Hello, how's it going? I am merely a massive TOH enjoyer who is very sad about the show ending. Still, it's amazing that the Owl crew managed to put together such a satisfactory ending despite what the show had to go through, it made me sad and happy all in the same and I don't think any other show would ever make me feel this way.
However, there's still stuff about the ending that has been bugging me for a while. There are a bunch of loose threads and plot points that never got anywhere, I do know that it's mainly because of the cut that disney gave this show, but I think that there were also a lot of changes for the main plot of the story without Disney's meddling. Like if you go back and look at the first chapters it feels like they had another vision, I wouldn't be surprised if the collector wasn't the main enemy or if king wasn't meant to be a titan from the beginning.
All of this makes me want to make a re-write fic of s2 with a full s3 included, and I will do it sometime, but not now. The reason for that is that I am already writing another fic (shameless plug, don't mind if I do: /works/36557347) and I am way too focused on that to do two long fics at the same time. So instead I'll write a one shot of something I definitely was expecting to be in the finale and I was kinda disappointed when it didn't happen.
I wrote this just bc I needed catharsis after the finale and a break from my main fic. I hope you enjoy it and see you at the bottom notes.
Today had been a weird day in the boiling isles.
Now for an outside viewer this might be a weird thing to say, after all the boiling isles were the definition of weird: They consisted of an archipelago that actually was the decomposing corpse of a colossal being, usually had acid rain, the flora and the fauna were extremely grotesque and dangerous, and let's not mention the amount of demons and witches that live in there. The events that occured in this day however, were something that was extraordinary for the standards of the demon realm even.
Belos, the human that has been stranded in this realm for hundreds of years, managed to find a way to possess the titan's body and control the entire island. He did all of that to fulfill his ultimate goal: To eradicate all magical life in the realm.
He almost succeeded but was ultimately stopped by a young titan, a cursed witch, and a human blessed by the isles themselves. They managed to break his connection with the titan in a hard fought fight, and he was defenseless. He attempted to trick the girl one last time using his old human form, but it didn't work. Boiling rain started falling from the sky, maybe as one last blow from the titan himself, and the acid drops interrupted Belos' speech.
"AH!" He yelled as the boiling water started melting his skin, exposing his true form "Qui-Quickly, now!" He started approaching her.
The girl remained still however, watching him from afar with an unreadable expression. Curiously enough, the acid rain didn't seem to hurt her at all, as the drops fell on her they disappeared in sparkles of light.
"Don't- Don't you want- to make peace - Luz?" Belos cried for help. The boiling rain ripped him apart, reducing him to a shambling corpse "D-Don't just stand there! If you do this… You'll be just as bad, just as conniving, just as evil, and just as unforgivable as those witches!" Belos cried in pain as his gooey form started dissolving under the rain. He tried to walk towards the human girl but his legs melted apart, so he had to crawl towards her "We're human. We're better than this!"
He clung to her leg with the last of his reserves, but she just stepped away. Meanwhile, the other three people in the scene got closer to Belos. The previous emperor gazed upwards and was met with his enemies glaring down at him: The young titan whose father was desecrated by him, the cursed witch who he tried to petrify, and the covenhead who he possessed.
"Well, we ain't!" The owl lady proclaimed vigorously.
The three of them raised one of their feet in order to stomp him, but at that time they were interrupted. Luz the human put herself in front of them with a determined stare.
"No" She simply said.
"Luz?" The bard asked incredulously.
"Weh?" The young king inquired.
"Kiddo, you can't be serious. If you let this bastard go-"
"It's not that, Eda" She waved her hand around and the boiling rain stopped, the goopy spot in the ground that was Belos stopped making sizzling sounds.
Luz looked at him. The great emperor Belos, the one that brought the entirety of the boiling isles under his command, his reign was supreme and his rule was absolute. His corrupt teachings and crooked system had damaged every aspect of the isles and those who opposed him were demonized, imprisoned, and sometimes killed. He had been the most powerful witch of the boiling isles, with a cult following that numbered hundreds, all of them ready to follow his orders, and now…
Now he was a dying greed goop with a shape that resembled a skull.
"You were wrong, Belos" The human announced "We are not better than them in any way, in fact we are not that different. Both humans and witches can be good or bad, that doesn't make any of them better or worse. But you are right in something: if I just stood while you died I would be just as bad, just as conniving, just as evil, and just as unforgivable… as you"
Everyone stood silently as she spoke those words. King moved closer to try to comfort her and Eda opened her mouth to retort. Belos just grunted something close to 'crazy', he regained a little bit of his shape and lunged at her, in one last attempt to fulfill his delusional mission. Luz didn't even flinch and raised one of her fingers, immediately an energy barrier formed by all of the titan's glyphs appeared in front of her and blocked the attack, she then traced a circle in the air and the barrier grew to completely enveloping Belos in a bubble made out of glyphs.
"What?" He struggled against his new spherical confinement "Release me!"
"Someone wants to talk to you" Her voice sounded sad, melancholic even.
With one final flick of her hand the sphere flashed in a blinding light, forcing everyone present to cover their eyes. When they opened them again both Belos and the barrier were gone.
"Where did he go?" Asked the previous covenhead "Luz, did you kill…"
"No" The human sighed and let herself fall in the grass "He's… somewhere else. I promised to do that as a favor"
"A favor to who?" The owl lady asked.
Before she could respond the human shook and started floating in the sky. She started emitting an unnatural hue throughout all of her body and her eyes shine like flashlights. After a moment she opens her mouth and a column of fire emerges from it, the flames adopt the shape of a muscular demon with wings, it roared and flew away, leaving Luz in the air back on her human form.
As king and Eda rushed to catch her from falling into the ground, the bard pondered on what just happened. They were happy that everything turned out fine but they were also disappointed that they couldn't see the end of Belos. Those hateful thoughts weren't an usual thing for them, but after being manipulated and used by that man they were more than justified.
"I hope Luz knew what she was doing. Don't know where she sent him but he better not come back ever again"
xxxx
Belos swerved in that energy stream after Luz casted that spell on him. It was pure agony, as if every inch of his body was being burnt, but somehow it felt oddly familiar. All the time he was there he felt a similar sensation caused by his teleportation spell: The feeling of free falling from a tall place.
The fallen dictator twisted and screamed as the magic took him somewhere else, he didn't know where but he could tell he was moving at a high speed. Belos didn't know how much time happened- could've been hours, could've been minutes- but it ended eventually. The pain and light blinding his eyes suddenly came to a stop and everything went dark.
Belos gasped and rubbed his eyes to try to see better. By doing so he discovered that he actually had a physical human body, and not goopy appendages, he also realized that he couldn't breathe, as if there wasn't any air around. He then tried to get up but realized that his feet weren't touching solid ground, he seemed to be floating in fact, with no way of knowing where was up or down. Belos tried opening his eyes again but all he could see was darkness, he tried yelling but there was no sound coming out of his mouth, he tried moving but he couldn't get anywhere. Some time passed and he started thinking that this is where he was going to spend the rest of his existence, drifting away in the dark void, when suddenly something changed; He was pulled towards somewhere, he could feel a great force grab him and then he was being dragged at great speeds over this ocean of nothingness.
Once he emerged he first noticed two things: first that there was finally air around him so he could finally breathe, and second: there was light everywhere.
"Ah, there you were" An unfamiliar voice said.
Belos got up and took a deep breath while he examined his surroundings. He was standing on top of a wet dark floor, rocky walls were all around him and most things here were pitch dark. What picked his interest however, were the sources of light illuminating the cavern; Medium-sized cubes were floating in the air, they seemed to be made from some kind of glass and the light coming out of them felt strange in some sort of way. But there was one thing that unnerved him more than the unnatural lighting, there was no one around him. He had definitely heard a voice while coming in.
"Have I finally gone insane from the exposure to the demon realm?" He thought bitterly "I knew that dealing with witches for a prolonged time was bad for my health, but I never imagined…" He then paused when he noticed something odd. He was dressed in the same clothing that he was wearing in the day of unity and when he touched it to examine himself he realized that he could feel his body, so that told him he wasn't dead. Not only that but he wasn't actually trying to maintain his human form. One of the many drawbacks of his monstrous form was that he needed to actually focus to keep himself out of that state.
"Unbelievable… I am not melting nor shifting into that form. Have I been cured from the palisman curse?" He whispered to himself.
"Far from it" The same deep voice he heard before answered.
He turned around, searching for the owner of the voice, but he couldn't find anyone. He seemed to be completely alone in this dark cave.
"H-Helo? Who's out there?" Phillip couldn't stop the quivering of his voice. Right now he was without glyphs, his artificial staff, or his monstrous form, he hadn't felt this vulnerable in decades.
"Down here" The same voice roared.
Phillip looked down at the flooded floor and gasped. In the place where his reflection should have been there was a demon unlike anything he had ever seen: He was at least three meters tall with two sets of ram-like horns coming out of the sides of his head, his entire body was covered in black fur and he was wearing some kind of red and gold armor. But what surprised him most was his face: It was the fact that he did not have fur or skin covering it, just an animal skull with long fangs coming out of it.
"Well, one would've thought that you'd have gotten used to things like these after the centuries you have spent in the demon realm" The demon spoke.
"Who are you? What is this place? Or better yet, why am I here?" The human spoke trying to hide his fear.
"Who am I? Really? One would've thought that after preaching about me all of those years you would be able to recognize me" The titan crossed his arms.
"The t-titan? No it can't be… the titan is dead" And the boiling isles themselves, to think that such an entity was before him was too much for the man.
"And? We dead people have the right to complain when our names are being misused y'know? Besides, you are not better yourself" He pointed at him and Belos looked below and saw that the black liquid had begun to rize and now it was past his ankles. If the titan was dead and he was on the other side of the floor… It didn't take a genius to figure out what was happening.
"No, nononono" Belos tried to climb the rocky walls and managed to get a couple feet above the ground, but the liquid kept rising "This cannot be, it can't end like this!"
"Why not?" The titan's reflection spoke. He got closer as the water level grew so it made it seem he was chasing after the human "Got any living relatives you wanna see? Some friends? maybe want to travel the world before dying?"
"I still need to complete my mission!" He clung to a section of the cliffy wall and found out that the material was brittle enough for him to break with his hands, an idea started forming in his head. He grabbed a stalagmite and snapped it in two, then he started using the sharp end to carve the ice glyph in the stone.
"So you want to go back to the land of living to kill people, that sounds rather ironic"
"I refuse to end like this!"
He finished carving and tapped his painting with his hand. But instead of creating an ice platform for him the glyph eroded in the wall and disappeared.
"What?"
"Oh yeah, now that I'm dead those don't work anymore" The liquid kept rising, at this point it was almost to his feet "You never knew didn't you? Those only function with my magic"
"So… you did keep me from finding them all of those years" He had run out of ideas and now was trying to talk to the titan to see if that could distract him. Sadly it didn't seem to work because the liquid was now to his knees.
"That type of knowledge wasn't meant for people like you"
"B-But Luz figured it out! You let her have access to it and she even managed to start combining the glyphs in mere months!" A part of him still was jealous of that. It took him years to find all of the glyphs even with her help and start combining them, while she managed to do that in a mere summer. A part of him thought that he wouldn't have been able to outmatch her so easily without the collector's magic and his palisman-powered form.
"Luz?" The titan let out a boisterous laugh "That's a good one. You two are nothing alike"
"She is a human too!" Belos protested. At this point the liquid was up to his waist.
"And that's when the similarities end. Luz did not use my magic with the intentions of harming people, Luz didn't lie to manipulate people, and Luz did not use my power to try to kill millions!" He roared the last part at him.
"Wait, wait" Belos was running out of choices and the liquid was rising to his chest, he tried climbing further up but the wall was too upright and lacked any slopes for him to do so "You-You asked Luz to bring me here didn't you? The others could have killed me, but she said that someone wanted to talk to me! That was you wasn't it?"
The liquid stopped at his neck.
"Yes… I did" The titan sounded melancholic "Those witches had all the right to kill you, but I asked her to bring you here because I thought that you needed to hear something before passing, and I wanted to hear something from you too"
"What is it?" Belos asked with the slight piece of hope.
"You still haven't answered my question. Is destruction the only thing you yearn for? Don't you have anything else to live for?" The titan was looking at him with a severe expression "For once in your life, try to be sincere"
"I… I-" Belos realized that he had no alternative but to just outright say it. If there was a slight hope that he might be able to get out of this he was going to take it and if there wasn't… he was going to die defending his cause "All I did was to save humanity from witches and demons like you!"
His words echoed throughout the empty abyss. The titan sighed and closed his eyes, he seemed disappointed.
"And here I was hoping to be wrong. Is that really it? All of the lies, murder, and plotting? For that?" The liquid dropped towards his waist.
"Yes! You magical beings have been a scourge to humanity for years! My people have been hunting witches for generations! So go on, kill me if you can! Other humans will continue my legacy" At this point the fallen emperor was just lashing out of fear, and even he was aware of it.
"Ahhh, I should just end your suffering, but that would be too merciful for you. I'm just going to show you something instead" With that the black liquid dropped down to its original level.
Belos however, refused to climb down. He clung desperately to the rocky cliff. When the titan saw that he facepalmed.
"Oh for the love of- can you just come down?! You look like a cat in a tree! If I wanted to kill you I would've already done so"
Belos climbed down cautiously, when he was at ground level one of those strange orange cubes that were floating around emerged from the titan's reflection in the water, it hovered right in front of Belos' face.
"What is this?" He asked with fear.
"I did say that I wanted to show you something, didn't I? Just look at it, don't worry it won't hurt you"
Belos, without any other option but to do as the titan said, looked at the cube's crystalline surface reflecting his face: With the brunette beard and blue coat he had the same aspect that he had before he used the name Belos, back when he was Phillip Whitebane, he thought it was a shame that he wouldn't use that name again.
Before he could keep wondering about his appearance something changed. The reflection in the mirror flashed and suddenly he wasn't looking at himself but rather at a whole different place, like those scrolls and crystal balls the witches had developed. The cube was showing him a room packed with children sitting in front of desks, it took him a while to figure out but once he saw the black board he realized that this was a classroom. He wanted to ask the titan why he wanted him to see the school but then he noticed something else: None of the kids had pointed ears or presented any deformation normally seen in demons, which meant…
"This is a human school!" He thought with excitement, Belos had always been a scholar so seeing a building dedicated to education filled him with glee. He hadn't been able to interact much with the modern human society when he came back after the collector defeated him. He mostly spent those months trying to regain his strength by consuming animals, for the first few weeks he was too weak to even form a consciousness, and later he had been busy trying to execute his plan of coming back to the boiling isles.
"Yes, it is a human school in the modern era" Belos didn't know if he had spoken out loud or if the titan could read his mind "I figured that you didn't look at these the last time you were there, why don't we get closer?"
The reflective surface engulfed him before he couldn't even protest, practically devouring him as if it had a mouth. When Belos opened his eyes again he was in the classroom himself: He could hear the teacher dictating class, feel the breeze coming from the window, and smell the body odor that was the result of putting many teenagers in one cramped space.
"I'm… back?" He looked around and tried to reach for one of the students.
"Don't try to do that" The incorporeal voice of the titan warned him "You are not really here, they can't see you"
Belos felt frustrated at that.
"This is your torture? Show me the home I can't ever return to? Because if that's it you are going to have to do better than that demon!" He pointed at the sky with an accusing finger.
*Sigh* "This is not torture, trust me. For now I just want you to watch"
Belos didn't have many options, so he did as he was told.
"Alright everyone let's wrap up what we have been seeing these past classes, remember that we have a history test in a few weeks!" There was a collective groan after the teacher announced that.
"A history lesson? Perfect, this is exactly what I need"
"First of all we are going to review what we know of the 17th century. Does anyone know why us, the people from Hartford, should know about this era?" Some hands rose and she pointed to a teenage girl "Sammy?"
"Hartford is notable for the Connecticut witch trials, which took place in the early american colonies"
Belos could hardly contain his glee. Human schools were still teaching about his profession! Even centuries in the future! He wondered how the witch hunters from today had mastered the craft and what techniques they have developed over the yea-
"That is correct!" The teacher continued and started writing on the board "The Connecticut witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft, most of them happened here, in hartford. More than thirty innocent women were imprisoned, and some of them were even executed during the practice of this barbaric custom…"
"WHAT?"
"The Connecticut witch trials occurred from 1647 to 1663. Although the witch panic lasted a bit more in the colonies, considering the Salem's witch trials in 1692, it generally started to die down from that point, following the example of Europe that started to get rid of that superstitious belief half a century ago" Belos couldn't believe what he was hearing, he barely had time to process it all "This marked the start of a new beginning: This showed the people how antiquated the beliefs of the puritan settlers were, even if they remained for the upcoming centuries… Yes Kevin?" She pointed to a blonde boy who had raised his hand.
"Umm. I don't know if you talked about this when I missed class for having a cold, but aren't witches supposed to be… evil? I mean don't they curse people, eat babies, and stuff?"
"EXACTLY!" However his views weren't shared by the rest of the class.
"Been watching way too many halloween movies I see. Well for your information people accused of practicing dark magic and consorting with the devil weren't actually witches because, and I hope that all of you know this by now, magic isn't real" That made a round of laughter erupt in the classroom, the blonde kid lowered his head in shame "Yes, our modern idea of witches is just a fantasy and most people are aware of it. But for the colonizers the witches were real, they represented people that were corrupted by the devil. As you can imagine that wasn't the case, all of the people who were accused of being witches were just people who mostly didn't fit in: People from different ethnicities, religions, and views, but most of it was just women who refused to align themselves to the beliefs of that time. There was a case where a woman was hanged just because she didn't go to the sunday mass church, then there was a time when a woman was imprisoned for dancing while drunk because the neighbors thought that she was practicing satanic rituals" The teacher went on and on but Belos didn't listen to those.
It was like his fundations were shattered, this was an illusion, it had to be. The titan must have fabricated this to torture him. There was no way that the human race had changed so much that they would regard the sacred craft of witch hunting as something obsolete and superstitious.
"Oh, you are done?" He heard the voice of the titan again "Good, then we can continue"
Before he could protest the scene shifted again. The classroom disappeared and gave way to a park in the middle of the day, there were a lot of trees and some rectangular stones. For a second Belos was relieved to see green grass and a blue sky, but then he remembered that this was part of the titan's machinations so he kept his guard up.
"What are you playing at?" he asked.
"Shh, just watch"
At that moment a group of people appeared in the scene. He had seen modern clothing from Luz and all of the human source materials that ended up washing in the boiling isles throughout the years, so he wasn't surprised by what he saw them wearing, but he was shocked by what he heard one of them say.
"...and here we have the monument to the victims of the Salem's witch trials" A man leading the crowd said "The names put in this memorial belong to the men and women who were tortured and killed because they were accused of witchcraft during the witch hunting days, many centuries ago. The descendants of these victims have claimed to the state that they should be recognized as such, the last one of them was given an official pardon one year ago when…" Belos stopped listening at that point.
He walked closer to those marble structures and he could see that they were effectively a monument. As he approached he saw that there were a multitude of names engraved in the five rectangular stones in the back, in front of them there was an altar made of the same material with a statue of a book on top of it. There were more words in one side of the altar, he could read the following sentence:
IN THE MEMORY OF THOSE INNOCENTS WHO DIED DURING THE SALEM VILLAGE WITCHCRAFT HYSTERIA
"No… this is all wrong…" He clenched his fist against the altar.
"I think we are done here. I could show you more but I believe you get the gist" The disembodied voice of the titan mocked him again.
"Agh, you will not deceive me!" He pointed an accusing finger towards an empty place "Do you think that I wouldn't notice this was a trick? A use of your magic to torture me?"
As he talked, two women walked towards the monument. When they were in front of it they started talking to each other.
"Poor people, can you imagine living in a time like that?" Her companion nodded
"How barbaric, I can't believe that people sent women to hang just because they believed in magic" She said.
"BUT MAGIC IS REAL" Belos couldn't hold it anymore and exploded in rage "They are real, I've seen them- there's a whole world of them and they are coming for us- listen PLEASE"
The two women turned around without even paying him attention. Belos reached for them but his hand went through her arm.
"Haven't you learned yet? You are not here so you cannot interact with them, you are just a watcher here" The titan taunted him.
"I refuse to keep listening to this ruse! I want to get out, out I said!"
He started running away. Towards the people, the trees, the park, towards anywhere else that wasn't that stone plaque. When he was a few feet away he was surrounded by a blinding light but it didn't matter to him, he just kept running. There was a strange sound and he was lifted from the ground, after a while his feet connected with the ground and he noticed that the floor was wet in a familiar way. When Belos opened his eyes again he was back at the watery abyss and the Titan was still on his reflection below.
"Aha! I managed to get away from your illusion, your plan has failed!"
"Hooray for you" the Titan looked unamused "Now, what part of that made you think that it was an illusion?"
"I refuse to think that anything I saw there was real, now leave me alone!" He stomped the black liquid (which only blurred the Titan's image for a bit) and stormed off.
"Where do you think you are going?" No matter how fast he ran, the Titan's reflection was glued to his feet like a shadow.
"Away from this nightmarish place, and away from you!"
"Do you think that's possible here? Where do you think we are?!"
Those words made him stop and reconsider. Over the years he had studied magic with the sole goal to wipe out the boiling isles, at first he researched with whatever book he could find, then the collector gave him even more information, and when he was emperor the entire knowledge of the boiling isles was his disposition. Because of all of that, there were little things that he didn't know about the demon realm, but he didn't know where he was.
"This place… it isn't in the demon realm, but it isn't heaven nor hell either. Where are we?" He turned to look at the titan.
"This is the place in between realms, it's between earth and the boiling isles, and between life and death. As you have experienced, you can see pretty much everything here since this kinda works like the middle point of the cosmos" The Titan pointed at the floating cubes.
"So this is purgatory then, I did die and now you are here to torture me" Belos clung against a wall, he had a look of horror in his face.
"How many times do I have to tell you that this isn't torture-"
"Lies!" Belos hissed "You are here just to make me suffer demon- ugh!" A sharp sensation of pain stopped him from saying anything else. He looked down and saw how the back liquid was starting to wrap on his right leg like a vine. Whenever the liquid touched him it burned his skin and sent pain throughout all of his body.
"If I wanted to torture you, I'd be doing this instead" Belos cried as the black substance from the floor enveloped him, every inch of his skin was on fire and every pain sensor of his body was shooting at his brain "The visions that you saw inside the mirrors were real and they are the only reason why you are still alive, so you better sit and listen what I'm about to say"
The enormous amount of pain stopped once the Titan finished speaking, the inky slime holding him retreated as well. Once he could move again Belos collapsed on the ground, totally exhausted.
"Did that hurt?" The Titan chuckled "That's nothing, do you want to know how pain truly feels?" He snapped his fingers and several cubic mirrors emerged from the floor. They all flashed and started reproducing different images "Being able to only watch as you used my name to trick others into following you for years" The flashing images became more clear and Belos could see different parts of his reign: How he presented himself for the first time as Belos in front of witches, how he started the coven system, and how he ascended to the throne "Seeing you using 'my will' as an excuse for imposing your corrupt system and hurting innocents and not being able to do anything to stop you… now THAT was torture"
"I…" Belos wanted to retort but he was too weak to do so, clearly from whatever that inky substance did to his body.
"I should've let those witches kill you, but I didn't because I wanted to show you something, so now you will watch" Most of the cubes around him dispersed, except one "You said that what I showed you was an illusion? Well, here's proof that it was real"
The mirror in front of him showed him the boiling isles, he saw his last attempts at eradicating all life in the boiling isles by controlling the titan's heart and he saw how Luz defeated him again and his last moments, then he saw how the collector released all the witches from the archives. Then it showed him how all of them started rebuilding together.
"You see? Despite all you did it seems that life will thrive in the boiling isles after all, the people in the human realm consider you a crazy lunatic and your ways are obsolete. To me it looks like you died for nothing"
"They- are- still- LIES!" Belos got on his feet with difficulty "Those people might have forgotten their roots but I haven't! People nowadays might believe that magic isn't real, but I know it is! I've seen an entire world filled with witches and demons, so don't try to fool me! I know that they are wrong!"
"Oh, but were they? We both know that magic is real, but those people weren't talking about the witches of the boiling isles"
"What do you mean?"
"The people at the memorial and the teacher, they were talking about the innocent humans that were burned for being accused of witchcraft. Now that you know that it is impossible for humans to do magic, what do you think about the people you and your colleagues sent to the stake?" The titan asked with a mischievous intent.
"I- That doesn't matter! None of it does! They could've been witches from the boiling isles in disguise for all I'm aware of! At the end of the day I'm enough proof that I was right, I was captured by a witch and brought to this horrid place you people call home, that is undeniable evidence that witches and demons are a threat to humanity"
"And exactly how are we a threat? Most witches have never seen a human beyond Luz and fewer of them had shown any intent of going to earth, not to mention that they don't have the means to do it, crafting a portal door is really complicated, as you may recall"
"What about me?!" He roared "My brother and I were whisked away from our world by one of those horrendous witches! She lured him away with her witchcraft and corrupted his soul!"
For a while, the titan was silent, then he sighed.
"Ahh, Evelyn" The floating block got near him and he was transported to another place. Once he opened his eyes again Belos could see that he was in the boiling isles again, but it was different than the last time he saw them; The titan arm wasn't reaching towards the sky and the collector's castle wasn't anywhere to be seen.
"What is this?" He looked around in awe.
"These mirrors can also act as a window to the past" The cooking voice of the Titan resonated in the air "Right now you are looking at a time before you arrived to the demon realm. I'm showing you this because in order to complete your journey, you must first understand what happened before in the boiling isles, now watch"
Belos did as he was told and looked around. He was in the middle of a red forest and the only visible landmarks there were some old ruins in a clearing; A few columns and an archway. He was about to ask what he was supposed to be watching when he heard the rustling of some leaves, he looked towards the direction of the sound and felt his blood boil. There, running towards the clearing he was at, was the person that started his torment: Evelyn. The red-haired witch had her usual mischievous smile and was wearing the same brown tunic she was wearing when he first saw her, she was carrying a leather bag and seemed to be in a hurry to go somewhere.
"You! You wretched harlot! Do you have any idea what you cost me?! All the years that I've suffered for what you did!" He did not care that she wasn't able to hear him, he had the person that took everything from him right there and he couldn't care about anything else "Your devilish tricks had brought me nothing but pain!" Evelyn kept running past him "Come back here you! I'm not done-"
"Come back here you!" Another voice echoed him. He could see that it was another brown haired witch chasing after her "Evelyn! You can't do this!"
"Ahh, come on Sophie, they are never going to notice" She stopped in the middle of the clearing and started unloading her bag.
"That is titan blood Eve, it's one of the rarest substances in the isles! Of course they are going to know! Why did you take it?" The other witch managed to catch up to her and started scolding her.
"Settle down sis, I did it for a good cause! Here" She grabbed a dusty old book from the bag and showed a page to her companion "I've found father's old notes and managed to transcribe them, look! This page describes an incomplete long range transportation spell, the likes of which have never been done before" She extended her arms to add a dramatic effect.
"Aaand? Does that explain why you robbed the alchemist's shop?" Her sister questioned.
"Because, dummy, titan's blood is the most powerful magical source! Not to mention that it has been theorized that it can be useful in transportation spells! Think about it, if we can complete this not only will we finish dad's research, but we will also revolutionize travel in the isles, think about it! Being able to transport from the toe to the mandible in seconds" She sighed in a dreamy face.
"Are you…? Did you make all of this ruckus for that? Evelyn! This is serious! You can get banished for this…"
"Pfft, there's nothing else for me here besides you" She went and caressed her sister's face "You are really important to me but these people are nothing but jerks. If things go my way, they will be begging me to work with them when I'm done, and if they don't… well I'll just find another way to deal with things, don't worry about me" She said with a solemn face.
"Eve, I'll always worry about you… but are you sure? It's not like you can go back after this"
They were interrupted by a loud sound. Belos looked at the forest and saw multiple lights of torches and light spells illuminating the night, he also heard the sounds of multiple footsteps in the floor.
"I think she went this way!" Some voices yelled.
"Shit! The guys at the alchemist guild found out you stole them! What now?" Sophie looked terrified "Do we fly away or- what are you doing?"
Evelyn was in front of the arch, tracing some lines in the dirt, some of those reminded him of some spells he used to cast, and he watched her pour some liquids from a vial she had on her belt.
"You go, grab your palisman and fly away, they won't chase you down because you don't have this" She pulled some vials of titan's blood from her bag "Go with mom and lay low for a bit"
"What about you? They are getting closer!" She pointed at the gathering mob.
"What a better time to see if this baby works?" She shaked the titan's blood in front of her.
"Are you serious?"
"I don't have anything to lose, if it works I'll just portal away, and if it doesn't I'll just fly away, but I don't want you caught up with it. Just… be safe, ok?"
Her sister didn't argue, a single tear sled in her cheek and she summoned a robin palisman and flew away. Evelyn stood up and walked towards the arch, she then jumped high and smashed the vial of titan's blood on the tallest point, spilling all of it in the top part.
"Alright, let's see if this bad boy works!" She raised her hands and traced a golden spell circle in the air. The lines she had traced in the floor lighted up and so did the titan's blood, the two of them emanated an energy that filled the empty space below the arch, it was swirling with brown and yellow lights "I did it! Haha, it works!"
"Stop right there!" A voice shouted from the forest and someone came into the clearing, it was a demon with feline features, white fur, and goat horns "Evelyn Clawthorne, you are arrested for stealing from the alchemist's guild, surrender at once!" He brandished a horse palisman at her.
"Pfft, you'll have to catch me first, later dorks!" She jumped in the portal after proclaiming that and a huge flash of light blinded Belos.
When he opened his eyes again the scenery had changed, they were still in a forest but now the trees were green and there was no trace of the titan's skull, they were now in the human realm. In front of him Evelyn was sitting in the middle of a patch of charred grass, she was rubbing her back as if she fell in a bad way.
"Ouch… Ok I may have overshot it a little bit"
She got up and started exploring around, leaving Belos alone.
"This is how 'the bane of your existence' appeared in the human realm, it wasn't a planned attack, and it wasn't an invasion, it was merely a coincidence" The titan spoke in a soft tone "If it was for me I would've never allow this to happen, but I can't control anything from here"
The scene moved again and this time it didn't settle for one place, now they were shifting among locations, he could see different images that showed him Evelyn's journey in the human realm: The first time she came in contact with a human village and how she was chased away because of her ears and how she learned to cover them for stealth, then she appeared living among humans for a while, working as a healer for the people in far away villages. She eventually went back to the demon realm, but kept enough titan's blood to make several journeys and keep living with humans. Then he saw an image that always showed in his nightmares.
"Caleb…" He whispered.
His brother appeared there. In one image he showed up in her cabin, judging by the state he was in he was sick, then Evelyn is shown offering him a potion and in the next one he is in a much better state, next Caleb appeared with a carved wooden bird in his hand and he offered it to Evelyn.
"Right, he always carved animals for people, he used to say that it was a way of repaying"
The images shifted from them greeting each other in the mornings to him coming to drink tea with her, obviously some amount of time had happened since their first interaction. Finally the images stopped shifting and he appeared in a new place; He recognized it as some ruins in the woods outside of gravesfield, it was at night but he could distinguish two figures walking in the dark he got closer and saw that it was Evelyn leading Caleb towards the forest.
"Come on, blondie! If you don't keep the pace we will arrive by morning" She yelled with a playful tone.
"It would help if you told me where we are going" Belos gasped, it had been long- way too long -since he had heard his brother's voice and not one of the grimwalkers.
"What part of 'surprise' don't you understand? Just trust me" she said as she led him further and further away from the village.
Belos wanted to scream, to warn him to not go there, but he knew it would be useless. Eventually they reached a table with two chairs on it, on top of the table there was a piece of blue wood that he knew very well.
"So this is where you are going to give me woodcarving lessons? You do know that I am already a master at it, right?" Caleb asked.
"No…"
"There's always something to learn, I bet I can surprise you smarty, now show me what you got"
They sat in front of each other and Caleb started carving as Evelyn gave him advice and made small talk from time to time. Eventually he finished and showed her a creature he'd hoped to never see again: A red cardinal.
"Ok, I think it's ready" His brother put down the knife he used to carve and stretched. They had been here a while and the sun started rising in the horizon "I'd say this is my finest work yet"
"It's not ready yet" Evelyn got up and looked at him with a serious glare "Caleb there's something I want to show you, but you have to promise to listen to me and that you won't get scared"
"What could you possibly do to scare me?" He asked with a cocky smirk.
"I'm serious" She cut him off with a look "This is important"
*sigh* "Fine Lyn, I promise I will listen to you"
"Great" The witch looked at the ground, suddenly ashamed "The truth is that I… have a secret, and not many people around here would accept me if they knew about it"
"What? Lyn, people love you! You helped so many with your cures and potions and you are always invited to parties, I don't see how anyone could hate you" His words made the red haired woman smile.
"You are different Caleb, you are kind and I'm sure you are physically incapable of hating someone, which is why I've decided to show you this" She stepped back and uncovered the veil she had in her head, fully exposing her ears to his brother.
"Wait what!" Caleb jumped, shock and surprise evident in his face.
"Please don't scream! But yeah, this is what I wanted to show you, the truth is that I'm… I'm a witch"
Evelyn stood there looking at the ground while she waited for a response while Caleb just looked at her with his mouth wide open. Belos wondered why he never heard of this encounter and if this was the time when Evelyn bewitched his brother into following her and forsaking his soul.
"I don't understand…" He said after a while.
"What's there to understand? I'm a witch, I can do magic look" She drew a spell circle in the air and a small light orb appeared from it.
"I… That's what I don't understand! Witches are supposed to be evil! They eat babies and cause pests! But you aren't anything like that! Did you forsake your soul to the devil in order to gain power? Why Evelyn?"
SLAP
Belos watched in awe and anger as Evelyn lunged forward and slapped his brother's cheek with great force. Caleb looked at her while holding his bruised skin.
"Okay, first of all, not every witch is evil! I don't go around eating babies or putting curses on people! I only use my magic to heal people, like I healed you! And I don't know this 'say-ton' you people like to ramble about but I never sold anything for power, I was born this way" She humphed and got up, it was clear by her face that she was annoyed "Honestly I expected that you out of all the people would understand, but it seemed that I expected too much. So go ahead, tell the people about me and lead them to my door with torches and pitchforks, see if I care"
Evelyn started walking and Belos could see from his point of view that she was crying, but he didn't have time to ponder on that because Caleb ran towards her and grabbed her hand.
"Wait Lyn, please" He pleaded.
"Let me go!" She struggled against his grasp.
"I-I-I'm sorry, but please don't run away, let's talk" He released her and she shoved him away while looking at him angrily, but she stopped trying to get away "I… I've been told all my life that witches are evil and the work we do is holy, even if sometimes it feels wrong, but now you are telling me that you are a witch and I know that you are not evil, so I don't know what to think now" He took a deep breath and looked at her in the eyes "What I am trying to say is that I only have one side of the story and maybe I need more information, so could you please tell me your story? I promise I won't tell anyone"
"What are you doing?! You should have killed her right then and there!"
"Fine… just let me finish before judging me" He nodded and the two of them sat back down "So I'm from a place called the boiling isles…"
The two of them kept talking as she told him everything about the demon realm while he asked a thousand questions. Caleb's mood went from cautious and doubtfull to curious and excited during the course of the conversation. As they went on Evelyn became more relaxed and even started showing some spells to him. Belos watched, almost in agony, how she used her magic to infuse life in that vile palisman, he saw how he became marveled at his creation and almost cried in joy. When the moment passed, the two of them cleaned and kissed while the newly formed palisman chirped happily.
"No…"
"I think we can skip to the next part" The titan spoke and the scene banished, leaving him standing alone in a black abyss "Moving forward those two kept seeing each other in secret until something happened" An image of a worried Evelyn appeared in front of him, she seemed to be looking for something in her possessions "Evelyn started to run out of titan blood to do her journeys, so she decided to leave, permanently" The scene changed and now she was writing a letter with tears on her eyes "She didn't have the courage to ask Caleb to come with her, so she just wrote a letter explaining everything and dropped it on his house. She was hoping that by the time he read that it would be too late, but she was wrong" Another change. This time his brother was reading the letter with a shocked look "He came back from work earlier that day and once he read the letter he hurried to the woods in order to stop her. When he arrived" A new image appeared showing a gasping Caleb embracing the shocked redhead "He told her that he loved her and that if she had to go… he would go with her"
"NO! He wouldn't choose to leave me! He was kidnapped! Bewitched into following that despicable witch!" He was clinging to his chest and gasping for air.
"Are you really going with that? Come on, you know how magic works better than anyone, which is really ironic given your profession" The titan said with a mocking tone "Bard magic can alter what you hear and illusion magic can alter what you see, but no magic can change how you feel or act, you should know that well"
"There's no way he would've abandoned me willingly!" He denied with tears in his eyes.
"See it for yourself"
The world shook again and he was in a familiar place: The clearing in the forest with a massive stoned arch over it. This was the last place he ever saw of the human realm before going to the boiling isles so he knew it very well, he always saw it in his dreams. The scene in front of him was different than the last time he was here though, instead of seeing his brother walking through an open portal he was watching his brother and the witch embracing each other in front of the monument.
"Don't you get it Caleb?" Evelyn's eyes were red and puffy, she had obviously been crying "I only have enough titan's blood for two journeys, if I can't find more I would be stuck here the next time I come, I love you but there's nothing in your world for me. You have seen how they treat those who are different, I need to go back to my people"
"If that's the case…" Caleb was looking at her with a determined glare "Take me with you"
"What?"
"If you can't stay I'm coming with you! I… I love you too! I can't live my days here thinking that you might never come back and I can't go back to being without you!"
"But what about your life? What about your brother?" She asked the same questions that were rounding inside Belos' mind at this moment.
"What life? The witch hunter one? I only picked it up because it was the best paid job around here to sustain us, and I can't go back to it now that I know what we were doing is wrong! And Philip…" Belos felt a knot form around his throat "He'll be ok without me. I don't think that he will understand if I try to explain it to him because he has gotten too used to this town's lifestyle. I'll definitely come back once we find more blood, maybe by then he will be mature enough to understand"
"Are you sure? It may be a long time until you can come back" She asked him with a hopeful look.
"I have never been more sure of anything else in my life"
"Then, shall we do this together?" she pulled their linked hands up and smiled.
"Together" Caleb nodded.
He felt completely heartbroken as his brother and the witch that stole him walked towards the arch and activated the portal.
"And there you have it, what a wonderful story about some star-crossed lovers. It would have been a great way to end it that way. But of course we know that it isn't what happened, because you had to intervene "
A series of images that he knew very well started floating in front of him, narrating his story like taunting him. On the first one he saw himself noticing Caleb enter the portal and running after him. In the other he appeared in the boiling isles all alone. In the next few were showing him exploring the demon realm on his own and finding the glyphs: He found the plant glyph after a giant carnivorous plant tried to eat him, the ice one was after a nasty encounter with the slitherbeast, and he found the fire one after some witches had pranked him with fire bees. Then he carved those in his skin as a way to gain magic himself, only to end up cursed with a monstrous form. Finally it showed him finding Caleb after years of wandering in the isles, only to see him walking hand in hand with the witch that brought him to that cursed place.
"I believe that you know how this ends, so let's speed this up"
"What do you mean by-"
"Brother, wait!" Caleb's voice interrupted him.
"Traitor!" He heard himself yell.
"No… not this" He begged and closed his eyes.
He covered his ears to block the sound but it didn't work, he could still hear everything: The crackle of the fire around them, his brother's pleas, and his screams in anger
"I know that you are angry Phill, I'm sorry for leaving you! I-I I was going to come back!"
"You consorted with one of those demon lovers? You have forsaken your soul!"
"Phillip please! We don't have to do this!"
"Do you have any idea what I went through? The torments I had to withstand to save you! Only to find you allying yourself to one of those… witches!"
"Brother calm down! I will explain everything!"
"Oh there's nothing to explain, I already understand everything. Don't worry Caleb, I will save your soul…"
The next thing he heard was the familiar sound of steel cutting flesh and a scream of pain, alongside with the sound of some footsteps getting closer.
"WHAT DID YOU DO!" Evelyn's scream pierced his ears.
After that everything went silent and Belos wept. For what, he didn't know, but the titan wasn't done.
"Some people say that everyone deserves a second chance, even the worst criminals, and that there's no exception to that rule. But then what do we do with you? Because you already had your second chance"
Another mirror appeared, this time it depicted the last moments of the first grimwalker he ever made.
"Belos, please! Those explosives were an accident I swear-" He was cut off when Belos decapitated using his palisman-powered arm.
"What a disappointment, and to think that you would choose to betray me again…" The memory stopped there but the titan wasn't done.
"...And third…"
"Sir I didn't mean to- agh!" His second grimwalker cried as he was turned into stone.
"...fourth…"
"Uncle it wasn't me!" Then he was turned into dust by an energy beam.
"...fifth…"
"Sorry that I failed the mission, emperor, but I promise…" Ripped to shreds by demonic claws.
"...sixth…"
"...It was you, wasn't it? You were the one that did it!" Mauled to death by his own hands.
"...seventh…"
"Wild magic isn't bad! You are lying to everyone!" Burned up in flames.
"...eighth…"
"Uncle… why?" Tossed to the pit below his castle.
"...nineth…"
"I won't do this! I won't let you harm them!" Heart pierced by a stone spike.
"...and… Oh well, who can count that many? It amazes and sickens me how you could've kept going for so long, didn't it cross your mind that it wasn't meant to be? All of those grimwalkers had different personalities despite coming from the same person, but all of them ended up rebelling against you, doesn't that tell you anything?"
Belos had kneeled down and was looking at the ground with a blank stare, he had been crying this whole time so his face was covered in tears.
"It's… not… fair…" He mumbled.
"What?"
"IT'S NOT FAIR" He raged against the titan "HE WAS MY BROTHER! YOU WITCHES TOOK HIM FROM ME! YOU DON'T GET TO SIT HERE AND REPRIMAND ME WHILE YOU PEOPLE WERE THE ONES THAT CAUSED IT… I just wanted him back… He's the only family I have left"
"Actually, you are wrong about that too, look" He summoned another glass cube.
It showed Belos the life of Evelyn after the last time he saw her, how she chased him down and searched for him screamed bloody murder, but she gave up after a while. She then came back to her people and made a grave for Caleb in her yard, the screen flashed and it looked like the time had passed: The grave had flowers on it and the grass around had grown, Evelyn was older now, with specs of gray hair in her red mane, and she was holding the hand of a small blonde girl.
"What?" He walked towards the mirror. The kid was a perfect amalgamation of Caleb's features, but she was still undoubtedly a witch.
"Yes, it seems that your brother left his legacy in the isles, and it continued to grow throughout the years"
The images shifted to show Evelyn getting older until her tombstone was right next to Caleb's. Then it showed her daughter growing up and having kids of her own, they formed a community in the isles and Belos saw generation after generation of that family pass, until he came up to two familiar faces.
"It can't be!" He recoiled when he saw Eda and Lilith as the descendants of Caleb.
"Oh yes, and it is kind of ironic, because you told all of those grimwalkers to call you 'uncle' when you actually were an uncle all this time" He clicked his tongue "What a pity, and to think after all these years you are still hurting your family"
The images faded. All of the mirrors that were showing his journeys became black and one by one floated away, leaving him standing alone in that black abyss.
"What now?" He was clenching in anticipation at what future tortures the Titan was going to submit him to.
"Now? I don't have anything else to show you, we have reached the end of the exposition and only your final fate awaits"
Belos sighed. He guessed that after a lifetime of mistakes the least he could do was die with dignity, at least this way he may see his brother again.
"This is when you kill me, isn't it?" He asked with a resigned tone.
"I wish nothing more than that, you have no idea how much I want to take revenge on what you did… But it's not my place to do it…"
"What?" He asked without believing what he was hearing.
"Yes, because if there's someone who definitely deserves to kill you, it's them"
Before Belos could ask who was he referring to he felt something shake below him. A part of the black liquid that filled the ground was bubbling and something seemed to come out of it. At first it was a thin and dark arm and then a long mane of hair emerged, in mere seconds a creature had surfaced and it looked at him. It was a mixture of several animals: Beaks from birds chirping at him angrily, maws and tweezers that were opening and closing in an erratic fashion, claws and hoofs trying to run away, all of it was compressed into a big black blob of animal parts with a semi humanoid shape.
"There he is! Murderer! Killer! Liar! Traitor! Danger! Attack!" The thousands of voices of the palismen screamed at him in unison.
"No… not them" He stepped back in pure fear "Titan! You must-"
But to his horror when he looked down the titan's reflection wasn't there. He had vanished, maybe finally passed on to the afterlife, leaving him alone with the shambling abomination that was approaching him.
"No, please!" He attempted to run away but the palismen amalgamation stretched one of its thin arms and lunged at him with it, effectively forming a lasso that caught his waist "Agh!"
The monster pulled him towards it and Belos, in a last desperate attempt to save himself, managed to grab one of the mirror cubes that were floating around.
"Take me away from here, please!" He screamed to the screen as he was pulled by his waist "I don't care where, just take me somewhere!" But the screen remained black.
"Killer! Danger! Die!" The palisman amalgamation yelled as it grabbed him with its monstrous arm.
Bellos yelled as he was stabbed several times by it, everytime the goo forming the palisman touched him his skin and flesh melted. The creature pierced him, cutted him, and chopped him until he was a beaten up pulp. Once it was done he was tossed across the abyss to the wet floor, nearby the mirror cube he tried to grab before. The sounds the creature made behind him told Belos that it wasn't over.
"Please…" He coughed up some blood. His body was in a bad shape and he couldn't stand "Just… Let me see him… One more time…" He crawled towards the cube, leaving a bloody trail in the black liquid, he felt his many injuries opening and his whole body was screaming in pain, but he didn't care. He advanced slowly until his shaky fingers made contact with the reflective screen "Let me see my brother one more time! Caleb Whittebane, show him to me!"
For a while nothing happened and he was afraid this was going to be it, but then the screen lit up, showing him an image. At first Belos felt hope upon seeing his brother, but then he realized this wasn't the case; The mirror wasn't showing Caleb to him, it was showing Hunter. He saw how he helped rebuild the isles and learn how to carve palismen, then the scene changed and it was him kissing a black-haired witch.
"Hun… ter…" And that was Belos' last word.
I took some liberties when talking about Belos' monster form, since we never actually learned how it works. Also he might feel a little bit ooc here but that's how I picture he really is inside: Despite all of his power and influence he is just an old man with fear of the unknown.
I actually did a bit of research on the witch trials to write this. I've found a lot of interesting stuff, human history is messed up.
We never knew how or why Evelyn traveled to the human realm (I believe Philip made the portal Eda used), so I took some creative freedom in that.
Also this was mostly to vent the needs I have to punch Belos in the face. I did this because I think he deserved to suffer more: I wanted him to understand that he did all of that for nothing.