[discontinued] the wrong portal

rampaging beast

Sorry about the late post, went to France and then birthday happened, but we're back!

Luz' eyes slowly flutter open as she looks up at the ceiling in her room and gives a small smile as she remembers about last night, she then lifts the covers of her bed and sits up before flopping back down, she was exhausted, again. How was this possible? She hadn't been out too late last night, and she was sure she had a good night's sleep, so how was she so drained of energy? Luz decided after a few minutes that she couldn't just lie in bed for the rest of the day, so she lazily reached over to her staff on the bedside table and twirled it around, making a few slow twirls with it before her scout's uniform was transferred onto her.

After a few more failed attempts of getting out of bed, the teen opted for sprawling out on her staff and letting it carry her out of her room. She passed a slightly confused Hunter before he grabbed the end of her staff, stopping it abruptly. 

"What happened to you? Did you not sleep? The emperor has a strict quota for sleep that you have to meet and-"

"Hush, I am tired." Luz lifted her finger and mumbled out before coming up with an idea. "Hey, do you guys have any coffee, or tea?" Hunter looked at her with a frown before giving a devilish smile and twirling his own staff.

"Well, yeah, but I have a better idea!" A column of ice-cold water was launched on Luz from above and she fell off her staff, spluttering as she gave her friend a glare and yelled from the floor.

"What was that for? You asshole!"

"Your words wound me." Hunter dramatically put a hand on his chest as he tried his best to act upset, reaching his free hand down to help the human up before giving another twirl of his staff to expel the water from Luz' uniform. He didn't wait for a thanks from her as he explained their task. "A prisoner broke out from the conformatorium. We need to capture them."

Luz let out a groan in frustration in response.

"Great, glad to know you're on board, let's go." He started jogging over to the exit and stood outside as Luz grumpily ran over, slumping on her staff and following him as they shot into the air in the direction of the conformatorium.

After a short flight to the conformatorium, they noticed a giant hole in the wall and, inside the hole, the warden standing there and cursing to himself, the warden noticed the two and waved them over, they landed inside and waited for an explanation from the warden.

"I don't know what happened! One minute I was talking with a guard on shift and the next, a crash sounded and I found this!" Luz was about to console him when Hunter spoke first.

"Wrath, you need to be more focused on guarding the prisoners. This failure can lead to demotion, or even banishment from the coven. We don't want that, do we?" The warden shrunk back and shook his head rapidly. Hunter turned and flew out of the hole in the wall, following a trail of destroyed trees that would hopefully lead to the prisoner.

"That was a little harsh, don't you think?" Luz called out as she caught up to the Golden Guard.

"He needs to get in line. The Emperor doesn't take kindly to sloppiness." He replied with a monotone voice. The human decided not to push the subject as they reached an end to the destruction in the trees. They both landed in a small clearing created by the escapee.

"Whelp, I say we search around this area, can't have gotten too far away." Luz suggested, and Hunter nodded in agreement, before noticing something on a tree.

"Hey, that's a claw mark. And there are more on the trees behind it, maybe if we follow them we can find the prisoner!"

"Nice idea! Actually, who is this prisoner? It would help if we had any information on them." She asked, her companion shrugged before they heard a rustling behind them. They both spun around and jumped back at the sight of a great beast rushing towards them. Hunter raised his staff but the beast pounced forward and swiped it's claw, launching him into a tree a few meters away.

"Hunter!" Luz raised her staff at the beast but it simply knocked it out of her hands and she fell backwards onto the ground. It let out a shriek, towering over her, she could finally get a good look at the beast, noticing it's long, grey hair, big, pointy ears, and black eyes. The beast was about to strike before it saw a red glint in Luz' eyes, the beast flinched back in terror and threw itself backwards into a tree, wimpering before it was surrounded by a big red glow and put to sleep by Hunter's staff.

Luz scrambled to her feet and drew the boy into a hug, ignoring his protests of annoyance. She then composed herself and grabbed her staff from the ground, casting a spell to lift the beast after noticing a tag around it's neck, one that signified being a prisoner of the conformatorium.

The ride back was long and silent, instead of taking the prisoner to the conformatorium, it was to be taken directly to the castle to be put in a higher security cell. The two entered the castle and the prisoner was immediately taken by a group of coven scouts, presumably to it's cell. Both Hunter and Luz were told to rest for the rest of the day, with Hunter being checked for any serious injuries. Luz just went to her room and collapsed on her bed.

Luz opened her eyes again to see that it was morning, she was still in her uniform and elected to just head straight to her shift, she saw Hunter in the hall and noticed his stomach had been bandaged up with a few healing glyphs stuck on. She grinned sheepishly and waved at him, he walked over to her.

"No normal shift today. we have to guard for the petrification ceremony."

"Huh? What's that?" She looked back at him with a dumbfounded face.

"Oh, yeah, the criminal from yesterday, she's getting petrified, she's a wild witch and it's protocol for them to be petrified."

"Why? Can't they be redeemed? They can't have done anything that bad!"

"It's the Titan's will." 

"Oh. Okay." She put her head down in defeat, before following Hunter outside to meet at the ceremony, they stood at the sidelines from a stage with a big stone statue at the front, it was carved with three figures, weeping and holding their hands together in prayer. Luz shivered at the sight and turned to the middle of the stage, where a hole had opened up, after a few seconds, a big metal cage had emerged from the hole, and in it was the beast from before, afterwards, Kikimora, the small red demon walked up to the stage and made a small speech about setting an example of wild witches and why they needed to be petrified.

"And now, we will proceed with the petrification of Edalyn Clawthorne, otherwise known as The Owl Lady." Luz recognised the name but couldn't place her finger on it, there must be a mistake! But before she could speak up about it, the stone statue in front of the cage lit up, a bright green colour, and struck the beast inside, it started wailing in agony and began to turn to stone, slowly crackling up it's body.

"Stop! Leave her alone! I demand you to leave my mom alone!" A squeaky voice sounded out and a small, familiar demon slipped in between Luz and Hunter, he ran up and leaped between the bars of the holding cell, standing protectively between the beam and the beast, before anybody could get him out, the petrification spell was finished and both figures stood, frozen in their places.