Holy shit I just watched the special, and since I can't think of anything else to put here, here are some quick spoiler ramblings:
Spoilers
I think I prefer the palisman more when it's a fusion with a bat and a snake, like the two most dominant theories combined. Also, they do love to hit on Raine huh? I think that the story would be so much better if Odalia became possessed instead (Please don't give her a redemption arc)
End of spoilers
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!
We just got 200 kudos in Ao3, I'm so happy.
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).
-Luz-
Gravesfield public library / Sunday October 16th 04:00
Luz watched in awe as Amity ran towards the kids section.
"This is really brave for her… or really dumb, I can't decide"
She hurried to heal herself to be ready for the incoming battle, she even dropped the illusion concealing her identity to save resources. Eileen's control on the creatures was greater than she had expected and it took her by surprise, but now that she knew what her power levels were she was going to be more careful.
She also hesitated on using big spells on her. Luz found out that the bigger the magic the more noticeable it was. Those men in suits were still patrolling the streets and if she used a lot of magic they might pick it up on their radars. The last thing she needed was to deal with those agents and the monsters at the same time.
"Come on Luz, you gotta get up and finish this quickly" She was starting to feel tired, which was not surprising. It was very late and it had been a long day for her. If this kept going she was going to run out of energy to cast spells.
She finished healing and took flight. This time she wasn't going to let them get the jump on her so she flew low and used the tall bookshelves and toppled furniture as cover. Most of the building was in complete darkness, even though the sections near Eileen were illuminated. The last times she used light orbs to see where she was going but that made her an easy target for the monsters. So this time she decided to fly in the dark and use a beast-keeping spell to give herself an animal's night vision, that way she could navigate without giving her position.
"There she is" she finally saw the goth girl and her minions. She was still imprisoned in that tree that she made and the spider-like creature was trying to release her from it. The dog was still frozen in ice and the pale man mounted guard. There was no sign of the other two "Now, how do I get their attention? Oh, I know"
She made an illusion of Amity and sent it walking towards them. It honestly was a crude copy (illusions weren't her strong area) and any illusion master would be able to tell it was fake immediately, but Eileen was a human that wasn't used to dealing with illusions so it might work on her.
"Work faster you!" Eileen was struggling against the roots that were keeping her in place, she was yelling at the spider that was trying to free her "and you don't just stand there! Break cujo from the ice"
"Wow, they are as useless as you" illusion-Amity spoke. Luz had put her in the stairs of the second floor, a little bit more than twenty meters away from them. She also gave her the same condescending tone she heard her use on Willow "But that's not surprising. After all, they came from you"
"You…" Eileen's voice was dripping with venom "forget about me, go get her!"
With that the two monsters chased after her. She made the illusion run away and then dispelled the spell as soon as she was out of sight for them. Once they turned a corner they couldn't see the girl anymore, so the two characters turned around to face their master.
"Wait, what? What do you mean you lost her?"
Meanwhile Luz started to surround the girl while being invisible. If she managed to snatch up her necklace then Amity would not need to risk her life. She aimed at a balcony on the second floor that was in her opposite direction and projected another illusion.
"Hey jerks!" The image yelled with a mocking tone "I'm over here! Can't believe that you actually lost me"
The two monsters began chasing again but this time she was too far away. So the illusion simply ran away and disappeared from their sight.
"Ugh, this is taking way too much time" she whistled and after a few seconds a big bat came flying. With a puff of smoke it transformed into that good-looking dude she saw before "help them out"
The vampire nodded and turned into a bat to scout, leaving Eileen defenseless. Luz knew that the plan was to lure every single monster towards her area so Amity could close the books. She could see that the muscular bunny was missing (which meant that he was the only one guarding them) so she should just keep trying to lure it here. But she was so close that she might as well do it herself. With her course of action decided, she stepped forward.
Then she halted as she heard the sound of something shattering.
"Finally, you are free"
Effectively, the dog she summoned managed to break out of the ice she had put him in and walked towards his master. Which was bad for her plans. Right now she was invisible but he might be able to sniff her out, she had a spell to conceal her smell but maintaining two spells at once was a real chore (not to mention that she had to keep the illusions going on to distract the others). She decided to just forgo the stealth option and go all out.
Luz mounted her palisman and leapt into the air. She fired a wind blast that blew the dog away and dived to get the magic relic.
"Motherfucker! Amity was a distraction!" She whistled once more and Luz heard a roar.
She dodged to the side at the last second to avoid some giant claws that were going to snatch her right from the air. When she turned she saw the monstrous bunny that seemed to come out of nowhere, it snarled and positioned itself in between her and her target.
"Dang it! I was so clo-whoah!" She turned in the air to avoid the massive sewing needle that was thrown at her "Not cool!"
She then flew back to use the bookshelves for cover, she didn't need to look to know that the other monsters had changed targets and were after her now. As soon as she was out of their sight she casted another illusion right behind her to make it look like Amity was in the staff with her, holding her back. Unlike the previous ones this was a still image that didn't need to move or talk, so it was easier to pull off.
"They are together now! Catch them!" The vampire nodded and emitted a low screech. A horde of bats that seemed to come from nowhere and flew towards her. She swerved from left to right to avoid them as she planned her next move.
"Ok all of the monsters are with me and they think Amity is here, let's do this" She drew a light glyph in the sky and conjured an enormous ball of light, its brightness lit up the room and made her enemies wince. Then she tossed it to them and it exploded on their faces, making them temporarily blind "good luck, Amity"
-Amity-Amity had been on edge ever since she parted ways with the witch. Every little noise made her jump and every time she turned a corner her heart beat faster, but she pressed on nevertheless.
They haven't agreed on a signal for their improvised plan, but as soon as she saw the bright orb from afar she knew that would be it, it was basically a flare gun. So Amity armed herself of courage and left the improvised shelter she had made for herself from a collapsed bookshelf. She only had a bat and her taser (she knew it didn't work against these opponents but it gave her a semblance of comfort) to defend herself but they didn't have many choices.
"Come on… just gotta get there and close the book, that's it" she tried to calm herself but it was hard, this had been the highest amount of adrenaline and anxiety she had felt in her sixteen years of life.
Eventually she arrived at the kids corner and she felt some sense of irony when she entered: A few hours ago she was reading to children but now she was running for her life, she felt kinda funny thinking about it.
Arriving at the table she saw all of the books on top of the table. They weren't particularly hidden but with the amount of books that were in the ground or in the tables she would not look there twice had she not known they were there. She reached out to grab the first, which actually turned out to be her diary, but a hand stopped her.
"What the?" She looked and blinked in confusion. Right there in front of her there was her copy: The version of her that Eileen pulled out of her diary. It seemed that her former friend had reinforcements to guard the books.
"Get off me!" She tried to shove her copy off and grab the books, but they were evenly matched in strength.
"I saw Viney again in the corridors… She looked distraught. I wish I could just forget about this whole status thing and just go talk to her" Her copy started reciting parts of her diary again for some reason. To make it look more creepy she said that with an unblinking expressionless face.
"Is it trying to distract me? Well it's not going to work"
She pulled its arms with all of her strength and swooped its feet with a kick. It was a technique that Boscha taught her, apparently it was useful to throw people out of balance. However her copy somehow saw it coming and pushed her with all her weight, making both of them fall to the floor.
"It's not fair. I'm the only one who knows Ed and Em aren't perfect. Why do they keep getting away with things?" Even in this situation it continued speaking out the deepest thoughts she put in her diary.
Amity did not waste time; She untangled herself and got up, ready to grab the books. But, just like the last time, the copy anticipated it and immediately put itself in front of her. She tried fainting an attack or avoiding it, but it was like fighting against a mirror. Every action that she took generated an opposite reaction from it to counter her.
"Ugh! Just go away!" Amity was getting frustrated with each passing second. Her opponent's stoick expression only made her more furious "I won't be able to look at myself in the mirror ever again"
"Mom is a controlling bitch. She pushes me to do everything she wasn't able to do when she was my age, can't she see I want to live my own life?"
"Is it really doing this just to get me? Or is it incapable of speaking in any other way?"
She lunged forward to punch it's face and it punched her at the same time. Amity managed to block it with her other hand but she grunted in frustration when she saw that her copy did the same thing with her fist.
"I bullied Willow again today. I saw her doing grocery shopping in town while I was with Boscha and her group. She was coming towards us so I had to hurry up and do something, or else she was going to get bullied by the entire group. So I separated from the group, ran up, and practically crashed into her in a deserted alley, accidentally throwing her grocery bags everywhere in the ground, then I proceeded to tell her a lot of awful stuff to make her go away. It worked but I felt terrible, I ruined her chores and blamed her for something I did"
Amity winced, that was a memory she often tried to repress. The truth was that she had gotten really used to bullying Willow that it came naturally to her, it was a really scary thought. She could've just warned her about Boscha's group that day, the same way she should've told her the real reason why they stopped talking.
"I wish…. I could tell them everything"
Amity went down and swung. The copy swung too and the two of them recoiled. She attempted to grapple it and toss it to the side but they were evenly matched and couldn't get anywhere.
"I want to tell someone that I am lesbian, someone besides Ed and Em. But I don't have anyone that would understand…" that hit a nerve.
"SHUT UP!" She screamed wildly and punched the copy's face, at the same time she received a punch in the same spot.
"...Mom sure won't understand. I bet she would just send me to a conversion camp…" she tried to go around it to reach the table but it moved along with her "...Dad wouldn't care, he doesn't even talk to us anyway…" she swung her fist but it blocked it "...Skara is too self-centered and ignorant. If I tell her she's just going to post it on social media so everyone can see how much of an ally she is…" *pum* another block "...I think that Boscha would understand, she has two moms after all. However, that bridge is burnt. She doesn't want anything to do with me…" she tried to kick it but it dodged "...so who do I have to talk about this with, the kids who I read to? Malphias and the rest of the librarians? The security guards mom hires?..." She tried using her taser, the copy did not have her actual clothes so she assumed that it wouldn't have the items she carried. However as soon as she grabbed it another one materialized on its hands "...Let's face it, everyone else in school hates me so I don't have anyone"
Amity stepped backwards to catch her breath and her copy did the same. The most annoying thing was that, even though she managed to land a few hits, it still had that emotionless expression. As if everything they just did was nothing for the copy.
"Focus. There has to be something I can use for this situation" She refused to acknowledge the words that just came out of her doppelganger's mouth. Amity needed every part of her brain to solve this and having depressing thoughts wasn't going to help.
A rumble made the floor shake and that temporally threw the two of them out of balance. She was confused for a second, but then she remembered that there was an ongoing magical battle in this same place. She looked at her copy and was surprised to see that it was as shocked as her, so that gave her an idea. That thing was capable of reading her movements to perfection, but it wasn't prepared for someone else's actions.
She turned around and ran away without checking if her copy followed her, she exited the kid's corner and looked outside: The witch was flying in her staff to avoid all the furniture that Otabin was throwing at her. Frankenstein's monster managed to free Eileen from her prison and now she was yelling orders from the ground. Dracula commanded hundreds of bats to attack the witch but she summoned a big flame to scare them away, she seemed to be able to manage things for now.
Amity ignored all that and started searching the ground for what she was looking for. After a while she found it: Cujo was running around trying to get to a high spot to reach the witch, but it couldn't do much besides barking. Amity grabbed a book from a nearby shelf and threw it at it.
"Hey you!" She whistled to get its attention "over here!"
The dog just looked at her, he seemed confused for a moment but he snapped out of it and growled at her. She lost no time and ran back inside the kid's section. Her copy saw her and got in position to intercept her. But she just smiled and turned left, she walked to a small cleaning closet and opened the door to get inside. The closet was cramped and it smelled like cleaning products, but it was perfect for her to hide. The door also had a small window so she could see what was happening outside.
"Those things are programmed to do certain tasks but they cannot think on their own. If Eileen isn't here to direct them, tricking them will be easy. That thing it's supposed to be my perfect copy, so it must also have my scent. I hope that's enough to trick the dog"
Sure enough, Cujo entered the section in a blood frenzied state. His red eyes scanned the room and only found her copy. Without thinking twice, he ran up and pounced into it. Her copy seemed to be taken aback by this turn of events and struggled to get the saint Bernard dog off it. It wasn't strong enough and Cujo bit it's leg and started dragging it away, probably towards Eileen.
While they were a bit far she exited the closet and dashed towards the table with the books on it. Judging by the barks she heard she guessed that Cujo saw her, but it was too late. She closed the books and heard a big sound, turning around she could see that there wasn't any dog chasing her.
"Finally it's over. Wait a minute, something is missing" now that she had time to read the titles she saw that her diary wasn't in the pile.
She looked back and saw how her copy was trying to get up but it was failing because of the injuries Cujo made. Clutched on its hands she saw her diary, still shining with that magical light.
"I guess that if they are the ones holding them it doesn't matter if the books are closed"
She ran up and grabbed her taser before it could see her. Amity shocked her copy with it from behind as it was trying to run away. It gave a yelp and fell to the floor. She tried to pry her diary from its hands but it struggled against her. The copy attempted to mimic her movements to defend again but it was far too injured to do it properly, so she ended up on top of it.
"I got promoted to team captain today and the teacher announced me as the top student of the class. When mom found out she seemed overjoyed, she even said she was proud of me for the first time ever and that felt… good, I'm worried if I keep doing what she tells I might end up liking this" her copy struggled to get out those words as she punched it.
"Shut up! I hate you!" She was finally able to deliver one good punch and take her diary out of its hands. Once she closed it the copy disappeared in a puff of smoke. Amity got up and breathed a sigh of relief. She contemplated the book in her hands, a part of her wanted to burn it after everything that happened to her, but she decided to keep it.
"Weirdly enough that felt good, like it was cathartic to punch me in the face. Eugh, I'm gonna need even more therapy after tonight" If only her mother would let her. She then thought of an idea and went back towards the kid's corner "I have to talk to Eileen"
-Luz-Luz was in a hyper focused state trying to stay alive. She had dealt with all the bats but now the vampire himself transformed into a giant bat-like creature to fight her. The spider monster had managed to land one lucky hit on her and it made her fall from her staff, she landed on the floor roughly and owlbert was sent flying away.
Now that she was on the ground the pale guy and the rabbit were able to get to her. She wasted no time and created a barrier of ice to defend herself, but it didn't last long against their combined attacks.
She kept struggling against her opponents: A light glyph to blind the pale man, a bard spell to affect the vampire's bat ears, a fireball to burn the giant spider, and a bunch of rocks to imprison the rabbit. She kept slinging spells left and right but her opponents were relentless and before she was aware of it she was surrounded. They all loomed over her menacingly, she tried to cast a thunder shockwave to disperse them but she discovered she was out of breath. The pale man knocked her down with one punch and she stumbled backwards. She could hear Eileen cheering them on from a distance. All of them looked ready to attack when…
They immediately disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving nothing behind. Eileen and her just stared at each other in confusion for a few seconds.
"Well that took a while… But she finally did it" and it was just about time too, she was getting really tired.
"How did you?" The girl just looked at her without believing what she was seeing. Then she looked around "wait… where's Amity?"
Luz didn't say anything but it seemed that the girl understood what happened. She cursed and then dashed towards the nearest bookshelf, probably to summon another creature from a book.
"Oh no you don't" she quickly casted an earth glyph and the ground around Eileen erupted. Rocks put themselves around her and formed a prison that encased most of her body, leaving only her neck and head free "Sorry about that, but you weren't exactly making things easy for me"
"Ack! Let me go!" She struggled in vain against her new prison.
"Not happening" she walked towards her and took her collar off. Luz sighed a breath of relief when she felt the magic emanating from it dissipate "its finally over"
"Give it back!" The goth girl yelled.
"I'm not going to. However, I would like to apologize to you"
"Huh?"
"Back then when you were searching for us I tricked you with an illusion" she drew a magic circle in the air and conjured another image of the green-haired girl "Amity was never there, it was all me" she explained
"Why are you telling me this?" The girl had stopped struggling and was looking at her cautiously.
"Because I made the illusion say some hurtful things to you. I didn't mean any of those, I only used it to distract you, and I don't want you to think that it was the real Amity either. You two have a lot of history together, but I doubt she'd ever say something like that to you"
Eileen just looked at her like she was mad. Then she scoffed and laughed loudly.
"You don't know anything about her! I was fooled by your illusion because those are the things she used to tell me and I know for a fact that she still thinks the same way!"
"Oh but I do know her" she got closer and glared at her "I know that she usually isn't a nice person, and that she has a messy past, but I know that people are capable of changing and she is really trying to. You should've taken that in consideration" The girl didn't answer. She just glared at her and struggled against her restraints.
For her part Luz went to pick up owlbert and just rested against a nearby wall. Today had been exhausting for her. She hadn't eaten a substantial meal in a while and she had been using a lot of her magic on top of that she had spent the whole night fighting.
"When I get back home I'm going to sleep like the dead"
Eventually Amity arrived and Luz got worried upon seeing her. The girl looked rough and her face was injured.
"Oh my titan Amity! Are you okay? I thought that I drew all the monsters away!"
"You did… but this was something that you weren't aware of" she walked past her and looked at Eileen "there's something you need to know, something I need to tell you"
"I don't wanna hear anything coming from your stupid mouth!" Her eyes were shining with rage and Luz recognized that as a symptom of the magical corruption. She feared that they were too late to help her.
"Too bad, because you don't get a choice" she turned around and pointed at the magical relic in her hands "can I borrow that? I'll only use it for a bit"
"Uhh" She knew that it would take more than a couple of uses for her to be corrupted, but she was afraid of what Amity was planning to do "sure? Just try to be careful"
"Well I'm just beside her, so if she does anything harmful I'll just take it back"
"I will, trust me" she grabbed the wailing star and hung it on her neck. Some sparkles appeared around her and Luz could hear a faint crying coming from the jewel. She then opened her backpack and pulled a book from it. It looked old with tears on its green cover "There's something that you need to hear, Eileen"
The girl seemed to recognize that book and looked at it weirdly.
"Wait, is that?"
"My diary. Or the one I used to write in when we were friends. I believe you sent your dog to get it, not knowing that I have been writing in a new one these past few years" Amity opened it and flipped through it, she finally found the page she was looking for and started reading it. The glimmer emanating from the jewel increased and the wailing got louder. The letters from the diary started floating in the air and they all collided in one place, which generated a flash of light that blinded her. When she reopened her eyes she saw another Amity in front of her but this version seemed younger and shorter, she didn't have her hair dyed and some of it was pulled backwards in a ponytail. She assumed that this was how she looked when they were friends. The copy had a neutral expression on its face but when Amity snapped her fingers it sprung to life and started talking.
"It's so unfair! Today my parents told me that I could not hang out with Eileen because I can't be seen 'fraternizing with the lower class', but all I wanted to do was go for ice cream with her"
Eileen looked at it with wide eyes. Amity sighed and flipped the page, the copy started crying.
"I-I thought that I was able to hide her from them, they weren't even at my birthday party! But someone told my parents that Eileen is here. They ordered me to call security and they told me that if I didn't do it then they would take ghost away from me!"
Luz started feeling awkward. A part of her thought that this was something only Eileen was supposed to hear, while the other part of her (arguably the loudest one) was excited to learn more about Amity.
"Man, Katya was right. I do have a tendency to butt in other people's business"
"Huh- What?" Eileen seemed to be taken aback by it.
"It's not done" Amity flipped another page and the copy's sobbing continued.
"What have I done! I thought things would be better for Eileen now that I'm not with her, but today was horrible! Even if pretending to hate her is hard, I felt better knowing that she made new friends but somehow she managed to make the team captain of the banshees really mad. Now she is asking me to pull a prank on her to 'prove my worth to the team', I told her that I wasn't interested but she told me that she was going to kick me if I didn't do it" the copy paused to wipe some tears of its face "I didn't know what to do! I love playing basketball, it's one of the few things I actually like in school, and I was elected to be captain next year. So I gave in and did something stupid to my friend. Gosh, she probably hates me right now and I totally deserve it"
"There's more, but I think you get the gist" she closed the book and the copy disappeared "I thought that you wouldn't believe me if I was the one who said it"
"W-What are you trying to do? Trick me?" The girl was trying to break free from her prison again.
"It's not a trick, look it up for yourself" she stepped closer towards her and put the book near her face "You saw me writing on it multiple times, you should be able to recognize it"
"You could have modified those or written that stuff down recently. You can change the character's appearance and what you want them to say by just adding a few lines on it, like I did with your book"
"That would've taken her months of practice like you had, but she only just put that in" Luz, trying to be helpful, pitched in. She still felt like she was interrupting something important tho "Using the relic to modify a text is hard, you should know about that"
"That's what I wanted to tell you before all of this craziness happened. Back on my birthday I wanted you to be with me, but my parents didn't because they are elitist shits" Amity widened her eyes. It seemed that she wasn't expecting to say that herself "A-And what I did to you in the changing room was bad. I could say that the other girls forced me to do it but I'm tired of making excuses. The truth is that I should've saved whatever integrity I had at that point and stood up for you. Yeah I would've lost my place in the team, but what I did to you wasn't worth it"
*Sniff* "You're-You're lying!" Eileen had stopped struggling at this point and started to cry.
"What would I gain with that? This fight is over, you already lost. I could be mean and scream at you for trying to kill me and basically giving me the worst night of my life. I could, and probably should, hand you over to the police for destruction of property and attempted murder, although I'd doubt that they would believe me" she took a second to breathe "But I won't do that"
"Why?" Eileen was glaring at her "I might try to kill you again if you let me go"
"I'd doubt that you would do that, because you are a good person. Listen I know that you won't forgive me and it's not like I deserve it. But I forgive you, for tonight. I know that we may not be friends again and that's ok, but I wish that we could both just put the past behind us and move forward. I know it will be hard but it's worth trying" Amity got closer to her and put a hand on her cheek, Eileen whimpered. She then turned to Luz "Can you let her go? I promise she won't try anything"
Luz wasn't sure about that but she did it anyway. With one flick of her fingers the stone surrounding her crumbled and turned into dust. Eileen got up, stretched, and dusted her clothes. When she was done she looked at Amity for a long awkward moment, just when Luz thought that they were about to fist fight she hugged her and cried.
"Oh my gosh! I was really going to kill you wasn't I?" Eileen seemed distressed.
"You were, but it's ok"
"No it's not ok! I really do hate you for what you did to me but I'd never do something like that!" Then she turned towards Luz "And you… I'm sorry about hurting you too"
"Hey don't think about it, it was the necklace. You humans are not meant to use those things"
"Still, I'm sorry about it. I hurt you and it felt good" she shuddered "I don't know how to explain it but I don't wanna do that ever again" she cleaned up a tear on her cheek and smiled "I am thankful that you came, otherwise I would've done something regrettable"
"Don't sweat it, it's part of the job" Luz smiled proudly at that and it earned a chuckle from both girls.
"Heh, I'm glad that you are actually real and not a hoax. Me and my friends love your videos" she offered her a small smile.
"I- uhhh" Luz was at a loss here. In the boiling isles she was considered a criminal, so she never had something like fans and supporters. It was a new feeling "Thank you? But more importantly there is something that I want to ask you, both of you"
The two girls nodded at her.
"Could you please not mention this to anyone? Not to your family or your friends? Also, please don't tell people that you have seen me, my secret identity is a big deal to me"
"Well sorry but you are doing a shitty job at protecting it. Everyone in town is talking about you"
"I knoooow, it's becoming quite the issue so I'll appreciate it if you don't spread rumors around" she put her hands together and begged.
"Well you did save my life, so it's the least I could do" Amity answered with a smile.
"Same here" the goth girl then turned to face Amity and her gaze darkened "I don't forgive you by the way. What happened to you was wrong but it still doesn't excuse it. You could have explained it to me and I would have understood it, we could have even come up with something to avoid all the shit show"
"I understand, I don't expect you to forgive me either. I know that it doesn't change what happened, but I promise that from now on I will prevent Boscha and her cronies from picking on you ever again. I mean it"
"Well that's- uff what?" The black-haired girl stumbled and blinked several times. She suddenly looked very tired "What's going on?"
"Are you ok?" Amity looked worried.
"Oh yeah, I thought this could happen" Luz approached her calmly and put a hand on her shoulder "help me lay her down" With Amity's help they put Eileen, who looked more tired each second, on the floor.
"What's happening to her?"
"The same that's happening to me: Magic exhaustion. Each time you cast a spell you use the metabolic energy inside your body. You can run out of it if you use too much. Although the process is slower with magic relics they are not the exception to that rule" So far she hadn't seen any human experience magic exhaustion but it was to be expected: Every encounter she had with magic-wielding humans usually lasts like twenty minutes, they didn't have enough time to use all of their energy. Eileen however used her relic for hours "Your guy's bodies are definitely not prepared for this" As soon as she finished saying that Eileen closed her eyes and started sleeping.
"Wait, slow down! Does this mean that she is going to die?!" Amity grabbed her shoulders in panic.
"What? Nonono" She actually could've, if she kept using the necklace. But Luz doubted Amity wanted to hear that "She'll just sleep for a while. All the energy that's usually directed to maintaining her body was used on those spells, so she'll just sleep like the dead for a while and when she wakes up she will feel hungry and thirsty. So if we take her to her house it will be ok"
"Oh well, that's a relief" Amity sighed and sat down on the floor.
"Yep, honestly I envy her. Sleep sounds so good right now because I'm so fucking tired" She stretched her arms and made her joints pop. She really didn't mean to swear but she guessed Eda was rubbing in on her "Whoo boy this was a long night. Hopefully if we put her in her house she'll think all of this was a dream?" She said pointing at Eileen.
*Chuckle* "I don't think so… and besides, there's stuff I said I want her to remember" Amity smiled sadly "Thank you for everything. I would've died here if it wasn't for you"
"Don't worry about it. Like I said, it's all part of my job"
"Well I still wanted to thank you, nevertheless" Then for some reason she eyed her curiously "You know with all of this stuff I forgot to ask you something, did you change your hair color?"
"Huh uh wha?" She froze in panic and couldn't articulate words. She then grabbed a streak of her hair and sure enough, it was back to its natural brown color. During the whole night she had casted an illusion on herself to conceal her identity because her cowl wasn't enough to mask her face from people who already knew her. Illusions required constant concentration and she did her best to maintain it, but it seems that the last battle made her slip (maybe it was the blows she received, or maybe it was the magic exhaustion) and right now Amity could partially see her real face.
"Your skin is darker too" Amity narrowed her eyes.
"I-It's a… Fashion thing? Yeah! A fashion thing. We witches love to change our appearances all the time, watch!" She casted another spell and her hair became blue. She hoped that would be enough to fool her.
"Oh-key" Amity seemed weirded out by that.
"Welp anyway, I hope things get better between you and your friend" She carried Eileen bridal style and then mounted her staff "I have to take her to her house. You should get going too, it's almost dawn"
"Wait, you are leaving?" For some reason, Amity seemed distraught.
"Uuh, yeah. Witches need sleep too"
"You can't leave yet! I need your help to fix all of this!" Then she gestured towards the room, which was in a terrible state: Broken windows, cracked walls, books all over the floor, furniture out of place, bookshelves piled on top of the entrance. It was a mess.
"Uff, yeah. I forgot about that"
"Can you clean it up with magic?" She sounded really hopeful.
"Are you kidding? Do you know the effort that would take? The amount of levitation and repair spells I'm going to need to patch this place up? After the magic exhaustion I only have enough energy to clean up a table and this place looks like it's been hit by a tornado" she wasn't exaggerating, she truly felt really weak.
"I can't clean all of this on my own! If people see this, not only will I get fired, the police will also start an investigation. You don't want that, right?" She begged while looking at her with the most adorable look that she had seen in her life and Luz's will crumbled "Please? Isn't there something you can do?"
"Oh. My. Titan. Amity just gave me the puppy dog eyes. Amity fucking Blight"
"Eh-erm it's not a matter of 'I don't want to' it's more of a matter of 'I can't'. Like I said I already used most of my magic tonight"
"Can't you think of something else? Maybe I can use this" She said pointing at the wailing star "To summon something from a book to help us?
"No. Using relics is too dangerous for you and-" She froze mid sentence. Something about what she just said gave her an idea "Wait a minute" she grabbed her pouch and started to look for something inside of it.
"What are you doing?" Amity looked at her weirdly.
She always carried the bag of holding with her when she went out patrolling. It proved to be a valuable asset, with its power to contain almost everything inside its little pocket dimension, so Luz stored all sorts of things inside of it: Her cellphone, money, a first aid kit, emergency snacks, and a bunch of magical relics. Granted she didn't use any of those in the fight, mainly because the monster's relentless attacks didn't give her time to, but she remembered one particular item that could be useful in this situation.
"Come on, come on, where it is. I swear I put it here" She sorted through the bag's contents till she found what she was looking for "Aha! There it is!" She pulled out a large metallic rod. Its center was painted black while the tips had shiny iridescent gems.
"A magic staff?" Somehow, Amity seemed excited.
"Not quite. This is another magic relic, the shifting baton! It can rearrange stuff and levitate objects. I may not have enough energy to do it but this baby sure has!" She waved it around to demonstrate and some chairs that were thrown in the fight returned to their original position "If you are knowledgeable about magic, you can 'shift' an object back to its original position! We can use it to fix things here" The fellow who had this particular relic used to rob banks. He would use the levitating powers to infiltrate and then he would erase all evidence proving he was in the scene "But you still need to help me, I don't know how things were before the monsters ruined everything"
"Does that mean I get to use it as well?"
"Yeah, don't expect me to do all the work.
"That's amazing! Oh man, I get to do magic. This is great!" Amity seemed… way too excited for a person who just had several near death experiences. They started working on fixing the library but she couldn't stop thinking about that.
"You… Look really happy about this. I would've guessed that you'd be more wary about magic since you were almost killed by it" The Blight had a look of pure wonder as she held the baton and made stuff float around.
"Well this is really different than getting chased by those book monsters. Maybe I haven't had enough time to fully process what happened, or maybe I'm still running on adrenaline, but I don't care about any of that. As a child I really liked magic and was really into fairy tales, so this is like a dream come true for me" It seemed that an idea occurred to her and she turned to face Luz "Hey, do you think you can let me keep this?"
"Not a chance" Luz snorted "Now come on, I don't wanna be here all day"
Three hours later
Luz flew back towards the owl house. Amity and her finished repairing everything that was damaged inside the library (or at least they thought, they were too tired to check everything) and parted ways. The mint-haired girl wanted to know if she could see her again and Luz told her that if she ever was in danger from magical creatures she'd definitely come rescue her. Then she asked her if she had a phone or something, so that she could contact even if she wasn't in danger. Luz had to refuse. Her identity had been at risk today and she didn't want to involve Amity into her messy life.
*Yawn* "Well, despite everything I consider this a job well done! Nobody died, I secured a powerful relic, and I discovered a lot about Amit- WHOA" She didn't pay attention to her path and almost hit a lamp post, but she swerved owlbert at the last second to avoid it "Man my reflexes are bad. It must be because I'm sleepy, I better hit the sac"
She arrived at the roof of the owl house and changed to her normal clothes. She then put owlbert on the ground and the palisman hopped towards a nest he had made for itself on the roof. Luz waved goodbye at him and dropped down into the house.
It was eight thirty on a sunday morning, so there was no way that Eda would be awake. She just had to get to her room so that she could sleep like the dead and pretend that she came back earlier when she woke up.
She was about to reach her room when she heard someone clearing their throat. She turned back defensively only to find Lilith on her wheelchair with a mug of coffee in her hand.
"Now what time do you think it is, young lady?" She glared at her with a furred eyebrow.
"Crap"
-Marcus-The MCU headquarters / Wednesday october 19st 20:00 PM
Marcus resisted the urge to pace around. It would not be good if a leader showed anxiety, even if that was all he felt right now.
*Sigh* "How long has it been since she woke up, ralph?" Right now they were waiting for an elevator to take them to the interrogation room.
"A couple of hours, sir" The assistant did not look happy to be here with him. It must've something to do with the intense glares that he threw at him once in a while.
"Right, and why haven't I been notified about it as soon as she woke up?" He had just heard about this, and he was an expert at interrogation!
"You were… busy sir. We figured out that this wasn't important enough to get your attention" Marcus grunted. He could smell the lies from where he was standing, the lad was bullshiting him and he knew it "B-But now I realize that we misjudged the situation. Sorry sir, it won't happen again"
"Hmm. Tell me, lad. Is kikimora already there?"
"Uhhh, yes sir"
"So you felt that the situation wasn't enough to notify me or Lilith, but you did call for the other commander" Marcus loomed over him and raised his eyebrow.
"I-I" He put a hand on the man's shoulder to stop his stammering.
"Ralph, listen to me. I know that Kiki sent you to stall me, don't worry, I'm not mad. She is your superior so you don't have much choice in the matter, and it's kind of our fault for dragging you people to our power struggle. However, do not believe I'm stupid. I am letting you go for this time but the next time you think that you can trick me you are going to find out how I earned all those wrestling trophies in my desk, got it?" He stared down at the brunette.
*Gulp* "Got it" just after that they heard the *ding* and the elevator's door opened.
"Good" with that they stepped into the elevator and went down. As the doors closed his mind drifted towards their most recent predicament.
Marcus should've known that this was coming sooner or later. They haven't had an emergency since the wild witch fought the flying guardian and ever since Lilith got here things calmed down: The amount of magical creature's sightings lowered, no other videos of the wild witch had been uploaded to the internet, even the three witches from the emperor's coven had been silent. All his instincts were screaming that it was the calm before the storm, something big was coming but he could not tell what or when. All he could do was prepare for it but, what could he do that he wasn't doing already? All the rookies were effectively trained (and the batches that weren't were already taken to other units), the scouting patrols already had their designated paths, they were checking the magical relic list sent by Belos, and their cover team was working overtime to ensure no news of magical creatures got out. It wouldn't be good if he pushed his men to work even harder than they were already. For now all he could do was to clench his teeth and wait for the inevitable catastrophe to happen, and it happened in one of the most unusual places of them all: The library.
Now calling it 'catastrophe' was a bit of a stretch. There were some complaints from neighbors about noises and lights coming from the library in the middle of the night. A cop went to investigate and she found out that she couldn't enter because someone blocked every exit with furniture. It was very odd so she called for backup and more people came. At the end there were five cops who saw the witch do magic from afar. Luckily the MCU monitors the police's communications and his agents entered the scene. Sadly, there was no one around when they entered.
The police agents were interrogated and they said they only saw the witch using a strange grey rod to levitate bookshelves around and fix broken walls. Fortunately those agents have been dealt with before they could spread more information. After learning she was close he had people monitor the sky in hopes of finding the witch and they saw her for a few seconds. They weren't able to determine her direction because she went invisible, but someone managed to take a picture of her from the ground. What his team found when they zoomed in was outstanding: Another person flying in the staff with her! At first they thought it was another witch, but then facial recognition was able to determine that it was a human.
"A minor student, non the less! To think that a witch would kidnap a highschool girl it's outrageous, at least the girl seemed fine" They found the address of the girl and they were surprised to find out that the parents weren't even aware that she had been kidnaped (they were taken to check for mind-altering spells). When they went upstairs to the girl's room and found her unconscious they feared the worst. Lawrence believes that the girl was attacked by the witch because of the amount of magical residue they found within her, but Marcus still had his doubts. If the witch really did attack the girl then she wouldn't be alive, not to mention that the doctors haven't found anything wrong with her physically.
"Did we check on the library staff? Or anyone that might've been in the building at that hour?" He turned towards Ralph.
"Yes and as far as we know there wasn't anyone else. The library closed early because the owner wanted to observe the meteor shower from that night. All records show that they closed at eight o'clock and he was the only one with the keys to open it"
"Did the research team scan the place?"
"They did. We had to tell the employees that there was a gas leak and they should stay away from the building until we cleared it out in order to have the building for ourselves. Besides the massive amounts of magic and some destroyed furniture, we didn't find anything useful"
"Well then, it's better if I do my job" with that the door opened and both of them stepped into the interrogation area.
Calling it 'area' was a bit of a stretch though. It was just a corridor with a series of rooms where the interrogations happened and a big room at the end with cameras to monitor the rooms. Since they use this part to only interrogate humans they didn't any weapon or torture device at hand. Which was good, because he didn't want to know what Kikimora would do to the poor girl if she didn't give her the answers she wanted.
They arrived at the control room and saw how Kiki was directing orders to her squad. When she saw him she narrowed her eyes, it seemed that he was unwelcome.
"Marcus" she addressed him "There was no need for you to come here, I have everything under control"
"I don't think so. Did you manage to get anything out of the girl?" He saw her clench her teeth.
"She remains uncooperative for the moment"
"That's what I thought. You've always been good for getting information out of criminals, but you are shite at interrogating innocent people. Move over, it's my turn now" She looked like she wanted to protest for a second. But then she changed her mind and got up from the chair.
"All yours"
He sat up in the chair and looked at the camera. There he could see a teenage girl with black hair and clothing. She was munching on an apple and looked relatively unfazed, despite the fact that she was detained in a government facility.
"Alright, do you guys have her info?" One of the interns handed him her file and he read a few lines from it "Which one is her room?"
"Wait. Aren't you going to talk to her through the microphone?" Ralph asked him.
"Over the years I've found out that it's better to deal with these cases personally" with that he exited the room and entered the interrogation area. When he entered the girl narrowed her eyes, she seemed to be evaluating him.
He saw the two guards custoding her and scoffed.
"Why is she handcuffed? Are ye afraid of what a schoolgirl can do? Let her go" The guards scoffed but did as he said "Good. Leave us now" Once again they obeyed and he was left alone with the girl.
"What is this? A part of your 'good cop' act? Trying to get into my good grades?" She raised an inquisitive eyebrow. She seemed to be fine for someone who just was attacked by a magical creature.
"I'm not a 'good cop' lass, trust me" he sighed and sat in front of her. He opened her file and started reading it "Your name is Eileen, right?"
"Don't act as if you don't know who I am. You are a government agent, you probably know everything about me. I bet that you even have my internet search history in there"
"As shocking as it may seen, my organization doesn't know everything about every U.S. citizen, nor are interested in what websites a teenager visits. Also, we don't work for the government" Technically the government worked for them.
"You don't?" That managed to catch her interest. "Then who do you work for?" He smirked and that seemed to unease her.
"We work for ourselves. Now, I won't dance around the subject or try to confuse you, you seem to be too smart for that anyway, so I'll just get straight to the point. Did the witch say anything to you when she kidnapped you?"
She wasn't expecting that at all. Her eyebrows rose and her mouth hung open. He could imagine the shock his coworkers might've felt inside of the control room when they heard that. In fact he didn't have to imagine it, the buzzes he felt in his earpiece told him that they were trying to talk to him.
"Marcus!" Kikimora's angry voice came out of his communicator "What on earth are you doing? You'll compromise everyth-" He cut her off by taking his earpiece away.
"Wow, someone finally admits it" she crossed her arms to pretend annoyance but he could see fear in her eyes.
"I figured that this approach would be better for you" he reached out and touched her hand "Hey I know that we can be scary and probably you have a lot of questions, and you'll get your answers but there's something that we need to discuss first"
"What is it?" He could see that she was interested.
"First of all, I need you to tell me everything you know about the witch you saw"
"What? No!" That answer surprised him.
"Did she threaten you? Your parents perhaps? Don't worry, we'll make sure that she can't touch them" He tried to be as reassuring as possible.
The girl just looked at him perplexed. After a while she scoffed and laughed. Marcus just looked at her, intrigued.
"You guys have no idea about what happened right? You don't even know anything about her"
"I'd like to think that we know more than you think, lass. But please, enlighten me"
"The witch didn't kidnap me, she helped me" Marcus looked at her. There wasn't any trace of a lie on her eyes, and she had been checked for mind-altering spells but they didn't find any.
"Hmmm, how did she help you?" It would not surprise him if that was actually the truth. This witch has proven that she likes to be a hero.
"She stopped me… from doing something that I would've regretted" She seemed uneasy about this part for some reason.
"And what was that horrible thing you were going to do?" He didn't get an answer. Eileen was looking at the ground and fidgeting with her shirt "Eileen. Why were you in the public library in the middle of the night?"
"I want to see my parents" she suddenly bursted "A-Are they all right? You didn't harm them did you" she stood up.
"Eileen. Please stand down" He looked at her in an authoritative manner and she did as he told her "Your parents are fine, but you should be worried about you. Listen to me, there are only two ways this can end: With you going back to school and having a normal life with your friends and family. Or…"
"Or…?" She looked at him fearfully.
"Or you could spend the rest of your life here locked up just because you decided not to share information. I do not want that to happen to you"
The girl gulped and he knew he had her.
-Luz-
Outside of hexside / Friday october 21st 18:00
Luz had a rough start of the week. First Lilith had grounded her for being back home too late without warning them (She believed that she had been doing illegal stuff for Eda again and Luz couldn't convince her otherwise), and forced her to do the house chores. When she was done with that she collapsed out of exhaustion and slept for two days. She even missed school day, which made Lilith even more mad at her
In these cases Eda would help her but it turns out that she had been grounded too, despite the fact that this was her house. Her bottles of liquor and her most dubious merchandise had been confiscated. They refused to tell her the reason, but Luz suspected it had something to do with the condoms and the man's underwear she found in Eda's bedroom when she was cleaning it (she swore to never enter that place again, no matter what).
"I think it's cute that Lilith cares about me and tries to show me 'the proper way' but she can be a little bit overbearing"
Right now she was done with school for the day and was ready to go back to the owl house. She stayed behind after the bell because she needed to do extra homework to compensate for the day she missed earlier this week. She didn't have any plans for today with her friends and it looked like it was about to rain, so she was ready for a cozy day at home with king snuggles and watching netflix.
"I really hope that they make that new season soon, I can't wait for- hold on, is that Amity?" Sure enough. The captain of the basketball team was exiting the gym with an umbrella in her hand. It seemed that they had team practice today "Ok, this is the first time I get to interact with her since the library incident. Can't mess this up"
"Hey Amity!" She waved her hand as she approached with what she hoped it would be her least awkward smile.
"Luz?" The green haired teen seemed surprised to see her "You can't be here! Boscha and the other girls are nearby" She looked to the sides to make sure that no one was near them and closed the door.
"I know and I promise I'll be quick. I just wanted to apologize for what happened in the library. You see-" She struggled to find the right words but luckily Amity interrupted her.
"There's no need to apologize. One of my coworkers saw what happened and told me afterwards, you tried to help me… and I behaved very badly with you" She looked really sad "I'm sorry Luz, you are not a bully. I should not have said that''
"Well dang, I guess having a near death experience changed her"
"It's ok, it was a misunderstanding" Then an idea came to her and she smiled mischievously "But if you are feeling in a really apologetic manner then there's something that you could do to make it up to me"
"There is? What is it?"
"You could tell me why you pushed me away when school started, and why were you mad at me after chemistry class?" They started walking towards the entrance as they talked.
*Sigh* "Yeah, I guess you deserve to know. The truth is that my parents are really demanding, they want me to be the best at everything and if I fail they ground me or punish me. When you took my place as the top student I knew they were going to be mad at me so… I snapped at you I guess" She seemed sad but somewhat relieved by telling this "And the reason why I stopped hanging out with you is because they are elitist snobs who don't want me to 'interact with the noble class'"
"Oh wow that's… a lot to digest. I'm sorry to say this but your parents are big jerks" She suspected it from her diary's entry but hearing it from her mouth was something different.
*Chuckle* "It's great to hear someone say that out loud!"
"And if you want I could try less in chemistry class, that way they won't be angry at you"
"Nah. If I reclaim my title it would be in an honorable way, by defeating you!" She smiled and elbowed her in a friendly manner.
"Hah! In your dreams, Blight!" She hip bumped her and both of them laughed "So what now?"
"I think it would be better if we stay away from each other. My parents would consider you a bad influence for me and they are really powerful, although I doubt that scares you"
"Nop it doesn't" She gave her best sly smile "but if it makes things easier for you then ok, we could stay apart"
"I mean we can still see each other like we are doing right now, but I don't think we could hang out or something" She seemed deep in thought for a moment "I can promise you something though. I will make sure that Boscha and her group don't pick on you or your friends ever again"
"Aww thanks, but I don't think that's gonna be an issue anymore. I did kick her ass back there" she did a smug pose and Amity rolled her eyes.
"It was more of a mutual ass kicking, if I recall correctly" Her eyes then widened in surprise "Oh my gosh! I almost forgot, I have something for you"
"Really?" Luz watched with eager eyes as she opened her backpack.
"I've been wanting to give you this all week" She pulled a thick book from her backpack, but it wasn't any book.
*Gasp* "IS THAT THE GOOD WITCH AZURA BOOK FIVE!?" She screamed and Amity shushed her "Sorry"
"It is. One of my coworkers saw your interaction with a little girl and found it amusing. Apparently you are a fake Azura fan who didn't know there were more than five books?" She asked with a smirk.
"Okay, first of all I am not a fake fan, Azura is my favorite series of all time. I just was… Incomunicated in my old home. My country doesn't get news that often ok?"
"Fine, I believe you. Azura is my favorite series too but it's really hard to find people who enjoy it. So if I lend you this book, would you tell me what you thought about it? Consider it as an apology gift"
"Yes yes yes!" She eagerly took the book from her hands "Oh my tita-I mean god. Thank you so much! I can't believe it! I will tell you all about it and maybe we can chat about Azura!" She grabbed her bag to put the book in.
"Well, as long as it's a secret… Wait" She kept looking at Luz's bag, it seemed that something on it caught her attention "Is that… a bi pride pin?"
"Huh? Oh yeah it is" Luz looked down at the blue violet and red pin on her bag. Willow explained the whole thing about sexualities the other day and told her this was the one for people who liked both girls and boys. Luz still thought it was odd how humans had the need to categorize everything, even their romantic relationships. But at least the colors were cute "Why, is there a- Amity?"
The Blight girl seemed frozen in place. Then slowly her expression changed into a cheeky smile and laughed a little. She looked at Luz like she was thinking about pulling a prank on her or something.
"Is everything ok?" This change in attitude scared her a little bit.
"Huh? Oh yeah, everything is ok" She gave that cheeky smile again "I can wait to hear your thoughts on the book, you still have my number right?" She nodded "Perfect! We can arrange a day to return the book to me. See you later!"
And before Luz could say goodbye or anything else Amity Blight winked at her, leaving her speechless. Then she turned around and walked happily towards the street. Meanwhile Luz just stood there as the first drops of rain fell around her.
"Huh. Wha-What just happened?"
If you are wondering why did I pick those monsters to be the villains, the answer is I don't know. I wanted to have classic literature monsters as antagonists but Idk much about those. Mr Hyde would be boring, everything from H. P. Lovecraft would be pretty op, and I do not like Edgar Allan Poe much.
Besides all of that I do not know many monsters from classic literature that would've worked here, feel free to comment examples if you have any.
If you were wondering why did I put a background character like Eileen (she was the potions track cyclops in the original show) to be Amity's ex friend instead of Willow, it's because I wanted Amity's character arc to continue but I didn't wanna do much with Willow yet (don't worry, I have something planned for her).
Also, sound the alarm! The Lumity train just arrived! However don't expect much with them in the nearby chapters, this is a slow burn after all.