With Spawn now turned into a popsicle, Luz immediately rushed to Eda's unconscious form on the base of the statue, King not far behind her.
"Eda!" She yelled, grabbing the witch's shoulders and shaking them to see if she would respond, "Eda, wake up!"
No response. She looked for any sign of bleeding. Aside from quite a few bruises and scrapes beneath her feathers, there were no major wounds that she could see from the outside. She checked for a pulse on her neck. She felt one, making her sigh in relief.
"Is she gonna be ok?" King said with a worried tone.
"I think so," the human responded, slightly worried as she rummaged through her bag to find a healing glyph, but no dice.
The teenager sighed, being forced to resort to a more direct approach, "sorry in advance, Eda," she muttered as she leaned forward, ever so slowly… then raising a palm and striking the witch's face, "wake up!"
"Luz, what the heck!?" King asked, eyes widened.
"It worked the last time I did this," Luz said with a sheepish smile.
"Remind me to never use you to wake me up from my naps."
The human raised her palm again and struck Eda's face again, "wake up!" She continually said those words as she slapped her face a few more times for good measure.
Eda's eyes eventually opened, albeit very slowly. She saw the familiar forms of Luz and King in front of her. Her vision was blurry, her head was pounding with the worst headache imaginable, and worst of all, she was already feeling the withdrawal of a lack of Apple Blood in her system.
"Eda?" Luz asked, concern ever present in her voice, "are you ok?"
"I'm good, kiddo," Eda replied, groggily as she tried to shuffle up from her position, only to find it hard to do so, since the effects of paralysis were still hitting most of her nerves, "just a little bent up."
"Eda!" King said as he rushed up and hugged her, "oh, you're ok!"
"Of course I'm ok," she said with a smile, "it'll take more than some creep in a cape to bring me down."
"Yeesh, he did a number on you," King said while wincing at the sight of her injuries, "I know you aren't invincible, but I don't think I've ever seen you get your butt kicked like this. Not since Lilith's beast form, at least."
"She got a few lucky hits on that one, that doesn't count," Eda responded dryly.
"Suuuure."
Eda only chuckled at his response, "ow, it hurts to laugh," she said, wincing at a sudden pain in her ribs.
Luz herself also winced seeing her in pain, "I don't have any more healing glyphs on me," she said, a look of remorse on her face, "I'm sorry."
"That's fine, kiddo," Eda said with a faint smile, turning back into her witch form with a notable grunt, "I've been through a heck of a lot worse. This feeling of unspeakable pain is actually a bit nostalgic."
"What the heck did you get yourself into before you met me?"
King and Eda looked at each other before turning back to the human, "you don't want to know," they simultaneously said."
Luz only shrugged at the answer before speaking up again, "well, I'm just glad you're ok," she said with a smile, "I was worried sick."
"Speaking of worried sick," the harpy said as she narrowed her eyes at the human, "what were you doing out here in the middle of the night? You know how dangerous this place gets!"
Luz's pupils shrunk as she tried to save face by stammering a bit before settling on her answer, "I was… trying to get a nice necklace for Amity," she nodded, as though she was perfectly content with her own statement, "I thought she would have liked it, but before I knew it, I lost track of time, you know?"
King and Eda looked at her with narrowed eyes. An expression that only formed when they hear the most obvious BS. A bead of sweat dropped from the human's forehead, "honest, guys. For real."
Eda snarked, "Luz, you can't fool a scammer, but I commend you for trying."
"I got lost," the human responded back.
"You have Owlbert to fly you back."
Luz sweated some more, "I wanted to see the goodies they sold at the night market."
Eda retorted, "there are no goodies there and I told you never to go there anyways."
Luz began to sweat entire waterfalls, "I… uh…" she stammered trying to find an answer to no avail.
"Kid…" Eda said, sternly, "tell us the truth."
Knowing there was no way out of this, Luz just sighed, getting to the point, "I was out here because I just…" she paused, before swallowing a lump in her throat, "I just wanted to be."
"Why?" King asked, raising a brow the best he could, given his anatomy.
Luz swallowed another lump, "because…" she struggled to find the words, "because…we made a working portal."
"So?"
"Don't you get it?" Luz asked, "it means I'm one step closer to going back home!"
"I thought you wanted to go home?" Eda asked, hands on her hips, "it's basically all you've thought about for the past month."
"I don't want to go home!" Luz yelled, shocking them both, before correcting herself, stammering along the way, "I mean- I do, but- I don't want to go home knowing I can't come back here."
The two let her continue, looks of worry on their faces as the human spoke.
"And I saw my mother." she continued, "I talked to her for the first time in months. The In-Between realm let me do it…"
Luz felt her throat tighten and massive weight on her chest as her stomach churned in pain. It took every ounce of willpower just to speak and stand still. Tears welled in her eyes as she continued on, choosing to get to the point, "I promised her I would leave and never come back!"
The other two were silent as Luz sniffled, wiping away her newly formed tears as she kept forcing her words out, "I-I don't know what to do anymore. I just… I just had to be alone-"
Luz turned around and cried… a lot less than she expected. Maybe because she already dried up her tear ducts earlier before she met Spawn. Still, she cried. It hurt. A lot. To tell them something she didn't want to tell them at all, but had to, anyway.
She felt alone yet again.
Her tears stopped when she felt the fuzzy form of King hugging her legs, followed by Eda going in front of her, embracing her as her tears flowed.
The next few minutes felt like hours. Luz just weeped into the witch's shoulder at that time. Eventually, she stopped crying, pulling back from Eda's shoulder and wiping her once again red eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said, voice barely above a whisper, "I'm so sorry."
Eda took a thumb and wiped away a stray tear on her face, "why didn't you tell us, kiddo?"
"I didn't want to worry you."
"Oh, Luz," Eda said, caressing the human's cheek, "we'll find a way. We promise."
This seemed enough to comfort the human as she smiled and took a few deep breaths to calm down her occasionally shaking form, "thanks, guys. I needed that."
"Of course, Luz," King remarked, "that's what friends are for."
Feeling far better now, Luz leaned down and scratched the canine demon's ears, an act he very much approved of, judging by his giggling and wagging tail.
She then turned her eyes to see Spawn in a frozen block thanks to her and stopped petting King and walking up towards the ice prison.
"Luz, what are you doing?" Eda asked with worry as the human walked in front of the glorified ice sculpture.
Luz felt a twinge of remorse at the Hellspawn's state, "sorry, Al," she remarked, which confused her two friends greatly.
"That thing has a name?" King asked.
"Of course he does," Luz responded, not looking away from the caped figure's frozen form, "he seemed like a friendly guy, too."
Eda scoffed, "well, as you saw earlier, he clearly wasn't," she then rubbed her aching face as she walked up to Luz's side, "the dude dislocated my jaw with a punch and relocated it with another, for crying out loud."
"I mean, to be fair, you attacked him first," Luz retorted with an awkward shrug.
"Only because he was going to hurt you first."
Now Luz was confused, "he wasn't going to do anything!" She raised a hand to the ice, not caring about the almost stinging cold on the nerves of her palm, "he was just trying to help me."
The witch sighed before kneeling down to see Luz eye-to-eye, "look, kiddo, I know you see the good in everyone and all, but some people just aren't good, no matter how many times you try to convince yourself," she then tapped the ice behind the human for emphasis, "this guy is one of those people who aren't good."
"How do you know!?"
Eda furrowed a brow before standing up and looking at the frozen eyes of the Hellspawn, proceeding to answer Luz's question, "because he's a Hellspawn."
The mood in the air suddenly became laced with an uneasy tension. Luz raised a brow and King walked up to the witch's side, confused as the human was, "what's a Hellspawn?" the canid asked, almost hesitantly.
"A monster that, according to old legends, appears in the Boiling Isles once every one hundred years," Eda responded, tone never changing beyond a serious one, "nobody knows where they come from or why they appear, but when they do, death follows them like a shadow."
Both King and Luz widened their eyes as she said this, deeply hoping for Eda's trademark snark and wisecracks to relieve them and showing them it was all a joke. Sadly, it never came as she continued to speak.
"Normally, I'd scoff at some old tales that had dubious proof at best, but I know better when it comes to these guys," she then tapped the ice with a nail to emphasize her words, "they are powerful beings with no equal and seemingly no limit. Neither witch, demon, nor beast can stop them."
"How do you know all of this?" Luz asked.
"It's a long story that goes back a long time ago," Eda replied rather vaguely, before turning to face Luz, "when me and King were out looking for you and I saw you with him, I was immediately reminded of the many old stories that were passed down the Clawthorne family tree. I always thought many of them weren't true, but… It seems this particular boogeyman is indeed real."
All three looked at the frozen body, a shiver down their spines as they did so and it certainly wasn't because of the cold that emanated from it.
Eda sighed before turning around from the sight, "I'd tell you two more about this, but every bone and muscle in my body hurts and mama needs a nice, long night of sleep."
King and Luz only nodded at this before turning around themselves, with the latter taking another look back at Al before turning again.
KRR-KRRK
A sound from behind interrupted them. Slowly and hesitantly, they all turned around to see the ice block the vigilante was inside was beginning to crack, with each fracture getting bigger with each second.
Until finally, it shattered outwards! Sending hundreds of ice shards across all directions, forcing the trio to cover their faces and eyes as they felt tiny pieces of cold hitting their bodies.
When they uncovered their eyes, they saw the Hellspawn breathing heavily as his arms were stretched out, fists clenched, and staring down their very souls with his glowing, green eyes that emanated a trail of ethereal mist.
Like scared animals backed up against a wall, the trio didn't know what to do. Fight? Run? Both options would end up poorly for them.
Spawn's eyes were filled with… Hate . A barely contained anger that was just waiting to explode like an erupting volcano. He looked upon the trio, observing their reactions as he struggled to contain his rage. He saw King shaking behind Eda's legs in an attempt to hide as the aforementioned witch weakly turned her hands into feathered talons, a look of pained grit on her face. He saw Luz, gripping Owlbert tightly with determination, with her visage of bravery betrayed by the terrified look on her face.
The human and Hellspawn locked eyes with each other. Unblinking and unmoving for several long, drawn out seconds that felt like hours.
For the briefest of moments in-between those seconds, Luz could've sworn she saw the Hellspawn's eyes shift from an expression of seething rage to shocked sadness.
But before she could think about it, Spawn's cape then formed into a pair of wings again and he zipped upwards into the sky, flying off into the far distance, his form illuminated by the moonlight as he went off.
Eda looked at his slowly disappearing form, shifting her claws back to their regular form, "well, uh…" she remarked, trying to find the proper words for what just happened, "good riddance!"
"What was that about?" King asked, a hand on his chin, or rather, the bottom portion of his half-skull.
"Who knows, who cares?" Eda responded, exasperatedly, "But hopefully, this means we won't see that creep anymore from now on, right Luz?"
No answer. The witch looked towards Luz, who just took a few steps forward and gazed off into the horizon where Spawn went, "Luz?"
The human turned around to the Owl Lady with a sigh and dropped Owlbert into flight mode, "I'm tired," she stated with an exhausted tone, "let's just go home."
Saying that last bit slightly stung her.
Eda only nodded, though she couldn't help but wonder what was on the human's mind now. She transformed into her harpy mode yet again and picked up King and put him in her hair, who made a "weh" sound at the sudden loss of surface beneath his feet.
Both the human and witch took off and headed towards the direction of the Owl House. All the while, Luz couldn't help but wonder about Al. She wondered if what Eda said about him was true. If he was truly a monster.
"If he's a monster, why did he show sympathy for me?" she thought to herself as the wind blew against her face. She took another sigh as her brain felt overwhelmed trying to process everything. She had so many questions and zero answers.
Unbeknownst to all the individuals who were present at the plaza, a lone amphiptere observed all that had transpired, its snake-like body coiled around a lamp post as it watched the Hellspawn fly off, followed by the human, Owl Lady, and self-proclaimed King of Demons taking off in their own direction.
It flicked its tongue before uncoiling itself from the post and flew off towards the outskirts of the city, content with what it had seen. It headed deep within the forest, specifically towards a section that was especially thick with foliage and mist.
It arrived at a lone cobblestone building, or at least what was left of it, and flew down the entrance that was blocked by wood and stone rubble. It shimmied through a hole in the makeshift wall and flew further and further down what seemed like miles upon miles of tunnels, with countless skulls and bones lining up the walls.
Eventually, it quite literally reached a light at the end of the tunnel which led to a room - more specifically, a crypt - filled with stone pillars and altars. Dusty cobwebs were seemingly omnipresent and illuminated by torch pillars made of rusty metal. Up above were chandeliers made of bones and skulls that housed their own light source, further illuminating the room and showing that much of the place had bones that were seemingly fused into the stone architecture of the room.
The serpent drake landed and folded its wings on one of the room's many altars, turning its head towards a throne made of skulls and bones, where the lich, Draven awaited, his rotten hands folded in front of him.
"You're early," the necromancer commented, "I assume you have something of interest for me?"
The flying serpent merely nodded and opened its maw, firing out an illuminated mist that formed images of Luz wandering alone in the streets, Spawn trying to comfort her, Eda fighting him, and the Hellspawn's escape from the group. The lich observed every image with a neutral expression, his icy blue, glowing eyes remaining steadfast with every image. Occasionally, he lifted a brow at the images, but that was it.
When the fog and images dissipated, the amphiptere looked up at its master, waiting for his reaction with a curious head tilt.
What was left of the lich's facial muscles began to audibly crack like rotten wood splintering as it contorted into a horrifying grin, "you've done well, my pet," he stated, rising up from his throne and walking towards his reptilian messenger, "you've done very well."
He then gave the winged serpent a scratch on the chin with a decayed finger, an act that made the reptile chirp in delight.