Hazbin Hotel - A Dream of Redemption

Chapter 19: This Was Not the Bomb

Charlie heads down the elevator from her room/office and enters the lobby after enjoying her breakfast. She starts making her rounds, checking all the residents, all two of them-Angel Dust and Sir Pentious-and making sure the staff-Vaggie, Husk, Niffty, and Alastor-are doing their jobs. Niffty is sitting in the lobby, bored out of her mind, and Husk looks like he's about to fall asleep.

Vaggie is watching over them like a hawk, making sure they don't get into any mischief.

Alastor is nowhere to be seen, although he is probably just in his radio tower. Then Charlie notices Angel approaching the elevator nervously, like he had just seen a vengeful Lucifer. She decides to follow him.

While he rides the elevator to his room floor, Charlie climbs the stairs. He enters his room, solemnly greeted by Fat Nuggets, his cute pet tiny demon pig. She notices he is clutching his hellphone tightly.

He enters his room, and moments later, he exits, looking nervous, in a hurry. He is carrying a black duffel bag that she isn't sure of its contents. Hopefully not a body. Maybe. She notices that he doesn't have his phone, so she does some snooping. She enters his room quietly and grabs his phone, looking at his messages. The most recent one:

Valentino- "Angel Baby, I hope you haven't been avoiding me lately. I haven't seen you around the clubs recently, and I know you would never want to break my heart."
Angel- "Of course not Val, I've just been busy. With stuff."
Valentino- "Good, good. To be honest, it's hurting my wallet, slightly. And 'cause you know what happens to those that cross me."
Angel- "I'm sorry."
Valentino- "Now to make up for it, I'm gonna need you to show up tonight at the club. No excuses. Be there. Capisce?"
Angel- "Yes sir."

Charlie feels disgusted that Angel is being forced to work for Valentino. She is also shocked that Angel is so scared that he would "willingly" go back without a fuss, even though he is trying to "come clean" (sorta) and free himself from Val.

As she leaves, phone still in hand, Angel returns. He looks at her confused, but since he's in a hurry, he doesn't have time to question her. He snatches his phone out of her hands and runs off, probably to Valentino's club. Charlie isn't sure what to do.

After thinking, she decides to call Cherri Bomb, the closest friend Angel has. A few minutes later, to their surprise, she shows up at the hotel. "What's up? What's wrong with Angie?" Charlie explains the situation. Then Cherri, (and to her annoyance) Charlie, and Vaggie head out.

They all arrive at the club. Charlie and Vaggie want this to be a stealth mission, where all they do is watch Angel to see what he's doing. Cherri wants to bust down the doors with her explosives and "rescue" him. After some difficult coercion, Charlie manages to convince her to follow their plans, on the condition that if anything goes wrong, she can blow the club up, again.

The club is filled with lots of decadent sinners. Charlie sees Angel standing on a stage, surrounded by dozens of sinners, all clamoring and throwing money at Angel, who is dancing. Valentino sits across from him, in a large chair, accompanied by two girls. He has an evil smile across his face and is blowing red, hypnotic, smoke at Angel.

Angel Dust is an exotic dancer and has a smile plastered across his face, but Charlie can tell that he is having to force it. Cherri can tell too. They have to consider their next actions very carefully.

Cherri wants to fight Valentino, blow up all his clubs, and free Angel from his grasp. Charlie wants to help Angel, but she doesn't know how. He has to stay because he is scared of Val. Vaggie wants to leave because it seems like they can't do anything.

If they jump out, grab him, and run back to the hotel; then Val would just send his followers to attack the hotel and recover Angel. If they do nothing, Angel will have to stay in the cycle of (depression:) trying to get away from Val, getting low on cash and needing drugs, and solemnly returning to his abusive boss who is extorting and pumping him heavily. Charlie decides that they should do something.

She decides that they should help Angel. She decides that they should help him out and go back to the hotel and help him.

As much as it pains her to have to go back without helping immediately, along with unnecessary trip, she doesn't think she has much of a choice. While Valentino will pimp out Angel as much as he can and sexually, physically, and mentally abuse him, he still needs his star attraction.

Charlie can tell that Cherri wants to kill him although Charlie's not sure she could; considering her abilities and influence compared to his, and her lack of angelic weapons. All she could hope to do at most is temporarily, slightly, harm him until he ultimately regenerates back fully. She puts a hand on her shoulder to try and talk her down, but she shoves her hand off. She glares at her angrily but also understands the conundrum.

She frustratedly storms off, and the three of them head back to the hotel. When they get back to the lobby, Niffty asks, "So how did it go? Where's Angel?" Cherri, in a fit of rage, punts her across the large great room. Cherri then storms off to a chair. Charlie goes to check on Niffty, who is fine but is also slightly annoyed (but not mad).

Sometime later, Cherri approaches Charlie, "One room for tonight. Just until Angel gets back. I'd like my room preferably near his." Then Alastor walks in out of nowhere and announces, "Ah wonderful! Another poor soul come to join us at the 'Hazbin Hotel'! Good work, my dear!"

Charlie mutters under her breath, "Happy Hotel..." Cherri takes a step back, frightened, by Alastor, and heads to her room. Charlie and Vaggie cheer (well, more specifically, Charlie cheers and Vaggie slightly joins in) with glee that they got, even if only temporarily, another resident for the hotel!

She has a wide variety of thoughts and ideas racing through her mind. She wonders how she should approach Angel about the issue. Should she confront him as soon as he returns? Should she wait till tomorrow? Should she just let Cherri do the talking? Should she just let it be? Probably not.

She isn't sure what the best course of action would be, but she does know that someone needs to talk to Angel about him getting away and staying away from Val. To tell him that they support him. That they just want to help him. And that... Too many thoughts are rushing through her head.

She heads to the balcony alone to clear her head and get some "fresh" air.

Also, so she can see Angel's return before everyone else, so she can have more time to prepare. But for now, she just sits on the balcony, accompanied only by her thoughts (and the occasional scream of someone being stabbed or etc.).