Aflame

Chapter 12

Meeting madness, part 2

Begin typed recording #21355

Date: 6/6/19

Emergency Mewnian high council meeting #3. Total meeting number overall: 58

Reason for emergency meeting: Giant demon sent from Underworld to destroy the town defeated/sent back to the Underworld, meetup of royals to discuss the proper/next course of action.

Secondary reason: Star Butterfly, Marco Diaz, and Janna Ordonia (who is currently on leave from the hospital by order of the Mewnian high council,) will explain everything they know about this event and the events leading up to it, as well as the identity of the mastermind behind the attack and what he/she wants.

Members present based on location and/or position:

Ruling Duumvirate: Mayor of Echo creek, Queen Eclipsa Butterfly.

Butterfly kingdom: Star, Moon, and River-

"NO!" Queen Spiderbite yelled, interrupting Shawn's loud typing. "None of that crap! This meeting starts now! No matter what the rules are. Forget the roll call. We are dealing with this right this instance, no more distractions."

Shawn stopped typing mid-sentence, and looked over at Eclipsa, who didn't notice this and instead glared at the Spiderbite Queen.

"This is how we do things." Eclipsa said. "This is how we keep order, even in moments of chaos. And since this is most certainly a moment of chaos...we need order."

"Is that so?" The Queen said. "Well then, why are we here, instead of back at our kingdoms, restoring order?! Most of our citizens are still trying to collect all the pieces of their homes after that demon smashed them to pieces! I should be there, helping them! Not here!"

"You can be there in a while!" Eclipsa yelled, quickly losing her patience. "But this meeting is more important. I don't care that most of you don't want to be here, but if what we know is correct, then that demon, that thing that just attacked us, it's just the beginning. There's going to be more. The person who unleashed likely has a lot more in store for us."

"And who unleashed it?" King Ponyhead asked. "You still haven't told us that. We're all still in the dark here."

"That's why I called the meeting." Eclipsa growled. "But as I was saying, we're here so we can figure out what to do when a similar event occurs again, among other things. Yesterday was a disaster. All of you were at Brudo's mansion getting your taxes paid off, and in the meantime the demon was outside, rampaging around. The only people fighting it were me, Star, Marco, Janna, and the knights, who were so drunk for most of it that they were hardly themselves. We can't, and will not, let that happen again. We need to all be ready, and not somewhere else."

None of the royals spoke. Despite the fact that they were still angry, Eclipsa's word seemed to be getting through to them. None of them wanted something like this to happen again, especially if they were the ones in harm's way.

"Fine." Queen Spiderbite said. "I'll...stay here and listen to this meeting. But it better be good, and we better know every single detail about why this happened. Because if it happens again, then I don't want to be the person who just stands by without knowing anything about what's going on."

Everyone in the room nodded to this, also wanting to join in a future fight. Just like Eclipsa hoped they would.

"Excellent." Eclipsa said. "Then-"

"We still don't need the roll call." King Jaggy said. "I agree with the others. Let's start this now and formulate a plan. We have no idea when the next attack will occur, if at all."

Eclipsa groaned and consented to this. "Fine." She said. "Fine! We'll skip the roll call if it saves time. Shawn, mark that down, will you?"

Shawn nodded and wrote, "Roll call skipped because royals pissed or whatever," on his typewriter.

"Now, we can start." Eclipsa said. "So, I think the first thing to do-"

"Is to come up with a plan to prevent this from ever happening again." Rich pigeon said, attempting to finish Eclipsa's sentence. "Right? Right. So, I think that I have come up with a plan that is not only brilliant, but will most certainly work. We should-"

"Actually…" Eclipsa said, getting tired of being interrupted. "We have...a lot to discuss before we even get to the plan making. I'm sorry, but there are still many things that you do not know, and we must talk about those before we get to the main point. So the first thing we're doing is a damage assessment of the town and the kingdoms. Does anyone know what we're looking at? How much is this going to cost to fix?"

"Um," Marco started. "It's not good. A bunch of people were sent out this morning to look at all the damage, and it's...it's a lot. It's something."

"How much?" Eclipsa asked, expecting the worst.

Marco inhaled sharply. "They estimated...oh boy. They estimated it's going to cost over 25 million dollars to fix everything. Maybe more."

Every person in the room looked stunned at this. Even though most of them didn't really understand Earth money, anybody with half a brain would know that twenty million of anything was a truly enormous amount.

"Oh. I...see." Eclipsa said nervously. She looked over at the mayor, who looked crushed at the news. She then turned to the royals, who also looked rather worried at this news.

"Why is so high?" Queen Jaggy asked. "Surely the creature didn't do that much damage?"

"Oh, but it did." Star said. "Every footstep that thing took on the road made a giant pothole several feet wide. Each of those alone is going to cost...maybe a hundred each? So you guess how much it would cost with it running around everywhere for like an hour and a half. Not to mention the dozens of wrecked buildings and shops, as well as vehicles. Honestly, we're lucky it's only 25 million. And that's still only an early estimate! It could be double that, who knows…"

"Duly noted." Eclipsa said. "But what about the kingdoms and the Mewnian sections? How much money is that going to cost to fix?"

"We have an estimate as well." King Johansen said. "After surveying the damage done to the Johansen, Spiderbite, and Jaggy kingdoms, as well as the numerous villages, we believe it would cost around 5000 gold coins to revert it to it's pre-demon attack state. And we did the math, and that would come around to…6,475,000 dollars. Not cheap. Not at all."

"My god…" Eclipsa said. "Okay. Anybody have any good ideas on how we're going to pay for all this?"

"Uh, shouldn't it be easy?" Marco asked. "I mean, you guys are all the royal family's! Shouldn't you be the richest people in town? I feel like if you all pooled your money, we should be able to pay for all this easily enough."

River sighed and shook his head. "Marco, my boy, if it were only that easy. There was a reason we were all at castle Avarius yesterday. The royal wealth is not what it once was. For any of us."

"Why? What happened?" Marco asked. "Did somebody steal all your money or something?"

"In a manner of speaking…" King Ponyhead said. "You see, not long after the merger of our two worlds, your countries government realized our wealth and stepped in, asking for it. In response, they said they would make us even richer and wealthier! But we didn't. They took our money, and we got nothing."

"What!" Marco exclaimed. "Why would they do that? How did they contact you?"

"By computer!" Queen Jaggy said. "We all got those computer things people kept talking about and created one of those email accounts. But then some people saying that they were with your government started contacting us and asked for our money, and they said we would get some in return, but we didn't."

Marco blinked at them. "Wait, what?"

"It's a shame." Queen Jaggy continued. "We thought that this world would be happy to have us, but all they really wanted was our money. We sent the gold coins to where they said to send them, but they never repaid us."

Marco struggled to respond to this, but managed to get a few words out after forcing himself to. "Guys...I think you were all scammed."

"Scammed?"

"Yeah. By people claiming to be the government, when in reality, they weren't. People fall for it all the time. Somebody contacts you by email asking for money, claiming that you would get money, but only they get money and then you're left broke."

"Wait. So the government...never actually contacted us?" Rich pigeon asked.

"No." Marco said. "It was just a couple of people looking to get rich quick. And judging by what you said, they managed to do it…"

"Oh." Princess Jaggy said. "I guess that explains it. It also explains why the government said they didn't know what we were talking about when we told them to give us our money back."

"So is that it?!" Star said. "It's all gone? Because you were all too stupid to notice an obvious scam? Why didn't you take a basic computer class before you made an email account?!"

"Girl, we did!" Pony head interjected. "It was boring, and a complete waste of time. Nothing I didn't already know. But they didn't say anything about those scammers! In fact, it said to always trust people on the internet!"

"Are you kidding me?" Marco said. "The first rule of the internet is too never trust anything anyone ever says! Where did you get that computer class?"

"The government Earth-turd!" Pony head said. "I don't know why nobody else mentioned this, but the same people who stole our money also offered us online computer classes through email, and that's what they told us! Then they scammed us and...and...oh, wait, I think I see what happened. It was all planned from the start, wasn't it? Hm, I guess we really should have seen that one coming."

"Yeah. You shoulda!" Marco said. "But you know what, doesn't matter anymore. Are you sure all the money's gone?"

"Most of it." River said. "Maybe a few coins left for each of us, but nowhere near enough to pay for the damages to the kingdoms and the town."

"Fantastic." Eclipsa said. "Anyone else? Buff frog? Do you have any ideas?"

Buff frog, who had been sitting in nervous silence the entire time, snapped to attention and responded like a person reading a script directly off the page.

"Oh, uh, no." He said. "Monsters do not have much money right now. Busy sorting out lives, and just trying to get along with Mewmans and humans. Sorry, can't help."

"Uh. Are you okay Buff frog?" Star asked him. "You don't sound like yourself. You sound...worried."

"Yes. I am fine." He said, sounding even more worried than before. "Just a bad cold. Spreading around monster village like wildfire. Not good."

"A cold?" Marco said, raising an eyebrow. "Dude, it's the middle of summer."

"Ummm...monster physiology different than your own!" He said, his voice panicky. "We can get colds randomly, at any time, no matter the season!"

"So...there's nothing we should worr-"

"Nope!"

"Righhhht." Marco said, unconvinced, but also unwilling to investigate further.

Globgor gave Buff frog a strange look, then spoke up. "Isn't there still some we can do?" He asked. "Just because the royals are bankrupt, that doesn't mean that there's no hope. Didn't Brudo just pass out hundreds of those money bags yesterday? If everybody uses those, I bet it could help a lot. Not to mention that some humans and Mewmans might want to pay for the damages themselves."

"Globgor, no offense, but I don't think that's gonna happen." Marco said. "I doubt there is a single person in this town that wouldn't pay for something with someone else's money if it was both legal and given to them. Besides, that money was for taxes, and while yes, some people might use it to pay for the damages to their own property, many of those people will just want to use it to do what it was given to them for: Pay their taxes. They're gonna want one less thing to worry about after the demon fiasco."

"But...won't they help others in need?" Globgor asked. "If other ask for help, won't they help them?"

"Some of them might." Janna said, putting herself in the middle of the conversation. "But there are two types of people in this world. Those who give charity, and those who don't. And the latter group greatly outweighs the former."

"Then...we'll just tell everybody that they will have to give the moneybags over so the town can be fixed." Globgor said. "We'll do it peacefully, and there will be no need for any ruckus. We can use all that money to get a start on fixing the town."

Janna chuckled at this. "Viva la revolución."

"What?"

"Don't tell people to do that." Janna said. "Unless you want a full fledged riot on your hands. Besides knowledge, money is the greatest type of power there is. And people do not like it when their power is taken away. They'll do anything to make sure it stays theirs."

"Okay, enough." The mayor said, standing up. "We have to figure this out. If we don't, the town will be bankrupt, we'll all lose our jobs, and by the end of the day we'll be selling chocolate bars out of a convenience store."

"Is this even a job?" King Pony head asked no one in particular. "Do we get paid for coming to these meetings?"

"No, it's not a job." Eclipsa said. "It's your duty as monarch. But I'll put it in Mewni terms for you all. If we don't find a way to fix the town and the kingdoms, and do it so that we don't run out of money, then the citizens will get no money, they'll get angry, and just like said, we'll have a riot on our hands."

"Exactly." Star chimed in. "So figure it out. Yes, things look grim, but if you all worked together, I'm sure we could find a solution."

All the royals were silent.

"Sorry, I got nothing." Queen Jaggy said. "We have no money, the town doesn't have enough money, we don't know what to do."

"Hold on." Marco said. "Don't we get like...thousands of tourists every week? Every month we get the monthly assessment on how much money the tourism makes, and then the town gets the money. The last assessment was a few days ago. Where's that money going?"

"Oh that? It's gone." Ponyhead said. "I used it."

"What! What for?!"

"The Ponyhead show, of course." Ponyhead said, rolling her eyes. "You see, I used that money to pay off every television provider in the entire country to host my show. Ratings are crap, sure, but still! We're everywhere now."

"Are you kidding me." Marco said. "How did you even get ahold of the money?!"

"I had my annoying sisters steal it." She said. "Turns out they were good for something after all!

"S-stole it?! That's illegal yo-"

"Be quiet Earth turd!" Ponyhead yelled. "That show is important to me! It's like, one of the only things I got!"

"Not really!" Marco yelled at her. "I- oh, forget it. Just forget it. We'll deal with that later. But, if I'm understanding this correctly...we have about a month until the next tourism money boost comes in."

"And judging by the state of the town, there's not gonna be many tourists…" The mayor said, glaring at Pony head.

Star put her chin in the table. "Any other ideas? Anyone at all?"

Silence.

"How about this." Eclipsa said. "We'll deal with the money matters later. We still have much to discuss after all."

"Yes, that would be nice." Queen Johansen said. "What's next on the agenda?"

"What's next?" Eclipsa said. "I guess…Star? You're up." Every single eye in the room was suddenly trained on Star, and she and Marco nervously stood up. They both remained silent for a few moments, unsure of how to begin.

"Well?" Rich Pigeon said. "So what's going on?"

"I...um, I'm sorry." Star said. "I don't really know where to start. There's so much to talk about. So, um, let's just start off with some questions, and me and Marco will answer them for you."

Instantly every hand in the room went up, except for Buff frogs, Eclipsa's, and Janna's, who herself was completely tuned out from the meeting.

"Oh jeez." Star said. "Okay, how about...you. Rich pigeon."

Rich cleared his throat and prepared to speak. "Who did this?" He asked. "Who was the mastermind behind this whole demon plot?"

"His name's Bren." Star answered. "Me and Marco met him yesterday during the attack, and he's also the same person that killed Mina. He was behind it. He told us himself, and we saw him tell that demon to destroy the town."

The royals murmured at this, all while whispering to each other.

"What did you meet him?" King Jaggy asked. "Did he tell you to go somewhere, or did you find him yourself?"

"Oh, we met him at...umm…"

While all the royals stared at her in confusion, Star contemplated whether it would be a good idea to tell them about the fire sanctuary.

'Crap.' She thought. 'Should I tell them? I mean, I definitely should, but...should I? I feel like if I do, it'll end badly. What would they do when they found out? They would tear that place apart as revenge for their kingdoms being totaled, that's what they'd do. I don't think Bren would like that. If anything, he'd just get even angrier at us. Then he'd go straight for the royals, instead of me. Can't let that happen. Even if they're useless in most situations, I won't let them do stupid decisions and then let Bren kill them. Lie. Tell them it was…the town park. Yes, of course.'

"At...the town park." Star said, finally finishing her sentence.

"Why'd it take you so long to finish?" Penelope asked.

"Uh, you see, Bren told us not to tell anybody about where we met, so I was contemplating whether to tell you. But I figured that it best if you all knew."

"A good choice." Queen Johansen said. "We must not listen to the orders of this madman. We must make our own decisions in this crisis, no matter who tells us otherwise."

"Yeah, sure." Star said. "All for that."

Star looked over at Marco, who was looking back at her confused. Star mouthed to him, "Go along with it. I'll explain later,"and then turned her attention back to the table.

"As for where how we found him," She continued. "He told us himself. Me and Marco got a note telling us to go to the…park, and when we got there we waited until he arrived."

"Interesting…" Globgor said. "So he wanted you to know about him."

"Actually no." Marco said. "At least, I don't think so. He made a comment on how he would have preferred to have us meet him later, but because Janna told us about his existence back when she was at the hospital, that apparently "forced his hand." He wanted us to meet him on his own terms."

"Meaning what?" Globgor asked.

"Meaning...I don't know." Marco said. "I guess he just likes to be in control of whatever situation he's in."

"I think everyone's like that." Star said. "But who else has a question? We got all day here."

"I got one." Ponyhead said. "Where is he now? Did he tell you anything like that?"

"We have no idea." Star said. "He could be anywhere. He could even be-"

"Right here." A loud voice said, the tone filled with nothing but pride.

Everyone slowly turned towards the doorway to see you-know-who standing there, smiling and looking extremely pleased with himself, as per usual.

Well, at least, Star and Marco knew who it was. For everybody else, they had no idea who they were looking at.

"Uh...who are you?" King Ponyhead said, asking the question that was on everybody's mind.

"Who am I?" Bren said. "I'm glad you asked.I'm the person who's behind all of this. I'm the guy that Butterfly was talking about just a minute ago. My name is Bren, and it was I who masterminded the demon attack that wreaked your kingdoms, so feel free to bow down."

The royals all looked at each other with "Wtf" expressions, each one of them making sure that everyone else was seeing the same thing they were, until they looked back to Bren.

And then burst out laughing.

Then entire room was instantly filled with snickers, chortles, and guffaws as they all lost it at Bren's claim, unable to believe that the person standing in front of them was the great threat Star talked about.

Except for Eclipsa and Janna. They looked at Star and Marco with expressions that read, "Is this him?", to which they responded with frantic nodding.

But as for the royals, they continued laughing until their stomachs hurt, at which the laughter slowly died down. They all wiped their eyes clear of tears and looked back at Bren with amused smiles.

"Oh, that is rich." Rich pigeon said. "I don't know what game you're trying to play boy, but if you really think that someone like you could impersonate this Bren Star was talking about, then you're sorely mistaken."

"And why is that?" Bren asked, now having gone from zero to pissed in one second.

"Well...just look at you!" Rich said, trying not to laugh again. "I mean, you're just some random teenager! You look even younger than those two!" He pointed at Star and Marco, who were still staring at Bren with identical fearful/why is he here glances.

"Also," Rich continued. "You're...okay, I don't want to be mean kid, but frankly, you look scrawny. Those arms look even thinner than my legs, and I'm a pigeon. And what's with your hair? Why is so white? Did you dye it that color?"

"It's my natural hair color." Bren said, his angry expression now changed to a bored one. "And if you value your life in any way, then I'd suggest you stop-"

"Stop talking?" Rich said, unable to do just that. "No. No, we're gonna keep going. I'm not done yet. I need a good laugh. Okay, ummm...ah yes! The clothes! What's with your clothes man? You look like you just got off from that Earth school! And how did you even get in here? Have the guards been sleeping on duty again? I...I just, I don't even know."

Rich turned to the one guard in the room, (security was lax) who himself was also trying not to laugh. "Hey, just like, restrain him, or something." Rich told him. "As numerous as this was, we should get back to the meeting.

The guard, still smiling widely, turned and walked towards Bren. "Make this easy on yourself." He said. "There doesn't have to be any kind of-"

Bren, deciding it was time to make a point, stepped to the side and clapped his hands twice. "Lucitor!" He said, much to everyone's sudden confusion.

Responding to this command, Tom stepped into the room, having been hidden from view the whole time. The royals smiled quickly turned to frowns, Star and Marco's fear tripled, and Janna looked on in pure shock.

Bren looked over at Tom then pointed at the guard.

"Kill him."

Without skipping a beat, Tom turned towards the now frightened guard. His hand lit up in flames and he tossed a huge fireball at him. The guard ducked, the fireball missing his head by inches. It smashed into a window behind him, melting it and creating a large hole.

"Out the window." Bren told Tom. "It'll make less of a mess. Well, in here."

Tom sprinted towards the guard and before he could even fully get back up, he punched him so hard he was launched off his feet and thrown out of the melted window. His screams could be heard fading as he plummeted several stories to the ground.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH *splat*

Tom slowly walked back over to Bren and turned towards the room of shocked faces, who sure as hell weren't smiling anymore.

"Huh." Bren said, still looking at the window. "Never did know why people always built important meeting places up high. Always felt like kind of a design flaw, incase, you know, that happened."

"Uh...guards!" Globgor said. "Where are the rest of the guards? Call them in and-"

"Don't bother." Bren said. "I've already dealt with them. And you before you ask, yes, this is Thomas Lucitor, it is not an illusion or trick. No, he is not mind controlled. No, he is not doing this out of free will. Yes, I am forcing him to do this. No, I will not tell you how. So, I hope that clears it all up."

Nobody spoke. They were all still in disbelief at what had just occurred. Some of them were even pinching themselves, checking that they weren't in a dream. Or in this case, a nightmare.

"Nothing to say to that? Fine by me. Now give a moment…" Bren slowly looked around the room, looking at each and every single person there, simply studying them. "Hm. I think I recognize...all of you. Nice. No need for introductions then. And I'm sure you all know who I am. Right, Rich?" He once again looked at Rich, but this time glaring at him instead of simply looking.

Rich sank into his seat under Bren's gaze and nervously spoke up. "You...weren't kidding? You're really this Bren?"

"Oh yes. Now, I get it. I don't really look that intimidating. Or that fearsome, but hey, at least-"

"No!" River loudly said, interrupting him. "We're not going to listen to this!"

Bren looked at River as if he was crazy. "Excuse me?"

"We're not going to listen to this." River repeated, standing up. "If you really think that we're all just going to listen to the poison coming out of your mouth, you've got another thing com-"

"Sit down." Bren said, his voice completely devoid of emotion.

"What did you just say!?" River demanded, furious.

"I said sit down." Bren said, before turning to the rest of the room. "Not a single one of you is to stand up at any time. You're going to listen to me whether you like it or not, and if you refuse…" He looked over at Tom. "Well, I'm sure you can guess what'll happen."

"Yo-you dare?!" River said. "I will-"

"Dad, just please sit down." Star said, earning a surprised look from everyone.

River turned towards his daughter, and looked at her as if meeting her for the first time. "What?" He said. "But he-"

"I know." Star said. "Just...please sit down. Please don't make this any worse than this has to be."

River sputtered some words out, and looked from Bren to Star multiple times, but eventually consented and sat down, grumbling to himself.

'Thank Mewni." Star thought. 'That definitely wouldn't have ended well. For either side. Hopefully nobody tries to do that again. I don't think Bren's here to try and kill any of us. If he was he would have done that already.'

"Ah." Bren said. "Thank you Star, I knew you would-"

"Piss off." Star spat at him.

"...Hm. Yeah, okay. Don't know why I expected anything different. But back to the point. So, who-"

"Why are you here?" Moon asked. "What are you gaining out of coming here and talking to us?"

Bren sighed. "Okay. Another rule change. Stop interrupting me. But as for your questions Moon, it's simple. You see, I was listening in to your little meeting, and I decided-"

"Listening in?!" Queen Spiderbite said. "How?! We checked the room for any listening devices beforehand!"

"I-did you listen to a word that I just said?" Bren asked, getting close to losing his patience. "No. Interrupting. Me. From any of you. And if you think I'm going to tell you how I'm listening in...you'd never be more wrong."

"Is that so?" Ponyhead said, currently live-streaming the whole event on her phone. "You know, I think I know what's going on. Somebody in here is a spy for this guy! How else could he know? And if I'm going to guess…" She slowly looked around the room, before her eyes settled on Marco.

"Oh no no no." Marco said. "Don't tell me you really think that I'm Bren's spy, if there even is one! Why would you think that?! And don't just say because you don't like me!"

"Because reasons!" Ponyhead yelled. "Think about it. You're above suspicion. You're from Earth, and this guy looks like he is too, so you could have easily been in contact with each other."

"Actually," Bren said. "I'm not from-"

"I'm talking right now!" Ponyhead screeched at him, causing Bren to finally snap.

"Alright, that is it!" He yelled. "I guess you mongoloids are all too brain dead to understand me, or you just weren't just paying attention, but I said no interruptions! Especially by someone that's nothing but a talking head!"

"What did you say?!" Ponyhead said, grabbing her phone with her mouth, flying over to Bren, and shoving its camera in his face. "Why don't you say that the whole world! Because Ponyhead doesn't listen to anybody! Ponyhead isn't scared of people like you! Ponyhead-"

Bren grabbed the phone out of Ponyhead's mouth, looked her dead in the eyes, and then crushed it into dust. Ponyhead gawped at him, her face frozen in shock.

"Ponyhead is a prissy little princess who I will murder if she doesn't go back to her seat." He said. "Are you listening to me now, or is your ego and stupidity still clouding your sense of judgment?"

Ponyhead slowly looked down at the crushed pieces of plastic. "Oh no you didn't!" She yelled. "THAT PHONE WAS OVER FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS! HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE WERE WATCHING THAT STREAM! HOW DARE YOU DO THAT TO ME! I'M ROYALTY!"

"ASK ME IF I CARE, YOU LIVING WASTE OF SPACE!" Bren yelled back at her, now anger now clouding his judgment. "I'VE KILLED DOZENS OF PEOPLE TO GET WHERE I AM NOW, AND I WILL NOT BE DISRESPECTED BY SOMETHING LIKE YOU!"

"SOMETHING?! THAT'S RACIST! THAT'S IT! I WILL KILL YOU! I SWEAR ON MY LIFE I WILL-"

"ENOUGH!" Moon yelled, loud enough that both Ponyhead and Bren stopped their argument. Moon pointed at Ponyhead. "You! Back to your seat! That is enough! You weren't supposed to be recording this event in the first place!"

"Hold on!" Ponyhead said. "He-"

"Don't. Care." Moon growled. "Sit back down. I don't care if he crushed your phone. I don't care if he was racist towards you. I don't care about any of it."

Ponyhead stayed where she was, until Star leaned towards her and whispered, "Ponyhead, in case you haven't noticed, we're not in a real good position to start pissing him off. Don't forget about Tom."

Ponyhead looked over at Tom, who was currently regretting not previously taking advantage of Bren's outburst and attacking him.

Seeing that Star was right, Ponyhead groaned and slowly floated back to her seat, "sitting" down in it and glaring at every person in the room, blaming everyone but herself.

"Okay." Bren said. "Now that that's over with, let's get back to the meeting, shall we? Now, what was your question again Moon?"

"Why. Are you. Here." Moon repeated, still far from being in a good mood.

"Ah. Well, simply put, I was listening in to your meeting, and when Star mentioned asking her questions about me, I thought, "Hey! Wouldn't it be fun if I myself showed up and answered their questions?" That's basically it. Well, that and the fact that I was bored to high hell."

"That's it?!" Moon said, skeptical of Bren's answer. "You came here because you were bored?!"

"Yeah." Bren said. "I haven't had much to do lately, what with all of my plans already having been...planned, and I wasn't really doing anything important, and that I thought it would be fun to come here and freak you out."

"Really?" Star asked. "Nothing else?"

"Nope." He said. "Nothing else. Also, thanks for lying earlier. I'm glad that you realized what would happen if you told them the truth: Nothing good."

"Hold on." King Johansen said, turning towards Star. "You lied?! About what?! What didn't you tell us the truth about?"

"Um, well, you see-"

"Don't even think about it." Bren said. "Keep it a secret. And don't try to tell them after I leave. Because I'll know."

Star frowned, but said no more, not sure whether to believe him or not, but also not willing to take the risk.

Bren then scanned the room until his eyes fell on Janna, upon which he started to walk over to her.

"If you want us to ask you questions, then I got one for you." King Jaggy said. "Why-"

"Give me a minute." Bren said. "Something I need to do first."

Bren continued walking around the room until he reached Janna, and stopped. The two stared at each other for a few moments, while the royals anxiously waited for his next move.

"Well well well." Bren said to Janna. "Look at you. You know, you've been quite a pain. Because you had to go and tell the pissants back at the hospital about me, I had to change my plan. That's caused quite a headache…"

"What's your point?" Janna asked, unimpressed. "Are you gonna kill me? Right here? Right now? In front of everyone?"

"As tempting as that is…" Bren said. "No. I think not. The time for that has passed. I should have just told Mina to kill you way back when, and saved myself the trouble. Of course, I could have just snuck into the hospital and smothered you with a pillow, but that's no fun. Plus, there's no real...class, to that."

Marco suddenly got a sense of deja vu. He could swear that he heard Bren say something similar back at the fire sanctuary, about class and killing and something else.

'Is he just repeating himself?' Marco thought. 'Does he even realize it, or does he just not care? Then again, nothing about that meeting back at the sanctuary made sense. I'm still wondering what the hell that mental breakdown he had was all about. I think he said something along the lines of, "you know what's right." There's a lot of possibilities for an explanation to that one.'

"So," Bren continued. "I'm not going to kill you Janna. Instead, I'm-"

"Was it you?" Janna blurted out.

Despite being interrupted once again, Bren face turns to one of confusion rather than anger. "Was it me what?"

"Was it you who helped me back when the hospital had a blackout? Because I remember now. Your voice sounds so damn similar to the person that gave me those crutches. Also your height, and even your posture, looks exactly like the shadow that was there. So, was it you?"

Bren smiled and backed away from here, walking over to the window that Tom had melted earlier.

"Yes." He said. "Yes, that was me. I went there. I caused the blackout. I gave you those crutches."

"Are you serious?" Eclipsa asked, finally speaking up after having remained silent for a while. "It was you who helped Ms. Ordania? But why? She was the only reason we managed to vanquish that demon of yours!"

"Oh I know." Bren said. "That's why I released her. I knew you wouldn't be able to stop it without her knowledge of demon ritual magic. If she hadn't been there, that thing could still be out there, rampaging around! And while that would be extremely entertaining to watch, I never planned for that demon to last forever, so I helped Janna knowing that she would find you, and then send it back to the Underworld."

"So...what would you have done if Janna's ritual didn't work?" Marco asked.

"Oh, well then I would have sent I back myself. Also, you don't have to worry about me releasing another demon for a while. You got plenty of time before I do that again, if I even do it at all."

"Yeah, we'll see about that." Star said. "Don't think we trust you even the smallest bit."

"That's great." Bren said. "But you should trust me on that. I can't have the town too destroyed. If you all go bankrupt, then what will there be left for me to take out? No, an event like that won't happen again for a while. Take some time. Rebuilt the town. Restore it."

Penelope, who was sitting right next to the melted window and therefore right next to where Bren was standing, narrowed her eyes and spoke up. "It's gonna take a lot longer for the Spiderbite forest to regrow." She said. "Do you know how much-"

Without warning, Bren slammed his hand down on Penelope's right shoulder, causing her body to tense up and her heart to start beating twice as fast.

"What was that?" Bren asked, before leaning in towards her ear, now whispering so softly that only Penelope could hear it. "Don't try and say anything. Remember what I said. To both you and Buff frog. Do what I say, and you might survive this whole...revenge plot."

Before Penelope could react to this threat, King Spiderbite stood up and slammed his fists on the table.

"Get your filthy hands off my daughter!" He yelled.

Bren straightened himself up, but didn't let go of Penelope's shoulder. In fact, if anything, his grip became tighter.

"What were the rules?" He said rhetorically. "What were the rules that I said you had to follow? Don't interrupt me, and don't stand up. And guess what, you just basically did both."

"I don't care." King Spiderbite said. "You want to come here and talk to us? Fine. But I will not allow you to harm my daughter in anyway."

Bren tilted his head at the king, his grip on Penelope's shoulder getting even tighter. "Is that so?" He asked. "Please, tell me, how exactly do you plan on stopping me from doing that? I am in control here, and I'll touch whoever I want!"

"..."

"...Okay, you're right, that sounded really wrong. But you get my point. Don't try and be a hero. Now, sit back down, and we can continue. Or, I'll have to make an example."

"I'll sit back down once you get your evil palms off of her!" King Spiderbite said, pointing at Penelope.

"Hmmm...evil is such a relative term. I wouldn't describe myself as-"

Exactly like Ponyhead did earlier, King Spiderbite lost his temper and yelled at Bren. "GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DAUGHTER!"

"DON'T INTERRUPT ME! GOD, HOW MANY TIMES IS THIS GOING TO HAPPEN!?"

"AS MANY TIMES AS IT NEEDS TO, NOW-"

They were both cut off by a loud squeak of pain, and Bren looked down to see that he was now squeezing Penelope's shoulder so hard that he was seconds away from snapping her shoulder bone. He paused, struggled to find something to say, before slightly loosening his grip. But he still didn't let go, and he turned back to the king.

"Let. Go. Of her." King Spiderbite repeated, shaking with rage.

"So you're not going to sit down?" Bren asked, ignoring him.

"No! Now-"

"Okay, okay." Bren said, letting go of Penelope's shoulder.

Both King Spiderbite and Penelope relaxed for a moment, before with almost lighting speed, Bren snatched up Penelope's hair and yanked her out of her chair. Before she or anybody else could react, he dragged her over to the melted window and shoved her through the opening, with the only thing keeping her from falling several stories being Bren's grip on her hair.

Instantly half the room let out a small scream of horror, while Queen Spiderbite fainted and fell to the floor. Bren slowly took in the sudden chaos, while Penelope screamed in pain as her scalp slowly started to tear under the pressure.

"No!" King Spiderbite said. "Don't!"

"What's that?" Bren asked. "Still want me to let go of her? Like this?"

"No! I-"

Before King Spiderbite could finish his sentence, Bren relaxed his grasp on Penelope's hair, resulting in her slipping an inch downward and letting out another scream of pain/terror.

"Oh!" He said. "She's slipping! Better be careful! I loosen my grip one more time, she's gone! Decide your next move very carefully Spiderbite, or her death is on you, not me."

King Spiderbite started hyperventilating, but tried to compose himself as best he could. "Just...what do you want me to do?" He asked.

"Ah. That's more like it. Now, you're going to sit down, and you won't interrupt me again. In fact, how about you just stay silent for the rest of the meeting, or next time it'll be you that flies out the window. Got it?"

"Yes. Of course." He said, before quickly sitting back down, sweating like a pig.

"Good." Bren said. "Glad to see that you have some sense."

"Bren." Star said, tired of simply watching all this happen. "King Spiderbite did what you asked. Now let go of Penelope."

"What, like right no-"

"You know what I mean! Do it!"

Bren sighed and glared at Star. "Don't expect me to take orders from you, but alright." He yanked Penelope up and threw her on the floor, where she stayed there for a few moments, sobbing and frantically rubbing her head.

"When you're done crying, get back in your seat." Bren said. "Sorry I had to do that, but that giant hole in the window was just too convenient for me to ignore. Now then…"

Stepping over Penelope, Bren walked to the other side of the table and went straight for for Shawn.

"Okay." He said, looming over Shawn like an overprotective parent. "If any of you try to pull the same stunt that king Spiderbitch just did, then…"

He quickly grabbed Shawn's typewriter and smashed it against the wall, obliterating it in an instant. Shawn's reaction to this was to simply lean as far away from Bren as he could, as if he was diseased.

"Then next time, it'll be your head instead of that typewriter."

River stared Bren down and was about to open his mouth, but Star noticed this and shot him a look, desperately shaking her head.

Ignoring this, Bren walked back to the front of the room and put his hands on the table.

"Alright. Now, who has a question. That's why I came here after all. Not to yell at horse heads…" He looked at Ponyhead, who was still glaring back at him. "...Or to dangle princesses out of windows…" He looked over at Penelope, who was sitting back down but looked slightly traumatized by the whole event. "...But I did come here to have some fun and answer your questions. I'm trying to be nice here. I'm trying to talk. So why don't we do just that! Let's talk. Ask me something! Ask me anything! I've got time to kill! Stop making this meeting into a horror show, and instead let's replace it with something wonderful!"

Everybody looked at him like he just said he had escaped from an insane asylum. Even someone like Mina would have been confused by that speech.

"Are you serious?" Marco asked. "Back at the sanc-I mean, um, park, you told us that you wanted to kill us. The only reason we let you talk back then was because we wanted to find out as much about you as possible. That's why we left after you had that nervous breakdown, or whatever the hell that was. There was no real purpose in staying."

"Wait." Janna whispered, leaning in towards Star. "Nervous breakdown?"

"Yeah." Star whispered back. "Back at the park, after he had said some weird stuff, I told him that it sounded like that even he didn't know why he was doing all this. His response to that was to turn away from us and repeat, "you know what's right," multiple times to himself. Then after half a minute of that, he turned back to us, apologized, and acted like nothing happened."

"Hmm…" Janna hummed, as if she had heard of this before. "Got anything mor-"

"No purpose in staying?" Bren said to Marco, halting Janna's question. "I beg to differ. I could have told you a lot more, but you simply didn't want to stay."

"Do you blame us?" Marco asked. "Because in that moment, you looked like you were crazy. I'm still on the fence about whether you actually are insane, or if you're just putting on a show."

"It's...not a show." Bren responded. "I would rather you hadn't seen that. But you did, and there's nothing I could do to change that. Hmm, wait no, I could just kill you, but then Butterfly would get all pissy and attack me. Yeah, nothing I can do to change that."

"I'd be a lot more than pissy." Star said, furious just at the mention of anybody hurting Marco. "But are you really here to just answer some questions?"

Bren groaned and buried his face in his hands. "Oh my god, YES! How many times do I have to repeat that? Unless you want me to leave, upon which I'll just go, I have time for some questions. Think about it like a guest speaking coming to your school, and answering your questions once they're done, all because they have to do something to fill up time."

"I actually had a question." King jaggy said. "But then you interrupted me to talk to...Jayla, or something."

Janna was about to correct the Jaggy royal on this, but Bren spoke up less than a second later, not wanting anybody to speak before him.

"Sorry, not sorry." He said. "But please, continue. What is your question?"

King Jaggy cleared his throat and prepared to speak. "Why are you doing this?"

"Like, everything?"

"Yes. Why did you have that demon come and destroy everything? Why did you murder Mina Loveberry? Do you hate all of us or are you just doing it for fun?"

Bren rubbed his chin, trying to fake some appearance of being in deep thought. "Very good questions." He said. "For the first one, I just had to find a way to get out. It was simply a distraction. Nothing more, nothing less. I knew you would get rid of it in the end, and if you didn't, well, like I said earlier, I would've sent it back myself.

"So you're telling me that your demon rampaging around and town and causing tens of millions of dollars of damage was nothing more than a distraction?!" The mayor asked, having hoped for a more...satisfying answer.

"Yeah. Deal with it. Now, what was next...ah yes, why did I kill Mina. Simply put, she was useless to me. She was a mistake that I couldn't have running around town causing trouble. I didn't want her to steal all the fun."

"You murdered her for that?!" Moon asked. "Because-because you didn't want to share in the destruction of the town?!"

"No. That's not what I meant." Bren said. "I killed her because if I allowed her to keep doing what she was doing, it could have caused trouble for me down the line. Also, Mina didn't want to destroy the town. Just monsters."

"While we're on that topic…" Eclipsa started. "Is any of this out of hatred for monsters?"

"Not one bit of it. Your guys problems are your own. I don't care about whether you're a monster, Mewman, or human, and not just because I'm not any of those, but because I don't really see you all as different, I just see you all as the same person, just joined into one little cluster of people that I hate."

'Huh.' Eclipsa thought, having difficulty processing all of this. 'Either that's really really good, or really really bad. If he doesn't care who we are, then I guess he won't try and cause strain between the three species like Mina did. The last thing we need is more of that. Well, besides more of...whatever Bren is."

"But," Bren continued, turning back towards the Jaggy King. "As for your third question, I'm not doing this for fun. Is it fun? Most certainly. But still, that's not what I'm doing it for. I believed you mentioned if I was doing was because I hated all of you. I don't, unless you give me a reason too. I really only hate one of you."

"I'm going to go out on a limb here…" The Johansen princess said. "Was it Star?"

"Ding ding." Bren said. "We got a winner. Do you want the mystery door, or would you prefer the cash prize?"

"Star, what did you do this time?" Moon asked her, ignoring Bren's odd game show-esque speech.

"I don't...really know." Star answered. "He didn't really tell me why. He said I had to figure that out for myself."

"Indeed you do. Bren said. And I for one can't wait to see how. Maybe ask Janna? Or somebody entirely? Wait. I know, why don't you ask Tom! I'm sure he can...oh wait, sorry about that. He can't, can he?" He said, flashing Star a shit-eating grin.

"What...is wrong with you?!" She demanded. "Are you trying to taunt me, or are you just totally insane?"

"Oh no." Bren said, still grinning at her. "I'm just doing whatever comes to mind at the moment. If it just pops into my head, then I who am I to say no?"

"That's not it." Janna said. "There's something else."

"Oh?" Bren said. "Well then, just like Marco attempted to do back at the...park, why don't you explain everything. About what's wrong with me and why I'm doing this!

"Hey. You said that I was half right." Marco interjected. "So don't-"

"Shh. You. Shh." Bren said, pointing at Marco. "I want to hear what she has to say. Alright Janna, go on. Tell us all what's wrong with me."

"You're different." Janna said. "And I'm not stating the obvious, but I doubt there's a single person here who's anything like."

"There's no one else like me." Bren said.

"Yeah. And thank god for that." Janna responded. "Because you know what? Maybe you aren't insane. But I definitely see a few things wrong with you. This whole coming to the meeting thing you're doing? It's not because you're bored. It's a show of force. Bringing Tom along and having him kill that guard showed that. You just want us to be scared of you. Also, another thing. I ah no doubt that you have some kind of mental disorder. I don't which one, but the way you talk, with sometimes just switching moods and just plain being a creep, makes me think that you're unstable. Finally, and this is where it was really interesting to me, is that fact that you helped me escape the hospital and that you told Star and Marco to try and stop you. I wonder if you actually want to succeed, or if you secretly want to lose. I've heard of that kind of stuff before, and I think you're starting to fit the bill."

Bren took a moment to think about all this, staring at Janna with a scowl.

"Hmm...okay." He said. "Is this a show of force? Maybe! I don't know! But in the moment where I thought of it, it wasn't. But I suppose I became one soon after I arrived.

As for your other theory, no. I don't want to lose. I want to win more than anything. But the way I want to is something that you wouldn't understand. Nobody could understand. Not even the best psychologist in the world. So you can stop with your crappy theories."

"Question." Star said.

"Answer." Bren said.

"Do you know why you're doing this?" She asked. "You sound like you don't even know."

Bren paused upon hearing this, and did nothing but gaze at her for a few seconds, like he was in a fog.

'I wonder what'll happen.' Star thought to herself. 'Back at the sanctuary, when I mentioned something along those lines, he had that breakdown a second later. Hopefully it'll happen again. Maybe it'll give Tom a chance to act once if he goes crazy.'

Bren turned away from Star, and looked like he actually was about to go crazy, as his breathing started getting panicky and his face turned pale white. But right before it looked like he would repeating things to himself again, he slapped himself in the face and said, "NO!", before turning back to Star.

"You…" He started. "You almost got me there. Thought that would work again? I should have known you would try to use it against me. I...can't believe you would try that. What was your plan? Have Tom attack me while I was busy losing it?"

"Umm…"

"Yeah. I thought so. Doesn't matter, don't care. I can't blame you for trying. But...I think I'm done here."

"What do you mean done?" Eclipsa asked.

"This isn't working out how it thought it would." Bren said. "I thought I could come here and have some fun, maybe screw with all of you, have you asked some questions, but was a mistake. All I've been this whole time is either angry at you not listening to me, or just getting tired of yelling at you. So, I'm going."

"Thank god/Mewni." Everybody whispered, except for king Jaggy, who blurted out, "Wait! You said you would answer our questions! We still have a lot to ask yo-"

"Star, Marco, and the person I should have told Mina to kill can answer those questions! Not my problem anymore! I'm going to go. Have fun dealing with all the money problems, and the town being in shambles, and everything else. Good luck and goodbye. But not really. Screw all of you."

With that, Bren turned around and exited the room, signaling for Tom to follow him. Tom took one look around the room, then followed Bren out. Then as quickly as they had arrived, they were gone.

Everybody watched them leave, happy that it was finally over.

"It's not over." Star said. "We still have to discu-"

"I think I'm leaving too." Penelope said.

"What! No!" Star said. "You-"

"She's right." King Johansen said. "After what just happened, I think I'm done with talking. Schedule another meeting for later, but we all want to go home right. Besides, the citizens will be looking to us for how to help them after the demon incident, so we need to go do that."

"You can't just all leave!" Star said. "What if Bren sends another demon to attack us tomorrow, and we don't know what to do?"

"He's not going to do that." Moon said. "I could hear it in his tone. He's almost certainly going to take a day off of...whatever it is he does after this whole mess. As am I. We all are."

"You...I…" Star bit her bottom lip and started shaking uncontrollably, trying to find the right words to yell at them. Just as she was about to open her mouth, Marco leaned towards her.

"Don't." He said. "You know there's no stopping them when they want to leave one of those meetings. And if we're being honest here...I want to take a break as well."

"Ughhhhhhhh-fine!" Star said. "Finefinefinefinefine! All of you leave! We'll have another meeting two days from now, and then we'll talk about everything! About everything Bren said to us back at the park, about everything Janna knows about demons, and how to take care of everything else! In the meantime, the money problem will be solved with Brudo's money bags. Tell the citizens that that's how their gonna pay for their money, until we, ad make sure with mention is so they don't think they'll have to pay it all off by themselves, can find a better solution! Eclipsa, make sure to get that information to everybody. We'll also make sure to deal with the tourist money and see if we can get the money back from those TV providers. Ponyhead, don't say anything, you can complain about it at the next meeting. Now...and now...you can leave."

"Wait." Marco said, before anybody could get up. "Didn't Bren kill all the guards? He did say he "took care of them." Shouldn't we do something about that?"

"Oh Mewni, I can't believe I forgot about all of that." Star said. "Just...take the emergency exit, and have somebody clean those guys up. Don't forget the guy Bren had Tom kick out the window. Now you can leave. For real this time."

Slowly, everybody got up from their chairs and left the room, looking as if they had just woken up from a twelve hour nap. Once it was Eclipsa, Globgor, Star, Marco, and Janna, Star got up and walked over to the giant hole in the window.

"Are you okay?" Marco asked her. "Bren did just murder a bunch of guards, and you don't seem to care."

"Do you know why I don't care Marco?" Star asked. "I don't care because I...I just don't. For some reason, I'm not affected at all. And as horrible as that sounds, I don't think anybody else really cared a few minutes after it happened."

"I did notice that." Marco said. "Why didn't we?"

"Maybe something in the back of our minds was making us not. Maybe we've all turned into monsters. Mentally, or course. Or maybe we just know that those deaths are likely just the beginning, and we can't afford to care about the ones early on."

"That's...morbid." Marco said. "But we'll make it through this."

"Hopefully." Star said. "We'll have the next meeting two days from now."

"Why two? Why not tomorrow?" Marco asked.

"Because I remembered what you said." Star said. "Abi how you wanted a break. So let's take one! You remember how I mentioned we were gonna get a second beach day? Let's do that tomorrow. Just me and you, alone on that beach again, only this time there'll be no annoying photo to make us worry about stuff."

"We have a whole new source of worries though…"

"Don't ruin it!" Star said. "Don't make me change my mind!"

"Okay, I won't." Marco said. "Let's do that tomorrow. Janna, how about-"

"I don't know what you're going to say, but I'm staying here and going back to the hospital. The leave of absence the council gave me was only good for this meeting."

"Yeah, well make sure to tell them that it's good for the meeting two days from now."

"Okay. See you around." Janna said, before hopping away on her crutches.

Star watched her go and then look at Eclipsa. "We should probably get that message out to the town." She said. "Townspeople probably don't want to wait too much longer for an answer, even if it isn't a good one."

"Right." Eclipsa said. "We'll go do that, and send somebody to...clean up the guards and inform their families."

"Go do that." Star said. "Me and Marco are leaving now too."

"Of course." Eclipsa said. "You two go have that short vacation. Me and Globgor would take one, but...we have a lot of work to do. But don't worry. Go have fun and be with each other. You've earned it after everything that's happened lately."

"Thanks Eclipsa. See you around."

"See you Star." Eclipsa said. "See you around…"

Star and Marco left, Eclipsa and Globgor stayed behind, trying to think of an appropriate way to address the town, and the royals all went home, trying to relax. Nothing was going well, and everything was going wrong. And as much as all of hoped for the opposite…they all knew it wouldn't happen.

Things just seemed to be going that way.

End chapter 12

A/N: So what was the real reason Star and everybody else didn't act about those deaths? There is a real explanation, and that will come up again in a future chapter.

Another chapter that I feel is a mess. Hopefully the next one will be...less of one. Beach day part 2, although I doubt anything will go that well. Seems to be a theme.

Until next time.