Work Text:
"Oh. My. Titan," Amity whispers.
The kids, Camila and the Collector stare at the Boiling Isles from the Collector's palace. Long red grass sways lazily in the fresh breeze. The sky is streaked pastel shades of pink, purple and yellow; the colours of dawn. A new day.
"Did we win?" Camila says in a hushed tone.
"I think so," Hunter responds, dazed. Then, against his will, his eyes tear up. "We... we won. We really won."
He puts a hand over his mouth. Willow and Gus hug him, their height differences being very noticeable as they trap him between their formations of parallel arms. This is just like at Hexside.
Camila laughs, sounding a little hysterical. Understandable, considering what just happened. "Oh, I can't believe we actually did it. We actually -" She screams. " Dios mío! What in the name is that!"
She points at a bubble the size of a bowling ball bursting from the floor of the palace. It's black and thick, and suddenly more black bubbles appear beside it as a dark, gooey substance rises from the ground. Everyone takes a step back as seams split in the slime and eerie blue glows from inside.
The blue blinks.
Willow and Gus scream, hugging Hunter until he thinks they've cracked a rib.
"Caleb..." A hand, black slime dripping from its long claws reaches for him. Ice spreads inside Hunter's veins. "My... dear brother..."
"No," Hunter gasps quietly, stumbling back. It can't be him. "I'm not Caleb. I'm not. I'm not."
Belos rises, like a ghost returning from the dead. Gus gags as the slime retreats into the form of a witch. No, wait. It's not a witch...
Oh, Titan.
Hunter can't move.
He's frozen, but not in terror. Instead, he's paralyzed in shock as if the Boiling Isles just got ripped out from under his feet.
It's not Belos.
Nope.
It's Phillip.
Mothertitan.
"Caleb?" Phillip - in dull, formal clothing and a harmless-looking face with rounded human ears - blinks at Hunter with large brown eyes. There isn't a trace of the black palisman slime left. "Caleb, it's me. I thought I lost you when that - that wretched curse possessed me."
He reaches out with unstained white gloves towards Hunter. "I - I know it must be strange, but I only want to help you, brother."
He sounds nothing like Belos. The voice is simple, well-natured. But it's still Belos.
"N - no," Hunter croaks. "I'm not Caleb - you're still lying. I - I know you are," he says a little more forcibly. He's not just an experiment. He's not just the copy of a murdered person.
Phillip freezes, pain flashing over his human face. His gloved hand trembles. "I... Hunter? "
It's like he just realized it isn't Caleb, but him.
It's like there isn't even a difference between himself and Caleb.
"Hunter..." He says his name with endearment Hunter hasn't heard from him since he was really young. "You know I only meant you well. You know I only want to save your soul from evil."
He can barely recognize himself shaking his head rapidly and suddenly breathing doesn't exist anymore. "No, no, no. You don't, you don't. You - you tried to kill me."
Numbly, Hunter registers Gus's hand squeezing his own, and the gentle brush of Willow's shoulder as she nudges him behind her, readying her palisman staff. Amity steps beside Willow, clenching her fists even without any Abomination slime available.
Camila carefully pulls the Collector back by their starry-patterned hood and stands in front of them and Hunter as well, tapping the end of her baseball bat against her palm slowly. She glares at Phillip, whose eyes widen at her.
"You - you're human!" he exclaims. "Oh, don't you see? You're just in the same place I was when that terrible curse -"
Camila yells. A flash of metallic red goes high into the air and Phillip yelps.
SPLOSH.
Gus gasps. Amity quickly covers the Collector's eyes, muttering something about how they're still too young to be traumatized, though Hunter silently thinks it's a little late for that.
"Hmph." Camila rests her bat against her shoulder. It drips black and green ooze that disintegrates into dust. She looks a little green. "I never knew vengeance would feel so good, but I am making a mental note to throw up later."
Phillip should be gasping and writhing in pain, watery black tendrils lashing out of his body, judging by the syrupy-slurp sound Hunter is so familiar with. He knows the palistrom power is consuming Phillip's body, and this time there will be no more palismen to keep it at bay.
"Hunter?"
He clasps his hands to his face, feeling the fresh scars rub against his skin and the puffs of his fast breaths against his palms.
He drops his hands slowly and stares to the side. Then he touches Willow's shoulder to silently tell her he's fine. He steps in front of her now, facing Phillip. Gus still holds onto his hand, and they both probably need it.
His heart pounds. If he had a magic bile sac, it would've exploded by now, but somehow this isn't as terrifying as he'd thought.
When he first ran away, he'd imagined - even though he tried so hard not to - facing Belos alone. Flapjack killed and his magic devoured. All the Coven heads either ignoring him or believing he got what he deserved. And Belos was going to drag him down into his subconscious again, or stab him, or kill him in a way that burned into his nightmares.
He never imagined facing him as Phillip, with his friends.
The spewing mass of rotting black and green is...pathetic. And also really gross. All the palismen energy that was once so lively is now decomposed, with the last of Phillip's consciousness within.
Hunter exhales. And he's probably spent too much time around Luz, because this is usually the moment he says something, something like 'Vengeance is mine' or 'In your face, sucker!', but nothing comes out of his throat but air.
There's nothing to say. Because he doesn't need to say anything to a man who only saw him as a tool and a subject for manipulation. He's not that, not anymore. He also can't say anything even if he wants to.
"Nephew..." Below's hand melts into goop, which melts into runny liquid seeping into the ground. "They're...evil... Human, we are..."
Willow's hand slips into his. The last of Phillip is absorbed by the hairline cracks in the palace floor.
"I'm not Caleb," Hunter repeats quietly, and one last sliver of blue blinks at him and then he's gone. He says it to himself, not to Phillip.
There are no words needed for Belos anymore.