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Chapter Text

Luz broke the kiss between her and Amity, the portal was starting to collapse, along with part of the Titan's skull, and everybody was starting to flee, even Hunter with Belos' corpse over his shoulder.

"Listen to me, I'm gonna be back, I promise. I don't know how long it's gonna take, but I will be back for you, even if we're both gross old ladies by then," Luz chuckled.

Amity laughed back, even if it was with tears in her eyes, "I'll hold you to that promise."

Eda wrapped her arms around Amity's waist, tears also prickling at the corner of her eyes, "See ya' around, human," she said.

"See ya' around, Owl Lady."

Eda spread her wings and thrust upwards, taking off through a hole in the ceiling and leaving her alone, Luz took one last look around the destroyed chamber, she smiled and took two steps backward into the human realm just in time for the portal to crumble into itself.

Luz was right back in the abandoned house that she started this journey in, overcast by the moonlight. The human girl closed her eyes and just listened, the crickets chirping, the warm wind shaking the trees, the sound of police sirens.

Her eyes snapped open and she immediately turned on her heel, seeing the flashing blue and red lights some four meters away from her, Luz felt her breath hitch before she took off running towards them.

She broke through the treeline to find police tape around her house, three cop cars and an ambulance parked outside.

"Mom! Vee!" Luz cried as she attempted to run into the house, noticing that the door had been knocked off of it's hinges. She was blocked by two heavy set policemen, who caught her between their crossed forearms.

"Sorry kid, this area is off-limits," the first officer said.

"Jesus, Tony, I think the kid's hurt," the second one pointed out.

Luz grunted as she jabbed both of them in the stomach with her elbows, causing the officers to drop her so she could break into a full sprint into the house.

She found them in the kitchen.

Her mother had two stab wounds, one in the center of her chest and another diagonally in her stomach, her pockets were turned inside out and her purse was laying upside down on the counter, any sign of a wallet or cash gone.

Vee was at the back door, somehow still in her human form, she was probably told to run by Camila but clearly didn't get far, she only had a single stab wound in the back of her neck.

Never could she have ever imagined that she would one day be kneeling in the blood of her mother and pseudo-sister, and so shortly after parting with her other family.

Luz couldn't feel anything anymore, not the tears waterfalling from her eyes, not the two cops picking her up and carrying her out of the house again, all she remembered was discreetly grabbing a short, jagged piece of glass from the broken kitchen window on her way out.

"This can't be happening. It's not supposed to be like this," Luz whispered to herself as she rocked back and forth.

There was nothing left for her now. Her human family was gone, her family in the Demon realm might very well be lost to her forever. She had nothing…

Nothing but a burning, festering desire for revenge, a desire to find whoever did this and make sure that they pay with every drop of blood that they have, until she finally lets them die.

That's when her eyes caught it, she didn't let on that she saw it, that would give him a head start. But she saw the camera focusing on her house.

It was time to pay an old friend a visit.

--

Jacob Hopkins, museum curator and all around creep, shrieked when his door was kicked open, seeing the strange girl from outside the martian's house standing in its place, panting and furious.

"What do you want from me?" Jacob asked.

"The footage from outside the house. Now!" She demanded.

"What footage?"

In seconds the girl was upon him, a glass shard held up to his throat, "Do you really think now is a good time to lie to me you miserable little creep?"

"Ok, ok, I'm sorry." Jacob slowly moved to his computer and pulled up the security footage from outside her house.

They watched as a rusty blue pick-up truck pulled up outside, a pale man with long, greasy blonde hair stumbling out from the driver's seat.

About twenty minutes later, the same man stumbled out, a wad of cash in one hand, a kitchen knife in the other, and his white tank top stained red.

"Can you get the license plate?" His assaulter asked.

"Uh yeah, hang on a second," Jacob quickly switched to a different angle and zoomed in, jotting the plate down on a piece of paper, "All you need to do is run that through the DMV database and then you should have your guy."

"You do it."

It took a while but soon a bigger picture of the man showed up on the screen, "It says here his name is Jasper Blevins, he lives in Gotham City, New Jersey. What the hell is someone who lives in Gotham doing here?"

The girl whipped out her phone and snapped a picture of his listed address, before pressing the knife just a little bit closer to his throat.

"Your car keys. Now."

--

Luz was aware of the blood dripping down her hand as she clutched the shard of glass, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Her hood was pulled above her face and she stood rigid outside the apartment complex that the man lived at.

It was five in the morning, the sun would be up soon. She needed to move quickly.

The door didn't even have a lock on it, she was just able to waltz into the building and start her climb to the third floor.

Apartment C47, the scowl on her face twitched a couple times before she kicked down the feeble wooden door. Luz immediately covered her nose, the whole place reeked like she couldn't believe, and the apartment was a mess, like it had been vacated in a hurry.

With Jasper Blevins nowhere in sight, Luz's breathing began to quicken, culminating in a rageful scream and her cutting through one of the couch cushions.

"So what's your plan now?"

Luz's head snapped to the left and saw a tall man with black hair leaning against the door, he wore a skin-tight black suit with a blue 'V' across the chest and reaching past the shoulders, he also wore a blue domino mask with white lenses.

"I've read about you. You're Nightwing," Luz said.

"Astute observation young lady, allow me to make one of my own: you almost made a very big mistake," Nightwing chuckled.

"Get out of my way, he can't be far."

"... Your hands are shaking," Nightwing pointed out.

"I'm angry," Luz said through gritted teeth.

"Nah, see I've got this brother, Red Hood, he's angry. You? You're scared—" Nightwing took a couple steps closer and knelt in front of Luz, "So how about we take a walk, and you can tell me what's wrong."

Luz stopped, she really wanted to just break down crying, to hug this stranger and let out all of her emotions into his shoulder.

But if she did she would never be able to close off her heart like she had now, and this man would just walk away.

Luz headbutted Nightwing and swiped at his shoulder with her glass shard, making him grunt and clutch his shoulder.

Luz attempted to make a break for it, and almost got out the door, but was stopped when one of Nightwing's batons struck the back of her head and knocked her unconscious.

Dick grumbled to himself as she rolled his shoulder a couple times, "You're fast, kid, I like that."

The original Robin bent down and heaved her unconscious body onto his uninjured shoulder, "Let's get you to the boss man."

--

Luz began to stir, a blinding light hung above her and she could tell that she was in a bed, she tried to sit up but a hand pushed her back down.

"Careful, you're on a powerful sedative, can't have you attacking master Nightwing again," a polite english accented man informed her.

"I have to get him, he killed Mom and Vee, I have to make him pay," Luz mumbled before she drifted back into sleep.

Alfred sighed, that was concerning for sure. Over his years as a spy Alfred had learned to trust his gut above all else, but this girl that Dick had carried in? She was throwing his gut all out of order, he didn't get a bad feeling from her, he knew that much, but he also couldn't tell if it was a good feeling.

"Anything?" Bruce asked once Alfred closed the door to the small infirmary.

"She's sleeping, but she woke for a bit, there's something you should know—"

"Hold that thought Alfred, I got him," Tim suddenly piped up.

"You know who's apartment she broke into?" Cassandra asked.

"Yeah, the guy's name is Jasper Blevins, he's a forty year old who works for a construction company. He went to juvie for jacking car parts, then to jail for about two years in his thirties for drug abuse," Tim answered.

"Well we might have to add murder to his list of charges," Alfred said.

The Bat family turned to him, confused.

"The girl woke, she was in a daze but she said that she 'needed to make him pay for Mom and Vee'," Alfred explained.

"Bruce, I see those gears in your head turning, I swear to God if you adopt another child and turn them into a vigilante I'm going to leave this family!" Jason yelled.

"No Jason, she needs us," Dick said, his outfit pooled around his waist so as not to agitate the bandage, "You guys weren't there, you didn't see what I saw, you didn't see her face, she wanted to kill this guy and she had the heart to go through with it too."

"Well we can't take her in without knowing her name first," Stephanie pointed out.

"Right you are. Master Damian," Alfred tossed the youngest member of the family a small vial of blood, "Take Master Duke and bring that sample to Miss Gordon, have her run it through the national database."

Damian nodded and motioned for Duke to follow him to the elevator.

"Everybody else, just sit tight until she wakes up," Bruce said.

--

Once again, Luz groaned into consciousness, she was in some kind of white room, a constant beeping noise drilling into her ear and all kinds of other strange things bombarding her senses.

After about half a minute it was as if a fog had been lifted from her head, she could tell that the beeping was from an EKG machine to her right, the strange papery texture on her skin was a hospital gown, and the slight pain in her right hand was an IV.

She slowly pulled off the electrodes on her body and the needle from her vein, hopping off of the elevated bed and landing on her wobbly legs.

Luz found her clothes and a corner and got dressed as fast as she could, not knowing when someone would be back. She was trying to recall what the last thing she remembered was but her brain was all scrambled.

When she walked out of the room and into the dimly lit cave, she could feel another presence around her, multiple in fact, but she couldn't quite place where it was.

"Katrina Luz Noceda."

Luz spun to meet a pitch black figure who dropped down from the ceiling, all she could see was his mouth and blue eyes, she recognized him, the Batman.

"Don't call me that, it's just Luz," she said with a scowl.

"Child of Rick and Camila Noceda, sister to Vee Noceda," Batman continued in his gravelly voice.

'He knows about Vee? Mom must have gotten her documented somehow,' Luz thought.

"I have to say, I'm impressed that you managed to even land a hit on Nightwing, he's my most experienced son," Batman said.

"Thanks, now would you mind telling me why I'm here?" Luz asked, aggression in her voice.

"I know what happened to your mom and sister, and I want to keep you from making a decision that will ruin your life. I want to take you in," Batman answered.

"Oh what, you got a spare room in this cave?" Luz dryly chuckled.

Batman grabbed onto his cowl and pulled it down, "Actually, you'd be on the top floor next to Duke and Cassandra."

Luz felt her eyes go wide, "You're Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne is Batman."

Bruce laughed, "Yeah, I never get tired of that reaction. Jason, Dick, you can come on out."

Two more figures landed besides Bruce, the first was a man wearing a brown leather jacket and carrying a red helmet, he had black hair and green eyes; and the second she recognized as Nightwing.

"You'll have to forgive them but the rest of my children are off doing their own thing right now, so this is as much of the family as you can meet right now," Bruce explained.

"What are you trying to say?"

"He's saying that he wants to adopt you. He's kinda got a problem with doing that too often," Dick answered.

"Bruce wants to keep you safe, kid. Keep you from making the same mistake that I did," Jason explained.

Luz looked at him, confused.

"When I was a kid, my mom overdosed, about five years ago I found the guy that did it and killed him, not a day goes by that I don't regret it."

She felt her brow furrow as she turned to Bruce, "So what, this guy who took everything from me doesn't deserve to die?"

"No, he does, but it can't be us that kills him. We already play judge and jury, adding executioner is going too far," Bruce told her.

Luz stayed silent, she just kept glaring at Bruce, causing him to sigh, "If you don't want to be here then I'll take you to the orphanage now, but if you want to stop Jasper Blevins the right way—"

Bruce extended his hand out to her.

"Then I can help."

--

Luz stood in her room in the dead of night, it was completely barren aside from her bed. She had borrowed night clothes from Bruce's only actual son Damian, who was the same age as her, and now she was just standing here.

She soon switched to laying sprawled out on the bed and she could feel it coming, the dam she had built to wall off her emotions until she had killed Jasper was breaking.

Luz was outrunning her sadness, but now that she had stopped, her tears were catching up.

She began openly sobbing, not caring that Cassandra and Duke could definitely hear her. She wanted to go back to the Boiling Isles, she wanted Amity, she wanted Eda, King, Willow, Gus, anybody, even Boscha would've been comforting right now.

The sound of the door opening didn't stop her crying, and neither did Bruce sitting on the bed next to her, Luz turned to face him, barely able to see him through her tears.

"I'm so sorry Luz, I know it sucks and it's gonna suck for a long time, I can only hope that me and the rest of the family can make it a little bit better. I wish it was simple, that I could just give you a hug and make it all go away—"

Bruce stopped when Luz lunged at him and threw her arms around his torso, he closed his eyes and hugged her back, letting the newest addition to his family sob into his gray turtleneck.

Chapter Text

"'m tired," Luz mumbled.

The last two days of being the newest child of Bruce Wayne had been stressful, the press conference where Bruce announced it alone had been enough to give her a panic attack, and she probably would've had one if Damian wasn't there to back her up.

For someone who looked so threatening and annoying, he could be very empathetic. Kinda like Hunter.

Yesterday she had literally watched a reporter try and scale the walls around the manor, only to be tased by Alfred the second their hand went over the top.

Luz had elected not to tell the family about who she really was: the Demon realm, her friends and family, the Boiling Isles, even her magic. This wasn't her home, and she appreciated Bruce giving her a place to live but at the end of the day she didn't belong here and she made a promise that she intended to keep no matter what. Plus even if she did tell them it's not like they'd believe her about any of it.

It was currently five o'clock in the morning and the family was gathered in the cave, in addition to the members of the family she had already met, there were also three more down with them.

The first was a pale woman with blonde hair in pigtails ending in black and red tips; the second, another woman with green skin and long red hair; and the last was also a woman who had short black hair and a slender, cat-like frame. Harley Quinn, Ivy, and Selina Kyle.

"I want to test how far your fighting abilities go so I can gauge how much I need to teach you. The spar ends when one of you gets hit," Bruce explained, "Duke, step up, please."

Duke turned to Bruce and raised his fists, eliciting a snicker from Stephanie.

"To Luz, not me," Bruce groaned.

"Don't worry rookie, I'll make sure not to bust you up too bad," Duke chuckled.

"That's assuming you even get a hit on me," Luz smirked.

"Boo, enough with the small talk! Just punch each other already!" Jason cheered.

"Begin," Bruce ordered.

Duke started out the fight with an immediate haymaker, which Luz dodged before stepping to the back of the ring. She kept dodging his punches, watching how he fought to strategize best on how to bring him down efficiently.

She noticed that Duke was throwing almost all of his weight behind each attack; she guessed that his goal was to hit an opponent so hard that it only took a few punches to knock them down. Mattholomule had this same strategy, and she had taken down Gus' boyfriend in sparring matches plenty of times, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Luz wondered if they'd still be together when she got back. She hoped they would, they were cute together despite how annoying Matt was at first.

A barely dodged punch from Duke snapped her out of her head and she noticed that after every punch, Duke would go off balance for half a second, something that she was definitely going to take advantage of.

Upon missing his next punch, Duke felt his eyes go wide with horror as Luz thrust out her palm and smacked him square in the face.

"Father, Cassandra, do you see how she moves?" Damian asked.

"Way ahead of you," Bruce mumbled, before clearing his throat, "Alright, that's good, Duke step out and let Tim take your place."

"Don't think I'm gonna take it easy on you just because you're a newbie, Luz," Tim taunted, a wooden staff twirling between his fingers.

"Begin!"

Tim tried to thwack her in the side of the head but she ducked at the last second, often on the Boiling Isles people would use their staffs as physical weapons so she had a lot of experience fighting against them, Tim twirled around and tried to sweep her legs but she jumped over that.

Her brain forced her to think back to her own palisman, a playful purple and white otter that she had lovingly named Ollie. Luz had wanted so badly to take him with her, but decided to have him stay and keep Amity company, so she passed him off to Willow before she escaped the crumbling castle.

With another full body turn, Tim attempted to bring his staff down on the top of her head, only for Luz to catch it a couple inches from her face, her hands on the outside of his. She pushed her top hand forwards to smack him in the face, and then she pushed with her bottom hand to smack him in the knee.

"Oof, if that was you goin' all out I'd hate to see what it looks like when you take it easy on her Timmy," Harley laughed.

"You don't think that we have another 'living weapon' situation on your hands, do you?" Cassandra asked.

"I don't know. But I do know that she's hiding something," Bruce answered.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I'm one of the greatest detectives in the world, and she hasn't learned how to lie to me yet," Bruce shifted his glare to her, "Kinda like you."

After a few seconds Cassandra's eyes went wide and she opened her mouth to speak, only to be silenced when Bruce held up his hand, "I just hope that you and Stephanie cleaned the seats of the Batmobile after."

Bruce nodded to Damian, and the youngest boy stepped up to the ring, "Step aside Drake, and let me, the superior—"

"If you say 'let the superior Robin show you how it's done' I'm gonna pop you," Dick threatened.

Damian huffed and just got ready to fight, Luz smirked as tried to hit the smaller boy with a spin kick, but her grabbed her leg and sent all her momentum in the opposite direction, throwing her off and causing her to face plant.

"Unfortunately for you, unlike Drake and Thomas I'm not going to underestimate you," Damian said.

Bruce placed his hand on Cassandra's shoulder, "Talk to her for me, will you? Figure out where she learned to fight."

Cassandra nodded.

"Alright you four, go get ready for school," Bruce gestured to those who had just sparred.

"School?" Luz asked with a groan.

"Gotta keep up appearances on the outside, can't have CPS harassing me," Bruce explained.

"Again," Selina reminded him.

"Right, again."

--

Luz was not a very social person, well, that wasn't right, Luz was not a human person would be more accurate to say. 

She was super awesome at interacting with witches, because just like her: witches had their ticks, weird things about them that were acceptable in the demon realm, but not in the human realm

Which is why she was absolutely dreading taking one step into Saint Thomas's private school. She was frequently verbally, sometimes physically, bullied in a public school for her strangeness, so she was a little scared of what a private school would have in store for her.

Not to mention the fact that she was currently struggling to find a non-Caucasian person who wasn't Duke or Damian. 

She tugged at her tie once more to loosen it up before swallowing her fear, and a little bit of her pride, and walking into the crowd.

--

Luz immediately fled her classroom when the lunch bell rang, but instead of heading for the cafeteria, she found an abandoned hallway on the third and top floor.

With a little bit of finagling, she managed to unlock a window and slide it open, letting about half of her body hang out. Once Luz was sure that no one else was around, she pulled a plant glyph from her pocket and activated it.

Obviously just because she wasn't gonna tell the family about her magic didn't mean that she wasn't gonna be prepared if she absolutely needed it, hence why she was still making glyphs.

Instantly, her hand was wrapped in a green glow, and three vines emerged from the paper, wrapping one end around her hand and the other end around the railing on the roof, allowing Luz to hoist herself up.

Luz just needed a break from it all: the whispers in the hallway, the looks she got, 'Bruce Wayne's new pet project' they called her, 'another kid who gets to live it up because her parents are dead' she heard them say, one kid even tried to start a rumor that she was an illegal alien that Bruce was using his influence to protect, although that was quickly shut down by Damian who happened to share a first period with her and wasn't afraid to put the kid in a chokehold until he took it back.

She had grown up in rural Connecticut, she wasn't a stranger to those attitudes, and she knew that she'd inevitably hear something like that at a private school, she just didn't expect it to be on her first day.

Luz sighed as she laid back against the roof, staring up into the overcast sky, it was probably gonna rain soon. She reached into her other pocket and pulled out the polaroid from Grom, the one of her, Amity, Gus, and Willow. Aside from her cloak it was the only thing that she had left of the Boiling Isles.

She didn't want to cry, but staring at Amity's smile, that smile that she very well might never see ever again, she just started sobbing. 

Her tears were further fueled when she thought of all the other things she loved so much that she might never experience again: Amity's fingers intertwined with her own, Eda's voice even though it sounded like that of a chronic smoker, Amity's arms wrapped around her in a hug, Willow's never ending rambling about plant types, doing nothing but staring into Amity's eyes for several uninterrupted minutes because they were just that pretty, King's chaotic sense of fun, the warmth of Amity's body when they would both hop into her sleeping bag for a quick nap, Gus' seemingly endless supply of eccentric flare, the feeling of Amity's lips on her lips.

Holy shit she missed Amity so much, Luz would give up her left leg just to hold her again, even if only for as little as an hour.

Eventually the bell rang again, signifying the end of the lunch period, and Luz had no choice but to wipe her tears the best she could, perform the same trick with the plant glyph that got her up in the first place, only this time in reverse, and head to her next class like nothing ever happened.

--

Luz couldn't get out of school fast enough once the final bell rang. She quickly shoved her way past the crowd of other students, making plans with each other for after school.

A sleek black supercar honked at her from the curb, before the window rolled down to reveal Cassandra at the wheel, wearing a dark purple tank top and black jeans.

"I'm here to pick you up!" She called.

Luz nodded and took her place in the passenger seat, just before the rest of her brothers in school, plus some blonde dude in a red hoodie, walked up and leaned against the car.

"Think we could get a ride?" Duke asked.

Cassandra smirked and put on a pair of gaudy sunglasses, "Sorry boys, it's a two seater," she taunted before peeling out.

After a couple minutes of driving, Cassandra turned to her, "So, you were really good in the cave this morning. Where did you even learn to fight like that?"

Fuck. Luz had to think of a lie quickly, what was she supposed to say: The owl witch from another dimension who resides in a living house with her adopted demon son taught her how to fight?

"Uh, I got picked on a lot as a kid so my mom put me in self defense classes."

Not technically a lie, her mother had placed her in self defense classes for that exact purpose, but she got kicked out for sneaking off to write Azura fanfiction one too many times.

"Ok good. I didn't want to pry but Bruce asked me to make sure you weren't a 'living weapon' like me and Damian," Cassandra explained.

"Oh, yeah no I understand."

A child soldier by choice maybe, but not a living weapon.

"By the way, Mr. Fox and Bruce want to see you down in the cave when we get back," Cassandra told her.

"Mr. Fox?"

--

Lucius Fox pulled back the fogged glass of the capsule to reveal a silver mannequin, clad in a slim black turtleneck and black spandex pants.

The bespectacled man pulled out a thin metal stick and tapped the four dark purple armour plating on the chest, two for the breast plate and two covering her stomach, as well as two blue shoulder pads, "Your suit is outfitted with tri-weave titanium armor, separated for flexibility and there are also an additional four protecting your back."

Lucius then moved the stick to a white utility belt with purple pouches, "Your utility belt holds an array of weapons: smoke bombs, cryo and glue grenades, batarangs, thermal knives that will cauterize the wounds they make so no one bleeds out because of you, and two extra sets of batteries to power them."

"You gave her fire blades?" Dick asked.

"Hey, a girl's gotta protect herself," Ivy shrugged.

He then pointed to the black leather gloves, which were outfitted with a piece of white metal to cover each of her knuckles, then to the blue metal over the elbows, and finally the white metal covering the knees, "While not strong enough to cause any serious or life threatening damage, these metal platings are sure to make your attacks hit even harder."

Lucius then moved on to the white domino mask with purple lenses perched on the face, "Equipped with x-ray, night, and thermal vision, as well as a camera system to record and broadcast what you see to the bat computer."

Lucius pointed to the black combat boots next, "Finally your boots are equipped with magnetic locks, the same with your back armour plates."

"Wait, why would I need magnetic locks?" Luz asked.

"For these of course," a panel opened up on the side of the capsule where a long silver skateboard without the wheels, and a metal baseball bat were hidden away, "This, is the world's very first hoverboard, the mag-locks are so that you can stay on the board no matter which way you are facing, the bat also has a magnetic lock so that you can safely place it on your back."

"She gets a hoverboard!? All we ever got was dinky grappling hooks!" Tim huffed.

"This is some hardcore favoritism," Jason agreed.

Bruce rolled his eyes, "Thank you for doing this, Lucius."

"Oh it wasn't a problem mister Wayne, I do so enjoy creating vigilante outfits for you and your thousands of children," Lucius said.

"I don't have a thousand children."

"You're gettin' close though," Stephanie smirked.

"Well I best be off, I need to pick up something to eat on the way home for me and Tanya, Luke has offered to cook dinner tonight and you know how that usually goes," Lucius grimaced.

"Yeah, that was the last time I ever come over to your house for dinner," Bruce chuckled, "Have a good night Lucius."

Luz stepped up to the large glass and metal capsule, her face reflected in the mannequin's shiny silver head.

"So, what do you think?" Bruce asked as he stood next to her.

"I am gonna kick so much ass in this," Luz quietly chuckled.

"Another day. I want to train you just a little bit more before sending you out into the field," Bruce said.

"Jason what are you doing?" Dick asked.

Jason stood unsteady on the hoverboard, just about a foot or two off the ground, "I'm just making sure it works, don't want her to fall off while she's in the sky— WARGH!"

Jason tilted back just enough for the board to take off and flip upside-down, falling flat on his back before the board landed on his chest.

"Huh, so that's why I need mag-locks."

"That's what you get for playing with technology you don't understand, Todd," Damian smirked.

"Alright, enough goofing off, let's get to work. Luz, you stay here with Barbara, monitor with her," Bruce ordered.

"In other words, watch and learn rookie," Duke chuckled.

--

"This sure is an impressive computer," Luz said.

"Yep, the Batcomputer is as state of the art as it gets, from here I can hack into about anything, radio broadcasts, the GCPD dispatch, traffic cameras, CCTV, our friends at Star Labs even let us use their satellite to run facial recognition scans throughout the city," the wheel-chair bound Barbara 'Oracle' Gordon smiled.

Luz's eyes went wide, "You could track anyone in the city with that satellite huh?"

"Yep. Here." Barbara passed her headset to Luz, "I have to do something really quick, if something bad happens come get me."

Luz nodded as Barbara wheeled off a couple feet to the left, but she wasn't paying attention, instead she managed to pull up the GCPD criminal database. One quick name search and Luz had him, staring at Jasper's ugly face made her rage spike significantly, her face contorted into a snarl as she began to run his picture through the facial recognition.

In a matter of seconds she got him, he was by a warehouse in some shipping dock in west Gotham. With a sigh, Luz grabbed an ice glyph and silently froze Barbara's left wheel to the floor, before taking off the headset and leaving it in her lap as she walked by.

"Luz, where are you going?"

Luz didn't answer, instead she walked over to the capsule holding her suit and came out about a minute later in her vigilante costume, domino mask in one hand and hoverboard in the other.

"Hey Bruce said he doesn't want you going on patrol tonight, you're not— What the?" Barbara tried to follow her but now realized that she was stuck to the floor.

"Did you throw a freeze grenade at my chair? Hey, Luz, get back here!" Barbara shouted.

But nothing could get through the blind rage that Luz was in right now, she wasn't about to let anyone stop her from showing Jasper Blevins exactly the kind of pain he put her through a second time.

Luz stepped onto the board and heard the magnets locking together, making sure she stayed on, and with that she took off just as she saw Barbara grab a wooden bat and begin to bash away at the ice.

Once she managed to get herself free, Barbara turned to the main monitor and froze when she saw what Luz had left on screen, "Oh shit."

--

Riding the hoverboard was a lot like riding Ollie or Owlbert, Luz already knew how to shift her feet and body just right to get it to do what she wanted it to do. So naturally she was weaving between buildings and zipping through the city like a bat out of hell.

Or more accurately, a witch out of hell.

She didn't care if Bruce decided to disown her, or even throw her in jail for what she was planning to do. It's not like a jail could hold her anyway. After this, she could focus every last ounce of herself to figuring out a way back home.

But now was not the time to think about that, now was the time for action, now was the time for vengeance, now was the time for Jasper Blevins to die screaming.

Using the thermal vision in her mask, she quickly located the only warehouse with any heat signatures and landed stealthily on the roof, peaking down through a massive hole.

Jasper was facing down a group of five thuggish looking men, dressed in fancy all black clothing and armed with assault rifles and shotguns.

"T-This wasn't the deal, you promised!" Jasper whimpered, with her night vision she could see that he was on his back and holding his hands up in surrender.

"You're right, but the boss don't like loose ends, and you just became one," a thug said as he raised his gun to kill Jasper.

"No! He's mine!" Luz yelled as she threw four smoke pellets down into the room and jumped in. A thick blanket of smoke filled the room and the thugs backed up against each other.

"What was that?"

"It's the Bat!"

"You idiot, the Bat doesn't announce himself, and that was a girl's voice!"

"I'm freakin' out here!"

"Calm down you morons, just stay back to back and there's no way that he can get— AH!"

The thug fell onto his back and was dragged off into the smoke by his foot, screaming and firing his shotgun into the air. The other thugs could hear sounds of grunting and fighting, all culminating in a sound of metal hitting flesh before it went quiet. 

The three remaining thugs stood in a line and raised their guns to where their fourth man had been dragged off, they took two steps forward and were about to fire, when a baseball bat came flying through the smoke and struck the middle man in the head.

The man in the middle spasmed in his unconsciousness and fired his gun upwards as he fell, shooting down a light fixture that fell on the man on the left and knocked him out too.

Luz jumped from the smoke and flung out a glue grenade, it exploded and stuck the thugs assault rifle to his chest and his arm to his side, allowing Luz enough time to grab her bat and strike him in the stomach before bringing the bat down on his head and knocking him out.

The smoke finally cleared and Luz slowly craned her head towards Jasper, the man began to back up on his hands but even when slowly stalking towards him Luz caught up easily.

When she took off her mask, Jasper's eyes went wide as dinner plates.

"Remember me?" Luz asked.

"But…but I thought I killed you," Jasper whispered.

"That was my sister!" Luz grabbed one of the knives and flicked on the thermal heating, leaving a deep cut across Jasper's chest.

"Luz stop!"

Batman, Black Bat, and Red Hood dropped down into the warehouse from the roof, stopping Luz just as she was about to plunge the knife.

"If you do this, you will lose yourself. Anything that you've ever wanted in your life will be lost to you forever," Bruce said.

"This is the only thing I want."

"He'll haunt you for the rest of your life. If you do this you will never forgive yourself, trust me, I know," Jason told her.

"That's something I can live with."

"He isn't worth it! Death is an easy way out for him. Please, just let us take him to Blackgate," Cassandra pleaded.

"I DONT CARE!"

The three stopped advancing.

"Even if I have to spend the rest of my life in some cold, dark cell, I will be happy so long as I know that this piece of filth is rotting in the deepest pit of hell possible!" Luz yelled.

Cassandra and Jason moved to stop her but Bruce held out his arms and they halted, "If that's how you truly feel, then you shouldn't have any trouble doing it."

Luz stared into the white eyes of Batman's cowl, "You're not gonna stop me. No one is."

With her knees pinning Jasper's arms to the ground, Luz raised her knife and went to stab straight through his face, but stopped just a couple inches before the blade hit.

She could see Amity, eyes filled with disappointment. Luz shook her head to clear it and placed her free hand on top of the armed one, trying to push the knife down but to no avail. Now she could see everyone, every person she befriended over the course of her five months in the Boiling Isles, all with the same look on their faces as Amity.

With a scream Luz tossed the knife about three feet away before punching Jasper in the face, "You took everything from me!" She cried before punching him once more, "But I'm not gonna let you degrade who I am!"

Panting, Luz rolled off of Jasper and onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, "Why did you do it?" She finally asked.

"I don't know his name, don't even know what he looks like. He said he'd give me enough to keep me high for a whole month as long as I killed Camila and Katrina Noceda," Jasper answered.

Luz sucked in a breath through her teeth, "I'm gonna enjoy throwing you in a cell," she scowled.

"You don't understand. No prison could keep me safe from him. I died the second I set foot back in Gotham!" Jasper rolled to his feet and made a break for her knife, Luz tried to trip him up but he was just faster. Jasper grabbed the knife and jerked his head downwards, blood began to leak from his nose and mouth before he finally ragdolled onto the floor.

Luz stared blankly at his body for a few seconds before screaming in horror and backing away on her hands.

"Well now we know that she didn't have the guts," Jason shrugged before getting elbowed in the stomach by Cassandra.

Bruce gently grabbed Luz by her shoulders and guided her to her feet, "We should go, the police are on their way. Meet us back at the batcave," he gently ordered.

Luz nodded before hoping on her hoverboard and blasting out the way she came.

--

Alfred stopped shining the penlight in her eyes and clicked it off, "Well other than some minor psychological damage from tonight's…events, you are perfectly healthy."

"Well I gotta hand it to ya kid, you don't even have a codename and you're already disobeying Bruce. I couldn't be more proud," Jason smirked.

"Luz, what you did tonight was stupid, reckless, and dangerous—" Bruce began, prompting Luz to hang her head low.

"But, you also took out a group of four armed men all on your own faster than even I can sometimes. Maybe I underestimated you," Bruce finished.

"So does this mean I can start going out on patrols?" Luz asked.

"As long as you're accompanied by someone else for the first few months, yes you can start going on patrol," Bruce answered.

The witch smiled, "Thanks Bruce."

"There's just one more thing," Barbara interjected, "Jasper said that someone hired him. Who?"

"I know exactly who," Luz said.

The few people in the cave stared at her in surprise.

"I never liked the name Katrina. My father picked it and he wasn't a good man, so the second I was able to decide I made everyone call me by my middle name. But there's one person I can think of who would have the motivation to order a hit on me and my mom, while also calling me Katrina…" Luz trailed off.

Alfred caught on, "You couldn't possibly mean—"

Luz nodded, "My father hired Jasper to kill me and my mother."

"...Fuck," Cassandra whispered.

"Do you remember what he looks like? Any descriptive features would help," Bruce told her.

"No, my mom left him when she found out that she was pregnant with Vee, and that was six months after I was born," Luz explains.

"So that's why Jasper thought you were dead, your father didn't know about your sister," Barbara realized.

Dick placed his hand on her shoulder, "Are you ok. You seem awfully calm but you know it's ok if you aren't, right?"

"Rick Noceda isn't my father, he's just someone who shares my last name. To me, this isn't any different than Jasper," Luz shrugged.

"Why don't you go get some rest. You definitely need it," Cassandra suggested.

"Yeah, I think I'll do that," Luz nodded before walking over to the elevator.

Once she was out of earshot, Bruce turned to Barbara, "Track down her father, and when you find him, make sure Luz doesn't find out."

--

Luz found it when she was changing into her night clothes, she reached out for a shirt and accidentally knocked her cloak off of its hanger, when it fell to the ground the yellow tamagotchi rolled out of one of the pockets.

So many hours she had spent in the night texting Amity on the small trinket, just talking about anything until they both fell asleep, not right next to each other but still together.

She knew it would never send, but Luz texted an 'I Love U' before she burrowed under her covers, still so far away but now just one step closer to her awesome girlfriend.

--

"Yo check it out! Luz got a vigilante name," Tim chuckled.

"I did?" Luz asked as she pushed herself out from the long table and joined the group forming around Tim.

"Does no one ever ask to be excused anymore?" Alfred sighed, causing Bruce to snicker.

"Hey, isn't this your conspiracy theorist boyfriend's blog?" Stephanie asked.

"He's not a conspiracy theorist, Bernard is just…very interested in the vigilante culture of Gotham," Tim glared at Steph.

"Obsessed is more like it, do you know how many times I've had to shake that blonde bastard?" Jason grumbled.

"Enough with your petty squabbles, what does the article say?" Damian asked.

"While the nature of the confrontation is clearly criminal, I don't know the specifics at this time. One of the criminals had this to say about the vigilante that arrested them," Tim read aloud, before he clicked on an audio clip.

"It wasn't like any of those psycho's in costumes I've seen yet, and I've been punched by all of them. This is some new chick."

Luz recognized the voice as the man she threw the glue grenade at.

"It was like she was the smoke in the room man, she took out all of us and I didn't even see her until a split second after I conked out."

Harley snickered and high-fived Luz, "Badass," she said.

"A new vigilante made of smoke has debuted in Gotham, and tonight the streets are just a little bit safer, all thanks to: The Mist," Tim finished.

"God, that finisher is so cheesy," Damian scoffed.

"The Mist…not bad," Luz smiled.

"You sure you don't wanna pick your own? A bad vigilante name will stick with you forever, right Drake?" Duke asked with a shit-eating grin, looking down at Tim.

"Oh god," Tim groaned.

"No, I actually really like it."

Chapter Text

Luz sped through the streets of Gotham on her hoverboard, Stephanie followed close behind on a motorcycle and Duke was running across the rooftops. About twenty feet in front of them was a monstrous creature with wings bigger than Luz herself.

"Don't let Langstrom get away!" Bruce ordered over the comes.

"I hate this city! Why do you have a Batman and a Man-Bat?!" Luz yelled.

"You think this is bad? This guy is one of our more normal rogues! Just wait until you meet Crazy Quilt!" Stephanie shouted back.

"I got him!" Duke jumped down from a building and landed on top of Man-Bat. The creature screeched as he twisted towards the street, cars and people swerving out of the way to avoid getting hit by the falling creature.

Man-Bat flung Duke off of him and tried to take flight again, but Stephanie flipped backwards off of her bike and shot an arrow at his wing, grounding him for a bit.

"Try not to rough up Langstrom too bad, he doesn't realize what he's doing," Stephanie told Luz as she placed her hoverboard on her back.

Luz nodded and raised her fists as Duke got back up and stood to her right. Man-Bat swung at them with his wing, which Luz and Duke managed to duck under but it caught Stephanie and flung her away.

Duke ran up and kicked Man-Bat in the chest before clasping his fists together and bringing it down on his head. Unfortunately, Man-Bat sunk his teeth into Duke's leg and whipped him towards a light pole, the force combined with his weight causing it to bend in half.

Luz laid two punches on his face before spinning on her heel, grabbing her back and hitting Man-Bat hard enough to earn a sickening crack from his jaw. This only seemed to serve to anger him, as his eyes glazed over more and Man-Bat bit down on her bat and began to jerk her around. Luz managed to hold on for a few seconds but eventually her grip relented and she was thrown into a wall.

Crack

Luz felt her eyes go wide as she frantically opened up one of the back pouches of her utility belt. The tamagotchi was completely shattered, bits of yellow plastic laid in her hand and circuitry stuck out every which way, the screen itself was thankfully intact but it wasn't turning on.

Every night for the past two weeks she had sent an 'I Love U' to Amity, knowing full well that she wouldn't see it until she returned to the Boiling Isles but doing it anyway because it helped her sleep at night.

If discovering the tamagotchi again made her feel one step closer to Amity, its destruction made her feel like she was pushed thirty feet away again.

Soon tears turned to rage and Luz gently put her tamagotchi back into its pouch before turning back around just in time to see Duke and Stephanie get launched away and not get back up, giving her the freedom to do what she was about to do.

Man-Bat spread his wings and took flight again, Luz pulled a plant glyph and shot out a vine that wrapped itself around his foot and she began to get dragged around behind him.

Slowly, Luz pulled herself up the vine inch by inch, until she was able to hop up onto Man-Bat's back where she reached into her back pocket again, grabbed two ice glyphs, and slapped them onto his wings.

A thick sheen of ice soon covered his wings and caused him to plummet once more. Luz kicked off his back and flipped in the air and readied two fire glyphs, after falling about thirty something feet, she created two jets of flame to reverse her momentum for just a few seconds, before falling the last couple of feet.

Man-Bat writhed around, unable to move his wings with the heavy ice coating them, with one final yell, Luz delivered a punch that knocked the creature out for good.

Just then Stephanie and Duke rounded the corner and joined her standing over Man-Bat, she was lucky, any sooner and they would've seen her.

"Holy shit you got him," Stephanie chuckled.

"Yeah, yeah I got him."

"You used freeze grenades on his wings, smart. I can't believe we never thought to do that, why did we never think to do that?" Duke asked.

"When have we ever done the simplest thing to take down a bad guy?" Stephanie asked back.

–

"Whoo! Pop open the bubbly boys we have reason to celebrate," Stephanie cheered as the three of them walked into the cave.

"Most of you aren't old enough to drink," Bruce called back.

"What happened?" Dick asked with a smile.

"Luz here took down Man-Bat all on her own, mostly," Duke answered.

"Hmm, commendable," Damian shrugged.

"That is reason to celebrate," Bruce opened a drawer and pulled out a party popper. He pulled the string with a straight face and launched a small amount of confetti at Stephanie's face before tossing it in the trash can, "Okay that's enough celebrating."

"If it's all the same to you guys, I think I'm just gonna go turn in," Luz mumbled.

"Are you sure? Night's still young, a lot of people left to punch," Jason said.

"Yeah I know it's just…Man-Bat hit me pretty hard, I think I need to go lay down," Luz explained. She changed back into her normal clothes and slowly walked back upstairs.

Alfred watched her go, subtly pulling a USB from the Batcomputer and dropping a file into the recycling bin before walking over to Luz's suit.

–

An hour later Luz heard a knock at her door, she quickly wiped her eyes to make it look like she wasn't crying and told whoever was on the other side to come in.

Alfred entered and closed and locked the door behind him, a laptop in one hand and something hidden in a closed fist in the other. Alfred didn't say anything, instead he held out his closed hand and opened it to reveal the repaired tamagotchi, a crack still visible but the screen was alive.

Luz had to stop her breath from hitching as she tried to gently take it from him, but he closed his hand just before she could. Alfred placed the laptop down on the desk and opened it up, pulling a flashdrive from his left pocket.

"Do you remember when Mr. Fox said that your mask records and broadcasts what you see to the Batcomputer?" Alfred asked as he began to play an untitled video file.

She wanted to scream as she watched a video of herself using glyphs to take down Man-Bat, but instead managed to restrain herself to a simple, "Crap." once the video ended.

Luz turned to look at Alfred, who was sitting on her bed with a pointed look, "Care to explain?"

"Alfred I promise you this isn't what you think it is," Luz said.

"Really? Because to me it looks like you have been hiding some abilities from us," Alfred told her.

Luz stayed quiet.

"Don't worry, I deleted the video, I can only assume that there's a reason you neglected to share this information. However, I myself would at least like an explanation," Alfred smiled.

She didn't really have a choice did she?"

Luz sighed, "It all started five months ago, my mom was going to send me to a camp that turns rowdy kids normal. While I was waiting for the bus, an owl stole something of mine and I chased it back to this abandoned house. Inside was a door, and on the other side was the Boiling Isles."

"A hidden world? Like Atlantis or Themyscira?" Alfred asked.

"No, an alternate dimension, a world where monsters and magic and witches exist. I lived there for five months, incited an insurrection against an evil emperor, I made friends, family, I even have a girlfriend there," Luz continued, handing Alfred the polaroid.

"I assume that's who 'Mittens' is then."

Luz looked up at him finally.

"I had a little peak I admit," Alfred shrugged as he gave the tamagotchi to Luz.

"Yeah, Amity Blight, she's the one with the green hair," Luz explained.

"And what you did to take down Man-Bat?" Alfred pressed.

"Witches have an extra organ stemming from their hearts, it's filled with a bile that allows them to perform magic. But since I'm a human, I have to use these things called glyphs in order to do magic," Luz answered.

"May I see?" Alfred asked after a beat.

Luz wasn't expecting that, but she pulled out a piece of paper and sketched a light glyph, activating it to form a small ball of light that hovered just a couple inches from her palm.

"Extraordinary," Alfred whispered as he let Luz pass the ball of light to his hand. After a minute the light fizzled out, and the Wayne family butler looked back up at Luz, "I'm going to assume that the reason that you didn't tell us, and the reason that you are distant with the family are one in the same then?"

"What do you mean?" Luz asked back.

"Ah, play the fool, an excellent tactic, however you fail to recognize that I have helped raise nine emotionally stunted children in my lifetime. I promise you that I have already won this game of mental chess."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You are just cordial enough to not arouse suspicious, but you don't bond with your family, if you are not downstairs for meals or out protecting the city, you are in your room, alone and closed off. Now the family might chalk it up to grief for the time being but sooner or later they will start to get suspect something, they will investigate, and you will have to reveal everything—"

"I can't handle losing another family ok?!"

Alfred sat back on the bed.

"I made a promise that I would return to the Boiling Isles no matter what, a promise that I fully intend to keep. But if I let another group of people into my heart, and I have to say goodbye again…I just can't take that a third time," Luz whispered.

He knelt down in front of her to better look her in the eye, "Madame Luz, a shattered heart can never heal if you don't allow it to have people to help pick up the pieces and put them back into place."

With that Alfred stood back up and moved to leave, pausing at the door to look at her, "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me, witch."

–

"Ah, good morning Luz."

Luz froze and turned to Bruce with a slightly forced smile. He was sitting at a small table in the family room, a chess set and an empty chair in front of him.

"Morning Bruce."

"Care for a game?" Bruce asked, gesturing to the board in front of him.

"Um actually—" Luz paused as Alfred's words began to ring through her head, she looked between Bruce and the door before letting out a sigh she didn't realize she was holding in, "Yeah I would. I'm not sure how to play though."

"Oh don't worry I can teach you, come take a seat," Bruce said.

"Can I ask a question?" Luz moved a pawn forward, they had been playing for a few minutes now.

"Shoot." Bruce moved a rook.

"What is that?" Luz asked, pointing at the fish-tank housing the blue and pink starfish with one eye.

"Hmm? Oh, that's Jarro," Bruce answered.

"Right…Jarro." Luz knocked over a bishop with her queen.

"It's an off-spring of Starro the Conqueror, one that turned good but didn't have anywhere to go so I took him in," Bruce explained.

"Dick was right, you do have a problem."

Alfred watched from a distance with a smile on his face as Bruce and Luz laughed, very content with his handiwork. An elbow laid on his shoulder and he turned his head to Jason.

"Another successful Pennyworth special?" He chuckled.

"Oh indeed. I feel this may be some of my best work so far."

–

Killer Croc spun around and knocked all four of them on their ass by sweeping their legs with his massive tail.

"Come on Waylon, can't we talk about this?" Dick asked hopefully.

"God I wish these weren't blanks," Jason groaned as he got up to his feet and shot Croc in the chest twice.

"Now now Red Hood, we all know that's a lie," Tim chuckled as he stood up.

Behind them, a group of three cops cowered against the wall of the sewer, one of them was missing a foot and the other two were missing one of their arms.

"Those cops are gonna bleed out soon if you guys don't do something," Barbara warned them.

"I don't know if you've noticed Oracle but old Croc here isn't exactly letting us leave," Tim groaned as he tried to choke Waylon out, only to have his back slammed into the wall and forced to let go.

"Well figure something out then!" Oracle huffed.

Back in the cave, Alfred walked up behind Barbara and cut the communication links to everyone but Luz, "Listen to me Mist, you need to use your glyphs."

Luz was sent flying away due to a punch from Croc, "I can't, they'll see," she whispered after she stood back up.

"What the hell are you guys talking about?" Barbara asked

"Your secrets are no good to you dead! Now fight, Mist, fight!" Alfred ordered.

Luz and the three vigilantes fighting off Killer Croc in the sewers, his own turf, and they had been fighting for what felt like hours, it was a wonder they hadn't been beaten yet. She knew exactly what she had to do, but it was gonna be on her own terms.

She activated her thermo-knives and ran towards Killer Croc, Luz jumped up and sank her knives hilt deep through his thick scales and into his forearm. Croc roared and fell against the wall after Luz had kicked off him and retracted her blades.

"That probably won't keep him down for long. You guys get these cops out of here, I'll hold him off," Luz said.

"What, are you insane?!" Tim yelled.

"Mist, I've been fighting this guy for a decade and even I have trouble—"

"Nightwing, I need you to trust me," Luz begged.

They locked eyes, and Luz gave him a small nod which made him sigh, "Alright boys, pick an officer!"

Luz grabbed a batarang and threw it at Croc, "Hey gator! You want me, you're gonna have to catch me!" She yelled before taking off further into the sewers. Croc growled and forgot all about the cops and the bat brothers, opting instead to chase after Luz.

Luz stood in the middle of a large circular platform surrounded by a small canal of sewer water, a room where several other tunnels connected to this one.

"Gonna start myself off with you as my appetizer, before I move on to those bat boys for the main course," Croc snarled.

Luz held an ice glyph in her left hand, "Call me an appetizer one more time, I dare you."

The two charged at each other and just as they reached the halfway point, she activated the glyph and her fist and forearm were covered in a layer of ice that increased its size by ten.

"What the fuck?" She could hear Barbara say as they finally clashed. The ice shattered when Luz punched him and it sent Croc back about five feet into a wall.

"The hell?" Croc asked as he stood back up. They charged at each other again but just before they could fight Luz hit the deck and slid between his legs. The witch climbed up Croc's back and used a plant glyph to create a vine that she looped through Croc's mouth and grabbed the other end.

She used the vine like a set of reins to steer Croc face first into a wall. Luz jumped off his back and grabbed two light glyphs that produced a ball of light each, she threw them at Croc's face when he whirled around to face her and shut her eyes tight as she snapped both of her fingers which prompted the light balls to explode in a great flash.

As Croc tried to rub the blindness from her eyes, Luz ran to the other side of the room, jumped up, and slapped on and activated two fire glyphs to the bottom of her shoes, rocketing her forward at a high-speed towards Croc.

He got his vision back just in time to see Luz's fist meet his face.

Jason, Dick, and Tim ran into the room to the sight of Luz standing on top of Croc's body and handcuffing him.

"You beat him?!" Dick asked ludicrously.

"Feeling inadequate?" Jason asked with a smirk.

Tim leaned over the unconscious body, "How did you beat him on your own?"

"I'm much faster than him and I had a lot more room to move around than in the tunnel. I could land a lot more hits than he could," Luz shrugged, "So what do we do now?"

"Now comes the hard part. Everyone grab a limb," Jason groaned.

Barbara definitely saw her using glyphs, she was not looking forward to returning to the Batcave.

–

"So, you're from a different dimension?" Barbara asked as she rubbed her temples.

"No, I'm from this dimension, I stayed in a different dimension for a little while," Luz answered.

Barbara sighed, "And why didn't you tell us?"

"I didn't think it was…pertinent?"

"She was afraid to bond with us," Alfred answered for her.

"How long have you known about this?" Barbara turned to Alfred.

"About a week now," he shrugged

"Ok, and Luz you still haven't told the family because?"

"I- I'm finding the right time, ok? I'm just asking you to not tell them, please," Luz begged.

"I… ugh, fine, I'll keep your secret," Barbara sighed.

Luz let her breath go, "Thank you Babs."

"You know sooner or later they're gonna find out though, right?" She asked.

"I promise I'm gonna tell everyone —"

"No Luz, you live in a family of detectives, even if you've only left a hint of a trace Cassandra alone could piece together this entire story within a few months," Barbara explained.

"Trust me, I haven't left a trace."

–

"Bruce, we need to talk."

Cassandra's sudden entrance made the much older man jump and drop his sandwich directly onto the ground. Bruce groaned as he leaned down to begin cleaning it up, "What is it, Cass?" He asked.

"It's about Luz," Cassandra answered.

Bruce tossed the contents of his would-be lunch into the trash with a skeptical look on his face, "What about her?"

"She lied to me. I knew she wasn't telling the truth about where she learned to fight when she said it," Cassandra explained.

"That was weeks ago, why didn't you tell me?" Bruce said.

"Because I was busy getting these," Cassandra plopped two pieces of paper onto the table, "These are from the only martial arts dojo anywhere near where she lived. She joins the class and then just three weeks later she's off of the class registry."

"So she tried to trick you with a half truth."

"Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, I almost believed it. What do you want me to do?" Cassandra asked.

"Watch her from a distance, don't do anything to make her paranoid or suspicious," Bruce told her.

With that, Cassandra nodded and walked out of the kitchen, leaving Bruce to lean down over the sheets of paper still on the table, "Why are you hiding something from me?"

–

"Father! Prepare the medbay!" Damian yelled across the Batcave.

"Yo what the hell happened?" Bruce heard Duke say.

"Shit is she ok?" That was Dick's voice.

Bruce felt his stomach twist and drop as he ran towards the voices. He found Luz unconscious in Cassandra's arms, occasionally twitching and breathing rapidly and unevenly.

"Alfred!" 

"I heard!" Alfred called back. Bruce took Luz from Cassandra and they began to run towards the medbay.

"What happened?" Alfred asked as Bruce laid Luz down on a bed.

"We were fighting Scarecrow and she got hit with a gas, but it wasn't his normal fear toxin, it was purple in color," Damian explained.

"Scarecrow has a new fear gas?" Dick asked.

"She passed out as soon as she breathed it in, I called in Luke and Kate to pursue him and then we rushed her here," Cassandra said.

"I'm gonna go join them. No one fear gases my little sister," Duke growled as he put his helmet on and walked out of the medbay.

"She's never even been hit by his regular fear toxin, I can't imagine what she's going through right now," Dick whispered.

"Well we don't have to. I've deduced that she is in some kind of nightmare coma," Alfred pointed to a monitor that was displaying Luz's brain waves.

"We need to synthesize an antidote," Bruce said.

"Even if we had a sample that would take a few hours, time that I fear we may not have," Alfred told him.

"Hey, what if we sent someone into her mind?"

The group looked at Dick like he was a crazy person.

"Hear me out. If this is just some nightmare that she can't wake up from, what if we sent someone into her subconscious to help her beat it?" Dick suggested.

"That…actually sounds feasible," Damian shrugged.

"I'll call J'onn," Bruce nodded.

–

An hour later J'onn J'onzz, also known as the Martian Manhunter, shifted into his Martian form as he walked into the medbay. The whole family was now gathered aside from Ivy and Duke, who were still out hunting Scarecrow.

"Is this her?" J'onn asked as he stood behind Luz.

"Yes. Do you think that you can help us?" Bruce asked back, Selina was currently on his arm and keeping him just calm enough so that he wasn't relentlessly pacing.

"Of course. But I must warn you, sending one mind into the other can be damaging to the mind of the invading one, it could easily make one insane," J'onn warned.

The Bat family hesitated, they had all been ready to go in but that news had made all of them uneasy. All except for one.

"I'll do it," Harley said, already hopping into the bed next to Luz.

"Harley are you sure?" Selina asked.

"Don't worry, my mind's already so far gone I ain't got nothing to worry about," Harley chuckled.

Barbara pulled Alfred down to her level, "What if she sees something in there?" She whispered.

"That is a risk we are going to have to take," Alfred whispered back.

After a moment of hesitation, Bruce nodded to J'onn and the martian placed his hands on both Harley and Luz's foreheads and the former felt their vision go dark as the mental link was formed.

–

When Harley opened her eyes again, she was in some kind of castle tower, the room was illuminated by candles but outside was pitch black. Luz was in her street clothes, kneeling in the middle of the room, her wrists in shackles that pulled her ames out as far as they went.

Before the jester could even take a step forward, something stepped in from the darkness outside. It was a girl, a little shorter than Luz, with pale skin, elf-like ears, and lilac hair who wore a crescent moon necklace.

The girl walked up to Luz with a look of muted anger. Harley heard Luz whisper something that caused the girl to kick her in the stomach.

"Pathetic," the girl said, "Why in Titans name would I want you, when there are so many other people I could have. People that won't leave me."

Another girl came up behind the first and wrapped her arms around her torso, she had dark pink hair, pink skin, and three eyes. The two laughed as they slinked back into the darkness.

Harley tried to get to Luz but she was stopped when another pair of figures walked in, she actually recognized them this time, they were the forms of Luz's mother and sister, blood leaking from the sides of their mouths

"Why did you leave me, Mija?" Her mother asked.

"Why didn't you protect us?" Her sister asked.

"STOP IT!" Luz cried out.

Voices began to whisper from the darkness.

"I had my curse under control, until you came along and ruined everything."

"I was happy being a king, until you made me find out I wasn't."

"I was the head of the Emperor's coven, until you showed up."

"My uncle, the only family I've ever had, is dead because of you."

The voices began to swirl and blend together, until they were nothing but a loud mass of screaming, almost completely unintelligible noise. Harley could see Luz trying to bring her hands to cover her ears but couldn't.

Finally having had enough, Harley grabbed her mallet that she didn't remember bringing in with her and shouted across the room, "Luz!"

Luz turned to face her, bruises on her face and tears staining her cheeks, "H-Harley," she managed to choke out.

"You gotta break outta this!" Harley yelled. Two men with bird masks and white hoods grabbed her arms, Harley simply rolled her eyes as she kicked one in the stomach and hit the other with her mallet.

"I just want it to end," Luz whispered.

"Then end it!" More of the same men started to charge into the room, and Harley had to beat them away.

"How?"

"Listen to your Aunt Harleen kid, I know it seems real, I've been hit by Scarecrow's gas more times than I can count, but it ain't. You have the advantage, this is your dome we're in, you control this place. Woman up and end this for god's sake!" Harley shouted.

Suddenly everything went quiet, Harley's attackers went still and the voices stopped. Now, a man in a white cloak and a strange gold mask stood in front of Luz, looking down on her.

"Poor human," he spoke, "Too weak to break free of your shackles, too weak to beat this nightmare—"

The man leaned down to be on eye level with Luz, "Too weak to return back home, not that they would want you back to begin with.

He placed his boot on her head and forced her to look at the ground, "Now bow before Emperor Belos."

What happened next confused Harley, well, confused her more. Strange neon blue runes began to run up her arms, arcs of electricity bounced from one symbol to the next. The chains snapped and Luz punched Belos in the stomach with both fists, an electrical shock-wave followed and he was blasted straight out of the tower. 

Several more of the guards began to flood in, red runes ran up Luz's right leg and she did a side-kick that ended in a massive burst of flames that consumed a third of the guards. Light blue runes covered her left arm as she backhanded a guard, followed by a wave of ice that consumed yet another third of the forces.

Green runes appeared on her left leg and Luz stomped her foot to send a volley of thorns forward that took out the remaining guards. Finally, a ring of pale yellow runes wrapped around her midsection and sent a blast of blinding light and dispelled the darkness outside of the tower.

When Harley could see again, she was in some kind of red forest, in front of her was a cliff that overlooked an ocean. Standing on that cliff was Luz, gently swaying in a slow dance with the lilac-haired girl from earlier.

They locked eyes, and with her back to the moon Luz smiled at Harley before closing her eyes and continuing to dance with the pale girl.

–

Luz and Harley shot straight up at the same time, jolting J'onn's hands off of their heads and causing a resounding sigh of relief to echo through the room.

Alfred and Barbara nodded to each other before the former spoke up, "I need everyone to clear the room. I have to run a diagnostics check on both of them to make sure there isn't any damage."

Bruce tried to protest but Selina carted him out of the room, leaving the four of them alone. Harley hopped off of the bed and turned to face the three, "Alright, I got no clue what kinda freaky ass shit that I just witnessed in there, but my question is: can I do it again?"

"Wonderful, so you do know," Alfred groaned.

"She might know a little bit more than you two," Luz sighed.

"Know more about what?" Harley asked.

"That's a very long story. You see—"

Luz jumped off of her bed and interrupted Barbara, "Actually, I think I'm gonna explain this to her myself, alone."

Barbara shrugged and wheeled away, whereas Alfred looked more hesitant but ultimately he nodded too.

Luz turned to Harley, "Hungry?" She asked.

"Starvin', who knew that steppin' into someone else's grey matter could be so exhausting," Harley answered.

–

"Lemme get this straight, you're an Alien?"

"How did you take that away from what I said?"

Harley and Luz were at some twenty-four hour diner in downtown Gotham, eating mediocre food as the latter explained the Boiling Isles.

"Man, other dimensions, that's some wild shit," Harley muttered.

"Yeah, I felt the same way," Luz chuckled.

After a beat, Harley looked up at her, "You wanna talk about what we saw?"

"Do you?"

"Fuck no."

"Ditto," Luz said.

Harley finished off her burger, "Piece of advice though. I've tried the whole acting like someone I'm not, and let me tell ya', trying to keep myself locked up and be Dr. Harleen Quinnzel was fucking miserable."

"What are you trying to tell me?" Luz asked.

"I'm tellin' you: find out who you want to be, and stick with it, either be the witch, or be the Mist," Harley explained.

Luz rolled her eyes, "I know who I want to be."

"...Do you?"

–

When Luz and Harley got back to the manor the former was almost immediately pulled into a hug from Bruce.

"I see you're back on your feet," he smiled.

"Yeah, sorry for all this trouble, I didn't mean to get hit he just caught me by surprise," Luz said.

"Don't be, you're still new to this, even I make a stupid mistake every now and then," Bruce told her, "I'm just happy that you're ok."

Luz deftly returned the hug, "Me too," she mumbled.

Chapter Text

Luz blocked another punch from a drug dealer and returned it with two of her own, the latter of which probably broke his nose. Kate Kane, AKA Batwoman, kicked someone in the back towards her and she clotheslined him, and if that didn't knock him out his fall to the ground did. Bruce hopped off of a table and hit the last dealer with a roundhouse kick, which stunned him long enough for Luz to drop down and sweep his legs, causing him to get knocked out when he hit his head on the same long table.

Her mind was buzzing constantly, and the only time that the buzzing stopped was when she was fighting. So when Bruce asked one of them to help him and Kate take down a warehouse meth lab she volunteered immediately.

They had buried her mother and sister near the beginning of December, just a week after Thanksgiving. Going back to Gravesfield had been…hard to say the least, only Bruce, Selina, and Dick had joined her but to be frank she would've been fine on her own.

She met Vee's friends but they didn't say much to her other than that 'it was nice to meet the real Luz', she also returned Jacob Hopkins his car, and strangely enough the head cheerleader who used to bully her had made some vague attempt to comfort her.

The buzzing had started the second the funeral ended, she didn't sleep at night until she got back to Gotham and started going back out as The Mist.

It was beginning again, it would start out quiet, ignorable, but eventually it would get so loud that she couldn't even think. Luz was just so fed up with it, and she could only hope that it would go away once she found her father.

When she saw the dealer with the busted nose trying to get up, Luz walked over to him and kicked him in the crotch before stooping down to his level, grabbing his head, and slamming it into the floor.

That would hopefully hold off the buzzing for a little bit longer.

"Mist! That's enough," Bruce sternly said.

Luz took a deep breath and exhaled to calm herself down, "Sorry."

"I sent a message to Gordon, we should get going," Kate told them.

Luz threw down her hoverboard and took off through the big doors of the warehouse without another word, leaving the other two bats by themselves.

"She's looking for a fight again," Bruce frowned.

"Weren't you in your first year?" Kate asked.

"That's how I know something is wrong," Bruce sighed.

–

Luz flopped down onto her bed, tired but overall happy with what she had done, she was happy that it was now early Saturday morning so she could actually get some sleep.

Just as Luz was about to close her eyes and fall asleep, her door was kicked open by none other than Harley Quinn. Since knowing the former's secret, Luz and Harley had gotten a lot closer with each other, granted not as close as she and Alfred were but definitely almost on par.

"Sup witch, I need a favour," Harley said.

"Harley, I've told you three times now, it's not safe to cook food on fire glyphs."

"No not that. See I kinda owe someone else a solid and they've asked me to do some less than ethical things to make us square again," Harley explained.

"What about Ivy or Jason, I thought you three were the go-to's when it came to doing things that were borderline illegal?" Luz asked.

"Well they're currently a bit tied up with 'interrogating' some big shot executive dude who's been pollutin' Gotham bay and wanted to tear down the botanical gardens. With them outta the picture I thought: hey, Luz was an insurrection incitin' vigilante back in that other dimension, she'd be perfect help!" Harley answered with a smile.

"Well, what do you need me to do?"

"Can't tell you that."

"Should I go and change into my costume?"

"Absolutely not, B-man would flip his shit if he knew we was doin' this. Come on get up, it's a two hour flight to Central City if we take the Batjet."

"Wait, Central City? That's all the way in Ohio!"

–

"I'm really starting to wish I hadn't agreed to this," Luz grumbled.

"Oh come on, you look great in leather," Harley smiled.

Luz was in a black leather coat with a purple hood, a soft gray cloth was tied around her face and hung off of her nose, in addition she had found a face paint kit and decided to do her makeup from her first Grudgby match, she wore a pair of black jeans and sneakers of the same color.

Harley knocked on the door of the apartment they were standing in front of and leaned over to whisper to Luz, "Remember, B-man thinks that you're staying over at a friend's house, so try not to blow that cover story when we get back… Also don't show your face to these guys, the Rogues are pretty dangerous when they want to be."

"The Rogues?"

The door swung open to reveal a man with platinum blonde hair, wearing a dark blue parka and with some kind of blaster on his right hip.

"Harley, you're late," the man smiled.

"Your city is confusing, Snart," Harley bit back.

"At least our superhero won't cripple someone for jaywalking."

"At least it's understandable when our superhero loses a fight to one of his rogues."

"At least I'm not a raging homosexual."

"You are a raging homosexual!"

The two paused as Snart and Harley looked each other up and down before hugging, "It's been to long Lenny," the latter cooed.

"So, who's the peewee that followed you?" Snart asked.

Luz froze. How could she have not thought up a name on her way here?

Thankfully Harley stepped in, "That is…uh, Glyph Girl."

Ok, maybe Luz shouldn't be thankful.

"Glyph Girl?" Snart asked skeptically.

"Yep, Glyph Girl, this is Leonard Snart: Captain Cold," Harley said.

"It's a real honor," Luz greeted through gritted teeth.

Leonard scanned her up and down for what felt like an hour before he turned on his heel and didn't look back at them, "You know Harley, I seem to recall you saying that you were going to bring your botanical lover along with you."

A bald man stepped out from behind a corner, wearing a wife beater under a tan trenchcoat and also weilding a blaster that boasted a small flame at the barrel. Instinctively, Luz grabbed two ice glyphs and activated them to encase the man's weapon and hands in a block of ice.

"Interesting," Leonard hummed.

"Whoa whoa whoa, take a chill pill for cryin' out loud. Look Ivy got caught up in something and this was the best I could do on short notice," Harley explained.

"You know I have a rule about working with or near anyone under the age of eighteen," Leonard said.

Luz rolled her eyes, "Trust me, I can handle myself." 

"Tell me then, what exactly is it that you do?" Leonard asked.

"Basically she's magic," Harley answered.

"The Zatanna kind or the John Constantine kind?"

"Neither. I'm my own kind of witch."

"Then I have to ask again, what exactly is it that you do?"

Luz sighed, pulling out a handful of different glyphs, "There are four main glyphs: Ice, fire, plant, and light, but I can combine them to make different ones, lightning, wind, invisibility, you name it and I can probably make it happen."

She felt weird talking like this, in a gruff and brief manner, but Harley had told her not to let them know who she was so Luz was attempting to hide her personality along with her face.

Leonard engaged in a silent standoff with the two for a solid minute before he chuckled, "You can all come out now, oh and stand down while you're at it."

At his cue, four people walked out of their hiding spaces in the small apartment, Leonard put his hand on her shoulder and pointed to a girl with blonde hair that had red highlights, wearing a red denim jacket and black torn jeans, "This is Frankie Kane, you can call her Magenta, she's got magnetic powers and can control anything made of metal."

Next he pointed to a woman with long blonde hair wearing a yellow overcoat that connected to a skirt of the same color, "Rosa Dillon, calls herself Top, by locking eyes with someone she can induce crippling vertigo."

"You've already met Mick Rory over there, goes by Heatwave, he's equipped with a supercharged handheld flamethrower," Leonard explained while gesturing to the bald man who was currently trying to bash the ice off of his hands.

Then he turned her attention to a man with well groomed black hair and a beard, wearing a green three-piece suit with an orange tie, "Captain Ireland over there is Sam Scudder, Mirror Master, he can create portals out of reflective surfaces."

Lastly was a man with scruffy brown hair and a stubble, wearing a lot of black leather, "And to round the gang out is Mark Mardon, the Weather Wizard, with Aero, Hydro, Cryo, and Electrokinesis at his disposal."

"I thought you didn't let children join," Frankie asked with a bitter look on her face.

"Don't mind her, she's still angry that we refused to let her into the Rogues when she was sixteen," Rosa smirked.

"Hey where's Boomer and Joker rip-off the second, they didn't die did they?" Harley asked.

"Owen and Axel are currently held in Iron Heights, which is why I called you in to help us, can't bust them out without the full force of the Rogues. Then if you want, you can stay and help with the second part of the mission," Leonard explained.

Harley took on a more serious look, "What's the second part?"

"Inertia," Leonard simply said.

Luz could tell that the jester was holding back a scowl, "I'm in."

"Glyph Girl, now's your chance to back out, once you leave this apartment you'll be in the thick of it and you won't be able to get out until the job's done," Leonard told her.

In truth, Luz didn't want to do this, vigilantism and assistance to regicide were really the only laws that she hadn't been vehemently against, and the second one was a matter of circumstance, but she owed Harley for keeping her secret, "Let's do it."

–

Iron Heights Penitentiary was one of the most secure prisons in America, only having Blackgate to rival it. Three guards to every prisoner, a camera on every corner, and the tranquilizer darts that they used could put down a horse.

Despite all this, they weren't prepared for the Rogues.

Frankie ripped off the doors and sent them flying into two guards, knocking them out, while Mick welded a door shut.

"Meta-wing is shut off, just gotta get to gen-pop an' free our commerads," Sam said in his thick Irish accent.

They ran down a long hallway, eventually running into a group of eight guards. Rosa quickly stepped forward and stared straight at the guards, causing them all to grip heads in pain. Sam then had all of them lock arms with each other before jumping headfirst into a tinted window that showed their reflection and they came out through another tinted window behind the guards.

Luz pulled out two glyphs, one to freeze the floor under the guards with Leonard, and another to turn it into a small puddle of water along with Mick. Mark then held out his hands, lightning crackling between his fingers.

"I suggest you boys run along in another direction, unless you want to be electrified that is," Leonard smirked.

The guards complied and the Rogues ran into cell block D, where about forty more guards were waiting with nightsticks and a couple of riot shields.

"Magenta, Harley, go free Axel and Owen," Leonard ordered.

Luz pulled out a piece of paper that she unfolded to one four times the size, and activated it to send a blast of wind at two guards attempting to rush her, they flew to the back of the room and landed on another guard.

A plant glyph was used to send a volley of thorns at the feet of a small group of three guards, the thorns weren't sharp enough to do any serious damage, but they did cut through their clothes and leave a couple flesh wounds.

Next Luz grabbed a third glyph, an ice with two small fire glyphs on the circle that when activated shot out a jet of water with the force of a fire hose, it slammed into one of the guards with a riot shield and began to push him back into a wall, catching two other guards on his way.

Suddenly, a strange ovular…thing appeared in the back of the cell block, a blue light emitting from the center. 

The first person to jump out wore a black leather overcoat and a light green hoodie, he had glasses and a piece of cloth around his face like Luz did, and on his arms were a pair of strange guantles.

The second was a woman with pale skin and white hair, her eyes were an unnatural light blue, and she wore a light blue leather jacket with small spike strips on the shoulders.

Next was another man, a Latino like Luz, with long flowing black hair, he wore a black padded jacket with yellow accents and red sleeves, and a pair of futuristic looking glasses with a blue glow on them.

Finally, a third man emerged, he had uniform brown hair, a sharp jawline, and he wore a maroon suit with silver accents.

Leonard dropped his hood and lifted his goggles up onto his forehead, "Hartley, Caitlin, how are my favorite traitors? I don't see the Flash, did he not care enough to come?"

The woman, Caitlin, rolled her eyes, "It's his night off, you're stuck with us Snart."

Leonard continued to smile, "Glyph Girl, I believe it's time to introduce you to some of the local heroes. Meet Pied Piper, Vibe, the Elongated Man, and Killer Frost."

"I thought the Rogues had rules? Looks like you're breaking one of them right now," Vibe said, gesturing towards Luz.

"Oh she's not one of us, think of her as a bit of hired muscle," Rosa chuckled.

"Kid, you can walk away from this right now, we won't stop you," Hartley told her.

"Sorry, it's nothing personal I swear but I owe someone big time who apparently owes these guys big time," Luz shrugged.

"Who are you—"

Before the Elongated Man could finish his sentence, Harley came down from the second story and smacked his head with her mallet. True to his name, thankfully, his head just squished down into his torso like a cartoon character.

"Magenta is takin' Axel and Owen outside."

Caitlin sighed, "Harley, I thought you weren't a villain anymore?"

"Hey, Harley Quinn is a girl of her word, and I owed Lenny here a favor before I went straight, that trumps my other commitment," Harley said.

"Enough talk, let's pulverize them," Mark growled as he and Leonard began to fire lightning and ice at the Elongated Man.

Sam and Rosa broke off to fight Hartley as Mick and Harley did the same for Caitlin, leaving Luz on her own to fight Vibe.

Luz used a plant glyph to create a long branch that she twirled between her fingers like a bo staff, Vibe groaned, "Come on, I don't want to fight a high-schooler."

"What, you think I wanna fight a superhero?"

Luz used the staff to redirect a punch and thwack Vibe in his back.

"I thought was Latinos were supposed to stick together?" Vibe asked.

Luz's attempted strikes with the staff were all blocked by Vibe, it wasn't until his back hit the wall and startled him that she was able to get a good whack against his face, "Colombian?"

Vibe sent some strange blast at her stomach that felt like getting hit with a log and then hit her in the face with a left hook, before putting her in a chokehold, "Puerto Rican."

Vibe kicked the back of her leg to force her into a kneeling position and pushed her head down, "Guatemalan?" He asked as he walked around to the front of her.

"Dominican," Luz answered, she then grabbed an invisibility glyph and vanished.

With Vibe frantically looking for her, Luz quietly walked up behind him and froze a small patch of floor underneath his feet. Finally drawing another breath and putting an end to the illusion, the witch grabbed another wind glyph and blasted Vibe's feet with a gust of wind strong enough to bend an oak tree.

He flipped around in the air at least twice before hitting the ground on his stomach and letting out a low groan as he tried to push himself up.

"I'd wager it's time to make our getaway!" Sam yelled over the clatter of the inmates.

Luz felt conflicted, she did feel bad about hurting Vibe, but at the same time she didn't exactly want to find out if this man had a frail enough ego to try freak out over losing to a five foot five fourteen year old girl with twigs for arms.

Granted they were pretty durable twigs but still twigs.

"LET'S GO!" Leonard shouted at her as he jumped over the shivering, and occasionally spasming, Elongated Man.

"Sorry!" Luz called back as she ran away.

–

Inertia, or Thaddeus Thawne, stepped into the dingy warehouse with a smile on his face, finally, after so many years of being forced to look at Bart's face, he could move again. Tad wore a black and green skin tight jumpsuit with a pair of yellow goggles built into the cowl that let his blonde hair stick out freely.

Inertia stopped, then chuckled, "I know you're all here, why don't you just step out, before I drag you out."

One by one the Rogues began to filter in front pit of the shadows. 

Owen Mercer, Captain Boomerang, wore a dark blue double breasted military jacket, a light blue scarf and a beanie of the same color that almost covered his short brown hair, strapped to his chest were at least a dozen metal boomerangs.

Alex Walker, the Trickster, wore a dark blue trench coat with patches of other patterns and colors littering it, he had ratty black hair and wore a black domino without any lenses.

"Inertia," Leonard smiled, although malice dripped from his voice.

"Come to fight?" Inertia chuckled.

Mark stepped up behind him, a massive ball of hail forming in his hands, "Worse."

In the blink of an eye Inertia was gone, behind Mark and kicking him to the ground. Leonard and Mick tried to shoot at him, only for Inertia to appear in between them and punch them both in the side of the head.

Rosa and Sam both pulled out pistols and tried to shoot him, but once again Inertia was too fast and knocked them both flat on their backs.

The remaining rogues and Harley tried to charge at him from all angles, but Inertia zipped away at the last second and caused all four of them to run into each other.

The speedster appeared behind Luz and clasped his hand around her neck, "Now who is this? I don't recognize her."

"Put her down you little gremlin," Harley snarled.

That only made Inertia grin more, "Anyone here wanna see a magic trick?" The hand not around her throat began to vibrate as he pulled it back, "Watch in awe as my hand passes straight through her chest!"

In a matter of seconds Luz grabbed a glyph from her back pocket, one with an image of a sandal-clad foot with wings on the ankle. There were a few glyphs that she had never learned how to make, that she quite frankly thought were impossible to make: speed, strength, and healing, so before she left she took five of each with her.

The boost was only temporary and she had promised herself that she would only use them in dire situations, but this definitely felt like a dire situation.

Luz activated the glyph and time slowed to a crawl, she looked down and could see the image on the glyph now on the back of her left hand like a tattoo, slowly fading.

She pried Inertia's fingers off of her neck and threw him over his shoulder, time returning to normal once his back hit the ground.

Inertia looked stunned briefly, before his face contorted into an angry look and he took off running, Luz following close on his heel. The Rogues regrouped and stood back-to-back in the center of the warehouse, green and indigo lightning flashing all around them.

"Harley, care to explain why the little brat that you brought along is keeping up with Inertia like a speedster?" Leonard asked, having to shout over the sounds of fighting.

"I told you she's magic, she does all kinds of wacky bullshit!" Harley yelled back.

"Let's just be glad that we have someone who can match his pace, ay?" Owen said.

"Better that he have to deal with that than us have to deal with him," Frankie agreed.

Inertia yelled in pain as he was thrown to the ground, with Luz having now stopped, they could see that he mask fell down, revealing her busted lip and bleeding nose, her knuckles were also raw and bloody and he face paint was smeared slightly.

Groaning, Inertia pushed himself onto his hands and knees, "Who…the hell…do you think you are?" He asked between panting breaths.

With her last burst of speef, Luz ran forward and grabbed him by the scruff of his one-piece skin tight suit, "I'm Glyph Girl you clown." With that she slapped an ice glyph to her chest and a cloud of frost and ice began to wrap around his body.

By the time the cloud dispersed, Inertia was laying on the fetal position, shivering and trying to get his body warmth back. Luz let her body loosen up, she knew he'd be too freezing to even move, let alone fight.

Leonard chuckled as he walked over to Inertia's body, winter boots clacking against the pavement, "Excellently handled. You'll have a real future in the Rogue if you want it, just come back in say four years."

Captain Cold angled his gun down at the speedster, "As for you…" another wave of cold crashed down over Inertia's body, forcing a stuttered scream out of his body.

"What are you doing?"

Owen brought down a boomerang straight into his chest, spurting blood into the air.

"Hey he's beaten you don't have to do this!"

"Seems you never understood the true nature of this mission lassie," Sam said, him and Rosa gleefully filling his legs with bullet holes.

"He's gonna die!"

"That was always the plan sweetheart," Mick lit Inertia's face up in flames.

"Been waiting for this all night," Axel cackled.

Luz took a step forward, wanting to put an end to the speedster's torture, but she was stopped when Harley grabbed her by the arm.

"Lenny, we good?"

"We're square Harley, beat it."

Luz felt her stomach flip, she was nauseous, just as she was about to double over Harley stopped her once again.

"Don't throw up here. You can't contaminate the crime scene. We gotta go."

–

"No fuckin' way," Barbara shouted from the computer.

"Language Ms. Gordon," Alfred chided her as the family walked over to her.

"No, I'm with her, what the shit?" Dick asked as he finally processed the information on screen.

"That can't be true," Cassandra whispered.

"You sure you got that right?" Tim gulped.

Roman Sionis: drug smuggler, gun runner, human trafficker, racketeer, and all around kingpin, four charges of first degree murder and the prime suspect of several others, all acquitted, twenty-seven counts of assault and battery, also all acquitted, and a money laundering charge, again, acquitted.

"The fucking Black Mask is—"

"Is also Rick Noceda, Luz's biological father," Bruce finished for Jason.

"Interesting, I thought Roman was only interested in white girls," Selina chuckled, before getting punched in the thigh by Damian.

"Guess we should be happy she's at a friend's house," Duke breathed.

"Hold on, if Black Mask is Luz's father than why hasn't he come after her? I mean he's got no reason to be afraid of Bruce Wayne or any of us," Tim said.

"My best guess is that Camila was Roman's main target, Luz would've been just a bonus and Vee was collateral damage," Barbara shrugged.

"He probably didn't see a need to go after Luz again, to be fair who's gonna believe a kid when they say that a Gotham City mob boss hired a junkie to kill a veterinarian in Connecticut," Ivy pointed out

"What now?" Stephanie asked.

Bruce went up and cleared any trace of their discovery from the computer, "Nobody is to tell Luz. We take turns distracting her while the others focus on tracking Roman down."

"You sure that's the best idea?" Dick asked.

"Luz just barely stopped herself from killing Jasper, if she's faced with her father…" Bruce trailed off, "I don't even want to think about it."

"Not used to saying this, but Bruce is right, this is for her own good," Jason sighed.

"I agree. Best to keep her in the dark for now, I'm sure she'll understand," Selina nodded.

Bruce met the eyes of the rest of the family, "Find Roman Sionis. No, find Rick Noceda."

–

Four AM at a diner in Central City, Harley and Luz sat across from each other in a booth at back far away from any prying eyes.

Luz poked at her omelette with her fork, a cup of black coffee with a couple packets of sugar dumped in it sat in her other hand, shaking ever so slightly.

"Listen Luz—"

"They killed him! Why would they do that? He was beaten, we could've just left him there, why—"

Harley interrupted her whisper-shouting by placing her hands on her shoulders, "Calm down and I'll explain everything."

Luz took a deep breath and her nerves steadied, after about a minute of doing nothing but calm breathing, she nodded to Harley.

"The Rogues have one rule that they never break, they don't kill unless it's kill or be killed, or some good old fashioned revenge killing, they also never kill the good speedsters for any reason," Harley began.

"So I'm gonna guess that was a revenge kill?" Luz sighed, earning a nod from Harley.

"Well, Inertia, evil speedster and baby-murdering bastard, tricked the Rogues into killing Bart Allen, Impulse. Thank God he was resurrected through whatever bullshit did it when he was, Tim almost lost his mind trying to bring him back. But as a way to repay the blood that they spilt, they decided to kill Inertia, they're probably dropping off his body at the original Flash's doorstep right now," Harley explained.

"…You're saying that Inertia deserved it?" Luz asked.

"Guy killed a baby, I don't think I need to say anything else to convince you that he did," Harley answered.

"And the Rogues aren't awful people because they did it."

"I mean, the Rogues ain't the nicest guys around but they got a code of honor, and nobody ever really gets hurt whenever they do a job, they're good people," Harley said.

"So…you could kill someone who deserves it and still be a good person," Luz whispered.

"Sometimes," Harley shrugged, not even thinking twice about the statement and going right back to eating.

This was it, this was the key. She didn't have to disappoint Amity, her friends, her mom and sister, or either of her families, she could kill her father and still be accepted, surely they would understand why she did it, right? Who wouldn't? Anyone in her position would do the same, they'd be an idiot not to. 

Finally, for once in her life she could have everything that she wanted.

Chapter Text

"You've been acting strange all day…does it have something to do with the human realm?" Amity asked.

Luz let out a hollow chuckle, "Okay okay. I don't talk about this because it's kind of a family secret, but today's the day that I found out the truth about my father."

"The…truth?" Amity asked.

"When I was a kid, my mom just told me that it didn't work out between them, and the reason I couldn't see him was because he was always busy with his work. But when I was eleven, she told me everything. My dad was a mob boss in a city called Gotham, I don't remember which one, Mom never gave me a full list of everything he did but I got the idea, it was a lot to dump on a kid but I think she just couldn't hold it anymore," Luz shrugged.

"Luz, I didn't—"

"My mom told me that she saw him fighting some big black shadow, and then she picked me up, grabbed what she could and ran. Once I found out, I started setting a reminder of this day, I wanted… I needed to remember exactly what he took from me."

"Luz—"

"And that's totally not an excuse for what I did. I don't know if maybe I wanted you to have a good relationship with your dad because I don't even have one, or if I was jealous for the same reason but… I'm sorry."

Before Amity could say anything, they heard an explosion from back at the arena and some screaming. Amity and Luz stood up to run towards the noise, only for the latter to fall back down to her knees.

Luz met Amity's worried haze with another hollow laugh, "Whoops, got a case of the ol' jelly legs. I'll catch up."

Amity didn't know what to say, she stalled for a bit but eventually took off towards the arena again.

--

"If fire bee honey did this, maybe cooling him down will reverse it," Edric suggested.

"We don't have time for another potion," Eda told him.

"You don't need one."

The six of them turned to see Luz walking up behind them, a strange new glyph in her hand. It was an ice glyph, surrounded by a ring of three other ice glyphs forming a 'Y'. Luz slapped the glyph against her chest and activated it, immediately she began to draw deep, strained breaths and fell to one knee.

"Luz!" Amity rushed to her girlfriend's side and tried to lift her back to her feet, but recoiled upon making contact with her skin.

It was cold, so cold that it hurt to touch.

Finally, Luz stopped drawing breath and instead let a cloud of frost from between her lips, her once brown eyes now an icy white. She stood up on her own, like she was unaware of Amity right next to her, only focussed on the monstrous Warden Wrath.

Luz ran towards Wrath, a thin layer of snow coating the ground where she, and walked pillar of ice emerged from her feet and shot her forward, she smashed her fist in the center of Wrath's face, ice blossoming around the area of impact. 

Amity stepped up next to her father and formed her own abomination to help restrain Wrath. Alador tried to push her back again but Amity stopped him first.

"I make my own choices now. You're welcome," she scowled.

Alador rolled his eyes but worked with his daughter to fuse their abominations and hold down Wrath.

"Just keep him there and…let Luz do her thing I guess," Eda sighed.

Luz punched Wrath for the fifth time, knocking a tooth out of his head, nearly crushing Emira if Eda hadn't swooped in and grabbed her, and landed right in front of him. Wrath roared, mouth growing a bright orange with his fire breath.

Luz dug her heels into the dirt and drew in a deep breath, Wrath fired his jet of flames and Luz forced all the air from her lungs in a gust of icy wind. The two breath attacks clashed and they engaged in a struggle match: who would run out of air first?

Amity and Alador nodded to each other before making their abomination wrap one of it's tendrils around Wrath's jaw and shutting him up. Luz's ice breath didn't last more than about another ten seconds, but it was enough.

Steam hissed off of Wrath's body as he shrunk down and reverted to his normal form, shivering from the ice lingering on her body.

Luz too turned back, her eyes no longer white and her breath no longer coming out in clouds. She looked down to her own hands to see her knuckles bruised, and small bits of the skin worn off. 

The latina began to stumble off back towards the forest, but before Amity could follow after her, Alador grabbed her by her forearm.

"We need to talk."

--

When Amity finally managed to get away, she found Luz at the foot of the cliff where they fought grom. A wooden pole about a foot taller than her was sticking out of the ground in front of Luz and her fists were pounding mercilessly against it.

"That selfish bastard! All those hours I spent as a kid wondering why he wasn't there, wondering why he didn't love me, wondering if I just wasn't good enough, he ruined my fucking life! All because of his god-damned GREED!"

Luz jumped up and hit the pole with a spin kick, so hard that it broke a good two feet off of the top. She didn't stick the landing however, and instead fell on her butt.

Amity sighed quietly and sat down behind Luz, wrapping her arms around her and linking their hands. Luz's knuckles were really busted now, bloody and raw from who knows how long of hitting the pile, the angry look on her face had faded, and she had now begun full on sobbing.

"I hate him. I hate him so much…so why— Why do I miss him just the same?" Luz asked.

Amity pulled her as close as possible and rocked her back and forth, "It's ok, mi vida, it's ok."

--

Luz shot up out of her bed, the covers flinging off her body, her breathing was heavy, and she was drenched in sweat. It wasn't the first time Luz had had this dream in the past weeks, and she could only hope it was the last.

She looked at her alarm clock: six AM. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep, she took a shower and changed her clothes, making herself look presentable just in time for Dick to burst into her room, cradled in the arms of his Tamaranian wife.

This wasn't the first time she had met Koriand'r, otherwise known as Starfire, Dick had introduced them during Luz's first week in Gotham, but she lived with Dick at his apartment and didn't have as much of a reason to come over as he did.

"Hey Luzina, you up for a trip?" Dick asked, letting Kori put him down.

"Call me Luzina again and you're gonna take a trip to the underworld," Luz threatened.

"I would advise against it. The members of this family don't tend to stay dead for long," Kori smiled.

"Come on, you can't spend every waking moment in your room or on the streets of Gotham. We're popping over to Jump City for a bit, you should come," Dick told her.

"Jump City, California? And how do you plan to get there? Harley totaled the bat-jet," Luz chuckled as she laid back in her bed.

"I still do not understand how she managed to do that and live," Kori said.

"Honestly I'm more surprised when Harley doesn't crash a vehicle when she's done with it. But we're going to use the teleporter, duh," Dick answered.

Luz shot straight out of her bed, "WE HAVE A TELEPORTER?!"

Chapter Text

Recognized, Mist, B-37

The phonebooth disguised Zeta Tube spit her out into the quiet sidewalk of Jump City. Luz was really glad that she had chosen not to wear Eda's letterman jacket because it was sweltering even though it was late at night in December.

"Come on, we're already almost late," Dick urged her.

The three of them walked for a few blocks before stopping at a small pizza place and walking over to the back of the restaurant where a group of four were seated in the most secluded booth.

"Why is there a pizza shop open after midnight?" She heard one of them ask.

"We're in California dude, stoners gotta get their munchies somehow."

The first was a well built man with dark skin, his black hair was shaved down close to his head. He wore a sleeveless gray track hoodie.

The second was a woman with pale skin, and short, sleek black hair that took on a purple hue at the tips, a small red gem was also in the center of her forehead. She wore black ripped jeans and a band-tshirt that Luz hadn't heard of before.

The third was a man with green tinted hair and slightly tanned skin, as well as a pair of emerald colored eyes. He wore a white tanktop and blue jeans.

The fourth and final was a man with orange hair, green eyes, and freckles. He wore cargo shorts and a red and white Hawaiian shirt.

"Hey, you guys finally made it!" The fourth called eagerly.

"And you brought a friend," the first smiled.

"Yep, guys this is my little sister Luz. Luz this is Victor Stone, Rachel Roth, Garfield Logan, and Wally West," Dick introduced.

She squeezed in to the 'U' shaped booth, seated between Dick and Victor, "Or: Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy, and Flash," he finished in a quieter tone.

"I thought that Barry Allen was Flash?" Luz asked.

"Well by that standard Barry wouldn't even be Flash, Jay was before him," Wally grumbled.

"He's the third one, although he's the first Kid Flash," Dick explained.

"You are looking at the original Teen Titans," Kori told her.

Luz's eyes sparkled, "That's right I forgot you were a part of that," she turned to Victor, "But, you don't look like Cyborg."

"Oh yeah, me and BB have these little holographic projectors on the back of our necks, let's us walk around without being noticed. Can't really go anywhere in peace when you're a metal man or got green skin," Victor chuckled.

"Wait, your skin is actually green? I thought that was just makeup or something," Luz excitedly said to Gar.

"What?! You think I would waste time putting on a full body of green paint before every mission?" Gar asked incredulously.

"You certainly used to take your time with your hair," Rachel said.

"Why do you gotta undermine me, babe?"

Rachel ignored him, "So, a new member of Batman inc. Are you the new Robin or something?"

"Oh, did Damian finally get disowned?" Victor asked hopefully.

"No, Damian is still Robin," Luz answered with a giggle.

"Tim's boyfriend's been calling her The Mist and she's taken a shine to the name," Dick told them.

"How the hell did you get that as your superhero name?" Gar asked.

"Dude! Are those cat ears on your hood," Wally asked over him.

Luz pulled her hood above her head, letting the two ears flip up, much to the apparent amusement of Wally, "Dude, do you have a spare?"

"I do not believe her clothes will fit you, Wally," Kori innocently told him

A few minutes later, a waitress set four large pizzas on the table, apparently one of them being for Wally alone due to his metabolism. 

Luz really did enjoy her time with the Titans but something felt…off. She couldn't skate the feeling of some ominous gaze sitting on her. Finally she managed to pinpoint it, a man on the other side of the restaurant had his eyes locked on her, or at least she thought they were locked on her, for his face was shrouded by the hood of his navy blue jacket, in his gloves hand he clutched a skull mask.

"Anybody know the creep in the hoodie staring at me?" Luz asked in a low tone, trying to make it look like she wasn't asking what she was asking.

Dick made a subtle glance in the direction and his face dropped just a little, "Oh crap, it's my X."

"Wait like, ex boyfriend? Is this some kind of spurned lover back for revenge type thing?" Luz asked.

"No no, Red X, it's an old alter ego of mine that got picked up by some competitive psychopath," Dick quickly slapped two hundred dollars down on the table, definitely over what they needed to pay but they were billionaires so Luz didn't think it mattered, "We gotta go!"

The seven of them quickly filed out of the booth and made their way to the back exit, Luz spared a glance back and saw Red X stand up from his table and put his mask on.

Once in the back alley, Luz saw Wally switch to a running position, yellow lightning starting to bounce off of him, but was stopped when Dick put a hand on his shoulder.

"We can't use our powers, he'd know, we gotta act like civilians, that means fighting like them," Dick told them.

"Oh I bet you're really enjoying this," Rachel grumbled.

Suddenly a red, x shaped shuriken struck the ground, beeping loudly and fastly.

"Luz look out!"

The shuriken exploded before Dick could tackle Luz out of the way, the explosion sending her one way and the rest of them another.

The former titans groaned as they pushed them back up, face to face with Red X, who had discarded his hoodie, leaving him in his suit.

"Y'know, I was just about to get on a plane to that hell hole called Gotham, see I was hired by Black Mask to track someone down and bring them to him, preferably alive but dead would work to, and lo and behold I find my target in a freakin' pizza parlor," Red X said in his usual cocky and annoying cadence.

Suddenly his demeanor seemed to shift, his voice got lower and more serious, "My quarrel is with the girl. Run home."

"Like hell," Dick spat as he stood back up.

"Dick's our brother, so in a way his family is ours too," Victor said.

"You will not be taking her with you," Kori growled.

Red X sighed, "Why do people always have to make my job difficult— oof!"

A metal trash can lid was suddenly hurled at his head, ricocheting back to its thrower. Luz charged forward with the lid held up in front of her face, intent to ram him. Red X threw two more of his shurikens at her make-shift shield, both of which stuck in and started loudly beeping.

Luz skidded to a stop and threw the lid before falling back to the ground, this time however Red X caught it and they could feel the shit-eating grin radiating off of him.

"Ha! Caught it this time and— Oh shit I just realized what's about to—"

The shurikens exploded and sent him flying into a brick wall.

"Gar, Rachel, help her up!" Dick ordered.

He ran over to Red X and grabbed him by the collar, lifting him close to his face. Half of his mask had been blasted away by the explosion and Dick could now see the obnoxious smile on the Asian man's face.

"Black Mask sends his regards."

Dick dropped him to the floor before stomping on his face once to knock him out.

"What'd he say?!" Luz yelled.

'Thank god she didn't hear,' Dick thought, "Your ears are ringing from that first explosion."

"What? I can't hear you, I think my ears are ringing from the first explosion!" Luz shouted.

"Just go sit down, it'll fade in a bit!"

Luz nodded and stumbled away. Suddenly, a hand fell on his shoulder and he looked back to see Wally with a confused and anxious look on his face, the rest of the Titans behind him.

"Bro, what the fuck is going on, why is Black Mask after Luz?" Wally asked.

"I promise I'll explain everything to all of you in a bit Wal', but right now I just need you guys to back me up, she can't know."

"You want us to lie to her? I don't know man."

"Please KF, she can't find out," Dick all but begged, looking over to Luz who was currently examining her feet as she waited for her hearing to come back, he caught her attention and she waved at him.

"She may hate us for it later but it's for her own good."

"Hey guys, hearing's back," Luz said, walking over to them, "Who was that guy?"

"Red X is a mercenary who likes to constantly try to prove that he's better than the Titans," Victor explained.

"Oh, well what was he hassling us for?" Luz asked.

Dick looked nervously at the others.

"He was probably just trying to draw out us, 'nothing personal' and all that, y'know?" Rachel answered.

Luz sighed, "Well, I certainly have had enough for today and it's only technically seven o'clock in the morning. I think I'm gonna head home, if I can figure out how to get that Zeta Tube thing working."

"Alright, get home safe," Dick told her.

Once she had rounded a corner, her older brother turned around once more.

"You've got some explaining to do," the Titans said in unison.

Dick chuckled, Kori lending him a comforting hand on the shoulder, "Let's start back at about a month ago."

–

The next day it was Jason who barged into her room instead, dressed in his Red Hood attire, "Hey, me and the Outlaws are gonna go over to a smokehouse to grab some dinner and then we're gonna beat on some arms dealers, wanna come with?"

"Uh, no thanks I'm good," Luz told him.

She would rather avoid meeting with the Outlaws, given that her first introduction to most of them was her accidentally walking in on Jason, Artemis, and Roy Harper…'wrestling'.

"Ah come on it'll be fun, you're going. Here—" Jason reached into the hallway and grabbed a duffle bag before tossing it at her face, she unzipped it to see her Mist outfit inside, "Get dressed and meet me outside in ten."

Luz groaned and began to change, she knew that it was better to just comply with Jason.

–

Luz sat down on the rooftop, next to Bizarro, the anti-superman turned vigilante, Jason was sandwiched between him and Artemis of Bana-Mighdall, and Roy Harper, AKA Arsenal, was sitting on the other end of the group.

"So, I don't mean to intrude, but what exactly is you guys' relationship?" Luz asked as she caught the burger that Jason tossed her.

"Oh well, me and Artemis are an actual couple," Jason started.

"But we like to bring in Roy to have some fun sometimes," Artemis finished.

"Yeah baby!" Roy grinned.

"And him?" Luz pointed at Bizarro.

"Bizarro am very interested in relationships," Bizarro said.

"Oh, so he is a part of…whatever you guys have going on."

"Oh, no he just speaks backwards," Roy corrected her.

"What, no he doesn't?"

Artemis flicked Roy in the ear, "Idiot. Bizarro speaks in the bizarre tongue, meaning that whatever he says, he actually means the opposite of."

"Ah, so he's AroAce then," Luz surmised, looking to Bizarro for confirmation.

"No!" Bizarro shook his head.

"That's really confusing."

"Yeah I felt the same too when I first met him," Jason shrugged.

"Uh oh boys, take a gander below us," Roy said with a cocky grin.

Luz looked down to see two groups of five meeting in the alley under them, one group was dressed in hoodies and other concealing clothing, and the other was dressed in a lot of black leather and other semi-formal clothing, all of them wearing black skull masks.

Luz heard Jason whisper something indecipherable to himself before he pulled his helmet on, prompting Luz to put her domino mask over her eyes.

"Guns first, then you get the money," the leader of the second group ordered.

"Shit baby, you know that Murk Carret always delivers," a dark skinned man wearing a beret snapped his fingers and suddenly a wooden crate was pushed forwards.

Murk was tossed a crowbar and pried open the top, showing off assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, and even a couple of rifles.

"And there's even more where that came from," he promised.

The apparent leader of the other group was handed a silver briefcase that revealed stacks upon stacks of hundred dollar bills.

"Bizarro not ready to crack skulls!"

Bizarro jumped down and landed on one of the dealers, he grabbed the one to his left and lifted him a few feet in the air before spinning in a circle a couple dozen times. Bizarro set him down and the man, too dizzy to stand, fell right against a dumpster.

Roy fired an arrow at the ground that beeped twice before exploding in a big flash, the two affected buyers clutching their heads in pain. The archer then jumped down, smacked one in the face, sweeped the legs of the other, and then fired another arrow that coated them both in an expanding red foam.

Artemis grabbed a long club from her back and cracked the ground under two dealers, with the trembling ground throwing off their balance, Artemis grabbed them by their faces and slammed them into the ground.

Jason threw a glue grenade at a buyer's head, before firing a single bullet at her, cracking the glue and knocking her out, another tried to rush him from behind but Jason simply pulled out a taser and held the man against the end until he was no longer standing on his own.

Luz sank both of her thermal knives into Murk's shoulders, causing him to scream in pain, she kicked off just in time to catch the arm of a buyer who was attempting to stab her. Luz grabbed her bat and smacked him in the stomach, before looping it around his neck and slamming him into her knee.

She heard Murk cock a gun behind her, and before anyone else could do anything about it, Luz threw her back at the ground, with a clang it ricocheted off the ground and smacked him in the face. While the bat spun around in the air, she punched him twice in the face, before throwing him over her shoulder, catching her bat, and bringing it down again on his knees.

Artemis suddenly appeared behind her, lifting Luz onto her shoulder and laughing, "Ha ha! A warrior truly deserving of the Outlaw title!"

Bizarro then grabbed her and lifted her even higher, "Bizarro am disagree!"

Luz laughed for a bit, but found her eyes drawn to the buyers. They looked, familiar almost, she jumped down from Bizarro's shoulders and kneeled down over their unconscious bodies.

"That's…weird. Hey Jason!" Luz called, earning her brother's attention, "Don't these guys look like the people who were gonna kill Jasper, the one's that worked for my father?"

The Outlaws noticed a nervous shift in Jason's demeanor, one that didn't last long, and one that Luz was too distracted to notice.

"Minus that skull masks of course," she muttered.

"Criminals in Gotham have a very similar sense of fasion, especially the gangster. It's definitely just a coincidence," Jason waved her off.

"If you say so," Luz shrugged.

"Come on, all that fighting worked up my appetite and there's a really good taco truck somewhere around here," Jason put his hand on her shoulder and started leading her away.

"I don't understand how you stay in shape with the amount you eat daily, especially since you don't follow Bruce's diet at all," Luz said.

"Oh I'm sorry, do you not want tacos?" Jason asked.

Luz elbowed him in the gut, "I didn't say that."

She broke off and started talking to Artemis, just far away enough that she couldn't hear Roy and Jason whispering to each other.

"So what was that about?" Roy asked.

"Black Mask is her dad. We're kinda worried that she might kill him for killing her mom and sister so we're hiding it from her," Jason answered.

"Damn."

"Say nothing?"

"Say nothing."

–

Luz groaned awake. Her head felt all fuzzy and she was having trouble remembering things. The last thing she really remembered was Tim telling her that he wanted her to meet some of his friends.

Green and white lights started to turn on all around her, illuminating the room along with several other bodies, including Tim.

They too pushed themselves up on their feet, and when a green question mark appeared on a screen in front of them all, her memories clicked into place again.

Tim had taken her to meet Bart Allen, Impulse; Cassie Sandsmark, Wonder Girl; Connor Kent, Superboy; Jackson Hyde, Aqualad; and M'gann M'orzz, Miss Martian. They met at a diner and talked for a little bit, before a strange green gas began to leak into the room, and then her vision went black.

Jackson walked over and helped her back to her feet, he wore a skin tight sleeveless orange shirt with a high collar, beige cargo pants, and bright blue sneakers.

'Can everyone hear me?' M'gann's voice asked in her head, she wore a faded pink turtleneck under a white coat, a skirt the same color as her sweater, and black high heals

'Loud and clear,' Connor responded.

'Remeber that we're in civies everyone, no funny business,' Tim said.

'Aw, but that's the best kind of business,' Bart whined.

'Behave Bartholomew,' Cassie and Jackson chastised in unison.

'Luz, can you hear us?' M'gann asked again.

'Yeah, I'm just a bit confused about what I'm hearing,' Luz answered.

'Miss Martian has us all linked telepathically so we can communicate without actually giving any information to whoever kidnapped us,' Tim explained.

Speaking of which, the monitor changed once more to show a brown haired man, well dressed in a green suit, and a pair of triangular purple glasses resting on his face.

"Oh great, it's Nygma," Connor huffed.

"Babe, remember what we talked about, deep breaths, try not to smash the monitor to pieces," M'gann said calmingly.

"Greetings half-wits and welcome to the last room that you shall ever see!" The Riddle declared in a grand and pompous voice.

'What the heck does Nygma want with us?' Luz asked psychically.

'Probably wants to ransom us, stupid bastard. I mean you and I are the kids of the richest man in Gotham,' Tim answered.

"Now, I could simply complete my task and be done with it, but my far superior intellect demands a challenge. Before you lay three puzzle rooms, complete them all and I shall let you go, but fail and you shall be locked away until I finish my mission, sound fair?" Nygma asked.

"We don't have a choice but to play," Cassie said.

"Ugh, I hate having to play games that make me use my brain," Bart groaned.

"We accept your challenge Riddle, bring on the first puzzle room," Jackson nodded.

"Wonderful!"

The tiles under them hissed and shot out jets of steam before going black and lighting up in odd ways again. On the monitor, Nygma's face went away and was replaced with a green blob, it looked like one of those images that therapists would show you and then ask what it looked like.

"Recreate the shape, then maybe I'll consider you more intelligent than an ape," His voice rang out one last time and a three minute timer placed on the ceiling began to count down.

The Collector, Nygma, Joker sometimes, Luz really hated it when people spoke in rhymes.

"This looks like one of those puzzles where you have to slide the pieces around, with only one tile to spare," Tim surmised.

"I hate puzzles," Connor scowled.

"You hate everything, now get to work," Cassie told him.

'And while you guys do that, I'll try to hack into Nygma's systems and get us out,' Tim pulled out what looked to be a handheld gaming console, but Luz knew was actually a small supercomputer, 'I may not be as skilled as Babs when it comes to hacking, but I can crack Riddler's code without breaking a sweat.'

'This would all be easier if Bart could use his superspeed,' Luz said.

'I agree, how do we know Nygma is even watching?' Bart asked, sliding some tiles around.

'Nygma may be stupid but he's smart, he wouldn't just leave us to our own devices, even if he thinks this place is escape proof,' Tim told them, looking up from the supercomputer to move a single tile.

After some more sliding, Connor and Jackson getting into an argument, as well as Cassie and Luz, the final piece of the puzzle was put into place just a minute before the timer ran out. 

"Impressive, you finished slightly sooner than I would've expected a group of fetuses would. To the next room!" Nygma ordered.

A door was lit up with green lights, not so subtlety beckoning them over. Connor opened it first and they were all met with a blas of cold air.

On the other side of the door was an artificial snowy forest, fake pine trees with a layer of white, a frozen lake in the corner, and a metal pedestal in the center.

On the monitor above them, an image of an oddly shaped golden object appeared.

"In this winter wonderland, you will all fall by my hand. Find the key, and one step close to freedom you will be."

"God I can't wait to punch him," Luz murmered.

"You and me both, sister," Jackson nodded.

"Alright, fan out, leave no stone unturned!" Tim ordered.

Luz shivered, she stuck her hands into her pockets for extra warmth and found her hands wrapped in papers. She was in disbelief, Riddler hadn't even bothered to clean out her pockets, just how confident that he would win was he?

The girl slipped away from the rest of the group and pulled out all the glyphs she had. There weren't many, maybe seven or eight, but thankfully, she did have what she needed to speed things along.

Luz stealthily made he way to the pedestal and pulled out a water glyph and activated it, letting the water fill up the large, rectangular keyhole.

Next she grabbed an ice glyph, and with a quick shout of 'I found the key', she discreetly froze the water and it hardened to the shape of the key.

For a second she got worried that it didn't work, but sure enough, the door on the other end lit up after a few seconds delay.

"Holy shit you did find the key," Cassie said as he joined her.

"Aw, do we have to leave so soon? It's cold like back home," M'gann blissfully sighed.

"No thank you! You know that me and Jackson hate the cold," Bart shivered.

"Let's keep moving," Connor ordered.

'I've almost got Riddlers code cracked, just give me a little more time,' Tim told the group.

"How did you— UGH! You're cheating aren't you?! I don't know how you're doing it but I know you're cheating!" Nygma shouted over loudspeakers.

Before they could reach the final puzzle room the floor dropped out beneath them and they were sent plummeting into an abyss below. Once again flourecent green and white lights shining down on them. This new room looked like an arena, with several holes leading to darkness on the back wall.

"If you can't learn to play fair, then you won't play at all!"

Swarms of skinny silver androids began to pour out of the holes in the back wall, bounding towards them with gleaming red eyes.

'Alright Tim, if we're not supposed to use our powers and we don't have any weapons what the hell are we supposed to do?' Bart asked as he took a step back.

'Just sit back and watch the fireworks.'

The robots all stopped, and their eyes turned from red to green.

'Oh and maybe some heavy praise is in order because—'

The robots turned around and all fired at the back wall; bullets, missiles, even a couple plasma blasts, they all met the hard concrete and turned it to a pile of rubble.

'I just cracked Nygma's code!'

The smoke cleared, and they could see that not only did the wall have another side to it, but that side was filled with monitors, motherboards, criss-crossing circuitry, and one Edward Nygma.

"...Get his ass!" Jackson yelled.

They charged the room as Nygma panickedly began to try and get his robots back under his control, but was stopped when Connor picked Bart up by the back of his jacket and threw him as Riddler.

The two collided and knocked Nygma from his chair to the floor. Two shadows loomed over him, and he looked up to see Tim and Luz staring down at him.

"You've got to be kidding me."

Luz and Tim brought their fists down onto his face together.

–

An hour later the group was being assessed by EMTs. They had just been cleared to go when a blonde woman holding a microphone approached Tim and Luz.

"Oh great," Tim groaned.

"Mr. Drake, Ms. Noceda, Vickie Vale of GCPN, any comments about your abduction at the hands of the notorious Edward 'Riddler' Nygma?" The reporter asked, shoving the microphone towards them.

"Nygma likes to think he has a superior intellect but really he's about as smart as Kite-man is scary. It was easy to escape," Luz answered her.

"And, can you think of any reason why he might have abducted you?"

"We're guessing ransom, it's the most logical solution," Tim shrugged.

"Ms. Noceda, you've not been a stranger to villain attacks in recent times, you and your brother Dick Grayson were attacked by Red X in Jump City, do you think there's any connection?"

"Uh, no- no comment."

"Ms. Noceda—!"

Connor stepped in front of her and put his hand over the camera, "Alright that's enough, you're clearly freaking her out."

Vickie reluctantly backed off, "Tch, come on John."

"Fuckin' vultures, the whole lot of them," Connor scowled.

"Well, thanks for coming out, even though it ended kind of shitty," Tim sighed.

"Ah don't worry dude, it's Gotham," Bart chuckled.

"Something going wrong is basically expected," M'gann agreed.

Luz wasn't listening to them, not really.

What Vickie had said was playing over and over again in her head. Red X and Riddler…connected.

"My quarrel is with the girl. Run home."

Suddenly she remembered the only she heard Red X say from their encounter in the alley, that and something else about delivering something.

Could Nygma have really been after her the whole time, and furthermore was Red X also after her?

But if that were true, then that would mean that both Tim and Dick had lied to her.

She couldn't help the pit that formed in her stomach.

–

When Damian asked to introduce her to the new Teen Titans, Luz felt even more suspicious. Damian didn't ask to hang out with people unless is was Alfred or Jonathan Kent, more often than not her just showed up or you'd just end up doing something with him.

Nonetheless, she decided to humor him so as to not make him think that she suspected something.

The Zeta Tube whirred and spit her out into Titans Tower, once again in Jump City. Damian had already briefed her on who would be there: Connor Hawke, Green Arrow; Rose Wilson, Ravager; Jefferson Jackson, Firestorm; Jaime Reyes, Blue Beetle; Virgil Hawkins, Static; Kara Danvers, Supergirl; Jessica Cruz, Green Lantern; and Johnathan Kent, Superman, all lounging about in their hero outfits aside from Jamie and Jax.

There was another that she wasn't familiar with though, a pink haired man with black framed glasses wearing a tight-fitting white tank top and laying across Jon's lap.

"Hey, you showed up on time," Connor smiled.

"And what is that supposed to imply?" Damian asked.

"Well historically you've always been at least a little late to basically everything," Kara shrugged.

"That's it! Jon, my sword!"

"No."

"Damn you!"

Jax smirked as he turned to Luz, "It's nice to finally meet you, the professor wanted to be here too but he had some other business to take care of."

Jessica put her arm on her shoulder, "Damian's told us a lot about you."

"He has?" Luz chuckled.

"Well, he's told us about you in the way that when he's ranting about it family, you come about about the third least, right behind Cassandra and Mr. Pennyworth," Virgil explained.

"What have I given you to rant about?" She asked as she looked to Damian.

"Oh I don't know, maybe when you tried to read me a bedtime story last week," Damian scowled.

"Well can you blame me, you look like a nine year old!"

"I am the same age as you! I was raised by the league of assassins damnit, why would you possibly think you would need to do that?!"

"None of that changes the fact that you don't look like you're even close to hitting puberty!"

"That's it! Jon, my sword!"

"No, again."

"Damn you!"

Damian began to argue with some of the others, but something else caught her eyes. Jaime was sitting in a chair on his own, a very familiar book cover in his hands.

"Oh my god!" Luz gasped as she made her way over and leaned over the back of the chair, "I don't think I've ever met another human who's interested in the Azura books!"

Jaime looked up at her excitedly, "No shit, you're really into these too? Y'know I tried to get these bastardos insípidos to read the series but they all refused."

"Hey, I know enough Spanish to know when you're insulting us Beetle. Don't make me come kick your ass," Rose threatened.

"Algunas personas simplemente no pueden apreciar el verdadero arte," Luz mumbled just loud enough for everyone to hear, making Jaime snicker.

Jaime stood up and took hold of her wrist, "Come on, I wanna show you something."

Luz nodded and let him lead her away.

Virgil chuckled once they rounded the corner, "Uh oh Damian, looks like bug boy's falling for your sister."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, I can't wait to see him get a shovel talk from the fuckin' Batman," Jax said.

"Aw come on guys, I think it's sweet," Kara chimed in.

"They do seem kinda cute together," Jessica shrugged.

"Yeah I mean, what are the odds that Jaime would find another latin person obsessed with the same crappy book series," Rose snarked.

"Personally I think she could do way better," Connor added.

Jay and Jon caught Damian staring at the hallway where they disappeared, prompting the former to sigh, "You want to spy on them through the ventilation system, don't you?"

"Indeed."

"I really gotta stop enabling you," Jon huffed as he looped his arms under Damian's and flew him up.

–

"Come on, you're taking forever with whatever this is," Luz urged Jaime from the other side of the closet door.

"Just give me like two seconds!"

Luz chuckled as she sat down on the bed, watching as Jaime slid the closet door open.

He was now in a black wetsuit, one that covered down to his knees and about half of his upper arm, he also wore fake dark blue spaulders and vambraces, he had on a fake silver band around his head, he wore black sandals, and in his right hand he held a silver trident.

"Oh my god, is that a Valek the Water prince cosplay?!" Luz said excited.

"From book three, yeah! I've been waiting forever to show this off to someone," Jaime paused for a bit and his face contorted into an annoyed look, "It is not cringe!"

"I never said it was, this is awesome!"

"Oh right, I never mentioned that, I was talking to the Scarab," Jaime explained.

"Scarab?" Luz asked.

"Yeah, it's an alien war-machine that stuck itself into my back, it gives me my powers and we can communicate telepathically," Jaime answered.

Luz grabbed him by the hand and pulled him to sit on the bed, "Tell me everything and don't spare a single detail!"

"Alright alright," Jaime laughed.

Damian watched from the vents as Jaime explained his origins as Blue Beetle to a completely enraptured Luz, suddenly, one of his rare smiles graced his face.

–

"You know, Jaime really likes you."

The two were back in the manor now, just about to part ways at Damian's door when he dropped that out of nowhere.

"Excuse you?"

"Look, I know you're lonely Noceda, you may have us but the companionship that we provide is different from the type that I think you need," Damian said.

"What are you talking about?" Luz asked.

"Jaime is a loud, excitable, and a bit of a space case I'll admit, but he's also a fierce and…admirable warrior. I personally can't think of anyone better to be with you in a romantic sense," Damian answered.

Luz froze.

"Now if you'll excuse me I need to go throw up, the very act of paying that nitwit a compliment is making me sick."

Luz got back to her room and shut the door. Her head was one loud swarm, she couldn't even form a cohesive thought. She stumbled around her room in a daze until she found it. The Grom photo, immediately her thoughts cleared as she stared silently at the polaroid.

"You know I would never, sweet potato."

She pressed her lips to the photo as a single guilty tear fell down her cheek.

Chapter Text

"Um, s-sir?"

"What is it, Mr. Morin?"

"There have been some…complications with your bounty," Mark Morin grabbed a remote and turned on the TV to play a recording.

"What kind of complications?"

"W-well, both of the operatives that were going to collect have been beaten and sent to jail."

"Oh? And tell me: who exactly was it that beat them?"

"Uh, they were both beaten by your daughter and—"

A bang echoed through the office and Mark fell to the ground, his long, greasy blond hair spayed against the carpet, and a bloody hole in his eye. 

Roman Sionis set down his desert eagle for just a second and pressed a button under his large marble desk prompting another man to come in, taking a momentary pause at Mark's body.

"Mr. Grant, would you kindly call a clean-up crew to dispose of Mr. Morin here. Oh, and double the reward on my daughter," Roman ordered.

"A six million dollar bounty? Are you sure sir?"

Roman merely fixed his gaze on the man.

"Yes sir," his secretary nodded and left the room quickly.

Roman stood from his chair, picking up a glass of whiskey in his unarmed hand, looking with disdain at the TV screen. He raised his pistol and shot twice at the recording of his daughter, "Heh, should've known that any kid of mine would be harder to kill than that. But your lucks gonna run out soon kiddo, real soon."

--

"We can't keep this up forever Bruce. Any word on Rick's location?" 

Luz moved back behind the wall quicky at the sound of Dick's voice, before anyone in the cave could notice her.

"No, but Barbara is close, I can feel it. We don't have to keep this up much longer, we just have to distract Luz for a little bit more," Bruce said.

Luz felt her heart sink. It really was all a ruse.

"We may not have a little bit more, both Red X and Riddler came to collect the bounty on her head, who knows who else might," Tim sighed.

"He's got a point, next time it might be someone more dangerous," Steph said.

"Well, it's my turn anyway, I'll go get her and we'll do something low profile. But just try to hurry up," Cassandra said.

"You can't rush genius," Barbara chuckled.

God, Luz felt so stupid, it was only now occuring to her that she hadn't been in the cave once since she got back from Central City.

She couldn't let them stop her. She needed to be the one to put her father down no matter the aftermath. She couldn't go to Luke or Kate, they were probably in on it, Luz wasn't even sure if she could trust Ivy and Harley. She needed to talk to someone who wasn't in relation to the bat family, someone who wouldn't lie to her, someone who would have no reason to.

Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in her head.

--

An hour later when Cassandra went to go get Luz, she was gone, and the strange cloak that she had worn when Dick first brought her on was also gone.

She ran down to the cave and was met with the concerned looks of the rest of her family.

"Her suit and weapons are gone," Duke told her.

"She's gone."

"Not gone, she's just checked into Arkham Asylum as a visitor," Tim frowned, looking up from a smaller monitor separate from the Bat computer.

"Dollars to doughnuts that she's there to talk to someone she definitely shouldn't be," Dick said.

"Cassandra, Damian, run interference while we keep trying to find—"

"BAM! I finally got him!" Barbara cheered.

"You found Black Mask?" Stephanie asked.

"It was listed under a lot of fake names and shell corporations, but this penthouse leads back to Roman," Barbara nodded.

"Me, Selina, and Jason will infiltrate the penthouse and take down Black Mask. Cassandra, you and Damian's mission remains the same, keep her away by any means necessary. The rest of you, patrol the streets like usual," Bruce ordered.

"After everything that he's done to her, the danger he's put her in, you really want us to just stand by?" Dick asked incredulously.

"We can't leave the city unprotected, if we need backup we'll call you," Bruce explained.

"But—"

"You have your orders, now move out."

--

A guard with a hook for a hand opened up the visitation room, halting her with his real one before she went in, "Be careful Miss, he's a psychopath," he said. 

"Thanks, but I'll be fine," Luz smiled, walking into the room and sitting down on a metal chair.

"Well well well, look who has come to visit, it's the filthy cheater," Nygma scowled as she pulled her hood from her face.

"Hi Edward. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you know why I'm here."

Edward grinned, "I assume that you want me to tell you who hired me—"

Luz cut him off by punching the glass that separated them.

"I know who hired you, but I want to know who he is."

"Well I'm sorry, but that's employee-employer privilege, I can't say."

Luz sighed, "Yeah, yeah I figured that would be your answer. You like games, don't you Edward?"

The man in question leaned back in his chair, "I'm listening."

"Three riddles, oh, and they better be actual riddles, not the unsolvable ones that I know you like to pull out. You get to ask me three riddles, and with each one I get right, you have to answer a question of mine. Sound fair?"

"...Fine, we'll play your game, so long as you promise not to cheat like last time," Edward nodded.

"First riddle, go."

Edward grinned, "Tell me: What becomes of justice when it loses everything? It dons a mask, same as any other criminal, then goes out into the streets to commit a little violence with its righteous excuse. Initially, its true goal will be lost to you, that is until you see what that light in the sky is signaling to. It is a substance within us all, equally vindictive and cruel. It turns victims into villains. What is it?"

Luz paused, replaying what he had said in her head as her eyes drifted out the window, locking on to the bat-symbol in the cloudy Gotham sky.

"Vengeance, that's the answer," she said suddenly.

"My, you're sharp. Your turn."

"Why were you hired?"

"Because there's a bounty on your head. I simply intended to collect."

"Who—"

"Ah ah ah, second riddle."

"Right. Second riddle."

"I can deliver a verdict without a sliver of proof. I am not a judge or a jury but I surely will execute. A vigilante could live off of me as if I were food. What am I?"

"The answer is justice."

"Very good, I'm impressed."

"Who is my father? Who is he really?"

"Your father likes to go by the name Black Mask, on account of that ridiculous dome he wears on his head."

"Alright, last riddle."

"How sad, I was beginning to enjoy this." Edward cleared his throat and began, "What will finish a job that the law couldn't. When you're cheated and robbed it is given to you to get you out of the corner that you've been driven into. It can be deadly if it festers, becoming a poison that privilege unwittingly brewed. A dangerous intuition that if you are listening to, will soon make you abandon all that makes you you. Believing that you are the hero is what it tricks you into. What is it?"

Luz glared at Edward, "Power. The answer is power."

Edward clapped his hands callously, "Excellent, excellent! Very well, a deal is a deal, ask your final question."

"Where is my father?" She spat.

"I don't actually know, but I would wager that his penthouse suite on the corner of fourth and Lanchester," Edward shrugged, "I do wish you luck on your little revenge quest or whatever you have going, it's about time someone cut Sionis down a peg."

Luz ignored him, instead shooting up from her seat and stomping out of the room.

"You get what you were looking for?" The hook-handed guard asked.

"Yep," Luz said through gritted teeth.

Once out of the asylum, Luz ducked behind a border wall and pulled a black duffle bag, one that held her folded up suit, out of a shrub. She quickly changed in the privacy of the bushes, before tucking the bag with her civies away again and mounting her hoverboard.

As she looped back around overtop Arkham, she felt something land on her back. Luz was thrown completely off balance and eventually crashed into the roof, rolling a few feet as her hoverboard slid away in another direction.

Luz pushed herself to her feet to see none other than Damian standing above her, Cassandra just a little bit behind him.

"Orphan, Robin, I should've known someone would show up," Luz hissed.

"Mist, please just stand down, come back to the bat-cave and we'll talk this out like adults," Cassandra said calmingly.

"What? So you can all lie to me more? So you can all keep playing babysitter?!" Luz shouted.

"So you heard that?" Cassandra sighed.

"Yeah. I should've guessed that it was all fake—"

"Mist just because we were distracting you doesn't mean that it was all a lie—"

"You're all the same! A bunch of lying pricks, just like him! Black Mask deserves to die, and I'm gonna put him down!" Luz grabbed her bat, "Don't expect me to be home for dinner."

Damian grabbed his sword, hooked to the sheathe so as to not actually hurt her, "Mist, I do not want to do this."

"Funny, because I really do."

Luz ran forward and began to swing her bat, which Damian began to block with his sword. The strikes were wild, sure, but they weren't sloppy as Damian discovered when she weaved the bat past the sword and caught his forearm.

This time, it was Damian who brought his weapon down, intent to hit her on the head just hard enough to knock her out, and it was Luz who now had to go on the defense.

She wasn't going to win this fight with her combat skills alone, both Damian and Cassandra were trained since birth in hand-to-hand, it was a miracle that she wasn't already beaten.

It was finally time. 

It was like everything was moving in slow-motion as Luz slipped from under Damian's sword, it slammed into the ground displacing dirt and gravel while she moved behind him, and after a split-second of hesitation…

She slapped a plant glyph onto his face.

Thick, lush vines began to sprout out and wrap around Damian, effectively hog-tying him and giving Luz the opportunity to drop kick him to the ground.

She heard Cassandra skid to a halt behind her, most likely in disbelief, "Luz, what did you just do?" She asked, finally using her real name.

"What I had to do!" Luz pulled another glyph and slammed her hands together, flooding the rooftop in a thick mist.

A hush fell as Cassandra stopped and listened, closing her eyes to better hear all around her. A hushed curse somewhere to her left, the sound of boots crunching against gravel, then panicked scribbling somewhere to her right. Cassandra was about to make a leap to where she was sure her younger sister was, but stopped when the ground began to shake, she could see Luz's silhouette, lit up in a light brown glow.

Cassandra finally had to take a knee to make sure she wouldn't fall, and that's when Luz's bat, backed by a jet of flames, came flying out of the fog. Cassandra couldn't do anything to fight back, not with the ground still shaking, she couldn't hit the deck or she'd be helpless, and she couldn't stand up to move because she'd fall and once again not be able to fight back.

All that she could do was cross her arms in front of her chest and take the hit, being sent back a few feet when she did.

When the fog finally dispersed, Luz was no where in sight, her board and bat gone as well. Cassandra groaned as she pushed herself back up and went over to Damian, pulling out a small knife and cutting him free.

"What…in god's name…did she do to us?" Damian grunted, periodically pausing as he ripped himself free of vines.

--

Roman paused as he entered his living room. After a few seconds of scanning the room he chuckled and set his wine glass on a table, "I know you're here Dark Knight…Come on out now," Roman called.

Sure enough, Batman emerged from the shadows, prompting Roman to laugh some more, "So is it just you? Or are some of your sidekicks hiding out?"

On cue, Catwoman snapped her whip near his feet as she took her place to Batman's left, a scowl on her face.

"Hmm, a little upsetting, this almost reminded me of our first meeting, it was in this very penthouse y'know. Same fight where that cunt that I called a wife left with my bastard child, well, children I guess. It's such a shame too, I saw real potential in Katrina, potential to make my empire bigger than ever, since the moment she was born. Now look at her," Roman grabbed a beige file folder from the table next to him and flipped through it, "Some sissy faggot obsessed with a fantasy world, living with Bruce fucking Wayne. A damn shame."

"You know, of all the fake names you could've chosen, Rick is a pretty boring one," Catwoman said in a mocking tone.

"Actually, Rick is the real name, it's just been buried for a real long time, I gotta admit it feels kinda nice to hear it again though," Roman shrugged.

"You're going to Blackgate, Sionis," Batman growled.

"Oh, so we're doing this now then?" Roman snapped his fingers and twenty of his goons appeared from out of the room he was just in, all pointing weapons at the two vigilantes.

"Yeah, I've been keeping tabs on some of my assets, so when I saw the guards tell Nygma that Katrina was there to talk to him, I assumed that he'd blab," Roman explained.

"Wow Romey," Red Hood jumped down from the second floor and landed to Batman's right, "All this for a fourteen year old girl, you really are a massive pussy."

"Sticks and stones, Hood." Roman grabbed both of his pistols from their holsters on his back, "Let's brawl already."

--

Luz landed on the slightly slanted glass roof of her father's penthouse, stealthily walking up to an open sky light. She could hear gunfire as she leaned over the opening, seeing over a dozen men firing at a white marble table, behind which was Jason, Bruce, and Selina.

She grabbed a wind glyph in one hand and one of her thermal knives in the other, she took a deep breath, preparing to dive into the fray head first when—

"Human?"

Luz shook her head, she definitely didn't just hear Hunter's voice, it was just her conscious trying to distract her.

"Human!"

Luz looked to see Hunter standing in the reflection of the open window, he looked surprised and concerned.

"Hunter!"

Luz pulled off her domino mask and kneeled down to properly face him, she was trying to fight them off but she could definitely feel the tears coming to her eyes.

"Hunter, what are you doing here? Are you in that mirror dimension?" Luz asked.

"Yeah, I am, I came to…to… Luz why do you have that?" 

Luz followed his eyes to the blade in her hand, and her face hardened, "That's none of your business," she told him in a whisper.

"Are you wearing body armor?" Hunter asked.

"That's none of your business," Luz said it more clearly this time.

"Are you planning to hurt someone—"

"That is NONE of your business, Hunter!" Luz shouted.

Hunter stared at her, almost like he was trying to decide if he should looked shocked at her yelling or glare at her.

Eventually though, he asked a simple question.

"Who?"

"...my dad," Luz finally said after a while.

"Titan damnit, Luz you—"

"He murdered my mother! Didn't even have the decency to do it himself, he hired some junkie to stab her in the middle of kitchen like a fucking coward!"

"Luz you know that this isn't the way!"

"But I know what to do, I take all this grief and pain inside of me, and I put it in my knife, and I sink it right into his damn forehand," Luz continued ranting.

"What would Amity think?"

"You keep her name out of your mouth! If she knew…If she knew the whole story she'd agree with me!"

"Would she?!"

"Of course she would! I don't know why you're acting like an asshole, you of all people should know exactly why I need to do this."

"Luz, I of all people should know exactly why you shouldn't!"

Luz stood up and let out a dry, humorless chuckle, "Don't be a hypocrite now, Wittebane, we both remember exactly what you did to Belos."

--

Belos hacked up blood as he pushed himself to his feet, his world, his plans, all crumbling around him. His eyes fixated on Hunter as he approached, and a scowl fixed itself upon his face.

"You, ungrateful brat," Belos groaned, "Who was it that gave you your wings Hunter? Who was it that made you everything you are? Me! I am your goddamn creator boy! You owe everything to me, and yet you abandon me for these abominations, these…witches!"

A blade made of yellow energy sprouted from the top of Flapjack.

"And now you threaten me? I should've destroyed you the moment that you first disobeyed, the moment that you went to Eclipse lake— ACK!"

Hunter swung the blade down and slashed out Belos' throat, he sputtered and choked on his own blood as he slumped back to the ground.

--

Hunter glared at Luz from the other side of the strange glass cube, she put the domino mask over her face again and drew in a deep breath through her nose.

"I'm doing what needs to be done. I don't need your approval to go through with it," she said finally.

"What about Amity's, or the Owl Lady's, do you think that this is what they'd want for you?" Hunter asked.

"I already told you, they'll understand, they'll agree with me even," Luz answered.

"What makes you so sure!?"

"Because they love me!"

"Human you—"

Hunter was cut off when he felt a sharp tug at the rope around his waist.

"Shit, I'm out of time. Luz, we're— WAH!" 

Hunter was yanked out of the portal just a few moments before it collapsed, landing in a cushy plant that was most likely courtesy of Willow.

Said girl and Darius were on him in seconds, pulling him to his feet and asking if he was ok.

"I'm fine I'm fine, but we need to get the portal up now, Luz is in trouble!"

--

Only Luz's reflection stared back at her now, Hunter was pulled off somewhere, presumably back to the Boiling Isles. There was no one to stop her now, her father was so close, all it would take was one jump.

Her knife slowly slid back into its sheathe

The wind glyph helped her land quietly and safely, not that anyone would've heard her over all the gunfire anyway. She grabbed another glyph from her pocket, noting that she was almost out, and threw herself over the railing of the second story, slapping the glyph onto the edge of the balcony.

A silver glow began emanating from the glyph and any metal object, including the guns and her father's skull mask began to get pulled towards it, even Jason's pistols weren't safe, the only reason she wasn't affected was due to her being behind the magnet glyph.

With his helmet removed, Luz could finally see her father's face: he had the same messy black hair, same brown eyes, surrounded by big circles of black mascara, he honestly looked like an older, male version of her.

"And who might you be?" Rick asked.

Luz grabbed one of the final three glyphs she had, "I'm your grim reaper," with that she slapped the strength glyphs against her chest.

"Boys, dispose of her," Rick ordered.

Luz jumped up and kicked off of some goons head, her enhanced strength knocking him out immediately, she did the same to another two before landing in front of a pristine white couch, one that she picked up and threw like it weighed less than a softball, hitting five more men with it.

Two men tried to hit her but she simply flicked them both in the chest and they were sent flying back, colliding with two more thugs each.

The remaining six men all started to rush her, only for Luz to slam her fists into the ground and splintered it, making them all fall to the ground. She felt all her enhanced strength leave her, so she grabbed her second to last glyph and activated it.

It glowed purple as a harmonic sound began to spill out, worming its way into the ears of any conscious thug and putting them right to sleep.

"Well, I gotta say I'm almost impressed."

Luz turned around to see Rick staring at her, one hand on his hip and a smile on his face, "Now how about you take that mask off sweetheart."

Luz took the domino mask off and tossed it a couple of feet away, staring dead into her father's eyes as his smile got bigger.

"Katrina."

"Don't you dare call me that you bastard," Luz scowled as she grabbed her bat.

A look of realization graced Rick's face as he turned back to the marble table, where Selina, Bruce, and Jason had now emerged, "So that means— Oh that is rich! How are you doin' Mr. Wayne, it's an honor to make your acquaintance."

"Damnit," Bruce whispered, "Red Hood, hold off Luz. Catwoman, you're with me!"

Luz tried to get to her father first, but Jason was just too fast, and he blocked her path.

"I don't wanna have to do this, sis, but you're not leaving me much of a choice," Jason pulled a crowbar from the back of his jacket.

Luz only screamed at him as she began to swing her bat. Jason grabbed it and ripped it from her hands before whacking her in the stomach with his crowbar, he then grabbed her and threw her over the marble table.

Jason sighed, "Sorry Luz, it's for your own good."

Just before he could reach over the table, Luz shot back up and slapped a napkin to his chest, it glowed orange before a jet of flames shot him clear to the other side of the room.

Bruce and Selina were fighting Rick near the entrance to the terrace, and Luz saw her chance when he began to swing a knife around, forcing them to back off.

"Come on. Come on! COME ON!" Luz ran forward and tackled Rick out onto the terrace, smashing him through a glass table.

Before Selina and Bruce could follow her, she grabbed her last glyph and formed a massive ice wall in the doorway.

"I'm sorry, Bruce, but you're not stopping me, not this time," Luz said.

Rick groaned as he pushed himself back up, picking up the knife again, "Well then, darling daughter, let's dance."

Luz redirected a stab and punched her father in the throat, he stumbled back a bit before charging her again, this time planting the knife into her left thigh. As soon as Luz had finished screaming, he ripped the knife out and swung up.

She moved out of the way, for the most part at least, but the knife did manage to tear through her lips, leaving a small gash on the left side of her face. Luz let a couple droplets of her blood fall to the pavement before standing back up again.

"You need a minute?" Rick asked sarcastically.

"Just waiting on you," Luz replied.

"Attagirl."

Before Rick could land another slice on her, Luz grabbed a patio chair and threw it, hitting him square in the face and making him drop the knife. They traded a few more blows before Luz finally picked up the knife and stabbed him in the right side of his gut.

Rick smashed his head against hers and then kicked her away, pulling the knife from his stomach with an agonized grunt and tossed it away. Her father stumbled over to a potted plant and produced a small handgun that he pointed right at her.

Luz held her arms in front of her face and ran at him, despite the pain in her leg, she distinctly heard three shots: one narrowly avoided her, whizzing right past her ear, she didn't know where the second went, but she did know that the third hit her in her right forearm.

She bit back the scream as best she could as she tackled her father to the ground, gun knocked from his grip on doing so. She pinned his arms with her knees and just began to beat him.

Luz punched and punched like it was the only thing she knew how to do, at this point, one of her father's eyes was swollen shut, his own face was coated in a sheen of his blood and so was her's, she didn't care about the pain in her forearm, she didn't care about the pain of her knuckles breaking, all she cared about was the burning pain in her heart, and making it go away for good.

It would be so easy to finish it, to just strangle him right then and there, but—

"If she knew the whole story she would agree with me!"

"Would she?!"

Hunter's words played through her head over and over again, overlapping and growing louder and louder until it was the only thing she could hear anymore.

"All you had to do was walk away!"

Luz punched Rick again.

"Mom loved you, even after everything!"

She punched her father again.

"If you had just given it up, we could've been a family!"

Rick was bleeding heavier now.

"You don't deserve the Noceda name. It stands for something better than you, it stands for something better than your greed!"

Luz clasped both her fists together and raised them in the air.

"You are not my father!"

She brought her fists down on Roman for the last time, as Bruce and Selina busted through the ice.

"I got him!" She yelled, not even having the energy to face them, now that the adrenaline was no longer pumping everything was starting to hurt, and she had this weird ache in her side.

"Christ, Luz, are you hurt?!" Bruce asked, hints of worry weaving their way into his Batman voice.

"I have her," Selina said gently as she helped Luz to her feet.

"I got him," was all Luz had the strength to say.

"Yeah, you got him," Bruce nodded as he picked Roman up by his arm, "You're gonna be rotting in a cell for a very long time Sionis."

Suddenly, Roman ripped his arm out of Batman's grasp and sloppily pulled himself up on the terrace ledge.

"I ain't goin' back to Blackgate, not for her, not for Camila, not for no one!" 

With that, Roman kicked the back of his own leg and fell off the ledge, narrowly avoiding being grabbed by Luz as he did.

She felt Bruce take hold of her head and bury it in his chest, so she wouldn't have to watch when he inevitably hit the ground.

There was an incessant ringing in her ear now, and she couldn't hear anything that Bruce or Selina was saying, only faint, indistic mumbles. Her vision would occasionally get a little blurry, or distorted in some other way. Bruce and Selina moved away and she tried to follow them but she couldn't, it hurt too much to stand, let alone move.

"Bruce?" She felt herself say, her voice small and pleading as she drew a bloody finger up from her chest.

It was a one in a million chance, a statistical anomaly, something that was so unlikely that it shouldn't have even been possible.

She now knew where the second bullet went, weaved between her armour plates right where her heart would be.

"Bruce," she whispered again, choking on her own blood that was beginning to pool in her mouth.

She watched with watery eyes as looks of horror graced their faces, and then she was staring up at the stars, as she too tipped off of the terrace.

--

Roman pulled himself up with the help of a tree, grunting and groaning in sheer pain, looking on in confusion as he stared at the hollow eyes of a titanic, horned skull.

"The hell?"

Chapter Text

Bruce felt his heart stop when he saw Luz tip over the terrace edge. The world was dead quiet for him, you could hear a pin drop on a carpeted floor. The worst part had to be the look that she gave him: like she had done something wrong, like she was the problem.

Like maybe she had deserved it.

His mind may have been playing tricks on him, but he also saw disbelief, almost as if she couldn't believe that he had failed to save her, that he had once again let another one of his kids die

No, actually the worst part was that he wasn't anywhere close enough to catch her, he knew that. 

Yet still he ran like hell.

Selina got there first, not only was she closer but she was also faster, but she took one look over the edge before running in the other direction, and holding him back just long enough for Luke to blast into view in his Batwing attire, Luz cradled gently in his arms.

"I was passing by when I saw this one take a nasty tumble, figured I'd give her a lift," Luke joked, voice distorted by his helmet.

"Batwing, Mist has been critically injured, you need to get her to the cave now! I'll be right behind as soon as I send out a message for the police to come clean up Sionis," Bruce ordered.

"Uh, and where is Sionis exactly?"

"What are you talking about, Romy should be splattered all over the pavement at the bottom of this tower," Selina asked back.

"Well he ain't there," Luke said.

"Who's not where?" Jason groaned as he hobbled into sight.

"There's no time for this!"

–

Damian perked up when he heard someone entering the cave, reaching over to slap Cassandra on the knee with his book, who had been relaxing with an ice pack on the back of her head.

"You've got some explaining to do about that shit you pulled back at the asylum, Noceda!" Damian yelled, fully intent on beating the answer out of her if he had to.

Damian stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Luke passing Luz's limp body over to Bruce, who had just hopped out of the Batmobile.

"Christ not again!"

"What happened?" Cassandra shouted.

"She fought with Sionis and he shot her, she's bleeding out fast," Selina explained.

"Me and Alfred saw the whole thing, he's got the medical table ready," Barbara said as she wheeled around the corner.

Bruce rushed through the cave until he got to their operation room, where he gently placed Luz down on a gurney. Alfred and Harley were both already wearing white aprons, wearing surgical masks, and pulling on gloves.

"Oh god what is she doing here?" Damian asked.

"I know how to stitch up bullet holes, that's what!" Harley snarked.

"We must get her out of that costume so we can remove the bullets and dress her wounds!" Alfred ordered.

Selina propped Luz up, who painfully moaned in response, so that Bruce could pull the top part of her outfit off, while Cassandra and Jason worked together to remove her boots and pants, all noting the scars on her that they definitely couldn't account for.

Barbara was holding Luz's hand, just to give her something real to grasp, or maybe to make sure that she was still there, when she suddenly felt the Latina squeeze tightly. With everyone else distracted, they didn't even register Barbara lean in so that Luz could whisper, "My room, top right drawer."

Barbara squeezed her hand back before wheeling around, "Jason, I need you to push me."

"Babs, you barred me specifically from ever pushing you, you threatened to have my apartment robbed and then get the locks changed," Jason reminded her.

"Just do it, helmet hair!"

As Jason rushed Barbara out of the room, Harley placed the anesthetic mask over Luz's face and Alfred grabbed a pair of forceps.

"There are no exit wounds, so both bullets are still inside, but by the looks of it, the bullet in her chest got wedged between her ribs before it could reach her heart," Alfred explained.

The butler moved her arm onto a silver table and dug the forceps into the angry red wound, which prompted Luz to shoot up and scream as more blood began to pour from the hole.

"I thought you put her on anesthesia!" Damian yelled.

"It takes a while to kick in!" Harley yelled back.

"Hold her down! The last thing we want is that bullet being shifted further in!" Bruce ordered.

It took until the bullet was out of her forearm for the anesthesia to finally hit Luz and make her fall still. Alfred dropped the bloody bullet into a small silver tray.

"Now comes the hard part," he grimaced.

Once again plunging his medical tool into the crimson stained skin, after a bit of careful rooting around, Alfred found the bullet and began gently wiggling the forceps.

"Alfred let me do it, I have a stronger arm than you," Bruce insisted.

"This is a delicate procedure, if I try to yank it out I could crack a rib, or worse I could lose the bullet altogether," Alfred shot him down.

"Heh, 'Luz' the bullet," Harley chuckled, only to catch glares from everyone else in the room, "I'm tense, ok?!"

Another minute of slowly working the forceps up and down, and Alfred gently pulled them back to show the bullet, earning a collective sigh of relief.

"Right, all that's left to do is to stitch her up. However it's possible that the bullet in her forearm cracked a bone and I'm fairly certain that some of her fingers are broken, so I would like someone to go and get the x-ray machine ready," Alfred sighed.

"No need, I think," Barbara said as Jason wheeled her back in.

Alfred pulled off his gloves and grabbed Barbara by the forearm before she could move another inch upon seeing the slip of paper with an open blue hand sketched on it, two blue ribbons wrapping around the palm, "What are you doing?"

"Yes Gordon, what are you doing?" Damian asked.

"Relax, she told me to do this," Barbara said, upon seeing Alfred's still worried face she continued, "Look, we already know that Cass and the crotch goblin know about it, the only reason that they haven't said anything is because Luz is currently dying, there's no point in hiding it anymore." 

Alfred eventually let go of Barbara and gave her an approving nod, she rolled up to the side of the gurney and let the glyph hover over her stomach until—

"How the hell do these things work?"

"Oh my god, am I the only one who pays attention to this kid?" Harley snatched the glyph from Barbara and slapped it against Luz's chest.

Instantly a warm blue light exploded from the glyph and wrapped around Luz like a caterpillar cocooning itself. The family watched in amazement, a little confusion but mostly amazement, as her skin began to pull itself together: her bullet wounds, the trench in her leg, and the gash in her lips, all healed and scarred over already; her once bruised and slightly mangled fingers slowly bent back into place and went back to their natural color; even the blood that stained her skin looked like it was just gently washed away.

The light died down and Luz was left on the gurney, sleeping soundly and looking peaceful. Bruce however, looked almost the exact opposite.

"Explanation. Now," he ordered through gritted teeth.

The three original secret keepers exchanged an awkward look, before Barbara spoke up, "It might be easier to just show you."

–

Luz had finally done it.

After two days of fading in and out of consciousness in order to recuperate all the energy she lost due to the accelerated healing process, she sat down with the whole family and explained everything, from the moment she stepped into the Boiling Isles, to the moment she left. She even gave small glyph demonstrations and showed off the Grom photo to prove that she wasn't lying.

There were only two things that she neglected to talk about: the first being her promise, because what in Titan's name was she supposed to say? 'Hey, fyi don't get too attached to me because I'll be leaving forever the first chance I get!'? Luz just couldn't bring herself to do it.

The second was—

Luz's thoughts were interrupted when she heard her window creak open and two people walk up the roof and lay down on either side of her.

"Are you ok?" Bruce asked.

Luz didn't say anything.

"Luz? You need to speak to us hun'," Selina said.

"Are you gonna kick me out?" Luz asked after a beat of silence.

Bruce sat up suddenly, "What? Of course not! What could have possibly given you that impression?" 

"Please. I lied to you the entire time I was here, I disobeyed you, I almost broke your one rule and killed my fa— Roman. I wouldn't blame you if you did," Luz muttered.

"Hey, if Bruce kicked out everyone who's lied, disobeyed, or almost killed someone, then he wouldn't even be here," Selina scoffed.

"Selina, I really don't appreciate you tainting my kids mental image of me," Bruce glared at her.

"Oh babe, we both know that nothing I say will improve it regardless."

Bruce sighed, "Ignoring anything else she says: Selina does have a point. We all make mistakes on this job, but the important thing is that you're alive, and that you didn't kill Sionis."

The cold December wind shook the trees in a violent way, making a horrible yet beautiful sound. If she closed her eyes she could almost imagine that she was once again in the Boiling Isles. If she closed her eyes she could almost imagine that the arms draped around her actually belonged to Eda and King. If she closed her eyes she could almost imagine that the feeling of guilt crushing her chest was actually Amity, laying on top of her as they both tried to catch a quick nap, Titan knows where. If she closed her eyes she could almost imagine that the wind whistling in her ears was actually her mother, whispering sweet nothings to her after she had had a nightmare and needed to be soothed back to sleep.

"Can I tell you a story?"

"What kind?" Selina asked back.

"The kind that's at the end, and the beginning," Luz answered.

–

The Day of Unity

Luz sat quietly at the war table as Darius proposed yet another plan, she grimaced when a couple of abominations exploded and flung some goop onto her face.

"For the last time Darius, none of our plans are going to involve flesh-eating beetles," Raine groaned.

Eberwolf let out a sad purr.

"Look, I am expressly trying to let as few people die as possible in these plans, but you have to accept that not everyone is going to make it out of the Day of Unity alive," Darius said.

"Not if we can help it. I have a better plan to—"

" No ."

The Cats turned to Luz, looking confused.

"What was that, kiddo?" Eda asked.

"I said 'no'. I am so sick of this hiding in the shadows, attacking our enemies when their backs are turned bullshit. It hasn't worked so far, in fact all it's done has made Belos look courageous and us look like cowards. So I have a better plan," Luz answered while standing up, her voice bitter and cold, completely unlike how it should be.

Darius let out an amused scoff, "And what's your plan witchlet? Befriend him to death?"

Luz picked up a chess piece meant to represent Belos, wrapping it in a fire glyph and melting it down to a plastic puddle, "We storm the Skull, kill the Emperor."

"I stand corrected," Darius chuckled.

"I…like you optimism, but Belos is leagues above all of us in terms of magical prowess. Fighting him head on is the worst possible thing we could do," Raine told her.

"Belos may be stronger than all of us, but he's not stronger than all of us. You three are some of the most powerful witches on the Isles, I haven't seen a force that can stop Eda in her Harpy form, ...Hooty—"

"Yay, praise!"

"Along with everyone else, he won't stand a chance!"

"Wait, everyone else?" Eda asked.

"Yeah, she means us."

The Cats turned around to see Hunter, Gus, and Willow in the entrance to the safehouse. They crossed the room and stood behind Luz, which made Lilith smirk, "You've been planning this, haven't you?"

"Belos is a smug, cocky bastard. He thinks that he is better than us, that no matter how many of us there are, he will win. We're gonna show him just how wrong he is," Luz said.

"So, other than a rousing speech do you have an actual plan?" Steve leaned forward in his seat.

Luz nodded, "Darius, Eber, Eda, and Raine are going to Hexside, you'll find a group of students hiding out there that are ready and waiting to fight, plus Principal Bump."

"Old Bumpy is finally standing up for himself, huh?" Eda snickered.

"Lilith, you and the rest of the Cats are going to go see about hijacking a couple of airships for us. Steve should know how to disable any tracking devices on them so he'll come too," Luz continued.

"And what about you and the other kiddies? Are you staying to hold down the fort?" Darius asked.

"The four of us and King are going to get Amity and the twins, maybe we can even convince Alador and Odalia to join us as well," Luz finished

Eberwolf pulled Darius down so they could whisper into his ear, "Eberwolf would just like to point out that we are technically befriending Belos to death," he translated."

–

"Woah. Crikey!" Luz chuckled as Amity pulled away.

"Oh Titan, I can't believe I just did that," Amity whispered.

"Why are you panicking? I'm the one who just slipped into an Australian accent after getting my first kiss!" Luz groaned.

They stood there awkwardly smiling at each other for a bit before the human asked, "Wanna do it again?"

Amity only squeaked in response but she'd take that as a yes. Their lips had barely touched again before the door was flung open, a shrill and posh voice breaking up their bliss mere seconds later.

"Amity Olympia Blight, remove your lips from that dirty peasant this instance!" Odalia shrieked.

"We tried to hold her off Mittens," Edric said.

"We're sorry," Emira chimed in.

Both of them were suspended in mid-air by a large pink ghost that was porturding from Odalia's pendant.

"Rest assured you miserable little vagabond, you will pay for forcing yourself upon my poor daughter like that," Odalia scowled.

"You can't say that to my girlfriend!" Amity yelled back.

Odalia sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, "Girlfriend? Really Amity, where is your sense of pride? Blight's do not associate with the likes of the lower class, especially not a pauper like this. How about that Boscha girl, she could be your girlfriend."

"I'm done letting you decide my life for me!"

"Ugh, of all the ungrateful stunts you've pulled—"

Luz cut her off when she grabbed Amity by the waist, pulled her close to her hip, and whipped out a wind glyph that she used to send Odalia flying out of the room and into the wall. The ghost fled back into the pendant and dropped Edric and Emira, who scrambled to their feet to stand next to their sister.

"Mom, Emperor Belos is evil, he's planning to wipe out all of the witches on the Boiling Isles with a draining spell. Work with us, please, it doesn't have to be this way," Amity begged.

"Amity, listen to yourself, sprouting all this conspiratorial nonsense. This human has corrupted your mind," Odalia scoffed.

"It's true mom," Edric insisted.

"Why don't you believe us?" Emira groaned in frustration.

"Or maybe she just doesn't care," Luz suggested.

"What?" All three Blight children asked.

Luz walked forward, grabbed Odalia's right arm, and rolled down her sleeve to reveal her pale, sigil-less wrist.

"I knew it. She knew exactly what he was doing the whole time," Luz spat as she threw Odalia's arm back at her.

"That— That's impossible, I've seen her sigil before," Edric whispered.

Emira's face grew angry, "She's one of the richest witches on the Isles, I wouldn't be surprised if she did a couple of under the table deals with Illusionists."

"Mom…how could you—"

"I WAS THINKING OF US, OF OUR FAMILY!" Odalia finally shouted, "Belos promised to make us rich beyond our wildest dreams! We'd never have to work a day in our lives ever again, so yes, I know what he is planning to wipe out witches and demons and no I do not care! All that matters is OUR LEGACY!"

"Odalia."

They all turned to see Alador standing at the end of the hall, a hurt and furious expression on his face, "By the time we have returned from defeating the emperor, I expect you and your belongings to be out of my house. I will be filing for divorce from there. You will be forced to step down as CEO of Blight industries. You are not fit to wear that name anymore. Children, come."

With that, Alador turned back around and stomped off, the twins and Amity following close behind. Odalia reached for her pendant again but Luz pulled an ice glyph and shot a beam of frost at her fingers, turning them black with frostbite.

"Stole your daughter, then I stole the rest of your family. That's gotta suck," Luz taunted as she walked off to join the others.

"Alador, children! Get back here this instant! Amity! AMITY DON'T LEAVE ME!"

–

The Cats and the rest of their allies were gathered around a fire pit, the moon was starting to crest over the horizon, a looming threat of the impending eclipse. A lot of Hexside had come to fight, even two or three teachers, not counting Bump, Luz was worried that they wouldn't all be able to fit but her fears were quelled upon seeing that Lilith's squad actually managed to snag a third airship.

Luz took a deep breath before stepping up onto a big wooden box to get everyone's attention.

"Listen up! You all know why you're here. You're here, because right now, in the skull of the Titan, Belos is plotting to wipe out all life of the Isles."

"The Day of Unity is a hoax, a ploy to get every witch on the Boiling Isles into one centralized location. We found plans for a spell, one that would drain the life out of every witch through their sigils," Darius explained.

"Your friends, your families, everyone with one of those sigils is going to die once the moon eclipses the sun."

"But Belos needs the coven heads to start the spell. If we can stall them all long enough to wait out the eclipse then we should be able to save us all," Raine said.

"Not that I don't like this 'we can do it if we just believe' attitude but Belos is the most powerful witch on the Isles, how are we supposed to beat him?" Jerbo asked.

"That's where you're wrong, Belos isn't a witch," Hunter suddenly stepped up on the box next to her, "A while back, the human and I were trapped in the Emperor's mindscape, where we learned that he's actually the first human to ever set foot on the Boiling Isles: Philip Wittebane. He's kept himself alive for centuries by draining the power of palismans."

Skara gasped, "But then that means—"

"It means that without his staff, Belos is just an ordinary human."

"But absorbing all that palisman energy cursed him, underneath his face is another one, one that's far more terrifying, and far more savage than he is. So Belos is not completely powerless," Hunter warned them.

"Look, I'm not gonna pretend that this is easy. Belos is strong, Belos is ruthless, and if you want out then we understand. But this is bigger than any of us, this is for the sake of everyone on the Boiling Isles. Every witch, every demon, Belos wants all of them dead, and I for one refuse to let this amazing place be destroyed by some crusty bastard from the sixteenth century!" 

"What are we waiting for then? Let's go kick his ass!" Boscha yelled.

That made Luz smile, "Everyone get to the airships, we take off the second we're all boarded."

She hopped off the box and was immediately flanked by Eda and Raine as she walked to one of the airships. The older woman gently passed an ovular teal object into her hands.

"The final coat is dry. Can I ask why you decided to make it an egg though?" Eda chuckled.

"Everyone deserves a chance to choose who they want to be," Luz shrugged.

Eda smiled and nodded awkwardly, but the smile was wiped off when Raine smacked her lightly in the stomach.

"Right, uh, Luz I wanted to talk to you about something. Lately you haven't seemed like yourself, you've been cold, angry, distant—"

"What are you trying to say?" Luz asked.

"You're just…acting out of character and I'm worried about you, that's all," Eda said.

"Eda, I can't afford to be the same girl I was months ago, that starry-eyed fourteen year old wouldn't last ten seconds against Belos. If I want to win this, then I need to start acting like an adult." 

With that Luz walked over to the airship, pretending that she couldn't overhear Eda and Raine's conversation.

"Ugh, everything's just so messed up Raine. Luz came here because she was afraid of growing up and now she's being forced to. Sometimes I wish that I had just grounded her and forced her to stay in the Owl House," Eda sighed.

"Hey, don't worry Eda, there will be plenty of time for her to act like a teenager once we've defeated Emperor Belos. Plus, she's your kid, I think we both know that she'd be too stubborn and too smart to stay grounded," Raine told her.

Eda snickered, "Every bit the charmer you ever were," she grabbed them by the scruff of their shirt and roughly pulled them in for a kiss.

–

"So, where's Odalia?" Darius asked, his pose more rigid than usual, granted that wasn't saying much.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, turns out she knew exactly what the Emperor was planning and was going along with it. I'm filing for divorce," Alador responded, not looking up from the airship controls.

"Oh... I'm very sorry to hear that," Darius' eyes suddenly grew wider, "Soooooo, that means you're single again, right?"

Alador finally sparred a glance back at him, "...Give me about three weeks to get over it."

"Yes!"

"Snail for your thoughts?" Amity asked.

Willow and Gus were also behind her, leaning over the railing on the other side of Luz. The human chuckled, "Eda sent you guys over, didn't she?"

"Yeah she kinda did," Gus answered, only to be smacked in the back of his head by Willow.

"But, we are worried about you as well," Amity said, glaring at Gus.

"I'm fine Ams, I'm just focusing on the mission," Luz told them.

"Luz, do you think I can't tell when you're lying to me?" Amity asked.

"...Shit, you're right, I'm sorry," Luz sighed.

"Luz, you know you can talk to us, right? Just tell us what's wrong," Willow insisted.

"I don't know, I guess it's just that when I first learned about him, I thought that maybe I could change Belos' mind, make him see that wild magic wasn't dangerous or wrong. But I realize that there's a very real possibility that I'm going to have to put him down permanently ," Luz said.

A chorus of shocked sounds echoed from her friends and they all began hastily talking over her to each other in an effort to shake the idea from her head.

"You guys don't understand. People like Belos…people like my father, they don't stop coming. There's no living in harmony with them, they just keep pushing you and pushing you. There's only two ways to deal with them: you live your life in hiding, or you stand up and stop them for good," Luz whispered, Amity may have convinced her to vent to Willow and Gus about her father, but she still hadn't told Eda or King.

"For years I had to lie about my name to everyone I knew, I couldn't go to the doctors office when I was sick, I couldn't do anything because I was hiding from my father, but I'm not going to make that mistake again, I'm not going to hide from Belos. I'm not going to sit idly by while another one of my families is torn apart by someone's greed. And if that means that I have to get my hands dirty, then I can live with that," Luz finished.

Before any of her friends could say anything else, Alador piped up, "Everyone, we have three ships and another flying object tailing us, brace for impact!"

The Blight patriarch had barely even finished his sentence before something big and purple slammed onto the deck, accompanied by a familiar maniacal laughter.

"Kikimora," Luz scowled.

"You're not authorized for use of this vessel," she giggled, piloting some kind of Abomiton mech-suit.

Luz pulled out a fire glyph and went to slap it on Kikimora's mech, only to be backhanded to the ground. Both Amity and Eda tried to make a break for her, but were stopped as coven scouts began to board the ship as well.

Luz rolled out of the way of a blast from the cannon arm and pulled out an ice glyph that she used to form a baseball bat. She scrambled to her feet and managed to get one whack at the glass bubble around Kikimora before she was grabbed by the Abomiton.

"An annoyance from the beginning. Belos will be quite pleased once I drag your charred corpse to him!" Kikimora giddily exclaimed as she raised the cannon again and prepared to fire.

"Get. Away. From her."

There was a screeching sound and then a blue blur knocked into Kikimora's mech, pushing it off deck and forcing her to let go of Luz. The blur flew Kikimora out over the ground and started slashing the mech apart, including the jetpack on its back, before eventually stopping and spiking Kikimora to the ground.

Lilith slammed back down onto the ship, now covered in blue feathers and bearing sharp silver talons, green eyes glowing in the black sea of her sclera.

"Woah, Lilly, didn't know you had it in you girl," Eda shifted into her own Harpy form and slung and arm around her sister.

"Neither did I," Lilith whispered.

Eberwolf growled as he slashed a couple of coven scouts away from themselves.

"Eberwolf says that they don't want to interrupt this tender moment of self-discovery, but we are still in the middle of a battle," Darius translated, protecting Alador at the controls.

" Halt ."

Everyone stopped at the sound of Belos' voice over a crow phone. One of the bulkier scouts pulled it from his belt and began talking, "Sir, we have the wild witches cornered, as well as three seemingly rogue coven heads, we are prepared to execute."

"No. Leave them and fall back," Belos ordered.

"But sir, they are trying to ruin the Day of Unity—"

" I said: fall back ," Belos hissed.

The scout shivered, "Yes sir, right away sir."

One by one the coven scouts fled from the ship, all three ships broke off and turned around, leaving them completely unimpeded as they sailed over the area where all the witches were gathered.

Luz swung out onto the bow of the ship and slapped a glyph over her mouth, feeling the sigil print itself onto her skin, she drew in a deep breath and let her super amplified voice ring out over the crowd.

" BELOS! "

A massive holographic projection of Belos appeared before her, a soft smile on his face as he spoke, "Hello Luz."

" It's time to finish this. "

"I couldn't agree more, so why don't you land your ships and—"

" No! "

"I beg your pardon?"

" I figured we'd play a game that I heard about: Covens versus Wilds. You and your coven heads, against me and my wild witches! "

"Really? That doesn't seem quite fair. I mean, a gaggle of students, two hacks who can't even perform magic, and less than a dozen actual witches, against me and my six devout and loyal coven heads, the strongest witches on the Isles besides me. Seems like the deck is stacked in my favor."

" Yeah…but I know you'll do it anyway. Because deep down you're scared of us, of the threat that we pose to your power, even if you think it's only a small one. 'Cause that's what it's all about with you isn't it? You may sprout on with this savior bullshit, but I think we both know that it's really about you having power. It always is with your type. "

Belos just began to laugh.

" You have five minutes to get to the skull of the Titan. I know you know a shortcut afterall."

The projection vanished and Luz wiped the voice amplifier glyph off of her mouth. She hopped back on deck where she was greeted with a smile from Eda, "Well if there's one thing I taught you, it was presentation," she said.

"Alright, this is it everyone. Hunter, you and I are going to go on ahead and blast a hole in the Titan's skull big enough for the ships to enter," Luz started.

"We are? Cool," Hunter summoned Flapjack and walked out onto the bow.

"Everyone one else, just stay here and keep on your course," Luz finished.

"Wait, I wanna come with you, I can help," King pleaded.

"Aww, it's cute when he grossly overestimates himself," Darius snickered.

"It's ok King, I'll be back, I promise," Luz told him as she went to join Hunter.

"You better stay safe," Amity half-heartedly threatened.

"Come one, when am I not?" Luz asked, pulling out a mega-fire glyph.

She was about to slap it to her chest when she noticed the strange vial holding yellow and purple liquid hanging off of Hunter's belt.

"Uh, what is that?"

"Oh, the three-eyed one gave it to me before we took off, she said it would give me an energy boost, then she winked at me, which was weird," Hunter shrugged.

"Dude, is that a witch drug?" Luz asked, "Also you definitely shouldn't tell Willow this but I'm ninety percent sure that Boscha was flirting with you."

Hunter scoffed at her in amusement, "What?! That's rediculous. Plus everyone knows that drugs don't come in potion form," he then promptly took off.

"Oh we're having a serious talk about that when this is all over," Luz shouted after him.

The human placed the mega-fire glyph on her chest and instantly felt like her blood was starting to boil, her skin was turning red, she was sweating buckets, and it all culminated in her hair exploding into bright indigo flames.

Two jets of fire, the same color as her hair, erupted from her hands and propelled her forward, letting her catch up with Hunter in no time. The skull fast approaching, Luz nodded to Hunter and backed off to give him room to work. 

He took the potion from his belt and immediately downed it all, then jumping off of Flapjack, the staff suddenly turned into a giant war hammer on a chain, made of bright yellow energy. Hunter slammed it down directly onto the center of center of the skull, sending cracks all around the impact site.

"Woah! Are you ok? An attack like that had to have taken a lot out of you," Luz said as she flew back alongside him.

"Actually I feel great, must've been that potion," Hunter shrugged.

"Dude, that was totally a witch drug."

"Just do your thing."

Luz smirked as she blasted past him to the skull, stopping in a pin prick sized hole, at least in comparison, and let loose a massive burst of indigo fire that incinerated enough of the cracked skull to create a hole about as big as a bullet wound on a human one. Luz tapped down gently against the interior of the skull just as Belos and the coven heads warped in.

"You dare defile the Titan in such ways?" Orsan Nocturn, the head of the Oracle Coven, whispered in a threatening tone.

"Let's just kill her already," Mason Stone, the head of the Construction Coven, suggested.

"Come now Mason, have you no sense of fun?" Hettie Cutburn, the head of the Healing Coven, chuckled.

"Oh I agree with Hettie dear, it'll be much more entertaining to torture the little sprout before we snip her roots," Terra Snapdragon, the head of the Plant Coven, said.

"Kill her, torture her, whatever we do let's just do it now," Adrian Graye, the head of the Illusionist Coven, sighed.

"I think—"

Before Vitimir Bancler, the head of the Potions Coven, could finish his sentence, Hunter came screaming down into the fray and began wailing on the unready Vitimir.

It all ended too soon though, when Hettie threw one of her scalpels into the back of his leg, him clutching his would left him open just long enough for Mason to backhand him off the bridge and into the abyss below.

"Hunter!" Luz attempted to fly down after him, only have her leg grabbed by Adrian.

"You're not going anywhere," he said with a manic smile on his face.

In response, Luz shot a plume of flames from her hand that consumed the left side of his face. Screaming in agony, Adrian stumbled back and let go of her, Vitimir doused the flames with a potion and Hettie cast a healing spell that turned the charred skin into an angry red burn scar.

"Who's next, huh? Who else wants a piece?!?" Luz shouted as the coven heads started to surround her. 

"I grow tired of these games, come and face me already," Belos calmly demanded.

The coven heads stopped their advance and made room for her and Belos, Luz let the indigo flames consume her hands completely as she scowled, "I'm gonna burn you up like Firestorm."

"I have literally no idea what that means."

Luz was about to charge when the ground suddenly shook once, then twice, then three times, next there was a dead quiet, before a shrill ghostly wail echoed from beneath them.

"Orsan?" Belos asked.

"I'm sensing a strong astral energy, necronomic in nature," Orsan explained.

"Emperor…what is below us?" Mason asked.

"Nothing good," Belos responded.

Hunter was flung back onto the bridge, a little bruised but otherwise fine, and with Flapjack in the process of conjuring a spell.

"Some old friends want to say hi, uncle ."

Boney hands began to pull themselves up onto the bridge, and two dozen cracked Golden Guard helmets came into view, all accompanied by a white cloak and a skeleton.

"ATTACK!" Hunter ordered, and the skeletons did as he commanded, swarming over the coven heads in a split second.

"You need to go!"

"Are you insane? I'm not going to leave you alone here!" Luz shouted.

"I can't hold these guards up very long, but the others are on their way, I'll be fine. Now go and end this," Hunter yelled back.

After much hesitation, Luz nodded and flew head on at Belos, crashing into the red energy shield he conjured at the last second but still pushing him back into the chamber where he had betrayed her as Philip. She landed and quickly created a wall of fire at the entrance to keep them both trapped inside.

"Luz, listen to me, I don't want to hurt you. We can go home, together, I have just enough Titan's blood for one more trip. Please, don't turn me into a child killer," Belos said as he dropped his cloak and pulled his hair back into a ponytail.

Luz scoffed, "Oh that's rich coming from you. I think the skeletons outside would disagree with that." She brought her fist up and tried to blast him, only for nothing but smoke to come out.

"Terrifying," Belos condescendingly smiled, "Do tell, have you any more half-baked schemes up your sleeve?"

"Oh I got a whole bunch."

Luz pulled her cowl over her face, before slapping a speed and strength glyph against the backs of her hands, "Float like Flash, sting like Wonder Woman," she whispered to herself before closing the distance between her and Belos in the blink of an eye and laying a punch right across his jaw.

Sent flying, Belos still managed to flip around in the air and land on his feet, cradling his jaw, "Impressive, truly impressive, but that is the only hit you'll be getting tonight."

Luz zoomed all around the room just trying to land a second hit, but everytime she got close she would be knocked back by Belos' staff. All while he spouted taunt after taunt at her.

"This is a vile land, crawling with sin that only I can cleanse, I was chosen by God for this express purpose. We don't belong here, so close to Satan's influence, the human realm is where we should be."

Luz screeched to a halt behind him, "Y'know, you don't exactly belong in the human realm either."

She looped back around to avoid an arc of red lightning, "All your ideals, your entire way of life, it's all outdated."

Once again, she ran around him to avoid getting hit, "Plus I mean, if you start prattling on about witches and a demon realm, especially dressed like that, you'll probably gonna just get thrown in a mental ward."

Luz started running in counterclockwise circles around Belos, surrounding him in a column of indigo lightning, "Plus even if they don't, how are you gonna survive in the new world. Other than being a bastard you don't really have a lot of useful life skills."

Belos shot out his arm in cursed form and clotheslined Luz, sending her tumbling into one of the support pillars.

"Now," Belos panted, "Even though you have been a nuisance for months, I shall still be merciful, your death shall be quick and painless."

He was about to aim his staff at her, only…

Luz pushed herself up with his staff, then wrapped her hand around the top and gave it one good squeeze that turned it into little more than scrap and broken glass.

"Aw, so sad. Now you're just a weak old ma— AAAH!"

Luz was blown back into the pillar by a bolt of lightning that shot from Belos' fist, but that was impossible, he didn't have any glyphs, at least that's what she thought, until she was able to get a good look at his forearm due to his displaced sleeve.

"You… carved glyphs into your skin? Are you insane?!"

"I prefer the term 'resourceful'," Belos shrugged before blasting her with electricity again.

The sounds of fighting outside were drowned out by her own horrid screaming, she called out desperately for Eda, only to see the Owl Lady get yanked away by Terra's vines just before she could breach the flames.

Yet somehow, through Eda's viscous maternal shouting as she tried to get to her, through the pulsing sound of the electricity, and through her own screaming, she heard a distinct cracking sound.

Something leaped out of her rucksack and began clawing at Belos' face, causing him to grunt in pain and stumbled back, also cutting off the lighting flow. Pushing past the pain, Luz stood up and used that last of her speed and strength to zip over to Belos and punch him square in the stomach.

She held out her hands to catch the thing that saved her and instantly felt her eyes widen with joy. A chubby little otter, with a white body and face, purple limbs and ears, and two big blue circles around it's large black eyes stared back at her.

Her very own palisman.

"Oh my gosh you are the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life!"

The otter ran up her arm and to her shoulder where it squeaked into her ear.

"Your name's Ollie and you're an otter, this day couldn't get any better," she squealed.

"Enough!"

"Oh right, he's still here."

"I am the righteous hand of God, I am a holy and pure man, meant to battle the forces of evil and protect human kind. How? How could you possibly choose these corrupted sacs of flesh and sin over your own people?!" Belos cried out.

"Is that what you said to Caleb?" Luz asked.

Belos visibly froze.

"Yeah, I found out about him when I got stuck in your mindscape—" Ollie shifted into his staff form, sitting peacefully on a blue pole with his arms and legs folded against his chest, Luz tapped the end against the ground and a gross yellow gas seeped into the room, "— poor Caleb, the only crime he committed was falling in love, and you murdered him for it."

Luz could see the effects of her homemade fear gas taking effect, she was just glad that it worked in the first place. Belos' pupils grew small, his head started darting around the room, and he began to clutch his head.

"But that wasn't enough to satisfy your anger, was it, you had to keep bringing him back to life over and over again just to kill him. You're sick—"

"That's quite enough, sprout."

Luz turned to see the coven heads, minus Orsan who was probably holding the others back, now in the room, Mason having just finished sealing them off from the other room with a stone wall.

Adrian cast a bunch of clones that began to run circles around her, there were so many of them that she couldn't even catch on when the real Adrian was coming at her. After taking a good five or six hits to the face, Luz finally screamed and slammed her staff against the ground, summoning vines to wrap around each clone and squeeze until the illusions poofed out of existence. She threw the real Adrian up into the air with the vine and drew a circle in the ground that summoned a stone pillar to crash into his chest.

A scalpel pierced her shoulder, and another grazed her side, Hettie had a veritable arsenal pointed at her, but she didn't get to throw another one before Luz drew a circle with her staff in front of her and summoned a massive jet water spewed out and stunned her. Luz ran around with the end of her staff to the floor and drew another circle under Hettie, before she swung her staff up and knocked Hettie into the air. The ground within the circle turned to water and a massive shark leaped out and swallowed her left leg whole, Luz shot a beam of ice from the top of her staff, encasing Hettie in a small glacier, the Healing Coven head now down one.

Luz nearly avoided a vial of green liquid thrown at her feet by Vitimir, it hissed at her and took a few inches off of the ground. She quickly dodged more vials of acid until she could draw a massive circle in the air and jump through it, just before taking an acid vial to the chest. It simply dripped off her body, which was now made of pure solid gold, smirking, Luz charged forward and let more acid vials hit her only for the contents to fall off harmlessly. "Quick tip from my highschool chemistry course, pure gold can only be corroded by one kind of acid!" Luz summoned a blade of indigo energy from the top of her staff like a trident and swung at Vitimir's face, he fell to the ground screaming and clutching his eyes as blood fell from them.

Mason managed to sneak up behind her and wallop her with his hammer, which caused her to drop her golden form and stumble away. When she turned around Mason had conjured up several stone walls that floated around him in the air like barriers, in response Luz drew a dozen small circles in the air before swinging her staff and scattering them all around Mason. Ollie turned back to his palisman form and jumped in the back of Luz's hood as she charged forward, threading her fist through one spell circle and punching one of the walls with vibrational energy that made it crumble like wet paper. 

She shattered all of his walls, then flipping in the air, she swung her foot through another spell circle and brought down an axe kick on his head that stunned him. Mason was knocked in the way of another circle and Luz hit him with an uppercut that sent him careening into the ceiling, he fell back to the ground and tried to push himself up, but his legs were completely limp, so he crawled to his hammer instead, Luz jumped on Ollie and flew up in the air before leaving odd and falling fist first through a spell circle and directly onto his spine.

Luz turned around to attack Terra, only for a thorny vine to wrap tightly around her arm and whip her into a wall. She pushed herself up and tried to hide behind a pillar, only for another vine to drag her back out, now without her staff, and start to be thrown around the room.

After a good minute of being whipped all around the room like a ragdoll, the stone wall suddenly crumbled to the ground, Darius and Eberwolf rushed forward and severed the vine around Luz as Lilith tackled Terra to the ground and Amity caught her before she hit the floor.

Lilith lifted Terra in the air and Eda swooped down and flew her ever further up, before she spun around a couple times and chuckled Terra to the ground, where Raine proceeded to flip over her and use their violin to conjure a blade of sound that severed her right arm.

With all six coven members down, that just left one enemy. The prospect of being so close to victory made her crack a smile, "We're doing it, we're gonna win— hrk!"

Belos' arm, in cursed form and shaped like an arrow tip, lifted Luz's up by her chest and drew her back towards him. Drawing screams and cries of terror as they watched the impaled girl get dragged limply away.

"I tried… so hard to do this in the most effective and quick way possible, but you fought me time and time again. But mark my words, I will achieve victory, even if I have to slaughter each and every last one of you myself. Starting with Luzura herself," Belos spat, the portal behind him was glowing a bright yellow, he must have activated it during all the fighting.

Luz craned her head around to face him, "There's just one problem with that: I'm not the re- re- re- re- real Luz," she said, her voice and body glitching until in eventually faded away in a puff of blue smoke to reveal that he had only impaled a wooden mannequin.

The actual Luz, hiding behind Belos, dropped the invisibility around her and wrapped her arms around Belos, driving an ice dagger into his sternum and throwing them both to the ground backs first. They hit and activated a wind glyph that blasted them into the air and through the Titans skull and out into the open night sky, shrouded by a red moon.

"You failed Belos, I beat you! You're not gonna hurt this realm, ever again!"

Belos roared and went into full monster form, writing out of her grasp and slashed at her chest, leaving three large claw marks on her midsection.

He fell to the skull and landed in the hole that blew out off, too big now to fit back in, but Ollie kept her in the air. Storm clouds began to roll in and Luz hopped off of Ollie and held him up in the air, letting herself fall as lightning bolt after lightning bolt hit the top off her staff and formed a big bright ball.

When she swung down on Belos, the biggest lightning bolt came down to hit him too and they were both consumed in the ensuing electrical explosion that sent even more cracks along the skull.

Belos hacked up blood as he pushed himself to his feet, his world, his plans, all crumbling around him. His eyes fixated on Hunter as he approached, and a scowl fixed itself upon his face.

"You, ungrateful brat," Belos groaned, "Who was it that gave you your wings Hunter? Who was it that made you everything you are? Me! I am your goddamn creator boy! You owe everything to me, and yet you abandon me for these abominations, these…witches!"

A blade made of yellow energy sprouted from the top of Flapjack.

"And now you threaten me? I should've destroyed you the moment that you first disobeyed, the moment that you went to Eclipse lake— ACK!"

Hunter swung the blade down and slashed out Belos' throat, he sputtered and choked on his own blood as he slumped back to the ground.

With the help of her staff, Luz emerged from the dust and was immediately tackled/hugged by King and Eda, the latter clearly on the brink of tears and the former not even bothering to hide his sobbing.

"You idiot, I thought you were dead! Oh Titan I'm so glad you're safe," Eda said as she held Luz too tight, not that she really cared.

"Consider it payback for the time I had to watch you get decapitated in the Conformatorium," Luz chuckled.

Amity, Lilith, Raine, and the hexsquad joined in the hug too, although Hunter had to be pulled in by Willow. It would've lasted much longer too, if they hadn't been shaken apart by the skull starting to fall apart.

Quickly, Luz had Ollie shift back into Palisman form and handed him to Willow, "Take him and get out of here, he'll be waiting for me when I get back."

"When you get back, what—?" Willow stopped herself when she saw Luz staring back at the portal.

"I have a promise to keep."

After clear hesitation, and hatred of the idea, Willow wiped her eyes and took Ollie. She, Gus, Hunter and Luz shared one last hug.

"I don't want you to go!" King pleaded, clinging desperately to her arm.

She smiled and hugged the baby Titan, "Don't worry, no matter how many worlds are between us I'll always be your sister."

King still had to be pried off of her by Lilith, but they shared one last awkward finger gun before she flew off.

Luz turned to Eda but the Owl Lady just held up her hand, "You don't have to tell me you'll be back, kiddo. I already know."

Finally, Luz took Amity's hands into her own and pulled her closer, immediately the lilac haired girl began ranting, "Please, let me come with you! I don't care where we are, just as long as I'm with you!" Luz silenced her by smashing their lips together.

Luz broke the kiss between her and Amity, the portal was starting to collapse, along with part of the Titan's skull, and everybody was starting to flee, even Hunter with Belos' corpse over his shoulder.

Eda wrapped her arms around Amity's waist, tears also prickling at the corner of her eyes, "See ya' around, human," she said.

"See ya' around, Owl Lady."

Eda spread her wings and thrust upwards, taking off through a hole in the ceiling and leaving her alone, Luz took one last look around the destroyed chamber, she smiled and took two steps backward into the human realm just in time for the portal to crumble into itself.

–

"Luz, why are you telling us this?" Selina asked.

Luz shot up and spun around, "Don't you get it? In that moment I acted exactly like he would. I put over three dozen people at risk because I had beat Belos my way. I knew about Belos' brother and I didn't think twice before using it against him. I crippled Hettie and Mason, blinded Vitimir, I fucking Two-Faced Adrian. I— I—"

"Luz, you need to calm down, you're hyperventilating," Bruce stated in an even tone.

"I've felt it before, his blood… tainting me . Making me do things I don't want to do—"

Luz thought back to when she took a nasty punch at the Bonesburrough brawl, the announcer had to wrestle her off of the poor sap that she was fighting.

"— making me say things I don't want to say—"

"Where's Eda?! If you hurt a single feather on her head, I swear I'll pull all your teeth out one by one with my bare hands!"

"— While I was hitting him, Roman called me a 'worthy heir', and it made me realize that I am everything that he is. I'm conniving, I'm brutal, I'm sadistic, I'M A MONSTER!"

Bruce clapped his hands on her shoulders and snapped her out of her spiraling, "You stop that right now. Yes you share some traits with Roman but you are everything he is not, you are not conniving, you are cunning; you are not brutal, you are strong; and to say that you're sadistic is just wrong. Tell me, your second week as Mist we were chasing drug dealers, you got one down but you let him go, why?"

"Because… Because he looked terrified, he was just a kid," Luz answered.

"Exactly, Roman would've just shot that kid dead," Selina chimed in.

"But you let him go because at your core, you are a good person. I'm not gonna let anyone, not even yourself, convince you otherwise," Bruce told her.

Bruce and Selina managed to get her to sit back down as the former continued, "You can't blame yourself for what you had to do. They would've killed you without a second thought." 

"You also probably saved that Hettie woman by freezing her, she would've bled out otherwise," Selina pointed out.

They sat in total silence for the next twenty minutes, until Bruce awkwardly cleared his throat, "It's Christmas you know."

"I barely even realized it was December," Luz mumbled.

"It's late, and you've been through a lot. You should get to bed," Bruce suggested as he and Selina stood up to leave.

"Thanks, but I think I'm gonna stay up here for a bit, decompress by myself and all that," Luz said.

"Just don't stay out here too much longer."

Before they left, Luz did manage to catch Selina griping about how it was going to be the first Christmas day in twenty years without any snow on the ground.

–

When the Batfamily awoke the next morning, it was to over three feet of snow on the ground.

"What the devil?" Alfred asked.

"But we're not supposed to have any snow for another week, especially not this much," Cassandra said.

"Yeah, real mystical," Luz shrugged, coffee in one hand, and a glyph in the other. Without looking up from her drink she raised the glyph and activated it, shooting a large snowball at Damian's face.

"...You have approximately ten second to run before I dismember you, Noceda."

Stephanie smacked him in the back of the head, "No dismembering on Christmas ya' little twerp!"

"Hey witch, what's this one do again?" Jason called from across the yard, a glyph in his hand. He must have accidentally activated it though because two seconds later he was frozen in a block of ice.

The whole family turned to her, causing her to awkwardly chuckle and scratch the back of her head, "I may have left a couple lying around when I did all this."

"Go fix it," Bruce told her. Luz sighed and took a fire glyph from her pocket before walking over to the ice cube.

Chapter Text

Hunter sprinted through Blight manor and skidded into the basement, where Amity and the Clawthone family were waiting by a large machine with a brown wooden door in the center.

"We need to get the portal activated now!" Hunter yelled as he grabbed a rope from around a corner and began to tie it around the sturdiest thing in close proximity with the machine.

Raine rolled their eyes, "These things take time. You can't rush the making of an interdimensional gateway."

"You don't understand, Luz is in trouble," Hunter said, tying the other end of the rope around his waist.

"Trouble? What kind of trouble?" Amity asked in a panic.

"Trouble that she brought on, what other kind of trouble is there with her?" Hunter rhetorically asked.

"Just give us an actual explanation!" King begged.

"There's no time! Just open the portal!" Hunter demanded.

"The risk factor is too great, it could put you all in jeopardy," Raine said.

"Raine," Eda spoke up finally, locking eyes with her partner.

"Yes ma'am," they almost instantly nodded and moved to the terminal in front of them to start booting up the machine.

It whirred to life and the miniature shockwaves began to course through the room, knocking over small and light objects, and sending papers flapping all across the room.

"What's the plan here, little prince?" Darius asked when he and Willow finally caught up to him.

"I'm going in to get her myself," Hunter answered, he yelled for his palisman who fluttered down from out of nowhere and shifted into staff form.

"I'm coming with you," Amity said without leaving any room to argue, already mounting Ghost and with a rope of her own around her waist.

Willow had also tied a rope around herself and pulled up on the other side of him, hovering a few feet off the ground on Clover.

The door suddenly blasted open and filled the room with even more wind, they could see a star filled sky and gigantic buildings, bigger than the clock tower near the library in Bonesburrough.

Before they could take off, the room was bathed in a red light and flooded with the sounds of a warning alarm. Steam began to hiss from the machine that kept the portal open and stable, just a few seconds before it exploded, sending metal shrapnel everywhere, shooting a yellow beam of energy up and out of the basement in a random direction, and blowing the three riders back.

Most were protected by the blast shield they hid behind, and Amity and Willow wrapped themselves in cocoons of Abomination goo and vines for protection, but neither of them could conjure something to shield Hunter in time, he was thrown back to the wall, Flapjack with him.

Once the dust settled, the two girls dropped their cocoons and Willow ran over to Hunter in a panic, dropping to his side.

She began to gently shake his face, and when that didn't do anything she moved to slapping his cheeks, softly at first but getting gradually harder, "Come on, wake up you big, beautiful chaos magnet," she whispered to herself.

Darius rushed over and placed two fingers to Hunter's neck, sighing in relief after a few seconds, "He's fine, just knocked out cold."

"Well I don't imagine that's helping at all," Lilith pointed to his leg to reveal the shard of metal stuck in his shin.

"Crap, ok, Darius, take him to an upstairs room and get that thing out of his leg. I'll go find the girl Blight twin and bring her back here so she can heal him," Eda ordered.

"Eda, I didn't do something wrong did I? Is there something wrong with my blood? I can give more," King offered, jutting his arm towards her.

"That's a nice offer, kid, but the last thing we need is you passing out from blood loss or something. You didn't do anything wrong, the machine just wasn't ready yet," Eda explained.

"What about Luz? You heard Hunter, he said that she was in danger, we can't just leave her!" Amity ranted.

"Hey, you know as well as I do that it takes a lot to put that kid down. I'm sure that Luz is fine," Eda smiled, but Amity had known her long enough to see right through it

–

Roman had expected to die, he was relatively okay with it as well. He thought his back would hit the cold hard pavement and then that would be the end of it. But instead, he felt his center of gravity shift downward, the air suddenly got ten times hotter, and he didn't hit asphalt but he was flung back through several red leafed pine trees.

The massive skull with a hole in its head made him pause for a bit but he eventually resolved to keep moving. Roman soon came upon a town of some kind, it looked medieval yet somehow modern.

The people were even stranger, even the ones that looked human had these strange pointed ears that stuck out as well as unnaturally colored hair and eyes, and there were several that didn't look normal at all: extra eyes, discolored skin, horns, tails, and mismatched animal parts, among other… deformities.

The weirdest part? They were looking at him like he was the oddball, pointing at Roman and whispering. 

At some point in his wandering, he felt a sharp stabbing pain in the back of his neck. Instinct kicked in and Roman quickly smacked whatever it was that bit him, when he pulled his hand back he saw what could only be described as a fairy laying basically dead in his hand, it's fangs still glistening with his own blood.

With a scowl, Roman squashed it, splattering glittery pink blood everywhere.

"Hey, are you alright?"

Roman turned around to see a teenage boy with short, dark green hair, golden eyes, a small beauty mark under his right eye, and wearing a strange looking uniform that included light blue leggings and orange and yellow sleeves.

"Those fairy bites are really something I know," he said.

"Fairy bites?" Roman whispered to himself

"Although by the looks of it you have bigger things to worry about. You are real mangled up," the teenager chuckled.

"You got a point to this sentence you little asshole?" 

The teenager shrugged, "Just making conversation. EM! VINEY!"

Two girls rounded a corner, both wearing similar outfits to the boy. The first had long, braided green hair, the same gold eyes, a beauty mark under her 

left eye, and she wore light blue leggings with dark blue sleeves. The second had her brown hair tied into a bun and held back more by a spiked headband, she had green eyes, a piece of metal dangling from her ear, and she had orange leggings along with dark blue sleeves.

"What do you want, Ed?" The first girl asked.

"Hey, this guy's banged up pretty bad, think you two can help him out Em?" Ed asked.

"Ugh, when did every poor sap who gets their ass handed to them in a tavern fight become our problem?" Em groaned.

"When we decided to join the track that's all about helping people," The other girl, Viney, sarcastically supplied.

The two surrounded him and a blue circle formed around each of their wrists, suddenly all of his injuries started healing. The stab in his side, his broken nose, all the bruises, the tooth that his daughter knocked from his skull fucking grew back.

"There, much beeeetter you're a human," Em realized.

"Uh, duh? What the hell else would I be?" Roman asked.

"Guys, don't you think he looks a lot like…" Viney trailed off and Ed ran to a nearby wall, ripping a poster off of it before coming back and holding it up to his face.

"What the shit?" He said.

"Alright, the fuck is going on?" Roman snatched the poster from his hands, seeing a portrait of his daughter above the words 'Wanted' and a million dollar reward, which was admittedly impressive.

"Katrina," he whispered.

"Uh, no, that's Luz the human… You wouldn't happen to know her would you because you two look a lot alike," Em pointed out.

"Blight twins! We need you back at your mansion!"

A woman suddenly barged into the group, she too had pointed ears, long grey hair, she wore a red dress, and had one orange eye, while the other was grey.

"Uh, who's this guy?" She asked.

"Ms. Eda, this is—"

"Rick, Rick Noceda. Luz's father."

–

When Hunter stirred awake, Amity, Willow, and Gus were by the bed. His leg was bandaged up, a small amount of blood stained on the gauze.

Willow was the first one who noticed he was awake, immediately launching herself at him and wrapping her arms around his neck, before she pulled back and slapped him across the face, not hard enough to leave a mark but certainly hard enough to sting.

"Can you, for once in your life, think a plan through for more than two seconds?!" She shouted.

Hunter sighed, "It doesn't matter now, Luz has probably already done it."

"Done what? Hunter, what is going on?" Amity asked.

"When I found her, she was wearing body armour, was carrying around knives, and was getting ready to kill her dad," Hunter answered.

"Wait, as in her father the dangerous crime lord?"

"Her father, as in the guy who she spent most of her life in hiding from?"

"I knew that she hated him, but…I never expected her to do something like that," Amity whispered, "Why?"

"Because he killed her mother."

The sound of glass shattering grabbed their attention and they turned to the doorway to see Edric with a stunned look on his face, and a broken mug on the floor in front of him.

"I fucked up," he said.

–

"—and after the railing broke, I fell off the balcony and woke up in the woods. I wandered around a bit before those twins found me, that's when you showed up," Roman explained.

He sat back against the armchair as a purple goop monster sat a tea try down on the table in front of him. A woman named Edalyn Clawthorne, a man named Alador Blight, and someone named Raine Whispers, sat on the couch across from him, wrapped up in the lie he was weaving although the Clawthorne lady looked skeptical.

"Luz never talked about you, it didn't even seem like you were in the picture. Why was that?" Eda asked.

"I got into some trouble with a loan shark a while back, not too long after she was born, I had to go on the run. We only recently reconnected, we were supposed to get lunch together actually," Roman chuckled.

"Well any of Luz's family is welcome here. We'll help you get a job, get on your feet and adjusted but for now I guess you can stay on my couch. Then you can help us with the portal to bring Luz home," Eda said.

"I appreciate that. I want nothing more than to make sure my daughter is safe," Roman smiled.

He picked up one of the tea cups, only for it to be blasted out of his hand by a pink fireball.

Roman sighed and looked to his left, a girl with short lavender hair was pointing a wooden white cat on a purple pole at him with a scowl on her face.

"And who might you be?" Roman asked.

"I'm your daughters girlfriend, puta," she spat.

"Calm down Boots!" Eda stood up to try and disarm her.

"Just put the staff down, Amity," Alador told her.

"Estás masacrando mi idioma. Your pronunciation needs a lot of work, Amity," Roman said as he stood up.

He was briefly blinded by a flash of yellow and suddenly a cardinal on a black pole was swung close to his neck, wielded by a tired looking boy with ratty blonde hair. At the same time, an odd looking otter hopped up on the arm of the chair and growled at him.

"Not another inch," the kid ordered.

Roman chuckled, "What are you gonna do boy? Beat me to death with something you made in a woodshop class?"

"You don't understand Eda. He's evil!" Amity insisted.

"He killed Luz's mother," the boy explained further.

"shit," Roman whispered to himself.

"Woah woah, what'd he do?" Eda suddenly turned her glare to him.

Roman shrugged, "Well, guess that cat's out of the bag." He slapped the staff out of the way before quickly headbutting the boy and making him back up.

The Black Mask reached down to his right leg and pulled a small marksman pistol from out his pant leg, quickly taking aim at Eda and squeezing the trigger. Unfortunately, the goop monster stepped in and took the bullet straight to the face, the goop at the bullet wound swirled and bubbled before spitting the bullet back out.

"What is going on!?" Raine shouted.

"He didn't fall off a balcony, Luz pushed him off," Amity answered, apparently having been listening in on the whole conversation.

"Not quite true," Roman said, "I jumped off myself, after my own daughter, working for the fuckin' Batman of all people, tried to send me to Blackgate prison, not before I put a couple of bullets in her though."

They mostly looked confused, but Alador's eyes widened in fear. Roman continued, "Don't you worry though, no kid of mine is weak enough to just bleed out on some penthouse terrace."

That, Eda clearly understood, because she sprouted wings from her back and feathers from her skin, bearing sharp golden talons at him.

"I'm going to disembowel you." She stated simply.

However, before she could rush him like she was obviously planning to, Roman reached into his blazer and pulled out a small grenade, "STEP THE FUCK BACK UNLESS YOU WANNA GET BLOWN TO PIECES!"

Everyone in the room halted.

"Good. Now, this fun little gizmo will incinerate everything in a three yard radius, so if you'd rather not be turned into a big pile of ash, I'd suggest that you all just let me go."

There was a complete stalemate for three or four minutes, before the witches begrudgingly stepped to the side.

"Get out of my house," Alador ordered. 

Thumb still in the pin, Roman walked straight out the doors, turning back to the witches and bowing before pulling them closed. He let the grenade fall from his hand, surprised that his bluff had actually worked for once.

It was a plastic prop, a pretty good looking one at that but the first time he tried to use it was on Batman, and he just ran up and knocked him the fuck out.

As Roman casually walked away from the manor, everything from the past twenty four hours started to really hit him: Bruce Wayne was Batman, his daughter was a vengeance-fueled vigilante, he was stranded in another dimension.

Although, seeing his daughter like that, in all her riteous fury as she beat him half to death, well Roman would be lying if it didn't put the biggest damn smile on his face to know that she wasn't a lost cause like he thought.

–

"We need to talk."

Alador grabbed Raine by their shoulder and pulled them into an empty room, closing and locking the door behind them.

"What's this about?" Raine asked.

"Do you recall what Rick said? About putting two bullets in Edalyn's kid?" Alador asked back.

"I do, but I have no idea what a bullet is," Raine shrugged.

Alador lowered his voice a couple octaces, "A while back I bought a book from Edalyn on human weapons, it's where I got most of the ideas for our product lines. Tell me, have you ever seen a cannonball rip through an airship?"

"I have a…vague mental image."

"Imagine that, but on a person's body. That's what a bullet is. It is a small piece of metal that tears through flesh, bone, and organ, a single well placed shot could leave someone dead in seconds. So if Edalyn's kid was hit with two of those—"

"I know where you're going with this and I won't hear of it Alador!" Raine tried to storm out but Alador blocked their way.

"Look, I hate the idea as well. Do you think I revel in the possibility that I might have to comfort my daughter when she finds out her girlfriend is dead. We both know that Luz is tough, but we have to be prepared for the eventuality that she isn't tough enough to survive that," Alador said.

–

Night fell and Roman's vision was completely fucked from that point on. He had been wandering aimless and tripped yet again, face planting into the dirt.

He quickly stood up and started to kick the nearest thing, "Fuck this stupid ass fucking dimension. FUCK!"

On his last kick something odd happened. The inside of the hollow tree trunk he had been kicking lit up with golden light, finally letting him see the terrain around him, as well as a strange rune next to the words 'Luz was here' carved into the bark.

Roman scoffed.

He turned around to see what he had tripped over: a small blue log, about the size of his forearm. As he leaned down to pick it up, he saw a light traveling down the dirt road behind him, and eventually a wagon pulled by two worms with the faces of rats, driven by a man with green skin and red eyes who wore a simple brown poncho that covered most of his body.

"You ok there stranger? I heard all your hollerin' figured I'd come on over and check on ya'," the drifter said.

"I'm fine, hobo, just a little roughed up is all," Roman grunted.

The man's eyes drifted down to the log before widening, "Say, that's palistrom wood. Perfectly cut to, must've fallen off a caravan for the Emperor's Coven. They've been rounding that stuff up to sell ever since Emperor Belos went and got murdered."

"Palistrom wood?" Roman asked.

The man hopped off of his wagon and went around to the back to fix something, explaining as he did, "Palistrom wood is used for carvin' palismen, y'know so you can better use magic and all that."

"You don't say," Roman hummed.

"Anyway, can I get you anythin'? I got water, food, I could give you a ride back to town, maybe even just a blanket?" The man offered, his back still turned to Roman.

"I'll take all of it."

With that, Roman grabbed a rusted shovel and thrusted it straight through the man's back, he choked and gasped for a bit before finally falling dead off the shovel.

Roman noticed the white cowboy hat with black trim that the man had been wearing, so he nabbed it from his head and placed it on his own.

"Thanks, partner," Roman mocked as he mounted the cart and snapped the reins.

–

"Patrolling the streets of Gorham city from below, he stalks the night and delivers justice unto criminals, he is: THE RATMAN!" 

Gus slapped his hand against a massive pinboard that he had dragged over from his house and set up in the living room of Blight manor, lined with human newspaper clippings about vigilantes and blurry photographs. Upon hearing about what had happened downstairs and what Rick had said, Gus had excitedly told them all to gather everyone and then said something about it being his time to shine.

"I thought Rick said his name was Batman?" Eda asked.

"Also Luz said that it was Gotham, not Gorham," Amity corrected them.

"Hey, who are the human experts here?" Mattholomule asked.

"I would assume the humans?" Eda answered.

"...Please hold all questions until the end of the presentation," Mattholomule said.

"Y'know you two are really perfect for each other: you both skipped a grade or two, you're both short, oh yeah, and you both care about the most ridiculous shit," Boscha snarked.

As the two former bullies argued, Hunter slid closer to Amity, "Are you ok?" He whispered.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" Amity whispered back.

"Uh, why would you be? Your girlfriend is injured and trapped in another realm, if it was Willow— I mean if it was me in that situation I would be freaked out," Hunter said.

"Are we talking about the same person? This is the same Luz who not only stared down the most powerful person on the Boiling Isles, but also fought him and won. Rick was right about one thing, no matter where she is right now, she's alive," Amity told him as Ghost curled up in her lap and Ollie climbed onto her shoulder.

"Next up is the Ratman's right hand man: Frightwing!"

–

"Merry fuckin' Christmas to me," Roman growled to himself as he finally got the small fire lit. He had been taking refuge in a cave for the past few days, thankfully that drifter had a sleeping bag and ground mat with him.

"This is pathetic, even for a human."

Roman took up his shovel and swung up at the voice, pausing an inch from her face. The green haired woman scowled at him, "I'm not here to fight you, imbecile, get that thing out of my face before I break it."

Roman lowered the shovel, but still remained ready to attack, "Who are you?"

"My name is Odalia Blight. I'm a friend," Odalia explained.

"Really? Because right now I don't have anything but enemies in this world," Roman said, lifting his weapon a little bit more.

"But we do have a mutual enemy, in your realm," Odalia told him.

"How do you know about that?" Roman asked.

"Please, you don't think I set up a surveillance system in my own home after my family kicked me out? You are not the only one who's been maimed by that little miscreant," Odalia twirled the golden robotic fingers of her right hand, "After she gave me fourth degree frostbite, I had to remove my fingers and replace them with robotic parts, and I was not just me that was subject to that kind of humiliation."

More people joined her at the entrance of the cave, one of them wore a white mask over the left side of his face, another had a robotic left leg, another woman with a synthetic right arm, there was one with prosthetic eyes, a man who had a circuitry and metal running up his spine, there was one more but he didn't seem to have any missing parts.

"We've all suffered at the hands of that weed," the armless one said.

"All of us want revenge on someone in that gaggle of bastards. If you help us, you get revenge on your daughter, they get their revenge on the rest of the wild witches, and I get my family back through a simple brainwashing spell," Odalia outstretched her hand to him, "Do we have a deal, Mr. Noceda?"

Roman chuckled, "The name Rick Noceda I'd dead and buried, doll," he looked across the room at the palistrom log, "I'm Roman Sionis, but you can call me Black Scorpion."

Chapter Text

Cass was rudely awoken with a pillow launched at her face. She let out a muffled groan and yanked it off her face to see a snickering Stephanie, already dressed in an oversized purple wool sweater that left one of her shoulders exposed, a pair of black sweatpants, and brown winter boots.

"You know, some people like to wake up their partners with a kiss or something a little dirtier, but no, I get you," Cassandra griped.

"Keep complaining and you won't get anything for a while," Stephanie bit back, walking over and dragging a finger under Cassandra's chin.

"Why did you wake me up? It's the one day of the month I get to sleep in," Cassandra asked.

"I need you to go get Luz for me. Me and the other girls are gonna take her to get some more clothes and I still need time to get ready," Stephanie answered.

Cassandra groaned but got up anyway, throwing on a long black sleeve shirt and a pair of pajama pants that she had stolen from Tim. She walked into Luz's room, finding her absent but the sound of the shower running and steam pouring out from under the door was present.

Cass decided to take this opportunity to look around her room, ever since telling them about it she had been much more open about her witch stuff: half-finished glyph combinations sat on her desk, the photo of her and her friends, along with another one of her with some old lady and a dog looking creature, were framed on her dresser, and her cloak was hung in a case on the wall.

She walked up and knocked on the bathroom door, "Luz, are you almost ready?"

No response.

"Luz I'm gonna come in, you should say something now if you don't want me to," Cassandra warned her.

Cass slowly opened up the door, giving Luz plenty of time to tell her to beat it if she wanted to, but she didn't, and she inevitably walked all the way into the bathroom. 

Luz was standing in front of the mirror, wearing a pair of loose shorts and a white tank-top, her hair was a mess, but still dry so she obviously hadn't showered yet.

Cassandra walked over and turned the shower off, getting her sleeve a little damp from the steam, before she joined Luz in front of the mirror. It was like she was in a trance, for a second Cassandra was worried that she was hypnotized, after all she had taken down Jervis Tetch on her own recently, but then she remembered that Bruce has installed tech into their lenses and earpieces that nullified the effects of hypnotism after the last time something like that had happened, so it couldn't be the answer.

Cass hesitantly put her hand on Luz's shoulder which seemed to bring her back to reality, at least sorta, her eyes still looked foggy.

Luz thickly swallowed before she began talking, "She used to compliment me all the time, Amity would, she'd say how jealous she was of my skin, not a bump or blemish anywhere, not a single imperfection, hell I rarely ever get pimples. But now… they're all I can see."

It was only now that Cass finally realized what she meant: the scars that were not beginning to litter her body: the vertical ones on her lip and leg, the round ones on her forearm and chest, and the ones that remained a mystery, like the scars that looked like a rope had wrapped around her arm and pierced her skin.

Cass rolled up her sleeves, stabs, bullets, burns, she had every kind of scar there was on her arms alone. She held out her arms, fists clenched and turned down so as to give Luz the full view of each scar.

"They're par for the course in our line of work, we all have them," Cassandra explained, "But they don't have to be an ugly thing, they're proof that some asshole tried to kill you, and you were way stronger."

"You're saying I should be proud?" Luz asked, a hint of bitterness in her voice that Cassandra would let slide, this time.

"Absolutely. Plus: the ladies go crazy for them, they always get Stephanie all riled up at least," Cassandra shrugged.

Luz chuckled and shoved her away, "Gross," she said.

"Go take a shower, Steph usually takes a bit with her makeup but you reek," Cass told her.

"Yeah well that's what happens when you have to stomp around a sewer for a ten-foot-tall gator man," Luz countered.

Suddenly, Cass ran a couple of fingers through Luz's hair, it was normally straight but it was now starting to curl, it was also now that she noticed the dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose that weren't normally there.

Obviously noticing what Cass had noticed, Luz frowned, "Yeah, I've always used a flat iron on my curls, used concealer for my freckles, I always thought they looked too much like Roman.

"I thought you said you didn't remember what your father looked like, back when you tried to put Jasper down," Cassandra reminded her.

"I sorta lied. My mom used to show me pictures before she told me who he was," Luz admitted.

Cass smiled and smacked her on the cheek, "I know you lied. I just wanted to hear you say it," she went to leave but turned back to her little sister before she did, "You should let them be, you look good."

–

"I don't understand what's wrong with my current outfit," Luz huffed as walked through the mall.

"No offense honey but most people don't wear greaves," Selina told her.

"Not to mention those pants," Stephanie said with a fake gag.

"Whatever, on the Boiling Isles I'm dripped out of my mind," Luz muttered to herself.

Ivy, wearing the same type of tech that Cyborg and Beast Boy wore to give them normal skin, rolled her eyes, "I'm not denying that or anything, but we're not there, and you stick out like a sore thumb here," the former eco-terrorist then ushered her into a department store.

Luz and the others tried on clothes for about thirty minutes before they decided that she had enough. She was forced to hand over her Boiling Isles pants and boots to Selina, who promised to donate them, but Luz was pretty confident that was just a nice way to tell her they were going to the nearest incinerator.

Now, Luz was in a white and purple striped long-sleeve shirt, a pair of denim overalls, and blue high-top sneakers.

Before they left though, a bronze glint caught Luz's eye, then something hit her in the side of the head and clattered to the ground: looking down she saw a necklace, a bronze owl hung from a similar chain. But now just any owl, no, this looked exactly like Owlbert.

Call it luck, fate, coincidence, whatever it was it didn't matter, but something was telling her that she needed to take this necklace. Luz discretely bent over and picked it up, before stuffing it into her front pocket. 

Selina came up behind her and started to lead her by the arm towards a boutique, "So, Luz, have you ever considered perfume?"

"Oy Vey."

–

"Yo Luz!"

Luz barely caught the basketball that was hurled at her chest. She looked up and saw Luke and Kate in loose fitting sports equipment.

"You feel like playing a game?" Luke asked.

Luz hadn't played before, but she had kicked ass at Grudgby despite not having a clue how to play that sport.

"I guess, but don't we have an uneven amount of players?" Luz asked, bouncing the ball back to Luke.

"That's not true, you have Tatsu," Kate said, pointing behind her.

Luz jumped back with a yelp as she turned around to find someone standing only a couple inches away. She was a short Asian woman with black hair that was tied into a high ponytail, she wore clothes similar to Luke and Kate but she also wore a mask that covered her forehead and eyes, it was white in color and had a red circle in the center of the forehead.

Tatsu bowed but didn't say anything.

"Luz, meet Tatsu Toro, aka Katana. She stays in the manor whenever she has business in Gotham," Luke explained.

"It's nice to meet you," Luz said, awkwardly bowing back to her.

"Alright you two, street rules, anything goes," Luke told them.

"Anything?"

"Anything."

The game began and Luz immediately whipped out two glyphs, painted on two thin pieces of wood, she hucked one to the other side of the court before she intercepted a pass from Luke to Kate, then tossed the other one and activated it with her foot. In a flash of blue light she was in place of the other glyph, and simply tossed the ball into the hoop.

"What? You said anything goes," Luz shrugged once she realized the others were staring at her. Granted Tatsu had her fists pumped in the air in a victorious pose, granted again her face still held the same neutral expression.

"I mean, I was talking more like: stepping on each other's toes on 'accident'," Luke muttered.

Even without using glyphs, Luz did pretty well, having Tatsu on her team is definitely why she won but she still scored a fair amount of goals for herself.

"Man…you two smoked us," Luke panted, "You're really good at this kid."

"Eh, it was mostly Tatsu."

Tatsu shrugged but nodded in agreement.

"No he's right, you've got talent. Plus you need a hobby," Kate told her.

"I have hobbies!" Luz said defensively.

"Yeah, being magic doesn't count as a hobby—" Luz opened her mouth to rebuttal but Luke cut her off with a quick, "And neither does being a vigilante."

"Ugh, fine, I'll consider it."

–

Duke slammed his hands down on the dest, "The hell do you mean she's not allowed to go to try-outs?"

Their principal, Phineas Upton, a man with sparse white hair and a bushy moustache wearing a blue three piece suit, flinched a bit and raised his hands up in a calming motion, "I'm sorry Duke, but it's school policy that we have to keep men and women's sports separate. If Luz wants, she can try out for the cheer squad."

Luz cringed, she didn't want a repeat of that experience.

"Cheerleading is the only female sport you guys have!" Duke objected.

"I'm sorry, but this is a private school and we do as we see fit," Upton shrugged.

"Duke, let's just go," Luz sighed.

Duke did stand up, but not to leave, "Listen to me old man, need I remind you of the generous donation that our adoptive father makes to this school every year? Now I would hate to have to convince him to make it a lot less generous."

"Are you trying to threaten me into putting your sister on the basketball team?" Upton asked.

"Oh I would never do that, I'm a firm believer in talent succeeding over nepotism. But I am strong-arming you into letting her into try-outs," Duke smirked.

"If I say yes will you get the hell out of my office?"

"Absolutely."

Upton pinched the bridge of his nose, "Fine, try-outs are after school this Wednesday, if you're late you can kiss your chance goodbye."

"I don't know why I expect that to go differently," Luz said once they had left Upton's office.

"It went exactly how I thought it would."

"You were anticipating that you'd have to blackmail him?"

"I'm always ready to blackmail someone. How did you think it would go?" Duke asked back.

"I don't know. On the Boiling Isles stuff like racism, homophobia, sexism, it doesn't exist in the slightest. Grudgby is a predominantly female sport but men are still allowed to play, I guess it'll just take some getting used to," Luz explained.

"Man, this place sounds great, I have no idea why you left," Duke chuckled.

"Hey Duke?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

–

"Master Wayne? Miss Noceda's first game starts soon, we should go now so we don't get bad seats," Alfred said as he walked into Bruce's home office.

Bruce was sitting in his chair, fists clasped together and resting against his face, "Shut the door Alfred. We need to talk about Luz."

"Master Wayne, I will absolutely not let you skip out on this game, the others are covering Gotham and it won't even be all night," Alfred chastised him.

"No, it's not about that," Bruce assured him.

Alfred quietly closed the door, "Then what is this about."

"I know that Luz is trying to get back to the demon realm," Bruce said.

"Oh, and pray-tell, what do you intend to do with this knowledge?" Alfred asked.

"I can't let her go back."

"Very bold of you to assume that she'll listen to you."

"You saw her when she took that suit off her after her fight with Roman: all those scars, they're from the demon realm—"

"She'll get plenty of those here."

"But I can protect her here!"

Bruce sighed, realizing that he had raised his voice without meaning to, "Just…promise me that if she tries anything, you'll tell me."

"Bruce, I may not agree with this, but you are my son in every manner but blood. If you truly believe that this is the best course of action, I will support you all the way," Alfred told him.

"Thank you, Alfred," Bruce smiled.

"So how are you planning to keep her mind occupied?" Alfred asked.

"Introduce her to some work friends," Bruce answered.

Chapter Text

Luz has defeated her father Roman Sionis, and now plans to turn her full attention to finding a way back to the Demon Realm. Unfortunately, her adoptive father is not too keen on letting her succeed, distracting her with any mission he can. But will they both be too distracted to notice the sinister eyes that set their sights on Luz?

Chapter Text

"You two perras intrigantes thought that you were gonna pull some Hunger Games bullshit didn't you? That if you dragged this fight out long enough I'd just let you split the prize money, huh?"

"Get out of there now you two!"

Jaime and Luz exchanged an awkward glance.

"Fine, I'll cut you a deal, cuz I'm nice like that. I'll let you two do your little boyfriend-girlfriend tag team bullshit, but you gotta fight my reigning champion—"

A man jumped down from the rafters and landed in the ring, kicking up a wave of wind that rocked the both of them.

"GHOSTFIRE!!!!!!!"

"We're so screwed," Luz and Jaime groaned together.

–

About three hours earlier.

Luz knew that she shouldn't be enjoying herself, given her current situation, but she just couldn't help herself. She was currently outside El Paso Texas by some measure, in a massive crater surrounded by mountains, inside of which was a massive midnight festival, the center of which was a massive arena, which was really just a big boxing ring inside a cage, behind which was a large metal tower with a larger glass box at the top with windows that slanted upwards. 

Back in Gravesfield, there were maybe a handful of Hispanic people, and the only one that liked her was her mom, so aside from her, Luz was never really exposed to much of her culture. But at this festival, there was an overabundance if anything: Hispanic vendors littered the crater, flooding the air with heavenly scents of rice, beans, spices and general grease, the sounds of people failing that one-hundred percent rigged carnival games could be heard, there were several musicians all around them, you could be listening to mariachi one second, take a couple steps to the left and suddenly be listening to Hispanic hip-hop, people were dancing up and down the streets.

Unfortunately, Luz wasn't here to enjoy herself. 

When Bruce proposed that she go on a mission with the Teen Titans, she jumped at the chance, it wasn't that she didn't like Gotham but she needed a break from the disgusting hell hole. 

Apparently, this entire festival was being run by a man named Javier Sinclair, a wealthy entrepreneur who made his wealth off of a spice selling empire. They suspected doing some less than ethical things on the side, mainly Meta-human, drug, and gun trafficking, maybe a few homicides as well, so while Rose, Connor, and Damian searched for evidence, the rest of them had been split up into teams of two to make sure that nothing suspicious was happening.

Speaking of teammates.

"Yo yo! I return with a feast!" Jaime smiled as he plopped a massive black tray filled with several other small trays of food onto the picnic table, sitting right next to her.

Jaime wore a denim jacket over a gray hoodie with a pair of black pants and dark blue sneakers. Luz wore her Glyph Girl jacket over a white long-sleeve shirt and overalls, all complimented by a pair of black platform boots.

She and Jaime, Jon and Kara, Jax and Professor Stein, and Virgil and Jessica had each taken a quadrant of the festival. Of course because all of them but Stein were teenagers, they had to have chaperones, so:

"Everyone, report in," Artemis Crock, also known as Tigress, ordered over their earpieces.

"Our quadrant is clear, but me and the professor are ready to merge at a moment's notice," Jax said.

"Kara just won the biggest Teddy Bear I have ever seen!" Jon shouted.

"Jessica got into a shouting match in Spanish with some guy, then got into a fist fight with him, she's got a black eye but she beat him," Virgil reported.

"Jaime, Luz, what are you two doing?" Artemis asked.

"Um…eating?" Jaime answered, although it was hard to hear him through all the fried plantains in his mouth.

"I hate chaperoning you guys," Artemis sighed.

"Oh come on babe, it's not that bad," Wally West chimed in.

"Wally, why do you have fifteen churros right now?"

"I'm a speedster, I have to keep up my energy."

"You inhaled four pizzas before we left, you're eating because you're bored. How did you even pay for those you left your wallet."

"You don't have to pay for things when you can move at hyper speed."

There was a long beat of silence.

"Fine, I'll go put them back."

"Are you all done?" Rose asked with an annoyed huff.

"Maybe," Luz responded.

"We've got some dirt on Sinclair, but he's also constantly surrounded by guards, there are too many people here to risk a fire fight," Connor said.

"What about the tournament?" Jaime suggested.

"What tournament?" Jessica asked.

Jamie placed a flyer down in front of Luz and himself, "Apparently that big cage over there is for a tournament, the winner gets ten thousand dollars, and gets to meet with Sinclair himself."

"Good find Jaime, you and Luz come meet me and Wally by the south east corner of the cage, I have a plan," Artemis ordered.

"Alright, let's get going," Jaime stood up and took Luz by the wrist, leading her away from the table.

"My empanadas!"

–

"So why the hell are we here again?" Luz asked, she was sitting in an outdoor locker room with Jaime, Wally, and Artemis.

Artemis was currently wrapping her hands in white cloth, she had also changed her clothes to a pair of loose indigo shorts, a matching tank-top, a gray cloth tied around her face that hung off her nose, and she had once again done her Grudgby makeup. Jaime had also changed into something similar, but it was dark blue instead, and he also wore a black luchador mask with a blue trim with two small plastic yellow horns.

"The plan is to enter you two into the tournament, you two beat everyone in your path and get to the finals, then one of you just has to throw the fight, and the other can quietly take down Sinclair," Wally explained.

"How exactly did you get us in?" Jaime asked.

"It's fight club rules, they don't really give a shit what you do as long as you keep things entertaining," Wally shrugged.

"Why do I feel like this is all about to go horribly wrong," Luz sighed.

"Well if you fail it's on your ass, not mine," Artemis shrugged.

Wally pulled her in and whispered something to her that made her groan and put on a strained smile, "What I mean is, you'll do great, I have the utmost confidence in you. Look, just stick to the plan and everything will be fine."

There was a loud buzzer from over the intercom system, just as soon as Artemis finished wrapping her hands. Jaime pulled Liz to her feet and bapped their fists together, "Alright Luz, you're up first, go get in the ring and kick some ass! Oh, and Damian apparently picked out our stage names so like, blame him y'know."

–

A microphone swung down to Javier Sinclair, a man with well groomed black hair, a pencil moustache, a shard jawline, and bright blue eyes that contrasted his darker skin tone, he wore a gaudy purple pinstripe suit and sported a cocky grin at all times. He was situated on a platform above the ring with a big ivory throne behind him.

"Alright party people! Thank you all for attending this little extravaganza!" Javier's Spanish accent was thick, but he wasn't unintelligible, "I know why you're all here, you want to see a RUUUMMMBBBLLLEE!"

The crowd erupted in cheers.

"In the left corner, a late entry but I feel she's got what it takes to go all the way: the Dominican here to teach her opponents some discipline! LA BRUJA!!!!"

"I'm gonna kill that little rat bastard," Luz grumbled as he jogged to the center of the ring, waving to the audience.

"And in the right corner, back for the third time, he's got the motive to make things explosive! IIIt's HOLOCAUST!"

A buff dark skinned man with long black dreadlocks and red eyes burst into the stage, smoking coming off his body. He wore orange wrestling headgear, an orange padded vest with a black 'H' surrounded by a jagged black circle painted onto the left side of his upper torso, black pants with orange padding around the knee and shin area, black boots, and orange gloves similar to the ones used by MMA fighters.

He walked to the center of the ring and shook her hand, but leaned in to whisper to her, "Gonna turn you into a pile of ash sweetheart."

"I'd like to see you try, sweetheart," Luz had once again taken up that snarky and cold attitude that she had during her time as Glyph Girl. They both took a couple steps back and looked up to Javier.

"Begin!" He shouted before sitting back on his throne.

Luz started off the fight by sweeping Holocaust's legs, keeping her momentum to swing her leg back around and kick him in the back of the head, folding him in half. 

Holocaust flipped back to his feet and his skin began to glow orange, before he unleashed a blast of fire and heat that shot Luz all the way back to the edge of the cage, she got caught on an elastic rope and was launched straight back at Holocaust, who held out his arm and clotheslined her.

Holocaust was about to hit her with another explosion, but Luz quickly used her hands to spring herself at him feet first, wrapping her legs around his neck and bringing them both down to the ground.

Holocaust's skin started to glow orange again, and Luz could feel it start to burn her legs, so she tightened her chokehold on him. Luz began to punch down on his skull, as he began to bash his fists, but his punches slowly got weaker and weaker, until his arms fell limp to the side.

Luz scrambled off him in an instant, so as not to kill him, and two paramedics came in to put him on a stretcher, while she herself limped away back out of the ring.

"And in an explosive turn of events, the winner of this match is: La Bruja!" Javier announced through the microphone, "Somebody get that girl some aloe vera."

–

"Ugh, I don't think I can ever walk again," Luz groaned.

"This doesn't make any sense," Damian mumbled to himself.

"How does it not make anything, he superheated his body while I was choking him out with my legs, of course I'm in pain," Luz bickered.

"Not that, Holocaust should be in jail, what on earth is he doing here?" Damian explained.

"Really? Why was he in jail?"

"...Grand theft auto– ARSON! What else?" Damian shouted.

"Woah, someone woke up on the wrong side of the crib this morning," Luz taunted.

"Noceda, I swear to God I will learn your convoluted way of doing magic just to prove that I'm better than you at it!"

"I'd like to see you try you little pissant!"

Damian sighed, "The point is that a lot of these fighters shouldn't be here, I think Javier might be breaking them out somehow."

They watched as Jamie suplexed his opponent, a woman named Shimmer, and won his fight.

"Alright, well as the fights go on try to lure anyone who's not supposed to be here away and have Jessica put them in a cage, we'll deal with them after that."

"Good plan."

"I am a bit confused as to how Javier knew I was Dominican though," Luz said to herself.

"Oh I told him that."

"What? Why would you tell the dangerous crime lord anything about me?"

Damian shrugged, "He asked for information about you so he could introduce you."

"...Are you stupid?"

"Only when it suits me."

"Memo to me, maime you when I get done with this fight," Luz rolled her eyes as she walked over to the ring again, high-fiving Jaime on the way in.

–

Javier took up the mic one last time for the night, as the crowds started to reach their loudest, "Alright alright, now I know you're all amped up for our one last fight but I want to remind you that it doesn't end here, this party goes till the sun comes up baby!"

The crowd roared and made any other sort of racket that they could.

"Alright you two, you just gotta drag this fight out until we get into position to ambush Javier, once we are, we'll contact you, and one of you can take the dive," Wally explained over their earpiece.

"Two newcomers to the game but they're here playing for keeps: in the right corner it's La Bruja, and in the left it's Scarab!"

"Not sure how long I'll be able to drag this fight out Jaime, I may look scrawny but I'm pretty strong," Luz taunted.

"Don't flatter yourself chica, I'll have to hold back just to not win right away," Jaime said.

They both giggled, not noticing the frown that worked its way onto Javier's face.

"Fight!"

Luz made to tackle Jaime but he fell back and launched her away with his feet. She flipped around in the air before landing right side up as Jaime got back to his feet and charged him.

They threw a couple of easily telegraphed hits to each other, which were blocked with just as much trouble, dancing around the ring, occasionally pinning each other but not for long enough to disqualify the other.

This went on for a few minutes and slowly but surely, the crowd began to lose interest, given that neither of them had actually hit one another, soon drinks and food began to be thrown at them from the crowd, as well as some insults.

Unfortunately, the crowds weren't the only ones who got bored.

"ENOUGH!"

Luz and Jaime halted and looked up to Javier, who looked pissed beyond belief.

"You two perras intrigantes thought that you were gonna pull some Hunger Games bullshit didn't you? That if you dragged this fight out long enough I'd just let you split the prize money, huh?" Javier hissed

"Get out of there now you two!"

Jaime and Luz exchanged an awkward glance.

"Fine, I'll cut you a deal, cuz I'm nice like that. I'll let you two do your little boyfriend-girlfriend tag team bullshit, but you gotta fight my reigning champion—"

A man jumped down from the rafters and landed in the ring, kicking up a wave of wind that rocked the both of them.

"GHOSTFIRE!!!!!!!"

"We're so screwed," Luz and Jaime groaned together.

Jaime had told Luz about Ghostfire before, a brilliant doctor who had lukemia, he made a suit and started to commit crimes to make sure his name was remembered in history. Although something was off. Jaime said that his fire was orange, and he looked more like a being made purely of flames.

Instead, this guy's fire was a pale green color, and the suit he was wearing had been painted to show off a black skeleton.

"Do me a favor and sweep up their ashes after you finish," Javier ordered.

"Yessir!"

Jaime tackled Luz out of the way of a fire blast and the two started to sprint towards the exit, Ghostfire hot on their trail. They heard something pierce the ground behind them, then the sound of metal grinding against wire.

"Heads up!"

They heard Wally's voice and a grunt from Ghostfire, only now daring to look back to see Artemis and Wally, already in their uniforms, dropping down from a zipline arrow. Ghostfire was sprawled out and Wally was stamping out some green fire on the bottom of his shoes.

Jaime and Luz ran out the stadium and to the lockers, with Jaime on the other side, Luz took out two glyphs and activated them, using them to form a half circles each around her body, a dark pink ring formed around her midsection before breaking off into two separate circles, traveling down her body, and leaving her in her Mist uniform.

"Woah, how the hell did you change so fast?" Jaime asked, his scarab armour already on.

"Trade Batman secret," Luz shrugged, "Now come on, we've still got a fight to finish."

Together they ran back into the ring to see Artemis and Wally fighting Ghostfire still, but Rose and Damian were up on the platform apprehending Javier.

They were suddenly flung from the platform and slammed into the ground on their back, Javier jumped down and hit the floor fist first, splintering it, Thankfully Wally ran in and scooped Damian and Rose out for the way at the last second. He slowly removed his blazer and shirt to reveal a metal prosthetic running up his spine, steam billowed from it and bolts started to screw into place, prompting purple lines to form all around his skin.

"Watch him, he's got super strength and enhanced speed," Rose warned.

"Beetle, Mist, handle Ghostfire, the four of us will take Sinclair!" Artemis ordered.

"What the hell Elliot? You were getting treatment, you were doing better, why on earth would you but the suit back on?" Jaime asked, flying around Ghostfire and blasting him a couple times.

"I ain't Elliot, my name is Juanjo Valentine, the new and improved Ghostfire!" Juanjo roared.

"Why would you tell us that, now we know your name," Luz chuckled as Jaime picked her up and swung her around to strike him in the head with her bat.

"Yeah, kind of a rookie mistake hermano."

"Uh…because um— Because neither of you will make it out of here alive!" Juanjo yelled.

"You're new to this aren't you?" Jaime asked.

"Look can you keep it on the DL, I got a good thing going with Mr. Sinclair and he doesn't know that I'm not the OG Ghostfire," Juanjo begged.

"Maybe you shouldn't have shouted your real name out loud then," Luz suggested.

"Ugh, whatever, I'm still gonna incinerate you two!"

"You clearly have no clue who you're talking to." Jaime flew a few feet back before blasting forward at Ghostfire, but Juanjo sent of stream of pale green fire at him, Jaime formed a shield in front of himself, but that shield took up his entire field of vision, and left him vulnerable when Ghostfire grabbed him by the neck and slammed him down into the ground.

Distracted with Jaime's attempts at getting free, Ghostfire didn't even notice Luz sliding under his legs until she tossed a handful of batarangs at his face. He left Jaime go and moved to grab her instead, but that was when she tapped the glyph directly under him with her baseball bat.

Juanjo was blasted into the air, almost to the top of the cage by a fat pillar of water, extinguishing his flames and leaving him in just the silver suit.

"Jaime, spike him!"

Jaime nodded and took off flying, while Luz pulled two glyphs, she slapped one onto the ground and was launched into the air by a gust of wind, the second she clenched in her hand and formed a large hammer made of ice.

As she slammed her hammer into the small of his back, Jaime spiked him with a mace, the opposing forces sending him spinning for a couple of seconds before he fell to the ground. Jaime grabbed Luz and set her down to the ground gently, where they saw the other four struggling to take Javier down.

He wasn't reacting to any of their attacks, only to the force of it, he'd get hit with a right hook and his face would move with the punch, but then it'd move right back into place and he'd counterattack.

"Mist, Scarab says that that thing on his back is what's giving him his powers, we need to disable it somehow," Jaime told her.

"Beetle, on my signal I need to hold him so that his side is facing me, doesn't matter which one," Luz said.

"On it."

"Robin! Slingshot Slash!"

The young boy nodded before breaking off from the fight and running towards her. Luz grabbed two glyphs on wooden tiles and tossed them to the ground, probably about five feet apart, she threw batarangs at them to activate them and a stone pillar grew out of each of them. As Damian got closer, she grabbed a plant glyph and whipped it around so that the vine went around both pillars and the other end landed in her free hand.

Damian flipped and landed on the vine sideways, stretching it back into her hands.

"NOW!"

Luz let go of the vine and launched Damian, as Jaime kicked Javier into place and pinned his arms at his waist in a bear hug, just long enough for Damian to pull his sword, and use his moment to slice right through the prosthetic spinal cord.

Javier screamed and went limp, thankfully still alive.

With the heat of the battle dead, Luz now realized that all eyes were on her, she looked around just to make sure Ghostfire hadn't gotten up and just started standing behind her like in a cartoon, and upon confirming that he was still unconscious, looked back to everyone and shrugged.

"What do you mean—" Rose mimicked her shrugg in a mocking way, "How the hell did you just do that?"

"Do what?"

"I mean, I was kinda just rolling with it in the moment but I'm also really confused now," Jaime said.

"Are you guys talking about my glyphs— Oh! You guys didn't know about that, did you?" Luz asked

"Nope," Damian answered, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I wasn't supposed to let them find out, was I?"

"Yep."

Wally suddenly gasped, "You're a witch!"

"How the hell did you come to that— Oh fuck bruja means witch in Spanish," Rose realized.

"Can I explain this after we leave before the cops get here?" Luz asked.

"Yeah I can hear the sirens we should probably sprint," Artemis nodded.

Chapter Text

Luz walked closely and nervously behind Bruce. Never in her whole life did she imagine that she'd be walking around in an orbital space station, let alone that that very space station would be the base of the freaking Justice League.

After the incident with the Titans, Wally and Artemis had to give an incident report back to the JL, so they called them down to have a meeting.

"Luz, just stay behind me, and don't say anything. These guys are pushovers."

"Bruce, I'm not in trouble am I? Because if Superman tells me that he's 'not mad he's just disappointed' I swear to titan I'll cry," Luz told him.

"Relax. They probably won't even say anything to you, and if they do it's going to be a light reprimand at most," Bruce said.

The door to the JL conference room opened up and they both immediately had to duck to avoid being plowed through by the blue boy scout himself.

"Light reprimand huh?" Luz asked.

"I do not need your brand of sass right now," Bruce chided her.

Superman turned back around to face them, his cheeks were sunken and his eyes were completely white, he screamed at them again and charged, only for a purple energy shield to stop him.

"Batman! Get your ass in here!"

They flipped back up and sprinted into the room to find most of the Justice League looking the same as Superman did, with the exception of six people.

"Kcab ffo!"

Black Canary and Green Arrow were flung back by the words spoken by one Zatanna Zatara. Cyborg and Martian Manhunter fought off league members back to back. Doctor Fate and Captain Marvel also fought together, with Fate locking them down and Marvel knocking them out.

"What the hell is going on here?" Bruce asked as he ducked under a punch from Aquaman and returned it with two of his own.

"There has been a breach in the barrier between the spirit realm and ours, ghosts have leaked through and possessed the league!" MM answered.

"So why are you guys still standing?" Luz pulled three glyphs from her belt, one to freeze the floor so that Flash slipped before he could get to her, the second was an anti-grav glyph that she slapped against his chest, making him levitating, and the third was a plant glyph that she used to make a bolo that pinned his arms to his sides.

"I reckon the Fatherbox is protecting me, and J'on's psychic powers prevent them from getting in his head," Cyborg said.

"The Lords of Order protect my mind from being tainted by wayward spirits," Fate replied.

"And me, Constantine, and Billy's are protected by our magical prowess," Zatanna finished.

"... who's Constantine?"

"BLOODY FUCKIN' CUNTS! KEEP COMIN' AT ME YOU PUSSY LIPPED ARSEHOLES! AAAARGH!" 

A scruffy looking man with blonde hair who wore a tan trench coat fought off Captain Atom and Icon, a black book in one hand and a cigarette in the other that he used to draw pentagrams in that air that would spew out fire.

"That: is John Constantine," Fate may have been wearing a helmet, but Luz could just feel the scowl.

"What's the plan here?" Bruce asked, still engaged in combat with Aquaman.

"Me, Zatanna, Fate and your pipsqueak are gonna venture into the spirit realm, seal the breach and find out what's causing it. You four are going to hold off these wankers," John explained.

"Twelve on four, shouldn't be that hard," Captain Marvel said with a roll of his eyes.

"Quit your whining Batson, now let's find that gate!"

Zatanna nodded "Ekat su ot eht hcaerb."

Her words materialized into the air and strung themselves together to form a portal of some sorts that lead to a jungle.

"What about you, I can't just leave you!" Luz shouted to Bruce over the sounds of fighting.

"Just go, stopping this is more important!"

"But—"

"Now Mist!"

Luz hesitated, but soon ran through the portal after the other magic users, and at that moment, Superman burst through Zatanna's shield to join the rest of the possessed Justice League.

"Captain Marvel, you're on Icon, Atom, and Superman. Martian Manhunter: Flash, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman. Cyborg: the Lanterns and Hawkgirl. I'll take Arrow, Canary, and Black Lightning," Batman ordered.

Cyborg turned one of his hands into a blaster, "Let's rock then!"

–

"Ugh, where are we?" Luz asked, portal travel always left her with a headache.

"I believe somewhere along the Yucatan river," Dr. Fate responded.

"Fuckin' hate the jungle," Constantine huffed.

"Can you go just one team-up without complaining?" Zatanna asked.

"Shhh!" Luz said as she held up a fist and crouched down.

"Did she just fucking shush us?"

"Shshshsh!"

One thing that Hexside had taught in the Beast Keeping track was how to recognize that you are the one being hunted. Since they arrived Luz had felt a presence watching them from the tree line that surrounded the clearing. Luz closed her eyes and steadied her breathing, a trick that Cassandra had taught her to track enemies in stealth.

The sound of paws kicking off a branch, light as a feather but not light enough, reached her ears and she activated a glyph that made her temporarily intangible, so that when the large black jaguar leaped at her back, it passed right through her. She then used another glyph to shoot out a sticky purple web that wrapped around all four of its legs and immobilized the big cat.

"Where on earth did you learn to do that?" Zatanna asked.

"Demon Realm," Luz answered as she walked over to the jaguar, who struggled against its bindings and growled at her, at least until she managed to place a glyph that she and Viney had created on the top of its head, soothing the beast and making it fall asleep.

"Aww, little baby," Luz freed its paws from the webs with an icicle blade before she began to play with them.

"Remind me why again we brought this child with us?" Fate asked, disdain evident in his voice.

"Because we needed a fourth man with mystical know-how, and either way we'd be taking a child," Constantine shrugged.

"Do you have a problem with me?" Luz asked Fate.

"Your magic is…chaotic and wild. No rhyme or reason to it, no rules to it. It displeases the Lords of Order," Dr. Fate responded.

"Fuck your Lords of Order."

"Oh this should be good."

"Magic is supposed to be wild, it's not supposed to make sense or follow a rigid set of rules, that's what makes it special in the first place, and if you have a problem with that there's an Emperor six feet under in a different dimension who you can complain about it with!" Luz said.

"Is that a threat?" Dr. Fate levitated a few feet in the air and the white glow of his eyes got brighter.

"Bring it," Luz pulled a plant glyph and made a wooden baseball bat, before grabbing her metal one as well.

Before either could do anything, Constantine summoned a plume of fire between them to keep a fight from breaking out. He sighed, "Need we remind you two that we're about to have a genuine fucking Ghostbusters situation on our hands."

"Fine. I shall ignore her disrespect, for now," Fate conceded, but Luz just blew a raspberry at him.

They had to hike through the jungle for a bit, which wasn't fun considering it was midnight, but eventually they did come to another clearing. The breach didn't look like much, but maybe that made it even more unsettling, it was just a thin white line that was sending ripples through the atmosphere around it.

"Alright, before we go in, Mist, you're gonna need a change of clothes," Zatanna said.

Luz frowned "What's wrong with my outfit, is there a dress code in the spirit realm or something?"

"Ironically enough, a ghost's ability to possess people grows stronger in their realm. Our magical ability won't be enough to keep us safe, so we enchant our clothes to do it if we ever have to venture there. Don't worry scamp, I've got ya' covered," Constantine drew a pentagram in the air with the smoke from his never-ending cigarette, blowing it forward and letting the smoke wrap around her.

When the smoke wafted off her body, Luz was essentially left in a palette swapped version of his outfit. She had a white trench coat, a dark purple dress shirt accompanied by a sky blue tie, and black dress pants and shoes. She had also kept her utility belt and domino mask.

"There, now you look proper dashing," Constantine smiled.

"That is just plain narcissistic," Zatanna sighed with a shake of her head.

"Never said it wasn't, mate," Constantine shrugged.

"Enough, let us finish our job. Batman and the others can't hold out forever," Dr. Fate summoned a golden Ankh into his hand and stabbed into the rift, dragging it from top to bottom until it cracked open, leaving a window of static in its place.

"I sense a dark presence, be prepared for a fight," Dr. Fate warned.

"Yeah yeah. Team Mystic Marauders, let's go baby!" Luz shouted before enthusiastically diving headfirst into the rift.

"The fuck did she just call us?"

–

Odalia opened her eyes as she was jostled from her meditation, the candles around her had their purple flames extinguished by seemingly nothing. She sat in the center of her 'room' for a few more seconds before a grin broke out onto her face.

"Roman!" She cried as she flung open the curtain hung over the outcrop dug for her by Mason.

The human groaned as he looked up from his woodcarving, he had yet to actually carve his palisman, after all one wrong move and the whole piece was trash.

"What do you want, tú arpía de cinco dedos?" 

"It's about your daughter, I have sensed her presence in the spirit realm," Odalia giddily explained.

"Wait, are you telling me that Katrina is dead?! Shit, it must've been one of those Gotham bastards, I swear to God, if she died to the fuckin' Penguin—"

"No you misunderstood, she's there artificially, she crossed over with a way back like Oracles can," Odalia clarified.

"Huh, now what on earth is she doing there?" Roman hummed.

"I know not, but now is our chance, me and Orsan can cross over and with all those spirits, we can turn her into a permanent residen—"

Odalia stopped when Roman slammed his fist onto the table and stood up tall and intimidating over her, "Listen to me very carefully, I may hate her, and I may be planning to ice her the second I get the chance, but Katrina is still family, and nobody touches my god-damned family, unless I say so. If you do, I will not hesitate to put you in the fuckin ground, are we clear?"

Odalia scoffed and rolled her eyes, like a teenager, which prompted Roman to pull his pistol and jam it under her jaw.

"Say it!"

"...Crystal clear," Odalia gave in, she knew that he only had two or three of his 'bullets' left, but she had also seen him take down a Slither Beast with just a single, well placed shot.

"Good, now if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do, so run along," Roman ordered and waved her off.

Odalia may have obeyed in that moment, but she was never very good at following all the rules.

–

Walking into the spirit realm was nothing like walking into the Boiling Isles. It didn't look like a civilization of any kind, it was just a large flat rock plain with even more large flat rock plains floating around held together by bright green chains. The sky was matte black with stars of a ghastly green color littering it all around, and spirits wandered aimlessly through the platforms.

In the center of the rock platform she was on, there stood three people. One was a teenage boy with pale skin and oddly shaped black hair who wore a black suit and had an orange tabby cat cradled in his arms.

The second was a middle eastern man who wore a loose white blouse that was barely buttoned, his black hair was long and tied into a ponytail, and he had put big black mascara circles around his eyes. He held a stereotypical magicians wand in his right hand.

The last was a man with skin that looked like roots twisting themselves around to take the form of a human body, he had a long white beard but was bald otherwise, and wore a brown vest with a pair of forest green pants.

"Oh look Mr. Tiekle, a new playmate!" The boy in the suit said once he finally noticed her. His cat meowed as the other two turned their attention on her.

"Well, I assume that you three are the ones making everything go all ParaNorman out there?" Luz rhetorically asked.

"That is Klarion, an ancient chaos god, and a constant flea on the back of the Lords of Order," Dr. Fate scowled.

"Ugh, Nabu, why are you always here to spoil my fun?" Klarion whined.

"Abra Kadabra, a man from the sixty-fourth century with a high tech wand that allows him to perform magic," Zatanna explained.

"And that cunt over there is Blackbriar Thorn, he's…he's um… Alright I'll be honest mate, I was piss drunk when I first met him, like absolutely fucking wasted, so I don't remember his backstory, and I've been too embarrassed about it to ask," Constantine chimed in.

"Fuck you, wanker!"

"Alright, it's three on four everyone. Dr. Fate, you take Klarion; John, Blackbriar; Mist, help me with Kadabra and then we can break off to help Fate and Constantine," Zatanna ordered.

"Noceda brat!"

A big pink fireball descended from the sky and landed between Klarion and Abra, fizzling out to reveal the posh bitch herself.

"Odalia Blight," Luz said in a voice between confusion, exasperation, and irritation .

"Uh, do you know her?" Zatanna asked.

"Yeah, she's an evil asshole from the demon realm who's tried to kill me about two or three times…and she's also my girlfriend's mother," Luz explained.

"Fuckin' in-laws mate," Constantine huffed.

"Uh, this feels like a separate thing between you two, would you mind at least stepping over there?" Kalrion asked, gesturing between Odalia and Luz, then pointing over to a smaller rock platform.

"Change of plans, I'll pound Odalia, then help you Zatanna," Luz grabbed about four batarangs and chucked them at Odalia, only for the fingertips of her mechanical fingers to flip up and fire off four abomination bullets to counter it.

"You naive fool, do you have any idea where you are?!" 

Odalia's organic fingers wrapped around her pendant, and a swarm of ghosts suddenly plowed into Luz and carried her off from her allies.

"Attack!" Dr. Fate ordered.

Luz pulled her bat and managed to grab a lightning glyph, slapping it on to the end and swinging at the cluster of spirits, making them all scatter. In free fall, she took up a wind glyph and put it on the front of her waist, summoning a small temporary tornado around her bottom half that allowed her to basically fly.

She rocketed towards Odalia and loaded another lightning glyph onto her bat, but a much bigger ghost took the hit for the former Blight matriarch.

"You little whelp! Once I kill you, there will be nothing to stop me from taking back my position as head of the Blight family," Odalia swung at her with her claw-like metal fingers, extended by abomination goop. Luz ducked and dodged out of the way, occasionally hitting her with a counter attack when Odalia left herself open.

Suddenly, two ghosts grabbed her legs and pinned her arms to the sides, allowing Odalia to get a stab in her stomach.

"After you're good and dead, I will show your body to Amity, and with you gone, she will come back to me, one way or another," Odalia hissed.

"You psychopath. What makes you so sure she'd do that?" Luz spat.

"It is you who gives her the audacity to disobey me in the first place. Without you, she will fall back to listening to my every command, without question!" Luz caught Odalia eyeing the fingers on her right hand, "But first, a little quid pro quo."

"Fat chance."

Little did Odalia know that Luz had managed to grab a glyph during her little tyraid, one that created an explosion that sent herself, Odalia, and the ghosts flying.

An ice glyph was used to put a layer of frost over the stab wounds, next she unfolded a glyph that was about ten times the size of a normal glyph and placed it on the ground, activating it via a stomp. The glyph sank into the floor and the ground started rumbling, eventually the rock gave way to a suit of crystal armor, purple in color, about twice her height, and with broad shoulders, it knelt on the ground with it's back open for her.

Luz hopped into the suit and the back plates moved into place, allowing her to stand up and move her limbs around to test the mobility. Finally, the earth spit out a helmet with a clear faceplate so that she could see.

Odalia groaned as she pushed herself up again, head ringing from the explosion, she barely even had time to process before she was grabbed by Luz in her crystal armour.

Odalia raised her fingers to slash at her, but with her free hand Luz caught and crushed them. Luz smiled behind her crystal helmet.

"You think that just because you kill me that Amity will crawl back to you?"

Luz slammed Odalia into the ground, and on the rebound kicked her in the chest.

"If you think my death will make Amity see you any more favorably, then you're insane, and you really don't have any idea how much she's changed. Even if you succeed, she's just more likely to take your other finger," Luz spread her arms and two crystal blades jutted out from her forearms, "Well, she will if I don't do it first."

Luz sprinted at Odalia, only to be met with a wall of wailing spirits. They glommed onto her armor and slowed her down like she was moving through quicksand. Luz tried to swing at them, but there were so many of them that they managed to just rip off her gauntlet blades. They clawed and scratched at her armor, trying to break in and succeeding. After they tore a whole into the breast plate, she quickly shouted "Eject!" and was flung out through the back of the suit.

It was now occurring to her that she only had three glyphs left, and also that a wraith was starting to sprint at her. So in an effort to simply stay alive, she pulled a random glyph and held it in front of her face like a shield.

A discordant wave of sound, like a guitar being strummed by someone who didn't know how to play, sprang forth from the glyph and hit the ghost, making it screech and clutch its ears before it ran off.

That confused Luz, she hadn't done anything special, there's no reason that the ghost should've reacted that badly to a simple sound gly—

The realization hit her like a truck.

Luz flipped back to her feet and grabbed her two remaining glyphs, both fire glyphs, and blasted herself towards Zatanna, flipping in the air so that her hands were above her head and she was flying feet first at Kadabra, kicking him in the side of the face and knocking him down.

"Zatanna, I have a plan, but I need a guitar," Luz said.

"How is that gonna help?" Zatanna asked, sending an ice ball at a ghost.

"I just need you to trust me!"

Zatanna huffed summoning an indigo electric guitar for her. Luz slung the strap around her shoulder before pulling a pen and paper pad from her belt and crouching down, "Now cover me, I'm gonna be exposed for a bit!"

The other three magicians formed a ring around her to fend off the four attackers as Luz sketched out a new glyph.

"What is your plan, child?" Dr. Fate impatiently asked.

"Back in the Demon Realm, the oracle kids always had beef with the bard kids, because music disrupts spectral energy," Luz explained.

"I have no idea what the fuck you just said," Constantine shouted.

"Music is like a dog whistle for ghosts, there are certain hidden frequencies that we can't hear, but they can, and they hurt like hell," Luz stood up with her new glyph and slapped it onto the guitar. She had already fiddled with this design before, but never got it to work, hopefully this time it would be the perfected version 

Using a plant glyph she also drew to summon a pick, and strummed a power cord that sent out a wave of golden energy that blew all ghosts and villains back a few feet. All that bard training was about to finally pay off, especially that last lesson with Raine.

"No!" Odalia shouted once Luz stepped out from the circle protecting her.

"You like it, Odalia? I call it the Amp Glyph, it amplifies the sound of the guitar and allows me to perform bard magic. Pretty cool, right?" Luz taunted her.

"Listen good, Luz Noceda, no matter what nonsensical fake magic you bring to the table, I will always be stronger than you!" Odalia grabbed her pendant and summoned another swarm of ghosts that all linked together to form a massive fist that began to swing down on her.

Luz grinned and started to play, as the ghosts got within a certain distance they all clutched their heads and dove away from her until they had all fled.

"Stop her now! Any attacks I throw will be useless!" Odalia ordered to Klarion, Blackbriar, and Kadabra.

"What is happening right now?" Klarion asked the other wizards, who just shrugged and tried to rush Luz. 

"This game isn't fun anymore, I quit!" And with that, Kalrion and his cat sunk into a red portal, but not before he got one last glance at Luz.

One of Blackbriar's hands had turned into a long, flexible root that he was attempting to whip Luz with, but she avoided each strike like she was floating, which she kind of was. Two music notes had manifested under her feet and were levitating her just a couple inches off the ground so that she could dodge with an unfamiliar grace.

At one point, she flipped over and behind Blackbriar, where a long golden beam blasted from the head of the guitar and pushed him into Kadabra, and then pushed them both out of the breach.

With only Odalia left, Luz flew head on at her, not even bothering to weave around the specters being throw at her because they did it anyways. With the last bit of energy that the glyph had, Luz swung her guitar by the neck and hit Odalia in the air, breaking it and her pendant.

Luz dropped back to the ground with a grin on her face, putting her shoe on Odalia's neck, "Gonna give up yet?" She asked.

"This is not over, not by a long shot!" Odalia said in a raspy voice, before she burst into pink flames and disappeared.

"Mother— fudger!" Luz shouted as she kicked a rock where Odalia just was.

"Hey now, language," Constantine chuckled, "Kent, you've got ten minutes before we have to close the breach, you better go quick.

Surprisingly, Dr. Fate removed the helmet, leaving him in a suit with a red bow tie, she was not as surprised to find that he was an older gentleman. With an excited smile on his face, he took off running through the spirit realm, calling for someone named Inza as he did.

"What's he doing?" Luz asked.

"He's going to visit his wife. She died a long time ago, but he couldn't go with her due to his contract with Nabu, the god that made the helm that makes him Doctor Fate," Zatanna explained.

"We're…we're allowed to visit people?"

"Yeah, but not for very long, we gotta— Hey! Where are you going?!" Constantine shouted after her.

Luz scoured the spirit realm for a solid two minutes, before she found a lone rock with a sofa facing a TV, she jumped down and landed between the two.

"Hola, Mija."

Tears welled in Luz's eyes as she launched herself at her mother, anything she said completely unintelligible by the sound of her sobbing, it was probably five minutes that they stayed like that but it only felt like five seconds when Kent came and tapped her on the shoulder.

"It is time to leave, child," He sighed, it was evident that he had also been crying.

"No! I don't wanna, I want to stay here! 's not fair!" Luz wailed.

"I know, it never is. But if you're here when we close that breach, your mother will never get to see all the wonderful things that you will do with your life, instead you'll be stuck as you are right now," Kent told her.

"He's right Luz," Camilla grabbed her chin and moved it to look at the TV across from that, on the screen it showed the very scene that was playing out right then.

"I've seen everything you've done so far, and let me tell you that you will never be able to imagine just how proud I am of who you've become, and of who you're becoming. So please, don't take that away from me. Just know that I will always be watching you, and that nothing you will ever do, could ever make me disappointed in you," Camilla said.

It took all her willpower, but she was eventually able to pry her arms from around her mother, "I love you Mamí. I'm glad that I finally get to say goodbye."

"Me too Mija."

Luz wiped her eyes as she forced herself to walk away and join Kent.

"By the way, I apologize for what Nabu said to you earlier. He's a bit of a pill. For the record, I think your brand of magic is beautiful," Kent smiled before he put his helmet back on.

As Camilla watched them take off, she felt the otherside of the couch sink, "Man, I leave to get popcorn and I miss the family reunion."

"Oh hush Manny, you chose to miss seeing your sobrina," Camilla chuckled.

Manuel Noceda chuckled and wrapped an arm around her. The older brother of Rick, it was Manny that Camilla first came to when she wanted to run away, it was Manny that gave her the fake identities, it was Manny that stole from Rick so that she could afford to pay for certain things under the table. It was Manny that died when he refused to give any information to Rick after he found out about it all.

"She should be mi hija," Manny grumbled.

"I picked the wrong Noceda to fall in love with, I'll admit that," Camilla leaned further into him, "But I have the rest of the afterlife to make up for it."

–

It was two days after the incident, and with everyone having settled down, Luz was summoned back to the watchtower, and now stood in front of the Justice League. 

"Luz, first off I'd like to say that we are all very grateful for your participation in defeating Klarion, Blackbriar, and Kadabra," Superman said.

"And second we want to assure you that you are not in any kind of trouble, we'd just want to know where this magic came from, any trouble that might be attached to it, and if it's completely safe to use, both for you and the people around you," Wonder Woman told her.

"Oh, uh, O-ok, which.. which one of those questions do you want me to answer first?" Luz squealed out.

Black Lightning chuckled, "Kid, relax, like Diana said you're not in trouble, we just got some questions. Start wherever you feel is necessary."

Luz took a deep breath, "Ok, a while back I was being sent to a…camp. I had a lot of outbursts at school and my mom was feeling pressured, so she tried to send me somewhere to make me more normal. But while I was waiting for the bus, an owl stole my book."

"An owl stole your book?" John Stewart asked.

"Owlbert's strong ok?" Luz shrugged, "Anyways, I chased him down, followed him into this abandoned house, and from that point on, I became a resident of the Boiling Isles, the Demon Realm."

"I was there for six, maybe seven months before I got back. When I first arrived, I met a lady named Edalyn Clawthorne and her son, a demon named King. She gave me the option to return home through a portal door but I refused. I wanted to stay there and become a witch like her, so that maybe I'd finally have some place where I didn't feel like a loser just for existing."

"I quickly found out that I can't perform magic like normal witches can. They have a bile sac attached to their hearts that allows them to do it. I don't. I have to rely on glyphs, symbols that pull the magic out of the air and repurpose it into whatever I need. They're a lot weaker here though, I guess the magic of earth isn't as strong as the magic of the Titan."

"Forgive me, what is a Titan?" Hawkgirl interrupted.

"The Titan was a giant corpse floating in the boiling sea, it's what gave the Isles room to grow and flourish."

"Do you…know what killed it? Do you know if whatever did is still out there?" Oliver Queen asked.

"The rumor is that it just died naturally, nobody was around back then to know," Luz answered.

"Alright, one last question: we need you to tell us of any threats from this Demon Realm, and classify them on a scale of Urban, National, Global, Galactic, or Intergalactic," Hal Jordan said.

"I think that's enough—"

"Emperor Belos," Luz interrupted Bruce.

"Classification?" Flash asked.

"We stopped him. I saw his throat get slashed out with my own eyes," Luz whispered.

"Well, death isn't always permanent, would you mind humoring us?" Cyborg pleaded.

"Um, urban, but he could turn national I guess. Belos was a witch hunter back in the puritan era, when he was known as Philip Wittebane, he and his brother Caleb got trapped in the Boiling Isles like I did, Caleb fell in love, he had a child, he embraced the change. Philip didn't. Belos kept himself alive for years by consuming the essence of Palisman, he carved glyphs into his skin so that he could perform magic without them, and he manipulated the Boiling Isles into making him the emperor by convincing them that he could speak with the Titan. After that he used his authority to force everyone into a coven, he told them that magic shouldn't be mixed and convinced them into willingly branding themselves so that they could only use one of the nine types of magic."

"Nine types of magic?" Aquaman inquired.

"Abomination, Bard, Beast Keeping, Construction, Healing, Illusion, Oracle, Plant, and Potion, along with elemental magic that everyone is allowed to use regardless of your coven."

"Belos stole the portal from me so that he could return home to be herald as a hero, and on the Day of Unity, a day that he told the people of the Boiling Isles would be a euphoric day that would unite them with the Titan, he tried to enact the Draining Spell, a spell that would steal the life from everyone who had a coven mark," Luz finished.

"Notable abilities of this Belos character?" Hal asked, typing on a keyboard.

"Master of manipulation, strong magical ability, and a cursed form due to consuming palismen that allows him to change his form," Luz answered.

"Anyone else?"

"Odalia Blight, Urban. The coven heads, Urban. Titan trappers, Urban. The Collector—"

"Intergalactic," Dr. Fate whispered.

"You…know about the collector?" Luz asked.

"A chaos god, like a cousin to Klarion, except instead of acting like a moronic teenager, they act like a spoiled seven year old," Dr. Fate frowned.

"They're buried under the skull of the Titan now, on top of being stuck in this weird disc thing. They're not a threat," Luz told him.

"Good, if they ever escaped confinement, it would surely spell doom for our universe, and countless others."

Luz exhaled and patted her thighs, "So is there uh, anything else you need me to answer?"

"I'd just like to say one thing," Superman levitated from his chair over to in front of her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Luz, from what I can tell you faced incredible adversity, and strong foes, all of which you overcame. Now you continue to protect the innocent. You are a true hero," Superman told her.

Now, if you asked her about this later in her life, Luz would totally laugh it off and act like she played it cool. But in reality she fell over on the spot and started to let out a quiet, excited squeal.

"I asked you not to give her any kind of sensory overload," Bruce sighed.

Superman chuckled, "Dinah why don't you take Luz to the Zeta tubes and make sure she gets home in one piece?" He suggested.

Dinah nodded knowingly, walking over and hefting the girl over her shoulder, then disappearing into a Zeta beam.

"Well, if that's wrapped up, I suggest we move on to the next order of business—"

"No next order of business. What the hell are you trying to do here?" Oliver asked in an accusatory tone.

"I beg your pardon?"

"What was your plan with her, hmm? Just keep her powers a secret until she stops being a vigilante, until she dies? Are you trying to shame her or something?" Diana asked in the same tone.

"I do not have to explain my parenting methods to you," Bruce sneered.

"The lass is gonna end up hating herself," Arthur chimed in.

"You mean like you and your wife?"

"I will gut you like a fish!"

"Enough," Jefferson stopped them.

"Bruce, one of the biggest criticisms that the Justice League receives is that 'if all the super people are working together, what is in place to really protect the people?' and the answer to that is us, Bruce, we are the checks and balances, there are no secrets between us. No matter how pertinent the information is to what the League does," Hal said.

"If we have nothing else to discuss then I am leaving," Bruce stood up from his chair and walked over to the Zeta platform.

"If you keep trying to hide who she is from the world, she'll grow to hate you," Clark told him.

"... I'd rather have her thinking I'm a shitty father, and be alive, then have her die thinking I'm the world's greatest."

With that, the Zeta tube activated and Dinah was suddenly in his place.

–

In a dark room in an undisclosed location, Klarion pressed his hand to a pedestal and pulled up a holographic screen of a shadowy man.

"Was the mission successful?" He asked in a garbled voice.

"No, the Justice League intervened again. Apparently some of them are immune to possession, including Batman for some reason," Kalrion huffed.

"Just wonderful. Well, there is always another scheme to hatch."

"Oh and I've already made the egg. I know who can help us take down the Justice League, and her name is Luz Noceda," Klarion grinned.

–

In Gravesfield, a storm approached, but not just any storm, a high grade electrical storm. The people of the town were bunkered down in their houses, just waiting for it to pass them by.

As the storm rolled over Gravesfield, lightning struck the ground without mercy over and over again, until eventually, an odd green lightning bolt big a seemingly random grave in the Gravesfield cemetery.

The storm halted for a few moments, before a fist punched it's way out of the dirt, and the lightning resumed once more, this time with twice as much fervor.

Chapter Text

The storm was getting worse, never in their life had Masha seen anything remotely like this in Gravesfield. They were hunkered down in their living room with their friends, Masha's parents were out of town for the weekend so it was just the three of them when the storm randomly blew through and knocked out the power.

"Well, since all we have is this lamp, it seems to me that the mood is perfect for some scary stories?" The bespectacled wrestler of the group suggested. 

"Fei, if we do that you're gonna start jumping up at every noise. None of us are gonna get any sleep…well this idiot might," Masha sighed.

"Pedro, back me up here!" Fei barked.

"Hwhat?" Pedro groaned as he sat up.

"Tell them that I can handle scary stories."

"Pedro don't you dare break rank."

"Oh, nah dude, you're a total scaredy cat," Pedro agreed.

"Am not!"

Something big thudded against Masha's front door, making Fei shriek and jump back.

"Relax, the storm probably just blew a branch against the door," Masha chuckled.

A series of hard and rapid pounds against the front door made all three of them scream.

"Uh, Pedro, you're the man of this relationship, you go check it out," Masha ordered, pulling a red metal bat out from under the couch and handing it to him.

"I thought that the three of us agreed not to push gender norms when we started dating?"

"Ugh, I'll go check it out," Fei said, snatching the bat and vaulting over the couch.

Masha and Pedro waited with baited breath as she rounded the corner, they heard the sound of the door opening, and then the bat clattering to the ground.

"Fei! Fei say something!" Masha called.

"Screw this man," Pedro too threw himself over the couch and ran to the front door.

After about a minute, Masha grumbled something along the lines of, "This is how people die in horror movies," before running over the couch.

Fei and Pedro were gathered at the door, blocking their view, but it was clear that someone was standing there. Their friends moved to the side like they were in a trance as Masha approached, revealing a soaking wet girl with platinum blonde hair with dark blue highlights, her eyes were a stunning yellow color, she wore an orange sweater with a pumpkin on it, ripped blue jeans, and brown combat boots.

Something about her was familiar.

"Vee?" Masha whispered.

"I… I didn't know where else to go, so I—"

She was silenced when Masha, Pedro, and Fei all crashed into her, wrapping the basilisk in a tight embrace and not letting go.

–

"I'm just having a hard time processing all this," Fei said.

"Yeah dude, major mind fuck," Pedro agreed.

It was the next morning, the lightning had stopped, only to be replaced by hard, heavy rain, and strong wind, so the power was still out.

"I'm not entirely sure what happened either. I remember being stabbed, then nothing, just a vaguely green void, then there was all this…static, and I just walked into it I think. Next thing I know everything is dark again and I'm in some cushy wooden box, I had to shape-shift into a mole just to get out and then dig my way to the surface, after that I came straight here," Vee explained again.

"What's important is that you're here now, and that you're safe," Masha said, kissing the back of her neck, right where her scar was.

The snapping of a branch outside startled them, through the lone light of the lantern they could see two shadows at the sliding glass door: one a large hulking mass, and the other a small, almost trash-can shaped thing.

"Go, go!" Fei urgently whispered to Vee as she saw the larger figure begin to fiddle with the door.

Vee hid behind a wall where she wouldn't be seen just as the door slid open.

There was just enough light to illuminate the small, cylindrical robot with a white skull face and a glass dome over an exposed brain, and a large white ape wearing a red beret and lugging around a machine gun. 

"Greetings, I am the one called Brain, and the person standing next to me is the one called Monsieur Mallah," Brain greeted in a robotic, French accented voice.

"The hell do you want?" Fei barked.

"Mallah, the communication device," Brain commanded.

"Of course, my love," Mallah said in a French accent.

"Talking French monkey that's in love with a talking French robot. Again, major mind fuck," Pedro whispered.

Mallah set down a small disk that erupted in an emerald green green light, producing an hologram of a man in the three piece suit, his face shrouded in darkness.

"Ah, at last, I was beginning to worry that these two wouldn't be able to find you all," the figure said.

"Who the hell are you?" Masha asked.

"It's best if you don't know that. All you need to know is why I'm here."

Another holographic image appeared, this time a high angle picture of a man in a white suit with a black metal helmet in the shape of a skull on his head. 

"Lady, gentleman, and whatever else you decide to identify as—"

Masha blew a raspberry at him.

"—this is The Black Mask, aka Roman Sionis, aka Ricardo Noceda, aka the man who had your friend Vee and her mother killed, aka the man that Luz Noceda swore to kill and get vengeance, aka the man that is still breathing and running his criminal organization."

"WHAT?!?"

Vee popped out from around the corner, much to everyone's surprise as Mallah grabbed his machine gun and aimed it at her and a taser prod appeared out of one of Brain's front compartments.

"Stop, stand down!" The figure ordered, "This is quite an interesting development, who might you be?"

Without a word, Vee shape-shifted into her Luz form, before quickly shifting back.

"A fourth Metahuman, and it being Vee Noceda nonetheless, oh this is incredibly fascinating," the figure chuckled.

"Sure, let's go with that," Vee shrugged

"I'm sorry, fourth Metahuman?" Fei asked.

"Let me just cut straight to the chase. I understand what an…egregious injustice this is to you, Vee, I mean this man was responsible for your death and your mother's and your sister just let's him walk free? How offensive. So I am prepared to offer you three a serum that will unlock your latent meta genes, and yes you have them, I've already extracted and analyzed blood samples, so you four can go after her yourselves," The figure offered.

"What's the catch?" Fei asked.

"No catch per say, only that if I ever have need of you, you will be there for me to call upon," The figure answered.

"Can we um…have a day to think about it?" Maska asked.

"Of course, here, as a sign of good will, you can keep the serum. Mallah, the case," the figure said.

Mallah pulled a briefcase from his back waist and laid it on the coffee table.

"Take care now. Let's go gentlemen."

With that, the hologram cut out, and Mallah and Brain left swiftly after.

"Ok, we all agree that this is totally crazy right?" Masha sighed 

"Right. And we all agree that those three were sketchy as fuck, yeah?" Fei chimed in

"Yeah. And we all agree that there is no absolutely no way that we're metahumans?" Pedro nodded.

Vee hadn't said anything since the three men had left, instead only staring at the projection of Black Mask left behind.

"Vee? You ok Pumpkin'?" Masha stood up and put a hand on her shoulder.

"S-Son of a bitch murdered my family IN MY HOUSE!" Vee slammed her fist into the couch, "And she just lets him walk free?"

"Well maybe there's an explanation, she probably has some reason," Pedro suggested.

"I dunno, I have to agree, this is messed up," Fei said.

"I don't care what her reason is, she needs to answer for this," Vee broke from Masha's hold and headed to the door.

She flung it open, hair blown back by the wind, and was about to leave when she felt Pedro's hand fall on her shoulder. She turned back to see the three standing behind her with smiles on their faces.

"Come on mi amor, do you really think we'd let you do this alone?" He asked, as Fei held up the case and rattled it a little.

–

"What's she doing?" Cassandra asked.

"Shshshsh, dude I've never seen her this focused," Jason whispered.

"She stole my feather duster, it's an outrage," Alfred sighed.

Luz rushed all around the manor, cleaning everything in her sight like if she stopped she'd explode.

"Why?" Tim asked.

"Her grandmother is coming," Dick explained.

The doorbell rang and Luz froze in place, a look of dread and horror on her face.

"Shit…that must be her. Ok, everyone shut up and be on your best behavior!" Luz shouted as she moved to the big doors.

"Sheesh, the mouth on the kid," Harper Row, aka Bluebird, chuckled as she appeared behind the family on the stairs.

"When the hell did you get here?" Damian asked.

"I'm always here, I live in your walls," Harper smiled.

Luz took a deep breath, looking back one last time and getting a collective thumbs up from her family, before she exhaled and turned the knob. 

The second she did, the grand double doors were blasted off their hinges and Luz was sent flying back in the air, barely managing to flip upright I'm the air and having to be caught by Duke and Steph.

The first person to break through the smoke was a bespectacled woman with chrome skin and hair who wore loose beige cargo pants and a gray tank top, she grabbed a door and almost chucked it at them if it wasn't for Jason quickly pulling one of his pistols and firing at her stomach, the rubber bullet bouncing off with a small explosion of sparks.

The gun was quickly kicked from his hand when a shaggy haired boy appeared in a puff of black smoke, wearing a black leather jacket over his pinkish-purple shirt, before he vanished in another poof of black smoke and was suddenly standing next to the first person.

The third was someone wearing a gray dress that was torn at the bottom, long striped gray and pink songs with big black platform boots, they had on a gray witches hat and their face was painted with a white skull over their actual face. Their hands glowed with spiky pink energy, and when they hucked them at the floorboards as Tim and Steph tried to charge the trio, the floorboards snapped and made the two face plant.

The final was an average looking girl who strolled into the room, a red metal baseball bat in her hand. She wore a black sweater, dark blue jeans, and brown boots.

It was when the metal one dropped to her normal form that Luz finally recognized them, well three of them, they were the friends that Vee had made in the summer camp, but what the hell were they doing here? And why did they suddenly have powers? And who was the fourth girl with them?

"Uh, Hi? Listen you guys are coming at a really bad time, could we reschedule this?" Tim asked.

"I'll take her, you guys focus on keeping everyone else off of me," the girl in the black sweater said, earning a nod from Fei, Masha, and Pedro. There was something familiar her voice.

"Hey come on, we can work this out can't we? I know you guys," Luz subtlety moved her hand behind her back to grab a glyph.

The mystery girl ran forward and leaped in their air, bat raised well above her head. Luz pulled the glyph from her back which turned into a glowing pink ball no bigger than a tennis ball, she threw it against the ground and it exploded in pink mist that wrapped around the bat family.

The mystery girl landed in the mist, shattering one of the steps. She wrenched her bat from the splintered wood and stalked through the smoke until her shoulder was struck by something metal and she was forced to back up.

The mist cleared to reveal the family now suited up and brandishing their weapons. Fei turned her skin to steel again and charged at Jason and Duke, tackling them into the dining hall, Cassandra following close behind. Pedro teleported to the top of the stairs and then away again, prompting Tim, Steph, and Damian to follow him. Masha threw another two balls of pink energy at Dick and Harper, both of which were dodged, before they retreated back to the lounge area.

Now, it was just Luz and the mystery girl facing off in the foyer.

"We can work this out civilly, can't we? Why don't we start with your name?" Luz suggested, although her hand was reaching back for her bat.

"Just. Stop. Talking," the mystery girl huffed out before she swung at Luz again.

The danced all throughout the main hall, fighting with their bats like they were swords, neither were able to land a clean strike on the other for a couple of minutes, but eventually Luz cracked her bat against the stranger's jaw and knocked her to the floor.

As she struggled to get up with Luz's boot on her back, something odd happened, her hair disappeared, her skin slowly turned into a pale green color, and her legs consolidated into one large tail with a pierced fin.

"Oh my Titan…Vee?"

Luz quickly removes her foot from her sister's back and takes a few steps away, "Oh my god it is you. What are you doing here? Why are you and your friends attacking us? More importantly how are you even alive? Titan, Vee I've missed you so—"

Crack

Luz felt the cold metal strike her skull and the blood start to flow out immediately while Vee changed back to her human form and flipped to her feet. Stunned, stumbling, and unable to defend herself, it wasn't long before the bottom of Luz's jaw was met with Vee's bat and she was sent flying into the air, crash landing into the stairs and breaking them further.

"The nerve of you, the fucking gall you have. You know exactly why I'm here after what you did!"

Her jaw was totally dislocated, she couldn't talk at all and she had no clue what was happening. She could barely see that Vee's arm was swelled to a massive size, which is probably where she got the force from.  

Before Vee could get another blow, Fei, Pedro, and Masha were all suddenly tossed out of their respective fights and into a huge unconscious heap on the floor.

Vee let out a frustrated groan, "After I kill Black mask, I'm coming back for you. You're not getting away with what you did."

With that she shape shifted into some kind of large wyvern, gently scooping up her friends in her claws before she flew out the door, putting a bigger hole in the front of the house.

The batfamily ran back into the room, Cass and Harper immediately rushing to pull her out of the stairs while Dick helps push her jaw back into place.

"What the hell just happened?" Tim asked.

"I'd like to know the same thing."

Their heads all snapped up in unison at the sound of Bruce's voice, he and Selina stood in the vertical crater that used to be their front door, a small gray-haired woman in a blue sweater standing between them.

"Hi abuela," Luz chuckled, although it still hurt to talk. "How was the flight?"

"What. Happened?" Bruce hissed out.

"We….were….the victims of a robbery?"

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Her clash with Vee had really set a fire under Luz. She didn't know what it was, maybe it was all the talk of family, but it made her hyper aware of the hole in her heart, the hole that longed for the Boiling Isles.

Now the first of February, she had put her full focus on making her way home for the past month. It was a complicated glyph, but with any luck it wouldn't take too many iterations before she got it right.

She had to get back, no matter what.

"Luz, come on, we need to get to that charity gala in— What the hell is this?" Bruce suddenly barged into her room, staring down in confusion at the scrawlings all over the big paper on the floor.

"Oh, sorry, I've just been so wrapped up in this teleportation glyph that I completely forgot the time," Luz chuckled.

"Seems a little big to be really useful," Bruce said.

"Oh I already have the standard place to place teleportation glyphs figured out. No, this is to get me back to the Boiling Isles," Luz explained.

"Excuse me?" Bruce asked in a serious tone.

"Yeah, Belos had this spell that allowed him to teleport to the Titan's head instantly. If I'm right, I should be able to get back to the Boiling Isles with it," Luz answered.

"Absolutely not."

"What?!"

Bruce folded his arms and put on his Batman face, "I said you will not activate that glyph."

"Bruce, this could be my only chance to get back to the Isles, Eda, King, Amity, all of it. I can't lose this!" Luz argued.

"Or you could blow yourself up. This is not up for debate, you don't know what you're doing," Bruce told her.

"I know more about getting me home than you do!" Luz snapped.

"Getting you home? This is your home!"

"Well it sure doesn't feel like it! All you've been doing lately is yelling at me!"

"Because I care about you and you're being reckless and irresponsible!"

"If you really cared about me you'd be helping me get back to the people I love!"

Bruce took a deep breath and smoothed his hair back, "This conversation is over. Just get ready and meet us downstairs in twenty minutes."

He walked out and slammed her door before she could even get another word in. With a frustrated yell, she grabbed a nearby sneaker and hucked it at the door.

It bounced off harmlessly, but landed on the glyph. A massive golden flash flooded her room, and when it faded, her shoe was gone.

Luz looked at the ground where her shoe used to be, then at her cloak, then out the window.

–

Luz landed on the roof of one of the tallest buildings in Gotham, jumping off her hoverboard and sticking it to her back. She flipped her hood down and took out a can of dark blue spray paint with her free hand, the other being occupied by a backpack that held some spare clothes.

Bruce had no idea what he was talking about. He didn't know what she was capable of. This spell would work, and she would get back to the Boiling Isles. Besides, it's not like she was permanently leaving, it was way easier to get to Earth from the Isles than the other way around.

She had a promise to keep, she intended to keep it. She'd be back, she'd introduce the bat family to her Clawthorne family, and the hexsquad, and everything would finally be perfect.

Luz finished the glyph and and tossed the empty can over her shoulder, she checked her suit one last time and pulled her cloak over her head again, preparing to stomp her foot when—

"STOP!"

Batman landed just on the edge of the glyph and ripped his cowl off.

"Quit trying to stop me!" Luz shouted as she turned around.

"I'm just trying to protect you!" Bruce insisted.

"Protect me from what?!"

"Damnit Luz, just trust me!"

"Not until you tell me why you really don't want me to go back to the Isles! I know you're lying to me!"