"What?" Asked Amity in shock.

"I don't how or when, but he's right here in the human realm with us." Said Tate with a dejected look on his face. "I couldn't follow him when I first saw him because of the people around. I ignored my palisman's pleas to chase him just because I was being dragged away."

Amity saw the look on Tate's face and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, it's not your fault-"

"I'm not thinking about that." Replied Tate in a sad tone. "I'm more scared of how dull my reaction is. I should be feeling surprised, guilty or incredibly angry, but I'm not. I even forgot about him for a while which was so stupid! It's like after I took in that my family could be gone, I just stopped caring as much." He continued as he started sobbing. "I don't want to not care. And i- i"

"You're what?"

Amity went silent as Tate turned to her with tears in his eyes.

"I...only ever told Hunter about this, not even my mom or my grandparents. It also explains how I adapted so well to life in the human realm." Said Tate as he wiped the tears in his eyes. "So please...try to keep an open mind."

Amity raised a brow in confusion, but nodded nonetheless. Seeing this, Tate began telling her something out of this world.

xxXxx

Later after a failed day of searching for Belos.

"Ow, ow!" Exclaimed Tate as his palisman pecked him angrily. "Would you stop that?!"

The palisman didn't let up and continued pecking angrily.

"I know Belos is still out there, but we don't know where he IS!" Replied Tate with a frown.

The palisman still didn't let, screeching at how he they could've beaten had they not gotten distracted.

"I know, it was my fault he got away. It won't happen again." Said Tate with a determined expression.

After hearing this, the palisman seemed to calm down a tiny bit. Just enough to not be painful.

"*Sigh* let's head down." Said Tate dejectedly before he left the room he was standing alone with his palisman in.

The moment he got down, Tate was able to see his friends and his sister preparing their costumes for hayride with Camilla Gwen and coincidentally, Luz and Hunter entering the living room.

Hey, we're back! And we bought some, uh, cars." Said Hunter as entered the room with a chuckle before Luz elbowed him lightly.

"Luz! We're designing our costumes for the Haunted Hayride." Said Amity cheerfully.

"Guess what I've got planned? I'm gonna be Captain Avery and you're..." said Gus cheerfully before showing Hunter his costume.

As Hunter got excited about his costume, Tate turned to Amity and asked awkwardly.

"Are you okay after hearing... y'know?"

"I'm...still trying to process it. It's weird, but if Hunter can live knowing it, I'm sure I can too... eventually." Replied Amity quietly with awkward chuckle, looking generally uncomfortable with what Tate told her. "On another note, since we know you've been busy, we made your costume for the hayride."

Amity then nudged Willow who revealed a costume that was a white suit, mask, cape and top hat. It looked like the definition of a phantom theif.

"A phantom thief? How did you know I liked these?" Asked Tate raising a brow.

"Oh, we didn't. But we're glad you like it. It should also hide your face from all the people trying to date you." Replied Willow cheerfully before pulling out a giant egg as Amity spoke to Luz. "And then we have Gwen's costume."

"An egg?" Asked Tate in confusion.

"The guy we based your costume off of was stealing a large egg thing, guess it was supposed to be valuable, so we made Gwen's costume the egg." Added Willow cheerfully. "It's also big enough to hide her wings. Plus, it looks like YOU'RE stealing the egg."

Tate chuckled before Gwen pounced on the egg costume and started trying to eat it.

"Gwen, that's not a real egg." Said Tate as he took his sister off of the costume much to her dismay. "How about I get you an egg you can actually eat?"

Gwen immediately started drooling before Tate took her right to the kitchen.

xxXxx

The night of the hayride.

"All right. We'll keep the puzzle a secret till the time is right. And then we'll tell her about the Titan Blood!" Said Amity to everyone in their costumes except for Luz.

"Did you hear that?" Asked Hunter hearing laughter inside his head.

Flapjack chirped in concern for Hunter, but Hunter reassured him.

"Hey, it's okay. It's probably just in my head again. Nestle down, Flapjack."

As Hunter reassured his palisman, he didn't notice Amity staring at him weird. The moment he turned to her, she spoke cheerfully.

"H-hey, Hunter, you look stressed. You should go ahead of us. We'll just be finishing up some stuff here before we follow you." She said with a forced smile.

"Uhh, but-"

"Hey, don't worry, it's just some boring stuff." Added Gus cheerfully.

"Yeah, Hunter. It's just some tweaks with...uhh, Tate's costume. Yeah!" Said Willow with a forced smile.

Hunter blushed for a second before agreeing. Gus, Tate, Willow and Amity all stared at him with large smiles until the moment he was out of sight where they immediately huddled together.

"BELOS IS ALIVE?!" Exclaimed Gus in horror.

"Shh!" Amity shushed Gus quickly, causing his to put his hands over his mouth.

"You told them?" Asked Tate raising a brow under the mask with Gwen in his hands.

"Was I not supposed to?! This is Belos we're talking about." Rreplied Amity with a frown, causing Tate to shrug.

"More importantly," Willow cut in. "Why are we hiding it from Luz and Hunter."

"Luz already feels responsible for a lot of stuff, we can't add this to the list. As for Hunter, you know how much this topic messes with him." Replied Amity quickly. "Now. If anyone sees anything, try to signal for the others without getting Luz or Hunter's attention."

Everyone nodded before the four split up.

Tate immediately started looking around the hayride for Belos. Although the hayride looked fun, Tate had a personal duty to find Belos.

He looked around but to no avail. There wasn't a wisp of Belos's existence anywhere.

But suddenly, a while later, he noticed that Luz and Hunter were missing and the others were looking for them.

Tate immediately assumed the worst. He dashed to Camilla and gave her his sister before dashing to the trees with his palisman sword unsheathed.

He jumped high into the air to get a look at where Luz might be. And after a while, he saw her and...Hunter looking like Belos. It seemed that his friends made it before him somehow.

He didn't care about that. Because now, it was time to fix his mistake.

xxXxx

At an old cemetery.

"Ah. There you are. You're not even trying right now. What? Afraid you'll hurt him?" Said Belos with Flapjack and the titan's blood in his clutches.

"Is that Hunter?" Asked Camilla in shock.

"Something's wrong." Added Gus.

"See, this is why you're so useful, Luz." Said Belos with a sinister smile "You're so desperate to help people, you even helped me meet The Collector."

"What?" Asked Amity in confusion.

"I didn't mean to. I thought I was doing something good." Said Luz with tears in her eyes.

"You did do something good. I thought this one was another lost cause." Said Belos enthusiastically. "Because of you, we can finish our work as witch hunters, starting with the-"

Belos couldn't finish his sentence or his attack before he had to endure a arc of fire to the arm that boiled only him leaving Hunter unharmed and causing Belos to drop Flapjack.

Belos clutched his neck in fear before turning to Tate with an angry expression.

"You!" Exclaimed Belos angrily as he glared at his attacker before turning to his palisman. "And those wretched palismen!"

"What? Afraid of a little fire?" Asked Tate as his palisman sword raged with vengeful flames.

Belos immediately tried to attack Tate, but was stopped by Willow, distracted by Gus and attacked by Amity.

To Belos, they were little more than flies. The problem was Tate. His sword could harm Belos more than anything else and not harm Hunter whatsoever. He couldn't even leave Hunter's body or else they wouldn't let him escape.

So he endured attack after attack, but always more wary of Tate's slashes. But then, there was no more room to dodge. The next attack would kill him.

Except. "Stop!" Exclaimed Belos holding his(Hunter's) neck. "Make one more move and he pays for it."

Tate froze and dropped his palisman. So did everyone else. No one here wanted to kill Belos enough to sacrifice Hunter, no one except an amalgamation of vengeful spirits stored inside Tate's palisman.

They transformed back into their bird form and flew to confront Belos themselves, planning to end this once and for all.

Time seemed to have stopped.

Belos knew as he saw the palisman that they weren't stopping and so he deemed Hunter useless as a hostage. All seemed hopeless for him, until he heard a voice.

"No!" Exclaimed Tate trying to stop his palisman.

With one last ditch effort, Belos launched his arm at Tate with all his power. Striking Tate through the abdomen with his blade like arm.

The phoenix palisman flinched, conflicted and unable to move out of the sheer discord between all the palismen spirits inside.

Belos saw this and tried to attack them too, but he couldn't move. Something was stopping him.

It didn't take him long to realize that it was Hunter fighting back. Hunter threw away the vial of titan's blood in his hands, causing Belos to use his body to go after it.

And not a moment after, Hunter's body went unconscious.

Belos finally left Hunter's body with bitter rage and the vial of titan's blood in hand.

"Caleb! You would stab me in the back?!" He exclaimed.

"You did it to him first!" Replied Luz angrily.

Belos growled and in his outrage, he broke the vial onto an archway built in the cemetery, activating a portal to the demon realm.

"This is for the good of your souls. You'll thank me later."

And with that, Belos escaped into the demon realm.

But that didn't matter right now. Everyone turned to Tate and Hunter who bother were on the verge of death.

"Hun...ter." said Tate as he tried his best to keep himself alive despite the blood pouring all over. It wasn't effective whatsoever.

Amity quickly supported Tate as Willow supported Hunter.

"We need to stop the bleeding." Said Camilla quickly as Gwen crawled to her big brother bleeding.

Phoenix saw Gwen begin to cry as Flapjack approached his friend and owner. Flapjack was about to sacrifice himself for Hunter, Phoenix knew this.

They lowered their head in shame. This was their fault. They wanted to end their nightmare so much they caused another. They HAD to fix this.

Phoenix quickly flew in and knocked Flapjack out of the way. As everyone was about to get angry at them, the palisman started glowing brightly.

The amalgam of palismen left one final message as they saved Tate and Hunter with the hundreds, maybe even thousands of their lives.

'We're sorry.'

Quickly, Hunter woke up to be happily greeted by his friend while Tate miraculously recovered with his partner turned to ash and his sister shaking his face while crying. Her curse filled tears even reached the ashes of Phoenix.

There wasn't time to mourn as the portal would close soon.

Tate and Hunter were the first to approach the portal.

"This reminds me of when we first became friends." Said Hunter with a smile.

"How so?" Asked Tate dejectedly with Gwen in his arms.

"We nearly died against an old man and are trying to chop his head off." Replied Hunter with a laugh.

Tate couldn't help but laugh with him before the two of them went through the portal.

And one by one, the group entered the portal. All except Vee...

Who never noticed that the ashes of Phoenix had disappeared and NOT into the wind.

xxXxx

Tell me how I did. Leave a review.

Toodles.