Willow and Hunter were similar in a lot of ways, but one thing they both shared a love for was exercise. Whilst Hunter had been forced to do it during his time in the Coven, it was one of the few things he actually enjoyed other than reading. Willow had been encouraged to get into it by her Dads, and she too quite enjoyed it.
However things were different now, now they were stuck in the Human Realm with nothing but a few weights to train with. So, Camila surprised them both with a gym membership one day and took them there.
Hunter wore a grey sleeveless sports vest with shorts, and Willow had a nylon shirt and trousers on. Camila quickly showed them how to use the machines, them left to run some errands.
Hunter looked around the gym nervously; there were a lot of people. He hated people. He sighed and subconsciously rubbed a spot of exposed palistrom wood on his hand. He knew he couldn't exercise in his normal gloves, so he'd grabbed a pair of fingerless ones when Camila took them to buy sports gear. However, they helped expose how his body was decaying; he'd noticed it a few days ago. The skin on his hands was starting to flake off, and he was worried that it might get worse.
He glanced over to Willow, who was placing a 10lb weight on the bench press. "So are we starting small?"
"Yeah," Willow replied. "10 on each side and a load of reps to get warmed up."
The first set went well; it was just a warmup after all. Neither of them found it particularly difficult, so it was onto the next set.
Next they added a 5lb weight to each side and reduced the reps. That one was a little harder, and Hunter found that he was starting to break a sweat by the end of it. As they went on, and reached the end of the set, Hunter suggested another idea. Whilst weights were definitely Willow's forte, his was boxing. Belos had instructed one of the coven scouts to teach him years ago, and he'd gotten fairly good at it.
"Alright, so normal punching stuff first - keep your thumb outside of your fist."
Willow stared back at him with a look of bewilderment. "I know that, dummy."
Hunter smiled. "Just making sure. So, uh what you want to do is start with your hands up like this." He held his hands up in the boxing position. "Then you punch the bag in various… various ways."
"You're terrible at explaining things, you know that?"
"Yeah…" Hunter muttered. "There was never really any need, I suppose. Everyone in the Coven was older and knew better. I only ever had explain what the plan was, which is way easier than… this."
"Was I the first witch my age you talked to?"
"Well…" Hunter desperately tried to think of a response that didn't make him sound like a recluse. "Beginner's luck, I suppose. I made a pretty good choice in choosing you."
"Good…" Hunter said as Willow pummelled the boxing bag. "Don't just hit the same spot, mix it up a bit."
Willow stopped and rested her hands on her knees. "Maybe you could… you could show me?"
Hunter smiled and pulled on a pair of boxing gloves. After about a minute or so of demonstration, both witches were caught off guard by a human.
"You're pretty good at that for a kid."
Hunter glanced over at the human; he was tall with dark skin and short hair. He wore a red sports shirt and had a wide chest.
"Uh… thanks?" Hunter stammered. "My uncle taught me."
"He taught you well," the man said, walking a little closer. "I saw you from across the gym, you good to take a bit of advice?"
"Sure."
The man walked over to the boxing bag to demonstrate. "You're stiff, like a board. You're punching like this." He straightened his back out and punched the bag lightly a few times, his body staying rigidly still. "You wanna put your body into it a bit more." He punched the bag a few times again, this time using the full force of his body. "Got that?"
"Yeah," Hunter smiled. "Thanks."
"It's cool," the man said, before looking over to Willow as he walked off. "Hope you were listening to what I told your boyfriend."
Hunter's cheeks went bright red as the man left. "Uh… let's… let's keep going."
"It's weird seeing trees with green leaves."
Luz smiled as she trudged through the the forest, then looked over to her girlfriend. "Well the leaves turn orange in fall, but now that you mention it, it only just occurred to me that leaves aren't green in the Isles."
"Are we nearly there yet?" Gus asked. "We've been walking for hours!"
"We left the house three minutes ago."
"Well… are we?"
"Yeah," Luz replied. "We're here."
Amity and Gus stared up at the dilapidated shack, thinking back to that rainy night not so long ago. Luz thought about the fateful day this had all started, all those months back.
"Come on," she muttered. "Let's see if we can find anything about Belos and get this over with."
As they walked into the shack, Luz looked around for any cameras or booby traps. Thankfully, it seemed like Jacob Hopkins had made the smart choice and stayed as far away from the place as possible. As she shut the door behind them, Luz had flashes of that night in the rain, the day where everything went wrong.
"This place is disgusting," Amity muttered. "Why do you think this place even matters?"
"This is where the portal was locked onto. There's got to be some reason."
"Let's just hope we can find something useful," Gus muttered. "This place gives me the creeps."
Luz thought the stair were going to collapse from under her as she stepped upstairs lightly. The shack was fairly small with only two rooms on each floor, but there were debris and spiderwebs everywhere, making it a nightmare to navigate.
There was something important about this place, she knew it. Maybe it was a house built by the first witch to come to Earth, maybe it was Eda's Earth hideout. Maybe it was Belos' house, but Luz wasn't sure. She reached towards a cabinet of drawers but paused.
"Luz?" Amity shouted from downstairs. "You gotta see this… now."
Luz hurtled herself downstairs in fear that her awesome girlfriend was in danger, only to discover something far more strange. Amity and Gus were standing looking down at… a baby. It looked exactly like any other baby (Luz wasn't sure why people insisted that they all looked distinct), and it was wrapped in a thick blue cloth.
"What the hell?" Luz muttered. "Who's baby is this?"
Amity shrugged and looked back at the baby. "What do we do with it?"
"Luz mentioned a thing called the po-lice," Gus replied. "They're like coven guards but good."
"Ehhhh," Luz said. "Not sure about that last part."
"They're like coven guards but human," Gus continued. "Maybe we could take it there? It's got to be someone's."
Luz's eyes widened. "Wait, no. We can't take it there, because then the cops will start asking questions, and they might find out about you guys."
"What's the worst that could happen?" Amity asked. "It might shock them a bit is all."
"Nonononono," Luz stammered. "Remember the day we first met? When Bump tried to dissect me?"
Amity winced. "I don't think I ever apologised for that by the way."
"Nah, it's fine. Anyway, if the US government find out about actual alien life living on Earth, they might come and actually dissect you 'iN tHe PuRsUiT oF sCiEnCe.'"
"So what do we do then?" Gus asked.
"We take it home, I guess."
Willow marvelled at how big human swimming pools were. She'd mentioned how much she enjoyed swimming back in the Isles, so Camil had bought her and Hunter swimming clothes so they could go after finishing up at the gym.
"Hey Willow."
Willow turned around to greet Hunter and - tall and muscular with abs, oh my Titan…
"What?" Hunter said. "Is it the scars? I'm sorry."
"No!" Willow said far too quickly. "No it's ABS - absolutely fine!"
"Do you have heatstroke or something?" Hunter asked. "It is pretty hot in here."
"Yeah, it's hot!" Willow said. "Wow… swimming."
Hunter stood in silence for a few moments. "I'm just gonna… go in the pool." He adjusted the red headband that covered his ears and quickly jumped in. "Why are there waves?" he shouted.
Willow jumped in next to him, splashing water everywhere. "Camila said that human pools have machines that make waves."
"Is that like to train people for being stranded in the ocean or something?" Hunter was glad the oceans in the Isles were boiling otherwise he would've been made to do that; but since Earth's oceans were in fact freezing cold, he imagined it was a thing people had to go through. "And why is this water so warm?"
"Because people aren't using this pool to train," Willow replied. "Camila told me you just come her to have fun! Apparently you go in the boring square pool if you just want to do lengths and be boring."
Hunter yelped as a wave pressed him right up against the wall then plunged him underwater. "This is strangely pleasant!" he shouted as the waves subsided.
Willow smiled then pointed up into the air. "Oh, a water slide! Luz told me about them ages ago and I've been wanting try one ever since, come on!"
Hunter was used to being high up; but being high up in an alien world was a new experience for him. People were queueing to… go down a slide.
"Willow, slides are for little kids," he said. "This'll probably be crap."
"No, these are proper slides where you go really fast and stuff."
There were two slides directly next to each other, and as they neared them, Willow looked over to Hunter.
"Caleb, about what that boxer guy said."
Hunter nodded, words not fully working from his mouth.
"You don't… you don't think of me in that way, do you?"
"Of course not!" Hunter said. "No, why would I?"
Willow looked almost disappointed. "Uh… no reason. Come on, we're next!"
Hunter was confused when he got into the slide. It was a large tide that stuck out of the floor that you just walked into. He was about to make a comment about how this doesn't seem like a slide when the floor dropped out from under him.
Many parts of the slide were made of a transparent material, so he could see how high up he was. It was exhilarating, and when the slide suddenly stopped and allowed him to fly into the pool at the end, he felt like his heart was beating ten times faster than usual. Willow cracked into the water next to him a moment later.
As she came to the surface, Hunter laughed. "Okay, that was pretty cool."
Anyone with a few IQ points should be able to figure out who the baby is lol
