The light of abyss (The owl house x Marvel)

A blacksmith is a nail short, and so can't shoe a horse. That horse going unshoed means that an army is one rider short. The lack of that one soldier requires a change in strategy, which costs the army victory in a decisive battle, thus losing them the war. All for want of a nail.

Other seemingly inconsequential things can have just as, if not larger, effect on the future. Upstate New York, in the 1990s, elderspawn parasites from beyond the stars arrive on the planet seeking to turn the Earth into a feeding grown, only to be driven off by the work of the heroes of the planet and slain by the psychic scream of one of their rogue brethren.

Focus on two individuals, a young couple, each taken as hosts by the marauding parasites. The event was rather frightening, but not too traumatic, and so once freed they carried on with their lives as years passed, eventually starting a family, ignorant to the eldritch residue left behind in their very cells. They raised their daughter, an energetic ray of light in the night, ignorant of what they passed down to her. The father fell ill, the family moved to a small town in Connecticut for medical treatment but... For some illnesses, there's not much that even advanced treatment plans can do and a good man leaves his wife and daughter alone in a town that is... Less than tolerant of the young girl's eccentricities. The mother loved her child, but without another parent to give a strong, united front, well... Something had to give...

Luz Noceda stood on the sidewalk outside her family's home in Gravesfield, resigned to her fate. She had gotten a little too caught up in her plans for a book report and... Well, no one had gotten seriously hurt but maybe she should have thought that through better. She'd already been in trouble for a bunch of dumb reasons and now she had to go to a special camp for a few months or the school would kick her to the curb.

"Now Mija," her mother Camila said, "don't look so glum. I looked into this Reality Check place and it's just a camp, not one of... Those places."

"That doesn't really make me feel better about being exiled for three months," Luz lamented. "Too bad the gene test came back negative, could have gone to the Jean Grey Institute's summer program for three months instead."

"If the gene test came back positive we might not be in this situation in the first place," Camila countered. Gravesfield wasn't very tolerant of things outside the 'norm' except, weirdly enough, mutants and their eccentricities. For some reason, most of the town was willing to give them a pass. The worst that happened was about a year ago and might not have actually been related, a senior at her high school was suspended on a bunk charge coincidentally after asking about whether or not she could bring her mutant girlfriend from the next town over to prom. Ended up being a whole thing, got on the local news even, before the mutant community's Nazi-hunting former terrorist communal grandfather showed up and then stood just outside the property line for six hours. He didn't say or do anything, he just stood there. Menacingly. The kid's suspension was overturned later that day.

"Think of it this way," Camila continued, "if it's a good camp they might teach you something that will help you focus your energy a little more constructively. And if it's a bad camp, you might be able to bond with some other kids over how bad it is and make some friends who aren't snakes."

"We'll see, Mom," Luz said without committing to anything.

"Now I need to get to the clinic," Camila concluded, "The bus should be here soon, I love you Mija."

"Y tu, Mami."

Once her mother was gone, Luz rushed to the trash can. She'd needed to start fresh, no weirdness, and so had thrown out her Good Witch Azura book and... Immediately regretted it. Even ignoring how much she loved every single thing about the franchise and how much she saw herself in Azura, that book had been the last thing her father ever gave her. It simply meant far too much to her to throw out and she was still mentally kicking herself for trying when she found that the can was empty.

"No, no, where is it!?" She exclaimed, before noticing a peculiar sight: An adorable little owl hopping along, dragging a large garbage bag behind them. "Get back here you little thief!"

Luz chased the thieving ball of fluff deep into the woods and into an old abandoned shack where, in a flash of light, she suddenly found herself in a tent filled with assorted random junk, a free-standing door behind her. Sneaking forward to the front of the tent, Luz found a tall, pale older woman rummaging through the garbage bag as the owl affixed itself to the top of a wooden staff and turned to wood itself. The pale woman casually disposed of several valuable things that Luz doubted anyone had actually thrown out before gleefully declaring that a pair of novelty glasses would make her rich.

Then she tried to use Luz's book as kindling and the teenager was compelled to reveal herself, jumping over the sales counter around the tent's front and grabbing the book, "this is mine, sorry, thank you!" she shouted as she made her retreat back to the strange, giant-eye-adorned door...

Which folded itself into a briefcase and flew over her, into the hands of the tall, pale woman who loomed over Luz most sinisterly.

Luz, naturally, forced her way under the tent and out to freedom...

Only to realize that she was most definitely not anywhere near Connecticut anymore, given the color of the plants and sky, as well as the giant bones she could see in the distance.

"Where the heck am I?" She asked as she stood at the edge of a ditch. "Wait, and I... I didn't stumble into the... Dark Dimension, did I?" Luz then began to twist around, looking for any sign of Doctor Strange on the off chance that he was dimension traveling that day and could rescue her.

No Sorcerer Supreme, unfortunately, just a little pink fairy thing.

"Hello," Luz said hesitantly, "you wouldn't happen to be able to give me directions, would you?"

The fairy merely looked at her with a predatory look, before its mouth twisted into a horrific fanged maw. "Give me your skin!"

Luz reflexively slapped the tiny monster away and turned to flee only to be confronted by the pale woman again. "If you're going to kill me just do it!" Luz shouted, closing her eyes and bracing herself for the worst.

After thirty seconds of nothing, Luz opened her eyes to see the pale woman staring at her like she was insane. "Kid," she said, "I'm not gonna kill a potential customer... Unless they try to rip me off, eh!" she exclaimed and then tried to elbow Luz's ribs before putting a hand to her back and leading her back to the tent and parking her in a seat at the shop counter.

"Now, you probably know more about this stuff than I do, human," she said while gesturing to an assorted pile of junk and knick-knacks including but not limited to a Croc shoe without its mate and an old school portable TV, "so just grab something you like and we'll discuss price and... Wait, darn, you probably don't have any snails... Oh well," she shrugged, "I can be flexible with payment."

Luz tried to ignore the weirdness of the situation but couldn't, so instead she focused on the part that stood out to her the most. "That's a weird way to refer to refer to another human... Wait," Luz finally got a good look at the tall figure and made out her sharp teeth and pointed ears. "...You're not a mutant essentialist, are you? I thought that movement started dying out after the Genetic Diversity Preservation Act got passed?"

The pale woman laughed. "Kid, you're not on Earth anymore, and I'm not human. I am the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles, Eda The—"

"Owl Lady!" interrupted an approaching figure, a bulky, armored man with one of those pointy helmets. "You are under arrest for crimes against—"

"Blah, blah, blah," the now-named Eda The Owl Lady mocked, "could you come back later? I'm busy."

The armored figure ignored Eda and grabbed Luz by the back of her shirt. "You're under arrest too."

"For what!?"

"Consorting with a criminal."

Eda rolled her eyes. The next few moments were a blur to Luz. When she became aware of her surroundings again, she was moving very fast through the air supported only by a broom-width piece of wood.

She almost screamed... Until she saw a large griffin flying nearby. A large griffin with the head of a pigeon, that breathed spiders. Just like her art project. Having been right about something distracted her from how high and fast she was being flown.

Eventually, the Owl Lady landed her flying staff in a clearing in the wilderness, outside a strange-looking cottage connected to a stone tower.

"Alright, Kid," Eda declared. "We should be safe here. And... You alright?"

Luz, honestly, wasn't. She felt weird. And, thinking back, she'd been feeling weird since she got here, "No. I don't feel so good right now."

"Motion sickness?" Eda asked. "I've got something for that... At least, I think humans can drink cinder ale..."

"Uh, no," Luz corrected. She started unconsciously stamping her feet as her nerves began to get to her. "I'm just... really on edge right now."

"Hah!" Eda exclaimed. "First time almost getting arrested?"

"No, actually," Luz admitted. That had been a very bad field trip and even though it was totally that older lady's fault the school made her get tested for a bunch of stuff before they'd let her come back to class.

"Well, you can relax. You're safe here," Eda insisted. "The whole property is protected by the best security system on the Isles," she declared as she led Luz up to the front door... There was a door knocker-type thing but without the knocker part. And it was snoring. "Ugh, way to undermine my point, Hooty."

Eda slapped the knockerless-knocker awake and it shot to attention "Ahh! I'm up, I'm up, hoot!" It then fixed its gaze on Eda and Luz and spoke in a voice that Luz could only describe as if someone's deliberately bad Mickey Mouse impression was also their real voice. "If seeker of entrance be what you be, you must answer my riddles three!"

Eda responded by slapping it again. "I'm not in the mood for games, Hooty."

"Ow!" Hooty exclaimed, "Jeeze, I was just trying to have a little fun. Take a joke why don't ya? Hoot." The door then opened itself and Eda led Luz inside.

"Now, as long as Hooty doesn't fall asleep on the job again, no one can get us here. Not the guards," Eda began to list off, "not the Emporer's Coven, and not any clingy exes. Just be mindful of..." Luz could hear footsteps approaching. "You know what, I'll just let him introduce himself."

"Introduce myself to who?" Came a high-pitched voice from the hallway. Luz turned to look and just barely caught a small black furry thing scrambling out of view.

"I mean," the high-pitched voice cleared its throat and then got deeper like a little boy pretending to be an adult, "Who dares trespass against I, the King of Demon!"

The small furry creature revealed itself to be a doglike biped with a horned, skill-like head, one horn broken, when it lept into view and then began T-posing to assert dominance.

Luz was silent for a moment, and then exclaimed "Ay que lindo!" and tackled the poor, defenseless creature. "Who's the softest, most adorable little boy? Who is? You is! You is!"

"No, I'm not!" the self-proclaimed King insisted, "Eda, get this horrible thing off of me!"

"Yeah, that's more or less everyone's reaction when they see him for the first time," Eda admitted. "Now let him go, he does need to breathe."

Reluctantly, Luz set the adorable King of Demons down, and then, no longer distracted by a cuddly widdle ball of floof, her awareness of the weird, anxious feeling returned to her and, honestly, it felt a little worse now.

"So, uh, Ms. Owl Lady, this has been really fun but I really should be getting home now so if you could please pull out that fancy door of yours I'll get out of your hair."

"No."

"No?"

"No," Eda confirmed.

"Why not?"

"Well, I did save you from that guard earlier," Eda said, "which means you kinda owe me, and luckily for you I have something that needs doing that only a human can do."

Luz blinked. "...You aren't going to sacrifice me to Mephisto as part of a plan to invade the human realm, are you?" She asked nervously.

It was Eda's turn to blink. "Who in the Titan's name is...? Jeeze you're morbid, kid." Eda laughed it off. "No, that guard's boss, Warden Wrath, has been after me for a long time, but this time he's gone a step too far."

"He stole my crown of power" the King of Demons insisted, "without it, I'm trapped in the form you see now."

"King's a very important person to me," Eda admitted, "and Wrath knows that if someone took something important to him I'd take it personally. His plan to to lure me out to the Conformatorium to capture me but what he doesn't know is that I already know the layout of that place like the back of my hand."

"So what do you need me for?" Luz asked.

"Oh, it's simple enough: King's Crown is locked away in the confiscated items room, which is locked behind a magical barrier that prevents access to any demon or witch who isn't authorized, but it wouldn't be able to stop a human."

"And If I help with this, you'll let me go home?"

"Of course, kid," Eda insisted, "I'm a liar, a cheater, a thief, and an all-around scoundrel but when I make a deal I honor it."

"Also, it's not like you have much of a choice," King added.

"Fine," Luz agreed. "What's the plan?"

Eda flipped Luz over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes and began walking away with her. "I'll explain when we get to the Conformatorium."

The Conformatorium turned out to be a very imposingly tall and sinister-looking prison tower.

"So the plan is simple," Eda began, "you and King will sneak in through the top and make your way to the confiscated items room. I'll go in through the ground floor and create a distraction, then meet you there once the guards are dealt with."

"I'm unsure about this plan," Luz admitted.

"It's fine," Eda insisted, "King and I have gotten in and out of tighter scrapes than this."

"Alright," Luz agreed. Then she pulled up the hood of her shirt and made sure the cat ear adornments were flipped up. "Meow meow!" she declared, psyching herself up.

"I like your spirit, Kid," Eda said with a smile. Then she went wide-eyed. "Oh, if you see a small, white-skinned biped with orange hair, a big nose, and a speech impediment let me know, she's one of Hooty's friends. She got grabbed last week and I should probably make at least a token effort to save her if she's here."

Scaling the tower was surprisingly easy. Pulling herself in through the window, however, was not. King laughed at her when she collapsed on the floor. "Cats don't do that."

As Luz and King got their bearings and began searching the prison, a voice called out from the cells "This is a bad place to be, little cat."

Luz turned to see a fanged witch in a cell... Someone who didn't look the least bit dangerous. "I'm not a real cat," she clarified, "I'm human and... What are in for? You don't look like a criminal."

"The Conformatorium isn't just for criminals, human," the witch continued, "Warden Wrath has broad authority to detain anyone who he doesn't think is a proper upstanding citizen regardless of whether or not they've broken the law. I'm here because I like to write stories about sentient food falling in love," the witch said while presenting a book, opened to a page that Luz didn't have time to read but which featured an illustration of an anthropomorphic tomato proposing to an anthropomorphic sweet potato.

"I like to eat my own eyes!" declared an odd-sounding voice from another cell.

"I was awwested for telling the twuth!" Came a high-pitched, feminine voice from another. "We awe but pwinted images on pages made fow the entewtainment of highew dimensional beings!"

Speech impediment. Luz checked that cell and found a waddling head-like creature that matched the description Eda had given. "Hi, are you Hooty's friend?"

The tiny being gasped. "Hooty sent you? Get out, now, I'm not wowth it."

"Not gonna happen," Luz insisted. That weird, anxious feeling that Luz had been feeling since stepping through that strange door had been getting worse and worse all day, but it'd reached an apex when she heard these people's stories and her blood started boiling at the injustice. "None if you have done anything wrong, you're just weird. You shouldn't be punished for that!"

...Luz, later on, would admit that she might have been projecting her own difficulties fitting in around Gravesfield onto the prisoners of the Conformatorium, but the point she was making still stood.

Luz tried to lift the lever next to the tiny being's cell but couldn't so much as make it budge. She cursed her weak nerd arms, but kept trying even as heavy footsteps began to approach.

"Keep it down in there, prisoners!" Declared a sinister and authoritarian voice.

"Warden Wrath!" Declared the food-fic author. "Human, you need to hide."

Frustration mounting, Luz gave the lever one last push as that anxious feeling she'd been having all day was suddenly replaced by... Well, Luz's best guess for what to call it was 'shattering.'

The heavy lever suddenly flew up and the cell door opened. The tiny being stepped out, confused and in awe, while Luz was suddenly distracted by her arms.

Specifically, the fact that they were currently enshrouded in an inky black, shadowy smoke-like energy.

"I'm magic!" She exclaimed like a five-year-old discovering that it was raining soda. Already ideas of becoming a witch like Azura were running through her brain

She was roused from a fantasy of becoming Good With Luzura, Sorceress Supreme by the tiny being's declaration of "A deus ex machina, the authows awe on ouw side!"

A door at the far end of the hall threw itself open and in stepped a giant of a man dressed like a cross between an executioner and a plague doctor.

The figure, presumably Warden Wrath, was about to say something when the tiny being screamed "Fight the powaw! Aaaaaaaahhh!" and drew a magic circle in the air, conjuring a blast of fire that threw him off balance.

Not sure what to do next, Luz decided to keep releasing prisoners. The man who ate his own eyes, of which he had several that quickly grew back it turns out, immediately charged out of his cell to join Hooty's friend but the author turned to Luz first. "Get out of here while you can, human. We'll take care of the Warden and then free the other prisoners."

"Are you sure?" Luz asked, suddenly very concerned for the well-being of the people she just met.

"We'll be fine," the author said with a smile. "My mentor in the Bard Coven taught me a few tricks. Now go."

Luz ran past the brawl and as she escaped she could have sworn that she heard whistling behind her.

King, fresh from wherever it was he'd been hiding, scrambled up next to her and lept on her shoulders. "That was pretty cool," he complimented. "Are you sure you need to go back to the human realm? I could really use someone like you in my army of nightmares."

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm sure."

"Will you at least tell me your name?"

"It's Luz."

"Luz..." King said contemplatively, "I like that name. When I reclaim my throne and launch my campaign of conquest, I shall name a province in your honor!"

"Aww, that's sweet." It was weird and a little creepy, but Luz was genuinely touched by the thought.

Just according to plan, the two of them met Eda outside the confiscated items room.

"I heard the racket upstairs, what the heck is going on up there?" The Owl Lady asked.

"I found Hooty's friend and started a prison riot," Luz summarized.

"Luz has weird shadow magic!" King added. Luz held up a hand and, with a bit of concentration, manifested the strange dark energy again.

Eda blinked. "That doesn't look like any magic I've ever seen, are you sure you're not like... What are they called, those humans with the... you said the name earlier, it's on the tip of my tongue..."

"...Mutants?" Luz supplied.

"Yeah, one of those."

"No, I'm not a mutant," Luz denied. "I was tested for it."

"Huh. Something to figure out later I guess," Eda said with a shrug. Then she tapped the door to the confiscated items room with her owl-headed staff and drew a magic circle on it, causing it to be blasted off its hinges. "So, just walk into that glowy energy thingy in there and grab King's crown. You'll know it when you see it."

Luz followed Eda's instruction to the letter, pausing only to take a breath to steady her nerves before pacing through the barrier, and immediately saw the only crown-shaped object there was.

"You have got to be kidding me."

A short while later, back at Eda's home, Luz starred incredulously as King, now wearing a cardboard crown from a fast food restaurant, as he gave marching orders to an assembled army of stuffed animals and action figures.

"So he's just a kid who's really into playing pretend?"

"Yeah," Eda admitted.

"So, don't get me wrong, I can relate, but that seemed like a lot of work for..."

Eda shrugged. "As far as I can tell, there's no one else in all the Boiling Iseles like King and I'm something of an outcast myself. All we have is each other so if it's important to him, well..."

Luz considered that. "...Yeah. I get it."

"Anyway, you held up your end of the bargain," Ea said while drawing a fancy key with an eye on the end out of her pocket. "So here you go."

Clicking the eye like a button, the portal door appeared and unfolded itself before opening.

Luz looked at it, then back to Eda. "So, I've been thinking... That anxious feeling I was having went away after my powers came in, and... Rescuing those people from unfair imprisonment, it felt good. Almost like being..." A thought occurred to her. "So back on Earth, we have these people who—"

"I've been visiting the human realm since I was younger than you," Eda interrupted. "Heck, I even married a human in Las Vegas once, mostly to steal his car. Anyway, I know what a superhero is."

Luz blinked. "I'm going to want the full story later. Anyway, it was like being a superhero and a big thing with superheroes is being responsible with your powers." Luz ignited her hand in darkness again. "I couldn't do this until I came here, it'd be pretty irresponsible to go home before I knew what it was and how it worked. And, well, I've... always wanted to be a witch."

"Humans can't be witches, Luz."

"Bologna, there are plenty of humans with magic," Luz insisted. "Doctor Strange, Sister Grimm, Magik.."

"Those are sorcerers," Eda countered. "Even that chick in red who calls herself a witch isn't a real witch. A human can't just learn what we do."

"Well, maybe no humans have tried hard enough," Luz insisted.

Eda blinked. "What's the real reason you wanna stay?"

Luz looked away. "I don't... I don't fit in back home. If it wasn't for my Mom I'd probably have run away a long time ago. This was, the most... You guys don't fit in here, so I thought, maybe...?"

King jumped up on Luz's shoulder. "Still here? Reconsidering my offer to join my army? I'll make you a major general," he sang.

Luz beamed up at him. "A major general?"

"Yes yes," King confirmed, "a major general!"

"I'm gonna have to work on my patter songs."

"I have no idea what that means," King replied cheerfully, before turning to Eda with wide eyes. "Eda, can we keep her, please?"

"Yeah, please?" Luz added with her own puppy dog eyes.

Eda rolled her eyes. "Fine," she foux-whined. "You can stay, but if you want to be my apprentice you're going to have to work for me first."

"Deal!" Luz declared before rushing Eda and pulling her into a bear hug, much to the witch's clear discomfort.

AN: Can you tell that I hate retelling canon scenes? Seriously, I changed as much as I could justify and I still have a little voice in the back of my head calling me a plagiarist.

Still, this is pretty much the only way to start this kind of AU. Going forward there will be a lot less "just straight up retelling the episodes" and also chapters will probably be shorter given that this one is so long mostly because if I'm going to do an episode retelling it will be one episode retelling. I'm already thinking of ways that later episodes will diverge and a few original plot points.

Some notes: I tweaked Eda and especially Camila's character compared to the canon first episode based on later season reveals. Things like thinking a Shonen anime is a workout tape are funny but with how long and regularly she's been interacting with the human world Eda should not be that ignorant of human stuff so... Also, hugs are not a foreign concept on the Boiling Isles so her not getting what Luz is doing is... Eh?

Camila, meanwhile... The first episode implies that the camp was Camila's idea while later episodes make it clear that she was pressured into it by people who don't care for or understand Luz. In that light, and given that Camila is a good mom, it feels more appropriate that she'd do her due diligence and make sure that the camp she's being made to send Luz to is an actual camp instead of, say, a "troubled teen institution" or something akin to a conversion camp than to try and hype up a place that she knows Luz isn't going to like and that she'd probably rather not send her to at all.

Similarly, things like Tiny Nose being both Hooty's friend and a seemingly competent battle mage and Katya being a bard, you know "this should have been a thing back in season 1" stuff, gets thrown in because why not. I'm assuming that Raine was at least recruiting for BATTs at this point. Expect more like this in the future.

Luz's relative lack of enthusiasm compared to Canon is a combination of the building anxious feeling she'd been getting up until her powers manifested and the fact that, having grown up in a version of the Marvel Universe, she already knows that real magic isn't nessesarily like in her fantasy novels. Expect her to be more excited and energetic as she acclimates. Luz having been tested for a bunch of stuff in this version of events will come up again later.