(4 years and 9 months after Cleaved)

At the home of the Slime Family, Slime is helping his mother with the table while his father is busy with the soup. Just then, someone is knocking on their door. Slime went to answer the door and it was Penelope and her parents, Queen and King Spiderbite.

"Hey, you all made it."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world." Penelope said before she and Slime kissed.

"We apologize for being so late. The council meeting took longer than expected." Queen Spiderbite said to Mr. and Mrs. Slime as they were walking in.

Mrs. Slime said "No problem at all, King and Queen Spiderbite. Dinner's almost ready anyway."

"I hope you don't mind that we brought desert." King Spiderbite said giving a basket filled with spider shaped cookies and cakes

"Thank you, I'll put it over here if that's ok." Mr. Slime said, taking the basket from King Spiderbite and putting it on the table.

Penelope noticed a broken yet glued together vase with an image of herself and Slime holding hands "Hey, isn't that the vase we made together at the Quest Buy? You found all the pieces."

Slime explained "We were lucky to find them. Turns out they were a lot closer to us than we expected. When the Solarian Warriors broke into our house and took it, it did fall near the house but some of the pieces were kicked or moved to our neighbors house. I was going to surprise you with it but I forgot to hide it."

"That's alright. I'm just glad to see it again since we did make it together." Penelope placed her hand on Slime "hand". Both of their parents watched with smiles on their faces.

"The food is ready."

"It smells delicious. What is it?"

"It's a new blend of vegetarian lasagna. I got the recipe from one of my friends. I hope you all like it." Mrs. Slime said as she is serving the food on plates for everyone.

"It's delicious." King Spiderbite says after eating a piece of lasagna firs; Queen Spiderbite and Penelope ate some after he did.

"Tell your friend that this recipe is amazing." Queen Spiderbite says after swallowing a piece of lasagna.

"If you don't mind me asking Mrs. Slime, what are all those vials for?" Penelope asked when she noticed all the empty glass vials on the far right of where she's sitting.

Mrs. Slime explained "Well, as you all know, our slimes have certain healing properties; the most common being bug bites , scars, burns, and dry skin. However, it can be used for other things if we mix the right herbs or spices. For example, we could make a slime that helps with headaches if placed on the head, or a slime that can stop snake venom from coursing through your body.".

Mr. Slime said "But we call them potions; it helps people not get grossed out that it comes from us."

"But will you be able to make enough with just the three of you? You've said it yourself that your slimes productions do have limits." Penelope said with a worried tone of voice.

Mrs. Slime said "We have other slime friends who are willing to donate their slime to help us."

Slime said "My cousin, who plays cornball all the time, says that she'll have enough slime for us after her cornball classes."

Queen Spiderbite said "Sounds like everything will be just fine."

Mrs. Slime said "I wouldn't say that. We may have all the supplies we need and we know a few locations but it's going to be a challenge to advertise our product; not just for monsters and mewmans but humans too."

Mr. Slime said "That's assuming that the humans aren't too scared of us."

King Slime said "They haven't caused any of you trouble, have they?"

"None so far. While some are wary of us and other monsters, they haven't exactly caused any real harm. Lucky for us, Star Butterfly, Queen Eclipsa, King Globgor, and Ms. Amanda are working with the Earth's government to help us adjust to us living on Earth until this whole dimension fusing is sorted out.

Queen Spiderbite said after drinking water "Yes, that Amanda human has been really helpful to Spiderbite kingdom; it's almost unbelievable."

King Spiderbite "She made our meeting with the mayor of Silver Hill go a lot easier. Although, we still get complaints from humans about spiders in their houses. It's not our fault that they don't know how to live with them."

"Does anyone like dessert?" Mrs. Slime said after noticing that they finished the lasagna. Everyone said yes and she went into the fridge and pulled out a cake in the shape of a dark blue blob with a silver crown and gold feather.

"Mom, isn't that the cake you were going to enter for Eclipsa's baking contest?" Slime said with a worried tone of voice.

Mrs. Slime said "It was but it's been postponed due to everything that's going on. I'd rather us eat this now rather than it waiting in the fridge any longer than it's supposed to be."

"It looks really good, Mrs. Slime."

"Thank you, dear. Although, I still wish I could have done more with this Grand Slime design."

King Spiderbite said "If you don't mind me asking, who's the Grand Slime?"

Mr. Slime said "A legendary Slime who was said to have amazing abilities. His slime was said to be a cure for everything; bug bites, burns, headaches, poisons, sicknesses, etc. It was also believed that he could shapeshift into anything he absorbed and take on the powers and abilities that came with them."

Queen Spiderbite asked "Can't you all do that?"

Mr. Slime said "Sure, we can heal others with our slime but we can't simply absorb things and take on their shapes or abilities. If we slimes could do that before, we don't remember how it's done."

King Spiderbite said "It sounds like this Grand Slime had magic."

Mrs. Slime said "Some slimes and other monsters who are interested in Monster history have speculated that; others think it's just a myth that was used to scare Mewmans into believing Monsters had magic of their own and could use it against them."

Penelope asked "What about the Monster Temple; doesn't it have some information that would confirm or deny this? Maybe Globgor knows something too."

Mr. Slime explained "I'm afraid not. Even though we live near the Monster Temple, it still has mysteries and secrets that haven't been found or they've simply been lost. Plus, this legend is older than him and he can't confirm if it is real or not either."

Queen Spiderbit said "Maybe you'll all get lucky and a time capsule will tell you all the truth."

Slime said "If you don't mind me asking, how's that going? I know you only learned about it after Queen Eclipsa's coronation but given that some"

Penelope said "It's still a lot to go through. A capsule like that kept secrets from us about our kingdom and our royals for so long and we didn't know about it. Not to mention those secret documents that Hekapoo gave to all the kingdoms before magic was "destroyed"; some of it is in a different language other than Mewman."

Mr. Slime said "If you need any help, I know a guy who's an expert translator in other dimensional languages."

Queen Spider said "We'll keep that in mind but what we really need are architects and artists to replace all the statues and artworks of all the disgraced family members in our castle; especially all those statues we have of Shastican."

King Spiderbite said "I can't stand the sight of him after what we learned about him; especially what he did to Princess Meteora."

(4 years and 8 months ago)

In Penelope's room at Spiderbite castle, she is on her phone with Slime

Penelope asked "So, did your mom win the contest?"

Slime said "She got second place."

"Aw, that's not fair; her cakes are the best."

"She's not too upset about it. Her cooking rival is said to have been an apprentice to the chef of Jaggy Kingdom."

"If that's the case, then no wonder she lost; the chef there cooks amazing food. No offense to your mom."

"None taken. Anyway, we still have some leftover cake if you and your parents want some; my mom knows it was a big hit with your mom that last time she had some."

"I'm sure they would love some but I'll have to send one of our guards to come pick it up. Other than everything going on between the people of Silver Hill, my dad has been working on how to set up the Spiderbite Selections now that Mewni merged with Earth and we don't have access to dimensional travel anymore; or at least until the Underworld can get it up and running again like they said they could."

"What's the Spiderbite Selections? I think I read about it somewhere in one of your books but it was only mentioned briefly."

"Short answer, it's the battle for the Spiderbite throne; the right to rule all of Spiderbite kingdom."

"I thought you were supposed to get the throne."

"Not exactly. Yes, I can inherit the throne at 18; however, my family can challenge my right to rule the throne and they can take it away from me. I know for certain that I'm going to have at least 10 of my family members challenging me."

"How do you win?"

"It varies. The Crowned King (or Queen), The Eldest Spiderbite, Captain of the Guard, three random Spiderbite kingdom nobles, and guest ruler from another kingdom will decide how the selections play out. The selections itself can last almost run from four months to two years depending on how it's made. Sometimes you can win by status, money, or winning a fight. If I had to guess, it might be a status challenge combined with a fight challenge. I say that with confidence because that's the kind of challenge my dad went through when he, his brothers, and cousins fought for the throne."

"Who's competing with you?"

"I have three cousins, two aunts, and one uncle who I know are going to compete for the throne. Cousin Amadeaus, my eldest cousin and Captain of the Spiderbite Royal Guard; Cousin Wanda, who's in charge of the Spiderbite Chronicles; Cousin Peter, who's the same age as me, who is an aspiring chef; Aunt Silk, who is one of my father's royal advisors; Aunt Tulip, former captain and now coach of the Spiderbite Cornball team; lastly, Uncle Donavan, the royal archivist and librarian."

"So, you're going up against six people; that doesn't sound too bad."

"Yeah but each of them have status and talents that outshine me by a lot. All I'm known for is being the King and Queen's daughter and an amazing knitter; knitting being a very common talent in Spiderbite Kingdom. Lucky for me, there's still time for me to gain some form of status among my people or do something worthy that people will accept me as the next queen. It's an uphill battle for me but I have a plan to even the playing field."

"Is there anything I can do to help you?"

"Actually, there is something you can do to help me but only if you really want too. I won't lie to you, the selections can be dangerous. While I don't think any of my family members who are competing will do anything to hurt you or me, they can be very intimidating in some cases." Penelope said in a worried tone of voice

"Penelope, I want to help you." Slime said in a confident and reassuring voice.

"Alright. This is somewhat a side project but I need you to find out if anyone, mewman, monster, or even human knows someone by the name of Lotus."

"Lotus? I know a dog monster that went by that name for his skills to grow lotuses but I doubt that's what you're looking for. What's this about?"

Penelope put her phone down for a bit and grabbed a book titled "My Personal Journal-By Shastican Spiderbite: She opened the journal to a certain page and started reading something. "I've finally found him. According to that crystal headed monster that served Butterfly kingdom, an agent of Lotus has agreed to meet with me. Since I can't rule Butterfly kingdom myself and I refuse to raise that heinous baby, I've decided to retire from Mewni along with treasures from the Spiderbite vault. I deserve that treasure for at least marrying Eclipsa but I know my brother won't see it that way. So, I plan to take what I can and go to the Lotus dimension with my wealth; my family won't miss it."

"What was that?"

"An entry from Shastican's journal; his last entry. I've been reading it ever since we got the time capsule opened up in the Spiderbite archives; it's disgusting."

"Then why are you reading it?"

Penelope further explained "I wanted to see if there was a clue to this Lotus character. We've always believed that the treasures that came from Spiderbite Vault were stolen during Globgor's attack by monsters; not only do we find out that the attack was actually caused by Shastican but also he was the one that stole the treasure and fled Mewni. While I want to find all the treasures, there is one treasure that I want to find the most: The First Spiderbite Crown. Among all the missing treasures, it would be a big find if we happened to uncover it if we know who or what Lotus is."

"What makes you think someone from Mewni might know who or what that is?"

"I'll see what I can turn up. I still have some free time before school starts."

"You're going to Echo Creek Academy, right?"

"Yeah. It's part of the initiative to get monsters and mewmans with the humans; showing them that we're peaceful."

"I wish I could go to the same school as you."

"Oh right, you're home school."

"Not this time. I'm going to an Earth school too but at a place called Silver Hill High School; me and a few other mewmans are going there as part of the same initiative. Although, I have to wear their school's uniform instead of my usual dress." Penelope showed Slime a white dress suit, black tie, and black skirt set.

"If it helps, I think you'll look cute in it."

Penelope blushes. "You're sweet." She gets another call at the same time. "I have to go. Talk to you later."

"Bye." Slime said before Penelope hung up.

Penelope answered the other call and it was Eclipsa. "Hello Penelope"

"Hi Eclipsa"

"Was this a bad time? I didn't interrupt your conversation with Slime, did I?"

"Wait, how did you know I just got off the phone with Slime?"

"It's written all over your face, dear. I've been where you are, you know. And it says so all over your face. Let me guess, he complimented on how cute you looked in something."

"Yeah. Anyway, do you think you can help learn more about monsters and their history; at least all the stuff you learned.

"Penelope, Globgor and I are more than happy to help you learn more about monsters; at least some of the stuff I know and compare it with what you know. Hopefully, this will help you when the time comes for the Spiderbite Royal Selections."

After Penelope hung up, Slime got a text from Marco.

Marco: Slime, I've booked my Sensei's dojo. Classes will begin in three weeks.

Slime: Thanks Marco. So, do you think I'll be strong enough to protect Penelope?

Marco: Of course. By the time I'm done with you, you'll be a full fledged knight.

Slime: Thanks Marco. I'll be sure to tell my friends who don't have phones.

Marco: Ok.

Sorry that these updates take so long. Along with catching up on video games, I've been very busy with my job and it keeps me busy even when I'm at home; almost makes it impossible for me to write. Hope you understand.

With that said, I plan to do another SpiderSlime chapter. They're important to the overall story since Penelope and Slime are going to be important for Eclipsa's arc in this story. Plus, they're my favorite underrated ship in SVTFOE.