A True Witch (Part 1)

Agonizing Success

"How did you escape the bubble!?" the Collector demanded, "No one can escape the bubbles! That isn't fair!"

Luz scoffed at the being's whines as she staggered forward, skin feeling like it was being stretched from her bones and muscles changing as her blood pumped through her veins and the curse surged through her body. It looked like it was in a constant fight with itself, simultaneously destroying and repairing itself. Stray goo of the curse fell from Luz's fingertips, mixing with the blood on the floor.

"I get you're mad about Philip but he was the worst!"

Luz didn't respond, just getting closer and closer to the Collector. She began to hunch over as her arms and legs were getting too long and heavy to comfortably walk upright with. The corner of her lip twitched in and out of a smile, like she was trying to contain laughter after hearing a joke only she got.

When she finally got up to the Collector, she towered over them, even while she was hunched over. Even the up until now unflappable Collector seemed disturbed from the sight and flinched when they felt Luz's hot breath right against their face.

"I blamed myself for so long," Luz growled, voice sounding distorted, but not like before where it was like her and Philip's voices were mixing but rather like she was making a robotic echo in her throat, "For Belos finding the light glyph, for the draining spell, for everything that happened to my friends, for getting manipulated...but I'm over that. He wouldn't have needed the glyph if he wasn't looking for you. You taught him the draining spell. You gave him the magic that made everyone scared of him. You were the catalyst, not me. Because of you showing him all those awful spells, you made everyone scared of him, made them scared of me, made them hate me!"

Luz grabbed the Collector by the front of their onesie with one hand, the goo of the curse dripping onto the fabric, seeping into it. Her face was mere inches from the child god, and there was not an ounce of fear on her face.

"You are the reason I have nothing left to lose. And now, you're going to help me get something back by letting me kill you. Right here, right now."

The Collector's breath hitched. They had seen awful things, but they never expected it to come from Luz, their favorite human. Seeing her anger and growing sense of bloodlust was disturbing. For once in thousands of years, they felt so, so small compared to the person towering over them, voice dripping with malice, hatred, and undying devotion.

They had seen the face of commitment, the face of those who would die for a cause, of those who would do anything to get what they wanted. But they had never looked into the eyes of someone who had lost so much, they saw their cause as the only reason to live, as if they would not treat dying as failure, but see them as one of the same.

And those eyes were the very blue-brown ones he stared into. And for the first time in so long, they felt scared.

Luz threw them to the ground, and the Collector began to scoot away from her in terror, being so overwhelmed they momentarily forgot about any of their powers. Thankfully, they quickly remembered them and began to float up. Luz lunged at him, making her arm extend without even realizing she was. She grabbed them by the ankle and slammed them onto the ground again, creating a small crater in the ground. The Collector got up onto his hands and knees and snapped their fingers, turning themself invisible. Luz got a strange, splitting headache as she tried to look around. Faintly, she saw a shadow approaching her from an angle behind her. The corner of her lip quirked as she saw the shadow moving to be fully behind her. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and focused on the curse moving through her body, letting it turn her into the ultimate predator. She forgot about any fear or weariness she had felt about the curse, about what it was doing to her. She didn't even finch as the moment she sensed something close behind her her arm snapped in a way it shouldn't be able to and let it grab the being behind her. She could feel a silky soft fabric in her grasp. Her head snapped back 180 degrees and she tilted her head to the side.