Luz looks through the desolated world that was home, and can only try and contain the memories of years past.
The staff that she carries is that of the deceased Owl Lady, Eda Clawthorne, and the monster that is at her side is what is left of the King of Demons. The beast is a giant wolf with a skull in its head, being what was left of King's essence after his death; at least the demon can protect his favorite person in his reincarnation, even if its consciousness is long gone.
The glyphs in her cloak are the only thing that makes her be able to look in the darkness that is everything left of the once prosperous land. The wolf at her side growls, the teeth of its exposed skull terrifying to everyone except Luz; the shout of terror that echoes on the once silent place makes the human extend the hand in the direction of her loyal companion, who stop in its tracks, still growling, but not attacking until the order is given. Luz points her staff at the origin of the sound, ready to attack whatever it is that comes out of hiding.
"Reveal yourself or my Demon will attack you." Her voice echoes in the now silent place before the movement reveals a child entering the light, trembling with fear at the sight of the demon. The human lowers her guard, signaling to Queen, the wolf standing down from her aggressive state.
"Hey, I'm sorry to scare you" Luz whispered, kneeling on the ground, letting the staff at her feet, near her hands in case of any danger, but trying to be as kind as possible to the little girl in front of her. "Queen was just trying to protect me, do you understand?"
The girl nods, her red hair revealing her pointy ears, which made Luz be more at ease; witches were easier to deal with than feral demons.
"Where are your parents?" Luz asked, cautiously. She already knew the answer, but she needed confirmation before acting in any way.
"T-they m-made me run. Said that I shouldn't look behind m-me. B-but I d-did and then, then I s-saw-" The girl started crying, her shoulders trembling and the tears falling into the grey ground. Luz went to the child and put her in a hug, trying to calm her.
"It's okay. You're safe now. Nothing can go near us without Queen alerting me. You're safe now. Cry as much as you want. I'm here."
Luz looked at the destroyed lands of the Human World and realized that she never felt more hopeless than at that moment, with the crying witch in her arms and the only rational demon at her side.
? ﾝﾛﾀ?
Is only after a week of walk that she sees part of what was once Bonesborough in the neighborhood that she grew up, Queen walking slowly at her side, Anna playing with the fur of the demon, the week with both of them making her much more at ease with the wolf-like creature than in their first encounter.
Luz is still looking around her with her full attention, as she didn't have the glyphs to protect the little girl from the dangers of the Embers Lands, she was much more cautious in her trip back at her camp than from it. It wasn't as if she was being extra careful, but living in the destroyed world for seven years straight would make anyone a full-time survivalist.
"Where are we going, Miss Luz?" Anna questioned, her red hair dragging into the ground, as she was upside down on the back of Queen.
"To my home. It is the most protected place that I know of." She says, watching the kid nodding to nobody as if she was into a deep thought process. Luz smiled at it, the feeling strange after so much time, and continued walking to her base.
It is at the entrance of what was once her human house that she heard the sound of a spell being cast in the distance. She tenses, feeling Queen growling by her side, and Anna looking confused at the two partners.
"Queen, bring Anna home," Luz said, her hands grabbing the staff. "Protect her at all costs."
"Wait! Where are you going?" The witch shouts fear clearly in her eyes. Luz only looked at the redheaded, her brown eyes bringing her back to a time in which the world wasn't as broken as it was.
"Protecting my home."
She mounts on Owlbert, flying in the direction of the spells as Queen brings the kid in her back to the house.
Luz approaches the focus of the spells and feels the pressure of the magic around her, almost bringing her to her knees; the air was much more unstable since the Unity, and magic itself was as wild as it could get. Luz dismount the staff and lands in a destroyed building, seeing only an explosion of fire, and a monstrous purple figure attacking the ground where a witch is standing, when the smoke goes down, the witch is surrounded by fire, its face as black as charcoal, the purple figure melting with the intensity of the flames.
"COME ON, BLIGHT! THAT'S ALL YOU GOT?!" The voice is maniac-like, and the laugh that follows brings Luz back to her days at Hexside, but the idea of Boscha surrounded by madness makes the human shivers, which brings her to see the Blight surrounded by a cloak, the white-colored hood obscuring their face, but the sight of a type of weird shaped abomination making it clear to Luz that she was facing a past she would rather forget.
When Luz tries to look past the hood, she only sees a dark light in the eyes of the cloaked figure, which only smirks before bringing a raven-shaped staff in front of her body, making it glow in purple light.
The abomination explodes, leaving only ashes in its place, and Blight is gone from where she was standing, only to erupt at the back of her enemy, a giant sword made of rocks crashing down on the burning witch, the fire extinguishing for a moment before Boscha destroyed the rock sword from inside out, her body unrecognizable as the flames consumed her. It was followed by an explosion that made the hooded figure fly into a building, which made Luz tense at her hiding spot, her instincts almost getting the better of her, before seeing the figure exit the ruins of the once human house, the hood down revealing the brown hair with green tips, making no mistake to whom Boscha was fighting.
"That is all you got, Boscha? I thought you were tougher than it." Amity smirked condescending, a cruel expression on her beautiful face, her mouth curling around a scar that passed through her right eye all the way to her chin. The white raven in her staff glowing with a green light from its eyes. "If this is all you got, let me show you what I learned since our last fight."
"YOU! I WILL SHOW YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" Boscha roared, her body becoming as distorted as some of the most horrible things on the Boiling Isles, advancing against the Blight witch, who was standing in place, unfazed by the attack coming her way. Luz creaked her teeth, aching for entering the fight, but her self-preservation instinct made her stop. The last thing she wanted to do was cause another death because of her carelessness.
Boscha advanced against Amity, her shout echoing in the destroyed cities before the fire was extinguished in a flash, making the deformed witch fall into the bubble that the Blight raised around her. The three-eyed witch yelled against the barrier, but it was useless, her deformed body unable to destroy it.
Luz tensed seeing what was once Boscha; she had a third leg growing out of her torso and a fourth from her shoulder, and two more arms, distorted around her back and waist; her skin tone was black as charcoal, and her mouth was full of shark-like teeth, blood flowing from it.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" The monster that was once Boscha growled, her body failing from igniting itself, and her desperation making her try hopelessly to destroy the bubble.
"Created a place in which fire can't ignite itself, devoid of oxygen," Amity smirked cruelly at her prisoner. "You should have paid more attention to what humans discovered, you could learn how to do things like my personal prison for you," Boscha growled, trying to advance against Amity, only for the bubble to shrink against her. "Goodbye, Boscha. It was nice seeing you. Hope you don't hate being crushed to death."
When Luz realized that Amity was killing the thing that was once Boscha, she jumped into action, putting her hood up and getting one of her glyphs from the bag she carried, she flew against the bubble, the anti-magic glyph pressed against the bubble while she launched a magic spell against the Blight, blinding her. Boscha yelped as she fell against the ground and Amity yelled in rage, the white staff making a giant abomination erupt from it, knocking Luz against a wall. Luz felt the rough hand of Amity on her hair, forcing her to show her face, making the witch frown, dropping the human.
"You are an idiot, human." Growled Amity, the abomination shadowing both of them as Boscha yelled curses. Luz was speechless as she saw Boscha crumbling against the ground, becoming nothing but ashes as it dissipated and flew on the wind. "Do you know how much time I passed going after Boscha since her last death?!"
"Last death?" Luz whispered, confused, seeing Amity with a scow in her face and an abomination ready to crush her. "Amity what are you-"
"I don't have time for your stupid ethics, LUZ!" The brown-haired witch yelled, attacking the human, which didn't have time to say anything before being forced to defend the attack.
Luz jumped out of the way of the plant that erupted from her previous position, which curvated to follow the human, who could only use her staff to create a tunnel of flames to destroy the plant tentacle. Before she could start to think about what she could do to subdue Amity, she felt a presence behind her, forcing Luz to make a shield against the Abomination's punch, which disintegrated against the energy construct.
There was a movement in the side opposite of the Abomination and Luz saw Amity running towards her, her scarred face in a frown and her staff shining in a green light, a spell almost ready. Cursing, Luz exploded her shield, destroying the Abomination, and made another one against the approaching Amity, which only smiled and went into the shield, disappearing before touching it. Luz blinked before realizing that Amity was using illusion magic, and tried to defend the attack that the Blight summoned, but failed as the water column knocked Luz out of the ground, the water separating her from her staff.
Luz rolled out of the way of the fireball, which exploded, the fire and water mixing in a weird and strange way. Without Owlbert, Luz resorted to her old glyphs, taking a fire one and touching it before diving out of the way of an Abomination attack. The fire glyph exploded, the fire consuming the Abomination and the water that extinguished it making Luz pinpoint Amity's location.
Luz used a plant glyph and used the vines to go after Amity, already picking another plant glyph, trying to overwhelm her before realizing that the glyph's paper was unusable, and, in a second, she realized that she was outsmarted by the Blight. The vines that she used burned before even approaching the witch, and the human tried to run to her staff before an Abomination blocked her path, catching and immobilizing the human, before she could try and escape the construct, a spell forced her to close her eyes, feeling the magic around her, but the effects inexistent.
Amity appeared in front of her and the construct, landing from the small flight, the cape floating around her making Luz shiver as the white cloak made her go back to years ago when the world wasn't as destroyed as it was.
"It's been a long time, Luz. I'm sorry we had to meet each other in these circumstances. But you made me lose Boscha, and I am mad ." She growled, her face darkened by the shadows around them and the dark look on her eyes making her terrifying to Luz, who hadn't seen her like this ever since they were enemies. It was something that made Luz freeze for a minute, the fear growing into her guts before her instincts made her act.
The glyph sewed into her cloaked activated, making the Abomination yell as it dismantled around her. The look in Amity's face changed into one of surprise as Luz acted on impulse, kicking the staff out of Amity's hands and her hands activating one of the other glyphs into her cloak, the light blinding Amity long enough for Luz to jump in the direction of her staff, taking it and pointing it into the staffless witch, Luz out of breath because of the battle, her eyes focusing into Amity's face, ready to attack her former friend.
"Why did you attack me?" Luz forced the words out of her mouth, the exhaustion making her almost lose sight of the witch, her hands shaking around the staff.
"To capture you," Amity said, her voice calm and emotionless, and in that instant Luz felt her body failing her, falling into her knees, dropping Owlbert again, as her arms became too weak to sustain it. She felt a shadow above her, and she saw Amity looking down on her, her face impassive, and in her hands Eda's staff. "Sleep spell. Pretty useful. Good night, querida."
Luz felt her eyes closing as everything went dark.