"Hello?"
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1The ground shook and rumbled below the septet of witches and humans.
They could feel the ground shaking in their cores.
But the quaking only lasted a little while before fuchsia colored ribbons dropped from the star filled sky.
The seven stared at the neon ribbons in confusion, wondering what they were. But before they could say a syllable about it, the ribbons wrapped themselves around their arms and legs.
The ribbons were strict and firm. They tightened like boa constrictors around their limbs and lifted them from the ground.
"Hunter!" (Y/n) called out to him. She looked to her left to see Hunter was already looking at her, a worried expression laying on his face.
He reached his arms out to her, trying to reach her. "(Y/n)!" He called back.
But before they were able to grab onto one another, they were yanked apart and pulled up, into the darkened, midnight sky.
"Hunter!" (Y/n) yelled desperately as she saw his blond head disappear into the stars.
And then, once everyone was gone, the starry sky faded into obscurity and blackened to a void.
~~~
Hello?
Is anyone there?
Hunter?
Luz?
Amity?
Willow? Gus? Camila?
Can anyone hear me?
...
"This isn't a dream..."
Luz??
"This is a nightmare!"
.
.
.
"I've always just... followed orders." A voice said.
Hunter!
A setting began to fade in from the black void. They were back at the castle. (Y/n) could see the mossy green bricks that made up the wall of the balcony. And next to her was Hunter who stood in his navy blue shirt and yellow armored vest that he used to wear. He stared off the balcony and into the dark chasm beyond the castle.
(Y/n) found herself kneeling beside Hunter and gazing at the same eerie chasm as him. When she looked down at herself, she was back in her Silver Scout armor. The grey tunic and skirt that Darius had sewn her ages ago. She never got to properly thank him for it.
In the distance, farther than the chasm, was a stone bird. The bird adorned a slash-like scar on its eye. It was a cracked statue of Flapjack. And lying next to him, was a sleeping fox whose stone body was shattered and broken.
That's what they were staring at.
"I never thought about making friends or going to school." Hunter said. "Then I met Flapjack. He was more than a palisman. He was my best friend."
(Y/n) looked up to Hunter whose eyes were devoid of emotion. His eyes which once twinkled naturally were now blank and soulless.
"And then I lost him helping you." Hunter sneered angrily. It was only then that (Y/n) realized he was talking to Luz.
Luz was stood behind them, wearing the Emperor's tunic.
(Y/n)'s heart broke hearing Hunter's words. She wanted to lift her hand and place it on Hunter's just to tell him that she was there for him, but she couldn't move. Instead, her mouth opened and words began to speak for her.
"Pip." Was the only thing that her mouth whimpered in grief. Tears stung her eyes and she felt her chest sink. "He's gone because of you. They're gone because of you." Her mouth said.
No, that's not true, she wanted to yell. She knew it wasn't true! But then why was she saying it?
"But you still get to have your own palisman?" Hunter ranted in disbelief with tears in his eyes. "Why, Luz? Why do you get to have it all?"
Hunter crumbled to his knees beside (Y/n).
(Y/n) stared at him, unable to move and unable to speak. She felt like a puppet. "You don't really care about us, do you." Her mouth spoke.
"No, I- I do!" Luz pleaded and tried her best to contest the statement. "I love you guys! You're- you're my family! Please, Cousin (Y/n)!"
I know you do! Luz, I know you care!! (Y/n) tried to say. (Y/n) wanted to hug her and protect her. But she couldn't stand. Nor could she move.
"I'm sorry." Amity said as she, Willow and Gus stepped in front of Hunter and (Y/n). "But for the sake of everyone you hurt..."
"Please, no." Luz cried as she clutched onto her staff.
"I challenge you to a witch's battle!" Amity declared.
Luz paused for a moment, the tears from her eyes ceasing their flow down her cheeks. "Wait, say that again?"
And Amity said it again, "I said, I challenge you to a witch's battle!"
Luz stared at her, lowering her guard. "A- a witch's battle?" She asked with almost a smile on her face.
Luz walked up to her girlfriend, squishing her cheeks and playing with her ears. "You.. look like Amity... You feel like Amity... But you're not Amity, are you?" She smiled and backed away from the quintet before her, "You're not her! None of you are you!"
"How dare you!" Willow jeered, "Of course we're us!"
Luz grew a cocky smile on her face, "It's, "I challenge you to a witch's duel," not witch's battle. And the Amity I know would never misquote the Good Witch Azura. So come on, attack me. I know what's going on now."
Amity, enraged, charged at her girlfriend alongside Willow and Gus with full intent to harm until they were restrained by glowing pink ribbons.
"Luz?" Amity asked, her voice laced with confusion and worry.
"Amity! Is that you? Is it real you?" Luz ran over to the purple haired girl, holding her face in her palm.
"Yes! We've all been collected, including Camila." Amity replied hastily, "The Collector came from the sky and.."
"He's playing games with you, Luz!" Gus replied, his body being suspended in the air by pink ribbons. "He's trying to keep you away from King and Eda."
"But if you wanna save anyone, you have to wake up." Willow said.
Luz looked at the three before her who were tied to ribbons like puppets, "How!?" She yelled.
"Think about it." Hunter said. "What's the first thing you do when you wake up from a bad dream?"
"You turn on the light." Amity continued, holding Luz's hand in hers. They held a small paper with a light glyph on it.
(Y/n) finally felt in control of her own mouth again, "Go, Lu-" She tried to say before she was turned back into a soulless husk.
No!
Before she could finish her thought, she along with the other four were pulled up, into the sky, and back into the lightless void.
Only, this time her vision faded in quicker and it seemed more real?
(Y/n) tried to look around, but she couldn't move her eyes. Then she tried to stand up, but she found again that she still couldn't move an inch.
She could only see what was in front of her. Which was unfortunately the isle of puppets hanging from an ivory wall.
What the...
She thought.
She could feel someone's body touching her back. She assumed someone was laying next to her.
(Y/n) grew frustrated and antsy. Her frustration turned into anger and her antsy feelings turned into rage. She wanted to move and get out of wherever she was.
Wasn't the whole reason they returned to the demon realm was to defeat Belos??
How could she defeat Belos if she was stuck paralyzed in some stone chamber?
She heard a sound come from just a couple feet away from her head. It sounded like wooden blocks jostling together.
So there was someone near her after all...
It was Amity. Somehow and someway, she'd managed to break the paralysis ever so slightly to move her finger. She began etching the light glyph into the ground, eventually activating it.
"Oh my gosh, it worked!" (Y/n) heard her exclaim.
Amity?
Amity!!!
At the same time, (Y/n) felt herself unfreeze. Her unblinking, glass eyes closed and reopened rapidly, trying to moisten her stinging, dry eyes.
She heard stirring from behind her, coming from the person whose back she was pressed up against. Of course, as fate would have it, it was Hunter. (Y/n) stared at him with a strong desire to rest her head on his shoulder and pass out from exhaustion. But before she could, Amity spoke words that made (Y/n)'s blood run cold.
"Miss Lilith?" Amity had asked aloud. She hadn't seen her old mentor since the witch's duel ages ago against (Y/n).
"Lilith?!" (Y/n) exclaimed, darting her head away from Hunter and to her mother.
Lilith was hung right in (Y/n)'s blind spot—just where she couldn't see in her paralyzed state. She was hung from concrete walls by a string attached to her arms.
"Mom!" (Y/n) cried out as she ran towards her. It was only then that she realized that she, along with the other four witches, were stuck on a floating platform. (Y/n) felt like she could almost reach Lilith, but she was just out of reach.
Lilith looked different than (Y/n) had remembered. She now had short hair which was newly orange, along with her glasses missing. But nevertheless, Lilith still looked like Lilith, even in this frozen puppet state.
"It's so good to see you again..." (Y/n) confessed aloud, "Even if it is.. in this state. Don't worry, We'll get you down from there and unfreeze you... I was so worried, Lilith. I thought you were... but I told myself you couldn't be. Because you're too tough to be taken down by the Collector! You're- you're a wanted criminal, after all! Well.. I guess not anymore now that Belos isn't the Emperor anymore, huh..." (Y/n) spoke her mind to Lilith, thinking she couldn't hear her, but little did she know—Lilith was hearing every word that (Y/n) spoke to her. However, it just felt relieving to finally talk to Lilith again after all this time.
"Where the heck are we?!" Gus yelled once he came into consciousness. He gazed around at the stone shelves of puppets, hoping maybe he'd see his father. But alas, he didn't.
"These must be the archives." Willow said, gazing at the frozen people. She hoped for the same thing Gus did—to see her dads in the isles of puppets, but just like him, she saw no one.
"Camila!" Gus exclaimed once he saw the woman hanging by a string. "Willow, help me get her down."
"Guys..?" Amity asked, her tone, terrified and worried. "Where's Luz?"
It was only then that (Y/n) realized she hadn't thoroughly done a head count. One, two, three, four others. Five including herself.
So where was Luz?
Willow and Gus pulled out their Palismen and began to approach Camila, trying to take her down from her hanging place in the stone shelf. But just before they reached her, the archives were flooded with small orbs of light.
"Hey guys! It's Luz!" (Y/n) said with a smile on her face. She recalled trying to learn spanish in the human realm and finding out that, 'luz' meant 'light' in spanish. The other four chuckled at her joke but still wondered what the orbs were.
The orbs were small—couldn't have been any larger than a baseball.
"What is this..?" Amity mumbled. They were orbs of light, yet they weren't unfreezing any of the puppets.
"Where are they going?" (Y/n) asked, watching the orbs as they sauntered around the archive. She noticed it was like they travelled in a pack. And the pack floated in front of Camila as a tear fled down the elder woman's cheek. (Y/n) squinted her eyes, "Is she.. crying?"
The five witches felt their skin run cold. Why was Camila crying? What had happened?
"Hurry! Get her down from there!" Hunter hastily commanded.
Willow and Gus promptly nodded and flew up to Camila on their palismen. They lifted her off of the hook she hung from and brought her down to the floating platform where the rest of them stood.
Amity quickly drew the light glyph and woke Camila up.
"Wha—what's happening?" She asked, blinking her eyes to adjust to the light, "Where's Luz?"
Nobody could answer Camila because nobody knew where Luz was. Of course, that didn't sit well with Camila as she grew nervous. But before she could say anything more, the archives began to rumble beneath them and the ceiling began to crack.
Amity tried to conjure a shield of abomination goo above her head but the matter just spilled onto her head. "What.. What's wrong with my magic?" She panicked.
"Can't you tell? You're exhausted. You all are! None of you have gotten rest in days." Camila said as she comforted Amity.
"But what can we do? We can't leave everyone like this." Willow interjected, gesturing to all of the puppets hanging around them.
"And what about Luz..?" Hunter added. Amity's lip quivered as she worried about her girlfriend.
"Luz is a Noceda." Camila interjected as she wrapped an arm around Amity, "You know what that means? It means she's way too stubborn to let any of this get her down."
The rest of the witches were filled with hope for her as they smiled to one another.
"She'll be okay." Camila sighed. "In the meantime, I think I know how we can help, even without your magic." Camila pulled out a pencil and a notepad and swiftly began drawing glyphs.
Everyone seemed to have gotten the memo and immediately got to work getting people down from the stone brick shelves. But the Archive began to shake and rumble, causing parts of the ceiling to crumble from above them until, eventually, the southernmost wall collapsed and created a window to the Isles.
(Y/n) looked out to the Titan to see it covered in green matter. "Um.. Hunter..?" She called out.
Hunter ran over to her and stood to her left. He looked at her first to see what was wrong, but when she didn't meet his eyes, he followed her line of sight to see the Titan covered in an oddly familiar green. "What...?" He mumbled in disbelief.
"It looks like mycelium..?"
"Or moss.." Hunter added, "Or.. Belos..?"
"What?" They could see into the chest cavity—where the castle resided—as it glowed an emerald green. And in the chest cavity stood a monster larger than the castle. It roared with an inhumane anger and rage. But the monster was a horrible, familiar green with black stripes scattered all over its body.
Hunter cringed at the sight as unpleasant memories began to play in his head.
"Hey, come on." (Y/n) said, trying to get his mind off of the memories, "Let's go help the others." She took his hand into hers and interlocked their fingers.
The two ran over to Camila to grab glyphs from her. The woman handed (Y/n) three plant glyphs and handed Hunter three ice glyphs. And from there, the pair split to help the rest of the group.
The first thing (Y/n) did after being handed the plant glyphs was get Lilith down. She gave Lilith a hug as soon as she landed in her arms; she was elated to finally see her mother again.
But then the chambers shook again, this time more violently. It felt like the whole Archive was falling from the sky. That's because it was...
The Archive, which hovered above the titan's skull, began to succumb to gravity and fall from its place in the darkened sky. As the Archive fell, so did the witches inside until, suddenly, the Archive was caught by glowing, fluorescent ribbons.
The sextet looked up, into the sky where the ceiling used to be, to see the Collector. The Collector held the ribbons in his hands and held up the Archive with all of his might.
"The Collector?" (Y/n) mumbled. "Is he—"
"He's helping!" Gus exclaimed.
The Collector, as small as he was, held the entire archive up with just his hands, enough for the sextet to continue taking the puppets off of the walls. But the green matter that was growing over the Titan's body was growing onto the Collector's hands as well.
The emerald gunk weakened the Collector; his arms shook and his grip on the ribbons began to falter. But just before his arms gave out, a blinding explosion of purple and black light echoed across the land.
And suddenly, the glowing in the Titan's chest ceased. Once the glowing faded, the mycelium that laced the Titan's body began to dissolve into dust as well.
As soon as he knew it was safe to, the Collector slowly lowered the Archive onto the Titan's skull. And once the Archive was safely secured on top of the titan's skull, he collapsed and landed in front of the sextet of witches in the Archive.
The Collector's breath was stagnant and tired as he rested on the floor. But he forced himself to look up at the witches before him before ducking his head and shielding it with his arms. He quivered as he protected himself from them. But when nothing happened, he peeked his head back up only to see Amity reaching out to him and offering him her hand.
Upon seeing her hand held out to him, the Collector began to tear up. He took Amity's hand and stood up, racing to the crumbled wall to gaze upon the Isles.
The other six followed him and watched the sun rise and the mycelium dissolve from the bones of the Titan.
Had Belos been stopped? Was Luz able to do it? Where was she? The whole group wondered.
Once all of the mycelium had disappeared, the Collector began unfreezing people and created a staircase of stars to let everyone down from the Archive.
"Collector..?" (Y/n) asked, timidly. The young child turned to his new friend and looked up at her to see an orange haired woman in her arms. "Would you mind unfreezing her, please..?"
The Collector smiled and gladly nodded. "Of course Ellal-.. um, (Y/n)." His smile faded when he realized his slip up. He worried terribly that (Y/n) would hate him for it.
But (Y/n) smiled back to the Collector, "You think you could tell me a little more about Grimwalkers another time..? And maybe what Ellaline and Caleb were like?" She asked him.
His smile returned to his face and he nodded happily before unfreezing Lilith.
The woman blinked her eyes, lubricating them before looking at (Y/n). "Oh, (Y/n)!!" She smiled uncontrollably as she hugged her daughter and twirled her around.
"Lilith!" (Y/n) held her tight and melted into the embrace.
Meanwhile, Hunter stood a few feet away from them, watching them reunite. A happy smile was on his face; he was happy for (Y/n).
(Y/n) noticed him standing alone and ran over to him. She grabbed his hand and brought him over to Lilith.
Lilith stared at the former Golden Guard as Hunter stared back at the former Coven Leader.
"Lilith, this is my boyfriend, Hunter! Hunter, this is my mother!" (Y/n) introduced them to one another, trying to get them to start anew and put their strained past behind them.
"Hi, I'm Lilith." She smiled and held out her hand to the blond boy, deciding that whatever beef they had in the past was meaningless now.
Hunter smiled uncontrollably and shook her hand. "I'm Hunter. It's nice to meet you." He said to her. They'd both changed so much ever since they were in the coven together. They were essentially new people and basically strangers to one another.
Hunter talked to Lilith until he felt someone roughly ruffle his hair. He turned around, ready to yell at the person only to see Darius and Eberwolf. He was speechless. But nevertheless, he smiled.
He got to tell Darius about the sewing contraption in the human realm and how he'd sewn his own shirt, and he got to tell Darius what wolves were which seemed to entertain Eberwolf.
And once everyone was unfrozen and reunited with their families, Amity approached the Collector asking where Luz was.
The Collector snapped his fingers and created a portal to the Owl House for them.
Even though Amity had asked, Lilith was the first one to enter. She wanted to see her sister now more than ever.
(Y/n) followed her with Hunter in tow. "Luz!" She exclaimed, charging towards her the second she stepped out of the portal.
"Cousin (Y/n)!!" The pair embraced one another before they heard Amity exit the portal.
(Y/n) promptly made way for Amity and moved to the side as the purple haired girl embraced her girlfriend.
"Is this our happy ending?" Hunter asked (Y/n) as they stood next to one another.
"With Belos gone and the Collector turning everyone back, I think it is..." (Y/n) tilted her head to rest on Hunter's shoulder and kissed him on the cheek.
Hunter moved so that he was facing her and held her face in his hands. "I love you, (Y/n)." He told her.
"I love you too, Goldilocks." She replied back to him as she tippy toed to kiss his lips.
She turned her head to rest on his chest as he rested his head on hers. She could hear his heartbeat and listened to the rhythm of each beat.