Eda took in a deep breath before sighing. Trash day. Admittedly, ever since they’d lost the portal it was harder for her to get her wares but Lilith had been helping make up for that by making her own potions. Her own, much more legal potions. But there was just something special about trash to Eda. Maybe it was how it was that next level scam where she didn’t even know what she was selling. Well, until Luz told her what it was at least.
Today was special though. She’d actually brought her pupil for once because she’d been eyeing a particular trash slug for a while. She knew it was big enough that it was going to take a long time for it to decay and the sludge inside would be extra nasty which would keep other scavengers away. That had never stopped Eda before though. Still, if she was going to get anything done today then she’d need someone to help clean. Hence Luz, who was taking her sweet time coming down the hill with their buckets and the like. What was a few hundred pounds to someone so young?
Eda shook her head as she came to the head of the slug. She needed to open this bad boy… “Wait a second.” Something was off. She crouched closer to it as her eyes narrowed. It was missing its teeth. But they’d been cleanly pulled. No pickaxe for this scavenger. They didn’t want to be noticed.
Well, unfortunately for them, Eda was never one to care about such things as privacy or caution so she crouched before crawling inside. Whoever was in here was in for one nasty surprise once her and Owlbert got their hands on them. Trash was her business after all. And, even better, Eda could hear them as they moved around. They were going to be too busy moving through gunk to react in time to Eda’s staff fu.
And then she looked inside. There was a treasure trove of trash inside that made her eyes gleam but a lot of it had been shoved to the back to help make room for a small space in the front. And someone was indeed in that weird little living space as they sat down and pulled out a Good Witch Azura book. Why would anyone make a home out of a trash slug though? Even Eda didn’t love trash that much.
She pressed against the ‘floor’ of the slug a little too hard and some of the juices sprayed into her face. She was too used to being in hiding to immediately say anything but the noise of it was enough to cause the inhabitant of the slug to sprint to their feet and grab a long, metal rod that they had resting against one of the walls. They seemed to get off balance though and face planted into the side of the slug before using the improvised staff to pull her away from it with a nice, thick coat of slime. “Blegh!”
Eda let out a chortle before resting her head in her palms. She had planned to go grab Luz and break open this girl’s house but this would work too. In fact, this girl couldn’t have been more than a few years older than her student and even had the same darker skin as her. Weird. “Yeah, if you’re not used to it, the bellies of these things can be a bit rough on the old balance thing.” She then narrowed her eyes as she asked, “Now, what do you want with this trash?”
Cluz used one hand to wipe away some of the gunk from her face before spitting some of it out. Great. Another week of having to taste that. She did sigh in relief though at the fact that her original’s mentor didn’t appear to recognize her yet. That meant there was a chance she hadn’t lost her home yet.
She then held the side of her head as her face twisted in pain and she leaned against her staff. Okay. She shouldn’t be surprised by that. She wouldn’t listen though, especially since she could do some good right now if she just stayed calm. “Oh, nothing. I just was looking for a good place to squat. If you don’t tell anyone about me, I’ll happily help you with cleaning this stuff. Gives me more space.”
Eda scowled a little at the offer. It was too good to be true. Why was she trying to hide out like this? “Sorry, but I’ve already got a kid with me to do that. Knowing her though,” she said as she put her head in one hand and looked at her pickaxe, “she’d happily trade places with you to let you have your privacy.”
Oh. Damn. “Well, if that’s the case, then sorry Eda. I really didn’t want to do this.”
Eda immediately pressed a hand on the floor of the slug but it was too late. Cluz was already coming down with her staff.
“Lu-”
Luz looked up as she heard the yell before throwing the sack she was carrying onto the ground. The cleaning supplies could wait. After all, she knew the difference between Eda yelling out of trash joy and from getting trashed. What was it going to be? Baby slugs? Trash collapsing on her? Or… Was that a person?
“Why does it have to be so gross!?” Cluz spat out more slime before she used the pickaxe to help her climb out of the slug before looking around. And then looking at Luz. The two stared at each other for a long moment before the clone asked, “I’m guessing you’re not just going to let me run off, are you?”
Luz reached into one of her sleeves before pulling out one of her sigil cards. She didn’t have too many on her but she was more than confident that she could stop her older self this time. She only got away last time because of a dumb trick. An amazing, warm, wet trick… Luz’s face turned bright red as she realized she was letting herself get distracted and yelled, “No way,” as she slammed the card down.
Cluz got onto her feet and slowly moved towards the middle of the slug. Even if she tried lifting up the slug with an ice pillar or the like, being away from any openings would give her some time. However, she already knew what the trick was and didn’t even look behind her as she spun to the right.
She then smirked as a few of Luz’s vines slipped right past her. That was another reason why she’d stayed on the slug. Any spell of Luz’s would take longer to get to her from up here and she would have more time then to- She crouched low as another few vines tried to grab her by the head. Oh, yeah, Cluz thought to herself, her original probably thought she’d actually hurt Eda. “Hey, calm down! I just collapsed part of the slug’s head onto her! She’ll get out on her own in a little bit so chill.”
Luz did not chill. In fact, she narrowed her eyes as she felt a connection to two more vines still. That would be enough as one came up and clearly went to Cluz’s right side. Of course, with how she’d made her clone, the older version of her knew exactly what the original was doing. She just had to step to the left and…
And feel her leg buckle underneath her. She slammed her staff into the slug to stabilize herself but it was too late. The second vine came right where Cluz had moved to only a second later and smashed the clone off of the slug. Seeing as the trash slug was maybe twenty feet tall, both Luz’s couldn’t help but have their blood chill as Cluz fell.
Luz then shook her head a bit to try to clear it. She’d be fine so long as she absorbed her. The fall would just make sure she didn’t keep dodging her. Though it’d be really cool if she stabbed the staff into the slug to break her momentum and- “Are you kidding me?”
Cluz laughed as she spun around her staff to let the pressure open the hole she’d made in the slug wider so her staff came with her as she got ready to hit the ground like a good kitty. She just had to land on her feet and- Wait. Shit.
Luz heard Cluz begin to cuss before she ate seemed to land fine but then immediately face planted into the sand. The energetic girl couldn’t help but laugh at herself before realizing this was her chance. She reached into her pockets this time to pull out three cards this time. She had to get closer but Cluz was barely on her feet when she threw them.
Two of them hit their marks and glowed bright before growing ice spikes that reached from the beach into the slug. These two left Cluz in a corridor of ice that was supposed to be filled with a blunt pillar that would pin her. Unfortunately, the clone actually caught the sigil card with her staff. “Oh no you don’t.”
Luz shut her eyes as for a second she wondered why she’d had to make her so stupidly competent! Why couldn’t she be that cool? Maybe when she was as old as her… Luz shook her head to clear it before bending down and grabbing her last two cards. She then picked up two rocks to slip the fire sigils around and threw them both at her clone. After all, her older self was still trapped in that corridor.
However, instead of panicking or even dodging, Cluz merely stripped the ice sigil off of her staff. “You know, I haven’t tried any magic yet but,” she then smirked as she slammed the card onto the ground. She’d need to hold back of course because she could see in her mind’s eye the giant wall of ice that the voices in her head wanted to cut the two of them off but she didn’t need anything that extreme. Just a nice simple wall.
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Her eyes then went wide before she screamed in pain. Luz stopped cold as steam filled the air with the all too real pain in her clone’s voice. Attacking herself was one thing, especially when she knew that at worst she’d break a bone or something. This sounded like pain on a whole different level to that though.
Cluz’s back slammed against the slug as she tried to take stock of what just happened. Her left foot couldn’t support her weight for more than a tenth of a second now which meant either using her staff for even more support or just hopping around like an idiot, both of which weren’t going to get her away from her original in a way that wouldn’t get her caught. Even worse was that her vision was… off. The steam seemed closer than it should be. Her staff appeared farther than she expected it to be. She tried to open her right eye to check on it but… “Oh.”
The clone got her final piece of evidence to support her worry when she looked at her hand. Her staff hand was luckily just fine so she’d be able to fight, but the one that had cast the spell? It ended right at her elbow now and was bleeding blue smoke as it continued to disintegrate. Didn’t the twins say that clones could still cast magic, even if it wasn’t as potent?
Then again, a witch’s clone would also clone their bile sac. Which she didn’t have. Or a real spirit or whatever to pull energy from. So no magic. Luckily, Luz had spent a long time dreaming without her spells which meant that Cluz was about ninety percent sure she’d get away. She just couldn’t let Luz grab her. That wouldn’t be so hard.
Especially, as she finally managed to actually convince herself to act, when she could claim that this was going to help her original. She was just going to be more of an active part to this plan than she’d expected.
So she let the slug help her steady her staff and waited for Luz to leap right into her trap.
======+++++======
Luz groaned as the front door opened a little. She’d been laid up for over eighteen hours and was already going crazy. One of her legs was broken, Cluz had hyperextended one of Luz’s arms when she had grabbed one her hand during one of Luz’s lunges and used her staff to try and push her away from her own hand, and everything hurt. She swore that the clone had even gone out of her way to make sure that none of her was left unbruised. The only part she didn’t try to crack open had been her head.
It was all incredibly frustrating though. Not just because a half dead version of herself had managed to beat her to a pulp and then limp away to who knows where, but the fact that Luz couldn’t help but think how cool it was she had managed that. If she could show off like that to Amity, talking to her would be so much easier.
Speaking of, the serious girl stuck her head into the room while hiding the rest of her behind the door. Her eyes opened wide when she saw Luz before her cheeks turned bright red. “I-I came by to see why you missed school and-”
Luz tried to sit up to not look so pathetic but only managed to make her entire upper body scream. It especially hurt from when Cluz had finished the fight by slamming the butt of her staff directly between her breasts. That was when the clone had said that she was doing this for Luz’s own good which still seemed several levels of wrong to the human but she hadn’t been able to really argue at that point. Amity jumped a little but she seemed to be weirdly hesitant to come in. Instead, she gripped the edge of the door as she asked, “What happened?”
Luz shut her eyes for a second before gasping a little. No one had told her yet. She could at least spin this as something moderately cool. “Uh, well, me and Eda were down on the beach when we ran into Cluz of all people. She was ready for a standoff though and somehow at full power. My spells, uh, wore her down though and it won only because she cheated,” because she counted almost breaking her nose at the start of a fight to be just that, at least right now, “but you should have seen her afterwards. I even managed to blow off one of her hands!”
Amity glanced away for a second at the mention of Cluz being at full strength. She wanted to tell Luz how but it felt wrong for some reason to betray the clone, even if she had just fought Luz and left her laid up like this. Was it because she seemed more like her crush than the other clones had? She wished she had an answer but it did explain something to her. “Well, uh, I think she might have stopped by Hexide today then because she’s the one who told me to come by. And,” she said as she stepped inside, “told me to wear this when I did.”
Luz blinked a few times as her brain came to a dead stop. Short skirt. Cute little had. Tightly buttoned white shirt. Red cross right over her heart. “I-Is that a nurse’s costume?”
Amity turned bright red as she picked at the skirt that ended right above her knees. “Well, uh, yeah. I guess I see why Cluz gave me it now.” She then shook her head a little. Now that she wasn’t hiding her brain reminded her of the fact that Luz was, you know, hurt! She immediately began striding across the room towards the kitchen as she said, “And you need to sit still so I can do my job then. I’ll be right back with some healing cream that Boscha taught me to make while I was still on the Grudgby team.”
Luz sighed as she thought about how nice it would be to even get some muscle relaxer right now. She raised a hand and touched her chest as she couldn’t help but think about how it would especially feel good there. Maybe she’d be able to breathe a little easier. Oh, but if Amity had to massage it in then it’d probably put her right back in agony. Then again, she said as her face turned red, it still meant a massage from Amity. Maybe Cluz being so thorough wasn’t such a bad thi-
Her face then became ghostly pale when she realized what getting a chest rub from Amity would mean. But they were both girls! There was nothing awkward about that. What was a bit of skinship between friends? She’d let Willow help her like this. No, she wouldn’t run if she could or tell Amity to leave if it wouldn’t make her more worried. No. Never. This was fine. It was fine.
She only snapped out of her small panic attack when the steps to upstairs creaked. Luz looked up to spot Eda, who was sporting a light concussion from garbage falling on her when the clone had been scrambling up it. Cluz at least hadn’t been lying about that. Eda took a sip of her apple blood before saying, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s up?”
Luz waved her good arm in front of her as she let out a nervous chuckle. “Oh, what? Nothing’s up except the ceiling!” She then tried to give Eda the best smile she could. The old witch merely stared at her pupil and waited for the good girl to crack. It took less time than she’d expected but she suspected being trapped on the couch was part of why. “Okay, so Amity might have come by.”
Eda couldn’t help but smirk a little before saying, “I wouldn’t have thought you’d be this scared to get some soup or something from her.”
“Okay, it’s not perfect because Eda is out of salamander flakes but that just means it’ll be colder than it’s supposed to be. I hope you don’t mind.”
Eda looked over before smiling a little as Amity put the pot on the table. The serious girl then dipped her fingers into the cream before looking at Eda and turning bright red. “H-Hey, uh, Eda. I, um, well, I was told I should come over and help Luz and,” she then looked down and her blush spread to her ears as she whispered, “Oh Titan.”
The old witch barked out a few laughs before patting Amity on the head. “Cute uniform, kid. Luz is pretty lucky to have a nurse like you to take pity on her.”
Amity’s face only turned brighter before she stamped her foot down to steady herself. She only spoke though as she put her hands on either side of Luz’s neck and began gently rubbing in the cream which went from white to green almost instantly as it found what was damaged. “I-It’s not pity. We both saw what Cluz is capable of at her best and this is the least I can do to help.”
“Wait, she said Cluz was at her best?”
Luz’s eyes snapped open as she turned pale. Amity stopped rubbing her crush’s neck too as she looked at Eda. “She did. What did she tell you?”
Eda snorted for a second before letting out a satisfied sigh. “Oh sister, she was a sobbing mess by the time her clone was done with her. She couldn’t hold back all the juicy details. How in depth do you want to go?”
Amity bit her cheek for a second as she had to consider the condition Luz had been left in before saying, “Let’s just stick to whether or not Cluz was ready for the fight.”
Eda sat on the far end of the couch which bounced her student a little. She suspected the pained groans weren’t going to compare to what Amity might do for making her lying. “Well, when I met her inside the trash slug_”
“What was she doing in a trash slug?”
Eda snorted again before wiping at one of her eyes. “It was her home apparently.” She then paused for a moment and tapped her chin. “Gotta admit though, with her limp she must have been desperate for a place to stay if she was sticking to somewhere so sticky.”
Amity’s eyes narrowed at the thought. She shouldn’t have to be living somewhere like that. Her family had a spare room she could stay in if she really needed somewhere. Then again, if her parents caught the clone, she doubted there was any chance the older Luz would get away, especially if she was somehow hurt when she was found. She was also a little angry though since she doubted Cluz was going to stick around even though she was ‘ready for a showdown’.
“Anyways, she collapsed the things head onto me before breaking out of it with my pickaxe. Luz lashed the slug with her vines and somehow caught her clone with one of the vines.”
Luz lifted herself up a little as she said, “Hey, at least give me a little credit,” right before Amity pushed her crush down against the couch.
The serious girl then looked down and said, “You need to rest so stay. Right. There. Not that it’ll be hard. Imagine if you had to try dodging with your leg how it is now.”
Luz glanced at her cast for a second as she wondered why Amity was so angry right now. It was Cluz who put her in the outfit after all. “I mean, her leg was fine enough not to bother when she caught herself on the slug.”
“You mean before she tried catching herself and faceplanted instead?”
The normally energetic girl cursed her past self as she wondered why in the world she’d been honest with Eda. She should have known this sort of thing was coming. After all, her mentor had done the same thing with her sister. She didn’t try to stop Eda this time though. She quickly wished she had though.
“Speaking of catching something, she actually caught one of Luz’s cards with her staff and used it against her!”
Amity’s eyes widened before she said, “Wait, Cluz can use magic? I know why witch clones can but I would have assumed that Luz’s wouldn’t be able to. Was it like Luz’s where it doesn’t seem to take much from her to do it?”
This time both Eda and Luz glanced away. The energetic girl then let out a nervous chuckle as she said, “You know how I mentioned the missing hand?”
Eda followed up by pulling on her eyelid to put emphasis. “And an eye! Don’t forget the eye.”
Luz looked up and tried to give her crush some sort of smile. It only made Amity raise an eyebrow with her cold stare. She then breathed in, breathed out, and went to get more cream on her hands. “Well, Cluz obviously wanted me to help you out like this so I’m still going to. Besides, it’s what friends do.”
Luz pumped her good hand into the air as she shouted, “Yea- Ah, nails, nails!”
Amity just dug her fingers harder into Luz’s shoulders as she hissed out, “I’m just trying to make sure to get as deep as I can.”
Eda smirked at her student before getting comfortable. Sure, they weren’t being romantic right now but she couldn’t help but think of the times when her and her sister fought when they were younger and their relationship was as good as they got.
...Okay, fair point, but Luz and Amity got along better than them usually. They’d laugh about this someday, or Amity would use it against her crush whenever she thought she was lying. Either one worked for Eda. The older witch did notice that her student was smart enough not to bring up how her chest had been hit extra hard.
Amity was too, because it was already rough on her to be mad at Luz but she didn’t want to be given a reason to leave more than light scratches on her crush.