The light of abyss (The owl house x Marvel)

King was nearly conked out by the time the... Owl Family, question mark? Got back from the island where his 'castle' was located. Luz held the precious little guy in her arms as they settled down outside the Owl House.

Luz spared a glance at the strange construct of flesh and... Either stone or bone currently wrapped in Hooty's coils. "Jean-Luc is going in my room, isn't he?" Seriously, that thing gave her the creeps. It was like a symbiote, but the gooey bits were made of meat instead of... Whatever symbiote goo was made of. The ease at which it formed blades from itself didn't help. Nor did the fact that some of the meat leaked onto Luz's hand while she was in symbiote mode and her symbiote side ate it. She'd need to figure out how to make that not happen in case something icky gets on her hands in symbiote mode again.

Eda gave a sort of snort-scoff, "He's not going in mine."

"You sure we've got enough room in there?" Luz asked. "I still don't think I needed a queen-sized bed... Seriously, how much did you pay for that?"

"None of your business how much I paid," Eda deflected. "Now speaking of bed," the wild witch continued as she entered the house, "make sure you get to it at a decent time tonight if you're visiting your Mom in the morn... Ah, farts."

"So about that," came a familiar boy's voice from the living room. As Luz entered the house, she easily recognized the Golden Guard sitting on the couch and paging through what Luz recognized as the note for the first draft of what became Ruler's Reach. Luz hadn't realized that King had retrieved those. "Oh, Lilith," he said as the other adult walked in behind Luz. "Didn't think you'd be here," he said. "You know, I don't know what it was you were complaining about. Getting in here was pretty easy for me."

Lilith once again grumbled as if she'd stepped on a rake.

King woke up in Luz's arms. "Huh, what's going on?"

"The Golden Brat's here," Lilith declared with great venom.

"Well, what's he want?" King asked indignantly.

"I have two questions," The Golden Guard began. "First... Which one of you wrote this?"

"Um, Luz and I did," King replied awkwardly.

"Okay, gotta say," The Golden Guard began, "huge fan of Ruler's Reach. Prefer it over this draft, obviously, but this? This has charm. Would have been nice to see this after some polish but, you know... Almost makes me feel bad about what's about to go down."

"For the record, I'm not exactly proud of Ruler's Reach," King replied. "And uh... Huh. Never did get paid for that. Luz, when you get home after visiting the human realm we need to track down Piniet and beat him up till he gives us our money. And then, we shall buy snacks!" Luz had to admit she was a little touched that he's called it their money considering she'd disowned the work over King's changes, but...

"I'm sorry, when did this happen?" Eda asked.

"Can we focus?" Luz demanded. "Golden Guard, why are you really here?"

"Oh, that's simple enough," the masked teen replied. "The Emperor wants the portal to the human realm."

Luz's blood froze. "Why?"

The Golden Guard shrugged as he got up from the couch. "No clue, not my place to ask." He then brandished his staff at Eda. "Now, Owl Lady, where's the portal?"

"You've got a lot of nerve, Goofus," Eda quipped. "Especially when you're outnumbered five to one."

"Six to one!" King should while pointing at the Golden Guard. "Jean-Luc, get him!"

Jean-Luc proceeded to do nothing at all, as he'd gone dormant as soon as he'd been taken out of the castle.

"Hooty put down the construct," Eda declared. "You've got a new friend to play with."

"Oh boy!" Hooty declared as he dropped Jean-Luc and curled around to face the Golden Guard. "Do you like tea parties!?"

As Hooty stretched and slithered toward the Golden Guard, the Emperor's right hand clutched his strange mechanical staff and in a golden flash shot past Hooty... And past Luz, ripping King from her arms in the process before shooting out the door.

Everyone piled out after him and found him standing in the yard, holding his staff onehanded and having conjured some kind of red energy barrier forming a sphere in the air in which he held King.

"Okay, I really don't want to do this," The Golden Guard said as he gestured to the struggling King, "but orders are orders: Hand over the portal, or the dog gets it."

Eda shifted her gaze to Luz, and Luz nodded. King's safety was paramount, and besides...

Eda pulled the portal key out from around her neck and clicked it, causing the portal to appear and then fold into briefcase form. It fell, Eda caught it by the handle, and she slowly walked over and handed it out to the Golden Guard.

He took it by the handle, then gestured for the key. Eda sighed and handed it over as well and in response, the Golden Guard stepped back and released King so that he'd fall into Eda's arms.

...Then Luz shot her arm out, a symbiote tentacle exploding out of it and grabbing the portal from the Golden Guard hard enough to rip it out of his hands and drag it back to her as Eda bolted back toward the house to keep King safe.

"This was the plan, right?" Luz called out after her.

"Yes! Good job, you're learning how to forge documents later!" Eda shouted back...

Unfortunately, unspoken plans made up in the heat of the moment tended to have flaws. The flaw in this plan was that the Golden Guard had been holding the portal key in his other hand. He looked at Luz, looked at the key, pocketed it, and then bolted off into the forest.

Luz shifted to full symbiote mode and chased after him, pausing only to shove the portal into Lilith's arms as she did so. After a few moments, Luz belatedly realized that she had started running on all fours at some point. She had to admit, she was faster this way.

A minute through chasing the Golden Guard through the woods ended when he cleared the treeline and took flight on his staff. Not wanting to let him get away, Luz drew a plant glyph card from... She needed a name for wherever it was her pocket contents went and, much like Azura during her attempt at dabbling in sports, launched herself through the air with a massive thorny vine.

The thorn vault allowed Luz to catch and tackle the Golden Guard, sending them both falling through the forest canopy.

"You," the Golden Gaurd said while breathing heavily, "are a lot more aggressive than you were in the Shimmering Shoals." He then reached into his pocket and took out the key, looking over it as if to make sure it was undamaged.

"Give me the portal key, Goofus," Luz insisted.

"Okay, why do you people keep calling me that?" The Guard asked before forcing himself up and leaning on his staff for support. "And... No can-do. Either I leave with the key now, or you and your friends go to Conformatorium for treason."

"I've already broken in and out of the Conformatorium twice," Luz replied defiantly. "According to my girlfriend, Warden Wrath's kid says he's afraid of me now."

"Well in that case we'll just have to... Wait, you have a girlfriend?"

"Uh, yeah. Amity."

There was a brief pause as the Golden Guard processed that. "...So you worked out your differences... And now... Oh, oh, congratulations! I hope you're happy together," he said with genuine warmth. "Now if you'll excuse me I really need to get the key to the Emperor so..."

He tried to turn to walk off, but Luz managed to grab him by the hand the key was in. "Give me the key, Golden Guard," Luz declared while pulling back her other fist to strike. "Don't make me do this."

The Golden Guard proceeded to try and struggle out of Luz's grip, so Luz threw her punch and completely whiffed it, which was a good thing because as she extended her arm her fist shifted into a small curved blade similar to one Jean-Luc had used earlier that night and her forearm extended into a tendril so that said blade embedded itself into a tree.

"Huh," Luz observed. "That's new."

"...Did you just try to decapitate me?" The Golden Guard asked incredulously.

"I swear I didn't know I could do that," Luz insisted.

The Golden Guard then returned to struggling to get his hand free. "Okay, seriously, you have no idea how mad the Emperor's going to be if I don't come back with the portal."

"Sounds like you need a better job!" Luz countered. "Like Steve. Did you know Steve? He was a coven scout under Lilith? Well, now he's a janitor at Hexside. He says the pay is about the same but he gets more time off and better benefits."

"Quit trying to change the subject!" The Golden Guard said as Luz finally managed to break his grip. She just barely managed to get her fingers around the handle of the key when the Golden Guard managed to catch himself and grab the key by the teeth.

Luz formed a fist around the part of the key she had and started a furious tug of war, only for her blood to freeze when, in the struggle, she heard the sound of crunching glass and felt a viscous liquid lak onto her hand.

In her shock, she let go of the key and the Golden Guard held it up and immediately noticed it was cracked "Look what you did!" he said in a panic before noticing the cerulean liquid inside the key... And coating Luz's palm in a rapidly thinning layer. "Wait, is that Titan Blood?"

Luz didn't get a chance to answer, because as soon as her symbiote side finished absorbing the Titan Blood she was overwhelmed with searing pain and then everything went dark.

TLOA

Hunter wasn't sure what happened. One second the human was standing there staring at her hand, the next she fell to the ground screaming. The weird purple slime thing that his Uncle had said was a blessing from the Titan receded revealing the girl was covered in glowing gold lines, like what happened when someone was marked with a...

After making sure the portal key was secure, Hunter kneeled next to her and tore the bandages from her right forearm, revealing an Emperor's Coven sigil. He'd heard about this. An attempt to apprehend the Owl Lady had been subverted by a third party still at large who impersonated a coven scout in order to brand the human girl. Sweet merciful Titan had his Uncle been mad when he found out.

Coven Sigils weren't meant for humans, there was no telling what kind of negative reaction she might have. Case in point: Coven sigil activation was not supposed to last this long or be this painful. But why had it activated now and not when it had first been applied? Unless...

Unless the Titan's Blessing on the girl had somehow reacted to or absorbed the Titan Blood and generated magical energy which the sigil, as an act of mortal artifice, mistakenly conflated with wild magic to be sealed away! If that was the case...

The golden lines faded just after the girl had finished screaming herself hoarse, but she was still breathing heavily, shaking like a leaf, sweating, and even looked a little paler than she had twenty minutes ago. Hunter checked her pulse and her heart was racing.

He had the portal key. Even if it was damaged this mission was still a partial success. He could just leave, but... This girl was his enemy, but...

Looking up, Hunter saw two witches, obviously the Clawthorne sisters on their staves, flying right over them. Clearly, they'd come looking for the human but overshot them. Chances were good that...

Hunter sighed and picked the human up.

TLOA

The next thing Luz knew, she was in her bed at the Owl House. The next thing she knew after that was that she had a splitting headache.

Blinking awake, she found that she was currently surrounded by a large number of King's stuffed animals, including Francois, who were all positioned around her as if standing guard. There was a damp cloth on her head, and someone had changed her into her pajamas. Looking out the window it had to be nearly noon. Luz immediately panicked, first because she was supposed to go see her mom hours ago and second because she remembered what had happened to the portal key.

She reached around for her phone, her Mom must be worried sick, but she couldn't find it. Feeling herself nearly sick with panic she leaped from bed only to nearly stumble before making her way downstairs.

Once she got to the doorway where the hall led into the living room she saw Eda with her cell phone. "Cam, Cam, I know we should have called earlier but by the time I figured out how to make a call on this thing you were the one calling... Look, we've got a situation... No! No, Luz is... Well, she's going to be okay. Look, long story short some jerk tried to jack my portal, and the key got destroyed so... No, the portal itself is fine, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation, but... Look, I just need to figure out how to replace the... Cam, we both know that Luz would never do that," Immediately Luz felt slightly sicker than she already did. "I mean, yeah, she did technically run away once already but... Look, the point is... There have got to be people on your end you can call too, right? We can work on this on two ends and then... Look, everything's gonna be alright and..." It was then that Eda noticed Luz standing there. "Okay, Luz is up, I'll have her call you back in a bit."

Eda then hung up and set Luz's phone on the coffee table.

"Eda?" Luz began. "What happened?"

"After making sure King and the portal door were both safe, Lilith and I went out to back you up against the Golden Goof," Eda explained. "But you are very fast and we couldn't find you until... Well, when we heard you screaming. Luz, are you in any pain?"

"Head hurts pretty bad," Luz admitted. She remembered hurt, she didn't remember screaming.

In the next few seconds, Eda had gotten up, grabbed Luz, sat her down, and then dashed off. A few seconds later she returned with a potion and a glass of water. "This is for pain," she said while putting the potion in Luz'a hand, "this is because you're probably dehydrated," as she sat down the glass of water.

Luz dutifully took the potion and drank the water and... Honestly started to feel better pretty quick. Magic was awesome.

"Anyway, Lilly and I overshot you or something. The next thing we knew a crow call was chasing us down: It was King. A few minutes after we heard you scream, the Golden Goof had carried you back to the Owl House, told King and Hooty what happened, told them to call a healer, and skedaddled. After calling us King called Tiny Nose and..."

"Oh, okay," Luz said.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Eda asked as she sat down next to Lus and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"The portal key broke and... Titan blood. My symbiote side sucked it up and then... Pain."

"Okay, Luz, you're going to be okay," Eda quickly reassured. "Tiny did a pretty thorough test, more than I'd have given her credit for, and... There's nothing physically wrong with you, you had just... Well, when you took in the Titan Blood, you got magic. And the coven sigil acted up."

"I thought Emperor's Coven sigils didn't seal magic?" Luz asked.

"No, what they do is let you use all nine main magics," Eda corrected. "According to Lilly, they still stop you from mixing magic or using certain spells that are considered Wild Magic. And apparently, it still drains minute amounts of magic."

"Why did it hurt so much?" Luz asked while thinking about how she should have gotten the sigil flayed off when she had the chance. "It looked like it hurt that kid at the covention who joined the illusion coven but he didn't pass out."

"Two theories," Eda replied. "Theory one, those things were never meant for humans so it's not working right on you. Theory two," she continued, "Lilly seems to think that there's an upper limit to how much magic a single coven sigil can seal, and, well, even a teaspoon of Titan blood is a great deal of very powerful magic. Which leads us to the good news and the bad news..."

"What's the good news?"

"Since you can apparently absorb magic stuff to get stronger," Eda began, "we can probably just feed you magic stuff until you're strong enough to burn out the sigil."

"And the bad news?"

"It's almost certainly going to hurt like heck each time," Eda finished. "Definitely not that bad, you basically mainlined the strongest source of magic on the isles, but... If you decide to go this route we'll make sure to do it a little at a time, here, with a healer on hand."

"Amity had a plan to make me stronger," Luz said. "Back in the human realm I uh... Well, there's some crazy stuff back in the Human Realm that I kind of just take for granted but that got her spooked when it came up. I said I'd do a little bit of it to give her piece of mind, but we haven't talked about it since then."

"Well," Eda began, "I sent King and Lilith off to round up the munchkin brigade about half an hour ago. Figured they needed to know and you could use the support, so we can talk it over with her and... Luz, you should probably eat something," Eda changed tracks, "even if you don't feel like it. You've been out cold for most of the day, you need to keep your strength up. I've got some porridge from earlier or if you'd like I could heat you up some cockatrice soup. Something easy to eat."

After thinking it over for a second, Luz replied "Soup please."

"Okay, it'll take me a minute so why don't you call your mom back?" Eda said as she got up and headed toward the kitchen.

Luz picked up her phone and was about to dial her Mom's contact when the door flew open and Hooty shouted "Company!"

A lizard-like biped demon with three eyes, two open but the third in the middle of the forehead closed, stepped in awkwardly with a huge sack slung over his shoulders.

"Piniet?" Luz asked, exasperated. "What do you want? I'm really not in the mood to deal with—"

"Oh no no no," he said and Luz just then realized he was radiating terror. "I uh... I was visited this morning by someone who reminded me that I um, forgot, to pay out royalties for Ruler's Reach. So here," he said as he swung the bag down and set it in the living room. "Every last snail I owe, plus interest. Tell your friend the Golden Guard we're good now, okay?" he said and then immediately ran out through the door.

"Huh. That happened."