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Luz and Emperor Belos were in a duel, one that Luz could only hope that she even had the slimmest chance of winning. That being said, what kind of friend, daughter, sister, or niece would she be to the people she cared about if she didn't manage to pull through? Luz thought about this was she was held in place with telepathic magic, before just barely running from a red blast of magic from Emperor Belos that followed up immediately afterwards.
"I didn't realize you were already combining glyphs!" Belos replied as she ducked behind a pillar, planting an ice glyph to the back of it, watching it hum as she touched it. She made her away across the room, attaching ice glyph after ice glyph to the pillars. "You do have a strange intuition with these... it took me years to figure that out," he said, looking behind him as Luz patted a pillar with one last ice glyph. "Almost like the Titan himself didn't want me to have that knowledge."
Luz released all the ice glyphs to form a giant, spiked ice wall, which she presumed would probably hit Belos pretty bad if not outright kill him. She wasn't exactly out for blood, but wouldn't be opposed if it happened. Unfortunately for her, Belos was seeing this coming from a mile away and simply waved his staff to melt it.
"Though you're still decades away from beating me." he grumbled, as if offended by the idea that Luz was attacking him. Luz let off a quick blast of fire that just barely missed his head, and Belos took on a frightening smile as he transformed his arm into a deformed, decaying green mess, grabbing Luz.
"Wuah!" Luz yelped as he pulled her towards him. He held her out over the floor, in front of the portal. She tried to struggle her way out of it, but it wasn't happening. "Eat dirt, Belos!"
"It's Philip," Belos retorted back in a flat inflection. "And despite our differences, I want to help you Luz. I can send you home. I have just enough titan's blood for one more trip."
Luz took a look at the portal. It was true that it looked very active and for everything that Belos had ever told her, it was clear that he would have no army left to invade the human realm. Could it be true that he just wanted to go back home? He didn't exactly strike Luz as entirely lying this time, even as he was very, very good at it. So much that even she believed in his lies, once upon a time, hundreds of years ago. It was a long story involving time travel and her aunt punching Belos so hard that the bump lasted on his face even now.
"Please, I don't want to see another human life destroyed by this place." he rasped, although it came off weirdly insincere, especially because Luz had an inkling that Belos probably killed his brother himself. Just a tad bit of a white lie.
"You're such a hypocrite." Luz remarked. "You talk big about protecting humanity but after everything you've done? You're barely human at all!"
"I do pity you," Belos said as the green deformation on his face returned. "These monsters have warped your sense of reality," Luz stared at him with a bit of a frustrated look on her face. "Perhaps it would be helpful to instead put you out of your misery."
His hand pulsed red as Luz's legs began to transform into stone. She couldn't move them anymore. "Uah! Wait! Waitwaitwait! You... you can't- you..." she quickly thought of a way to escape. She scanned the room but didn't find anything of use- instead just staring at the portal. She did need to get home...
"You do realize you have been gone from the human realm for centuries, right? Times have changed! You want to be known as the Emperor of the Witch Hunters, right?"
"Witch Hunter General." Belos corrected in a snide manner.
"S-sure, sure! Witch Hunter General. But uh... those aren't really a thing anymore! Nobody's going to take you seriously if you start to rant about the demon realm! Not to mention... swagless. Absolutely dripless. Yikes, bro." Luz said, taking a look at his outfit.
"I don't understand what you're getting at, and I'm getting really impatient." growled Belos as Luz continued to become petrified.
"I can be your modern day guide! I can make a deal. I can't beat you, so I'll return with you and be your guide if you spare my friends." Luz replied, feeling the petrification run up her torso. Belos scoffed.
"Not sure you're really in the position to make deals, missy." Belos replied.
"Come on! You'll need living proof that this realm exists! You'd do anything save humanity- so what about me? Please." asked Luz, trying to play to... whatever was left of his heart.
Belos inhaled and took a deep sigh. "Well, the spell isn't mine to control, but I suppose if I am going back, it's good to have an eye-witness to the horrors we've both endured." He grabbed her, opening up the portal door, Luz's eyes opened wide- wait- how was she supposed to save anyone-
They were unceremoniously dumped out from a house that had been empty for as long as Luz had lived in this neighborhood. Belos grunted as he trudged through the rain with his new human companion, confused by what he saw as he continued to walk through the dirt path. Luz shrugged off his grip, walking with him. She was tempted to bolt back to the door, but there was no telling what Belos could do out here with his Palismen infusions. He walked down the path, leaving tracks through the mud as Luz followed him closely behind.
Finally, they made their way to the road, which confused Belos greatly. "What the... what is this?" he asked Luz as he patted the asphalt. He had to recoil away as a car sped by him- in his mind it was a creature with glowing eyes, able to clean itself with some sort of chitin across it's clear hide. "What kind of strange beasts are those? Are you my modern day guide or not?"
"Uh. Um. That's... road. And those are cars." Luz quickly stumbled to explain.
"What is a car?" growled Belos. Luz made a bunch of motions with her hand, struggling to explain something that was so normal to her to someone that didn't even have a faint idea for what this was.
"It's uh... a mechanical steed!" Luz quickly tried to explain in terms that Belos would understand. Belos looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
"Why is there no adequate walk ways for humans? Why didn't you tell me earth had been over run by mechanical steeds?"
"You're still talking about... cars?" asked Luz.
"Yeah, whatever. The hell happened, Luz?"
"I... I don't know! This is normal for me!"
"Hm, I tell you what, Luz. I'm beginning to think you have a habit of just falling in line in the places you live." Belos said, walking across the road, of which he knew were for his new overlords, the cars, but he didn't care much for their rule.
"I... okay, whatever," grumbled Luz. She didn't quite care for the way he was talking to her, either. She was hungry, anyhow. She was still worried about King, Eda, Amity, Gus, Hunter, Willow, Lilith, Hooty... the list of names went longer and longer, but she realized they were all pretty capable and most of them could figure out a way to stop this, somehow. She couldn't worry about them, especially with someone like Belos dragging her around. "Uh, maybe we could get something to eat, Witch Master General Philip?"
"Well, what's around?" asked Belos, turning to her.
"Uh... there's a waffle house." Luz suggested, knowing the way to that at least and she knew it would be open 24 hours, so it wouldn't even matter what time it was, which she honestly had no clue.
He shrugged. "Alright, take me there."
Belos and his modern day guide, Luz Noceda were sitting down in a mostly empty waffle house as a waitress handed them menus. Belos was perplexed by this.
"I can just order... any food I want?" asked Belos. "Back in my time, me and Caleb would have to split up rations and have to burn them if we saw a rat touch it. I suppose this isn't too bad."
"Uh, yeah! You can order whatever you want!" Luz said, smiling awkwardly. How were they going to pay for any of this? Maybe she could awkwardly dine and dash. She shouldn't do that, but she didn't exactly have any money on her and anything Belos had on him dated back to the colonial times. She covered her eyes, trying to just focus on getting some food. She was hungry, after all.
"Hm... flapjacks..." Belos murmured under his breath as he looked over the menu. For a brief second, Luz thought she could see some tears in his eyes, but she didn't want to give Belos that much actual credit. She looked over the menu again- she could go for bacon pancakes. Those looked tasty enough to act like a complete ass when they were going to have ditch the place before paying. She knew the waffle house tended to provoke straight up brawls if customers got too rowdy, so she just hoped all that training over at the Boiling Isles would pay off.
The waitress returned back. "Do you know what you two are going to order?"
"Yes, I'll have the flapjacks." Belos replied in a warm tone. He looked over to Luz.
"Uh, I'll have the bacon pancakes." Luz replied. The waitress kept looking over to Belos- he was hideous, he wore something that looked like it came straight out of a colonial day play, and he still had his staff even though it had stopped working as soon as they stepped away from the portal. "Sorry, me and my grandpa just came off from a play."
The waitress nodded and collected their menus as she walked off. Belos looked to Luz with an angry expression across his face, frowning furiously with his brow furrowed.
"Hey, I thought you were going to tell people about the Boiling Isles?" asked Belos.
"What? Now?" asked Luz. "To some random waitress? She has no power, there's no reason for her to know."
"Hmmph, fine." Belos grumbled, putting his muddy boots up on the table. Luz patted his boots away from the table, awkwardly grinning through it all. He really was a child that never grew up in some aspects, huh. "Well, then, I suppose you're not above lying either."
"What? That's not a lie, that's just telling someone a cover story so we don't get a ton of awkward follow up questions while we're waiting for food, Philip!" Luz said, leaning in.
"Well, the people should know how good of a job their new witch master general did of killing all those witches on that horrid island." grumbled Belos.
"Oh right, you wanna talk about that? You killed all my friends and family over there, and you want to be awarded with... what, medals? Were those something awarded to witch masters? I wasn't around in the 1600s, so excuse me for not knowing how things operated four hundred years ago..." grumbled Luz.
"Hm, figures the girl who let the cars take over Earth wouldn't know anything about killing witches. You only attack what you don't understand." Belos said, in a bold move of projection. Luz was at a complete loss for words.
Luz clapped her hands together. "You know what, I think we're done talking, alright?"
"Fine by me." Belos said as he looked out the glass. He seemed to be more impressed by its material qualities- how was this much glass affixed in such a seamless manner against steel beams? Where did this even come from? It was one of many buildings and yet it was almost better constructed than anything at his castle.
Luz just kept her arms folded as she shifted around uncomfortably. She hated having nothing to do, but even her neurodivergent tendencies weren't overpowering her hatred for Emperor Belos at the moment. She was not talking to him again until she absolutely had to.
The waitress dropped two plates onto their table after two minutes of agonizing silence for Luz. "Here you go."
Belos pulled his plate of flapjacks towards him, gripping the flapjack in his hand and tearing it in half as it flopped onto his face in two halves. "Oh right, that's not how humans eat." Belos said, reminded that he hadn't actually eaten anything but Palismans for sustenance for a long while now. Luz ate at her bacon pancakes in silence, watching with stifled laughter as Belos tried to eat his flapjacks, having to remember how to use a fork and knife to cut through the material and then devour it.
Then he started breaking down into tears. He slammed his hands down on the table, startling Luz. "DAMN IT! CALEB, WHY DID YOU HAVE TO BE TEMPTED BY SIN?!" he shouted in the middle of a waffle house at a time that Luz still wasn't aware of. His face streamed down with tears.
"P-philip, they're just pancakes..." Luz said, a mix of emotions coming out of her, mostly trying to comfort him because that was her basic good instinct kicking in, but also trying to suppress a little bit of laughter.
"Flapjack..." Belos said, with a vacant look crossing his face.
She had been so ready to kill him at this point, and yet now she was awkwardly having to console him through normalcy. Not exactly how she thought this was going to go either.
She almost had to pity him- here he was- this was what he wanted to accomplish, to come home having killed all the witches on the Boiling Isles, and he came here with no reward, crying in a waffle house. If he knew this was how it was going to go this whole time, would he have done any of what he actually did?
She shook her head. Well, hopefully, on the other side, they had figured out what to do in Belos' absence.
Belos continued to eat while sobbing- she couldn't tell if he actually liked his food or not, and she did her best to not let it distract her. Still, she almost felt a smidge of pity- this was probably the most human she had seen him since she got to meet him. She swallowed her bites bitterly- she couldn't enjoy her meal much when she knew others she cared about were probably suffering greatly, if not dead. Every possibility she had to shut out with the idea that they were all capable of great things on their own too, and that she didn't necessarily need to be there to save them.
Still, knowing she wasn't actively doing so and was instead having a meal with her enemy didn't help much to assuage her worst fears from constantly entering her head. She finished with a sour look on her face, watching as Belos swallowed the last of the flapjacks, looking at the empty plate mournfully. She grabbed his hand.
"We need to go. Now." she grunted as she watched the waitress enter the kitchen. Nobody else was on staff and the place buzzed with televisions that were affixed on either sports programs or news programs from her world's less than savory sources. She gripped Belos' hand and the two made a run for the door, although Belos had no idea why they were doing any of this. Now Luz was the one running. She was making her way back to the old home.
"Hm?" asked Belos as they arrived back on the dirt trail.
"Alright, you see?" asked Luz. panting as she leaned against a tree before recoiling as her hand was covered in sticky sap, which she had to brush off violently using her hand and jacket. "There's nothing for you here, Philip. You're a man out of time, and you just destroyed the one place that universally loved you. Held you up like a god. And you tried to kill all of them."
"Luz, you're young, so i wouldn't expect you to understand." Belos said, patting Luz on the head. Luz seethed in anger, still trying to get the sap off her hand but also just wanting to tell him off.
"What wouldn't I understand? I lived here, in the present for 14 years! I left because I don't really belong here in the same ways that other people do. You don't belong here either, and yet instead you just never understood, you never got it." Luz barked, dropping the nice act.
Belos furrowed his brow as he looked at her with disappointment, far more than he had originally.
"That place really molded your mind, didn't it? You think those people are your family, your friends, your allies? Have you ever once thought that may not be the case?" asked Belos, standing intimidatingly tall.
"Have you ever considered that maybe they are?" asked Luz.
Belos looked at her mournfully. "Once."
"That's a lie. That's a lie, and I... I know it! Okay? I don't know your full backstory, I don't know anything about you, but I'm going to trust in my experiences, my journey, my family over there over your twistedness! You killed your own brother! You killed a thousand versions of your brother, probably," Luz felt her own talking points unravel before her, but she didn't care. She stomped over to the old house and went up to the door. "I'm going back. I'm going to fix what you did. Don't even bother trying to stop me, you know it's absolutely pointless. Where's the witch master generals, huh? They don't exist, just like I said!"
"Luz..." Belos spoke into the open air, although Luz didn't speak back.
Luz turned the handle on the door and opened it. As opposed to seeing the inside of the Titan's Skull, she found the empty inside of the house with scattered, disassembled cameras and papers across the ground. Traps that had been set off, traps that had been partially disassembled. The remnants of Jacob's work. She breathed heavily. "Wait... why isn't this..." she opened and closed the door again, and again, and again. "N-no. No no no no..." she said, feeling panic rise through her voice.
"Luz, there's no way back. I wasn't lying about one more trip." Belos remarked, scowling.
"NO NO NO!" Luz pounded on the door. "NO NO NO! EDA! KING! AMITY! LILITH! WILLOW! GUS! HUNTER! ANYONE PLEASE!" she shouted, violently trying to turn the knob, doing anything else she could do with the door to bring her back. The doorknob slipped out of the door, cupped in Luz's hand. She began screaming in agony, falling to her knees. "Please... please..."
"Relax Luz, I'm not going to harm you. No sense in doing that now, I know your magic doesn't work outside of the Boiling Isles." Belos replied.
Luz could only sob and laugh quietly against the door. She wasn't sure why she was laughing- maybe it's because Belos had the gall to think he was at all anyone that Luz was thinking of. Maybe it's because it came off as a deep irony that she was so incredibly hurt either way. In any case, she fell to her knees as Belos walked off.
Probably to yell at a car.