Detour aside, Luz was able to find everything she needed in the basement: Eda's apocalypse supplies were untouched.
She also grabbed the Calamity Box, noting the conspicuous absence of what should be inset gemstones that she'd overlooked when she saw it last. She should probablycheck with Eda before she gives it away, since it's in Eda's basement and all, but she's not seeing Eda saying no once she hears the whole story, and, frankly, it's better to have it but not need it than the other way around.
So with that determined, the necessary supplies were tucked away in Luz's symbiote subspace because Luz had just remembered she could do that... Seriously, she had forgotten that she had her textbooks, the golden fiddle, and a Glock that she'd confiscated from Hooty in there the whole time.
She didn't know where he got it from; it wasn't loaded, but she'd be darned if she left something like that in Hooty's nonexistent hands on principle.
So, anyway, with almost everything they needed for the portal packed up and a short rest accomplished, they began the process of sneaking into town.
It was frankly creepy. "This place is normally so lively, witches going about their day... I know the Collector took them all, but..." Luz shook her head. "They're not in any danger, let's just—"
Luz was then tackled by Hunter and pulled into an alley just in time to see what appeared to be a wave of glitter and stars rush through the street they'd just been in.
"...Nobody tell April I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings."
Everything that the field of sparkles touched ended up cutesy and cartoonified. Following the adorable carnage eventually led the group to the town square, where they found puppetized versions of the townspeople running around in mock terror, flailing their arms like an excited Kermit the Frog.
They also found an adorable Carnage, a large puppet made out of red fabric. It was clearly supposedto be the demented serial killer, but it looked more like one of those wacky arm-flailing inflatable tube men you see outside of car dealerships with about seven more arms. The construct was being made to menace a puppetized...
"That's Amelia, right?" Luz asked.
"...Yeah, she's one of Boscha's friends," Amity whispered back. "But... That's my dress she's wearing."
It was, in fact, Amity's dress. The one she'd worn to Grom.
Luz suddenly had a sinking suspicion of where this was going, which was confirmed when a wave of sparkles transformed what Luz was now hopingwas a real puppet into what seemed to be a Muppet version of herself with angry eyes.
"This feels like sacrilege," Gus whispered. "I mean, Luz is a Titan now and Amity's a human-realm god, so... It kind of is, but still."
"Okay, I'm lost," Hunter said.
As Muppet-Luz continued to make angry faces at Amelia-As-Amity, a star came out of nowhere and impacted with it, as a childish voice called out, "Not today, Grom!"
Muppet-Luz then turned into another puppet, a giant purple monster that did not actually look all that much like Grometheus's true form, but whatever, as the Collector rode in on another star... And King was riding behind him.
Luz's immediate instinct was to run out, greet her little brother, give him a long overdue bear hug, and assure him that she was back and that they had a plan to fix everything. But doing that would run the risk of ruining the plan to fix everything. So as much as she wanted to hold her little guy right now, she had to wait. Just a little longer.
"Fire glyph, go!" The collector shouted, conjuring a ball of flame withoutthe use of glyphs. It struck the grom puppet, which, despite a complete lack of damage, fell over flat. The various puppetized civilians cheered, and then suddenly everything was back to desolate streets while the Collector and King flew off again.
Things were silent for a moment, but soon enough, Hunter spoke up. "I'm still confused."
"I think the Collector is larping as Luz," Gus explained. "That was clearly an overly simplified and kinda inaccurate take on this year's Grom."
"Okay, and how is it sacrilegious?"
Amity gave a long-suffering sigh. "It started when I finally bit the bullet to ask Luz out..."
As Amity and Gus filled in Hunter on part of the story he wasn't there for, Luz noticed something. She was getting some vague bad feelings from Willow, who... Was trying a little too hard to appear strong and confident.
"Willow," Luz asked, "are you pulling a me?"
"What do you mean?"
"My ESP isn't as good at reading people as Amity's empath abilities are, but I can still pick up when someone's feeling bad."
"I'm fine," Willow denied.
"You are!" Luz shouted. "You're doing what I've been doing. You're feeling bad, but you're keeping it to yourself so the rest of us don't worry, or because you don't want to be a burden, or you think you need to be strong, or something like that. And it's got me nettled," she said while maintaining eye contact. "Everyone kept telling me that I didn't need to keep it all in, that I didn't need to be strong all the time, how much it hurt the people I loved when they knew I was hurting but wouldn't open up about it. We just had an intervention last week about it, and now that I've finally learned my lesson... You don't get to... You don't think it hurts me when my best friend is..." Luz groaned. "I can't even find the words."
Willow was quiet for a moment before she timidly admitted, "You're right, I... I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Luz replied. "Just... All the stuff you guys said to me last week applies to you, too. Just because you're the mom friend, that doesn't mean you need to be in mom mode all the time. Especially when we have an actual mom on the team. Right, Mom?"
"So I wasn't sure how to approach the subject, but I noticed you were acting off, too," her Mom said. "But everything Luz said is true. Keeping this sort of thing bottled up isn't good for you, especially when you have people who love you and understand you are and willing to support you."
"So what's wrong?" Luz asked.
"Once we got back, I... Started thinking and, and just now I saw my parents among the puppets and..." Willow was starting to break down.
"Say no more," Luz replied. "Hunter, Willow needs a hug, stat."
The blonde boy looked over. "Okay, I'm not sure why you're calling me specifically, but okay," he said as he came over and gave the plant witch the requested hug.
"You know why," Luz insisted.
"So is this a bad time to reveal ourselves?" Came the voice of a familiar older boy, which made Luz jump and turn around.
Just as she did, the forms of Edric and Emira Blight manifested from the aether... They hadn't even shown up on her ESP until they were whole and solid.
"Hey Ed, hey Em," Luz greeted. "You guys are getting good. What are you doing out here?"
"Well, we were on a search mission, trying to see if we could scrouge up any food," Edric started.
"The plant students have been doing their best to keep us stocked up on produce, but you can only eat potatoes and mushrooms so many days in a row," Emira added.
"I'd kill for one of those cream-filled cupcakes," Edric continued.
"In hindsight, we probably shouldn't have burned through Mom's entire stash the first week she was gone," Emira said.
"Anyway, we saw that our beloved baby sister and her friends were back and in one piece and just had to check in with them," Edric finished.
Shortly afterward, Amity was manhandled into a two-sided hug with both of her older siblings. She didn't even pretend to be annoyed. "I missed you guys, too."
Not too long after that, Emira seemed to notice something. "Mittens, your crescent moon pendant... You didn't lose it during the apocalypse, did you?"
"No," Amity began. "I um..." Amity started blushing tomato red again.
And then Edric noticed something. "Em, look," he said while pointing to the same pendant currently around Luz's neck.
The twins released Amity from the hug and huddled for a moment, during which time Amity retreated to Luz's side, where they started holding hands.
"You seem nervous," Luz whispered.
"So I wasn't lying about this not being a proposal," Amity said. "But it's still kind of a big deal. Not so big a deal that it's weird we did it or anything, but... I wasn't exactly thinking of how my family would react when I offered you my pendant. I was almost thinking that we both almost died and then found out we could potentially be together forever, and it just felt right, so..."
Luz squeezed Amity's hand. "It'll be fine."
With that, the twins turned back around. "It is decided, and we approve of this development," Edric declared more seriously than Luz had ever seen either of the twins act.
"However, it remains to be said: You musttake good care of her. If you're going to commit to a relationship this much, that's a big deal," Emira said.
Luz was about to say that, frankly, Amity had been taking care of her lately, when Amity went from nervous blushing tomato mode to angry blushing tomato mode. "We talked about this, no threatening speeches to Luz. You promised."
"We were talking to you, Mittens," Emira replied.
"Yeah, a chaos gremlin like Luz doesn't come around every day. She's a catch, even ignoring how perfect you two are together," Edric continued.
"Don't screw it up by speedrunning relationship milestones," Emira finished.
The serious tone lasted for about three seconds. Edric was the first to crack, bursting into hysterical laughter while Emira followed him soon after.
Surprisingly, after a moment, Amity started laughing along with her siblings. This lasted for thirty seconds before Amity's laughter became tears.
The twins stopped dead and began talking over each other.
"No, Mittens, we're sorry—"
"It was just a joke, we—"
"It's fine!" Aity shouted suddenly. "It's not," she wiped tears from her eyes. "The joke was fine, I just... I've missed you both so much."
This prompted another group hug between the Blight siblings.. And a twinge of envy and sadness from all of Luz's other friends.
"Don't worry," she whispered to everyone. "We're gonna save everyone. Just trust the plan."
Eventually, the Blights released the group hug, and Edric spoke up: "Okay, so what's this about Luz being a Titan? And Mittens is a god now, too?"
"That's a long story." Amity started. "It started on the Day of Unity. We got some help from people in the human realm, and after we got stuck in the human realm, we were invited to this school to receive trauma counseling..."
AN: So this took a bit longer than I wanted it to, but... Well, Luz is doing much better now that she's back in the demon realm and can work on their actionable plan, but on the flip side, a lot of the rest of the squad's homesickness is acting up now that they're back home, but it's noticeably different. It just does not make sense to go through Willow's storyline in For the Future in this fic with its greater focus on Luz's mental health and recovery from depression, however. After all the work that everyone put into helping Luz with her depression, playing it straight would just make Willow look like a Hypocrite, so Luz is cutting it short by giving Willow a bit of (real) tough love and, in general, giving her friends the same kidn of support they gave her.