The Angel of the Owl House

by OwlHouseAngel

Luz Noceda is a young half-angel girl living with her angel mother in the Human Realm. Her attempts to be good always backfire, and after one too many mistakes, her mother sends her to Camp Reality Check. But a chance event leaves Luz in the Demon Realm, where she meets the Owl Lady, who teaches her that in a chaotic world like the Boiling Isles, Luz might be the perfect angel.

32. EP 11: Mother Where Art Thou

The Angel of the Owl House

Season 2: The Human Realm

Chapter 11: Mother Where Art Thou?

Osran, Hunter, and Lucy looked between these people and King, believing he was one of their species of Demon, while Amity saw King's horrified expression and whispered; "These guys aren't actually young Titans, are they?"

King shook his head and squeaked out; "Titan Trappers!"

They didn't look happy to see them either, and had weapons in their hands and spell circles at their fingers as they surrounded them. One particularly large Titan Trapper, whose skull featured curled horns and elongated fangs, and whose costume included wings, stepped forward and demanded; "Who are you to dare and trespass on this sacred land!?"

Osran slowly raised all four of his arms and said; "We did not mean to trespass upon your home, good sir. We came here by accident via a Primordial Wellspring!"

The Large Titan Trapper narrowed his eyes on them; "If you came through a Wellspring then you must be from the Carcass Kingdom!"

"If you mean the Boiling Isles, then yes. I am Osran, Head Witch of the Oracle Coven. These two are the Golden Guard and Silver Sentinel of the Emperor's Coven." Osran introduced. He was about to do the same with Amity, Luz, and King, when the large Titan Trapper growled.

"We care not who you are! We Titan Trappers have done business with that Upstart "Emperor" in the past, and we have no interest in being roped into his petty plots" he thundered. "Now return from whence you came! We've no patience for your "Coven" nonsense!"

Osran looked affronted, while Hunter scowled and Lucy grabbed her brother's hand to keep him calm. The reveal of their identities had set all of them on edge; if this clan was an enemy of the Titans, then it was dangerous to espouse the worship of Titans that they practised on the Boiling Isles.

Thankfully the large Titan Trapper ignored them and looked to the others, his eyes zeroing in on King immediately. In a hurry, he surged forward and shoved past the Coven trio so he was stood directly in front of Amity and stared down at King.

"You!" he gasped. His sudden action had drawn the rest of the Titan Trappers' attention to King, making the young Titan gulp in fear and making Amity subtly begin drawing a spell circle out of the man's line of sight.

King took a deep breath and prepared to unleash a sonic roar, before the large Titan Trapper suddenly cheered; "One of the Lost Children! You have returned to us!"

"What!?" King and Amity both yelled in shock, especially as the other Trappers began to cheer and celebrate, lowering their weapons.

"Lost Children?" Osran repeated.

"Indeed!" the Titan Trapper said, his tone doing a complete 180. "We are the Titan Trapper Clan, and many of our clansmen were separated from us during the Great Calamity five thousand years ago! Some of those lost members kept our traditions alive by passing them down to their children, who in turn passed it down to their children and their children's children! Some eventually found their way back to us, but others are still lost."

"Y-You think I'm one of you!? A Titan Trapper!?" King exclaimed in shock.

"Of course! That skull of yours is a dead giveaway! You inherited that from your parents, no doubt! Are they back on the Carcass Kingdom too?" the man asked.

"W-Well my Adoptive Mom is. My birth parents are gone…" King admitted truthfully.

"A shame… still, they did well to pass so much of our traditions on to you before they left this world!"

Hunter and his Sister exchanged looks, as Hunter muttered; "So the weird dog is from this clan of Demons? I guess that explains why I didn't recognise his species…"

Meanwhile, King and Amity were both still reeling from the sudden shift in tone. The Titan Trappers didn't realise King was actually a Titan! And the Coven Trio hadn't realised the skulls and fur of the Trappers was just a costume, so they hadn't figured out King's true identity either! King could use this!

Clearing his throat, King grandly proclaimed; "Yes, I am King Clawthorne-Noceda, child of a noble lineage of great warriors! And I come to you, my people, in need of aid!"

It had been a while since King had really channelled his old tyrannical side, but it seemed to work effectively here, as all the Titan Trappers stood at attention. They pounded a fist over their hearts and bowed their heads in return.

"Hail and well-met, young King! I am Tarak, the Right Hand of our Clan Elder! Allow me the honour of being the first to welcome you to Titan Trapper Island!" the large Trapper introduced.

"Uh, Hail and well-met!" King replied, "Now about that aid?"

"Of course! Tell us how we might assist you, Young King!" Tarak said jovially.

King pointed to Luz; "That's my adopted sister, Luz Noceda-Clawthorne! She's sick with an advanced form of the Common Mold and doesn't have any magic left to fight it off! She needs medicine!"

Tarak took one look at Luz and his eyes widened; "A child of the family that took in one of our own? We will certainly do all we can for her! Call for Denasu!" he said, shouting that last part to the crowd.

The crowd began repeating the shout of "Call for Denasu!" like a game of Telephone, until eventually they parted ways to allow a woman to rush forward. The woman was even larger than Tarak and was wearing white robes atop light grey Titan furs, with a Titan Skull that had ram-like horns on her head. Once she reached their little group, she turned her back on them and knelt down, revealing the real Denasu; a short old lady strapped to her back. Denasu was even smaller than Osran and only a little bigger than King, and was clad in white Titan furs and silver robes, while her Titan Skull had deer-like antlers and herbivorous teeth, to the point it could pass as a deer skull. She unstrapped herself from the large woman's back and hobbled forward to examine Luz, using a conjured cane made of bone to help her walk.

She lightly jabbed Amity's leg with it and said in a voice befitting an old crone; "Kneel girl, I need to take a look at the patient!"

Amity obediently kneeled and Hunter moved to help her lift Luz off her back and hold her in front of Denasu. The old woman cast a few spells, then hummed; "The lad speaks true; she's in quite a bad state. She'd die in a few hours if left like this. The fool girl was using healing magic to try and cure the Mold and made it worse, didn't she?"

"Yes. She stopped before it got too bad, but we were attacked before falling into the Wellspring, and Luz used what was left of her magic to defend us." King explained.

Denasu tutted; "Well at least she did that right. Worry not lad, I've got medicine that can fix her right up. No medicine for youthful foolishness, but I suppose the unpleasantness of her current state will teach her that lesson!"

"You can really help her!?" Amity asked hopefully.

"That's what I said!" Denasu snapped; "Need a cure for earwax blocking your pointy lugholes!? Honestly, the youth these days!"

Amity blushed; "S-Sorry. I'm just worried about my girlfriend…"

Denasu's icy blue eyes softened; "Young love is it? Well I can forgive stupidity when it comes to love, and if ye be the lover of our clansman's sister, then ye be deserving a bit of consideration." she then turned to Tarak; "I'll take the girl to my hut and give her some medicine. If she's got a hardy constitution then she'll be back on her feet in a few hours. If not, it'll be a few days."

"Thank you, Denasu." Tarak said.

King and Amity both bowed their heads and thanked her as well. Denasu just cackled at them; "Nothing gets the younglings showing respect quite like having something that they want!" she winked over at Osran; "You get it, don't you Outsider?"

"That I do. Regardless of clan or country, the young exist to infuriate the old." Osran smiled, stroking his moustache. He liked this old healer!

Denasu cackled at his comment, then looked at King and said; "I'll be taking the mushrooms that grow from the girl's head later. That'll be my payment for my medicine!"

King nodded immediately. Denasu then whacked the large woman on the knee with her cane; "Galeh, grab the girl and her lover and take them to my hut!"

The large woman, Galeh, picked Luz up and cradled the smaller girl with one arm, like she was a baby. She then grabbed Amity in one meaty fist and put her on her shoulder while Denasu climbed back into her harness. Before Galeh could leave though, Denasu yelled at Tarak; "You're taking the Lad and these outsiders to Bill, right?"

"Of course. He'll decide what to do with the outsiders while I show King his culture and history." Tarak replied.

Osran, Hunter, and Lucy looked a bit alarmed at his phrasing, and since they'd actually tried to help him and Luz, King spoke up for them; "Wait a second! I know these guys are outsiders from that creepy Emperor's cult of followers, but they actually saved my life! They fought against their own people to save me and my sister!"

Hunter and Lucy tried to hide their surprise at King standing up for them, and the young Titan shot them a look that made it clear this was a one time thing, as thanks for helping protect Luz from Kikimora.

Tarak, Denasu, and the other Titan Trappers all looked at the Coven trio with appraising eyes, especially Tarak. "Did they now? Well then, our Grand Elder Bill is certain to grant them asylum in our lands, until it is time for them to return safely to their Carcass Kingdom. Now let us go and visit with him!"

Without waiting to be dismissed, Denasu had Galeh begin marching off back to her hut, taking Luz and Amity with her. Amity shouted to King; "Come find us later! I'll stay with Luz in the meantime!"

"Got it!" King yelled back as the two girls disappeared beyond the crowd. He then looked to Tarak, an idea forming in his head; if he was believed to be a Titan Trapper, then he could learn their secrets! Maybe he'd find their weakness and how to avenge his people! And since Titan Trapper Island was his mother's left hand, maybe he'd find some clue as to what happened to her, and why her two hands were so far away from each other!

On the opposite side, Osran, Hunter, and Lucy all had the same thought; if these Titan Trappers were the enemies of Titans, then perhaps they had some Titan Blood! And if anyone on the island would know where to find some, it would be their elder, Bill!

Tarak began to walk through the village to the large tower, gesturing for King and the Coven Trio to follow him. "Right this way." he said.

King and the trio walked behind him as the rest of the Trappers went about their business. For the most part, they acted like any other residents of a village, but there were a lot who were practicing with weapons and magic.

"You run a strict training regimen I see." Hunter said, impressed by some of their skills.

"Of course! It may seem strange to you poor deluded fools, who worship your dead god corpse, but we Titan Trappers swore an oath to protect our world from those giant monsters of death and destruction!" Tarak declared grandly, unaware of how his words angered all four of the people following him. "Sadly very few of us have actually seen a live Titan…"

That wasn't a surprise; it was more surprising that any of them had seen a live Titan, considering Orion the Boiling Isles Titan and his mate, Cassiopeia the Lost Titan were the last ones before King was born. Both had died 5000 years ago, so if any Trapper had seen them, they'd be at least that old, and few living things could live that long!

Tarak opened the doors to the tower, and as they walked in, Lucy signed something that Hunter translated. "Aren't the Titans extinct though? Our Boiling Isles Titan was supposed to be the last one!"

"Not all of them." Tarak said, leading them into the tower. The interior was largely a single massive open space that stretched to the very top, with a spiralling staircase in the middle that lead to the upper levels, as well as a planetarium built around a colossal Titan Skeleton. The skeleton belonged to an adolescent Titan; one that had grown beyond the infant stage like King, but yet to reach the full majesty that a Titan could reach. Their body was fairly standard by Titan standards, but their skull was elongated and crocodile-like, with bull-like horns. King also noticed that just like his Papa, this Titan had five fingered hands and five-toed feet, while he only had three claws on each limb, making him wonder when he was supposed to grow more.

As King and the Coven trio gaped at the massive skeleton, Tarak continued; "The Grand Huntsman, the God that elevated us from a clan of wandering nomads into the world's greatest warriors, has foretold that a single Titan still lives! So we train and sharpen our spears in anticipation of the day it raises its head from its lair, and the final hunt may begin!"

King scowled; the Huntsman was the name of the Archivist that started the downfall of his people by coming to their world to capture its creatures! Not only had their actions lead to the death of King's people, including his parents, but from what Eda had said about the Owl Beast's memories, they'd also been the one to turn the Owl Beast into a scroll, so Eda's curse could be laid at their feet too! Naturally no one present but him realised this, while the others focused on a different part of Tarak's sentence…

"A Titan still lives!?" Osran exclaimed, clutching his chest as if his old heart couldn't quite handle the revelation. Hunter and Lucy weren't much better, and King had a sinking feeling that Belos would pull something once he learned this little secret. Either that or he'd lie and say it was a hoax by enemies of the Titan; that seemed to be his go-to strategy.

"Indeed! But it matters not; I've shared too much with you Carcass worshippers already. Come! I will show you to our wise Elder!" Tarak said dismissively, leading them up the spiral staircase. He took them up to the very top floor, then down a hallway to the door into Bill's chambers.

"Now be sure to show the proper respect to Bill; he's my best friend and the coolest person on the island! He has even spoken to our god, the Grand Huntsman!" the large man gushed, before casually adding; "It's no big deal."

"Right…" King muttered, unimpressed. Though if Bill had spoken to the Huntsman… did that mean Bill was 5000 years old!? Or had the Huntsman come back after his Mama Titan forced them back to the stars!?

"Now let us enter!" Tarak said, throwing open the door and leading them inside. Bill's room was exactly how one expected the chambers of a grand elder huntsman to be; it was full of weapons and trophies from past hunts, though many looked older than even Osran. Sitting on a dilapidated armchair at the far end of the room was Bill himself, a Titan Trapper only a little bigger than King, and with a very similar skull, though it had yellowed slightly with age. A black wax candle burning with a blue flame sat atop the skull, and tufts of Bill's real grey hair was poking out the sides of it, while one of his blue eyes was noticeably smaller than the other.

Upon noticing Tarak, King, and the Coven Trio, he grabbed some kind of horn that was on a stand beside his throne and put the narrow end against his ear, to help his hearing.

"Oh great and mighty Bill, I have brought to you one of the Lost Children! Returned to us by this trio of outsiders from the Carc- I mean, from the Boiling Isles!" Tarak declared grandly.

Bill listened as the others braced themselves, only to be surprised when Bill spoke in the voice of a crotchety old man. "Eh? A lost child? Oh right, one of our clansmen. Right right. But did you really need to bring the outsiders? Couldn't you have just tossed them in the sea or wherever they came from?"

The trio looked worried again, but King once again defended them with the same spiel he gave Tarak back outside. Bill looked mildly curious, especially as King and Tarak went on to explain the rest of the situation, namely what happened up to and including their arrival from the Wellspring and Luz being treated for her sickness, including introductions of his companions (excluding Luz and Lucy's angelic natures). As he listened, Bill stroked his chin with interest.

"The Wellspring, eh? Really should have plugged that thing years ago. Why, just a month ago a pair of outsiders arrived on our island and went to that place, then came back as Supreme Dragons! A massive Ice Wyrm and Fire Drake! They'd have destroyed us all, but then they dove into the Wellspring and disappeared somewhere else!" Bill complained.

King gasped; "Zara and Godric!?"

"You know those two, King!?" Tarak exclaimed.

"Yeah! My sister and I, plus her girlfriend, battled Zara! We managed to beat her! Then a while later, Luz fought Godric in his witch form all on her own and beat him too!" King explained.

"You two faced Supreme Dragons and won!?" Bill cried in shock; "That's incredible! Those beasts are servants of the Titans! They sold their souls to those monsters to get their powers! With how green my people are outside, a fight with two at once would have been the end of our clan! Boy were we lucky! But if you and your sister can fight them… Alright, I've made up my mind! Tarak!"

"Yes, Grand Elder? What is your will?" Tarak knelt before him.

"Okay first, stop doing that! Talk like a normal person, by the Huntsman!" Bill complained; "And take Young King and train him in our ways, and have our people learn from him about slaying dragons! Oh, and get that Luz kid to help out once she's better."

"At once, Grand El- I mean, Bill!" Tarak said, getting back to his feet and picking King up before running from the room, leaving Bill alone with the Coven Trio.

"Right, now for you three. Look, I don't like you Carcass Worshippers and I'm sure you hate us for killing your God's species or whatever, so let's make this quick. You did us a favour by protecting the kid and bringing him back to us, so we'll give you shelter until you're ready to leave. Just don't take too long!" Bill snapped, before picking up a book (The Last Titan: A Study of the Boiling Isles by Flora D'Splora) and beginning to read; "Now shoo. I want to see what this D'splora wench thinks she knows about Titans!"

Hunter and Lucy shared an affronted look, while Osran stepped forward; "Actually, we would like to ask a favour of you. Grant us it, and we will leave immediately."

"A favour? What favour?" Bill frowned.

"We originally went to Eclipse Lake in search of Titan Blood, but the reawakening of the Wellspring mixed bile into it and we've no way of safely extracting it. Bile makes the blood unstable and unusable, so we had hoped that perhaps as great slayers of Titans, you might possess some Titan Blood." Osran said diplomatically.

Bill hummed; "Yeah, getting blood from an active Wellspring isn't ever gonna work. You need to wait for it to stagnate, then the power of the blood will burn out the bile and you can collect it. But if the Wellsprings are active enough to transport people between them, then you're fresh out of luck; it'll be centuries before it stagnates now."

Hunter scowled; "Does that mean you can't help us?"

"Oh, I can help you. Just don't see why I should." Bill replied; "Why should I give Titan Blood, a powerful potential weapon, to outsiders from that Upstart's little kingdom?"

Lucy began to sign something, confusing Bill until Hunter translated; "My sister asks if there is a favour we can perform in exchange for the blood?"

"A favour, eh? Now that's an idea…" he looked at Osran; "You. When King introduced you, he said you were head of the Oracle Coven. That means you can use Oracle Magic, right?"

"Yes. Do you want me to use it for you?" Osran asked.

Bill nodded; "We don't have much in the way of Oracle skills, since we don't have any spirits in our clan. But if you use yours to help us, then I'll take you to a place on our island that should still have Titan Blood."

That sounded simple enough, so Osran nodded; "I can agree to that. What do you need me to do?"

Bill suddenly pointed to a poster beside his chair. It depicted an egg surrounded by stars, with the words; "The Lost Son of the Boiling Isles. The Grand Huntsman cannot return to us until the lost son is found by someone worthy." written around it.

"I want you to use your oracle magic to find the last Titan!" Bill declared grandly.

All three of the Coven Trio gaped at him; "What!?" Hunter exclaimed.

Lucy frantically signed something, but Hunter was too focused on Bill to notice and translate. The Elder chuckled at their shock; "That's right! You've got to swear an Everlasting Oath to use your powers to find the Last Titan for us! The Grand Huntsman needs their power to free him from his prison!"

Hunter and Lucy both looked horrified; they couldn't possibly betray the Titan by exposing his child to this band of Titan killers! However Osran was crafty; he didn't get to be as old as he was without picking up a few tricks. Besides, unless the last Titan was already on the island, his scrying would fail anyway since Oracle Spirits can't cross salt water on their own… but if the Titan Trappers didn't have spirits of their own, they might not know that fact!

"I will agree." Osran began, shocking his young companions; "However you must bring us to the blood first. And let us leave safely with it even if I can't find the last Titan. Agreed?"

The Oracle offered one of his hands, and Bill shook it happily; "Agreed! Now for the oath, so we don't double cross each other!" he said, drawing a spell circle around their joined hands.

"Is that really necessary?" Hunter frowned, not knowing what Osran was up to.

"The last time we had dealings with you people, your Emperor broke his word and damaged the talisman through which we speak to the Grand Huntsman! We won't trust any of your kind without an oath again!" Bill snapped, before clearing his throat; "Now I swear to lead Osran, Hunter, and Lucy to the only source of usable Titan Blood I am aware of, and I swear to let them leave with it even if they are unable to tell me where the Titan is."

Osran nodded and swore his own oath, being careful with the wording; "I swear to use my Oracle Magic to try and find the location of the last living Titan in exchange for being shown to the Titan Blood."

Bill gave a nod of approval and the oath was sealed. However Osran had a pleasant smile, and while Hunter looked worried, Lucy grinned secretly and signed to her brother, informing him of a crucial detail… Osran had sworn to try and find the last Titan, giving him room to fail without consequence… but he hadn't sworn to tell Bill if he did manage to succeed. Now on the slim chance he did find the last Titan somewhere on Titan Trapper Island (which they all agreed was impossible), he wouldn't actually need to expose them!

Satisfied with the oath being made, Bill clapped his hands and began to march out of the room; "Alright Outsiders, follow me. The sooner we get you that blood, the sooner you get me that Titan! And then we can get out of each other's lives!" he said grumpily. Osran, Hunter, and Lucy all followed hastily behind him, smiling as they did so; perhaps today would turn out to be a success after all!

[Meanwhile]

Amity and the unconscious Luz were brought into one of the village's large huts by Galeh and Denasu. It was notable, as it was two stories tall, with the ground floor being made from the carcass of a giant turtle with a red and blue shell, while the second floor was made from a second, slightly smaller turtle carcass with a purple shell that had been stacked on top of it. There were no stairs connecting the two on the inside, only on the outside (as cutting through the bone and shell to make a connecting hole was too difficult), so Galeh climbed the outer stairs to the upper floor. The inside of this turtle was a single large room filled with cauldrons, herbs, and jars of ingredients, and off to the side was a pile of pelts that served as a sickbed.

Denasu unstrapped herself from Galeh's back and hobbled over to the herbs and ingredients, while Galeh gently placed Luz on the sickbed and put Amity down beside it. Denasu grabbed some suspicious looking dried mushrooms and put them into a pestle and mortar, with a wheel-shaped pestle that she began to grind them down with while occasionally adding herbs or powder from other jars. Without looking up from her work, Denasu said; "Strip off those hot clothes. She'll overheat and her fever will get worse."

Amity immediately obeyed and began taking off Luz's winter clothes, leaving the girl in just her sports bra and boy shorts. Galeh tried to help, but Denasu stopped her; "Leave that job to the girl's mate. Go find the Brat and have him bring me some Chilly Peppers!"

Galeh nodded without a word and left, which was a relief to Amity as it meant she could remove Luz's winter clothes while applying a simple illusion to hide Luz's glyph markings, just in case the Titan Trappers recognised them. Once she was done, she got Luz settled comfortably on the furs and put one of the pelts over her while casting a simple ice spell to cool her forehead. Once her girlfriend was as comfortable as Amity could make her, the pink-haired girl stripped off her own winter coat, revealing her normal casual outfit underneath it.

A few minutes later, Galeh reappeared with boy held in her hand. The boy was wearing dull grey Titan furs under pale blue robes, and his Titan Skull helm had antlers like Denasu's, only with flowers threaded through them. He looked to be around the same age as Luz and Amity, and he was carrying a cloth bag overflowing with icy blue peppers.

"You called for me, Mistress?" the boy asked demurely.

"Aye! Make a salve of those peppers with some Thawrite Powder and apply it to the patient's forehead. We need to keep her fever down while still sweating out the spores of that dang Mold!" Denasu ordered.

The boy nodded and obediently began work on the salve at another mortar and pestle closer to the girls. Galeh disappeared to who knows where again, leaving Amity to sit in awkward silence and watch the others work.

"Um, is there anything I can do to help?" she asked; "I'm good with Abominations and know a little bit of most magic types."

"Keep holding your girl's hand. It sounds like an old wives tale, but physical contact from a loved one can help give a sick person the strength they need to keep fighting." Denasu said, now adding the powder she'd ground up into a flask of orange liquid.

Amity reached down and held Luz's hand with both of her own as she watched the poor girl fighting against her sickness. Oddly enough, Luz's pained expression did relax a bit, as if sensing Amity's presence.

A minute later, the boy walked over and knelt beside Amity, offering her a bowl of fine blue paste with what looked like white glitter mixed into it.

"Here; apply it to her forehead and the back of her neck. It will cool her fever." he instructed, bowing his head politely.

Amity took the bowl gratefully and applied the salve to Luz's forehead, then with help from the boy, pulled Luz forward enough to rub it into the back of her neck too. The boy instructed her to rub it in until the paste was completely gone, leaving only the glitter-like specks on the surface of Luz's skin. The stuff was effective too, as Amity felt her fingers almost going numb just from touching it.

The boy waited a few seconds for Luz's cheeks to go from red to a more natural shade, then gently felt her forehead with the back of his hand. He smiled and said; "Her fever is at a manageable level, Mistress."

"Good." Denasu said; "Right on time! The medicine is ready."

She hobbled over whilst holding a small bowl of what looked like some kind of mix between a potion and a stew. It was thick and gunky like some kind of chowder, but the smell of the steam rising from it was far from appetising. Denasu handed the bowl to Amity; "Pour that down her throat. It'll energise her and introduce an Anti-fungal compound to her system that'll target and neutralise the Mold."

"Wait, this is a cure!? You can cure the Mold!?" Amity gasped in surprise. Something like this would be invaluable back on the Boiling Isles!

Denasu shook her head; "Ha! If I could cure the Mold, I'd be living in a palace! No, I just use the mushrooms that grow from other sufferers to make a simple medicine, which weakens the Mold enough that the body can fight it off and largely function normally, only with the afflicted feeling minor versions of the usual symptoms." she then gestured for the boy to assist Amity by lifting Luz's head and opening her mouth; "Now get that down her. Try to get as little on her tongue as possible; it tastes foul and it'll make her try to spit it back out, even while unconscious!"

Amity grimaced and carefully began to pour the noxious smelling medicine down Luz's throat. She was very careful to avoid getting it on Luz's tongue, but the poor girl still grimaced in her sleep. Amity didn't blame her; it was a thick and unpleasant medicine, but she kept pouring while the boy massaged Luz's throat to ensure she swallowed it. Once the bowl was empty, they finally let Luz relax back into the sickbed, where her breathing immediately improved. She was sweating a lot, but Denasu nodded in satisfaction upon seeing this.

"It's working well. The girl's pallor has improved a good amount. Faster than I thought too; you've got a hardy lover, Lass." Denasu commented, making Amity blush.

"More than you could imagine, Ma'am." Amity said with a smile, even as her cheeks were still very red.

The boy smiled happily at her, while Denasu cackled and began to hobble off; "Well I've done all I can for now. I'll leave the rest to you and my apprentice, Lass. Just wipe down her sweat every hour or so and when the mushrooms start growing on her head, my apprentice will harvest them."

"Yes, of course. Thank you very much, Ma'am!" Amity said, bowing her head. Denasu just waved as she walked out of the room, leaving Amity and Luz alone with her apprentice.

The boy politely (and silently) stood and began working on various chores around the lab, mostly taking raw ingredients and prepping them to refill the jars that Denasu had used in Luz's medicine. Feeling awkward, Amity watched him in silence for a few moments as she pet Ghost (who was resting on Luz's chest). Unfortunately there wasn't much else to do with Luz unconscious, so Amity eventually spoke to the boy.

"Um, hello. My name is Amity Blight. Thank you for helping my girlfriend." she said.

The boy smiled; "Good day, Miss Blight. My name is Rakusa. It was my pleasure to help; as an apprentice healer, it was invaluable experience."

"Please just call me Amity." she replied, "So Rakusa, what's life like for you? I don't know anything really about Titan Trappers besides their… profession."

Rakusa frowned; "I get a lot of work, since the warriors often get hurt in training. Life in our clan is brutal, but skilled healers like Mistress Denasu keep it from also being short." he said, continuing his work as he talked; "In truth, healing is about the only thing I'm good at. I dislike violence, so my parents gave me to Mistress Denasu as a student, since I'm hopeless as a warrior."

"Wait, what do you mean "gave you" to Denasu?" Amity frowned, not liking where this was going.

"I wasn't abandoned, if that's what you're afraid of. Our numbers are too small for something like that to be allowed. We all need to pull our own weight and so we're given jobs that suit us. Some are craftsman, some are farmers, some are fighters, and some like me are healers and herbalists. Mother is disappointed that I'm not a brave warrior, but she and Father still care for me greatly. The Grand Huntsman would allow nothing less in our Clan!" Rakusa said, feeling a little touched that Amity had looked upset for him.

The girl was relieved; "That's good. Trust me, I know how tough it can be with Mothers who want you to be something else… Though your culture reminds me a little of something…"

She looked down at Luz; the Trappers being assigned to the roles that best suited them reminded her strongly of the Crest Orders. She wondered how the Titan Trappers would react to learn their culture had such a strange similarity with the Angels. Looking at her girlfriend's face gave Amity the urge to reach down and stroke her cheek, so she did so and was rewarded by Luz nuzzling against it and smiling in her sleep.

Rakusa looked over and watched the adorable scene with a grin; "She seems happy. I think she's dreaming."

Amity hummed "I wonder what she's dreaming about?"

[Meanwhile]

Luz felt like she was floating in a dark ocean as she suffered through the headaches, soreness, and general weakness that came with the Mold she'd contracted. For a while she'd been sinking deeper and deeper, and she'd feared she'd never escape as she lacked the strength to swim out on her own. But gradually, she began to feel a little better; the unbearable heat of the water cooled to a pleasant warmth, and she experienced a delightfully cooling sensation on her forehead and neck. She then tasted something truly foul in her mouth and the sensation of her stomach being filled, making her feel a little more nauseous than before, until she suddenly stopped sinking. It was a strange sensation; feeling herself grow heavier yet no longer sinking. She then felt a warm hand grasping her own, and another stroking her cheek as she suddenly began to rise up through the dark ocean.

She smiled at the comforting gesture as she rose faster and faster, as if the hands were pulling her from the water, until finally she felt herself break the surface. Luz gasped and staggered as she felt gravity shift around her so she was suddenly standing, and she looked around blearily, her eyes unaccustomed to light after what felt like eons in the dark waters.

She was stood on an expanse of glittering black water, her feet partially submerged as if it was only a shallow puddle. The water rippled as she moved, and the ripples glowed gold much to her confusion. Luz looked up from the water to see what looked like walls of some kind of iridescent rock, covered in swirling patterns and colours, and which appeared to have been eroded by something. In addition, odd black cubes were floating around, each with what looked like a galaxy inside it.

"Whoa… where am I?" Luz whispered to herself, slowly looking around. She still felt ill, but it wasn't enough to stop her moving around this bizarre place.

"This is the In-Between Realm."

Luz squeaked in surprise and whirled around, trying to draw spell circles as she did. However her magic didn't respond to her, which turned out to be a good thing as she came face to face with a familiar Titan. It was Orion, King's dad! However he was a bit different from when Luz had last seen him during the vision when she bonded with the wind glyph; he was significantly smaller (though he was still almost twice her height) and he wore black pants with his glyph symbols all over them, as well as one of Eda's Bad Girl Coven t-shirts and a brown lounge robe.

"Whoa! Papa Titan!" Luz gasped.

"Good to finally speak to you face to face, Luz the Arch-Angel." Orion said, his voice just like the one that had echoed in Luz's head back when she ascended into an Arch-Angel.

"Yeah! We didn't really get to talk back in my vision at the Reef! But how are we talking, and what is this "In-Between Realm"? I've never seen anything like this! How did I get here?" Luz asked rapidly.

Orion chuckled and patted her head; "One question at a time, Luz. The In-Between Realm is… well it's sort of the birth place of all realms. It's both the border between them, and the glue that keeps them all stuck together and connected. From here, you can go anywhere in existence. As for how you got here…"

He suddenly flicked Luz's forehead with a claw, making her yelp; "You nearly died because you neglected your own health!" he scolded.

"W-What?" Luz squeaked.

Orion sighed and crossed his arms; "Normally the only way to come here is through a botched or incomplete portal, or by having your soul leave your body. Mine ended up here when my body died but I chose to linger and watch over my child. Yours ended up here because you were on the verge of death from that illness you foolishly ignored! I was able to bring your consciousness here thanks to the connection of the glyphs." he pointed to her chest, where the light glyph began to shine.

"I-I nearly died?" Luz said, suddenly afraid.

"Nearly. I brought you here so that if the people outside failed to save you in time, I could revive you. You're basically my God-Daughter now, so I have to take care of you!" Orion huffed.

There was a lot to unpack there, so much so that Luz didn't know where to start! Being called the Titan's God-Daughter was kind of nice, but Luz wasn't too shocked by that; his first words to her had been calling her his child since she was the sister of his biological child. However the idea that he'd brought her there so he could bring her back to life if she died was mind blowing!

"You can bring people back to life!?" she exclaimed.

Orion nodded; "Yes, but there are caveats. I need a connection to that person via the glyphs. I can also only do it once; if I revive someone, I lose the magic that is keeping my soul tethered here, so I'll be forced to move on to the afterlife."

"Oh. I guess it was too much to hope for it to be unlimited and without any costs… a power like that would be broken! We could just throw ourselves at Belos infinitely until he and his coven lost!" Luz mused.

"Yes. It would be quite "OP" as I've heard you and King say. Those video game contraptions are quite interesting by the way." Orion chuckled.

Luz smiled; "So… what happens now? You make it sound like you don't need to revive me."

"I don't." Orion confirmed; "Your girlfriend found assistance to save your life and now your body is stable. I can send your consciousness back anytime you want, no cost. But since you're determined not to pay attention to your health…" he gave her a disapproving frown, making Luz lower her head in shame; "… I've decided to basically keep you here for a chat while your body recovers some more."

Luz blinked; "Does that mean you've basically grounded my soul?"

Orion stared at her for a moment, before bursting into hearty chortles; "Ha ha! I suppose you could phrase it like that! But in all seriousness, there are some things you need to know and I can't actually keep you here for very long, or else your soul's connection to your body will snap, and you'll die for real."

That made Luz pale, but she shook it off quickly; "If you're going to explain stuff to me, can you start with why you chose to give me the glyphs?"

"That is simple; you were a powerless Cherub, yet you still threw yourself into danger to save my son and his adoptive mother from that Warden. There was no ulterior motive or scheme behind your actions; just a genuine desire to help others, even at the risk of yourself. You've pushed that particular habit a bit far since then with your disregard for your own safety, but I don't regret it for an instant." Orion said, patting Luz's head again; "Besides, you reminded me a bit of Zachael."

Luz gasped as she remembered King's Godfather, who'd effectively been raised by Orion and his mate before their passing. "I wondered if he was part of the reason…"

"He was, though only a tiny part of it. My mate and I took him in when he was almost an adult. He was a bit older than you and had just seen his family slaughtered by Witches and Demons. He was taken captive and was going to be sold by them as a commodity, but he slipped his bindings one night and killed them all in their sleep. Cassiopeia and I came across him soon after while paying respects to my father, upon whom Zachael's family lived. At first, he actually tried to kill us too; filled with hatred for Witches and Demons. He failed of course, and we convinced him to explain his story to us. After that, we took him in and gave him a home with us." Orion explained wistfully; "He's part of the reason Cassiopeia and I have a child, despite the difficulties and the fact we were both still young by Titan standards. We'd have adopted him had he let us, but his losses were still raw. Instead we convinced him to be the Godfather to our child and made him a part of our family in that way."

Luz felt a sadness creeping into her; she'd known most of those details from Zachael's final message to King, but he hadn't gone that far into his own past. The young Arch-Angel couldn't imagine the horror he experienced, and the hatred he felt for the people that took his family. The fact he eventually turned his life around with help from Orion and his Mate was a small miracle!

But that had ended badly too…

"We found Zachael's tomb and heard his last words on King's island. We know about the Archivists; the Huntsman who helped murder your people, and the Collector who distracted them." Luz said softly.

Orion's eyes hardened at the mention of the Huntsman, but then his face became one of grief upon hearing the Collector's name.

"The Collector is my deepest regret…" he sighed heavily, actually sitting down in the water. Seeing him so upset, Luz edged towards him and put a hand on his shoulder, and he responded by scooping her up and sitting her down on his knee.

"What really happened all those millennia ago?" Luz asked softly.

Orion took a deep breath as he remembered; "Everything Zachael told you was the truth. The Huntsman came and attempted to steal a Baby Titan. He was driven off, but then the Collector appeared… he loved the Baby Titans and wanted nothing more than to play with them. None of us thought anything of it… until the Collector's siblings came and took the children while our guard was down. With our young gone, many of us became reckless and hateful, and the Huntsman used this to raise up the witch clan that became the Titan Trappers, leading to the deaths of almost all of us. It was a war that killed 99% of both the Titan Trappers and the Titans, and ended when my Mate sacrificed her life to send the Huntsman and his fellow Archivists away… all except for the Collector."

Luz could practically feel the regrets bubbling up inside the Titan, who averted his eyes from her; "I had just lost everything; my brothers and sisters, my nieces and nephews, my entire race… and my beloved Cassiopeia. All I had left in the world was an Egg in my chest, and Zachael… and then I learned that one of the Archivists responsible for the whole affair was still haunting our world. He was apparently searching for more Baby Titans, and in a rage, I went after him and came face to face with the Collector. I wanted to kill him, but I couldn't; nothing we did to the Archivists would kill them, only wound them, and what's more the Collector was only a child. I was angry, but not enough to murder a small boy… so I sealed him away instead."

"Sealed him away? So the Collector is still out there?" Luz questioned.

Orion nodded; "Not out there; in here." he said, gesturing to the In-Between Realm. "I removed my son's egg from my body and gave it to Zachael to care for, then sealed the Collector in a nigh-unbreakable barrier using most of my life force. I then used the last of my life to drag him down here, where he has been trapped every since. During the sealing process, I turned the tears he shed into mirrors through which he could see and communicate with the outside world… a further punishment in my mind. I even set defences around them, warning people away from them if they got too close. But I was wrong about him… so, so wrong…"

He bowed his head in shame and gestured to the black cubes; "Those are Portal Seeds; they act like windows between the realms and can show you anything you want in the other realms. For almost the entirety of the last 5000 years, I have been using them to watch over King's egg and Zachael, before his passing. However on occasion, I also looked to the Supreme Dragons; those who had taken some of my power or my mate's, and one such Supreme Dragon 1000 years ago discovered the truth about the Collector… I had been wrong; he was no monster or murderer! He was just a child! A frightened little boy whose older siblings had set him up as bait while they kidnapped and murdered his Baby Titan Playmates!"

Luz gasped in horror; "No! That's awful!"

"It is… I've never forgiven myself for it. I jumped to conclusions, and he suffered for it." Orion said, head still bowed with shame and disgust.

Luz felt horrible for the poor Collector; his situation reminded her a bit of Rasiel's; being sealed away by someone who didn't know or care about his true nature and only saw what he was and not who. Still, unlike the Divider that sealed Rasiel, Luz knew Orion had good intentions. He'd been grieving and genuinely believed the Collector was responsible for everything that happened to his people.

"Can you release him?" Luz asked.

"No. Only a living Titan or Titan Blood can do that. Though you might be able to as well, since you've been infused with so much of my magic." Orion revealed.

That perked Luz up; "Then tell me where he is and I'll free him!" she said, looking around the In-Between Realm for signs of his prison.

She found nothing at first glance, and Orion shook his head; "I'm sorry, but you won't be able to find him in time. I've been avoiding his prison out of guilt, so we're about as far from it as we can get. Also, I'm afraid that if he is released, he'll go after King in revenge for what I did to him."

"If that happens, I'll protect King. The Collector is innocent; he deserves to be free!" Luz argued fiercely.

Orion blinked in surprise, then nodded his head in agreement; "Very well. I trust you. Thankfully you can just use the mirrors I mentioned before to release him, as they serve as connections between the Demon Realm and his prison. I've removed most of the magical protections around my skull, where one of them can be found. However I don't know where the others are; one was lost in a Primordial Wellspring by Lars, the Supreme Dragon who discovered the truth about the Collector, but the others were destroyed by my worshippers over the millennia. The one in the skull is the only one that should be untouched."

"Wait, can't you use these Portal Seed thingies to show you were they are?" Luz asked.

"Sadly not. They only show people, not things." Orion said, "But the Collector and my sins towards him are not the only thing I had to tell you about; I wanted to tell you something important about my Cassiopeia."

"King's Mama? I remember she was trying to show me something in the last vision. Something about her heart?" Luz questioned, remembering the gaping hole in the silhouette of Cassiopeia in her last vision.

"Yes. I need you to find it… find it and destroy it." Orion declared, his face deadly serious.

Luz went pale at his words; "D-Destroy it!? Why!?" she cried.

"Because when Cassiopeia drove off the Archivists, her body was destroyed in the process and one of the Archivists sealed her soul inside her heart as a final act of revenge. It was what inspired my plan to seal the Collector. Because of this, Cassiopeia is sealed in a limbo between life and death. Only a Titan or one with our magic can undo the Archivist's magic, and sadly I could not reach her heart before my own demise." Orion explained sombrely.

Luz frowned; now she understood. If Cassiopeia was sealed in limbo, then destroying her heart and freeing her would also kill her, and the only people alive who could do that were Luz and King. Asking a child to kill their own mother, even to save her from hell, was just too cruel, so it would be up to Luz to do it. However as Luz was about to open her mouth and agree, her body began to glow and start floating slowly.

"W-What's happening!?" she cried.

Orion grabbed her hands to stop her floating away entirely as he replied; "Your time here is almost up! If you stay any longer, the connection between your body and soul will wither and you'll die, so your magic is dragging you back!"

"No! There's still so much I need to ask! How do I find Cassiopeia's heart!? What about the Black Tombs, and her Glyphs? And King! What do I tell King!? You've gotta have some words for him!" Luz cried, desperately trying to hold on even as she felt her body straining to yank her back.

Orion hastily answered; "You'll find it by going through the Primordial Wellspring! It's the only way! You will find a Black Tomb resting with the heart, but I know not where the final one is! As for King… tell my son…"

He pulled her down a bit so he could whisper in her ear, making her gasp softly and feel a tear come to her eye; "O-Oh… He'll love that."

"I know." Orion smiled; "Give my regards to your mothers! And we will meet again soon!"

With those final words, Orion released Luz's hand and she floated up until she hit one of the black Portal Seeds floating above her. Upon touching it, she felt a pulse of magic come from the wind glyph on her foot, and the entire world around her became an empty white void.

Floating there, unable to move from that spot, Luz looked around in confusion, wondering if this was where she'd be forced to wait until her body regained consciousness. But then suddenly, eight figures appeared around her, all of whom were very familiar. Four of them were the silhouettes of Orion, and each one was made from a different element represented by his glyphs; light, plant, ice, and fire. They each had their glyph symbols etched into their chests too. Then there was the other four, whom were the silhouettes of Cassiopeia, just as Luz had seen her in her last vision.

As with Orion, these silhouettes were made from the elements represented by Cassiopeia's glyphs; there was one made of silvery winds, one made of bronze-like earth and stone, one made of crackling yellow lightning, and one made from black and purple shadows whirling around. However unlike Orion's, most of them were missing the glyph symbols; only the wind silhouette had the symbol on its chest, while the others had nothing there at all.

One by one, the silhouettes with glyphs flew at Luz and merged into her body, causing the corresponding glyph on her skin to glow brightly. The Lightning and Shadow Cassiopeia silhouettes then disappeared, while the Earth one drew closer to Luz and whispered in her ear in a distorted voice.

"F-l-o- m-. M- b-o- i- l-m-t-d. C-n o-l- b- g-v-n h-r-."

Luz blinked, trying to make heads or tails of what the Titan had just said to her, but before she could, the white void around her grew brighter and brighter, until she had no choice but to close her eyes.

In an instant, her eyes flew open again and she found herself staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling that looked kind of like a turtle shell. She panted like she'd just awoken from a nightmare and looked around in confusion, quickly finding Amity at her side, smiling brilliantly and holding her hand.

"Luz! You're awake! Thank goodness, I was so worried!" Amity cried with joy.

"A-Amity? Where am I? What's going on? Was all that a dream…?" Luz asked, her voice croaky and her mind struggling to focus. Now that she was back in her body and fully conscious, she could feel the effects of the Mold still in her body, making her throat feel sore and her head feel stuffy. Thankfully she could breath easily enough though, and she slowly sat up with some help from Amity.

"Easy there, Batata. You almost died! The medicine will help you, but you've got to take it easy." Amity said, letting Luz sit up but firmly forcing her to stay seated in the pile of furs.

Luz looked around at Denasu's healing hut, and then looked down at herself and saw she was just in her underwear. She blushed a bit, but Amity had seen her in less when they wore swimsuits for their beach date so she quickly shrugged it off. She also noticed the Concealment Stone and recognised it from Lucy's cloak clasp. She prepared to take it off, but had to hide her wings first, only to be shocked when her magic didn't respond.

"Hermosa, what's going on? I can feel my magic, but it won't do what I want it too!" Luz asked in a slight panic.

"Oh, that'll be because of the medicine." said a new voice coming in from outside. Luz gasped as a figure walked in, looking like an older King with deer-like antlers and robes worn over his fur. "Since using magic will make your condition worse, the medicine includes a magic numbing effect. It'll make it hard to cast spells for a little while." he explained.

Luz gaped at the boy, and Amity could see where her mind was going, so she quickly introduced them; "Luz, this is Rakusa, one of the Titan Trappers just like King."

She put enough emphasis on the words "just like" to ensure Luz got the message, and the young Angel looked at her beloved with fearful eyes.

"Amity, please tell me what's going on. Where are we?"

"Okay, just stay calm and I'll explain." Amity said, as Rakusa looked on with puzzled eyes. Amity explained everything that happened from the moment they awoke beside the Wellspring to the moment they split up so Luz could be taken and healed, while King went with Tarak and the Coven trio to see the Elder Bill. Rakusa helpfully added that the meeting with Bill had finished and now King was in the village, training with the Titan Trappers, while the Coven Trio had gone with Bill and a few soldiers to look for Titan's Blood somewhere called the Rising Mines.

"You let King go off on his own!?" Luz exclaimed with horror, making Amity flinch.

"I-I'm sorry! I was just so worried about you that I didn't think…" the girl replied in a shaky voice.

Luz immediately felt rotten for yelling and quickly took a deep breath to calm herself; "Sorry Hermosa. I didn't mean to yell or sound like I'm mad at you; I'm just worried about King." she apologised, leaning over to kiss Amity's cheek.

Amity took it in stride and smiled; "I understand; he's your little brother after all!"

"If it makes you feel any better, he'll be more than fine." Rakusa chimed in softly. "He spoke of how you and he defeated the Ice Wyrm and Fire Drake that passed through here not too long ago. Compared to that, the training we offer to one his age would be nothing."

"Zara and Godric!?" Luz gasped in shock.

Rakusa smiled broadly; "So it's true!? I had wondered if he was exaggerating! This is incredible!"

Luz stared at Amity in shock, and the pink haired girl nodded along, having heard about it from Rakusa in the couple of hours Luz had been recovering. Luz was just about to question it when she suddenly saw something moving behind Rakusa, and tilted her head to get a better look. She immediately gasped as she saw the Earth silhouette of Cassiopeia, just casually standing behind the young trapper. Amity and Rakusa noticed her shocked expression and followed her eyes, only to see nothing of note.

"Luz? What are you staring at?" Amity asked, looking between her lover and the random spot she was looking at.

"You don't see it?" Luz whispered so only Amity would hear her.

"No? What is it? I just see Rakusa and a bunch of herbs and medicinal stuff." she replied.

Luz stared back at the Earth Cassiopeia, who walked towards her. She phased through Rakusa, who seemed to notice something as he shuddered and looked around for the source of the sudden chill. Ghost, who was resting on Luz's lap, also stared at the silhouette of the Titan, but her expression was confused; she could sense something but not actually see it.

Earth Cassiopeia knelt beside Luz and then just like she had in the white void, leaned in and whispered in her ear in the same distorted voice.

"-o-l-w -e. -y -o-n -s -i-i-e-. -a- -n-y -e -i-e- -e-e."

It sounded different, yet Luz was sure she was saying the same words. She tried to focus on the words and repeated the first few over and over in her head; "F-l-o- m-. o-l-w -e. F-l-o-, o-l-w… Follow? Follow me?"

"You want me to follow you?" Luz whispered.

Amity gave her a strange look, and noticed Ghost staring at something beside Luz's head, putting her on guard. Mindful of Rakusa, she leaned forward and whispered; "Luz, is something really there?"

Before Luz could answer, the apparition of Cassiopeia stood and dashed out of the room, making her gasp. Luz leapt to her feet and chased after her, summoning her Holy Raiment so she wasn't just running around in her underwear (this didn't require magic from Luz, as the Raiment itself possessed the magic needed to summon it). Rakusa blinked in surprise as Amity gave chase after Luz.

"Luz! Wait!" she cried.

"I can't! She's leaving! She wants me to follow her!" Luz yelled over her shoulder as she ran. She staggered outside, her legs still unsteady from her sickness and her head beginning to pound from exerting herself.

"Who!? Who wants you to follow her!?" Amity yelled back, mindful of Rakusa following along.

"Please, Miss Luz! You're not better yet! You could hurt yourself! Come back!" he begged.

Luz didn't respond to either, focused entirely on Cassiopeia's apparition. She didn't know where she was leading her, but Luz was going to find out!

[Meanwhile]

After Tarak escorted/carried King out of Bill's room and back down to the ground floor of the tower, the young Titan found quite a crowd waiting for him. It seemed like every Trapper in town was hanging out and eagerly awaiting for him to join them. Tarak set King down in front of the crowd and made a proclamation.

"My brothers and sisters; today is an auspicious day! For not only has the Grand Huntsman lead another of the lost Children to us, he has given us a rare gift!" he began grandly. "We all remember the harrowing events of the last month, in which two travelling witches were revealed to be Supreme Dragons!"

The crowd muttered darkly, some shivering in fear while others nodded bitterly.

"Well, we know the names of these beasts now, thanks to young King here! Not only that, but we learned why they had to regain their dragon forms at the Wellspring… King and his adopted family bested them in combat!"

Despite his inner anger towards these people, King couldn't help but feel a little bit proud as the crowd of Titan Trappers erupted into screams and cheers of amazement. Their individual shouts were lost in the cacophony of noise, but King made out a few key phrases;

"The kid's a battle genius!"

"Defeating not one but two Supreme Dragons!? That's insane!"

"Do you think it's a sign? Is the Final Hunt upon us!?"

Deep inside, King felt a painful mix of disgust and pride; he hated that their cheers made him feel good about himself. He hated that the validation of these people who descended from the slaughterers of his kin made him feel bashful. He hated it with every fibre of his being, and that hatred fed the flames of his anger. He wasn't totally able to keep the look out of his body language though and the crowd saw him stiffen and the dangerous gleam in his eyes. However it did not slow their cheers.

"Now that is the look of a warrior!"

"Is he going to teach us to be Dragon Slayers?"

"First Titan Trappers, then Dragon Slayers, and then finally Titan Slayers! The Final Hunt really is upon us!"

Tarak chortled and knelt down to pat King on the back; "Well King, would you like to say a few words? Give some wisdom to your people?"

King stiffened further; oh he had some words to say alright! But he had to be careful! If he blew his cover while Luz was still recovering, they'd both be dead! He was confident in his skills with the glyphs, but he wasn't confident enough to take on a whole clan dedicated to killing his race! Still, he'd planned on learning their secrets and weaknesses, and what better way than to get them to teach him while he sabotaged them! He wouldn't show them how to be Dragon Slayers (not that he really could on his own), he'd show them how to be a Dragon's Lunch!

Clearing his throat and channelling his old King of Demons persona as much as possible, King bellowed out; "Alright you lot! So you want to learn how to fight Dragons? Show me you're worth my time! I want to see what qualifies as training around here, so I know what I'm working with!"

The crowd roared in excitement, and several surged forward and lifted King into the air to carry him to their training grounds, where they began to show him the different training exercises they performed. The first was simple; using whatever weapons they liked on a series of Titan shaped mannequins, a few of which were full of candy (meant for children to practice with). King watched as the warriors of the clan eagerly attacked the dummies, shredding them to pieces while a few kids tore apart their own Titan shaped pinatas. King enjoyed the candy at least, but seeing them beating stuffed facsimiles of his people made his anger grow.

"This exercise is all about learning where best to strike at a Titan!" Tarak explained as he watched; "Adult Titans are quite resistant to magic; only powerful spells can get through their hides so we practice with weapons more than magic."

King snorted; "This is amateur stuff! You'll never take down a real Titan like this! Not even a Dragon!"

"Alas yes, we do not have the strength of our ancestors… we've not had a real Titan to fight us! But you'd be surprised; many a Titan's Avatar fell to these tactics before. Most of the fur pelts you see us wear come from these Avatars, and all of the skulls do. Slaying a Titan's Avatar while their soul occupies it is the only way; their full forms are just too big. How does one kill a continent after all?" Tarak said.

King hummed; so that was where they got their skulls… They came from the Titan's Avatars and not the full creatures. That was good to know.

With one bit of information learned, King got to work on his sabotage. He ordered a halt to the exercise and stepped forward; "This is all well and good for fighting itty bitty Titan Avatars, but if you want to kill a Dragon, you need to fight something way bigger!"

He pulled out some ice glyphs and while keeping them hidden in his palm, he used them to create a giant icy replica of Zara's Ice Wyrm Head. "Your first lesson on killing dragons! They can't use their breath attacks if their mouths are full! So when you see them charging it up, the best way to stop it is to jump right in their mouths!" he lied, jumping into the mouth of his sculpture. "If you're afraid of the teeth, then just tickle their tongues! They're super sensitive and they'll be laughing so hard that they can't close their mouths, giving you the perfect chance to blast them with magic down their throats!"

It was a brazen lie; only a fool would jump into a dragon's mouth and having a mouthful of people just meant they'd have a frozen or burned snack to chow down on once they released their breath attack. However the Titan Trappers didn't know this, and since King was the only one they knew to have faced a dragon, they had no choice but to believe him!

"Remarkable! No one would think of jumping into a dragon's maw! What an ingenious tactic!" Tarak declared, as numerous other Titan Trappers began jumping into the fake Ice Wyrm's mouth. A few began shooting fire spells where the real version's throat would be, but King stopped them.

"Don't use the obvious element! You should use the same element as the dragon!" he lied once more; "If they're charging a breath attack, hitting them with the same element will overcharge it and it'll blow up in their throats and do big damage! It's like their secret weakness! If you use the element they're normally weak to, you'll just make the breath a little weaker instead. Not worth it in my opinion." King said, crossing his arms imperiously.

Again, the Trappers bought his lie in an instant, and began shooting ice spells. In reality, those spells would help restore an Ice Wyrm's strength, dooming the fools even more!

After this, they moved to the next training method, which took place at the foot of a waterfall that flowed into a small lake. The water was boiling hot and the trainees had to sit on a small rock ledge beneath the falls, letting the boiling water run over them. King was actually kind of impressed by this one, until Tarak explained that the hide of a Titan was resistant to the Boiling Waters of the Demon Realm. That was a surprise to King, who'd always cowered away from the rain and sea… the only time he'd gone swimming was when Luz had used her ice magic to cool some water around Digale Island. Hesitantly, he'd touched the boiling lake and gasped, finding it hot but not enough to burn him. Amazed by this, he'd gone at sat under the waterfall for a full twenty minutes, shocking the Titan Trappers, who'd never managed more than ten even with their protective hides.

That had given King a dark impulse; he was tempted to tell the trappers that they should bear the water's heat without their protection to prepare them for the flames of a Fire Drake. However that felt like a step too far; if the idiots got themselves hurt by attacking a Supreme Dragon, then that was their own fault and he wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over it, but the idea of actively encouraging them to maim themselves made him feel gross inside. Besides, they may ask him to show them how it's done and unlike them, King couldn't actually take off his fur.

They moved on to the next exercise; blowing into a massive war horn as both practice for signalling over long distances, and expanding one's lung capacity to keep their breath in arduous battles. King stealthily used his sonic roar to make the horn release a massive sound, and then watched as other children tried to do the same. But watching them made the horrible feelings in his guts come back…

These were just kids being taught by their parents. They hated Titans and wanted to kill them because they'd been taught to; they'd never met a real one, or suffered any great losses because of them. Once that thought entered King's head, he couldn't shake it as he looked out to the horizon, to the Titan Bone Graveyard where countless colossal Titans had been laid to rest. Even the adult trappers that lived today had never (knowingly) seen a live Titan… they'd been taught by their parents, who'd been taught by their grandparents, and so on and so forth going back 5000 years!

Was it right for him to hate someone and want to destroy them for the crimes of their ancestors? If he did, was he any different than the Titan Trappers who wanted to kill him for what he was and not who he was?

"Ugh, I've been spending so much time with Luz that I've gone soft! A year ago I'd have been happy maiming all of them!" King thought with a pout. A King of Demons didn't need a conscience… but a young Titan did.

But even with that realisation, King's anger and hatred didn't fade… no, it focused on the person who was really to blame for all of this!

The Huntsman!

He had started this whole affair by targeting the Titans! He'd elevated a clan of witches into Titan Trappers! He was the guilty one! He was King's enemy!

And Bill had spoken to him!

As a plan formed in his head, King turned to Tarak and asked; "I've been wondering; you said that your Elder Bill talked to the Grand Huntsman right? Well how did he do it?"

Tarak stroked his beard; "He spoke to him through a Sacred Talisman; a mirror that appeared from the Primordial Wellspring one day, not unlike yourself! The Grand Huntsman was said to have been sealed away by the Titan of the Boiling Isles, and needs the blood of that beast's child to be freed!"

King frowned; Zachael's message said that the Huntsman had been driven off by his Mother, the Titan whose hand made up Titan Trapper Island.

"Can I see the Talisman? To pay my respects and all that junk?" King asked.

Tarak nodded; "I don't see why not. It is held in a shrine that any in the village can visit. Come."

He led King to a small temple built between the tower and the village itself. It looked like most of the other buildings in the village, being made from a giant turtle carcass, though this one was a bit smaller than the others. Tarak showed King inside, and the young Titan looked around and saw braziers of blue flame in the corners of the room, and numerous woven tapestries on the walls. Along the back wall was a small altar, and on the altar was a broken circular tablet. It was made of a dull, bluish material that King couldn't identify, and had a crescent moon symbol etched into it, which had been cracked down the middle when the tablet was broken.

King felt his stomach churn as he looked at the tablet, which Tarak had claimed to be a mirror, though it didn't look like it could reflect anything. "It's broken." he said numbly, feeling both relieved and disappointed.

"Yes, we can thank that Corpse King; Belos for that. He came to us one day and promised to free the Grand Huntsman if we joined his Empire. He also promised to find the last Titan for us! But he lied; we overhead one of his masked entourage talking about how Belos was lying so he could use us to promote his Titan religion! He was planning on taking us back to his little Empire so he could either convert us to his faith or destroy us to win more favour with his people." Tarak growled furiously. "When we confronted him, he fled and destroyed the Grand Huntsman's Talisman as a final insult!"

"Belos destroyed it?" King frowned. Why? Was he just being a jerk and knew it was important to the Trappers? And had he really come here to recruit, convert, or destroy the Trappers, or was that another of his lies?

"That's why we're so hostile to outsiders, especially those from the Carcass Kingdom. If you hadn't vouched for those three companions of yours, we'd have likely tossed them into the sea or back into the Wellspring. Or if we were feeling merciful, we'd let them use the Portal." Tarak said.

"Wait, you have a portal? Where too?" the young Titan asked.

"Oh yes, it's made from the missing finger of this Titan's hand. It formed a small island of its own not too far from the Boiling Isles. Our ancestors were shown how to build it by the Grand Huntsman, who taught us that even when dead, pieces of the Titans connect to each other through magic. That's why the Wellsprings are connected too." Tarak explained. "We use the portal to trade with other nations, since few will dare to come near that massive Titan Graveyard for fear of being cursed. That's just poppycock of course, but there's no reasoning with crazy."

King looked away from Tarak and stared at the broken tablet for a few moments as a question kept coming back to him; why was his mother's body split apart? A finger near the Boiling Isles, her right arm in the Maelstrom Strait, and a hand here at the edge of the world? What had caused this?

Seeing him staring at the tablet, Tarak said; "When we wish to pray to the Grand Huntsman, we light the tablet aflame with the holy blue fire. It is known as Lazulite Flame and is created by burning a blue mineral that fell from the sky inside Falling Stars. Some of us feel a connection when we do, but none but Bill has heard the Grand Huntsman's words and not since it was broken. I will leave you to pray; perhaps you will be the one to succeed Bill as the Grand Huntsman's speaker!"

With that, Tarak left King alone in the shrine and the young Titan walked closer to it. This mirror was his window to the Grand Huntsman; his chance to speak to the person that destroyed his people and helped orphan him, before Eda came along! This person had his answers… he just needed to find a way to talk to them!

Cautiously, King reached up and removed the two pieces of the tablet from the altar and laid them on the floor before kneeling down and putting them back together. It looked like it was in one piece again, without even a sign of the crack between them, but it was still broken; if just sticking it back together was enough to fix it, the Trappers would have already fixed it! On a hunch, King pulled out a fire glyph and used it to heat the edges of the tablet in hopes of welding the pieces back together. The glassy stone-like material rapidly began to glow red along the edges, and King pressed them together. However the material was just hot; it hadn't melted at all!

Irritated, King decided he'd try again with the Lazulite Flames from one of the braziers, but as he was getting up to get the flame, he pressed his paw on the mirror by accident and burned himself. He yelped and pulled his hand away, then blew on it as he rummaged in his neckerchief for an ice glyph to cool the mild burn. However as he was doing this, he noticed something strange; the mirror was beginning to glisten and regain its sheen, while the heated parts had cooled immediately. King paused and stared down at it, and then noticed to his delight that the two pieces had partially reconnected! There was still a massive crack on both sides, but the very middle of the split had fused back together!

"Weh! How'd that happen!?" he whispered in surprise. He finally found an ice glyph and cooled his burn (while lamenting he'd given all his healing combos to Steve, so he couldn't fully heal the minor burn).

Not only was the mirror looking better, but it was also clearer, so King breathed on it to fog it up and wipe it clean, only for his breath to make the mirror glisten even more and the cracks to shrink. King's eyes widened; "Titan Breath! It's one of the five humours of a Titan, just like blood and bile!" he whispered excitedly; "It must have enough magic in it to fix this thing! I wonder if it can fix other things…"

He breathed on his burnt hand, but nothing happened. He then grabbed a light glyph and tore it in half, then breathed on that too, only to get no result once again. King pouted; so it wasn't that his breath had repairing powers, but that the mirror could absorb it and use it to repair itself… if it was made by his Dad to seal the Huntsman, then it probably used Titan magic to both repair and break the seal! He'd need to be careful not to accidentally release the Huntsman.

He continued to breathe on the mirror until the crack was fully repaired and the mirror was shiny enough to actually see himself in. Once it was shining brightly, King winked at himself and then went to pick the mirror up, only to feel a sense of foreboding as his claws brushed against the material. He didn't know what exactly, but something deep inside him was telling him not to fully lay hands on the repaired mirror, or something terrible would happen. Taking this into consideration, he decided to just talk to the Huntsman while his mirror was on the floor. Using a piece of his torn up light glyph, King made a makeshift match and lit it with the Lazulite Flame, then dropped it onto the mirror.

Instantly, the mirror caught fire as if it were made of wood, yet it didn't burn and little stars in all the colours of the rainbow began to flit around inside the azure flames. King gasped as he heard a childish laugh, and his eyes glowed for a moment as a shadow emerged from the mirror. The shadow whirled around the room until it settled on the altar and took the shape of a vaguely humanoid figure. The figure was somewhat abstract, with crescent moon-shaped feet and blocky limbs and fingers. Their body also seemed to be split into two; the left half of which was dark grey with black crescent moons, while the right half was black with dark grey suns. Lastly, the figure's head had some kind of cowl or hood, and their face was split in half too, with the right side being dark grey and shaped like a crescent moon and the left side being black and filling the rest of their perfectly circular face.

King gasped at them as the strange shadow person glanced back and forth; "Huh? What's going on here? Oh, did those weirdos finally fix the mirror?" the figure said in a childish voice, looking around at everything in the small shrine. He soon grew bored though and turned to King.

"Ooh, a new person! You're an itty bitty Titan Trapper, right? I wish you didn't wear those costumes though…" they said.

"Uh, Hi. Um, Grand Huntsman?" King greeted nervously. He wasn't expecting this shadow to come out of the mirror! He needed to tread carefully; if he said the wrong thing, the Huntsman might be able to call for help and expose him! Who knew how far from the mirror the shadow could go?

The Shadow nodded and got closer to King, circling around his feet; "So are you the one to fix the mirror? Even that creepy Bill couldn't do it! How'd you do it… Wait a second…"

He circled even closer, narrowing his eyes on King; "Something about you feels familiar… your costume looks just like that bully who put me in here! And your magic feels kinda like his too…"

King began to panic as the Shadow's eyes grew wider. He opened his mouth to exclaim something, but King acted fast and pointed to his medallion, flipping it over so the light glyph was visible.

"Is this what you feel?" King asked, activating it to create some extra light.

The Shadow gasped; "Oh, now I get it! You've found that bully's glyphs! But why would he show it to a baby Titan Trapper? He hates those guys!"

"Uh, maybe he just likes me?" King shrugged. It was a weak excuse but this weirdly childish shadow seemed to believe him. Was this thing really the Huntsman?

"Oh, cool! Be honest, do you really want to hurt Titans? Come on, you can tell me! I pinky swear!" the Shadow said.

Deciding to take a gamble and win the Shadow's trust and find out what was really going on, King knelt down and put his pinky against the Shadow's pinky. "Fine, pinky swear. And no, I don't want to hurt any Titans! I'm not exactly a fan of these Titan Trappers…"

The Shadow seemed delighted; "That's great! Finally, I've got someone I can actually talk to that isn't all "Grand Huntsman" this and "Kill Titans" that! Why do people even like Huntsman!? He's a jerk!"

King blinked in confusion; "So you aren't really the Huntsman?" he asked.

The Shadow giggled; "Nope! It's a big secret, but I'll tell you since we pinky swore." his shadow cleaned in closer to King as he whispered; "I'm not the Huntsman at all! I'm his little brother; the Collector!"

King gasped; this guy was the Collector!? Now he understood; Zachael's final message had left the Collector's fate ambiguous after his encounter with King's Dad, while the Huntsman had allegedly been driven back to the stars by King's Mama. So Papa Titan had sealed the Collector somehow!

"Collector? How did you end up here, and why does Bill think you're the Huntsman?" King asked.

"Oh, that's because I told a little fib…" the Collector looked sheepish; "I don't like fibbing, but the Titan Trappers only ever listened to my big brother, and since our voices are kinda similar, I was able to make them think I was him! I want them to find the Last Titan so I can finally get out of here! I need a Titan's magic to break that bully's seal!"

King felt his eye twitch; he didn't like this kid calling his dad a bully! Besides, even if he wasn't the Archivist King thought he was, he was still one of them and had lured the Titans into letting their guards down so their siblings could eliminate the baby Titans! How much innocent blood was on this kid's hands!?

He glared at the Collector, who seemed oblivious to his anger as he began to playfully move around the room, shapeshifting himself into different shadow puppets. King decided that even if this kid wasn't his main enemy, he might have clues about them!

"If you're the Collector, and you've tricked the Titan Trappers into thinking you're the Huntsman, then where is the actual Huntsman?" he asked.

The Collector stopped his little shadow puppet show and turned back to King; "Oh, he and my other older siblings all ran away to the stars after the Bully's best friend blasted them! I used magic to watch the fight from far away and it was so cool! That Titan was all like "Pow! Bam! Boom!" and kicked their butts! Our magic doesn't really work on Titans normally, so my siblings had to use a weaker kind of magic. We don't like using that magic though; it feels so small and dumb! It wasn't enough either, since that Titan beat 'em up real good!"

The young Titan was surprised; the Collector seemed actually happy about his siblings being beaten up! King couldn't even imagine being happy about Luz being hurt! "Do you not like your siblings?"

The Collector shook his head and crossed his arms petulantly; "They're my family, but they're no fun! Our oldest sister, the Keeper, is super strict and bosses us around! Then our next oldest sibling, the Watcher, is a dirty snitch who tells on me to the Keeper whenever I want to play instead of collecting stuff for the stupid archives! Then there's the middle sister, the Scribe; she's kinda nice but she does whatever the Keeper and the Watcher tell her to. Then there's the Huntsman who teases and picks on me; he says we've got the same kind of job but his is better because he hunts creatures instead of collecting stuff… Stupid Huntsman, I don't even want to collect stuff! I wanted to be the Player! But no, Keeper says we've got to fill up the stupid archives! It's so boring!"

King memorised those names; so they were the Keeper, the Watcher, the Scribe, the Huntsman, and the Collector, and their goal was to build something called the Archives? Or at least, that was the goal of the Archivists as a whole; one the Collector clearly didn't like. But that wasn't what King really wanted to know; he wanted to know what had happened to his Mama, who drove the others away!

"What happened to the Titan that defeated your siblings? We're on her hand now, but where's the rest of her?" King asked, almost afraid of the answer he'd get.

The Collector frowned; "Well the fight with my siblings was really cool, but it lasted a long time… like weeks! My siblings couldn't beat her, but she couldn't beat them either; we Archivists are super hard to hurt and heal real fast! We can't even die like the itty bitty spiders that crawl all over this realm… no offence."

"Uh, none taken?" King replied.

"So yeah, whenever she hurt my siblings, they'd just fix themselves up, so eventually she decided to cast this super big spell! One that would sacrifice her life! Something like that is powerful enough to hurt even us for a real long time, so my siblings tried to stop her. They worked together and cast a nasty curse on her with that weaker magic I told you about, and said that if she sacrificed herself now, she'd suffer forever. But she said she didn't care; she was a Mama and would suffer so her kid, the last Baby Titan, could live without my siblings coming after them!"

King felt his heart lurch as the Collector finished his story; "So she cast the super big spell and blew up! It hurt my siblings super bad and infected them with some of her magic so they couldn't heal until the magic was all gone. When they found out the Titan's mate was still around, they ran away and abandoned me! Then that big Bully came and trapped me in this stupid prison!"

A horrible feeling of grief entered King's heart and spread through him, making him want to cry. He'd known deep down that his Mama had died to protect him by driving off the monsters who wanted to hurt him, but hearing directly how she'd sacrificed herself still cut deep. The only solace King felt was that the reason his mother's body was scattered across the Demon Realm was because of her own choice to unleash a might explosion, rather than her being dismembered by her enemies or something equally ghoulish and macabre.

"Mama… you were really incredible, weren't you? Those monsters and their little army of trapper freaks wiped out almost all of us, but you fought all four of them and sent them packing! You were an awesome parent!" he thought, turning his back on the Collector so he could wipe his eyes. He'd have time to mourn his Mama properly later; right now he needed to make sure he didn't make her sacrifice in-vain!

The Collector eyed King curiously, then moved around him so he could see his face; "Hey, what's going on? Why are your eyes all shiny and glisten-y. I just told you an awesome story; you should be excited!"

"It's just a lot to take in." King forced himself to sound neutral. "So after Ma- the Titan died chasing away your siblings, the other Titan who became the Boiling Isles sealed you up. Then these Trapper guys found your mirror and you pretended to be the Grand Huntsman because…?"

"I needed them to find the last Titan for me, so I can be free! Oh, I can't wait to see them! I had so much fun playing with all the other little Titan Babies! I want to play with this one too! I hope they don't take too much longer… the Last Titan will be all grown up and become a boring adult if they do! I want to play with them while they're still cute!" the Collector whined.

The kinds of "play" King imagined the Collector wanted sickened him, considering the fates that awaited his fellow young Titans. He definitely wouldn't be playing any of his sick games!

Without realising it, King had been clenching his fists and grinding his teeth, which drew the young Archivist's attention. "Oh, are you mad that I want to play with someone else? Don't worry, I'll play with you too! You're the first person I've talked to in years who wasn't some creepy old guy! Plus that costume really does make you look like a Baby Titan! You look so cute! I hope I get out of here before you grow up too, so we can play before you become boring too!"

The Collector's expression then became confused; "But you know, that pouty face reminds me a lot of the Titan who scared off my siblings… and a lot like that mean old bully too!"

After everything he'd experienced that day (and the previous one); the stress about Luz's condition, the race for the Titan Blood, dealing with Kikimora, having to blend in with his people's murderers, and his mini-crisis of conscience, King was reaching the point where he just couldn't keep his temper any longer. His hatred, his grief, his fear, and his anger were all boiling over like the seas outside, and hearing the Collector; one of the people responsible for it all, continuously call his Dad a bully for sealing him away for his crimes, made King lose his last thread of self-control.

"STOP CALLING HIM A BULLY!" King screamed, stomping his little foot; "He's not a bully or a bad guy! He's-!"

The young Titan stopped himself, covering his snout with his claws, but it was too late. The Collector's eyes widened as he pieced things together, and his smile grew wider straight after.

"That's why you look so familiar! You're not a Titan Trapper at all! You're the baby of those two Titans! You're the Last Titan!" the Collector cried with joy. "Finally! I won't be alone any more! I'll be free!"

King backed up a step as his heart pounded; this was bad! It only got worse as someone came hurrying into the shrine.

It was Tarak, looking concerned; "Young King, is everything alright? I heard shouting and-" the Titan Trapper froze as he looked at the repaired mirror and the shadowy child that was emerging from it. His eyes then moved to King with awe.

"You did it! You fixed the Huntsman's Talisman! You are a credit to the Titan Trappers!" Tarak praised.

The Collector began to cackle childishly; "He's not a Titan Trapper, Dumb Dumb! He's an actual Titan! He's the last one we've been looking for!"

Tarak's eyes grew wide as his pupils shrank into pinpricks, focused fully on King. Tension filled the air (which the Collector seemed oblivious too), and in an instant; King knew what was about to happen, so he was prepared for it. Tarak suddenly started drawing a spell circle, but before he could finish, the prepared King screamed; "WEH!" at him, blasting him straight out of the shrine with a cry of pain.

The Collector finally seemed to realise what was really happening as King turned to him and his mirror, inhaling for another scream. The young Archivist tried to yell; "No! Please don't! I don't want to hurt you, I just wanna be-!"

"WEH!"

King's roar blasted into the Collector's mirror as he screamed for the young Titan to stop. The mirror shattered into countless pieces, while the Collector's shadowy form vanished with a one last pleading cry. King panted for a moment to catch his breath and think about what he'd just done; he thought he'd be satisfied destroying the Collector's only way out of his prison, but something inside him twisted with guilt. The Collector's final scream had sounded so hurt and desperate, and King had to keep focusing on what the odd star child had helped cause just to stop himself from regretting the decision. But some small regret remained all the same.

He didn't have long to think about this however, as he immediately heard shouting from outside the shrine. Now that he'd been exposed as a Titan, he needed to get to Luz and the others and get off of Titan Trapper Island, or else they might all be killed! Thankfully he knew about the portal now thanks to Tarak, so he just needed to find his sister!

He ducked behind the now-empty altar and used a plant glyph to summon a large carnivorous plant beneath him, which swallowed him then tunnelled underground, spitting him out behind the shrine building. King pressed himself against the wall to hide, and saw the Titan Trappers already rallying to capture and kill him. He heard Tarak screaming orders to them.

"Don't let the Titan escape! Someone find Bill! And grab the monster's sister and her lover! We'll use them as bait to lure the Foul Beast back!"

King then heard the voice of that old crone, Denasu; "The girl woke up and ran off a minute ago, chasing after some apparition only she could see! Her mate and Rakusa followed her, heading towards the Fingers!"

"Elder Bill is there too, with the other three. He was showing them to the Rising Mines!" yelled an unfamiliar Titan Trapper.

"Then the Titan must be heading there too! To the Mines!" Tarak ordered.

King remained in his hiding spot until he saw just about the whole village gather together and begin heading towards the fingers jutting up towards the sky in the distance. King dearly wanted to run the other way, but Tarak was right; he needed to get to the others which meant he had to go to the Mines! Thankfully he had another idea; one that would distract the Titan Trappers and let him rush on ahead without them pursuing him!

Using an invisibility glyph combo to hide himself, King then ran to the Titan Trapper's giant war horn, where he used a monster glyph combo to grab it with a giant hand, then promptly threw it at their armoury nearby, making it land right in front of the door. King then slapped several fire glyphs inside the armoury and the horn itself, and blew into the horn with the full power of his Titan roar. The result was a monstrously loud "WEH!" and a gout of flame that would have made Godric proud. The flames engulfed the armoury, setting the whole thing ablaze with fire hot enough to reduce the bones of the building to ash and the metal weapons to molten iron. It even ignited a few crates of explosive potions, which exploded like fireworks and created an eruption of flame that blasted up higher than even the village tower.

King quickly made himself invisible again, and then just as he hoped, he heard the horde of Titan Trappers come running back into the village.

"The Titan is still here! Spread out and find him!" he heard Tarak order.

Smirking, King ran from the village for real this time. Now he'd be able to find Luz and Amity while the Trappers searched for him in the wrong place!

Running as fast as his little legs would carry him, King thought determinedly; "Hold on Big Sister, I'm coming!"

[Meanwhile]

Lucy walked alongside her brother as they followed behind Osran and Bill, heading away from the village to a place that Bill called the Rising Mines. They were being escorted by a few Titan Trappers wielding spears, who certainly looked big, burly and threatening, but were otherwise silent. In fact, Lucy and Hunter were mostly silent too, instead listening to Osran and Bill blather on. They'd gotten about five minutes away from the village before the two old men had needed to stop and take a short break to rest their weary legs, and Hunter had made the mistake of looking mildly annoyed, and the two elders were soon complaining about the disrespectful nature of today's youth. That had led to a conversation about how things were in "the old days", and the two were enjoying a trip down memory lane as they spoke about things from long before the Empire or any of the other living Titan Trappers.

"…of course, using Oracle Magic to perform Necromancy was a lot more common back then. It's been outlawed in the Isles now, thanks to me petitioning Emperor Belos. There was pushback of course, especially as the Empire was still young, but the destruction of the town of Clavice by a Necromancer and his undead army ended any sympathy!" Osran finished.

Bill spat on the ground; "Bah, nasty business! Raising corpses is creepy! Make use of the things by all means, but stuffing a soul back in 'em and waking 'em up!? That's just wrong! I guess even your Corpse King can get some things right."

Hunter grit his teeth and his hands clenched around Flapjack's staff, while Lucy put a hand on his shoulder and signed; "Calm down, Brother. A senile old man talking nonsense shouldn't get you so upset."

Hunter sighed and signed back; "I know, but it feels like all I ever hear these days is about how awful Uncle is! Sure he's not perfect, but he tries his best! Doesn't that count for anything?"

"It does, but there's no point trying to convince some people. This old coot is set in his ways! Though I wonder how old he actually is… he sounds older than Osran, and he's supposed to be over a century old!" Lucy countered.

"Well since they're so interested in talking about the past, let's ask them!" Hunter signed, before switching to speaking; "Head Witch Osran, Elder Bill; which of the two of you is the oldest?"

The two old men looked over their shoulders at him, before both got a smug look in their eyes. Osran smiled and stroked his moustache as he proudly said; "I believe that would be me; I am over 130 years old, and one of the oldest living people on the Boiling Isles!"

Hunter and Lucy both looked surprised; they'd known he was over 100, but didn't think he was that much older! However the Titan Trappers didn't even bat an eye, and Bill chuckled. "That's adorable! I've got scars older than you! Then again, I've got scars older than your homeland!"

"Impossible. The Boiling Isles are 5000 years old." Hunter said dismissively.

"And I'm 5017!" Bill shot back. "I saw your Boiling Isles back when it was still a living Titan! It's mighty roar blew out my eardrums!"

Hunter, Lucy, and Osran all gaped at him. Hunter shook his head in disbelief; "There's no way! Most witches and demons don't live for more than a century! Head Witch Osran is unusual for living so long! How could you be five millennia old!?"

"The magic of the Huntsman, of course! I didn't meet him in person before he was sealed away, but he gifted two blades to every Titan Trapper, which were handed out by our Elder; a Blessed Blade and a Cursed Blade." Bill drew a spell circle and summoned a pair of blades; one of which was a smooth dagger with a luminescent blue blade, and the other of which was a jagged and serrated knife that appeared to be made of some kind of black metal, with swirls of red within the tempering. He held the blue blade aloft; "This Blessed Blade gives the wielder all the remaining life span of whatever they kill with it! With it, I've hunted beasts and monsters to survive for 5000 years! The Cursed Blade was designed to kill Titans in their Avatar forms. The curse is a rare one that nullifies restorative magic! Healing is impossible so long as the smallest fragment of the blade remains inside the body! Sadly I never got to use it…"

Lucy edged away from Bill as she eyed the Cursed Blade. She could sense the curse inside it, and it made her feel sick to her stomach. Hunter was almost as uneasy at the idea of Bill essentially stealing lives to preserve his own and actually wanting to kill Titans, and Osran just noted that the spirits he had in various hidden oracle stones on his person reacted negatively to the Blessed Blade…

"I can see by your faces that you're in awe! This is the power of a real God, not some corpse!" Bill boasted, before sighing; "Shame the others were lost… that evil monster hunted down and destroyed all of them! The only reason I kept mine was because they thought I was just an apprentice who'd yet to earn my own knives!"

"Monster?" Hunter repeated, "Do you mean the Titan again?"

Bill shook his head; "No, but the next worse thing! His little winged lackey! That evil Angel!"

Again, the Coven Trio found themselves being surprised; apparently Belos wasn't the only Angel to have a run-in with the Titan Trappers. Hunter found himself looking nervously towards his sister, who had gone a little pale; they'd made the right decision hiding her and Luz's identity as Angels. If these Trappers hated Titans and Angels, they might have tried to murder the two of them on sight!

"You had a hostile run-in with an Angel?" Osran questioned, hoping to get more information from Bill.

"You got that right! Our clan always thought those feathery freaks were weird! Back in those days, you'd sometimes find a couple of them living on Titan Archipelagos. They would always try to take over the people nearby and change their way of life, or avoid other people as much as possible! We Trappers left them alone at first because we didn't know that they associated with the Titans!" Bill spat. "But that monster Zachael changed that!"

"Zachael?" Hunter repeated.

"That's the guy!"Bill exclaimed, seemingly forgetting that he'd been the one to say his name first; "He served your Boiling Isles Titan! The Elders at the time nicknamed him the Pale Nightjar! After the Huntsman was sealed away, most of the Titan Trapper Clan went in pursuit of the last known Titan, your Boiling Isles Titan, in hopes of slaying him. I was 17 and part of the first raiding party to get within sight of the Titan! But before we could even get close, the Titan roared and deafened us, then when we were vulnerable, the Pale Nightjar swooped out of the sky and decimated our raiding party! He killed all but me and destroyed our weapons. He gave me this!"

Bill pulled up his robe to reveal his hairless torso, surprising the trio who'd assumed it would be furry like the rest of him appeared to be, while also showing off a large scar across his chest.

"He then said that because I was so young, he'd spare me; he healed my ears and then the wound enough that I wouldn't bleed out then sent me back to the Clan with a warning; "This Titan and his child will not have their slumbers disturbed by the likes of you! Tell your people to stay away, or be burned by the Light of Zachael!" I returned to the Clan as the sole survivor. I was also the only one to ever return from a hunt for that Titan, and the only one to see the Pale Nightjar and live to tell the tale! That, and the fact I was the only one to keep my Huntsman Knives, were why I became the new Elder! I must live at least until the day I see the final Titan hunted down and offered to the Huntsman, so he might be freed!"

The Coven Trio exchanged nervous looks; today had been a day of revelations for them! The Titan had sealed a God somehow, and really did have Angels serving him like Belos claimed, AND had a living child somewhere in the world! This needed to be reported back to the Emperor, but first they needed the Titan Blood so they weren't returning as failures! Lucy was especially determined, though she was curious about Zachael; he was one of her kind… perhaps he was even an ancestor of her and Belos! Neither of them had ever seen the Divine Realm after all, so they must have descended from settlers and missionaries, and Zachael's servitude to the Titan fit the bill for what Belos had told her.

Thankfully, during their talk with Bill they had arrived at their destination; the Rising Mines, which turned out to be the middle finger of Titan Trapper Island. It was the tallest of the fingers and now that they were close enough, Hunter and Lucy could see tunnels dug throughout it, as well as walkways and small structures built around the bone heading up to the finger tip. It was obvious at a glance that it was a mining operation, and a base camp had been established around the bottom of the finger, as well as several others set up at higher altitudes along the length of the finger.

"Here we are, the Rising Mines. We've been mining this thing for years, extracting all the materials we need to keep our community going. We trade Titan Bone and other stuff like it to some nearby countries that were founded on normal land and not Titans." Bill explained. "It's also where you'll find your vein of Titan Blood, assuming it's still flowing."

"You don't know for certain?" Osran frowned.

"The Blood is powerful, but it is taboo to use the magic of the Titan for ourselves, so we never really used the stuff for anything but mixing war paint, and the vein is high up and precarious, so we stopped bothering to harvest it." Bill said casually.

Hunter and Lucy couldn't believe it; did these Titan Trappers really not know the power of Titan's Blood!? The sorts of things they could do with it!? That was insane! The most potent magical material in the known world, and they used it as war paint!?

"These guys are killing me…" Hunter whispered.

Lucy nodded sympathetically, watching as Bill went up to a large circular stone platform with a small horn on a stick beside it. He ordered one of the other Trappers to lift him up high enough so he could blow into the horn, which caused a platform suspended from the tip of the Titan's curled finger to begin lowering down. Once the wooden elevator platform was lowered onto the stone platform, Bill got on it and invited Osran and Hunter to join him, alongside one of his Titan Trapper guards. However the other guard stopped Lucy from following.

"Weight limit. Only four people allowed at a time." he said gruffly.

Lucy frowned, unable to communicate back to the man, but Hunter piped up instead; "In that case, let Lucy go up instead of me. I'll just fly up with my staff."

He would have offered to take Lucy up on his staff so the other guard could ride the elevator, but he had a feeling it was wiser to separate Bill from some of his protection, in case things went south. He wouldn't put it past the old coot to get angry when Osran failed to find a Titan for him.

He then stepped off the platform and got onto his staff, beginning to hover. Bill huffed at the sight; "Palismen, eh? Palistrom Wood is rare in these waters, so we don't see those very often. Well whatever; get on already, girly!"

Lucy obediently got onto the elevator and the guard who'd stopped her previously blew into the same horn Bill had used, signalling for the Trappers up on top of the finger to begin turning the crank to have it rise up through the air with Hunter flying along beside it. It didn't go all the way to the top of the finger, but it did stop close enough for the Coven Trio to see the crane that was built atop it, and the Titan Trappers operating it, as well as a frankly terrifying looking rickety walkway that they used to get up there. It was at that moment that Lucy also realised that they were now stood suspended above the clouds, kilometres from the ground with no obvious way down besides skydiving. One of the Trappers operating the crane then blew into a horn on his waist, which signalled some other trappers to extend a short wooden drawbridge out to the elevator, giving them a way off. Bill and the guard marched off confidently, and Lucy followed a tad more reluctantly with Hunter landing beside her. However Osran clung to the rope safety rail on one side of the bridge, slowly shuffling to the other side.

"Head Witch Osran, are you alright?" Hunter asked.

"I am not a man why enjoys heights!" Osran said, sounding far older and more fragile than normal. "Especially when I am not on solid land and not in full control of whatever is beneath my feet!"

Bill rolled his eyes, and Hunter just hummed and kept walking, but Lucy frowned and hurried back to Osran's side, taking one of his hands to help him walk a little faster. They finally reached the walkway built along the edge of the top most finger bone, and headed into the finger itself, whereupon Osran sighed with relief. Every step on the bridge and walkway had bounced slightly, so he was extremely glad to be on solid ground again!

He looked to Lucy and patted her hand affectionately; "My thanks for the aid, my girl."

Lucy smiled warmly, glad to have helped, then stood and walked beside Osran as they continued into the mine tunnel. The tunnel was actually very similar to the ones she'd seen at the Knee, and it was clear it hadn't been used for a while; the magic lamps were dim and dusty, and there were cobwebs and the sounds of small creatures skittering about coming from all directions.

"There isn't much up this high besides the blood vein, so we stopped bothering to mine up here." Bill said casually; "It was too much trouble to lug what we found back down to the ground. Typical that the stupid blood comes from this high up!"

"It has to." Hunter said, "Usable Titan Blood is usually found at high altitudes, because the thinner air slows the rate of coagulation. If you find Titan Blood at lower altitudes then it's either very fresh or there is a huge amount of it."

"Nerd." Silver signed with a smirk. Hunter responded by flicking her ear, which did nothing to dampen her amusement.

Bill ignored their antics; "What do you weirdos even need this blood for anyway? What does that Belos guy want with it?"

The trio briefly looked at one another, silently debating if they should tell the truth or come up with some lie, but ultimately they decided there was no need for secrecy. "The Emperor needs it to make a portal to another realm."

"A portal to another realm? What in the Huntsman's name does he want with something like that?"

"Who can say? The Emperor doesn't feel the need to answer to us." Osran replied, not wanting to share details of the Day of Unity.

Bill huffed in response and continued to march through the tunnels, until they reached one that was full of strange, bulbous blue stone. "This is the blood vein." Bill said, then impatiently added; "Now grab some so we can get to the predictions!"

Osran, Hunter, and Lucy examined the walls, each of them frowning. This was all Fool's Blood; coagulated Titan Blood that usually signified a decaying vein. Not only was it dangerous to touch, but it was also useless as all the magic in it had faded away. Osran turned to Bill and explained this, and the Elder growled.

"What do you mean useless!? You asked for Titan's Blood and this is Titan's Blood!"

"This is Fool's Blood. It's useless to us and harvesting it would likely bring down the tunnel and the whole top of the Titan's finger! We'd all die for a useless material!" Hunter argued.

"Fine! We'll go deeper in! There has to be some fresh blood somewhere! There was tons of it when we first found this vein!" Bill snapped, stomping further down the tunnel. Osran and the siblings followed him, but no matter how deep they went, they still only found Fool's Blood, which made them increasingly nervous especially as Bill grew more impatient. They were terrified he'd do something stupid and set off the Fool's Blood, burying them all!

Eventually they reached the end of the tunnel, were there was evidence of a small spring of Titan's Blood which had long dried up, leaving an extra large deposit of Fool's Blood. Bill stomped his foot in frustration upon seeing this, and his guard (who was more level-headed) grabbed him and pulled him away before he could disturb the blood.

"Why is it all dried up!? It was flowing normally not that long ago!" Bill raged.

"Grand Elder, this mine shaft was abandoned 40 years ago…" the Guard corrected, only to get a withering glare from the Elder.

"Well then what do we do now!? If we don't get that blood for them, they won't get the Titan for us!" the Elder yelled, beginning to pace around.

Osran raised a hand; "Allow me to scry for the blood with my Oracle Magic. If there is any fresh blood on this island, my magic will find it."

Bill perked up; "Really? Then do it! We wasted our time coming up here!"

"Perhaps not. There could be an undiscovered vein within this tunnel. But first, I need privacy; scrying requires focus and it is difficult to do that when surrounded by rowdy teenagers." Osran lied. He needed to get Lucy out of the way so he could use his Oracle Magic properly without her angelic interference, but with the enmity that the Titan Trappers had for Angels, Osran also needed to make sure not to expose her to them in the process, so he came up with a reasonable excuse to get her AND Hunter out of the way.

Bill crossed his arms; "I'm not leaving! I'm not some rowdy brat, and I don't trust you not to try and pull a fast one!"

His Guard made no attempt to move either, and Osran didn't protest; "That's fine. I'm sure mature adults will be able to keep themselves under control while I work. But you two; wait somewhere out of the way." he ordered.

Hunter and Lucy could see what he was up to, so made a token protest to sell the appearance of being petulant teenagers, then turned and walked back down the tunnel towards the entrance. Once they were out of sight and Osran could no longer hear their footsteps, he summoned his crystal ball and transferred one of his more powerful spirits into it, making it glow with purple magic. Holding the ball with his two front arms, he then drew a spell circle with one of his back arms while conjuring a piece of parchment in the air with the other, which he prepared to write on with an enchanted purple quill, ready to record his discoveries.

Focusing on his quarry; fresh Titan Blood, Osran's spirit sent waves of unseen magic out from the crystal ball, using it as a magnifying tool to blanket the entire island in its magic, with only the salt filled ocean holding it back from going further. This magic acted almost like a magical sonar, and as it shrank back into the spirit and into the crystal ball, Osran's eyes glowed with purple magic and a full image of Titan Trapper Island appeared in his crystal ball. Only Osran could see the vision; Bill and his guard saw only the purple glow of the orb, and would see nothing more unless Osran allowed it; something he had no intention of doing. It took a few moments, but as the Oracle Spirit sorted through the responses it had received from its scrying attempts in search of its target, the image of the island began to shrink as it zoomed in. Osran smiled at this, as it meant there truly was usable Titan Blood within range! Two spots on the map were filled by white spots, where the Spirit's magic hadn't reached; one spot was very close to Osran, while the other was moving rapidly towards the mines from the village.

"One must be Lucy outside, and the other must be Luz. But why is she heading here? Should she not be resting?" Osran thought with a frown.

His thoughts were then distracted by the map zooming in even further, to the point he could see that the image was moving, meaning the Titan Blood was moving too. Osran peered at the map, which now showed a high view from the sky, and could just about make out a crowd of people on the periphery of the vision, which seemed to be pursuing something. Was one of the Titan Trappers holding some blood? Bill did mention using it for war paint… The vision zoomed in further, but Osran was confused to find that there was nothing there; he couldn't see a single thing… for a few moments at least, then the Owl Lady's strange pet/son suddenly appeared from an invisibility spell wearing off. The little Demon quickly pulled out an odd piece of paper and made himself invisible again, but Osran now knew he was there, and being chased.

For a moment, Osran thought this might be some Titan Trapper training, but the boy was fleeing in too much fear for him to believe that, and the Trappers were flinging dangerous spells and weapons wherever they thought he was, so he instead wondered if the boy had instead stolen their Titan Blood so the Covens couldn't get a hold of it. However Osran hadn't seen any blood in the boy's possession…

Drawing another spell circle, Osran sent out a "ping" of magic to illuminate the Titan Blood in the boy's possession…

...and promptly dropped his quill and almost his crystal ball too as he saw the result. King's entire body began to glow with purple magic within the vision, or specifically, his blood vessels began to glow. That left only two options; either King had drunk the blood to keep it from them and it had somehow filled his blood stream, or more likely, King himself was the Baby Titan the Trappers were after! The Son of the Boiling Isles!

Desperate for confirmation, Osran tried to "remove" King's mask within his vision, only for it's removal to let him see the raw flesh and blood vessels beneath, meaning it was a part of his body and not a mask. He then decided to use his magic to investigate something else; specifically Bill. He cast a scrying spell on him to make Bill's form appear in his crystal ball, then willed it to reveal his true face. Unlike with King, the skull he wore was revealed to be nothing but a mask and not a part of him, showing his true face was that of an exceedingly old witch with blue tattoos on his forehead and wild grey hair.

Osran's lavender skin went pale with shock at the implications of this; the Owl Lady and the rebels had the allegiance of the last Titan! The Son of the Boiling Isles! Did they know about it? Did King himself know? Had the other Trappers discovered the truth and that was why they were hunting him!? And more importantly… why hadn't the Emperor known!?

Belos had seen King clearly, tossing him into the condemned cage at the Petrification Ceremony to be turned to stone! He hadn't said a word, despite being in contact with the Boy's parent! There was no way the Titan wouldn't tell Belos that the boy was their child, not unless they had forsaken the child, but then if that was the case then why would the Titan help the people who were helping the boy? Suddenly, things began to become clearer to Osran; Luz had received a blessing from the Titan and ascended, gaining the power to save Eda from petrification, as well as the power to match Belos in battle, shortly after King had spoken to her and motivated her, keeping her from giving up. Was that not a sign that Luz did in fact serve the Titan? And then there was Belos' sickness/curse… it had flared up while fighting the girl; was that not potential proof that the Titan had turned its favour away from Belos?

Osran narrowed his eyes; something was not adding up here!

Bill, who'd been tapping his foot as he waited, finally lost his patience and said; "Well? Did you find it or not?"

Osran shook his head; "No. There is unfortunately no usable Titan Blood anywhere within range of my spirit." he lied. He didn't know exactly what was going on with King and the others, but he wasn't about to reveal the truth to a man who wanted to kill the boy! Even if he hadn't been a Baby Titan, King had still vouched for them and helped them out; Osran would return the favour.

Bill cursed furiously; "Then it really was a waste of time!"

"Yes, and the lack of usable blood in range also means there is no live Titans in range either, so even if the blood in this tunnel had been fit for purpose, I wouldn't have been able to find the Baby Titan anyway." Osran pointed out, as he began to walk back out of the tunnel; "But as we cannot complete our end of the deal either, I will take my young companions and then we shall take our leave immediately. Perhaps you could give us directions?"

"Fine fine, at least we'll get some of you outsiders out of our hair! I wasted my whole morning on this!" Bill griped. "Take your brats to the Portal Platform at the end of the pier to the south. That'll take you to the island's missing finger, then it's just a two or three hour trip to reach your Carcass Kingdom."

Osran smiled and nodded gratefully; now he had a way off the island! He just needed to get Hunter and Lucy, then rendezvous with Luz, Amity, and King, and they could get out of here! He was certain they wouldn't escape without a fight (since the others appeared to have been discovered anyway), but if they could at least get down to the ground before things kicked off, Osran would feel a lot better!

He hurried as fast as his old bones would let him, heading back out of the tunnel, where he found Hunter and Lucy waiting outside, looking down at the massive drop from the tunnel entrance to the ground far below. They both saw him hurrying towards them, and Lucy began to sign while Hunter opened his mouth to translate. Osran cut them off however; "No luck. No Titan Blood on the Island at all, but Elder Bill was kind enough to tell us how to leave. Back down to the ground now." he said hastily.

The old man hesitated as he stepped onto the rickety walkway to the drawbridge back to the elevator, but now wasn't the time for hesitance. He took a deep breath and powered on, grabbing the wrists of the two teens and pulling them along to the elevator.

"But what about our mission, Head Witch!? We need that blood!" Hunter protested.

"The Emperor will understand. There is none here, now let's go." Osran ordered.

Hunter looked ready to protest again, desperate as he was to be useful to his Uncle, but Lucy caught the look on Osran's face and realised something was up. She silenced her brother with a serious look, and Hunter finally caught on that something was off. He stopped protesting and the three immediately boarded the elevator and yelled up to the Trappers manning the crane, telling them to lower them back down to the ground. Before they could descend though, Bill and his guard came out of the tunnel and shouted after them.

"Hold on a second! We're coming down too! Hold the elevator!" Bill yelled.

The Trappers obeyed and Osran scowled, but forced a neutral expression on his face as Bill and his guard boarded the lift too, and Hunter took to his staff again so they weren't going over the weight limit. Then the lift did start to slowly descend, with Hunter leisurely floating down beside it. It was somewhat awkward, with Bill complaining about Osran racing off and almost making him have to wait, but his complaints were cut off by the familiar chime of a scroll. Bill frowned and drew a spell circle, summoning his scroll.

Upon seeing who was calling, Bill scoffed; "Tarak? What does he want; I thought he was having King help train the others!"

He finally answered, and thanks to his old age and poor hearing, he had the call on speaker, allowing Osran, Lucy, and Hunter to hear every word.

"Tarak, what do you want?" he yelled testily.

"Grand Elder, we've been deceived! King is not a Titan Trapper at all! He's a Titan! He repaired the talisman, made contact with the Huntsman, then broke it with a foul magical roar! He then destroyed our armoury with a gout of flame!" Tarak yelled.

Bill, his guard, and Lucy all gasped in shock, while Hunter almost fell off Flapjack from sheer surprise. Only Osran didn't react with surprise, which Bill took notice of.

"You knew!? That scrying spell… you found that little Titan Brat with it, then lied about it!" Bill snarled, pointing the claw of his Titan fur glove at the old Oracle. Hunter and Lucy looked to Osran, expecting a denial, but he offered none and merely backed a step away from Bill and the guard. They were in a precarious position, trapped with two Titan Trappers on a small platform that was still dozens of feet up in the air; hardly a good spot for a fight, especially since Osran couldn't use his magic with Lucy so close by, and Lucy couldn't use magic at all right now. Thankfully, Osran had a plan, though a quick glimpse off the side of the elevator to the ground below had him doubting it.

"I did know." Osran said, deciding it was pointless to lie; "And I will not allow you Heretics to slay the Son of the Boiling Isles!"

He then flexed the clawed hand on the back of his head and had it slash it's index finger (the claw of which he kept especially sharp for attacking those who snuck up behind him) through one of the ropes of the elevator. The elevator platform was held up by four ropes, so cutting one was enough to make it tilt sharply, causing Bill to stagger over before he could complete the spell circle he'd been drawing. His guard caught him before he could fall off the platform entirely, while using his over hand to hold on to one of the other rope supports. Osran then shouted to Hunter;

"Catch us, Boy!" he yelled, before closing his eyes and leaping off the elevator. He screamed in terror, but Hunter flashed under him and caught the old man easily, before settling him onto the back of Flapjack. Osran gripped the staff with two hands then threw his remaining two around Hunter's waist to make himself feel secure. With his eyes still closed, he then shouted; "Jump, Girl!"

Lucy didn't need to be told twice; she leapt off the edge towards Hunter, but she was suddenly snagged by Bill, who used some kind of strength-enhancing spell to turn his arm extremely thick and muscular, allowing him to grab her cloak and hold the girl easily. Lucy squeaked in surprise, and ended up hanging in mid-air by her cloak.

"Oh no you don't! We won't let you Titan loving freaks escape!" Bill sneered, his mask falling off to reveal his true face beneath it, exactly as Osran had seen in his vision. With his other hand, he brandished the Blessed Knife and tried to pull Lucy up so he could either slash her or threaten her to make Osran and Hunter surrender. With no other choice, Lucy untied her own cloak and promptly plummeted through the air, leaving the cloak in Bill's hands. Hunter was quick to flash beneath her and catch her on his staff, seating her behind Osran, but thanks to her cloak now being removed, her little cherub wings were clearly visible (noticeably glowing with a soft silvery light).

"She's an angel!" Bill snarled; "Gut her and mount her wings on my mantle!"

"She's not the only one!" the Guard added; "She has the same face as the girl Denasu took to be healed! That girl has to be an angel too!"

"I should have known! Three of Belos' Titan-loving lackeys show up with one of the lost children? That was always going to be a scam!" Bill seethed. He then yelled into his scroll (which was still active and floating beside his head); "Tarak, go get the other angel and put her down!"

"She is already fleeing, Grand Elder. She fled the Healing Hut with her girlfriend. Rakusa is trying to pursue her!" Tarak yelled back.

Hunter, Lucy, and Osran gained fearful looks; they needed to help Luz and the Baby Titan! Hunter prepared to flash them away so they could search for the pair, but first he moved over to the central rope that the elevator's four (now three) support ropes were attached too. Once he was close enough, Osran slashed his claw out to cut it, sending the elevator plummeting to the ground. Unfortunately, since the elevator had kept descending through all this drama, Bill and his guard didn't have very far to fall, and the Trappers waiting at the bottom after seeing the first support rope be cut had already prepared spells to catch them and soften their fall. Seeing Osran cut the ropes also revealed to all the mining Titan Trappers that the trio were now hostile, so they all began firing spells.

Hunter began to dodge the spells and prepared to race off towards the village in search of Luz and/or King, but that problem soon solved itself as Luz came running towards them, looking a bit winded as she chased something no one but her could see. Amity was following close behind, while a young Titan Trapper was a bit further off, calling out to the girls.

"Miss Luz, please! You're not yet fully recovered! You're straining your body!" the boy yelled. "Miss Amity, please stop her!"

"I'm trying, but I-"

Amity's words stopped as she spotted the scene ahead of them; the Trappers firing spells at Hunter, Lucy, and Osran, while several of them stood amidst the rubble of the elevator. She paled, especially as she noticed Lucy's wings were visible and several Trappers were turning their attention to Luz. They began to draw spell circles, so Hunter cried out to Luz;

"LUZ! THEY KNOW WHAT YOU AND KING ARE! RUN AWAY!"

Luz looked away from the Earth Cassiopeia Apparition she was chasing, and her eyes widened as she saw several Trappers firing spells towards her. She yelped and dived out of the way, unable to return fire since her magic was still impaired by the medicine she'd drunk. Instead she decided to take off the Concealment Stone and let her wings be seen, before flapping them hard and taking to the air to give her more room to avoid the next volley of spells. The Earth Cassiopeia took to the sky too, flying up towards the mines within the middle finger (her own finger, Luz realised) and pointing at a seemingly random spot amidst the expanse of white bone. It was near the tip, just a little below the mine tunnel Hunter and the others had explored, but there was no obvious paths or mine shafts at that spot, confusing Luz.

"How do I follow!? I can't get in!" she exclaimed, watching the apparition float through the bone of the finger and then turn and poke her head back out.

"LUZ! WATCH OUT!" Amity cried.

Luz snapped her attention towards her beloved just in time to see a barrage of spells aimed straight at her. She dodged to the side and the spells slammed into the Titan Bone directly where the apparition had entered the finger, causing several large cracks to appear. Luz smirked; now she had a plan!

She turned to find Hunter and Amity, who were both now flying around above the Trappers and dodging spells, while returning fire with whatever they could. Amity had created a few dozen Abominations, all of which were huge thanks to the extra magic provided by a Power Glyph (Mason had provided some to all the CATTs for use in emergencies), and were now fighting the horde of Trappers, led by Tarak and Bill.

"GUYS! COME UP HERE!" Luz yelled. "I'VE GOT AN IDEA!"

They didn't need to be told twice; Amity left her abominations to fight off the Trappers while she flew up, and Hunter simply flashed up to where Luz was. Once they reached her, Luz pointed to the cracked bone; "I need to get through here, but I don't have the magic to blast it! If we stay up here, we can make them shoot us then dodge the blasts!"

As if to punctuate her point, a volley of spells came at them, and they all flew out of the way, causing the cracks to worsen as they hit the bone wall behind them. They then flew back in front of it to bait more spells.

Lucy signed; "Why do you need to get in there?"

"No idea! But a vision of Cassiopeia, the Titan whose hand we're flying over, led me here and wants me to find something inside!" Luz explained.

Amity raised an eyebrow, while the Coven Trio all gaped at her. Luz was seeing visions of the Titan!? They also finally took notice of Luz's Raiment, which exposed her right leg and the new Glyph Marking that had appeared there since their last encounter in the desert. The last time such a thing had appeared on her, it had been when the Boiling Isles Titan blessed her, so was Luz receiving more blessings from other Titans too!?

Before they could question her, they all dodged another volley of spells, and the bone wall finally broke open a little (Titan Bones were extremely sturdy after all). The tiny gap revealed a small natural cavern, and as Luz peeked inside, she paled. It was absolutely full of Fool's Blood! It must have been formed from an old blood vessel that had since decayed!

Luz immediately yelled for them all to fly lower, as a single stray spell going in the cavern and setting off the Fool's Blood could bring the entire mine down on their heads! Having a whole finger falling down on them could devastate the rest of the island! She said as much to the others when they gave her questioning looks, though Osran then made a good point;

"Perhaps this is the will of the Titan? Perhaps she led you here to destroy the Rising Mines and bring it down on the Titan Trappers, who defile her body by living on it while hunting her kind."

"Maybe you're right, but there are innocents living on this island too! Children who don't deserve to die just because they were born into a clan of Titan killers!" Luz countered.

The other teens agreed immediately, and while Osran muttered about the angel girl's naivete, the Apparition of Cassiopeia went very still for a moment. Then, right before Luz's eyes, the Apparition split into two, one still made of bronze earth and minerals, while the other was made of silvery winds. The one that was made of wind flew up much higher, stopping just beneath where the Titan's finger tip began to curl inward towards the centre of the hand.

Luz watched curiously, wondering what she was trying to tell her, but she didn't have long to think; as she soon heard an even greater ruckus happened far below. There was a lull in the spells being thrown at her and the others, and Luz saw the reason for this; King was racing towards them, blinking in and out of visibility as he used his invisibility glyph combos to hide himself from a horde of pursuing Titan Trappers. They were firing spells at him, which would get close enough to break his concentration and make him visible, forcing him to use another invisibility glyph combo to disappear and then suddenly change trajectory, until the Titan Trapper's spells began zeroing in on him again.

"King!" Luz cried, "Over here!"

The little Titan heard her, his eyes widening as he immediately raced towards her. The Trappers previously targeting Luz's group were now focused on him too and began pelting him with spells, forcing him to dodge and evade barrages from two sides, leaving him unable to concentrate on his invisibility. Luz scowled and began flying towards him, shouting to Amity and Hunter as she went; "Cover me!"

"Got it!" they both yelled back, with Amity reclaiming the slime of her abominations (which had been splattered by Trappers already) and reforming them to keep some of them busy, while Hunter allowed Lucy and Osran to climb into the unearthed cavern so he could jump off his staff safely and use Flapjack to send a blast of lightning down on the Trappers. These two attacks gave Luz the opening she needed to swoop in and snag King, before darting back up high and reuniting with the others.

"Luz! Are you okay!?" King asked, looking his sister up and down even as she carried him to safety.

"I still feel rough, but it's nothing I can't deal with. The main problem is I can't cast spells right now." Luz said. "What about you? Are you hurt?"

King winced as he held out his paw, which had a cut on it that was leaking blue blood. He'd taken a glancing blow from one of the Titan Trapper's spells as he'd been fleeing, not long after they'd caught up with him again following his destruction of the armoury. He really wished he'd still had a healing combo, or the time to draw one, but at least it was only a minor injury. Besides, King already had a plan; "I know a way off the island! We need to get to that platform at the end of the long pier!" he said, pointing to platform in the ocean between the middle finger and the stump of the missing finger.

Luz looked where he pointed and frowned; there were already tons of Titan Trappers guarding it to stop them escaping! With only King, Amity, and Hunter able to use their magic, it would be next to impossible to break through their ranks!

"Even if we fly, we'll be swarmed and taken out as soon as we reach it! We need a distraction! A vision I had might have given me the perfect idea, but I'm not sure what to do!" Luz said, before quickly explaining about the apparitions, finishing up just as they reached Amity and Hunter again.

King listened to everything, feeling a little jealous that he couldn't see his Mom's apparitions. However hearing about what the Wind Apparition had done gave him an idea. He reached into his neckerchief and pulled out an entire stack of paper wind glyphs.

"I've got a plan, but you've got to get the Golden Goof and Amity to help out and do what I tell them to!" King declared, as Luz hastily swerved to avoid another barrage of spells. All the Trappers were aiming at her and King now; or at least all the Trappers who could afford to ignore the abominations and lightning strikes. King told Luz his plan, and while she had her doubts about it, she couldn't think of any other options that would let them escape without essentially wiping out the Titan Trappers, so she bit her tongue and agreed.

With a plan in mind, Luz slapped a couple of the wind glyphs onto the soles of her feet to give her an extra boost of speed, rocketing her back to the others, who all reconvened around the entrance to the small cavern of Fool's Blood. King used an ice glyph to make a large ice barrier to temporarily protect them while he and Luz told the others the plan. Once Amity and the Coven Trio had agreed too, they got to work.

Hunter blasted golden magic at the inside of the ice barrier, shattering it and sending the shards raining down on the Trappers down below, some of whom were beginning to try and climb the sides of the Titan's finger using ropes and the mining walkways. Amity ordered her abominations to hold them off, and the gooey creatures soon knocked all the Titan Trappers out of the mines and off the finger in general, then kept them out while Luz and Amity began to fly around the finger, slapping wind glyphs down wherever Luz indicated. These spots were actually chosen by the Wind Apparition of Cassiopeia, with Luz just showing Amity where they were. Once the wind glyphs were in place, Luz had Amity cast a spell on her to amplify the sound of her voice, allowing her to shout down to the Titan Trappers.

"Attention Titan Trappers! We are about to destroy the Rising Mines! If you don't want to die, you better run!" Luz ordered.

A few Titan Trappers actually did turn and flee back towards the village, but most remained (and decried those fleeing as cowards). That would soon change though, as Luz carried King to the ideal spot in the sky, before he fired a Sonic Roar at the Titan's Finger. He aimed the roar so it would hit the cavern of Fool's Blood AND one of the wind glyphs, setting up dual chain reactions. The Fool's Blood shattered, and began to rapidly degrade and decay, and as it was connected through rotting veins to all the Fool's Blood in the mines, the entire finger began to shake, crack, and crumble away. Under normal circumstances, the finger would have curled inward and landed fully on the palm of the island, destroying the Titan Trappers' village, but the wind glyphs saved them. Activated by King's roar (or another wind glyph nearby), they all produced a mighty gale of wind that blew the Titan's finger towards the sea with enough force to actually tilt it. The combination of the natural curl of the finger making it fall towards the palm and the wind making it fall towards the sea resulted in the whole thing simply crumbling down on the coast and mining camp, sparing the village but destroying the mine entirely.

The Titan Trappers began fleeing as soon as they realised what was happening, and thanks to Amity's abominations keeping them at bay, they were all able to escape in time… at least, almost all of them. Two Titan Trappers had been delayed; Bill, who had tripped and was slow to stand due to his old age, and Rakusa, who had stopped to help his Elder. Both were likely to be crushed by the collapsing finger, so Luz acted.

King screamed for her to leave them, but she instead tossed him towards Amity (who had been flying away alongside Hunter and the Coven Trio) and dove down into the rain of collapsing bone and rising dust. Despite feeling ill due to her sickness and being without spells due to the medicine, Luz flew with all her might and just barely managed to swoop in and grab Rakusa and Bill before they were crushed by a large chunk of bone. The two were too heavy for her to fly with properly, and the falling rubble and dust made it nearly impossible for Luz to navigate safely anyway, so she instead used her leftover wind glyphs to create a cyclone around them to keep the rubble from landing on them. This cyclone was only strong enough to keep the smaller chunks away however, so Amity came flying back on Ghost, using pink light spells to blast the bigger chunks while King sat on her shoulder and destroyed the chunks she missed with sonic roars.

Due to the sheer enormity of the collapsing finger and the speed that the Fool's Blood decayed, it ended up taking almost a full five minutes for it to fully fall apart and for rubble to stop raining from the sky. In that time, Luz's wind glyph ran out of juice, covering her, Bill, and Rakusa in bone dust. The dust cloud was so thick in fact that Amity and King had to fly back up and out, where they were joined by Hunter, Lucy, and Osran on Flapjack as they took in the devastation.

The middle finger was basically destroyed, leaving only a stump like the index finger. Evidence of the destroyed mines could be seen amidst the destruction in the form of broken walkways and shattered lamps, while the sea beside the finger was wild and unruly from all the bone that had just been dropped into it. The mining camp was also destroyed, though little evidence of its existence could be found since it was buried by rubble.

"This is insane… we just defaced a Titan's body!" Hunter exclaimed, "Is this sacrilege!?"

"No, Mom wouldn't have shown Luz that cavern of Fool's Blood if she didn't want this." King replied.

Hunter and Lucy looked at each other with wide eyes, the latter mouthing the word "Mom!?" with an incredulous face. Hunter shrugged helplessly, still trying to wrap his head around the fact he'd once fought and almost beaten up the son of the Boiling Isles! Heck, he'd called him a bird and a weird dog; he was partly afraid he'd be cursed, and like Osran, he was trying to wrap his head around Belos' actions towards the young Titan, though he was more inclined to make excuses for his uncle.

Neither Amity nor King really cared about that at the moment though; they were more concerned about finding Luz amidst the dust! They began shouting her name, while King began drawing more paper wind glyphs to clear the dust.

Meanwhile, Luz coughed as she flapped her wings to clear some of the dust around her. This let her see Bill, who was quietly muttering foul curses about her and King, while Rakusa helped him to his feet. The young Trapper noticed Luz and while his eyes were full of fear for the angelic girl, he also nodded gratefully, acknowledging that she'd opted to save his life rather than leaving him to die. Luz returned the nod, and both teens recognised that all debts between them had been squared; Luz saved Rakusa's life after he'd helped save hers with the medicine, and now they owed each other nothing.

At that moment, Luz heard Amity and King calling her name and opened her mouth to shout back to them while flapping her wings harder to clear the dust a bit more, only to pause when she saw the familiar Earth Apparition of Cassiopeia walking towards her out of the dust. The Apparition bowed her head to Luz, then pointed at something hidden in the dust, while gesturing for Luz to follow her. Obediently, Luz went in the direction she pointed and soon found something she hadn't expected; a large orange crystal of some kind that had been unearthed by the collapse of the finger.

The crystal looked somewhat like amber, but with a darker orange hue that was almost a metallic bronze. It was just barely transparent enough for Luz to see through it, and as she reached out and touched the crystal, Luz found it to be smooth and cool to the touch. It took her a moment, but she recognised it from a lecture in her construction track classes; it was Sun Glass. Sun Glass was a rare mineral formed when a Titan's flesh is flash-fossilised (usually by intense heat), instead of decaying naturally into Titan Earth. It had the same properties as Titan Earth, but with the density and strength of Titan Bone. In powdered form, it was a highly sought after ingredient in potions and medicines, while it was also valuable for use in crafting enchanted jewellery and tools. The crystal, which was large enough for the Owl Beast to fit inside, would be worth over 100 million snails!

As Luz took a closer look, she noticed blue powder surrounding it; the residue left behind by decayed Fool's Blood. It made her look curiously at the Apparition; "Is this what you were trying to show me before? Was it in that cavern?"

The Apparition nodded and said in a broken voice; "-y -o-n. -s- -t -i-e-y."

Luz didn't understand, but the Apparition then phased into the crystal and some kind of shadow appeared inside it. Luz couldn't make out what it was, and with no magic to cast a spell, she picked up a couple of pieces of rubble and used one to scratch a simple light glyph into the other, before tapping it. She pressed the resulting light into the crystal to try and get a better look at the shadow inside, but the entire crystal suddenly flashed with a bright orange light that had Luz reeling backward, blinking hard.

She rubbed the spots from her eyes, then gasped softly as something new, yet familiar, was etched into her mind's eye. A glyph!

Luz gasped in shock and delight, and immediately looked to the ground and began using a piece of rubble to draw the glyph she'd just seen into it. Once the symbol was complete, Luz tapped it and cheered with joy as a large clump of earth rose out of the glyph, which glowed with orange light.

"The earth glyph! I found the earth glyph! That was what Cassiopeia was trying to show me!" Luz exclaimed.

"LUZ!"

The girl looked up, once again hearing King's voice yelling for her. He'd shouted her name with a Titan Roar, which cleared some of the dust, giving them a clear line of sight of each other. Luz beamed and waved, shouting to him; "King! I found out what your Mama wanted to show me! She was leading me to a place I could earn the earth glyph! I've got another-!"

Before she could finish her sentence, she felt something grab her wrist and yank her around, forcing her to turn. She frowned as she turned and saw Bill's hand on her wrist, most of his Titan disguise now lost.

"Hey, what are you do-URK!"

Suddenly, all the breath was forced out of her as a horrendous pain slammed into her chest. The girl looked down shakily, and saw the hilt of a knife sticking out of her chest, having just barely missed her heart. A small bit of the knife attached to the hilt was visible poking out of her flesh, showing a black and jagged blade, with swirls of red within the metal, which seemed to emerge from it and waft around Luz's wound like a bloody miasma. She tried to breathe, but the blade had managed to stab into her lung, while also sawing through one of her ribs, causing her horrendous pain.

"Die, lackey of the Titan!" Bill snarled, suddenly yanking the jagged blade from Luz's wound. A spray of golden blood accompanied the blade, splattering Bill's cruelly grinning face. The red miasma of the Cursed Blade lingered around Luz's wound, and the girl fell to her knees. She struggled to take a single, ragged breath as the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth, and Bill lifted a foot and slammed it into her chest, thankfully missing the wound by a fraction of an inch. Luz ended up on her back, and King and Amity both screamed.

"NO! LUZ!"

"RRAAAAGGGGRRRR!" King then bellowed, releasing not a wave of sonic power but a beam of pure magic energy, which struck Bill square in the chest and burnt a hole through several layers of skin just as he'd been raising his Blessed Blade to cut Luz's throat. Bill screamed in agony, and Rakusa surged forward, but to everyone's surprise, he wasn't rushing to help the Elder, but rather Luz. He immediately tried to put pressure on Luz's wound, and King very nearly blasted him too, only for Luz to weakly raise a wing to shield the Trapper boy. Seeing this calmed King for a moment, and both he and Amity fell to their knees beside Luz, Amity resting the girl's head on her lap and King gripping her hand.

"Luz! Luz, keep your eyes open, okay! Stay with us!" Amity cried, as Hunter, Lucy, and Osran finally caught up, all gasping in horror at the sheer amount of golden blood that had been spilled.

"Big Sis! Come on, you're not dying! You're not allowed to die! King commands it!" King yelled, tears in his eyes. His cut hand was stinging badly as the golden blood on Luz's hand got into the wound, causing a soft glow and a faint waft of steam that smelled oddly sweet.

Luz chuckled weakly at his orders; "I-I'll do my best…" she croaked, struggling to get the words out with a punctured lung.

She then whimpered in pain, and King turned to Rakusa with fury, seeing him trying and failing to cast healing spells; "FIX HER! YOUR ELDER DID THIS! FIX HER!"

Rakusa cried out in fear as he tried again to cast a healing spell, only for the circle to shatter as it was touched by the miasma around Luz's wound. "I-I can't! It isn't working!"

Osran turned his glare over to Bill, and saw the Cursed Blade on the ground near where he'd fallen. He scooped the blade up and examined it, noticing one of the serrated spikes was partially cracked and missing a tiny fragment.

"She has been stabbed with a Cursed Blade. Healing magic won't work so long as even the smallest part of the blade remains in her wound." he said, showing the blade to Rakusa, King, and Amity. The latter two then looked to Rakusa.

"You're an apprentice healer, right!? Can you operate on her and remove the fragment!?" Amity demanded.

"N-No!" Rakusa sobbed in terror, realising the enraged Titan might just kill him for admitting it; "I'm only an apprentice and without magic, and with a wound this bad, a fragment that small, and all this blood? I'll never find it before she dies!"

Bill coughed violently as he sat up, holding his own chest wound; "N-None of you will leave this island alive!"

Amity and King both turned to him, looking ready to kill him where he lay, but Luz spoke up weakly while gripping King's hand with all the strength she had left.

"H-He's just trying to…" she coughed violently, spitting up more golden blood; "… psyche you out. Don't let him make you into the monster…" another cough, and more blood; "… he says you are…"

King began to sob, suddenly reliving the trauma of the Petrification Ceremony and the things he'd learned at Zachael's tomb… someone he loved, someone who was family to him, was dying and he could do nothing to save her. Even if he had a healing glyph combo, it wouldn't work with the Cursed Fragment inside her.

"Luz please! Stay with us! You didn't come all this way to die to some old man and his crummy knife!" King pleased.

Luz smiled and removed her hand from King's grasp, lifting it to touch the side of his face and skull, inadvertently getting blood on it. "I… will… live. I believe… in you… Little… Brother…"

Her eyelids drooped as her eyes began to roll back in her head, and before she could say another word to comfort the others, she passed out from blood loss.

Passing out caused Luz to go limp, and for one awful, heart-wrenching moment; King and Amity both thought she'd died. With disbelief in his voice, King began to gently shake her.

"Luz? Luz, come on, you need to stay awake! Luz! LUZ!"

His sobbing grew louder, and Amity wasn't far behind. "Please don't let this be happening. Titan have mercy; let this be a nightmare!"

Rakusa gingerly raised a hand to the unconscious angel's throat to feel her pulse, very much aware of Amity and King's eyes snapping to him as they saw the movement. He gulped under their intense, tear-filled gazes, and said; "She still has a pulse, but it's weak. We don't have a lot of time." he whispered.

By this point, the dust had begun to settle and the little group were clearly visible amidst the devastation of the collapsed fingers, and the Titan Trappers that had fled earlier began to slowly return to search for other survivors. A group of them, left by one of Bill's two escorts from earlier, spotted the group and pointed their weapons at them.

"There they are! Save the Elder and slay the Titan and his angels!" he yelled, beginning to charge. Hunter and Osran instinctively moved Lucy behind them, while Rakusa looked like he was working up the nerve to try and stop his fellow Trappers, but before any of them could do a thing, Amity stooped and gently kissed Luz's forehead, then shifted herself out from under her the girl's head and stood up, her eyes beginning to glow a brilliant pink as her magic raged inside her.

She looked at Rakusa and the Coven Trio for a moment and uttered the words; "Save her.", her voice echoing eerily due to the magic thrumming through her body. Struck by a primal fear, all of them could do nothing but nod, before Amity looked back to the Titan Trappers advancing on her and waved her hand. Ghost (who had puffed herself up, looking like a feral street cat) turned into staff mode once again, and Amity spun her with one smooth motion, then slammed the base of the staff into the ground. Called by her overloading magic, the earth itself seemed to turn into abomination goo and spread outward, forming a massive swamp-like area that the hapless Trappers marched straight into. They began to get bogged down, sinking into the goo up to their knees and becoming trapped, while skeletal thin abominations began to rise out of it, each one appearing to be a witch-sized Titan Skeleton. The abominations clawed at the Trappers, stealing their weapons and breaking them, or slashing at the Trappers' armour, removing it to reveal their real witch faces underneath. Noticeably, the abominations attacking each Trapper had a skull that perfectly mimicked the skulls the Trapper wore, as if the spirit of the slain Titan was rising up from the grave to drag them down with them. They screamed in terror, and as they opened their unmasked mouths, the abominations began to force their way down their throats, suffocating them into unconsciousness in a hellish display of brutality.

The last of this group of Trappers had finally succumbed to unconsciousness by the time the next few groups appeared, and Amity stared at them, smiling eerily as her pink glowing eyes gleamed.

"Come… If my beloved goes to her grave… so will all of you!" she said, her voice calm and quiet, yet carrying a malice that sent shivers through all but King, who was still staring numbly at the unconscious Luz.

A few of the Trappers cried out in terror and fled from the young witch, but one managed to shake off the fear and yell out to the others.

"She is just one teenage witch suffering a Bile Overload! She cannot hope to match us all! Destroy her and take the Angel's hide!"

That Trapper was rewarded with a full power blast of light directly to his face; a blast that would have almost certainly killed him had he not been wearing a Titan Skull mask. Even the magic resistant bone could not fully resist Amity's rage-enhanced strength however, and it shattered, leaving the Trapper's face burnt and badly bleeding. Sadly, his words had still reached the other Trappers, and they surged forward. Some used their own abomination magic to solidify the abomination swamp Amity had made, while others threw weapons or ranged spells above it, forcing Amity to block with her limited barrier magic or her abomination creations, while returning fire with a mix of pink fire and light spells. She also coated her staff in abomination slime to turn it into a glaive with which she slashed and stabbed at any Trapper who tried to rush her, while also turning a couple of abominations into replicas of herself, staff/glaive and all, who helped keep the numbers in her favour.

However, as powerful as Amity was, especially while overloaded, the Trapper was correct; she was only one teenage girl against a small army. Slowly, bit by bit, the Trappers began to overwhelm her. They were getting closer with every attempt, and Amity's counter attacks were beginning to weaken; something the Trappers took full advantage of. They sent their weaker members in to absorb the damage while the stronger members waited in the wings to rush Amity, retreating again before she could actually harm them. They focused on destroying her barriers and abominations to drain her magic, and with every assault, they grew closer to finally landing a blow on the girl herself.

Hunter growled and turned to Lucy and Osran; "I'll help her! If Blight goes down, we're all in trouble! Focus on helping Luz!" he said, before flashing forward with Flapjack and entering the fray. His help immediately turned the tides again as he rapidly moved through the battlefield, delivering surgical strikes with lightning magic. He focused on the stronger Trappers who were hanging back, foiling their plans to wear Amity down. However, even if Hunter and Amity could keep up their momentum for long enough to defeat the Trappers, it wouldn't solve their main problem which was saving Luz!

Rakusa was trying to cast diagnostic spells to find the fragment of the Cursed Blade inside her wound, but even that counted as a form of Healing Magic that failed the instant the spell came in contact with the cursed miasma. Lucy began signing frantically, but only Luz and Hunter could understand her sign language, so Osran, Rakusa, and King had no idea what she was saying. Not that King was paying any attention at all; he was staring at Luz's face with a haunted expression, as if unable to believe what he was seeing.

Luz was dying in front of his very eyes and he could do nothing. Heck, she already looked dead, and King could do nothing! The world around him began to feel like a hazy nightmare; the frantic words of Osran and Rakusa became a distant echo in his ears, and all his senses became hyper focused on one thing…

His nose was filled with the metallic stench of Luz's blood. His eyes saw only her face, pale and still. His tongue tasted only bile, creeping up his throat. His ears heard only his own heartbeat, pounding wildly inside his chest. And above all else, he felt only the warmth of Luz's blood slipping through his fingers, and her weakening heartbeat as one of his paws remained over her heart, trying with all his might to keep it beating through sheer will alone.

He shakily lifted his other paw, the one that he'd cut earlier while fleeing the Trappers. The cut was still open, but his own azure blood was being kept inside him by a coating of Luz's golden blood… as if his sister was caring for him even in this state. The blood glowed softly where it made contact with his own, and the faint steam released by it smelled sweet and nostalgic, reminding King of a time when he and Luz had spent a lazy weekend baking a cake together, way back before there was a rebellion and Belos and danger around every corner. Nostalgia for that simpler time, where they could just be children, filled King's soul and his paw began to shake as the sight of Luz's blood coating it filled him with another emotion; one he could never hope to describe with words.

But then, sharp, clear, and cold; like a blade of ice, Bill's voice yelled to him over the din of the nearby battle, suddenly snapping King fully back to reality.

"This is what happens to everyone who gets involved with you evil monsters! Titans bring nothing but destruction and death!"

In an instant, the coldness that had been settling into King's body was replaced by a raging, boiling heat; as if his blood was surging like the Boiling Sea. He clenched his cut paw and the wound began to glow gold; a glow that spread into his veins. Bill, Rakusa, Lucy, and Osran all watched with wide eyes as every blood vessel in King's body began to glow a brilliant gold that was so bright that it shone through his flesh and fur, becoming clearly visible from the outside. This spread to his eyes too, which shone a brilliant gold as if he was suffering a kind of Bile Overload. Titan's didn't experience such things however; instead their linked emotions and magic simply raged within them.

It was similar to when King had gone into a rage against Lilith at the Petrification Ceremony, only with gold glowing eyes this time instead of purple. His muscles swelled just as they had back then, only this time instead of him taking a more animalistic, wolf-like posture, his stance was like a lycanthrope; half-humanoid and half-beast. He remained on his hind-legs as his body grew larger and larger, until he was almost the same size and proportions as Luz herself, having long, wiry, and deceptively strong limbs, while the horns and fangs of his skull became longer, sharper, and more feral in appearance. His every ragged, rage-filled breath carried a haunting echo that filled everyone who heard it with a primal fear, and finally, the light glowing in his veins began to fade and focus into two specific spots; his shoulder blades.

With a feral roar, beams of light erupted from his back and out burst a pair of silvery draconic wings, each almost as big as the rest of his enlarged body. The wings flapped fiercely, generating a powerful gale, and both Lucy and Osran noticed that they strongly resembled the draconic wings of Luz's Titan form from back when Belos had infected her with Titan Bile. However King's wings were larger and more traditionally draconic, as well as being a silvery grey colour that was pale enough to be almost white. Strangely, they also lacked the holes that were typical in the wings of a Titan.

Osran had no idea what had caused this strange phenomena, but Lucy noticed the cut on King's hand (which was still steaming) and saw the Angelic Blood around it. "Luz's ascensions were effected by Titan power… maybe King's Titan maturity has been effected by her angelic power in return!"

With incredible speed, King darted towards Bill and grabbed him by the throat, hoisting the diminutive witch up so they were eye to glowing eye. The enraged young Titan squeezed and Bill began to choke and terror filled his heart. For an instant, everyone witnessing the event was sure the old man was about to die, and that was certainly King's intention, but Lucy stopped him. She ran towards him and grabbed King's free claw, making him turn to her with a glare, though looking into a near-identical replica of his sister's face made him pause in his outrage.

Lucy tried to mime something to King, but he didn't understand, so she instead reached into Bill's pants pocket and pulled out the Blessed Blade, which she used to begin carving a message into the dirt.

It read; "Don't kill him. This knife transfers the lifespan of the victim into the wielder; we can use it and him to buy Luz some time!"

King had just enough reason left in him to growl and throw Bill into the ground beside Luz's prone form, making him impact hard enough to break a rib and groan in pain. Lucy then rushed to Luz's side and placed the Blessed Blade into her limp hand, before forcing her to stab Bill in the leg. The Ancient Trapper screamed in agony and his leg began to shrivel up and wither, while Luz's colour became slightly healthier. The blessing of the knife was not healing magic and so it wasn't effected by the curse, not did the Archivist Magic fit any known type of Witch or Demon Magic as it transferred life energy from Bill to Luz. However this also meant that it couldn't heal the wound Luz had suffered, instead only buying her time by giving her life force.

Seeing this, King opened his mouth and growled to Lucy; "Save her! She saved your life! Save hers in return!" he said, a magical echo to his voice.

Lucy nodded sincerely; Luz had risked her health to save her by giving her an Angelic Blessing while seriously ill, so Lucy would do whatever was necessary to return the favour!

Seeing her response, King left Luz in the girl's care, with Lucy immediately putting her hands over Luz's wound to try and stem the bleeding. King then let out a monstrous roar, which struck a paralysing fear into the hearts of all the Titan Trappers right before he flapped his new wings hard and darted through the air towards the Trappers fighting Amity and Hunter. Hunter's assistance of Amity had turned the battle back into their favour, but King's arrival turned it into a completely one-sided massacre.

The instant he entered the fray, King slashed his claws down on the face of the nearest Trapper, effortlessly shattering their Titan Skull mask and carving two gashes into their face. He then roared, blasting an entire crowd with a sonic blast, which then condensed into a beam that burned through the ground and any Titan Trapper it hit. Everything burned by the beam glowed a faint gold for a second, before an eruption of magic exploded out from them like a delayed bomb attack, devastating the Titan Trappers' numbers. King then held out his right hand and an unfamiliar glyph appeared there; a symbol that none of his companions had seen before and which didn't stick in their memories for some reason, fading from their mind's eye like fog on glass. The glyph clad his claws in light magic akin to Luz's light blades though, elongating them into three sword-length beams that shredded through the abominations, barriers, and other constructs the Trappers were trying to use against him and his allies. Like the beam breath, every slice from these blades left behind golden burns that promptly exploded, further diminishing the number of conscious Trappers.

Amity was still on a rampage herself, so easily fell into step with King, the two beginning to unleash combo attacks of immense power. They combined their light attacks to create spiralling beams of pink and gold, which drilled through any defence. Amity crafted King some Titan Bone-like armour with abomination slime to protect him from the few attacks to reach him, while King in turn defended her by roaring at her and causing a golden spherical barrier to appear around her, with four unfamiliar glyphs on its surface… or rather, three unfamiliar glyphs (that faded from memory like the design of King's light glyph) and an empty circle that glowed a dull white.

Nothing the Trappers did could pierce the barrier, and when it was lowered so Amity could counter attack, she conjured a replica of her staff/glaive out of abomination goo and tossed it to King, who immediately began wielding it with his tail as he flew around the battlefield. One of the unfamiliar glyphs appeared on his left hand too and his claws became coated in a black miasma that decayed all it touched, thoroughly destroying the weapons and armour of the Trappers.

Despite the brutality of King and Amity though, Hunter quickly noticed that neither of them were going for killing blows. They'd beat a Titan Trapper within an inch of their life but never take the final step to actually kill them, even after all the trouble and emotional pain they'd caused the pair. He didn't really understand the reason for their mercy (he hadn't killed any of the Trappers either, but his lightning magic was fairly good at incapacitating them without the need for lethal force), but he did have an odd sort of respect for it.

The majority of the Titan Trappers' weaker members had been defeated not long after King joined the battle; leaving only the stronger members who didn't rely solely on either magic or weapons, but could fight well with a mix of the two, and who were trained in techniques specifically designed to fight Titans. Without these techniques, King would have decimated them in the first few minutes, but with them the fight dragged on longer than it otherwise would. Lucy paid little mind to this however, as she, Osran, and Rakusa tried to figure out a way to save Luz's life.

"The bottom line is that we need to remove the fragment of the Cursed Blade." Osran frowned, raising the knife and examining it closely; "But how do we do that? Perhaps Rakusa could operate and search for the fragment while we used the Blessed Blade to sacrifice the lifespans of defeated Trappers to keep Luz alive?"

Rakusa shook his head vehemently; "No! I won't help you if you sacrifice my people! Bill is one thing; he caused this whole mess by betraying someone who'd just saved our lives, but the rest of my people shouldn't die for his mistakes! The destruction of our mine and armoury has damaged our community enough!"

Osran scowled at the boy, but seeing as he was no medic and had no way of summoning one, he had no choice but to concede. Lucy hadn't liked that idea anyway; she hated taking lives (which is why she'd only stabbed Bill's leg and not his heart).

The Trapper boy then suggested; "What about your magic? Word in the village before all this happened was you had access to Oracle Magic! Could you not use that to find the fragment in her body?"

This time it was Osran's turn to shake his head; "Oracle Spirits will not use their powers on or near Angels or Divine Beings. Undiluted Divine Magic can exorcise them, and most Oracle Spirits linger in this world because they fear moving on, so they won't go near Miss Luz, or the young lady here for that matter." he said, gesturing to Lucy.

Rakusa frowned fearfully; "Can't you at least try and force it? If Miss Luz dies, I'm afraid that Titan will really kill us all!"

That was a very real fear; in the event Luz died, only Amity would be spared King's wrath. Lucy, Hunter, and Osran could be partially blamed for Luz being in this predicament to begin with, considering Luz would never have gone to Eclipse Lake, or been left magically powerless if not for them.

With a grimace, Osran reached into his robes and pulled out one of the dozens of Oracle Stones he lined his clothes with. It was one that was new; a spirit he'd only recently captured and tamed, and which he could afford to lose if Luz's divine nature forcibly exorcised it. Focusing his magic into the stone, Osran willed the spirit to emerge only to find it resisting his call as he was accustomed to around Luz or Lucy. With a scowl, he used even more magic, but no amount could coax the spirit out of the stone of its own free will, so Osran was forced to use his magic slightly different. Most Oracles controlled their spirits by offering them magical power as sustenance, but if necessary, they could also use their magic to forcibly control a spirit; it was a form of Oracle Magic that worked ON a spirit rather than by using a spirit, so it wasn't impaired by Luz and Lucy's presence, but it was also clumsy and barbaric compared to most Oracle Magic and thus was no use for things like scrying and predicting the future.

Osran flooded the stone with his magic, forcibly dragging the Oracle Spirit out of the stone. It looked like any other Oracle Spirit, albeit a bit small since it was still weak, and it shrieked and howled and hissed at Osran as it tried to claw its way back into his Oracle Stone. The Old Oracle held the spirit in the grasp of his magic until it stopped making so much noise, then began to speak to it.

"Spirit, I require your aid. The angel before you is infected with something deadly that I must have removed; I require you to find it and either remove it yourself, or at least reveal its location to me so that I might remove it via other means. Do you understand?" Osran said imperiously.

The spirit shook its head in refusal as it continued to shriek, recoiling as far from the two young Angels as it could while still held by Osran's magic. The old man scowled angrily and reiterated his orders; "Enough foolishness! The girl cannot use her magic at the moment, and the other has no magic to use! You will not be exorcised, at least so long as you obey! Refuse to obey and I will seek to have you purged from this world!"

Osran's threat didn't have the effect he'd expected however; instead of responding with fear, the small spirit reacted with anger and a shout of "Lies!"

Just as Oracle Spirits tended to look alike; being bandaged figures with no personal features, their voices all tended to be the same androgynous, raspy voice, and the Small Spirit was no exception. It pointed one long, spindly finger at Lucy and hissed; "There is magic there! I feel it, dim and dark as it is, within her. It settles in her wings and heart and throat… I sense it there! It will grow and brighten! It will be stinging and burning! I will not help! My end will not be amidst Divine Light!"

Osran and Rakusa both stared dumbfounded at Lucy, who could only stare back with puzzlement; she had definitely felt a tingling in her wings and throat since arriving on the Island, but did that mean her magic was beginning to awaken!? Like Luz, had something finally kickstarted her stunted magic!?

Closing her eyes for a moment, Lucy reached deep inside herself. Normally when casting magic, she simply focused on what she wanted and the magic within her (either from her uncle or absorbed from an artificial magic staff) would react with the magic of whatever staff she was wielding to create the desired spell. It was basically no different than the way a witch or angel cast magic; it just had the extra step of needing an outside tool to make it work. With this and the words of the spirit in mind, Lucy reached inside herself to the magic that resided there; the magic that Luz had given her with a blessing. It was different than the strange, almost listless artificial magic of the staves, or the cold and cloying nature of Belos' magic; it was warm and comforting, like a warm summer's day. But there was also something distinctly different about it compared to Luz's pure magic. When Lucy had first felt it during the blessing, it had felt like a comforting massage out in the open sunlight, with Luz's presence feeling like the sun itself… but now it felt cooler and calmer. It reminded her of resting quietly in the shadow of a tree as the sun shone overhead, and the massage-like feeling was replaced by the gentle embrace of a spring wind. It was a shadow of the light, but still carried a feeling that could only be described as holy.

This feeling flooded through Lucy's body, pooling in her wings and heart, and rising up her throat which began to tingle so much that the girl found herself wanting to cough.

Unaware of what Lucy was doing, Osran tried once again to reason with his wayward spirit, opening his mouth to offer great rewards and promises of protection against Divine Magic, but the spirit howled in his face before he could get another word out.

"Do as thou wishes, but I will not risk my existence for a Divine Child!"

With that, the spirit shook off Osran's Oracle Magic (due in part to his shock at the spirit's defiance) and prepared to dive back into the Oracle Stone where it was (relatively) safe from any angelic magic. However just as it was about to disappear into the stone, Lucy's eyes flew open and she suddenly removed her hands from Luz's wound and reached out to grab the spirit's hand. Her hands, splattered with Luz's golden blood, both wrapped around the spirit's long, spindly fingers and she pulled it towards her, holding the hand as if she was praying into it.

The spirit shrieked in fear and surprise, while Osran and Rakusa watched on with curiosity… which became shock for the former as Lucy opened her mouth and words came forth for the first time since losing her memories and old life.

"P-Please!" she rasped, her voice soft and croaky from around a decade of disuse. The magic swirling through her core and into her throat feel odd, and every word was a bit of struggle to spit out, but with each one she managed to say, the next became easier.

"P-Please don't r-run away!" Lucy pleaded, her voice so much like a slightly younger, quieter Luz; "I-I know you're s-scared, but we n-need your help! That girl saved my life, and your master's too! I'll do anything you want; just please help us save her!"

Osran, still wrapping his head around Lucy's newly restored voice, wondered if this development was the result of some combination of Luz's blessing and blood, along with power potentially absorbed from the Wellspring. Lucy was personally certain it was a combination of all three of those factors, but for now all she was worried about was saving the one who had saved her!

The Oracle Spirit paused in its shrieking and its attempts to pull its hand free. It stared silently at Lucy for a moment and began to peer closely at her, almost looking through her to something deep inside. It used its free hand to gently tap a long claw against the girl's hands, getting some of Luz's golden blood on him then lifting it to his mouth, where a long tongue flicked out and licked it. Smacking its nearly non-existent lips, the spirit then pressed the same claw against Lucy's cheek, where she had suffered a tiny cut during all the chaos. It was releasing a trickle of red blood, which the spirit sampled, humming strangely at the taste.

"Same blood, but different blood. Divine Magic… but strange." the spirit uttered softly, leaning its face very close to Lucy. It suddenly made itself incorporeal to slip from her grasp and begin floating around her; "You have Divine Magic, but it is not bright and stinging. It does not burn… yours is cold, and soft, and gentle like the night. There is darkness… stillness of the grave… Not Divine Light, but Divine Darkness… Your magic is not of white and gold… but of black and silver…"

Lucy blinked in surprise; her angelic powers were truly that different? She knew she'd always had an affinity for darkness and its associated magic, but she'd also thought that darkness was the antithesis of Divinity and her original angelic nature. It had been a source of shame for her, and something her Uncle had said was related to her cursed, red-eyed nature… But this spirit seemed to think that her darkness was a part of her Divinity and not in conflict with it!

But that was something to focus on later; for now she had a job to do; "Please, noble spirit; I will swear not to exorcise you and protect you from others doing the same! Just allow Head Witch Osran to use your power to save this angel's life, and I will do anything you ask!"

To the surprise of everyone, the Oracle Spirit actually began to chuckle; a low, scratchy sound that made Osran's jaw hang open, Rakusa shudder, and Lucy smile. The spirit then said; "The Divine Darkness is that of death… it cannot sever the dead as the Divine Light can. Your power will not harm me."

That was another shock for Lucy, but she rolled with it and continued; "But it can protect you, right?"

"Yes… Your magic is lesser than hers, but a Divine's tongue cannot speak lies. You will protect me… we will make the compact."

Lucy opened her mouth to readily agree, but Osran quickly grabbed her and stopped her; "Hold a moment, child! A compact is not a simple thing! It is a blood pact between an Oracle and a spirit, usually only created when an Oracle is far too weak to capture and subjugate a spirit with magic alone! They are unbreakable unless both halves of the pact desire it, and can come at an incredible cost!" Osran looked at the spirit with a sneer; "This spirit is weak; it would never normally warrant a compact!"

The spirit hissed in response, but Lucy just shook her head; "It doesn't matter, Head Witch Osran. We need them to help us remove the cursed fragment from Luz! This is life or death for both her AND us!" she said, looking meaningfully over to the battle raging only a short distance from them. King was roaring like a beast as he battled a pair of massive Trappers, who'd used some form of strength-enhancing magic to make themselves grow much larger. Their size was helping them stay in the fight, but King looked to be toying with them rather than earnestly trying to defeat them.

Osran shuddered at the sight, and with no other options left, he looked to the spirit and summoned a quill and some black parchment; "State your terms, spirit! We will negotiate this compact!"

The spirit smirked at Osran; "My terms are simple… Myself and the anchor to which I am bound will be given into the care of this Dark Cherub. She will sustain my power with her own magic, and will take no action to have me exorcised, nor will she give me orders that might lead to my exorcism at the hands of another! In return, I will take this one time risk of exposing myself to the wounded angel, and after that is done, I will serve loyally. These are my terms… negotiation is not accepted."

That last part made Osran growl, but in truth there wasn't much to negotiate; Lucy would become the spirit's master and sustain it as any other Oracle would, and the only cost was not being allowed to use the spirit on another Angel or Divine Being ever again… Considering such a thing was normally impossible anyway, it seemed like a fair deal.

"I accept your terms." Lucy said immediately, before nodding to Osran. He sighed and prepared to write out the terms, only for the spirit to suddenly snatch his quill and dab its nib into Luz's golden blood.

"Write the compact with this. One written in the blood of a Divine will carry a far greater curse for any who breaks it!" the spirit said with a sinister smile.

Osran scowled, but did as he was asked and wrote on the black parchment with Luz's golden blood. It would have no consequences for the wounded angel; a compact could not effect an unwilling participant after all, but the magic in her blood would seek out and destroy either Lucy or the spirit should they try to break the terms.

Once the contact was fully written out, the spirit bit down on one of its fingers and scrawled something on the foot of the page with its own spectral blood. It was written in the language of the dead, which only the dead could read, but Lucy knew it was supposed to be its name. It was a strange fact about Oracle Spirits; almost all had forgotten their names and identities, yet all could write them in the script of death. Putting that thought aside, Lucy took Osran's quill and then stabbed it into her palm, wincing slightly in pain at the process, then wrote her own name; Lucy of the Emperor's Coven, beside the spirit's. Once both names were written, the black parchment rolled into a scroll by itself and promptly burst into white and purple flames, turning into ash that was inhaled by both signatories. Inhaling ash would normally be very unpleasant, but Lucy felt only rush of power, while the spirit sighed contentedly as its body grew slightly larger.

The Oracle Stone Osran had summoned it from began to burn with a purple flame, then flew from the old man's hand to Lucy, who caught it effortlessly. The flames continued to burn, but they didn't hurt Lucy, who instead felt even more invigorated, especially as the golden blood splattered onto her hand began to burn away and the minor wound she'd given herself when stabbing the quill into her palm began to heal. The flames then spread and engulfed her body entirely for a moment, before disappearing in flash of purple light.

When the flames were gone, Osran and Rakusa could see that Lucy had changed slightly; her red eyes had become a royal shade of purple, and her brown hair had also gained a purple sheen to it. Then there was her little Cherub wings which had grown much larger, though were still not full-sized. They were about the same size as Luz's wings had been after bonding with the light glyph; being just shy of fully matured. Strangely though, they had actually darkened from pure white to a kind of silvery gray, with an iridescent shimmer to them that made them almost shine with a lilac light when the sun caught them just right.

"Child… I believe you've finally ascended out of the Cherub stage!" Osran gasped, admiring her larger wings. Lucy folded her wings in front of her so she could get a better look at them, a radiant smile spreading across her face as she realised Osran was right; she could feel the magic in her wings! She could feel them absorbing the light from above, and even the ambient magic in the air, and converting it into her own unique magic that now pooled inside her heart.

Rakusa conjured a small mirror to show Lucy her new eyes and hair, and as she gazed at her altered appearance, a sudden question filled her mind. The rush of power she'd received had restored her voice, and now her stunted wings were growing again! Was it possible that…?

Swallowing thickly, Lucy raised her free hand and focused on her finger tip. It began to glow purple, and Lucy's heart hammered in her chest as she drew a circle in the air, focusing every fibre of her being onto the effect she wanted. When the circle was complete, Lucy willed the spell to form, and to her unparalleled delight, the shadows at her feet briefly rose up to form a simple black hand, which obeyed her will and waved at Rakusa.

"I can cast spells… Magic, I really have magic! I have magic!" she cheered, almost jumping with joy; "I-I really ascended a bit! I can cast spells! I-I don't need to rely on staves or Uncle's magic! I'm not a burden on Hunter any more! Finally!"

She began to tear up; "Is this a blessing from the Titan?"

Osran and Rakusa had no answers for her, though the former suspected it had as much to do with the Titan-blessed Luz as it did the Titan himself. Before Lucy could get any more overexcited, she shook herself; she would have time for celebrations and questions later! For now she had a job to do!

Throwing her new Oracle Stone around her neck, Lucy channelled some magic into it and her new Oracle Spirit immediately raced to her side, practically embracing her from behind.

"What is your will, Mistress?" it asked, merely out of showmanship since it already knew what she was going to ask.

"Please become incorporeal and phase through Luz's body to find the fragment of the Cursed Blade! Then either report its location to us or remove it yourself if you can do it without hurting her further." Lucy ordered, remaining courteous.

The spirit cackled loudly, then dove into the ground. A moment later, its head appeared from Luz's chest with a smile on its face. It rose out of her, its arm moving slowly until finally, a tiny fragment of black metal, coated in golden blood and thick red miasma popped out of Luz's chest wound. It was tiny; little more than the size of a pencil lead, yet it had caused them so much trouble! If the Blessed Dagger hadn't been draining life force from Bill and giving it to Luz (Bill was unconscious and noticeably shrivelled at this point), then the young angel would be dead and it would all be because of this miniscule chunk of evil metal!

Rakusa didn't waste even an instant; the moment the cursed fragment was no longer touching Luz's flesh, he dove back over to her side and began rapid firing healing spells, focusing first on deadening nerves so Luz didn't go into shock from pain, then closing blood vessels so she didn't bleed to death, before working on repairing the damage done to her lung and ribs, then finally dealing with the muscles and skin. The Titan Trappers were prone to injuring each other with weapons during training, so Rakusa was very well versed in healing stab wounds, even as a "mere apprentice". Once the wound was restored, Luz's breathing became easier and her expression relaxed while her pallor took on a healthier hue; she was still sick from the Mold and would likely take a few more days to get over it after this shock, but at least she was alive!

Once Luz was healed up enough, Lucy felt her pulse and sighed with incredible relief; she was no longer in danger of dying! With a deep breath, she turned towards the fight going on in the distance and screamed with all her might;

"LUZ IS ALIVE! SHE'S HEALED!"

It was the first time Lucy had ever shouted and it made her throat hurt to do it, but her voice (sounding so much like Luz's) cut through the sounds of battle and caused Amity, Hunter, and King to all freeze. They were each high in the air, raining spells or glyphs down on the remaining Titan Trappers, and as one they each turned their heads slowly towards the source of the shout. Hunter was the closest and saw Lucy's larger wings and gasped softly, before darting towards her with his flash spell. He got back to the others first, but before he could even get a word out, King and Amity came racing back too with remarkable speed. They both flew passed Lucy and the others and landed on either side of Luz's still unconscious body, where Amity immediately put a hand to where her wound used to be and felt Luz's heartbeat. King, beginning to release steam from his skin, lowered his head to Luz's and began sniffing gently, before pressing his snout to her neck and feeling her pulse.

The two exchanged overjoyed looks as they received proof Luz was alive, and began nudging her gently to try and wake her up. It took a few moments, but they eventually succeeded and Luz began to stir just as Amity's eyes stopped glowing and King's body began to shrink back to his normal size.

"Hey Amity… Hey King." Luz smiled tiredly; "I'm a little sleepy… but are you two okay?"

"We're fine, Batata. We're just so glad you're alive!" Amity smiled tearfully, hugging her as tightly as she dared.

King did the same; "Don't ever do that to us again! I was really scared!"

"I'm sorry… but I was right about believing in you! Also, what is with those wings!?" Luz grinned, perking up a little more.

King blinked and looked over his shoulder, finding that while he had shrunken back to his regular size (though perhaps he was a teeny tiny bit bigger), his pale draconic wings were still present though massively shrunk down to suit his much smaller body. However they were still sized to allow him to fly, and with a few flaps of his now little wings, King began to clumsily hover in the air.

"I-I'm not totally sure! I guess I hit my next growth spurt?" King shrugged helplessly. Now that he wasn't working on pure instincts, he found flying a lot harder. Thankfully Luz just smiled and gently grabbed him into a hug with one arm, then threw the other arm around Amity. The three held each other for a moment, then turned to thank Lucy, Osran, and Rakusa for helping to save Luz, but as they did they saw the last of the Titan Trappers that could still stand were heading towards them, being led by a limping Tarak, who had seen better days. The man's mask was missing, revealing his real bearded face, which was tattooed to look half dark blue, with a moon on the blue side of his forehead and a blue star on the side without tattoos.

"You all need to go." Rakusa hissed urgently; "They won't forgive you for all the chaos you caused! They'll kill the Titan and the Angels, and probably the rest of you too. Run!"

Amity and the others didn't need to be told twice! The youngest Blight put Luz (who was still holding King) on her back and hopped onto her staff, while Hunter pulled Lucy and Osran onto his own staff.

"What about you? Won't you be in huge trouble for helping us!?" Lucy asked, shocking the others who still hadn't registered that she could talk now.

Rakusa smiled and shook his head; "I'm not a fighter. I'll just tell them you threatened me and forced me to help. Father is best friends with the Grand Elder, so they'll accept it."

He pointed to Tarak, revealing him to be his father. He then whispered; "Run for the portal platform! I don't have a keystone, but one of guards on the platform should! Just keep an eye out for a small stone made of Titan Bone."

Tarak and the others were within earshot now, so Rakusa suddenly pretended to lunge at them; "N-No! I won't let you escape us!" he lied loudly, weakly grabbing at Hunter.

Hunter gave him a look of gratitude, then kicked him lightly to knock the young Trapper away. Amity and Hunter then flew away with their passengers, flying as fast as they could towards the portal platform. They heard the shouts of the Trappers behind them and ignored them in favour of the guards they were currently gunning towards. King jumped onto Amity's shoulders and roared, hoping to fire a beam attack, but it seemed he couldn't use that power, or his personal glyphs any more, so the roar came out as a normal sonic attack that knocked the guards out. Lucy then summoned up her new spirit and asked it to find the keystone for the portal, eventually finding a finger-sized totem of Titan Bone in one of the unconscious guard's pockets.

"DON'T LET THEM ESCAPE!" they heard Tarak shout.

"Too late for that!" Lucy declared, stabbing the totem into a small hole in the centre of the portal platform; "We're going home!"

The entire platform began to glow, and a portal appeared in the sky directly above them. A beam of blue magic shot down from the portal and enveloped all of them, then began to slowly raise them into the sky. They were sitting ducks to spells and spears, but Hunter and Amity (both exhausted but still able to fight), used their own spells to block and deflect the attacks, saving them. There was a flash of lightning as they finally rose up into the portal itself, vanishing from above Titan Trapper Island and reappearing over an entirely different, far smaller island. They began to fall from the sky, until Amity and Hunter's Palismen staves began to float again, allowing them to slowly start flying down to the ground of this new place.

The island they'd emerged over was tiny compared to both Digale and Titan Trapper Islands, consisting almost entirely of a single massive index finger from a Titan sticking out of a narrow spit of land occupied only by trees. The island itself didn't appear to be made from a Titan, while the finger looked like a perfect match for the missing index finger from Titan Trapper Island. The finger also appeared to the source of the portal, which was in the sky directly above where the finger was pointing.

As the group flew down to the ground, Amity looked back up and saw the Titan Trappers through the portal, preparing to follow them through.

"We can't let them through! We need to close the portal!" she said determinedly.

"But how? And couldn't they just reopen it? I doubt that keystone was their only one!" Luz frowned tiredly.

"We need to destroy the finger! I'll bet my good ear that would permanently close the portal!" Hunter said, looking ready to give it a go.

Luz looked worriedly at King; "Are you okay with this? This finger is probably your Mama's…"

King nodded grimly, then shook his head; "I know, and it doesn't matter! We already destroyed one, and it's better than letting those murderers use it! I would have destroyed her whole hand if I could, to stop them living on it! But this'll have to do!"

Taking the deepest breath he could, King then roared at the finger with all his might, creating such a massive shockwave that Amity and Luz had to both help hold King so he was stable and not blowing himself away. The multi-coloured blast rippled through the colossal finger, forming cracks throughout it that caused it to begin crumbling and falling apart. The Titan Trappers that had begun to rise up into the portal found themselves suddenly falling back down on their side (thankfully low enough to avoid dying) and the portal itself destabilised. It shrank into nothing and the index finger came crashing down just like the middle finger had. This time, Lucy protected the group by using her newfound magic to drag everyone down into the shadows for a few moments, before spitting them back out when the dust had settled.

They re-emerged onto the island and looked around at the destroyed remains of yet another Titan Finger, then briefly glanced around for signs of Titan Trappers or other threats that might have made the island their home. They found nothing and after a few tense seconds, they all flopped down on the ground and sighed with relief.

"Finally, it's over!" Amity groaned; "This has been the longest day of my life!"

"Yeah… I'm actually looking forward to the earful Mom is gonna give me about not taking care of myself… at least it's better than dealing with more fighting!" Luz complained, holding Amity and King tightly. King didn't say a word; after learning the true fate of his Mama, talking to one of the people responsible, seeing his sister being stabbed, and then growing his wings and a host of other powers as a consequence of that and her blood, the poor little guy was tapped out! Neither he nor Luz even remembered that Luz had found the earth glyph!

"Uncle is sure to have noticed that Lucy and I are missing now too… In fact, I bet Kikimora has already reported us as dead, along with Osran!" Hunter growled, before smirking; "But she's in for a rude awakening! Extracting blood from the active wellspring was probably too much for her, so I bet she went home a failure! But when we go back, we can report that we stopped a cult of Titan killers, found a real Titan, AND awakened Lucy's magic!"

Lucy smiled softly; "Yeah… I've finally got magic! And my wings are almost good enough to fly with! And I can talk again! Oh, I haven't been able to talk since before I lost my memories! Uncle is sure to be pleased with us!"

Luz, King, and Amity exchanged worried looks; now that King's identity as a Titan was known to the Coven Trio, Belos would know too as soon as they got back! Unfortunately, there wasn't much they could do about it; they didn't have the necessary strength to capture and hold the three of them (especially since all of them were tapped out), nor did they have the resources to make an Amnesia Tincture or anything else to erase their memories! The trio began to panic as Hunter and Lucy chattered on excitedly, but King eventually just sighed and shrugged.

"The Emperor was already gunning for us anyway, since you're an Angel and Mom has the portal. I guess this just means Belos will be after me just as badly. It doesn't make that big a difference… but I suppose we should tell the whole rebellion." King reasoned.

Luz blinked; "You're a lot calmer about this than I expected, King."

"It's been a long day… I don't have the energy to get freaked out." King groaned, nestling into Luz's lap.

That was something everyone could agree with as they all went silent for a moment and just rested. None of them had the faintest idea where on the planet they were; they'd gone through the Wellspring on the Knee to Titan Trapper Island, and then from there to this unknown island somewhere else entirely! They had no idea where they were in relation to the Boiling Isles or anywhere else for that matter, and so they had no idea how to get home. All they knew was that they were supposedly a few hours from the Boiling Isles, but they had no idea what direction it was in! They didn't exactly have the energy to go flying off in random directions either, and they couldn't even use their Oracle Spirits for directions since they can't cross salt water…

"I guess we're stranded until we've had enough rest to fly again…" Hunter frowned; "I'm in the best condition, so I'll gather firewood and make a camp before it gets dark."

No one argued, and they all rested while Hunter gathered the necessary materials to make a fire, while also creating a rudimentary shelter to keep any rain out, just in case. Once that was done, they all sat around the makeshift camp and told each other what had been going on when they were all split up; Amity spoke of her brief time with Rakusa watching over Luz, Luz described a portion of her visions (but she omitted the talk of finding and destroying Cassiopeia's heart, and saved the message she'd been given for King by his father until they had some privacy), King talked about his meeting with the Collector, and the Coven Trio spoke of both their talk with Bill and how they'd managed to heal Luz after she was stabbed.

Hearing of how King developed his wings and how Lucy began ascending into a full angel, Amity couldn't help but wonder aloud; "A lot of strange things seem to happen whenever Angelic and Titan Magic come together, Titan Magic caused Luz to ascend, and Angelic Magic made King mature faster too! There must be some kind of connection there."

"You're right… but that's also the second time King grew more powerful because I almost got killed." Luz said with a nervous smile; "The first time was on his island; I almost got skewered by the golems and he unlocked his roar power. Now I actually did get skewered and he grew his wings! The day I actually die, he's gonna become some kind of Super Titan!" she half-joked.

King frowned and poked her cheek with his claw; "Don't even kid about that! You're not allowed to die! You're an Arch-Angel that can live 10,000 years, right? Well Titans can live at least that long too, so you've got to stay with me as long as possible!"

Luz smiled softly and nuzzled against King; "I'll do my best, little brother."

Seeing the two having a sweet moment, Lucy and Hunter looked at one another too as they thought about their own lifespans; now that Lucy had begun to ascend into a true Angel, she'd live for at least a millennium, while Hunter would likely only live a century like most other witches… it was a sobering thought, and neither even wanted to imagine being forced to separate like that. Lucy felt it must be worse for Amity, whose entire lifespan was only about 1% of her lover's, but when she looked at the pink-haired girl's face, she saw determination rather than resignation. The young angel was curious as to why Amity would have such an expression, but before she could ask, something unexpected happened…

Amity's scroll appeared and began to ring.

Everyone stared at it with confusion for a moment, before Luz said; "Wait, how does that thing work out here? I thought those things only worked within the Boiling Isles? Or at least close to it?"

"They do! Well technically, they have a range of about the size of the Boiling Isles, which is why they still work in other parts of the world if other people are close enough. So unless we're actually super close to the Isles and don't know it or someone else is in range, it shouldn't be able to receive a call!" Amity mused, before looking at the caller ID. She gasped when she saw that it was her father, Alador.

Answering it immediately and putting it on video mode, Amity cried; "Dad!" as her father's worried face appeared on the screen.

"Mittens! Oh thank the Titan! It worked! Dar-"

Seeing her father about to call for Darius, Amity quickly shouted over him; "DAD! We're not alone! We're with three Coven members! Don't spill any secrets!"

Alador went pale and covered his mouth; "Oops, that could have been bad! Thank you, Mittens. Are you alright?"

"For the most part, yes. We're all exhausted and Luz is recovering from a bad sickness, but we're alive and mostly uninjured." Amity replied.

"Are Luz and King okay!?" came the sudden voice of Eda as she forced her way on screen by nearly shoving Alador out of the way and stealing his scroll; "Steve, Katya, and Rasiel returned and said you all fell into a Wellspring! They told us about Luz's sickness too; what's going on!?"

"We're fine, Mom." King said, "Luz is still a little sick but we're surviving. Things got a little crazy…"

"That's an understatement! Are those wings!?" Eda cried, noticing King's additions.

"Like I said, things got crazy. But how are you guys calling us? We thought scrolls didn't work outside the Isles?" King asked.

Alador pushed his way back onto the screen; "You can thank my genius for that! Plus an idea I received from your friend, Augustus. He explained how Human cellphones achieve such long range using signal towers and satellites, so I've been secretly working on my own versions while working on my other projects! Our HQ, and Bonesborough now have signal towers that massively amplify the range of all Smart Scrolls! We can now successfully call any scroll within the northern hemisphere!"

Luz beamed; "That's amazing! If you can call us, then Mom can also use the tracking feature on my scroll to find us!"

"Already on it, Owlet!" Eda said, showing her scroll, "According to this, you're only about three hours boat ride from the Boiling Isles! We're on our way! Just hold tight! And tell those Coven creeps you're with that if they harm a hair on your heads, I'll send 'em back to Belos in body bags!"

Luz and King giggled while Hunter, Lucy, and Osran all looked mildly perturbed by Eda's threat. The call ended soon after, with Alador warning Amity that he hadn't worked the kinks out of the system yet and so it drained a lot of magic from the calling scroll. They said their goodbyes and waited patiently for rescue to arrive.

Just over three hours later, Captain Salty and his crew sailed up to the island, carrying Eda, Rasiel (in his body), Steve, Katya, Raine, Alador, and the twins. They laid anchor just off the coast and used a dinghy to get ashore, and wasted no time running to grab Amity, Luz, and King.

"My babies!" Eda cried, embracing Luz and King tightly; "Thank the Titan! I was so worried!"

"We're sorry, Mom. We didn't mean to worry you!" Luz apologised; "And I'm extra sorry I was stupid about my illness…"

"Steve and Katya already filled us in. Your Mom and I have agreed that you're grounded until you fell better. You can spend a few days resting in bed, and thinking about your health." Raine said semi-sternly, playing the role of the "strict" parent since Eda was too busy hugging her returned children.

"That's fair." Luz smiled, accepting the hug. Raine smiled at her, then joined the hug as well; just as relieved as Eda that their favourite niece and nephew had returned safe and sound.

Lilith also hugged the pair, then went and joined Alador and the twins in hugging Amity; "You did a wonderful job of protecting everyone, Amity." she complimented, making the girl blush.

"T-Thanks Mo- I mean, Miss Lilith." Amity said bashfully, almost slipping up. Nobody missed the slip, but everyone was just too happy that they were alive to be in the mood for teasing.

"It seems King has really developed his wings too. How peculiar… I've never seen wings develop this early on his species… and without the trademark holes too…" Rasiel commented, examining King's little silvery wings.

"Careful, Rasiel. There are unwanted ears about." Eda frowned, gesturing towards Hunter, Lucy, and Osran, who just awkwardly watched the reunion, now painfully aware that they were outnumbered and outgunned.

"Forget them, they already know I'm a Titan." King frowned.

"YOU'RE A WHAT!?" screamed everyone but Eda, Raine, and Rasiel.

King cringed; "Oh, right… I forgot not everyone on our side knows that yet… It's been a really long day…"

"Two days, actually." Steve muttered; "And what exactly happened after you all ended up going through the Wellspring?"

"That's a very long story. We'll tell you all about it on the way home." Luz sighed.

"Speaking of home… the Boiling Isles is a 3 hour boat ride that way, right?" Hunter asked, pointing in a seemingly random direction.

Alador shook his head; "Actually, it's precisely that direction." he corrected, pointing beyond Salty's ship.

"Oh, thank you." Hunter said politely, before suddenly grabbing Lucy and tossing her over his shoulder, then flashing to Osran, grabbing him too, and flashing towards Salty's ship. Before the rebels could do anything to stop them, Hunter got himself and his two companions properly situated on Flapjack, then took to the air; "Thanks for the directions! We'll handle reporting everything to Belos! Byeee!"

Then with a cheeky wink, Hunter flashed off into the distance, heading back to the Isles. The rebels watched the Coven Trio disappear into the distance, all of them frowning.

"I should have figured he'd run for it…" Luz muttered, "Still, Lucy did save my life so I was gonna suggest letting them go anyway. At least once Mom had made some Amnesia Tincture for them."

"Great… now Belos is going to know about King! Our family is going to be even higher on his wanted list!" Eda complained; "And Steve and Katya weren't kidding when they said the Silver Sentinel was a dead ringer for Luz! She looks like a shorter haired version of you from when we first met!"

"Yeah… it's eerie how much we have in common." Luz frowned; "Aside from the eyes and the origin story, we really were practically the same, even down to our names! But she was found by Belos… I was found by you." Luz smiled at her Mom; "I definitely got the good side in that bargain."

"You got that right!" Eda grinned, "Now let's get you kids on the ship so we can begin sailing home. I want to hear all about what's been happening."

Everyone agreed with that, and the rescue party took Amity, Luz, and King onto the dinghy, then back to Salty's ship so they could begin the trip home. As they sailed, Rasiel, Steve, and Katya filled them in on what had been happening in the Isles after they disappeared through the Wellspring; the rest of the rebels were forced to retreat after Kikimora accused them of murdering Osran and the siblings, causing the Oracles and the Emperor's Coven to come at them with renewed vigour, as well as reinforcements that were called from the nearby town of Cartilia. The Carbuncles helped the rebels escape then retreated back into their dens within the mines.

After escaping and reuniting with a confused and worried Rasiel, they tried to search for signs of the kids, but Rasiel correctly guessed that the Wellspring would have spat them out from a different exit, so they retreated to the Owl House to report the failure of their mission and begin searching for the kids. The CATTs had sent rescue teams to every known Wellspring on the Boiling Isles, though all were dried up and dormant. Thankfully Alador and Darius were on the isles to install the Scroll Signal Tower in Bonesborough, so they were able to immediately test it out by trying to call Luz and Amity's scrolls. This failed until they emerged from the portal from Titan Trapper Island, revealing the island must have been on the other side of the world entirely!

Once the kids knew what had happened, they in turn told them what had happened on the island. The result was… fairly explosive. Hearing that Luz had been stabbed and nearly murdered by the Trappers resulted in Eda, Lilith, AND Raine all immediately flying into a rage and transforming into their cursed forms from sheer stress, though thankfully the Owl Beast had enough self control to hold the Raven and Bat Beasts down while Eda ranted inside her own head and Rasiel grabbed some of the Elixirs they'd brought along. When they finally calmed down and returned to their witch forms, they had thanked Amity profusely for her part in helping protect Luz and King, then promptly spent the rest of the trip smothering Luz. King ended up smothered too when he reported the fate of his mother, which Luz added to by finally revealing what his father had asked her to do in her vision… and the truth about the Collector. The fact his father had asked his sister to find and destroy the heart of his mother while King himself was learning of his mother's fate was just the awful cherry on top of an exceedingly bad day, and that wasn't even getting into the fact that the Collector wasn't the monster King thought he was! Poor King felt fairly numb to it all by that point though, and eventually decided to take a bit of time to himself (though Eda only let him go from her embrace after he promised to speak to the CATTs therapist about his feelings later).

King went to the bow of the ship and stared out at the water, and it was here that Luz found him a while later, having finally wriggled free of their Mom herself so she could get some fresh air.

"Hey little brother. How are you doing?" Luz asked softly.

"I've been better." King confessed; "I'm not really sure how to feel about everything… I knew Mama was long gone, just like Dad, but hearing how she died defeating the Archivists just makes it all feel… fresh, you know? And the fact the Collector was actually innocent! I could have freed him, but I destroyed his mirror instead! I'm so confused Luz… I was so angry today! I kept wanting to hurt people, and I condemned the Collector to keep rotting in prison all because I didn't know the truth!"

The young Titan lowered his head as tears began to form in his eyes; "I don't know what to do, Luz… Am I… Am I a bad person?"

Luz shook her head vehemently; "No! Not even a little bit! You're still a little kid, King. You couldn't have known the truth about the Collector; no one did except your Dad! If you had known the truth, would you have freed the Collector?"

"Of course! He doesn't deserve to be locked up!" King cried.

"Then that proves you're a good person! We can't go back, but there are other mirrors connected to the Collector's prison! We can find one and free him through that. And when I find your mother's heart, I'll free her from limbo too… and as a bonus, Rasiel will get another piece of himself back! In the mean time, we'll keep helping the CATTs and doing our best to master our powers. We do have a whole new glyph to try out after all, and I'm pretty excited about teaching my baby brother how to fly with his own wings!" Luz smiled, gently touching one of King's little wings with one of her own.

King looked up at his sister and smiled; "Y-Yeah. I guess you're right. Nothing about what we're doing has changed. Besides, if the rest of the CATTs are going to find out what I am now, I have to get my act together! Can't have them seeing a Titan moping!"

Luz giggled; "That's the spirit! Oh, and before I forget; you're Dad asked me to deliver a message."

"He did?" King asked, surprised.

Luz grinned and stooped to whisper in his ear. King listened carefully, eyes widening slightly as he began to repeat her; "I… loaf… you? I loaf you…" he began to giggle; "I loaf you! Ha ha Bread Pun!"

The two siblings began to laugh together, enjoying a happy moment after all the chaos of the last two days. It was this sight that Eda saw as she walked over, smiling widely.

"Good to see you both cheered up! I know a lot has happened and you're both stressed, so if you kids need anything, you know you can count on us." Eda smiled, putting her arms around the two.

"We know Mom." they said together, smiling.

"We've got a game plan! Help the CATTs, stop Belos, help King's Mama, and free the Collector!" Luz said, before her eyes began to droop; "And get better…"

"Let's make that one the first objective." Eda said, getting an enthusiastic nod from King. "You're not going back to school until you're better. I'll talk to the CATTs and make sure I've got some time away from missions."

"No, don't do that! You're one of the leaders! You're too important to play hooky watching over me while I sleep all day!" Luz said.

"Don't be silly, you're way more important than whatever dumb missions Darius and Eber will cook up for me!" Eda argued.

"Mom's right." King said, crossing his arms; "You need someone to look after you when you're sick!"

Luz couldn't deny that; she had no idea how long the medicine in her system would last, and she was already beginning to feel worse again, so she really did need someone to take care of her for a few days… but everyone in the Demon Realm was too busy with the rebellion!

"How about I go spend a few extra days with Mami in the Human Realm? It'd probably do Mami some good to take a couple more days off anyway, so I can rest, spend time with her and Vee, and she gets some extra time off!" Luz suggested.

Eda and King both nodded approvingly; "Sounds good to me! Let's go now!" Eda said.

Luz smiled and reached into her shirt to get the Portal Key, only to frown when she found it wasn't around her neck. She then checked her pockets and didn't find it there either, making her begin to panic. She next searched inside her hair, even though she hadn't mastered that spell yet, but found no sign of the key.

"Oh no… Amity! Do you have the Portal Key!?" Luz cried.

Amity shook her head; "No, it should be around your neck!"

Luz shook her head; "It's not there! I don't have it!"

"What!? D-Did you drop it somewhere!?" Eda yelled, beginning to look around on the deck of the ship.

"When is the last time you saw it!?" King asked urgently.

Luz began to hyperventilate; "I-I don't remember! I know I had it on the Knee, but I haven't thought about it since then!"

"You definitely had it when you were stabbed by that jerk, Bill!" Amity said; "I remember feeling it under your shirt when I was putting pressure on the wound."

"And she hasn't been out of our sight since she was healed! She must have lost the key sometime between the two of us going to fight the Trappers and her being healed!" King frowned.

The young Arch-Angel gasped; "It was around my neck, so it wouldn't have fallen off! The only way it could have gone missing is if it was taken by Rakusa, Osran, or Lucy!"

"Rakusa wouldn't have taken it; he would have no way of knowing what it was! And I don't think Osran even knew you had it so…" Amity's voice trailed off as everyone on the ship came to the same conclusion.

"Lucy stole the Portal Key… I-Is that why Hunter flew off with her and Osran so fast!?" Luz gasped, putting a hand over her mouth. "N-No… NO!"

If Lucy stole the key, then Belos would have the portal! Which means Luz now had nowhere to run to! She had no way of escaping, and worse; no way of seeing her Mami and sister! She'd promised to come home every weekend, and now she couldn't! She didn't even have the means to call home and tell her Mami the situation, since scrolls couldn't call another realm unless the portal was open and nearby!

Luz fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face; she had saved Lucy's life… but then Lucy had saved hers too. They were even now, with no debts to stop the other angel from turning on her in the name of Belos!

"I can't go back… I can't see Mami or Vee again! What am I going to do!? What am I going to do!?" Luz began to sob.

Eda, King, and Amity immediately moved to embrace her, while the rest of the CATTs exchanged dejected looks. Their mission had been to stop Belos getting Titan Blood and making a new portal, but now he would have the key to summon the original portal, he would know about King and his own Titan Blood, and he would have Lucy, a newly awakened angel on the verge of full maturity… In one fell swoop, the Emperor would have virtually all that he needed to complete his Day of Unity Plan.

Anyway they looked at it, the entire mission was a resounding failure…

[Later]

Kikimora cursed quietly as she had Princess touchdown on the landing platform of the Emperor's Castle. The Emperor was waiting for her alongside a small squad of scouts and Abomaton Mk I's, and the narrowing of his eyes displayed his foul mood… a foul mood Kiki was sure was about to grow fouler.

"You return late, alone, and empty-handed." Belos declared angrily as she climbed down from her mount; "I expect an explanation, Kikimora… and it best be good!"

Kikimora immediately knelt before the Emperor, keeping her head low; "I have nothing to offer but my deepest, most sincere apologies… and a fair explanation for my failure."

"Ah, so we are skipping straight to the excuses, are we? Pick your words carefully, Kikimora; they may be your last!" Belos thundered.

The demon gulped and hastily said; "We succeeded in finding Eclipse Lake AND reawakening the supply of Titan Blood! I was on the cusp of bringing you a great success, my Emperor! But I was betrayed by schemers and rebels!"

"Betrayed by schemers and rebels? Ah, so the infernal CATTs discovered the mining operation and interfered?" Belos asked, crossing his arms.

"Yes, my Emperor. But they were not alone; the Angel Noceda was there, supported by a traitor from the Bard Coven and our own Emperor's Coven, as well as the youngest Blight and some kind of dog. Worst still, they were supported by the Golden Guard and Silver Sentinel!" Kikimora cried very convincingly.

Belos' eyes flashed dangerously; "You accuse my two most loyal elites of secretly working with the rebels!?"

Kikimora gulped and quickly changed tactics; "Oh, I have no doubts they are not on the side of the rebels, your Highness! I believe they could not stand that I might succeed in something that they failed in, and merely worked with the rebels to undermine me, with the goal of betraying them at the last minute. In fact, they fought the rebels, but they fought me as well."

"I see, so that is the excuse you're going with… and when my elites return, I assume they will have a different story to tell. But what of Osran? What story will he tell?" Belos asked.

Kikimora pretended to be heartbroken; "None, my Emperor. Neither he nor those two foolish children will be returning. The Silver Sentinel caused Eclipse Lake to become destabilised while battling the youngest Blight, and it became a maelstrom. Osran and I attempted to save the Angel and your Elites from it, but the Golden Guard's incompetence sabotaged our attempts. The Angel, both Elites, and Osran were all consumed by the Maelstrom despite my best efforts!"

Belos narrowed his eyes once more and took a step towards Kikimora; "You say they all fell into the Maelstrom of the lake!?"

"Y-Yes, my Emperor." Kiki quaked with fear at his fury; "I spent the best part of today trying to find signs of them, but the lake has been completely despoiled. Their bodies were consumed entirely, and the lake is tainted with Titan Bile. I wasn't able to extract any usable blood because of it either… I fear the Angel, Osran, and those two young fools are gone for good, along with the youngest Blight."

Belos glared at Kikimora for a moment, before seemingly relaxing; "You say the blood was tainted with bile? Tell me, was their signs of bone or breath as well?"

Kikimora blinked; "Actually, yes sire. Spikes of bone emerged from the lakebed, and there were gas pockets."

"Then they are likely still alive." Belos said, making Kikimora gasp.

"What!? But there were no bodies!" she cried.

"Because Eclipse Lake was once a Primordial Wellspring. When last I saw it, all but the blood had become dormant, but it seems my sentinel's battle with the Blight reawakened it. Wellsprings serve as gateways to each other; they likely re-emerged from it elsewhere on the Boiling Isles, or the Titan's mate." Belos explained, now sounding almost smug.

He stared at Kikimora as she paled, no doubt already suspecting her attempts to deceive him. However neither knew quite how quickly she would be exposed.

"It was the Titan's mate, actually."

Kikimora's heart seized upon hearing that familiar annoying voice, and she looked up to see Hunter, Lucy, and Osran descending on the back of Hunter's staff (which he'd cast an illusion over to look like his artificial staff).

"Ah, my Golden Guard returns along side my missing Coven Head and…" Belos' eyes widened as he looked at Lucy, whom everyone else was now staring at with shock; "… Lucy. You are unmasked, despite my orders."

Lucy hopped off Hunter's staff and knelt before Belos; "Forgive me, Uncle. My mask was destroyed in battle with the rebels."

Once again, everyone gasped at hearing the infamous "Silent Sentinel" speaking, while also having the same face (and voice) as the so-called Rebellious Angel. Belos opened his mouth to reprimand her, but she looked him in the eye and he saw her purple irises, and then watched as she spread her wings behind her… they weren't fully grown, but they were no longer the stunted wings of a Cherub and shone with a silver light.

"It appears you have undergone a transformation. I look forward to hearing all about it. I'm sure your tale differs greatly compared to Kikimora's." Belos said, looking between the new arrivals and Kiki, who gulped fearfully.

"Oh, I'm sure it does. Her story probably doesn't mention how she almost killed me after I saved her from being taken hostage… or how she tried to assassinate the three of us by dropping us into the Primordial Wellspring!" Hunter sneered.

Kikimora went pale as Belos' eyes narrowed on her hatefully; "Is this true?" he asked, his voice soft and deadly.

"It is." Lucy said demurely.

"She cast the spell that sent us into the pit herself. She hoped to kill us and take the angel for herself." Osran added, glaring at Kikimora with cold fury.

Slowly, Belos raised his hand and summoned his staff, making Kikimora flinch back in terror.

"M-My Emperor, they are lying!" Kikimora pleaded, only for Lucy to pin her with a cold stare.

"An Angel cannot lie. I watched as you allowed your beast to attack and nearly kill my brother, leading to his capture, and I watched as you burned Head Witch Osran's book to drop us into the Wellspring! You almost killed us, the Angel, AND the son of the Boiling Isles!" Lucy declared.

There was another round of gasps, and Belos' looked at his niece with shocked eyes. "The Son of the Boiling Isles!?"

"The strange Demon Dog that Luz and the Owl Lady have; he was actually an infant Titan! It's a long story, but we ran into a horde of Titan Trappers and they confirmed it… right before trying to kill him, and us." Hunter explained.

Osran watched Belos' eyes closely, but the Emperor recovered from his shock quickly; "So you know. Naturally I was aware of him from the start, but I kept my silence so the rebels wouldn't learn what he is and make use of him. It was the Titan's will that his child remain anonymous, but now that you are aware of him, I suppose that cat is out of the bag. He is the reason I had such a high bounty on the Owl Lady even before Young Luz came under her sway."

The Head of the Oracle Coven had to give Belos credit; he was cunning, but he didn't believe for a second that the Emperor was telling the truth. He'd seen the shock in his eyes, and it wasn't shock that they now knew something he already knew himself! Osran would need to think on this.

Belos hastily changed the subject; "But we can discuss the Titan's child another time, I believe we have a traitor to deal with first…"

He turned back to Kikimora, finding that while everyone was distracted, she'd begun edging back towards Princess. She froze as she found everyone's eyes on her once again, but then Belos' staff began to spark with red magic and she made a break for it. She tried to get onto Princess's saddle again, but Belos shot a spell at her, which Princess instinctively blocked with the hand on her tail. To the horror of Kikimora, Princess's tail hand turned to stone; Belos intended to petrify her and probably broadcast her stone body to the isles as a message!

Belos shot another blast of petrifying magic, and this time Princess grabbed Kikimora with her tongue and tossed her away, leading to the Clasping Amphithere being struck in the head by the spell, slowly turning entirely to stone. Kikimora landed close to one of the airships on the landing platform, and giving one last forlorn look to her petrified mount, she fled aboard the ship. Belos moved to destroy it immediately, blasting apart the balloon and ordering his guards to surround the airship while the others took off to prevent Kikimora from escaping aboard them.

This proved fruitless however, as the guards searched the damaged airship and found no signs of Kikimora, while several scouts on one that had taken off were suddenly thrown overboard. The crafty little demon had immediately jumped from one ship to another without anyone realising it and had hid until the ship was airborne, whereupon she commandeered it. Taking control of the ship, Kikimora began to fly away at high speed. Belos and his men fired spells at it, damaging it and causing it to begin crash landing just outside the castle grounds.

"Men, go to the wreckage and recover the traitor or her corpse." Belos ordered coldly.

Every scout on the landing platform gave a salute and ran to fulfil his orders, while Belos turned back to Osran, Hunter, and Lucy; "The three of you will come with me to the throne room and report everything."

The trio bowed their heads and obediently followed Belos back to his throne room, where they were made to kneel before him as he sat on his throne beneath the beating heart of the Boiling Isles Titan. They then gave a full and accurate report of everything, which included Hunter and Lucy confessing that they snuck out of the castle. The only detail they didn't reveal was that Hunter's staff was actually a Palisman, which was something Osran opted to keep secret as well due to his new doubts about Belos.

Belos listened to everything in cold silence, interrupted only by a poor scout who'd had the unfortunate job of coming and reporting that Kikimora had escaped the airship crash and was now on the run. Belos had angrily placed a bounty of 5 million snails on her head for treason, then sent the scout packing so he could continue hearing the report from Titan Trapper Island. When they were done, Belos glared at the trio.

"So let me get this straight; you achieved nothing beyond Lucy's partial ascension? An ascension defined by "Divine Darkness" and not light?" Belos asked dangerously.

"W-We did also discover the identity of the Titan's child!" Hunter pointed out.

"Which I already knew." Belos lied, "So all you did was foolishly reveal that fact in front of numerous scouts and a confirmed traitor."

"B-But surely it's a good thing that I can use magic now! I-I can continue maturing, and then I can take the place of Luz in the Day of Unity! We won't need to worry about capturing her!" Lucy piped up.

Belos glared at her coldly; "While I am proud of your ascension, my pride is tempered by disappointment with your disobedience. I restricted you to the castle for your safety and you repaid me by disobeying and leaving, an act that endangered another Angel by forcing her to save you with a blessing!" he scolded angrily. "And more to the point, you almost got that fellow Angel killed, which would have doomed the Day of Unity! I require an Angel of far greater power than you possess! Your ascension may have granted you power of your own, but it is not enough!"

Lucy bowed her head in shame; "I-I am sorry, Uncle. I just wanted to please you…"

"Had you merely obeyed me, I would be most pleased with you. But disobedience that leads to such… disappointing results… cannot be rewarded or overlooked. Return to your rooms; I will deal with you and Hunter later." Belos ordered.

The two siblings bowed their heads dejectedly and stood to leave, but Lucy paused as the voice of her spirit echoed in her head.

"Do not flee yet, Mistress. You have a boon to give your Master."

"A boon? What do you mean?" Lucy thought.

"I read your mind when we bonded, and saw the things you desired. One of those things was within reach, so I took the liberty of retrieving it. Look in your pocket." whispered the spirit.

Confused, Lucy slowly reached into her pocket and her eyes nearly popped out of her head as she pulled out the Portal Key. Her newly bonded spirit must have stolen it from Luz when removing the Cursed Blade Fragment!

"Uncle!" she suddenly cried, turning back to Belos and kneeling to him once again; "I understand I disappointed you, but I beg you let me speak a moment longer. I have a gift that may make up for my failures."

Belos scoffed; "Do you have Luz Noceda stashed in your back pocket?" he asked sarcastically.

Lucy shook her head; "No, but I have the next best thing."

She showed Belos the key, pressing it's eyes as she did so, causing the Portal Door to appear and unfold beside her. "I give you the Portal to the Human Realm."

Hunter and Osran both gaped at the summoned door, while Belos practically leapt to his feet and ran forward. He snatched the key from Lucy and used it to open the door and peek through, taking in the sights of a blue sky and green trees. He stared at the scene for several long moments, just breathing in the scent of the other world, before slowly (and reluctantly) closing the door and having it fold up into its briefcase form once again.

"Lucy… you may consider yourself and your brother forgiven for all your failures. You have done very well, and made me very proud." Belos said, reaching down and ruffling Lucy's hair softly. It was the first gentle touch Lucy could remember from her Uncle in a long time, and it filled her with joy. When Belos let go, Hunter ran forward and hugged her, whispering his own pride for her into her ear, and Lucy drank it in, along with the proud looks Osran was giving her.

But as she enjoyed the pride and praise, a voice in her heart spoke words of doubt… Unintentionally, she had stolen something precious from Luz while she was in a state of weakness, and something about that didn't sit right with her.

"It was necessary, right? So why does this feel so wrong…?" she thought, as her angelic wings began to shine a little less brightly.