Chapter seven! Thank you to everyone who has reviewed. I hope you all enjoy reading! Oh, and be aware, Daqous is watching you.


*Three days later, Daqous's time (two Mewni days until Star's death)*

Daqous looks at Marco's performance and nods his head. "Not a single spell missed me. Of course, most adversaries will be harder to hit, as they will not move in set patterns. Impressive nonetheless. You know the basic skills of Dark magic. Remember that. The basic skills. There is much more that you can learn in time."

Marco nods, exhausted from the effort of his last bit of training. "What time is it on Mewni?"

"Nearly six in the evening. You have nearly 42 hours before the event you are trying to prevent. Here, in this dimension's time, that would be 7 hours. I recommend you spend the time resting. I can wake you before time runs out. In addition..." Daqous moves over to the mirror and places a hand on it. His fingers slowly sink into the reflection, and as he pulls his arm back, the piece of the mirror in his fingers comes out. The indent left in the mirror is quickly filled in by new reflective material seemingly out of nowhere. In mere seconds the mirror looked perfect again, even as Daqous held a piece of it in his hand.

"That is one cool mirror." Marco says.

The mirror piece shines a gold color and a gold framing covers the non-reflective back of the piece. Daqous is now holding a gold-framed mirror that is small enough to fit in Marco's pocket. "This mirror has the same effect as mine." He explains. "There are some catches. No one else looking into this mirror will be able to use it. To them it is simply a mirror. In addition, you must not tell anyone who has not traveled to this dimension the true nature of this mirror, or it will shatter. Otherwise, it is unbreakable." To prove that point, Daqous drops the mirror and it hits the surface below him. Marco picks it up and see there is no crack at all on the mirror, no damage to the framing.

"Got it." Marco nods.

"Then take this with you. Rest, now. You should recover your energy."

"I will."

"It's been six weeks there, huh? Six weeks since the day I left, but for me, only a week... Strange to think about, like when I traveled for 16 years chasing Hekapoo and came back to my world to see only a handful of minutes had passed. Not as drastic, but..."

Marco lays back and thinks back to that time, Star telling him he'd only been gone a few minutes... and making the decision to head back with Star.

"Star..." Marco missed simpler times with Star, when they had crazy adventures all over the place, always laughing it off afterwards. "Those times are gone. She has things to do in Mewni now... Lots of work..."

"And I've only added to her stress..."

Daqous's talk with him had stuck with him, and for the last three days he's been debating what he'll do after he makes sure Star stays alive.

"I guess I'll leave that up to her..."

Marco sleeps for his last time in this dimension.

...

Daqous looks at the boy, now deep asleep. "Interesting child. Emotions of other beings are simply fascinating. It is the opposite of everything that I am. I am logic, I am simple, I am truth. There is nothing beyond that. But these beings, always so complex, so complicated. All due to emotion. It shall be interesting to see what this boy's emotions bring next."

Daqous takes some time and goes over his training with Marco over the past 6 days. "Not a single complaint despite the difficult process of learning to use naturally produced magic over the training period. Difficulty is no trial for him when his priority is to protect the princess. A respectable trait." Daqous was loyal to his own beliefs, that all beings should decide their own future.

Looking at the mirror, he looks upon Star's future that was only a mere handful of hours (in his dimension) away. There she lay, on a hill covered in grass, multiple slashes through her chest, her parents and boyfriend looking down at her, horrified, all crying. In the distance, unseen by those three, three other figures walking away.

"Not the worst place to die." Daqous thinks, looking at the scenery. A grassy hill with Mewni castle and a forest in the background. "I have seen far worse deaths. Hm... It appears her future did change slightly. Perhaps the boyfriend decides to accompany her, as well as her parents? Interesting. Daqous could simply rewind and see how this came to be, but why? Knowing and not knowing didn't matter to one who only watches and does not interact. Of course, Marco's actions are not reflected here. It should be interesting to see if this boy is able to stop this."

"And if she lives, what then? The ever-so-intriguing question. The one I am curious to find out the answer to. The question Marco can't figure out. The question any of the readers are wanting answered." Daqous turns and faces you. "Could you not spy on me? I have no answers for you. Besides, you have broken the rule that a being may only enter my dimension once. Away with you."

*Meanwhile (since we were kicked out)*

Star enters her room after eating and being outside with her family to inspect the field to be used for the archery contest the day after tomorrow. Tom was at his home in the underworld, preparing to make a trip up on the day of the contest. Immediately after shutting her door, she leans against it and begins to channel energy into locating Marco.

A pull in all directions. Star sighs. "I guess I didn't ask if six weeks meant exactly six weeks, or six weeks give or take." Star plops down on her bed.

Regardless, it was almost time! Almost time to put this power she'd gotten into use! Almost time to find him... She was confident in her knowledge of many of the dimensions that were known.

'If you use your scissors while tracking him, the destination in your head will be over-written by where Marco is, even if you have no thoughts of that place, and the scissors will respond by opening a portal to that location.'

What Daqous had said came to her mind, and she realized this soul link really was powerful. To be able to override her thoughts to make a portal to the location of what she was linked to instead, maybe a place she'd never even heard of... That's no ordinary power.

Star stuffed her face into the pillow and couldn't help giving a small smile. "Why am I even smiling? I still haven't seen him. Even when I find him, he may still not... may not return... There's no reason to smile..." She smiled regardless. Just the thought of having a chance to talk to Marco and maybe work things out, it made her so happy after these past six weeks.

Still angry, oh, very angry at him. She was definitely going to give him an earful when she found him.

Star looks up and sees a large globe of Earth, the latest victim of her sleep-wandering. She didn't even know where she'd taken this from. She shakes head her and lays back down, trying to sleep.

She dreamt she was flying high, and below her she could Marco's house on Earth. Continuing on, she flew down and went right by the school she'd attended on Earth, strangely, covered in a purple mess. Looking around and keeping out of sight, Star looks to the left and sees Marco walking down the hall, looking around himself in horror. As he keeps walking, a hand from a boy trapped in a nearby locker grabs him, asking Marco to get him and other people trapped in there out. An eerily familiar purple humanoid with wings and six arms then arrives, whom Marco calls 'Star'. She throws another boy in a locker and traps him. As Marco confronts her, the purple humanoid pins Marco to the wall with a web of purple hearts. Purple 'Star' then flies up, seeing Oscar and gunning for him, to be stopped by Marco, who is using a net.

Without any thought into what she was doing, Star flew straight into the sky, stopping in a random space in the sky, waiting. Thirty or so seconds later, the purple 'Star' flies up with Oscar's car in tow. As she passes Star, Star reaches her finger out and touches 'Star's' forehead. 'Star' stops and freezes, skin turning from purple to a normal color.

Star says one word to 'Star'. "Wrong."

'Star' drops the car, and transforms before falling back down to Earth.

Star, then, with one of the thousands of purple hearts around the school in her hand, flies away.

And Star wakes up.

She immediately sits up and shakes her head. "Did I just... was that... the past?... That had to have been a real dream, there's no way I-"

Star looks back at her pillow and her eyes widen. A small, purple heart.

"It wasn't a dream... What was that? I really traveled to the past? How is that even possible? And... Was I the person who stopped myself back then? Why did say 'wrong' to past me? I don't understand what any of that was!"

Star looks at a clock propped up on her desk. 6:43 am. She tries locating Marco again, to no avail. Star then recalls seeing her death in the mirror in Daqous's dimension. She hadn't actually asked when that was supposed to happen, but she hadn't looked much older in the scene. "That should worry me, but I don't see why I should worry. I'm sure that mirror showed plenty of times I should've died during my adventures. I don't even know anything about it. No point worrying about it..."

Star groans. "And now there's that stupid archery contest I don't care about tomorrow." The contest would only last from 10:00 to 11:30 tomorrow morning, and she only had to stay an extra half hour and join the other kingdom's royalty and knights in the celebration afterward at the town square, instead of the full three hours the celebration would last. But she wanted to try locating Marco at every opportunity because he could be leaving any moment soon, and two hours was just too loooong.

Star looks outside and sees knights and a chariot arriving at the castle gates. "Ah, right, some of the royalty is coming today. Woo-hoo." Star thinks sarcastically. She didn't know anyone from the kingdoms attending, so she was extremely uninterested in this.

"Well, I should head downstairs and see Tom and mom and dad." Star steps out of her room and heads downstairs.

...

As the group of knights walking around the chariot make their way through the castle gates, one looks up at the castle, the knight's helmet hiding a very confident smile.

"Mewni Castle. Hmhm. It's not nice to think poorly of your guests, princess. Especially those who have been here before. I'm back, and I'm coming for you."


Oh, you thought the chapter's title was for Marco? Hehe, not quite yet. Thanks for reading, feel free to review. The usual. Have a good one!