Luz gritted her teeth as she watched the monstrous tentacles try to grab her, which were promptly intercepted by Eda. Even though the fairy was still in full beast form, that didn't mean she couldn't fight well: she used her agility and brute strength to keep the puppet from being grabbed. "Get ready to jump on my back!" she said to Luz and Camila. "We'll fly away...!"

"It's useless. You can't get away from me" Belos warned her. "The seal I placed on all of you while you were still incapable of reasoning keeps you bound here. Nothing will allow you to escape with that puppet!"

The fingers of his hands tightened even more, almost closing as if they were a cage, and bringing the tentacles closer to them. Eda and Camila stood on opposite sides of Luz. "Don't worry, honey. We'll get through one way or another!" Camila whispered to her daughter.

"Yeah! I certainly didn't get to this age to give in to a slightly large and disgusting imbecile!" Eda said with a mocking smile, and she let out a loud screech and used her claws to keep the tentacles away, while Camila did the same using her club.

Belos didn't even seem to hear their shots. To him they were no different from ant bites. "Come on, Luz. We both know this isn't what you want" he told the puppet. "Think of the opportunity you have been given! You can be the mother of a new world!"

"Shut up!" the puppet shouted at him. "I'm not going to give you my body! I'll never say yes to you!"

"Why do you keep being difficult? Don't you realize you're only hurting yourself?" Belos roared. "We both know I'll be able to get you to say yes. Isn't it better to save yourself the trouble? There's no point in being afraid of the inevitable"

"You are not inevitable!" Luz answered him. "You're just a maniac who thinks he's in control of everything! Well, just like you're convinced you can force me to say yes, I'm convinced I'll always tell you no!"

"AH! Wise words, Luz!" Eda laughed heartily. "Take this, sucker!"

"Miss Clawthorne, please, a little restraint. Fairy godmothers are supposed to teach kids good manners" Camila said to her, then she turned to Belos: "Here's what you should say in these cases: my dear sea monster, I'm sorry having to tell you that my daughter definitely has more willpower than you, and therefore you can go and stick your head in the disgusting crevasse where you came out from!"

Belos' eyes narrowed. "Seriously, I will never understand mothers. How much pain have you caused them, Luz? Yet here you are, letting them protect you! Aren't you ashamed?"

Luz knew that the sea monster was only aiming to make her feel angry and disappointed in herself, and that he was trying to use her own insecurities against her, but that didn't stop her from feeling a sour taste in her mouth. But both Eda and Camila burst out laughing. "Be ashamed? Her?" Camila said grabbing Luz with her free arm and pulling her close. "What nonsense. Since when should a daughter be ashamed of letting her mother protect her?"

"Since that aforementioned daughter is a parasite who does nothing but cause trouble!" Belos replied.

"Seriously? Do you, of all people, dare to call anyone else a parasite?" Eda muttered in a teasing tone.

"In what other way do you call an organism that needs someone else's magic to live?" Belos hissed. "You're in this state because of her! You should hate her!"

"And yet I love her!" Eda replied confidently. "I love her because this was just a mistake! A big mistake, sure, and for which Luz will be punished properly, but only a mistake! And as long as Luz understands her mistake and strives to improve, she will always have my love!"

"And mine too" Camila said loudly and with absolute pride. "Even if I have to go to hell and come back to protect her, I will!"

Luz felt touched by these words. A small tear rolled down her cheek. She clenched her fists tightly, and then she took a step forward and looked Belos straight in the eyes: "You can call me a parasite all you want, but the only parasite here is you! It's true, I'm just a stupid bad girl who needs the magic of Eda to live, but every day that passes I strive to be better! I have made mistakes a lot of times, and for many of those mistakes I still feel remorse today, and I will probably feel it forever, but nevertheless I will move forward! always stuck here! I've behaved badly these days and Eda is like this because of me, it's true; and I'm really sorry for hurting King's feelings like that. I promise that when we're safe I'll shower him with kisses and hugs, and I'll tell him how lucky I feel to have a little brother like him! And I'll apologize to him a million times! This is what I am, unlike you who have always been the same for who knows how many centuries!"

As she spoke with so much confidence in both her voice and her heart, the Owl Beast's feathers began to shed, and eventually the creature decreased in size and returned to a humanoid form. Eda stood on two legs, back in her common fairy form, and smiled proudly at the puppet. "I will never regret giving you my life, Luz"

"And I will never regret having built you" Camila added smiling with the same intensity.

"How cute. It almost makes me want to hug you" Belos commented with obvious disgust in his voice. "But all this useless love won't save you. You're nothing but gnats for... URGH!"

Suddenly a familiar boy on a staff appeared in Belos' field of vision, and a beam of red light exploded from it and hit him in his right eye. The sea monster barely felt the blow, but it still bothered him enough to make his eyelid twitch. And immediately after the surprise came the anger. "You..."

"Sorry, 'uncle,' but I've resigned now" Hunter told him. "I therefore allow myself to side with whoever I want"

"Did you really come to choose to stay and fight for your friends instead of running away with your lovable cricket girlfriend?" Belos asked him with a lot of anger in his voice. "Normally I would find this funny, but you are interfering with something important"

"I know it very well. That's why I won't let you take Luz!" Hunter answered him. Flapjack emerged from his cloak and let out a couple of chirps, and Gus came out too and looked at him sideways, and the boy corrected himself: "Sorry; I meant that WE won't let you take Luz!"

"How dare you challenge me!?" Belos roared. "Are you so arrogant to think you have a chance!? I already almost killed you once!"

"That's true" Hunter replied, gripping his staff tighter, clearly feeling fear, but still maintaining his confidence, "But you'll find that our will equals yours!"

"You insignificant brat! You really haven't learned anything in all the years we've been through together! If you want to be destroyed, I'll be happy to do it!" Belos screamed, and one of the tentacles emerging from his neck moved toward Hunter with ten times the speed of a landslide; if he hit him, he would surely turn him to a pulp. But the tentacle instead passed through Hunter and crashed into the ocean below, raising a tsunami. "What!?"

"Yes... sorry, but I won't let you hit my friend!" Gus screamed. In an instant, several copies of Hunter appeared all around the giant monster's head. "Come on, where are we? Try to catch us!"

Belos let out a furious growl so violent that the sea in front of his mouth foamed and trembled, and he began to move his tentacles and paws furiously in an attempt to strike them; Hunter in the meantime, using Gus's illusions as cover, continuously hit the sea monster aiming at the eyes, causing him quite a bit of annoyance. Normally Belos would have already opened his jaws wide and unleashed a pulse of pure magic that would disintegrate anything in front of him, but he couldn't do that with Luz so close and risk destroying her. He needed her alive and unharmed. So he just swirled his tentacles around his head trying to hit them.

Hunter, however, was shaped by years and years of training and battles against the most dangerous monsters in the world. He knew exactly how to move and predicted the movement of Belos' tentacles simply by observing how they moved, and therefore managed to avoid them. The few times he wasn't able to dodge one of them in time, he grabbed Flapjack and used his magic to speed up, bringing himself to a safe distance. By continuing like this, he was confident that he could keep Belos busy for a very long time... assuming he didn't exploit some other of his many tricks.

Luz was quite surprised by Hunter's sudden intervention, and even though the sight of the blond boy made her blood boil somewhat, she couldn't help but say a little 'thank you' in her head. "Do you think they'll get away with it?"

"Don't worry, your friends know what they're doing, and they have a strong temper. They will do it" Eda replied encouragingly. "Now let's think about surviving!"

The tentacles around them hadn't stopped moving, and indeed seemed more fierce than before; Belos apparently could control multiple areas of his body at will and not focus on a single goal. Which was somewhat problematic given that they were aiming to survive. Eda and Camila returned to attack, keeping them away from Luz.

The puppet clenched her fists and teeth. Everyone was doing something to counter Belos, while she couldn't do anything. She hated feeling so helpless. Just then however she heard a voice: "Hey, do you need a hand?"

Luz shuddered and turned; Stringbean had appeared next to her face, staring at her with a smirk. "You!" the puppet exclaimed. "I thought you were stuck in your stomach..."

"No, I hid under the bow of your airship. I decided to follow your example and get shot out" Stringbean answered her. "Anyway... thanks. I heard you wanted to look for me to take me with you before your blond friend dragged you away"

"He's not my friend anymore" Luz replied. "But I'm glad you're okay. Why didn't you run away?"

Stringbean looked a little embarrassed, but then she replied: "Well, I certainly can't let Belos take you! If he succeeds, then there won't be a safe place anymore. It's simple survival". She paused briefly, and then she added: "And then... technically I've already let you use me, so this identifies you as my new master, and I certainly don't want to look like an incompetent magical scepter! But know that it's a transitory condition, as soon as this story is over I'm going to look for someone with more royalty than you!"

Despite the little snake's words, Luz smiled and felt her heart pound. "Thank you for coming back for me" she told her gratefully.

"Ugh! You're going to make me explode with your sweetness!" Stringbean grumbled. "Do you want to keep wasting time or would you rather fight?"

"Um... fight, of course!" Luz replied, only then remembering that she couldn't lose too much time to tell Stringbean how grateful she was.

"Then let's do it!" the snake answered her, and she transformed again into a magical scepter and flew into her hands. Luz raised her, and immediately a torrent of magic exploded from her, irradiating and burning all nearby tentacles.

"Wow..." Camila murmured seeing her daughter brandish the scepter, then she turned to Eda: "Did you give it to her?"

"Of course not, I don't let her play with certain things" the fairy replied, as amazed as she was.

Belos also looked surprised for a moment, but he quickly recovered. "Tsk! It won't be a magical scepter that will give you one more chance!"

Amity, accepting Lilith's words, had summoned all her willpower and calmed down, keeping her worries about Luz and all her friends at bay, and had returned to thinking with a clear mind. "Okay… how do we get out of here?"

"Let's use our brains" Lilith replied. "We can't break or hurt Belos' skin in any way. But... no one has ever tried to do anything harmless to him"

"What do you mean...? Wait... of course!" Amity exclaimed with her eyes lighting up. "We can give him an itch, or a tickle!"

"Good, I see you understand. Even in the most desperate situation, if you use your intelligence well, you can find a way out" Lilith told her with a smile, and just at that moment her body changed, abandoning the appearance of the Raven Beast and returned to her usual fairy appearance. Amity's eyes widened: "You're back to normal!"

"Yeah... although I still feel my magic is very weak. Evidently Luz must have said or done something good, as usual" Lilith commented with a bit of pride in her voice, and then she winked at Amity: "So, do you want to tickle a giant sea monster?"

Amity nodded, and immediately a completely harmless magic formed in her hands, generating only a very insistent dose of tickling; it wouldn't leave even a scratch on someone's skin, but it would make them feel that sensation until they rolled with laughter. Obviously Amity didn't have enough power to hit Belos' entire body, but after all it was enough for her to hit the area where she and Lilith were for the tentacles to shake enough and for them to escape. So she hit the ground beneath her, and as expected her magic seeped into it.

It didn't take long for it to take effect: the ground beneath their feet immediately began to shake violently, and Lilith took flight and grabbed Amity to avoid falling upside down. The tentacles initially tried to remain tied together, but then they became too agitated and an opening was created, which Lilith didn't hesitate to exploit to get out using the extraordinary speed of her wings. In a flash, they were outside again. "Yay! We did it!" Amity exclaimed.

She didn't have much time to rejoice: more tentacles were already moving towards them. The young witch was already preparing to fight, but a series of green lightning struck them, forcing them to retreat. She looked up and saw Odalia and Alador coming down towards them. "Mom? Dad?"

"I came to give you a hand, but I have to say that you don't need it as much as that djinn said" Odalia replied. "I brought Ghost back to you, by the way"

The magic broom transformed back into a cat and ran towards Amity, who patted his back. Mike Socks also came down from the sky, having evidently followed Odalia and Alador as soon as he learned that they were going to where Lilith was, and immediately flew onto his mistress's shoulder. "I assume you won't listen to me if I'll tell you to go away from here" Odalia said.

Amity shook her head. "You are assuming correctly. I won't abandon anyone"

"As I imagined. A witch who wants to be a good Samaritan... I don't know whether to be proud or angry" Odalia commented with a lot of concern in her voice. "How did you get out of that cage, by the way?"

"We tickled this monster" Lilith answered.

Alador suddenly became interested. "Wait, so you managed to annoy Belos with tickling?"

"His magical defenses make his skin basically indestructible, but not immune to anything non-lethal" Amity explained. "Not that suck knowledge can help us much at the moment..."

But Alador suddenly became thoughtful. "Maybe yes instead..."

Actually, Belos' skin is not indestructible (although obviously given his size it is still difficult to inflict a blow that causes pain), it is simply protected by layers and layers of magical spells that prevent him from being hurt. But precisely because Belos is arrogant and not attentive to details, he didn't take into account the fact that someone could use a spell aimed at not hurting him to hit him... for example tickling him. Whether in canon or in this AU, Belos' hubris is always his greatest weakness