Chapter Text
Illusion magic was useful.
Gus knew that for sure. It had to be useful—because if it wasn’t, then why was he there?
In some ways, Gus knew that illusion magic was more powerful than any other magic type. If he could alter someone’s reality, they wouldn’t even know how to fight back. It’s not like abominations or plants, which a good zapping would get rid of. No amount of zappery would vanish an illusion by brute force—no, one had to know what the illusion was to dispel it.
Gus knew illusions were useful. He had proved the Glandus kids wrong, after all. He just didn’t know if everyone around him agreed with that.
But he knew not to fall for his impulses. The last few times he had tunnel-visioned on being useful, he had been taken advantage of. The week before he met Willow. The day he met the Glandus kids. And as much as he wanted to be useful, he wouldn’t let others take advantage of him like that. Not again.
No matter how unimportant he knew everyone thought he was.
It had been by chance Gus stumbled into his new obsession. He had admittedly spent much too much time on the Internet. How humans created something the witches had—and made it better without even having magic—astounded him.
His first thought had been to ‘Google’ the Good Witch Azura books that Luz and Amity were always fangirling over. His hopes had been high—it was a book series written by a human and beloved by both his favorite human and a witch he thought had high standards.
He was quite disappointed when he realized it was a sappy fantasy novel. A dime a dozen on the Boiling Isles, he had read better works written by amateur witches and demons—like the hit release Ruler’s Reach.
But his scrolling had led him to some forums that discussed the book series—which he admittedly had completely finished, regardless of how bad it was.
Feared bully and top student Amity Blight actually likes this garbage, Gus realized. Why was I afraid of her again?
It was on one of those forums that Gus had stumbled into a review of another series that piqued his interest—Cosmic Frontier. Sure, it was also a fantasy novel series, but it was space fantasy, not romance fantasy. Cool versus blegh.
Luckily for him, he ran into a stash of Cosmic Frontier books in Camila’s basement closet.
“Odd how this ended up here,” Gus had muttered to himself. But he was not going to ask questions—he had some reading to do. And by some, he meant a giraffe-load.
“Hunter.”
“Yes, sir!” Hunter exclaimed, waking up immediately.
Gus groaned. “You know, you’re supposed to say something like, ‘Go away, Gus, I’m sleeping!’ And then make me shout your name louder and louder until you get up.”
“Why would I do that?” Hunter asked, frowning as he got up from his sleeping bag. Gus was standing over him, arms crossed. “Sleep isn’t that important. Carrying out my duties is!”
“Oh my Titan, we still have work to do,” Gus said. “You really want to be up this early for our trip? You know, I wouldn’t mind if you slept for a while longer.”
“Don’t talk crazy, Gus. I’m a very grounded person,” Hunter said. “Our excursion is that important! Today, we go to Hartford, Connecticut and conquer Ragged Mountain! It will be just like that time I got left alone on a mountain to die by the Emperor’s Coven!”
“What?” Gus asked, alarmed.
“Oh, basic training,” Hunter shrugged. “All Emperor’s Coven members went through that.”
“That…sounds inhumane,” Gus said. “How is that legal?”
“Funny what you can make legal in a dictatorship,” Hunter chuckled. “No laughing matter, though—”
“You’re literally laughing.”
“...as I was saying, we must arrive early at the rendezvous point—”
“Bus stop.”
“—and bring our conquering weaponry—”
“Hiking gear.”
“—in order to show nature who’s boss!”
Gus chuckled. “Okay, Mr. Wilderness, I’m excited too, but first you need to go take a shower. I’ll be eating breakfast—meet me when you’re done.”
Hunter nodded. “Okay, you’re not going to like hearing this—”
“Probably.”
“—but…I can’t believe we’re stranded in the Human Realm, and instead of working on a solution to get out, we’re taking a day trip.”
Gus sighed. “Look, man, it’s been a month and we still have zero leads. We’ve been cooped up inside ever since Willow took us to the gardens. It’s okay to have one day to take the load off. Besides, Luz, Willow, and Amity are still going to search for clues. It’s not like we’re all going.”
Hunter grumbled, “We never had days to take the load off in the Emperor’s Coven.”
“Extremely shocking,” Gus said. “The Emperor’s Coven—of ‘leaving children to die on mountaintops’ fame—was not an organization that cared about its members? Color me shocked.”
“Haha,” Hunter said sarcastically, “very funny, Gus. What a great friend you are.”
“I’m the best, aren’t I?" Gus said, flashing him a smile. “Now go shower. Please. You smell like Eda in Owl Beast form.”
“Like I said,” Hunter said, stretching as he went up the stairs, “great friend.”
Gus rolled his eyes, waiting for Hunter to leave. He knelt down under the couch he slept on, pulling out the copy of Cosmic Frontier 2: Don’t Manifest Destiny This Time that he found in Camila’s basement.
He opened to where he had left off, caressing the page where the big reveal had happened—O'Bailey was not a regular spacefarer, but a clone hiding in hyperdisguise.
Sounded like a certain witch Gus knew.
Gus’s thoughts were interrupted by the chirps of a certain bird. Flapjack hopped out from next to Hunter’s pillow, looking at Gus for a moment before pecking the wooden floor.
Gus laughed, a hint of sadness coloring his smile. “When should I tell him I know, buddy?”
Flapjack chirped.
“You’re right,” Gus sighed. “I should let him tell me when he’s ready. I just don’t want him to carry that secret alone.”
Flapjack chirped.
“Yeah, I should get breakfast. Do you want anything?”
Flapjack chirped.
“Alright, suit yourself, then,” Gus shrugged. “They do say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, Flapjack. And by ‘they,’ I mean random people on Internet forums. And also…you are literally named after a breakfast item.”
Flapjack chirped.
“You’re right. The first meal you have will break your fast regardless of when you have it. And I guess palismen don’t need to eat, anyway.” Gus shook his head, putting on his jacket and running up the stairs to eat. “Well, nice talking to you, buddy!” he called out.
Flapjack pecked the floor.
Gus shook his head again. “Silly bird,” he muttered to himself.
He was glad Hunter had Flapjack, though.
Gus waltzed into the kitchen, eyes growing wide when he saw what Camila had left for them. Bacon pancakes topped with an absurd amount of syrup and slathered in butter.
“Camila,” Gus said, taking a bite and immediately thanking the Titan that humans had invented something so awesome. “This might be the greatest meal I’ve ever had.”
“Oh, don’t flatter me, Gus,” Camila chuckled. “It’s just some pancakes.”
“Just some pancakes?” Gus said in disbelief. “Camila, the cherubs of heaven are singing your praises at the mere thought of this glorious confection!”
“...I’m going to go to work,” Camila said, zipping up her bag. “Try not to summon a priest with your…worshipping.”
“Okay, Camila,” Gus said, basking in the sugary goodness of his food. “Thanks again!”
“No problem, cariño,” Camila chuckled. “Don’t get into too much trouble!” she said, stepping out the door and locking it.
“Hey, Gus,” a voice called out.
Gus swallowed his bite with some difficulty. “Hey, Vee! Camila made the greatest meal ever conceived.”
Vee’s eyes lit up. “She made pancakes?”
Gus nodded. “I see you already understand the ways of the pancake.”
“Are you kidding?” Vee said, pulling up a chair and plopping down across from Gus. “The first time I had them, I was grateful to have been brought back from extinction. That was the first day I was like, ‘Wow, living is cool.’”
Gus nodded, slurping some syrup off of his fork. “That’s how I felt the first day I made an illusion. I was really young, but I remember thinking that I was lucky to be a witch.”
“And then you got head-over-heels obsessed with everything non-witchy,” Vee teased.
Gus shrugged. “Hey, isn’t necessity the mother of invention? It’s cool how many things the humans invented to get around not having magic, isn’t it? Like what the heck is electricity?”
“Right?” Vee said. “They have air travel that’s faster than ours! And ground travel that’s faster than ours! And online connection speeds that are faster than—okay, I think I’m starting to see a pattern.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I love magic,” Gus chuckled, “but…maybe it made us a little complacent. I don’t know, I just think it’s awesome how much humans work on progress every day. Half of us witches don’t really care to push things forward. We just want to sit on our butts and chill. But humans…humans never rest. They’re never satisfied. And that’s awesome.”
Vee nodded. “I totally get what you mean. And, you know, the government isn’t trying to torture me.”
“Always a plus,” Gus nodded gravely. “But Belos is dead now, Vee. You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
“I know, I know,” Vee said. “But nobody wants to be near a basilisk. They all think we’re…deceptive and evil.”
“Yeah, well, screw ‘them,’” Gus said. “‘They’ have no right to talk about deception and evil when they were deceived to follow someone evil. We know you’re neither deceptive nor evil. You’re like…the complete opposite.”
Vee smiled softly, although her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Thanks, Gus.”
“No prob,” he said, wolfing down his final pancake. “You know,” he said after swallowing the last bite, “I need to incorporate more human slang when I talk. They come up with the best stuff.”
“Ooh, I don’t know about that one.” Vee winced. “I mean, they turned ‘literally’ to mean the opposite of what it is. They literally ruined ‘literally.’”
“Yeah, but they invented the word ‘doohickey.’ Doohickey! Like, that’s such a perfect word!” Gus said. “And thingamajig. And thingamabob. Such amazing words.”
“You’re gonna sound as pretentious as French people,” Vee muttered.
Gus frowned. “What’s a French people?”
“You don’t wanna know.”
Gus shrugged. “I’ma go see if Hunter’s done. Also, ‘I’ma!’ Like, that’s such a perfect contraction, isn’t it?”
“Sure, sure,” Vee muttered absentmindedly. “I’ll meet with y’all when I’m done.”
Gus nodded, getting up to put his plate away.
He was excited for today, and he was not going to let anything get in the way of that.
“My back hurts,” complained Vee. “How are you guys doing this so easily? Climbing is hard!”
“Pfft, this is nothing,” Hunter said. “The Emperor’s Coven made me hike all the way up the Knee by myself! When I was 14! And it was on my third day—”
“Okay, I understand,” Vee interrupted, huffing while they passed a sign that said ‘SUMMIT — 2 MILES.’ “Sounds like the Emperor’s Coven alright. Well anyway, this isn’t a pity party for you—it’s a pity party for me. And my back. Stupid backpack.”
Hunter laughed, “If it’s hurting you that much, I can carry it. Oh, this reminds me of that time during basic training when the coven made me carry four scouts up the Knee! And this was my fourth day!”
“What was your first day?”
“Maze full of traps.”
“...Second day?”
“Witches duel."
“Jesus,” Vee muttered. “And I thought I had it bad with them. Which I did.”
“Who the heck is Jesus?” Gus asked. “Is he a famous explorer? A pirate? Oh, I know! The emperor of the Human Realm!”
“No, no,” Vee said. “Uh…long-haired religious guy. Kinda like the Titan.”
Gus nodded. “Cool!”
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him,” Vee said. “You know, with your love of human stuff and all.”
“Oh, I love human stuff,” Gus said, “but…I have to admit human history makes no sense. You’re telling me there’s 193 countries? The Demon Realm only has 1!”
“Some consider it to be 194 countries,” Hunter said. “Or like, more than that.”
“How would you know that?” Gus asked. “Uh, no offense.”
“Hey! I read. You know, sometimes,” Hunter said sheepishly. “I think that was mentioned in Cosmic Frontier 1: Space Adventure — An Adventure in Space. Which is weird, because none of the 194-ish countries are relevant. You know, because it’s in space.”
“You…actually read that?” Gus asked in astonishment.
“Uh, yeah, you told me to,” Hunter said. “Well, not really told, more like…suggested?”
“I suggested that you might like it,” Gus pointed out. “And speaking of liking it…did you?”
“Well, yeah,” Hunter said. “I’ve, uh, never read a book before. It’s really good, though.”
“Didn’t you just say you read?” Vee asked.
“Yes,” Hunter said. “Read, present tense, as in I am currently reading something, as in Cosmic Frontier. Not read, past tense, as in I did not read anything prior to now, as in the Emperor’s Coven—”
“Okay, okay, sheesh,” Vee said. “I think you need some therapy.”
“What is…’therapy?’” Hunter asked.
Vee rolled her eyes and smiled. “Ask Camila.”
“Right…” Hunter said suspiciously.
Gus had to admit he was swelling with something that felt like happiness. He was glad to know he had been useful for something for Hunter. He had hoped Hunter would actually pick up the series—not just because it was an awesome series, but because he had hoped Hunter would have someone to relate to in Chief Engineer O’Bailey.
Having a friend who was a clone in hiding was…not something Gus was able to find many books to help Hunter. Self-help books existed for all sorts of other things—puberty, anxiety, and witchcraft (which Gus thought was a weird topic for a self-help book)—but not “secret cloneness.” Gus didn’t admit to anyone he had spent hours scrolling on the Internet or searching through the library to try to find something for Hunter.
How convenient for him to have stumbled upon the entire Cosmic Frontier series in Camila’s basement. He hadn’t been sure why she’d had the series—maybe it was something Luz liked.
“Anyway, can someone please carry this bag?” Vee asked. “I don’t want to make anyone struggle, but…aren’t you guys like strong fighters or whatever? I’m just some rando. With back problems, apparently.”
Hunter said, “Yes, I can—”
“I got it,” Gus butted in. He ignored Hunter’s look of confusion as he took the bag from Vee, clearly struggling under the combined weight of Vee’s backpack (which he had strapped so it was over his torso) and his own overpacked one.
“Gus, are you sure?” asked Hunter.
“Got it,” Gus squeaked out.
“Okay, then…” Hunter said. The three of them hiked in silence for a few minutes, Hunter and Vee enjoying the fresh air while Gus silently wished he had gone to the gym with Luz when she offered it.
“You know,” Hunter said after a while, “you’re like a real porter.”
“A porter?” Gus asked, breathing raggedly. “What the heck is a porter? Like, my name?”
“No,” Hunter said. “Well, yes, your name is Porter, but I mean a porter. I saw it in a Cosmic Frontier. They carry stuff for mountaineering expeditions. Captain Avery had to be a porter for the aliens that abducted him in Cosmic Frontier 3: Overdone Franchise.”
“How did you know about that?” Gus asked. “I’m supposed to be the dictionary expert here.”
Hunter shrugged. “Like I said, I read.”
“How much longer do we have?” Vee interrupted. “I’m tired.”
“Well, there is a conveniently placed sign here,” Gus said, pointing at two signs at a fork in the trail. “If we go right, we can get out of here. You know, after a six-mile hike.”
“Yeah, let’s, uh, not do that,” Hunter said. “We didn’t walk up here just to quit, did we?”
Yes, now would be a good time to stop doing this, Gus thought to himself, clutching onto Vee’s bag.
“Nah,” Vee said. “No matter how tired we are, we are not quitters. We are space fighters!”
“Did…did you just quote Cosmic Frontier?” Hunter asked. “And we’re not even in space…”
“Shut up, I read, too,” Vee blushed. “It’s a good series. I found it in Camila’s basement.”
“Yeah, that is quite strange,” Gus said.
Hunter said, “Okay, well, before we…uh, what’s the phrase…spasm? About this series—”
“‘Geek out,’” Gus corrected. “Spasm? Seriously?”
“Yeah! You know, like we love this series so much we start twitching!” Hunter explained.
“That…is not a phrase,” Gus said. “‘Geek out’ or ‘nerd out,’ maybe.”
“Who made you the authority on language?”
“The twenty hours I spent this week reading about language. More than you, I assume.”
“...You spent twenty hours this week researching language?” Hunter exclaimed. "And you never stumbled upon what 'porter' meant?"
Vee said, “Dude, we have other things to do! Like get you guys back home!”
“Speak for yourselves,” Gus said. “I, for one, have plenty of time to do my own things on top of our very important mission. What, do you guys spend all your free time figuring out how to get back home?”
“No, I spend my free time helping Camila with chores,” Vee said.
“Totally!” Hunter agreed, nodding vigorously. “That’s definitely what I do with my time, yup—”
“Hunter, I saw you watching cat videos all day yesterday.”
“...Shut up, Gus. I help…a lot.”
Gus smirked. “Okay, this bag is kind of heavier than I thought. I’ll forgive you for wasting your time if you carry it.”
Hunter rolled his eyes. “I did offer to carry it before you, but okay then.” He shrugged and lifted the bag from Gus’s torso, easily putting it on his own. “Why did you offer to take it if you thought it was heavy, anyway?”
Gus sighed. “Look—”
“Okay, before you start talking about your personal problems or whatever,” Vee interrupted, “can we start moving? We have been standing at this intersection for the past five minutes.”
Hunter mumbled an apology. “Sorry…uh, it says if we go left, we’ll reach the summit in one mile. That’s great!”
“Your definition of ‘great’ and mine are vastly different,” Vee said. “One more mile of hiking? Really…”
“Vee, come on, once we conquer this mountain we can go brag to everyone else about doing something they didn’t!” Gus said.
“Yeah, ‘we went on a mountaineering day trip while you worked on solutions to our problem,’” Hunter said. “I’m sure that will go over great!”
“Oh, shut it,” Gus said. “I don’t see you with them right now.”
“Yeah, but you don’t see me bragging about this,” Hunter defended.
“Okay, maybe bragging was the wrong word,” Gus said. He shrugged. “Can we just start walking?”
“Yes, please,” Vee said, dragging out the last word. “Let’s go!” They proceeded to the left, Vee complaining again about the hike.
“Okay, anyway,” Hunter said, nudging Gus as they walked. “What were you saying earlier?”
Gus sighed. He didn’t really want to have this conversation here, on what was supposed to be their fun day out. “Can we just drop it?”
“Nope,” Hunter said. “If Luz was here she wouldn’t drop it. So I’m not dropping it.”
“Yeah,” Vee said. “If Camila was here, she would be worried.”
“Okay, fine,” Gus said, eyeing the increasingly treacherous trail they were walking on. The trail was becoming more and more steep with each step they took. “Do you guys ever feel like you’re not…useful enough?”
“All the time,” Hunter responded easily, hopping awkwardly to avoid a particularly large rock. “Belos always made it clear I wasn’t living up to my predecessor.”
Gus avoided mentioning how Hunter’s predecessor was a clone of the same person as Hunter.
“Your predecessor?” Vee questioned, nearly slipping on a sandy part of the trail.
“You alright?” Hunter said.
“Yeah,” Vee said.
“Okay,” Hunter said. “Anyway, yeah. I think I explained how I was Belos’s right hand man. My…predecessor was also a Golden Guard—well, obviously, or he wouldn't have preceded me—and everyone around me told me he was so amazing. Darius always mentioned how successful he was. Belos always told me the only purpose I really had was being useful to him. After all…I am a powerless witch.”
“Really?” Vee asked. “But…you seem so competent. Well, with magic, not with chores.”
Hunter rolled his eyes. “Okay, I’m gonna ignore that last part. And yes, I…at least thought myself to be competent. But every time I went to Belos, he never seemed satisfied. I guess I…kept chasing that validation.”
“But he never gave it to you,” Gus guessed, “to keep you working harder and harder.”
Hunter nodded. “Yeah…I think that’s what he was doing. It’s still hard to think that the man I served for so long was evil. At least it makes it easier to accept that he was using me. Well, me and the entire isles.”
“How did you get out of that cycle?” Gus asked. “Like…not chasing that validation?”
“If I’m being honest…I never really did get out of that cycle,” Hunter admitted. “Whenever I do things like—like watch cat videos all day, I feel…not great about it. It feels like I’m letting Camila down by not being useful. But I just keep reminding myself that she wouldn’t want me to feel bad about myself even if I’m not being ‘useful.’ Luz wouldn’t. You guys wouldn’t. And I’ve seen how you all take time for yourselves and nobody starts, you know, hitting you or berating you or telling you how much you suck. It helps remind me that I can relax, too. Like…if you asked me two months ago to come on this mountaineering trip, I would’ve definitely said that I can’t because I need to work on a solution to getting back home.”
“Dang,” Gus said. “I…didn’t realize it affected you that much.”
“I can kinda see where he’s coming from,” Vee chimed in. “For me it’s not really the ‘usefulness’ thing. Like, I was pretty ‘useful’ to the Emperor’s Coven, but that doesn’t mean I cared about that. I just don’t want Camila—or anyone I care about—to be disappointed in me. If it’s some rando coven guards, then whatever, screw them. But if it’s Camila, or Luz, or you guys…then I feel much worse about letting them down.”
“Yeah,” Hunter nodded. “Letting people down. That’s…that’s what I really don’t want to do. And…and even if I know that they’re not gonna care if I’m not perfect…it’s hard to get Belos’s voice out of my head.”
“Yeah, well, Belos is an unbeatably bad person,” Gus said. “I…know it’s hard, to overcome that. It was hard for me to get my bullies’ voices out of my head, too. Not that that’s…exactly as bad as Belos, but you get what I mean.”
“How did you do it?” Hunter asked him. “How did you…stop listening to them?”
“Honestly? Their voices are still there,” Gus admitted. “But now I also have a Willow voice and a Luz voice up there telling those bullies to shut it. And…sometimes, like earlier with that stupid backpack, I fall for the bullies’ voices for a second. But brain-Willow and brain-Luz remind me that they care about me and don’t only want me around to be useful to them.”
The three of them rounded a corner as the cliffside merged with the ground, revealing a view of the surrounding city that Gus thought was breathtaking. It was no astounding view of nature, but Gus thought what humans did with their neat and orderly cities was something far more alien to him than beautiful nature. And for Gus, alien was beautiful.
Maybe that’s why he loved Willow and Luz so much. Not that they were aliens (well, he supposed Luz technically was), but that they seemed alien to everyone around them. How they never fit in.
Gus chuckled quietly to himself, wondering how he had gotten so cheesy. Too much time spent around Luz, no doubt.
For a moment, the three of them stood atop the mountain, taking in the view. They stood in silence, lost in their thoughts.
Hunter sat down on the cliff-face, letting his legs dangle over the ledge. “Thanks, guys. I’m…trying to get better. It’s just difficult, sometimes.”
Vee walked over to him and sat down on his right. “I know it’s hard to change,” Vee said. “I’ve been…trying to care less about what others think of me. I know Camila won’t kick me out or torture me or anything if I’m not, like, a hundred percent perfect, but still. It’s kind of like what you said, Gus. It’s like I hear a really mean Camila voice in my head telling me that I’m such a disappointment and that every time she sees me she feels disgusted or something. I just keep telling myself that real-Camila wouldn’t like it if she knew a person like evil brain-Camila.”
Gus laughed, sitting himself down next to Vee. “That’s a good way of thinking about it. Like…we wouldn’t want our friends to think these bad things about themselves, so why would they want the same for us, you know?”
“Yeah,” Hunter said. “This was…good. I’m glad I came here. It’s good that we got to clear our heads up here.”
“From the sounds of it, all of our heads are total chaos,” Gus said. “It is good that we came here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Vee said. “Thanks, guys. I’m still getting used to making friends and everything. The only people I’ve ever talked to that weren’t coven jerks are my friends from summer camp, but now they don’t know who I am because I was in Luz form back then.”
“You’ll get them back,” Gus said.
“Yeah,” Hunter added. “Uh…something, something, personality is what matters?” he said sheepishly.
Vee giggled. “You know, you’re actually kind of funny. Like, unintentionally.”
“Hey!” Hunter said.
Gus tuned out the two of them bickering, taking in the view of Hartford. It was almost sundown, and a few lights could be seen flickering on down below. The steady stream of car contraptions flowed through the streets, another example of human ingenuity that astounded Gus. So many people out there, living their lives out with their own worries and fears just like the three of them. Such a stark contrast to the Boiling Isles, yet all the same.
Brain-Willow and brain-Luz (and brain-Amity, who only talked in sarcasm) were joined by two new voices. Brain-Hunter and brain-Vee helped drown out the voices of his old bullies, reminding him that there were others that felt like he did. He wasn’t alone.
Maybe he didn’t need to be useful. Maybe…he just needed to be. If that was enough for Gus to love his friends…then that could be enough for them to love him.
For now, the voices of his bullies were silent.