Gravesfield, Connecticut. June of 2015.

Nighttime fell over Connecticut. The full moon in the sky was hidden behind the rain falling from the grey clouds overhead. The feeling of peace the glow gave was greatly diminished by an ambulance's loud wails. The firemen did everything they could to stop the raging inferno before it consumed the entire house in its flames. Sadly, not much could be done. Police officers had also arrived, their red and blue lights joining in with the ambulances'. A Dominican woman with tan skin, red glasses, and blue medical scrubs and a little girl wearing a pink bow in her hair, red shoes, and a yellow and blue striped shirt with overalls were standing on the side of an ambulance with grief filled expressions. The little girl looked to be about five years old. On a wheeled stretcher in front of them was a man with a beard, hazel eyes, and a simple shirt and jeans. On the left side of his face was a severe burn that continued down his chest all the way to his right knee, covering most of his body. He was in agonizing pain, but tried to hold it back as he looked to the little girl, whose face was welling up with tears.

"Hey. Hey, mija. Mija, take my hand." He slowly moved his hand to her, burning pain in every inch. The girl put her tiny hand into his, barely covering any of his palm. He continued in a slow voice. "Don't worry about me. I'll be okay. I just need to go somewhere for a while to get better. I…" He was interrupted by a group of paramedics running over to him, separating the two forcefully as they moved him near the back of the ambulance and prepared a ramp to get him on. The girl screamed after her father.

"Papi! Papi, don't go!" Her father only smiled sadly as the paramedics nearly finished the ramp. He wasn't done yet.

"Don't worry, mija. You just need what doctors have when they need to be calm." He winked as he said the punch line. "Patients!" He winced from the pain but giggled through it. His daughter didn't hear a single word he said as she kept yelling for him to come back. Her mother had to keep her back. Before the doors closed, he was able to say one last thing to her. "I love you, Luz. I always will." The doors closed shut and the ambulance drove away. Police officers walked up to the woman with a notepad open, asking questions about what had happened. Luz couldn't hear him over the ambulance sounds ringing through her head. She froze, standing completely still as she saw the ambulance drive away. After what seed like an hour, her mother bent down and hugged her.

"No te preocupes. Todo va a salir bien, mija." Luz didn't hug her back. Instead, she looked up. Small rainclouds had started forming above her head.

"Mami? Why are there clouds? Is it going to rain?" Her mother looked up to the sky and raised an eyebrow.

"What are you talking about, Luz? The sky is empty. There aren't any clouds." Luz kept looking up above her, the rainclouds turning greyer and greyer without any rain. Luz just looked down again.

"It was nothing, Mami." And the tears stopped, the grey rainclouds swirling above her head.

Downtown Los Angeles, six months later…

"Well, Luz. Doesn't this place look prettier than our old house? It may be a bit smaller, and the rent is a bit more than our old home, and the traffic is really noisy, but we can make it work!" Luz looked around with a lackluster face devoid of any happiness. The rainclouds were still above her head. She mostly focused on the cobwebs lining the corners of the ceiling, the dust bunnies on the floor, and the horrible wallpaper peeling off of the wall. She decided she wanted to keep her mom happy, though, so she responded with what she thought she wanted to hear.

"Yeah, mom. It looks…nice." Camila gave her daughter a concerned stare. Luz hadn't been doing so well in the past month following the death of her father. She had been in a deep depression where she would barely talk. Camila hadn't been doing so well either, but she had to keep a brave face for her daughter. Even though she had become broke from the funeral service, being unable to pay her bills, and eventually losing the house altogether, she tried to keep a positive energy for Luz. But even she could see that it wasn't working. She got an idea quick enough, though. She quickly reached into her bag.

"Hey, Luz. Before we left, I got this from your dad's study. He bought this for you as a surprise and meant to give it you on your next birthday. Manny saw how much you liked fantasy and thought you might like this book, and I know he would have loved to be able to…" She stopped her sentence as she pulled out a book. On the cover was a beautiful illustration of a green haired woman in a white cloak and pointy hat with a blue jewelled staff. Above the drawing was the book's title: The Good Witch Azura. Luz looked at it with a flash of interest for a moment before going back to her look of despair.

"No thanks, mom. I want to be alone." She trudged off to the nearest room with a bed she could find and threw herself onto the mattress. It was a good thing the moving company had gotten here before them. Unfortunately for the rainclouds, Camila was having none of it. She opened the door and sat down next to Luz, who was currently trying to bury her face into a pillow. Camila took a moment before speaking.

"Luz…I don't know what I can say to make you feel better. I'm not used to doing it a lot. But I know that letting your emotions take over leads to terrible things. When your Abuelo died…" Luz lifted her head from her bed when she heard her mother sniffling. "...I almost lost myself in my emotions. I barely went out, I never went to find friends to help me, and I always ignored your Abuela when she tried to help me. It took until I met Manny for me to start moving on. For me, it was him. For you, it was us moving here. And now…" She put a hand on her daughter's head. "I don't want you to go through the same thing as I did. So…" She took the book and put it next to Luz on the bed. "Just try it. If you don't like it, you can give it back, but just give it a try. For your papi, okay?"

She stood up. "Remember we're visiting Abuela's nursery home early tomorrow. Don't sleep late." She took one last look at Luz before closing the door behind her. Luz looked at the book in front of her with a wary gaze. After a few minutes of hesitation, she slowly reached for it and opened it to the first page.

"I'll read at least the first chapter, for Dad. Probably isn't even that good anyway." And so she did. But she didn't stop there. With each page she read, the rainclouds slowly faded more and more…

Two weeks later…

Luz was feeling better than ever after finishing the book. It had taken a while, but when she finished, she had gone out of her room for the first time in a month. She was still very down most of the time, and definitely traumatized for what could be a large portion of her life, but she had started being more responsive to her mother than before. The rainclouds had almost disappeared at this point and Camila took this as a good sign to try bringing her out of the house to a nearby park. Luz was indifferent and went along with it. They went down from the apartment to a nearby garage, which had a new car that Camila had recently bought. After a bit of a drive, a lot of traffic, and a lot of Spanish curse words thrown out the window, they finally arrived. It was a peaceful place with a few people walking around. Inside the park was a playground with some children playing on the swing sets, some others on top of a jungle gym. They parked the car nearby and walked over to it. Camila went down onto her knee and put her hands on Luz's shoulders.

"Okay, mija. We're here now. I want you to run around a bit while I finish a few job applications." She reached into her purse and brought out Luz absent-mindedly nodded.

"Yes, Mami."

"Make friends."

"Yes, Mami."

"Are you just saying that to make me happy?"

"Yes, Mami." Camila smirked at that. Luz was snapped back into consciousness and giggled a little bit at her answer. Camila chuckled as well. It was a small thing, but it didn't matter to them. Luz hugged her mother before running over to the playset. She was immediately distracted, however, by a bunch of kids surrounding something. She walked over to them and tried to peek at what they were seeing. It was clear and see-through with the shape of a broken coil. It had a hole in the side as if something was inside it. One of the kids poked it with a stick.

"What is that thing? It looks gross." All of the other kids were disgusted and confused by it, but Luz knew what it was as soon as she saw it. She pushed past them and bent down to hold it in her hands.

"Oh, they're not so bad. This is just some shedded skin from a snake. Kinda like pyjamas. That means there's a newly molted snake slithering around here!" All the other kids were terrified by the idea of a snake being nearby and left immediately as she said that, leaving Luz alone. She saw as everyone left and stared dejectedly at the snakeskin, dropping to her knees. Why should she have thought she would find friends today? It was a silly idea. Hundreds of bad thoughts were rushing into her mind as the rainclouds started gathering above her once more. She was about to go back to her mom when she heard someone's voice.

"Hey, you. That looks pretty cool. What is it?" She turned to the voice and saw a girl her age standing there. She was blond and had a hair bun tied in a purple scrunchie. She wore a jean jacket with a pink shirt underneath. She had her hands in her pockets and a neutral expression on her face. Luz looked up at her with a confused face, but indulged her.

"A snake's shedded skin. It's like snake pyjamas. It usually means there's one nearby." She thought that this girl would be as disgusted as the others and run away as well, but surprisingly, she just grinned.

"There might be a snake near us? That's awesome! Do you know how to find it?" Luz was shocked at her response and took a moment to find her composure.

"Well, um, uh, I'm more of a beginner at it, so I wouldn't really trust…" She didn't have time to finish before the girl grabbed her hand and pulled her away. The contact made Luz blush for an unknown reason. She didn't know this person in the slightest, but felt as if she could trust them. She let herself be dragged away in the direction of the swings. The two girls who were swinging stopped and jumped off before running over to Luz and the girl. One of them, a girl with brown skin with puffy brown hair and a collared shirt, called out to them.

"Sasha! Where'd you go? And who's that?" The girl holding her, who was apparently called Sasha, gave a large smile and put her hands to her hips dramatically, forgetting that she was still holding Luz and pulling her into her side.

"I found someone that knows how to find snakes! We'll be able to catch lots of 'em!" The other one, a girl with green overalls and straight black hair, raised an eyebrow at that.

"But there's a lot of risk in that. Even then, what will we do with them?" Sasha raised a finger in the air like she was about to say, but realized she had nothing. She let go of Luz and crossed her arms, embarrassed. Luz fell to the floor and stood up next to her. Sasha looked at the overall girl.

"Well, um…something cool, of course! I don't need to say more." Luz turned to Sasha with a confused look.

"Um, so what am I doing here?" Sasha remembered that she was there, and turned back to her with a grin.

"Meeting us, the coolest girls in the park. This girl is Anne Boonchuy, my best friend and the best tennis player in her after school class," She pointed to the girl with puffy brown hair. "And this is Marcy Wu, my other best friend, and the smartest person I know." She pointed to the other girl with the overalls. She then pointed to herself. "And I am Sasha Elizabeth Waybright, the coolest girl around!" She pointed at Luz. "And what's yours?" Luz felt slightly intimidated by the other three girls, but was able to edge out an introduction.

"My…my name is Luz Noceda, and I like books and animals." Sasha nodded with a hand to her chin as she pondered something. She suddenly stopped and snapped her fingers.

"Alright, you can hang with us." Luz was more confused than ever.

"...What?"

"You heard me! You're our new best friend. You need a cool nickname…I'm gonna call you Luzy." Luz was slightly taken aback by this but thought of a good response.

"Well, if you call me Luzy, I'll call you…Ellie!" Sasha chuckled.

"Yeah, sure, like you're gonna remember that in a year."

"I'll remember longer than you remember mine."

"No, you won't!" Everyone was laughing at the argument they were having. Anne and Marcy kept giggling as Luz and Sasha looked each other right in the eyes. They couldn't look away for what seemed like minutes until Anne and Marcy grouped around Luz.

"So, how do we find the snake? I wanna see its fangs!"

"That might be dangerous, Anne. If it's poisonous we could die."

"I know, but it'd be super cool to see."

Luz smiled. She had made friends. The four of them were grouped together, talking about how they were formed yesterday when Sasha helped them against some teenagers. Slowly, through the conversations, the rainclouds slowly faded away. This seemed like the start of something great…

Eight years later…

It was the ninth inning, everything on the line in the most anticipated game of the school vs. school baseball season. Saint James Middle School was tied 16-16 with a neighbouring school called Midtown Los Angeles School. It was a school that they had a friendly rivalry with, usually staying between themselves. Two of SJMS's batters were struck out and it was up to the last one on the team. Someone that had been going up to bat since the beginning of the game. If they lost, it would be the first time in the whole baseball season, or the ones previous, where they didn't win. MLAS's team was already cheering for victory, as we're the spectators from the same school. But the SJMS players knew who the last batter was, and simply waited patiently.

The cheerleader squad knew who it was as well, corralling together for a special cheer. Their leader, Captain Sasha Waybright, counted down before starting.

"Alright, three…two…one…magic time." The announcer was about to introduce the batter, but the cheerleader squad got to it first.

"Everybody knows her name,

Everybody knows her game.

Her baseball bat is all red-a,

Everybody welcome, Luuuuuz Noceda!"

All of the SJMS students on the bleachers started cheering as she stepped up to bat, the burning red color in view of everyone. As she walked up to the battery's box, she tied up her normally wild mane of hair into a pair of pigtails with two purple scrunchies she usually carried, holding her bat between her elbow and waist. When she finished, she stood in front of the catcher and readied her bat. She bent her knees slightly and brought it backwards. The pitcher, not knowing who this was, wound up the ball and threw it as hard as he could towards her, trying to get her to strike out best he could. This was what she wanted, though, as she struck the ball with a satisfying crack! The ball went flying up and up and up, going far enough to hit outside of the diamond. It was a home run. The score was 17-16. SJMS had won the game, causing both the team and the spectators to erupt in cheers. Luz looked up and towards her handiwork, smirking devilishly. The game had been won. All thanks to her.

Three stars burning bright,

Come from beyond to expel the night.

A moon will too, her name means light,

To be taken by the one of endless blight.

Will they come and embrace their right?

As heroes to face the prying sight?

Or will they decide to embrace their fall?

Their choice, one of many, will determine the fate of all.

This is the beginning…of Part 1.

And scene! Thank you for reading the Intro to a new story I'm developing! It took a while to finally get the concept and details right, but now I should be able to upload once every two weeks or so, maybe earlier if I get it done early. This chapter was actually Beta Read by the one and only ChampionElCid, so thanks to him for that. Anyway, I hope you like what's to come, because Luz is very different in this universe. Peace!