While they were running from the government, Skara and Luz were trying to get away from the bounty hunters. Turns out they really don't appreciate destroying their stand and then knocking out their captain.
"Did we lose them?" Luz asked.
"I don't know." Skara said, "Can you see Eda's stand yet?"
Luz checked her surroundings carefully. "No, but I think I recognize that building to the right with the scaly arms that took a swipe at us before."
"Good enough, let's-"
"THERE YOU ARE!"
Before the two could move on, a winged demon with lanky arms landed right in front of them.
"Do you two have any idea of the love and care we put into setting up our stand?" She yelled. "Each and every one of our information pamphlets were handmade, and you thoughtlessly scattered them all to the winds!"
"Oh my god!" Luz gasped. "Who even reads pamphlets anymore?"
"Oh, that is IT!" The winged demoness drew a topaz spell circle. Luz didn't know what the color meant, but the energy in the circle spiking violently suggested that it wouldn't be pleasant.
"Get behind me, Boscha..." Skara showed a fierce determination as she shielded Luz with her own body. "...I won't let you get taken again."
"SKARA, NO!"
In that moment, time appeared to come to a staggering halt for Luz. Her body - rather, her sister's body - began to move on its own. Dashing towards the demon, her right arm tucked into her side. As soon as she realized she was centimeters away from her perceived target, her arm had already exploded forward, making contact with the demon's torso. Her fist twisted slightly as she struck, sending her opponent spiraling into the adjacent building... and the next five buildings beyond that.
"DAMN, girl!" Skara surveyed the collateral damage. "Did you swipe some power glyphs or something?"
Luz stalled for a moment, taking in everything that happened in those few seconds. "Huh? Oh, no that's just... a result of my karate training."
""Kuh-rah-tay?" Is that some kind of magic?"
"Yeah. But don't tell that to Boscha, or she'll flip ou- I mean... don't tell that to... me?"
That was it. Skara couldn't ignore that nagging suspicion anymore. She walked up to who she believed was Boscha and looked her dead in the eye. When she noticed soft, amber eyes instead of the usual piercing blues, her disposition turned dark. "Who are you?"
"Hey... Skar-Skar, what are you tal-?"
"WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO BOSCHA?!"
"Woah, wait, don't freak out!" Luz said, "It's me. It's Luz, Eda did some kind of body swap spell and-"
"Stop right there!" Another Hunter shouted.
"Dang it!" Luz said, "This isn't looking good."
"DID YOU SAY "BODY SWAP SPELL?!"" Skara shouted in Luz's face.
""DON'T SHOUT THAT!" Luz shouted back.
"I'M SORRY, I'M JUST REALLY ANGRY!"
"AND MY BRAIN FEELS LIKE IT'S IN AN OIL FRYER!" Heat began to radiate from Luz's borrowed body.
"Uh, hello?" The hunter was starting to feel left out. "I'm declaring my intent to make you pay for our stand?"
"Why would you let Eda do this to you?" Skara continued to berate Luz, heedless of the hunter's interjection.
"I didn't let her!" Luz also didn't care about him. "And what's the big deal about body swapping, anyway?!"
"Seriously?! Legal and moral implications aside, everyone knows that kind of spell is annoying, tedious and is an overall hollow experience for everyone involved!"
The hunter waved to the two girls. "Hey, kids? Threatening your lives, here."
Luz still paid him no mind. "That's so closed-minded! Not everything in life needs to have meaning. A little dumb fun never hurt anybody!"
"The fact remains that it is illegal!" Skara emphasized. "And I'd rather not have the friend I just got back dragged off to the Conformatorium!"
"HEY!" Sick of being ignored, the hunter got into the other girls' faces. "In case you didn't notice, you've got bigger problems right now!"
"SHUT UP!" The two responded as they both punched him in the face, knocking him out cold.
As well as knocking him a good dozen feet away, at least.
"Okay, I'm very angry right now." Skara said, "The Owl Lady did something so irresponsible and I just... AHHHH!"
"Uh, so... maybe we should get to the stand before more people come and find us." Luz said.
"Right, c'mo-OW!"
"Skara?" Luz noticed that Skara had tried to take her hand but singed her own in the process. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, sorry. I forgot you were all... fired up."
Looking at her hand, Luz noticed the waves of heat emanating from her arm. "Oh no! Skara, I'm sorry, I'm not really good at controlling Boscha's magic... is this the kind of thing she has to go through all the time?"
That question caused an awkward silence between the two. It lasted for a while before there was shouting echoing throughout Bonesborough. Skara couldn't understand the words being yelled, but Luz...
"I recognize that voice! And those expletives! It's Mom! Eda must've returned to her stand. C'mon, this way!" The two quickly, yet trepidatiously, ran towards the angry voice.
Boscha and Amity were running as fast as they could, as it wasn't long before the coven guards found out about them knocking out Lilith... naturally assaulting a government official is pretty frowned upon regardless of if they deserved it or not.
"Did we lose them yet?" Boscha asked.
"Don't know... keep running!" Amity said.
"Seriously, why couldn't you just keep a low profile? Now we have Coven scouts chasing us too, all because of your aggressive behavior!"
"MY aggressive behavior?!" Boscha didn't take that as a compliment for once. "I wasn't the one repeatedly stomping that one scout in the groin! Even I felt bad for that poor guy."
"He could've broken Luz's - er, your arm! Besides, it was just Suck-up Steve."
"And I thought I had anger iss-"
"WAIT!" Amity stopped, prompting Boscha to do the same. "Do you hear yelling?"
Boscha picked up her ears to listen. "It's faint, but yeah. I can't make out what they're saying."
"I can't understand the language. "Tonta?" "Pen...dejoh?" What's a "poo-tah?""
"That's mom!" Boscha rejoiced. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but follow that reprimanding voice!"
They ran towards the voice, hoping that there was some way out of this. To their surprise, Skara and Luz were also there.
"Oh man, I'm so glad to see my body not damaged." Boscha said, going up to the stand.
"And I'm glad you didn't get me a tattoo." Luz said, knowing Boscha would do something like that.
"Damn it! Why didn't I think of that!?" Boscha said.
Amity elbowed Boscha, reminding her that they were currently in trouble.
"Oh, right... so... we might be running from the cops." Boscha said.
"And... we might be running from bounty hunters." Luz said.
Luz and Boscha had to say, they have never seen an actual vein pop out when someone is angry, but they're pretty sure they just saw their mom have that happen. Camila turned to Eda with a glare.
"Fix. This. NOW." She said.
"Y-y-yeah, I have the potion with me right now." Eda said, reaching into her hair, "Took a bit of work to get right."
'Titan, why is her being angry at me turning me on?' Eda thought.
She pulled the potion out of her hair and held it towards the girls... only for a spell to destroy the bottle and send the potion to the ground.
"Uh... well... this is why I made extra." Eda said, "We just have to get back to my house and-"
"Freeze!"
They turned and saw about half of Bonesborough Coven patrol, and Lilith, standing a few feet away, to the right of the stand.
"By order of the Emperor's Coven, you are all under arrest." Lilith said, "Give yourselves up, or we will be forced to-"
"Oh my God, shut up you dumb fucking bitch!" Boscha said, getting mad as they just destroyed the potion that would fix them, "You have been nothing but a pain in the ass since we met you, and we literally have done nothing to you! Each time you got hurt, it was because you physically harassed us first!"
Camila's anger turned from Eda to Lilith.
"She what?" Camila asked, scarily calm.
"Yeah, she's been bothering us since we met." Luz said, before looking around and seeing the bounty hunters rushing towards them, "Uh... Boscha? How do you make a fireball?"
"I dunno, trace a circle with your finger?" Her sister shrugged. "It's always been a kind of motor skill, like blinking or walking or punching some douche that had it coming."
The bounty hunters stood by the Coven scouts as Lilith chastised the bodyswapped Boscha. "Did poor Steve "have it coming?" Look at what you've done to him!"
She gestured to a scout that was hunched over in pain while covering his groin. "Urrrgh... next time... athletic support for Steve."
"THAT'S SNORSESHIT!" Amity angrily got up in Lilith's face. "I did that! You know I did that! I got your attention specifically so you could SEE me do that!"
The Coven Leader did not falter. "We will discuss this later, Amity. Now stand aside, and I might be able to look the other way regarding your behavior. Though, I can't guarantee I can smooth things over with your mother."
Those words figuratively and literally ignited something within Luz. Her arms twitched with every condescending syllable Lilith hurled at her friend.
Camila took note of Luz's reaction to how the raven-haired witch talked to Amity. It had just then hit her that this was the friend Luz mentioned at the big sleepover a couple of weeks ago. The one who couldn't make it due to injuries she sustained at some family presentation or something. Looking at Amity, she saw the bandages on her wrist and a slight bruising under her eye, as well as a few small, fresh-looking cuts on her face and arms. She wanted to speak out, but was struggling with her disbelief that a parent could be so cruel.
"Why can't you leave Amity alone?!" It would appear that Luz beat Camila to it. "Why do you... ALL of you have to meddle in her life like this?!"
Lilith narrowed her eyes at her. "Not that it's any of your business, but Amity is a talented witch with a promising future. We can't have her squander her potential by mingling with lowlifes and throwing away a lucrative future in the Emperor's Coven as Edalyn did!"
Boscha had to look at the Owl Lady a couple of times before it sank in. "THIS Eda?!"
Luz wasn't listening. She was so furiously focused on Lilith's smug demeanor that her knuckles literally ignited. What really got Boscha's attention was the color of the flames wreathing Luz's fists.
'... Why is the fire blue?' Boscha thought.
Luz, being the baseball fanatic, threw the fireball like it was a fast ball and hit one of the bounty hunters with it. She held up her hands, and looked at the fire with the glowing blue eyes. To her surprise, inside the fire... was a symbol.
"Whooooaaa... Guys, look! It's magic!"
Lilith grimaced at her. "We're all well aware of what magic is, child."
"Go dye your roots, you ginger ghoul!" Luz clapped back. She then addressed her family and friends while Lilith checked her hair. "Can you see it? I think it's a new glyph!"
Boscha seemed to be the only one that could see it, as she quickly pulled out a notepad... Don't ask where she had it, she doesn't know how Luz manages to hide these, she just knows that Luz has a notepad on her body at all times. Boscha began to draw the symbol and then tapped the paper, making it crumple into a small blue fire ball.
"Wow." Boscha said, "When you become famous, I better get credit for this. Now... shall we burn this bitch down?"
"... Maybe it's your inner arsonist talking for me." Luz said, holding up her hand, fireball at the ready, "But yes."
"Hold on, mijas!" Camila stepped out in front of her daughters. "In good conscience, I can not allow my children to engage in a firefight with a bunch of witches and demons."
She then raised her now-signature bat - once more adorned with light glyphs - and tapped it to bring back her giant lightsaber.
"Not without some parental guidance." She gleefully stared at the coven scouts and bounty hunters, some of whom took a few steps back.
"Hot damn, Cam!" Eda had struck a pose next to Camila. "Luz's description of your prowess does not do you justice."
"Hey! I try!" Luz pouted.
Boscha was losing her patience. "Can we just burn some cabrons already?"
"No tengas dudas!" Camila swung her weapon at the ground, splitting up the mob before them.
"Now we're talking!" Boscha hurled her blue fireball at a couple of disoriented coven scouts.
Luz meanwhile, aimed right at Lilith. While Boscha may be able to throw a basketball, her best fastball reached close to 87 miles per hour, and she planned on hitting her right in the head!
"Now eat this, sucka!" Luz shouted, hurling the fireball at Lilith.
While it did not hit her in the face, it did light her hair on fire, and Luz could live with that.
"Nice shot, kid!" Eda said, dying of laughter as she watched Lilith scramble to put her hair out.
"I was trying to make as two faced as she acts, but I can live with making her bald." Luz said, turning around to help Boscha, "... Boscha why are you suddenly covered in blood?"
"... Don't ask." Boscha said, "None of it's yours at least."
"That doesn't make me feel better!" Luz said.
Meanwhile, Camila and Eda used their respective magic to thin out the mob. Some of the bounty hunters decided that discretion was the better part of not getting their asses handed to them, and ran away. As they stood back-to-back, Eda slightly shuddered in delight, as this situation felt like something out of one of her best dreams.
Even Skara joined the fray, defending Boscha from anybody trying to get the drop on her. Amity, however, stood in stunned silence. The chaos unfolding before her was a perfect microcosm of her life this past month. Things were falling apart around her and she didn't know what to do...
...At least until she caught a glimpse of Lilith readying an attack spell aimed at Luz.
"NOOOOO!"
Before anybody knew it, Amity was slumped on the ground in front of Luz, her left shoulder smoldering from being struck by a bolt of magic.
Luz saw Amity on the ground, and then at Lilith. The glowing red eyes that came from her made Lilith shiver... the fact that Luz was suddenly right in front of her in what seemed like a blink of the eye... that made her go rigid in fear.
"You shouldn't have done that." Luz said, her voice sounding dark and demonic.
She grabbed Lilith by whatever was left of her burnt hair and pulled her down, Boscha's ifrit genes taking over completely. Luz delivered an uppercut to Lilith, sending her high into the air, before landing on a roof and creating a massive dent on it. Lilith groaned, but she wasn't getting out that easily. Luz was suddenly on the roof, again in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Luz punched Lilith so hard she actually bounced across the roofs like a stone across water. When Lilith bounced off the fourth rooftop, she landed on the ground, coughing up blood as most of her ribs were broken. She began to pick herself up, when Luz grabbed her by the back of the head and slammed her face into the ground, breaking Lilith's nose and knocking out several teeth. Lilith was tired of being thrown around and stood up and kicked Luz away. Lilith made a spell circle and shot lightning at her. Luz calmly walked around it as if time was stopped, before it sped back up.
'Is she using a speed spell?!' Lilith thought, 'No, it can't be, that's a high level magic that witches her age can't perform.'
Lilith kept trying, deciding that it was just a fluke. She shot more and more lightning, each time making it more and more lethal, no longer caring if Luz lives or dies, Lilith was just trying to survive this fight at this point. After her latest attempt, Luz grabbed Lilith's lower arm and bent it in the wrong direction, causing a sickening crunch as Lilith's elbow was now forming a right angle in the wrong direction.
"AHHHHH!" Lilith let out, before Luz grabbed her by the neck.
Luz's skin was burning, and it was causing more pain to Lilith, but she couldn't scream due to the tight grip. Luz watched as Lilith's eyes began to roll back into her head. The ifrit would've allowed Lilith to die, if it wasn't for an unlikely savior.
"Luz... don't."
Luz turned and saw Amity standing there, holding her shoulder.
"A...Amity?" Luz instantly dropped Lilith out of concern for her friend. "Are you okay?"
"Don't worry about me, I've had worse." Amity reached out to Luz. "What about you? You kinda lost it back there."
"Amity, WAIT!" Luz saw her reaching for her shoulder, which was still that of her sister and still on fire. She flinched away, but not fast enough. She shut her eyes, but that only amplified the sound of sizzling flesh.
"Luz, it's okay." Hearing Amity's calm voice, Luz opened one eye to see that she was wearing an abomination-made glove, protecting her hand from the heat, though it was sizzling slightly.
"What did I just...?" Luz had broken out of her haze to see the broken mess she had made of Lilith. "I did THAT?"
"It wasn't all you." Boscha had caught up to them. "I've never been on the outside of it before, but that's the effect my demon body has on me. Your brain overheats, and you have to do what you can to vent, like sports, running, playing, or... beating the absolute shit out of anyone dumb enough to mess with your friends and family."
"This... this is what you have to go through every day?"
"Well, it's not always this bad. It depends on how stressed you get. And hey, at least you put it to good use." Boscha enthusiastically pointed to the defeated Lilith.
"But I didn't want to hurt anybody. I just wanted her to leave Amity alone, but I could have killed her."
"Don't flatter yourself!" Everyone was shocked upon seeing Lilith inexplicably get to her feet. "You have yet to see what I am capable of when I'm pissed off!"
As if to prove her point, the leader of the Emperor's Coven grabbed her dislocated arm and set it back into place with a sickening crunch. Everybody else recoiled in disgust at the noise.
"Though you had the upper hand in our fight, my head is bloody, but unbowed! Edalyn can certainly attest to my durability."
Everyone turned to Eda in utter shock. "It's like I was telling the girls earlier, Lily and I got into some real shit back in the day." She admitted.
"And through this fell clutch of circumstance, you children have found yourselves on the receiving end of my fury." Lilith summoned her staff and aimed it at Luz.
"Will you just STOP IT ALREADY!" Amity once more put herself in harm's way to protect Luz. "You said you wanted to make amends before, but for a second time, your pettiness screwed everything up! You were going to arrest Luz and Boscha for a crime they didn't even commit, just because of this stupid grudge with your sister!"
"They are still accessories to that crime and must be processed." Lilith decreed after spitting out more blood.
"That's a lie! You let Bria and her cronies get away with worse shit than that!"
"Language!"
"You are not my Titan-damn mom!" Amity stepped up to her former mentor. "You wanna talk about crimes?! Can you justify this excessive force against a couple of kids? Wasting the emperor's resources for such a small infraction? How about the extrajudicial deputizing of a group of bounty hunters?"
"I did no such thing!" Lilith was incensed at that last accusation.
"Wuh... well, we didn't exactly tuhh... turn down their help." Steve regained consciousness just in time to offer his two snails.
"Can you NOT, Steve?" Lilith gnashed her remaining teeth. "And if you insist on drawing this out, Amity, we can take it all the way to the emperor."
"HA!" Eda snorted at her sister's bluff. "Sure, Lily, let's tell him about how you and your goon squad got your asses handed to you. Better yet, let's set an appointment with his right hand. Kikimora still works for him, right?"
Lilith flinched at that accursed name. "I... I will still..."
"No you won't!" Amity rejoined. "Because aside from owing me for the way you treated me, you also owe me your life!"
"How...?"
"If it wasn't for me reaching Luz, you'd have burned to a crisp. Or does your ingratitude really run that deep?"
Lilith spent an uncomfortable amount of time weighing her options. As stubborn as she was, seeing Amity look at her with those cold, angry eyes dismantled her resolve. "Very well. All scouts withdraw at once. And no one tell the emperor of what transpired here."
As the coven scouts picked themselves up and retreated with Lilith, Camila ran up to Luz. "Mija, are you all right?"
"I... I wanna go back to my body." Luz sadly muttered.
"We'll get right on that." But the elder Noceda would have words with a certain witch. "And... "Amity," was it? Thank you so much for your help. Both in protecting my daughters and for keeping that cabrona off our backs. And I promise that our gratitude is legit."
Amity had pivoted away, striking a laid back, indifferent pose. "I... it was my pleasure, Mrs. Noceda."
Of course, she was moved to tears by Camila's praise. Giant, overflowing tears. 'A mom that uses positive reinforcement.' She thought to herself. 'The rumors were true.'
Boscha patted her sister on the back. "I gotta say, Luz, you handled my power pretty good back there. Even I couldn't go all out on Adegast, let alone those stormtrooper wannabes, without passing out."
Just as she uttered those words, Luz passed out.
"Aaaand there we go."
"Luz? Luz..."
Luz had finally regained consciousness. As her senses adjusted, her vision was compressed back to her usual two-eyed view, which told her she was back in her body. And the sensation of the lumpiest cushions ever devised told her she was on the couch in the Owl House.
"Luz, are you okay?" A familiar, green-haired witch was kneeling next to her.
"AMITY!" Luz sprang up and hugged her friend with all her relative might. "Oh, Gracias a Dios que estás bien."
"Good... to see you too?" Amity wasn't sure what she said, but picked up the context. Being hugged like that was the greatest feeling she could recall, even with her injured shoulder.
Luz then noticed something.
"Where's Boscha?" She asked, "Eda, did you ball her again?"
"Not this time." Eda said, before a pink blur came by and hit the wall.
"Ow!" Boscha said, bouncing off the wall and landing on her ass, "Going to have to get used to that. Luz, did you see how fast I can go?!"
"Uh... why did I feel that?" Luz asked.
Eda then suddenly pulled a chalkboard in from... somewhere.
"Glad you asked!" Eda said, "I found out why you two weren't able to switch back normally."
She began to draw two stick figures, one with two eyes and one with three eyes.
"You see, when you two swapped, it didn't just swap your bodies, but also parts of your soul." Eda said, "I've heard about it, but I thought it was a myth. There is now a piece of each of you in the other, which is partially why triclop's fire is blue."
Luz then checked something. She drew a fire glyph and tapped it, resulting in a small blue fireball forming in its place.
"Whoa, this is pretty cool." Luz said.
"Yeah, guess we're more alike than we originally thought." Boscha said, wrapping an arm around Luz's neck, "And you know what this calls for?"
"Boscha... don't-"
She began to give Luz a noogie. As the kids were left to the living room, Camila and Eda were talking in the kitchen.
"So, what does this... soul... thing... mean?" Camila asked.
"A soul piece is an old legend, how it happens, only the Titan knows, but what it means is..." Eda looked at Luz and Boscha, "They'll tell when the other is in pain or is sad or anything along those lines, really. I think I have a book about it somewhere, I'll look for it later."
"Thank you... now for what I said earlier when you came back to the stand." Camila said, getting a certain... look... in her eyes.
"N-n-now Cam, let's not get hasty here." Eda said, backing up.
"I'd like to peruse your armory..."
"OH, DEAR TITAN, NO!" Eda shielded herself, preparing for the worst.
"I'm going to pick out a couple more keepsakes to keep my Battel'lop company."
"OH!" The Owl Lady let out a heavy sigh of relief. "I thought you were gonna use them on me or something."
"Well, the day's not over yet." Camila smiled. It's not like she was going to harm Eda in any way, but she didn't need to know that just yet.
Luz was massaging her poor head after another one of Boscha's noogies. Given their new abilities, that left Boscha massaging her own scalp as well.
"Guess you won't be trying that from here on out." Luz laughed.
Boscha laughed back. "I wouldn't be so sure."
"So this is normal behavior among siblings?" Amity wondered aloud as she observed the antics of the Nocedas.
"Told ya." Skara assured her.
"That said..." Luz looked at Boscha seriously. "...I never knew how tough it was for you. Having to concentrate so hard to keep your anger in check. I always thought you were a hothead. And you totally are, but you're way better at managing it than I ever gave you credit for."
"Aw, that really means a lot, hermana." Boscha replied. "And having been in your shoes, I have a newfound appreciation for what you go through, being so weak and all."
"Uuuuuuhhhhhh... 'kay?" Needless to say, Luz wasn't sure what to make of that. "How is that something to appreciate?"
"Because you never give up!" Her sister emphasized. "Anybody can be a badass if they have the power to back it up. But YOU? You've kept up with us in situations where most people - *cough* Tracey *cough* - would shit themselves and run away in abject terror. If I were still you, I couldn't be half as brave as you are."
"Wow. That actually turned out nice. Thanks, Bosch."
It was at that moment that Amity remembered something important. "Oh, Boscha! About what we were talking about before? About how you, me and Skara used to hang out occasionally before you were lost in Connect-a-Cut?"
"WHAAAAAAAT?" Luz was amazed at this revelation of Boscha's past. "Also, what? Were you trying to say "Connecticut," Ams?"
"Is that how it's pronounced?" Amity wondered. "Anyway, they moved away, but I think Mom still does business with your birth parents, Boscha. If you want, we can look into that and possibly find them."
While Luz's jaw was practically unhinged from shock, Boscha was somehow more flummoxed. She had barely entertained the notion of finding her Demon Realm parents, being more concerned with helping Luz. But now that there's a good chance they can be found, she was overcome with anxiety. Could it be some small part of her wanted this? Only time would tell.
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