Chapter Text
Lucifer didn’t really process the whole ‘being captured’ thing. Oh sure, he’d been trapped in this glorified fishbowl, shackled and restrained against his will, enchanted angelic steel securing him to some sort of contraption. But the whole situation kind of just... Shuffled past his attention?
The TV guy was gloating about some sort of ultimate master plan, Red guy was there being his usual smarmy annoying self (Tied to an office chair..? Whatever, not gonna kink shame him either), but Lucifer just... Didn’t absorb any of the way too many words said.
They had left at some point, TV guy dragging the bellhop along, who gave another cheeky wave, only to abort it halfway through, his brow furrowing before the door closed and sealed with the heavy dull sound of metal moving against metal.
That must have been a while ago now. Lucifer had long since lost track. Not like had tried to keep track in the first place, his sense of time had been busted long before the depression had shattered whatever last dregs had remained of it.
Lucifer’s mind felt too heavy. Stuffed to the brim with thunderclouds, darkening the metaphorical mental sky until no more light could find it’s way through. The clouds made his thoughts slow, dragging through his synapses like molasses, sticky and uncomfortable and so so heavy…
It hadn’t been Charlie calling him. Of course it hadn’t been Charlie calling him. He should have known. Not after she threw him out like that, he should have— But how could he not have answered? Charlie never simply called, not now, not before either. She only ever reached out when she needed something from him, and he had tried to respect her independence and implied need for distance, only reaching out himself every handful of months, but…
... What even was the point..?
Every time he tried, everything went wrong. Every time he tried, he ended up being yelled at, not allowed a single word of his own. Damned if you do, but oh-ho you’re damned if you don’t too.
Heaven. Lilith. Charlie. All the same all over again.
All the same.
Again.
And again.
And again.
He knew the Extermination shit wouldn’t work. Hell, Adam had only taken seven years to utterly fuck it up! Seven years!! That’s nothing on the timeless scale of death!! Seven years of suffering they could have used to force Heaven into giving them a treaty worth centuries!! But no, the Sinners just had to go and fuck it up, declaring a fucking war on Heaven.
Lilith had screamed at him for accepting the contract. Screamed for days and then incited a rebellion so thorough that it had seen Heaven quietly but resolutely taking her away from Hell. At no point had she allowed Lucifer to speak his thoughts.
Sera hadn’t listened either when he tried telling her that breaking the rebellion by removing Lilith would only make it worse down the road. That it would only take one charismatic motherfucker with knowledge of how to sway a crowd to re-ignite it. And now Heaven had given them a martyr they could invoke.
Sera’s guards had held Lucifer down as they took Lilith. They hadn’t needed to. He didn’t want a war. Not having a war was the entire fucking point. And Lilith went easily. Head held high. Not sparing him a single glance. Lucifer didn’t need to see her eyes to know she was silently cursing his entire existence.
Lucifer thought he could get through it. That they could get trough it. Thought his plan would get them there. Thought that Lilith would answer his calls or just read her damn texts eventually. She didn’t. Never let him explain.
And now here he was, having left the safety of his palace to stay at Charlie’s hotel on her request. Here he was, outside of his defences and securities built across millennia, simply because she asked.
Here he was, existing at the periphery of Charlie’s project, his purpose being nothing more than to fulfil her every wish and desire. Which was fine. Charlie is his daughter. When Charlie says “dad,” Lucifer says: “anything you need, ducky.” When Virginia says “Lu,” Lucifer says: “all my powers are at your disposal.” That is his purpose as a father. That is what he will give her, always and forever, without complaint or hesitation.
And yet…
He had tried to say no. Victoria knocking on his door and he had tried to say no. Tried to tell her that no good ever came from him getting involved with Sinners like that. He had tried. To. Say. No.
But then she had said “for Charlie.” And then, when Lucifer had already been grappling with his fracturing conviction, she had invoked the bellhop.
He admired Vania for it, in some way. Using his Sin, his Pride, to get what she wanted him to do. She was smart, recognising and pressing personal issues to her advantage. A little manipulation skills went a long way in Hell.
Lucifer wasn’t even that surprised that it all came crashing down so quickly.
He was however surprised at Charlie lashing out so harshly. So completely. She hadn’t allowed him to explain. Hadn’t even tried to listen. Not to him. Not even to Veronica. She had just. Banished him from her life again, as swiftly and quickly as she had welcomed him back in.
Of course it wasn’t her calling. He should have known. And yet, as always, the sound of her voice had filled him with such a total and complete happiness only she could cause. A happiness he hadn’t experienced in so long he had forgotten what it felt like at all. Charlie says “I need you,” and Lucifer runs to her side.
It’s pathetic, really. Lucifer’s greatest joy comes from Charlie’s voice on the phone, and a couple weeks of needling and being needled in turn by the bellhop. Piles of ducks for a bit of silent reprieve inbetween.
And that’s... It. That’s all. That’s all there is to him and his existence.
Lucifer wasn’t sure if the image of Vasha that appeared in front of him was real or not. He didn’t bother to figure it out. He might have talked to maybe-real Vera, but if he did, he already forgot. The thunder rolling through his mind shook all new thoughts lose, the clouds breaking open washing away all sensations his body might or might not be experiencing.
Actions and consequences.
That’s all it ever came down to.
His action had been to share an apple. His consequences are to be used and used again, reduced to nothing more than everyone’s “fix it!!” guy.
The machine hummed to life.
Lucifer never wanted this. Any of it. He had wanted Lilith to be free to do as she chose, had wanted Eve to be more than just “Adam’s woman.” That was all. He never wanted to rule, never wanted to be in charge of all these broken souls.
He had just wanted... To love. To be free to choose. For Lilith to be free to love and choose too. For Eve and Adam to have that same freedom…
Lucifer was just... So tired. Maybe... Maybe if this machine drained his power enough, he could close his eyes and drift away for good. (He couldn’t, he could never die, he knew, he tried.)
He was just so... Done. Done with Heaven. Done with Hell. Done with no one listening. Done with having to fix things and then being yelled at when he didn’t fix them good enough.
There was singing. Faintly. Barely there enough to register at all through the steady noise of the endless pattering rainstorm in his mind. The singing might have been real. Might have been a hallucination. He couldn’t make out any words.
Actions and consequences.
It was time Hell faced those once again. Their actions. Their consequences.
The Sinners wanted a war with Heaven? Sure. Go ahead. Have a war. But they better not come crawling back to his throne to beg the King of Hell to fix it.
Because Lucifer won’t be there this time.
Their actions. Their consequences.
No more protection. No more help. No more Mercy.
The machine’s drone became louder. Something clicked. Something cracked.
They had no idea just what was lurking in the depths of the well they were drawing from. No idea what fate they were inviting upon themselves.
Let them have it.
Lucifer closed his eyes. And then he let go.
Alastor’s subconscious would very much like him to know that he was tasting blood on this tongue. Which usually was neither a rare, nor overly notable event. However, the blood on his tongue was his own. Which was very rare and very notable indeed. The amount of it was very concerning too. So his subconscious would very much like him to know—
Alastor did not taste his blood on his tongue. He did not feel the coarse asphalt underneath his body, digging into his bloody arms as he dragged himself forward. Where to? No idea. Out of the open, back into the shadows where he was safe.
The shadows weren’t safe.
Every single hair of Alastor’s fur was standing as high as it could. His thoughts of his fight against the damn shark had been forcefully and completely cut off.
Nothing remained. Only Alastor’s gasps, the blood dripping from his teeth as he dragged himself away from a sensation he would never be able to escape from, no matter how far he ran.
Lucifer.
The ray of light had cut past Alastor. Only thanks to that little angel.
It had cut past Alastor, and yet it felt like it had cut right through him.
The airwaves were vibrating with Lucifer’s power. Every single one of them, loud and bright and hot and deadly—
This wasn’t Lucifer’s sunlight.
This wasn’t the soothing warmth of the first rays of the rising sun. The warmth that only the very first early morning sunlight could cause, a warmth that didn’t exist in Hell, except that it did exist in the presence of this one singular creature that so wonderfully aggravated Alastor every single day.
This wasn’t Lucifer’s golden sunrise.
This was a blaze. The oppression of the burning sun at high noon in the middle of summer, a physical weight on his skin that didn’t even abate in the protection of his shadows. It burned. Hot, hot, hotter.
Then it happened again.
Each blast lasted only a mere second, but the feeling didn’t leave in their wake. Didn’t fizzle out like the actual light. It remained, tangible in the air, leaving the very reality that made up Pentagram City charged with so much of Lucifer’s endless power that Alastor could taste it.
That was the moment he also tasted his blood.
Alastor sank back into his shadows. The oppression of the light followed him.
He wasn’t retreating. His job was done, the stupid shark was defeated, Vox went off the deep end as predicted, beheaded by his own lover for his attempt at murder-suicide.
Alastor had just enough time to magically clean and mend his clothes before Rosie showed up.
Just enough time to ensure the smile was in its place.
Pressuring Rosie into fixing his microphone was child’s play at this point. A done deal really, she’d have done it eventually anyway, and she did enjoy a good game, even when she found that she had lost. Maybe especially then. They would have to renegotiate their continued cooperation at another time.
Alastor violently stomped down the welling feeling of pride at seeing all of Charlie’s ragtag crew work together to stop the weapon from destroying all of Pentagram City.
(The weapon that was drawing from what Alastor was certain could only be the mere surface of Lucifer’s endless well of power...)
Charlie had played her role to perfection. Had made every move exactly as Alastor had predicted she would do.
She had needed more help from that little Emily angel than he would have liked, but the end results were an undeniable success on all fronts when even the Overlords joined in to lend their aid. They were selfish bastards, the whole lot of them, only doing it to save their own hides, but they were following the Princess’ lead, and try as they might, they wouldn’t be able to deny it in the aftermath. Alastor wouldn’t even need to be the one to remind them; Zestial would gleefully do so with a single raised brow over the rim of a teacup every chance he’d get.
Alastor let himself drift to the edge of the crowd as Pentious joined the party much too late, as usual. Charlie was crying, clinging to her paramour, as Cherri Bomb talked to him, no doubt having a very not public appropriate conversation.
Alastor didn’t deign it worth his attention. He would deny it to anyone asking, including himself, but he was scanning the crowd and their obnoxious group hugs for someone else. For Lucifer.
It was so easy to find him, every other day. Alastor simply had to follow the glint and distant warmth of the golden sunrise, leading him right to the little King to poke and prod at until he made one of his entertaining faces and hurled some hilariously inefficient insults of his own back.
But now... There was no sunrise to follow. No beam of gentle warmth to cosy up to and startle with his sudden appearance.
Lucifer’s power was everywhere. All around them, omni-present. Burning. The airwaves were humming with it so loudly that Alastor couldn’t keep his ears from twitching, had to physically turn off his microphone so it wouldn’t cause painfully squealing feedback.
How did no one else react to it? Were they simply not aware? Or had they simply accepted Hell being a full ten degrees hotter than normal as an after effect of the weapon exploding? Were they still too deep in their adrenaline spikes or their own power drain to notice at all?
Were none of them realising that for all that they could feel Lucifer heavily pressing in on them all around them, he wasn’t here??
His shadow twitched as Alastor drew it up around himself. His own power was almost drained too. No fixed staff could change that fact. And with the light of Lucifer’s power lingering everywhere, his shadow had immense trouble staying cohesive.
Still, it obediently took him to appear next to Charlie, the little angel with her jumping in surprise (but not fear, to his displeasure).
“Charlotte,” Alastor said, his radio filter crackling thickly over his voice, “did your useless antisocial father already leave? Deigned the peasantry not worth his assistance or even presence after they fixed his mess?”
There was a sharp sting of absolute horror climbing up Alastor’s spine as Charlie simply blinked.
“Oh, right!” She called, after at least five seconds of silence too many, “Vox told me on the phone that dad would be here somewhere.”
She twisted her head left and right, hopping a little as she tried to look over the crowd, brow furrowing lightly when the only white, pink and blonde combo she picked out belonged to Abel who was awkwardly and futilely trying to mediate between Vagatha and that one exorcist.
“I can’t see him...” Charlie’s lips pinched with annoyance and displeasure. “Maybe you’re right, he might already have left.”
Alastor could only stare in utterly baffled silence. If his microphone wasn’t literally turned off he was pretty sure their ears would be starting to bleed right about now, as the sting of horror twisted into something much more cutting in face of Charlie’s nonchalance.
She must have seen something in his face, because she aborted her dismissive shrug halfway through, and raised her voice into Vagatha’s direction: “Hey, babe? Have you seen my dad?”
Vagatha froze, mid-insult and spear wave at Lute. Her eyes went wide. Her hands started to tremble. As a feeling of total horror of her own dawned on her, Alastor felt his blood run so cold it blew right past frozen and back into boiling territories.
“Fuck.” Vagatha whispered.
Her spear didn’t even have time to hit the ground before Alastor had already gone full eldritch monster, towering over her, his voice transmitted over every single of Vox’ speakers around the destroyed plaza so loud the ground shook underneath their feet as he roared: “YOU LEFT HIM IN THERE???”
To Vagatha’s credit, she didn’t waste a second more time with answering him. Her wings burst out, and she would have thrown herself right into the air to dive back into the crater of the destroyed weapon as fast as she possibly could. Except that Alastor didn’t let her.
His tentacles burst from the ground, and he didn’t care if he constricted them too tight, broke any of her bones as he slammed her back to the ground, already turning and forcing his body into more manageable dimensions as his long legs ate up the distance to the bent and broken access hatch to the weapon’s underground vault.
He more heard than saw Carmilla Carmine’s gasp, her steps forward with a: “Wait, you didn’t—” cut off as she too was wrapped in a writhing mass of black tentacles and launched backwards for Zestial to catch.
These were the people who claimed to respect the politics of Hell. The so called ‘order’. Their places in it. And yet it was Alastor, the one who had made every effort to break it all down, who was actually thinking of their own damned King.
A tentacle wretched the hatch open, making way for Alastor to drop down without even looking.
His feet hit the metal floor, metal that was radiating white hot heat. The hatch fell closed with a loud clang, and then the only sound left was the buzzing static in Alastor’s brain.
There was light down here. Not Vox’ obnoxious white and blue LED lights. Those had long since blinked out under the pressure.
The illumination came from little flecks of literal light. Little dots of Lucifer’s golden sunlight, gently drifting through the air like motes of dust.
Lucifer’s power was even more oppressing down here. If it felt like physical pressure before, Alastor now felt like he was so deep under water there was no hope of ever reaching the surface again before he ran out of breath.
The air was so hot Alastor was certain it would only take a single electric spark to set it all ablaze with an explosion that would be felt all the way down to the Sloth Ring.
Lucifer was still inside the siphon. Strung up like an animal for slaughter. Fixated with enchanted angelic steel shackles, the likes of which only Carmilla had the knowledge to manufacture.
Alastor forced himself to breathe. Let the heat of the air burn away his rage before he caused the explosion himself.
Lucifer was unconscious. His head lolled forward where he hung limply in his restraints. There were tear tracks underneath his eyes, cut short where they must have evaporated in the heat of his power, only leaving behind tiny stains of salt as evidence of their presence.
Alastor flinched back when he caught his fingers just a hairbreadth away from touching the glass. There were still cables connected to the machine. Inside the machine. Buried into Lucifer’s skin.
Alastor didn’t allow himself to count them. The cables. The number of flecks of golden blood staining Lucifer’s white suit.
Alastor forced himself to take a step back. Another. Turned toward the console.
He hated using his powers to interface with any of Vox’ accursed modern technology, but if he tried to force his way into the machine, he might just as well light the match himself.
The machine warbled a broken hum as he touched the console. It was on its last legs, just barely pulled back from the brink, but deteriorating fast in this sweltering heat.
Alastor gentled his agitated static. He needed just two things from this machine.
First: Unlock Lucifer’s restraints.
The machine groaned, electricity buzzed. A click.
Lucifer crumpled to the bottom of the siphon as his restrains opened and released his arms and legs. A few of the short cables were ripped out of his body under his weight, but the longer ones stubbornly remained lodged into his skin, accompanying him into one tangled heap on the ground.
Sound and fresh air rushed in like a storm as the hatch was heaved open once again by what must have been a combined effort, Charlie sticking her head in with a call of “Alastor!” that became a strangled gasp of “Dad—!”
“Stay. Out.” Alastor didn’t care that his voice was too loud, his words too cutting, his tone too vicious.
The machine hissed and fought as he ordered it to unseal the siphon. It gave him data readouts to tell him that the pressure difference between inside and out was too great, that the mechanical components couldn’t overcome the near vacuum that Lucifer existed in now.
Alastor fed his own power into it. His own power, of which he already had precious little left, and in contrast to Charlie, he knew that it was far from time to celebrate, that this fight wasn’t over just yet. He needed that power. And still he gave it into the machine that held Lucifer captive.
It is logical, his still ignored subconscious argued sensibly. Lucifer, with all that power, was required to ensure they’d all see the end of the day, weakened as they already were.
The machine hissed and squealed. Metal screeched as it was forced to move, grinding against other metal parts. Hairline cracks started to spiderweb across the glass. Alastor didn’t care what would give first. The glass or the vacuum seal, it didn’t matter, the end result would be the same.
There was an uncomfortable loud pop in his ears as the seal gave in, air rushing to equalise the pressure.
Alastor felt like walking through quicksand, all the way up to his thighs. The remnants of power spilling from inside the siphon as he physically shoved the glass further open was stifling. Bright. Ancient. Endless. Incomprehensible to the human mind.
He couldn’t feel his body any more. He couldn’t hear anything any more. He couldn’t see anything any more.
Alastor felt like he was completely disconnected from his own self, from space, from time, from reality.
He knew his hands were reaching for Lucifer. He knew his already damaged skin was turning red and raw from the burning radiating heat when he tugged Lucifer into his lap. He knew he was carefully examining every part of Lucifer’s too hot to touch body, pulling cables from his skin as efficiently and with causing as little further damage as he could.
He knew he was lifting Lucifer up in his arms, using his shadow tentacles to raise them both out of the weapon’s underbelly.
Alastor Knew, but he didn’t experience any of it.
Reality only reasserted itself after Alastor had carried Lucifer well and good out of that crater. After his shadow had stolen one of Cherri’s bombs and dropped it into the vault, kicking the hatch shut.
The explosion did indeed rock the entirety of the Pride Ring. It was the last thing Alastor Knew before he found himself kneeling on the ground, surrounded by the debris of the battlefield, hunched over Lucifer to protect his body from the shock-wave as much as he could.
The shock-wave was more magic than pressure. It burned and yet it didn’t. It flayed his very soul with heat and a pain that wasn’t physical just like it wasn’t his own. It was bright. Ancient. Endless. Incomprehensible to a human soul.
Alastor was willing to bet his own damn soul once again that actual hours had passed before any soul in Pride even began to regain the ability to move.
Lucifer’s body, still resting in his arms, wasn’t burning to the touch any more. In fact, it didn’t contain any warmth at all. Alastor would have thought the burns were a hallucination, if it wasn’t for the painful pricks and itches as his skin tried to heal his burns and blisters. It would take more hours still. With the wound still in his chest drawing almost all of his innate healing power, there wasn’t much left for something as paltry as second and third degree burns.
Slowly, people around him began to move again. Questions of what happened, Charlie and her little angel friend trying to soothe the crowd that had been forcefully broken from their festive mood.
Niffty sent him her steadfastness through their bond, keeping her eye on the rest of the crew with assistance of her new aquatic friend.
His shadow observed Zestial sensibly holding Carmilla back from an ill advised approach of his person. Alastor still wasn’t quite here yet, but he was present enough to rip her to pieces, respect among fellow Overlords be damned.
Husker’s chain lit up with distress. A useful tool to know when his souls where threatened so that he could keep them alive and useful to his designs, but Husker would have to handle this on his own.
Vagatha was standing guard next to him and Lucifer. The effect of her murderous glare at anyone who even dared look in their direction, was lessened fundamentally by the guilt marring her face.
Alastor’s shadow sent him an impression of the angels approaching. Lute pissed as usual, Abel a nervous wreck, both of them dragged along by the little Seraph with nothing but determination on her face. The one who had saved Alastor. Who had lost a wing, the stump still bleeding, but still wasn’t running back home to greener, safer pastures.
Well then.
Showtime.
Alastor rose to his feet in one smooth movement, and swiftly deposited Lucifer’s unconscious body into Vaggie’s arms. “Take him back to the hotel, now,” he ordered, smile in place and voice almost perfectly jovial as always, if it wasn’t for that last hint of cutting rage that was slowly twisting into mania.
“Yessir!” Vaggie answered, ever the good little soldier, her wings unfurling.
“Wait!!!” The Seraph yelled, stumbling as she tried to use her own wings to propel herself forward faster.
“Go,” Alastor said, and Vaggie was up in the air not even a second later.
“We can help!!!” The Seraph yelled again, stumbling once more, this time only caught by Abel lunging forward as she came to a halt in front of Alastor, breathing hard.
Alastor’s neck cracked as he turned his head before he turned the rest of his body. Emily. That was her name. “You have done quite enough, little Seraph.” Alastor had meant to keep his voice neutral. He really had. Emily had actually been helping this entire time, she didn’t deserve to be targeted by his burning ire.
But her gasp, accompanied by Lute’s growl and Abel’s flinch told him that he didn’t succeed just yet.
Alastor took a deep breath. Forced himself to breathe back out. His Maman had raised him better than this.
“My apologies, where are my manners! Alastor is the name, host of our Princess’ little hotel venture, pleasure to be meeting you Seraph Emily, quite the pleasure!!” He summoned his microphone with a flourish and half a bow. “Please apologise my choice of words, but I do mean them quite literally! You have done enough for today. The Sinners of Hell owe you a great debt for saving all their worthless little afterlives, and my my weren’t you efficient! You even saved me twice! At expense of your own bodily wellbeing to boot! Do let me know sooner rather than later as to how I can settle that debt.”
Emily’s brow furrowed and Alastor had to use every single ounce of his hard earned composure to not let his tone waver again when she asked a little confused: “Debt? What debt?”
His eye twitched. Yet another little angel two messed with the order of Hell without understanding any of it. He breezed past her question as if she hadn’t spoken at all.
“Now that the threat to Heaven is dealt with, it is time for you to continue on home. Tend to your own wounds. Ease the worries of your angelic friends and family. Hell will not forget what it owes you, but the rest of this fight we have to settle on our own, surely you understand. A young bird cannot learn to fly if you keep holding its wings, yes?”
He was met by expressions of confusion, vague understanding and continued pissy-ness in turn. At least one of them got the message.
“Alastor!” Came Charlie’s call and his eye-twitch wouldn’t be stopping ever again at this rate. “What are you doing?! Where did Vaggie go?!”
Alastor turned his sharp smile to her. “Why, I am sending Abel and his little angelic posse back home! Just like your paramour has taken your father.”
Charlie pulled a displeased face as she came to a stop next to Emily. “You can’t just order them around, Alastor.”
Alastor’s smile sharpened. “Ah, but you see, as host of the hotel it is very much within my power to dismiss any guests that are overstaying their welcome.”
“No it’s not—” Charlie started to argue, like the stubborn child she very much still was at times, only to get talked over by Emily.
“But Lucifer needs help! I can help!!”
Charlie’s mouth clicked shut. She was silent for two seconds before she turned to Emily, displaying a smile of her own. “No no, you don’t need to worry about him, Emily, he’s fine! It’s dad! Nothing can kill him!”
Alastor felt his eyes narrow, venomous words spilling from his lips before he could stop them: “Oh, so the inability to die makes him immune to being hurt now, I see how it is, Princess.”
Charlie physically recoiled, angry red of her power flashing into her irises. “What the Hell are you—”
“He really didn’t look fine, Charlie,” Emily interrupted once again, grabbing Charlie’s hands, “he didn’t feel fine, he needs help and I can help, please let me help!!”
Alright, this was more than enough of all of this.
“Seraph Emily,” Alastor started, standing straight and letting the sharpness return to his voice as he looked down his nose at her. “You are speaking of the Devil. The King of Hell. He does not need, nor does he want the assistance from any of you high and mighty saints of virtue. Heaven has no business meddling in the affairs of Hell where it does not concern them, do you understand?”
“But—”
Alastor let out a low growl. “Hell understands your interference with the weapon to protect your realm. Hell appreciates your continued assistance to prevent destruction, the scale of which would have rippled all the way to Heaven itself. The Princess appreciates your support with the Hazbin Hotel project, as redeemed souls are to be permitted through the gates of Heaven. However.” He sharply leaned forward and into Emily’s personal space, “Hell has had more than enough of little angels coming down from the Heavens to tell us what to do and how to do it the past seven years. It is time for you to return up above and stay there until our Princess reaches out with further plans for redemption.”
“Do not speak for me, Alastor!” Charlie spat out with a growl of her own, “You left! You haven’t been there the past two weeks, you know nothing of what happened!”
Alastor couldn’t help the condescending laugh escaping him. “Nothing, you say? Let’s see: I know of every single time you made yourself a fool in front of Vox’ media empire, every single thoughtless word you spoke to feed the fire far beyond the dying little ember it originally was. I know of our new little aquatic friend being a traitor to Vox’ employ, I know of our very own Angel Dust being a traitor to the Hazbin Hotel!”
“What—”
“Oh yes! A spy on Vox’ behalf, a sleeper agent programmed so well he doesn’t even know it himself! Quite a feat, to not have noticed when you all spent so much time with your so called ‘friend’, but who am I to judge, at least I don’t play pretend about friends in Hell existing at all!”
Alastor laughed. The expressions on their little dumb faces were simply too delicious.
“I know that you have not a single idea as to how redemption works, just like I know your little angel friends are just as clueless. I know that Heaven has cursed your father’s exile by making him defenceless against being used and abused by the very souls they force him to rule. I know that he would rather spend the rest of eternity in agony than to let an angel touch him.”
Alastor spun his microphone behind his back, his smile cold and his eyes colder as he stalked toward Charlie.
“I knew every single action you have taken across the past two weeks before you took them. I bet my own soul against the odds of Vox’ abuse and humiliation of my person only based on my prediction of your actions, and I won.”
He watched as tears began to gather in Charlie’s eyes. They didn’t satisfy him, but they also didn’t bring the small twinge of displeasure at her sadness he had almost become accustomed to either. His rage at Charlie was real. He just didn’t know why. Not when it all played out just as he had planned.
Alastor let out a scoff and began to brush past her. “Not to worry, your Highness, I am a gentleman of my word, and as such I shall continue my service to your hotel. And as your host and head of security I am telling you to gather your so-called ‘friends’ and to return to the hotel at once. Because I know that a cult is not shattered by simply removing the figurehead. Therefore I know we will be required to fight a good half of the Sinners of Pentagram City to defend your little project before the day is out, and I for one am thoroughly out of the patience required to deal with realm political matters that most certainly can wait.”
Silence at his back.
Alastor didn’t break his stride, didn’t look back as he walked away.
A mere thought saw Niffty scurrying over to him, climbing up onto his shoulder as he sank them both into the shadows. The darkness had barely finished swallowing them by the time Niffty started rattling off all the things he did indeed miss rapid-fire.
He needed to work out a plan as to how to once again defend the hotel, with every single available fighter’s energy heavily diminished, with Husker rendered outright useless and Angel Dust once again having left.
All that with mere hours to spare, if they were even that lucky.
All that while the Princess, despite all her power and supposed intelligence, continued to be more detriment than asset.
Once again the only force he could rely on was his own and the one of his thralls. And with his wound, the drain on his power fighting Vox and the damn shark, saving this damned city and its damned inhabitants, and Husker out for the count, it simply wasn’t enough.
He needed Lucifer.