Here you go guys! Sorry it took us so long to finish this chapter which went through many rewrites and drafts until I settled with this one but I hope you guys enjoy it. Reviews and Constructive Criticism are welcome and appreciated cause my writing isn't the best which I want to improve.

I don't think I've mentioned this before but Luz is selectively mute(due to her childhood and shy nature) so there will be times when she doesn't speak at all and instead, Nox will do the talking for the two of them.

?????

Where... where am I?

Luz found herself floating within an dark abyss, devoid of anything. At least, that's what it felt like. For some reason, she couldn't open her eyes to look around. Or, maybe she did and just saw the same darkness. To make matters worse, she couldn't even move her body. So, she just floated through the void, seemingly without any direction.

That, and she had a hard time remembering how she ended up in this dark place. So, that wasn't helping.

Luz somehow knew that she was asleep; she was sure of that at least. But when she tried to recall the 'how' or the 'why,' her head hurt.

W-what is this place? Am I...dreaming?

Fortunately, Luz did not have to wonder for very long. She felt a glare reach the periphery of her vision (at least she knew she could open her eyes now). When she tried willing herself to move, she felt her body begin to respond. As she turned around, she saw something below her. A light, a bright white light, and she was heading right for it.

So...bright Luz thought with her eyes closed as the light completely enveloped her.

When Luz opened her eyes again, she saw that she was standing in front of an unfamiliar abandoned house in the middle of a forest.

Okay, I'm in front of an... abandoned house? S-seriously, what's going on? And w-why does everything looked so...gray?

Everything around was, in fact, gray. The trees, the clouds, everything! She'd say it was like being in an old black-and-white cartoon, but even those had more shades of color. Or at least more on the grayscale.

While her memory was hazy she immediately noticed that there was something or rather someone important to her that was missing: Her best friend Nox, being absent from her hand.

Usually when Nox would go missing she would become really frantic until she found her best friend again but for some reason she wasn't even remotely worried. She then shook her head before deciding to focus her attention on her current predicament.

"Okay, so am I awake now, or am I still d-dreaming?" Luz asked out loud. Though, to be honest, she had no clue how to tell if she was dreaming.

If I remember correctly the best way to know if I'm dreaming is to think of something too crazy to be real. Like some giant floating baby head appears at the front door. And a talking zebra.

As soon as she finished thinking of that, she saw a giant floating baby head come out through the front door of the house, cooing and babbling and uttering baby noises before heading out towards the forest. Then came a zebra wearing a top hat and carrying a cup of tea.

"Yep, I'm dreaming, all right." Luz could only say with a surprised expression on his face

"I wouldn't be so sure of that, Kevin," said the zebra as it went back into the house while sipping its tea.

"Wait what? Hey! What do you mean by that?!" Luz called out to the zebra, who ignored her as it entered the house again, causing Luz to sigh in annoyance.

Well, if I am dreaming and I know I'm dreaming, then I guess the only way to wake up is to start looking around, Luz thought, remembering a bunch of cartoons she watched with similar scenarios.

"Whoever said there's no value in cartoons had no idea what they were talking about," Luz said in amusement as she turned the knob on the front door to the house.

This shouldn't be so bad, Luz thought before entering the house. Unknown to her, a mysterious shadowy figure was watching her from the shadows among the trees. As soon as the door opened and the young girl walked inside, the figure vanished.

Me and my big mouth, Luz thought as she takes in the scene in front of her.

When Luz entered the house, she was expecting it to be met with the sight of the inside of the house being run down and in grayscale, as well.

BIG MISTAKE.

The whole place looked like some weird, abstract painting or parallel universe. There were doors on nearly every surface, complete with stairs that seemed to go up, down, upside down, and even into nothingness.

"This has to be the weirdest thing I've ever seen in my life," Luz said as she explores the place. She somehow ended up in what appears to be the house kitchen. Surprisingly it was normal(and thankfully clean) compared to the living room albeit there were a bunch of utensils and toys floating around. She then noticed the talking zebra from before was now sitting at a table reading a newspaper which had a bunch of gibberish written on it and a picture of an eye that has been crossed out(weird)

"Um, excuse me, but do you know what this place is?" Luz asked politely. However, the zebra simply smiled at her, before going back to reading it's newspaper, causing Luz to groan in annoyance.

The silent treatment? How rude, Luz thought while clenching her fists firmly that they could draw blood with more force, but luckily, she took a deep breath and calmed down.

Might as well start looking for a way to wake up from this dream Luz thought while walking out of the kitchen.

"Not... a dream." A voice suddenly answered out of nowhere, seemingly responding to her thoughts.

Luz turned her head to look at the source of the voice. It was a humanoid entity seemingly made out of a dark aura, standing on the stairs that she assumed would lead to the second floor of this strange house. Before she could say anything, the figure walked up the stairs prompting Luz to go after them. "H-hey, wait!" Luz called out. However, the shadowy figure simply ignored her.

As soon as Luz ascended the stairs, the shadowy figure from before had disappeared, and like the living room downstairs, the second floor was just as weird. There were doors as far as the eye could see, some of them constantly opening and closing. And like the kitchen there were an array of items floating around.

Luz decided that she had to take a risk and approached one of the doors.

Hopefully, one of these will give me a way to wake up from this weird dream. As soon as she opened the door, though, she was taken aback with what she saw. It was her, or more specifically, her younger self when she was around four or so. She was standing outside of a classroom with a sad look on her face as a bunch of other kids were playing and having fun without her.

She remembers this. It was...when she tried to make friends with some of her classmates. It took her a few days to finally work up the nerve to do so and she even came close to throwing up due to her nervousness.That was not a very pleasant experience for her and what's worse in the end it didn't amount to anything as it turns out her classmates didn't like her and even mocked her when she finally tried to befriend them which led to some bad memories...

Memories...wait, is that what I'm looking at right now? A memory? Luz thought as she closed the door.

Luz then proceeded to try the next several doors, only to be met with similar outcomes. They all revealed memories of what happened since that day. From her classmates(now bullies) calling her names, bullying her, and several others which thankfully never got physical. After she had closed what she thought was the seventh door, she noticed that there was a mirror hanging next to the doorway. When she decided to take a break from seeing all those bad memories and look at herself, her eyes widened in shock

Her face was now cracked, or rather, it had cracks all over it. The most noticeable ones, though, seemed to meet on her forehead, creating a jagged X. After a few seconds, she realized that the cracks seemed to extend down to her neck. Beginning to worry, Luz raised her shirt to take a look at her body. Just like her face, cracks were jutting out of it as well. That wasn't the worst part, though. The worst part was that she saw that her skin was now deathly pale.

"Wha-what is this?" Luz said in a shocked tone while looking at herself in the mirror as she ran her hands across the cracks which felt weird under her touch. Suddenly, the young demon's reflection in the mirror glitched, and instead of her reflection, he was now looking at an image of what appeared to be a humanoid whose entire body is made out of a dark purple mist, save for their eyes, which are glowing red. They were wearing a short-sleeved half-white and half-indigo hoodie with cat ears attached to the hood, high-waisted jean shorts, dark gray leggings, and a pair of white slip-on shoes.. All in all it made for a strange sight.

"Is this m-me?" Luz said while moving her hand in front of the mirror with the person doing the same with its hand, which she now noticed had sharp claws. When Luz looked at her hands, she saw that it was still the same and nothing like the one in the mirror, though when she took a look at the mirror again, the dark figure was gone. Her reflection had replaced it, but that wasn't much of an improvement, considering everything.

Okay, I am officially freaked out right now.

Luz then felt something ran past her. The moment she turned around, she saw one of the doors closing. When she approached it, she immediately opened it and saw what was a very familiar and nice memory.

"I remember this" Right in front of Luz was the memory of her and Nox watching an episode of gravity falls together. As Luz watched the scene unfold before him, despite a mysterious urge to close the door, something Nox said caught her attention. Something about a mindscape. As Luz tried to ponder this, she heard the vision of Nox speak up.

"So basically everyone has this mental area where it houses everything that makes them who they are which can also be a place where they can be comfy and cozy. It contains everything too like their thoughts, their memories, their hopes and innermost fears etc...". Nox in the vision said. As soon as it was finished, Luz gently closed the door. She couldn't help but smile remembering the day she met Nox which she considers the best day of her life.

However, Luz couldn't help but think about what Nox said in the vision, the more she started putting things together. She had heard her explain something about a Mindscape during the show, but she hadn't been paying attention to her at the time due to being focused on the tv(which Nox reprimanded her for) . "Could it be that I'm inside the Mindscape?" Luz said. The more she thought about it, the more it started to make sense. This place she was trapped in contained all her memories, even the bad ones she wanted to forget about. Add that to the fact that it looked like a house(albeit a run down one), an obvious place of comfort, and it made even more sense. Luz concluded that she was in her Mindscape.

"Okay, so I'm apparently in the Mindscape which is actually real, but how did I end up here? For that matter, how do I get out?" Luz questioned herself, still unable to figure out the reason why she was here.

As soon as those words left Luz's mouth, another door down the hall opened itself. Seeing this, Luz immediately made her way towards it and saw another memory.

"Huh, this looks familiar," Luz said as she looked at a memory of her and Nox running after what appeared to be a small owl who had her phone. "That's right. Me and Nox ran away from home after M- Karen tried to hurt me . Then we ran into the forest where an owl took my phone , and...what happened next". The memory then went white, confusing Luz in the process. "Hey, what's the big deal?" Before she could say anything else, a flash of yellow light appeared revealing a strange door with an eye which she and Nox in the vision ran out of.

"That's right. Me and Nox followed the owl into the door in order to get my phone back. And then we found ourselves in another world where we met Eda the owl lady who had us help her in exchange for sending us back home..."

Luz watched as the memory of herself and co. arrive at the conformatorium. At the time, Luz was focused on getting what they needed. Now that she look back on it the conformatorium was pretty cool albeit terrifying at the same time. In fact the boiling Isles itself seems amazing even from what little she has seen of it.

She kinda want to stay there...

As Luz kept her gaze on the memory, she tried to remember what happened next. Then, all of a sudden without warning she felt her head begin to hurt like someone was beating it with a hammer trying to split it open. Suddenly, the door shut as Luz fell to her knees, clutching her head in pain.

Oh titan, it hurts! Why does it hurt so much?!

Luz's head felt like it was being cracked open like an egg. One minute she was remembering how she had gotten into this weird place. The next minute, it felt like someone was putting two drills between her ears and scrambling her brain. And in the midst of all that, more memories of what happened returned, hitting her like a ton of bricks. She remembered what Wrath did to Eda and King, what she did to Wrath, and the look of shock and surprise on Eda and King's faces when she told them about what she is.

P-please make this pain stop! I-I can't take it anymore! Luz pleaded desperately as she continued to hold her head in pain.

As if some higher power heard her cries, Luz felt a wave of energy akin to warm water flow through her head and then her body as the headache started vanishing. She finally let go of her head just as one last memory appeared but for some reason instead of showing itself through a door, this new memory played out in her mind.

T-this is... Luz thought as she closed her eyes while the memory played in her head.

Flashback...

Luz, Nox, Eda, and King were now back at the owl house. After the whole encounter with warden wrath and Luz revealing herself to be an Etherious to them they had decided to go back despite ending up not getting King's crown. Although Luz had noticed that Eda was oddly quiet and weary around her during the trip back.

"Well, a deal's a deal, kid. You can go home." Eda said as she snapped her fingers, making the key she gave to Luz float back to her before she clicked it like a button.

The doorway that brought her to the Boiling Isles soon opened up behind and waited for Luz and Nox to open it to return home, but as Luz turned to it, she felt a bit of hesitation before turning back to them and seeing King's crestfallen expression.

"H-hey, K-king, about your crown." Luz said as she turned and walked to him, opening her bag and pulling out the crumbled up crown. "I w-was able to snatch it up b-before we left, I know it's not in the best condition but a king should never be without his crown."

Luz pulled out a crumpled crown from her pocket and fixed it up as best as she could before handing it to King.

"Coo-er I mean uh...this shall suffice " King said as he smiled up to Luz.

"Take care kid." Eda said to her with a smile. Luz was glad that Eda's weary expression from before was gone.

"Yeah, I will." Luz said as she turned to the door, pulling out her phone to check the time. She gazed at the door in silence before looking at the quote on her phone's wallpaper..

"You only live once, you might as well make it count!" The wallpaper read.

'Only live once, huh?' Luz thought before looking up for a moment and saw a mirror behind the door, reflecting her with Eda and King standing right behind her. It reminded her of an old fantasy book she once read. Suddenly, an idea came to her mind.

Hey Nox? Luz said through the bond

Don't worry Luz, leave the talking to me Nox answered having seemingly read her mind.

Thanks Nox Luz gave her best friend a smile.

"Hey, guys. I know today wasn't exactly what any of us imagined it would be but if i'm being honest, it was the most fun we've had in our life" Nox said as she and Luz turned to Eda and King, who were silent and listened to the living puppet. "Look, we don't fit in much at home cause people thought we were weird and you guys don't fit in that well here either. So maybe, we could all fit together? And maybe, I could learn something here?"

"Learn something? Like what? magic?" Eda joked as Luz pocketed her phone.

"Yeah, learn magic. Maybe even become a witch like you." Nox suggested while Luz nodded in agreement.

"Are you serious?" Eda questioned while looking at Luz like she's crazy. "Etherious like you can not be witches, its unheard of"

"Maybe you only think that because you don't know of a single one that's tried yet." Nox countered as she and Luz looked up to Eda "You teach us to be a witch, I'll help you with stuff like earlier with your human trinkets stand since we are from Earth. Deal?"

King jumped on Eda's shoulder as the owl lady was thinking about it "Say yes, say yes!" he said to her before whispering. "She might know how to make snacks."

"Hmm, well if you did stay, you could help me keep this goofball out of the cupboards." Eda said as she took King off her shoulder. "All right. I'll let you live with me. but you gotta do what I say to the letter, understand?"

"Aye aye captain." Nox said jokingly before Luz suddenly hugged them tightly, much to Eda and King's discomfort.

"Too tight! Too tight!" King shouted in the hug.

"Okay what are you doing?" Eda questioned.

"It's called a hug. Deal with it." Nox jokingly said before Luz lets go of them

Eda then led Luz to a spare room, and even though it was cluttered with all sorts of human trash, the room was... nice, Luz felt somewhat at ease. Perhaps it was the fact that she wasn't at Earth, or perhaps it was because she was away from her foster parents?

She didn't really know.

But that didn't matter, at least not anymore.

What mattered was that she was staying in the Boiling Isles, With Eda and King where she could possibly learn magic of all things! and this could be a brand new start for her, where she could actually be herself and do things she actually wants to do!

Luz sighed and rolled over, she stared at the roof above her, she smiled before seeing Nox remove herself from her hand and laying next to her on her sleeping bag that had been given by Eda.

"Good night Nox"

"Night Luz" Nox

She sighed and rolled onto her side facing her bestie, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep

Flashback End...

"So...I ended up staying?" Luz said out loud as she opens her eyes "But how did I end up here? All that happened was that I went to asleep and-"

All of a sudden the whole place started to shake violently while accompanied by a static noise that somehow didn't affect Luz.

"Woah! w-what's h-happening?" Luz said as the room started to shake more before it was engulfed in a bright light that forced Luz to shield her eyes.

When the light disappeared she found herself in a dark hallway. She was about to question where she was this time when she felt something...

Something was drawing her in...

She's does not know what it was but it was compelling her to follow this path.

Must follow...

Like it's her sole purpose to make it to the end of whatever this is.

Like it will make her feel...complete.

"Luuuzuuurrraaa..."

A voice, hypnotic and oddly familiar called out to her.

"Come...to me..."

As she walked further down the dark hallway, she see a door with a strange symbol carved onto it.

A sun and a moon invoking the image of an eclipse

Weird...

She quickens her pace and then she feels something.

It was a sense of...peace

This whole situation makes no sense to her but she's certain of one thing.

She wants this feeling...

She needs it now

And it's all past that door.

She just needs to get a little bit closer.

...

She's nearly there now.

...

Wait, why won't it let her through?

Wait, No! I have to see what's inside she pleaded with the door but nothing happens.

She then tries to reach out for it when all of a sudden she felt someone grab her and forcefully turned her around and she saw that it was the same shadowy figure from before. Only now, they were wearing ivory mask with black markings that resembled the cracks on her face.

When Luz was about to speak, the figure in front of her beat her to it, uttering only one word.

"Awaken."

And then she woke up...

To be continued...

Phew! It's finally done. So originally this chapter would have taken an entirely different route. The most we can say about the original version was that it would have gone into more detail on Luz's past and some info on the Etherious race in this au but we decided to save it for later as the story progresses instead. So again we hope you guys were satisfied with this chapter though.

Oh before we forget. We would like to ask if any of you are willing to beta read for this story? Rothem has difficulty proof reading his own work which often hinders progress and he could use a second opinion on certain things. If you're interested just PM us.

Now for some review responses:

TheSilverUmbreon- I couldn't resist XD

develdragon13- glad to know our misdirection worked XD. Although we will admit that one of the original ideas for this au was that Luz was going to be Belos' daughter but we changed it.

TheFranninator- thank you! we hope you weren't disappointed with this update.

UltimateAvengers- yep the Etherious here are based on the ones from fairy tail however they won't be exactly the same. And yes there will be Lumity.

OMAC001- Yep and some other animes too.

Anyway, that's all; if you enjoy this story, then drop us a review letting us know what you think and as always, and if you have any questions feel free to ask