We're almost done with this arc! I want to first thank the Owl Trust Discord for giving me some inspiration for the fight scenes in this chapter! They're a really helpful community of people. I also want to respond to one review I got on this story:

Eddy13 = I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far! I do plan on having a good chunk of Lumity moments throughout this fic. And yes, I also plan for their to be a sequel to this fic in the future. So stay tuned!

Anyways, on with the chapter.

Enjoy this possibly cringe writing.

Okay, Eda was beginning to get pissed now. She had been running enough to the point where she had pretty much covered the entire building. Yet, the Merc Coven members were still in pursuit of them.

She needed a way to turn the tides here and get an advantage. Because as much as Eda hated to admit it, she couldn't just run forever and hope for the best.

Especially now that she noticed smoke was beginning to fog up the various halls of the building. That could only mean one thing: A fire had been started.

So now they were also on a time limit to get out of there before breathing became harder, which was kind of a necessary need when fleeing from a large group of people wanting to murder you.

"Exit, exit, exit... Come on..." Eda repeatedly murmured to herself as she ran, both her and King looking for any sort of way out of the building.

"Maybe there's a way out through the back!" King suggested while in her arms.

"Hey yeah! Maybe-" Eda wasn't able to finish her reply, due to being interrupted.

Because out of nowhere, she was hit hard in the face with something wooden. Brielle had been waiting in a hallway across from where they were running, having been holding a long piece of wood as a makeshift blunt weapon.

"Whoops." Brielle mocked with a faux apology, tossing the piece of wood away.

Due to the impact, Eda stumbled down to the floor, dropping King as he rolled a little way's away from Eda.

"Fuck, that hurt..." Eda groaned in pain while on the floor.

"Eda! Are you okay?!" King exclaimed, quickly getting up after he recovered from his own fall. He was about to run over to her, but she held her hand up to stop him.

"Keep going! I'll catch up kid!" Eda replied with an order to her adopted son, getting herself upright best she could.

"But what about-?!" King argued, not content with leaving her behind to escape on his own.

"I'll be fine! Just trust me and GO!" Eda ordered again, wincing as she fumbled getting up.

King hesitated, but soon decided to do what she wished, and ran off down the hall.

Brielle approached Eda, rearing up to land a punch on her. Eda managed to dodge the attack, and rolled to dodge a kick.

She managed to land a hard hit on Brielle's leg, making the witch yelp in pain. Eda took the opportunity to try and get up, but Brielle slapped her in the face to stop her from doing so.

"Would you just give up already?!" Brielle exclaimed, annoyed from how persistent Eda was.

The Owl Lady scowled, and held out her hand to cast a spell-

"...Oh, right." Eda flatly remembered her lack of magic, before getting kicked directly to the chin, knocking her to the floor as she groaned.

Brielle snorted, looking down at the dazed witch. "Finally, maybe you can stay down this time..." She remarked.

But Eda had no such plan. She instead was now focusing on trying to get the only advantage she could think of right now back: Her harpy form.

"Come on, come on..." Eda strained, trying her hardest to summon the Owl Beast part of her before Brielle could make a lethal attack against her.

Titan, she was really regretting not taking Owlbert with her today. The ONE time she didn't, and this is what happens. Figures.

Brielle slowly approached the Owl Lady on the floor, and unsheathed her dagger.

"So, was this what you had in mind? A futile attempt to flee from us, only to end up being stabbed to death on your hands and knees?" Brielle mocked, brandishing her weapon as she did.

Eda groaned in both annoyance, and pain that was still present in her jaw. She fumbled to the floor again, not able to get up with only one hand. Titan, how she cursed her hook right now-

That was when Eda remembered something she probably should have a while ago. She DID have a weapon... A sharp one at that, firmly attached as a replacement to her right arm. A smirk crossed her face as she knew exactly where she was going to strike.

"You know, it really wasn't what I had in mind... I was more imagining the roles reversed actually." Eda responded, which in a way, was giving the witch standing above her a fair warning as to what was about to happen.

Brielle unfortunately did not see it as such, and simply snorted in amusement at the seemingly empty threat.

"You think-" Brielle wasn't able to finish her taunt, as Eda used her hook to take a quick swipe at her... Which ended up striking her directly in the neck.

The effect was near instant, with the slice being deep enough to reveal the torn flesh, as blood poured out from the wound.

Brielle choked as she fell backwards to the floor, clutching her neck in a futile attempt to close the bleeding wound off.

"Yeah! I DO actually think!" Eda retorted to the fatally wounded Brielle, getting up to stand over her as blood began pooling around the bleeding out witch.

The other Mercs, despite being taken aback by the lethal attack Eda made on their commander, made an attempt to charge forward in retaliation against the Owl Lady... When suddenly King leapt out of one of the nearby halls, and in front of Eda.

The group had no time to react as they were blown back by one of King's yells, being launched across the hall to the floor (some hitting the wall as well).

"Ha! Take that!" King exclaimed, proud of his successful attack against the Mercs.

Eda then turned to King. "What part of 'run and I'll catch up' did you not understand?" Eda deadpanned at him.

"All of it. You really thought I'd leave you?" King deadpanned back, crossing his arms. "Plus, I just saved your life pretty much!"

Eda sighed heavily. "Okay, fair enough..." She relented, before turning back to Brielle on the floor.

She was slowly beginning to cease her movement, as the blood poured out of her neck. Eda felt some pity for her... But that pity was overpowered by the fact that only an hour ago, Brielle was threatening to kill King. So it pretty much evened out.

"Welp, that was exhausting." Eda remarked, dusting herself off rather casually.

"Agreed. But now at least we can get to the exit-" King wasn't even able to finish his sentence as a loud crack and crumbling was heard.

The two glanced at the hall that led back to the front entrance... To see it had collapsed due to the encroaching fire, now blocking the way through with flaming rubble.

"...Or not." King bluntly corrected, realizing he may have just jinxed them both.

Eda groaned in annoyance, and she glanced around for another possible exit... When one quite literally opened up right above them. The stress of the foundation being tested by the heat of the flames caused the roof to being to cave in, and a large part of it crumbled under the pressure.

"King, watch it!" Eda exclaimed as she acted fast, and pushed the young Titan out of the way just before the flaming rubble landed where he once stood.

"Weh! Oh me, that was close..." King commented, holding his furry chest in relief.

Eda panted as she once again glanced up at the ceiling, the flames were beginning to get closer, and it was clear they didn't have much time left before they got engulfed by them.

Just as she was wishing she had her harpy wings so she could fly up out of the now broken roof... Eda's form almost instantly changed to her harpy one.

"Oh, of course NOW you let me change back!" Eda snarked to herself, looking at her harpy form in both annoyance and thankfulness. She wasn't sure which emotion was more prominent right now.

"Who cares?! Let's just get the heck out of here!" King exclaimed, waving his arms for emphasis.

Eda scooped her adopted son up in her arms, and quickly flew up to avoid the growing flames. She reached the hole in the ceiling and flew out with the rising smoke.

The two sighed in relief, taking the time to breathe in the fresh air as they flew up away from the building. The outside had begun to crumble, with the flames being visible from the foundation.

If Eda had to guess, it'd only take about an hour or two for the whole building to collapse into nothing but smoldering ashes.

But she didn't have time to worry about some simple property damage. Eda cared WAY too much more about Kikimora's plans against Luz...

...Oh yeah, and the rest of the Isles too. Right.

Eda exhaled, and flew onward with King in her grasp. They needed to meet back up with the others and tell them everything the two had found out. Eda just really hoped everyone was okay for now.

Practically speaking, the group was mostly doing okay right now.

The Mercs that had jumped them were challenging to fight seeing as they easily outnumbered them... But thankfully, they didn't overpower them by a long shot.

With the combined efforts of the witches' various magic, the Collector's powers (being used more defensively rather than offensively), and the humans' choice of weapons; they were putting up a pretty good fight.

"It's like they just keep coming!" Masha exclaimed, bashing a Merc over the head with a wooden fragment of a broken cart.

"And they don't stop coming!" Vee added, turning into her basilisk form for a few moments to tail whip another Merc before turning back.

"Ha! I get it! That's a reference to a human song!" Gus commented, dodging a swing from a Merc, who Camila bashed with her bat soon after.

"I think we've almost got all of them!" Emira called out, noticing how the Mercs numbers seemed to be dropping.

"About time! My arms are kind of getting tired here!" Willow claimed, waving her arms once more to direct vines around to hit more incoming Mercs.

"Not mine! This is actually pretty good exercise!" Amity commented, using abomination goo as a makeshift whip to attack another Merc.

"Speak for yourself... All this workout my arms go through, and they STILL won't get any stronger..." Luz remarked, blinding a Merc in front of her with a light spell from Stringbean, before tripping them to the floor with a quick sweep at their legs.

As Lilith was dealing with one of the Mercs in combat, she suddenly felt herself shift from her harpy form, and back into her normal witch body.

She was taken aback, and hesitated in the middle of her fight against the Merc in front of Merc tried to take advantage of her distracted state, and swung at her with their dagger...

Only to get face-slammed by Hooty with full force. They were knocked out almost instantly, their face bruised from the impact.

"Hm, strange... It happened again..." Lilith murmured to herself as she looked at her now normal arms, not having even noticed nor cared about the Merc who had just been dispatched by her companion.

"Hoot! What happened again?" Hooty questioned, before using his body to slap away two other Mercs, launching them across the street.

"I've been having issues using my harpy form as of recent..." Lilith explained, her mind now completely detached from the fight going on around her, with Hooty defending her as she thought.

"Edalyn has been having the same issues too if our conversations are any hint towards." She added soon after, noting it with a finger motion.

As the group continued to make work of the attacking Mercs, a couple of them seemingly decided that the fight wasn't going their way, and began fleeing down the street away from them.

"Hey, those ones are getting away!" Edric pointed out the fleeing Mercs.

"Don't worry, me and Luz can get them!" Amity claimed with a smirk."Wait, we can- OH! I mean, YES! We can!" Luz corrected herself mid-sentence.

"Come on, let's get going!" Amity waved for Luz to follow, to which she nodded in response.

The two girlfriends ran off to began to pursue the fleeing Mercs, as the rest of the group kept fighting the other ones not running.

"Be careful you two!" Camila called out, feeling faint concern for both of them.

Three arrows were shot towards the Noceda mother, but the Collector formed a star platform, and quickly used it as a shield to protect her from the oncoming attack.

"Phew! That was close!" The Collector sighed in relief at his quick save.

"I'm sure they'll be fine! Hoot!" Hooty assured, as he used his body to slam into all three of the Mercs at once, knocking them down.

"They've been able to handle themselves just fine before!" Willow reminded, using a vine to choke a Merc, and slam them against the floor without even looking.

"I guess you're right..." Camila shrugged, using her bat to bash a Merc upside the head that tried to rush her from behind.

Eventually, all the Mercs were either unconscious, or "unconscious for good". The group all panted, catching their breaths after all the fighting that had just went down.

"Okay wow, we did it..." Masha panted, "Wonderful first visit, by the way... Really loving it."

"So... Did we win? Are all the bad guys done fighting now?" The Collector asked, glancing around at all the motionless Mercs.

"I uh... I think so, Estrellita." Camila answered, nodding as she looked around as well.

"Whoo-hoo! That wasn't so bad!" Gus exclaimed with a grin.

As everyone was just beginning to calm down and recover from the fighting, Edric suddenly remembered something... Or rather, a certain someone who wasn't present anymore.

"Oh Titan... Dad! I forgot completely about him!" Edric remembered, paling as he did; which Emira soon joined him in doing.

The group turned to look at the now fully burnt store's wreckage. Smoke was still rising from the rubble.

"H-He probably got out okay!" Emira claimed, having hope that the grim opposite wasn't a reality. "Right...?"

"If he did, then where the heck is he?" Masha questioned, glancing around.

"I... I don't know..." Edric exhaled, beginning to actually get worried about his father's sudden disappearance.

"I'm sure we'll find him!" Vee piped up, wanting to stay positive, and keep the others around her just as positive.

"Oh my god, another Valkyrie!" Masha noticed, pointing up at the sky.

"Eda?!" Raine called out as they turned to look at the sky as well, knowing exactly who could fit Masha's description right now.

Sure enough, Eda flew down from the sky, landing in front of the group. King was being held securely in her arms. She panted a bit as she glanced around at her surroundings.

"Oh dang it! We missed the whole battle, didn't we?" Eda realized, looking around with faint disappointment.

"Pretty much seems that way, yeah." Vee answered, leaning against a pole as she caught her breath.

"Oh Titan, I'm so happy you're okay! Both of you!" Raine sighed in relief.

"Yeah, mostly... Almost got burnt to death in the council building, but other than that, mostly fine." King shrugged casually.

"Oh, so I was right... You did turn into harpy form a while ago." Lilith commented, glancing at her younger sister's current state (whilst not dwelling much on King's comment).

"Firstly, you're a prick for turning into your own harpy form even though you knew we were having these form issues." Eda snapped at Lilith, who rolled her eyes in response.

"It slipped my mind at the time..." Lilith remarked defensively.

"Secondly, we have a big problem! Kikimora's behind this whole attack!" King exclaimed, quickly getting to the point.

Everyone was taken aback by the claim, some more confused than shocked.

"Kikimora?!" Gus questioned, shocked at the revelation."Her again?!" Willow exclaimed as well.

"Uh, who?" Masha asked, confused."You mean the red kitten demon who tried to kill us before?" Camila commented, rather casually.

Eda couldn't help but snort in amusement at the name.

"Ah, red kitten... I've gotta use that sometime. That's priceless..." She chuckled, before shaking her amusement off back to a serious tone.

"But seriously, this isn't a good thing... She's got help from that other demon who robbed us a week or so ago!" Eda explained.

"You mean Valera? Why is she helping her?" Raine questioned, curious about the turn of events.

"I have no clue! All I really know is that they're working together towards a common goal!" Eda replied.

"What goal?" Masha blinked, still slightly confused.

Eda didn't even need to say anything for everyone to get what Kikimora's main goal was.

"Oh Titan, they're trying to take over the Isles again, aren't they?" Lilith facepalmed in realization, faintly annoyed.

"Yeah, shocker, I know... But that's not the part we're really worried about!" Eda exclaimed.

"They want to kill Luz as revenge!" King added, his tone showing clear worry for his big sister figure. "Both of them made it pretty clear she's on the top of the list!"

Everyone gasped, especially those closest to the human witch.

"Wait, but then... Why would those Mercs have ran..." Edric began to question, "Leading Luz and Mittens... Away..."

Everyone slowly came to the same realization as Edric was coming to. Those Mercs hadn't been running in an attempt to flee... They had been running in an attempt to bait a certain couple...

"Oh Titan, they're being lured into a trap!" Willow paled.

"We gotta go help them! Quick!" Vee exclaimed, paling as well.

Just as they all were about to run off, more Mercs rushed out onto the street, armed with more weapons and prepared spells.

"Of course..." Eda deadpanned with an exhale, extending her claws defensively as the new wave of Mercs rushed them all.

Meanwhile, Luz and Amity had managed to corner the two fleeing Mercs after running a few blocks. Something about fighting alongside her girlfriend always gave Luz a surge of energy.

Amity easily used her abomination magic to form a goo fist, and hit one of the Mercs hard enough to launch them against the wall of a nearby building with a crack.

Luz hit the other with Stringbean in his staff form, tripping the Merc to the floor. She then used her foot to stomp on their head hard enough to knock them out.

"Aw, no more?" Luz commented lightheartedly, smiling at her and her girlfriend's victory against the Mercs.

"Well, that was pretty easy." Amity remarked, kicking one of the unconscious Mercs on the ground.

"Wonder why they were running here for anyways?" Luz questioned curiously, "Doesn't look like there's anything... Or anyone... Around here-"

Just as she had begun to consider the good possibility they both had just been led into an obvious trap, a loud mechanical thud was heard behind the two girlfriends, followed by the creaking and grinding of metal gear mechanisms.

"...Oh god." Luz paled with a wince, recognizing the sound of the machinery almost instantly.

"Titan, that can't be who I think it is..." Amity added, also recognizing the sounds.

The two turned around, facing the Abomatron that was now standing over them, casting a shadow over the two lovers as it did. A familiar face peered down at them both from the top of it.

"Hello Noceda... Hello Blight. Been quite a while hasn't it?" Kikimora greeted with a mocking grin.

Luz and Amity didn't reply, and instead stood shocked at the sight of the biped demon in the Abomatron. That shock only grew when they noticed the second demon in the right arm's new cockpit.

"The supplies you allowed me to steal really helped with constructing this addition to Roka..." Valera smirked, patting the side metal of the cockpit she was positioned in.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me..." Amity groaned, turning to Luz. "I'm assuming this is that Valera person you mentioned?"

"Yep..." Luz bluntly answered, eyes still locked on the Abomatron.

"We should thank you two... But honestly, it'd be a lot more fun to brutally kill you both." Kikimora murmured with a sadistic tone.

With a simple press of a button, the Abomatron launched forward at the two. Luz and Amity got into defensive positions.

This was not going to be an easy fight for the girlfriends.

The next chapter is going to have a couple trigger warnings. Take that information as you will. :D

Remember to review, and leave a favorite if you enjoyed. (I always enjoy reading your guys' reviews)