Summary:
Our favorite cinnamon roll suffers some more, the resident sweat potato is confused by her emotion, and both Eda and Camila are cool moms.
Warning: self-hatred, gore
The moment her consciousness slowly returned to her body, she yearned for nothing more than to continue her slumber.
It was the first time in five years since she could rest for what felt like dozens of blissful hours that almost elongated forever. Shrouded in a cocoon of soothing opacity, nestled away from the burning eyes of the wolds, she found herself in a void where unborn ones echoes failed the task of existing, and the clamor of elder devils faded into the hypothetical.
The world surrounding her was nothing more than a comforting blanket of darkness that enraptures the souls of those who stray too far from the light, its boundless form defined by the soothing whisper of tranquility.
The shift of the darkened veil is the only warning Luz gets before she is thrown - not physically, but something akin to her tumbling and tearing across the nothingness like a comet, her momentum only halted by her form slamming into a white desert.
The clash throws up massive clouds of bone dust and debris, the parting falling from the sky shaped like unblemished diamonds. She feels no pain or shock from the fall, a perpetual hum filling her ears, the murmur rising, falling, and rising again, never once growing past the decibel of a whisper.
The sand is slightly warm, and she can't help but be peeved somewhat as she rises to her feet, the comfortable feeling disappearing into the twilight. Her toes raked along the surface, the texture feeling and behaving like sand, but she knew it wasn't.
Moving her lifeless gaze around her, an empty expanse greeted her as a barren desert unfurled before her.
The endless snow that had claimed the end was gone, and the Forest that had once stood tall for an eternity and more now lay wasted. In the indefinable distance, what was once the kingdom of Life now was nothing more than a colorless sky, the intricate lights now nothing more than a forgotten dream.
If Luz had been in her place, the horrific sight would have killed any semblance of the sound sleep she had been having, but her? Nothing more than a mirage created by Luz's mind to help itself in healing and take part in whatever masquerade the Hunter wanted to break Luz with? Well, the unique form of the bone dust was far more interesting than the extinction of all things.
Well, almost everything.
Eight thrones sat waiting.
Eight seats pierced through the sky and ascended beyond it, their form switching through dimensions and folding them along the way.
Simply gazing at them forced the title of their owner to bloom inside her mind, rewriting the information onto the numerous sulcus of her brain.
The first one, standing proudly to her left, was nothing more than a shadow that almost seemed to swallow the non-existent light, the tendril of shades shifting like living flesh.
The pride of the Abyss, The First King of Chaos.
Following to its right was one made of twitching and pulsating muscle and gaping eyes, each eyeball surrounded by coiling blind serpents.
Gluttony given form, The Starving Blight.
The next was a throne made of deteriorating matter, its surface composed of bloating black holes and flashes of pale nuclear fire that formed the husk of a slumbering body.
Father of the abominable ones, the Blind Idiot God.
In contrast to the dim seat, the one next to it was crafted entirely from gleaming gold and radiant gems that whispered of immortality and unwavering servitude.
Here, you could find the manifestation of envy, The Apocalypse Dragon. Right beside it, another seat manifested, one of ever-shifting swords and blades that melded and reforged in a continuous cycle as they were bathed in a cascade of scalding bright ichor raining from the sky, symbolizing the embodiment of wrath, Haematotheist, and adjacent to it was the quintessence of decay, entropy, and pestilence personifying sloth and its owner, The Archon of Filth.
The seventh throne stands apart from its predecessor, breaking the illogical mold all the others shared as it is almost entirely missing.
Besides the remnants of a crystalline foundation and the taste of avarice one felt when staring at it for too long, there was nothing left but only curved corners of time and various stars stuck in their final moments, the light and heat of their hypernova barely out of tune with the world, leaving them in a perpetual state of stagnation.
The Child of stars, Traitor of his Kin
The last throne isn't empty.
She wasn't sure if the unrendered form of the Hunter had always been there or had appeared as she had been a bit distracted, but what was certain was that his seat was probably the strangest.
It rose from the ground onto ten poles of ever-growing and snapping bones that, ranging from frail and hollowed bird bones to decayed exoskeleton of Worm gods, interlocking tightly between one another to hold the throne in place. Extending from the foundation, the seat broadened as sets of ribs pushed from beneath the throne, forming an orchestra of ribs and twitching bone-marrow shaped like a blooming flower.
"Don't you hear it?"
The Hunter's voice, a mocking mimicking of actual noise, commanded the space to such a degree that her ears clicked as soon as the first consonant rang out. The form of their body was oddly anthropomorphic,
if only just, their neck craned to the sky.
And in said sky, there was nothing.
Sure, Luz's brain received a visual input from her eyes, and it tried to compare the nothingness in the sky with the horrific sights she had encountered over the years of gazing into the abyss but found none.
She couldn't tell what it was, what shape could ever look like that, or what color she could even compare it to. Her mind could vomit a tide of words to describe the nothingness in either english or the forgotten langues of the primordial devils, but she would run out of terms before formulating just a sketch of what lay in the sky.
This incomprehensible nothingness was the sky itself, stretching forever into the twilight, yet she could not see it.
But she could hear the Roar of Finality.
Her flesh rips apart the moment the hyme erases the endless desert of bone ash and the flickering memory of Life's kingdom, her arteries and veins exploding into a revenant mist as her organs liquify before evaporating, leaving her nothing more than a shambling skeleton that morphed into a shuffling abomination.
Power unblemished yet unbounded roses into their hollow core, the throne they stood unto (she didn't lay on a throne?) a moment ago crashing to the ground as they rose to welcome their maker.
Sad that this meeting is torn away from them by the machination of Luz's consciousness.
At first, she does nothing more than stir, the copy made to survive the Hunter games being erased along with her memories, leaving Luz confused but well-rested nonetheless. As her eyes forcefully flutter open, a kaleidoscope of colors welcomes her back to the real world.
Before she could even move a single muscle, a mild but sharp pain shot across her skin, serrating her pain receptors as her entire throat felt like it was pricked by razor needles that bit into feeble tendons in her neck.
With one hand massaging the worn-out muscles, she inspect her surroundings with tired eyes, not even trying to unweave the mangled thoughts that clouded her mind.
The room looked similar to a hospital room in the human world, from the large windows that allowed fresh light into the enclosure to the ashen walls that almost sucked the life out of everything, the only thing different being the absence of the frequent and irritating beeping of the machines that would adorn a hospital room.
With a sluggish effort, she summoned all her strength to push herself up from the horizontal embrace of the bed, shifting uncomfortably on the stiff mattress, the skin on her hands aching with every movement.
An unintentional yawn seeped by her, the corner of her mouth stinging as her jaws stretched wide open, the six rows of jagged teeth gleaming in the light.
Shifting her vision with mild concentration filled only by the minuscule desire to understand wherever she was, she took note of different elements of the room, ranging from the wall stacked with papers smeared with asymmetrical figures bathed in bright dyes to the young witch sleeping to one of the chairs in the room, her back resting against the backrest as tangled tendrils of green hair cascaded down her back and over the chair's backrest but also the anatomy illustration hanging from the wa-
'Wait, young witch!?'
Luz blinked once, and that was enough for her vision to fizzle and wither
(The audience around her cheers and hollers from their seats, their unburdened excitement buzzing through the air like the drums of war, their grins hovering above her like wolves above a wounded prey, not once realizing that they are all in danger.
She tries to inhale, but only viscus liquid greets her, the unwounded abomination above her staring with uncaring eyes into her v̷e̷r̷d̷a̷n̷t̷ amber ones. With unrelenting strength, the abomination wrapped around her, the gelatinous purple ooze churning in her mouth, forcefully opening her jaws and slowly crushing her windpipe as she uselessly fought for any semblance of control.
help me
Luz squirmed her arms around, trying to pull the fluid from her mouth, but what little part of the liquid she pulled out was quickly replaced, so with no hope in sight, she gazed at her 'enemy' and stared into her golden eyes, pleading her to stop.
Why won't you stop
But she doesn't.
So she searches for anyone in the crowd, anyone to help her, wordlessly pleading to be saved, but none meet her eyes.
Only the Hunter does.
Staring at her from the shadow of the ecstatic crowd, behind the people who were screaming and cheering, their thin but long claws( and yet so human, so like hers-) scraped against the witches and demons around them, their maw stretching wide open as they laughed and laughed and laughedlaug̷h̷e̷d̷l̷a̷u̷g̷h̷e̷d̷
Why won't anyone help me?
And in the murky and hazy mental state she found herself in, she couldn't help but question how they could stand alongside the monster that would purge them all, how they could cheer in unison with a creature who sang of blood and ruined worlds, a nd
h e l p
And the world burns in the Hunter's image)
Luz choked on a sudden, desperate breath, her eyes blown wide open as her hand clutched around her ribs, her chest heaving and aching with each frantic drag of air.
Her hands quivered like fragile leaves in the breeze, scraping her nails desperately against her skin, leaving diminutive grazes engraved in her flesh as she attempted to pull her mind together, blood surging into her ears and muting her surroundings.
And that makes it even worse, for which every second passing by, the almost primal desire to pierce a hole through her ears just so she could hear grew in intensity, the only sound encompassing her being her churning thoughts and the laughing.
That fucking laughter.
A deafening roar of laughter rumbled from the bottom of her mind, brewing with brutal vindication that made the hair on her arms stand on end. Despite her expectations, the Hunter refrained from unleashing a loud and earth-shattering roar of furry that would shake existence asunder or deform her body beyond the bounds of what should be.
They only laughed.
A maniacal cackle that grew louder and more unhinged by the second, unbounded by simple laws such as energy conservation and sound decay,
piercing through the boundaries of reason as it clawed at her sanity. A salty mixture of perspiration and unshed tears mingled with a tinge of blood flowing from her nose, and no matter how much she tried to scrap it off, the liquid would not depart, glued to her face like a parasite.
Then, a hand clamped down on her shoulder.
Her heart almost jumps from her chest as she pulled her body backward, her back crashing against the metal rail of the bed, forcing a hiss out of her as the meta bar left a shallow bruise across her shoulder blades.
A jolt of panic shot through her that mitigated the pain caused by the collision, the prospect of what the pompous witch was here for overcoming the ache.
Standing opposite of her was none other than Amity Blight, her verdant mint green hair flowing from her head freely instead of being held in a ponytail, the once neatly coiffed haircut reduced to a tangled and feverish mess with no apparent order or pattern.
'Was she here to get revenge?' A timid voice whispered into her ear, and she couldn't help but fall for the deceitful thought. The question tugged at her mind like a metal claw, and even as she tried to shake off the idea, to convince herself that it was just her apprehension around people who weren't her mom, no matter how much she tried, she couldn't dispute it.
Amilty, on the other hand, was unaware of Luz's turmoil and was taken by surprise by the human sudden reaction, pulling her arms back to her body, the sudden inclination to give up on her apology sprouting in her mind.
Still, she shook her head with resolve and began to speak.
The young witch's words didn't reach Luz no matter how much she strained her ears to do so (please stop laughing), the noise reverberating like the blast of a thousand trumpets (s-stop laughing) that shook her entire being.
To her shock, the young witch didn't seem to realize that Luz couldn't even comprehend her world, not showing any signs of aggression or confusion. Turning her gaze to meet the witch's golden orbs, a subtle flicker of guilt briefly flashed in Amity's eyes, leaving Luz puzzled as the witches tone becoming more soft-spoken and so unfamiliar.
That was if she could have actually heard anything that wasn't that fucking laughter.
A cacophony of laughter blended to form a horrid sound that was not too dissimilar to a wordless melody of deep echoing, sharp syllabic hissing and pushed in its indomitable march against her sanity, the distorted laugh nothing less than a blend of millions of agonizing voices having their blood and bones rendered to mush and their screams feeding into the cackling.
" STOP. LAUGHING. "
And her self-control slipped through her fingers like grains of sand.
The air surrounding her grew thick with the indiscernible stench of decay, conducting through the ionic compound present in the atmosphere the animosity that had been gradually building in the place where her heart should be.
From the spinal cord to every muscle fiber, nerve ending, and tissue in her body, to surging through the electrical impulses that rushed through her neural network, an all-encompassing miasma of churning despair bleeds from her silhouette.
The shadows clinging to the walls, hidden away from the scorching light, writhed and twisted like tendrils that vibrated in tune with her unstable emotion.
With a sickly crunch, she clamped her teeth together, flashes of unearthly light detonating from the movement; the metal bar at the edge of her bed vaporized in a shower of spark as her skinless fingers tore the metal, bits of sharpened alloy imbedding themself into her upper arm.
Her eyes glared past the young witch, her gaze fixated not on her but on the erroneous shade that contrived itself behind the young witch, shaping into an anthropomorphic mass of writhing appendages and skeletal tendrils that intertwined and formed a macabre fusion of sinew and marrow. The form they chose did not bear any characteristics besides the unclogged maw spread wide open and two orbs burning verdant, the fangs peeking through the gap of the 'mouth' painted in shining colorless blood that shone out of tune with the world.
Chaos ichor, vital fluid of the abominable gods
Something sinister whispered in her mind, but she didn't have to stare at it for more than a moment as one of the hunter appendages pulled it into their gullet, the maw stretching like a universe yawning.
In an action that made the scowl on her face deepen, the Nightmare prop the same appendage on the frozen form of Amity, a mix of bone and song that was twisted like a poor interpretation of a human arm, their bodies separated only by the Lie that kept the Hunter a step out of tune with existence. The movement of their appendages alone was enough to form fissures in the atmosphere, reality splintering under their noxious influence as pieces of solid air fell to the ground like shards, leaving vast holes of chaos in place.
The Hunter took a step forward, the distance between them shortening as their will deflected the laws of space and compressed reality so that what should have taken five steps was done in one. Their appendages drag across the young witch's body as they move past her, blood and flesh exploding in crimson fumes and growing in her place an obelisk of ashes and marrow, of memories and regrets, forming lines of tribute to empower the Hunter evermore. The spire stretches into the sky, the medical clinic snapping in half alongside the entirety of the island, the walls around them crumbling to dust and showcasing the devastation that would soon befall the Boiling Isle.
She doesn't even realize she is standing, unaware of the almost deranged expression of stupefaction and hysteria that spread across her face, her anger and sorrow so sudden that she virtually loses herself in her wrath and yet not missing the Hunter grinning at her with an almost human amusement.
Then the Nightmare turns their 'head' to the side, their gaze lingering onto the petrified whiches and demons caught in their final moment, some running for their life while others are frozen before the sudden annihilation that befall their species. Surprisingly, there were even some brave guards who were starting to form circles of magic with the naive hope of stopping that wave of death created by the Hunter's thought.
"Look at them, so close to their end, chickens with their head cut yet more free than you and us combined." Something flickered in the orbs that orbited the Hunter's empty sockets, an emotion familiar to her but what should be impossible for a hollow nightmare life the Hunter to perceive.
"Their species is nothing more than a wooden boat lost in an ocean of monsters, still alive to this day only because of the mercy of the human emperor and his endless hoards of gods and unhallowed beasts, and yet they are happier in their mortality than us in our Godhood."
To this day, Luz doesn't know if it was the anxiety she felt building in her stomach as the realization that the Hunter was different from the Nightmare she had unfortunately met so many years ago or perhaps it was the desire to have something terrible happen to her, but despite her apprehension, her fear gave way just enough for the knot in her throat to dislodge e.
"What are you? For a long time, I have thought that you were some baster of a god who got a kick of ruining my life, but.." Luz stopped for a second, gulping as their gaze landed on her, their head tilting to the right.
"...that is clearly not the case. Via the biggest stroke of bad luck the world had ever seen, I somehow got linked with you, your influence bringing forth emotion in me that you had no right to engrave into my mind."
The world stood at a standstill as she finished her accusation, enabling Luz to breathe for the first time since asking her question, the adrenaline subsiding for a second and allowing fear to fill the gap.
"Would giving you one of our many names help you in any way? Would learning about the existence of our titles such as the First Hatred, The Last Nightmare, or ■■z ■o■■d■ bring you some comfort? No, it would not, but we will indulge your second inquiry."
There was a click in the air before she felt a crushing vice grip coil around her neck with enough force to sunder Creation, yet only leaving a swallow bruise on her skin.
Clutching tightly around her neck was a colorless and shapeless chain; on its surface engraved a single sentence covered by a mist that made it impossible to read it. A surge of fury and indignation coursed through her as she shifted her gaze to her counterpart, only for those emotions to wither before they could fully blossom.
The chain clamped to her neck divided in the middle, splitting into hundreds, maybe thousands of them, each one hooked to the Nightmare's body.
"The truth can't be quite cruel, for the emotion you so dearly try to hide is the hatred that had dwelled inside your non-existent soul, brought forth by our influence, yet not created by us."
The shot of courage that had kept off the fear was suddenly gone, making her step back, only to realize it was fruitless as the chain dragged her forward, the Hunter dropping to their eye level and forcing her to gaze into their hollow eyesockets, the verdant orbs missing from their place.
Their voice, or more realistically, the grating choir of jarring frequencies and clicks grows in intensity, forming a clamor of ever-changing notes that clash against each other and creating a nauseating ache that spreads across her temples.
"The hatred and resentment you hold for all who wronged you, for those who looked down on you, for Borrasca is of your own making, created by your inability to stop being so miserable and stand up for yourself."
Their voice reached a crescendo as a dark liquid fell from their maw, their anger fusing itself into the air, the world around her, from the clusters of galaxies to the distant black holes, each one moaning in pain as they are pulled apart molecule by molecule, before being reformed by the Lie only to be torn down again in a dreadful cycle of rebirth.
"Furthermore, we may have exerted our influence over you; we make no effort to conceal that fact. But in turn, you had also altered our very being."
Then, in a flash of static that released the universe from their grip, they were gone.
The world readjusted to its natural course, the broken fragment of time and space that had fallen to the ground mending back in their place as the Lie rejected the Hunter's action and shattered the growing obelisk, reforming the young witch and the ruin of the world to normality.
Luz is left once again alone to dwell in her confusion, the frantic beating of her heart being her only company as she reflects on the nightmare words.
But the mixture of shock, confusion, and fear that swirled the golden orbs of the young witch postponed any question clouding her mind, the reminder that she wasn't alone hitting her like a train.
"Fuck."
The swear reboots Amity's brain, breaking her out of her stupor.
Taking a subconscious step back, a wave of phantom pain coursed through the witch's body and made her shudder. Thankfully, the feeling lasted only momentarily, the cold tension in her bones dissipating into the twilight.
"Are you alright?" The question slipped by Amity, so casual and innocent that she couldn't help but smile sheepishly.
She wasn't fine, wanting nothing more than to understand what was going on in her life and maybe cry on her mother until her mind gave into unconsciousness, but as her smile grew wider, only held together by scorching cables, it didn't matter. After all, she had a role to play, nothing less than a tragic act of the fool with such an open heart.
Eda had never been more thankful that she knew one of the best doctors on the entire Isle.
After baby Blight had found her with an unconscious Luz on her back, she felt some old instinct in her body kick in. Without fanfare, she bolted through the air like a ray of light with 'Bossy boots' clinging tightly to her staff, thankfully keeping Luz's unconscious form from plummeting to the ground.
And Titan, she couldn't understand what undiscovered magic the young witch used to carry Luz on her back because Eda felt like a trash slug was hanging onto her staff.
What would have taken one hour of walking was shortened to barely two minutes, the moment her feet touched the ground, her hair was prouled in all directions. Eda is recognized quickly by the staff, who wastes no time in escorting her to the chief doctor, an old companion from Hexside who was kind as the sun.
To her surprise, Amity continued to stay by Luz's side even after receiving approval from every medical professional on duty, except for her long-time friend, who, for an inexplicable reason, had administered swift medical assistance to Luz before hastily departing the scene.
The tiny aristocrats had struck through for an entire day with probably less than five hours of sleep. What made Amity stay even more amusing to Eda were the people sent to retrieve the young witch acting like they owned the place, which gave her the best opportunity to test how far she could yeet someone, the only downside being that King wasn't here to check if she bested her record.
What wasn't as fun, on the other hand, was spending an entire night on the cramped chairs of the clinic, her back aching after seven hours of sleep were broken by sporadic bursts of noise caused by Luzi's friends who had arrived a few hours after their arrival to the clinic, keen to see their injured friend. She, of course, had to prevent them from waking Luz or young Blight up, which was an arduous task as the kids seemed to have dozens of times more energy than the old witch could even imagine. However, she would have to thank them someday as their hushed discussions almost drowned the annoying yapping of the owl beast.
Thankfully, just as the final rays of light began to filter through the clinic's windows, the sound of movement reached her ear all the way from Luz's room, signaling that she had woken up. Reaching her room, without a moment of waiting, she opened the door, and a surreal scene greeted her.
"He-
A delicate dance of emotions plays out in the dimly lit space. The air falls heavy, burdened by a tense silence that hangs like a noose around the room.
Baby Blight, who stood in the center of the room, cast a slight shadow across the room, her tightened shoulders and curled biceps betraying a mingling of rigid and trepidation, her body subtly shifting, foretelling the conflict within her.
Luz, on the other hand, lay in the sterile white bed, her body seeming fragile like a porcelain glass, yet humorously so, her shadows almost seemed to swallow the entire room. Her eyes, a strange collection of intangible emotions almost shining beneath the blob of knotted hair, turned toward Eda, her body instinctually burying deeper in the enmeshed ashen blankets.
-llo"
Her voice ricochets off the walls, shaking both girls from their stupor, her greeting suspended in the air like a delicate web punctured only by the door closing behind her.
In that transient moment, the girl's eyes locked one last time, and without fanfare, the young witch shook from the stupor and shifted on the balls of her feet, moving to leave her the room.
"I-I have to go, but I guess I will see you again hum-I mena Luz." Ducking her head, Amity abruptly left the room before Eda could get another word out, the witch already covering half of the corridor's length, her pace quickening with every passing second."
Eda watched her with a questioning gaze before turning her head back into her room, only to be surprised again as Luz was already standing, the white blanket falling onto the bed.
Stretched across her face was a smile so uncharacteristically soft, tracing the contours of her lips, barely hiding away the grinding of her teeth or the glisten in her eyes.
It was a smile too optimistic, too fake, radiating an excessive brightness, falling short of conveying genuine joy. The facade presented before her evoked a profound sense of discomfort, the same smile she had watched bloom across Luz's face every day.
"Yeah, I guess we have no reason to stay anymore." The girl murmured under her breath as she likewise fled from the room, leaving Eda feeling a profound sense of failure that she couldn't piece out.
Having nothing less to do, the girls departure happening in so little time, she followed right after the human, her heart aching each time Luz's smile lengthened unnaturally.
"Don't fall to the deception of the Nightmares. The Forest had paid the price for that, and so will you."
The scratchy voice of the owl beast reverberated in her mind, but Eda couldn't help but laugh.
This girl, so kind yet defeated by life, was the monster the owl beast was preaching about? The same girl who almost seemed to glow on the slightest praise?
If that was the case, then Eda would have to deal with it.
Whatever the cost
Living in a human world was a bizarre experience.
Whatever initial expectations she had imagined were shattered very quickly, but not in a bad way.
Not long after impersonating 'Luz Noceda', she found herself in a strange environment that was almost alien when compared to her past life.
The first day, she received a thigh hug from Luz's mom that almost shattered her composure, the guilt that she was partaking in something private only Luz should experience eating her mind, leaving her torn between gratitude and shame.
On the third day, faster than thought possible, she made three friends. THREE! Titan dammit.
The fifth day ended with the four of them forming the one and only Demon-Buster™, and although they didn't really find any demon since she was probably the only one in the human realm, Masha was sure that they would soon find some and who was she to disagree.
And on the seventh day, she almost meets Lady Death as Camila uncovers her identity.
To comprehend the gravity of the situation, we must rewind the clock to a few hours earlier, to the moments when Vee understood that every creature on the Boiling Isles paled in composition to Camila.
She was supposed to meet with her friend in the Gravesfield-only park, and considering it was a kilometer and a half away and she was in no way getting into the metallic demons that were 'buses', she was pretty screwed.
Dashing down the stairs, she almost reaches the door when Camila emerges from the kitchen, blocking her path.
Vee wasn't small in her opinion, but in the presence of Miss. Noceda?
She felt like a wounded fairy with fewer teeth, the woman's cinderblock-like arms almost threefold her own. And considering that she shapeshifted into Luz, the difference was even more than that, which begs the question of how Luz could look so frail compared to the mountain of a woman that was her mother, although her muscle mass could be a payoff of the inhuman work hours Camila slave to.
Vee might have been in the Human realm for less than a week, but she was pretty sure that it wasn't normal to work from daybreak to late evening, the dark bags hanging under her eyes being the only proof that the woman was sapped of energy.
Or maybe that was normal in the Human world, but she didn't like thinking about that because it was pretty fucked.
"Mamá, I am more than late, so I'd like to ask if there is any fast way to get to the park without using that ungodly gigantic metal monstrosity."
Vee inquired while doing the laces of her boots, trying her hardest to do the Titan damned loops. The woman didn't respond, and before she could turn around, Camila's voice rang out.
"Has the Hunter been bothering you for the past?" Her chance of subject and her uncharacteristic cold tone made Vee freeze momentarily, her mind working in overdrive to understand her sentence before exclaiming.
"You mean Carla? Well, a bit, but Masha made sure she can't talk crap abou-" Her words are halted in their track, founding herself unable to complete her sentence as a metal bat sours through the air, making a tiny sonic boom as the bat stopped five centimeters away from her neck, the airwave created by the blow biting into her skin and making her flinch.
Silence settled over the room like fallen snow, icy and dangerous, each movement reverberating like thunder over a bare land. Immediately, Vee knew something was wrong, the only noise echoing in the room being her shaky breathing, a foreign type of fear blooming in her chest.
"Turn around."
She does so immediately, her eyes widening along with her dilated pupils. Camila was silent, her eyes hidden under a lock of hair and her jaw clenched tight.
Camila leaned down over Vee, her functional eye pining her to the floor.
"In a way, it should have been blatantly obvious that something was not right from the start, from the way birds had started to hover above our house after years or how the plate you had smashed to pieces yesterday had actually made a sound." As she talked, Camila let the metal bat decline to the floor, the woman taking a step forward, making Vee flinch backward, but never once tore her gaze away from Camila.
And maybe if she had looked away, she wouldn't have seen the white lighting that shimmered behind Camila's eye patch.
It was a simple flash of light, almost unseeable, yet so obvious.
As the light bypassed the dark eye patch, it washed over Vee, making her revert to her original form, her lengthy tail crashing to the ground and sending a cloud of dust through the air.
It wasn't pain that made her transform, for the lighting wasn't painful, yet it nevertheless wounded her. It hurt in an esoteric way, washing over her dreams and memories, over her identity, and threatening to tear them in half and let her secret and fear fall before the world's watchful and cruel eyes.
The glow grabbed onto her innocent and ever-changing soul that lay in her core and brought it to the light.
As suddenly as the lighting streaked across the room, it vanished into the twilight, leaving both of them to grapple with the profound revelation that enveloped them.
Vee's gaze fell to her feet, heavy with the weight of sham, her eyes locked onto the ground as if searching for answers in the cracks of the wood.
The silence hovers in the room for a moment before an audible sight breaks the ice.
"I would have liked to say that the revelation of an otherworldly creature assuming the guise of my beloved daughter would have been groundbreaking. Disappointingly, it does not, so for that reason, I just want to know where is my Luz?"
"I-I am sorry. I had only caught a glimpse of her as I left the Boiling Isle and entered your realm, but I don't know how to get back."
The weight of anticipation was like a mounting burden that seemed to intensify with every inhalation; the very air she breathed bore down upon her shoulders.
Finally, with a bit of reluctance, Camila let out another sigh, placing her bat behind the coat rack and grabbing her jacket and her car key from her purse.
"For now, if this is truly all you know, I will overlook it."
The words made Vee pause, unable to understand the meaning behind them.
As for Camila, There were so many questions she wanted to ask, so many answers she wanted to get, to force the girl to spill out any and all details regarding the place that took her daughter away from her. Still, despite those thoughts, she could not let her love for Luz blind her, even if it felt right. Moreover, it's not as though she won't tear through Ava bar until she gives Camila the precise location of Luz and the individuals she has to offer a beating to get her back.
"Now come on, I don't think you want to keep your friend waiting."
Camila's declaration made Vee freeze in place, her head glanced up at breakneck speed, and her eyes widened until she was sure they would explode out of her head.
The woman turned slightly back and subtly tilted her head as a playful glimmer danced in her eye.
"You didn't really believe that once I have found out about your nature, I would drop kick you into oblivion now, did you?"
Shapeshifting back into Luz, Camila could not help but laugh as Vee's face smoothed out from a frown into a gentle look of surprise, a soft blush coating her cheeks as she rushed past her and hastily entered her car.
Despite her embarrassment and apprehension, she nonetheless joined her for the ride, becoming apparent as day that despite knowing her friend for such little time, she cared about them.
And that made Camila's smile slip into a frown, for how much she would have loved her mija to be in her place, to find actual friends to rely on and help her heal just a bit of the damage done by the Hunter, even if it pained her to think like that. She desired more than anyone else for her daughter to escape the endless shadow of the Hunter, to move on and live her life surrounded by loved ones, but that beautiful dream felt distant for the time being.
Plus, the revelation of the existence of a shapeshifter isn't all that groundbreaking or even threatening in the first place. After all, as she gazed through the window of her car to the outside world, the abomination masquerading as a tree, which her city had deemed the main attraction that would put them on the American map, seemed far more dangerous than an innocent child that lay anxiously to her right.
She could do nothing but run until her leg muscles tore from the effort.
All she had left were her own stuttering breaths, the aching in her bones, and the shaking of her finger. She could hear the guard scream to halt, but they were nothing more than background sound. After all, if the love of her life could not stop her, then how could they?
Tears spilled down her face in revolting gushes, facial muscles twitching as her hand tried to pry the blood and bile stuck to her chin.
To this moment, she does not understand why she has accepted Eda's request to heal the supposed child in her care. If she knew what fate would befall her and soon creation itself, she would have thrown herself into the boiling before even considering accepting her old friend's request.
If she hadn't been left alone with the sleeping body, if her own curiosity hadn't allowed her to grasp onto their bone, maybe she would have continued for the rest of her life in peaceful oblivion.
Perhaps if she hadn't touched the vessel of a Nightmare, then she would not have been able to see the grinning madness that stood above their world, its smile stretched across the azure sky as smokey liquid foamed from their mouth and dipped down the endless fangs that feasted on the helpless stars, each touch bore the corpse of countless creature of untold power and dimension, their husks twitching and reaching out toward her.
That is why the people needed to know to understand the grave danger that would soon befall them, becoming nothing more than plaything the last Nightmare.
And Titan, she had tried to warn them, from her colleagues to her beloved wife, pointing with a shaking digit to the sunset, only for the Nightmare to remain unseen to them, turning their gaze toward her like she was the one that was crazy.
She dodged to the right as one of the guards tried to grab her, feeling the abomination in the sky laughing at her fruitless attempt, her right hand, the one that had touched the 'girl' body being unusable as the blood had already gone dry and her flesh falls to the ground in a heap.
Then, in a sudden turn of events, just as another guard reached out to seize her, attempting to force her to the ground, a fluorescent liquid erupted from her throat. It gushed forth like a radiant torrent, enveloping her entire body in a luminous cascade that slipped to the floor.
None had a chance to react, and before she could blink, she found herself in a golden throne room.
In life kingdom, all creatures are welcome, no matter their birthplace.
Even abyss critters, if able to keep their nature in check, are welcome in Life's embrace.
Only you, the one who stole Life's warmth, shall be no different from the horrendous Nightmares.
For there is no suitable punishment, no means of torture to acquit you of your crimes in any world or dimension, human king of the endless horde.
A letter from creation to the Emperor of Chains
Notes:
Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to announce that I am, in fact, not dead.
After seven rewrites of this chapter and two of the entire plot of this fanfic, it is my utmost pleasure to inform you that I'm still not too fond of this chapter . It is without a doubt a critical chapter for the story, but something about the lore dump at the beginning irks me a bit.
Nonetheless, I hope you like it despite its flaws, and I promise the next ones will be much better ( they have the interaction between Belos and the Collector, Belos and Darius, and did I mention Belos will be present?)
And as always, If you have any questions, remember to leave them in the comment.
Until next time, take care.
