Chapter 83

"Has he said what he wants?" Doom called out.

"No," the man on the other side of the door replied. He said something about how 'no one would dare' to extradite him, but mostly, he's just standing there, menacingly."

"He's probably here for us," Amity noted.

"Apparently he has sympathy for people who've lived through an attempted genocide," Luz continued. "Who'dathunk?"

"I will escort you out," Doom said. "You will make no sign that any hostilities have occurred, and you will—"

"I don't think you're in a position to be making demands anymore," Amity said coldly. "Not that you had any right in the first place."

"So I'm seriously hoping that making me the new empress was just Odalia's crazy brain bug," Luz told Amity. "But if somebody else gets that oh-so-bright idea and I can't talk my way out of it, and I start acting like Vicky-Boy here, I want you to leave me. And take the kids if we have any by then."

"Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren't you?" Amity quipped playfully.

"Yeah," Luz admitted, "I was gonna say 'divorce me and take the kids,' but I didn't want to presume a timetable or assume what choices we'll make so... You know."

"Yeah, well let's just focus on living to be old enough to marry for now," Amity finished with a hand gesture.

"I feel compelled to note that same-sex marriages have been legal in Latveria for decades," Doom interrupted evenly, "and that while I have highly discouraged the practice I have never formally overturned laws predating my reign that allow minors to be wed at the will of their guardians. I don't approve of such things, but exceptions can be made."

Luz blinked incredulously. "...Are you seriously trying to bribe me into accepting the apprenticeship you were trying to force me into a minute ago with... What, officiating our wedding?"

"Better than what Belos offered you," Amity muttered.

"How do you know about that?" Luz asked. She'd very deliberately left that out of her recap.

"He told me himself when he tried to steal your body," Amity replied. "Which reminds me, we need to make a memorial for him specifically so we can desecrate it."

"As the two of you have decided that discussing your relationship is more important than the matter at hand?" Doom asked a little less evenly and even with whatever he was doing to block Luz's ESP she could just tell that he was majorly nettled at being ignored and disrespected. "Forgive me for assuming your priorities." Was that sarcasm? Luz honestly couldn't tell.

Amity glared at him. "Let us out now, before. Mr. Eisenhardt tears the building off its foundation. I'm told he could flip the earth's magnetic poles if he wanted to."

"I will be escorting you out shortly," Doom said sternly. "Do not run in my halls."

With that, the door unbarred itself and Doom led them back out through the embassy, keeping a close eye on both of them. For their part, the girls maintained their transformed states and kept their staves at the ready.

However, Doom wasn't stupid. He didn't try anything.

"So what was that about your country having same-sex marriages legalized for decades?" Amity asked. "Because where I'm from it's literally never not been legal. Why would it ever have not been?" Luz had already explained all of this to Amity. She was doing it just to get under his skin. "Not giving your nation the best introduction."

Doom did not take the bait and soon enough they were outside the building and just inside the gate.

"Victor," Magneto, standing just outside the gate, greeted.

"Lensher," Doom greeted back.

"A lot of people are concerned by your sudden interest in these children," Magneto noted. "As I have offered these children my protection, I felt it prudent to investigate."

"A shame that your protection mattered so little when Kassady attacked the young sorceress," Doom quipped back.

"Witch," Luz insisted. "Anyway, he made an offer, I'm not interested, and would like to go home now. It's a bit of a flight and we need to get back before dark."

"Open the gate, Victor," Magneto insisted.

"You know, Lensher, we so rarely get to speak," Doom said. "Have you traveled recently? I've heard that the Blue Area of the Moon is lovely this time of year."

Suddenly, a firey portal appeared beneath Magneto's feet, and he fell through it before he had time to react. The portal closed behind him as he vanished.

Immediately Luz took Amity by the arm and tossed her into the air. Luz then leaped into the air herself and grabbed Amity again before landing about ten feet away, on the other side of the gate, on both feet with Aity held in a bridal carry.

"...That's the best I've ever thought under pressure," Luz declared. "Probably the coolest thing I've ever done, too."

"Oh my Titan," a clearly shaken Amity said.

"Yes?" Luz replied.

"Not the time," Amity replied. "He just, he just killed—"

"No, he didn't," Luz interrupted.

"He sent him to the moon!"

"He sent him to the Blue Area, it's fine, there's air and gravity on that part," Luz explained.

"How?"

"I don't know, I think it has something to do with the Watcher."

"What in the Isles is the Watcher?" Amity asked incredulously.

"A short, nigh-omnipotent bald guy with a giant head who lives on the moon and sees everything that everyone does," Luz lectured quickly.

"And you're all okay with that!?" Amity shouted.

"Not the time," Luz said as she heard the gate opening behind them. She carefully set Amity down and called Stringbean back to her hand before turning to face Doom.

"You know, if you step past that gate, it's no longer an international incident if we... Fix your face just to mess it up again," Luz said weakly. "I could probably do that, I did pretty well in my healing classes."

"Healing magic is the hardest," Doom declared. "It took Strange years to fix his mangled hands and I strongly suspect the spell he used required that he cut them offand grow a new pair. Even for all your power, I doubt you could so much as mend a major flesh wound, let alone decades-old burn scars."

"It might be the hardest for sorcerers," Amity interrupted. "But Luz is a witch. A realone. Even a child can help fix broken bones if that's the kind of magic they choose to study."

"That reminds me, I should maybe start making healing patches and power glyphs and stuff," Luz noted. "Just be useful to have them around."

Doom stepped past the threshold, looking relaxed but ready for battle.

Immediately their backup rushed out of the alley. there were the spiders and... Devil that they'd seen earlier... And the other guy dressed like the devil they were told was there. And April's friends. Gabby was dressed like a little tiny wolverine but without the cowl and with armor over her torso, Pei was in a red, dragon-themed martial arts uniform that left her arms exposed but her face was covered with a mask, and Molly was just in the street clothes. Luz made a note to ask her where she got the fluffy bat cap she was currently wearing.

Then came the other adults they'd be told about. A blonde man who Luz recognized from a couple of magazine covers standing next to a black woman with a cyber arm and a white woman with a katana. The man was dressed in jeans and a white tank top, not what you'd expect from a master martial artist who was also the third or fourth richest non-evil rich person in the country. The women were both dressed like something you'd see in a '70s action movie.

Then Luz realized that there were two more people she hadn't noticed earlier and saw them next to the spiders. One was someone in what seemed to be a heavily streamlined and slightly feminized Iron Man suit, the other was a brown-haired South Asian girl in a mostly blue and red suit, a blue domino mas somehow concealing her identity... Luz could have sworn she knew who she was but she couldn't place the name for the life of her right now.

"...Didn't the younger Spider-Man's team have more people?" She asked.

"Nova's in space and Viv has a family thing she can't get out of," the girl in the armor said.

She was then immediately trapped in a glowing silver web that seemed to entangle her more the more she struggled.

"How unfortunate for you," Doom declared. "The android might have been able to slip through the Wicked Webs of Wundergore." That... Was not a spell Luz had ever heard of... Wundergore was that mountain in Europe, right? The one with the weird magic radiation in the soil?

This prompted the attack. The four adults went in first but... Mundane martial arts against a sorcerer in power armor? Daredevil and the two women were quickly webbed but Mr. Rand had avoided the first spell.

"You were always one of the greatest masters of pugilism, Rand," Doom admitted. "It's a shame you no longer have the power to back it up—" a blast of energy trapped Rand in a golden pyramid.

Luz felt a spike of anger at this from Pei, though the martial artist didn't show it, even as she leaped for the tyrant with her fist burning gold and the silhouette of a winged serpent forming from her aura.

Doom crossed both arms in front of himself and conjured an opaque wall of scarlet energy that ate the attack. "You, on the other hand, have power... Skill, even, but you lack the wisdom that comes from experience. Perhaps a pilgrimage back to your homeland will help you?" A firey oval appeared behind Pei and the red wall exploded, sending her back into it before it vanished.

Gabby attacked next but was webbed. Then Molly, who was webbed, broke out of, was bound in what Luz recognized as the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, broke out of those, and was finally taken down with Doom holding out a hand to her and commanding "Sleep" with a green glow in his eyes, which forced her to pass out.

The whole while Luz was observing what was going on. Her instincts were screaming at her to do something, to run, to attack, anything but... Doom was one of the most powerful sorcerers on Earth, to fight or escape required a plan.

Then Luz was distracted when she saw Amity out of the corner of her eye. Amity's skin and hair had turned a shiny lavender, her eyes glowing, with bands of her slime form visible under the armor, and... And big, feathery wings shaped lovingly and artistically in fine detail from lavender-scented abomination slime.

"What is that?" She asked.

"Oh, my Abomination form has been like this ever since um, even when I don't have the armor, so... Do you like it?" Amity asked, hesitantly.

"Mi diosa es un ángel lavanda," Luz said breathlessly. "¿Cómo sigues siendo más asombrosa?"

Amity smiled and replied "Tengo a alguien que me inspira a ser mi mejor yo."

It was then that Luz noticed that all of the spiders except for Mayhem and Dark Devil were trapped in the Wicked Webs. "Okay, maybe he had a point about us getting distracted by our relationship when other stuff is going on."

"We'll have to work on that," Amity agreed.

Dark Devil was now trapped in a gold pyramid, striking at it from the inside with what appeared to be a stick made of fire... Luz would have to ask what his deal was at some point.

Doom then blasted Mayhem with some very hot and evil-looking fire. April made to jump out of the way but the spell was faster than even her spider-enhanced reflexes. Luz reached out to try and protect her, she knew a lot of shielding spells, but someone else beat her to the punch.

A massive, glowing octagon with a snowflake pattern, blue, like something carved from sapphire and filled with sparkling starlight, appeared between April and the flames keeping her safe. Something about the construct radiated a presence that felt... Cosmic.

Doom seemed confused as he looked around, to try and find the newcomer who had created the shield.. Luz noticed it first.

The South Asian girl was holding out a hand, glowing with the same jewel-like energy.

"How!?" Doom demanded, his attention focused solely on the older teen. "Your abilities are metamorphic in nature and the decimation of New Attilian would have prevented you from undergoing a second terrigenisis!"

"So yeah, turns out I'm a mutant andan Inhuman," the girl replied. "So not only am I a super stretchy shapeshifter, I can also make cosmic energy constructs. It's cool right?"

"How!?" Doom demanded again.

The girl shrugged. "We're still trying to figure that out."

Doom was thoroughly distracted as he ranted and sputtered about biological impossibilities and incompatible branches in the human evolutionary tree and Luz thought she saw an opening to blast him but as she was drawing the spell circle a new voice demanded attention.

"Hey, Victor!" greeted the red-haired, betailed woman from the dance-off... Squirrel Girl? As she walked up. When Doom had first been told that Magneto was at the gate, his body language had changed to become more guarded. Now he deflated entirely as if he knew his life was in terrible danger and there was nothing he could do about it.

"Doreen."

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"What am I doing?" Doom repeated.

"Harassing teens?" she asked.

"Harassing teens?" Doom repeated again.

"Are you?"

With a look of resignation clearly visible even with the metal mask he wore, he admitted "Yes."

Squirrel Girl gave a disappointed 'tut-tut-tut' and then Doom was engulfed by squirrels having only enough time to shout "Not again!" before the writhing ball of fur blocked him from sight.

"Okay, what just happened?" Luz asked.

"Squirrel Girl happened," Mayhem said.

"Speaking of," the south asian girl said, "not that we don't appreciate the help but why are you here?"

"Well, Ms. Marvel," that's who she was! "I had just finished up my shift at the animal clinic where I volunteer when I got an urgent call from Nancy telling me that Loki had called her to tell her to tell me that his apprentice had called him to say that a friend of theirs was wrapped up in some nonsense with Victor and if I could please help and I figured that I had an hour to kill so I decided why not. Speaking of which," Squirrel Girl then turned to Luz. "You're the friend, right? And you two are the girls from the Danceathon? Calamity and The Mighty Mittebs? Are you alright? Like, after this but also in general?"

"Little worried I might crash later, but I'm okay for now," Luz admitted. "I don't think I'll have to bring this up when I start therapy on Tuesday."

"I'm more annoyed than anything else," Amity admitted. "Luz and I had plans we had to drop at the last minute to deal with this jumped-up warlock."

"I don't think Victor's technically a warlock," Squirrel Girl said. "He knows witchcraft but that's only one subset of the sorceries he has available to him."

"Um, where Amity's from 'warlock' means edge lord," Luz explained.

"Oh, fair enough," Squirrel Girl admitted. "So what do you call a boy witch?"

"A witch," Amity asked a little confused. "It's not a gendered term."

"Technically it's not here, either," Luz said, "but for cultural reasons that I've already explained to you most people associate witches with women and so use terms like warlock or wizard for boys witches even though warlock means oathbreaker and a wizard is just a sorcerer wearing a hat. So are we done here?"

Doom had extracted himself from the squirrel pile, his armor inexplicably dented and scuffed, and began shakily crawling back over the threshold into the embassy.

"Yeah I think we're done here," Squirrel Girl agreed. "Also your friend said that you're really bad about keeping people in the loop."

"Dang it, I knew I forgot to tell them something!" Luz explained. She then took a deep breath, summoned Toda Mi Amistad, and then used the soul sword to start cutting people loose from magical webs and barriers. "Hope Mom doesn't get upset, I'm not supposed to be using this until I get sword lessons."

Just as she got Mr. Rand free(the pyramid barriers needed a good five or six whacks to cut open enough to get someone out,) some east Asian characters that Luze couldn't read appeared in the air written in glow gold, and then Pei reappeared. "Dad, I owe a peddler 80 tangka for ritual ginseng and a mugger some new teeth."

"I'll take care of the peddler later but I'm not paying for a mugger's dental work," Rand replied. Things sort of broke off after that, April and her family left saying they'd tell the adults that the situation was passed and thank whoever it had been who thought to call Magneto for them, and Luz was properly introduced to both Squirrel Girl and Ms. Marvel who, as it turned out, were also both fans of The Good Witch Azura.

They spent a moment talking about that as others left when suddenly a rift in space-time tore open and a very angry Magneto stepped out. "Alright, Victor I—" he paused, took in his surroundings, and calmed himself. "It seems the situation resolved itself in my absence."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Luz said sheepishly. "Still, showing up when you did was a really big help, he was basically gonna hold us hostage until I agreed to become his apprentice so, thank you."

"You are welcome," Magneto replied. "Is there anything else I can do?"

"Can you make one of those wormholes to Gravesfield?" Luz asked. "I'd like to get home before I crash out."