The light of abyss (The owl house x Marvel)

After a moment of awkward silence, Amity realized that all the humans in the room knew who the newcomers were but she didn't.

"I'm sorry, what's going on? Who are they?" She asked.

"That," Masha began with a gesture to the short man with the crazy hair, "is James 'Logan' Howlett, AKA The Wolverine. Former Government operative, former member of Alpha Flight, field commander of X-force, retired, hand-to-hand and tracking expert of the X-Men, semi-retired, currently the Headmaster of the Jean Grey Institute for the Outreach and Education of the Genetically Divergent or Otherwise Specially Gifted."

"I'm also the history and art appreciation teacher and the staff advisor of the martial arts club," the short man acknowledged.

"Meanwhile the purple-haired woman is Elizabeth Braddock," Luz continued. "She's psychic, part fae, spent years semi-permanently body-swapped with a psychic ninja, and now she's taken over the role of Captain Britain, defender of Otherworld and the British Isles after her brother retired to spend more time with his wife and kid. Ms. Braddock um... You're my second favorite X-Person."

"...Who's the first?" The woman asked eyes narrowed in fake seriousness.

"Magik," Luz replied.

"Fair enough," Ms. Braddock replied. "Illyana's awesome."

"There's uh, there's a... Superhero just named 'Magic?'" Amity asked, a little confused.

"Magik with a 'k'" Luz corrected. "She's a bisexual icon who got stranded in a demon dimension as a teenager and emerged wielding powerful magic."

Amity blinked. "So your favorite is the one that's just like you?"

"That's a complete coincidence," Luz defended with total seriousness. "Also, I'm pretty sure she's not half space alien."

The man, Logan, suddenly sniffed the air and then turned Stan. "Long time no see, Bub."

"Yeah. Was about, what, twenty years ago?" The old man mused. "In Reno?"

A loud, sharp 'snikt' sounded out as three-foot-long blades practically erupted through the skin on Logan's knuckles, which made Amity shutter. He walked up slowly and held the tips of the blades just under Stan's chin. "Yeah. Reno. Where you left me holding the bag, Stanford."

Ford sighed. "Stanley, just how many felonies have you committed using my name?"

"...You know, now that I think about it," Stan replied as if there weren't three very sharp blades held just under his face, "as far as the government is concerned Marilyn is your ex-wife."

Ford palmed his face with his free hand.

Amity saw Jacob, no longer at the mercy of Camila's sandal nor Ford's human weapon, try to reach for some device he left on a counter... Only for a pinkish aura highly reminiscent of oracle magic to manifest over his head briefly before he passed out. Nobody seemed surprised that that had happened but it made Amity really uncomfortable and she felt her eyes drawn back to Ms. Braddock whose eyes had briefly flashed the same color.

The short man, Logan, retracted the blades back into his flesh which mended seamlessly behind the blades and Amity tried very carefully not to think about whether or not spilling his blood on Luz's symbiote goo would let her heal that fast.

"Okay," Logan said to the three jerks, "I'm gonna ask you one time: Is what that girl said true?"

All three of the jerks avoided eye contact but eventually, Clara broke. "Yes. All of it."

Logan hummed. "Alright. Now, I ain't one for letting kids go to jail just for being stupid, you don't learn anything in a cell, but can you give me one good reason why I shouldn't set a record and expel you three before the semester even starts?"

The three jerks looked panicked, but then Luz stepped forward.

"That's a little too harsh," she said. "Something like that on their records could stop them from getting into college or getting decent jobs. Nobody got seriously hurt, their lives shouldn't be ruined just because they made... A lot of bad choices this afternoon."

Logan grunted. "Chuck would just love you, kid." Amity didn't know who this 'Chuck' was, but the comment made Luz beam. "Now, you're the one who got kidnapped... Are you sure no one got hurt?"

"They knocked Amity into the flooded graveyard in old Gravesfield," Masha interjected. "She could have drowned if Vee hadn't rescued her."

Luz immediately stopped smiling and sent a glare at the three jerks, who all immediately seemed to come down with a case of chilled bones.

"So, the kidnapping victim is arguing leniency, how about the near-drowning victim?"

Amity swallowed. "I'm alright, and... Just a few months ago I wasn't much better than they are now." It hurt to admit that. "Honestly, I was probably worse. I got a chance to be better, so if Luz thinks they should get a second chance, then I trust her judgment."

'Fair enough," Logan said and then turned back to the jerks. "I hope you three appreciate just how lucky you are, that the people you hurt are the merciful type. Plenty of people I know would have let you get thrown to the wolves. Still, you aren't getting off without consequences. I'll be talking to the scheduling department, all three of you are getting enrolled in Professor Parker's ethics course and there'll be hell to pay if you don't pass. I also expect each of you in Betsy's office for counseling at least once a week until further notice. ¿Comprendes?"

The three jerks looked at each other for a moment before turning back. "Yeah, we comprendes"

"Comprendemos," Luz corrected.

"Huh?" Suzy asked.

"The first person plural of comprender is 'comprendemos,'" she lectured.

The three jerks did not respond.

"Now get out of here," the man finished gruffly.

"Um, what about Uncle Jacob?" Scott asked

"He's a grown man who should have known better," Logan replied. "We've got false imprisonment, illegal surveillance, and probably trespassing based on what's in this room alone," he produced a blade again, this time just the one from the middle of his hand, and tapped it against the cage. "And I'll bet dollars to donuts he doesn't have a permit to be working with carbonadium. I'll be turning him over to the police when we're done here. Now get."

The three jerks then left, with Scott hesitating to just long enough to look back at his uncle one last time.

A thought occurred to Amity, "do you actually have the legal authority to let them just walk off? Won't the authorities just charge them anyway?"

"The law is different when powers are involved," Masha observed, "like, the rule of law is based on the idea that the legitimate authority has a monopoly on force and well... They don't anymore. Attempts to regulate powers don't work so hot, so..."

"So after some trial and error, Uncle Sam's elected to take a hands-off approach." Logan finished, "We aren't above the law by any means, but we're mostly allowed to police ourselves and when powers are involved the rules are pretty murky. If I tell the cops that some of the kids from my school were involved but that I was handling it, they'll let me handle it."

"Who's Uncle Sam?" Amity asked.

Suddenly, Luz was by her side with a hand on her shoulder. "I'll explain later."

Amity responded to the presence of her girlfriend by taking Luz's hand. After everything, the contact, the proof that Luz was okay was reassuring.

"Now, one last thing," Logan began, "Since it was a group of students at my school behind the kidnapping. We do bear some responsibility. Even if the brats haven't actually started there yet, we could have headed some of this off if we'd caught the signs that they might do something like this in the interview process. So..." He looked at Luz thoughtfully. "There's still time before the semester starts and plenty of open seats. What to enroll? You wouldn't be the first half-alien kid. Not even the first half-symbiote."

Amity's blood froze, but Luz's response was immediate: "No thank you, I'm happy where I am."

"Fair enough," Logan replied, "but still, if there's anything—"

"Actually," Camila interrupted. "Luz spent her summer in another dimension and was enrolled in a school while she was there. She seems to be doing much better there and I know that there's a precedent for going to school in other dimensions, and Vee here," Camila placed a hand on the shoulder of the disguised basilisk, "is from that same dimension. It's not safe for her there and I was hoping to take her in..."

"Say no more, we deal with this kind of situation all the time," Logan replied. He pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to Camila, "we can hash out something basic in a minute but you can use this to get in touch with some people who can help with that later. Anything else?"

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about removing magic brands and tattoos, would you?" Luz asked.

This prompted a brief discussion wherein Luz explained everything she knew about the Coven sigils, including that one had been forced on her, and retracted her symbiote side and took off her bandages to show her sigil. Vee had flinched on seeing it, the poor thing. Unfortunately, the response had been that the only way Logan knew of how to deal with that kind of thing was to flay off the section of skin it had been applied to. He jokingly offered to do it now and flush the wound with some of his blood to grow her skin back afterward but Luz had quickly expressed the desire to save that as a last result. That had been met with a response about asking around.

"Alright, now that that's taken care of," Logan said as he stepped back, "we can get to what we actually came here for."

"I was going to ask about that," Ford began, "no one called you here, correct?"

"No. We're here because Cerebro picked up a new mutant in Gravesfield," Logan responded. "Their signature is relatively weak, so they can't have had their powers for more than a few months... But they just popped up fully formed a few hours ago. It's curious."

...Luz was giving Amity the side-eye, but Amity wasn't sure why.

"On the trip here," Ms. Braddock added and it chilled Amity to realize that she spoke with an accent reminiscent of the Emperor's, "I was able to use the portable Cerebro unit both to pinpoint the young mutant's location, which ultimately lead us here as we arrived, but also identify their characteristics as a beta-class mutant with an gamma level psionic gift, likely something passive."

"Like an empath?" Luz asked, making Amity snap to look at her. "Someone who can sense emotions but not much else?"

"Yes, that would do it," Ms. Braddock agreed. She then placed the helmet she was holding over her head. "It'll only take a second to verify."

"Luz, what are you doing?" Amity asked. Why was Luz bringing up her abnormal talent? She didn't want people to know about that.

"Amity, they're going to know," Luz replied. "I'm sorry, I know you didn't want anyone to know, but..."

"What are you talking about?" Amity asked, "They're not going to..."

"Actually," Ms. Braddock interrupted, "According to Cerebro you are the new mutant we're looking for, Amity was it?"

Amity Blinked. "That is literally impossible."

"Oh?" Ms. Braddock asked.

"I'm not from this dimension," Amity clarified. "I'm not even human, I'm... This must be some kind of false positive, it's confusing my magic for whatever it is that it detects."

Logan sniffed the air. "You smell human." Well, that was creepy.

"I mean, there is that theory about where witches came from," Luz mentioned. "The ones about ancient humans breeding with biped demons?"

"Luz, that's insane," Amity countered. "Do you seriously expect me to believe that two species with completely different evolutionary histories, who aren't even from the same plane of reality, can interbreed and create viable hybrids? Really?"

"Oh, humans can breed with anything," Masha chimed in.

Amity blinked again. "What?" she asked flatly.

"Okay, not literally anything," They clarified, "but if it's sapient and carbon-based a human can make a baby with it... At least genetically speaking, sometimes you need magic or super science to handle the mechanical part. It's got something to do with these guys called the Celestials who tinkered around with early human biology like, a million years ago. For some reason, they like it when their experiments can crossbreed with each other and they're very thorough about that bit."

"...Okay, can we come back to that later when there isn't something crazy in my ear?" Amity asked politely, trying very hard to focus on how crazy the alien science experiment bit sounded instead of on how Masha was essentially saying that she and Luz could have a child together when they grew up if they really wanted to.

"And Boots?" Eda added, "These guys have been around for a long time and I've been popping up around here for decades. If it was just your magic getting picked up they would have noticed me. And you know... Witches are closer to humans than we are to biped demons. The only real difference between humans and witches are the ears, the fangs, the bile sack, some digestive stuff, and the one undersized lung."

"Oh," Luz said in sudden realization, "that's why everyone at Hexside is impressed with how long I can run for."

"Even if... The Emperor's Coven went to extremes to debunk that theory and why would the Emperor lie about... Because he's the Emperor," Amity realized bitterly. Everything he said and did was a lie. "Look, even if witches are descended from humans, that doesn't mean I'm a... I am, an 'empath'—please nobody in this room tells anyone if my mom finds out she'll make me switch tracks—but... That's just an abnormal talent. It's just my magic being a little goofy. It's..."

"Amity, I don't think it is," Luz said. "When you explained about Abnormal talents, you said that they weren't sealed by coven sigils. And there was the whole thing with those nose bleeds. You say they're very common with oracle talents, and, well... Nose bleeds are common with mutant powers activating and it almost always happens with psychics."

"That's not proof," Amity denied. "It's... There's gotta be other signs."

"There's one more," Logan added. "Beta-class mutants usually have tells. A body part that's a weird color, animal ears, an odd internal organ. Something about their body that doesn't really match with the blueprint, so to speak, though not really anything big. You got anything like that?"

...It couldn't be her... The purring was just a throwback trait, a sign of demon ancestry... That neither of her parents nor Ed and Em shared with her. Nor any other relatives that she knew of.

Amity swallowed. This was too much, after everything else that happened today it was just too much. "Can we table this? I, it's been a very long day and I do not need to add the existential crisis of questioning my species on top of it right now."

"Of course," Logan replied, "We ain't here to pressure you into anything, and this wasn't exactly an ideal circumstance it's just... Most kids who turn up as mutants without expecting it... It's a little scary. Look, I got a card and a pamphlet, just look 'em over when you feel up to it."

Amity pocketed what he'd given her and then just stood there, unsure of what else to do. After a moment, she realized she was tugging at the hem of her dress.

"Um... Mister Wolverine sir," Luz began, "you said you were going to talk to Mami for a bit about schooling and helping Vee... Do I need to be there for that? Because..." Luz seemed to be trying to say something without saying anything.

"Nah," Logan replied. "It's gonna take a bit too, so if anyone wants to stretch their legs now's a good time."

Luz wasted no time taking Amity by the hand and calmly leading her out of the, admittedly rather cramped, office and, seeing the rain pouring down outside, led Amity passed a frankly disturbing number of exhibits about how innocent people had been murdered before stopping in a small room devoted to colonial architecture.

"I'm sorry about that," Luz began nervously and... That was guilt. What did Luz have to be guilty about? "I'm sort of suspected that you were uh, you know, ever since you told me about abnormal talents and I figured if the X-Men were here for you then there wasn't really any covering it up. I didn't really think that outing you like that was a bad idea until I saw you stimming and then... I'm sorry, I didn't think."

Oh. Amity hadn't even been... "No, that was... It's not like you outright told anyone about my talent, you just... Alluded to it and said that keeping it covered up wasn't gonna... You still let me be the one who actually... I'm not upset about that, It's just... This is a lot."

"Yeah, I guess having the all dumped on you all at once was a bit much," Luz agreed. "But you know this doesn't change anything about you, right? You're still the same precious sweet potato you've always been."

"I'm not worried about that," Amity denied. "It's... honestly world view shattering, but I'll get used to it. It's just uh, on top of everything else today it's too much... After..." Amity couldn't hold it in anymore. She sniffed and had to wipe tears from her eyes. "After finding out how dangerous the human realm is and, after almost losing you, I..."

"Wait wait wait," Luz said gently. "You didn't almost lose me. I could have picked the lock at any time and honestly, I get the feeling that the jerks were second-guessing the whole 'kidnapping' thing. I don't think they wanted to hurt me, I think Clara lost her temper and then they panicked. I'm more worried about you, Masha said you almost drowned?"

"I can't swim," Amity admitted. "Wilow and I had lessons together but we'd always skip out on them to hang out instead and... I'm fine. Vee rescued me." Amity belatedly realized she hadn't thanked the basilisk.

"You sure?" Luz asked, eyes wide and sparkling with concern.

"I'm sure," Amity insisted. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. I had one heck of a headache when I first woke up but I'm fine now," Luz insisted back. "Now what's this about the human realm being dangerous?"

Amity couldn't help but stare blankly at Luz for a moment. "...Remember earlier when you were told of an alien invasion and... weren't surprised? You just asked which one? Or when you and Masha were telling me about the many, many people who could destroy the planet on a whim? Or the time that half the universe died and then miraculously came back? And how often stuff like that happens?"

Luz blinked. "Oh, yeah, um... Dumping all that on you at once probably wasn't a good idea. Especially right after spooking you with the witch hunter stuff." Luz laughed nervously. "Probably made the human realm sound a lot scarier than it is. I'm sorry if you're scared, I—"

Yes, I'm scared!" Amity couldn't help but shout. She winced as Luz flinched. "I'm more scared than I've ever been. I... Luz, you're the best thing in my life. And I... I can't protect you. I can't protect you from whatever the heck a 'Thanos' is, I can't protect you from hundred-foot-tall giants that eat planets, I can't protect you from the Emperor, I can't even protect you from jerkish ex-crushes. I tried and all it did was get you kidnapped and I can't lose you again."

"Wait wait wait," Luz replied. "1: You did not get me kidnapped. You stood up for me and helped me stand up for myself. That's good girlfriend behavior, right there, you didn't do anything wrong."

"But—"

"And 2: you didn't lose me. I'm here. I'm fine."

"I thought I did," Amity admitted.

"Huh?"

"Af, after... At the protest, Gus used an illusion of a human realm legend you told him about, some sort of elderly god-slayer, to distract the guards so we could set up." Luz snorted with laughter. "But he didn't tell us that he did it until later, so when the guards came back and said that they'd dealt with the 'insane human' they'd done something to you and... I thought I was okay, seeing you okay, but..." Amity started breathing heavily. "But I don't think I am."

Luz responded by pulling Amity into a tight, comforting hug and rubbing Amity's back. "I wish you'd told me sooner. I'm sorry and... I'm not going anywhere, you know that right?"

Amity leaned into the hug. She was feeling a little better, but..." I know, but I can't help but think about, about... I was so... I had to... I kept thinking about ways to make you stronger earlier. It was either that or panic. I even came up with something that would make you the most powerful witch in the boiling isles, a veritable goddess, and then you'd be safe, but..."

"You sure? Kinda sounds like cheating to me," Luz teased.

"Your safety is more important than my integrity!" Amity shouted.

Instead of flinching this time, Luz just held Amity tighter. "Okay. Here's what we'll do. We'll talk over this plan of yours, maybe loop in some other people to make sure it's sound, and then we can try it. Maybe not the whole thing, I want to be a great witch the right way, but a little bit won't hurt if it'll give you some peace of mind. Okay, Sweet Potato?"

Amity sniffed. "Okay."

"Now, since when is it your responsibility to protect me?" Luz asked.

"Since, since that day at my place," Amity began, "when my mom tried to scare you off we promised to protect each other and..."

"Yeah," Luz acknowledged, "each other. That means we work together to keep both of us safe. You don't have to do this on your own if you're concerned just talk to me and if you're scared don't try to hide it. Alright?"

Amity couldn't speak at the moment, so she just nodded.

They stood there together, for a moment, before Luz continued, awkwardly, "Amity... I hate to ask you this but I need to know... Do you... Still, seriously think you're not good enough for me? That you need to earn my love?"

Amity felt the heat rise in her face. "I... I've spent my whole life working hard to be the best and never feeling like it was enough. If I did well my reward was just... It's like I had to justify my existence. I know you're not like that. I know you love me regardless, I know you won't..." Amity couldn't make herself say it. "But, it's a little hard to get out of that mindset."

Luz started carding her fingers through Amity's hair. "Yeah, I get that. It was hard to get out of the mindset of being, well, a loser. And as soon as I came back here it was like all of my progress was gone. But you helped me get past that and now I'm gonna help you."

Luz released the hug and stood up on her toes to plant a kiss on Amity's forehead. "Te amo, mi hermosa."

Amity smiled at Luz and met her pretty almond-colored eyes. "Te amo, mi batata."

AN: So to address some confusion from the end of the last chapter, Logan in the comics is canonically 5'3''. He's five inches away from being legally a little person.

And yeah: Amity's a mutant. Not the demon realm equivalent, just straight up. It's kind of a lot to take in after everything else that happened today, but being pushed over the edge means that she got to talk about her real problem so silver lining and all that.