Myself Lost
The Dread Hunter, as Luz had taken to calling it, vanished after Amity left. She thanked that whatever lord and master currently served as the arbiter of her fate decided to chill it with the mental torment for a little while. Once the rapid beating of her heart stopped, and the voices in her head finally shut up, Luz stepped outside to the shock and awe of everyone out there.
By this point, she had hidden the concealment stone under her costume. Seeing how Amity had clocked the illusory stone within seconds of making visible contact with her, Luz figured she would rather keep the questions to a minimum.
“So… how do I look?” She asked nervously, watching the stunned faces of her friends and family. No one spoke anything; nary a word was ever merely whispered. “Co-- come on guys. Please, say something.”
Another moment of tense silence followed as the others in the room tried to put the words together that matched how they felt. Even without saying anything, Luz knew that they were trying to be delicate about her feelings… for some reason it made her feel sick to her stomach.
“Honey, you look like you used to.” Her mother nervously said, slowly bridging the gap between the two of them. Luz’s mom reached out, swiftly grabbing the damn Hunter-strand and tucking it behind her ear. “How is this possible?”
Luz felt like she was just stabbed in the chest. She goes through all the effort to get back to how she used to look, wanting to feel like herself again after looking in the mirror and no longer seeing the person that she was supposed to be, and the first thing her mother does is ask her how she did it? She quickly stamped down the rising tide of negative emotion surging to the surface and tried to put on a neutral look, casting a glance to Gus as if to ask for help.
Luckily for Luz, Gus apparently got the picture, shooting an understanding look to her and speaking up. “Who knows how these things work, the way that she was healed has been lost for generations. The change in appearance was likely just some kind of temporary side effect.”
Her mom considered the information before smiling warmly. “Alright, sorry. This is all so new to me. I’m still trying to play catch up with the rules.”
“It’s alright, mama,” Luz assured, pulling her mom into a hug. Shortly following, the woman let go and set off into the Owl House, wanting to give the area another look over for anything that they could use before hitting the road, leaving Luz alone with Gus and Willow.
Luz apologetically approached Gus, who pensively eyed her up and down. “Thanks for covering for me.” She said, “I don’t think I’m ready to tell my mom the truth just yet.”
“It’s all good.” her friend assured. “Can I ask a question, though?”
“Sure.” She affirmed .
“Do you blame yourself?” He asked, slowly and softly.
“What?”
“I asked if you blame yourself.” Gus continued, his voice distorting. “Ever since Hunter… you know… you’ve been acting really weird.”
Luz gasped as suddenly a hand became perched on his shoulder, steadily being followed by the arm and body of a teenager wearing a black t-shirt with wolves on it. She shuffled uncomfortably as Gus seemed utterly unfazed by the static-eyed form of the Dread Hunter emerging from behind him.
“Yes, Luz,” It said, voice sounding like a pale mockery of Hunter’s emanating from its loosely hanging jaw. “Do you blame yourself?” With a sickening crackling noise it left Gus and began shambling forward whilst the sound of static filled her ears, drowning out the noise from the outside world. It moved for her at rate that appeared slow to the naked eye but was entirely faster than should be possible.
“Luz…”
The creature’s hand reached out for her. Luz got a good look at the gaping maw of the Dread Hunter, watching as the darkness from within receded to reveal rows of needle-like teeth seemingly constructed of blood and stone.
“Luz!”
It leaned in close, until it’s mouth was right next to her ear. “That stone can’t protect you, everyone knows it.”
“LUZ!”
Luz snapped back to reality. The Dread Hunter wasn’t there, just an extremely worried Willow and Gus who’ve been trying to get her attention.
“Luz, what is going on with you?” Willow asked, sincerely worried.
“Yeah,” Gus joined in “I asked where you found the concealment stone and you just kind of spaced out and were dead to the world.”
What? No, that wasn’t right. Gus asked if she blamed herself for Hunter dying. Didn’t he?
She very quickly decided she needed some air. “Don’t worry, I’m okay.” She muttered, before swiftly making her way out of the door.
It just didn’t make any sense. What was happening to her. Luz was either being haunted by Hunter, which she wouldn’t exactly blame him for but wouldn’t expect him to do, or she was losing her mind.
As she looked at her hand, images of it covered in green go and sharpened to a point flashing through her head, the second option was looking mighty clear. With a scream she kicked the ground, watching the dirt fly up.
“What are you doing?” She heard a bird tweet from behind her. Turning around she saw Flapjack, hovering very concerned. “He wouldn’t want this.”
“Shut up Flapjack!” She yelled, feeling a pang of guilt as the bird quivered. “I feel like I’m losing sight of who I am.”
As she kicked the soil a second time, she heard a faint noise from above, one that sounded vaguely video-gamey. In fact, as she thought about it, as the noise got closer and closer, she could make out a very specific trilling. It sounded like a warp star from Kirby. That was insane. Why was she hearing the sound of a warp star?
“Wow, losing my mind never felt so Nintendo.” She bitterly chuckled, kicking the dirt again. However, she stood corrected as the noise crescendoed and shot past with a violent whip of the wind. Looking up after it, she saw an actual shooting star, one that had two small figures on it. As the star put in distance between her and it at frighteningly fast speeds, Luz was only able to identify one of the entities riding on it, a small house-cat sized demon with two horns. “King?”
_
Philip finally arrived back at his old workstation, greeting the old false wall he put up with a smile. Swiftly he retrieved his dagger from his satchel, drawing the blade across his palm and slapping it against the wall with a hiss of pain. He waited a second until he was certain enough blood pooled against the stone, removing his hand and watching green goop stitch the flesh back together.
Gripping it strongly into a fist, Philip raised his left hand and traced a glyph pattern out of the blood, hoping that the magic of the Isles still held its properties even in these times of uncertainty and chaos. With the last of the glyph patterns painted, Philip slapped his hand against it, sending out his willpower to activate the mechanisms to open the door. After a moment, a loud click sounded out, and the rock shrunk away from him and moved into position to reveal the entrance to his old workstation.
With a smile, Philip stalked forward into the laboratory, snapping his fingers twice to cause the lights he installed in the workstation to flicker active one by one. “Home sweet home,” He joked, listening into the cavernous structure as his voice echoed back to him.
He set out to work collecting the gear he would need. The major thing he was after ended up being rather simple; he needed one of his old staves. After going room to room, wading through discarded staff carcasses and his old failed attempts for the Grimwalkers, Philip eventually found his prize, a teleportation-capable technological staff. “There you are.” He grinned maniacally,
Gripping the length of the staff, Philip ran his thumb across the stem until he found the button to activate it, pressing down on it. Annoyingly, the staff didn’t light up with the familiar red glow for more than a second, fizzling out almost instantly. “Of course,” He sighed, ambling over to the old charging system and docking the staff inside. He glared at the battery indicator, watching after an eternally long minute as the battery went up one bar out of fifteen. This was going to be a while.