Within one of the tall towers of Pigeon Castle, the now successful diplomatic team from Mewni was simply waiting patiently now, as there was little else to do at the moment. Rich Pigeon had hammered out as many details as he currently could with Princess Star, but for things to progress any further the King and Queen of the Pigeons would need to be involved, and he had the impression they'd be summoning him at any moment.
"Princess Star, if I might inquire a little while we wait for my inevitable summons..." Rich Pigeon spoke up, breaking the initial silence that had settled over the room. "...Can you confirm if the information that came to light on the most recent Song Day is factual?"
Pacifica looked like she was ready to tune this conversation out, initially silently writing it off as goofy nonsense, until Pony Head poked her on the shoulder and gave the blond human a "this is gonna be good" mischievous grin.
"Weeeeeell..." Star said reluctantly, twiddling a finger through her hair in a display of nerves. "It is true, the Book of Spells is currently no more but we're looking into..."
"No no, not that, don't be boring." Rich interrupted in a voice that still managed to sound impeccably polite. "I mean the announcement of your... dalliance, with the lucky boy from Earth."
Letting out a nervous laugh, Star opened her mouth but caught herself before saying what she had in mind. "Well, I guess it ended up true after all..." She thought to herself, realizing their was comparatively less to be embarrassed about from that day. Closing her eyes while her cheek marks glowed soft pink, Star eventually answered with "It wasn't true on Song Day, but it is now. Me and Marco are dating and I couldn't be happier with it."
"This sounds like a story worth hearing." Pacifica said with a tone of playful coyness to her new friend, causing Pony Head to let out a snort and explain, inbetween laughs, that "There's less than you'd think girl. Some royal musician or something was introduced to her and Earth Turd for less than a day, and instantly knew they were disgustingly deep in love."
Face going from warm pink to bright red, Star turned and shouted "GIRLS!" in scandalized disbelief at her two friends, which just prompted good natured laughter from the two.
"Literally everyone could see it except you, B-Fly. I'm glad to see Earth Turd decided to stop screwing around and finally just asked you out already." The flying princess responded, prompting a lidded, sideways look from Pacifica.
"That almost sounds like a compliment coming from you, princess." The human girl said jokingly. "I didn't think you had it in you, being removed along with the rest of your body and positive traits."
"What a pity, I was hoping perhaps we might get married to speed up the unity of Mewni's people."
The back and forth banter between the three girls came to an end as they all stood in awkward silence at the realization that Rich Pigeon had just said that, his avian face as difficult to read as ever. After a few moments though, the pigeon began to shake on his perch and let out a soft, cooing laughter. "My apologize Princess Butterfly, I speak in jest. We'd make a terrible royal couple." He explained jovially, getting some laughter from the other three in the room. "We wouldn't be able to have any children, you see, and that means any political gains our union achieves would last no longer than our individual lives."
After that, a more permanent silence fell across the meeting room again as everyone settled in to wait for the inevitable. When the heavy knocking finally sounded out from the wooden door to the rest of the castle, Rich had been practicing his explanation on his roost, Star was climbing around a chair while clearly getting antsy, Pony Head was chatting into her mirror phone and Pacifica had leaned back in a chair to file her nails. All of them looked at the door expectantly, expecting a power suited pigeon to be behind it... only for the door to slowly creek open and reveal an awkwardly smiling Marco Diaz.
"MARCO!" Star shouted with joy, jumping over the chair she was on as the boy in the red hoodie stepped through the door and closed it behind him. Before she could envelope him in a hug however, the door slammed back open, crushing Marco between the wall and the door as three pigeon guards on power legs shuffled in the room and began angrily cooing at everyone in sight. In a disgruntled voice, Rich yelled back in mewman "Yes, yes, calm down! I'll go, I said..." before devolving into cooing himself, which eventually caused the noise in the room to die off, the last speaker being Pony Head, who'd simply started babbling along with the general ruckus.
As the leader of the three guards and the only one equipped with arms as well as legs stepped forward and gently extended a finger for Rich to jump onto, the door to the room creaked shut, revealing a squashed flat Marco. Star walked over to him with a worried expression, gripping her wand sideways with both hands under her chin, only to smile with delight when he popped off the floor, miraculous still intact pie held up proudly in one hand.
Star swiped the pie out of its perfectly balanced perch on Marco's hand, gave him a kiss on the cheek in return for it, then practically skipped over to the big guard holding Rich. With a flourish and a curtsy, Star extended the pie on one hand in supplication before the clearly amused Richard. "As a token of the Kingdom of Mewni's commitment to good will and understanding, please accept this personal gift for you king and queen!" Star recited flawlessly but excitedly, and while the guard didn't initially react to the offer, some sharp cooing from Rich motivated him to carry it with the other mechanical arm. Soon the guards departed, and Star broke out into full on, sparkling eyed bouncing in place excitement.
"Marco, you did it! Back just in time with Grandma Comet's deep fried worm pie!" Star exclaimed, eagerly jumping across the room to embrace her boyfriend in celebration, who seemed to stiffen slightly at the blond's sudden and enthusiastic touch.
"Marco, where's Dipper and Kelly?" Pacifica asked from across the room, not yet worried but wanting an answer. Meanwhile, Star's hands had gone from wrapping around Marco's frame to inquisitively pawing around his back, as if she was searching for something.
Blind to the concerned look Star had with her face on his shoulder, Marco answered simply that "They popped back to Earth to get around the castle's various traps." He said.
Star had by now released her hug on the boy in front of her, feeling something inexplicably wrong in his touch and his voice. She felt like a nerve in her head was being pinched and stretched despite her lack of movement, but the pull in her head wasn't leaning towards the boy in the red hoodie in front of the princess. She frowned at him, which made him frown at her.
Without any further prompting or warning, Star lifted up one of Marco's arms and took a deep sniff of his armpit. Pacifica and Pony Head both wrenched in disgust at this, but their expressions shifted to shock less than a second later when Star struck like lightning and slammed her other hand, clenched into a fist, into the pit she'd exposed.
"What the hell St...STAR!" Pacifica reacted in shock, shouting and jumping across the room as the princess followed up this sucker punch by holding her wand over the boy after he collapsed to the floor, a green haze building up around. Surprisingly, Pony Head backed the human up on this, adding "Easy girl! Even I think that's a little rough for earth turd!" But neither of them could cross the room before the name of the spell left the cold faced lips of the princess.
"Burning Shadow Return."
The spell worked in a quick flash of light, sparing the other two in the room from the sight of it by virtue of their instinctive movements to shield their eyes from the flash of light, but Star watched every second of it. A gentle green spark floated out of her wand, no less than an ember lost in the wind, but when it made contact with the figure beneath her, and more importantly, the layer of glamour magic coating its body, the spark burst into a brief but raging green flame, converting the entire magical disguise into fuel to burn away. When the flash fire was gone, so was the illusion of Marco: left behind was the younger of Tom's two servants, Bisteeya, trembling on the floor even as the phantom fire vanished into nothing.
Though Pacifica and Pony Head had been severely confused by Star's initial burst of violence against the newly returned Marco, the truth of the situation was abundantly clear to them now. Their confused energy had shifted into a reserved observation of how Star wanted to handle things. Based on the expression the princess was wearing, it didn't seem like she wanted to handle it pleasantly.
The servant on the floor was trembling as her eyes widened with surprise, and a faintly uncomfortable, hot tingling spread across her entire body as a flickering green light encased her body, as the trembling with rage blond princess picked Bisteeya up with a wave of her wand, then harshly slammed her against the wall. 'Where's Marco!? What has Tom done to him!?" She demanded to know, not an ounce of her usual humor or warmth in Star's voice.
Even though she had similar questions and feelings regarding her own boyfriend, Pacifica was taken by surprise by the sudden change of attitude in her royal friend. Pony Head took quick notice of this, prompting her to comment "Star can get rough when people are threatening Earth Turd." with an equally unusual straight and serious attitude. "She ever give you the full story of what she did to Toffee?"
"Not the full story, no." Pacifica responded, noticing Star was lifting the Lucitor servant off the wall and slamming her back into it in-between asking her questions. To her own mixed feelings, Pacifica realized she was not feeling any emotional desire to stop the princess.
"The end result was very messy." Pony Head said cryptically. "Look, as much as I don't really like any of you earth turds, I hope Marco's okay, because things are gonna get whack if Tom's messed him up."
"AAAGHHHH!"
The pained screams of the karate fighting boy from Earth echoed in the dank, dark crypts beneath Pigeon Castle, as a pained, burnt hand drew back from the devil chain locked door that stood between him and freedom. Hissing under his breath and waving his hand before blowing on the white hot knuckle, Marco stepped back after failing to chop his way through the supernaturally reinforced door.
Watching from a few steps down the stairs, Dipper held a hand on his chin in genuine curiosity, remarking "You know, I genuinely wasn't sure he was going to fail at that. I mean, I'm not surprised he did, but at the same time I'd believe it if Marco managed to knock that thing down with just his hands, I've seen him survive crazier nonsense today."
"Yeah, yeah, Marco's cool and all but now it's time for the expert to take a swing at things!" Kelly remarked, as she stepped up to take the human boy's place as he stepped back down the stairs to nurse his aching hand.
"You're an expert at punching doors?" Dipper asked in a dry tone of voice as the Woolett wound up her arm to punch the devil chained door head on, causing her to briefly pause in order to scoff at him.
"Not JUST doors! I punch immobile targets the size of buildings all the time!"
"Right. Tad, you want to take a swing at it, should this not work?" Dipper asked while helping Marco to bandage up his hand.
From inside Kelly's hair, Tad answered with "I'm more of a lover than a fighter to be honest."
"Naturally."
Experimentally flexing his fingers one at a time and wincing slightly (and further confusing the other human present on how his hand wasn't a bloody pulp) Marco said sincerely "Thanks Dipper, I appreciate it." before asking "Do you think its time we just portal back to earth if Kelly can't knock this door down?"
Taking a moment to think this over with a troubled expression, Dipper answered with "I... don't think so. I know you want to get the pie Star was going to offer the pigeons up to her soon, but I think the evidence down in the dungeon that the Lucitors were prepared to blow up their castle might be just as good at getting the pigeons on our side, and if we abandon this door, what's to stop Tom from just walking down through it and disposing of all the evidence? I don't think we can risk it, and if he does just come charging through there at some point we'll need our team to be at full strength."
Nodding, Marco answered "That makes sense." before letting a more troubled expression get across his face. "Tom though... I'd really thought he'd changed for the better and I was kind of liking being his friend, but I guess my first impression of him was the most accurate one."
"What was your first impression of him?"
"That he was a sexual predator aiming to become Star's abusive boyfriend."
"Ouch." Dipper winced with genuine sympathy. The boys sat next to each other in awkward silence for a moment on the cellar stairs while Kelly wailed away at the door above them, to no avail. Eventually, with a slow and measured choice of words, Dipper spoke again. "Look, I actually knew someone similar, believe it or not. His name was Gideon Gleeful, and before you say that's not a real name, his dad was named Bud so clearly the entire family is completely insane on top of being stupid. He was a tyrannical con artist non-denominational television evangelist with a possessive obsession over romancing my sister Mabel and murdering me. And he was only six years old or something at the time, somehow."
"That's fucked up." Marco said without hesitation.
"That whole summer was fucked up." Dipper answered dismissively before continuing his explanation. "Anyways, we foiled a bunch of schemes launched by him to steal our house and get Mabel for himself, and they only got worse over time. By one of our last encounters with him he was perfectly willing to kill Mabel along with me, despite how much he claims he loves her. Tom sounds like he's the same way, maybe he was just manipulating you or maybe he was genuinely trying to change. It doesn't matter. People like him and Gideon are just too dangerous to risk giving even an inch. You and Star will be better off with him completely removed from your life."
Marco thought about this for a moment, analyzing the threat posed by the demon prince with a head unclouded by the rush of danger and battle. "So, what ended up happening to Gideon?" He asked after contemplating things.
"He threw in with Bill Cipher during the attack on our town, naturally." Dipper answered, a clear tone of disdain creeping into his voice. "He had me and a friend of mine named Wendy dead to rights while we were trying to free Mabel, long painful story, so in an effort to stall for time in hopes some wandering monster would stomp by and eat him or Wendy might find a rock or something to fight them off with I went on some big rambling tangent about... love or something, I was literally making it up as I went along. Somehow, against all possible odds, he bought it, and then he and his army of convicts just drove off to try and fight Bill or something." Then, dryly, he added "Only during Weirdmageddon, I suppose..."
"What happened to him after that?" Marco asked, genuinely curious.
"Well he did nothing of value during the actual battle against Bill, and then right after that Mabel moved back to Piedmont while I stayed to work as Great Uncle Ford's apprentice." Dipper answered, a touch of scorn still in his tone, though obviously not directed at Marco. "He made a big speech about moving on and bettering himself but kept coming around the Mystery Shack asking for Mabel's phone number or email address. Luckily the rest of the town decided to put him back in the prison Bill had broken him out of, he and his dad went on the run, and I haven't seen them since. And if I'm being honest, if I never see him again it will be too soon. Grunkle Ford considers the fact he never met Gideon at any kind of length to be one of life's small mercies, after hearing Stan and I talk about him. Called him the type of person who has no genuine interest in knowledge and science, simply the power one can derive from it. That was all Gideon cared about, power, and in the end that's all a relationship between him and Mabel would have amounted too, him holding power over her. I think that's why he fought Bill, even if he justified it differently: He knew Mabel wasn't truly his, and couldn't stand being Bill's disposable lackey."
The two sat next to each other in silence after that, the weight of the conversation weighing heavily on both of them. Eventually though, Kelly's voice from above split the silence in the air and made both Marco and Dipper look over their shoulders. "Okay boys, I can't managed to punch this thing down." The woolett warrior admitted between ragged breathing, his knuckles sporting a colorful collection of fresh bruises for her efforts.
Standing to his feet and reaching into his vest pocket, Dipper was quick to hand out instructions, confidence and purposes replacing the remembrance of contempt that had filled his tones before. "Marco, see if you can bandage her up. It's time to break out the big guns... by which I mean our one pistol sized gun."
Speaking of the devil, Prince Tom had conjured an elevator back to the Underworld on the outskirts of Castle Pigeon only to be surprised to see it was already full when bell sounded and the doors opened. "Horns, good to see you again! Guessing the plan has gone south, hasn't it?" Asked Bill Cipher, the one functional eye of his stolen body boggling out at the demon prince as a wide grin split his face.
"It's not... completely ruined yet, but it's gone pretty far off the rails, yes." Tom responded snarkily, irritation spring to life on his face as soon as he'd seen Bill waiting for him in the elevator. "If we're going to salvage any kind of win at all from this, is going to come down to the Pie Folk Surprise going off without a hitch, and that..."
"...That was always a long shot backup plan, am I right?" Bill asked before sauntering out of the elevator to step into the shadow of the castle. "So, I'm guessing it's time for damage control then?"
"The explosives crew and the giant spider are all dead in the dungeons, and the actual blasting equipment itself is still in place and needs to be removed." Tom listed off clinically. "Brian went back to the upper levels but I left him a pair of dimensional scissors, so he should be able to extract himself and maybe one of the assassins, if they survive. Hopefully they don't."
Scribbling Tom's statements down on a notepad he'd seemingly produced from nowhere, Bill did a mockingly melodramatic salute while declaring "Thy will be done oh Prince of Darkness!" and began to saunter off towards the castle gates before stopping abruptly. "Oh, one more thing Horns. Since this plan seems to have a high probability of being a dud, do you think you could put a word in with your dad about investing more in some of our... outside bets?"
Tom stopped just short of the elevator threshold, pausing for a moment before turning around to face Bill with three narrowed eyes. "Project Pressure and Time, specifically?" He asked with the tone of someone irritated with relentless coyness.
"I mean, if you insist..." Bill answered with a chuckle, before abruptly sounding more serious. "It's our best bet for having something that can match the MHC. It wouldn't do for us to get our hands on the wand only for that bunch of killjoys to saunter in, freeze you and Star up in some giant ugly crystals and exile your giant ugly babies to the far edges of time and space while swapping them out with genetically pure orphans. That sure would be messed up, am I right lads?"
Tom blinked a few times as his brain worked to process Bill's motor mouthed diatribe before his face simply became flat and sulky. "Fine, when I let dad know about this I'll suggest that as the most prudent place to reinvest our resources."
"Wonderful! And speaking of reinvesting resources, once I clean things up here I'll swing by The Judecca Resort with the good news and some fresh material to work with... speaking of which, you've got the blasting guys souls in your possession, right?" Cipher asked, his body's one remaining eye glittering with possibility.
"I should, they died while their contract was still active." Tom remarked casually. "If dad opts to go ahead with this I'll have them shipped over there."
Then the elevator door closed and the box sunk into the ground, leaving no trace of its presence save for a rapidly dissolving whiff of brimstone in the air. Bill, with nothing else left to say to anyone, spun around on his heels a few times before marching his stolen, still screaming on the inside body towards the still open gates of Pigeon Castle.
In one of the high towers of the mewman style fortress Star had continued to slam the woman who had been impersonating Marco into the wall until prompted to stop by Pacifica and Pony Head, who could both tell she clearly couldn't answer the questions the princess was screaming at her in that state. As a result, Star stopped, her prisoner of magic floating helplessly in the air halfway to smashing into the wall again, before she was magically hurled across the room instead, crashing into one of the chairs positioned at the desk.
"Raspberry Ribbon Lasso!" Star called out right after, ensuring the Lucitor agent was immobilized in her seat as Pacifica walked up to her. Despite this and the fact that she was still visibly dazed, Bisteeya seemed happy with this change of pace, even managing to crack a smile at the blond human.
"So, you're the good cop then?" The tied up woman asked, smile getting a little noticeably cracked while looking up at Pacifica.
"No, I'm also a girl who wants to know what you've done with her boyfriend." The human responded quickly and coldly as the eyes of both other princesses fell on her, widening as she pulled out a rugged looking knife from the inside of her right boot. Though her expression was as unreadable and unsympathetic as her parents had trained it to be during situations of negotiation, on the inside Pacifica felt her heart pound against her chest and a sick lump build up in her stomach. It took all her self-control to let hand holding the knife tremble uncontrollably. "Please don't call this bluff please don't call this bluff please don't call this bluff..."
"Aww, Pazy! You kept the friendship weapon I gave you! When this is all over I'm giving you a big hug!"
"Oh FRITO THIS!" The agent abruptly swore with exasperation. "I'm not getting paid enough to go through all this crazy nonsense, I'll tell you everything!"
"Then start talking! What has Tom done to our boyfriends!?" Star demanded, voice effortlessly switching back to harsh and angry.
"By ours they mean her and her's." Pony Head cut in, sounding like she was genuinely trying to make a point. "I got higher standards."
"Nothing, outside of sealing them up in the castle basement with some spooky chains, the shapeshifting potion to turn someone into Marco was something the prince just had in stock, please, you gotta let me go!" Bisteeya begged, eyes darting around as she began to look more desperate. "We all gotta get out of here, don't you get it? The Lucitors aren't willing to accept non-compliance from the Pigeons, and they've got two sets of explosives that for all I know could turn this whole building into a crater!"
The three friends all looked wide and suddenly panicked at this revelation, though Pacifica was the first one to speak, bursting out with "What do you mean for all you know!?" She demanded with disbelief.
"One of them's a pie bomb, regular Pie Folk special for political protest, but I'm not the one who makes those things, I was just paid to deliver it, so I have no idea how big that one is. And Jenny, the other lady who was with me? She's crazy, hates these birds more than anything, she'll blow it!" Bisteeya said hurriedly, not needing to explain the rest.
"THE PIE!" Star shouted in horror while rushing for the door, hoping she and her friends could reach the Pigeon King and Queen in time.
After realizing the three were going to leave her behind however, Bisteeya abruptly yelled out "But there's another bomb in the dungeons! I don't know anything about how that one works but it's probably enough to destroy the castle considering it's the backup plan! We need to get..."
The desperate bargaining of the Lucitor agent was silenced by a beam of magic launching from Star's wand and hitting her in the face with enough force to knock over the chair she was still tied to, but only left a gag wrapped around her mouth. None of the three bothered to check what that had done.
"Star, we gotta move! Ponyhead and I can hopefully catch up with Richard if we hurry, but if you use your magic maybe you reach the basement in DID THEY FUCKING LOCK US IN!?" Pacifica said in rush as Star seemed to be frozen in place, only to explode in anger when the door out refused to give way, all her carefully cultured etiquette forgotten. On the other side of the faded but splendid wood, Brian picked himself up after the sudden angry shout and hammering on the door he'd carefully applied a sealing seal on over, then quickly cut a dimensional portal back to the Underworld.
"Star, hurry up and blast the door down!"
"In case you didn't notice we all about to die B-Fly!"
Despite the insistence of her friends, however, Star Butterfly didn't move an inch. Her eyes seemed borderline vacant and distant despite being as wide a sparkling as they usually were, more even. Her whole body was shock still save for the crushing, grinding grip of her right hand around her wand and the rapid fluttering of her wings under her dress, which would have been possible to hear if two people were shouting in the exact same room. Neither her posture nor expression betrayed a drop of the incredibly intense waves of emotion that were threatening to rip the heart of the head over heels in love princess in two at the moment.
Then, she exploded.
Pacifica and Pony Head had to shield their eyes as they yelled with incoherent disbelief as a blinding yellow flash erased the room, and when they could see clearly again, both stood slack jawed with amazement. The figure standing before them was clearly still Star Butterfly, but with six arms, a completely golden outfit, prominent wings and glittering, swirling eyes that gazed out at the world blankly from atop an expression that could almost be described as smiling vapidly, if her whole figure didn't otherwise radiate cosmic power. Star abruptly raised a one of her six arms, pointed a finger at her two friends, and wordlessly, a flash of light burst from the digit to create a clear cube around the human and the horse head.
Before either of them could say a word, a simple circle showing a brief look into the howling, dark horror of the infinite realm between worlds opened beneath Star's feet, and she simply dropped straight into it.
The power was everywhere now, and endless golden light that encircled and pressed down on every inch of her being, like that ocean of gelatin she'd taken Marco to swim in once. The mere thought of the boy returned her attention to the only other thing that seemed to exist in this world of infinite gold, a world of endless possibility that could be reshaped however The Butterfly wished it to be, a world where her thoughts became physical law and matter: A single red string, narrow red but flawless ribbon leading through the void. The Butterfly had willingly wrapped itself in this ribbon, woven it so deep around her heart that to sever it would be to induce inoperable damage. It was an unmissable trail that could lead The Butterfly through the infinite chaos of the multiverse with no chance of failure. To know the string was to know herself, and what The Butterfly knows becomes her reality.
Down in the basement, three teens with sore, bandaged knuckles were sitting in a semi-circle, looking at an unfolded board game with boredom. "Alright, it's official, this game sucks." Marco declared with a tone of defeat before rolling onto his back and tossing away the dice he'd been preparing to roll without enthusiasm. "Has Tad found anything else worth doing in there yet?"
In response, Kelly tossed aside the cards she was holding and gave her voluminous hair a shake with both her hands, to no response. With a sigh, she muttered "Doesn't seem like it. Probably sound somewhere new to cozy up in though..."
Setting aside the chess piece he was holding, Dipper took a stark assessment of the wine cellar they were in, then asked "So, you guys want to do some underage drinking?"
If Kelly had been drinking something, she'd have spat it out. "Have I been hanging out with a bunch of eight year olds!?"
A rift in time and space cut itself out of reality before the three teens, causing them to burst to their feat and draw weapons, but Marco gradually lowered himself from his karate pose as the faint golden light radiating from the portal solidified into the shape of Star, winged and with six arms. "Is... is that Star?" Dipper asked with confusion from behind the other human, lowering his energy gun a small distance in uncertainty.
Up close, the Golden Butterfly reminded Marco of his princess going through Mewberty, the same change of body and the same vacant stare, but this time, Star seemed to have a glow about her, a warmth radiating from those otherwise blank eyes that he knew only he could feel. Somehow knowing it was safe, Marco took a step forward and offered her a hand, receiving five wrapped around his arm in return.
Star then used her sixth arm to throw a bolt of magic at Dipper and Kelly before adding it to her grip on Marco and pulling him close off her feat. The magic energy broke into a cube around the two aliens to Mewni, forming an immovable barrier that would let them survive even a castle leveling explosion. Even as the two began to pound on the walls and scream unheard, Star wrapped all six arms around Marco's body before flying for the exit. Smashing the demon chains to dust as a shell of yellow light protected her and Marco's body, Star kept smashing through doors and windows until she and the human were spiraling through the air outside the castle, leaving an interlocking twin trail of red and yellow light behind them.
As they weaved together through the sky around the decrepit Pigeon Castle, Marco stared deep into Star's glowing eyes, seeing a warmth that was reserved just for him inside what everyone else would see as a blank stare. Taking the glittering gold that had replaced her pupils as an invitation, Marco leaned his head forwards and kissed Star on the mouth, her supple lips seeming to fit perfectly against his.
Inside the dreary throne room of Pigeon Castle, a large flock of the birds sat around the opposing forces of the King, Queen and Richard. The air had been filled with coos and caws and the ruffling of feathers and the rattling of sabers as dozens of pigeon generations of pigeon policy were discussed and argued about. The cacophony was abruptly silenced by a power limb equipped royal guard banging the hilt of his spear against the stone floor, signaling a reprieve in the debate.
"...and as we come to a recess in the arguments, I would like to present a formal gift from Princess Butterfly, a recreation of the original diplomatic meal we received from the signer of the treaties of our recognition of cognition, Queen Comet of Mewni." Rich spoke, deliberately using the common tongue as a guard loyal to him stepped forward, bearing the pie he'd received when "Marco" had burst into the meeting room. "Splendid last minute timing." He thought to himself.
The gently ruffled hush that had fallen across the flock as the pie carrying guard strode forward erupted into chaos when the wall exploded, Star Butterfly bursting through the gap, all radiance and thunder in her transformed state. Dropping Marco from her six hands to let the boy land on his feet, the princess wove a sphere of magic around the presented pastry as the object seemed to unravel beneath the work of a dozen, meticulous invisible hands: The crust and the tin peeled away to reveal a complicated mesh of wires and blasting equipment buried beneath, which erupted into a flash of flame that shook but could could not crack the golden sphere Star had encased it in.
Marco, standing in place and looking awestruck as Star worked her magic, let out a sigh and absently muttered "She's a special girl, ain't she?" to the nearest pigeon, who was stunned into silence like the rest of the court. As she gently fluttered back to her feet, still glowing and gold, Rich Pigeon was the first of the shocked flock to muster a question. "I... you... what...?"
"NO!"
Everyone in the room turned towards the sound of the shout and an old, moth bitten tapestry ripping to shreds as the wild eyed and disheveled form of Jenny the domestic servant burst from her hiding place, a detonator (that her thumb was uselessly pressing over and over) in her left hand and a crossbow in her right. "Damn you Princess Butterfly, the rightful owners of this castle will be avenged!" She screamed, while leveling the already loaded bolt towards Richard.
"Look out!" Marco yelled, bursting into action and fearlessly leaping in front of the threatened avian, not realizing until mid-sideways jump that he'd thrown himself into danger and expecting a sharp pain to blossom in his lower stomach as the launched wood and metal bolt buried itself in his stomach. Instead, he simply hit the ground in a puff of dust, eyes squeezed shut for a moment before he opened them in response to a faint gold light shinning through the lids, comforting him with an air of safety. When Marco looked out at the world, not only was there no crossbow bolt piercing into his gut, generating a sickly wet, red spot on the surrounding stomach, there wasn't even a crossbow anymore.
The wooden weapon had begun to rot away in Jenny's hands the moment she'd even vaguely pointed it in Marco's direction, quick shafts of yellow light puncturing holes in the woodwork from inside, and from within these holes a ravenous horde of termites emerged. The insects devoured the rotting wood around them as the string frayed and the iron rusted. Jenny dropped the now useless weapon in horror as the bugs climbed up her hands and began to pick at her flesh, all while Star gently floated closer and closer to her, her expression still unchanged but her whole aura seeming to radiate malevolence.
"I... this... you... Your Gloriousness, please! We fight for the same cause here!" Jenny sputtered and begged as she took pensive steps back from the approaching form of her monarch's heir. "This castle is my birthright! Stolen away from me when these monsters drove out my ancestors, just like when Toffee...!"
She was abruptly cut off by one of Star's six arms slugging her in the mouth, right before another one hit the would be assassin in the stomach, and then a punch to the shoulder, and then all eyes in the room watched with mounting concern as all six hands got involved in the beating Star was inflicting at faster and faster speeds, the piston like motion of all six arms becoming a blur as the Golden Butterfly refused to let up on the attacker.
Once the pummeling had gone on long enough for the mood in the room to turn awkward, a half-nervous, half-impressed Marco slid sideways over to Rich Pigeon. "And here's your actual diplomatic pie. Sorry the delivery took so long but it was free to begin with." He said in a hushed voice while removing the dish in question from inside his backpack, which looked a little bit ruffled in the crust but still appeared more enticing than the pie bomb that had been smuggled in.
"Many thanks, Marco." Rich responded in a hushed tone, under the sound of six rapidly firing fists colliding with increasingly mushy flesh still filled the air. After another thirty seconds of awkward silence from everyone in the room aside from the pummeling butterfly Star finally seemed satisfied and slowed to a stop. With the assassin now breathing raggedly and collapsed against the floor, Star descended to her feet as the gold light dimmed and her form returned to normal. A little woozy as soon as her wings and extra arms were gone, Star's two natural arms flailed about briefly as she almost fell on her back, only to land in the reassuring hands of her boyfriend, who had specifically sprinted over to help her.
"Star, that was amazing!" Marco exclaimed as he hugged his bestie from the back and snuggled his face into her shoulder. "You are amazing!"
"Aww, thanks Marco!" Star said in return, her face briefly blushing with an odd gold color that gradually gave way to regular red, right before her face sprung with worry and she said in a rush "Marco, there's another bomb in the basement, we need to..."
"It's okay Star, we found the one in the basement and Dipper disarmed it." Marco said reassuringly, instantly causing Star to relax as the two nuzzled close to each other, the tension fading away between them. "I really am impressed though, you handled that bomb like an expert!"
"Well, I just kept in mind all those Macky Hand movies we watched together, and well, it came naturally..."
The two looked into each other's faces and smiled, oblivious to the increasingly agitated bunch of birds around them. Luckily, Rich had them covered.
"My fellow flockmates!" He cried to the room, making his announcement in the Mewman tongue to ensure the speaker could not be mistaken for anyone else. "Let us feast and think of yesteryear, where a Monarch of Mewni traded fairly and sympathetically with us, in celebration of a future where all beings may enjoy such friendships! Long live Princess Star, the truegg of Queen Comet!"
A celebratory ruckus came over the flock, that only intensified as they descended upon the deep fried worm pie, plucking perfectly baked and caramelized invertebrates from within the baked confection as Star and Marco lost each other in the eyes of a loved one.
"Got any threes?"
"Go Fish... OUCH! Kelly, what was that for!?"
"You told me to go fish, so I went fish!"
"No, you punched me in the shoulder!"
"And you go fishing by punching the ocean, duh!"
"...Oh, wait, I'm supposed to punch the card deck aren't I?"
"Sure you guys don't want to try another round of poker?"
"Not until you keep your hands outside of the hair based pocket dimension Tad."
Down in the wine cellar, still trapped in the protective shell Star had created with her magic around them in case a bomb did detonate, Dipper had been teaching Kelly and Tad some human card games to pass the time once he confirmed the barrier couldn't be broken with anything they had in their possession, even after Tad took a trawl through Kelly's hair. Further conversation was interrupted however, when the door at the top of the stairs abruptly slammed open, no trace remaining of the demon chains when the three in the protective shell snapped their gaze to the source of the noise, and one of them felt their blood run cold.
"Pine Tree! Long time no see!"
Taking jaunty but slow and theatrical steps down the stairs to the cellar was Bill Cipher, still puppeting the demon body with three carved out eyes, his one remaining orb glittering with a harsh yellow light. Dipper remained silent, his left hand clenching into a fist as the dream binding body thief stepped closer and closer and his right one resting inside his pocket atop his energy weapon, eyes locked on to the jerky motion of the cellar intruder. Bill moved his puppet with a wide, rictus grin on his face and a lingering clumsiness to his step, as if he might lose his footing and tumble down the long flight of stairs at any moment. Never the less, Bill stepped steady until he was on the cellar floor and standing at the barrier Star had created, mockingly tapping the clear surface like a zoo exhibit.
Dipper stood tall, glaring back at the demon on the other side as Bill simply gawked and gurned at him. The dark shadows the pooled behind Bill in the dimly let basement began to bubble and squirm, a sickly yellow light emerging from the liquid dark until the goldbricked form of Bill's Holy Diver was materialized, a muscular incorporeal body topped by the rictus grin of a defaced pharaoh's death mask.
In a flash, it's fist slammed against the magic barrier Star had assembled around them, the shockwave and loud noise produced by the impact causing both Dipper and Kelly to fall off their feet. Dipper felt his throat catch as he watched in stunned horror as the spirit punched at the clear box they were in over and over again, fists striking lightning fast on the same spot. The boy's mind flashed back to Bill's initial, brute force attempt to destroy the battle robot Mystery Shack, but this time he felt far closer to the danger than that instance, though the situations weren't that different. Something about the fact that if Bill did successfully punch down the only barrier keeping Dipper physically safe, the Pines twin knew he'd see it crumble and break before his very eyes left Dipper frozen in fear, quite convinced that any given moment could be his last.
Then, just as abruptly as it started, the battering stopped.
"Hehehe... AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" The quivering lip of Bill's stolen body abruptly burst into cruel laughter as he drank in delight at Dipper's terrified expression as the two teens in the cube climbed back to their feet, Kelly drawing her sword and looking ready to fight while Dipper just glared at Bill, feeling the old, deep wounds under his skin grow fresh and aggravated by the dream demon's torments. "Quite a secure little shell you've got to hide in, eh Pine Tree? Well, I suppose I could crack it eventually... unfortunately for me, I'm on the job, so I guess I'll let you off with a little scare this time..."
Before Bill could continue, the faint edge of a conversation trailed down into the cellar through the still open door at the top of the stairs. "...see what they were planning down here."
Dipper and Kelly's expressions sank as they recognized the speaker while Bill broke out into a painful looking grin. "Well, that's my cue!" He announced cheerily before sauntering out of sight deeper into the dungeon, just in time for Marco to miss sight of him as he and a pair of pigeon guards on power limbs came down the stairs and into the cellar.
Marco's face did break into genuine relief when he saw his two friends alive and well, initially seeming oblivious to their obvious mutual distress. "Kelly, Dipper, you guys are okay! Look, don't worry about the box, Star just put you in it so you'd be safe if the castle blew up, she can totally bust you out of it just like she did for Pacifica and Pony Head, she's just straightening some final things out with the Pigeons."
Despite the threat of Bill looming literally behind him, Dipper's eyes did widen with genuine relief at Marco's introduction and his confirmation that Pacifica was safe. His first spoken response remained about the matter at hand. "Marco, Bill is here. He's gone down further into the dungeon but will not be able to arm the bomb again, I took out several vital components off it that are still on me, in here." He explained hurriedly. "We'll need Star to actually take him down."
"What if he's not here to resume the plot, but dispose of the evidence?" Marco answered quickly, not spending any more time on pleasantries when he saw how serious Dipper was being. "We need to gather as much evidence against the Lucitors as possible. Star will be down as soon as possible, but I'm not letting this get away!" He explained before stepping away from the block, gesturing for the guards to follow him.
"Marco, slow down for a minute, this Bill guy is dangerous!" Kelly spoke up, walking over to the over side of the cube as the human boy outside it passed by, swinging her blade against the surface a few times. It was odd to hear her of all people try and dissuade him from entering a fight, causing Marco to slow briefly, but his confidence was running too high to slow down now. "I'll be fine Kelly. Star will be right behind me soon enough."
Further warnings went unheeded (or simply not understood in the case of the two guards) as Marco descended into the depths of the dungeon, retracing his earlier steps back to the demolition zone. The three trailed deeper into the dungeon, the boy in red attempting to keep the dark away by plucking a torch from the wall and carrying it with him proudly. Despite having run this whole route earlier that day, the shadows of the place still felt deep and shifting. "Keep your eyes open for this Bill character." He muttered to his escort, but inwardly wondered if they could even understand him, given the muted disinterest he could feel from the two... perhaps. "It is pretty difficult to tell what a pigeon is thinking..." The boy thought to himself.
However, even the glassy eyed, power limb wearing pigeons perked up with perceptible curiosity when Marco finally lead them to the blasting equipment, seemingly untouched and clean as new since he'd seen Dipper eliminate the ones minding it and disable the device. "Right, if there's any remaining doubts the Lucitors are bad news..." he said aloud while confidently tapping the top of the device, making a statement for the guards that couldn't really understand him, only to suddenly realize something about the room. It looked clean, untouched... cleaner than it had been when he'd actually found it. "Where'd the goons go!?" Marco exclaimed while double taking around the room. Scorched feathers and small droplets of blood remained on the stone floor, but the physical corpses seemed to have vanished.
The human was ripped from his frantic checking around by the sound of a pigeon cooing in distress, and when he wrenched his attention back to his guards Marco realized he only had one of them now, the remaining one swiveling around and hefting his pike weapon around, making a rapid series of clicking noises with his beak. The sound and the motion fell silent however, when something rolled out of a dark hallway and gently clanked against the remaining guard's booster leg.
Marco and the Pigeon practically balked when they looked down and saw it was a powered limb arm, rolling free across the floor with a few damp feathers stuck to it.
As soon as the human looked up to lock eyes with his only surviving guard, one of the thousands of bricks making up the dungeon floors and ceilings hurled through the air, smashing the small feathery target in the middle of a four piece of powered mechanical limbs. The pigeon guard burst on impact and then leaked down the wall when the brick smashed into the across the room, causing Marco to take a few steps back in shock while raising his arms up in a defensive posture... only for Holy Diver to materialize from the shadows behind the teenager from Earth and immobilize him from behind with a crushing bear hug, generating a startled yell, a battle cry and a crushing wheeze from the karate warrior as Bill's demonic puppet emerged from the shadows.
"Ah, Beauty Mark, at last we meet!" Bill rattled off, voice as used car salesman cheery as ever. In absence of a hat, the possessing demon doffed one of his three eye-patches at Marco, causing the human boy to visibly wince at the decay lurking beneath and the fly that weakly buzzed into the dungeon air as soon as it had the opportunity to. "Name's Bill Cipher, cosmic destroyer, demon of nightmares, body possessor, party planner and stealer of souls! I trust you know me by my reputation?"
Marco didn't bother answering Bill at all, instead putting all his strength and focus into breaking free from Holy Diver's crushing grip, arms locked down tight and legs only able to limply kick. "Hey, no need to panic here big guy, I don't plan on killing you!" Bill rattled off, his words entering Marco's skull but sitting ignored, as the karate fighter tried to block them out to center his inner focus and find the strength to escape. "After all, as long as you're alive, One-Of-Hearts is just so much easier to manipulate and move around the board. If you died, she'd become... unpredictable."
This indirect threat made at Star was not enough to cause Marco to freeze in place, abandoning his struggle in a flash of fearful paralysis. On the contrary, the thought of Star being in danger simply ignited a fire in Marco that made him struggle and fight even harder, causing the previously stoic and unmovable Holy Diver to have to shift and squeeze a little to keep him contained.
No, the thing that made Marco freeze up for a brief moment before fighting harder than ever was the faint torchlight glittering off a short metal blade coming into view in front of him.
"However, leaving you alive but making you an invalid on the other hand..." Bill said with a grin as he steadied a short but sufficiently sharp dagger in his right hand. "Well, I think she'll be easier than ever to manipulate if she's got the round the clock care for her eyeless boyfriend weighing on her mind! Plus, I get to do THIS!"
The knife raised in the air, the right arm gripping it rising above the mutilated face as Bill savored the sight of Marco's blank with fear eyes following the blade as it climbed into position with agonizing slowness, the dream demon relishing the idea that the last sight the human would ever see would be the horrifying sight of the dagger getting closer and closer to his orbs of vision, until that was all he could see. "Drink it in fleshbag." Bill mocked with obvious, sadistic delight. "After enough time in darkness even the appearance of your precious princess will fade from memory, and the sight of this lovely lass carving your eyes out will be the only sight you can remember!"
The blade flashed forward, glistening in the dim torch light as Marco knew he'd only have one chance. His body went stiff in Holy Diver's arms as Bill grinned maliciously, revealing in what he thought was fear. Then, the boy's body snapped like a whip, his legs jumping up from the floor, abs curling against the incredible pressure of the spirit arms holding him in place, in order to deliver a sharp, rising kick to the elbow joint of the demon body's right arm. A sickening crunch filled the room as Marco's eyes slammed shut out of the steady surge of primal panic finally boiling over inside him and he thought the noise was his ribs being crushed as Bill's strange spirit clamped down on him in response to the counterattack. However, when the pain faded instead of becoming white hot and a pained scream assailed his ears, Marco cautiously opened his eyes.
The right arm carrying the dagger was in a state of sickly inversion, the elbow joint having cracked and snapped inwards under the force of Marco's kick, leaving a tangled, limp hanging limb that was agonizing just to look at, were it not for something worse catching the human's sight as he realized he'd timed his kick perfectly.
The arm mangling impact caused the downward swing of the dagger to catch at just the right moment and redirect itself into the demon's one remaining eye.
Marco felt vomit building up in his throat at just the brief sight of the orb popping and struggled to escape Holy Diver's grasp, actually being surprised when he fell to the floor but grateful for it anyways. The sound of his stomach evacuating managed to briefly drown out the noise of Bill screaming and flailing around in frustration, the demon's warped love of pain completely evaporating in the face of his anger at not getting to kill a human and at the new useless, dying state of his stolen body. After stomping around blindly for a few moments, Bill walked straight into a wall, causing him to fall to the floor in a stupor. Though he twitched a little bit, the demon did not get back up.
Rolling to the side to avoid falling into the puddle of his own fresh vomit, Marco could faintly see the muscular spirit that had been holding him seemed to slowly melt into the floor, an oddly passive stance to their body. He breathed in and out deeply, terror still coursing through his veins even as he heard the sound of familiar feet echoing through the underground dungeon, getting steadily closer to his location.
"MARCO!"
Star let out a shout of concern as soon as she saw him laying against the ground, running at full speed to pick the human boy off the floor and hold him tight against her body. The rest of the search party was rushing in behind her, but each stopped at the sight of something: For Kelly it was also the boy on the floor, but the Pigeon Guards had their attention drawn to the explosive equipment, while the two standing humans locked on to the sight of Bill's lifeless puppet.
Without a moment of hesitation, Dipper retrieved a brass material pistol frame that was wire studded and ended with what seemed to be a focusing lens from inside his jacket, then flipped open the bottom of the typing pad mounted on the side and slammed in a small block he'd been keeping under his hat. Quickly pointing the device at the now still demon's head, Dipper pulled the trigger and then felt his head slump towards the ground and shoulders shag when the results came back negative. "Too late, he's already left this body." The apprentice lamented.
"Do you... always, carry around something like that?" Marco asked tentatively, having seen the whole thing over Star's shoulder. Even though his girlfriend could crush his ribs just as assuredly as the strange spirit projection could have were she to act recklessly, he found her grip to be endlessly warm and comforting.
"It's the most sure fire way to eliminate Bill once he's inside a host." Dipper explained quickly while removing the extra block from the improved model memory gun. In addition to boosting the power of the mind weapon's next burst, the drive was a programming shortcut that set the memory machine to destroy anything related to Bill Cipher, saving what could be precious time calibrating it if Bill were encountered in a host body.
"Is that what you meant when you said he had crazy brain powers?" Star asked while ending the hug between her and Marco, to no small reluctance.
"Among other things." Pacifica said with some reservation. "Hopefully, it will be awhile before he... well..." she lingered, words trailing off as she looked over at Dipper, who was staring down at the fresh demon corpse with an inscrutable look on his face, though one hand on his right side was clenched into a fist.
"Star, keep the body as evidence if it will help you convince the other kingdoms to side against the Lucitors. Pacifica and I need to go back to Earth and use the interdimensional scanner before Bill's trail goes cold." The apprentice scientist explained curtly. Then, he looked at the blond human and his expression softened. "I just need to check a few things before we go, stuff Great Uncle Ford will want to know. Do you need to do anything?"
With a small but encouraging smile, Pacifica put a hand on Dipper's shoulder. "No, I should be fine, we'll be back on Mewni soon enough anyways." Then, she glanced over at her fellow blond and playfully asked "Don't suck our room into a void while we're gone."
"Wouldn't dream of it!" Star said with a jokey, dismissive smile and wave of the hand. "I'll probably be bogged down explaining every little detail of this mission to my mom until you guys get back anyways!"
Hours had passed since the teens had split into two duos, Star and Marco quickly going back to work finalizing things with the Pigeons and arranging for the evidence to be properly secured and then traveling back to the Butterfly Castle to review the situation with Queen Moon. While the monarch seemed pleased or at least not disappointed with the outcome of events, she opted to save a full discussion of things until after she could speak with the other relevant peoples herself... and after the two growing teens had a good night's rest, seeing as it was rather late in the evening by the time they got back and both looked quite tired.
Despite the fatigue he could feel in his bones however, Marco did not sleep easy that evening. Curled up around his pillow beneath the dream interceptor the Pines family had provided inside his Star-adjacent personal quarters, the boy from earth fluttered in and out of sleep, finding brief stretches of unconsciousness before awakening with a startle, as if the very blackness of his closed eyes was proving unsettling.
Midway through his struggle with such a bout of restlessness, Marco stared up at the ceiling with open but tired eyes, not really seeing the patterns on the ceiling as his mind tried to work through the events of the day. Despite the incredible harm Bill had posed to his physical well-being today, the thought of wandering the world sightless forever had to share his brain space with something else the demon had said, that tormented Marco's mind just as much. He's was deeply unsettled by the implications Bill had made about his connection to...
"...Star!?"
Marco's voice croaked out the familiar name as his focus returned to reality when a portal cut itself into existence over his bed, the familiar form of the princess of mewni bathed in an almost extinguished golden light. Her eyes were closed now as she hovered above the shocked boy, who was struck silent at the sight. The extra features granted by the Golden Butterfly were dissolving into thin air, revealing her simple blue pajamas to be resting beneath the ornate gold dress, and Marco's first active response to this appearance came about when he realized "That includes her wings!"
THUMP
The now two armed, flightless Star Butterfly fell from the portal, knocking the wind out of Marco and causing the bed to creak as she landed on top of both of them. Both teens were wide awake now, staring at each other wide mutually wide eyed expression illuminated by the glowing of Star's hearts.
Marco's expression betrayed more open confusion and concern about how the situation they were in and how they had gotten into it, even though he still had a warm blush plastered across it. Star also had some concern dwelling in her wide, sparkling eyes, but her expression was mostly one of positive wonder, albeit with a twinge of confusion to it and an inflated pair of cheeks. Despite this mix of volatile feelings in both their chests, neither moved or broke the silence until Star's throat quivered, and a moment later she let out a very un-princess like belch that spat a wet piece of receipt paper into Marco's face.
The tense mood between the two dissolved in an instant, both feeling an outpouring of natural and unconditional trust towards the other. After both of them quivered with short laughter, they each independently decided to wrap their arms around each other, even as Marco whispered "...Star, we talked about this on earth, we can't be in the same bed, it'd send the wrong message." with very little certainty to his words.
"Even now?" The princess said teasingly, snuggling her head close to his chest and practically purring with satisfaction at the sound and feeling of the boy's heartbeat.
"...Especially now, since it'd send the right message." Marco remarked dryly, but his tone told Star that he'd already given up and wasn't at all sore about it. "Just, you'll need to get back to your own room in the morning so your mom and dad don't find out."
"Mmm... so you think this is your room now? I could agree with that." Star answered a little hazily, a placid smile on her face as sleep's hold on her got stronger and stronger. Deciding to let whatever point she was trying to get across rest until morning, Marco closed his eyes as the warm body curled up against him, better than any blanket.
His last conscious thoughts, as fragmented as they might have been, were about how good Star's petite mewberty wings felt between his fingers, even through the material of her pajamas. "Good night, my princess." Marco whispered, still feeling like he was experiencing every inch of Star's peacefully resting face even as his eyes drew shut against the sight, to rest undisturbed until morning, his nightmares abated.
In the depths of the Underworld, there is one place that is naturally free of the oppressive heat generated by the realm's endless hellfires, the flame by which the Lucitor Kingdom has forged their power and wealth. Well off the beaten path their sits a hole in the ground, and at the bottom of that hole in the ground is a palace of ice, but devoid of snow or other marks of natural winter. Simply ice, that seems to grow from the realm's brimstone like another form of rock. Legend calls this the result of a great battle, where Asmodeus hurled a rival with a cold heart to his death upon the jagged rocks at the bottom. When this rival demon, whose name was long erased from history, was pierced and broken upon the rocks it is said that his ice cold blood drenched the walls of the place, leaving it an eternal realm of frost. Such tales are usually concluded by suggesting that perhaps this nameless rival's heart of ice still beats to this day, letting out a frigid pump once a century as it sits impaled on the lowest stone of the pit, buried beneath the glaciers...
Conventional thought however is that this is just a myth created to try and explain a natural phenomenon, as no such remains were found when the underglaciers of this place were excavated to construct the more traditional brimstone and blackrock catacombs that Bisteeya awoke with a fright in. Though the air was slightly, uncomfortably chilly instead of mildly warm the architecture was undoubtedly demonic, in sharp contrast to the pleasing smooth edges, potted plants and ice sculptures that dominated the upper, public levels of the resort that had been constructed in this place.
Trying to sit up and think back to where she was, the Pie Folk mercenary quickly realized she couldn't rise off her back, and seemed to be strapped to some kind of gently creaking gurney that was steadily moving down the borderline identical hallways. "Ugh... where am I? What... what's going on!?" She asked, initially confused and somewhat groggy but rapidly gaining clarity and terror the longer she was awake.
"Have no fear." Came a soft, feminine but unnervingly placid voice, causing Bisteeya to look down her body and finally see who was pushing the gurney by the bar just past her restrained feet. The figure was average height by the standards of Mewmans, thin and delicate despite showing no signs of struggle with pushing the well muscled mercenary about. Her gaze was unnervingly placid, looking straight ahead past her long, pointy nose without even slightly angling towards the person she was speaking to. Her skin was an odd shade of pale, perfectly uniform blue and her slightly darker blue hair sat fairly close to her head but curved backwards and up in two small pseudo-wings on symmetrical sides of her head. In a strangely uncanny way, her hair did actually seem to move or ruffle at all, even when a somewhat humid puff of air traveled through the tunnel air, and neither did her outfit, a close cut, extremely dark blue one piece with a ruffed skirt added to the waist. "You are on the cusp of achieving perfection."
Now struggling against the straps binding her to the gurney, Bisteeya began to shake and jolt but could not break the ties or unnerve the one pushing her, the eerie figure taking the merc's struggles in stride and never missing a step. "Let me go, this isn't what I signed up for!" Bisteeya yelled, droplets of sweat beginning to form on her forehead.
"Your soul became the legal property of House Lucitor as per your contract with them, and afterwards, House Lucitor released custody of your immortal soul and physical body to the care of The Judecca Health and Immortality Resort." The strange figure explained as if she'd been asked about the weather. "Be at peace. You will soon ascend to a more pure level of existence."
"LET ME GO!" Bisteeya shouted while now fully thrashing around, briefly wondering what she'd overlooked in her contract that let her employer do this but quickly decided it didn't matter, she just had to escape. Barely noticing the sweat she was working up fighting against the restraints as the gurney traveled ceaselessly through the depths, Bisteeya's body finally froze and ceased to fight when a craning of the neck gave her a brief look at what lay in front of her, causing her blood to run cold even as she realized how hot the air had suddenly become.
The winding catacombs had finally come to an end in a larger, multi-leveled room dominated by a massive, wrought iron furnace. The material used to construct it was clearly demonic in nature but instead of being carved into the shape of a screaming gargoyle head with flames burning behind rows of jagged teeth, the thing was a simple, efficient cube that reached the room's higher ceiling. Besides the barred and dead-bolted ground level hatch on the thing, by craning her neck at an uncomfortable angle Bisteeya could see the smoke exhaust rising from the top of the thing, and chutes near the middle on each side that were had catwalks built out to them from the walls of the room.
The chute on the left side of the furnace was being fed coal by a small, red imp, one of the Underworld's many native inhabitants who was absentmindedly dropping the dark stones out of a crate and into the machine with a shovel. On the other side, two mewmans in green jumpsuits, round helmets and face masks were feeding a larger but otherwise identical chute. Bisteeya hadn't seem him go in, but she instantly the leather boots on the feet of the humanoid who'd been fed in head first: The bird-man mercenary who'd been hired to plant the bomb on her last job had been showing them off when he'd hit on her and Jenny during the planning phase. She'd never know for sure, but the Pie Folk had a feeling the monster veteran who'd also gone on the mission had already been fed to the machine.
"What the mince is this?" she asked herself, with breathless horror.
"This is the cremation forge." The gurney-pusher answered in a helpful tone as she finally stopped pushing the gurney, walking up to open the ground level hatch. "Here your organic form will be purified, vital chemicals salvaged from the weakness of flesh to form a more perfect organism. As you are alive for this process, you have a vital and important role to play in it! Your life force will become the energy bonds that connect the detritus molecules together into the organized crystal lattice that will compose a new, superior life form." As the metal hatch swung open, the room felt hotter than ever, as Bisteeya's attendant walked back to the handle of the gurney and resumed pushing it forward, sounding like a helpful, friendly information dispenser the entire time.
Her expression remained similarly placid and unresponsive, even though the screaming could still be faintly heard once the hatch was sealed shut again.