Hunter locked himself in the bathroom and walked until he reached the adjacent wall; he leaned against it and took a deep breath a couple of times, closing his eyes in an attempt to concentrate. "It's okay... calm your mind... you've already done it... calm it..."

His hand curled into a fist and he hit the wall with all his strength; he could feel the force of the recoil travel through his limbs to his shoulder, but although this would normally cause serious injury to a person, or at least strain the muscles given the force with which he had thrown the punch, he barely felt any discomfort.

"Hm, have your bones broken again? They're clearly not hardened enough yet. Well, let's continue until they are. After all, I can fix you quickly, and I personally love the sound of your little body breaking..."

Hunter threw another punch, this time with more force. Luz's words resonated in his mind, no matter how much he tried to push them away, he couldn't. The many memories he had of his uncle's amusement park kept coming back to him.

"What? Do you feel sorry for them? Ah, Hunter, Hunter... that's exactly why you can never even hope to survive. As long as there's even a measly feeling inside you, forever you will be too weak and sooner or later you will make a mistake. And then I will be forced to create another like you. You will be useless... and you know what it means to become useless to me, right?"

Another punch, this time so powerful that a bit of putty came off the wall.

"You are and will always be only a means to an end, Hunter; always the servant, always the slave. You exist only to serve me, to allow me to kill, consume and conquer more than I already do on my own. You exist and live because I let you. Don't become useless to me, Hunter... and don't piss me off"

Hunter let out another deep breath, this time at least ten times louder than the last; he had the urge to punch the wall even harder, but he stopped himself. He clenched his hands so tightly that his knuckles turned white, and then he went to the mirror; he opened the sink and splashed some water on his face, then he looked at his reflection. Although at first glance his face looked healthier than usual, as he was now finally eating and sleeping properly and regularly, he could see for himself that his eyes showed a much more devastated soul than before. "Oh, what's wrong with me..." he muttered to himself, rubbing his temples. "What kind of mental problems do I have to accept having fun and making friends with my own prey... they should put my picture next to the definition of 'idiot' in the dictionary"

A chirp caught his attention, and a moment later a familiar weight settled on his back. "Mh. Of course you followed me, huh?" he said looking at Flapjack. "Who knows why, it doesn't even surprise me anymore. I don't think anyone can contradict me when I say that you are the most stubborn Palisman who has ever existed in this world"

Flapjack flew in front of his eyes and chirped several times. "Are you asking me if I'm upset?" Hunter let out a sad laugh. "No, I'm not upset at all. Simply listening the others talking about how great it would be to go to a place where they can always have fun reminded me of who I am, what my mission is, and that I have monster claws constantly wrapped around my neck, a monster who are just waiting for a false move by me to tear me apart". He slumped against the wall and sat on the floor; even if he was in a bathroom he wasn't afraid of getting dirty because everything was clean to perfection. "Flapjack, what should I do? I chose to try to befriend that puppet to get information about her fairy, but now I realize that I have fallen into my own trap. For me, the last few weeks have been the happiest of my life. I played with them, laughed with them, joked with them. I'm a complete idiot... I ended up getting attached to them, to the ones I had to hunt. Luz, Gus, those other girls... Willow... now the thought of them ending up in the hands of my uncle makes me...". He didn't have the strength to finish the sentence.

Hunter had always known that all the prey his uncle had sent him to capture were people, who had feelings; that's why he had always killed them instead of bringing them to him alive, even though he knew that he would have liked the second option more. He had killed them because he knew that if they had started to plead, to beg him not to condemn them to that terrible fate, he would not have had the strength to complete the mission. It was much easier to kill a monster he had to fight against, rather than capture it alive and carry it for hours on his staff while listening to its desperate voice begging him to free it. Hunter knew that when it came to his uncle, death was a blessing.

A memory appeared in his mind. He remembered his first victim well: it had been a gremlin named Garlog. He had captured him alive, and then he had loaded him onto his staff and started carrying him towards his uncle; initially the gremlin had mocked him, but then, after finding out who he was taking him to, he immediately lost all bravado and started begging him to let him go. Hunter had closed his eyes and tried to make himself deaf to his pleas, but Garlog's desperate voice had struck his heart like a dagger with his every sentence. Finally, when the terrifying island appeared in the distance, the sobbing gremlin accepted that Hunter wouldn't let him go, but asked him to kill him. He had begged him to give him that end rather than the one his uncle would have given him. The young Hunter had been doubtful, knowing how important it was to please his uncle, but he couldn't refuse: his soul, unfortunately, was too tender to hand someone over to his uncle and entrust him to that horrible fate, so he hit Garlog in the chest and he had stopped his heart. After doing so, Hunter saw no resentment in the gremlin's eyes, only immense relief; and a moment before he died, he had mumbled the word 'thank you'. That murder had haunted Hunter's dreams for months, but part of him knew that throwing Garlog alive into his uncle's claws would haunt him much, much more. Since then, he had always fought to kill: he had no longer held back, regardless of the type of monster in front of him. Killing while fighting was much easier than the other option.

But now he had broken that routine. For the first time his mission had been different and had required him to stay put in Bonesborough and observe; and Hunter, like a fool, had thought he could get close to Luz and her friends without becoming attached to them, when already the two brief encounters they had had caused a small feeling of friendship to be born in his heart. And now, just the thought of them ending up in the claws of that monster hurt him. He couldn't understand how he could have made such a rookie mistake: years and years of avoiding human contact as much as possible, acting like an asshole to ward off any possible acquaintance, ignoring his uncle's countless victims... all in vain in a few weeks, in which for the first time in his life he had found people with whom he felt he had formed something very similar to friendship. The same people that he would one day have to hand over to his uncle, condemning them to a terrible fate regardless of whether or not Luz was the thing his uncle was looking for.

He couldn't believe his own stupidity. What hunter could be so stupid as to become attached to his prey? He was a soldier, he had been trained since he was able to walk to fight against the most powerful creatures in the world, obtaining physical strength and mental resistance far greater than that of normal humans, and yet he had fallen into that mistake so basic.

His uncle was absolutely right in calling him an idiot.

Flapjack made a few chirps. Hunter shook his head. "Tell them everything? You know I can't. It would be the end of me" he said in a feeble voice. "If my uncle will discover that I even thought of betray him..."

Flapjack was silent for a moment, then he let out another chirp. Hunter felt a lump form in his throat as the translation to what the Palisman had said appeared in his mind: "And are you truly willing to sacrifice others to save yourself?"

Hunter let out a snort. "I save myself. I always save myself"

Flapjack stared at him reproachfully, much more intently than he ever had before, and he let out another chirp. "If you're willing to pay such a price... is there really anything left of you worthy to be save?"

Hunter didn't know what to answer.

Silence reigned for a few moments, then the door opened; Hunter jumped up just before Edric came in, carrying Gus on his shoulder. "Oh, sorry. I didn't hear you coming" he said, pretending to be washing his hands. "I'm done, if you need the bathroom..."

"We actually wanted to talk to you" Gus said. "Sorry, I know that from your point of view we are inappropriate, but... we were wondering if perhaps you need... well... if you need someone to listen to you"

Hunter groaned. "Forget it. I just remembered... certain memories. Nothing too serious"

"Well, why don't you share them with us?" Edric told him as he came closer and put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, we're friends, right? A burden is less heavy if someone helps you carry it. And even if I know that from your point of view I'm not the most worthy person to receive your trust, I assure you that whatever you tell me will remain between us"

Hunter raised an eyebrow, surprised by the seriousness of the only son of the Blight family. So far he had only known Edric as a very unserious troublemaker with a certain propensity for idiocy (he seriously suspected that he and his sister had both received half a brain when their embryo split to form twins); he didn't expect him to be capable of such words. He let out a sigh, then he replied: "Okay. I won't go into detail, but... let's say that when you do a job like mine... you have to see... and do... a lot of things you wish you hadn't seen and ever done". He gripped the edge of the sink lightly. "And apparently no matter if you've had the training of an elite soldier since you were a newborn, no matter how much you fortify your mind, every now and then certain things come back to haunt you. Especially the fact that when things seem too good to be true, they never are... and indeed, they often hide the most unspeakable horrors"

Edric was surprised. "Have you really been trained since you were a newborn?" he asked. "What kind of training was that?"

Hunter's body stiffened so much he seemed to have turned to marble. "I just did what I've done my whole life... I fought a monster" he answered, trying to maintain composure, but still his breathing and heartbeat accelerated and his fingers gripped the sink so tightly that the sound of metal cracking was heard.

Seeing his friend like that, Gus jumped on his shoulder and said: "Hey, listen to me for a minute: Willow taught me a method for reducing anxiety and panic attacks, and it works pretty well. We've been using it often with Luz. Do you want to try it?"

Hunter was silent for a moment, then he decided to try. "Ok. Let me see"

Gus explained to him what he had to do and then he began to tap his paws one by one while Hunter took a deep breath, just as he had done many times with Luz. After a couple of times, Hunter definitely seemed more relaxed. "Better?" Gus asked him.

Hunter nodded. "Yes, definitely. Thank you"

"Of course. This and more for a friend" Gus replied, then he asked: "Hunter... if being a monster hunter is so... difficult, so to speak... why don't you just give it up?"

"Yeah. With your skills you'd have no problem finding another job... although personally I think you should live like a boy instead of working" Edric added. "You have friends here in Bonesborough who would help you. Why persist in… well… doing this?"

"I have my reasons" Hunter replied hastily. "Don't ask me, because I won't tell you. I don't want to talk about my past or my present. Just know that... they are very... very valid reasons"

Edric and Gus would clearly have liked to ask for more in-depth explanations, but Hunter didn't give them time: "Come on, let's go back to the others. They'll be worried, we've been gone for at least twenty minutes" and without waiting for their reply he grabbed Edric by the arm and dragged him down the corridor.

However, when they arrived at Amity's room they found it empty; inside there was only a note notifying them that they had gone to the kitchen. "Well, actually we were so busy with the pillow fight that we skipped dinner" Edric commented. "Shall we go down to the kitchen?"

But Hunter had a strange light in his eyes. "No" he said. "Edric, Gus... while the others are away... would you like to help me do something?"

"What is it about?" the spider asked suspiciously.

"I just want to test a hypothesis of mine" Hunter responded, then he said: "Look, I know you hate that I'm being so cryptic, but… just this one time, trust me, okay? Regardless of whether I'm right or wrong, I promise I'll explain everything to you as soon as we're done"

Gus and Edric looked at each other, then they nodded. "Okay, buddy, I trust you" the Blight only son replied. "What do you want to do?"

"I have a place to go. Can you by any chance tell me where your mother spends most of her time? A room where she doesn't allow anyone to enter, or where she absolutely requires you to knock and wait for her permission before entering?" Hunter asked.

Edric raised an eyebrow; Hunter had been asking strange questions about his mother for too long to be a coincidence. He began to seriously worry. "Yes, her private study. She doesn't want anyone to enter it and she always locks it... but fortunately Emira and I have a copy of the key"

"Wait a minute, why do you have a copy?" Gus exclaimed.

"What a dumb question! Because we like to spy on our mother. We have the keys to all the doors in this house, we made them using a cast" Edric replied. "But if you're hoping to find something interesting in her study, you'll be disappointed. Emira and I were also hoping that our mother was hiding something shady there, but it's just the place where she keeps all her contracts..."

"If you'll excuse me, I'd like to see for myself" Hunter said.

Edric shrugged, feigning indifference, but in reality he was extremely curious. Something told him that what Hunter wanted to find out had to do with the fact that he understood immediately and without any apparently clue that his mother had a private space and that she didn't like having her hair touched. "Whatever. Follow me"

The three of them (four if they counted Flapjack) headed towards a door at the end of the corridor, the lock of which was very refined and complicated; Edric moved a vase and pulled a key from underneath it, and he inserted it into the lock. Gus didn't seem very convinced: "That's not very polite! We shouldn't enter someone's private spaces without their permission!"

"Don't worry, little spider, Emira and I have done this a million times" Edric replied, who by now was too curious to know what Hunter had in mind, so he opened the door revealing a small room with a bookcase, a chair and a desk covered with stacks of mercantile contracts. "See? Nothing interesting" he muttered.

But Hunter didn't think so. The mercantile contracts were certainly something valuable, but his instinct told him that it was just a decoy. "Have you ever touched these books?" he asked, pointing to the bookcase.

Edric shook his head: "Nah. They're just manuals of economics and law, very boring stuff that mom reads when she needs to remember something for one of her businesses..."

"I doubt she ever reads them. None of these books appear to have ever been touched" Hunter said, clearly seeing that none of the books had fingerprints or frayed covers, and they also had a lot of dust on them. All except one, which instead had a very damaged cover on the top, as if someone habitually grabbed it and pushed it towards themselves. Hunter took it and pulled; with a 'clack', the bookcase began to move and revealed a secret door, which led to an even smaller room with a shelf full of other books and what looked like herbs and chicken feathers inside; on the walls there were strange symbols written inside circles, and placed in a case on a pedestal there was the beautiful sculpture of a white cat.

Edric opened his mouth: "A secret passage!? Wow... who could imagine that!?" he said in an excited voice. "Man, now I regret that Emira and I never wanted to touch those books! Even though it's not much different here... there are just other boring books..."

"Ehm... I'm pretty sure that a book with the title 'Necronomicon' isn't boring at all" Gus said with a lot of fear in his voice as he looked at the books that were stacked in front of them. "And the others are no less... 'De vermis mysteriis'... 'Lemegeton'... what kind of language is this?"

"What are you doing here!?"

Edric and Gus turned quickly to see Odalia standing in the doorway with a livid face. Edric would normally have laughed at seeing his mother angry, but at that moment he swallowed: he couldn't remember ever seeing her so furious. She seemed to emanate flashes from her eyes. "Um... sorry, mom..."

"Edric, how dare you enter my private study!?" Odalia growled, but while her fury was palpable there was also a certain note of fear in her voice. "Get out of here immediately! Woe betide you if..."

"Mrs. Blight, please calm down. Don't blame your son, I'm the one who wanted to come here" Hunter said, but as he did so he was holding his hands behind his back. "I apologize. I was just curious, you have very interesting things here..."

"They're just collectibles I've found over the years!" Odalia said hastily. "There's nothing to see in here, so get out now!". At that point she seemed to realize that strange detail: "Why aren't you showing your hands? Or rather... why are you moving them?" she asked noticing that one of Hunter's hands was clearly fidgeting as if he was handling something.

Hunter shrugged. "Oh, don't worry. I was just drawing something on my palm. Nothing much..." he replied, and he showed his hands revealing a pencil in his right hand, while in his left palm was drawn a circle with several lines drawn at the center. "... just a seal. For you"

Before Odalia could react, Hunter pressed the drawing with one of his finger, and a strong light emanated from it, dazzling Edric and Gus; immediately afterwards there was a roar that rang throughout the Blight Manor, and the woman's body was wrapped in ethereal chains, immobilizing her and forcing her to fall to her knees. "Hunter! What are you doing...?" Edric exclaimed, but he stopped immediately: something strange was indeed happening... his mother's eyes were shining.

Hunter narrowed his eyes. "Just as I imagined" he said. "For your information, this is a special seal that can immediately recognize dark magic and imprison it. I was forced to learn it because the person I trained with sometimes went a little too far and I needed something to block him even for just a split second, so that he understood that if he continued he would... break me beyond repair, so to speak, and he didn't like it since he needed me. But that person was... well, that person, with you it won't just last a fraction of a second. It will prevent you from moving for a long time and force you to reveal your true nature..." and his tone of voice suddenly became more mellifluous: "... witch"

Again, the witches in this story are not the witches of The Owl House canon, they are those of classic folklore just like the fairies. So fairy=good, witch=evil (most of the time). I will explain better the nature of the witches of this AU in the following chapters, for now keep in mind that witches normally curse and destroy, and surely Odalia didn't present herself as a good person, so Hunter's reaction is more than justifiable.

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, Garlog (the gremlin who appeared in Hunter's flashback) is also a character from The Owl House: he is the little demon who is captured by Luz to collect the bounty in the first episode of the second season. And the objects that Hunter, Edric and Gus found in Odalia's secret lair are all related to classic witch folklore (herbs and chickens body part, and cats too); the Necronomicon and The vermis mysteriis are instead books of witchcraft from the Lovecraftian folklore, while the Lemegeton is one of the most famous book of demonology