Chapter Text
"No! No! No!" Charlie screeched as a Sinner barrel-rolled past her and into the coffee table, sending pamphlets and coasters flying like debris in a hurricane. She tried to grab him, but he slipped from her grasp with a wet squelch that suggested he'd either been drinking or oozing something alcoholic.
Another Sinner kicked open the front door wider, hollering to the street, "FREE FOOD AND PORNSTAR INSIDE!" before vanishing into the growing mob.
Vaggie swung her spear like a traffic baton, jabbing it into the chest of a demon trying to unplug the reception desk's computer. "GET OUT OF THAT! That's the Wi-Fi!"
Charlie whirled toward the stairs just in time to see three Sinners leap from the second floor railing and onto the lobby's chandelier. The fixture groaned with their combined weight, swaying like a noose in a thunderstorm.
"No no no no NO!" Charlie shrieked, flapping her arms like a frantic dove in a burning chapel. "Please come down!"
"You heard her boys!"
All three grinned and with a synchronized jump, forced the chandelier to rip clean out of the ceiling. Several Sinners below scattered with a mix of shrieks and cheers as the chandelier came crashing down, exploding into a rain of glass and gold.
Across the room, Angel Dust was using a chair as a makeshift weapon, swinging it like a folding warhammer against a particularly sticky Sinner climbing the bar counter.
"Back the fuck up, you crusty bathmat!" he snarled, cracking the chair over the Sinner's head. The wood splintered. The Sinner didn't even flinch—just giggled and drooled as he continued his assault.
Angel groaned. "This is why I don't do free gigs!"
Husk was behind the bar, desperately slapping at hands reaching for the booze. "You touch that scotch and I swear to Satan I'll feed you your own liver through a goddamn straw!" he barked, stabbing at grabby claws with a bar spoon. One Sinner managed to snatch a full bottle of Scotch and vanished into the crowd like a greased possum.
From the kitchen, an explosion of flour burst into the air like someone had weaponized a bakery. A rolling pin clattered across the lobby floor, bouncing off a dazed Sinner's head. A second later, Niffty came skittering out, dual-wielding ladles like twin scimitars.
"So many BAD boys!" Niffty manically grinned.
She lunged into the fray, ladles flashing, knocking plates, heads, and a tray of deviled eggs into the air with equal enthusiasm. One Sinner shrieked, slipped on mashed potatoes, and faceplanted into the punch bowl.
Charlie stumbled backward, bumping into Vaggie as more Sinners poured through the open doors like rats into a burning opera house. "We have to do something!"
"Where the fuck is Alastor!?" Vaggie yelled again, ducking as a Sinner hurled a velvet armchair across the lobby like a discus.
Another window shattered as a Sinner on rollerblades burst through it mid-backflip, scattering ceiling tiles and someone's pants in every direction.
"Motherfucker!" Vaggie roared, jabbing her spear into the floorboards. "Can this get any worse!?"
"FOOD FIGHT!" Someone bellowed from the depths of the kitchen—right before a full roasted pig exploded out of the swinging double doors like a meaty cannonball. It struck the reception desk, knocking the entire counter over followed by a chorus of startled screams. A conga line of unhinged Sinners surged after it, arms with plate full of different foods.
"No!" Charlie ducked as a bowl of something green and steaming flew past her head. "No food fight!"
But her pleas fell on deaf ears as even more culinary chaos erupted from the kitchen like Hell's worst cooking show. Pies of all sorts of flavors soared overhead like sugar-encrusted mortars, leaving greasy streaks across the lobby walls. A banana cream pie splattered against a framed portrait of Charlie, Lucifer, and Lilith—right over Lucifer's face, as if the universe was editorializing.
Before she could scream again, a flaming baguette—yes, flaming—whizzed past her face and embedded itself into the curtain.
Charlie's eyes widened. "No no no no—"
The curtain caught instantly.
Within seconds, crimson velvet was engulfed in bright orange flames, climbing like a devil's tongue toward the ceiling.
"FIRE!" Vaggie screamed.
Several Sinners immediately cheered.
One raised a solo cup and shouted, "Hell yeah! This is the best fucked up party ever!"
"PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!" Charlie screamed, scrambling toward the blazing curtain with a throw pillow in both hands. She smacked at the flames like she was trying to suffocate a volcano. "Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!"
A Sinner leapt off the banister with a ketchup bottle in each hand, shrieking, "FOR SAUCE AND GLORY!" before crashing into a group of partygoers and smearing the walls with condiments like Jackson Pollock possessed by Gordon Ramsay.
Angel Dust ducked a flying cake tin and hissed. "This is worse than that time I did coke off a trampoline mid-orgy. At least then I had dignity!"
Behind the bar, Husk had resorted to lighting a Molotov cocktail—not to throw it, but to threaten the other Sinners into calming down. "You touch one more fucking bottle, and I swear to Satan's crusty ass, I will burn this whole place down myself!"
"Don't you fucking dare Husk!" Vaggie growled, stabbing her spear into a table leg to prop up a barricade.
"WILL EVERYONE STOP THROWING SHIT!" Charlie screamed.
"I hope you three are comfortable," Vox said with his most winning, digitized smile. The synthetic static in his voice softened just enough to feign sincerity, though the flicker in his pixels betrayed a hint of panic.
Adam sat with his boots propped arrogantly on the edge of a crystal glass coffee table—one that cost more than most Sinners' souls. He was flipping a coin between his fingers without even looking at Vox.
The coin made a soft ping every time it spun in the air.
Kaela sprawled on a velvet chaise lounge like she owned the place. She was clicking through the massive, wall-mounted television—half-watching a slow-motion reel of Sinner executions set to classical music, half-inspecting the remote.
Luna had opened the minibar and was actively emptying it, bottle by bottle. Half the mini bottles were already lined up like shot soldiers on the coffee table next to Adam's boots. She didn't even look at Vox—just made direct eye contact with a security camera in the corner, grinned, and poured two different liquors into a flower vase.
"That's not a glass." Vox said tightly.
"Excuse me?" Luna replied, taking a sip directly from the vase. Her lips curled into a smirk, daring him to repeat what he said.
Vox's circuitry flickered again, a thin burst of static tearing across his jaw. He pulled in a breath he didn't need and forced another smile.
"... Nothing. I didn't say anything." Vox replied before turning away and whispering to himself. "Just think of the deal Vox. Just think of the deal. Think of the Angelic Steel."
He turned back to his guests with another forced grin, the digital equivalent of stretching duct tape over a bursting water main.
"Oh how rude of me. I didn't get your names." Vox offered with another smile—this one more desperate than polite.
Adam flipped the coin again and caught it without looking. He rolled it across his knuckles. His face, still obscured by sunglasses and that awful fake mustache, remained unreadable.
"Didn't fucking give 'em." he said flatly, voice smooth and venomous.
Kaela, still draped like a bored mob princess, didn't even look up. "Yeah. Didn't ask for yours either, 'TV Boy.'"
Vox twitched.
"R-right. Haha. Very, very funny. Names aren't important—what is important is that we're all here. Comfortable. Relaxed." A smile pixelated back onto his face like a corrupted GIF. "Anyway, I'm sure Carmilla needs you three back ASAP so lets talk business."
"Y'know, this table's a little low. Got anything taller I can rest my fucking nuts on?" Adam didn't even smile as he said it. Just stared at Vox through those oversized sunglasses, fake mustache twitching slightly with the movement of his mouth.
Vox's left eye flickered. Literally. A short-circuit sparked at the corner of his digitized iris before he managed to suppress it.
Velvette leaned in from her seat nearby, giggling into her phone. "I like him."
Valentino growled under his breath. "I hate him."
Vox clapped his hands together too quickly. "Excellent joke. So ... refreshingly informal. Now then, let's talk Angelic Steel."
He pulled a glowing, sleek screen out from behind him with a dramatic flick of his wrist, displaying charts, diagrams, and projections with that unmistakable Overlord polish. "We're prepared to offer Carmilla—"
"Hold it glitchy." Adam interrupted, not even turning his head toward the screen. "First thing first, we have a condition of our own. If you fucks don't fulfill it, we aren't going to have a deal."
Valentino, sprawled across his half-burned velvet couch with a cigarette dangling between his teeth, narrowed his eyes. "A condition?" he sneered. "We're the ones with the money, sugar. We don't take conditions. We offer prices."
Adam leaned forward slightly, flipping the coin one last time—only this time, he didn't catch it. He let it hit the glass table with a sharp, ringing plink. It spun there for a long second before landing with a soft clink—tails.
He looked up at Valentino with an edge of deliberate calm.
"A little bird told me you fucks got some rare ... Exorcist merchandise. Specifically, the ones who fell during the Hotel fight." Adam said, voice coiling with quiet menace.
Valentino's cigarette paused halfway to his lips. "And what does it fucking matter to you?"
"Simple." Adam leaned back, his arms draped lazily across the couch like a predator stretching before the kill. His voice lowered to a slow, deliberate growl. "You've seen the people Carmilla has as security now and she has taken quite a shine to them. Can't fucking blame her. Those bitches are awesome. So in exchange for them, she'll provide weapons."
"Pfft." Valentino scoffed, blowing a lazy plume of smoke toward the ceiling. "Those sluts are fierce but too fierce for my taste. Not worth the upkeep."
Kaela snorted from the chaise lounge, still scrolling the channels. "Too much of a pussy to handle them."
Valentino's sunglasses glinted as he turned his head slowly. "What the fuck did you say?"
Kaela looked over lazily. "You heard me, cumrag."
Before Valentino could advance, Vox stepped between them, practically vibrating with digital anxiety. His screen-glow flickered in static spasms.
"Now now now! No need for posturing! We're all professionals here!" Vox laughed, the sound an uneven burst of autotune and static. He slapped his palms together again with the cheer of a man trying to hold back a dam breach with duct tape. "Val, you did have some of them before, right?"
"Yeah. Picked up a few of them throughout the city. Bitches wouldn't break no matter how I sliced." Valentino shrugged like he was bored. "So I sold them."
Adam's fingers stopped drumming.
For the first time since entering the room, the temperature dropped.
Not literally—but everyone felt it. That awful pressure. Like something old had just shifted inside the man in the fake mustache and novelty T-shirt.
"Guess we aren't making a deal after all." Adam said, his tone hollow, almost amused. His hand ready to summon his axe while Kaela and Luna reached for their hidden weapons.
But before it could escalate, Vox yanked Valentino aside so fast it was a miracle his cigarette didn't fly out of his mouth. They vanished behind one of the towering neon pillars.
"WHO did you sell them to!?" Vox hissed, his voice glitched and guttural.
Valentino just adjusted his sunglasses and rolled his neck like a lazy predator. "Relax, Voxy. I didn't sell 'em to Heaven, if that's what you're scared of."
"Not funny." Vox's hands twitched.
"If you two are done making out, how about using that as a bargaining chip for the weapons?" Velvette interrupted, peaking her head around the pillar.
Vox quickly composed himself with a deep, jittering breath and plastered on the fakest smile he could render before returning out to face Adam.
"So good news—we can get those Exorcists back!" He chirped like a salesman.
"We can?"
"Shut up Val." Vox chided Valentino before clapping his hands together and turning back to face Adam. "However, those Exorcists aren't cheap and we will need to talk price if—"
Adam snaps his fingers and Luna immediately pulls out a suitcase and slams it onto the table. She snaps it open with a flourish—and inside gleams a cold, lethal array of Angelic Steel weapons.
Vox, Velvette, and Valentino leaned forward in unison. All posturing, all arrogance vanished like a computer crash.
Angelic Steel.
So much of it.
Adam leaned back lazily, arms crossed. "One suitcase per Exorcist."
"Per—?!" Valentino started to shout, but Vox's heel dug into his shoe so hard it nearly broke skin.
"We accept!" Vox said instantly, smoothing his smile even as sweat practically short-circuited his circuits.
ALASTOR IS SO FUCKED!
"But to get them back will take time—"
"We can wait." Adam says, slamming the suitcase shut.
The lobby looked like it had been hit by a biblical plague made entirely of mashed potatoes, sex toys, and regret. Chunks of food still dripped from the chandeliers—well, what was left of them. Most of the curtains were scorched or melted. The air smelled like rum-soaked gravy, scorched velvet, and panic sweat.
Charlie stood in the middle of the room, panting, trembling, streaked with soot and frosting. Her hair clung to her cheeks in singed strands. Her pride had followed shortly after.
"EVERYONE OUT!" Vaggie bellowed, voice cracking like a porcelain plate hitting a stone floor. "OUT! OUT! OUT! IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, THEN CONGRATULATIONS—GET THE FUCK OUT!"
The Sinners hesitated—mostly because many were still drunk, high, or mid-conga. But then Angel Dust flung open the front doors with both arms and shouted.
"She said OUT, you crusty fucking dumpster-dwellers! Go puke on someone else's carpet!"
That did it.
Like a tide breaking, the crowd began to spill out—tripping, swearing, still stealing things as they went.
"Fucking buzzkill."
"Knew they were lame."
"Angel is missing out on my dick."
The last straggling Sinner stumbled out of the ruined front doors, clutching a toaster under one arm and a stolen framed photo of Lucifer under the other. Vaggie gave the Sinner a kick in the ass as a farewell gift, slamming the doors shut behind him.
Silence.
"Yay! Now my favorite part!" Niffty chirped, twirling through the debris like a blood-sugar-fueled ballerina in a battlefield. Her eye sparkled as she surveyed the smoldering wreckage with all the glee of a kid in a candy store—if the candy was moldy dishes, scorched curtains, and glass shards.
"CLEANING TIME!" she sang, pulling a mop and swinging it over her head like a halberd.
"I don't get how she finds that fun." Angel slumped into a splintered armchair with a grunt, brushing cocaine and glass off his lap.
"Mess attracts roaches and Niffty just loves that." Alastor voice seemingly coming out of nowhere, tendrils of shadows rippling from the floor as he materialized from the corner, revealing the Overlord with a beaming smile.
"Would you look at that." Alastor chirped, stepping lightly over an overturned table. "I simply leave for a few hours to retrieve my new cane and the hotel is in tatters. Dear oh dear, where would this hotel be without me."
Alastor's cane clicked against the debris-strewn floor as he strode across the lobby, his grin stretched wider than sanity allowed. Behind him, tendrils of shadow unfurled and worked at removing glass shards and broken furniture.
"You would have been an even greater help if you had been here hours ago." Husk grunted, tossing a half-burned coaster onto a scorched couch.
Alastor merely chuckled, the kind of sound that slithered under the skin like static. "You know me, Husker. Busy, busy, busy. Always a song to sing, a corpse to dig up, a few souls to meddle with. Plus, I had to pick up my new cane."
The lobby had fallen quiet—except for the soft slap of Niffty's mop and the occasional clink of broken glass.
Charlie stood in the middle of it all. She didn't move. Didn't blink. Just stared at a crusted pie slowly oozing down the wall beside the smashed family photo of her, Lucifer, and Lilith.
A lump rose in her throat.
"None of them ..." she whispered.
Vaggie, nearby, looked up from re-fastening a curtain rod with makeshift twine. "What, babe?"
Charlie didn't respond. Her eyes were glassy, fixed on the empty space where the chandelier used to hang.
"Not one stopped. Not one apologized. They wrecked everything. They almost burned the Hotel down and then they cheered. Like it was funny."
"Charlie ..." Vaggie stepped forward gently. "Look, this is all Adam's fault! He was the reason Verosika even made her stage there and the reason all those Sinners trashed our hotel"
"But why would—"
"He's an asshole! Plain and simple!" Vaggie shouted, her hands balling into fists. "He wanted to humiliate you, to show you that your dream—our dream—is a fucking joke to him. He does all this in hopes of watching us crash and burn."
Were it anyone else, the story would've ended there—with tears, bitter truth, and the sound of Vaggie's voice echoing in the broken lobby like a judge slamming the final gavel.
But Charlie wasn't just anyone unfortunately.
She blinked slowly, as if rebooting. Her lips parted slightly, her breath hitched, and for a moment, it looked like she might cry again.
Then—
She smiled.
Vaggie's anger wavered. "Babe …?"
Charlie's eyes lit up—not with clarity, but something worse: realization. Her smile widened. Then widened further.
"Oh my Satan." Charlie breathed, voice trembling not with grief, but manic revelation. "That's it!"
"What's—" Vaggie squinted. "No! Charlie, there is no—"
"That's why he did it." Charlie said, spinning on her heel like a deranged ballerina. Her voice bubbled like boiling syrup—too sweet, too hot, too wrong. "Adam didn't do this to humiliate me. He did this … to test me."
A long pause. Vaggie blinked slowly, like she wasn't sure if Charlie had just entered stage four denial or early-onset psychosis. "… Huh?"
"It's a test!" Charlie said, eyes wild with righteous delusion. She clutched her chest like the holy spirit had just punched her heart. "He's trying to see if I'll give up on him! He wanted to see if I'd quit when it got hard! But we proved him wrong!"
"Charlie, no!"
But Charlie wasn't listening anymore.
"Don't you see Vaggie!? He's being a tsundere!" Charlie gasped, her pupils dilating like as if she were on meth. "How could I have been so clueless!? He's being a tsundere! Of course! That's why he's so angry and cruel and emotionally unavailable!"
"What the fuck is a tsundere." Husk questioned as he tried salvaging what bottles remained unbroken.
"It's when someone's really mean to you, but secretly they care! Deep down!" Charlie explained, gesturing with both arms like a preacher. "They lash out because they can't handle how much they like you!"
"I think you've inhaled too much asbestos." Angel Dust commented. "Does this Hotel even have asbestos?"
She turned toward the shattered remains of the chandelier and spread her arms wide, like she was welcoming the end of days with a song.
"Don't worry Adam! You can try to hide behind your macho man attitude but I can read between the lines!"
HE WANTS REDEMPTION!
Charlie spun again, her hair, streaked with ash and dust, clung to her cheeks as she turned to face the smoking ruins of her once-pristine lobby.
"He wants to be redeemed!" she declared, her voice rising in octave and certainty. "He's just scared!"
"Of what? success!?" Vaggie snapped.
"EXACTLY!" Charlie cried, grabbing Vaggie's shoulders. "That's how you know! It's classic tsundere behavior! Loud gestures! Mixed messages! Sabotaging things because he's afraid of being vulnerable!"
Vaggie groaned into her hands.
"But don't worry Adam! I'm not giving up on you!" Charlie proclaimed. "I bet right now, he is sitting somewhere smiling, pretending he’s not impressed with my resolve!”
She thrust a hand toward the shattered front doors like she was addressing an invisible camera crew.
“‘She didn’t back down.’” Charlie said in a voice that was definitely not Adam’s but tried to sound deep and dramatic. “‘She kept believing in me even after I gave her every reason to quit.’”
Charlie placed a soot-smeared hand over her chest, eyes shimmering like shattered glass under a spotlight. Her cheeks were flushed, her posture triumphant, as if she were ascending from martyr to saint.
"She saw the real me," she whispered in her Adam impression, holding her arms wide. "She believed in the man beneath the blood and the rudeness."
"Okay, no. No no no." Vaggie walked over and grabbed Charlie’s shoulders again, this time with a gentle but urgent grip. “Babe, listen to me. This. Is. Adam! He is just fucking with us! The man has made it very clear he DOESN'T want redemption!”
“No!” Charlie said with unnerving serenity, brushing soot from Vaggie’s lapel. “He's scared to admit he’s lost. Lost in Hell, lost without Heaven, lost without hope. BUT THAT'S WHERE I COME IN!”
ADAM NEEDS HER NOW MORE THEN EVER!
SHE'LL BE ADAM'S 'HOPE IN HELL'!
“This isn't some anime!” Vaggie practically shrieked.
“Not with that attitude.” Angel Dust mumbled, cradling a half-melted martini glass. “But hey, if we start getting flashbacks and power-ups mid-fight, I’m in.”
"Husk," Vaggie mumbled in defeat, "how much bourbon do I need to drink to blackout hard enough and forget what I just heard?"
Husk didn't even look up from the shattered bar as he cradled a surviving bottle. "More than we got left."
As they waited for Valentino to return with the Exorcists, Adam, Kaela and Luna had turned the lounge into a pigsty. The lounge had transformed from decadent chic into something resembling a college dorm after finals week. Empty liquor bottles littered the velvet furniture like shrapnel.
On the couch, Adam had leaned back in a position that suggested either total boredom or utter disdain—probably both. He adjusted his sunglasses with one hand, lazily spinning the Mario Kart steering wheel controller in his other.
"God damn it, Kaela." he grunted, glaring at the screen, "blue-shell me again and I'll fucking blue-shell your ass."
Kaela chuckled, aiming her controller pointedly. "You snooze, you lose, Dickmaster."
"I'm sorry," Vox piped up, his voice brittle with carefully contained digital anxiety, "but could you kindly remind me again how exactly we arrived at this … arrangement?"
His head was currently displaying Mario Kart, split-screen, with Adam, Kaela, Luna and Velvette clustered around it. Luna snorted, mashing buttons frantically as she took another sharp turn.
"You didn't have a console." Luna smirked, not even glancing at him. "But you are HDMI compatible."
"I'm a powerful Overlord of Hell!" Vox whined, his voice glitching with something close to desperation. "I control broadcast networks, economies of attention! You cannot just … plug into my skull!"
"You're also a shitty Toad." Adam shot back dryly. "Less whining, more racing."
"I'm Bowser!" Vox corrected, the voice crackling. "And I'm in fourth place!"
Kaela flipped her controller sideways, bumping Adam's kart off Rainbow Road. "Correction: fifth place."
"You snooze, you lose, Vox!" Velvette snickered, smirking wickedly as she flicked the joystick to shove Vox's Bowser off Rainbow Road again. Vox's screen-face flashed briefly in digital anguish before quickly resuming the gameplay, pixels twitching in annoyance.
The lounge doors slammed open suddenly, startling everyone inside. Valentino strode in, cigarette clamped between his teeth, pulling on several steel chains with obvious annoyance. At the end of those chains stumbled ten Exorcists—each one battered, bruised, and glaring daggers at their captor, wrists shackled, steel collars fastened tightly around their necks.
"There!" Valentino snarled, yanking the chains and forcing the Exorcists to stumble forward, nearly falling to their knees. "Ten Sinner Exorcists."
Adam resisted the urge to get violent.
Not because he didn't feel the impulse—every muscle in his body tensed like coiled springs, the veins in his temples throbbing beneath that ridiculous fedora—but because violence, in this particular moment, wasn't productive.
Not yet, at least.
"Great work Val!" Vox congratulated before lowering his voice to a whisper. "Please tell me it didn't cost—"
"Oh, it cost." Valentino growled around his cigarette, yanking the chains hard enough to draw a few muffled gasps from the Exorcists. "But I fucking got them back so just charge them extra or whatever."
The newly arrived Sinner Exorcists immediately recognized Adam despite his disguise and one hand gesture from him told them all they needed to know.
He had a plan.
"Well, color me surprised." Adam said as he inspected the Exorcists. "Didn't think you would fucking deliver."
Valentino lit another cigarette with a snap of his fingers, the ember reflecting in his shades as he leaned back against a lounge chair. "So? You gonna jerk off over 'em or what?"
Adam ignored him. His sunglasses glinted as he stepped forward, the click of his boots a rhythm of restrained fury.
"I assume they aren't under any contract?" Adam questioned. "Wouldn't want you guys pulling a—"
"Chill out, pimp." Valentino blew out a plume of smoke, waving his hand lazily. "They WERE under contract with whoever had them but I bought their fucking freedom."
He noted the state they were in—battered, bruised, yet still defiant. Despite the shackles and chains, each Exorcist stood tall, eyes sharp, quietly communicating their readiness to act at his signal.
"You girls alright?" Adam asked, his voice calm, devoid of humor now. He didn't raise it, nor did he try to hide his genuine concern.
One Exorcist stepped forward—a short-haired brunette with a cut lip and fiery eyes. "Been better, sir. But we've endured worse."
Adam nodded, recognizing her. "Good to see you're still kicking, Mara."
Mara inclined her head, a faint smile crossing her bruised face. "Likewise, sir."
"Alright Vox, let's talk Angelic Steel." Adam says as he stepped back from the Exorcists. "How about some first hand experience?"
"No need for—" Vox replies but is cut off when a piercing shriek tore through the room. Everyone spun around in startled unison, eyes landing squarely on Velvette—collapsed to one knee, hands clutching her leg. Blood seeped rapidly through her fingers, dripping onto the plush carpet.
Kaela stood beside her, angelic dagger slick with fresh crimson, expression bored.
Vox glitched violently, his pixelated features twisted in digital horror as he watched Velvette clutch her bleeding leg.
"What the FUCK!?"
Luna sprang up, launching herself across the lounge table like a gymnast. Her boot connected beautifully with Valentino's jaw—a resounding CRACK echoing through the room as his sunglasses flew off his face in slow-motion elegance.
Valentino staggered back, eyes wide with stunned disbelief, before collapsing onto the luxurious carpet.
"Val!" Vox shouted, panic clear in his voice. He whirled around, glitching violently. "You—"
"Shut it, you shitty flat screen." Adam snarled, drawing back his boot and slamming it directly into the side of Vox's knee with devastating precision.
A sickening, crunching snap filled the air.
"AAAGH—!" Vox's scream short-circuited, distorting into a broken sound wave as his leg buckled beneath him, the limb collapsing at a grotesque angle. He toppled sideways, landing with a dull, staticky thud. His screen-face flickered frantically, a distorted blue error message blinking rapidly across his features.
Adam leaned over Vox's trembling form, adjusting his absurdly oversized sunglasses. "As I promised, you three will get first hand experience."
He glanced over to the ten Exorcists who have since surrounded the three Overlords. "Now then, ladies. How about a little fucking payback?"
Kaela dropped the suitcase full of Angelic Steel weapons at the Exorcists' feet and the women eagerly grabbed the weapons, their eyes gleaming.
"Oh fuck." Vox's static crackled, his screen flickering erratically. "Wait—"
Adam sat down, propping his feet up on the coffee table, and pulled out his phone to record what is to come.
"Well, don't mind me." He grinned. "I'll just enjoy the show."