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Strike Out! Chapter 8
Luz Noceda was a lot of things. Human, Witch-in-training, friend, AMV artist, connoisseur of YA fantasy novels, Writer, Girlfriend(😳), and proud Weirdo. Something Luz thought she wasn't, however, was a Protagonist. Sure when she first got here It was just like an Isekai, but to the land of her favorite books. if you ignored all the flesh and hideous monstrosities. But the hideous monstrosities were so cute!
Where was she? Right, Protagonist. After traveling back in time to meet the only other known human to have ever visited the boiling isles(only to find he was glory hogging jerk that used people as meat shields), another human had walked into her life.
Aster Moore. A baby faced Enby with shoulder length brown hair, big circular glasses, and a fondness for emerald green. Granted with the mysterious power to travel between realms, Luz thought she had found a way home, only for a bigger secret to shatter her expectations, and worldview.
Aster's power let them travel to seemingly any world. Like those multiverse stories that were starting to get exhausting. Not everything has to be a crossover, dude. But crossover Aster's power was. And then she was handed a Blu-ray box set of her adventures as a cartoon.
Luz had always loved fiction. She lost herself in books, Anime, and video games. They were larger than life, a more colorful way of existing, so she emulated them. She dreamed of being a witch, of the wonders of magic. Learning about people was discussing backstories. Seeing someone own up to a mistake was character development. And anything could be an Adventure.
When she first found a portal to another world, and apprenticed under the greatest witch in the boiling isles, she had made the mistake of thinking herself the protagonist, the hero. Magic wasn't happening fast enough, Adventure wasn't finding her. It was just fantasy flavored mundanity.
So, she fell for a conman wizard who offered her a proper fantasy quest. It had all been correct. Exactly what her animes had prepared her for. But it was a trap. She was going to be eaten. And she learned her lesson.
At least she thought she did. But staring at herself illustrated on a Blu-ray case, cast in dramatic lighting and wielding magic, was she actually a protagonist? Aster claimed not, and that infinite worlds meant eventually one would match up from fiction from their home. That their power somehow used that to target destinations because that's where they subconsciously wanted to go.
But what if they were wrong? What if her world operated on narrative rules? What if the 'lesson' she learned that day was for an audience? She went to a magic school, she was fighting under the rule of an evil emperor. She was apprenticed to the greatest witch in the boiling isles. She had discovered a new form of magic that humans could cast, and made it her own. Her own superpower.
What if her grand adventure was one big story? That some starry eyed kid was watching her like she had read her Good Witch Azura books? Was there fanfiction about her? Was her every decision the act of a god with a pen, writing out her actions in a script to be animated?
Of course the "does free will exist" Existential Crisis could only spiral for so long. Either she had free will and everything was A-OK, or she didn't and couldn't tell the difference anyway, and couldn't do anything about it if she could, because y'know, no free will.
That still left so many questions though. And while Luz was starting to get a grip on it, her imagination ran wild, bouncing around ideas and theories like a triple ball pinball machine bonus level.
What if-
"LUZ! DON'T PUT YOUR LUNCH IN T-" the shout of Gus, one of her dear friends, rang out, and was cut abruptly, when the mawed face of her locker swallowed her brown bagged lunch and hungered for more. For flesh.
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"How's it going?" King asked, trying to look over my shoulder as I worked on my laptop.
"Good. I'm working on the key players right now. Belos, the Coven heads, Allies, all that. Once that's done I'll work on the sequence of events that happened originally in the show from this point forward." I said, swapping around to different notes that contained copied wiki information.
"If you need help sprucing it up, I am a famous author" King said.
"You're half a famous author. Luz is the other. Besides this doesn't need to be polished, I just need to get everyone on the same page."
I pinched the bridge of my nose and moved to a different document. It was the page of Glyph magic. For a brief moment I panicked when I saw the glyph example images, worried they'd activate, before remembering you had to tap them.
"Ooh are those glyphs? Got any secret combos or new glyphs in there?"
"Uh, nothing too important. I think I've got a combo for invisibility Luz hasn't invented yet, but that's about it." I sighed and leaned back into the couch. "I need a break though."
"Incorrect!" King objects, "She's had that one for like, a month."
Huh, guess that's why I have the wiki.
I noticed some paper and a pen left on the coffee table and decided to indulge in some whimsy. I couldn't take it with me because glyph magic only worked in range of the titan, but it was still magic.
So I carefully copied the light glyph from my laptop. Hesitating for a second, I tapped the piece of paper, and it crumpled up and disintegrated, forming a ball of warm yellow-white light.
"Woah." I said.
"Cool, isn't it?" Eda said, walking in with a mug and a book under her arm.
"Yeah..." I said, reaching out to the light. It moved when I touched it, even though I felt no resistance. I had seen Luz do something in the show, so I copied the motion, cupping my hands under the orb of light, and raised it up, pushing it to go higher, and it floated to settle a little bit below the ceiling.
"It's weird, coming from Witch magic," Eda said, sitting down on the couch beside me, "It takes a lot of work to make a new spell, but as soon as you've got it, anyone can copy it and use it like that!"
Eda snapped her fingers for emphasis.
"Feels a bit like cheating" I said absentmindedly.
"If you aren't cheating you aren't winning," Eda pointed out, taking a swig from her mug.
I shrugged, considering which glyph to draw next. The other basic glyphs were a bit too destructive for indoor testing, so I selected the Invisibility glyph combo and started tracing drawing it.
"Hey, can you take me to, what did you call it, Earth prime?" Eda asked, "I got some quality junk from The Heist, but not enough for a decent inventory at the market."
"Yeah, but I can't babysit you. We'll decide on a time and a place, and I'll Strike In to take you back with your spoils." I said, before thinking a bit. "Only some ground rules: no magic, no harpy Eda, and only trash. I don't want you getting in trouble or drawing attention to yourself because someone recorded you flying over the city and posted it to Instagram."
"You have Penstigram in the human realm?"
"Instagram, but yeah it's mostly the same functionally, runs on phones."
"That's so stupid! Your own off-brand, legally distinct Penstigram" King supplied, chuckling.
I did not know how to respond to that, so without further Ado I got ready to head back to Earth... fuck it, I didn't have anything better, Earth Prime it was.
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Amity Ran up to the stall Luz was manning, and she instantly forgot whatever that bully Boscha was saying. "LUZ!" She shouted, before panting, out of breath. "I heard that-"
Amity was cut off by her need for oxygen, and panted a few more times. Luz Instantly grew exited. The tone of her girlfriend(that's right, girlfriend), was the happy sort of exited that could only mean good things. It was sadly rare to see with her, but had been getting more frequent over the time the two of them knew each other.
Luz glanced at the Azura book club stall she had set up. Maybe this would get her mind off the existential nightmare that was her increasingly complicated relationship to fiction?
"What is it what is it what is it?!" Luz beamed, hopping the booth to grab Amity's hands.
"The author of Azura is having a signing this afternoon at the book nook!" Amity finally managed, having apparently caught her breath.
Luz's thoughts came to a screeching halt. She froze. Aster's face flashed through her mind as well as her own, illustrated on a Blu-ray box.
"Luz?" Amity asked, a wavering concern on her voice, "Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost? My family knows a good exorcist."
Luz tried to compile her thoughts into something coherent. The possibilities flashed through her mind, and without thinking, she posited them out loud.
"That doesn't make any sense, the author is human." Luz said, "Unless she's not. Or she is but not from here. Another world? Parallel dimension? Time travel??? IS AZURA NONFICTION!?!?"
"Woah, slow down," Amity said pulling off the hands that Luz just realized she had been using to shake her girlfriend(Still loving that. Still loving her).
"Get off me!" Boscha said, pushing Amity and Luz apart, and away from herself. Oh right, she was still here.
"The author is a witch though." Amity continued "...probably not those other things you said. I mean, how the heck do you think I got my books?"
A universe hopper writing them as a cosmic prank the intrusive thought whispered to Luz. She shoved it down with her craving to eat an entire stick of butter and the ever-increasing urge to carve fire glyphs into the school desks during long classes.
"I dunno!" Luz laughed, "But I got mine from earth. The human realm. That earth. Specifically."
"Hey, I'm still here!" Boscha said. Luz ignored her.
"Regardless of any other theories," Amity said, eyeing Luz with that fond gaze she had when Luz was being particularly goofy, "Look at this, this has to mean one thing!"
Amity had taken one Of Luz's copies sometime during the discussion. Maybe when Luz was grappling with existential terror? Regardless the back of the books held identical author's portraits, with the sole distinction being round ears on one, and pointed ears on another.
the author could travel between realms. That was the thought that Amity wanted Luz to finish, she knew it. But would that make the author like Aster? Would that make Mildred Featherwhyle dangerous? But... Aster would know about that right? it would be on the wiki, wouldn't it?
"Luz? you don't seem nearly as exited about this mystery as I thought you would be, and I thought you'd already be over the moon for the signing itself."
"It's fine!" Luz said, "It's just... If she can travel between realms... what if she's dangerous? It takes titan's blood to make a gateway, right? and she's been hiding out all this time!"
"She's been selling books. She's signing them in literally thirty minutes" Amity deadpanned.
"okay, okay." Luz said, sighing. "sorry, I have a lot on my mind. You're right we should go investigate, but there's something I need to catch you up on, at least partially. and boy is it a doozy."
Boscha said something else, but Luz already took amity's hand and started leading her in the direction of Bonesburrow.
Barry!(on Eda watch 🦉)
@BarrowTrauma.bsky.socialÂ
So. we have another spotting of that Eda cosplayer. A friend sent me a picture of her with that same burlap sack... rooting around in the trash? at least it's in character. Stay tuned for more. I guess. is this what I'm doing with my life now? [EdaAgainstTrash.png]
This has nothing to do with the identity thief, Daniel tried to tell himself. But there was something in his gut saying otherwise. That the owl house box set the thief had checked out of the library was somehow important.
He sighed as the elevator dinged open, and he stowed his phone in his pocket. Walking through the halls of his apartment complex he made his way to the home me and Aster had made.
With the click of the lock and the creek of the door hinges he entered their home. "Aster, I'm back!"
"Heya bunny!" Aster shouted back from the living room, where they appeared to be playing the Assassin's creed game set in Egypt. "Can you believe this? The big city in this game and its like, four city blocks. It's smaller than the biggest city in Skyrim. I mean, I knew this game sucked from reviews, at least compared to every decent AC game before it, but c'mon!"
"The library of Alexandria is actually fairly accurate to the time period though," Daniel said, putting his coat on a hook by the door and setting his bag down on the kitchen table, before moving to the living room.
"I remember watching a video about the historical accuracy in the game. its fairly good, all things considered." he continued. "When you think of the library of Alexandria, it brings up images of the huge libraries we have today, but back then there just wasn't that much written word. The collection was impressive, don't get me wrong, but papyrus and parchment paper were expensive."
"Ughhhhh, come on Daniel, you gotta agree with me, get outraged on my behalf!" Aster said throwing back their head and tossing their controller to the side. "What good is a boyfriend if he can't go 'They asked for pickles!' to the mean, mean, fast food employee?"
"You're right Hun, I'll draft a letter to Ubisoft right now. Would you like your list of grievances in chronological or alphabetical order?" Daniel snarked, leaning down to give his partner a hug before splaying out on the couch, over Aster's lap.
"Hmm," Aster rubbed their chin, "Order it by how much I'm going to sue for each grievance, methinks. How was work? You're home awful early."
"Work was fine," Daniel said, "I was let off early because finished setting up the new Game of Thrones exhibit."
"UGHHHHHH" Aster groaned in annoyance.
"I know," Daniel said, "but it's the Museum of Pop Culture, not good culture."
"Sometimes your job sounds like a quip from the Big Bang Theory made manifest. A curse upon our reality" Aster sighed, absentmindedly running their fingers through Daniel's hair.
"I've certainly taken my fair share of psychic damage from some of the exhibits" Daniel said, closing his eyes to enjoy the feel of his partner. "You finished with changing out all your personal info? The List finished?"
"Yep." Aster said. "Even called my dad, in case he gets targeted."
"Wow," Daniel said, genuinely impressed. Aster hated their dad.
"Yeah. But I feel better with all it's done. Still kind of panicky, but I talked with some of the LGFC crew, and they calmed me down"
"Did Clambert come in clutch?"
"Always."
Then they just let themselves be together. Daniel resting, eyes closed as Aster played with the volume lowered. Just a moment of quiet. No demands, no expectations, just being in each other's presence. A quiet little moment of life that made it worth living.
"YOU'VE GOT MAIL" Aster's phone announced in bit crunched AOL mockery. Daniel flinched.
"Shit, sorry," Aster said, furiously fiddling with their phone. "Thought I turned the volume on that down."
"I still don't know why you set that as your email notification sound" Daniel sighed, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "You can't claim nostalgia, You told me yourself that your family computer always had the speakers off."
"I just think it's funny" Aster shrugged. "Huh, Devon emailed me. Wait, I think he emailed you and CC'ed me? Whatever, same thing."
"Oh what fresh hell is it now?" Daniel asked, taking a breath.
Devon was... Kind of an idiot. In Daniel's estimation at least. The guy took a picture of the Identity thief, then called Daniel, Then unilaterally decided to go back out and hand his phone to them. The guy just seemed to... do things he thought would be helpful without ever asking or caring. Like he was going through the motions of helping without understanding why helping was a good thing.
"He said he didn't find the VHS you were looking for, but did google it, and. Huh. A YouTube link to the page of a channel called Jonah_Whit." Aster grew silent.
Daniel leaned over, putting a hand on their shoulder. On aster's phone was a YouTube channel, filled with clickbait thumbnails. Almost all of them staring her.
"What the hell?" Daniel whispered.
That hadn't been there the last time he had googled the topic, when he was back in school working on his media history courser. Acting more on instinct than anything Daniel picked up the remote, switching the input. Aster caught on and set their phone to stream to the TV, and they played the first video.
The screen darkened, then filled with the words 'I FOUND SOMETHING'.
"Done." I said, closing the laptop.
"Finally," King said, exasperated, "Now will you play with me? King is bored!"
I chuckled. "I forgot how young you actually are, bud. Wanna go blow stuff up with fire glyphs?"
"WOO!" King said, pumping his tiny little arms, "Luz never lets me play that game!"
I was sure that was fine.
Probably.
I took an empty notepad and pencil from one of the piles of junk in the living room. Soon enough we were in the clearing outside The owl house exploding things.
A fireball exploded into an ice pillar, showering chunks of ice and melted drops of water everywhere.
"WOOHOO!" All three of us exclaimed.
Yeah, three, Hooty was here too. I did the best to act diplomatically, or at least with no more annoyance than King showed the owl-tube-thing. We even came up with a system. King would draw glyphs on the notepad for me to fire, and any time an ice pillar would break, Hooty would carve a new ice glyph into the dirt with his face(That process was mildly disturbing).
"Huh I think these aren't just fire and forget" I said to the paper dissolving into ash in my hand. "I think there's some like, intentionality here. The fireballs don't exactly aim the direction the glyph is pointing, more they aim where I'm aiming when I set them off."
"What's the difference?" King asked, furiously scribbling a new glyph for me. Hooty's body undulated behind him, but I didn't pay it any mind.
"Hmm." I thought about how to clarify. "You'd think that a spell performed the same way by two different witches would be similar, yeah?"
"That makes sense." King said, ripping off the next glyph and handing it to me.
"Well if the glyphs are spells, and you draw them the same way every time, shouldn't that mean they act the same whenever they're activated?"
"Huh." King said, putting a claw to his chin.
"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" Hooty yelled, voice deploring as he swung around, nearly hitting me.
"HEY!" I yelled, as the bird-tube just laughed and dragged himself across the ground, ignoring me. I sighed, before continuing explaining my thoughts about glyphs to king, "But Luz used them in kinds of ways. The same plants don't always come out of the basic plant glyph. She can form ice pillars and ice spikes with the ice rune, and In one episode she used the fire rune like a rocket."
"What's a rocket?" King asked.
"Well-" I stopped myself, I didn't want to sit here all day explaining aerospace technology. "What if I just show you, I should be able to just..."
I pointed the glyph at the ice pillar, but instead of a fireball, I imagined a flamethrower. Then I pressed my thumb against the circle on the paper, and sure enough, A line of fire tore from the glyph to the ice pillar in front of us. I smiled and swung the beam across the width of the pillar, cutting it cleanly in two.
"So imagine that, but so much fire It actually pushes you backwards with all the force it generates" I said, smiling.
"NEW PILLAR TIME! CHECK OUT HOW BIG THIS ONE IS!" Hooty said.
I looked around, wasn't he just goofing off? Then I noticed the long furrow cut into the ground. Putting the pieces together I tried to see the whole shape of it. But by the time I realized that Hooty had made a massive glyph out of the entirety of the clearing, he was already leaning into the center to activate it.
"Hey, uh, are we on the inside of Hooty's super glyph?" King asked, nervous. I glanced at him.
"HOOTY NO!"
"HOOTY STOP IT STOOOP!!"
"PLEASE PLEASE IM SORRY I DIDNT PAY ATTENTION-"
"I'LL GIVE YOU A MOUSE, NO, A HUNDRED MICE, JUST-"
Our protest fell on deaf... did Hooty have ears? I didn't get to contemplate it because the whole clearing started glowing blue-white as the glyph activated. I was suddenly pushed to the ground as it exploded upward, becoming an express ice elevator.
King and I both screamed. He somehow managed to make it over to me and was hugging me like his life depended on it. Stray sparks of green electricity arced off my body as my power registered how close a source of realm traveling god power was.
Then the pillar finally stopped, having finished growing. King and I, however, did not. Carried by the momentum of being accelerated by what had to be several G's over the course of ten or so seconds we shot into the sky like the rocket I had failed to adequately describe to King.
I saw the boiling isles, the titan, laid out below me. It's impossible to really describe what a giant the size of Vermont actually looks like. The sheer scale of it just kind of breaks the brain. It was easier to believe it was a landmass in the shape of a giant. But that illusion was shattered when you could clearly see the bones that formed the creature poke out between patches of earth that were once rotted flesh.
For the first time, something truly and utterly impossible enraptured my mind. The sky was different, but it still had stars. Glyphs were cool, but fire, ice, plants, and light existed in nature. The shape and composition of alien life that played along the titan was easy enough to compare to earth life at a distance.
But all together? All below me on a shining gem of a planet? My brain finally caught up with the rest of me and a bone deep realization of this was not home radiated through me.
And then we began to fall back down.
If we hit even the top of that ice pillar we were toast, let alone anywhere else on the actual ground. Hooty was too far below to catch us, Eda was in the human realm, along with her staff. Luz was at school. And I had never bothered to copy down one of her Feather-Fall Glyphs.
My mind raced, cleared by the certainty of the threat rather than the imagined ones of anxiety. Lions were fast approaching, and my monkey brain was finally working at the speed to keep up.
Something Important came to mind from when we were testing my powers. Momentum didn't transfer between Strikes. I glanced at the electricity arcing across me. It'd be a gamble with King. I didn't know what would happen. But If I didn't, we were dead for sure.
The top of the pillar was approaching, fast. I made my decision, hugged King tightly, and pulled at the glowing star in my head that I knew the best.
*CRACKA-THOOOOM*
"So you actually met another human that can travel between realms?" Amity asked, voice full of hope.
"Kinda-sorta," Luz said, scrunching up her face and rocking her hand back and forth. "It's complicated. They travel through parallel universes, but its some kind of... innate power they can't control well. Once they've been somewhere they can return, but aiming seems to be really hard for them, so we don't know if they can actually travel to my human realm."
"Oh, Parallel universes like the spell in book five that trapped Hecate in a version of the world where she was never born?" Amity asked.
"Yessss, but also no. It's complicated. The full explanation is more of a 'you might want to sit down for this' kinda conversation. It's wild."
"So that's why you were weird about the book signing," Amity mused, "You had just met another human, but one that wasn't from your world. Wow, I have so many questions."
"You can ask them tonight, Aster's doing a presentation for everyone in The owl house."
"Are you sure it's ok If I-"
Amity stopped walking. Luz stopped behind her and followed her gaze to a standee with a poster for the signing on it, right outside the book nook. A large 'CANCELED' sticker was haphazardly slapped across it diagonally.
"Oh. Ok." Luz said emotionlessly.
"Luz, Look!" Amity pointed towards a figure with the distinctive red hair and hood of Mildred Featherwhyle. At her shout, the figure started running, "After her!"
The two of them took off after the fleeing figure.
The first thing I hear is the crackling of fire. Then I smelled the smoke and an instinct deep in the bones from the time my dad set the groceries on fire while I was napping(It's a long story) kicked in, and I was on my feet in an instant. The surrounding forest was decimated, trees around me in circle all flash-burned black and/or on fire.
As I whipped my head around looking for king I was met with a wall of ice. I instinctively took a step back. And then another until I could make out the shape of the thing. It was a half sphere of ice, almost like-no, exactly like someone scooped a chunk of that massive ice pillar and took it with us.
"Aster!" King yelled, and I saw him peaking over from the other side of the chunk of ice.
I let out a sigh of relief and ran over to him. He jumped up and hug-tackled me, holding on tight.
"Where are we!? Why are the trees green!?" King asked directly into my ear.
"First, ow, I'm right next to ya, bud, lower the volume." I said, patting Kings.... skull? Whatever, I kept patting the skull-head, "Second, I Struck us out of there when it looked like we would hit that Ice Pillar hard. This Is a Forest in Earth Prime, a parallel version of Luz's home."
"It looks like one of Eda's 'party spells' went off too early, what happened?"
"I-" My mouth moved before I realized I had no answer, "I have no idea. Clearly we took a chunk of the pillar with us, but I shouldn't be able to move that much matter, and I can't move part of a contagious mass. The damage looks like it was done by a lightning strike... but I couldn't have been mine, unless."
I pulled king away from me and looked at him. I felt the power in his blood, but it was much more subdued in this world. Was that because I leached it off of him, or because there weren't 'realms' here like the demon and human realms of The Owl House?
"Why are you looking at me like that?" King asked, scared.
"Sorry, sorry," I set him down and crouched so I was on his level. Wait wasn't there a meme that said this is the exact thing I shouldn't do when talking to short people? I told that part of my brain to shut up and righted my train of thought. "It's your power, I think that my power had some kind of... reaction to it."
"Why would my power to scream real good have anything to your power to travel between worlds?"
"I'll tell you at the presentation tonight, It's something we have to go over anyway and this isn't the best place" I said, standing up, "do you still have the notepad?"
"No, I dropped It, I think"
I felt the urge to anime 'tsk' and instead looked around for a particularly blackened twig. Making sure it wasn't still hot, I picked it up and walked over to the chunk of ice.
I tried drawing on it, but smudged immediately. That wasn't going to work.
"What are you doing?" King asked.
"A lightning strike might explain what happened to the trees around here, but a house sized chunk of ice in Cincinnati, in August? That's unneeded attention, something impossible for humans to pull off. So I'm gonna draw a fire rune on this thing and melt it." I explained.
Giving it a bit more thought I pulled off a shoe and then a white sock. I pulled it over my hand and spread my palm out flat. It took some time, but I was able to inscribe the fire glyph onto the sock. Not the best solution, but I was working off of adrenaline and fear of the cops, so It was a miracle I could think of a solution at all.
Then focusing on a more of a blowtorch than a flamethrower, I tapped the glyph activating a steady stream of small flames. Using my ensocked hand, I carefully carved a large circle into the ice, before filling in the details.
The fire glyph can be used to set things on fire. It can be used to melt metal. And the power of any glyph increases in proportion to its size. Once I had finished carving the giant fire glyph the center of my sock disintegrated into ash and I stuffed the remains in my pocket.
Focusing on melting the ice, I poured all my mental energy into the image of it. Then I slammed both my hands against the Glyph. A flash of red-white light and the entire chuck of ice briefly caught fire before the heat pulled its way inside and the whole thing melted at once, causing a small wave to wash over King and myself.
"Come on, we need to get out of here" I said turning around and walking for the treeline.
"We can just zap back, you know"
"Technically yes, but if I came back to this world, I'd end up right here. And anyone investigating the giant lighting strike that caused a small forest fire(god I hope it stays small) will see me teleporting, and I'll get in trouble. So we gotta get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible."
"Oh! Why didn't you say so, Eda taught me all about crime." King said. I didn't know if I should feel proud of the kid or not.
I also realized we needed to meet up with Eda, since our meeting place was exploded/on fire. I checked my watch, still half an hour to our scheduled meeting. I should have been able to catch her on her way back then.
"Keep an eye out for Eda, she should be headed this way, if she's on time."
"Ha! Eda being on time, that's funny."
I clenched my jaw, but said nothing. He was right. I couldn't rely on Eda being timely. Was there any way to get in contact with her?
"How do those crow phones work?" I asked.
"Those what now?" King asked confused.
"Those black birds that you can use to talk to other people over a distance?"
"Oh! You mean Telecrownes! Yeah, you just have to either flag one down or have a personal one at home or something, then enter someone's number, and the nearest free Telecrow will fly to them!"
Oh, that would make this so much easier.
Luz didn't really have a chase sequence in her, she had enough on her mind and wanted this mystery solved now. So, She took charge.
"Amity! Get on your staff and cut her off, I'll harass her from the back with glyphs, and we'll pincer her!" Luz said.
Amity Grinned and summoned her staff, before flying off. Luz started off throwing fireballs wide, she didn't want to hurt Mildred, but this was just to keep her attention.
As soon as the figure saw Amity cut her off, she hesitated for long enough that Luz slammed down two plant glyphs. She grew vines that burrowed through the ground ahead of her only to sprout out of the ground around the figure. The figure sidestepped the vines and started running parallel to Amity and Luz's pincer maneuver. Only to get caught by one of the two Abomination hands Amity had cast on either side while the figure was distracted.
The figure's robe fell off, along with the clunk of two stilts falling off her feet. Who was revealed was... That girl that was mostly a face with a huge nose Luz had met once or twice?
"Whelp," She said, "I had a good wun"
Luz forgot about the speech quirk the girl had of pronouncing her Rs as Ws.
"Tinella Nosa!?" Amity exclaimed.
"She's had a name this-" Luz's mouth moved before she could think. Normally this kind of quip would be something she leaned into, but... "Sorry, Of course you have a name. Stupid Luz, Stupid!"
"Luz..." Amity said, walking over and putting her hands on Luz "You're not stupid. What's wrong?"
"It's okay, I don't mind weally" Tinella said.
"I put Tinella in the back of my mind as a background character!" Luz, said, distraught.
"So?" Amity replied, confused, "You call gossip 'backstories' and history class 'lore'. It's cute!"
"But this is real life." Luz said, not sure if that was even true.
"Yeah, of course it is. You've always known it is. You use fiction as a lens to see the world, as a way to make life an adventure. It's something I love about you."
"Awe we gonna do the pawt wewe I tell you about the diabolical scheme I'm a pawt of?" Tinella asked.
"We're having a moment, Tinella" Amity said softly, before gagging the living nose with more abomination sludge.
"Is it really okay to treat people like that? What If I stop thinking of them as people?" Luz asked.
"Its..." Amity paused, thinking, "Like a joke. You're in on it, everyone else knows its joke, but that doesn't mean you're gonna start punching down just because you make a lot of jokes. You're really kind, Luz, and some of that comes from you're love of fiction. The amount of times I've seen you quote Azura when you stand up to bullies, or lend a helping hand is more than I can count. Titan's sake, you challenged me to a witch's duel to call me out on being a jerk and risked everything to prove me wrong. Was that hasty? Yeah, but it was kind, and brave. You live up to the examples of heroism and kindness that touch your heart, and that's beautiful."
Luz was crying, she realized. She didn't have all the answers about the nature of reality... but maybe that was okay. If she was a better person for reading a few books, then other people might be better people for watching some cartoons. Her life might be like a story, but the love was real, the good was real, and the people were real because she cared about them and they cared about her.
She leaned in to hug Amity. "thank you."
I slammed the door to the Owl House open, ignoring Hooty's cries of pain. King followed close behind me, then Eda, with that improbably large burlap sack. We were all filthy. Mud and ash coated King and I, while Eda was covered in trash, looking much happier than either of us.
"Okay, who gets to use the shower first?" I asked, exhausted.
"Pass," Eda said, rummaging around in her bag of trash.
King and I played rock paper scissors for it. I lost. Though I wasn't sure if he had thrown paper or scissors, given he only had three fingers. Whatever, the kid deserved it.
I leaned against a wall to wait, unwilling to spread my filth to the couch.
A couple of minutes later Luz, Amity, Gus, and Willow entered. I raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything.
"What the heck happened outside?" Luz asked, probably referring to the hundred meter tall pillar of ice that was slowly melting.
"Yeah, we could see it all the way in Bonesburrow!" Gus said, spreading his arms wide.
"It looks like there was a... bite, taken out of it?" Willow wondered.
"Hooty 'helped' when I was practicing with glyphs" I said.
A chorus of 'yeah's, nods, and other affirmatory noises came from the teens.
"Is it cool if Amity, Gus, and Willow also sit in for the presentation?" Luz asked.
"Sure, whatever, you're responsible for any existential crisis they experience though" I grunted. Sighing, I turned to Eda "Want to invite Lilith?"
"Nah, she'd probably stop it every five seconds to ask for a different question, I can fill her in later" Eda said, eyeing a bent trumpet from her bag.
"Okay, can someone handle food?" I asked, "I'm dead on my feet and in the shower as soon as King finishes"
The teens took dinner duty, and I closed my eyes to rest for a bit until the shower was free.
"THIS IS- THIS IS A MOCKERY!" Daniel yelled, throwing the remote into an armchair.
"Daniel? Daniel, chill" Aster said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"But-" Daniel cut himself off and breathed. "They took the show and made it into some creepypasta shit!"
They had stopped after the first video. Daniel was upset, and while Aster could Kinda understand it, given they had seen the show as a kid too, the severity of the reaction caught them off guard. Daniel was almost never this mad.
"It was a cheap-ass Christian cartoon from the 90s," Aster said, "I know you have some fond memories of it, I do too, and Legally I'm not sure where this lands, but ethically? I think it's fine. Why are you this angry?"
Daniel walked over to the chair where he chucked the remote and picked it up before sitting down there, sighing.
"Ok, we're going to have to revisit my Traumatic Backstory for this," He said, "So I told you how I was an angry, mean kid, right?"
Aster nodded.
"Well I was bully. Not one of those 'misunderstood' types, or a bully lashing out because they were abused elsewhere. My parents loved me, in their eyes I could do no wrong. So when I acted up at school they didn't punish me, and I started having fun bullying other kids. I'd get mad at some tiny inconvenience, or some kid I thought was being annoying, and I'd pick on them, maybe rough them up a bit.
"I was happy like that. Felt like I was on top of the world. This isn't a sob story, not for me at least, everyone around me, maybe. But then one day that show came on. The memories are fuzzy, it's been a long time. But it was... special. I got obsessed with that angel, Gabriel. I made her into an imaginary friend. And she became my conscience. Maybe it was some hidden guilt I had manifesting or whatever, but between the lessons in the show and my imaginary friend Gabby pointed out why what I was doing was wrong and how it was hurting me in the long term.
"How all my friendships were shallow hangers-on, how everyone was scared of me, How not caring distanced myself from everything but my anger. She helped me make real friends, make amends to the people I hurt, and come clean to my parents that, yes, I actually did do all those things they got calls from the school about but didn't believe.
"After that I paid attention in church. I watched veggie tales, I took my faith seriously, trying to glean more insights from the Big Book on how I could be better like my guardian angel showed me I could. Of course, I came out to my parents as gay when I was a teen and then, well, The Horrors. I don't practice anymore because of how hostile the faith is to me, and I don't really believe in God anymore, but I still think in principle the faith is good. It was good to me. It's just the right wing fascists twisting it. I guess that's kind of Christianity in a nutshell, huh? Powerful people twisting the church to their own ends.
"Point is: The show changed my life. I'd be dead in a ditch from picking fights if an angel didn't teach me how kindness could benefit myself as much as others."
The two of them sat in silence for a while, Aster processing Daniel's story. It was achingly familiar. Not the specifics, but the broad strokes felt mirrored with Aster's own experience.
"I also had a Gabriel Imaginary friend" Aster said, "You've never really seen it because masking is almost automatic for me now, but I'm extremely autistic. My parents basically lobbied my school to give me accommodations once I was diagnosed. They talked to individual teachers, Sat with me during homework, and sent me to vocational rehab.
"But nothing helped more than the show. The way it framed lessons... It was direct, to the point, and it explained everything. It was a user's manual to how to act, and why to act. No 'just because', or 'Because I said so' or 'this is how the world works'. No, I learned the reasons behind why I should act, how to convey my emotions, how to understand what other people meant when they said stuff. I had a little angelic user's guide to neurotypicals in my head, and that smoothed over a lot of my life, honestly. Didn't help with the meltdown in seventh grade, but hey, I underestimated how 'high functioning' I was until it was too late, but you know that story."
"Huh." Daniel said, stunned.
"Is it weird we both had angelic conscience Imaginary friends from the same show?"
"I mean, maybe?" Daniel shrugged.
"I want to continue watching," aster said, gesturing to the paused TV, "this had a good hook. Will you be okay or do you want me to just watch it on my phone?"
"I-" Daniel paused to actually think about it. "I think I need some rest, actually. I'll be in the bedroom listening to music, you should be fine, I doubt the tv soundbar can penetrate through the wall and those sound canceling headphones you got me."
"'Kay, Have a nice rest, love you!" Aster gave Daniel a quick hug before he shuffled off to the bedroom.
Sitting back down Aster picked up the remote, paused, then turned the volume down before hitting play again.
A few text slides mentioning looking for more information on the show flashed by as background music picked up, the percussion hitting when a zoomed in logo of the show was put on screen:
'Angel Hare
She's your guardian Angel!
KP publishing'
Luz Noceda was a lot of things. Human, Witch-in-training, friend, AMV artist, connoisseur of YA fantasy novels, Writer, Girlfriend(😳), and proud Weirdo. Something Luz thought she wasn't, however, was a Protagonist. Sure when she first got here It was just like an Isekai, but to the land of her favorite books. if you ignored all the flesh and hideous monstrosities. But the hideous monstrosities were so cute!
Where was she? Right, Protagonist. After traveling back in time to meet the only other known human to have ever visited the boiling isles(only to find he was glory hogging jerk that used people as meat shields), another human had walked into her life.
Aster Moore. A baby faced Enby with shoulder length brown hair, big circular glasses, and a fondness for emerald green. Granted with the mysterious power to travel between realms, Luz thought she had found a way home, only for a bigger secret to shatter her expectations, and worldview.
Aster's power let them travel to seemingly any world. Like those multiverse stories that were starting to get exhausting. Not everything has to be a crossover, dude. But crossover Aster's power was. And then she was handed a Blu-ray box set of her adventures as a cartoon.
Luz had always loved fiction. She lost herself in books, Anime, and video games. They were larger than life, a more colorful way of existing, so she emulated them. She dreamed of being a witch, of the wonders of magic. Learning about people was discussing backstories. Seeing someone own up to a mistake was character development. And anything could be an Adventure.
When she first found a portal to another world, and apprenticed under the greatest witch in the boiling isles, she had made the mistake of thinking herself the protagonist, the hero. Magic wasn't happening fast enough, Adventure wasn't finding her. It was just fantasy flavored mundanity.
So, she fell for a conman wizard who offered her a proper fantasy quest. It had all been correct. Exactly what her animes had prepared her for. But it was a trap. She was going to be eaten. And she learned her lesson.
At least she thought she did. But staring at herself illustrated on a Blu-ray case, cast in dramatic lighting and wielding magic, was she actually a protagonist? Aster claimed not, and that infinite worlds meant eventually one would match up from fiction from their home. That their power somehow used that to target destinations because that's where they subconsciously wanted to go.
But what if they were wrong? What if her world operated on narrative rules? What if the 'lesson' she learned that day was for an audience? She went to a magic school, she was fighting under the rule of an evil emperor. She was apprenticed to the greatest witch in the boiling isles. She had discovered a new form of magic that humans could cast, and made it her own. Her own superpower.
What if her grand adventure was one big story? That some starry eyed kid was watching her like she had read her Good Witch Azura books? Was there fanfiction about her? Was her every decision the act of a god with a pen, writing out her actions in a script to be animated?
Of course the "does free will exist" Existential Crisis could only spiral for so long. Either she had free will and everything was A-OK, or she didn't and couldn't tell the difference anyway, and couldn't do anything about it if she could, because y'know, no free will.
That still left so many questions though. And while Luz was starting to get a grip on it, her imagination ran wild, bouncing around ideas and theories like a triple ball pinball machine bonus level.
What if-
"LUZ! DON'T PUT YOUR LUNCH IN T-" the shout of Gus, one of her dear friends, rang out, and was cut abruptly, when the mawed face of her locker swallowed her brown bagged lunch and hungered for more. For flesh.
Â
"How's it going?" King asked, trying to look over my shoulder as I worked on my laptop.
"Good. I'm working on the key players right now. Belos, the Coven heads, Allies, all that. Once that's done I'll work on the sequence of events that happened originally in the show from this point forward." I said, swapping around to different notes that contained copied wiki information.
"If you need help sprucing it up, I am a famous author" King said.
"You're half a famous author. Luz is the other. Besides this doesn't need to be polished, I just need to get everyone on the same page."
I pinched the bridge of my nose and moved to a different document. It was the page of Glyph magic. For a brief moment I panicked when I saw the glyph example images, worried they'd activate, before remembering you had to tap them.
"Ooh are those glyphs? Got any secret combos or new glyphs in there?"
"Uh, nothing too important. I think I've got a combo for invisibility Luz hasn't invented yet, but that's about it." I sighed and leaned back into the couch. "I need a break though."
"Incorrect!" King objects, "She's had that one for like, a month."
Huh, guess that's why I have the wiki.
I noticed some paper and a pen left on the coffee table and decided to indulge in some whimsy. I couldn't take it with me because glyph magic only worked in range of the titan, but it was still magic.
So I carefully copied the light glyph from my laptop. Hesitating for a second, I tapped the piece of paper, and it crumpled up and disintegrated, forming a ball of warm yellow-white light.
"Woah." I said.
"Cool, isn't it?" Eda said, walking in with a mug and a book under her arm.
"Yeah..." I said, reaching out to the light. It moved when I touched it, even though I felt no resistance. I had seen Luz do something in the show, so I copied the motion, cupping my hands under the orb of light, and raised it up, pushing it to go higher, and it floated to settle a little bit below the ceiling.
"It's weird, coming from Witch magic," Eda said, sitting down on the couch beside me, "It takes a lot of work to make a new spell, but as soon as you've got it, anyone can copy it and use it like that!"
Eda snapped her fingers for emphasis.
"Feels a bit like cheating" I said absentmindedly.
"If you aren't cheating you aren't winning," Eda pointed out, taking a swig from her mug.
I shrugged, considering which glyph to draw next. The other basic glyphs were a bit too destructive for indoor testing, so I selected the Invisibility glyph combo and started tracing drawing it.
"Hey, can you take me to, what did you call it, Earth prime?" Eda asked, "I got some quality junk from The Heist, but not enough for a decent inventory at the market."
"Yeah, but I can't babysit you. We'll decide on a time and a place, and I'll Strike In to take you back with your spoils." I said, before thinking a bit. "Only some ground rules: no magic, no harpy Eda, and only trash. I don't want you getting in trouble or drawing attention to yourself because someone recorded you flying over the city and posted it to Instagram."
"You have Penstigram in the human realm?"
"Instagram, but yeah it's mostly the same functionally, runs on phones."
"That's so stupid! Your own off-brand, legally distinct Penstigram" King supplied, chuckling.
I did not know how to respond to that, so without further Ado I got ready to head back to Earth... fuck it, I didn't have anything better, Earth Prime it was.
Â
Amity Ran up to the stall Luz was manning, and she instantly forgot whatever that bully Boscha was saying. "LUZ!" She shouted, before panting, out of breath. "I heard that-"
Amity was cut off by her need for oxygen, and panted a few more times. Luz Instantly grew exited. The tone of her girlfriend(that's right, girlfriend), was the happy sort of exited that could only mean good things. It was sadly rare to see with her, but had been getting more frequent over the time the two of them knew each other.
Luz glanced at the Azura book club stall she had set up. Maybe this would get her mind off the existential nightmare that was her increasingly complicated relationship to fiction?
"What is it what is it what is it?!" Luz beamed, hopping the booth to grab Amity's hands.
"The author of Azura is having a signing this afternoon at the book nook!" Amity finally managed, having apparently caught her breath.
Luz's thoughts came to a screeching halt. She froze. Aster's face flashed through her mind as well as her own, illustrated on a Blu-ray box.
"Luz?" Amity asked, a wavering concern on her voice, "Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost? My family knows a good exorcist."
Luz tried to compile her thoughts into something coherent. The possibilities flashed through her mind, and without thinking, she posited them out loud.
"That doesn't make any sense, the author is human." Luz said, "Unless she's not. Or she is but not from here. Another world? Parallel dimension? Time travel??? IS AZURA NONFICTION!?!?"
"Woah, slow down," Amity said pulling off the hands that Luz just realized she had been using to shake her girlfriend(Still loving that. Still loving her).
"Get off me!" Boscha said, pushing Amity and Luz apart, and away from herself. Oh right, she was still here.
"The author is a witch though." Amity continued "...probably not those other things you said. I mean, how the heck do you think I got my books?"
A universe hopper writing them as a cosmic prank the intrusive thought whispered to Luz. She shoved it down with her craving to eat an entire stick of butter and the ever-increasing urge to carve fire glyphs into the school desks during long classes.
"I dunno!" Luz laughed, "But I got mine from earth. The human realm. That earth. Specifically."
"Hey, I'm still here!" Boscha said. Luz ignored her.
"Regardless of any other theories," Amity said, eyeing Luz with that fond gaze she had when Luz was being particularly goofy, "Look at this, this has to mean one thing!"
Amity had taken one Of Luz's copies sometime during the discussion. Maybe when Luz was grappling with existential terror? Regardless the back of the books held identical author's portraits, with the sole distinction being round ears on one, and pointed ears on another.
the author could travel between realms. That was the thought that Amity wanted Luz to finish, she knew it. But would that make the author like Aster? Would that make Mildred Featherwhyle dangerous? But... Aster would know about that right? it would be on the wiki, wouldn't it?
"Luz? you don't seem nearly as exited about this mystery as I thought you would be, and I thought you'd already be over the moon for the signing itself."
"It's fine!" Luz said, "It's just... If she can travel between realms... what if she's dangerous? It takes titan's blood to make a gateway, right? and she's been hiding out all this time!"
"She's been selling books. She's signing them in literally thirty minutes" Amity deadpanned.
"okay, okay." Luz said, sighing. "sorry, I have a lot on my mind. You're right we should go investigate, but there's something I need to catch you up on, at least partially. and boy is it a doozy."
Boscha said something else, but Luz already took amity's hand and started leading her in the direction of Bonesburrow.
Barry!(on Eda watch 🦉)
@BarrowTrauma.bsky.socialÂ
So. we have another spotting of that Eda cosplayer. A friend sent me a picture of her with that same burlap sack... rooting around in the trash? at least it's in character. Stay tuned for more. I guess. is this what I'm doing with my life now? [EdaAgainstTrash.png]
This has nothing to do with the identity thief, Daniel tried to tell himself. But there was something in his gut saying otherwise. That the owl house box set the thief had checked out of the library was somehow important.
He sighed as the elevator dinged open, and he stowed his phone in his pocket. Walking through the halls of his apartment complex he made his way to the home me and Aster had made.
With the click of the lock and the creek of the door hinges he entered their home. "Aster, I'm back!"
"Heya bunny!" Aster shouted back from the living room, where they appeared to be playing the Assassin's creed game set in Egypt. "Can you believe this? The big city in this game and its like, four city blocks. It's smaller than the biggest city in Skyrim. I mean, I knew this game sucked from reviews, at least compared to every decent AC game before it, but c'mon!"
"The library of Alexandria is actually fairly accurate to the time period though," Daniel said, putting his coat on a hook by the door and setting his bag down on the kitchen table, before moving to the living room.
"I remember watching a video about the historical accuracy in the game. its fairly good, all things considered." he continued. "When you think of the library of Alexandria, it brings up images of the huge libraries we have today, but back then there just wasn't that much written word. The collection was impressive, don't get me wrong, but papyrus and parchment paper were expensive."
"Ughhhhh, come on Daniel, you gotta agree with me, get outraged on my behalf!" Aster said throwing back their head and tossing their controller to the side. "What good is a boyfriend if he can't go 'They asked for pickles!' to the mean, mean, fast food employee?"
"You're right Hun, I'll draft a letter to Ubisoft right now. Would you like your list of grievances in chronological or alphabetical order?" Daniel snarked, leaning down to give his partner a hug before splaying out on the couch, over Aster's lap.
"Hmm," Aster rubbed their chin, "Order it by how much I'm going to sue for each grievance, methinks. How was work? You're home awful early."
"Work was fine," Daniel said, "I was let off early because finished setting up the new Game of Thrones exhibit."
"UGHHHHHH" Aster groaned in annoyance.
"I know," Daniel said, "but it's the Museum of Pop Culture, not good culture."
"Sometimes your job sounds like a quip from the Big Bang Theory made manifest. A curse upon our reality" Aster sighed, absentmindedly running their fingers through Daniel's hair.
"I've certainly taken my fair share of psychic damage from some of the exhibits" Daniel said, closing his eyes to enjoy the feel of his partner. "You finished with changing out all your personal info? The List finished?"
"Yep." Aster said. "Even called my dad, in case he gets targeted."
"Wow," Daniel said, genuinely impressed. Aster hated their dad.
"Yeah. But I feel better with all it's done. Still kind of panicky, but I talked with some of the LGFC crew, and they calmed me down"
"Did Clambert come in clutch?"
"Always."
Then they just let themselves be together. Daniel resting, eyes closed as Aster played with the volume lowered. Just a moment of quiet. No demands, no expectations, just being in each other's presence. A quiet little moment of life that made it worth living.
"YOU'VE GOT MAIL" Aster's phone announced in bit crunched AOL mockery. Daniel flinched.
"Shit, sorry," Aster said, furiously fiddling with their phone. "Thought I turned the volume on that down."
"I still don't know why you set that as your email notification sound" Daniel sighed, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "You can't claim nostalgia, You told me yourself that your family computer always had the speakers off."
"I just think it's funny" Aster shrugged. "Huh, Devon emailed me. Wait, I think he emailed you and CC'ed me? Whatever, same thing."
"Oh what fresh hell is it now?" Daniel asked, taking a breath.
Devon was... Kind of an idiot. In Daniel's estimation at least. The guy took a picture of the Identity thief, then called Daniel, Then unilaterally decided to go back out and hand his phone to them. The guy just seemed to... do things he thought would be helpful without ever asking or caring. Like he was going through the motions of helping without understanding why helping was a good thing.
"He said he didn't find the VHS you were looking for, but did google it, and. Huh. A YouTube link to the page of a channel called Jonah_Whit." Aster grew silent.
Daniel leaned over, putting a hand on their shoulder. On aster's phone was a YouTube channel, filled with clickbait thumbnails. Almost all of them staring her.
"What the hell?" Daniel whispered.
That hadn't been there the last time he had googled the topic, when he was back in school working on his media history courser. Acting more on instinct than anything Daniel picked up the remote, switching the input. Aster caught on and set their phone to stream to the TV, and they played the first video.
The screen darkened, then filled with the words 'I FOUND SOMETHING'.
"Done." I said, closing the laptop.
"Finally," King said, exasperated, "Now will you play with me? King is bored!"
I chuckled. "I forgot how young you actually are, bud. Wanna go blow stuff up with fire glyphs?"
"WOO!" King said, pumping his tiny little arms, "Luz never lets me play that game!"
I was sure that was fine.
Probably.
I took an empty notepad and pencil from one of the piles of junk in the living room. Soon enough we were in the clearing outside The owl house exploding things.
A fireball exploded into an ice pillar, showering chunks of ice and melted drops of water everywhere.
"WOOHOO!" All three of us exclaimed.
Yeah, three, Hooty was here too. I did the best to act diplomatically, or at least with no more annoyance than King showed the owl-tube-thing. We even came up with a system. King would draw glyphs on the notepad for me to fire, and any time an ice pillar would break, Hooty would carve a new ice glyph into the dirt with his face(That process was mildly disturbing).
"Huh I think these aren't just fire and forget" I said to the paper dissolving into ash in my hand. "I think there's some like, intentionality here. The fireballs don't exactly aim the direction the glyph is pointing, more they aim where I'm aiming when I set them off."
"What's the difference?" King asked, furiously scribbling a new glyph for me. Hooty's body undulated behind him, but I didn't pay it any mind.
"Hmm." I thought about how to clarify. "You'd think that a spell performed the same way by two different witches would be similar, yeah?"
"That makes sense." King said, ripping off the next glyph and handing it to me.
"Well if the glyphs are spells, and you draw them the same way every time, shouldn't that mean they act the same whenever they're activated?"
"Huh." King said, putting a claw to his chin.
"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" Hooty yelled, voice deploring as he swung around, nearly hitting me.
"HEY!" I yelled, as the bird-tube just laughed and dragged himself across the ground, ignoring me. I sighed, before continuing explaining my thoughts about glyphs to king, "But Luz used them in kinds of ways. The same plants don't always come out of the basic plant glyph. She can form ice pillars and ice spikes with the ice rune, and In one episode she used the fire rune like a rocket."
"What's a rocket?" King asked.
"Well-" I stopped myself, I didn't want to sit here all day explaining aerospace technology. "What if I just show you, I should be able to just..."
I pointed the glyph at the ice pillar, but instead of a fireball, I imagined a flamethrower. Then I pressed my thumb against the circle on the paper, and sure enough, A line of fire tore from the glyph to the ice pillar in front of us. I smiled and swung the beam across the width of the pillar, cutting it cleanly in two.
"So imagine that, but so much fire It actually pushes you backwards with all the force it generates" I said, smiling.
"NEW PILLAR TIME! CHECK OUT HOW BIG THIS ONE IS!" Hooty said.
I looked around, wasn't he just goofing off? Then I noticed the long furrow cut into the ground. Putting the pieces together I tried to see the whole shape of it. But by the time I realized that Hooty had made a massive glyph out of the entirety of the clearing, he was already leaning into the center to activate it.
"Hey, uh, are we on the inside of Hooty's super glyph?" King asked, nervous. I glanced at him.
"HOOTY NO!"
"HOOTY STOP IT STOOOP!!"
"PLEASE PLEASE IM SORRY I DIDNT PAY ATTENTION-"
"I'LL GIVE YOU A MOUSE, NO, A HUNDRED MICE, JUST-"
Our protest fell on deaf... did Hooty have ears? I didn't get to contemplate it because the whole clearing started glowing blue-white as the glyph activated. I was suddenly pushed to the ground as it exploded upward, becoming an express ice elevator.
King and I both screamed. He somehow managed to make it over to me and was hugging me like his life depended on it. Stray sparks of green electricity arced off my body as my power registered how close a source of realm traveling god power was.
Then the pillar finally stopped, having finished growing. King and I, however, did not. Carried by the momentum of being accelerated by what had to be several G's over the course of ten or so seconds we shot into the sky like the rocket I had failed to adequately describe to King.
I saw the boiling isles, the titan, laid out below me. It's impossible to really describe what a giant the size of Vermont actually looks like. The sheer scale of it just kind of breaks the brain. It was easier to believe it was a landmass in the shape of a giant. But that illusion was shattered when you could clearly see the bones that formed the creature poke out between patches of earth that were once rotted flesh.
For the first time, something truly and utterly impossible enraptured my mind. The sky was different, but it still had stars. Glyphs were cool, but fire, ice, plants, and light existed in nature. The shape and composition of alien life that played along the titan was easy enough to compare to earth life at a distance.
But all together? All below me on a shining gem of a planet? My brain finally caught up with the rest of me and a bone deep realization of this was not home radiated through me.
And then we began to fall back down.
If we hit even the top of that ice pillar we were toast, let alone anywhere else on the actual ground. Hooty was too far below to catch us, Eda was in the human realm, along with her staff. Luz was at school. And I had never bothered to copy down one of her Feather-Fall Glyphs.
My mind raced, cleared by the certainty of the threat rather than the imagined ones of anxiety. Lions were fast approaching, and my monkey brain was finally working at the speed to keep up.
Something Important came to mind from when we were testing my powers. Momentum didn't transfer between Strikes. I glanced at the electricity arcing across me. It'd be a gamble with King. I didn't know what would happen. But If I didn't, we were dead for sure.
The top of the pillar was approaching, fast. I made my decision, hugged King tightly, and pulled at the glowing star in my head that I knew the best.
*CRACKA-THOOOOM*
"So you actually met another human that can travel between realms?" Amity asked, voice full of hope.
"Kinda-sorta," Luz said, scrunching up her face and rocking her hand back and forth. "It's complicated. They travel through parallel universes, but its some kind of... innate power they can't control well. Once they've been somewhere they can return, but aiming seems to be really hard for them, so we don't know if they can actually travel to my human realm."
"Oh, Parallel universes like the spell in book five that trapped Hecate in a version of the world where she was never born?" Amity asked.
"Yessss, but also no. It's complicated. The full explanation is more of a 'you might want to sit down for this' kinda conversation. It's wild."
"So that's why you were weird about the book signing," Amity mused, "You had just met another human, but one that wasn't from your world. Wow, I have so many questions."
"You can ask them tonight, Aster's doing a presentation for everyone in The owl house."
"Are you sure it's ok If I-"
Amity stopped walking. Luz stopped behind her and followed her gaze to a standee with a poster for the signing on it, right outside the book nook. A large 'CANCELED' sticker was haphazardly slapped across it diagonally.
"Oh. Ok." Luz said emotionlessly.
"Luz, Look!" Amity pointed towards a figure with the distinctive red hair and hood of Mildred Featherwhyle. At her shout, the figure started running, "After her!"
The two of them took off after the fleeing figure.
The first thing I hear is the crackling of fire. Then I smelled the smoke and an instinct deep in the bones from the time my dad set the groceries on fire while I was napping(It's a long story) kicked in, and I was on my feet in an instant. The surrounding forest was decimated, trees around me in circle all flash-burned black and/or on fire.
As I whipped my head around looking for king I was met with a wall of ice. I instinctively took a step back. And then another until I could make out the shape of the thing. It was a half sphere of ice, almost like-no, exactly like someone scooped a chunk of that massive ice pillar and took it with us.
"Aster!" King yelled, and I saw him peaking over from the other side of the chunk of ice.
I let out a sigh of relief and ran over to him. He jumped up and hug-tackled me, holding on tight.
"Where are we!? Why are the trees green!?" King asked directly into my ear.
"First, ow, I'm right next to ya, bud, lower the volume." I said, patting Kings.... skull? Whatever, I kept patting the skull-head, "Second, I Struck us out of there when it looked like we would hit that Ice Pillar hard. This Is a Forest in Earth Prime, a parallel version of Luz's home."
"It looks like one of Eda's 'party spells' went off too early, what happened?"
"I-" My mouth moved before I realized I had no answer, "I have no idea. Clearly we took a chunk of the pillar with us, but I shouldn't be able to move that much matter, and I can't move part of a contagious mass. The damage looks like it was done by a lightning strike... but I couldn't have been mine, unless."
I pulled king away from me and looked at him. I felt the power in his blood, but it was much more subdued in this world. Was that because I leached it off of him, or because there weren't 'realms' here like the demon and human realms of The Owl House?
"Why are you looking at me like that?" King asked, scared.
"Sorry, sorry," I set him down and crouched so I was on his level. Wait wasn't there a meme that said this is the exact thing I shouldn't do when talking to short people? I told that part of my brain to shut up and righted my train of thought. "It's your power, I think that my power had some kind of... reaction to it."
"Why would my power to scream real good have anything to your power to travel between worlds?"
"I'll tell you at the presentation tonight, It's something we have to go over anyway and this isn't the best place" I said, standing up, "do you still have the notepad?"
"No, I dropped It, I think"
I felt the urge to anime 'tsk' and instead looked around for a particularly blackened twig. Making sure it wasn't still hot, I picked it up and walked over to the chunk of ice.
I tried drawing on it, but smudged immediately. That wasn't going to work.
"What are you doing?" King asked.
"A lightning strike might explain what happened to the trees around here, but a house sized chunk of ice in Cincinnati, in August? That's unneeded attention, something impossible for humans to pull off. So I'm gonna draw a fire rune on this thing and melt it." I explained.
Giving it a bit more thought I pulled off a shoe and then a white sock. I pulled it over my hand and spread my palm out flat. It took some time, but I was able to inscribe the fire glyph onto the sock. Not the best solution, but I was working off of adrenaline and fear of the cops, so It was a miracle I could think of a solution at all.
Then focusing on a more of a blowtorch than a flamethrower, I tapped the glyph activating a steady stream of small flames. Using my ensocked hand, I carefully carved a large circle into the ice, before filling in the details.
The fire glyph can be used to set things on fire. It can be used to melt metal. And the power of any glyph increases in proportion to its size. Once I had finished carving the giant fire glyph the center of my sock disintegrated into ash and I stuffed the remains in my pocket.
Focusing on melting the ice, I poured all my mental energy into the image of it. Then I slammed both my hands against the Glyph. A flash of red-white light and the entire chuck of ice briefly caught fire before the heat pulled its way inside and the whole thing melted at once, causing a small wave to wash over King and myself.
"Come on, we need to get out of here" I said turning around and walking for the treeline.
"We can just zap back, you know"
"Technically yes, but if I came back to this world, I'd end up right here. And anyone investigating the giant lighting strike that caused a small forest fire(god I hope it stays small) will see me teleporting, and I'll get in trouble. So we gotta get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible."
"Oh! Why didn't you say so, Eda taught me all about crime." King said. I didn't know if I should feel proud of the kid or not.
I also realized we needed to meet up with Eda, since our meeting place was exploded/on fire. I checked my watch, still half an hour to our scheduled meeting. I should have been able to catch her on her way back then.
"Keep an eye out for Eda, she should be headed this way, if she's on time."
"Ha! Eda being on time, that's funny."
I clenched my jaw, but said nothing. He was right. I couldn't rely on Eda being timely. Was there any way to get in contact with her?
"How do those crow phones work?" I asked.
"Those what now?" King asked confused.
"Those black birds that you can use to talk to other people over a distance?"
"Oh! You mean Telecrownes! Yeah, you just have to either flag one down or have a personal one at home or something, then enter someone's number, and the nearest free Telecrow will fly to them!"
Oh, that would make this so much easier.
Luz didn't really have a chase sequence in her, she had enough on her mind and wanted this mystery solved now. So, She took charge.
"Amity! Get on your staff and cut her off, I'll harass her from the back with glyphs, and we'll pincer her!" Luz said.
Amity Grinned and summoned her staff, before flying off. Luz started off throwing fireballs wide, she didn't want to hurt Mildred, but this was just to keep her attention.
As soon as the figure saw Amity cut her off, she hesitated for long enough that Luz slammed down two plant glyphs. She grew vines that burrowed through the ground ahead of her only to sprout out of the ground around the figure. The figure sidestepped the vines and started running parallel to Amity and Luz's pincer maneuver. Only to get caught by one of the two Abomination hands Amity had cast on either side while the figure was distracted.
The figure's robe fell off, along with the clunk of two stilts falling off her feet. Who was revealed was... That girl that was mostly a face with a huge nose Luz had met once or twice?
"Whelp," She said, "I had a good wun"
Luz forgot about the speech quirk the girl had of pronouncing her Rs as Ws.
"Tinella Nosa!?" Amity exclaimed.
"She's had a name this-" Luz's mouth moved before she could think. Normally this kind of quip would be something she leaned into, but... "Sorry, Of course you have a name. Stupid Luz, Stupid!"
"Luz..." Amity said, walking over and putting her hands on Luz "You're not stupid. What's wrong?"
"It's okay, I don't mind weally" Tinella said.
"I put Tinella in the back of my mind as a background character!" Luz, said, distraught.
"So?" Amity replied, confused, "You call gossip 'backstories' and history class 'lore'. It's cute!"
"But this is real life." Luz said, not sure if that was even true.
"Yeah, of course it is. You've always known it is. You use fiction as a lens to see the world, as a way to make life an adventure. It's something I love about you."
"Awe we gonna do the pawt wewe I tell you about the diabolical scheme I'm a pawt of?" Tinella asked.
"We're having a moment, Tinella" Amity said softly, before gagging the living nose with more abomination sludge.
"Is it really okay to treat people like that? What If I stop thinking of them as people?" Luz asked.
"Its..." Amity paused, thinking, "Like a joke. You're in on it, everyone else knows its joke, but that doesn't mean you're gonna start punching down just because you make a lot of jokes. You're really kind, Luz, and some of that comes from you're love of fiction. The amount of times I've seen you quote Azura when you stand up to bullies, or lend a helping hand is more than I can count. Titan's sake, you challenged me to a witch's duel to call me out on being a jerk and risked everything to prove me wrong. Was that hasty? Yeah, but it was kind, and brave. You live up to the examples of heroism and kindness that touch your heart, and that's beautiful."
Luz was crying, she realized. She didn't have all the answers about the nature of reality... but maybe that was okay. If she was a better person for reading a few books, then other people might be better people for watching some cartoons. Her life might be like a story, but the love was real, the good was real, and the people were real because she cared about them and they cared about her.
She leaned in to hug Amity. "thank you."
I slammed the door to the Owl House open, ignoring Hooty's cries of pain. King followed close behind me, then Eda, with that improbably large burlap sack. We were all filthy. Mud and ash coated King and I, while Eda was covered in trash, looking much happier than either of us.
"Okay, who gets to use the shower first?" I asked, exhausted.
"Pass," Eda said, rummaging around in her bag of trash.
King and I played rock paper scissors for it. I lost. Though I wasn't sure if he had thrown paper or scissors, given he only had three fingers. Whatever, the kid deserved it.
I leaned against a wall to wait, unwilling to spread my filth to the couch.
A couple of minutes later Luz, Amity, Gus, and Willow entered. I raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything.
"What the heck happened outside?" Luz asked, probably referring to the hundred meter tall pillar of ice that was slowly melting.
"Yeah, we could see it all the way in Bonesburrow!" Gus said, spreading his arms wide.
"It looks like there was a... bite, taken out of it?" Willow wondered.
"Hooty 'helped' when I was practicing with glyphs" I said.
A chorus of 'yeah's, nods, and other affirmatory noises came from the teens.
"Is it cool if Amity, Gus, and Willow also sit in for the presentation?" Luz asked.
"Sure, whatever, you're responsible for any existential crisis they experience though" I grunted. Sighing, I turned to Eda "Want to invite Lilith?"
"Nah, she'd probably stop it every five seconds to ask for a different question, I can fill her in later" Eda said, eyeing a bent trumpet from her bag.
"Okay, can someone handle food?" I asked, "I'm dead on my feet and in the shower as soon as King finishes"
The teens took dinner duty, and I closed my eyes to rest for a bit until the shower was free.
"THIS IS- THIS IS A MOCKERY!" Daniel yelled, throwing the remote into an armchair.
"Daniel? Daniel, chill" Aster said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"But-" Daniel cut himself off and breathed. "They took the show and made it into some creepypasta shit!"
They had stopped after the first video. Daniel was upset, and while Aster could Kinda understand it, given they had seen the show as a kid too, the severity of the reaction caught them off guard. Daniel was almost never this mad.
"It was a cheap-ass Christian cartoon from the 90s," Aster said, "I know you have some fond memories of it, I do too, and Legally I'm not sure where this lands, but ethically? I think it's fine. Why are you this angry?"
Daniel walked over to the chair where he chucked the remote and picked it up before sitting down there, sighing.
"Ok, we're going to have to revisit my Traumatic Backstory for this," He said, "So I told you how I was an angry, mean kid, right?"
Aster nodded.
"Well I was bully. Not one of those 'misunderstood' types, or a bully lashing out because they were abused elsewhere. My parents loved me, in their eyes I could do no wrong. So when I acted up at school they didn't punish me, and I started having fun bullying other kids. I'd get mad at some tiny inconvenience, or some kid I thought was being annoying, and I'd pick on them, maybe rough them up a bit.
"I was happy like that. Felt like I was on top of the world. This isn't a sob story, not for me at least, everyone around me, maybe. But then one day that show came on. The memories are fuzzy, it's been a long time. But it was... special. I got obsessed with that angel, Gabriel. I made her into an imaginary friend. And she became my conscience. Maybe it was some hidden guilt I had manifesting or whatever, but between the lessons in the show and my imaginary friend Gabby pointed out why what I was doing was wrong and how it was hurting me in the long term.
"How all my friendships were shallow hangers-on, how everyone was scared of me, How not caring distanced myself from everything but my anger. She helped me make real friends, make amends to the people I hurt, and come clean to my parents that, yes, I actually did do all those things they got calls from the school about but didn't believe.
"After that I paid attention in church. I watched veggie tales, I took my faith seriously, trying to glean more insights from the Big Book on how I could be better like my guardian angel showed me I could. Of course, I came out to my parents as gay when I was a teen and then, well, The Horrors. I don't practice anymore because of how hostile the faith is to me, and I don't really believe in God anymore, but I still think in principle the faith is good. It was good to me. It's just the right wing fascists twisting it. I guess that's kind of Christianity in a nutshell, huh? Powerful people twisting the church to their own ends.
"Point is: The show changed my life. I'd be dead in a ditch from picking fights if an angel didn't teach me how kindness could benefit myself as much as others."
The two of them sat in silence for a while, Aster processing Daniel's story. It was achingly familiar. Not the specifics, but the broad strokes felt mirrored with Aster's own experience.
"I also had a Gabriel Imaginary friend" Aster said, "You've never really seen it because masking is almost automatic for me now, but I'm extremely autistic. My parents basically lobbied my school to give me accommodations once I was diagnosed. They talked to individual teachers, Sat with me during homework, and sent me to vocational rehab.
"But nothing helped more than the show. The way it framed lessons... It was direct, to the point, and it explained everything. It was a user's manual to how to act, and why to act. No 'just because', or 'Because I said so' or 'this is how the world works'. No, I learned the reasons behind why I should act, how to convey my emotions, how to understand what other people meant when they said stuff. I had a little angelic user's guide to neurotypicals in my head, and that smoothed over a lot of my life, honestly. Didn't help with the meltdown in seventh grade, but hey, I underestimated how 'high functioning' I was until it was too late, but you know that story."
"Huh." Daniel said, stunned.
"Is it weird we both had angelic conscience Imaginary friends from the same show?"
"I mean, maybe?" Daniel shrugged.
"I want to continue watching," aster said, gesturing to the paused TV, "this had a good hook. Will you be okay or do you want me to just watch it on my phone?"
"I-" Daniel paused to actually think about it. "I think I need some rest, actually. I'll be in the bedroom listening to music, you should be fine, I doubt the tv soundbar can penetrate through the wall and those sound canceling headphones you got me."
"'Kay, Have a nice rest, love you!" Aster gave Daniel a quick hug before he shuffled off to the bedroom.
Sitting back down Aster picked up the remote, paused, then turned the volume down before hitting play again.
A few text slides mentioning looking for more information on the show flashed by as background music picked up, the percussion hitting when a zoomed in logo of the show was put on screen:
'Angel Hare
She's your guardian Angel!
KP publishing'
