Going into the Samhain Swindle, Luz knew that her eventual victory would feel positively ecstatic, but actually living through it felt better than anything she could have possibly imagined; here she thought that Amity praising her for successfully boiling an egg would be the highlight of her life, but outplaying Eda and Lilith just barely edged that out.
"I am so confused. What is happening?" Lilith asked.
"What's happening, dear sister, is the culmination of my master plan," Eda said, stepping over to Luz and Amity's side without skipping a beat. "You thought that I was the only one you had to contend with, but Luz was doing my dirty work the entire time—"
"Wrong!" Luz cut in while shoving Eda away from her. "Wrong, wrong, that's a bunch of lies, now get back over there!" Eda mumbled something unintelligible before doing just that.
"Seriously, Edalyn, take your defeat with at least a little bit of grace," Lilith said. Luz almost considered feeling a little bit of respect for her until she stepped over to Amity with a smug look on her face. "After all, Amity was clearly the brains of this operation, and as her teacher, her victories are my victories, which means I am still the reigning—"
"No, shut up! Get back there with the other loser!" Amity interjected, shoving Lilith until she begrudgingly did just that. "You do not get to take credit for this. You had your chance to let me help you with Swindles, but you never even thought about letting me, so you reap what you sow."
"But you've never cared about not getting to help with the Swindle."
"I have always cared, you colossal moron! You've just been too selfish and oblivious to notice!"
"That seems rather unlikely." Lilith honestly believed the words that she was saying. Luz couldn't even find camaraderie in Eda rolling her eyes at that, considering that she was no better with how easily she dismissed her earlier.
"And by the way, despite what you might think, this whole plan was Luz's brainchild, so bow before her might, you jerks!"
"You don't have to bow if you don't want to, but I guess I wouldn't object to it," Luz said.
"Yeah, well, I'm not doing that, mostly because I don't believe you," Eda said. "No offense, kid, but how could you have possibly set up some super intricate plan to outsmart us in just a single day?"
"I couldn't, which is why I didn't." Eda and Lilith looked as confused as she expected them to look. "Lilith, could you please tell the class what got us talking about the Samhain Swindle, to begin with?"
"Come on, you were there, Luz. You just finished satisfying Amity's nerd lust, I still wish I hadn't seen all of that, and then you asked me if I had any special traditions for the… festival." Lilith's eyes widened as the reality of the situation sunk in. "You knew about the Swindle beforehand, didn't you?"
"Correctamundo! The exact second October rolled around, Amity started going on and on about how she hated this month because you, the jerk face that you are, never let her help with the Swindle. I couldn't stand that, so I spent this whole month planning out a Swindle where we could wipe the floor with you, and we succeeded."
"That's sweet and all, but why'd I get dragged into this?" Eda asked.
"Because you're no better than Lilith."
"Take that back, or I'll kill you where you stand."
"See? That's what we're talking about; you both suck," Amity said. "Hell, Luz, the kind little angel she is, even gave you a couple of chances to tag along with us back when you first challenged Lilith; she was more than willing to mess up our plans if you showed even a little bit of kindness, but you were only thinking about yourself, so you only have yourself to blame for this!"
"I mean, I can also blame you two for doing this at all," Eda said. There was just no reasoning with some people, it seemed.
"Okay, enough of this. Just explain how this all went down so we can be done with this," Lilith said.
"Right, but I'm doing it because I want to," Luz said. "Like you already sussed out, this all started when I got you to talk about the Swindle you used to do with the Emperor's Coven. I knew that Eda would laugh at the idea of you being able to accomplish anything to the point that you'd want to prove her wrong, and with our own Swindle officially underway, everything else could fall into place."
"That's what I'm still having trouble understanding. How could you two have coordinated everything so well while you were at the dance?"
"Because we weren't at the dance. We actually spent the whole night in the woods, and I've got death cicada corpses to prove it," Amity said, throwing said corpses out of her pockets like confetti. Very fun to watch, especially since they weren't trying to kill them on account of being dead.
"But you posted a picture of you two having fun at the dance," Eda said.
"Nothing but a clever ruse, courtesy of a custom background filter," Luz said. "We needed to make sure you'd keep thinking we were having a fun time at the dance instead of spending hours rooting around in filth. Totally worth it, don't try and downplay our victory."
"I'm not."
"Good, because you can't, especially with how easily you fell for the lie about the fireworks," Amity said.
"I knew something was up with that! There are no fireworks for the Samhain Festival!" Lilith said.
"Yep, and just like Luz and I thought, you were too focused on winning to question it, and Eda was too drunk to be able to think about it. Should have saved that apple blood for drowning your sorrows, Eda."
"Like I don't have plenty more where that came from," Eda said, pulling a bottle of apple blood out of her hair.
"Nope, not right now!" Luz said as she took the bottle away from her. "Can't have you getting so drunk that you're not able to take this all in. Also, maybe you've had enough for one night."
"It's past midnight, so it's a new day, little miss smart-ass." Luz elected to ignore that.
"Okay, getting back on track, Amity and I used magic to fake a firework explosion outside of the Owl House to knock the Grudgby ball out of your hair, which is where we knew it would be because of course, it would be there. After we let Crowley take the ball from Eda, we let the two of you tire yourselves out against Hooty a little more before going on to the next phase of the plan."
"Okay, I get how that firework thing worked on me, but how did you trick Lily? She never uses Penstagram, and there's no way Amity would have gone out of her way to tell her about anything."
"I wasn't tricked in any regard," Lilith said. "I came up with my plan as soon as King told me about the fireworks and—Wait a damn minute."
"That's right. There's one more player in all of this you didn't account for, and his name is—"
"Me!" Out from the wrist of Amity's Abomination arm popped out King, his body covered in chocolate stains and Abomination goo. It was cute, but it would have been cuter if he had gotten his line right.
"King? You're part of this?" Eda asked.
"You bet your nips I am, skidmark," King said. "That's right, ladies. This whole time, I was the true mastermind behind everything, and here's how it all went down—"
"Gonna stop you right there, King," Amity cut in. "You did, like, two things that you only understood because Luz and I had to keep explaining them to you, and that actually almost messed us up."
"Don't tell them that!"
"Can someone tell us why King was even helping you?"
"Maybe I wanted a piece of the action, too. You ever think of that?"
"We gave him a bunch of chocolate as a bribe," Luz said.
"It can be two things!"
"It clearly wasn't, though," Eda said.
"Yeah, it was just the chocolate," Luz said, ignoring King's protests. "When Lilith was getting tossed around by Hooty, I slipped back inside and bribed King with a ton of sweets to help us out a little. The first thing he did was tell Lilith about the fireworks so she would get the idea to have Crowley stalk Eda's bedroom."
"After that, we had him pretend to go into an alliance with Eda to take the ball back from Lilith, but that was all part of the plan," Amity said. "Hooty getting attacked earlier? That was me with my Abomination. I needed to create the distraction Eda was looking for to make her think that her plan would work."
"I should have known," Lilith said. "Not only did those pieces of goo that were on Hooty's disgusting body looked like Abomination resin, but for some reason, Amity, you're the only one who's able to hurt Hooty, despite not having the strength and skill level of people who have failed to do so. Almost as if it were a gag in some sort of children's program."
"Ease up, Lilith, that's not the kind of joke we're doing today," Luz said. "Anyway, with King having faked his alliance with Eda and Lilith tricked into going out of the house, the plan could continue. King really did take the Grudgby ball from Lilith, but rather than go wait where you told him to wait, he met up with us in the woods where we swapped him out for his cute little body double."
"Right, that slippery bastard who masqueraded as him," Eda said.
"His name's Arlo; Emira got him as a birthday present from Viney, and he's way more adorable than you're giving him credit for," Amity said. "By the way, I need him back by sunrise because Emira was very clear that if anything happened to him, she would kill everyone in our house and then herself."
"Very violent expression of love. I like it," King said.
"Arlo not being King and just bringing you a normal Grudgby ball would definitely try your patience to the point where you'd just try and beat the ball out of Lilith, and once you reached that stage, we could go into the final phase of our plan."
"The final phase being fully convincing you that our lives were in danger so Amity and I could go get the ball from King and let you both run out the clock, thus eliminating any chance of this all backfiring at the last second," Luz said. "And that, of course, brings us to this moment, where a month of hard work and planning finally pays off. Well, unless you count when Amity and I made out because of how proud of me she was for planning out so much stuff; that was pretty great, too."
"Luz."
"Yep, recapped a little too much there, I can see that. The point is, we win. You both thought you were hot stuff, but you couldn't do anything to stop us, and you know why?" Luz and Amity flourished their arms, pointed at both Eda and Lilith, and in perfect unison, said, "Ya boring!" Eda and Lilith didn't fall to their knees underneath the weight of the declaration, so as it stood, there was only one hiccup in Luz's plan so far.
However, Eda initiating a slow clap that didn't sound the least bit sarcastic made her feel better about herself.
"Bravo, you two, bravo," Eda said. "Didn't think you had it in you, so nice job proving me wrong."
"As much as I hate to both say something like this and agree with Edalyn, I must admit that you had me completely and thoroughly beat," Lilith said. "It looks like I underestimated you, Luz, and it looks like I have long since underestimated you, Amity."
"Damn right," Amity said.
"Aw, I love it when you act all fierce and stuff," Luz said, making Amity blush the way she liked to see her blush. "Now, then, I believe that Lilith said something about there being a trophy for the winner, so…"
""All hail Luz and Amity, the Ultimate Witches/Geniuses,"" was what Eda and Lilith said when they eventually produced a trophy for the two of them, a gold figure of the incendiary being Aillen setting a hill ablaze while playing a harp, a scene that Amity assured her made sense in context. It was cool to look at it, and the entirety of the Owl House was celebrating with a late-night party, so Luz didn't see the point in pressing the matter further.
"So Amity's going to have custody of the trophy first, feel like that'd make her happy, but where do you think I should put it once it's my turn?" Luz asked as season-appropriate music sounded through the Owl House.
"You should build a big pedestal and put it up right here in the living room. That'll really rub it in their faces every day," King said as he stuffed his mouth with the various treats everyone had put out for eating.
"I'm building a pedestal, so you can just use mine when it's your turn," Amity said while cuddling with Arlo on the couch.
"You know, you two shouldn't get too comfortable with your little win here," Eda said. "You only pulled it off because Lily and I didn't know you were playing, but now that I know you want in on it, you won't be able to stop me next year."
"More importantly, you won't be able to stop me , because if anyone deserves to take that trophy out of your grubby little hands, it's me," Lily said.
"Yeah, as if we won't just run it back again and make you two look even more worthless than you already are," Amity said, Arlo barking in what Luz assumed to be agreement.
"Who knows? Maybe I'll win next year and show you all up!" King said. The music was the only sound to be heard for a few moments before everyone started laughing at King's statement. "Oh, go to hell, all of you."
"Maybe later. For now, this B needs to put a C in her cute little A," Luz said with a smile. For some reason, Eda and Lilith both looked at her with utter contempt and disgust.
"Luz, why would you say that? What the hell is wrong with you?" Eda asked.
"Seriously, we're having a good night, and you have to go and ruin it with filth," Lilith said.
"This 'Babe' needs to put a 'Cupcake' in her cute little 'Amity'," Luz said with a bit of hesitation.
""Oh,"" Eda and Lilith said in unison.
"Wait, what did you think I meant?"
"Yeah, what did you think she meant?" Amity asked.
"Nothing, absolutely nothing," Lilith said. "Like I said, we're having a good night, so—"
"We thought you were saying, 'This 'B****' needs to put a 'C***' in her cute little' A**'," was what Hooty said the second he popped into the room. In an instant, both Luz and Amity had looks of utter contempt and disgust that outmatched Eda and Lilith's.
"Oh my God! What the hell is wrong with you people?" Luz asked.
"Seriously, we're having a good night, and you have to go and ruin it with filth! And in front of Arlo!" Amity said, covering up Arlo's ears to protect his innocence.
"Like, how would that even work with us? How?"
"I think Eda has something for that lying around here," King said.
"Not helping, King!" Eda said. Exchanges of that nature carried forth for quite a while until, at some point, everyone forgot the exact nature of their fight, only the stinging embarrassment of it all.
And thus ended the first-ever Samhain Swindle of the Owl House.