Work Text:
When they first broke through the mist and saw Luz and Hunter on the little island, Gus thought he was looking at some erstwhile unknown part of his friend’s cosplay. His brain scrambled to recall whether any character in Cosmic Frontier had horns or green body paint but rammed up against the unassailable fact that this was not cosplay. Cosplay did not ripple and writhe like that.
“Is that Hunter?” Camila asked in confusion.
No. No it was not. The horns, the stripes of rotten flesh, the cruel smirk. None of that was Hunter. Fear prickled along Gus’s skin with the dawning realisation of what he was seeing.
“Something's wrong,” he said, already reaching for his link with Emmiline even as parts of Luz and Hunter’s conversation floated to them on the cool night air.
“See, this is why you're so useful, Luz.” Hunter’s intonation was so sharp you could cut yourself on his consonants. He did not sound at all like himself. Gus knew who he sounded like. But that was impossible. It was impossible. “You're so desperate to help people, you even helped me meet The Collector.”
Amity drew back as if stung. “What?”
“I didn't mean to!” Luz cried, not looking at them. As if everything else was not obvious enough, Flapjack sat on her shoulder, not Hunter’s. “I thought I was doing something good!”
“You did do something good.” Not-Hunter looked down at his hands, where his skin twisted with green and brown corruption. Gus saw it and his stomach lurched with recognition.
That might have been Hunter’s body but the person speaking to them was Belos.
But how? Belos was dead. They all saw him die. And they had been here in the Human Realm for months. How could Belos be here now? Why would he be here now?
The Titan’s blood. He’s here for the Titan’s blood.
“I thought this one was another lost cause,” Belos purred, looking at Hunter’s hands with admiration, as if Hunter was just some experiment he had been tweaking until it finally worked the way he wanted it to.
Gus abandoned his questions, gut twisted up with rage that Belos would dare to come back and immediately treat Hunter like he was something and not someone. His hand closed on Emmiline.
“Because of you, we can finish our work as witch-hunters,” Belos smiled, pronouncing the word with enormous pride. “Starting with them!” He reached in their direction – and kept reaching, arm elongating far beyond normal capacity, stretching across the water with claw-tipped fingers.
Amity deflected it with Ghost. It splattered into pieces but immediately reformed and swung around. Gus didn’t think: he, Amity and Willow took flight as if they were of one mind, zipping over the water toward Luz and Belos.
Gus instinctively created copies of himself to harmlessly draw fire while Amity raised a hand, drawing a spell circle that launched abomination ooze to grab and restrain Belos. However, Belos brought his putrid arm around again, smashing through one of Gus’s copies and the ooze, rendering it nothing more than purple dust with the force of his hit.
“Hey Belos. Remember me?”
Gus manoeuvred another illusion to circle Belos, drawing his attention, hoping Willow would take the opportunity to call up vines or some other kind of restraints. They needed to hold Belos still so they could figure out how to make him stop possessing Hunter’s body without hurting the real Hunter.
Because that was definitely what was happening here. Gus had learned about possession in school. He had never seen one in real life, yet what else could it be? Belos was controlling Hunter’s body, his curse travelling with his soul no matter the flesh he wore.
This was Hunter’s own personal nightmare. Not only was Belos not dead, he was controlling and hurting him again in this world, where Hunter was supposed to have been safe from his abusive uncle. The Human Realm was Hunter’s second chance; the place where he was free to be his true self and not worry about being slapped down for not being who Belos created him to be.
Gus could only imagine how terrifying this must be for the real Hunter. Was he conscious behind Belos’s possession? Could he tell what was going on? Or had Belos locked him away somewhere in his own head and was truly treating him like a tool made to be used, not a person with his own autonomy?
Gritting his teeth, Gus soared around, watching as Willow grabbed the elongated arm again and Vee attempted to drain Belos out of their friend by force. It was awful, seeing Hunter’s body writhe in pain as it was dragged toward her in ropes of glowing power, but Gus told himself that was Belos, not Hunter, and they were just doing what was necessary to save their friend.
Abruptly, a memory flashed across Gus’s brain: one of their first nights in the Human Realm, when he had woken on the couch to find Hunter sobbing in his sleep, begging for his uncle to stop hurting him. Gus had shaken him awake and awkwardly comforted the older boy, promising that he had friends now who would protect him from anything that tried to harm him.
“You’re safe now, buddy. Trust me. I wouldn’t mess with you.”
Belos cried out in pain and anger, drawing back his other arm, claws sharpening.
“Vee, watch out!”
Amity arrowed past before it could crush the little basilisk, dumping her on the far bank. Willow leapt backward, landing lightly, her expression one of worry and rage. Immediately, she got back on Clover to fly back into the fray, Amity on her heels. Gus banked around, bracing his feet on Emmiline’s staff to make more copies now that two clawed arms were trying to hit them.
“Hunter!” Willow shouted. “Please! Fight him!”
She drew a spell circle and a pair of thornless vines erupted from the ground, wrapping around Belos’s stolen shoulders. His arms shortened, clawing at these restraints, and more vines grabbed his wrists and circled his waist, pulling him down to his knees.
“Release me, witch!” he thundered.
Willow landed in front of him and, despite the danger, grabbed his face between her palms to force him to look at her. He tried to bite her but she held firm. “Fight him, Hunter! You’re in there, I just know it. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. Fight him! Don’t let him win! You’re not his puppet anymore! I believe in you!”
And despite the impossibility of it, Gus saw Belos’s blue irises flicker and revert to magenta. For a moment, it was Hunter looking out of his own eyes, wide with fear and panic.
“Get away from me, Captain,” he wheezed, his voice strained as if he was exerting a massive amount of effort just to speak. “R … run!”
“Hunter?” Willow gave a grateful smile. “Hold on, we’re going to –”
“You can’t save me,” Hunter said desperately. “He’ll kill you. Please, run! I’m begging you. Leave me.”
“Don’t say that.” Resolution consumed Willow’s voice like a column of fire. “We’re going to get you out of this.”
“Please. I c-can’t hold h-him –” Hunter yelped and his head dropped forward, eyes squeezed shut.
“Hunter!” She lifted his chin – only to find herself staring into ethereal blue eyes.
“Not quite,” Belos smirked.
Willow became fury incarnate without doing more than angling her eyebrows down. “Let him go, Belos!”
“Hmm, no, I don’t think I will. Though your influence is something that needs to be removed to make him more biddable.”
His horns surged forward to pick her up and throw her. Willow landed in the water with a splash and a shriek. Belos stood, in the same motion tearing through her vines like they were made of tissue paper and shoving his overlong arms into the water to hold her down.
“Willow!”
Luz sprinted to the shore’s edge. Flapjack transformed into a staff and carried her over the thrashing water. Luz slapped an ice glyph between her palms. It sliced through the two arms, forcing the ends still attached to Belos to retract. Fresh hands pushed through the stumps, regenerating quickly. He did not seem overly bothered by this, though the cursed flesh stretched further across his face as if in response.
Willow did not resurface.
“Willow!” Luz screamed.
Amity flew to her side, thrusting hands made of abomination ooze into the water. “His hands … they’re still holding her down there even though you cut them off! I … I can’t break their grip!”
“You children are too weak to stop me,” Belos laughed. “You’re little more than an irritation. But since you insist on being a thorn in my side once again, let’s get serious, shall we?”
Gus realised too late that he had lost focus as he watched Amity grope around in the water to bring Willow back to the surface. He tried to fly away but Belos’s hand bullwhipped out, grabbing him by the throat and dragging him off Emmiline with a painful jerk. He brought them nose to nose, giving Gus an up close and personal look into his glowing blue eyes. They were empty and cold like the eyes of a snake about to strike.
“Gus!” Vee darted about on the far shore, unable to cross now that the ice bridge had been smashed. “Hang on! We’re coming!”
“Oh right, I do remember you.” Belos’s gaze burned into Gus’s as he dangled in his monstrous grip. “What a wonderful reunion. Oh, and Hunter is screaming again. You and the little plant witch certainly do mean a lot to him, don’t you? Yes, you’ll do nicely.”
Gus felt the grip around his throat tighten. His airway closed. He scrabbled, dragging his short fingernails over Belos’s cursed skin, but could not break his hold.
“Now, Hunter,” Belos hummed, smiling with what seemed like actual joy. “Let’s just see how you hurt your best friend by your own hands, shall we? Shall we feel what it’s like to crush his bones under your palm? I imagine it will be quite satisfying – for me.”
Gus gasped for oxygen. Black spots blotted the edges of his vision. He dimly heard voices calling his name but they blended together too much for him to tell them apart. All he could really focus on was Belos, wearing his friend’s face, smirking as he choked the life out of him and enjoyed every moment of it.
Belos’s other hand trembled and raised jerkily. The glowing blue eyes shifted to look at it.
“Truly? You think you can wrest control back from me faster than I can snap his neck, Hunter?”
It was a monumental effort but Gus pushed out, “F … fight … him … Hun … ter …”
“Oh, he’s fighting,” Belos chuckled. “He’s been fighting since the very beginning. You all have taught him such terrible habits. I never had such trouble with insubordination from him before. I should kill you all for that alone. You ruined my Golden Guard. Do you know how long I spent training him? He was the perfect, pliable little pet and you undid all my hard work in a matter of months.”
The black spots merged together and encroached into Gus’s vision. He felt light-headed. His struggles diminished as his strength left him like water leaking from a punctured plastic cup.
The hand not holding him dropped. Belos smiled wider.
“That’s better, nephew. For the sake of expediency, I can agree to those terms.”
Without preamble, he tossed Gus aside. Gus had time to drag in a single pained breath before he hit the water and the cold stole it away again. He struggled weakly but sank like a stone.
Was this truly how he died? He never even got to see his dad again …
Strong hands hooked under his arms and pulled. Gus’s head broke the surface but the air seemed even colder than the water, freezing his throat and lungs into ice. Gus’s mouth opened and closed but he still could not get any oxygen. His body bumped against something and he felt himself laid on his side. Then a hand slapped between his shoulder blades and a stream of water launched from his throat. Gus coughed and sucked in a juddering lungful of air.
“Easy, easy, I’ve got you,” Camila assured him, rubbing his back. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”
“Gus!” Vee knelt beside him. “Deep breaths, buddy.”
Gus weakly opened his eyes. “Hun … ter …” He blinked, trying to focus.
Mostly all he saw was dirt and grass but he managed to lever his head up enough to see Willow laying on her back nearby. Her shoulders were a mess, leaking blood from puncture wounds that had clearly come from Belos’s claws while he held her under the water. Amity propped her upright. Luz stared across the water with an expression Gus could only characterise as ‘shocked dread’. He lifted his head more, trying to see what she was looking at.
Belos uncorked the phial of Titan’s blood and poured a tiny amount onto one grotesque palm. He raised this and rubbed it on the symbol atop the entrance to the portion of the graveyard over there. As Gus watched, still fighting to breathe, an undulating sea of magic coalesced in the centre. It wavered and flickered, slightly translucent, but it was recognisably a portal.
“No!” Luz cried. “Hunter!”
Belos recorked the phial. It was still mostly full. He turned back to smirk at them once more. “Hunter’s being very quiet like a good boy in exchange for me not killing his little friends. I often told him that caring about anyone but family makes you weak but he never believed me. Don’t make his efforts in vain by doing anything stupid now, Luz. For the good of your soul, stay in this world with the other humans. I’ll be back to take care of things here once I’ve finished what I started in the Boiling Isles.”
With that, he walked into the portal and disappeared.
“No!” Willow tried to get to her feet but stumbled in pain. “Stop! Hunter!”
“Flapjack, quick!” Luz propelled Hunter’s palisman towards the portal. “We have to get him back!”
Flapjack shot through the air – and right through the graveyard entrance when the portal became briefly translucent. Luz turned him around, flying at the unsteady portal once more but its magic evaporated before she could touch it, leaving only empty space where it had been.
“No, no, no, no, no!” Luz screamed.
The portal was gone.
So was the Titan’s blood.
So was Hunter.
For the second time in his life, Gus lay on the ground in the Human Realm and sobbed for what they had lost.