I've been recounting the ideas that I have for the rest of this book and I think that I've got it all mapped out: So far I got a general idea of all the plots I want to happen for this story, I just have to write it (That's the hard part). If I only make what I already have in my docs this book will only have up to 24-25 chapters, so I'm gonna go with that. You shouldn't take this as a final thing because knowing myself I'll elongate some stuff, forcing me to divide the content I have planned into more chapters, or I'll write some filler for a holidays special if I feel particularly inspired.
Overall the things are going to keep being the same: chapters between 7k-9k words, monthly uploads (I will do my best to update this fic sooner but I make no promises), and a balance between daily shenanigans and lore. As I said above this book will have a minimum of 24 chapters with a high chance of being longer than that, but not as long as 30. Once I finish this book I will take a couple month hiatus to write the next one (I have planned like 4 books of this).
As I'm writing this s3 has not come out yet and I'm so excited for all new things to come.
EDIT: I just saw it and holy shit they didn't need to go so hard, I need to vent so *spoilers*: There was no need for that scene with hunter and flapjack, Idk why but I hate it when mind/body control happens in media, it makes me feel bad in a weird way. I think it would've been cooler for them to fight the actual Belos, Idk just my opinion.
I am really bad at tagging bc this is my first fic in Ao3, and after seeing how useful tagging is for searching new works I wanna change that. So I'm asking you guys for help, what tags do you think that would suit this fic? Consider everything that has happened until now.
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).
-Hunter-
Outside of an abandoned factory at west Gravesfield / Wednesday september 14th 19:15
Hunter stretched his leg and slapped it in order to wake it up from its numbness, it would happen to anyone that was sitting on the ground for more than twenty minutes.
They were on a surveillance mission, spying on the wild witch to be more precise, outside of town. Hunter saw the human sightings of the flying creature on the internet and he knew that it was only a matter of time until the wild witch decided to hunt it, she seemed to have the habit of fighting against giant monsters for some reason, so he and his companions tracked the beast and waited until she appeared. It worked but they didn't take into consideration that, since she was battling a flying creature, the fight took place entirely in the sky and only one of them could fly. So of course, they decided to wait.
Hunter was sure that they would at least get a chance. If this was an aerial fight the loser would end up crashing on the ground and the winner would be too tired. Even if the witch wins, she wouldn't immediately fly away to her hideout and would probably descend to rest. In that moment when she would lower her guard the three of them would sweep in to face her. Now he wasn't entirely confident that they could take her in just one go, after all flying was a pretty effective countermeasure against them, however he had a plan that would only require them to have a short encounter with her. So they planned everything: What magical artifacts to bring, what spells to use, her escape routes, their escape routes, they took every single variable into consideration.
Or at least they thought they did.
"Hey, do you think I could go and buy a snack from the store nearby and come back before anything happens? I'm getting hungry" Wrath asked with a bored face from his corner in the room.
"Shh, she changed positions again" Abigail was leaning over the window, looking at the witch with binoculars and writing everything she saw on a notepad "That bitch uses an illusion to change her appearance, what's the point of her cape then?"
"Does it look like she is wearing a concealing stone? Because if she doesn't it means that she has to continuously keep that going, and that's an impressive amount of concentration" Wrath made a helpful commentary of something that Hunter already figured out some minutes ago.
"Can't we please just go? My legs are getting cramped" Hunter had been ecstatic with the chance to see the wild witch in action, even if they didn't manage to capture her or even if his plan didn't work, they could gain something really valuable out of this: Information. Her spells, fighting style, motives, everything was useful for the future encounters that they might have.
However the battle had ended some time ago and now they were watching the wild witch do literally nothing.
"You are the one who suggested that we sit and wait to gather information"
"That was thirty minutes ago! The fight is over, the witch isn't doing anything! What information are we going to gather by just sitting here? I'm willing to bet that she is just waiting for the right moment to leave"
"Alright, so you agree" Abigail got up with less difficulty than before, it seemed that her broken leg was healing "Let's just go there and kill her"
"Are you kidding me? Aren't you seeing the same thing that I'm seeing?" Then he pointed outside towards the large amount of heavily armored humans, who were just below the wild witch.
That was the one thing they didn't take into consideration. During all this time on earth they had several encounters with some certain human organization; They were always armed, had these sensors that could detect them, always wore suits, and seemed to be the only ones that knew what about them. They didn't think that they would also be interested in the wild witch so they were taken by surprise when several vehicles showed up in the middle of the fight and many humans started unloading from them.
"We fought against them before" Abigail reminded him.
"Those fights don't count, there were only less than twenty people in those warehouses and we had the element of surprise. Here they are more than fifty of them and they are heavily armored" Hunter had never seen the equipment that the human had brought in their trucks, the lack of information was something that really worried him: He needed to have well-thought plans in order to go to action and uncertainty scared him.
"I still say we could take them"
"There's also the wild witch don't forget" Wrath chipped in "We have given both sides a reason to fight against us. They might not be together but if we attack one the other might join in the fight and there's no way we could take the witch and all the humans together"
Both him and Abigail looked at him stunned. Wrath may be an idiot in social and logistical matters, but it was obvious that he knew his stuff when it was about fighting.
"Whose side are you on?"
"None, I'm just thinking out loud"
"Well he's got a point, we can't fight and we can't stay here either, remember that the humans have those magic-tracking devices" They fled the scene considering this and found a building that was partially in ruins, it seemed to be part of the abandoned factory. The humans haven't found them here yet but Hunter was certain that it was only a matter of time, and once they did they would be in real trouble.
"I don't like the idea of leaving without finishing the mission"
"We can still finish the mission without alerting the humans or fighting the wild witch" Hunter smiled smugly and turned towards Wrath "Do you have it?"
"Yes of course" And he pulled a small object from his backpack and tossed it to hunter, it was a statue of a big beetle made out of some strange green material.
This was a magical tracking device they found in the human's warehouses, and it was Hunter's plan in case they would not be able to catch the witch. All they had to do was plant one of these on her and they would know the location of her hideout, so it would not matter if she escaped their ambush.
"Are you going to do it now? In front of all these humans? I told you you should have done it when she was fighting"
"I am not going to get between a fight of lighting and fireballs, Abigail. Besides, she would've seen me coming and she is way faster than me"
"Then you should lend your fancy staff to one of us, that way we may have a chance" Abigail gave him a mocking glare.
"I've been with this staff for four years. Trust me it's a matter of our gear, not my skill" That was true. Even if the new artificial staffs the Emperor had been developing were able to unleash a witch's maximum power without the risks of wild magic the palismen provided, it still lacked in flight speed compared to the older staffs.
"Still, are you sure?" Wrath intervened "There are a lot of humans with those tracking devices, it could be dangerous to go alone"
"Stealth missions are always better with fewer people, Abigail is still injured" the witch grumbled at that "and no offense, but you aren't the best at sneaking around. Besides I'm pretty sure that those devices won't be able to distinguish me, I mean this place is overflowing with magical residue from the fight"
"Fine, but if you don't come back your food is ours" Wrath said jokingly.
With that he dropped down from the window and started to slowly descend with his staff. Hunter wasn't right, the place was reeking of magic and the three of them could sense it even if they weren't tracking specialists from the beast-keeping coven. However, that wasn't the reason why he insisted on coming alone. They did not know if the human devices could track the magic from a general area or if it could distinguish the location of each specific source, if it was the latter it would be dangerous for his companions to come near, but not for him. Since Hunter was a magic-less witch weilding an artificial staff he should be invisible for those gadgets.
"Finally my birth defect is going to be useful" he thought as he glided towards the main building where the best had crashed "going to the front would be suicidal and attacking from the back is too obvious, I gotta find a way from the sides"
He entered the factory's main building through an emergency exit but he found that this path was blocked by rubble, it seemed that it was going to be harder than he thought. It took him a couple of minutes but he managed to navigate through the destroyed place and he arrived to the central part of the factory: several walls were torn apart, some equipment was burning in the corner, and the roof had been blown away in the fight, allowing him to see the wild witch standing on top of the highest part of the wall, several meters away with her back turned to him.
"As I expected, she's too focused on the humans" Hunter kneeled and started preparing the magical artifact. It worked in a surprisingly easy way. All you had to do was press the sides of the beetle while aiming for your target, then its mouth would launch a tiny ball that was undetectable to anyone who wasn't holding the beetle, the ball would stick to the first surface it collided with and it would work as a tracker. The only hard part with this was that it had a maximum range of ten meters.
"Good aim is the only thing I need to operate this thing. Luckily, mine is impeccable"
He started measuring the distance and planning his attack when a rumbling sound to his right alerted him. He was expecting to see one of the humans but he was surprised to discover that a bright, white fire was burning the stairs. Hunter didn't remember anything about humans making white fire, but he did remember that the monster the wild witch fought against had white fire on its limbs.
"Let's see, if I remember correctly she was battling an entity called the guardian. They are known for flying at high speeds, controlling weather, and… producing white flames! So these are the magical residues that we've been sensing around, wait what's happening?..."
He felt some rattling coming from his backpack and he opened it. There he kept all of the magic relics he brought to fight the wild witch, several of them would be useful for this occasion, but the thing that called his attention was the small shining that was coming from a certain object. He pulled it out and was surprised to realize that it was the petrified palisman, he must have put it in his backpack by accident.
"But why is it shining?" The tiny bird statue had a small white hue around it and was starting to shake.
The white flames suddenly became brighter and started to get bigger. Hunter backed out, suddenly feeling scared. He then remembered something that Abigail told him before.
A week ago
Hunter had spotted a wild witch during one of his leisure patrols so he called his companions excitedly. His disappointment was great when he found out that it wasn't THE wild witch, just another criminal that got teleported with them. Still, they completed the diligent duty to stop him and they were in the middle of deliberating what to do with the criminal when the humans arrived: people in suits and technological gear came out of black vans and started to investigate the area, the three of them were pretty tired from the fight so they decided to retreat.
"Well, that's the end of it" Abigail looked at how the humans were imprisoning the wild witch from the roof they were hiding.
"Shouldn't we go back there and retrieve him" Wrath inquired "the law states that every wild witch has to be petrified"
"There's not much we can do, it's not like we can keep him a prisoner until we get back home and we have no way of petrifying him" She sat down in the edge of the roof to rest "Besides I'd doubt the humans would go easy on him, considering what we've done to them. So I say this is an adequate punishment"
"Something isn't right" the wild witch looked to him familiar but he hadn't been able to pinpoint it during the fight. Now that he could examine the subject calmly, Hunter could determine why "I remember him. He was one of the witches that was petrified in a public ceremony two years ago"
"I thought the same thing, but that's not possible so… close relative?" Wrath shrugged his shoulders.
"Nah that's entirely possible" Abigail stretched her arms "I remembered one of the nerds from the research division in our coven telling me that it was possible to break free from a petrificated state"
"That's impossible!" Wrath got up from where he was sitting.
"Why on earth would he be researching that ?" Hunter was exasperated. There was a reason why wild magic was forbidden, there was some knowledge that wasn't meant to be known by witches!
"He argued that it was because sometimes we may petrify the wrong person and hey, it's not like it hasn't happened in the past" Hunter winced. There were some cases when the emperor's coven made a mistake and an innocent witch ended up petrified, his uncle called those unfortunate but necessary sacrifices "The general idea was that if a statue would be exposed to great amounts of magic, the petrification would be undone"
"But did he finish his project?" That was a scary thought.
"Titan no, I told him that if he didn't shut his investigation I would report it to Belos and the he would need his own research to unpetrify himself"
"That's good, if the rebels knew about that it would be bad" then Wrath pointed to the wild witch "but what has that to do with this?"
"I'd say that his hypothesis was correct" both of them looked at her without understanding "Think about it, the guy said statues could come back if they receive a huge amounts of magic. Do you guys remember how we were transported to this world? By a swirl of light and magic, the portal that brought us here was a literal definition of 'huge amounts of magic'"
"So that means… every statue in that chamber was unpetrified by the portal?" It was a scary thought. Not only were they surrounded by humans hunting them down, they also had to be wary of the enemies of the emperor?
"Ok but it's not that bad, there weren't many statues in that vault" Wrath tried to cheer them up.
"Yeah, most of the wild witches were kept in the castle. If I remember correctly, the vault held mostly petrified creatures" Abigail got up with difficulty "Which would explain why we have been seeing those in the human realm. Anyway, let's move on"
Hunter agreed and they started walking towards their home.
Back to the present.
Hunter gasped when he realized what was happening and tried to back off, but it was already too late. The white fire spread through the floor and seemed to have life of its own, it formed tendrils and reached for the palisman in his hands. He felt his hands burn so he tossed the palisman away, hoping that it would leave him alone. It worked and Hunter watched with fascination as the fire enveloped the bird statue in a big glow and getting consumed by it, he closed his eyes for a second to recover from the brightness and he heard a voice filling the room.
"Go, little one. Fly free"
He rubbed his eyes and opened them, to his shock the fire was gone along with the brightness. He looked for the statue only to find his fears confirmed: there in the ground, surrounded by tiny pieces of stone, stood a red cardinal. There wasn't anything notable about it besides its size (it was at least two times bigger than regular birds) and the fact that one of its eyes was closed by a big scar, but other than that it looked like a regular animal.
But Hunter knew it wasn't the case.
"Ahhh! Palisman! Get back" he grabbed his staff and fired it out of sheer panic, the cardinal just dodged his shots by flying and chirped at him angrily "Stay back! Those were… warning shots, you will not corrupt me with your wild magic!"
The bird just looked at him confused as he pointed his staff towards him threateningly. Some movement to the other side distracted him and he suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be doing a mission. Panicking, he looked towards the wild witches position only to find she was already gone, he also noticed that the noises that he heard were the walls of the building coming down, it seemed that this place became more unstable.
"Agghh, you are to blame for this!" He pulled his hair out of frustration as he pointed with an accusing finger to the palisman, who just looked at him weird and flew away "Grrr, I do not want to hear what Abigail will say about this"
"Everyone, watch out" he heard some human speaking on the other side of the building "the guardian just woke up!"
"Uh-oh"
-Amity-
Cliffside highschool, chemistry classroom / Monday september 26th. 14:30
Professor Hermonunculus was giving the class another lecture about how they were the worst human beings in existence, but she wasn't paying attention to him. Her head was filled with thoughts about her future.
These past couple of weeks had developed into a painful routine for Amity, even worse than last year. Not only she had to worry about having the best grades in every subject and juggling her extracurricular activities, on top of that she had her duties as captain of the basketball team and she had her part-time job at the library. Her weekdays were filled with work: If she wasn't studying she was tutoring someone, if she wasn't she was in the robotics club, if it wasn't that she was sorting books in the library. Even her weekends were occupied with team practices and parties in Blight manor in order to lure investors for the company and that was another thing, the annual Blight industries ball for raising funds was coming around the corner and she needed to help his father test their products AND her basketball team was going to start having matches next month.
Amity did not know how she was going to handle everything but she did know that she was at her limit, one of these days she was going to snap at someone. She was too tired to even argue with her mom, which that may have been her plan all along
"It's ok, just wait until the winter break and you are free. You can handle two more months right?" At least things would get better in the holiday season; No school, no work, no matches, no meetings, and no responsibilities "And the twins will be back, I even miss them"
The thought of her siblings made her sigh, she still called them to get moral support but it wasn't the same, they promised to be home to visit before the winter break and she was excited about it. Without the twins the only comfort that she had was spending time with Skara and reading to children in the library, she really liked it. But also it did not help that she had to spend most of her free time with Boscha and her cronies.
"...Babbling incompetent buffoons!" Hermonunculus's rant was over and she forced herself to pay attention to the class again "Now for the love of god, could someone be so kind to tell me the answer to this problem?"
Amity rose her hand with lightning speed "The answer is the option two, professor"
"Fantastic as always miss Blight" then to her horror he turned towards Luz with a playful glint in his eyes "You have to be quicker than that, Miss noceda"
Luz for her part just nodded awkwardly, Amity just looked at her in an apologetic manner. Luz's academic expertease had some unexpected consequences with their teacher: yes, he stopped comparing the rest of the students to her and making them hate Amity, but now he would compare her to Luz and viceversa. It was like he was pitting them against each other, as if they were fighting. The rest of the students loved it and they were eclastic with the idea of 'little miss perfect' finally losing her spot.
"Now, remember how last week we had a little test?" The class collectively groaned "Yes, yes, that infamous one. I know that I said I wouldn't be able to correct those by this week but it turns out that I was able to, and let me tell ya, the results were disappointing" He then went towards his desk and grabbed a stack of papers.
Then they spent the remaining minutes of the period enduring Hermonunculus's rant, each time he gave a student their test he did it with the most painful remarks he could. Until it was Amity's turn.
"89/100, outstanding as always miss Blight" He handled her page with a smile.
"huh, it isn't a 90 but it's not that bad. I suppose this happened because I'm so tired, maybe I should-"
"Miss Noceda, you got a 95/100! Excellent work"
Amity turned towards her so quickly that she gave herself whiplash. Luz just scored higher than her in an exam, the girl that was homeschooled and needed help understanding everything, the girl that didn't know how the drinkers in the school worked, the girl that had needed her help with understanding history content a middle schooler should know. Her.
An unknown emotion stirred and twisted inside her stomach.
"Well this just made it official, and I have just the thing to celebrate the occasion!" With that Hermonunculus raced towards his desk and grabbed a shiny object from his drawer "here it is! The bell for celebrating a new top student" then he made that stupid bell ring as he walked towards Luz while ringing that damned bell "Congratulations miss Noceda"
The whole class clapped as Luz shook the professor's hand with a confused look, but it wasn't like they cared about what Hermonunculus had to say, they didn't care about Luz either (most people tended to ignore her, since Boscha made Luz her public target). No, the reason why they were happy was because the 'little miss perfect' had finally fallen from her throne. All of them were happy that she finally wasn't the best at something, even if they themselves weren't better than her at it.
The class continued with an excited Hermonunculus giving her remarks about how 'she had to catch up' and 'he could not wait for her comeback' while Amity just grinded her teeth and bore it. She tried to not pay them any mind, but the whispers from her classmates kept distracting her. When the bell rang she tried to bolt out of the room before anyone could tell her anything, she knew that some people would still mock her in the hallways but she did not care.
One hour later
Amity hadn't had the time to deal with whatever happened in chemistry, the day went on and so did her responsibilities. Currently she was walking towards her next class, she tried her best to not to think about the test but she could not stop that feeling inside of her.
"Why did this affect me so much? Luz got a better grade than me in chemistry, so what? It's not a big deal, I'm still better than her in every other subject. Besides, I was busy with everything else I have going on! If it wasn't for that I would totally be better than her… why do I care about that anyway? I'm just doing this because my mom wanted to"
The truth was simple, even if she didn't want to admit it, she worked hard to earn the title of the top student of the class and seeing someone new just appear out of nowhere and swoop in her spot hurt. Odalia forced her to be the best at everything and she dedicated herself to reaching that goal, at first because she was pushed to but she gradually began liking it. The fact that she was the best at something felt good and she really enjoyed chemistry (even if she really disliked Hermonunculus), the remarks she got from her classmates didn't help either.
"I guess this is what happens when the teachers riles them up against me, god I should've talked with Hermonunculus about that a long time ago" she kept walking in the hallway trying to disperse these thoughts while a voice called her.
"Miss Blight, can we talk for a minute?" Behind her stood a middle aged woman with a pink dress, black stockings, blue earrings, and heels. She was Helena Patrick, her mother' Aunt and a school teacher. She used to tutor her until she had nothing left to teach her, she was used by her mother to control Amity in the school. She only appeared whenever Amity was in trouble and the fact that she was here meant that she already knew about the test.
"Can it wait, Miss Patrick? I don't wanna be late for my next class" she refused to call her 'auntie' or something.
"Oh don't worry, this will only take a few minutes and I'll talk to your next teacher if you end up arriving late for this" She looked displeased as always.
"Fine, what is it?"
"Come inside dear" she gestured towards an empty classroom.
As she went towards her the students walking past her suddenly produced some 'uhhh' sounds, she even heard someone whisper 'Amity Blight is in trouble' as if they were in fucking elementary school. Amity just rolled her eyes and closed the door behind her.
When she entered the woman sat on the classroom's desk and looked at her.
"Hermonunculus told me about what happened in class today, You lost your spot"
"She went straight to the point, eh?"
"I think that's an overstatement" she stood in front of her with a challenging expression.
"Is it? It came directly from Hermonunculus's mouth when we were speaking in the teacher's room earlier"
"Yes but it's just one test. Grades can change before the winter break, not to mention that I have extra credit. You can agree that Hermonunculus's grading methods aren't the best"
"Yes, you are correct in that matter. Still, it's an embarrassing display for the future head of Blight industries"
"Why are you acting like this?" She didn't mean to rise her voice but this was getting to her nerves "I still passed the test with a high grade, and I'm still the best in all my other subjects"
"But not in your best signature, right?" That was right, chemistry was her best and favorite subject "tell me something dear, wasn't miss Noceda one of your students?"
"Yes, but I don't see how that's relevant" Amity did not like where this was going.
"Did you teach her chemistry?"
"She did not need help with chemistry" Now that she thought about it, Luz didn't look concerned for that particular subject
"Oh but you still taught her, right?"
"It was my job as her tutor to evaluate her in every subject, you should know that" She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms.
"Don't you see what's the problem here? A homeschooled girl that you used to tutor outperformed you in your best class. That is not a favorable look on you, I'm afraid I will have to discuss this with your mother later today"
All of the defiant spirit abandoned her body as those words came out of her old tutor's mouth. Amity just looked at her, perplexed.
"But… Why?"
"Your family expects you to be the best at everything"
"I AM the best at everything! I am the top student at hexide AND the captain of the basketball team, talk to every teacher here and they'll agree with me"
"But are you the best at chemistry tho-" her smile of superiority was driving Amity mad.
"YES! I have a part time job and several extracurriculars while Luz only has to worry about school, if I could dedicate the same time than her to school the results would still be the same"
"Hmmm, we shall see then. I won't bring this to your mother, but you don't manage to keep your grades up I will tell her how rude you were to me"
"I wasn't-"
"You shouldn't scream at people's faces, niece" she walked up to the door and opened it "now go, you have other classes to attend to"
Amity numbly walked towards the classroom's exit, but before she could get out her aunt grabbed her arm and whispered to her ear: "this is all for the family's well being Amity, I hope you understand"
She shook her hand away from her and ran straight to the nearest bathroom before the tears in her eyes appeared. She could imagine Odalia's face of disappointment hanging above her as she ran "how pitiful dear, I never raised someone so pathetic"
Amity arrived at the bathroom where she took deep breaths to calm herself down. When that failed she locked herself in a toilet and let out a long scream of rage (she was thankful that no one else was in the bathroom). After a while she felt better so she got up to clean her face, when she looked to herself in the mirror she was surprised to see the messy state she was in.
"What the hell?" There were tears in her eyes, her face was red, her makeup smeared, and her face was a mess. She managed to splash some water in her face and clean herself up "Man I'm such a mess"
"Hey Amity" She heard the voice of the last person she wanted to see coming from the door "Are you here?"
"Oh no" She quickly fixed her appearance to look more presentable just as the door swung open to reveal Luz.
"Hey, umm. Are you okey?" Luz approached her slowly.
"What do you want?" She snapped at her "Did you come here to rub it in?"
"I- I just wanted to check on you, you seemed a bit sad when the class ended. I couldn't find you in the last period so I-"
"I'm fine, now can you please leave me?" Amity really did not want to deal with this right now.
"Why are you mad at me?" Luz's genuine expression only managed to piss her off.
"Ugh, seriously? Just leave me alone"
"I didn't want the professor to say that… Also I didn't want the other students to mock you! I don't understand!" Luz was looking at her with an exasperated expression
"Yeah you won't understand" Luz wouldn't understand how Odalia would pressure her even more after hearing that she wasn't the best "Just… leave"
"What's happening with you? Before school started you were kind and cool. Now you avoid me, say mean things to Willow, and go along with whatever stupid thing Boscha wants to do! I just don't know what's wrong"
Of course she didn't know and deep inside Amity was aware that she was being really unfair with the girl, and she probably deserved an explanation. But a bigger part of her just did not care about that.
"What's happening to me is that I worked hard to achieve my top spot, only to be robbed by a girl who thinks that she can just walk into school and do what she pleases. Tell me the truth, did you cheat? Because I remember you needing my help to solve basic questions for your exam, stuff that a middle schooler wouldn't have an issue solving, so there's no way you could manage to score that without help"
She regretted those words as soon as they came out of her mouth. Luz's eyes widened and she looked really hurt.
"I-I didn't cheat!"
"Oh no… I did it again" she made an effort to not to think about the last time she hurt someone like that.
"Well perfect. If you don't have anything more to say I´m going to ask you to leave"
"Sure" Luz's voice was shaky "I'll give you all the space you need, blight " with that the girl left her alone in the bathroom.
Amity sighed and collapsed in the sink "it's better this way" she told herself, not believing it one bit.
-Luz-
Cliffside highschool / Thursday, september 29th, 12:30 hrs
"... Ok when the combat starts you have to roll initiative, for that we use the dexterity mod- wait, are you listening Luz?" Gus's voice managed to wake her up from her daydream.
"Huh? Oh, sorry Gus. I just zoomed out a little bit for a second there" Right now they were having their lunch together, Gus suggested that he could teach her his game while they waited for Willow and Luz had agreed to that.
"I can tell, have you gotten enough sleep lately? You look really tired"
"It's just a combination of studying up late and my part-time job" Also fighting monsters, no big deal.
"Well if you wanted to we could stop and do something less boring to keep you awake, I know that DnD has a big learning curve"
"It's fine, don't worry. I did promise you to at least try it"
"Hey guys!" Willow appeared with her lunch in her hands "Did I miss something?"
"Not much" Luz got up in order to give Willow more space so she could sit with them, but she ended up tripping on the chair and falling on the floor, causing everyone in the cafeteria to look at her "Ouch…"
"Are you ok?" Gus rushed to her side to help her up.
"Yeah, I'm fine"
"You are a lot clumsier than usual" Willow observed with a worried face "Are you sure you are ok?"
"I just haven't slept well lately" Luz shrugged sheepishly. That wasn't the truth.
Luz's week had been awful. First she still had no leads on the plane-shifting staff or any other powerful relics that might help her situation. Then she ends up fighting against an elemental guardian and, to make things worse, the humans in suits appear and capture it when the fight was over. On top of that she had several encounters with that one griffin that shitted on Eda's car and flew away (she was willing to bet that there were several places filled with bird poop), not to mention that she also had to balance her part-time job and school. She was starting to see why Eda hated this place: Tons of work for no apparent reason, a social hierarchy that no one wasn't allowed to change, and the people were really bad, Boscha yeah, but everyone else that allowed her to do as she pleased was the same in her opinion.
That brought her thoughts back to Amity: The brunette had made things complicated between them and Luz had no idea why. If Amity was just another bully that didn't care about others that would make things way too easier, she'd just ignore her and move on with her life. However she was certain that that wasn't the case, she behaved nicely before school started and didn't bully others like Boscha (Unless those rare times when she was alone with Willow). Overall she was a mystery that Luz couldn't figure out and it was frustrating her, the fact that the girl did not want to do anything with her made things worse.
"Did the exam week get to you? I know it can be hard, especially since you never had exams in your life before"
"Actually, I'm doing ok with those" Her fascination with reading helped her with literature (Although she still thought that this shakespeare guy was overrated) and her knowledge in alchemy helped her in chemistry, much to Amity's dismay "Sure it can be a lot of work but I haven't ran into any difficulties"
"That 's great! Look at you, our prodigy student" Willow rubbed her hair affectionately and they finished eating their lunch.
"So Luz" Gus started after they left the cafeteria to go to their next class "It has been officially a month since you started studying here, what do you think about it so far?"
"Ehhhh" the question caught her umprepared.
Willow chuckled "We told you it wouldn't be easy, are you having regrets?"
"No it's not that, just… this place wasn't what I expected"
Luz knew that going to school hoping it would be the same as k-dramas and novelas was a foolish thing, still when she signed up she wasn't aware how difficult this was going to be. Eda had been right when she told Luz she wasn't ready and the Woman was expecting her to give up, each time Luz complained on anything about the school the woman just told her "well if you hate it so much why don't you quit it, hmmm?". Well Luz Noceda didn't quit! Not after all the effort she put into this.
"It isn't what I expected… but it's not that bad" she continued as they finished lunch and started walking towards their next class "I get to learn about new stuff, meet new people, and I have you guys!"
"Awww- wait, do you guys hear something?" Willow stopped and looked around. Right now they were in the middle of an empty hallway but the could hear a kind of noise coming from somewhere "it sounds like yelling"
"Yeah, maybe we should-" the doors bursted open before Gus could continue his sentence.
Before Luz had time to process what was going on she got yanked by Willow and dragged behind a corner.
"Ouch! Ok, for all her complains about being weak, this girl has strong arms"
"I'm telling you Boscha, I didn't see them" Kat, a brown-skinned girl that Luz knew from the basketball team, appeared followed by an angry-looking Boscha.
"Can't you do anything right? I asked you to keep an eye on them during lunch"
"You told me that just so you could go and chat with Brandon! Why don't you just confront her at lunchtime?"
"You know I can't do that! The teachers are always watching there and my mothers told me to not cause a scene after the mess we did on the first day" from the way she was talking it seemed that the athlete privileges were not without limits.
"Ah whatever, let's just ask the first person we see if they saw them" with that the two girls walked away without noticing them.
"Phew, that was close" Willow released her and Luz rubbed her wrists.
"Ok, two things. First, girl you have one heck of a grip. Second, why did we hide?"
"I thought that you wanted to hide from Boscha, didn't you spend all month doing it?"
That was correct, Luz had used her magic to evade Boscha since she started school, but the issue was that she had grown tired of it. She did everything to hide from her bully: Illusions, teletransportation, invisibility, force fields, vines, ice, wind, she even set her hair on fire one time, nothing seemed to work on her and each attempt only seemed to make the girl more determined to catch Luz.
"Honestly I'm done with running away from my problems. At this point I just want to walk up to her and tell her exactly what I think"
"Hah! Good luck with that!" Gus' mocking voice came from somewhere she couldn't see.
"Wait, Gus? Where are you?" He didn't hide with them when the girls entered the hallway.
"Over here" they turned around to see a hand waving from a trash bin.
"You hid in the trash? Gus, that's disgusting!" Willow scolded him.
"Hey a guy has to do what it takes to survive, ok?" He jumped out of the bin throwing everything else that was inside on the floor "ups, I hope the janitor doesn't see that"
"Why were you hiding anyway?" Luz inquired "they only hate me and Willow"
"Well they know that I hang out with you guys, so I didn't want to risk it" he started cleaning the trash from his clothes "Besides they said they were going to 'ask' the first person they saw if they saw you and I already know what that means"
"What do you mean by tha-" her question was interrupted by a scream and a loud noise from the direction the girls went.
Luz rushed in, following the sound without a second thought. She opened a door to reveal that the one screaming was a first year boy who was pinned against the lockers by Boscha.
"Answer you little twerp, did you see them or not?"
"Jesus Boscha, he's just a kid!" Kat looked at her, surprised.
Luz clenched her fists and before Willow could stop her she marched forward. This was the same stuff that happened in the boiling isles: Someone put themselves above everyone else and oppressed the weak with their rules, the masses didn't do anything to help those who suffer because they were too busy looking after themselves. Well Luz Noceda wasn't going to stand for it! She was going to make changes here, like she did back at her home.
"Hey Boscha!" Luz could hear Willow's shriek of fear coming from behind her.
The red haired girl turned around and froze, she let go of the boy's collar and he ran without looking back. Kat just looked at her incredusly while Boscha snapped out of her shock and started advancing towards her. Luz couldn't see Willow or Gus around so that meant they went into hiding.
"Good for me, it's better if they don't intervene"
"So… you got tired of running huh? Finally came to-" Boscha was gloating in front of her but Luz didn't have the energy to deal with this.
"What the fuck is your problem?" The words just blurted out of her mouth without even passing through her brain. She didn't mean to swear, but she guessed that Eda was rubbing off on her "Sorry… it's just that, you have been chasing me ever since school started, why?"
"What do you mean with why? You were the one who-"
"YES Boscha, I was the one that bumped into you and spilled your coffee. I know, haha silly me, I get it. Can we move on from that?"
"What, do you want me to just let you go as if nothing happened?"
"For the love of- IT WAS TWO MONTHS AGO BOSCHA!" Her yelling managed to get a surprised whine from Kat "can't you just get over it? I didn't cause any damage to you and I'm sure that you already washed the coffee stains off that jacket"
"You… you" Boscha was startled, it seemed that she wasn't used to people talking back at her "You disrespected me, I need to put you in your place"
"How did I disrespect you? It was an accident and I said sorry! Is your ego that fragile?" She could hear a shocked gasp coming from behind her, it was probably Gus "Do you really care about your image that much?"
"I-it's not just about that! I had to show you who is the one on top here. You were the one who were running away all this time"
"So what, did you expect me to just stand there and let you punch me? Of course I'm going to run! It's the most logical thing to do. You were the one that chased me around this past month, is this really that important to you that you had to drag your friends into this silly game?How obsessed can you be? Do you even have a life?"
That comment did it: Kat gave a little yelp of surprise and Boscha narrowed her eyes.
"Ok that's it, I was just going to give you a little lesson about how things work here. When I was sure that you understood why you shouldn't mess with me I was going to let you continue with your pathetic existence in peace, but this won't stand anymore!"
"What are you going to do? Because I'm not going to let you punch me" Luz took a deep breath to calm herself, she realized that she wasn't helping her situation here "Listen just, I'm tired of this and tired of running away from you. I'm sorry about what happened, can you just let it go? It would be so much better for the two of us if you do"
"After all of that? No" she took one step towards Luz with confidence "You need to learn your lesson" She kept going forward until she was in front of her, she raised her fist and-
"Wait!" Luz's yelp actually managed to stop Boscha, she looked at Luz with a raised eyebrow "not here, or now. The period has already started and we are late to class. If we do this here we'll get in trouble" The truth was that Luz was really tired from all her week, so she thought that fighting right now would be bad.
"Maybe you'll get in trouble, but I won't" Boscha smiled cockily and then paused to think as she tapped her chin "but you are right, this would be inconvenient for me, do we move it for later today?"
"Tomorrow, when we are out of school" Luz looked at her with determination in her eyes.
"Fine by me, I'll let you go for now. See you tomorrow Noceda " With that she marched towards the hallway entrance. Kat tagged along but she gave Luz a look of pure surprise and awe.
Luz stood there, breathing to calm the rush of adrenaline she just felt. After a while Willow and Gus came out of their hiding spots looking at her as if she was crazy.
"You are dead…" muttered Gus while Willow shaked her head.
"We'll see about that"
"I don't know if Eda would be proud or annoyed at me"
-Amity-
Cliffside highschool / Friday, september 30th, 17:45 hrs
Amity looked at her phone in disappointment. Her student just canceled their tutoring class at the last minute and even if he couldn't blame him, he did say that an unforeseen emergency just came up, she still felt annoyed. The robotics club didn't have any activities today and neither did the basketball team, which left her with nothing much to do. Usually she would've been ecstatic about having a free afternoon, she could catch up on all the shows she's been missing because of her busy schedule, or she and Skara could hang out on their own without Boscha, she could look for a new book to read in the library, or she could just stay on her room and do nothing for once in her life.
But today was different: Today her parents were hosting a meeting with all of the investors of Blight robotics in her house and the only reason why her mother didn't ask her to come was because she told her she was busy tutoring her students. If she went back home now she would have to deal with fake manners and pampered adults all evening.
She was considering just lying to her mom and going to the mall when the sound of people yelling outside called her attention, she looked outside a window and was surprised to see a large number of students running towards the school's parking lot. Amity did not remember anything about an event today so she was surprised to see this amount of people. She exited the building and saw one of her friends running with the crowd.
"Hey Amelia!" She called out loud to her blonde friend "What's happening here?"
"Omg girl, you don't know?" Her friend had an excited glee in her eyes "Boscha is going to kick the new girl's ass in front of everyone!"
"What?!" Her mind started running with possilities for this scenario. None of them were good.
"Aparently the girl got tired of running away and challenged her. They agreed to 'solve their differences' today when the school ended in the parking lot. Word spread around and now everyone wants to see the beating"
"Did Luz really do that? Does she want to die?"
"Where are they fighting? I'm coming with you" she didn't want to see this massacre but she might be able to ensure that Luz didn't end up being hurt too much...
"Now that I think about it, isn't she the same girl you saved back in the summer? Do you wanna do that again?" Amelia looked at her with suspicion in her eyes.
"No- It's just… Boscha has been really annoying with this whole business, so I want to watch to make sure that this is done because I can't stand another minute of her bitching"
"Oh my god yes! She makes us keep an eye for her and follow her around, I feel like a stalker! It will be so good when she beats this girl up and this is all over"
"if you were capable of forming an independent thought you'd know how bad that sounds"
They moved along with the rest of the students towards the parking lot. There were at least like forty people forming a circle around the mural with graffiti, all of them were cheering and clapping as if this was a circus. In the middle of that space were Luz and Boscha a couple of meters away from each other.
"I hope for your sake that you know what you are doing Luz, because I don't think I can help you with this one"
-Luz-
Luz had no idea of what she was doing and she was starting to freak out about it. Her opponent was taller than her (something that hasn't stopped her before) she also was a renewed athlete and, according to Willow, she had been in multiple streetfights. Still she wasn't scared of Boscha, but she was scared of what the multitude that had gathered around them might do.
"Are all these people your back up?" Luz taunted Boscha as she stretched against the wall as a way to calm down her nerves.
"Pfft, as if I need that for you" Despite what was about to happen the pink-haired girl looked quite happy "They are just here because they want to, if you wanted this to be private you should have said it before"
"I just challenged the fucking queen of the school to a fist fight, of course people are going to want to watch this… and now I'm also swearing in my inner thoughts, I guess Eda is rubbing in me"
"So they won't do anything?" She looked at the sides, there were a lot of people from Boscha's group, even Amity.
"They'll keep you from running like you always do, other than that they will just watch, isn't that right girls?" Several of them waved in confirmation "Besides it's good that everyone is watching, now I can make a public example of what happens when you go against me"
"Ok fine. You remembered what we promised right? No matter what happens after this you will leave me alone and act like nothing happened"
"Ugh yeah whatever" Luz just kept looking at her and she rolled her eyes "Fiiiine, you have my word. Now can we just get this over with already?"
Luz nodded and raised her arms to a fighting stance while Boscha did the same. She didn't know how much a bully's word was worth but it was a good thing that everyone here heard her say that, just in case she decides to change her mind. As she looked at her she couldn't help but think about what Eda told her the other day.
The owl house / Seventeen hours earlier
Luz was panicking in her room about tomorrow, there was no way she was going to sleep well tonight and-
"Hey kid" A voice called from her door, she turned around to see Eda with a smug grin on her face "Relax, I don't know why you are so stressed, that girl has no chance to win against a magical being"
"I'm not going to use magic Eda!"
"Why not?" The woman looked at her as if she was crazy.
"Because that would be like cheating"
"And that's… bad?"
"Yes and… Let's just say I want to beat her in her own game"
"Ah, so you just want to punch her in the face, gotcha" Luz groaned and she let herself fall into her bed "Well if you are going to fight all 'fair and square' let me give you some tips…"
"Oh, umm thanks Eda but I think that I'm ok with that. I've been on many-"
"Not about that. Listen, that girl is a jock and as you well know they tend to be protected by the school, so the last thing you wanna do is seriously injure her. If she can't play her next game because of you it will be real bad"
"Uhh" She hadn't thought of that "So… what do I do?"
"Relax, I had my fair share of encounters like these. I will tell you how"
Back to the present
Then she spent some hours teaching Luz how to fight. Even if she knew about it, it turned out to be a bonding experience for them. She even told Luz she was proud of her, something that she still didn't process.
"Well, what's taking so long? There's no bell for this" Boscha taunted her "Tell you what. I'll even let you have one punch for free, I'm a good sport"
"Are you sure?" Luz raised her eyebrow. This was too good to be true.
"Sure, that's the only punch you are getting anyway" She opened her arms and raised her chin.
"Well, here goes nothing"
She lunged foward and before Boscha could react her fist connected with her nose in full force. The girl was sent backwards and landed on her butt, she was holding her face with her hands but Luz could see a trail of blood coming out of it. The people gasped and they stopped cheering, everyone looked at the jock who was standing up with difficulty.
Despite everything, Luz smiled "Well, what were you expecting? This is a fist fight"
"YOU ARE DEAD" Boscha came charging after her like mad but Luz just dodged her by side-stepping.
"We'll see about that"
I realized that I misspelled the name of the chemistry teacher in my last chapter *facepalm* my bad, I already corrected it. In case you didn't notice he's the abomination professor.
If someone here thinks that I exaggerated a little bit with the professor part, no I did not. I've met a lot of teachers who made their students feel like idiots (as if that is going to help with their education) and there are others who like their students to compete with each other in an unhealthy manner. I've experienced both of those.
Also, what do you call those thingies in public bathrooms that have a toilet seat and a lockable door each? I wanted to use it for this chapter so I tried looking for it but I don't even know how they are called in my native language, I don't even know if they do have a name at all and they aren't just called bathrooms.
Super long chapter for you guys!