"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

Vartek screamed loud enough to deafen all parties present, an invisible shockwave of force rippling through the air around him. A blinding light overtook his vision before a burning pain buried itself into his left eye socket, like hot iron steaming into his skull. He dropped the girl and brought both hands to his face, quickly pulling the object from his eye and cupping his wound, his pained screaming echoing around him.

As corrupted magic oozed from the new hole in his face, Vartek could sense the girl floundering for her wand and running. He couldn't see her, but his connection to the other Turned confirmed it, their own eyes pouring information to him in a roar. And in return, he roared in uncontrolled rage, a pressure releasing from his body that ripped apart the stone at his feet and the walls all around him.

Through the chaos, he could tell that the False Queen was making ready to chase, her wings flaring against the clatter of rock and stone, but he bellowed in rage, "STAY! LET HER RUN!" And the Queen obeyed, stowing her emerald wings and standing idly for her next order. Vartek reined his screams into grunts, and from grunts to heavy breaths as he waited for his healing abilities to take effect.

But they never did, his healing ability he had relied on all his life was now missing, as if it had never even been there. His eye was all but gone with it, and he was vulnerable. A ticking time bomb of magical power, he needed to heal, and there was only one person who could do it in such a state as his. "Your daughter is quite the handful," he hissed to Moon, feeling no response through his connection to her, not that there ever was any.

He growled through the pain, doing his best to brush it over his shoulder as he turned to Ludo, the little Avarius stiffening to meet him. "We have time to find her on our own terms, as we are not yet ready," he grunted, Ludo nodding in assent, "This temple will make a fine venue to welcome her back into the world. Retrieve the warp pad from the temple with Hekapoo, and bring it here. You will make the necessary preparations while I'm gone, is that understood?"

Ludo nodded.

Vaetek needed the shrine guarded on all fronts. With the High Commission busy quelling rebellions he couldn't be bothered to squash, the Well was vulnerable to an attack, or worse, a trick of Glossaryck's design. He knew what happened in the old timeline, the girl growing her own magic from...somewhere, and with the magic now tied to his own life force, he couldn't risk it. "No one is left to stop us, but I'll not be taking any chances," he noted, a wave of his hand opening a pixelated portal, "do not fail me, as you did by warning her, or it'll be your brother's life in your hands."

With the little bird nodding without emotion, he stepped through, the portal arcing and hissing against his skin. And as the wash of sensory deprivation came and went, his eye burning with waves of pain, he found himself back home. Or rather, as close to home as he could expect to get until Merina was revived: in front of the Temple of Time, in a dimension forgotten by life.

Once again that cold, brazen wind whipped across the planes dotted with grey, crystalline formations that were stories tall, and commanded respect. The grey sand beneath his feet was scattered with the bones of creatures since extinct, and some humanoid skeletons that were not. The sun itself was absent in such a barren wasteland of a dimension, only a single, solitary, pale planet above casting a trickle of light to the lands around him. And in the distance, his destination stood tall and proud, a church of sorts cast from its own dimension and left here to crumble amongst the other bones of civilization.

He walked up to the ornate doors and with another simple wave of his hand, the heavy stone blockades swung open to reveal a long hallway glowing with conduits of power. Not wanting to deal with his waking injury for much longer, Vartek brushed through the doors and strolled through the hallway to find himself at the opening to the true prize of the Temple. A shrine to Merina glowing with the same energy as him, it's energy, it's captive, alive and well.

It was the same sculpture made of bones and colossal emeralds to form a heart capped with scissors, but the shards of crystal had grown, both in the centerpiece and the ones floating lazily overhead.

Vartek almost felt a dwindling sense of pride at his creation, the magic sustaining her half of his soul as he waged wars to complete her return. But a celebration would have to wait until the main event, his most recent failure still stinging on the left side of his face. "Why aren't I healing?" He asked impatiently, the crystal coming to life before him.

It buzzed with power as arcs of electricity jumped to various shards floating about the room, their use as batteries proving more than effective at fueling her sustainment. And as if on command, the shrine flashed white before a ghost- a hologram of Merina's true presence stepped out, her form ethereal until she coalesced into a solid state. She all but glared at Vartek, just as impatient as her once-husband. "You can't use your healing magic as you are now, love," she noted in her tired, English accent, "with all of the broken Magic inside you, there's simply no room for your healing. You'll just have to make do."

She was being short with him, that much was clear, but Vartek didn't quite understand why. He finally let himself relax for the first time in ages, since the last time he was here, before asking, "Why are you upset with me?" Though she didn't answer, her stiffened posture was more than enough to insinuate the obvious answer, her sapphire eyes narrowing to meet his perplexed gaze. "Don't tell me it's because of the children. What, do you feel some semblance of pity for them?"

For the first time in a very long time, Merina glared at him, her anger worn clearly on her sleeveless dress. She marched right up to him, staring up into his good eye as she shouted, "Do you not?! They are exactly that: Children! And yet you're surprised to see me angry with you for feeling nothing as you hurt them?"

Vartek rolled his eye and sighed, tired of the same conversation she insisted on beating into his skull every time they spoke. "I do not. They are a means to an end. The building materials to have you back at last, my love," he groaned, gesturing to his wounded eye, "Do you not care for my own injuries? I too have been hurt in my endeavors, why would I falter now of all times, now that I am this close to-"

"What? Me? I'm right bloody here, Vartek!" Merina interrupted, the severity in the use of his full name not being lost on him, "what happened to you that made you so vile a man? Because surely you can't solely blame my magic for changing you so drastically." She waited for an answer as he stiffened to her question, expecting another excuse for his actions or a shift in blame like always. But he surprised her by meeting her fury.

"'What happened to me?' You were erased!" Vartek bellowed right back at her, though his temper was to be expected as of late, what with his corruption, "Gone! Forgotten! Another casualty in a war against our people!"

"Wha- we WON, Var!" Came her spiteful response, inching closer to him and subduing his bravado with an energy she had been known for, "you could have gone home to Silva a hero to our people! Moved on, as a thousand other monsters did! But did you?"

For a moment, Vartek was at a loss for words. How could he have so easily moved on, pretending in vain that he hadn't been forced to endure one of life's greatest pains. Helpless as she was taken away before his very eyes.

"DID YOU?" Merina repeated her rhetoric, her original personality coming in waves of spitfire as she all but loomed over her taller ex-partner, "you waged wars, slaughtered hundreds in cold blood, and have since defiled the very order of history itself, just to build yourself a copy of me!"

"YOU DIDN'T DESERVE TO DIE!" Vartek finally returned, his gale-force anger rising to meet hers. And when he noticed her recoil slightly at his glowing cracks and pooling, instinctual use of magic, he dissolved it, backing down some to address her more respectfully. "You were supposed to be the one to return home. You were supposed to live… not me."

For a long moment, neither of the two spoke, enduring a long and strained silence that carried more pain than a thousand knives. Merina offered no condolences, no regrets, not that he needed or wanted them anyway. He only wanted to return to his life before the war, to a time before he lost everything, including himself.

Wordlessly, Merina finally conceded, stepping closer to him and placing a gentle, warm hand against his eye. A slow trickle of her soothing magic flowed from her wrist to his wound, it's effects immediately soothing the pain as she healed him. But an effect she hadn't expected, was to see his eyes gradually shift from a solid lime green, back to that beautiful topaz she had always loved. Perhaps there was a chance… a chance she could break through to him. The real him.

"Var… you lived… because you were better than me," she offered quietly, her voice barely above a whisper, "because when it came down to it, I let myself be consumed by hate and revenge. But you? There was a line you wouldn't cross."

Slowly, as if for the first time in centuries, Vartek turned to look up into her captivating blue eyes, his own beginning to well with tears. He couldn't even remember the last time he cried for her, cried from his heart, rather than from his pain. "...Merina? Is it… is it really you?"

She realized that she had done it.

She was talking to him as he was always meant to be, untainted and pure, the man she had first laid eyes on. She had to handle him delicately, his magic struggling to push her out, but she had to be realistic enough to get him to stay, to think rationally on his own. "No, Var. I'm just the parts of me in your memories," she answered with care, "I'm only half of you, half of your soul, remember?

Slowly, he nodded as if hearing about this for the first time, her honeyed words enough to jog some forgotten piece of his past. A buried decision to take drastic measures to save her. "Yes, I- ...I made you," he mumbled, his eyes looking her over with a touch more scrutiny, "so that I could bring you back…"

God's, how she had missed him, even in his delirious state. How far her magic had fractured his mind, how deeply it had burned into his soul, and yet? He was here before her, perfect and complete. So long as she kept him under control.

She kissed him out of the blue, running her left hand through his frills as he leaned in to meet it, the two of them savoring a reward earned through lifetimes of endurance and pain. Though, when they separated, Merina had to make the difficult choice to handle their situation as it was, instead of how she wished it would be. She had to stop him while she had the chance, while he was vulnerable to the truth, and free from her magic.

"Var, my love. You can't bring me back, no matter how badly you want to. No matter how much it hurts to be alone," she offered through a controlled sob, the truth burning her as much as him, "if you do, you'll kill everyone. You'll kill the two chosen by the Blood Moon. You have to surrender."

She could see it in his eyes just how taken he was by the very idea of giving up- how scared it made him. Silently. He reached for her, desperate to touch her face, as if scared she would disappear before his eyes. She met his advance lovingly, taking his hand and placing it against her warm, freckled cheek. Like magic, the cracks on his hand, wrist, and forearm began to close, her love pouring through to him in reassuring waves of comfort. "You don't have to be the monster she made you out to be, that night," she offered with a gentle smile, "let me share in your suffering."

By the gods, he relished in the sensations that came with even the feeling of her cheek in his palm. A sensation he'd been starved of for eons. It was heavenly, divine, and filled a hole in his chest he had almost forgotten was there. "I want to stop...I just- I just want to return home," he choked, fighting back more tears, "but-"

"But you can," she reaffirmed, hoping to give him even a thread of strength in his most vulnerable hour. She met his yellow eyes and desperately pressed his hand closer to her skin, as if even more contact would steer him back to the light. "Let me carry your burden, I can heal you up. I can end this nightmare you've fallen into, and you can go home."

His mouth moved, but no words came with his fractured breaths. She could feel him struggling, fighting to keep control of himself as the Magic fought just as hard to rip him away. And he was slipping. "I...it's too much…" he choked, his eyes darting about to look at whatever unseen horrors were once again filling his head, pushing Merina out, "I- please… I want to stop...but I can't…"

"Var, please," Merina begged, a river of tears from her eyes not enough to convey how desperately she needed him to stay, "you have to fight it… you're stronger than this, I know you are. You have to let me-" But it wasn't enough. He flinched, throwing his head back and desperately drawing air as though he had been suffocating. His hand fell from her face before he jolted back, out of her reach and out of time, cracks reforming down his arms and across his hands.

"Heh...heheh..hahahahahaha!" He giggled uncontrollably, clutching his face as his eyes shifted back to lime, magic pulsing under his skin. Merina stepped closer, reaching for him. Maybe she could try again, or maybe he'd delete her from existence, she didn't care. "Var...don't do this...don't cross the line into oblivion. Don't follow in my footsteps."

"I...I have no choice, my love," Vartek answered with a giddy smile, his eyes wide and his face twisting upward, "the lines I cross will only lead me closer to you. I will bring you back… heh heh, whatever it takes."

"The Merina you know is gone forever, Vartek!" came her burst of opposition, her eyes flashing a deeper shade of blue as her hair ruffled against the force. Even the man she once loved recoiled at her reaction before she strode back to him, closing the distance as she shouted, "What you're looking to do is sacrifice two children! Do you honestly think the real Merina would ever let you do this!?"

She expected him to retort in some sadistic fashion about means to an end, as always, so when he stood to meet her, his fists curled as he spoke, it came with little surprise. "They are but a small price to pay to finally have you back, the real you, as you so eloquently put it!" he roared, anger burning in his healed eyes, "I will not falter now that I am so close, I will not give up on the precipice of success!"

Merina shook her head with closed eyes. She didn't want to look at him, the thing he was slowly becoming thanks to the corruption in his soul. "You were a good man, once," she offered, biting her lip before turning back, addressing him with all the rage he so proudly touted now, "But I would never want to be with someone as cruel… someone as evil as the Monster you've become."

He wanted to burn her where she stood, the thousands of echoing souls inside him begging him to quell her traitorous nature here and now. But as she took another step closer, reaching for his face once more, the voices quited, if only slightly. Merina, or rather, the copy of Merina, cupped his cheek, her expression softening to meet his emerald eyes. "You still have a chance, Var… You can go home...to Silva. She needs you in a world ravaged by our war. Please, just let go of me, and go home to her…"

She waited for her magic to ease his pain, to loosen the hold the corruption had on his mind. She waited for his eyes to shift back to that beautiful topaz she had always loved, but they never did. They stayed green in the dimly lit Temple rotunda as he pushed her hand away. "The Vartek you once knew, is as dead as my Merina," he spat, a darkness passing over his face as he recognized his current nature, "I will not go home, without her."

Anger returning in full force, Merina wound back and slapped him across his scarred face, the sharp repose echoing throughout the room. She glared at him as he held his cheek, her eyes burning with hate. How dare he so proudly flout that her husband was dead, that vartek would ever succumb to such a vile creature as what he'd become. "You. Will never have me," she growled.

"I know," Vartek answered quickly, as if annoyed by her rebellious tendencies, "that is what my spell is for. To reunite me with the real you." He clasped his hands together, trickles of blinding light fighting to break through his fingers. Merina watched in surprise as when he separated his palms, a storm of pixels flooded the room, the walla glitching madly as wisps of green Magic began to circle him, her, and the shrine at the rooms center.

Finally, with a flash of blinding light, it was over as soon as it had started, Merina finding herself in a new landscape, one torn asunder as thousands of chunks of Glossaryck's temple floated aimlessly about. Ludo was waiting patiently for their arrival, nodding as vartek stretched his back and proudly inspected their new venue, a glowing crystal platform waiting at the foot of the shrine she was bound to. Not wanting to spend another moment in such a vile place, Merina only shook her head, glared at the thing calling itself Vartek, and disappeared back into her crystal. She had work to do, and a princess to save.

"Make ready the warp pad," Vartek ordered, letting a giggle slip through his bravado before he clutched at his face. He glanced around as though the world was out to get him, like he was next on his own chopping block, before clearing his throat and addressing Moon. "I'm going to rest. Do not disturb me, and don't let anyone enter this site alive."

AUTHORS NOTE

Hey all! Hope you have enjoyed the Battle For Mewni thus far! It's been a treat to write it, and it really makes me proud to have gotten this far. Not to say that this is end, but I'm afraid it's time to go for a bit. The Once and Future Queen chapter of mine needs completion. I'll be back soon, don't worry, and when I come back, it'll be to finish this story. Thank you so much for being here with me for this so far, and I hope to see many of you soon!

BUH BYYYEEE

~Mr. Ronald Reagan