Chapter Text
In the Hazbin Hotel, everything is going out fine. Sinners are relaxing in the lounge, watching some TV, and Rooster was making conversation with another sinner who also has missed their wife deeply. Vaggie came in with a letter in hand and brought it to the bar, sliding it across the counter where Husk was cleaning glasses. He looked and saw the signature stamp with a blobfish. Angel Dust has responded to the gifted Italian recipe card he found!
"Wait, Legs... Wrote back?" Husk asked in incredulous awe.
"Yep, he really missed you. It's just that Valentino has tight holds now, but it doesn't mean that he won't stop writing you letters. At least it actually keeps both you and Cherri safe".
"That's fine." The former Overlord said with a sigh of relief hugging the parchment, "At least I get to hear Legs again."
"That is a good sign and by the way if it doesn't bother you," Vaggi took a breath to not bring up the one who shall not mentioned since he's always annoyed with the deer, "Do you know where Alastor is?"
Husker stops for a moment thought about it as if he was trying to track the one answered that was floating above his head like a fly buzzing through his ears, he shrugs, "I would care less about the fucker, but I heard that he actually went out for a walk. Something about a new signal calling him? But you know how he is with his radio podcasts and everything."
The Ex-exorcist groaned, "Well, thanks for letting me know. I'm just gonna go check up on Charlie. Do you know where she is?"
"Therapy room," the winged cat said pouring a drink to a gentleman sinner recently out of the therapy room with the princess of Hell and tips him generously, "They're doing art therapy for now, and it's going on pretty well."
"Thanks, Husk." She said before leaving with a wave, heading up the stairs.
In the therapy room, it is big and cozy with chairs of all kinds. Loveseats, lounge chairs, chaises, beanbags, sometimes even pillows on the floor whenever one sinner might be very comfortable on the floor, which is a lot. No matter if they're wearing dresses, shorts, or even just their fur. They are comfortable. One even fell asleep mid-drawing, which is pretty adorable. Which, Nifty just covers them up with a blanket.
"Does anyone need more supplies? I have more crayons if anyone wants them!" The princess announced with a singy song tune.
"Me, I'm running out of red." A bug-like sinner with pale skin, yellow eyes, black lips, and black luscious hair raised her hand up. She is literally drawing bots as a clown. Because of how much he flopped. And Charlie, as an angelic princess being. With her fireworks and her shield.
Oh, the grudge is real when the Vee's has done her dirty. Just for her to get cancelled and to be kicked out of the building. After everything she has done for them. This is what she needs.
Charlie sees the drawing and she couldn't help but squeal. "I can't believe you drew me like that! And what shade of red do you want? Candy red, blood red, or clown red?"
"Clown red, please. I'm not finished with the nose on Vox."
The princess smiled as she gave five more clown red crayons to the bug influencer, who graciously took it with a smile on her face. There are other sinners who are literally loving Lucifer's rubber ducks, including the one that was backflipping and breathing fire. That one is their most favorite.
One literally took a picture of it mid-backflip and making a ring of fire. It was beautiful.
"I am so putting that in a scrapbook with a picture frame and everything", said the sinner, with wet hair and camera lens eyeglasses and a crooked smile.
The short King of Hell smiled with his rosy cheeks and his fanged smile. In smug satisfaction of pride.
"Yeah, these are all my greatest creations, including this one. I have too much time on my hands and also way too much voices in my head that tend to go haywire to the point that I feel like I have nothing but a big ol' zoo. With no keeper, and no cages, and no exits for visitors to get out of there alive." Lucifer spaced out for a moment, blinking one eye then another.
Then he snapped out of it and said, "what was I talking about again?"
The sinners laughed a bit because it's fine. It happens to most of them who are literally so depressed to the point that they actually end up having memory fogs and insomnia and crippling anxiety.
Vaggi got into the room, seeing the progress, and she's actually liking it. Some of the sinners are literally making crafts, which is making houses, statues, One even made one of her, which is the same sinner who literally gave her a compliment about her wings, and not caring that she was an ex-exorcist. Vaggi found Charlie going around before sitting with her girlfriend's father to see the progress.
"Charlie, we need to talk. I was about to talk to Alastor, but you know how he is, going out somewhere, doing whatever Alastor does."
"Oh yeah, Alastor told me about some kind of signal calling out to him, but I'm not gonna blame him, because radios are his thing." The Nephilim chirped
"Yeah, Husk told me that too."
"Who, Bambi? Are you talking about Bambi?" Lucifer asks, confused, tilting his head.
"Yeah, Dad, we're talking about Alastor. But... What is it, Vaggi? There are new workers in VoxTek, and they look about, what, in their 20s? Maybe near their 20s? And some of them are just, like Vox, but with different devices.
Yeah. The Princess of Hell and the King of Hell blinked simultaneously after hearing that. Vox hiring new workers who are biomechanical? Young in their 20s?
"Okay," the princess finally spoke with worry in her tone, "What do you mean by that? Do you mean by... Having body parts that are related to this device? Or... Like, them in general, and you don't see it?"
Baxter, the angler fish mad scientist with his new bio engineered Cockroach that can actually scat like a Jazz singer finally cuts in, "She means both! Some sinners have certain types of body parts that contain of their autonomy. Sometimes they have subtle traits of biomechanical prowess of the statue. As of for example, you died with a camera, or died on camera, and you would have eyes of camera lens."
"Oh, that's what I have! My glasses are cameras, but also my eyes are cameras." Says the sinner with the photographed rubber duck.
"See? It seems to me that my former employer decided to have more hires with more assets to their bodies. Desperate times comes to desperate company, as I would say." He mocked while his lure bobbed over his head.
This information does make Charlie feel a little better, but it does not get Vaggie's suspicion down, not even for a little. It's just a squirt gun to an electrical fire. Vaggie looks towards Baxter. "So he's going after sinners who have assets of biomechanical body parts. Why? Because he lost his body?"
"Oh no, he got the new one." The scientist said so casually as if he was talking over blueprints of his new bioengineered project he's going to create, "Remember that old sinner who has been decapitated by an angelic weapon last month?"
Vaggi snapped her fingers as her one eye widened, "Yeah, I remember. It's a loanshark. That dumbass thought it was a good idea to try and steal an angelic steel sword from Carmilla without pay."
"Well, that's his new body now."
The girls of the hotel recoiled after hearing that, "How does that work!?"
"Well, his head has a mind of its own. It can regenerate of connecting his wires, that are known to be his veins, to a new body. Henceforth, becoming a new head for its new body. Like a hermit crab finding its new shell."
"Welp, that's not fucking creepy at all. I'm going to see that in my nightmares." Lucifer said with jokingly way, but is literally genuine about the whole nightmare thing.
He's definitely adding that to another reason why he hates sinners.
If they're that messed up enough, and think that they can actually do that, and actually and think that they can actually do that, and actually succeeded? You definitely belong in hell if you're that messed up in the mind to actually have the free will to become like a zombie parasite fungus to an innocent bug.
Then, he looked to one sinner, who was literally just humming a tune that sounds upbeat and like a cool song. He looked over and saw a drawing, highly detailed, of a black cat split in half at the torso, but was actually levitating halfway from the top part of her torso. And visible at the bottom half are what looks like CD discs with bubblegum pink pixie cut hair. Patches of white from her fingertips to her feet and where her mouth is. Strangely enough, the patches on her eyes made it look like she's wearing white eyeshadow. She's wearing a mini skirt and a matching sweater of black and white. But the real weird thing is that it's not just the color or the outfit, it's the color of the nose and the shape of the nose. It's shaped like a cartoon skull and is neon green from a Halloween decoration. Almost like the one Halloween decoration accessory that you can get at a party store for like $5 a pack and they glow in the dark.
"Well, that's an interesting look. And that's clearly a style. The sinner, who is a scene core goblin, said, "Thank you, your majesty, but this is the new sinner that recently came here. She's so cool. And her dance. Man, it's so amazing. She really knows how to sing. I bet she was like one hell of a party when she was alive."
"Care to tell me what her name is?" The hotel manager Vaggi asked politely
"That's the thing. We just call her Cassette Kat. But she comes by many names. KittenSlut, Cassette Kitty, Kitty DJ, you name it. She just went viral on her first day down here in Hell. She was so confused. Which, I won't blame her. Many of us are, when we first got here."
Vaggi nodded as she thanked the sinner.
"A new sinner making waves in the city, I hope she found a place to crash. It's pretty hard to find a place in a well... place that would kill you." The fallen angel said as she fixed her red bow in her hair.
"Ah, don't worry," the King of Hell spoke up with a stretch, "Sinners are like roaches, they rebound instead of die."
His daughter frowned at her father, "Dad."
"Yo, ain't mad at that," the 2010s ex-pastor's boy backed him up with a nod, "We do rebound."
"... I was not expecting you to actually agree with my dad."
"He was in that dadgum cannon as a battery, why wouldn' we?", a cowboy sinner answered patting Lucifer's back in solidarity. "And I forgive ya' for crashin' into me, partner."
"Oh um... Thanks?" The devil blinked.
Meanwhile back in the confines of V-Tower, Cassette Kat was in a large room with a wall screen in front of rows upon rows of steel folding chairs. There are an uncountable amount of media-based sinners of what decade has claimed their last day of breathing in the land of the living. The 30s are boys and girls who are colored and monochromatic like cartoons of 'Betty Boop' and 'Felix the Cat', a guy in his late 20s has an inkwell for a neck to hold his head rocking a fedora that matches his pinstriped suit. He was flirting with a flapper feminine boy with a neck tie caressing his throat delicately and a flattering suit that hugs his curves. There's three of a pod arguing with each other of who got them three killed first, they are bright and funky in their go-go boots and ascots of green, yellow and orange. 60's angst that got these young girls with lines on their neck from whatever freak accident that they–
"I told you that pad was grungy!" The yellow one said with indictment at Orange like she was the one who caused the murder.
"Like I would know that the place was grody. I literally did not want to leave my old man behind just for the Fab Four." Orange plead the Fifth.
'Did this girl in an orange ascot and yellow bell bottoms literally just plead the Fifth for the Beatles concert?' The Brazilian Texan cat narrowed her neon blue eyes as her ear twitched in incredulous bafflement.
"Well your 'old man' was a chrome-dome!" The green ass caught a girl shot the back at Orange and her headband was purple.
"He's not a chrome-dome his hair is just thinnin'!"
Kat recoiled, 'oh so that's it an old man with a receding hairline just killed those three girls in his apartment... that explain the necks...'
A tap on her shoulder made her turn around to face a raccoon-esque sinner. Seems to be a newsie coming from a cap, the blazer, the tie, and pants that went up above the knee. Socks that shows, but is in the same color palette as his fur, which is white with brown. And the shoes shows his paws. And he was carrying a string. Seems to be for newspapers.
"I'm sorry to be a waste of your time, but can you tell me why I'm here, ma'am?"
"Um, sorry, I just got hired here, too. I mean, I just came back from an errand run to get my CDs, even though I don't have the Skrilla." She said ruffling her hair with a frustrated sigh.
The raccoon boy tilted his head, "Ma'am? You mean 'money'?
"Yeah, money. That's what we actually call it in the 90s. Skrilla. Bling bling. The dough, you know?"
"I honestly love your speech. It's quite unique. And your hair. It fits your eyes." Kat just turns around to see clearly a guy from the 1920s.
He's wearing a full-on tailcoat, a top hat that looks like it had an eye, and he has a cane that looks like a woman's hand. So many red flags are happening in her brain, but she's deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt. Like she always does, and she hates that.
"Okay, listen here. If you're trying to flirt, it ain't happening."
"Flirt?" The guy laughed politely as he took off his hat which shows bunny ears, "Oh, no, no, no. I don't need to butter you up, little bug. I meant it. I really love the color. It reminds me of Anne." He starts to reminisce on his good old days when he was breathing and alive and happy, "She has always loved pink. All shades and vibrant colors of pink. I was on my way to get her a brand new dress of that color. And then out of nowhere... I lost my way. I just shook the wrong hand of a man and then..." he stopped for a moment looking solemn that his ears droop down to his back,"... I dropped dead."
'Oh, the hand. A woman must have killed him with whatever's on her hand. Makes sense. A femme fatale killing a young boy over a dress, he wants to get for his girlfriend? Man, that sucks!' The cat let out of breath.
"So sorry for what happened to you, and I'm sorry for how I acted. It's just, you know... I've been around a lot of predators to the point it's like, which one is which. I'm from Keene, Texas." She said wincing of adding too much information because clearly no one asked.
"No harm done, ma'am", said the newsies from the 40s.
"It is quite understandable for you to be of high alert", the rabbit 20s said as he took her hand and kissed the knuckles, "I spoke of this to Anne whenever we go out. If you feel as if you are in danger toward a man or woman or anyone of high stature, be of high alert and never doubt your instincts."
The Brazilian Texan's cat ears flatten, and her pupils grew with contentment, and her tail just turns pink. "Awww, thanks man. You're very sweet, both of you. And I'll keep that in mind."
"Yeah, I said that to all the cute little mamas out there hanging around on the street of the clubs." A voice chimed, where a sinner is hanging around two other girls, one straight from the 80s, and one straight from the 2000s in a Y2K outfit that changes colors like Lisa Frank holographic stickers, while the 80s is in glam rock form with her hair teased wildly and her outfit all fuzzy yet punky at the same time with glam makeup of a star on her eye. And purple lipstick that matches her go-go boots.
"What era are you from?" The Riot grrl ask the one who spoke.
"Seventies, baby. 1979."
"How did you die?"
"My caddy blew up."
Kat's eyes the sinner's body. Bell-bottoms with chains. A fresh-looking dress shirt that shows his chest. That has a tattoo of a tire. A chain with fuzzy dice. And his hair all crystallized like it just came from shards of a disco ball. And he smells like fresh leather out of a paint job. And his feet, where the chain is, are lava lamps, High-platform heels, she might add.
"Yeah, That tracks. You're lookin' fresh."
"Oh, we know." Says the two girls in a dreamy sigh.
The bell chimes, and everyone in the room went through each other. Some pushing, some politely asking, excuse me. Some even just picked them up and threw them, just to get the seat that they wanted. Kat, however, took the one seat in the middle that was saved politely by a girl who also was from the 90s. She looked like a guinea pig, with patches of brown and black on her fur. And her hair teased up, and she was squeaking like she was about to weep at any time. She is wearing a sweetheart top and a mini skirt, but has striped stockings and kitten heels. Kat thanks her with a fist bump, and that girl quickly returned it. And in comes the voice, ever so grating to Kat, that she almost groaned.
"Welcome new hires to VoxTek. I am your humble employer, Vox, Here to kindly thank you for your services and your trust in us."
The Texan black cat from the 90s narrowed her eyes, knowing full well that this is all bullshit. But out of nowhere, she felt static. Like the radio waves are telling her,
'tune in...'
'sync up...'
'hello, hello, testing, testing...'
"Well, that's hella weird," she said to herself as her ears twitched.
Vox's voice continues.
"Since you have read the benefits of our company policy, it seems that you have been HIGHLY satisfied with the benefits of full healthcare and dental care, free housing, and The 401k plan. Now, if you can do me one last little favor, if you so kindly, look at the screen in front of you."
Everyone obeyed, just out of curiosity, not out of obedience, as he so said. Kat looked as well, and on that screen flashed open a swirling red and black illusionary picture overlayed on everything that these sinners, including her, would have witnessed during their eras.
Some of them went slump. And their jaws opened. As they watched, their eyes doing the same look of the illusionary picture. From the 80s to the 90s girl right next to her. The 70s doing the same. The 20s rabbit guy went slump as well as if he was in a daze. Tilting his head to the side. And the 40s raccoon newsie just straightened his back and relaxed as he watched his eyes doing the same while his raccoon tail twitched.
'Well, that's a whack-ass screen saver if I've ever seen one.' Kat said as her ears continued to twitch.
"Salutations, my dear little listener. If you can hear me, that is." A chipper, smiley sound has rung in her ears, like she has tuned into a radio.
"Holy hell! Hello?" She said, in surprise.
"Ah, so you CAN hear me. Enchanté, mon cher." The voice said satisfied that she can hear, and it followed with a round of applause from an audience, "Good to see that you have tuned in to my frequency."
"Who are you?"
"Well, you may know me as the 'Radio Demon' the most powerful Overlord of all of Hell But I do have a name. It is Alastor, my dear. Such a pleasure." He finally introduced himself, as if he was right in front of her, extending a hand towards to her.
"I know you may be a bit curious right now. Let me indulge you. If you see that big, strange box in front of you..."
The cat looks up moving her eyes not moving her head to see that he was talking about the screen,
"That is Vox's hypnosis."
Hypnosis!?
Kat's ears flattened immediately after hearing 'hypnosis'.
That TV-headed prick was trying to hypnotize her? And already succeeded with everyone else?
"I thought it was a screensaver." She said to herself.
A laugh rung out in her ears. "Ah, seems that you are highly immune. Well, that does tickle my fancy, as you say."
"What do you mean?" A cat growled flew out her throat as the 90's guinea pig girl's nose wiggles.
"Well, you see, my dear."
Far into the walks of Cannibal Town, Alastor was talking into his microphone staff like he was on the phone. Passing by a Cannibal darling in rose pink filing her teeth for a date, which the deer sinner added a blood rose to her up-do, getting her to smile before giving her a sign of good luck.
"It seems that you have a special power that has been with me the whole time. Radio Manipulation, my dear."
"Radio manipulation?" Kat's voice went through the cane as the eye was showing the annoyance that she would have on her face, "So basically I have some kind of telekinesis with radios now?"
"It's not all that hard to understand, chere. It makes perfect sense of why you're not falling in line for that idiot."
"Fuck, that's something that we actually agree on." She says sarcastically, but genuine on her part.
She sits too comfortably on the steel chair like she's talking to someone on a landline, like she once has before.
"We both know that he's a fucking creep. Nothin' but a skeezy-ass mofo. I'm just sitting right here like a honking goose in a cold room of poultry hens."
"Oh ho ho, I love your energy. May I learn what you name would be?" The radio demon chuckled.
"I'm known as Cassette Kat, but you can call me Cass or Kat if you like."
"Well, it is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Cassette Kat. As you can see, me and Vox have been a bit of a quarrel since his... last stunt to contain power. But it seems that he is trying again with a new method, and you're a part of it."
"How freakin' so?" Kat says through his cane, which the eye just widens a bit to mirror what Kat was feeling.
"He doesn't tell me shiznit. Like, at all. Just kept on calling me 'kitten', fixing my own posture without my consent of him touching me. And let's not forget to mention that he kept on flicking my ears whenever they're down. Like, do I have to apologize for me having my ears down without your permission? I have every right to be hella annoyed."
"Oh, that fucking creep. He never stopped touching." Alastor's deer ears were down when he heard that.
The eye on his cane blinked for her. "Wait, you mean he does this all the time? With everyone? Including you?"
"Sadly, yes. I knew he is reaching.", Alastor explains as he walks past another sinner who tipped his hat at him. "Seventy years ago, we have been close. A bit far too close for my opinion. He has offered me a deal to join his team. I kindly decline, it's a bit too good for an offer."
The silence was deafening on her side, that he could hear her scowl right through his staff.
"You laughed in his face, didn't you?"
That made him cackle.
"Oh, you are such a reader, I can tell."
"Boy, You're as open as a yes-man who has been ordered to kill just for a Klondike bar. What makes you think I won't read you immediately without looking at you?" Her voice rang through, with the eye going half-lidded in unamusement. "Apparently, that's what got me killed to be here. I read people too much."
"And that, my dear, is what men love in women. Women who fight hard in order for them to break. It happens to many women in my life. And I always end up finding them gone. A shame, really. Hunters worth their salt knows you don't hunt does."
Kat huffs a laugh. "Well, ain't that the truth, and yet they still do it anyway. So many roadkill left and right that the formaldehyde is sweet in the spring, till you become one with the road."
Alastor in his side stops at a butcher shop for a moment to continue the conversation with this Cassette Kat. He knows that not just because she is a sinner who is from the south, and not just because she is responding to radio waves, he knows that something is up since his old pal Vox hired her on the spot like his shadow once said back at the hotel. It's quite curious really, after everything that he has done, after the 'Might of Lilith' Cannon nearly destroyed all of the city, and the entirety of the sinners to go against him, and him going megalomaniac—all to kill him, and he doesn't care what happens, just to wipe that smug smile off his own face—is willing to make this kind of plan with media-based sinners of their own era?
"If I so kindly ask, dear, what era are you from?"
"1996, dude. I died in college campus on Halloween night." She answered him simply as if she was discussing the weather.
"And what devices do you have in that decade?"
"Oh, we have almost everything of old and new, dude. Radios, phones, social media, movies, TVs, music. Hella everything."
The Deer is smiling menacingly, not just for her giving information about her decade, but how the decades have everything from the old to the new. Oh, this is gonna be a field day in hell. For him, that is, because Vox, you absolute fucking idiot.