Star felt terrible.
It had been nearly nine months since last she was Earth. Nine months since she last saw her Earth friends. Nine months since she talked to Marco. Since Eclipsa had appointed her as the new and official Mewman-Monster delegator she has been finding herself with less and less free time with her new job.
It had been six years since Eclipsa's coronation and Globgor was freed from Rhombulus's crystal. Many people had felt uneasy about the Plucker of Limbs being their king, but as time passed, people grew to trust in their monstrous king and queen of darkness more and more. The Mewni and Monster relations have been growing stronger, and not to toot her own horn but Star felt she had a large part in that. In fact, things were going so well that a new generation of Mewni-monster hybrid children have just begun to be born. She and Eclipsa felt she deserved a break, and Star thought of no better way than visiting her favorite Earth family: the Diazs.
As she stepped of out of her portal in front of the Diaz residence the first thing she noticed was that it had been repainted. Its red tiled roof now covered a beige building, no longer the familiar white bricks. Not to mention there was a severe lack of cacti in their front lawn. But neither of those things were as strange as the new person who answered the door after she knocked, expecting to see Rafael or Angie with her little daughter Mariposa. Or best of all, her best friend Marco Diaz.
"May I help you?" Asked the man.
"Hello, I'm Star Butterfly. I came to visit the Diazs. Are you a guest stay here?" At first the man looked confused, then that soon changed to a realization.
"Oh, uh… Sorry kid but this is my home. You must be talking about the family that last lived here. Did you not hear what happened?"
"Heard what?" Star was confused. "Ugh, don't tell me they moved. Marco, how could you not tell me this? Sorry, do you know where they are now?" An uneasy expression was on the stranger's face.
"Sorry kid but, the Diazs didn't move. They ****." At first Star didn't hear what he said. Or she just denied what he said. She kept insisting that she learn where they were staying, but the man kept saying the same thing over and over until he finally closed the door on her.
At first, she didn't process what had happened, then the denial began to fade and she didn't know how to process the information at all. So many emotions hit her all at the same time as tears began to roll down her heart-shaped cheeks, and before she decided to run to the one person she knew who would have all the answers, she had found that she was already at the step and banging on the door frantically.
"Star?" Janna was surprised to see her friend. But more surprised to see state she was in.
"Ja-Ja-Janna! Tell-Tell-Tell me it's no- it's no- it's not true!" Star tried letting out a coherent sentence but found it impossible with how exhausted she felt and the tears pouring out her eyes. And Janna now realized why Star was here and guided her inside to the living room and sat her on the couch. After some time, Star was able to calm down a bit and was demanding answers, but Janna's face already told her everything.
"It's trues Star. Their dead." It hit Star like a ton of brick. Now in a right state of mind and hearing it from a reliable source she faced the truth. "It happened seven months ago. They were found dead in their own home. Someone had broken in and… attacked them. Police never gave a full description of how it happened, but from how the public could see from outside the house… it wasn't clean Star."
Star broken down crying again. The closest people she knew, people she considered a second family had died and she never knew about it.
"There's something more you need to know Star. Marco's body wasn't at the crime scene."
"Marco?" Star was shocked. She thought her best friend was gone too, but now there may have been a silver lining, if that's what you could call it.
"Nobody's seen Marco since the incident. Police think that maybe the killer kidnapped him. And there's been no reports of his body being found so he could still be alive Star."
"WHAT? Well we have to find him! He could be in danger! I'll tell Eclipsa, she'll help." Star was frantic. Finding Marco was her top priority now. But before she could transform and open a portal to Mewni Janna stopped her.
"No Star, there's still more that you need to know." Star was pulled back onto the couch. "I snuck into the Diazs house while there weren't any cops around and snooped around. The main site looked really bad Star, after I checked Marco's room and saw that a number of his things were missing. Most of it was clothing but also things you would need if you were on the run and had to slip away quickly. The cops haven't released a public report, but I think that they think Marco may have been the culprit."
Star's world sank even lower.
"What are you talking about Janna?! Marco would never do that! He loves his family! He could never do such a thing!"
"Loved his family Star. He loved them." Janna corrected her to past tense. "And you're right. I know he wouldn't be able to do it; he could never do it. And everyone else who know him thinks the same. But looking at it objectively: a twenty-one-year-old vanishes without a trace with a number of run-away items right after his family's murdered. That starts connecting a few dots. But there's no evidence that he did do it, it's probably just a working theory for them. In reality there's only three logical explanations that they are probably thinking: he's either the culprit, he found his family already dead and ran away out of fear, or he was kidnapped. The first two don't sound like Marco at all and I can't think of the third happening without a fight."
"Your right…" Star tears began to dry up and she began gathering herself as she heard a key phrase to what Janna said. "Marco wouldn't run away, not without going to his friends first, and there'd be no better place than Mewni where he could both hide and be protected. Janna, I don't think Marco ran away or was kidnapped! I think he ran after whoever did it! Marco is somewhere out there in the universe trying to find the culprit! And he needs his friends!" Star was looking like her determined self again. "Janna, is Jackie still in Echo Creek?"
"Uh, yeah Star. What do you need her for?"
"Wherever Marco is he's probably not in the right state of mind. He's hurt, probably alone and scared. He needs us Janna. Tell Jackie to meet us here, I'm calling Tom and Kelly to meet us at my room in the castle."
"Sure thing but what are we gonna do? You can't portal to Marco if you don't know where he is."
Star had gathered herself. She grieved with Janna long enough and knew she could grieve longer after. But crying was for later, now that she knew her friend was in danger and she became a woman on a mission.
"Don't worry Janna, I have a plan."