Stage Six: Return from the Different Dimension
It's a "beautiful" afternoon over the destroyed city of Mewni; the birds are dead, the flowers have been trampled. On days like these, it's a good thing that the people have magic to fix everything. What? Did you want me to say that it would be a great day to play a game of catch or that someone should be burning in hell?
There are a few, most likely homeless, people desperately trying to clean up the mess the shaddolls had made. It looks like about a week's worth of effort was required to make the garbage pile. Then, much to their dismay, their nicely piled up pile of garbage gets blasted away by a portal opening.
"Oh come on!" a poor farmer shouts, while everyone else stands idly by, expecting someone to jump through.
A few minutes pass and no one had arrived, so one of them cautiously approaches it. The young man is only mere inches from the portal, when Star Butterfly to comes flying through with a loud, "I'm back!" Immediately the man gets sent flying across the destroyed pasture.
"Ahh, it's good to be home!" Star declares as she stretches, before turning back to the portal, "What do you think Marco?"
With that, Marco steps through and answers with, "It feels good to be back in Mewni, but was it really necessary to jump through and tackle that poor creature on the other side? That's a bit excessive, even for you."
"Of course it was!" She shouts while flailing her arms up in excitement, "Now come on we…" she stops talking when her eyes come to rest on the destroyed castle main tower. "Have to go…"
That's when the realization hits her, with only a quick glance she realizes what has happened. "Marco…." Tears start to fill her eyes.
"It looks like the shaddolls did a number on Mewni." He puts on comforting hand on Star's shoulder, "But don't let it get to you. We have to keep going, and then you'll be able to fix all of this damage... or maybe make it worse." Marco chuckles, "But hey, anything's better than the shaddolls wrecking everything."
This gets him an angry glare from the princess. He immediately responds with, "Hey, you may have been decent with your magic during the universe hopping, but taking into account how you're usually quite inept handling that thing, we have to consider all possibilities."
Then he frowns as Star avoids eye contact. Feeling bad for the girl, Marco hugs Star, "Now come on, we need to go."
They break the embrace and Star nods, "Ok, lets go Marco." Yet, just as they're about to run to the castle, a massive Shaddoll dragon appears out of nowhere and fires a burst of dark energy at them.
It's a medium-sized purple beast with strings connected at its arms and legs just like all of the others.
"Hit the deck!" Marco shouts as he pushes Star to the ground, causing the star chart to fall out of Star's bag and unfurl. Immediately the red and yellow orbs respond and engulf them.
The new being gets up in a daze, "Star… What just happened?" The being looks at its hands, the orbs now embedded in their hands. "Marco… The orbs did it again! We've fused into Starco!"
"Seriously?!" Marco whines, not sounding particularly enthusiastic about the situation.
The being sighs, "This is going to get more awkward the more we do this…" The fusion says with both her… his… their component's voices, before looking up at the dragon, "But I guess it'll be easier to take that thing out like this." Then they conjure Star's wand, "Let's do this!"
And with that the being jumps at the dragon, spins around, and slams the wand into the dragon's head, before blasting it with, "Purification blazer!" The wand then engulfs the shadow dragon with a simple beam of light, reducing the once dangerous creature to dust.
Seconds after that, Starco lands on the ground and splits back into its component teens.
"It's like those orbs have a mind of their own…" Marco tiredly says as he helps Star onto her feet. She responds without missing a beat, "Maybe it's because we're tied to the orbs or something?"
Marco shrugs, "Well, hopefully that won't happen again for a while."
Star finishes, "Yeah, it's really tiring." The duo then looks towards the crumbling castle tower, nod at each other and wordlessly press on.
A few minutes later, the duo manages to reach the castle, and this time without any interruption. Both of them put on determined faces as the run through the destroyed gate and into the castle courtyard, where they find royal guards desperately trying to fight more invading Shaddoll creatures.
"Marco!" Star shouts, stomping hard to stop running, "We can't-"
"Let these guys fight on their own." Marco finishes, "If this is the damage that's happened they won't last."
Without warning the same two orbs react again and fuse the duo into Starco. The new fusion wastes no time jumping at the first beast, similar to the dragon, except it seemed to have a blockier body and didn't seem to be able to breathe fire. Then, after blasting that beast, it jumped off the disintegrating beast's back, and used the wand to conjure a sword with, "Lightning sword strike!"
Starco then backflips in the air before slicing the second creature, an extremely large hedgehog, in half. After that, the being lands, huffs and puffs for a short moment before splitting back into Star.
"That's going to-" Marco starts, only for Star to finish with, "Get annoying really fast." They look at each other in surprise, "Star… you don't think…" Star finishes, "These orbs do more than just fusing us together?"
Before they could figure out the answer to that question, the duo are approached by a fish lady and a skeleton. The man of bones greats them with a loud, "Princess Butterfly! Knight Marco! You've returned!"
"Knight Marco?" the guy thinks, liking the title, though he found it a bit… perplexing.
Marco answers with, "Yeah, We're back." And Star finishes, "The star chart said that the next orb is here." She glances at the destroyed rubble around them, "Though, it looks like you have had your hands full, would you happen to know where the orb of infinite power is?"
Both guards shake their heads, but the fish lady speaks, "No, but your father wanted us to bring both of you to him once you returned." Then she motions for them to follow, "Come on, there's no time to waste."
And with that, the duo follows the two royal guards up the damaged palace tower. As they climbed higher and higher, they could see the ruins of Mewni.
The Shaddolls had burned the towns to the ground as well as the fields around them. Though it's hard to see the people, Star and Marco could tell that their hard existence has become even more so after the invasion. They turn to each other once more and nod, as if the sight of a destroyed town fills them with determination.
Moments after that they stand before River Butterfly, King of Mewni and his Queen, Moon Butterfly.
The king greets the two teens with a relieved hug, "You two did it! Have you collected the orbs?!" He joyfully asks, to which the two teens respond with nods. Marco then answers, "Yeah, and the star chart said that the ninth orb was here."
"Dad where is the orb?" Star continues.
River immediately walks behind his throne and pulls out a small trunk, he then walks over and places the box in Star's hands with, "the purple orb rests within this box." He looks out the destroyed wall, "I've been using it to protect Mewni from further invasion." Then he looks out damaged wall, "Without this orb the damage you see would have no doubt been worse.
Moon then speaks up, "River, I believe it is time to tell them the rest of the story."
River nods, "As you know, these color orbs were used a thousand years ago to seal the Shaddolls away."
"Of course, that's why we went to collect these orbs." Marco answers.
He continues in a more solemn tone, "There's one more orb for you to find now, the multi-colored orb."
We both tilt our heads, "Multi-colored orb? Like a rainbow or something?"
He motions Star to pull out the scroll, "The multi-colored orb is the orb that allows the user to wield all nine other orbs. You see, the infinite power of all orbs is too much for one being to handle, but the multi-orb controls and focuses that power."
Star unfurls the scroll revealing it to contain a location.
Moon speaks up again, "We didn't tell you two about this, but the Multi-color orb was the only one not sealed with the other nine, and instead was kept near the shrine of Zefra."
"You're dumping a ton of exposition on us, what do you mean mom?" Star tilts her head.
"All you need to know write now is that the Shaddoll leader most likely has the orb. The orbs will explain the rest."
The two teens sigh, and say simultaneously, "So we've got more secrets huh. No problem then."
"Well it looks like we know where we're going next Marco." Star says with a determined before opening a new portal. "You ready?"
Marco nods, and with that, the duo jumps into the swirling black and green gate.
River then hugs his wife, "Do you think they will be able to stop them from taking over?
Moon returns the embrace, "We can only hope."
The king then looks towards the noontime sky, "Hopefully, our daughter and her friend have found the chosen of Zefra." With that, they break the embrace and order, "All guards must be on high alert, more Shaddolls will be coming soon!"
A few minutes later, the two teens stand before the dark citadel. There are no shaddolls protecting it. No doubt all of them have been sent to other dimensions to find the orbs.
Star and Marco wordlessly turn to each other once more and step towards the castle, there is no doubt in their mind that the end is near.
20-8-5 5-14-4 9-19 14-5-1-18, 1-14-4 25-5-20 20-8-5-18-5 9-19 19-20-9-12-12 13-21-3-8 20-15 6-5-1-18!
A/N Here's the next chapter! I hope you enjoyed! R&R.