I do not own Star Vs. The Forces of Evil or Castlevania
Right now, Marco was suppose to be doing homework. He was going out with his friends in a few hours and needed to finish up his schoolwork before he left. And if you were to simply peeked into his room, it certainly looked like that was what he was doing. But he had been staring at the same page of his history textbook for the past hour now. He was distracted, lost in his thoughts instead of focusing on his school. Constantly, his thoughts turned back to his battle with Abbadon. A sudden tearing noise brought him back to the present. Turning around, he saw an ominous red portal in the middle of his bedroom. As Marco expected, Hekapoo stepped out of the portal.
"Hey, I got your message. You said it was urgent?" She said.
"Yes it is urgent, so why did it take you three days to show up?" Marco asked, annoyed. He had been sure to call Hekapoo as soon as he got back from the underworld. Unfortunately, she hadn't answered, so he left her a voicemail telling her that they need to talk as soon as possible.
"Hey, I've been busy. Some guy stole prince Kelpbottom's scissors and went of a joyride through the universe with them. I've been spending the last four days closing up portals and tracking him down." Hekapoo said.
"Fine, sorry. It's just, something bad happened." Marco said with some reluctance.
"What?" Hekapoo asked, worried. After a moment, Marco gave a sigh.
"A Night Creature found out about my powers." He responded at last.
"...Crap." Was the only reply Hekapoo had.
"And they also know my name." Marco hesitantly added.
"What, did you give them your social security number too?" Hekapoo asked sarcastically as she rubbed her temples in frustration, "Alright, we need to track them down. Alright, what can you tell me about 'em?"
"He said his name was Abaddon, if that helps." Marco said.
"...Shit." Hekapoo said, collapsing onto Marco's bed. She dragged her hands across her face his a groan, "So, the most powerful demon in hell knows that you have dark magic powers. I can't fight Abaddon, he'd kill me! In fact, how the hell are you still alive?"
"He got freaked out by my powers and ran. Before that, he wasn't fighting seriously, though was still kicking my ass." Marco admitted. He had hoped that with Hekapoo's help they might be able to take on the demon together, but that didn't sound likely, "What about Arikado? Could he win?"
"Maybe, probably. But Arikado isn't here, and contacting him is next to impossible." Hekapoo said with a sigh, "Still it's our only real option. We just have to pray the demon doesn't realise what your powers actually are any time soon."
"Isn't there anything we can do sooner?" Marco asked, since he really wasn't fond of the idea of sitting around and waiting God knows how long for Arikado to show up.
"No, there really isn't, not unless we want to go to the rest of High Commission for help." Hekapoo said, "Also, what do you mean by 'we'? You're not getting involved next time."
"WHAT!?" Marco yelled in shock.
"You heard me. You're not going anywhere near Abaddon again. You could have easily been killed, and next time you might not be so lucky." Hekapoo said.
"I've fought things just as strong as him before!" Marco said.
"Yeah, when you were older, way tougher, and armed with powerful magic weapons!" Hekapoo replied, raising her voice.
"I can handle myself." Marco said.
"This isn't about whether you can handle yourself. This is about going after one of the strongest Night Creatures in existence!" Hekapoo said, "You know you can't fight Abaddon."
"What am I suppose to do then!? Nothing and just wait for Arikado?" Marco asked.
"That's the only thing we can do!" Hekapoo yelled.
"Do you not realise how bad this is?! A Night Creature knows about my powers!" Marco shouted back.
"Of course understand how bad this is! I understand it better than you do! I don't want to wait for Arikado, but for the millionth time, it's our only option!" Hekapoo replied.
"No it isn't! I'm getting stronger. If I increase my training regime and grab the Valmanway from your dimension, then in a couple weeks I might be strong enough to-"
"No! You've seen how strong Abaddon is, so why are you so set on fighting him?! Do you want to die!?" Hekapoo snapped her mouth close as she realised what she just said. Beside her, Marco fell silent and looked away. After a moment, Hekapoo slowly spoke, "Marco, I'm sorry, I... Look, I know how bad this is, and I get that you want to do something about it. But if we just rush into this, you could get, hurt. And that won't help anyone. Imagine how your parents would feel if something happened to you, or imagine how Star would feel. I would certainly be unhappy if that happened. So please, just wait for Arikado to show up, then we can figure out what to do next."
Marco didn't speak at first. Then he took a deep breath and turned to face Hekapoo.
"Okay. I won't go after Abaddon. I promise." Marco said. Hekapoo studied his face, trying to determine if he was lying. To do so, she wound up getting very close to him. Marco leaned back slightly, but otherwise didn't move, and tried not to focus on just how close her face was to his own. Eventually, she decided he was telling the truth and moved back.
"Okay, good." Hekapoo said, smiling softly.
"H-Poo, I'm sorry-" Marco tried to speak but was cut off.
"Dude, it's fine. You don't need to apologise." Hekapoo said.
"You don't even know what I was going to apologise for." Marco pointed out. And to be completely honest, he hadn't been completely sure what he was apologising for when he started either. He had screwed up so many things lately. Hell, he counted at least four screw-ups in this past conversation alone.
"Whatever it was, there's a pretty good chance it's not something you need to say sorry for." Hekapoo said.
"Thanks." Marco said, "I probably shouldn't keep you any longer. You probably have a lot of stuff to do."
"Actually, I can stay a bit longer. Besides, I promised Arikado that I'd keep an eye on you, and really... haven't." Hekapoo said, "I mean, you've been back on earth for a like month now, I'm sure you have some stuff to tell me."
"Are you sure? You aren't busy or anything?" Marco asked.
"I'm sure, and I can always make a clone if I need to be somewhere fast." Hekapoo said.
"Okay, let's see..." Marco sat back down in his chair, and began recounting what had happened to him recently.
-000-
In the days of yore, there were hundreds of Quest Buys scattered throughout the universe, it was a great franchise, but now there were but two left. As of late, wages across the dimensions had stagnated, while costs of living continued to increase, and the result was that less and less people chose to shop at such stores. Most of the things sold there were not things that most people needed, and the items they did want were to hard to find the labyrinthine shopping center and could be easily bought from local businesses instead. Not helping matters was the fact that Quest Buy had truly terrible customer service, with the employees preferring to do literally anything except their job.
Yet despite this, Quest Buy had quite a few people in the store today, though most weren't here to do shopping. An angry mob had gathered in the store, all yelling at the sloth employees who were desperately trying to explain the store policy to them. Most of the people who had actually come to shop took one look at the furious crowds and promptly left.
A portal to earth opened in the middle of Quest Buy. From it stepped Janna, who dragged a very tired Star by her arm through as well. After them came Jackie. The skater girl had been to very few dimensions besides her own and marveled at the massive store, all while still looking as cool as ever. Lastly, Marco exited the portal, more than a little annoyed to be back at Quest Buy so soon after his last visit.
"Janna, remind me why we're here again." He asked. This shopping trip had been at her insistence.
"I can't remind of something you never learned in the first place." Janna said.
"Then, tell me why we're here." Marco said, almost growling.
"My magic's been acting up, and none of the books that Sofía gave me are really helping. So, I figured I might find something here that'll help." Janna said.
"Okay, but why did we have to come here?" Marco asked.
"Because I can't exactly find what I'm looking for a Walmart." Janna said.
"Are you sure we should be looking here though? These don't exactly look like happy customers." Jackie said, pointing towards the yelling crowds.
"What is going on?" Marco asked, finally taking notice of the mob. When he last visited Quest Buy only a few days ago, it hadn't been like this. There had been some angry customers, but not nearly this many.
A large werebear had cornered a sloth employee and held a staff up while shouting, "I bought this Rod of Wonder and it stopped working after two days! I want my money back!"
"You think that's bad? My Pegasus Boots broke before I even used them. They only work half the time." A pale-skinned woman clad in furs stomped over to the pair. Shortly after she arrived, a cyborg skeleton walked up as well.
"This elven sword is suppose to glow like a torch in the presence of orcs. I've seen half dead fireflies that shine brighter than it!" The mechanical undead yelled in a raspy voice.
"I'm sorry, but that's not my department. You need to go to customer serv-" The sloth was cut off by the werebear lifting him into the air by his collar.
"If I don't get a refund in the next five minutes, I'm shoving this useless stick up. Your. ASS!" The beast screamed.
"Security! Securi-" The sloth's cries for help were cut short by the werebear throwing him to the ground. It promptly began beating the employee with the rod, and the barbarian woman and the skeleton both started kicking the sloth as well. Before long, other angry shoppers joined in the assault on the hapless retail worker.
"We should- we should probably go." Marco said, backing away from the fight that just broke out. Jackie followed after him, eager to get away from the violence. It was giving her flashbacks to when she got a job bagging groceries over the summer. Specifically, she was reminded of the incident on aisle six, after which she had been forced to sign a legal document agreeing to never speak about the incident on aisle six.
"Hang on, I gotta see this." Janna said. Taking out her phone, she began recording as the werebear attempted to make good on his earlier promise.
"Janna!" Marco yelled, ducking as a different sloth employee soared through the air over his head. The fight started by the werebear had spread to the rest of the angry mob, who began attacking every Quest Buy employee in sight.
"Ugh, fine." Janna groaned as she put away her phone. She grabbed Star by the arm, the princess had nearly fallen asleep standing up, "Come on, sleeping beauty." And the group promptly took off.
"So, now where to?" Jackie asked once they put some distance between themselves and the fighting.
"Book department, let's see if they have anything on ice magic." Janna said, walking past them while still dragging Star around by the arm.
"That's the wrong way." Marco said. Stopping, Janna turned around to see Marco pointing to his left, "The books are over that way."
"How would you know?" Janna asked.
"Because apparently, I'm the only person in the multiverse that can read Quest Buy's signs." Marco said, jerking his thumb towards an stone information kiosk. Slumped up against the kiosk was a skeleton, clutching an ancient tome of symbols in one hand and a dagger in the other, which it had used to carve the words, 'MoRtalS wEre NoT meaNt to kNOw' into the base of the kiosk.
"Well, that's not overdramatic at all." Janna said, staring at the skeleton.
"Come on, I don't want to spend any more time at Quest Buy than I have to." Marco said, walking in the direction of the book section.
The group made their way through the giant maze that was Quest Buy. Even if with Marco acting as guide, it was still a long trip. At several points, they had to make detours, usually to avoid one of fights that had broken out between shopper and store worker. Away from angry mobs however, the store seemed practically deserted. Eventually though, they arrived at the part of the store where they kept the books. It was a only single bookshelf, with books on both sides. However, the bookcase also seemed to stretch on for over a thousand feet. Janna looked between both sides of the bookcase.
"We should split up. Star and I will search the right side." Janna said, "And you two can search the left."
"Is splitting up really a good idea?" Jackie asked.
"What? It's not like we can get lost searching a single bookcase." Janna said.
"You say that, but you never know with this place." Marco sulked.
"Quit your worrying. Look at it this way, if we do this we'll be done and out of here sooner." Janna said.
"Okay, that does make your idea sound more appealing." Marco admitted, "But, if anything happens, call me. Bizarrely, our phones somehow work here."
With that, the group split and began searching the bookcase. Unfortunately, it was organised not by subject or even title, either of which could have potentially helped in their search, but rather by the color of the their spines and the levels of radiation each book gave off. As a result, they had to check every single book to see if it had anything to do with ice magic. Janna's search progressed significantly slower than Marco and Jackie's, mainly because Star wasn't really doing much to help. The poor girl was dead on her feet and felt very close to collapsing. At current, she couldn't do much more than stand still and stare into space.
As Janna searched through the books, one of them caught her eye. While it wasn't what she had come to Quest Buy to find, it was definitely of interest. Grabbing the book off the shelf, she walked over to where Star was standing and lightly shook the princess' by the shoulder to get her attention.
"Hey, Star. Earth to Star." Janna said. As she spoke, she went from shaking Star to squishing her cheeks, "Come on, wake up you lazy bum."
"Huh, what?" Star finally replied through squished cheeks, blinking slowly.
"You're really out of it. Did you not sleep well or something?"Janna asked while she moved her hands away.
"I didn't sleep at all last night." Star said with a yawn. She thought back to her encounter with Rhombulus last night which had prevented her from getting any rest. Not that she probably would have gotten any sleep either way, but it certainly didn't help, "Did you find whatever it was you looking for?"
"No, but I did find something else cool. Check it out." Janna said with a wicked grin and held up the book she grabbed for Star to read.
The princess stared dully at the copy of 'How to Tell if Someone Can See the Future'.
"Oh, neat." Star said with a small, tired smile. Janna frowned, that wasn't the reaction she had been expecting. Of course, it was possible that Star was too exhausted to make the connection.
"Hey, wouldn't it be pretty crazy if someone we knew was psychic? Like, Marco?" Janna asked, dropping any attempts at subtly. She had barely learned anything about what was going on him despite promising Jackie to look into, (mostly because she had been too preoccupied learning magic) and she wasn't going to let this opportunity slip through her fingers.
"Pfft, no that's stupid." Star said with short laugh.
"Y-yeah, I guess it is." Janna said in a frustrated voice. Well, there went her theory. Still she wasn't completely without leads, she just needed to find some info on who this Hekapoo person was. Also, she was keeping the book, just because.
-000-
"I think I found something." Jackie said, pulling a book off the shelf. Marco quickly walked over to her and looked at the tome she was holding. Looking at its title, Ice Magic for Beginners he shook his head, having recognised the grimoire.
"No, Janna already has that one." Marco said, before turning back to the bookcase and resuming his search.
"Dang it." Jackie said with a groan, and put the book back on the shelf.
They had been searching for little over an hour now and hadn't found anything useful. Ice Magic for Beginners had been the first book they came across that was even related to their search in any way, well of the books they could read at least. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the books were in various bizarre alien languages, and also Dutch for some reason. It was entirely possible that they had already found a tome covering the exact topic they were looking for, but they simply couldn't read it.
"You know, it's been a while since we've hung out." Jackie said as they browsed the shelves.
"Oh, um, sorry. A lot's been going on lately." Marco said, the guilt he felt around Jackie, which he had mostly forgotten about during their search, returned in full force.
"Like what?" Jackie asked, with out a hint of sarcasm or acquisition.
"Uh, well, I went to Siberia and got shot at by an old Soviet war machine." Marco said.
"I'm definitely going to need to hear more about that one." Jackie replied.
"I also stopped a coup in the underworld." Marco said.
"The underworld? Isn't that where Star's crazy ex-boyfriend is from?" Jackie asked.
"He's gotten a lot better, Tom's actually a pretty cool guy now." Marco responded, "What about you, what's been going on?"
"Eh, not much. Just normal, boring stuff." Jackie said.
"Considering all the crazy stuff I go through, normal and boring sounds like a nice change of pace." Marco said, and Jackie gave a small smile.
"Well, I haven't been able to skateboard recently, one of the wheels on my skateboard got messed up, so I need to get that fixed-" Jackie trailed off as she spotted a book on one of the higher shelves.
Along the spine of the green and yellow tome was its title, 'Why Isn't My Ice Magic Working?'. It was exactly the book they were looking for, and she reached up to pull it off the shelf. A second after she grabbed it, another hand shot out and grabbed the same book. Jackie almost let go of the book out of surprise and whipped her head to her left. Standing there was a woman she hadn't noticed until now. Exactly how she missed a six and a half foot tall reptile woman in a purple jumpsuit was mystery to her. The lizard lady pulled the book off the shelf even as Jackie was still holding it.
"Can you let go?" The woman asked, glaring at Jackie.
"Um, I actually had it first, and my friend was looking for this book." Jackie responded.
"Oh, I'm sorry." The lizard lady said.
She then yanked the book out of Jackie's hand with enough force to cause the skater girl to stumble forward. As she did, the lizard lady kneed her in the stomach. Jackie fell to the ground, struggling to breathe.
"Jackie!" Marco yelled. He started running toward them, but the woman grabbed another book off the shelf and hurled it at him. Marco promptly smacked it out of the air before it hit him, but the reptile lady used the distraction to leap away, bounding high into the air and landing in the next aisle over. Ignoring her, Marco instead ran over to Jackie who pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, "Are you okay!?"
"Y-yeah." She said weakly as Marco helped her to her feet, "Come on, we gotta go after her!"
"Wait, are you sure? You could get hurt again." Marco said.
"I'll be fine. Hurry, before she gets away." Jackie said, pushing off of Marco and running towards the nearest break in the shelves, and Marco followed after her. They turned a corner and found themselves in the next aisle, where the woman was calmly walking in their direction with the tome tucked under her left arm. Once she noticed them, she stopped and scowled.
"Persistent little buggers, aren't you?" She growled at them.
"Hand over the book." Jackie said.
"No, I don't think I will." The woman replied. With that, she charged at Jackie, winding her fist back to punch the teenager. She threw the punch, but before it could connect Marco grabbed her arm and hurled the lizard lady away. Flying through the air, she slammed into a nearby wall, but instead of falling to the ground afterwards she latched onto the wall with her clawed feet. The woman jumped off the wall, landing next to a flight of stairs leading up to another floor. Turning around, she shot a victorious grin at the teenagers, before running up the steps.
"Hey! Get back here!" Jackie yelled and both she and Marco took off running towards the stairs.
Once they reached the next floor, both of them stopped and scanned their surroundings. Unfortunately, the woman they were chasing was nowhere to be seen. Jackie let out an annoyed growl at the fact that she escaped. A noise behind her caught the skater girl's attention, and she turned around to see a shelf falling over towards them. Jackie dived out of the way, while Marco dashed backwards, just as the heavy shelf crashed to the ground where they had been standing. On the other side of where it stood was the lizard lady, her smug smile replaced with a frown upon seeing that they hadn't been crushed.
Not willing to let her run away again, Marco leaped forward and tackled the woman. The two flew backwards and crashed into another shelf. The products sitting on it were knocked over and fell to the ground from the impact. Frantically, the woman struggled against Marco but he kept her pinned against the shelf, his strength surpassing hers.
"I'm starting to get really mad! Just hand over the book!" Marco said.
"Okay, okay! It's yours, take it." The woman said fearfully.
Slowly, she held up the book, her arm trembling as she did so. Marco let his hold on her loosen and he moved to grab the tome. When he did, the woman snatched an object, a deku nut, off the shelf behind her with her other arm. She squeezed her eyes closed and threw the nut to the floor, and it exploded in a blinding light. Marco let go of the woman and stumbled backwards, disoriented by the bright flash. Though he couldn't see, in less than a second he regained his composure and threw a punch at the lizard lady. However, she managed to dive the side before he did so, his attack destroying the shelf instead. The woman ran as fast as she possibly could, trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and Marco while he was still blinded.
Rubbing his eyes and blinking, Marco's vision returned to him. He looked up and saw the woman about twenty yards away. Suddenly, she stopped running, and turned around to look at him. Then, Jackie dashed past Marco chasing after the woman, and Marco quickly followed. Upon seeing them coming towards her, the lizard lady turned back around and resumed her flight.
Something about this whole thing felt off to Marco. Losing someone in the enormous maze of Quest Buy shouldn't be hard, especially since the woman could put large amounts of distance between herself and them with ease. She could have easily escaped from them at multiple points now. If she had continued jumping between aisles after she first got the book, or if she hadn't stayed behind to try to crush them with a shelf after running up the stair she would have been long gone by now. But what truly made him suspicious was how she stopped running and didn't resume until after they started chasing her again. It's like she wanted them to follow her.
Ahead of them, the lizard lady turned a corner and they followed after her. However, despite rounding the corner only a few seconds after the woman, she was nowhere to be seen. There were in a large open area a about the size of a football field, and all about it were catapults and trebuchets on display. Jackie whipped her head about frantically, looking for the woman. While Marco carefully scanned the area, now more sure than ever that they were being lead into some sort of trap.
"Graah, she got away." Jackie said, frustrated.
In the far distance, on the other side of the open area, Marco spotted a glint of reflected light. Suddenly, he tackled Jackie to the ground, just as a gunshot rang out and a bullet zoomed past where they had been standing.
-000-
The Lerajie stared down the scope of her rifle, watching as the two teens took cover behind a trebuchet. With a smile, she ejected the empty cartridge and took aim again. While the boy had managed to avoid her first shot, she had no plans on missing again. It didn't matter that they were hidden behind a large seige engine, it didn't matter that she couldn't even see them. As long as they were in range of her rifle, she would hit them. Calculating the trajectory her bullet, she made small, precise correction to the gun's angle and pulled the trigger.
-000-
Shielded by the large wooden trebuchet, both teens stopped to catch their breath. Well, Marco was catching his breath, Jackie seemed closer to hyperventilating. Forcing her breathing to slow, she turned to Marco.
"Did- did she just try to shoot us?!" Jackie asked, trying to stay calm, "Like, with a gun?"
"Yeah, a sniper rifle, I think." Marco said, "This is not good."
"She's trying to kill us. Over a book!" Jackie said, unable to keep the panic out of her voice, "This is completely insane!"
"Actually this is surprisingly pretty normal." Marco said, causing him realise just how messed up his life actually was even before his time in Hekapoo's dimension. However, he also realised that probably wasn't terribly comforting, "Um, what I'm trying to say is we're gonna get out of this mess."
Feeling utterly exhausted, Jackie slumped up against the trebuchet. For the most part, she was just a normal schoolgirl. Unlike Star and Marco, Jackie had only been in life and death situations a handful of times before now, and she wasn't really sure what to do. Plus, of the few monsters that she had met before none of them had had firearms.
Slowly, Marco peeked his head out from behind the siege engine. Looking about, he searched for any sign of where the sniper might be, but didn't see anything. Less than a second after he peeked out, another gunshot sounded across the area, and he could faintly make out the sight of a muzzle flash in the distance. Immediately, Marco withdrew behind the cover of the trebuchet. However it did him no good as a bullet hit him in the back.
With a yell of pain, Marco collapsed to his knees. A large blood splatter painted the wood of the trebuchet in front of him, and Marco quickly put his hands over the wound in his stomach and applied pressure to keep himself from loosing to much blood. It seemed that luck was on his side, as the bullet had missed all his vital organs when it went through his body.
"Marco!" Jackie screamed, rushing over to him. When she got to him, she found herself at a complete loss of what to do, and her fear and panic grew. There was so much blood, was there suppose to be that much blood when someone got shot? Nausea started to mix with the fear and panic, and she began to feel disoriented.
"We've got to move." Marco said in a shaky voice as he rose to his feet. They obviously weren't safe here. How the sniper had hit him he wasn't sure. They hadn't moved, Marco saw the muzzle flash from the same spot their first shot came from. The most reasonable explanation was that there were multiple snipers. But he hadn't heard a second gunshot.
"Over there!" Jackie said, ignoring her panic and focusing on getting out of this alive, she pointed to a nearby pair of catapults that were sitting close enough to each other that they would be able to shield them from both sides, "Can you make it to there?"
"Yes. Let's go, we have to hurry!" Marco said. Jackie slung his left arm over her shoulder, although he didn't really need the support, and they took off running towards the two catapults. They were only about thirty feet away, but to the two humans the distance seemed far greater. Every step caused pain to Marco, resulting in the few seconds they had been moving to feel closer to an hour, while Jackie tried to ignore the wet warmth of her friend's lifeblood against her side. And they were painfully exposed right now, completely out in the open, an easy target for the sniper.
It didn't take long for the Lerajie to take advantage of their predicament. Though she was impressed that the boy was able to move so quickly after eating a bullet to the gut. Lining up a head shot, she fired another round. The bullet sped across the area at supersonic speeds. But Marco saw it flying towards him, and summoned forth the magic of the Chronomage's soul. Time slowed to a crawl. Despite how impressive it seemed, it wasn't a soul that Marco used very often as it didn't work on most of the stronger Night Creatures. Unlike the spell that Star had once used to freeze time, the soul didn't truly stop time, rather it only slowed time down enough that everything seemed to have stopped. This was both a blessing and a curse, since while it meant he didn't have to manually restart the Wheel of Time every time he used the soul, it also resulted in the time stop only lasting a handful of seconds. However, in spite of its limitations, the soul certainly had its uses. In front of Marco's face the bullet was frozen in midair. Moving his right hand away from his wound, he slapped the bullet to ground, before the flow of time to resumed as normal.
At the sound of the gunfire, Jackie moved forward with a sudden surge of speed, dragging Marco along with her. They managed to reach the two catapults a second later without being shot at again. Now safe, Jackie let go of Marco and he sat down, practically collapsing. He was really starting notice the blood loss. Hopefully, he would be able to rest long enough for his regeneration soul to help.
But it seemed the sniper had other plans, and another gunshot went off. As soon as Marco heard the noise, he stopped time again. Normally, stopping time after hearing the gunfire wouldn't help, since bullets typically move faster than sound. However, Marco noticed something just now, a faint noise like metal banging against metal, and he had heard that same noise just before he had been shot in the back. Looking around, he saw a bullet just a few feet above him heading directly towards his head. It was coming from an impossible angle, as there was a steel platted beam directly behind it. Marco realised now how he had been shot in the back. There weren't multiple shooters, the sniper was ricocheting their bullets. It was fortunate that they slowed downed when they ricocheted, otherwise Marco would probably be dead right now.
Moving out of the bullet's path, Marco watched as time sped back up and the bullet hit the ground harmlessly. Jackie jumped at the sound and whirled around to see the bullet hole in the ground.
"What the hell!? They can shoot us here?!" Jackie said.
"She can shoot us anywhere. She's ricocheting her bullets, it doesn't matter where we hide." Marco responded.
"Then we need to get out of here!" Jackie said. She racked her brain desperately to think of a way to escape without getting shot at. Suddenly, it came to her, "Your scissors! We can use your scissors to escape!"
"Good idea." Marco said, and smacked his forehead. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of them sooner. Taking out his scissors from his pocket, he started to cut open a portal.
In the distance, the Lerajie growled. The boy was still alive, which meant they no doubt realised that she could ricochet bullets. Unfortunately for her, he seemed to be too fast to shot at normally, which mean that sneak attacks with her ricochets had been the best option. But now she couldn't even rely on those. She should have known better than to underestimate him given what she had been told. However, the Lerajie still had one more trick up her sleeve, one that could end this right now.
She fired the gun in rapid succession, shooting close to a dozen bullets in less than a second. Neither a normal person nor a normal rifle would be able to fire that quickly. Upon hearing what sounded like machine gun fire, Marco paused in opening a portal and immediately stopped time again. As soon as time slowed to a stop, he looked around to see bullets coming at him from all directions. Summoning several knives with his magic, he threw them at the bullets, knocking them out of the air. Once the bullets had been deflected, the knives vanished, and time returned to its normal speed. Sparks and the sound of metal clashing against metal filled the air as the bullets scattered about. Thankfully, their moment had been killed when the knives knocked them off coarse, so there was little risk of either Marco or Jackie being badly injured by them.
However, Marco hadn't been able to get every bullet. When he paused time, one had been hidden from view between two close beams of wood on the catapult, while another hadn't quite finished its journey and was still a ricochet away. In the few seconds afforded to him by the stopped time, he hadn't been able to notice them. Now that time resumed, the first flew forward, striking him in the back of his leg, just barely missing his kneecap. Momentarily stunned, the other bullet came around the corner hitting him in the shoulder. His scapula cracked and shattered as the bullet tore through his shoulder. Crumpling to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, he dropped his dimensional scissors which slid under one of the catapults, and the portal he had cut shriveled up and vanished. With a grunt of immense pain, he forced himself to rise to his feet. He stumbled towards Jackie, who seemed to be frozen in shock and horror.
"J-Jackie, run. She's clearly after me. Get out of here!" Marco said. With how things were going now, they could easily both die. But if she left, she'd be safe and he might be able to heal with the Guardian Alura Une then confront the sniper with his souls. Jackie's stared at him in consideration, before a look of determination came into her eyes.
"What!? No! I'm not leaving you behind! Why would you even suggest that?!" Jackie yelled in a tone of complete disbelief.
"Jackie, please. You have to-"
"Look out!"Jackie interrupted Marco's desperate pleading by tackling him to the ground. As she did, a bullet struck him in the back. The shot was intended to go straight through his heart but instead just grazed his left lung due to her tackling him.
The two hit the ground, and Jackie scrambled away from Marco to see another bloody wound in his chest. Fear crashed over her at the sight of it, but to her relief he started moving. He rolled over and struggled to push himself up, but he had taken to many injuries and lost to much blood, and only managed to get a few inches off the floor before collapsing again. Marco's senses were beginning to dull, and he found no strength left in his limbs. Looking away from him, Jackie saw the lizard woman about fifteen yards away, and pointing a smoking rifle at where Marco had been standing.
"This guy killed Blackmore?" The Lerajie said incredulously. As she spoke, she lowered her gun and started walking forward, "I mean, don't get me wrong, you were certainly a more difficult mark than most of my prey, but I just expected a bit more is all." But Marco barely heard what she was saying.
Sighing, the Lerajie tried to recall her orders. Engage the target and steadily become more and more aggressive. Once you feel that your life is in danger, fall back and report you observations. In the unlikely event that you get opportunity to eliminate the target, take it. He is no use to us if he proves so weak.
"I guess you weren't all you were cracked up to be." The hunter said, pointing her gun at Marco's prone form. Suddenly, Jackie rushed in between them, holding her arms out to try and shield Marco.
"L-Leave him alone." Jackie said, trying to sound intimidating but failing due to the obvious fear in her voice.
"You do know that could just shoot through you? Your body isn't going to block rifle fire." The Lerajie said, unimpressed.
"Why are you doing this? This can't be about the book." Jackie asked, starting to tremble slightly.
"Orders. My master gave me orders to engage that boy report back my findings and I'm here to fulfill those orders. He's caused quite the stir as of late, fighting of demons in hell and what not." The lizard woman replied. Jackie opened her mouth to say something, but the Lerajie stopped her, "No more questions. It's time to end this."
Then there was a tearing noise as a red portal appeared in the air above the Lerajie. Jackie watched the hunter leap backwards just as a red-headed woman with pale skin and horns in a orange dress fell out off the portal and stabbed a dagger into the ground where the lizard lady had been only a moment prior. While in mid leap, the Lerajie fired three shots at the newcomer. With quick swings of her daggers, Hekapoo sliced the bullets out of the air. She then dashed forwards and lept into the air after the Lerajie. Once she got close enough, Hekapoo slashed at the sniper who tried to block the strike with her rifle. The gun was cut clean in two, and Hekapoo followed up the slice by kicking the Lerajie in the stomach. Flying backwards from the kick, the hunter hit the ground and bounced along for several yards before coming to a stop. Landing on the ground, Hekapoo charged at the Lerajie, who stood up and threw the two halves of her rifle at Hekapoo. The redhead effortlessly dodged the pieces of the gun, but while she did so the Lerajie took out a pair of scissors and cut open a portal. She jumped through it and the portal promptly closed just as Hekapoo reached it. Hekapoo paused, she could easily go after her, it wouldn't be hard to track where the portal had gone to. Ultimately though, she turned around and started running to where Marco was lying on the ground.
As she approached, Jackie moved towards Marco protectively. While the red-headed woman had saved them, she didn't know who she was or if she could trust her. However, the look of concern on the redhead's face made Jackie slightly less worried.
"Marco!" Hekapoo yelled as she got close. He was lying still on the floor, a pool of blood slowly forming underneath him, 'He can't be dead. Please God, don't let him be dead!'
"H-Poo..." Marco said weakly, stirring slightly at the sound of her voice, before passing fully into unconsciousness.
With a sigh of relief that Marco was still alive, Hekapoo cut open a small portal. Reaching her arm through it, Hekapoo pulled out a Super Potion. Jackied recognised the blue medicine and moved aside so that it could be used on Marco. Carefully, Hekapoo turned his body over, and gently lifted his head as she brought the Super Potion to his lips. As the life-giving concoction went down his throat, the wounds that covered his body mended and vanished completely, though he remained unconscious.
"He'll be alright now, it'll just be awhile until he wakes up." Hekapoo said, though not necessarily to Jackie, as she put a hand on Marco's forehead.
"Who are you?" Jackie asked, staring at the horned redhead.
"What, I'm not even gonna get a 'thank you'?" Hekapoo asked with a scoff.
"Oh, sorry. Thanks." Jackie said awkwardly.
"I'm just messing with you. Name's Hekapoo." The Commission member introduced herself.
"Uh, my name's Jackie." The skater said, extending a handshake that Hekapoo didn't take. After a moment, Jackie withdrew her hand, "So, you're friends with Marco?"
"Yeah, something like that. He's helped me out a bunch of times." Hekapoo said with a small smile, before turning to Jackie, "What about you? How do you know Marco?"
"I'm his girlfriend." Jackie answered.
"Oh, that's... nice." Hekapoo replied. Then several blurry copies of Hekapoo appeared next to her, before solidifying into proper clones. Jackie was caught off guard at the sudden appearance of the clones, and watched in surprise as they went over to one of the catapults and started pushing it across the floor.
"Really though, thank you. If you hadn't showed up, Marco and I'd probably be dead right now." Jackie said after a moment, breaking the silence.
"Don't worry about. This kind of stuff is pretty normal." Hekapoo responded.
"I've heard." Jackie said, unsure how to feel about the fact that her friends nearly get killed on a regular basis. Finally, the Hekapoo clones stopped shoving the catapult, and one of them bent over pick something up, while the rest disappeared. The clone started walking back towards the original Hekapoo, and as it got closer, Jackie could see it was holding Marco's dimensional scissors. The clone handed the scissors over to Hekapoo before fading away.
"Here." Hekapoo said, offering the scissors to Jackie, "Get him back home so he can rest."
"Where are you going?" Jackie asked as she took the scissors.
"I'm going after that Night Creature." Hekapoo said, walking towards the spot where the Lerajie had made the portal. It was faint, but Hekapoo could still sense where the portal lead to. With a swing of her dagger, she cut open one of her signature red portals, before turning around to look at Jackie and Marco, "Wish me luck!" She then jumped through the portal which closed shortly afterwards.
Jackie stared at pair of scissors in her hand. Now that she thought about it, she actually didn't know how to use them, she probably should have asked before Hekapoo left. It was unlikely to be too complicated, or at least she hoped it wasn't. She probably just had to cut with them while thinking of her destination. Just as she was about to try to open a portal back to Echo Creek, she suddenly remembered something important.
"Ack, Janna." Jackie said aloud. It would be bad if she left Janna and Star here. As far as she knew, Marco's scissors were the only way they could get home. Stuffing the scissors in her pocket, she carefully picked up Marco and put him on her back. Even if he seemed healed, she didn't want to jostle him.
She started walking, trying to retrace her steps back to the book section. However, she had barely started when she noticed something lying on the ground near where the sniper had been standing when Hekapoo showed up. Walking over to it, Jackie reached down and picked up the spellbook that had kicked off this whole adventure.
-000-
Within a dark castle corridor, barely illuminated by dim, blue candles, a portal opened, bathing the hallway in light. Out of the portal stumbled an exhausted Lerajie, kicking up a thick layer of dust on the ground as she walked over to the wall to rest against it. The portal closed, and the corridor went dark once again while the hunter gasped for breath. It had taken over half and hour, and she had to visit at least seventy different dimensions, but she was finally convinced that she managed to ditch Hekapoo. By now, the Lerajie was exhausted, both physically and mentally from the stress of being chased by a Commission member. All she wanted to do was rest a little, deliver her report, and then take the rest of the day off.
"Ho ho, so it seems you managed to survive." A deep voice said. Looking up, the Lerajie saw a short flight of stairs a little ways down the hall, and standing at the top was a figure shrouded in darkness. Though she couldn't see him, she knew exactly who it was.
"What do you want?" She asked, pushing off the wall.
"Tell me, how was it that you were able to survive? It would be like a mouse attacking a cat and escaping back to its hole without losing so much as an ear." The shadowy figure said.
"I'll deliver my report to the master, and she'll tell you what you need to know." The Lerajie said, desperately hoping to get away as quickly as possible. Suddenly, the figure at the top of the stairs vanished. He didn't teleport or fade away, he didn't disturb any of the dust coating the floor, and there was no noise to be heard as he vanished.
"As I've come to expect of you. When on the hunt, you act like a cat, playing with its prey. But in the face of someone stronger, you balked and flee like the mouse, desperate to get away." The figure said, now standing directly behind her. The Lerajie whirled around, if she still had her gun she probably would have fire a ricochet to hit behind her (Not that it would have done anything). Yet there was nobody behind her, just an empty hallway.
"How curious though, that this boy defeated Blackmore and helped to stop Pazuzu's rebellion, but somehow failed to eliminate you. I suppose I shall have to see him for myself." His voice echoed throughout the hall making it impossible to tell where it was coming from.
The echoes died out, and the Lerajie waited a few minutes to see if he was going to say anything else. Once she convinced he was truly gone, she started to make her way through the castle. While it wasn't her place to come to conclusions about the information she gathered, the hunter a pretty good idea why she survived when so many more powerful night creatures had perished. It was because that human girl had been there. The boy, this Marco, seemed unwilling to use the Power of Dominance in front of other people. That was something that they could exploit.
-000-
Janna sat leaning against the bookcase. With one hand she was reading a book she had no intention of buying, while with the other she was stroking Star's hair. The princess had fallen asleep during their search, and somehow wound up using Janna's lap as a pillow. The macabre girl noticed that Star was having fitful dreams, though they seemed to stop when she started petting her head. Now, Janna found herself in the same situation that all cat owners did, trapped underneath a sleeping critter that was too adorable to wake up.
The sounds of heavy panting caught Janna's attention, and she looked up to see Jackie walking towards her while carrying Marco on her back, who, much like Star, wasn't awake. As they got closer, Janna noticed that both of them seemed to be covered in blood, though neither actually looked injured.
"Whoa, what happened to you two?" Janna asked.
"We got shot at." Jackie said between breathes.
"Yikes, where's the blood from? Cause neither look like you've got holes in ya." Janna asked.
"Correction, I got shot at, Marco actually got shot." Jackie replied, most of her shock from earlier replaced with exhaustion from carrying her boyfriend around the store, "He's fine now thanks to those healing potions, just unconscious."
"Same with my partner, minus the shooting bit." Janna said, patting Star, "Didn't get much shopping done as a result."
"Oh right, here." Jackie awkwardly tried to grab something she stashed away without dropping Marco. Eventually, she managed to get out the tome and handed it to Janna, "Pretty sure this is what you're looking for."
"You always come through for me." Janna said, taking the book with a grin, "Now tell me more about how you got shot at."
"Ugh, you're seriously disturbed, you know that? We almost died!" Jackie asked. Janna gave an unapologetic shrug, and the skater relented, "Alright fine. Someone tried to steal that book, so we chased her around the store. Then she started shooting at us with goddamn sniper rifle. Marco got... you know. But then some lady named Hekapoo showed up and saved us, she gave Marco a potion and then left. If you want more details, you'll have to wait until I'm less tired. And I'm not going into the gory stuff."
However, Janna stared at Jackie with a blank expression, causing the blonder skater to grow somewhat concerned.
"Did you say Hekapoo?" Janna asked, her voice serious.
"Yeah, why? She said she was a friend of Marco's." Jackie said.
"I read about her in Star's journal. And she's definitely not Marco's friend." Janna said, "She kidnapped him and Star had to rescue him from her dimension, only he didn't want to come back. Star had to convince him to come home. And right after that was when he started acting odd. Whatever's going on with Marco, this Hekapoo seems to be responsible."
Jackie stared over her shoulder at the sleeping face of her boyfriend. Now more than ever, she wondered what the hell was going.
I would very much like to apologise for how ungodly long this took. Unfortunately, real life got in the way, between school and getting sick multiple times while writing this, the end result was that this chapter took way longer than it should have. Seriously, it took me what? A month and a half to write this? I would have liked to have finished it before the series finale of Svtfoe, but it didn't turn out that way, much to my frustration.
Speaking on the finale, just because the show is over doesn't mean I plan on stopping this fic anytime soon. After all, we haven't had a proper Castlevania game in like 10 years.
I never realised just how hard it is to make sure that character's power levels stay consistent before writing this fic. I have given so many works of fiction crap that they didn't deserve.
Remember how a little while ago I said I'd try to write some chapters without fight scenes? I'm not doing a very good job at keeping my word. The fight in this chapter was intended to be much shorter, I originally imagined it as only a small part of the chapter, but it just kind of grew. Similarly, I wanted to this chapter to be mostly dialogue and character interaction, but it turns out I'm actually really bad at writing that, so that part wound up being way shorter than I would've like.
Continuing on how I failed to meet my writing goals, this was originally suppose to be a Jackie focused chapter, but sadly it didn't really end up that way, with Marco and even the freaking Lerajie getting more focus than her. I'm going to attempt to write another chapter/storyline centred around her in the future, and hopefully I'll succeed next time.
I also had Marco use two Bullet Souls at the same time in this chapter, sorry about that.