"Okay, why are we hanging around a garbage dump at 6 in the morning, every morning?" Luz asked as she lifted a shopping cart out of her way to sift through another pile. "I thought you said we were learning magic."
Eda then poked her head out of a nearby pile of assorted trash and held up a beaten umbrella. "We are." She said as she then climbed out to inspect her work. "This lesson is one of your first insights on how to be a bonafide bad Witch…Gotta walk before you can run, kiddo."
Over the last couple of weeks or so after the incident with Adegast, Eda decided to keep up her promise of teaching Kai and Luz about Magic; However it threw them for a loop that most of those days revolved around hunting for giant "Trash Slugs" that had washed up on the nearby beach, picking them apart to get at their scavenges and to sell what good stuff the three of them could find. Eda jumped into the daily plan with gusto, Kai decided to at least try to help out in the hopes of understanding better.
Luz however seemed to be the only one to feel like that this wasn't what she had in mind. "Look, Eda…It's not that I'm ungrateful that you're helping to teach us magic but…I didn't think that hunting for treasure in dead stuff was part of that."
King on the other hand was more focused on lazing on the beachside and amusing himself at Luz's expense, something that he had come to compromise with Kai on that he could only laugh at her or poke fun at her in specific circumstances. "Come on, Luz…Isn't it a dream to go treasure hunting, even if it's inside of a gigantic trash swallower?" He teased as he lay back on his beach towel.
"Well…Yeah, of course I wanna go hunting for what could be treasures from a magic land." Luz said as she watched Eda grab a pickaxe and start hacking away at the giant slug. "But can you really find anything worthwhile inside of a slug?"
"You can find anything in anything, Luz…It's really no different than just a squishier and more gross thrift shop…" Kai said as he was carrying two pairs of what looked like really long wrapped up skis towards the Slug while he watched Eda pick at it and ended up watching a literal wave of trash pour out onto the sand. "Where'd you think I found my hoody?" He said as he took the skin flaps from the slug and propped them up like a tent.
"See? Your brother gets it!" Eda said excitedly as she climbed out of the trash pile with what looked like a pile of orange balls wrapped up in a blanket. "Look, it's good that you wanna learn but you have to start somewhere…And in cases like this, you need to begin with the basics, like this for example." She said and took Luz's hand to guide it into a small pile of garbage. "A good Witch, great or small has to be resourceful above anything else…And one of the greatest things you can do is work with what you got." Eda explained as she then let go as Luz finally pulled her closed hand out.
"A…A greasy slime ball?" Luz asked as she gazed down at the small ball in her hand with a mix of disgust at rummaging through trash but also with some confusion that their first steps to magic was here.
"Mhm, use that slime ball wisely." Eda said as she then hoisted her pickaxe over her shoulder and waved for Luz to come with her. "Now come on! Daylight's wasting and you can find some real hidden treasures in the stink nodes!" She said with what she thought was encouragement.
Luz on the other hand was less than thrilled at the concept. "Actually…If it's okay, I'm gonna go back to the house and see if I can contact my mom…She's probably worried if I don't get back to her quickly." She said with a smile and then began heading away from them and back towards the Owl House, only stopping to give King a tummy scratch on the way.
"You DID promise her that we'd start learning…Is hunting around here really gonna help?" Kai asked as he was shovelling out gizzards when he noticed Luz took her cue to leave; He knew when Luz was lying and seeing her pass up the chance to study Magic made him skeptical.
"Look kid…I meant what I said before about our promise AND that I was going to teach the both of you about Magic." Eda said as she walked over towards him and then started to look at what he was searching in. "But one thing you have to remember is that you two are still Human…We need to make sure you're both capable of handling yourself mentally, resourcefully…And in your case." She said and then poked at Kai's stomach; "Physically."
"What's that mean?" Kai asked as he looked down at his body and then started putting it together. "Because of my gut?"
"I mean you've been eating most of Eda's cooking…plus what Luz doesn't eat…" King remarked as he decided to make a crack. "Forget Tall One, you're the Chunky One!"
"Hey, I'm not fat!" Kai yelled at King as he felt his face redden in embarrassment. "I'm just…Bigger even if I eat nothing but healthy stuff…Believe me, I tried…" He said before heading back towards the slug.
"You're awfully bold smack talking someone who popped a Puppeteer Demon barehanded, King." Eda teased King playfully though she did have that small inkling that Kai could afford to lose weight, though the fact that his stomach was hard when she poked him made it clear that he was at least mostly solid feeling.
"And you're awfully confident considering you lost a student just to go trash hunting." King retorted as he changed his target since Eda was still right on that part.
"I didn't lose her, both her and Kai need to start at the bottom before working their way up to the top." Eda said as she walked over to King to talk with; Granted she had wanted to make sure that the two were dead-set on learning, the recent happenings regarding Kai was making her slow things down and figuring out how to handle it.
"Seriously, if you're gonna just gonna keep holding off on teaching Luz, then you WILL…Plus you did promise both of them." King said as he then saw Kai looking over the emptied out Slug skin before moving under it to start lifting.
Kai was grunting and heaving as he struggled to hold on to the larger beast, his body starting to sting as the weight pressed down on him. "Come on…I could do it with that squid thing…Do it again now!"
Both Eda and King watched as the middle of the Trash Slug raised up higher and higher until it eventually became a lazy looking upside down V, with Kai trying to push up the larger creature with noticeable strain on his face. "Even if you don't teach him magic…I think the Tall One's gonna be a menace…A perfect minion to aid in my quest to become the King of Demons!" King added as he skittered around excitedly; "A Strong Minion! Besides you're not using them!"
"Look, I might be taking my time with this but I'm not dumb." Eda said as she watched Kai then sank into the sand under the slug's weight. "With both of them being humans, we can't just start them off like your average little Witchling…Plus you saw what happened at the Conformatorium AND the forest, I'm not putting Kai in the firing range of magic until I know the extent of…whatever it is he's got going on."
"Sure, if you're really set on making them learn then you may as well've just sent them to that Magic college while you trash hunt." King said snarkily but then found his mouth clasped shut by Eda's hand.
"King! Ix-nay agic-may ool-schay!" Eda barked in a hushed whisper as she glanced back to Kai who didn't seem to hear it but he did look a little confused at Eda suddenly gagging King. "You okay there, kid?"
Kai nodded as he dusted himself off and joined the two. "Aside from having to pull sand crabs out of my shirt, I'm good…Though I think I might take up that suggestion of trying…" He said and then gestured to his thick stomach. "Though I don't suppose there's any good diet stuff here on the Isles?"
Eda chuckled a little, partly glad that Kai wasn't going to bug her about overhearing their conversation but also happy that he was taking her more seriously than Luz supposedly was. "Unfortunately, I can't help there…This look's all natural and I've had no need for any kind of potion or magic to keep this bod working it!" Eda said with a proud twirl and posed like a model, complete with a wink and a twinkle of her gold fang.
King blinked and then looked to Kai as he decided to enlighten him. "She drinks apple blood and eats trash food, don't question it…"
Kai ultimately decided to avoid doing so, he knew better than to pull the pin on that grenade. "Still, I am going to need a good place to work for this…Any ideas?" He asked as he looked across the rolling waves and then realised the answer to his own question. "It's out of the way, no one comes down here because of all the trash and the best part is no one from school is here so I'll take it."
While King and Eda were busy bickering and making a bet on who was the better teacher; The sun reached it's high peak and bathed the group in the shine of a new day, Eda didn't seem that impressed due to seeing it almost every day from the cliffside view at the Owl House, King was content as he loved sunning himself both in and out of the house, Kai on the other hand felt a profound sense of new wonder and a small amount of sadness at the idea that his adoptive mom was clueless to the idea that Luz and him were in a Demon Realm that nearly got them killed or injured.
Luz managed to find out that there was an easy way to keep in contact on their phones and made it able to not just get the perfect amount of signal to text Camila but also enough for Luz to get internet…Which she used to show King cat videos from their world. "Hunting down slimeballs from giant slugs? If that's all that's to magic is weird taxidermy then maybe I don't have the…Stomach." She said to herself as she wandered through the woods to head back to the house, however her line of thinking stopped when she heard a pair of girls voices talking followed by the sound of angry grumbling.
Despite thinking that things were better left undisturbed, Luz peeked over the bush that she had ducked behind and saw what looked like the after effects of witch drama: A smug purple haired girl riding off on a wagon, leaving a green haired girl to stew in her mumblings of "Not good enough…" before lashing out by making the plants around her grow and swell in her anger…Taking Luz up into the air with a vine wrapped around her ankle.
Eda then brought Kai back to reality by lightly patting his shoulder. "So, you ready for some special training, kid?" She asked as she started to guide him away from the beach and towards a cave, unaware that in that brief moment of distraction…There was another little glimmer from under Kai's shirt.
Kai nodded as he was facing a very cobbled together area that looked like a workout zone that could give a personal trainer a heart attack; Weights that consisted of misshapen rocks tied to a thick tree branch, a round circle with weird markings on the ground and even a string of heavy looking sacks. "What is this?"
"THIS, my apprentice…Is "Eda's Bulking Up Tough Training." Eda said proudly as she slapped Kai on the back and twirled around to show off the whole rickety place. "Well, ain't it a beauty?"
Kai blinked as he had been thrown for a loop but the fact that she was actively putting the effort in took him back. "All this for training?"
"Look, kid…It might not be the best thing for now but we all gotta start somewhere and what better way to get you in magic slinging shape then by starting here?" Eda said as she snapped on an elastic headband to keep her voluminous hair out of the way. "Plus we got the place to ourselves since King's training up his new little minion." She said and gestured to King throwing treats at a slithering slug on the sand.
"What about Luz, though? She's gonna come back sometime." Kai mentioned as he wandered the "Gym" and checked it over more closely.
"Well, she said she had stuff going on so I wouldn't bug her…Take it from me, start bugging your sister too much and she'll bite your head off." Eda said with some faint hint of wistfulness in her voice before she shrugged it off. "But I digress…You are going to be doing this until we can get a handle on what you can be capable of…Oh farts, I'm starting to sound like Lilli…"
"Who's Lilli?" Kai asked as he was absentmindedly lifted a "Weight" that was a rock painted black and looked like it looked like a 3 by 3 of cinder blocks and weighed just as much, though he seemed to be lifting it like it was no problem.
"Long story, you wouldn't be interested." Eda waved it off as she sat down on a nearby bench while watching him lift, acting as though just explaining this was enough to exhaust her. "Besides, I'm your trainer now so you better get used to me ordering you around…You got that?"
"As long as you don't jerk me around with this, I'm willing to put in the effort." Kai remarked as he didn't look up from his exercising.
Eda raised an eyebrow, it was rather odd to see him so on board with this, though she also saw the fire in his eyes as he started to lift faster and using a second rock for his other hand. "He might be a little different…But at least he listens to me."
The hours seemed to pass by with relative normalcy up until the afternoon reached it's twilight; Luz had been gone for nearly the whole day, Kai had been getting his focus in and trying to get into the mindset of training along with keeping an eye on King, his "Minion" had been constantly fed treats and was slowly growing from a tiny slug into something the size of a bus.
Kai right now was starting to find that as he exercised and practiced with the improvised weights, a lot of them were starting to not impact his lifting as much to the point where he was using all of the rock weights at once with one hand…After stopping for a brief moment, he went to go look for Eda. "Maybe I can make this more of a-"
"TALL ONE!" King's voice yelled out from the bushes as he was being chased by the drastically larger and angrier Trash Slug that had realised that King ran out of treats.
"What the fu-" Kai was about to ask in sudden shock but the Trash Slug moved faster as it then rammed Kai before he could complete his swear, knocking him backward.
"You have to help me, Tall One! Minion refuses to listen to me now and he's gonna eat me!" King begged as he tried to rush over to Kai.
"Gh…"Kai groaned as he got to his feet, brushing himself like he had just gotten the wind knocked out of him from a bad tackle… instead of being steamrolled by a bus sized slug. "He's YOUR minion, rein him in."
"I can't, I ran out of treats and I can't tell Eda because then I'll become Mister Wiggles forever!" King wailed as he realised he was in a corner before he yelped and scampered up a tree when the Slug took a giant bite at him, missing him by an inch and carving out a chunk of the tree. "Please help!"
Kai looked to King who was utterly terrified with how things turned around, he knew that King was a pain and that he was loud, bratty and full of himself…But he also knew that he couldn't just stand idle while King was in danger.
King was watching his "minion" slowly bite and whittle the tree down to get at him, he braced for impact, only to see a blur move by as a rock hit the Slig in the side of the head and Kai standing where he was with another rock in hand. "Tall One?"
"I gotcha, King! Go find Eda and see if she has something for this!" Kai yelled and threw another rock at the Slug's eye, making it screech at him as he became the new target. "Well…Maybe the training paid off and I can lift it easier than the-"
The optimistic thought stopped dead in it's tracks as the Slug's angry headbutt knocked him for a loop and he got shoved through several trees.
"Ow! Ow! Ow! OW!" Kai grunted in pain as he felt every tree crashing against his back while he tried digging his heels in to slow down, unfortunate for him that logic existed: A few hours of weight training was nowhere near enough to lift a heavy slug monster when he could barely lift a dead one over his head.
King felt scared over anything else but he remembered what Kai had told him to do and began to scamper off to go find Eda in her Shame Hat. "Gotta hurry!"
As the dirt rolled up around Kai while he was being pushed, something else welled up inside of him as he tried to fight back harder. He wasn't exactly sure what inspired him to do what he planned but he had nothing else to try; With a slow and deep breathe in, he then blew all the air out of his lungs in the hope that he could slow it down with the sudden distraction of drying eyes.
What no one had expected was to Kai's breath wash over the trash slug's whole body and cause it to slow down, it's skin began turning from it's sickly green hue into a colder and icier looking colour while frost began to coat it from snout to tail until eventually…It became the equivalent of a slug popsicle.
"Kid, you better still be okay because we got back…up…" Eda yelled as she was holding on to bags of salt in each hand and wearing a bandolier with jars of what he assumed was more salt. "Did a flashfreeze come through here or what?" She asked when she saw the frozen trash slug.
"I-" Kai started to try explaining but then the head shattered as the slug hadn't been fully frozen through and was now struggling to snap at Kai while in it's furious state. "I'll explain later, just salt this thing!"
It in fact took several jars of salt and Kai to keep it's head forced upward for the slug to shrink back down to it's prior size, anxiously squirming away once the chain of command was re-established. "Okay kid…You're gonna need to explain this one." Eda said tiredly as she sat on one of the upturned trees .
"That's the thing, I don't even know how it started…I had the idea to make it shut it's eyes to stop it's movement by blowing on it…" Kai started to explain but was stopped by Eda's entertained snort, though he ignored it and quickly continued. "I was trying to dry it's eyes out by blowing on it but then as I kept blowing, it started to change colours and before I knew it, I was looking at a trashy smelling icicle."
King would have come up with a snippy joke but he remembered what Eda said earlier and decided to try playing it safe. "So you froze a Trash Slug…With your breath?"
Kai nodded as he then stopped once he heard Luz screaming in the distance and getting closer. "Hold that thought."
"EDA!" Luz yelled as she came scrambling through the brush and panting heavily, she was covered in an odd purple ooze and then made a beeline to hug Kai. "Kai, you will NOT believe the day that I just had!"
"Luz…To be perfectly honest, I don't think you'd believe my day either." Kai admitted as he then realised what was clinging to him after Luz let go to immediately hug Eda. "Oh god, what the hell is this stuff?!"
"Whoa whoa, slow down kid, where's the fire?" Eda asked as she seemed less phased by the mystery goop and more confused by her getting hugged. "And why do you insist on doing this every time?"
"Luz Noceda, resident weirdo and hug machine." Kai joked as he walked over to Luz. "But seriously though, where have you been all day?"
Luz took a deep breath to calm herself down, she then began to explain the events of what had happened. "And so after that I escaped and came right here."
Kai turned to look at Eda with the shock very much evident on his face. "Hold on…There's a MAGIC School and you didn't even tell us?!"
"Told you." King whispered to Eda as he realised that he had the vindication at knowing he was right.
"I can assure you that there's a reason I didn't tell either of you about this...And after what Luz has said, that's a SOLID backup to why." Eda explained but then pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, Magic is complicated enough on it's own, you guys are both human."
"Questionable." King snarked as he looked at Kai.
"Zip!" Eda warned as she looked back to the two. "And it is because you two are both human that I didn't send you…Principal Bump ensures that anyone who enters the doors to his school can at least perform the most basic of basic magic…Can either of you two do that?"
Luz and Kai shook their heads sheepishly, proving her point. "Though it wouldn't hurt for you to try…At most all you did was show us how to hunt for garbage." Kai pointed out.
"Actually, that lesson worked! That slime ball you told me to keep hold of, it saved me back there at the school." Luz remembered but then grew worried. "Wait…My friends! Eda, they could be in danger!"
The trio were then surprised when two teenagers came rushing out of the bushes and hugged Luz.
"Luz!" The shorter boy hugged her, this particular dark skinned boy was Gus Porter and he looked a couple of years younger than Luz or Kai and he wore a school uniform that had bright blue sleeves and legs. "You wouldn't believe how crazy things got."
"Yeah, I have a knack when it comes to causing mayhem." Luz admitted with slight embarrassment, which only darkened when Kai snorted in disbelief. "I do, though!"
"Luz, that seed you had really helped me out! Principal Bump was so impressed by my plant work, he transferred me out of Abominations and into the Plant Track." The other girl said excitedly before snapping her fingers and twirling, the sleeves and leggings on her uniform changing from magenta into a leafy green.
"That. is. Awesome!" Luz cheered but then remembered that it wasn't just her there. "Oh, got distracted…Guys, this is my teacher." She said and gestured to Eda who seemed proud at the fact that Luz had taken her lesson on board.
The two nodded at her and smiled politely as they gazed up at her but Gus seemed to recognise her more. "Whoa, you're the Owl Lady that's everywhere."
"Dang straight kiddo!" Eda said with a grin as she rested a hand on her hip. "See that, you two? Not everyone who knows me wants to arrest me."
Luz nodded before making a grand gesture as she showed off Kai. "And this guy right here, this is my brother, Kai." She said as she then gestured for Gus to try one of his newly discovered love for high fives.
Kai laughed a little as he felt a little put on the spot with new people, much like Luz; He had certain anxiety when it came to meeting new people for the first time, though he wasn't sure if it put him a little at ease when he noticed that the other girl with Gus looked equally as nervous around him as he did around them. "Uh, hey there…Nice meeting new friends of Luz."
"Hey, I'm Gus." Gus introduced himself as he felt elated at the reciprocated high five. "Come on, Willow…You gotta get in on this."
Willow however was unusually quiet and nervous looking once she locked eyes with Kai; The greenhaired, glasses wearing thickset witch in training was normally bubbly and friendly to new people, however she was feeling her throat dry up in this particular instance as she struggled to find the right words to say. "I…Uh…Hi." She said with a voice that threatened to squeak before shaking Kai's hand awkwardly.
"So, what happened with Amity? I'm surprised she wasn't chasing after us with a vengeance." Luz asked as she glanced back towards the direction that Willow and Gus came from.
"She's still talking with Bump to find out whether chasing you out and getting Willow's giant plant under control counted as extra credit." Gus mentioned as Willow felt herself flush at the attention on her.
"Oh, I have to see that, maybe I can see more of you guys and your magic in action when I can next sneak in." Luz said with an excited grin, though that made Kai concerned.
"Well…That's gonna be a problem…" Gus admitted as he pulled out a roll of parchment from his pocket. "You see, after Bump found out you got smuggled in and the fact that you're a human…You've been kinda, sorta…All the way banned from Hexside."
Eda burst out laughing when she saw the ooze covered Luz on the poster as she took it. "Oh that is perfect!"
Kai was laughing a little too as he looked it over. "Okay, Luz…I've seen you try every excuse to try and skip school, never once did I ever think that you'd cop a felony to try sneaking IN." He mentioned as he examined the poster too. "Man, wait until mom hears about this when we get back."
"Baby's first wanted poster…Gotta admit, kid…You and your brother are full of surprises." Eda remarked as she handed the poster back to Gus. "Though I think you're gonna wanna hear about Kai's day too, Luz."
"We're going to have to go, Luz…But we'll come back after school to hang out." Willow said to Luz with a smile and a wave before the two headed back the way they came.
"See you guys around!" Luz said as she waved back before turning to look at Eda and Kai. "Okay, so you know about my day…What happened with your's?"