Chapter Text
Vox sighed as he swirled his drink around, not quite sure if he wanted to drain it yet. Champagne didn't do much for him these days, especially boring shit that didn't have at least three party drugs in it. Val had offered, of course, but Vox had shut him down; they had to play nice for the Morningstars.
This meant enduring an Overlord soiree at the fucking Hazbin Hotel. It served as a meeting and as a meet and greet with Lucifer himself. The Vees needed to get on his good side, so that meant being amicable to the hotel guests and staff for a night. Vel could handle it, of course—she could handle anything. It was Val who had to be watched like a hawk.
The moth demon was currently trying to flirt with Ichabod. It was probably the flames attracting him, the idiot. Ichabod looked nonplussed, though it was a bit harder to tell when his entire face was just a fucking skull on fire.
Vox sighed again and finally drained his glass of glorified cider. He coughed when a gulp of it went down the wrong tube.
"Ah, Vox," said a tinny, stupid voice he'd recognize anywhere. "Attempting to drown yourself, I see! Don't stop on my account!"
Vox glared at him. "Fuck off, Bambi, it went down wrong."
Alastor seemed to materialize out of thin air. He looked mighty smug, probably because he was the first Overlord in several centuries to have the king's ear. And possibly protection.
Not that Vox wouldn't have acted differently. Rather, he would have been pelvic thrusting for an hour in Alastor's face if their positions had been reversed. It still sucked, though.
"Oh, what a shame," Alastor said in a tone that sounded more sarcastic than sympathetic. "Too bad it wasn't poison. I would have loved to see the effects of digestive poison on the respiratory system."
"Bold of you to assume that shit would work on me at all."
"Why? Because you're more artificial than organic? That never seemed to stop Valentino when he shoved everything he could down that screen and throat."
"Jealous you can't shove your dick down my throat?"
"I don't entertain that idea nearly as often as you do." Alastor's grin widened. "In fact, I do believe you have the monopoly on such thoughts! Good job!"
Vox growled, "Beat it, Rudolph, or I'll knock you out and feed you to my sharks."
Alastor checked his claws. "Is that any way to speak to your kindly host, you flatscreened grifter?"
Vox's antennae sparked. "Why, you—"
"Now, boys," said a sharp, matronly voice. "Why don't you take a couple steps away from each other, hm?"
Rosie manhandled them both with a strength that defied her dainty physique. Her sharp claws pierced his arm just enough to feel like a wasp sting but didn't draw blood. She smiled at both of them with teeth sharper than a shark's.
"Get off, Rosie," Vox snapped. He pulled his arm away but took a few steps back just the same. "He started it."
Alastor checked his nails again in disinterest. Would have been infuriating if his arm also wasn't locked in Rosie's claws. Vox was grateful she'd at least kept hold of him.
Rosie tutted. "Now, now, Vox," she chastised. "We aren't schoolchildren. Who started it is of no concern. Be an adult."
In spite, Vox stuck his tongue out—all the way out of his screen like a fucked up moment in The Ring. Rosie frowned at his antics.
Alastor reciprocated with the daintiest little flash of a tongue. It was gone before Rosie could turn her head to glare at him.
Vox scoffed. "Whatever."
He was about to walk away when something tugged on his leg. He looked down to see Alastor's fucking shadow gnawing at his shoe. He kicked at it, unable to do much except scuff the floor. The shadow crawled up the inside of his pants leg, nipping as it went.
Vox shrieked and hopped on one foot, shaking his leg like a rat had crawled up his pants. Well, he supposed that idea wasn't far off from the truth.
"Goddammit, Alastor," he snarled. "Get your fucking creepy cockroach shadow off me!"
"I believe you must be drunker than you think, old chum," Alastor cackled.
Rosie wagged a finger at the deer. "Honestly, you're as bad as him."
Vox tripped on his own feet and fell straight onto his ass with a groan. The shadow snickered and retreated back to its master.
"Fuck you," he growled.
Something lit up beneath him. He squinted through the light. Had he fallen on Ichabod or something? Maybe crashed into a lamp?
Glowing red lines began to etch themselves into the floor. First a circle, then straight lines within the circle in the shape of—
—ah fuck. Someone in the human world was summoning him. Fucking inconvenient timing—or maybe convenient, since whoever was up there would probably be a thousand times easier to deal with than Alastor.
Summonings tended to be tricky, especially with Sinners. Everyone had their own special sigils and runes you had to follow in order to be specific, and everyone and their Satanist grandma could find the shit for the Ars Goetia and Sins with a simple Google search. But Sinners didn't know what their exact passcode was when it came to the summoning. Trying to summon the same Sinner twice was like bobbing for the same apple after the fruit had sloshed around with the others for five minutes.
As far as Vox knew, his own circle usually had to be powered by—or in the presence of—a metric fuckton of electricity or electric-powered appliances. Last time he'd gone Upstairs he'd been thrown into the middle of an abandoned Costco where a gaggle of teens had shit themselves once they realized one of the televisions had grown an entire body out of cables and plugs. Good times. Fun scares all around. He hadn't gotten any souls out of that since the kids had run for the hills in terror, but he did get to have a night off of Vee shit, so that was a plus.
Vox huffed when he saw the sigil continue to be drawn. He saw no 'body' marking that allowed him to take his manifested form with him, which meant he'd be possessing something or someone up there. Fucking figured. Sinners weren't allowed to just manifest all willy-nilly on Earth unless they were Given Permission. Most basic pentagrams didn't come with that design, so the next best thing was to possess someone (or something, in the televisions' case) until the summon was complete. Vox didn't mind possession, per se, but it did give him a wicked system glitch later.
Alastor chuckled. "Duty calls," he mocked. "Perhaps this time they'll be kind enough to give you a full body instead of a picture box?"
"Shut the fuck up," Vox growled. "Hope your next summon puts you in roadkill."
Alastor's lip curled, revealing a little bit of blackened gums.
Vox laughed as the summon completed and his soul was unceremoniously tossed through the dimensions. His spiritual body disintigrated as he rose, Hell technology falling away like rocket scraps. His world pitched sideways, upwards, and downwards. At last, he was deposited into...
...nothing.
Vox's vision swiveled. He tried to move something, maybe feel the current of a machine or circulatory system, but nothing answered. His vision was nothing but white.
Something hummed nearby. Something electric. He instinctively tried to move towards it but was stopped by some sort of barrier. It burned his spirit when he touched it. He would have hissed if he had the capacity to.
"Damn," cursed someone nearby. "I don't think we caught anything."
Vox's vision stabalized as he got used to the whiteness. Machinery. The buzz of florescent lights overhead. Smells of peroxide and bleach.
He was in a lab.
"Sensors indicate something," someone new said. "A blip in the power grid when the circle lit up."
There was a pause. Then a third voice, squeaky and feminine and laced with venom, said, "Oh, I think you got a Sinner soul. No wonder the sensors can barely pick up on it."
"Sinner soul?"
"Former human. Weaker on average than a Goetia."
"Should we free it?"
"Toss it to the side in one of the containers. It'll dissipate on its own if you leave it long enough. They're worthless."
Vox would have bristled if he had any means to. He wanted to protest that he was not fucking worthless, that he probably had the highest net worth of any Sinner.
His soul was siphoned off through a series of tubes. He smashed into a little container barely bigger than a beaker. He shoved his soul against the glass, making it tink and wiggle, but nothing budged.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
Vox had heard the horror stories of Sinners pushed out of their pentagrams who didn't get any sort of body on Earth. If they weren't dismissed by the summoner, if they couldn't even go through their pentagram, a soul without a body would be absorbed into Earth.
Permanently.
It was a guaranteed second death if Vox didn't get into something compatible soon. The container was out of the question, it would explode the second he tried. He needed either a human body or something with a screen and a harddrive with at least a terabyte of space.
"Attempt #89," the first voice droned on. "Utilizing blood as sacrificial piece."
Vox still couldn't see them, which meant they must be in a different room. Which meant there were no humans to possess.
"Change the sigils in the program. The last one was a Sinner's code; we don't need to use it again."
A robotic arm extended out from the wall. A pink laser shot out from the tip of the arm. It carved into the floor, tracing the basic shape of a pentagram, followed by random sigils. Another robotic arm popped out of the wall, placing a vial of blood and several red stones around the circle. Vox wished the arms were closer so he could try hopping in one. They would be connected to a larger system, maybe something he could possess.
The pentagram lit up. A glass tube descended from the ceiling and covered the summoning area just as a portal to Hell opened up. Something was pulled through. The air inside the tube shimmered between red and magenta as a soul tried to solidify without a body to possess.
The portal closed and the pentagram burned away. A faint shimmer of grey flitted around the tube. Vox couldn't see anything beyond that.
"Another Sinner soul," said the feminine voice. "Two in a row. Guess that's better than the eighty seven nothings."
The soul was suctioned away through a new series of tubes until it landed in Vox's beaker. Despite their incorporeal forms, it felt very squished in that tiny container.
So, he said through some instictual soul telepathy. Come here often?
Vox?
Shit. That was Rosie's voice.
This place had summoned two Overlords and yet had the gall to call that a failure?
Welcome to whatever the fuck this place is, he drawled. Your guess is as good as mine on how to get out.
Rosie remained quiet for a moment. This isn't good.
No shit. I've been here maybe two minutes longer than you and I'm already feeling stretched thin.
You can't reach anything in here?
No one's in the room. And none of the tech is powerful enough to hold me for longer than thirty seconds. He tinked against the beaker. Not to mention this shit. Can't get out for some reason.
What about when they shoved me in here?
What?
There had to have been an opening.
Yeah. Maybe a second or two.
Might be our only chance to skedaddle if they manage a third soul.
She was right. Vox had been too distracted by Rosie's summoning to escape his containment. If they summoned another Sinner right now, Vox was prepared to abandon that poor sap to their fate as he slid through. Every Overlord for themselves.
"Attempt #90. Replacing sigils again. Let's put in dead meat in conjuction with the blood."
The robotic arms set up the summoning circle. A new vial of blood came in, followed by several new stones. This time, a hunk of rotting meat was delicately placed on the outskirts of the lines. If Vox had sensory organs he would have gagged at the smell.
Who the fuck were these people?
The pentagram lit up.
Get ready, he told Rosie.
The portal opened.
Vox's vision began to short out. Was he starting to dissipate? Was he going to disappear before he could escape the beaker?
No, he found out shortly. It wasn't his own soul tearing itself apart. It was someone else's soul tearing reality apart as it was dragged through the dimensions. A horrific screech erupted through the air and greenish-black tentacles razed the surroundings. Shadows twisted and formed a barrier above the pentagram before the glass tube could fully close.
"We got a live one!" called one of the voices.
"Goetia?"
The irritating girly voice answered, "Still Sinner."
"You're kidding!"
"But this one seems to have connections. Might be an Overlord! We need to—"
The voices cut off as the soul was fully summoned. Vox saw a blinding shade of crimson try and fail to form.
Vox!
Rosie's shout alerted him to the rising pitch of feedback. Their beaker cracked and shattered. Their souls burst out.
The crimson soul rose to meet them, bypassing the now-shattered glass tube without using the shadows.
Vox and Rosie, I presume?
Vox wanted to swear. Of course Alastor would be the next soul these yahoos had summoned.
Let's beat feet before we get atomized, Vox said.
I would if I had feet to beat, Alastor quipped. His spirit followed the others willingly enough, though. Alastor knew the stakes, just as Rosie and Vox did. This was no time to fight.
The three spirits flew through the walls at breakneck speed. Vox could sense the tech of the building practically reaching out to him, begging for possession and subsequent destruction. But nothing was powerful enough. Everything had servers, which, while they had more than enough power to run on, were most definitely not compatible with the way he operated. Servers were too large and clunky, and needed a specific temperature range in order to even run. Vox wasn't planning on becoming a server room ghost, thank you.
Rosie and Alastor seemed drawn elsewhere, so he followed. Aside from the dead animal chunk, there wasn't anything else for those two to possess. And Alastor certainly wouldn't go into roadkill.
Interestingly, alarms weren't going off. Vox wondered if these people thought they still had Alastor locked in the room. Or maybe Alastor had knocked them out with his sheer volume over the speaker systems?
They arrived in a small room filled with brightly-colored crayon drawings and toys piled up in the corners. The walls were padded but decorated in a strange mixture of cutesy animals and hellish fiends. All of them had guns, the animals dressed in soldier's camo while the hell creatures wore loincloths.
Three children were currently sat around the room. Two boys and a girl. One boy was drawing on the padded walls directly with a very liberal usage of red marker. The other boy was napping in a corner. The girl was stacking Legos into a simplistic hacienda populated by tiny horses with fucked up manes and dragons that seemed to be missing wings or horns or tails.
Best we can do, Rosie admitted. Ladies first.
The grey streak of her soul flew into the little girl.
Alastor immediately went for the red marker kid. Fine by Vox. He flew into the napping boy.
Unlike machines, humans were technically compatible with Vox from the rip. It would take a lot of effort for him to burn one out. But that was when he possessed adults. He'd never gotten inside a kid body before. Didn't even know if a kid would be strong enough to handle a Sinner of his calibre, much less Alastor's or Rosie's.
The kid's body convulsed as he shoved the young soul deep within its own subconscious. Nerves disconnected and reconnected, physical traits manifested out of nowhere. The boy didn't get a tv for a head, thank God, but he still gained a little shark tail and dorsal fin.
Yeah. Yeah, Vox had always wondered what his demon form would have looked like if that TV hadn't crushed his head all those years ago. From the vestigal gills on his ribs and the rare moments he could go for a swim and become the world's weirdest techno-mermaid, Vox would have to guess he had been destined to have a sharkish form up until that last fucking second.
All the kid's baby teeth fell out at once, replaced in seconds with razor sharp teeth only a hammerhead mother would love. Vox felt every single one pierce the gums, tasted the blood on his new tongue. His left eye burst and reformed into a new orb that wouldn't stop fucking spinning.
Eventually, his new body calmed down. He went through a mental checklist. Fingers, toes, hands, feet. On and on. He missed having a diagnostics check system that could tell him exactly what was wrong and how to fix it. Internals would be a mystery up until they suddenly weren't. He'd just have to go with his new gut on this one and hope everything was hunky-dory.
Speaking of guts, apparently this kid was a chonker. It didn't feel like an overeating type of weight, but then again he'd never paid attention enough to care, especially when Sinners tended to come in every shape and size regardless of how much or little they ate. Vox just hoped this body wouldn't be too much of a problem when it came to running. No fat shaming or anything, but he did not want to have an asthma attack while trying to escape this fucked up place.
He sat up, throwing off the scratchy blanket as he did so. His outfit was a pair of blue jeans and a way-too-large grey hoodie with a weird anagram scrawled across the middle. D.H.O.R.K.S. (Jr) Whatever the fuck that was. He'd have to ask Vel if that was some new-fangled show or some shit.
Alastor and Rosie were still convulsing. They were older than Vox, with more natural magics coursing through them on a normal day, not counting Alastor's voodoo shit. Alastor slowly came to a halt after another minute. The kid's hair grew out a little and turned a bright shade of crimson. His ears slid up the side of his face, merging with his hair, becoming two giant deer ears. Blood and teeth spilled onto the floor as his own nasty yellow chompers grew in. His skin turned ashen.
Rosie's girl took the longest to stop but her changes were far easier to go through. Her hair became stark white, her skin went deathly pale, her teeth were replaced with fangs, and her fingernails had grown into wicked claws.
Vox looked at his own hands and realized his nails had sharpened as well. So had Alastor's.
"Ugh," Alastor groaned, tiny baby voice unhindered by radio static. "I hate possessing people."
"Suck it up, buttercup," Vox growled, nearly startled by his own squeaky voice. "It was either this or oblivion."
Rosie rose to her feet, brushing a bit of blood off her jeans. She and Alastor also wore a grey hoodie with the anagram on it, though theirs were more appropriately-sized. Vox had to wonder if these people didn't give a shit about plus sizes for kids.
Rosie frowned at her attire, large now-black eyes glistening in the florescent lights.
"I never liked how little girls dress these days," she complained. "I feel so constricted in pants."
Vox put his hands in his hoodie pocket. "Limbs working?"
Rosie stretched for a few moments and threw him a thumbs-up. Alastor wobbled to his feet, braced against the wall and breathing heavily.
"Al? You good over there?"
The redhead scratched at the padding on the wall, growling, "Peachy."
Rosie walked over, feet stomping awkwardly due to her forgetting she wasn't in heels. She bent her head down next to Alastor and whispered, "Is it the feet?"
Vox glanced down. The kid had normal tennis shoes on, no sign of a prosthetic or anything. He didn't see any crutches or canes, and Vox was relieved they hadn't been that unlucky.
Alastor growled again. "Heinous things."
He whipped around to put his back to the wall, giving Vox a good view of his face. The kid's irises had turned red, but the rest of the orb was human white. His teeth were just as yellow as his demon counterpart's. And...
Vox burst out laughing.
Alastor's ears pinned back. "Shut up."
"Your-your face," he wheezed. "You have fawn spots for freckles!"
Indeed, Alastor's cheeks now heralded six big white spots, with a couple smaller ones splashed across his nose. It was absolutely adorable and priceless.
Rosie snickered into her hand.
Alastor puffed up. Literally. His hair and ears puffed up. That only served to make him even more adorable. "I cannot control what form my host takes, Shark Chum."
Vox's tail wagged in delight. "Is it 'cuz you're a kid right now? That's so cute."
"Call me cute again."
Vox stepped into his little fucking personal bubble and poked him on the nose. "Cute."
Alastor snapped at the offending finger. Vox pulled away quick enough but still felt the displacement of air from the speedy teeth. Undeterred, he kept chuckling.
Rosie tugged them away from each other, keeping them at arm's length with her in the center. "Focus, boys."
Alastor huffed and combed his claws through his hair. It was looser than his demonic visage's. The ends curled up, especially down by his chin. His bangs were curlier, too. "Shall we leave this room and get back to the summoning circle?"
Rosie pursed her lips. "I think your entrance destroyed it, darling."
"If it were that easy to destroy, then it wouldn't be able to summon at all."
"Rosie's circle burned away after she popped in," Vox said. "I think it was meant to be temporary."
"So we need to find a weak spot and get Downstairs the old fashioned way," Rosie said. She put her hands on her hips. "Any better suggestions?"
Neither boy said anything. They knew it was true. Without the original summoning circle, the demons would have to go out into the world and seek out what they called a 'weak spot'—a place where the dimensions of Hell and Earth squished together awkwardly and created something cursed. In most cases, it was some sort of old house or basement, maybe an abandoned prison, that no human exorcist could feasibly cleanse. Sometimes it was dependent on the time of day, like with the liminal spaces—small airports and schools especially rubbed up against Hell a lot at night. Humans could make the best contact with demons in the weak spots if they knew what they were doing. And if a demon, Sinner or Hellborn, got stuck on this side, all they needed to do was find a weak spot, maybe draw a return pentagram, and pop home. The host bodies of Sinners would be cleansed automatically, though Vox had no idea if the more extreme mutations were permanent.
"Alright then. Let's find the exit."
Alastor looked down and grinned. "Ah, good, you made it through!"
Vox groaned when he realized Alastor's stupid shadow had made itself known. It was smaller but still held the outline of Alastor's true shape.
Alastor snapped his fingers. "Let's be on our way."
The shadow grew on the floor, surrounding all three of them. Vox expected to sink into the void like Alastor usually did. Rosie looked expectant as well. Vox felt a tug on his feet, then another.
But nothing was happening. Alastor's brows pinched. "Out of the room, at the very least."
The shadow shrank and shook its head with a frown.
"Oh dear," Rosie gasped. "These little children aren't powerful enough to handle our full potential."
Vox looked up at a corner of the room and saw a camera. "Let me try."
He took a running start and leapt towards the camera. He felt electricity spark around him and, for a moment, he thought he would actually hop into the grid.
Then he fell like a stone onto the floor, face first. His body jiggled a bit on impact, which was certainly a new sensation to him. He of the rail-thin Hellform, rivaled only by the Radio Demon and probably Zestial, would find any amount of moving body fat strange on himself.
Alastor hawed in laughter. "Not so easy, is it?"
Vox scrambled to his feet and glared. "Fuck off, at least we know now."
Rosie shook her head. "Okay. Fast travel is out. Vox can use a little bit of his electricity, Alastor's shadow is at least able to manipulate things, and..."
She waved a hand. The Legos and figures rearranged themselves bit by bit until they formed a tiny replica of her Emporium, complete with a line of waiting gossipers.
"...I dare not go any larger," she finished. "Bigger items need more power."
"We hoof it, then," Vox said when he rejoined them.
He and Rosie trotted over to the door. Alastor took a few more seconds to get his legs in working order.
"The fuck's up with you?" Vox asked. "Is the kid putting up a fight or something?"
Alastor rolled his eyes. "That would be quite impressive. No, I'm merely trying to get used to these cursed feet."
Something pinged in Vox's memory. He recalled seeing Alastor's shoes off in his home once, and instead of normal toes the man had cloven hooves. Alastor had to wear special shoes to accommodate the hooves in order to look presentable (to his standards). It was not damning information, just inconvenient. There was no reason to jab at Alastor having hooves when no one fucking cared about it.
Well. Some very specific (and horny) people might care, but Vox was not one of them, thanks. He could admit to being horny for Al on main half the time, but he wasn't a foot guy.
"The kid got fawn freckles but couldn't grow hooves?" Vox questioned with a smirk.
Alastor flattened his ears.
Vox rolled his eyes and waited for the idiot to get his balance again.
Rosie, meanwhile, had opened the door a crack and sent out a little dragon toy to scout. It returned just in time for Alastor to stop wobbling. It growled a report at her. She nodded seriously.
"It says the guards are decently relaxed around here. Armed and dangerous, but lacking in armor."
"Did it spot a safe space to pause?" Vox asked.
"Several. We'll need one of you to knock out the cameras on the way."
Vox sent a burst of static electricity at the camera in the room. It exploded instantly. "At least I can do that."
"Save the big bursts," Alastor chided. "It might drain your host faster, otherwise."
"And I suppose you have a better idea?"
Alastor didn't move, but his shadow did. It created a little puppet show, acting out itself tipping incoming cameras up and down as needed. It looked so proud of itself.
"This way won't arouse suspicion," Alastor bragged.
Vox crossed his arms with a huff. "Fine."
The trio tiptoed out into the hall. So far so good. The shadow tipped several cameras as they moved through the maze. Rosie's little toy dragon would fly ahead and report back every minute or so. They had no idea where they were going, but Vox was sure they were following the giant EXIT signs hanging from the ceiling in every other hall.
Sharp heels clicked against tile behind them. Vox, at the back of the pack, froze and grabbed Alastor's arm. The boy growled in warning, but Vox ignored it.
"Coming from behind," he whispered.
Alastor sobered up, nodded, and relayed the information to Rosie. They adjusted course and, after the shadow determined it was safe, fled into a dark room. They left the door just slightly ajar.
The heels continued down the hall. This time, a voice could be heard.
"We tried to," the new person said. It sounded to Vox like one of the voices from the lab. A woman, definitely. "But the last one broke most of our equipment"
"You should have been more careful with your measures," screeched the annoying feminine voice. Which was odd, because Vox could only hear one set of footsteps. It didn't sound like a phone call, either. "How long until the arm is back to a functioning state?"
"Twelve hours to fix it, probably. But the bigger problem is puttin' in a request to do it. Fuckin' admin bullshit."
The annoying voice groaned. "Well at least the Sinners should have evaporated by now. Dealing with them on top of this would have been stupid."
"What do you mean by 'evaporated?'"
"Sinners can't stay long in the human world without a pentagram to anchor them in place. They'd need to possess someone or else get absorbed into the earth."
"Possess?!"
"Relax. All humans were either in protected zones or just too far to possess."
There was a pause. The first woman's voice shook as she said, "How bad would that have been? To be possessed by a Sinner?"
"Depends. Do you like having your body mutated to fit someone else's aesthetics?"
They passed the door. Vox let out a breath. His tail twitched, but he kept it still.
Alastor dared to peek out the crack of the door. He immediately backed up again, ears flattened.
"Cherub," he whispered.
Vox bit back a swear. Of fucking course Heaven was involved. That meant they really, really had to be cautious. If that cherub caught them, it would be game over for the Sinners. Earth was not the place to have a showdown if the Overlords wanted to actually win against even the weakest of Heaven's troops.
A sharp ringing broke through the air. The three children Overlords froze. Vox relaxed a bit once he realized the sound wasn't coming from their room.
The footsteps halted, as did the ringing. "What is it?" said the nervous woman—a measly human, Vox assumed. "Slow down."
There was a muffled voice yelling. That was a phone call.
"What do you mean the kids ran off?"
"You had children in the building?" the cherub asked.
"They were the only ones we hadn't sent on that, um... original mission. They all were a bit too... well, let's just say they weren't a good fit."
"So what are they still doing here?"
"Hey, free trainees! We were gonna get them ready for field work... eventually."
Another muffled yell.
"What?"
"What's he saying?"
A beat. "They don't look right. One's got a fish tail, one is pale as a ghost, and one has rabbit ears..."
Alastor growled softly. Rosie put a hand over his mouth.
"They blew up the room's camera, and now they're somewhere else."
The cherub actually swore. Color Vox surprised, he thought actual angels unrelated to Adam were too pure for that. "You idiots! I told you to make sure every human was quarantined far enough away!"
"We didn't think the kids would—"
"Sound the alarm! If you thought Imps were tough to beat, you've no idea how ridiculous a Sinner can be!"
"I thought you said they were weaker!"
"Than a Goetia! They're way stronger than Imps, and they have more magic at their disposal!" A pause. "Not to mention that last one was probably an Overlord—a Sinner who owns hundreds of souls or more. Based on how they fucked up the equipment, that one is the most dangerous."
Vox couldn't see him but he just knew Alastor had a smug grin plastered on his face. It boiled his blood.
"How bad could they be in children's bodies, though?"
"Hopefully they've been weakened so much they can't put up a fight."
Vox felt electricity sparkle through his fingers. Oh, he was going to enjoy making her eat those words. And judging by the feral grins on the cannibals' faces, they were thinking along the same lines.
The footsteps retreated back whence they came. A siren went off, accompanying a flashing red light.
The trio darted out of the room, stealth be damned.