Aflame
Chapter 14
Marco Diaz Vs Bren's friends
"Marcoooo…"
"..."
"Marco."
"..."
"MARCO!"
"Ahh!" Marco's eyes shot open at the sound of Star screaming his name like bloody murder, and before he even knew what he was doing, he quickly let go of her and nearly falling off the bench they were sitting on.
Star glanced over at him and sighed. "About time." She said. "At first you not waking up was kind of cute, and then it got kind of weird, and then it just got annoying."
"Sorry…" Marco said, rubbing his neck. He took a quick look around. It was still all the same. Same beach, same bench, and the same boardwalk, except for the fact that there were much more people than when they had arrived.
"How long was I out?" He asked. "Boardwalks a lot more packed than it was before, so I'm gonna guess a while…"
"Eh, it hasn't been that long." Star said. "Maybe a half hour. I would have woken you up earlier, but you started leaning on my shoulder, and I didn't really want to interrupt your little nap."
Marco chuckled. "I think we both know the real reason you didn't push me off you Star." He said, scooching near her until their shoulders were touching. "If you want, I'll let you fall asleep on me. Even it out a little bit."
Star's cheek turned a faint shade of red and she smiled. "I think it's okay. We should get going anyways. Don't want your mom or anybody else to get worried about us. Do you still have your cell phone?"
"I...thought you had yours." Marco said, a flicker of fear appearing in his eyes.
"No...I left it back at the house." Star said. "I thought you would take care of that!"
"Why didn't you tell me that?"
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because-okay, nevermind. Not a big deal. I'll just ask someone if I can borrow their phone, call my mom, and then it'll all be fine. There's no reason we should fight over this."
"Agreed." Star said. "Totally agree with you there. Last thing we need right now is another thing ruining beach day, and we've had plenty of those in the last few hours."
"No kidding…" Marco said, before walking up to the closest person he could find. In this case it a guy carrying a surfboard and a bag that looked like it was made of rubber.
"Uh, hi." Marco said, as the guy with the surfboard looked at the teen who was blocking his path. "Do you have a phone that me and my girlfriend could borrow for a few minutes? We kinda forgot both of ours, and we need to make a call. Is that okay?"
The surfer dude looked down at Marco and stared at him.
And stared.
And stared.
He kept staring at Marco like an art critic looking at a classical painting.
"Are...you okay?" Marco asked him, wondering if he was either deaf, or simply not listening to a single word. "You understand me, right?"
The surfer dude looked away and turned towards nothing.
Then without warning, his entire body started shaking, and then he and the surfboard seemed to collapse, then liquify, and then finally both of them melted and hit the ground as a pile of misshapen red goo, sounding like a wet towel hitting a wall.
Marco slowly looked down at the puddle, now seeping through the cracks of the boardwalk and disappearing. His mouth was open so wide in shock that his jaw would break if it went any further. It had happened so suddenly and abruptly that Marco could only look on in shock at first.
Then he found his voice and responded appropriately.
"Wha...wha...WHAT THE FUCK?! I-YOU-STAR, DID YOU SEE THAT? HE-"
Before he could say anything more, the ground suddenly shook beneath him, visibly bouncing up and down as if the entire earth had been thrown against a wall. Marco attempted to stay on his feet, but like a wave of wood expanding towards him, the boardwalk was shattered into pieces when the floor shook with another gigantic heave, the planks of wood that made it up flying through the air like bouncy balls.
Marco didn't even have time to move before the wave of exploding planks hit him, propelling the slab he was standing on through the air, and he soared away from what remained of the boardwalk, hitting the soft sand of the beach twenty feet away. He lay there for a moment, feeling like someone had just beaten him down with brass knuckles. Once the initial pain and shock subsided, he slowly forced myself to get up, his limbs aching so much it felt like that would fall off.
He attempted to speak, but his lungs felt like they had been replaced with his heart, and were racing at two hundred fifty beats per minute. 'C-come on.' He thought. 'You just got the air knocked out of you. You can feel your arms. You can feel your legs. They aren't broken. Find Star. Make sure she's alright. Do it. Get...up!'
Marco lifted his head and looked around at the beach and looked at the boardwalk. Although it really couldn't be called that anymore. It was in complete ruins, splinters of wood slowly drifting through the air like feathers, and the beach looking like it had been turned into the Sahara, giant dunes of sand having emerged out of nowhere, courtesy of the ground being turned inside out.
Marco took in several gigantic gulps of air and attempted to speak. "S-Star!" He tried to yell out, although it came out as a pitiful whimper, audible to no one. He slammed his fist into the sand out of frustration, but calmed himself and slowly picked himself up, surveying the destruction.
"Was that an earthquake?" He thought, before realizing that he had forgotten what had happened right before that. 'No, it had to be something else. That guy carrying the surfboard...he turned into a pile of sludge! What in the hell was what? Is...is this Bren? Did he do this? No, that doesn't make any sense. Setting things on fire and killing people with demons are one thing, but controlling the elements and turning people into piles of sludge is...impossible. There's no magic. No spell to do anything like they with. He wouldn't-"
Realization hit Marco hit the face like a brick wall, and he recalled the events of the previous few days. Magic was still around. Demon magic. Rituals. Tom having his powers and Janna with all her secrets.
'Oh shit. Oh shit! The Underworld...he might control all of it. And the demon magic and all those rituals that Janna talked about…did he use one? Was that what all this was? Did he follow us here?!'
He suddenly panicked and started to run, before his chest reminded him of why he couldn't speak, and he collapsed to the ground, feeling like he just had a heart attack.
'Go slow. Go slow.' He thought. 'Running will make it worse. Get up again. But don't push yourself. Star's fine. She has to be. Whatever's happening, I'm sure it's nothing she can't handle.'
He got up again, clutching the sand and moving as slow as he could. After a minute or two of pure agony, he got himself back in his feet and moved back towards the destroyed boardwalk, bit by bit. He gazed at the various pieces of woods sticking out of the sand, almost looking natural.
He soon tried to call out for Star again, but his voice never left his throat, and the only noises he heard was the sound of his footsteps in the sand, the squawking of distant seagulls, and the faint crashing of the waves hitting the beach.
Which vanished a second later.
Maroc paused and stopped moving, trying to determine if he was hearing what he thought he was hearing. Which was to say, nothing at all. But there was no mistake. The sound of the waves had vanished, and Marco began to get a terrible feeling in his stomach. He turned around and looked at the ocean.
It was disappearing. All of it. Moving further and further out, showing no signs of coming back in. The entire sea was soon replaced with an empty, soggy desert, with fish that hadn't been fast enough to stay with the water flopping around in the sand.
'No no no no…'Marco thought, the feeling in his stomach tripling. He knew what this meant. He had to find Star. He had no time to waste. Moving as fast as he could without screaming in pain, he hobbled back towards the boardwalk, still trying to yell out Star's name every minute or so. He once more looked back at the ocean, only to see that it was finally returning, but in the form of a fifty foot high wall of water, moving faster than anything had the right to be.
Not even having time to say anything, Marco froze in place, transfixed in terror as the wave came down upon the beach, the impending wave sounding like an otherworldly roar. But calling it a simple wave would be inaccurate. The top of water wasn't curling over to hit the beach, but instead it was as if the entire ocean had picked itself up and gliding towards the land. He attempted to run, but his legs just weren't listening to his brain, and he looked up one last time as it surged over the sand dunes and crashed into him.
Instantly he entered what could only be described as a whole new world, being unable to see or hear anything but darkness and the constant roar, but still able to feel plenty. The water tossed him around like a dog with a chew toy, the sheer weight of the tsunami almost crushing him. He tried to swim to the surface, but any attempt at fighting it was futile. There was just no way, and the only thing he could do was hope that whatever magical god being that had probably caused the tsunami was in a merciful mood.
But whatever hope he had turned to despair as his vision faded and and an avalanche of water flowed into his lungs. The last thing he saw was a faint vision of Star, familiar faces, and random events from his life, all flashing before him. Accepting that there was nothing left he could do, he let himself sink to the bottom, still being pulled along against his will, and the last thing he saw was-
CRACK! In a sudden explosion of pain and sound, Marco was slammed into one of the boardwalks support pillars, back first. Despite hurting so much that he could see actual stars, he reacted quickly and wrapped his arms and legs around the pillar, making sure that the water wouldn't carry him any further. He clenched his teeth as he felt hundreds of tiny pieces of debris from the boardwalk slash his skin, the pillar doing almost nothing to protect him. It started getting so intense that he was afraid he would bleed out before he drowned.
But after what seemed like days, the water finally stopped moving, and came to a standstill that was safe enough to move in. Marco continued to clench his eyes shut and clawed his way up the pillar, the pain across his body now so intense that the water could have been acid, and he wouldn't have known the difference.
Somehow, despite having been underwater long enough that he should have drowned five times over, he ultimately made it to the surface of the water, grasping the top of the pillar and pulling himself up. He gasped for air, and then vomited an obscene amount of seawater, mixed with blood that was such a dark shade of red it was almost black in color.
He hung on to the top of the pillar when his mouth stopped acting like a miniature waterfall, and stayed there for a few seconds. He was in such a state of shock that he didn't even feel any pain. Nothing from his back, from the hundreds of cuts he had just received, nothing. He felt completely empty. It was like his soul had been ripped from his body.
Once he had gotten tired of waiting, and when the pain started to return, he groaned and pulled himself onto the pillar, perching himself on top of it. He sat there for a moment before lifting his head and looking around, wiping away the water that was dripping into his eyes.
"My god…"
It was a new world. The wave had demolished everything in its path, leaving nothing but an endless carpet of water. The only thing that was visible above the surface of the water were a few pillars like the one he was sitting on, along with a few damp pieces of wood. But everything else was buried underneath the infinite lake before him, crashing into each other like pinballs.
Marco didn't even know what to do. Wait for rescue? Try and swim for a better vantage point? Keep calling out, hoping that someone was there? No. No, none of these options worked. He might bleed out from the dozens of tiny gashes he received while hanging on to the pillar before rescue arrived. He was in no condition to swim. And everybody else that was on the boardwalk or beach at the time was definitely dead, either turned to liquid like that one guy or killed by the earthquake or tidal wave. Marco then stopped his thought process and froze, remembering the guy with the surfboard for the second time.
'What had that been?' Marco thought, thinking being the only option he had left. 'I've never seen anything like that, even when magic was still around. I can get the earthquake, and the tsunami happening right after it, but why did that guy melt? I didn't see anybody else melting. Unless Star did and I didn't see it...no. She's fine. Don't think about that. If I made it through this, then so can she.'
Not realizing that him surviving was by dumb luck alone, Marco convinced himself that Star was fine, and turned his attention back to his injuries as the pain started to return. The blood dripping off of him was painting the water around him a new shade of red, while his back hurt so much that his spine felt like it had been snapped in half.
'Isn't...there anything I can do?' He asked himself. 'Is the only thing left to do is wait here until I bleed out?!"
His question was answered when the endless lake of water below him started receding, sinking lower and lower into the ground.. But it didn't appear to be going back out to sea. It looked like it was being sucked down a drain. Marco watched in confusion as the water level dropped until it ceased entirely, vanishing beneath the sand and leaving Marco stranded on top of the pillar.
"Okayyy, that happened…" Marco said, completely unaffected by this after everything that had just happened. He looked down at the ground to check the destruction the wave had wrought, elsepaite knowing that he would regret it later.
It wasn't pretty. The tsunami had wiped everything clean, the only traces of the boardwalk left being the pillars and some broken and waterlogged pieces of wood. Marco grimaced at the scene and kept scanning it. But it was all the same pattern. Same random pieces of wood, same giant dunes, same odd mounds of red sand-
Wait. Red sand?
Marco looked closer at the beach, focusing on what appeared to be a pile of crimson colored sand. It stuck out like a stain against the rest of the beach, disfigured as it was. But the longer he looked, the more clear it became as to what it really was. In a sudden realization of disgust and horror, he noticed that it wasn't sand at all, but just a giant pile of blood and body parts.
His eyes widened and his breathing became more erratic as it all came into focus. What was once some random beachgoer was now a scarlet splatter so mangled beyond recognition that it had taken him a minute to see it as such, and now that he had, he soon looked past it and saw more just like it. Dozens of them. All different in shape and size, and all just as unrecognizable as the next. Each one having been a person, but each one now was nothing more than a clean-up job for somebody in the future.
Marco felt the urge to vomit and covered his mouth, gagging at the sight. But he couldn't take his eyes off the sight. He started searching for Star among the piles, looking for something that might stand. Clothes, some strands of blond hair, but he found nothing. Most of them weren't even in one spot, spread across the beach like chalk on a chalkboard.
Just as Marco gave in and was about to vomit, the ground started shaking again, grains of sand falling off the pillar as Marco hung on to it for dear life.
"Oh my god, what now?!" He screamed in anger. "Some kind of aftershock? How much more of this will I have to-"
Before he could finish his sentence, the pillar sank down into the ground a few feet, small explosions of sand popping at its base as the bottom few feet withdrew from the surface. It then sank another foot deeper, and the piles of bodies soon disappeared as well, sinking into the beach and vanishing from sight, exactly like the water had done just a few minutes ago.
Seeing what was about to happen, Marco ignored the pain as best he could and scrambled to his feet, getting on top of the pillar. Everything around him started sinking lower and lower into the ground, the pillar now only a few feet away.
Before he could do anything but panic internally, the pillar was completely buried under the beach by some unknown force, and Marco felt himself land on top of it, both of his feet sinking into the earth. He was suddenly yanked down another foot by whatever had claimed everything else, and was buried up to his knees.
"Nononono!" He yelled, his fingers tearing into the ground as he tried to pull himself out. But it was no use. Another hard jerk against his legs caused the beach to swallow him up to his stomach, and after that the sudden tugs against him stopped, replaced by a slow sinking process moving at one inch a second, with Marco unable to do anything about it.
Thirty seconds of frantic struggling later, only the top of his arms, neck, and his head remained. He soon felt the sand around him pour into his mouth and nose and cut off his breathing, and he tried to scream one last time as his head went under. His arms, the only part of him that remaining, uselessly flailed around before they too were consumed by the sand a moment later, victims of an unseen power.
Underneath the beach, Marco couldn't see or hear anything. The only thing he could compare it too was being trapped in the tidal wave less than a half hour ago, as he still felt everything around him as the hard sand rubbed against his skin and slowly flayed every inch of his body. But only a few seconds before all of his skin was torn off by his surroundings, his feet finally touched something solid, and everything except the pain ceased entirely.
Like it was never there to begin with, the environment vanished into thin air, and Marco, finally able to breath again, gasped and fell to his knees. He lifted his body up and looked into the surrounding darkness.
"Okay." He said, his fear now replaced with rage as he stopped caring about what would happen to him. "Okay. What's next, huh?! Whoever's doing this to me, come out and show yourself already! Stop torturing me with your tsunamis and all-consuming beaches! I just wanted to have one beach day with Star! Is that really too much too ask?!"
"Yes." A voice rang out from the darkness. Marco swiveled his head around towards the source, where he saw a familiar shadow standing there. "Oh come on." Marco said in exasperation, almost too tired to care at this point. "You're here now?"
Bren, the current bane of Marco's existence, stepped out of the darkness and snapped his fingers, and the entire area was illuminated in light. Marco instinctively shielded his eyes from the sudden change in brightness, and narrowed them as he tried to see where he was.
He was in the middle of a vast arena. A huge circle in the ground surrounded by gigantic walls, with crowds of...things, as they could only be described, standing behind the walls. They closely resembled the statues of the unknown deity Bren had at the fire sanctuary, only brought to life and all of them setting their eyes on Marco, glowing a brilliant white.
"Wha-what is this?" Marco asked Bren. "What's going on? Where's Star?"
"This is retribution." Bren said calmly. "For your crimes against the multiverse. Everything that just happened, the surfer turning into sludge, the earthquake, the tsunami, the beach swallowing you and bringing you here to us, it was all so we could torture you a bit before the final judgment. It was the cherry on top. The masterstroke to our plan. And now, it's time you, Marco Ubaldo Diaz of dimension Earth-473HRS, get what you deserve."
Marco didn't even know what to say. Everything was happening so fast, he was still in so much pain that his nerve endings were screaming at his brain, and to top it all off, he still had no idea if Star was dead or not. Or worse, if she was alive and thought he was dead.
"My friends…" Bren continued, now turning to the crowd of statues. "Marco is here for the crime of assisting in the destruction of magic, and therefore the destruction of the Planes of Fire by the hand of the void. Marco, how do you plead to these charges? Guilty, or not guilty?"
Marco paused and looked at the hundreds of eyes now staring back at him, all burning with a fiery hatred.
"Uh...not guilty?"
Bren burst out laughing, followed by everyone in the room, and Marco's heart dropped. "Not guilty he says! Well, I guess we'll see how the jury reacts to this. My friends, have you made your decision? Is Marco guilty of the crime, or will he be set free?"
Every voice in the room spoke simultaneously, echoing off the walls. "GUILTY."
"Then we are in agreement!" Bren said happily. "Marco is guilty and will be punished according to our laws."
"Hold on." Marco said in some attempt at stopping the events unfolding before him. "This whole trial of yours was rigged from the start! If you tortured me with the tsunami and the earthquake before this, then you already knew I was guilty of...whatever you're talking about. What kind of-"
"Marco, of course we already knew you were guilty." Bren said, shaking his head. "Everybody who's brought here is already known to be guilty. But this is our tradition. The tradition of the old ways of the fire god. But enough about that. Can't have you knowing too much." He looked back at the waiting eyes of the crowd. "Friends! The punishment! How will Marco be punished for this heinous crime?"
"Hang him!" Somebody yelled. "Hang him until his face turns purple and his tongue turns blue!"
"No!" Another yelled. "Drawn and quartered! Make it slow! Make him suffer!"
"Torture him to death!"
"Rip out his eyes!"
"Rub the rest of his skin off with oyster shells!"
"Burn him! Trial by fire!"
All of these voices called out from the darkness, while Marco's anger had been replaced with a familiar feeling of bottomless dread.
"May I suggest…" One of the statues said calmly, unlike the rest of it's brethren. "The rod."
This response was met with murmured whispers and several looks of surprise, and Marco couldn't tell if that was a good sign, or a bad one. Probably bad. Most things were.
His suspicions were proven correct when the loud yelling started up again, replaced by, "Yes!" And, "He's right! The rod is perfect for such a heinous crime!" Before long, the entire crowd was chanting the word "ROD", demanding the punishment.
"Alright, alright!" Bren said, putting his hands up. "Calm down my friends. Punishment by rod it is." This was met with several loud cheers and clapping noises as the crowd rejoiced that Bren has accepted their proposition.
"Now, does anyone have the rod?" He asked. "One of you must…"
"I do! I have the rod!" Somebody yelled, conveniently grabbing a long metal rod out of nowhere and throwing it over to Bren, who caught it without even looking. Marco backed away as he stared at it, trying to think of a way to escape. But he came up with none, and any scrap of hope he had left had been snatched away from him back on the beach.
Bren turned the rod around in his hands a few times, almost admiring it. But the rod was nothing special. Just a long, thin piece of metal with jagged ends. The only thing that made it stand out was that the ends were flaming red in color, as if someone had stuck them in a furnace. Bren touched one of the ends and then pulled his finger away, faking injury.
"Wow, that is burning hot." He said. "I'm sure you've guessed what's going to happen Marco. Punishment by rod is simple. I'm going to stab with this thing, and it will hurt. A lot. But don't worry too much. You won't die, no matter where I stab you. Heart, brain, doesn't matter. It's a way of making sure that you get what you deserve. The ultimate punishment for people such as yourself. So without any further ado…...let's get to it."
Bren then dashed towards Marco with superhuman speed, holding the rod behind him and preparing to strike. Marco backed away as far as he could, but Bren jumped in the air and practically glided towards him. He raised the rod high and slammed the burning end of it into Marco's left eyeball before he even had time to think, resulting in an explosion of pain greater than anything he had felt today.
Marco couldn't hold his voice in for even a second, and let a blood-curdling scream at the sudden sensation of the burning rod being twisted around in his head, his eyeball sizzling and popping as Bren pushed it in further and forced it out the back of his skull. Blood flowed out of the wound like a river and began bubbling and boiling at the intense heat.
A second later, Marco fell to his knees. The pain before was nothing compared to this. This was just pure agony, torment without end, and Bren grinned sadistically from ear to ear as he gave the rod one final shove and slammed it deep into the ground behind Marco, anchoring him in place.
"I…" Marco weakly cried out, still conscious and aware of everything. "Star…I..."
"Oh no." Bren said. "She's not here right now. But it is sweet that you're calling out for her. You really think that she's gonna save you? Or is this something else? Oh, I know what it is. Are you trying to tell her you love her? One last time? How cute. That's so sweet of you. But...it's over. The final judgment isn't mine to decide after all. It's his."
Bren backed away and a new figure came into Marco's view. He looked over with his one remaining eye and saw one of the statues approach and loom over him, a look of pity on its face. The crowd and Bren fell silent as the statue looked at him up and down, before loudly clearing its throat.
"Marco Diaz." It said. "By my judgment, your crime to the multiverse has been paid off by the suffering you just endured. From this point on, you will not die, at least not permanently, before Bren and every other problem you are going through has been taken care of. This I promise. But of course, this all depends on whether you can do it or not. And...one last thing. In time, a very short time, you will feel like your body doesn't belong to you. That another is using it. My only advice to you is to let it run its course. It will be much for pleasant for everyone involved. And now...wake."
It faded. It all faded to an endless black. The rod turned into nothing and vanished, and Marco fell on his back, staring at nothing and praying that he would just die already and be free from the pain.
And that prayer...after so long...was finally answered, in a way.
As it all faded, his eyes shot open again and before he even took a moment to register where he was, he got to his feet and screamed in a mixture of pain and shock.
"NO! STAR! BREN! ROD! EYE! WHERE...where…" He stopped screaming a second later, looking around and realizing that he was back on the boardwalk, with every pedestrian in a quarter mile now rubbernecking at him.
"Whoa! Whoa!" Star said, quickly getting up from the bench and approaching him. "Marco, are...you okay? What happened?"
He slowly turned and looked at her, trembling where he stood. "Star…" He said. He then looked at his body and saw that all his injuries were gone. His back didn't hurt. His eye didn't hurt. There weren't dozens of cuts etched into him or large patches of skin missing from where the sand had rubbed against it. He paused for a moment, realizing that he had simply woken up again, and then fell to his knees. He then started crying his eyes out, unsure whether it was out of joy from being free or if it was brought in by the trauma of everything he had just suffered.
"Marco?" Star asked, her own eyes beginning to tear up at the sight of Marco sobbing on the ground. Several people turned to watch the spectacle, but Star ran them off and then went back over to Marco.
"Hey…" She said. "It's okay. Did you have a bad dream or something? I...um...can you stand? Can we get to the bench?"
Marco nodded slowly and struggled to pick himself up, while Star grabbed his shoulder and helped him over to the bench. Once there, he started silently weeping while Star unsuccessfully tried to comfort him.
'How ironic.' She thought, wishing she knew what was going on. 'Just a while ago, I was the one crying uncontrollably, with Marco doing his best to help me through it. But now, less than half an hour later, it's literally the exact opposite. Like some kind of stupid cycle. Could beach day be any more ruined at this point?'
Her inner thoughts were soon answered when Marco finally stopped crying, his tear ducts empty and his bathing suit soaked from the river that had come out of his eyes. He wiped his face with his arm and turned to her.
"I'm so sorry." He said. "I just...I'm finally out. It was all just some sick nightmare. Just one after another. Just...oh my god. Oh my god, it wasn't fucking real." He buried his face in her shoulder, completely breaking down. Star jumped a little at this movement but then looked down at him and slowly rubbed his back, trying to calm him down.
But it did seem to work, at least a little. He let go of her a few minutes later and looked up at the sky, leaning back against the bench.
"Okay". Star said, unable to resist any longer. "I can tell that whatever you dreamt about, it was a horrible experience for you. But I want you to tell me so that I can help you through it. Like how I told you about my dream where Echo creek was on fire. Remember? Back at the diner? You helped with with that. So whatever this dream was that you had, tell me what happened so I can help you out."
"Please don't make me-"
"No." Star said. "I know it sounds mean, but I don't want to see you crying on the ground without knowing why. Because that's not you. You're not the type of person to do that for no reason. That's not the person I love. So tell me what's going on, and let me help you out."
Marco turned towards her, wishing that he could just sit on the bench in peace.
"Please." Star said with pleading eyes, tears starting to from in the edges of them. But despite seeing even this, Marco couldn't bring himself to tell her, and growled in frustration.
"ERGGG...I can't!" He yelled. "I don't want to tell you. Not because I think you don't deserve to know, but because I don't want to relive what I just went through! It was probably the most painful and horrendous experience of my entire life!"
Star paused, but then saw that she wouldn't be getting anywhere. As much as she wanted to, she decided to just let it go. For now. "Okay." She said. "Okay, I understand. But...Marco...I do want you to tell me eventually. That's the only way I can help you, and it's kind of our job as a couple to help each other."
"Maybe I will." Marco said. "But for now, Can we please go home. I need some time to think. By myself."
"Fine." Star said. "Let me just get my phone. I'm pretty sure I got it…"
Marco's entire body trembled as he got a sudden flashback of Star not having her phone, the same exact thing that had been the jumpstart of his entire nightmare. He decided that if he was still in the nightmare, then his mind, which was already as fragile as an eggshell after the things he just went through, might crack into pieces, and he would go stark raving mad out of anguish.
But thankfully, going insane was not on the schedule for today. Star smiled and whipped her phone out of her bag, holding it above her as if it were a trophy she had just won.
"Found it!" She said, while Marco breathed a huge sigh of relief. "I'll just call your mom, and then we'll just wait until she gets here. That good?"
Marco gave her a quick thumbs up and went back to sky gazing, seeing no shapes in the numerous clouds above. Just formless masses. Which is exactly how he felt at the moment. Star looked at Marco worriedly after what was almost a nonreaction, and then hurriedly called Angie.
Less than five seconds later, Angie answered with a cheerful, "Hello?"
"Hey." Star said. "Could you please come get us? I think we're both ready to go home. I'm tired out, and Marco is just…ready to go."
"Of course." Angie said. "I'll be there in a while. Just give me some time to get ready. Hopefully the drive there won't take too long." She said, sounding uncertain with her own words.
"Uh, is something wrong?" Star asked. "You sound really...doubtful. Everything at Echo creek is going okay, right? Nothing bad is happening?"
"For the most part." Angie said. "I'll...explain when I get there. Just sit tight." The line went dead, and Star stared at her phone in confusion and minor alarm.
"Oh Mewni, what happened now…" She wondered out loud. "I swear, if anything bad happened while we were gone, then I...I...I don't even know what I'll do. Nevermind that for now." She put her phone back in her bag and looked over at Marco, still staring into oblivion. "Marco, I just called your mom, and she'll be here in a little while. We'll be back home soon."
"Thank god." Marco said, the only part of him turning towards her being his eyes. "I need to clear my head. I just hope she doesn't take that long to get here, otherwise the thoughts in my head are gonna start making me want to kill myself."
"Uhh...okay." Star said, nothing short of disturbed by this. "But don't worry, it took us only half an hour to get here. Practically no time at all…"
One hour and several complaints from Marco later…
"Star, are you sure you called my mom?"
"Marco, I remember talking to her." Star said, legs crossed and letting her arms drape over the back of the bench. "I can actually show you the recording of the call if you want. Yes! Yes, I'm sure I called her. Now please stop asking that, that's like the tenth time! The answer isn't going to be any different."
"Seventh time actually."
"...Not even going to ask why you counted."
Star sighed in frustration and straightened up, rubbing her forehead with her hand while getting closer and closer to her breaking point. She had been sitting and waiting on the same damn bench for so long that everything below her waist was beginning to go numb, and she now loathed the bench with every ounce of her being, unsure as to why she was still bothering to sit on it.
Marco, on the other hand, was following a random pattern of sitting down, getting back up, pacing back and forth in an arbitrary way, and then sitting down again. All while frequently asking Star if she was sure that she had called his mom. After seeing the state that Marco had woken up in, sweating and panting like he just had his soul sucked out of him, she usually would have been more tolerant of his constant interrogation. But the sun was beating down on them, they were both still hungry and didn't have any money left, and to top it all off, they were constantly getting odd looks from passerbyers, no doubt confused by Marco's frantic pacing around the boardwalk.
But that wasn't even the weirdest part of what Marco had been doing. Before he had begun his whole sit/stand/pace ritual, he had been looking at the beach and scanning the horizon, wincing every time a wave hit the beach. Star even thought she had seen him jump back slightly when a particularly large wave came in, as if he was expecting it to go further and flood everything.
But as unnatural as this was, the thing that really caught Star's attention was when he stopped looking at the beach and rested his arms on the metal pole fence that stopped people from falling off the boardwalk. A second later, he slowly glanced down at it, and then lept away and stumbled backwards for a few seconds before slowly touching his left eye, as if to make sure that it was still there. Star didn't even know how to interpret that one. Was it the rust? The iron rods that made up the fence? Something else entirely?
She just couldn't understand any of it.
But back in the present, it had still been an hour, they were still waiting, and Marco was still pacing...sitting...pacing...infinity.
Star was about to give up on waiting for Angie to get there and start walking, but Marco stopped walking in circles and headed back towards the street, rounding a corner and disappearing from sight. Star blinked a few times, and then grabbed her bag and followed him, almost falling over from her legs still being asleep. She ran away from the boardwalk until she found Marco in front of a telephone pole, hitting his head against it at a leisurely pace. Star covered her eyes with her hand and then dragged it down her face, letting out an irritated moan. She couldn't take much more of this. She knew what she had to do to get him to stop. She ambled over towards Marco, her face looking like it had just woken up.
"Marco, what are you doing?"
"Banging my head against this pole until my brains spill out and I can end my miserable existence." Marco said, hardly even paying attention to her.
"Hm. Dramatic much?" Star asked, rolling her eyes. "Listen, you can do that if you want, but if my boyfriend's going to try and kill himself for a reason that I don't even know, then…" Star briefly hesitated, unsure if she should really push it that far, but she also knew that if this didn't bring him out of his zombie-like state, then nothing would. She made her choice.
"...then I'm going to break up with him." She continued.
Marco stopped and stared at her, his face now showing the slightest bit of emotion, one of visible worry and fear.
"You'd really do that?" He asked. "You'd really break up with me because of this? Because of this...phase I'm going through at the moment?"
"I wouldn't call this a phase, and yes, I might break up with you because of it." Star said. "Listen Marco, I get if you don't want to tell me something. Everybody has secrets. There are things about me that I haven't told you, simply because I don't want you to know. But if something happened to you in that dream, and it's affecting you this much, then you can either tell me and let me help you, or I'm going to leave, and you can go home by yourself when your mom gets here."
"Star…" Marco started. "You don't understand. What happened to me in that dream...no, in that nightmare, that nightmare that felt so much like real life, I was beaten. I was broken. Both physically and mentally. It was nothing but torture, and every second was pure hell. Even the worst of the worst of the things I went through in the Neverzone didn't compare to that."
"Then. What. Happened." Star said sternly. "I want to know, and I'm going to leave you here if you don't tell me. Because I'm not going to let myself see you like this. So either you're going to tell me everything, or I'm getting out of here, because at this point I'm seriously losing my patience. I don't care if this isn't like me, or if it's cruel to you, but I need to-"
"You really want to know?!" Marco yelled, now furious. "Okay, for starters, I had a burning metal rod shoved through my eye socket! I also had my skin nearly flayed off by sand, and before that I was practically bleeding out from hundreds of tiny cuts, and before that I nearly drowned in a tsunami! And before that, before any of that happened, I was caught in an earthquake and had the wind knocked out of me so bad that I could hardly walk. Oh! And I also nearly had my spine broken from being slammed into the boardwalk! And I felt every. Single. Excruciatingly painful bit of it. It was no dream. It was no nightmare. Whatever happened to me when I was asleep, it was all real."
Star took a few steps away from him, never having seen him so angry at her. "O-okay. That sounds pretty bad, but you're not hurt right now? You don't look like you're in any real pain."
"Oh, I'm in plenty of pain." Marco said. "Because I remember all of it. I can still feel all of it. My injuries may be gone, but the memories are still there, like having a bad taste in your mouth. You just can't get rid of it."
Star looked to the side and rubbed her arm. "I...I didn't mean to-"
"No." Marco said, putting a hand up and looked away from her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you like that. The last thing I want is for us to be apart. But after all your constant nagging, I couldn't control myself and I just snapped. I didn't mean too. But you weren't there. You don't know. You just…weren't there."
"I know..." Star said. "And I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have kept asking you about it. I just wanted to help you. Like you helped me when I couldn't take it anymore and ran behind that shop and started sobbing. I thought that beach day was ruined, just like almost every other good thing in my life has been ruined. But you got me through it, so I knew I had to help you get through whatever you were going through."
"I think I already ruined beach day though…" Marco said. "When we look back on this day, we're not going to smile. We're not going to be happy we did this. We-"
Star walked over to him and put a finger on his lips. "Don't think like that. Yes, beach day is practically over. But that doesn't mean we have to think of it as a disaster. We had fun. Remember us playing in the waves? Me chasing you around with a fish? Us eating nachos together and leaning against each other?"
Marco scratched the back of his head, with a small smile started to form on the edges of his mouth. "Yeah. That was fun doing all that with you. Kind of reminds me of the old days."
"Exactly." Star said. "So why worry? Why focus on what happened in the past? The only good thing the past is for is making sure we don't repeat the same mistakes. Everything else? Ah, we don't need it. We're still together. And I still love you. I'll always love you. No matter what."
"No matter what?" Marco asked.
Star's eyes looked to her right as she dubiously thought this over. "Well...maybe there's one or two things that would make me stop loving you. But I know you would never do them. So they're not important."
Marco's head dropped, and he let out a tiny, "Okay."
"Good." Star said. "All better now?"
"No. Absolutely not." Marco said. "I'm still thinking about that dream."
"Oh for the love of...can't you just-" Star said, before being stopped by Marco.
"But it's okay." Marco said. "Because I think I have an idea. One that popped into my head just now."
"An idea?" Star asked, her right eyebrow raised in curiosity. "What kind of idea?"
"I'll tell you later." Marco said. "Maybe on the car ride home, or maybe when we get home. I have to think it over all the way. But I can tell you that it might be the solution to all our problems."
"That sounds promising." Star said. "But this time, I want you to-"
She was interrupted by a loud buzzing noise, and both of them glanced down at Star's bag, the source of the noise. Star granger her bag and rummaged around in it for a minute before pulling out her phone.
"Huh." She said. "Couldn't have come at a better time. Your moms here. Sent me a text message, and she's waiting for us in the exact spot where she dropped us off."
"She's here?" Marco asked. "Right now?"
"Yeah, we can finally leav-"
Before Star could finish her sentence, Marco turned around and started to sprint for the car, seeming to know exactly where he was going. Star granger her bag and ran after him as fast as she could, and eventually caught up and grabbed his shoulder.
"Wait!" She yelled. "We need to discuss one more thing."
"Can we discuss it in the car?" Marco asked, eager to leave this whole beach incident behind him.
"No." Star said. "Listen, I don't think we should tell your mom about any bad stuff that happened while we were here. Nothing about the sand sculpture looking like the magic sanctuary, about crying behind that shop, about your crying because of that nightmare, or about the conversation she just had. I don't want her to get freaked out."
"That...is a very good idea." Marco said. "Okay. Agreed. We keep quiet about it. Don't tell her about any of the bad stuff."
They both nodded at each other and then resumed their mad dash back to the car, swerving around pedestrians and street poles. A minute and several close calls later, they had the car in their sights and slowed down as to not make Angie suspicious. They both calmly strolled over and opened the back seat, putting their bags on the floor before piling it and putting their seatbelts on. As they let themselves sink into their seats, Angie turned around and gave them the friendliest smile either of them had ever seen, almost looking like she was trying to hard.
"Hey you two." She said, putting on a rather pleasant tone. "Did you have fun at your beach day? You both look pretty worn out…"
Star and Marco quickly exchanged glances, resulting in both of them having a thousand yard stare, and then simultaneously responded with an unconvincing, "Yes."
"Aw, that's good." Angie said, bringing her focus back to the car. "Tell you what, let me get us on our way back home, and then you guys can tell about all the things you did."
If Angie had turned around in that exact moment, then the look on Star and Marco's faces would have made her realize they wanted to do anything but that. But alas, the two teens had agreed to not tell her about how beach day was nothing short of a few hours of straight torture, so a few white lies would have to do instead.
Angie started the car and then turned it around, getting them back on the main road and back to Echo creek/Earthni. But no more than a minute later, they were stopped by what could only be described as a ludicrous amount of traffic, a combination of people trying to get to the beach as well as leaving it. The "leaving" side of the highway was a little better, but only by the slimmest of margins and Angie, seeing that they were now trapped, decided that it would be a good time to start her querying.
"So you two…" She said, still having a rather cheerful demeanor. "What did you do? Go in the boardwalk? Play in the waves? Make sand castles?"
"Yes, yes, and yes." Star said, putting on her best happy face. "The first thing we did was set up our towels, and then we played in the waves a bit, and, um, I tried to make Marco eat a fish."
Angie chuckled a bit at this. "Let me guess, he made a bet with you he never thought would actually happen? He had a tendency to do that when he was younger. Made for some entertaining family dinners. But...you didn't really make him eat it, did you?"
"No." Star said. "He tried to convince me that he was joking, so eventually I stopped chasing him around with it. But I knew you weren't joking at the time Marco, it's just that I also knew you would never take a real bite out of it." She let out a conspicuously fake laugh, grabbing Marco's hand and squeezing it. Marco looked at her like she was mental, but Star gave him a glare they told him to go along with it.
"Oh yeah." He said. "That was really funny." He then let out an equally nervous laugh, and Angie raised an eyebrow and gave them both a strange look through the rear view mirror.
"Ok…" She said. "Then what happened?"
"Well, we got out of the water, laid on our towels for a bit, and...then I got the idea to make a sand castle! Or really a sand head, since I tried to make Marco's head out of sand, but then he ruined it by saying it looked nothing like him."
"To be fair, the only part that looked like me was the rock you put on it to make my mole." Marco said. "Other then that, way off."
"Oh you…" Star started, before stopping herself so it didn't escalate into a full-blown argument. "Nevermind. But yeah, after that, I went to go lay back on my towel, and Marco wandered off down the beach."
"And I saw a lot of cool things." He said. "Some cool rocks, some seashells, a dolphin, maybe even an albatross or two...all very cool stuff."
"Sounds like fun." Star said. "I just daydreamed for a while, which...wasn't fun. Looking back, I should have just gone on that beach walk with you."
"Errrr…" Marco stalled, remembering his previous screaming session at the sky, the Brainsaya returning but also being someone else and actually being helpful, then Star sobbing behind a restaurant like he did about twenty minutes later. "I...don't you think you would have enjoyed it. But anyways, after I got back, we went to the boardwalk and got some nachos for lunch, then we called you and waited until you got here."
"Nothing...else?" Angie asked.
"Nope!" Star said. "Absolutely nothing at all! It was a pretty good day."
"Well, that's good." Angie said. "But, now I'd like to know what parts you left out, and what parts you altered to sound better."
"Uhh...what are you talking about?" Star asked, still putting on a phony smile and the feeling of dread in her stomach returning.
"Star…" Angie sighed. "I know that you two left a lot of parts out. I knew it the second I hear Marco laughing. Marco, you're my son. I know what your laugh sounds like, when you find something actually funny. And that...was not it. What are you so nervous about?"
"N-nothing." Marco said anxiously. "I was just pretending to find Star's joke funny. Didn't want to...upset her."
"Oh you!" Star said, thinking fast and lightly punching his arm. "It's okay . He does this all the time. But one day, I'll get him to laugh for real, right Marco?"
"Yeah. Of course." He said. "But you're really need to work on it. I'm not even sure if it could be considered a joke."
"It was totally a joke…" Star said, making sure to play along with it.
Angie moved her fingers up and down on the steering wheel, before speaking with a skeptical tone. "Alright.
But if you two do have anything you want to tell me, it's okay. I'll understand no matter what it is."
"We know." Star said. "You don't have to worry about us. If there was a real problem that we thought we couldn't take care of, then we would tell you. But there's none of that here."
"Yup." Marco said, nodding along with her. "No problems. None at all."
"Hm. Then I'm glad." Angie said, despite knowing full well that they were still lying to her about everything. "I just don't want you two to worry too much about stuff. So much has happened lately…"
"That...reminds me." Star said. "When I called you on the phone earlier, you said that you'd explain something to us when you got here. So what's the big deal? Obviously, something held you up, you also said that, but was it the traffic, or something else."
"Something else…" Angie said. "It's Rafael."
"Dad?" Marco asked. "What happened? Is something wrong with him!? Is he oka-"
"I'm sure he's fine!" Angie said, trying to stop her sons frantic inquiring. "He's just not home yet. He said he'd come straight home and tell me what happened at Eclipsa's speech, but that was hours ago. So I'm starting to get a little worried."
"Did-did you call him?" Star asked. "Try and find out where he is?"
"I did, but he isn't answering his cell phone." Angie said. "But I'm not really worried about that, since he has a habit of forgetting to charge it the night before, so it likely just ran out of battery."
"I hope so. Marco, what do you thi-" She started to say, before stopping cold when she saw the look on Marco's face. He looked like he was frozen in shock, the only part of him being his left eye, which was slowly twitching as if his eggshell mind had finally been fractured.
But then he smiled.
And almost like a reflex, Star let out a silent gasp. Because she had seen that smile before. One she had seen many times before, only not on Marco. It was the same type of smile Janna had when she was planning to do something she wasn't supposed to. One of cunningness and trickery. A smile that looked like some kind of twisted copy of Marco's real smile. She was just about to say something when-
"Did you hear that Marco?" Angie asked, making Marco snap to attention, his smile vanishing and being replaced by a typical Marco frown. "You don't look like you're paying attention…"
"Hm? Oh yeah, sorry." Marco said. "I was just thinking of something. I'm sure dads fine though. Probably just got caught up in something important."
"True." Angie said. "But I'm still a little worried. If he's not home when we get back, then I'm going to start asking around...see if anyone's seen him."
"You...you do that." Star said, her eyes darting over at Marco, making sure that he no longer had the Janna smile. "Me and Marco...are just going to relax a bit."
"Actually…" Marco started. "There's something we need to do. I just thought of it, and I think that it's something that I- I mean, we should do. Together."
"And what is it?" Star asked.
"I'll tell you when we get back home." Marco said. "It's...it's kind of private. But I can tell you it's been a long time coming."
"I see…" Star said, her mind filling up with possibilities of what he was talking about. Some of them were good, some of them made her cheeks start to turn red, and some of them she knew would never happen. At least not right now. But what if they did? Where would they go forward fro-
'Wait, why am I thinking about that?' She thought. 'Whatever Marco was talking about doesn't matter in the slightest. More important things to think about. What was that smile he had? That was easily the creepiest thing I've ever seen him-okay, that's not true. But definitely the creepiest thing I've seen him do all day. He looked like he was planning something. And what was up with his eye? It was twitching like he had gone insane! I just...I just...ugh. I can't. I just can't deal with any more bullshit right now. We're going to go home, whatever Marco was talking about is gonna happen...maybe...probably...hopefully? Depends. But after that, we're just going to lie back and do nothing for the rest of the day.'
As Star kept thinking to herself, the traffic starters to clear up, and they finally managed to get the car moving more than a few inches per minute. The landscape got more and more different as they silently made their way back to the town, with Angie listening to the radio, Marco sitting up straight with an expression of deep thought, and for once, Star was leaning against the car window instead of against Marco. She still wasn't sure if he was in his right mind. Not after the grinch-esque smile he had made.
But Star's focus on Marco eventually blanked out, and the car and everyone in it left the beach behind, with the surrounding landscape became more and more similar to Mewni as they got closer. But still none of them said a word. Nothing to be said perhaps? Or all of them knew that none of the others were in a mood to talk. But whatever the reason, the inside of the car was painted by a deathly silence, almost as if some great tragedy had just occurred.
And so the silence continued the rest of the way home.
Entering the city limits and the main town, Angie had to carefully swerve around the various lines of cones and police tape that crossed off ransoms pieces of rubble and foot-shaped potholes from when...well, that unfortunate incident doesn't need another mention. And nobody believed this more than the citizens. As Star looked out the window, she could see dozens of people working as hard as they could to clear the streets as well as making the most necessary repairs to the town. It seemed as if her speech had made everyone turn a new leaf.
But they left the main town in the dust and entered the neighborhoods, where damage was minimal. They all breathed a silent sigh of relief as Angie pulled into the driveway and stopped the car, and they all remained sitting for a few moments, happy to be back home.
Before Star could get out however, Marco leaned over to her and whispered in her ear.
"Your room." He said softly. "Wait for me, don't do anything else, don't tell my mom, just wait. There's something I need to tell you." He then unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the car door on his side, getting out and waiting for her.
'Oh my Mewni.' Star thought, a flurry of ideas flowing into her mind alongside a river of emotions. 'Is this really happening? Are we really going to…? I mean, I don't think I'm complaining, but this seems kind of random, and really sudden, especially after what he went through with that nightmare. I'm not going to say no, but something tells me that it wouldn't be wise to say yes. I guess I'll just...see how it goes.'
Star grabbed her bags and climbed out, slowly walking past Marco and towards the front door, before she realized she wouldn't be able to get in.
"Hey, Mrs. Diaz?" She said. "Can you unlock the do-"
"Here you go." Angie said, tossing the keys to Star. "You go inside and relax. I actually want to talk to Marco about something. In private, if it's not too much trouble."
"Uh, sure." Star said, unlocking the door and heading in. She took one last look at the two of them and then walked up the stairs to her room, carefully closing the door behind her.
Marco watched her leave, and then turned back to his mom. "So, what do you want to talk to me about?"
"Marco…" She said slowly. "I think your father should be the one to tell you this, but if you and Star want to do this right now, then I don't think it would be right for me to try and stop you."
Marco's eyes slowly darted from side to side and then back to Angie, unsure as to what she was getting at. "Um, what are you-"
"I heard your little conversation with Star when we were stuck in traffic." She said. "About how there was something private you two needed to do together, and just now I heard you tell her to go to her room and wait for you."
"How did you hear that?" Marco asked. "I was literally speaking as low as I could!"
Angie smiled. "A mother hears everything, especially the things you're trying to hide from her. But I just want you to know that if you and Star are...well, having fun together, then I ought to remind you that you should always use protection when doing that sort of thing so she doesn't get-"
Before she had even finished her sentence, Marco's cheeks had turned fire engine red out of embarrassment, and he put both his hands up in front of himself and start waving them wildly.
"NONONONO!" He yelled in a frenzy. "Not that! Not that! That's definitely not what I was talking about! I was talking to her about...something else. But not about that. Trust me, we're close, but I don't think we're there yet."
"Oh." Angie said. "Well then...nevermind? But what are you two doing then?"
"Like you heard, that's private." Marco said. "I don't think you would understand if I told you."
Angie laughed out loud, nearly doubling over in the process. "Marco, I didn't understand half of what was going on when Star was living with us and still had her magic. I'm not sure I do now. So if there's something happening between you and her, then the odds are I'm not going to understand it even if you tell me. Don't worry about it."
"Thanks mom." Marco said. "I'm glad that someone gets it. I don't think anyone else would if I told them."
"Of course." She said. "I get that all teenage boys have a few secrets, and it's usually best if the parents don't know those secrets, for everyone's sake. But seriously, about what I said earlier, if you and Star do decide to take your relationship further, don't forget what I said about-"
"Thanks mom! Gotta go! Bye!" Marco yelled, before rushing inside. Angie roller her eyes and then turned around and started walking towards the town.
"Well, time to find Rafael." She said to herself. "Worst case scenario, he's using a payphone to call that sad teen hotline again. Wouldn't even want to know what it would be about this time…"
Meanwhile, in Star's room…
"Hmmm...what to wear, what to wear? Light green dress? Nah, been wearing that one too much. That dark green dress that I never wore? Hm, there's gotta be a reason I never wore it. Better not take the risk. Ugh, isn't there anything I have that isn't boring?"
At the same time Angies awkward conversation with Marco was taking place, Star had gone up to her room and had taken her bathing suit off, then started desperately searching for something new to wear. Most of the current options disappointed her at the moment, and she stopped and stared at the closet.
"Although…" She wondered out loud. "If me and Marco are doing what I think we're doing, should I even get any more clothes on? Might make it easier...or simpler...or something. Jeez, why couldn't he have told me about this at an earlier date? I've never done this crap before…"
As she scratched at her lip and her head started to fill up with more and more lewd thoughts, she could see that she was getting ahead of herself, and quickly slapped both of her cheeks multiple times, trying to focus.
"No, don't do that." She said, before walking over to her mirror and staring at herself in it. "There a chance that Marco's not talking about that kind of stuff, and it would be really awkward if he just came into my room with me wearing nothing but my underwear and he wasn't in the mood for that. Get some clothes on. Doesn't matter what it is."
She strolled back over to her closet and there on her green dress and her pink and white-striped leggings, and then sat down on her bed to wait for Marco. Soon, she heard him coming up the stairs, and she swallowed hard and got up, but when he reached the top of the steps he went straight into the bathroom. Star tilted her head as she heard several loud clangs of metal, and then Marco left and came into her bedroom, and Star found herself dumbfounded at the sight before her.
Marco was standing there, wearing a fresh set of clothes, a crazed look in his eyes, holding a metal rod that looked like a towel rack he had grabbed from the bathroom. And he had that smile again. The Janna smile. The smile no human (or any other creature for that matter) other then Janna should be allowed to make.
"Uhhhh…" Star said while backing away from him in a panic.
"Get your shoes on." Marco said. "We're heading out. It's a good thing my mom decided to go look for my dad, or else we'd have to sneak out the window."
"Heading out?" Star asked. "Where are we going?
"The magic sanctuary." He said, not skipping a beat. "We're gonna go there, and Bren's gonna be there, and he's gonna have my dad, and then I'm going to kill him by shoving this in his eyeball." He held up the towel bar. "Any questions?"
Star's mouth hung slightly open as she processed everything he had said. Once done, she smacked her forehead with her hand, facepalming so hard that it left a visible red mark.
"Do I have any questions?" She said, utterly flabbergasted. "Yeah, I think I have a few. First question...are you completely insane? What in the hell makes you think any of that is a good idea?"
"Think about it." Marco said, taking a step closer to her. "Why would my dad go missing the same day we went to the beach? It's because Bren knew that we were going and he decided to act while we were gone!"
"That's not what I asked." Star said. "What makes you think you can just stroll in there and start making demands? Even if he does have your dad, which I sincerely doubt, then why would he just hand him over if you asked him too? What would you say? "Hello Bren. I know we hate each other and you want to kill us, but you appear to have kidnapped my dad. Would you be so kind as to unkidnap him?" How do you think that's gonna go Marco?"
"I'm not going to ask him anything." Marco said. "You're going to distract him, and then I'm going to use this rod to kill him, and then we're going to find my dad. Two for one. Bren dies, and my dad is out of his clutches."
"Again, that's a terrible idea." Star said, sitting back down on her bed. "Did you really forget that Bren has Tom as backup? He'd just have him kill us if we tried anything. All it would take is one well-placed fireball and poof, no more Marco. Just a little pile of ash, that rod sticking out of it like some kind of macabre gravestone. No, I'm not going to do that. You're not going to do that. If you try, then I'm going to stop you, and I don't care how I do it. I'm not going to let you throw your life away."
"Doesn't matter." Marco said. "I-"
"Wait." Star said, recalling an earlier conversation between Marco and her. "Is this what you were talking about back at that pole? The "solution to all our problems"? Is that what this is?"
"Partially…" Marco said. "In that moment, I realized that if I could just kill Bren, then our problems would be over. But I hadn't decided whether I should really do it or not. But when I heard my dad went missing, I realized that he had probably kidnapped him, so I had yet another reason to kill him, and then my mind was set. I have to do this Star."
"No, you don't!" Star said. "Yes, Bren has to die. Or at least we have to stop him. And also yes, if your dad is actually in danger and not just walking around town, then we should save him. But you're not thinking this through. Marco, if you try to kill Bren, then you. Will. Die."
"Then that's the way it's gonna be." Marco said. "Because like I said in the car, this has been a long time coming, and we're doing it together. When I told you that back on the highway, what did you think I was talking about?"
"What did I think? What did I think?! I thought you were talking about having sex!" Star yelled, jumping up and casually yanking the bar away from him. "Not going on some kind of suicide mission! I'm not doing this with you!"
Marco looked to the side and turned away from Star, before walking towards her window. "Yeah, my mom thought that's what I was talking about too. But trust me, this is more important. We shouldn't do any of that stuff. Hell, even stuff like going on dates should be postponed until we stop that little shit. So fine. If you don't want to help me, then I'll do it myself."
Star growled and slightly bent the bar in her hands, her arm muscles straining. "You…" She started. "This...this is not like you. What has been going on lately? First that dream, then the car ride home with that weird smile, and now you're suggesting we don't even hang out anymore? What in the fuck is wrong with you?! It's like you're switching from one mindset to another in the blink of an eye! And it all started with that dream you had! At this point, I don't care what happened to you in there Marco. But I will not let it control you this much. Maybe I'll go talk to Janna. Maybe she has a demon ritual for erasing memories. Because at this point, I don't know what else to do. It's only been a few hours, but it's already tearing us apart by the seams. And if one more seam snaps, then I might snap as well."
Marco didn't say anything to this at first. He moved closer it then window and looked out at the town, surveying all of it.
"You really want to know what's been going on with me lately?" He asked her. "I don't know. There. I said it. I don't know. Ever since I had that nightmare, these thoughts have just been popping into my head. I don't know why, but I can't control them. It's like they're coming from someone else. Like someone is putting them there."
"And that means what?" Star asked, her grip on the bar loosening.
Marco visibly winced at the question, and then looked back to her. "It means that wherever I'm getting these ideas...I don't think they're coming from my own head. I think they're coming from somebody else."
"That's impossible." Star said. "Magic is gone. Spells are gone. The entire damn dimension disintegrated or something. There's no magic except...except...oh. There is magic. Those demon rituals. Forgot about that."
"See?" Marco asked. "What if it's a demon ritual?" He asked her. "Sure, we don't know much about that stuff, but Bren could be doing that! He could have forced Tom to teach him."
"Why would be do that?" Star asked. "Why would he want you to try and kill him?"
"Did you forget?" Marco asked. "The first time we met Bren, he told us that he wanted us to try and stop him anyway we could. If he wants that, then it would make perfect sense for him to tell me to kill him."
"If that's true, then we're doing exactly what he wants." Star said. "But either way, it's the same deal. Going to the magic sanctuary is a horrible idea, whether Bren has your father or not, whether he's putting crazy thoughts in your head or not, or whether he's doing none of that in the first place!"
Marco started shaking in anger and his fists clenched up. "I don't care." He said. "I'm going, and if you're not going to help me, then I-"
"See, you're doing it again!" Star yelled. "Acting like someone you're not! What was that? Did you just have another thought put into your mind? This isn't the Marco I love! It's not going to be the Marco I love."
"But don't you see?!" Marco shrieked in rage. "We are never going to be happy unless he dies! He's everywhere! At the beach, in our personal lives, and in my nightmares! He is ruining every single thing we worked so hard to accomplish!"
"I know." Star sighed, not letting herself back anymore away from him. "He's ruining our lives. But you can't just go and try to fight him! You don't know what he's capable of!"
"And you do?!"
"No!" Star shouted. "I don't either! But that's what scares me! All the enemies we fought in the past, I knew something about them, I knew what they wanted. Ludo wanted my wand, Toffee wanted the destruction of the wand, Meteora wanted to take over the kingdom, and Mina wanted to get rid of all the monsters! And even those enemies, people that we fought before and had time to prepare against, we almost lost to them. So, if you go in knowing basically nothing about Bren, guns blazing, what do you think will happen?"
"That's unimportant." Marco said. "And as for the other enemies, we still beat them. Ludo was a loser, Toffee didn't think of all the variables, Meteora just wasn't strong enough, and Mina made the mistake of becoming a turncoat. They all had flaws. And Bren's flaw is what you said earlier. He wants us to stop him. He wants a fight. So I'm going to do just that, and finally end this."
"But he's-"
"No." Marco said, as his gaze dropped to the floor. "Star...I love you. I love you more than anything. But there is not a single thing you can stay to stop me from doing this. From doing what's right."
"Nothing at all?" Star asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
"Nothing."
"Well then…" She started. "It's official. This really isn't you. This is not my Marco. Something happened to you in that nightmare, didn't it? You were infected or possessed by something, and that something is what was putting those thoughts into your head, and now you've given in to it entirely."
"What are you talking about?" Marco growled. "It's me. It's always been me. Don't jump to conclusions so fas-"
"Cut the crap!" Star yelled. "Is there more than one mind in that body? Who else is in there with you? Who am I really speaking too right now?"
"Me! Marco!" He yelled, taking an angry step forward. "There is nobody in here with me, everything I'm doing is of my own free will."
"You're wrong." Star said. "The Marco I know would never think to do such an idiotic plan! He would never throw himself in danger so recklessly! He would never do this!"
"Then you don't know me as well as you thought you did."
Star gulped and tightened her grip on the towel bar. "So you're still going to the magic sanctuary?"
Marco nodded, his unblinking eyes focused on nothing else but the bar that Star had so nonchalantly plucked away from him, like a predator with its eyes set on a kill.
"And there's nothing I can do to stop you? Nothing to say?"
"We already established that." Marco said. "Nil. Nowt. Nada! Not a single thing!"
Star glowered and raised the towel bar, turning it around a few times in her hand before holding it up like a club. "That's not going to happen." She said. "You're not going anywhere."
Marco scoffed. "Are you really going to fight me?"
"Yeah, I am." Star said. "It's not really you after all. You're not Marco. You're just something that's taken control of him. And if I have to beat you out of him, then that's the way it's gonna be."
"Oh. My. God!" Marco said, the irritation in his voice kicking up to eleven. "How can you be so sure that I'm not Mar-"
"You scoffed."
"Huh?"
"When I held up this bar and got ready to fight you, you scoffed. Marco would not do that. He would ask me what I was doing, or he would look panicked. He wouldn't scoff at me. So once again, for maybe...what, the third time? That's confirms it. See, I don't know who you are. I don't know if you're Bren, or if you're working with or against him, but I'm not going to let our relationship be torn to pieces by you."
"Marco" stood silently, his arms tediously dropping to his sides as a bored expression flashed across his face. Star saw that whatever was controlling him was done hiding.
"So…" Star started. "GIVE ME BACK MY BOYFRIEND!"
She charged. Bar raised in the air, ready to aim for the exact spot that she knew would knock "Marco" out instantly. But as she got only a few feet away, "Marco" blinked, and when he opened his eyes, Star almost froze in place, because those eyes were not the ones she knew.
The brown, beautiful eyes that she had come to know and love had been replaced by two soulless pits, his irises now a blazing orange in color, staring into her very soul. Her own eyes opened wide as she realized where she had seen those eyes before.
They were Bren's.
Yes, they were a perfect match. The color, the deep, dead look in them, even his pupils looked like they had changed. But as much as her brain told her to stop, she couldn't if she wanted to know. She was on a mission, and that mission was to save the love of her life from himself. And whatever was turning his eyes all Breny.
The distance between reached no less than a meter, and she swung the bar down, pointing it at the direct center of his cranium. Star knew that if she did it right it wouldn't kill him, but it would knock him out for the better part of the day. Plenty of time to bring him to Janna and have her figure out if it was a demon ritual making him go crazy, or something even worse. Probably worse.
But "Marco" has other plans. He casually grabbed the bar when it was an inch from his skull, ripping it out of her grasp so fast that it scratched her hand bloody. He then retaliated by punching her in the jaw, sending her flying to the ground and sliding several feet away from him.
On the floor, Star groaned and painfully clutched her chin, making sure Marco hadn't broken anything. Her eyes darted towards him, where he simply stood, waiting for her. He looked at the bar and bent it back to its original position, before throwing it aside like a piece of garbage, seeming set on fighting her with his bare hands.
'Dammit.' She thought, lifting herself up off the ground. 'He's not holding back. That was one hell of a punch. It was strong. Too strong almost...and why isn't he clutching his hand in pain? Punching someone in the jaw usually hurts the puncher a lot more than the punchee! Why-'
"Make your move." "Marco" said, impatient. "This is growing tiresome, I've got someone to kill, and I'd rather it not be you."
"Funny way of showing it…" Star mumbled, readying herself to attack again. 'Think.' She thought. 'He seems to be a lot stronger than normal, he's not holding back, but he did say he'd rather not kill me. I have to use that. Hit him anyway I can. Alright. Get him to the ground. Those wrestling moves I saw on TV once, along with the ones my dad showed me. If I get behind him, I think I can take him down. Then chokehold...knock him out...and that should be it.'
Now having a plan she was certain would work, Star rushed around Marco, watching him as close as she could, preparing herself for any attacks.
But what happened next could be described in many different ways.
One-sided. Unfair. Savage. Cruel. Barbaric. Star rushed at Marco, but he was ready for her, and he stepsided, grabbed her by the neck, and landed blow after unrelenting blow upon her body, each one making a bruise the size of his fist, each one scarring her mind as her soulmate beat her to the ground.
Every time she managed to land a pitiful hit on him, he hit back twice as hard. Her Johansen strength was of no use in this fight, as Marco was fueled by something much more powerful and ancient, the power of whatever creature had invaded his mind, the true enemy of this fight.
It finally reached its peak when Marco threw her against the wall and she fell to the floor, hacking and coughing up blood on her knees.
'Don't stop.' Her mind barked at her, futile as it was. 'Get up. GET THE FUCK UP! You have to stop him. He's not going to listen. You have too-OH MY GOD!'
Stars mouth hung open in horror as she saw Marco literally pick her bed off the ground, lifting it as if it was a plastic tub toy. He shook the blanket and mattress off of it, then slowly approached her and prepared to crush her with the beds metal frame, raising it high above his head.
Now seeing nothing but the end approaching, Star looked back to the floor and shut her eyes as tight as she could, unable to watch "Marco" kill her and knowing that pleading with him would be fruitless.
And "Marco" did nothing but smirk in amusement, any semblance of his former personality forgotten and replaced by a compassionless monstrosity.
Which only lasted as long as it needed to.
A hairbreadth away from finishing Star off with the bed frame, "Marco" realized what he was about to do and came somewhat to his senses, his eyes fading back to their usually brown and his inhuman strength wholly dissipating. He dropped the frame and loomed over Star, his mind overflowing with dozens of conflicting emotions as what he just did came back to him.
"I...I…" He started, but before he could say anything more, the voices in his head came back at full force, whispering poison in his ear, and he once again found himself unable to do anything but obey their commands.
He straightened himself up and took on a deadpan expression, before walking over to the towel bar and concealed it by stuffing it in the back of his shirt. He then looked at Star like she wasn't really there, before exiting the room and leaving the house, his sole destination being one of two things on his mind, alongside a bottomless desire for revenge.
Star watched all this happen, unable to prevent it anymore, and then crawled over to her bedroom wall and leaned against it as she fought to keep herself from falling unconscious. But the trauma of everything she had came at her all at once, and she fainted and slumped to the floor, the last thought echoing in her mind being some kind of Mewnian orison, pleading that Marco would come back to her and stop what he was doing.
But nobody answered, and there was nobody listening.
There never was.
End chapter 14
A/N: Wow, what an uplifting chapter. Just like Marco's personality, switching from one horrible thing to another just like that! Ten pages of Marco getting tortured, (I counted) then him and Star having another argument, the car ride home being a lying session, possible sex scene that turned out to be a fluke, (just so you know, if I ever do something like that, which I honestly might one day, then it's gonna be much more sudden then what we saw) and then Star and "Marco" fought, and "Marco" almost killed her.
And now he's off on a suicide mission. I think we have another fight incoming, and it's not going to be in "Marco's" favor.
Oh, and he's not possessed. Not fully. Just being influenced, and unable to resist the sway of power. But I should let the future chapters speak for themselves...
But gods, I went back and forth with what I should put in this chapter. Hopefully I made the right decisions here.
Oh, and addressing the over two and a half week wait time, sorry for that. I hope to make two chapters per month from now on, or something along those lines.
Until next time.
