The light of abyss (The owl house x Marvel)

The last few days had been a mixed bag for Eda.

On the one hand, the kids knew about her curse now, which was good in some ways and bad in others all in and of itself. The truth was, she should have been honest about it and how it meant that she just didn't have the energy some days, on the other hand... The reminders to check that she has her Elixir every day, while appreciated at first, got old fast. Yeah, the kid's hearts were in the right place but she'd been dealing with this for 30 years and really didn't need more than the occasional reminder.

On a solely positive note, Luz had managed to figure out a way of working magic that Eda had never even heard of, using drawn glyphs, by copying a symbol that couldn't have been in the circle of Eda's own light spell for more than a few seconds. The kid wasn't a witch yet, just a hedge sorcerer, but she was closer than any other human had ever come as far as Eda knew.

So all in all things were a net positive... Until today. Nobody was in the Bonesborough market today because of a covention. A covention that she'd been dragged to on pain of listening to Luz and King read aloud from those Titan-awful novels Luz likes. Seriously, those things were targeted toward kids ages six to eleven, how many kids that age even understood prose like that?

Now, it hadn't been that bad, Luz was too smart to get brainwashed into joining any of those cults and was just enjoying watching all of the different kinds of magic on display, but the constant sassing by her friend... Glasses and the sturdily built girl and Luz's other friend... Goops hyping up the Coven system was getting on her nerves.

...Eda made a note to try and memorize their actual names later.

Then someone recognized her from her wanted posters just as she was trying to leave and she was forced to duck into a presentation for the Emporer's Coven with her goody two shoes Lilith, head stooge of the Emporer's lapdogs... Who recognized her when she tried to sneak out for a second time and insulted her in front of a bunch of children who were trying to get her autograph. Two could play at that game.

"You know kids," she said while sliding up to her sister, "when Lilly was around your age she got so excited to meet the Emporer's Coven that she peed herself."

This sparked a fit of laughter among the children and a glare from Lilith. "Laugh all you want, Edalyn, but while you petulantly defy the coven system and peddle trash for a living, I have the privilege of enforcing the laws of the land and mentoring the next generation of great witches."

"I'll have you know that I've taken an apprentice and I'd put good money on her wiping the floor with any of yours!" Eda insisted. Okay, maybe it wasn't right to put Luz on the spot like that, but what were the odds that anything would ever come of it?

"Eda!" Oh no. "Eda, Eda!" Luz called out as she popped up next to the Clawthorne sisters, having run to Eda so fast that she might as well have teleported. "I bumped into Amity again and she was being mean and got really really angry when I said I was training to be a witch and then she stomped on King's cupcake so I lost my temper and challenged her to a witch's duel and then she did some kinda everlasting oath thingy that means if I lose I have to give up learning magic forever, help!"

Both Clawthorne sisters blinked. "Did... Did your apprentice breathe at all while saying that?"

"Luz, did you agree to a time for the duel?" Eda asked, ignoring Lilith.

"Like, in an hour."

Eda face palmed. Looks like they were doing this.

"Wait," Lilith began. "Did you say 'Amity?' As in, Amity Blight? My star student?" Well, this just kept getting better. "It seems that you'll have the chance to put your money where your mouth is after all, Edalyn." Lilith worked an overly flashy spell that burned away all of Eda's wanted posters... At least the ones she could see right now, if her framed poster at home was gone Eda would be mightily ticked. "For one day, you aren't a fugitive. Use it well, I expect to see your student at her bes—"

"Really, Lilith?" came a young-sounding masculine voice.

The unlikely trio turned to see a golden-armored figure and a white hooded cape, holding a mechanical staff. Lilith grumbled as if she'd just stepped on a rake.

Luz was the first to recover. "Uh, who's shiny teenage Darth Vader over there?"

"The Golden Guard," Lilith explained bitterly. "A teenage prodigy whom the Emporer gives preferential treatment."

"That's a weird way to say 'The Emporer's right-hand man,' Lilith," the so-named Golden Guard quipped back.

"Why are you here?" Lilith seethed.

"Rumor has it that the Owl Lady has a pet human," The Golden Guard explained. "When one of your scouts reported back that she'd been spotted at the covention, accompanied by a kid with round ears, well, Emporer Belos was curious and sent me to investigate." Eda immediately drew her staff and moved to make sure she was in between Luz and The Golden Guard, but the Guard simply raised a hand. "Relax Owl Lady, my mission is just to observe, not interfere. At least for now. So that's all I'll do... That, and judge Lilith's decisions. It might be within your authority to suspend an arrest warrant but this is pretty petty."

Lilith stood firm and pouted. "The human is obligated by an Everlasting Oath to duel my protege. It would be unsporting to make her do it without the support of her own mentor," she justified. Eda snorted.

"Fair enough," the Golden Guard agreed. "Ooh, brainstorm," he continued, "I need to observe the human and it'd be a real shame if something happened to her given how interested the Emporer is, so how about I step in and play referee? Why am I asking, it's not like your compliance is a factor. Human, name?"

"...Luz," the human replied hesitantly.

"Luz the human? Well, you'd best use your prep time wisely. Byyyeeee!" He said with a wave as he walked off.

"He says bye the same way you do," Luz observed to Eda.

Eda responded by grabbing Luz by the shoulders and marching her to as close to somewhere private as they could get.

"Okay, with Golden Boy keeping an eye on things it's gonna be really hard to cheat," Eda began as she reached into her hair to draw out her box of special tricks, only for Luz to protest.

"I don't think we should cheat anyway," she said nervously and began stamped feet for a moment. "She got... really upset at the idea of cheating and she's already super mad. Right now I think she just wants to humiliate me but she did try to have me dissected that one time so, you know, if I make her any madder she might just try to kill me dead."

Eda blinked. "She tried to have you dissected?"

"Did I not tell you that?"

"No, you didn't. Okay, change of plans, if you're going to do this," Eda gagged, "'fair and square' then... You haven't had any new powers come in have you?"

"No, just the shadow aura and the uh... I've settled on ESP. It's a little generic but, what else am I gonna call 'vaguely sense people and if they're having a strong emotion?' I mean, I don't think there's a specific word for that."

"And you haven't discovered any more glyphs?"

Luz shook her head.

"So you're going into a witch's duel with an aura that makes you physically a little faster and stronger... And the most basic spell on the Isles, that has no practical combat use." Eda started rubbing her temples, she was going to need the well-aged apple blood when she got home. "You sure you don't want to cheat?" she asked while shaking her box of tricks.

"Eda, I will be upset if I have to give up learning magic," Luz began in a tone that indicated that this was the understatement of the millennium, "but I can live with it. I can't live with dead. Besdes, if I had to cheat to win did then I really win?"

That was a dumb question but Eda didn't have the heart to call her on it. "Okay, suit yourself... So Baby Blight's an Abomination track student, she's almost certainly going to conjure an abomination. At her age it'll be pretty generic and smaller and weaker than the ones you make manually so you should be able to run circles around it. With your skill set your best bet is going to be to ignore it completely and punch her in the face."

"That seems kind of mean," Luz observed.

"So's trying to have you dissected," Eda quipped back.

"You don't have any other advice?"

"No, not really," Eda shrugged. "Whatever your shadow powers are, they're nothing like any magic I know so I can't teach you any combat spells real quick and it's not like using your glyph with your hand all shadowy is gonna do anything cool..."

Eda trailed off as she and Luz both realized that they hadn't actually tried that.

Quickly, Luz drew out her notebook and sketched out the light glyph on a page before tearing it out and setting it on the ground. She darkened up her hand real good, then activated the glyph.

The Glyph proceeded to explode in a burst of blue and purple light, leaving a scorch on the ground.

"This," Eda said with pride, "is something we can work with..."

TLOA

Luz stood, nervously, on one side of the sandy arena that made up the auditorium that had hosted the Emporer's Coven demonstration earlier. After a bit of experimentation and a lot of predawn light glyphs, Eda was convinced that Luz had good odds but... It wasn't like Luz was looking forward to fighting someone.

Luckily, Amity's anger seemed to have cooled. She stood opposite Luz looking smug, but Luz could only sense her general presence, not any particularly strong emotions, so this might not go horribly if things go wrong.

"Lady and gentlemen, witchlings of all ages," The Golden Guard declared from a stage at one end of the circular arena, "The star student of the Emporer's Coven's own head witch Lilith Clawthorne and the human apprentice of the infamous wild witch, the Owl Lady Eda Clawthorne—"

"You two are related!?" Luz couldn't help but blurt out, interrupting the presentation.

"...Yes, well anyway," the Golden Guard continued, "these two seem to have something of a grudge and... And I forgot my speech... Amity Blight, Luz the human, just... Just start."

Amity made the first move, drawing an orchid spell circle which caused a similar circle to appear on the ground. "Abomination, rise!" She declared and...

...Luz took a moment to glare at Eda as the absolutely massive slime golem emerged from the ground, easily two or three times the size of the ones Luz had seen when she snuck into Hexside. Smaller her foot and... Wait, what was that feeling she got from Amity? Surprise?

"Abomination, attack!"

The good news was that something that big was rather lumbering, all of its speed came from big steps so it was pretty easy to outrun.

The bad news was that it could rip its head off and throw it at her as a ranged attack, so there was a lot of dodging in addition to running.

But, she had an idea. As she fled the giant, stompy, head-tossing goo thing she dropped a few of her pre-drawn Light glyphs so that the abomination would step on them and they'd get stuck to its feet.

Pre-drawn glyphs that she drew while her shadow aura was formed on her hands, mind you.

"Is that all you can do? Run away?" Amity mocked.

"Better than dying," Luz quipped back. But still, the green-haired girl had a point, she would need to get a whole lot more glyphs to get this to work on an abomination this big, and dropping them to step on wasn't gonna get enough on it any time soon.

As she dodged the abomination's ever-regenerating head for hopefully the last time, she reached into her pockets to make sure that she had all of her light glyphs, then turned to face the slimy construct. Manifesting her aura around her legs, she charged the abomination down. As she got close, the purple giant raised a fist but before it could bring it down on her, Luz put all of her strength into her legs and jumped.

With her power enhancing her legs, she was easily able to clear the abomination's height and as she arced over it she deliberately dropped all of her glyphs, allowing them to rain down onto the abomination and stick to the muck that composed its form.

Unfortunately, Luz's aura enhanced her strength and speed, but not her agility. She managed to land on her feet, but Luz stumbled for about five steps before she could completely stop and her leg felt a little like rubber afterward.

"Okay, I'll admit it," Amity said, "That was pretty cool human, but it's gonna take a lot more than confetti to beat my abomination."

...Did someone just call her cool? Her, Luz Noceda? Cool? There was no way she wasn't gonna follow up on that by pairing her finisher with the coolest thing she could think of.

She turned to face Amity, cleared her throat, and began: "Do not underestimate me, Amity Blight..."

Amity's eyes went wide, "No."

"...For I am Luz the Human..."

"No..."

"Warrior of peace!"

"Don't you dare!"

Luz formed her aura around her hands as she finished "NOW EAT THIS, SUCKA!" She then clapped her shadowed hands together, remote detonating her pre-charged Light Glyphs all at once and blasting the abomination apart in the process in a flash of dark light.

A split-second later, Amity doubled over with a pained moan and clutched at her chest and all of the accumulated adrenaline of the past few minutes was flushed from Luz's body.

"Oh my gosh Amity are you okay I didn't know it would do that I'm so sorry if you're alright please say something," Luz said in one breath.

Luz didn't need her ESP to know that Amity was mad. The murderous rage in her eyes said that pretty well. She leaned up and tried to draw a spell circle but her hand was too shakey and it fizzled out.

She let out an angry grunt and tried again, but the Golden Guard jumped in and grabbed her wrist. "Stand down Blight, the duel is over."

"What!? Why?"

"Well for one you're dead on your feet while the Human still looks pretty fresh," he said like he was explaining the color of the sky to a child. Luz fought the urge to point out that she was out of glyphs. "And for two," he reached around and pulled a slip of paper off the back of her neck, and Amity's leg buckled. "Unauthorized use of a construction coven power glyph," he explained as the crowd that had assembled to watch gasped. "You came in wearing this baby and the potent construction magic inside pumped up your everything. I'm afraid to say it kid, but you're disqualified. The human wins."

"Go, Luz! Now finish her!" came King's voice from up in the seats.

Luz had no intention of doing that, both because the duel was over and because... The second the Golden Guard pulled the power glyph off of her, Amity's strong emotions shifted from pure rage to a mixture of shame and confusion and Luz wasn't the type to kick someone when they were down.

"I, I didn't," the green-haired girl began. "I didn't know, I... Don't know where that came from." And there came the panic, Amity started tugging at the hem of her school uniform as she began looking around.

Meanwhile, Eda walked up next to Luz, laughing like a mad woman, and threw her arm over Luz's shoulders. "I can't believe it," she managed to cough out in between hysterical peals, "Luz I've gotta thank you. his wouldn't be anywhere near as funny if you hadn't insisted on taking the high road."

"Eda, please stop laughing," Luz asked. Right no, she only had eyes for her rival who at this point seemed to be looking for a place to hide.

"I can't help it," Eda said though to her credit she seemed to be trying to stifle it. "Don't you see what happened? My goody two-shoes sister Lily cheated. The one time I play things fair and square is the time she stoops down to my level."

"I only did it because I thought you'd cheat!" Lilith shouted from where she stood.

Lilith's confession prompted a wide-eyed stare from Amity.

"But that's the fun part! I didn't!" Eda insisted. She then lost her fight to restrain her laughter. "I was going to, but my apprentice insisted on fighting fair because of how upset Baby Blight gets when people cheat. Everything she just did was all her," Eda kept laughing for a moment, "which means that not only is Luz a better witch than your star student, but she respects her more than you do! This has been the best day ever. Luz when we get home I'm breaking out the good apple blood and teaching you how to pick locks."

Luz didn't respond to that, she was too focused on Amity as she fled from the arena. Without a word, she ran after the other girl. This wasn't right.

AN: So I wanted to have all of Covention in one chapter, but it ran a bit long so we'll get Lu's tal with Amity next chapter. Head's up, from here until at least Grom it's gonna be a pretty Amity-focused story.

Hunter... existing is another one of those things that in hindsight it's weird that we don't get any signs of in season 1. Like, if you pay attention it's pretty clear that there was a small retool between seasons 1 and 2 even before they had to compress the plot to account for the lack of a proper third season. So since he, by all means, should exist at this point in time, I figured why not jam him into Covention just to establish he's on the table? Expect maybe one or two more appearances of him while I'm covering season 1.