Chapter Text
Amity regretted her decision almost immediately.
Luz squealed with delight as soon as Amity shook her hand. "Oh, man, this is gonna be just like when Azura and Hecate infiltrated the Ball of Nohomo to stop the rise of the demon lord-"
"I haven't gotten to that part yet!"
At least Luz looked appropriately chagrined. "Oops." Beat. "Where did you leave off?"
Amity rolled her eyes. "Not the time, Luz." She could already tell that this was going to be a trial, but what other choice did Amity have? Pressure some Illusionists into making her a preprogrammed partner? Ask out Willow Half-a-Witch? Admit defeat? No. Luz was Amity's only hope.
But if Luz was going to accompany Amity to the dance, she'd have to do some preemptive damage control. No way was Amity ruining her reputation even further by arriving on the arm of a slob with a literally out-of-this-world (and not in a good way) fashion sense. Amity didn't want to think about when the last time that hoodie got washed was. "Before doing anything else, we need to go over some ground rules for our... arrangement." Amity paced back and forth as she continued. "One. No kissing, period. Two. Only start being lovey-dovey when I give the signal. I am not putting up with you... Luz-ing at me more than usual for the rest of Freaky Friday. Three. Hand-holding is okay, but only because I don't trust you to not get lost on the way back to my house. Is all of that clear?"
Luz nodded, making what Amity believed was her best approximation of a serious face. "Absolutely." It still looked goofy, but at least she was making an effort. "Wait, why do we need to go to your house? I thought that we'd, you know. Hang out here until we need to go to the dance. Since it's safe. As opposed to the outside, which is full of dangerous criminals—and not the fun kind!—that don't care if they kill me on accident while they're rootin'-tootin'-castin' it out with their rivals."
"I am not going with you to the gala while you're dressed like that." Amity sniffed. "Or while you smell like that. I was joking before, but do you actually fry owls in the Owl House?"
"Ohmygosh." Luz's eyes shone, and Amity realized her mistake too late. "You actually said it right this time! It was capitalized and everything."
What. "How could you hear-"
"I didn’t, but you just admitted it~"
Rolling her eyes, Amity made her way to the hideout's door. "Whatever. My point is that I have a few spare suits back home that should be your size, and I need to get you there before nightfall so we have time to prepare. Let's get a move on."
Luz followed Amity as she ventured back into the library, the human's face still split with a wide grin. "Alrighty." Then Luz gently took Amity's hand in hers.
"GHK-" Amity shivered with revulsion(???), then immediately snatched her hand away from Luz. "What are you doing? We aren’t outside yet!” she hissed, glaring at the human.
"I knew it." There was an infuriatingly impish quality to Luz's smile now. "A prickly porcupine like you is going to need some time to adjust to having a 'filthy human' hold her hand."
“Still-“
“Sooooo we need to practice before we head into Bonesborough. You wouldn’t want me getting startled by some loud noise and bolting into the crowd because you were too disgusted by my grimy human hand to hold it properly, would you?” Luz batted her eyelashes, and it took an immense amount of willpower on Amity’s part to not snap at her. Innocent as Luz’s ribbing may have been, it was still too close to Edric and Emira’s barbs for Amity’s liking.
Luz did have a point, though. Amity wasn’t exactly used to positive physical contact with other witchlings (a human in this case, but that was semantics). Or physical contact with other witchlings slash humans at all, really. And if Luz was going to be her “date”—Amity almost made air quotes with her hands to accompany her inner monologue—she couldn’t recoil like that every time Luz touched her. So, once again, the human was right. After leveling a long-suffering glare at Luz, Amity sighed and stuck out her hand. “Fine. You win, human.”
Interlacing her finger’s with Amity’s, Luz began leading her on a leisurely walk around the abandoned library. Despite how begrudgingly Amity had acquiesced to Luz’s idea, the wisdom of it was apparent immediately. It took everything that Amity had to stop herself from yanking her hand away from Luz’s. The human’s touch didn’t feel wrong , per se. No, that definitely wasn’t it. The odd feeling was another emotion entirely, one that Amity couldn’t quite place. Maybe it was because of Luz’s soft skin, unmarred by scars from spells gone wrong and calluses from toxic reagents escaping from their vials, pressed against Amity’s own in a tender embrace. She was warm, too, warmer than any witchling on the isles.
With a jolt, Amity realized that Luz had brought them to the library’s lobby. “Well, it certainly seems like you're a lot more comfortable with my icky human finger grease now." Amity stared at Luz, nonplussed—although the human was right, the sensation didn't feel nearly as alien as it had before. "You ready to go?” Luz asked, cocking her head to the side.
"Of course." Amity steered her train of thought away from whatever uncharted territory it had been hurtling towards and back onto the correct, safe route (she couldn't believe that she'd lost track of time like that, how embarrassing) and braced herself as they walked towards the library's exit.
“Shall we?” Luz bowed faux-formally to Amity.
Huffing, Amity pushed open the door herself without another word.
In Luz's humble opinion, it was downright mind-boggling that Amity wasn't able to score a date. She was the perfect partner to take to a classy dance, like, objectively. Elegant, refined, graceful... Luz could've sworn that she even saw Amity do a dignity laugh once. (She absolutely nailed it, too.) Just being near her at a fancy-shmancy high society event would blow all of the other contestants out of the water.
It was a contest, right? Amity sure made it sound like one. Luz had no clue about these things.
But putting all of that aside, she was, you know, Amity , and-
So wrapped up was Luz in these perfectly normal thoughts that she nearly walked straight into a bolt of screaming fire.
Amity yanked Luz backwards just in time for her to avoid setting her entire head ablaze. (Luz's eyebrows did get mildly singed, though.) "Pay attention ."
"Sorry, I- look out!" Luz dragged Amity out of the way of a boulder that smashed itself apart against the front doors of the library, the splinters crumbling into ash as the wards protecting the building burned with phantom heat.
What must have been dozens of witches were all duking it out before Luz and Amity with blade, fist, and spell. Explosions rent apart the cobblestone, the shrapnel tearing through the battlefield. The smell of ozone mixed with brimstone suffused the air and crept up Luz's nostrils; it would've made her gag if she hadn't been long used to the odors of Eda's dingier haunts. Tremors rocked the foundation of the square as a titanic wurm erupted from the earth, devouring a crowd of witches whole.
The scene was pure carnage.
Now it was Amity's turn to be dazed and ever-so-slightly perturbed. She stumbled backwards, pressing her back to the library's doors as if clinging to the building for protection. "Normally the plaza isn't such a battleground," she murmured. "What is going on ?" A stray rain of magic missiles fell towards the library, and Luz let out a yelp as Amity instinctively traced a small circle with her trembling index finger. Mere moments before the spell would've skewered Amity and Luz, a shimmering globe of purple light popped into existence around them... which broke under the force of the other spell, sending the shards of Amity's magic flying.
"I have no clue, but I have a feeling that we should leave before... I don't know, but judging by everything else we've seen so far it'll probably be really bad ." Having finally shaken off her daze, Luz sprinted towards a nearby alleyway, skirting the edge of the brawl and ducking beneath a volley of crystals as she pulled Amity along with her. Together, they hid inside the alley, panting.
Collecting herself, Amity said, "That was certainly... something. Now, normally going through the back alleys would be a death sentence, but since most of Bonesborough's criminal element is otherwise occupied, it should actually be safer-"
"THERE!" Luz's and Amity's necks immediately swiveled towards the source of the hoarse yell: a ragged witchling covered in chains with an unnatural red glow pulsing behind his eyes. At his side were five pallid, sickly-grey creatures with seven stick-thin limbs, swollen guts that looked ready to burst, and featureless porcelain masks pressed tightly against where their faces should've been with translucent cyan goo leaking around the edges.
Amity paled, looking for all the world like she was about to blow chunks. While the wretched-looking man choked on the froth bubbling from his lips, Amity frantically drew a large circle with a shaky hand, muttering what Luz was pretty sure were Boiling Isles curses under her breath as the spell fell apart. As soon as she completed the circle on her second attempt, an abomination pot fell out of it and broke against the ground at their feet.
Having finally recovered, the witchling stumbled forward and pointed his finger at Luz and Amity. "Get them." The demons lunged at the duo, the stomach-churning cracking sounds that their limbs made a harsh contrast to the uncanny fluidity of their movements.
"Chariot, gallop!" For the first time since they fought Otabin, Luz heard genuine fear in Amity's voice. The four-legged abomination—apparently named Chariot—finished forming and Luz found herself on its back as it stood up. "C'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon," Amity chanted as it began lumbering forward, the grey demons closing in.
A flurry of jagged claws swiped at Luz, ripping open the back of her hoodie before Chariot took off like a rocket down the winding backstreet. The demons' master howled with fury, roaring, " RELEASE RESTRAINT! " as the gap between Chariot and the demons widened.
As if the universe was preempting Luz's instinct to say something about being glad they got away in time, the sound of porcelain shattering with explosive force joined the terrible cracking of the demons, and was soon replaced by hellish screeching that made Luz's eardrums bleed. The clattering clangor of the demons' charge rose to a feverish pitch as they picked up the pace, and Chariot stumbled as it attempted to match their speed.
Luz clung onto Amity as Chariot busted through every obstacle in their path without stopping; the shards of rotten wood and scraps of dirty fabric that whizzed past their heads with enough velocity to break bones leaving their pursuers undeterred. Amity didn't even flinch at Luz's embrace, and yet somehow Luz didn't feel triumphant. "What are those things?!"
"They're drainers." Amity nudged Chariot with her right knee, and the abomination turned on a dime, leaving behind a trail of sludge as it careened down the left fork of the alley. "A single touch, and they eat all of your magic for the rest of the day. And if they get you with their tongues..."
"Tongues?" Luz turned to look at the drainers and immediately regretted her decision. Without the masks, the gaping hole that took up most of their faces was wide open for all to see. It was crammed past capacity with row after impossible row of stained yellow teeth that all spun like a buzzsaw, that blue slobber dribbling out of their gargantuan maws and mixing with Chariot's castoff ooze.
"...you're a goner." To emphasize Amity's point, the drainers picked up a sudden burst of speed, their claws gouging holes in the cobblestone, and a half-dozen cyan tendrils with wicked bone needles at their tips darted from each of their mouths and towards Chariot as they began closing the distance.
At this rate, they'd both get caught by those horrible things , and Luz couldn't let that happen to Amity. Electricity screamed through her nerves, propelling Luz to act . Without sparing any precious seconds for thought, she scooped up a wooden crate and hocked it at the drainers. Their tongues shot straight through the diseased wood, ripping it to shreds without so much as a missed step interrupting their headlong charge towards Chariot.
If Luz had learned any swear words from home or from Eda (the way the witch kept her language disciplined around her apprentice was admirable, really), she would've used them all then and there.
Amity grit her teeth, driving the abomination further, faster, harder. Around corners, into ever-narrower alleys, through abandoned campsites and over stiff demon corpses. Yet no matter how many times they swerved out of view of the drainers, the monsters were back on their tail a moment later. And every time, they were just a little bit closer.
"How are they finding us? I could've sworn we've lost them, like, three times already!" Luz yelled, struggling to make her voice heard over the pandemonium.
"They don't have any eyes, so they use their tongues to sense magic instead." Despite Amity's carefully cultivated calm tone, Luz could hear the fear in her voice. "Our only chance is to... to... I don't know, we just need to keep running!"
If they tracked them by and ate their magic, then maybe, just maybe... Luz fished out a small notebook and a pencil out of her pockets and flipped it open.
Amity boggled at the human, expression caught between puzzled disbelief and rage. "Luz, quit doing whatever you're doing and hold onto m-"
Luz plunged her pencil into the paper like she was piercing the heart of some great beast, her hand wrapped around the entire length of the pencil as she tore a magic circle through dozens of pages and thrust her fingers in the ragged lines of the spell. Golden globes of light burst forth from the disintegrating paper, spinning and swirling and spiraling all around Chariot as the abomination galloped on, illuminating the grimy alleyway with a gentle glow.
Despite how close they were to dying, despite the horrid grinding of the drainers' fangs close behind, despite the terror addling their minds, despite everything... Luz and Amity both couldn't help but marvel at the beauty of the spectacle, Luz's face breaking out into a wide smile and Amity's cheeks flushing with color. Dozens of shadows danced a slow waltz in the light as they passed by, spinning, twirling, dipping, all in the tender light of just as many moons. It felt like looking up at the night sky during Luz's very first night on the Boiling Isles again, seeing the pure beauty in a world that was so alien and terrifying.
It was sublime.
Then Chariot dashed through the cloud of light, scattering Luz's spells in its wake. The two drainers in the lead skidded to a stop, tongues snaking towards the globes of light and greedily gulping them up like an exhausted teenager who bought a Slurpee from the 7-11 at two in the morning and really needed a pick-me-up before the last leg of the long hike home. Grabbing an empty trashcan, Luz hurled it at the distracted demons and crossed her fingers as she watched it fly towards the drainers.
It pitched end over end in slow motion, arcing through the air with excruciating sluggishness... before it landed on the diverted drainer, its mouth closing around its body perfectly. The demon swayed from side to side and bumped into its distrait companion, who turned its attention away from the last of the light spells and rammed into the other drainer, squirming under the trash can to settle the dispute. The trash can began smoking with angry red heat, and-
With a flash of white-hot fire, two of the drainers disappeared, leaving only ashes behind.
"Yes!" Luz pumped her fist, still grinning like a fool.
Looking at her incredulously, Amity asked, "Did you plan that?"
"Nope, not at all. I didn't even know the trash cans here did that, honestly."
"Well, before you start celebrating, I'd like to remind you that we still have three drainers right behind us. Hi-YA!" Amity drove both of her knees deep into Chariot's squishy flesh and the abomination picked up speed. Then it tripped over itself, and the remaining trio of drainers made up for the time they lost to the other two's scuffle and scuttled to almost within tongue range before Chariot picked itself up and continued running.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. "Take us up there." Luz jabbed her finger at the nearest roof, already brewing another harebrained scheme.
Amity scowled. "Does Chariot look like it has wings, you idiot?"
"I don't know, I wasn't the one who made it! Look, I have another idea, but we need to get above the alleys for it to work."
Amity paused, then sighed. "I really hope that you've thought out whatever harebrained scheme you're planning, because this really better be worth it." Leaning down, Amity scritched Chariot roughly where its ears would be if it was a normal animal instead of a magical construct made out of purple goo, and the abomination's ooze flowed around her legs, locking them in place.
Luz cocked her head to the side. "Honestly, I would've expected you to protest if it meant getting your uniform dirty."
"People have layers, Luz. And anyways, avoiding getting my abomination goo on my clothes is a much lower priority than staying alive."
"Fair p- WAUUUGH!" As Chariot began using its sticky limbs to run up the wall, the drainers hot on its heels, Luz realized too late that the abomination had failed to secure her legs as well. She held onto Amity with a vice grip while Chariot raced upwards, legs flailing as Amity clung to Chariot's back in turn. It would've been quite the hilarious scene if their lives hadn't been in danger. Thankfully, the ascent only lasted a scant few seconds, but those few seconds seemed to last a lifetime to Luz.
While Luz clambered back onto her spot atop Chariot, Amity became very conscious of the fact that she had no idea of what to do next. "What now?" she said between heaving breaths. Keeping a human from succumbing to the force of gravity and falling to her doom was a very thorough core workout.
Luz whipped her head back and forth, searching for the perfect- there! "Jump Chariot into that alley!"
"I-"
"Just trust me!"
There was no time for hesitation. Amity steered Chariot where Luz was pointing while the human searched her pockets. The abomination leaped, majestically soaring through the sky, hanging suspended in the air while the light of the sun illuminated the oily sheen of its goo.
Then, just as Luz dug out a large stack of flip notes, one of the drainers' tongues embedded itself in Chariot's underbelly. Then another. Then another. In the blink of an eye, nearly twenty needles of cursed bone had pierced Chariot. The abomination collapsed into piles of mundane muck as the drainers drank all of its magic, leaving Luz and Amity without a cushion as they fell towards the hard earth.
Luz hardly noticed. Holding her breath, she aimed the stack of flip notes down one branch of the alleyway. Then she began flipping through them with her thumb, just like Luz had so many times when she'd been bored in class and needed something to do with her hands. And each time the paper flipped, her thumb brushed against another light spell glyph.
A line of lights shot down the alley, disappearing into the distance. When she was nearly halfway out of ammo, Luz wrenched her body to the other side and fired again, this time into a different branch. Then, as Amity finished her own spell and gravity loosened its hold just in time for the two of them to daintily alight on a pile of trash, Luz began sprinting down the third branch of the alleyway, clutching Amity's hand tight as they ran.
Behind them, the drainers skittered into the intersection, heads whipping back and forth as their tongues attempted to sniff out their prey. One peeled off towards one set of lights. The second did the same. And the third ignored the decoys entirely, storming towards Luz and Amity.
Luz could feel it coming closer. (The horrendous sound of bones cracking may have been a dead giveaway.) It dawned on her that no matter how clever they were, no matter how fast or smart or quick-witted, the drainer would not give up until it had Amity.
At that moment, Luz the scared human disappeared, and Luz the Owl Lady's apprentice took her place.
She stopped in her tracks. Amity blanched, looking behind her as panic bloomed past the determination in her eyes. "Luz, what are you doing, we have to-"
"Listen to me, Amity." Luz let go of Amity's hand and picked up a solid-looking plank of wood. "We can't outrun this thing, not on foot. If we want to get out of this... we'll need to fight it."
Amity stared at Luz as if she was seeing her for the first time. Then, she nodded. "Okay." Amity didn't even bother trying to conceal the tremble in her voice.
Turning to face the drainer careening towards them, Luz stepped in front of Amity, holding the plank of wood like a bat. "I'm a human, so hopefully it eating my magic won't have much of an effect on me. So stay behind me no matter what. Got it?"
"Understood." Amity forcefully calmed her shaking hands.
"Let's-" Before Luz could finish her proclamation of readiness, the demon was on them. Luz unleashed a ferocious battle cry—which sounded more like a terrified scream, but she really needed to hype herself up for this—and swung the plank at the drainer with all of the force she could muster, wind whistling through the hole where its previous user probably drove the nail in.
The drainer sinuously sidestepped the clumsy swipe and lashed out at Luz with three of its four clawed hands, leaving behind hissing trails of venom that seemed to eat away at the space between it and the human. Luz yelped as the claws shredded through the side of her hoodie, raking across her skin and carving out trenches of crimson.
Biting down on her tongue to focus on a pain that wasn't the boiling-hot agony on her side, Luz jumped up and smashed her plank against the drainer's torso. The hit connected, and the crunch that accompanied it was quite distinct compared to the cracking the drainer's limbs made as it scuttled back, hissing.
Luz saw a purple glow envelop her wound out of the corner of her eye, numbing the pain, but she had no time to thank Amity before the demon resumed its assault.
The drainer reared back, bringing five of its claws down on Luz as it shrieked with triumph. She raised the plank to protect herself and screwed her eyes shut. Miraculously, it held (behind Luz, sweat dripped off of Amity's brow as she struggled to hold the enchantment she'd put on the wood while the drainer's venom gobbled the magic up), but Luz was forced down onto one knee from the force of the blow.
Then the other.
Then the drainer thrust its maw forward, the machine-like whir of its fangs deafening to Luz's ears, and its spinning rows of teeth proved a more effective woodchipper than anything in the human world or the demon realm.
Rather than scrambling away as her weapon and sole defense was reduced to mulch, Luz dove forward, tackling the drainer with desperate strength. It crumpled like origami made by a second-grader, proving surprising light and frail for the power it exhibited in nearly killing Luz and Amity a dozen times over. Luz drove her fist into its torso again and again and again and again , paying no heed to the drainer's thrashing claws.
"Give me a clear shot so I can end this!" Amity yelled as she twisted her wrists, creating ten small circles with each of her fingers. Since she was completely out of breath and running on nothing but adrenaline and panic, Luz couldn't reply, but still rolled over onto her back, reversing her grip on the demon—and leaving the drainer exposed to Amity's magic.
Amity thrust her hands forward, and a dart of purple magic erupted from each of the circles, drilling into the demon's skin and leaving behind sizzling scorchmarks, and the drainer's screech of pain rose above the ever-present buzz of its mouth and the cracking of its limbs.
Luz was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, they'd win, when the drainer tossed her aside like a ragdoll and pivoted towards Amity.
Frenzied by her magic, the demon's tongues launched towards Amity in perfect unison.
Time crawled.
Luz reached out
and
grabbed
the
tendrils
.
Pulling herself to her feet, Luz yanked the drainer forward by its six tongues, pulling it off balance, then used all of her weight to slam the drainer into a wall, paying no mind to the burrs digging into her palms, leaving behind wounds that would become irreversible scars. She turned, shoulder popping, and smashed the drainer against the other wall. All six of its tongues were ripped out of its maw with a wet squelch, and it fell to the ground, still.
Luz followed it a moment later.
The last thing she heard was Amity calling her name.