Realistic or Modern Smoke and Ice

[GinkyGotBack]

Cocytus, the most popular club in the city, and the ninth circle of Hell. The building was three stories high, had a bright red door, and a moat of ice, with what seemed like frozen, reaching limbs sticking out of it that encircled the building. The sign above the door flashed with nine bright neon rings. Eight of the rings glowed a sinister red, however, the one in the center of them all was a more subtle white. Each ring was marked with Roman numerals, with the center ring being 'IX', of course. When they had first created the club, Yuuki had told Pallet just how unsubtle it seemed, but she didn't seem to care much about what he thought.

On the outside, it seemed quiet, if you could ignore the long line of people waiting to get in. Just getting inside was a challenge in and of itself, as people were always scheming to try and take other people's spots in line. Lucky for him, Yuuki could just take the staff entrance and not have to worry about someone throwing his wallet onto the street or some other shit like that. It had been a long night at the club as it seemed more packed than ever, and judging by the sounds coming from the main dance hall, it was going to stay that way until the early hours of the morning. Yuuki sat in the break room, dicking around on his phone until it was time for him to get back out there. The Katayanagi Twins, Kyle and Ken, were manning the DJ booth until then, and honestly, they did a much better job than he did at keeping the party alive. Yuuki knew how to operate the fucking machine and he knew what songs people liked to listen to, although it took him a while to learn what music was considered 'hip and cool.' He just couldn't pull off the same level of excitement that the Katayanagi Twins could, mainly because he didn't give a shit.

Yuuki glanced at the clock on his phone and realized his break had ended like five minutes ago. Rolling his eyes, he clicked the power button on his phone and slipped it into his pocket, kicking his feet up on the table and leaning back to have a nap. He figured Ken and Kyle wouldn't mind working the booth for another half hour while he napped. Those two were prime examples of attention whores, the arrogant pricks. They loved every minute they were up there in that booth, and Yuuki could always feel their cold, hateful glares on the back of his neck when he relieved them. Not wanting to think about the fucking twins anymore, Yuuki shut his eyes for a nice snooze.

 

[Nightwisher]

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Pallet was at the bar, pouring drinks for those who had made it into the club already. Today she had decided to wear something a little bit closer to what Rachel on the roof normally wore, but took it even further. Leather short shorts and a simple extra large bandanna around her decently sized chest. Her eyes shone a dark red. Hell, even her horns were out tonight. Curved around her ears and toward her jaw. It wasn't often that she went full demon, but when she did, the tips always seemed to be considerably better. She offered a wink at a man as he lay down some cash on the bar, exchanging two shot glasses for the currency as she tossed it into the register and he turned away without expecting any change.

Spoiler: Pallet Horns

​

The demon princess hesitated for a moment as she looked up on stage to see the twins...but... she looked at the nearest clock and sighed. Where the fuck was he? "Man the bar," Pallet shouted to the nearest employee, not caring who they were, before she headed for the staff lounge. He better be in there, at least. She thought to herself as she forced the door open. "Yuuki!" She snapped, kicking his feet off of the table. She had long since stopped using her more charming self on the young man. He never seemed to respond to it. Maybe because he knew it was more or less totally fake since their first meeting had been her nearly killing him with one hand, but hey, sometimes you just had to send a message. "What the fuck are you doing? You should be on stage." The white haired woman said as she pointed toward the door as if that was going to some how get his ass moving faster. [/div][/div]

 

[GinkyGotBack]

Yuuki's eyes shot open as his business partner burst into the break room. Yuuki sighed and a puff of opaque, purple smoke vented from his mouth. He didn't have time to say anything before she had kicked his feet off the table, almost causing him to fall off the crappy plastic foldout chair. The young man shot her a look as he straightened back into his seat, taking a moment to inspect his shoes and the cuffs of his pants for any dirt. He didn't give much of a shit for fashion, but his DJ clothes had cost him a fortune and he had paid for most of it himself.

Yuuki squinted at her and went back to his original position, feet up on the table and leaned back nice and casual-like. After all the time they've spent working together, you'd think he would have gotten used to her demon form by now, but it never got any less weird to see her curved sheep horns and her creepy red eyes. It was kind of unsettling, but he wasn't about to let her know that.

Yuuki looked about as normal as you could get, not counting his maroon hair color. His outfit was a matching white jacket and pants that looked like a kid had colored all over it. Splotches of green, red, yellow and blue and squiggly red and black lines covered them entirely, like some shitty art piece. Pallet had been the one to choose this outfit for him, she had said it would make him look more professional, but he thought it just made him look like a jackass. The only thing normal about his attire was a shiny black tank top that he wore underneath, which he had chosen himself. He didn't know how to feel about his high top shoes that Pallet had also picked out for him, but at that point the two of them had been shopping for a while and Yuuki was just done arguing with her.

"What does it fucking matter? The twins are way better at this shit then I am and unlike me, they actually like their job. I hate having to fuck around in that booth listening to shitty music all night. Gives me a fucking headache." At this point, Yuuki was really craving a cigarette right about now, but he had stopped on account of him being able to breathe smoke ever since he got to this weird place. He couldn't imagine just how much lung cancer he was in for later in life, so he figured he may as well quit while he's ahead. "Just let the twins have their fun and let me sleep. All this DJing every single night is really tiring, ya know?"

 

[Nightwisher]

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The Demon sighed, rolling her crimson eyes as her partner simply placed his feet back up on the table. "So uncivilized." She murmured under her breath, purposefully loud enough for him to hear her. "It matters because as the co-owner of the club you need to keep up appearances. If you're not going to work the stage, work the bar or something." Pallet crossed her arms over her chest, popping her hip out. The outfit she wore helped show off the curves she usually kept modestly hidden, more or less, under the white miniskirt and white, high necked tank top. "Look, I didn't let you tag along with me just so you could slack on your job."

Pallet sat down on the table next to his feet, crossing her legs and leaning back on the heels of her hands. Every pose she took, it was like the light bent around her to give her the best possible lighting to show off every curve she wanted to, making her looks even more striking. Normally, it worked to her advantage, but Yuuki was such a stubborn asshole that he never seemed to notice. Did it piss Pallet off? Yes. Was she ever going to stop trying? No. Sooner or later, she would find a way to manipulate the young man into being her perfect puppet. Until then, she would just have to work a little bit harder than she was used to.

"If you don't want to be the DJ anymore, you don't have to be. But I can't run this place by myself," that was a lie, but one that was in Yuuki's favor which was incredibly uncommon. "I need you to at least try to pick up some of the slack. We have a line wrapped around the building out there and now both the owners are back here because your weak little human body can't handle the heat. You're either going to have to toughen up, or I will find another business partner." She leaned forward as she spoke, tossing her white hair over her shoulder with the flick of her head, meeting his gaze with the full intensity of her crimson eyes. "And if I have to find another business partner," her voice had lost its edge, turning on the sweet, innocent charm that so many others had fallen for, though still mixed with the silky sexy tone that always accompanied her Demon form. "Then you're going to end up new ornament for the lake, and you know how much I'd hate to see that face petrified in ice forever." Somehow her sweet, gentle tone made the threat more menacing. Which is exactly why she had used it, of course. She tapped his leg, smiling before she stood up and walked from the room, her hips swaying as she did. Pallet rested a hand on the door, looking over her shoulder for a moment. "You have an hour." [/div][/div]

 

[GinkyGotBack]

Yuuki rolled his eyes as Pallet made her 'uncivilized' comment. Somedays she really sounded like his mother. She definitely didn't look like his mom though, he was relieved to say. She was definitely what most guys would call cute, his buddy Paul from France would have fallen head over heels for her, the poonhound. Yuuki, on the other hand, tended not to pay attention to girls. His mother had always told him that women were no good and that he should focus on more important things.

The first part had stuck with him, although Yuuki had never really focused on anything in his life. Yuuki blew smoke from his nose as Pallet lectured him on how he should be more responsible and that he should be picking up the slack around here, only half paying attention to what she was saying. He thought she had said something about ornaments, but he wasn't sure that they even celebrated Christmas in Hell, so he wasn't sure what to make of it.

Yuuki met her eyes for a moment as she left the break room, and then went back to staring at the ceiling, blowing smoke from his lips and inhaling it through his nose just like Paul taught him. "Fuckin' bitch," he muttered to himself. Well, he had an hour to do whatever it was Pallet wanted him to do. Probably go back to the DJ booth and sit on his ass for another few hours, blaring some music for a bunch of screaming adults. What a time to be alive.

He had tried napping a second time, but every time he closed his eyes he could hear the demon nagging him still inside his head. He was pretty sure Pallet wasn't a telepath like from his shonen manga, but somedays she'd give him looks like she knew something he didn't. Yuuki got up from his seat and cracked his neck, eager to just get the rest of the night over with. Leaving the break room, Yuuki passed by Mustang who was taking his own sweet time with his break. He knew he could afford to be lazy and take a couple of minutes extra to relax since it was rare for anyone to actually cause trouble at Cocytus. Even if shit did go down in the club, Tweedledee and Tweedledum were usually enough to handle it, so Roy usually got to sit back and live it up and still get paid for it.

Just as Yuuki was about to push open the swinging door, the smug bouncer jokingly reassured him, "Hang in there, kid. You'll get in there someday." Yuuki just mumbled under his breath and pushed open the door, doing his best not to start something with the cocky colonel. "You'll get yours someday, prick..."

 

[Nightwisher]

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The sound of Pallet's foot steps were heard only a second before she ran directly into Yuuki. She wasn't wearing heels for a change so there was little warning. To save herself from falling backwards she struck out her arm and wrapped it around her partner's neck, her eyes wide with surprise. In her haste to save herself, she pulled herself mere inches from him. She sat there for a moment, gaze meeting his as she tried to register the situation. Her horns vanished and her red eyes dissolved into their clear, beautiful blue. Pallet never ran into anyone, so either she hadn't been paying attention at all or Yuuki really blended into the rest of the world...or something. "Wha-. What are you doing?" She asked.

Mustang gripped Yuuki's shoulder for a moment. "Or you'll get in there now." He muttered as he walked past the two, seizing the opportunity to get away from his boss and whatever wrath she was surely about to bring down on him.

"Roy!" Pallet called after him, stepping away from the maroon haired man to hurry after the older man. She tossed a glance at Yuuki, clear confusion in her eyes before her gaze turned back to the Colonel. "Don't you dare think you can get away from me." The blue flame of the demon engulfing her hands as she hurried after the man.

Whatever Pallet said to the man, possibly the slightly swollen cheek he now had, somehow managed to convince him to get back to work, though he definitely wasn't happy about it. The demon was back at the bar, pouring drinks and winking her crimson red eyes. Whatever shock that had forced her out of her demon form early was gone now. Though when she saw her business partner again throughout the night, her gaze lingered just a moment longer than usual. [/div][/div]

 

[GinkyGotBack]

Yuuki's heavy-lidded eyes widened in shock as he suddenly bumped into Pallet. Instinctively, he reached out to catch her, wrapping his muscled arms around her back as she wrapped hers around his neck. Things suddenly got too close for comfort when she had pulled herself towards him, their faces only a breath away from each other. Speaking of, her breath smelt nice, which somehow made the whole ordeal even more uncomfortable. They seemed to be caught in each other's gaze as Yuuki tried to process what the hell was going on. The DJ opened his mouth to speak, but Pallet had beaten him to it. "I was just... I was going to get back to work."

Roy touched his shoulder and made another smart ass comment, seemingly snapping the young man out of his trance. Yuuki released his hold on the demon and his face settled back into the same irritated expression as usual. He smirked when it seemed like Pallet was going to give the Colonel trouble, but he quickly wiped it off as his face as Pallet looked back at him. Judging by how incredibly on fire Pallet's hands were, it seemed like Roy was finally going to get what he deserved for once.

That night, Yuuki had dismissed the Katayanagi Twins, much to their dismay. Work seemed to go by without a hitch, although one idiot had drunk too much and thrown up all over the dance floor. It wasn't Yuuki's problem though. That was the janitor's problem, whoever they were. Every now and then while he was switching to the next song, he'd catch Pallet eyeing him and he'd avoid her gaze every time. He figured she was just making sure that he was still at his station, which was normally the case. Throughout the night, however, the memory of Pallet's blue eyes would pop into his head out of nowhere. They really were a nice shade of blue.

 

[Nightwisher]

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"David." Pallet sighed as she ran a hand through her hair. She didn't need someone to tell her an idiot had just lost his cookies on her dance floor. The Demon may have lost her psychic abilities when she lost her connection to Hell. The dance floor was an ice patch that she had created in such away that it wasn't too slippery, but it could also freeze liquids so messes weren't a huge issue. Nonetheless, vomit was never fun. "David!" The man stepped out from the closet, looking at Pallet with wide eyes. So rarely was he allowed out. "Clean up, dance floor. Now." She probably would have been nicer except she was still busy pouring out drinks for the line at the bar, and she was anything if not proficient.

David Spade nodded his stupid little head and grabbed the ice scrapper and the bucket so he could do his job.

Pallet did notice that Yuuki was heavily ignoring her gaze, which wasn't exactly new. And he was hard for her to read...Lord Lucifer Almighty, what the fuck was going on. The feeling of the man's arms around her. What the hell had that been? Why did he catch her like that? She was perfectly capable of catching herself...around...his neck. Shut up. The Demon sighed, taking a shot of tequila to try and push the thoughts away. Of course it was like drinking water. Whatever. David finished cleaning the dance floor and Pallet offered him a smile and a wink, jumping into character like there was nothing to it. Though, her eyes did trail back up to Yuuki for a moment before she pulled her gaze down to the clock. "Lights up!" Pallet called. "Last round!" The demon called, sending the trade mark pillar of flame into the air to let everyone know that it was time to "Get your drinks and get the Hell out!" Her voice broke through the sound of the crowd as everyone silenced themselves at the sight of the blue flame coming from the bar. She placed her hand down atop the bar allowing the flame to spread across it from all the alcohol that spilled throughout the night that hadn't been cleaned up for whatever reason. It was a bit of a show piece that they did. The fire went out within moment and everyone was hyped up despite the fact that it was time to go. [/div][/div]

 

[GinkyGotBack]

Yuuki squinted and tried to shield his eyes as the light flashed on at Pallet's command. The DJ breathed a sigh of relief as he began switching off the booth, which wasn't nearly as hard as it was the first time he had done it. When he had first found his way into Hell, everything was new and overwhelming for him. Technology had certainly improved since the good old year of 1988. You could carry phones with you wherever you went, cars had computers and other fancy shit inside them. Even videogames looked more amazing with their improved graphics and innovative gameplay, or so he'd been told. It had taken him a while to get adjusted to all the changes, but in the end, Yuuki could say he was fairly familiar with modern technology. As Yuuki began shutting off the music machine in front of him, he began inhaling really hard, which seemed to suck up all the purple smoke covering the dance floor. It'd been his idea to spread his smoke all over the main floor. It had reminded him of a music video he had seen once, but the song's name escaped him at the moment.

Yuuki looked back to see Pallet do her little 'clean the bartop' trick. It was always pretty neat, watching the flames burn away all the spills from the bar, but Yuuki swore that one day the flames wouldn't just go out and then they'd have a huge problem on their hands. As people began to file out of the bar, the employees were beginning to relax and talk amongst each other. Kuma had come in from outside just in time for Mustang to ask him how it was outside. As usual, Kuma had nothing much to say and went about going to the break room where he'd inevitably sleep for the rest of the night. David would undoubtedly have liked to stay on the main floor and talk to someone, but he was much too afraid of Pallet to stay out long enough for her to catch him. Moxxi and Boss usually stayed on their own respective floors, though Yuuki was thinking about getting a drink on the second floor later. Then there was that one chick on the roof, Rachel, but he didn't know her nearly as well.

With a yawn and a stretch, Yuuki sat up from what was his surprisingly comfy DJ chair to make his way to the lounge on the second floor. "If anyone needs me, I'll be getting a drink with Boss," he said to no one in particular. The lounge was definitely the fanciest part about Cocytus. Everything still had that icy theme to it, but it was way more sophisticated than it was downstairs. Ice sculptures of sad looking people could be found in every corner of the room and during business hours there would always be some relaxing lounge music played by one of the establishments fine singers. And a skeleton, but admittedly he was a pretty good singer too. Yuuki sat at the bar and asked Boss for a Cube Libre, who was always happy to oblige. Two of the very few benefits of working at Cocytus was that the lounge bar was always open, and the first drink was always free.

 

[Nightwisher]

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Once all the last drinks were served and everyone was out of the bar, Pallet stretched her arms up above her head, not caring that the curve of her breasts could easily be seen underneath her bandanna. She was still, more or less, fully covered. She looked up when she saw David hesitated for a moment and sighed. Her red gaze flicked over the bar which still needed to be wiped down, and the floor that needed to be mopped. She sure as hell didn't want to do that work. "David," her voice was sweet and he perked up. "Would you mind cleaning the bar while I go check on the other floors? I'll let you stay out and talk for a few hours." The man smiled and nodded, not daring to say a word in case his voice alone annoyed the Demon princess enough to retract her kindness.

With the bar taken care of, Pallet headed downstairs to check on Moxxi and her dealings. She was standing behind the bar, counting through the tips she'd made when she looked up. On the walk down, Pallet had turned back into her more human form, her blue eyes twinkling in the dimmer lights of the more illegal downstairs. "Did it go well tonight?" The Demon asked, taking a seat at the bar. Moxxi shrugged, looking over the now empty room.
"We had an issue for a minute when Luxord thought he caught someone cheating on him." Pallet quirked an eyebrow.
"How'd you deal with that?"
"We put them both in the ring," she tapped the dollar bills against the bar top to keep them all nice and straight. "Luxord kicked the dudes ass, wasn't much of a fight." The woman sounded almost bored with the outcome. Pallet chuckled.
"Maybe someday I'll come down here myself and get a fight in."
"Fight Yuuki." Moxxi laughed at the idea. "Poor kid needs a good beating, lazy thing." Pallet when quiet for a moment, her mind going back to that moment..."P? You good?" The demon blinked, meeting Moxxi's gaze once more.
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Just..." she sighed and looked around. Everyone else was busy so they shouldn't here. Nonetheless she lowered her voice and leaned in closer. "Yuuki and I had this weird...moment earlier." She'd been unable to get her mind off of it, which was very odd for the Demon. It was starting to worry her. "I crashed into him in the hallway-,"
"You? Crashed into something?"
"It's an off day." Pallet's voice took a hard tone and Moxxi just shrugged. "Anyway, we caught each other we just...sorta stood there for a second. I don't know. Maybe it was just the shock of it, but it was weird." The two women sat in silence for a moment before Moxxi finally shrugged.
"Maybe you're finally coming to the realization."
"Realization?"
"That Yuuki ain't half bad." The Demon princess rolled her eyes at that and stood up.
"When Hell freezes over," she tapped the bar top and started back toward the entrance to the basement.
"Ain't it already, sweetheart?" There was a smug tone to Moxxi's voice that Pallet responded to with a middle finger without even turning around. [/div][/div]

 

[GinkyGotBack]

Yuuki had slammed his glass down on the bar top as he finished his Cuba Libre. Boss, who always seemed to have his hands politely crossed in front of him when he wasn't serving drinks, sighed and shook his head. "Must you really do that every time you finish a drink? I work hard to keep this bar in working order and I'd appreciate it if you didn't put a dent in the counter." Yuuki groaned and moved the hair out of his eyes with his free hand.
"Sorry, old timer, won't happen again." Boss just sighed and took the glass, rinsing it out with a defeated look on his face.
"You always say that..." The young man grumbled and stared at the wall on the other side of the room. Had he been looking at him, Yuuki would have seen Boss' raised eyebrow from behind his sunglasses. "Trouble with the young miss again?"

Yuuki shrugged and kept on staring at the wall, finding it more interesting than watching the bartender clean glasses. "Maybe? Earlier tonight she came into the break room to scold me, but after we bumped into each other I would keep catching her looking at me. It was really weird, but I figure she was just making sure I didn't leave the booth or fall asleep or something." Boss shook his head and put down his glass, going back to his standard crossed hands position.
"You really are dense, aren't you?"
"What?" The Dj turned his head to face the bartender, wondering what the hell he was talking about.
"Don't you think the reason why the young lady has been watching you is that she might be getting feelings for you?"
For a few seconds, Yuuki just sat there and stared at Boss with a dumb, lifeless expression.
"You haven't been drinking, have you Boss?"

Had he not been wearing sunglasses, Yuuki would have seen Boss rolling his eyes. "I've been a bartender for a long time, Yuuki, and I've been an old man for even longer." Yuuki had no idea what the fuck that was supposed to mean, but he didn't bother saying it out loud. "I know all about love and what makes it tick. When a strapping young man likes yourself and a beautiful woman like Pallet bump into each other, something is bound to happen between the two of them."
Once again, Yuuki stared at the bartender with his dead eyes and puzzled expression, only for Boss to sigh again. "Nevermind, you obviously have no experience in this sort of thing. You'll see though, sooner or later you'll fall for her too."
"Whatever." Unable to stand being lectured on matters of love for much longer, Yuuki got out of his seat and waved goodbye to the ever friendly, ever annoying Thomas Mutton. "Thanks for the drink, Boss. Maybe tomorrow I won't find one of your gray hairs floating in my alcohol?"
"See you tomorrow, sir." As Yuuki began walking down the stairs and back into the main hall, he had a feeling that there would most definitely be a hair in his Cuba Libre tomorrow.

 

[Nightwisher]

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Moxxi’s words rang in Pallet’s ears as she walked back up to the main floor of the bar. ”Yuuki ain’t half bad….Ain’t it already, sweetheart?” Well, thanks to Pallet, Hell was definitely freezing over in its own right, but she could easily thaw it out too… But, clearly they’d been speaking in metaphors. Dammit, this was so freaking stupid. The Demon princess walked across the main floor without any interaction to the other employees, deep in thought as she turned into the stairwell that led to the upper floors.

In her deep thought, she wasn’t really paying attention, and honestly, she just wasn’t expecting anyone else on the stairs. Normally, Yuuki was back in the break room by the time she was done talking to Moxxi. Well, not today of all days. Pallet looked up from her feet just in time to run head first into Yuuki’s chest. Her blue eyes gazed up at him in surprise before narrowing into annoyance. “Can’t you ever watch where you’re going?” She asked, her tone coming out more harshly than she’d expected it to. [/div][/div]

 

[GinkyGotBack]

The 6'4" man looked down when he felt a familiar bump just below his chest. Glaring back up at him was Pallet, looking just as irritated with him as ever. She was the one telling him to watch where he was going, but it was kind of hard not to notice Yuuki considering what a big guy he was. Maybe she just needed to wear glasses or something. Wait, would a demon even need glasses? There was a lot of things Yuuki didn't know about demons, least of all ones that looked mostly human. Yuuki was so caught up in this train of thought that he just sort of stood there staring at Pallet like a dope. It only took him about five seconds to remember that his business partner was pissed with him once again. "Why don't you watch where you're going? You're the one walking around staring at your shoes." Yuuki walked around her, half expecting the demon woman to continue pestering him on his way to the breakroom. He was almost surprised when he didn't hear the sound of heels furiously clacking after him. She really was acting weird all of a sudden. Yuuki might have been concerned as to what was going on with her if he actually cared.

As he entered the break room, he found most of the main floor's employees either relaxing, chatting or just sleeping as best as they could on the crappy little folding chairs. If there weren't rules that only residents of Limbo could purchase housing, Yuuki figured that he and just about everyone here would have enough to afford their own cozy little apartment and live comfortably. He passed by some weasel man he didn't recognize who was trying to chat up Kuma. It was hard to tell, but Kuma was either sleeping with his eyes open or just staring at the far end of the room. Tweedledee was nestled inside Tweedledum's hollowed out head, sleeping as soundly as a little gremlin thing could. Roy Mustang was, of course, snoring away in his own little corner of the room. The Katayanagi Twins usually claimed the DJ booth for themselves, otherwise, Yuuki would have decided to sleep there. All the other employees were probably still on their own floors, which is usually where they stayed. Not willing to fight and argue with the twins over who gets to sleep in the comfy chair tonight, Yuuki plopped himself down in the same chair he'd been sitting in earlier and shut his eyes, hoping that tomorrow would be a better day.

 

[Nightwisher]

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Pallet didn’t respond. She merely narrowed her glare even further and hurried up the steps to check on Boss, and then Rachel. It seemed like everyone had a decent night to night. Good, she didn’t want the bar having bad nights so early on. The Demon sighed as she made her way back down the steps. She entered the break room and looked around at everyone snoring or just sitting and talking with one another. The white haired princess offered a small smile before backing out of the room.

She didn’t want to be around Yuuki, even if he was sleeping. So, instead she moved back to the main bar area, with a flick of her hand she created a simple ice bed that she’d dissolve in the morning once she woke up, and lay down. The Demon didn’t usually sleep, but it had been a long day and she needed some form of rest. Here’s to a new day. Pallet thought as she drifted off to whatever Hellish dreamland a Demon princess went to.

“Hmmmm,” Pallet groaned as she stretched herself awake, arching her back before sitting up. A new day… she already hated how it felt too. Like something was going to go wrong. “I hope there’s a fight.” She muttered to herself as she stood up, snapping her fingers and forcing the bed to burst into a billion tiny ice shards that would fly around the room and settle before slowly melting away.[/div][/div]

 

[GinkyGotBack]

The distinct sound of heeled boots came stomping from Cocytus' lower floor, further reinforcing Pallet's bad feelings about today. Rushing from the basement was Moxxi, who seemed visibly upset with something. Looking frantically around the main room, her eyes settled on Pallet who had just gotten rid of her makeshift bed. "Pallet! Oh, honey, something just awful's happened! I woke up this morning and went to check on the girls, but some of them are missing!" Moxxi took a seat on one of the bar stools, removing her hat to run her hands through her as of yet unbrushed hair. "Molly, Hannah, Diamond, Bridgette, even Chloe's gone! All of their stuff is gone too, it's like they just up and left!" Moxxi seemed genuinely distraught at the girls' disappearances. No matter what Pallet might have thought of them, Moxxi had always treated Cocytus' girls as if they were her own daughters. Most of them had nowhere else to go, having come here just the same as everyone else in the club with no way to get home. "Oh, Pallet honey, please tell me you'll find out what happened!"

 

[Nightwisher]

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The Demon princess turned her gaze on her distraught friend, furrowing her brow as she tried to wrap her head around what the woman was saying. “Wait, Chloe’s gone?” Pallet crossed her arms over her chest. Pallet actually didn’t mind the girls much. They were good workers, not really all that annoying, and the Demon did tend to have more respect for women than she did men merely because men were so easy to manipulate. Except Yuuki. The thought popped into her head and she was rather taken aback by it. She kept the shock off of her face as she tried to focus in on the problem again. .

Chloe was gone. Chloe was one of Pallet’s favorite girls. “Yeah, Mox. Of course.” The Demon offered a smile and a gentle squeeze to the woman’s shoulder before she spun around and headed for the break room. Sure, she could handle this alone, but she wasn’t the only owner of the bar. “Yuuki,” Pallet kicked his foot to wake him up. “C’mon, we have some bullshit to deal with.” [/div][/div]

 

[GinkyGotBack]

Yuuki's eyes blinked open and he looked at Pallet. As usual, he seemed none too impressed with her attempts to make him do shit. "We always have some bullshit to deal with." Reluctantly, Yuuki got up from his chair and took notice that she hadn't woken up any of the other guys snoozing in the breakroom. Looks like this was an owners only situation. Luckily for Yuuki, that meant he'd be spending most of his free time today doing some stupid shit he didn't want to do. Great. So, he followed Pallet out of the breakroom, through the main room and into their private office, all the while trying to blink all the sleepiness out of his eyes.

The office was filled with cobwebs and the only pieces of furniture was a bare desk and two chairs. Both of them were so busy, what with Yuuki DJing and Pallet usually serving drinks that they hardly ever got to use the room. The office's dimensions were so small that if you laid down, your head and feet would be pressed against walls, and that went double for Yuuki. It was a chore squeezing past the desk just to take the seat on the other side. So, sleeping in here usually wasn't such a promising idea. Yuuki took the seat closest to the door, just so he wouldn't have to be the one struggling to get past the desk. "So what's all this about? I was looking forward to getting some sleep before we opened up shop tonight."

 

[Nightwisher]

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“Yeah, but this is worse than normal.” She rebuttaled, turning on her heel, which made her flowing white hair flip dramatically as she walked from the room. Pallet was nothing if not dramatic. She led her co-owner to the office. With a snap of her fingers a blue flame engulfed the room for only a few seconds, burning away the unsightly cobwebs. Apparently David hadn’t been doing his duties correctly...she was going to have to talk to him.

As Yuuki took the closest seat, she rolled her eyes. She knew exactly why he had done it, so, out of spite, Pallet sat atop the desk instead. The Demon gave her co-owner a look before she rolled her eyes again and sighed. “Some of the girls are missing. Chloe, Bridgette, Hannah, Diamond, and Molly. There stuff is gone and Moxxi doesn’t know where they went. So...basically, you and I are going to go find them.”[/div][/div]

 

[GinkyGotBack]

Yuuki stretched in his seat, not nearly as disappointed with Pallet sitting on the desk as he figured she was hoping. He listened to his partner tell him how it was and his expression started to harden bit by bit. Honestly, he didn't know the girls downstairs all that well, but if they had truly gone missing then it couldn't be helped. They worked for Cocytus, so if they'd been kidnapped or something like that, then Yuuki felt somewhat responsible for looking for them. "Alright, I'm all for going to look for them, but don't we have people that can help us out? What about that Kira guy, and those other two weirdos? It'd probably be easier to find them if we had a few extra pairs of eyes to help us search." Help wouldn't come without a cost though, Yuuki knew that. The guys he was talking about didn't explicitly work for Cocytus like everyone else here, they were technically residents of Limbo.

They could work for anyone they wanted without having to tie themselves down to one particular Circle like Yuuki or the missing girls had done. They could charge whatever the hell they wanted and all Yuuki and Pallet could do was offer a counter offer. Pallet's usual threats wouldn't work on the mercenaries, considering it was illegal for someone in a Circle, including its owners, to kill a soul from Limbo. Breaking that particular law would get you a meeting with King Minos, a real oddball and the master of the first Circle of Hell. No one really knew what happened to those who Minos judged, but whatever it was it goes double for people like Pallet and Yuuki. "We can afford to deal with those guys, right?"

 

[Nightwisher]

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"We don't 'have' those people as much as we could hire them." Pallet pointed out. "And we can do that as a last resort, but I'd much rather not have the rumor going around Limbo that we can't hang on to a few dancers." The woman explained. Sure, maybe they could call on the mercenaries later on, but as a first try? Honestly, the idea was almost laughable. Somehow, Pallet managed to contain herself. Besides, the Demon didn't want to deal with mercenaries. Let's be honest, dealing with King Minos was nothing more than an inconvenience to Pallet. That was the real reason her threats wouldn't work, was because everyone understood that the Princess wouldn't want to deal with the King of Limbo, not because she was actually scared of breaking the rules. Nonetheless, her hatred of boredom kept people safe from her wrath, more or less..

"We'll just do a quick sweep for them, if we find them, great if we don't we'll hire one of your boyfriends. Now c'mon," Pallet stood up, heading for the door. She knew the meeting was going to be short but she'd rather have it away from everyone. "Let's go find my bitches." The Demon princess opened the door of the office and exited, expecting Yuuki to just follow along like she always expected him to do.[/div][/div]

 

[GinkyGotBack]

Yuuki blew smoke from his nose, not looking all too pleased with Pallet's answer. The young man shook his head and muttered under his breath, "We could do this so much faster if we had some help..." Regardless of his feelings on the matter, Yuuki stood up and followed Pallet outside the office and out the doors to the open streets of Limbo. It was still early enough in the morning that the streets and sidewalks looked pretty bare. Most of the city's bright neon lights had been switched off already, so instead Limbo was currently being bathed in warm sunlight. Yuuki looked up and down the streets and sighed, completely oblivious as to how they were going to find Moxxi's girls. Yuuki finally piped up, speaking his mind aloud as he tended to do. "I still don't get how the girls even managed to leave the bar. Their contracts should have made it impossible for them to step foot out here."

Everyone who worked at Cocytus had to sign a special contract, written by Pallet and discussed with the employee in question. Everyone's contracts were different, and some allowed for more freedom than others. Yuuki wasn't aware of all the details of every worker's contract since it wasn't all that necessary for him to have to sit in on the writing and signing process. He knew the details of his own contract and the important factors of the other employee's contracts, Pallet made sure of that. From what little he knew about the ladies contracts, they essentially weren't allowed to step out of Cocytus without Pallet's permission. Yuuki figured it was for their own protection, so people couldn't kidnap them, but that was just a guess. Pallet had probably told him what the reason was, but if she had then he had completely forgotten. "You don't think they could have found a loophole in their contracts, do you? But even if they did, why would they want to leave? Moxxi treats them well enough, doesn't she?"

 

[Nightwisher]

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GinkyGotBack ​

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“We could do this a lot faster if you didn’t bitch the entire time,” Pallet retorted as she looked up and down the street. Which way to go...She wasn’t a tracker by any means, but she had been raised around the Ancilla Sanguis just as much as she’d been raised around Mulieres Viris, and she’d picked up a few tricks. She remained quiet, deciding not to answer Yuuki’s statement about how the girls left the bar as she made her way through the streets. Soon enough, the man came to his own conclusion. “Moxxi treats them like daughters, but that doesn’t mean they’re treated well by the clients and want to stay to the end of their contracts.” She knew that Yuuki was oblivious, and there was a bit of charm in that, but sometimes he was frustratingly so. Pallet had very strict rules about how her girls were to be treated by the clientele. That didn’t always mean they were treated that way. More than one of the ice statues in the Cocytus lake around the bar was from someone who had failed to follow those rules. The girls may have been play-things to the clients, but the Demon wouldn’t allow her employees to be hurt. That was one of the ways she’d gotten such a great barmaid like Moxxi to agree to work with her. So, despite the possible degrading or emotional issues the girls could have gotten as sex workers, Cocytus was easily the safest place for a woman to work in all of Hell. Only an idiot would fail to follow the rules of the Princess.

“As for the loophole. No, I don’t think they found one. I think someone else found it for them.” And with that, all the pieces fell into place. “Lord Lucifer help me.” The Demon princess murmured as she redirected herself to head toward the business that she had figured the girls went. The last person she wanted to deal with. [/div][/div]

 

[GinkyGotBack]

Yuuki scowled at Pallet's comment, already regretting his decision to help Pallet find the girls. If she was going to act like her usual bitchy self the whole time, that wasn't going to fly with him. As much as he hated his job at Cocytus, it did have some perks. One being that he could be 'alone' in a way with his thoughts, while not having to be annoyed by Pallet or anyone else in the club. When the demon hostess had suggested the other night that Yuuki work the bar instead, it sent a wave of premature exhaustion over him. He knew that all night, every night he'd have to stand behind the bar and deal with stupid, drunk people while simultaneously being forced to listen to whatever commands the ice queen barked at him. Compared to having his own space where he could just stare at nothing and think about being home all day, barkeeping seemed like a real shit job.

Just thinking about home always put Yuuki in a somber mood, more so than usual. He could vividly imagine his dad sitting at the kitchen table reading his newspaper while his mom did the dishes, humming an all too familiar tune, but no one could ever figure out what it was. Around now, he and his younger sister Yui would be rushing out the door to school. The two of them were complete opposites, except for the fact that they both slept like logs and tended to miss their alarms. What were his family doing now that he was gone? They must have been worried sick about him, wondering where the hell he'd disappeared to. There wasn't a day that passed while Yuuki was stuck in this literal Hell that he didn't think about his family.

Yuuki would have gotten further lost into his thoughts if he hadn't heard the sound of rushing footsteps, completely derailing his train of thought. Turning in the direction of the noise, he saw Pallet running off somewhere. He'd gotten so distracted that he hadn't even listened to a single word that Pallet had said. With a huff, Yuuki chased after her, cursing to himself about how he was still wearing his stupid DJ shoes.

In the middle of the day, the building didn't seem nearly as grandiose as it no doubt appeared during the night. The establishment was shaped like a pyramid, with the exterior being made of some kind of glass. Through the glass one could see large spotlights and other smaller lights lined up on every layer. Yuuki imagined the whole place lighted up like a Christmas tree when the time came to turn them on. Above the entrance was a sign that read, "E(x)ternal Pleasures," which didn't seem like such a subtle name for a cabaret, though he reminded himself that most clubs didn't have the most creative names. Yuuki blinked after he took in the sights of the pleasure club, completely taken aback by how stupid and over the top the place was and then looked to Pallet. "So, someone finds a loophole in the girls' contracts so he can scoop them up and take them for his place? That seems really sleazy, and we sell drugs and sex for a living." He paused for a moment and then looked around for any police officers that may have been nearby. Dealing with the cops was hell where he came from, so dealing with policemen from actual Hell wasn't something he was looking forward to.