Witches among humans Book 1: Beginings

by Grey135

A lumity beta AU based on Morning Mark's comic from tumblr! Luz is a wild witch living in the boiling isles and she is rebelling against the coven system. One day a mission goes wrong and she ends up in earth where she'll have to adapt to her new home. Slowburn Lumity with Beta designs, mix between action and comedy but mostly domestic fluff. Witch! Vigilante! Luz, Human! Eda

30. Actions

Happy new year everyone! I was slow in updating bc of several things: First I went to da beach and ended up with a sunburnt nose so I look like an abomination rn, second my house had no power for the last week, and third I've been doing some rewriting on this chapter that I'll explain later.

Extra long fic to make up for it!

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-Eda-

Being a witch's housemate was a really daunting task, something unexpected happened literally every day. One time she woke up with a carnivorous plant trying to eat her cat, then a mythological pigeon pooped her entire car, and just the other month she had to fight a gigantic salamander with a bat.

Still, she managed to adapt. Eda had been an unpredictable force of chaos all of her life, she had actually put her own mum through worse when she was young (In fact a part of her believed that the universe put Luz in her life to make her pay for what she did as a kid), so she had been pretty good at managing Luz's magic bullshitty randomness. However, there are times when she manages to catch her off guard and deliver a sentence that really astonishes her.

Like right now.

"What are you talking about?" She said after being silent for a while.

"I- *sigh* just hear me out for a while, okey?" She pleaded by clasping her hands and slowly nodded "Eda, I've noticed how much you have sacrificed to take care of me. You gave me a place to sleep, food, education, and you even helped me fight a magical monster! There's no way on earth that I could repay you for what you did, but I can help you lower this burden" She took a pause to breathe "I wasn't aware of this at first, but now I know that the work that I do for the shop doesn't nearly cover all my expenses, so I will help you with that by moving away"

Eda felt a wave of unnamed emotions wash over her, attempting to blow her away and knock her into the ground. Her head was a frenzy of conflicting thoughts that battled against each other in a hurricane, she wanted to strangle her for saying that, now she wanted to hug her and beg her to stay, now she wanted to yell at her for changing so much of her life, and now…

It was too much to bear, Eda had always let her emotions dictate her actions and had always followed her heart, but this time her heart was undecided and she felt that she might do something that she'd regret if she let the barrage of feelings control her. So, for once in her life, she listened to her sister's advice and took a long breath to remain calm herself, instead of acting on impulse.

"How… how exactly are you planning to do this?" She spoke after a while. That wasn't everything she had wanted to say, not by far, but it was a start.

"Well, Lilith already asked if I'd like to come live with her when she goes back to her house out of state"

"Of course she did that" Eda felt her fists clenching and her nails digging on her palms.

"Bu-but I already told her no!" She rushed to finish that sentence once she saw her getting mad "I don't want to abandon gravesfield, in part is because of the magic attacks happening here, but I also wouldn't want to abandon my friends, or school, or… you"

There was an awkward silence after that.

*Ehem* "With that, I've decided to go ahead and look for a suitable place to move in. My friends offered me their places but I do not want to inconvenience them any longer, so instead I looked for my own place, or at least I tried to, turns out that it was way harder than I thought" She admitted sheepishly "One night Lilith saw what I was doing and demanded some answers, when I told her what I was doing she seemed… excited for a reason" Eda bit the inside of her cheek "So she helped me pick a place. It's still not official and I need to-"

"How are you even going to pay for that? You just mentioned how short of money we were!" The thought of Luz living alone was rich on its own, that girl would probably burn the house down on the first night

"Oh I am going to get a job in Willow's dad's shop, we already talked about it" She started rambling about it but she wasn't paying attention.

"Okey that's it, this has to stop"

"Luz" Eda grabbed her shoulders to make her shut up "This is by far the stupidest, idiotic, brain-dead, and most ridiculous idea you ever had, why would you do that?" She was trying really hard to not sound angry, the last thing she needed was a shouting match between them.

"Uhh" She actually seemed surprised. After a while she looked at the ground and clenched her jaw "Eda, I've seen how you struggle with money"

That took her aback. This year business had been pretty slow this last year (mainly because people here were already aware of her scams and they didn't get many tourists) so she had to turn to her not-so-legal methods to make ends meet. Still, feeding a teenager was a hard task and Eda had found herself wondering what she was going to do next year.

"Your business is being bad and you still prioritize me! This month you couldn't afford your liquor because you were worried about what I had to eat!" Eda recoiled upon hearing that, it was true that she had to make some monetary sacrifices lately "It's my fault all this happened. That's why I've got to do this. I'll make it all up to you, Eda the Owl Lady. I promise"

She turned around to leave but Eda didn't let her.

"Oh no, we are not done. I let you speak and tell me your little plan that you hatched with my sister behind my back, so now you are going to listen to me" Luz looked at her with worried eyes, but let her continue with a nod "Luz… I don't know where you got that stupid idea from, but you are not a burden to me. You think that going away is gonna help me? Well, it won't. You help me all the time in the house and in the shop, you probably are the reason why I didn't go bankrupt this year. You saved me from becoming an old lady with no one at her side, heck, you even managed to do something my mother has never managed to do! You got me talking to my sister again, thanks to you we are capable of sitting down and talk without fighting. So, unfortunately for you, my life is pretty great, because I'm friends with a witch named Luz!"

After her outburst they remained silent for a while, until Luz's lower lip started trembling and she pulled her into a hug. After that the brunette girl started sobbing in her arms while she patted her back.

"I-I'm sorry" She said as she cried.

"It's ok, Luz" Eda soothed her. It was strange, a few months ago she would never have done something like this, but here she was.

They stood in this embrace for a while. Once she calmed down (She wouldn't stop apologizing in between hiccups) Eda started directing them to the table so they could sit. She let go of her to make some tea, and once the infusion was done they sat in front of each other.

"Luz, I don't know what's going on inside your head, but I do know that you are blaming yourself for something, probably many things. Your guilt-ridden brain is not letting you process things clearly, so spill it out kid"

For a while she didn't say anything and Eda thought that she might close up again, but then she sighed and started talking.

"I feel like… like it's all my fault. You, Willow, and Gus had to take on a magical being that could've ripped you to shreds, and on some occasions it almost happened. I could've waited a bit more, I could have given you more time to train, more time to prepare, but instead I rushed us"

"It wasn't your fault kiddo, you were dying out without magic, who knows how long you would have resisted?"

"Still! That doesn't feel right!" She yelled "Sorry… But I feel like ever since I arrived on this realm I end up hurting people no matter what I do, I made all of those monsters cross the dimension, those witches hurt people while they were looking for me, and you, Willow, Gus, and Amity ended up hurted by me"

"Wait what? What do you mean with Amity?"

"Uuhh, it doesn't matter" She avoided her gaze and Eda made a mental note to inquire about it later "But everything here started going wrong because of me, I know that I'm helping people but it seems that I can hardly make up for bringing literal monsters to this dimension, and then when I overheard you talking with Lilith about how much you were struggling with money I… I thought I should help" She clenched her cup of tea.

"I appreciate the sentiment kiddo, but that is not the way of doing it. If you left the house would be in such a mess that the children nearby would really think that I am a witch, it would provide ambience to the shop, sure, but it's not ideal to live in" She tried to joke in order to diffuse the situation and Luz laughed "Being serious I am not against you getting a part-time job with the Parks, maybe the change of scenery will help you, but do not go away, that won't help anyone, and stop blaming yourself for everything those magic assholes do, for what you told me you weren't aware that all of this would happen when you opened that portal"

"Yeah but-"

"No buts! Luz, I need you to understand something, you are not a burden for me, nor at fault for every wrong thing that happens around you, you are just a good person who is trapped in a fucked up situation, you got it?"

Luz whined a little bit and then launched herself at Eda, enveloping him in a bone-crushing hug.

"I love you Eda" She said while buried in her neck.

That declaration took her aback for a second, but she recovered and hugged her back.

"I love you too, kiddo"

"I'm sorry for all of this" She said with teary eyes "It's just that after we fought the basilisk you were angry at me and-"

"Of course I was angry at you! You took an unnecessary risk when we already had it! I like that you are a good person and heroic,but you need to take better care of yourself!" She scolded her "Your heroic tendencies are fine, but you need to take care of yourself better!"

She recoiled after she said that, god she was beginning to sound like her mother.

"I… I can try that, but Eda if I see someone suffering, or someone taking advantage of others… I have to do something"

"And that's fine. I'm not asking you to stop being a hero, I just want you to stop acting so recklessly and actually care about yourself, can you do that?" She asked with a serious look.

"I can try" Luz answered but she wasn't satisfied.

"Luz. I want you to swear to me that you won't risk your life trying to save someone else" She was dead serious with this.

Luz smiled, stood up from the chair, and bowed to her.

"I, Luz Noceda, solemnly bow to make sure that I come back alive after every fight, and I also swear to take better care of myself from now on"

"Geez kid, teatric much?" She teased with a smile.

Luz didn't answer, instead she just lunged at her and hugged her again.

"Ok, that's enough sappy feelings for one day. How about we talk about something else?" She asked.

"Like what?" Luz inquired

"You mentioned Amity before, what was that about!"

Luz gulped

"I have a feeling that this is going to be a good one"

Twenty minutes later

After she finished explaining everything that transpired with the mint-haired girl, Eda just sat there, staring at her with a dumbfounded expression.

"Well… that was it" Luz was behaving as if she was going to explode, to be fair Eda was tempted to "So… what do you think about that?"

"Let me see if I got this right" She said "The prettiest, richest, smartest, and most popular girl in the whole school, who is also a big athlete and is into the same stuff as you, asked you out on a date, and you said no? What's wrong with you?!" Her outburst must have been too much because she recoiled "Ugh, sorry. There's nothing wrong with you kid, it's just that I don't know why you would do that!"

"Uhh, I can't date her" Luz shyly answered.

"Why the hell not? Don't try to tell me that you are straight, I've seen you get all cute and blushy towards our female customers" Eda remembered an incident or two where Luz couldn't stop staring at girl who came to the shop, one time she kept walking while looking at one of them and accidentally stepped on king's tail, the aftermath hadn't been pretty.

"No it's not that. I don't think I can date anyone because I would feel bad for lying about who I am. Relationships are based on honesty, and it's better to remain as friends if I can't do that" She spoke with determination.

"Hot damn, sometimes this girl is way more mature than some people thrice her age… wait a minute"

"But if that's the case then why don't you tell her?" That seemed the obvious solution.

"Tell her my secret? What? No, I can't do that!" She answered in panic.

"Why not? Both Goops and glasses know about it"

"Bu-but that was different! I didn't tell them, they figured it out on their own! And it could be bad if I keep divulging my secret identity, you know, with all of those guys in suits chasing me around" Oh yeah, she had forgotten about that. The first time Luz told her about those men in black knock offs she was sure it had been a joke, part of her still wonders if she should write about Luz's adventures and sell it as a book.

"Fair enough. But you did mention before how better you felt now that you don't have to lie to them, why not make the same exception for baby blight? After all, she already saw you as a witch"

"Oh, that's right, I forgot about it" Luz started to fidget nervously and Eda took it as a sign to stop.

"Ok whatever. Kid, I am not going to push you into doing anything you don't want to, I was just pointing out another option" She clasped her hands behind her back and stretched "Well, that was enough serious talk for today, how about we watch some TV while I order something to eat, what do you think?"

Luz smiled at that.

"Yeah, I'd like that"

King, who had been watching the whole exchange with interest from the floor, leaped into Luz's lap and started to rub his face on her, which made the girl giggle. Eda smiled at that, then she turned the TV on and grabbed her phone to call for delivery, it was a peaceful moment.

So of course it had to be ruined.

"We are coming live from one of gravesfield's entrances, where a commotion has occurred. Jeff, could you explain the situation to us?" The news reporter said with an over exaggerated tone, then the scene switched to show another reporter in the middle of a road.

"Oh I absolutely can Mike, but you are not going to believe me when I tell you this. We had several reports of suspicious activity since this morning so we sent some people to investigate. At first they didn't find anything, but then they stumbled with the scoop of the century! Get this: A dragon is attacking gravesfield!"

"WHAT?!"

Luz jumped from her chair, knocking King to the ground in the process.

*Hiss*

"What? A dragon? Are they promoting the new game of thrones spin off?" The producer asked jokingly.

"Hah! I wish that were true Mike, but sadly no. Can we get some images" The screen changed to show something Eda had never seen: A grey monster bigger than a tank with fangs and claws, its front paws had membrane like wings and it was exhaling fire from its mouth "What you are seeing here are the reports of a few minutes ago, it seems that this monster attacked…"

Eda wasn't hearing the reporter anymore. Instead she was looking at Luz, she was biting her lip and looked like she wanted to leap into action immediately, but she stopped and looked at her with a question in her eyes, as if asking a silent question.

"Go" Eda didn't need a second to answer "But Make sure you come back"

Luz nodded, hugged her once more, and jumped out of the window. Eda heard Owlbert's 'hoot' and saw a flash of light. With that, she was gone.

-Marcus-

Minutes before the attack / On a road to the middle of nowhere

Marcus didn't consider himself as a spiritual man, which was ironic considering that he had to deal with his fair share of spirits and paranormal beings in his profession. Most of his colleagues had rituals they did before embarking on a new mission: They knocked on wood, wore ornaments and trinkets for good luck, prayed to any deity for fortune, and did all sorts of silly rituals. He didn't mind any of that because he found out that those things boosted their confidence, which was a crucial thing to have in their line of work, so he let them do whatever to calm their nerves (it's not like it was going to affect the outcome either way), but him? He had better things to do than lose time with superstition, he didn't need any of that junk.

However, there was one thing he really did believe in: His gut. Horned and trained by literal decades of experience, his instincts rarely let him down and had helped him survive several deadly encounters in his long life. Ever since he had been a brat his intuition had been sharp as a knife, and it has always warned him against danger.

"Pretty much like today"

Ever since he woke up he had this strange feeling that something was going to go wrong, like some icy hands were grabbing every joint in his body, pulling him from behind as if saying 'go back'. Of course, he did not communicate this feeling to his people, partially because there was nothing that they could do to help him with it, and partially because he did not want them to think that he was going senile (There were too many rumors about that already). Usually he would obey these kinds of gut feelings, but today he couldn't, mainly because he had an obligation with his superior today, and he would not be happy if he tried to go away.

"Wonderful day, isn't it Marky?" Mr. X asked him from the front seat of the car with an amused smile.

Him and X were on a mission towards eastville, a nearby town, they were being driven by one of his new agents, X was on the front while his assistant (Marcus could never remember his name) and him were on the back. The reason behind this visit was because it had been more than six months since the magical singularity, that fateful day where magical beings breached into their dimension. Now that things had calmed down a little bit in gravesfield, an inspection was due in eastville.

The singularity that brought all the magical creatures to this world occurred on top of the rural area in between Gravesfield and Eastville. While there weren't any records of humans living there, at that moment of the incident several people were driving through the area, coming back to their respective homes from a clandestine party. Some of them saw what happened and were considered a threat to security by the organization, even if they couldn't record it (the potent magical waves damaged the cellphones and other electronic devices). Others didn't just see the magic, but they were also in direct contact with magical creatures, some of them were even killed by them. And lastly it was the last group, the ones that didn't encounter magical creatures, but rather magical artifacts, and, once they found out about the supernatural properties of the object, used them for their own gain, either to gain money or some kind of personal satisfaction.

It was their job to deal with those kinds of people, either by erasing their memory, hiding the evidence, or locking them away, to keep the public's attention away as they deal with the magic stuff.

"Yes X, it is a lovely day" He tried his best to smile and be cordial.

"This must be really annoying to you" He said "I know that you'd rather be back in your office, making your interns suffer, but this is something that must be done"

"I am quite capable of doing what I'm required to do, even if I don't want to do it, I'm an adult after all" He looked at the way X was playing videogames on his mobile phone when he said that.

"Yeah, uh-huh" He continued to play his game while ignoring what he just said "Dang it! I lost again" He finally put his device down and looked at him with a gleeful grin "Ohh! I know what we can do to make this trip feel more fun"

"Please don't say singing" He silently begged.

"Why don't we review the case up until now? Just to check if we are missing something"

That comment surprised him. He had read the case file so many times that he could recite it by memory, and he, alongside Lilith and Lawrence, had explained all to him when he arrived.

"Why would we- wait, don't tell me, you forgot about the case details again, did you?" He asked with a glare.

"Ahh, sharp as ever Marky" He adjusted his shades with a smirk "But no, I didn't forget about it. I merely wanted to check on the new developments of the case, that's all"

Marcus could tell he was bullshitting him. X had a reputation of being someone that "thinks and acts outside the box", which meant that he usually disregarded rules and protocols, he was sure that he never looked at any message or file that they sent him.

"This is unprofessional behavior. I'd give you cleaning duty for a month, if you were in my squad"

"Now now, that's not nice. You complain a lot about professionalism but, is this the way you should be talking to your superior? Not the best example if you ask me, how about some respect?" He knew he got him with his previous comment by the way his lip twitched.

"Maybe I'd do it if you were deserving of that title, but we all know it wasn't you who stopped froginvasion all of those years ago" He smiled deviously "I wonder how it felt, being rescued by a bunch of teenage girls and then taking credit for their accomplishments"

X didn't say anything. For once his face hid his intentions really well, something that he wasn't used to.

"Just because this is the first time, I'm going to let it slide. But you weren't there, you have no idea how it was for me, no idea of the fights I had, nor you know about how hard it was for me to watch those girls fight to defend this world, even when it should have been us doing it" He said sternly.

"Fair enough, my apologies. But my point still stands. If ye wanna be treated like a leader ye should act like one" He shrugged his shoulders "I know that you like to do things differently, but I expect you to at least read the files"

"Oh, I've read them, but they don't compare to the words of a person that was actually there" He went back to his playful demeanor "Especially if it's someone who is as articulate as you"

Marcus sighed.

"Well, as you should know, more than six months ago a

magical singularity occurred on these lands, bringing dozens of magical beings and artifacts to this world. We were lucky that the rift opened in a deserted area, especially at night. Considering that the residual magical waves made phones and other recording devices useless we didn't have much evidence to worry about"

"Uh-huh, but that's not all isn't it?" Mr X said.

"No. Unfortunately there was a clandestine party in a mansion from a nearby area. It was too far away for them to see the singularity, but several guests decided to leave early, and some of them lived in either Eastville or Gravesfield" He always thought how funny this whole situation was: The biggest crisis that his organization faced wasn't due to some nefarious plan, but rather an accumulation of coincidences "Those who were driving home that night witnessed the singularity, among other things. We categorize them in several groups regarding their relevance: those who saw the rift open in the sky but nothing else, those who came in contact with a magical being, and those who managed to get a hold of a magical relic"

"Hmmm" X scratched his chin "I remember you telling me that you mindwiped the people in the first group, but why? With no way of recording things they only had their word, people would've just thought that they were lunatics"

"We didn't want any risk. I didn't feel like adding fuel to the fire with all of the videos on the internet" He also didn't like the idea of those innocent people being tortured by what they saw for the rest of their lives, they didn't deserve that.

"Fair enough" X shrugged.

"It was the same treatment for the second group of people, well, for those who weren't eaten or killed by the magical creatures they encountered" The list of casualties had been low on that day, but the fact that there was a list of people killed by interdimensional beings was bad to begin with "There were some complications with covering up their deaths, but we mostly left it with landslides and bear attacks, so it was not much"

"So that left us with the third group" He started filing his nails "Those who managed to grab a hold of the magical relics, it was really unlucky that the portal opened inside of a vault filled to the brim with those"

Marcus laughed.

"Yes, you could say that"

"But that mask dude, Belos right? Sent you a list with those, so you already know which ones are missing and what to expect"

"We also got a list of the people who went to that party, so we pretty much know how many people were in that area that night. According to our calculations, about 90% of the people who could've possibly witnessed magic have already been dealt with, and we have confiscated more than half of the magical artifacts from the inventory that Belos sent us" He felt great pride when he talked about that, these past months have been hell, but he and his people managed to pull through despite the odds "But sadly we don't possess them all. A few of those were robbed in raids by the witches"

"Oh, this is the part where I wanted to get at" He leaned forward on his seat "What is your plan with the witches if we manage to capture them? Because they are way more threatening than those humans wielding relics, as far as I can see. Are you going to send them back to their dimension? Just like that?"

"Of course not! That ship sailed the moment they started to harm people, Belos can whine all he wants but I'm not giving them back until they answer for what they had done" The last straw had been the way they behaved during the last raid.

"I see. This brings me to my next point, what about the wild witch?"

Marcus looked at him, the gleam in his eyes told him that this was the point he wanted to bring from the beginning, but he wasn't interested in playing his game.

"What about her?"

"I know that you met her alone on a mission, and that you didn't tell anyone about it" X smiled in victory.

"Really?" Marcus raised an eyebrow at that, he was sure he covered his tracks really well with that "Impressive, did Lawrence tell you?"

"Have more faith in him Marky, the boy is loyal to a fault"

"Then how?" He asked.

"Nuh-uh, those are my professional secrets, not telling" He grabbed a lollipop from his pocket, peeled it, and put it on his mouth "So, back to our subject, why did you meet with the witch? And don't try to lie to me, I know that you have a whole 'wise old hound' thing going on, but I can see through you quite well"

Marcus considered this statement, he was sure that X wasn't a threat to him, he could still lie or dodge the question, but to what end? X already knew of his secret, and if he wanted to tell that to the others he would have done so already. He viewed this for what it was, an opportunity.

"Fine. Yes, I met with the wild witch when we were chasing down the cryogenus rex, I wanted to investigate her, and to make sure of her intentions" X raised an eyebrow at that.

"Oh nice! And what did you find?"

"Several things: For instance, she was the one that created the portal to our realm" He said smugly.

X opened his mouth in shock and the lollipop fell to his lap. He shook his head and picked it up again.

"So she is the one responsible for all this mess? I better call HQ, we need to expand our list of interdimensional terrorists" It was clear that he was shocked.

"Hold your horses. I am fairly certain that the lass didn't do it on purpose" Marcus was quick to stop that train of thought.

"I need you to elaborate on that" X just looked at him with a dumbfounded expression.

"Ok, first of all: In my interview she admitted being the one who created the portal, but the way she said it made it sound that it wasn't her intention"

"Really? That's it? I know that you have your whole 'sixth sense' gimmick going on but I'm gonna need more than that. Why would you even believe what she told you in the first place?"

"For two main reasons, the rest are just hunches. First, she admitted that she did that herself, who would do that in her situation? If I revealed that she would become a priority target and the whole organization would come after her, not just members of this branch. I don't see what she would gain from lying about that, so the only option is that she was confessing her sins" he explained.

"Hmmmm, and the other reason?"

"The company that she brought alongside her. The witches from the emperor's coven do not like her, nor do the monsters walking around. If this was a terrorist plan, it's a really shitty one: She put herself in an unknown place surrounded by enemies" Everything about this told Marcus that none of it was premeditated.

"Well… I can see the logic behind it. But Marcus, if what you are saying is true then that makes her responsible for all of this, even if she didn't intend to do it, are you sure that hiding information like this is a sensible thing to do?" He asked while scratching his chin.

"Totally. If Lilith found out she would just become more obsessed than she actually is, that wouldn't help everyone"

"Fine" After a moment of hesitation he added "You are not going to tell our superiors, are you?"

"Not if I can avoid it. They have their hands full with the civil war in atlantis" There was a reason why he didn't receive more reinforcements to face this crisis, the other branches of the organization were just as busy as he was "Besides, if one of those extremists arrives here it's going to make things worse"

"Can't say I disagree with you there. Fine, we'll do things your way, but you do realize that if they find out we'll be in real trouble, right?"

"I am prepared for that outcome" He said solemnly.

X just observed silently for a while.

"You are protecting that witch girl, both from Lilith and the organization, but why?"

"Hah!" He produced a boisterous laugh "Yer perspective as always, yes. I need her to stay free and alive for a little longer, that's why I've been focusing on the other three"

"But why?"

"She's a lead on a case, maybe my only chance of solving it" He said.

"A lead on this case? But wouldn't that be more effective if she was in an interrogation room?"

"No no, she's not a lead on this case, but rather the biggest case of my career, one that was left unsolved more than twenty years ago" He said grimly.

"Twenty years? What on- oh, I see. I always wondered why you were considered an expert in the boiling isles, since no human has been there yet" X said with a foxy smile.

Marcus refused to elaborate, even when X started asking one question after another, he was focused on not thinking about that fateful night all of those years ago. Once the man realized that he wasn't going to answer he dropped the subject and all of them sat in a comfortable silence, or it would have been comfortable if it wasn't because of the nagging feeling on the back of his head, the sudden urge to look behind him to see if everything was ok in the base (even if he couldn't see it from where he was).

"We haven't received any worrying reports ever since we left Gravesfield, in fact, we haven't received any reports at all! Even though a team was sent to investigate a possible magical incident hours ago, something is wrong"

"Jessica" He addressed the agent who was driving the car "Turn us around"

"Uhh, now boss?" She asked "We are almost there"

"Yeah Marky" X chipped in "I know that you don't like it but we have to-"

"Not now X" He stopped him by putting a hand in front of his face "Jessica! I am ordering you as your commander to turn this car around right now and go back to gravesfield as fast as you can"

His agent gulped and did a 180 turn in the middle of the road (luckily there weren't any other cars there) making the tires screech, then she started driving back. X was launched against his car window by the force of the turn.

"Ouch! Hey, what's the big idea? I'm the superior here Marcus, not you" He said in a very angry tone.

"If ye wish to fire me after this is fine for me, but I need to go back" His nerves were aching at this point, it was as if his instinct was screaming at him to go back.

"What in the world has gotten to you-" He was interrupted by the ringing of his phone "Oh for the love of-, what now?"

He picked up the phone and answered the call. Marcus couldn't hear what the person at the other side of the line was saying, but it wasn't anything good, judging from his expression. Eventually he hung up and looked at him with a somber expression.

"Jess, honey, stop the car" Even though his words were sweet, his tone was dead serious and dripping with venom.

Jessica gulped and did as she was told. Marcus couldn't blame her, X wasn't usually intimidating but the man had its scary moments. This whole situation was a tough one for her: She was trapped between two conflicting bosses that she had to obey.

"X I am serious, we need to-"

"Jenny, get out of the car and activate that implement we were talking about the other day" He still had that kind expression but Marcus could see the tension on his face, a vein started popping on his forehead.

His assistant nodded and exited the car. He went to the trunk and started to pull things out of it.

"Well Marky, how did you do it?" X had dropped the smile and was looking at him with a serious face.

"I'm guessing that you are talking about the call you just got. Bad news?" He said.

"Yes, but how did you know about it? I just got word of it but you have been saying you wanted to go back for a while now" He sounded genuinely surprised "For a moment I suspected that you were a spy or something"

"It's my instinct, always right" A part of him felt proud that he still had the touch after all these years.

*Pfft* "If that's the case then remind me to never play poker against you" X looked back to see how his assistant was doing "Everything ready Jenny?"

The boy nodded and went back inside the car. Marcus couldn't see what he did behind but there were a lot of sounds coming from it.

"X, what's happening?" He asked.

"Just a second Marky. Jessie, could you be a dear and change seats with me? I don't mean to disrespect your driving skills, but you are not ready for what's coming" Again his words were sweet but they commanded incredible authority. Jessica immediately exited the car and switched "Thank you darling, now hold on to something everyone!"

He pressed a button in the car and the entire vehicle shaked. Marcus was surprised and he grabbed his own seat to avoid being tossed away, he then looked outside and was astonished when he discovered that the car was changing form: The tyres were getting bigger, the chassis was expanding, and new exhaust pipes were appearing at the back.

"Did X ask our science team for a morphing car? But they said it was an unstable prototype!"

"Alright gang, let's roll out!" He then pressed a button in the wheel before he could tell him not to do it.

There was a deep rumble within the car and they were going forward at an incredible speed. For a moment he thought that the car had exploded, but it turns out that they were just going so fast that he had been launched back to his seat by the force. He couldn't see anything from his window, they were going so fast that the outside world was a blur, making an effort to talk over the deafening sound of their new engine, he formulated his question again.

"Can ye explain what's happening now?" He was getting too old for things like these.

"I received a distress call from HQ, apparently they were attacked by a giant magical beast, structural damage to the building, and a prisoner escaped" Marcus did not know how he kept himself from fainting right then and there "Don't worry Marcus, we will be there in minutes. Also, from now on I'll always listen to whatever your instincts have to say"

Despite the dire circumstance, Marcus smiled.

"Hah! As ye should!"

-Lilith-

Noise surrounded her from all directions, from her agents screaming in either pain or terror, from the roars that her airborne enemy emitted, and from the sounds of explosions around the battlefield. She looked around to the pile of burned men that littered what was once a wheat field, screaming in rage, she directed the men who were aiming their turrets and mortars.

"Open fire!" She roared.

Her subordinates obeyed her command and fired the missiles (both magical and technological) towards the dragon, the projectiles flew towards the skies, chasing after the creature flying in the clouds. The dragon wasn't good at maneuvering in the air, its wings were too small for its heavy body, so it was slow to react, three missiles impacted directly and caused a great explosion. The dragon was hurt, judging by the cries of pain, so it meant that it would either attack them harder in retaliation, or attempt a retreat.

Both options were fine for her.

"Reload the turrets and change their position, if that beast wants to run we can lure it further away from the city!" She directed her people without looking away from the creature "Medical team! Take advantage of the cease fire and take the injured away! Lawrence! How are the repairs coming?"

"The engineering team managed to fix the trap" The young asian man came near her, his appearance was unkempt as always but this time he looked like he came from a hurricane, he was covered in dirt and ash and he had a few open wounds in his face "But we still have the issue that its a trap that's activated by stepping on it, and that thing flies"

"Oh, don't worry, we'll make sure it lands" She said while focusing her gaze on the target.

"How? We can't direct where this thing lands, even if we manage to entangle its wings with a net it won't crash where you want it to,especially if it's that far away" He said.

"We will guide it to us with the missiles. So far all the projectiles we have launched were to weaken it, I want to force it to come down to fight us and trigger the trap" That was the basics of her plan for now. Of course the priority was to lure the creature away from civilian areas, but if they could take it down here and now it would be great.

"What if he flies back to the city?" Lawrence kept insisting.

"Then we'll strike it with the stronger missiles we haven't used yet" She looked back to their truck holding those pieces of artillery, so far all of their attacks had been for course correction, but those were powerful. She hadn't fired them because it would be stupid to do it in a densely populated area.

"Don't those things take ages to reload? What if we miss and the shots end up going to the city? We could damage something!" She was starting to get irritated by his constant nagging.

"Okay, and what do you suggest? Stare at it into submission?" She yelled at him.

"No. We use our attacks to make it run away to a more secluded area; Right now we are in an open field with low altitude, so it can maniobrate all it wants in the sky , but if we manage to lure it to the mountains it might give us a better fighting chance, or a better spot to set up the trap"

"That would take time and manpower. We do not have much of those in the moment" Lilith wanted to scream, this wasn't the time to be arguing!

"Okay but what about our nets? We have some magical ones that can withstand its strength, we could use those to bring it down, that would be better than incite it to fight" he kept insisting.

"We already tried those on the way here and it dodged them, if we do that again the dragon might expect them. Also we don't have many nets left, so I think it's better to save them for when we already lured it into the ground, that we we'll have a more clear shot, instead of trying to shoot it while it's on the sky"

"But that could give us better odds! It's better than to just put all of our hopes into one single trap that might not work!"

"The presser uses gravity magic to pin down its target to the ground whenever it gets triggered, of course it's going to work!"

"That's if it only lands on it! We have no way of guaranteeing if it's going to do that, not to mention that one stray fireball from that beast could destroy it or damage it" That was the final straw.

"OH for fucks- I AM THE ONE IN CHARGE HERE" SHe grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up "If you wanna say something then save it for whenever we are in a meeting room! Otherwise I don't want to hear it, got it?"

"I'm literally an advisor!" He struggled in her grasp "My job is to tell you when you are going to fuck up, like right now!"

"Uhhm, Lilith-" She heard Steve say.

"WHAT!?" She turned to face him with murderous intent and he backed away, hiding behind his tablet.

"We… We are ready ma'am" He pointed towards the fully loaded turrets.

"About damn time" She let go of Lawrence who fell to the ground unceremoniously and cursed her under his breath "Tell all of them to fire!"

The turrets they had were special. Not only did they have regular missile launchers (There were plenty of those) but they also had magical artillery: Cannons built with materials from other dimensions and engraved with shiny arcane runes that gave it magic properties, akin to the spells the witches casted. The one in front of her was crucial for the mission because it could launch ice spells, since dragons were reptiles they were extra vulnerable to cold attacks.

"On my mark!" Lilith screamed and the people operating the machines aimed them at the sky. Lilith kept looking at the beast's movements to calculate a possible trajectory "...Fire!"

All of her men obeyed her command and several projectiles were launched into the air. Missiles, firebolts, lightnings, and magical attacks of all kinds were fired in a barrage that looked like a new year's celebration. But the majority of them were ice based spells that looked like a comet of ice with a misty trail behind them.

Lilith had calculated well, when she gave the order to launch the creature was facing another direction (for what reason, she did not know) so when it turned to face them again the array of missiles was already in the sky. The monster's wings were not great for maniobrating or sharp turns, so it was hard for it to dodge attacks it didn't see coming. Therefore, the poor beast couldn't do anything to avoid the onslaught: Several explosions impacted on it, creating fire and thunderstorms that resonated even through the ground, like an earthquake. The last one of them had been the ice missiles, which exploded and covered the monster in ice when they impacted against it, creating a giant ice-berg in the sky. For a fraction of a second it just stayed there in the air, like the best ice sculpture of a dragon someone had ever created, but then it started to plummet down to the ground.

"Take cover!" Lilith yelled to her agents.

Lilith had also calculated the Dragon's position in the sky and where it would land should it fall (she had doubted that the attack would take it down, but it was better to be prepared) so none of her agents or their equipment was at risk of being squished by the falling reptile. Still, the shockwave generated when it crashed into the ground was no joke, it created a rumbling noise so loud that she was sure people from other states could hear it, more than one person was blown away from the force in the wind, and the entire area was filled with dust.

"Everyone! Reposition a surround the target! Squad A fire the nets while it's grounded, I don't want that thing going anywhere!" She ordered her team members as soon as she recovered from the shock "Squad B start reloading those turrets in case we need them, squad C work with the engineering team to move the presser, medical team check the wounded!"

Her subordinates did as they were told, before the dust around the crash site had settled her squads had fully surrounded it.

"I don't have a clear shot ma'am" A woman aiming the net launchers said too her "There's too much dust"

"It's fine, your target is too big for you to miss entirely, just try to aim for the wings, we need to keep that thing grounded" Her agent nodded and proceeded to fire as indicated, Lilith didn't see the shot landing, but she did hear the snapping sound of the nets entangling around the dragon.

"Something is wrong, an attack like that should have damaged it, but it wasn't nearly enough to take it down"

They all remained still, eyes focused on their target with pistols ready, waiting for something to happen. Lilith could feel drops of sweat falling in her forehead as the seconds passed, the tension was so high that every minuscule sound or movement startled her, she knew that something was going to happen anytime soon.

"Soooo, do you think we got it?" Steve asked after a moment.

"How could you jinx us like that?" Lawrence complained.

As if on cue, flames erupted from the crater that formed in the crashing. None of them were close enough to get burned, a precaution Lilith had taken beforehand, but it had taken them by surprise and several people backed away.

"Hold your positions and return the fire!" She commanded.

All of them blasted the creature with everything they got but their ammunition, both magical and technological, was incapable of making any dent in the dragon's scales and merely bounced back. But none of that mattered to her, the plan was to make it mad and, judging by its face, it was working.

"Everyone! Fall back! Just as we planned!" She ordered the retreat "Don't get caught up in the fire! Lure it back into the trap!"

All of the squadrons did as she told them and retreated, but some of the people must have underestimated the speed of the beast and were slaughtered by its swiping claw. Lilith looked in horror while the monster used its paws, tail, jaws, and flames to decimate their numbers. Even when most of them managed to escape there were several corpses on the ground.

But they couldn't stop to mourn the dead, there would be plenty of time to do that if they survived.

"We are almost there, come on!" They managed to lure it near the trap: A contraption made of gigantic pressure plates made out of metal, they were arranged in a circular structure, at the center there was a magical purple gem, the catalyst of the spell. The whole structure resembled a bear trap, with the plated circle being the teeth and the gem in the middle the trigger. The trap was big enough to fit the entire dragon on it,they just had to lure it there

"Come on! That's it, we are over" The last of her agents had managed to cross the trap (They were too light to trigger the mechanism) and only the dragon remained at the other side, puffing flames and glaring at them with murderous intent "Come get us, you dumb beast!"

But it didn't come, instead of chasing after them it started to sniff the air warily. She was about to tell her men to start firing again when it opened its mouth and fire erupted from it.

"Everyone behind the barricades!" She ordered.

However the fire wasn't directed at them, instead the torrent of flames impacted against the floor in front of the monster. Lilith understood what was happening, but it was too late, the magical gem at the center exploded in a purple fire, rendering the entire thing useless.

"No… How did it know? We covered the entire thing to camouflage it and it didn't have any smell, it couldn't have noticed it"

"Everyone RUN!" She heard Lawrence say.

There was another explosion in the middle of their formation and half of her troops were separated by a wall of fire. The beast moved forward triumphantly and started attacking those who were isolated by the flames.

Lilith didn't move, she knew it was hopeless. They would be able to outrun this thing, and they used all of their artillery in that last ditch effort so now they didn't have a way of returning fire until they were reloaded again. They had been successful in making that thing angry at them so now it was going to chase them off until they all died, maybe some would be able to escape, but not without a distraction…

"It seems that I won't be able to go back for dinner. Luz, Eda… please take care after each other" She grabbed her gun and stood up, if anyone was going to die for her recklessness, it was going to be her. She was going to stand up and draw the beast's attention.

"Everyone! Listen up! I-"

Her speech was cut short when another explosion made the whole place shake, and made her fall face first into the ground. At first she thought it was another fire blase but then she realized that it felt different: Instead of the abrasive heat and the orange lightning of the firebreath, this was softer and multicolored. She got up and saw how the monster was knocked down, as if it was hit with something big. She noticed that there were orbs of light all around them, like fireflies but bigger, the flickered and shone in all of the colors of the rainbow while they floated above the ground, it reminded Lilith of a ball pit for children.

"Lawrence… what was that?" She asked the young man by her side as she covered her eyes with her hands, it was so shiny that it hurt her to look in any direction.

"I've got no idea, I was knocked out too" He looked around and poked one of the floating orbs "They are not even solid, but it feels a little bit warm"

"Wait, what is that sound?" Steve said.

There was a sizzling sound and then a swooshing sound coming from the fire. Then, in a matter of seconds, all of the flames that were surrounding them were extinguished, creating a ton of vapor. When that cleared, Lilith could see that in the place of the fire there was ice, turning the infernal landscape into a pretty good recreation of a glacier and the multicolored lights made it shine in a majestic way.

"What's happening? Does it have an ice breath too?" Steve asked with concern.

"No… it's something worse" Lilith had seen this before, and it was the worst possible scenario.

There was another flash of light and a purple lighting stroke the monster that was already struggling to get up got hit again, screaming in agony as the crackling electricity coursed through its body. All of them looked above to see an unwelcome view: The wild witch flying above them with her staff.

"What is she doing here?" Lawrence asked.

"Looking for a fight" She answered.

-Luz-

Luz had come here as fast as she could. This farm was on the other side of the city so it had taken her several minutes flying on owlbert. She did arrive at the last place where the creature was seen but there wasn't any trace to follow, in the end Gus had saved her with his tracking app. As she went through the skies she could see the trail of destruction that monster had made from above: Buildings in ruins, smoking craters, burned vehicles, broken walls, and the terrified screams of people. Luz had wanted to land and help but she couldn't lose time, if she got delayed trying to rescue these people the monster could cause more harm to others.

"Judging by all of that it was being chased down by the people in suits, what were they thinking? They literally caused all of the destruction!" Luz thought that maybe they had a plan behind this, because she doubted they merely started to shoot indiscriminately at the beast.

Her lightning attack managed to knock the dragon out for a little bit, which gave her time to think. The thing that was making her worry was the fact that she had no idea what this creature was, which shouldn't be possible since she knew every single creature coming from the boiling isles, thanks to her mom drilling the knowledge to her at a young age.

"It doesn't make any sense! Unless the staff opened a portal to a completely different realm, but it shouldn't even be possible!"

Shoving those worries aside (stressing about it wouldn't help her in this situation) she focused entirely on thinking of a way of solving this situation, she was going to have to be crafty about it, because she doubted that she could win this with mere brute force

"It is a good thing that I already have something planned out" She thought, looking at the lights she created.

-Lilith-

It seemed that the dragon also noticed their new contender and roared at it. Something about it seemed different than when it was fighting them, its eyes were radiating a fury she could feel from here, and its whole body language was exhibiting bloodlust. It took flight in less than a second, charging straight at her and forgetting about them. The witch was waiting just for that: She shot a barrage of fireballs that all impacted on the dragon, but it didn't seem to do much to it, then she teleported away when it tried to bite her and switched to ice spells.

As the battle went on Lilith shook herself from the shock and tried to regain control of the situation. She looked over the battlefield, her remaining troops weren't at risk of being burned alive anymore but they were separated by a massive iceberg.

"Everyone! Regroup in one position near the vans!" She needed to think of a possible escape route in case things went bad "Take this time to tend the wounded and fix the machinery!"

"Good idea. I'll relay that to my units, hopefully we can expect some reinforcements coming" Lawrence said with enthusiasm.

They all managed to put themselves up and started going to the meeting point, they were all battered and bruised, some of them were limping even, but they were still a big number and the majority of them could fight.

"Quickly, reload the turrets!" She demanded once they settled down.

"Shouldn't we treat the wounded first?" Steve asked "There's too many for the medical team"

"No. We need all of our artillery functional as soon as possible, I don't know how much time those two are going to be distracted with each other but it won't be long until they decide to strike us again" She raised her eyes to the skies, the witch was trying to use blue magical beams to attack the dragon as they were speaking, creating an impressive light show "We need to make use of our good luck and act before that happens"

"Are you for real?" Lawrence looked at her like she was crazy. Maybe at this point she truly turned crazy, but she did not care "We couldn't beat one, now you want to fight two of them at the same time? It won't work!"

"Well what do you expect me to do?! Wait until one of them is declared winner and go wreck what's left of the city? I don't think so!" She screamed at his face.

"Boss…" Steve tried to intervene.

"If that happens we will have one less problem to deal with! Think about it: If one of them dies the other would probably be left weak! We could tend the wounded and save our strength in the meantime, there's no need for us to start another fight until we aren't ready!"

"And leave us exposed to the victor? Look at that!" She pointed at how the witch was outmaneuvering the dragon's flames, and then returning fire with some more purple lightning "The dragon is hurt and tired from fighting us. If this battle keeps going the way it is, the witch is going to win! What will we do against her? We do not have any of our gadgets or magical items that we used in the last raid against the other witches! We have nothing to defend us against her magic and she is far smaller than the dragon, so she can easily dodge our shots! We need to strike now while they are distracted, that way we will eliminate the two of them in one shot"

"What? We couldn't fully damage the dragon at all with our best weapons, there's no way it will work on the two of them at the same time!" He kept pleading but she was done listening.

"It will" "It has to…"

"We are giving them a reason to attack us together. And besides, how bad would it be if the witch wins? Personally I like our odds better with her, at least she can be negotiated wit-" He choked at the end of that sentence because as soon as those words left his mouth she grabbed his throat and picked him up.

Everyone gasped, Steve tried to break them apart, Lawrence struggled to breathe on her grasp, and the rest of the agents were saying things, but she wasn't paying attention. Her mind was elsewhere, back in that forest, back to being enticed by those pretty lights, back to hearing that sweet voice making empty promises, back to her moment of weakness, back to her innocent years.

"We…" She started with a somber tone "Never negotiate with magical beings, they are the enemy"

She waited for him to nod his head, or to lower his gaze, anything to stand down and submit to her will, but he kept fighting her grasp and giving her the biggest glare he was capable of at the moment. Finally Steve managed to break them apart and he gasped for air. Lilith turned around and left him choking in the ground, she had better things to do.

"Boss! Something is happening! came a voice from below them.

Lilith had been so engrossed with the battle above their heads that she had completely forgotten about the colorful lights illuminating the landscape, but now that one of their agents mentioned it she noticed how they seemed to shine even brighter than before, in fact some of them looked like they were getting closer.

"Are they… floating?" Lawrence asked.

Indeed they were. The light orbs started elevating to the sky like balloons on a parade, the reflections from the ice walls around them made the spectacle even more flashy. Lilith couldn't help but notice that some colors were going faster than the others, for example all of the green orbs were already as high as the witch was.

She watched as all of the green lights ascended and started forming a pattern in the sky, it was like looking at one of those drone formations that created images in the sky: All of them assembled in a circle with a strange pattern inside of it, she couldn't tell the exact size of the circle but it was pretty big, if she had to guess it was several feet larger than a truck.

Lilith could not figure out what all of this was, but she did not have a lot of time to think about it because when the witch passed by it all of the little orbs blasted in a green shine and suddenly thick vines as long as a subway appeared from it. She could not believe her eyes, the pattern in the sky had turned into some sort of portal where roots and plants were emerging from! They were bigger than any plant on earth, probably as big as some specimens of dinosaurs, and they were entangling the dragon at an incredible speed. The beast tried to struggle but the roots were already forming knots around its limbs, in fact Lilith could see that they were growing beyond their original size, it tried to burn it but they also went around its mouth, preventing any fire from coming out.

-Luz-

"It's working!" She thought happily upon seeing the tangled mess that became the dragon.

Those lights that she left in the battlefield were an idea that she thought of when she was discussing things with Willow and Gus. Usually witches only use magic from their bile sac, which is generated by their metabolism, that means there's a limited amount their bodies can produce before giving into exhaustion. WIld witches who were connected to the titan could use the magic from the Boiling isles themselves in the form of glyphs, gathering magic from the titan itself. One time they were talking about that and Luz mentioned that she missed being able to use the magic of the environment to her favor and Willow asked her if there was a way she could use the nature of earth to her favor. They did some research and found out a way of doing it, basically the light orbs she created can collect natural energy from the environment and turn it into magic, that way she can have access to stronger spells that would require a lot of energy and time to cast.

"Let's see if this works!"

-Lilith-

"Now, quickly! While it's restrained! Reload the turrets and open fire whenever you have a clean shot!" She yelled at the top of her lungs.

"That…would be the stupidest idea you could ever have" She turned around to glare at whoever dared to interrupt her, but she was surprised when she saw Marcus dashing towards her. He looked tired, as if he had been running for a while, his hair was tousled and his clothes were all out of place, normally he would take great care of his appearance, but it seemed that he had other priorities today.

"Marcus… Why are you here? You were supposed to be out of town"

"We received a distress call and came as quickly as we could, and good thing we did that! Lilith, what in the ever-loving fuck you have going on here!" He extended his hands and signaled at the destruction around them.

"I'm sorry? Are you trying to say that this was my fault?" She was really hurt by that, all day she had been trying to fix this mess "And what did you mean by we?"

"Ah, yes over here" She heard a familiar voice and saw X alongside his assistant and another agent trying to catch up *huff* "Gotta say Marky, you are pretty agile for- *pant* your age" Once he finally arrived he used Marcus for support as he caught his breath.

"Thanks" The scottish man didn't even pay him any attention and instead focused his glare on her "I saw the city's state on our way back, what were ye thinking?" His eyes had a furious gleam on them, he started walking towards her.

"What are you talking about? I've been trying to take this thing out, I am the only reason why the whole town isn't on fire!" She raised her head to remind him that she was taller, but that didn't seem to deter his attitude.

"No but you definitely are the reason why a third of it is! I've received the report, you provoked the creature on purpose and had it follow you through an area full of civilians! All of that havoc is your fault!" He jabbed an accusing finger on her chest while pointing with his other hand to the smoking city.

"We were luring it away! This was the closest area without civilians nearby, we carved a direct path and evacuated everyone on the way to deal with this in a secluded area! If it wasn't for me that thing would've decimated the entire town" It had been a hard choice to make, but she chose the route that would have less casualties.

"Oh, really? And tell me, was it interested in burning down a human settlement before you found it? Or did it just want to fight us?" That comment threw her off.

"What are you-"

"Uhhm, he may have a point" Steve interrupted her. He was kneeling next to Lawrence with a hand on his back "Before we started to lure it back here it was only interested in fighting our agents, and it never got closer to the city when it escaped"

"Steve! You-"

"And before that it striked the headquarters with the clear intent of breaking out a prisoner, so it's obvious it has a fixation with our organization" Marcus breathed heavily and calmed down "It is clear that you misjudged the situation. By assuming it was a rampaging beast with no motive you doomed part of the city, when you could've retreated"

Lilith was fuming and was about to strike him with a comeback, but something happened that drew her attention from the conversation. The aerial battle took a twist, the beast managed to break free from the trees (At this point they had grown so far that the monster looked like it had a small jungle on it's back, with leaves and everything) and breathed a hellfire so strong that she felt it from where they were, when the flames dissipated the plants were all turned to ash.

"For fucks sake! Marcus, we had it!" Lilith pointed at the now released dragon.

"What were ye going to do? Shoot at it? The blasts from our turret weren't going to do much. In fact they might have weakened the plants, making its escape easier" Marcus explained.

Lilith grinded her teeth, she really did not have a comeback for that one, so she kept looking at the fight. She noticed that the dragon was so angry that it's attacks were quicker and harder to predict, so far the witch had been able to outmaneuver the dragon and safely cast spells from a distance, but somehow it got a lucky hit with one of its claws and managed to destabilize her flight, the impact hadn't been so severe, but it slowed her down enough to be caught by its firebreath. They could hear the cry of pain from there.

"I guess that the battle is not as decided as ye had thought" Marcus commented.

The dragon roared and shook its entire body to get rid of the little weeds that were left from its attack and charged back at the witch who was free falling.

"X! Do you have the car ready?" Marcus shouted.

"Of course!" X looked in the pockets of his coat and pulled out a tiny black device with a red button on it, he pressed it and a compartment opened on the roof of the black car beside him, a small cannon emerged from it and rotated to aim towards the dragon.

"Now!" Marcus ordered and X pressed the button again.

The cannon fired and Lilith could see that instead of regular ammunition a net was blasted from it, electricity coursed through it so she guessed that it was charged with some kind of magic. As it flew towards its objective, the net expanded in the air until reaching a really considerable size. The aim was perfect because it hit the dragon's wings and immediately entangled them both, disturbing its flight and causing it to start falling again.

"What?" Lilith was confused "Why would you-"

"It is in our best interests to prolong this fight as much as we can" X said "If this ends early and one of those two is still in good fighting conditions we will be screwed"

Lilith gritted her teeth.

-Luz-

She screamed in pain when she felt the impact of the claw, a sharp pain extended through her lower back and abdomen. The sudden hit threw her out from Owlbert and before she could realize it she was free falling. Luz struggled to remain conscious while she thought of something to do for this situation, her wind glyph? She attempted to cast the spell but it turns out that was too weak for that, she needed to stabilize herself before attempting any magic of that kind. Before she could sink deeper in despair her palisman caught her mid air, saving her when she was less than thirty feet from the floor.

"Woah, thanks Owlbert" She said weakly and the tiny owl winked at her. Luz looked into her bag and pulled out a familiar relic: The healing glove that Eda used on her when she was unconscious. She quickly tapped on the item's magic and a warm aura engulfed her, she felt reenergized and all of her wounds started closing.

"It's really good that this doesn't leave scars, otherwise Eda might have a panic attack" She thought while looking at the closing wounds running across her belly with the shape of three giant claws "Now how in the titan's name am I going to do this? I added some special seeds produced by terra in order that the vines would keep growing by leaching energy from its blood, and even that wasn't enough! I'm going to have to bring out the big guns…"

She stopped mid-air and started channeling her powers.

-Lilith-

"...and we can't be discussing it right now, please! I know that my actions may seem rash and maybe I made some mistakes, but this isn't a time for this" She looked at X, who was looking at this whole situation with interest, as if they were part of his favorite soap opera "X you are the man in charge, I'll accept any punishment of disciplinary action you find appropriate when we go back to base, but now it's time to act! If you have brought weaponry with you we are going to need it" She spoke while bowing down her head at him.

X didn't answer immediately, instead he looked over her with an analyzing stare, then he looked at the battle in the sky; The witch was using illusions to create several copies of herself and each one of those was trying to use a different spell against the dragon: Fire, sound, thunder, rocks, acid, ice, and even mud, but nothing seemed to work against the monster's thick hide. After a while he casted a knowing look in Marcus' direction and nodded at him.

"I'm sorry but I am forced to disagree with you Lily. After what I've seen today I feel more inclined to listen to Marcus' expertease, rather than yours" He said solemnly.

"What! But-" He was quick to silence her with a finger on her lips.

"Ah-ah-ahh, you know the rules. I am the superior here and therefore you have to listen to me. We are following Marcus commands from now on, you can complain all about it when we are safe and sound"

Lilith wanted to retort in some way, but she knew better than to try that so she just bit her inner cheek and stayed put. Marcus didn't say anything, he just stood there and looked at the scene: Most of their troops managed to reach their meeting point and the medical team was treating the injured, while the engineering team was making hastily repairs to their equipment, in the horizon the witch managed to get back up in the air, and now she was using tornadoes to defend herself against the dragon's flames. Her mentor then moved to the side and helped Lawrence get back up.

"Everything alright lad?" He asked while clapping his back.

"I'll be fine" The man just dusted himself.

"Right, for now let's just take care of ourselves. Everyone who is capable of walking should help transport the wounded, we called for more back up and they should arrive at any given moment, wait for them in the road ahead. Engineering team, once those things are fixed I want them loaded just in case" All of them nodded and put to work.

After that he started climbing a nearby ice mountain.

"And the rest of us? Should we strategize or fortify or… something?" Steve asked.

"What could we do that won't make the situation worse? Without the turrets there's no way of attacking, and what are you expecting to fortify against a flying opponent? No, the only thing we can do is observe and wait"

And so they did. All five of them just climbed that pit of ice to observe a colossal battle happening in the sky.

"This is stupid"

What are you expecting to get from this Marcus?" She asked after a couple seconds.

"Information my dear, a very valuable asset" He said with a smug smile.

"Sir, it's happening again!" One of their agents pointed back at the light orbs. This time both the blue and the yellow lights took off to the sky and formed two different circular patterns on it, with similar sizes like the one from before.

"Is that an attack?" She asked.

"Sort of…" He said with a smug face "Witches have a lot of techniques for whenever they lack raw power or energy inside of them. She saw how her attacks wouldn't affect the monster normally, so she left behind an alternative"

"The lights?" Lawrence ventured.

"Correct. I have read that witches can turn the energy from the environment into useful magic for them, I guess this is what it was, the patterns we saw shape the raw magic into whatever spell the witch needs" He explained.

The witch flew past these new circles and all the orbs bursted in blue and yellow energy. Instead of summoning something from them like the last time the two currents of energy merged in one point above the witch, she then pointed at the dragon below her and it exploded in one giant energy beam. It was light blue in color and it looked like a waterfall of light, crashing down with incredible force. The dragon wanted to fly away but the light was too big (almost twice the size of the creature) so it was enveloped by it. Snow and ice were produced whenever the light came in contact with something, and the dragon was quickly covered in a thick layer of ice as soon as the beam touched it. The witch kept firing the spell until all of the energy was drained, as a result her opponent was buried in a massive glacier the size of a skyscraper and the whole field ended up looking like an arctic landscape.

"Holy shit!" Lawrence exclaimed "That was way stronger than the ice attack she used earlier to put out the fire, how the hell did she manage to amass so much energy?"

"It is winter, so the snow around and the cold weather might have helped her there" Marcus said.

Lilith wasn't paying attention to them, she was looking with terror and the massive display of strength that their opponent just did, an attack like that might be enough to tear down a whole city, they were lucky that this was a secluded area. While she was evaluating what they could do, she saw to her horror that the light orbs were ascending again, this time the purple ones.

"W-What is she planning to do now?" Steve asked "The battle is over!"

"She is striking us next" She said while reaching for her gun.

"Don't be naive, did you really think that ice was enough to take down that monster?" He pointed at the ice structure, some cracks forming and an orange light from inside of it told her the dragon was trying to get out "That was just to restrain it, engineering team, how are you going with the repairs?" He shouted.

"All ready and loaded sir!" They answered him.

"Good, aim all of our ice spells at the dragon and fire ´em when I tell ya" He ordered and they all did that.

She heard some cracking and looked above. All this time the sky had been covered by clouds but now they were darker, with some thunders crackling in the distance. All of the purple orbs created a new pattern. On the ground below a flame erupted from the glacier and the dragon emerged by destroying the ice. Then it tried to fly away but it was still partially frozen, still it didn't give up and breathed fire to the sky, in the hopes of reaching its rival.

"That's not good, it's going to break out before she fires!" Lawrence's scream was right, the witch's spell did not look ready to fire yet while the dragon looked like it needed seconds to break free from its icy prison.

"Not under me watch it's not, fire!" Marcus commanded.

All of their ice cannons blasted their ammunition towards the top of the glacier. The ice rays and snow meteors collapsed with the dragon and created an explosion, a new layer of ice formed on top of the dragon, repairing the cracks made by the creature's struggling. It was clear that it wasn't enough to completely restrain it

"You might want to brace yerselves" Marcus said with a smile.

-Luz-

She felt terrible about what was going to happen. Luz never killed anyone, not that she was aware of at least, her mom and some of the other wild witches that raised her had done it, and they told her that sometimes it is necessary to protect what you love. Luz was very small when they told her that and she refused to believe it so, she always thought that there's always a choice and killing someone makes you the same as the evil you were trying to fight, however, here she was.

"I don't have anything else capable of just hurting this creature, the only thing left would be my orb-charged fire glyph, but this dragon seems pretty immune to high temperatures" Her conviction almost wavered, but then she remembered all of the buildings this thing destroyed, and all of the people that it probably killed. She thought about everyone back in gravesfield; Eda, Willow, Gus, Amity, and Viney, she decided to make sure it won't hurt anyone else "I'm sorry but I have to stop you!"

-Lilith-

Just like the last time the witch passed nearby and all of the orbs exploded in a light burst, except that this time no vines came out of it, Lilith thought that it might have misfired, but then the brightest lightning that she ever saw appeared on the sky: A pillar of purple light so big that it felt like ten thunderstorms wanted to strike the same place at the same time, her eyes barely managed to recover from the sudden flash when the thunder resonated in her ears, she had to cover herself in a vain attempt to block the roaring sound. After all of that was done she was knocked back by the strongest wind she ever felt. She was too confused to understand what was happening for a while, a lot of dust flying to her face prevented her from seeing and she was more focused on not falling off, but then she understood that the sheer force of the lightning caused a shockwave big enough to reach their position.

When the ringing on her ears stopped she opened her eyes, there was a layer of dust and sand covering everything, most of her agents had been knocked over by the force of the wind and those who weren't were as disoriented as her.

"What… What happened?" One of them said.

She didn't make any comments and instead she proceeded to get up, she needed to know how the battle went so she started making her way back to an elevated position. As she went she saw how decimated her troops were: The turrets had been torn apart in the blast and were tossed aside by the strong winds, her agents were recovering and still shaken by what happened, she also saw Steve trying to help out Lawrence, who actually managed to get buried beneath a pile of dirt. She moved past all of them, not caring about anything but knowing the result, when she reached the top of the mountain where she was knocked off she saw Marcus still standing there and looking at the horizon, like nothing happened.

"It is over lass" He nodded with his chin towards the glacier, which had a gargantuan hole in the middle of it, with cracks everywhere. She saw that at the bottom of it, almost obscured by all the shards of ice, was the smoking charred carcass of the dragon. She wasn't entirely sure if it was dead, but it wasn't moving and it lost an entire wing, so she counted it as a success.

Lilith laughed, after all of what happened today she could not help but feel joy upon seeing that thing defeated. Surethey still had a lot of cleanup to do, but for now they were fine.

"How come that you weren't blown away by that?" She asked.

"I have strong legs, what can I say? Either that or all of ye need to train more" He laughed "But never mind that, look ahead on top of the ice"

She did as he told her. The lightning had reshaped the glacier, giving it a spike-like structure, and in the top of it all she could see a single figure sitting there.

"Is she still up?"

"And that's not all" Marcus said.

She saw with horror how the red orbs, the only ones that were left after the whole fight, started levitating towards her.

"No… Marcus we have to do something! Do you have a deployable barrier with you? Maybe in the car?" She said desperately.

"To what end? It won't hold up" Her mentor was stoic, not even the threat of certain death managed to unnerve him.

Lilith kept trying to talk to him but he stopped answering, then she watched with horror as another circular pattern was formed by the orbs in the air.

Lilith closed her eyes, thinking, for the second time in the day, that she was going to die without having the chance of saying goodbye to her loved ones. As much as she waited for the eventual impact it never came, she opened her eyes again and saw that the orbs had broken formation and extinguished, the witch still stood there, too far away for her to judge her expression, doing nothing.

"What happened?" She asked with a broken voice.

"A test of goodwill, my dear" Marcus said "She wanted us to know that she could've killed all of us if she wanted to, but she chose not to"

Lilith was speechless, she watched as the witch hopped into her staff and flew away.

"Now then" Marcus said "This will be a very interesting hunt"

---

I found a way of using the light orbs as an offensive spell :), also my logic was ice+light=ice beam!

I'd like to formally apologize again for not uploading sooner. The thing is that I wrote this chapter before but I did not like how it went (The plot had a whole different route). I kept going with it bc "Hey it's too late to stop now" but then when I was really done with it I decided to toss it away and start over bc it was awful, so that's why 70% of this chapter was done in the last weeks.

Here you have the images that I made for this chapter. I wanna make art for descriptions (I am too poor to pay commissions) but I suck at it, I considered putting a pic I drew of when Wrath was hit by the light orbs but I gave up halfway through, Here's a link if you wanna see it tho (If you are reading this from you need to click this to see the other images I made of the orb glyphs): /a/z9c2Rxu

I swear that the next one will come before march ends (As a late option)