Well this fandom loves angst doesn't it? I'm not going to spoil anything from the last episodes, but whoo boy I am not enjoying the subreddit at this point. Anyway here's the newest chapter, you are going to love this one.
To the guest that left me a review in : I speak spanish and also the combination of tracks you chose is quite good. Idk if you didn't know that I can reply to guests there which is total bs (speaking about that, why do I have to reply with a PM? Can't I form a thread like AO3? Also why doesn't AO3 have PMs? Why!) or if you forgot to log in your account, so there you go.
Also one more thing: You may have noticed that I always alternate between three points of view (sometimes four) in the chapters, and that I don't change the POV until that scene in particular is over. In one of the past chapters I based it on the episode on the series for the Eda parts, which meant that I had to go back and forth between her and the rest so her section was fragmented. I'm here to ask: Do you guys prefer it that way, or how I did things originally? Just wondering.
The usual crap:
If you could send me a review that would be great! (not that I´m forcing you), all feedback is appreciated! As long as you don't yell at me XD
English isn't my first language , please tell me if you spot any mistakes!.
Disclaimer: I don't own the owl house, all the characters except my OCs belong to Disney and Danna Terrace. This AU idea belongs to moringmark (Plz go read his comics, I beg you).
-Luz-
Gravesfield's commercial district, outside of the city bank / Monday August 3rd 6:00 PM
Luz stood dressed with her witch outfit on top of a building as she watched the streets, she had developed this habit since she started fighting in the human realm. Since humans could not get on rooftops easily, and they did not tend to look up from their phones, she felt like this was the best way to do surveillance undetected. All that she had to do was to make sure that no one came into the roof and check for those electric eyes, or 'cameras' as Eda called them, and she is all set! Then Eda had to ruin it by saying that she is copying one of those superheroes they saw in the movies last week (she doesn't remember his name but the guy really likes to stand on top of gargoyles and mope there).
But Luz wasn't in the rooftop just to mope and look cool, she was actually on a mission to track a possible magical creature: The other day she hanged out again with Willow and Gus and she remembered how it was thanks to him that she was able to catch the finger-dragon before it caused any substantial damage, pretending to be just interested on his theories she asked how did he get his information and he responded by showing her the site where everyone talked about the sightings of magical creatures. She still wasn't used too much with human technology so she asked Eda to set her phone up so she might receive notifications of that place, most of it was nonsensical junk so Luz ended up regretting that decision.
Until today.
When she ended her shift in the owl house her phone was going crazy with people chatting about the new details of a so-called wizard, Luz rolled her eyes and was about to close the app when she saw the pictures and the comments she thought it was worth a try. She tried to walk there but the authorities had put a blockade in every street leading to the bank in question so she had to resort to other methods.
Now after flying to the roofs and making sure no human saw her she was absolutely convinced that this was the work of a magic creature. The entire front part of the bank had been blasted to bits and the only thing left were some shards of glass and the remains of a door in the floor. Luz couldn't see the inside of it but judging from the fire in the windows and the screams of people, she bet it wasn't much better. The street was in a similar condition: several cars were burning with humans trying to put out the fire and the paviment had a few smoking craters. She could not see the police around despite them being the ones in the several barricades around the area, she did see those people in suits that she saw the last time and they were carrying the same devices from the last time, so she assumed that they could detect her magic.
Luz sighed and started thinking of a way to find out what happened, she doubted that the one that did all of this was still inside (the authorities were too calm for that) so maybe they got what they wanted and ran? She found it hard to believe that a magical creature would steal money, so maybe it was a witch? That thought excited her, she had come to appreciate Eda during the last few weeks she has been living with her but the thought of having someone from her world filled her with anticipation. It was bad that she couldn't just hop down with an illusion as a disguise and ask the guards there what had happened but the magic scanners wouldn't allow her.
She was still debating on what to do when a police officer came down and talked to the people in suits and started yelling at them to no avail, after a while they sent him back with the rest of his buddies in blue.
"Wait a second, the police! They don't have those magic detectors and they might know something! It's worth a try at least"
She took a long breath and made herself invisible, then jumped out of the building towards the direction the cops were maintaining their barricade in the street. When Luz was about to hit the floor she used her hover glyph to float, and then she positioned herself behind the police cars to overhear what the police were talking about. Luz couldn't see their faces from her position but she could hear that they were two males.
"I don't know man, I don't like these federals. The government just cares for our taxes so why are they here?"
"Have you seen the mess that was back there? I'm just glad I won't be the one investigating that"
"Still, they just show up and we have to give them all of our investigation? And do everything they say? What right do they have?"
"Buddy they are a government division, they have all the rights"
The government? Well that was an interesting development. She tried racking her brain to find any information about it and only remembered that Eda doesn't like them, and apparently they don't like her either. She had been expecting the human authorities to get involved in her fight but not like this, she thought that they were going to send the full force of their military (because that's what Belos would've done), instead they decided to take a more subtle approach and send in their people in secret.
"I keep telling you it's a terrorist attack, how else do you explain the destruction that we saw bofore?" A female officer with brown hair was talking to her colleagues.
"I don't think these guys would be here if it was just a terrorist attacks" An elderly man argued "have they released an official statement yet?"
"No, they just told us to keep the civilians at bay" Another one chirped in "I'm telling you there's something wrong here, with all the weirdness going on…"
"Not this again… You need to stop watching those conspiracy videos. Do you really expect us to believe the magic shite"
"Video footage was released!"
"And that's the catch, if this was something that the government didn't want us to see, it wouldn't be on youtube. Besides marvel has more realistic effects"
"I'm telling you-"
"Guys, let's not enter this topic again ok?" Another female officer with a braid came to defuse the situation "We already heard a lot about it in the last weeks. Changing the subject, do we even know if they apprehended the culprit?"
"I heard that whoever it was escaped through the back of the building but the cameras were blown up after that, this is really weird"
Then they started to discuss magic again so Luz left, she already had everything that she needed. Doing a surveillance flight from a high altitude (she did not know the range of those detectors and she did not want those guys to find her) she saw the entire building. Luz saw that many agents were in the back of the building and that confirmed her new piece of information, she obviously couldn't drop down there to investigate and she couldn't wait until those guys were done to do something, but luckily she could see from above that there was only one path to follow from there: The other places were too crowded and lead to big streets, Luz's experience at running away told her that there was only one rute that this person could've taken without being seen.
So she followed that path and she activated her tracking spell when she was far away from the agents. It was hard to find the trace but she did, it was faint and it directed her towards the west. Luz followed it and remained invisible while doing it, she had to travel through freeways and parking lots but the trail just kept going. She heard that this happened one hour ago, in order to have traveled this distance in this time the witch had to have flown in a palisman, there was no other explanation.
Finally she arrived at what looked like an abandoned apartment block. Every single entrance was closed and the windows were covered with wood planks, once she managed to enter a putrid smell assaulted her nose alongside with the certainty that no one had cleaned this place in months: The lights in this place didn't work so she had to rely on her phone to look around, tge only thing she could see was tarnished furniture on the floors and wet carpet on the walls.
She kept her invisible spell while she crept around cringing at every sound she could hear, on one occasion she opened a door and accidentally scared a rat that was nibbling at some food in the floor and she gave a long squeal that resonated throughout the empty building before covering her mouth.
"Oh no, hopefully no one heard that?"
The sound of something crashing and the swears coming from downstairs told her that someone definitely heard her. As she was recasting her invisibility spell Luz heard hurried footsteps coming from the stairs. She stood at the side of the room with nowhere to go when someone kicked the door.
"Who 's there!" Came an agitated voice and a man (or what she assumed to be a man) appeared in the doorway. He was covered with a hoodie and a facemask so she couldn't distinguish anything noteworthy about him, he was looking around frantically like a wild animal "Don't try to hide, I heard you!"
Luz decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to suddenly appear in front of him and apologize, the person's erratic movements and fast breathing told her that he was really nervous and she couldn't blame him, the guy just robbed a bank. She didn't know if he was a wild or a coven witch but there was no doubt that he was powerful, if she startled him, he could attack her in panic and this place would end up looking like the bank.
So she opted for a more subtle approach.
"Yes, hello! I'm over here!" She used her illusion magic to project her voice in one of the adjacent rooms "I don't want to hurt you so… please don't hurt me!" She tried to make her voice sound as innocent as possible.
"Shit the police!" He mumbled and a fireball appeared on his left palm "BACK OFF! Or else I'll set everything on fire!"
"No, I'm not from the police! Or the army or anything, I swear! I just want to talk with you"
"BULLSHIT" he screamed and tossed the fireball against the wall "Where are you!? How did you find this place?"
"I errr… That doesn't matter, I just want to talk!" Admitting that she used magic to track him down would be a bad move. Not to mention that it sounded really creepy and borderline stalker-ish now that she thinks about it "I really just want to talk to you! Maybe I can help you" after seeing his magic Luz was certain that he was a witch, having another one of her kind living in the owl house would be great! Maybe she should've consulted Eda about this beforehand.
"I don't want to talk to you!" He searched the other rooms but couldn't find her because she was still invisible "WHERE ARE YOU?"
He slammed the floor with his left hand in frustration and a ring of flames erupted from it and expanded outwards. The fire dissipated before reaching her but the scare was enough to make her drop the invisibility, she was already struggling to keep it for so long. Her illusion was dispelled and she appeared right behind him.
"Where-huh?" The guy turned around and saw her before she could hide and his eyes widened. Her attire didn't help the situation either, while her cape and cowl were great to hide her identity it made her look like a thief "you!"
"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you! I just-"
Before she could finish the robber launched a big fireball towards her but she just used a wind glyph to blow it away.
"No way…" the robber was looking at her staff with awe "you too?"
"Yes I'm just like you, see?" She lowered her cowl so he could see her attempt of a reassuring smile "look, I'm sorry about intruding your home, but I really need to talk to yo-WHOA" she barely managed to dodge a second fireball.
"Tough luck, because I don't wanna talk with you, lady"
"But I can do magic like you!"
"And that's exactly why, I do not want competition here" then he made a circular motion with his hand and a ring of fire appeared in front of him and started moving towards her.
Luz combined her wind and ice glyphs to blow a small blizzard towards the fire, the two elemental attacks clashed and created a steam cloud that covered the entire room. She stood there catching her breath and looking for the man but the cloud was too thick for her to see anything, she considered saying something to try to defuse the situation again but a fireball that nearly missed her. She couldn't stand still because a barrage of five fiery projectiles came towards her, Luz made an ice wall to stop the attack but a few managed to blast through. It didn't hit her but a covered window near her was blasted open and she observed with horror that the fireball impacted against a nearby building and the flames were quickly spreading.
"Stop! You are setting things on fire!"
"If you don't want to get burned then you should back off, miss"
"But- This entire place is made out of wood! You'll burn everything!"
"A better reason for you to back off then!"
He kept unleashing fire barrages upon her but Luz deflected them all. After the fifth attack she started to grow tired of it, so far she had been nice but this witch seemed to be a danger for everyone! Luz had enough of this fight so she conjured a strong wind with her glyph to dissipate the steam cloud and his fire. The resulting attack was so strong that she blew all the fire away (blasting like three windows in the process) and knocked the robber to the ground. The wind uncovered his face that was hidden by his hoodie, revealing his black hair, pale skin, and…
"Wait, are those round ears?" She got closer to see him well "No way, is he human? How is he doing magic?"
"I've had enough of you!" The robber yelled and then his left arm started shining in a red light. Luz knew that he somehow was channeling magic for a big spell despite being human, so she decided to anticipate him and summoned ice to attack him. The ice crystals covered him and encased his arm, which stopped glowing.
"STOP! I didn't want to hurt you but you left me no choice, what's wrong with you? And how are you able to do that?"
"Same way you're able to do your trick I'd guess, of course your thingy looks far more better than mine"
"Huh?"
The man then took advantage of her momentary distraction and bursted out of the ice with a fire explosion. Luz backed away expecting the fight to resume but it seemed that he miscalculated the power of his attack, the explosion actually hurt him and his clothes were partially destroyed in the blast, in particular his left sleeve was torn to shreds. She was expecting to see his arm but to her shock he was wearing what looked like a grey gauntlet made out of stone or some kind of metal, it had several cracks that shone with an orange hue, they reminded Luz of a lava river.
"Ughh, my head" The robber was struggling to get up so Luz got closer to him "Stay back!"
He raised his gauntlet and fired a couple shots at her but he still wasn't fine because his aim was terrible. But now that she could see the gauntlet was covered in orange fire glyphs that made it look as if they were drawn in lava, and then it suddenly clicked in her head.
"He's just using a magic item, of course! Titan I'm so dumb"
That would explain why a human was capable of doing magic, it also explained the lack of a spell circle that witches commonly used to cast. Luz was kicking herself for not considering this, if she got teleported to this realm alongside the magic creatures inside of the vault, then why wouldn't the same happen to the magic items from there? After all she saw the immense amount of relics inside the vault and… wait a second. A horrible thought just came to her: There were a lot of magic items that got transported to this world and apparently humans could use them, which meant that a lot of people were going to be like this guy and use magic to cause chaos.
Luz groaned, her job in this world had just gotten way harder.
"Where did you get that thing?" She asked the robber with a serious tone, so far she had been holding back because she thought he was another witch but that was over.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" She took a step towards him "Ok maybe I'll tell ya in exchange for your stick"
"My staff?"
"Yeah, it's clear that you ended up with the better toy anyway, tell you something: If you are willing to accept the deal I'll even share a bit of the money from my last haul, what do you say?"
"So he thinks that my palisman is a magic relic? That would make sense from his point of view, I guess"
Luz just gave him a passive glare and proceeded to shock him with her lighting glyph, he gave a yelp of surprise and stumbled backwards. After that she quickly casted her earth glyph to create a stone prison that surrounded the man so he wasn't able to move his arm.
"You won't be able to escape from that without hurting you even more than before. Now if you tell me two things I will leave you alone: Where did you get that gauntlet? And what did you do with the money you robbed?" She was planning to give back the money before she found out he was a human anyway.
"I-it's downstairs! Directly below us! Inside the bag on the big table!"
Luz didn't trust him to not to try anything if she left the room, so she opted for a more direct approach. She channeled her earth magic and dug a hole into the ground ignoring the protests coming from the guy, once the dust she made settled Luz jumped after giving the man one last warning glance. The room wasn't lit so she had to create her own light orbs to see, the only thing that was notable was the said table with a small bag on top of it.
"Is this it?" She held the item with just one hand: A side bag made out of fabric with weird inscriptions sewed on it, she didn't look inside but there was no way all the money in the bank would fit in there "Do you think I'm dumb?"
"It's like one of our magical thingies! I swear! I found it alongside the other two"
"The other two?"
"My glove and the other thing in the table" The robber pointed with his head towards the other artifact in the table, it looked like a spherical stone with gems encrusted on it "they all fell from the sky on top of my car when I was traveling a few weeks ago. I still don't know what the little rock does but my glove lets me produce fire, well you already saw that, and you can fit anything you want inside the bag. It always appears to be empty but if you focus on what you want to find it appears inside"
"Huh" Luz gave it a try and focused on the mental image of a paper bill, sure enough it appeared inside the bag "Well thank you, what's that?"
A few sounds from outside made her peek through one of the windows, there were sirens and flashing lights so she assumed that their previous fight attracted the police but once she looked over she saw the unmistakable suits and emblems of the organization that was at the bank.
"Shit the cops! Ok I told you what you wanted, now you have to let me go. C'mon we'll split the money" The robber was struggling inside his rock cocoon.
Luz sighed and walked towards him, she raised her staff to make it look like she was casting a spell to release him, but instead she whacked his head with it and knocked him out. She then proceeded to tie him up with plants and then she took the gauntlet from his hand, she winced when she saw all of the burn marks covering it. Luz supposed that using magical relics came with its risks for humans. Then she put the two magic items inside of the bag.
"This could be really useful! Now what do I do?"
The people from outside were going to enter at any time and she really wanted to go, on the other hand this could be a good opportunity to leave a message to the authorities, to leave a good impression. After a little deliberation she used her light glyph to create tons of little orbs and she arranged those in a specific pattern. Once her work was done she laughed and flew away on her staff.
When the agents entered the place they found a destroyed room, the robber unconscious and hanging from some vines, and all of the stolen money was on top of the table (some of it fell in the ground). But what was more impressive were the hundreds of tiny light orbs in the ceiling, together they formed words depicting the following message:
COURTESY OF THE WILD WITCH
NEXT TIME TRY TO BE FASTER
-Eda-
The owl house / 8:00 PM
"So you just left a message there? Like a presentation card with a cheesy line?" Eda was currently washing vegetables while hearing Luz's story about the creep with fire powers
"I didn't have much time to think so I had to improvise" she shrugged sheepishly.
"Right, and you called yourself a 'wild witch'? Do you want to provoke them?"
"That's what the media is calling me right now and it was my given title in the boiling isles, although it had a different meaning. I just felt like… owning that name and changing it to something positive, you know?"
Right now they were in their kitchen preparing dinner after Luz came back from her last battle and after Eda scolded her for being so reckless again. She still didn't like that the witch seemed willing to use magic to help other people but refused to do it for her business and her heroic activities might lead the authorities right to her door, but since Luz told her that it was pretty much her fault that all magic stuff was here she'd let it slide, Eda believed in fixing up one's mistakes.
"So… Do you wanna tell me what you are thinking of doing with that fancy glove? I don't want to mix it with all the junk over here and accidently sell it to a client"
"Yeah that wouldn't be ideal, but luckily I have a solution for it!" Then the teen sprinted upstairs before she could stop her. Eda rolled her eyes at Luz's hyperfixation, she did not like diagnosing people for obvious reasons but a part of her was wondering if she should get Luz checked up for ADHD. After a while the witch came back holding a bag "The robber had the luck of finding this alongside the gauntlet, I think it's called a bag of holding"
"More like a bag of poor fashion sense" She examined the object: it was just a side bag made out of fabric with badly sewn designs "I didn't know you were into this kinda stuff but I got better junk in my merchandise if you want to look at it"
"What? No! I didn't grab it because of that!"
"Hey, I'm not judging"
"It's a magical bag, Eda! It's enchanted so it can hold anything inside of it and still appear to be empty"
"Huh, really?" She then proceeded to put cutlery and a tray inside of it, and true to Luz's word, it looked empty afterwards "That's a handy trick, are you going to keep it?"
"Yep! This is the solution to our storage problem. If I put all of the magical stuff I find here we won't have to worry about you selling it or something" Luz looked happy with her new discovery…
Eda went back to cooking dinner but then she processed something Luz said.
"Wait a second, did you say that the guy used this to put all the money from the vault?"
"Yeah, it was really hard to get it out afterwards"
"How much was in there?" Eda couldn't resist her greedy impulse upon imagining an entire bank vault inside this bag.
"I am not going to answer that" Luz gave her a passive glare and proceeded to empty the contents of the bag.
"Hey, what's that?" Eda pointed to a weird looking rock that Luz pulled out of the bag "I didn't put it there"
"Oh this is another magical artifact that the guy had, he didn't seem to know what it is, but now that I look at it I'm pretty sure it's a magic charger"
"Magic charger?"
"It's like the things you guys use to charge up your phones: several magical instruments require environmental magic to function but in order to charge those you need to leave them exposed to the atmosphere for a while. This little guy stores that energy inside of it to speed up the process"
"So you guys have something similar to electricity, interesting"
"Yeah well the boiling isles actually aren't like those programs you guys have about witches. We aren't trapped in a medieval world" Luz crossed her arms and puffed at Eda's amused smirk. She had shown her the human representations of witches in movies just to see her reaction and not even half an hour later she left the room exclaiming something about racism "This relic can power things like scrolls, crystal balls and…"
"And?" Eda was still preparing dinner so she wasn't looking at her "Luz? What happened?"
The teen was deep in thought with a confused expression on her face, suddenly her eyes brightened and she smiled like she just had the best idea ever. The witch quickly drew one of her magic circles and made her staff appear, before Eda could ask her what's going on she started to unscrew the little statue at the end of the staff to separate it. She never paid much attention to it but now that Eda looked closer the wooden statue reminded her of an owl totem.
"Come on, come onnnnn. Tell me this works" Luz was fumbling with the statue and the rock and then she somehow managed to combine the statue and the rock and put them on the table "Oh yeah, that's it! Now I only have to wait"
"Are you going to tell me what you are doing already? Or am I going to have to keep guessing?"
"Oh ok sorry, sorry. Like I said this little stone helps charge magical artifacts but it can also charge other stuff. My staff is actually called a palisman and it's actually a living…"
A few hoots and chirps interrupted them, Eda looked with curiosity towards the statue only to find a living brown owl with yellow eyes. The tiny bird looked around and hooped around the table, once its eyes saw Luz it gave a gleeful squawk and flew towards her.
"Owlbert! I missed you buddy!" Luz started rubbing her face against the bird who was chirping happily.
"Luz, what the heck is this? Don't you think you have to warn me before giving life to inanimate objects?"
"This isn't an inanimate object Eda, this is my palisman Owlbert. Say hi, Owlbert!" The owl gave her a curious look "Palismans are living animals made out of a magical wood that help witches with their spells by turning into staffs, you have seen me using it even though I can cast magic on my own"
"I always assumed that it was like training wheels" Eda was still marveled at the brown bird.
"Something like that: It helps me do the stuff I already know how to do while using half the time and energy to do it, he also allows me to fly!"
"Well that's cool and all but… Why was he on your staff all the time? And what did you do with that rock?"
"Well Palismans require environmental magic to survive (they are kinda like plants) and they usually get that by just being near the titan. But here we don't have any of that so I had him hibernate in his staff mode, otherwise he might've starved. Luckily that's not a problem anymore thanks to the charger!"
"So now I gotta deal with a tiny Owl as a roommate? Kid, how many freeloaders do you think I can handle? The carnivore plant was bad enough already, and I think it tried to eat King again last night"
"Oh don't worry about Terra, as long as king doesn't get any closer to her it's fine" Luz made a dismissive wave with her hand.
"Terra? Did you name that thing? Nevermind that, listen Luz I can handle dealing with you but I think another pet it's too much"
"Oh come on Eda! I swear Owlbert is well behaved. Besides, it would be totally on brand, this is the Owl house after all!" Luz smiled nervously at the unamused glare Eda gave her after her joke "Ok it was bad, I'm sorry. But still! How could you just say no to this little face?" She then proceeded to shove the owl in front of her as it cooed in an adorable way.
Eda just pushed them away with a grunt and looked away. The truth is that she always considered Owls her favorite animal since she was a little kid "Their eyes look so cool! And they can also do that weird neck thingy!". That was the one of the reasons why she nicknamed her home the owl house and sure enough, this little fella looked really cute but she was afraid that her badass reputation would get damaged if she kept accepting Luz's demands. Besides, she wasn't sure that girl could take care of another living being, heck she sometimes doubted she could take care of herself.
"Who is going to feed him and take care of his needs Luz? Because I have more than enough with cleaning King's litter box and no offense kid, but you aren't the most responsible person around here"
"Hey! I can be responsible!" Eda raised an eyebrow at her "Ok fine point taken, but you don't have to worry about that other stuff. Palisman don't need to eat like normal animals, Owlbert only needs the magic from the charger and a little bit of nutrients to function"
"What do you mean by 'a little bit of nutrients' huh?"
"Well he'll get tired if I use him to cast spells and he is made out of wood soooo, I guess he will attempt to eat wood or paper every once in a while? Wait, where did he go"
The little bird managed to sneak away from the two women and landed on the table Eda was using to cook. He was nibbling at Eda's recipe book as if trying to probe the point of the conversation. Eda gave Luz an annoyed look and the teen smiled sheepishly.
"Don't worry I'll make sure to tell him the rules of this place, and maybe try to not have any important books laying around?"
Eda just kept glaring at her until she recoiled
"A-anyway, I'm going to move Owlbert to my room upstairs, just so that he doesn't bother you. See you later!" With that she grabbed her bird and ran away.
"Luz wait, Luz!" She tried calling her to no avail. Eda chose to give up and resumed cooking "This is the last one, I swear if she brings anything else they are going outside no matter how cute they are…"
-Amity-
Blight manor, the outskirts of Gravesfield / Monday August 10th 9:30 AM
*beep*beep*beep* The alarm clock sounded and Amity pressed the snooze button lazyly before going back to bed. She usually was a morning person, but this was in the middle of the summer and she spent yesterday dealing with the preparations for the Twins birthday, of course Odalia turned it into an excuse to lure potential investors. As she went back to sleep she wondered why she set the alarm, she had the evening shift in her part time job and there weren't any functions they had to attend this early.
The recognizable sound of heels going up the stairs woke her up, her mother hated when she slept in but usually let her do it when she didn't have anything programmed that day. Which meant that there was something she had to do today! Amity quickly got out of her bed and started to prepare herself while she wrecked her brains thinking what she was supposed to do today.
"Today is monday, monday, monday, monday… Do I have any classes to give?Oh shit… Summer school"
It was something her mother forced her to sign on because of her "lack of adequate performance in school", but Amity knew that it was because of the way she treated her 'friends' when she didn't allow them to bully that girl, it wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't for the fact that their parents were important allies of the company. She hated it at the beginning but then she realized that it came with a few perks: Days spent in the school were days away from her home and all the expectations, they were also days away from her siblings and fake friends (because there was no way in hell that Boscha and her group would approach the school in the middle of the summer) so she could actually stop caring about appearances and just be herself.
A knock from the door distracted her from her thoughts and her mother entered her room without waiting for her permission.
"Amity dear, I heard your alarm ten minutes ago but you are still not ready to join us for breakfast? You are going to be late for school"
"Good morning mother, I will join you as fast as I can"
"Good, remember that a Blight must always be on time, no exceptions" with that she turned around and left.
Amity held her breath until she was sure her mother was out of hearing range, then she released a deep groan that was muffled by her pillow. Resigning herself to her fate, she went to her bathroom to make herself presentable. A deep thought came to her as she cleaned herself in the mirror:
Amity Blight hated her life.
That was a little bit of an exaggeration, she didn't hate every aspect of her life. She liked her part time job in the library because she felt like it was one of the few things in life she earned by working hard, and she loved reading stories to kids, the same kind of stories she enjoyed when she was their age. She liked playing rugby for the school team because of the challenge it posed to her, to have an entire femenine team and the fact that she a lesbian, was the captain of said team made her feel acomplished. She liked spending her time alone and reading her fantasy novels inside her hideout. She also liked her siblings even though it seemed like they made their personal life goal to annoy her every time they got the chance to. She also enjoyed small things like riding her bike in the park and listening to music, but sadly that was pretty much the extent of things she liked in her life.
Those things that she liked about her life were things that she chose and she worked hard for, the things that made her Amity. But those paled in comparison to the rest of expectations and responsibilities her family imposed on her.
For starters she was supposed to be the top student in every subject and she gets grounded if she brings even an A- in her report card. So in order to please her mom she had to take a lot of extra credits and tutoring sessions, which consumed most of her free time.
Then it was the constant pressure of being the daughter of a politician, while her mother didn't have a high position in the mayor's office she behaved as if she was the vice president of the united states. Meetings with investors, dinners with customers, charity events with a lot of important people, and of course attending all of the demonstrations for Blight industries.
Odalia Blight was all about maintaining the image of their family without caring for the family at all. Her attitude became worse when she was named a candidate for the future mayor elections next year, but the worst part was the way she treated their family: She pushed their father to overwork himself so they could restore the family fortune she spent on living an extravagant lifestyle and promoting her campaign. She forced her older sister to choose a career in economics to help the company, despite her desire to be a doctor. She completely ignored her older brother when he did not meet her expectations and she shoved every single responsibility for the future of the family on her.
Amity needed to be the best on everything because she was a Blight. She had to keep her feelings inside of her and act in a calculated manner because she was a Blight. She could only associate with those of high status because she was a Blight.
.Blight.Blight.
Everything she did was touched and corrupted by her name and she hated it with every fiber of her being, it was funny in a way: She liked every part of her life that made her Amity, but she hated anything that had to do with being a Blight.
*sigh*"Well I better get ready for another breakfast of me disappointing my mother"
Ten minutes later
"So you are finally awake huh? Did the princess have a nice sleep?" Her brother gave her an amused smile.
"Shut it, Edric"
"Manners dear, that's not a way to speak to your brother"
"Yeah Mittens, after all this is going to be one of the last mornings we get to wake up and have breakfast together. You should savor it" Oh that's right, the twins were going to college this year and they were going to move out of town and leave her alone with their parents. Amity knew they didn't want to (and she couldn't blame them for it, Amity herself was counting the days until she could leave this place) but she couldn't help feeling like they were abandoning her.
"I will miss you my dear, now remember that you and your sister are going to that prestigious university we got for you so make sure to uphold the family's name reputation"
Edric rolled his eyes. "Yes mom…"
Amity turned out of the conversation and hurried up with her breakfast while ignoring her mother's grunts at her poor table manners. She did not need to hear all of this, she got more than enough 'keep the family's prestige' talks on her own.
"Well it's been fun Ed, mom. But I gotta go to school now" She said as she got up from the table "There's no need for you to call the driver mother, I can get there on my bike"
"But I wouldn't want you to get late dear, you are doing this to cover for your last performance after all"
"I can arrive there perfectly on time, besides Bump mentioned that the rest of the tutors would be arriving late this week, so there's nothing I could do on my own the first minutes" She sent her mom a pleading look, so far she had been working on a new reputation in the summer school and arriving with her private driver would ruin that.
"hmmm, I suppose that's true"
"Great! I have my library shift today so I will be arriving late, don't wait for me! Ed, remember that we are going with Em tomorrow to fix something for the party"
"Yeah sis, how could I forget when you mention it every time" Edric answered, rolling his eyes.
"Just reminding you, bye you two!" Amity full sprinted to the exit before her mother could object and she almost made it.
Almost.
"Aren't you forgetting something, mittens?" She turned around and saw her mother with a smile and extended arms.
Amity bit her inner lip and walked up to her reluctantly with her fists clenched. She took a deep breath before hugging her mother, if Odalia noticed her stiffness she didn't comment on it.
"That's better, have a good trip dear"
Edric just offered her a sympathetic smile as she left. Once Amity was outside she tried calming herself.
"Just two more years, two more years till you are out of this place. You can bear that, right?"
She rode her bike towards school to calm herself down and thought about the future months. The chores in summer school weren't that bad and it gave her an excuse to socialize with a group of people that weren't a bunch of bullies, she just hoped that they could still talk after school started and she had to put on her mean girl facade. Also she considered the pros and cons of having the twins in a different state: on one hand she would suffer the full extent of her parents expectations, on the other hand she would be prank-free for a while.
She arrived to the school fashionably late and parked her bike outside. There weren't many people this early so she just went to her assigned classroom and waited for a teacher to arrive.
"Amity! There you are" she heard a voice and turned around to see one of the people she had been talking to this summer: A short girl with brunette hair and green eyes called Viney "I've been looking for you!"
*Sigh* "Sorry Viney I forgot about today so I ignored my alarm"
"Don't worry, that's just the Monday effect. Oh yeah, Bump was looking for you"
"Agh, what now? Does he want me to tutor first years again?"
"No, he said that a new transfer student was coming today to get some papers signed and he wanted 'the top student' to show them around in order to get them used to the school for next semester"
"Please don't call me that" she had enough with her siblings calling her mittens and her friends calling her 'little miss perfect' "so who is it this time, someone from glandus? Please don't tell me it's another jock"
"That's funny coming from an athlete like you, but no. I'm not sure who they are but Bump mentioned that it's someone from another country and he said it might be quite the cultural shock for them"
Amity raised her eyebrow at that. This school was going to have some actual diversity? Fucking finally.
"Well fine, are they here now?" She was kinda mad at Bump for not asking her if she was ok with it and instead just assumed.
"Oh they are not supposed to come until a couple hours, that gives you time to prepare right?"
"Yeah, I suppose"
"I hope that this new person is someone interesting, I'm getting tired of the same faces"
-Eda-
A street nearby Cliffside academy / 11:30 AM
"Come on Eda we are going late!" Luz exclaimed from the passenger's seat.
"I'm going as fast as I can with this traffic, and put your head back inside the car! You look like a dog"
"Sorry, it's just that I'm not used to traveling this slow without feeling the breeze of the wind. I still say that we should've just flown over here"
"Didn't you want to keep a low profile? Besides, you need to get used to cars if you wanna pass as a human" The witch had gotten better at handling her motion sickness but she wasn't quite there yet.
They were currently driving towards Cliffside in her car and Luz was as excited as a newborn puppy. Classes weren't starting in another month or so but Bump thought it would be a good idea to give her a guided tour of the school before they started, and now that she completed every task to clear her record, the old principal decided that it was a good time to sing her up once for all. Eda had also told him that Luz was from another country and had been homeschooled all her life, it was the only excuse she had to explain why she was unfamiliar with a lot of stuff.
Finally they arrived at the parking lot and Luz was bouncing up and down in her seat with such force that it made it hard for her to park. Eda put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down and chuckled, she then looked back to the backseat and saw that all of the rattling woke up their other passenger.
"Luz, are you sure it's okay to bring him here?" Eda pointed at the brown tiny owl who was now flying towards Luz's shoulder.
"Uhh positive! I'm going to turn him into a staff and hide him before we enter so it's okey"
"I still can't believe that you convinced me to bring him here"
"Oh come on! Owlbert has been stuck in his staff form for weeks, you know he'll want to be with me after that so there was no way he would've stayed in the house on his own. He'd probably tried to follow me and got lost in the process, and you don't want this little guy getting lost, do you Eda?" Luz gave her the biggest puppy eyes while holding Owlbert who was doing the same thing to her, she just rolled her eyes and exited the car.
Eda was reluctant to show it but she had become attached to the palisman. When Luz wasn't around she'd feed it small pieces of wood and allow it to perch on her shoulder, of course all of these interactions ended once the witch entered the room because she had a reputation to maintain. The worst thing was that the bird seemed to understand her predicament and found it funny, Owlbert constantly wanted to embarrass her in front of Luz.
"Luz, look at this! This is the graffiti mural that I started twenty something years ago!" Eda pointed at her masterpiece on the wall of the parking lot.
"So they kept it since then?" Luz came behind her and put Owlbert in his statue mode "Were they too lazy to clean it up?"
"Nah, some kids kept using this spot to vandalize over the years. Hey maybe you'll do it too once you study here" Eda ruffled Luz's hair affectionately.
"Eda stop! You are going to expose my ears"
"Speaking about that, heads up" She pointed towards the three figures approaching them "We got company, fix your beanie and make sure Owlbert stays as wood"
Coming towards them were principal Bump and two other teachers alongside him. Eda grimaced once she recognized the chemistry teacher Jacob Hermonculus, and she remembered how much he despised her.
"Well considering that nothing is on fire I'd say it's good to see you again, Edalyn" Jacob looked up to her with disdain (the man was really short and Eda loved to tease him about it).
"Likewise Hermi. Now tell me, did you use the platform boots that I gifted you when I left?" The look of indignation in the small man was hilarious.
"Eda!" Luz whispered to her "Don't fight with them or they are going to expel me before I join. Also, Edalyn is your full name?"
"That's enough you two, we just arrived" The third guy Who she didn't recognize inteviened "Jacob you should not start a fight you are not ready for"
Jacob just grunted.
"Well let's get this over with before you two start yelling" Bump stepped forward "Hello Edalyn"
"Bumpy-boo"
"And you must be Luz, correct?" He chose to not acknowledge her pet name and extended his hand towards her, roommate? She wasn't sure how to call Luz anymore "It's a pleasure to meet you"
"A-A pleasure to meet you too, sir!" Luz shaked his hand nervously "I'm sorry if we arrived late"
"It's okey, I'm used to Eda's tardiness"
"But we actually expect better from you!" Jacob pointed a finger towards Luz who recoiled "Miss if you tend to emulate all of your guardian's behaviors, then I'm afraid that your stay here will be-"
"Let's wait until she is a student before threatening her" Bump glared at the smaller man "Come along you two, we have things to show you"
Luz squealed from delight and followed him. Eda gave Jacob one last stern glare before running towards Bump.
"Is he going to be an issue?" She whispered to him "I know I have a reputation but I was kind of hoping that after more than two decades things would've been forgotten. I'd hate if he tries to get back at me through Luz"
"There are some things that can't be forgotten, Eda. I believe professor Hermonculus hasn't stopped checking his chair for pointy objects since you left. But don't worry, I'll make sure that your protege won't be judged for your past actions. If she ever goes to detention, it'll because she deserves it"
"That's a relief"
They continued to walk to the school as Bump recited the important facts and rules, while Eda kept watching Jacob the whole time. The other professor introduced himself as Caleb Greyson, the maths teacher.
Once they reached the building's entrance she could see the poor souls trapped here for summer school, and she could also see a couple of nerds that looked like they were enjoying it. Luz started to bubble with excitement when she saw people her age.
"Are we going to have a tour?" The teen couldn't resist asking.
"Actually you are, I arranged our top student to give you a guided tour in order for you to get used to the place" Luz actually squealed with delight "Grayson, go fetch her please, and Hermonculus I believe you have a class to give. I promise that Eda won't set the school on fire while you aren't here"
Both teachers went away and Luz's stomach chose this moment to rumble with hunger in an impressive way.
"Have you been feeding her, Edalyn?"
"Hey, this girl eats more than my ex husband! But she was too nervous to have breakfast this morning" Eda ignored the look of indignation Luz was giving her.
*Chuckle* "I see, well miss Noceda I have some things to discuss with your guardian here. So why don't you go and grab something from those vending machines while I prepare the paperwork for your inscription?"
"Agh, I have to do more stuff? You better enjoy this place, kiddo" she patted Luz's shoulder as she went to the machines and briefly wondered if she knew how to use them.
"I have to say Edalyn, its weird to see you being a good tutor"
"What can I say? I learned a few things from being on the road so long and besides, that girl really wanted to be here"
"Yes and I'm fairly certain that if she wouldn't have shown any interest in school you'd never enroll her"
*Snort* "Ah, you know me so well Bumpy-poo. Now, where's all the papers that I have to sign? Better to get it over with"
"They are in my office and I will add a new stack for each nickname" that managed to erase her smile "Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something else before that"
Eda raised her eyebrow.
"Why didn't you tell Lilith about Luz?" Her face fell "After you told me about your new protege I assumed you shared that information with your sister. Imagine my surprise when we had one of our regular calls yesterday and she informed me that she had no idea"
Shit.
"YOU TOLD LILY!" Bump covered her mouth with a hand and pointed at all of the student giving them weird looks "...sorry"
"Wasn't I supposed to? She is your sister"
"Well yeah but… It's complicated" The truth was that even though they were on better terms now Lilith tended to make big deals of situations like these, she'd probably think that she abandoned Luz as a baby or that she treats her like a servant "I'm willing to bet that's the reason why I have like 5 missed calls"
"This is your business and I'm not interfering on that"
"You kinda did already but whatever, is this all?"
"Actually no, I wanted to check something else with you. You did say that Miss Noceda was homeschooled, right?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Then we will ask her to take an equivalence exam when classes start"
"A what now?"
"It's something that we do for students with erratic schooling. A way to measure if she has the required knowledge to study with kids her age, pretty basic stuff: Maths, history, science, language and social studies. We'll send you the material for the…" Bump kept going but she tuned out of the conversation.
"Oh right, she has to have common knowledge on history and science, when she barely knows the concept of a continent… Oh yeah we're fucked"
Extra long chapter whoo hoo! I won't be able to write something longer without taking months.
So a few things:
1)The magic relic was based around a glove from the game spellbreak, I hope someone knows about it.
2)I really do not know how summer school works :d, that statement is also valid for american schools in general so tell me if I did something inaccurate.
3)For the "plaisman eat wood" part I took the inspiration from one of the new morning mark's comics, I honestly have no idea if this is true but it's cannon to my universe.
4)Someone tell me you spotted that DnD reference