”

“What?”

“Nothing!” Charlotte raised her palms in front of her shoulders. Right when she had every intention to go back to dance, the blonde mob bumped into someone with her back.

“Sorry!” She said out of instinct as she turned around, finding she had bumped into a man tall like a tower.

The man slowly turned around, showing the edges of his owl mask. The sun shimmered through the colored glass panels at the ceiling over him. His eyes brightened red for a moment as he stared at them over his shoulder. The tall man’s eyes widened, he blinked momentarily. He turned to them, the red in his eyes vanished. He had a distinctive lack of facial hair. His actual black hair had a denotive combed grey lock. He wore an elegant yet simple dark blue suit with white details and a white puff tie.

Vagatha’s fear exacerbated by calling someone—anyone’s—attention. She could feel her fight-or-flight response crawling up her spine. Her hands twisted and shifted over her waist, as if she was looking for a knife—a large one would help her calm down, she knew—or anything spiky.

Her racing mind came to a halt when she heard Charlotte talk.

“Stolas?”

“Charlotte?” He said.

“Stolas!”

“Charlotte!”

The blond woma ran from Vagatha’s side directly into him, who reciprocated with open arms into a tight hug. Stolas lifted her a few inches above the ground, rubbing the side of his head on top of hers.

“Oh, darling! I can’t believe it! I would have never guessed that is you! I mean-look at you! You’ve turned into a real woman!”

“Stolas…I can’t breathe.”

“Oh, sorry, sorry.” He let her go. “It’s been so long since I last saw you. I just wish it were under better circumstances.”

“This is the guy you told me about?” Vagatha stepped into the conversation.

“Yes, we’ve actually helped each other several times before. Some of my, er, “projects” wouldn’t have been possible without him. Legalities can be a real b-word.”

“Oh please, Charlotte. You’re giving me too much credit.” He laughed. “I just took the boring problems out of your way so you could spread your wings over this city, as the angel it so desperately needs.”

Charlotte laughed cheerfully as she rubbed her hair behind her ear. “I also think you’d look cute with wings, or fur too.”

“Perhaps. But enough of me, what’s your name, my lady?”

Vagatha had to restrain herself from pressing her lips in a straight line, instead her eyes fell into Charlotte, looking for reassurance and she nodded to her.

“It’s okay. He’ll help us with our plan.”

Vagatha breathed deeply as still as she could. “Jiménez. Vagatha Jiménez. Officer cop.” She extended her hand out of awkwardness, but Stolas reciprocated with great vigor.

“A cop!? How splendid! Oh, what a tight grip! I can see why you picked her! Ah-pleasure to meet you, darling. My name is Stolas Goetia, if you ever need help with legal troubles, I’ll be happy to pull a few strings. Now, now, I know it may sound like blackmailing, but I prefer to call it—“

“Shared interests?” Vagatha finished.

“How did you know I would say that?”

“A hunch.”

Charlotte laughed before she covered her mouth with her hand in a hurry before Vagatha continued.

“Shouldn’t we worry about your wife, or, whoever you came up with here?”

It was there Stolas smiled sadly, trying hard to keep up his self-sufficiency.

“I…” Charlotte stuttered. “I don’t think we need to—“ But then she was cut off by Stolas.

“It’s alright. It would be unreasonable of me to expect everyone to be knowledgeable about my personal life and my misfortunes.”

“So-sorry, I didn’t know she passed away.”

“Passed?” Stolas laughed. “I wish! But no, darling, we finally just got a divorce. It was the best for us. Anyways, I meant what I said. In fact, that’s the main reason to why I’m where here while you two…”

Charlotte shook her head with a nervous smile, arms crossed together in an X.

“…Are…doing whatever you need to. I’ll keep an eye on Vox.”

“Thanks Stolas. I know you’re risking yourself more than you should.”

“Nonsense! Anything for my little Via.”

“Who is Via?”

Before Vagatha could get an answer, the clinking sound of a glass repeated several times. All of the guests turned to the orchestra’s scenario where a man with an fox mask stood proud and mighty. His suit light and warm brown colors like the party colors around him, with a black undershirt. Crowds gravitated towards him to kiss his ass as they showered him with praises.

“No, no. Thanks to you,” Vox laughed. “I hope you’ve been enjoying yourself, if you like what you’ve gotten so far, you should consider to…”

“We should get going.” Charlotte spoke over Vox quietly to Vagatha. “Keep your mask on and follow my lead.”

“Good luck,” Stolas wished as they strode away.

The two woman speedwalked through the crowds. Charlotte grabbed a glass with champagne, took a large sip from it and spilled the rest into a plant when no one was looking. Once they passed the crowds and into where the waiters pulled in and out food carts both full and empty. They continued on until the constant sounds of cookware was just a buzzing sound in their ears.

They walked past even further all that until they reached the a warehouse inside the Vox’s building that led to the emergency stairs of the building upwards. At the other side of the room there was also a driveway currently closed with a metal curtain.

Charlotte peeked around the corner, as she expected, she found a guard at the door to the stairs, dressed all in black with dark sunglasses.

“Wait, here,” Charlotte whispered to Vagatha.

“W-wait!” She grabbed her arm before she could walk away.” What are you gonna do?

“Clear the path. Don’t worry. You’ll know when to come in.”

Charlotte cleared her throat and entered the guard’s line of sight stumbling.

“Woooo-! Ho-haha! Hohoooo!” She laughed out loud. She walked as if she was about to fall in her every step.

“Hey! You! Stop it right there!” The guard shouted and stomped towards her.

Charlotte put her hands over her head over dramatically. “Oh please! Don’t scream so loud, my eyes hurt!”

“Why aren’t you at the party?” He turned her to have her face-to-face.

“I’m my oooooown party, didn’t you know!? If you want, I could invit-oh my god!” Her eyes opened wide upon seeing the guard and got closer to him. “Look at you! Such big arms! You must like, lift all the weight of the world with your—!“

Charlotte stopped abruptly, she covered her mouth with her hand and rushed to an open box nearby and threw up.

“Oh my goodness!...I think I just threw up my lunch!” Her hand rested over her stomach, clutching at it. Then her hand fell limp to her side, wrapped in a fist, as the shadow of the guard overlapped Charlotte.

Vagatha watched the encounter unfold. The guard was distracted.

This was her moment!

The cop sneaked past the two of them until the door was just a few steps away. Her hand hovered over the doorknob, she stared back. At first, to make sure she had not been spotted, but then, she saw Charlotte.

She could leave her, let her ass get eaten get caught and save her own.

Her hand wrapped around the knob, but it refused to turn it. Vagatha clutched her teeth trying to get herself to do what needed to be done.

Her hand fell limp for a moment before she walked away from the door towards the guard and Charlotte as quietly as she could.

Vagatha pulled a retractable stick from her pants beneath her dress. She drew the weapon open in one swift swing, a distinguishable CLICK sound popped and the guard’s ears raised up subtly, but it was too late by then.

Vagatha hit him in the head. His body became stiff as he straightened himself, as if anger and hot blood rushed to run through his veins, but then he fell onwards. Charlotte stepped aside before his body crushed her, instead, his body knocked over the trash can.

“What did you do!?” Charlotte turned to Vagatha.

“What? You said I would know when to come in!”

“I meant it as in, you walking through the door. That was my distraction for!”

“Well maybe next time be more specific!”

“I had it under control, see?” She opened her hand and showed a small pepper spray.

“You seriously thought to take him out with that?”

“Yes?” Charlotte stared down at her pepper spray with kicked puppy eyes. “You know, what? Just, help me hide the corpse-I-I mean the bod…the-the guard…you know what I mean.”

The body of the guard ended inside the box Charlotte pretended to throw up at. Before she put the cover on top of the box, she took the guard’s radio.

The two women crossed the door and began to climb the evacuation stair upwards—Charlotte went first, leading the way—much to Vagatha’s discomfort— She would have been in charge, but this was not her plan and she was not here out of will. The night Charlotte had revealed her about what she planned, Vagatha could tell she had been told solely what she needed to know and little else, she only realized this after she had the time to process it, and come to terms to not ask too much for the fear she may end up sleeping with the fishes.

The spiral of stairs went up as far as Vagatha could see when she peeked out the handrail. Countless stairsteps later, Charlotte stopped at a door. She opened it as quietly as she could and peeked inside of it. She turned to Vagatha and nodded at her vigorously.

They entered a small corridor leading to a circular hallway connecting several halls to a nexus they walked into. At the edge of the circle, past the glass handrail, they could see the floors below all the way down to the party taking place at the first floor. Vagatha glanced above the crystal handrails.

After sneaking around, they two found a corridor. By the way Charlotte giggled with childish excitement, Vagatha could only suppose—not to mention pray—they were going into the right direction.

They passed by a private cinema room. The tables around were filled with open alcohol bottles, broken glasses, plastic cups and white powder in straight, thick lines over the tables and seats.

Mid-way as they crossed pass it and turned around a corner, Charlotte stopped suddenly, and her cop companion could only bump her face against Charlotte’s back.

“What is—” Vagatha asked as she peeked above Charlotte’s shoulder. A shadow hovered at the end of the hallway around the corner, growing larger by the second.

Someone was coming.

Vagatha’s first reaction was to retreat backwards to where they came from, only to see another shadow coming at the entrance of the hallway.

Next to them Vagatha found a door, the janitor’s closet, and shoved Charlotte inside as quickly and quietly as she could. After she herself entered, the two of them hid at each side of the door, Vagatha signed vigorously with her finger over her lips as footsteps outside drew closer.

They could see two silhouettes through the frosted window.

“Hey, dude. Thought Vortex had taken your place.”

“No one has heard from him since the last hit he was involved.”

“Bet they caught his ass.”

“I actually talked to him the night before that, you know? He said something about someone breaking into his house and they stole his—”

“Viper-10, where you are? Your post is empty.”

The radio Charlotte broke the fragile silence inside the closet. They looked around confused, followed by a few quick:

“The fuck was that?”

“That wasn’t me.”

Their exchange only left the option to check the janitor’s closet.

Whereas the guards were left confused, Charlotte and Vagatha were left with a compacted hysteria.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU TURNED IT OFF?!” Vagatha whispered screaming. It took her all of her willpower not to twitch her hands around Charlotte’s neck right on the spot.

“WE NEEDED TO KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING!”

“NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!”

“JUST LET ME THINK!”

“WE DON’T HAVE TIME!”

Vagatha turned to every direction inside the closet, hoping to find some secret passage like they were in a movie.

Meanwhile a silent chaos grew, and pending doom approached the door, Charlotte had remained eerily silent. Her eyes fixated both at Vagatha and nothing.

Gears turned inside her head, her shoulders became wider, her head tilted up and she breathed back to life.

“Give me your handcuffs.”

“What?!”

“Give them to me! There’s no time!” Her hands frisked through Vagatha’s dress until her hands reached her handcuffs at her pocket. “Do you trust me?”

“What?” Before she could begin to process what she meant, Charlotte put the handcuffs at her. Not only she stopped there, she grabbed her own pepper spray and put it right on the holes of her mask.

“Please don’t hate me for this.”

“Who’s in there?!” One of the guards outside demanded. He nodded to his partner and he raised his gun.

Without waiting any longer, the guard dashed into the door to reach for the knob and opened the door with a wide swing.

“AAAGGH-!” A scream exited from the closet, as unexpectedly it came and caught off the guards, so it vanished, replaced with continuous heavy, yet suppressed sighs.

Inside the closet, Vagatha rested weary against the closet’s wall, head limping, her arms bended against her back held reluctantly by Charlotte. The cop’s eyes were tightly closed, her lids covered in an ugly red, open-mouthed and breathing heavily.

“And you stay there!” Charlotte said, then she pretended to just notice the guards’ presence.

The four of them stayed where they stood, all expectantly to see what the others would do. One of the guards spoke first.

“What—“

“Why did you leave your posts?!” Charlotte shouted at them with the bossiest and filled with authority voice she could muster. “You better start doing your goddamn job or I’ll break your asses with my foot!”

“I-we, thought there was—

“You thought nothing! While you two slothful idlers were thinking, this brat managed to get up here because of you!” Charlotte slid Vagatha out of the closet grabbing her by her shoulders as gentle as she could.

“And who the hell are ya, to begin with?!”

“You should be grateful I’m not your boss, so you better get out of here this instant, and I’ll overlook this before I report this—”

“Viper-10, where are you? Status report.”

Charlotte’s radio picked it up where she left it. She tried to pretend to saunter, but the two guards stepped in front of her, just enough to give her a loud and clear image.

So she needed to give a louder and clearer one.

She gently left Vagatha resting against the wall, and then shoved her way through, pushing one of them with her shoulder against them. When finally she managed to give them her back, she allowed to swallow the heavy gulp obstructing her throat and cleared it.

“This is…” Charlotte stopped to think for a second. “This is Viper-2. Viper-10 is missing. I caught a potential suspect. Over.” She added quickly after a moment of hesitation.

Charlotte didn’t need to turn around to feel the guard’s eyes burning the back of her head, still she couldn’t help herself but to peek behind anyways. The radio remained silent for about twenty seconds, but for Charlotte it appeared to be an eternity.

It didn’t help her feel on control the way the guards shifted their guns at their hands. So lightly, yet so eager. Her mind raced with a dozen ways to get out of there, and each and every single one of them ended with her and Vagatha kicking the bucket.

“Understood Viper-2. Bring the suspect to the boss’ office. We will join you soon.”

Charlotte lifted her eyes from the radio up to muster her best “I told you” face, but cracks of “Can you disappear?” filled her eyes. She grabbed Vagatha by her shoulders and prompted her to walk with her. To Vagatha’s credit, she pretended to struggle under her grip and tried to break free.

“Let’s go,” She said, loud enough so it was clear she didn’t just meant Charlotte. “Come on, move it, people! We don’t have all day! The quicker you escort me, the quicker you can get away from this,” she said on purpose avoiding their eyes.

One of the guards growled, no bothering to hide it and the four of them got on their way through the second floor.

Vagatha’s eyes had just started to recover from the pepper spray. Charlotte looked slyly down into the lobby, hoping for her ace under the sleeve not to get into too much trouble for what he was doing for them.

For Stolas, Charlotte was a sort of a daughter, and just like any competent mentor, he would worry when he spent too long uniformed about her, while she was doing something so dangerous as trying to take down a politician running for mayor.

But as he re-learned to be honest with himself, he knew he would be even more worried if Charlotte didn’t do what she needed to do. What this city needed to do.

Pentagram city would be a darker and more gruesome place without all of her selfless actions.

And yet, Stolas couldn’t help himself but to roll in this mental loop. He could only pray that cop she was working with covered her back half as much as she knew Charlotte would cover hers.

The cheers and praises brought Stolas out of his mind, as Vox continued keeping his audience wrapped around his finger.

“…offer. As we give them their rightful and well-deserved place. These, once-delinquent citizens have been reformed in my new rehabilitating program. Criminals jailed for all kinds of crimes. From violent ones, whom have been casted by our beloved, but faulty city, to those honest, working family men caught in the need to form part of the criminal underworld. We are making the effort to get them all under our wing.

“Once our offered volunteers conclude this progam, we give them a new job and life, based on their previous one. We do so with the objective of making the transition easier and less volatile, putting our reformed subjects into a familiar environment.”

Vox’s smile grew a bit sharper. “I called this program ‘Good demons.’ You’ll see, the other day I—"

“You love to hear yourself talk, don’t you?” Stolas interrupted his speech. People around him stepped back, as if he had ignited himself in flames out of nowhere, giving him a direct line of sight with Vox across the crowd.

“I give my people what they want. All of my people.” Vox raised his arms to his sides while looking at his guests. “What I don’t know is what are you here for. Is not for appearances and most definitely not for your ex-wife,” He sneered.

Laughs briefly filled the room. Stolas couldn’t help but look over his shoulder with narrow eyes and clenched his fist.

“No need to gloat about it, Vox. Is not a secret. Everyone here knows Stella is this close to divorce me.”

“At last. Good for her. But the question remains, Goetia. What are you here for?” His voice grew darker. He walked towards him until they were face to face. Vexation meeting with mockery.

Countless eyes rested over him. If he slipped up, someone would notice. Someone would know. If it was not Vox, with his complete attention at him, monitoring his smallest reaction, it would be someone else.

“I’m here to make sure you stay in your place, Hamill,” Stolas affirmed.

A laugh scrapped its way out of Vox throat before he asked, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t play dumb. Not with me, but with your guests.”

Vox rolled his eyes as he turned his back to Stolas. “Everyone knows I was a convicted man, but I changed myself so that people like me could become useful once more. I’m not the one here chained to the past.”

“Is one of those citizens here?”

Vox stopped on his tracks and Stolas raised his chin. He’s got him.

“I’ll spare you the embarrassment and conclude they are indeed not here, because, what? They are busy? They are not prepared yet?”

“And they won’t be,” Vox said, looking at Stolas over his shoulder before turning back to him. “I can only change those who want to change themselves. If you don’t believe me just look at me!”

“Bullshit,” He thought before speaking. “How high was the reentry ratio from your ‘rehabilitated convicts again?”

“I never said it was perfect.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“This city needs a cleanse. From the lowest streets I myself started from. All the way up to the high spheres with all those so-called ‘good doers’ that run this city. The enforcers of their short-sighted agenda, many who I’ve had the opportunity to meet.

“I’m the one to achieve what this city deservers! So power is given to the people it belongs to.” Vox raised his arms. “My people.”

A few members of the public clapped as soon as Vox finished. Slow at first, fastening their claps as more guests joined and the cheering.

Everyone clapped except Stolas, refusing to fall under Vox’s political nonsense. He could only hope Charlotte didn’t succumb to her own pressure.

The two guards escorted Vagatha to Vox’s office at the top of his penthouse. His office blocked by a double door. Vagatha shoved her way through the guards while still holding Charlottebefore leaving her body and face rest against the wall as gently as she could before she grabbed the doorknob, but couldn’t turn it. She gave a quick glance at Charlotte, who realized her problem as well.

“You’re dismissed.” She managed to said without choking and recomposed herself turning to them. “You better hope I don’t see you away from your posts again or the very last thing you’ll be good for will be using your corpses for Halloween decoration. Imagine people passing by your hanging, rotting bodies on the street and they smile at you.”

Vagatha’s inert body tensed. She could hear them cursing to themselves as they walked away.

Only when they were way past the corridor’s corner Charlotte allowed herself to deflate like a balloon and bended her body like a puppet without a hand holding it.

“I was not too rough with you, was I?! Oh god I think I overdid it back there!” Charlie apologized as soon as she was certain they had privacy.

Vagatha grumbled. “Fuck… my eyes…” She removed her mask and put her fingers over her red, teary eyes.

“Wait wait wait. Don’t do that! I’ll get you water.”

“Oh yeah. Sure. You can go and ask the guards who escorted us if you ask them nicely.”

Charlotte repressed a sorry moan. “Maybe we can get something inside here,” She said looking at the door. She frisked her hair and pulled a small clip and kneeled in front of the door.

“You know how to pick a lock?” Vagatha asked dumbfounded.

“Yeah! I mean, how do you think I got into your apartment that night?” She smirked at Vagatha until she heard herself out and saw the baffled expression at Vagatha’s face. “Wait…Now that I think about it…” Charlotte turned away back to avoid blushing and focused back on the door.

Click!

“There we go!” She cheered, but Vagatha immediately hushed her down. “There we go.” She repeated in a quieter voice.

They rushed inside and left a big internal sigh once Charlotte closed the door, allowing herself to relax for a second until Vagatha pulled her to see her face-to-face.

“Care to explain what is this nonsense!?” She said while removing her mask and pointed at her red eyes.

“So so so sorryyyy! I swear I only did it to sell the act! I promise I’ll make it up to you!”

“I couldn’t care less for your promises,” She grunted as she looked around the office. To her luck, she found a rather large tank fish resting on a thick black wood slab with golden finishes at the edges. The tank contained a couple slim fishes that looked like someone had cut the tentacles of a dying, malnourished and sick octopus. Vagatha thought of just diving her head into the tank fish, but looking at those weird fishes’ black eyes sent shivers down her spine and a bad feeling. Instead, she grabbed an empty whisky bottle nearby and filled with the tank’s water and poured it over her eyes.

While Vagatha took care of her eyes, Charlotte explored the office like a child entering into their parents’ bedroom while they were asleep. One wrong step and the all the people below would find her out just because.

The rest of Vox’s office was just as luxurious as the rest of his building. Furniture that would cost one year of Vagatha’s salary each, and at the end of the spacious room, a large window that touched the floor and the ceiling, giving a vast view over Pentagram City as far as her eyes could distinguish until the buildings blended together. And just in front of the window. A desk with a computer.

Bingo!

She hurried to the computer, already turned on. Great. She looked at her pocket and pulled out an USB drive, she smiled to herself before she plugged it into the CPU. “Thanks, Baxter, I owe you one.” Charlotte went through the security measures like butter. She would have gone file after file, but she figured time was not on her side so she made a copy of everything she could get her fingers on and moved it to her drive.

As she expected that would take an awful amount of time, but she could bare it.

After his verbal sparring with Vox, Stolas stayed at the bar pretending to drink his problems away, but the man had to drag himself out from his half-pseudo self-pity. A group of six guards walking in unison, all led by a guard with knife scars on his face and the tattoo of a snake going down his neck, before his black suit uniform. All of them speed walked until they escaped Stolas’ sight.

He drank the rest of his glass in one quick sip and rushed to get to a quieter, eyes-empty zone. He reached for his phone and dialed a number until someone answered.

“Hey. Listen, I need…no, I can’t go to your place. I need to ask you a favor.” Stolas peeked a view outside, just in time to see the guards getting on the elevator before the door closed. “How fast can you gather your crew?”

The dubious legal duo upstairs were still waiting after 25 minutes. Even amidst the relative calm they had, Vagatha’s unrest remained at her side, always waiting for the second shoe to drop.

Both her eyes and mind bounced on how many ways could someone get inside.

Breaking through the window, blowing up the ceiling. Someone already inside the room and she had not notice.

That last possibility wasn’t too off the mark, considering how she ”encountered” in her own apartment the person who dragged her to trespass and steal private property.

She just wished this get over already.

“What are we even looking for?”

“I’ll know when I see it!” Charlotte hopped her head above the monitor with a bright smile and tilted her head, but as soon as her face hid back behind the screen, Charlotte let a deep, quiet sigh…

What she saw was slowly crawling its way into her top ten worst things she’s ever seen in her life. She had to force herself to click through.

Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click

Psssh!

The sound of the party zoned out of Charlotte’s mind as her ears rose like a dog hearing the mailman coming. She raised her head and saw Vagatha had taken a picture of Charlotte in Vox’s chair with her phone.

“What are you doing?”

“I wanna make crystal clear, after this party is over, you and me are never going to see each other again?” Vagatha put her phone in front of Charlotte’s face, showing the picture she just took. “If you ever come close to me, I’ll send this to Vox and tell him who you are and what you’ve done. Are we clear?”

Silence ran through the office, if Charlotte focused enough, she could believe she heard all the happy guests dancing and laughing on the first floor. Vagatha expected for the moment Charlotte dropped her act and threw an unhinged threat at her on how she intended to gut her and her family. Cold and calculated, or burst in the heat of rage, whatever.

“If something goes wrong, is there anything you would like me do for you?”

Vagatha turned to her like if she had just grown-up horns on her head out of nowhere.

“Why you would care about that much for me? “I have things more urgent to deal with, like not getting killed and hang up on the place you brought me in.”

Charlotte’s smile quivered. Her eyes fell down on the screen. The information copy was eighty percent of the way. She sighed and whispered to herself. “I guess making the city a better place doesn’t include me.” Charlotte spun on the chair as she let herself melt on it, staring at the large view behind her. “Makes sense.”

After the new realization, Charlotte couldn’t say nothing more, and Vagatha couldn’t be bothered to bark back at her. Maybe this “job” had not been as endangering as they would have thought, but it left them with just that flavor in their mouths.

In the new gloomy silence Vagatha could spot light vibrations on the floor, like if the party below had suddenly decided to raise their fun a few notches up.

“Did you hear—”

“Quiet,” Vagatha hissed. She attuned her ear to eliminate background noise as she walked on eggshells closer to the door. Footsteps. As quick as they came, they stopped. She put her ear next to the door and her senses filled with a cold, deep, mechanical click before she could drop herself down to the ground with less than a second to spare.

BANG!

The party below hushed. They tried to guess from which direction had that sound come. It did not help Vox’s guards rushed to him, pushing aside guests. Only Vox himself remained the most unfazed, staring at the ceiling in his office’s direction, as if he could see what was happening through the walls until one of his guards grabbed his shoulder.

“Sir, we need to put you in—”

“Tak me back to my office, now!” He pushed his hand away and walked into the elevator without a care for his party anymore.

“Vox!” Stolas called out to him. “What’s going on!?” People need to know! Vox? Vox!?” Stolas got into his way before he could leave.

“Get out of my way Goetia!”

Vox tried to walk around him, but Stolas always moved to where he’d moved. One of Vox’s bodyguards grabbed him by his suit, punched him in the gut and tossed him to the floor.

Charlotte peeked one eye from the side of the desk, only to see for a second the bullet hole in the door lock before it was kicked wide open by the guard with a snake tattoo, he stood at the door, pistol in hand emanating a powerful aura, like if he owned the place, or would make it his own.

Striker and Charlotte made a moment of visual contact, too brief and yet too long. Each could see the other’s soul.

Ruthlessness and fear.

He raised his gun directly at her head with deadly precision.

"Those who arrive hell by suicide find themselves dissapointed and hurt by the realization there is an afterlife after all.

Yet new attempts of ending their life results in them waking up back in hell, over and over again.

But then, they find about the exterminations. A chance to die once and for all. Eternal death. Eternal slumber.

Those who come to hell with the sole objective to die again are called 'stopovers' and they are some of the most targeted objectives in hell. One who will not fight back. One who will let others walk over them. One who will do anythig to stay under the radar.

One stopover in particular arrives in hell, right a day after the extermination ends.

Now if he wants to die again, he'll have to wait 364 days until he has his chance.

There is nothing in hell that could make him change his mind.

All he has to do is wait and stay out of trouble.

Simple enough, right?