The Angel of the Owl House

by OwlHouseAngel

Luz Noceda is a young half-angel girl living with her angel mother in the Human Realm. Her attempts to be good always backfire, and after one too many mistakes, her mother sends her to Camp Reality Check. But a chance event leaves Luz in the Demon Realm, where she meets the Owl Lady, who teaches her that in a chaotic world like the Boiling Isles, Luz might be the perfect angel.

27. EP 6: Saving Palismen

The Angel of the Owl House

Season 2: The Human Realm

Chapter 6: Saving Palismen

The day after the incident in the Human Realm was a day of bonding for both branches of the Noceda-Clawthorne family. In the Human Realm, Luz, Vee, Camila, and Amity had spent the day with Masha, whom they finally told the full truth to, and just as they'd hoped, Masha was extremely accepting of the entire situation. It took a little getting used to, since the girl they thought had been Luz was actually someone else, and the real Luz was quite different in personality, but they dealt with it easily enough. Masha was outright fascinated by both the Divine and Demon Realms and dearly wanted to visit both, but since Camila had no way back to the Divine Realm and Vee was still too scared to return to the Demon Realm, even for a short visit, Masha decided not to ask just yet; they wanted Vee to be there with them after all! Masha's positive reaction had also given Vee the courage to invite Rebecca and Gray to the house so they could be told the truth as well. They'd been a lot more shocked than Masha had been, but after their initial surprise, they'd both gushed over how cool Vee's true form looked, and their only response to learning Camila (and by extension Luz) were angels was a "That tracks." They assured Vee that they loved her for who she was, even if she wasn't the Luz they thought she was, and the little Basilisk had burst into happy tears and hugged them all, declaring them the best friends she could ever ask for. Luz and Amity also began to befriend the trio, who were obviously fascinated by their magic.

Meanwhile in the Demon Realm, Gwendolyn had spent the Sunday with her daughters, grandson, and her youngest daughter's partner. Lilith and Raine both bounced back fairly quickly from their first transformations, and were religiously keeping Elixirs with them at all times now. Raine spent a bit of time catching up with Gwen (who was delighted they and Eda were back together), but mostly left the Clawthornes to spend time together while they got work done for the CATTs. When the evening came and Luz and Amity returned to the Demon Realm, they had also taken Gwen to Digale Island, and she had formally joined the CATTs, though she doubted she'd be very active. When it was finally time for Gwen to go home, Lilith shocked them all by revealing she was going home with her, deciding to move back in with her and her father for a while to make up for lost time. Eda, Luz, and King were a little sad, and Hooty was nearly inconsolable, until it was pointed out that Lilith basically worked on Digale Island now, so they would still see her every day. That was enough to calm Hooty down, and Gwendolyn gave him a final gift by making the chicken legs on his portable form truly permanent, so he could now freely move about without having to drag himself in the dirt.

After that weekend, things returned to the normal routine for a couple of days, until after school on Wednesday.

Luz was walking home from Hexside alongside Amity and the Blight Twins. The others had school projects to catch up on so had opted to go home for the day, so it was just their little group walking back to the Owl House together. Luz was basically being guided along by Amity, as her focus was entirely on the small stone she'd picked up, which she was trying to use her red light beams to carve into the shape of a Kirin, the thunder-wielding cousins of the Giraffes that Luz had learned about in her beast-keeping classes that day.

Her stone once again crumbled as she fumbled one of the beams, making her groan and toss the gravel it had become into the nearby bushes; "Man, that's the fourth rock I've messed up! I'm never gonna complete my construction track homework at this rate!" she whined.

"You could always ask Matt for help." Amity smiled, taking the opportunity to hold Luz's hand now that it was free.

"I would, but I basically relied on him to get me through classes before I bonded with the fire glyph and got some Construction magic of my own. Besides, he's busy with his own homework; he's competing with Leia to be the new top student in class, so he's carving something bigger and cooler… or so he said." Luz replied.

"Maybe we could help." Edric suggested; "Emira and I did carve our own Palismen."

Orthie and Russ, who were trotting along beside them, woofed happily. Ghost was riding on Orthie's back, and meowed as well.

"I wish I could have carved Ghost myself, but I wouldn't change her for the world." Amity smiled, reaching back to pet her partner with her free hand.

Luz smiled and was about to respond when the Owl House came into view and she noticed something unusual. The Bat Queen's three babies were flying around in the front yard, playing with Hooty and King while Rasiel supervised.

"Speaking of Palismen…" Luz muttered curiously, before calling out; "Hey guys!"

"Luz!" King cheered, rushing over and jumping into her arms for his customary welcome back hug; "You got back just in time! We've got visitors!"

"I can see that!" Luz smiled; "Hi Babies!"

The Bat Queen's children, already under strict warning from their mother not to try and nibble on Luz or Rasiel in case they ingested Angel Blood, shrieked happily and flew around Luz's head, before two landed on her shoulders and the third landed on her head.

Luz cooed at them and Amity gently reached up to pet them in greeting. Edric and Emira blinked in surprise.

"I forgot you guys knew the Bat Queen and her kids!" Emira said.

"Yep, we met them back when we helped save the Bat Queen's forest from the Mandragora." Amity said. "If these three are here, then their mother must be here too."

Rasiel nodded; "She's currently in the kitchen having tea with Eda and the others. They had some serious business to discuss, so we came out here to keep the children entertained."

Luz and Amity exchanged curious looks; "Serious business? I wonder if something's wrong?" Amity frowned.

"Let's go and ask; we should say hello anyway." Luz said.

"I believe the Bat Queen wants to talk to you anyway." Rasiel agreed.

Luz nodded and headed into the house, Amity, King, and the Twins following behind while Rasiel and BQ's kids stayed outside to continue their game. They walked through to the kitchen and found the Bat Queen squeezed into a corner of the room with Eda, Lilith, Raine, Darius, and Eberwolf all sat with her, discussing something with grim faces.

"I'm home!" Luz announced; "And I brought the Blights!"

"Welcome back, Owlet. How was school?" Eda asked.

"Good. Hiya Bat Queen! It's been a while!" Luz smiled, giving a polite curtsy to the large Palisman. BQ smiled and bowed her head.

"Indeed it has, Luz." she said, before looking to Amity; "And you as well, Amity. How are you and Ghost?"

"We're doing great together." Amity smiled, Ghost hopping onto her shoulders. She then gestured to her siblings; "You might remember my older brother Edric and older sister Emira. You would have met when we worked together to stop the Petrification Ceremony."

The Twins waved nervously, and the Bat Queen smiled; "Indeed. The two with the Twin Palismen."

Orthie and Russ barked, and the Bat Queen chuckled; "Orthie and Russ speak well of you both. Though Orthie complains that you let Batric sleep on your pillow but not him."

Edric groaned; "This again? Batric takes up half my pillow; you take up the whole thing!"

Orthie barked, making Edric shake his head; "I'm not using you as my pillow! The last time I did that, you kicked me in the head in your sleep!"

Orthie barked again as he and Edric continued to bicker playfully while Emira and Russ watched on in amusement. Seeing as the Twins would be occupied for a bit, Luz looked to the Bat Queen.

"Rasiel mentioned you had some serious business to talk about."

"True. Big troubles come to my forest." BQ said grimly; "The Defiler's minions. They attack my home to capture my wards."

Luz and Amity gasped; "But I thought the Emperor believed they were dead! Destroyed by the Mandragora!" Amity cried.

"That's what Lilith told him, but now that she's a traitor to the Emperor's Coven, they likely decided to investigate her claims and found out she was lying." Darius said with a scowl; "The Emperor needs those Palismen to maintain himself. He has a stockpile at the castle, but the rebellion has slowed recruitment for the Emperor's Coven so he hasn't been able to restock it. Combine that with the shortage on Palistrom wood, and the Bat Queen's wards basically become his only hope."

"None have been taken, right?" Luz asked fearfully.

Thankfully the Bat Queen shook her head; "No Palismen has been stolen. I have repelled their attacks. But they grow more frequent, more intense. I do not know how long I can keep them safe." she said ruefully, before looking Luz in the eye; "Is why I come. I already owe favour to you, Amity, and Eda, but desperate times are upon us. I ask for help in protecting Palismen."

Luz nodded immediately; "Of course I'll help! Though I don't know what I can do that the others can't."

"You are Arch-Angel; powerful as Defiler. Bonded with me, if only for short time. You are one I trust most among the rebels. Your input I value." the Bat Queen smiled. Luz blushed a little at the compliment.

"Aw… Okay! So if we want to protect the Palismen, we either need to build your defences or get them into hiding!" Luz declared, immediately beginning to think through what they had to do.

Raine hummed; "We can offer some allies to help protect the forest, but it won't stop the attacks. We also don't have the forces to repel a full-scale assault if one should occur, especially if members of the Plant Coven turn the forest against us."

"Risky. I would prefer moving the Palismen elsewhere." the Bat Queen replied.

"Well, what about Digale Island?" Amity suggested. "Only Luz can get people there and back."

The Bat Queen averted her eyes, while Eda sighed; "We suggested that earlier. Unfortunately BQ doesn't trust the CATTs enough. Some of our members are defected Emperor's Coven members after all, which means some of them either gave their Palismen to Belos or sent them away."

"I will not entrust safety of my wards to people who have already rejected them, or sent their brethren to their demise." the Bat Queen said sharply, defending her decision.

Luz frowned, but couldn't exactly fault the Bat Queen for having doubts and being suspicious. It could also cause discord within the CATTs if some of the refugee Palismen were also the former partners of some of their defected EC members. Putting that thought aside, she offered a second solution.

"What about the Human Realm? The other side of the portal is a large forest, and my Mami would probably help take care of you all. Plus no one but us can get there." Luz suggested.

The Bat Queen shook her head; "Is a good idea, but will not work. Palismen need magic to live, much like angels. We feed on it. Bonded Palismen get magic from partner, so can survive in magicless Human Realm. But Unbonded Palismen like my wards absorb magic from the Isles. They won't survive in the Human Realm."

Luz winced; "Oh… I doubt Mami could provide blessings to all of them. I'd probably struggle, and I'm two ranks higher than her. Dang it, I can't think of any other completely safe places…"

Darius nodded with a tired expression; "We've had the same problem all afternoon. There are no completely safe spots on the Isles. Bonesborough is the closest due to the neutrality agreement, but Belos will break that agreement if he's desperate enough, and since he needs the Palismen to live…"

Everyone gulped; not a single one doubted that Belos would launch a full-scale invasion to claim the Palismen. The only reason he hadn't done so already to claim Luz and the portal was because he knew they'd likely evacuate into the Human Realm and take the portal with them if he tried. But he undoubtedly knew the Palismen wouldn't survive their too, so they wouldn't be able to escape with them.

"So we need a place not on the Boiling Isles and not controlled directly by the CATTs…" Amity said, tapping her chin.

"Simmering Shoals?" Eber barked.

"No, the Little Prince already proved the Emperor's Coven can get there easily." Darius replied. "We need a place they can't reach."

King, who'd been sitting on Luz's shoulder through the whole conversation, suddenly gasped; "I know! My island!"

Eda, Raine, and Luz all gasped too; "That could work!" Eda declared.

The others were confused, or had only a vague idea why they were so excited, so King quickly explained; "My egg was left on an island, inside a castle made by an Angel from thousands of years ago! I don't know how it works, but only I can find the island! It's got a big jungle and the castle could be used to defend people too!"

"That's a great idea King! There's no way the Emperor's Coven will find the Palismen there!" Luz beamed, hugging her little brother proudly.

The Bat Queen certainly liked the sound of it too; "This island… is it far?"

"Kinda, yeah. It'll take hours to fly there." Luz said, "But I could always build another Teleportation Circle! That way you'll have a faster way off the island in an emergency. I can get to work on this side of the circle right away, then King and I just need to fly back there and I can build the other side."

The Bat Queen thought about it for a long moment, before smiling and nodding; "I will agree to this. I'll put my trust in you, Clawthorne children."

Everyone cheered, glad to finally have a solution to the problem that had been keeping them busy all afternoon.

"I'll get to work on the circle! This one won't be used as much as the one to Digale Island, so it doesn't need to be anywhere special or hidden. In fact, I'll go with you to your forest and build it there!"

BQ agreed immediately, and Luz prepared to race off and grab Rasiel for help carving the circle and a refresher on the process of transmuting the crystals, but before she could, Amity spoke up.

"Bat Queen, if I may, I've got a suggestion too."

Everyone looked at her curiously as she held Ghost in her arms and stroked her; "Hiding the Palismen away where they can be safe and happy is obviously the best thing for them, but I think they should have a chance to bond with new partners too, just like Ghost and I. Meeting Ghost helped change me and make my life better, and I know Ghost feels the same about meeting me. I'd like the other Palismen to get the same chance."

The Bat Queen eyed her curiously; "You wish to try and find new partners for my wards?"

Amity nodded; "Yes. Our class at Hexside is at the age we're supposed to be getting them, but the shortage of Palistrom wood and the expense of buying it is too much for most of them to afford. I thought that instead you could bring the Palismen to Hexside, and all the students without partners could find one of their own."

Luz gasped with delight; "It could be like a Palismen Adoption Day! Amity, that's an awesome idea!"

"It is! I bet I could convince Ol' Bumpikins to host it tomorrow!" Eda grinned; "That way a whole new generation of witches could get Palismen, you have fewer to take care of, and the Emperor can't snag them without causing a huge uproar! He could get away with forcing his own coven members to give them up, but suddenly confiscating them from kids would turn more people against him!"

"It really is a wonderful idea! The best place for a Palismen is with their partner after all!" Lilith smiled, petting Corvanc on her shoulder.

"Yes, I think this is a good plan." the Bat Queen smiled; "My little ones would be safest and happiest with new owners. Not all will be able to bond, but if even one may find partner, it will be worth it."

Raine, Darius, and Eber also gave their own seals of approval, and the plan was set; Luz would spend the evening working on the new Teleportation Circle while Eda arranged the Adoption Day with Principal Bump, and the Bat Queen prepared for relocation to King's Island. With everyone now busy, Darius and Eber took their leave; they had a meeting with all the Coven Heads at the Castle, and it was to be full formal wear, which meant it would be something important. Both wondered just what it could be about, but one thing was certain; it would be nothing good…

[Later that day]

Darius and Eberwolf, now clad in white cloaks with their Coven Medallions on the clasps, fell into line with the heads of the other main covens. They had been met at the gates by Kikimora, who had been reduced to an errand girl now that the Silver Sentinel had taken her place as the Emperor's Assistant. Once all nine of the Coven Heads were present, she began to escort them to the throne room for the meeting. Darius noticed that despite not having gone through the official ceremony yet, Severin Cadence was present in place of Scooter Crane. The man looked incredibly nervous, as this was his first official duty as a Coven Head.

Kikimora led them into the throne room, where Darius and Eber noticed a strange brazier had been placed in the middle of the room. The brazier burned with blue flames and had nine circular slots in the brass ring that surrounded it. Sat in the throne was Belos, who was flanked by his two elites; the Golden Guard on his right and the Silver Sentinel on his left. Once the Coven Heads had been directed to stand around the brazier, the Golden Guard spoke up.

"Thank you all for coming. The Day of Unity is fast approaching, and despite the setbacks caused by the Owl Lady and her corrupting influence, the Coven System is still as strong as ever!"

Darius bit back a smirk; the Little Prince had no idea!

"Soon, all of magic will be purified as the Titan intends. As heads of the Nine Covens, the Emperor wishes to express his gratitude for all your hard work, and reward you with a glimpse of the utopia that awaits!"

As the Golden Guard finished his speech, Belos raised his hand and croaked; "Step forward. Place your medallions into the slots."

His voice was weak, but none dare comment. Instead the Coven Heads obediently took off their medallions and inserted them into the slot that bore the same sigil. Each slot lit up in the signature colour of its coven, and once all nine were in place, light swirled into the flames from each medallion. The flames intensified and the Coven Heads' eyes began to glow white as they witnessed a vision in the flames. They saw the Titan's skull as an eclipse shone above it, before a flash of golden light replaced the familiar surroundings of the Demon Realm with an unfamiliar city… a city of white spires and golden filigree; a city that looked almost like an enormous palace.

Darius and Eberwolf felt their hearts quicken; that was a scene of the Divine Realm! It matched perfectly with how Rasiel had described it whilst working together on Digale Island!

"The larger your covens grow, the more power we have to unite our realms. We are loyal servants of the Titan, and once we have purified this land of wild magic, we will be united with the Divine Realm and ascend to the rank of angels ourselves!" Belos declared; "Free of wild magic and its corruption, you will have power beyond your wildest dreams. You witnessed the power of an Arch-Angel… her strength was immense, even as a child who rebels against the Titan. But you… you will all become the new Seraphim! Loyal, adult Seraphim whose power would dwarf all others!"

None of the Coven Heads dared to say a word, but their expressions could not be hidden. Vitimir, Terra, Adrien, and Hettie were all smiling with anticipation; either for the power or the honour of being an angel. Mason and Osran were stone faced, and Severin looked deeply shocked. Meanwhile Eberwolf and Darius went pale; was the Day of Unity truly to unite the Demon and Divine Realms together and turn them all into Angels? Or was Belos' true plan something more sinister… if his own claims were true after all, he was already an angel.

Sadly, before anything more could be said or done, Belos suddenly grunted in pain and clutched his chest as his mysterious illness flared up again. The Silver Sentinel immediately helped him to his feet and began ushering him out of the throne room, while the Golden Guard turned to the Coven Heads and said; "The Emperor requires rest. We'll continue this another time. Return to your duties."

He then hastily followed after his partner and Emperor, leaving the Coven Heads to wander home on their own. Darius and Eberwolf certainly weren't interested in staying behind; they needed to go and report back to the CATTs!

As those two were fleeing the castle for the Owl House, the Golden Guard and Silver Sentinel got the Emperor up to his private study; a grim, dark room filled with occult tomes and dangerous relics, and which none but he and his most loyal servants could enter. They barely got him inside before his body began to melt and lose its shape, causing him to devolve into a monstrous form. He roared and raged, slamming his slimy green fists against the wall as the Golden Guard watched on, and the Silver Sentinel retrieved a dormant Hamster Palisman from a hidden alcove.

After a moment, Belos calmed enough to regain his humanoid form and put his mask back on, though it was cracked from his transformation and green ooze seeped out from the cracks. He then snatched the Palisman from the Sentinel, snapping it in half and inhaling the green essence that emerged from within. He continued to devour it until the shell of the Palisman decayed into dust, and he sighed with relief. However this was not enough to sate him, so he held out a hand to his elites.

"I need more." he growled.

The Guard and Sentinel exchanged glances, before the former said; "That was the last from our reserves. The Palistrom wood has been overharvested; there are very few sources left. The Plant Coven has some, but it's difficult finding people willing to carve and bond with a Palisman, then give it up immediately."

Belos grumbled and turned away from the two, taking stock of the damage he'd done to his study. The Golden Guard then stepped forward; "Uncle, I might have another way if you let me help! I've been reading and I found a technique that could use Wild Magic to-"

He was cut off as Belos turned to him and glared sharply, making his throat go dry. The boy winced behind his mask and bowed his head; "I'm… sorry."

The Emperor sighed and walked over, putting a hand on the Guard's shoulder, then beckoned the Sentinel over so he could place his other hand on top of her hooded head.

"Please be careful; both of you. Our family is gone because of Wild Magic. I have become this…" he revealed his ten decaying wings, "… because of Wild Magic. It is only a matter of time before Luz too is corrupted by it. If the two of us succumb to this corruption, it'll be up to the two of you to complete our work."

The Golden Guard and Silver Sentinel stared at their uncle's decayed wings with pits in their stomachs; they were the only ones in the Coven to know the truth of the Emperor, and understood his desire to make all witches and demons into angels like him, to bring true unity and order to the world. It was a noble goal in their minds, and they would do anything to achieve his dream.

Belos released the two and slumped into the chair at his desk, his wings seeping back into his ropes where they could be hidden. "Find me more Palismen. I can depend on the two of you… right?"

His two Elites nodded immediately, and after ensuring the Emperor had everything he needed for the night, the two departed. They needed to find him Palismen… perhaps it was time to join the assaults on the Bat Queen personally?

[The Next Day]

Luz was deep in thought as she and her classmates stood out on the Grudgby field, along with a few of their Palisman-lacking upperclassmen. A large pen that covered about half the field had been set up, and Principal Bump was currently chatting with Eda as they waited for the big event to start. Despite how excited Luz was to see some of her friends get Palismen of their own, she was distracted by the revelations of the previous evening.

She had just flown back from the Bat Queen's forest after setting up one end of the new Teleportation Circle there, when Darius and Eberwolf had rushed in to report what had happened at the meeting with Belos. The idea that the Day of Unity was a plan to unite the Demon and Divine Realms was crazy, as was his idea to turn all Witches and Demons into Angels. Luz didn't believe it for an instant, knowing that Belos could lie despite apparently being an Angel, and Rasiel had outright called it ludicrous, claiming that the races could gain aspects of the other races (like Luz gaining some Titan Magic via the glyphs or the Titan Bile), but it wasn't possible for them to BECOME another race! He had also been fairly sure that fusing multiple realms together was impossible too, though he'd admitted to being unsure.

Rasiel's dismissal of the plan as impossible had relaxed the others, but Luz still couldn't get her mind off of it. It was possible Belos was just insane and believed the Day of Unity would truly achieve that, but Luz suspected there was something darker there… the only problem was she had no idea what the real plan was! Aside from it needing an uncorrupted angel, the Coven System, and the portal to the Human Realm, Luz had no idea!

She was snapped out of her thoughts by Amity, who kissed her on the cheek to get her attention. "Hello, Boiling Isles to Luz! Are you in there?" she giggled; "We're about to get started."

Luz blinked, then smiled and kissed Amity's cheek in return; "Yeah, sorry about that. Just got lost in thought for a bit."

"Well look alive; we're supposed to be helping Eda and BQ." Amity said, leading Luz over to the adults.

Since Amity already had an adopted Palisman and Luz would need to carve her own to be able to fully bond with a Palisman, they had volunteered to help the event. It also helped that they were acquainted with all the Palismen in the Bat Queen's care!

Once the girls had joined Eda and Bump, the two adults nodded at them and then began the presentation. Principal Bump stepped forward to address the crowd of students; "Good tidings on this momentous day. Despite fears that we might not be able to manage it this year, I am proud to announce that some among you will be lucky enough to receive a witch's staff, and more importantly, a Palisman Partner. The Palismen we'll meet today have all had previous owners and will only bond with those they feel a connection to, so don't be too discouraged if one does not bond with you. Also, even if you don't receive a Palisman today, you may still get the chance to carve or inherit one in the future!"

Eda then stepped forward; "But for those lucky few who do get one day, know what you're getting yourself into. A Palisman can become a powerful tool, but the truly great witches see them for what they are; your lifelong partners and friends." she turned her own staff back into Owlbert, and gently stroked him; "A true bonded Palisman is like a part of your soul, and a reflection of your true self. Treat them well and you'll flourish and become incredible witches! But treat them poorly, and you'll be lucky to escape unscathed!"

Bump nodded seriously; "Edalyn is not joking; treat your Bonded Palismen with the greatest of care! You'll be surprised what they can do for you. For example…" he snapped his fingers and the imp on his head removed himself to reveal that he was Bump's Palisman and showing Bump's long, flowing hair and scarred eyes. Luz and her friends had seen them before during and after the Detention Pit incident, so it was no surprise for them, but many of the other students gasped.

"Frewin here helps me see after my eyes were damaged by Fibul Academy's attack on the old Hexside campus." Bump said, petting the little imp.

The students oohed and ahhed, each of them incredibly eager to get a Palisman of their own. Eda grinned, seeing she had them on the edge of their proverbial seats!

"Now, thanks to the suggestion from Amity here, who also adopted and bonded with a Palisman she didn't carve herself…" Eda gestured to Amity, who gave a showman's bow, which Ghost mimicked in her own feline way, "… we teamed up with Bumpy-Poo-"

"Never call me that!"

"-to bring you…"

Suddenly the Bat Queen flew down from the sky, carrying a huge hollowed out tree stump with a little door on it. She set it down and perched atop it, spreading her wings wide as she grandly finished Eda's introduction.

"Palisman Adoption Day!"

The little door opened and dozens of little Palismen in all shapes and sizes dashed out and began to run around and explore the pen that had been set up for them. The students all gasped and cooed in delight, even at some of the odder Palismen, such as Hugs, the Necrotic Abyss Crawler Palisman that Luz had met back in the forest. Luz stepped into the pen with them and the Palisman all came scurrying over to greet and play with her. While all the Palismen from the forest had been hidden inside the large tree stump (which was enchanted to be a lot bigger on the inside), not all of them had emerged from it; Luz assumed the ones that stayed hidden were the ones who didn't want a new partner just yet. The Bat Queen's babies were also present and flew out to roost in their mother's hair, and then there was also the curious case of Flapjack, a Red Cardinal Palisman that Luz didn't know much about (he'd not told his origins to the Bat Queen, so she had not told Luz while she'd healed him back during the Mandragora fight). Flapjack flew out and took one look at the gathered students, then landed on Luz's shoulder, gave her a friendly peck to say hello, then flew back into the tree stump, apparently changing his mind about finding a partner.

The Bat Queen then addressed the students; "These little ones have not had homes in many years. They want to feel a connection. Kneel and state your deepest wish, and if a like-minded partner is among the group, they will find you."

The students began to whisper amongst themselves in a mix of excitement and nervousness, as Principal Bump clapped his hands to focus them; "Alright, whose first?"

"How about you, Boscha? You like being number one, right?" Luz said with a teasing smile.

Boscha rolled her eyes; "This is because I made you dance the Fango back at the Blight's dumb party, right? Fine, but if I don't get a Palisman, you and your girlfriend have to take me to get smilkshakes after school!"

She swaggered forward, but her friends and the Hexsquad could see it was an act to hide her nerves. She knelt down in front of the pen like ordered and said; "I want to play professional Grudgby!" she declared, before adding in a whisper; "And make people see I'm not the same cruel jerk I was before."

In response, a little Crab Palisman scuttled forward; it was a bit different than a normal crab, as it only had four stubby little legs and its pincers were connected straight to its carapace without arms. Said pincers also had its eyes on them, which were little dark brown circles with white triangles showing the corners of its eyes. It snapped its claws at Boscha, who felt a rush of warmth as a connection was formed. She held out her hands and the Palisman leapt into them, nuzzling her for a moment before transforming into a Crab themed staff.

The Bat Queen chuckled; "A competitive spirit! Maya will be thrilled."

"Maya's previous owner was a Professional Faceball player from the Savage Ages. He didn't have any kids, so decided to release Maya on his deathbed so she wouldn't end up as just a piece of memorabilia for his loony fans." Luz explained, still remembering all the stories the Bat Queen had told her.

"Maya… well looks like we're partners now! We're both gonna become the best!" Boscha smiled happily as she wandered to the back of the crowd. The first success spurred on the others, and Willow was the next person to rush forward.

"I want to be strong and wise to protect everyone I love! And if anyone gets in my way, they'll feel the sting of defeat!" Willow said, making even the threatening part sound sweet. Luz and Amity smiled at her; she'd come a long way since the day Luz had met her!

In response to her wish, an adorable Bee Palisman buzzed over to her and landed on her shoulder; the Bee Palisman had a stinger on its face as well as its tail, and its yellow body was somewhat faded, with its bumblebee-like collar of fluff being even lighter in colour. It rubbed is fluff against Willow's face, and she cooed and scratched the little creature's head. The Palisman then became a staff and Willow gasped with delight

"Tender, yet tenacious! Clover will be a good match." The Bat Queen smiled.

Luz then added; "Clover is perfect for a plant witch! She was first carved by an amazing plant witch almost a thousand years ago! She was passed down through the family until her last owner saw cruelty in her daughter, and decided she would misuse Clover, so she instead entrusted her to BQ!"

Willow gasped softly; "; "Oh my gosh! Well don't worry; I'm gonna take such good care of you!"

Next up was Viney, who'd missed out on a Palisman last year due to being in trouble for her Magic Mixing. Her wish was to open a veterinary clinic for mythical pets, and so found herself bonded to Regant; a Manticore Palisman that had belonged to a great Beast-Keeper, before he'd been injured in the field and succumbed to his wounds.

Then it was Jerbo's turn, and he wanted to revamp the Coven System into one that supported using multiple types of magic, and encouraged cooperation between them. He was bonded to Horned Grey Hound Palisman named Baskerville, whose last owner had been a Wild Witch who'd fought against Belos' unification of the isles, only to lose his life and release the Palisman before Belos could take him.

Next was Barcus, whose wish was to develop a potion that could overcome the limits of Oracle Magic. His bonded partner was Duno, a four-armed spider monkey Palisman with an (empty) Oracle Stone embedded into their chest. Duno's last owner had been an Oracle who'd joined the Emperor's Coven, unaware of Belos' true nature. Duno had predicted his own fate though, and fled rather than be sacrificed.

After the Magic-Mixers, Gus finally stepped up to the pen; "Dad wants me to be a Master Illusionist. Well, he just wants me to be the best in whatever field I choose really, but I think that's too easy! So instead, I'll become an ambassador to the Human Realm and re-establish contact with the giraffes!"

Luz giggled at that, then smiled as a little blue Chameleon Palisman scurried over to him and climbed up his shoulders. As Gus gasped in delight, the Bat Queen nodded approvingly; "A confident and ambitious spirit is well-suited for Emmiline."

"You mean Emmiline Bailey Marcostimo! Gotta use the full name, BQ!" Luz grinned, making the Bat Queen chuckle at her. Gus was intrigued by the long name, and eagerly pet Emmiline as Luz explained; "Emmiline is actually almost as old as Clover! She belonged to a witch who was against the banishment of the giraffes. She must see her old owner in you."

Gus grinned wider and said; "Well Emmie, looking forward to working with you!"

The Palisman chirped and turned into a staff, which Gus immediately began to twirl as he walked over to the others who'd already found partners.

A few more students stepped up to claim Palismen after Gus had taken his turn, and most were able to walk away with a new partner. However a few were disappointed to find no Palisman bonding with them. Each time it happened, the Bat Queen would comfort them and say that she could feel their emotions and convictions, but it simply wasn't suited to any of the Palismen who were currently willing to be adopted, and that perhaps in the future, one of the other Palismen will be willing to take a new partner and will be able to bond with them.

Sadly, one of these students was Matt. He stepped up to the pen and announced his dream; "I want to be a cool guy like my older brother, and be better than all the stuck up jerks I used to be pushed around by! And I want to be the kind of guy who stops bullies and bad guys, rather than doing what they want, or being one myself!"

The Hexsquad had smiled, and the Bat Queen had grinned wide at his conviction, only for her face to fall when none of the Palismen reacted. She looked around at her wards playing in the pen, as if looking for a specific Palismen, and frowned when she couldn't see them. She then inhaled deeply to sniff them out, relaxing when she clearly detected their scent nearby, though slightly muffled.

"Unfortunate. I could have sworn he was one of the Palismen who wanted a new partner…" BQ muttered, before sighing and speaking to the disappointed Matt; "I am sorry, young one. I believe one of the Palismen here would be a perfect partner, but it seems he lost he previous one too recently. It has only been a couple of years since his partner sent him away, so perhaps the wounds are still too fresh."

Matt sighed sadly; "It's fine. It can't be helped I guess… sucks though."

"I'm sorry, Matt." Luz said softly as Willow and Gus patted him on the back to comfort him.

"Still, think on the bright side! If BQ is right, a perfect Palisman for you is here! They just need a little more time." Amity smiled.

That cheered Matt up a little; "Yeah, I guess you're right. I've just gotta wait. I'm still technically a year younger than normal for getting a Palisman anyway. I'll give it another try next year."

His friends smiled, glad to see him bouncing back. Gus and the others let him play with their Palismen too, so at least he wasn't being left out of the fun.

A few more people stepped up and were either bonded or joined Matt in not getting a Palisman, until almost the whole group was finished. One of the last people to step forward, and the last of the Hexsquad, was Skara. She'd been pretty eager to step forward until the first person that wasn't able to bond with a Palisman, which had worried her so much that she'd lost confidence.

Still, she wasn't the type to quit without trying, so she nervously stepped forward and stated her deepest wish; "I want to become the best Bard in the world! Not only that, I want to become such a great Bard that no one will ever dare call Bardic Magic weak ever again!"

There was a moment of silence, during which Skara's heart hammered in her chest, afraid she was about to be rejected, but then a little Palisman literally hopped towards her and landed on her outstretched hands.

The Palisman was a cricket with a red body and eyes, and grey head and legs, with what looked like music note shaped symbols on the covers that hid its wings. It chirped playfully at Skara, then began to chirp musically, playing a little song for her. Skara recognised the song and with her cheeks almost aching from smiling so wide, she began to whistle along with her new Palisman.

"Ah, Melody is drawn to your musical soul! But she is also drawn to those who wish to be better than themselves. You've already begun quite a metamorphosis it seems." the Bat Queen smiled.

"Melody… so your name is Melody. I couldn't have picked a better name for you if I tried!" Skara beamed. In response, Melody chirped happily and bounced from her hands, to her shoulders, to inside her ponytail, then back into her hands, where she became Skara's very own staff.

"Melody really is the best Palisman for a Bard. She once belonged to a Musician in the Savage Ages." Luz revealed. She didn't tell the full story though, as it was a bit more tragic and personal. Melody's former partner had been quite famous and acclaimed, but a scandal that wasn't their fault caused their name and reputation to be tarnished. Falling into a deep depression and abandoned by those who'd called them friend and family, the Musician had ended their own life, sending Melody away before that so she wouldn't be dragged down with them. Luz would tell Skara this privately, so she understood her partner's pain, but it wasn't something to be spread in front of all these people.

After Skara joined the others again, the last few students stepped forward and thankfully all received Palismen. In the end, about 80% of the group had been bonded with partners, and the number of Palismen that would be going into hiding had shrunk sharply, much to the joy of the Bat Queen and CATTs members.

Once the adoption process was complete, Principal Bump and Eda (with Amity as their assistant), gave the students who'd gained staves a few lessons on how to best utilise them, both for magic and for flying. The Bat Queen also taught them how to best care for their Palismen too. The students who hadn't been so lucky were instead handed over to Luz, who also didn't have a Palisman and who decided to cheer them up by teaching them something different; Glyph Magic! It was only a short crash course in the five glyphs she knew, and none of her students had the natural aptitude for it that King did, but they were eager students who were glad to at least be getting something out of the day to make it not a complete disappointment.

By the end of the school day, Matt and the other Glyph Students were feeling a lot better about themselves, while the other students were all cheerfully heading home to show off their Palismen to their families, or hang out with their friends and go flying! The Hexsquad, plus Boscha and the Banshees, decided to stay and hang out at Hexside with the Bat Queen and the unadopted Palismen, as they wouldn't be moved until after dark where it would be safer. They all played with the Palismen, and Matt was even able to fly using Emmiline, since Gus was happy to lend her to him for a bit.

But finally night began to fall and it was time to take the Palismen to King's Island. Lilith arrived at Hexside with King himself, since they'd need him to guide them, and Luz prepared to fly there along with the Bat Queen.

"Well, this is it guys! I should be back sometime later tonight, but I'll talk to you all tomorrow to let you know how it went!" Luz smiled.

Amity, who would be having a sleepover with Willow, gave her girlfriend a kiss goodbye; "Be careful Luz. No trip you've gone on has ended without incident, so don't let your guard down!"

Luz pouted; "I'm not that bad!"

"You're not, but your luck is pretty…" Skara tried to find the words for it, and Eda helpfully supplied;

"Chaotic."

Luz couldn't really deny that, so she just rolled her eyes with a huff, then gave her Mom a hug goodbye. She said goodbye to her friends too, and they all began to head home, with the sole exception of Gus.

"Is it cool if I go with you guys? I'm still trying to get the hang of flying with Emmie here, and I really want some extra practice!" Gus said, before sheepishly adding; "I also REALLY wanna see King's island! I've just gotta see a real Angel-built castle on a Titan-built Island!"

King puffed his chest out proudly; "It is pretty cool! My Godfather Zachael did an awesome job!" he said. "I'm okay with you coming along."

"I am too! Maybe you could keep the Palismen entertained! Like an in-flight movie!" Luz smiled.

The kids turned to the Bat Queen, who simply nodded; "I have no objections. The young man is trusted by one of my old wards and my friends."

Gus grinned; "Awesome! Thanks BQ! Let me just call my Dad and let him know I'll be late back!"

He wandered off to call his Dad, and Perry immediately gave him permission, along with asking him to pass along his regards to the Clawthornes and Bat Queen. Once that was done, Gus returned and passed along his Dad's message as requested, then switched Emmie into staff mode to begin the flight to King's Island.

Luz took to the skies with King in her arms, and waved to her Mom as the Bat Queen picked up the Palismen Nest and took flight too. Gus followed soon after, though he was noticeably unsteady on his staff. Once they were all airborne, they began to fly westward to King's Island.

Their flight was a little slower than anticipated at first; Gus really just couldn't get the hang of riding his staff, and ended up either slowing to a crawl at times or suddenly flying off in weird directions, forcing Luz to go after him. It was kind of funny at first, but the Bat Queen soon got fed up with the distractions; they were in the open air and at risk of being found by the Emperor's Coven, so they couldn't afford to waste time! It wasn't Gus or Emmiline's faults; they were both doing their best, but there was some kind of disconnect between them that made flying conventionally a hard task. After delaying them for the fifth time, the Bat Queen had decided enough was enough and stuffed both Gus and Emmiline into the Palismen Nest.

Gus had pouted, but after comforting his new Palisman partner, he decided to follow Luz's original advice and began performing a show for the other Palismen with his illusion magic. It proved a pleasant distraction, and Luz, King, and BQ all happily listened to the show as they flew through the night.

It was getting quite late and very dark by the time they reached the western most point of the Isles, and the cloudless sky was illuminated solely by tiny twinkling stars and a large, shimmering full moon. They were just minutes away from leaving the Boiling Isles entirely, when Gus found his show being interrupted by the insistent pecking of Flapjack, the Red Cardinal Palisman.

"Huh, you okay Buddy? Not a fan of the show?" Gus asked.

Flapjack tweeted frantically and flew up onto one of the small window-like gaps of the nest, and peered outside. Gus looked out too, and gasped at what he saw; a small Emperor's Coven Airship was pursuing them!

"Oh no! Guys! We've got company!" Gus shouted, switching Emmie to staff form to defend the Palismen.

Luz, King, and BQ looked behind them and scowled. Luz cast a Beast-Keeping spell to enhance her sense of smell beyond even King's, then took a deep inhale. "It's the Golden Goof and his silent sister!"

Sure enough, as the airship gained on them, King, BQ, and Gus could see the masked visages of the Emperor's Elites.

"Let's take 'em down! We beat them once when it was just the two of us! We can beat them even easier with four people!" King declared, punching the air.

"No! We can't fight in the sky while protecting the Palismen! We should try to outrun them!" Gus argued, not confident in his skills in battle with two elites.

"We've got nowhere we can lose them! If we just run, we'll lead them right to my island!" King argued straight back.

Luz frowned; "King is right, but BQ can't fight while protecting the Palismen… Man, my luck really does suck."

Despite the situation, Gus laughed; "Luz, I love you girl, but your luck is easily the worst of anyone I've ever met!"

"Enough banter, the enemy is nearly upon us!" the Bat Queen yelled.

Making a snap decision, Luz tossed King onto the Bat Queen's head; "Guide BQ to the island! I'll hold off these two and follow after you once I lose them!"

"I'll help too!" Gus declared, shakily taking flight and hopping out of the tree stump. He wasn't confident, but he was sure he could help with his illusions and the limited glyph magic Luz had taught him. He didn't need to fly either, he could just hover! That should be enough… right?

As soon as Gus took flight, he wobbled in the air before stabilising himself and the Bat Queen began to fly away as fast as she could. Unfortunately it wasn't fast enough.

"Oh no you don't!" The Golden Guard cried, before using his signature red flash to warp directly into her path. She tried to respond by breathing fire on him, but he easily flashed to below her and kicked up at her chin, forcing her mouth shut and stopping her flames.

"BQ!" Luz cried, flying at the Golden Guard and firing light beams at him to force him away. The moment she got close however, the Silver Sentinel jumped out of the shadow of the Bat Queen's wings and shot a bolt of purple magic at Luz. The spell blind-sided Luz and she was struck in the face, getting a minor burn on her cheek, which she ignored in favour of casting a bright light spell to destroy all shadows and blind the two Elites. Now blinded and unable to escape, Luz blasted the Silver Sentinel with a light beam, which didn't penetrate her chest armour but did wind her and knock her out of the sky. The Golden Guard flashed down to catch her while Luz healed her cheek, and Gus promptly cast an illusion of dozens of Luzs and Bat Queens, all of whom flew off into different directions, while the real Bat Queen was rendered invisible and continued flying westward.

"We're not fooled that easily!" the Golden Guard growled. He pulled his sister onto his staff and then flashed them both to an even higher altitude, before the two swapped places, with the Sentinel flying and her brother riding her staff. Now free to use his own staff to cast a big spell, the Golden Guard rained red lightning down on the entire area, destroying the illusions immediately while forcing the real Luz to protect herself and Gus with barriers. Upon seeing that all the visible Bat Queens were fake, the Golden Guard cast another spell to summon up a sandstorm, and the swirling sediment soon revealed where the real Bat Queen was, while also slowing her escape. The Golden Guard then flashed himself and his sister towards her, while Luz left her barrier and raced after them.

Luz was fast, but she wasn't as fast as the Guard's lightning quick flashes, so the Golden Guard and Silver Sentinel reached BQ first. She launched a sonic shriek at them, which briefly stunned the pair and allowed King to use his own Titan Roar, which he combined with the wind glyph to blast the two away with a monstrous gale. The Silver Sentinel hastily conjured a metal kite shield, and used the shadow of its underside to drag herself and her brother to safety. Luz immediately cast another light spell to destroy all shadows around herself and the Bat Queen, and Gus twirled his finger to cast a subtle illusion.

Since the closest usable shadow was now their own airship, the two Elites emerged on board, while Luz and Gus turned to face them.

"Now that we've proven you can't just fly away, maybe now we can do this properly!" the Golden Guard declared. He then cleared his throat and said formally; "Under the jurisdiction of Emperor Belos, all Palismen not currently bonded to a Witch or Demon are hereby declared property of the Emperor's Coven and are to be surrendered immediately. In addition, the Arch-Angel Luz Noceda is under arrest for rebellion against the Empire! Come quietly and your friends will be spared."

Luz, King, Gus, and even the Bat Queen gave him the same unimpressed looks. "No way! We know what your sicko of a boss does to the poor little guys! I'm not just gonna let you murder these innocent creatures!"

The Golden Guard flinched, and the Silver Sentinel looked at the ground, making Luz and Gus eye them curiously; maybe the two weren't as happy with their Emperor's actions as they let on? At the very least, their posture looked guilty.

"Their sacrifice is necessary for the prosperity of the Isles. Please Luz, you know who and what the Emperor truly is! Surely you can sympathise with what wild magic has done to him!" the Golden Guard implored.

Luz's eyes widened; "So Belos actually told you that he's an angel!?"

The two elites noticed the lack of surprise from Gus, King, and the Bat Queen, making them realise Luz had already told them, and likely the rest of the rebels too. That was annoying, but the Emperor had expected it and warned his elites.

"Emperor Belos' condition was caused by wild magic, and needs the essence of Palismen to treat. If you don't give up your own wild ways, you will find yourself suffering the same fate!" the Guard yelled.

Luz shook her head; "I don't know how Belos messed himself up exactly, but it's got nothing to do with Wild Magic! Wild Magic is the natural state of magic in this realm!"

"Lies told by your corrupting mentor!" the Guard spat.

The Silver Sentinel made illusory hand signs to her brother; "Give it up, brother. She will never be convinced by us. If words alone were enough, the Emperor would have redeemed her already."

Luz bit her tongue to avoid exposing that she could understand the Sentinel, and the Golden Guard just sighed; "You're right… I just hate fighting her."

The Silver Sentinel signed; "I understand. But the mission must come first."

"Yes. The mission… I'm sorry Luz, but the Emperor needs those Palismen!" the Golden Guard yelled, suddenly flashing towards her. He swung his staff at her, charging it with red lightning to use it like a taser, and Luz could do nothing but give a gormless stare at her attacker as his staff struck her… then passed straight through her. Luz shimmered and poofed into a cloud of cyan smoke, revealed to be the result of an illusion.

The Golden Guard barely had time to react before the real Luz suddenly blasted him in the face like his sister had done to her minutes before. The blast was hard enough to send him flying backwards head over heels, and when he finally recovered and held onto his staff, his mask had been damaged, revealing a patch of pale skin around a red eye, with noticeable dark bags beneath it.

"Dang Golden Goof, you need a nap! No wonder you're so cranky." Luz commented.

He growled in response and flashed back to the airship so he could use his staff to conjure spears that he launched at the Bat Queen's wings. One of them struck her, revealing it to be another illusion, and the real Bat Queen suddenly appeared above the Airship, which she blasted with fire to set it alight. The Emperor's elites had to fly away as their ship once again crashed to the ground far beneath them, and the Silver Sentinel shot a basic bolt of magical energy at Gus, confirming that he too was an illusion while the real one appeared behind her. He tried to use an ice glyph to trap her, but his inexperience with flight meant he lost control of his staff at the last minute and only managed to freeze a part of her shoulder. She quickly darted away from him, but kept her eyes on him.

She figured that he had put up the illusion while she and her brother had been travelling through a shadow together, knowing they wouldn't be able to notice. It was impressively effective for such a simple illusion, and it shocked her that it could be performed by a boy who could barely fly.

Suddenly, the night seemed to grow even darker, forcing Luz to create a light orb just to see where everyone was.

"What the heck? Did someone turn out the moon or something!?" the Golden Guard yelled.

Gus looked to where the moon was supposed to be and saw only a huge expanse of blackness. Even some of the stars had vanished from the night sky. Not only that, but the air was starting to get a lot warmer all of a sudden.

The Silver Sentinel used her illusory hands to sign something to her brother, which Luz translated as; "Aren't we over the Titan's Right Palm at the moment?"

"We are." the Golden Guard replied, before suddenly gasping; "You don't think-!?"

"LOOK OUT!" screamed the Bat Queen, right before red veins of fire suddenly filled the previously black space that had replaced the moon and starry sky. Acting on instinct, Luz threw up crystal barriers around herself, Gus, and the Bat Queen, as well as their two teenage adversaries. This action may have saved all their lives, as a moment later there was an impossibly bright flash of white light and a strange cry that sounded almost like some kind of giant fox, followed by the sound of shattering as something smashed all of them out of the sky. Their barriers were cracked to the point of near uselessness, but just barely retained their shape. Luz was able to grow vines inside the barriers to act as cushioning, right before there was a second shattering sound as what was left of the barriers was destroyed and they were all sent plummeting to the ground, losing consciousness in the process.

[Sometime Later]

When Luz regained consciousness, she became aware of three things. First, it was bright out now, and she actually struggled to open her eyes due to the light. Second, it was unbearably hot; hotter even than she'd been in the desert of Palm Stings (though not as bad as Volcarpalis). Third, and most importantly; she was moving. She had been slung over someone's shoulders and was being carried somewhere, though by who was a mystery. She knew it was a male by the sound of his panting, but that was it. Forcing her eyes open and adjusting to the light, Luz saw that she was being carried through a desert; one that was very similar to Palm Stings over in the Titan's Left Palm. However there were a few notable differences; not only was it hotter, but the sand was coarser and a darker yellow, and there was no sign of life anywhere. There were rock formations scattered about, but little else that Luz could see. She assumed this was the desert of the Titan's Right Palm; they'd been flying over it before they were attacked, so it made sense they'd crash-landed there.

Looking down, Luz paled as she saw the back of the person who was carrying her; the white-cloaked back of the Golden Guard. Gasping, Luz suddenly summoned her wings and flapped them hard, making the Golden Guard yelp as she began thrashing in his grip.

"Hey! Wait! Stop that!" he yelled, trying to keep his hold around her waist and legs.

"Stranger danger!" Luz yelled in return, before shooting a weak spark of flame at the Golden Guard's rear. The spark ignited his cloak and he yelped, letting Luz go so he could pull his cloak off and stamp on it to put out the flames. While he was distracted, Luz immediately took to the skies and began to fly higher and higher, quickly getting out of range of the boy's staff. He'd have to fly to catch her, and without his sister, he couldn't hope to match her!

"Stop! Luz, don't fly! Come back down!" the Golden Guard yelled urgently, shooting a few weak spell sat her. They were tether spells meant to grab and yank her back down, but Luz was too far above him.

"Not a chance, Golden Goof!" Luz yelled back, before beginning to look around at the desert from her high vantage point. She'd been unconscious for the rest of the night, but based on the position of the sun, it was still early morning. Eda and the others would undoubtedly be worried, but Luz needed to focus on finding King, Gus, and the Palismen! From up high, Luz could see they were closer to the west side of the desert, as the Titan's fingers were curling up into the sky just a short distance to the west, and the Titan's Skull could be seen far off to the east. Aside from numerous large spikes of red rock stabbing out of the desert, the only other noticeable landmark was a colossal volcano in the direct middle of the desert. It was odd looking; it looked less like a natural mountain and more like a gigantic pile of razor sharp obsidian, charred black rocks, and the desert's red rock, all glued together with veins of burning lava. A plume of smoke was drifting up from the volcano's caldera, showing it was active, but from what Luz could tell, there wasn't enough to show signs of an eruption.

At the foot of the volcano was the source of a second plume of smoke, even smaller than the last. Luz peered at it and noted that it was the smouldering wreckage of the Golden Guard's airship. It looked like it had been sheared in half by some kind of giant, red-hot blade!

As Luz stared at it, an alarm bell began ringing in her head; she remembered something about the Right Palm and the desert within… something she'd been told in passing. She was sure it was a warning, but a warning of what? She couldn't quite remember! All that was left was a mental note inside her head, something she had committed to memory; do not go to the Right Palm!

Luz racked her brain to try and remember why, but soon found her answer as the Golden Guard screamed up at her.

"GET OUT OF THE SKY!"

Startled, Luz looked down at him, then felt the heat intensify. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to the north, and immediately went ghostly white as she saw the reason for the warning.

The Goliath Ash Moth.

It was a monstrously big creature; larger than Luz had ever seen. It looked like it could use the nearby volcano as a sleeping bag (and from what she remembered Rasiel telling her, it likely had) and could like destroy all of Bonesborough simply by lying down and rolling over! The Ash Moth's body actually somewhat resembled a giant white-furred Fox Kit, only with six legs that each ended in red chitinous nubs. It's head was also very fox-like, but its eyes were red compound eyes like a Moth's, and it's whiskers doubled as six large proboscises. It had a canine-like snout, but its nose was actually a red chitinous horn that looked vaguely like a Fox Kit's nose, and it didn't actually have an opening mouth, instead making noise and breathing through what appeared to be the fox's ears. Lastly, it had several silk moth-like features; two giant silk moth-like feelers on its head, a tail that was more like the abdomen of a silk moth merged with the tail of a fox, and monstrously large white moth wings on its back, each one of which was large enough to wrap the rest of the Bug Demon up. The wings had red veins of magma flowing through them, and Luz recognised the pattern as what had blotted out the moon and stars right before they'd been attacked.

"So this is what attacked us!" Luz gasped. Honestly, it wasn't what she'd expected from the Goliath Ash Moth… if the beast was a more reasonable size, Luz would have thought it was adorable and tried to keep one as a pet!

Unfortunately, it was now flying at her with incredible speed, and its proboscis whiskers began to glow red as they were filled with fiery energy. The Ash Moth released a fox-like snarl as it whipped its whiskers at her, sending waves of intense flame at Luz. She yelped and conjured as much water as she could to douse the flames. It worked, but the Ash Moth then raised a colossal paw and brought it down on top of Luz. She created a crystal barrier to defend herself, but it was nearly shattered by just one blow. Still, this was enough for Luz to create a bright flash with her light magic, blinding the moth and allowing her to slip out of the barrier and fly to the back of it's head.

"Eat this!" she cried, combining ice and light to create her Aurora Beam spell. The beam struck the Ash Moth, but the giant Bug Demon was too hot and the ice melted immediately, and only succeeded in angering it further. It flicked its tail up to swat her out of the sky, but Luz just barely dodged, feeling its scalding hot fur whip through the air inches from her face. Even a near miss was enough to burn Luz's skin slightly, forcing her to heal herself before then gathering as much light magic as she could. She wasn't going to bother with fire or plants against a monster like this, and she doubted wind could do more than fan the flames, so after ice proved ineffective, all Luz had left was her signature light magic!

She blasted a monstrously huge beam of light directly at the beast's face as it turned around to see her better. The beam would have been large enough to take out a good chunk of Bonesborough, but it did absolutely nothing to the Ash Moth but mildly singe some of its fur. Luz gaped at the lack of damage, then began to chuckle nervously as the Ash Moth slowly got closer.

"Eheheh, nice Ash Moth…?" she said.

The Ash Moth replied with another roar (which rumbled out from its ears, since it had no mouth), and whipped its flaming whiskers at her. Luz cried out as she threw up another crystal barrier, but the forceful lashes cracked the barrier and sent her careening to the ground. The Ash Moth followed her, and stomped on her with one of its paws, shattering what was left of Luz's barrier and leaving her in a crater in the sand. Luz tried to fight back with another Aurora Beam, and even a Disintegration Beam, but neither had any real effect besides damaging the beast's fur and angering it.

It reared its paws up to crush her, and Luz clenched her eyes tight and waited for the pain to come. She had nothing that could hurt the beast, and her defences couldn't stand up to it either! She was completely helpless! Thankfully, no pain came; instead Luz heard a strange buzzing sound for a moment before her entire body tingled as she suddenly felt weightless.

When the feeling passed, she opened her eyes and found herself a short distance away from the Ash Moth, being held by the Golden Guard. He had used his red lightning flash to grab her and get her to safety before she could be crushed.

"T-Thank you." she said softly, staring at him in surprise.

"You're welcome. Now we need to get out of her before-"

Whatever he was about to say died in his throat as six tendrils of flame suddenly whipped towards him, as the Ash Moth attacked with its whiskers. Luz threw up a double layered crystal barrier to protect them from the first three, but the fourth lash destroyed her barrier. The Golden Guard raised his staff to put up a barrier of his own, but it was weaker than Luz's and the fifth lash shattered it and snapped his staff in half with ease. The shock of his staff's destruction left the Golden Guard gaping at the singed wood, and the sixth and final lash went straight at his head. Luz was still on the ground, so she grabbed his ankle and pulled it hard to make him fall, causing him to drop out of the way and avoid getting his head taken off by the tendril of flame. However the tendril did still glance off his helmet, and the heat was enough that he screamed and ripped the metal helmet off before he could be burned by it.

This gave Luz her first look at the unmasked Golden Guard, or at least his hair, which was a somewhat messy ash-blond with shaved back and sides, and a long forelock that hung over his forehead. The Guard was covering his face after his mask had burned him, so Luz couldn't see more of it, but she didn't have time to think about that at the moment as the Ash Moth once again tried to stamp on them both. Luz rapidly threw up another crystal barrier, beginning to feel a drain on her magic and took the first smack without shattering. Before a second could be used, Luz used the plant glyph to summon a giant flower from beneath the barrier to swallow them up and drag them below the sand.

Inside the barrier and plant, and deep below the surface of the desert sand, Luz and the Golden Guard were plunged into complete darkness. They were silent for a moment, listening only to the rumbles and roars of the Ash Moth stomping around on the surface looking for its prey. After a few minutes, they heard the beast's stomps stop and the sound of its roars grew quieter as it left. Once the roars were gone too, Luz could hear nothing but her own terrified panting, as well as that of the Golden Guard, who was also hissing and wincing slightly.

Luz cast a light spell to illuminate the darkness, and saw the Golden Guard's face, which had red, inflamed patches from his burns.

"You're hurt!" she cried.

"What was your first clue?" he retorted, wincing again.

Luz rolled her eyes; "Okay I'll admit that was probably a stupidly obvious thing to say." she then conjured her Crystal Lotus; "Let me heal you; it's the least I can do to thank you for saving my life."

"You saved mine straight after. You don't owe me anything." he said, eyeing her spell warily.

"Quit being stubborn! I'm trying to help you!" Luz snapped.

"And why should I believe you!?" he snapped right back.

Luz growled; "Because I let you and your sister go back at the Simmering Shoals! And I just saved you from losing your head to the Ash Moth! And let's not forget that my barrier is what's keeping you alive right now! If I wanted, I could dismiss it and use my plants to burrow out of her and leave you buried alive!"

The Golden Guard flinched back, making Luz sigh and take a calming breath; "But I wouldn't do that. You're a royal pain in the butt, but I don't hate you like I hate Belos. So let me heal you already!"

There was a moment of silence, before the Guard sighed; "Fine. This actually hurts quite a lot anyway…"

Luz beamed; "Attaboy! Now hold still…"

She applied her healing spell to the boy's face, healing the burns easily. The boy sighed with relief, and once he was okay, Luz had the plant they were in burrow back to the surface. It spat them out right where it had swallowed them and Luz dropped the barrier, freeing them both. She looked around for signs of the Ash Moth, but it had flown far away, so they were safe for now.

Luz then turned around to see the Golden Guard picking up the remains of his staff; it had been reduced to burnt cinders, and the crystal was shattered beyond repair.

"Dang it… my ship is totalled too! How am I going to find her and get home now?" he muttered.

"Was that staff important to you?" Luz asked.

The boy turned around and Luz finally got her first full look of his face, without obstructions like his hands or burns. He appeared to be a normal witchling, probably a few months older than the Hexsquad, being closer in age to the Magic Mixers. In the daylight, his red eyes looked closer to dark magenta, though the bags beneath them were just as bad. The boy also had a somewhat hooked nose, dark eyebrows, and a strong jaw, with a nasty scar on his right cheek. His left ear also had a sizeable knick in it, and between that and the other scar and obvious tiredness, Luz found herself actually pitying the boy.

The Golden Guard sighed, revealing he had a gap tooth; "No, it was just a tool. I can get another one at the castle easily enough. It's just that I'm in dangerous surroundings with a potential enemy and now I can't defend myself." he growled. He might not have been so cavalier with that information if it weren't for the fact Luz was a nice (if severely misled) person, but as it stood, he'd be relying on her to find his sister and escape.

Luz blinked at him, her eyes slowly widening; "Wait… what do you mean you can't defend yourself? Can't you just cast spells without it?"

The boy looked away with a faint look of shame. Luz gasped; "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked that. I'm guessing its personal?"

He nodded; "It is."

Deciding not to push him, Luz began walking in the direction of the volcano, causing the Golden Guard to follow. "Where are you going exactly?"

"To the crashed airship. It and the volcano are the only obvious landmarks around here, so if the others are okay, I bet they'll head there too!" Luz replied. "I'm guessing flying will just attract that thing again."

"It will. The Goliath Ash Moth Desert is impassable by air during daylight hours. We should have been safe at night, but our battle drew its attention like… well, like a moth to the flame." he answered.

Luz frowned; "No wonder it attacked me so fast! I guess it won't notice us as easily if we're on the ground."

"That's why I told you not to fly off." the Golden Guard said, crossing his arms.

"Well excuse me for not believing the guy who wants to hand me over to the Corrupted Angel who tortured me!" Luz shot back.

"The Emperor is not the Corrupted Angel here! He follows the Will of the Titan, while you were led astray from it by the Owl Lady!"

"Yeah, because I'm the one with mouldy wings." she said sarcastically as she flapped her six angelic wings.

The Golden Guard growled as he quickened his pace to keep up with her; "The Emperor's wings are like that because of the curse of Wild Magic!"

Luz scowled; "That's a load of crud! I use "Wild Magic" and I'm fine!"

"For now! But before long, you'll be needing to devour Palismen too! If you care about them so much, you should accept your place in life and join the Emperor's Coven! If you just agree, I can help you! You won't need to do penance like last time!" The Golden Guard cried, grabbing Luz's shoulder to make her look at him; "Please Luz! Think about it! We want to bring order to the Isles! Isn't that what an Angel like you should want too?"

The young Arch-Angel just shook her head; "If I had to choose between feeding on innocent Palismen and dying, I'd choose to die." she said seriously; "Besides, I'm not interested in forcing other people to think the way I do! The whole reason I'm helping the CATTs is because they want to be free to choose how they live their lives and I want to help them. We're all just living how we choose. Belos wants to take that choice away from us, and that's why we fight!"

The Golden Guard looked at her with shock; how could an Angel truly look at the chaos of the Demon Realm and not have a problem with it!? In truth, he himself had always felt oddly at ease with that chaos (and had more than a passing interest in Wild Magic), but that was wrong! He worked very hard to suppress that part of himself and live up to his Uncle's expectations! The Emperor was a Grand Seraphim! He knew better than a magicless witch and a rebellious Arch-Angel!

"You just think that because the Owl Lady brainwashed you." he muttered bitterly.

"And you just think the way you do because Belos brainwashed you." Luz retorted, before sighing; "Look, we should just stop arguing. I doubt either of us are gonna change our minds, so all we're doing is getting ourselves worked up. With that in mind…"

Luz conjured an ice glyph and used it to craft a cup made of ice, which she filled with cold water and handed to the Golden Guard; "Truce?"

The boy stared at the offered drink, suddenly feeling that his mouth was bone dry and the sun's heat was beating down on him. He cautiously accepted the drink; "… Alright. Truce, until we found our companions and get out of this desert."

He then gulped the drink down in a few quick mouthfuls, which he regretted immediately as his thirst was not quenched. He began to lick the dripping ice of the cup, making Luz giggle and conjure more water for him. He gulped this down just as quickly, then shyly held out the cup for a third helping. Luz obliged with a smile, then said;

"I'll keep making water for you as we walk. But I want to ask a few questions in return."

The Golden Guard nodded; "Very well. No classified information though; I won't betray the Emperor."

"Got it. I mostly just wanna know what happened while I was out, and how you found out about the Palismen in the first place." Luz said.

"Really? You can't think of how we might have found out about the Palisman Adoption Day?" he smirked with a raised eyebrow; "You handed out dozens of Palismen to the teenagers of Bonesborough, a place were Emperor's Coven members still live. Between them showing off around town and posting on Penstagram, we got reports within minutes."

Luz almost face-palmed; of course that's how they'd get exposed! She should have thought of that!

The Golden Guard was amused by her annoyed expression as he continued; "My partner and I were watching you and your friends on the Hexside Grudgby Field until you left with the Bat Queen and the Palismen. We planned to ambush you faster, but that kid's unusual flying made us think you were sending secret signals to hidden bodyguards or something, so we were cautious."

Luz giggled at that; so Gus' flying issues had paid off! Maybe that would make him feel better about his difficulties when she told him. "What about what happened after we got attacked? The last thing I remember was being swatted out of the sky and losing consciousness."

"I don't know much more than that. Your barriers saved our lives, and the vines cushioned our impact when we hit the desert, but I passed out too. I woke up just before sunrise; my body is pretty accustomed to that, and found myself on a bed of vines. I saw you tangled up in some more vines nearby, so I picked you up. I would have restrained you, but I thought I might need your help if the Ash Moth attacked. Turned out to be the right move." he answered. He then smirked and added; "Then again, if I had tied you up, you wouldn't have flown off and the Ash Moth wouldn't have seen us."

Luz stuck her tongue out at him, then snarked; "More likely you'd have done something dumb and the Ash Moth would have eaten you, then eaten me while I couldn't escape!"

The two teenagers bickered more as they continued through the desert. The heat, combined with the cloying nature of the sand beneath their feet, meant their pace was gruellingly slow, and both were soon relying on Luz's ice magic just to stay conscious and hydrated. Neither had ever been so hot, and sadly their clothing was not helping! Luz was still in her school uniform (though she'd taken off the mantle and cowl) while the Golden Guard was still in his uniform, minus the mask and cloak, which he'd abandoned a while ago.

"This is so much worse than the Palm Stings desert! At least there the sand wasn't coarse and their were oases to rest at!" Luz complained, feeling her shirt sticking to her back with sweat.

"This is nothing! My training as a scout was far more gruelling than this!" the Golden Guard retorted, though he looked to be in worse condition than Luz thanks to his heavier clothing.

Luz rolled her eyes at his bravado, but inwardly she was worried; the boy might actually pass out at this rate!

"Come here a second, GG." she ordered, grabbing the back of his collar.

"GG!?" he exclaimed in surprise.

"Yeah, calling you Golden Guard all the time is getting annoying, and calling you Golden Goof will just start another argument. Now hold still!" she ordered as she used tiny light beams to carve an ice glyph into GG's chest armour.

The boy narrowed his eyes on her and asked suspiciously; "What does the second G stand for? Guard or Goof?"

Luz answered only with a grin, then slapped the completed glyph. GG immediately sighed with relief as the ice glyph began to glow and cool him down, letting him survive the heat without too much discomfort.

"Okay, this is amazing. I shouldn't praise Wild Magic, but that heat was unbearable!" he sighed, smiling at the blissful cold.

"What happened to "this is nothing!" eh?" Luz giggled, making the boy blush. "Now wait a second while I change into something more comfortable."

GG watched her snap her fingers and summon her satchel, then immediately went red in the face and turned away as he registered her words; "L-Luz! Changing in public, especially in front of a man, is highly inappropriate for both an Angel and a young woman! Have more respect for yourself!"

"I'm not taking my clothes off, Dummy!" Luz snapped, blushing at the very idea; "I'm getting my cloak!"

The boy turned around in confusion and saw Luz pull out her Witch's Wool Cloak and drape it over her shoulders before stowing away her uniform's cowl and mantle. Once she'd banished the satchel, Luz allowed her angelic magic to flow through the cloak and her uniform, transforming it into her Holy Raiment, which exposed a lot more skin and was a lot more light and breezy, on top of being white, so it reflected the light and heat better.

"Oh, I see now! Fascinating…! So this is your Holy Raiment!" GG said, peering closely at it. He raised his hand to touch it, and Luz was ready to swat it away, but he caught himself first and instead covered his mouth and coughed awkwardly; "Sorry about that."

Luz waved him off; "It's okay. You know, you're kind of weird GG. When we're not fighting, I get a totally different vibe from you."

"I'm perfectly normal for a member of the Emperor's Coven! You're the weird one!" GG huffed indignantly, making the girl giggle in response.

"We're both weirdos!" she grinned, "And we weirdos need to stick together. Like it or not, you made a truce with me and that means that until we find King, Gus, BQ, the Palismen, and Silver, you and I are allies! So…" she held out her hand; "I'm Luz Noceda-Clawthorne, Arch-Angel of the Boiling Isles; nice to meet you."

The Golden Guard stared at her for a moment, then took her hand and shook it; "Golden Guard, Right Hand of Emperor Belos and Head Witch of his Coven."

"No name?" Luz pouted.

The boy shook his head in response and turned to continue walking towards the volcano and the wreckage of his ship. Luz blew a raspberry at him and followed on behind, muttering "Spoilsport."

They continued to walk in mostly silence, interrupted only by the occasional distant roar of the Ash Moth, which had them both on guard, or Luz's attempts to make conversation with GG, who gave short answers when he bothered to answer her at all. Luz didn't know why she kept trying, but something about the awkward older boy made her want to understand him; he didn't seem like a bad person, he'd just been raised to follow a tyrant unquestioningly. It made Luz feel a little sorry for him, though she was still wary of him; GG had been willing to kill the Selkidomus and would try to steal the Palismen despite knowing their fate, meaning Luz couldn't completely trust him no matter what happened.

After a few minutes of walking and one-sided conversation, the Golden Guard finally perked up and jogged on ahead, causing Luz to run after him.

"Aha!" the boy cried triumphantly as he stooped over something in the sand.

"What did you find?" Luz asked, rushing up to see.

It was the Golden Guard's helmet; still broken from Luz's spell and now slightly deformed by the heat of the Ash Moth's attack. Luz frowned at the state of it; "Huh, I guess it flew pretty far once you threw it off. I bet the Ash Moth's wing flaps blew it away when it took off. It's definitely seen better days though." she commented.

GG shrugged; "It can be repaired. Besides, I'm kind of attached to it; I have other masks, but this is my only full helmet version!" he said, picking it up. However as he picked it up, he heard a strange noise from the inside… it was a tweeting sound.

"Huh? What is that?" Luz frowned, hearing it too. Both she and the Golden Guard looked closer at the helmet, and just as they were about to peep through the broken eye hole, the source of the tweeting popped out. It was a little Red Cardinal Palisman with a black coloured face and a scarred left eye.

"Oh! You little rascal!" Luz cooed, scooping him up; "Did you get separated from the others in the crash?"

The Palisman, Flapjack, shook his head and tweeted again. "Did you purposely leave them to get help?" Luz asked.

This time Flapjack nodded, then fluttered over to the Golden Guard, who stared at him covetously. Flapjack landed in his hand, and the boy immediately held him tightly.

"A Palisman! I've got one!" he grinned, his grip getting tighter. Flapjack let out a pained tweet and Luz immediately created a light sword and pointed it at the boy's neck.

"Let him go, Golden Guard!" she demanded.

With a gasp of shock at his own actions, GG let Flapjack go. "I-I'm sorry. I just… I'm worried about my Uncle."

Flapjack landed on Luz's shoulder as she stared at him, aghast; "Wait, what!? Are you saying Belos is your uncle!? Does that make you an Angel too!?"

"No! I… I'm related to him by blood, but I'm not an angel myself. I don't know the full details; Uncle always said it was too painful to talk about… but forget that, we need to get moving. This Palisman can lead us to the other Palismen, right? Then let's go!"

The boy began to march away, and Flapjack flew ahead of him to guide him, strangely unconcerned by the potential threat that the Golden Guard posed. Luz kept her eyes on both of them as she followed, beginning to wonder more and more about the mysterious Golden Guard.

[Meanwhile]

Gus awoke with a groan, finding himself tangled up in a mess of heat-withered vines hanging on a small formation of red rocks. He looked around groggily, and upon seeing he wasn't too far off the ground, he began to slowly untangle himself, eventually getting free from the vines and using them to climb down to the desert sands. It was incredibly hot, and Gus was lucky enough to be on the shady side of the rocks, so he didn't even want to think about what it'd be like out in the sun.

"Man, I've really got to see if I can find some lucky charms or something for Luz. Her bad luck is getting ridiculous!" Gus muttered to himself. He used some water magic to conjure himself a cool drink to relieve his parched throat, then decided that if he was going to brave the heat, he'd have to prepare himself.

He took off the mantle, cowl, and shirt of his school uniform, leaving him bare from the waist up, then used his steadily growing skill with water magic to conjured cold water that he coated his torso with, before casting a simple illusion to make it look like he was still full dressed. "There! Now I can stay cool AND look my best." he grinned. Gus then stooped to pick up his discarded clothes, when he noticed a lump under his cowl.

Carefully, Gus moved the cowl aside and sighed with relief as he saw the lump beneath was actually his new Palisman. The little blue chameleon looked to be uninjured, and was happily snoozing, completely unconcerned by the heat.

"Emmie! Thank Titan you're okay!" Gus grinned, scooping her up; "I was just about to try summoning you!"

Emmiline stirred awake, and upon seeing her new partner up and uninjured, she began to chirp excitedly, then jumped onto his shoulder. Gus nuzzled her, finding her scales to be as smooth as always, and also surprisingly cool. In fact, a faint misty vapour was wafting off of Emmiline, which reminded Gus of the mist that came off ice. His Palisman must have been using some of her magic to keep him cool.

"A staff and a walking ice pack; you've got no end of talents, right buddy?" Gus said, smiling as he tickled her chin with his finger. She chirped happily at the gesture and compliment, and the ice magic she gave off grew a little stronger, as if she was trying to show off.

Gus smiled; "Right! Since we're safe and sound, we should start looking for the others! This is the Goliath Ash Moth Desert, so flying into the air here would be dumb, so let's climb this rock formation instead; that should give us a good vantage point!"

Emmiline chirped in agreement, and Gus began to use the dried up vines to help him climb the rock formation. When he reached the end of the vines, Emmiline used her chameleon climbing skills to clamber up the side of the rock, occasionally stopping to create little ice hand and foot holds for Gus to grab as he climbed. It didn't take long for them to reach the top, which was just high enough to give them a decent view of their surroundings.

Gus saw the volcano to the north west, and knowing that was the Ash Moth's den and the centre of the desert, he deduced he was somewhere in the south east end of the desert, which meant the wrist wasn't far. However he didn't even consider escaping; he needed to find the others first! He then looked further west and gulped as he saw the Ash Moth… even from so far away, it looked huge and was currently stomping on something, its roars echoing through the desert.

"Man, I really hope that isn't Luz… Does she know enough about Ash Moths to know that flying in their territory is dangerous in broad daylight?" he muttered to himself. He hoped so, but he certainly hadn't told her and he didn't remember her talking about it after any of her beast-keeping classes… Now he had a bad feeling.

"Assuming that isn't Luz over there being turned from 3D to 2D, I'd wager she'd be in the most unlucky place to land." Gus said, getting a chirp of agreement from Emmie. "That means either somewhere in the far west, far from the exit…"

The stomping of the Ash Moth over in the west made him gulp again, "… or she's somewhere at the volcano. Hopefully not taking a lava bath… I wonder if her barriers can survive lava? She dove into the Boiling Sea when she got the ice glyph, so it's possible… maybe… But then there's also King, BQ, and the Palismen to consider."

Emmiline chirped and pointed her tail towards the volcano and the crashed airship at its base. "You want us to go there?" Gus asked.

The Palisman nodded and chirped again, and Gus heard the voice of a little girl in his head; "Yes please."

Gus blinked; "Was that you, Emmie?"

Again, Emmie nodded; "It's me. Palismen can talk to their partners in this minds."

"Oh, wow! That's helpful! Your voice suits you by the way, even if you are actually hundreds of years old." he grinned.

Emmie huffed; "Palismen don't age, so I always sound like this! But don't treat me like a child! I'm still a refined lady! Emmiline Bailey Marcostimo!"

"You got it, Lady Emmie." Gus said, putting Emmie in his hand and bowing dramatically. Emmie chirped happily at the gesture and Gus heard her laughter in his mind, making him smile more. However Gus's bow and the slightly uneven footing on top of the rock formation made him loose his balance and topple forward with a yelp. Emmie saved him by turning into staff form and flying under him.

"Oof! Thanks Emmie! Note to self, save the showmanship for later!" Gus sighed with relief. As he pulled himself up onto Emmie's staff properly so they could quickly descend, he noticed something a little further to the east; another mass of vines. Since Luz had used her plants to cushion all of their falls, that had to be the landing sight of another person! With any luck, Gus would find one of his friends, or at the very least be able to find and follow their tracks in the sand!

Gus had Emmie carefully lower them both to the ground, then said; "Slight detour, Lady Emmie! Looks like we've got another crash site over there!"

Emmie chirped in acknowledgement and Gus began hurrying over to the mass of vines. The moment he stepped out of the shade and into the sun, he almost hissed like a cat getting into water; the desert was no joke! Still, he persevered and rushed to the spot he'd seen all the vines. When he got there, he found himself both elated and disappointed; the former because he had found another person, and the latter because it wasn't one he'd hoped to find.

The Silver Sentinel lay there, curled up amidst the vines that cradled her and had cushioned her fall. She appeared to be okay, and while Gus couldn't see her face, the slow rise and fall of her chest was enough to convince him she was fine. He slowly approached her and began reaching for her masked face; he was sorely tempted to remove the helmet and finally reveal her face, but decided to instead lightly tap the side of it, nudging the girl awake. The Silver Sentinel went rigid as she regained consciousness and looked up at Gus leaning over her.

"Welcome back to the land of the liv-oof!"

Gus was interrupted by the Silver Sentinel suddenly pulling her legs up to her chest then booting him away from her, sending him rolling down the sand dune beside where she'd landed. Thankfully his disguised water shirt had absorbed some of the impact so he wasn't too hurt, but he suspected he'd have a bruise later. As he picked himself up, the Silver Sentinel leapt to her feet and began digging through the vines to find her staff. She'd just found it when Gus reached for her again, and when she spun to point it at him, she found Gus's new staff already pointed in her face.

"Okay, I'm sorry if I scared you by waking you up like that, but did you need to kick me like that?" Gus frowned; "Kind of a jerk move, you know!"

The Silver Sentinel stared at the staff in her face, then promptly merged into her shadow to disappear. Gus was no fool though and immediately turned around as she popped out of his shadow, finding his staff once again in her face.

"Never try to misdirect a master of misdirection!" Gus grinned at her, "Now if you don't point your staff at me, I won't point mine at you, okay?"

The Sentinel just stared silently, her posture looking a lot less confident than it had been during their brief encounter the previous night. Slowly, she lowered her staff and held it in both hands in front of her. Gus kept his end of the deal by turning his staff back into Emmiline, who sat on his head.

"Great! Now that we're not fighting, let's talk a little." Gus suggested.

The girl created an illusion of signing hands to try and communicate, but Gus couldn't understand sign language; "Sorry, but I can't understand you. I apologise if this is rude, but are you actually unable to speak? Or do you just not wanna talk?"

The words "I cannot speak." appeared as floating text beside the Sentinel's head.

"Ah, got it. That's unfortunate." Gus frowned. "Maybe you should take off that helmet and cloak so I can see your face? You can mouth what you want to say so you're not wasting your staff's magic, especially since we're probably gonna need it."

He remembered what Luz had told him and their friends about the fight at the Simmering Shoals, and how the girl had relied on her staff for some reason.

The girl shook her head frantically; "I don't want to."

Well, that made things a little more complicated. Still, Gus wasn't going to be pushy (especially since he wasn't convinced he could win if the two came to blows). The Silver Sentinel also appeared very nervous; she was fidgeting and constantly looking around as if looking for something. Gus assumed she was looking for signs of her partner.

"I guess I'll try to keep this to yes or no questions then, to save your magic." Gus said, "First of, can you use magic without that staff?"

The girl reluctantly shook her head, confirming Gus's suspicion. "Not good… Shame I can't give bits of my magic away like Luz can. But whatever. We're not far from the Wrist, but I'm not leaving without my friends. I'm guessing you won't leave without your bro?"

This time the girl nodded, her posture becoming a bit more determined. Gus smiled at her.

"Great! Then let's look for them together. I was gonna head to the volcano and your wrecked airship; I'm 99% sure Luz will show up there if she isn't already there, and my Palisman wants to check it out."

He received a nod in response, and the Sentinel conjured more words; "I agree. In the event that the Golden Guard and I are separated on a mission, we are to reconvene at our airship, no matter what state it's in."

"Great! Then let's go! But first…" he eyed the girl's cape; "You really should take that off. It looks heavy and hot. Keep the mask if you feel better with it on, but at least lose the cloak."

The girl stared at him for a moment, then reached up and pulled back her hood and fumbled with the cloak clasp, removing it and dropping the cloak onto the bed of vines she'd landed on. Once she was done, she nodded to the shorter teenager and gestured for him to lead on while she followed. Gus knew that could potentially be a trap; he didn't trust the girl enough to let her stay at his back, so he instead gestured for her to walk beside him.

"Until we find our friends, we're partners. We should walk next to each other, right?"

The girl didn't argue or even seem bothered by his request, making Gus think he'd misjudged her as she began to walk beside him and they both headed towards the volcano. It was a little awkward at first, since the Sentinel couldn't speak, but Gus soon got used to her silence and decided to instead pass the time by talking to Emmiline in his head, telling her about his adventure with Luz and Matt at the Looking Glass Ruins, and various other aspects of his life, while Emmiline in turn told him about her previous partner and the time in which Giraffes were still native to the Demon Realm. If the Sentinel was bothered by the silence, she didn't let it show… in fact, she didn't let much of anything show, which is why is startled Gus when she suddenly collapsed face first in the sand after about twenty minutes of walking.

"Whoa! Silver!" Gus cried hurrying to her side. He rolled over over and heard her laboured breathing, and without even needing to take off her helmet, he knew her face was plastered with sweat. Just touching her to roll her over was enough to expose why she'd collapsed; she was massively overheated!

"Dang it, you're burning up!" he exclaimed, "Why didn't you say anything!?"

He then face-palmed; of course she hadn't said anything, she was mute! Still, she could have warned him! The girl weakly gripped her staff and an illusory message appeared over her that read; "I'm very sorry."

"It's fine; I'll help. I'm better with water magic than ice, but I can do enough." Gus replied, using his limited ice magic to coat the girl's body in a thin-layer of frost to cool her down. "But seriously, you need to take off that helmet and armour!"

The girl weakly sat up and began unbuckling the silver breastplate and faulds she was wearing. After a moment, she shyly looked to him and a new message appeared beside her; "I can't get all the buckles by myself… my brother usually helps me."

"No worries, I'll help." Gus replied, moving behind her to begun undoing the buckles and clasps back there. It wasn't too difficult and the girl had soon shed all armour except for her helmet, and also removed a sturdy silver coloured vest, revealing a sweat-soaked white blouse underneath it. The material had turned partially see-through, revealing the girl's black sports bra beneath it, much to her embarrassment. However Gus paid it no mind, nor did he really acknowledge the caramel coloured skin revealed when the girl pulled up her sleeves. He did notice what appeared to be some kind of simple jewel on a string around her neck, one that he could sense illusion magic from.

"A Concealment Stone?" he thought.

The Silver Sentinel noticed him looking at the necklace and for a moment, she thought he was staring at her chest. But then he suddenly drew a cyan spell circle which cast a simple illusion over her, which made her shirt look clean and opaque, preserving her modesty.

"Thank you." she said with an illusory message.

Gus waved her off; "It's cool. Most of my friends are ladies, so I know enough to be a gentleman."

Emmie chirped approvingly on his shoulder, and the Silver Sentinel giggled, making the first audible sound Gus had heard from her. It was kind of cute and made him smile. "Well Silver, if you feel up to it, we should keep going. Oh, I can probably get you a drink too; I'll turn around if you don't want me to see you drink it."

The girl tilted her head; and the word; "Silver?" appeared in front of her.

"Yep! I don't know your name, so I'll just call you Silver." Gus replied.

"Why are you being so kind? Aren't we enemies? We're aiming to capture those stray Palismen." she reminded him.

Gus frowned; "And I am really not okay with that. But we're in a seriously dangerous situation right now; we should have each other's backs until we find our friends and get out of here. In the meantime, being nice doesn't cost me anything and pleasant company will make the desert more bearable."

He finished his statement by offering the girl his hand, which she nervously accepted, allowing Gus to pull her to her feet. She was taller than him by about half a head, making her a similar height to Willow and slightly shorter than Amity and Luz. Once she was stood up, she gave him a new message; "Thank you. You may call me Silver. Might I know your name?"

"Oh right! I never introduced myself! I am Augustus Porter, Master Illusionist Extraordinaire!"

Gus gave a showman's bow while drawing a spell circle to make a stage appear around him, a banner with his name to hang above him, and create the sound of a cheering audience as illusory roses were thrown at his feet. Silver gasped and clapped, and when Gus rose from his bow, he winked and added; "But you can call me Gus."

Silver went still for a moment and just stared at him, though she had started fidgeting nervously again. After a moment, she created a new message; "Nice to meet you, Gus. I know we may become enemies again later, but for now, I'd like us to be friends. Is that okay?"

Gus beamed; "Sure! For today at least, we're pals!"

He lightly slapped Silver on the back, making her swoon a little as her legs felt wobbly from dehydration. She then gave another message; "If its no trouble, I'd like that drink."

Gus nodded and used some ice and water magic to craft an ice glass full of cool liquid. Silver accepted it, her message changing to the word "Thanks!" before she used her staff to conjure what appeared to be a crazy straw, like the kind Luz had shown him once. Gus could barely stop himself from cracking up as she put the straw into the drink and then the eye slot of her mask, working it down to her mouth.

"You know, when Luz disguised herself as you for the Blight Ball, we just enchanted her helmet so stuff passed through it." Gus said with a smirk after watching her finish the drink.

She thrust the empty ice glass at him and wiggled it, silently asking for more, and Gus obliged her, certain she was pouting behind her mask.

Once Silver had drunk enough to feel energised again, the two finally continued their trek towards the crashed airship, with Gus practicing his ice and water magic as they walked, creating a cooling mist that made the desert far more bearable. The walk was fairly uneventful, with the exception of a brief moment in which Gus had rendered them both invisible as the Goliath Ash Moth briefly flew overhead, before becoming distracted by something to the north and flying towards it. They both hoped that their friends hadn't drawn its attention…

After about half an hour of walking, talking (for Gus at least), and keeping their guards up in case of an attack, they reached a sand dune. They climbed it easily enough, Gus pretending to be a human climbing Mt. Everest much to Silver's amusement, but once they reached the top, Gus began to slide down the other side without first looking where he was going.

This proved to be a massive mistake, as the dune wasn't a dune at all… it was the rise surrounding a deep crater in the desert, at the bottom of which was a mass of fluffy white creatures. They were each as big and as long as a Grudgby Pitch and looked like fat, worm-like creatures covered in white fur, with dozens of stubby red chitin nubs acting as legs, and what looked like a vaguely puppy-like face for a head. They were cuddling with each other, seemingly asleep, and Gus very nearly slid right down into their midst. He was about to scream when he was saved by Silver, who suddenly burst out of his shadow and grabbed him, before diving back into his shadow with him.

Gus found himself in a pitch black, icy cold void for a few seconds with no sound but his own terrified breathing, and then he was suddenly thrust back into the desert, emerging alongside Silver from the shadow of a boot that she had hastily ditched when rushing to save him.

"Phew! That was too close! I should have looked where I was going!" Gus panted, his heart beating wildly; "Thanks for the save, Silver!"

The girl gave him a thumbs up in response, then peered over the edge of the crater to look at the creatures below. She then conjured a message; "Ash Moth Larvae."

Gus gulped; if he'd disturbed them, he likely would have been eaten and if by some miracle he'd escaped, the Larvae would have made such a fuss that their mother would come running.

"There are probably clutches of eggs and larvae all over the desert." he said shakily, petting Emmiline to calm himself; "That could have been really bad. Seriously Silver, thank you."

Silver fidgeted again, and simply gave him a thumbs up in response. Gus wasn't certain, but he had the feeling that the girl was nervous and didn't really know how to interact with other people, especially her own age. While hanging out with Matt, Gus had heard stories from Steve about life in the Emperor's Coven, where competition and backstabbing were imperative for advancement and survival… He couldn't imagine what it must have been like for Silver, who was probably not much older than him, to rise up to the third highest position in the Empire in that kind of environment. No wonder she was so nervous!

Since they were friends for the time being, Gus made a decision; he was going to help Silver learn a little about having fun like a real teenager (Gus technically wasn't a teenager yet himself, but he hung out almost exclusively with teenagers, so he was confident)!

"Well since we've now got to walk around this big crater and we've still got a ways to go, how about I thank you by telling you all about some awesome stuff to do around Bonesborough!" Gus grinned.

Silver replied with another thumbs up, and the two continued their journey in high spirits.

[Meanwhile]

King was accustomed to being woken in certain ways… the scream of an alarm clock, Luz's smartphone or scroll bleeping, Luz herself nudging him awake or singing in the shower, Eda's own caterwauling in the shower, or Hooty's shrill voice… He'd gotten used to all of that.

The shrill cries and sobbing of a baby was not one of those ways!

The little Titan's eyes snapped open at the first keening wail, causing him to shoot up on instinct, ready to roar or brandish his glyphs as his body awakened before his mind did. It wasn't until the second wail that his brain caught up and he blinked slowly, looking around at his surroundings. He was currently in the shadow of a short rock formation, with a pile of vines out in the sun not far from him. There was sand in all directions too, so it didn't take him long to figure out that he and the others must have crashed in the desert they'd been flying over.

"Well this sucks! My fur is not a good match for sand or heat!" he complained.

A third wail finally drew his attention to the fact he wasn't alone, so King looked up and saw the source of the wailing sitting on a rock just above him.

It was one of the Bat Queen's babies, and the poor thing looked a little banged up, with a cut on one of its little legs, which was oozing green blood. King, who hadn't really seen BQ's kids since he had helped Eda babysit them months ago, immediately felt the protective urges he'd built up that day return, and he reached up and grabbed the baby.

"Prince!" he cried, remembering the nickname he'd given the little fellow. The other two had been Princess and Heiress, as both had responded better to female sounding nicknames at the time. Prince stopped his wailing, but didn't stop sniffling as King held the baby. It was somewhat awkward, as King was actually only a little bit bigger than him, but King didn't care.

"It's okay Prince, I'll heal you up!" King said. He reached into his collar and picked out a Healing Glyph Combo, then activated it and coated his paws in glowing blue magic. He then gently pressed it into Prince's wound, but while it seemed to soothe the little Palisman's pain, it didn't heal his cut.

"Rats! I guess healing Palismen is tougher than that… I guess Luz could only do it because she had Angel Magic." King pouted. With that plan a bust, King went for the next best thing and used a plant glyph to create a leaf that he stuck over the cut, stemming the bleeding. "Sorry Prince, it looks like this is the best I can do for now. Once I find Big Sis, she'll heal you up!"

Prince sniffled a bit more, then decided to fly up and roost on King's head, which he allowed. "Heh, with you I get to be the mature one! Now let's see here where we are exactly…"

King used the ice glyph to coat himself in frost, which turned his fur white, then stepped out into the sun. Even with the ice coating, the heat made him groan as he looked around. He noted the Titan's fingers to his right and the Titan's skull to his left, as well as the Goliath Ash Moth's Volcano Cocoon directly ahead of him, while the coast was to his back. With that information, he deduced he was somewhere in the northern reaches of the desert.

"Good thing I read about this place when researching the Fire Temple." he muttered to himself; "Now how to find Luz, Gus, and your Mom…? Actually, how did you end up with me in the first place, Prince?" King asked, stepping back into the shade.

Prince babbled a bit, but naturally King couldn't understand him. He remembered Luz protecting them all with barriers, with a second layer of vines to cushion their landings, but he'd been sure that Prince and his sisters had been inside the Palismen Nest. Had Prince flown out in search of someone after crashing, or had he somehow been knocked out of the stump during the bumpy landing? Considering the cut he'd suffered and the other little scrapes that covered him, King wagered it was the latter. Since he'd woken up in the shade and not on the vines he'd likely landed on too, King guessed Prince had found him and dragged him into the shade.

He asked Prince about both these ideas, and received nods to both questions, confirming his theories.

"Well, on the bright side, you being here means I'm not alone, and me being here means you're protected!" King smiled, before grimacing; "But on the other hand, we're alone in a desert with no idea where the others are or if they're even still alive…"

That made Prince whimper, and King felt tear drops hit the top of his skull. He was no good at handling crying, so he just pointed up at the baby; "Hey, turn off the waterworks! We're gonna find them and get out of here! I am the King of surviving stuff! And you're Prince, so you've got to be the second best at surviving stuff too, right!?"

Prince's whimpering stopped and he instead gave a determined sounding "Goo!", which King took for a yes.

"Great! Now let's go find Luz, she'll know what to do! Now knowing my sister, she either landed in the volcano, the Boiling Sea, or right in the Ash Moth's mouth…" King muttered to himself, peering out from the shade again. He could vaguely see tongues of flame flashing into the sky to the south-west, partially concealed by the volcano, so he accurately guessed the Ash Moth was over there.

"It looks like its fighting something. I should probably avoid that." King said, before a sense of dread and resignation filled him; "But then again, if I was a betting Titan, I'd wager that it was fighting Luz."

He sighed heavily; it looked like he would have to go and check for himself. However he had no intention of trudging through the desert! His stubby little legs would take hours to even get close enough to look from a distance, let alone actually reaching the site of the battle! Instead he decided to be clever and used ice glyphs to construct a large sled, which he then carved wind glyphs into the back off, before finishing off with some vines harvested from Luz's semi-withered vines (best not to waste paper glyphs after all) to act as reins.

"Alright! The King's Chariot awaits!" King declared, taking a seat on the sled, then reaching back and slapping one of the wind glyphs to create a powerful gale that began to blow him and the sled through the desert sands in the direction of the Ash Moth. Poor Prince was knocked off King's head by the sudden acceleration, but King thankfully caught him and put him on his lap, where he'd be safe.

Thanks to the sled and wind glyph, a trip that would have taken several hours on foot ended up taking only about twenty minutes, during which King kept Prince entertained by reading him a story. Naturally King didn't have any books with him, but he'd spent enough time listening to Amity reading stories to the babies at the library when he tagged along with Luz for a visit that he had most of the simple stories memorised. Prince seemed to enjoy listening to the story of Otabin, and King enjoyed being the older one for a change, actually having quite a lot of fun taking care of the little fella. Sadly, things didn't stay smooth sailing for very long.

King and Prince had just moved far enough west to keep the volcano from blocking their view of the Ash Moth, and now they could see the creature pounding on the ground with its forepaws, its wings flapping hard enough to whip up a sandstorm as it roared its displeasure. King and Prince were still far enough that they weren't in danger of being caught up in its wrath, and despite how terrifying the furious demon was, King took comfort in its rampage. The Goliath Ash Moth wouldn't be rampaging so much if its prey had been destroyed and devoured, so whoever it had found must still be alive!

"Great! Now we've just gotta wait for it to calm down and we can go and take a look! If it did stomp something, I hope it's one of those masked metallic menaces!" King commented with a slightly bloodthirsty grin.

Unfortunately, Prince was still too little to fully understand what King had said; all he'd fully registered was the idea that King said they'd be going towards the very big, very scary demon that was big enough to flatten them with a paw and that was blasting fire from its whisker-like proboscises.

Immediately, Prince began to whine and whimper, and tried to fly out of King's grasp. The little Titan didn't understand why Prince was getting so fussy, so just held on tight and rocked him a little; "It's okay Prince! We'll go find your Mommy and sisters soon! We've just gotta go over there first!" he pointed to the Ash Moth.

This was the worst thing to say, as Prince went silent for the briefest moments, before bursting into loud, terrified wails.

King let out a startled "WEH!?" as Prince began to really thrash in his grasp, making him work hard to keep the little Palismen in his arms. If he let go, Prince would fly away and that would make him a massive target for the Ash Moth!

"Prince! You need to calm down! If you keep this up, that monster will eat us!" King cried.

That just made Prince cry even louder, until it eventually released a loud, sonic screech. This was apparently the first time Prince managed a full sonic screech on his own as well, as he was as surprised as King and actually stopped crying for a moment. Since he'd gone still, King quickly clamped a claw over Prince's mouth and slowly looked over to the Ash Moth, fearing it had heard the noise. Thankfully it didn't seem to have noticed over the sound of its own roars and stomping… but that didn't mean no one had heard it.

The desert beneath them began to rumble, and a large mound of sand right next to them began to rise up, until something white, fluffy, and very large poked out of the top. It was an Ash Moth Larva… and it was looking directly at King and Prince. King went completely silent and held as still as he could, hoping the Larva would dismiss them as just a part of the landscape… Ash Moth Larvae didn't have great eye sight or the developed intelligence of their adult forms, so they might just ignore them.

Unfortunately, Prince was just a baby and didn't understand that…

With a deep inhale that nearly made King's heart stop, Prince let out an even louder wail, screaming at the top of his lungs at the sight of the big furry monster. The Ash Moth Larva let out a soft yip in return and began to fully burrow out of the ground, extending its full length so it could reach down and devour the two.

"Oh farts!" King cursed, slapping another wind glyph to get his sled moving again. They just narrowly missed the Larva's slam into the desert behind them, but since the sled had been pointing towards the Ash Moth, they were now heading straight for it! King pulled on the reins to tilt the sled further westward, then eventually back to the north, going behind the Larva and sledding back the way they came as the Larva recovered. The Larva then fully emerged from the desert and flopped down into the sand, before it began to crawl towards them at high speed with its little chitinous nubs.

"Dang it, my luck is almost as bad as Luz's!" King cried as he began slapping more of the wind glyphs to make them go faster as the Larva gained on them. Prince was still crying in terror, but thankfully they were moving so fast that he was pressed against King's belly, so he couldn't even try to fly away. Still, the Larva did not give up the chase and instead let out another strange yip, which caused the sand in front of the sled to begin rising up as more Ash Moth Larvae emerged upon hearing their siblings' cry. These Larvae were from a clutch that had been laid maybe 200 years ago, so they were old enough to be roaming the desert on their own and hunt for their own food. This also meant they had started to develop their magic, as evidenced by their bodies beginning to glow with red veins of fire before they began spewing globules of glowing hot molten sand at King and Prince.

King had to be fast on the reins to swerve the sled between the rising Larvae, while also keeping up their speed to avoid the ones now pursuing them, AND using sonic roars to blast away the molten projectiles being launched their way, as even one direct hit would be the end of them! Thankfully, all his practice with his roar had made him pretty accurate with it, so he didn't have too much trouble… at least until the sled started to slow down. The young Titan reached back to slap another wind glyph, but found that all the ones he'd carved were used up already, and he naturally couldn't stop to carve more, so he had to fumble inside his neckerchief for his pre-drawn ones, which meant he had less control over the rapidly slowing sled.

The young Titan was able to just barely get find and activate another wind glyph in time for them to outspeed one of the larva, which had opened its mouth to devour them, however King had been so focused on finding the glyph that he hadn't realised he was steering them straight towards another Larva's open maw. Unlike full grown Ash Moths, which eat with their whisker-like proboscises, their larva actually did have mouths, and those mouths looked just like the mouths of the fox kits their heads resembled, only with circular rows of teeth that turned anything caught inside them into mulch like a fleshy blender. Their mouths were also extremely hot, being filled with molten rock and sand, so King and Prince naturally screamed in terror as they saw they were about to end up inside it.

With no other choice to avoid it, King held Prince tightly and then screamed; "WEH!", unleashing a powerful roar directly into the Larva's moth. The attack stunned it, making it close its mouth with a loud whine, but the sled was still too close, so King and Prince crashed straight into the face of the Larva, and ended up launched onto it's snout-like horn. Angered, the Ash Moth Larva reared up and sent the two flying, making them both scream in terror. King was just barely able to get one of his Safety Hover Glyph Combos out and slapped onto him before he hit the ground hard, saving both their lives.

When the safety hover ended and King flopped to the ground on his back, Prince still held in his arms, the littlest Clawthorne groaned and looked around, noticing the nest of vines nearby and the familiar rock formation beside it. He cursed loudly; between their fleeing from the Larvae and being flung off by the one they'd landed on before, they were right back where they started! And to make matters worse, most of the Ash Moth Larvae had seen their landing and were now racing towards them, much too quickly for King to create another sled.

"WEH!? Oh no, we're dead!" King cried, frantically trying to run away. He ran for the rock formation he'd woken up in the shade of, but knew that even if he climbed atop it, the Larvae would destroy it and eat him easily. "Man, I would kill to fly right now!"

His terror was briefly interrupted by the sound of an explosion and the yipping of one of the Larva. King turned to look at it and saw that it had lingered too close to a Fire Melon Cactus, and its body heat had further warmed the oil-like juice inside it, causing it to combust and make the cactus explode. The explosion wasn't a threat to the Larva, which was naturally very heat resistant, but the rain of extremely sharp needles that peppered it was enough to make it cry out and slow down, which also slowed down the rest of the hoard as its writhing got in their way, giving King an idea.

"I almost forgot those grew here! This'll either work great, or I'll die!" King declared, using the extra seconds the explosion had bought him to grab all the plant glyphs he had and begin activating them, growing the biggest wall of Fire Melon Cacti that he could manage. The Cacti looked very similar to the red stone formations, enough so that unless one looked closely, they'd never notice the difference. They grew in vaguely spherical stacks, and each sphere was a ragged orb with a red, stony texture to its appearance, though they were actually rubbery to the touch. It's "needles" were actually razor sharp seeds that grew inside it along with the oil-like juice, and were spread by the explosions caused by the heated juice.

Their appearance was important, because it meant the Ash Moth Larvae racing towards King and Prince believed them to just be piles of rocks and ploughed straight through it as King and Prince hid behind the rock formation.

The instant the first Larva ploughed through the oversized cacti, it started a chain reaction. The cactus it struck first exploded and peppered the Larva with needles, making it thrash around and hit more of the cacti, which promptly exploded to. Other Larvae also hit the wall and caused explosions, and before long the entire wall had exploded and sent needles flying everywhere. King and Prince were protected by the real rocks they were hiding behind, while the Ash Worm Larvae were yipping and crying in pain as their faces looked like that of a dog that had tried to eat a porcupine, especially since the needle/seeds of the cacti had been sized up along with the cacti themselves.

"It worked!" King cheered, seeing that the Larvae were now writhing around and had seemingly forgotten all about the prey they'd been chasing. They were also unwilling to blast through the rock formation King was hiding behind, since they now feared it would explode and hurt them like the other rock-like cacti had.

Using their distraction, King had enough time to recreate his sled with an ice glyph and grew a few more vines by drawing a plant glyph in the sand. Once the sled was made and he'd carved dozens of wind glyphs into it, he hopped on with Prince and began sledding eastward, away from the Larvae. They made no attempt to chase them, much to King's relief, but the young Titan's relief didn't last long. A sudden roar from the south west made him gulp, as the Goliath Ash Moth began flying towards them, drawn by the sound of its crying children.

"Oh come on! Now my luck is worse than Luz's!" he cried, activating multiple wind glyphs to speed away as fast as he could. The Ash Moth was so large that it reached is children in record time and began looking around for potential threats, but it might have missed King and Prince due to their small size… if Prince hadn't become terrified at the sight of it and screamed.

The Ash Moth roared and its whiskers caught fire as it lunged at them, easily catching up with just a few short footfalls from its giant legs. King screamed in terror and activated every wind glyph he'd carved, making the sled speed up so much that it felt like his skin would be pulled off his bones, but it still wasn't enough; the moth was able to keep pace with almost no effort. It whipped one of its flaming proboscises down at them, missing by a hair, but then it whipped down another and sliced the front of the sled off, effectively cutting it in half. King and Prince screamed and lost control of the half that remained, then went flying once more. Thankfully they were low enough this time that the landing didn't hurt, but King still ended up with his snout pressed into the burning sand. He pulled his face out of the sand and spat out what had gotten into his mouth, then began frantically looking around for Prince. He'd lost his grip on the little fella as they'd fallen, and now he had no idea where he'd gone!

"Prince!? Where are you!?" King cried, momentarily forgetting the Ash Moth. It hadn't forgotten him though, and lashed another flaming proboscis at him. King cried "Weh!?" as his short life flashed before his eyes, but before he could be hit, he suddenly felt something grab his shoulders and yank him to safety. He looked up, gasping as he saw that it was Prince who'd saved him.

The terrified little Bat Palisman was flapping his wings madly to fly whilst carrying King, all while tears of fear streamed down his little face.

"Prince!" King cried, "You saved me!"

Prince let out a little screech of acknowledgement, but that was all he could manage. His tear-stained face was screwed up from the effort of carrying someone bigger than himself, and King could see he was really struggling. Worse still, they were still well within the range of the Ash Moth, who was now tracking them with its eyes the way a dog tracks a fly, it's flaming proboscises honing on on them in preparation for a devastating strike.

King reached into his neckerchief and pulled out all the drawn wind glyphs he still had, as well as one of his invisibility glyph combos. "Prince, do your best to be quiet! I'm gonna hide us! Get ready!"

He got another frightened screech in response, and King then slapped the invisibility glyph onto himself, making him and Prince disappear from the Ash Moth's vision. The Moth made a noise of annoyance as it unleashed a flurry of flaming lashes where it had last seen the pair, only to hit nothing at all as King had used a wing glyph to accelerate Prince's flying and rocket them through the sky. The wind wasn't exactly quiet or subtle, but the Ash Moth was making so much noise that it couldn't detect the wind, allowing King and Prince to get away. Using the wind and Prince's wings, the two glided far to the east, and then towards the south around the other side of the volcano; Prince focused on riding the wind (no longer needing to flap his wings) while King kept an eye on the Ash Moth and used another wind glyph whenever they began to lose altitude.

Goliath Ash Moths were creatures that relied on light in order to see and navigate, hence why the only safe time to fly over the desert was normally night time, so it had no chance of finding the invisible duo. It still tried though, stalking around in circles, lashing at empty air, and pawing at the sand beneath its feet, all while roaring in annoyance. Eventually it gave up on catching the pair and turned to focus on its babies, which it began to care for by using its whisker-like proboscises to gently grasp the enlarged cactus needles and slowly pull them out.

Seeing as they were as safe as they were gonna get, King called up to Prince; "Glide down to the ground. I can't concentrate on the invisibility glyph much longer, and that monster will spot us if we're still in the sky while visible."

Prince gave a little screech of agreement and disengaged from the wind current he'd been gliding on, instead slowly gliding down to the ground. They landed near another rock formation, and they immediately took cover in the shadows just before King's concentration gave out and they became visible again. Both flopped to the ground, panting from exertion and relief.

"That was too close… to think that thing is in the same Demon category as that creep Adegast!" King complained. He still remembered a time when he thought the Snaggleback was the deadliest demon! How naive he felt looking back on that now…

He took a moment to catch his breath, then sat up and looked over at Prince, who was sniffling a little but otherwise keeping himself together remarkably well for a baby.

"Hey Prince. You're doing awesome! You're a real Prince of Demons!" King complimented, gently petting his head the way Luz always did to him. Prince let out a little giggle, clearly enjoying it the way King did too.

"Your Mom is gonna be so proud! But before that, we still need to find her. Are you ready to keep going?" King asked.

Prince's lip quivered for a moment, but then it reluctantly got to its feet and nodded, giving a little "Weh!" sound of his own, mimicking King.

The sound made King's heart melt; "Baby Boy!" he cried, hugging the little Palisman. Prince enjoyed that greatly too, and King then held his wing as they began to walk to the south.

King thought about making another sled, but he was fairly certain that the sled and his wind glyphs had been what drew the attention of the Ash Moth Larvae, as they navigated and found prey by detecting vibrations from underground; there was no way Prince's one screech had been enough to draw them all to them, it had just been the final tipping point. So he instead decided to walk, and since they'd seen most of the northern part of the desert and a good chunk of the west without any signs of the others (minus the distant view of the Ash Moth's rampage), they now headed south along the east side of the desert in hopes of finding someone. They also headed as close to the volcano as they could get without actually climbing it, as it meant they'd have the most cover in case the Ash Moth came calling… even if it was unbearably hot! Thankfully King mitigated that by using ice glyphs to produce makeshift ice lollies, using sticks made with the plant glyph, so he and Prince walked along quite contently with their cool treats.

Eventually they found themselves reaching the southern side of the volcano, and spotted the first sign of the others; namely the crashed wreckage of the Golden Guard's airship.

"Aha! I bet they're got supplies or some way of calling for help on that thing! Maybe my luck is turning around!" King cheered.

Prince hopped up and down excitedly, and began sniffing the air, then got even more excited. King watched his reaction and listened to his happy squeaks, which made him smile. "You smell something good? Then let's go!" he cheered, hoisting Prince up so he could carry the little guy piggyback, before he began jogging to the downed airship as fast as his little legs could carry him.

As they got closer, they noticed that there were melting patches of ice on the ship, as if someone had frozen sections of it recently. Given how hot it was out and how fast the ice was melting, whoever had done it must still be there, so King picked up the pace before suddenly realising something. For all he knew, the people at the airship could be the Golden Guard or Silver Sentinel! If they found them, King could get used as bait to capture Luz, and poor Prince might get fed to Belos! He fished another invisibility glyph combo out of his neckerchief and activated it after gently shushing Prince. He then crept silently over to the airship, staying on the rocks of the volcano slope so his footprints weren't visible in the sand.

King reached the airship and quietly peeked over the side, and frowned as he saw the Silver Sentinel, sans most of her armour but still masked, wandering around on the deck. King was just about to sneak away again, disappointed with what he'd found, until he noticed another familiar face; Gus, lounging on a frozen section of the airship with his new Palisman on his shoulder. He didn't look to be a captive, but the Sentinel still had her staff, so King wouldn't take chances.

He snuck over to Gus and leaned close to whisper in the boy's ear.

"Gus! It's me, King! Don't let on that I'm here! Distract the Sentinel and I'll take her out!"

Gus instinctively flinched at the sudden voice, but turned towards it with a big grin. "King! Thank the Titan you're okay!" he said, not even trying to keep quiet; "You can come out! Silver and I are cool."

The Silver Sentinel turned to look at the illusionist, and King let his invisibility drop with a pout. "You weren't supposed to expose me!" he complained.

"Sorry King, but seriously; there's no need to hide. We're all in the same boat, so we're working together at least until we get out of here." Gus said, smiling broadly. He then noticed Prince on King's back; "Oh, you found one of BQ's kids! Any signs of the others? Or Luz?"

King shook his head; "Nothing." he said disappointedly.

Silver created an illusory message that read; "Are either of you hurt? I know a bit of healing magic."

King eyed her suspiciously; "Thanks but no thanks. I'm fine, and I've got my own healing combo if I need it. I doubt you'll be any help." he said coldly, not trusting the Sentinel.

Silver took this in stride, while Gus leaned close to whisper; "Hey go easy on her, little dude. She's not a bad girl, and she saved my butt from Ash Worm Larvae."

"We're all in this mess because of her and the goof, remember?" King whispered back with a scowl; "Don't forget they wanted to capture the Palismen even though they've got to know what Belos does to them."

Gus frowned; "Y-Yeah, I know. You're right, it's just…" his mind thought back to the way the girl giggled and fidgeted; "… she's so timid and gentle. If she's not in mission mode, she acts kind of shy. I don't think she really wants to do those things; Belos just has her under his thumb, like Lilith."

That made King pause; he'd misjudged Lilith in the past, and he was trying not to make that mistake again. Still, he wasn't sure Gus's word was enough to make him give the girl the benefit of the doubt.

"Why are you so sure about this, Gus?" King asked.

"Let's just say that an illusionist needs to be able to read their audience, and I don't get any bad vibes from her." Gus replied. Emmiline squeaked in agreement from his shoulder.

King wasn't totally convinced, but so long as they were all stuck together, he might as well not make things harder for them by starting a fight. A big battle could draw the Ash Moth, and then they'd be in real trouble!

He huffed and steadfastly ignored the girl, though Silver constantly stole looks at him, fidgeting the whole time. She'd do it whenever she thought he wouldn't notice, then when he looked back at her, she'd quickly avert her eyes and her fidgeting would get worse. King couldn't quite place it, but something about the way she acted felt familiar…

While he was trying to ignore Silver, King and Gus talked a little about what they'd gone through on their on trips through the desert. King was jealous that Gus only had a narrow encounter with some newborn larvae that hadn't even noticed him, while Gus had winced upon hearing of the near misses King and Prince had suffered through. King was just finishing up telling him about their daring escape from the Ash Moth when the Silver Sentinel (who'd been watching him again), suddenly looked to the west and gasped. It was the first sound King had heard from her, and he and Gus turned to see whatever she'd spotted.

There were two very familiar figures trudging through the sand towards them; Luz and the unmasked Golden Guard. King and Gus both smiled broadly and waved to get their attention, making Luz beam and wave back when she saw them. She began to run towards them, leaving the Golden Guard to walk at his own pace… at least until Silver disappeared into her own shadow and popped out of his, immediately tackling him into a hug that had both of the Emperor's elites rolling around in the sand. King could see that the Golden Goof was saying something and Silver was frantically signing back whilst checking him over, but he was soon distracted when Luz reached the crashed airship and scooped King up into a big hug.

"Little brother! Oh am I glad to see you!" Luz beamed, holding him aloft to check him over; "You're not hurt anywhere, are you?"

"I'm fine Luz! And I'm glad to see you too!" King said, smiling happily.

"You're definitely a sight for sore eyes. Looks like we both ended up hanging out with one of the Emperor's elites." Gus said, stepping forward.

Luz hugged him too, and checked him for injuries just like she had King, before deciding he was healthy and letting him go.

"GG is a little prickly, but he did save my life when I stupidly tried to fly away and got attacked by the Ash Moth. Of course, I returned the favour straight away and pulled him underground before we both got stomped into pancakes by the Ash Moth." Luz grinned.

King and Gus both smirked; they had no idea what a pancake was, but they were amused to hear that the Ash Moth's stomping rampage really had been where Luz had been. It was at that moment that Luz noticed Prince, and King and Gus noticed Flapjack.

"Oh hey! Looks like you found a buddy too." Gus said, "Is this little guy your partner now?"

Luz shook her head; "No, he just happened to find me while looking for help. He knows where the other Palismen landed, and we were going to go after them after we'd reunited with you guys here. But what about this little guy?" she reached down to pet Prince's head.

"He was thrown from the nest and landed near me. He saved my hide a couple of times." King answered.

Prince squeaked, and Flapjack tweeted something in return. Naturally Luz, King, and Gus didn't understand them, but Emmiline was able to and translate for her partner.

"Emmiline says that BQ's kid was the only Palismen lost in the crash. He was trying to hold the nest's door shut on his own, but it opened during the crash landing and he went flying. His actions protected the others though. Searching for him is one of the reasons this little guy left the others." Gus explained.

"Great! Now Flapjack can lead us to the rest of the Palismen and then all we need to do is find BQ!" Luz grinned.

She then noticed Prince's injured leg and scuffed appearance, and used her Crystal Healing Lotus to heal him up. She was just finishing up when GG and Silver returned to the ship following their own reunion.

"My partner filled me in on her truce with you, Gus." he said, addressing the illusionist; "You've got my thanks for helping her."

"And you've got mine for helping Luz." Gus replied.

"Oh please, like I needed GG!" Luz said, jokingly dismissing the idea, making GG grumble.

Silver giggled and created an illusory message; "Thank you for taking care of my brother, Luz. An Angel is an Angel even on the wrong side."

Luz rolled her eyes with a smile; "I'd argue that last part, but I doubt I'd change your mind. From the sounds of it, you and Gus became buddies as well, so thanks for looking out for him."

King piped up; "Okay okay, we've all said thanks so can we get a move on now?" he asked exasperatedly, really not comfortable around the two elites. "Shouldn't you two leave now that you've found each other?"

GG and Silver exchanged looks, while Luz and Gus nodded. Gus would be kind of sad to see his new friend leave, and likely be an enemy again the next time they met, and Luz felt a little worried about the Golden Guard after learning he was Belos' nephew despite not being an Angel, but there really was no reason for the two to stick around… unless they planned to steal the Palismen still.

"How do you expect us to leave?" GG crossed his arms; "My staff is gone and my partner's doesn't have enough juice left to get her to the castle, let alone the both of us."

"Try walking." King scowled.

GG glared at him, but Luz added; "King has a point. We're on the south east side of the volcano, so the Wrist and the Emperor's Coven Outpost is only a little further east." she turned and pointed in the direction of the Wrist, which was a rocky canyon that divided the Palm Desert from the Forearm Forest. "It looks like it'd only take you a short time, then the outpost could get you transport back to the castle while we leave with the Palismen."

"In broad daylight?" he smirked in return; "I think we both know you can't do that. The Ash Moth would incinerate you before you got out of the desert. I saw that nest; you'd never get it out of here without flying."

"And how does having you two around solve that problem?" King demanded.

"If I borrow my partner's staff, we can use my flash teleportation to evade the Moth. Or she could use it to move us through the shadows, out of the Ash Moth's sight. You three could never move fast enough to avoid it on your own, and your strongest defence was still no match for it." GG grinned smugly.

"Then we'll wait until nightfall." Gus scowled.

"Where?" the Golden Guard asked, "Between our three groups, we've been all over the desert and seen no signs of the Bat Queen or the Palismen, which means they're either not in the desert at all, or they're in the one place we haven't looked; this Volcano. A volcano that happens to be the Ash Moth's lair. If it returns before nightfall, it'll see you all and take you out, and like I said before, you won't be able to fly that nest to a safer hiding spot without being spotted."

Luz, Gus, and King all frowned and looked worriedly at each other. The Golden Guard had a point… they had no idea when the Ash Moth would return to its lair inside the volcano, but they were sure it would go there at some point before nightfall… They could hide with invisibility, but they couldn't hold the spells forever, and who knows how long the Moth would linger in its lair, and considering it wasn't even noon yet, they'd have to wait hours before the sun went down. It looked like they really were stuck.

"Face it, Rebels; you'll never got those Palismen out of here without our help." the Golden Guard said smugly.

Silver then created an illusory message; "At the very least, we can help you get them to safety. We can work things out between us after that."

That was something Luz and her friends could agree with as they all had the same thought; once the Ash Moth was no longer a problem, they'd easily be able to defeat the two Elites! They'd use them to escape, the defeat or even capture them!

"Fine. We'll agree to work together. We may want different things for the Palismen, but we all want them out of this desert. So until that happens… we'll keep our truce." Luz said, offering her hand to the Golden Guard.

He smirked and went to take her hand, but she pulled it back before he could and ran it through her hair; "Too slow." she smirked.

The Golden Guard glared while the others, including Silver, giggled at him. "Fine, let's get this over with… Even if this volcano is the only place left to look, we still have a lot of ground to cover. We'll need the Palisman to lead us."

He pointed to Flapjack, who tweeted and landed on his finger. The boy freaked out and waved his hand to get the bird off of him.

"Hey man, relax a little. The little dude was just being friendly." Gus said.

"I don't care! Palismen are made of Wild Magic! They're dangerous!" GG retorted.

Luz looked at Flapjack, who tweeted sadly; "Oh yeah, real dangerous…" she said sarcastically.

Silver then offered her own finger as a perch for the little Palisman, and he happily accepted, tweeting his thanks to the girl, who used her other hand to sign to her brother.

"Be nice. These creatures didn't chose their nature any more than we did."

The boy's glare softened and he nodded; "You're right, Sis. I'm sorry, Bird. Will you please lead us all to the others?"

Flapjack tweeted happily and flew onto the boy's shoulder, then pointed up the volcano with his wing. It was clear that the Golden Guard had the urge to shove the Palisman off of him again, but he resisted and nodded to the bird.

Luz smiled at the interaction, then said; "Let's get moving. It's going to be noon soon and I'd like to be off the volcano by then."

The others agreed and began to climb the volcano, following Flapjack's directions. King and Prince rode on Luz's shoulders so their bare feet didn't need to touch the hot stone of the volcano, while Luz produced ice glyphs on the bottom of her own bare feet to keep herself cool as she walked, seeing as she was still in her Holy Raiment. As they walked, they all caught up with each other, telling one another about their brief adventures in the desert. This also included the revelations that the Emperor's Elites needed their staves to use magic, and that the Golden Guard was the nephew of Belos, yet was a magicless witch instead of an angel.

"So does that mean you're in the same boat, Silver?" Gus asked, walking beside the girl.

Silver shook her head, and the Golden Guard said; "Silver and I are blood-related, but we're not actually siblings. Uncle Belos insists we're also his blood relatives, but whether we're actually his nephew and niece is something even we don't know. He says it's too painful to discuss his family. All we know is that we all lost everyone we had because of Wild Magic and Wild Witches."

Luz frowned sadly; "Belos mentioned something like that when I was his captive. He said Wild Witches took his family from him… I'm sorry for your losses."

"Thank you." the Golden Guard replied, his voice quiet. "I was very lucky… I don't remember the incident that took my parents from me. All I remember is that Belos found me… he gave me a staff of artificial magic, and trained me to help him bring an end to the evil forces that took our family from me. He said the Titan had big plans for me…"

King bit back a scoff, though as his hatred of Belos increased, so did his sympathy for these two teens.

"Silver came later. I was jealous of her at first, as it meant sharing my uncle's attention, but some stuff happened and now we're the best of friends and partners. We decided to call each other siblings, even though we're technically cousins of some kind."

The boy smiled almost tenderly over at his sister, and Gus saw the way Silver's nervous fidgeting eased almost immediately, as if the presence of her brother soothed her. The two really were close. Despite them being enemies under normal circumstances, Luz and Gus both felt a bit more fond of the duo.

They continued their climb up the volcano, which became more treacherous as they got closer to the centre and the slope got steeper. The presence of sharp obsidian shards meant all of them had to be very careful, and use a combination of ice and plants to create hand and foot holds and vine ropes to climb up, occasionally stopping to rest on ridges large enough for them to sit on. It was during one of these rest stops that the Golden Guard surprised Luz by using a piece of stone to scratch an ice glyph into the side of the volcano, then activate it to make a sheet of ice they could lean against to cool off a bit. Luz beamed and began to gush over his use of the glyph, while also teasing him about him using "Wild Magic", as the others looked on. King naturally criticised the boy's less than perfect first attempt, while Gus just smiled and Silver conjured a small message, meant only for the boy beside her.

"I've never seen my brother like this with other people." she wrote.

Gus raised an eyebrow; "Like what? Like a regular kid?" he asked.

Silver nodded, and Gus said; "Luz has that effect on people. She's got the worst luck on the isles, but she's also weirdly good at touching people's hearts and making them want to be better. Maybe it's a natural angel thing… but honestly, I think that's just Luz being Luz. She wants to help everyone so badly that it rubs off on people and makes them want to help themselves too."

Silver looked at Gus for a moment, then stared at Luz for a long time, making the boy wonder just what expression she had under her mask. Was it jealousy? Happiness? Gus wasn't sure, but something about the way she'd gone so still made him think there was longing in her expression. Maybe she wished to help people too… or maybe she wished to be helped. Gus didn't know for certain, so he just put a hand on her back.

"Maybe you should try talking to her after all this is over. You never know, her healing magic could help you speak!" he suggested.

The masked girl gave a non-committal shrug, and stood up, urging the others to continue now that they'd had a short rest.

They continued their climb, with everyone now using whatever ice magic they had available to keep them cool as the sun grew hotter and combined with the volcano's heat. Veins of glowing lava were now visible through cracks in the volcano's side, and there were places where it was oozing out, only to harden before it could flow all the way down to the desert sand. It was becoming increasingly treacherous, but they thankfully reached the edge of the caldera without any incidents.

"Whoa…" Gus gasped, looking down into the caldera and seeing a massive lake of magma deep inside it. However that was normal for a volcano; what was unusual was the white silk that coated the inside of the caldera, and which had been used to create several large hanging nests attached to the inside walls. The silk had been produced by the Ash Moth and was completely heat and fire proof, and most of the hanging nests had dozens of giant, crystalline red eggs, each one looking like a massive ruby.

"Those most be the Moth's latest brood. They're probably a few decades away from hatching by the size of them." the Golden Guard commented. Each egg was about as tall as he was, so they'd need to grow to almost three times that size before they hatched.

"It's incredible… wait! Look over there!" Luz cried, pointing to one of the silk platforms. There, amidst a few eggs, was the Bat Queen and the nest that contained the Palismen. A barrier of blue magic had been erected around it to keep them safe, but Luz could see that the Bat Queen was badly injured; she was missing her left wing entirely, and there were glowing green scratches all over her.

Prince cried as he looked at her and immediately flew down into the Caldera, paying no mind to the heat. Luz flew after him, King still on her shoulder, while Gus and Silver hopped onto their staves and followed, the Golden Guard sitting on his sister's staff. They landed on the silk platform (which felt spongy and bouncy to stand on) and hurried over to the Bat Queen.

Up close, her condition was far worse; she was missing her left leg too and her right wing had several pieces missing from it. Parts of her hair, wing, and body were also burned, making it look like she'd gone toe to toe with the Ash Moth. Flapjack tweeted and Emmiline translated for Gus.

"He says that the Bat Queen tried to fly out of the caldera after they crash landed on one of the lower platforms. The Ash Moth spotted her before she could clear it and swatted her down. This little guy flew away in the chaos to look for help." Gus explained.

Luz gasped; "Oh no! Poor BQ! Hey, can you hear me in there?" she yelled, pounding on the barrier with her fists; "BQ! Let me in, I can heal you!"

The Bat Queen didn't respond at first, apparently unconscious. It also didn't seem to have reached the Palismen hiding in the nest, much to everyone's surprise. However Prince swiftly woke his mother with a loud scream, making her startle awake.

"Babies! Who comes for my- Little One! You are well!" the Bat Queen's brief look of fear and anger melted into one of immense relief. Her eyes glowed blue and the barrier immediately dropped, allowing everyone through.

Prince flew into his mother's embrace, and she held him tightly to her face with her one remaining wing. "My Baby! I feared for you, but could not come! The Monster of the Desert took my wing… I had to send another for aid." she explained, soothing her baby, who was now crying with relief from the reunion. BQ then looked to Luz and the others, smiling at them (and eyeing the Emperor's Elites suspiciously).

"Luz and friends. I am glad you are here. You did well, friend." she said, aiming that last part at Flapjack.

The little bird tweeted happily as Luz immediately rushed to the Bat Queen's side. "I'll heal you right away! Just hold on a little longer." Luz cried, knowing that poor BQ must be in terrible pain. "Losing limbs is no fun. I remember cutting off my hand to escape Belos' slave brand… that was awful." she said sympathetically, conjuring her crystal lotus to begin healing the Bat Queen.

Both the Golden Guard and Silver Sentinel flinched at her words, both remembering how horrified they'd been to see Luz throw her hand in the way of Raine's sonic blades. Both had worked so hard and felt so honoured when they earned their Coven Sigils, so it had been quite a shock to see Luz go through such drastic measures to get rid of hers.

"It wasn't a slave brand." GG found himself weakly defending his uncle.

Luz didn't acknowledge him, instead focusing on healing the Bat Queen, but King was not so calm or kind. "Belos used it to control her magic against her will, and tortured her when she disobeyed; don't you dare try and defend that monster to us!" he growled furiously.

Silver once again flinched and began to fidget a lot more, looking down at the ground. Meanwhile the Golden Guard bit his lip, wanting to argue with King but finding himself unable to find the words. It had all been for Luz's own good! That's what his Uncle had promised… but he doubted that excuse would fly with Luz's little brother. Instead they both stayed silent and watched as Luz restored the Bat Queen's missing wing, then her leg, and then erased the rest of the wounds she'd suffered. It thankfully didn't take very long, but Luz looked pale and shaky by the time she was done.

"Phew, that was a bit more than I bargained for…" she panted, having never needed to heal so much damage. Restoring her own hand had been difficult, but restoring an entire wing that was bigger than her whole body? That was a difficult task! If it weren't for all the heat energy being absorbed by her wings, Luz likely would have passed out before it was done.

"You have my thanks, Luz. But you must rest now; we are in dangerous place and you need strength." the Bat Queen said, gently nudging Luz into a seated position with her wings. She then nodded politely to Gus and King, before turning her hardening gaze on GG and Silver. "You two are enemies. Servants of Defiler."

"We are loyal members of the Emperor's Coven." GG said defiantly; "We did what we did for the good of the Emperor and his Empire. You would do the same for your family."

He then noted the Bat Queen's restored body, particularly her leg. The Bat Queen was still seated, so he could see the sole of her restored foot, noting the Interlock there. "But I understand why you of all people have a Sanctuary for Stray Palismen… you ARE a Palisman!"

Silver turned to her brother with surprise, while Luz, Gus, and King were immediately on guard again. The Bat Queen narrowed her eyes on him.

"Be careful boy. I am not so weak that two whelps of the Defiler can defeat me, especially with strong allies at my back." she said threateningly, slowly getting to her feet and spreading her wings to intimidate the boy. One good flap would produce enough wind to knock him into the lava; if GG was an adult, he likely would have been sent flying already.

The Golden Guard gulped but still took on a combat stance, ready for a fight even without a staff, but Silver stopped him. She signed something that only he and Luz could understand.

"Hold, brother. The Bat Queen has children, despite being a Palisman. That means she can breed. If Palismen are capable of breeding and creating more Palismen, then we might have a potential solution to Uncle's supply problems!"

Luz fought hard to keep her face free from disgust so it wasn't revealed that she understood sign language, while the Golden Guard looked confused; "Are you suggesting we breed Palismen like Dairy Spiders?"

"Why not? We breed other creatures to consume them. Why not do the same with Palismen?" Silver signed.

Under normal circumstances, she might have had a point; Humans, Demons, and Angels all kept and bred animals for meat and other products. However none of the animals they kept could be considered as intelligent as Palismen, who basically had true sapience in the bodies of animals.

The Bat Queen, hearing the Golden Guard's reaction, narrowed her eyes; "You think to breed us!? Palismen are no mere beast of the forest! A Palisman is a living incarnation of the carver's soul! We and our bonded partners are one and the same! That is why people cannot willy-nilly use others' staves! A Palisman is an extension of a Witch or Demon, not some pet!"

Silver flinched and backed off nervously, putting her hands up in surrender, while the Golden Guard scowled; "Uncle told us that Palismen are just vessels of Wild Magic!"

"If he thought that, why didn't he outlaw them?" Luz demanded; "I bet it was so he could keep eating them! He didn't want to stop people from making them so he'd always have more to devour! That's also why the Coven System controls the Palistrom Trees! Belos has been farming Palismen this whole time, just indirectly!"

"Hey, why are you yelling at us!?" GG scowled; "We're trying to find a solution that helps the Emperor without us having to fight! Shouldn't you be on board with that!?"

Luz shook her head; "There's no way to help that monster without someone suffering! Sorry if I'm not too keen to help the guy who tortured me and turned me into a monster so he could force me to MURDER MY MOTHER!"

Her furious roar silenced everyone, as none of them had seen Luz quite that angry before. A combination of Luz's hatred for Belos, her desire to protect and help others, her loyalty to BQ and the Palismen, her love of animals and hatred for animal cruelty, and her conflicted feelings about the Golden Guard and his sister resulted in her being a lot more emotional than normal, especially since she was also hot, tired, and still worried about keeping her friends safe.

The Golden Guard and Silver Sentinel both backed off a step, looking conflicted. This conflicted feeling grew worse as Luz began to calm down and averted her eyes; "I'm sorry… I shouldn't take my anger towards him out on the two of you…"

The Bat Queen gently patted her back with her wing, while Prince fluttered down and landed on Luz's head, roosting in her curly hair to comfort her. BQ then looked at the two elites and frowned.

"Your hopes will not work. I carved my children; over centuries I grew my Palistrom body and harvested the wood from myself. It took 200 years to grow enough to make a single egg and 600 years growing enough for all my children. Even then, I could only grow my body's wood after millennia of life and practice. You will find breeding us impossible." she explained.

GG frowned; it had been a long shot anyway, but he'd hoped it would work out. He really didn't want to fight Luz and the others… but it was looking like that would be his only choice. He began to sign to Silver, letting her know the plan. Luz's group needed their flash teleportation or shadow movement to get the Palismen out of the desert safely, so they were essentially stuck. It would be no trouble at all for Silver to take them all into the shadows, then spit everyone except the Palismen straight back out, allowing the two to escape with their prize whilst leaving the others trapped by the Ash Moth. If they were clever, they might be able to catch Luz too…

… though of course, that relied on Luz not knowing their plan, which she now did since he had signed it to Silver in full view of the young Arch-Angel.

For her part, Silver's posture made it clear she didn't like the idea, even though she signed that she would follow her brother's lead, but that didn't stop Luz from narrowing her eyes on them both.

"And just what were you two talking about?" she asked with a scowl. Her reaction had the others on guard too, since they knew Luz could understand them.

"Nothing much, just coordinating the plan for getting us all out of here. My partner here will use shadow movement to get us all to the Wrist. From there, we can work out what to do next." the Golden Guard said, a fake smile on his face.

"Oh really? Would you be willing to make an Everlasting Oath that you're telling the truth?" Luz asked.

GG narrowed his eyes on her; "Why? Getting paranoid are we?"

Luz shook her head; "It's not paranoia when the other person is actually plotting to betray you."

The Golden Guard was many things, but he wasn't stupid; Luz had been willing to cooperate with them this far, so for her to suddenly change her tune after he'd signed his plan to Silver… well, it could only mean one thing in his mind.

"You understood us, didn't you? You speak Sign Language." he said with slowly widening eyes.

Luz answered only by getting back to her feet and conjuring a light sword. Gus brandished his new staff as well, and King looked ready to roar, while the Bat Queen was edging closer and closer to the Palismen nest. Silver shakily pointed her own staff back at them, clearly not wanting to fight, especially with so little magic left in her staff, but she had no choice; she needed to defend her brother while he was defenceless.

However the Golden Guard wasn't as defenceless as he seemed, as he suddenly pointed his gloved hand at Luz. There on the palm was a light glyph scratched into the leather, and with shards of the broken crystal from GG's staff stuck around it. The light glyph activated and created a blinding flash of light, but the inclusion of shards from the Golden Guard's staff resulted in the glyph being massively overpowered, producing a constant, massively powerful light. It stunned everyone like he wanted, but it was also more than the Golden Guard had expected so he too was stunned by it and couldn't figure out how to turn it off.

"Fool! You will draw the Ash Moth right to us! Turn off the light!" the Bat Queen demanded, her eyes clenched shut.

"I-I'm trying!" he shouted back, clenching his fist in hopes of turning off the light. "Dang it, this is why Wild Magic can't be trusted!"

"It works when you're not a moron, Golden Goof!" Luz yelled, slowly edging towards the boy. She was a bit more resistant to the effects of light, so she was able to open her eyes just a little, enough to see the Golden Guard as a blob of colour behind a shining light. She grabbed his wrist and tore off the glove, before throwing it down into the magma below. As soon as the crystals on the glove touched the molten rock, they exploded with bright red light, creating a terrifyingly loud boom.

Everyone slowly opened their eyes, blinking away the spots caused by the sudden light, while Luz reached up and smacked the Golden Guard on the top of his head.

"What were you thinking!? Are you trying to get us all killed!?" Luz scolded.

"Hey! I was thinking I could use your light glyph and the remains of my staff to shoot light beams like you do!" the Golden Guard yelled. "The theory was sound! I based off of what I read in Bones to Earth: A Study of Wild Magic!"

Luz and King both face-palmed; "We've read that book too!" King complained, remembering that it was one of the tomes they'd poured over whilst first trying to understand Luz's bizarre powers.

"And it's like 50% made-up garbage! Eda once pick-pocketed the guy who wrote it out of protest for how bad it is!" Luz continued; "Natural magic doesn't mix well with artificial magic! Putting those crystals on the glyph could have blown the whole thing sky high! You almost lost your arm!"

The Golden Guard sneered; "So nice of you to feign concern!"

"I can't lie you dolt! Of course I'm concerned! You're just a sad bad boy whose in way over his head! And besides, I had a pretty good reason to stop you from being stupid there!" Luz fired back.

A blush appeared on GG's cheeks in response to Luz's insult; "Y-Yeah, well you're just a silly little girl being tricked by a Wild Witch! What possible reason could you have to stop me besides saving your own skin!"

As if on cue, there was a monstrously loud roar from above them and everyone looked up to see the Goliath Ash Moth landing on the edge of the caldera, and peering down at them. Its eyes focused directly on them and the whole group paled.

"That. That's my reason. Ever heard the expression, "Like a Moth to the flame"? Well your little light show was like a giant inferno that drew this thing right to us!" Luz whimpered, her eyes unable to tear themselves away from the Colossal Demon.

The Golden Guard gulped, but he didn't have time to panic; he needed to keep his cool and fix his mess. He turned to his sister; "Get us out of here! Take us all into the shadows!" he ordered.

Silver nodded and hastily held out her hand for them all to take, but no one but her brother took it. The Guard gaped at them; "Hurry up! That thing's about to come down!"

The Ash Moth was pacing the edge of the Caldera, using its flaming proboscises to heat the rock and melt it, making it impossible for them to climb back out. They'd have no choice but to fly, where it would catch and prey on them easily.

"We're not going anywhere with you! You'll just betray us!" King yelled.

"Are you stupid!? Staying here is certain death!" GG yelled back.

"So is going with you! You'll ditch Gus and King, and take me and the Palismen to Belos, which is basically certain death too!" Luz cried, preparing for a last stand.

Silver shook her head and created an illusory message; "Please trust us! We won't do that!"

She was being honest, but no one was willing to gamble that. Gus was the only one who felt he could trust her, and he conveyed that with his gaze, but he couldn't decide for the others.

"Here it comes! Brace yourselves!" the Bat Queen yelled as the Ash Moth finished turning the edge of the caldera into a ring of fire, before diving down into the magma below. It was briefly submerged, causing the magma level to rise up and almost fill the caldera, forcing Luz to put up the most powerful barrier she could manage. They too were submerged, and for a moment all they could see through Luz's crystal barrier was a sea of red and orange. But then the magma receded as the Ash Moth's head, wings, and front two legs rose out of the molten rock. It was now eye level with the platform that the others were on (which was thankfully intact since Ash Moth silk was heatproof), and two swift lashes from its whiskers had Luz's barrier shattering like glass.

Luz rapidly tried to throw up another barrier, but her magic still hadn't fully regenerated after healing BQ, so the effort just made her go pale and collapse onto her hands and knees. "N-No!"

The Ash Moth reared back a paw and effortlessly swatted them off the silken platform, like a cat knocking a glass off a shelf. Silver saved GG and King, who was the closest to her, by grabbing them and dragging them into the shadows, but everyone else was swept off and sent plummeting to the magma. Gus managed to roughly fly on his staff just well enough to catch Luz, while the Bat Queen was able to catch the Palismen Nest, saving it from a nasty demise. The Palismen inside screamed in terror, but were soothed by the Bat Queen's cooing.

"It will be alright, little ones! I will protect!"

At that moment, Silver emerged from the shadows with King and GG, appearing on top of the Palismen nest by using the shadow cast on it by the Bat Queen's body. Silver then immediately flew on her staff, bringing her brother with her and leaving King atop the nest.

"We've got no chance of beating this thing! If you won't trust us to get you out of here, then we'll need a different tactic!" GG yelled as his sister began to weave through the air. The Ash Moth began whipping its whiskers at all of them, forcing them to fly around and dodge as best they could. Thankfully since it was aiming at multiple targets at once, the Demon wasn't as coordinated as before, so they were able to avoid its flaming whips without too much trouble, but it was only a matter of time before they got caught and either sliced in half, incinerated, or knocked into the lava.

Luz, absorbing as much heat energy as she could, felt a little strength return to her. She could maybe cast one or two more big spells, but she already knew nothing she did would phase the Ash Moth… at least, nothing she did alone.

"I might be able to manage an Aurora Beam spell, but it won't freeze this thing on its own! I need help!" Luz cried.

"I-I might be able to use water magic to cool this thing off a little? Maybe that'll help?" Gus suggested, struggling to dodge. He still couldn't fly very well with Emmie, so Luz was having to flap her wings and use drawn wind glyphs to blow them out of the way of attacks.

"That might just work! I'll assist with the ice glyph! I can at least do that right!" GG agreed.

Silver nodded too, and since she knew Luz could understand her now, she signed to her; "I will assist. I'm not much good with ice or water magic, but I might be able to bind the moth with shadows if you can get rid of some of the light."

"I can help too!" King cried, flying over by using Prince to carry him like before, the little Palisman looking terrified yet determined. Flapjack was also roosting on his head, tweeting in agreement.

"No, young King. You use your glyphs to protect the nest." the Bat Queen said; "I help them. Luz, I lend you my power once more!"

Luz beamed; "Great! I think I've got a plan! Let's do it everyone!"

There was a cheer from everyone, and a fist pump from the silent Silver as they all prepared to act. King and Prince immediately flew back to the Bat Queen, and King used an ice glyph to create a frozen platform for her to rest the Palismen nest on. Then as she flew over to Luz, King flew under the platform and carved plant glyphs into it, creating thick tree roots and vines to act as additional support for when the ice melted in the heat. With the Palismen relatively safe now, the Bat Queen was able to safely reach Luz and transform into her staff form, shrinking down to be the right size for Luz. Grasping the staff filled Luz with energy and she immediately began to fly with her own wings again, reducing the burden on Gus. She then used her magic to catch Gus and Emmie in one of her crystal barriers, which she controlled to allow him to fly and avoid the flailing fire whiskers without his staff.

"Thanks for the save Luz, but I can't use water or ice magic through this thing!" Gus yelled.

"I've got it handled!" Luz yelled back snapping her fingers as a couple of the hexagonal plates that made up the barrier disappeared, allowing Gus to put his hands through. Luz then continued; "Also, forget the water magic; I have a better idea for you! Mesmerise it, just like you did with the Detention Pit! If you could effect that thing, you can effect the Ash Moth!"

Gus gulped; "This thing's a bit bigger than the Detention Pit!"

"And you're a lot stronger than you were back then! Plus you have Emmiline now! Come on Master Illusionist, I believe in you!" Luz cheered for him as she began twirling the Bat Queen's staff to create chunks of ice that she launched at the Ash Moth, keeping its focus on her.

Gus still looked nervous, but then an illusory message appeared in front of him, conjured by Silver. It read; "I believe in you too, Gus."

He gasped softly and looked over to the Sentinel, who was flying around and avoiding attacks while her brother scratched an ice glyph into his remaining glove. She gave Gus a thumbs up, and the boy felt a little more confidence build up inside him.

"Alright! One illusion coming right up!" he declared, spinning is staff to create a huge spell circle. He then drew two smaller spell circles, one with each hand, and thrust his hands through them, causing his magic and the three circles to resonate. His eyes began to glow cyan, and the Ash Moth's eyes soon began to flicker between their usual red and cyan too, as the Ash Moth thrashed around for a moment, before going almost entirely still. Gus was showing it an illusion of its children hatching from their eggs, and the Ash Moth was focusing fully on them, ignoring the prey that would be no threat to them.

However holding the illusion was difficult, so Gus cried out to the others; "I can't hold this for long, so you might want to stop this thing somehow!"

"I've got it! GG, use ice or water magic to cool the magma below us! If just needs to be enough to stop it glowing so brightly!" Luz ordered.

"I'm on it!" GG yelled back, completing his second glyph glove. He nodded to his sister, who then flew him down to the magma pool where he began blasting ice from the palm of the glove. He pushed it as hard as he could, and the torrent of ice began to coat the magma pool. It melted immediately, naturally, but the water it melted into still cooled the magma and after a few seconds, the pool began to go from glowing red to a dull muddy brown, with only thin veins and cracks of brighter red remaining.

"Silver, the light is weak! Use those shadows to bind the Ash Moth! GG, start blasting it with water!" Luz ordered, spinning the Bat Queen staff to begin preparing her own spell.

The two elites obeyed, Silver landing on top of the barrier Gus was in so she could spin her own staff to make a massive purple spell circle, which she used to take control of all the shadows being cast within the caldera. The shadows twisted together into a plethora of black tendrils, and shot out towards the Ash Moth, binding it as tightly as she could manage. This clearly took a lot of effort too, and the girl struggled to keep control of the shadows even as the mesmerised Ash Moth barely moved. Meanwhile the Golden Guard was placed inside another barrier so Luz could move him around, and he blasted as much ice and water as he could out through a gap in the barrier. His efforts caused the flames on the creature's proboscises and the red hot veins of magic in its wings to begin cooling and turning dull, almost going out entirely. Between that and the cooling of the magma, the temperature in the caldera became noticeably cooler.

The Golden Guard kept up his ice spells until the glyph on his glove was completely spent, causing the glove to disintegrate from over use. He cursed and yelled up to Luz; "Whatever you're gonna do, do it now!"

Luz nodded, having drawn multiple spell circles with the Bat Queen's staff at this point, each layered on top of each other like a cylinder. Luz then rapidly used her finger to draw the ice glyph symbol inside easy circle, then channelled all the magic she had left into the Bat Queen staff as she thrust it towards the circles.

"I hope this works! Have a taste of my Absolute Zero Aurora Beam!" Luz cried. She fired an Aurora Beam from the Bat Queen's staff and into the cylinder of giant ice glyphs. As it passed through each one, its size and strength was magnified, and its temperature dropped lower and lower. By the time it passed through all the glyphs, the beam was large enough to consume the Owl House itself and was so cold that it was freezing the air around it, creating snow despite the hot air inside the volcano and covering every nearby surface with frost.

It struck the Ash Moth right in the chest, and began rapidly freezing it, using the moisture from the Golden Guard's spells to spread even faster. It took almost a minute of constant pressure, during which Luz struggled with all her might to keep the spell going, but her efforts eventually succeeded and the Ash Moth was frozen solid, leaving the entire thing looking like an ice sculpture.

Panting and nearly out of magic, Luz used the Bat Queen's staff to fly over to the closest silken platform and pulled the barriers she'd created over to her too before releasing them, causing Gus, Silver, and GG to land on the platform beside her.

"W-We did it!" she panted, smiling exhaustedly; "We froze the Ash Moth!"

Gus and Silver released their spells, ending the illusion and the shadow binding. Both were equally exhausted, and Emmiline and the Golden Guard moved to help support them, while the Bat Queen turned back into her full form to do the same for Luz. They heard King and Prince cheering from the ice platform nearby, and the other Palismen inside the nest were cheering too, making them all smile. Flapjack even came flying over and happily flew around them all, before landing on the Golden Guard's head and beginning to preen his hair.

"Huh, guess you made a friend, eh Golden Goof?" Luz giggled.

The boy didn't bother protesting the name, nor did he try to swat the Palisman away; he was too happy to be alive! Besides, it felt kind of nice to have the odd bird fussing over him.

"We should get out of here still. Your spell froze it, but the volcano is still active and hot; it'll only be a short time before it thaws out." he said, nodding to the frozen Ash Moth, which was already beginning to drip.

"The boy speaks true. We should go." the Bat Queen said, flying over to collect King, Prince, and the Palismen nest. She'd just made it to them when an impossibly loud roar filled the air, shaking the entire volcano. Everyone turned fearfully towards the Ash Moth, which was rumbling inside its icy container. It's glowing veins of flame began to get brighter again and the ice began to drip faster as cracks began to form.

"We've got less time that I thought! Move!" the Golden Guard commanded.

Gus and Silver quickly got onto their staves again and invited Luz and GG to join them, but before they could, the Ash Moth finally broke free from the ice with a roar of absolute fury, sending massive chunks of ice in all directions. One was about to hit the Golden Guard, so Luz tackled him out of the way, saving his life but leaving them both prone on the platform floor.

"LUZ!" King screamed as the Ash Moth whipped its flaming whiskers at her. Luz tried to conjure a barrier, but she didn't have the strength left and now that the Bat Queen was off helping the Palismen, so she was completely vulnerable. King used Prince to fly towards her and screamed "WEH!" to launch a sonic roar at the tendrils, knocking them off course and causing them to slice a portion of the silken platform. However the Ash Moth then flapped its wings, causing Prince and his mother to be blown back by the wind pressure, meaning King was dragged along for the ride too and unable to help as the Moth once again attacked Luz, pegging her as the bigger target due to her ice and barrier magics.

Luz, unable to move in time, braced herself for impact, but the Silver Sentinel leapt to her defence, creating a barrier with her staff just like her brother had earlier. It protected her and Luz, but it ended just like her brother's; the barrier was shattered and the tendril snapped Silver's staff in half, sending the fragments into the magma below.

"No! Without that, we don't have shadow movement! We can't escape!" the Golden Guard cried.

They had more immediate problems though, as the Ash Moth once again attacked with its whiskers, now aiming for Silver. She dodged out of the way, but the lash hit the platform again, and thanks to the previous cut it had made, it resulted in a huge chunk of the platform falling into the magma below… a huge chunk that Silver was currently stuck on.

"NO!" the Golden Guard screamed, reaching in vain for his falling sister. Without her staff, she was as powerless as he was and couldn't fly or escape into the shadows, so she had no way of escaping her fiery death in the magma below.

Luz tried to fly after her but she was still too weak to fly, and both the Bat Queen and Prince were already carrying burdens they couldn't safely drop to rescue her.

However Gus was not so helpless!

"I'm coming Silver!" he yelled, flying at the girl as fast as he could. He did his best, but no matter how hard he and Emmiline tried, they just couldn't fly right! They jerked backwards and sideways, all while Gus struggled to hold on and was almost in tears of desperation.

The platform Silver was on hit the magma and began to sink, and Gus was just barely able to cast an ice spell to cool the magma and buy Silver a few more seconds. "Come on!" he cried, "Emmie and I are in sync! Why can't I fly!?"

"No two bonds are the same!" The Bat Queen yelled; "Do not fly like others! Fly like you!"

Gus listened to her advice and took it to heart; he'd been trying so hard to fly like everyone else did with their staves, but he was never one to follow the crowd. He did things his way, just like all his friends did too. Amity was graceful on Ghost, Willow had been forceful on Clover, Skara had been skilful on Melody, and of course Luz flew in an entirely different way from the others! He needed to find his own way.

Taking a deep breath and following the same instincts he used when casting illusions, Gus leapt off of Emmiline's staff then landed on it with his feet, beginning to surf the staff through the air. To his surprise, this worked much better for him and he actually felt in full control.

"Now this is more my style! Come on Emmiline, we've got a friend to save!" he cheered. Emmiline chirped even in staff form, and they flew down to the magma with speed that outpaced any other staff user he'd ever met. Gus's ice spell had melted and the platform fragment Silver was standing on was a moment away from being submerged, when Gus swooped in and grabbed her, carrying her in his arms bridal style as he flew back up again.

"Phew! That was a little too close for comfort!" Gus laughed nervously, seeing the smouldering on the bottom of Silver's boots.

The girl was shaking in his arms, clearly terrified, but she threw her arms around his neck and held on for dear life, causing her shaking to slowly settle down. Gus smiled softly, even as his insides twisted at a couple of uncomfortable realisations; Silver was extremely light, being lighter than he was despite being taller. Not only that, but thanks to holding her like he was, Gus could feel the bones in her back and legs incredibly easily… the girl was underweight to the point of seeming borderline starved!

Before Gus could even think about questioning this, he was forced to fly out of the way of one of the Ash Moth's paws, as his use of ice magic and his sudden flying had made him the new focus of the Demon's wrath. Thankfully his new flying skills made evading the paw an easy task, and he flew directly up to the others. The Ash Moth roared and flapped its wings hard, causing Gus to be blown wildly off course just before reaching the rest of the platform. He struggled to right himself, but a sudden lash of fire struck at him, forcing him to awkwardly dodge it by trying to turn, only for the very tail end of his staff to be clipped, causing Emmiline to squeak in pain as Gus and Silver went tumbling off of her. They thankfully landed on the rest of the silken platform with Luz and the Golden Guard, but more lashes of fire were preparing to fall down on them. Gus used a quick burst of ice magic to freeze a portion of the platform ground, allowing him to slide Silver to safety and run the other way, drawing the Moth's attention away from her.

However, Gus's luck took a turn for the worse as one of the Ash Moth's proboscises slammed into the ground right in front of where he'd been running towards Emmiline, causing him to slam into it, getting a burn on his chest for his troubles. He fell back in pain, and the Ash Moth lashed at his prone form again, aiming to crush him with one flaming strike.

The Golden Guard, unwilling to let his sister's saviour meet such a fate, ran forward to protect Gus. He had no magic, no plan, and no chance, but he couldn't do nothing. He threw himself directly in front of the Ash Moth's blow and held his arms out protectively.

"I won't let you kill my sister's friend!" he roared, bracing himself for the blow.

Silver screamed in terror and reached for him, and the still weakened Luz tried to erect a barrier only for her magic to splutter out due to her weakness.

The Golden Guard saw his short life flash before his eyes, and briefly thought about all the things he'd done. He'd wanted to serve his family, serve the Emperor's Coven, and be a hero who helped bring order to the Boiling Isles.

"Well, maybe I finally succeeded in being a hero at least, at the very end!" he thought.

He heard the sizzle of flame, the swish of the Ash Moth's proboscis flying through the air, and the cries of his sister, Luz, and Gus… then he heard the sound of a tweeting bird, and heard an echo of a male voice inside his head.

"You kept me waiting long enough! Finally took the mask off on the inside too, eh?"

The boy's eyes flew open and he witnessed as a barrier of golden energy appeared between him and the Ash Moth's attack. The barrier cracked as it was struck, but a powerful electrical shock zapped the Ash Moth's proboscis in response, causing it to recoil and the beast to roar in displeasure.

"W-What!?" the Golden Guard gasped, as the source of the barrier became obvious; it was a Palisman Staff floating directly in front of him, with a familiar Red Cardinal sitting atop it.

"You… you're that Palisman who helped lead us here." he whispered in awe.

"You got that right. I've waited a long time for you, boy. I've been trying to bond with you all day!" the Palisman's voice said in his head as the bird tweeted. The voice was youthful, like a young boy's, yet it sounded wise

"B-Bond!? Does that mean you're-!?"

"Your Palisman? You got that right! The name is Flapjack! Don't laugh at it; it was given by the man who carved me and I'm very fond of it!" the Palisman demanded.

GG nodded seriously, almost reverently taking the staff. "I don't know what a Flapjack even is. But why would you choose to bond with me? You know what I was planning to do with you and the others!"

"Hey, I sensed your drive the moment you grabbed me earlier. You've got the kind of personality I'm looking for… besides, I promised my old partner I'd wait until I found a kid like you to watch over and be my new partner. Now enough talk; you want to be a real hero right? Then let's do it by saving your sister and our friends!" Flapjack declared.

The Golden Guard grinned and twirled his new staff, making the others all gasp. Silver clapped joyfully, while Luz, Gus, King, and the Bat Queen all gaped at him.

"Flapjack bonded with the Golden Goof!? He really is a little rascal!" Luz exclaimed, even as she smiled. She had mixed feelings about the boy, but she was happy to see that Flapjack had a partner.

"Thanks for the save, Dude." Gus said, getting up after grabbing his own staff.

GG opened his mouth to reply, but the Ash Moth recovered from the shock to its whiskers and roared again, causing the magma levels to begin rising as the heat inside the volcano intensified. Before long they'd all be submerged in magma and Luz didn't have the strength to put up a strong enough barrier to protect them, so escape was their only option.

"Gus, do you have enough magic left to make yourself and the others invisible for a while?" the Golden Guard asked, already getting on his new staff to fly. It felt a lot more natural than with his artificial magic staff.

Gus began surfing on his staff too, and nodded in reply. "I can manage it for maybe ten minutes? Enough to get clear from the volcano at least."

"I can help too!" King declared, revealing he had a handful of Invisibility Glyph Combos prepared. The Golden Guard hovered over and took one, since illusions and invisibility wasn't his forte.

The Ash Moth suddenly roared and pillars of magma shot up from the steadily rising pool, almost hitting King, Prince, and the Bat Queen. They managed to evade, but it was a near miss and the heat was growing worse; they'd catch fire from the hot air alone at this rate!

"Grab my sister and Luz and use those spells to hide! I'll lure the Moth away, then you guys escape to the Fingers! It won't leave its territory, so it should be safe there!" the Golden Guard ordered.

Luz, who mustered just enough strength to fly thanks to all the heat energy she was absorbing, protested; "How do you plan to do lure it away without getting barbecued!? Not even Gus or I could outfly that thing!"

The Golden Guard just grinned; "I'm a little faster than you two! Let's do this, Flapjack!"

With that, he used his flash teleportation, which was now the same golden yellow as Flapjack's magic as opposed to red like his artificial magic. He flashed straight into the Ash Moth's face and landed on its snout, before pointing his staff at it and firing blasts of electricity right into its face, using a similar spell to the one Belos has used on Luz. The Ash Moth roared in rage and pain, and Luz felt a little sorry for it, but a creature that big was still only barely bothered by the spell. Still, it was enough to fully focus its wrath on the Golden Guard, who immediately flashed out of the volcano entirely and into the midday sky. He then blasted a rain of thin lightning bolts down on the Ash Moth's head, causing it to roar and fly upward, leaving the volcano to chase him.

There was no flying creature or staff in the Demon Realm that could outspeed an Ash Moth, but the Golden Guard's flash teleportation moved him at nearly the speed of flight, making him faster than even the Ash Moth in short bursts, allowing him to keep ahead of the beast. He would fly normally (albeit as fast as he could) until the Ash Moth reached attack range with its paws or proboscises, then suddenly zap forward with his flash spell, once again gaining the maximum distance he could get in a single jump, keeping him safe.

Back in the volcano, Gus pulled Silver onto his staff and everyone flew out of the volcano, with Gus using illusions to hide himself, Silver, and Luz, while King used his glyph combos to hide himself, Prince, and the Bat Queen, including the Palismen Nest she carried. Completely invisible and with the Ash Moth thoroughly distracted, they all flew west to the Titan's fingers, eventually coming to a stop on the tip of the middle finger, which was high enough to actually be somewhat cold; a welcome change from the desert heat they'd been dealing with. They all touched down and dropped the invisibility spells, then looked to the east and saw the Ash Moth chasing the Golden Guard, who was too far away for them to see now.

"You think he'll be alright?" Luz asked worriedly.

Gus nodded; "He'll be fine. He may not stand a chance against it in a fight, but if he can evade it then he'll be fine."

Silver began signing her agreement, relying on Luz to translate for her since she couldn't conjure illusory messages any more. "My brother is clever; he'll lure it as far east as he can, then give it the slip and double back to us."

Sure enough, a few minutes later Silver was proven correct. The Golden Guard led the Ash Moth on a chase to within spitting distance of the border between the Palm Desert and the Wrist, before suddenly flashing behind the Ash Moth's head and using the Invisibility Glyph Combo he'd taken from King to hide himself, maintaining it as he began flashing back westward, leaving behind a confused and roaring Ash Moth. He managed to make it all the way to the Titan's fingers before his concentration on the invisibility broke and he became visible again.

He landed with a wide smirk and spun his new staff with a flourish; "And that's how an elite gets it done!"

Silver rushed over and hugged him with relief, and Luz and Gus smiled, while King huffed. "Don't get cocky, Goof! You only got away because you had my awesome glyph combo!"

"Whatever you say, Bird." he shot back.

"I AM NOT A BIRD!" King screeched, his voice getting high-pitched as he neared his squeak of rage breaking point.

Luz picked him up to shush him (causing Prince to roost on her shoulder in the process), then smiled at the Golden Guard; "You did awesome back there! I hate to admit it, but your plan worked better than mine."

"It comes with years of education in tactics and strategy." the boy replied smugly, before adding; "Still, you saved my butt a couple of times during that whole mess. And Gus, you saved my sister too. Consider me saving you as repaying that debt."

Gus nodded; "I'm cool with that. I'm just happy my new buddy got out of there alive!" he said, giving a friendly wink to Silver, who began to fidget in response, much to his confusion.

"In that case, shall we all just agree that we're all even? No debts owed between any of us?" the Golden Guard asked.

Silver nodded immediately, and both Luz and Gus followed soon after, while the Bat Queen (who'd not been able to do as much as she'd like) just sat back and watched. King grumbled about the boy paying him back for his glyph, but Luz whispered that she'd buy him a Smilkshake later to make up for it.

Seeing everyone's positive reactions, the Golden Guard sighed with relief; "Good… then I don't need to feel bad about this."

He pointed his staff at Luz and it began to threateningly crackle with electricity. The others all stared at him, wide-eyed as they realised something; now that they were safe, their truce had come to an end. Even Silver seemed surprised, and was looking between her brother and Gus, fidgeting nervously. Luz sighed, angry with herself for letting her guard down. Slowly, she stepped between the boy and the others and spread her wings wide, shielding them all from him.

"I guess my bad luck is gonna hold all the way to the end." she muttered, before glaring at the two elites.

"So this is it, huh? You're really gonna do this? You're just going to attack us and try to take me and all these innocent little guys to Belos? You know what he did to me. You know what he'll do to them… and you'll just do it anyway?" Luz asked, staring into the Golden Guard's eyes with almost more disappointment than anger.

The boy stared back, his steely eyes wavering.

Luz sighed and shook her head; "I thought that underneath it all, you might've been a good guy. That after all we went through today… I don't know. I guess I just thought we all understood each other a little, but I guess that was just wishful thinking. You're not my friend. You're not GG. You're just… the Golden Guard."

The Golden Guard's eyes filled with regret as he found himself hesitating. Behind him, Silver gently reached out and touched his arm, slowly urging him to lower his staff. Flapjack's voice was absent from his head too, but the Palisman remained stubbornly in staff form despite being able to render the Golden Guard powerless if he chose to change back; it felt strange to the boy… like the little bird was waiting for something.

He looked back up and met Luz's eyes again, then slowly lowered his staff, the electricity vanishing.

"My name is Hunter." he said softly.

Luz gasped and shrank her wings again, allowing Gus, King, and the Bat Queen to see past them again.

"Hunter? That's a nice name." Luz replied; "So, what do we do now Hunter?"

"We don't have to stop being pals, right man?" Gus piped up, before pointing his thumb behind him at the Palismen Nest; "You don't want to hurt these guys, do you? Just let them go, okay?"

Hunter bit his lip; "I-I don't want to hurt them, no. But what choice do I have!? Uncle needs those Palismen and if we fail, he'll-!"

The boy clamped his mouth shut before he could finish the sentence, causing Luz to sigh sympathetically and finish if for him. "He'll hurt you, won't he? You and your sister."

"He doesn't do it on purpose." Hunter said in a small voice, averting his eyes as his hand rose to his cheek, where the scar was. "When his sickness gets bad, he lashes out uncontrollably."

"And you suffer for it." Luz said, eyeing the scar; "Belos gave you that scar, didn't he? And the knick in your ear too."

Hunter refused to answer, so Luz continued, now looking at Silver; "I bet if I looked under your sister's mask, I'd find more scars. Am I right?"

Silver looked down at the ground, and Gus felt a spike of anger in his heart; so Belos really had hurt both of his elites! His own niece and nephew!

"L-Like I said, Uncle doesn't do it on purpose. That's why we need the Palismen. He'd be fine with them. We could keep being a family." Hunter argued.

Gus stepped forward so he was beside Luz; "Dude, I felt how thin and bony Silver was when I carried her earlier, and the bags under your eyes are obvious. I don't think he takes good care of you guys even without his sickness."

Hunter shook his head in denial; "He does care for us! It's just that we have to work hard to support the family, and sometimes that means missing sleep or missing meals. He doesn't starve us."

Luz and Gus didn't answer, and just stared at the boy with sad eyes. Even King and the Bat Queen, who'd been glaring thus far, began to feel sympathy for these two. Hunter and his sister weren't the elite, battle-hardened menaces they appeared to be; they were just a couple of magicless witchlings being pushed to the limit in service of the Emperor.

"Hunter, Belos is lying to you." Luz said softly.

"He's an angel, how can he lie!?" Hunter snapped.

"I'm an Angel too, Hunter. How could I lie?" Luz retorted, "And I don't know how, but Belos is able to lie without his throat burning like a normal Angel's would. I caught him in several lies when he had me captive."

Hunter stared at her in shock, then looked back at Silver. The girl stepped forward and held his hand, while his staff turned back into Flapjack, who landed on his shoulder and tweeted.

"It'll be alright, Hunter. I'm with you, no matter what choice you make. We're partners now." he said in Hunter's mind.

The boy felt his heart warm and he smiled, reaching up to pet the little Palisman. He then stared at Luz, who smiled gently and offered him her hand.

"I can help you. I am an Angel, after all." she said.

Hunter looked at the hand, but did not take it. Instead he turned his back on Luz and her friends; "Belos is still our uncle and the only family we have left. We won't turn on him." he said sternly.

"Then what will you guys do now?" Gus asked.

Still with his back to them, Hunter said; "We attacked the Bat Queen as she flew west, but we were assaulted by the Ash Moth. The Bat Queen and all the Palismen fell into the volcano. This is the truth… I don't see the need to say more than that to Uncle."

Luz and her group smiled; just like Lilith before him, he would let Belos believe the Palismen had perished. "Just make sure you get them all off of the Isles. Uncle can have Head Witch Osran scry for them, but his range is limited to the Boiling Isles; he won't be able to find them beyond the sea."

"Really?" Luz blinked.

Silver began to sign; "The Spirits that Oracles use are unable to cross lines of salt. The Boiling Sea is basically a monstrous wall of the stuff."

"Huh, I never knew that! Thanks for the lesson!" Luz smiled. She then looked at Hunter; "And thank you too, Hunter. I guess you were more than just the Golden Guard after all."

The boy nodded stiffly, still not facing her; "We'll take our leave now. If I'm going to hide Flapjack from Belos, we'll need to go to the outpost in the Wrist instead of flying straight back to the castle, so we've still got a long day ahead of us."

He switched Flapjack back into staff mode and climbed on, with Silver sitting side-saddle behind him.

"Good luck, Hunter! And you too Silver! And thank you for doing the right thing!" Luz smiled, watching as the two took off and began to hover away.

Silver turned back and waved, so Gus waved back and shouted; "Stop by Bonesborough some time! I'll show you all those fun things I told you about!" he grinned.

Silver giggled, then Hunter used his flash magic and the two disappeared into the distance in a golden streak of light, sticking to flying over the sea so the Ash Moth didn't pursue them. Luz and the others watched them go and shouted their well-wishes to Flapjack, with the Bat Queen especially yelling for Hunter to take good care of him. They stayed and watched until Hunter and Silver were out of sight, before moving to leave and continue their mission.

Prince was exhausted, so he was put to bed with his siblings inside the Palismen Nest, while King sat on the Bat Queen's head to direct her to his island and Luz rode on the back of Gus's staff.

"Man, we really can't catch a break sometimes." Luz complained; "We should have already been home by now, but we're still hours away from even getting to the island! We're gonna miss school today."

"Nothing we can do about it." Gus replied; "I'm sure Principal Bump and our parents will understand. Speaking of, we should probably call our parents."

Luz paled; "Oh no, I totally forgot about that! Mom must be worried sick!"

She immediately summoned her scroll, then scowled; "Dang it, we're out of range! Who knew these things couldn't connect beyond the Isles… I wonder if they're based on Oracle Magic too."

"Couldn't be since you can use them." Gus pointed out.

"Should we turn back?" King asked.

Luz thought about it, then shook her head; "No, we need to get the Palismen to safety before my bad luck strikes again. I just hope Eda and the others aren't too worried!"

It would ultimately take three hours of flying as fast as they could before they reached King's Island, which the Bat Queen took to calling Titan Cradle Island. Since flying through the jungle canopy was too dangerous, they landed on the beach instead and left the nest behind, instead releasing the Palismen to roam and explore their new home. The Bat Queen and her kids accompanied King, Luz, and Gus to the Tower itself, and headed inside so King could give Gus a tour while Luz climbed up to the roof and began working on the other end of the Teleportation Circle. By the time she was done, Gus and the others joined her on the roof.

"Finally complete!" Luz smiled; "I've already tested it and gone back to BQ's forest, so we're all done!"

"Finally! Man today has felt like it went on forever!" King complained, exhausted. The fact none of them had gotten any real sleep aside from the unconsciousness they'd fallen into after crashing made their tiredness feel even worse.

"Yeah. But before we go, I wanted to shoot an idea by you, BQ." Gus said.

"I am listening, child." she said.

"I was thinking; our buddy Matt didn't get a Palisman because the one that suited him wasn't ready to bond with him yet, right? Well Matt's a great Construction Witch and this tower is a bit of a fixer-upper, so I thought maybe he could come here to help rebuild it, and the little dude who'd partner with him one day can get used to him. What do you think?" Gus suggested.

Luz smiled brightly and the Bat Queen nodded in agreement; "A wonderful idea. I will agree, so long as Young King does not mind. We are guests in his home."

King gave a thumb-claws up; "If it means I get my old castle back to good condition, then sure!"

"Then it's decided! We'll ask Matt to help rebuild the place." Luz said, "But we really should be getting back; we still need to fly home from the forest after this. We've definitely missed school at this point too."

Gus and King agreed and they piled onto the Teleportation Circle with Luz. The Bat Queen and her three children waved goodbye and gave their thanks to the trio for helping them find this new sanctuary, while also asking them (and especially King) to come back and play with the kids sometime.

With that, Luz sang the melody to activate the Teleportation Circle and warped them all back to the Boiling Isles, bringing their long adventure to an end.