Back in her regular form, Charlie heads downstairs with Sir Pentious' strange voice changer, to confront her father.
He had to have known about this. Maybe even the whole thing.
In your eyes, this only confirms your earlier suspicions. Lucifer had to have been planning a take-over of the hotel since the beginning. Maybe by working with Sir Pentious, the two of them would rule Hell together?
The only thing that confuses you is his reaction to the Ascension Room. It was largely positive, so... what is his current goal? Does he still want to enact his plan?
Hopefully, all your questions and more will be answered soon.
You and Charlie are currently standing at the closed door to room 666.
"Here we go." Charlie says quietly. Taking a deep breath, she gently knocks on the door.
It promptly swings open, and Lucifer offers a friendly smile upon seeing his daughter.
"Ah, Charlotte! What brings you here?"
"Hey Dad. Uh... can we come in?" she asks.
"Of course, my dear!" he says. "It is your hotel, after all."
"Hopefully it'll stay that way, too..." you quietly mumble.
"What was that?" Lucifer asks, turning his attention to you.
Charlie forcefully nudges you with an elbow. Clearly, she isn't ready to directly accuse him of doing anything.
"Oh it's nothing, don't worry about it!" Charlie says with an uneasy smile.
"Charlotte... I can tell when someone's lying to me. What's on your mind?"
She sighs and looks to the floor, before presenting him the mysterious voice changer. Lucifer's smile abruptly disappears. "We found this..."
Initially, he doesn't say anything, only gazing upon the 'Voice Imitator 5000' in her grasp. After a moment of terribly uncomfortable silence, he says "Alright, I suppose I should come clean. Come with me."
He turns around and walks back into his room, leaving the door open for you.
Nervously, Charlie steps through the doorway and you follow along, gently closing the door behind you.
"Please, make yourselves at home, we have... quite a bit to discuss."
"You're damn right, we do." you furiously say under your breath.
Charlie glares at you for a brief moment, clearly angered at your words. You're not sure if Lucifer himself heard you, but a part of you hopes that he did.
You and Charlie sit down next to each other on the couch in the living room, while Lucifer sits on a reclining chair nearby.
He takes a moment to collect his thoughts.
"I know what it looks like I might be doing. Your friend here made it most apparent to me, before walking in." he says, before Charlie angrily looks at you again for a moment.
"I want to set things straight with you, so that there will be no further misunderstandings between us."
The demon overlord takes a deep breath, before adding "Originally, it was true. I did want to take over the hotel."
Charlie lets out a surprised gasp, but you saw this coming a mile away. You wish that you'd brought a pair of handcuffs with you.
And not the pink fuzzy ones that Angel has in his room.
"My goal was to undo the 'damage' that you'd done to Hell's populace. I'd make sure that no redemptions happen further, and that this 'nonsense' would finally come to an end."
"But," he pauses. "I am no longer of that mindset. After what I've seen here today... I'm not completely on board with it, but I was a fool to try destroying your dream."
"What about Alastor?" you ask. "Why would you betray him, like that? Weren't you guys, like, best friends?"
"After working here for so long, I imagined that he'd developed ties to this place, and formed relationships with you all. I was correct with that assumption." he explains, turning to you.
"So... last night, I turned to Sir Pentious, who developed the voice changing device that you brought in. In exchange for his services, I promised he would have unlimited control of this region of Hell."
"You're probably wondering who made that radio broadcast, this morning?" he asks. Charlie nods, attempting to take in all the information.
"It wasn't me, nor was it Pentious. Obviously, it wasn't Alastor either. It was one of Pentious' minions. By pinning this on Alastor, I'd absolve myself of any blame, and things would likely begin to break down in your little circle of friends."
"I'd also use the opportunity to spread my own 'teachings' to your class, which you all saw. While Alastor and I did spread a bit of humor and tomfoolery, that, unfortunately, was not a joke."
Charlie is about to say something, but a portal suddenly appears behind the two of you.
"You traitorous SNAKE!" the familiar voice of Alastor shouts.
He leaps out of the portal and pulls Lucifer out of his chair. He then grabs Lucifer by the shirt collar, and hoists him up toward the ceiling in a fit of absolute rage.
"Give me ONE good reason why I shouldn't end your pathetic existence, ONE!" he screams.
"Al, put him down right now!" Charlie pleads.
"Oh, I'm tempted to 'put him down', alright!"
"Al, let him go!" you shout. "We're hearing him out!"
Lucifer coughs, before quietly whispering "Do your worst... I deserve it, anyway."
"As you wish, 'Your Highness'!"
Alastor raises a fist toward his face, before a sudden bright burst of red flame catches everyone off guard.
"ENOUGH!" a deep demonic voice howls, causing you to look over to its source in terror.
Charlie has once again taken on her demon form, but her eyes have become completely black, devoid of all the life and energy that you've come to love about her. She is levitating in the air, and her beautiful blonde hair has become a blazing inferno of flame.
"Unhand him at once, or as heir to the throne, I shall banish you from this realm for all eternity!" she commands.
Alastor's eyes widen in shock, and with something you've never seen from him ever before: fear.
He gently lowers the demon overlord to the floor, who himself seems terrified of Charlie's immense, unprecedented power.
Charlie slowly descends to the ground, shifting back to her regular form. Her feet gently land on the floor, and with her renewed confidence, she glares at the two of them.
"Alright," she begins. "I'm just as angry as you are about what he did, Al. But we have more pressing matters to attend to at the moment."
"What?" he asks, with a dumbfounded look. "This... creature... abused our kindness, sabotaged the hotel, accused me of doing it..."
He pauses, before an evil grin appears on his face. "I'd say the most pressing matter at the moment is making sure that I gut him where he stands!"
Alastor pulls out the enormous butcher knife from earlier, and charges toward Lucifer with pure hate in his eyes.
Before Alastor can reach him, you step in front of Lucifer, trying to separate the two demon overlords as best as possible.
Never in your time on Earth did you think you would end up defending the Devil himself, but here you are.
Alastor stops, the same astounded expression reappearing his face. "Why are you two defending him!? He willingly betrayed me, betrayed us all!"
"Pentious is still out there." you say. "If anyone is deserving of your wrath, it's him."
"Indeed," Lucifer says from behind you, slowly standing up straight and adjusting his shirt collar.
"No doubt, Sir Pentious might be questioning where my true loyalties lie."
Alastor angrily folds his arms. "I couldn't possibly imagine why."
"This is serious, Alastor. He might be planning to take over all of Hell for himself!" he says. "Need I remind you, that would also include your 'Hazbin Hotel'?"
"Do you know where he's at right now, Dad?" Charlie asks.
"All I know is that he's been building a new airship, one that can somehow travel at the speed of sound."
"We actually saw it earlier." you say. "We were about to destroy it, but it flew away at an insanely fast speed."
"He was here earlier? Why?" Lucifer asks.
"One of his little 'egg minion' dudes was inside Al's studio."
Both demon overlords immediately turn your direction and shout "What!?"
"I never authorized that!" Lucifer exclaims. "Pentious had to have gone rogue!"
"You know, that sounds awfully familiar for some reason..." Alastor says sarcastically.
Ignoring his comment, Lucifer focuses his attention on you and Charlie.
"If you saw him earlier and he ran away, there's no doubt he's rearming his ship at his secret base. Which I happen to know the location of!"
"Excellent, so you're not completely and utterly useless, after all!" Alastor says.
—————————————————————————
Lucifer teleports everyone to the entrance of Pentious' base. It has to be an underground facility of some kind, because the only thing you see above ground is what appears to be a bright red telephone booth.
"Here we are!" Lucifer says, stretching his arms out in a celebratory fashion. "Pentious' secret base, right here in the heart of Imp City."
A demon walks inside the telephone booth and closes the door behind him, presumably starting to make a phone call.
"You sure you brought us the right place?" you ask.
"Of course, I did!" he replies, visually upset that you're doubting him. He opens the door and pulls the demon making a phone call out. "Everyone, step inside! Quickly now."
You, Charlie, Alastor and Lucifer all cram inside the tiny phone booth. Fortunately, since demons are typically taller than the average human like yourself, you have plenty of head room inside the phone booth.
Unfortunately, demons aren't always very wide, so your "elbow room" in here leaves something to be desired.
Lucifer inches his way over to the rotary telephone, and punches in a few numbers.
"The reason he's kept this base so secret is that no one's yet been able to enter in the correct number combination." he explains.
"Either that, or no one's tried it yet because it's ridiculous." Alastor grumbles.
"This was Pentious' idea, not mine!" he replies.
After punching in a few more numbers, Lucifer says quietly "And the last four digits are '7-7-3-4'. There we go!"
After he presses the "OK" button, you expect the floor to suddenly drop from beneath you, like those old spy movies you watched as a kid.
But nothing happens.
"Did you... do the wrong combination?" Charlie asks, clearly just as confused as you are.
"That should have been it, unless he's already suspected my treachery and changed it." Lucifer mumbles. "Let me try again."
The demon overlord starts randomly pressing a bunch of buttons, before you can feel the entire telephone booth begin to shake, and start slowly lowering into the ground, like an elevator.
No one outside seems to notice that it is somehow submerging beneath the surface.
"How in the f-" you say quietly, as your surroundings are soon replaced by darkness. Once the telephone booth is completely underground, a "dummy" one swiftly replaces it, as if the original had never left.
It continues to go further and further under the surface, before rows and rows of bright lights surround the telephone booth. The lights rise above you as it continues to sink further underground.
Finally, you can feel the telephone booth-elevator come to a complete stop. Through its glass windows, you can see nothing but barely-illuminated steel walls.
"We're here." Lucifer says. "Be ready for anything."
The telephone booth makes an electronic "ding" sound, before its door opens up automatically.
It reveals an enormous metal airship hangar, with the same airship you and Charlie faced earlier today directly in the center of it. Pentious' little egg minions are scurrying around, working on improving the intimidating beast of a machine.
Bombs are being brought aboard the enormous craft, with a small group of Egg Bois trying their best to load a cart of them inside the airship. Also, another group of minions are loading up what appears to be a laser cannon of some kind directly on the ship's nose.
A group of three are also pumping what appears to be helium gas inside the airship. There are a bunch of large gas canisters with the letters "He" labelled on them sitting on the ground, while a large pile of canisters with the letter "H" are sitting in a metal garbage can nearby. This makes you softly chuckle.
"What?" Charlie whispers.
"Looks like they took my advice." you say, perhaps a bit louder than necessary.
All at once, every single Egg Boi in the room looks upon you and your party of friends. They then simultaneously pull out guns and weapons of various kinds, aiming them at you all.
"Oh, this is bad..." you quietly mumble.