The light of abyss (The owl house x Marvel)

Amity was hard at work. She'd finished up with her homework, and now she was practicing with her instrument. Her bard classes were coming along well, even if she wasn't as good at bard magic as she was with abominations. And Luz had, singing her strange rectangular human crystal ball, managed to find Amity a copy of the sheet music to the song they'd danced to that afternoon out in the human realm. I was... A little beyond her current skill level, admittedly, but being able to play it was a goal to aspire to.

Speaking of Luz, Amity's awesome girlfriend was training for a race: As Amity had been informed, King was not in fact the King of Demons whose power had been stolen but rather a lost child that Eda had found and partial amnesia mixed with recollections of stories Eda had told him when he was younger lead to his obvious fantasies. Well, he got some of his memories back after being forced to confront that he was living a lie(earlier the night when Luz had confronted the Golden Guard, Amity had been told) and recalled something about his birth family. Since the winner of the race, the Glad Prix where students from all three main magic schools raced on their staves, got to be on crystal ball all over the isles Luz figured that if she won with King assisting her he could send out a message that his birth family might see.

So Luz was busy with that, and Amity was keeping herself busy with other things even as she hoped to be able to attend the race in person and give her support. But until then, Amity spent her time outside of class or work studying and practicing.

There was a knock at her door. Answering, she was greeted by an Abomination Butler who tersely moaned "Come to the sitting room" before waddling off.

Rolling her eyes, Amity proceeded to down as she was, instrument in hand. Clearly, her mother was expecting her to help entertain the company or something, not taking a moment to make sure she looked perfect up and carrying her instrument that was incongruous with the expected presentation would be a subtle but obvious protest.

As she made her way to the sitting room, however, Amity realized that she may have made an incorrect assumption. Her mother was nowhere to be found. Instead, there were two occupants. One, her Dad, standing at one end of the room rather awkwardly. The other was a dark-skinned witch with purple facial hair and a wig made of abomination slime. He was dressed impeccably as well, notably with a purple cape over his shoulders.

"Headwitch Deamonne," Amity acknowledged with a degree of surprise that she hoped she'd managed to disguise. The head of the Abomination Coven was the last person she expected to see in the house. Yeah, Blight Industries was technically a subsidiary of the coven but she was under the impression that her Dad and the headwitch had something of a rivalry.

"Your father has been looking for a tutor for you for the past few weeks," Headwitch Deamonne began. "He claims that you're capable of abomination metamorphosis?"

"Yes sir," Amity replied nervously. The coven heads answered directly to the Emporer and left and right-hand men. She had to handle this meeting very carefully, there was a probable enemy, a very powerful one, in her home.

"How many times have you become an abomination?" Headwitch Deamonne asked.

"Twice, sir," Amity confirmed.

"At will?"

"No, sir."

Head Witch Deamonne gave out a quiet hum. "There are three witches who could teach you how to master this rare talent. One is myself. One is my predecessor as the head of the Abomination Coven, but in his old age he's more demented than a low-budget horror movie, and one is a former member of my coven who left to work in Swag Coven behind my back last year and Titan knows where she's disappeared to by now. I can tell it burned your father terribly to come crawling to me to teach you... And I said no."

That broke something in Amity's brain, even as she noted her father bristling in the corner of his eye. "Then why are you here, sir?"

"Because the Little Prince will not shut up about trying to recruit 'The Blight Girl' and 'The Blessed Human' into the Emperor's Coven," the coven head replied. "I overheard him talking to the Emperor one day about being allowed to offer you special privileges like getting to keep your palisman. And Emperor Belos actually considered it."

"...Okay," Amity replied evenly.

"And it would bring me nothing but a pleasure to do a bit of headhunting and snipe a recruit out from under his nose, so I decided to give you a shot," the older witch finished.

"Careful Darius," her father interrupted. "Amity's always been a talented witch and her power has skyrocketed in the last few months," he said with pride... He was proud of her? "If you bring her into the Abomination Coven she'll have your job before you know it."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Darius replied. He then gestured to Amity's instrument. "You play music?"

"It's just a hobby, sir," Amity defended.

"And I'm sure the Golden Brat's raving about you and the human using powerful bard magic to attempt to banish a soul-stealing spirit of some sort has no merit to it?" Amity froze. "Relax, the law simply says that you have to join a coven by the time you come of age and only forbids mixing magic, there's no law against knowing more than one kind. Otherwise, the Emperor's Coven would all have to arrest themselves... You aren't mixing magic, are you?" Darius asked.

"No sir," Amity lied.

"Besides, even if there was a problem if the Emperor himself doesn't care why should I? Now, may I examine your instrument?" Darius asked.

"Of course," Amity agreed with an awkward smile. Not agreeing would probably be bad. As she gently handed it over, hoping to delicately navigate this conversational tightrope, all she could do was hope that he didn't examine it too closely.

He took the instrument and began looking at it carefully. He traced his fingers along it, he plucked the strings a few times, and he even sniffed it. "Is that lavender?"

"A little personal touch to the slime," Amity said while not quite lying.

"Speaking of which," Darius continued and Amity's blood froze, "the quality of this slime is impeccable. I could probably make something better but it'd take time and I'd need to source rare ingredients. May I see the recipe?"

"I'm sorry, the recipe is a proprietary secret," Amity lied with her face as straight as she could make it.

"Shame," Darius observed. "Still, I can tell that this is a work of quality. You poured your heart and soul into this, didn't you?"

"Yes I did, sir," Amity agreed honestly.

"I doubt you'll be surpassing me anytime soon," the head witch quipped, "but it seems that you've already surpassed your hack of a father. Everything he's made in the last thirty years has been unimaginative soulless swill fit only for the ignorant consumer, good only to be mass produced as cheaply as possible and sold at the highest legal markup."

While that was a true statement in regards to the quality of the Blight Industries product line, Amity couldn't help but be insulted on her Dad's behalf even as her father's face took on the characteristics of a particularly disgruntled tomato. That was what her mother wanted to sell, what else was he supposed to do?

"I'll have you know we have an exclusive contract with the Emperor himself producing abomiton soldiers," her Dad pointed out.

"I've seen them, anyone with even basic skill at abomination magic could destroy them easily," Darius quipped as he handed Amity's instrument back to her. She spelled it away before the head witch decided to take a second look. "Regardless, I've seen what I need: Tutoring you will be a worthwhile sacrifice of my limited free time."

"Thank you, sir," Amity said while internally panicking.

Thus started several consecutive days of spending much of her afternoon training with Darius Deamonne. Training that consisted mostly of dueling the head witch using only abomination magic and without the aid of Ghost.

Naturally, for all her talent and power and hard-earned skill, Amity couldn't compare to a full-grown witch who had mastered the art and science of abominations.

And the worst part was, he was so passive-aggressive about it. Making these little comments.

"Oh come on now, I know you can do better than this."

"You got my hopes up and now you're dashing them."

"Weren't you Lilith's star student? She'd be so disappointed with this performance."

"Professor Hermunculous must be losing his touch."

It wasn't true. Amity knew it wasn't true. She knew these weren't fair fights, she knew it wasn't her fault that she couldn't beat him, she knew he was just saying it to get under her skin, but... It was working. Amity had spent years working herself to the bone to be the best but the only praise she'd gotten had been worthless platitudes or tiny tokens of arbitrary favoritism like the Top Student badge. Not once had her mother ever said she was proud of Amity. Every mistake or shortcoming was punished, every success was met with higher expectations, and... Amity had been raised to see everything as an opportunity to prove herself. To justify existing. All of that and no... I'd left her feeling worthless, and it was only recently, with her relationship with Luz, her rekindled friendship with Willow, her healthier relationship with her siblings, her more honest friendship with Boscha, and her renewed apprenticeship under a significantly less aloof and professional Lilith that she was starting to get out of that mindset and feel some value in herself.

Darius Deamonne's comments cut her to the bone and tore open those wounds. She actually cried herself to sleep one night. She wanted more than anything to just spend an afternoon being cuddled by her girlfriend and told everything was all right, to have her right to exist affirmed, to be told she was awesome and worthy of being loved, and that she deserved to have good self-esteem.

But even if Amity had enough free time to visit the Owl House, Luz was busy. She was training for the Gland Prix to help King reach out to his birth family. An afternoon could be the difference between victory and defeat and Amity wouldn't be so selfish as to risk taking something so important away from a small child. Her problems could wait and... There was no way Darius would make her train the day of the race, right? On a weekend, a big day for all three major schools... Not to mention he was probably getting behind on coven-head work spending every afternoon... Doing whatever this was.

TLOA

He was, in fact, making her 'train' on the day of the race. Amity had managed to send off a message to Luz, "CANT MAKE THE RACE, LOVE YOU GOOD LUCK ABRAZOS Y BESOS MI AMOR TE AMO," but that was the most she could do to support her girlfriend and her girlfriend's found family and it was all she could do to constrain her disappointment.

Disappointment that left her distracted and performing worse than usual in these duels with the head abomination witch if the fact that the witch in question, in abomination form, was currently dangling her by the ankle while giving her a disappointed sneer.

"Really? I didn't think you could possibly do worse than you had been," he said as he looked down on her "And yet, here we are. Are you just failing to live up to your potential? Or were you lying to me about making that instrument yourself?"

Amity had been upset by the comments before, but now she was angry. She thrashed at Darius but he just held her out further and 'tutted' at her.

"I expected better from the daughter of Alador and Odalia," he said haughtily. "Your father might be a hack but at least he has some standards and everyone knows how much of a stuck-up perfectionist your mother is. Are you as much of a disappointment to them as you are to me?"

That question was a punch to the bile sack that cooled her blood like ice water. She stopped struggling as her vision blurred, and all of her control over her emotions was lost.

"And now you're crying," he observed dismissively. Then he dropped her and shifted back to flesh and blood. "We're done. When you get home today, do me a favor: Tell Alador that his daughter will never be anything more than a bottom-feeding grunt at best in my coven." He turned to leave while she tried and failed to compose herself, only to stop. "What's this?"

As Amity wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up she saw that Darius was holding a photo. Amity checked her pocket and found it empty.

"The human," Darius observed. "You're close to her? More than just friends I take it?"

With all of Amity's thankfully not yet decayed grudgby skill, she was able to leap over Darius and pluck the photograph from his hands. She landed on her feet and examined it to ensure it wasn't damaged... No, perfectly fine. A photo from Grom, her and Luz together surrounded by their friends, one of the happiest moments of Amity's life. She returned it to her pocket and sighed in relief.

"Touched a nerve there, didn't I?" Darius quipped. "You know, the thought occurs to me. Emperor Belos might have pardoned the Owl Lady but I doubt she's kept her nose clean all this time and the Titan wanting her spared petrification doesn't mean she can't be jailed for any other crimes. I wonder if I should bring the human in for questioning on her mentor's illicit activities."

...If Luz was taken into custody by the Emperor's forces, that was... There's no way she'd be safe. Not after the bloody nose she'd given the Emperor fighting him at the Comformatorium. Images of Luz petrified or worse intruded into Amity's mind and something broke in her brain.

She wasn't even fully aware of what was happening as she jumped at the older witch and threw out her now-lavender fist. Darius grabbed it with his own hand transformed into dark purple abomination slime.

"There we go," he said. "That's what I've been—" Amity interrupted him by striking at him with her other fist, now shapeshifted to have blades protruding from it like that Logan guy she'd met in the human world. Darius was forced to let go of her and back up, transforming fully into an abomination as he slithered back. "Okay, that was—"

Amity then brought both of her hands together to form a large spell circle to blast the witch with her fire-conjuring spell

Darius flattened himself to avoid the pinkish-purple flames and then reformed. "I said abomination magic only!"

"You also said we were done! Then you went and threatened my Luz!" Slamming her hands on the ground she used what she knew of plant magic to shoot herself in the air with a thorn vault and then pulled on her connection to Ghost to summon her staff and, using the momentum of the thrust to spin around using the head of the staff to draw a massive spell circle and drawing on both her own and ghost's magic create a fireball big enough to fill the training room. "Dodge this!"

When the flash cleared, Amity landed, her body being currently made of slime allowing her to eat the impact more easily. She almost took a breath of relief until a wet squelching sound made her turn just in time to see the tiniest bit of purple slime expanding out into Darius's full abomination form. The coven head then expanded his limbs in order to grab Amity in... some kind of wrestling hold that Amity didn't know the name of. The one where their arms go under your arms and upper around your shoulders.

As she struggled against his hold, the abomination master commanded her to "Calm down!"

"Not until you aren't a threat to Luz anymore!"

"For Titan's sake, child I was bluffing!"

"Liar! You've been a complete... cabrón! This whole time! Why should I believe you!?"

"Abomination metamorphosis is fueled by anger!"

"...What?" Amity stopped struggling and Darius let her go before slithering away and returning to his witch form.

"Everyone has a light side and a dark side, Amity Blight," Darius lectured. "To become a living abomination is to willingly become a monster. The power awakens, and the first few times must be activated when you're angry and desperate enough to let just a small bit of your dark side out. I've spent the last several days trying to push you to your limit, trying to make you angry enough to change but... I had the wrong trigger."

Amity felt herself becoming flesh and blood again and slowly backed to a wall before sliding down it. Her staff vanished as Ghost animated and lept into her lap, and Amity spent the next few moments hugging and petting her cat.

Ghost's meows translated as "slime-witch is a jerk."

"Look, for what it's worth, I'm sorry. I know that what I put you through was rough, but trust me it's a lot more pleasant than how most people master the talent."

"How did you get it?" Amity asked, bitterly. After what he did he could stand to relive some pain.

"The first time I transformed I was brooding the afternoon after I had a falling out with... some friends."

"Who?"

Darius sighed. "Your parents."

Amity did her best not to show her surprise. "What?"

"Believe it or not, Odalia used to be a halfway decent person," Darius explained. "I was friends with both of your parents all through Hexside, Alador and I collaborated on a few personal projects... I even encouraged him to man up and ask your mother out. That was a mistake."

"How so?"

"Not long after they got together, Odalia started talking about starting a business like her parents and grandparents had. Alador mentioned her could probably give her some of his trust fund for start-up costs and you could practically see the snails in her eyes." Darius snorted. "She didn't start out as a gold digger, but greed has a way of changing people. She started talking about marketing his inventions and over the next few months he went from a creative witch with a passion for abomitech engineering to a two-bit hack producing soulless drivel as Odalia pushed him to make more and more marketable weapons that they could sell after graduation. I realized that she'd changed, that she was exploiting him, but when I confronted him about it, well, he wasn't prepared to listen and a friendship that first formed when we were toddlers in Hexside's baby classes went down the tubes in a single night. I was angry, and while brooding over it I transformed for the first time."

"And you mastered the skill?"

"When my mentor, the man to hold the title of Golden Guard before the Little Prince, was murdered in cold blood," Darius said with a dark expression on his face. "Which is why I'll say this: I swear on his grave that I was bluffing when I threatened the human. I know full well how much it hurts to have someone you care for stolen from you like that, and knowingly putting someone through it is perhaps the one line I will never cross. And Amity? 'Your Luz' is lucky to have someone so protective in her life."

Darius's emotions were hard to read as if he was very experienced in keeping them to himself, but when he said his mentor was murdered... The pain, anger, and sadness he felt for just those few moments was unmistakable. So, as much as she didn't want to give him any slack, she believed him. "I'm sorry for your loss... But I still don't want to have anything to do with you after today."

"More than fair," Darius admitted. "And if you can transform on purpose you shouldn't have to. Just... Focus on how it felt to be that angry and will the change to happen."

Amity stood up, gently placed Ghost down, glared at the Headwitch, and focused on just how furious she was at the threat to Luz and... She felt the change as her body became slime. After a moment, she let it go and her body changed back.

"There you go," Darius replied with a smirk. "And it gets easier with practice. After a few years, you'll barely have to think to pull it off."

Amity didn't respond.

Darius sighed. "Look, I get it, you have a right to be ticked off but... Oh, Titan take me... I'm sorry. I assure you I didn't mean anything I said these last few days, it was just a ploy to... You know, in the last few days from what little I saw of you you seem like the best of what both of your parents used to be, they should be proud of... None of this is working, is it?"

"It is not," Amity deadpanned.

"...What if I bought you something expensive?" The older witch offered. "Teenagers like that, right?"

Amity thought it over for a moment. "Titan Bone."

"What?"

"A friend of mine is working on a project that would go much smoother if they had some Titan Bone," Amity explained without technically lying. "But it's hard to get ahold of and I'd rather not ask my parents for help with this, Mom will get all kinds of intrusive about it. It shouldn't be too much of a problem for a Coven Head to get some, however."

"That is..."

"They don't need much," Amity insisted. "As little as a tablespoon would do the job."

"Alright, I'll see what I can do," Darius agreed. "Now then—" A crow flew into the room. Darius answered it. "Eber? I'm busy and... What? already?" The abomination head then waved a hand at Amity, clearly dismissing her, and she left the training room, the abomination coven headquarters, and mounted her staff to fly home. It was... A bit of a flight.

By the time she got back to the manor, it was almost certainly too late to catch the end of the Glad Prix, which had Amity annoyed. Checking, Dad was busy in his workshop, and her mother was nowhere to be found, but as she made her way to her room she was greeted by her siblings.

"Hey Mittens," Emira greeted. "How was training?"

"Over," she declared. "For good. I can transform into an abomination on command now."

"Awesome," Edric said with a grin. "Hey um, we know you've been having a rough time these past few days so we got you something."

When he said that, Amira handed Amity a leather-bound book sealed by a tightly clasped strap.

"What is this?" She asked.

"A new diary," Edric explained. "To replace the one we, you know..."

"This one's password protected," Emira explained. "Once you set the password that's the only way to get it to open."

"Thank you," Amity replied as she took the diary. "I... Did you catch the Gland Prix?"

"Yeah," Emira confirmed.

"How did Luz do?"

"She came in third," Edric confirmed.

"Oh," Amity replied disappointed.

"She had a strong lead for most of the race," Emira added, "she would have won but..."

"The little guy, King, threw up and sent her off course," Edric finished.

"Oh, that's... sad," Amity admitted. "The whole reason Luz entered the race was so she could get King on crystal ball to try and reach out to his birth family."

"Well, that explains the stream that popped up in my pensta feed," Edric added. "I liked and shared it so it could be in yours, too."

Amity pulled out her scroll and checked, seeing a short stream of the young demon making a heartfelt plea for contact with his missing Dad... And also admitted that Eda was the one who raised him and he wanted to take her name before handing the aged witch a stack of adoption papers and Eda, the cantankerous wild witch who got so offended at being called motherly, busting into messy tears as she signed them and hugged the child who wanted to be her son and... Wait...

"Is that the new Head Bard in the background? How are they a part of this?"

"No clue," Emira replied.

"I'm heading over to the Owl House," Amity declared. "I haven't seen Luz outside of school in days and... I have questions."