A/N: Hello everyone, and welcome to my second-ever Owl House fic, and first multi-chapter one for the fandom. Since my first story, First Date, went over so well (it even got a TV Tropes page!), I decided that I might as well try my hand at a longer story. Oh, and speaking of First Date, I might reference its events now and then, but you don't need to have read it to understand those references.
Anyway, when deciding what I wanted to write, I considered doing a Season 3 rewrite like so many have done in order to expand on what Disney forced us to settle for. But that would mean having to tackle Hunter's angst and Luz's depression, subjects that are just not my forte, so I decided to forego that. Instead, I'm going with one of the other most typically handled plots in this fandom, the events of the time skip between Belos' final defeat and the King-ceañera.
For this fic, I'll be drawing influence from others that have done this type of story, but trying to put my own spin on things. So, if you see anything that strikes you as similar, that's why; feel free to comment on it, but don't be a dick and accuse me of plagiarizing anything, because I would never knowingly do that.
Also, gonna be perfectly honest – my grasp of Spanish is practically nonexistent, so whenever Luz or anyone else is going to be speaking it here, I'll be mostly relying on Google Translate. So, if I get anything wrong, that's why.
Well, I think that's all I need to say for now. Read on!
Disclaimer: The Owl House belongs to Disney and the genius that is Dana Terrace, I only own this fic.
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What Comes Next?
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Luz stood on the cliff near the Owl House, Stringbean's staff in hand as she gazed out over the Boiling Sea, deep in thought as she reflected on everything that had happened in the last 24 hours. And had it really been less than a full day since the nightmarish fight with Belos in the graveyard? It really felt like everything should have happened over a longer stretch of time and had just been crammed into a much shorter span, she thought idly.
She was so caught up pondering this, in fact, that she didn't even notice someone else walking up to her until she felt the wonderfully familiar sensation of Amity's arms wrapping around her waist.
"You alright, batata?" the lilac-haired witch asked, resting her head on Luz's shoulder.
"Yeah, sweet potato, I'm fine," Luz replied, smiling gently as she leaned into her girlfriend's embrace, "I'm just taking it all in. It's hard to believe that it's all finally over – Belos is gone for good, the Collector's got their whole redemption arc going on, everyone's safe. It feels like for the first time in months I can finally just breathe, ya know?"
In response, Amity hugged her closer, the young couple simply taking the moment to bask in the peace and each other's presence. Eventually, however, Amity broke the silence.
"Not that I want to ruin the feeling, but I wouldn't say everything's over," she said, "I mean, there's going to be a lot rebuilding that needs to be done. And I don't even want to think about how anyone's going to handle that mess."
She punctuated her last comment with a hand gesture. Luz followed it to see what she was talking about, and blinked as she finally registered the sight of the Left Arm, still suspended in the air from where Belos had raised it in an effort to crush her, Eda, and King.
"Oh wow, I somehow completely forgot about that," she admitted with a grimace, "Geeze, I feel sorry for anyone who lived over there."
"To be fair, the Left Arm was always more sparsely populated compared to the Right, so that shouldn't affect… too many people," Amity offered with an awkward shrug, "But, I guess there's nothing we can do about it right now, so let's worry about it tomorrow. Why don't we head back inside? Everyone else finally came over from the Archives, so we can get everyone caught up on everything."
Luz winced slightly at that. Seeing as catching up would involve having to tell everyone who wasn't there at the time about how she straight up died during the last fight, that wasn't exactly a conversation she wanted to have. But, if there was one thing she'd learned in the Demon Realm (admittedly, having to learn it multiple times before it would stick), it was that she couldn't just bottle up her emotions and keep what was bothering her secret. So, it was probably best to just get it all out in the open now before she could bury it and act like it wasn't a big deal.
Taking a breath and slowly letting it out, Luz turned to give Amity a smile and a quick kiss. When it broke, the two turned and walked back to the Owl House hand-in-hand, Stringbean shifting back to her default form and wrapping around Luz's neck like an adorable scarf as they went.
Soon enough they reached the house, Luz arching an eyebrow at the large pile of objects stacked outside, which she belatedly recognized as Eda's various belongings.
"Hunter apparently convinced Darius to swing by the Emperor's Coven warehouse where all of Eda's stuff was being kept and pick it up," Amity explained, seeing Luz's surprise, "Of course, he had to be all gruff and decide to only dump it on the lawn instead of bringing it inside, but we're making do."
Luz nodded in acknowledgement, figuring that sounded exactly like something the Coven Head would do. The two then went inside, and Luz smiled at the sight that greeted them – Willow, Gus, and Hunter were moving pieces of furniture around under Eda's watchful gaze, a cup of apple blood in her remaining hand and King perched on her shoulder, Raine was standing off to the side discussing something quietly with Darius and Eberwolf, Amity's dad and siblings were helping to clear up the debris left over from the Coven Scouts' raid on the house and the earthquakes caused by Belos' final rampage, and Lilith was seated on the replaced couch talking to Camila… or rather, it seemed that's that what had been happening, before Hooty had shoved his way into the conversation.
Judging by the strained smile on Camila's face, this had been going on for a while.
"I think we should go rescue my mom from Hooty," Luz whispered to Amity, the two giggling at that before walking over.
"…And then I said, 'Hey, I'm hooting over here!'" Hooty was practically shrieking excitedly in Camila's face, "And then I saw a bug, and I ate it! And then-!"
"Hey, Hooty?" Luz interrupted, "Think you can go grab the rest of Eda's stuff and bring it in? That'd save everyone a bunch of trips."
"Hoot-hoot! Okay, Luz!" Hooty replied happily, before slithering off and heading out the door. Once he was gone, Luz turned to her now very relieved-looking mother.
"You okay, mami?" she asked with a knowing grin.
"All I said was that it was nice to meet him, and then he just wouldn't stop talking," Camila said with the haunted tone that most people had after encountering Hooty for the first time.
"I'm sorry about that, Camila, Hootsifer can be pretty intense for everyone at first, but he means well," Lilith stated, "And honestly, you get used to him after a while."
"No, you don't!" King called from across the room.
"Yeah, I'm with King on this one, Lily," Eda added, glancing over from her supervision of the rest of the Hexsquad, "At most, you build up an immunity to him and learn how to tune him out."
Lilith scoffed at the insult to her friend, but before she could snap anything in his defense, Luz stepped in to change the subject and nip the argument in the bud.
"By the way, Aunt Lilith, been meaning to say, I am loving the new hairdo!" she said. Lilith blinked at the comment and reached up to run a hand through her shortened and now naturally-colored locks.
"Really?" she asked, "I only cut it so short because I didn't want to have to worry about maintaining regular styling on top of everything else, and obviously hair dye wasn't a high priority for the last few months. You think I should keep it like this?"
"Definitely, it looks great!" Luz said cheerfully.
"Yeah, it does. And considering how long it's been since you ditched the Goth look, it might be time to try something new," Amity added, nodding along.
"I wasn't Goth!" Lilith protested, earning deadpan looks from everyone who remembered how she used to dress, even Luz.
"Yes, you were, but it doesn't matter," Darius said as he and the other CATTs leaders walked over, evidently done with their private conversation, "We have more important things to talk about than all those years you spent being a bigger fashion disaster than your sister."
"Yeah, yeah, screw you too, Dar-Dar," Eda said, rolling her eyes, "Now then, you guys done with your super-secret chat that apparently none of us were qualified to take part in?"
"Sorry about that, Eda," Raine said with an awkward smile, adjusting their glasses, "We didn't want to bother you after everything you've already been through today."
"I'm not the one who got possessed, Rainestorm," Eda said flatly, looking intently at the new scars on Raine's face, "I think if you can handle things after that, so can I."
"Fair enough," Raine admitted, "Okay then, basically what we're trying to figure out is, well, a rather important detail that we realize we ended up overlooking during all our planning leading up to the Day of Unity."
"Namely, who exactly is supposed to be in charge now that Belos is gone," Darius clarified, earning arched eyebrows from everyone else.
"Seriously? You staged an entire rebellion, and you didn't stop to think about what to do afterwards?" Alador asked in disbelief, looking up from where he and the twins were piling broken pieces of furniture.
"Bite me, Blight, at least I didn't blindly follow the Emperor's orders until almost literally the last minute," Darius snapped back. Alador scowled at him, but before he could say anything else, the twins spoke up.
"Wait, shouldn't Hunter be in charge now?" Edric asked.
"Yeah, I mean, he was Belos' only family, right? Doesn't that make him the heir to the throne or something?" Emira added.
"What?! No, no, no, no, no!" Hunter exclaimed, dropping the end of the table he was carrying (causing Gus, who was holding the other end, to nearly get beaned by it as he overbalanced) to wave his arms in denial, "No, absolutely not! I abdicate, I refuse, I do not want to inherit anything that belonged to Belos, least of all the throne!"
"Relax, Little Prince, we already considered that option and tossed it," Darius assured him, "Everything else aside, at this point I doubt there's anyone left on the Isles who'd even want anyone related to Belos to rule anyway."
"Oh, thank Titan," Hunter sighed in relief, Willow walking over to give his hand a comforting squeeze. Luz grinned as she saw that, having not had a chance since the whole fight at Hexside to properly enjoy Huntlow (as she'd mentally dubbed it) now officially being a thing; however, now wasn't the time to squee over her shipping fantasies being fulfilled, there was a serious discussion going on.
"Okay, so if Hunter's out, who else is there to take over?" she asked.
"Ah, I know I'm still new to all of this, so forgive me if I don't quite grasp all the technical details, but aren't you Coven leaders next in charge after Belos?" Camila spoke up.
"Technically, yes," Raine explained, "Aside from the Emperor's Coven leader acting as a first among equals – which doesn't matter now since the position's been empty since Hunter defected – the other Coven Heads are all equally the next rank down from the Emperor himself. Which is a bit of a problem, considering that the nine of us are hardly a united front right now. Probably best shown by the fact that Terra, Adrian, and Vitimir apparently already tried to take the throne themselves."
"Wait, what? On what grounds did they try to just unilaterally take over?" Lilith demanded incredulously.
"They didn't. Raine means that Eber and I found them literally trying to take the throne. As in, stealing the actual chair from the ruins of the castle," Darius clarified, earning surprised looks from everyone else.
"Dang, even I never tried that," Eda commented, before gaining a calculating look.
"Eda, no," Luz said flatly, knowing exactly what her mentor was thinking.
"Aw, come on! Think about it, it's the perfect way to stick it to that jerk posthumously!" Eda protested.
"While that's a valid point, I already melted the throne to make a point against those three trying that again," Darius said dryly.
"Shoot," Eda grumbled, before shrugging it off, "Ah well, I'm sure there's plenty of other stuff in that pile of rubble worth taking to spite Bonehead's memory. And speaking of stuff, where's Hooty with the rest of mine?"
"Right here, hoot!" Hooty declared, stretching back into the house. Everyone turned to face him, eyebrows raising as they saw the distinct lack of anything he should have been carrying.
"Uh, Hooty? Where's…?" Luz started to ask, only for her eyes to widen in horrified realization as a large bulge started working its way up Hooty's body and he started hacking and coughing, "Hooty, wait, don't!"
Unfortunately, Luz's pleads went unheeded, and soon enough Hooty was regurgitating the entire pile of Eda's belongings onto the living room floor.
"Happy to help!" he said with a pleased chirp after he was done, leaving everyone staring at the soggy mass of miscellaneous objects in disgust.
"…I'm not helping move any of that until it's been steam-cleaned," Willow said after a moment.
"Ditto," Gus and Hunter said in unison.
"Yeah, I'm just gonna go ahead and burn most of this," Eda said, pulling a fire glyph out of a pocket and tossing it at the pile after tapping it… only for it to bounce off without doing anything.
"Huh?" Eda blinked in confusion along with everyone else, except for Luz, who winced.
"Uh, yeah, about that?" she said awkwardly, "The glyphs kinda aren't going to work anymore. Probably ever."
When everyone else stared at her in confusion, she sighed and said, "It's part of how we beat Belos, so you might all want to get comfortable, because this is going to be a lot to take in."
Everyone still looked confused (except for Eda and King, who both winced, having a good idea of where this was going), but nonetheless complied and sat down wherever they could, giving her their full attention. Even Darius and Eberwolf, whom Luz figured didn't actually care about the glyphs and were just interested in hearing about Belos' defeat.
Taking a breath to compose herself, with Stringbean tightening around her neck and shoulders to provide a comforting presence, Luz started reciting everything about the final battle, including her death at the hands of Belos' corrupted Titan power and subsequent resurrection and temporary empowerment by the actual Titan's spirit.
Unsurprisingly, by the time she was done with that part, everyone who hadn't known those particular details were looking at her in shock. She was barely able to then speed through the remainder of the story and explain how the glyphs wouldn't work now that the Titan was fully dead instead of just mostly dead, before her mom and Amity rushed her with tears in their eyes, wrapping her in a shared bear hug, the rest of the Hexsquad right behind them. Looking around, she saw Eda holding King tight, the two of them clearly reliving the events in question, Lilith and Hooty looking on with teary eyes of their own, and the Blights and rebellious Coven Heads looking just as horrified as everyone else.
" Mi pobre bebe," Camila murmured tearfully.
" Estoy bien, mama," Luz replied, returning the embrace before turning and pressing her head against Amity's, "I'm okay, I'm here. It's all over, and I'm fine."
"I know, but…" Amity trailed off, unable to put it into words, just tightening her hold on Luz, who reciprocated.
"Well, guess you and Hunter have something in common now, huh?" Gus said, trying to break the tension, only to be smacked on the shoulder by Willow for it. He yelped at that and turned to look at her for an explanation for that action, but paused as he saw the uncomfortable look on Hunter's face, as well as the shocked looks of everyone who hadn't been present at the graveyard fight.
"Uhh… forget I said that," the young illusionist said quickly, which of course did nothing to actually make anyone forget what he'd just said.
"Hang on, what was that supposed to mean?!" Darius demanded, looking to Hunter, who winced and laughed awkwardly, not really wanting to discuss this but not seeing a way out of it.
"Well, uh, short version? Belos possessed me back in the Human Realm, and I sorta, you know… drowned myself to get him out, and Flapjack had to sacrifice himself to save me," he explained, a lot of emotions running over his face as he did so. Willow and Gus both grabbed his shoulders to give them comforting squeezes, while Luz reached out to do the same with his hand; Amity, still wrapped protectively around Luz, settled for sending him a sympathetic look.
Darius, for his part, just stared intently at them all for a moment, then suddenly stood up.
"Edalyn, where do you keep the hard apple blood?" he demanded.
"Secret panel in the back of the cupboard," she replied. When that got confused looks from everyone, she added, "What? Give me some credit, I'm not gonna leave the hard stuff out in the open when I've got kids in the house."
"Nice to know you have some common sense," Alador muttered, shaking his head as Darius stomped into the kitchen, "And in any case, I don't mean to dismiss everyone's strong feelings at the moment, but by any chance can we go back to the part where Luz says that she temporarily became a Titan? Because from a scientific standpoint, that is absolutely fascinating!"
"Dad, don't treat Luz like a science experiment, that's creepy," Emira said with a cringe.
"Yeah… and anyway, shouldn't we be more excited about Luz meeting the actual Titan?" Edric added.
"Ed!" Emira hissed at him in annoyance.
"What? I can't be the only one curious about what he was like!" he said defensively.
"I am," King spoke up awkwardly. Everyone else shared sympathetic looks at that; King's nature as a Titan wasn't exactly widespread, but everyone present knew about it by now, and could understand why he'd want to know more.
"Well, you definitely got your good looks from him," Luz said with a smile, paraphrasing the first thing that the Titan had said to her.
"Really?" King asked happily.
"Yep, he looked just like a bigger version of you, but with wings… and also a miniature version of Hooty in place of one eye, which I have been actively trying to avoid thinking about the implications of," Luz continued, trailing off with a haunted look at that last part.
Everyone else blinked at that and looked to Hooty, who at some point had lost interest in the conversation and was now helping to clean the house. Specifically, by means of licking cobwebs out of the corners of the ceiling.
Everyone shuddered, and without a word spoken they all agreed to not discuss any of that and just move on.
"Anyway, he was also a really nice guy," Luz continued, "Gave me some advice I really needed on top of the whole 'giving me his powers to fight Belos' thing, which he made a point of making clear was a choice instead of forcing it on me."
"Speaking of which, I do have to agree with Alador that that really is fascinating from an academic standpoint," Lilith chimed in eagerly, "I don't suppose anyone somehow managed to get a picture?"
"Sure, we stopped for plenty of selfies while the world was ending," Eda said dryly. At her sister's embarrassed look, however, she rolled her eyes and decided to take pity on her, "But, we can do the next best thing. Anyone got any memory tweezers?"
"Right here, Eda," Gus said, pulling the tweezers he'd helped himself to back at Hexside out of a pocket and tossing them to her.
"Thanks, Goops," she said as she caught them, earning a flat look from the younger witch.
"Seriously? We've been through two end of the world events together and you still can't use my actual name?!" he exclaimed incredulously. She merely smirked back at him, even as she reached up to start digging into her ear with the tweezers, causing Camila to shudder in disgust.
"I really don't see why everything here has to be so…" she said, trailing off as she tried to think of a more polite term than "gross".
"You get used to it," Luz said with a smile, while Eda gave an "aha!" and pulled the tweezers out, a memory photo securely held between them. Everyone gathered around to look at it as it cleared, revealing the image of Luz in her Titan form.
"Dang, I didn't realize I looked that cool," Luz said appreciatively, Stringbean hissing at her in affirmation.
"Wait, are those your rib bones or just part of your outfit?" Willow asked, squinting at the photo.
"Huh, you know, I'm not sure. I mean, my hands and feet were definitely purely my bones, but I didn't get a chance to check the rest of my body over too closely," Luz mused, scratching her head in thought, before pausing as she saw Amity staring wide-eyed at the photo, "Uh, you okay, Ames?"
"…That is the hottest thing I have ever seen in my life," Amity blurted out, before turning tomato red as she realized what she'd just said. Luz turned a similar color in response, while everyone else either laughed or rolled their eyes good-naturedly at it.
Eda smirked at this, glad to see that the tense atmosphere from all the reveals had been successfully dispersed. Stuffing the photo back in her ear, she cleared her throat to get everyone's attention.
"Okay, as fun as it is to embarrass Boots, let's focus on what's important," she said, "Luz got hurt, but she's okay now, and we stomped Hornhead into goo, so he's finally not our problem anymore. Speaking of which, I think there's still some out there in case anyone wants to give his memory one last disrespectful kick. Anyone? How about you, Blondie? I mean, if anyone's got a right to it…"
Hunter blinked at that, and his brow furrowed in thought for a minute, before he sighed.
"No, I… I don't think I'm in the right headspace to even really accept that he's actually gone, much less actually get to enjoy celebrating it," he said, only to wince as Hooty suddenly rammed up into his personal space.
"Well, if you ever wanna talk about how you're feeling, your old pal Hooty's here to help!" the house demon declared, "I'm a licensed therapist, ya know!"
"…You are?" Hunter asked in disbelief.
"Hang on!" King protested, "You said once that you're an ordained minister, now you're a therapist too?"
"Yep!" Hooty replied happily, "I'm also a notary public, a tax accountant, a bartender, a professional hairdresser, and Tiny Nose was helping me get a nursing degree before the Day of Unity interrupted everything. But I'm not a lawyer, though – I have standards!"
Everyone stared incredulously at him for a moment, before Edric raised a hand to get his attention.
"I'm sorry, but how did you get all those degrees without anyone apparently knowing about it?" he asked, deeply confused.
"I used to have a lot of free time while everyone was off having adventures without including me," Hooty explained, not sounding remotely bitter about that fact.
"He's got a point," Gus admitted with a nod, "Now I kinda feel bad."
"Well then, allow me to change the subject away from the bird tube," Darius said as he walked back into the room with a cup of hard apple blood in hand, "More specifically, back to what we were trying to discuss before we got sidetracked talking about children near-death experiences, the human becoming a goddess, and Blight's youngest being a furry."
Amity blushed again, while everyone else shot Darius dirty looks at that, especially her family and Luz (and Eberwolf, for that matter). However, he didn't let any of that phase him, and kept talking, "The fact is, the Isles are currently leaderless, and we don't have any good options for fixing it."
"Can't you just elect a new leader?" Luz suggested. When all the witches stared at her, she clarified, "You know, vote for who you want to be in charge? Uh, you guys do know what democracy is, right?"
"Of course we do, it's how we select magistrates for towns and mayors for the bigger cities," Lilith replied, before grimacing and adding, "Of course, the Emperor's Coven tended to ensure that only 'approved' candidates could run, which in hindsight probably defeated the purpose. In any case, I'm not sure how valid that is for a larger scale."
"Well, it's not a perfect system, but what we have back home works well enough. We can probably bring you some books on it after we head back… home…" Camila added her opinion, only to trail off, eyes widening as something occurred to her, "Uh, ahem, quick question. How are we going to get back home?"
Luz and the Hexsquad all froze as they processed the question and realized its implications, while everyone else looked on in confusion.
"You can't just go back to the Human Realm the way you came?" Lilith asked, voicing everyone's shared question.
"No, the portal door got destroyed on the Day of Unity, and we only managed to get back after Belos found some Titan's Blood in the Human Realm and opened a temporary portal that we chased him through, but it closed behind us," Luz explained, before groaning and running a hand down her face, "Which means we're going to have to build a new one. Por amor de Dios, otra vez no."
"Well, bright side, with Belos gone we won't have to sneak around to get what we need, so that'll help," Eda mused.
"Yeah, and we got plenty of Titan's Blood to power it right here!" King said, tapping his arm proudly, which made Luz giggle and pull him into a hug.
"Thanks, buddy, but I promise we'll try to not end up using too much," she said as she held him.
"Well, I admit I don't know much about interdimensional portals, but I for one will be happy to help in any way," Alador said, heading towards the door, "I'll go and see what's still operational in my lab, and then… uh, Edalyn? I think you have a package."
"Huh?" Eda blinked in surprise, "Who the heck would still be delivering mail in the middle of recovering from an apocalypse?"
"Well, you know what they say, hoot! Neither boiling rain, nor rampaging fairy swarms, nor horrific nighttime beasts!" Hooty recited cheerfully.
"…Is that really how the expression goes here?" Camila asked, feeling like she should be more horrified than she was.
"Wouldn't surprise me," Luz replied with a shrug, still carrying King as she and the others all followed Eda outside to see what Alador was talking about.
To everyone's surprise, there was indeed a large crate lying on the ground outside the Owl House. It was awash with colorful swirls and star patterns, and had an envelope pinned to one side, clearly marked "To King, Luz, and Eda". Having a good idea what this was, King hopped out of Luz's arms and ran over to the envelope, tearing it open and taking out the letter inside.
"Dear King and everyone," he read out loud, "Was on my way out of the solar system when I realized that you probably don't have a portal to the Human Realm anymore, so here's everything you need to make one. Except for Titan's Blood, but King has plenty of that. Anyway, just piece everything together and install it in a doorway, and you're good to go. Love, Collector."
"Aw, that's nice of them," Luz said once King was done, "And really convenient, since this means now we don't have to spend who knows how long trying to recreate the portal by ourselves!"
"Assuming that this isn't some kind of last-minute trap," Darius grumbled. At everyone's look, he held up his hands in annoyance, "What? I cannot be the only one still wary of that thing after everything it did!"
"Hey, Collector wouldn't do that!" King snapped defensively, "He just didn't know any better, now he does!"
"Yeah, and they did save us from Belos when they didn't have to," Willow chimed in, "I think they're trustworthy now that they know that how they were acting was wrong."
"I'm with the kids on this one, Darius, so either help out or shut up, cause we're doing this," Eda said firmly. He scoffed in response, but nevertheless helped pry the crate open, revealing the various components of the new portal door arrayed inside, "Sweet! Shouldn't take too long to put this all together and stick it in my front door."
"Wait, that's where you want to install it?" Raine asked, glancing at the Owl House's open front door.
"Sure, why not? It's as good as any other doorway," Eda said with a shrug, "If nothing else, now we can have Hooty as a security system on it to make sure that no one ever tries to steal it from me again."
"No problem, Eda, I'll protect it with my life!" Hooty declared, twisting his body to slam his head against it in a salute, before adding with a chipper smile, "And the fun part is, now I can be the first thing to greet anyone who visits the Isles, hoot!"
There was a moment of silence as everyone considered that, then they all shuddered in shared horror.
"On second thought, maybe we should build this thing literally anywhere else," Eda admitted with a grimace.
"Actually, how about we just have Hootsifer stay in his porta-house fulltime?" Lilith asked, "Honestly, it probably works better for everyone."
"You just want to keep him close by, don't you?" Eda asked teasingly.
"After seeing him get turned into basically a cuckoo clock? Yes," Lilith admitted honestly, Hooty wrapping around her in a comforting hug.
"Fine, whatever works for you," Eda replied with a shrug, before turning to the rest of the group, "Now, all the rest of you freeloaders either pitch in or get outta here, we got a lot of work to do here."
Luz smiled as she watched the whole group start working to pull the components of the portal out of the crate, with various levels of willing compliance. This really was great, just seeing nearly everyone she cared about all in one place, all working together, and without any looming threats.
This was just perfect, she thought… and then winced as a sudden sharp pain momentarily jabbed through her head.
"Luz? You okay?" Amity asked, noticing the look on Luz's face.
"Yeah, I'm fine, hermosa. Just a headache," she replied, quickly shaking it off, "Probably just exhaustion from everything catching up with me."
"I'd be surprised if it wasn't," Amity said, face scrunched up in thought, "If you want, you can probably sit this out and rest, we can handle it without you pushing yourself."
Luz smiled in appreciation of the concern, and gave Amity a quick peck on the cheek, giggling lightly at the resulting blush.
"Thanks, sweet potato, but like I said, I'm fine. And I want to help. Now come on, let's go pitch in," she said. With that, the two walked over to the others, joining in the effort to rebuild the connection between the two realms.
And all the while, no one noticed how Luz's eyes momentarily flashed black and gold…
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A/N: Well, that seems like a good place to end this intro chapter. I know that it was mostly just a lot of internal exposition and info-dumping, but I figured it best to get everyone caught up on everything now and get it out of the way before we get to the real plot.
To address the elephant in the room of that closing sentence, I'll be blunt – despite canon making it clear that Luz's Titan powerup was temporary, in this story she still has traces of it that will eventually lead to her getting it back in full. Why? Because Titan Luz was one of the coolest things in the history of western animation, I want more of it, and since it's my story, I'll do what I want. Besides, I'm far from the first person to ever use that plot idea, why shouldn't I do my own take on it?
And if you noticed that the Collector was referred to by both he/him and they/them pronouns, I'm just going by how the show used both, so no complaining about it, okay?
To be clear, I'm going to try and keep things in this story as on track as possible to what we saw in the epilogue, but if anything does end up contradicting it, let's just call it a minor AU.
Okay, I think that's everything for now. So, until next time, please review!