WARNING: If you read my first chapter before I updated this you need to know that I changed the ending of my latest chapter so that the story makes more sense, it may not come up right now but it will be important in the future.

-Luz-

Gravesfield / Sunday January 15th 16:30 hrs

Luz had bolted away from Blight manor a few minutes ago. She had shoved her package in Amity's hands and begged her to take it to Edric with her puppy dog eyes. The girl had accepted but wanted to know why she was in such a hurry, instead of bothering to make some lame excuse (she knew she sucked at making those) she decided to tell her the truth: That she was worried about Eda with the giant portal on top of the city so she needed to check that her mentor was ok. The Blight believed it and told her to be careful.

And now, here she was, sprinting her life away in the suburbs. She had given Owlbert a free day because she didn't want him close to her with Lilith nearby. She was really regretting her life choices.

"Oh come on, why would a portal appear on the day my palisman isn't with me? Also, why did Owlbert ask for a free day? He does deserve it but… What do palismen even do in their free days?"

She frantically typed Eda's number on her pone. It rang a couple times until she heard her pick up.

"Luz! Where the heck are you! Lilith has been worried sick ever since that light appeared and-"

"Not right now Eda, have you seen Owlbert? This is kinda urgent…"

"Way ahead of you kid, I've sent him your way already"

"Good" Palismen had ways to track their bonded witches "Can you tell Lilith that I'm ok? I don't want her to worry"

"Got it, and Luz… please be careful" Eda's voice was shaky in the other line.

"I will"

She hung up and looked for a place to change into her witch outfit. A nearby house looked empty so she just hopped over the fence and put herself against the wall, one quick scan told her that there was no one nearby so she got to work: She drew a spell circle with her hands around her waist, it split into two traveled through her body, changing her regular clothes to her witch attire. She also made an illusion that would change her appearance to make her look like a redhead with green eyes.

"Titan! I haven't washed these clothes in a while, they stink" it was obvious that not doing any hero stuff for over a month would make her rusty, but she did not have time to warm up.

She used a combination of her wind and fire glyph to propel herself up and fly up to the air. It wasn't as fast or as stealthy as going on Owlbert, but it was something.

With that method she managed to get to the center of the city and landed on one of the lower roofs. The portal above her had grown and shrunk in the time that it got her to get here, clearly showing its instability. People around the city had stopped their daily tasks and gathered in the street to point at it in wonder, she could see both the army and the people in suits setting barricades and control posts in the nearby buildings to keep the people at bay. She was thankful that the civilians were being evacuated but her previous altercations with human authorities made her think that they could be a problem for her.

*Hoot Hoot*

Her train of thoughts was interrupted by a familiar sound. Owlbert appeared in the air, flying towards her as fast as his little wings could take him. She quickly rushed towards him and hugged him.

"Owlbert! I am so glad to see you" She nuzzled on him.

*Hoo Hoo*

"I… interrupted your pedicure?" She had so many questions but not time to ask them "I'm sorry about that, I'll promise I will give you the rest of the week free, but right now I need you"

Her palisman nodded and turned into a staff, she mounted it and took off to the sky. As she flew she also casted her invisibility glyph to avoid being seen by the other humans, she did not want to risk another incident.

As she flew through the skies she looked at the portal. It had finally stopped shifting sizes and seemed more stable, something that worried her.

"So far nothing has come through it, but that could change at any second" Then a terrible thought came to her head "Wait a second. If it's stable… does it mean that I could leave?"

The idea both excited and scared her because she could see it play out really clearly: She could phone Eda and explain the situation before heading in, she would complain but… wouldn't that be better for everyone? She could go back home and reconnect to the C.A.T.s and tell them what was happening. Then all of them could take on Belos to ensure that both the human and the demon realms would be safe from his influence (because she had no doubt that this is what it was) and once peace was achieved she could use whatever method it was being used here to come back, it shouldn't be that hard right?

But the more she thought about it, the more that she felt uneasy about the plan. Would she be ok with leaving Eda to explain everything to everyone? What about Lilith? Despite her being so abrasive she was always worried about her and only wanted the best, and what about Amity? Gus and Willow? Her school friends? Would she be fine with just letting all of them think that she ran away or died? Also, how long would it take to defeat Belos and find a way to come back? Weeks? Months? Years? Was she willing to wait that long to see all of her loved ones?

Those indecisions halted her and she didn't notice the portal opening up until it was too late. Memories of her nightmare the previous day flew by her head, a flying ship, a monster with talons, and the end of the world. She prayed that it wasn't the same thing, but she despaired when she saw the shape of what was coming from the other side: A large body, clawed limbs, and a set of wings extended from it.

"No…" She couldn't do anything to stop her vision from fulfilling. Attacking an open portal was a no no, if you destroyed a time-space rift by brute force it could have disastrous consequences to everyone around it. Since she wasn't looking forward to causing an atomic explosion on top of gravesfield she'd have to wait until whatever it was fully came through.

However, something unexpected happened. The beast that came through was very different from the one in her dream; It had a lion's head with bull-like horns and a bovine's front body, a fish's tail, gills on its neck, a dorsal fin on its back, green reptilian scales covering its body, quills coming out of it's rear end, and two sets of wings: One that resembled an eagle's and another that looked like a dragon's.

It was a chimera.

"Ahh!" The appearance startled her, so much that she dropped her invisibility without realizing.

*Roar* And of course, the Chimera noticed her immediately.

It charged against her, and she swerved in Owlbert to avoid being pierced by its front paws; those seemed to be a combination between a lion's claws and an eagle's talons, really sharp and deadly. She responded by blasting it away with her wind glyph.

"I have to pin it to the ground! If it flies away it will end up worse than the Gryphon!"

The gust of air was only strong enough to knock it out of balance temporarily, after a second the beast charged at her again. She summoned a barrage of rock spikes at it, but all of them cracked like wood when they impacted.

"It's skin is too tough. I'll have to- what? whoa!" She dodged a fireball that came from the beast's mouth. The projectile kept traveling past her and exploded against a nearby skyscraper "Not cool!"

It kept firing at her and trying to get close to her to attack with its claws. The pattern kept repeating itself: She would use her magic to keep her distance from the claws but the fire breath would not let her maniobrate too much. On one occasion she managed to tangle it with her vines and immobilize it. She was about to land when the lion's head opened and a snake came out of it and lunged at her. She managed to dodge it but in that moment of distraction the Chimera managed to break free from its restraints.

"Of course, Chimeras have a snake for a tongue and they are incredibly poisonous"

Luz tried to encase it on an ice prison but it was too fast for her, it weaved and lunged towards her with an open mouth, trying to swallow her. She blasted it with a fireball but it seemed that it was a part of its plan: The moment she created fire it blasted a bit of its own, creating an explosion around her. The blast knocked her back against the wall of a building, left her ears ringing, and made her drop Owlbert.

The palisman quickly turned back into a bird and tried to go back to her, but the Chimera, who didn't look like it was hurt by the explosion, was faster. It descended towards her like an eagle grabbing a mouse in a field and-

A new explosion came from nowhere and blasted the creature away from her. The impact created a cloud of blue smoke and it threw off its trajectory, making it crash against a wall several floors below Luz.

She grabbed onto Owlbert and leaped back into the air. She looked back to see who it was and was surprised to find that several people in suits were stationed in a nearby rooftop, some of them were manning one of those turrets she saw during the fight with Wrath, she could also see Marcus standing in the middle of his people.

"So that's what that explosion was about. I really hope they don't fire at me next"

A roar shook the sky and she resumed her fighting stance, she couldn't afford to be wary of humans with an enemy like this, she had to trust that they wouldn't strike her. The chimera roared and shot some quills at her from its back, she merely blew them away with her wind Glyph and responded with lightning.

After some time it seemed that the Chimera got tired from the back and forth, it had landed on a rooftop and looked at her. She just stood still in the air, unsure of what to do in this situation, but luckily she didn't have to wait for too long. It turns out that the Chimera was merely readying an attack, it inhaled deeply and then it breathed the biggest flame that she had ever seen in her life. The fires that it had launched up until now were small, concentrated bursts that exploded on impact, this was a part of hell shaped in a cone going towards her. The heat and the force emanating from it made all of the nearby windows shatter and she realized that she couldn't dodge in time.

"Nope!" She said as she casted her barrier glyph combination.

She extended the barrier as far as she could, taking a size bigger than the front part of a bus. The flames were all contained and some of them were reflected back. They stood locked in this struggle for a couple of seconds until a familiar sound broke their tie: Another shot from the human's turrets interrupted the neverending flames. Luz knew that this was her chance, after an attack so big the monster had to take a minute to catch its breath, that's when she would take the opportunity.

Just as she predicted it, the Chimera gasped and tried to compose itself by taking deep breaths after the explosion, it seemed that whatever they used it had some freezing components, judging from the ice and frost accumulated on top of the monster. She flew towards him and blasted him with her sonic glyph at full force on its face. The impact was so strong that it shattered the concrete from the rooftop and it sent the monster flying from the building to the ground. She didn't give it any time to breathe and shot its open mouth with some fire.

Both the fall and the second blast seemed to be enough to knock it out, but she didn't want to take any risks so she used her plant glyph to create some roots to hold it in place. Once the chimera was secured, she leaned against the wall to catch her breath.

"I… I did it" She inhaled deeply to calm herself. How long did that fight take, five minutes? Maybe less? It was so intense that she lost track of the time "I need to make sure that it's properly tied before those guys in suits arrive"

She approached carefully, if the beast wasn't really knocked out it could breathe fire or shoot its quills even with the vines tying it so she had to pay attention, even the snake-tongue could be used in this situation. Fortunately it seemed that it wasn't conscious at all, it didn't even move when she tapped it snout with her staff.

She was about to get back and let the humans handle things when the beast started shifting. At first she thought that it was waking up but the Chimera's eyes were still closed, and it was moving in a weird way; Instead of trying to get out of the entanglement its muscles twisted and turned in some weird ways, it took her some time to notice but she realized that it was shrinking, its limbs were actually becoming smaller.

"What's going on?" She wondered out loud.

The body of the chimera started spasming and cracking, the muscles shifted and shook as everything changed size. The wings, the tail, the fins, and the quills retracted back to the main body until there were no traces of them left, leaving the beast looking like a common lion with scales on its sides and feathers on its back. Then, when it looked like it had finally stopped shrinking, the body twisted once more: The furr fell to the ground and left the skin exposed, the fangs retracted into teeth, the paws changed into hands, the bones shifted to show a bipedal structure, the hair on top of the head changed from light brown to red, and the ears elongated at the side of the head.

There, wrapped in the vines that were covering her body, laid a naked witch in front of her. She was whimpering and shaking, as if she had a fever, but managed to open her eyes and look at Luz.

"They are coming" She said with a broken voice and passed out.

I kinda ran out of monsters from toh so I had to make my own, I know that others exist but I have plans for them.

Also yeah, I know. Super small chapter bc I'm busy but I do not want to do the thing that I always do. In the last book chapters usually consisted of 3-4 POVs with each one of them being a different event, I liked it but there were occasions where I delayed months bc I wasn't done with some of the POVs and the ones that were ready just sat on my google doc, I didn't like that part.

So I am trying this new format where I put one POV/event per chapter, it would bring smaller chapters (Although most of them will be longer than this one) but quicker updates. I promise that the others will be longer.

I made you drawings of the glyph combos to compensate, you can see them /a/D2HbcoJ