Chapter 1: The Frost

"Emperor Belos has captured Willow, Amity, and Luz. Luz is in a cage over bubbling lava and, if Willow and Amity don't fight to the death, Luz will be lowered into it. So, the question: who dies? Will Amity slay Willow to save her beloved? Will Willow lose her childhood friend in order to save her new one? Or will Luz perish for her loved ones, saying goodbye to any hope of returning to her home realm?". The dark skinned witchling talked with both his hands and his mouth. The twinkling life in his grayish blue eyes complimented his eccentrically asked question near perfectly. His voice over-dramatically fluctuated like he was announcing a new summer blockbuster.

The older witchling sitting beside him, the aforementioned Willow, sighed in an attempt to suppress a nervous giggle. She pulled the brush away from her shoulder length raven colored hair and fiddled with the handle absentmindedly for a moment. "Oh, Gus," she muttered, albeit amused.

Willow handed the large purple brush back to its owner sitting on the other side of the queen-sized bed, the aforementioned Amity. Amity started to stroke her bobbed lavender hair in an attempt to distract herself from the awkward situation. The scenario of her killing either her best friend, her girlfriend (that's me by the way), or herself understandably made her skin crawl. Her lustrous, golden, beautiful, amazing… *ahem* sorry, sorry. Her eyes refused to leave a corner of the ceiling.

I, the aforementioned Luz, let out a "woah" before informing my younger friend that I didn't think a game of what would happen could turn so dark. I was digging it, though. Yes, the thought of either my best mom friend or my awesome girlfriend giving their lives for me was scary but the having to choose between loved one's trope was cliche but gold. The tragic suspense was so good!

"Well…If you ask me," Willow started with a growing mischievous gleam in her eye. "I'm confident that, in that situation, Amity is as good as dead".

"Oh, sure" Amity scoffed while her face sunk into an adorable little glower. "The witch who out fought the Golden Guard can't fight, right?".

I couldn't help but beam at the purple haired goddess. Her posture said she was feeling smug, and she definitely was, but her bent down pointy ears and the way that her face cutely scrunched clearly gave away her annoyance.

Amity had always had a very thin patience when it came to teasing, a patience that both her siblings and Willow would constantly break for their own amusement. I completely understood. I did the same thing to Amity, except with flirting.

I couldn't help it. The teasing would always end with the same extremely adorable result. Amity's pretty little face would heat up so hot you could practically see steam coming out of her ears. Her flustered reaction was referred to as "tomato mode" because her face would turn so red, she looked like a freshly picked tomato.

But the witchling did make a good point. She had beaten up the Golden Guard, the Emperor's own protege, pretty badly in their fight at Eclipse Lake. In fact, the Golden guard even admitted that Amity was stronger than him before he just threatened to try to kill me instead. Then, Amity Blight, like the legend that she truly is, sneakily outsmarted him.

You see, the whole reason Amity hiked through dangerous Titan veins all the way to Eclipse Lake, with an extremely annoying Golden Guard to boot, was to find the most crucial ingredient we needed to get me back to the human realm: Titans blood. The new portal we were creating wouldn't open without it. But it turned out that Eclipse Lake was scarce of Titans blood, meaning that the one lead we had in finding the rare substance was gone.

That's when the sad but bad boy let it slip that the key to the old portal, that Amity so happened to have on her at the moment, had Titans blood inside of it. After an amazing fight, that included Amity morphing abomination goop into a fashionably spiky boxing glove and an abomination dome that exploded, Golden Guard threatened to bring the rest of the emperor's army to my home and beat me up until he got the key. Amity had no choice but to give him what he wanted… after she broke it in her hand and let some of the Titans blood soak into her glove.

And that is the story of how the revered teen protegee known as the Golden Guard got his ass handed to him by the youngest of the Blight family! It was one of my favorite stories of Amity and I could tell she loved the story too. She did, at first, feel pretty bad about losing the key, ergo some of the Titans blood inside of it to the emperor. But I was just glad she had made it home safe let alone beat up a government official for me!

Once I told her that, the trip to Eclipse Lake went from being the story of a mission gone wrong to a reminder at the lengths Amity would go for someone she cared about.

Willow shook her head. "I didn't mean it like that, Amity. What I meant was that you would insist on sacrificing yourself. You know, since you're so melodramatic and all" she giggled. Gus and I began to laugh too, making poor Amity even more huffy.

"I am not" she grumbled though that grumble was more of a giggle, a gruggle if you will.

"Sorry, Agridulce. But you definitely are" I chuckled.

"I can see it now," Gus added. His voice then rose in pitch as he fell into Willow's arms. "Willow, my oldest friend". The witch reached his arm out to Willow and beckoned her to come closer. "Allow me to apologize, for the millionth time, for having garbage parents and becoming a Titan sized hellhound". Willow laughed harder at that while Gus began to hack like he was coughing up an insane amount of blood.

For the entire time, the witch at the center of all the kidding was failing not to smile. The big scary Blight was being made fun of and that was a crime that's punishable by death! Yet, Gus did do a perfect impression of her, and the witch did have to give credit where credit was due.

Gus turned towards me and fluttered his eyes.

"And, Luz, my love. I'm sorry that I have to romantically sacrifice myself for your wellbeing. But I'll be ok because a Blight doesn't give a shit about something as foolish as death".

Aaaaand Amity was laughing now. She just couldn't help it. "A Blight doesn't give a shit about death". We were all gonna have to remember that one.

"Just know that, even though it won't be beating for much longer, my heart will always belong to you". Gus flung the back of his hand to his forehead before squinting his eyes shut and sticking out his tongue. "I love youuuuuu" he finished like he was letting out his last breath.

Amity's groan had to shove past her stubborn giggle. "You know what? Just...Shut up" the witch snorted while she beamed. Her cheeks were deep red in embarrassment, but she couldn't stop herself from being all bubbly.

"You know what I think would happen?" I asked after the laughing died down. "I think that Willow and Amity would team up to take down Belos! Willow would cover the whole palace with vines and Amity would swoop in and save me just in time with a foxy new scar on her face".

It took me a minute to realize what I just said but when I did… dios mios! My caramel-colored cheeks turned a dark red. I took a glance at Amity who was even redder than I've ever seen her before, if that was even possible.

"What about you, Amity? What do you think would happen?" I sputtered. When she didn't respond I added a very quick, "please say something".

"Me? Yes! It's my turn… to say something… so I will!" Amity spluttered back. She took a couple deep breaths and let her face slightly go back to its pale color.

"If anyone's going down, it would be Belos. I don't think I could let that son of a hellhound get away with not only kidnapping one of my best friends but also trying to kill my Luz" she stated, like it was a fact.

My girlfriend just oozed with panache. She made sure to show her adult fangs off with a subtle sneer. They grew in the week before and, while I did miss her cute tiny baby fangs, they made her look so cool!

"Do you really think you could take on emperor Belos?" Willow asked while she played along. The amused glint in her green eyes echoed the amused glint in Amity's. Her small smirk got wider as she spoke. "I think you're being a bit too confident".

"Psh. Please, Willow. I don't care if he was the Titan himself. I am Amity Titandamn Blight, and nobody hurts my crew, especially my awesome girlfriend" Amity purred proudly. She puffed out her chest to emphasize how dauntless she was. Once again, she made sure to show off her fangs with a playful smile.

Poor, Amity. She just unknowingly opened herself up for some face-reddening human charm. I didn't hesitate to take the opportunity to mercilessly flirt with the oh so mighty witch.

"Oh yes, mamacita. You show off those fangs" I said while acting all coy. I wiggled my eyebrows up and down as I wore a big smirk on my face and… Oh my Gosh! I just killed Amity!

Laying in a heap of her own gayness was the mighty Amity Titandamn Blight, completely unconscious. It seemed like her awesome girlfriend had finally made the poor witchling's heart explode.

"Ah, Amity! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Are you ok! Please be okay! Please don't be dead!" I cried after frantically shaking my victim.

"Luz! Luz! It's okay" Willow laughed. She pulled me off of Amity and rubbed circles on my back. "This happens more than you think. She'll be fine". My wide brown eyes switched back and forth between Willow and Amity as I sputtered "but" over and over again.

"How about you go get Amity some ice". I was out the door before I could hear Willow finish her sentence. At that moment, I could have outrun an airplane. Amity's life may not have been in danger but not dying was not good enough for my awesome girlfriend.

The smartest thing to do, though I wasn't really known for doing the smartest things, was to use an ice glyph and a plant glyph to make Amity a make-shift ice pack. But that wasn't an option since my magic didn't work at that particular moment.

None of our magic worked in the hotel. A spell was put around the outside of the building to make sure of that. After all, principal Bump didn't send our class to any ol' hotel. This hotel was also a horror attraction based off of the human realm.

While staying there we had to "take the role of powerless humans (it was hard not to take offense to that) who were being stalked by a human serial killer". To survive we would have to use the only thing humans had to protect themselves with (that wasn't a gun or taser or any other weapon): their wit.

No magic! The human realm was completely devoid of anything enchantingly whimsical, and this hotel was supposed to be as close to a human hotel as possible.

To be honest, staying at the hotel was a nice surprise. It not only helped with my severe case of homesickness, it had been two whole months since I was forced to destroy my only way back to the human realm, but it was also really cool to see how confused everyone was by all the human technology. I was pleasantly surprised by how much stuff the owner had found from the human realm. If the place wasn't full of people who had pointy ears and sharp fangs, then you wouldn't be able to tell you were on the Isle once you entered the building.

And don't think about leaving the building to remind yourself what realm you were in. Since principal Bump had no time to find any chaperones (more like he didn't care enough to), the owner reassured him that he would keep us safe by putting a security charm on the magic draining barrier. The whole trip was only scheduled because a group of parents felt their kids needed more time outside of the classroom, so the trip was kind of planned out of nowhere. A lot of things, like the usual safety protocols, were overlooked.

So now, the only way you could leave was if the owner let you. Having had an… awkward first meeting with said witch, I wasn't too comfortable about this. But, eh, it was too late to leave now.

As I approached the nook in the hallway that held the ice machine, along with a vending machine and the door to the laundry room, I heard the sound of metal rattling and someone grunting in frustration. The noises led me straight to the honestly ancient looking ice machine. There I found a white furred goat demon with his long snout stuck inside the chute the ice came out of. While he struggled his singular horn slammed against the machine's metal outside.

I recognized my peer immediately. Though I didn't talk to him much, he was a friend of Gus's. They used to be in the school's Human Appreciation Society together until Gus was permanently banned from the club. The two still talked a lot though and, from what I've seen, they seem to be decent friends.

It didn't surprise me that he got stuck while admiring a contraption that seemed to magically dispense ice without the use of actual magic. I'm sure he wanted to know how it worked and what better way to find out how a machine works than to take a look inside.

"Hold on, Juvencus. I'm coming" I called, mustering a laugh. The fluffy cyclops looked ridiculous, but I knew how he felt. Long story short I tried to climb up a toilet on display at the store and my foot got stuck in the little hole inside of it.

"Luz? Is that you?". Juvencus stopped struggling once he heard my voice.

"It's me," I chirped. "Here to save you with my human expertise".

It took using the ice machine a few times but, once the demon's nose was covered with melted ice, he was able to slip his snout free. He rubbed his cold muzzle vigorously, trying his best to warm it up.

I could see the embarrassed regret in his amber eye. I tried to look as sympathetic as I could. He already felt flustered enough. I didn't want to make him feel any worse.

"You ok there?".

"Yeah! I'm ok thanks to you, Luz!" Juvencus gratefully said while he beamed at me. "You really helped me out there, man".

"Happy to help. I wasn't gonna let that thing hold you captive. Word of advice though: don't stick your nose into that ice machine's business again". If I had said it any other way, that joke might have seemed cold (Ay! that was an ice one). But my jesting was meant to be as light of teasing as I could muster and apparently it was light enough.

The goat's smile quickly widened. His chuckle had to be in my top five favorite chuckles, under King's, Willow's, Gus's, and the cutest giggle in all the Isles: Amity's. Wait… Amity! Oh cramity! All the heroics made me forget about Amity's awful state. Oh man, I hoped she'd forgive me!

I nearly shoved poor Juvencus over as I rushed towards the ice machine. "Nice talking to you, Juvencus but Amity's in trouble and I hav-". My rushed apology was interrupted by a terrifying bay.

"Luz? Help! What's happening?" the young demon yowled.

When I turned around, I began to tremble. As he frantically stumbled around, Juvencus was violently grabbing at his heavily frost-covered face. The worst of the ice clustered deep in his nostrils, making it hard for the hyperventilating demon to breathe.

I wanted to rush to him, help him anyway I could, but I was frozen in fear.

"I… I don't know! This doesn't... ICE MACHINES AREN'T SUPPOSED TO DO THAT!" I howled.

I was finally able to launch forward when the goat hit the ground. I kept trying to call for help but my terror muffled my crying. I didn't know what to do. The frost was starting to spread to the floor. I could feel the intense freeze radiate off of Juvencus' body which quickly fell limp in his exhaustion.

I tried one more time to get someone's attention, someone's help, but I couldn't wait any longer. The ice had completely taken over Juvencus and was now climbing up my shoe. If it reached my skin…

I ran for my life! I had to do something! There had to be something that could stop the frost from encasing me! Maybe if I could melt it somehow. A fire glyph? I reached into my pocket to find my notebook of prepared glyphs gone. Right. No magic. I needed to escape the situation the human way.

That was doable! I had escaped near death experiences without magic before. I started a prison riot, I defeated some squid puppet master that wanted to kill my mentor, and I even escaped the wrath of the scariest thing on the boiling isle (and then made her my girlfriend). I just needed something hot...hot… hot tub!

Despite the frost starting to nip at my legs, I felt nothing but raw adrenaline as I careened around a sharp corner. I was in the lobby in less than a second and was crashing through the pool room door faster than you could say "Oh my God the ice is already up past my stomach!".

I ignored all the warnings printed on pearl white walls and the unusually dry tile floor. I couldn't afford to waste time dipping my toe into the whirlpool to see how hot it was. I leapt up into the air with a loud, "cannon ball" then crashed into the water.

Instantly the frost's piercing grip on everything below my shoulders let go and sank into the water. I sighed in relief, letting all of the tension in my muscles relax. I was safe… scared out of my mind but safe.

I snuggled down into a seat in front of the jet and just soaked in the water for a second. It burned my frostbitten skin, but man did I really miss getting bubble messages in water that wouldn't incinerate anything it touches.

The peaceful moment was soon smashed by my very recent memories. The thought of Juvencus quickly shoved their way back to the front of my mind. It took a moment for my emotions to catch up but when they did, they hit like a truck.

"¡Esto no puede estar pasando! (This can't be happening!)" I cried. The reality was constricting, overwhelming. This wasn't another example of some dangerous adventure that I would laugh about later. I couldn't just say, "whew, that was a close one".

Yes, I didn't die but Juvencus did. No one swooped in and saved him, there was no fixing what happened with healing magic, he didn't even get to say any content filled final words. Juvencus just died! It happened so fast and the poor demon didn't know what was going on.

Despite the warm water's best efforts, it didn't stop me from shaking. The memory of Juvencus' body haunted me. The only part of it not being consumed by frost, his eye, shook me the most.

"And, I just watched it happen!". I growled. The painful shame made me grimace. Tears welled in my brown eyes, making them shine in the dull light.

The sound of the pool room door creaking open pulled my attention away from my swirling emotions. In walked my three roommates. They all scanned the room intensely before Willow's green eyes landed on the hot tub.

"Luz. There you are. We were all coming to see what was taking you so long when we saw you running towards the lobby" Willow explained in relief before noticing that I was sitting in the "semi boiling pool" with my pj's on.

"You know that's the opposite of ice, right?" Gus asked partially sarcastically but mostly confused.

"Luz," a mostly recovered Amity sighed in a sympathetic tone. "Don't tell me you saw "the killer" and panicked". When I didn't respond, my friends and girlfriend went from slightly unamused to worried.

"Luz? "Amity asked slowly while also silently asking me if I was ok.

"Juvencus is dead" I mumbled.

"Uh. What was that, Luz?" Willow gently pressed.

"Juvencus is dead!" I shouted through the grief clumping in my throat. There was stunned silence for a moment before I continued. "I tried to help but it just happened so fast and then I started to die, and I had to get somewhere warm and I'm so sorry!".

I expected the three of them to be just as alarmed as I was but instead Willow and Amity grew sympathetic smiles on their faces. They looked like they were more upset about my distress than Juvencus.

They both walked up to the hot tub. Willow sat down in front of it, the light reflected off her glasses similarly to the water in the whirlpool. Amity knelt next to her. The lavender haired witch offered me her hand to hold and was a little hurt when her love didn't take it.

"Luz," Willow reassured. "Juvencus is fine. No matter how real it looks, this is all fake, remember?"

"Willows right. No one actually got hurt. This is all just some phony act to scare you" Amity cooed, adding on to what her friend had just said. "Now, com'on. Let's go back to the room and watch that wizard movie you wanted us to see".

Part of me was comforted by the gentleness of the girls' voices. It felt nice to feel supported after being the only one to have witnessed the accident, to hear someone tell me it was ok. But, on the other hand, it wasn't ok. They thought this was all some haunted house style gag, but it was real. It had to be! There was no way that eye could be fake… And why would they make the ice hurt me? For just a joke, the frost really gave me a bad case of frostbite.

Before I could say anything, Gus jumped in with a worried, "Uh, guys?". He joined the other two witchlings at the edge of the hot tub. He looked like he was mostly staying calm but his eyes, which now seemed to appear grayer than blue all of a sudden, screamed that he was internally scared.

"If it was just a trick, they would have it while only using human tools. They couldn't have used magic because of the spell so she definitely didn't see an illusion in the Isles' sense of the word". Amity and Willow just stared at their younger peer in confusion, but I knew where Gus was going with this. "So, wouldn't the human be able to tell what's a human illusion and what's real? Luz said that the artifacts in the hotel are all faulty so I doubt they have something that would so easily fool her".

Amity silently asked me a question with her eyes (something that the whole Blight family was suspiciously good at). She seemed skeptical of my knowledge of the otherworldly inventions, and I couldn't blame her. Just because I was a human doesn't mean I knew everything about the complicated technology we made. But I did know that what I saw was not made by the little pile of junk the hotel owner found.

"If it was all special effects then they would've had to use some very special equipment as well as a lot of makeup. And, I didn't know him well, but I doubt Juvencus could act that well, especially with such little time to practice. We've only been here for, like, an hour. I… I'm one hundred percent positive that what I saw was real" I uttered gloomily.

A tear finally flowed down my face as I saw the three witches' reactions. My explanation washed away both Amity and Willow's doubt as well as strengthened Gus's worry.

"You were there when it happened, right? Can you take us to him?" Gus urged. I was hesitant when it came to responding. Taking them to the body was the right thing to do but I didn't know if I could handle looking into Juvencus's eye again. It was just so dull. The fake plastic eyes on a mounted deer had more life in them. And then there was his pupil. It was almost as wide as the colored part of his eye and they were staring at completely nothing. I saw it whenever I closed my eyes. I didn't need to have the image burned into my memory more.

But I knew that, this time, I would have someone there to comfort me. I would have Gus's support, Willow's comfort, and Amity's soft and delicate hand to hold. I really didn't want to do this but I could bear it for Gus as long as I wasn't doing it alone.

I answered Gus's question by rising to my feet and crawling out of the whirlpool.

"Follow me" I said reluctantly. "Just, please...don't touch the frost".