*Two weeks later*
It was 2 AM and Luz laid wide awake in her bed, her situation weighing in on her, she still had energy left before she needed to go to sleep.
Everything was going well, but soon, much sooner than she liked, the time would come when she needed to run away again.
She got up from bed and started pacing, hoping to get the nervous energy out of her, but having little success.
Luz needed to go over her plan once more.
The plane was leaving in two weeks, she was boarding the flight in New York, but she still had other things she needed to do, first she needed to get her body glyphs, it was a relief when she found out she could just make them transparent once they were fully healed if she did not want to have visible tattoos.
But she still needed to get them like normal tattoos, which meant going to New York in advance, finding someone for the job and then convincing them, either by money, words or magic, to do the tattoos, she was getting the four basic ones.
She would be putting them on her forearms, ice and light on the left one, and fire and plants on the right, what remained was the still unanswered question of the sigil..
She hated that the more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that getting it was a necessity.
Luz's largest weakness, her endurance, was still not addressed, on one hand she survived the Demon isles without any sigils..
But that did not mean she was going to survive Paris without them, she could cast spells and fly, but underneath it all, she was still a fragile human, a buff one now..which was still an extremely weird thought, but still human in durability.
Lately even her own strength had became a problem for her, as it grew beyond what a human body could accommodate, she felt like her bones were not as strong as her muscles at this point, she could resolve this with adaptation of course, but that would be a gruesome task, one she was, at least right now, refusing to go thru.
And the sigil she found was her solution, the 'Athena eare', it was a creation of Jericho, Jacob's partner, she found the sigil in one of her books, titled, 'Not so nice spells and inventions.'
It was pretty much a magic to stamina/endurance converter, it supplemented her body, if she slipped into game terms again, it was like if she was taking all damage to mana, instead of health, until her mana run out.. and that was where the real fun started, the way the sigil worked, it casted a spell to protect her every time she was hit, by magic or physically force, which meant..that as a magus, each time someone hit her, she would recover magic from it.
Meaning that if the hit was weak enough, she would not only be invulnerable to it, but regenerate some mana or magic while being hit and even if it was strong enough to deplete more magic that casting spell restored, it was still a very good trade off, furthermore she could increase her maximum magic, which she was doing daily, some days more than once, if she knew she could get away with it..
But no matter how enticing all this was the drawbacks were still looming over her, for one it was a sigil, meaning getting it was supposedly really dangerous, she could die.., also it was made by Jericho and never tested, or at least not that Luz knew of.
Jericho created it in the latest stages of her life, well after the start of the Guardian and Order war, or maybe a one sided slaughter was a more accurate description.
It was one of the few pieces of actual purely combat oriented magic Luz found and it was perfect for her.
But she would still need to actually get it done, which created other issues, getting four smaller tattoos on her forearms was doable, she was confident she could find a tattoo artist that would do that, even tho she was technically a minor, since she did not look it, it was not a major concern for her.
The sigil however..was huge, it would span her entire back and while she could make it transparent, hide it and be unbothered by its existence in her later life, she could not very well say that to the artist that was supposed to do her tattoos, all they would see is a young girl, with no tattoos.. suddenly getting five, with one of them being a serious overkill, Luz doubted she could find anyone who would make them all for her...willingly..
Which left her no choice but to use magic to persuade them and that was a subpar solution at best, using magic on the mind made the affected person dizzy, less focused, it looked like they were kinda drunk and she needed tattoos done from that charmed person.
Considering how dangerous sigils were..
Luz let out a groan in frustration, also she needed to sneak all four/five of her freshly made tattoos on the plane, she could imagine how pleasant her overnight flight to France would be, with a new and still unhealed full back tattoo.
'Not to mention.', she thought now in near desperation, that both glyphs and sigil were not to be used for at least a month, ideally several months after being made, to prevent them from backfiring and causing damage to her.
'Which, however..was in a way also a point for having the sigil done now, rather than later.', she thought, The Collector swimming into the forefront of her mind, Ladybug, Chat Noir and akumas, where one thing, possible allies or enemies that did not matter at the moment, but they were not the 'main boss', that was the Collector, what would Luz do when she found the portal and went to the other side.
Would she simply get the sigil then? And patiently waited for a month before it was safeish to use...she knew herself better than that, the moment she found the portal, she was going into it.
So that meant the decision was pretty much outside her control.. set in stone, no matter how much she disliked it and doubted it, she needed the sigil.
Which meant there was no more time to wonder, if she wanted the sigil and if she would be able to pass through airport security without suspicion.
She needed the tattoo to be at least partially healed, so she needed to go to New York earlier than she previously planned, get it done as soon as possible and let it sit for a while.
And with that Luz started to pack, she would need to leave first thing in the morning, just after her mom left for work and Vee for school, she decided to leave a note and partially explain everything about what she was doing for the past five and half months, she owed her mother at least that much.
It did not take that long at all before she stood in her room, her clothes, some books and various other items, many magical in nature, hidden and packed in her luggage.
Finally she stood on her chair, once again unscrewing the lamp, and emptying her secret compartment, carefully storing the papers with glyphs and sigil in her backpack, before taking in her hands the latest addition she created just days ago.
This one was not magical, it was actually something she decided to inherit from the Order. In one of their books, she found out that members always wore an item with their crest, be it a family one, if they were from nobility, or a personal one they created themselves.
There were various rules for these crests, their design was inherited from member to member and could change during their lives, children often inherited it from their parents, master to apprentice, partners sharing or combining their crests when they married and so on.
It was also a custom that witch had their type represented on her crest, usually by roman numerals, and Luz designed her crest with all of this in mind, she borrowed the X from Jericho..which also symbolized her being a Magus..
And words from Jacob, as she considered herself an apprentice of them both and was not up for making it overly complicated, but she still needed to add a touch of personality to her crest, she considered a cool skull, like pirate, or the miniature of the titans corpse, but then much better idea struck her.
What other could it be than an otter!
And what else could she put this crest on..then on her new..not so magical..witch cloak.
Luz carefully folded her cloak, taking care not to fold over her symbol on its back, she could fly, had super strength and a cloak, she was a certified SuperLuz and she was just one run away, from joining the rest of the heroes in Paris.
Despite the excitement, she went to sleep in a rather somber mood, she was not looking forward to what she needed to do when she woke up this morning.