"Charlie!" the King of Hell exclaimed cheerfully, seeing his daughter for the first time in... seven years? Six? Who cares, an eternity had passed since their last meeting, judging by his reaction. And here he was, "Father of the Year," showing up in all his glory. Couldn't he have just come on his own instead of waiting for an invitation? "I'm so glad to see you!" He swept her up in a hug, lifting her off the floor with such force that it sounded like all of Charlie's bones cracked. Considering he was barely taller than a garden gnome on a step stool compared to the rather tall Charlie, it looked quite comical, like a child trying to lift an adult, not the other way around. I chuckled to myself, watching this touching scene.
"Yeah, I'm glad to see you too, Dad," Charlie managed to answer, wheezing, trying to catch her breath. It seemed her father had overdone it with the paternal love and almost strangled his own daughter in a fit of emotion.
Noticing that his flesh and blood was starting to take on an unhealthy bluish hue, Lucifer finally let his daughter go. After a couple of convulsive coughs and rubbing her neck, she continued with a strained smile:
"Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel!" she said, gesturing broadly at the assembled residents of the hotel. Husk, thanks to Alastor's coaxing, managed to stretch something resembling a smile onto his face. Sir Pentious, standing nearby, shifted awkwardly from foot to foot (well, from one part of his tail to another, in this case), trying to look "decent," which he was failing at miserably. Niffty, sprawled invitingly on a table, was more off-putting than alluring with her single eye, such was the mania in her sole organ of sight. And, of course, Angel Dust, who was openly sizing up the local king, probably calculating how much he could fleece from such a "gold mine" for "special services" (though, I think he'd quit that?). The usual madhouse, in short, nothing out of the ordinary. Vaggie, however, stood out by behaving normally, and not... well, you get it. She just stood there, smiling welcomingly.
Alastor stood by the door with his unchanging, creepy ear-to-ear grin, leaning on his microphone cane. Razzle and Dazzle—the little goat-dragons (or are they lambs? Who the hell can tell with these infernal creatures, I always get them mixed up)—were hovering in the air, looking at Lucifer with devoted eyes. And the egg-bois, of course, couldn't be left out; at the end of a slightly embarrassed Charlie's sentence, they shot off confetti cannons, from which, with a pathetic fart, colorful confetti flew out.
"Well, hello there, Keekee," a small one-eyed cat, a gift from him to Charlie as I understood it, immediately scampered to Lucifer's feet. The fluffy little cutie rubbed against his legs, for which she immediately received a dose of petting. Noticing this, the dragon-lambs (I think they're lambs after all) immediately flew over and, pushing and squealing, began to circle around him, begging for their share of affection.
"Razzle, Dazzle! You've grown so much! Though you're still a bit small..." the head of the Morningstar family said with a smile, examining their stupid, ecstatic faces. "Are you taking care of my girl?" he then made an angry face, clearly feigned and completely unconvincing. "I certainly hope so!" after which he laughed again and, pushing the pesky animals away, walked forward, examining the hotel with an air of importance. As far as I know, this place used to be the Morningstar residence. Boy, the interior has changed a lot. As I understand it, it used to be a rather chic place, and now—dust, cobwebs, and cheap booze from Alastor.
"Wow, this place is..." Luci trailed off, walking forward and letting his royal gaze fall upon the assembled rabble that Charlie proudly called "guests." Lucifer seemed to be trying to keep up appearances and not show how utterly flabbergasted he was by the sight. His gaze darted around the room and immediately latched onto Niffty. The small, one-eyed maid, with a maniacal grin worthy of a serial killer, was now holding a tray of cookies.
"Ah... right... Well, it's quite... unique," Lucifer managed to force out, prudently taking a couple of steps away from Niffty. And then His Majesty spotted the bar, created by Alastor's power. It was obvious that the place reeked of Eve's Darkness so much that even in a world without sensors, it stood out and attracted attention. "Ah! What, in the name of the seven circles, is that?" Lucifer asked, annoyed and even with a hint of disgust, pointing at the bar.
"Just a little renovation," the radio demon emerged from a nearby shadow, grinning and theatrically gesturing at his design abortion of a bar. "Adds a bit of color, don't you think?" he asked the King of Hell with an even wider grin, spreading his hands theatrically.
"And you are...?" Lucifer asked without the slightest enthusiasm, with open suspicion, eyeing our strawberry pimp as if he were a piece of trash stuck to his shoe (which is a real problem in some parts of Hell).
"Alastor!" the deer now popped out from Lucifer's own shadow and, with unexpected agility, grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously. "A pleasure to meet you, sir... A great pleasure, it's wonderful to finally meet you in person!" Yes, yes, the Overlords were once under Lucifer's supervision. It's only now that they do whatever they want and fear nothing. Before, they reported to him personally about their every fart, and they didn't make whatever laws they wanted, but only those approved by Lucifer. So Zestial can boast of a personal acquaintance with the King of Hell, and now Alastor can too. "You're much shorter in real life than I imagined!" For some unknown reason, Alastor seemed determined to piss off the King of Hell. Maybe Lilith told him something about her hubby? Or is this part of their contract—to publicly humiliate Lucifer at every opportunity? She could have come up with something like that; she's a vengeful lady.
"So who is this?" Lucifer asked Charlie, who had come over looking like she wanted the ground to swallow her whole, completely ignoring the annoying overlord. Then Lucifer turned back to Alastor and gave him a contemptuous look: "Are you the bellboy?"
"Ahaha!" the radio demon laughed falsely. "No! I'm the hotel's Director!" (Author's Note: He says "Host," but as we all know, the building belongs to Charlie, so he can go fuck himself with his claims. In my version, he's the Director!) "You might know me from my radio show!"
"That must be why Charlie says this place is for 'sinners of the past'!" Lucifer quipped, lightly nudging his daughter in the side, who didn't know where to hide from the awkwardness. A pretty lame joke, to be honest, "dad joke" level, but it got to Alastor.
"Hahaha!" Alastor laughed falsely again. "Actually, it was my idea!"
"Hahaha!" Lucifer replied with the exact same idiotic laugh. "Not a very smart one!"
"Hahaha! Go fuck yourself!" Alastor couldn't take it anymore.
"Okay, that's enough!" Charlie immediately intervened, stepping between them, trying to defuse the escalating conflict. "Let's continue!" after which she literally dragged her father away. "Dad, look at this great living room! It's a darling of a room!" She pointed to the living room, in which, apart from dusty sofas and a couple of hell-roaches in the corner, there was nothing remarkable. Lucifer glanced at this "splendor" and tried to look impressed.
"Here, people can get to know each other, share secrets, stories, and all their innermost thoughts!" the princess began to explain with inexhaustible enthusiasm, which even made her father start to smile sincerely. "Without Alastor's help, we wouldn't have been able to fix it all up so nicely!" She shattered the idyll in the King of Hell's soul, and his face twisted again.
"Charlie has a very unique vision!" The aforementioned deer approached them, brazenly intruding on the conversation again. "I'm happy to fulfill her wonderful requests!" he placed his clawed hand on her shoulder, which made Lucifer almost growl with anger like a chained dog. Oh, a fight is definitely about to start, or at least a very entertaining squabble.
"Oh, thank you, Alastor," Charlie was moved by his speech, naively placing her hand on top of his. You fool, he's just using you!
"Quite an impressive girl," he placed a hand on his chest, looking at Lucifer with a defiant smirk. "We're all very proud of her!" Now he was openly hugging Charlie by the shoulder, and she, moved to the core, even shed a tear. She rarely hears pleasant words, especially from depraved sinners like Alastor.
"Ahem-ahem!" Lucifer couldn't stand this scene. "Charlie, dear, maybe you could introduce me to your other guests?" Lucifer said, walking between the two and unceremoniously pushing them apart, pointing his cane at the bored group.
"Oh, yes, right!" Charlie quickly went to a flustered Vaggie and pulled her closer to her father. "This is Vaggie... She's my girlfriend..."
"Well, hello there!" Lucifer exclaimed in surprise. "So you're into girls too? So am I!" It was clear he was glad for the change of subject and the opportunity to get rid of Alastor. "We have so much in common!" he began to gesture amusingly, feigning delight. "Come here, Maggie!" His hearing, I see, is top-notch, yeah right... "Oh, she's a cutie," he released her from his hug after a couple of seconds, smiling widely.
"Nice to meet you, sir..." Vaggie looked down, clearly embarrassed by such a strange introduction to her partner's parent.
"And this is Sir Pentious and Angel Dust," Charlie continued to introduce her friends to her father. "They are our guests."
"Your Highness!" Overcome with emotion and nervous tension, the snake-man, trying to salute in a military fashion, lost his balance and slammed his head full force into the cookie sheet that Niffty had placed on the table. Poor guy.
"Hey there, 'short stack with a hat'," the spider purred languidly, sitting in some provocative pose and lazily waving a hand with a glass of wine. In doing so, he accidentally spilled a little on the table, so Husk started wiping it.
"Husk is our bartender," Charlie introduced. He just gave a short two-fingered salute, momentarily distracted from his endless work of polishing glasses.
"Pleasure," the cat-demon said calmly.
"And Niffty is our maid," when the small one-eyed psychopath was mentioned, her single maniacal eye immediately lit up. She happily ran up to Lucifer, climbed onto his chest in a running leap, and clung to his collar so as not to fall.
"Hi, I clean!" the one-eyed girl laughed sweetly, after which a huge chandelier fell from the ceiling right next to them with a deafening crash, raising a cloud of dust and almost crushing the King of Hell himself... This made everyone present cough.
"Hahaha, no questions asked..." Lucifer said with a smirk, as if nothing had happened, then elegantly waved his cane. The dust instantly disappeared, the broken chandelier reassembled itself and soared back to its rightful place on the ceiling, and a second later, music began to play throughout the room…
(Author's Note: I decided not to describe this whole sequence, so if you're interested, please watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tae0KRiraE&t=21s&ab_channel=Mister)
P.S. the only video with normal Russian subtitles… Sheesh…
Yes! Yes! YES! Finally!
It really started! The fucking song battle, during which Lucifer created a bunch of different complex devices, while Alastor tried to respond, "hiding" behind Charlie and various metaphors, because he couldn't replicate the design of a slot machine or a tablet... The winged one is strong! It seems that despite his depression, he's well-versed in relatively modern technology. Too bad Adam didn't give a shit about any of it, because "It's not for me, the top Dick, to study all sorts of boring crap," yeah…
Although, the Seraphim did create the Earth with all its complex ecosystems, laws, and other nonsense. This kind of hints that they are really fucking smart guys... Or maybe their process of creating all this happens somehow differently... Hmm, and in general, to "master" a concept, you don't just have to "feel" it or "imagine" it. You have to literally immerse yourself in it, study it from all sides, understand its essence, its laws, its… entirety. And that's where I got to thinking: how did I manage to learn two whole concepts—Space and Purity—so relatively easily? I don't think I was particularly interested in either of them, was I?
Hmm… I'll have to figure that out too…
Meanwhile, the guys continued to sing and create who-knows-what, like illusions, creating objects, repainting the room, changing the lighting, and other crap (not sure why it was necessary, to be honest).
Fuck, why can't all the "battles" in this shitty universe be like this?! Instead of busting my angelic ass in a fight with Asmodeus, I could have just challenged him to a song battle! We'd sing some catchy crap as a duet, I'd beat him with my "divine" vocals, and that's it! Victory! And no destruction, deaths, or other unpleasant bullshit! But no, you fucking have to fight, maim, kill! Ptooey…
Just so you know, I've been sitting on the couch in the middle of the room under a cloak of invisibility this whole time, watching these two idiots with genuine interest (and a facepalm). Seriously! One of them, for fuck's sake, has lived for more than ten thousand years, was a Seraph, the King of Hell, all that! The other is some fucking genius and ruthless serial killer who made a deal with Eve! And they both behave like two young morons in a cartoon for mentally challenged teenagers! Ahem, yes, I sometimes forget where I am, exactly…
Actually, I fully expected that Luci would be able to see me, even through the invisibility. That's why, just in case, I used a simple trick from my past life—a "defocused gaze"—and tried to control my emotions as much as possible, to keep them "inside myself," not letting them spill out. I can't even remember where I heard about these "tricks"—in some movie, a book, or somewhere else… But judging by the fact that Lucifer still hasn't reacted to me, it seems to be working… Because I was just bursting with emotions right now, and I wasn't even sure what I wanted to do at that moment: either "jump on the beat" with a guitar at the ready and show these two amateurs how to really rock, or just laugh hysterically at all this absurdity.
It seems I still underestimated the local "musical magic," because this performance was working on everyone present, including me, without fail. I wanted to sing along, dance along, you get the picture.
So why was I hiding instead of, for example, making a dramatic entrance and joining the fun? It's simple. I desperately wanted to see this spectacle with my own eyes. I can honestly admit that even in my past life, I really liked the "Hazbin Hotel" universe (at least the part of it that they managed to show), and now, watching the very cartoon I once saw on my old computer screen literally come to life before my eyes… I was getting some strange, almost childish, perverse pleasure from simply observing it, yes… Ugh, I've become so sentimental lately, don't you think? I need to watch less of those damn melodramas that Lute loves so much…
What can I say about the relationships I've managed to observe here today? Well, Charlie, as expected, is terribly shy in front of her father and generally feels extremely awkward around him. And, apparently, despite all my recent admonitions, she's still afraid that Lucifer doesn't really love her. Periodically, when Luci "interacted" with her in some way, I could clearly see a strained smile on her face. But with Alastor, they have indeed grown closer lately. Charlie was genuinely happy to see him, sincerely touched when the deer did (or rather, pretended to do) something "kind." Naturally, there were no romantic or love interests between them, nor could there be—Charlie, as I understood it, considered him something like an "older comrade" or even a "mentor." Which, knowing their real age and the difference in life experience, made me openly "hee-hee," because this naive little girl was two or three times older than the little deer, heh.
Looking at Alastor himself, it was hard not to notice his rather clumsy attempt at manipulation, which, apparently, was considered the height of intrigue by the locals, but to me, it all looked like a blatantly obvious and crude job on the level of a kindergartener. If I had been at his level when I was infiltrating the "new gods" cult, they would have exposed and gutted me on the very first, fucking, day! But here—look, even Luci himself doesn't seem to notice anything suspicious. Although, he doesn't really know this radio deer, so it's forgivable. Then again, Alastor was most likely doing all this not to really get something from Charlie or use her in some way, but simply to piss off and humiliate the King of Hell. And that, from his side, already looked quite noble, yes (I would do the same in his place… And I will!).
Besides, I've long noticed that no matter how much that deer denies it and pretends to be a cynical bastard, Charlie, Vaggie, Angel, Husk, Niffty, even Pentious seem to have really gotten under his skin. So much so that, as we all remember from the cartoon, he eventually really risked his own life to help them in the battle against me. That is, against the Adam who, by the way, was just playing with him at the time, and even one weak attack, maybe a hundredth of his real power, was enough to defeat the radio demon without any problems. But for some reason, that Adam didn't finish him off, who the hell knows why…
At that moment, the two idiots on stage were already starting to decide who would finish the song, but then, as always, at the most inopportune moment, the front doors of the Hotel burst open with a crash, and we were presented with… Mimzy, who immediately started singing about "her beloved self"…
This world has finally and irrevocably gone mad, hasn't it?