The Tale of Three
Chapter 52
Mewmans and Monsters, part 2
Eclipsa didn't know what to say.
Or, if you want to get technical, she couldn't say anything. After what Globgor had explained to her what was going to happen, she was practically put in a state of shock, unable to form a proper response or protest against it.
And what was this statement that revolted her to the point of her mind snapping? Well, it was simple. Globgor now knew that Eclipsa was nothing like her mother. He had truthfully suspected it the second he heard her singing the monster mourning song (a detail he conveniently left out earlier), but he had to know for certain. And so that was what the interrogation was for. And well, we all know how that turned out. So in the end, it was proven that Eclipsa was a thousand times better than Solaria. She would never be any sort of threat to the monsters.
But that didn't mean they were just going to give her a pat on the back for being a good person and send her on her merry way.
No, the monster had...other plans in mind. It was no secret that the war was not going well. The Mewmans were simply too strong, too vicious, too willing to do anything in order to achieve victory. Anytime the monsters came up with a battle strategy they were sure would work, it fell apart under the sheer weight of how brutal the Mewmans could be. Every time they underestimated them. And every time...they lost and their numbers kept sinking lower.
Of course, they could turn this around by being just as vicious and "evil" as the Mewmans were. They were naturally much stronger than most, of course. If the monsters gave in to their bloodlust and didn't hold back, a single well-trained and equipped warrior could probably tear ten Mewman knights limb from limb before anyone managed to stop them. But...that would be going against the will of the monster king that first encountered Mewmans.
The King said that monsters should never let themselves sink as low as the Mewmans. They should never show the same signs of paranoia, or treachery, or just all-around unpleasantness. Over the years, the guidelines of this request had gotten rather...iffy, but the main message was still strong.
Don't be like them.
And if they decided to start tearing Mewmans in half on the battlefield, then they would be nothing short of the same. Of course, it was argued that they should ignore the advice of a person who was long dead and truthfully held about zero power over them. That tradition should be ignored in favor of plain survival.
But those protests hadn't really gotten anywhere, so it didn't look like things were going to change.
Which brought us to where we are now. When the monsters kidnapped Eclipsa, they saw an opportunity. Threatening her mother with her life would be too Mewman-esque for them, but they knew there were other ways to use her to their advantage.
Like, for instance, using her knowledge of her mother's battle tactics to carve out an advantage.
Which...wasn't going very well.
"I've already told you a million times!" She spat, facepalming and leaning back in the chair she had been provided. "My mother doesn't have any special tactics! She doesn't have any secret weapons! She charges into battle each time head-on and she's just strong enough to kill everybody in her path with that wand. That's literally it."
"No, there had to be more to it than that." One of the monster generals said, just one of the dozen that was sitting around the massive ornate table they were all at. Globgor was there as well, sitting directly across from her. "Your mother has to have some sort of secret! It doesn't matter how strong she is. We've used strategies that would make a head-on charge impossible, no matter how strong you were, and still lost. So something must be going on."
"I don't know what to tell you." Eclipsa sighed, who was getting really tired of having to come to these meetings. "You can have me repeat it again and again, but I'm always going to say the same thing. She is just that strong! That wand allows her to cut through any material! If you just get it away from her...you should be able to carve out an advantage. Make a plan for that first and see how it goes."
"That is a terrible idea…" Another general said, who looked like it was made entirely out of tentacles and eyes. "But you know what? I know we're all thinking it, so I'm just going to say it. How are we so sure that you're not hiding anything from us?"
"Because I've told you enough already." Eclipsa pointed out. "I've told you where some of my peoples' hidden corn fields are. I've told you the weak points on Mewman armor. And I've given you every scrap of information I can remember about my mother. I'm sorry if it's not good enough, but that's all I have. I have left nothing out."
"And how can we be so sure you're telling the truth about that?"
"..."
"..."
"...I guess you can't," Eclipsa said, not sure what to say. "You're just going to have to trust my word as well as Globgor's."
"Why you petulant, little-"
"Okay, enough," Globgor said, standing up and slamming his fists on the table. "Arguing like this is getting us nowhere. If Eclipsa has told us everything she knows, then she has told us everything she knows. End of story."
"Oh, don't you start." The tentacle monster sighed. "There you go again, Globgor. Defending your precious pet Mewman. You know, you can't keep this up forever. She's going to be useless eventually. In fact, if what you're saying is right and she's told us everything, then she already is!"
"And is that a problem?"
"..."
"..."
"...No." the monster growled, its head now turned towards the floor in shame. "It's no problem."
"Good," Globgor said. "Now, meeting adjourned. All of you leave. We'll discuss these things later."
And with that, all the monsters shuffled out the room, several of them grumbling to themselves. In less than a minute the only ones left were Eclipsa and Globgor, the latter of whom walked over to the former, sat down in the chair next to her, and sighed.
"I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to keep this up. Several of those guys that just left technically outrank me. They just listen to what I have to say out of respect." He explained. "But I'm worried that with you here, that respect might start to vanish...and I won't be able to protect either of us."
"It's alright. The things you've done so far, to make sure that they can't do anything to me...I can't thank you enough." She said, before smiling. "Even if you were the one that kidnapped me in the first place."
"Still holding on to that, eh?" Globgor chuckled.
"It's already been a year," Eclipsa said. "And while I'm going to be honest, my life here is sometimes better than the one with my mother, you still made me think I was going to be killed."
"I know. I'm...sorry." Globgor apologized. "There's no way I can make up for-"
"You already have. All those times you stood up to your superiors and fought their decisions to just throw me in a dungeon and be done with it." Eclipsa explained. "I'm sure none of the monsters who just left the room would really sneeze at the idea of threatening to kill me in order to get my mother to do what they want...and actually following through on that threat, tradition or not." She shivered. "I'm, truthfully, worried as well."
"Hopefully not for much longer. Those guys were exaggerating everything anyway." Globgor said. "We've actually been winning some battles because of the information you've given us. Only ones your mother isn't present for, but still. If we start gaining an advantage, we may be able to force your kind to sign a peace treaty or something. Then we can release you and we can all go home."
"My mother isn't going to-"
"Sign a peace treaty, I know," Globgor said. "But we're hoping that if the rest of the Mewmans realize that they're losing and can't win against us, they may force your mother to give up the leadership position and sign one of their own."
"Sadly, I don't think that's going to work either," Eclipsa said. "She would see anyone trying to revolt like that as being sympathetic to monsters. And anyone who is like that is dealt with the same way as the "creatures" they admire. Except, uh, me I guess."
Globgor looked down at Eclipsa with slight pity, as well as empathy. He let out another sigh and then placed a hand on her shoulder, clearly surprising her.
"Look." He said. "Can I ask you something? It's something I think I should have asked you about a long time ago, but I didn't think that it was...my place, or anyone's place, really, to question you about such a thing."
"...Go on," Eclipsa said cautiously.
"Why are you doing this for us?"
"Why...what? What do you mean? Because I'm your prisoner and those crazy monster generals that just left the room would kill me otherwise?"
"No, they wouldn't." Globgor sighed. "If you fought us no matter what...if you refused every time we asked you about how to beat your kind in this war...we simply would have let you go. Back to your camp, back to your mother, back to it all. With no problems."
"Wha-WHAT?!" Eclipsa shouted, slapping Globgor's hand away and sending her chair flying. "If I had known that then I would have been out of here already! I wasn't even aware that that was a-"
"Yes, you did," Globgor said, staring her down as she turned her back to him. "We might not have told you directly, but you know deep down that that's the truth. And also, we never said that we were going to do anything bad to you if you didn't do what we said. Nothing like torture, or beatings, or anything like that. Just throwing you out and telling you to get lost." He gulped. "So...why? If you knew this...why?"
Eclipsa didn't answer, merely biting her lip and trying not to scream. Because it was true, what he was saying. All of it. She did know that if she had been fighting them every step of the way, if she had simply refused to divulge information over and over, then they wouldn't hurt her. Not now. Not ever. She knew it the second she heard about the request the monster king from all those years ago made, about "being better than them". Because torture is what a Mewman would do in war. And the monsters...would never pass up the opportunity to frame themselves as better.
She could already be home.
And yet.
She still didn't have an answer to Globgor's question.
"I...I don't know." She finally said. "I don't know why I'm doing this. The things I've told you. You've claimed that you've been winning a few small battles with them. That means there have been casualties on my side in great numbers. I can't imagine how many Mewman deaths I'm responsible for at this point."
"Not that many...we don't chase down the survivors. And without your mother there, those knights can be surprisingly cowardly." Globgor explained. "But yes. The numbers have been much worse in "your sides" favor."
"...Why did you say your sides like you put quotation marks around it?" Eclipsa asked, noticing the change of tone in those two words and them alone.
"Because I'm not sure that you really see yourself as being part of that side anymore," Globgor said. "I think that you subconsciously saw an opportunity to get back at your mother for everything she's done to monsters and to you, and that you took that opportunity. This is what you want. All of this is what you want. The information you're giving us. The orders you give our soldiers telling us what to or. You're practically the leader of the monster military force at this point. Everyone else is just as useless as they've ever been."
Eclipsa didn't respond to these claims, choosing to think about them in deathly silence. Again, Globgor was right. He was absolutely right. She made all the calls around here. The only thing she saw the other monster generals doing was arguing amongst each other and never coming to a solution. But when something got done, when progress with the war was made, it was always because of her orders, and her instructions. There was no other way of looking at it. It was simply the plain truth.
"I know." She finally replied. "But calling me any sort of leader is hardly accurate. They still treat me like a prisoner and don't even bother to remember my name. They would probably prevent me from dying, but only to protect what's up here." She said, pointing at her head. "I'm nothing but a glorified source of information for them. To say they even see me as my own separate person would be a stretch."
"Give it time," Globgor told her. "You think those guys are old and angry? You're right. That's exactly what they are. But you don't get to that position by just being old and angry, either. They may have lost most of their wisdom years ago, but there's still some of it left in there. They'll see eventually who you really are. Just how much you want to help us and that they should stop complaining all the time."
"I don't think that's going to happen," Eclipsa said. "What I told you all back there wasn't a lie. I've already spilled all my secrets. There's nothing left for me to tell you. Unless you want to know my mother's favorite dish or something."
"Hmm...well, I suppose we could try to poison her."
"Globgor-!"
"Just kidding!" He said, before whispering under his breath. "Mostly."
"Let's hope so. Killing her would only lead to escalation, believe it or not. The Mewman generals will want revenge, and then they will honor her memory by doing what she's set out to do: Killing every monster in the entire dimension." Eclipsa explained. "And I think it would be impossible to do such a thing anyway. So many assassination attempts have happened that I think I've lost count of them all. I'm not even sure if any poison will affect her anymore. She probably takes microdoses to make herself immune…" The girl groaned.
"Regardless," Globgor said. "Even if you've told us everything we need to know, that doesn't mean we've utilized it all yet."
"I somehow doubt that…" Eclipsa said, before sitting down again and leaning back in her chair. "I wonder what my mothers doing right now…"
"Now, before I begin, Meteora, the MHC told me about this part of the story, because I know otherwise you're likely going to ask about it."
"That's probably true…"
"You still haven't found her?!"
"We still haven't found her," Hekapoo replied, leaning her elbows on the meeting table and looking bored overall. "I can't use my scissors to open a portal to her because we just don't know where they've taken her. The monsters captured by Rhombulus aren't talking either, and Lekmet has just refused to help you with this in any way."
With a sudden shocked expression on her face, Solaria turned towards the humanoid goat, who shrugged and then let out a loud bleating sound. It took every ounce of willpower she had to not throttle him on the spot, and the only reason she didn't was because Glossaryck was also there, floating right next to her.
It was meeting time.
Between the MHC and the Queen.
And like all the meetings of the last few months, there was only one topic Solaria was interested in discussing: Her missing daughter, Eclipsa. She had quite literally forced the Magical High Commission to go out searching for her, but so far they had all come up empty-handed. Even Omnitraxus. Truly, whatever monster was hiding Eclipsa from them was very skilled in magic...or at least in deception.
"I can't believe this…" She groaned angrily, anger being the operative word as it had been her only emotion for the last few months. "You are some of the most powerful magical beings in the entire multiverse! And you're telling me that you can't locate one person?! What kind of power do you even hold them? The power to be useless?!"
Most of the members of the MHC shrugged after this, except for Rhombulus, who looked like he had been personally offended. Solaria growled at them after this nonchalant display and then looked at Glossaryck, who was eating a cup of pudding as per usual.
"And you." She said, slapping the pudding away and jamming a finger in his face. "I'm betting you have the power to find her at any time you want. But you don't. You don't help at all! You just sit there and watch it all happen, eating your stupid pudding, while my daughter could be dead or worse!" She placed both her elbows on the table before grabbing a hold of her hair, threatening to rip a few strands off in anger. Glossaryck finally saw that he should intervene, if only with this, and his hands suddenly enlarged as he grabbed Solaria.
"Calm down. Eclipsa is fine." He said. "Doing this will only make you feel worse, and if I remember correctly, this type of behavior is rare even for you-"
"Don't talk about me like you know me!" Solaria snapped at him. "You barely talked to me when I got the wand and the few occasions when I did come to you for help you never said anything! You only gave useless advice about how killing these monsters "might not be the best thing to do". Well, guess what, Glossaryck? It's working out pretty well for me so far!"
"Not well enough that you can't stop your own daughter from getting kidnapped," Glossaryck said casually, and instantly a deathly silence fell upon the room, no one so much as breathing after this response. Solaria only stood there for a second, gawking at him, while the MHC began to slowly back away from her table, certain that the Queen was about to flip it over or something.
She didn't, but what she did do was pull out her wand, ignite it into a sword, and bisect Glossaryck in half with a single swing, resulting in his two halves pausing to turn and look at her. The MHC all simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that Solaria couldn't hurt him but it still could have gone much worse.
"...Did you just try to kill me?" Glossaryck asked, his right half pulling another pudding cup out of nowhere and beginning to eat it, which was honestly kind of disturbing. "I think that makes...ten tries, now?"
"You deserved that."
"And you deserved to hear that." His left side responded sternly. "Because it is true. Your daughter being kidnapped is your fault and your fault alone. I could have told you that sending her out to the middle of a battlefield wasn't a good idea, but let's be honest. No matter how convincing of an argument I would make, and I am very convincing…" Both halves of him blinked at different intervals. "...You wouldn't have listened to me and sent her out anyway."
"She needed to be punished for what she did," Solaria claimed. "It was necessary."
"Hardly," Glossaryck said, before the two halves joined back together. "I'm going to tell you the main issue here, Solaria, and I truly don't care if you listen to me or not, or even try to cut me in half again because of it. But I'm only going to say this once, so if you wanna hear it then you better pay attention." He dramatically cleared his throat. "The main issue is that you've done nothing but try to turn her into a mini version of you, without ever acknowledging that maybe Eclipsa wants to be her own person, with her own thoughts and feelings, instead of a clone of her mother."
Solaria opened her mouth to speak, but Globgor sprouted and held up ten fingers on one hand. "Uh Uh Uh, I'm not finished yet. So because of this, she had become rebellious and irritated and sympathetic towards monsters. A trait that you utterly despise, but could have avoided if you just raised her right."
"Her fondness for those miserable creatures has nothing to do with me." Solaria scoffed. "She was born with it, like she did with that monster girl that wandered into her our camp-"
"And has it ever occurred to you that forcing her to kill a child, including one that she had clearly just bonded with, maybe wasn't a good move on your part?" Glossaryck asked. "I saw the whole thing, and I'm going to admit. Even for me, that was hard to watch. Your daughter hated you for that. She cared about monsters before, but I wouldn't be surprised if she made sure to start loving them afterward out of simple spite for what you made her do."
"I still don't understand what I did wrong there!" Eclipsa said. "I rid the world of a monster! A young one so it wouldn't grow up to be a killer of Mewmans! If they had been left together for just a few minutes more, who knows what might have happened! That child might have attacked my daughter or-"
"That's not true and you know it." Glossaryck snapped. "I'm indifferent towards most things to not really care about this, but please do not attempt to lie to me, Solaria. The last time such a thing happened one of the Queens actually managed to trick me into getting something they didn't have the right to have...and it was a bad time for us all."
"...Which Queen?"
"The point is that it's still all your fault," Glossaryck said, ignoring her question entirely. "You can squawk and complain and whine all day long that monsters brainwashed her or whatever, but at the end of that day, if you hadn't tried to force her to hate monsters, maybe she wouldn't be standing up for them quite so often. For instance, don't you think it's possible that Eclipsa wasn't kidnapped at all, but instead went to their side willin-"
"Don't. You. Dare." Solaria growled. "That is not the case. I'm sure of it. The monsters we've captured, if only to tell us about Eclipsa, have only divulged one thing. That they did capture her. She didn't go with them. So I'm sure that-"
"Then why hasn't she come back to us?"
"...What do you mean?"
Glossaryck smiled, and Solaria felt her teeth clench up. She knew that smile. He was about to reveal something he should have said a long time ago, in the smuggest ways possible. "What do you think I've been teaching her?" He asked. "Because remember. Before she got taken, you had her meet with me once a week to discuss her magic and how it was developing. It was exceedingly difficult without the wand, but we managed."
"Get to the damn point."
"Okay, okay," Glossaryck said. "The point is that since you didn't let us use the wand during those, I decided to teach her other useful things. How to break out of places, how to pick traditional locks, how to walk so that her footsteps didn't make a sound...all very practical stuff that would be helpful in an escape attempt from a situation just like this."
"Wha-did you know this was going to happen?!" Solaria screeched.
"No," Glossaryck said. "But since we weren't really able to practice magic, I had to teach her something useful. And well, she was interested in how to escape places." He then put a hand to his chin and smiled. "Now that I think about it, that's probably because she realized that one day she might have to escape you…"
"..."
"But regardless," Glossaryck said. "What I'm trying to explain is that I'm sure Eclipsa could leave if she wants to. Yet she hasn't. Which means she prefers being on the monster side of this war. And have you noticed recently? The Mewmans have been losing a few small skirmishes. Nothing important, but still. Our first losses of this war. And that's because the monsters are coming up with new tactics that work only against us. Who do you think supplied them with the information to use these tactics? If you guessed "my daughter" then you get a no-prize."
"You think Eclipsa is willingly sharing Mewman secrets with the enemy?!"
"Maybe not willingly, as this is all still just a theory," Glossaryck replied. "But she's definitely been telling them things. Which I'm sure won't work well for you in the long term."
"Hardly." Solaria scoffed. "She could spit out every last bit of knowledge she knows and it wouldn't make a difference in the end. Not with me here." She growled. "I'm more concerned that she's doing it in the first place! Either she's working with the monsters, or being tortured for information! And both of those things are situations I cannot allow. If my daughter is being hurt by them, then I will wipe out every last monster from the face of this world!"
"Weren't you going to do that anyway?" Hekapoo asked.
"Yes, but this time I'll torture every last one of them to death instead of simply slicing them to pieces!" Solaria said. "And I don't care how long it's going to take. I'll keep killing them for the rest of my life if I have to."
"Or just a few years," Rhombulus mumbled. "Assuming we get your daughter back, you know it won't be long before she inherits that wand from you and prepares to become Queen, right? And I'm sure she won't be a fan of keeping this war going. Her first act will probably be to make a peace treaty."
"Then I'll just kill them all before that happens!"
"...You really do just have a one-track mind, don't you?" Hekapoo sighed, before looking at Glossaryck. "Why do we let her sit on these meetings again?"
"You put that rule into place, not me."
"Hmm…" Hekapoo hummed, before glancing back at the Queen. "Then maybe it's time we get rid of that."
"Wha-what are you talking about?" Solaria asked.
"Exactly what you heard," Hekapoo replied. "Let's be honest here, Solaria. You've been abusing your power to call these meetings lately. And every time you do it's for the same damn reason: have you found my daughter? Is there any news on her?" She scoffed. "Hasn't it occurred to you that if we did have news about her, we would have already told you first thing?"
"Considering how incompetent you are at your jobs at times, I don't think it has." Solaria snapped back. "I'm sure you would take your merry time telling me, and because of this reason, I call together these meetings. Because if something happens, you're sure to hide it from me!"
"Incompetent? What are you talking about?" Rhombulus asked. "We've been doing our jobs just fine for the last few thousand years, don't say that we're-"
"But you are," Solaria interjected. "You never do what I tell you to do! I need your help in this monster war and despite all your power, you never so much as lift a finger. You just sit back and refuse to help me fight."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"The MHC…" Hekapoo began, now sounding like she was trying to not explode with rage. "Is not your personal group of mercenaries! We don't fight in your stupid war because you don't need us! You're fully capable of killing all those monsters yourself in this pointless and endless endeavor! Frankly, the only reason we haven't forced you to stop it by now is because Glossaryck tells us not to, for whatever reason."
"Even so!" Solaria said. "You've always refused to follow my-"
"You are not in charge of us," Omnitraxus interjected. "Queen Solaria. "There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding here. The MHC is not to be commanded by the crown of Mewni. We are to work with it, not for it. We are only searching for your daughter because she is the next Queen and thus a very important person. And while you technically are giving us orders in that department, everything else we do is up to us, not you." He sighed. "We have been serving Queens since before Mewmans and monsters had even declared war against each other, even if there wasn't much of a kingdom back then. We are immortal. You are not. You do not get to order us around. It would be like a newly appointed soldier giving his commander instructions."
"But...you…"
"I'm gonna have to agree with them on this one," Rhombulus said. "I mean, I'm fine with zapping monsters and locking them away, but the least you could do is treat me with respect during it. You're always yelling and threatening to hit me...it's pretty annoying and makes me just want to do my own thing."
"Exactly. You should also lose the attitude." Hekapoo suggested, like a parent telling off their child. "Like Omni pointed out, we are much older than you and have far more experience. You don't know what you're talking about when you give us orders. At this rate, we might give up on looking for Eclipsa altogether, if you keep acting like we're nothing but pieces for you to move around on a game board. It's only fair."
"Fair? Fair?!" Solaria screeched. "How dare you-"
"And now you're just proving our point again."
"..."
"..."
"Well?" Hekapoo asked expectantly. "Anything left to say, My Queen?"
With a huff, Soalira ignored this and turned around before leaving the room, the MHC staring at her in a disappointed manner as she did so. Hekapoo sighed after she was well out of earshot, leaning back in her chair.
"This is not going to end well." She groaned, before glancing over at Omni. "Are you absolutely sure that this is a good idea? If she finds out about this, then she will try to kill us, and she won't stop until either we're dead or she is."
"In all the possible timelines and alternate realities I've seen, this is the best path for everyone," Omnitraxus replied. "I'm more surprised that she thinks the monsters can hide Eclipsa from me. Me. A being whose true form is as large as a galaxy and can control space-time!" He sighed and shook his oversized head. "I suppose that's just another disappointment to add to the list."
"Yeah. One that's just going to keep growing." Rhombulus mumbled. "How is this supposed to teach her humility again?"
"It's simple, but it's not just for the sake of humbling her," Hekapoo responded. "Monsters take her daughter, we pretend that we can't find her on purpose, and eventually make it so she thinks Eclipsa is dead. Then it's revealed that she's still alive, Solaria is happy, and hopefully, this makes her humble and-"
"That plan is never going to work," Glossaryck interjected, as all eyes fell on him in a surprised manner. "I normally don't involve myself with these sorts of things, but this one is just so stupid that I can't bear to see my children think that it's a good idea."
"Oh yeah? And I suppose you have a better one, dad?" Hekapoo replied. "Because we asked you. We asked you before about this plan and you never said anything about it, which made us assume it was good to go. Why are you just now telling us to stop after ignoring us way back then?"
"Because I had faith in you that you would recognize my silence as me saying no," Glossaryck said. "It seems I should have put my faith somewhere else. After thousands of years of interacting with me, you still don't know how to read me even the smallest bit."
"That's mostly because you never bother to interact with us," Rhombulus whined. "You're like one of those parents that left to get milk and only comes back every few years to complain about all your children's faults which are your own fault!"
"Not true," Glossaryck said, before conjuring up another pudding out of nowhere. "I made you all for set, specific purposes. And while most of you have been following that purpose, others have been overstepping their bounds at times…" He glanced over at Rhombulus. "...Nor being as helpful as they think they are, such as refusing to simplify things…" He glared at Omni. "...Or just having a massive superiority complex towards everyone else." His eyes finally landed on Hekapoo. "Some of you, however, are great. So keep up the good work." He then winked at Lekmet, who smiled and let out a baa of thanks. "So there. So there. None of you are doing what you're supposed to. I created you to help Mewmans. Not make terrible plans like this."
"...Wow. Really?" Hekapoo replied.
"What?"
"So you're really saying that out of everything we've done and let happen, after all the plans we've made that I'm sure you saw as terrible, this is finally the thing that gets you off your ass and convinces you that you need to get involved?"
"Yes," Glossaryck responded casually. "And that's because Eclipsa, the Princess of Mewni and my current student, is in danger as we speak, kidnapped by the monsters that you all brainlessly follow the Mewmans hate for."
"Please. We don't hate the monsters like they do-"
"You hate them enough to not care if they're being slaughtered," Glossaryck said. "To not feel the need to get involved with the war. Meanwhile, if it were Mewmans that were on the losing side of this battle, you would all fight for your lives to defeat the monsters."
"Well, of course we would! You just said it yourself!" Hekapoo shouted. "We were made by you for Mewmans. Not monsters. And if there are no more Mewmans, then we would have no purpose. So of course we would try to prevent them from losing! Why are you acting so contradictory?"
"Am I?" He asked them. "Or are you just interpreting my words the wrong way?" He then sighed. "Regardless, you're all missing the point. Which is that this plan of yours is not going to work, and will likely only get Eclipsa killed. I'm sure she wouldn't approve of this nonsense either, wherever she is. So just pretend like you just found out her location and tell Solaria so she can send a group of knights to go and rescue Eclipsa. End of discussion. I put you all in your positions of power because I thought you were right for the job. Please don't make me regret it. Or else."
"...Or else what?" Rhombulus asked.
"Or else I'm going to fire you."
"You're gonna kill us?!"
"What? No. You'll just be stripped of your abilities and then sent to go somewhere else." Glossaryck said. "Which I suppose would be the same as killing you, since you would become mortal after this…"
"Oh, screw that!" Rhombulus said, before standing up and pushing his chair to the floor. "Okay. That settles it. He's right. I'm not going to have any part of this plan now, if that's how it ends. You all can just do it alone. I'm not getting kicked out of this gig."
"Oh, come on!" Hekapoo said, before facepalming. "We've been thinking up this plan for months, and now you just want to stop? Rhombulus, you know, I think that you're not a-"
"No, he's correct. And not just because we would be punished if things went wrong." Omnitraxus said. "Glossaryck had never interfered directly with what we've been doing until now. Therefore, it's clear to me that Eclipsa's kidnapping is of greater importance than we know, and that we should not do anything stupid with our plans that might potentially ruin everything."
"We wouldn't be ruining everything, the whole point of that plan was to make things better and…and…" Hekapoo started, before she glanced around the room and realized that she was now sitting alone in regards to the plan. So the scissor witch simply groaned and then leaned her elbows on the table, accepting defeat. "Fine. Fine. We don't do anything anymore with that plan. So what would you have us do now?"
"What you should have been doing from the very start," Glossaryck told her. "Telling Solaria where her daughter is."
Eclipsa let out a long and mournful sigh as she sat down in her bed in the quarters the monsters had given her, although it was really more like a prison cell. Even if the only thing keeping her from getting out was a locked wooden door that she could easily break through.
But she didn't care about any of that at the moment. As Globgor pointed out, Eclipsa had the ability to leave at any moment. But she didn't. So was it true what they both claimed? Did she want her side to lose the war? Did her disdain for her mother reach that far down that she wanted to see her defeated? Perhaps. Or maybe it wasn't disdain, just...disappointment. How odd a thing that is, for the child to be disappointed in the parent. But it was what was happening.
Disappointed that her mother hadn't ended this war when she had the power to force the monsters to sign a peace treaty at any time.
Disappointed that the MHC just didn't care and allowed the pointless and countless slaughters of monsters and their children, seemingly indifferent to the fact that they weren't animals, but sentient beings like Mewmans.
Disappointed in herself for not being able to stop all this, even when she had sat with the very heart of the monster commanders many a time. Surely she had some sort of argument that would work on both them and her mother - but so far she had nothing.
Which meant that the war was due to continue and there was nothing Eclipsa could do to stop it. How could she? Even if she was the princess, she was also just one Mewman girl with a decent amount of information that the monsters wanted. The things she was giving them wouldn't lead to an end of the fighting, but an escalation. The war would get worse, neither side would win, and then when it was "over" the survivors would come at each other with pointy sticks and rocks, their rage towards their enemy overpowering everything else.
A situation that Eclipsa would very much want to avoid.
But again, she didn't have the power to stop such a thing from happening. Globgor might, and maybe she could relay her requests through him to try and stop this, but she had no idea how she would go about doing that. Her mother didn't want and never would want a peace treaty. Even if the monsters refused to fight back and literally offered themselves up, then she would still gladly kill them. There was a horrible darkness, deep inside her, that Eclipsa never wanted to understand. How one person could bring so much destruction and death...and act jovial about it.
She sometimes wondered if her mother was actually insane, or at the very least mentally unstable.
'I wonder what she's doing right now.' Eclipsa thought. 'Probably yelling at the MHC to keep trying to find me. I'm sure she's sent them out dozens of times by now, but I heard of the spell they used to hide his place. Even for them, it would be...difficult to uncover.'
Which didn't give her a lot of hope at being found. Heck, she didn't even know if she wanted to be found. Again, so many opportunities to escape, yet she had taken none of them. So, if someone came to help her escape? What would she do? Run along with them? Or fight for this place, where there were people she had actually come to care about?
And that's not an exaggeration. There were people here she had grown to care for. Although the monster generals and all the other higher-ups didn't bother hiding their contempt for the girl, the same could not be said of the various guards and lower-ranking soldiers she had seen. As in, they held no contempt for her at all. Once she had built up the courage to introduce herself, Eclipsa had become fast friends with several of the monsters there, and some of them had become better friends than any she had back when she was with her mother. (Mostly because she wasn't allowed to have friends that weren't Royal, and they were all stuck-ups.)
But that was why Eclipsa might fight for this place, even against her mother. There are more things here that she held in her heart than there ever was back there. In these times of war, her people were so barbaric, so cruel, constantly talking about killing monsters. But those monsters were not like that, even in the middle of a conflict. They sang songs together in their free time, they had fun and ate as one big group, they mourned their dead, but at the same time, they didn't mock their enemy. They didn't brag about how many Mewmans they had killed. Even recently, when they won battles, they didn't come back with huge smiles on their faces, out of joy that they had killed Mewmans. No, they came back with huge smiles on their faces, out of joy that they had simply won.
They didn't care about killing Mewmans as Mewmans did about monsters. They just saw the enemy and that was that. The war had been so brutal to their side that any sort of victory was worth celebrating simply because of victory, not because they killed the enemy.
Or at least Eclipsa was sure this was the case. Truthfully, she didn't leave her room as much as she could, as Globgor had warned her that even if she was essentially a non-threat, a few monsters might try to attack her if they realized she was the daughter of Queen Solaria. Only a few monsters here actually knew, with all of them being the generals and a few of her new friends that had promised to keep it a secret.
"Um, hello?" A voice at her door suddenly said, and Eclipsa looked over to it before quickly recognizing who it was. Speak of the devil. Shawn. A monster who had never seen combat in his life, which was a great rarity around here. His job mostly consisted of being a handyman of sorts, cleaning things where they needed to be cleaned, fixing various appliances when they broke, and even delivering meals to Eclipsa like he was almost certainly doing now. "Can I come in?"
"Yes, come in, Shawn," Eclipsa said, before laying on her back. "You have my permission to enter."
"Good, because it was awfully silent in there and I thought that you were asleep," Shawn said, before opening the door and setting the tray of food he had on a nearby table, as always. The dishes Eclipsa received were simple, yet filling. Essentially what a normal knight or soldier would need to survive in times of war. Which meant that they weren't particularly tasty, only effective in keeping her healthy. But every now and then she did get something special. Unfortunately...this did not seem to be one of those days.
"Are you okay?" Shane asked, instantly taking note of her drab demeanor and disinterested expression. "You kinda look like you've given up on it all."
"Not just yet," Eclipsa said. "But I am feeling a little down at the moment."
"Really? Why?"
"...Shawn."
"Yes…?"
"If my mother and the rest of the Mewmans find this place, would you all die to protect me?"
"..."
"..."
"Umm…" Shawn hummed, clearly uncomfortable with the topic of this question. "I'm not really sure how to answer that. I mean, I wouldn't be sent out to fight in the first place, although I guess in that scenario I might not have a choice." He shifted in place before gulping. "How about this. Can you tell me why you asked that question, and then I'll give you my answer?"
"I suppose," Eclipsa said. "It's just...I don't think you should."
"Huh? But why?" Shawn asked, clearly not expecting such an answer.
"Because I feel like if they do come here, it'll almost certainly be to rescue me. And so anyone who gets hurt, it'll be all my fault." She explained. "I don't want any of you to die because of me. I don't want that blood on my hands. I'm sorry if that sounds selfish, but I just…" She sighed. "I want you all to be okay if they eventually storm this place."
"Eclipsa…" Shawn said, before pausing and thinking about his answer. "I'm gonna be honest." He chuckled. "If they do come here, I don't think any of us will have much of a choice in what we do, as I just said. Our generals will likely order us to protect you while they get you out of here. They may not like you, but they won't be so willing to let you go, either. Because I'm sure that if your mother and the rest of the Mewmans take over this place, and they escape with you…" He took a deep breath. "I'm sure they're going to ignore tradition and start threatening your life to make your army back up."
"I figured I would become an actual hostage eventually," Eclipsa said. "None of that would surprise me. The real question is whether they would actually kill me if it came right down to it. Because they have to know that the second I'm dead, the war is over. My mother won't waste any more time on ripping each monster to pieces. She'll use the wand and raze half of Mewni in an attempt to wipe you all out."
"Won't that destroy half of the land she wants for herself as well?"
"She won't care. As long as I'm avenged, she won't care. Her anger can cloud everything." Eclipsa grimaced. "As I'm sure you're already aware, she hates monsters with every ounce of her being, but once, I remember…" She gulped as shuddered as another past memory came to mind. "Our camp was once attacked by monsters about...three years ago. I don't know why they thought it was a good idea or how they even got so close, but the point is they attacked. And they killed many Mewmans in the first half of the battle because no one was ready, because no one was expecting an assault to happen right on top of our heads. We had over thirty fatalities and a hundred injuries. And one of those injuries was...mine."
"..."
Seeing no initial response from Shawn, Eclipsa continued. "When she found me, in our tent, where I had gone after being struck in the arm with an arrow, I was treating my wound and trying to clean up the blood. When she saw me...she froze up for about ten seconds. And so did I, because I had never seen something like that happen. My mother never got scared, she never got nervous, and she certainly never froze up, even in the thick of battle. But she did then. And what happened next is enough to conjure up the worst nightmares. She simply unfroze, nodded, and then calmly walked outside."
"The Massacre of the Forest of Certain Death…" Shawn whispered under his breath, just loud enough that Eclipsa could hear it. "That's where you had set up your camp. That's what we call what happened next…"
Eclipsa nodded. "She went and killed them all. With her bare hands. She had tossed away her wand on purpose to tear them apart. When I talked to some of the knights later, they said she looked like a monster herself. They kept their distance from her the whole time. And the worst part of that? Apparently, she wasn't yelling during it like she always does. In fact, she didn't even look angry. She was just calm and collected while she single-handedly killed every last one of the invaders. The battle was over in minutes, if it could even be called a battle."
"But then…" Shawn started, and Eclipsa grimaced.
"Yes. That wasn't enough for her. She gathered up her terrified soldiers, marched out the forest, and found and destroyed every monster village she could for fifty kilometers. Killing all their inhabitants in the most brutal of ways she could think of them before burning everything down. I heard she only stopped because she collapsed from exhaustion and the knights had to carry her back. I'm sure that if she had infinite stamina...that day she would have kept going until there was nothing left."
Eclipsa sighed and ran a hand over her head. "I only heard about all this later. I knew she was going to do something crazy when I saw her walk out of that tent, but I couldn't even imagine this. It...it was genocide."
"..."
"So now…" Eclipsa said. "Imagine what she would do if you killed me. I think her mind might literally snap. That wand is a lot more powerful than any of you realize. She only uses it as a sword because she likes it that way, but in truth, it can cast spells that are able to destroy entire dimensions. One of my ancestors did destroy a dimension, I believe. By accident."
Shawn looked at Eclipsa, his mouth gaped open in horror as he realized what she was getting to.
"If I die...my mother just might cast aside the sword and launch a spell like that in the direction of the monster lands, essentially wiping it all out. Sure, as you mentioned, it'll leave a huge chunk of Mewni uninhabitable, but in her eyes, that's a worthy sacrifice if it means avenging her precious daughter."
"Good god…" Shawn gasped. "Are you sure she would be capable of doing something like that?"
"One hundred percent. Not even the MHC will be able to stop her at that point." Eclipsa said. "So yeah. If your generals suddenly start using me as a hostage, then that's it. It's over. For all of you. She will come here and burn everything down without a second thought...and I think that on some level, she knows that. She knows that if I die, then she won't be able to control herself. Which is likely a secondary reason that she's searching for me so fervently."
"Wait, how do you know that?"
"Sometimes I snoop on meetings I'm not allowed to attend," Eclipsa said with a mischievous smile. "I've learned that she's tearing up entire villages and actually taking prisoners in her attempts to look for me, which is practically a first for her. She never took prisoners before, but now that I'm gone...truthfully, it shouldn't come as a surprise. But back to my main point. She'll look for me with more and more motivation as time goes on, which is why I think she's going to find this place eventually, even if Globgor said that it was well hidden. Because she is a monster, but not like you. A real monster by definition. Once she sets her eyes on something, she won't stop until everyone-"
CLANG
CLANG
CLANG
At the sound of the enormous bell chimes that were so loud it felt as if they were right next to her eye, Eclipsa fell off her bed in shock and Shawn jumped out of his shoes before his face took on a mask of horror, as he quickly helped Eclipsa get to her feet.
"Goodness, that scared me!" She said. "I've never heard that before. What is it?"
"You don't know?" Shawn asked, before shaking his head. "No. Wait. First, we have to get out of here." She squeezed his grip on her hand and then led her out the door into the hallway, where several monsters were running by with children or weapons.
"It's the alarm." Shawn began to explain. "I guess they never told you about it because they never thought they'd have to use it. But basically, it alerts us when enemies are approaching the base."
Eclipsa gasped. "Then that means…"
"Yes," Shawn said, with a grim nod. "Your mother...I guess she's finally found us."
Globgor had no idea what to do. He was pacing around in the situation room, the rest of the monster generals all yelling their heads off around him, and he just felt depressed looking at it all. Because these people were the ones that were now supposed to save him and the rest of the monsters in this base, and all they could think about doing was yelling at each other.
He wasn't surprised, honestly, but he thought they would at least be a little calmer. And it seemed he was mistaken. It wasn't even a strategy meeting. It just seemed to be a blame game over who was at fault for the Mewmans finding their base. After two minutes of this, he had had enough. He stood up, enlarged his hands only, and then clapped them together, creating a massive shockwave that echoed throughout the room and the halls beyond, nearly knocking a few of the generals off their feet. Instantly everyone shut up and looked at him, and he had the room all to himself.
"Be. Quiet." He growled. "Arguing like this will get us nowhere. The Mewmans are here, yes. With their Queen and if our long-distance scouts are correct...the entire Magical High Commission." Globgor then took a deep breath, as even he needed a moment to regain his composure after realizing this fact. "But that doesn't mean anything. We can't win this battle but we can run from it. We'll survive to fight another day. So all we have to do is come up with a plan without everyone yelling at each other."
"..."
"Now, do we have any ideas?"
Simultaneously, the entire group at the table started yelling, and Globgor pinched his nose in frustration. "ONE AT A TIME!" He roared, and all fell quiet again.
"Umm…" Someone started, actually raising their hand beforehand. "I think I may have an idea. The magic spell we used to hide this place...is there any way to apply it to all of us? So we can remain invisible to them while we escape?"
"That won't work." Another general started. "That spell was designed for buildings only. We would have to start it all over again, on every single monster here for that to work. And considering how long it took us to cast the spell the last time...we'll all be dead ten times over before that plan is successful."
"Then we fight it out." Someone suggested. "We send out our troops and tell them to give it our all. Meanwhile, we and all the monster civilians living here will make a hasty retreat."
"Not happening. If they have to fight in the end, then so are we." Globgor said. "I'm not going to let you all be cowards and sacrifice our soldiers just to save your own hides."
"Is that so?" The monster asked. "Listen, Globgor. You may be a Prince, but when your Father died we took the power, not you. You may be at the head of the table, but you are not the head of command, let me remind you."
"And you are a fool if you think I'm going to let you run away like that if we go forward with that plan," Globgor said. "And don't look so surprised. It's life or death now. Whatever goes, goes." He glanced at the rest of his compatriots, who looked like they were ready to start shouting again. "Now. Any other ideas?"
"Yeah, I got one." A general named Rasticore said. "I've been on this table for a long time. I've been here since before you were all born and will likely still be here when you're six feet under. And I recommend we just give them what they want. We still have Solaria's daughter, yeah? Just toss her out a window towards them and that'll be the end of it."
"Not happening."
"Why? You afraid your little pet is gonna get hurt by the fall?" Rasticore asked, much to the snickers of everyone else.
"That pet is the only reason we've been able to score any victories against the Mewmans in the last six months," Globgor growled. "So I don't think throwing our most valuable war asset out a window is a very good option. We need her. We can't give her up to them otherwise this war is lost. We-"
"This war is already lost!" Lord Avarius said, struggling to peer over the top of the table. "My family has been part of this council for generations, and we know when the game is done! This war is already lost, Globgor! We lost! We're just delaying the inevitable by now. We're going to lose...as long as that Queen is in power...we're going to lose."
"..."
"..."
"Then why don't we take her out of power?" Globgor suggested, a mischievous grin on his face.
"What are you talking about?"
"Everyone listen up," Globgor said. "I have a plan that will likely get most of us killed, but may solve the problem that Lord Avarius just pointed out…"
End chapter 52
A/N: I know that I said this would be a two-part segment, but some things happened while I was making it and I chose to turn it into three. But rest assured, the third part will definitely be the last, so there's that. After that, the main story will proceed, with a few...surprises.
But thanks for reading and please PM me or leave a review if you have any questions or comments.