Chapter: The dark cave, gytrashe and the three teenagers

Cave of Spiral Uroboros, also known as the Endless Tunnel, a series of caverns which pass underneath a section of the Hip Mountain Range and the Everdark Forest. The entrance to it was five feet high. And it was wide enough for the three teenagers. It was shaped like mouth of a beast with large fangs being made out of few large stalagmites. Inside was little or almost no light in it, but it still allowed them to see part of a tunnel leading to a blackness.

Overcast skies and the trees grow tall, bringing shade for this place. So, the whole atmosphere was murky.

"All it needs is a sign that says: 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here', and then we've pretty scene like in a horror movie." Jett commented as he approached the entrance. "I go first!"

He ran forwards, only to be yanked back by Katrina's hand on his collar.

"Not so fast, Birdbrain."

"I am not afraid. I will go first. I want to go first."

"Im not questioning your bravery. I'm questionining your inteligence. We can't just went in. We still have to come up with a plan."

"Red, why do I always complicate things with careful planning."

"Because unlike you, I plan to live to be 150."

"And be wrinkled like an old prune."

"But I'll be happy and alive wrinkled lady." Katrina replied. "Like I said, we need plan." Jett opens his mouth. "Come in and make this quick is not a plan." She added.

"Fine, tell us a boring details."

"The gytrash is stronger in it's new form but slower and less nimble. So, need to avoid staying in one place. Luz, because of your smell you need to stay beetwen me and Jett. So-" Katrina then paused in her explanation once Luz lifted her pit. She took a whiff, spent a few seconds judging the smell.

"Come on. It's not that bad."

"No, I didn't mean it like that at all." the red head said, clearly trying to hide her amusement, "You are human, you smell different than we do. So, our hellhound can pickup on your scent very easily. That's why you must be close to us. Our scent is more difficult to identify."

Luz's cheeks turned slightly red. "Oh... Okay."

"Now the first thing we must do when we found a gytrash is come around in the proper position, two person in front of it and one behind gytrash, to crack a three Dawn Crystal at the same time. It would cause a most effective light blast. We have only two trials, one of which is essential. So, we don't throw the crystal until I give the signal."

"Why do you look at me in a significantly way?" Jett asked, "I'm a bit impulsive, but I'm no dummy."

Katrina just went on talking, "After gytrash will weaken, we have to move fast. Seal spell aren't complicated but requires focus, clarity of thought and a lot of magic. And if anything goes wrong..."

"We jump to the Act 3." Luz finished as she held a large firecracker with some smaller ones tied to it. Now it was also covered with the sundrop essence and the pixe dust.

"Yes. And two more thing. A gytrash is fast but have problems with make a turn. It often fails to catch prey due to only being able to run in a straight line. So, if it attacks, we will quickly duck sideways." Katrina looked at her cousin, "It's also a shadow demon, so sub spells types don't hurt it."

"And what's good to use?"

The red head girl did not immediately respond, making a periwinkle purple circle of light materialize with a motion of her finger. With this a dark pink sphere with a electric aura, white-violet-pink bolts crackle around it appear in her hand.

"Light and lightning." Katrina said, her lips turning up at the corners, then she turned to entrance, "Ready guys?"

"To the adventure!" Luz said cheerily.

Jett grinned, "I agree with the previous speaker."

One by one, everyone entered the cave.


~ 45 minutes later ~

Luz held the Dawn Crystal close to her chest. With her free hand, she gripped a phone lighted flashlight. Jett and Katrina had their magic so a small sphere of light flying beside them, but she wasn't so lucky – she shone the light in front of her as the three of them walked through the dark.

Jett was used to this kind of trek, it seemed.

Luz keep her eyes on the path forward. They walked together in silence, the sound of their feet pattering against the floor echoing off the stone walls. And the first unexpected sound they heard was a loud crunch as Luz stepped on what turned out to be a multieyes rat's skull. Jett lowered his glowing ball to look at the floor and saw that it was littered with small animal bones.

"I guess a gytrash was hungry. Ravenous, actually."

"Or something lives here" Katrina said, using a light shone from his magic orb to illuminate the fork in the cave's tunnels. "Your turn to choose, Luz."

The human girl approached the fork in the cave's tunnels, and decisively chose to go to the left fork. "This is definitely the way to go."

"And why the sudden fit of absolute certainty?" Jett said, squinting around at the dark walls.

Luz turned around, continuing to walk backwards as she looked towards him, "I mean, logically, any one of these paths should lead to gytrash' hideout. So like back there, there were three paths, right? One of them must lead to the right place, so we had a 33% chance of picking the right path."

"True." Both teen witches agreed.

"And already we hit two fork, one of them will lead to target, so we have like a 66% chance of being on right way, which means we'll be on the 99% correct path after we this fork!"

"Frankly, I know nothing about a human mathematics." Katrina said as they walked cautiously forward, "But I'm sure that is not how probability works."

"Because this is enthusiability, probability with a little enthusiasm. "

"You're good at staying positive."

Luz smiled but then frowns, glancing behind her. "Did you see something?"

"No, it must have been a trick of the light."

Just as Jett finished this sentence the bat-like demon jumped down from ceiling with teeth spitting saliva.

Its body is very similar to a lizard's body but it has bat-like features. It had a wide mouth with a few sharply fangs. It has six small, red eyes. It had four big, bat-like ears. Its neck and chest is covered by dark purple fur. Its body is grey and its legs and tail are light brown. It also had long claws on its wings and a spike on its tail.

It crawled on its wings and legs just like a spider.

"Don't hurt him! He's defending territory!" Katrina screamed to Jett as he ran forward.

"Don't worry, I'll deal with that in a humane manner."

His arms with crossed and his fingers glowed with magic energy before he spun both arms in a circle, connecting them together and forming a large dark orange spell circle.

"Sweet dreams Batsy!" Jett proclaimed as he blasted the circle at the bat, washing spell over the demonic creature as it was about to attack and making it fall to the ground in slumber.

"He is wounded." Luz kneeled down next to snored creature.

"It's impossible." Jett kneeled down too, "Sleep spell's used for knock people out."

Despite that he was right, the view in front of them denied that. The bat snored in peace but had a three very deep wounds in his side and stomach, the streaks of blood create a crimson puddle on the ground.

"It's not your fault, Jett. We know who probably attacked him." Katrina said as join to them on the ground, putting her hand on demonic bat. It was covered in a blue glow and Katrina's eyes started glowing. The blood stops and all wound closed up properly.

"So, we're close to finding the gytrash." Luz said.

While Katrina were still healing demonic bat, others stopped at once upon hearing a loud thunderous roar sounds. They turned to the tunnel, where the creature is charging at them.

The gytrash looked really angry, and the bat's blood on its fur gave it a more murderous look.

"Too close!"

Jett quickly grabbed and held Luz as he rolled to his left while Katrina moved to her right. They got up and glared at the creature, which roared wildly at them.

The area of the cave was very large and open and so it gave the three teenagers a lot more room to avoid the attacks. They used magic to raising the gathering of stalagmites or stone pillars to block gytrash's path.

The gytrash ran as fast as it could to chase and hunt down the trio. At first it looked a lot like a cat chasing the red dot.

It lasted a few seconds or minutes. In a situation like this, epinephrine makes it impossible to measure the passing of time properly.

And then the game of cat and mouse ended somewhat abruptly.

"Now!" Katrina summoned the dark crystallized walls to cover and protect her friends from what's coming next.

The Dawn Crystals shattered on impact with a ground, the pieces scattering everywhere.

Blinding flash of light filled the place about half a second after the gytrash literally become shadow and dissipated into the dark.

"What the hex!?" Jett yelled as light faded away, "Where is gytrash?"

"I don't really know, but it's not good." Luz spoke slowly and quietly, "I can feel it looking at us."

Jett looked into the darkness and then, in the blink of an eye, he flung out his right arm and shot a sphere of lightning out to random direction. He hasn't hit anything.

"Any idea?" He asked in fight pose.

Katrina draw spell circle, something seemed to twitched in air but nothing more happened. "Luz..."

"Plan B?" The Latina asked, holding the fireworks.

"Plan B."

Katrina closed her periwinkle eyes as she began looking around at the cave with the other senses. Jett and Luz stood back to back, and scanned the place very slowly.

Right, and then she opened her eyes, when her ears suddenly flop.

"Here!"

The firework mixed with the sundrop esence exploded with the force of a small bomb. Three teens flung their arms over their heads and ran, out of the way of great chunks of tunnel ceiling that were thundering to the floor.

Next moment, Luz was standing alone, gazing at a solid wall of broken rock. Darkness and dust made it impossible to see something other than indistinct outline.

'Huh? I'm okay!' She was clearly surprised about this outcome. Then something touched her arm.

"It's me." Jett's voise told her after she yelped "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Luz looked at him, "Where is Katrina?"

"I'm guessing..." Jett looked around the place. It seemed that he could see in the dark, "On the other side of rockfall."

*Rumble... Rumble*

They turned to the rubble, where the gytrash emerged from the ground.

"Oh, come on!"

It turned and glared at them. This shocked and scared them. The monster dog then charged right at them.

Jett draw spell circe. The bolt of lightning that seemed to generate from his spell circle looked like a tiny spark which caused no pain to the beast, and this only heightened its anger when they both saw the monster dog's hideous face for themselves.

"Blimey!" said Jett as pusehed Luz behind himself, drawing a much bigger spell circle in the air. The shield he conjured appeared just in time to save them from gytrash's large claws.

Upon impact Jett dug his feet into the ground and grabbed onto the staff, after sliding backwards for a while they came to a halt. Luz tried to help her friend keep the standing position.

The gytrash growling at 'em, and trying to bite them. Its clawed paws hit shield with big strong, non-stop hitting...

Jett suddenly felt a burning sensation in his chest. Exactly where his gem was. He toss a few curse words in his mind. Because he know what happens next. Of all places and times he had to be experiencing a bad moment, it had to be now.

"Luz, I'm sorry." Jett said as he put one of spare Dawn Crystals in her hand .

"For what?"

"This."

A magical aura wrapped around the girl and lifted her up. The moment of bewilderment made Luz's limbs go slack and straighten, before Jett threw her far awey. At the exact moment the shield completely vanished.

The witchling didn't have time to react before the large paw slammed into him, sending him flying back and crashing into the wall.

After that hellish shadow-dog turned it's about to ram at the human girl now...

Luz doesn't know what to do. So, she just slammed a two Dawn Crystals to each other, gushing out a brilliant yellow and white light. Gytrash barely had time to dodge to the side, the one side of its muzzle being signed slightly by a stream of burning heat energy that splashing against the cave wall, leaving an impressive scorch mark.

Black and purple eyes briefly glared through the darkness back at her before the gytrash turned and ran towards the one of tunels. It entered and disappeared in darkness, surprising and confusing Luz.

Then she crouched down in front of Jett.

"Jett?" She asked, getting him to look at her, "Are you alright?"

"I've had worse," he grunted in pain, "But it still feels like I was punched a few times in the chest by a Erumpent. That was a incredible action, by the way.

Luz smiled weakly, "I improvised. I didn't even know if it was a going work."

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?"

"So, what happened earlier?" she asked in concern. "Your..."

"My magic just glitchy from time to time." Jett repiled, drawing a small spell circle. It didn't have the desired effect as it split in half and vanished into thin air. "That's a congenital defect in a sack of magic making my magic susceptible to gets blocked for a short time."

Suddenly they heard sound from outside the Antechamber cave that sounded like a combination of howl and growl.

"Sound like a gytrash's waiting for our rematch."

"What we do now?" Luz shone her flashlight on Jett, who was still a bit dizzy.

Jett looked at her with an expression Luz couldn't read and then gave her a smile that she could only describe as forced.

He proceeded to make another spell circle but this was a bit sloppy and wavy as he drew it. Then the circle glitched and weird symbol appeared inside the circle a split second before it vanished. Luz was only one who caused something in the spell circle.

"Dang it." He grunted in pain, "In the best case I will make a small spark."

"What does that symbol mean?" Luz asked with interest.

"Symbol?" Jett looked confused.

"It was in your spell circle."

Jett looked supremely unconvinced in only that way little children could. "Spell circles don't have any symbols. It's literaly circle."

"I saw it." Thinking fast, Luz quickly took a pen and receipt from coffeehouse out of the messenger bag, "It look like this."

She said, drawing a full circle with a cone and smaller circle near the top, a line down the middle from the smaller circle, and a isosceles triangle touching the sides of the circle with two slashes in the middle.

"There."

With a hesitant tap, the small piece of paper was absorbed forming a bright, glowing ball of light that lifted up. Luz was staring at it with this really enchanted look on her face.

The orb of light twinkled a bit when she touched it. 'Such a gentle warmth...like a tiny little sun.'

"Maybe it's because I hit my head hard enough to start seeing things... But did you just do magic?" Jett asked breaking Luz out of her thoughts.

Cupping the glowing sphere in her hands, Luz lifted it up to gaze closer. "I do magic?" She whispered with what sounded like awe.

"I REALLY DO MAGIC!" She exclaimed.

Jett massaged his ears, glaring at happy human girl. "Sheesh. That was loud."

"It was." Katrina's voice agreed with him.

Jett's ears perked up like that of a cat before he and Luz turning around.

"Katrina? How did you get here?

"I teleported through rocks."

Luz's eyes widened and she stared at Katrina."You can do that?!"

"I know the basics of this spell, but this was my first try." She said deadpanned.

"And you say I'm reckless person." Jett smiled cheeckly at his cousin.

"I'm just agreeing with everyone who knows you, Jett." the tone was half teasing from Katrin, "And returning to this." Her eyes flick over to small orb of light. "How you did it, Luz?"

"I-" Luz breaks off. "I don't know. I just saw symbol in Jett's spell circle. And when I've draw it...magic happened."

"I heard people from your world used to use magic, but I never thought someone still can do that." Katrina replied with a calm and knowing manner. "I don't know how you did it, but you're incredible."

"So, we all are awesome. Great news." Jett said, glancing back at the other two. "Now let's get out there."

"We can't leave." Katrina argued, "We have to finish what we started."

"Gytrash is a powerful like a topnotch demon in this darkness. We lost half of the Dawn Crystal and I'm out of the game for a while." Jett pointed out. "You're the smart one, Kat. So, you know, you just can't do this alone."

"If a gytrash was weaker, I'd be able to sealed it." Katrina said to no one in particular, but then she surprises her cousin by asking, "Do you have any can of spray with you?"

"For the past 4 years, I've never left home without it."

"Luz, can you do it again?" She pointed at the glowing orb.

Luz hummed thoughtfully, "I believe I can."

"And are you two ready to do something crazy?"

Luz and Jett looked at each other with determination and nodded in agreement. Giving a second nod to Katrina, they leaned in toward her to hear plan.


The gytrash wandered the shadowed mock-tunnels of the cave. The demonic dog growled and walked about the tunnel, and each sound echoed off the rock, making the place seem very, very loud, and yet it gave a feeling of isolation.

Finaly a hellhound lay down on the cold floor of tunnel. It first instinct was to will devote all energies to taking their revenge upon a human girl.

Yet.

Triage first. Serious wounds but not actively bleeding. Pain, of course. Its enemies were stronger than they look.

But soon they will suffer.

The demonic dog grunts in anger and licks the top of paw.

*WHISTLED!*

The whistle caused this creature to stop, and looked up. The gytrash saw teenager, or rather, in its opinion 'the sacks of meat'. It wasn't happy when understand this is the one that smell like a owl.

"Hello mutt! Wanna play fetch?" A teen threw the rock at the demonic canine. It hit its head and slid to the ground.

The gytrash then lunged forward and the boy that began to run.

As it was closing in on him, Jett do a backflip and grabbed creature's shadow mane. The monster dog roared in anger as it tried to shaking him off. Seeing his chance opening, the teen quickly grabbed and threw a the last of the Dawn Crystal into monster's mouth. He quickly let go and drop to the ground hard. But he don't even grunted in pain for feeling a hard landing. He swung and threw sharp rocks at creature's face for few times

As the gytrash roared in anger by Jett's throwing rocks, the Dawn Crystal exploded from its mouth rendering canine weaken and wounded. But it then charged right at the boy.

Jett started running off to lead the shadow creature towards a trap he and girls set up.

When they were pretty close he puts two of his fingers right into his mouth and whistled. His staff arrived obediently before the teen caught it right in front of his face. The next second, he swerved away from monster caused gytrash to stop before Luz, who was standing on a rock. On the wall behind her were two large version of the symbol she saw from Jett's glitched spell circle.

"Lights on!"

She slammed her hand on the big symbol on the wall and everything was brightly lit, a drastic contrast to the darkness the place had been in before.

The gytrash gritted all teeth with pain. The lights have been burning... and then was worse, Luz slammed the other symbol making more light. The creature want to run away but all the tunnels were covered with the vines with large spikes.

In the absence of options, the canine lunged at Luz with a fangs. But all the sudden, dozens of glowing skeleton-like arms emerged from large circles on the ground, coming from all angles trapping gytrash in place.

Katrina, Jett and Luz grabbed the chance and placed the sealing stone in the right place. After that Katrina brought out her staff twirling it around. She then slammed the end down, making the earth began to quake, and three crystals pillars appeared out of the ground. The pillars formed a mass triangular cage with wall of tri colour magic energy.

She poured all her magic energy into a spell. But the gytrash wasn't about to go down without a fight. It formed an orb of dark purple and black electricity-like shadow energy with black electric sparks around it in front of its mouth. It then fired the orb at the crystals pillars. Then did it again. Again and again and again and again.

Sealing spell started losing power. Katrina did what she could, but she had no chance. This kind of spell require the power of four strong witches to finished it.

When the crystals began to crack, somone touched her staff. She looked at Jett, who was holding a wood of her staff just under her palm.

He smiled to her. His magic was still in the glith mode, but she feel he offered her what he have of his power to help. And all the help she can get on this moment is good. Then another hand grabbed a wooden staff. Katrina turned head to looked at Luz's face, the human girl know she probably contributes nothing. Yet, she didn't care about this. She just looks so determined to be trying to help.

Katrina give both of them a soft smile before she closed her eyes and focused. She... suddenly felt a huge burst of energy. If she wasnt't doing what she was doing, the witch might figure out she get more magic than she should. Especially since Jett and Luz couldn't to hand her so much magic backup.

The group glowed with a white layer of magic covering them as the white-gold glow emerged from Katrina's staff.

The ground under a gytrash started to glow, forming a spell circle. And then pillar of magic energy fired at shadow dog.

A sound like none other heard upon the world echoed in the cave. A demonic, screaming roar filled the place. But as soon as the noise came, it was gone, leaving only shattered echoes behind.

The only thing in the cave besides a three teenagers, and few small glowing orbs, was something Luz had never seen before.

It was big, easily as big as her head, maybe biger. It looked like a geode rectangular in shape with rounded points. It's exact color was hard to match, given the way it glimmered with an iridescent vibrancy in the magic orb's light, though it most often bore a amethyst hue. Just like gytrash's eyes.

The unspoken 'WE DID IT!' hanging in the air as Jett, Katrina and Luz were staring at it.

"Look like we overcame darkness." Luz said with smile.

Jett smiled, "Yes we did, Sunbeam." Luz light up at new nickname.

"Good. 'Cause I need to sit down." Katrina sat on the ground and rested her forehead on her staff.


Notes: This chapter was a bit longer than I planned. Hope you like it. Until next time, Follow, Favorite, and Review.