"We got what we need, let's go!" Amity shouted, pushing Boscha down the hall that they had come from. One of the creatures moved to intercept Boscha while the other reached out with its crook and hooked Amity around the waist. "No!" She shouted in panic. Fortunately, its grip was on the abomination that encased her and she twisted to the side and fell to the floor, the abomination remaining trapped.
Boscha let out a rage fuelled shout and pulled back a fist, the tight button up shirt that Edric had given her to wear tearing at the seams. Before the creature facing her could trap her in its crook, she connected with her punch, cracking the creature's mask and sending it careening against the wall, dropping it's weapon.
"Abomination, attack!" Amity commanded, and the abomination twisted in place to face the creature holding it and charged forward, undeterred by the hooked staff that passed through its midsection. She had lost her disguise, but at least she could move freely again. "We need to get out of here!"
"On it!" Boscha grinned, landing another punch on the creature. The attacks didn't seem to be hurting it at all, but the impacts were keeping it on the floor for now. Amity climbed to her feet and started to run, grabbing Boscha's shoulder on her way by. Now that they had been discovered, she snapped her fingers with her other hand to summon up a globe of light and sent it forward to illuminate the way. "Enough! Let's go, already!"
Boscha had a maniacal look on her body's face as she continued pummelling the creature, and the moment she stood to run with Amity, it lifted itself from the floor and grabbed its staff again, abandoning its companion to the abomination. "Trouble…" it rasped, echoing in the darkened hallway.
"What are those things?" Boscha asked through heavy breaths, running alongside Amity. "I've never seen them before."
"I don't know… They have Hexside tabards though. If they're guards, hopefully we just have to get out of the school." Amity said, hearing the steady foot falls of the creature behind them. "Quick! In here!" She shouldered her way into a classroom cluttered with masonry and lumber, and she allowed Boscha in before slamming the door again behind her.
"A Construction Class, nice! There should be a back door in here somewhere." Boscha whispered, sprinting across the room. They weren't sure if whatever was chasing them saw them dash into the class room, but it seemed safe to assume the creatures could track them easily enough.
Amity was clutching her shirt in a panic. She could not get caught. She could not be sent to detention, or home, or the conformatorium. She felt frozen, and she couldn't keep her heart from trying its best to escape her chest.
"Amity, are you all right?"
The voice didn't come from Boscha, and she closed her eyes tight in an attempt to calm herself. "Yeah, mom." She whispered, knowing her mother was now listening in again through the gem on her necklace. "Just, uhm… hanging out with Boscha. Watching a scary show on the scrying orb."
"You should know better by now, Mittens, how those affect your night. I would also appreciate knowing where you are before I have the servants make dinner."
Amity's eyes began to tear as she heard sniffing on the other side of the door. "I know, mom." She whispered. "I really need to go see how this ends. Bad dreams otherwise, y'know."
"Very well, Mittens. But don't say I didn't warn you when you complain about being too tired for homework."
"I won't." She snapped, then sucked in a breath when a gentle tapping sounded on the other side of the door.
"Amity, check out what I found!" Boscha said from the other side of the large room, holding up a small strip of paper. "A Construction power glyph!"
Amity swallowed hard and felt the door she was leaning against shake. "Boscha, don't use that!" She shouted, running from the door as it burst open from another kick. Both creatures stood in the doorway, their crooks held out and ready to capture the troublemakers. Amity could feel that her abomination was no longer under her control, and she drew a spell circle in order to call it back to her. She leaped forward, narrowly escaping being caught by a crook, and careened into Boscha in a heap. "Ow…" she said, rubbing her head.
"Trouble…" the pair of creatures growled in unison as they approached, standing above them.
"What'd you do that for?" Boscha complained, pushing Amity off.
"I'm not getting in trouble for this!" Amity shouted back. She didn't know what to do any more, and as the crook hooked around her waist again, she reached out to grab a table to keep herself from being pulled away. "Abomination, protect!" She shouted, and could suddenly feel her construct come under her control once again. It felt confused, as though she was competing for its attention until she felt a surge move through her. As her grip was lost on the table, the door to the room burst open again, filled with purple goop that oozed through before reforming into a hunched over form. The abomination reached out and grasped both of the guards in one hand, slamming them against the wall. Amity looked on in surprise and then dropper her gaze down at her arm that she had used to protect herself when she tackled Boscha, noticing the power glyph stuck to it.
"Trouble…." The guards said, spinning around to face the new threat that had squeezed through the door.
Amity reflexively went to tear the glyph off of her arm when Boscha wrapped her hand around where it had gotten stuck. "Later! Let's get out of here first!"
"But…" Amity was buzzing with energy, a reminder of her duel with Luz and her emotions were going through whip lash as Boscha pulled her away from the battle that was ensuing. They burst through the back door of the Construction Track class, nearly running into Principal Bump. He was dressed in loose fitting pants and a casual robe cinched around his waist. Boscha's mouth was agape at his appearance, as the red creature that usually covered his head was dozing in the crook of one arm, while long flowing black and grey hair was tied loosely back in a large bun.
"Who are you?!" He asked in surprise, squinting one good eye against the darkness and a lit candle in his other hand.
"Principal Bump!" Boscha shouted back in equal surprise. "Uhm, vanishing potion!" She added, pulling a beaker of stolen ingredients from her pocket and tossing it to the floor. The beaker shattered in a large plume of yellow smoke, and Amity was pulled along down the hall and toward the school entrance.
Without needing to say a word, Amity willed her abomination to retreat from its battle and use its mass to fill the hallway, blocking their pursuers. She could feel Principal Bump attempt to wrestle control of the thick barrier away from her, but without his full concentration, the power glyph was allowing Amity to hold the abomination's form in place.
Boscha and Amity burst through the large double doors and tumbled down the stone steps before stumbling to their feet. "Come on!" Boscha shouted back, having rolled to her feet and continued on. Amity struggled to a standing position with wobbling knees. The glyph had rubbed off somewhere in the fall down the stairs, and the familiar withdrawal was hitting her hard. She looked back as the double doors to the school opened again and the pair of guards stood at the threshold, glaring at their escapees. She managed to make it to the end of the schools long approach before Principal Bump arrived at the door as well. All she could hope for was that he hadn't seen and recognized her.
Amity and Boscha reached Rot Street at the entrance to the Market before stopping to catch their breath. Amity's head was spinning and she was hanging her head, trying not to vomit due to the stress that the day had brought. They had maybe a few minutes of daylight left, and she shook her head to rid herself of the sweat that was threatening to drip from the tip of her nose. "I can't believe it…"
"I can't believe it either!" Boscha said. "Did you see Principal Bump? Talk about casual evenings!"
Amity glared at her and punched the muscular male body in the shoulder as hard as she could despite her own tired, weakened state. "You were going to leave me back there!" She shouted.
Boscha glared back, shoving her to the ground. "I got you out of there after your panic attack froze you! You're lucky I found that glyph!"
Amity grunted at the fall, shutting her eyes and swallowing the knot growing in her throat. "Lucky?" She murmured. "You have no idea how hard it is using that thing. How hard it's been trying to do any magic without one now." She said, pushing herself up to a sitting position and pulling her knees to her chest. "Just using one once without training is dangerous! I haven't even been able to learn new spells without a training wand again. Do you know how embarrassing that is?"
"Whatever, Amity. They were handing them out like candy at the Covention. They can't be that bad." Boscha said, rolling her eyes dismissively.
Amity stood slowly and brushed herself off, remaining silent as she walked past Boscha toward the Carnival grounds. "Come on. We need to get those ingredients back to Tibbles before sundown." She said quietly, feeling dejected and as alone as she ever had.
"Come on, Amity! We beat Bump! How many other students can say that? Even the detention worms are afraid of him! And did you see what he was wearing? I'll bet he watches Bleeding Hearts on the regular."
"Boscha, just… stop." The Carnival grounds weren't far from the Market fortunately, and as the sun finally vanished behind the Titan's ribs, they rounded the corner to see a tall, balding witch with tufts of green hair on the sides of his head and a thick green handlebar moustache. Yellow and purple pants clashed with his black suit jacket, white button up shirt, and bright red bow tie, but it was what was in his hands that caught Amity's attention, and the little porcine demon that he was talking to. He was taking a bag of snails from Tibbles, who was now dressed in a ring master circus outfit and speaking quietly. "Tibbles?" Amity called.
The little demon looked at her in surprise, acknowledged her, then shook the hand of the witch he was speaking to and waved him away. "Ah! Just in time! Do you have the ingredients I asked for?"
Amity frowned and looked away, picking at a blotch of abomination goo that was stuck to her shirt. "Yeah. We got them. You have the elixir?" She asked, taking the pouch of ingredients from Boscha to hand to Tibbles.
"Of course! I knew you would come through for me." He took the pouch before he continued. "After all, a Blight always upholds their end of the deal, don't they?" He giggled. "And now for one last deal…" he said, pulling a golden elixir from a pocket in his vest. "You can have this…" he continued, shaking the elixir at Boscha. "In exchange, you will be providing me with a new start when I hold you for ransom."
Amity's eyes widened at the chuckling demon before realization set in. She lifted a hand to draw a spell circle and summon an abomination, but Tibbles was quicker. Glowing green chains shot out of the ground at her feet, wrapping around her wrists and ankles, and pulling her down to her knees. "What?! But we did what you asked!" She shouted angrily, and another manacle strapped across her mouth.
Tibbles glared at Boscha, daring her to act as he approached Amity. He shook the elixir bottle again. "Take it and be gone. I'll only offer this once."
Amity turned to watch as Boscha frowned and extended a shaking hand. She met Amity's desperate gaze as she gripped the bottle and hesitantly took it from the demon. Amity tried to scream at her, but the magical gag only tightened. Boscha rubbed a thumb across the smooth glass of the bottle, hesitating for several more seconds before turning away and running back toward the Market. Amity screamed at her again, a thousand thoughts running through her mind. What was Tibbles going to ask for? Would her parents take him seriously, or even bother to negotiate for her? How much of their precious resources would they expend to get her back? She had already made excuses for her stress earlier, so it might be unlikely that her mother would bother to check up on her. She tried to create a spell circle again, but the power glyph had drawn all her magic away and her hands were pinned flat against the ground by the chains.
"Servant!" Tibbles called, and a young boy slunk from the shadows. He had dark skin, large bat-like ears and a mop of blonde hair on his head. He wore a torn Hexside student uniform with orange sleeves and leggings that identified him as being on the Beast Tamer track, though Amity couldn't recognize him. "Did you bring me the beasts I requested?"
"Yessir." The boy said. "A manticore and a griffon."
"Excellent! Bring them to my workshop and put them with the other unicorns." He ordered, then casually drew a spell circle that released the chains holding Amity to the ground and bound them together before forcing her to float along behind him. "You know, I wasn't certain your friend was going to take my offer. Let's hope he enjoys his prize!" He giggled.
Tibble's servant drew his own spell circle, and a young griffon and manticore came out of the shadows behind him, their eyes glowing a faint yellow. He quickly caught up to where Amity was floating along, the pair of monsters following him in turn. "Amity, right?" The boy asked in a whisper. Amity could only look at him sadly, the gag still firmly affixed. "My name's Toddric. I'm sorry your friend left, that's pretty harsh. I've been working with Tibbles for about a week now. No one came for me when I was caught…" he said, trailing off.
Amity raised her brow and looked away sadly. Her hope was already beginning to dwindle as the group walked for several minutes before reaching a stable. Tibbles continued to direct Amity inside and dropped her on the floor in the middle of the room. There were several creatures already inside, bound to posts by thick chains, and a mortar, pestle, and caldron were off to the side. "Servant, see to my pets and prepare them for the potion!" Tibbles giggled, placing the pouch of ingredients on the table with the grinding bowl. "I'll show them…" he said to himself. "Destroy generations of Grimm Hammer legacy, will they?" He began grinding up the ingredients and dropping them into the bubbling cauldron, one after the other until the fluid started thickening and turning a bright pink color.
Toddric lead the manticore and griffon into a pair of empty stables, looking crestfallen at having to do what he was told. Amity was looking for something, anything that she could do to break her chains, but it felt as though Tibbles was quite experienced at taking captives.
After a few minutes of incantation, Tibbles tapped his cheek with a clawed hand and a plume of pink smoke erupted from the cauldron. "Finally! This will be certain to attract those no good… hmm?" A loud crack of thunder shook the building from outside, and everyone paused. "Servant, go check on that noise! I'll deal with my pets!"
"He doesn't even know my name." Toddric grumbled, moving toward the stable doors. Amity could see a blue-white light shimmering through the crack of the door and her eyes began to wet with recognition.
Amity strained against the chains again, yelling as hard as she could to warn Toddric not to open the doors but she couldn't get past the gag over her mouth. She tried to calm herself despite her current predicament, and breathed deeply through her nose, trying to touch any magic she could. And she could feel it. It was in her clothes, on her skin, and in her hair. "Abomination, free me…" she whispered, mouthing the words as best as she could and she felt her skin begin to crawl and tiny flecks of the abomination she had covered herself with began to pull themselves together, seeping out of her clothes and crawling through her hair to form a two inch tall abomination that groaned an affirmative in a high pitch voice.
The little construct had formed on her lap in front of her, and crawled into the chains that were surrounding her hands, expanding enough to rupture a link. The little helper wiped its brow, then began climbing her arm up to her shoulder to begin work on the gag as she began to wrestle out from the manacles around her wrists. Just as Toddric placed a hand on the door in order to open it, she broke free and shouted. "Toddric, get away from the…"
The door blew open with enough concussive force to knock both Toddric and Amity back several feet and back to the floor. A large, and very angry looking glowing outline of a Raven burst through the door and Lilith Clawthorne stood in its center. "Amity! Are you here?!" She shouted, her piercing green eyes looking about the room like a bird of prey, with her ivory staff glowing blue and levelled at the room.
Amity gasped, breathing in the dust from the explosion and giving in to a coughing fit. "I… I'm here!" She called.
"You!" Lilith shouted, the electrified power of her staff buzzing throughout the building. Crackling blue light was striking out from the raven palisman on the end of her staff, causing sparks of energy to smolder pinpoints of black ash in the floor, walls and ceiling. "Are you Tibbles?!" She shouted, pointing her staff at Toddric's face.
"He's not Tibbles!" Amity shouted, struggling to stand. "He's another captive. Tibbles is…" she began, looking back to where the little demon had run off to. "Gone." And he had somehow taken all of the creatures with him.
Amity watched as Lilith reluctantly lowered her staff and glared at the boy. "Skara, see to this boy." She ordered, and Skara, in her own body again, replaced Lilith looking down at Toddric and offered him a hand to his feet. Amity's eyes moved to meet Lilith's and the older woman stopped half way to meeting her when Boscha walked up.
She crossed her arms, and refused to meet Amity's eyes, looking around the building awkwardly. "I'm sorry I left. I guess."
"You went and gave Lilith the elixir." Amity said. "And everyone else."
"Yeah. I figured it would be a good idea to get some backup. Turns out that elixir is pretty powerful and it only took a sip to switch each person, and…"
"Thanks." Amity said, fighting just to get the one word past the lump in her throat. She wanted to hold someone. To be held. She hadn't had that since she had been friends with Willow, and it just felt… vulnerable with anyone else. "I wasn't sure if you would."
Boscha looked confused, and then angry. "Whatever. I just didn't want that little porker to get away with double crossing us."
Amity let out a cough and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. "Right. I guess I'll see you at school tomorrow then."
"Sure. I guess." Boscha replied with a frown, turning and walking away.
Amity found that she was clutching the bottom of her shirt with her other fist again, and looked up to find that Lilith had approached after Boscha left. "Are you alright, Amity?" She asked, gracefully holding out a hand. "We rushed over as soon as Boscha brought us the elixir." She said, holding up the empty potion bottle. "It's quite the interesting, and… familiar brew."
"Yeah. I'm alright… as much as can be expected anyway, all things considered." Amity said, unable to meet her eyes. "I'd appreciate it if my parents…"
"I'll make sure that Blight Industries is never aware of what happened today." She smiled, kneeling down to look Amity in the eyes. "Amity, I am sorry for what I did during the Covention. I have been tasked with bringing the Owl Lady to the Emperor, and I'm sorry that I involved you." She said, placing her hand on Amity's shoulder and squeezing it gently.
"Yeah. I get it." Amity had spent the last several years looking up to Lilith, and had felt used and betrayed by her after the Covention with her respect turning into contempt for the woman. Now, after being rescued by her, she wasn't sure what to feel. "Greatness requires sacrifice. I've read the brochure." She frowned, finally managing to meet her gaze. "I guess I'm just tired of being the one sacrificed."
Lilith stood back up to her full height, her friendly smile fading to neutrality. "Let's get everyone home then, shall we?"