Chapter Text
“Let my friends go?” Luz boldly declared, flipping forward. As she landed she slammed the staff into the ground causing a line of ice to protrude in front of the Emperor.
Belos stared at the spire in front of him for a moment. “Okay… I’ll play.” Luz watched as he melted and rematerialized behind her.
She found herself ripped off the ground as a red aura surrounded her. She tumbled across the room, slamming into a statue.
A large crack spiderwebbed through the statue causing a large golden axe to fall to the ground which she narrowly avoided. The ground began to tear up in front of her and a demonic clawed arm was conjured seemingly out of nowhere.
In one swift movement Luz slapped a fire glyph on the earth and an ice on the arm before continuing to sprint. She hopped up onto the staff and took flight but was met by a ginormous slug.
She screamed as she flew inside of the beast but incinerated it with another fire glyph. The force from the glyph knocked her back onto her feat. She gripped the staff tightly as Belos began to speak.
“What’s wrong, human?” He coldly mocked “I thought you wanted to fight.”
More of the arms appeared from the floor and grabbed hold of Luz, pulling her down to the floor.
Belos stepped from the shadows and asked “had enough?”
Luz looked up at the Emperor with an indignant grin spread across her face “not even close.”
She used the moment of surprise to activate an ice glyph, causing a large shard to shoot up and hit Belos in the eye. The older witch groaned in pain as he gripped his eye, fracture pieces of his mask falling to the floor.
Belos chuckled as he regained composure. “I like your spirit” he said before turning back to the human, his piercing blue eye glowing in the darkness “but try that again and things won’t end well for you.
He walked forward towards Luz and began expositing to her “now I’m just a humble messenger for the Titan, in the grand scheme of things the Owl Lady’s life is inconsequential.”
Luz furrowed her brow as she tried to make sense of what she was hearing.
“Then you showed up.”
She felt a new wave of fear wash over her as Belos tilted his head to the side and stared directly into her eyes.
“If you want to save your mentor then give me the portal to the human realm.”
Luz didn’t know what to do. He was asking for the portal, the one that contained the only way for her to make it home, the home where her mother lived. How much did Eda and King and Lilith really mean to her? Could she live with herself if she traded her own mother for them?
“But… my home” she said.
Then the sound of a spell casting rang out from above the two of them. After a moment a horrible screeching could be heard, Eda was in pain.
“You probably think we want to invade the human realm. But the Titan’s will is not so borish, you’ll understand soon” Belos explained, some form of regret leaking into his voice “Tick Tock human, the Owl Lady doesn’t have much time left.”
Eda’s screams could once again be heard. Luz couldn't bare to hear much more.
“No!” She desperately pleaded. She began to tear up before she relented and pulled out the portal key “Fine!”
Luz clicked the key and summoned the portal before uttering an apology to her mother. She approached the Emperor and abruptly held it out “here it’s yours!”
“The Titan will be pleased,” Belos said as he took the Portal from Luz.
She walked over to the platform and pulled up her hood.
“Go on then” Belos encouraged “go be a hero”
Luz turned her back as Belos slammed his staff on the ground causing the platform to raise.
Summoning the required courage Luz responded “I may have lost but so have you.” She turned around and slammed the Owl Lady’s staff onto the floor, activating the glyphs she had hidden on the portal.
The portal burst into flames causing Belos to jump back and drop it. The wooden frame hit the ground hard and splintered into several pieces.
Smoke filled the room as Luz was raised above, the two of them locking eyes before she was gone.
Luz steeled her resolve as she reached the platform keeping her friends. She quickly threw a vine glyph at the device turning Eda to stone causing the plants to summon and destroy the machine.
But Luz was too late. When she turned around she saw that the Owl Beast was nothing more than a stone statue sending King and Lilith into a panic.
“What do we do?” King asked.
“The Spell was completed!” Lilith responded, her voice filled with abject horror “There’s no way for me to help her fight it!”
Luz felt pure, unrestricted anger flow through her veins. She turned to Kiki who said “Yes, the Emperor will revel in this triumph.” And approaches from behind with a fire glyph active in her hand.
“Free them, NOW!”
The diminutive creature instantly used a spell circle to unlock the cage.
Luz ran over to the group huddled around the stone Eda without noticing the guards approaching from behind. She hugged into it hoping that she could do something to make everything better.
Before she did anything more Luz felt a sharp object stab through her back. Her knees buckled as the pole arm’s blade was wrenched out.
“Luz!” King Screamed “Lilith do something!”
Lilith took a deep breath before taking a small scroll of paper out of a hidden pocket. “Human, I’m sorry but this is the only way to save you”
Lilith drew a spell circle in the air but then began to draw the intricate glyph markings inside of it. The spell began to instantly take effect as an unnatural warmth spread through her body.
She looked down and saw her wound begin to close.
Luz was snapped out of the moment when an eerie voice spoke up. “I think that is quite enough Lilith.”
She craned her neck over to see the platform she arrived on rising up carrying Emperor Belos.
As he walked over he addressed Lilith and King “I want you two to leave peacefully. My guards are ordered to give you safe passage to the Owl House and to consider all of your crimes absolved. But if you ever show any open insurrection again you will perish.”
Belos snapped his fingers causing the guards to begin escorting King and Lilith our.
“As for you human,” he said, as he stopped. He abruptly reached out to Luz and began to continue.
But Luz didn’t hear what he said as everything faded to white.
Luz shot up in bed, beads of sweat coating her face as she tried to steady her breathing. She ran a hand through her hair while collecting her thoughts.
This was the seventh night in a row she had experienced that nightmare and overall a month since she faced Belos.
Hopping out of her makeshift bed, Luz snuck out of her room trying to be as quiet as possible.
She made her way through the Owl House and took a peek into Eda’s room to find her asleep with King curled up next to her. It always warmed Luz’s heart to see the two old friends together.
Luz also took the time to peer into the living room and see Lilith asleep on the couch.
It still was pretty strange to see someone who had spent over half of their acquaintance attempting to hurt everyone in their little group now living here.
Heading back to her room she plopped down and checked her phone for any response from her mother. Eda had made some magical modifications to allow it to connect to the Isles equivalent of cell service but it still wasn’t enough to contact the Human Realm.
Luz sighed and took a brief look outside, but nothing more than a cursory glance. Dissatisfied she plopped into the bed and prayed that she wouldn’t have the nightmare again.
As she squeezed her eyes shut something felt off, an uneasy presence that was shoved off to the side. Everyone is fine, everything is okay.
With that Luz drifted off into a restless slumber.
_
Luz’s sleep was marginally better the second time around. No ominous nightmares or midnight paranoia had appeared during her second bout.
Pushing her way off the ground Luz blinked her exhaustion away and lazily ambled across her room.
She sighed at the piles of junk littering the ground, she really needed to clean those up, and began to rifle through in search of her school uniform.
After about five minutes she found the ratty outfit. She haphazardly doodled a glyph she learned for cleaning and activated it. In under a second her uniform was completely spotless.
She changed and set off to go to Hexside for her first day back since the incident with the Emperor.
On her way she crossed paths with Eda who looked as spry as ever. It only took a once over from Eda to tell something was wrong with her protoge.
“Rough night?” She asked.
Luz cringed, this was a conversation that she’d hoped to avoid.
Forcing a smile onto her face she responded “Nope, you know me! Always filled with wide eyes and youthful optimism!”
Eda seemed satisfied with the answer, simply humming in response before returning to whatever she had been doing.
The young girl speed walked down the pathway to take the most direct route to Hexside. She didn’t fully understand why but she felt as if a distraction would ease her mind.
It didn’t take too much longer for Luz to reach the school. As she strolled onto campus she looked down in expectation of her uniform to change color.
For some unquantifiable reason she really enjoyed the transformation, maybe because of the complicated magic it must take, or maybe because it reminded her a bit of a Power Rangers suit up.
Strangely her colors didn’t change to the random assortment of rainbow colors like usual. Her outfit instead turned a solid violet to indicate the Oracle track.
As she was thinking over her confusion Luz’s phone buzzed with the tone she had set for Boiling Isles messages.
When the phone was turned on a message read out the following. “Greetings student body, this is Principal Bump. Today the Emperor’s Coven is sending a real inspector and as such will stop in with all classes at least once. All multi-track students are temporarily being assigned a single track to follow for the day, I apologize for the inconvenience.”
That made sense, the school was in dire need of financial support. If the Emperor’s Coven figured the breach of rules the school would be shut down in a heartbeat.
Even though the situation was disappointing Luz at least she had one of the more intersecting classes.
Then the bell began to scream, indicating the first period was beginning soon. Luz hurried off to her first class.
_
The school day was long and monotonous. She didn’t know anybody well in the Oracle track and the ones she did were either sick or in a different period rotation.
Luckily she was at her last period, ACC timeline deconstruction.
Walking into class she noticed the professor was one she hadn’t met before.
He was a tall, pale, lenkey man with spiky tufts of gray hair and a short white robe. He generally seemed disconnected and was nursing a large potion bottle.
She quickly took her seat at a lab station as he began to speak.
“Hello children” he said, a slight cough hacking out as he talked “I am Doctor Richard, I’m not your regular timeline deconstructor as I think the better approach is hands on.”
He gestured to the contents of the lab station.
“In front of you should be one of these babies” he directed, holding up a small blue crystal. “This is a death crystal, it literally shows you how you die.”
The bombshell reveal of the teacher elicited a series of gasps from across the room.
“Yeah yeah, I’ve heard it all before. Luckily if you’re living right there shouldn’t be a finite outcome. Now you may wonder what the point of having these is… I won’t lie, they're pretty worthless. But I want you to grind up your sample and apply it to your crystal ball with the tools in front of you.”
The directions were pretty simple. Luz replicated them with little effort, crushing the crystal into a fine paste and smearing it onto the ball.
Once everyone was able to move on Mr. Richard continued “Alright, now I want you to replicate this spell circle.”
He turned around and drew a glyph onto a nearby chalkboard.
Luz quickly copied it down and activated the glyph causing a line to extend from the crystal ball.
Assuming from the straightforwardness and random pop culture references she knew, Luz pieced together that this was her personal timeline.
“You should see the most probably calculated timeline in front of you. Now I want you to go nuts, look at your marriage, get the answers for that upcoming quiz, I could really care less.” Mr. Richard said before sitting down into his chair and taking a big swig from his bottle.
Luz became excited by the prospect of seeing the future. If things are going smooth enough she may have a chance to get home.
However when Luz examines the line she noticed all of the moments were gray with static. Contrasting with everyone else who had vibrant colored images and videos, something wasn’t right.
She raised her hand and got her professor to begrudgingly come over.
“Wh—hat is it?” He hacked.
“Mr. Richard, all of my timeline images are blanked out.” She zoomed in to show a specific instance “look at all that static. Do you know what’s going on?”
Mr. Richard examined the static for a moment before asking “how is your mental state?”
Luz scoffed at the personal question “I don’t see what that has to do with the current issue.”
“No, no, no I’m serious. Your potential futures spread from your present. This type of obscured future can only be one of two things, Time Travelers upsetting your timeline or unrecognized mental troubles. And since time magic was lost centuries ago I’m obligated to ask how you are in the head.”
The human thought for a moment, she wasn’t all right if the nightmares were anything to go by. Still she highly doubted that was the case.
“I don’t think so Mr. Richard.” She responded.
Mr. Richard grunted “Come on Luz, we all saw the footage. I know the Emperor pardoned you and explained there had been a misinterpretation of an order but you’re allowed to be affected by a fight like that.”
Luz had heard enough, she was just tired. “No… I think I’m fine.”
The teacher seemed to get the hint, a hint of concern still lacing his face. He simply gave her a nod and returned to the front of the class.
It wasn’t long before the final bell rang and Luz could go home. She was fine, why do people seem to think otherwise?
In a frustrated turn of events the sympathy and mental health questions didn’t stop as Luz went to leave.
It should have been flattering to have so many teachers and fellow students show such concern for her but it just made her feel sick.
Eventually the constant attention got to be a bit too much for her and Luz decided to use the back tunnels.
Sneaking into a room with a chalkboard she drew the lock symbol and snuck into the secret passage.
Luz just wanted to find a friend to catch up with, someone to talk to who wouldn’t try and discuss how traumatizing her fight with the Emperor was. She searched for five minutes before finding Amity all on her own, cast off.
Seizing the opportunity she popped out of the passage.
“Hey Amity!”
Amity, clearly taken off guard, jumped back as her face turned a shade of scarlet.
“L-Luz… what are you doing here… at school... in the secret areas you’ve talked about… I’m doing it again aren’t I.”
“Well yes but for what it’s worth I think you sound cute when you get all flustered.”
There was an awkward silence between them for a brief moment before Amity broke it. “So what did you pop out of there for?”
“Because I wanted so see if you can hang out since classes are over for the day.” Luz responded.
Amity looked slightly disappointed before saying “Sorry Luz, but I can’t today. My parents are off on a day trip and they want me to make sure everything is ready at the house when they get home.”
“Aww, that’s too bad.” Luz sighed “well what about tomorrow?”
“What about tomorrow?”
“It’s skip day tomorrow. Eda is making me go into town with her and Lilith but she didn’t say I couldn’t invite some Tagalongs. I already asked Gus and Willow but they both can’t come.”
Amity’s face turned a little pink again as she processed the information. “So — it would be just — Me and You?”
“Yep!” Luz responded “You and I”
“Okay... sounds like fun!” Amity replied.
“Great! See you tomorrow.”
As Luz left school her mind began to race. For some reason she was really getting excited over the prospect of a day out with just Amity.
Not to be mistaken she really enjoyed hanging out with her other friends but something about the green haired witch made her heart… Flutter?... Whatever it was it didn’t matter.
Then her thoughts turned to her home. The portal was gone, her nightmares constantly reminded her of that. Would she ever get to go home? Talk to her mother again?
As it currently stands there is no working portal in the Isles that can get her home.
Luz became so engrossed that she barely recognized activity that would have been very suspicious. Out of the corner of her eye she could briefly catch a glimpse of a figure in a white cloak.
Luz whirled around in the direction but saw nothing, so she shrugged it off and kept walking.
Eventually she made it back to the Owl House and approached the door. As she went to knock a certain high pitched Bird Tube began to talk.
“Heeeeeeeeyyyyyyy Llllllluuuuuuuz. Welcome home Hoot-Hoot.”
“Hey Hooty…” she groaned “can I come in?”
“Nope!” He cheerfully replied “first you gotta guess the secret coooooodeeeeee.”
“What? Why do you have a password now?”
“Well I’ve been alone with King all day and he started to read one of you infectiously delightful books to me.”
Luz sighed really hard “and you got the idea to be like the talking door in the book?”
“Nope!” He said “I’m just an Agent of Chaos!”
“Look can you just let me in?” She asked tiredly, not willing to listen to a long Story Hooty most likely had prepared to give out the code.
Hooty gave her a look over before opening up. “On second thought, you look tired enough to chop me into little pieces!” He said not at all changing the way he was speaking.
Luz walked inside and immediately dropped into her sleeping area, not even removing her uniform.
She was so tired, a nap couldn’t hurt, she just hoped she wouldn’t have that nightmare again.
_
But things weren’t as they seemed outside. Luz had missed someone, a figure in the shadow of the trees.
The figure stood in a form fitting white cloak and a brass mask that looked suspiciously like an owl.
A light breeze whipped through their cloak as they turned to walk away. She followed the path back to town, only stopping for the occasional woodland creature, and eventually arrived at their destination.
The figure stopped outside a tavern to confirm their location before stepping inside.
Scenes of jovial cheer, distracted foolery, and mostly legal gambling ground to a halt as the figure stepped in.
All eyes were on them as she approached the bartender.
“W—what can I do for you?” The bartender asked.
The figure produced a single coin with a Raven insignia and placed it on the counter.
“I’ll take an Apple Blood, and whatever information you can give me about the residents of the house just outside of town.”
“...Right away!” The bartender replied before rushing off to fulfill the request.
The figure sighed and attempted to take a seat but found a hand roughly placed on their shoulder.
Looking behind her body the figure saw the hand belonging to a lightly tanned man with patchy dark red hair.
“Can I help you?” She asked.
“As a matter of fact bub, you can.” He responded
The figure gritted their teeth at the man’s crude demeanor. She responded “That is madam or sir to you, depending on how much you respect the left hand of the Emperor.”
The Man laughed “ooh la la, SIR. None of us take kindly to the emperor’s folk in this part” he said, gesturing to the still silent tavern goers “Mind explaining to everyone what you want with the fine people outside of town?”
“My mission is none of your concern sir.” She sneered “I am on official business ordered by Emperor Belos himself.”
“Find, you don’t wanna tell me then don’t tell me. I just think you Emperor’s Coven guys shouldn’t be so secret.” He indignantly spoke. “Maybe you can at least take off your mask.”
The man made a reach for the figure’s mask which was immediately countered. She grabbed his arm and swept his legs out from under him. As he slammed into the ground she violently pulled the arm, breaking it with an audible snap.
Another patron ran over to aid the writhing man. Placing a hand on his arm they said “Holy— you just broke Alex’s arm!”
“So I did…” the figure replied coldly.
She walked back over to the bar and grabbed her drink. “Oh and don’t bother with the information, twould be pointless to tell me something I already know.”
The figure made a b-line to the tavern door, stopping a brief moment to activate a glyph card and drop it on her victim’s broken arm.
“That will heal your wounds fifty percent. The rest is on you.”
As the figure stepped out into the dusk she thought about her next steps. She had a trap to be set and the perfect spot in mind.
The time to confront the residents of the Owl House was drawing near, and she had no intention to disappoint her old friends.