"Are you guys okay?" Willow asked drawing Amity ad Luz's attention.

"What do you mean?" Amity asked closing her locker as naturally as she could. Of course, this meant she slammed it so hard, Luz jumped from shock.

"Well it's just, you and Luz have been a lot more silent than normal today."

Luz and Amity looked at each other. After a few seconds they came to a decision.

"Not here." Luz said.

"What do you mean not here?" Gus asked.

"Come to the Owl House." Luz said. "It's… complicated."

"Really?" A very familiar voice behind Luz said.

Luz let out a small yelp and leapt away.

Everyone stared at her in confusion, most of all Boscha, who'd never gotten that reaction out of the human.

"Wow…" she said, "You really should wind down."

"U-uh… yeah…" Luz said, her voice shaking. "I'm… sorry."

Now that got everyone's attention.

"Luz." Willow said. "Are you okay?"

"Well," Boscha said, trying to recover from her shock. "I guess you've learned to express the proper amount of respect."

Luz didn't say anything.

Boscha narrowed her eyes. Why wasn't the human responding? She made to say something but stopped. She leaned in close to the human and sniffed her.

"Anyway," Amity said quickly, grabbing Luz's hand, "class is going to start soon. We better get going." She began moving away from everyone and chanced a glance back.

Boscha was staring at them with shock.

/

Lunch time was almost normal for Amity and Luz. At least before Boscha sat down at their table.

Gus choked on his fairy pie in surprise and Willow inched away from the bully.

"What?" Amity asked.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice?" Boscha asked.

"Notice what?" Luz asked.

"Your withdrawn attitudes, the vacant expressions, the way you jump at every little shadow."

"What?" Gus asked. "Even Boscha's noticed? What the heck is going on guys?" Willow nodded.

Amity and Luz had been avoiding all questions about their behavior religiously and it was annoying the plant mage and illusionist.

"It's mostly your scents." Boscha admitted. "You're doing a good job of suppressing it but the Alphas and Omegas in the school have already noticed it. Fortunately for you, I've made sure that no one tells the Betas."

Willow and Gus looked at each other before looking back at the triclops. "What are you talking about?"

Boscha ignored them. "No one seems to know because I'm the only one who challenged him as much as I did, but I recognize the scent."

Both Omegas couldn't move. Boscha knew about Hunter's scent? And she could smell him on them? She knew they had mated. Who knows what horrible ideas she was getting? What horrible ideas she would spread. What-?

The doomsday scenarios in their heads stopped as the pink-skinned girl reached across the table and grabbed their hands. "Was it a rage?" She asked quietly.

"What?" Luz asked.

"He was covered in scents, many from female Omegas. Maybe that's what did it. Or…"

"Boscha." Amity said. "Why do you care? Don't you hate us?"

Boscha looked at her awkwardly before sighing. "It's because, as uncool as you guys are, you don't deserve this if you didn't want it." She released their hands.

"I should know. I almost raged out once." She admitted. "I didn't quite get that far but… my thoughts were terrifying. Alphas are supposed to protect their Omegas, but his safety was far from the first thing on my mind."

The girls nodded, understanding.

Gus and Willow were just beginning to put together what had happened when the school alarms went off.

"It's the school's attack warning." Gus said.

Luz blinked. "The school's what?"

"It's an alarm that informs us if the school is under attack."

"Is that common?"

"Well," Amity said. "Hexside is built on the remains of the last school that was here."

"Oh right. The Boiling Isles never fails to amaze."

"So who's attacking?" Gus asked. "Is it Glandis?" He said the last word with a lot of suspicion.

At that moment Edric and Emira ran into the lunch hall. They looked around frantically until they spotted their sister and her friends. "Abomatons!" They yelled.

"What?" Luz screamed.

/

Fifty Abomatons stood outside the school in perfect formation.

The students peaked out of the school windows at the silent army.

"What's going on?"

"Aren't those Blight industries products?"

"No, my Dad said they belong to the Emperor's coven."

"Is the Emperor attacking Hexside?"

"It's because of those witches in different tracks isn't it."

"I bet he wants the human."

"What do we do? We can't go to war with the emperor."

Luz was barely aware of the gossip around her as she stared at the small army. She and Amity could beat one. Surely Hexside could beat fifty. Right?

"What do we do?" Amity asked.

"Run?" Gus asked.

"And abandon our school?" Boscha asked, appalled that it had even been suggested.

"I don't think Emperor Belos is interested in our school." Emira said.

Boscha paused and looked at the two Omegas with them. "This is him isn't it."

Before she could be answered the Abomatons on the front line reached up. Their arms turned into goo and shot forward slamming into the walls of the school.

"Woah," Luz said stumbling back into Boscha. She looked at the Alpha before yelping and jumping away, sprawling out on the floor.

"Luz." Amity said, concern in her voice as she helped the human up. "Are you okay?"

Luz looked at her. Then she glanced at Boscha who looked just as concerned.

Before she could answer however, she was interrupted by another boom as the Abomatons pulled their arms back, ripping parts of Hexside's walls out.

"Are you children alright?"

Everyone looked at the source of the voice. Principal Bump was glaring out the window at the Abomatons.

"Uh… yeah." Emira said. "But it looks like we're about to get into a fight with…"

"Is that a giant bird?" Gus asked.

"Eda?" Luz asked, looking back out the window.

She was not greeted with the sight of a harpy woman, but with a giant liquid cardinal speeding straight towards the school, trailing red and gold streaks.

"Big Rascal," She said.

The giant cardinal seemed to speed up as it flew closer, its form bulging as it seemed to struggle to hold itself together.

"Is it just me," Boscha said, "or is it going to…"

The cardinal crashed right into the abominations like a meteor, boiling hot water flying everywhere.

The kids all flinched as some of the steaming water hit the window they were staring out of.

They looked out at the devastation. The land in front of the school had transformed into a mud pit, soaked ground surrounding the ten-foot-deep crater where the Abomatons had once stood.

And standing on the devastation, his boots sinking into the hot mud, was a single form. He was barely visible through the steam, but those who had seen him recognized him.

Hunter, Luz realized.

"Who is that?" Willow asked.

At that moment, Hunter leaned back right as a half melted Abomaton jumped out from the mud with its arm transformed into an axe. In a flash of red, they he was above the abomination. One second later, a fist of rock shot out of the ground and knocked a hole through it.

"Construction magic?" Gus asked.

Another surviving Abomaton jumped at him only for several vines, glowing red, to burst out of the forest and wrap around it.

"Plant magic." Willow said.

He landed right before jumping back from a third attack and everyone saw him twirl a staff in the air.

Large sections of the swamp began to move and congeal. As Luz watched it seemed less like whatever he used to control water and more like…

"He's barely got the basics down." Amity noted.

"Basics?" Luz asked.

"The basics of learning abomination magic." Principal Bump clarified. "We start with mud before moving on to creating abomination goo. The scale is impressive, but it's the equivalent of crawling really fast when learning how to walk."

The swamp seemed to suck up all the pieces of the Abomatons as a large clump of it levitated out of the ground and rolled into a ball. And then in flash, solidified."

"What was that?" Gus asked.

"A failure." Willow said, remembering her time in the Abomination track. "He failed to control the mud properly. Not enough flow and freedom, and so the magic backlashed and solidified it." She blushed. "It kinda happened to me a lot. He took that concept and weaponized it."

As the perfectly spherical boulder landed back in the swamp and began to sink in, Hunter turned to the school and began walking to it as if the ground beneath his feet wasn't hot sludge.

In a flash of red, his silhouette changed into his more recognizable Golden Guard outfit, complete with mask.

"He's going to the door." Gus said before running off. Everyone around blinked before they began following.

As they pushed to the front of the gathered crowd, the doors burst open and the Guard marched in. He only had his one staff in his hand. Several people had their scrolls out and recording.

He stopped and you could hear a pin drop as he looked at the assembled crowd. His head turned as he scanned them, before falling on the Omegas.

Luz and Amity resisted the urge to call out to him as he continued his scan of the room. Then he bowed.

"Apologies." He said loudly. "A miscommunication led to the Abomatons mistaking this school for an empty building. This was supposed to be a training exercise." He glanced back at the swamp. "As you can all see, they failed horribly."

A few people giggled at his joke. Amity looked to her left when she realized Emira was one of them.

"Anyway," he said turning around. "The Emperor's coven will have this all repaired. Have a good day. Byeee."

And then everyone exploded into cheers as he walked away and began jostling to try and get closer to him. As soon as he was out of the school however, he mounted his staff and flashed away.

Amity and Luz were pushed back by the moving crowd, even as they tried to get closer to ask him… anything.

Ed grabbed them and pulled them back. "Don't bother," he said. "I know an illusion when I see one."

/

Eda and Lilith found Hunter sitting against a few dozen meters from the school. He was laying against a tree, completely unconscious and covered in scalding injuries. His clothes were soggy which explained the injuries. He was barely holding on to his artificial staff and had his Palisman sitting in the nest his hair had become, also resting.

"Well," Eda said. "That was something."

"Let's get him back to the house," Lilith said, "he must have overworked his magic to do all of that."

"Is this normal for Alpha's?" Eda asked. "I know he feels guilty, but they aren't even that attracted to each other."

"Bold of you to assume a teenage boy isn't in any way attracted to two pretty teenage girls in a relationship."

Eda gave her sister a flat look.

"Sorry," she said, "I was trying to inject some levity into the situation."

"Is this normal?" Eda asked again.

Lilith shrugged. "I mean, reduce the general skill level and yeah. Alphas are extremely protective of their mates."

Eda didn't say anything as she gently picked the boy up.

/

Being able to move large amounts of the boiling sea is such an overpowered move.

For the only coven allowed regular magic usage, we don't see members of the Emperor's coven doing that much with magic from other covens. If anyone's going to be able to do it though, it'd be Hunter, the teen prodigy.

And now Boscha is thrown into the mix.

Anyway, please leave a review with your thoughts and follow me on twitter my handle is ImmigrantWriter.