Fanfic / Luz Noceda, The Fighter

Luz Noceda, The Fighter is an Alternate Universe fanfiction of The Owl House written by Jss2141.

When Luz was younger, her mother signed her up for kickboxing lessons to defend herself, and to make friends. Unfortunately, Luz uses those skills to take matters into her own hands and becomes a Bully Hunter. Now faced with going to military school, she agrees to spend the summer at reality check camp only to end up on the Boiling Isles.

The story becomes a retelling of the canon series, in which Luz incorporates her kickboxing skills with the magic she learns and begins to teach her fellow teen witches in the fighting style to create a new breed of fighters.

The story can now be found here on Archive of Our Own thanks to known Owl House author Mr. Hardcor3 (with permission, of course). Speaking of whom, both authors have created a story called Multiverse Madness, which features this story's version of Luz as a main character. Tropes for said story can be found separately here.

Luz Noceda, the Troper:

• Ability Mixing: As the story goes on, Luz creates combo attacks by mixing her glyphs:
  • Light and Fire creates golden flames.
  • Fire and Plant makes flaming vine whips.
  • Fire and Ice creates water blasts.
  • Combining all four creates an energy ball of incredible power.
  • Ice and Power creates ice gauntlets.
  • Power and Healing results in high speed recovery.
• Accidental Kiss: Name dropped throughout Season 1 ever since Chapter 3: while trying to escape Hexside, Luz slips and runs into Amity (who is trying to stop her), causing them to kiss on the lips during the fall.
• Actually Pretty Funny: After seeing the incidents in Eda's permanent record, Luz bursts out laughing and falls back onto the couch.
• Adaptational Badass: Luz here has been taking kickboxing classes for years, and thus is a lot more combat-capable then Luz was in canon. She also learns more combat-oriented glyphs sooner than in canon, learning all of her four glyphs by the time she travels to the Knee.
  • She also starts teaching combat to Willow and Gus, and soon other students in Hexside.
  • After their first encounter, Amity practices to copy Luz's moves, even landing a punch on the more experienced fighter.
  • Despite still losing their magic, the Clawthorne sisters are each given a glove of their own to use spells. As such, no one can look down on them for being powerless. Lilith is also shown to be capable of using her glove as the Raven Beast, making her more dangerous.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Regarding objects, Luz learns her fire glyph second here. She also learns her plant glyph earlier than the parent work.
  • The members of the Human Appreciation Society besides Gus debut between the story's versions of "Covention" and "Hooty's Moving Hassle".
• Adaptational Explanation: The reason Darius became suspicious of the Day of Unity is due to seeing Kikimora restrain Raine with their coven sigil after he and Eberwolf capture them.
• Adaptational Karma:
  • Edric and Emira don't get off scot-free when they attempt to steal Amity's diary here, as Luz mops the floor with them and sends them packing before they can even find the book.
  • Mattholomule is left behind to rot in Detention for getting Luz in trouble.
  • Piniet doesn't fare any better as Luz breaks his finger and beating him with a Dempsey Roll maneuver when she and King escape his trap.
• Adaptational Late Appearance: While Word of God confirmed Luz would learn her ice glyph at the same time as she did in canon, it's the fourth glyph she learns in this story's events.
• Adaptation Expansion: While the story retells the events of the series, it also has extra chapters which focus on Luz teaching kickboxing to students at Hexside every Friday.
• Adaptation Name Change: Episode titles are changed to fit the story's theme better.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Luz goes through a massive one in this story. She's significantly more combat-ready here due to her kickboxing background: however, she is left with a hair-trigger temper as a result and can be easily agitated and cynical, even to her friends. On the other hand, this also makes her more grounded and realistic than in canon. She also becomes more sympathetic towards those closest to her.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Luz's attitude and personality here results in her interactions with everyone being different, most notably Eda, King (whose antics and teasing she doesn't tolerate but she still cares about) and especially Amity (quickly developing mutual feelings for her, not being Oblivious to Love and even making the first move).
  • The same goes for Boscha; being in Luz's kickboxing class forces her to be nice to those participating in it out of fear towards Luz. In a surprise twist, she seems to become more tolerant with everyone, notably Willow, who she develops a crush on after seeing how powerful she is.
• Alternate Self: Chapter 23 has Luz end up in a space between dimensions where she meets one of her trained in Martial Arts. Another Luz appears as an apprentice of the Battle Witch/Mira Clawthorne. Discussed and defied with the Battle Witch: Mira is Eda and Lilith's younger sister in her dimension, but doesn't exist in any other.
• Anger Born of Worry: Amity punches Luz for making herself bait for the slitherbeast then immediately hugs her saying she didn't like seeing Luz throw herself into danger to protect her: this gets an apology out of the kickboxer. This later happens again when Luz is chosen to face Grom, is beaten unconscious and Amity steps in to face it with no fear at all only to learn Luz is alive and taking her injuries lightly.
• Ascended Extra: Any background characters in the show who joins Luz's kickboxing class gain additional screentime alongside Willow, Gus, Amity and Boscha. As of recent chapters the class also consists of the rest of Boscha's group (Skara, Amelia, Cat and the blonde Oracle student (named Kyle here)), the Human Appreciation Society (Eileen, Bo and the goat cyclops Bard student (now known as Asriel)), Edric, Emira and the troublemakers (Viney, Jerbo and Barcus).
• Breaking Old Trends: Every chapter is centered on Luz even when the corresponding episode canonically focused on someone else. Since "Chapter 30: The Melody of Revolution" is based on "Eda's Requiem", it focuses on Eda due to Luz participating in the Gland Prix with King.
• Brutal Honesty: Luz drops this heavily on Amity regarding her letting her mother control her, saying she'll never be a true fighter if she can't stand up to Odalia before Luz walks off to face the Blight matriarch herself. It makes both of them cry, but it produces results.
• Bully Hunter: The story opens with Luz getting in a fight with some bullies who were picking on other kids.
• Change the Uncomfortable Subject: When Martial Arts Luz learns her kickboxing counterpart is dating Amity in her dimension and is asked if she's not, she states they're just friends completely flustered by the idea and moves onto the events of the petrification ceremonies.
• Continuity Nod: "Chapter 29: The Golden Opportunity" picks up from where Multiverse Madness ended, with Luz mentioning her adventure through The Multiverse and using her metal leg in combat.
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: Once she realizes Eda is passing off her fishnet stockings as shed skin, an embarrassed Luz covers King's eyes before taking him to play some carnival games.
• Crossover: "Chapter 23: Special Collaboration, Battle Witches!" is one with the Wattpad story, "What if Luz was Trained by Bang?".
• Curb-Stomp Battle: During her fight against Lilith, an rage-fueled Luz is able to overpower her and land several hits on Lilith's face. She later takes down seven coven scouts while saving Eda, King and Lilith.
• Curse Cut Short: Luz gets interrupted by Grom before she can finish her swear.
• Dare to Be Badass: The kickboxing magazine Luz brings with her to the demon realm has the quote, "You only live once, you might as well be a badass!", on the cover. This is what helps her decide to stay for the summer.
• Dark and Troubled Past: What was the reason Luz took up kickboxing in the first place? When she was 6, her mom took her to a Comic-Con and they were seperated. A hooded guy in a gray tracksuit offered to help her but in reality was going to rape her until security found them and tackled him. She spent months scared of being alone until Camila took her to a therapist and they suggested kickboxing as a way to regain her confidence.
• Darkest Hour: Chapter 21 ends with Eda in the Emperor's clutches and a devastated Luz trudging home having lost her gloves to Lilith.
• Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: When "Hunting Palismen" gives Luz the opportunity to see the Golden Guard unmasked, she's rather unsettled by the reveal that he's Hunter — since Multiverse Madness allowed her to meet several iterations of him. She nonetheless decides to rescue and later trust him because she has faith he can be just as good as his alternates, and is vindicated when he lets her escape with the palismen.
• The Dreaded:
  • With her strength, intensity, and refusal to back down, Luz scares everyone she knows except the Emperor and the Golden Guard.
  • Seeing Luz in danger because of her parents leads to Amity giving off a very serious vibe. Willow and Gus make a note to never get on her bad side.
• Elemental Armor: In her witch's duel against Luz, Amity manipulates her abomination to become armor, a feat that even surprises Lilith. She appears to have made it a permanent part of her power set, using it at least two more times.
• Elemental Punch:
  • Luz specializes in the typical fire version: however, there are times when she incorporates it with her golden flame combo. Amity uses the same technique when she fights Grom.
  • During the fight against the coven scouts at the petrification ceremony, Luz uses the ice variation (i.e., encasing the back of her fists in ice.)
• Fatal Flaw: Luz's habit of stubbornness is made even worse than in canon due to overconfidence, believing she can handle anything the Isles throws at her. This results in her being injured by Grom and not taking Emperor Belos seriously as a threat until he overwhelms her. This also causes her to go against the better judgment of her friends, such as when she disobeyed Eda and fought Jean-Luc despite being told it was unstoppable, or when she used her healing glyphs to fight against her Common Mold fever so she could help get the Titan Blood at Eclipse Lake.
• Flying Firepower: Luz demonstrates this during her placement exam.
• Foreshadowing: After being body checked by a unicorn in Tibbles' exhibit, Luz wishes that she had a healing glyph. Guess what she's healed with after taking on Grom and incorporates onto her gloves for future use.
• For Want Of A Nail: Luz's mother signed her up for kickboxing classes when she was younger so she could make friends and learn self-defense.
  • After Luz demonstrating her kick-boxing during her witches duel, Bump invites her to Hexside to teach a course on Kickboxing with the offer of removing her ban. This allows her to meet Gus's friends from the Human Appreciation Society, Boscha, and Skara earlier than canon.
  • Since Luz already knows three glyphs when she enrolls into Hexside, she doesn't have to worry about learning a second spell or steal Amity's training wand and thus, doesn't anger the Slitherbeast by accident.
  • Rather than being placed in the Potions track at random on her first day, Luz actually gets to choose a track for herself and goes with Construction, allowing her to imprint its power glyph onto her gloves.
  • Rather than Amity, it's Luz whose picked as Grom Queen and her fears are the same as the show except for one very reasonable and understandable fear. While dancing a little while later, Luz and Amity share a kiss, resulting in them hooking up faster than in the show.
  • Since Boscha's on friendly terms with everyone, she doesn't antagonize Willow and the grudgby match between the Banshees and Willow and her friends doesn't happen. And with no resulting broken leg, Amity gets to gets to go on the field trip to the Emperor's castle, helps steal the Healing Hat and fights Lilith alongside Willow and Gus, who last a little longer against her.
  • Luz not only beats Lilith to the point of leaving several wounds on her face, she manages to land a physical hit on Emperor Belos in their fight. She later destroys the portal to the human realm via her golden flame punch as Owlbert is captured with King and Lilith before saving them and Eda from petrification, and is checked on by Amity (who joins Willow and Gus in protesting Eda's sentence) after escaping.
  • Eda is able to threaten the bounty collector into paying her since she has the glove to use magic, and Luz is able to give the Golden Guard a run for his money when she faces him here. Not to mention he lets them keep all the reward money for the selkidomus hunt, which isn't lost.
  • Eda decides to weaponize the glyphs and creates a gun that fires off rounds of T.P. with glyphs drawn on them.
  • Willow and Gus step in to save Luz from the abomiton during the Blights' weapons sale while Amity chews out her parents for threatening Luz's life (while also revealing she and Luz are dating, which they had yet to learn in canon.) Amity proceeds to threaten to destroy the abomiton unless Odalia lets her friends back into school and allow her and Luz to date in peace warning her that if she ever goes after Luz again, she'll level Blight Industries.
  • Luz manages to give Eda an elixer when she decides that Gwendolyn is too stubborn to quit trying to cure her curse, so Eda doesn't transform into the Owl Beast. However, she gets kidnapped by the Raven Beast. Beforehand, Luz is quick to recognize Wartlop is running a scam, lowering her opinion of Gwen.
  • Gus doesn't use illusions to teach Bria, Gavin, and Angmar a lesson, instead using his kickboxing skills to kick all of their butts.
  • Camila meets Vee before she transforms into Luz, so Camila has known about Luz being in the Demon Realm all along. She also doesn't force Luz to promise she'll stay in the Human Realm when she returns.
• Handicapped Badass: Like in the show, Eda and Lilith lose their magic due to splitting the curse. To make up for this, Luz cuts off the sleeves of her gloves to turn into (fore)arm-length gloves and gives each sister a glove of her own with the four original glyphs to use.
• Headbutt of Love: Luz does this to Amity to calm her down when she's taking her injuries from Grom lightly. Amity later does it to Luz when she checks up on her after the petrification ceremony.
• Healing Hands: Luz gains the ability to heal once she places the Healing track's patch on her left glove. Mixing with the Power glyph results in sped up healing.
  • Before then, Luz learns that she can use the plant glyph to reverse damage to wood (more specifically, palismen), allowing her to fix the crack Owlbert had gotten.
• Hero of Another Story: The fic occurs from Luz's point of view for the most part, so Eda and King's subplots remain unchanged from the parent work. Chapter 17, "Big Trouble at the Small Carnival", subverts this for the first time by including King's plotline if not giving it more prominence.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: Strong as she is, Luz is susceptible to biting off more than she can chew given that she insulted Grom so harshly, it became angry for the first time in its existence and nearly pummeled her to death. She also has to learn the hard way that Emperor Belos is as powerful as everyone says and ends up tiring out in a prolonged battle against the Abomiton 2.0.
• Hypocrite: Luz chews out Vee for running away from confrontation instead of facing it like she would in the Human Realm and bringing up her Dark and Troubled Past, leading to Vee shoving it in Luz's face that she technically ran away from home to avoid going to reality check camp and won't let Vee bring up her childhood trauma without getting pissed off. Later, Luz calls Vee stubborn for not listening to her and accepting being trapped by Jacob Hopkins when she kept refusing to hear Vee out about her issues.
• Improvised Weapon: Each of Eda's glyph weapons falls into this category.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Even though Luz is no longer banned from Hexside, the guards still take her to detention thanks to Mattholomule framing her for vandalizing the trophy cabinet and the fact that they smell the trouble she got into back on Earth.
  • She still discovers her plant glyph third despite learning it before she got enrolled in Hexside.
  • Luz still ends up going to the Knee and learning the ice glyph despite not needing a second spell to enroll at Hexside. Additionally, Amity's training wand still burns out and the Slitherbeast still captures Eda, Edric and Emira due to the twins wanting it as a pet.
  • Luz still ends up in the detention track but this time, she didn't actually attempt to learn magic outside of her track and was returning the crystal ball that fell out of the cabinet.
  • Luz and Amity still face Grom, just not together.
  • Luz still tries to steal the Healing Hat, gets captured by Lilith and witnesses Eda succumbing to her curse and getting captured. She soon after fights Lilith while fueled by her anger, then faces off against Belos, and makes the choice of destroying the portal to keep it out of his grasp. Lilith still splits the curse between herself and Eda, resulting in her magic being weakened and Eda having lost hers altogether.
  • Eda initially can't help subdue Lilith as the Raven Beast, but only because Lilith kidnaps her.
  • The outcome of "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Hooty's Door" remains the same, but since Luz and Amity are already a couple, Hooty instead sets up a romantic dinner for them to help Luz open up about her recent troubles to Amity.
• Internal Reveal: Luz learns the Hunter's the Golden Guard in Chapter 29, something she didn't learn traversing the multiverse.
• Jaw Drop: This is Principal Bump's reaction to Luz using all 4 glyphs like a pro in her entrance exam. Luz and Lilith later do this after Eda shows how effective the glyphing gun is.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: Luz is a kickboxer here, and uses gloves with her glyphs on them for combat-based spellcasting.
• Lampshade Hanging: Luz actually questions how Eda placed an elixir in her hood without her knowing about it. Eda says not to worry about it and there's a second one in there just in case.
• Laser-Guided Karma: As punishment for traveling to the Knee while sick and trapping Willow & Gus in ice along with knocking out Hooty, Luz is restrained by Amity's abomination goo, has her gloves taken away, and is left chained up until her fever dies down. Luz brushes it off and doesn't fight back because she could've burst out of the goo with her gloves at any time prior, but goes along with it to avoid making Amity any madder.
• Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone: As Luz and Amity share a moment, Eda drags King and Lilith back to the Owl House to give them some privacy.
• Love at First Sight: A downplayed example with Luz finding Amity attractive when she first sees her, only to suppress that crush after seeing Amity taunt Willow for her failed abomination. She still manages to sneak a kiss on Amity's cheek when the latter is trying to expose the former for pretending to be Willow's ambomination.
• Luminescent Blush: Luz and Amity tend to do this while thinking about or when embarrassed around each other.
  • Boscha begins doing this upon seeing Willow in a new light.
  • Martial Arts Luz does this three times when she learns Kickboxer Luz is dating her Amity and is encouraged by K.B. Luz to ask her out one day.
• Making a Splash: Luz utilizes water blasts by mixing the fire and ice glyphs.
• Mythology Gag: Eda's glyph gun is the exact same one from the MoringMark comic of the same name.
• Named by the Adaptation: The unicorn/goat cyclops Bard student from the Human Appreciation Society is named Asriel here and the blonde Oracle student from "Once Upon a Swap" (renamed "Knocking and Swapping Heads" here) becomes known as Kyle.
• Power Fist: Using the ice and power glyphs together result in large ice gauntlets.
• Precision F-Strike: Luz lets one out when she discovers the messes with the Slitherbeast and the Greater Basilisk.
• Rape as Backstory: Attempted rape, but still Luz nearly being raped as a kid is what led to her taking kickboxing lessons.
• Save the Villain: Averted. Luz doesn't hesitate to leave Mattholomule behind in detention since he's responsible for her ending up there in the first place.
• Ship Tease: In addition to Luz/Amity, Boscha/Willow start getting some.
• Shout-Out:
  • Amity's abomination armor is described as looking like Mordred's own armor. Later, it takes on the look of Saber Alter's dress-like armor.
  • The training dummies in Luz's kickboxing class come right out of Kung Fu Panda 3.
  • Esperanza Brillante (Shining Hope), the combo attack of all four glyphs, seems to resemble the Rasengan.
  • Luz's fight against the coven scouts is confirmed to be the same fight scene between Yang and the bandits in RWBY "volume 5, episode 4".
  • The name of the cyclops goat is Asriel.
  • Luz refers to the Blights' abomination butler as Muk.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Luz, Eda and King are a lot more foul mouthed here.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Gus isn't kicked out of the Human Appreciation Society here; instead, Principal Bump suspends the club's meetings on school grounds until the next semester as compensation for Mattholomule's actions.
• Super-Strength: Acquiring the Construction power glyph gives Luz's right glove this ability.
• Talking in Your Sleep: Luz doing this is how Hooty learned about her multiversal adventure. King also mentions that Luz dreams about Amity.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Instead of ignoring Hooty when she goes to get her Azura book back, Luz wishes him a happy birthday on her way out of the house.
• Title Sequence: Though a written story, starting from "Chapter 24: The Golden Bounty" one is included set to the "Believe in Myself" cover by NateWantsToBattle in an anime-esque style showcasing Luz reflecting on her adventures so far and the friends and enemies she's gained.
• Took a Level in Badass: Luz gets even more combat-capable once she starts learning magic, incorporating it into her fighting style. Everyone who takes her kickboxing classes at Hexside soon follows her.
• Tricked-Out Gloves: Luz has a set of gloves which she's added her glyphs to in this AU.
• Uniqueness Value: The Battle Witch Mira turns out to be this, as she's Eda and Lilith's little sister in her dimension and doesn't exist in any other.
• Victory Through Intimidation: As per canon, Hunter still pulls this off in the adaptation of "Eclipse Lake"; knowing he can't beat Luz in a fight (even though she's sick) along with Eda, King, and Amity, he threatens to send the Emperor's Coven after their friends and their families unless she lets him leave with the portal key. Hunter gets what he wants, but not before Amity cracks it and collects some Titan Blood in her glove.

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