The Owl House: Spinning into Danger
"Rumors about Masked Menace state that the notorious crook has spread his operations from Manhattan outwards." The boy with glasses said.
Typically 14-year-old boys are on their phones, playing video games, reading books or comics or literally anything else, this one however is reading a newspaper.
"Booooor-iiiing" said the short haired girl.
"Why do you even bother reading that junk, you're like an old guy I swear." she sighed, leaning against the wall.
"Oh dear-e-me madame, sorry I like to know about the bigger things going on in the world." The boy said in a sarcastic tone with a slight grin.
"Dude, when you say stuff like that I'm tempted to kick you of out the club." the girl said opening her locker and taken books out and putting them inter her bag.
"Oh how much fun, a club of one. Sure, that'll go far, hun." the boy said stuffing the paper in the trash can at the wall adjacent to his friend.
"Poetry? Good god man, stick with the tech stuff, will you?" the girl said trying to keep in a small laugh.
"So anyway Luz, aside from busting my chops, what's the plan for the weekend?" the boy asked.
"Well I'm going to need apply some new stitch work to my Azura cosplay, some of the fabric is coming loose so needs to be redone." the girl answered.
"huh, anything else?" the boy asked raising an eyebrow.
The girl fixed her backpack around her back and turned to meet the boy's gaze, he had short brown hair, pretty much the same cut as hers. Small rectangular glasses, a mole under his right jaw. Her friend Eric was the more work centric out of the two, whereas Luz Noceda would enjoy doing more outgoing activities, Eric Neil would enjoy nerding out over science projects and playing video games. The two common bases of their friendship fell on them living a couple houses apart and their mutual enjoyment over the Good Witch Azura series, granted Luz was more obsessed than Eric was, but as a general bookworm he had to admit that the series was pretty darn good.
"You're gonna bring up the science project aren't you?" Luz asked sheepishly.
"Luz come on, we need to focus. If you don't get this project finished, you're gonna get chewed out big time." Eric said in a concerned and annoyed voice.
"Don't worry about it. I've got it under control, besides what about your project?" She said in a cheery voice.
"Well now that you ask, the custom OS I've made is on point. Mom and Dad weren't thrilled about me wanting to bring my computer to school, so they called the principal's office, explained the situation and I've been given permission to get the OS to run on one of the school's computers." Eric replied.
"Granted it's still got a few bugs I need to work out." He said whilst bringing up his notes on his phone.
"show off." Luz laughed.
"Well I guess, I just really need to impress. I've already been given the 3rd degree from my mom about my grades slipping." Eric explained, beginning to walk to the exit.
"You'll do fine, I'm sure your project will make everyone forget about your grades and guarantee you an A." Luz said reassuringly.
Eric looked at his friend, he'd only been in Gravesfield for almost a year and a half, so much had happened, moving to Gravesfield from Colorado, the lab, meeting luz, the school play, everything. Eric has always felt disconnected from his peers, not out of some superiority complect but more so because back in his previous school he was bullied, so when he found out he was moving somewhere totally new he was thrilled by the opportunities, chance to make friends and for people to stop bullying him. Which roughly came about 50% true, he didn't get bullied as much, still some bullies around but they weren't as bad as the ones in Colorado. And whilst he didn't make many friends, he did make one, Luz Noceda. She was a nice girl, eccentric, hyper-active and extremely imaginative. The two became inseparable when they went to a comic book convention. They had a funny contrast, Eric was the one who would like to be proactive with science experiments and studying, with the odd video game and book reading session here and there.
It was early June, Eric and Luz were walking down one of the streets in Gravesfield. It was slightly warm, and it hadn't rained in the past couple weeks, so Eric was out in his long sleeve hoodie whilst Luz wore one of her many short sleeve hoodies. The gentle wind made wearing either comfortable and neither was too warm nor too cold.
"Good news by the way, I finished my OS. It's fully operational and I've tested it out on the school computers, as it sits right now I'm riding smoothly." Eric said after taking a drink of his coffee.
"That's great." Luz said with a smile.
"And I'm having a vision. You're going to say you've completed yours." Eric said in a ghostly voice.
"Pretty much, you were right, the colored flame is probably the better idea." Luz said looking at Eric.
"Still can't believe that...well." Eric said trailing off.
"Well what?" Luz asked puzzled.
"It's because, well, you know." Eric said sheepishly.
"No I don't know." Luz stated firmly.
"Well, maybe, and hear me out." Eric said putting a couple steps apart from Luz.
"What?" luz asked suspiciously.
"Maybe you shouldn't REALLY be the one to do the fire, y'know, maybe have someone handle the fire side of the experiment and you explain." Eric said trying to hide a smile.
"Eric Nathanial Neil, do you think I couldn't handle a simple fire?" Luz asked in a jokingly offending voice.
"Yeah pretty much." Eric said bluntly.
"Okay listen you little shi..." Luz said before realizing Eric had already run round the corner before she could grab him.
Eric had finished and dunked his coffee in a trash can at the corner, he know Luz would chase after him, luckily, he was good at reading people, and being so good at reading people he was able to get a feeling when someone was going to move aggressively towards him, even if it was just mindless fun. He bobbed and weaved around the people passing him by but stopping himself from running too fast so that he wouldn't lose Luz and she wouldn't lose him. Luz eventually caught up to Eric at the Local bookstore, he had one foot sitting on the wall and his head and back leaning against the wall.
"Wow Luz, you almost made me go from jog to run." Eric said in a mocking voice whilst having a small grin on his face.
"I..I...I really hate you at times, shorty." Luz said catching her breath.
"A single inch, a single inch, that's all."
"Yeah, but still makes me taller." Luz said with a smug face.
"you'd think having longer legs would make you faster, y'know, able to cover more ground." Eric retorted.
"Well, you're just closer to the ground." Luz Rebuttled.
The two shared a good laugh, Luz took a swig from her water bottle and passed it to Eric. Eric took a drink from the bottle and tossed it back to his friend then opened the door for the two to enter.
Later in the day when sun had started to go down the two sat by a creak watching the water run downstream, watching the ripples of water as the tossed some stones and rocked into the stream, they enjoyed that relaxing moment just the two of them.
"who do you think would win in a fight? Durok Felknuckle or Azura?" Eric asked tossing a stone into the water.
"No contest, Azura, Durok is super strong don't get me wrong, but Azura has..." Luz answered before being cut off.
"Plot armor?" Eric asked with a small chuckle.
"Actually what I was going to say was, Azura has a lot more skill and tactics. Durok is just a muscle head, no tactics or brain." Luz answered fully this time.
"So what you're saying is that Durok would win had he had time to train?" Eric asked.
"I mean I think he'd put up a seriously good fight, but my money is on my girl." Luz answered whilst tossing a stone.
"Yeah I agree, just curious, saw a video online. Turns out there's a few people that think Durok would win. I'd say Azura, early on she doesn't have much in terms of strategy but later on she becomes an absolute powerhouse in terms of well, power and raw skill." Eric stated taking a drink from a can of soda.
"Y'know I love times like this, no teachers, no reports, no projects, no responsibilities." Luz said taking a small moment to look at the water then the trees.
"Yeah, but we've all got responsibilities, and school is just a way to help is down the road." Eric replied to her statement.
"Yeah I know, it's just, I really don't like letting my mom down, y'know?" Luz sighed.
"I get that, nothing is worse than the whole "We're not angry eric, we're just disappointed you don't apply yourself enough", really sucks stings". Eric said mimicking his dad's voice.
"I just wish school wasn't so boring, like it'd ease up on certain rules." Luz said in a mildly frustrated voice.
"Fair enough, anyway I gotta go, it's getting late and Mom and Dad are getting pizza. You heading as well?" Eric asked whilst tossing his last rock and grabbing a bag.
"Nah, you just reminded me I'm gonna go around here and find some inspiration for my book report." Luz answered looking at Eric.
"Pretty sure your inspiration is just you walking blindly into your room and grabbing any Azura merch you own." Eric said teasingly.
"Very funny, I mean, you're not wrong." Luz said crossing her arms and smiling.
"Hey luz." Eric said.
"Yeah?" luz replied tilting her head.
"Thanks for being a good friend." Eric said with a smile.
"uh, no problemo weirdo." Luz said giving Eric the finger guns.
"y'know, when people do the finger guns they lose the right to call folk weirdo, right?" Eric asked as he started walking away.
The two laughed and waved bye, Luz watched Eric walk out of sight and rubbed her hands together.
"Oh, this is gonna be one heck of a book report, now, where are some of those danger noodles." Luz said to herself looking around.
Eric started to give a light jog when he broke line of sight from luz, took what looked like a morph suit out of his bag and placed it on the ground with a couple weird small bracers. Eric Changed out of his clothes and into the outfit in from his bag. The outfit was red and blue with black lines and 2 white eyes with black outlines, and with a single "thwip" Eric's night time job began.