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Alastor was thrilled. Positively thrumming. He couldn’t even begin to articulate how brilliant he was — how flawlessly every cog of his perfectly crafted plan had clicked into place. The whole thing had run like a gleeful little music box wound by the hands of a sadist.
And the cherry on top?
A brand-new deal with Rosie, sweet Rosie, signed on his terms. No more lacquered smiles hiding a leash around his throat. No more obedient little errands. No more cages. He wasn’t her pet anymore.
He was free—free enough to let his rage stretch out its limbs, free enough to breathe without feeling her breath on his neck.
For the first time in decades, Alastor felt good.
Triumphant. Vindicated. Almost euphoric.
Self-satisfied to the point his reflection winked at him in approval.
He was a fucking mastermind.
Back at the hotel, chaos lingered like aftertaste. The staff was still untangling the mess caused by the influx of people, but they were managing.
Meanwhile Alastor spent a few days locked in his room, replaying and analyzing every beat of the finale — and truly, all had gone perfectly.
Except for one thing.
One unfortunate, irritating, neon-blue stain on the otherwise immaculate canvas.
That ridiculous, high-strung, incandescent little gremlin of an overlord. That screen-headed catastrophe with circuitry for nerves and ego made of glass thin enough to shatter if you breathed wrong.
Humiliated was too gentle a word for what happened to him. Vox had been annihilated. Vaporized. Publicly filleted. His empire a laughingstock. His precious ratings—his entire identity—crushed until even the algorithms refused to resurrect him. The Vees had banned his name from so much as a whisper. Velvet held a funeral for his subscriber count. Valentino replaced his face on their logos with his own.
Overnight, the self-proclaimed King of Media became a ghost.
Anyone else would have been satisfied to let it rot there.
And Alastor tried. Oh, he tried.
But Alastor’s mind drifted back. Again. And again. Like a cursed radio picking up only one frequency.
He swore—absolutely swore—that he’d seen a glimmer. The faintest shimmer. One tear gathering behind the glassy blue of Vox’s screen.
How pathetically emotional.
How beautifully raw.
And oh, how delicious.
Totally normal to think about. Completely routine. His mind wandered all the time. He wasn’t fixating. He was simply… bored. Yes. Bored. That was the only reason that intrusive little image kept replaying behind his eyes like a favourite commercial jingle.
That was what he told himself as he now stood in front of the Vee Tower.
The building was a funeral monument to a fallen ego: posters plastered across its glass surface, the word Führer Vox sloppily crossed out and rewritten as Fraud. Some demon had even added doodles of tears running down his screen. Alastor let out a bright, crackling laugh.
How the mighty glitch and fall.
He slipped easily into the private passageway Vox had once—oh so generously, so idiotically—opened for him when Alastor was his captive. The door recognized his presence, obedient as ever, and the thought alone made the smile on his face curl a little sharper.
Little Vincent had been so naïve.
So trusting in his technology, in his control.
Now those very doors welcomed the monster they once tried to cage.
And Alastor stepped inside, humming, the sound warm and sweet and just a touch hungry.
The moment Alastor slipped inside, the door sealed behind him with a soft pneumatic hiss.
The room was pitch-black. The only lights were the soft electric glow of the aquarium and a dim blue rectangle on the bed.
The aquarium hummed faintly, casting an eerie turquoise ripple across the furniture. Within the glass, the damn fish—the ever-snarling digital shark—lifted its angular head and bared its needle-teeth the second it sensed him. Its fins twitched; the screen beneath its scales flickered bright warning red.
Alastor’s smile sharpened.
With a leisurely motion, he drew his staff, shadows coiling behind him. He had wanted to put this glitchy pet out of its misery since the first time he’d seen it. And considering it doubled as a security system, it was likely transmitting alerts to both of the Vees right now.
He took one step, already lifting the staff.
“Schok.wav, back off.”
The voice came from the bed—crisp, monotone, flat. The shark froze mid-glare, then flicked its tail and retreated silently into the deeper water, vanishing like a corrupted file.
Alastor stopped mid-swing, annoyed.
Another time, then.
He moved toward the bed with a slow, almost taunting grace. The blue glow illuminated a rectangular screen lying where a body should be. The rest of Vox—every inch of flesh, circuitry, cables, ego—was gone. Only the TV remained, resting among tangled blankets.
“You’re still in this form?” Alastor chuckled, the sound warm and mocking at once.
Vox didn’t look at him. “Val and Velvette are still pissed. They said until they finish repairing the damage I caused, I stay like this.”
His tone was stripped of all emotion—like someone had set his voice through a flattening filter and removed everything that made it human.
His screen dimmed slightly as he added, “Took you long enough, though. I expected you on my doorstep the moment they dragged me back here.”
Alastor laughed softly, a crackling, vintage-radio sound.
“Oh, I’m not as petty as you, mon ami. I enjoy anticipation. I let the moment simmer. You should try it.”
Vox scoffed, finally turning his glowing eyes toward him. “And yet, here you are.”
Alastor tilted his head, shadows whispering up the walls. “Well, it was your suggestion, wasn’t it? That I’d get to say my little I told you so.”
If Vox had a neck, he would’ve rolled the whole head. Instead his red pixel-eyes simply flickered upward in exasperation.“You always loved that. Never missed a single chance to rub anything in.”
“Oh, but you make it so easy.”
Alastor didn’t bother moving physically—his shadows did it for him. They unspooled from behind him, sinuous and eager, lifting Vox’s screen until it hovered at Alastor’s eye level.
Their gazes locked.
Alastor’s grin widened into something sharp and predatory. His voice dropped into that velvety, dangerous register he only used when savoring something.
“Because I am always right, Vincent.”
Vox’s display flickered.
“I told you you’d fuck it up. I told you you’d lose your marbles.”
With each word, Alastor’s form shifted—antlers curling higher, silhouette stretching, smile widening into something too wide, too bright. His eyes glowed like furnace glass, drilling into Vox’s pixelated gaze.
“I told you no victory would ever be enough for that broken little mind of yours.”
He leaned in, breath warm against the crackling screen.
His shadows tightened their grip until the glass frame groaned, spiderweb cracks forming at the edges.
“And look who’s smiling in the end.”
Alastor finished, his voice syrup-sweet and venomous.
He allowed his form to shrink back to its usual shape, but he didn’t let go of Vox’s screen.
Vox listened. He absorbed every word without flinching, without glitching, without even a token scoff.
And somehow, that blankness—that lack of reaction—got under Alastor’s skin far more effectively than any snarky retort could have.
Finally, Vox spoke.
“So you’re going to finish what we started?”
The question was quiet.
Alastor burst out laughing—loud, bright, jagged laughter that echoed through the dark room like glass shattering.
“You stupid moron! Why in Hell would I waste my time killing you in a pathetic state like this?” He jabbed a finger at the screen like a teacher scolding a child. “And I’m certainly not helping you finish your miserable suicide attempt.”
“It wasn’t—”
“Yes, it was!” Alastor didn’t let him finish. “You narrowed your whole world down to me—again! You fucking cried in front of me—again!” His laughter climbed higher, deranged, delighted. “And when you realized you couldn’t beat me fair and square, you decided to go out in a blaze of drama and take me with you. And half of Hell, for that matter!”
He wiped a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye. “Seriously, my friend. You need to pull yourself together. By all means.”
He giggled at his own pun.
“You can’t go any lower than this, Vincent. I’m genuinely shocked you managed to crawl high enough to become an overlord. They must’ve had a very off day when they let you in the club. That won’t happen again, I assure you.”
Alastor dusted off his suit, as if ridding himself of Vox’s presence. He leaned casually on his staff, posture announcing the conversation was over, beneath him, irrelevant.
“I’m letting you live,” he said pleasantly. “Because I plan to savor every moment as I regain my strength, harvest new souls, rebuild what was lost… and you will be here. Rotting. Stagnating. Reduced to a useless monitor with a pity complex. You never were and never will be on my level.”
He turned, already bored.
“Farewell, Vincent. It was awful knowing you.”
He was seconds from flinging the screen unceremoniously back onto the bed when Vox’s eyes—downcast until now—slowly lifted and met his.
“Have you always hated it when I touched you?”
Alastor blinked.
He stared at Vox as if the screen had sprouted horns. “Are you fucking kidding me? That’s your response?”
He had just ripped the man apart. He had just outlined every flaw, every humiliation, every pathetic spiral.
And Vox wanted to talk about this?
But Vox didn’t look away. Those sad, pixelated eyes held his with unnerving clarity.
“Yes,” Alastor snapped. “You fucking creep. I couldn’t stand it.”
“Then why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Alastor blinked again once, twice.
His mind couldn’t process the absurdity of still standing here having this conversation.
“As if you would’ve listened,” he hissed. “Guys like you don’t even know what personal boundaries are.”
Vox raised his eyebrows, something faint flickering in his expression. It was the same look he had worn every time they’d fought.
“Before…Have I ever done anything to hurt you?” Vox asked quietly. “To offend you? I never even badmouthed you first. It was always you who—”
Alastor’s smile widened until it looked painful, brittle around the edges.
“Don’t recall.”
That was all he said before he tossed the screen onto the bed with a careless flick, as if discarding something broken beyond repair.
He marched to the door, the static around him growing vicious and loud.
“So have you?” Vox asked again, voice barely above a whisper.
“Yes!” Alastor snarled, whipping around one last time before vanishing in a burst of sharp, blinding static.
The room fell silent.
Only the faint bubbling of the aquarium filter remained.
Vox closed his eyes, exhausted, screen dimming to a soft blue pulse.
“If I am so easy…” Vox murmured to the dark, “then why the fuck Alastor always so hard?”