Hazbin Hotel: Sins and Second Chances

Chapter 6

Vaggie would consider herself a good girlfriend to Charlie. Ever since the day Charlie saved her life, she had dedicated herself to protecting her. That day was etched in her mind as if it had happened only yesterday. She had been an Exorcist angel, sent to Hell on one of the annual purges to slaughter demons, the very beings Charlie wanted to redeem. Vaggie still remembered the young demon child she had spared. A natural Hell born she expected. Sinner Demons couldn't reproduce. The look of terror in their eyes. The helplessness. She had killed hundreds of demons, thousands even. But at that moment, it was like she suddenly grew a conscious that day.

And it came at a price.

That small act of defiance did not go unnoticed. A fellow Exorcist Angel caught her in the act, slashing off her wings and stabbing her eye before leaving her for dead. Wounded, she would quickly discard anything that even told someone she was an Angel. The thought of being caught in the open, wounded and helpless filled her with something she hadn't felt before.

Fear.

It was Charlie who found her, broken and bleeding after passing out in the alley way of some forgotten corner of Hell. Charlie, the Daughter of Lucifer, had tended to her wounds with such kindness, it shifted something deep inside Vaggie. Up until then, she saw demons as nothing more than the embodiment of sin, creatures to be eradicated. But Charlie was different. She was pure, in a way that even the Angels who had left her to die weren't.

From that moment, Vaggie had sworn to protect her.

Charlie didn't know the whole truth. She didn't know the woman she shared secrets with, opened up her fears, dream and eventually her feelings, was once an Exorcist, one of Heaven's warriors. Vaggie had kept that secret buried deep inside herself, afraid of what it would do to their relationship if Charlie ever found out. After all, she was responsible for slaughtering Charlie's kind without hesitation, just another cog in heaven's brutal machine.

Their personalities couldn't be more different. Charlie, ever the optimist, was convinced that Hell's sinners could be redeemed. She had this borderline naïve belief that even the worst souls could find redemption if given a second chance. Vaggie, on the other hand, knew the ugliness of their worlds. She had seen it first hand in both Heaven and Hell, and she wasn't sure she fully bought into Charlie's vision of redemption. Soldiers didn't have the luxury of innocence. But still, she supported her. She couldn't bear to see Charlie's ideas crushed under the weight of Hell's cruelty.

This is why she had stood by when Charlie took over the rundown hotel her family had abandoned years ago. Charlie had given Vaggie the roll of manager of the hotel, a role she took seriously even if it meant working with barely any resources, a dilapidated property, and a complete lack of competent staff. The hotel was a mess, and they both knew it. The only sinner who had 'checked in' was Angel Dust, and even that had only happened after Charlie bribed him with promises of free room and board. Vaggie knew Angel was just mooching off them, taking advantage of Charlie's kindness.

And now, Charlie had gotten a mortal involved.

Vaggie didn't know how or why, or what she was even thinking when she plugged a living soul from their body and dragged them down to Hell. It felt wrong. Hell wasn't a place to take in visitors, especially those who still had a chance at life. It was a place where the vices that brought you down here consumed you, trapped you in an endless cycle of temptation and indulgence until you were far too gone to escape.

Part of her wanted to convince Charlie to send this Zack guy back to his body, to undo whatever had brought him here in the first place. If Zack had changed his life, pulled himself out of his own hell, then why should he be in Hell at all? He didn't belong here, not in a place like this, not where everything was designed to pull you deeper into sin.