🕸𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚍🕸 | Hazbin Hotel OC

Chapter 6 | Getting Things Started

Darkness completely suffocated the room. Leeroy laid flat on his stomach--that was the only position he could be in that didn't cause immense discomfort--and stared into the inky blackness. Pentagram City was celebrating its high-class nightlife with far-away shootouts, sirens, and a thumping bass-boosted song filling the atmosphere from a few blocks over.

Leeroy looked over his shoulder. The glowing pentagram in the sky still glowed brightly, but it refused to give any light to anything but itself. He checked all around the room. No dark silhouettes occupied the abysmal corners. It was finally time.

Carefully, quietly, he pulled himself out of bed and snuck into the kitchen. Tajin, like he said he would, was sleeping soundly on the couch next to the busted door. Leeroy swiftly grabbed the laptop from the counter and took it back to the bedroom, setting it down on the desk. It was satisfying to cut the taped edges with just his sharpened fingers to then pull out all the packaging. He handled the wires, accordingly, plugging in the power cord and Ethernet cable.

Now it was time to boot the thing up.

Gently grabbing the lid of the laptop, he pulled it up, pressing down on the power button. The laptop booted up, flashing a splash screen of Vox's face front and center, his cheesy smile winking at Leeroy.

"That's adorable," Leeroy whispered under his breath. A classic loading symbol finally appeared, and before long, the laptop was saying "Hello! Welcome to your new LapVox! Brought to you by VoxTech, the only company you'll ever need!" Before anything continued further, he picked the still-dangling tag from off his shirt and covered the laptop's built-in camera. Leeroy punched in some original fake name ("Boxy Eyes") and faked his way through his death date.

The computer continued to wink and smile sweetly as it went through questions about configuration and personalization, and eventually, it let Leeroy onto his desktop. Now it was time to get to business.

Leeroy installed a coding terminal and quickly whipped up a VPN (of course, the only one in Hell) to scramble his location in case anyone was tech-savvy enough to try to steal it. In this day and age, though, Leeroy doubted it. After getting that all set up, he got to work programming a little friend.

This little friend had the appearance and voice of Vox, only in a smaller, simpler chibi style that Leeroy had learned in high school. Leeroy had lots planned for this mini-Vox, which he creatively named "Voxito." It would have the capabilities of any self-respecting app: the ability to talk, role-play, get to know a person, play games, keep a schedule, tell the time, see through a camera, track down a location, look through files, and prevent its own uninstallation.

Leeroy's long, sharp fingers clicked away at the keys, programming the beginnings of the program—not wasting a second. He finished the schedule-keeping and time-telling features and tested them out. Sure enough, Voxito was able to tell him that it was four in the morning, followed by a chronological list of tasks he would need to pull off to get the rest of the features implemented.

He worked through the night until the life of Pentagram City calmed and there was no more thumping club music and the shootouts became fewer and further between. The light of day peered in through the broken window, and through the corner of his eye, Leeroy spotted Tick scrambling away from the window as if she had been sitting there all night. Creepy.

Leeroy saved the work that he had completed through the night and shut the laptop, taking a moment to feel just how hot it had gotten from being overworked. Clearly, VoxTech needed a new person in charge of technology. He briefly imagined a familiar scenario where a certain company produced phones that would literally explode if you used them for too long and snickered. Maybe next time the cartel decided to stop by, he would use a bunch of phone-grenades to scare them off. Ha-ha. If only.

After taking a good, long stretch in all six of his limbs, Leeroy left the bedroom and walked into the kitchen. Tajin laid under the sink, on his back, twisting away at the pipes and plumbing.

"Good morning?" Leeroy said, cocking his head to the side. "Are you making any progress?"

Tajin huffed and finished off a pipe before he sat up. "We should have clean water now, unless the problem is with the tank," he stated, wiping away a bead of sweat from his forehead. He climbed out from under the sink and turned the tap on. It sputtered for a moment before muddy water poured out, and... the water remained muddy. Tajin frowned to himself. "You're not too worried about getting sick, are you? I mean..." He rocked his head from side to side, thinking of the right wording.

"... people don't get sick in Hell?" Leeroy attempted at finishing the sentence. Tajin shook his head.

"No, no, I mean pulgitas such as yourself should be immune to filth water. Aren't you kinda drawn to it?" Tajin asked.

"You mean because I'm a giant fly now?" Leeroy clarified. "No, I'm not drawn to it." He stopped to think for a second. Was he? No... maybe? Leeroy shook his head.

Tajin opened his mouth to retaliate, but couldn't find the words. "Huh. I thought you loved death and gross stuff, which is why you came here," he explained.

Leeroy blinked, unable to think of how to respond. Tajin flushed with embarrassment. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," he said, leaning onto the counter.

"Well, thanks for attempting to fix the tap. I guess we should spend the day getting the place entirely fixed up, right? Then we can go and try to fix the problem with the water tower," Leeroy suggested. Tajin nodded.

"I've been fixing little things here and there, but I've been waiting for you to wake up so I could use your freakishly average height and extra arms to hold stuff up for me." Tajin rolled his sleeves up.

Leeroy didn't need to roll his sleeves up because he was still in that pathetic t-shirt he stole from the shop. "Sure thing, Tajin. What do you want me to do?" he asked.

The mouse cocked his head towards the door. "That's definetly our biggest problem. The Rat Cartel isn't even close to the only threat we have to worry about."

"That reminds me, I saw that Tick lady wandering around outside the bedroom window this morning," Leeroy recalled.

Tajin frowned and adjusted his tool belt. "Oh, great. That's just more reason for us to focus on the door, then. We don't want her getting any ideas," the mouse bemoaned. He walked past Leeroy, almost taking deliberate care to not come too close to him.

Leeroy's throat stirred with unease and guilt, but he swallowed the feeling and followed Tajin to the door. He grabbed the door and held it in place as Tajin pounded the hinges back into place. The pungent smell of sinner blood burned in the "sunlight," increasing the unease in Leeroy. The corpse of the previous owner still sat propped against the house, and Leeroy now realized that the shirt he wore said, "Yeah, I love SEX, what about it?!"

"That's funny," Leeroy said, nodding his head towards the shirt.

Tajin slightly glanced over. "Hm" was the only response he gave. Leeroy looked away, choosing to stare at the sky instead. The two worked in silence for a good twenty minutes, but the door got fixed.

The mouse proudly swung the door on its hinges and closed it. He smiled, pleased with his work. "That should work for now."

Leeroy applauded, though Tajin didn't seem to notice. They walked back into the house, the fly suggesting that they work on cleaning the porch next and Tajin agreeing. Opening the pantry revealed an unused mop and bucket, but when they went to fill it, they were again greeted with the disgusting death water.

"To the water tower," Tajin said, his voice monotone. "I could just go by myself if you wanted to stay here. I don't think there's really anything I couldn't do without you."

That twisting in Leeroy's throat came back. "No. I think I should come with you to the water tower."