"Right around this corner," Axel said showing Luz the door to where The Owl Lady was being kept.
"King watch the door," Luz said.
King then jumped off of Luz's shoulders and in front of the door as Axel and Luz walked in.
Infront of Axel and Luz was a beast on a platform with two large wings on its side and four claw like feet. It had chains on its neck and two of its four feet.
Hearing something, the beast turned to the two humans and began to charge towards the them.
"Eda, wait! It's me!" Luz quickly said holding up a light glyph.
"Luz?" Eda said seeing her apprentice, "And a scout!" she exclaimed, "I swear if you hurt Luz I'll... make sure my statue falls on you!" she told Axel while starting to stand up,
"Wait Eda, he's the friend I told you about," Luz said.
"Oh, so you're the sometimes-boring friend," Eda.
"Just because I stop Luz doesn't mean I'm boring," Axel retorted.
"That doesn't matter now, what are you doing here?" Eda asked Luz.
"It's ok Eda, we're here to save you," Luz responded while crouching down and placing a glyph on the chain
The small piece of paper that had the glyph was placed on burnt up, but the chains remained in place, completely unaffected by the glyph.
"Your magic isn't strong enough for this," Eda explained, "You need to leave. Now," she told Luz.
'Luz, please just listen to The Owl Lady'
"But I can't," Luz replied, "It's my fault you needed to save me; it's my fault you got captured," she said.
"No," Eda said grabbing Luz, "Listen to me, I'm here because of my own actions, I went ageist Belo's law and for a while, I was able to get away with it," she told Luz with a smile, "But, well, without magic, I can't do much, I don't regret anything," she explained.
"Eda," Luz muttered.
"But if you stay here, I won't be able to protect you, you need to leave now!" Eda told Luz.
"But we're a family," Luz said in response, "Us weirdos have to stick together remember?" she asked starting to tear up.
Eda then put a claw in her hair and pulled out the portal key before activating it. Behind both Luz and Axel, a door with a large yellow eye came up from the floor.
"You have a family already, go back to them," Eda stated while giving Luz the portal key, "And when your home, use your fire magic to destroy the portal door, I don't know why Belos wants it, but we can't take any chances," she said.
Wordlessly, Luz ran up to Eda and gave her a hug.
"I love you Eda," she said.
"I love you too kiddo," Eda responded.
As they hugged, an alarm began to blare.
"Luz, get away," Eda quickly said before pushing Luz back.
The chains that once bound Eda began to glow blue and morph into a cage surrounding Eda as the platform below her began to lift her into up.
"No! Not yet!" Luz yelled jumping up to Eda's cage.
"I'm sorry," Eda said before pushing her off, "Goodbye Luz," she said before she was lifted to another level.
"Eda!" Luz cried out watching her mentor go towards her death.
On her knees, Luz began to weap.
And Axel? He was still standing in the back, as silent as a statue.
After all, why would he talk? Everything was already going exactly how he wanted to go, the door was easily accessible, and Luz was probably ready to go home.
"Luz," Axel said putting a gloved hand on his friend's shoulder, "It's time to go home," he told her.
Everything was going perfectly. The only thing that could go wrong is someone coming in, though King was watching the door so no one should get in.
"Drat I was too late" Lilith said walking through the door and looking up at where Eda was taken while holding King by the scruff of his neck.
"Let me go!" King complained trying to wiggle out of Lilith's grasp.
"At least I found you, a scout!" Lilith began before seeing Axel.
"I'm a human!" Axel said taking off his helmet and showing his ears.
"A human? How did you get-"
"You," Luz interrupted, "You hurt Eda. You put her in chains, and now? I will take you down!" Luz explained before taking out several glyphs.
"Luz hold on that's a coven head!" Axel tried to explain.
Not hearing Axel, or maybe not caring, Luz leapt towards Lilith with a yell, slamming glyphs onto her.
Lilith's staff quickly erupted into blue flames blocking Luz's glyph combo as Luz lands behind her.
"I just want to talk," Lilith pleads.
"Talk to the glyph witch!" Luz yells out before slamming plant glyphs on the ground causing vines to come up from under the ground and surround Lilith.
Before Lilith could be fully engulfed by the vines, she spun her staff, knocking the vines away.
Luz in response jumped on top of Lilith and began to pull at her hair.
"Stop! What is wrong with you?" Lilith asked as she tried to get Luz off while accidently walking through the portal door.
"Luz!" King called out following Lilith and Luz.
Axel was left alone in Eda's prison cell, looking at the open door.
'So, Luz is already on the other side, right? Though Lilith and that weasel are also on the other side'
He continued to look at the door, wondering if Lilith being on earth would really cause that much of a problem.
'No, it's fine, they're going to come back through the door, Luz and I are going to leave and destroy it'
After a few moments, Lilith, Luz, and King walk back through the portal, though Axel was worried.
As Luz walked back into the demon realm, Axel saw something in her eyes, something that worried Axel.
Hope, hope that she could save Eda.
Axel had known Luz for a long time, and once Luz has an idea it was extremely hard to stop her.
"Luz," Axel said approaching his friend, "About going home," Axel began to say.
"About that," Luz responded, "We're actually going to go save Eda now!" Luz excitedly said.
'No, no no no!'
"I don't think that's a good idea, Lilith can go up to Eda, and we can go home," Axel explained.
"Or, we go up and save Eda, then talk about going home," Luz replied.
'She's a horrible liar; she wants to stay here; there's no talking her down. I have to do something drastic'
"Well um," Axel said tripping over his words.
"What?" Luz asked confused.
'I got nothing'
"Can you give me a minute with the portal? I want to think," Axel asked the Luz and Lilith.
"Oh sure, how long do you need?" Luz asked.
"Just a minute alone if you will," Axel asked.
"Course! Then me Lilith and King will be outside, please don't wait too long though," Luz replied.
"Thank you," Axel said.
The witch weasel and human left the room, leaving Axel alone with the portal door in front of him.
'Do I leave? Can't, Luz is still here, and I can't just abandon a friend. Though if the door stays here witches might pass through'
It was then Axel had an idea.
'Why don't I just destroy the door right now? It's right there, probably wouldn't take much effort, should just need a single glyph'
Axel turned back to the where Luz stood, behind a solid door.
'If I destroy the door, we're both stranded. We won't be able to go back to our families. But if I do nothing earth could suffer'
Pacing around the room Axel was unsure what he should do. Every time that he thought of a plan, he thought of something that could go wrong or could be done better.
But as he paced, a thought entered his mind.
What would his Lord want him to do?
And with this thought, knew what he had to do.
"Hey Axel, I think we should," Luz began to say while walking through the door behind him.
Luz's eyes bulged wide looking at the portal door, it was burning.
"Good timing, I just came to a conclusion of what I should do," Axel said turning to Luz.
"What did you do?" Luz said covering her mouth with her hand as Lilith walked in.
"I protected the human realm, I mean, destroying the door was the plan, right?" Axel asked.
"No! The plan was to save Eda!" Luz exclaimed.
"I knew it, you never even planned on going home," Axel pointed out, "Now I feel even better about destroying the door," he said.
And this point, the door was burning bright, the eye had drooped down, and the doorknob had fallen off.
"So what! We could have saved Eda and kept the door!" Luz said.
"What if the Emperor got his hands on the door as you tried to save Eda?" Axel asked.
"We wouldn't allow that to happen!" Luz said.
"You haven't met the Emperor, you don't know if you could protect the door!" Axel exclaimed.
"Fine! And if everything went wrong, if Belos was going to get his grubby hands on the door, then destroying it might be a good option," Luz agreed, "But Belos hasn't gotten his hands on the door, so there's no need to destroy it yet," Luz said.
"What if you couldn't destroy it in time?" Axel asked.
"What if Belos didn't get his hands on the door?" Luz asked in response.
"The Emperor getting his hands on the door is too bad to risk in any way," Axel said.
"Well-"
"Luz, we're running out of time," Lilith interrupted.
Lilith had been sitting back behind the door not wanting to interrupt the two, but the lack of time forced her to act.
"Go, I'll make sure that the scouts won't follow you," Axel said beginning to walk out the door.
Luz wanted to say something else, but she knew she was out of time.
Lilith and Lilith left with King on Luz's shoulder leaving Axel alone in the room with a burning door.
'Good thing this rooms made of stone'
With a shake of his head, Axel walked out of the room, and saw a scout going to Lilith and Luz.
"The situation is being taken care of," Axel told the scout.
The scout didn't say anything, they simply looked at Axel while slightly tilting their head.
It was then Axel realized something that he should have realized much earlier, the helmet he took off in front of Lilith was still in the room with the burning door.
'This whole door thing's got be on edge'
"Forgive me, I had put down my helmet-"
"Are you a human?" the scout asked Axel.
"Must be a thousand scouts in this castle," Axel murmured, "And I got one of the few that knows what a human looks like," he continued.
"Don't move," the scout said holding his finger up to Axel's face, "In the name of the Emperor's Coven, you are under arrest," the scout told Axel.
As quick as he could, Axel threw an ice glyph on the face of the scout in front of him. The glyph froze the scout quickly.
'At least there was only one of them, now all I need to do is get my mask and block up some scouts'
Axel then turned around to grab his mask and saw a large number of scouts going through the hall.
The scouts had stopped where they were, they were looking at Axel and the scout he had just put on ice.
'Why do good things happen to good people, doesn't matter God must be on my side with all I've done'
"IN THE NAME OF THE-"
Before the scouts could finish what, they were saying Axel had turned the other way and ran as fast as he could.
'God may be on my side but this fight isn't!'
"Get him!" one of the scouts yelled out.
Like a door was suddenly opened, the scouts began to charge while chasing Axel. Throwing spells as they chased him.
—————————————————————————
By either luck or skill Axel had been able to avoid most of the spells thrown out by the scouts, but it hadn't been easy.
Axel was running out of steam, and the scouts were only getting closer and closer. It was looking grim, and Axel felt like his time was growing near.
But as he was running, he passed a bathroom he recognized.
'I'm near that weird room Aloe talked about!'
He remembered talking to Aloe, who told him about a strange room around where he was.
With a frame of a plan in mind, Axel used some fire propulsion glyphs and flung himself around a corner where the scouts couldn't see him.
Using the few moments that he had away from the eyes of the scouts, Axel threw himself into the odd room breaking the lock on the door in the process.
Flopping onto the floor of the room, Axel pulled himself up and slammed the door while leaning on it.
'Please don't find me. Please don't find me. Please don't find me'
Axel held his hand over his mouth, trying not to make a single sound as the scouts reared the corner.
They kept charging through the halls, passing by where Axel had been hiding.
After not hearing any walking for a while, Axel slumped down on the door.
'How am I getting out of this one alive?'
Even though Axel had avoided the scouts for now, it wouldn't be too long before the scouts realized they were chasing nothing and doubled back.
Axel still didn't have a mask so he couldn't blend in. He was out of options and running out of time.
As he was thinking about what to do, Axel looked up and saw a large mirror with a jagged knife hung above it.
'A weapon of some sort would be knife'
Carefully getting up, Axel went to the large mirror and grabbed the knife above it.
As he grabbed the knife, Axel noticed that there was something engraved on the sides of the mirror.
'To be great, you have to make sacrifices'
Taking a look at the knife, Axel saw what looked like dried blood on it.
'To be great huh?'
Axel looked at himself in the mirror. He wasn't particularly looking good.
His eyes were sunken, and his uniform was stained with sweat. There also were holes in his gloves where the scouts had hit him with spells.
"You have to make sacrifices," Axel said to himself.
He pointed the knife at his own skin.
'At least I know a healing glyph pattern.
—————————————————————————
Several scouts slowly searched around the first floor of the castle, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
Axel wasn't stupid.
The scouts walked around the first floor, after a time they noticed that there was some debris around a certain door.
He knew that what he was doing was dangerous.
"Hey!" one of the scouts called out, "I think I found something," they said gathering a few other scouts.
But, with his God on his side...
One of the scouts grabbed the knob of the door and pushed it open.
...Who could stop him?
"What the-"
Before the scout who opened the door could finish his sentence, a fire ball had struck them dead center sending them flying backwards.
Seeing this, the scouts took an on-guard position ready to face the human.
Slowly, Axel left the room he was in. While he did, he held up his left hand which had the fireball glyph combo carved into it. His other hand held the jagged knife, dripping with blood.
"First floor! I have eyes on the target," one of the scouts called out as they turned to Axel.
The scout was quickly slammed into the wall with another fireball.
Seeing there was a small opening, Axel started to run as fast as he could once more.
Several scouts tied to get in his way, several scouts were blasted by a fireball. To Axel, the feeling was amazing.
To make magic through a thought, he had never felt anything like it before.
'Got to get out of here'
The more he ran the more he felt lost, his head was beating, left and right kept switching, and he swore the rooms kept moving.
As he moved throughout the castle, another group of scouts tried to stop him.
Doing the same thing he had been doing, Axel held up his head to blast the group. However, as he did, he noticed something was wrong.
He raised his hand up trying to blast the scouts, but when he lifted his hand out it was green?
His fingers were longer than he remembered, and his hand was a sickening green.
After blasting the scouts, Axel took a longer look at his hand, it almost looked like it was melting. Perhaps he should reconsider-
'God is on my side'
And with that he continued to move throughout the castle. All he did was switch the knife from right hand to his left.
—————————————————————————
"Run!" a scout said charging down a corridor.
"What's happening?" another scout asked running along with the other scout.
"There's a monster rampaging around the castle," the scout quickly told the other scout.
"There's a demon running around the castle, what's it look like?" the other scout asked.
"It's not a demon," the scout muttered.
As the scouts ran together, they reached a corner. And as they began to go around the corner, a long green hand reached out and grabbed the corner.
The monster fully came around allowing the two scouts to see what they were running from.
It was tall, taller than either witch the scouts had seen, and it was thin, like the mussels that held the body together had melted off.
And its face, it whatever it once was it wasn't any more. It almost looked like a ram, with a elongated face and two spiral horns coming out of its head.
'WITCH'
'WITCH'
'WITCH'
Seeing the two scouts, the monster turned its blue eyes to them and began to reach out one of its long arms.
The scout who was running had turned around and continued to run, just in the other direction.
However, the other scout stood still and watched the monster in horror.
They were a master when it came to beasts, they studied for years.
But they knew nothing of the monster that stood in front them, no where they searched in their mind, there was nothing.
'Apple?'
The monster's hand stopped, inches away from the Apple's face, before grabbing their mask and slinking back behind the corner.
Axel wasn't completely aware with what he was doing, the glyphs had melted more than just his skin.
At this point, he was a monster held together by faith and hate.
—————————————————————————
Putting the stolen mask on, Axel continued to move throughout the castle, but as he did, he reduced the length of his arms back to normal, he replaced his ripped clothes with clothes from scouts who he had defeated.
And after a while, he was a normal scout again, at least he seemed that way on the surface.
"Scout! Report, have you seen the monster?" a guard captain said running up to Axel.
Though as the guard captain ran up, he thought that the scout looked funny. They didn't recall a scout with spiral horns working in the castle.
Axel put his hand up to his throat and made his hand into a fist. He would like to talk to the scout, but his vocal cords weren't working that well.
"I'm sorry, the monster must have got you," the captain said, "Retire to your room, the Emperor will be here shortly," the captain said before leaving.
So Axel, ever the rule follower, did as the captain ordered and marched his way up to his room.
He was alone, he was safe, but not for long.
It wouldn't be too long before the Emperor's Coven noticed the connection between Axel and the monster, though luckily Axel had an easy fix.
Reaching over to a small shelf in his room, Axel took the potion that Artichoke had given to him. A potion that could rewind time.
With the potion in his hand, Axel opened his elongated mouth and chugged the potion down in a single gulp.
The potion worked fast, before he even knew it his head had cleared up and his arms were back to normal.
'Truely, I am blessed'
However, as Axel was about to take off his uniform and relax, he felt a burning sensation along his entire body.
Quickly taking off his uniform, Axel saw the glyphs he had carved into himself still there.
'But I, I was, Artichoke! He didn't tell me the correct time. And if not his fault it's the Emperor's Coven's fault for making me do this'
And so Axel blamed, he blamed everything he could see, except for the human who carved the glyphs into his skin.