"Okay," Izuku took a few breaths, checking his reflection again, specifically the position of the healing glyph and how his fingers were peeling at the edge where it stuck to his skin. A good night's sleep with it had eased some of the pain, it might not even scar, and a morning shower would feel nice too, but to do that he first needed to remove it in the first place. "Just like ripping off a bandaid. On three. One, two," he tightened his grip on the glyph-
"Good hooting!"/rip!/"AH!"
Well, on the bright side, Izuku was awake and the magic blast did not leave a scar.
"Ehhh," Izuku dried his hair and checked his reflection, even looking down at himself for extra measure. They had come from somewhere in Eda's household pile, probably had not seen the light of day in years or even decades but they were in his size so he could not really complain. Not like he could in the first place. An aloha shirt with green, white, and black stripes paired with some red jean shorts, and well-worn but not worn outblack boots. "Guess that's the look." He looked at the oracle stone necklace. "Oops, almost forgot this." And put it on, about to stuff it under the shirt but decided against it, letting it rest on top of the fabric instead of under.
knockknock
"Izuku! Hurry up! Eda says we gotta start early!"
"Coming!"
Eda said they had to lay low for a while until Belos turned his attention elsewhere. In the meantime, money was going to be tight. As they could not sell human 'collectables' for a few days, the plan now was to stock up on potions and sell those instead. At least it was Eda had told him and Luz. In any case, they were out in the forest gathering ingredients. It had the added benefit of using some stuff they might not have been able to sell in the first place.
"Alright kids," Case in point, Eda had some metal shopping baskets each with a length of rope on them. "You get to work setting up these porcuspine traps while Lily and I get the fairy blood."
"Right!" Izuku nodded and grabbed a few.
"You can count on us, Eda!" Luz added, getting the other half.
"Now remember, porcuspines are generally docile," Eda actually kept one of the baskets and was setting one of the traps, "but they get pretty ferocious when they get spooked. When they eat the bait, drop the basket and hide. They'll shake around for a while before knocking themselves out, which is when you guys come in to get the quills they dropped."
Izuku raised his hand.
"It's fine." Eda insisted. "So long as they have enough to eat, they can regrow their quills." She patted his head. "Though if you're gonna wear my old clothes," she pointed to his shirt, "don't get yourself stabbed. Got it?" And then poked his nose.
Izuku gulped.
"We'll be careful, Eda." Luz added.
"Great!" Eda clapped. "Now here's how you set them up-"
squeak
"Hm?" Izuku noticed some movement in the bushes. He could have sworn he saw some sort of big flower moving.
"Edalyn!" Lilith's voice called. "We just spotted a troupe of fairies! Hurry!"
"I'll be right there!" Eda called back. "You just put the stick here, then set the bait." She put down some bones and berries. "Stay safe and don't get skewered, byyyeee!" Eda ran off to join her sister, leaving Izuku and Luz to set up the traps and wait.
Wait long enough for the sun to move a bit and for Izuku to settle in with a sketchpad.
"-so what if we can't go home anymore, it's fine! We can just make a new portal!" Luz was pacing around, fidgeting with a stick. "Sure, we need to find out how to make one in the first place but how hard can that be? I got the creative skills, you can pick apart Quirks like pens so learning magic shouldn't be any different right? And-and Eda's still the most powerful witch on the Isles! We can come up with something!"
Izuku was sketching the portal, trying to figure out as much as he could with as little details as he could recall. It must be some form of advanced magic, probably limited to the elite like Coven heads or the rich like-
squeak
With a small gasp, Izuku looked up. "Did you hear that?"
"Sh!" Luz shushed him. "It could be a porcuspine and you're gonna scare it away!"
"No I'm not!" Izuku protested but then quieted down. "If anything, I'm worried you'll try to hug it or something!"
Luz narrowed her eyes. "I should be offended but I definitely would." She shook her head. "But how else are we gonna get those quills?"
"You can find some in its nest."/"AH!"
Izuku and Luz jumped out the way, glyphs at the ready.
"Whoa!" It was Edric! "Just me. You can put those away. Er, please?" Not hearing the squeak anymore, Izuku and Luz took another second to sheepishly put away their glyphs now they were aware there was no danger. "So what are you guys doing? You know porcuspines can chew through metal right?"
"They can?/!?" They both asked in different stages of disbelief.
Edric laughed a bit. "Uh, yeah? Dad's been fighting with them ever since mom opened the factory. He puts up a fence, they chew right through it. He tried to catch them, he gets stuck taking those quills out for hours."
Luz gasped. "Quills!" She reached for them. "Do you have any?"
"Uhhh, I have a whole jar of them back home," Edric shrugged.
"Great!" Luz hopped up to her feet. "Do you mind if we borrow some?"
"We're making potions with Eda today," Izuku added.
Edric let out a little hiss between his teeth. "Oooh, sorry. But if you want quills to make potions, you're gonna need fresh ones."
"Ah man," Luz sat back down.
"Thanks anyways," Izuku sighed.
Edric patted Izuku's head. "No problem. Hey, if I find any quills out here, I'll let you guys know."
"Really?" Izuku felt some relief but... "You don't have to do that, you must be busy."
Edric scratched the back of his head. "Uh, not really. Em kinda kicked me out our room. And with mom busy fussing over Amity, dad busy getting the private sale ready, I kinda just-" he shrugged again, "ended up taking a walk. It's fine, really!" He insisted a bit too quickly. "I do this all the time. Sometimes I almost get eaten, but I always find cool stuff."
Izuku recalled Edric's Penstagram page being filled with pictures of animals. It made a bit more sense now.
"How is Amity, by the way?" Luz asked, putting her hands behind her back and swaying on her feet.
"Her cast comes off tomorrow," Edric started, "buuut she still needs a brace for another few days. She won't be going to school for a bit."
Izuku felt a sudden jolt in his head. School! Could he even focus on homework at a time like this?
"We'll go see her tomorrow then." Luz answered for them.
"I'll sneak you in if I have to," Edric began walking away. "Nice threads, Midori."
At his name, Izuku blinked back into focus instead of idly listening. "Oh uh," but Edric was already walking off. "Thanks...?"
And the two were left alone again.
The sun moved again, Izuku seeing the shadows of the trees stretching out more and more.
rustle
"Bah!"/"Ah!"
Luz had dropped down, hanging upside down from a branch, startling Izuku a bit.
"Gotcha," she snickered.
"Yeah," Izuku chuckled a bit, but it was half-hearted. Edric had circled back a while ago, no porcuspine quills in hand though, explaining they were nocturnal and made their homes in hollows, so they might be out a while if they wanted to find one during the day.
Luz hummed, using a plant glyph to make a vine she could fall onto. "Whatcha thinkin' about?"
Izuku looked at his notes, seeing scribbles and half-baked doodles. He sighed again.
Sliding off the vine, Luz sat next to him. "Hey," she put a hand on his shoulder, "we're okay, and we're together. That's the important part right now. It's like-" she fidgeted with her hands. "That pirate anime! Where they're in between arcs and just sailing the seas, not knowing when the plot will find them next!"
"Heh," Izuku fiddled with the oracle stone. He looked at the oracle stone. Then blinked. And gasped. "Maybe we can know!" He held it up.
"Hey yeah!" Luz got into a different sitting position. "Here, lemme see it!" She made grabby-hand motions and Izuku obliged, taking off the necklace and handing it to her. "Okay oracle stone, what does our future look like?"
The stone glowed for a second, a misty cloud emerging and forming a ghostly figure of a bird-like...thing. It looked at them before its black eyes narrowed, opening its beak to let out a horrendously loud screech, wings unfurling, a claw raising up to strike-
"AAAHHH!" They both screamed.
Luz threw the oracle stone to the other side of the clearing. Once the stone was out of her hands, the mist dissipated.
"Ah-! Wait!" She quickly ran over and picked it up. Izuku watched, seeing her shoulders droop a bit, but she was smiling when she came back and put the necklace back on him. "Forgot you kinda need this to talk to everyone." She sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck. "Sorry."
"It's fine!" Izuku assured but still checked the stone, brushing off specks of dirt. "See?" He held it up to her. "Not even scratched."
Luz sighed and sat down. "That's a relief." She fidgeted into a different sitting position. "I-" she twiddled her thumbs next, "-kinda got used to not needing to translate things in my head. Might have forgotten a few words."
Izuku looked at the stone in his hand. "I know what you mean. I still try to think of the words in English, but they probably would have sounded dumb anyways, so I stopped too."
"No no, you were great!" Luz waved her hands. "Really! Don't you remember how I introduced myself? I must have sounded like some punk delinquent."
That made Izuku laugh a bit. "What happened to being a certified bad boy?"
"Only in the endearing rapscallion sort of way." Luz finger-gunned.
squeak
Izuku and Luz gasped, holding their breaths and each other's hands. Nothing moved from the trees, or from the bushes. They were sure they heard something, but what?
"Did you hear that?" Luz's voice was a barely contained whisper.
squeak!
"That?" Izuku was not much better.
"Yeah!" And any semblance of trying to whisper was quickly going out the proverbial window. "It's probably the porcuspine!" And there it went as she start to either giggle or lightly cackle. "I can't wait to see one!" She started pushing him behind the tree. "Go! Hide! We don't wanna scare it!"
Izuku tried not to yelp. "Ow! Okay! I'm going!"
They hid behind the tree, hearing more rustling in the bushes and squeaking.
Not too long after they hid, something did in fact emerge from one of the bushes. It was almost hard to notice, but the blood red leaves parted to reveal a much more vibrant red upper half resembling flower crossed with a rabbit's head with large floppy ears and a vivid green lower half made of vines, the whole form waddling out of the bushes. A part of Izuku knew quite obviously this was not a porcuspine, unless he missed the part where they were more plant than animal, and another part recognized the creature.
Luz cooed next to him, surely having stars in her eyes at the sight. "Aww, it's a lil bunny."
They watched as the flower-rabbit waddled around the clearing some more. It turned its head, then its body, made a few more waddling steps, repeating this process a few more times.
"Is it looking for something?" Izuku asked, gasping when the flower-rabbit turned. At first, it was because he thought it had heard him and was going to run away. He saw the scratches on its face, feeling a pang of hurt in his heart at the sight. He looked at Luz, seeing her reaction was much the same, sympathetic for the poor thing.
The flower-rabbit bumped into the cage.
"Oh, we should probably-" Luz began to say, fiddling for the rope-
RRR-CRACK!
A giant thorny bush suddenly erupted-clang!-with the metal trap flying, nearly hitting them.
Silence filled the air for a second.
Then two.
Three.
rustle-squeak
And the flower-rabbit waddled out the bush, gave a little shake, and waddled off some more.
"Forget that happened?" Luz asked.
"Yep." Izuku nodded.
Hiding behind a tree had actually been quite advantageous to not getting stuck between some thorns and a hard place. Tugging on the rope only rustled the new giant bush. The basket trap was firmly stuck on some tree branches just out of Izuku's reach, another visibly wrapped in thorny branches. It was a slow shuffle out of the now bramble filled clearing, and once more than an arm's reach out of the way, the two looked at the bush. It resembled all of the other bushes, save for its obvious difference in size and all of the more prominent brambles sticking out here and there.
"Ah man," Luz half sighed, half blew a raspberry. "I really wanted to see a spiky little guy."
Izuku looked at the mess. This was supposed to be easy. Just sit and wait. Literally foolproof with no possible way to mess up. And yet, somehow, they were out of traps, bait, and had no quills to show for it.
He reached for the basket with one hand, pulling at the brambles with the other, hissing when the first thorn pricked his hand.
"Ow."
"Eda probably has some gloves we can use!" Luz beamed, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. "Or-or some big hedge clippers, oh! Or a chainsaw!" She pulled him away from the bush in her excitement, now walking to the Owl House with him in tow. "Come on! Daylight's a-wastin'!"
"Uh-" Izuku kept flexing his hand, feeling the stinging pain of the brambles before feeling something slick. He looked down to see a small trickle of blood, barely more than a drop or two trailing down a line in his palm. "Yeah." He closed his hand and put more pep in his step, walking next to Luz instead of behind. "But I think we need to be, uh, chainsaw certified, so hedge clippers will have to do."
"Are you still freaked out about that movie I showed you?"
Izuku actually had not thought about that movie, but at the mention of it, and remembering the chainsaw scene, he shuddered.
"Yes."
At the Owl House-"Hey guys!"/"Hey Hooty."-they went straight for the side door, opening it to reveal what they had become accustomed to with anything under Eda's ownership. Stuff, stuff, and more stuff, organized in some way only known to her. It was rather obvious the shed did not see any regular traffic, with the abundance of dust covered cobwebs. Logs of what looked to be firewood were stacked, there were some locked chests, and things covered with cloth.
"You take the left I take the right?" Luz waved some dust out her face.
Izuku was about to answer when a rather large dust bunny found its way into his throat instead.
"I got it!" Hooty's voice was the only warning before Izuku felt something collide with his back.
"ACK!" Izuku coughed. "Thanks Hooty." He wheezed.
Hooty presented himself tall and proud. "No problem!" He tilted his head a bit. "Heeey, aren't you two supposed to be helping Eda?"
"Ye-" Izuku coughed again. "Yep."
"Buuut," Luz added. "Some adorable and weird rabbit thing destroyed out traps, so we need some hedge clippers to get what's left if we wanna get porcuspine quills."
Hooty gasped, smiling wide. "I have some of those!"
Izuku gasped, which only made his cough again. "Really-?"
"Sure!" Hooty retracted his body a bit so he was outside, also giving a new bulge room to-
SPLAT!
To regurgitate a whole skeleton.
"Ah-!" Luz reeled back, shielding Izuku.
"One porcuspine!" Hooty chirped, oblivious to their horror. "I caught it last night when it tried to go through the trash!"
Izuku went from coughing to dry heaving at the stench, but the sight of a partially digested animal was also not helping. There was still somethingclinging to the bones which may or may not originate from whatever Hooty had for a digestive tract
"Ooh! Which reminds me! Lunch time!" And Hooty scooted off, presumably to go eat trash.
And whatever breakfast Izuku still had in his stomach was threatening to come back up.
"Hmph-!" As well Luz's. She choked it back down, thumping her chest, and letting out a burpy breath. "Alright! Time to teach you how to clean bones!"
Izuku held a thumbs up. "Y-yay."
And there went his breakfast.