Well hello there! Long time no see! Now I know, I know. I took way too long with this one chapter and you are right, I apologize for that. There were several reasons why: First I needed a break from writing for a while, second my job and college doesn't let me update as much as I want to, and the third reason is that I had reached a point where I did not know how to finish this book.

I've said it before but basically I have the general things of the story planned and most of the plots, the only thing I have to do is write them (which is admittedly the hard part), but sometimes when I'm writing I get a sudden inspiration and I end up extending certain sections or changing things. I believe that the changes I think on the fly are better than my original notes but that creates a problem: This book is going to end up in a kind of different way than I envisioned, some sections of previous chapters were meant for book two in the beginning, while some things that I had planned for this book were pushed forwards, and there are others that I made on the fly. That is not that big of an issue on its own but I had to restructure the whole thing and that took time.

But most important of it all, I finished that one-shot that I was talking about in my previous chapter. I guess I just needed something to do about all the feelings I have for the show's finale, it is one of my first attempts of angst (I'm not sure if you can call it that) give it a read if you want: s/14229243/1/Comeuppance

I made this an extra short chapter bc if I tried to write the length I'm used to it would take far too long, and I don't think that you guys would want to wait for that long. In fact, I am willing to change the format if you guys are into it, what would you prefer? 10k words in like 3 weeks or updates with this size in 2 weeks each? Either would work for me.

Also I just checked and… 300 kudos in Ao3! Whooo hooo! Thank you everyone!

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

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).

-Willow-

A coffee shop near the owl house / Monday November 27th 18:00 hs

This was a bad idea.

This was a really stupid idea.

This was possibly the most ridiculous thing she had ever tried. More than that one time when she thought it would actually be a good idea to let her uncle style her hair for picture day in third grade, she loved the man but he had zero fashion sense.

It had been more than a week since her little talk with Amity and things had turned surprisingly well. She actually kept her promise and stopped bothering her, one time she even stopped Boscha from bullying her, Willow wasn't sure where they stood or how she felt about her now, but she was thankful nevertheless.

Now however, she was in a different awkward situation that she put herself in, today was the day when she was finally going to know what her friend Luz Noceda was hiding! Or that was the plan at least. On her defense, Luz had actually made an effort to actually hang out with them and not run away like she used to, until today when Gus asked them if they could come to his house to see this new movie with him. Luz told them that she had extra work to do in the owl house and that seemed to convince him, but not her. Willow knew when her work shift ended and it was weird for Eda to just give her more hours in a day out of the blue, besides Luz had that certain look of uneasiness in her eyes when she spoke, Willow was sure it was the same look she had whenever she made up some story. So she told Gus that she couldn't go as well and decided to finally do something about this situation: She was going to wait until Luz was done with her shift and she was going to follow her.

"And that probably was the worst idea I've had in a while" She thought bitterly "I mean… What am I even going to do? Luz is way faster than I am, even if I started working out, so if she started running I would have no way of following her, not to mention that I don't know what I will say to her if she catches me…"

Willow took a sip of her coffee while she moped on her depressing thoughts. She was currently inside of a coffee shop in front of the owl house, she was sitting on a table at the side, so she could see the old building where her friend lived through a window. Luz's shift ended in fifteen minutes and she still had no idea how to proceed with her plan.

"What if I was wrong? What if Eda really gave her extra hours? Or what if she just didn't feel like hanging out and made an excuse? Oh man, I hope I didn't come here for nothing…"

She looked around the coffee shop to calm herself. Despite being in one of the oldest parts of the city (Some buildings over here were even older than the owl house itself) it was really pretty and modern. The walls were painted in a lovely light brown color and the whole building was decorated like it belonged to a royal british house. It was a really cool place, they really should come here in the future.

"Excuse me miss" A waiter came to her "Can I get you anything else?"

"Oh no, thank you… wait a minute" She turned to greet him but she was shocked to see he had a familiar face "Oh it's you!"

The waiter was the same blonde boy with a scar that was attacked by a bird in her flower shop a few weeks back. He still had the same irked look and the same confusing magenta irises.

"Uhhh, do I know you?" He seemed confused.

"I'm the girl from the flower shop. You know, the one that saved you from being eaten alive by a bird?" She added with a smile.

"Ohh, it's …you" His reaction was unpleasant.

"My name is Willow, and yours was?" She said in an attempt to be polite.

"Hunter, good to see you again" The look on his face told her he wasn't glad to see her again. He offered his hand to shake nonetheless "And for the record, you did not save me from that bird because I had it under my control"

"Sure you did" She shook his hand gently "I'm willing to bet you showed that cardinal who was boss"

"Yeah, haha" He laughed awkwardly and looked away "hey if you could… not mention that around people would be great"

"My lips are sealed" She answered.

"Huh? No, they aren't" He came closer to her with a confused look "The are literally open"

"Is this guy for real?"

"It's a way of speaking, it means that I won't talk about it" She explained with an incredulous expression.

"Oh… of course, I knew that" then he cleared his throat and stood upright "I would like to apologize for the way I behaved in your establishment, my outburst that day was due to my personal frustrations and I shouldn't have lashed out like that"

"What is his deal? Is he acting?"

"Uhhm, its not that big of an issue"

"Hunter!" An angry voice came from the kitchen "Come back here to get more orders! I don't pay you for talking with pretty girls!"

Hunter grunted and went back to his job, but not before waving at her one more time. Willow smiled and waved back, she realized that his first impression was not an accurate one, he wasn't a jerk, he was just really awkward.

"He's definitely still a weirdo tho. Hmmm, I should introduce him to Luz, they are really alike" Once she thought of her friend she remembered her purpose here "Oh my god, Luz! She must be done with her shift by now!"

A quick phone check confirmed that it was time, she looked at the owl house but she couldn't detect anything new. Without knowing what else to do she messaged Luz.

Hey, how's it going?

Wilooooow

Save me

Did something happn?

Eda made me categorize some boxes and I ended up discovering her toenail collection

I want to pull out my own eyes now

Lol

This is what happens when you snoop around other people's personal stuff

I didn't mean to! And besides, that box was in the pile I needed to move

Uh-huh and tell me, was the box open or closed when u found it?

…

Thought so

Hey, are you still in the owl house? Are there any clients still in there?

Ugh, yeah

Eda managed to convince this old lady that we sell "organic" stuff and she is refusing to leave no matter how many times I tell her we don't have the kind of herbs she wants

"That story is too elaborate to be false, she is not that good with coming up with lies, still, I can't be sure"

Is she the only one left? You could tell her that you are closing early today

Nah, Eda won't let me do that

Besides there's another guy around here

A dude in our age looking at the 'magical potions' at the window

I wish I could tell him that those don't work but I think Eda would kick me out for that

She could actually check if this was true, she remembered seeing those potions in the front part of the shop. Getting up from her seat she looked outside and sure enough, a teen wearing a black hoodie was looking at the potions displayed at the front of the owl house, which confirmed what her friend just said.

"At the end of the day she was saying the truth, I can't believe I did all this for nothing"

Willow paid for her drink and exited the shop. On her way out she heard some voices yelling, she was about to mind her own business when she realized that one of the voices sounded familiar. Overrun by her own curiosity, she turned around the corner where the sounds were coming from and found a peculiar scene: Hunter was in the middle of a heated discussion with an older woman at the side of the shop. The woman was several inches taller than him and her loose clothing showed a muscular complexion underneath, she had tanned skin and her brunette hair was tied in a long braid. She was really pretty but the massive scowl in her face made her look scary, not to mention that the intensity in her speech made her feel intimidated.

"I keep telling you to stop bothering me when I'm working, you are the one in the house so you are the one responsible for it, fix your mess" Hunter said in a heated manner.

"I'm sorry, my mess? You were the one that was in charge of it the first time this shit happened, so it's your mess and I'm just trying to make you fix it!" The woman spat back at him with an equal intensity

"That doesn't make any sense"

"Agh! Just, forget about it and come home. I think I know how to solve it but I'm gonna need help"

"Then wait until my shift is done then because, until you get a job yourself, I'm in charge of providing for us" Hunter said with an angry tone "Or maybe go find Wrath, I don't care! Just leave me alone for now"

"Are you seriously delegating this delicate matter to Wrath? You know he's not able to handle it! Way to be a team player! Can't you do anything right once? I'm asking for something simple, you'll be back in less than twenty minutes, I doubt any of these dorks would notice" She started tugging his arm.

"Are you kidding me? I can't just-"

"Heeey!" Willow interrupted.

"What am I doing, what am I doing, what am I doing?"

The two pairs of eyes stared at her in surprise and she regretted her decision to speak up when she felt their gazes pierce her soul. Now that she was looking at her, the brunette lady was even scarier and she didn't know how Hunter could manage to hold an argument to her, it took one look from her and Willow was overwhelmed with the feeling of wanting to run away. Speaking about Hunter, the teen was making signs for her to go away with terrified eyes, it didn't help with the nerves.

"Yes?" She asked with an irritated look.

Willow sighed and pressed forward, she already dug this grave for her, so she was going to lay on it, even if she felt like a rabbit confronting a wolf.

"Hunter the boss has been calling for you, I don't know what he wants but he seemed mad" She said with the most confidence she could muster.

Hunter's eyes lit up, the boss of the shop went to do some shopping a few minutes ago, so he knew it was a lie. She was just hoping that he could play it cool.

"See? You just got me in trouble with my job! If I wasn't here talking with you I wouldn't be in trouble!" He sighed and facepalmed, she had to concede he was a good actor "Can you wait until I'm done with work now?"

"Ugh, fiiiiine. But you better come home later" She started walking away when she said that. Once she passed right next to Willow she gave her a glare that made all want to flee as fast as possible.

Once the woman crossed the street Willow released a breath she had been holding and she heard Hunter do the same.

"Uff, what did the boss want me for?" He asked with concern

"He didn't" Willow admitted with a small voice

"Ok, that was really risky of your part" He said after a she was out of sight "But thank you"

"You are welcome…" She had no idea why she intervened. Usually in the school she would see a lot of people getting bullied and she would just ignore them and pray that the assaulters wouldn't notice her, but here she jumped to help someone. Maybe Luz was rubbing off on her "So who was she?"

"My roommate. She was asking me to help her with something, don't worry about it" He started to head back but then turned to face her "Thank you, I… Really owe you"

"It's fine, don't worry about it" She smiled at him "Now go, we don't want your boss yelling at you for talking with pretty girls again now, do we?" She added with a mocking tone.

She expected him to laugh it off or brush it away, but instead he flushed and started mumbling something about having to wash the dishes, then he left really quickly.

"Aaaaand he's still weird"

Willow shrugged and resumed her way home, but she saw something that she wasn't expecting across the street; Luz Noceda, who was supposed to still be at work, was walking away from the owl house. Not knowing what to do well, she hid behind a small tree (it made her feel like a total loser) and waited to see if something happened. Her friend put a 'closed' sign on the owl house's door and prepared to sprint down the street, Willow dashed to keep up with her, with little success. Luckily she made several stops in the way: To smell some flowers that were in a random patch, to pet some dogs that were walking with their masters, and to look at the books displayed in the front of a library. All of these deviations in her path helped Willow keep up and for once she was thankful that her friend was so easily distractible.

Eventually she stepped into one of the empty alleyways at the sides of a big business building, Willow wanted to follow her there but there wasn't anything for her to use as cover (Except a dumpster, but she refused to go anywhere near that thing), so she had no option but to peek her from the corner. From afar, she watched as her friend reached the end of the alley and looked around to see if anyone was nearby, she hid behind the corner and held her breath, hoping that she didn't see her. Nothing happened for a while, until she heard a strange sound she had never heard before; It was like an explosion but way softer. The curiosity got the best of her and she turned around for a quick look, only to see an empty alley. She panicked and ran full sprint towards it, not caring if she was seen at all and only worrying about her friend. That worry intensified when she did not find her nor a possible explanation on where she might've gone.

"Did she get kidnapped? But there isn't anyone around. The sewers? But there aren't any entrances nearby. Did she try to climb the buildings and do parkour? That does sound like a Luz thing to do, but there aren't any fire escapes or anything to use to climb over here"

As she rambled on possible things that could have happened, a strong breeze hit her and she heard the same sound from above. Looking up she noticed a figure in the sky, higher than the buildings, and they seemed to be floating in the air. It took her a while to figure it out, mainly because her brain initially refused to believe what she was seeing, but she eventually realized that she had seen this before, in the videos that Gus sent her about the magical monsters and the…

Willow started hyperventilating, she leaned against the wall for support and took long breaths while she did the counting technique her parents taught her, once she felt stable enough she got up and started reflecting on all the warning bells she missed. The way her groceries were repaired when she met her, how it seemed that there was always something- a patch of ice, an overgrown root, a rock- on Boscha's path that wasn't there before, how she always made a dumb excuse to not hang out with them, and how in the next day Gus would come to her to share all about the newest wild witch battle that had occurred overnight. All the pieces were there, right in front of her, but she didn't put two and two together because 'there was no way something like magic could be real'.

Willow scoffed. She owed Agustus a big apology.

She exited the aley and looked to the sides to see if someone else was there, luckily she was alone. While she was looking, she noticed something familiar about this place, something that she should have recognized before: This was the place where she met Luz, the same alleyway where they bumped into each other after Amity had ruined her flowers.

The sudden need to laugh at the irony of the situation was overwhelming. She guessed that was fate in some sense, this was the place where Willow got to meet her and now this was the place where she met her true self.

-Luz-

Above the rooftops of Gravesfield / Friday december 1st 20:00 hs

"This is as far as you go!" Wrath said before grabbing another pile of rocks and tossing them to her.

"Dude! Watch it!" Luz easily dodged them in the air but then she noticed that the debris was going to land near some humans below, so she summoned vines with her plant glyph to grab the rocks "There's people below us, you dingus!" She yelled at him and tossed the rocks back.

"So? It's their fault for not paying attention to their surroundings!" He did a summersault to avoid her projectiles and started looking for more things to toss "But if you care about those humans then you can come down here and face me, that way I won't have to throw things…"

"Yeah, not happening"

Luz and warden Wrath were caught in the stupidest stalemate for the last five minutes and it was starting to feel annoying.

For the past weeks she had been trying to track the griffin since it was her only way back home. The piece of the staff that was encrusted on one of its talons was merely one part, she still needed to take the white handle from those coven witches and find the last piece, but at least that would be some sort of progress. She had finally tracked a possible location for the griffin's nest thanks to the sightings in Gus' app and her beast-keeping spells. She determined it was highly probable that the creature had nested on top of an old apartment block: It had some high places the griffin could use for a nest, the building was set to be demolished in a few weeks so there were no humans around it, and it was near a marketplace and a forest, both good places where it could grab/steal food. She had attempted to sneak around and wait to see if the griffin came, but she had run into Wrath.

"Agh, what do you want!" She blasted a fireball at him as she spoke.

"I think you know what I want" He took cover behind a wall to avoid the flames "Well, besides seeing you petrified"

"Seriously Wrath? You'll scare the griffin if you keep going like this!" Well if the other witches were here too this confirmed her suspicions about this place.

"Then so be it. I'd rather see that bird fly away, than watch you get the piece" He turned his fist into tendrils and used them to toss multiple things at her.

"Would you stop that already?" She created a tornado with her wind glyph to deflect the incoming projectiles "If you keep going like this they will notice us!"

"Nice trick criminal! But there aren't any humans nearby!" He made a spell circle and shot some plasma blasts at her.

"Not in this building, but the ones in the street surely can hear and see us!" She dodged the beams and retaliated with an icicle attack.

"And since when is that a problem to you?" He grabbed a fallen piece of a wall to shield himself against the shards "Last time I heard the humans venerate you as some sort of hero *chuckle*, if only they knew…"

"Oh titan, don't you see that if they spread the word around more people will come? We won't be able to do anything in those circumstances! Don't you wanna go back home?"

"Oh sure I will go home, after I subdue you and make sure you won't commit any more crimes!" He fired more energy blasts at her, but she just swerved owlbert to avoid them all.

"For the love of- could you at least try to be quiet?" She yelled in exasperation.

"Oh, do you want me to be quiet? Sure! I can be quiet" He got on all fours and took a deep breath, puffing his chest. When he opened his mouth again he let out the loudest roar Luz had ever heard, she was sure that it could be heard two blocks away. On top of that he also breathed fire from his mouth as he roared.

"Are you serious?" She combined her light, ice, and wind glyphs to create an ice beam. The two elemental attacks clashed and created a cloud of steam with a sizzling sound.

"Don't like it? Then go away or come face me in real combat, because if this keeps going you are not going to get what you want"

Luz clenched her teeth in irritation. She had to admit that, for once, Wrath was right, there was no clear winner to this battle. She could fly and had an arsenal of long-ranged spells to her disposition, while the warden tended to specialize more in close combat, that usually meant that she had the advantage in most scenarios because she could just outrange him and wear him out from a distance, but this case was different: He was inside a huge building with a lot of rooms and floors that he could use to cover, not to mention that part of the place had been demolished already so it meant that had more holes than that one weird cheese Eda bought the other day, those helped him navigate the whole place without the need to go outside and expose himself to her spells.

So with that they landed in a situation which didn't favor either of them: Wrath had a lot of cover and hiding places, but he didn't have a way of attacking her directly, while Luz couldn't do more than avoiding attacks, her small attacks were useless since he had an excellent resilience. She could not see a way to get out of this war of attrition.

"Not to mention that he has back up that could literally show up at any time! I really need to finish this off but I can't do a full fledged attack or else I'd destroy the damaged building. That would draw the attention of many more humans, not to mention scaring the griffin away" As she thought about this she launched many fireballs through the windows but the big demon merely ran from room to room, avoiding them " He'll definitely outmatch me in a close-quarters combat, so going in isn't a choice. A sneak attack would be great, but his kind has an excellent smell, so turning invisible and using illusions is out of the question… I could try to trick his nose but he would see it coming" An idea appeared in her head and she smiled "Unless!"

She flew outside the building and landed on the railing of a destroyed balcony, exposing herself. As expected, Wrath appeared bursting from a wooden wall and lunged at her, turning his right hand into an axe. She sidesteppeand created a fog cloud with her fire and ice glyphs but this time she added a little extra thing to the mix; She sprayed her hands before casting the spell with some deodorant that Eda had bought the other day, it didn't smell good at all but it was the only thing she got and her armpits got really sweaty when patrolling, so she ended up using it anyway.

"Ack! What is this!" Wrath recoiled with disgust as his sensible nose got a full blast of axe body spray.

"It worked!" She thought with excitement.

Luz didn't waste a second and prepared her assault. She landed and used her plant glyph to summon an array of thorny vines, then she commanded them to wrap themselves around Wrath. When the demon realized what was going on he was completely immobilized.

"Aha!" She celebrated "Now stay quiet! I won't hurt you if you do!"

"This- isn't- ENOUGH!" He struggled against his restraints and actually managed to break free.

"Uh oh"

"Time for plan B"

She created multiple illusions of herself around the cloud to taunt him. In response, Wrath turned his arms into several tendrils to try to catch them all. Luz, taking advantage that his nose was still disabled, turned herself invisible while her illusions distracted her and stepped out of the perfume cloud.

"Hey Wrath!" She yelled "What's the matter? Too much for you? I bet that you can't even tell which one is the real me, and you have no chance of defeating them all!"

"Oh yeah? Watch this!" As she expected, Wrath took a long breath and exhaled a flame, or at least he tried to.

If only someone could've told him how flammable axe body spray is.

The explosion was so big that Luz was knocked out of her palisman and fell a couple of floors down before owlbert could catch her again. She regained her stability and flew upwards in her staff, she was surprised that the entire part of the building wasn't destroyed by the blast. She kept flying until she was back at the damaged balcony and she saw that only a third of it was still standing and Wrath had been knocked out against the wall from the impact.

"Ugh… wha?" It seemed that the explosion wasn't strong enough to fully incapacitate him. Not wanting to risk any more interference from him, she used her ice glyph to encase him in an icicle prison.

"Hey wait! *cough* let me go!" He struggled in vain against his freezing prison.

"Now you stay there and wait patiently until I'm done with the griffin. If you don't do anything I'll let you go before the police finds you" She threatened him with her staff raised.

"If you think that you can keep me from completing my mission you have another thing coming for you!" He started puffing flames from his mouth.

Luckily, Luz saw that coming. She quickly drew a spell circle and a purple pile of goo emerged from there, it sprayed Wrath's mouth like a hose with high pressure. He started gagging and choking on the goo, which prevented any more flames from coming out.

"Ack! Did you- *cough* shoot me with an abomination goop?" He had managed to spit enough of the substance to speak, but his mouth was still purple.

"Abomination goo is really fireproof, you won't be able to breathe fire in a while" Luz jumped and flew towards the roof.

"Hey wait! *cough* Don't leave me here!" She ignored Wrath's pleas as she focused on her mission.

Luz searched through the roof for the griffin's nest, luckily the piles of shining objects made it easier to find. It seemed that this time the flying creature had nested on top of a billboard with a beer advertisement, inside the billboard there was a small place where all of the griffin's horde was deposited: Ornaments, car parts, coins, tools, signs, pipes, every type of object that was metallic or shiny was deposited here, she even saw a jacket with pink sequins in there.

"Yesss! Jackpot!"

She then looked down to see if the humans below noticed them. Sadly, Wrath's roar and the explosion seemed to have gathered a small crowd in the street and they were looking around with curious eyes, some of them were filming the scene with their phones but thankfully they didn't have an angle to record her or the nest.

"Ugh ok this is a really old and damaged building, sooo… hopefully they think it was a gas leak? I mean that's what the news always say and people eat it up, probably they are going to say that a pipe bursted or something, I still need to be careful here"

"Hey! You! Come back here" She heard Wrath's wails and grunted. He was probably too high to be heard by the people below, probably on the ninth floor, but she didn't want to take any risks.

"Could you shut up?!" She went towards him and whispered-yelled "Do you want more abomination goop? No? Then shut it! You have drawn way too many humans with your show back there so I-"

She was cut off when something splashed on her. It felt like when Eda put a bucket of water on top of her door to prank her, but whatever fell on top of her was far more viscous than water and it smelled terrible, yet familiar in some sort of way. Whatever splashed her covered her entire body and it was heavy enough to knock her down. She fought to get back up but ended up slipping and falling again in the ground, in the third attempt she managed to get back up and wiped the stuff from her eyes to see what was happening, and all she saw was a white substance covering her and all the floor.

"Uhh, what did just…" Wrath wasn't covered by it but it seemed that he was as surprised as her.

A familiar screech caught her attention. She saw the griffin perched on top of the roof, producing mocking sounds and exposing his behind to her.

"Did he… Did he just poop on me?" An unspeakable amount of anger rose in her

"No way!" Wrath overjoyed laughter made her even angrier "This is what you get!"

Before she could fully process her fury and decide what was the best way to roast that bird it took off to the skies while giving her numerous taunting squeaks.

"Oh, wait!" She tried to follow it but slipped on the guano again. Letting out a furious scream, she generated a whirlpool to clean herself up (she couldn't get rid of the stench tho) and leaped back to her palisman "Come back here!"

"Hey wait! Don't leave me her-ugh bleh" Wrath tried to protest but she just fired abomination goop at his mouth again.

"This day couldn't have gone any worse!"

Three hours later

When Luz descended on the owl house's roof she still agreed with that statement. She hadn't managed to catch up with the griffin, the creature seemed to take this chase as a game so he often taunted her, and she was still smelling like pigeon crap even after hours, it was so bad that it made her puke once when she was in the air (she had no idea where it went but she offered a silent apology if it landed in a person). Now she had to go back home to hear Eda complain about the stench, she just hoped that Lilith wasn't around because that would be complicated to explain.

When she grabbed her key to enter a flash of red caught her eye, Eda was standing in the middle of the street without moving and facing the opposite block. Luz thought it was odd, even if there weren't any cars in the street at this time. As far as she could remember, her mentor had no reason to stand there in the middle of the night, she had no deliveries to wait for and no business to do in the middle of the night. Overrun by curiosity, she flew down to meet her while making herself invisible, it would be catastrophic if one of her neighbors saw her.

"Hey, Eda" She whispered once she was close to her "Don't panic it's me, Luz"

"Luz? Where are you?" Eda spoke but didn't move an inch.

"I'm invisible, gotta keep my secret identity. What are you doing out here? It's almost midnight"

"Come closer, I have something to show you" Again Eda didn't move.

Luz stepped forward, ignoring the gut feeling telling her that something was wrong, and tapped Eda's shoulder. The woman quickly turned around and grasped her hand with enough strength to break her wrist, she let out a wail on pain which quickly turned into a scream of terror once she saw Eda's face: Her features were contorted and elongated, she had a smile that was longer than any human mouth would allow with rows of canine teeth showing inside, her eyes were bulged and they reminded Luz of a fish's eyes. All of this told her that this wasn't the real Eda, but the creature lunged on top of her before she could react.

"What the-"

"Food" The creature grunted and shifted. Pale scales replaced the human skin, the legs merged into one fish-like tail, the hair became darker, and it grew several times in size "Finally!"

"Let go!" She prepared a spell circle to shoot at her with something.

The creature just laughed and opened her mouth to inhale. Her vacuuming was so strong that Luz lost her balance from the sucking of air. But what was more worrying was the sensation of tiredness she felt when the monster opened its mouth, it felt like she hadn't slept or eaten in days and the spell circle that she had prepared vanished as she lost her concentration. A blue haze emerged from her and went straight to the creature's mouth

"Delicious Magic. More!" The beast cackled in euphoria as she kept inhaling. She toppled over and pushed her to the ground.

Luz tried to fight back but her kicks and punches were too weak to do anything and her limbs became heavier each time she tried to move them, she tried to cast magic but she couldn't concentrate, she tried to yell for help but her voice was barely above a hoarse whisper. The blue haze coming from her was becoming smaller and smaller and at this point it became hard to just stay awake. She was struggling to remain conscious when she saw a blur of red in her peripheral vision and heard a very strong hitting noise.

THUD

"OW!" The creature complained and stepped away from her. A little bit of the blue haze that was sucking out of her returned to Luz and she regained a little bit of her strength.

"Ha! Still got it!" She heard Eda's voice speak.

Luz got up with difficulty and rubbed her eyes to readjust her vision. She was way better than she was one second ago but she still was in a rough shape; It hurt to breathe and her entire body was tired, she wasn't even sure that she could walk like this but she had to try something. Looking at the scene in front of her she saw Eda standing protectively in front of her with a bat and the creature rubbing her cheek angrily.

"Don't get in my way! My food!" The beast roared.

"Oh you are hungry huh? Well, how about this? You let her go and I'll let you have this in exchange" She then tossed a red bottle at it. The creature opened its jaws and chomped it in one go, only to scream in agony later.

"AHHH, it burns! It burns!" It spat out the red liquid from the bottle and grabbed its mouth in pain.

"Isn't it hot? It's my last bottle of Yucateco sauce that my parents brought from mexico" She lunged at the beast with her bat again while it was distracted and it let out a growl of pain. When its mouth opened a little bit of the blue haze went back to Luz and she was able to stand up correctly.

"I need to think of a plan here. Eda won't be able to keep it distracted forever and I am too weak to fight it, so what can we do?" She racked her brain trying to come up with something to defeat this guy but she had nothing, the fact that she couldn't fight regularly or use magic really limited her options, and she couldn't run to the house to get her magical items or ask for help. If only there was a way to imprison this demon or send it away… "Wait! That's it! Marcus' magical artifact!" She rummaged through the bag of holding she had with herself and pulled the black box the old man had given her. In theory it would work to seal one creature inside of it, but she didn't know if it was a trick and he just gave her something dangerous, she still wasn't sure if she could trust him "There's no time to worry about that now! This might be our only hope!"

"Eda! Back off!" She called to her mentor and put the box behind her.

"Are you sure kid? You don't look too hot" Eda casted a worried glance at her.

"Just do it, trust me"

Eda ran and hid behind a car parked in the street. The creature, for her part, had recovered from the sauce attack and was looking around angrily, her eyes fixed on Luz and she licked her lips deviously.

"Food." It stated with a deep growl.

Luz did her best at standing up defiantly, it was a hard thing to do when her legs felt like jelly "You are still hungry aren't you? Then come on and finish this!"

The beast roared and charged at her. It moved to a great speed despite not having legs

"Luz?" She heard Eda's voice at the side.

When the creature was less than five feet away from her Luz pressed the jewel in the box and then aimed at her opponent. A dark red hue started to emerge from the opened box and that made her attacker stop its charge.

"What. Is this?" Black tendrils appeared from inside the box and surrounded the creature "Ahhh. Can't . Eat"

"It worked!" Luz exclaimed in wonder (she actually wasn't expecting it to). She saw how the tendrils started pulling it towards the box and the light became brighter "NOW EAT THIS, SUCKAAAA"

"NOOO"

It tried to claw her but the energy grabbed its hand and pulled inside the box. The energy emanating from the relic was so big that it engulfed the monster completely, then a flash of light forced her to close her eyes. When she opened again she was standing alone in the middle of the street and the box was closed.

"What the fuck was that?" Eda asked.

"I-I I don't know" She whispered and collapsed into the ground.

"Hey, hey" Eda ran towards her and helped her get into a better position "Just rest now, you got him good"

"I think-" A sudden urge to puke overcame her mid-sentence and she emptied her stomach in the middle of the street "Blegh…"

"Uff. Okey, that was a chunky one. Come on, let's get you back home"

As Eda carried her away she felt this terrible sensation on her chest, as if something was missing. Then she remembered what the creature had said.

"Eda…" She spoke weakly.

"Save your strength kiddo, we can talk later"

"No, it's just…" She couldn't find the right words.

"What? Did something happen?"

"I think I lost my magic…"

Hunter's mannerisms in Willow's section are based on how he acted towards Camila at the beginning of thanks to them, basically he's used to behaving all proper like a prince (he did grow in a castle).

The sound that Willow heard was Luz taking off to the sky with an air blast.

Again. I am so sorry this was a short one and it took so long. I promise the next update will be ready in like two weeks (How do people do weekly updates?)