Kamen Rider Witch Alternative: The Ballad of Oscura is a Fusion Fic between The Owl House and Kamen Rider, specifically Kamen Rider Wizard, written by Michael Ravencroft.
When Luz Noceda and Amity Blight had their witches' duel at the Covention, it was discovered that both of their mentors tried to cheat so their respective apprentices could win, causing the match to be called off. But what if that didn't happen? What if Luz was forced to go through with the Everlasting Oath and was forced to stop learning magic? What if Luz was so determined to become a witch, she found a darker source of magical power?
The fic, part of the Disney Riders series, can be read on Archive of Our Own here
, and on FanFiction.Net here.
Kamen Rider Witch Alternative: The Ballad of Oscura provides examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: The effects of the Everlasting Oath are given more detail here than they were in canon.
- Adaptational Superpower Change: While Luz in the main fic is the more heroic Kamen Rider Witch, this fic shows her becoming Kamen Rider Oscura, a Rider with unbelievably powerful magic. Since this fic branches off from the events of "Covention", it also means that Luz never discovers the ice, plant, or fire glyphs, as well as any of the associated combos she learns in the second season of the show.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- The very premise of this fic is several instances of misfortune keep driving Luz to commit increasingly heinous acts, all while she starts to grow mad with power.
- Boscha is this to a lesser extent. When she admits she has feelings to an unconscious Amity while visiting her at the hospital, it's heavily implied that after she asks her out to Grom, once the two are in a relationship, Boscha will be a very controlling girlfriend. It doesn't help that she steals Amity's first kiss while she's still unconscious.
- Adaptational Wimp: Amity, Hunter, and Emperor Belos don't become Kamen Riders in this fic.
- Asshole Victim: After she blatantly admits she doesn't love her family, it's hard to feel bad for Odalia when Oscura brutally kills her.
- Break the Cutie: WHERE. DO WE. BEGIN?
- As a result of Lilith managing to hide her cheating during Luz and Amity's witches' duel, the Everlasting Oath not only forces Luz to admit that she isn't a witch to everyone watching at the arena, but the Oath physically prevents her from learning any form of magic. Any time Luz tries drawing the light glyph, the only spell she still knows at this point, only results in her body being grievously harmed and left with a nasty scar. And because Luz keeps doing this...
- Just when it seems like Morton managed to create a potion capable of breaking the Everlasting Oath, it doesn't work because Luz's biology isn't able to process the ingredients, causing her to vomit several times.
- Luz is reduced to begging Amity to undo the Everlasting Oath, and points out that even if she chooses to leave the Boiling Isles, people will see her scars and assume Camila has been abusing her.
- Just when it seems like things couldn't get worse for Luz, the revelation that there is a version of her who never had to suffer like she did causes her to have a slight mental breakdown before she decides to team up with the Collector.
- Amity is forced to see her poor choices lead to Luz becoming an unstoppable tyrant, and all she can do is try in vain to make up for her mistake by attempting to kill her, and then herself.
- The Can Kicked Him: Averted. One of Amity's many plans to kill Oscura had her ambush her while she was in the bathroom. Even though Oscura had seen thwarting Amity's assassination attempts as a game, she was so upset that she and Amity agreed that the bathroom was off-limits.
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to the author's other works, as well as both pieces of source material, this fic is much more bleak.
- Death by Adaptation: Odalia is killed by Oscura late into the fic. To a lesser extent, the Owl Beast is also killed when Oscura cures Eda of her curse.
- Disability Superpower: Hunter's lack of a bile sac prevents him from falling victim to Luz's Gluttonous Devouring.
- Downer Ending: Luz/Oscura rises to power, and nobody is able to stop her as she plans to conquer Earth and show them her wrath, planning to ally with the Collector to do so. To make things worse, Belos has become a Phantom, and successfully created a portal to escape the Demon Realm.
- Elseworld: This is a story that shows what could have happened if Amity didn't undo the Everlasting Oath.
- Even Evil Has Standards: When the Collector tells Oscura about how there is an alternate version of Luz who is a hero with a happy life, Oscura's psychotic laughter at the realization that she’s the only version of her who is suffering is enough to slightly disturb him.
- To a lesser extent, Oscura is not about to take any slaves. In her words, there’s enough of that nonsense on Earth.
- Failure Montage: During the final chapter, Amity is subjected to one of these as all of her attempts to kill Oscura are easily thwarted by her, all while Oscura herself sees it as a game.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When it seems like Willow is mortally wounded by one of Luz's spells, Luz isn't able to heal her, even though in the last chapter, she was able to bring Eda back from the brink of death and even heal her curse entirely. Not long after "Willow" dies, Luz realizes that it was an illusion by Adrian, which explains why her magic couldn't heal her.
- Godzilla Threshold: Luz is so desperate to be able to learn magic again, she conducts the Sabbath ritual, unleashing the Phantoms on the Boiling Isles in the process.
- Hope Spot:
- Morton comes up with a potion to break the Everlasting Oath. Problem solved! Except Luz’ stomach can’t handle the potion and she just winds up vomiting it out before it has a chance to work.
- Amity seems to be successful in killing Oscura and ending her reign of terror... until Oscura reveals Amity only killed a doppelganger of hers.
- It's All My Fault: Because Amity never undid the Everlasting Oath even when Luz begged her to, she believes that she's the reason Oscura is ruling over the Boiling Isles, and makes it her personal goal to assassinate her before killing herself.
- Meaningful Rename: As she seizes control of the Boiling Isles, Luz starts to call herself Oscura. “Luz” is a name that means "light" in Spanish, and "Oscura" means "dark".
- Mook Carryover: The Phantoms are commanded by Oscura instead of Tiamat and the Titan in this fic.
- Murder-Suicide: What Amity plans to do to Ocsura as atonement for letting her rise to power in the first place.
- Mythology Gag: Woz is revealed to be narrating the fic like how he narrated the events of his own series.
- Plot-Relevant Age-Up: The Sabbath physically ages Luz up several years after she gets the Philosopher's Stone.
- Sanity Slippage: All the power Luz gets goes to her head, and not even the guidance of people like her friends and Eda can stop her from ending her crusade. Come her raid on the Conformatorium and she’s led to believe she accidentally killed Willow. But it turns out to be an illusion by Adrien. Suffice to say at this point, Luz absolutely snaps. Learning about her alternate self who becomes Kamen Rider Witch does not do her sanity any favors either.
- Seven Deadly Sins: Oscura's most powerful rings are themed after the Seven Deadly Sins.
- Wrathful Destruction: Channels all of Oscura's fury into a devastating blast that annihilates anything in its path with absolutely no hope of life reemerging from it.
- Gluttonous Devouring: Completely drains all of the magic from its targets, even magical items like Lilith's Palisman.
- Prideful Strength: Boosts Oscura’s magical and physical strength, and if she feels more confident in her strength, her powers get even stronger.
- Lusting Control: forces the target to tell Oscura the truth.
- Slothful Slowing: Gives Oscura to slow down time to a near standstill for either herself or any victim she chooses.
- Greedy Stealing: Is able to steal magic like the Gluttonous Devouring ring, but instead of destroying magic, it simply siphons it from the victim to boost Oscura’s own strength.
- Envious Creation: Allows Oscura to either create perfect duplicates of things or change her physical appearance.
- Skewed Priorities: When Amity confesses to using an Everlasting Oath on someone, Odalia panics, not because of what could happen to the person Amity used the spell on, but because she's afraid of getting sued by the victim. Once she learns that the Everlasting Oath was used on a human child, she stops worrying entirely.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Luz manages to liberate the isles from both the tyranny of Belos and the oppressive coven system, but does she receive gratitude? Think again! In the midst of her crusade, she slaughtered so many in her way to Belos and wrought so much destruction with little to no remorse, and add the fact that she had no evidence of Belos' true intentions and only realized after the fact that she could've made Belos confess to the islands himself. So, no one believes she did the right thing. In fact, she's greeted with an angry mob calling her a monster and a murderer. Even her own friends and Eda, her adoptive mother has turned on her. So Luz decides that if she's going to be branded a monster, then a monster she'll be. Thus, she gives herself the new name of Oscura, becomes a dark rider, and begins her new regime as the new empress of the Boiling Isles.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Because Lilith got away with secretly helping Amity cheat at the witches' duel, Luz was sent down the path of darkness that caused her to conquer the Boiling Isles. Of course, as far as Amity is concerned, she believes that she's this trope.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: How Luz sees her new regime as Empress Oscura. The stifling coven system is outlawed and everyone is free to be who they want to be... or else.
