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A snowy day in hell is about as common as Lucifer making a public appearance. Meaning that the last time it happened was about ten years ago.
Why it had to be freezing the day she is holding her fashion show in an outdoor venue is beyond her, but sometimes you just have to accept that things are bound to be slightly cursed in hell.
It’s a good thing that Velvette, as a doll, does not feel the cold. She doesn’t really care about the bunch of shivering models huddling together in the corner for warmth. Dying of hypothermia is not a thing for sinners. At most, you accidentally (or purposefully) end up in a cold chamber and spend some time as an icicle until you unfreeze again. Vox tried to use that as a torture method once, but stopped once it became clear that the energy bills of holding a cold chamber at a consistent temperature was not worth the few idiots cooled into insanity.
“We’re hitting the runway in ten so get rid of those hideous coats!” She yells at the lazy wretches currently puffing breaths into the freezing air like cigarette smoke. Good. As long as their breath is warm enough to condensate, she doesn’t have to look for last-minute models to replace any sudden icicle wastes of space.
“If I see any of you as much as shudder on stage, you’re spending the weekend lent out to the porn studio!”
She smirks when she sees the horrified expressions on the girls’ faces, visible through the literal tons of makeup necessary to hide the sheer ugliness of some of them. Damn right, they should consider themselves lucky, only having to show off some designs on a snowy day instead of being recycled single-use products for the rape fantasy sessions Valentino is planning to film this weekend.
She almost hopes one of them trips just so she can earn a little favor from Val. He’s really doing her a solid by agreeing to frontline her newest gym wear collection, after Bethany got kidnapped by one of her stalkers. Probably got herself killed - that careless bitch. There’s no other reason why Velvette wouldn’t be able to pinpoint her whereabouts via soul contract. Oh, how she’s going to enjoy making that woman suffer the second she feels her respawning.
As it is, maybe Bethany’s disappearance isn’t an unfortunate thing at all, because snagging the Valentino to model a collection in public isn’t an easy achievement. On top of that, upon releasing the updated promo material, he has already earned her a humble 190% increase in last-minute ticket sales. Who knew the old moth still had this many fans out there, even after not releasing any movies starring himself in over a decade?
“Don’t forget the amount of hate boners people pop for me,” he’d said when checking out the sales over her shoulder while they were discussing the choreography. “I’m like, the Madonna of modern hell. Except sexier. And with a much bigger body count.”
“Sure, hun,” Vel had said, laughing at his attempt at keeping up with pop culture. “Bring out a record selling pop album and I’ll believe you.”
It’s not like he doesn’t have a great voice. She can hear him humming a lilting melody through the doors of his camper, one of many makeshift dressing rooms for the fashion festival.
“Val?” She knocks on the plastic door before letting herself in, “You got eight min- … what the fuck are you doing?”
He should be dressed up and ready to go, but what she finds instead is a very cozy moth on a bean bag, wrapped in what looks like three layers of fuzzy blankets and nursing a thermos that wafts the smell of mulled wine through the entire camper.
“Hmm?” He turns to blink at her, as if trying to figure out what the hell she meant by that, before a light seems to pop on above his head. “I already did my warmup, babydoll, don’t worry, I’ll be there.”
“Did you even bother to put on your first set, or did you just have a solo sleepover with yourself all this time.”
“Can you close the doors, Vel? There’s a breeze.”
Velvette exasperatedly bangs the door shut before snapping and effectively vanishing all of the blankets.
“What the fuck?” Val squeaks, now left only in his customary wing wrap, thermos almost spilling all over the place with the way he throws his hands up. “Do you know how damn cold it’s out there?”
Velvette graces him with a sneer. “Yes, I’ve seen the snow. Now get your ass off that poor people couch and up to the stage, if I see a single refund request in my mailbox because you didn’t show up, I’m gonna publish that ugly sleeping pic I took of you last month.”
Val has the audacity to gape at her like she’s making impossible demands. She regrets not making him sign a contract.
“I thought we were friends, Vel!”
“I thought you were a professional.”
“Ugh, fine!” He downs the rest of his wine in one go, then opens his wings - of course he was buck naked underneath, what did she expect - to strike a pose in front of her. “Dress me up, dollface.”
She snaps her fingers and he twirls in his super short hot pink tennis skorts, coupled with a black sports bra, customary heart as a cutout in the middle of the chest.
“What do you think? Am I hot or am I hot?”
Velvet admires her work for a second, happy that Val is such a skinny bitch. She needs someone to pull off the look so that she can sell diet programs to everyone who is not ten foot tall, eating disordered and ninety percent leg.
“Stunning, luv,” she butters him up, then slams open the door. “Now go make some jaws drop.”
The icy wind makes Valentino want to shoot himself. His coat is good, but it’s not that good and he sure as hell isn’t built for this kind of weather. He feels as though his antennae are going to freeze and fall off any second and it’s only been a minute.
Whoever decides on the weather in hell has got to be in a really fun mood today. He wishes he could put a bullet through their head. How dare they. When he has an outdoor performance, Jesus Christ.
Of course the second he opens his wings to do some last adjustments to his outfit, the cold breeze gives him a stomach ache.
Fuck you, body. There’s a damn good reason he wouldn’t be caught dead outside during active snowfall, but sometimes it’s downright unavoidable. He would hate to disappoint Velvette by dipping out last minute. Who is he? A pussy?
He gets stabbed by another cramp. Ow.
It’s whatever though. It’s not like something as insignificant as a little pain could stop him from slaying this performance. It’s been a while since he’s worked a runway and danced in front of a crowd. The excitement of getting to perform live once again overshadows the cold.
“Okay, bitches, taking the stage in two minutes,” Velvette announces, getting her shivering models in line and checking them over.
“Val, get your ass over here, you’re out last.”
He heaves a sigh internally. Time to get this show on the road.
And what a show it is! The crowd of people Velvette has expertly lured into the venue reminds him of sold-out stadiums for the most popular rock bands back in the day. Not that he ever had the money to attend closer than what a determined fence-climb and a healthy dose of liquid courage could get him. Alas, the Pentagram sure has more than enough gooners and wannabe fashionistas thirsting for a taste of him.
He falls into the rhythm easily. Appear, walk, present. Play with the audience as if they mean anything to you, even though you can barely make out silhouettes in the blinding light. Wear that perfume of subtle superiority not like armor, but like a veil engulfing you. Make them believe you have something they need more than they want.
Valentino is not only a name, but a brand promising beauty, power and sex appeal, and the Pentagram goes wild over him. Even after so many years. He should be proud.
Uuuuuugh, his stomach hurts. He wants to hunch over in a corner and pity himself but there are two more outfit changes and a dance routine until he can fuck off to his trailer again. Thank god he skipped the solids today otherwise he’d be stuck on the toilet from cramps.
Hold it together, Valentino, you’re a professional.
He struts back the runway, back straight and grin in place. Throwing a coquette wink at the bunch of demons salivating up at him to the right side, before he vanishes backstage through the drapes at the stage exit.
Velvette is already waiting for him in the change rooms, holding a tube of purple lip gloss and a blanket. Not even the space heater inside is enough to keep the cold out, hell’s best weather dead-set on imposing itself on even the indoor dwellers.
“Good job out there, Val!” She greets him enthusiastically, throwing the blanket around his shoulders and gesturing for him to lean down so she can wipe off his red lipstick and replace it with the new look. “Fuck Bethany, you’re a million times better. Gotta hire you to do all of my shows, not gonna lie. Did you hear the crowd?”
Val suppresses the urge to grimass when bending over makes another wave of pain shoot through his abdomen. Stupid body. Stupid cold.
“As much as I love showing off,” he says, smacking his lips when Velvette has finished applying the lip gloss, “I do have a full-time job and I’m afraid you won’t be able to keep up with my usual rates. I’m a luxury, baby.”
He blows her a kiss.
“Also, Voxxy won’t be amused if we start paying each other instead of extorting the public.”
Velvette playfully smacks him on the shoulder.
“Oh shut up, you smug twat.” She snaps her fingers and he feels his outfit change. “But really. Thank you for doing me a solid and jumping in on short-notice.”
Val shrugs off the blanket, lamenting the brief moment of warmth it gave him. He adjusts and admires himself in the full-body mirror for a second. White leggings with mesh inserts spiraling up one leg paired with an oversized lilac cropped sweater bedazzled with Vel’s active wear brand logo. Classic white platform sneakers. Cute. He might have to ask her to keep that one for when he’s building choreo with his pole dancers.
“Anything for my best girl.”
Ignoring his body’s protests, he straightens and takes a deep breath. Show time.
Val has only learned the choreography for their dance performance last night because the schedule for the studio's latest event week was too tightly packed to slip away for a little lesson.
Thankfully, moving his body and remembering choreo have always come easy to him, so learning a new dance in an hour or two has been a fun thing to fill an evening with.
Velvette, bless her cold black heart, can pose like she was born to on a second’s notice, but dances like a sixty year old white man three pints deep.
Which means that she had to rely on that former fitfluencer girlie Bethany to whip up a nice choreo for the show and pick the models suitable for her vision. Pity that she had to be kidnapped before getting to perform her own brainchild.
Watching the girls half stumble, half stutter all over themselves while trying to teach Val what to do where to do it had been pure entertainment for both of the overlords present.
Val had been in a good mood so he’d only complained once, which was completely justified because that body roll did not fit the music at all, but one girl had burst into tears regardless.
He doesn’t get it, he’s not actually that scary when he’s in a good mood right? It’s not his fault people like to bother him when he’s pissed off, he makes it very clear when he shouldn’t be tested and yet his dumb ass employees keep failing at picking it up.
Velvette has put him in a metallic pink neckholder bodysuit with a deep plunge in the back and a long slit-shaped cutout in the front that almost reaches his crotch. Not very practical for actual sports but definitely something to show off. Not that anybody would be opposed to Val flashing them a little.
The other models are showcasing all the other bodysuits versions that Velvette has come up with for this collection.
He shakes out his wings before settling them into a simple drape across his back that will take up the least amount of space.
Having made sure that everyone looks impeccable, Velvette hurries outside to take a seat in the separated VIP area at the front of the runway that has been transformed into a much broader stage in the small break period.
She’s only seen Val dance a few times before and that was exclusively on the pole, but he’d assured her that he could do ground work just fine. And from what she’s seen from his single practice session yesterday, he definitely wasn’t lying.
When the group of models headed by the overlord of Lust take the stage, a brief flash of what almost feels like pride grows in her plastic chest.
Valentino saunters to the front with his wings flowing behind him. The bodysuit Velvette has tailored to hug all his curves glistens in the hellish daylight. If Velvette wasn’t as gay as a middle-aged German couple holiday-ing on Sylt, she might consider tapping that. Positioning himself into a languid stance, the light hits his naked upper thigh just right, skin looking so juicy as if he’d slathered himself in lotion.
Velvette loves his stage presence, a quiet confidence honed by decades of practice that she loves to watch and generate views with. When the music starts, he transitions seamlessly into running all his hands up the long lines of his body, as if he were asking the audience to focus on him only.
The dancers in the background now also start moving, gyrating their hips in a torturously slow circle, but none as casually sexy as the demon leading the dance.
Velvette notes the salivating gaze of the public with satisfaction, already seeing the numbers she’s going to make from uploading the footage of the show to VTube. One of the imps who have probably sold their house and family to get front row tickets looks ready to have a stroke when Valentino drops into a neat split, the smack of his exposed thighs hitting the stage only audible to the fuckers who’ve paid half a fortune.
From there he brings his front leg back before sliding backwards onto his knees, ass up, face squished against the floor as if somebody is holding him down. He gets up like that, with his ass first, smoothing his hands up his thighs and then opening his wings in a display of beauty and strength.
The crowd goes wild.
Velvette brings up her phone to film from the best spot of the venue.
By the time he stumbles backstage for the final time, he’s pretty sure he’s developed frostbite in his fingertips. And some really nasty cramps, fuck he hates the cold.
It’s fine. At least it’s not his period. And he’s not sweaty at all! Yes, that puts everything into perspective.
He slumps onto the single swivel chair right as Velvette and the rest of her models burst back inside from their post-show debrief (yelling sesh).
“Okay, you heard me, girls, shoo!” She waves them away to their respective trailers before running up to Val in an excited flurry of motion.
“Val. Val!” She tells him, barely able to conceal the giddiness in her voice. “You know who’s asked for a collab right after you left? The CEO of Hellscape Fitness! He asked if we could do a product demo next week in his flagship studio, the one that also has the pole classes? You could bring Angel actually, what if you did a little routine? The high-waist shorts should be suitable right, you’d have enough grip? And the … uh … Val?”
“Mh?” he hums, busy trying to crawl back into the discarded blanket from earlier.
“You okay?” Velvette asks, looking at him strangely. What a funny question. Val is fine, he just needs five more blankets and a hot water bottle and an orgasm and maybe a latte. That’s not a very long list, on a scale of one to death that’s a solid two.
“Sure, keep going.”
“You don’t look okay.”
Val sighs. She’s probably only asking because her opportunity with that CEO of whatever fitness is on the line. He can understand that. He’d be pissed too if Angel somehow had to drop out of the club opening.
“It’s fine, Vel.” He reassures her. “I’ll bring Angel.”
Velvette raises an eyebrow. “I expected a little more of a fight.”
“Do you want a fight? I can do a fight.” Val smiles.
“Hell no, forget I said anything.”
Wise of her. Val can do fights in his sleep.
As if only now remembering it exists, a testament to how invested she was in the whole sales pitch, she pulls out her phone, checking a message and instantly rolling her eyes.
“Oh fuck my life, they found Bethany’s head in a dumpster,“ she complains, giving Val a look that screams ‘can you believe the audacity?’. “I’ll have to put out the fire, people are feeling ‘traumatized’. Meet you in your camper in twenty to discuss next week?”
“Sure thing, babydoll.”
“Alright, you’re the best, kisses!” And off she goes.
Thank fuck he stole that space heater from Vox’s assistant, that thing is legitimately saving his life right now. Having made his way through the freezing cold once again, Val is finally back in his six blankets, ready to marinate inside and not move for the foreseeable future.
He calls Vox. The man picks up on the second ring, definitely preparing to blow Val off, but he has a plan.
“Voxxy honey~?”
“What do you want Val, I’m in the middle of a board meeting.” Vox’s dulcet tones drone through the speaker. Val briefly sniggers because interrupting his partner during work is as fun as dating a businessman gets.
Well and the kinky sex but that’s besides the point.
“You know what I’m really craving right now?” Val asks airily, dangling the phone from his fingertips and watching Vox’s silly profile picture swing back and forth. It’s the one he took while his partner was suffering from a facial glitch that switched his eyes to 80s anime moe poppers.
Should have known better than to stream Hentai without a vpn. He must have been really desperate.
Val lets the silence drag for a few seconds, giving Vox the chance to prove himself to be the best boyfriend ever but alas, Val hasn’t trained him well enough yet.
“What?”
So cold. Ah well, he can still bend him over later and make him repeat his favorite coffee order with every spank on his flat ass.
“A Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte with low fat milk, no cream, three blonde shots, four pumps of sugar free syrup, extra cinnamon and a shot of vodka.”
The line stays silent for another second. Then:
“Val, pumpkin spice isn’t in season yet.”
Val holds the phone closer to his lips so he can whisper into the speaker in that pleading tone that makes Vox feel like a big strong man.
“I’m sure you can make it happen. For me?”
He hears Vox clear his throat.
“Do I look like I control the seasonal coffee industry?” He’s trying to be difficult for sure, but Val can hear the waver in his voice.
“Well you should.” He says, pouting.
“Look, Val, I can’t just drop everything, waltz into a Hellbucks and demand your ridiculous coffee order just because you want it to happen!”
“I’ll put on the Radio Demon Cosplay.”
“Deal!”
Val grins into his blankets.
Velvette stares into the dumpster holding half eaten food scraps and Bethany’s severed head. She mustn’t have laid there for long, there’s only one moldy slice of cheese draped over her face like a creative veil. Similarly to the single foot that has been found in another dumpster not far away and is now being carried in a plastic bag by her secretary. It was all but too recognizable with that horrible tasteless ballet shoe tattoo.
“What are you standing around for?” She snaps at the blindworm girl. “Get it out of there!”
The useless paper-pushing demon eyes the dumpster in trepidation, probably reluctant to get her dress shirt dirty. Velvette snips her fingers in her face impatiently. She’s getting fucking paid to do Velvette’s bidding, why does she have to be so damn ungrateful about actually working? Sometimes she really gets why Val rips apart employees on a whim.
“Did I fucking stutter?” She repeats her command, making the girl shrink into herself with every word. “Move your fat ass and get Bethany’s stinky head outta there. And then you’re gonna roundup Gina and Katy and search every single dumpster on this venue until you’ve pieced her back together. Don’t come back to work before that. I’m deducting pay for every missed day starting tomorrow so you better start digging.”
Not waiting for the inevitable tears on her snivelly secretary, Velvette makes a 180 degree turn and starts stomping back towards the trailer park. The tea she is holding is already cold as ice. The weather really must be frigid. Didn’t Val have that stolen space heater that Vox’s assistant uses to keep up his body temp?
She should grab something hot to go on the way, get her best girl a sweet treat.
The bright pink boba truck between the fashion stage and the shopping area catches her attention and she ends up flashing her VIP card to get a matcha latte for herself and a classic brown sugar milk tea for Val. On second thought she lets the boba guy add a generous helping of Baileys to that one.
While making her way to the tastefully retro looking camper that Val has set up camp in, she lets the situation pass by her mind’s eye again. Bethany vanished three days ago, so if she’d already been killed then, she’d have at least come back alive by now. So why would her very much lifeless head show up in a dumpster today? And, more importantly, at the festival she was supposed to perform at? Could her disappearance somehow be connected to her headlining Velvette’s show?
And if so, what was her killer trying to accomplish by dumping her body parts into the venue’s trash bins?
Does that mean the culprit is among the festival goers?
Perfect. She knocks at the trailer door. She’d wanted to add murder mysteries to her rotation of Get-Ready-With-Me’s anyway. A grin spreads across her face while she’s giving Val exactly three seconds to improve on any state of nudity he might be in and then opening the door with an elbow. This is bound to become interesting.
“Hey, princess, got you something!” She announces and has to stop for a second and oggle the giant lump of blankets in front of the space heater that has Valentino’s fluff and bald head peeking out at the top.
The head turns towards her at the sound of her voice, looking like a single rotating egg in a microwave.
“Babydoll!” Val greets her with a mouth full of sharp teeth and no intention to move. “Come in come in, and for fuck’s sake, close the door. I just stopped shivering.”
Rolling her eyes Velvette sets Val’s boba onto the floor next to his blanket volcano and closes the flimsy door again, watching as a single arm wriggles out of the fabric construct to snatch up the cup.
The moth takes a long sip from the blue plastic straw and lets out a borderline obscene moan.
“Mmhhh, Velvette, mi vida, oh my gawd that hits the spot.”
She feels a certain smugness warming her from the inside from having predicted an order that would be to Val’s liking. He’s fickle like that sometimes. It’s like when a cat that usually hates you suddenly decides to sit on your lap.
She sits down cross legged on a pillow next to the blanket monster.
“So,” she begins, scrolling across her phone to pull up a picture of the flagship Hellscape Fitness Gym as a reference. “You think you can whip up something cool to flash a bunch of old men and hotshot fitfluencers with?”
“‘Course, Vel, who do you take me for? Vox?”
Vox has the body shape of a Victorian twink dying of consumption and the physical creativity of an ikea magazine. Granted, this has vastly improved with the upgrades to his head, system and body, but Val has shown her pictures and grainy recordings from when the two of them first met. They both laugh at the third Vee’s expense.
Across the Pentagram Vox sneezes so hard on the way down from the penthouse that he spills coffee all over himself and has to ascend again for a change of clothes.
Valentino praises all the fake gods that inspired Velvette to get that boba. The warm drink heats him up from the inside like he swallowed a heat pack. He can excuse the unholy amount of sugar for once because he put his body through literal hell in that damned cold and he more than deserves a little treat for that. The faint taste of cream liqueur makes it even better. He absentmindedly twirls a chewy tapioca pearl around his tongue, licking off a slimy coat of pure syrup, before swallowing it down whole.
Finally the awful stomach cramps decide to die down as well, leaving him relaxed for the first time in hours. Oh, to be a little moth, all cozied up in his six blankets and a spiked boba.
Life is good.
An explosion outside rattles the entire trailer.
The row of cosmetics on Val’s chaotically stocked vanity tumble down, two glass foundation bottles bursting on impact and staining his pretty white long-pile carpet purple, while his collection of lip oils go rolling everywhere.
He barely has time to yell a furious “WHAT THE FUCK??!!” before a second explosion triggers a cacophony of panicked screams, the deafening sounds of inanimate objects crashing together blasting through the thin walls of the trailer.
When trying to rise and check out what in the everloving god’s ass is going on, his feet get tangled in his blanket construct and he goes rolling to the far end of the single room, unwrapping himself in the process and coming to a stop with a punched-out “oof” when his back hits a clothing rack. A shower of dresses and wigs rains down onto him and by the time he’s unobscured his vision and swum out of his new fabric prison, Velvette has scrambled to get up herself, rips the door open and the entering gush of freezing wind undoes all the progress Val has made on getting comfortable.
He’s still in that skimpy bodysuit that barely covers his tits, goddamnit!
Rage has him quickly forget about the antarctic temperatures though. He pushes Velvette aside to stomp through the door, emerging into the trailer park with his wings spread and pink smoke curling from his mouth despite the blatant lack of cigarettes.
There’s ashy fumes and debris everywhere, revealing running civilians and wrecks of trailers left and right, but he can’t see shit in this subterranean visibility.
“WHOEVER THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO PLAY TERRORIST WHILE I’M HAVING MY BOBA CAN KISS GOODBYE TO HIS DICK YESTERDAY!” He yells at the top of his lungs and, when receiving no immediate reply, puts all his power behind a flap of his wings that clears a hundred meter radius in front of him. Debris and bystanders go flying, hitting the surrounding cars and rubble in wet splats before going silent.
From behind him, safe from the circle of Val’s destruction, Velvette finally makes her way to where he stands.
“What the hell is going on?” She asks him, coughing and ducking under his wing to get a closer look. “Did a generator blow?”
“Do I look like an electrician to you?” Val grits at her, too mad to keep the venom out of his voice. Oh the dumbfucks responsible for this can get ready to get torn apart piece by piece, Val is going to do it with his bare hands, and then he’s going to stuff all their severed fingers into their mouths and fuck their limbless torsos until they beg for mercy and then he’s going to tear their chest open with his teeth and eat their still beating heart.
Huh. That might actually be quite a good entry for the Cummes Film Festival this year. Val is a genius.
He blows out a tense breath he’s been holding, releasing a pink cloud into the air. Seems like those anger management lessons Vox has made him take after his latest rampage were kinda worth something?
Velvette coughs and kicks away the corpse of a hellhound woman that has a piece of concrete rebar sticking from her head. She tugs at Val’s wings and points at a growing shadow that is approaching through the leftover fog in the distance. The heavy thud of reinforced boots is echoing through the sudden silence.
“Looks like our culprit is making his grand entrance.” Velvette says.
Good, Val thinks. Let him come.
“We don’t sell Pumpkin Spice Latte at the moment.” The bored looking employee in the Hellbucks across the street says.
Vox can already feel a metaphorical vein pop on his forehead.
“Surely you can make an exception if I tip you generously? Throw in a little… extra?” What does Val always offer these people so they prepare his ridiculous order?
“I’m not paid enough to care, Mister.”
“I should kill you for being a dick.”
“Well, my afterlife sucks so you can kill me if you want, but I’m also the only one on shift right now so you wouldn’t get your coffee anyway.”
“That’s not … usually people respond differently to death threats.”
The pimply demon shrugs.
“Dying can’t be worse than being stuck here forced to serve entitled people like y-...”
Vox sends a lightning strike’s worth of electricity through the wretched thing and watches in satisfaction as their charred corpse slumps against the counter, smoke curling upwards and filling the shop with the stench of burning flesh.
Fuck my life he thinks, the high of sending someone into forced respawn already fading. You gotta do everything yourself around here.
Velvette has seen a lot of animal sinners in her meagre time down here. However, when the large figure of their assailant lumbers out of the shadows she thinks with no lack of interest that she’s never encountered a rhino demon before. The sinner is huge, looking to be just as tall as Val, but five times as wide. He’s decked out in something ridiculous that looks like plated armor, if someone who has never seen armor welded old metal sheets together in their garage.
Thankfully Val has already calmed down enough to stop wafting pink smoke everywhere like he’s a tea kettle about to boil over, Velvette doesn’t have fucking fog lamps for eyes.
“VALENTINO!” The rhino yells, yellow spittle flying from his mouth in strings. “Finally you make a public appearance again! I’ve been looking for you to finally take my revenge!”
Maybe he should invest the passion he put into his intonation into a better dental hygiene routine. Velvette glances at Val, wondering what kind of turf war he’d inserted himself into now.
“You know that budget trash can?”
“Uhm,” Val says, a finger touching his cheek in confusion. “Who the fuck are you?”
Surprisingly emotive for someone whose eyes are the size of peas, rhino guy does a double take, as if his barely larger brain cannot comprehend that the world is not revolving around him.
“I’m Georgio! Your most loyal customer from Yoshiwara Temple? Who you ungrateful whore decided to ghost after years of treating you right?”
Face as blank as a bimbo being asked to multiply decimals, Val blinks prettily.
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
Rhino man heaves a great puff of steam into the air, like a steam engine about to take off into a brick wall.
“How can you not remember me? Do you know how much money I spent on you?”
Valentino turns towards a confused Velvette.
“I was on a loooot of drugs back then.” He explains, shrugging.
“You’re going to regret this,” Georgio roars, a textbook example of a scorned narcissist. “You think you’re invincible because you’re an overlord now, but I will show you invincible! I’ll crush you like a bug!”
And just like that the testosterone-driven party crasher is rushing towards them like a quarterback approaching a particularly tackleable opponent. Velvette feels herself being pushed towards a pile of rubbish as Val rolls his shoulders.
“Stand back, babydoll,” he says, grin dripping with venom, “That idiot’s gonna regret fucking with me.”
Velvette ducks behind a crumpled car just as rhino and moth collide and a literal shock wave almost snatches her wig.
“Crush me like a bug?” She hears Val laugh, along with the groan of bending metal, “You think your lousy armor can save you from me?”
One hand carefully holding her precious wig in place, Vel sneaks a glance at the battlefield and sees Val having caught both of Georgio’s fists in his hands, iron gloves deformed and cracking between vice-like fingers.
“When I’ve beaten you to a bloody pulp,” Georgio threatens still, as if he isn’t in danger of losing his appendages at any moment, “I’ll drag you back with me by your wings and chain you up in my cellar. And then I’m going to fuck you so hard every single day until you don’t even have a voice to scream anymore.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” Val trills. He’s always been abnormally strong for his build, but never has it been more obvious than now, grappling a demon thrice his size. Even the rhino himself seems to realize that his makeshift armor is more hindrance than help so he kicks Val in the stomach as hard as he can and jumps back towards a safe distance to shake bleeding fists from his deformed gloves.
“That all you packin’?” Velvette comments nastily while rising from behind the car. “I’ve seen my secretary put up a better hand-to-hand-performance.”
“Don’t get involved, Vel.” Val tells her, like he’s in the position to tell her anything. “He’s mine.”
“Yeah obviously he wants that to be true.” She says, “I ain’t giving him that satisfaction, he pisses me off.”
“Excuse me?” Val retorts, flabbergasted. “Obviously he pisses me off more than you, I get fist rights!”
“You got fist rights yesterday, when I let you beat up the club managers on Sin’s Ave.”
“As if you’d get your manicure dirty with lower class blood.”
Evidently unable to process being ignored again, Georgio makes a grand gesture with his beefy arms and raises his voice to hitherto unknown decibels.
“You think I come alone, you overconfident overlord scum?” He proclaims, as one after another, loan sharks emerge from the shadows, guns and bats sparkling in the sunlight. “While you’ve been lazing around at the top, I have become powerful, Valentino! I have made connections you could only dream of and I’ve more than earned my place as one of you ditzy overlords, so witness as I raze you to the ground!”
Clearly he has underestimated Valentino’s ability to stop listening the second his attention has been directed elsewhere. In this case: squabbling with Velvette.
“I’ve never seen you beat up a single person ever, do you even know how to get dirty?”
“Sure hon.” Velvette makes sure to sound extra patronizing while she points a finger towards the horde of loan sharks and sends them flying by the hems of their trousers. Too bad they decided to not be naked today. As long as there’s hell-spun yarn involved, Velvette might as well be female fabric Jesus. “Unlike you, I don’t need to get anything dirty while fighting the lower class.”
“Color me impressed,” Val whistles, ignoring the indignant yelling coming from the useless loan sharks. That Georgio figure could have just spared himself the cost of hiring them, if Velvette can take them out this quickly. But hey, she isn’t going to deny that the disbelieving look on his face is very satisfying to watch.
Val flicks his antennae back like it were a piece of hair and not entirely able to move on its own.
“Thanks, babydoll! Now I can go back to bashing that motherfucker’s face in!”
Georgio meanwhile seems to have shaken off the shock of having his backup plan foiled in an instant, and puffs his chest out like a posturing animal.
“Just as delusional as you were back then,” he points a finger at Val, “you have no idea what I’m capable of.”
The moth rolls his eyes.
“All I hear is baseless yapping. You wanna show me what you’re capable of? Fucking come at me then, dickward.”
It’s like he’s flipped a switch because literal steam blows out of Georgio’s nostrils as he rears up and charges forward. Expecting another boring frontal attack, Val bends his knees to catch some fists again, but the rhino crouches at the last moment, lifts off and transitions into a spinning kick. Rolling with the punches, Val catches the blow on two of his forearms in front of his face but is still pushed back half a meter.
Velvette briefly wonders if she should record the fight and sell it to Vox’s spank bank for later. But she also kinda wants to stay irl and not see what’s happening on a phone screen. Oh well, Vox just has to suck it up for once, she’s gonna enjoy this.
Using her left hand, she materializes a hook and pulls the strings holding the gaggle of loan sharks into the material plane, before connecting them all onto the hook and fastening it to her belt. No need to hold all that when she can have her hands free right? Just in case Val needs a little help.
Though the moth doesn’t look like he’s struggling at all. Him and Georgio have been rapidly exchanging fists as if they were in an anime, but he seems to be growing bored of it, because the next time Georgio aims a punch at his face, he contorts into a whole fucking backbend and kicks his legs up to flip back over. One of his stiletto-clad feet connect with the rhino sinners groin like a baseball bat hitting a piñata and Velvette snickers at the absolutely comical face and accompanying sounds Georgio makes as he is catapulted into the air by the balls.
Oh Val you sadistic fuck.
Velvette hoots in approval. “Good one! Now strike a few poses for me, darling.”
He immediately folds his wings to the side so that she can get a good shot of both his backside and half-exposed tits. Fuck yes, she knew that it was the right choice to change the line-up and have him model this bodysuit instead of the lilac one she was planning to give to Bethany.
“Now bend!”
She doesn’t even have to explain because he is such a natural and does the straight-legged forward bend that accentuates the long lines of his back and thighs. Satan, why does she even bother to hire other models?
The session is destroyed by an angry rhino crashing into his side like a truck into a brick wall. Valentino shrieks and sinks all of his fingers into the rest of the mangy armor the sinner is still wearing. His shrieks are joined by those of bending metal.
Ah yes, Velvette will never survive more than a day with Val on set because he’s volatile as shit and will kill everyone over a wrongly flavored cookie. Or fuck Vox over the back of the couch instead of working.
They all have their flaws, she guesses.
“Erm, excuse me?”
“WHAT?!” Vox yells, elbows deep in a bucket to try and scrape out the sorry excuses for pumpkin puree from the bottom. All while simultaneously trying to scroll back down the recipe he pulled from the internet without having to read through the entire life story of the author’s grandma in the process. God fucking damnit it, who allowed bloggers to yap the blue from the sky before finally getting to their stupid recipes? Nobody ever cares about your mom’s favorite side dish, just get on with the only reason people look at your website!
“I would like to order a Venti Pistachio Cream Latte with no Pistachios and extra hazelnut please.”
Not dignifying the cursed customer with a single glare, Vox proceeds to smash puree into one of the cleaner looking blenders on the counter. Did they mince people in these or have they just never been cleaned? Does he even want to know?
“Ehm, excuse me?”
Putting on his best “I curse your entire remaining family and your beloved pet cat” smile, Vox turns around. Is his eyelid twitching? Maybe? He might be a tiny little bit annoyed, you see.
“I. Don’t. Work. Here.”
“Oh, but you’re wearing the Hellbucks uni-”
“For the sake of Lucifer’s golden pubes, I am wearing an apron because I do not need to get my suit dirty, what’s so hard to understand about- …”
“Mr. Vox?”
“Travis??”
Val hasn’t had that much fun since he and Voxxy secretly desecrated the broom closet at Velvette’s last launch party. He’s a simple girl, sometimes he just likes getting his hands dirty. And that boring brutish coño of an (ex?)stalker huffing and puffing like looking at him is enough to get him hard? The perfect punching bag.
There’s no better remedy to feeling under the weather than getting his knuckles bloody.
But instead of continuing to wrestle with him, the fucking idiot backs away to open his gigantic mouth and talk.
“Have you not wondered why I knew exactly how to find you?” The rhino calls out.
Val shits on him and his entire fucking family, can’t he come closer so that he can sink his teeth into that neck and rip out his voice box?
“If you haven’t noticed,” he spits back, flapping his wings for emphasis, “I am plastered over every fucking billboard in the city. As a headliner for this festival.”
Out of the corner of his vision he sees Velvette raising her phone once more and automatically crosses his legs and frames his face with two hands to wink at the camera, all while continuing to speak his mind.
“You’d have to be both blind and deaf to have missed that. But looking at you, I don’t even think that’s that improbable. I’m wondering how I ever made it through a session with you without spewing. If you’re telling the truth, that is.”
It makes Georgio sputter like a broken engine. As if he could get even more unattractive, ugh, Val can feel his dick shriveling and dying from the sight, much more than from the exquisite tuck job keeping it within the confines of the flimsy piece of fabric between his legs.
“Do not think yourself smart, whore!” The ghastly sinner yells at him, easy to play like one of his more emotionally fragile employees. “Haven’t you considered that I am the entire reason you’re the face for this campaign?”
“Ha!” Velvette pipes up from where she has managed to tie all the captured loan sharks into what looks like a giant purple ball of yarn. “Sorry for assuming, but how exactly would you have done it, huh? Manifesting under your lil blankies at night?”
Her voice is mocking, like she’s speaking to a child that she particularly dislikes. Georgio, dumb as a piece of toast, misses it completely.
If he could make himself sparkle with pride, he would probably be blinding all of them right now. Jokes on him, only Velvette can do that.
“Of course you wouldn’t be able to grasp my machinations,” he says, loud as always, as if he just assumed everyone around him were in dire need of hearing aids. “Your head dancer Bethany, she got a little too carried away with her joy over scoring the spot. Her social media posts were like a beacon leading me to this day!”
Velvette pinches the space between her eyes. “Bloody Bethany,” she mutters, shaking her head. “I’m going to kill her again.”
Valentino wonders if Georgio is just going to continue monologuing at them like that, because if he is, he is closing his wings, it’s fucking freezing.
“Can we hurry this up?” He drawls, crossing his arms above the giant cutouts of his body suit.
“It was too easy!” Georgio continues, unperturbed. Maybe he’s the one with hearing issues. “One of my employees is a big fan of that girl, Satan knows why, and planting the thought of picking her up after work into his little brain was even easier! All I had to do was to lend him my truck and there he went. But I’m afraid he loved her a little too much. She was bent in a few wrong places when I came to check in on them. I was only planning to keep her locked up until today, knowing that you!”
He points at Velvette, who has already started looking bored, hands itching for her phone.
“You would be desperate to find a replacement. And who better to choose than Valentino, the elusive porn star. But can you even call yourself that anymore? Seeing that you haven’t been a star in over a decade.”
By the love of Ozzie’s dragon dildo collection, Val is going to be an icicle before that damn rhino is done. But not under his watch. That guy wants a fight? Valentino will give him a fight, one he will remember until the day he gets pegged by an exorcist blade. He’s not even miffed about leaving Moneyshot at home, honestly the thought of smashing the hideous rhino’s face in with his bare hands is getting his heart pumping.
Time to make some ground beef.
“If you knew how to do this all along,” Vox asks suspiciously, watching Valentino’s nasty owl director mash pumpkin in a pot. “Why don’t you make it yourself instead of going to Hellbucks?”
They’re appropriating the Hellbucks kitchen to recreate the long-ass recipe Vox has open on his face. Ah, the things he does for love. Or make others do, he reckons. Someone surely jumped way too enthusiastically at the opportunity to make a drink for Valentino.
“Oh well,” Travis says, happily stirring sugar into the mixture. “There’s just something nice about paying people to do things for you that would otherwise take way too long, you know?”
Like getting you off? Vox thinks but doesn’t say. Well, it’s not wrong that paying people to do your bidding is way better than actually getting your hands dirty. He guesses he can relate to that.
After mashing the pumpkin spice concoction to his desired state of death, Travis moves on to pull Val’s requested three shots of blonde espresso from the shining portafilter as if his career revolved around fancy overpriced coffee instead of directing brainless whores all day. Vox briefly wonders if the VoxTek headquarters are in need of a coffee bar but immediately cancels the thought because his employees haven’t been behaving well enough to deserve these kinds of nice things.
“Don’t forget the vodka.” He tells Travis. Better not forget the most important part.
“Of course, of course,” Travis nods, finding the appropriately labeled bottle in the cooler and upending it into the cup.
Vox watches as the clear liquid pours from the spout. And pours and pours.
“Uhm…” he says, raising a finger, when the fluid level has risen by two inches. “Isn’t that a little…”
“Oh no, trust me, Mr. Vox,” Travis says, still pouring. “When Mr. Valentino wants a shot of vodka in his coffee, this is what he means.”
What kind of idiot is this Georgio guy? Did he really base his entire stupid plan on a circumstance that might not have even worked out if Valentino just said no? Or is he actually smart enough to-
No.
Velvette categorically deletes that possibility from her brain. She almost wants to know where the evil villain monologue is going next, but Valentino has obviously decided to pummel the guy before he gets another word in. He crashes into him in a whirlwind of too many fists and enough rage to fuel an entire herd of honey badgers and they vanish into a growing dust cloud.
Oh well, time to clean up after the boys. How did the Vees even survive before her? She doesn’t know. Pulling out her phone, she snaps a quick picture of the giant ball of incapacitated and gagged loan sharks, proving to be useless quicker than they even had time to appear. Then she plants one heel into one of the ugly fuckers faces and kicks hard enough that she feels bones crunching. The purple ball rolls off into the distance, taking bystanders and garbage with it, slowly growing in size and then vanishing into the distance.
“@ me when you see them rollin’ and hatin’” she captions the post. And sent. Perfect.
Her timing is impeccable as well, because just as she’s putting her phone away, Val and Georgio roll out of the dust cloud and hit one of the miraculously still standing trailers at the edge of the involuntary arena. It breaks down with a groan of overstressed metal and Val’s wings open to shield himself from the debris. He’s on the top, but Georgio has somehow managed to grip both of his left arms in one of his giant paws while the other swings and makes Val’s head snap to the side strong enough that Velvette can hear something crack.
The rhino uses the brief moment of disorientation to flip them, straddling Val across the hips like a budget dominatrix and trying to get a hold of his other two arms. But Val has already recovered and spits a mouthful of blood right into his opponent's face. Georgio lets out a sound that is testament to how the concoction of blood and toxic saliva must sting, reaching to try and rub it out of his eyes.
Thus, Valentino has been unleashed. He throws the rhino off of him as if he weighed nothing, then lifts off the ground, beautiful wings carrying him into the air effortlessly until he is haloed in the light of the red sun, before closing them behind him and dropping like a meteor, stilettos turning into daggers as they make impact with Gergio’s chest.
The resulting shockwave pushes Velvette back a few steps and she has to cover her face to avoid being hit by dirt. She shakes dust out of her hair and coughs, before making her way towards where Val stands on top of his enemy like a statue commemorating a glorious victory, one foot on the ground, the other still stuck inside Georgio’s chest.
Val smiles at her, full of blood and teeth and a liberating kind of joy that he only shows after being allowed to be unhingedly violent.
Velvette claps for him.
“Nice move, darlin’” She comments, a malicious grin creeping onto her face as well. “Too bad I didn’t get it on camera though. People would love that.”
Valentino flicks his antennae back.
“Oh I bet they would.” He laughs, sounding just a tiny bit winded, but more from adrenaline than actual exhaustion. “I was thinking about giving it some cheesy name. You know how Vox does that with his big moves? The fucking loser.”
To punctuate that he considers Georgio a loser as well he leans down to raise an eyebrow at his unconscious face, not stopping to complain for a second.
“Like, you know where he teleports on top of you? He calls that ‘Thunderbolt Lightning’, like he’s a damn anime protagonist, I swear, if he ever starts calling that shit out loud I’m gonna p-...”
She wants to warn him, but sound doesn’t travel as fast as Georgio’s formerly limp hands shoot upwards, grabbing the fluff of Val’s ruff and pulling. With a disgusting squelch the rhino’s horn digs itself into the moth’s exposed throat, exiting cleanly on the other side.
Velvette swallows her scream. Before she has consciously decided to, a purple ribbon has wrapped itself around the entirety of Georgio, strangling him into a metaphysical straight jacket. The sudden silence is thick enough to cut.
Valentino braces himself against the immobilized body and pulls himself up, air and blood blowing from the hole in his throat with every breath. He staggers back, coughing and wheezing because he must have been pierced below the larynx, severed connection unable to produce a voice.
“Val?” Velvette asks, unable to keep the worry out of her tone.
He waves her off, mouthing something that is only another wheeze and blood spraying everywhere. Then he frowns and sticks his thumb into the hole in his throat.
“The fuck?!” He rasps, voice warbled and gurgly because a thumb can’t really fix it. “That was so rude!”
He turns towards Georgio who is eyeing them with barely contained glee, even wrapped up like a smoked sausage the way he is. Props to him for holding up so well with a caved-in chest, but being hard to kill must be one of the perks of his hideous demon form.
“It’s already too late,” he chuckles, self-satisfied like his job here is done, “I have coated my all-piercing horn in one of the deadliest poisons known to man. You will experience true pain now, Valentino, like I did all these years!”
While the rhino is still ranting, the moth removes his thumb and the hole in his throat closes in seconds. His healing factor is second to none, poison or not.
“You have not known suffering until the effect of the VX hit you! It is one of the most potent nerve agents in the world and I have made sure to source the most high-quality products synthesized in the Kaiju District! I cannot wait to see you succumb to that kind of agony, you ungrateful wh-...”
Valentino laughs. A quiet chuckle that quickly turns into a noise that Velvette only witnesses after Vox has cracked the worst joke known to man, the one where Val has to hold onto his own knees to not collapse from losing it.
“You… You think th-that-...” He gasps for breath, sounding like his lungs are about to implode from too much laughter. “You really think that… that fucking VX of all things is enough t-... t-to kill me?”
Georgio just stares at him as if his world view has been destroyed by someone a quarter of his age. It might as well have been. Val wipes tears from his eyes.
“I pop that shit when I have a headache! You can’t be fucking serious??”
Velvette can’t help but join him cackling.
This is how Vox finds them: Velvette is sitting cross-legged on a blanket she has found in the rubble. Valentino is laying next to her, star-fished in an incredibly dirty and skimpy bodysuit and staring at the sky, an occasional chuckle shaking his frame. Tied up, gagged and blankly contemplating his life choices next to them is a humongous rhino sinner in a pool of his own blood.
“The fuck.” Vox says. The giant tumbler with Val’s abomination of a Pumpkin Spice Latte swings against his thigh in its crinkly plastic bag.
“Nice of you to finally show up, Vee.” Velvette greets him, waving without looking up from her phone.
“Vooxxyyyyy~" Valentino trills, laboriously turning and pushing himself into a sitting position with all four hands. “Amorcito, com’ere!”
He sways like a rubber tree in the wind and Velvette has to grab him to stop him from tipping over and falling on his face.
“What’s up with him?” Vox asks, standing a good meter away to avoid being grabbed like a squishy or worse, being puked on.
Velvette waves him off, seemingly not minding Val rubbing his face on the top of her head as if he were a cat in dire need of love.
“Don’t mind him, he’s high as a kite. Idiot over there didn’t know that poison doesn’t affect him like that.” She manifests a couple of cartoon-ish arrows pointing at the rhino sinner like a traffic accident.
“Nooooooo, Voxxy,” Val makes grabby hands at him, “don’t listen to her, I am soooo sober. Come gimme a kiss!”
Vox gives him his outrageous Hellbucks order instead. Like a toddler, easily distracted by objects, the moth takes the cup and also manages to stick the straw into his mouth on the second try, happily sucking on his heart-attack inducing beverage. Vox wonders if it was a good idea to let him have it, judging by the fact that its alcohol-content is high enough to knock out a horse. Alas, instead of thinking about it too much, he assesses the situation.
The camping site looks like the asteroid annihilating the dinosaurs has made an unwelcome reappearance. He’s suddenly very glad that at least he owns the plot of land and thus doesn’t have to explain to any annoying HOA why their investments are now fairy dust.
“And is anybody going to explain what the hell happened here?”
He can feel his blood pressure rising with every word Velvette speaks as she fills him in on her day. By the love of the antichrist, how can a plan made by a single individual be so nutty and circumstantial, and yet somehow almost work out? Vox decides that for once, Valentino hasn’t really done anything wrong and finally stands close enough for the moth to detach from Velvette and smush himself against Vox’s crotch instead. It’s not his fault that the man is too damn cute for his own good.
(If he were Georgio, the day would have turned to his favor, no doubt.)
Speaking of the lifeless rhino sinner…
“And what are we gonna do with him?”
Velvette shrugs.
“I don’t know, feed him to Shock.Wav? He’d appreciate a new chew toy.”
“Indeed, he would. It’s been so long since he’s had some quality protein.”
“We’d have to cut off that horn though, it’s dipped in VX.”
Vox squints at the aforementioned horn.
“Since when is VX purple?”
The grip around his thighs suddenly tightens as Valentino uses him as a crutch to get up, like he’s suddenly remembered something important.
“Because I never forget to put foundation on my neck!” He yells, wanting to stomp towards Georgio but tipping sideways instead. Vox quickly grabs him around the waist picking him up and he shakes his fist in no particular direction.
“The foundation that YOU… YOU MADE ME SPILL! DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND A FOUNDATION IN THIS SHADE???”
“He’s right, I recommended it to him.” Velvette tells Vox, as if he can do anything with that information. “It’s really good, barely oils.”
“LET ME AT ‘IM VOX, I WILL SHOVE THE BROKEN BOTTLES UP HIS ASS UNTIL HE PUKES MAKEUP!” Val curses and flails, too boneless to actually break out of Vox’s princess carry. Miraculously, the hand holding his deadly PSL remains remarkably steady.
Vox rolls his eyes.
That’s a whole ton of rage that he’ll have to fuck out of Val later.
(It’s what he is looking forward to the most.)