Chapter Text
The loud sounds of various types of machinery reverberated throughout the room, its walls lined with a maze of pipes, gears, pistons, and dozens of other different miscellaneous types of machinery. They played like a musical band, each machine wielding an instrument, the pipes hummed, the gears grinded, and the pistons hissed, all repeating ad-nauseam like a chorus. But in the middle of the room was Sir Pentious holding a clipboard, with the Eggboi who had just handed him it standing beside him meekly.
"Umm, Boss?" Number Fifty-one asked nervously.
The clipboard in Pentious' hands described the losses suffered by an offensive he ordered yesterday, and it wasn't positive, not in the slightest.
Seventy-nine Eggbois lost and fifty-eight of their associated weapons lost with them, either destroyed or captured intact by some Demon eager to keep it or quickly sell it on the near endless arms market.
All for two blocks of territory, and those two blocks were now almost nothing but ruins thanks to the fighting that occurred there. Although that wasn't uncommon when capturing territory in that area, thanks to her neverending enthusiasm for all things explosive. After decades of experience with her he was convinced that it was an official policy of hers that if she thought she couldn't hold the territory, she damn well won't let someone else have it intact, least of which her bitter rival.
After decades of dealing with this and with just how aggravating it was, he started to wonder why he hadn't adopted a scorched earth policy as a core part of his strategy to win the constant power struggle he played his part in.
"Boss?" Fifty-one said again, the tinge of worry in its voice turning to a tinge of fear.
Pentious felt his heart thump increasingly rapidly in his chest, his hearing focusing on the steadily increasing rhythm as his eyes reread the loss report again and again.
Pentious never did hold sentimental value for his egg shaped subordinates and their weaponry, he knew he lost at least a few thousand of them over his career, but he knew they carried material value. At most he was comfortable with losing around thirty subordinates and their weapons for a single average, and most importantly intact, block, so this was quite the poor exchange, especially when he had been building up to this for almost a quarter of the year.
In fact, judging from the reports of the battle, it was likely the woman managed to do all of this all while escaping unharmed, as there was no mention of so much as plausible hit.
"Boss, please don't be mad." Fifty-one muttered, noticing Pentious' eyes growing redder, his four fingered hands starting to quiver, and Fifty-One's puny limbs starting to shake ever so slightly.
Adding on the fact that barely a fourth of the dozen subordinates he sent on reconnaissance duty several days ago had returned, they always had a high loss rate, but it usually hovered around half, adding to the fact that one who didn't return meant that footage was lost, now he faced severe losses he had to replenish with very little to actually show for it.
Pentious' frustration boiled over, a short yell overtook the constant sounds of metal and steam as he threw the clipboard containing the losses report, missing the Eggboi by mere inches as it sailed over its head and hitting a brick wall with harsh thud and cluttering to the concrete ground.
"MONTHS!" Pentious screamed as his hood flared and his eyes bulged as he lunged towards the Eggboi, Fifty-One swiftly losing their balance and falling on the ground. "I have been working on this for MONTHS, and what do I get for it? Two blocks, only one of which has a single FUCKING building standing!"
"When was the last time I've had an acceptable losses to blocks captured ratio!? It's been fucking TWO YEARS that's how long!" Pentious screamed as he slithered closer to the Eggboi, his shadow hovering over it.
"So tell me Fifty-one, you were on the ground for the assault? What went wrong?" Pentious hissed as he pointed a finger at the fallen Eggboi.
"S-She was fast, Boss!" Fifty-one sputtered.
"Oh! She was fast?" He said dismissively as he cocked his head. "You outnumbered her a hundred-thirty-seven to one, and you didn't so much as FUCKING HIT HER!" He suddenly roared as lines of spittle flew from his mouth.
"How am I supposed to rule over not only Pentagram City, but take that crown from that Fallen Angel's decapitated head when you can't even take care of ONE! SINGLE! WOMAN!"
The Eggboi cowered in fear as Pentious' breathing became less and less labored as his hood slowly shrinked and his clenched fists unclenched bit by bit.
He was still angry, but he would deal with the consequences of this utter failure of an offensive later. He already had ideas of which of the few privileges his subordinates had that he could take away as punishment, but right now he just wanted to be left with his own thoughts.
As he turned and slithered away, Fifty-one muttered "W-Where you going Boss?"
Pentious stopped and turned his head toward the Eggboi who was just now getting back on their stubby feet. "I am going to think in my study, try not to fuck anything else up today."
**********
A gramophone played its century old record, its tune slightly distorted thanks to the march of time and use as Pentious flipped a page of a book, just one of thousands in his large study room, one adorned with a chandelier and a large oculus window. It has been a little over an hour since he locked himself in the room with a large glass of wine, pulled a random book off one of the many shelves, and put on some music. As he drank from a wine glass, he was interrupted by his doorbell suddenly ringing, its sound echoing throughout the room along with the rest of the mansion.
As the dings and dongs ended, Pentious gave a look of confusion, he had long ago installed a buzzer for his gated home, but that was his front door bell, anyone ringing the doorbell would have had to have somehow gotten past the front gate, and he definitely didn't instruct his servants to allow anyone inside the perimeter.
He reached over towards a nearby table, one that had a microphone connected to the speaker system that was in every room of the mansion, allowing him to bark orders at his subordinates at a moments notice no matter where he was in it.
Pentious pressed the button on the microphone, "To the neares-'' Pentious swallowed his words as instead of his voice booming through the halls, it was a loud piercing noise that felt nauseating, causing him to let go of the button.
Great, not only will he have to replenish his forces, but he also needed to replace some of the mansion's intercom wiring as well, just more issues to worry about.
Then, like the lightswitch had been flicked, the lights in the study all went out, plunging the study in darkness.
In a flash he wrapped his serpentine body around the chair and pulled a large revolver out of his suit, his many eyes that ran down his torso now looking in all directions that quickly adjusted to the darkness.
Long ago, It had taken him years to adjust to his new found eyes, but when he could wrap around something and have 360 degree vision, those first months of constant nausea and discomfort were worth it.
"REVEAL YOURSELF AND YOU WILL BE ESCORTED OUT WITH MINOR INJURIES!" He shouted into the quickly brightening darkness as his eyes adjusted, his gun training on every slight movement he thought he saw.
That's when he heard it.
It was subtle at first, sounding distant and just barely audible, but swiftly grew stronger and stronger, and soon the high pitched crackling noise soon filled the room, echoing throughout it.
It sounded like static.
His eyes all widened and his heart felt like it was bursting out of his chest when he realized who this intruder likely was.
Drip
A drop of water hit his shoulder, causing him to jump slightly and his finger squeeze the trigger just that bit harder.
Drip
Another drop of water came, this one landing on the top of his hat, he could feel things on his like they were his skin, no it couldn't have just been water, it was too warm, too sticky like mucus.
Pentious came to realization, and it felt like his heart had stopped.
His body demanded he look up, Pentious desperately wanted to just raise the revolver in the air and fire, but his limbs were frozen like ice.
Inch by inch, almost against his will, his head turned upwards, until he was looking directly above him.
There, crouched on a chandelier only a few feet above him was a figure, it's wide maw of yellow teeth shining through the darkness and eyes that reflected like an animal.
Drip
One last drop of saliva dripped from its jaws and onto his face.
Pentious couldn't even scream before several appendages of shadow arose from the ground around him, one of them smacking the gun out of his hands and having it hit the floor and slide several feet away, before in a flash one of the limbs grabbed him by the tail, and lifted his body high off the ground effortlessly, the limbs suspended him straight in the air for a moment, all while he fruitlessly tried to free himself, before the limbs rapidly moved and let him go, sending him hurtling through the air.
He shut his eyes tightly and screamed as he hurdled through the air, before sharp pain hit his back, knocking the air out of his lungs and the loud shattering of the glass oculus replaced his scream, he felt himself continue moving through the air for a moment until he finally hit the ground hard and rolled several times before finally stopping.
Pentious slowly reopened his eyes, finding himself at least a dozen meters from the front of his mansion, his eyes trailed up to the third floor of it, until he was staring at what little remained of the large oculus window of his study, and his eyes fell back down to the front door.
The primal parts of his brain was screaming at Pentious to get up, ignore the pain in his back, and attempt to put as much distance between Him and himself as possible. It had been quite some time since his last bloodcurdling broadcast but Pentious knew old habits die hard. But before he could even actually begin to think about starting the process, he heard the soft crunching of shoes to soil as the lower half of the red suited Demon entered his vision.
Pentious knew he could teleport, and knew that he was probably already standing next to him before he even opened his eyes.
In a flash of darkness, a shadowy hand erupted from the ground and grabbed one of his arms with the strength of a vise, locking it in place like he was tied to the ground.
Another appendage of shadow slowly snaked its way into view, holding something from behind The Radio Demon, only when it came full did Pentious realize what, or in this case who, it was.
It was a Eggboi, one that had an old fashioned video camera attached to its head, with its body torn and blackened, with the reels of film from the camera a mangled mess.
The shadow arm let go of the Eggboi's leg and hit the ground with a lifeless thud next to Pentious.
"Found this little thing sneaking around in my territory, specifically my radio tower, now I might not care nowadays about waging war on others as you do, but I trust you know that entering someone's property shows quite a lack of manners." His voice overwhelmed with static and barely understandable.
Only then did he recognize the Eggboi as number seventy-seven, one of the few he sent out several days ago to do reconnaissance in territory belonging to rival Overlords, given they were one of the nearly half that didn't return, he had assumed it was destroyed.
But he also didn't send one to patrol in The Radio Demon's territory, he had provoked their wraith enough times lately.
"Well?" He questioned with a tilt of his head. "I'm waiting for an explanation of this, and between my duties with my own territory and my duties with mine and dear Princess Charlotte's Hotel, I'm quite the busy man, and quite impatient." The Radio Demon sneered, the static in his voice growing even heavier.
That's when it hit Pentious like a locomotive.
"I swear to you, I-I didn't order Seventy-Seven to enter your territory! I merely ordered him to conduct reconnaissance around areas of the city that it deemed strategic!"
He dreadfully realized his error, he should have given specific instructions and destinations instead of letting the servant freely move whenever it pleased, but he was busy designing weaponry at the time and did a rushed order, and now he was face to face with one of the most powerful Overlords in the history of Hell.
"Is that so?" The Radio Demon asked as he leaned close to Pentious' face.
"I swear upon my very soul that I didn't tell them to enter your territory, after they left the mansion, he decided what to recon for the next forty-eight hours before being ordered to make their return!"
The Radio Demon leaned closer to his face, stopping mere inches away, and Pentious swore that he felt the static emanating from the demon's toothy grin.
"Well it appears you are telling the truth!" The grinning Demon declared as his face back off from his, Pentious letting out the breath he didn't even know he was holding.
"But I do have one small problem left to take care of." The Radio Demon turned away and looked at his mansion, taking a few steps towards it. "This mansion of yours, it's so…tacky." He uttered with a ping of disgust, as he waved a hand idly.
Pentious remained silent, fearful of saying anything that might provoke him in the slightest.
"However," The red suited Demon continued as he turned back towards him "since you were truthful, I suppose I could throw you a bone so to speak."
Pentious waited for a moment, the air continuing to be tense, until it became clear the Radio Demon wanted him to speak. Even for an Overlord, the deer demon was sadistic.
"W-What kind?" Pentious managed to meekly say.
"Well, it seems that this tacky structure is neatly divided into three sections, so how about I renovate two of them, and you get to decide which one you like just the way it is."
"W-What!?" Pentious shouted.
"I'll give you fifteen seconds." The Radio Demon said, ignoring his question.
The Radio Demon's eyes practically beamed into his soul, his eyes turned to radio dials, ticking down like a timer, and he didn't have long.
Was it some kind of twisted reverse psychology? Would he just destroy the whole thing? He couldn't risk it and had to hope that The Radio Demon wasn't playing a secret twisted game under the twisted game that he was obviously playing with him
But it wasn't a difficult decision, the eastern wing of his mansion was almost entirely dedicated to the manufacture and storage of anything he needed for his conquests, it was something he couldn't so much as briefly afford to lose, especially not after what happened yesterday.
"THE EASTERN WING! I wish to keep the eastern wing!" He exclaimed as he pointed towards it.
"Good choice if I do say so myself." He said as he waved his hand and snapped his fingers.
In the blink of an eye, a large dark vortex opened up between the central and western wing of the mansion, sounding like a jet engine as it started sucking parts of the roof right off and into it's pitch blackness.
Even here he felt it's pull, it was subtle, but no less terrifying, yet the hand held his remained locked in it's grip, he felt as if he was staring into a black hole and mere feet from it's event horizon, and that if he were any closer to it he would have no hope of escaping it's pull.
Finally, part of the walls broke off the foundation, some pulling entire sections off along with it on its trip into the vortex, some parts simply breaking away from the walls around it, all accompanied with an ear piercing noise of shattering brick and wood, and bending screech of metal.
Pentious swore that between all the debris of furniture, indoor walls, and splinter of floorboards, he could see some of his servants being sucked into the vortex, their screams inaudible over the roar of the vortex and screeching of the mansion being torn apart.
Moment by moment the walls still in place grew smaller and smaller, until finally nothing remained of the central and western wing but the foundation.
The Radio Demon snapped his fingers again, and suddenly the suction ceased, for the moment, the pitch black portal just hovered there for a moment, it's deafening roar silenced, but just like it's roar suddenly stopped, massive chunks of rubble suddenly begun pouring out of it and crashing loudly on what remained of half the mansion's foundation.
The Radio Demon turned back around to face him and leaned down towards him, "Now, this is the second time I had to intervene to sort out these little misunderstandings, after you were quite the rude guest at Princess Charlotte's Hotel, but I trust that this show will teach you to behave yourself? "
Pentious could only muster the will to rapidly nod his head.
"That's superb!" The Radio Demon exclaimed as he stood back to full height, his voice now clear and mostly free of static. "Now if you excuse me I must make my leave! Goodnight serpentine fellow!" He gave a short bow, as shadow suddenly engulfed him and quickly faded away, taking The Radio Demon with it.
Pentious could only stare at the twisted remnants of most of his mansion, and it was only after the last bits of debris finally settled did the sense of loss hit him. Through almost a century the mansion stood proud on it's hilltop, nearly completely unchanged for that timespan, while the rest of Pentagram City changed, it's once brick and wooden buildings becoming skyscrapers of concrete and metal, his mansion stood as a beacon of times long since passed.
He had no doubt it would one day be rebuilt to his exact specifications, but for now that beacon was practically extinguished.
Only then did Pentious realize that he lost his hat at some point during the scuffle, his many eyes quickly scanning the yard, fearful that it had come off while he was still inside the study.
When he saw it had landed several feet directly behind him, he gave a sigh of relief. As he crawled towards it and dusted it off, he heard the familiar sounding footsteps of multiple of his subordinates.
"Bossman! Bossman! We felt the ground shakin' and now most of the headquarters is gone!" Ninety-one declared.
"I can quite clearly see that." Pentious spat as he put his hat back on his head.
Pentious thought back to all he just lost. The study? Gone. His bedroom? Gone. His kitchen and dining room? Gone.
He knew it could, and will, all be rebuilt with time, and he tried not to give material possessions sentimental value, but some of things, especially in his former study, would be extremely difficult if not impossible to replace. He will definitely miss some of the gramophone records from the late 1800s, even if they were naturally damaged with time and use, it gave them a charm that couldn't be replaced.
The one positive was that the Radio Demon kept his word, and the east wing of his mansion was untouched.
"Ummm, Boss, you have stuff sticking out your back." Twenty-nine stated, interrupting his thoughts and pointing at his back.
"Wait wha-?" He questioned as he felt behind him and coiled his body to look at where Twenty-nine was pointing towards, sure enough there were three large glass shards stuck in his back, having come from being thrown through the study's oculus.
"Twenty-nine, remove this glass from my back." He ordered as he let his upper body slink closer to the ground.
Twenty-nine grabbed one of the glass shards sticking out his back, and without any care or hesitation, pulled it out as swiftly as it went in, causing Pentious to briefly scream in pain.
"CAREFULLY!" He screamed, tempted to punch the egg subordinate right then and there in retaliation.
"Sorry Mr. Bossman!" Twenty-nine pleaded, as they slowly removed a second shard from his back.
Right now, Pentious wanted nothing more than to leave the mansion grounds and indulge himself in alcohol.
Pentious looked at another Eggboi, as the third and final shard in his back was removed. "Fifty-Four, tell all other servants to clean up what remains of the central and western wings." Pentious commanded as he went back to his full height.
"That's a lot of wreckage Boss! Where are we gonna put it?" Fifty-Four questioned him as Pentious began to slither away towards the front gate.
"Just dump it all on the street for all I care, I'm going to get a drink." He responded half-heartedly and not even bothering to turn around, lost in the thought that all so much of his work was now little but dust and debris.
**********
Pentious rarely joined the lower classes on the street, usually only once every couple weeks, when he did venture outside the comforting confines of his mansion, it was almost always in a grand airship flying high above them, avoiding the near constant carnage in the streets below.
That thought reminded him he was going to need a significant amount of building materials was an understatement, he controlled enough territory that sourcing them should be a non-issue, yet taking what would amount to hundreds of tons of materials all at once would no doubt raise issues with some people.
The lower classes loved the status quo, it was one of the first things he learned in his century of experience of territorial control, don't rock the boat too much and you could focus on outside problems and not have to significantly worry about inside problems of people wanting to be under new management, only having to deal with Demons with new aspirations, but being so new meant most of them were trivial to deal with, but now he was going to have to rock the boat.
He had to have traversed almost a dozen blocks and over thirty awful looking dive bars before he found a bar that looked remotely acceptable, and even then this didn't actually look appealing.
As entered, he was happy to see the place wasn't packed, on the contrary there were twenty people here at most. One thing that caught his attention was that the bartender was an Imp, one who stood out like a sore thumb considering everyone else the bar was a Sinner Demon, wasn't unheard of for Imps to be working in Pentagram City instead of Imp City, but definitely not commonplace.
"Just give me a liter of the most alcohol rich whiskey you have." Pentious uttered with a scowl as he approched the bar counter.
Whiskey, he rarely drank it, rarely drank alcoholic drinks for their actual alcohol, his love for wine was more for the taste if anything, and wine's alcohol content was miniscule compared to whiskey, but he came here to get wasted.
Once the Bartender had finished pouring the liquor into an oversized glass, Pentious simply snatched the glass from the counter and began to move towards a booth in the corner that was next to the large glass window that spanned most of the front wall, "Excuse me motherfucker! YOU PAY UP FRONT!" Somebody screamed behind him.
Pentious turned towards the Bartender, just knowing how short most Imps were and how tall the bar table was made it obvious he was standing on some kind of stool, "Do you even know who I am, Imp?"
"No you son of a bitch I d-" The Imp all of a sudden stopped shouting as his eyes almost bulged out of his head, suddenly the Imp continued to speak in a much more pathetic and begging tone, "Shit! I'm sorry Sir Pentious please forgive my lapse of judgment!"
Pentious said nothing as he turned away and sat down at the booth. Over a century in Hell had taught him most Imps were fearful of any Sinner that so much as approached Kingpin status, unlike Sinner Demons the small red horned Hellborn could be killed by conventional means, so many tended to be cowards towards anything stronger than them.
He raised the oversized glass of whiskey to his mouth and felt like gagging as it went down his throat, only pushing on due to his need to be completely hammered by the time he walked out the bar.
In simple terms the whiskey had tasted like shit, the high alcohol content causing a burning sensation down his throat, but he pressed on, taking more and more of the drink until the burning in his throat forced him to put the large glass down.
But like a slow creeping shadow, the feeling of being watched edged through his mind, a sixth sense that had grown sharp over the more than a century and a half of his existence as both a human and a demon, and right now it was flashing a red alert.
His eyes darted throughout the bar, aside from a couple wayward glances from the patrons nobody was watching him intently, only when he glanced out the large window he sat next to did he see a one eyed pale demon wearing a red top who's silhouette alone was instantly recognizable to him sprinting right down the street making a beeline directly towards him.
He couldn't even physically react before Cherri Bomb dove through the window with a loud crash and landed right on his table with grace, as the pinging of glass shards landed on his table and floor.
"Surprise Edgelord!" The one eyed mad bomber screamed at the top of her lungs as she stood up tall on the shattered glass covered table, already holding one of her infernal explosives, and thanks to being on the receiving end of them multiple times, it was one Pentious recognized as being one that exploded on impact instead of having a timed fuse.
Within moments, the bar erupted into screams and profane shouts as people either ran for some sort of cover or out of the bar entirely, unquestionably knowing being in the same building as two rivals was ill-advised
He jolted his right hand into one of his pockets, he always kept a gun on him, his draw and trigger finger would have to be quick, Cherri was already in position to throw her damned...
Pentious' eyes widened as instead of feeling a metal grip, he only felt the air.
Cherri's expression changed, causing worry to creep up Pentious' spine, fearful that she realized he was unarmed. But where was his gun? He had always kept it in his right pocket.
Then he remembered the gun being smacked out of his hand in the Study, just before he was thrown out the oculus and just before everything in the main mansion was decimated.
He slowly removed his hand from his suit pocket, Cherri pulling her arm back ready to throw once she sighted metal, but canceled her motion once she saw nothing but air.
"Awww," His arch-rival said in false concern and a tilt of her head. "Did you forget your gun for once?"
On any other day, Pentious would have spat an insult back at her, perhaps even tried to lunge towards her and put his venomous fangs to use, but he didn't, he simply remained silent and motionless.
For the first time in what felt like decades, he was well and truly was not in the mood, not after all that happened, an army destroyed for table scraps and his home devastated with a wave of a hand and snapping of fingers, and now all he wanted now was to drown out the day's events from his memory with drinks.
"What? Did you finally lose your voice?" Cherri mocked.
It was enough for him to narrow his eyes and snarl "I am not in the mood you insolent one eyed wretch."
Cherri gave a puzzled look, before a wide smirk grew on her face. "What's the matter old man? Depressed because I destroyed at least a hundred of your Eggies yesterday? Should really consider upgrading those things, I don't even sweat when facing 'em anymore."
"Barring the fact I'm not 'depressed' and the fact you overestimated your count, I am in no mood due to multiple reasons that happened recently."
He really, really just wanted to be left the hell alone with the rest of that terrible at best whiskey right now.
He tried his best to put a neutral expression on his face, and calmly said "I'll give you an offer, you let me finish the rest of this drink of mine in peace, and I'll relinquish control of this block to you without a fight."
"Free turf? Sounds like one of those scam emails promising free money. Why should I believe you?"
"All I can give you is my word, but if you want to take this block another way you'll have to fight me for it, and that will cause my damage to this place then just a broken window."
A voice popped from behind the bar counter uttering "Y-Yeah, what he said! I would rather not have to replace more than that damn window!" Undoubtedly from the Imp bartender who apparently also owned this place.
She looked him dead in the eyes as Pentious absentmindedly offered his hand, "We have an agreement then?" He asked.
Cherri gave a slight huff as she took his hand, squeezing it with harsh force. "Fine, but no stalling, you got ten minutes before I kick your ass out anyways."
Right after letting his hand go, Cherri got down off the table, sat down on the seat opposite of his, before resting her left arm behind her head and lifting her feet on the table, her legs crossed, and her smug grin that she had somehow grown even more smug.
"What are you doing?" Pentious asked, not even trying to hide the obvious agitation in his voice, "Leave me alone and get out of my sight."
"Uh uh." Cherri taunted while wagging a finger, "Deal was not kicking your pathetic ass outta here and letting you get wasted, didn't have anything about leaving you alone."
"I said leave me in peace, so enough bugging me and run off before I declare the deal null and void."
"Yeah, and to me 'in peace' means not blowing your ass across the block, 'sides I need to make sure this block has a transfer of ownership."
Pentious let out a hiss that was a mixture of frustration and anger, he shouldn't have let himself fall into that classic word game trap, doing a small lunge towards her.
It took Cherri barely a quarter of a second to swifty dig into one of her pockets and pull out the impact detonated explosive she had put away moments prior.
Many years of personal experience made him know the mad bomber wasn't afraid to blow herself up if it meant that a rival was caught up in the blast with her. So he skunked back into his seat.
"Jeez what's got you so moody?" Cherri taunted as she kept hold of the explosive.
"The Radio Demon showed up and…" Pentious trailed off, catching himself before he told too much to a rival. As he searched for the words to sugar coat what had transpired, he noticed that the mention of Him had taken the smug smirk off the mad grenadier's face, if only for a second or two before it returned.
"Well," Pentious continued "He did significant damage to me and my property before I managed to drive him off."
"Uh huh, sure." She said dismissively, rolling her singular eye nearly fully into the back of her head, before she reached into one of her pockets and pulled out her phone, swiftly typing on it.
Pentious never bothered to keep up with the times for a long time now, for several he could never seem to grasp the new gadgets that started to appear in the slightest, he grabbed the whiskey and drank some of it.
"Hmm, that's interesting." Cherri said in a deadpan tone as he put the glass down. "Oh and can I ask ya something?"
"What?" Pentious spat.
"This you?" She responded as she turned her phone around, showing a Voxtagram post captioned in all caps and highlighted 'PENTIOUS SHITHOLE OBLITERATED BY THE RADIO DEMON!' Cherri swiftly pressed play, the video starting in some awful looking apartment before the phone recording it looked out of a window showing his hilltop residence, large chunks of it already gone with his trembling form and the red suited demon also visible.
Pentious looked away from the phone, unwilling to see so much he built be wiped away in mere seconds for a second time, instead grabbing the oversized glass of whiskey and taking a long, drawn out drink, a little over a third of it remaining by the time he put it down.
As he gulped the hot taste of the drink down, he looked at Cherri, her phone now out of view, "Why are you even here?" He questioned bitterly.
"Well I was lookin' for some targets I could easily hit after what you did yesterday, a nice eye for an eye, and lo' and behold I pass this shitheap and notice a familiar face skulking right on the other side of a window."
Pentious took another short drink of the whiskey, he hand trembling slightly as he put the glass down.
"You know, when he showed up...he was on one of my chandeliers, I was under it, and he was drooling on me." Pentious voice was stolen from him as his mind flashed his experience of looking up to see something that shouldn't have once been Human.
"For a minute, I thought he was going to eat me." He whispered solemnly.
"I may hate your guts but...well even I'll admit I wouldn't want you to be eaten by him, being honest the only person I'd root for to happen to them is Valentino."
"You know I was around when he showed up, when he broadcasted the screams of his victims being eaten alive…"
"Yeah. I know, everyone knows why not to even be near him."
"Yeah, but you weren't there, you dropped in the 80s, so you never heard the screams of the people he ate alive with your own ears."
"I'll admit you have a point but…" Cherri trailed off and looked closely at him. "You're finally drunk aren't you?"
"Yeah-Yeah it's hitting me, I was only here for a couple minutes before you jumped through the window." His inebriated mind wandered to how Cherri said she never ran into The Radio Demon, "Wait...you go to his and Charlotte's little project like once a week to visit that eight limbed friend of yours, you seriously never seen him?"
"Well I just never bumped into him when I go there, I'm just lucky I suppose." She replied with a slight nod.
"Well lucky you!" Pentious excitedly replied with strange sincerity in his voice.
"Fuckin' hell, you're actually seem to be almost tolerable when you're drunk." Cherri admitted as he guzzled down the final bits of the glass of whiskey.
"There, I'm done." He mumbled, as he slammed the empty glass down onto the still glass shard covered table with a loud thud.
"Well 'bout time! Honestly, it's been a blast hearing you mope." Cherri declared as she uncrossed her legs, removed them from the table, and stood up inside the booth.
"I appreciate you letting me finish my drink." Pentious mumbled with a slight smile, it quickly disappeared as his intoxicated mind caught up to what he just said, instantly regretting letting it slip.
"Now, are you going to leave my territory or am I gonna have to kick your ass out?" She threatened, juggling the impact explosive up in the air with on hand.
"I'm leaving, I'm leaving!" Pentious cried out, his speech slurred, as he got up from the booth and made his way towards the front door.
"OH!" He cried as he turned around, facing the bartender who now was peeking over the bar counter, "One last thing…" he stammered as he struggled to focus on the bartender who's name tag wasn't visible, forcing him to merely point at him "...YOU! Your whiskey SUCKED!" He shouted as he turned back around and slithered out the door, slamming it behind him.
"Alright everyone! This dump is under new management and for starters I'm not paying for the window!" He heard Cherri shout from the broken window as he made his way back to what remained of his home.
**********
By the time he managed to make his way back to home, even with an intoxicated mind and blurred vision he could see a little bit of progress was being made.
There were some bits and pieces of rubble dumped unceremoniously on the street and sidewalk, but there was still much, much more still where it was when he left, it was obvious removing all the rubble would take several days, if not a full week.
He didn't want to think about how long the actual rebuilding process would take, not that he really could clearly think about that in this state.
Pentious wordlessly slithered inside the factory wing, ignoring the Eggbois that begged for his attention in the yard, and soon found one of the cots that hung from the ceiling. He had them there for the nights where he shut himself entirely in his workshop for days and nights on end, which happened more often than not.
Pentious laid down on the cot, a part of him thought back to the bar, and he loathed to admit it, but it felt satisfying to at least talk to someone like that...
...even if it was Cherri Bomb.