Chapter Text
“I’m Sorry. Not this time,” King’s eyes squeeze shut, repressing tears at what he’s about to do.
“No…” the tears stream down Luz’s face as she struggles to keep hold of King in the face of the Collector’s magic, pulling him away and tearing the Titan’s skull to rubble as they rearrange reality around them.
“But I can keep you safe.”
“No…!” Luz desperately attempts to readjust her grip on King but it’s no use, King lets go of her. Amity and the others are running back through the unstable portal to the human realm.
“Luz, I’m so happy I had you as a big sister. WEH!” The portal behind them flickers as the blast flings her back into Amity, forcefully throwing all five of them through the portal.
It flickers twice more as they fall through before sputtering close with the finality of a guillotine falling for the last time.
—
Luz felt her head bang the ground as her vision grew foggy, shadows creeping up in the edges of her vision.
Movement just along her consciousness caught her eyes, the visage of King floating away in the desecrated Demon Realm. The rectangular portal doorway flickers again as Luz scrambles to jump through.
“No, King!”
The doorway disappears in a flash of white, and she’s left alone on her knees staring incredulously at the spot the portal used to be, her leg’s submerged in viscous black liquid going unnoticed. ‘This can’t be happening.’-
“King! No no no no…” Her body begins to tremble as the events of the day of unity slam into her all at once, tears begging to be shed. Luz pushes them back, she has to be strong for the others.
She pushes her palms to her eyes, shakes her head and takes a deep breath before turning around expecting to see her companions just as wide eyed and shell shocked as she. But as she opens her eyes, her heart drops to her stomach and ice runs down her back.
‘No…she can’t be here, not again. This only happened last time because their portal was somehow incomplete!’
Luz’s breathing picks up as she takes in the floating cubes of the in between and glowing tar, with no signs of her friends or lover.
“Amity! Willow, Gus! Hunter…! Please, anyone! Anybody…”
There was no reply other than her own voice being reverberated back to her. Until she heard something, an echo of some kind that she couldn’t make out. She redoubled her efforts desperate for at least one of her friends to be alright.
Selfishly she silently wished one of her friends to be trapped there as well, just so she wouldn’t be alone. But she violently shoved off the thought as she called out again.
“Hello! Is anyone there, please! It’s me, Luz!”
She quieted a moment hoping not to miss what the other noise was, then she heard it.
“-uman! Luz, Gus- Captain!”
Luz sucked in a small breath, only one person ever called her just ‘Human’ anymore.
“Hunter! Hunter, I’m here! Where are you?”
“Luz! Where are we?” His voice was muffled and far but Luz felt like she could collapse again, this time in relief.
“Hunter, focus on my voice! I’m coming, stay wherever you are, I’m on my way you hear me!” Luz begins to trudge through the black liquid that covered the expanse of the in between, trying to head towards where she heard Hunter’s voice from.
“Keep yelling Hunter, I’ll come to you!”
She did her best no to break right then as she followed the trails of her name and Human and promises of retribution for when they find each other. She lets out a particularly wet chuckle when she hears the last one, the relief of one of her friends being safe still nearly made her fall to her knees again.
—
She’d been walking for what felt like hours now when she felt her world invert, like the first time she was in the in between, as she fell and her world righted itself again.
She groaned and tried to find her center of gravity once more as she felt she ran into something soft but firm, somewhat like a body. At the thought she shot up and gasped, tackling Hunter in an embrace.
“Hunter! You’re ok!” Said Grimwalker ground out a weak and strained but nonetheless relieved, “Human,” as he did his best to relax his muscles from the unexpected physical contact.
Luz made a vaguely apologetic sound as she released him.
“Sorry, just really glad you’re alright.” The older boy seemed to flail a bit at the unbridled sincerity in the Human’s statement. Then made a noise that approximated something like ‘You’re good.’
Hunter cleared his throat and took a moment to collect himself, “Now, do you have any idea, where in Titan’s name we are?”
“Oh…um, right! I do, actually. This is where I first ended up when we tried to make a portal to the Human Realm the first time. I uh- wouldn’t have been able to get out if Eda hadn’t pulled me out right before it collapsed.” Her somewhat sullen mood soured further at the thought at her possibly, most likely now dead mentor.
Seeing the dampening on the younger girl’s mood, Hunter rushed to change the subject, knowing from experience that stewing on bad thoughts like that sucked.
“So! You’ve been here before right, that means there’s a way out, we just need to find it.”
Hunter grimaced internally, the Human-Luz already told him the only way she got out before was to return through the portal she came through the first time.
Despite this she didn’t seem to notice, only giving the Grimwalker a small rueful smile before it turned into a thoughtful frown. “No, I left through the portal last time… But I’m sure that we can find another way out! We just gotta stick together and, and find it, yeah.”
She gave him a bright, obviously strained smile as she tried to reassure the both of them. Hunter, as the older of the two of them, wanted to give the girl something to hope for so despite knowing their luck he tried to reassure her even if he didn’t quite believe what he was saying himself.
“Yeah! And if we made it here, chances are the others did too, and if not they’ll be safe in the Human Realm right?”
Luz herself didn’t look like she believed him anymore than he did himself but huffed a small smile.
“Right. We’ll find a way out of here, together.” She stuck out her hand, elbow bent upwards like a promise as Hunter cuffed his with hers, “Together.” He nods resolutely.
The time in the in-between taking its toll, creeping unnoticed as the Human and Grimwalker plan their freedom from its grasp. The soles of their shoes and the hems of their pants eroding into dark shadow the longer the two linger, unnoticed by both.
After all, the Collector was but a mere shadow by the time the young Titan released him, only able to interact with the outer worlds through shadow and mirrors.