Motherhood had sneaked up on Eda, and then attacked her with vicious abandon. Before Luz entered her life, she was going through the motions of living. No, not even that. Surviving. She'd denied her maternal instincts with every fiber of her being. She'd even termed her son in all but name at the time to be just her roommate, something that King was only too happy to go along with because it fed his delusions – the delusions Eda had encouraged – that he was the mighty and all powerful King of Demons.

And then Luz swept into her life. At first, she'd found the perpetually bright human to be annoying. But as time went on, Eda got to know her better and she realized a couple of things. First of all, Luz was just as skilled a con artist as Eda was, except her specialty was conning herself. She regularly tricked herself into thinking everything was fine, that she could triumph against the grim forces of life with a peppy attitude and an endless array of clichés. In reality, Luz was just as miserable as Eda was, just in a very different way, even if she didn't know it.

Second of all, Eda was damn good with kids, surprisingly enough. It took her a while, but she figured out how to work with Luz instead of against her, to ensure she kept as safe as an aspiring witch with a seeming death wish could be. She was able to perfectly balance the need to give Luz freedom with the responsibilities of keeping her safe. As she grew to understand her pupil, as Luz turned from a dumb kid to her dumb kid, Eda became more and more fond of Luz.

The last few weeks should have been the happiest in her life. After all, she'd reconciled with Raine, they were in love once more, and the two of them were engaged. Belos and the Collector had been defeated, and she was a hero instead of a pariah. The people of the Isles could mix and match their magic as they pleased and Eda had been making money hand over fist tutoring people to do just that. She was in symbiosis with her inner Owl Beast, her relationship with her parents was stronger than ever, and she was getting along better with her sister than she had since they were teenagers.

And yet none of it meant anything, because Luz was gone.

Even being able to communicate with Luz through the In Between Realm, even when Mrs. Noceda backed off on her ultimatum to keep Luz permanently in the Human Realm, none of that eased the sheer, unending pain Luz's absence caused her. She'd cried herself to sleep a majority of the days Luz had been gone. She'd tried her best to put on a brave face, but her daughter was so much better at that than she was, and everyone she loved could see straight through her.

Everyone around her had tried to help her, to no avail. They meant well, but they were vastly annoying. Eda had had to put Hooty into hibernation because he kept trying to psychoanalyze her, which was really rich coming from the creature that had caused half of Bonesborough to require therapy and the other half to have their memories wiped of Hooty's "ascension." The only thing that could help Eda now was the return of Luz.

Well, that was what she thought. Right up until Luz entered her house, gave a pithy statement, and then fell into her arms crying.

"I got tricked again, mom!" Luz called out in between tears. "I…the giraffes, they possessed the Pines…people I trusted…and now they're gonna kill King!"

It took all of Eda's self-control not to scream in fright. The giraffes were alive?! Luz had mentioned that once, Eda recalled, but Eda, for the sake of her sanity, had chosen to believe she was just messing with her. Oh, this was all kinds of not good. If the legends were true, or even vaguely approaching the truth, the giraffes' malevolence made the Collector look like a Snaggleback in comparison.

"Luz, calm down," Eda said in the most soothing tone available to her. "We're going to fix this. I need you to explain everything that's going on."

Luz was unusually concise and to the point. Normally, these things were accompanied by ramblings and digressions in a wide variety of directions, so Eda took this as a very bad sign. She talked about how the giraffes had possessed trusted experts on the paranormal and deceived her into casting all sorts of rituals that would aid in their quest for multiversal domination. She told Eda about the ultimatum they gave her. About how they would torture her family if she didn't give them King.

Eda gave Luz a reassuring smile. "Luz, none of this is your fault. This isn't like Adegast, where the list of warning signs was a mile wide. This impersonation was flawless, by the sounds of it. And you've done the exact right thing, coming to me for help."

Raine nodded firmly. "Eda's right. These giraffes are arrogant, and they made the mistake of letting you in here unsupervised. We have the forces necessary to defeat them."

Luz looked bewildered. "How? With what army?"

"Uh, our army," Eda said slowly. "We're not some ragtag band of rebels anymore. We won, remember? The government belongs to us now. King is emperor, and Regent Steve is going to throw every single resource we have available to us at these giraffes. We have hundreds of combat trained witches on our side. I mean, I know in your stories, this is the sort of thing where the heroine has to fight the evil all by herself, maybe with her friends, because the government's useless. But this is real life."

"Exactly, Luz," Raine said encouragingly. "We've got oracles who can break the possession. Witches highly trained in the art of combat who can fight the giraffes one on one. You are not alone anymore. We're going to win."

Luz looked like this wasn't making any sense to her, like she didn't want to believe it for fear of being disappointed. "You…you're sure? What if Regent Steve doesn't believe us?"

"Of course he's gonna believe us," Eda said. "With us and King vouching for you, of course he'll believe us." She patted Luz on the head as Luz finally disentangled herself from her arms. "There's nothing to worry about, honey. I promise you, we'll do everything we can to help, and you're safe now."

"I'm not safe!" Luz snapped. "I have to return with King in an hour, and they'll kill him when I do!"

Raine looked lost in thought for a few seconds. "Perhaps an illusion would suffice? Do you think they'd be able to see through that?"

"When they don't get their full power back after he 'dies,' then, yeah, they're definitely gonna see through it," Eda pointed out. She sighed. "Kiddo, you're going back, aren't you?" Luz nodded. "Yeah…I'm not even going to try to stop you. You'll just sneak back out if I do. Okay. Raine, can you get a message to King, tell him to come here?"

Raine nodded, pulled out their scroll and stepped out of the house to give them some privacy. Eda helped Luz over to the couch. The poor thing was trembling and looked like she was on her last legs. "I screwed up again…"

"Luz, I don't really wanna downplay your feelings here, but it doesn't exactly sound like you did very much here," Eda pointed out. "The giraffes had everyone fooled. If you knew the Pines well enough to be able to notice discrepancies, then maybe you'd have a tiny bit of a point. But you didn't. You just knew their public personas."

Luz nodded slowly. It would take a while to convince her, time Eda did not have at the minute, but convince her eventually, she would. To take Luz's mind off of things, Eda quizzed her about how she'd been doing at home. Eda was overjoyed to hear that Luz had missed her almost as much as the other way around. Well, overjoyed Luz cared so much about her. The actual missing part, not so much. Storytelling always made Luz happier, and by the time she'd finished regaling Eda about how she'd audaciously told her full story in public to stave off a school shooter, King had arrived with Steve and several of the top witches in the Oracle Guild.

"Hermana mayor!" King called out as he practically jumped into Luz's arms. Eda had stumbled upon a Spanish textbook amidst her piles of Earth junk and King was eagerly soaking up the material to surprise his big sister with when she returned.

"Oh my gosh, you've grown!" Luz called out, twirling him around with an expression of pure joy on her face. It was true. King had picked up about two inches since Luz's forced exile. Rulership seemed to suit him. "I bet you'll be eventually as tall as me! No, way, way taller!"

"Good morning, Your Highness," Steve said with a polite nod.

"My…what…?" Luz asked, looking totally bewildered.

Eda smirked. This was going to be so good. "Didn't anyone tell you? You're the crown princess of the Boiling Isles now. Yep. Until King has kids, you're the heir to the throne."

Luz blinked repeatedly. "Okay…I'm really not sure how to process that."

"Then it will have to wait," Steve said calmly. "Princess Luz, thank you for bringing this dire security risk to our attention. These are the top oracles the Guild was able to loan us at short notice. I assure you, they're extremely powerful, hopefully enough to break the possession and allow us to slay the giraffes." He sighed. "But I must warn you, slaying the giraffes is our top priority. If the possession cannot be broken…" He didn't even need to bother finishing the sentence.

Luz drew herself up, putting on her customary look of total confidence, regardless of how she actually felt. When this whole mess was over, Eda was dragging her daughter to therapy, kicking and screaming if necessary. "Right. We can do this. Thank you, sir."

"Ugh, sir," Steve said with a shudder. "Just call me Steve. Regent Steve if you have to, but please don't. I'm just a regular guy who happens to be friends with the King of Demons, that's all."

"You're a lot more than that, Steve," King promised.

Steve looked nervous for a few seconds. "Well, I hope you're right. Because if you're not…this could go very bad, very fast."

They wouldn't. Eda had spent enough time with Luz to know that. She'd pull something out of her hat in some form or another. She always had. She'd rescued Eda from being petrified, defeated Grom, and tricked Belos. How hard could defeating some giraffes be?

Amity couldn't believe her rotten luck. Just when she thought she was going to be returning to her home, to see her siblings again, even her dad, those stupid Pines had turned out to be secretly giraffes. Amity had thought there was something odd about them from the get go, but she had dismissed her feelings as jealousy that Luz was enjoying spending time with them so much. Turns out she should have trusted her instincts from the get go.

And worst of all, the giraffes wouldn't shut up. They kept yammering about their inevitable victory, about all the manifold torments they would visit upon them when King was dead, the brilliant way they'd rule the Human Realm when they were at full power. In Amity's opinion, they were both insane and moronic. Their complete lack of subtlety would just cause the humans to rebel against them. If they'd had a singular ounce of it, maybe things would be different. Not a ton, just one ounce! But, no, they didn't.

By the time the portal opened once more, Amity was wishing the giraffes would just finish her off rather than have to endure a single second more of their villainous monologuing. Whatever else you could say about Belos, at least he wasn't boring.

King stepped out of the portal, doing a sterling job of putting on a brave face, but Amity could sense he was absolutely terrified. "Okay. I'm here. You got me. Now let everyone go!"

"Hmm, let me think," Sobek said with a mock expression of thoughtfulness. "Nah!"

He reached out using Wendy's hand and used his powers to slam Amity against a wall. "I'm thinking for the appetizer of today's banquet, I'm gonna have fresh bile!" He reached towards her chest.

"That sounds disgusting," King pointed out. "I mean, I know you're evil, but come on, everyone knows the bile sac is the least delicious part of a witch."

Sobek didn't look particularly impressed with this logic, but he didn't get a chance to argue with King further, because King abruptly let out an enormous "WEH!" targeted directly and specifically at the giraffes. Amity fell to the floor as the hold on her was broken. The force of the sonic attack slammed the giraffes against the ceiling and King used his power to pin them there. Vibrations surrounded the bodies of the Pines family and they struggled to escape, but they could not.

Without any fanfare, several witches bearing clothes with the logo of the Oracle Guild appeared out of nowhere, having used invisibility glyphs to hide themselves. Several purple spell circles appeared as the oracles cast an exorcism spell to get the giraffes out of their victims.

And they were successful. It was an odd feeling, seeing oracle magic used for good instead of just another tool in Mother's arsenal of ways to control Amity. Even though Amity could never bear to learn oracle magic, she was beginning to see the appeal.

The giraffes oozed out of the orifices of the Pines family until they were fully formed back in their original form on the floor. This, however, didn't make them any less dangerous than before, as the poor oracle witches discovered a few moments later as their heads exploded from a single twitch of the giraffes' hooves.

"If this is the way you want to play it, then we are happy to oblige," Wepwawet said with a mockery of a courtly bow.

They lifted their hooves, and then the door to the shack was kicked off its hinges and two identical old men Amity had never seen before in her life charged in, firing rifles at the giraffes with a vicious intensity. "Hurt my family, would you!" the wilder looking of the men screamed as he loaded bullet after bullet into the giraffes. The bullets didn't seem to be affecting the giraffes much, but at the same time, healing themselves was taking up much of their attention.

The portal flared again, and at least a dozen witches from various guilds, led by Eda the Harpy Lady herself, charged out. Eda was in full harpy form and looked angrier than Amity had ever seen her. "Hey, giraffes! No one messes with my son and lives."

And before they could stop her, Eda jumped onto the nearest giraffe – Anubis, as it happened – and ripped his head off. Black, oily blood spilled everywhere. It hadn't killed Anubis, but it definitely took him out of the count. The head fell to the floor with a splash and the rest of his body collapsed, unable to move. Eda snapped her fingers and one of the witches returned to the Demon Realm with Anubis's head in tow.

"This isn't over," Selket announced. "You've just delayed the inevitable." And then she and the remaining two giraffes charged straight through the walls of the house, running in separate directions.

Amity breathed a huge sigh of relief. At least she wasn't going to die anytime soon. Her relief only got stronger when Luz stepped through the portal and gave her a shaky smile. "Those freaks should have known better than to mess with my batata," she said proudly.

"Your…sweet potato?" King said, scratching his head. "That can't be right. I need to reread that book."

Regent Steve stepped through the portal next, and nodded approvingly at Anubis's bisected lower half. "Very good work. All right, spread out, everyone! There's still three more lesser giraffes to kill, as well as their leader."

Luz raised a hand, looking sheepish. "Uh, I don't want to, like, rain on people's parade, but we kind of can't let people around here know magic is real. They'll freak out."

Eda placed a gentle hand on Luz's shoulder. "Owlet, they're gonna find out magic is real one way or another. I'd rather them find out from us instead of the giraffes, wouldn't you?"

"Your concerns are valid, Princess Luz," Regent Steve said, "but the giraffes are a threat beyond anything you can possibly imagine, and stopping them supersedes nearly all other priorities. We can deal with the repercussions later."

Dipper cleared his throat. Amity had almost forgot he was still there, he and his fellow former victims of the giraffes had been so quiet. "Not necessarily! Anubis set up a barrier spell of incredible power around Gravesfield. They don't want the government finding out about them before they're ready. That combined with cutting the power to the whole town means we have a better than average chance of keeping this contained."

"What are we still standing around here for?" the grungy old man complained.

Eda turned her head all of a sudden to face him. "Stan?! You're alive?"

"Hey, Marilyn," Stan said sourly. "Long time, no see."

Pacifica rolled her eyes. "Uh, hello, this is not the time for a goddamn soap opera! Threats to the fabric of reality, remember?"

"Right," Regent Steve said, looking a trifle embarrassed he'd taken his eye off the ball for even a couple of seconds. "We'll split into three teams, one for each remaining giraffe. Destroy any obstacles in your path. Don't concern yourself with hiding magic. We'll worry about that later.

Diana stepped over to Gus. She'd been very quiet for a while. Atypically so. Normally, it was kind of hard to get the former Golden Guard to stop talking. "Gus, I'm really sorry about this," she said, and then she wrapped her arm around Gus's neck in a stranglehold. Gus barely had time to look betrayed before his sister had choked him unconscious. "I can't risk you getting hurt." She gave Gus over to one of the witches from the Illusion Guild. "Get him back to his dad. Don't let him come here, whatever you do."

At a nod from Regent Steve, the witch carted Gus through the portal. Amity had to admire Diana's sheer audacity. She didn't think she'd ever have the guts to do the same thing to Willow. "He's gonna hate you when he wakes up."

"But he'll be alive to do it," Diana retorted.

Willow gave a very menacing look at her girlfriend. "I hope you don't plan to do the same thing to me."

Diana put her hands up placatingly. "And take out one of our best fighters? No way!"

Amity put on her most adorable expression and looked at Luz imploringly. "Cariño, la luz de mi vida –"

"I'm not going to cower in the Demon Realm while good people fight in my place, Amity," Luz snapped, her voice utterly firm. "And if you try to choke me out, we're done."

Amity looked over to Camila for some backup and was alarmed to see that she was just staring off into space, a totally blank look on her face. "Ah, yes, I thought this might happen," Dipper admitted, and then explained how Anubis's mind control ritual worked. "There are probably very few adults out there right now with the will to fully overcome it – even Mrs. Noceda's partial overcoming of the spell speaks to an impressive level of willpower."

"So if we're gonna get human support, we're gonna need to rope in some kids," Luz concluded. "Now where are we going to find a ready made army of kids to fight for us?"

Amity groaned. She knew exactly where this was going.

Even if Eddie hadn't been fully briefed on the existence of magic, it wouldn't have taken a genius to realize that when the adults in his school all abruptly walked out of their various classrooms and left the school all at once, something magical was happening. There were a handful of adults who had not left, but were not precisely what you might call helpful, as they appeared to be staring blankly into space now and were unable to be roused. The fact that all electronic devices, including their cell phones, had failed hadn't helped anyone's mood either.

Eddie really hoped something hadn't gone wrong with the portal. The news that Diana and her friends were about to depart had made Eddie a little sad, though that had been eclipsed by relief that they were finally going to be reunited with their loved ones. He was also really excited about the prospect of visiting the Demon Realm himself. A brave new world with no homophobia in it? Sign him up! But the whole thing had seemed a little too good to be true and had seemed to happen all at once. Maybe Dr. Pines had turned out to be some sort of fraud and his ritual had backfired spectacularly.

As the kids gravitated towards the lunchroom and speculated as to exactly that the hell was going on with the adults, Eddie nearly collided with a very determined looking Luz. He had never seen her quite like this before. She was in full battle mode, he realized, taking on the role that Diana played nearly all the time. "Luz, what the hell is happening here?"

"Giraffes," Luz said curtly, which explained nothing. "I know, it sounds crazy, but they've brainwashed the adults, there's a horde of zombies, I don't know what else. I got reinforcements from the Demon Realm, but we need all the hell we can get to defeat these guys."

"What are you high on and where can I get some?" someone asked.

Luz stood on a table and clapped her hands sharply, gaining everyone's attention. "Listen up, everyone! I don't give a crap about whether you believe what I'm gonna tell you! I've got bigger fish to fry! Magic is real, evil giraffes are here to kill us all, and they have a zombie horde and a horde of brainwashed adults! Good news: There's an army of witches here to fight them – they're the good guys – but we need all the help we can get! I can't promise anything but a decent chance at a violent death if you help, but I'll do my darndest to get you a bitching headstone if you die!"

Everyone just stared at her.

And stared at her some more.

And some more.

"Also, griffins breathe spiders," Luz went on, heedless to the silence around her. "So anyone who made fun of me for that should be ashamed of themselves!"

"Anyone who made fun of her for anything should be ashamed," Eddie said firmly, deciding to take advantage of the fact that no one seemed to know quite how to respond. "Now some of you know me and others don't. I'm Eddie Falconer, and I believe Luz. I'm ready to fight! Now if any of you are not willing to stand alongside me as we fight against these…giraffes?" Luz nodded. Eddie sighed. There was no dignity in making a rousing speech against giraffes. "If any of you aren't willing to fight, then that's fine. But I'm gonna make a stand! Who's with me?"

Very few students turned out to be willing to make that stand, mostly consisting of about three quarters of the GSA and a handful of outsiders. Eddie was shocked. After that terrible speech Luz had given, he wasn't expecting anyone to be willing to even come anywhere close to believing her, much less be willing to fight evil giraffes for her.

"Sniveling cowards!" Eleanor called out, shaking their fist at the GSA members unwilling to fight.

"No, Eleanor," Eddie said in the sternest voice he had available to him. "They agreed to join an advocacy organization, not go to war. There's no dishonor in choosing to save yourself when you're just a kid and there's a damn good chance we'll die."

"So why are you fighting, then?" Alice asked.

Eddie shrugged. "It's the right thing to do, that's all." But there was more to it than that. Jake had died fighting for what he believed was right, even though he was completely off base in what that was. Eddie admired that courage. More importantly, Jake had known that there was an invasion coming, even if he'd gotten all of the details dreadfully wrong. It would have dishonored his memory for Eddie not to fight now that it was here.

He drew himself up. "Okay! First order of business is to get our hands on some weapons. Fortunately, I know exactly where to get some."

Eddie led his team out of the school. A few kids joined them as they departed, but by and large, the student body decided to stay inside where it was presumably safer. Though Eddie knew it wasn't. If the giraffes decided to attack the school, they'd be dead meat. Eddie figured his chance for survival was better on the move.

Jake had left Eddie everything in his will and that included his ungodly large collection of guns and ammunition. There was enough of that stuff at the storage facility outside of town to start a small war, which was fortuitous, because that was exactly what they were there to fight. On the not so bright side, Luz turned out to be not joking in the slightest about the roving bands of brainwashed adults or the zombies. Luckily, both of the groups didn't seem to have enough independent thought available to them to notice Eddie's team, much less pursue them.

Luz was also right about the teams of witches. Eddie watched in awe as dozens of witches fought against the brainwashed adults and zombies with a wide variety of different spells. Witches with green spell circles manipulated vines to tie up the brainwashed while witches with brown spell circles threw rocks and bricks through the heads of various zombies.

The team managed to make it to the storage facility with zero casualties. Eddie opened up several crates absolutely packed with guns and ammo. After loading the guns and giving everyone a brief lesson on gun safety, they trudged away from the facility and decided to find the place where there was the greatest concentration of witches fighting, because it probably meant they were going after a giraffe. (How was this even his life now?)

Eddie spotted Diana in the center of a large concentration of witches close to the history museum and rushed towards her. Diana looked incredibly alarmed to see them. "What the hell are you doing here?! Are you out of your mind?"

"Luz said you could use some help," Eddie said defensively.

"Luz must have lost whatever is left of her mind," Diana snapped. "You're kids! You shouldn't be putting yourselves at risk."

"You're a kid too," Alice argued.

Diana laughed caustically. "Yeah. Sure I am." She rolled her eyes. "Well, as long as you're here, leave your guns here. We could use them. Selket and Wepwawet have been spotted nearby. Those are two of the giraffes. There are three left, plus MacKinnon, who's their leader. We're not sure if he's a giraffe or something much, much worse."

"MacKinnon? Lionel MacKinnon, the billionaire industrialist?" Diana nodded. Oh, spectacular. So they were up against the richest man in the state as well as evil giraffes who sounded like they had a side gig as Egyptian gods. "Look, there's no time to argue. We have to fight."

"NO, YOU FUCKING DON'T!" Diana screeched. "You don't know what it's like to go to war, Eddie! Not like I do! You don't know battle like me. It rips out chunks of your soul."

Alice sighed. "Maybe she has a point, Eddie. This was…now that I think about it, I think this was really stupid." The other members of the GSA gave sounds of agreement.

Eddie opened his mouth to speak, but before he could do it, a massive explosion ripped through the building across the square from the historical society. Selket and Wepwawet strolled through the flames like they were out for an afternoon stroll.

"Ah, so some more foolish children think they have what it takes to defeat the infinite glory that is us," Wepwawet purred. "It's truly pathetic. Sad, really. I'm almost inclined to give you all a painless death." She bared her teeth in a sadistic smile. "Almost."

Diana pulled out a pistol she must have taken from a defeated brainwashed police officer and fired it at the giraffes with a surprisingly steady hand. She must have gotten ranged weapon training during her mysterious past, though probably with bows and arrows instead of guns. While she did this, the various witches fired spells at the giraffes, who tanked most of the damage done. Eddie and his friends fired their own guns at the giraffes, but the bullets just bounced off their hides.

"I AM MORTALLY WOUNDED!" Saul called out, and Eddie looked over at him with alarm, only to roll his eyes when he saw that Saul had the slightest of grazes to the leg from a ricocheted bullet. "Truly, this is a punishment for the hubris I had to think I could ever glance beyond the boundaries of this reality. The sentient duck has given me what I rightfully deserve."

"Dude, it barely even counts as a flesh wound."

"WHY?! Why did I ever think it was wise to reveal the truth of the fanfic I'm living in?" Saul lamented, heedless to the fact that he was not, in fact, dying at all. He looked down at his shirt and gave a shriek. "IT WAS FORETOLD! I should have known better than to wear a red shirt, for it has made me one!"

A witch knocked Saul out "accidentally" with a concussive blast. Eddie sighed. He really shouldn't be thinking so badly of Saul, especially since Saul was willing to fight at his side against a highly dangerous foe, but there were times when Eddie just was not in the mood for humoring his delusions and this was one of them. "Thank you," Eddie muttered at the witch, who gave a curt nod.

"If you surrender now and kneel before us, we will spare your lives," Selket offered with a whimsical grin. She looked very surprised when Alice stepped forward and did just that. But not half as surprised as she looked when Alice took out the automatic shotgun she'd been hiding behind her back, aimed it at Selket's groin and started firing over and over again. Chunks of viscera that was probably best not identified started flying everywhere. When the astonished looking Selket collapsed to the ground, Alice kept on shooting her until the gun clicked empty.

Eddie and the other members of the GSA stepped forward and fired their own guns at Selket. Selket screeched in pure agony as bullets tore into her. Finally, for the coup de grace, Diana walked up behind Selket and shot her in the back of the head at point blank range.

"Wow, that was so awesome!" Alice called out, bouncing up and down with excitement.

"You idiots, there's still one more!" Diana snapped, but before anyone could process that statement, a huge pulse of energy emerged from Wepwawet and everything went dark for a few seconds. When Eddie regained consciousness, he was resting against the wall of the historical society. The square was rubble, the statues of the Wittebanes were nothing but slag, and Eddie was pretty sure all of his limbs and his back were now broken. Everyone looked similarly injured. Two kids were outright dead, and so were all of the witch forces except for Diana, whose right leg was blown off. Eddie only vaguely recognized the dead kids as being new members of the club.

And he'd led them to their deaths.

What had he been thinking, going up against dark gods with just a couple of guns? In the end, he had just as much hubris as Saul thought he had. (Ironically, Saul looked completely unharmed by the blast. If he had gotten some duck writer god to put a target on him, then it was clearly terrible at it. A quack, one might say.) But, no, Eddie thought he could be a hero. And because of that, he was about to die.

"You killed Selket. My sister," Wepwawet said, and then gave a perky grin. "I have to thank you for that. I really hated her. I owe you for that…and that's why your deaths will only last years instead of millennia."

She raised a hoof and tapped it on the ground. Nothing happened. Then there were several more taps – stomps, really – followed by a clapping sound. There was something damnably familiar about that rhythm, but Eddie's concussed mind couldn't quite place it. Before Eddie's eyes, the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen in his life stepped forward. She was a witch with dark skin and silver hair and was wearing a red outfit. She stomped twice and then clapped several times in quick succession and Wepwawet screamed in agony as she levitated into the air.

"Buddy, you're an old man, poor man, pleading with your eyes gonna make you some peace some day!" the girl half-sung, half-screamed and Eddie couldn't help but grin as where he'd heard the rhythm before finally hit him. The spell the girl was casting slowly started to rip Wepwawet into shreds. "You got mud on your face, you big disgrace! SOMEBODY BETTER PUT YOU BACK INTO YOUR PLACE!"

It was only then that Eddie noticed a second witch next to her, a girl of the same age with a fishhook in her ear. "Any takers for that position, Skara?"

"Oh, I think I can think of a few, Viney," Skara purred, and then she and Viney simultaneously held out their hands. "We will rock you, giraffe!"

The two of them cast a spell simultaneously and then Wepwawet just exploded into a shower of rotting meat. It was the single most amazing thing Eddie had seen in his life. He was pretty sure he was in love at first sight. And/or about to pass out from blood loss.

Viney walked over to the various wounded witches and humans and cast spells to heal them, including regenerating Diana's leg. "Sorry, I'm kind of an amateur," Viney apologized as she healed Eddie. She was only able to heal them partially, especially after the power she expended, but it would be enough to keep them alive and in good condition until a more skilled healer could get to them.

"What are you even doing here?" Diana asked, her voice filled with wonder.

"We couldn't let you fight giraffes all by your lonesome," Skara explained. Her voice was so soft and musical, like chocolate bells. Wait, what? Perhaps the blood loss theory had more merit to it than Eddie thought. "When we heard – and don't ask how; we have our ways, that's all I'll say – we knew we were gonna have to stop you from doing something stupid. You like my song? Eda taught it to me."

"It's pretty damn awesome," Diana admitted, and then swept Skara up into a tight hug.

Eddie frantically gestured for Diana to join him. "Is Skara single?" he whispered. Well, tried to whisper. He was pretty sure the words came out louder than he thought. Was it his imagination or did Skara look flattered by that question? He was going to give fifty-fifty odds, frankly. "Please tell me she's single."

"She's single," Diana said with a slight smirk. "And into guys. But if you dump her on the first date, we're gonna have a problem, understand?" Eddie nodded hurriedly.

He wracked his brain for the perfect pickup line as Diana led Skara over to him. You know what you would look really beautiful in? My arms. Do you have a map? I got lost in your eyes.

"Do you have a map?" Eddie said in the most confident, flirtatious voice available to him. "My arms." Nailed it, he thought, just as he lost consciousness.

Willow was not exactly what one might call impressed by the giraffes. She'd expected a great deal more from the creatures said to have slain King's father. True, she knew they wouldn't be anywhere close to their full power until they killed King, but still, it was unimpressive how easily the brainwashed Gravesfielders and zombies that the giraffes had placed in their path went down to the Boiling Empire's most elite troops. Of course, part of that might just have been because she punched in a higher weight class these days. After facing Belos, everyone else kind of seemed unimpressive. Willow certainly knew that if Boscha gave her a hard time after she get back, she'd laugh in her face.

Willow was now accompanying Luz, Eda, Vee, King, Regent Steve, and Clara, as well as a squadron of witches from various guilds in the direction of the cemetery so they could shut off the ritual that was powering the zombies. That would halve the impromptu army the giraffes had set up and remove the last of the defenses between them and MacKinnon Manor so they could kill Sutekh once and for all.

Willow had thoroughly objected to the idea of the not-at-all combat trained Clara being present, to say nothing of King, whose death was the primary objective of the giraffes' master plan, but her objections had been overruled by Luz, and Regent Steve seemed to be content to follow her lead. Luz assured Willow that she had a "foolproof plan" requiring King and Clara's presence inspired by "season one, episode eight." It would be far more reassuring if Willow had the slightest clue what Luz was talking about, but Luz refused to elaborate. Ostensibly, this was because Luz was trying to keep information close to the vest so the giraffes couldn't torture it out of her, but Willow suspected a good part of it was revenge for keeping her relationship with Diana a secret.

"We're getting close! Look alive!" Clara cried out. "Except, you know, the zombies, who should look dead, because if you're undead, we're chopping your heads off!"

"Yes, thank you…kid," Eda said, rolling her eyes and stuttering a bit before uttering the third word.

Vee squeezed King's hand. King looked atypically scared, and it was probably much worse than he was letting on, given the fact that he was adverse to showing fear. "It's going to be okay," she whispered at King. Willow was touched to see Luz's two siblings getting along so well. She hoped they would think of one another as siblings eventually instead of just sharing Luz as a sibling.

"I'm not scared," King transparently lied. "Why…why should I be? I have nothing to worry about. I mean, I'm the mighty Emperor of Demons, aren't I?" He looked over at Clara, who gave a so-so gesture.

Fortunately, the awkwardness of the conversation was soon forgotten when a horde of zombies abruptly surged in their directions from all sides. Luz gave a savage grin and then Azura was suddenly in front of her, at full power, and Luz jumped on top of her. Azura let out a huge roar and Luz ran straight towards the nearest zombies, with the velociraptor savagely dismembering their undead attackers with the greatest of ease.

"THIS IS THE SINGLEST COOLEST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO ME IN MY LIFE!" she shouted. "I'm riding a frigging dinosaur into battle! Does it get any better than this?"

Willow frowned at Luz's blasé approach to matters as one of the witches closest to her nearly got torn in half by a zombie before King blasted its legs off with a shotgun. She was impressed. She had no idea he was such a good shot. In fact, she'd never really considered him particularly dexterous before. So much for assuming things about people, right?

Slowly but surely they carved their way through the zombies. Having a dinosaur on their side helped a lot with that, but everyone else held their own. Between King's shotgun, Willow's plant magic piercing and breaking bones with vines, the wrath of the Harpy Beast, and Vee sucking the magic out of the zombies until they became normal corpses again, the zombies never stood a chance. They were going down so easy that Willow almost suspected a trap. But she was starting to realize one critical point. Like Belos had no clue what the Human Realm was like after so long away from it, neither did Sutekh know about the Demon Realm. He had left before witches even evolved and all he knew was just secondhand accounts.

"So you've come to shut off the ritual," a voice called out as they approached the cemetery and Luz froze. A distinguished looking man with waxy skin and a slightly misshapen face stepped out of the fog that had suddenly and ominously appeared out of nowhere. This man wasn't quite like the zombies – he had flesh – but he wasn't quite alive either. "What did you think, Luz? You were just gonna waltz in here with a positive attitude and everything would be all right?"

"Papi," Luz whispered as she got off of Azura and just stared at him, and Willow practically boiled with fury. This was low. The giraffes created a facsimile of Mr. Noceda just for the sole purpose of psychologically torturing Luz, just so they could make her suffer. And she wasn't even that much of a threat to them, not compared to the others. This wasn't something they did cavalierly either. A lot of magic went into this.

"Am I, though?" Fake Mr. Noceda said, his voice cruel and calm. Merciless. "I remember a daughter who was good, who made me proud of her. Not a stupid ingrate who made life harder for her mami. Not an imbecile who can't sit still in her classes, who embarrasses me at every turn."

Luz let out a yelp and started shaking. Vee slithered forward, but Eda held out her arm. "No," she said softly. "She needs to win this. Don't attack until he does."

The facsimile jumped over the fence, a confident expression on his face, as if he was just out for an evening stroll. "It's been so humiliating watching you, Luz," he went on. "That's why I came down here, you know. So I could give you a piece of my mind. Camila sent you to a camp that would make you normal, give you the life I wanted for you on a silver platter. But what did you do? You spurned it!"

"That camp wouldn't have helped me," Luz said, sounding unsure. "I found my true home in the Boiling Isles."

The facsimile shook his head sadly. "So it's true, then. You really did abandon your mother. I thought I raised you better than that, mija."

"It…it wasn't like that…" Luz whispered. "Mami understands that now."

The facsimile smirked. "Does she? Or is she just biding her time to leave you in the Isles, just like you left her? To ride off into the sunset with her true and perfect daughter. The one who is normal. Not a freak like you! Disgusting, worthless waste of space!" There was suddenly a knife in his hand and he tossed it onto the ground near Luz. "If you had the slightest shred of integrity, you selfish bitch, you'd ram this thing into your own heart."

Luz looked at the knife. She started trembling. Eda opened her mouth to give the order to attack. And then Luz burst out laughing. She wasn't trembling from fear – it was from trying to hide her mirth! "You just…wow! You're just really laying it on way too thick to be credible!"

The facsimile's face tightened, but he said nothing. "I can't…look, I think that way sometimes. I do. It gets bad. I'm not going to deny it. But you know what? You say it out loud, and it just…well, it just sounds silly." She looked the facsimile in the face with a satisfied expression on her face. "Everything you've said, I've thought in the deepest, darkest parts of me. But all I need to do is take one look at my friends, the people I love, and I know it's not true. So go screw yourself, you monstrosity!"

She gave the facsimile the finger and turned her back on him. When he lunged at her, Azura ate him in one bite.

Luz's confident, defiant attitude vanished abruptly and she almost lost her balance as she sank to her knees. It had all been a very good act. Tears ran down her face. "Oh, God," she whispered. "I don't…I can't…" Willow just hugged her best friend. "I can't believe that just happened. I almost fell for it. I really almost fell for it! I thought my own father…"

"It's okay, Luz," Willow assured her. "It's going to be okay."

"Oh, I wouldn't bet the farm on that," a voice drawled and Willow glared as the fog parted to reveal Sobek. "You killed my siblings, and that means nothing is going to be okay for you ever again. This was just a small taste of the horror that awaits you."

Regent Steve cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Mr. Sobek. We're having an very important moment of emotional catharsis here. I'd kindly request that you let us bring our conversation to its conclusion, or I'll be forced to kill you."

Sobek burst out laughing. "You…seriously? You think you can threaten me, the great and all powerful Sobek?!"

"That was the threat," Regent Steve said, sounding bored. "And here's the follow up." He twirled his hand and gravestone after gravestone flew through the air and landed on Sobek over and over again, crushing him beneath their combined weight. Blood sprayed into the air and before long, the last of Sutekh's children was no more. He waved his hand once more and the gravestones returned to their original locations. "Please continue, Luz. I promise this time, there will be no interruptions."

"That was so cool," King said, his eyes shining bright with enthusiasm. "Can you teach me how to do that?"

"Unless you use glyphs that have a similar function, I'm afraid not," Regent Steve said, sounding genuinely regretful. "Luz?"

Luz looked about to say something, and then shook her head. "I'm okay." Everyone looked skeptical, even the regent. "I mean, I can hold on until we've taken out Sutekh. We don't have any time to waste."

"You're not wrong, kiddo," Eda admitted. She put a hand on Luz's shoulder. "Still, whenever you need me, I'm around to talk. And whatever you tell me, it stays between us. I won't even tell your mom, okay?" Luz nodded.

It didn't take very long to dismantle the ritual that Anubis had set up. "Hey, Eda, what's going to happen to Anubis? Because I'm not normally vindictive, but after what he did to Luz…"

Eda gave a vicious grin. "Oh, I definitely think he's regretting all his life choices right now."

"My name is Hooty!" the hideous creature screeched at Anubis, who was indeed regretting all his life choices right now. "And we're gonna be best friends forever!"

"No, please! I'll do anything!"

"AND SINGING BUDDIES!" Hooty went on relentlessly. "I love you, you love me!" he sang in the most off key voice imaginable. "We're a happy family! With a great big hug, and a kiss from me to you, won't you say you love me too?!"

"SOMEONE SAVE ME!"

But there would never be any salvation to be found for Anubis.

Since Willow's team was closest to MacKinnon Manor, they were sent in first. If Luz's plan failed, the other teams would come in and attack, though this would likely be utterly useless. As unimpressive as the giraffes had been, Willow knew that once Sutekh was at full power, nothing short of a Titan would be strong enough to defeat him. She just prayed Luz knew what she was doing. She usually did when the situation was really serious. It was as if her planning skills were proportional to the danger level. When the situation involved book reports or shipping, she came up with terrible plans, but when people's lives were in danger, she rose to the occasion.

Still, Willow still had no clue what the plan actually was, and Luz's vague comments about being inspired by episode eight didn't help. Willow really hoped Luz wasn't planning on ramming the manor at lightspeed. That had not ended well for Admiral Holdo, after all. No one would tell her no matter how much she tried. Neither Regent Steve nor Eda knew what the plan is and none of the others were talking.

"Remember, today is the first day of the rest of our lives!" Luz called out as they approached the gates of the manor. "Of course, you could say that about any day, but this day's really important, because this is the day when we'll win against Sutekh! And how will we do this? Through three things: stealth and caution. Stealth and caution and superior planning – that's three things. Stealth, caution, superior planning, and unmitigated awesomeness, three – no, four things, the nature of which I divulged in my previous utterance."

Regent Steve stared at her. "Luz, a word of advice. When you give speeches as the princess, have someone else write them." He clapped his hands. "Let's move and groove, people! Time is snails!"

Luz stuck her tongue out at Regent Steve, who just looked back impassively at her and then cast a spell. A beam of brown light emerged from his finger and tore through the bars on the gate as if they were ligament paper. Luz looked extremely impressed. "Wow…construction magic is so cool. I gotta learn that spell when I get back to Hexside!"

A gunshot rang out, the bullet smashing onto the ground near her foot. A team of gunmen in heavy armor emerged from their hiding places and fired a stream of gunfire in their direction. Unlike the brainwashed police officers, these shooters were firing in short, controlled bursts and looked to be in possession of their wits, most likely mercenaries Sutekh had hired to defend his manor.

They may have planned for a lot of things, but they certainly never planned for the Harpy Lady. At lightning quick speeds, Eda ran at them, bullets just bouncing right off of her. A few lucky souls got hit with ricochets. The rest met the wrath of the Harpy Beast. Until she saw it with her own eyes, she had no idea that human intestines were that color or that they had two kidneys, unlike witches who had just the one.

"I really didn't need to see that," King said, sounding like he was ready to throw up. Beside him, Clara rolled her eyes. Luz cast her an annoyed glare.

"Hey, it's gonna be okay," Vee assured him. "This is gonna be over soon enough. We're gonna win. We'll get him for what he did to your dad, I promise." King nodded curtly.

They charged into the foyer of the manor, which was completely empty. Then there was a tinkling of glass and the skylight above them broke as Sutekh jumped through it and landed on the floor in front of them in a three point landing. Willow rolled her eyes at the blatant melodrama involved. The various witches Willow didn't recognize fired spells in Sutekh's direction, but Sutekh dodged most of the spells and tanked the rest. He waved a hand and threw them through a wall. They lay unmoving on the other side of it. Willow couldn't tell if they were alive or dead.

"It's over, Sutekh," Luz called out. "We've defeated your children, taken out your zombies. Your evil plan has failed."

"On the contrary, Luz," Sutekh smarmed. "My plan has just begun. You were, after all, kind enough to do precisely what you were told: bring the last of the Titans before me." He looked over at King, appearing distinctly unimpressed by King's diminutive countenance. "Really? This is he? How…distinctly unimpressive. Your father was a much more intimidating enemy…right up until the point I killed him."

"I'm not afraid of you!" King squeaked, sounding very much like he was lying.

Sutekh cackled fiendishly. "You will be. All of humanity and witchkind will learn to fear me when they accept me as their rightful and eternal leader." He cast his eyes upon Clara, who just stared back at him defiantly. "And as for you, you will be taught your place. It will be a long, extensive, painful process. One that I am eagerly looking forward to."

Sutekh removed the mask on the side of his face, revealing the face of a giraffe underneath. Then the giraffe just melted into an oozing, amorphous blob that smelled absolutely disgusting. There was nothing left on that side of Lionel MacKinnon's face. MacKinnon looked dazed and confused. Sutekh oozed over to the last of the Titans. "Any last words, pitiful creature?"

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" King shouted.

Sutekh thrust a spike in the direction of King's chest. Yet as soon as it touched King's flesh, Sutekh let out a shriek of agony and started convulsing. "WHAT IS THIS?!" he screeched.

Willow knew the answer to that question even before Eda took down the illusion spells she'd had placed on King and Clara, revealing that "King's" eyes were now blue and Clara's eyes were yellow. The Pines had become privy to lots of useful information about Sutekh during their possession. That included the precise details about the contract Sutekh had made with MacKinnon…and the fact that if he violated it, by, say, hurting his daughter swapped into King's body, his possession would come to an end.

"This isn't over!" Sutekh said, as he started disintegrating. "A thousand years, ten thousand, a hundred, I will return one day! You cannot stop me forever! You –"

Vee sucked all of the disintegrating particles that had once comprised Sutekh into her mouth, swallowed them, absorbed their magic, and let out a loud burp. "Excuse me," she said, sounding mortified.

Eda twirled her hands and King and Clara were back in their original bodies. King breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank…uh, Dad, I guess?" King said. "No offense, but being a lowly human isn't really fun."

"None taken," Clara said. "You're so tiny!"

"Hey, I'm gonna grow the size of a continent, for your information!"

There was a groaning sound as MacKinnon, for the first time in fifty years, got himself to his feet under his own power. His face was now completely healed and intact. He looked at Clara as if she was the most priceless treasure in creation, something far beyond the worth of his ridiculous levels of riches. "Clara…" he said, his voice rusty from disuse through his own will.

"Father," Clara said with a huge smile. She then scowled. "Yeah, no, that's gonna be tainted forever. Can I call you dad?"

MacKinnon looked bewildered. "I don't understand why you'd want to call me anything." He gave a rueful smile. "You know my story by now, I assume. For the last fifty years, I've had everything I could ever want except for two things: freedom and the opportunity to tell you how much I love you." He sighed. "Except you don't believe me, do you?"

Clara stepped forward and to MacKinnon's confusion, swept her father – her true father, not the imposter Sutekh had been – into a hug. "Yes, I do. Every generous thing you did, the way you treated me after I came out, sending me to live with mom, that was all you, wasn't it?" MacKinnon nodded. "I thought so."

"I love you so much, Clara," MacKinnon said, openly crying. "I've wanted nothing more than to tell you that for the last fifteen years. I understand if you don't want to see me anymore, after what he did to everyone…"

"Oh, you're not getting away from me that easily, Dad," Clara promised. "We've got a lot of time to make up for, after all."

Eda cleared her throat. "This is touching and all, and I promise we'll have time for it later, but we need your help to wrap things up around here, Mac. Can you give us a few minutes, kids?" Eda led MacKinnon away.

Vee leaned against a wall, clutching her stomach. "I'm probably gonna spend all night puking," she lamented. "That was disgusting. Giraffes taste horrible."

"I'm gonna have to take your word for it," Willow said. She gave an encouraging smile at Luz. "Looks like your plan worked after all. Episode eight…?"

"Once Upon a Swap," Luz said, as if that was supposed to clarify anything. "True, some have considered it to be the lamest of all the episodes of my summer, but it worked in the end, didn't it?" She took a step forward and stumbled a bit. "I am so tired right now," she admitted.

Everyone seemed too overwhelmed to say anything as the reality of what they'd just gone through suddenly sank in. They spent about ten minutes in utter silence before Eda and MacKinnon returned. "Okay, here's how it's gonna go, folks," Eda announced. "We're gonna repair all the damage and heal everyone who can be healed. Then we'll break the brainwashing spell, cast a mass forgetting spell over the town, and finally take down the barrier spell."

"NO!" Luz shouted. "I can't forget! Don't make me forget you, Eda! I learned my lesson! I don't wanna forget my family!"

Eda rolled her eyes. "Stop being a drama queen, Luz, you're only gonna forget the last day." Luz gave a sheepish laugh. "As a matter of fact, you won't be forgetting anything because you'll be in the Demon Realm when the spell is cast."

"The missing time as well as the dead will be blamed on a chemical leak from my research facility," MacKinnon explained. "People will accept it. After all, there's no such thing as magic."

Luz stumbled abruptly and fell into Eda's arms. "I'm sorry, I tried to be strong," she muttered. "It was too much for me."

"It's okay, owlet," Eda said. "I got you. Your mama's got you. Everything's gonna be all right."

It was hard to tell from the expression on Luz's face before she fell asleep, but Willow was pretty certain that, for once, Luz believed her.