The next morning, Luz was finishing a plate of scrambled griffon eggs, with a distinct lack of any other Owl House residents.
"Where is everyone this morning?" she asked aloud as she set her plate in the sink.
"I'm here, Luz!" Hooty opened his door to chime in.
"You don't count, Hooty," Luz said, making a sad 'aw' come from the bird tube. She grabbed her things, ready to head for Hexside. "Eda! I'm heading out!" She yelled inside as she stood in Hooty's doorway.
"Great!" Eda replied, stepping out from the hallway. She had a trench coat, hat and sunglasses on, like she was about to go undercover. "Then I guess I'll head out, too."
"Where are you going?"
"Well, as much as I trust you to learn Abomination magic," she walked up to Luz and rustled her hair, "I still wanna get a feel for what Belos is planning, and how many of those things he's got."
"Wait," Luz's eyes widened, "you don't mean you're going to Belos' Castle, do you?"
"Yup! I'm gonna do some reconnaissance!" Eda gave Luz a thumbs up.
"And I'm coming, too!" King emerged from behind Eda's leg, holding a little backpack holding Francois in it.
"He's the moral support," Eda semi-whispered.
"And murder support!" Eda clearly didn't speak quiet enough. "I've got two horns now! Perfect for gouging out the hearts of my enemies!"
"Aww, who's a perfect widdle murder machine?" Luz said in her baby voice, kneeling down to give King tummy pets.
King giggled gleefully, "It's me! I'm a murder machine!"
Luz stood back up, taking on a serious tone. "Will you guys be ok? I mean, you remember what happened the last time you were there?" Luz, of course, was referring to Eda's near-petrification, a moment that Luz still had a hard time living down.
Eda smirked at her human. "Aw, c'mon, give me a little credit. It's not like I haven't snuck in there before. And besides," she whipped out a few of Luz's new invisibility glyphs, "I've been with enough Mermen to know how to hold my breath." Luz shuddered slightly at this.
"Plus, I've got a secret weapon I've been working on." She opened her coat to pull something out of the inner pocket, but Hooty interrupted the suspense.
"Is it me?" Hooty said, Hootily.
Everyone in the room groaned. "No, Hooty, it's not you," Eda sighed.
"But I'd sure be a good secret weapon! I can come too! Ooh, let me get changed!"
"Ay! No otra vez!"
A loud squelching, splashing sound could be heard all around the Owl House, along with the sounds of dry heaving and gagging. After an extreme bout of nausea, the trio looked down to see Hooty in his miniature house again.
"Porta-Hooty 2! Electric Hoot-aloo!" He said with excitement. No one shared his excitement.
"Thanks, Hooty," Eda said flatly, "that's exactly what I needed to see today."
Luz, still reeling from Hooty's... transfer, turned back to her mentor. "Well, as long as you're careful."
"Kid, 'careful' is my middle name," she jabbed a thumb at herself.
"I thought it was 'The'," King added.
"Anyways, you just remember your part, and ask your little friend about Abominations. Maybe even see if she knows anything else about her dad's creations."
"You're right, I bet she probably heard all about that," she stroked her chin inquisitivly, "I bet she's planning the same thing as me. She's so smart like that." Luz momentarily got lost in a daydream, before bringing herself back to reality.
"Well, I guess I'll see you guys later," Luz waved everyone off as she made her way to Hexside.
Eda looked down at 'Porta-Hooty' in disgust. "If I ever see you do that again, I'm gonna cook you for Thankskilling dinner."
"Hoot, you'll never take me alive!"
"That's the idea," Eda said as she hefted Hooty onto her back.
"And then, Matty helped put the Illusionist graveyard back together... mostly." Gus recounted his tale yesterday to Willow and Luz as they walked to their first classes of the day.
"Wow, I didn't think Mattholemew had it in him!" Luz said as they stopped at her locker to retrieve her Potion textbooks.
"Yeah, and I think we might be friends now. Maybe? That's still kinda up in the air." Gus shrugged.
"Well I hope you two are," Willow said, giving Gus a light punch with her good arm, "he seems like a nice boy, just a bit misunderstood. Kinda reminds me of someone..."
"Amity!"
Gus and Willow looked back up, thinking g they'd see Amity, but all they saw was some purple girl with black fingernails, blushing like nothing else.
"Wait... Amity?" they said in unison.
"H-hey everyone," Amity meekly waved at the group.
"Wow! You look great Amity!" Willow ran over to the new and improved Amity to get a better look. "This is a great color on you! What's the occasion?"
"O, y'know," she scratched at her cheek, finding a subtle way to explain yesterday's events, "some... stuff happened, and my roots were growing out, so I figured I needed a change." She looked up to Luz for a moment, but both looked away when they made eye contact.
Willow and Gus looked back and forth between the other two girls, when Willow got a big smirk on her face.
"Gus! Remember, we have that thing!"
"Thing? What thing-ow!" He was swiftly reminded by an elbow to the ribs. "Oh, right! That thing in that... place. Let's go do that now." And with that, they "nonchalantly" left to do that "thing", leaving Luz and Amity by Luz's locker.
"Heyyy, Mittens," Luz chuckled and shot a couple uneasy finger pistols at Amity, clearly not knowing where to go from here, "how's it hangin'?"
"I'm... good, thank you," Amity replied, also not sure how to handle the conversation, so both relegated to awkward silence. Until they spoke up simultaneously.
"We need to talk-"
"We need to talk-"
Luz chuckled awkwardly. At least she was right about that, Amity wanted to help out with the Abomiton situation... probably.
"Well, you probably know what I was gonna ask," Luz said.
"Y-yeah," Amity replied, a blush rising on her face again.
"But we both know this is really important, right?"
"O-of course, it's... kinda all I've been able to think about," Amity looked away sheepishly, her blush spreading to her ears.
Luz wasn't exactly expecting that, but she wasn't going to object. "Cool, but we probably shouldn't do it here, since, y'know, school."
Amity looked back up, surprised by the implication. "N-no, right, of course not, that'd be silly," she forced an awkward laugh at this.
"Then how about swinging by the Owl House at 7?"
"Y-yeah, that sounds great, Luz" Amity smiled at Luz, who was handling the situation shockingly well. It took several months (and two kisses) for Amity to try and ask Luz this question, and Luz did it for her. It was almost too easy... but she rolled with it. "I guess I'll see you then."
"Yeah, see ya then, Ams," Luz let a blush sneak through as Amity made her way to her own class. "Well, that was surprisingly easy. I'm glad we were on the same page."
They weren't on the same page.
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Eda? I mean, maybe Luz was right, things didn't go great last time..." King voiced his concern as the trio climbed through a window in the castle.
"Eh, you two worry too much. I got plenty of glyphs, combos, and," she patted her pocket, "the secret weapon."
"Meeee~" Hooty stretched out from his spot on Eda's back to be Hooty. He was quickly smacked in the face by a nonplused Eda.
"As long as we don't run into any of those Abomi-whatsits, we'll be fine."
As King rounded the next corner, he froze on the spot. "Eda... I don't think we're gonna be fine."
"Whaddya mea- oh. Oh..." Eda came around the same corner and saw what King had. They were in an enormous room, filled with dozens- no, hundreds of Abomitons, lined up perfectly from wall to wall. There were a couple spots in the line that were empty, implying that a few were out and about. Even Hooty dropped his jaw at the sight.
"How... how did he get so many?" Eda questioned, dumbstruck by the amount of firepower in front of them.
"Oh, the Emperor's Coven has it's ways," a voice from behind said. They wheeled around to see, and eyes widened. It was the Golden Guard, with a pair of Abomitons behind him.
"'Sup."
Amity wasn't quite sure how formal or informal to dress, so she opted for her regular black and purple outfit. She hoped that Luz didn't think she didn't put any effort into it, and she stressed about it the entire walk to the Owl House, at one point even considering going back home to change into something nicer.
Unfortunately, by the time she convinced herself to go back, she was already walking up to the Owl House. She noticed that the house demon bird thing was missing, instead a pulsing mass of organs was there. Amity gagged slightly at the sight of this, but knocked on the door. Not five seconds later, she could see a head of dark hair through the disgusting hole in the door.
"Amity, hey," Luz said with a nervous chuckle as she opened the door.
"H-hey Luz," Amity said with a timid smile, "are you ready for tonight?"
"As long as you are. C'mon, I've got everything ready over here." She ushered Amity into the house.
"Oh, ok," Amity was a bit surprised. She was expecting for them to go into Bonesborough for this, but this setting was nice, as well. They didn't even have to deal with the house demon!
In the middle of the room was a giant tarp, covering what looked like a pot and some supplies. Did Luz... make dinner for them? Her already present blush was growing more prominant as Luz grabbed the covering.
"Welcome, Amity," Luz yanked the tarp off the table, "to Abomination training!"
Laying out on the table were Abomination ingredients, textbooks and drawings, as well as some of Luz's glyphs, blank paper, and a giant cast iron cauldron. Amity blinked twice at this layout.
"...what?"
A/N: I am SO sorry this took so long. I got so stuck on this that I almost didn't want to keep going. Plus I have a lot more I want to do for Colorblind, so that took up most of my brain power. But I have everything mapped out for the last chapter, so it should be ready by this week... or next week... probably.