A/N: Hoo boy, this chapter's got me anxious. I hope you all enjoy it. And if you don't, I hope you can keep the criticism constructive. I mentioned in the last chapter a section of this chapter was giving me trouble, and I'm still not satisfied with it, but I don't think I ever will be, and the show must go on!
Amelia strolled through the town of Bonesborough, unimpeded, but always looking over her shoulder. She had some idea of the layout of the town, and where she needed to go, but that didn't shake the anxiousness or worry that she'd take a wrong turn and throw the entire plan off.
It didn't help that she had to go out here alone. She knew the others were around, but she couldn't spot them no matter how much she looked. That didn't help her growing paranoia in the slightest.
She made it to the town's center, an area full of small houses, shops, and a fountain in the middle of the square. It looked like a standard fantasy village, if not for the colorful characters roaming about that looked more out of a twisted fairy tale. Amelia grimaced and decided that this world had entirely too many eyeballs in it for her liking.
Demons and witches meandered around, trying to get through their daily business, but an air of gloom overshadowed everything, likely due to the vast amount of guards patrolling the streets and watching over every little detail of everyone's lives. Amelia was thankful she lived in the digital age, and that all her movements were done by cameras and machines, it was just plain unnerving when it was done in person.
She checked her phone, looking at the time. At exactly five PM she was supposed to make her move. She had a few minutes to kill while everyone else got into their places, so she took that time to start counting the guards. Well over a dozen in the square alone, but nothing she couldn't handle.
She breathed a sigh, and closed her eyes, taking a moment to find her center and calm herself. She was going to do fine. She was supercharged. They'd knock the plan out of the park, and by this time tomorrow, everything would be back to normal. Or whatever normal passed for on the Boiling Isles.
It was time.
"Hey, think you could help me for a sec?" She called to a passing guard, who stopped in his tracks and backpedaled to the pretty girl beckoning to him.
"Anything for such a lovely citizen!"
Amelia smirked, "Good, why don't you do me a favor and take a little nap?"
She raised her hand up to his mask-covered face, and unleashed hell.
At the same time, far off towards the heart cavity of the Titan, deep within the inner sanctum of the Emperor's Castle, Belos sat upon his throne. The Tyrant was currently gripping the armrests, doing everything in his power to keep himself together, as he had been for the past day.
Not only was his body failing him, but the voices in his head wouldn't silence themselves. A cacophony of sounds that he knew must be the Titan speaking to him, cursing him for his failures.
Or, that's what he believed he was hearing. There was just so much noise he could barely make any individual sounds out. Before, he could silence it, or focus it with Palisman magic, but with them out of his grasp the voices refused to cease any longer.
He wasn't even aware of a voice calling his name, asking for an audience, until a hand tugged at his cloak. Snapping out of his daze, he only just managed to stay his hand when he saw Kikimora, ever loyal, at his side.
"Why do you disturb my communion with the Titan?" The Emperor rasped, forcing his body to sit up in his seat, instead of hunching over in pain.
Kikimora held up a crystal ball that she held in her hands, "You need to see this, sire."
Reluctantly, and with shaking hands, Belos took the ball and brought it to the blank, empty eyes of his mask, gazing into it. It was a news report, being covered by the reporter Perry Porter, as something disastrous was going on in the background.
"-Came out of nowhere and has started attacking the Emperor's Coven Guards. Witnesses say she is demanding an audience with Emperor Belos himself. Be on the watch for this highly dangerous, incredibly deranged young woma-"
"Hey," A voice just off camera greeted casually, and Porter startled, the camera turning around to face someone familiar to the Emperor, as she had been one of the unexpected guests in his castle just the day before. The girl with the wild, green hair who had destroyed his portal in an explosion of hellfire, and ended the Day of Unity. Belos' fists clenched as she watched her on the ball in front of him.
"What do you want?" Perry asked as the girl approached him. Fear was evident on his face, but she just casually threw an arm around his shoulder and beckoned the cameraman to come closer.
"I just want to send a message. Hey, chief asshole? I'm going to keep kicking your guys' asses until you get down here and fight me yourself." She narrowed her eyes at the camera.
"A-and why should he do that?" Porter asked, tripping over himself and trying to get out of her grip, "I-I mean to say, I'm asking as a neutral reporter, of course."
"He knows what he did, but I guess I can spell it out for you," The girl shoved Perry aside and pointed a finger into the camera's lens. "My name is Amelia Bane, but a decade ago I went by another name. Emily Blight. That fraud on his throne cast me into another world through a portal so that I couldn't expose him."
She spread her arms out theatrically, "He did all of that because he knew that it was I, not him, that is the true voice of the Titan!"
There was numerous gasps from the watching crowd, but Amelia ignored them. "So I'm calling him out, in a Witch's Duel. Winner takes all. Come and face me, you coward."
With that she stepped forward, shoving the camera aside. The cameraman spun, and the footage cut, and went to static just as Amelia punched another guard in the face, then restarted on loop.
Belos squeezed the armrests so tightly they began to crack and break under his grip. The deceit. The lies! He hadn't even had access to a portal a decade prior, not since the Owl Lady got her hands on it. He shook, this time not from weakness but from unbridled, uncontrollable rage.
"Emperor Belos!" Kikimora piped up, not even flinching as her ruler stood from his throne and hurled the crystal ball across the room, where it shattered on impact with a wall. "Allow me to take my guards and bring this hooligan to justice! Or the Coven Heads, if that should please you? A lifetime in the conformatorium should fix her behavior."
Belos growled, low and animalistic. The voices were back, thumping against his skull, but this time they all had a singular goal for him, telling him to silence the witch. Destroy her. Do that and he would be forgiven for his past failures. "No. She wants a Witch's Duel, then she will find herself in a witch's duel."
He grabbed his staff, which rested against his throne, and in a flash of light he melted into a puddle of flesh, vanishing from sight.
Amelia blasted another coven guard who came her way, sending them flying and crashing into a conveniently placed hay stack, which had an inconveniently placed pitchfork. She was making short work of these witches, in a way she was sure would make the Owl Lady proud from the way she seemed to talk about these guys in white cloaks.
She made a spectacle of it, jeering menacingly at her opponents and calling for Belos' head, boasting to all who would listen that she had stopped his Day of Unity in the name of the Titan. Despite her boasting, she honestly hoped the emperor got here soon, even with all this extra magic flowing through her she'd still tire out eventually.
Amelia was getting tired of waiting enough that she considered addressing the cameras still on her again, when he finally showed himself. In a twisted mass of muscle and bone that made Amelia's stomach churn, Belos' form appeared, towering over her, masked, with staff in hand.
Amelia prepared to fight, but the Emperor held out a hand, giving her pause. Instead of bursting into battle, the tyrant took a moment to address the camera, as well as the onlooking crowds, making a show of overlooked Amelia altogether, as if to tell her and everyone else he didn't perceive her as a threat.
"My loyal subjects," His voice boomed in a way that didn't make Amelia doubt it had been magically enhanced beyond its normal volume. "I have come to personally put your doubts to rest."
He took one step towards Amelia, "I will silence this heretic with the backing of the Titan. He has shown me the way, and He, nor I, shall stand for this mockery of His name."
His staff flared to life and he leveled it towards the Blight girl, "This duel shall be quick, and before the sun has set the conformatorium shall have a new statue added to it's courtyard."
Amelia took a defensive stance, and the two began to circle around each other, posed to strike. Amelia didn't want to make the first move, instead she let the Emperor begin, and he did so by firing a blast of red lightning from the gem of his staff, which Amelia dodged with a sidestep, narrowly getting out of the way as the blow vaporized part of the building behind her.
Spinning a circle as large as her arms would allow her, Amelia fired off an enormous jet of fire, spinning her body around and using her other hand to bring forth a series of sharp points of ice bursting from the ground.
Belos didn't waver, dodging both fire and ice and teleporting behind Amelia, who only barely managed to dodge a physical strike aimed for her head. She took a step back, drawing another circle in the air to make a wall of ice between them.
The Emperor laughed at her, a mocking cackle, "Is this all you've managed to learn in your time in the human realm? Two measly spells? Congratulations, you meet the bare standards to go to a children's school."
Once more the Emperor appeared behind Amelia, but before he could strike she fired a blast of fire, not at him, but at the blocks of ice from her previous spell, a cloud of steam clouding the both of them and allowing the girl to slip through his grasp and out of sight.
"I can assure you, it's not all I know how to do!" Amelia's voice rang throughout the cloud, and Belos had to sidestep as a pillar of Earth appeared beneath his feet, striking high into the sky, far above the houses of the square. Amelia burst out of the steam cloud, hands clad in spiked earthen gloves and she struck the pillar, causing it to tip and fall in Belos' direction.
It was far too slow, of course, even at a brisk walk he would be able to get out of the way, only to find his feet incapable as plants and roots wrapped around his ankles. Instead, he lifted his staff and created a shield that the stone pillar crashed into, and with a pulse of magic the entire pillar blew away into nothing but loose dirt. This just created another cloud for the girl to hide in, something that was beginning to seriously anger the tyrant, who gripped his staff with enough force that he trembled.
Then there were two of Amelia, standing a good dozen feet away on either side of him. Both smirked, and together they spun a spell circle. Belos sneered behind his mask, at such a simple parlor trick. Obviously one of them was a fake, and incapable of actually harming him, so he focused on the one he knew had to be real, just based upon her location relevant to the dirt cloud she'd used to hide that was now little more than dust in the wind.
He fired a jet of fire at his feet, incinerating the plants that held him in place, and trudged towards her, deflecting the spell with ease as it fired from her circle. The impact assured him even further that this was the real Amelia, only for a blast of fire to hit him in the back as well, igniting his cloak.
He tore the cloak off of him, confused as he faced the girl. She had clearly fired at him from the other side first, yet had also managed an illusion that could hit him as well? He stared down the illusion, which made a face at him and flipped him the bird, then turned his attention to the real one, only to find that it was gone.
He blinked, then slammed his staff into the ground at his feet, jostling the entire market with a mighty construction style spell. He was done being trifled with, especially by a little brat. He turned again, facing what he had formerly believed to be the illusion, only to find her knocked to the ground by the force of his spell, and slowly began a death march towards her, growling.
"I am the voice of the Titan," He roared, grabbing the girl by the collar and hoisting her into the air. "I will not be made a fool of by some little upstart. The Titan speaks to me, and me alone."
Amelia, with balls larger than the Titan himself, just continued to smirk. "Did he tell you that? Why don't we ask him, huh?"
Belos cocked his head, and prepared to strike the insolent witch, but she kicked him back and forced him to drop her. Then, with another twirl of her finger she spun another spell, with Belos bringing up another shield to stop the blow.
It never came. He peered curiously as the spell seemed to do nothing, and yet her cockily grin was still present, as if she knew something he didn't.
Then the ground trembled beneath him with such force it nearly knocked him off his feet. Construction magic? He turned his attention back to the girl, raising his staff to deliver a blow, only for his confusion to deepen when he found her on her knees, bowing deeply.
Then the ground thumped again, shaking the very foundations of the square, yet there was no spell circle he could see. The few townsfolk and guards who observed the battle were no longer looking in their direction, instead looking off into the distance behind him, towards the north. Towards the Titan's skull.
Belos turned, and paled. Far off in the distance he could see it, the skull. Moving. Vibrating and shaking as if trying to dislodge itself from the very stone that made it's grave. Inside the empty sockets, a green glow began to appear, almost as bright as the sun. These eyes seemed to gaze into Belos' being, and he involuntarily took a step back.
What was this sorcery?
The townsfolk around him began to openly panic as the Titan's gaze leveled on them. The ground shook as if it were taking a deep breath, and from between its teeth, echoing through the valleys and mountains, came a voice. "BELOS."
The air whipped around Belos as the words reached him, kicking up dust at his feet, the Titan's very breath running over him and causing his body to tremble. The only thing keeping him on his feet was his staff which was dug into the stonework beneath him. "M-my Lord-"
"My Lord, I humbly offer you this false prophet. He's long used your name to commit heinous crimes, turning the people against your true will." Amelia spoke over him, head still bowed.
Belos could only watch as the Titan stared, then once more the ground shook. To say it trembled would be an understatement, as it felt like the entirety of the Boiling Isles were ready to tear themselves apart under their feet. Then Belos realized just why, as the Titan began to raise it's right arm. Water from the boiling oceans dripped and fell in torrents, earth and trees fell. Belos could easily name half a dozen towns that must have been completely demolished, countless lives slain from the movement alone.
The Titan gave them life. And it had just taken it away.
The hand stationed itself over Bonesborough, blotting out the afternoon sun and shrouding the entire town in shadows. Agonizingly slowly, the Titan closed its hand into a fist, with one extended finger, and began to bear down onto Belos' location. It intended to squish him to death.
Everyone and everything dies eventually. Belos knew this. He'd been prepared for this. He'd spent the last few years on borrowed time, and yet, facing this level of destruction, he found he still wasn't ready. He couldn't scream. He couldn't plead. He could only gape beneath his mask and shroud as his staff clattered to the ground, and him following after it.
As the giant bony finger descended, his life began to flash before his eyes.
Belos Wittebane's hands pressed the buttons on the side of the machine, cheery clicks and whirs playing from the speakers as a little silver ball bounced off paddles, making lights flash.
Beside him, a gaggle of human teenagers watched as he played, murmuring about him being a "Pinball Wizard" meeting his ears and making his own youthful face turn upward into a grin. If only they knew just how accurate that was.
Earth was a bizarre, often frightening place for such a young man, but he preferred it over the spiteful, hateful voices that met him in his hometown in the Demon Realm. Peace and quiet, even a little bit of praise, would soothe him, and it was all just a trip through a magical door away.
Whatever ancestor that cursed him with a defective bile sac had also blessed him with a merciful escape from those that shunned him for it.
Eventually the game came to an end, his score the highest recorded on the machine, as it always was. He took his leave, giving his fellow teens a playful challenge to top his score before he came back again, and popped out of the arcade, hands in his pockets, the very song they compared him to humming in his throat.
Outside, the streets weren't busy, they never were on rainy days, even if it was nothing more than a light drizzle. Belos loved the cool feeling on his face, a far cry from the blisters the rain back home would leave if they'd made contact with his skin.
He was surprised to see that there was a group of people out, though. Signs and voices raised, protesting against others that were different from them. The signs had words on them he didn't know, but understood to be slurs, and it almost made sense they'd be out in the rain everyone else hated. Spite was a powerful force.
He didn't understand those who hated others for what they couldn't change. What they were born with. There were so many who deserve hatred for what they could control, and yet these people hung behind the idea that they were better than others. Or that their Gods told them the others were inferior, as this group clearly seemed to believe.
He brushed past them without a word, not sparing them the time of day, or the effort of acknowledgment.
Belos trudged down the muddy streets of his village, hiding the hurt in his heart below the surface, and the bruises on his flesh. They only hit him because he couldn't fight back. Only mocked him because they knew he couldn't strike them down the same as they did to him.
His Palisman, a spider that had been in his family for generations, did it's best to comfort him, but all Belos wanted to do was forget. He tired of this world. He ached for humanity, for even if they were ugly towards each other they at least ignored him. Perhaps he would be better off living in the Human Realm from now on. Perhaps that is why his ancestor made it, to flee from such a cruel world.
He continued through the markets, hungry and looking for something to eat before he went back home to his family, all of them as miserable as he was. It was only then that he saw something that would change his future forever. A titleless book for sale in one of the stalls, discounted to a meer snail. He felt drawn to it like no other.
Taking it in his hands, he flipped through the pages, each filled with curiosities he'd never seen or heard of before. Curses, transformations. One of note caught his eye.
The Grimwalker.
Without a word to the stall vendor, he paid the single snail and went on his way, nose buried in the book and his hunger forgotten, the promises of power that sang to him far from hollow, and the thoughts of fleeing to the Human Realm forgotten..
He laughed as they tried to hurt him again. Laughed as their blows went through him as if his body were made of soft clay, or mud. Laughed as their sneers turned to faces full of fright.
It hadn't been easy to attain this new form. So many months of finding rare ingredients, but it had all paid off wonderfully. He felt pain no longer. His body was made from the mud of the Titan's grave now.
Staff in hand, he blasted them back, their voices silent but he could still hear the memories of their jeers, calling him names like "The Titan's reject," for his lack of ability. Now their cries sounded like music to his ears.
Before long, they were at his feet begging, literally, for mercy. It felt so good to be the one in charge now. A voice in the back of his mind, an instinct, told him this was just the beginning.
The Titan's Will. The Titan's Voice.
Those were the titles they had bestowed upon him now. The more he fought back, the more they cowered. The more of his might he put on display, the more began to follow him. His once small town now obeyed him without question, and the towns around him paid him gifts in exchange for his protection.
Murmurs would reach his ears about how they believed he could unite this entire section of the Titan under his command. There hadn't been a force that large in a few centuries, most witches crumbling under the heels of a rival before they could unite more than a few small towns together, only for the same thing to happen to the ones who crushed them.
It was a brutal cycle that left The Isles scattered. Leaderless. Broken. But he could fix it. If he had the will to go all the way.
Before the end of the decade, Belos' name was known by all, for he was their Emperor. He sat upon a mighty throne, as the only force that had been capable of uniting all of the Isles under a singular banner in it's known history.
It hadn't been easy, but he'd found a way. Inspired by his time in the Human Realm, he'd done as the humans had, and found a scapegoat, a singular thing to help focus the hatred of every witch upon, declaring their dear Titan was the one to deliver such a message to him.
Wild Magic had been what he'd chosen. Ridiculous, but necessary. Wild magic is what gave him his power in the first place, which is why it was his chosen target. He refused to fall like every other would-be-ruler before him, stomped below the foot of a rival. And if Wild Magic gave him this, then it could take it away just as easily. So he played them like the cheap fiddle they were, claiming the Titan spoke to him, when he knew better than most that dead was dead.
Those of deep faith would now stand out in the boiling rain themselves to protest and persecute anyone Belos told them to, if he wished it.
He instituted the Coven system, an easy way to keep control on the inhabitants of his empire. There wasn't a single individual who could stop him, with the brands that bound them to his power.
Yet, the voice in the back of his head grew louder still.
The voices never went away. Never ever. A constant chatter filled his head, and the louder they got, the less control over his form he could exert. A Golden mask had been commissioned, and with it he hid his lack of control from the public under an intimidating guise.
A golden elixir had held back these issues for more than a decade now, yet now it did nothing for him. He beat his fists against the ground of his throne room, begging, pleading for the voices to stop. They were going to turn his mind to mush, to mud, like it did to his body, which even now began to drip and seep onto the floor.
His faithful Palisman climbed up his back, sitting upon his head and massaged his scalp, as it always had when he felt stressed. It's spindly legs never met flesh, instead only kneading muck.
The voices grew louder, and Belos knew what he must do to make them go away. His body had an insatiable craving for magic that he couldn't satisfy anymore with elixirs. Without remorse, without hesitation, he grasped his oldest friend's form in his hands and tore him from his head, cracking the wood that made his body up under his grip, and brought the dripping, magical liquid to his face, absorbing it's essence into his own form.
The voices… no, the Titan's voice finally stopped. He'd passed the test. And he knew peace.
For a time.
He needed to commission a new staff.
He didn't know why the Titan wanted it. He'd been thinking of it, for the first time in decades, and now the Titan demanded it of him.
The Human Realm. Earth. The calming place that made him happy, where the only sounds that echoed in his ears were not the cacophony of booming, near indecipherable voices, but the silly sounds of pinball and the latest record by The Who over the arcade speakers.
The door had been lost to him though, lost in the destruction of his village many years ago during one of the first big battles in his quest for the throne, gone and likely destroyed. He didn't even know where to begin.
But he- no, the Titan, the Titan wanted it.
H-he would do as the Titan said. He'd unite the worlds. He'd find the door, and maybe then he would know peace again.
Back in the present, Belos knelt, head in his hands. When had he started believing his own lies? When had his mind crumbled to the point he couldn't tell fact from fiction any longer? When had his fate been sealed by the Titan, who he had angered and was now bearing upon him?
"I-I'm-" He mumbled, then belted out as loud as he could, trying to be heard over the sheer noise around him, to utter words he hadn't said in decades. "I'm sorry! Please, spare me, Oh great Titan! Forgive me for using you for my own gain!"
He held his arms out, the wind whipping over him with such force he wondered if anyone could even hear him, much less the Titan. "Would you destroy all of us, just to rid the world of me? Spare me, and return to your rest! I-I shall abdicate my throne! Allow your true voice to rule! Anything!"
But it seemed his cries fell on deaf ears, as the finger continued to come down. With no other options, he bowed his head, and closed his eyes, waiting for the end, and for death to consume him.
He waited. And waited. The winds calmed down, the ground stopped shaking, and he still waited. Then a laugh met his ear. Not a kind laugh, but an uproarious one, from the very woman behind him.
He wrenched his eyes open, and looked to the sky to find no finger, nor fist, nor arm hanging over the town. The Head of the Titan was back in its place, not glaring down on him. The right arm of the Titan appeared to have never moved from its spot, the trees and forests that had grown on it undisturbed.
The sun gleamed down on him from an empty sky, and he realized to his horror he'd been played a fool the entire time.
"You know, I really didn't think he'd fall for it. You're a pretty good actor, Vee." Amelia's voice came from beside the Emperor, despite her being behind him, and suddenly there were two of the girl once more, if only for a second.
Then the one behind him looked like the human girl, Luz, and was flashing a pair of finger guns, "I told you, Chess club, best damn actors on the isles."
Gritting his teeth hard enough they could snap from the pressure, he reached for his staff, only to find that it was gone, and yet another person, two in fact, appeared. Another human, this time the real Luz, who held his staff in her hands, and beside her was her sister, Lucia.
"Hope you don't mind that I yoinked this?" Luz stuck out her tongue, then, holding the staff in both hands, brought it down against her knee to break it into two, only for it to remain in one solid piece. Frowning, she tried again, only to fail a second time. Grimacing, she handed it to Lucia, "Little help her, sis?"
Lucia rolled her eyes, then took the staff and slammed the head against the ground, making the lights sputter out as it shattered to bits. She then handed it back to Luz, who casually tossed it aside.
Only to be caught in the hands of the Owl Lady, who just like the others, appeared from nowhere. "Hey hey hey, don't just go throwing this away. It might be worth something someday." She huffed some hot air onto it, then took a handful of her dress to polish the handle to a shine, inspecting the broken staff.
"Where are you all coming from?" Belos groaned, attempting to stand to his feet, only to be wrapped up in a bundle of plants and brought back down to his knees.
"Oh, right, sorry." A voice rang out from somewhere in the square, and then suddenly there were a lot more people meandering about, having been cloaked by an invisibility illusion. Gus grinned besides Willow, having been the one in charge of keeping everyone out of sight, while she'd been the one to entangle the emperor.
Sitting at the fountain, looking absolutely exhausted, were the other two Blight triplets, Em and Ed, who had done a spectacular job in casting an illusion over the entire square to bring the Titan to life. Beside them, laying on the ground and openly panting, was Matthlomule.
"I'm done now, right?" The boy asked, clutching a galderstone tight in his grip.
"Well, not really?" Gus responded, "You're the only one here who can do construction magic, and since you kinda wrecked the place to make the ground shake, you're also going to have to help us fix it."
The boy let out a pained groan, "If this is what it means to be your friend, Augustus, I think I preferred when we hated each other's guts."
"Love you too, best buddy!"
Raine and the BATs surrounded the Emperor, "It's over, Belos. Not only did you lose, you've been exposed as a fraud to the entire empire. You've got nothing left."
Belos chuckled, "And I suppose now you're here to put a stop to me for good, eh, Whispers?"
The bard glared down at him, tightening their fists. "I could end you right here. I'd have every right to, after what you did to me in the dungeons. I'm usually appalled by such violence, I'd rather write a poem about it, but for you I'd do it in a heartbeat with a smile."
They side eyed Eda, who while frowning made no attempts to step between the two. Her silence spoke volumes. She'd let them kill Belos. Her word only applied to her.
Raine slumped, however, and sighed, "But, we gave a promise to a certain someone we wouldn't execute you unless we absolutely had to. So you get to live. For now."
Eda flashed them a small smile and a thumbs up, and though the BATs members seemed like they wanted to argue, they held their tongues. Raine usually knew what was best.
"I'm glad to see you could keep your word," another voice added, making everyone turn around, only to find Hunter stumbling towards them all, limping and using Rascal as a crutch to keep himself on his feet. He almost tripped on the uneven ground, but Amity, who was nearest, managed to catch him before he hit the dirt, righting him back up. "Thanks."
"No problem. But what are you doing here?" She hissed.
Hunter didn't answer that, "Just take me to him, would you?"
Amity grimaced, really not wanting to be near the Emperor, even if he was constrained and staffless, but still shifted the other witch's weight so she could help him move. Together they walked, almost stumbling once or twice, until they stood before Belos, Amity helping Hunter get down onto his knees so he was eye level with his uncle, before stepping aside to join Luz.
"Hunter…" Belos breathed, looking at his nephew curiously.
Hunter raised a hand, silencing him, an act that would have come with dire punishments any other day, "How much time do you have left?"
Belos didn't answer, remaining silent. Hunter grit his teeth, and tried to keep his cool. "I know a way to help you, Uncle."
Belos cocked his head, "Go on…?"
"There's a… spell. Wild Magic, that I know could work. I think." Hunter stumbled, flinching instinctively at the mere mention of wild magics in front of his Uncle. "If you'll let me, I can help you, by splitting your curse between the two of us.""
"Hunter-" Luz tried to step forward, but stopped in her tracks as her glared at her.
"You said not to use it unless there wasn't any other choice. I'm out of time. So butt out, Luz." Hunter growled, though there was no real malice behind it.
Beside Eda, Lilith put a hand on her sister's shoulder, giving it a squeeze. Eda placed her hand on top, trying to keep her breath even, knowing exactly what the boy was talking about, even if everyone else, sans Luz, didn't.
Belos remained quiet, but didn't dismiss the idea. His mask made it impossible to tell what he was thinking. Hunter turned to Willow, "Unbind him, will you?"
Willow frowned, looking like she wanted to do anything but that. She glanced to Raine for confirmation, and reluctantly they gave a nod, they and the other BATs taking offensive positions on all sides of Belos, just in case he tried anything. With a spin of her finger, Willow commanded the plants to retreat back underground, leaving the Emperor slumped without them to help hold his weakened body up.
Hunter caught his uncle before he could hit the ground, and sat him back up. With trembling hands, he grabbed the edges of Belos' mask, slowly and carefully prying it off of his face to reveal the man underneath to the public for the first time in decades.
They'd almost forgotten they weren't the only ones in the square until the silence was broken. Perry Porter, off in the distance giving his thoughts on everything that was going down began to echo through the plaza, followed by a few sharp gasps as the townsfolk got to see their Emperor's face.
Hunter bit his lip. He'd expected it to be worse than before, but not this far gone.
In place of flesh, there was only mud. Empty eye sockets stared seemingly at nothing, ears had been reduced to sludge, and everything below the eyes had seemed to fused, from the nose to the lips. Even as Hunter looked on, the goop that comprised his uncle's flesh dripped down and splashed against the stone under them with a sickening splotch.
As one, the older siblings of Luz and Amity covered the children's eyes. Vee openly gagged, and Willow turned Gus around so he didn't have to look.
Hunter shook his head sadly, wondering if it was too late to save him. That if he did this, he'd be buying his Uncle a few more years, and dooming himself to the same fate at the same time. The same deformed, monstrous body, the same crippling insanity, and without any palismans to stop it. Yet he breathed, and pressed his forehead against Belos' and with Rascal in hand to power it, began the spell. "With this spell declare-"
Only to find himself gently shoved away before he could finish. His breath left him as his Uncle's face formed the closest thing to a smile that was possible, "No, Hunter. Everything must die someday."
Hunter shook his head, ready to argue, only to fall silent at his Uncle's next words. "I had my time to rule. Now it's yours."
Hunter opened his mouth to question what he meant, but jerked as Belos began to convulse. Gasping for his last breaths, Belos reached out to his nephew, the bards around him tensing and ready to strike, only for the emperor's hand to tightly grasp his nephew's shoulder. They exchanged a long, silent stare, then with one final gasp Belos crumpled, his form fading as he became nothing more than mud upon the ground, leaking out of the garments left behind.
Hunter stared speechless at the mess as it pooled across the ground and began to cover his knees. Squeezing his eyes shut, he choked, trying and failing to hold back his grief, unable to find the strength to pick himself up out of the mud. He felt someone wrap him up in an embrace, and was prepared to push Luz off of him, only to realize it was the Owl Lady.
"Come on," She whispered, "Let's get you out of here. Before the press starts hounding you."
She put his arm over her shoulder and lifted him up with surprising ease, with Raine quick to join her and grabbing his other arm to help support him. Rascal tweeted sympathetically, hovering beside them still as a staff, ready to help take his master home, wherever that may be.
With a silent nod from Eda to Luz, they all started to pack up and get ready to return to the Owl House. There would be plenty of time for a celebration later, but right now, they had to get their friend home where he could safely mourn. Luz stopped only to pick up Belos' discarded mask, wiping away the mud that had built up on it and trying not to be too disgusted by that, and slid it into her satchel, before climbing on top of Hecate with Lucia and Vee, and flying off into the setting sun.
A/N: I hope this fight doesn't undersell Belos too much. Well, no more than his actions already undersell him in canon. I have never bought that Belos is all that tough, and that half of it is his unique skill set, and the other half loads of propaganda.
Think about it, Eda's portal door is the entire lynchpin of his entire plan. He needs it. Yet he constantly sends failure after failure to get it. Even Eda's own sister, because she has the best chance. When he could literally just teleport inside her home, and fight her there with the element of surprise on his side. But he doesn't. Because he knows he'd lose. Eda is in no way bragging about being the strongest, Belos knows he's a chump compared to her at full power.
Then there is the fact he might not even be a witch at all, he might be human playing at one. I ignore that in this fic, but still, I have never bought Belos as all that intimidating or powerful, so it's hard to write him as that. Thankfully I have the excuse that he's basically on his death bed by the time he does have to fight in my fic.
The flashbacks to his life was originally going to be its own 4-5K chapter, but honestly, Belos doesn't interest me enough as a villain to get me invested in sitting down for an entire day or two and writing that much out, so you get the abridged version instead. The idea was originally more that he was much like Luz, a stranger that fit more into a strange world than he did on his own, but instead, chose to stay in his world, and had to change himself to try and fit. He could have been happy on Earth, spent his life there, but he didn't and spent a lot of it miserable, and getting back at those who made him miserable. The voices in his head telling him to get the door being his own desperate pleas to himself to go back to the life that made him happy, as his body fails him, but he's too insane at this point to realize it. It was never the Titan, just his own desires ringing in his ears.