Summary: Last chance indeed
"Grrr." Ebberwolf could hardly believe it, there was actually a small fireball's chance in hell that they could actually win this.
"I know, I was delirious too. But here we are." Raine spoke. "So, lets start with information sharing first. What do we know?"
The human walked up, looking at everyone. "Well … Belos is actually a human from the year sixteen hundreds, where a lot of bad practices were held … like witch hunting." Everyone flinched. "So, he used glyph magic combined with a glyph he stole from a crystal devil like Bismuth to mess up his body into some plant thing that feeds on palisman. It's actually kinda interesting, I've been experimenting with it and the glyph reacts best to plant and worst to light. Do you think that would mean the others have some sort of opposite-"
"Luz, focus." The Owl Lady lightly reprimanded.
"Right, right." She shook her head. "Point is, the Day of Unity is a draining spell meant to power a bomb that will, in his words, make the Demon Realm uninhabitable." Way to lay down the stakes.
"The Coven Heads are aware of the draining part." Darius spoke. "They, however, think the majority of the Isles' energy will flood into them, making them witches of the highest standing."
"So they're just idiots with delusions of grandeur." Eda's kid rolled his eyes. "Been saying that for years, yet no one's ever believed me. What makes you guys different?"
"Something called not buying bullshit."
"... And like that, you are now my second favorite Coven Head." The kid grinned. "So tell me we have a way to make their heads explode…or just let them die."
"Wouldn't matter anyway. After Raine's stunt, Belos made sure that backups of every Coven Head were ready at all times." Darius turned to the Bard. "If someonewasn't so obvious with their rebellion, we could've solved the issue by just not showing up."
"Well you could have trusted me first." They scoffed. "I can be a good actor."
"Rainestorm." The Owl Lady spoke with a look. "You have never, in your life, ever been subtle."
"...Yes I have." The bard looked away, pouting as everyone got a laugh, before shaking their head. "Anyways, thanks to Celine, we know that actually stopping the draining spell is impossible …" Raine groaned. "Something that we all would have liked to know sooner … but the point is that even if we can't outright stop it once it starts, we can delay it…"
"Or even better, corrupt it." Darius added. "As long as we don't allow it to complete during the eclipse, than we can all survive. Eda, you're going to be the most crucial part of this plan."
"Wait, me?" She asked.
"We're going to do what you did back at the forest. The Owl Beast corrupts all magic it touches." Darius kept going. "If we have you replace one of the coven heads during the spell, it'll weak the draining spell and prevent the isles from losing all their magic."
"Sounds great, one last dig at Belos." Eda grinned.
"Wait, but…if she's going to replace one of the coven heads….then wouldn't she have to have a sigil?" Lilith asked.
"Yes, yes she would." Darius nodded. "Sadly, we don't have much of a choice, unless we can pull a Titan out of our hats." The Clawthorne's, and Steve weirdly enough, looked at each other, before looking down.
"But what about me? I have the curse too, maybe…" Lilith tried to interject.
"No, you're already branded with an Emperor's sigil." Raine sighed sadly. "For this to work, it has to be one of the main nine covens … Eda would have to take my place since Bard is the only magic she can perform."
"Meh, couldn't use magic anyways, why not?" The woman shrugged. "Anything else?"
"There's the Abomatrons trying to kill us all." The plant user spoke.
"Oh that we can take care of." The human smirked. "We fight abomations all the time, and with Amity by our side, it's going to be no problem."
"Amity hasn't been heard from all day." An illusion kid brought up.
"...Give me a minute, I'm gonna send her some texts." The human walked off.
"So Skara, ready to fight some abominations?" The Clawthorne boy grinned.
"Been ready, bard buddy, and maybe crush a few coven scout skulls along the way."
"...Since when were you this violent?" One of Raine's bard troupe asked.
"Always, I just hide it under a happy demeanor because friends are better than enemies."
"Grr." Such a mixed bag of power and insanity.
"Nonetheless, we have a day to prepare for the day of unity." Darius concluded. "So whatever business or affairs you have, I suggest you get them done now."
Ebberwolf should probably say goodbye to their loved ones. Just incase they offed it.
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Raine watched as the child talked with his friends. "So how's it going?"
"The diamond glyph or Amity?" The human responded
"Either or, though the glyph thing might be more important."
"Well I think I may have figured out how to do the stretchy arm thing you have." The human responded, pressing a circle as the lamp inside extended up to the ceiling, breaking into pieces. "... Needs some work though."
"Just don't start using it on yourself. Last thing we need for you to do is become a rotting tree like Boolus." Eda's kid laughed. "You'd be more of an abomination than the actual abominations."
"Yeah, though I wouldn't mind having your insane healing factor." The girl chuckled. "Heck, maybe once I perfect it, we can double heal Eda and finally cure her curse."
"Wouldn't that be a miracle." Lucci chuckled. "So that thing just has like, all of my powers?"
"Probably, the most I've been able to do with it, like I said, is enhance plant glyphs." She laughed. "I might just make a second Lucci by mistake at this rate."
"HHHSS!"
"She's not going to clone and replace me, Sugar, calm down!" The boy chastised the snake.
Well … if Raine was ever going to talk to their son, it was now or never. "Hello there … Lucifer, Lucci, Clawthorne?" They questioned.
Their kid looked at them, tilting his head. "I prefer to be called Lucci. Just rolls off the tongue better." He explained. "So…You're mom's favorite ex…Raine right?"
"I wouldn't know about favorite.." They blushed.
"No, you're definitely top of the list." Lucci said. "Hooty's given me a list of all her ex's, each one who she's always ranted about how messy the break up was…everyone except you." Well…nice to see that Eda thought highly of them.
The human gasped. "Are you here to ask us to help set you up on a final romantic date?" She asked with sparkly eyes.
"It's sorta of related, but I…" They took a deep breath. "I think you might be…me and you…you know…" They stumbled out "I'm pretty sure you're my kid!" They said fast and loudly.
The human's face changed. "Wait, you think.."
Lucci slapped his hand over the human, covering her mouth. "...Go on." The boy nodded.
"I mean, between the bard magic, the arson, the unkept hair, your age matching the one time me and Edalyn … forgot to protect."
"Not sure why you need protection planting a baby, but everything else seems to match up." The boy nodded. Guess there were a few things Eda had yet to teach him. "Back before I met Luz, my main goal was to meet my sperm donor so I could beat them up…" Not surprising at all. "But given how Mom still has the hots for you, I guess I could hold off on it for the moment."
"I appreciate that, my bones are still a bit brittle from some of the adventures your mother took me on … the crane incident, the magopie incident, the grudgby tournament."
"Pfft, I've had two veggie incidents, two mind incidents, mirror incidents, ghosts incidents, two grudgby incidents, pretty much every incident under the sun, and my bones are as limber as ever." He smirked."
"Yeah, but you're constantly healing." The human noted.
"Point still stands." He waved off. "So you and mom were just as crazy as us back in the day?"
"Not crazy enough to have several encounters with Belos and numerous coven heads, but we were quite infamous…before we broke up." Raine sighed. That would probably be the biggest damper in trying to mend this relationship. "I…I know the circumstances aren't ideal, and I haven't been around, but.."
"Do you actually want to be a part of my mom and me's life?" The boy asked rather bluntly.
"More than anything." Raine immediately responded.
The boy took a minute to absorb those words. "I've kinda … gotten used to the idea that mom was the only one that wanted to be my parent … someone else wanting to be that is sort of weird for me…a warm kind of weird though."
"Name one thing in your life that wasn't weird." Raine smirked.
"... Sugar?"
"Doesn't she have multiple relationships with multiple creatures, palisman or otherwise?" The human pointed out.
"Hssh." The snake pouted angrily, looking like it was about to bite the human on the head.
"I … would like to think about it." Lucci spoke awkwardly, shaking his head. "So you plan on getting back together with mom once this whole thing blows over?"
"I…I'm not sure. I'm hoping that we'll get a clean slate at the very least." Raine said honestly. "You…you wouldn't mind helping me out on that, would you?"
"Long as you don't try chopping her head off and forcing her to date you, I think we can work something out." The boy laughed.
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Lucci cracked his neck. Luz was working on the pink glyph, and Lucci needed to keep up. One last test fest before the big day. He pretty much already hit a wall while running and/flying at super speed. Now was the time to see just how much he could apply that to the rest of his body. Having enough speed to keep ahead of Belos was going to be crucial, especially if he had that pink glyph too.
He once hit Mason at super speed while using his stretching ability. Time to put that to the real test. "Sugat, you ready?" He asked the Snake slithered onto his arm.
"Hss." Ready as always.
"Okay." He took a deep breath. Channel everything into the arm, more and more, all of his energy. And compress it, compress it tightly and coil it … then … release!
KAPPOOOOOOOOOF
His arm had hit a wall….which was made out of titan bone…..and completely decimated it in pieces.. "Whoa, punching power to the max." He turned to his hand, smoking from the aftermath. "You okay Sugar?"
"Hhhss." A little drained, but otherwise alright.
"With Belos's mushy body, even that will only do so much, but it'll definitely turn him into a puddle." One good shot right at him will knock him back at the very least. "Now for defense." He focused on his hands, sweating a little until he created a hexagon. "Now why are you so strong compared to everything else?" He wondered aloud. It wasn't full covered, it was flat. It didn't even do anything big scale back when Rose had it … well, except when she made a bunch of-"''
His brain stalled. "Wait a moment …" He made six more hexagons. "What if …" He meshed them, linking them up into three shields of two… then stacked the flat parts on top of each other. "I get it now …" He literally had to keep building up this power, like blocks. "Let's see how you work offensively!" He punched it, sending it out.
"Hey Clawthorne, your three eyed girlfriend is looking for-hey!" The former tool grabbed his palisman and teleported out of the way before he could get turned into a creamy paste on the wall. "Can you stop trying to kill me!? We're on the same side!"
"Can you stop showing up without notice? I'm the one practicing here." He pointed out. "Unless you feel like joining in as a moving target."
"Like you aren't going to draw all the enemy fire being big, pink, and obvious." Hunter rolled his eyes.
"Oh, you're the one calling me obvious with that annoying voice? Do everyone a favor and stop talking, you make everyone's ears bleed."
"Maybe when you can make a plan other than just 'attack attack attack', I'll stop suggesting better ideas."
"Better ideas? What better ideas? The best idea you've ever had was quitting the emperor's coven, just a little under a week ago! Any other time you were being a blind moron!"
"How about I point out the times where you fail at conning people despite being a criminal, or did I forget how most of our encounters go?"
"You mean the time you got your ass flung in the air after trying to cut Skara's head off, or the time me and Boscha put you in an exploding blimp?"
"You left when you couldn't beat Darius!"
"Like how you couldn't beat Luz, who cut off your finger."
"How about I cut off some of yours!?"
"How about I cut off your whole arm!?"
"How about-!?"
"Enough!" Vines wrapped around them both as Willow came in, coming in between them. "The literal end of the world is tomorrow, this is not the time for your pet snorseshit rivalry! Lucci!" She brought him in close. "I know he's done a lot of wrong things, but he's doing right by them now, that's all that matters at the moment."
"But-"
"Do not test me." She squeezed him harder, before turning to Hunter. "And you, work on your people skills. Between mr emo right here, Amity's family problems, Luz's naivety, Gus's self doubt, and Boscha being a bitch, I have it up to here in social drama right now. Do me a favor and don't add anymore problems."
"Yes Captain, I promise to be better." The boy nodded quickly. Whipped…oh wait, that was a bad thing! He didn't want these two dating!
"Good, now shake and make up." Willow bright them close together.
"But.."
"Shake or I'm trying you both up and burying you alive." They both extended their hands and desperately shook. "Great, have fun you two." She dropped them, walking away with a smile.
"... Has she always been this scary?" Hunter asked.
"If anything, she's improved since she was a kid." Lucci noted.
"... Between her and Terra, I wonder if Plant Magic just causes a lot of violence in users."
"….You've just made me question my entire life and the actions I take with that one sentence." Even the tests fests made him existential now. What kind of world did he live in?
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Boscha sighed as she began pouring her ingredients together. "Alright, eye of newt, centaur milk, ga ga berries." The end of the world was coming, so she wanted to have as much variety as possible. The world wasn't allowed to end until she became a professional grudgby player.
"When this works, I'll get myself a freezing potion." She looked over at the arsenal in question. Explosion, fire, tentacle, shrinking, poison, rock barrier, smokescreen, acid, glue, sense deprivation, body swap. The last one mostly for prank purposes and or confusing the guards. She was pretty sure no one wanted to be inside Belos after that mindscape thing.
"Pretty long way from the grudgby field, aren't we?" She looked behind her, seeing Skara smirking.
"I could say the same thing for one of your concerts." Boscha gave a little smile. "Honestly under most circumstances, I probably would've just hid away with my moms if I heard the world was ending."
"Sounds like you." Her friend bluntly said as she looked over the area. "As long as no one you care about is in trouble, it's all good, right?"
"Actually it's more like as long as I'm okay, then everyone else can burn." She freely admitted.
"Then Lucci came along, right?" Skara gave her a knowing grin.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got a little soft. Tell anyone I said that though and I'll make your insides liquify." She quickly threatened.
"Soft isn't bad, you know." Skara laughed. "It's clearly something you don't mind if your still dating Lucci and tolerating his friends."
"Honestly that pack of losers are the most loyal people I've ever met, more so than the so-called friends I had … except you." Boscha said with a sigh. The third best thing I had going for me in Highschool, and all but one friend stuck with me … how sad is that?"
"We've been friends since childhood, and I'll be friends when you have altimers baby." The girl giggled. "I'll take this." Skara snatched a lute with an ax end. "Musical Mele for the win."
"Heh.." Boscha did not deserve a friend like her. "Skara … if tomorrow ends with all of us dying … just know you are my best friend, not matter how mean I was to you, or how many times I've broken your arms and collapsed your lungs. It was never personal."
"I know, it was just to get me into shape." They sent a savage smirk. "And I'm gonna use every ounce of it to beat up anyone who threatens my family."
"Course you are." She reached forward, grabbing a crossbow and loading a potion onto it. "If I don't get to them first." She offhandedly fired at a target, hitting it right in the head.
"... Your third eye is bullshit, you know that right?"
"Your won't be complaining when I snipe Belos from a mile away." She blinked. "Titan, those are words I never thought I would ever say."
"I don't think anyone's said it before. We're crazy like that."
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Luz continued to stare at her egg. "If there was ever a time to hatch, the end of the world seems like a good time to start, little one." She kissed it, hoping it might've sprung a reaction…though she got nothing. "I get it, you need time. If I'm still figuring out who I am, you should too."
She gently placed the palisman inside of her bag, pulling out her texter, staring once more at the lack of response. It's been hours and Amity still hasn't said anything. Was she hurt, in trouble? Did they have time to do anything with how close the Day of Unity was? Had she been captured and she needed to do a last minute jail bust?
"Do you want me to glue that to your face?" She turned to see Lucci, walking up to her with Eda and King right behind her. "You haven't taken your eyes off that thing all day."
"Sorry, it's just been a while since I've seen Amity. In the three months we've been together, we've only had two dates that have gone uninterrupted." Luz sighed. "Between all the attacks, her family, life … just complicated, you know?"
"Yeah I can see that. It took a long while for me and Boscha to have a date that didn't end in fire." He agreed. "I think we just decided to cathartically battle our problems away, which she enjoys anyway."
"You have the most unconventional love life I've ever seen….well, aside from Eda that is." She nodded to the Owl Lady. "No offense."
"None taken, I love my record." The woman grinned. "Speaking of which, Raine seems to be under the impression Lucci's their kid, and from what I heard, you didn't correct them."
"Eh, it's the first time someone's wanted to fill the secondary parental role without bribing you, so I didn't see a reason to." Lucci shrugged. "We might actually get an explanation for the Locker Room incident."
"I'd somehow prefer you two making out with your girlfriend's infront of me than explaining that." Eda shivered.
"This is why I'm using my existentialism of being a titan to avoid your sappy romance." King explained. "... Wait, if I'm a titan, am I incapable of a romantic relationship?"
"Would there even be a point?" Luz asked. "You could reproduce asexually for all we know."
"Yeah, we've been talking about King's dad for so long we never even considered the mom." Lucci nodded.
"...Guess Eda filled that role so much I didn't think twice about it." King gave a small nod.
"And now you know how I always feel about the subject." Lucci countered.
"It's nice … hanging out like this again." Luz gave a small smile as she watched the sunset. "Five months ago, it was just us four. Hanging out, getting into trouble caused by Eda's schemes, my naivety, or Lucci's blatant disregard for morality. Those were the good times."
"Hey, I can cause trouble too." King argued.
"Yeah, but you weren't that bad." Lucci rolled his eyes. "Imagine if you fell for Dribbles's disguise or something."
"His name was Tibbles." Luz corrected.
"Was it? Been a while since we've seen him. Pretty forgettable side villain if I'm being honest." Eda laughed. "Yeah, it's been great. And once we stop Belos, we're gonna have even more days like this, especially with you three legends in the making," The woman ruffled each of their heads. "Luz, the human Witch, King the titan, Lucci the Manticore menace…"
"Don't forget about you, mom. You're still the fierce Owl lady we all love and fear tremendously." Lucci laughed. "And you're the key to stopping Belos's plans. You don't get more legendary than that."
"Oh yeah, definitely gonna be famous." She grinned. "Imagine how much moo la we can pocket snatch from fangirls."
"I see being the isle's hero isn't going to deter you from being a con woman." Luz chuckled.
"Heck no. Hero status means more opportunities to scam everyone." Lucci chuckled. "In fact, I'll teach you the secret art of pickpocketing!" He showed off multiple objects-
"Is that my wallet?" Luz glared.
"You wouldn't believe how many times a day I steal this from you for the heck of it." He laughed. "Don't worry, I don't take anything, human world money's useless here."
"Thanks….I think." Luz slowly grabbed it back, before looking back at her texter. "Still no word from Amity, and the plan's about to go off in a few hours."
"Then go to her." Eda smirked. "Pretty sure this is one of those romantic situations where you save the girl from something."
"If that's the case …" Luz grinned, slapping down a glyph. "I'm off to save the princess!" She blasted forward with a laugh. "I'm coming, Amity!!"