Demon with wings (a Hazbin Hotel and Helluva boss fanfic)

Part 19

Dedicated to @Stargazer49_ who's comment reminded me that this story existed and made me excited to continue writing it. Thank you :)

Also Astrid does witch stuff in this chapter, I tried to be accurate with some witch related things but there's no real spell on how to freeze/unfreeze someone in time obviously but black candle wax is used for protection and there really is a sigil for warmth that looks like this (well it looked like that when I tried it and I'm not good at making sigils)

Astrid tried to hold herself together as she made her way down to the building she hadn't been to in over 30 years, she pushed open the door, wincing at the squeak and holding her breath as her presence stirred up the dust that had collected on the ground over the years. She proceeded upstairs to the top floor and took another deep breath, this time to hold in her emotions than to avoid dust, and tiptoed inside.

There they were. Still in the same positions they'd been when Astrid froze them, not that she'd been expecting them to move, she had perfected the spell before performing it on them after all.

Astrid started setting up everything she needed to reverse the spell and faltered for a second. What if they hate me for what I did? She thought briefly before deciding, she didn't care. It didn't matter if they hated her for it but she did it to protect them, if they didn't understand that then it was fine because she did.

Eventually Astrid completed everything that was needed to reverse the spell, and walked around double checking everything.

The spell wasn't simple per say, and it revolved mostly around the positions they were in, so she had to put them all on the meeting room table and set up from there. Luckily for Astrid, Blitzø had wanted a dramatically large table for meetings despite having a really small staff, and it provided ample room for Astrid to set up the spell. She placed the small vials of protection spell, sealed with black wax, and placed the last one at Blitzø's feet. She looked up at him, and hugged his frozen form. "I'm sorry." She sniffed guiltily.

Astrid took her spot at the end of the table, and took out a piece of paper and red ink, tracing the sigil for warmth, and took out a red candle, burning the sigil using the flame from said candle.

Slowly, the room warmed up, it was winter and Hell, so the room was extremely cold. Hell tended to have 2 seasons: scorching hot summer, and frigid cold winter.

The room got noticeably warmer with every protection spell activated, first Loona, then to Millie and Moxxie, and lastly to Blitzø. The room became bathed in orange light, and when Astrid opened her eyes, the others were slowly moving again.

Blitzø was the first to speak, "What happened? Why am I standing here?" He looked around and Astrid stood up from where she was standing, snuffed out the candle she burned the sigil on, and got off the table. Hesitantly, the others got off and looked around.

"I... I think I owe you all an explanation." Astrid huffed, her chest tightening unpleasantly.

"Why?" Moxxie asked.

"You guys have kind of all been frozen for over 30 years..." she mumbled hesitantly, and went into her explanation.

When she was done, the others sat in various stages of confused shock, and Astrid sat their fidgeting with her hands. After a moment she looked up at the ceiling, back at them, and headed towards the door. "I'll be going now, sorry." She muttered.

"Hold on where are you going?" Loona snapped?

"What?"

"You freeze us for not even satan knows how long and then expect to leave us?" She demanded.

"I thought you guys would want me gone as soon as I explained myself." Astrid defended, spreading her arms around the room. "Well, I've explained myself, I'll get out of your lives now."

"Why would we want you to leave?" Millie asked.

"Uh... because I thought freezing you guys in place would solve all of my problems and put your lives on pause for that long for my convenience." She sighed.

Though, the explanation didn't feel right. No, Astrid didn't do this to save her own ass, she did this because she was scared. She shuddered to think of what Lucifer would've done to them himself, she could care less what he did to her- ok that was a lie, she didn't want him to go after her either, but she'd take fighting him over having him go after her... could she even call them her friends anymore? Well, regardless, she'd take fighting Lucifer over having him go after the others any day.

"Well yeah that's a shitty thing to do." Moxxie snapped.

"I'm aware, thanks Moxxie. But it was either that or have Luci try to kill you." Astrid shrugged.

"Then why didn't you kill us? We had our backs turned long enough for you to cast a spell, it wouldn't take that much longer to kill us all." Blitzø pointed out.

"Do you honestly think I want you dead?" Astrid exclaimed.

"Maybe not, but why risk keeping us alive?" Moxxie challenged.

"To defy Lucifer? Anyways it seems everyone's breaking their promises to Lucifer right now so I don't give a damn what he tries to do now." Astrid mustered defiantly.

"Who else is breaking their promises?" Millie asked.

"Alastor made a promise with him a while ago apparently about helping some hotel, and if he's going against that son of a bitch then I will too." Astrid said, leaning against the wall beside the door. When nobody answered, she put her hand on the knob, "so now that I've throughly ruined your lives, I'll get out of them now."

"Hold on one damn minute." Blitzø spoke up, "what makes you think we want you to leave?"

"What?" Astrid asked, confounded.

"You know how hard it would be to replace you? You're way too good of an assassin to just let go. Get over here."

Blitzø stumbled backwards as Astrid raced to hug him, though the action surprised her too.

"Thank you." She whispered to him for the second time that day.

"Yeah no problem kid. Now let's get the I.M.P back in business!"