Summary:
Marcy, Anne, and Sasha have a talk.
Luz and Amity find a friend
The next morning took an emotional turn for everyone.
Marcy knew what was going to happen the second Anne and Sasha sat her down on a stump across from them and asked Luz and Amity for some privacy. They agreed with cheerful faces, saying they would try to find some friends of theirs.
And the three were left alone.
Marcy tapped on her knees nervously in a little drum pattern, taking deep breaths as Anne and Sasha whispered, and finally sat down in front of her on a log.
"So," Anne began calmly, "We want you to know we aren't angry or anything, we just have questions." She seemed genuinely concerned, eyes round and wary. Meanwhile Sasha was unreadable, as usual, stone cold expression with only her eyes portraying the slightest emotions of care and worry.
"What's happening? Did I do something wrong..?" Marcy asked, fidgeting with her fingers.
"No, no! Of course not!" Anne was quick to reply, wrapping her friend up in a hug for a moment before settling back down.
"We were worried about you, and, um…"
"Is the Core really gone?" Sasha said when Anne was struggling with words. Anne fell silent and nodded, awkwardly grinning.
Marcy felt her gut twist.
She could hear her heart thundering in her ears, blocking out all the other noises.
The world flickered from normal to a slight orange before going back to normal.
Marcy looked down, shuffling her feet slightly, one foot tapping against the ground.
Her arms wrapped around her stomach and squeezed, her breath growing quicker.
It's okay. It's okay. Don't cry. It's over.
"I- …" Marcy lifted one of her hands, looking at it through teary eyes, "... I don't know…"
Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.
Don't cry. Don't let them see you weak.
"Marbles?" Anne asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. Marcy flinched and looked up, holding her hand over her left eye, which felt like it was burning.
Sasha now showed concern, reaching forwards to gently hold the wrist of her hand.
Anne watched as Sasha slowly moved Marcy's hand away and held it in her own, revealing a familiar bright orange eye.
Marcy could clearly see the fear evident on her friends' faces, she looked down with a quiet sob, elbows on her knees as she grabbed her hair and tugged.
It's not okay.
It's not fine.
They hate me.
Her thoughts swirled around her like a tornado, clashing together and spinning rapidly. Her throat grew dry and hoarse with the constant ragged breathing.
She felt hands on her shoulders and was pulled into a tight hug suddenly, another set of arms wrapping around her.
The trio hugged each other, free from their old traumatic events.
And now awaiting new ones…
"Are you sure we aren't the only ones who got dropped here..?" Amity asked for the third time. Her and Luz were walking through a grassy meadow dotted with trees and bushes here and there they had found, trying to see if their friends were there.
So far they had been unsuccessful with their search.
"Well, Gus, Hunter, and Willow were with us, right? They should be here." Luz answered.
"Unless they got sent to different worlds… different than this one… what if they've been killed?!"
"Amity, I'm sure they weren't killed-" Luz tried to calm her girlfriend's nerves.
"What if they've been murdered ?!" Amity exclaimed.
"How is that worse than being killed? Isn't it the same thing?" Luz wondered out loud, before tripping on something in the grass and falling face first into the wildflowers.
She got up and heard a quiet groan in the grass. Looking closer, she noticed it was someone familiar laying flat on his face.
He had scrapes and bruises, and one of his arms had a nasty, giant green bite mark on it.
"Hunter!" Luz and Amity flipped him over together.
He hissed softly and raised his good arm to cover his eyes from the sunlight.
" I tried to stop it… " He said quietly, glancing at his injured arm and wincing. " It bit me and left me for dead …"
"What? What was it, what did this?" Amity asked. She looked like she was going to throw up.
" It was like one of those things… humans have… "
Luz had an idea, "Can you try to describe it?" she thought.
Hunter paused for a minute before speaking in a hoarse voice, " Big and fluffy… big teeth… round ears and tail… "
"A bear!" Luz gasped, "What's a bear doing in this world?!"
" It wasn't normal, though… " Hunter coughed, a bit of blood dribbling from his mouth. " It… had green and white limbs… six of them, and huge teeth… its eyes were pure green… "
Amity perked up and looked around, nervous and on edge.
"I don't think it went very far, we need to leave." She stated.
"But we can't leave Hunter!" Luz argued.
Amity looked at her from the side, a small smile on her face. "Who said we were leaving him?"
She took a smudge of abomination goop she had and mixed it into a pile of mud nearby. Within minutes she had enough of the stuff to lift and carry Hunter away from the field, her and Luz walking just beside him to make sure he was safe.
The hair on the back of Luz's neck tingled and she looked behind her. A giant orange bear stood at the edge of the closest bunch of bushes. It had extra limbs sticking out of its ribcage, they were coloured green and white, and it had antennae with razors on the ends of them, and fiercely sharp claws.
So far it hadn't spotted them, but it was only a matter of time before it did.
"Uhh, Amity?" Luz whisper-shouted, nudging her in the arm. "We might have a bit of a situation here…"
"Oh?" Amity turned around and froze, spotting the hideous creature.
Luz came up with a plan on the spot, quickly whispering to her girlfriend, "When I say go, you carry us and Hunter away from this thing as fast as possible with the abomination goop. Okay?" She didn't even have to look to know Amity was nodding furiously.
"Okay. Ready,"
The bear's ears twitched and it looked up, noticing them.
"Set,"
Amity tensed up as it stared at them with four bright green eyes and began to stalk towards them.
"GO!" Luz shouted, "GO GO GO!" Amity wrapped all three of them in abomination magic and sped away quickly. The bear roared viciously and gave chase, sprinting after them into the woods.
"GO! RUN!" Luz screeched with terror as the bear grew closer.
"I'M TRYING!" Amity yelled back.
"WELL, RUN FASTER !" Luz cried, narrowly dodging a tree with the abomination goop pulling her aside.
The three emerged into a small clearing where a cliff was and skidded to a halt, turning to face the thing that was chasing them. Luz saw plenty of other cliffs behind and beside this one, and they all dropped down to a large ravine with sharp rocks at the bottom.
"I have an idea!" She said, "Lure the bear to the edge and push it off!" Amity nodded and used her abomination magic to grab Luz and Hunter firmly and set them aside.
She stood alone on the cliff's edge, eyes narrowed as she faced the threat head-on.
The bear slowly paced up towards her, licking its chops and baring its teeth with a low growl.
"Wait, Amity! I didn't mean to do it alone!" Luz shouted. Bands of abomination magic wrapped around her arms and held her down beside Hunter.
"Get back to the camp." Amity said, giving the bear a solid whack in the face when it noticed Luz and Hunter.
"I can deal with this."
"Amity, NO !" Luz tried to reach for her but was forced to sit and watch her girlfriend fight off the creature.
Amity dodged snapping jaws and flying claws, and finally she had the stupid bear in the right place. Luz realized too late the bear was heavy, and would need Amity's entire body weight to push it over the edge, but she couldn't stop her.
Amity's body slammed the hideous thing and the two went tumbling over the edge, falling to their deaths.
Luz felt more scared than she remembered being in her entire life, watching almost in slow motion as Amity fell with the bear, tripping over the edge and falling down, down, down.
Something in the world shifted and suddenly, Luz ripped the strands of abomination goop away with new claws that grew from her fingers. A witch's hat found itself on her head, and Stringbean, her wonderful palisman, was automatically summoned to her hands. Her hair grew fluffier and she was wearing a cloak of different shades of purple cloth.
Luz darted forwards and dove off the cliff, speeding down and wrapping Amity in her arms before summoning a pillar of ice and forcing the two to be boosted back up to the cliff where Hunter lay.
The two collapsed on the stone, rolling for a bit before coming to a stop.
Amity opened her eyes slowly and saw her girlfriend looking majestic.
Luz felt the Titan magic fade, and the world began to slip away. She fell to the ground unconscious.
Amity was left in awe, even more in love than before somehow.
" Are you going to help me or not ?" Hunter groaned, his entire body showing pain. Amity shook her head to clear it.
"Oh! Right! Yeah, of course." She summoned her magic and took both her unconscious girlfriend and Hunter up in a giant purpley-brown hand, pulling them with her towards the camp.
They finally got there an hour later, battered, bruised, and bewildered.
"What the hell happened to you two?!" Sasha asked, running over the second she saw them.
"Luz and I found our buddy Hunter, who found a giant… What's it called? Bear?" Amity explained, setting down her friend and lover.
"A bear ?! In this world?!" Marcy appeared from behind Sasha with wide eyes. Amity noticed one of them was orange but decided not to comment on it, it was probably one of those human things.
"Yeah. It bit Hunter, he's got a pretty bad wound. Oh, by the way, are bears usually orange?" Anne winced when she caught sight of the bite mark, running to get medical supplies.
"No? Was the one you saw orange?" Marcy took her journal and wrote down notes on a spare page.
"Yeah, and it had six limbs." Amity saw Anne return with bandages and some sort of cleaning stuff.
"But the limbs in the middle were green and white… and so were its antennae!"
"It had antennae ?!" Marcy gasped, scribbling down a quick, hypothetical drawing.
"Yeah. It was really strange. I thought I could see some sort of… giant… bug? On its back or lower neck, but it was hard to see with the fact that it was chasing us . Oh, and then Luz kind of transformed into a demon?"
" WHAT ?!" Marcy's nose nearly touched Amity's with how close they were together.
"Marcy, give her some space!" Sasha chuckled, pulling her friend back.
"Let the girl explain." Anne joined in, wrapping up Hunter's arm and jumping back when he moved slightly.
"Hunter, this is Anne, Sasha, and Marcy." Amity introduced, pointing them out for him.
"... where's Willow ? And… Gus ?"
Amity inhaled through her teeth.
"We haven't found them yet. But I promise we're trying!" She continued quickly, "And once we do we'll find a way out of this place and back home. I promise."