Chapter 67

After a few moments to decompress after the counseling sessions, Luz and Co went to the school's cafeteria, The dinner menu at the Institute was... Impressive. Luz had never seen so many non-dairy dessert options in one place before. With the results from the bio-scan, everyone was able to find something that they liked and was safe for them to eat.

After that, well, it was getting late, and even without travel time to take into account getting here, the tour, the sessions, and everything else everyone was kind of tired so it was back to their rooms in the dorms.

...Except, on the way back, they ran into some people: Clara, Scott, and Suzy. The trio were just... In a hall together. Scott looked terrible.

Clara was the first to notice them approaching. "Oh, great. And now... Did you transfer here or something?"

"Um, no," Luz said. "We're just—"

"And you brought more elves, Great," Clara interrupted.

"Seriously," Amity said in exasperation, "what's an elf?"

"I think it's a fashion trend?" Willow suggested.

"But none of us are wearing lederhosen," Gus observed, confused.

"...And a slug," Clara finished as if she hadn't been interrupted.

"I'm a basilisk," Vee noted somewhat offended.

During this exchange, Amity subtly moved between Luz and her former bullies. In response, Luz put a hand on Amity's shoulder and gave her a look to chill for a bit. Luz then looked at Scott. "You okay?"

"No," the boy said. "My uh... Uncle..."

"I know."

"How?"

"It was a friend of mine who um, found him," Luz explained.

"Why do you care?" Suzy asked.

"Yeah, shouldn't you be off in whatever magic land you and your freaky witch friends, Luzer?"

"I'm standing right here," Luz's Mom said. "Luz, were they this bold back at—"

"Yes, yes they were," Luz answered. "Everyone was and the teachers didn't do much about it. Principal Hal was the best and even then I don't think I should have gotten in trouble for half the stuff I did,"

"...Vee, when we get home I want you to bring an audio recorder to school just in case," Mom said.

"Okay, Mama." That got Vee a bit of a side-eye from two of the mutant teens.

"Whatever, this is probably your fault anyway," Clara declared.

"Seriously, how?" Luz asked. "I have literally not even been in this dimension since... Literally the last time I saw you guys."

"Yeah, and everyone's heard about how he went around eating other symbiotes last fall," Clara replied. "And we all saw that you have one of those freaky things when—"

"When you challenged me, my girlfriend, my now-sister, and her now-theyfriend to a fight in a flooded graveyard, nearly killed me and Amity, knocked me out, left Amity to drown—"

"Witches float!" Suzy defended.

"No, we don't," Amity interrupted. "If we're not actively swimming we'll sink like a rock... Apparently, we're actually a little denser than typical humans. I'm not sure how much, I didn't understand that part of the scan..."

"It would explain why witches are so much stronger and tougher than regular humans," Luz noted.

"We're not dense enough to sink automatically but we do not float on our own. Where would you even get an idea like that?" Amity continued.

"It was made up by witch hunters to justify killing people," Luz explained. "It was called swimming the witches: You tie someone up and toss them in a body of water, if they sink, they're safe but if they float it's because they're a witch who used their powers to do it... Except you know, you're supposed to pull the accused witch out, and the ropes you use for that can also be used to make them float... And the witch hunters weren't always good about pulling people out on time so even if they weren't trying to frame someone a lot of people still drowned."

"So yeah, obviously, that's not true, and I can't swim, so if Vee hadn't pulled me out, I would have died," Amity finished.

"Cualquier cosa por mi futura cuñada," Vee noted,

"That reminds me, we should probably work on that," Luz mused, "there's a lake that's practically made for swimming not too far from town and we've still got a few weeks of decent weather so we can probably... One thing at a time. The point is, Clara, is that... Look, like I said, I literally wasn't even on Earth for the last couple of months. I fought a genocidal madman last week. Almost died. My friends too. The only way Carnage could know about me is if he was right there when we got back to the human world." What were the odds that that had happened? "I've got enough on my plate without being accused of being responsible for the actions of another lunatic by the people who kidnapped methe last time we met."

"So when did all of this happen, again?" Willow asked suddenly.

"...We really need to be better about keeping each other in the loop," Amity added.

"You um, said that you—"

"Didn't want your lives ruined because you made a series of really stupid decisions one day," Luz interrupted. "That's not free reign to go back to the way things were before I made real friends and learned the value of self-respect..." Luz... Wasn't respecting herself all that much right now, was she though? "Look, we got invited to visit to get trauma counseling, I was just... Offering my condolences. That's it, so... Why don't we just stay out of each other's hair till we leave?"

"Fine." Clara declared and she and Suzy turned and marched off. Scott did not leave, however.

"Look, um... I appreciate what you tried to do," he admitted. "and... I don't think that... My parents said that Uncle Jacob went to the historical society to see if they still had some stuff he'd left there. His car's missing so... Carnage probably wandered in from the woods looking for a car to steal at six in the morning and my uncle just happened to be there so..." With that awkward exchange, he turned and went after his friends.

"Well, you handled that with fewer broken noses than I would have," came a new voice from behind them, which almost caused Luz to jump as she cursed the unreliability of her ESP.

The newcomer was a girl about Luz's with short brown hair and... "Wait, we saw you earlier," Luz observed. "You're Mayday, right?"

The girl looked annoyed for a moment but then it passed. "No. May's my sister. I'm April."

"...There are three Parker kids?" Luz asked and then immediately realized she'd put her foot in her mouth. Celebrity kids don't like having that they're celebrities thrown in their faces... Right? Not counting the ones that became celebrities on purpose or... Maybe she was overthinking this.

"Actually there are four, but Benjy's just a baby,' April confirmed. "Five if you count Bailey but he's just a foster until we can fix the fact that he was partially erased from existence so nobody remembers him."

"...This freaking dimension," Amity mumbled.

"Anyway, you're Luz, right?" April asked.

"Yeah," Luz confirmed.

"Okay, cool. I was asked to talk to you," April said.

"Why?"

April smiled and then blue slime began to ooze out of her pores and engulf her before taking shape as a skintight suit in blue with thick lines of black marbled through it. A monstrous parody of the typical 'spidey' style mask with jagged eye lenses became her face, and April's hair had gotten longer and more wild, as well as changed color to black.

"Nothing much," the girl said, "it's just... We've got something in common." A too-wide mouth full of daggerlike fangs ripped open and formed into a Chesire Cat grin as she concluded. "I'm Mayhem."

"...I like Luz's better," Gus interrupted. "There's nothing wrong with blue and black as colors, but Luz's palette complement each other better."

"Luz's is definitely cuter, too," Amity added. "Not that there's anything wrong with yours, but..."

"...Not the reaction I was going for," Mayhem said. "It's... It's not supposed to be... Never mind. Anyway, Luz, you've seen mine so show me yours." There was a brief pause. "That came out wrong."

Luz laughed and changed. She tried to make a dramatic pose, only for it to be ruined by Amity's squee.

"You have a cape?" Mayhem asked. "I want a cape..." Luz took that moment to demonstrate that her cloak, as part of her now, was fully prehensile by using it to hug Amity. "Show off. Okay, you got a name?"

"No," Luz said. "I haven't really thought of that... I almost entered a fighting tournament under the name Spellraiser once but that doesn't feel right for this kind of thing."

"...When was that?" her Mom asked.

"Um... the anniversary. I really needed a distraction. I didn't do it, but... For what it's worth Amity entered and won." Amity responded to Luz's declaration by posing proudly, an effect ruined by still being wrapped in Luz's cape.

"Well, if you come up with one let me know," Mayhem continued. "Remember: Symbiote names are supposed to be scary. And um... One last thing: Have you ever really tested your limits yet? Gotten a really good workout in symbiote mode?"

"Not really," Luz admitted. "I've really only ever used it when I'm in fights or becuase Amity likes it. I've never really gone all out."

"Well, some friends and I have the Danger Room booked early tomorrow morning," Mayhem said. "Come by, we'll put you through your paces."

At first, Luz's instinct was to ask if that was mandatory but then she recalled Professor X telling her that getting more exercise might help her. "Is there a reason for why that might be important?" she asked instead.

"Symbiotes are predators, Luz," Mayhem declared. "The earliest ones were just flat-out weapons. They, and by extension, we, are on some level meant to hunt and fight and... Other stuff. So running around, fighting, competing... Satisfying those instincts feels good, and helps the klyntar side of people like us grow up big and strong."

"Okay, yeah, I'll give it a try I guess," Luz agreed.

"Cool. See ya first thing tomorrow, bright and early," the other hybrid said as she changed back to her human form and walked off with a wave. "Wait until after to eat breakfast, my crew's workouts can get pretty intense."

"So that's something to look forward to," Luz mused. After that conversation, everyone finally made it back to their designated rooms. Between the long day and the fact that Luz had just agreed to an intense workout first thing in the morning, she, Willow, and Amity had decided to head to bed early.

As Luz lay there in a strange but surprisingly comfortable bed, her mind started to wander back in bad directions. Directions she knew were wrong, but that didn't make them any easier to avoid.

"Guys? Are you still awake?" she asked.

"Yes," Willow said.

"We literally just laid down, Batata," Amity answered.

"Yeah, that was a dumb question... It's just... There's something I need to tell you, um... I, um," her treacherous brain began screaming at her that her friends would never forgive her for helping Belos, that Amity would dump her on the spot and Willow would chop her up and use her as fertilizer... She knew it wasn't true, but... She wasn't ready to talk about that anyway. "Professor X, he... He thinks I have something called depression. It's um—"

It was then that Luz realized that both of her roommates sat up. So she sat up too.

"Are, you... Luz I?" amity began...

"There are different ways it can happen and different ways it affects people," Luz continued, "but in my case... Something that happened in the lead-up to the Day of Unity, something I'm not really ready to talk about just yet, sort of... screwed things up in my brain. There's part of me that's just... Convinced that I'm responsible for things that I know aren't my fault and that I deserve to be sad all the time and I'm not... I know that's not true, but it's hard to... I'm working on it, my Mom already knows and she and Professor X talked about getting me more counseling and, he gave me some things I can't do on my own. I'm... I don't want anyone to worry about me," Luz said even as she could feel that particular feeling start to form in her BFF and GF. "I'm gonna do the work to get better. I want to get better, I'm just... He said I'm gonna have good days and bad days and that I'm going to need a little extra support so... Not, not that I won't still be there for—"

"Willow, could you help me push my bed next to Luz's?" Amity said suddenly.

Without a word Willow complied and within moments Luz was laying again, this time in Amity's arms.

"I'm... I'm gonna tell Vee and the boys when I get a good time," Luz said, "and like... Willow, would you mind if I join you when you work out when we get back to Gavesfield? He said that getting more exercise might help."

"There's always room for more workout buddies," Willow immediately agreed.

"I wanna get better," Luz repeated. "I don't want anything stopping me from enjoying the time I have with my friends and family. Especially since... Especially after today, since..."

"You're going to outlive us?" Amity supplied. Willow gasped in realization.

"...Yeah. I figured you would have noticed that. Um... Did I ever tell you about the time I stole Owlbert and got him hurt? I had to complete the Bat Queen's trials to earn his trust back." Amity started holding Luz more tightly. "Anyway, I learned something. The Bat Queen is a giant palisman. She was carved as part of a magnificent staff meant for a giant but, the staff was broken and she was abandoned. That's why she takes care of lost and abandoned palisman and... You know, it was a huge show of trust for her to let some of her wards be adopted."

There was a buzzing sound from the direction of Willow. "Clover says that it was seeing the lengths that you went through to prove to Owlbert that you were sorry for hurting him and his impassioned defense of you afterward that convinced her that maybe outsiders could be trusted again," Willow translated. More buzzing followed. "She also wants to thank you, becuase if you hadn't done that then the Bat Queen never would have agreed to palisman adoption day." More buzzing. "She says that she never thought she'd have a new partner after the witch she was carved for passed away."

"You're very welcome, Clover," Luz said while feeling weird that she was being praised for the consequences of something bad she'd done. "Anyway, the Bat Queen was abandoned so long ago that she doesn't remember anything about who she was first carved for and... When I found out that... The idea of outliving everyone and being alone scares me, but... the idea of forgetting the people I love scares me worse." Amity held Luz even tighter. "So I need to have the kind of experiences with you guys that you never, ever forget. Even... Even if being depressed didn't feel awful, even if I wasn't hurting people by letting myself hurt, I'd have to overcome it becuase it's getting in the way of spending quality time with everyone I love, so... Yeah."

"Luz, I'm glad you told us this," Amity said. "And I'm so proud of you for opening up right away instead of just bottling it up again," Luz felt a twinge of guilt for not opening up about everything but only enough to make her determined to work up the nerve to tell her friends everything. "But... You're not gonna be alone. Even ignoring that palismen just don't die unless something kills them, well... There are ways for a witch to extend their lives. They're not perfect, but... Ways to make sure I could be with you for as long as possible started flooding my mind as soon as I heard, so..."

"You know," Willow said, "I remember reading when I was younger an old legend about a monkey demon from a distant land who stole peaches that granted eternal youth. I always thought it'd be cool to find those myself and try to grow them."

"...I think we have a story like that in the human realm?" Luz observed. It sounded vaguely like something she'd read about when researching the mythological inspirations for a couple of different anime on a thee-AM ADHD-induced wiki binge a couple of years ago.

"The point is, you don't need to worry about the future that much," Amity insisted. "We have plenty of time and if I have anything to say about it we'll have plenty more." Amity then kissed Luz's forehead. "For now, just focus on getting better."

"Okay. Thank you."

With that, they went to bed.