Chapter Text
Luz looked up to the sound of muffled talking. She couldn’t quite see clearly who was talking. This pink bubble she’s in makes it a bit hard to see through now that for some reason it had fogged up.
“Emperor, congratulations on this momentous day.” Kikimoras voice reached her ears.
Luz narrowed her eyes. If Kiki is saying that then that means the emperor is near by.
“I come bearing a gift” Kiki said, her voice sounding desperate to please. “You had been looking for the Golden Guard, and here he is!” She said all to cheerful. If only she knew who was really in this bubble.
“Perhaps this act is worthy of me returning to my old post. Or, if you're looking for a new right hand...”
Belos scoffed. “Have you as my right hand? I'd sooner cut off my whole arm.” he said dryly. His voice laced in venom.
“But, uh, I just want to help.” Kikimora said desperately.
“You want to help?” he asked, almost sounding genuine. “Go find a hole to wither away in.” He spat as he used his magic to drag Kikimora away.
Luz hears Belos’s boots tap further into the distance until she could not hear him anymore.
She hears a faint cry form an unknown voice. All she hears is the voice repeating “your a liar, liar, pants on fire!” Until its voice was completely gone.
Soon after the voice was drained away, she heard Belos’s clicking boots once again returning.
His foggy silhouette stopping right outside the pink prison Luz was currently trapped in.
He seems to be staring down at her and Luz gets more uncomfortable as each silent second passed.
Suddenly he sighed in annoyance. “Of course, she'd mess up such a simple task.” He grumbled.
Suddenly the bubble popped open and Luz fell to her knees. She looked up to meet the eyes of Philip.
“But I am glad to see you, my fellow human.” He spoke. A wicked smile spread across his chap lips.
Luz didn’t answer, just narrowed her eyes at him.
He giggled. His laugh being one to haunt her for years
“What, no fight left? Or did you learn your lesson from last time?”
Luz scoffs. She puffs her chest out in confidence as she slowly reaches into her pocket. “You wish.” She sneered.
She quickly pulled out an invisibility glyph and slapped it on her chest. Sucking in a breath, she felt the magic working as she felt her body become lighter. She ran right behind Belos, making sure she had two fire glyphs in her hands, she let out her breath.
Belos simply tilted his head slightly to meet her eyes. As if he knew she’d pull this move.
“Spicy Toss!” Luz yelled slapping the two fire glyphs together. she pulled them apart sending a big X of fire hurling towards the emperor.
Belos swiped his staff through the flames, Deflecting it easily.
He turned fully to her with an annoyed expression. “Of course not.” He said before smiling wickedly as he held up his staff. He shot a beam of red magic straight towards Luz.
Luz quickly dodged out of the way landing roughly on her side. The beam of magic barley misses her and blast straight through a wall. Leaving debris and dust flying through the air. Luz uses this as an opportunity to run without being seen.
Quickly, Luz ran to behind one of the many beams inside the room.
“Human. Where are you~” Belos sang in a deep mellow symphony. He stayed in one spot turning in a circle.
Luz pulled out her glyphs. She had used all her paper on her way here making sure she had every glyph written down and prepared. She picked out five ice glyphs and carefully placed the others back in her pocket. Careful to not set them off.
“You know, I didn’t realize you have already started combining glyphs. It took me years to figure that out.” He said almost sounding impressed. He was facing away from her. This is her chance.
“almost like the titan himself was keeping it away from me.”
She ran out from her Hiding spot. Slipping an ice glyph onto the support beam. Immediately Belos whipped around, as if he had known she was there, and shot another spell at her.
Luz dived behind another beam as quick as she could, but apparently not quick enough. His magic grazed her ankle right as she was slipping behind the beam. It Burned like fire, like she had boiled her own foot, but when she looked down, there was nearly no mark.
“You like it?” Belos asked smiling straight at the beam she was behind. “It’s an old spell. It causes unbelievable pain, but barely leaves a mark. I’ve driven some of my old golden guards crazy with this.” He laughed, “one even tried to pull of its skin because of the pain,” he smiled as he spoke, as if that was one of his fondest memories.
Luz sucked in a breath as the pain in her ankle grew with each second, but she doesn’t have time to worry about this injury, as soon as Belos is down, she can get it healed.
Luz slapped another ice glyph down and ran to another beam. Her leg screaming in agony with each movement.
It felt as if claws were scraping down her legs.
Belos shot at her once again, but Luz learned her lesson and stayed low to the ground as his magic flew right above her. She placed down one last glyph and swiped up. The ice quickly started growing along the support beam, along with the others. As soon as the ice reached the roof, razor sharp icicles shot down towards belos.
The emperor raises his staff and spins it in a circle breaking the ice.
“You are decades away from beating me human.”
Luz jumps out unexpectedly and throws down a fire glyph.
For once belos didn’t seem to be expecting that and he narrowly moves out the way as the fire blows past him. Luz lands gracefully on her uninjured foot and turns her heal to run out of Belos’s fire range but as soon as she puts down her other foot, Pain Runs up her leg and into her whole body.
She falls over in pain as belos morphs his hand and snatches her into his green globby claw.
Luz kicked and screamed as Belos dragged her back. Swearing in Spanish as she dragged her foot into the ground. Eventually belos raises Luz to be eye to eye with him.
“Eat dirt Belos!” she spat in his face.
“It’s Philip,” he corrected with an annoyed look on his face, “and despite out differences, I want to help you, Luz. I can send you home. I have just enough titans’ blood for one more trip.”
Luz looked towards the door. Its glowing golden eye beckoning her to go home, to be with her mama. She tares her eyes away from the door and faced back to Bel- Philip.
“Please. I don't want to see another human life destroyed by this place.” He spoke with a hit of desperation in his voice.
Luz stared at him for a second, seeming to be in thought, before she gave him an un-impressed look. “You're such a hypocrite. You talk big about protecting humanity, but after everything you've done, you're barely human yourself.” As the words left her mouth, Philips scar returned to his face.
Philip stared at her for a second before signing in disappointment. “I do pity you. These monsters have warped your sense of reality.”
Luz continued to stare daggers at him.
“Perhaps it'd be merciful to put you out of your misery.” He said in a dark tone before he raised his hand.
Suddenly Luz’s Feet began to turn into stone. She can feel the felling in her body drain away as the stone climbed its way up her body.
Luz’s heart drops. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait! You-- You can't! You-“ She fumbles over her words as she looks desperately into Philips eyes, praying he’d somehow change is mind. when she realizes he won’t listen she panics and looks around the room.
Door
Wall
Table
Glove!
” Y-You do realize you've been gone from the Human Realm for centuries.” She starts, watching as his interest is peaked. “Times have changed. You wanna be known as the Emperor of the Witch Hunters, right?”
Philip raises his eyebrow, curious on where this is going. “Witch Hunter General.” He corrected.
“Sure, sure. Uh, Witch Hunter General.” She repeated, carefully thinking about her next words. “But those aren't really a thing anymore. No one's gonna take you seriously if you start ranting about the Demon Realm. Not to mention a fashion sense like that...” she gestures to his outfit.
Self-consciously Philip looks down confused. Then looks back at luz.
“Yikes, my dude.”
As if offended, Philip throws right, into the table. luz’s back hitting right on the corner. She hisses in pain but quickly grabs the branding glove and hides it behind her. She looks back up as Philip looks down towards her.
“So what? You're offering to be my modern-day guide?”
“I'm not offering anything. But I do wanna make a deal.”
Belos looks down in interest.
Luz takes a deep breath in. “I can't beat you. I know that. So... I will return to the Human Realm, and I will be your guide. If, you spare my friends.”
Immediately Philips interest is gone and replaced with annoyance. He scoffs and rolls his eyes.
“Come on. You'll need living proof that this realm exists. You'd do anything to save humanity, well,” Tears start welling up in her eyes as she feels the stone crawl up to her neck, “I'd do anything to save the people I love. Please... Philip!” stone covers her mouth and she fully believes Philip will just sit here and watch her die.
Then Philip smiled, seeming satisfied with what luz said as he calls off the spell. The stone starts retreating.
Luz takes a gasp of air and looks up to Philip surprised.
“Fine.” Is all he says as he turns away.
Luz scrambles to her feet. The pain in her ankle was no longer there.
he must of undid that spell as well.
She holds out her left hand. “Then shake on it. Human style.”
Philip looked back at her. Then down to the hand behind her. He gave her and un-impressed look.
Giggling, luz showed him the empty hand behind her back.
Philip takes her hand and shakes it when suddenly, Luz's right hand immediately flies to him. The feeling of burning alerted Philip to what was happening. He pulled his hand away only to see a sigil burned into his skin. Immediately his veins start to glow a sickly yellow.
He turns back to luz, confusion in his eyes. Luz smiles as she lets out a breath and the branding glove appears on her hand.
Philips face turns into realization before it was replaced in anger. His body starts to morph. His skin melting into a green abyss.
He screamed. His voice echoed with the sound of hundreds of talisman. All screaming in pain.
Luz stares up at the tall globby figure looming over her. His many eyes staring straight at her, and if looks could kill, Luz would be the god damn reaper.
He screams. His voice echoing with the sound of the past talisman he has broken.
She dodges out of the way as Philips claws reach after her. Each second, he gets closer. His claws scratching her every time he grazes her skin.
He screams. Creatures of all shapes calling for help behind his angered woes.
Luz runs out the tall doors leading to the exit of the titan’s skull. She sees the light of the red moon. She sees the light of the golden magic being sucked away from witches as their quiet, but desperate screams reach her ears.
He screams. Along with the witches slowly dying right outside, along with the thousands of talisman that were snapped in half, but he, he is the only angered scream. The rest are fearful and frightened.
Philip appears right in front of Luz in a blink of an eye. She tries to turn but he is too fast. Luz stares in horror as his claw slams down on her. She felt her ribs cracking as he continued to put more pressure on her pinned body. She wheezes out a few breaths and her lungs burned each breath she managed to squeeze in.
Philip stared down at her. His eyes unmoving as he raised his empty claw. It morphs from a hand to some crooked green knife.
Luzs eyes pop open as she understands what’s happening.
“wait, no, please-“ she wheezes out but Philip simply pushes her down harder, he seems to be done talking to her. The rim of her eyes filled with tears as she grabbed at the hand pushing her down, but her hands just slipped through the green substance.
She choked out short and sharp coughs as he slowly lowered the knife to her throat.
“You made a grave mistake luz.” Philip growled, “You could have gone home, but you decided to give your life for a couple of witches”
Without even giving Luz a moment to process his words he presses his knife into her throat.
Luz gagged on the blood spilling out her mouth as she grasped at the green substance slicing through her throat. The sickening rip as the blade like object went through her. Her neck burning with indescribable pain as her vision starts to black at the corner of her eyes.
Her neck is pouring rivers
This wasn’t the plan… this wasn’t how it was supposed to end
Flashes of her mother and friends show before her eyes. Mama, Eda, King, Vee, Willow, Gus, Hunter, Amity….
She chokes on the blood filling her throat. For some reason he didn’t cut deep enough to give her a quick death. He cut just enough so he could watch her choke.
sick
Her neck is pouring rivers
She’s going to die without seeing her mama or vee again.
She’s going to die without helping Eda get free.
She’s going to die without helping king with his titan-hood.
She’s going to die without telling amity I love you.
She’s going to die without hugging her friends one last time.
She’s going to die and all she’ll see will be Philips distorted face.
The last thing she remembers are vines wrapping around Philips large form and a fuzzy noise of someone calling her name before her world went dark.
Her neck is pouring rivers…