"Do you think we were right to leave them alone?" Emira asked apprehensively looking back towards the bar where they had been just a few minutes ago. "Maybe we should have stayed... Mittens might need..."
"Sister, I would like to stay too, but I don't think that's what Mittens needs right now" Edric told her. "Let Luz work her magic on her. You know that when that sweet puppet starts talking, our sister's frozen heart immediately melts and she brings out everything she has inside"
Emira nodded. She wanted to go back to Amity and hug her, but unfortunately her brother was right: that wasn't what she needed. It was better to leave her to Luz, who would surely have found the right words. This awareness, however, didn't stop her from feeling really bad for her sister. "It's the first time she's reacted so aggressively" she murmured. "She scared me for a moment"
"I know" Edric told her. "But try to understand her, she's going through a bad time. And... well, dad hasn't exactly tried his best to make her love him"
Emira clenched her fists at those words and turned red, and smoke almost came out of her ears. Just thinking about how their parents had treated her sister over the course of over fourteen years made her blood boil. "I really want to punch something now" she said, chewing on her words.
Edric could understand his sister's disappointment. "Well, we said we were going to the house of mirrors, but... look, there's one of those machines where you can punch a target" he said pointing to some machines placed in a corner among the buildings. "Do you want to vent a little?"
Emira didn't have to be told again and ran to punch one of them, but as she ran her ears grew longer and took on the shape of a donkey's. She obviously didn't notice and continued to punch, but Edric instead noticed it very well, but he thought that his sister was just playing a prank on him using the powers of illusion that the Collector had given them, and so he said to her: "Emira, you could have come up with something better. It's not very funny, and it's quite obvious"
"Huh?" Emira turned to him in confusion, but she was somewhat surprised when she saw that her brother had a large pair of donkey ears on his head. She in turn thought it was a joke and chuckled, since Edric looked really funny. "Pff! What are you doing? You're just... HEY!"
She had no sooner finished her sentence than she felt a sudden tug on her trousers, and then they tore and a long donkey's tail emerged from it, growing until it almost touched the floor. Emira froze: that couldn't be an illusion, she had clearly felt the tactile sensation on her body when her pants broke! With trembling hands she took the tail, and she could clearly feel it; she tried to pinch it, and she felt pain as if it were in fact a part of her. In the meantime the same thing happened to Edric too, and he too realized that that donkey's tail was far too realistic to be an illusion. The twins looked at each other, and both could see the terror in the other's eyes. "Emira... you're not playing a trick on me, are you?" Edric asked his sister.
"N-No! I'm not doing anything!" Emira exclaimed, and she raised her hand to her mouth when a bray like that of a donkey emerged from it; but that was the least of her problems, because an instant later she felt completely unbalanced and could no longer stand, and she fell to the ground on all fours. "H-Help me, Edric! I can't stand up straight anymore!"
"I-I can't even do it!" her brother replied as he also fell to all fours. "What's happening to us!?"
"I-I don't know!" Emira screamed; she couldn't remember ever feeling so scared, and the same went for Edric. Even when they had been brought before Grometheus to be used as a container for the Collector they hadn't felt that way. Even when they had been in danger of being fried alive by Otabin they had not been so terrified.
Not knowing what else to do, Emira slammed her foot on her tail and pulled in an attempt to get it off, but she only ended up hurting herself since that tail was now a part of her, whether she liked it or not. Furthermore, at that very moment the hands and feet turned into hooves, making that action even more painful. It didn't take long before their faces changed into muzzles and their bodies were covered in hair that mirrored, in an almost bizarre way, the classic emerald green color of their hair. When finally in their place there were nothing but two donkeys of medium height, with their own haircut instead of mane and with their own clothes on, they were finally able to understand what had happened to them. "W-Why did we turn into donkeys!?" Edric screamed as he saw himself.
"T-That's not possible! This can't be happening!" Emira exclaimed in panic, but with the last shred of clarity she had left she tried to think clearly: "Ok, ok, let's think; there must be magic involved again, right? Let's go to Mittens, she can... !"
But whatever she was saying died in her throat; Immediately, her eyes filled with terror and she fell to the ground shaking, and tried to scream even though all that came out of her mouth was a series of brays. Seeing this Edric became even more scared: "Emira, what's wrong with you!?"
"B-B-Behind..." Emira stammered. "Behind you!"
Edric turned, and what he saw made his blood run cold. What looked like a huge blue eye had opened on the wall of the building behind him, staring at them as a child would stare at his favorite toy... or his favorite candy. The two twins didn't remember ever having felt such evil coming from someone's gaze; their mother, the Titan Trappers, Otabin, even Grometheus, were nothing compared to it. It was like looking evil himself in the eye.
The two donkeys tried to back away, but the building in front of them wasn't the only one that changed: numerous eyes opened everywhere, some large, some small; those slightly pot-bellied shapes that they had always thought were a quirk of the architect actually turned out to be closed eyelids. And not only that: the street lamps moved, revealing that what they were emitting light from were other eyes, and everywhere what looked like mouths bristling with sharp teeth also opened.
The two twins clutched each other in fear. "W-What the hell is this!?" they shouted almost in unison; just at that moment walls, cars, rides and even the very ground on which they rested moved and melted, revealing themselves to be millions of intertwined tentacles, which moved against them in a clear attempt to grab them.
Meanwhile, Boscha, Skara, Cat and Amelia had actually gone to the house of mirrors, and were waiting for Amity and Luz at the entrance, hoping to see them arrive soon. Even though they hadn't intervened during the entire conversation with Alador and had immediately left as soon as the puppet told them to, that didn't mean they weren't worried about their friend. "I'm really sorry about Amity" Skara commented. "It seems to me that she was very hurt"
"Tsk! I think she was just right to tell that idiot to go away" Boscha muttered sourly. "How dare that coward show up here and tell her to go home, as if he realy were a father? He should accept that he has lost the right to call himself that"
"For once I completely agree" Cat said, also very angry. "That asshole ignored her for fourteen years while her mother ruined her life, and now that she's finally having a proper time, he dares come in here and order her to go away? He's lucky I didn't want to make a scene, otherwise I would have shot him. a punch in the teeth"
"You're too good. A kick in the balls would have been the right option" Amelia added. "I know for a fact that it's the thing that hurts men the most"
Of all of them, Skara remained the calmest, but still she felt her heart burning with anger. She too wasn't happy with the fact that Alador had dared to come to the island and claim to have any right to order Amity to go home. If it hadn't been a family conversation, she wouldn't have hesitated to tell him to fuck off. And fortunately she had managed to maintain her lucidity, because she had noticed in time that Boscha was already making a fireball appear in her hands and she had been able to stop her before she incinerated that man. "Well... let's try not to think about it for now" she said, trying to distract her friends, and she pointed to the house of mirrors: "Come on, let's take a walk in here, so we can distract ourselves a bit!"
"But we should wait for Luz and Amity" Boscha reminded her.
"If I know them well they won't come for a while. We have time to walk around before they arrive!" Skara said pulling her inside. Her friends and girlfriend shrugged and decided she was right, so they followed her and started looking in mirrors.
It didn't take them long to burst out laughing: the mirrors deformed them in decidedly funny ways. One of them made them appear very tall and thin, another low and wide, another yet made them seem like they were spirals curled up on themselves. As they continued, however, Boscha noticed something appear between Skara's pants, which appeared to be a long donkey's tail. "Um… honey, what is that?"
"Huh? What are you talking about?" Skara asked her confused, but then out of the corner of her eye she saw a mirror that made her burst out laughing: "Pff! Look at this! It makes you look like you have donkey ears!"
But Boscha, Cat, and Amelia had only turned pale; after a few seconds, Boscha ran towards Skara and without warning grabbed her ears and squeezed them. "Skara, they're not fake!" she said in a strangled voice.
"Ouch! Stop! You are hurting me!" Skara exclaimed, but then her eyes widened, realizing that if Boscha was touching her ears then they couldn't just be a bizarre mirror reflection. She touched them back and could clearly feel that they had become long and hairy just like a donkey's. "What... what's going on!? Why... ARGH!"
Skara fell to the floor with a thud, no longer able to stand on her legs; she tried to raise her hands towards her friends, but the only result she achieved was to completely lose her balance and end up face-first on the ground. "B-Boscha... I'm scared! Help me!" she shouted, lifting her hand weakly, unable to move it more than a few centimeters upwards; it was as if the bone of her shoulder had shifted and prevented her such movements.
Boscha rushed to her and tried to grab her to help her get up, or at least to take her and get away from there, but the moment she tried to touch her suddenly her fingers closed and fused together forming hooves; the magenta-haired girl let out a scream when she saw that. "What the hell!? Where did my hands go!?"
Cat and Amelia's scream made her immediately turn towards them; her two friends had also developed donkey ears and tails, and Amelia had already fallen to the ground like Skara. "What's happening to us!?" Cat screamed, pulling at her ears in an attempt to tear them off, obviously only resulting in a few hairs being pulled out, and then she too fell to the floor unable to stand upright on two legs.
Boscha trembled like a leaf, losing any form of courage for the first time in her life; she put her hands (or rather, hooves) in her hair, and could clearly feel that her ears were growing too. "N-No... this can't be real! We're dreaming!"
"Boscha, help me!" Skara screamed with tears in her eyes, in utter terror as her body distorted. "Mom... dad... help!"
But it was all in vain; within seconds a silver-haired donkey had taken her place. "S-Skara?" Boscha murmured in fear, and then she too fell to the ground and felt her bones change position and her face grow longer until it turned into a snout, until it became a donkey with magenta fur. Needless to say, Cat and Amelia also became donkeys in a matter of moments.
The four girls found themselves braying in fear and kicking in a desperate attempt to get up, but it was all in vain; however, they stopped when they noticed that there was something strange around them. "Is it my impression... or are the mirrors watching us?" Skara murmured in a small voice.
The mirrors had become slightly warped and tilted, and actually seemed to have become enormous eyes looking at them. They remained motionless in that position for a moment, and then their base curved, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth beneath them.
At that point the four girls let out a scream and ran out of the house of mirrors, an instant before it shattered into hundreds of tentacles that moved through the air as if they were trying to catch something. And it wasn't just the house of mirrors; the entire park was falling apart, and every ride and building was breaking apart and turning into an indefinite mass of tentacles, legs, claws and sharp hooks, with dozens of eyes staring in every direction; everywhere the desperate screams of the kids mixed with the braying of a donkey could be heard, a sign that all those who had come there had suffered the same fate as them. As soon as they were outside they encountered Edric and Emira, also fleeing from the terrifying tentacles that moved as if they were trying to grab them; and after less than a minute two other donkeys also joined them. "Guys! Is that you?" one of them, who seemed to be made of wood, asked in a familiar voice.
"Luz! Is that you?" Boscha exclaimed in recognition, and then she looked at the other donkey, "So you're Amity..."
"Mittens! Do some magic and bring us back to the way we were before!" Edric exclaimed in despair.
But Amity shook her head; she looked at least as scared as they were. "I... I can't! I already tried! Whatever magic did this... it's superior to mine!"
Her friends froze on the spot. "Superior to yours!? How is this possible!? You are the most powerful witch in the world, you have the essence of one of the Four Magical Rulers!" Emira protested. "What's more powerful than you!?"
"I do not know!" Amity answered her, and she let out a startled bray when one of the tentacles nearly grabbed her. "What the hell is this!? The horror park!?"
And just at that moment laughter burst out with thunderous violence, and all who heard it fell to the ground and tried to put their clogs over their ears so as not to hear it, because just hearing it made them feel as if they were going mad; all except Luz, who instead didn't move a muscle, and instead took on a shocked expression. "I know this laugh..." she whispered.
And then came a voice. "Oh, little kids... are you wondering what place this is? Well... do you know your worst nightmare? Well, forget it, because this is much worse!"
Some of the tentacles fused back together to form what looked like a hideously deformed face with razor-sharp teeth and glowing eyes, which looked at Luz and her friends like they were the funniest thing in the world."What's the problem? Are you kids not having fun anymore?" the being asked them. "What did you say... this is heaven? I'm afraid you've gone the wrong way... this, my dears, is hell!"
The donkeys brayed in fear, but still they tried to fight back; they still had their powers after the transformation, and so Boscha threw fire, Skara manipulated their braying as if they were music, Edric and Emira created illusions, Cat shot fire back, and Amelia tried to summon some plants using seeds that she had in her pocket, but these attempts didn't even scratch the hideous tentacles. At that point Amity's eyes flashed and she hurled her most powerful magic at the hideous deformed being, hitting it squarely...
But only some of the tentacles incinerated. All the others remained immaculate, without even a scratch.
Amity took a step back in fear. "What? But... I hit it full force...!"
The being's eyes focused on the destroyed tentacles. "My compliments, little witch. Very few people can boast of having destroyed three of my smallest tentacles. You are undoubtedly the most powerful witch in this world, as your friends say!"
Amity couldn't believe it; how was it possible that all her enormous power, the power of a witch controlling Grometheus' essence, had barely managed to destroy a small part of that monster? And what's more, it was only the monster that the tentacles had formed by coming together; if you counted everything else in the park, then it was just a tiny fraction!
It was immediately clear to her that they couldn't get away with force, so she opted for escape: just as she had done when she first became a witch, she used her magic to lift herself off the ground and fly away, and she did the same with everyone else. But it was all in vain: the tentacles moved suddenly and grabbed them all except her and Luz. Their friends felt crushed by those hideous appendages, but still shouted at them to flee; although reluctant, they did so.
But the monster only laughed. "Go ahead! Come on, run! You can't get away from me. If you try to cross the coast, I will block your powers immediately, little witch!" it said in a cruel voice. "Come on, try your hardest to survive and hide me! You'll only make things more fun for me!"
In case it wasn't clear in the previous chapter, yes, after the transformation the protagonists can still use their powers. Although against Belos it doesn't make much difference
