4chan Hazbin Hotel story - Warthorn AU

from /hhg/ Hazbin Hotel general #389
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Might as well dump this idea here.
>Warthorn AU
>Some years before the events of the pilot, the annual purge just... Doesn't happen
>No exterminators descend to spill blood, and the day moves on as another
>The same thing happens next year
>And the year after that
>All the while, the countdown clocks everywhere remain ominously on zero
>More importantly, the number of Sinners just keeps increasing - so much so that they can't even integrate into the economy and society of Hell, and begin to form their own, with many of them refusing to give in to Hell's temptations, and essentially forming a counterculture of lawfulness and legality, although different nationalities still stay separate, though few do interact

>A year before the pilot's supposed to take place (2018), the people of Pentagram City awaken to find a particular group of sinners end up down in Hell

>It's the leaders of the world
>Literally
>Every king, president, and dictator

>Apparently, there was an extensive UN emergency meeting over the global rise of unrest - which, conveniently, became the perfect target for a terrorist attack
>Aware that Earth's powers have been beheaded, Lucifer's court decides, out of the blue, to begin their attack on the Living world earlier
>In response, the former world leaders begin to rally their respective nations' former members, to halt the beginning of the Final Battle, and thus, the end of the world

>What ensues instead is a massive civil war. Initially between Hell's demonic nobility and the pockets of human society, until the Overlords enter the fray - some on the paycheck of the nobles, the others on the side of the rebels, but soon, it becomes a three-way battle
>And then, a four-way one
>And more and more groups splinter off from each side, the war becoming a stalemate, which leaves Hell in shambles. Come the year 2019, most large-scale battles have ceased, but there's still sporadic fighting everywhere - the civil war still rages on
-
>Enter Charlotte Magne - Daughter of Lucifer and Lilith, heir to Hell's throne, who had spent her formative years training under the Praetorian Guard (Lucifer's elite guardsmen and private army, composed of other fallen angels), and studying under IntSec (often pronounced "Insect", short for Interior Security, Lucifer's secret police, made up of human history's most notorious dictators, spymasters, and military despots)
>Now, she had decided to no longer just wait behind Pandemonium's walls for the last of the combatants to die or starve into submission - if she was to be the future leader of this world, she has to prove herself fit for the role. And what better way, than to bring an end to the civil war, and an end to the old way of things?
>Living for your vices, only to be wiped out by God's merciless fury - that's no way for a society to exist, and she's determined to change it...
>...Even if it means establishing her own regime, and overthrowing her parents.

>On her own, she only has a handful of willing aids and supporters, as well as the soldiers she had trained with, and had become the General of. Her base of operations is an old summer home of her family, still within Pentagram - it traded hands quite a few times, and the architecture shows it!
>As she begins to restore order in it's vicinity, she attracts the attention of several other, smaller groups, both positive and negative.
-
>Vagatha, a former child soldier from the Salvadoran civil war, and later, willing FMLN trooper, had already began what Charlie intended to do: unite several groups for a common cause, although, in their case, said cause isn't rebuilding the city, but rather, systematic revenge upon those who wronged them
>One part of the group is composed of Valentino's former prostitutes, led by one "Antonio" Angel Dust - formerly Hell's most famous porn star, and before that, the "heir apparent" of the Spider Clan, a group made up of members who were, in their mortal lives, the Italian mob, from Naples to New York
>Angel's closest friend, the Australian anarchist known as Cherri Bomb, is another member of the team, and the whole group's demolitions "expert" - more of a mad bomber, than anything, with some even suspecting that it was her who blew up the UN meeting, although she claims to have been down there since the '80s
>There's also Niffty, an early Civil Rights activist turned vigilante, from the '50s (known to have torched several Klan meetings in the South with a home-made flamethrower, before being shot be a complicit police officer), and Husk, a long-time soldier, veteran of three wars (WWII, Korea and Vietnam), who was killed during an anti-war protest, after gunning down a row of riot policemen when they tried to break up the peaceful assembly
>The group's courier and scout, Crymini, and scientist/medic Baxter, are the most recent members
-
>Overlooking their territory from his armored zeppelin-bomber is Sir Pentious, "the last Overlord of the Skies", who provides area denial, but never leaves his ship, with only Cherri Bomb allowed to enter it
>An industrial magnate in real life, his fighting in the Zulu and Boir wars had given him a healthy distaste for warfare, which only became more prominent when he learned of the wars of the 20th century
>Still, he's easily the most well-armed character within the vicinity of Charlie's base (dubbed "the Hotel", due to how little anyone actually stays there)


>Their enemies are the three former Overlords of Pentagram, the VVV trio

>Vox, who controlled all of Hell's mass media, now only has his grip on a few power-, and TV stations
>Ostensibly, he dedicates his power on providing information for the masses, but just about everyone knows that it's all a thinly-veiled attempt at regaining his former influence

>Velvet, who was responsible for social media, and doing the wetwork for the other two, had become a raving lunatic with the collapse of Hell's internet, and no prowls the streets, looking for victims, making it near impossible to catch her

>Valentino reverted into being a pimp, albeit a powerful one, effectively becoming a mafioso - and a powerful rival for the Spider Clan, still headed by Henroin, with Arackniss as his right-hand man, and Molly as his secretary
>Rumors of them looking for Angel had been going around for a while, whilst everyone else knows that Val's dead-set on "reclaiming" Angel, whom he, for some reason, blames for all of their woes
-
>There are some neutral forces as well - the Holdout, at the former 666 News studio, manned by Katie Killjoy and Tom Trench, had become a vertical garden colony, and had gathered some of the "civilized" sinners from before the civil war
>The conflict has also allowed for Killjoy's republican morals to flourish - both in the American and Spanish sense. She had become a militant anti-monarchist, and uses the studio's remaining equipment to broadcast "rousing messages" across Hell, trying to rally the Sinners against Hell's nobility, and wanting to create a "modern, civilized order" in the Underworld
>Her partner, Tom Trench, is much more modest in his desires: he just wants to defend what they already have, and uses his knowledge of static defense (from his time in the Great War) to create a slowly growing "safe perimeter" around the Holdout

>Another group are the "Old Blood" - three, previously modest (in terms of power) overlords from Hell's past, who seem to have formed a pact, and are also slowly regaining power (with the surreptitious help of Sir Pentious, as some say)
>They're Rosie, the brains of the group, who handles the logistics of actually running their territory (although she's implied to be a "madam" for several of the impoverished wenches upon them)
>Mimzy, an hot-headed glutton and former burlesque dancer (and serial killer)
>and Alastor, the Radio Demon - the only force left to counter Vox's influence upon Hell's dwindling media
>The three have made a sinister habit of randomly killing some of their own citizens in the dead of the night, particularly during "blackouts", when Vox makes his grip on the electrical grid felt
>Their brutalizing of randos on the street had become so commonplace that their subjects no longer mind it, albeit it does help that the three - no matter how capricious they are - genuinely seem to care about their underlings, and ensure that they're otherwise safe and secure
>Well, apart from Alastor
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>Charlie also has a number of allies
>First, the distant Prince Stolas, who, together with his Imp Army, had already re-taken Imp City, and will be willing to pledge his name behind Charlie's cause
>Then, there's the South Detachment - a group of IntSec militants (former participants in the Yugoslav Wars), who had volunteered to join her cause, mostly out of a widely accepted collective desire to put an end to the hauntingly familiar civil conflict
>And then, there's Octavia, Stolas' daughter, who's doing courier work in the war-thorn realm out of boredom, with her personal guard, composed of the members of I.M.P.
-
>And then, there are Charlie's personal rivals, the Van Eldritch siblings, who are a force divided upon themselves, as both vie to become the next ruler of Hell instead of Charlie, using the Byzantine courtly games of Pandemonium, instead of actively fighting on the streets
>For Seviathan, this is a matter of pragmatism, and he doesn't actually mind (or really care about) Charlie (though, as the Princess' influence upon the city grows, rumors begin to circulate that he wouldn't mind having to share the throne with her)
>But for Helsa, this is a personal vendetta, and a score to settle, and she would stop at nothing to get her way