Happy holidays! I wanted to get this done by last week but I wasn't able to bc I went on a vacation on the beach (I got sunburnt on my toes). Because of that, here is another lengthy upload. It was supposed to be bigger but I had to chop it in half to get it in time.
Hey I have a question, have you guys seen Luz's witch attire from Mark's comic? What do you call the part that covers the lower part of her face? The thing that looks like Sasuke's shirt. Do you just call it cowl or mask? Bc I don't know what to call it when I'm describing it, and I tried looking it up but I can't find an answer. Thank you in advance!
The usual crap:
If you could send me a review that would be great! 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).
-Amity-
Gravesfield's public library / Sunday November the 16th 01:00
Amity finished reading the book in front of her and got up to stretch. She had been passing time in her room for hours and the library had closed already. Malphias doesn't like when she stays here overnight because there's no way for her to get out, she has to wait until they open in the morning to exit the place, but Amity doesn't mind that. Many people would freak out if they were trapped inside of a creepy place like the library (she needed to seriously talk with Malphias about some decorations they had, the children got scared today), but this place was like a second home to her. She had food, a bed, and books to keep herself entertained, so she could tolerate spending the night here.
Besides, being alone gave her the time to think, especially about her actions towards a certain energetic girl. After the whole fiasco that happened this afternoon a coworker came and told her that Luz actually tried to stop Eileen from leaving with her diary pages, that the reason why they both were on the floor when Amity found them was because Luz tackled her. God she did all for her and Amity still behaved like a jerk.
"It's better this way" said a cynical voice in her head as she got up and headed towards her bed"better for them to hate you and move on before you get attached and they are removed from your life. Besides, what were your plans with Luz? She goes to your same school. Sooner or later Odalia was going to find out about her, I can already hear her: A rambunctious immigrant girl with no connections in the society? Amity dear, you could do so much better"
Amity grunted and burrowed herself in the pillows of her bed to hide from those thoughts. Well, calling it 'bed' was a bit of a stretch; It was just a mattress covered in sheets and pillows she managed to snuck into this room when no one was watching, it wasn't elegant but it served its purpose.
She rolled around and sighed. Even if the voice was right there was nothing she could do about Luz anymore, she sure hated her after what happened today and what she had told her in the bathroom, and it wasn't like Amity didn't deserve it. To make things worse she found out that there were still some missing pages from her diary after what Eileen did, she tried searching for them in the library to no avail. She was sure that her former friend was going to use them for her revenge, probably by posting them all around school for everyone to see, and there was nothing she could do to stop her.
"You reap what you saw huh? I never should've messed with her. Joining the team at that time just wasn't worth it…"
A crashing noise startled her from her depressing thoughts. She got up and heard the distinctive sound of glass shattering and it made her panic. There wasn't supposed to be anyone here at this hour, especially since Malphias closed early because he wanted to see the meteor shower tonight. Technically, she also shouldn't be here.
"A burglar?" There wasn't much to steal in the library if you weren't interested in books (although some copies were limited edition exemplars). However, she was aware that Malphias kept money somewhere, and maybe this thief had some insight where to look. She took her phone with trembling hands and marked nine-one-one, only to realize she couldn't communicate. "No reception? Dang it!"
Now, the logical thing to do in this situation would be to remain where she was; She had the only key to this door and she could easily barricade herself here if necessary, not to mention that the entrance to this place was hidden. She could easily wait the danger out and go outside to call the cops in the morning, or whenever she was sure that the burglar had left. She would have to endure a scolding from Malphias but that'd be it. Heck, she could do nothing and pretend she wasn't here, no one could know the truth.
Some more noises happened: a loud bang and some voices, whoever was doing this wasn't trying to be discreet.
Another thought came to her head: Her mother. Odalia didn't like her job, mainly because she didn't have a way of controlling her here. She only tolerated this because of the extra credit and the references for college it gave her, but she just needed a good enough reason to pull her away. If she ever found out that there was a robbery (especially with her inside the building when it happened) she would confront Malphias and the old librarian would have no choice but to fire her.
More noises. This time it sounded like something big was toppled over. She thought of the kids she bonded with in her reading time and how they loved her stories, she thought of the satisfaction she felt doing her job because finally she found something she was good at that her mother didn't present to her, she thought of this room and how it felt more like a home than her own house. Arming herself with a bravery she didn't know she was capable of, Amity gulped and reached for her keys.
"What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?" She grabbed her pepper spray and taser, two items that her parents insisted she carry with her the whole time and now she was thankful for it, and approached the door.
She looked through the keyhole and saw nothing but darkness. The sounds had stopped too, so she didn't have a way to check if someone was right outside her door. Feeling a knot in her throat she turned off the lights and opened the door. Now that she was outside, she could see that there wasn't anyone in the vicinity so that was a relief. She took a deep breath and turned on the light of her cellphone to move forward.
"I just gotta get outside so I can have cell reception and call the police, that's it"
She moved slowly throughout the employees section. Every noise she perceived sent chills to her spine and every corner seemed to be filled with dark figures, but she kept pressing on. The fact that the place was filled with fake spiderwebs, hanged skeletons, and posters with creepy faces made her journey difficult.
"I really need to talk to Malphias about these halloween decorations, no one celebrates halloween in the library! Why do we even have those?"
Finally the noises began again. The sound of a bug thing crashing into the floor startled her so much that she almost dropped her phone. It seemed that the burglar was doing… whatever they were doing, on the main floor near the entrance. She really did not want to find out what was happening there but if this kept going the library would suffer great damage. She looked around for something to arm herself with and found a bat in the 'lost and found basket', she grabbed it with shaky hands and went to investigate.
When she arrived the place was a mess: Several shelves had fallen on top of each other, creating some sort of domino effect. Amity suspected that those were the noises she heard. But the weirdest thing was that there was no one around, not a single trace of the person that was responsible for all of this.
"Person or thing, because there is no way that a human could've done all of this… wait, what was that?"
There was another sound really similar to the ones she had been hearing. But this time it came from upstairs, the place she had just been a couple of minutes ago.
"Not going back there. But if they are in the first floor it means that this part is clear, I'll just dash towards the main entrance and hope I don't attract much attention when-"
Her thoughts stopped when she reached the main entrance, now she knew why all those noises were for. Several bookshelves were piled on top of each other in front of the door, blocking her exit. Not only that but it seemed that every piece of furniture that wasn't bolted into the floor was piled on this improvised barricade. It seemed that whoever was here with her must not want her to leave, and now that she was hearing those same noises upstairs it could only mean one thing.
"They are trying to lock me in…" logic and reasoning abandoned her as every fiber of her body told her to run. She sprinted back to the employee only area "it may be too late for the floors above me, but I can still make it to the emergency exits in the back! I just gotta be quick"
She ran past the employee lounge and was about to head towards the back of the library when something caught her attention. There were noises here too. They weren't as loud and booming as the one upstairs, they were more quiet and rattling. However that didn't matter to her, what made Amity stop was the fact that those noises were coming from nearby, more specifically her room. A part of her brain that wasn't filled with sheer panic thought that, ironically, leaving her safe space had been a good idea after all.
She turned around and proceeded to walk on her tiptoes to make sure whatever was ravaging her room didn't hear her. She passed the employee only area and reached one of the backrooms with an emergency exit on it. She was so relieved to be out of danger that she failed to notice something important: the lights were on in this room.
"Now that should not be possible, the only way to turn on power for this sector would be the manual switch a few rooms back, unless… Someone was already here?" But she was the only person in the room, and she hadn't heard any noises coming from this side of the building.
Casting those thoughts aside she pushed the door to be free from this nightmare, only to be shoved back in as a person from the other side pushed her. She fell on her butt and looked up with annoyance, and then she screamed in panic.
The person that shoved her back inside was a clown, in the literal sense of the word. His skin was paper white (it was clear that he used makeup) and the only color on his face were his nose and lips, they were painted in a deep red, he also had red curved lines that went from his lips to her eyes. He was dressed in a white robe with frilly decorations. But what impacted her more than nothing was his smile: it contorted to a way that it shouldn't be humanly possible, it showed her his gross, yellow teeth.
"Uhh, back off!" She scrambled to get up from the floor and picked up her bat.
The clown didn't speak, it just kept staring at her (which actually made it look more terrifying). After a few seconds, he moved forward with his arms extended towards Amity. His yellow eyes shined in an unnatural way, but somehow he seemed familiar to her. She bashed her bat on its head and ran away without wasting a second. She ran back into the hallway, the clown didn't even emit a sound when she hit it so it was safe to assume it hadn't been effective.
Amity managed to reach the employees lounge again and kept going. She had no plan or direction, she just kept going forward. She didn't hear the clown but she was too scared to look behind her. Once she reached her room the door opened to reveal what had been causing the noise she heard earlier: A gigantic saint bernard dog covered in blood, his eyes were red and they were looking at her.
"S-stay back!" She used her pepper spray on it in panic. She did not aim it well but it managed to get some spray on it's nose. The dog sneezed and shook, trying to get rid of the substance on its face. Amity turned back and tried to run… only to crash against the clown who was right behind her. It tried to grab her but she weaved around her out of reflex and bashed its head with the bat again with all her strength
"take this!"
It did nothing, no recoil, no grunt, no damage, no blood, and no change on its face. He kept smiling at her in that creepy way like nothing had happened. He tried to reach her with his arms but she backed off and ran away. There weren't any plans in her head, she was functioning on just adrenaline and survival instinct. Amity entered the main hall again and was surprised to see that the lights were on here as well, she was just about to try to climb the barricade covering the main entrance when she felt someone grabbing her left arm.
"Ah!" She yelped and tried to run off to no avail.
The person holding her was new: He was an eight foot tall, hideously looking man. His translucent yellowish skin pulled so taut over the body that it barely disguised the workings of the arteries and muscles underneath. His eyes were watery and glowing, his hair was long and black, and (judging by the amount of strength he was applying to her arm) he was really strong.
"Another disguised freak? What is happening?"
"Hey! Halloween is in a couple of weeks, you jerk!" She then grabbed her taser from her purse and shot the guy with it.
It did nothing, sparks of electricity flied but he didn't look fazed. The guy grunted and picked her up, carrying her over his shoulder. Amity tried to hit him with the bat but the stranger just knocked it off from her hands. She kneeled, scratched, kicked, screamed, punched, threatened, and pulled his hair, but nothing stopped him. He carried her to the upper floor, where she had heard those noises before. The shelves had also been used as barricades to cover the exits here. Her captor took her towards the first floor's reception, despite her attempts of escaping, he put her in the floor harshly once they got in front of the desk. Amity prepared herself to run but stopped when she saw a familiar face.
"E-Eileen?"
Effectively, her former friend was sitting on top of the reception's desk. Unlike Amity, who was battered and bruised from running and fighting, she seemed to be in a great state. She had a big smile on her face (which was a rare occurrence with her) and seemed to be in a happy mood. The red jewel in her necklace was shining weirdly enough, it emitted a multi-colored hue that covered her entire body and gave her a strange vibe. But what really threw Amity off was the fact that the big guy didn't seem to be hostile towards her.
"Yes Blight, it's me" she hopped down the desk and stood in front of her.
"Come on, we have a lot to talk about" Eileen started walking towards a table.
"What's going on? Who are these people? And why aren't they attacking you?" Amity, not wanting to be left alone with those people, got up and followed her close.
"Well to answer your questions one by one: This is payback, those are my new friends, and they won't hurt me because they do everything I say" Amity blinked several times, trying to absorb that new information.
"You did all of this?" She turned and pointed to the tarnished room and the destroyed furniture that would probably cost thousands of dollars to repair "just for a prank?"
"Just for a prank? No, it's more than that. This is my revenge for all the years of torment you and Boscha gave me. Don't worry, I'm going to get her after this"
"I know what I did to you was wrong, but this seems a little bit-"
"Excessive? Like the one time you locked me out of the changing room with nothing to cover me but a towel right when the boys were about to enter? Or like the time you called security to 'escort' me out of your parent's party because I was embarrassing you? They threw me out in a mud puddle when I had a white dress!" Amity cringed at that. It was true that her mother told her to do the first one, but the first one was all on her.
"Ok listen, I'm sorry-"
"Oh you're sorry! This is great. How often did you see me in the hallways these past years? Didn't you think of saying it back then? Of course you didn't, you are only saying it now because you are scared of these guys" she clapped her hands twice and the dog that was in her room came running from downstairs, it was carrying a book on its mouth "what you are feeling now its what I've felt all this time: powerless and scared. You made me feel that for years, so I think the last couple minutes are more than justified"
"But why would you do this to the library! Don't you realize that you are hurting other people besides me? The employees, the owner, even the people that like to come here! Like you do! This library is important for a lot of people!" Amity had seen Eileen come here often with her friends before.
"This junkyard doesn't have anything worth for me since I got banned. And I don't care if someone else's feelings are hurt if I get to hurt you" her voice was dripping with malice at the end of that sentence.
"Geez you are obsessed" Amity won't deny that she deserved to get back on her, but this was a bit too much "and who are they? Your weird cousin and uncle who dressed up to scare off a schoolgirl? When this is all done, I am having a restriction order against them and animal services are going to take your dog away" they did manage to spook her off but she wasn't going to admit that.
"Oh wow, you haven't figured it out already? Here, I'll give you a hint"
She whistled and a bat came flying from the ceiling, it circled around them a couple of times to finally land near her. As soon as it touched the ground it exploded in a puff of grey smoke. When it cleared Amity could see that a man was standing in the bat's place: He was tall and pale, his jet-black hair was combed back, and he was wearing an old timey black suit with a red cape. His most defining trait were two long and pointy fangs coming out of his mouth.
"Pretty cool trick huh?" Eileen had a smug smile on her face.
"But- how did he- huh?" For once she had no words. There wasn't any possible explanation for what she just saw.
"Oh Amity, what happened? You used to know everything about this. Did you stop reading when you joined that sports team?" She gestured towards the table where several books were opened. Strangely enough, they seemed to emit that same strange hue that Eileen's necklace was giving "perhaps looking at these would help your memory"
Amity approached cautiously towards the table. For some reason the titles were missing so she couldn't notice anything odd at first, but when she saw the characters on the cover she freezed. Now she recognized those disguised freaks in the room with them, they were the monsters from those books!
Dracula was easy to figure out. A part of her mind was screaming the word 'vampire!' when the bat trick happened, even if her rational brain refused to believe it.
The big dude with the weird skin was hard to figure out but then she remembered how, in the original novel, frsnkenstein's monster wasn't the shambling and scarred zombie of modern media. Seeing the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley opened on top of the table confirmed her suspicions.
The other two were a bit tricky but seeing the name Stephen king made her gasp. She realized where she had seen that clown before, it was pennywise the killer clown from it! She remembered how a few years back the twins took her to see that stupid movie, they wanted to scare her off but at the end of the day Edric came out of that traumatized by clowns.
There were two books by Stephen king so she guessed that the Saint Bernard dog must be Cujo. She did not know much about that story but suddenly he looked a lot scarier to her.
"How… Did you do that?"
"Haven't you watched the news lately? This town is really weird these days" She started twirling her necklace "A plant that emerges from the ground and attacks cars? A literal mage fighting monsters? Several buildings exploding or being torn apart, apparently due to something stupid like gas leaks and landslides? The police blocking parts of this stupid town seemingly at random times? Even if you are skeptick and believe that it's all edited by computer, like those twitter jerks, you cannot deny that there's something weird happening here"
Of course, Amity knew about those things. It was hard not to, considering it was all the internet and the news liked to talk about. The fact that their town did not get any excitement normally made it worse. She didn't know what to think about it and a part of her doubted that it was true (the videos were always blurry and, to be fair, the CGI in modern movies was far better than that). But after the things that she had seen today she couldn't deny the chances of it being true.
"I found this thing a few weeks ago. My grandmother gave it to me for my birthday" That gave her a pang of guilt, they used to celebrate her birthdays together "She told me that she got it cheap in that Owl Emporium or whatever it's called. I knew she got scammed so I went to ask for a refund, on my way there I was reading something and the necklace started shining. I didn't pay attention to it at first, but then the words started floating above the pages and the characters I was reading about materialized in front of me. It took me a while to figure how it actually worked, but finally I managed to control everything that comes from the books"
"But that's… how?" Amity was dumbfounded
"Magic, Amity. I thought it was obvious" She then walked towards Cujo and she extended her hand. The dog gave her the book he had been holding this entire time. Surprisingly it wasn't torn or covered in saliva, so Amity could see that it had a very familiar cover.
"Hey, that's mine!" That was the same diary that she tried to grab this afternoon. She tried to grab it but Frankenstein and Dracula got in her way "H-How did you know where it was anyway"
"Oh, one of your coworkers told me about your secret room. Having a clown that can turn into your greatest fear can be good to motivate people. Now pay attention, you'd want to see this''
She then opened her diary and started reading a page. The star-shaped jewel in her necklace started shining and Amity could hear a faint wail emitting from it, as if someone was crying. The letters on the pages suddenly started floating in the air, the words danced and merged in one point as Eileen kept reading. All the text from those pages seemed to fuse together in a blinding light that made her close her eyes. When the brightness faded away Amity blinked several times to adjust her vision, and once she saw what it was in front of her she gasped.
It was Amity, or to be more precise, a copy of her. It was standing there with the same emotionless expression as the other book characters. Honestly looking at that gave her chills, it was an exact replica: Her freckles, her minty hair with brown roots, her golden eyes (a special trait from the blight family), her tiny nose, and even her birthmark on her left arm.
The only thing from her that was different were her clothes. Right now Amity was wearing her pijamas, which consisted of an oversized white t-shirt and some loose dark pants. But this version of Amity was wearing an outfit that she'd take to school: A pink blouse with a purple jacket, and a black skirt over some leggings.
"What… are you doing?" Every sort of rebellion inside her had fled. Now she could only feel fear.
"At first I was going to print copies of your diary and post them all around school" Elieen pulled off her phone from her backpack and gave her a mischievous smile "but that would be too much work. Besides, why would I do that when I can have you say whatever is on your diary in front of everyone"
"Wait no… you can't do that!"
Eileen raised an eyebrow and snapped her fingers. Immediately her copy sprung to life and started talking.
"Ugh why can't everyone get it!" She didn't have that blank expression anymore, she was mimicking Amity's voice tones and mannerisms in a perfect way "the twins aren't nearly as cool as everyone thinks they are! They are just very good at pretending! If everyone knew how anxious and ridiculous they are in their day to day lives then they'd stop comparing them to me!"
"Good one" she snapped her fingers again and her copy dissolved into a million letters that floated back to her diary's pages "I'm going to have her going around school, spilling your secrets to everybody. They'll think that's you and your life will be ruined. After that, I'd say we will be even"
Amity couldn't speak. That copy of her was identical so there was no way people could tell it was a fake, not even her family.
She had poured her heart's contents into that diary. Her stuff on the twins isn't the only thing there: She has stuff about her mom, Boscha, Skara, Luz, her dad, Willow, Principal Bump, Herminunculus, her aunt, and basically everyone in her life. There were some things there, bad things, that she wrote because she needed to vent but she actually didn't mean it. If people heard those words and believe she's the one saying it then all of her relationships are over.
"She will take your place in school tomorrow and you'll remain hidden, I'll have these guys keep an eye on you to make sure you won't interfere. But don't worry, once she has spoken with everyone I'll let you go"
Eileen was smiling in a smug way and not even paying attention to her. Amity thought that this was going to be the only chance she would get to stop her, and she wasn't going to let her ruin her life!
She quickly unzipped her backpack when Eileen's back was turned on her. Every time she sleeps here she brings everything she needs to survive the night: A cover, her taser, cutlery, a bottle of water, her charger, and food. She also never forgets to grab her favorite spice, which came in very handy just now. She unscrewed the bottle of powder garlic and tossed a handful of it inside of Dracula's open mouth (don't ask her why she likes garlic that much, she just does). The vampire gagged and stumbled backwards, she took this opportunity to grab her taser and lunge towards the goth girl.
"I know that the others will try to stop me but maybe I can take her necklace off before they reach me. Maybe if I do that they'll disappear!"
She actually caught her off guard. Eileen turned to face her as she continued her monologue, but she wasn't expecting to see Amity free from the vampire's grasp and charging towards her. She was just about to grab her necklace-.
A sudden force pushed her away and stamped her against the wall. She felt claws and fur being pressed against her, so she assumed that cujo tackled her. She opened her eyes to see the massive dog standing on top of her, staring at her with his red eyes.
"Did you really try to do that?" Eileen was looking down on her disapprovingly "Maybe you thought that they couldn't move unless I ordered them to. I'm sorry, but that's not how it works"
"I-I won't let you ruin my life!" She got up with difficulty. It seemed that being thrown against a wall really hurt her, she had bruises and cuts everywhere "I know what I did to you was wrong and, even if you don't believe me, I am truly sorry for that. I know that you won't forgive and that's ok, it's not like I deserve it anyways. But this is going too far"
"Too far? Bitch-"
"Don't call me that" Amity roared and, to her credit, the other girl stopped "you have read my diary so you know how messy my life is. The school, my friends, Blight industries, every part of my life was choosen by someone else. I had to work hard for everything else and I'm proud of that, but if you are going to ruin the only good things that I have in my life I'm not going to let you"
Eileen just stood in silence, looking at her. After a while she sighed and walked over the table with the open books.
"You know, I really did plan on letting you go after all this was over. After you felt the humiliation you put me through I was going to accept your apologies so we both could continue with our lives. Heck, I thought that maybe we could be friends again, mainly because I'd doubt that you'll have any of those when this is over. Oh well, that won't be possible anymore" she grabbed another book from the table. Since it was closed Amity deduced that this wasn't one of those she used to summon creatures, but it was too far for her to see what book it was "I thought to myself, what would be the best way to kill you? Have dracula suck all of your blood? Let cujo tear you to shreds? Make Frankenstein's monster beat the shit out of you? Or just simply have pennywise torture you with your worst nightmares? But the best answer that I found was the simplest one"
"W-what are you doing?" She felt all her previous bravery escape her body after she heard all the things she said.
"Don't you recognize it? It's your favourite book, or at least you told me so when we were in eighth grade" she held in her hands the book that she read to the children: Otabin the book-maker "this gem's powers are great. Not only can I bring the characters inside the books to life, I can also do… this!"
She grabbed a pencil from her jacket and opened the book. She flipped the pages until she found an illustration of Otabin with his needle. Then she doodled two furred eyebrows on top of it, they gave the drawing a silly look.
Eileen smiled and tapped the page. Nothing happened at first, but then a green light emitted from the book. It was so bright that Amity had to shield her eyes. After a while, she heard a growl.
"Come and say hi to your friend!" She could hear Eileen's cheerful voice.
Amity blinked to readjust her eyes and gasped. In front of her there was a grotesque version of the pink rabbit she loved as a child, except that now he was ten feet tall and with more muscles than a bodybuilder on steroids, he also had the same furrowed eyebrows she had drawn in the book. The book was encrusted on his chest, as if it was his heart. He was carrying his sewing needle, which was also bigger than the illustration and it honestly looked terrifying.
"What have you done?"
"I can change the contents of the books by adding things to it. It changes the shape and behavior of the characters from it. Usually I have to change sentences from it and it's really hard to do, but luckily your favorite book came with illustrations" she put the book back in the table and turned to face her "this is the best way of killing you, having your favorite character beat you to death"
"Wait no! Amity tried to retreat but she was too injured to do so.
"Too late" she snapped her fingers and the grotesque version of Otabin lunged at her.
-Luz-The skies above gravesfield / fifteen minutes earlier
Luz soared through the night sky looking a bit defeated. After the fiasco of this afternoon she wanted nothing more than to go to her bedroom and curl up in her blankets while watching anime, the new monster slayer academia episode was amazing according to Gus. But, of course, that couldn't happen.
Eda had roped her on doing a supply run, and then Lilith wanted to go grocery shopping with her "I can't believe that you two manage to survive by eating junk for months! Come Luz, we are going to buy real food". When they were getting ready for dinner there was an alert on her app about a magical beast so she hastily made a poor excuse and went to investigate, but it turned out to be nothing.
She was heading back home when she noticed something familiar: the roof of a house had been covered by a smelly white substance, it looked as if someone had splashed the biggest paint bucket on top of it.
"Wait, that's the same thing that happened with Eda's car! It's gryphon poop!" The mythical creature had managed to escape her grasp the first time she encountered it a few weeks ago. Since then she had heard about numerous sightings but she couldn't do anything about them. "This is my chance, I can finally catch it!"
She cleaned the mess with magic and looked around, expecting to see the winged beast flying nearby. It was almost invisible in the night sky, so she had to use some beast-keeping spells to detect it. She flew towards him hoping for a quick battle.
One hour later she was sitting on a rooftop, catching her breath after an intense chase. The gryphon was too fast for her and seemed to enjoy the 'game', each time she tried to imprison it with a spell it flew circles around her while making mocking sounds. It really made her feel worse.
It was too late for dinner so she just messaged Eda and told her she was with a friend (normally she wouldn't lie to her, but she has been told that Lilith usually checked Eda's phone). Since she was growing hungry she bought a hotdog with the money she had and was in the process of eating it while she looked at the city.
"Well that could've gone better. Wait, what was that?"
She could feel a faint trace of magic in the air. It wasn't small and it came from a nearby place. It couldn't have been the gryphon, those creatures didn't have bile sacs. She finished eating and hopped on owlbert, this seemed worthy to investigate.
"Let's see, the trail goes through here. Wait a second, isn't that the library?"
Effectively. The scent of magic led her back to the old building. It was way past midnight so she doubted they'd be open, so maybe it was an employee?
She tried to enter through a side gate but for some reason all the entrances were locked, Luz didn't want to waste her magic opening them so she went looking for an entrance on the roof. There she found a skylight that allowed her to see inside, it was pretty dark but the magical trail definitely came from that direction. So, unlocking the window with magic, she flew inside and used her light glyphs to see.
The scene that she saw left her mouth open: on the second floor Amity was pinned down in the floor by an enormous dog, there were several other people around her (one of them was dressed as a clown for some reason), but what called her attention the most was a humongus muscular pink monster with a metal rod on it's hand. It was approaching Amity and the girl couldn't escape. Without hesitation Luz dropped down in between the two of them, creating a strong wind that blew the monster away.
"Who?" Amity looked at her, perplexed.
"What are you doing here?!" Someone yelled at her and Luz was surprised to see that it was Eileen.
"I really should've tried to find her and deal with her relic this afternoon" Luz had tried, but after they banned her from the library she lost track of the goth girl.
"Hmmm" the monster got up and growled. Luz could see that it's head resembled a rabbit "With claws and fangs and breaking bones, I found a friend to make my own"
Before the monster could recover she blasted an ice glyph towards it. Several icycles of different sizes generated from the ground and covered the hulking bunny. Before anyone could react she shot a lightning glyph towards the dog, who whined and stumbled backwards. Now that Amity was free she scooped the astonished girl in a swift motion and carried her princess style.
"Hey! Wait a minute-"
"Don't just stand there!" Eileen screamed at the other people "go catch them!"
"Nope! Sorry, no time to talk" she hopped into her staff and they flew away, she looked back to see them chasing after her and Eileen still screaming.
"Put me down!" Amity was struggling against her, apparently she didn't like being held this way.
"I'm rescuing you, don't worry!" She tried to sound as reassuring as possible. She maneuvered fast to lose their captors, she could see that Amity was hurt so she had to heal her first before assessing the situation. Looking for a place to hide, she found three big bookshelves that were toppled over each other forming a triangle in the ground. It gave them the perfect cover to rest for now "I'm going to land here"
Amity had quieted down since she heard her talk. Luz assumed it was because now she knew she wasn't a monster. However, as soon as she put her in the ground she spun around and tried to run.
"Wait! It's too dangerous to go there alone!"
"Let me go! I have to get out of here! They will catch me if I stay here, they will…" Amity seemed to be hyperventilating, she looked really distressed and there were tears on her eyes.
"Amity, Amity, AMITY" She put herself in front of her and forced her to look at her eyes "Listen to me, ok? You are going to be fine, I promise. They won't get you in here, ok? Now take a long breath, can you do that for me?" After a while Amity nodded and breathed deeply. She seemed a bit calmer "Good, now listen to me. These guys won't get you here. You are right: We do need to leave but you are injured, so I'm going to heal you first. Is that ok?"
"Yes, but forget about that. Who are… Wait, I know you!" After calming down it seemed that Amity finally got a good look at her "You are the witch from the news! Aren't you supposed to be fake?"
"Nope, not fake. Now, could you show me those wounds?"
Amity nodded and rolled up her pant's sleeves to show her multiple cuts and bruises. She winced when Luz put her hand on her but then stared in awe when she drew a magic circle and her wounds started closing.
"Ok, show me the others"
"Wh-huh-the" Amity was having trouble speaking "how did you do that?"
"Is she really asking this now? She just saw me fly!"
"Magic, I thought it was obvious" seriously, she would never understand how humans could be so close-minded. They would accept any reason for things happening around them, no matter how ridiculous, before believing in magic.
"Ho-how can you do that?" Amity was looking at her warily.
"I was born like this, it's hard to explain. Now, can you show me your other injuries? We don't have much time"
Amity slowly extended her arm and Luz started working on the wounds there, those were merely superficial. Meanwhile, the mint-haired girl assaulted her with questions.
"Wait, so if you are real it means that the plant…"
"Yep"
"...those videos that show you flying and casting spells…"
"Uh-huh"
"...And that really strong guy you fought at the bar…"
"He was a werewolf"
"...That guy who shot fire out of his hand…"
"He used to rob banks"
"...and those pictures on the internet about that flying creature…"
"Oh yeah that was a fun one" she finished healing her and checked on her. Amity still had some wounds on her but healing spells used the energy inside a person's body to heal, and she didn't think it would be ideal for their situation to have her with no energy.
"What are you? The media call you an alien but the people on the internet say you are an experiment, and what about your ears? Are you an elf?" She reached to touch one of her pointy ears.
"Whoa! Hey, no touchy" A witche's ears were really sensitive.
"Oh sorry. I'm just trying to process everything. Listen I know that you saved me and all, but how do I know I can trust you? How do I know that you are not going to eat me or take my eyeballs to feed your cat or something?"
"We… don't do that"
"Is that what humans think witches do? That is really racist!... Ok well I did have a neighbor that fed eyeballs to his cat, but those were legally acquired!"
"Wait a second" She got up and looked at her suspiciously "How do you know my name? Back then you called me Amity and I never told you that. Did you spy on me? Or used a spell to read my mind?"
"Ehhh, uhhh" Luz didn't want to get her cover blown right now so she looked around to find an excuse. Luckily she found one right in front of her: She pointed to the identification badge hanging from Amity's neck, the one that put her name in big letters.
"Oh… that makes sense" She looked at her warily "I still don't trust you"
"Well we could go on and on about this, but the truth is that you have to trust me if you wanna get out of this alive" It was harsh, but true "besides, I don't think that you have many choices. It's not like you can get out of this place on your own"
"Gee thanks" Amity gave her an irritated glare "I feel so much safer now"
"Don't worry, I won't let them hurt you"
"Well that's reassuring. You have to give me something to work with here, can you at least tell me your name? Who are you?"
Luz gulped. Right now she had an illusion on herself to hide her identity (because she seriously doubted her cowl would fool anyone who knew her). The spell made her look like a redhead with pale skin and blue eyes. However, she wasn't doing much with her voice, just trying a different pitch. She was worried that her identity might slip if she kept interacting with her.
"Me? I'm just your friendly neighbor witch" she gave her a sardonic smile, hoping that Amity would just drop the subject.
"Spider-man? Really?"
"Ok listen I'd love to talk more about this but we have some serious things to adress. I promise that you can trust me"
"Right" she looked at her in the eyes "fine, I'll believe you"
"Good. First of all, we need to find a way to get you out of here before the monster finds us" she saw how her face grew worried "Don't worry, we still have some time. This spot is far away from where they were and I have detection spells surrounding us"
"Oh that's… great" the girl sighed and sat on the floor with her hands on her face. Luz checked the surrounding areas to see if they were followed but she couldn't sense anyone. After a while she heard some noises coming from behind her, she turned around to see Amity punching a wall and yelling with frustration.
"Oh nonono, don't do that. You'll give away our position!" she guessed that learning about magic and witches had been a tad too much for her "I get that this is a lot, and the fact that you have monsters chasing after you doesn't help at all but…"
"It's not that!" She turned to face her with puffy eyes and a cracked voice "I mean, yeah. The fact that some blood-thirsting monsters are after me is not great and… I still can't process the 'magic is real' part, that's going to take a while, but it's not that. All of this is my fault" she sniffed some tears. Luz kneeled down next to her and just sat in silence for a while.
"How is any of this your fault? As far as I could see, she's just a bully that took things way too far" gave her a handkerchief, which she took.
"No, I'm the bully" she cleaned herself up and recovered her voice a bit "We were used to be friends and I did some bad things to her, stupid things, and then I refused to acknowledge it for years. Now she has the power to get back at me and I deserve it" she was better but still sadness dripped from her voice.
"Did you attempt to take her life before?" Luz asked out of the blue.
"Excuse me?" Amity seemed offended by that.
"You said that you did something bad to her in the past, was it as bad as trying to kill her like she did?"
"No… it was something stupid. First I had to ban her from my own birthday party because my parents didn't want us to be friends. Later I humiliated her in public because… it doesn't matter, the reason was ridiculous" she finished cleaning the tears of her face "After all that I just stopped talking to her and refused to acknowledge her existence"
"Well that was… something" Luz felt the temptation to keep asking and discover more about Amity's past, she felt like she was finally close to untangling the mystery that was the mint-haired girl. But she didn't want to expose her identity more than she had already, so she continued "I won't deny that it sounds bad, but I don't think it justifies what she is doing here"
*Sniff* "Yeah right, who are you to say that? You just show up out of fucking nowhere and put your nose in other people's business!"
"Is she mad that I rescued her?"
"I beg your pardon? I just saved your life!"
Amity closed her eyes and took a deep breath, that seemed to calm her.
"You are right, I'm sorry. I should be thanking you for that, but instead I am screaming at you. It's just that today has been a really hard day"
"You needed to vent, I get it" the sat in silence for a while as Amity cleaned up her tears "Soooo I know this is not the best time for this… but we should get a move on and come up with a plan or something"
"A plan?"
"Yeah those guys are still looking for you, aren't they? I could try to fight them blindly, but it would be better if I had some info on them. First of all, do you know what their magical artifacts are?"
"I-no. There's only one magical object, as far as I can tell, and that's Eileen's necklace" Luz knew about that, but she still wasn't sure what it did.
"Do you remember how it's called or what it does?"
"I don't know about the name, but it allows her to summon characters from a book and control them just by reading it. That's what those other guys are, not humans nor monsters, just book characters"
Luz slapped her forehead in annoyance "Of course! The Wailing star! That's what it was!". She had read about this unusual relic and how it functions because Raine had thought that it could be a great asset for their fight against Belos, then the incident happened: A few years ago some hexside students decided to cause a ruckus with it on bonesburough's public library, they thought that it would be funny. The night ended with the building collapsed, lots of property damage, a small fire, some injured, and one casualty. After that Raine decided that the item would be too dangerous to use, so they put an end to the research.
"Is… everything ok?" Amity was looking at her with concern.
"Yeah, it's fine… and I know how to stop her. Come on, let's make a battle plan" and she started to tell her everything about the relic.
-Amity-Twenty minutes later
They had to move from their hiding spot because the witch had detected some movement. Luckily they were able to find a new hiding spot without any trouble, they were now on the first floor behind the kids' counter. The witch had tried to fly away with Amity to take her to a safe place, only to find every window boarded and Dracula's bats guarding every exit. After that they decided it would be better if they just dealt with the situation here first.
And besides, Amity didn't want to run. It was her fault that the library was in this state to begin with and she wanted to confront Eileen. It didn't matter to her that she couldn't fight, she wanted to do something!
*Groan* "I still can't believe this" she sighed and dropped to the floor.
"Still in denial about magic? But we just flew here with my palisman!"
"No, it's not that! It's Eileen. I know what I did was bad and she has every right to be mad at me, but she would never kill anyone for any reason, she hates people like that! And in those last moments she sounded so mean… Like it was someone else talking"
"Oh hmmm" The witch tapped her chin and looked down, seemingly lost in thought "Well, that might be exactly the case"
"Wha-what do you mean?"
"Humans using relics is something unusual so I don't have a way of knowing if this works too. But there had been some cases where magicless creatures grabbed and used magical items before. A few decades ago some demons stole a few of those to fight a rebellion. They didn't have magic themselves, so they were oppressed and…"
"Whoa whoa whoa, let's backtrack. I am barely processing the magic stuff, you really shouldn't infodump me" She decided not to think about the fact she said the word 'demons' "Just tell me… What has this to do with Eileen"
"I was getting there. This was the first time someone without magic used a magic relic so they were some unforeseen consequences"
"Like what?"
"Pretty much everyone who used them went crazy, it seems that bodies without magic can't handle those objects. Their ambitions became obsessions and their emotions intensified to a degree that clouded their judgment entirely. I was hoping that humans would be different but that doesn't seem to be the case"
"Wait so… Eileen is going crazy?" Amity didn't know what to think. It was true that they weren't friends anymore and the girl just tried to kill her, but she still felt that this whole situation was her fault.
"It's more of a gradual thing instead of an abrupt change, the changes are so small that she won't notice it until it's too late. You said she would never do any of this stuff and by the way she was talking to you I could tell she sounded very obsessed with this. How long did she have the necklace?"
"I remembered that she said she got it for her birthday from a place called the owl house, I think" She then tried to recall the exact date "I think her birthday was in August"
"If that's the case then she had it for a couple months already, and she still isn't fully corrupted. Maybe the process is slower in humans-"
"Wait so, is there a way to help her" Amity pleaded. She didn't want her former friend to suffer that fate.
"Well yeah. If we take the magical item away from her she should gradually come back to normal and… Hold on, wait a second" she abruptly stopped as if she just realized something.
"What are you doing?" The witch had a funny expression on her face, some kind of nervous smile.
"W-Where did you say she got it?"
"I think she mentioned the owl house? It's an old antique shop in town" Somehow she seemed to not like that answer. The witch turned away from her to mutter something she couldn't quite hear "What was that?"
"Oh nothing, don't worry about it" Before she could pressure her they heard a noise. The witch quickly drew a shiny circle in the air and pushed her against the wall "Hold your breath"
Amity did as told and watched with panic on her chest as Cujo turned around the corner. Luckily whatever the witch did worked and the dog ran past them. They waited a few seconds to release their breath.
"Ok so here's the plan" Luz whispered to her once she checked their surroundings "Usually when you are fighting against summoners the strategy is to always ignore the creatures and go straight for the one who summons them"
"But Eileen is surrounded by books, so at any time she could summon more monsters with her necklace if we try to rush her" Amity wondered why she hasn't summoned more already. If the only thing she had to do is read a book to make them appear, then why hasn't she released every character from the horror section? She basically had an arsenal there.
"The wailing star allows the user to summon an unlimited amount of characters from the books at the person's disposition, but it only allows the user to control a certain amount of those based on their will and concentration. You said that Eileen has been fiddling with that relic for a long time, so I guess that she had enough time to practice and figure that out. I think that the maximum amount of summonings she can control is those five that we saw"
"I guess that makes sense…"
"But your hunch is right. Eileen seems smart and I doubt she will be unguarded so you need to are two ways of shutting down her powers: Either we remove the relic from her neck, which would be hard to do, or we close the books that she read. You said that there was a pile of open books on top of a table near her, right?" Amity nodded. So far she was following "So that's it! If we fail to secure her necklace we should go for the books, and by we I mean you"
"What? And you are just going to leave me to deal with the most important thing on my own?"
"I will of course try to subdue her but there's no guarantee that will work, so I'd like to split our efforts. Come on, didn't you say you wanted to help with this?" She smiled and nudged her with her elbow "once you close it all the monsters will disappear in a flash, this plan is foolproof!" Amity wanted to tell her that her plan was bad but she couldn't come up with a better one. Besides she didn't want to make her sad by saying that, her look of prideful joy was actually really cute.
"Ok fine, but if I end up injured I'm suing you"
"Deal!" Luz seemed happy with that conclusion.
They found Eileen in the same place as they left her: she was on the reception desk with all of her open books. Frankenstein and Pennywise were with her but she couldn't see any of the other monsters.
Right now they were hovering on the witch's staff (She still found it really uncomfortable, she had no idea where she was supposed to grip) a few sections away. They were using a ripped giant banner to cover themselves as the witch readied her spells.
"Ok" she said after a moment of concentration "are you ready?"
Amity nodded and clung to her shoulders as a response.
"Here we go"
They rushed forward at a great speed towards her. The witch extended her palms and shot lightning out of them towards their enemies.
Frankenstein's monster intercepted those, his whole body crackling with electricity. The witch then created a fog cloud to cover them.
"There they are!" She could hear Eileen's screams of rage "Attack them!"
Pennywise contorted and shifted into the same spider-like creature she saw in the movie (she didn't enjoy watching that in person at all) and started climbing the walls to reach them. Luckily, the witch saw it coming; She entered the fog cloud and blasted several fireballs at it. Then she turned them both invisible so they could not see them exit it. Pennywise leapt into the cloud to attack them but the only thing it found was air.
"What the- where are they?" The fog dispersed and they weren't in sight "find them!"
Meanwhile they flew invisible around the section to sneak up on her. Both of her monsters were searching for her somewhere else, so she was entirely unprotected. They landed and the witch touched the ground, thorny vines and roots started to emerge from it: breaking the wooden floor with a huge cracking sound and knocking everything on their path. The noise was big enough to alert their enemy, but by the time she turned to face them it was too late.
"Eep!" She screamed as the thick vines entangled her feet and climbed up her body. In mere seconds all of her limbs were tied and her body was encased in a tree-like prison.
"Nice!" Amity cheered.
"Go for the books! I'll go for the relic" She nodded and proceeded to the table.
The witch dashed forward to grab the necklace, she was about to reach it when a white and brown blur tackled her. Amity couldn't see much, she only hear a *thud* sound and the witch crying in pain. Once she looked in the witch's direction she could see that she had cujo on top of her biting her arm, his fangs penetrated her flesh deeply and drew blood. Amity rushed to the table in order to close the books, but when she arrived there she noticed something odd: None of the book's titles were the ones the characters were from.
"These aren't the right books! She must have swapped them over!" She alerted her new partner
The witch grunted and pushed cujo with her legs. Since that wasn't enough she drew a circle with her hand and frost started spreading over the dog's body. It whined in pain and let her go. The witch completely encased Cujo in ice and turned to face her.
"Amity watch out!" She cried holding her arm.
She duck instinctively just in time to see a pale arm trying to grab her. She spinned around to avoid Frankenstein's monster, who somehow managed to sneak up on her, and ran towards the witch.
"Now what?"
"Go for Eileen!" She grasped with pain. She was holding her injured arm in a blue light that seemed to heal her wounds.
Amity tried to but Pennywise on his spider form got between her and her target. It looked at her, smiling menacingly.
"Now what?" She was getting desperate at this point.
"We need to reposition!" She raised her hand and her staff came flying. She stomped against the ground and a huge flash of light emerged from it. Amity covered her eyes but she felt someone grabbing her hand and putting her on top of the staff, when she opened them again they were already in the air.
"Are we just going to leave?" She didn't want to end this now.
"I need time to heal! Once we are in a safe space I can find where she hid the real books with a detection spell"
"Well that's fine, are you- watch out!" The witch didn't hear her warning in time and collided against a bat, those same critters that dracula had been using to block their exits "Look out there's more!"
"I'm trying my best here ok?" She reajusted her staff and avoided crashing into the ground. She then tried to fly upwards to escape through the skylight, however they had to duck to the side as a giant needle was thrown at them and it sadly threw them off course.
"That was Otabin's sewing needle…" She tried to look for the giant rabbit but she couldn't see it from this height.
"I think that we lost them with that last attack, I'm landing"
They landed in an abrupt manner and fell into the floor. the witch immediately started to treat her wound and Amity paced around.
"Well that ended well" She looked at her wounds with a worried gaze "Do you have a way to cure rabies?"
"What's that?" The witch genuinely looked confused.
"It's a disease transmitted by animals"
"Oh. Don't worry about that then, healing magic is the best in that regard" She assured her.
"Well that's great" She looked around but couldn't see any of the monsters. Her guess was that they were trying to release their master from her confinement. On top of that they were going to be on their guard now, so sneaking in would be even harder.
A thought came to her, a really stupid idea that could actually work.
"Hey I have a question, you said you could track the books?"
"Yeah they emit a low magical signature, give me a second" She drew another circle and her eyes turned violet "They are a few sections away. On top of a table in the kids corner"
"Good, I'm going there to find them alone"
"WHAT" She hushed her "Sorry, but why? They will be surely guarded"
"Yes, that's why you need to take their attention. If you keep attacking Eileen she'll be forced to call them over to help" She stood up and started walking with determination.
"Yeah but that will be dangerous- Amity wait" She tried to get up and follow her but her injuries wouldn't let her.
"It will be better this way, I could tell that you weren't fighting properly because you had to protect me. I'll give you time to heal and move after you draw every single monster into you" With that she marched towards the kids corner.
Merry late Christmas to those of you who celebrate! I hope that you have an amazing end to the year.
I tried to make the part with Eileen and Amity a little bit like a horror book. I mean, the concept of "lost in language" is pretty much straight out of a horror show: A special magic that turns the books to life (kinda like a night in the museum) and then one of the characters tries to sew you into a book so you can become one of them? Yep, straight up from a horror movie. Makes you wonder how the show would actually be without all of the goofy characters and comedy. If you weren't spooked by this it's bc I'm shit at writing horror (it's my first time).
I hope you liked it!