Chapter 91

Amity wasn't sure what she was looking at. It'd been her turn to go to the store with Camila and they came home to find Luz on the floor surrounded by pieces of paper covered with notes.

She glanced at Willow, who, along with Hunter, was looking down at Luz. Willow immediately explained, "She tried this human drink that her friend Anne mentioned once, and... Then this happened." Willow looked around for a moment before picking up a bottle and handing it to Camila.

"She spent ten minutes taking notes on something," Hunter continued, "and after that, she's been alternating between staring at the ceiling and more note-taking at random intervals."

Camila read the label of this 'Blam Berry Blitz' with a concerned look. That is... a lotof sugar and caffeine. And one of these bottles is labeled as five servings. Mija, are you alright?"

"My head is so clear..." Luz mumbled in a tone not unlike when she'd been delirious with common mold. "Maybe too clear." She immediately sat up. "Hugs?" She asked with wide eyes and wider arms but... She wasn't looking at anyone in particular.

After glancing at Camila, who glanced back and gave the way before turning back to the bottle, Amity kneeled down and embraced her girlfriend. Luz, for her part, immediately relaxed but Amity noticed something was... Off.

"Luz, are you sure you're okay?" She asked. "You feel a little warm."

"I'm fine... Okay, my heart is beating a little fast and I can think a little too clearly about stuff but look how productive I was," Luz said while vaguely gesturing to notes she'd taken. "It needs testing but I think I figured out how to combine a healer patch with a power glyph and a little bit of oracle and beast keeper magic making it adapt to the biology of the person it's slapped so that you get super-fast healing and stamina recovery with limited side effects."

Luz then fumbled to pick up her notes before showing a page to Amity. Amity wasn't... Thatwell versed in those four specific branches of magic but the basic spell theory looked sound. "We'll look into that later."

"Yeah... By the way, what do you think of the name Sabrina?" Luz asked.

Taken off guard by the sudden change in topic, Amity simply replied. "It's a pretty name, why?"

"No reason," Luz answered.

"Kids, keep an eye on Luz," Camila said while still eyeing the label on that bottle. "I'm going to go call poison control."

Camila then walked into the next room and Luz sort of pulled Amity down with her as she laid back down so that they were both lying down. "You ever wonder why we're here?"

"Not really," Amity replied.

"Because a psychopath couldn't accept that his brother wasn't the person he thought he was," Hunter quipped.

This prompted Luz to roll to look at him. "Was that an insensitive question?" She asked with a tinge of remorse. "I'm sorry."

Now Hunter seemed a little guilty. "It's fine, I'm... I'm trying to own it, you know. Uh, why don't you tell us more about your notes?"

"Oh, yeah," Luz said and held up another sheet of paper. "I think that by combining the principles behind Jerbo's soil abominations with Raine's whistling trick and some potions theory I can make a spell to transmute soil into abomination slime and back."

Amity sat up and took the sheet. "...This could work. This could be... Luz, let me work with you on this later, this is genius."

"Thanks, mi Diosa," Luz noted.

"...What's this little triangle guy you doodled in the margins?" Amity asked as she noticed it.

"Oh, that's un... Cipher." Luz noted. "He's um... Something. He came to me in a dream to give me a warning about something and then approached me while I was on the Witches's Road... And there were a few things that I saw that I don't think were related to what I was supposed to learn and he went on a tangent about some girl that... Didn't really do anything but eat time and... He's up to something and I'm not gonna fall for anyone else's tricks again so... By the way, do any of you know what 'unnatural thing that never slept and thought it would never die' means?"

"No," Amity said.

"I don't think Belos ever slept but I doubt it's him," Hunter noted.

"Nope," Willow finished.

"Cool... Gotta figure out who it is who knows what that warning means and..."

Amity pulled Luz close. "Luz, you're getting the way I was. You're worried and obsessing and..."

"Scared I know, I'm sorry," Luz interrupted. "I know I'm gonna be okay, but... Things are finally good for me, depression aside, but now there's another problem or two in the pipe before we've even finished the big one we've got and part of me's worried... Crone was okay, but Crone also lost a lot before she got there."

Amity kissed Luz on the top of her head. "It's gonna be okay. We can solve this together."

Camila walked back in with a large glass of water and a pill bottle. "Luz, sweetheart, I want you to take a couple of these capsules and then drink this."

Luz sat back up and looked at the bottle. "Activated charcoal? Like... For posioning?"

"Well, when I took in four teenagers who all have weird biochemistry and food sensitivities I figured 'Yes, I will need this,'" Camila explained. "Poison control says you most likely are suffering from a mild caffeine overdose. This should make you feel better... Honestly, I should be taking you to the ER to be safe but I doubt they can help you given your um... everything."

Luz dutifully took a couple of the pills and then chugged the entire glass of water. "So I just realized I'm incredibly thirsty."

Camila took the glass. "I'll get you some more, but I don't want you drinking any more of that berry stuff."

"Yeah, that's fair," Luz agreed. "...Probably a bad time to mention that it's the closest thing I've found to the flavor of apple blood."

"I'm assuming that you mean the kid-friendly version," Camila said, "but honestly this is probably worse for you than the adult version all things considered."

"Yeah, Luz... You have the highest caffeine tolerance of any of us except maybe Hunter," Willow added. "And you're also literally a god so... That probably would have killed one of us."

"Good point... Um, note to self: double-check the caffeine content of anything I bring into the house," Luz muttered.

"Okay, I'll get you some more water," Camila said, "and then just relax... Maybe get to the couch instead of the floor and pick up your research notes or..."

After a few moments, Luz's notes were organized and taken back to her room, while the teenagers plopped onto the couch and turned on some brainless reality show about people on an Island who were unreasonably suspicious of each other all the time. Luz drank more water and eventually crashed, much the way Amity had after drinking too much of Luz's coffee back on the knee.

'Titan,' Amity thought to herself as Luz curled up next to her and seemed to drift to sleep, 'that feels like it was a lifetime ago.'

As Willow and Hunter got... Weirdly engrossed in the clearly stagged drama, Amity ran her fingers through her sleeping girlfriend's hair. Luz had been sleeping better since walking the Witches' Road, but she still wasn't exactly doing great so any rest she could get was good, even in situations like this.

A little while later, there came a knocking at the front door. Luz startled awake at the sound and almost slipped off the couch before Amity caught her. Camila, already up, answered the door, and a few minutes later two new people were led into the living room.

"Hey Anne, hey Sasha," Luz slurred sleepily. "...Ah, crud. Sword lessons... And um, filling you in on what I learned when the Witches' Road took me to Amphibia... Could Marcy not make it?"

"Yeah, turns out she has therapy on Thursday evenings," Sasha noted.

"Your mom said you're not feeling well?" Anne asked.

"Yeah, well I tried that blam blitz stuff you mentioned and... Well, apparently you're not supposed to drink the whole bottle at once," Luz explained. "I spent like an hour alternating between being really productive and hyper-focusing on whatever thoughts I was having while feeling really warm with my heart racing and now I feel like absolute garbage and just wanna curl up and sleep for the next ten thousand years. And the coffee I make made Lokicurse my name and suggest just filling the coffee machine with Mountain Dew instead so, you know, that's saying something."

"Told you that stuff was toxic," Sasha quipped.

"...Yeah I'm probably gonna cut back now," Anne noted. "Anyway if you're not feeling good you don't have to... Missing one sword lesson isn't gonna hurt and we can wait a little longer to find out..." Anne then snapped her fingers in front of Luz's face. "You still with us?"

"Yeah um... " Luz mumbled. "Yeah, uh, since you came all this way you can hang for a bit but I'm not sure I'm gonna be good company for a bit." She then yawned. "We're watching something called... Suspicion Island?"

Turns out, Luz's support group friends were big fans of the show and spent the next ten minutes filling Willow and Hunter on events from previous season. Luz curled back up but hadn't fallen asleep. Amity was just beginning to wonder what Gus was up to when the program suddenly changed to a "Stand By" message on a grey screen and a loud tone.

"What's this?" She asked.

"Emergency broadcast," Luz said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "And they'd say if it was just a test if it was so... Something big is going down."

The screen then cuts to an old man with a big nose and a long white beard sitting at a desk in front of a large window. "Hello," he greeted anyone watching. "I'm President McGucket!" He has a very thick accent that Amity couldn't quite place. "At three PM Eastern time this afternoon, ships resembling those used by them dang old Phalanx thingamabobs who invaded back in the nineteen nineties were identified in Earth orbit. The Avengers immediately sprung to action, coordinating with other groups, my own secretary of extraterrestrial affairs, and of course, the United States Military as well as counterparts in other nations in order to monitor the situation." The screen briefly showed exotic craft that appeared to be organic despite clearly being made of metal with glowing circuits. "Half an hour ago, several such ships converged in air space above New England and deployed a number of large combat vehicles and troops who are in tern flying around the state of Massachusetts. Unlike the previous invasion, the troops resemble bulking androids while the combat vehicles resemble an assortment of stinky space bugs."

"...No," Anne whispered quietly when an image of what President McGucket had described flashed on the screen.

"The national guard has been mobilized and assorted superheroes are en route, as are SHIELD and the FBI's anti-alien task force. If need be, I am also prepared to intervene personally in this new robot I dun whipped up last week with some gizmos inspired by this Anime a friend back home recommended to me. Can't pronounce the name but it involved a lot of drills. I am asking all civilians in the New England area to remain in their homes until further notice, though any superhumans in the area who wish to protect their homes from the alien threats are kindly requested to coordinate with local law enforcement to avoid this going crazier than a greased pig trying to escape from a barbecue. Heroes from outside the area who are not already part of the response efforts are requested to report to state police or national guard upon entering the state for the same reasons."

"...We've gotta get out there," Sasha said suddenly, which made Luz sit up.

"So um... I got a warning a few weeks ago from a cosmic entity visiting me in my dreams that there would be a problem around... Now and that someone I know would understand a hint he gave me," she began. "so... shot in the dark, do you guys know what 'Unattural thing that never slept and thought it would never die' means?"

This prompted Sasha to loudly say a long string of words that Amity strongly suspected were profane.

"Yeah, we know this guy," Anne said when Sasha was done. "Luz, did this guy who warned you about it say what he was after."

"That it needed to replace a power source it didn't have access to anymore, and that most of all it wanted a living host."

Anne and Sasha both paled before Anne suddenly shouted "Marcy!"