Chapter Text
Sir Pentious was used to being alone.
In the 136 years since he had died, Sir Pentious had never trusted anyone. Everyone was out to get him, in every back-stab,blade and bombshell; he found betrayal and malice. Fortunately, he was a master inventor and could create weapons of mass destruction! And at least he had his Egg Boys to help him (idiotic minions or not)! At least people respected his arsenal, his great mastery of ray guns and ballistics and blimps ! At least if he defeated the feared Radio Demon ,the almighty Vee’s someone would anyone? finally respect him!
He wasn’t quite sure when he got used to living on the least he could get.
The Hotel was different in that regard. Where the Vees abandoned him, Charlie welcomed him into the fold and eventually, the rest of them followed. He forgot the last time a place, a people made him feel safe, accepted and part of something. He had friends, he had a family and he had a home. So he was going to do everything he could in his power to protect it. They were in danger. He had to do something. This time he would do something. He didn’t regret it but, it would have been nice to stay a little longer with the little family he had found. With the only friends he had ever had.
The first thing he notices about Heaven is how cold it is. Hell wasn’t the burning hellfire told in the scriptures on Sunday but there was always a something on fire or a distant explosion’s heat wafting toward him.
So Heaven’s perfect temperature was strange to him. So were the people. Miss Emily reminded him a lot of Charlie. “It's such a pleasure to meet you!! I’m super excited to show someone new- well I mean, not technically new since you have been dead for a while now, but new to Heaven so still new..”
“Welcome to Heaven!! I’m Emily, the Seraphim of Joy and you are going to love it here!!”Miss Emily squealed in delight as she swooped through the air outside of the Courthouse. Sir Pentious watched with nervous trepidation as this young lady danced through the air.
“Miss Emily? I was wondering if I could ask you for something?” He speaks into the cold air. She lands in front of him with the puff of her dress hitting the ground.
“Of course what is it? I can get you anything you need!”
“I really just want to speak to my friends, to know if they are okay?” He looked at her nervously.
“Oh-” her eyes widened, “Oh. No, we can’t really do that. We’ve never had a case like yours before- But that just what makes you so special and unique!”
“Oh. So, I’m alone again.” He lays himself down on the floor. Alone again, with only his machines for company. No exhilarating battles or arts and crafts, no baking sessions or late nights drinking with friends. No more listening to the radio or his Egg Boys latest theories about cell phone lines.. Just his thoughts and silence and -
She leans forward and holds his face. “I’m here for you, and you are going to love being in Heaven!” As she pulls him towards the streets of Heaven, he wonders what could possibly replace the friends he had.
The pools and parlors he is shown don’t interest him nearly as much as the idea beginning to form in his head. That panel there would be perfect to welding into the shell of a vehicle. If he can’t see his friends in heaven, he’ll just go back down to Hell! It’s the perfect solution! He pries the metal casing out of the seam it’s bolted to. If there is one blessing to his form in both afterlifes, its that claws are very useful when it comes to removing parts from seams.
“Don’t you see?” Miss Emily asks.
“Oh um what?” He says still holding the metal panel in his grip. Was she talking to me? What do I say? Do I just pretend to remember, is that how it works ?
“You are going to make so many new friends here! Everyone here is super nice and you are super cool and unique!! It’s a match made right here in Heaven!”
“Cool! Right, well … Do you have more places to show me?” He manages to say through a throat that feels like sludge.
“Of course! I am giving you the official tour and pulling out all the stops!” She replies with a smile.
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As they are “flying” around Heaven, he still hasn’t gotten used to his new wings yet so Miss Emily has been carrying him around, two people meet up with them. “Hey Em, you showing the new soul around?” spoke the one with an outfit that reminded Sir Pentious of Adam. Was it Able? Abal that was his name?
“ Abel and St. Peter this is Sir Pentious! Sir Pentious this is Abel and St. Peter!” Miss Emily nodded towards the corresponding figures.
“Hey.” greeted Abel with a smile and tired eyes.
“Hiya there! No hard feelings about the trial by the way.” St. Peter added.
“Nice to… meet you?” Sir Pentious tried.
“I was just giving him the grand tour of all the fun spots in Heaven! We were headed to the Zoo next!” Miss Emily said.
“Mind if we tag along?” asked Abel.
“Not at all!” she replied.
“It’s fine with me.” Sir Pentious chimed in.
By the time they get to the club he has gathered almost all the parts he needs for his dastardly death drill to get back home. It’s not really a death drill, or incredibly dastardly compared to his older inventions but he doesn’t really know what else to call it. It doesn’t entirely matter anyway, as long as it can get him back home.
He knows it might be a long shot when he asks “Do you have enriched uranium?”
Miss Emily, Abel and St.Peter all confirm that it is not a thing that is widely available in Heaven.
Disappointing, but expected certainly.
What was not expected was the existence of unicorns. And a polo stadium dedicated to playing with them. You’d think after over a century in Hell and becoming the first redeemed sinner in creation you would stop being surprised by things. Life has a strange way of surprising you even in the ability to be surprised.
They go to St. Peter’s pick next. The Multiplex is luckily very empty today, but the dark theater and the mushy movie only make him feel uncomfortable and remind Sir Pentious further of his friends.
“I’m in love with you Santa!” Abel mimicked as the scene played out on the screen.
Charlie would have loved this movie and probably cried at during the confession under the mistletoe, while Vaggie passed her tissues.
Angel and Husk would probably be critiquing it’s writing to death over the popcorn bucket.
Nifty would probably be bored by the lack of violence in the movie and get distracted by a bug near the television.
Alastor would refuse to watch it on account of his distaste for movies but a bowl of freshly made popcorn would have set out on the lobby table before the show.
And Cherri… Cherri would probably have laughed at the movie the whole time.
It’s kinda corny isn’t it? You’d think Santa Claus would be more lame than hot…
It isn’t exactly Sir Pentious’s thing either.
“And no one here is addicted to crack!” said his current company. He kind of wishes there were if only that meant he could see Angel Dust again. Or was he clean now? Sir Pentious wouldn’t know. Was Angel even still among the living?
He’s gathered the parts, he will find out soon enough.
He’ll get back to his friends, one way or another. For once this is something an invention can fix!
The drill is almost complete he just needs to make the final adjustments. Calibrate the lenses ,make sure the vision and accuracy is just right. Like Cherri’s aim with a explosive straight to the target. His heart. Control the voltage and tighten the screws. Like Charlie’s energy and Vaggie’s guidance. He will find a way. Quantize the frequency and up drive the peak-speed. Like Alastor’s control of radio’s and Nifty’s speed. Sharpen the drill to a point and begin drilling. Like Husk’s piercing stare and Angel’s courage. I will see them again. He thinks to himself.
“I will see them today!”
The drill stays steady, he has chosen as low to the ground of Heaven as he can.
“I’m coming Cherri!”
Just wait a little bit longer.
I’ll see you in Hell.
The drill starts to smoke a thick grayish black that is the closest he has gotten to the dark colours of Hell since his arrival here. He doesn’t understand, he calculated everything- the cloud density and hardness, the strength and energy of the drill. And now it’s becoming very similar to his blimp after his battles with the Radio Demon. He get’s barely a spare second to panic out how wrong everything’s gone before the air fills with fire and smoke and he is launched into the sky. The air whooshes past him as he lands on the floor of one of the main streets. Out of all the things he missed about his old home, getting blown up in large explosions was not one of them. Especially when it wasn’t caused by Miss Bomb.
“Shit.” he mutters to himself as he feels the ache bruises on his body. He slowly starts to pick himself up from the floor.
“Yeahh I kinda forgot to mention you’re not exactly able to leave. But look on the bright side- we’ll have so much fun here! From now till kingdom come!”
“After all we literally” Abel adds, “have forever to chill!!” St. Peter finishes in unison with Abel.
No . No. No. no nono no-
“Noooo.” he laments.
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The places begin to blur in his mind as they whisk him around hell. He asks for one more thing since they can’t grant his other request.
“A gun?” St. Peter repeats.
“Yes I know it probably is not a common thing in Heaven but it would - comfort me to have one.” He lies. He isn’t exactly sure how he feels about lying to these nice people but he can’t stand being here for much longer.
Either dying brings him back to Hell like it brought him to Heaven or it will put him out of his-
“Sure can do!” she snaps her fingers and a gun appears in the air in front of him. He scrambles to catch it in his hands, fumbling with it for a few seconds before firmly grasping it in his right hand.
“Now lets get back to partying! Since you can’t go back to Hell, I have so many people I want to introduce you to. Every one is going to like you so much, since well there’s no one quite like you!” Miss Emily grabs him by his arm and drags him further down the street.
The only thing on he registers as the walls of Heaven close in on him is that he wants to get out.
He has the gun all he needs to do is pull the trigger, either he’s back with his friends in Hell or he never has to go through his personal Hell ever again. The gun gets closer and closer with every activity he goes through. The bright lights and colours hurt his eyes. He’s whirled to a different activity something to do with Friendship. He has no friends now, they’re all gone or he is gone and he’ll never see them again. Are they even alive? Is he? Is this all some nightmare his dying mind has concocted in the second before that dreaded holy light erases both him and his Egg Boys from existence. The gun is pressed to his head, his finger trembles on the trigger as the music blares with a mindlessly happy rhythm that fucks with his head. With every refrain of “Nobody is like you!” he feels more and more alone. It’s maddening he just wants it all to stop-
Pop!
A rain of confetti falls down beneath his eyes and floats down to the ground. He lays himself back down to ground.
He’s closer to Hell than he’s ever been but still so painfully far away.
Tears drip down his face and absorb into the clouds. Maybe it will rain and make it’s way down to Hell. At least a part of him would still be with his home.
“Ooh maybe that didn’t help actually” Miss Emily mutters to herself as Abel and St. Peter look on with a mixture pity and discomfort .
“Should we go? I think this is a little out of our skill range..” Abel whispers to Miss Emily.
“Yeah I think we need some time alone. Thanks for tagging along though.” Miss Emily replies in a soft voice as she looks back at Sir Pentious.
“Nice meeting you Sir Pentious.” Abel flies over to Pentious and murmurs with a sad smile.
“See you later, Snake Guy.” St. Peter says with a wave as he and Abel start to fly off.
“Do you want to just go get some ice cream?” Miss Emily asks.
Sir Pentious looks up from the heap that has become his life. “A-Alright.” He sniffs and picks himself off the ground.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
As Miss Emily is off getting the ice cream, Sir Pentious attempts to recreate one of his Egg Boys. He’s no Baxter when it comes to the creation of bio-engineered creatures, but he’s pretty handy with machinery. A shell round like an egg with two arms and two legs. Primitive using a rotating joint and long and thin parts for the limbs. The parts he has left over from his drill might work. Maybe if he tests the walking cycle it will sound like the pitter-pattering of his minions running around while he worked on machinery. What are you working on Boss? Is it a new explosion to give the Radio Demon the good old one-two?
“What are you doing?”Miss Emily floats over with an ice cream cone in each hand. It walks for a step before it clatters to the ground and falls apart just like all the connections he had down below.
“Wow, you are really talented at this.” She continues.
“That’s about the closest I’ve come to my little egg boys.” He says resting his face on the stone bench . “They all perished in the zeppelin. Why aren’t they here?” They were good, they fought just as bravely and were full of a kind of innocence hard to find in Hell. He loved them. And they were gone.
Miss Emily looked to the side, her face troubled. “I don’t think any of us know how this works Pentious. We just know it worked for you.” She held out the pink ice cream to him.
“Right, of course. I’m one of kind.” He was so sick of hearing that. So tired of it. Only one of his kind. Rarer than even the unicorns in Heaven because at least unicorns had each other. He had no one. Again. “I remember.” he muttered to himself.
He distantly registers the cracking of knuckles and the sound of wing-beats getting farther and farther away. Then a blue light shines from the corner of his eye.
Miss Emily is creating a bubble? Of light out of the firmament of Heaven and her own magic a shape emerges from the blue of her bubbly magic.
“Is that?”
Golden wings and ties. Big eyes and smiling mouths. Halos and Oval bodies and they look similar to eggs-
Egg Boys!! Or at least an approximation of them.
They circle and flap around him excitedly in a cluster of four.
“Not exactly the same as the ones you lost, but maybe it’s something since you can’t see your friends.” She answers.
He can barely focus on her face before his vision grows blurry. They circle around his head almost too good to be true. He grabs one of them and holds it close.
“I love them.” He sobs.
“Egg. Eggie, Egg-Eggie.” their voices start to chime in a tone annoyingly similar to their predecessors.
They smush themselves into his face with no regard for how inconvenient they are. They sound just as annoying as his old Egg Boys. They’re perfect.
“I’ll tolerate them!” He vows with teary eyes as he holds them close in his arms.
“Thank you Emily.”
“Also,” she begins “you have at least one friend here, Pen.”
He looks at the Egg Boys in his arms and can’t disagree there. Emily has stuck with him the entire day, much longer than she was ever obligated to. She cared about him and he supposed he would have been a lot worse off if he hadn’t had her there. Another friend wouldn’t be the end of the world I suppose.
She continued, “One super fun, silly , very cool friend? Me! I’m talking about me!” She puffed up her chest.
“Yes I figured it was you.”
He had a friend.
For the first time since he had arrived in Heaven,surround by his Egg Boys and his friend Emily, Sir Pentious felt warm.
“No peeking !” Emily led him into the room with her hands covering the eyes on his face.
He doesn’t think she’s realized just yet. As they come to the door he decides to speak up, and tease his new friend a little.
“You do realize I’m covered in eyes right? I can’t really not see something coming.” He says to her. He sees her pause in realization.
“But I can act shocked if you’d like.” He continues.
“Oh. Right. Well, anyway…” She replies before flying deeper into the room. As her hands get removed from his eyes he takes a deeper look at the room.
“Ta da!!” She shouts with her arms outspread as she flies around the room.
The sunset of Heaven is shining from the beautiful view that the windows display on the left side of the room. Everything is clean and neatly organized in a comforting mix of purples, blues and yellows. There’s a desk with tools that would surely be a delight to invent with, outfitted with holograms and all the latest tech from Heaven.
He exclaims “Oh my! This is..”
He turns around to look at the other side of the room and spots Emily and his Egg boys by an- interesting mural…
It’s painted right above his bed, a bunch of floating heads of his friends and Cherri along with what appears to be a representation of Alastor? It’s a red deer with a yellow smile and a monicle, so not too inaccurate from his description of him.. But, it certainly looks weirder now when it is visualized as so… It isn’t entirely out of place with the dripping eyes Cherri, Husk and Angel have been subjected to…
“actually a little creepy…” he continues as he slithers closer. He looks around the room that Emily picked out and prepared as his friend. A big spacious room with a window to look out onto heaven, a desk with tools for inventing whatever he wished, and a mural of the friends he couldn’t see so that he’d at least have a picture of them.
“But, perfect.”he finishes as he looks back to his friend.
“Thank you Emily” he says from the deepest part of his heart.
“Welcome to Heaven Sir Pentious.” she replies.
He feels welcomed. It doesn’t completely elevate the ache in his heart though.
He sighs.
A voice blares from somewhere overhead “Attention citizens of Heaven.”
Sir Pentious’s head snaps up as his hood flares, Emily looks up in surprise.
“Sera?” She whispers her brow furrowed.
“Winners, angels, and all who reside.”
“Is this normal?” he asks to Emily.
Emily shakes her head.
“This has never happened before in all the years I’ve existed.” She says worriedly as she lifts quickly from her seat.
“Due to some recent concerns over Hell’s rising tensions, it has been decided for everyone’s safety that Heaven will be closed off from any other realms.” the voice continues on.
Oh no. Oh no no no no no. He’ll never see them again.
“Incoming souls will be put through security protocols, but nobody gets in or out without expressed permission.”
He and Emily rush outside to the balcony as the voice continues “This is for the good of Heaven and will protect us all. Thank you.”
They both look up to the tallest main building in the square where the voice originates from. A beam of bright yellow light shoots up into the sky and begins to spread down like molasses. A flood come to drown the floating kingdom in yellow light.
“Is this bad?” he asks as he stares at the yellow liquid dripping down the expanse of Heaven’s skies.
“I don’t totally know. I guess not?” she answers in a unsure tone.
Has the Hotel been notified of this? Or Hell in general? Do they even know he’s alive?
“Do you think- Charlie should know?” he asks in an equally unsure tone.
“Oh my gosh! Charlie.I should tell Charlie.” She grabs his shoulders and then spins him as she rambles.
His vision gets dizzy for a second as he tries to focus on what she’s saying.
“About you and this and everything.” She flies farther of the balcony.
Where is she going? To Charlie?
“Be-Be right back” She snaps her fingers and a blue bubbly portal appears to her left which she starts to fly towards.
Wait she’s going now, this might be his only chance to know how his friends are. To maybe even say goodbye if he can’t see them again.
“Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait! Please can I see my friends?” He asks his armed outstretched toward Emily’s disappearing form, moving foward with a desperation he was sure he had lost sometime earlier in the day.
As he gets to the end of the balcony Emily disappears into the portal with a pop, taking the portal with her.
His arm and hood droop as he leans over the balcony. He feels so incredibly tired. His body and head feel heavy. It feels like when he did nothing but work on inventions the whole day without stopping. His soul aches in a way that needs more than just rest. It feels so much like loss for a soul that is supposed to be a winner. But rest is a start he supposes. It’s all he can really do at the moment. He can only bide his time. Seems like that’s the one thing he has in abundance now.
He snakes his way back to his new bed. His Egg boys lie on the bed sleeping in a pile next to each other. As he approaches the bed they wake up and scoot to each side to make way for him. As his body falls on to the bed he feels his Egg boys nestle into him. He places a hand on the mural. He looks up at Cherri’s smiling face.
Cherri…
I miss you all so very much….
As his head hits the pillow the grief hits him all at once.
I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
He begins to sob.
And sob.
And sob.
And sob.
And sob.
He’s no longer used to being alone.