The doors to the war room opened, the guards to either side stiffening to attention as Marco and Janna walked out. They had spent the past few hours in the post-mission debriefing, followed by discussion of what to do next. When the meeting moved toward details about defense of the castle, Marco asked to be dismissed. He thought he should probably stay, but he was so beat he could barely keep his eyes open. Janna, effectively his aide-de-camp, left with him.
As they were walking slowly and quietly toward the exit, Marco listened to a royal tech. "We're still tracking surges in the tramorfidian crystal," he said. "They've been occurring randomly ever since the rift defenses were activated more than a year ago, and we're no closer to an explanation. We've even replaced the crystal three times. There was another surge several hours ago, immediately after the latest mission ended. We thought ..." The tech was cut off as the doors closed.
Marco and Janna walked side-by-side toward their rooms. As they passed the Hall of Remembrance, a swarm of flying cats buzzed them, causing Marco to glance toward the Ponyhead memorial. The floating head that made up the memorial still gave him the creeps.
King Ponyhead had died several months after Star's turning, under mysterious circumstances. Princess Lilacia Ponyhead ascended to the throne, but she was not ready to be queen; in just a few short weeks she managed to alienate every kingdom on Mewni. Eventually, the abuse she heaped on her quasi-boyfriend Seahorse undid his demoncism. Afterwards, he worked with Ponyhead's sisters, aiding them in their plot to stage a coup, but Seahorse was deceiving them. He had misused Reflectacorp technology to set up a cataclysm that, when triggered by the Ponyhead sisters, wiped out all the pony-heads. Marco, Moon, and River wanted Seahorse punished, but the rest of the kingdoms insisted he be given a medal instead. Marco knew Mewni was largely a medieval society, but that seemed extremely bloodthirsty even for them. Queen Ponyhead must have really screwed up.
"Sooooo, Janna, I'm glad we have this chance to talk one-on-one..."
"Chicken-butt."
There was a bright spark when Janna snapped her fingers, giving her a large jolt. Marco smiled and kept walking. Janna sighed, then said, "Alright, talk."
"How are things between you and Tom these days?"
"They're good, and I'm still working to make them better."
Janna's and Tom's relationship had started with a typical schoolgirl crush, although more because Tom was an actual demon than for any other reason. Janna was initially disappointed to find Tom wasn't interested in the occult and macabre the way she was, mostly because for him, as an Underworld demon, such things were common and mundane. But as Janna trained with Tom and spent time with him, she began to appreciate Tom for Tom. He indulged her interests, and Janna helped him with his, and they began to find common ground. She now considered him a good friend, and she was fairly certain he felt the same way about her. Janna knew that was how Star and Marco started out, so she was hopeful that, like Star's and Marco's friendship, hers and Tom's would progress into more.
Janna continued, "He's still hurting from Star stringing him along."
"What? He was about to dump Star."
"True, but you know a boy's ego is one of the two most fragile things in the multiverse. He's not mad at you and Star for pounding his heart flat, he knows that wasn't on purpose. He knows Star was under a lot of pressure and confused about what she wanted and needed in her life, and he knows that you're just clueless and a bit of an idiot ... although a cute one."
Marco rolled his eyes. "Thanks."
"But he's mad at himself for not seeing earlier what everybody else was seeing ... well, except for you and Star, of course. He is mad, though, at the two of you for keeping secrets from him, important things for a boyfriend to know ... like Star's uncontrolled Butterfly Monster transformations and sleep portalling, and you two leaving Tom alone at the Monster Bash to go down into the catacombs together, where you took Star's virginity while Tom waited upstairs."
"What?!"
"Yeah, in a fit of pique somebody might have implied to Tom that's what happened. Anyhoo, the secrets should have been a big clue for you both that maybe Tom just wasn't The One for Star, but even if you didn't pick up on that, you guys still shouldn't have kept things from him. Both of you were supposed to be his friends, and that hurt him."
"Hmph," Marco responded. He couldn't think of anything to rebut what Janna said. Instead, he asked, "What's the second of the two most fragile things?"
"A girl's self-esteem ... or so I've been told. In any case, Tom needs to get over it and move on."
"Well ... it can take a while. It took me months to get over Jackie."
"Did it really?" Janna asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Yes!"
"Jeebus!" Janna exclaimed angrily, stopping and grabbing Marco's shoulders, violently turning him toward her. "Dude, five seconds after Jackie dumped you for being the worst boyfriend in the multiverse, you made the decision to abandon your entire life and move to Mewni to be with Star. It's still a mystery to all of us that you two couldn't see what everybody but Tom could see, and even he figured it out before the two of you did."
Marco scowled, turning away from Janna, as they both resumed walking toward their rooms.
"In any case," Janna said, calming down, "you know I really have eyes only for you."
"Yes, and if I find any more of them in my Sugar Seeds, I will hunt you down and shred your beanie."
"You know you love me."
"You still won't be my second wife, though. Even if there's ever a first..."
The two remained silent for the rest of their walk together. Janna stopped in front of her door as Marco continued walking. "Want to join me for a video game? Or a dark ritual?" Janna asked.
Marco continued walking. Janna heard him softly mutter, "It was seven seconds." Although he hadn't known most of what Janna had said, Marco knew more than he let on; Tom had confided in Marco about what he thought of Janna. Marco knew it wasn't his place to butt in, but he was uncomfortably watching history repeat itself. Marco felt he was in a no-win situation; be a bad friend by interfering, betraying each friend's confidences in him, or be an even worse friend by not interfering.
When Marco reached his room, he mumbled, "Good night," closing the door behind him.
Janna stared at Marco's closed door for several minutes, thinking, then turned and entered her room. She had no compunction whatsoever against interfering; she didn't have Tom's permission to tell Marco what she just told him, after all.
Janna had decided it was time to interfere.
— Oo1oO — Oo1oO — Oo1oO — Oo1oO — Oo1oO —
"Hey, gorgeous, how're they hanging?"
"Pert and firm, as always," Janna replied.
The woman on the other end of the phone call giggled. "Hey, guess what ..."
"Jackie," Janna interrupted, "I'm actually calling on business."
"Oh? What's wrong?"
"Marco."
"Still?"
"Yes. He's actually writing poetry."
"Dude! That's a great coping mechanism."
"Is it? Here, listen to his latest masterpiece:
'Misha the dog lies dead in a bog.
The children cry over the carcass.
The mist chokes my heart; covers the mourners.
At least, this year, we eat.'"
"I ... see what you mean."
"He's also writing fanfics about food falling in love."
"Um..."
"Wait, it gets worse, much worse. I suspect he's secretly started looking for an alternate universe where its Star lost her Marco. I don't know what he plans to do if he finds one, but I have a few guesses, and none of them are good."
"That's awful."
"Well ... when you miss someone you love, you can do crazy things. So, I really think you need to come to Mewni."
There were a couple seconds of silence from the other end. "Look, you know I have a girlfriend..."
"It's not for that. You know better than anybody, including Marco at one point, that he's found the love of his life. Whatever is left of Star is still in love with him; hell, even her monster side is, it wanted to start a mating fight with me today. But he's isolated himself and he's going nuts, even for him. Right now, he needs all the support from friends that he can get. Bring Chloe along, I think Marco will be thrilled to meet her."
"I'll ... think about it. So ... a 'mating fight?' Please tell me you were both naked..."
— Oo2oO — Oo2oO — Oo2oO — Oo2oO — Oo2oO —
Marco was out strolling down a village street when he came upon a crowd. The crowd was agitated, but Marco couldn't make out what they were yelling, nor what the target of their yelling was, somewhere up ahead. Choosing a random villager, he asked, "What's going on here?"
"You don't know? We caught it! We're going to kill it!" the villager responded, excitedly.
"Kill what?" Marco asked, receiving no reply. The villager had turned her attention back to the spectacle.
Seeing a barrel next to a store, Marco walked over and climbed on top. He could now see that the crowd was a lynch mob, and their victim was MewmonStar.
Star was shackled to a tree trunk, her wings tightly bound, and was spread eagle by chains looped over branches. The chains were glowing faintly, and Marco realized they were Dragon Chains; Star could not use her magic to get away.
"Star!" Marco cried. Jumping off the barrel, he began pushing villagers out of the way, eventually resorting to magic as the crowd thickened near the front. Just as Marco broke into the open, he heard a crack and a felt a sudden sharp pain in the back of his head. The world went black.
As consciousness returned, he slowly realized he could not move. He had been trussed with Dragon Chains, which were staked to the ground.
"Watch and learn, boy," a villager, wearing a black hood, sneered at Marco. The executioner picked up a pike, then pointed it at Star's heart.
Marco struggled against the chains to no avail. He watched helplessly as the executioner slowly pushed the eight-inch, pointed, blade at his victim, who, inexplicably, showed no reaction at all. Star did nothing more than watch Marco.
With a grunt, the executioner stabbed the blade forward. "No!" Marco screamed, but Star was not harmed. The cheaply made blade simply bent on her tough monster skin.
"Oh, right," the executioner said, tossing the pike aside. Picking up another, he snapped his fingers, then struck the Dragon Chains with the end of the pike. He then placed the tip of the blade onto Star's chest.
Looking back at Marco, the executioner said, "Preston Change-o." In a flash of blue light, MewmonStar transformed back into Star. Realizing that the executioner was not stopping even though she was no longer a Mewmonster, Star began to scream.
The crowd jeered and catcalled at the sight of the princess, naked and screaming, tied to a tree, about to die.
Star screamed foully as the executioner began to push the razor-sharp pike into her chest, aiming for her heart. He was slow and deliberate, a millimeter at a time, intent on not just killing Star, but torturing her slowly, excruciatingly, to death.
Star screamed and wailed, tears streaming from her eyes. As the pike pushed deeper, she began to desperately call Marco's name, until the pain became so great she could only convulse and gag.
His own tears falling, Marco struggled mightily, but was held fast by the chains. He saw Star's head slump, and, blood dripping from her feet, she breathed her final breath.
"STAR!"
Marco sat up in bed, breathing and sweating like he'd just run a marathon. He sat for several seconds, then leapt out of bed and ran to the bathroom. After a few minutes of retching, he walked back to his bed and sat down.
It had been another nightmare. Another nightmare of the worst kind, where Star was killed and Marco was helpless to save her. He had not had one in weeks, but he figured it had been inevitable after his direct encounter with Star several days before. He thought it might be one of the most vivid, worst, nightmares he'd ever had, second only to reliving Star's suicide.
He got up from the bed and went into the bathroom to get ready for the day. Nineteen months prior, Marco had decided to return home to be a good son and big brother, but that changed along with Star. He just could not bring himself to leave while there was still a chance of saving her. Dining with his family every Sunday was a welcome compromise.
Except this Sunday. Out of the blue, Marco's parents had canceled, citing an unexpected engagement that all three Earthbound Diazes had to attend. Angie had insisted nothing was wrong, but the 'Safe Kid' couldn't help but worry, especially when she wouldn't be specific.
Choosing his hoodie for the day, Marco was looking in his closet, absent-mindedly running his tongue over his new fangs, wondering why hoodies kept disappearing without a trace. Someone knocked on his door, startling him out of his contemplation. "Come in," he called. Whoever it was knocked again, rather than enter. "What the ..." Marco mumbled. He randomly grabbed a hoodie, then, as he put it on, walked over and opened the door.
Standing before Marco was a mirror image of himself. It announced, "I am Ocram!" then spun Marco around, grabbing Marco's wallet out of his back pocket.
"Hey!" Marco yelled.
Ocram turned and ran down the hall, yelling, "I am Ocram!" and laughing maniacally.
Stunned for a few seconds, Marco finally realized what had happened. "Janna!" he hissed, murder in his tone. He ran after Ocram.
Marco ran down the hallway but lost sight of Ocram as it rounded a corner. By the time Marco turned the corner, Ocram had disappeared. Marco noticed a gap in the doors that opened into the royal private dining room. Marco facepalmed, muttering, "Of course..."
Marco carefully opened the doors and was greeted by a loud, "Surprise!"
"Welcome to your intervention," Janna said.
Stunned, Marco walked into the room. Tom fist-bumped him, saying, "Dude."
"Great to see you again ... well, again after a few days," Kelly said as she hugged Marco.
"StarcoFan1," Marco said. This day StarcoFan1 had forgone her Star clothes, instead wearing only her Marco clothes; a red hoodie, light-gray tee-shirt, and dark-gray jeans. Her usual painted-on heart-shaped Magic-Pips were replaced by Marco's crescent-moon pips. She wore a black armband for Star. "I'm not sure what it is," Marco continued, "but you look really handsome today. I know, the braces are gone." He hugged her, as StarcoFan1 giggled at the joke.
As Marco walked over to his parents, he said over his shoulder, "By the way, I really enjoy those Gravity Falls and Rick and Morty reactions you've been posting on u-Tewb."
Marco walked up to his parents. "Mom, dad," Marco said, as he hugged his parents. "Mom, you lied to me."
"No, I didn't," Angie responded, smiling innocently. "This is the engagement, and here we are!"
Marco shook his head, then tickled Mariposa under the chin, saying, "Hello, baby sister." Mariposa giggled.
"Dude! She looks so much like you! When I first saw her, I thought she was yours and Star's."
Marco blushed. "No, I ..." He suddenly realized who had spoken. "Jackie! It's so great to see you!" He hugged her hard, lifting her off the ground and spinning. Putting her down, he noticed the woman standing next to her. Marco hugged her as well, saying, "I don't know you, but it's still great to see you, too!"
Marco turned to Jackie, who said, "Meet Chloe ... my girlfriend."
Stunned, Marco asked, "Girlfriend?" He looked Chloe up and down, then looked at Jackie. "Good choice," he said to Jackie, as he held his fist up to Chloe. After a moment's hesitation, Chloe smiled and fist-bumped him. Jackie blushed deeply, prompting a kiss on the cheek from Chloe.
"Jackie, I'm so sorry I haven't been in touch. I thought you wouldn't ..."
"I understand," Jackie interrupted, giving Marco a peck on the cheek. "For the record, I would have loved hearing from you."
Moon and River stood off to the side, watching and smiling. Marco looked at all his well-wishers, then realized someone was missing. "Where's Eclipsa?" he asked.
"I invited her," Moon answered, "but she declined. She said after her 'walkabout' she was 'knackered' and needed to 'have a kip' for a week." Moon shook her head. "I have no idea what she was talking about." Mumbling, she said, "I really don't trust that woman..."
— Oo3oO — Oo3oO — Oo3oO — Oo3oO — Oo3oO —
Twelve months ago...
Moon convened the meeting of the Magic High Commission to deliver the latest news. Attending the meeting were all the members of the MHC, including Eclipsa. Moon had invited Marco and Janna to attend as well.
Moon stood. "I'll get right to the point. We have found a way to revert Star and all the rest of the Mewmins."
Moon paused, glancing at Eclipsa. Eclipsa had a sudden feeling of dread, shivering slightly.
"I've had the royal librarians scouring the archives for helpful information, and they found this..." Moon's hand glowed blue, and a large book appeared above the table, facing Moon and Eclipsa. "This tome is hundreds of years old; it's a miracle it survived the destruction of the first Butterfly Castle. In it, an archivist copied a fragment of parchment from an ancient Monster book that was dated from roughly the time of the first Butterfly queens. It is incomplete, and written in an ancient Monster language, but the royal linguist finally managed to translate it yesterday. It says ..."
Eclipsa spoke up. "It says 'mutari in mewmonster.'"
Everyone but Janna looked at Eclipsa in shock. Janna said quietly, "She is sooooo cool."
"What?" Eclipsa continued. "Didn't it occur to you that someone married to a Monster might know Monster writing and language?" She heaved a sigh. "Of course it didn't. Anyway, most of the parchment is missing, but it seems to be a spell for turning Mewmins into Monsters. The effects are temporary ... unless combined with the 'spell of soul-taking,' and the 'spell of unalterable,' after which the Mewmin is 'forever the puppet of the spellcaster.' It ends with 'if the spell of unalterable be not cast, death of the spellcaster shall undo the transformation.'"
"Duh?" asked Rhombulus.
"It means," Marco said, "if the third spell to make the transformation permanent is not cast, killing the being that cast the transformation spell will revert its victims to normal."
"Wait," Janna interjected, looking at the MHC, "given the way you wet yourselves whenever you think Monsters will gain access to magic, I assumed they never had it."
Hekapoo looked at Marco. "Wet ourselves?"
Marco's answer was to wave his hands dismissively and shake his head "no."
"Anywayyyyy ... they didn't. They managed to steal an early Book of Spells thinking they could use it to learn magic. They translated it, made copies, and gave them to their shamans, but they were not able to use the spells. They could have, if they'd had the wond to give them their initial connection to the magic. We don't know what happened to the books; this," Hekapoo said, gesturing at the history book, "was probably copied from a fragment of one of them. There's a legend that several copies still exist, kept in ancient, hidden, Monster temples, but even if the legend was true, the books have certainly been lost to decay by now."
"Why would a Mewmin make a spell to turn a Mewmin into a Monster?" Marco asked.
Eclipsa shrugged. "I don't know, dear; to be a spy, perhaps? Or maybe as punishment? Those early times were brutal, even by Mewni's standards."
"If Monsters knew about the first Book of Spells, even having copies of it, and the last Book of Spells was common knowledge among Mewmins, why did Ludo not know about it?"
"Why did Star not know Queen Comet was assassinated when it was written in the Book of Spells and common knowledge on Mewni? These things happen, sweetie."
Deciding that was a good time to get back on topic, addressing Hekapoo, Moon said, "I think we need to have a discussion about any other secrets you may be keeping, at a later time. Back to the matter at hand, do we know if the ... 'unalterable' spell has been cast?" Moon asked. Nobody replied. "Then ..."
"No," Eclipsa interrupted. She stood, saying, "I refuse to believe Meteora has been lost. I can bring her back to me, and she will undo what she has done."
"This isn't a rebellious teen," Moon said gently. "She is sowing carnage. Meteora may be beyond your reach now."
"I refuse to believe that. If we had more help from you three," Eclipsa indicated the non-Mewmin members of the MHC, "we might have finished this already, and without killing Meteora."
Hekapoo shrugged. "Our job is to oversee magic, not fight a war."
"You fought ... you still fight ... alongside Sir Marco and Dame Janna."
"I fight for my sweeties, not Mewni." Hekapoo winked and blew kisses at Marco and Janna.
"You've fought against Monsters in the past, including alongside my mother, interfered in Butterfly Kingdom affairs, and been a general pain in the arse to queens for centuries, so what the bloody hell are you talking about?"
"Eclipsa," Moon soothed, placing a hand on Eclipsa's shoulder, trying to calm her.
Eclipsa shrugged Moon's hand off her shoulder and closed her eyes, a single tear squeezing out. "I will not help you kill my daughter."
Eclipsa turned, then walked out of the room, slamming the doors behind her. After a moment of hesitation, Marco ran after Eclipsa, but when he opened the doors, she had disappeared.
Marco turned back to the room, saying, "She's gone."
— Oo3oO — Oo3oO — Oo3oO — Oo3oO — Oo3oO —
Back in her room in the Rose Tower, Eclipsa quickly packed. She knew she had only a short amount of time before they looked for her there. Try as she might, she could not make herself be upset at Marco, Janna, or even Moon. She knew they had to look at the bigger picture, but that did not mean she had to help them kill her daughter. She saved her anger, her hatred, for the non-Mewmin members of the MHC.
Eclipsa quietly and carefully snuck out of the tower and the castle grounds. Once past the limit of the tramorfidian crystal, she pulled a pair of rusty, old, dimensional scissors from their hiding place in her dress. They had been passed down through various Monster families over the centuries, finally passing to Eclipsa's Monster husband. They were old enough that their exact origin was lost to time, any history of them destroyed in the countless Mewmin-Monster wars. Hekapoo might remember or have some sort of record of who she forged them for, but Eclipsa was damned if she'd ask.
Eclipsa cut open a dimensional portal, then stepped through the rift.
— Oo3oO — Oo3oO — Oo3oO — Oo3oO — Oo3oO —
Back in Marco's room, two morose teens sat on the floor in the middle of the room, thinking about what had happened. They had been informed that the search of Eclipsa's Rose Tower room turned up evidence she had fled, and they pondered the implications of both that and Moon's revelation.
"So," Janna broached, "can you do it?"
"Do what?" Marco asked.
"Kill Meteora."
"Can you?"
Janna thought for a few moments. "You and I have basically been playing soldier. We've been able to use magic to contain and disarm, not harm. Taking a life is a serious thing, and it's not something even a soldier takes lightly; how can we expect other soldiers to kill when we're not willing to do it ourselves? I think that'd make us very bad people, Marco."
Marco looked her in the eyes. "You didn't answer the question."
Janna sighed. "I think so, yes. You can't play soldier; as long as I'm soldiering, I have to be a soldier, or else I need to stop. What about you?"
Without hesitation, Marco said, "I truly don't know. I used to yearn for a little excitement, a little danger. One of the first things that started me down the road to falling for Star was fighting monsters together with her. But ... even though I had to fight to survive, and did a lot of things I'd like to forget, never in the 16 years I spent in Hekapoo's dimension did I kill."
"Dude, you carry a sword. Those things tend to be deadly."
"I use it for defense, or to injure if I must ... and to scare the bejeebus out of opponents."
Janna rolled her eyes.
"I do get your point though, but, frankly, I care about one thing and one thing only: getting Star back. When that's done, I'm done. I know that's selfish, and maybe makes me a bad person, I dunno. But I think I can help the beings of Mewni, Earth, any dimension, without using force and taking lives. I wrestle with it all the time now, and I truly wonder if Star thinks less of me for what I'm doing; or more to the point, why I'm doing it. She's a warrior princess ... but I don't think being cruel or wanting to kill was ever her thing. The reason we fought Ludo and his minions for so long was Star's unwillingness to cross certain lines."
Marco blushed, thinking of what that implied about Janna. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean ..."
"No, that's okay. I don't like the idea of killing either, but it doesn't surprise me that I'm willing to take that step and you struggle over it. I hope you never change."
"Thanks."
"But don't forget, even Star killed when she had to."
"Technically, Ludo dealt the coup de grâce to Toffee, but I hear what you're saying."
The two teens heard a commotion and a crash, then the laser puppies and Glossaryck came running into the room. Marco had forgotten about Glossaryck, who had been spending most of his time with Eclipsa since Star was lost. He wondered what he was going to do with Glossaryck now.
Glossaryck did two laps around the pair, yelling, "Globgor!" with nearly every stride. He stopped in front of Marco, then sat. "Globgor?"
"I'm sorry, dude," Marco addressed the little blue man, "but Eclipsa isn't here. She's left, and I don't know where she's going."
"Globgor!!!"
"Yes, Glossaryck, 'Globgor.' We know."
Glossaryck stood. "No, no, no," he said. His voice had changed, lowering in pitch and becoming very gargoyle-like. "Eclipsa's Monster love, Globgor. She's going off to be with him. I've been trying to tell you kids for a year. Anyway, see ya 'round."
Glossaryck created a brolly with magic, then flew away like Mary Poppins, y'all. The two stunned teens stared after him.
"Is his voice different?"