(A/N: Alright, here we go, the chapter you've all been waiting for. Well, one of them anyway. Luz introduces Anne and Sasha to the Owl House crew. It's going to be an interesting meeting to be sure. And hopefully Eda will be able to help Anne and Sasha save Marcy. But even if she does, there's still Bill himself to deal with. Let's see how this meeting goes.)

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 4: Magical Meetings

"Your mom seems really nice," Anne complimented as Luz led her and Sasha through the woods behind her mother's house; they had opted not to tell Mrs. Noceda the real reason for Anne and Sasha's visit so as not to worry her.

Luz smiled in appreciation at the compliment to her mother. "Thanks. She really is the best. She not only held things together after my dad died, but she didn't hesitate to take in my friends after they got stranded here."

"And adopt me!"

Anne glanced at the other person who spoke, a girl around their age with wild hair that spiked out in different directions, the ends of the spikes having greenish-blue tips. Anne knew who this was; Luz had told her all about her adoptive sister, who was actually a magic-eating creature from the Boiling Isles known as a greater basilisk. Having escaped from a life of painful experiments by Belos' forces, given only the label "Number Five" to call herself, she had taken refuge in the human world, where she had begun going by the name Vee.

Anne was also fully aware that greater basilisks had the ability to shapeshift, and Vee had spent several months disguising herself as Luz, going to summer camp in her stead and then living in the Noceda household in her place while the real Luz had been stuck on the Boiling Isles. She was also aware that the form Vee was currently in now wasn't her true form, and Anne was itching to see what she really looked like, but was afraid it would be rude to ask.

Sasha eyed the basilisk curiously. "So you, like, eat magic? Like, actually eat it?"

Vee cocked her head to the side. "Um, yes."

"Ok, but, like, how? I mean, it doesn't make sense, how can you eat magic?"

"Like this," Luz replied.

Stringbean became a staff for her and she drew a magic circle in the air. Before whatever spell she had cast could activate, Vee suddenly inhaled deeply, sucking up the glowing circle. Then both she and Luz struck a pose as they threw out their hands, the latter letting out a cry of "Ta-da!"

Sasha blinked. "Uh… huh…"

Anne couldn't take it anymore and excitedly cried out, "Can I see your real form?"

Sasha did a doubletake, looking at Anne in alarm. "Whoa, what!?"

Cocking her head to the side, Vee glanced at Luz, who gave her a smile and nodded. "It's ok."

The unease Vee had displayed at Anne's question disappeared and she smiled back at the others before suddenly shifting to her serpentine true form. Sasha let out a cry as she covered her eyes and turned away while Anne cupped her cheeks with a strange mixture of awe and disturbance in her face.

"Aww, she's so cute," she said. "You're both adorable and terrifying."

"Anne, what are you doing!?" Sasha exclaimed as she blindly reached out for her and attempted to turn her away from Vee. "Don't you remember from all those fantasy games and movies Marcy put us through? If you look a basilisk in the eye, you're supposed to die or turn to stone or something."

Vee blinked and glanced at Luz, who shrugged, before looking back at the other two and gesturing to herself. "Those are basilisks. I'm a greater basilisk."

Slowly, Sasha cracked open an eye and glanced at her. "What's the difference?"

Vee cocked her head to the side again. "Um… I'm greater?"

Noting that nothing bad had happened to Luz or Anne, Sasha hesitantly faced Vee and lowered her hands. The basilisk gave her a smile and a wave as Sasha looked her up and down curiously.

"Hmm…" she muttered thoughtfully. A thought seemed to occur to her and she pointed at Vee. "You know, it's too bad you didn't end up in Amphibia. You probably would have fit right in without even needing a disguise."

Vee's eyes widened with interest. "Really? Wow. I think I would like to go to Amphibia one day."

A sigh escaped Anne. "You and me both."

Luz offered her a sympathetic smile. "Hey, we may not be able to take you to Amphibia, but we can still show you the Boiling Isles." She pushed aside some tree branches. "And here we are!"

Looking eager, Anne and Sasha rushed past Vee, who shifted back to her human disguise. They came to a stop in front of a small house, and their smiles fell. Other than a rather decorative front door, there was nothing about the house that looked all that special.

"That's the Owl House?" Anne asked, sounding disappointed. "It's not quite as… owly as I expected."

Luz let out a laugh. "No, no, that's not the Owl House. That's just how we get to it. Watch."

She went up to the front door and opened it. There was a flash of light from within, and the voice of a child declared, "Welcome to the Boiling Isles! Watch your step!" But once the light died down, it was not the inside of the house that was on the other side of the door. Rather, it was the outside of a whole new realm, where the very ground and sky were different from that of Earth.

"Whoa," Anne marveled. "That is so cool."

Luz beamed. "I know, right? The Collector made it for us. Now Mom can come and visit whenever she wants, or I can go visit her."

Practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, Anne grabbed Sasha's wrist. "Come on, let's go!"

She pulled, but Sasha didn't budge, looking apprehensive, and she made a hissing sound of disapproval. "Yeah, about that. This place is the corpse of a giant monster, right?"

Luz nodded. "Yes, the Titan. Why?"

Sasha made another hissing sound, longer this time. "Yeeeeah, see, I'm really not comfortable with walking around on a rotting carcass. I still have nightmares about the time we went into Mother Olm's ear." She shivered in disgust. "I don't think I've ever truly felt clean since."

Luz rolled her eyes, though she did look amused. "Oh, come on. You can't even tell you're on a dead body most of the time. It's pretty much all fossilized anyway. Just… think of it like dinosaur bones on display at a museum."

Sasha still looked uncomfortable, so Anne pulled out the big guns. "It's to save Marcy and the world."

That seemed to do the trick, as Sasha let out a sigh of resignation. "Fine, for Marcy… And the world too, I guess."

Smiling, Luz walked through the magic doorway. Anne followed, leading a reluctant Sasha behind her, and Vee followed up the rear. And upon stepping over the threshold, the four girls now found themselves on the Boiling Isles.

Turning to the other three, Luz proudly held up her arms. "This is the Owl House!"

Anne and Sasha turned around to look at the structure Luz was motioning to. Now this was more along the lines of what they were expecting. The Owl House was indeed a strangely crafted home with a rather unique design. Although, for all Anne and Sasha knew, perhaps houses like this were nothing out of the ordinary.

As for the Boiling Isles itself, in all honesty, the land didn't look all that different from a recolored version of Earth when looking at its natural settings. But upon looking at what they could see as a whole, there was indeed a very big difference from the human world. Colossal, protruding bones, the remains of the Titan, stood tall and proud amongst the land, and the giant skull seemed to be observing all. As for the civilization itself, it was something that one would either expect to see in their wildest dreams or their most horrific nightmares.

Both Anne and Sasha stared at the sight before them in utter disbelief. "What Marcy wouldn't give to see this," the former muttered quietly.

"No kidding," Sasha added. "It does almost make you forget that you're living on a corpse. I mean, if it weren't for the giant skull and bones."

"Told ya," said Luz as she came to stand beside them. "I still remember the first time I saw the Boiling Isles." The smile suddenly left her face. "I actually thought I might have died and went to Hell."

"Ha!" Sasha cried, pointing at Anne in triumph.

"Luz, is that you?" a new voice called from within the Owl House. "Are your human friends here?"

The smile returned to Luz's face as she turned back to the Owl House and cupped her hands around her mouth. "Yeah, Eda, it's me! Come say hi!" She then turned to Sasha. "Eda is a little… rough around the edges, but deep down, she's a big softie."

Anne slapped the blonde on the back. "Just like you."

Letting out a low growl, Sasha cut her eyes at her. "Watch it, Boonchuy."

The door they had come through was on the back of the Owl House, and coming around from the front was not just Eda, but four others. Anne only recognized the Owl Lady though, and she had changed a bit since the last time she had seen her ten years ago. Aside from having aged a bit, Eda was now missing her right arm, and in its place was a large golden hook.

Other than that, she was still the same as Anne remembered. The same pale skin, same pointy ears, same sharp, golden tooth, same wild hair in different shades of gray, and the same eyes, with the right being a golden yellow and the left being a silver gray.

Anne raised a hand in greeting. "Eda, hi! It's been so long! Sorry to hear about your hand."

The Owl Lady smiled and pointed at her. "Frog Girl, look at you, all grown up." Her different colored eyes shifted to Sasha. "Who's your friend?"

"Oh, this is Sasha. She was one of the ones who got lost in Amphibia with me. Sasha, this is Eda Clawthorne, the Owl Lady."

Looking uncomfortable, the blonde girl hesitantly waved. "Uh, hey, there. Um, what's with the Captain Hook look?"

Eda blinked. "The what?"

"Sasha, that's rude!" Anne scolded in a whisper.

Sasha motioned towards Eda. "What? I wasn't just referring to the hook-hand, although it does complete the look. I was mostly talking about how she's dressed."

Eda raised an eyebrow and adjusted her collar. "Yeah, I don't know who this Captain Hook is, but if they dress like I do, then they have a great taste in fashion."

Luz decided to step in at that moment, getting between her human friend and witch friends. "Ok, so, introductions time. You girls have met Eda. This is my friend Gus Porter."

She motioned to the dark-skinned boy who had his hair in short dreadlocks. He smiled at Anne and Sasha as he adjusted his glasses. "Always a pleasure to meet new humans. I consider myself to be a bit of an expert on them."

Luz gave an amused roll of her eyes before moving onto the slightly pudgy-faced, black-haired girl in glasses who was also packing a fair bit of muscle. "This is Willow Parks, plant magic expert and team leader of the Emerald Entrails." At Anne and Sasha's blank looks, she added, "That's her flyer derby team's name. It's a magic sport."

Willow politely waved. "Hi, nice to meet you."

"And this is Hunter Deamonne, Willow's BF and palismen carving prodigy," Luz continued, motioning to the oldest of the group after Eda, a boy who was heavily scarred.

He offered them a shy smile. "Hey."

"And this," Luz declared, stepping up to the last girl and throwing an arm around her shoulder to pull her in close, "is Amity Blight, my totally awesome girlfriend."

The girl in question had pale skin and golden yellow eyes. Her lavender hair was in a ponytail, revealing that it was dyed, as her brown roots could be seen on the sides of her head where her hair was pulled back. She blushed at Luz's compliment, wrapping an arm around her as well. "Aww, you're the awesome girlfriend."

She punctuated this with a kiss to Luz's cheek. Already knowing where this was going, Sasha glanced at Anne, who, just as she expected, was practically gushing at the public display of affection.

"Aren't they just the cutest thing?" Anne whispered to her. "They call themselves Lumity, and I agree; that's adorable. I can't decide whether to go with Huntlow or Winter for Willow and Hunter though."

Sasha gave her a half-lidded look. "You are way too into shipping."

"Guys," Luz continued with the introductions as she gestured to the two human girls, "this is my pen pal, Anne Boonchuy, and her friend and now ours too, Sasha Waybright."

Smiling, Amity pointed at them. "Yeah, you're the ones who saved the human world from that robot frog invasion. We saw the news reports on that when we were in the human world."

Anne bashfully rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah, that was us."

The smile left Luz's face and she began looking around. "Hey, where's King?"

As if on cue, the young Titan in question came scurrying around the corner. "I'm here! I'm here!"

Anne's eyes grew the size of saucers at the sight of him. Luz had sent her pictures of King over the years, but seeing him in real life was more than she could take. "So cute!"

"Weh?" King muttered.

Anne immediately lunged forward, snatching the Titan up and began cuddling him. "Oh, you're even more adorable in person! Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? You are! Yes, you are! Yes, you are!"

King just rested limply in Anne's arms, looking completely flabbergasted. Once he got over his shock though, he began struggling in her embrace. "No! I'm not adorable! Eda, help me!"

"Let her get it out of her system, King," the Owl Lady replied in a bored voice as she nonchalantly examined her fingernails.

Sasha looked on with a disinterested look on her face as King struggled in Anne's hold before he finally managed to get free and quickly retreated behind Luz. She couldn't exactly blame Anne for her reaction though; the little Titan was adorable. Only coming up to Luz's waist, he resembled a bipedal fox-like creature with dark gray fur and large eyes peeking out of a horned skull.

"So, is he, like, your pet or something?" she asked.

Anne let out a shocked gasp. "Sasha, show some respect. That's King. He's a Titan. The last of the Titans in fact. His dad is literally the Boiling Isles. He's practically a god."

Sasha did a doubletake. She looked from King to the skull of the Boiling Isles and back several times before throwing up her hands. "What!? You're telling me that this little… thing is a going to grow into something that huge?"

Luz wobbled her head. "Well, King is still a baby Titan–"

"I'm not a baby! I'm a teenager!"

"So he's still growing. But Titans can actually adjust their size. When I met King's dad in that in-between place, he wasn't much bigger than a normal person. And we saw a bunch of Titan skeletons of different sizes on Titan Trapper Island. The Boiling Isles is probably the maximum size a Titan can reach."

"And I am no one's pet!" King declared, pointing at Sasha accusingly.

The blonde girl held up her hands. "Sorry, meant no offense. I'm still trying to wrap my head around all this." Her gaze shifted to the animal-like creatures each of them were accompanied by. "What about those?"

Hunter glanced at the blue bird on his shoulder. "Oh, these aren't pets. These are our palismen. Mine's name is Waffles."

"And this is Clover," Willow said, affectionately stroking the bee on her shoulder.

"Mine's Emmiline," Gus stated as he held out his blue chameleon.

Amity pointed at Anne's feet. "And that's Ghost."

Anne looked down to see a white cat as it rubbed up against her leg and she instantly fell in love. "Yours is a cat!?" She immediately snatched it up and began nuzzling her face into its fur. "Best palisman choice ever!"

A small owl fluttered over and landed on Eda's head and she smiled up at it. "And this here's Owlbert. Ever since I lost my magic, I have to rely on either him or glyphs to cast spells."

A frown crossed Anne's face as she set Ghost down. "I thought yours was called Hooty."

Eda just waved this off. "Nah, Hooty's not a palisman. He's…" She paused and tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Huh, you know, I'm not entirely sure what he is, but he's sort of the… how would you call it? The guard dog of the house. But he's hanging out with my sister, Lilith, today, so consider yourself lucky you don't have to meet him."

"Eda, that's mean," Luz scolded.

"Buuuut not inaccurate," Willow replied uneasily.

Curious, Sasha glanced at Vee. "Do you have one of those magic animal staff things? A palister?"

"Palisman," the basilisk corrected. "And no, we basilisks don't get palismen." She gestured to herself. "Magic-eater, remember?"

Anne tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense."

Gus crossed his arms as he studied Anne. "So, you're the human who works in the frog place at the zoo, right?" He glanced at Luz. "You did warn her about the giraffes, didn't you?"

Luz wobbled her head. "More or less. But she works at the aquarium, not the zoo, so she's fine."

Sasha glanced at Anne with a raised eyebrow. "Um, what about giraffes?"

Anne just made a pfft sound and waved this off. "Apparently, they originated from the Boiling Isles and were banished to the human realm long ago or something." She looked back at Gus. "Look, I may not work at the zoo, but I've been to one and have seen the giraffes there, and I never noticed anything unusual about them."

Gus threw his hands in the air. "That's because they only reveal their true selves to witches! H-Here, look."

He reached into his pocket and took out a strange pair of tweezers and brought them to his ear. Luz raised her scarred eyebrow as she gave him a strange look. "Do you just carry those around with you?"

"Of course," he replied, as if this should have been obvious. He then proceeded to pull a photograph out of his ear. "See?"

He held the picture out, and both Anne and Sasha stepped closer to look. The photo was still black as it developed, but once it did, it revealed a giraffe whose face seemed to have come apart and opened up. Both girls let out shocked cries and grabbed each other at the unexpected and horrific sight.

"Mmm-hmm," Gus replied with a nod. "That was from our time in the human world."

"Ok, I believe you," Anne said, knowing she would never be able to look at giraffes the same way again. "Just get rid of that thing, please."

Gus just smiled and drew a magic circle in the air with his finger, and the photo dissolved into particles of light and disappeared. "You gotta dispose of memory pictures properly, otherwise they could damage the actual memories."

At that, Amity guiltily averted her eyes and began whistling nonchalantly. But it seemed that at this point, Eda had begun to lose interest with the whole getting-to-know-each-other process. "Anyway, Frog Girl–"

"Anne."

"Whatever. Didn't you and Sassy–"

"Sasha."

"Yeah, that. Didn't you come here because you needed help with something?"

A sigh escaped Anne. "Yeah, we did." She glanced at the blonde girl. "You want to explain this time?"

Sasha shrugged. "Sure, fine. See, we have this friend named Marcy, and something happened to her…"

This time, Sasha explained the situation while Anne added her own two cents every so often. Luz's friends listened with rapt attention, and even Eda, who had appeared disinterested at the start of the story, was completely invested by the end of it.

"And that's why we're here," Sasha finished. She gave the witches a hopeful look. "So, what do you think? Can you help us?"

All heads immediately turned to Eda. As the oldest, wisest, and most experienced of the group, they naturally looked to her for answers. The Owl Lady seemed to acknowledge this as she crossed her arms in thought.

"Well, Eda, what do you think?" Luz asked hopefully.

"Hmm," the Owl Lady muttered. "This is a tough one. I know a bit about possession, but this doesn't seem like a normal case of possession. Rather, it sounds more like a hostile takeover of the mind. And an interdimensional being. Yeah, that's a little out of my area of expertise. I don't think anyone on the Boiling Isles would know about something like that. This Bill may not even be using magic, or at least not a traditional magic like we use, so it could be a different kind of magic from our own."

"What's that mean?" Sasha asked worriedly.

An annoyed grumble escaped Eda, as if she were frustrated by her own lack of knowledge. "There's too many unknown variables. I don't like not knowing things."

Down by her feet, King stood silently. His eyes were wide with concern though and he suddenly turned and rushed into the Owl House.

"So, what are you saying?" Anne practically cried. "That there's no way to save Marcy?"

Eda shook her head. "No, not that. Just that it's going to be tricky especially if we don't know what he's capable of."

"Better facing him now though than when he manages to get a body and come into the real world," Luz pointed out. "That could be even more dangerous."

"Yeah, that worries me too," the Owl Lady admitted. "And if this guy has the power to conquer the multiverse like he says he can, then we definitely don't want that to happen. So our best chance to stop him is to defeat him while he's still in your friend's mind." She thought about this a bit more. "Bill Cipher. That's not a name I've ever heard before."

"I have."

They all turned to see King walking back over to them, now holding a book that he was flipping through, its pages containing varies types of strange creatures. He came to the page he was looking for and held it up so the others could see. On a page was a picture of Bill Cipher in the middle of a magic circle.

Eda raised an eyebrow. "We had a book on him?"

King rolled his eyes. "No, we had a book with him in it." He turned the book around to look at the text. "It describes him as a dream demon from the Nightmare Realm, but he's not a demon like any of us; that's simply the closest thing he's been compared to." He looked up at the Owl Lady worriedly. "Eda, this guy is bad news. Like, he makes Belos look like a joke bad news. There's not much information on him, but he's not someone to be messed with. It warns not to summon him at any cost."

Luz glanced at Anne. "Sounds like Bill may have attempted to get out of his dimension by using someone from the Boiling Isles in the past."

The Thai girl nodded in agreement. "Yeah, good thing he failed."

Eda held up her hands. "Ok, ok, calm down. Based on what blondie said–"

"Sasha," the blonde in question told her irritably.

"Yeah, get used to that," Hunter told her in a resigned voice.

The Owl Lady just continued as if there had been no interruption. "He's not even the real Bill Cipher, just a copy of him that was created when the real one was in the head of that newt guy who joined that Core thing."

King slammed the book shut and stomped his foot. "It doesn't matter! For all intents and purposes, he is the real Bill Cipher. Or at least he will be if he gets to that statue of the real one. He basically has the power to practically control reality. Right now, he's stuck as a mind that has taken over their friend, but if he gets a body, then he really will be just like the real thing. If that happens, we'll never be able to stop him."

If the little Titan was trying to frighten them, he was doing a very good job of it. The others exchanged uneasy looks as they considered this new information.

"Well, surely there must be some way to beat him," Gus exclaimed. He turned to Sasha and Anne. "You mentioned that he said that the original Bill was defeated. That's where the statue of him came from, right? It's all that was left of the original Bill."

Anne nodded. "Yeah, that's what he said, but we don't know how he was defeated. I mean, I got the impression that he likes hearing himself talk, but I doubt he'll tell that." She glanced at King. "Was there anything in that book that explains how to stop him?"

King sadly shook his head. "Afraid not. From the sound of it, whoever wrote this book didn't even know he could be defeated. It's more like they only knew of him rather than anything about him. I guess whoever beat him discovered something the author didn't know about."

"You think maybe we can track down and ask whoever wrote the book?" Amity suggested. "They may know more than they wrote."

Once again, King shook his head. "I doubt it. This book is old. Not this copy, but the original one. It was first published, like, two hundred years ago. Whoever wrote it is long dead."

Anne exchanged a look with Sasha. "If Bill has been trying to get people from other dimensions to release him from his, then maybe he tried with someone on the Boiling Isles, and they're the one who included him in the book."

The blonde girl just shrugged. "Maybe, but a fat load of good that does us if they're dead."

Luz's face lit up in thought and she turned to the Owl Lady excitedly. "Oh, what if we try a séance or something to try and summon the author's spirit so we can ask them?"

Eda cut her eyes at her. "Yeah, we're not doing that. Oracle magic of that kind is very complicated and very risky. You could end up getting yourself haunted by whoever you call forth or something. Plus, the odds of summoning the right soul out of literally every creature that ever died is a total shot in the dark unless we have a personal item of theirs or something to make sure we summon the right one, which we don't have."

"Even if we did manage to properly summon them," Hunter added, in agreement with Eda, "they probably don't know how to beat Bill, otherwise they would have included it in the book instead of just warning people not to summon him."

Luz's face fell and she snapped her fingers. "Oh, dang it."

"Well, maybe there's someone in the human world we can ask about how to stop Bill," Willow suggested. "Someone who witnessed his defeat."

"Yeah, but who would that be?" Gus asked.

Eda considered this some more. She felt like she was missing something, something important that was right in front of her. She thought she had picked up on it while Sasha had been telling the story, but she had been so enthralled with the tale to think about it then. But what was it?

She tried to think back to the story and suddenly, something clicked. "Hey, wait a minute." She turned back to Anne and Sasha. "Where did you say Bill said he was heading?"

Anne blinked. "Oh, uh, Gravity Falls. I looked it up, it's in Oregon."

Eda's shoulders slumped and she threw her head back, letting out a long, loud groan. Luz gave her a peculiar look. "Um, Eda, are you ok?"

Pinching the bridge of her nose, the Owl Lady sighed. "Yeah, yeah, it's just… I think I might have a lead that can help us."

"A lead?" Anne exclaimed excitedly. "What kind of lead?"

Another sigh escaped her. "I… know a guy who lives in Gravity Falls. At least he does as far as I know."

Luz, always eager to learn more about her mentor, looked at her with wide eyes. "Really? Who? Who?"

Looking embarrassed, Eda bit her bottom lip and averted her eyes. "He's sort of my… ex-husband."

The mouths of everyone else dropped open in shock. "WHAT!?"

(A/N: Ok, so, if you don't know what that last part is about with Eda's ex-husband, I'll explain it more next chapter, because I want to avoid spoilers if you don't know. If you do know, well, then you can probably see where I'm going with this. But even if you don't know, it looks like our heroes are heading to Gravity Falls. And speaking of our heroes, they all got to meet up. The Amphibia crew and the Owl House crew are all together. Not a bad meet-up all things considered. TOH characters already knew of Anne since Luz didn't have the same obligation to keep silent about things the way Anne did about the Boiling Isles, so they're not completely in the dark the way Sasha was. But if you're looking for more interactions between these two groups, don't worry, there will definitely be more of that. And with everyone headed to Gravity Falls, there will be some more meetings going on. We still have a lot more to go, so stay tuned.)