This chapter takes place vaguely between Hollow Mind (S2E16) and Edge of the World (S2E17); however, future chapters will be based on a parallel version of events up to the end of Season 2, so it is highly recommended that you watch up until that point to avoid any potential spoilers. Also, it's just really good. So if you haven't finished it yet, watch the first two seasons; they're all up on Disney+.


"There's no way we're letting you get the Titan's Blood!" Luz's voice echoed off the walls of the small cave. Her companions-in-arms stood at her side, ready to fight.

"Oh, is that so?" the guard captain asked, dramatically pointing her spear towards her teenage adversaries. Her underlings prepared their casting circles, forming a firing line of stoic, bird-masked soldiers, backed up by a half-dozen Blight Industries abomatons.

The air thrummed with power, as purple and white lights broken by long, distorted shadows played on the walls.

A few days prior, they had received word that Emperor Belos had ordered a top-secret retrieval somewhere on the Knee. After following a party of scouts and abomatons to a remote grotto, they discovered that, rather than a powerful demon or a high-profile deserter as they initially suspected, it was actually a spring of Titan's Blood.

Outside, the wind howled like a discordant choir of wailing banshees, held at bay only by a glowing barrier of magical energy. Twisting gales threw the snow into the air, whipping it into a whirling storm of frigid air and ice. One would never guess that it was actually the end of August—or whatever alternative existed in the Boiling Isles. Luz had never taken the time to learn their calendar.

The floor dropped away at the far side of the cavern, a sharp decline leading into the shadowy subterranean depths. Jagged cracks and pointed stones lined its steep slope. A pool of water rested at the bottom, little over a meter across at the widest and just a few inches deep. At its center, a spout of viscous, dark blue fluid bubbled and frothed.

Even this small quantity of Titan's Blood could set up a person for life—without even mentioning the potential for an even greater quantity hidden beneath, likely seeped through a breach in one of the Titan's slowly-decaying veins. Couple this with it already being mixed with water, and this was effectively a naturally-occuring portal into the Human Realm—something which neither side wanted the other to possess.

A pair of hobbyist mountain climbers had stumbled upon this grotto a few days prior while sheltering for the night. Upon finding Titan's Blood pooling within, they swiftly reported it to the Emperor's Coven, expecting a handsome reward.

Instead, they vanished in the dead of night.

The scouts were first to attack. A wave of energy bolts streaked through the air like a hail of silver daggers, pallid blazes which illuminated the cavern with their stark intensity.

Amity leapt to the front of the group and slammed her staff into the ground. A translucent barrier of violet light sprung into being in front of her, the projectiles harmlessly shattering against its surface—a new spell she had learned after her fight with Hunter. A thin cloud of glittering dust filled the air.

Despite her better instincts, Luz was enraptured by the display. How did Amity make everything look so cool and effortless? And how in the world—worlds?—did she, dorky outcast she was, ever manage to get with someone so perfect?

She forced herself to tear her eyes away from her girlfriend and nodded to Gus. He traced a large circle of light in the air as she activated a mist glyph. A moment later, a dense smokescreen billowed out from the glowing symbol, completely obscuring the four in a matter of seconds.

The barrier dropped, but the scouts continued to fire incessantly into the cloud, pulses of white light punching through the mist. They halted only after it cleared to reveal that the four had vanished.

"Where'd they go?" a scout cried, spinning on his heels. They had been told by their superiors that their foes were weak, nothing more than children. However, the number of scouts who returned in casts and braces after combating them and their allies spoke for itself.

"I don't know," another responded, calmer. This one had faced the so-called "Hex Squad" before, and though they were fully aware of what they were capable of, they believed that their past failures had prepared them for this moment. "Keep your eyes open."

A deep rumble interrupted the conversation, vibrating the ground beneath their feet. Moments later, a massive vine erupted from the stone and slammed into the line of troops. Several scouts were crushed, while those nearest the vine were sent sprawling to the floor. They looked up to see Willow hovering above, Clover's translucent wings fluttering rapidly. She innocently waved at the group, before batting away several more and retreating to the opposite side of the grotto.

The scouts wildly opened fire, their energy bolts striking the walls as the blue-haired witch deftly maneuvered through the air, weaving between projectiles and stalactites with ease.

They were so distracted that they were caught completely unaware when Amity appeared from a puff of smoke behind them, a tendril of abomination clay grasped in her left hand like a whip. Slinking between the enemies with feline grace, she swung it against the Guard Captain's head, enveloping her in the violet sludge.

"Gah!" she cried out, clawing at the eyeholes of her mask. "I can't see!"

Luz materialized at her girlfriend's side, slapping a fire glyph on the captain's tunic. A second later, the paper erupted into flames, sending her ricocheting off the walls and ceiling, before falling to the ground below. She landed with a pained grunt, her spear bouncing from her hand.

Purple light shone from behind. They turned around to find an abomaton bearing down upon them, hands clasped overhead.

Unphased, Amity drove a spike through its glowing core, causing its fluid form to distend before completely dissipating. Its metallic armor slammed into the rocky floor, splashing the surrounding scouts with purple clay, while its power source flickered briefly before going dark.

"Mom really scammed Belos with these things, huh?" she quipped, putting her back to her girlfriend's as they prepared to fight through the crowd of scouts which now surrounded them. While she and Luz had previously struggled to face just one during her mother's initial demonstration, they had both grown far stronger in the weeks since. It helped that her absent-minded father often left the schematics on full display in his workshop, letting her know every weakness and design flaw to exploit.

She and Luz fought in unison. They had a special connection, one which they couldn't ever put into words, but which both had been subconsciously aware of ever since Grom. For that reason, despite the situation they had thrown themselves headlong into—a situation which the "old Amity" would have never let herself get anywhere near—they weren't afraid.

Oh, if only she could see her past self, look her in the eye, and tell her the fool she was.

Luz opened her mouth to make a snarky comment of her own, but Gus cried out from across the room. One of the scouts had adhered him to the wall, before turning their attention to Willow. She fought off their spells with her vine whips, while more scouts approached her from behind.

Amity slid a plant glyph from her coat sleeve. Despite the severity of the situation, she couldn't help but grin as she asked, "Thorn vault?"

"Heck yeah!" Luz responded, a similar expression playing on her face. In perfect sync, they slammed their runes into the rocky ground.

The ground shuddered beneath them, before they were hurled across the room by twinned pillars of densely-coiled plants. Errant debris flew through the air, bludgeoning the scouts around them.

Amity twisted as she flew, forming a spell circle around herself. A streak of violet fire flew from her staff as she completed the ring, blasting the scouts from behind as they passed overhead. They staggered forward, panicking as their cloaks erupted into magical flames.

An abomaton appeared in front of Luz, its arms outstretched. "That's not good!" she shouted, spiraling her arms in a vain attempt to redirect her course.

She disappeared into its face, immediately thrust into complete darkness. In an instant, she couldn't see. She couldn't breathe. She could hardly move. Her heart pounded in her chest.

The sounds of the ongoing battle were muffled by the shifting layers of animated clay, but she could faintly hear Amity yelling her name. "Luz! LUZ! "

Panic overtook her. She desperately writhed about, doing everything in her power to pull herself free. The more she moved, the faster she sank into its amorphous mass, trapped in a slow-motion cascade. The pressure made her feel like her skull was about to collapse in on itself. She instinctively inhaled as her muscles began to grow sore from exertion, sucking in a lungful of moist clay.

The clay grew heavier around her, weighing down her limbs as they clawed for any purchase within the supernaturally-dense muck. Was this it? Was this how she—

Suddenly, light. Sound.

Amity roared valiantly as she popped the abominaton's head like a viscous balloon, its residue spraying across the stone floor. Luz's head and left arm were free, thrust into the brisk cavern air. She immediately began to violently hack up violet sludge.

Willow and Amity stood surrounded by the scouts. The latter used her staff to create a hemispheric energy barrier, while her off-hand maintained a wavering spell circle. Dividing her attention, it was all she could do to keep the abomaton inert. Behind, Willow battered scouts with a mass of large, thorny tendrils.

Large beads of sweat ran down both of their faces, but the determined flames in Amity's eyes made it clear that she had no intention of relenting for as long as her body could continue.

The scouts had other plans, as a rogue energy blast struck her in the back. She fell to her knees, desperately trying to keep the spells active. Smoke rose in a small plume from the point of impact.

A spear flew in from across the room, embedding itself into her barrier. Cracks spread across its glowing face, the energy wavering.

Amity gasped as the shield shattered into glistening shards, her arms nearly buckling from the exertion. The spell circle around her other wrist fluctuated, threatening to give way. Her eyes were hazy and unfocused, but still seemed to glow with intensity.

The butt of another spear struck her in the face, shortly before its wielder was knocked across the room by one of Willow's vines. But her efforts were too little, too late, as Amity collapsed to the ground, her spell immediately fading.

"Amity!" Luz cried, trembling with rage. They could lock her up. They could hurt her. But nobody— nobody —hurt her Amity.

Free from her influence, the abomaton immediately began to reform and march towards the girls. Its plated boots clanged against the stone floor. Luz grasped the rim of its armor with her one free hand, trying anything to keep herself from being absorbed once again. Her knuckles were white with exertion as she dug her fingers into the metal, her arm screaming in protest as she pulled against the animated mud which slowly climbed up her body.

Its boot came down on a spear head, resting on a small ridge. The handle raised into the air. A second later, a wall of scouts was sent flying backwards. One of them landed on the spear's handle, levering it beneath the abomaton's foot. The construct was knocked off balance, shifting its mass in an attempt to adjust.

The spear snapped, slamming its foot into the ground. A shudder ran through its amorphous form.

It collapsed, slamming into the ground at the edge of the crevice. A tremor ran through the entire cavern. Its body deformed with the impact, freeing Luz's entire torso. However, she was unable to pull her legs from its viscous mass.

The sound roused Amity. A metallic taste filled her mouth. Touching her fingertips to her lips, they came away bloody.

She raised her head to see the abomaton on the ground, Luz barely visible on the far side. She was struggling against its gelatinous body, trying in vain to free herself.

The abomaton planted its hands and started to push itself back to its feet. It sat up, Luz and Amity's eyes meeting. The human's eyes widened as she saw the blood trickling from Amity's nose, before hardening.

Amity could see the fury boiling beneath her girlfriend's dark brown eyes. The sight scared her—she had seen Luz angry before, but never like this.

The ground suddenly gave way beneath one of the abomaton's hands. It tipped backwards, falling into the pit. The hand attempted to grab the ledge, only holding just long enough to spin its body around before it lost its grip.

Hysteria gripped the girlfriends as the abomaton's body began to slide down the slope, with Luz still trapped within.

"Amity!" "Luz!" Both girls screamed for the other, terrified of what would happen if Luz were to touch the Titan's Blood.

She clawed against the rocky ground in a frenzied search for any sort of handhold. The rugged surface tore at her hands, drawing blood, but she barely felt the pain.

The witch scrambled to her feet, her previous stoicism wiped from her face and replaced with terror. Sweat stuck her lilac hair to her forehead. "Hold on Luz!" She fired a jet of magenta flames through the mass of enemies and wasted no time in leaping through the breach.

Amity dove for the edge, thrusting her staff towards her girlfriend's outstretched arms. Luz grasped the wooden pole just beneath Ghost's base and clenched as hard as her muscles could manage.

She had grown far stronger over the course of the summer—"weak nerd arms" had become something of an ironic in-joke amongst her friends—but it didn't matter how strong she became. No amount of muscle would have been able to stop her slow slide towards the Titan's blood.

"Don't worry! I've got you!" Amity cried, tears beading in her eyes. Her muscles burned with exertion as she heaved with all of her might, but her hands slid along the polished wood as Luz continued to slide down the pit. "I won't let you go!"

Tendrils of abomination clay rose from the jar on Amity's hip, wrapping around her hands and imbedding themselves into the ground, holding her in place. The clay quickly flowed down the staff, attempting to wrap around Luz's hands. It weakly pressed against her skin, but lacked enough mass to get a solid grip on her.

Behind her, Willow was being overwhelmed by the scouts. Their sheer numbers allowed them to push past her defenses, aided by her growing exhaustion. Gus thrashed against his restraints, to no avail.

Luz's hands were dragged further down the staff's feline mount, leaving dark red marks on the polished white wood.

Seeing only one possible outcome, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She didn't want this, but she couldn't see any way out. She put on her most reassuring smile and looked back at her girlfriend. "Amity. It's going to be okay."

Her golden eyes widened. "No! Don't say what I think you're going to say!"

"I—"

" Don't you dare! " Tears rolled down her face, leaving dark streaks along her pale cheeks. Her breaths grew ragged. Uncontrollable shudders shook her chest.

"I'm going to come back, Sweet Potato. No matter what happens. No matter how long it takes," Luz promised, her voice breaking. She lost a few more inches. " El amor todo lo puede. "

Her hands slid from the end of the staff, leaving bloody smears down Ghost's wooden face. Her fingers instinctively clawed at the air. Despite the determination in her voice, she wasn't ready to go.

If she was being totally honest with herself, she never wanted to go. Sure, she wanted to see her mom again, but never more than a visit, something to tell her that she was okay. But she never wanted to truly leave the Isles.

Not like this.

The abomaton continued to drag itself up her body as they slid down the rocky slope. The rims of its armor dug deep trenches in the hard earth.

She fell back-first into the dark blue pool. An abnormal heat began to permeate her body. Nausea overtook her as her physical form began to lose its substance. Time slowed, as if to ensure her last image of the Boiling Isles was permanently seared into her memory.

Amity screamed on the ridge above, a guttural cry of fury and despair. Her hair billowed dramatically, as if caught in the midst of a whirling cyclone. Violet light burned in her eyes.

She slowly rose to her feet, her face a mask of pure, unadulterated rage. The scouts backed away as she marched towards them. A writhing mass of tentacles formed at her heels. The remaining abomatons were torn apart, their flesh assimilated into her twisting aggregate as their armor slammed into the stony ground.

She raised a hand.

And then… nothing.

No light. No air. No heat. Only an oppressive void, closing in on all sides. If the doors led into a corridor between the worlds, then this was a tunnel—dark, cold, and desolate.

She entered a state of total dissociation, detached from her worldly being and adrift through the darkness. Time lost definition, as the seconds stretched to minutes, or even hours. Even the most basic sensations ceased to be—a complete lack of feeling, impossible to describe by a mind conditioned to a constant influx of external and internal stimuli. Her consciousness was lost within a completely alien realm, with no body to inform it of its surroundings, or even its own existence.

Shapes moved in the darkness. Creatures, maybe even gods, lost in the void between worlds and forgotten, until they were reduced to nothing but shadows of their own existences. Or maybe her mind was just playing tricks on her. She had waking dreams when she was younger—the symptom of her overactive imagination, coupled with cartoon-induced sleep deprivation—but these felt… different.

Doubts trickled into her mind: How long had she been here? Where even was "here"? Was she truly traveling between worlds, or was she…?

She didn't want to consider that option.

A new sensation, as her body was abruptly brought back into being. She was overtaken by the most bone-gnawing cold she had ever known, coupled with intense, flesh-searing heat—almost akin to being sat in the sun with a cool breeze, taken to the furthest extreme.

It should have hurt, but the feelings still felt far away.

And then there was light—blinding, painful. The feeling of something prickly beneath her back. Air flowed gently across her face.

Luz opened her eyes to find herself in a field, surrounded by waist-high grasses. The sun beat down on her skin. It took a moment for her instincts to reassert themselves, reminding her to breathe.

The air felt empty, lacking the energy she had grown accustomed to in the Isles.

Standing up, she noticed a strange off-grey dust caking her lower body—the remnants of the abomination clay, she assumed. The remainder of the construct was nowhere to be seen.

A plane flew overhead, confirming her fears. She was in the Human Realm. She had no clue where she was, no idea how to get home, and no way back to the Boiling Isles. Her friends were still in danger. Belos was still planning the Day of Unity. And there was nothing she could do.

As the shock slowly left her system, she dropped once more to the ground. She pulled her knees to her chest. She placed her head between her knees.

And she cried.


So, there's the first chapter. Feeling sad yet? Well, I hope you're ready, 'cause that was just the start of this emotional rollercoaster. (I can fake talent with confidence, right?)

In all seriousness, thank you to anyone who decides to read this. Aside from a few scrapped stories, I've been focused heavily on a variety of other projects since writing High Grade Red almost four years ago, so it's really nice to be actually writing words again.

Next chapter, as the description (and chapter title) implies, will pick up five years in the future, with Luz returning home from her first year of cool leg. No word on whether she paid for it by breaking the economy with copious amounts of dog residue.

Also, as previously indicated, the future chapters of this fic will utilize a parallel version of the events leading up to and during the Day of Unity, so while the last five episodes of Season 2 do not share continuity with this fanfiction, the actual events are still going to be similar. If you haven't yet heeded my warning, go watch through to the end of Season 2 before continuing on.

And it goes without saying that, should Season 3 come out before I finish this entire fanfic, I don't intend to retcon anything to adapt with new narrative elements. I've already got enough stuff to work around as it is just from the last five episodes—which I'm still going to need to somehow work back into the story, by the way—that I don't need any of the Collector's reality-warping BS getting in the way.

Anyways, that's about it. See ya.