The cool night sky had its normal silence broken by the sound of propellers in action. First, there was one set, then there were two, then three, then two again when one of the planes started to stall, but with a good smack of the wrench, it was working just fine again and would never crash into the ground while everyone else did what they were supposed to. That being said, Luz had lost a lot of air in trying to get her plane to work, so she needed to hurry back to the rest of the Laputas if she didn't want another earful after the haul.

"You got this, Luz, you got this," was her attempt at reassuring herself as she flew back in with the rest of the Laputas, their planes now in the dozens. As she flew through a cloud and did what she could to ignore the resulting splashes of water, even the ones that fell on her arm, their target came into view: the luxurious cruise blimp of the local dukedom's wealthiest wealthy elite. "You still got this, Luz, you still got this. Just go in with everyone, rob these guys alongside everyone, and don't blow yourself up alongside everyone. Also, try not to blow yourself up in general, but if it's going to happen, don't drag other people into it, you hear me?"

"We all hear you, Luz." That was her mom's voice. It wasn't in Luz's head because she only ever heard her mom telling her not to do something when she was in her head, it was loud and clear and a part of the air. Which meant she was hearing it in real life. Which meant she left her speaker on and broadcasted all of her self-encouragement to the entire crew. Again.

"Now I kind of want to blow myself up," Luz said, hitting herself in the head with her hand in spite of the pain it caused her to do so. She ignored said pain and flew into position with the rest of the crew, everyone launching their planes' grappling hook anchors into the base of the blimp in unison; Luz couldn't remember the last time she managed to pull that off, but she wasn't going to jinx it by congratulating herself. She was late with the zipline through the window because she needed to strap to her back the invention that would blow everyone's goggles off with its brilliance, but she managed to get there with only a few seconds of a delay, so it was probably fine.

"Get your gears in motion, Luz! We need every hand on deck!" It was not fine in the slightest; she didn't know what she expected.

"Sorry, Captain Hal! I'm on it right now!"

"Just try not to—Wait, what is that on your back? Luz, I swear to God—" Luz ignored him as she drew her revolver from her hip and ran through the fanciful hall as she turned its key and dodged attacks from the white-robed guardsmen. One jumped in front of her and swung at her with an extendable ax. Luz dodged by a hair's breadth—she really didn't need a fourth cut on her cheek—just as she had finished turning her key, allowing her to blast him back with an explosive round.

Yes, I blew someone up who was supposed to get blown up! The world is my oyster now! Luz thought as she jumped over the fallen guard and turned its key again. Another explosive round soon made its way into the fight, and more rounds from the rest of the crew made their way in as well, hitting everyone in their path. No one was getting hurt because of anything she did, so it was a good mission, so far.

Luz and some of the other Laputas made their way to the central hall of the cruise blimp where all the wealthy guests were running for their lives from the Laputas who were already there, as was more than warranted. Off in a corner and being ignored by everyone, Luz caught sight of Duchess Claes and her bisexual polyamorous harem, the wealthiest people on the entire blimp. Perfect. They were going after everyone, but bisexual polyamorous harems always had the most money and could be ransomed off for the most, so whoever stopped them from leaving would be the big hero of the night.

And that hero will be me! Luz thought. Well, it will be once I break out my latest bad boy that definitely will not explode in anyone's face. Luz removed the aforementioned bad boy from her back and unwrapped its clothed wrapping, revealing a cannon-like device that most people would view as being excessively large and a series of valves most people would feel didn't need to exist, but those people didn't know anything about design.

"Okay, you high-flying socialites you, prepare to—" Luz was cut off when she was forced to jump out of the way of a particularly muscular guard's electrified bardiche. He rambled on about something along the lines of how sky scum like them would never get away with anything, but all Luz could think about was how he was muscular to an almost comical degree. Sure, the bardiche was a heavy weapon, but it didn't require that much muscle power. The man was clearly trying too hard to look tough in a society that didn't warrant that.

In the middle of all of that, the guard swung at Luz again, and much to her own surprise, she was paying enough attention to jump out of the way, though her latest bad boy ended up taking the hit and received a deep cut as it was knocked over.

"Hey! No fair!" The guard swung at Luz again, but that time, Luz pulled her goggles down over her face, which meant it was time to get serious. The guard swung at her right, but she caught his weapon with the three-pronged hand of her metal prosthetic and absorbed the voltage thanks to the insulation she built into it. Then, with a mighty yell that had to be worthy of a sky pirate, she ripped the bardiche out of his hands, jabbed him in the face with the butt of the weapon, and sent him flying with an explosive shot from her revolver while he was still reeling in pain.

"Luz, did you just win?" Captain Hal asked. As the realization hit her, all Luz could do was nod with excitement. "Well all right, then! Everyone, grab a fat cat, and let's make bank!" Everyone raised their weapons at Captain Hal's command and charged towards Duchess Claes and her bisexual polyamorous harem. Luz might have lost the chance to grab them herself, but she could still be happy that she could end the night with everyone happy.

Then her latest bad boy started beeping and Luz's eyes widened. It wasn't supposed to be doing that; the guard must have caused a malfunction when he tore into it. Things never went well when her inventions started malfunctioning, so if she had any hope of keeping everything good between her and the crew, she needed to grab it.

Unfortunately, Luz was too slow at getting to that, and her latest bad boy, the rocket-powered net launcher, started firing off nets in random directions, yet somehow every Laputa other than herself ended up in a net. The only saving grace was from how the eventual explosion wasn't in anyone's face, though even that was undermined by Captain Hal yelling at her as he was electrified by her net.

"The electricity seemed like a good idea at the time, and it's really only bad for instances just like these ones," Luz said.

"You mean the ones you always cause?!" Captain Hal shouted as he was shocked once more. Everyone who they were supposed to be robbing cheered for Luz's screwup. Because of course, they did.

"We're saved! We're truly saved! Oh, I knew we could count on Luz Noceda to save us!" Duchess Claes said as she jumped with joy alongside her bisexual polyamorous harem.

"What? No! I'm not saving you! I'm here to steal all your money and get filthy rich, honest!" Luz cried.

"No, no you're not," said one of the members of Duchess Claes' bisexual polyamorous harem. "The metal arm, the three little scars spread across the forehead and nose, the flight suit with the kitty cat ears," the hood of her dark purple vest and pants combo was supposed to have tiger ears, not kitty cat ears, "the wash-away blue streak in the hair—"

"Because life is dark!"

"Yes, you're Luz Noceda, the sky pirate who sabotages other sky pirates with her adorable clumsiness!"

"My clumsiness is not what makes me adorable, and I'm not clumsy!" Luz swung her arms in frustration and accidentally knocked a smoke grenade loose from her belt. It bounced around until it eventually exploded in front of Captain Hal, who was seconds away from cutting himself free before that. "This is an isolated incident, I swear."

"Whatever you say, dear," Duchess Claes said. Just then, the sounds of airhorns started to fill the air, a sign that the sky police were on their way. "Oh, and now we can escape without issue. Thank you, Luz Noceda. You truly are a great help to all who are plagued by sky pirates!" Duchess Claes and her bisexual polyamorous harem fled the central hall while singing more praises of Luz that she didn't want to hear, and the other guests were soon to follow until Luz was left all alone.

She wasn't left alone in silence, however. Between the continual electric shocks of her nets and her own laughter done in a poor attempt at downplaying her own stupidity, there was plenty of noise to be found.

"You know, I think the fact that I beat up that super buff guard should count for something here. He was clearly their last line of defense, so there was no hope for anyone once he went down." That was how Luz decided to make her case to Captain Hal once they had all returned to their flagship, the Nausicaa, in defeat.

"And yet here we are, still completely penniless. Why is that? Because your infernal contraption ruined the entire operation! Again!" Captain Hal said.

"But Captain, this is, like, the one time when it wasn't my fault! If that guy didn't break it, nothing would have happened!"

"But something did happen, Mija, and it happened because you didn't do what you were supposed to do. Again," her mom said, just sounding disappointed with her. Luz would rather have Captain Hal yell at her for an entire year than listen to five more seconds of that.

"I just wanted to show everyone that something I did could actually work out. What's wrong with that?"

"The fact that it never does, Luz. Every time you try and make improvements no one asked for, all you do is make things worse," Captain Hal said. "When we were raiding that diamond mine, the giant drill you built nearly collapsed the entire mine."

"But it didn't, and isn't that what matters?"

"You got us attacked by a pack of sky wolves because you destroyed the refrigeration system when you working on that freeze cannon thing."

"Freeze ray. The science behind a freeze cannon would just be ridiculous."

"Why does it matter when all you have to show for it is a pile of junk?" There was no good way for Luz to answer that. "You've melted propellers, caused multiple blackouts in the span of a single day, accidentally broadcasted our location to the sky police while messing around with the loudspeakers, and I don't think I need to remind you, of all people, of what happened when you tried to increase the engine's power output."

He didn't, not when the heavy reminder hung off of what was barely left of her right arm nearly every day for the past four years.

"I put the fires out," Luz said.

"You made them worse!"

"Worse? Or better?" Captain Hal just glared at her. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I thought that would do, but—I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. Sorry for giving you so many chances you didn't deserve. That's why first thing in the morning, you're being transferred to the land division of the Laputas."

"The land division?!" Luz would not have felt ashamed about vomiting right then and there. "You can't do that! Those guys never even rob people. All they do is pick potatoes and debate the speed at which democracy should be introduced in a post-Collapse society, and I will not get into that again, I just won't!"

"You should have thought about that before you cost us our biggest score of the year."

"Mom, do something! You're second-in-command, so start a mutiny or something!"

"I'm not going to—Luz, the Captain isn't wrong," her mom said. She still sounded disappointed, and Luz still hated everything about that.

"What?"

"Look, you know I love you and how passionate you are about your inventing and tinkering, but we're doing serious things here, so if it's going to keep causing trouble, then maybe it would be best if you had some space from the crew. Just until you work out the exploding kinks in them, okay?" There it was, plain as day: even her own mother thought she was a burden on everyone.

"Fine. I'll go." There was nothing else for Luz to say other than that, and there was nothing else for her to do than storm out and slam the door behind her.

Try as she might, Luz found herself too angry to sleep, so when the sun came up, she was able to greet it with an angry expression she had been wearing all night long.

"They've got some nerve, you know," Luz said to no one in particular, although it might have been the sun she was talking to. "Mom, Captain Hal, Chad from accounting, all the miscellaneous people in the crew, who do they think are, anyway? Acting like they need to get rid of me just because of a few explosions. How many scientists do they think got their careers off the ground without blowing themselves up a few times? It's a short list, I'll tell you that! I'm not doing anything wrong, but they still just, just—" Luz punched her bedroom wall and made a dent with her prosthetic.

This was where trying to make something of yourself led to, evidently.

"Fine. If they don't want me around, then I don't—the point is that I'm out of here." Luz grabbed her toolbox and made sure that in addition to all the essential tools, it had the last photo she and her mother took together before she lost her arm. "Good. All set. Maybe I'll be able to install a potato picking mode on this thing while I'm there." With that last remark to no one but the sun, Luz made for the door to begin what was most likely the beginning of a rather dull and dreary life with not nearly enough explosions to be worth anything.

Only to have it stopped by the sight of an owl carrying a bag of random junk walking past her door.

"Um, hello. Who are you?" Luz asked the owl, though she didn't know why. The owl just stared at her and hooted. "Are you robbing us? You know we're pirates, right? We're supposed to do the robbing, not the other way around." The owl just stared at her and hooted. "Why do I even care? These guys are jerks, so go ahead and plunder to your heart's content! Like I care!" Luz stepped away from the owl and headed for the docking bay, but she stopped when her toolbox fell to the ground. It would have been one thing if she had just dropped it, but she was holding onto it too tightly for something like that to happen.

The tightness with which she was holding onto it was irrelevant, of course, when one took into account the fact that the arm she was holding onto it with was no longer attached to her body.

"What?" Luz turned around and saw the owl holding onto her arm in its beak. "What?" The owl tossed the arm into the bag and closed up the bag with a knot. "What?!" Not wanting to repeat herself a fourth time, Luz jumped at the owl, only for it to jump over her, bag in beak, and start flying away. "Come back here! That's my favorite arm, you jerk!"

Luz picked her toolbox up with her left hand and chased after the owl. Unfortunately, the owl was surprisingly fast for its small stature, so Luz was never able to rightfully grab it out of the air. She kept chasing the owl around until the two of them ended up at the docking bay, at which point Luz was starting to feel rightfully exhausted.

"Give. Me. Back. My. Arm." The owl just hooted at her as it pressed the button to open the docking bay. A gust of wind flew into the Nausicaa that nearly knocked Luz over, and when it started to die down, she was able to catch sight of what appeared to be a glowing with a yellow eye floating in the sky outside the Nausicaa. The owl started flying outside and the door started to open, so whatever it was, it was clearly designed to take the owl away from there and back to wherever it came from.

"Oh no, you're not getting away that easy!" Luz pulled her goggles down over her face, pulled her revolver off her waist, and used her mouth to turn the key until it was ready to be fired, upon which a shot was sent out above to knock one of the gliders down to the ground. "Damage looks negligible, so that's good. Can't waist any more time, though." Luz unfolded the glider and propped up all seven feet of it for proper use. She then jumped onto the metal platform and pressed the start button on the underbelly of the roof to get the propellers started. Gliders were meant to be activated while you were already in the air, but with everything that had been happening, Luz didn't care about scuffing the floor of a ship full of people who didn't even want her around.

All she cared about was getting even one win; that's all there was to it.

"Get back here!" Luz was shouting at the top of her lungs as her glider flew out towards the owl, though a lot of that might have been due to the stress of having to wrap her entire body around one handle while still holding onto her toolbox. Nevertheless, she flew for the owl who had wronged her, and even when it went through the mysterious floating door, she still chased after it, even though that resulted in her going through the door, as well. She didn't care about that, not in the slightest.

Wherever the owl was going had to be better than where she was leaving.

I was browsing the show's subreddit the other day when I saw a drawing of a steampunk-esque Luz, and that immediately made me think, "The Owl House, but Luz comes from a steampunk-esque world". And then, because I have no impulse control, I actually wrote the thing in just two days, which is something I don't usually do, but here we are. Yay? Yay.