Chereads / Boiling Gems (The Owl House x Steven Universe) / Chapter 56 - Chapter 53: When Did Sci-Fi Invade My Magical Fantasy?

Chapter 56 - Chapter 53: When Did Sci-Fi Invade My Magical Fantasy?

Summary: Aliens ... the worst

"TEST FEST! TEST FEST! TEST FEST!" Hooty cheered.

"Alright Sugar, here's how it rolls." Lucci explained to his partner. Such a lovely little gal. She bit him just like Centi used to do. "Everyone shouts out random ideas, and we try them out to see if they stick. Are you ready?"

"Hssssh." The gal kept herself wrapped around Lucci's forehead.

"Oh, this is one I've had for a while!" Luz shouted out. "If Palisman can turn into staves and channel powers, then why not let Sugar become a bubble wand?"

"Perfect start!" Lucci shouted. "Get in gear, Sugar, magic bubble wand is a go!" The Palisman lept off Lucci's head and formed it's staff form, curling around the wood and having it's head pop right off the top, beforing moving its body upward and forming an O shape. "And here comes the bubbles!" Lucci swung the staff, causing a swarm of bubbles to form. "Nice." He grinned, now spinning it around as the massive circle formed into a witch sized bubble.

"Wow, usually it takes you about six seconds to form a bubble that big, now it only took two." King noted, jumping on top of it. "Feel sturdier than your usual one's too."

"Haha, nice!" Lucci shouted. "What's next?"

"Oh, what if you combine your floating powers with their flying powers?" Hooty asked.

"Sound's a bit redundant, but let's give it a shot." Lucci gave a happy smile, jumping onto sugar … before vanishing.

"Lucci!?" Luz shouted.

"I'm okay!" Lucci's voice shouted out. "Turns out our powers amplified each other … I went way too fast inside of a house!"

"I feel breezy!" Hooty noted. Nice, maybe now he had that blow hole he's always wanted and could breathe underwater now!

"Just give me a secon-AAAAH!" The boy flew back in and slammed right into the wall, flying off sugar. "Bad news, I can't steer, good news, I FINALLY HAVE SUPER SPEED!"

"That took forever!" King shouted. "Okay, okay, I have one. See if you can do some shapeshifting to match each other."

"Not sure how well that's going to work on Sugar's end, but it is a test fest after all." Lucci shrugged, before concentrating on his arm. Five seconds passed….and his whole left arm got turned into a long pink and scaly snake body, with five heads for each of his fingers and thumbs. "Hm…probably good for a quick scare, not sure how combat useful it is."

"I don't know, Sugar seems to love it." Luz pointed to the Palisman, who was cuddling cutely with all five heads. "Aww, adorable scaly friendship, just like the ones I had in the human realm…before they invaded the school." Luz snickered, before snapping her fingers. "Oooh, combine her with your shield powers, see if you can make up different types of weapons."

"Now we're talking!" Lucci retracted his arms and grabbed Sugar. "Alright, let's start small and familiar. Sugar, let's form a drill." He twirled around the staff, until a bright pink glow appeared at the end of it. Sugar's body was now in a more spirally position while pink light cover her body.

"It's more like a power lance than a drill, but cool all the same." Luz nodded. "Oooh, do a hammer!"

"On it!" The light transformed again, this time sugar's body was more scrunched up as a square blocky light formed around her. "Nice!" He slammed it on the ground.

Baboommm

"Ooooh, ticklish!" Hooty laughed as the whole house shook, making everyone fall to the ground. "Now do a razor disk launcher!"

"Hsss?"

"Oh, it's like a shield but with spikes on the end." Lucci explained.

"Hhhss." Sugar shifted once more, this time biting her own tail in a circle. Spikey looking light popped out of her as she rotated fast and violently.

"I never thought I would love a girl more than my own mother and girlfriend, but here we are." Lucci whispered with sparkly eyes. "You are the most amazing thing ever, Sugar."

"Palisman rule." Luz nodded. "When I get mine, they'll be a power gauntlet to double my sword strength. Imagine the raw power!"

"Okay, could you kids PLEASE keep it down!" Eda yelled from upstairs before coming down herself. "I know the excitement of having your own Palisman, and I don't blame you for going crazy with it, but some of us are trying to catch up on beauty sleep."

"Sugar, quick, adorable apologetic eyes." Lucci whispered, before making his own eyes big and bulgy.

"Hhhss." The snake shrunk back down to lay on Lucci's head, giving wide and round eyes to Eda.

"...You're lucky I'm always going to find you adorable no matter what." Eda pinched Lucc's cheek before slumping down on the couch. "Gotta say, glad you're adjusting to your Palisman as well as you have."

"Yeah, it's not that hard. I finally have an animal companion that doesn't try to eat me, and she has someone to listen to her helpful advice." Lucci rubbed the little gal's head..

"Eda has Owlbert, Lucci has Sugar, everyone has King, and I'm stuck with an uncooperative mouse." Luz complained.

"Oooh, if you're done with it, I'll eat him!" Hooty helpfully offered.

"No! You're the reason why he's so scared to begin with!" The girl complained, grabbing the cage the little guy was in and holding it tightly. "I haven't been able to get it to show me anything ever since the thing with the Library."

"Why don't you get Amity to show you?" Lucci suggested. "She knows about Echo mice.."

"NO!" Luz screamed back. "I mean….she's already done so much for me, I don't want to bother her cute fa..smart fa…she's probably busy and all that! Don't want to intrude where I'm not wanted." Young love. Naive and foolish. "Besides, you're part beast keeper, shouldn't you know something about this?"

"Echo mice prefer dark and isolated areas, and they eat books because the information makes their heads feel nice and fuzzy, that's basically the extent of my expertise on dealing with them." The boy answered.

"But if I feed her any more books, she may start feeding me the wrong information." Luz sighed.

"Give it to me, I might have something." Lucci held out his hand, and let the mouse crawl on top of it. 

Whistle. Whistle. Whistle.

Lucci began whistling a tune, making the echo mouse tilt their head. "Squee. Squee."

Whistle. Whistle.

The echo mouse stared, before its eyes started glowing. "YES!" Luz shouted. "Come on portal information."

"In my many travels of finding paths and accounting for the wild and chaotic nature of this land, I discovered a tale of a special scroll." It showed off an image of a scroll, with multiple ghosts leaking from it. "The Spirit scroll, with a special array of glyphs that act as an Eldritch gateway to dark and unstable magics. Oracles and Illusionists that have gazed upon it go mad, cannibalizing their companions." The image showed off violent images of smokey people battling each other.

"I'm liking where this is going." Eda smirked with a wide grin.

"A chance to learn a new unknown glyph, count me in!" Luz cheered. "More power means more of a chance to make it home."

"Is no one going to point out the unstable insanity?" King questioned. "Not that I'm against it, just feel someone needed to point that out."

"Everyone always calls us insane, why bother trying to fight against new flavors of it." Lucci answered.

"It was thankfully locked away in a fortress of metal, burrows underneath the ground. I pray for no one to ever uncover it. The devastation it could cause if left in the wrong hands, I shuddered at the dark implications." The image then showed what looked like a semi-circle, buried halfway through the ground.

The mouse stopped displaying images, falling to the ground. "Squeek."

"Whistle." Lucci rubbed its head gently. "That'll do Piper, that'll do."

"Piper?" Luz raised an eyebrow.

"Seemed to fit." Lucci shrugged. "Okay, so there's a metal fortress, and we don't know where to start looking for it. Mom, you have any ideas?"

"Finally, my time to shine again." Eda grinned as she reached into her head and pulled out a map. "Back when I was young and foolish like the two of you.."

"Now you're old and foolish." King laughed, getting a whack in the head. "I regret nothing."

"…Me and Lilly loved to investigate old wives tales and legends together. We spent a lot of time exploring the isles searching for buried treasure, myths, all that stuff." She layed out a map of the whole isles. "I remember an old tale on the peak of the toes where it was said 'naturally grown' metal grew out of the ground. If there's going to be a metal fortress anywhere, that'll be the place to find it.

"You heard the wise woman! To the toes!" Luz shouted.

"I'll be waiting here then …" Hooty said, staring at the mouse. "All alone …"

"Say…Why don't we bring Hooty along on this one. " Lucci suggested. "He helps out a lot with King's temple."

Hooty gasped. "I'll go change right now!"

"No wait please-" Luz tried futilely to stop him.

Hooty began reorganizing his organs and forcing them into the tiny porta Hooty. "Ports Hooty popping and packed for adventure!"

"Sometimes I regret the curse not taking me over if it meant repressing memories like that." Eda gagged.

"I am very lucky I've been desensitized to this." Lucci muttered. "Luz?"

"BLEEE!!" Such a lovely family.

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"Never clean, never clean, never clean." Eda did her best to comfort the girl as they flew down to the toes. It almost made Eda forget that this was Lucci's first staff flight on his own.

"Whooohooooo!" And like any Clawthorne child of hers, he was taking full advantage of it and doing as many loops as possible. "Hey King, you think if I go fast enough I can make a tornado!?"

"Someone get me off this crazy ride, I'm gonna barf!" Getting carried away with their newfound source of flight and freedom. He really was Eda's son.

"Calm down Lucci. Save giving King vertigo for another day." Eda laughed as she called out to him.

"Yes Mom." The boy stabilized in the air. "Does anyone see the landing spot yet?"

"You passed it an hour ago, Hoot Hoot." Hooty responded from Lucci's back.

"Why didn't you say anything!?" Luz managed to get out of her stupor and scream at the bird worm.

"You all were having so much fun, I didn't wanna interrupt." Maybe it wasn't too late to ditch the house demon. Accidents happen all the time on adventures, and casualties were just a natural part of it.

"Don't stress too much out, Luz. You wouldn't have been able to notice anything anyway because you were still in shock." Lucci commented as they finally landed. "Just be glad we made it unscathed. Lately we can't go anywhere without having to fight for our lives."

"Fair …" Luz nodded as she looked over the structure. "... Hey Eda, does this place look … old? Like, King's temple old?"

"Didn't Aunt Lilith say that place predated witches?" Lucci questioned.

"The titan itself predates…well, everything on the isles. We hardly know anything about them." Eda answered as best as she could as they began to walk, rusty spikes and blocks all over the ground.

"How old is the Titan?" Luz questioned.

"I wanna say … three billionish?" Eda never really got too interested in the past like Lilly did. "Not even too sure how witches ended upon the isles. A lot of that history is lost to time or kept hidden."

"Darn you secret origins." Luz grumbled as they looked at the metallic image from the echo mouse. "So, how do we get in?"

"I dunno." Eda shrugged. "Back then we mainly just tried anything from ghosts to blowing it up, we never got past the front door."

The human grinned. "Fortunately, now you have the master of glyphs to help you accomplish what teenage Eda could not."

"You're gonna blow it up with Glyphs?" Lucci questioned.

"Nope, I'm gonna invent the open sesame glyph!" Luz messed with some pieces of paper and pulled out a bag, zipping it up. "If Ice would represent stillness and locking, then fire would be the concept of opposition to that, and combine it with plant glyphs for a gentle but strong transition …" She pressed down the jumbled up sketches on the metal wall…which sparked and sizzled, until it imploded in on itself.

"Hey, the door just pulled a Lucci." King pointed.

"Seriously, end that running joke or I'm running someone over." The boy groaned.

"What, I don't get it." Luz grabbed another paper.

"Maybe you invented a smoking glyph?" Eda asked.

"Let me try it on the bag." The girl placed the paper on her closed satchel. A yellow glow came over the bag, before it opened by itself. "Nope, that's not it. Is it the metal itself?"

"In that case it might be magic resistant, like mom's cage." Lucci thought aloud. "Alright Luz, I'll make a drill with sugar and attach it to the sword, you add some fire glyphs to the back, and we'll rocket our way through."

"Hsssssh." Her son's palisman shook their head.

"What, it's the best way to force our way through and we don't have to worry about breaking anything." Lucci responded.

"Hsssssh." Sugar pointed their tail right at the wall…showing a little panel with what looked like a handprint on it.

"Oh hey, it's the launching hand." Eda grinned.

"The what now?" King asked.

"Whenever me and Lily touched it, it made a loud red noise and sent us flying through the air. We made a game to see how far it launched us." Eda grinned. "Let me see if I still have my record." She walked up and placed a hand on the mark.

BEEP

And was sent flying past one tree, two, three, four … "FIVE TREES!" Eda cackled as she hit the ground. "Mama's still got it!"

"Ooh, looks like dangerous fun, I wanna try!" Lucci cheered as he placed his own hand on it.

Ding

No sirens went of this time as the wall split open, revealing a doorway. "... Did you know that would work?" Lucci questioned Sugar.

"Hssssh." The girl gave a so-so wave with her tail. Very intuitive little gal.

"What,..but..why would it go for you?" Luz asked out loud. "What do you have that Eda doesn't?"

"... The male parts?" Lucci questioned.

"No, that can't be it, because that make this door sexist and that's just dumb…" She looked closer at the panel… "Wait a minute…"

Eda walked back, noticing Luz staring at the wall. "You okay?"

"Red light at a false scan, metal plate launches you back … green light at a right one, opens the door …" She muttered. "This is … technology." She pointed to the panel…which had a diamond symbol made up of four colored diamonds.

"White, Blue, Yellow….Pink." Eda's eyes widened.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot I'm part royalty for … Crystal Devils." Lucci muttered. "... This might be pre light flash … or whatever Santa called that."

"Are we just going to stand here or are we actually going to go inside, because the suspense is killing me!" King complained.

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Luz looked at the strange symbols and ruins located around the building. "You know." Lucci started. "Now that I know this involves my backstory, my investment in this fortress has plummeted."

"Come on, just because its potentially connected to your family it kills your enthusiasm?" Luz asked.

"No, because this is potentially connected to my womb holder that my enthusiasm gets killed."

"Womb holder?" Hooty asked.

"I already have a mom, so that's the label I'm giving to whoever gave birth to me." Lucci answered. "Because that's all they are to me."

"But think about it, your backstory may actually be the key to a cure." Luz tried to argue. "Imagine what we can learn from …" She paused. "I can't actually read any of this."

"Lily couldn't even read the stuff outside." Eda added. "You'd be better off looking at the pictures and trying to make whatever you can out of it."

"Like these tall giant ladies walking together and looking at the stars and giant rocks." Hooty called out and pointed upwards.

"Giant women?" Lucci looked up. Sure enough, there were images of what looked like four women, each one a different shape and color. The one thing they all had in common was the picture of hundreds, maybe even thousands of people that surrounded, bowed, or cowared from them. "Okay, I wasn't from a family of royals, I was from a family of tyrants."

"Or gods." Hooty suggested.

"Nobody in this family needs to be made into a deity." King stated.

"Don't be so quick to judge, they could've been nice people." Luz tried to look at it from a glass half full position.

"I think this image of them blowing up a planet says otherwise." Eda pointed to another image, one that had what used to be a round circle become full of holes, hollow, and covered in what looked like metal spider things.

"Planets …" Luz paused. "Wait, hyper advanced tech, biology that makes no sense, all the star themes …" Her brain was hit with an epiphany. "They're ALIENS!"

"Ali-what now?" Lucci, Hooty, and King questioned.

"It's what we call people or creatures from space back in my world!" She exclaimed. "Think of them like demons that live on the stars!"

"Live on the stars …" Lucci looked like his brain was breaking. "Wait, there can be life not on this planet!?"

"Apparently!" Luz smacked her hands together. "This explains so much! Why there's so much tech, why crystal devils are so different from the creatures in this dimension, because they're not from the Boiling Isles at all!"

"But how would aliens have magic resistant technology?" Eda questioned. "And how would they be on the human AND in the demon realm?"

"Wait a minute…Celene and Santa said that they were from another dimension, that combined with Lucci being born on Earth….Crystal Devils are from space…in MY dimension!" The emphiny's were just popping in her head one by one.

"And I'm guessing they decided to invade earth then." Lucci pointed to some more images. "And … did they fail?"

"I don't see how." Eda shrugged. "Humans aren't exactly the pinnacle of rationality or power. Especially if these guys were as old as titans."

"Since humanity is still around, something had to stop them." Luz pointed out. "Maybe the way back home requires both technology and magic to work together. That would explain how those artificial magic staff work at least." Luz began walking around. "Maybe if we study them we can get-" One of the tiles she stepped on fell deep.

Loud alarm sounds began blaring. "Intruder detected. Please give termination deactivation passcode, or face obliteration on an atomic level."

"Ah…Don't kill us please?" King guessed.

" Prepare for incineration in three, two.."

"Everyone get behind me!" Lucci waved his hand in the air and grabbed his Palisman. "Sugar, I know this is a rush job, but we need a maximum shield now!"

" Diamond detected. Termination protocol canceled ." The voice announced. "Have a pleasant day, my Diamond."

"... You too, Ominous voice." Lucci mumbled. "... How about we just watch our step and keep walking?"

"Probably for the best. You kids do that." Eda looked around. "I'm going to check and see if I can nab anything here not nailed down."

"Always a good priority." King nodded along.

========================================================================

Lucci stood with Luz as they looked at a map. "So we took two lefts, a right, another left, then a right, then straight …" He tried to trace their steps to little avail. "How did we get so lost so fast?"

"Full disclosure, I was hoping by following you, some repressed alien instinct would awaken and lead us to the scroll." Luz admitted with a sheepish smile.

"Of course you did." He sighed. "And don't use the A word around me. Feels just as uncomfortable as being called a devil."

"Don't be like that, trust me when I say it's a compliment." She reassured him. "My best friend is an Alien witch human hybrid from another dimension…..you're like the ultimate combination of all things cool mixed into one."

"If I was the ultimate combination of all cool things, I would be a lion with titan sized punches and wings that could fly us up to the moon."

"You do turn into manticore, which is part Lion." Luz smiled.

"If you're from the stars, does that mean when we sail off the edge of the world he can take us to one of them?" King asked.

"Edge of the world?" Luz asked. "You mean metaphorically?"

"No?" Lucci looked confused. "You know, when you hit the horizon you fall off the edge and into darkness from the unending waterfall of suffering."

"Sometimes with how often people treat each other here, I have to remind myself this is another dimension and not the bad place." Luz rubbed her forehead. "The world's not flat, it's round."

The two guys stopped, turning to her with absolute bafflement. "It's ROUND!?"What kind of things happened on Earth?

"Oh you poor ignorant fools." Luz laughed. "Anyways, I'm just saying the sci-fi element is an unexpected but fun twist."

"I much prefer the supernatural." Lucci rolled his eyes. "So, which of these doors do you think actually holds what we're looking for?" He'd rather get this over with. Not that he wasn't into helping Luz or the crystal Devils, but he'd rather not connect with anything that was linked to his bio mom. He had one mom and that was that.

"Human intuition says … this one!" Luz pushed on a wall.

"False door opening detected. Initiating anti intruder procedure."

"STOP TOUCHING THINGS!" King shouted.

"What would you do without me?" Lucci sighed as he pressed on the door. "Is this good enough for you?"

"Apologies, my diamond. I'm doing my best to handle the organic infestation that has troubled this ship."

"Organic?" Lucci questioned.

"Of course. If I may inquire, how goes the eradication of all organic life on the planet? The time elapsed from your last visit has been approximately- Error. "

"Eradicating… all life…" Luz gulped. "That was messed up."

"This is why I don't like delving into my past. There's never anything pleasant waiting for me." Lucci reminded her. "Since I have you talking, mind helping us navigate this place?

"Yes My Diamond. Which room are you searching for?"

"Ones with powerful artifacts, particularly a scroll embedded with spirits that contain power?"

"Oh, you must mean the Spirit Scroll. Down the hall, one left, then the second door to your right."

Luz looked curious. "Do you know what the Spirit Scroll is?"

"An organic papyrus experiment of magical glyphs of native speices error , with the mineral paint formed from grinded gems to add an excessive energy spike to the formula."

"Grinded gems…" King gulped at that. "You mean it's made up of dead crystal devils?"

"I am sorry, I am not familiar with that species." The voice, the one Luz descanted as an 'A.I' and not a ghost haunting the cavern, responded. " It is composed of Gems, a hard light based species of inorganic matter that have existed since near the beginning of time, of which my Diamond is one out of four in a matriarchal empire rule."

"... Right. That will be all." Lucci nodded as he began walking. "Can we please bury and not talk about that? And just agree to burn the picture and free the souls lost inside of that thing?"

"Agree on the last part whole heartedly, but the former is going to be harder to not bring up." Luz nodded. "I don't think the AI understands you're half human. It literally seems to think this…I'm guessing the name here… Pink Diamond."

"Lamest name ever, of all time." He deadpanned. "No wonder the Rainbow Devil calls me Rose Quartz." Even if that was against what his rock was.

"Who calls themself after a rock inside of them, that's just lazy." King commented. "So just pretend you're not this 'alien' and not bring you your probably the child of a malevolent tyrant?"

"Exactly, I'm the child of a criminal. I'm an outlaw that fights for his own freedom, not abuse others." Lucci nodded as he opened up the door in question, showing off a small piece of paper. "Here we are … the Spirit Scroll."

"Hey, before we turn this thing to dust and frankly help whatever sorry state these guys are in … mind if I take a crack at the glyphs and see if I can use them for later?" Luz questioned.

"Just as long as you don't try to raise the dead with it, or suck out anyones souls… okay maybe a coven head or two you can do the latter on." Lucci nodded

"Perfect, now let's see what we're dealing with." Luz grinned as she opened up the scroll. "Alright, we have some plants here, a light one here, and-"

"FWAAA!!" Black smoke with red lines poured from the scroll and into Luz's mouth. They paused, dropping the scroll, turning to the two of them with such an unnatural motion that Lucci was certain he heard a bone creaking in her body.

"Luz!" He screamed, rushing towards her. "What's wrong?"

"GWAAA!" She jumped onto his body, biting on his arm with black and red eyes.

"Cannibalistic possession! Just like the mouse warned us!" King shouted.

"Really hope this works!" Lucci cried out, licking his Palm with his only free hand. "Snap out of it!"

Slap

Luz froze, looking sick, before- "Bleee." They literally buffed up the smoke, which moved back into the scroll. The girl blinked in confusion. "What just happened? Oh, the scroll!" She reached out to grab it.

"Noooope!" He bubbled it, stopping it from possessing her again. "That thing, that smoke, whatever it was, took over your body. Whatever souls are trapped inside are corrupted beyond repair."

"I wouldn't say corrupted." A familiar…and so much dreaded voice came up to the group behind them. "It's all about using it in the most effective way possible."

Lucci instantly grabbed Sugar, swinging her to form a massive shield. "Luz, sword, NOW!"

"You're not knocking me out a second time you fruit loop!" Luz swung out her sword.

"Dang it, I still don't have any cool powers to use!" King hid in his hair.

"Didn't notice the last time we ducked it out, Rose, but I see you gave my sword to one of your Human pets." The rainbow devil growled.

"Wait, this is your sword?!" Luz shouted in confusion. "But Lucci got this from a magical pink lion!"

"… Okay, as someone who's been to the stars, earth, and the boiling isles, even Ihave to call snorseshit."

"Look, I don't care about whatever beef you have with my mom, Pink Diamond, Rose Quartz, whoever the hell you think I am, but we just found out how horrible that scroll is, so we're going to destroy it." Lucci glared

"Pfft, six thousand years too late to have a guilty conscience over your own mess, Rose." The rainbow devil scoffed. "Much as it sickens me, I needed that scroll for my plans.

Lucci growled. "Jokes on you, we already won!" King shouted. "Lucci, tap the bubble!" Right, teleport.

"Now you see it, now you don't!" He tapped it, sending it away.

" No!" She lit on fire, slamming him into a wall. "Where did you send it, you little bitch!?"

"Far, far away from here! Good luck trying to search the whole Isles for it!" He bluffed. 

"Hey Lucci." The door opened, revealing mom and Hooty at the door. "Is this the scroll thing you've been looking for?" She looked around the room, then at the Rainbow Devil, then at the bubble. "… You were trying to play keep away, weren't you?"

"Yes we were!" Luz shouted as she tried to cut the bounty hunter's head off.

"Feisty little bugger, aren't you?" Bismuth backhanded Luz away. "Too bad you're on the wrong side, girly. Now give me that scroll!"

"Not on your life, Bizy!" Mom hopped on top of Owlbert and flew overhead." "Hooty, you know what to do!"

"Hoot Hoot!" The guy rammed the woman into the wall.

"Why do you even call her that!?" King questioned.

"You know why, King! It's hard to break an old habit when you've basically best friends with the gal for fifteen years." Mom shouted back.

"I am not going to lose to this wormy bird tube again!" The Rainbow devil cried out, their arms lighting up on fire once more as the metal on the ground melted and molded into a steaming hot hand ontop of Hooty's back, melding to the ground. "Try to squirm out of that, Demon!"

"I can't move my anything!" The bird cried out.

Okay, options were limited, they need a new plan. "Hey Lucci!" Luz shouted. "I have an idea, but you're going to have to be a bit uncomfortable with it."

"Luz, I've been doing at least one uncomfortable thing a week ever since I met you."

She nodded. "Hey ship, that gem over there is an intruder!"

"Is that true, my Diamond?"

Damn it, why did he have to do this now? Saying it basically meant he accepted it! "….Yes. The gem is an intruder."

"Understood, deploying countermeasures." Multiple things started jutting out of the walls, as red dots began covering the Rainbow Devil.

"This is exactly how it was for you all those years ago, wasn't it?" The rainbow devil growled. "You constantly deny everything until it suits your needs."

"I am not even going to dignify that with a response." Lucci rolled his eyes. 

Multiple beams of energy were blasted from the walls and at the Rainbow Devil, from all angles.

========================================================================

"Eda, you're pretty intimate with this pyscho..tell me this is enough to kill her!" King shouted desperately as the lasers were fired from all angles. This was supposed to be a simple quest treasure hunt, NOT a fight for their lives!

"Yeah no, me and Lilly at our max took her by surprise, and she wasn't even using magic then." Eda explained. "We need to ditch now and let this place stall her in the meantime." She got onto Owlbert. "Everyone, we ride!"

"You get Luz, I got King!" Lucci picked him up as he got on his own palisman. "Once again, super glad I have my palisman now!"

" Rooooooseee!"  Molten metal hands from all over began to converge on them. King was sweating up a storm just by looking at them.

"Mom, don't let her get the bubble at any cost!" Lucci shouted as they flew out of the room.

"What the heck..Ah…does she want with it in the first place!?" Eda cried out, ducking under another hand .

"Who knows? I lost consciousness just looking at the thing, and Glyphs are supposed to be my magnetic specialty or something!" Luz shouted as she swung her blade behind them, using an ice glyph planted on it to ease the heat. "You know Lucci, if you were more willing to figure out your backstory, she might back down!"

"I told her I'm not whoever she keep saying I am, she doesn't believe me and immediately jumps to murder. This isn't an Ivan situation where I feel bad for her." Lucci rolled his eyes.

"Do you really think this is gonna stop me?!" The crazy chick shouted as the sounds of banging got closer.

"Hey, do you have anything with more stomping power?!" Lucci questioned.

"There is the self destruct."

"Do that then!" He called out.

"Why!?" Luz and Eda shouted for some reason.

"What, if it's a weapon with more damage, then it's bound to slow her down so we can take the bubble and run!" King argued.

"Self destruct mean it's going to blow up the entire place!" Luz yelled. "The place that, you know, we're still trying to escape!"

"…" The two of them stared at her, before King spoke up. "Usually it's Luz who makes the mistake to kill us all. It feels weird when you do it."

"Hey, I'm new to this 'alien' stuff! Sorry if this tech stuff isn't exactly my forte!" He shouted out. "At least the Rainbow Nutjob will focus on that and the blasting things instead of us!"

" Self destruction sequence in fifteen seconds."

"Who leaves such a short amount of time to escape an explosion!?" Lucci screamed. "That's just impractical!" 

"That's why self distrust is a last resort!" Luz counted back. "Can't you cancel it!?"

"No. When a Diamond decides to eradicate something, there's NEVER taking it back."

"But he's still here!"

" Explosions are nothing in comparison to a Diamond. Their magnificence is so grand they can never be destroyed."

"Wait, you're unshatterable?!" King shouted.

"Never actually had damage to my gem before…" Lucci mumbled. "Wait, so that combined with the healing powers…am I actually immortal?"

"Self destruction in Five…four….three…."

"We're not going to make it out in time!" Eda yelled.

"Then we're just going to brace for impact!" Lucci grabbed him by the back and gripped his staff. "Alright Sugar, Bubble wand mode!"

"Hsss." King instantly jumped onto Lucci's back as the boy began swinging the staff around.

Lucci made a bubble, and it was about to cover all of them. "Wait, should we let the explosion destroy the scroll, or keep it to destroy at home?" Luz questioned.

"Two … one …"

"Whatever's less work for us!" Eda threw out the bubbled scroll before they ended up completely covered. "That was one of your weaker bubbles, right?"

"Yeah, it should be." Lucci nodded.

"Have a pleasant day, my Diamond."

KAAABBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

Nothing but lights and a loud boom were seen at the moment. King had to blink away the problem. "Mawp, Mawp, Mawp." Luz muttered while holding her ears.

"I'm over here….no… over here dummy!" Eda's head fell off and was trying to direct her beheaded body over to herself. "Listen to the sound of my voice! Are you even trying!?" The body gave her the finger. "Oh, so you can point in my direction, but you can't walk in it?"

"... I still don't see what the big deal is." King shrugged. Loud sounds never really bothered him, at most he just got minor sunspots from this experience.

"So many painbows, so many colors…." Lucci groaned, giving his head one final smack. "Sugar, once again…you are amazing. Thank you."

"Hsssh." The snake blushed and used its tail to wave it off in mock modesty.

"So we're sure that scroll is destroyed and that Rainbow is dead?" King asked.

"Are you kidding me? Bizy is far from dead." Eda screwed her head back on. "At most, that's going to poof her for like…a week at most, if that, given how she's now buried underneath all…" She pointed to what was now a molten pool of metal. "..that. The broad doesn't go down easily…she never does."

"Luz, let's never explore Crystal Devil history again." Lucci begged. "I can't keep dealing with stuff like this."

"Nope, we have a problem now." Luz muttered. "That bounty hunter is collecting Crystal Devil artifacts."

"So…let her." King shrugged. "She's a crystal devil person too, kind of has the right to collect her own stuff."

"Yeah, except the one she was collecting today was a scroll that trapped dozens of crystal devil souls that she didn't have a second thought about using." Luz brought up. "That's bad enough, but there's also the question of what she wants to use it for."

"She's a construction magic master." Eda frowned. "She's going to build something with it."

"And given how much she hates Lucci with a burning passion….she'll probably use that something against him. " Luz concluded. "And if that whole place was all alien technology…then how much more is there on the Boiling Isles we don't know about?"

Lucci paused. "Luz … how dangerous is technology on Earth?" He questioned.

"... We kinda … sorta … invented a way to permanently make locations uninhabitable with a bomb."

".....You know, when you explain stuff like this, it makes me all the more glad that I focus on being a witch and just a witch." Lucci grumbled. "No space stuff, no human stuff, just normal witch stuff."

"Witch or not, it's clear what we have to do." Luz pounded her fists. "We have to find as many alien artifacts as possible before that fruit loop or anyone else gets their hands on them."

"Great …" Lucci grumbled. "I reserve the right to ignore my backstory."

"Sure thing buddy." Maybe King should upgrade it to bro …