Ballet Shoes and Radios

Dancing To Static

"You may," Charlie put on her most haughty expression, which honestly didn't make her look any less like a little kid. You joined her in the entrance hall, just in case.

"Alastor!" he flung his hand out and began talking briskly, "Pleasure to be meeting you, sweetheart! Quite a pleasure!" Alastor pulled the demon princess towards him, beaming. "Excuse my sudden visit, but I saw your fiasco on a picture show, and I just couldn't resist! What a performance! Why, I haven't been that entertained since the stock market crash of 1929!" You sighed. You had been alive then and had struggled greatly with money issues. That was when you started stealing... "So many orphans," you and the other overlord mumbled at the same time. He turned his attention to you and his smile widened by another centimeter, which you had certainly not thought possible. You smiled back weakly.

"Stop right there, cabrón hijo de perra (A/N - Bastard son of a bitch)! I know your game and I'm not gonna let you hurt anyone here, you pompous, cheesy talk show shitlord!" Vaggie marched in, thrusting an exterminator's spear at Alastor. Unfazed, he merely shifted the tip of the weapon away from his chest. "Dear, if I wanted to hurt anyone here," his eyes dilated into radio dials, his head tilted, and the fuzzy white noise that seemed to follow him around intensified, "I would have done so already." Charlie and Vaggie looked up in fear, and you stood with your arms crossed, completely unaffected. You could do something similar, where your "strings" could be seen more obviously, your eyes glowed amethyst purple with something that looked like fire, and your hair lifted in a gossamer halo around your head.

Alastor returned to normal, "No! I'm here because I want to help!"

"Uhhh, say what now?" Charlie seemed very taken aback.

"Help!" Alastor repeated, "Helloo? Is this thing on?" He tapped on his microphone staff almost childishly. "Testing, testing!"

Much to Charlie and Vaggie's surprise, the mic responded, "Well, I heard you loud and clear!"

"Um, you want to help? With...?" Charlie questioned.

Warping behind Charlie and Vaggie, Alastor grinned wider, "This ridiculous thing you're trying to do! This hotel! I want to help you run it!" This time, even your eyebrows lifted in disbelief. Charlie was so puzzled, you could hear her brain gears turning, "Buuuuut... Why?"

"Why does anyone do anything? Sheer, absolute boredom! I've lacked inspiration for decades. My work became mundane, lacking focus, aimless! I've come to crave a new form of entertainment!" Alastor chuckled.

"Does... getting into a fistfight with a reporter count as entertainment?"

"It's the purest kind, my dear; Reality! True passion! After all, the world is a stage and the stage is a world of entertainment," Alastor pronounced grandly.

"Soooo, does that mean you think it's possible to rehabilitate a demon?"

-Timeskip-

Alastor, as it turned out, did not think it was possible. He made it very clearly known he was helping the hotel only for his own entertainment. That irritated both you and Vaggie to the extremes. As he said, he wanted to "watch the scum of the world struggle to climb up the hill of betterment only to repeatedly trip and tumble down to the fiery pit of failure". Surprisingly enough, Angel had no idea who Alastor was. Vaggie begged Charlie not to accept his offer, but Charlie, as naive as it was, believed he could prove himself good. "So, it's a deal, then?" he asked. He twirled his staff, and reaching out his hand towards the princess, expelled a burst of green energy.

"Nope! No shaking! No deals! I... hmm... As princess of Hell and heir to the throne, I, uh, hereby order that you help with this hotel. For as long as you desire." You sighed in relief, knowing even Charlie wasn't that naive. "Sound fair?"