Chapter Text
The wind stilled as the battle lulled. Hunter and Gus watched Amity, Willow, and Luz stand across the narrow stone bridge with tense footing. The three readied staffs and glyphs, their backs illuminated by the red solar eclipse looming above the Boiling Isles.
The bridge between the two groups was flat with evenly spaced pillars, white as bones. The silver oaks in the emperor’s mindscape rose to Hunter’s mind, but he quickly buried the memory. At the end of the ivory bridge, deeper into the titan’s skull, the portal door to the human realm was primed in a yellow glow. Gus and Hunter were closer to the portal, but they didn’t run towards it. They were both tied to the world before them, and to the figure standing between them and their friends.
The emperor’s antlered mask laid discarded on the floor, thrown away for a new lumbering form. His uncle—no, Belos—had risen to almost three times Hunter’s height, with sickening green skeletal limbs. He paused between the witches, flanked and outnumbered, but not outmatched. They’ve been fighting for the longest few minutes of their lives, but they weren’t any closer to defeating him than when they started.
The air was stale with the Isle’s screams as the Day of Unity waged on. The draining spell spreading up Hunter’s wrist was a harsh reminder of their limited time. His coven sigil made moving to fight against the emperor difficult, and Hunter tried to shove away the symbol’s irony. He couldn’t afford to pause or think or process all of the things that have happened, not now.
It was Gus that broke the moment of silence. He stepped forwards with his arms raised in a spell, his new pendant hanging in the magic between his hands. He spoke loudly and with a slight smirk. "All right Belos, time to calm down a little.”
A lustrous cyan filled Gus’s eyes, and Belos’ own darting eyes reluctantly copied the glow. Belos roared a snarl and snapped his sickly hands to his head, writhing under the weight of something unseen. Hunter knew from experience that Gus’ magic was strong and that his illusions were nearly indiscernible from reality. He hoped Belos was somehow seeing all the pain that his actions were causing. Maybe then he would reverse it and everything could just go back to… normal.
But it wouldn’t be that easy, would it?
His uncle had promised Hunter a future and his uncle said he never wanted to hurt Hunter. But even if his uncle reversed the draining spell and started to accept wild witches, it wouldn’t erase the pain he’s caused to so many people, and from so many years ago.
Hunter wished he could look at his uncle Belos and see the same monster that his friends were fighting. He should see the monster who’s hurt so many witches, who’s hurt his friends, who’s hurt him. Logically a decaying inhuman slime-flesh entity trying to kill his friends should be labeled a monster. But something in Hunter just needed Belos to be his uncle. He still held onto the dumb, undeserved hope that Belos could be redeemed. He was still holding onto his lies, his praises and promises, so few and far between. And for what?
His friends were fighting a blood thirsty monster while Hunter was stuck in a past that had only existed for a few moments each month. While Gus and Willow and Amity and Luz were starting to fight again, Hunter just stood there, on the sidelines, like a heeling dog.
It looked like Gus wouldn’t be able to hold the spell for much longer. Hunter needed to help. He needed to move. But he couldn’t kill his uncle–he couldn’t–he…but the monster was trying to kill his friends. Hunter’s killed before, he’s killed for so much less. The Golden Guard never needed reassurances. Why was he suddenly questioning why he was fighting? Was the blood on his hands only heavy if it’s his uncle’s?
There was so much blood on his hands. There was blood on his uniform, on his broken mask, his opened face, the tiled floor, the–
Hunter flinched as Belos’ curse lashed through the air in front of him. The knuckles on his good hand whitened as he pulled his staff closer. The stone floor suddenly felt too much like the throne room. Hunter looked at Gus and tried to remember how to breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He needed to move, he needed to help his—his allies. They could stop the day of unity, they could defeat his uncle Belos and–and they could lock him in a conformatorium cell. They don’t have to kill the emperor to stop the day of unity… right?
Hunter started towards Gus, his feet finally listening to his rushing thoughts. He could help with damage control, he didn’t need to attack. Titan, really, physical attacks probably wouldn’t work on Belos, with him being made from an unconforming green sludge and stuff. Even with his staff’s magic, his attacks were mainly physical and short ranged. He could just help with support and… yeah.
Before Hunter could reach Gus’ side, Belos reared back with his head clutched in his hands. He stumbled backwards, colliding with a grating crack against one of the stony columns holding up the bridge. Large cracks blossomed out from the crater created by the impact and spread like wildfire into the ceiling. Great. As if the room wasn’t hazardous enough already.
Willow and Luz stepped in to hold up the pillar with curling vines, but with more cracks forming and rubble falling, the room proved to be too old and unstable. Large chunks of the ceiling fell across the bridge, landing in massive piles around the battle. But thanks to a mix of luck and Amity’s abomination magic, they remained unhit. With adrenaline, fear, and the draining spell coursing through his veins, Hunter turned back to flash step towards Gus and cover them both. But… something… stopped him.
A strange, strangled sound came from his right, so detached and shrill and short that he almost lost it to the clamor. Hunter instinctively turned his head towards the noise, wildly fearing that Belos had brought an unknown ally.
Large sheets of concrete covered the base of the pillar across the one broken by Belos. Hunter had stopped breathing, too focused on trying to listen for the sound, but it didn’t repeat itself. Then, Hunter’s eyes stopped on the cracks between the plates of concrete. There was a dark red… something, inching towards Hunter as it flattened itself against the floor. Boiling rain doesn’t pool like that…
He froze there, wasting seconds to stare on in terror. It was blood. On the stone, on the tiled floor, on his face. His breathing failed him as he choked–choked on the smell of iron filling his mouth, his throat, his lungs. Gus fell from his mind, and he forgot how to breathe. Hunter couldn’t take his eyes away from the red spilling out onto the floor. He couldn’t turn away. He couldn’t move.
Another flash of red flew into the edge of his vision. But the red wasn’t blood, it wasn’t pain, it wasn’t fire or enemies or danger. It was Flapjack. The red was his palisman, it was healing, it was sunrise and friends and safety.
The little bird chirped and Hunter looked at him. Flapjack cooed, with a kind but urgent glint in his eyes. Hunter drew in a shallow and shaking breath and turned away until he couldn’t see the pile of rubble at all. It was just in his head. The draining spell, the adrenaline, the fear, his exhaustion–it was all playing tricks on him. There hadn’t been anyone on the bridge when they came in, except Belos. There wasn’t anyone else here, there wasn’t anyone bleeding, there wasn’t any blood at all. Flapjack flew around Hunter to keep in his sight, Hunter wondered, not for the first time, what he had done to deserve a palisman like Flap.
Flapjack turned towards the battle and transformed into Hunter’s staff once more. With the battle back in focus, he could see Gus’ spell had run out. Belos was recovering enough to attack sensibly again. Hunter watched the others dodging falling rocks from where they stood on the ivory bridge. They weren’t looking at Gus, they weren’t looking at the sickening beast raising up a massive hand to let it fall, to crush, to kill–
Hunter could feel a familiar golden magic slow the world.
Flapjack.
Only Hunter could see Belos’ hand falling in slow motion, and only he had enough time to realize that the impact would kill Gus. He couldn’t waste any more time. Titan, why did he let himself get so distracted by a hallucination–by his own delirious mind?
He didn’t want his childish ideas of normalcy anymore. He wanted to carve palismen. He wanted to play flier derby with his friends. He wanted to attend Hexside and talk in the halls with Gus and Willow and Luz and, Titan, even the Blight girl. He wanted to finally be free to make his own decisions. He wanted to be able to sleep a full night without paralyzing nightmares or the fear of being attacked. He wanted the hallucinations and the nightmares and the weight on his chest to go away. But most of all, Hunter wanted to make sure this monster never hurt anyone ever again.
Hunter dashed forwards, finding his feet somewhere in between the present and the future. Sick green dripped onto Hunter’s hair as he stepped under the claw’s shadow with a golden flash step. Hunter charged into Gus, using the force of Flapjack’s magic to send him crashing to the ground, just out of Belos’ range.
He saw Gus’s eyes shut quickly, as he fell to the ground, painfully fast. Everything was painfully fast. Flapjack’s magic had gone back into cooldown. A shadow fell over Hunter, separating him from Gus. A sudden cold pressure descended on his neck, and then on his entire back. Hunter’s knees hit the floor first, and his skull hit it second. Then, everything went black.