Chapter: The beach the sand and the giant crab
It was a sunny and warm noon with light breeze, so it made the weather cooling. Eda had taken Luz and King to the shore for rare beach glass, whilst Jett went to Whispering Gorge to found Lazuli Orchids flower.
The trip went by with little talking, as it was hard to hear anything over the sounds of the wind and the sea. Soon enough, they reached gigantic beach, landing in a shady spot next to a large rock, far enough from the sea that they wouldn't have to worry about any boiling waves reaching them. The irony is the water here was look the most enticing that Luz had ever seen.
"All I need is one piece of beach glass. It is small, about the size of a large coin, and rectangular in shape with rounded points. It is also the color of dried blood." Eda said, pulling the shovel, toy bucket, a toy shovel, utility shovel and plastic keene from her hair. "It is too easy to overlook, so I need you to dig with your full attention."
"I'll pass." King repiled, "I have more important plans."
"And what would those be?"
"I will be building myself a sand empire! And I will rule my sand citizens like a god! But this is just the first step. This beach is full of armored warriors." He pointed at one of small crabs. It looked pretty normal, only its multi-coloured exoskeleton stood out.
"I will gather them together, train them, then like an evil flood, my army will wash away all that will lay before them. And will make me ruler of this land! Muahaha." The small demon scampered off with a toy bucket and a shovel in his paws.
Eda didn't bother trying to stop him. Luz waved goodbye to him and told him to have fun, thinking his "evils plans" are cute.
"More sand for us, then," The witch called out as she started to search through the shore, quickly shoveling sand away when she found something. It was a dancing cactus.
"How did this get in here?" Luz asked when noticed the sign on underside of the plastic pot says 'MADE IN CHINA'.
"A short-lived cracks in the Veil occasionally causes small things to cross over from the human world." Eda said, putting the dancing cactus in her hair, "That's why I love this beach. It's full of human treasure."
'So, the Boiling Isles is place where the lost socks goes.' Luz thought while started digging.
Time passed, the pile of thing dug up from beach threatened to rival the pile of crumpled paper made by Luz. The teen've been drawing in her notebook during walking on the beach for over an hour.
Finally Eda asked, during the break "Luz, what are you doing?"
"Seeing if drawing light glyph in a different way will create other glyph." Luz examined her latest attempt, smiled slightly as tapped her hand against it and...nothing happened.
"It's not going to work."
"Then how I supposed to find new glyphs?" The Latina implored.
"In the same way as human enchantress and first witches." Eda said simply.
"Clearly, but the question still stands." Luz mused.
"You won't let this go will you." The Owl Lady answered before she saw Luz looking off with a sadly expression.
"Fine. Their cooperation consisted mainly of a understanding the magic. They connected with the island and have learned to see what it's seemingly irrelevant." Eda picked up a old and cracked seashell, "But really it's unique and brilliant."
With a one fast spell the seashell opened to reveal a pinkish-rose pearl inside it.
Luz's eyes were wide and bright. "And how they connected with the island? They were chanting, like some sort of ritual for some higher being? They sat alone in a cave for days asking one question: Who am I? Or maybe they-"
"I've told you before, kid, after the war and the Veil age this part of our history being mostly forgotten." Eda cut in curtly. "You found the light glyph, this was your moment of connection with the island. You need to recreate that moment."
At these words Luz's stomach tie into a knot. When she found the light glyph, it wasn't connection. It was an accident. But it means...
"I'll go see how King is doing. He probably need to putting some sunscreen on his skull."
Stuffing the notebook into her pocket, Luz run to place where last time saw King.
Eda shrugged, "Teenagers."
King had built a large but misshapen sand kingdom, consisting of many separate sand towers, and a big castle in the middle of it all. When Luz found him, the little demon was filling the castle with various treasures a.k.a shiny objects he managed to dig up
"Hey King. Have fun play on the beach in the sand?"
"Excuse me! This isn't a game, I'm preparing for war!" He declared, "Barrack is full of might soldiers."
The soldier's barrack was a big pit filled with crabs. A tiny flag made of stick and seashell with demon's pawprint staking into the ground next to the pit.
"Very shortly an army of killer crabs will settled in at the borders and the entire island will be belongs to my empire! ! I will rule this plac like a god and..."
However, the demon got distracted from his boast when he saw a small crab that got loose from a hole.
"Deserter!" King yelled when Luz noticed something shimmering in its broad pincers.
"Beach glass!"
They hurried to the crab, they were halfway to it when tiny crab make a clicking sound and a deep crack opened up beneath King. He wasn't quick enough to get away. Luz tried to save him by grabbing his tail. She felt tail fur brush her palm, but her hand closed around nothing.
"King!" She shouted before the crack get bigger and she just lost the ground under her feet.
When they hit the ground Luz groaned with pain. They had landed on a spot where the ground was covered with soft sand. So, fortunately they not broken any bone, but a fall from a this height still hurt.
"Ouch my sciatica." Luz mumbled, sitting up, "King, are you okay?"
King get his head out of the sand and spit out empty shell. "This threat to my life will not be forgotten!"
His voice shattered the silence of the caverns.
The enormity and general emptiness of the rocky caves amplified the screeches, angry voice piercing the air and the ears of the two occupants. Then their attention was caught by something else.
"Wow..."
In front of them standing perfectly still a twenty-five-foot pile of gold, pearls, shells, bones, coins, metals, beach glass, pebbles, shining rocks, and rings.
"Shiny." Shielding her eyes Luz came closer.
"I call dibs on it!" King jumped on her shoulder before she could even touched on one coin. "This treasure, fit for a king."
Then he spotted something on top of the piles.
"Is that a... YES!" The demon said before he began to climb up the mountain towards it. The teen ran after him.
"What's the big deal?" Luz asked when saw he ran toward the happy birthday child's plastic crown.
Before demon could answer, the ground rumbled and the treasure that they had been standing on began to shake off some gold flake which fell to the floor, bouncing off into the pearls and shells and directly under where the pile had been coming from.
King's free left paw held on with all his might while the rumbled forcing Luz to jump back down the ground as the ledge reached a twenty foot vantage point, revealing that the pile were standing on nothing more than a shell.
Luz realized that there was a massive yellowish-orange-purple crustacean, nearly as tall the Owl House and a two times as wide. It's two black claws were equally massive, large enough to snap a dragon's neck.
"Oh my gosh a giant crab!" She shrieked, unwittingly drawing the beasts attention.
'Don't move, girl!' Luz ordered herself in her head, 'If I stand perfectly still it won't see me. It works in that movie I saw once.'
The crab gurgled as it moved around to full face her, its mighty pincer held out towards her. She quickly duck sideways.
'I think that movie was about dinosaurs.'
The crab gurgled again, in a tone Luz assumed indicated annoyance, and tried to grab her again. She leapt out of the way once more, but this had been a closer call.
Meanwhile, on the shell, King tried to get to the top and at the same time don't fall off. However, when the crab move in a hasty manner, he finds himself in air.
"Got you, got you, got you!" Luz had her eyes on the demon and not on the crab, yet she was not crushed by one of its large legs. King fell right into her hands with 'oomph'.
The crab gurgled aggressively and brought down its free pincer on Luz. This time she had no way to duck it.
"Soy demasiado joven para morir!"
She was convinced that in a moment will meet her maker but then a yellowish, magical aura wrapped around the scared girl and lifted her up. The moment of bewilderment made Luz's limbs go slack and straighten, before identical magic aura cover King and they both were hard yanked toward crack in the ceiling.
They both were thrown from the underground cave like a cork coming out of a bottle and then fell on the warm sand in front of the Owl Lady before Eda released her magical hold on them, the aura around a demon and girl dissipating.
"We lived!" Luz cheered, throwing hands in the air. "And limbs still attached!"
However, the skull-headed demon not shared the same enthusiasm for escape from the giant crab's cave. King fell to his knees and shook his tiny fists at the sky. "NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO! I nearly had it!"
He then tried to jump back into the hole but Eda grabs him by the nape of the neck.
"King, what are you doing?"
"My crown is there!" King was squirming in her grip.
"Your crown?" Luz asked as she stared at King with a confused look.
"I used to be the powerful King of demons until my crown of power was stolen from me, reducing my great might to that of the state I'm before you. The thief lost my crown, and it disappeared in the Boiling Isles. And today was found!"
"And we get it back." Eda said, putting the demon down.
"Eda, can we have a minute, please?"
The Owl Lady nodded and they walked over to the side while King started drawing in sand his plan of attack.
"I saw his crown." Luz said, once out of King's speaking distance. "It's toy. That crown doesn't give him any powers."
"I know." the witch said simply.
"Then why we will try get it back?" Luz couldn't understand why Eda want risk their necks for a piece of plastic.
"Look. I'm not much for rules, I'm not a sentimental witch and I'm not after many things." Eda said as they looked to King. "There is really only one thing I ever truly care about. My family. King is part of this family. So if that dumb crown is important to him..."
"Then it's important to you." Luz finished, "Let's get back the junk crown!"
"That's the spirit." Eda smiled, "Now tell me, are you good at jumping up and down and making annoying noises?"
"I'm not sure about that plan." Luz said as they hidding behind pile of rocks. The giant crab slowly hanging around the caverns.
"Calm down. Your only job is get mr sparkle shell to land on one of those mounds." Eda points to the said mounds that were scattered across the area.
"What if I get on it by accident?"
"You'll be fine if you're quick." Eda waved off what she said. "Just trust me."
She then pusehed Luz and King toward the crab.
"Hey you, Shiny!" King yelled.
The crab spun in a circle, light bouncing off of its golden back.
Luz blowing her tongue at it while holding her cheeks to be silly while King made some insulting and extremely annoying sound, causing the crab gurgled in frustration and tried hitting them with its claw.
King hopped up onto girl's shoulder. "Run!"
"I'm running!" Luz screamed as she ran avoiding getting flattened into pancake. She then noticed one of the mounds Eda made, was right in front of her, and much to the teen's luck, the crab stepped on it, triggering one of the traps which erupted into a pillar of fire singed its body and turned part of sand into glass.
The creature growled, swinging erratically at Luz and King, only to stepped on another mound. A group of spiky crystals shot out of the ground and followed quickly through the air, leaving behind shrapnel of ice and frost. They struck the crab's belly and in an instant, half of crab was frozen solid in a ice blue trap.
Now was time to Eda to make her move. She leaped onto her staff, causing it to take off like a bullet as she lifted the gigantic stone five times her size, guiding it upwards.
And then a separate blue flash dart near it. She turned head to saw that the crab was now erratically shooting blue-purple lasers from it's eyes.
"It shoots laser beams, THE CRAB SHOOTS LASER BEAMS!" Luz screamed as one narrowly zipped past her and King.
As Eda swerved to dodge another beam, she launched the stone at the crab, though it merely bounced off the beast's armor like shell.
It snapped its claws at the witch as she flied by, its angry-eyes shot strong beam that struck her side, knocking her out of the air. When she hit the ground Eda tumbled off of her staff and her face was buried into the sand.
"Eda!" Luz and King ran to the witch. She seem to be fine when brushed the sand off of her.
In the meantime, the crab breaks free from ice as it moved around to face her, its mighty pincer held out towards trio.
Luz pulled a notebook, hit the light glyph on the front page and tossed it up in the air.
The glyphs flashed yellow before whole notebook was consumed in light and exploding in a flash of light right in front of crab's face.
It stumbles backwards, and, slipping on the glass, it loses its balance and falls backwards onto its shell. A larger chunk of its collection snaps off the shell on the impact and rolls onto the ground. A lasers striking in all directions, while the crab gurgling fury.
"My crown!"
"King, no!" Luz grabbed him before he had almost been impaled by a stalagmite. The demon survived but his crown turn into pancake.
A lasers keep striking. Eda quickly drew a spell circle to let in the deadly beam before moving and drawing another, launching them back to domed ceilings causing a large stalagmite over crab to fall down.
The combined force of the falling stalagmite speed, and the Owl Lady's magic on it, were great, and Eda grinned as she heard a sickening crunch.
Then lasers stop shooting and there was silence in the whole place, and finally Eda stood up and she said "Well, it looks like we have seafood for dinner."
Notes: I know. I know The crab with the laser eyes XP. But I was looking through the knowyourmeme and saw again this crab glowing eyes is firing a laser beam... and I couldn't help it.
