AUTHORS NOTES
Yep, you're getting two of these this chapter, there's a second one at the bottom. So, those of you who have followed this fanfic and aren't picking it up for the first time have probably noticed it is now rated M. For those of you who have discovered this at a later date, welcome! This story was originally published as T rated.
I decided that the rating on this story needed to be bumped up due to both the violent content that is in this chapter specifically and may be present in later chapters, a fairly dark and heavy theme that will be present further into the chapter, as well as the possibility of depicting intimacy between the story's couples in later chapters. I am, of course, open to feedback on all of these changes and ideas, and hope I am using them well enough to genuinely strengthen the story.
You have been warned.
The dark, gothic halls of the Underworld stand brightened this evening, stone walls innervated with gently winding vines of green blooming with purple flowers, patterned in such a way that they almost seemed to be leading one through the labyrinth, the gentle lavender leaves turning themselves towards the burning heart of the Lucitor Kingdom, growing more abundant with proximity to the infernal light. The familiar wiffs of brimstone were joined by the soft sounds of a choir of beings alien to this world and the gentle hum of the flute, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere.
Through these halls stepped the royalty of many worlds, most prominent among them the Family Butterfly. Walking together, guided through the depths by a frenetic demon in a checker board patterned suit who had been juggling several royal families at the gates before being assigned to bring this one in. The three nobles and their two courtiers stepped lightly through the depths, senses alive and wary.
Further away, beyond the heart of the sun that is the Underworld dimension, a small man with a large crown sits among a beautiful garden, abundant green speckled by all traces of the rainbow growing in every direction. There is no gentle music here, no smell of brimstone and the temperature lacks the pervasive mild discomfort of the rest of the dimension. Here, insulated from the rigors of the Underworld and nourished by a small artificial sun fueled by forsaken souls, under the supervision of King Dave of Lucitor, a small patch of the world above flourishes.
The king is here at the moment, watching with a cracked eyebrow and an otherwise blank expression as squirming caterpillars struggle to dig a shallow hole in the ground before him. "Such a little thing..." He thought to himself while delicately holding a small, tender sapling in his left hand, patiently waiting for the moment to set it down. "...But I must keep my abilities practiced somehow."
He could feel the small creatures below him wiggling across his brain. It was the downside of magically transmitting your thoughts and wishes to other lifeforms, that they could enter your own mind in turn, but such small lifeforms posed little threat to the King of the Underworld. "At worst, I might find myself unintentionally picking the salad at tonight's ball, and perhaps that is for the best. That invasion proved a lovely diet for the Butterfly family, it would be unfortunate if we were seen as... lacking in temperance, by comparison."
The insects continued to squirm beneath him, shivering as strange and alien thoughts filled their small brains, ideas they couldn't begin to comprehend dominating their minds, but still, the command to dig overpowered all. The shallow hole was now almost the perfect shape for the growing tree, a perfect work of magical construction. "Just a few... more... delicate... touches..."
"Hey dad."
King Dave's reserved expression abruptly broke into a scowl. His son, Tom Lucitor, had appeared behind him without him realizing it. "Tom." He said curtly, making his annoyance clear through tone alone.
"Mom says it's time to come up, the guests will be here soon." Tom conveyed, obvious annoyance in his voice as well.
"Well, since you've just ruined all the effort I put into planning the growth of this new tree, let's make sure your mother's efforts to plan the Ball aren't similarly wasted." Dave said bluntly while bending down, scooping at the incomplete hole in the ground once with his pinky finger before setting the sapling in and covering its roots. Standing back up, he made a little noise of discontent. "Such a shame. Had I gotten that right it would have been a perfect addition to our little slice of Mewni."
Shuffling in place a little uncomfortably, Tom began to speak back to his father with a confrontational tone of voice, though with much less aggression and confidence than the demon prince normally uses when expressing his displeasure. "What's even the point of having the Silver Bell Ball this year? Mewni has just beem invaded! I'd be surprised if they even showed up, and we all know the rest of these kingdoms are all jokes..."
Willing a small flicker of blue flame to consume his pinky for a moment in order to incinerate the dirt stuck to it, Dave turned to address his son, taking a deep breath before putting a hand over his shoulder and giving him a smile, both of which were warm and fatherly. "You betray your own political ignorance again Tom." He stated, sounding for all the world like a relaxed dad trying to teach his son how to fish for the first time. "This is the one Silver Bell Ball they can't afford to miss. They've already lost a sizable amount of prestige simply requesting the change of venue, they must make an appearance to maintain an air of confidence and stability." Then, with a more sly expression, he added "And of course, THAT means they'll be bringing one Butterfly in particular with them, no doubt..."
"Dad, c'mon..." Tom remarked with obvious discomfort while rubbing one arm with the other in an expression of nervousness. "...You heard the Song Day, uh, song just as clearly as I did. Princess Star is in love with Marco. I've got no chance."
"And who is this Marco Díaz anyways? This human that you're always complaining about to your mother and I?" King Dave asked with a contentious tone to his eyes, giving Tom a sarcastically questioning look before removing his hand from the boy's shoulder and turning his back to his son, cape swishing in place as he moved. "Simply a commoner from an obscure, politically insignificant dimension. Surely you've gotten close enough to him at this point that he can be removed from the equation?"
When Tom didn't respond, still looking unsure, Dave turned back to his son, imploring him "Do not let all your previous efforts go to waste! Your mother and I have already provided you a number of resources to pursue Princess Butterfly's hand, including total authority over the Blood Moon event, for all the good you managed to do with that. It would have made for an extremely prestigious royal ball you know." He concluded with a more snide tone.
"...I know dad, but I..." Tom spoke up, muttering with shame, but Dave cut him off, turning about to face his son and using the most effective tactic he knew.
"You are Tom Lucitor, Prince of the Underworld! Mewni, it's princess, its kinghood... they are yours for the taking, yours by right!" The king exclaimed, attempting to stoke the rage inside his his son. "We are the superior people! Their magic wand is but a singular, trifling trinket compared to the great ocean of souls we command! It is your destiny to bring our greatness out of the depths, to share it with the world! Would you have us submit to lesser beings by denying that?"
Tom's third eye was beginning to quiver, and with an internal smirk, Dave doubled down, striking right where he knew his son would feel it. "Princess Star Butterfly, as I have said many times before, belongs to you! She, despite her great beauty, is a lost, feckless, perpetual youth who will bring ruin to the dimension of Mewni if allowed to hold all power over it. She requires a strong hand, forged in fire, to bring about greatness! That hand is yours my son!" Putting his hand back on his son's shoulder, Dave continued. "Are you going to let some peasant filth from a dead end dimension, the worthless words of an idiot bard, or the ineffectual Queen of a sacked castle keep you from what you deserve!? Are going to let them deny you the luscious, soft body of Star Butterfly, her velvet lips and warm arms!?"
The prince of demons was silent again, but this time, it was born of freshly ignited, deep burning anger. Dave smiled as he felt it ripple through his son's body and up his own arm. "There's that fighting spirit!"
Turning the gentle touch to the shoulder into an encouraging up and down pat, Dave suddenly stepped away from his son and walked towards the exit of the garden. "Now then, let's get to the party, shall we? I'm sure we've kept your mother waiting long enough." Then, with a look over his shoulder, he added "And remember, your anger is a righteous source of power, but it must serve you instead of you serving it."
The two Lucitor royals soon departed the garden, leaving behind the freshly planted sapling. It had grown almost two feet taller since King Dave had placed it in the ground, the discarded caterpillars lying withered around its base. Their life forces had been drained to give the sapling a boost up on life, ripped out by the king and fed to the tree in the short term, and their bodies would be similarly consumed, via the roots this time, in the long term.
Three hours ago
"Okay Dipper, I'm ready!"
Inside the bedroom of Princess Star Butterfly, an extra sized privacy divider had been conjured by magic to almost cut the room in two. On one side of it, Dipper Pines was carefully examining the contents of portable table assembled there earlier, back dutifully turned to the shadow play that could faintly be divined through the screen. On the other side of it, Star had been showing Pacifica Northwest her formal dress collection, and the two had settled on which one the human blond would be borrowing for the night.
Now, with implicit permission given, Dipper turned around just in time to see his new girlfriend step out from beyond the divider in one of Mewni's finest garments. As they'd only been dating for a few days at this point, the sight of her still took Dipper's breath away each time it fell upon her after even the shortest break.
"So, how do I look?" Pacifica asked coyly, fluffing her hair a little and doing a quick twirl to give Dipper a full look, all while stepping towards him. She was wearing a strapless dress of soft blue color, with a deep blue heart covering the front between six silver buttons tied together with gold. The back and sides of the dress were patterned with intricate flower designs that faded into white sparkles near her legs. In terms of cut, it looked like a mix between a hobble skirt dress from the 1920's and a Victorian gown.
Wrapping his arms around her to meet her approach, Dipper looked into Pacifica's eyes and nervously complemented "You look really great Pacifica... I mean, you always look great, but now... wow..."
Although Pacifica was able to meet Dipper's eyes with a steady gaze and a warm smile, on the inside her heart was pounding just as hard as his. She felt like his warm words could lift her off her own two feet. The two could have kept their eyes locked together for awhile this way, but luckily(?) for them a distraction made itself known shortly.
"Told you he'd love it girl!" Star spoke up, emerging from behind the divider herself. She was wearing a three colored dancing dress, the top section soft blue and round at the shoulders with white trim, while the bottom section of the dress, separated from the top by a white bow, was primarily purple with sections of pink and white lining. Her blond hair was styled up into a pair of buns around her crown, while a trail of gold fell past each eye. "Alright, enough of the mushy stuff, let's get a look at the party favors for tonight's big event!" The princess exclaimed with a playfully mischievous tone as she rushed up to the cluttered portable table.
Looming to her side dryly, Pacifica remarked "You don't look half bad yourself, handsome. Although..." With a flick of her wrist, the blond girl produced a comb and proceeded to give a flustered Dipper one long, slow comb of the hair over his forehead, allowing his birthmark to shine out into the room unobstructed. "There, perfect!" She remarked, before giving the boy a peck on the cheek and trotting over to join Star.
Before joining her friend at the table. Dipper took a few seconds to stand in place blushing, looking at his shoes, and twirling a string of hair coming off his combed hair. He was lacking a hat at the moment, obviously, but was finely dressed to match the girls in the room, wearing a red colored suit (both jacket and slacks matching) with a blue undershirt and a black tie. The tie in question was also patterned with a line of skull and crossbones symbols.
"I still feel like I'm a little tacky looking, especially compared to you guys." He remarked a little awkwardly before joining them on the edge of the table. Star, who was enraptured by what was in front of her, didn't even look behind her when she stated "Don't worry, you'll fit right in at an Underworld party."
"Thanks Star." Dipper replied, and took his own appraisal of the armory spread in front of them. "Grunkle Stan can certainly come through when you need some tools, can't he? And of course, a few home made gadgets as well, courtesy of Grunkle Ford..."
The table in front of the three was covered with enough tools of skulduggery to rob a small bank: Lockpicks, ice picks, miniature hammers, screwdrivers, a few vials of acid, protective charms, brass knuckles, filing equipment, spell detectors, a collapsible crossbow, magic rings, gasoline packs, tweezers, lighters, fake mustaches, a rubber duck, a homemade block of plastic explosive, and a single brightly colored cupcake, glistening with a thick layer or sprinkles.
Reaching out and taking a bite from the cupcake before offering it to the other two, Star asked through chewing teeth "So, you two ready for the most interesting Silver Bell Ball in decades?"
"Queen Butterfly, it is our honor to host you this evening." King Dave spoke genially with a small bow. As the guests of honor here, he had made sure to greet the Butterfly family in person.
"King Dave. The Kingdom of Mewni and myself both thank you deeply for being willing to shoulder the burden of this grand tradition on such short notice." Queen Moon responded, greeting him with equal decorum. Then, she turned her head to the other Lucitor Royals. "Queen Wrathmelior, Prince Tom, our thanks extend to you as well."
"Yes, it is good to see you again Queen Wrathmelior, Prince Tom!" King River spoke up abruptly, much more jovial and casual than his wife. "Hello Dave."
"River." The King of the Underworld said bluntly before turning his attention to the last Butterfly present. "And of course it is our honor to host Princess Star... and her two, um, who are these two... exactly?" Dave asked, seemingly genuinely surprised by the addition of two more teenagers alongside the princess.
"Ah, yes, don't mind them." Queen Moon spoke up quickly. "Considering the very reasons that the Silver Bell Ball is being hosted in your dominion this year, I believed it to be prudent to invest in some additional security for my daughter and heir. These are her new bodyguards. They may look young but they come very highly recommended, I assure you. They're with her all hours of the day for the duration of the uncertainty in the Kingdom of Mewni, so I hope you don't mind we've brought them along. Not to worry, they blend right into the background."
"I see... yes." King Dave remarked, gently stroking his chin in contemplation. "As always Queen Butterfly, your wisdom is without peer."
"Oh my, I didn't realize things were that bad for Mewni!" Queen Wrathmelior spoke up. One could have interpreted what she said as a slight, but the demon queen in a black dress spoke with too much sincerity for any but the most vulnerable to insults to interpret it that way.
"Mewni has faced worse in the past, and no doubt will endure worse in the future. If it is to ever break forever, perish the thought, it will come from circumstances far worse than this" Moon remarked sagely, and in response Dave muttered a small "Perish the thought." at the idea of Mewni falling. With a more outspoken tone, Moon then stated "Now, River and I would like to sample the refreshment briefly after the trip here. Then, you and Queen Wrathmelior can show us how you've gone about adopting the Silver Bell Ball to your lovely castle."
"It was a rather exciting process, getting ready for all this, I'm sure you're going to love it!" The queen of demons spoke up in response. "When you're ready to start the tour, me and Dave will be over at the blood fountain! Come on dear." With that, the royal couples split apart, leaving the teenagers conversing near the entrance. As the Butterfly family had a moment to themselves on the crowded floor, Queen Moon couldn't help but giggle into her gloved hand after a moment.
"It's been some time since I've had to do something like that." She admitted softly, to which River gave her a warm and proud smile. "That certainly brings back memories."
"You didn't lose any of your touch Moonpie, I can tell you that." The King spoke up. "My clever vixen, always making sure our adventures went so well with her quick words and sharp tongue. I didn't doubt for a moment you could pull it off again."
"Oh stop it, River." Moon said back playfully. "Our last adventure together like that was almost a decade ago, and I'll need to keep this up all night. Don't count the dragons before they hatch." She explained a little more wearily, but then, with a small smile, added "Although, if I might indulge in a few fate invoking words, I hope we don't need any of your old adventuring skills tonight."
"Yes, well... As much as it would be a sign things have gone wrong, I'd be lying if a small part of me isn't hoping I might end up reenacting my first meeting with King Dave sometime tonight. And I could never lie to you."
Decades Ago
"At last, my quest is complete! I've finally discovered the long lost Nussleinan Matrix! Such a wonder that the ancients could compress so much magic into such a small..."
"JOHANSEN HO!"
"RIVER, WAIT, DON'T RUN! THERE COULD BE TRAPS UP AHEAD!"
"NOTHING HERE BUT A FOUL WITCH IN A DRESS MY DARLING, ATTEMPTING TO STEAL THE ARTIFACT!"
"WHAT, WHO!? YOUR MAJES...AUGH!"
"I've apologized for that Moon, I truly have! Numerous times at that! Yet I can't but feel like he still holds it against me..." River ruminated with a hand on his beard.
"He was trying to acquire a suitable wedding present for his engagement to Wrathmelior." Moon chided back. "He had to limp down the aisle with a black eye because of all that!"
The previously jovial barbarian king's eyes went cold for a moment, as he remembered all that entailed. "Yes, normally he would have had ample time to heal from such a light thrashing, but his wedding to then Princess Wrathmelior ended up... rushed." By now they'd reached the refreshment table and the king had taken a drink of punch.
Instantly catching her husband's drift, Queen Moon took on a cool expression while sampling a drink of her own. "You remember correctly. Depending on if we turn up anything interesting tonight, the great Lucitor tragedy may be due for a fresh investigation."
Back near the entrance, the four youths had been left alone with each other as the two royal couples split up and departed. "So, welcome to the ball Starship, no need for all that formal junk around me." Tom spoke up first, a confident tone to his voice. His third eye swept the Princess' two companions while his main ones upheld eye contact with her. "So, your mom's got you saddled with the old 'ever-present bodyguards' thing now huh? Well, no worries, if you're looking to we can totally ditch these stiffs, I know all the best places to just hang out around here."
Dipper and Pacifica immediately focused their expressions on the demon prince as soon as he started talking with his somewhat oily tones, a pair of hard expressions that did their best to not betray genuine emotion. Star however, just assumed a haughty air, like she would when she would make fun of her mom, and responded by saying "You offer is acknowledged, Prince Thomas, but unwanted. I have no intention of separating from the people who are only here to ensure my safety this evening. Good day to you." in a flat but diplomatic tone, before simply stepping past the demon royal, her two bodyguards shuffling along with her. Dipper and Pacifica both turned their heads over their shoulders though, the human girl giving Tom the classic "point at my eyes, then point at yours" while Dipper did the same but with only one finger, which he pointed at Tom's third eye.
Left standing by himself, Tom simply narrowed all three eyes as he watched the others walk away. Behind his fierce expression, gears were turning in his head, and very quickly at that. "I hadn't really expected her to take me up on that offer right away, that was more meant to just plant the seeds for later, but she shot the whole thing straight down. Star didn't express the slightest bit of resentment or annoyance at the fact her mother stuck her with a pair of babysitters who barely look older than she is." He thought to himself, mentally pouring over everything he knew about the Princess of Mewni while offhandedly snapping a finger. "That isn't like her at all. Something more is going on with these 'bodyguards' of hers."
Called by magic in response to the prince snapping his fingers, a smaller example of demon-kind scuttled up to Tom's side. "Yes, Master Tom?" he asked in a professional voice.
"Forget about the princess." He stated, while pointing out Dipper and Pacifica. "Keep your eyes on those two."
Outside the royal palace of the Underworld, ample parking for a large number of lavish carriages had been provided behind the wrought iron gates that separated the domain of the royals from the rest of the capital city. As a result of the stark contrast, the rubbish van parked across the street from the palace, on the wrong side of the gates, drew much more attention than the vehicle normally did when blending into an urban environment.
Inside the spacious back compartment of the vehicle, Stanford Pines was hunched over one of several monitoring devices the vehicle had been equipped with, on top of its secondary role as a backup escape route. After checking on several magic scanners to see all levels were consistent, Ford activated a modified a walkie talkie and began speaking into it. "Pines 1, this is Pines 2, over. Have you gained access to the ballroom?"
Inside the palace, Dipper's carefully concealed earpiece transmitted the message, and he stepped over to a punch bowl in response, pretending to almost drop his tie into the drink so he could lift it closer to speak into the bug concealed in the cloth. "Access confirmed. Pines 1, Pines 3, Polaris, Meghan and Harry have all gained access without suspicion. Contact has been made with Napoleon, Lilith, and Trioculus. Looking for opportunity to infiltrate." Dipper informed back, but with a sideways glance narrowed his eyes. "Be advised Pines 2, Pines 3 is giving me a sarcastic expression that implies she doesn't realize our professional spy terminology is totally cool."
"Acknowledged Pines 1." Ford spoke back. He was prepared to end the transmission there with a soft smile on his face, but suddenly, the back doors of the van were knocked on quite harshly. "Be advised, Pines 1, potential distraction is incoming. Over and out."
Dipper stepped away from the punch bowl with the conversation over as Pacifica made her way closer to him. "It's a shame we can't really have a dance here tonight." She admitted while getting a drink for herself, her teasing expression gone now. "Despite the whole Gothic Horror vibe this place has going on it isn't a bad party." Taking a sip of her cup, Pacifica added with a dry tone "I should have known I'd end up in hell at some point."
"Hey, same here." Dipper replied with an equally dry tone, and both chuckled a little. Both were fully prepared to keep flirting with each other, but both kept the mission in mind and turned their attention to the Princess of Mewni... Who seemed to be coming coming right at them with... someone "Dipper what is that thing?"
"I don't know, it looks like something Mabel would draw while she's blitzed out of her mind on Smile Dip."
"HEY GUYS!" Star greeted cheerfully while gesturing to her side. "Meet my oldest friend, Flying Princess Pony Head!"
The aloft equestrian cranium gave both humans a disbelieving look then snorted, turning to Star to express said disbelief. "B-Fly, have you been running around and picking up extra earth turds for whatever cray-cray reason!? What is going on with you girl!?" Then, with no acknowledgement of personal space, Pony Head ran both her snout and her horn over Dipper's head, chest and arms, snorting a few times in the process and leaving him feeling very uncomfortable. "He's even got Turdina's awkward, sweaty presence to him as well! Though I bet this one would nail the whole 'girl in a dress' look even better than Earth Turd did!" Then, she looked at Pacifica. "And what the hay is this!? Is this some weird magic thing where you cloned yourself, but then you made the clone, like, ugly, so you'd look better by comparison!?" Finally, with a more calm expression, she turned back to Star and stated "Pretty slick move there B-Fly, I approve."
The two humans had expressions on their faces conveying that they'd be insulted if they weren't so surprised. "I've only known you for less than a minute and I already hate you." Dipper responded with a very flat expression on his face and tone to his voice. "You may be the worst thing I've ever met in this already pretty terrible collection of dimensions."
"Ah yeah, Pony Head staying on top!" The newly introduced princess cheered to herself, feeling like she'd accomplished something.
"So are you supposed to just be a head or are you the result of generations of Habsburg family shrubbery nonsense that whittled you down to just that?" Pacifica asked with a sarcastic tone and cracked eyebrow. The reference was lost on both princesses but Dipper let out a single sharp laugh at it. "Nice one Pacifica." He complemented.
"Thanks, that part of the lecture on productive marriages always stuck with me."
"Look, as a floating head and not much else she's probably got a heart the size of a peppercorn!"
"Her lungs corroded and her intestines gangrenous..."
"Pointy head's probably full of water..."
"A single shriveled ovary, black as coal..."
"...and regularly baffles Mewmandom by continuing to live."
Both princesses were frozen in place as the two humans finished their mutual insult chain. Dipper and Pacifica, coming down from the emotional high of defending each other, exchanged a brief sideways glance and began to wonder if they'd messed things up as Star look mortified, but after a moment of silence in the small circle of the otherwise still busy party, Pony Head lead back midair and let out an appreciative, snorting laugh.
"Dang girl, these two spite FIRE!" She exclaimed, before flying in-between the human couple, insinuating herself on both their shoulders while Dipper and Pacifica glared at her. "I feel like I'd be grievously insulted if I had understood any of that. You two got guts!" Flying back over to Star, she looked down on her old friends and asked in a more demanding tone "Alright, spill it B-Fly, they're way too cool to be bodyguards your mom hired."
All three people with regular humanoid bodies reacted with a sudden strike of nervousness as Pony Head chanced upon their true nature, causing the flying royal to let out a snort of satisfaction that made everyone even more nervous looking. "HA! I wasn't actually sure something was up but that just confirmed it! You guys are actually giant losers!"
"Pony Head, please!" Star begged her in a whispering voice, causing the other princess to get a slightly more serious face and turn to her friend. "I can't really talk about it in the crowd here, but... they're here to help." She explained in the barest way possible. "With Tom." She added, in a more disgruntled voice.
"Speaking of the devil..." Dipper remarked dryly, having looked over his shoulder just in time to spot the topic of conversation making his way towards him. In response, Pony Head narrowed her eyes an got a devious look on her face.
"Say no more B-Fly, Pony Head knows the score!" The flying unicorn explained. "Leave this to me!" She announced before flying away from the group and heading straight for Tom.
"Is this our opportunity?" Pacifica asked, looking back and forth between Star and Pony Head.
The Princess of Mewni stood on her heels and scanned the crowd with a palm over her eyes. "Looks like mom and dad have the Lucitor parents tied up. As good an opportunity as any Dipper!"
"Looks like I'm going in then." The boy replied, leaning over to give Pacifica a peck on the cheek before vanishing into the crowd, the opposite direction as Pony Head. The girl from Earth couldn't help but blush a little at this despite herself while Star couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy from shooting across her heart. Scowling and turning her head a little, Pacifica crossed her arms and muttered "Dummy's gonna blow our cover..." while still smiling a little.
Out in the crowd, Pony Head had successfully intercepted Tom, nearly bowling the demon over as she flew into his personal space. "Hey Tom, long time no see!" She exclaimed, flying around his head enough times to make the prince slightly dizzy despite him actively trying not to follow her with any of his three eyes. "C'mon, let's get these stiffs back to life, let's do some dancing!"
From Tom's expression, it was immediately obvious he had no interest in sharing a dance with the flying unicorn princess, but all his attempts to step past her were foiled by her obnoxiously hovering around in front of him. "Hey, good to see you again." He remarked in the most flat, insincere voice possible. "Actually I was thinking I'd ask Princess Butterfly to the honor of the first dance with me tonight, so please..."
"Aww, what's the matter big boy?" Princess Pony Head cooed, instantly slipping into the most demeaning voice in her arsenal. With a devious whisper that would go unheard by anyone except the prince of demons, she asked "Those skinny arms not up to the task of filling up my neckhole and hitting the back once the after party comes around?" Then, getting even closer to Tom's face, Pony Head added "Or maybe something else isn't up to the task..."
Tom's face blanched with naked, unfiltered disgust at the object of his affection's oldest friend, skin crawling so strongly it seemed like all three of his eyes might pop out because of it. "What the actual fu...AAAAUUGGHHH!" His curse was cut short when Pony Head unexpectedly clamped her cud chewing teeth down on his wrist, then flew towards the dance floor.
"C'WMEN EEMON BOH, RWET'S DOONCE!" She yelled out between clenches, full teeth, dragging and spinning Tom around the dance floor by the arm. The demon prince was dragged and bounced like a rag doll as the Pony Head dragged his arm with her mouth as roughly as seemingly possible. Most of the bystanders assumed this was simply how a species without arms danced and clapped politely, a misconception not helped by King Pony Head yelling encouragingly from the sidelines. "GO MY CHILD, COMPLETE THE DANCE OF OUR PEOPLE!"
On the sidelines, Star watched with a blank and slightly embarrassed face, while Pacifica sipped her drink with a sardonic expression on her face. "So, that's your oldest friend, right?" The blond from earth asked as the cup left her lips.
"...Yes?" Star responded uncertainly. Quietly, and too herself, she added "This is actually unexpectedly helpful of her..."
"Star... even as someone whose comparatively new to the whole... friendship thing, I can confidently say you need better friends."
Five Minutes Ago
Stanford Pines had responded by the rapping on the back of the van he was in by quickly pocketing a few objects from around the interior then stepping back, shouting that he was opening the back doors up, then doing so. When the metal plate on a hinge swung open, he found himself face to face with a pair of scowling, uniformed demons. "Some manner of law enforcement, based on the uniforms and the weapons." He conjectured in his head.
"Right then. Step out of the carriage now, chop chop." One demanded, gesturing with his club. Ford complied, raising his hands up with his palms towards the officers in the process.
"What seems to be the problem officers?" The man from earth asked in the most diplomatic tone possible.
"Told ya' he'd be a bloody mewman." The other officer spoke up. "Only a mewman would have the audacity to park a disposable looking rust bucket across the way from this season's biggest meeting of royalty, outside the palace of our King and Savior (flames preserve his soul), and then wonder what the bloody problem is when confronted about it."
"So, what's the occasion, butterfly bait?" The first officer to asked, not directly responding to his partner's successful guess. "Looking to snap some pics for a trashy tabloid? Planning to open that coat of yours in front of some royal majesty or another when they leave later this evening? Or perhaps you've got a load of unregistered fertilizer in the back of your carriage there?" He questioned, looking Ford up and down the whole while. With a tone of sneering annoyance, he added "You know, the lads and I got standing orders to go easy on you sods, cut down on diplomatic incidents coming from beat up tourists. But, given the severity of the possibilities, I don't think the chief would mind a mewman getting booked black and blue, not today of all days. Am I right mate?"
"Right as burning rain corporal. Even if he is just some namby-pamby bug-blood looking to slum it up among the 'civilized monsters' and raises some fuss with Ol' Queen Mooner about getting some sense beat into him, I'm sure it'll slide today of all days." The second law enforcer answered. "We were all told to treat event security with the upmost seriousness after all."
"Now gentleman, there's no need for all that." Ford responded, sounding as diplomatic as possible. "I can assure you I'm not here to cause any trouble, and any problems you have with the Kingdom of Mewni I more than likely share with you. They are hardly my favorite people either."
"Ooooh, you a tributary then?" The lower ranked officer asked, a touch of genuine curiosity to his voice while his partner was as hard faced as ever. "You look too healthy to be one of the spider eaten if I'm being honest. You one of those swamp mongrels then? Out here today to support your little consort-king?"
"Alright, that's enough, not like none of that matters, and even if it did you're actually only making yourself more suspicious." The lead police officer explained. "Turn around, hands against the back of the carriage, you are officially under arrest."
"On what charges?" Ford demanded, sounding indignant but it was really just a stalling tactic as he tried to work out the last step of his escape plan.
"Bloody hell if I know you bleeding todger. The King's Justice will work out what you're guilty of after we bring you in." The lead officer responded, his professional tone slipping with hints of annoyance and aggression now. "Now, turn around, hands on the carriage!"
"Alright, I'll cooperate." Ford stated, turning his back as instructed. However, when the second officer stepped forward, holding his club ready in his hands instead of a pair of handcuffs, the experienced adventurer jumped into action. Moving with speed you wouldn't expect from someone so old, Ford sent the elbow of his raised left arm slamming into the face of the approaching officer, crushing his nose flat into his face. Ford followed it up by spinning around in a half circle, slamming the fist of the exact same arm into the exact same face, a crumpling blow that knocked the demon to the ground.
The lead law officer burst into action, taking his subordinates place before he'd even hit the ground. He also had his club in hand, and had flicked a small switch near the base of the handle that caused the upper section of the stick to erupt with green flames. "STOP RESISTING!" He screamed, taking a swing at Stanford's head, but the old man managed to dodge the blow, resulting in the weapon leaving a smoldering dent on the back of the van instead.
Still ducked under the club swing, Ford delivered a straight armed punch directly to the elbow joint of the officer's swinging arm, causing the limb to snap straight with a painful sounding crack. The more experienced officer let out a small hiss of pain and dropped his club as a result of this, but was still otherwise combat ready, which he proved by throwing a left hook counter punch.
This swing actually managed to catch Ford on the jaw, sending him stumbling back a foot and a half, but then the police officer made a critical mistake: Instead of pressing the attack, he scrambled to recover his club, thinking that would allow him to end the fight as quickly as possible. This, however, gave Ford the opportunity to produce something much more effective from inside his coat: A dart launcher!
The air powered projectile that sprang forth has a sterile needle on the front and a cord connecting to the gun trailing behind. It buried itself into the demon's exposed neck and pumped him full of an alchemical sedative, before the wire conducted a stunning electrical charge into the being's body, resulting in him limply crumpling to the floor.
However, as soon as the senior officer had folded, the secondary officer was back on his feet, charging at Ford with his club held up in the air and ignited. However, the charge was sloppy and angry, allowing Ford to easily slip into a fighting stance while dropping the stun gun, grabbing the demon by the upper arms before he could bring the club down, and using his own energy to hurl the officer over Ford's own shoulders! And of course, since the van was directing behind Ford, the end result was the officer's face smashing into the metal door as strongly as if he'd charged straight into it.
Ford spun around and caught the guard before he fell, slamming his face into the van one more time before letting him collapse into a heap atop his partner. Both were out for the count now, allowing the veteran dimension traveler a moment to relax.
"Always knew keeping my Plutonian Judo sharp would pay off." Ford thought to himself, but the thoughts of his past abruptly made him shiver despite how warm the city he was standing in was. "That was a dark time. To know I was sitting in the exact same solar system as the Earth I needed to return to, but Pluto had no spaceships and the fixed position portals of Mi-Go seemed to lead anywhere but the third planet. I was as far away from home as I'd even been, even as I watched it in the sky."
Shaking his head to banish those old thoughts, the senior scientist made a quick examination of the two guards to make sure they'd be out for awhile, then made a cursory effort to drag them out of the street and hide them in a back alleyway.
With the two officers incapacitated for the moment, Ford scrambled back into the van, climbing into the driver's seat while activating all frequencies of his radio device and speaking. "This is Pines 2 to all units, minor altercation has occurred outside the gates. Repositioning surveillance vehicle, over."
Inside the halls of the Lucitor Castle, Dipper stepped carefully through the passages of stone as his earpiece came to life. The halls were surprisingly sparse and quiet here, and it seemed like everyone was at the party. "Acknowledged Pines 2. Pines 1 has successfully left the party, moving to stage 2." The human boy continued to lurk through the air of brimstone, eyes alert to every corner. He made a point to try each door he passed by, but found most of them curiously locked. "Probably best to not take the risk of picking one until I find one that really looks worth it."
Still, Dipper was getting mildly suspicious that seemingly every door he passed was locked, in what was presumably a normal royal palace full of bustling busy servants, attending courtiers and active nobles. Before he could pursue this line of thought any further though, something caught his eye and the boy tensed up: It was a shadow looming across the wall from around a turn in the corridor up ahead. Someone was coming!
Acting on instinct, Dipper flung himself towards one of the few doors he hadn't tried yet, and miraculously, it opened for him. Ducking inside but taking careful care to not slam the door, the human boy breathed heavily for a moment, making sure to secure the path behind him. When he'd calmed down slightly, he turned around to figure out just where he was, and even by the standards of the Underworld so far, Dipper found the room he was in strange.
It was a fairly small room, and appeared to be used to store an alter of some kind. At the far end of the room the stone floor gave way to a small flower bed, like a section of indoor grass, but stuffed to the brim with blooming flowers, pedals of a wide variety of colors. At the center of the flower bed was a potted tree, not a large one, but sufficiently virile that he could be seen to resemble some manner of evergreen. Both displays of plant life sat beneath a replica of a blood red moon hanging from the ceiling. Dipper sniffed the air after a moment, and the sweet and sour scent that filled his nose confirmed that these were real, living plants. Somehow.
Taking a few steps closer, Dipper was able to observe that the flowers were trampled in regular patterns, like people would tread across the bed before assuming a position of supplication before the tree. "Kinda reminds me of that creepy tapestry Pacifica said her parents used to have. I never did figure out where that came from or what it even meant..." The human boy mused to himself in his head.
"Quite beautiful, isn't it?"
Dipper spun around as the gravely voice entered his ears, and saw that a figure in a red hooded robe had been in the room the entire time. The hood was drawn up, and as a result of that and the room's already minimal lighting, a inscrutable black void sat where the being's face should be.
"I know you've probably already been briefed on its nature, but please, indulge me for just a moment." The hooded figure remarked, stepping past Dipper to stand on the edge of the flower bed. His cowled gaze stared at the tree. "This shrine was commissioned by King Dave early into his reign, as a proclamation and foci of his imperial ambitions."
Dipper stepped behind the hooded figure, watching him warily and sliding a hand inside his suit jacket while the (presumably) demonic abbot kept speaking. "It is strong magic at work here, strong but subtle. The wishes and prayers of his loyalist supporters are spoken here, and the words and ideas inherent in them are projected out into the great weave of destiny, so that the strings of fate might gently sway in the breeze of a whispered prayer, eventually building up enough cumulative strength to change the course of the river of fate with a million small coincidences."
Treading softly on the flowers, the keeper of the shrine explained that "The flowers represent the Butterfly Kingdom. A world of beauty and wonder, of splendor, but of no true substance. They are an empty deck of cards upheld by a singular queen, and that will he their downfall." Reaching the center of the flower bed, the demon ran a clawed hand up and down the trunk of the tree. "This represents the new world Prince Tom will create by taking the Butterfly Princess as his own. Their empty splendor will be given purpose by our industry, to create something new and beautiful, yet strong and productive. Where the flowers tread on below are weak, frail things that serve no use beyond aesthetic, this tree will one day be grown to a tower of mighty oak that bears life and gives fruit. The expanding trunk will pierce through the soil of Mewni as it grows out of the Underworld, a world tree that will unify the realms!"
Finally casting his gaze up, the abbot gazed upon the moon replica hanging above, his hood sliding back on his head slightly as he took in the sight. "And that, of course, is the actual magical foci, a figure of fate that will hopefully resonate with our imperial song and tune the cords of fate in favor of our noble cause."
Abruptly, the abbot turned around and walked off the flower bed towards Dipper, speaking with a more informative tone versus his previous solemn reverence. "The history of this magic is quite interesting actually, it was first documented by..." his breath caught in his throat as the demon monk finally got a straight look at Dipper and realized he wasn't a demon. And that he was slipping on a pair of brass knuckles.
Even through the hood darkened cowl that obscured the abbot's face, an expression of surprise managed to register with Dipper.
"Time for a dose of Iconoclasm." The human said in an attempt at being menacing before hurling his brass boosted fist into the hood of the ritual minder and felt a reassuring mix of flesh and bone yield against the impact. The demon collapsed to the floor under the force of the impact, decked straight onto his back. Holding a boxer's stance for a few more moments in case he got back up, Dipper gradually relaxed when he realized the demon was out for the count. After a moment, he grimaced at himself and muttered "That was an incredibly lame line Dipper..."
After shaking that off, the human boy finally got a good look at the mysterious shrine keeper, and found himself both wincing and a little disappointed at the truth: The hood of the robe had been thrown back by the punch Dipper had given the demon, revealing that, instead of a menacing visage, the now dented and leaking face under the cowl was soft and unassuming despite being blue in color and sort of naturally lumpy, and was adorned with a now broken pair of glasses.
Blinking in shock Dipper wondered aloud "Did I just punch out a harmless history nerd? In my quest for knowledge, have I become the very thing I've always hated?" Gently stepping over the shrine keeper, Dipper turned his rumination towards the collection of plants and the magic itself. He found himself scowling slightly at the sight.
"I'd be wary of soul merchants trying to tune the cords of fate under the best of circumstances..." he muttered with the venom only personal experience could synthesize all while reaching around inside his suit. "...and when they're doing it to try and force together a good friend with someone terrible? Well, that just cinches it." With a bottle in hand, Dipper stayed his hand for just a moment of contemplation. "I might need this gasoline for something more relevant to the mission..." he mused, but then tilted his hand the rest of the way and began to drench the flowers and the tree trunk in flammable liquid. "...But I'm willing to take that chance if it helps Star." When the bottle was empty, the Pines Twin paused again for a moment, struck by a memory, but swiftly went back to work by striking a match.
"Should have handled Gideon like this when we first met, all that time ago..."
Back on the dance floor, Princess Pony Head's diversion had finally ran its course, and while the decapitated equestrian was soaking up the attention at the center of the dance floor and bending her neck in her best imitation of a bow, Tom had stumbled away as soon as her teeth had released his wrist, muttering something about needing a bathroom and a tetanus shot.
Having moved away from the refreshment table but still with their back to a wall, Star and Pacifica had watched the entire dizzying drag dressed up as a dance with grins on their faces.
"Okay, you know what? I'll cut her some slack." Pacifica remarked after a moment. "Flying Princess Pony Head might be a vain, insulting jerkass, but..."
"Buuuuuuut?" Star asked in wonderment, eager to hear what Pacifica had to say next.
"...She's a vain, insulting jerkass who knows how to create a hell of a diversion." The blond from earth concluded. This briefly caused Star's face to fall, but she accepted it in short enough order. The two stood next to each other contently for a few moments before Star started a new conversation.
"So, are noble parties like this on Earth?" She asked Pacifica.
"Well, to start with, we don't call ourselves nobles on Earth, the preferred term is socialite." Pacifica responded, before it struck her that she still identified with the upper crust of the human species, even though her family had been ruined since Weirdmaggedon and she basically lived in a run down tourist trap working as a scientific assistant these days. Before she could ponder this further, Star spoke again.
"Is there any noteworthy difference between the two?"
"Not really, no. Although earth parties like this usually have more drugs going around."
"Gotcha." Star stated a little awkwardly, not sure where to take the conversation from there. Luckily, Pacifica picked up the slack in that department.
"So, Star..." The blond human began. "...I understand you had a book of spells at some point, right?" She regretted the question right after asking it due to Star becoming visibly glum at the mention of the old book, but the princess none the less answered the question and didn't project any hostility towards Pacifica for asking.
"Yeah, I did. But I let it get stolen, and because of it getting stolen it got destroyed." She explained, keeping her answer as concise as possible.
Pacifica winced a little, and after a moment of debate decided to press on in an attempt to cheer Star up. "Okay, sensitive subject, I'm sorry for probing. But, I wanted to let you know, if you're, well, interested... we've got a lot of spells documented back on Earth. I could share them with you, if you feel like you need the boost."
Despite still being visibly glum over the memory her friend had called up, Star still smiled at Pacifica. "Thank you, that's great of you to offer, but it wasn't just spells that were lost. Each chapter of the Royal Book of Spells was carefully inscribed by a past queen of mewni, talking about not just all the magic they did, but their thoughts, their feelings, the history they lived in... it was more than just a spell book, it was "a priceless piece of cultural history and royal legacy," as mom never gets tired of reminding me..." Star snorted, before looking down at her own shoes, disappointed in herself. "And I never appreciated it. And then I got it destroyed."
"That sucks." Pacifica responded, bluntly but in a genuine attempt to comfort Star.
"Thanks." The princess responded, obviously downcast at the statement but still not angry at her friend.
"If it's any consolation, there's a collection of books I value a great deal as well." Pacifica explained, causing Star to perk up and pay closer attention. "It's a collection of Journals, documenting the research the Pines family conducts into the supernatural. I've actually done a bit of writing for Journal #4 at this point, which I guess... makes me... part of the... family." The human girl's voice gradually stuttered and slowed down as the realization hit her, all while Star got an increasingly cheesy grin next to her.
"Ooooh, I guess it does, Pines 3~" Star teased, leaning in close to Pacifica's face, which caused the human to take a large gulp of her drink and look away with a briefly cross expression.
"Anyways, what I was trying to say was that if you ever need help restarting your whole royal spellbook thing, I'm sure I could arrange you access to the Journal collection." Pacifica offered wholeheartedly, before joking that "But only if you promise to cite correctly!"
Star grinned a little at the joke, but it was an otherwise very warm, very appreciative smile. "Pacifica... thank you. That actually does mean a lot to me, that you would help me clean up a mess I made like that. I... I think I'll have to take you up on that offer at some point. Is there anything I can give you guys in return for this?"
Pacifica held up a hand while taking another drink, before saying "Don't worry about it Star, no payment is necessary. Scientific information deserves to be free, it's right to share it." After saying this statement, the human teenager sloshed around what was left of her drink and looking at the small amount of liquid in the bottom. All the while smiling to herself about how natural and how right that statement had been for her when she spoke it.
"Well, then I promise I'll do everything in my power to keep them safe and not lose them when they're in my custody!" Star replied, trying to make a joke about the situation to cheer herself up. However, this time Pacifica became slightly morose at the statement.
"That would be for the best, yes. It'd be a terrible thing for the Journals to be lost, and it's already almost happened twice." She explained, and as a result Star winced sharply.
"Ooooooh, sorry, didn't mean to push a button there." She apologized sincerely.
"I mean, the first time they came back through the pure luck of random magic nonsense, but then Mabel says they should just throw them down a bottomless pit? Let all the effort put into making them, all the good they could do just to waste like that? Thank goodness they shot that idiot down." Pacifica was muttering to herself in a grouchy tone now, but snapped out of it when her eyes shifted sideways and saw Star again. At that point, the human became instantly apologetic. "What am I gripping about though!? You actually lost your important book!"
"Geez, thanks for reminding me. At this rate you're gonna sound just like my mom." Star said in a playfully sarcastic and grumpy tone.
Pacifica let the air hang silent for moment, then snatched Star's drink out of her hand and drank it all in, swished it around her mouth, then swallowed it in one big gulp, symbolically trying to wash sounding like Queen Moon out of her mouth. Despite having her drink stolen for the sake of this short gag, Star still laughed at it. This, in turn, caused Pacifica to giggle a little, enjoying a mutual laugh with her friend even if it wasn't as vigorous as Star's.
Across the ballroom, Queen Moon and King River had just stepped off the floor after enjoying a well practiced but still invigorating dance with each other. It had been a swift step, as after the guided tour of the ball by the Lucitor King and Queen had been interrupted by a servant rushing up and whispering something to the King. A quick dance gave the guests of honor the perfect excuse to briefly retire to a corner with a pair of drinks, where they were unlikely to be interrupted.
"Still though, I am sorry." Pacifica still made sure to apologize. "I was trying to talk to you about one of your problems and then just start muttering about something of mine that isn't even an actual problem, just a scenario where a problem could have happened."
"Ah, it's alright! Don't sweat it!" Star replied encouragingly. "And for what it's worth, you've already made this Ball a lot more tolerable than the majority of these stuffy dances have ever been for me."
With a glint of curiosity in her eyes, Pacifica found herself compelled to ask "And what made the, presumably few, balls that were just as if not more tolerable than this one? I've never been to a ball in a different dimension before this, so I'm sure all of those parties were bereft of my stunning charisma and engaging conversational skills." injecting a bit of fake, playful ego into the end of her statement.
"Oh, nothing the hosts had planned, that's for sure." Star replied mischievously, leaning in to talk with Pacifica. "It's always the accidents that make for the most exciting events. Let me tell you about the time my attempt to arrive at an event on the back of a pure white warnicorn went off the rail due to a harmless piece of chewing gum I'd brought with me to stave off some boredom..."
Moon pantomimed laughing at something River had said so as to bring one of her rings close to her mouth, seeming to laugh into the back of her hand from a distance, but in reality she was speaking into the transmitter device hidden into the jewelry. "Pines 2, this is, ugh, Meghan. Napoleon and Lilith have left the dance floor. Possibly investigating your 'minor altercation.' Over." Her earpiece remained silent, causing the monarch to scowl slightly.
"Are you sure we should be doing this dear?" River asked, a tone of genuine uncertainty to his voice. "The Lucitors are some of our strongest allies, and now we're, well, spying on them, all on the word of a monster and this... Pines Family, who I know you have doubts about." With a stronger tone, he added "Of course, I'll follow whatever you think is best dear, but... your choice here has surprised me."
Moon had discreetly been releasing a noise baffling spell from her palm to thwart anyone trying to listen in, and when her husband finished voicing his concerns she responded with an understanding and somewhat worried tone. "I absolutely understand your concern, and to be honest with you I haven't doubted a decision of mine as much as this one for some time." As she continued to speak, the look of concern on her face got more prominent. "And yet... something is going on here. Something HAS been going on for far too long. Toffee knew how to destroy the wand, River! He knew how it could be destroyed, and how to place himself inside it! How could he have known that? How is that even possible?"
With a troubled brow of his own, River responded by saying "Yes, those are... troublesome questions, and outside the Kingdom of Mewni and the Magical High Commission itself, no one possess more magic inside our political sphere than the Lucitors. But why would they be helping Toffee with something so... cataclysmic? Do they truly possess that kind of knowledge in the first place?"
"King Dave is a Mewman himself River." Queen Moon reminded her husband while rubbing her chin. "One whose origin we've never quite managed to pin down with any certainty. He simply... appeared on the political stage one day, comforting the lone survivor of the Lucitor dynasty with an unconditional, passionate romance. It'd be blazingly suspicious if the idea of a lone Mewman exterminating an entire demonic lineage wasn't utterly far fetched. There is much about him we don't know."
"But what would they have stood to gain should Toffee have won?" River asked worriedly, getting less sure of his own skepticism. "After all, the Lucitors aren't monsters and Dave himself is a Mewman!"
"A new market, perhaps. One more favorable to their interests." Queen Moon mused. "Perhaps they had some miracle super weapon they planned to offer to us when we were on the verge of being wiped out, in exchange for a radical change of political dynamics. Or maybe a new monster empire would be better customers for an arms industry."
"All that is assuming the monster was telling the truth." River noted warily.
Moon looked distant for a moment, but eventually stated "I found his story very convincing."
Two Days Ago
Queen Moon leaned back into her chair, letting out a long and weary sigh at the assembled sight in front of her. "Star just seems to be making a habit of dragging complete strangers into my office as of late."
In front of the Queen of Mewni, her daughter and heir was standing in front of a complicated crowd of characters, whose outrageous nature even the tradition bucking and sometimes clueless princess seemed to be partially aware of, as her eyes cast back and forth over the group with a nervous smile on her face.
"So, Star..." Moon asked dryly, bringing her head back up to address her private audience. "What is it you need to talk about today?"
To Star's right, Dipper Pines was struggling with the large cork board he'd managed to fit into the room, upon which were numerous pictures and paper scraps pinned to the surface and connected to each other via a dizzying rainbow of colored string. The string connections got thick enough in places to obscure the meaning of the display ("If there even is one") but as far as Moon could discern it proposed the existence of a grand and centuries old conspiracy involving the recently deceased Glossaryck, the Magical High Commission, the Corn Shuckers Guild, Bill Cipher, Queen Moon's own venerated ancestors, Boy Bard Bands, St. Olga's Reform School, and aglets.
To Dipper's side, Pacifica Northwest had hauled in a cart full of books from the royal library, all of them brimming with sticky notes the girl had placed during her investigatory reading of them: Red was for factual inconsistencies, green marked vague and legendaric writing in place of historical accuracy, blue was for uncited claims and yellow was for spelling errors. Each book was crammed with a wide collection of all four colors. Next to her, Stanford Pines was trying to assemble a projector.
To Star's left though, was the most surprising guest of all: Buff Frog, standing before the Queen of Mewni, tall and without fear, a baby carriage besides him as his little ones stretched their still new legs by hopping all about the room. One splashed itself over Queen Moon's desk before hoping along again, at which point the older woman leaned forward with a withering expression.
"So Star, here are the facts as I understand them." Queen Moon began to speak rhetorically in a tone that was both sarcastic and annoyed, but mostly disappointed. "Upon my recommendation, you did, in fact, visit the Kingdom's Monster Expert, but rather than learning anything from her, you proceeded to lose her out in the wilderness. Then you decided the best way to remedy this situation would be to appoint a monster, who does not meet the qualifications of the post, to a position which you as princess do not actually have any sort of legal authority to make appointments to. A new appointment whose first act as Monster Expert is to level accusations against a generations old ally of the Kingdom of Mewni, which is a matter completely unrelated to his sphere, even if his appointment was legitimate." Leaning back in her chair for a moment with a stressed expression, the queen concluded her statement with a simple question. "Does that about sum things up?"
"Well... yes?" Star replied with uncertainty. "Look, I know this all seems like a mess at first glance, but when we all sat down and talked about it, we figured out something was going on here!" She tried to explain, before shifting her gaze sideways and loudly whispering "Dipper, work your magic!"
The boy from Earth was, unfortunately, struggling with his poster at the moment and lamenting the fact he didn't have a tripod to mount it on. "Uh... just a sec Star..." Before he could compose a response though, Buff Frog stepped forward, resolve in every step, and began to speak.
"Moon Butterfly, I come before you today hoping you will hear my words, and listen. I speak to you here not as monster to mewman, or proletariat to bourgeoisie, but as parent to parent." At this, Queen Moon straightened up a little and regarded Buff Frog with curiosity. Though her connection to the monster hadn't lasted long, she'd gotten enough sense of him to know he wouldn't pledge by his status as a parent lightly. "And I speak as parent who wishes to leave a time of peace to the children. Just as I know you would not want Star to inherit a world of conflict." With a slight hint of anger to his voice, he added "I have no more love for the likes of Toffee, and Ludo. They would burn down all of monster kind to ensure Butterflies are trapped in the fire."
"But there is more to this game than Toffee and Butterflies and Ludo." Buff Frog explained while beginning to step towards the Queen's desk. She had briefly turned to look at her daughter with a softer expression as the monster explained himself, then turned a careful glare back to him. "I could speak of the weapon merchants, the traders and bargainers that regularly came from the Underworld, in numbers greater than what you know. I conducted hundreds of meetings with them as right hand of Ludo. However, think this will be better example."
Without any flourish, Buff Frog produced his most valuable material possession from his pocket and placed it on Queen Moon's table.
"Dimensional scissors!" She gasped in surprise, before turning narrow eyes against the monster in front of her. "Where did you get these!?"
"Same place as weapons and vending machine. From Lucitors." Buff Frog explained simply. "Was good deal, two for one even. It was these scissors, and the pair Ludo possessed, which let him attack your daughter, Queen Moon. It was these scissors that let Toffee attack your daughter."
The monarch seemed to be struck silent for a moment. She still had doubts as to the origin on the object in front of her and the other mentioned pair, but mention of her ancient enemy and the terrifying realization of how easily he could have attacked her daughter at any time gave Moon pause. It was a pause her visitors took advantage of, as Dipper was the next one to speak up.
"Star told us about how Hekapoo wards all her scissors in order to detect if they're being misused. Thing is though, her wards aren't very good." He explained boldly while stepping up to the Queen's desk. He lifted the scissors up by the handle with one of his hands while the other began to point out various small details. "It's a basic rune programming system sketched into the steel of the blades themselves, small enough to not normally be seen unless you're really looking. They draw the energy they need to operate through the microscopic, nanoseconds until collapse portals the scissors open up just when they're being handled, the ones on the end record each portal opening that reaches a predefined size, and when too many happen within a set time period, this rune here sends a message off to Hekapoo." Dipper explained. Moon was squinting at the scissor blades as he talked and could faintly see what he was talking about.
"Pretty common amateur mistake from someone who isn't used to having to think about security due to being individually powerful." Dipper spoke up, actually causing Moon to blink a few times at what he was implying. "See, the way it's set up here is that this rune is deactivated most of the time, and comes to life when a message needs to go out. If she were clever, Hekapoo would set it so that this thing is always on, always transmitting to a second rune system that will alert her if it stops receiving the signal. From there, set the wards on the tips to turn off the signal rune for a second then turn it back on when an overuse is detected." Gesturing for Moon to look closely again, Dipper tapped the signal rune. "This rune has been permanently broken. It will never turn on and signal Hekapoo again due to the damage it has taken. The end result is an untraceable pair of dimensional scissors."
At this point, Moon had taken the scissors out of Dipper's hands with one of her own, and was using her other gloved hand to compare her own pair of scissors to the one owned by the monster. "Of course, it's not an easy task, damaging such a powerful magic item forged by the flames of an expert, and Hekapoo is still an expert, even if she's a bit lacking in her knowledge of programming security." Dipper explained, not even phased by the object being taken from him and pacing back and forth in front of Moon's desk. "It couldn't have been easy to accomplish something like that of course, you'd need something powerful to scuff such a high quality example of runesmithing, not to mention magical. Something like, say, the sort of fires that are used to weld together magical weapons, or alchemical acid potent enough to shape and dissolve souls."
By now, Moon had compared Buff Frog's pair of scissors to her own, and the human seemed to be telling the truth: The specific rune he'd pointed out was noticeably scuffed in comparison to the matching one on her pair of scissors. She set both tools down on her desk and seemed to withdraw for a moment, not really looking at anything in particular as she tried to sort out all the information she'd just been given. The crowd assembled in front of her all looked nervous as they waited for the queen to reach a conclusion, though Ford did offer his apprentice a look of pride.
"Your majesty..." Pacifica spoke up carefully, stepping forward with a book in hand. "...There's more to it. This is a tome about diplomatic conduct between the various kingdoms of your realm." she explained, while setting the book in front of Queen Moon and flipping to a specific page. "In here, a section that explains which stereotypes about kingdoms are acceptable to joke about under what circumstances, it mentions one about the Lucitors, and it says under 'origins' they have a history of accidentally dropping their magic scissors into lava and then needing to awkwardly ask Hekapoo for new ones. Described as 'acceptable for light teasing between nobles of equal posting.' Is that true?"
"Of course!" Moon said abruptly, finally hitting on a question she could answer. "Why, King Dave joked about his family history of butter fingers just recently, when I asked to move the upcoming Ball to his palace. He commented offhandedly that he was the first King of the Underworld the scissors were actually properly sized for." Then, Moon went quiet again as her expression shifted at a rapid pace as she thought long and hard about all the information she'd been given, expression getting more and more perturbed the longer she contemplated everything. It lasted long enough that a nervous Star took a few steps towards her mother's desk, softly asking "Mom? Are you alright?"
That brought Moon back to focus. "Never better Star." she said through gritted teeth, before fixing her gaze on Buff Frog. "You mentioned having conducted hundreds of meetings with Lucitor representatives, correct?" The Queen asked, and before the monster could answer, she followed up with. "Tell me about them. All of them."
Away from the dance floor, in a private bathroom that was outright hidden from the guests to the Silver Bell Ball, Prince Tom splashed his own face with water and stared at himself in the mirror, trying to psyche himself up after his encounter with Princess Pony Head.
"Come on Thomas, get your head in the game!" He spoke to his own reflection. "Your spies have told you Marco is out of the picture, and you didn't even have to go through with the whole torture thing to make it happen! This is the perfect opportunity to slide right back in and sweep Starship off her feet, show her what she really needs!" Blinking at himself a few times, he added "She's emotionally devastated by loss! Dad always told you that's the best place to pick people up from!"
"Umm, Master Tom...?" A timid voice came from the entrance to the room, the speaker a small demonic servant of some variety.
"WHAT!?" Tom exploded abruptly, inwardly mortified at the idea of someone having caught him struggling with something as simple as this and burning that mortification into raw anger.
The other demon shrank in place, cowering at the steadily rising fire surrounding the prince. The natives of the Underworld had a natural resistance to fire, but in the case of Tom that just meant being burned to death by his anger would be a longer and more painful of a process for a fellow demon then most other forms of death. Mustering all his will to survive, the servant stuttered "T...There has been an, an incident in your father's study! I was told you would want to investigate personally, s...sir!"
Tom's anger only mounted in response. "And why, in the name of the Great Asmodeus, would you not bring this information TO MY FATHER INSTEAD!?"
"His Majesty and the Queen are preoccupied Master Tom, a disturbance in the city!" The domestic servant rushed to explain as the prince stomped towards him. "A...and the one who requested you be told this, we have been told to follow all his instructions!"
Instantly, the fires went out as Tom's burning anger was replaced with a look of annoyance. "Ah, you must mean that one." He muttered nastily. Looking back at the servant, he dismissively ordered him to depart, an order the demon obeyed with record speed. Grimacing to himself and looking in the mirror one more time, Tom snarled "What has that yellow jester decided to annoy me with tonight I wonder?"
After leaving the bathroom, Tom flagged down a passing guard. "Soldier, go to my quarters and retrieve a locked box from the third right drawer of my dresser. Bring it to my father's office." With the command given, the two parted, Prince Tom walking in silence until he reached the sight of the disturbance. When he finally arrived, all three eyes blinked in confusion.
"Why is there a Mewman boy collapsed across the floor of my father's study?" Tom asked. Whatever he'd been expecting for a disturbance, it really wasn't this.
One of the guards minding the scene held up an empty wine glass. He, and the other soldiers minding the office, bore much more formal looking armor, patterned with the royal red of the Lucitor family and bearing ceremonial silver pauldrons across the shoulders. "As far as we can guess my prince, this glass of wine got spilled at some point, he slipped on it, and knocked himself out cold." Then, with sudden awareness, he pointed to a spot on the floor. "Mind the wet patch mi'lord, it's right over there."
Tom let out a weary sigh. "Ugh, probably some drunk who wandered off from the party. Alright, flip him over and get him out of here." He commanded, but as soon as the first part of his command was completed, the prince's whole body stiffened with angry surprise and he gestured for the guards to stop. "That's Star's bodyguard." He said, at a loss for meaning. "What is he doing all the way back here!?"
"That, uh, would explain some of the things we found on him m'lord." One guard spoke up, gesturing to a small number of knick-knacks on King Dave's work desk. "Only a cursory search so far, but he does seems fairly well equipped for..."
"Throw him in the acid bath."
Tom had spoken the command with cold anger in his voice. In truth, he'd stopped listening to the guard as soon as he'd pointed to the collection of equipment and cast his third eye over it, only for the eye to catch at the sight and return to stare at the gear, joined by the other two in the process. Then, all three of them had shrank with rage as gears began to turn in Tom's head again.
Among the small collection of saboteur's tools and a collapsible crossbow, something stood out to Tom. The device itself was a magic detector assembled out of ordinary household objects, a handheld vacuum cleaner with integrated magic detecting circuitry, while a light-bulb and car speedometer attached to the outer casing provided readings to anyone using it. The speedometer component was what stood out to Tom, he recognized it from the earth vehicles he had encountered during a visit to that dimension.
His eyes widened as things came together in the prince's head. "That thing is made out of objects from the Earth dimension." He thought to himself, casting his eyes on the boy sprawled over the floor, who visibly at least seemed to be a similar age to Tom. "He's not a Mewman at all, is he!? What's he doing here? This... Earth Boy."
At that last thought, Tom gave his order with a shudder of anger, then stormed out of the room. The assembled guards scrambled to attention, working together to haul the captured intruder off the floor and carry him to the most dreaded chamber in the castle, but their prince wasn't evaluating their performance. Instead, he was striding with confidence towards the servant from earlier, who had acquired the box and arrived at the office, just as instructed.
Taking the container without a word, Tom delicately extracted the glass bottle that was inside it, three eyes regarding the bubbling, corrosive looking red liquid inside with an expression of confidence and delight. In the background, his guards shuffled away with their prisoner, but Tom was smiling and ignoring them. "She'll be mine now." He thought as satisfaction rippled down his spine before stepping off towards the dance floor. Everyone was in such a shuffle in fact, that they completely missed it when a spindly figure emerged from a filing cabinet in King Dave's office, then stepped into the corridor, looking quite pleased with itself.
"Alright, run along then Horns, Pine Tree!" Bill whispered to himself, his host's only remaining eye bouncing back and forth in its socket so he could watch Tom depart and Dipper be carried away by guards. "No matter if you escape or not, I'm still ahead of the game! Although, is that a nosey mouse I spy?"
Everyone completely missed Bill emerging from his hiding place in the king's office, everyone except for the unfortunate servant, that is. Tom had stormed off without giving him any further instructions, causing him to simply stand around stunned and unsure where he needed to be at the moment, which was unfortunately enough to seal his fate. The castle courtier tried to take a few steps back and whimpered to himself as Bill strode towards him confidently, a hazy figure of gold slowly materializing around his stolen devil body.
"You however, I'm gonna do this to for fun!"
Two Months Ago
"...And a twenty pound bushel of freshly harvested sanicle herb. I trust everything is to your... satisfaction?"
Tom Lucitor was standing in a circular chamber deep in the Underworld Palace, one of the many ritual room employed by the royal family. The room bore all the common marks of a demonic ritual, blood drenching every surface, animals nailed to the walls and such and a cracked brass bell hanging from the ceiling, but the center floor of the room was unusually lacking in sharply curved pentagrams painted in the ash of the innocent. Instead, pink and yellow childrens' chalk had been used to draw a complicated diagram where pink hearts emerged from an interlocking of yellow gender symbols in the vague aesthetic of a bramble. And instead of a great demon or elder being at the heart of the ritual, Tom had apparently summoned a shlubby middle aged man with a mullet and fake looking wings on his back.
"Yep, it all looks pretty good dude." The Summons replied in a laid back voice, taking a sniff of the green herb and sighing with contentment. He placed the plant matter back with the other offerings (a set of tacky gold necklaces, two cartons of the finest quality eggs from the Lucitor family's private collection of geese, an extremely toxic sample of Woolandian mistletoe, several boxes of top shelf alcohol, and a magical belt and crown that bore the same enchantment) and turned back to Tom. "Well, as promised, here it is! A little something to spice up your relationship!"
As the being spoke he slowly lifted up a clear colored beaker of fluid from his rope belt, where several more bottles with various colors of fluid sat precariously attached. Tom eyed the bottle enviously with all three pupils, eager to hold it in his hands. "However!" The spirit of attraction spoke suddenly while raising up a finger, causing Tom to almost flinch from the delay. "Be careful with this, and try to make use of it as quickly as possible!"
"Why, is there a shelf life to this stuff?" Tom asked, suddenly troubled and curious.
"No shelf life man, but this stuff is potent, and can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Believe me, I've seen lesser potions than this cause a lot of trouble." The summoned man explained, causing Tom to visibly relax and even grin a little. "I mean, don't rush your lovely new wife into anything or anything, but the longer you leave this laying around, the bigger the chance you have of misplacing it. And absolutely don't go priming it until you're sure it's go time, otherwise someone else could end up physically obsessed with you."
"Right, of course." Tom remarked, nodding a little. Then, he frowned. "Now, when you say prime it..." The prince asked a little nervously. "...Does that really mean what the book said it means?"
"You better believe it man! Gotta get YOUR essence in there after all!" The summoned creature replied, grinning like a frat boy that had pulled a prank on the demon prince instead of a cosmic being. "By the way dude, a word of advice: Don't miss. If you do, it's gonna be a lot harder on her to actually drink this thing, and moving it into another bottle will probably spill some, and then all the concentration ratios are off."
"Noted." Tom said with a minor gravel of disgust to his voice, but was all and all still visibly pleased with the deal he had conducted. Adopting a more formal stance, he looked straight on at his private little conjuring and thanked him. "I'm sure this is going to be a great help to us. We've talked about this at length, and while we both love each other, the whole, you know, arranged marriage thing can sort of cast a damp blanket on the honeymoon bed, if you know what I'm saying?" He spoke smoothly and slickly, every word managing to sound like the casual truth. "I apologize that the new Mrs. Lucitor couldn't be here as well, I know she'd want to thank you in person."
"Hey man, surprise tax protest blockades sound like a real hassle! Besides, there's no need to thank me, well, outside of these fresh party supplies that is!" The being answered, taking his place at the center of the ritual circle with his tribute and pulling two bottles of liquor out of the top box. "Adding some fire to arranged marriages is a basic level parlor trick for me. I've done it enough times I could do it in my sleep! And sometimes I have!" The ritual abruptly began to reverse, soft pink flames igniting on the edge of the drawing and drawing inwards. "LOVE FOR THE LOVE GOD!"
"Yes." Tom muttered, taking a very appreciate glance down at his latest acquisition, feet splashing through ritually spilled blood as he moved to the exit. "Love for the Love God indeed."
Back on the dance floor, Star and Pacifica had been doing their best to play the roles of princess and bodyguard, working through the crowd and exchanging the necessary formalities. They had even started to have a degree of fun at the event, laughing at each other's jokes and enjoying the company. The mood abruptly soured however, when they spotted Prince Tom approaching their position, seemingly looking to confront them while their backs were to a refreshment table.
"I don't suppose we can sic Pony Head on him again?" Pacifica asked sideways to the Princess of Mewni. Star, in turn, glanced sideways over her shoulder to observe Flying Princess Pony Head getting cheered on by other young royals as she tilted her head back to drink an entire bowl of fruit punch that was only being held up by her teeth. Looking back to Pacifica, Star simply remarked "Doesn't seem like it."
"Hey Starship." Tom greeted, having finally crossed the distance to the two. "What do you say you and me get our formal dance of the night out of the way? If we wait too long our dads are probably gonna start swinging at each other." He spoke the last sentence like a joke, but there was something of a coldness to Tom's voice, making it a joke that lacked any of the warmth of humor.
"Uh... I think we should wait to do that. You know, make it a sort of grand finale to the evening?" Star replied back uncertainly, while thinking to herself "Hopefully by then the sort of disaster all my efforts can't go without will have triggered and we'll all be running away from the fires without me having to actually dance with him."
"Eh, not a bad idea, but I think we should do this... sooner." Tom stated, taking a little step forward towards Star. The princess automatically stepped back in response but bumped against the refreshment table, while Pacifica had begun to glare at the princes with unrestrained disdain. "Is is because you want to look for your bodyguard instead? I noticed the boy in the red suit is missing."
Despite her attempts to control her response, Star felt a bead of sweat form on her head at Tom's statement. "Oh no, I'm not worried. He's around here, uh, somewhere! You know how bodyguards are, fading into the background is a skill after all, not a liability for them!" Star was obviously nervous when she spoke, while Tom kept up a silky smooth, relaxed expression, looking for all the world like he was casually chatting about the weather.
"Well, maybe he's a little less highly recommended than you initially thought." Tom stated, dropping the bomb as casually as possible. "My guards actually stumbled upon him in the back offices. Now, nothing serious is going on, yet, he was probably just sneaking off to do some drinking, but I think it'd be best we get our dance out of the way so you and me and can work out his release. In private." Both blonds were showing signs of nervousness now, and Tom's placid expression took a victorious tone to it, the insinuation in his words clear as day. "I'd hate for our parents to get involved in this, I'm sure your mother wouldn't approve of whatever whacky scheme you came up with here and my dad has quite the temper, you know, and can be sort of paranoid. Had a pizza guy executed last month thinking he was a revolutionary."
Openly nervous now, Star and Pacifica looked right at each other, unsure of what to do, but the princess quickly burst out "Sure, okay then! Let me just... cool down with a drink, to get ready! I'll meet you out on the dance floor!?"
"I await your arrival, Princess Star." Tom responded with a tone of smooth silk, before stepping away from the two. Instantly, Star spun around to the drink she'd poured herself before the demon prince had approached and swallowed it down in one gulp, trying to steady her active nerves. In response, Tom's expression shone with delight despite his best efforts, but fortunately for him, his two targets hadn't noticed his change of expression.
"Pacifica what are we gonna do!?" Star asked with a panicky tone while pouring up another drink to try and calm down. "They've got Dipper!"
"Okay, okay, calm down, freaking out won't get us anywhere." The human girl responded, obviously quite worried herself from her tone of voice, before she activated her communication device, with much less subtlety than it had been used the rest of the evening. "Pines 2, this is Pines 3. Pines 1 has been captured by Trioculus, over." She spoke into the ring on her finger.
On the other side of the line, Stanford could detect the radio crackle to life at the edge of his hearing, but the sound of Pacifica's voice was swiftly drowned out by the police sirens filling the air as he lead the carriages of Underworld Police Department on a looping chase through the city in the surveillance van. "I'll have to pick up later, sorry!" He said to no one in particular, before swerving the wheel hard to try and lose them in the intake system of a magma driven steel mill.
"No response, damn it." Pacifica breathed harshly as she finally gave up trying to reach Ford. "Alright, Dipper's in trouble, we need to do something to get him out of this and put the ditch on Prince Creep over there." She muttered, glancing to the side to see Tom was giving the two a dorky wave from the center of the dance floor. However, Pacifica's eyes widened and her tone got softer (though still filled with concern) when she noticed Star was waving back to him. "Star, are you okay?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm good." The princess responded, breaking the wave. "I'm thinking... let's play Tom's game, for now. I'll go out, dance with him a little while you look for Dipper, and maybe he'll tell me something useful?" She explained with an increasingly spaced out expression. "That'd hardly be the worst thing in the world, right?" Star's face had gone from spaced out to dreamy admiration by now.
Pacifica, on the other hand, wore an expression of total bafflement, flavored by contempt. "Star, what are you talking about!?" She replied harshly while clasping the Butterfly's shoulder, only to draw back when she felt her fingers sink into the princess' skin, her muscles having relaxed into butter. With a growing look of horror on her face, Pacifica scooped up the cup Star had been drinking from, and whipped out a pair of Groucho Marx glasses, put them on her face, then squeezed the nose to activate the magic detection system built into the lenses. The girl from Earth nearly dropped the cup when a strong magical aura could be seen clinging to the bottom of the container, like leftover liquid. Pacifica quickly removed the device and put both hands on Star's shoulders.
"Star, listen to me." She spoke curtly, as the princess began to get a dopey expression on her face. "I'm not demanding you just get over whatever you're feeling at the moment, but Dipper is in danger! You remember Dipper, right? Your friend! You need to try and focus so we can help him."
Pacifica's words set off a struggle across Star's face, and when the princess looked away from the prince across the room to her friend, she seemed to sober up considerably. "Right, I need to... go somewhere private. I can use my MAGIC to find him!" She detailed, still not all there.
"Yeah, we need to get you somewhere private for a lot of reasons..." Pacifica muttered, angry and frustrated though of course not at Star. "She's been drugged somehow, or something with magic, and I need to get her out of here..."
"Hey, don't worry Paz!" Star spoke up, while raising her wand up besides her own increasingly pale and sweaty face, which bore an increasingly loopy expression. "MAAAAAAGIC will get us out of this!"
Deeper into the castle, a pair of just two guards transported Dipper into one of the kingdom's most feared rooms on a gurney, the wheeled bed proving much more adept at handling the still unconscious human teenager than the six stumbling guards could. Demons, you see, are extremely durable and even mildly regenerative as a species, though not to the extent of Septarians. Combine that with their innate fire immunity, and executing them proves to be something of a challenge. However, the Lucitor establishment had developed a winning formula generations and generations ago.
The room was a simple cube, metal walls in front of a square pool dug into the floor. Most victims where anesthetized and already zipped up in a body bag before the execution was carried out, so security features were minimal. A small table was built onto a wall, in case the person had to be stripped of any protective charms or objects before being tossed in. Along with that, the only other feature of the room was two other gurneys stored in here and some knobs built into the walls, like sink faucets but without a pipe between them, with the actual tubes they opened positioned a distance away to feed the currently empty pool when released.
After wheeling Dipper in and making sure he wasn't waking up, the two guard set to work turning the faucets and then watched the pool fill with the kingdom's finest alchemical acid, the really strong stuff that even the industrial plants didn't utilize for being too dangerous to work with. It was a fairly slow fill, as even with the eye and mouth protection both guards had donned before entering, no one wanted droplets of the stuff splashing all over the place. Besides, it wasn't like their prisoner was going anywhere.
"Dipper...Dipper!"
A familiar voice at the edge of reality, obscured by the thick ooze that seemed to coat every pore of... what, exactly? Dipper Pines realized there was nothing at all stopping him as he returned to reality, returning to a swimming head as his consciousness chased the familiar tone whispering to him. Who was it that whispering in his ear, with that pleasant, familiar voice?"
"Star?" He croaked out, with a hoarse whisper. As much as his throat hurt to talk, the pain saved him, as Dipper didn't yet remember he needed to stay quiet and a healthy voice would have been heard by the absent minded guards watching the pool fill and trying not think about what they were about to do. It didn't even occur to Dipper that it was weird for Star to be floating in front of his face, talking to him.
On the other side of her latest use of the All-Seeing Eye spell, Star grimaced at the sight of Dipper but nearly fell off her own feet as a wave of disgust hit her. "Dipper, look, stay quiet!" She told him in a harsh whisper, as the boy got sharper and sharper by the second. "Tom's goons have dragged you off, you need to get out of there!"
"Star, what...?" He breathed out, but quickly sobered up after taking a look down his body and seeing the two minions with their backs turned to him. He whipped his head back to Star, planning on saying something, but couldn't help but wince. "Star, you look terrible!" He spat out bluntly.
He wasn't wrong though, as Star had gotten steadily paler, sweatier and even jittery the longer she stood cramped in the public bathroom stall she'd cast the All-Seeing Eye spell in. The princess could feel a haze building up behind her eyes, clouding her thoughts and numbing her nerves, but as long as she stayed focused on Dipper through the magical viewer, she could beat it back with her concern for her friend. "Don't worry... about me. I can handle this, but you need to get out of here! Tom is trying to blackmail me with your safety, you need to bail!"
That was the final push needed for Dipper to clear the fog from his eyes and burn off the weight placed over his mind, mental cement shoes drying to drag his brain to the deep sleep. "No one uses me against my friends." He thought to himself, feeling determination flow over his body, and he looked right back at Star and whispered "Okay, I'll get out of here and make my way back to you, and we can..."
"NO!" Star whispered harshly. "You need to escape with Ford, go to Plan B! Don't... don't worry..." she said, struggling through a dizzy spot that did nothing to discourage Dipper's worries. Star then collapsed for a moment, catching herself on the rim of the toilet with her arms. Dipper tensed up in shock at the sight, but soon enough, Star lifted her face back to the All-Seeing Eye, a confident grin on her even as she was completely pale, flustered, and sweating profusely. "I've got my parents AND Pacifica to help bail me out of this, while you're all on your own! Focusing on saving yourself, I can handle a demon!"
Dipper looked at her with concern for a moment, but ultimately his internal struggle came down on Star's side after little thought. "Alright then. I've got confidence in you two! See you all back at Butterfly Castle!"
With all the necessary information conveyed, Star ended the All-Seeing Eye, removing Dipper from her sight and the drain from her wand. Instantly, the haze in her mind surged forward without a mental focus to drive it back. In a daze, Star responded to the spell disappearing by muttering "It's a date, Tom." With all her strength, the princess lifted herself from the toilet rim and turned around to leave the stall, only to run face first into the still locked door in front of her. Despite this being absurdly minor compared to some scrapes the rebel princess had taken in her life, her weakened state made it so this bowled her over. "Auuuggghhh, Tom, help me!" She cried out from bathroom floor, voice a delirious warble as a small trail of blood began to trickle from her nose.
Groaning and struggling to her knees on sedate, sensitive muscles, Star tried to regain her senses. Everything felt so strong now, the mild chill of the tile below feeling like she'd dunked her leg in an ice chest and the small trickle of blood on her nose feeling like a gushing laceration. The mild lemon scent applied to give the bathroom a pleasing odor felt like a burning chemical weapon invading her blood free nostril. "Carry me away Tom!" Star gushed, swooning around the seat of the toilet like it was the balcony of an imposing castle she was imprisoned in, just waiting for a noble knight to come rescue her! It was all Star wanted at the moment, and the part of her brain screaming this was all wrong was slowly getting caked over by the magical haze.
It was still there though, enough to give Star a moment of doubt as she looked at her sickly reflection in the bowl of water in front of her. "What's happening to me!?" She cried in desperation, even as her lips began to tingle and feel swollen, aching out for the soothing kiss of a demon.
At that exact same moment, Dipper found himself also looking into a body of liquid, with a displeased look on his face, though the Pines Twin wore a more resigned grimace of disgust.
It had begun simply enough. As soon as Star's face blinked out of existence, Dipper sprung to action, mind already racing to plan his escape. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite as returned to reality as he had initially thought, as in that short moment, the human had forgotten about the two guards he had been trying to keep from noticing him by whispering during his talk with Star.
Any lingering fogginess was dispelled for good though as the two guards sprung to attention in response to someone coming to life behind them, Dipper's dress shoes clattering against the polished metal floor. Both spun around as fast as possible, embarrassed and angry at that the fact that their casual chit-chat while waiting for the acid bath to fill had so thoroughly distracted them.
Unfortunately, this proved to be a second mistake. The further back-most guard accidentally slapped his partner across the face with the ornamental pauldron of his armor due to the size difference between the two as both swung around. This small displacement, combined with how surprised both guards were and the precarious placement they both were in, was enough to make the unfortunate guard loose their footing and tumble into the acid bath, which by now was close enough to filled to fully submerge a humanoid.
The guard began screaming as soon as he hit the acid, flesh peeling back faster than it could regrow, and the sustained howl of agony sent adrenaline shots through both other people in the room, and was eventually silenced when the corrosive fluid got into the fallen guard's throat, reducing his insides to bloody paste.
The still standing guard lunged at Dipper, screaming a battle cry of fear and anger. The human thought quickly however, and swiftly grabbed the gurney he'd been laying on a moment ago and slid it between him in the guard, causing his charge to end when his waist hit the gurney and he double over it. Undeterred, the demon soldier attempted to wrest the person mover out of the way, and after a short contest of strength with the human teenager, flung it to the side to clatter against a metal wall. Looking truly furious, the demon soldier drew a sword as Dipper took a cautious step back.
However, before the standing guard could charge away from the edge of the bath, the fallen one made a desperate, and ultimately unfortunate attempt to survive. He had managed to briefly rise above the surface of the acid mixture, completely silent due to his lungs corroding away almost entirely. As small patches of skin tried to regrow themselves while the acid was eating away at exposed muscles and even seeping down to bone at this point, the demonic flame inside gave this guard one more attempt at life. He cast a shriveled hand out of the acid bath, trying to pull himself out by the edge.
Unfortunately, all the demon's eyes had been melted to cataracted piles of goop, slowly seeping out of the eye sockets and stuck around the still relatively solid lenses. As a result, his reach for safety was a blind one, and instead of the edge of the acid bath, his melting fingers grabbed onto the leg of his partner, who recoiled in fear and practically jumped out of his skin at the sensation.
Too many nerves melted away to tell the difference, the soldier in the bath yanked his gripping arm down, trying to leverage himself against the floor to haul his body out. Instead, his fellow guard came tumbling in on top of him.
Dipper stood and watched the bubbling pool of acid calm to placidity for a few moments, both because he was shocked by how fast that had all happened and because the practical side of his brain wanted to make sure they weren't going to climb out after him. While processing the whole thing, Dipper's face ran the gamut of grimaces from disgusted, regretful, dismissive and eventually troubled. Finally coming to terms with it and certain no one was going to climb out after him, Dipper meticulously returned the gurneys to their original positions and turned off the acid faucets, muttering a quick "Forgive me if I don't join you."
He had briefly patted down his suit's pockets as an afterthought to check what gear he still had, but Dipper stopped in his tracks when he felt something he didn't recognize. Looking confused, the boy reached inside his inner suit pocket to find it was stuffed full of letter envelopes! And not just any letters, sealed letters addressed to the King of the Underworld!
"I don't remember finding these..." He thought to himself with a concerned look on his face. "...In fact, I don't really remember much after that weird shrine. I was moving around the hallways again, and then...?" Shaking his head, Dipper stuffed the letters back into his suit. "Whatever, I can have Great Uncle Ford check my brain later. For now, I gotta get out of here."
Tom was getting annoyed by how long it was taking Star to yield to his threat and come dancing. He'd already lost sight of her for a bit when he had to get off to the side so someone else could use the main dance floor, but was relieved when she finally entered his field of vision, walking right towards him. Relieved enough that he completely ignored how stiff and unnaturally neutral her posture and expression was.
"Princess Star..." Tom asked graciously, while extending a hand to her. "...May I have this dance?"
Star didn't answer aloud, instead doing so by extending her arm and taking the prince's hand. The whole Ball went silent as the dance floor cleared out. All eyes were on them, and both pairs of parents watched with particularly rapt attention. Tom took the lead in the dance, but instantly, something felt wrong.
The Princess of Mewni was limp and stiff, shuffling with every step as the two began to circle around the floor, trying to build the dance's speed but feeling like he was dragging a weight along him. "Something's wrong, she should be all over me after the potion I gave her." Tom thought to himself as the steps continued. Already, murmurs were beginning to move through the crowd. "If that potion has hurt Star I'll summon that Love God again just so I can skin him alOUCH!"
As the repetitive, monotonous steps continued, Star had unexpectedly crushed one of Tom's feet during a close section. Temper flared in all three eyes as he involuntarily glared at Star for a moment, and despite how quickly the prince regained control, the crowd had taken notice of both the foot step and the hateful flash of expression it evoked. When his own was back to bearing a controlled expression, Tom examined the face of his dance partner: It was neutral, unnaturally neutral for such an expressive person. Even her cheek marks seemed dull and uncertain, not glowing with life like they usually were.
Tom attempted to dip Star down, but she straight refused to cooperate with that section of dance, forcing him to do all the work to lift her back to a standing position. The two royal families were glaring at each other with increasingly tense expressions now, the two fathers in particular seeming to be one spark away from coming to blows.
"Okay, something's gone wrong here. Time to bring out the big trebuchets." Tom thought to himself with an increasingly nervous glance around with his third eye. The assembled royals were already gossiping among themselves, the dance in front of them so stiff and awkward that they couldn't even wait to return to their own castles before indulging in speculation/slander. However, Tom attempted ignore that, briefly turning the dance's awkward nature into an advantage by letting his body go on autopilot while he tried to focus his mental energies into his third eye. "Now, just a little spot of hypnotism should bring some life to this party."
Retaking active control of the dance, Tom took an abrupt, sharp step that Star clearly wasn't expecting, as the jolt of surprise she expressed from it was the most emotion she'd registered this whole time. Tom locked eyes with her, his more normal two locking hers down while his third peered straight into her mind, and began to transmit. "Weird, it's foggy in here. Something, huh, feels wrong about..."
All Tom's thoughts dissolved into psychic static when Star abruptly rammed her right index finger into his third eye.
"Big mistake! I've blinded bigger, creepier demons in my time than you!" Star yelled at Tom as the two separated, Tom stumbling backwards as he felt his brain go haywire, built up magic fritzing out and causing small fires while Star stepped back with a defensive posture that belayed the put on confidence she had yelled that with. Confused, Tom muttered "Star, what happened to your voice...?" before he was drowned out by his father.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?"
From his place on the sidelines, King Dave had exploded with rage, looking as though the only reason he hadn't vented his wrath upon someone was because he couldn't decide between Moon, River, Star, Tom, Wrathmelior, or the closest servant. However, even his titanic inferno of anger was damped by surprise as the last person anyone in the room expected took to the dance floor.
"OH, YOU WANNA KNOW THE MEANING OF THIS!?"
This time, the speaker was another Star Butterfly, who despite looking much more run down than the one who had danced with Tom, seemed much more recognizable to those that knew her. She had shouted her shout in a dazed, gargling tone of voice, and her long blond hair was wet and clumpy, needing to be pushed out of her eyes several times during her walk across the room. Her heart stamped cheeks were puffed up and huffy, while her dress was ruffled and damp near the neck, and she nearly fell over several times during her exceedingly angry walk across the room.
"Wait, Star, what is...?" Tom began to stutter, face rapidly shifting back and forth between the Star he'd danced with and this new one, and to the prince's misfortune, happened to be looking right at the new Star when she commemorated successfully crossing the floor by spitting the mouthful of water she'd been carrying in her cheeks right into his face. "EEUUEGGHH!"
"There, you can take back whatever you tried to poison me with!" Star screamed accusingly. "I hope the toilet water washed it all out!"
The crowd of royals burst into an uproar at this point, a single step away from exploding into a full on riot as everyone rapidly took a side.
"What does that Butterfly brat think she's doing!?"
"How dare the Lucitors try and poison a royal guest!?"
"This courtship is a scam!"
"Is this how the Butterfly's repay their hosts!?"
"THE AUDACITY!"
"I still don't get why there are two Stars!"
"WOOHOO! CIVIL WAR!"
"HERESY!"
"NO ONES EXPECTS THE MEWMAN INQUISITION!"
"CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN THE TWO STARS!?"
"Yo! King Dave! If you're shopping for new trade partners sometimes soon the Spiderbites are open for business!"
"FRUSTRATION GETTING BIGGER!"
"How long have you guys had toilets!?"
"HOW DARE SHE SPIT AT THE PRINCE'S UNHOLY FACE, UPON UNHOLY GROUND, ON THIS UNHOLY DAY!?"
"Gas the Butterflies, race war now!"
"WE MUST SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION!"
"...fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the queen..."
"It's treason then!"
"SANITY IS FOR THE WEAK!"
"...Did someone spike the punch?"
"PRINCE TOM! PRINCE TOM! I'LL MAKE OUT WITH YOU!"
"THE SHIP WAR STARTS NOOOOOOW!"
"TOFFEE DID NOTHING WRONG!"
"Bloody Mewmans!"
"Hey, don't stop paying attention to me, Princess Pony Head!"
"ENOUGH!"
By this point King Dave had exploded into an outright pillar of screaming soul magic in an attempt to control the crowd, a task he was barely succeeding at. The Butterfly parents were trying to work their way through the crowd to get to their daughter, while Wrathmelior was actively on fire at this point, barely restraining herself with the knowledge that acting on her desires would flash incinerate most of the crowd as well as Star.
The Princess of Mewni, for her part, was quick to realize how heated she had made things, as the delirious haze that had blinded her sight seemed to retreat as soon as the water splashed onto Tom's face. Tom, in turn, couldn't even feel angry at this point, as he was still bowled over by the sudden arrival of a second Star, shocked at the fact he'd been spat on, was still loopy from getting his third eye poked mid-magic use, and was steadily growing afraid of the princess in front of him as she looked more and more aware of her surroundings and increasingly angry with him. Essentially, he was too baffled and stunned to be mad right now.
"Star, should we answer at least one of this questions?" The Star who had danced with Tom asked, now speaking in what was clearly the wrong voice. Giving a curt nod of her head, the damp Star gave a brisk wave of her wand, causing the glamours on her doppelganger to fade away in a sparkle of light, revealing Pacifica Northwest underneath the magic. A basic enough charm, aided by the fact the two teenage girls already had a lot of physical similarities. "Is Dipper alright?"
"He's fine." Queen Moon spoke up as her and River burst through the crowd in a rush. "I contacted Stanford while we were moving through the crowd, he's moving to extract Dipper. We need to get out of here before this crowd erupts into violence!" Then, the Queen looked over to her husband. "River?"
"On it." He replied quickly while producing the royal couple's pair of scissors and cutting a way out. "Though I myself would enjoy a spot of crowd violence."
Moon turned to her daughter, then froze for a moment, letting her true concern for the young girl break through. "Star?" She asked gently, stepping closer. "Are you okay?"
The question seemed to strike Star solid, and the weight of the night's events came crashing down on her finally clear head. With an usually quiet, somber response, the princess remarked. "I... think I'm good. I just want to leave now, but... you're sure Dipper is going to be okay, right?"
Moon couldn't help but smile at Star's endless compassion for her allies. "I can tell for a fact Stanford will move soil and sky to get him out of here. We need to do the same." She replies comfortingly, and then, in a moment that surprised the weary queen, Star leaned forward and gave her mom a hug, one that Moon swiftly returned. Soon enough though, the mother ended the hug. "It's time to go Star." She said, as they were the only ones left to take the portal.
"Hey, Starship, wait, I'm sor..." Tom made an effort to address Star before she left, finally out of his daze, but from the moment he started speaking the princess was spinning around while her wand energized with green light, but by the time the instrument was up and aimed, the prince had already been blasted across the room by a blast of energy launched from Queen Moon's still smoking palm, green fire quickly dying out.
"You'll be hearing from us soon enough." Moon pronounces icily to the combined Lucitor family before she and Star shuffled into the portal themselves, which soon sealed itself behind them.
Across the room, at the refreshments table Tom had been blasted into and collapsed under him, the demon prince was swiftly plucked up and put back on his feet by his mother, who had swiftly strode through the much smaller crowd as soon as he'd been hit. "Are you okay Thomas!? Are you bruised anywhere? Don't worry sweetie, your father and I will sort all this out with those nasty Butterflies..."
From a distance, Dave watched his wife attend to his son with a satisfied look. "Good, a little show of compassion should help keep the crowd sympathetically inclined towards us." He mused, before turning about to address the other royals. "It is my most sincere regret to announce the remainder of the Silver Bell Ball is cancelled, for reasons I'm sure you all understand. If you would be so kinda as to follow me, we will ensure you are all safely escorted to your transports."
"Thanks mom, but I think I just need some time to be alone. If I might be excused from the Ball?" Tom asked his mother as soon as he was standing steady again, not insincere in his gratitude but with another purpose in mind then what he had said. Queen Wrathmelior was quick to excuse her son, and without any more words, Prince Tom skulked off into the castle depths.
"That Earth Boy is still around here somewhere."
True to Tom's guess, Dipper was still making his way through the castle halls, trying to reach the escape position he and Ford had agreed to over the communicators. However, that plan was based on the incomplete maps of the Lucitor castle possessed by the Butterfly Family and only studied by the humans over a few days, meaning Tom was able to catch up with Dipper easily enough.
Watching the human from the shadows, Tom felt the fire building in his arms, aching with anger that was fighting and boiling in an attempt to get out, to explode free and turn his rivals to ash. "Just a little closer, and I'll burn you to a crisp." He thought to himself, grinning with anticipation by now. "It won't be as good as getting to kill Marco would be, but I'll take what stress relief I can get."
"HEY THERE HORNS!"
Tom nearly jumped out of his skin as he was abruptly made aware someone had followed him from the shadows just as he'd followed Dipper. Surprisingly, the human teenager hadn't heard the loud greeting, but was unwittingly making good use of it by continuing to move forward while Tom came to a stop. Taking a deep breath and exhaling forcefully, the prince took a moment to center himself before turning around and addressing his visitor.
"Hey Bill. Can this wait? I was right on the verge of solving a little problem of mine."
"Yep, you had a really good shot at roasting that defenseless teenager! Good show!" Bill complemented gracefully. "But, and I know this is weird coming from someone whose told that guy to make like a Pines Tree and burn to the ground, I gotta stop you here."
Tom was getting upset again, the familiar, infuriating feeling of denial creeping up on him, but was also slightly confused. "Wait, you know this guy?"
"YEP! He foiled a bunch of my plans too!"
"Then why're you interrupting me!?" Tom snarled at the one eyed demon in front of him. "I'm gonna go solve our mutual problem right now!" He announced, but suddenly realized he couldn't move. All three eyes looked downwards when he abruptly realized he was in terrible pain.
"Well because I need him to deliver all the sensitive documents about your father's arms industry that I stuck in his suit after knocking him out to the Queen of Mewni!" Bill explained, saying like it was the most casual thing in the world, and also like he hadn't just conjured Holy Diver and smashed its fist through Tom's stomach.
Garbling from the blood building up in his throat, Tom fell straight to the floor when Bill withdrew the ethereal fist and stared at the double demon in front of him with disbelief. "What... what are you doing!? Why have you done this!?" He demanded.
"Oh, don't be a drama queen Horns. Your dad is gonna be enough of that." Bill replied nonchalantly. "And don't worry about that little flesh wound, you'll heal from it in no time! In fact, since I'm such a good friend, I'll make sure you won't even remember this pain!" By now, Bill was standing over Tom's body and pointing a finger at his face.
"Mind Eraser, Pew Pew!"
By now far ahead of the three demons, Dipper burst through the last set of doors between him and his destination, leaving him on an open air balcony with an admittedly magnificent view of a nearby lava river. Holding his tie to his lips, Dipper stated "I'm at the extraction point."
"Understood Dipper. I'll be with you shortly."
The human teenager was able to hear it before he saw it, a deafening cacophony of wailing sirens and clattering hooves. Over the horizon first came the surveillance van, wheels run so ragged the rubber was peeling off in strips, and second came an enormous number police carriages pulled by skeletal horses, in desperate pursuit of the fugitive who'd been leading them around the city all evening.
However, even the most stalwart and dedicated of the law enforcement officers pulled the reigns on their skeletal steeds as the van showed no signs of slowing down in front of the lava river, and by the time the Earth vehicle plunged into the lake of fire the entire pursuit force, which had built up to enough force to police three counties, had come to a shocked and horrified stop.
Dipper however, looked nonplussed by the turn of events, simply checking his watch until Ford appeared through an interdimensional portal that soon formed next to his apprentice, Buff Frog's pair of scissors in hand. "Are you alright Dipper?" were the first words Ford spoke, all while putting a comforting hand on his great nephew's shoulder.
Smiling gently up at his mentor, Dipper replied "I am. I did learn from the best after all." Then, an idea crossed his mind. "Hold on a second" he remarked, before arming the plastic explosive he'd had on him in the suit's most carefully concealed pocket the whole time and tossing it through Ford's portal, which soon after sealed shut. In the distance, the lava river suddenly erupted for a moment as the bomb went off underneath the molten flow. "You can never dispose of evidence too thoroughly, right?"
With a small chuckle, Ford answered "That sounds like something Stan would say. Not that he'd be wrong of course." while cutting open a fresh portal out for the two of them. Soon enough, both of them were away, leaving behind chaos at Castle Lucitor.
Three Hours Later
"Even though I had my suspicions before hand, I can barely believe it. All these years..."
Queen Moon had uttered those words in despair as the last of the letters Dipper had recovered fell from her hands to her desk, joining the other opened and read correspondences. The Queen's head collapsed towards the desk and needed to be caught by both hands being propped up by her elbows. King River placed a gentle hand on his wife's back, while the rest of the room (everyone involved in the mission plus Buff Frog) looked on in sympathy. "...All these years and the Lucitors have been selling weapons to monsters behind Mewni's back."
Everyone in the room, even those with less than full sympathy for the Kingdom of Mewni, stood quietly, up until Star broke the silence. "Mom..." she asked, voice uncertain. "What's going to happen now?"
After a long moment, Queen Moon simply admitted "I don't know." with a frustrated sigh. "Our alliance with the Underworld goes back generations, but from the look of things they've been violating it from day one! And after that incident on the dance floor I doubt personal negotiation can resolve this..." Instantly, Moon regretted her harsh tone and tried to give her daughter a soothing expression. "Star, I'm sorry. Don't feel like this is your fault. What Tom tried to do to you was monstrous. Are you feeling better?"
"Oh, absolutely!" Star responded. The smile she cracked was obviously nervous, but Moon didn't think she should press the issue at the moment. "I knew I'd get out of that trouble, because I've got my two best friends from Earth watching my back!" Star continued, now moving between Pacifica and Dipper to throw her arms over both their shoulders. Though she was putting on a bright smile on the outside, inside, Star felt chilled to the core. "Suddenly, I understand why Marco was so against me going to the Blood Moon Ball. I... I really wasn't fair to him about that..."
Despite still being concerned for her daughter, Moon did find herself smiling warmly as she turned to the two human teenagers. "Yes, I must thank you two with all my heart for what you both did to protect my daughter. I... I must apologize for the suspicion and ill-treatment I have shown you so far. Henceforth, you shall all be welcomed guests of Mewni!"
Dipper just looked a little uncomfortable at this despite smiling a little, and coughed into his fist. "I mean, I didn't do all that much..."
"Hey, don't sell yourself short. Just thinking about keeping you safe helped me fight that crazy brain cloud Tom stuck me with." Star replied, genuinely complementing her friend. Then, she turned to the human girl. "But, Pacifica... I can't thank you enough. You took a massive risk to help me out back there, and I really want you to know how much I appreciate it."
Pacifica in turn smiled warmly back at Star. "I was just trying to do what was right and help my new friend." She replied, looking a little nervous from the attention. "And I know that if our roles were switched back there, you'd do the exact same for me."
"Awww, you guys are the best! Group hug!" Star called out, before pulling the other two teenagers in tight, taking them both by surprise and leaving them briefly out of air. Opening her eyes, the princess looked at her mother and added "And don't worry mom, Doctor Pines tells me everything has come back good!"
"Well, let's not jump to conclusions." Ford spoke up, a little reluctantly. "While I did determine the source of Star's immediate trouble at the Ball, some of the tests need longer to finish, and I must wait for that time to make a definitive statement." He explained before going silent for a moment. Moon looked troubled at this, and reluctantly asked "And what, exactly, did Tom do to my daughter, and are we sure it's gone?" Then, she instantly cast her eyes over to her daughter and hastily added "As long as Star is okay talking about it in front of the group!"
"It's... it's okay mom." Star answered after a quick moment of thought while releasing her two human friends. "Doctor Pines? Go ahead and tell them everything."
"Yes, well, in short, as far as I can determine, Star had been drugged with a love potion." Ford explained bluntly, thought it was obvious he was trying to be delicate. Being direct and clinical simply came naturally to him regarding matters medical and scientific. "As far as I can tell, a very... physical one at that. However, based on my analysis of her cheek swabbing and preliminary blood work, I can safely say it was completely neutralized. The magic of the potion was brewed specifically to, um, boost intimacy between consenting couples. When Star violently rejected the potion by washing her mouth out with toilet water and spitting it back on the person who had... tuned to the serum to themselves, the magic was nullified and the potion rejected." He explained firmly but reassuringly. Then, he quickly added on "At worst, the only lingering effect is that you'll likely need to urinate more frequently for about a week, at most, as your body and natural magic does its best to flush the remaining, but I assure you, powerless, potion out of your system. And that is, of course, presuming nothing else comes up on the tests still in progress."
"That is most reassuring, thank you Doctor Pines." Moon responded. Letting out a sigh, she organized the collection of stolen papers to the side and stated "And... everything I said of your wards earlier is true of you as well, Doctor Pines. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive the harsh suspicion that myself and the Magical High Commission treated you with, and will continue to grant your valuable aid to the Kingdom of Mewni."
"It's no worry Queen Moon. You were simply acting cautiously." Ford replied with a neutral tone, then opted to speak no more. After waiting a bit longer for him to say more than she probably should have, the Queen returned to a formal stance and glanced back down at her paperwork.
"Yes, well, if there's nothing else, I must respectfully ask to be left alone." Queen Moon spoke up, weariness beginning to weigh down her tone. "I have quite a lot of work to do from now on. Star?" She asked, looking straight at her daughter. "From here on out, you have full permission to conduct the pursuit of the criminal Bill Cipher without any oversight from me. While I may need to request assistance from you or your friends in the future, in all matters regarding Bill Cipher you no longer need to ask my permission for anything." With a suddenly more stern look, she added "Use this responsibility wisely Star. I grant it to you largely because I have enough on my plate as it is."
"I will mom, thank you." Star replied, the gravity of the situation weighing down on her. When no one else had anything more to say, the group shuffled out of the room, leaving the Queen and King behind to forge the future.
AUTHORS NOTES
So, first of all, right out the gate, apologies to the fans of Tom in the audience, I fully realize I'm doing him dirty here. To explain, I had started formulating the idea for this part of the story during Star Vs. season 3, seeing all the conspiracy stuff emerge and thinking about crossing it over with my existing Gravity Falls story, helped by numerous hints and hypothesis that they're in the same universe. At the time, I sincerely believed from the bottom of my heart, and had believed since season 2, that Tom was faking all his character development, and that the Tomstar revival in Club Snubbed onwards was a massive work by the Lucitor family, and was going to be the actual hidden threat of the season, as Eclipsa seemed more and more innocent the longer we looked at her.
I was wrong about that. It took me until the season 3 finale, where Tom had an easy opportunity to dispose of Marco and be free of him forever, to realize it, but I acknowledge I am wrong about this, though I will mention my opinion of him, after riding a great deal in light of this revelation, did drop a fair bit after "Curse of the Blood Moon" reveals he full well knew something unnatural was affecting Star and Marco but stayed quiet about it. My depiction of Tom and his family here are based on guesses from earlier in the show that have since been proven wrong. However, I have chosen to still write them this way because I think this is ultimately a more realistic direction than where the show went. The reason it took me so long to come around on my initial guesses is the incredibly strong skeeze factor I had gotten off Tom in his introductory episode, to the point he was actually my favorite villain on the show because I wanted to see him get pummeled so much. Maybe it was me reading too deep into things or maybe the writers went stronger than they had intended, but I was always surprised and impressed by the episode Blood Moon Ball, not for all the shipping stuff, but because of what a crazy unsubtle metaphor for date rape and abusive boyfriends it came across as to me. You know, a sort of "Holy hell, I can't believe they got a character that's so blatantly an attempted rapist on The Disney Channel". That's a rough taste to wash out of your mouth.
If it's any consolation, I have lightened my depiction of Tom himself here significantly compared to my original outline of this crossover and early drafts of scenes I would write down as they come to me no matter how far away that actual part of the fanfic is. Originally, he was even worse in this section of the story and I've put much more emphasis on him being a political tool of his father. Speaking of which, I must give credit where it is to do blackwolfwrites and their excellent story "The Sign of the Moon," which inspired some of the details of King Dave's portrayal here.
Again, I apologize to any and all fans of Tom who take issue with this chapter, and hope that you might still be invested enough in the story to continue reading. Either way, I thank you for completing this chapter, and I wish you all well.
