Ballet Shoes and Radios

Business For Real

(Short Timeskip)

"It's been a little over two years since the Hotel started up, and except on recruiting staff and a single long term patient, we've made no progress so far," you tapped your foot on the floor of the almost unused meeting room. In front of the board, you had placed an easel with a large sketchpad that contained your presentation perched on it. "So, I think it's time we really get serious about this. I'm talking specifically to you, Angel." You flipped open the sketchpad to its first page. You had borrowed Charlie's notes from that meeting in Heaven a while back, and had constructed a plan that might just get the whole rehabilitation thing going. Spinning an old-fashioned classroom pointer into existence, you pointed at the huge speech bubble in the middle of the page, which read 'Find Your Flaws' in big block letters. "So from what they said up there in Heaven, I've constructed a step-by-step plan that should work, if they're going to judge by their own rules, to get pretty much any demon rehabilitated!"

Unlike most of Charlie's pep talks, everyone was actually paying attention. Charlie was practically quivering with excitement. She had seen the basic outlines of your presentation, and the princess absolutely loved it. But then again, she loved everything about rehabilitation. "The first step is self assessment. You can't just get somebody to tell you what needs to be improved. A great bit of self-betterment is taking action to change yourself. So the first course of action would naturally be to reflect on your behavior and try to pick out the things that might be interfering."

You flipped to the next page that listed your two main flaws, with lines connecting them to their respective deadly sin, all of which you had written on the top. "For example, I have anger issues that lead to people dying and tend to act hastily assuming I can do whatever needs to be done to perfection. The anger issues link to wrath, and the overconfidence to pride. Okay, so, to keep you all from double-dying of boredom, I'm going to ask you to think about something. How do you think those two can be fixed?"

Vaggie raised her hand tentatively, "For wrath, you could use emotional control activities every time you get angry. Like counting to ten, or breathing exercises. Then over time, you can develop the habit, and you'll stop killing because of that?"

"Yes, that's an excellent examples. How about for pride?"

"Maybe before you get into a situation, remind yourself you might make some mistakes, then you'll keep doing it, like Vaggie said?" Charlie piped up.

"Yeah, that's a good one too. So, once you've figured out the main problems and have listed ways to eliminate them, there's the next step," you flipped the page over using the pointer. "Figure out what got you here," you read, "Now, this links back to the last point, but it's more on how you lived when you were still alive than how you live now." You flipped pages again. This time was a spider diagram of some of the things you did in your life that may have ended you up in Hell. "In my case, I was desperate for food and money, so I killed and stole. I didn't do anything else that would be considered 'sinful', so we can identify that as my sin, yes?" All the others nodded. "Now, I want you guys to share why you ended up here. One or two volunteers are good."

To your surprise, Niffty put her hand up, "I was, and am, what people would consider a psychopath," You were mildly surprised, so your speculations had been fairly off. (A/N - btw I'm getting this lore on Niffty from AyyLmao on Youtube, and I'm not sure if it's true or not.) "My husband cheated on my after a year or marriage, and I lost it when I found out. I killed both him and the other woman."

You nodded, "I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's fine, I'm pretty much over it now."

You looked around, "Anyone else? No? Okay then."

"From what I can infer from what the Angels up there said, we need to do something good enough to cancel out what got us here in the first place. Yes, for some of us it's a lot of work, but if we try hard enough it should be possible. However, it'll be easier for Vaggie. She ended up here not because of something she did, but because of her seven deadly sin, wrath," you went on, "This means charity work. Alastor, volunteering to help the Hotel would've helped with that, had you not done it for your own entertainment. But, all the staff might make it in because of helping here, I mean, except Charlie, since she's Hellborn, as long as you genuinely want to help."

"And you might be thinking, but oh it's hard to find volunteer work to do, it's Hell. But little things like, say, helping people out with things THAT ARE NOT TURF WARS OR GENOCIDE, might do the trick if it's often enough. But make sure you're doing those things of your own free will, because you want to help someone. Or else it won't be genuine and it won't work."

The presentation went on in that manner, you explaining your ideas and occasionally interacting with the others to keep them engaged. "Wow, Auntie Y/N, you're a really good speaker!" Charlie complimented after you were done. "Thank you, ma Cherie, and Auntie? That's a new one," you replied, snapping your fingers to make the easel and sketchpad disappear. "Hehe, just thought it sounded right," the princess shrugged.

"Well, I suppose it does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Auntie Y/N," you smiled.

"Haha, yeah. Do you think this will really work?"

"Of course! And we're going to start the process tomorrow, at the latest!"

Charlie and Vaggie looked to each other, beaming.