Episode:

9: Who Am I? Part 2

Having found Star, Adam and Marco now must deal with the impostor.

Star Butterfly – the real one, this time – was sitting tied up in the coffin, compressed into the foetal position. Her arms and legs were forced together by magically binding cuffs, tight against her skin. Her mouth was obscured by a tight rag secured by a rope, preventing her from speaking.

'Mmmh!'

Adam reached down and removed the rag and rope, allowing her to speak again. Before she could say anything, though, Marco reached over and encased her in a tight hug.

'Oh god, Star, I'm so glad you're okay…' he fluttered, earning him an appreciative smile from Star.

'I'm alright, Marco,' she assured him, before her friend finally released her and helped her out of the stone coffin. Star looked up at Adam with an exhausted sigh of relief. 'How'd you find me?'

Adam showed her his compass. 'Once we realised something was wrong, we investigated. It led us here, to the catacombs below the castle. From there, we followed your magical signature.'

Star gave a smile and humorously rolled her eyes. 'I'm really gonna have to get myself one of those sometime, aren't I?' Adam smiled a little.

'So…' spoke up Marco nervously. 'What happened? What's the deal with this other Star?'

'I…don't know,' admitted the princess. 'A couple days ago, when I was asleep, I heard a noise in my room, and I woke up. Next thing I knew, I was being hit with a load of spells. Then someone who looked exactly like me kidnapped me and brought me here. She was going to put me into Dreamless Sleep, but I guess she realised I was too strong for that.' Star lifted up the heavy chains around her wrists. 'So she opted for more…conventional means, instead.'

Adam stared at her intensely. 'So you have no idea who she was?'

'None.' She shrugged and sighed. 'It's a good thing you weren't too late.'

Her warlock compatriot partly shook his head.

'What do you mean?'

'The…other…Star checks on me every night, 8pm sharp,' she told them. 'There probably isn't much time left. It's good you found me first.'

'Then let's get you out of these,' he decided, gesturing towards her magically binding shackles. 'Calysto Beam!'

A cyan beam of light shot out from his palms towards the wrist shackles. Unfortunately, when they met the metal, they merely bounced off and smashed into a stone wall behind them.

Adam frowned.

'Solarian Blast!'

Again, the same effect.

'Brutum Fulmen!'

Slightly more aggressive explosion this time, but more or less the same effect. The shackles remained unharmed.

'Strawberry Cupcake Blast!'

Still nothing.

'Melting Po–'

He stopped himself before speaking that spell. Even if it did manage to affect the cuffs, melting them, it would also cause Star serious harm. Adam didn't think getting molten metal on your skin was particularly safe.

Adam proceeded to cycle through just about every spell he could think of before Star stopped him.

'There's no use. It's impervious to all magic. Even my Full Butterfly form isn't enough to overcome it.'

'Then we can try smashing it!' suggested Marco, snatching up one of the rocks caused by the rubble from the spells earlier.

He brought it over and hurled it against the stone with all his might, but he couldn't even cause a scratch in the surface of the cuffs. Marco went for two more attempts with similar-sized rocks, but to no avail.

'So we can't remove it by force, then,' Adam said, rubbing his chin in thought. An idea suddenly came to mind. 'Wait, I know! What if we use the Seal of Arybailos?'

Star looked at him with a flat expression.

'Adam –'

'I know you don't like it all that much, but what other option do we have?' he rationalised, folding his arms. Star opened her mouth to protest but couldn't think of anything to say about it. She shut her mouth for a second before reopening it again to speak up.

'I mean…I can't do any magic with these cuffs on.' She raised her cuffs to prove her point. 'How am I supposed to cast this spell without magic?'

'You're not the one casting it,' he reminded her. 'I am. I can share its effects. I haven't really tested the limit of how many yet…but two people should be fine.'

'"Should" be?' questioned Star, unconvinced.

'Do you want to get out of those or not?' the warlock argued, glaring at her. Star sighed in defeat.

'Fine.'

'Thank you.' He pursed his lips. 'When I transfer some of the power to you, you'll feel it. When that happens, try to transform into your Full Butterfly form and use all the force you can to break the cuffs apart. Got it?'

'Got it.'

The teenager blinked and looked over at Marco. 'You might want to step back.' The squire agreed, taking a few steps back to rest flat against a parallel coffin.

Adam breathed in deeply and raised his hands.

'I pledge my soul to the throes of magic, to enhance my power now automatic. I prepare myself to become a ghost. Grant me strength: the Seal of Arybailos!'

There was a low rumble in the ground for a few seconds. The bright glowing purple Seal formed in the ground below him, flashing brightly before fading away. The same purple rune, miniaturised, formed in Adam's brow.

He opened his eyes, revealing a bright white glow from his eyeballs. Slowly, the purple Seal of Arybailos duplicated itself onto Star's brow, fading into existence and permeating the surrounding air with a burning octarine glow.

Star felt an immense power surge throughout her entire nervous system. It was euphoric, like a thousand fireworks exploding in her head. The tips of her fingers felt electric with magic, just about ready to unleash gigajoules of energy. She had never felt anything like this before, not even close. The only thing she could relate to it was when she used her Full Butterfly form for the very first time. Even the power she felt then, though, could not hold a candle to the magic she felt coursing through her veins in that very moment.

'Woah!' she uttered, taking multiple deep breaths. 'Okay, I'm ready.'

Adam gave her a nod and powered up his magic. He aimed his hands at her shackles.

'Calysto Beam!'

An intense beam of bright light exploded from his palms. It smashed into her metal cuffs with several times the intensity the previous beam had. As it did so, Star flexed her limbs and activated her Full Butterfly form. She constantly flickered between normal and Full Butterfly, unable to maintain the latter for very long.

The combined might of their magic steadily caused the metal to bend and kink.

'Almost there!' Marco yelled.

'Keep going!' Adam exclaimed distantly, maintaining a constant stream of cyan beams. Star nodded weakly, feeling the exhaustion mounting on her exponentially.

Breathing in again, she summoned all her strength that remained, against the slope of her whittling energy.

Finally, there was a burst of energy, and the cuffs split apart. Two chunks of the metal were sent flying in opposite directions, causing Marco to flinch. Star let go of the breath she wasn't aware she was holding.

She breathed in again and transformed into her Full Butterfly form. Another shockwave of energy was released as she busted through her ankle restraints. The Seal of Arybailos faded away from her brow, as the electric feeling dissipated away. Similarly, the Seal broke for Adam as well, returning the lost part of his soul back to him. Finally, the princess was free from her chains.

'I thought I'd never get out of those,' Star remarked, groaning as she stretched her limbs. She breathed out a loud sigh of relief and looked up at Adam, who was now standing with his arms at his sides. 'Thank you.'

'Don't mention it.' He cracked his knuckles. 'Now come on, we have to get out of here.'

As Adam turned to leave, he heard slow clapping echoing throughout the room. It got louder and louder, indicating that someone was coming closer. The Mewman instantly adopted a glare as he stared at the entrance. Marco and Star exchanged worried glances.

The figure appeared at the wide archway at the end of the room. They stepped slowly into the room with a sardonic rhythm. When they stepped into the light, Adam couldn't say he was surprised.

It was the fake Star. The impostor.

'I have to say, I'm impressed,' she praised derisively. 'You found your precious princess. You've really earned this applause.' She raised her hands again to clap one more time.

'Who are you?' Adam demanded, glaring at her.

'Oh, I think you know that already, Adam,' the facsimile patronised. 'I think you've had your suspicions from the very start. You just didn't want to admit it.'

The warlock's eyes widened for a second, before his face contracted into an even harder glower. As he clenched his fists, his blood began to boil with intense fury. In that moment, he didn't even need the Seal of Arybailos to feel a static rage coursing through his veins.

'Adam?' Marco spoke up. 'I'm confused, who is that?'

'Uh…' Adam stumbled. 'That's her.'

Star frowned. '"Her"?'

'Her,' he emphasised furiously, with a nod. Star stared at her duplicate for a second before realising who he meant. She audibly gulped.

'Wait…' Marco uttered, as the cogs in his mind clicked into place. 'That's Dark Star?!'

'Hm… "Dark" Star,' the unwanted visitor pondered. 'I like it…I think I'll have to start using that.'

'Do you know who I am?' His eyes glistened with tear water. Dark Star thinned her lips contemptuously.

'You were the one who helped Janna, that night in the graveyard,' she gleaned, scowling at him. 'You stole my Book of Spells. The "man with the magic" …ha! And Janna thought so highly of you.' Her eyes narrowed in on him. 'I take it you were also behind that unexplained attack on one of our pillaging parties a couple years ago? My stupid mom was actually scared of you.'

Adam breathed in deeply and exhaled through his nostrils.

'No.'

'No?' repeated Dark Star, laughing.

'That's not what I meant,' he stated flatly. 'Do you remember who I am?!'

'What else is there?' the twisted princess joked, barely containing a chuckle. 'Oh come on…it's not like your life was that important before you got magic.'

'YOU MURDERED MY BEST FRIEND!'

Dark Star sighed. 'I kill a lot of people's best friends,' she replied nonchalantly. 'You're gonna have to be more specific.'

'You don't remember?' Adam criticised. 'While you were out on a raid, you ran into two hermits. One of them was a Mewman, and the other…had horns. And you killed the other, my best friend, but you let me live.'

Dark Star frowned for a second, before a look of realisation dawned upon her.

'Oh, right! You were that little weasel who cried over a Monster!'

'I'll show you weasel!' he cried angrily. As he attempted to charge forward, Marco put a hand over his chest and stopped him in his tracks. Adam's voice suddenly fell gravely serious. 'Get out of my way.'

'We don't have all the answers yet!' he pointed out. 'We don't know how or why she's here!'

Adam swallowed a gulp of air and bit his lip. The Mewman looked back at Dark Star.

'Well,' he addressed, shrugging sarcastically. 'The question's on the table. How did you get here?'

'I suppose I can divulge the details,' the girl decided. 'There's no harm…especially since none of you are going to leave this room alive.' She folded her arms. 'It started out when Omnitraxus detected an anomaly in space-time, somewhere out in the Farlands of Mewni.'

Adam's breathing hitched. He tried to hide his concern, but he was uncertain as to how well he succeeded.

'Omni sent me and the MHC to take a look. We found it – in the middle of nowhere. It was just some random hill. Nothing worth noting.'

Adam avoided letting out a sigh of relief, no matter how much he wanted to. It seemed that Glossaryck's warding spells were still holding up, successfully concealing his bunker home from the Dark Butterflies.

'Nothing worth noting apart from a tear in the fabric of reality,' Dark Star continued. 'That's where you opened a portal across multiverses, isn't it? That weakness in space-time combined with excess background magic – so we managed to open a rudimentary portal between our multiverse and the next. Took a long time, but we managed it. I ended up here – in the catacombs below the Butterfly Castle. It was a one-way trip until I figured out a way back, so…I had to get smart. I needed intel on your defences, your strategies, your castle layout…everything. I spent days putting together my plan, perfectly accounting for every variable.'

'Except me,' Adam discerned, his voice stringent with fury. Dark Star nodded reluctantly in response.

'Yes,' she confessed. 'I had no idea what to do with you. When I kidnapped Star and replaced her, I had no idea how to behave around you. A thorn in my side.' The girl sighed. 'It doesn't matter now, anyway. All I needed was to gather information, reopen the portal, make my way back and…well, I think you can guess from there.'

'You'll bring your armies here to invade,' Adam completed. The evil princess smirked.

'Precisely,' Dark Star confirmed. 'Suffice it to say…I've got all the information I need. And this.' She held out her hand flat facing upwards, and a small green portal opened a few inches above her. Some weight dropped into her hand with a loud thump. It was the Magic Instruction Book.

Adam thinned his lips. 'That doesn't belong to you anymore.'

'This book is a Butterfly Family heirloom!' she snapped. 'It was always mine!'

The alternate princess placed it down on a nearby stone coffin. She made a few hand gestures around it, causing her hands to glow with sickly purple energy. The Book of Spells was then surrounded with a transparent dark blue barrier, sealing it in its place in space.

She turned back to her three opponents.

'Now, time to tie up some loose ends. If you surrender now, I'll make it quick and painless.'

'Why do the bad guys always say that?' Marco pointed out, laughing. 'You realise that threat never works, right?'

'If anything, you should be the one surrendering,' Star chipped in, folding her arms.

'3V1 – I like those odds!' quipped her squire friend.

'I'm going to strip the flesh from your bones,' Adam threatened calmly. Marco and Star glanced at him, slightly perturbed by his statement.

'Well, can't say I didn't warn ya~,' retorted Dark Star, reaching into her eye-shaped bag.

She produced a wand – what looked like Star's wand. However, when the magical princess waved a hand around it, it emitted a bright white light for a second before revealing its true form. It had been a Glamour illusion all along.

While it possessed the same general outline as Star's wand, it was different in a few ways. Instead of angelic wings, they were the bare skeleton of wings, blackened and evil. A fiery aura of indigo flames formed an echo of the feathers, flickering wickedly in the darkness. The central core was a star, like the Positive version, but this one was purple and glowing. The screen around the star had plumes of blue, violet and indigo, like liquid magic – an octarine tint. Two small horns protruded from the top, like a mythological Viking's helmet. They were bleached white, apart from one side on each that was steeped in dark red, the same pigment as deoxygenated blood.

'That's impossible!' protested Adam. 'I scanned you for Glamours!'

'You really thought I hadn't considered that?' Dark Star chastised with a cruel grin.

She waved her hand around her own body, and another flash of light revealed that her body had also been touched by a Glamour. Now, Dark Star looked two years older, as she should have been, rather than Star's age [23]. She only changed slightly, so Adam guessed that the illusion was only partial. That was most likely because she didn't need complex magic to be convincing, considering she already looked near-identical to her Positive Multiverse counterpart.

Dark Star chuckled, sneering, 'Glamours can be reinforced beyond detection, Adam.'

'No, they can't! Of course they can't!'

'Some things you can't read in a book,' she criticised. The Mewman's eyes widened. He turned to look at Star.

'Star, where did she put your wand?' he demanded worriedly.

'Um, uh –'

'Come on, we're out of our depth here!'

'I don't know!' Star cried frantically. 'When I woke up, it was gone!'

Before Adam could speak again, they all heard something clattering to the ground. They both looked down to see an item at their feet. It was Star's wand, thrown from Dark Star's direction. When they glanced up at the person in question, Dark Star had a confident look on her face.

'Go ahead: take it.' She smirked. 'It doesn't matter if you have your wand or not, the outcome is still the same. I promise I will kill each and every one of you. Then I'm going to open the portal, take back the Book of Spells and go home. It's a shame you won't get to see everyone you love die, but why would I let you live, anyway?'

'You're insane,' Star stated in horror. Her wand emitted a high-pitched activation sound, as the crystal lit up brightly. 'But we're going to stop you!'

Adam stepped forward, catching Star by surprise.

'We're going to do more than that!' he growled. 'You're gonna pay for what you took from me! I'm going to rip you limb from limb!'

'Spoken like a true Butterfly,' Dark Star mocked. 'Perhaps we're more similar than you thought.'

'You know, you might have all that power,' Marco spoke up, before Adam could. 'But the one thing you don't have is friends.'

'Friends bore me,' the evil princess claimed, shrugging. She pointed her wand up at them, which similarly lit up as Star's had. 'Anyway, time to clean house.'

Before Star could speak or cast a spell, all three of them were hit with a powerful wave of magenta energy. They were instantly thrown off the ground and sent flying backwards. The three of them all struggled back to their feet, Marco being the last to get to his feet.

'Blueberry Cup–' Star began. Dark Star interrupted her hastily.

'Captive Matchstick!'

She pointed her wand and rapid-fired out multiple comically large matchsticks. They collided with Adam and Star, throwing them back against the wall. The matchsticks then smashed into the walls at their limbs, crossing over in a way as to trap them against the wall. The two of them struggled to get themselves free, or to attempt to cast a spell, but alas, they were too strong.

Marco, however, was unaffected. Dark Star hadn't even aimed at him.

Unfortunately, the young squire seldom had an opportunity to take advantage of that. Dark Star immediately disappeared through a light purple portal at her feet. She appeared behind him less than a second later.

'Hi-ya!' cried Marco, as he swung his knee around for a kick to her neck.

Dark Star merely caught his kick with her hand. The young Latino yelped in pain, as he felt his ankle slowly being crushed. The evil princess was way stronger than she looked, perhaps even stronger than Star herself.

Only a second passed, before Marco was slammed onto the ground. A hand tightened around his throat, cutting off the air to his lungs.

'Do you have…any idea…how hard it was…to be your friend?!' Dark Star stressed, straining to squeeze his throat with as much pressure as he could. 'You know…I killed the Marco from my world! Looks like you'll be twinsies in a moment!'

She stood confidently over his body. An evil smile curled at the end of her lips.

'Only human.'

'Marco!' Star cried, struggling against her restraints. Losing her patience, she transformed into her Full Butterfly form in a dazzling flash of light. With this power, she was easily able to escape the matchsticks.

Adam was about to call out for her to free him too, but Star zipped away without paying him much mind. She narrowed her eyes on Dark Star's wand.

'She needs the wand!'

It made sense to her, anyway. More advanced magic required the evil Butterfly to use her wand.

'No, wait, Star!' Adam cried. 'Don't –'

'Solarian Blast!' she shouted, firing it at her twisted doppelgänger. The acid-green beam of energy didn't hit Dark Star, instead it hit her wand.

The wand flew out of her hand and clattered to the ground several feet away.

Dark Star looked up at Star, letting go of Marco. The poor teenager fell to the ground, unconscious. Star glared at her evil counterpart with ferocious intensity. However, she was only met with cold, demeaning laughter once again.

'Did you really think I need the wand?' the girl chastised, standing up to her eye-level. 'I'm surprised natural selection hasn't filtered you out yet.' She hummed contentedly. 'I guess I'll have to do it myself~.'

There was a fantastical flash of bright light that nearly blinded Adam and Star.

When the lights died down, they saw Dark Star in her Full Butterfly form. It was quite similar to Star's, except her dress was less frilly, instead more aerodynamic and practical. Instead of yellow, the general colour scheme was purple. The primary colours were various darkened shades of purple, with a secondary black trim. Her hair was done up in magnificent frills, in a shade of deep, dark purple, rather than golden yellow. Four additional limbs had sprouted from her sides, along with translucent blackened butterfly wings from her back.

Star's sparkly eyes widened. She glanced worriedly over at Marco's unconscious form, before turning back to Adam.

The young warlock wavered for a moment. He desperately, desperately wanted to pulverise Dark Star into dirt, but his fury did not blind him to the fact that Star was more capable than he was. Marco needed help; he was going to die if they didn't do anything. It wouldn't have been long ago when he would've gone after Dark Star immediately, but things had changed.

Adam looked Star dead in the eye.

'You take on Dark Star, I'll help Marco,' he ordered her.

'But what if I can't fight her?' Star inquired worriedly.

'Yes, you can,' the Mewman assured her, glancing over at Dark Star, who by now was yawning impatiently. 'At least…long enough for me to get back in the fold.'

Star hesitantly nodded and swallowed down the air stuck in her throat. Abruptly, she sped towards Dark Star at ultra-high velocity.

'You're dead, evil-me!' she cried, propelling all manner of spells towards her.

As the two fought, Adam ran over to Marco, dropping to his knees beside him. He bent over and pressed his ear against his chest, hoping to hear something. There was nothing. No heartbeat. Adam took a deep breath and tried not to panic.

Trying not to succumb to his mounting dread, the warlock pushed his friend over onto his back. He then initiated CPR on Marco, attempting his very best to resuscitate him. Adam righted his position as he gave chest compressions around every half second or so.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

It was only after thirty compressions that the Mewman opted to open Marco's airway. He reached over and tilted the squire's head back, allowing his mouth to fall open slightly. Adam then bent down and pinched his nostrils shut, whilst he held his other hand against his chin to support it. He then blew down his friend's mouth gently, but not slowly, until Marco's chest began to rise.

With bated breath, Adam sat back and waited for his friend's chest to fall.

There was a loud crash behind him that made him flinch. One of the two fighters – whether it was Star or Dark Star, he couldn't tell – smashed into the wall behind him. A bright trail of light flashed back, and the two princesses clashed together with a loud shockwave.

Star pinned her evil counterpart against the wall so hard the stone walls behind her began to crack.

'Why are you doing this?!' said Star. 'What's the point?'

'Because…it's…fun!' Dark Star replied with a maniacal smile of psychopathic glee.

Indeed, one could make that argument. They'd be horrendously wrong, of course, but they couldn't deny that the sheer thrill of the chase; the pumping of adrenaline through their veins; the constant, electric feeling of being alive exploding in every nerve ending; the sensation of hearing your own heart pound in your chest; it was sometimes too enticing to ignore. Especially for Dark Star, having long since succumbed to this feeling of pure excitement.

Star didn't have time to consider that, however. She yelled out unintelligibly as she drew back to throw a spell at her twisted doppelgänger.

'Maybe, after I kill Marco,' Dark Star taunted, causing her opponent to hesitate. 'I'll keep Tom as my pet. My Tom is the most powerful king of them all, but your Tom is so much more…garden-fresh. You know…our Toms are very similar, so perhaps we have similar tastes~?'

Oh, Star was having none of that.

'Omega Bla–' she began.

Unfortunately, the princess was again interrupted when a purple portal opened in the wall that Star was holding Dark Star against. The two of them fell through and landed on the stone ground several feet away. Dark Star quickly overpowered Star, kicking her off and pinning her in return.

It was at this moment that Adam completed his resuscitation of Marco. The squire sputtered out a series of coughs and leant onto his side.

'Oh, thank corn.'

Marco looked up at him in confusion. 'What…happened?' he rasped, suppressing another series of coughs.

'You almost died,' Adam replied gravely. He sat up.

'Woah.' He slowly tried to get to his feet, but the Mewman stopped him in his tracks. 'What are you doing?'

'You're not going anywhere,' he warned stubbornly.

'But I have to –'

'No. You almost died, Marco,' Adam pointed out seriously. 'You're out of commission, buddy.'

'You could die, too!' The squire pointed out, folding his arms childishly. 'It's because I'm human, isn't it?'

'Yes,' he said bluntly.

'I'm not just gonna –'

'Marco, I can't have you getting in the way!' he snapped. 'Come hell or high water, I'm going to shatter every bone in her body. And nobody is going to stand in my way.'

A loud smash in the rocks ended their conversation, followed by rumbling of stone behind them. Adam glanced back to see that Star was struggling to get up from the hole she was embedded in. She was covered in bruises and blood; her cheeks were puffed up and painted a dark red and tracks of drool stained her chin.

Marco caught a glimpse of her body. His features contorted in horror.

'Hide!' Adam yelled at him. The squire nodded hastily and ran over to a nearby stone coffin.

The Mewman then stood up and turned to face Dark Star, who was standing over Star's unconscious body. Right as she was about to land the killing blow on the princess, Adam held out his palms.

'Barrier Force!'

Dark Star's Dagger Heart Blast, which would have killed Star, instead smashed into a strong ruby forcefield. The walls were able to absorb the force, although Adam wasn't sure how long it would actually hold. He certainly felt the shock through his bones. He redoubled his efforts and used up some mana to restore the forcefield back to full strength. [24]

Dark Star turned to see who had cast the spell. She folded her arms, unimpressed at his display of magical ability.

She laughed.

'Is that the best you can do?'

Adam ignored her derisive comment and motioned his hands to his side, causing the transparent prison to collide with the stone wall on the right. He then sent it crashing into the ceiling, and then the next wall, and then repeating with little to no intervals.

'You – don't – want – to see – my best!' the Mewman cried, his words only being interrupted by the loud crash of the force cube into the stone walls.

As Adam tried to move the cube again, he felt a huge shock in his knees. Crying out in pain, the warlock collapsed. There was a bright flash of red light as the barrier prism shattered into pieces before disintegrating into nothingness.

Adam coughed as he rose to his feet.

Dark Star was already firing a blast of strawberry-flavoured energy straight towards him. The warlock barely had time to react, but he was able to open a portal directly in front of him. The beam of pink energy shot through his portal and out the other portal beside Dark Star. The evil princess was nearly hit with it, but she blocked it with a forcefield.

Heaving against the strain, Adam opened another golden gateway below him. He fell through and landed on Dark Star, tackling her to the floor.

'Brutum Fulmen!' he chanted, holding a hand firmly against her shoulder.

Surges of cyan electricity coursed through her body. The smell of burning flesh faintly wafted into his nostrils. Dark Star screeched loudly before she beat her wings and flew up. The next thing he knew, Adam was being shoved into the back stone wall of the crypt.

He slid off the wall and fell to the ground moments later. Not done yet, Adam slowly got back to his feet.

'Pressure Compression!'

Dark Star was ill-prepared for the rapid implosions of air in her immediate surroundings. She was just about able to parry her three right arms to block some of them, but the majority of the compressed spheres of air generated enough force to throw her off her feet.

'Serpents of Cunning!' Adam yelled, releasing four snakes from his glowing star mark. The quadruplet serpents pounced immediately, unhinging their jaws to bite.

Dark Star, however, was too furious at this point to have any patience to allow this. She stood and grabbed all four snakes with her hands, crushing their hyloids with intense pressure. The troubled princess then slammed them into the ground, splintered the stone tiles below her. She lifted them up again and tore them apart with her bare hands, causing their blood and guts to spill out and drip onto the ground.

Adam was unfazed, barely flinching at the display of gore. Instead, he changed stances, adopting a longer, stronger form leaning on his back leg. It was a martial-arts-based form, which he learned from Marco. Marco said it was called "kokutsu dachi". [25]

Adam began to move his arms fluidly, twisting and turning.

'Towering Inferno!'

A chasm of flames erupted from the air around him, following his every movement. It was bright yellow in colour, far brighter than the flames he conjured from the Crimson Comet. He didn't know how magical fire scaled in power, but he knew that yellow was brighter than red orange.

Dark Star was surprisingly caught unaware when a huge surge of yellow fire exploded towards her. The flames hit her square on, sending her flying backwards to hit a wall. As she got up, Adam could see the full extent of the damage. Part of her dress was singed and burned away, exposing her red blistering skin beneath.

'How'd that feel, huh?!' he bellowed. 'Did that hurt?! It's only a fraction of the pain I felt!'

'So passionate!' Dark Star mocked, hardly fazed by the burns on her body. 'Keep trying and you might actually see me flinch!'

Adam threw a considerable array of fireballs at her. 'Shut up!'

'Aw, you gonna cry?' ridiculed the princess. 'You gonna cry because your whole family died? Because you lost your stupid friends?'

'SHUT UP!' he screeched. A sudden tidal wave of massive flames went speeding towards her, directed by Adam. It was the most he could muster in that one moment, and it still wasn't enough.

Unfazed, Dark Star quickly conjured a swirling infernal vortex of deathly blue flames. They coursed towards him at intense speed. There was a low growl, before the fire took the form of a bright blazing skull. The flaming skull obliterated through his puny flames, absorbing them into its own conglomerate of searing fire.

Adam blinked. It shouldn't have surprised him that Dark Star could produce such scorching hot flames.

Fortunately, though, despite his intense anger, the warlock was still fast enough to respond. He summoned a huge wave of water that shot towards the flames, engulfing them. The water was able to extinguish most of the flames, and the remaining embers Adam had to dodge. Of the water remaining, Adam used another spell to instantly freeze them, turning them into dozens of tiny daggers of ice that propelled towards her at high speeds.

In no mood for games, Dark Star swatted them out of the way with a blast of magically magnified wind. Her hands began to glow bright green, and she moved her arms upwards. Parts of the ground rumbled, and huge chunks of rock and stone levitated upwards. She pointed her arms forward, and the projectiles flew towards Adam.

The Mewman managed to block them with a wide purple forcefield. However, the last piece of rock was able to smash through his defence, sending him skidding backwards. He began to speak his next spell.

'Calysto Beam!'

A cyan beam hit Dark Star dead in the chest, sending her skidding backwards. Adam spared a smile; hopefully, now, she was a little more depowered. She immediately got up and was about to cast another spell, when she felt her chest.

'You tried to take my magic!' she accused. 'I can feel it…that spell! You…how dare you! YOU TRIED TO TAKE MY DIVINE RIGHT! YOU THIEF! I WILL TEAR YOUR THROAT OUT!'

Instantly, Adam felt her magical signature double, triple, in size. Any magic she might have lost from that spell, she had regained immediately. There was a bolt of wind and she disappeared.

The next thing Adam registered was the sudden blockage of his throat. Appearing as only a blur, Dark Star rushed him and held two of her hands around his throat, whilst her other four were raised and balled into fists.

'Argh!' she growled. 'You are so...ugh!'

Dark Star threw all her might into a punch to his stomach and face, sending him flying back into the stone wall again. However, this time she was in no mood to wait. She sped forward and grabbed him again, providing a flurry of punches that caused him to cough up blood. Before he could even react, he crashed into the rocky ceiling with a sickening crack. As the warlock fell back down, he was caught again by the twisted princess and tackled towards another wall. A near constant array of punches hit every side of his face, spilling out blood, shattering his jaw and severely bruising him. All Adam could see was an ominous red filter descending over his eyes.

The fun wasn't over just yet.

Dark Star took him for a joyride around the crypt, brutalising him in every conceivable way. He hit the stone ground with a loud thud, followed by another loud thud and a smaller crack as Dark Star landed on top of him.

'You – annoying – little – shit!' she derided between blows to his face.

Adam could barely even think. He felt the world becoming more distant, as though life itself was disconnecting from him. Blood was smeared over his eyes, the warm, tingly sensation providing an extra layer of discomfort that Dark Star no doubt revelled in.

He let out a low moan of pain, so quiet and frail that he wasn't sure if it was even audible. Blood escaped his mouth and mixed with saliva, before pooling on the ground below him.

'The moment I saw you – I just knew you'd be a problem,' Dark Star mused, raising his hands in a stabbing pose. After performing a non-verbal spell, she summoned a pink crystalline dagger that resembled a very sharp icicle. 'But not anymore!'

As she threw down the sharp blade, Dark Star was about to stab Adam through the heart when she was blasted by an exploding projectile. The evil princess was thrown off immediately due a sudden influx of blueberry cupcakes.

Star, returned to her Full Butterfly form, had used her Blueberry Cupcake Bazooka to blindside her alternate multiverse doppelgänger. Now mostly having recovered from her superficial injuries, the good princess sped over to Adam.

'Adam!' she cried, kneeling at his body. He remained inert, barely a trace of his breathing aside from the slow, weak heaving of his chest. Star shook him, otherwise having no idea what to do. 'Adam! Wake up!'

'He's not asleep, you moron!' Dark Star yelled from across the room. As she got off, she furiously patted cupcake crumbs off her dress. 'Incineration Disint–'

'Super Geyser Windstorm!' Star quickly interrupted. Dark Star was winded with a powerful blast of high-pressure water, sending her flying backwards. Before the girl could even process what had happened, she was hit with another spell. 'Mega Starfish Tsunami!'

A colossal wave of water flowed across the room in a flash, engulfing her and snatching away her air supply. Once the tsunami dissipated, Star flew towards her in an instant and tackled her down to the ground.

'How do you like it?!' Star screeched, as she clobbered her with several successive punches to her face.

Star grabbed her by the throat and threw her into another wall. Dark Star teleported through a portal before she hit it, casting a constant stream of lightning at her. However, the princess was prepared enough to create a forcefield around herself, absorbing the high voltage blow.

Her insane opponent flew forward and smashed into the barrier against Star.

'Did I touch a nerve?' Dark Star taunted.

'Shut up!' screeched the princess.

'I don't know why you're so upset,' she mocked. 'That boy is a thief. Not just of a precious family heirloom, but also of magic itself! He is not a Butterfly; he has no right to wield magic!'

'Magic is a gift, not a right,' Star argued, firing a Tornado Torpedo through the forcefield. Dark Star was thrown across the room, landing on the ground with a rough skid. 'Rainbow Fist Punch!'

Star's fist was surrounded with a rainbow aura, a comically large gauntlet. She threw a punch at the air, as though Dark Star was standing right in front of her. The rainbow fist instantly detached from her arm, zooming towards her opponent and hitting her in the first.

Dark Star wiped some blood from her lip.

'You'll pay for that one, kid!' she promised.

Meanwhile, from another perspective, things were beyond debts to be repaid. Nothing could be considered pettier than repaying acts of violence with further acts of violence. Not that Adam was consciously (or unconsciously, for that matter) considering this truth, not least because it was universally acknowledged.

Most of what he saw was darkness. In fact, it was darkness so ubiquitous that the warlock could barely even register that he was, in fact, alive. He couldn't feel anything, not even his own limbs. It was like he was floating motionless in space, albeit with the pressure slowly causing him to explode.

Adam would have to stress that most of what he saw was darkness.

In the far distance, infinitely out of range yet strangely close, he could see a small dot of light. It was like one single star standing out against the vast emptiness of space. He reached out to grab onto it, but he felt resistance against his limbs. Nevertheless, he forced himself forward to the speck of light in the distance. Although he could not see or feel his limbs, he had the instinct that he was slowly moving his arms towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

As he felt himself being drawn towards the light, it suddenly expanded, and a bright white light engulfed his vision.

[23] The Positive and Negative Multiverses run out of sync with one another. The Negative Multiverse has been running two years ahead ever since Adam first acquired his magic.

[24] When the Barrier Force Spell is active, the user will feel any force against it as though the blows are hitting themselves instead.

[25] If you couldn't tell already, I practiced Wado-Ryu karate for several years, so I know the stances, techniques and katas up to 1st dan black belt.

Hello folks! Thanks for tuning in to the nineteenth chapter of 'Star vs the Forces of the Negative Multiverse'!

I hope this chapter was not too confusing for anyone. No, Star wasn't affected by Dark Star's kidnapping of her. Not magically, anyway. The reason Adam detected her magical polarity was inverted is simply because Dark Star uses anti-magic like him (something Adam brings up).

Apologies for any confusion there, but Dark Star merely kidnapped and replaced her in between episode 7 and 8. Other subtle details included Dark Star not recognising Marco's voice until Adam said it out loud, because she didn't remember what he sounded like. Or the fact she didn't know about the Mace Kingdom because they no longer exist in the Negative Multiverse. Or her salivating at the concept of war. Additionally, the scenes in which she is leaving (such as, just after Marco and Adam found her, or right after talking to Janna), she was actually going to visit Star as per her 8pm schedule, which is why she didn't show up at the Cloud Kingdom to hang out with Pony Head. One other detail that I wanna mention is that when Dark Star found Adam was in possession of the Magic Instruction Book, that is when she first found out he could cast magic.

I also wanted to mention that you might have noticed that Star's wand did not change appearance while Dark Star was in possession of it, and she instead just hid her own wand's appearance with magic. It's in my head canon that the wand only changes if it wants to, and it doesn't allow just anyone to cast magic with it, or it doesn't change if the person doesn't want to use it. Plus, Dark Star had no intention of using Star's wand for both want of using her own wand and also because its magic is incompatible with her anti-magic.
Hope that all made sense for you all.

Writing all those interactions between Dark Star and Adam, as well Star and Dark Star, was a lot of fun. Well, I say fun, but it was certainly traumatic for the characters involved. I hope Dark Star's personality seemed interesting enough to you all. Originally, Adam was going to be a lot less aggressive towards Dark Star. All those death threats he made weren't in the original draft, but I decided to add them when I reread Chapter 5 and got to that whole passage about him wanting to burn her alive. The time Adam has spent in the Positive Multiverse has not subsided his hatred for her, so I felt it made more sense to have him be just as aggressive as Dark Star. Plus, I also felt like it drew a more interesting parallel between two (which Dark Star points out, of course).

Other changes I made were mainly with the fight between Dark Star and Adam. The gist is the same, of course: Dark Star easily overcomes every spell that Adam throws at her, but I changed it so that the Calysto Beam landed, instead of missing as per the original draft. A few reasons for this. My intention for this fight was to be Dark Star toying with Adam for the majority of the fight, but I also knew it had to escalate to the point where Dark Star would become enraged with him enough to beat him to death. (Well, sort of to death.) Thus, came in the idea that Dark Star was offended by Adam's Calysto Beam draining her of some of her magic, since she views magic as her divine right.

I think it was probably wise to keep Marco out of the fight for the most part. I don't think he's useless, but him almost dying, I think, is justification for keeping him on the wayside.

Lastly, as I am running out of characters here, I wanted to thank you all for reading, favouriting, following and leaving reviews. I really appreciate it!