It was with a bit of satisfaction that Luz noted that Mephisto seemed startled at her declaration.
"What?" She asked playfully. "You said you wanted me to have the power of the Titan," she said. "You wanted me to be a Queen in Black, a font of Anti-Life. You orchestrated my rise to power so you could use me to capture the Collector. So why are you surprised? You made sure I had everything I needed so that when you struck me down, I'd return more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
"...Did you just paraphrase Star Wars at me?" Mephisto asked, incredulously.
"Yes. Is it ticking you off?" Luz quipped back.
In response, Mephisto fired a blast of Hellfire at Luz that she was able to block with a simple shield spell.
"Yeah, turns out I'm a heck of a lot stronger than I thought I was or let myself be," Luz said, "and honestly, I'm wondering if that hasn't been the case for a while."
Luz then dashed forward, a spell she'd seen Hunter and Flapjack use several times, and slashed at Mephisto with Toda Mi Amestad. The devil screamed as Luz moved past him, and on the other side, she bent over to pick up the hand she'd severed, its stump still smoking from where the evil thing had been burned by contact with the embodiment of the pure love and friendship within Luz's soul.
"You know, it took me a little bit to pull my body back together," Luz said, "so I had a minute to plan out how to defeat you, all sorts of epic final battle scenarios went through my head. But then it hit me... This isn't one of my fantasy novels. Despite all of this," she said while posing to show off her Titan form, "I'm not the chosen one and you're not the big bad. I'm just a girl who wants to have fun doing cool magic stuff with my friends, and you're just a spiritual parasite with delusions of grandeur. And honestly, even if we were, epic fights have never been what my story has been about, and honestly, a pathetic creature like you doesn't deserve one, so... Let's just cut to the chase so we can get back to what's really important."
"And how, pray tell, do you intend to do that?" Mephisto asked with bravado.
Luz looked over to where he friends and family were standing, all too shocked at her return until now to say something, "Hey, Sweet Potato? You remember when I tried to show you more human rock music and we went to the musical career of an actor who was in some movies I liked, and it turns out his band is a lot less family-friendly?"
"...Yes!" Amity confirmed as the question shook her out of her surprise at Luz's return. "Getting something so vulgar was a real shock and... why are you asking?"
"Didn't the plot of that song... Remind you of something?" Luz said. "Back when we first tangled with this jerk."
"A little bit, yeah. What the lead singer said when challenging... Oh." Amity said in realization.
"To answer your question, Mephisto," Luz said as intricate glyph combos appeared all over the devil's severed hand, with more appearing in the air around him, "I'm gonna complete the reference I unintentionally started back then."
"...No," Mephisto said quietly as chains erupted from the glyphs around him and bound him to the ground.
"From whence you came..." Luz carefully enunciated as she worked the magic.
"No no no no no!" Mephisto said as the glyphs moved, forcing him to the ground.
"...You shall remain..." Luz wasn't sure if she actually needed to say the lines, but she wasn't 100% sure what exactly being blessed by the Goddess of Witchcraft had done to her magic. If nothing else, it wasn't hurting.
"You can't do this to me!" The devil screamed as a glyph on the ground behind him trasnformed into a swirling red portal.
"...Until you are..."
Mephisto tried to scream something profane before more magical changes bound his face so all that came out were indignant, muffled gasps.
"...Complete again!"
He managed to scream through the gag as the glymphs chaining him down loverlapped with the portal, and he was dragged in a flash back where he belonged, the portal closing behind him shortly afterward. The glyphs covering the severed hand Luz was holding dimmed, but she noted that they were now scarred into the flesh as it withered and curled into a tight, mummified fist.
All around them, the other portals vanished, and the assorted fiends and monsters that had poured forth from them vanished, banished back to the pit with their master.
And then people from all over the multiverse started cheering.
"Okay," Luz said, "where's Ki—"
Luz could not finish her sentence as she was tackled to the ground by a ball of crying cotton candy.
"Amity?" Luz asked. "What's wrong?" Her girlfriend looked her in the eye with tears in her own, and Luz immediately understood. "Oh, I'm dumb."
"Okay," came Eda's voice as the witch in question appeared, "as her girlfriend, you're entitled to be the most dramatic now that the jerk is gone and the danger has passed and we can all let out our non-anger/relief emotions but social etiquette dictates that when a literal child dies and comes back to life in order to stop a derraged plot that the family gets first dibs on hugs."
"Says who?" Amity said with a sniff.
"Says me, Boots," Eda said while pulling Amity and Luz back up to a standing position.
With great reluctance, Amity released Luz and Eda... Was pushed aside by Luz's mom, who pulled Luz into a crushing hug.
"Okay, yeah, that's fair," Eda said.
"Mija, pensé que te habíamos perdido," her mother said, "Nunca más me asustes así."
"Lo siento, mamá, pero no me voy a ningún lado. Ya no tienes que preocuparte," Luz replied. "Volví a ver a papá. Está bien. Ha estado pasando el rato con el padre de King."
"Me alegra oírlo, pero hablar de eso me asusta."
"Lo siento... No me van a castigar por morir, ¿verdad?" Luz asked.
"Tendré que hablar con Eda sobre esto más tarde", her mom finished.
After several minutes, her Mom was finally hugged out, and Eda stepped up. From the look on her face, Luz suspected she'd be grounded for an unknown amount of time in the near future.
"Hey," she said, "looking good," she said, noting the color was back in her hair. "Mostly," she said as her eyes involuntarily drew to Eda's missing arm.
"Kiddo, I thought I asked you not to do anything to scare me like that," Eda said.
"In my defense," Luz said, "I wasn't expecting I'd have to fight that loser. We'd only planned on talking down the Collector. And then when jerkface crashed the party, I was concerned mostly with keeping King safe and getting the Collector away from him. Speaking of which, where—"
Luz was cut off by her other mom, who pulled her into a hug. "Just promise me this is the last time."
"I can't promise that, but I've got a feeling it's not gonna be a problem for a while," Luz replied. "If it helps, it turns out I literally can't permanently die... I'm still, I'm still processing that."
This prompted some laughter from Eda and then more hugging.
Soon enough, Eda was done, but before Amity could resume hugging, Vee rushed in.
Then Willow and Gus.
"It would have really sucked if you'd been lost forever right after we ate those apples," Gus joked.
Even Hunter demanded a turn.
Soon enough, everyone was hugged out, and Amity asked, "Okay, does anyone else want hug time with my girlfriend?"
Masha dismissively waved their hand, "I'm good."
"Anyone else?" Amity demanded of the people slowly gathering around them. Luz recognized Anne, Sasha, and Marcy and noted that a handful of what she could only assume were people from Amphibia were with them. She recognized Loki and that red-ninja guy who... Was missing an arm.
"Hel, Wilson, what happened to you?" Loki asked.
"I found Rick and Morty. It didn't go well."
Luz immediately decided she didn't want to know.
There was also Loki's secret service detail, an adorable little blue koala thing, and a few people with crazy hair holding giant keys.
Satisfied that nobody was going to interrupt her this time, Amity turned around and, looking as catlike as Luz had ever seen her, prepared to pounce.
And then Doctor Strange lowered down from the sky, flanked by Clea to his right and Magik to his left. Amity made a disappointed sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh.
"Doctor," Luz greeted.
"Luz," Stange returned warmly. "I couldn't help but overhear your declaration, just before defeating Mephisto."
Luz was suddenly very self-conscious. "Yeah, about that..."
"You should know that when the Sorcerers Supreme of two or more dimensions greet each other as such for the first time, or when on official business, typically they will acknowledge each other's power and authority as magicians with a gesture of respect."
"Oh?" Luz asked. "What sort of gesture?"
"It's traditional to bow," Strange said while placing an arm under his chest and bowing to her. It was only a brief thing, but... Doctor Strange was acknowledging her as an authority on magic and, and Clea and Magik were bowing now, too.
Luz managed to maintain her composure long enough to return the gesture, as was good and proper, and then Strange looked in the eye. "You can scream now."
Luz did so. Repeatedly. By the time she was done, she needed to hug Amity in order to support herself, a situation that her girlfriend was clearly more than satisfied with.
"That said," Strange said as he gestured to the hand of Mephisto. "If I understand what you did, he'll be unable to leave his Hell Realm until such a time as his hand has been reattached. Do you have a secure place to keep that thing?"
"I do not," Luz said. It'd be awkward just to keep it in the safe back home, not to mention dangerous, and Luz had the sinking suspicion that having Hooty eat it would have horrific consequences down the line.
"Well, if you'd like, I can hold onto it," Strange offered. "There are lots of places to hide this sort of thing in the Sanctum."
"Yeah, that'd be great," Luz said while handing it over. Strange then enchased it in a golden bubble, traced with assorted sigils. "Now seriously, where's King?"
"We left him back where it's more or less safe," Eda said, "with Captain Flag Pants with uh, what was his name. Goofy."
"What?"
As it turned out, several characters that were fictional in Luz's world were real in others. Sometimes more than one version existed. Upon their group's arrival at the place of relative safety, Luz was greeted by the surreal sight of her little brother sitting on the shoulder of a living cartoon character.
Not for long, however, for as soon as he saw her, he jumped toward her, shouting, "Luz!"
Naturally, Luz caught him and held him close. "Hey, little guy, I'm back. I'm fine, and I'm not going anywhere. I'm sorry for scaring you like that."
King responded by sniffing and then scrambling up to her shoulder and pressing her skull against her forehead. And Luz just let him. She got the impression that she was going to be subject to a lot of physical affection like this in the coming weeks as her friends and family reassured themselves that she was still here. Fortunately, she was an affectionate person by nature.
As King reassured himself with her presence, Luz took up the makeup of the crowd. Some of the people who had been near where she'd banished Mephisto had followed after Luz's group, and apparently, the guys with the keys knew Goofy because they were talking as if they were familiar with each other. Off to the side, Captain America, who was whom Luz suspected Eda meant earlier, was talking with Dr. Richards. The rest of Dr. Richard's family was milling around.
Soon enough, King was snuggled out, and once he was relatively calm, Luz asked, "You okay?"
"Yeah, I think so," King said.
"Okay, hand me the cube," Luz said, "it's time to get the Collector out of there."
It took a bit of trial and error, but eventually Luz was able to improvise a spell that broke open the cube and released the star child.
Who immediately fell to their knees and started crying.
Luz immediately kneeled down to pull him into a hug while King scrambled down to put a paw on their shoulder.
"Collector, buddy, it's gonna be alright," King said.
"No, it's not," the Collector replied through their tears.
"The bad guy's gone," Luz said, "nobody else is going to hurt you as long as I'm around."
"But he used my power to try and hurt people, and now everything is broken, and I don't know if I can fix it," The Collector said.
Luz tried to reach the words to try and reassure them, that things could still be fixed... Though she wasn't sure how, if the Collector wasn't sure how, when someone else approached.
"Can I sit down?" said a teenage boy. Hair died a dark greyish blue. He was dressed in one of the Fantastic Four's uniforms with an 'F' where the 4 logo usually goes, like how Val had a V. Her older brother.
"I guess," The Collector said once he realized that the older boy was talking to him.
"My name's Franklin, what's yours?" the boy asked.
"I don't really have a name," The Collector replied. "I'm just The Collector."
Franklin hummed. "Well, I couldn't help but overhear what you were saying, and it reminded me of a time when I was little, when I broke something and I wasn't sure it could be fixed."
"...Did you fix it?" The Collector asked.
"Eventually," Franklin said, "and it was because of a bunch of lessons I learned growing up."
"Lessons?"
"Yeah. See, for complicated reasons that I don't feel like explaining right now," Franklin began, "I was born with all sorts of crazy powers. The sorts of powers that aren't really meant for mortal humans to have. Not even mutants like me. So growing up, I had to learn how to use them right, and I had to learn fast."
"Okay," the Collector said, motioning for the older boy to continue.
"Luckily, I had people willing to help me learn them," Franklin said while waving his hands about. A blue glow filled the air in front of him, and pictures began to form as he manipulated them with hand gestures somewhere between a marionette puppeteer and someone playing a theremin. "A father who taught me to always keep an open mind, to look at every problem from every angle, and try to find the best solution," a stylized depiction of Reed Richards with a young, blonde boy on his lap appeared in the glow. "A mother who taught me that true power came from the strength of your convictions, not how many planets you could dream into existence." An image of Sue Storm Richards glaring at Doctor Doom, with Doom faltering, took the place of the last one. "An uncle who taught me how to do the right thing while still having fun," and the image became the Human Torch using creative plasma constructs to deal with an attack by some of the Mole Man's giant monsters when simpler ones would have sufficed. "A godfather who showed me that, when you're doing the right thing, what's most important is that you never give up." The image became the Thing pushing himself up while in the ring with the Champion of the Universe.
By now, the Collector was engrossed.
"A big, scary guy with a bad reputation who showed me the big picture and how to make tough choices," Franklin continued with a picture of his younger self sitting on the shoulder of Galacttus, "and good friends who helped me keep perspective." Four kids in color-coded superhero costumes: Red, Blue, Yellow, and White. "A family friend who sat me down and talked to me about power and responsibility, and the consequences of choices." Young Franklin and Spider-Man are sitting on the edge of a roof. "And someone who knows first hand the importance of humility and empathy, who showed me that if I have the power of a God, that I need to be a good one," the image became Thor striking barren ground under an alien sky and lush plantlife erupting from the soil. "But the most important lesson I ever learned, I had to learn on my own."
"And what was that?" The Collector asked.
"That when something's broken, you don't have to fix it on your own," Franklin said. He then jumped to his feet and held out a hand. "I know exactly how to put everything right, and I can teach you, if you'll let me."
The Collector stood up and hesitatingly took Franklin's hand, and the two slowly floated up into the air.
The light show that ensued, as the Multiverse was put back together, was one of the most beautiful things Luz had ever seen.
TLOA
"Seriously," Luz said, "top three. Right above my first sunrise and right below the way Amity's eyes glitter like polished gold at sunset," Luz described the rebirth of creation.
"Yes," Professor X agreed as Luz recapped what had happened since her last appointment, "no matter how many times you see the Cosmic Powers at work, the act of creation never loses its fantastical edge."
"And after that," Luz continued, "we were all back in the boiling Isles like nothing happened. The Collector fixed as much of the damage to the Isles as he could, turned everyone back to normal, and apologized. We got all the families back together and everyone home safely and then... The Collector wanted to leave back to the stars, since they have more growing up to do, and sticking around all the time might be a bad idea given how... Traumatic, his actions were, but... Maybe that would have been a good idea by itself, but there are better options: the Fantastic Four were still in Gravesfield once everything was open, so I helped him maintain contact with Franklin, and he put him in touch with some gods and cosmic beings who'll help learn how to, you know, be that powerful responsibly." Luz wasn't happy about the Beyonders being among the number, but they were the closest thing to the Collector in terms of how their powers actually worked, and she made sure they knew what would happen if the little guy got hurt because of them. "And King seems to like having a friend his relative age around now that the Collector isn't effectively keeping everyone hostage."
"And how were you feeling after all was said and done?" Xavier asked.
"Right away? Mostly tired," Luz admitted. "I had some stuff to process, I'm kind of still processing it, but it was a long day. Or a couple of days, I lost track of time after I went under the knife. There was one more thing, though. Amity's birthgiver turned up alive even though Amity saw her die with her own eyes," Luz recited, "which isn't something that normally happens on their end, but Amity's sure it's legit. Anyway, Odalia turns up alive with a nasty bruise on her jaw. She didn't say anything, but Amity looked her in the eye and then turned to me and asked if I wanted to celebrate our ultimate victory over the forces that had tried to get in the way of our happiness by making out on Belos's throne."
"And your response?"
"It was, and I quote, 'Do I!?'" Luz replied. "But let me tell you, that thing was not made for two people to sit on at the same time. Or be sat on at all, I'm pretty sure being made of rotten slime is the only reason he didn't have back problems."
"And how have you been since then?"
"I don't know how to describe it other than fine," Luz said, "which sounds kind of meh, but compared to how I've been feeling until recently, fine is fine, you know?"
"I understand," Xavier said.
"I've been helping with the rebuilding," Luz said, "where I can. I don't really know enough about civics and stuff to help with the rudimentary interim government they've got set up, but there's plenty of other stuff I can help with. Principal Bump says they might be able to open Hexside back up next month, and it'll be nice to get back to something normal. And I'm figuring out how to balance my life on both sides of the door. Doctor Strange has offered to help me figure out the basics of being a Sorcerer Supreme and what it might mean specifically for me, since the Demon Realm hasn't had one in eons, so I get to define the specifics of it. And... I think I finally know what I want to be when I grow up."
"Oh?"
"I've always had so much trouble deciding on one thing in specific, but... There's so much to know about magic, and even with everything I've been gifted or figured out for myself, I've only scratched the surface os the Demon Realm's magics. Not to mention, with all the wild magic that was lost when Belos was in power, and how the Isles' magic interacts with the witchcraft and sorcery of Earth and other dimensions. I love learning about this stuff and finding ways to apply it. I think I could do that forever if I had to, so I want to be a magic researcher. And that's what I want the Demon Realm's sorcerer Supreme to be, not a distant protector or ruler, but a scholar: Someone who collects and preserves knowledge for the good of everyone."
"That sounds like a wonderful goal," Xavier said with a smile.
"Yeah," Luz said. "It hasn't all been good. A lot of people are traumatized, and some people tried to argue that I should be in charge, or have some position of authority, since I have the Titan's power, but I put my foot down hard on that. I get the weirdest feeling that I'm gonna have to keep an eye out for cults."
"I can see how that would be a point of concern."
"But for the most part," Luz finished, "I'm... Content! That's the word. Everyone I love is okay, people are more or less fine, the bad guys lost, and things are back on track, and... There are things in the future I'm worried about, and there's a lot of work I still need to do, on myself especially, but... For the first time in months, I feel okay with myself."