Okay, before this chapter starts, I just want to clarify something. In this AU, Luz became closer friends with Sasha than with the other two, creating a split in the friend group. Luz grew in toxicity around the time Sasha did. She's also NOT a Sasha 2.0, as a few comments have said. She's more of a henchwoman if anything. I understand why you all thought that, but it is incorrect. Don't worry about the cloakbot, it won't be here for much longer, and it's just to expand on something mentioned before. Problems always have reasons, even the ones not explained yet. Just you wait…
Anne was what some people would call a 'people pleaser'. She didn't really like to see it that way, though. She was also what people would call a 'social chameleon'. She would change herself to be more attuned to who she's speaking with. With Marcy, she was nerdy. With Luz, she was sporty. With Sasha, she was…well, that was more complicated. But, all in all, she didn't mind changing herself if it meant people would like her. But recently, Sasha and Luz had been more rude towards her and Marcy, Luz taking Marcy's new book had only been the latest in a string of incidents. There was the time Sasha had asked to have Anne's shoes and the time that Luz has asked to borrow Marcy's Cynthia Coven Pencil bag and forgotten to return it.. Sasha had even invited her to graffiti buildings something that she usually did with Luz. She didn't want to just stay to the side and watch as her and Marcy were mistreated. She was concerned about her friends behavior but wasn't sure how to talk to them about it.
She figured it would be best to ask Luz about it, but wasn't able to reach her in time before she went down the metro. Anne then decided she would call when she got home, trudging back to the school bicycle rack in defeat. She unhooked her bike chain and lock and started off towards home. She lived relatively close by, so she was able to go to and from school in ten minutes tops every day. She was sure that she would be able to get there to call Luz before meeting with Sasha.
After her short journey, she chained her bicycle to a wooden post just outside her house, making sure it was firmly locked in place before heading inside. Her first order of business, like every day, was to pet Domino, her cat. After that urgent task was finished, she ran up the stairs to her room. Her mom wouldn't be here until later and her dad was probably occupied with his video games. She closed the door before pulling up her phone and calling Luz's number. One ring. Two rings. Three rings. A chime.
"Hi, Anne! How are you?" asked Luz. Anne smiled.
"I'm doing well. Listen, has Sasha been acting strange recently?" asked Anne. A pause was heard on the other end.
"...What do you mean by that?" responded Luz.
"Well, she's been encouraging you to be physical with other people a lot more lately. Has she told you anything weird lately?"
"Uh, no. And what's this about her 'encouraging me'? She's not telling me to be violent. I'm not even being violent. I'm not hurting, I'm threatening, rarely ever confrontational." said Luz firmly.
"That's still bad, you know. Is she starting to give you orders now or something?"
"No, she isn't. I'm not her goon."
"Oh, so you're just being violent for no reason?"
"Can we drop this?"
"You mean like you always do when I confront you about this?"
"Well, now I guess you're the confrontational one, aren't you?" Anne was about to retort, but she sighed and gave up. She wouldn't be able to get through to her.
"...Fine, I'll drop it. I just wanted to say that she asked me to meet with her after school." A pause was heard on the other side of the phone before Luz responded in a miffed tone.
"Why?"
"It was a bit confusing. Out of the blue after the assembly, she asked me if I wanted to go and do some graffiti with her. She usually does it with you, so I was a bit confused. I tried to say I didn't really want to, but she just waved it off like she normally does and left. I'll be seeing her near the school in an hour or so." She didn't hear a response from the other end. Silence permeated her phone for half a minute. Luz eventually replied.
"…Really? She did not just...I need to go now. See you tomorrow for the sleep-" Anne heard a doorbell ringing in the background, interrupting Luz. A groan followed as she heard Luz stomping to the door. "One moment, I need to get the door." Anne listened to what happened on the other side. She made out some other sounds. "Don't worry, Mamá! I'll get it!" Footsteps were heard as she walked to the door. Anne couldn't see anything, but felt uneasy either way as she kept the phone to her ear. The door creaked open and Anne could hear Luz on the other side. "Hello, what do you wa…?" She heard Luz pause before a scream was heard and the line went dead.
Anne went still with shock from what she heard on the other side. The phone fell from her hand onto the carpeted floor, her face white with shock. Right at that moment, Anne heard the door open downstairs. She grabbed her tennis racket,, and slowly walked out of her room, tip-toeing with every step. The phone call had spooked her, and her instincts were taking priority on her defence. She was about to jump out and attack whatever was on the steps when she heard a kind, older voice.
"Anne? We're back from market. Did you finish your homework?" Anne breathed a sigh of relief when she heard her mother's voice. She immediately sucked it back in when she realized that she, in fact, had not done her homework. But what she was doing was much more important than homework was at the moment. Relatively, at least. She ran down the stairs, racket in hand, and past her parents, rambling some excuse to them before crashing out the door and getting on her bike. It took her a second until she registered that the bicycle still had the chain on. After getting that sorted out, she biked to the metro. Luz lived in a completely different part of Los Angeles than her, so it would take a while to get there. She hoped she was okay, though. As she got on the metro, she got a call from Sasha. She gripped one of the little handholds hanging from the roof and gripped tight before answering.
"Hey, Anna-Banana. Are you on your way?"
"Hey, Sasha. I'm a bit busy now." Sasha's voice became annoyed.
"Seriously? First Luz canceled, then you? Am I going to have to convince Marcy to do this with me?"
"No. I just called Luz about something and the call ended with her screaming after opening her door. I'm a bit worried, so I'm checking up on her." Sasha's tone changed again.
"...Oh. Well, make sure she's alright, then, I guess. See if she can still do graffiti later." It was a bit surprising for Anne to hear this level of honesty from Sasha, but she was too preoccupied about Luz to be annoyed with her.
"It's fine. I'll make sure she's okay. See you for the sleepover tomorrow." She ended the call and kept her grip on the handhold. After a while, the train stopped and Anne got off, carrying her bicycle with her. She ran up the steps and got on it the rest of the way. She quickly got to Luz's apartment building, running up the stairs as fast as she could. She could hear a terrifying sound coming from one of the higher floors.
She went straight to Luz's door and was more worried than ever to see that the door was still open. Loud shouts could be heard from inside along with loud crashes and yelling. Halfway to the door, the noise stopped and silence was the only sound. Anne brandished her racket and tip-toed inside. A confusing and morbid sight met her. On the floor were the destroyed remains of what looked to be a robot. It had four, long, snakey limbs, two of which were separated from the shiny metallic torso. A large hole was present in its center, oil oozing on the floor below it. Its head had been made up of two bulging red eyes with black horizontal slits in them, but now one of the eyes was shattered. On top of this robot ravaging sat Luz holding her bat in one hand, a look of shock and horror on her face. She was completely still and unmoving, not even noticing that Anne was in the room. Anne walked slowly up to Luz and tapped her on the shoulder.
"...Luz? Are you okay?" Luz responded with a jump back in surprise. She realized who it was and calmed down quick enough.
"AHH!...Oh. It's just you, Anne. It's just you. I…I don't know what happened. One second, I opened the door and the next, I was attacked by…this." She splayed her arms out. "Mami's knocked out cold in the other room." She stood up and looked Anne dead in the eyes. "Listen. Nobody needs to know about this. We're going to get rid of this robot thing, wake up Mami, and keep it to ourselves." Anne hesitated before asking.
"Why?" She was apprehensive about it since it was most likely that someone had already heard what was happening and phoned the police. On the other hand, it was LA, and there was probably worse stuff that's already happened. In response to this, Luz walked over to Anne and pushed her up against the wall behind her.
"You're my friend, right? Friends do things for other friends, no questions asked. Like Ellie said. Are you not my friend?" She looked at Anne with a crazed look in her eye. Anne, not wanting to get into a fight, nodded and raised her hands in the air.
"Okay. Okay. Calm down, Luz. I'll help you. Just relax." Luz then blinked a few times, seeming to come back to reality. She looked embarrassed and dropped Anne from her grip, looking down and to the side.
"Sorry, Anne. I don't know what came over me. Let's just…get rid of it before Mami wakes up." Luz still seemed shaken up about something. As they picked up one of the arms and shoved it into a black lined trash bag, Anne was still a bit curious, so she treaded lightly.
"So…how did you do…this?" Luz froze for a moment while picking up the other arm. She took a deep breath.
"I…uh…hit it with my bat. Got some lucky shots. Apparently its metal armor is like paper. Haha." She continued in silence. Anne did not believe her in the slightest, but decided to drop it since interrogating her wouldn't really benefit much. They kept quiet, the tension in the room thick enough to be cut with a knife.
After a few minutes, the robot parts had been packed into the trash bags. Camila still hadn't woken up yet, which Anne had checked on while Luz tied up the bags. Camila looked good overall, but a nasty bump was present on her forehead. One of the lenses in her glasses was shattered. After making sure she was still unconscious, she went back to the living room to help Luz. When they got to the stairwell, Luz tied up the bag a bit more and started heaving it over the railing. Anne raised an eyebrow at this to which Luz strained to speak.
"There's a large dumpster right below. If we just drop it here, it should make it down there without problems. And a lot less pain." Anne paused and shrugged before doing the same. They pushed the trash over and watched it fall to the bottom floor, making a satisfying clang when reaching the bottom. Luz sighed. "You know, I was scared of that…thing mostly because it was so familiar to me. Like I had…seen it before." Anne raised an eyebrow.
"Really? When?" Luz snorted as she leaned on the railing, looking at Anne with a sad smile.
"Like you'd believe me. You didn't exactly do that earlier." Anne looked at her seriously before responding.
"Luz, I'm trying to be a supportive friend here, but it's getting pretty hard to do that when you don't tell me anything. I never wanted to push you, but I'm not dropping this if it can help us. Let me be on your side now, Luz." Luz looked down in embarrassment before sighing.
"I'm still thinking about it. It's fuzzy, but I'm sure I saw it when I was younger. I think I got something that might help us learn about it." She rummaged in her pocket and pulled out a weird looking object. It was in the shape of a metallic cone with lots of little holes scattered around the end. Anne grabbed it gingerly with two fingers and examined it.
"Oooh. Looks sciency. What do you think it is?" Luz shrugged as she took it back into her own palm.
"I dunno. Looks a bit like a speaker, I guess." They both stayed silent for a moment, turning their heads slowly to each other.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Anne asked Luz. Luz nodded, grinning a bit.
"Maybe Marcy'll know something about it. Can you give it to her after school tomorrow?" She put the speaker into Anne's palm. "We have a sleepover at her house, right? Sasha will be there too. I need to have a talk with her about something." Anne nodded.
"Alright." Luz took a breath and started tapping her fingers on her thigh in a slow rhythm before responding. "So, Ellie invited you to do graffiti with her, right?" Anne put the speaker into her pocket before responding.
"Yeah. Right after the assembly. I'm surprised that she does that type of thing. And with you. How long have you been doing it for?" Luz kept the rhythm on her tapping while averting her eyes from Anne in shame.
"…Since fifth grade. After school, she was in a bad mood and wanted to let off some steam. So, we stole some crayons from the supply closet in school and drew on some walls. I've never missed one of those hangouts since then. Until now, at least." Anne walked over to her side and leaned across the railing next to Luz.
"Sasha called me when I was on my way here. She was annoyed with you and me until I told her what happened. She seemed a little worried, but indifferent as well. Are things…okay between you two?" Luz flinched at that, stopping the tapping for a moment, but regained her composure.
"It's a bit wobbly right now, but other than that it's fine. She's going through some things." She paused for a moment. "Anne, I…I don't know what to do. It's getting difficult for me to listen to Ellie without hating myself after. That stuff I did with Marcy? Ellie always told me that if I wanted something, I should take it. And I've followed that since. The only reason I've done it this long is…" She left the sentence hanging off. "…Never mind." Anne didn't press her, but wondered what she was going to say. They then heard a sound come from inside the house.
"Luz? Mija, are you there? What happened?" Luz turned her head to the open door of her house, then to Anne again.
"Go back home. We'll meet at the sleepover. See ya." She speedwalked to the door and closed it behind her. Anne stood there for a second, still a bit confused about the whole ordeal. Today had been a really weird day.
The plot thickens! I guess we'll have to wait for that sleepover. And sorry if I don't clear everything up in this chapter. I need to leave some mystery. Thanks for reading, though. Later.
