(Bonesborough General Hospital)
Luz watched from outside Alador's hospital room. Amity, Emira, and Edric were gathered around their father's bed exchanging happy words and relief at knowing that their father was ok. Luz smiled to herself as she watched them and although she couldn't join them, she was content.
Amity walked out of the room and happily looked at Luz.
"So is he gonna be ok?" Luz asked.
"Other than two broken legs he'll be fine, nothing the Healing coven can't handle."
"So what exactly happened there at the factory, it looked like a scene out of an apocalypse movie in there."
Luz noticed her ex now looking a bit worried.
"This isn't the first time something like this has happened in the past few months, I'm honestly beginning to think Industrial Sabotage is at play here. There have been a bunch of smaller abomination companies popping up lately and I know they've been trying to take away our business lately."
Luz put a comforting hand on Amity's shoulder, she was about to say something but Amity noticed Luz's hand and blushed.
"Oh before i forget, I wanted to give you something."
Luz now blushed.
"What is it exactly?" Luz asked sounding more infatuated than she wanted to.
"Luz, I wanted to-"
"Amity!"
Luz turned around to see a tall witch around their age with ice-blue eyes and shoulder-length bright red hair. She wore the uniform of the beast-keeping coven. The red-haired witch immediately embraced Amity lovingly.
"Oh Amity I was so worried when I heard what happened at the factory, are you ok?!"
Luz's mouth fell open when she saw Amity lovingly embrace this girl back.
Amity then noticed her ex staring and she blushed bright pink.
"Oh Luz, I'd like you to meet my girlfriend, Lacey Batwood."
Before Luz could say anything Lacy turned around and noticed her and an instant look of excitement filled her.
"Oh my Titan, are you Luz?"
Luz surprised replied: Y-yes."
Lacey immediately embraced Luz with the strength of a grizzly bear.
"I can't believe we're only meeting now, I've heard so much about you from Amity and Hunter so I feel like I know you already!"
"Wait, Hunter, what did he tell you and how do you know him?"
Luz then looked down and recognized the beast-keeping coven symbol on her pullover hoodie.
"Oh, you're in the beast-keeping coven?"
Lacey let Luz go then nodded.
"Yep, he and I are pretty close but it's kinda hard not to be close with everyone in our coven since ours in particular is pretty small compared to the other covens."
Luz looked to Amity and was about to say something but before she could say a word she heard a familiar voice calling out to her.
"Luz!"
Luz turned around and saw Vee running down the hall towards her. Her adopted sister stopped a few feet away to catch her breath.
Even though Luz was now disheartened that Amity had moved on so quickly her mood Brightened to see her sister.
"Vee, I'm so happy to "
Luz stopped talking when Vee put her hand up.
"Sorry for interrupting but this is important. Luz, we can't find him."
Now Luz was confused.
"Who?"
"The collector, Your Student who else?! Willow, Me, Hunter, and later Eda, Rain, and King have been looking all over for him and we can't find him!"
(Melniboné School of Black Magic)
The collector had waited hours for everyone else at Melniboné to go to sleep. Ghost herself was sleeping in a sling he had made from old rags, she still wasn't a hundred percent herself yet after Elric nearly killed her. The collector smiled as he looked down at her sleeping body, she let out a cute little snore before rolling over to the other side of a sling. He then looked out over the hall to make sure the coast was clear before he went back into the room where Opal was being held in her new cage. Her earlier transformation had reversed her back to her witch form a few hours ago. Opal wore an oversized robe and slumped over the small plate of food the dark magic users had given her.
"Psst, Opal."
Opal didn't turn around at first but just kept staring at her untouched food.
"Hey, Opal!"
"You don't have to whisper, all the dark witches all sleep in the higher levels of the school, we are too deep down for them to hear us talk," Opal said without Turing around.
The collector still cautious, gently, walked out from behind a pillar, and towards Opal's cage. He looked at her through the bars for a moment then felt ghost beginning to squirm in her sling, the cat turned her head and looked into the cage happily at Opal.
"Meow."
Ghost jumped out of the sling and slipped through the bars and purred as she rubbed against Opal's knee. Opal rubbed ghost behind the ears the collector noticed that there were more black and scaly blotches on the girl's skin than before. He phased through the bars thanks to a trick Eda had shown him. He sat down next to Opal and handed her a small vile of rose gold liquid.
"What's this?" Opal asked.
"It's a potion I learned how to make back when I lived in the boiling isles. It's supposed to help with skin rashes…I thought it could help with your…"
"Scales? You mean?"
The collector nodded awkwardly while Opal looked over the potion and then poured some out onto a scaly blotch on her skin.
"This one is made from Griffen leaf isn't it?"
The collector nodded.
"This won't get rid of the blotches, but it will help take away the itchiness for a few hours…thank you."
The collector blushed a little as he noticed Opal smile.
"No problem….so I guess we should introduce ourselves, I'm the…"
"You're the collector, I already know. "
"How?"
" Well, just one look at your face and it's pretty obvious but even if I hadn't noticed your face is moon-shaped I've heard the dark magic users talk about you a lot lately, ever since everyone in the boiling isles, got their souls back."
The collector remembered that day well, it was when Big sister Luz promised to be his magic teacher….a promise she still had yet to honor.
"What are you doing here though? Are the students here trying to help you with your curse?"
Opal stopped scratching ghost behind the ears as the collector said that.
"Did it look like they were trying to help me when I transformed earlier today?! No there not, THERE THE ONES THAT CURSED ME!!"
Opal slumped against the bars and slowly slid down.
" They took me after my first day at Hexside, the school just reopened after Jinn had been defeated. I had just been excepted into Oracle coven and as I was leaving I met Elric on the way home, he said he noticed my abilities at school that day, and they wanted me to join the school for black magic and I admit the way he talked about my talents gave me a big ego boost so like an idiot that I was, I left with him, and as soon as we reached the school grounds, he and the other black magic users threw me into this cage and cast the curse of the dragon beast on me."
Opal then pulled out a scroll from one of the pockets in her robe and handed it to the collector.
" Don't read it out loud whatever you do. This is the curse they used.
"W-why did they do this to you?"
" I'm not the only one they've done this to, there are two more just like me in the deepest levels of the school only unlike me they are fully transformed into dragons just like I will be Someday."
"No, they lied to you, Opal. Miss Eda and Miss Lilith both have the curse of the owl beast in them and they've made peace with it. Even when they transform, they don't stay that way forever. Once we leave I'll give you some of the potions, they make that counteract the curse, it'll help you."
Opal shook her head no.
" That's not how it works with my curse. I've read the scroll a million times trying to find some way to beat it but every time I read it, I just come back to the same answer, as I get older, the curse becomes more and more harder to control until finally when I reach adulthood, I will transform completely into a dragon for the rest of my life! Elric and his goons are trying to speed up the process by making me transform more and more so I lose control and transform more frequently, by the time they're done I'll just be a mindless killing machine just like the ones downstairs. They're going to use us as weapons, collector! Me as the dragon and you as their powerful champion."
The collector looked around and then noticed an open window.
"Not if we aren't here."
The Collector held out his hand and the ghost immediately transformed into her staff form. "We're getting out of here."
"Collector.."
"No don't worry, Ghost is the fastest Palisman ever so we'll be able to escape and once we get back to my friends they can help you and-"
"I'm not leaving!"
The two were silent for a moment before the collector spoke up again.
"Why not? My friends are smart, they can help you and-"
"Nobody can help me. Every time I get a little miffed. I transform. I'll just make things worse for everyone else back home. Once you get home, can you do me a favor?"
"What?"
Opal took off her oracle necklace and gave it to The Collector.
"Can you find my dad and once you do could you give it to him…it was my mom's. He shouldn't have any hope that'll I'll come back, it's best he think I'm already dead."
Opal tried to give the collector the necklace but he pushed it back into her hands.
"You can give it to him yourself when we get home."
The collector then drew a glyph on the dusty floor and a thick mist filled the cage, the Collector covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve while Opal fell into unconsciousness, before she hit the floor he caught her and used a construction spell to make a temporary sidecar for Opal and attached it to his staff before placing her in.
"Now Collector, I'm not sure that's a good idea."
The Collector turned around and saw Elric walking into the room.
The collector glared at Elric and raised his Palisman staff in Defense!
"You lied to me, Elric!"
Elric smiled.
"Did I? I promised you that you could be this institution's greatest people, and I still believe that."
"I'm not gonna be your Weapon, Belos already tried that and it didn't end well for him."
The Collector noticed Elric looking at Opal so he immediately blocked her.
"I'm glad you two seem so fond of each other. That relationship will come in handy when we invade the boiling isles."
"I'm not doing that!"
"So you wish to go back to a life of holding yourself back and being forgotten by your teacher?"
The Collector looked down for a moment before he glared back at Elric, he was about to reply when the walls to the roof collapsed as Eda and Lilith flew down in their owl beast forms followed by Luz, Willow, Hunter, Vee, Gus, and Amity.
The Collector smiled at his adopted family as they came down then smiled confidently at Elric.
"So what was that you said about me being forgotten?"
To be continued
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