Hello, how's it going? I'm writing this as soon as I posted the last chapter, but I have no idea when you'll see this because I still haven't figured out my schedule.
Also I feel like I should warn you, I think that some of the vibes of this chapter are kinda down, I was writing this when I was a little bit depressed so it may have transferred. I don't think that there's anything that would require a trigger warning but it might feel off, I'm not sure.
-Amity-
The girls changing room, Cliffside high / Friday december 16th 17:00 hrs
Amity closed her locker with more strength than necessary, creating a *blam* sound which made Skara give a little scream.
"Geez Amity, what did that poor door do to you?" The white haired girl asked.
"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention" She apologized.
"I noticed, is there something in your mind?"
That was the understatement of the decade.
These past few months had been a rollercoaster for Amity's emotions. First she was attacked by a bunch of monsters from pop culture, then she got saved by a witch (and she learned that magic was real, which was another whole thing to process), then she ended up reconnecting with her two best friends from the past, even if they didn't exactly want her back on their lives, then she finally confronted her mother and it ended in the best possible way she could've ever imagined, and then… there was Luz.
She clenched her fist with only thinking about her, and felt really bad about that.
"Gah! This is so fucking stupid!"
Last weekend Luz had texted her saying that they needed to talk. Despite the ominous message Amity had high hopes and went there thinking that they were finally getting their dinner date, only for Luz to pull up and tell her with the most sorry face ever this had been a misunderstanding. Apparently she did not think that she had asked her out with romantic intentions (And how oblivious could she be! She basically spelled it out) and thought that this was a "friendly date", once she found out that it wasn't she decided to do the right thing and be honest with her.
Amity had been so hurt at the moment, she had wanted to snap at her and hurt her back… But then she remembered that she vowed to be a better person than that, so she decided to forgive her. They had remained friends, even though things were awkward between them, and Amity felt really angry every time she thought of her
"And it's not like she did something bad! At least she had the guts to tell me that to the face instead of just texting me. Not to mention that I can't fault her just for not liking me, the only one in the wrong here is me, I shouldn't have gone with high hopes after everything…" She tried to calm herself.
"Well it's also kinda her fault" Said an insistent voice on her head "Who the fuck thinks that asking someone for a private dinner is something between friends?"
"Shut up!"
Great, now she was talking to herself.
It had been like this these past couple days, she had been stuck in a perpetual loop of getting mad at Luz and then rationalizing it wasn't her fault. She knew that the latina was a good person and that she shouldn't feel this way, but that's the thing about feelings: They are not rational.
Shoving her inner turmoil to the side, she pressed forward and grabbed her things, it was time for her to focus on what was happening now. Amity's basketball team just had another match and they wiped the floor with their opponents, now they had to shower and go home. She couldn't wait to shower because of how sweaty she was, but she needed to face one last obstacle: Half naked girls.
You'd think that after years of doing this it would get easier, but Amity was one big teenaged gay disaster full of hormones, so it was really hard for her. However, she had developed a technique for this. All she had to do was look forward and focus on a single point, piece of cake.
Or at least it was supposed to be, but Skara kept distracting her all the way to the showers.
"I heard that Jenny and Jake are back together, can you believe it? They are so toxic for each other…Omg Suzan! I love the new hair" She waved at the girl as they passed "My parents are throwing me the biggest birthday party this year, it's going to make Sabrina so jealous, serves her right for not inviting me to hers… Hey Amity, are you even listening?"
"Hmm?"
"I knew it! You weren't even paying attention" She sounded hurt.
"I am paying attention, you were talking about your birthday"
"Then why aren't you looking at me? Don't you know it's rude to not look at someone in the eyes when they talk to you?"
Amity grunted. There was no way she would understand if she explained, she loved her friend but she was really self centered.
"I just want to shower and get dressed already, I'm really tired and it's cold" That wasn't an entire lie.
Skarra just shrugged her shoulders and nodded. Luckily she stopped trying to have small talk.
They showered and changed without any other incidents and got out of school. The rest of the team wanted to party but Amity just wasn't in the mood for it, so she said goodbye to everyone and went home.
As she was waiting for the bus to arrive she grabbed her phone and opened her contacts, one side effect of ditching Boscha and her group was that most of the girls she had been "friends" with started avoiding her, she didn't mind it that much, it just showed her that they were all fakes, but in times like these it made her feel a little bit alone. Flipping through her contact list she found at least one good thing that came out from all of this.
V: Hey girl? How's it going?
She managed to fix things with Viney. She wasn't sure why the shorter girl had given her another chance (She suspected that Luz had something to do with it) but she gladly took it. Her friendship was really welcome, especially for these hard times.
A: We won
V: I know, everyone is talking about that in twitter, I couldn't stand that honestly
A: Lmao, it's not that bad!
V:I'm just not that big on school spirit. All of them pretend as if this is a great place during sport season but then things will go back to normal in friday
A: Yeah but this is one of the few times when all of the bullying stops and they get together to celebrate, you can't blame them for enjoying this
V: I guess you're right
How are you?
A: Ugh, pretty tired and sore, I'm gonna need extra days to recover
V:That sucks but I wasn't talking about it, how are things with Luz?
Amity repressed a groan. Viney had seen the two of them interact outside of school and quickly picked up that they were dating (apparently it was obvious to everyone but Luz), so one time she asked how her girlfriend was and she just gave her a blank stare. They talked for a while and Viney became sort of her confidant on things.
A: oh, we're good
V: have you two talked yet?
A: I mean no buuut
V: Ok so not good
A: Not like that! We are not mad at each other or anything, it's just awkward
V: I still can't believe that girl. Whenever I see her I want to punch her for being so dumb
A: Please don't do that, it would not make me feel better at all
V: I know, I was joking
Amity relaxed as she spoke with her friend, Viney had a way to ease her up and make her laugh, which was greatly appreciated during these times. She was so engrossed by her texting that she didn't notice someone being so close to her until she heard a throat being cleared.
"Wah!" She jumped back when she noticed that there was someone right next to her
"I'm sorry!" She heard a feminine voice say.
Right next to Amity there was a girl looking at her apologetically. She had asian features, black hair tied up in a ponytail, she was wearing a green camouflage vest over a white shirt, with a pair of black jeans.
"Are you ok? I didn't mean to scare you! I'm sorry"
"It's fine, don't worry" She took a good look at her, she seemed vaguely familiar "Do I know you?"
"We haven't introduced each other yet, but you did just give a beating to me and my team" She smiled awkwardly.
"Ohh! You were the captain for the team from Saint Edmond!" Amity remembered the two of them shaking hands at the start of the match, she also remembered playing extra rough today because of her pent up aggression "I'm Amity, in case you had forgotten. Also, I'm sorry about today"
"No, don't apologize! You were amazing, your team really stomped us tonight" She seemed really excited despite losing "My name is Leah by the way"
"Pleased to meet you Leah. Say, why aren't you with the rest of your team? I thought that your school was taking you back on eastville"
"Oh yeah, but my dad lives here and I'm supposed to stay in the weekend with him, so they just dropped me here"
"Cool, where's your dad?" She thought that it was suspicious that she was here on her own.
She pointed with her thumb to a guy inside of a car at the other side of the road.
"We were supposed to go a while ago but he got called by his work. That's when I saw you waiting here" She started fidgeting with the hem of her shirt.
"Well, it's nice that you decided to drop in and say hi but I think that's not all you came to do here, right?" Amity guessed.
"Ok yeah, you got me" She took a deep breath and bowed down in a begging position "Please teach me how to be a better captain!"
Amity wasn't expecting that at all.
"Huh?"
"Your team was amazing when you fought against us! Your movements were so coordinated and it's obvious that they respect you so much as a leader, please teach me your ways!" She interlaced her hands with hers.
"Wait… is this your attempt at spying? Trying to learn our tactics to use them against us in the future?"
"Oh, nonononono, trust me, it's not that. I don't want to know what tactics you use in the field, I just wanna know how did you manage to command your team at such a level, I mean it's obvious they respect you! Also, you need to tell me your workout routine girl, those biceps are something else"
"Ehh.." Amity's gay instincts kicked in and she froze because a girl complimented her "Wha- Uh, thank you? But I don't think I can help you"
"Huh? Why not" Leah asked
The thing was that Amity's group was so coordinated because of their context: The atmosphere on hexside was so competitive and forced a rigid hierarchy on the students, those are the top were always respected by those at the bottom, and that translated well to all sport teams: The captain usually was someone who clawed their way to the top with sheer ferocity, so they were experienced with commanding people and exercising authority on others, and the rest were used to obeying orders from the chain of command.
Besides that Amity had a really good physique thanks to her own context, having a mother that would force you to train like your life depended on it wasn't great but it definitely helped her build muscle.
"I'm not sure it would help you. The way we do things in our schools and the people in our teams are widely different, what I do with my friends might not work with yours" She explained.
"Oh, ok. Well if you ever change your mind or want to talk, your teammates follow me on twitter, just saying" She got up and shook her hand just as her buss arrived
"Haha, sure" Amity waved her goodbye as she got into the bus.
"I got to talk with a pretty girl that wasn't just interested in me for being a Blight. I should feel happy about that" Yet she didn't.
She found a quiet spot to sit alone and put on her headphones to listen to some music. As the bus advanced it showed Amity Gravesfield's landscape: The tree leaves were completely gone, leaving the branches entirely exposed to the snow that had started falling this last week, there still wasn't enough of it to cover everything in a white layer, but the first signs of winter were there.
"I really hope that school break comes soon, I've been far too busy lately"
But a part of her was glad to be overrun with things, that way she did not have to think about everything in her life that bothered her.
"Ok, that's not a healthy way to cope, I need to talk to someone"
But, who could she even talk to at this point? She already burned bridges with Boscha and the rest of her friend circle, she might be on talking terms with Odalia right now but that woman would just tell her to "toughen up", while Alador… it was better if she didn't think about him. She also had the twins but they were busy with college and Amity did not want to burden them with whatever was happening here.
Amity could really use a therapist but she refused to ask her mom about seeing one, partially because she thought that she would straight up refuse, and partially because she thought she was going to say yes just to bribe them to tell her everything that went in their sessions. There really was no other way around this.
"Wait a second! I do have someone!"
A few weeks ago she and her siblings encountered someone from their past: Lilith. She had been Odalia's assistant for a few years back when she was a child, in several ways she had been more of a mother than Odalia ever was to her and the twins in several ways. She read books for them, entertained them, made sure they got to school on time, went to all of their extracurricular events when her parents were busy, and basically made them feel loved at any time. Sadly she was offered a better job position when her contract ended and she had to go. Amity was little and didn't understand much of it so she had been pretty pissed off with her. A little illogical part of her brain was still mad that she left them with Odalia, that was the reason why she acted coldly towards her during the parade.
"The twins have her phone and they said that she told them to call her if they ever needed help with anything, apparently she is now working on a important job for the government"
It was a risky gambit, after all she was kinda distant towards her and it has been far too long since they talked, besides, what was her plan? Just text her and be like "Hello I know we haven't talked for years, but do you know any good therapists around town?" It was ridiculous.
She sighed and looked at the window, as the bus moved towards the outskirts of town she saw how people roamed the streets, it seemed that not even the cold weather stopped them from doing their daily business: Picking up their kids from school, walking their pets, cleaning their lawn, jogging, and doing all kinds of jobs in the cold landscape.
As much as she liked to just admire the view, she couldn't stop her thoughts from swirling towards her current predicament. Her logical side told her that it was stupid, but she knew she couldn't keep going like this, and besides, what did she have to lose?
She grabbed her phone before she could have second thoughts.
A: Hello Em, do you have a second?
Em: Hello baby sister! How's it going there?
A: As good as it could be. Listen I'm not texting just to chat, I need something
Em: What happened? Do you need someone to drive you to your first date? You'll have to wait until the weekend
A: No! It's not that!
Em: Did you finally manage to run away and need a place to stay?
A: No! Not that either, just agh. Do you still have Lilith's phone?
Em: Ohhh, of course! We talked a lot with her ever since the parade
She asked a lot about you, we weren't sure what to tell her. I think she realized that you weren't interested in talking with her. But I'm sure she'll be happy to hear from you!
A: Yeah… It wasn't nice of me
Emira gave her the number and Amity smiled, things might not have turned the way she liked them but she was certain that the future would be better.
-Lilith-
The MCU headquarters / Twenty minutes later
Lilith put her phone away after a lovely call with her… She wasn't even sure how to describe her relationship with Amity, friend? Acquaintance? Previous ward? Something like that. She had called to get in touch again and to apologize for being distant, Lilith had assured her that it was ok and the chatted for a while, getting to know each other again, after a while Amity told her that she was looking for a therapist and she had eagerly volunteered to help her get one, she knew that the girl needed all the help she could possibly get to deal with Odalia.
She had been so thrilled when she met the Blight siblings at the parade, she had thought that she would never see them again.
"Oh and to think that girl needed my help to reach for the high counters, she is so grown up! I can't believe how mature she sounded"
She would never forget how she met them. Right at the beginnings of her carrier she had the stupidest job assigned to her: There was some level of magic activity detected around the Blight household and they needed someone inside to investigate, at that time Odalia was in need of a personal assistant and someone to take care of her children, Lilith ended up being both. At first it felt like torture, having to work for the person who humiliated her in high school just to get to her sister, but then she became quick friends with the children, who were starved for some attention.
They quickly became very good friends and she enjoyed her time with them, but sadly it wasn't meant to last. Once she had found out the magical being living in Blight manor and neutralized it she needed to go, it broke her heart to leave them but she had to do it. After her success her career took off and she started getting called for more missions, also she was getting tired of being ordered by Odalia.
"She said that she was looking for a therapist. Knowing Odalia she won't be into that, I think that the organization has a few contacts for that but I'd like if I could find a person that specializes in teens"
BOOM
A commotion outside of her office startled her, a potent crashing sound that made the walls shake as if they were hit by a small earthquake. Her battle instincts kicked in and she immediately vaulted out of there. She analyzed the area while holding her gun, there were a lot of small things knocked over due to the tremmors and the emergency lights were flashing, but overall everything was the same.
"Is someone here?" She asked "I want a status report!"
One of her agents came towards her tumbling a little, it was obvious that he was still shocked by what had happened.
"I-I don't know ma'am! The last thing they radioed was that a team came back after fighting against a magical creature, so far there have been no reports on-"
Lilith wasn't listening to him anymore, she dashed as fast as she could towards the stairs, she was going to get to the bottom of this herself.
It took her a while (The huge amount of people who were also going up and down the stairs slowed her down) but she finally reached the main floor and it was chaos: Lots of people running around without any direction like headless chickens, red emergency lights flashing nonstop, lots of objects knocked out in the ground, and a massive hole in the roof the size of a medium car.
She didn't even have time to process that because Lawrence quickly came to see her.
"Oh lilith, thank god you are-"
"What the fuck happened here!" She screamed at him.
"We were attacked! As he said that there was another smaller explosion and a new part of the walls went in flames.
Lilith made a *tsk* sound and grabbed a silver device from her pocket, it looked like a remote control and no bigger than a mouse. She pressed a button and spoke into it as if it was a recorder.
"Activate the D.A.B.!"
There was a beeping noise coming from the gadget and a huge light emerged outside. From the hole in the wall she could see that the entire building was covered in that light.
*D.A.B. deployed* came the voice from the tiny device.
She then approached the entrance of the building to evaluate the scene. She could see that the main stairs and the adjacent parking lot were in a really bad state, with smoldering crater and flaming rocks on them. As Lilith watched she saw another flaming projectile coming at them from above, the people behind her braced for an impact but it crashed against the light protecting the building.
"Wow" She heard Lawrence speak beside her "What was that?"
"The D.A.B., deployable anti-magic barrier. Didn't Marcus tell you about it?" This was common knowledge for officers of high range.
"Marcus doesn't tell me anything" he scoffed.
"I'll give you a rundown later" She looked around to see if there were more fireballs raining towards them, but it seemed that their opponent ceased fire "We are on the clear for now, gather the squads and have them swoop the area"
"I already did that. Also our personal fire brigade is on standby in case things get messy, I didn't want them to go out there until we deal with this"
"Good. Then start preparing the evacuation in case everything goes wrong" She scanned the area with her eyes again, but she could only see their units patrolling the area "Tell me exactly how this happened"
"No idea. One moment we were having a normal day and the next there was a giant hole in the wall" Lawrence said.
"There has to be something that triggered it. This is our main building in the area, this wasn't a mere random creature passing by, were there any magical incidents today?" She asked.
"Actually yes. Before all of this happened I was about to call you to show you this" He pushed some buttons on his tablet and then handed it to her. A video was on display with a very recognizable grey demon "This footage was released of the demon that we captured in the raid. It got away from us a week ago and so far we have been getting news and rumors that told us it was trying to come back to town for some reason"
Lilith saw the footage of the grey monstrosity tearing cars apart and breathing fire towards civilians in the middle of the town center.
"By the… was this released on television?" If that was the case they were in a serious problem.
"We managed to intercept the signal and I sent a clean up crew immediately, but the monster was gone when they arrived"
She started thinking of a way that would be connected to the recent incident. The town center was really far away from here and this base was well hidden, but the fire that demon launched looked familiar.
"Where's the unit you sent to investigate?" She asked.
"I called them off after a few minutes of fruitless search, I felt like-" He wanted to keep talking but she grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.
"Did they come back already? Or are they still on the road?" Her voice kept rising as an idea emerged in her head.
"Uhh, they arrived just a few minutes ago. Last time I checked they were on the garage-"
She let him go and started marching towards that location before he could finish, she had a sneaking suspicion on how this case could be related. As she passed she directed several people to different jobs: Extinguishing the fires, forming barricades in the exposed parts, organizing the evacuation, and surveilling the area.
They arrived at the garage and saw how many teams were unloading the contents of the trucks inside of the building. As they saw them the different agents went to them and started asking them questions about what was going on. Lilith ignored them and went straight towards the truck, she then pulled a small trinket from her pockets, it looked like a small wooden dragonfly with yellow eyes. She pressed a button in the back of the statue and its eyes shone brightly, illuminating the whole truck.
"What is that?" Lawrence asked.
"Magical scanner" She simply said.
After a while the shining stopped and the dragonfly deployed its wings. It flew towards the back of the truck and landed near the tailpipe and started buzzing. She approached the location and saw that the dragonfly had landed on top of a spherical object that definitely did not belong to the truck. She pulled it off with great effort, it was stuck like glue to the surface of the vehicle, and held it in her hand, she did not know what it exactly was but she had a good guess.
"You imbeciles!" She spun around to address the unit of three agents that drove the truck "Why didn't you make a deep scan of the truck before you arrived?"
"Uhh" They actually seemed shocked that she asked that "Because it didn't seem necessary?"
"Explain this then" She held the small orb in her hand.
"What is that?" One of the agents asked.
"A tracker, judging by how the dragonfly reacted"
"A tracker!" Lawrence looked like he was having a panic attack "Is that how they found us?"
"Most likely. This location has been compromised, prepare to move everything to a safe space and evacuate the entire building" She then turned to look at the agents "You three have neglected your duties, prepare to face an adequate punishment once this is dealt with"
They had the decency to nod.
"Good, you have your orders. Now go and help the rest" The three of them saluted her and left "Lawrence, we need to retaliate before this guy gets to his goal"
"Wait, a goal? Wasn't attacking us his goal? I know that he stopped striking us but that's because we put the barrier up! As soon as he figures how to-"
"That attack was only a distraction" She interrupted him "He only wanted us to focus on the fire blasts from the main entrance so he could slip somewhere else"
"And where could he be going? We already secured the personal and our most prized possessions, what else could he want?" He asked.
"Isn't it obvious? This is the place where we are holding his teammate" Lawrence's eyes widened at that.
"No…"
Just at that moment the building shook again and Lilith's pocket emitted a strange beeping sound.
"And to make things worse we are under attack again. Come on, we have a demon to catch"
-Hunter-
Outside of Gravesfield / fifteen minutes before the attack
"What am I doing? This is idiotic!" He told himself for the fifteenth time in a row, but alas, he kept pushing forward.
When he finished reading Wrath's note he went around trying to find him, but he had no luck whatsoever. After a whole day of waiting for a disaster to happen he saw the news on the internet about a grey demon rampaging in the middle of the town, he only needed a second to process that before bolting away to chase after his friend before he did something dumb.
The problem was that his staff was still broken, he knew how to repair it and had commissioned the parts to do so, but it would take a while to do it. So here he was, running around in the middle of a neighborhood while being dressed in his golden guard attire.
"Ahhgh this is pointless!" He stopped to lean against a tree and pulled his hair out of exasperation "I'm never going to get there in time! He'll be dead or captured by the time I arrive!"
He looked to the sides to see if there was something or someone that could help him. He was in a residential area with nice houses and stores, the place was nice but there wasn't any single person on sight, he guessed it's because it was friday and most people were getting out of school and work, which meant that there was little chance for a car to pass by and give him a ride.
"Not that I think someone would give me a lift if I ask nicely, I have no money"
A familiar chirping sound interrupted his thoughts, once Hunter looked up he saw the palisman flying down towards him.
"Oh? Did you follow me? Well go back, I don't have time for any of this"
He tried to shoo it away with his right hand but when he touched him the red cardinal started shining in a yellow light. He saw with astonishment how he turned back into a statue and a long black rod started appearing where his talons were, when it was all finished Hunter was holding a palisman staff.
"What? N-no…" He recoiled with fear and almost dropped it.
"Remember, nephew" He remembered Belos' warning voice like it was yesterday "Our family is gone because of dark magic, never let it touch you or you also will be corrupted"
"No!" He let go of the staff, which made a rattling sound as it fell into the pavement.
The staff dissolved and the bird returned to its original state, then it flew back up and started chirping angrily, as if scolding him.
"W-What do you want me to do! You didn't give me a warning so I got scared!"
More chirping.
"What? Use you as a staff? That's insane! It goes against everything my uncle taught me, I can't…" He trailed off.
Up until this point, he had let the bird live out of mercy (well that and the fact that he didn't have the means to destroy it). It was made out of wild magic, true, but it wasn't using it to do anything wrong or to harm anyone, and it's not like it asked to be made, if someone was at fault here it would be the witch who illegally crafted and infused their magic on the palisman. Hunter could tell that the creature had good intentions, it was helpful and it seemed to care about him, the only problem was that its mere existence went against everything he stood for.
Hunter had used the palisman to fly once in the past to flee from the humans, and he was deeply ashamed about it. He had rationalized that he had done that in a life or death situation, so it was an exception.
"Look I know you are trying to help, but no. I tolerate your existence because you haven't done anything wrong, but using you to fly would be considered actively practicing wild magic, and I refuse to do that"
There were more angry sounds coming from the bird.
"What about Wrath? Well maybe I can find a place to fix my staff! There has to be a mechanic around here, I can sneak around and steal the pieces that I need!" It was something really dishonorable to do, but this was a life or death situation. Originally the plan was to save money to get the pieces, but that would take long.
The palisman shook its head.
"You are right, that would take too long"
More chirping.
"The bird is making a good point. Palismen were notoriously fast and can elevate to greater heights than artificial staffs, if he chose to do this he would be able to travel from one point of the city to the other in no time, not to mention he could do it above the clouds were the humans wouldn't see him"
However, that was crossing a line. Ever since he came into this world he started noticing how he changed: He had stolen things and fought to survive, sometimes he wronged people who had never done anything wrong to him, every time he had to do something to compromise his morality he would just argue to himself that he had no other choice, but these actions were getting harder to excuse.
The red animal looked at him expectantly, one big red eye full of sapience.
But this time it was also necessary, there was no way he was going to let Wrath die, no sir.
"Fine, let's do it your way" He sighed and extended his open palm reluctantly.
The bird chirped happily and it turned into a staff again. Hunter grabbed it with a big sense of regret and put it in between his legs,ready to take off.
"My uncle will understand" He thought to calm his own nerves more than anything "He'll know that I did it for the sake of coming back, covenmates always look after each other right? This is basically the base of all of our system"
After reassuring himself one last time he took a deep breath and kicked his feet on the ground to take flight.
"Ok let's see how this- Whoa!"
Now he really should have thought about this beforehand, but palismen handled way differently than artificial staffs. He had a neural connection with his old staff and understood his instructions perfectly, all he had to do was think of a direction and the staff obeyed instantly. But the palisman did not work like that: Instead of being an object which merely responded to his inputs, it was a living being with a will of its own.
"Ack! No! Go that way!" He attempted to direct the magic staff towards the direction he wanted to go. They were suspended twenty feet in the air, and the palisman was swerving from left to right "Are you trying to kill me?"
It was such a weird sensation, usually flying felt like issuing commands to his troops, but this felt like a proper conversation with a person that actually had a strong argument.
"This is it, I'm gonna die like this!" He ducked his head as the palismen flew below a sign that almost knocked him over, they continued zigzagging through the street at a low altitude dodging trees and light posts while he screamed "This can't keep going, we need to gain altitude! The humans will see us otherwise!"
He tried to pull up and it actually worked, the palisman obeyed him and they started going up. The problem was that it worked far too well, they kept going up and up and it didn't show any signs of stopping. Hunter clenched the staff until his knuckles became white and almost puked his breakfast.
"Wait wait wait wait wait! We need to stop!"
Again his pleas worked too well. The palisman suddenly halted their ascension and he almost got ejected by his inertia. He closed her eyes and braced himself against the staff to catch his breath, once he recovered he looked around to see where he was.
"Oh my titan…"
He was way up in the sky, higher than the buildings and even those ostentatious skyscrapers he had seen in the center of the city. In fact, he could see them from where he was, lost in the middle of the clouds. He dared to look down and his stomach dropped, he was so high that he couldn't see the people, everything looked like it was a scaled down model like one of those sets of toy bricks he had seen in a kids store once, cars going through the streets were just ants to him.
"Ohhh-kay, th-this may be a bit too much. Eh-hem, I DEMAND you to…" But then he stopped.
So far every time he tried to order the staff to do his bidding and it had responded violently, maybe it was because the bird really wanted to kill him, or maybe it was because there was something else going on here. He guessed that a living being behaved differently from a machine.
"Ok, let's see. If it doesn't respond well to direct commands, what else? Well if yelling out loud doesn't work, I can try being gentler… It sounds pathetic, but I don't have many options"
Clearing his throat he addressed the palisman.
"Ehmm, could you.. please go a bit lower? But take it slow this time"
A buzz of energy came from the staff, as if it was an affirmation to his petition, and then started descending at a slow rate. It was still heart-wrenching for him, they were at a high altitude after all, but the centrifugal forces were bearable this time.
"Ok, I'm getting the hang of this, you can go faster now!"
The palisman started to gradually accelerate, he was used to these kinds of movements from his old staff, even if he was working with higher speeds and altitudes now, so he adapted easily. As they kept going faster he started to enjoy himself, the only problem was the wind: The faster they went the stronger it got, so it got to a point where he could barely see anything, his golden guard helmet wasn't doing much to protect him, since the only uncovered part of his face was his eyes.
But it didn't matter to him.
As they kept descending they gained speed and he become more confident on this and an electrifying feeling spreading throughout his body, like butterflies awakening
"Ahhhhh!" He exclaimed from the top of his lungs.
This was exhilarating, this was liberating, this was wonderful. There were many other words he could use to describe it but he'd run out of adjectives pretty quickly. The sensation of the wind hitting him while he soared the skies at high speed was unlike anything that he had experienced before, it wasn't even comparable to when he had his old staff, since that thing had a limit on how fast and high it could go.
"Oh wow, whooo!" He exclaimed to the wind "Ohhh, okey. I have to see where we are going or we'll never catch up to Wrath, you have to slow down! Uhh… please?"
"I should buy goggles or something for protecting my eyes next time I try this"
The palisman listened to his commands and slowly started to stop, allowing Hunter to catch his breath.
"Uff, ok let's see" He looked around to gather his bearings. He was still pretty high up, higher than most buildings, and it was cloudy, so it was unlikely that the humans on the street would be able to detect him "Let's see, Wrath was wreaking havoc in the town center, that is this way"
He directed the palisman again and they quickly zipped through the skies together, all the time making sure to use the rooftops as cover. Finding the place that was shown in the news he read was easy enough, but there was just one problem.
"Dang it! Where is he?"
He could see traces of the destruction and the battle that had occurred there, some of the statues were broken and a few trees were on fire, but there was no sign of his hulking friend. However he did see something that caught his eye: Hoards of the people in suits were patrolling the area on trucks. There was no way that he would win in a direct confrontation with his current equipment so he decided to merely spy on them from a high enough altitude, but he couldn't exactly see what they were doing since he did not have his binoculars with him. Luckily it didn't matter, a few minutes after he arrived they started to drive those trucks to an unknown location.
He followed them outside of the city. From the way they were driving, Hunter could tell that they were in a hurry.
"I wonder where they are going? Is it- oh no"
He saw smoke coming out ahead from the direction those trucks were going, it could be unrelated but knowing how much fire Wrath could expel from his mouth he didn't want to risk anything.
Once he found the place he arrived in a warzone.
It was a massive building covered with windows and it was in a rough state: The parking lot in front of it had several small craters and the trees nearby were burning, there was no sign of destruction over the main building but practically everything else was toasted. As he flew closer he got a small buzz coming from the palisman and he was forced to stop.
"Wha the- What has gotten into you now?" He exclaimed.
He tried time and time again to move forward but to no avail, then he attempted to put his hand in front to see if there was something there that he missed and his hand received a potent electric discharge that made him yell out loud.
"I see, this entire building is surrounded by some kind of force field! That's why there isn't any fire on it… But where's Wrath then? There's no way he could've have gotten past this"
He kept himself hidden at a high altitude to not be detected by the humans and started surveilling the area to find his big friend. For a moment he didn't see anything, just a bunch of humans running around in and out the building like crazy (He couldn't blame them for that tho), but then there was another explosion at one side of the building, destroying an entire wall, and something emerged from it.
"Holy mother of titan, what is that?" He muttered under his breath.
It looked like a massive grey dragon, its front limbs had wings but they also ended in strong paws, its mouth had long tusks and it was missing its characteristic reptilian snout, it was bigger than the Slither Beasts that roamed the Knee. The beast emitted a loud roar and fully exited the building, completely destroying whatever was left of the left wall of the building. Swarms of human troops quickly surrounded it and started shooting with different kinds of guns, some of them shooted beams of light, others ice, and others fire, but not a single one of them could do substantial amount of damage to the dragon, who just shrugged it off and sent them flying with one big swing from it's huge paw.
More humans came to assist their injured comrades and the beast seized this opportunity to try to get away, it extended its front limbs and flapped its wings to fly away. However it must have miscalculated something, because it only managed to fly less than a block away at a low altitude and then fell back down, crushing some cars in the process, it seemed that it wasn't able to gain elevation properly.
"Is it too heavy for its wings? What even is that thing? We don't have those on the boiling isles" He followed the battle with renewed interest, he needed to gather information about this beast.
More humans arrived on the scene, this time bringing bigger equipment on trucks, and started surrounding the dragon. One of them had a gadget that reminded Hunter of a giant light bulb at the back of their car, the agent pressed a button and a big lightning ray emerged from the bulb, hitting the dragon fully on its chest.
The monster roared in pain and retaliated by opening its mouth and unleashing a wave of fire taller than a tree from it, Hunter could even feel the heat from where he was. Some humans managed to get out of the way, some others activated a barrier similar to the one in the building to protect themselves, others were not so lucky. When the fire dissipated it revealed a devastated area filled with smoke and burning corpses.
Not wanting to give its enemies time to react, the monster leaped and this time it actually managed to fly up in the air. With clumsy movements, it glided away from the battle and the screaming humans.
Hunter followed it from afar, as it got away from civilization he used the foliage of the trees as cover from the humans who were chasing the dragon on their armored trucks. They were able to keep up because the beast wasn't the most elegant flier: It only managed to stay in the air for short periods of time and it seemed that it was unable to fly upwards, so his flight merely consisted on making high leaps with his strong rear legs and gliding until it eventually fell. Still, the humans actually managed to keep chasing him, some attempted to capture it by shooting nets and bolas charged with electricity, but it just shrugged it off and kept going forward. After a while it seemed that the dragon got tired of its pursuers and it looked backwards to breathe another enormous sea of flames to the trucks.
"Wait, I'm too close!"
Hunter had been following the chase from nearby with intrigue, he had used the thick vegetation to stay hidden from both the dragon and the human agents (although the latter ones were far too busy with their main objective to notice him), he had to zigzag in between trees but other than that it was relatively easy to keep up with them, the palisman was just that fast. However, he did not consider that being at this distance would put him at risk of long scale attacks, so when the wall of fire came towards him scorching everything on its path, you could say he was surprised.
"Crap! I gotta move out of the way, come on come on!" He urged the palisman and it responded to his commands, changing the direction instantly.
But they were in the middle of a thick forest, to go anywhere they had to swerve between a maze of branches and logs, and that slowed them down. Hunter knew that if he managed to get on top of the canopy he could just dash out of danger at max speed, so he just pushed forward, not caring about the amount of scratches and bruises he was getting from the branches on the way hitting him, that wasn't important right now. However it seemed that no matter how fast they went the fire was gaining on them, he did not dare to look behind him, but he could tell how close it was based on the heat he was feeling from his back. He clung to the palisman in a desperate attempt to go faster, clenching his teeth and closing his eyes as the roaring of the flames caught up with him, he needed to go faster faster faster-
*Blip*
There was a light, and an electrifying sensation all around his body, as if he touched a current, and then there was nothing. He still had his eyes closed due to the fear but he couldn't feel the heat coming from behind him, nor could he feel the branches hitting his face, tentatively he opened his eyes and saw that he was above the treeline, far away from the range of the fire.
"Wha? How did I…?"
He looked back and saw how all the flames had finally stopped spreading, but the area they touched was left in shambles. About hundred meters of the forest had been devastated, leaving nothing scorched earth and cinders behind, there were still several trees burning and a cloud of smoke emerged from the ground, it was a massive scar shaped like a cone in the middle of the forest.
"That firepower was insane… I never heard of a creature capable of doing that, where is it?" In his panicked state he had forgotten about the beast that caused all of this.
He expected that it would have fled already, taking advantage of the fire, but it seemed that an attack as powerful as that one had its drawbacks: The dragon was panting heavily and gasping for air, seemingly unable to move. Hunter flew closer to it, examining it from a relatively short distance, the monster didn't even acknowledge him, instead, it passed out on the floor.
"Huh, so it's really out of power then. Otherwise it would have attacked me already" He dismounted the palisman and silently walked towards it, watching its hulking form rise and fall from its breathing "Quite impressive. Wait, what is that?"
There was something clutched in the beast's left paw. He couldn't see it before because its paw and claws covered it, but now that it was relaxing its grip Hunter could see that it was a black metallic cylinder about two meters tall, bigger than an average person.
"Did it steal that from them? Why?"
However his investigation was cut short when the beast started spasming. At first he thought it was going to wake up and panicked, but then he saw how his entire body was shaking like it was having a full seizure. Hunter backed down unsure on what to do, and then things kept getting weirder for him.
"I-Is it… shrinking?"
Effectively, the monster started to get smaller and smaller with its spasms, going from being bigger than an elephant, to the size of a regular truck, to resembling an oversized person. Its appearance changed too: Its fangs retreated, its wings merged with its arms, and the claws shifted into regular fingers, when everything finished he was looking at a familiar figure.
"Wrath?" He asked incredulously.
It was hard to believe but his friend was on the ground coughing and shaking, as if he was having the flu. Hunter quickly hid his palisman and kneeled beside him.
"Wrath, are you ok buddy?" He shook his shoulder to get him to react.
"H-Hunter? What are youu doing *hic* here? Oh titan" He spoke weakly, with an unfocused gaze and his words were slurred "G'way, I'm gonna- *Bleh*"
With that little warning Wrath rolled over and barfed all over the floor, Hunter was slow to get out of the way so his clothes got a bit dirty.
"'m sorry" Wrath apologized.
"Oh, come on! My favorite boots!" He was about to complain more when he saw something amongst the puke, a metallic amulet with the beast keeping coven symbol "Hey, isn't that one of our magic items?"
*Bleh* "We-We neverrrr, ugh, discovered what it did *hic*" Wrath slurred in his speech and stumbled when he tried to get up, like a drunken person "Turnsss out we just didn't know how to, how to… activate it! That's the word"
"Wrath, what are you talking about?" He grabbed one of his arms and attempted to lift him "Come on! We have to leave before more of them arrive!"
"T-Turns out… that thissss thing only activates… if you eat it" *burp*
Hunter stopped his tugging.
"What?" He asked incredulously.
"Yeah. I wazzz so nervous this morning, be-before the attack, sssho much that I was stress eating, like I always do, I put my snacks in the same bag that had the magic items without realizing, and I-I I just kept eating" He finally managed to get up with difficulty and slapped his face a couple of times, his gaze refocused and his speech had also returned to normal "I didn't realize that I grabbed a relic by mistake until I swallowed it, I panicked but then I felt an incredible surge of power, almost like ten enhancing spells at once…"
"Okey buddy, that's great" He put his arm around his shoulders to try to get him to rise "But we need to go. More of them will come, this won't last long!"
"No, wait! I have to do something first" He limped towards the metallic cylinder he had stolen in his dragon form, then he turned his right arm into an axe and sliced it open with difficulty, it seemed that he hadn't fully recovered yet.
"Here, let me help" Hunter went and grabbed his axe-hand to help him chop more efficiently.
Eventually they finished and Wrath managed to scrape the surface of the object, Hunter could see that there was a person inside, and it was someone familiar.
"Wait… Abigail?" Effectively, the captain was sleeping inside of the cylindrical container.
"This was the prison they put her into, I… I didn't have many options when I found her, so I just took the whole thing" It made sense, there was no way that Wrath could've opened the cage without killing her in his dragon form.
"Ok well that's great, can you walk? I'll carry Abigail, we need to go-"
However their luck had run out. From the distance he heard the noise of an engine running, looking at the distance he saw how another squad of agents had arrived on their trucks and were now patrolling the burned area.
"Shit, ok big guy, we have to go!" Hunter looked around, they were covered by some trees and they were a bit away from the scorched remains, but it was only a matter of time before they found them.
"No" Wrath said.
"What!? You can't be seriously considering fighting them! There are a lot of them and many more will come, we have to hide!" Hunter pleaded.
"Hunter, I don't think I can walk" That shut him up.
In order to demonstrate he wobbled a bit but ended up stumbling forward. It seemed that the secondary effects of the magic item were still in effect, he looked really weak.
"There's no way for me to leave like this, you should just leave me"
"There's absolutely no way I would do that. Come on, I can carry you, I could…" He stopped as a thought came to him.
"I could use my palisman to fly away with him but…what would he say about that? Would he even allow it? Would he try to destroy it as soon as he saw it?" For some reason that thought made his stomach churn.
"You could what? Carry me? I don't think so. Even if you could, we wouldn't be able to get away from them, but you could carry her" he nodded towards Abigail.
"What? No, I can't leave you here" He shook his head in denial "This is not a joke, there are dozens of them coming this way and they are really pissed off!"
"More reason for me to stay then, I'm the one that pissed them off after all" He coughed as he tried to walk.
"Are you kidding me? In your weakened state they will capture you immediately!"
"Don't be so sure" Wrath kneeled into the ground and picked the amulet he had puked and held it for Hunter to see "I have this"
"Are you out of your mind? Look at how weak it has left you! If you use that again and transform you'll probably end up worse!"
"It is my only choice! I should be left behind because this is my fault!" He stomped the ground as he roared those words. Hunter could see tears in his eyes "I'm sorry that I started this with the humans and I'm sorry I got you caught up in this! You wanted to think things through and properly plan but I didn't listen to you! Please Hunter, just take her and go"
Hunter wanted to argue, but he knew it made total sense. He could not get all three of them in his palisman, not even Wrath on his own, but if it was just Abigail and him… They had a chance, it was just a matter of simple logic. The pragmatic side of his brain told him to remember the soldier training that was drilled into him in his days of a coven scout: "Prioritize the lives you can safe, don't be a hero or else you'll put more in danger"
"Agh, fine" He kneeled down and scooped her up with his arms, she was surprisingly light despite her musculature "Once she is safe I'll look for you"
Wrath grunted in affirmation.
"Do you remember the first hideout that we had? The one that was near a water tower?" Hunter nodded "I left a stash with the rest of our magic items, go get them. Also… there's a special box in there with a note, you should probably read that"
"Okey, I promise I'll check it out" Then he turned away from him and started walking towards the opposite direction the humans were.
Hunter didn't look back at him, but he heard Wrath's grunts of frustration when he tried swallowing the amulet again. Moments later he was deep into the forest and heard a colossal roar alongside screams.
He just sighed and summoned his new staff
-Luz-
The owl house / Approximately the same time
"I can do this, I can do this, I can do this"
Luz had been psyching herself up in front of the mirror in her room for the last ten minutes, it was not going great.
"All you have to do is go there and say the thing to her, it's not a big deal… So stop making it into a big deal!"
She was prepared to make a big step today. Ever since what happened with the Basilisk Eda had been giving her the cold shoulder and Luz knew exactly why, she was still pissed about Luz risking unnecessarily her life in the battle even when she didn't have to. Luz realized that she had made a mistake and had the perfect plan to make up for it, also to thank her for everything she had done for her in the past months, all she had to do was go talk to her.
If she could actually work the nerve to do it!
"Aghh! Why is this so hard?!" She groaned in frustration.
"Luz? Are you talking alone again?" Eda's voice came from downstairs.
"Ehh, nothing! Don't worry about it!" She didn't realize that she had spoken out loud.
"Whatever kid, can you come down for a second?"
Luz took a great puff of air to arm herself of courage and exited her room. This was it, no more excuses, she was going to do the thing that she wanted to do and not back down. When she went down she saw that Eda was cooking something in a pot while King licked his nuts on top of the table (Ew)
"Yes, I'm here"
"I'm gonna go to the market tomorrow to sell some stuff, which means that you are the one who needs to take itchy boy over there to the vet to check for fleas" She said without looking her in the eyes. Ever since she got her powers back it has been like this, cold and distant as if she was a customer at her store.
"Well, that's going to change today!"
"No problem, but Eda-"
"I know, I know. He's going to hate you for it again, but what can we do?" She interrupted her with a monotone voice.
"It's not about that. I actually wanted to talk to you about something else…"
"Later, Lilith hasn't responded my calls and I really need to get a hold on her before I go"
"Can we talk about this before? It's important" She was feeling like all the courage she mustered was slowly slipping away.
"Can't it wait? Because I kinda-"
"NO!" This time she interrupted her with a scream "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell, but please stay"
That seemed to grab her attention, she stopped what she was doing, crossed her arms, and properly looked at her for the first time since she came down.
"Ok kid, go ahead" She leaned against the counter of the kitchen with a neutral expression.
"Okey, first of all this is going to be a long one so please stick with me" She gave her a 'go ahead' sign with her arm "So, I am sorry for everything, you have every right to be mad at me and I'm not asking for your forgiveness, I know what I did was bad and if you want to keep ignoring me that's fine… But I have a solution for that"
"Solution?" She asked with a raised eyebrow
"Yes *ejem*. Eda, for the past six months you have cared for me, given me a home, food, and education to a total stranger, that's more than many people do for their own children" Eda's brow furred at this "I know that we arranged that I could work in the shop to help you pay for things, but I know it's not enough to cover all of my expenses. So I decided to help you in that particular burden"
"Wait hold on, what are you talking about?" She approached her.
"Eda I already made the plans, I'm moving away" She said with a hint of sadness.
*Pops up* and I'm back! I'm sorry for the big delay everyone, these past months weren't good for me. I can promise that the next update will come sooner tho.
I know, I know, I hate the 'miscommunication between lovers' trope as much as the next guy, but you have to admit that it was really on character for this point of the story. Luz is totally that stubborn hero that would isolate themselves so that their loved ones wouldn't get hurt, she just witnessed how Willow and Gus got injured and traumatized for helping her, she reasoned that staying with Amity was only going to hurt her more, not to mention the whole secret identity thing.
Now don't panic, the tags in the fic are not a lie, lumity will happen. Please remember that this is gonna be a looooong fic and, as I've said many times, it's a slow burn.
Also I'm aware that the way I've depicted American highschools might not be entirely accurate. Don't blame me, I only have movies to use for reference.
I liked exploring mental health issues with Amity in this episode, sorry if it wasn't anyone's cup of tea. Do you guys think I should add some new trigger warnings or tags because of it?
I know that I changed a little bit how the palisman work. I took some creative freedoms there but I think it's nice.
I have a question, how do you type the sound of hunter teleporting? I used *blip* bc I couldn't think of anything else.