Safety First | OC x Overlord Angel Dust

Chapter 48

     Vox's holographic screens surrounded the table of Overlords, all showing images of Vox, Charlie Morningstar, Alastor, who appeared to glitch in the pictures, and Lucifer Morningstar. All were rather strange, unpleasant images, with Vox in almost all of them.

     "And this," Vox was saying to the princess, laughing through his words, "and this one is us when you failed to show any evidence that your hotel works! It's one of my favorites. You look so stupid!"

     I rolled my eyes and, crossing my arms, stared at the fabric of my outfit.

     "And, oh— Oh! And when I made your dad back down like a little bitch! The look on his face was priceless!"

     Vox kept pressing Charlie by amusing himself with images of past events I cared little for. But that changed when the large screen on the stage was brought to life, and a gold image of a gray anglerfish appeared with the caption "YOU GOT HACKED, BITCH!!!" The screens that held Vox's images were replaced with the same gold ones.

     "What the...?" I muttered under my breath.

     "What the hell?" Vox exclaimed.

     The princess laughed and stood up from her chair.

     "Guess what, fucker?" she said, a big grin on her face, "I have a little surprise for you!"

     "Anthony, what's happening?" I whispered to the white spider, staring at the images, staring at the captions. He did not answer; he was just as confused as I was.

     "Oh no, you fucking don't!" Vox turned from the princess to the seats behind her. "Val, Velvette!" Realization dawned on his face; they had already left.

     The television man snarled, turned away, and shot his hand out. A thick wire protruded from his body, and crashed into the foot of the stage, but it kept moving through it, as if trying to find something.

     Ignoring all else, Princess Morningstar trotted up to the stage. The screen on the TV changed into a cartoon; it held a drawing of the princess, along with a rainbow and the title "My Presentation" in large, pink letters.

     "People of Hell," she exclaimed, "you all know me, and you also know all the ways I've failed. But, I want to tell you about someone who didn't fail, someone who proved redemption is possible... even when I couldn't. Someone named Sir Pentious!"

     The screens flashed, showing images of a snake man, dressed in gray and yellow with multiple red eyes. I had never seen the sinner before.

     "Pen?" Anthony muttered.

     "Many of you know Sir Pentious—" The princess was cut off by a sinner somewhere.

     "I don't!" I rolled my eyes at the distant voice.

     Morningstar amended herself. "Okay, well he was a sinner just like you. He was also a kind and compassionate individual. Someone who made mistakes, yes, but someone who did everything he could to fix them, and he succeeded!"

     "Anthony," I muttered quickly to the white spider next to me, now looking at Vox's back. "Anthony, dear, I think we should leave right now."

     Vox disappeared in blue electricity, and materialized in front of the princess, his back facing her.

     "Alright, Princess," Vox said with a frown on his blue face, "this is my show—" I gasped. Where a toothy grin showed, a large mute symbol replaced his whole face, silencing him instantly.

     Morningstar shoved Vox aside, who was now clawing at his face, as if trying to pry off his own silence.

      "In our battle to defend against Adam and the Exorcist army, Pentious fought valiantly, and ultimately sacrificed his life to protect others." Vox's face had returned; he tried to talk over the princess, but silent words were mouthed, not spoken. He walked behind the princess and tried swearing; it only resulted in a loud, long beep and smoke floating from his face.

     "This noble gesture," the princess continued as Vox gripped his face, stumblin backwards, "was worth enough that his soul was worthy of redemption. And he is in Heaven," Tears formed in her eyes as she pointed at the screen. "... and this time I can prove it!"

     She remained near the screen, and, with a large grin on her face, exclaimed "Presenting... Sir Pentious! Direct from Heaven here to tell you himself!" The screen loaded, a little gear-like symbol spinning around for a second, before a "UNABLE TO CONNECT" screen appeared.

     Poor Morningstar, I thought, she doesn't have connection.

     The sinners around us started to mumble around us, saying similar things like "What are we looking at?" and "I don't see anything."

     The princess turned around, and I could almost feel the realization as she stared at the three, damning red words. From the inside of her red dress, she retrieves a tablet, and starts tapping on the screen.

     "Uh... Oh, no, no. Oh, gosh. Uh, no, no, no, no, no. What's happening? Um, uh, excuse me, we're just having technical difficulties. Uh, it'll be a minute. Ugh!"

     Vox materialized from his blue electricity into his chair, and wires connected into the back of his television head; a blue holographic screen appeared, and I read the words Audio Settings written backwards. With a clawed finger and a grin, he swiped at the screen.

     "You lied," a sinner somewhere in the crowd shouted; I shut my eyes as the voices of the people of Hell grew, complaining and calling their princess a liar. Morningstar tried to calm the crowd of sinners, tried to console them with words that did not reach my ears.

     The protests of the sinners died within seconds, replaced with gasps. At the sound I looked up, and saw pale blue light shining above the princess, emitting from a circle.

     Feet descended from the light, then a dress, and the face of a young woman with white hair, a halo atop it, six wings flapping, supporting her in the sky—

     Halo. Six wings.

     Next to me, Anthony gasped softly. The tattoos on my back seemed to tingle, to ache. That girl was a Seraph. Hopefully, maybe, when this shit was over, she would answer my question, if we all had time.

     Her gray hands were clasped together, a kind and pleading expression on her freckled face. Her blue eyes held nothing but pure truth.

     "Please, everyone," said the Seraph, "give us a chance!" She flew over our table of Overlords, and over the crowd of sinners. "I'm here to tell you that Heaven believes in redemption as well, and doesn't want to cause you any more harm."

      She soared back to the stage, and held Princess Morningstar's hand for a moment. "Leaders of Heaven were led to believe sinners wanted nothing more than to hurt us. But now, we want nothing more than to make things right. Heaven believes in the capacity of good inside of each and every one of you." She drug her gaze across the Overlords, a hopeful smile on her face.

     "Yes," Morningstar spoke up, stepping forwards. "You all just need to decide if you believe in yourselves!"

     I didn't hear the princess's next words, if there were any at all. Two hands gripped my shoulders, and two more covered my eyes.

     "Get down!" I heard Anthony hiss; the next thing I knew, my body hit the floor, knocking the chairs over as pain shot up my side. Anthony's body collided with mine, shielding me. I assumed Anthony had rolled us under the table.

     "Don't open your eyes," said Anthony quickly. "Can ya use yer illusions?" Squeezing my eyes shut, I nodded.

     Anthony huffed. "Make us invisible— now." As I concentrated on the image of our bodies disappearing into the background I refused to see, I heard Vox's voice above us.

     "Nice try, Princess, but you failed again. These people are mine and their minds aren't changing."