Star vs The Forces of Evil
Earthni Sweet Symphony
Disclaimer: Star vs The Forces of Evil was created by Daron Nefcy and is owned by Disney. I own no part of Star vs.
Episode 5: Fiery Passion
Episode Summary: Tom's demon powers have been diminished, and it's up to Star & co to investigate why...and how to restore them to normal, or if that's even a possibility...
Original Release Date: September 16, 2021
On an ordinary, chilly, slightly snowy Earthni day, Janna found herself over at the Lucitor beach house in the underworld; despite said beach house being located in the underworld, it was not impervious to snow-like effects either. Temperatures around them weren't quite as chilly as they were on the surface level, but it still required exterior warmth by other means.
Tom's folks were in the living room, playfully bickering over a board game they were playing, while Tom was fixing up some hot cocoa for everyone. A small shiver crossed his body, but quickly subsided. Eventually he stepped out of the kitchen holding a tray of hot cocoa cups. "Who's ready for warmth?" He shouted out, garnering everyone's attention.
"Took ya long enough." Janna barked, visibly annoyed, though it was clear it was directed more at the person whom she was sitting across from - Relicor - whom she was playing chess with. She was convinced he was engaged in foul play. "This loser keeps cheating." Relicor screeched in protest, and all Janna could do was roll her eyes. "Yes you can capture an enemy pawn if they've moved two spaces on a first move. It's called an en passant! How do you say you're a chess expert and not know that?"
Tom chuckled as he started passing around the hot cocoa cups. "He hasn't played professionally in, like, 2000 years or something."
"Well then he can't claim he's an expert anymore. I've been kicking his butt all morning." Janna sipped her hot cocoa and breathed a loud sigh of contentment. "That hits the spot. What took so long, anyway?" Relicor suddenly began screeching again, sharing in Janna's sentiment.
"Sorry, it took a while for the cocoa maker to warm up."
"...You have a cocoa maker? A-And wait, you have fire powers, why not just use that?"
A quick jolt where Tom's faces stiffened, implying he was hiding something, which Janna caught onto almost instantly. "Um...w-well, it was a birthday gift for my mom! She hasn't really used it that much, I just didn't want it to lose its spark, that's all. Nothing or nefarious about that."
His girlfriend wasn't buying it, but she also was not in the mood to stir up unnecessary trouble, so she let it slide with a shrug before returning to her chess game, albeit with a bit of a chill. "Getting kinda nippy in here."
"It's not often we're down here with chilly weather." Tom's father, Dave, spoke up. "Hey Tom, how's about lighting up the fireplace for us?'
"Oh, uh...uhh s-sure, no problem." He started to nervously look around the room. "W-Where's that lighter of yours, pop?"
This response caused Dave to break out into laughter for some reason. "Lighter! That's a good one, son!" He was in for quite the surprise in a moment's notice. "Since when do you need a lighter?"
"Oh, you know, f-for emergencies and stuff, like...like..." At this point, Tom was visibly sweating. He drew a loud sigh and tightly shut his eyes. "Like when my fire powers go on the fritz."
Even louder laughter emitted from Dave, but it took him a moment to realize he was the only one laughing. The other Lucitors were confused, while Janna was suspicious as all heck. "Powers going on the fritz? You? Oh Tom, you're on a roll with these jokes today." He continued to laugh, but gradually died it down when he realized everyone else was actually concerned. "Y-You are joking, right? Tom?"
Now he was essentially boxed into a corner. The only thing that would set him free would be the truth. With an even louder sigh - and another brief shiver - he trudged over to the fireplace, held out both of his hands as if he was going to shoot flames...and then nothing happened. No flames, no fire, no nothing. Only a tiny spark & a puff of smoke from his hands. Okay, now it was time for Dave to be panicked.
"...Dude? The heck are you doing?" Janna asked in the most Janna way possible.
"I-I-I don't know what's going on. My fire powers have been off for a while now. Ever since the turn of the calendar."
"So why did you wait so long to say something, son?"
"Okay, really, what was I supposed to say? "Hey fam, it turns out I can't shoot fireballs anymore and any control I've had over the element has completed dissipated!"
"So you can't do anything? Not even assume that hot-looking demon monster form?" Janna asked again.
"Nope, not even...hot, you say?" Was it a slip of the tongue on Janna's part? Or a Janna-esque way to pay compliments that she normally wouldn't pay?
"I'll deny saying it."
"Sure, but I'll always know." In an attempt to show off his presumed "hotness," he attempted to ignite himself in flames. As with the fireballs, this too did not occur. "Dang it I can't do anything! What am I supposed to do now? Is there a way to fix this?" His family all exchanged glances & shrugs. Truly, an event like this was unprecedented.
"Maybe Star can help you?"
"Look, she's great and all, but...does she know enough about demons to really be of any help?"
"She didn't really know too much about racism & bigotry either, but that didn't stop her from trying, did it?"
He gave off another shrug. "I don't know, just feels like she has more important things to worry about these days. I'm not sure she's gonna want to help me."
"Of course I'll help you." Star quickly proved her ex wrong, showcasing immediate concern for his inability to tap into his demon powers. "Don't worry, we'll help figure out why this is happening and get you back to normal. It'll all be okay, little guy." She was in doting mother mode, a mindset that had become far more frequent in recent weeks.
"Well, thank you, but...why are you talking like that?"
"Let her be." Marco insisted. "She's been more like that ever since her folks brought her little buddy into the family." Miles, the "little buddy" in question, was hugging Star's leg & moaned, looking at Marco, and then looking around the room. Fortunately, his big sister stepped in & picked him up.
"He's talking about you, you little munchkin." She reassured him, gently kissing his forehead & eliciting a laugh from him before turning back to Tom. "So...how long have you been having this trouble?"
"Since the turn of the calendar."
"And nothing's working for you?"
"Nope. Nothing."
"You know, Tom, I hate to say this, but..." Marco began, placing a comforting hand on the demon's shoulder. "But your abilities haven't really been the same since you..."
"Since I what?"
"Just spit it out, Marco." A testy Star said to him.
"Since he started trying to curb his anger issues."
A brief moment of silence before everyone came to and began clamoring. "You know what? You're right. I have felt a bit off since that demoncism and since starting to work on not being so temperamental anymore."
"Then the answer is obvious." Star began.
"Yeah, we just need to tr-"
"We need to get him mad again!"
"Yeah I gotta...wait WHAT!?" Surely that was not the response Tom was looking for or even hoping for. "Are you nuts?" He asked about as calmly as he could.
Star, for her part, was gobsmacked that Tom was outright rejecting the idea entirely. "What?"
"Why would I possibly entertain that idea again? Letting my rage run my life cost me out of so many life opportunities. That's why I went through all of that hell just to get better, and ever since then everything's been better for me. Why would I ever go back?"
"But Tom, this is different. This is about your actual powers. If it really is the lack of rage that's inhibiting them, then..."
"Then I'll just have to live without them." It was confounding to Star that Tom was outright rejecting the notion, refusing to even acknowledge the possibility of success with this idea. Conversely, it was baffling to Tom that Star would instantly jump to the rage idea instead of entertaining any other possibility first, since it was that same bridled rage that cost him his first relationship with her.
"Y-You can't seriously be this way, can you? Y-You don't want to figure out why your abilities aren't working?"
"Of course I do, but not if it means having to reignite a part of me that's been dead good & buried for a long time. We don't even know if that's even the reason why I'm on the fritz."
"So how do we find out?"
"That answer is pretty simple." Janna explained. "We have to run some tests."
"Uhhhhh no. You're not cutting him open."
"No, Janna doesn't mean those kinds of tests." Marco corrected...hesitantly. "Right?"
"Right. No, I mean we gotta test him out in different ways, like we put him in the frozen wastelands, we make him mad, those kinds of things. We gotta try everything. We might even need to test his mother, too."
"Oh no, no that is not happening. I'm not letting you prod her like she's your test subject. Besides, she wouldn't agree to this anyway!"
"...I stand corrected."
As it turned out, not only did Wrathmeilor agree to help the kids figure out why Tom's powers were not functioning properly, she was happy to be a part of it. Anything to help figure out why her son was, for lack of a better word, "defective," as so kindly translated by Janna.
The first - and what would prove to be the only - test scenario saw them - through the use of the Luciter-created dimensional ray gun - transported to a mostly abandoned dimension, where they would test out whether or not the lack of rage within Tom was to blame for his now-defective abilities.
"Okay, before we go anywhere, we need to establish your baseline abilities." Janna spoke, taking charge on this project. "Light yourselves on fire."
"Okay, for the record, that's not really how it works-" Tom's efforts to complain where quashed as Wrathmeilor demonstrated a tiny bit of her powers, surrounding herself in a raging flame aura that gradually expanded more and more.
"So it looks like his mom's fine. No trouble there." Star remarked as she slowly reverted herself back to normal. Star then turned to Tom. "Your turn, buddy."
The demon in question closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then proceeded to light himself up...which resulted in some parks and flames surrounding him and his shirt briefly catching fire; the display wasn't nearly to the extent that his mother showcased, but much improved over the one he displayed earlier in the lakehouse.
"This is weird." Tom admitted. "It's better than earlier, where I couldn't even do squat. So what's different now?"
Fortunately for them, Star brought alongside her trusty guidebook to the multiverse, which fortunately for them was still relevant today. "Not sure...it could be anything..."
"I'm just happy I don't need any heavy winter jackets here right now." Marco remakred out of the blue. "I'd be sweating my bunions off here."
"Yeah, we're not really used to chilly weather." Tom acknowledged.
"It didn't snow in the underworld?"
"No, it did. But it wasn't cold the way it was in your Earth days. It wouldn't stick to the ground, there wasn't a lot of shivering, it was just a pretty display."
"Yeah I gotta say, Marco, snow on Earth worked alot differently than it did on Mewni. Your kind of snow is a lot colder & stickier." Star remarked, recalling the Stump Day celebration they all had on Mewni.
"Weather patterns: what can you do?"
"Yeah but now the underworld's, like, in a whole foot of snow and I can't go anywhere without shivering like mad." Tom remarked. "Now the air is actually cold. It's kind of annoying."
"Well I apologize that my world's weather patterns have seeped into everything around us." Here came sarcastic Marco.
"You know, I knew I felt a little off during the Christmas party but I just wrote it off to nerves and being around so many strangers. But if it really is just the cold that's interfering, then...what do we do about it? It's not like I'm just going to lock myself in the deepest parts of the underworld until the winter season is over. I'm not gonna miss out on all the cool stuff the surface world has going for it." Tom felt his mother wrap her large arms around him in an effort to warm him up.
"For the record, most of that "cool stuff" you're referring to is the increasingly polarized political landscape that's threatening to devour us all in its chokehold of hopelessness and ineptitude." Came an attitudinal response from his girlfriend.
"...Janna...I'm right here." Star wasn't particularly amused, even if she couldn't personality dispute the argument.
"Oh don't give me that, you know I'm right."
"So here's what might sound like a dumb question: why is he having trouble generating power, but his mom is fine?" Marco pointed out the obvious outlier in this far-too-brief "experiment" of theirs.
"Maybe she just has more power to work with, since she's...you know, uh, had more experience?" Janna surmised, phrasing herself in a way to avoid the obvious insult in front of her.
"Oh yeah! Tom's mommy has way more demon power because she's old!" Only for Star to spell it out for everyone and induce thunderous laughter from Janna, a severely-contained chortle from Wrathmeilor, and an embarrassed, annoyed face wrinkle from Tom.
"She's not that old."
"Okay, so we've established that it's the cold & snowy weather that's making his powers go off-the-fritz and not his anger issues." Marco attempted to steer the conversation back on track.
"Non-existent anger issues, thank you."
"Right. So what do we do? Obviously he has to stay warm for things to be as close to a state of normal as possible. But what I want to know is, is this all there is to it?"
"What do you mean?" Tom was now showcasing a curiosity not normally seen from him.
"We're not talking about a scenario where exposure to this new cold will, like, kill you or anything, right?"
"MARCO!" Star screeched. "Don't even joke like that!"
"What? You think I want that to happen?! Of course not! Tom's muh bud. Who else am I gonna binge Mackie Hand flicks with?"
Star sighed before returning her attention to her ex. "Okay, Tom, besides the...lack of ability to shoot fire out of your hands or eyes...how do you feel?"
"Honestly? I feel...fine, I guess? I mean I'm shivering a lot more than I normally used to, and my body does feel rather chilly, but that's really it."
"And that's all it is?"
"Y-Yeah, honest, it's just really irritating, that's all."
A loud sigh of relief from Star & everyone else around her. "That's good. That's a good sign. But...again, doesn't really explain why your mother isn't having any trouble. By all accounts, you two should have the exact same exposure to Earth's cold, snowy weather...as in, very little."
"At least he won't be kicking the bucket anytime soon." Janna commented rather haphazardly. "I can't afford to shell out for a funeral."
"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, honey." Tom sarcastically clapped back.
"But if it's the cold that's doing him in, wouldn't the obvious solution be to just stay in the underworld until it passes?" Marco theorized. "Isn't it still warmer down in your home than it is up here?"
"S-Sure, I guess. But the thing is, I get cabin fever very easily. If I have to stay down there until winter is over and not be able to go out anywhere at all I'm going to go insane. I need to see my buds, my girlfriend. I mean, Marco, who else am I going to jam out to Love Sentence hits with?"
"You do know I'm right here, right?" Star bluntly objected, almost offended at the implication her mind interpreted.
"Oh yeah, right, you too. But you see my point, right? I don't want to just be stuck, cooped up down there for, like, ever."
"You won't be, this silly snowy weather's not going to last much longer." Star initially laughed it off, only for her laughter to slowly die down as a thought occurred to her. She turned to Marco, a nervous look suddenly crossing her face. "It won't, right?"
"What? Yeah, i-it shouldn't, w-why are you talking all weird about it like that?" Marco asked her directly.
"Well, I mean..." She made an "Just-Look-At-Everything" gesture with her hands. "We merged, and things are still kinda messy. Didn't you tell me that Echo Creek almost NEVER got snow before the merge happened? And then this first winter as Earthni we get a buttload of snow sprinkled everywhere. The Cleaving clearly messed with weather patterns at least a little bit. Maybe we'll get snowy summers and then a hot winter next year. We don't know!"
"We could always keep an eye out for the unusual weather patterns, but that doesn't mean we should just leave our lovable devil friend out in the cold. Metaphorically...or literally."
"Whoa, there, back up, Marco. I didn't say I wanna live on the surface world. I still call the underworld my home and that's not going to be changing."
"So then we have to make the underworld home comfortable enough for him to be able to live there like he normally could. So does the underworld, like, run on electricity or something?"
Tom had to slightly cock his head to the side at the mere asking of the question. "Um, Star? You've been in my room before. I have a game system in my room. Yeah, I would say it runs on electricity...what kind of question even is that?"
"I don't know, I haven't been in your room in forever, I don't know, maybe the Cleaving did something?"
"...What exactly did you have in mind?"
Star's idea? Perhaps a predictable one, but if everything went to plan, an effective one. Just bring a bunch of powerful heaters down into the underworld & plug them up everywhere. Yes, a chamber located in the depths of the underworld - a realm known for its intense heat - was having Earth heaters brought into his room and installed in an effort to warm him up & hopefully restore his powers. "This is so embarrassing..." Tom lamented to himself while the others worked to move everything into place.
"Oh don't be stressing out on us." Star reassured him, putting her heater into place, then comforting Tom with a hug. "It's not your fault. You're just an unfortunate victim of circumstance."
"Well I hope we don't have to go through this every year. Feels like way too much work to get this all settled for you guys."
"Nonsense, we're happy to do this for you. At least I'm happy to do this for you."
"What, are you suddenly my body guard? My "protector?" He couldn't help but deliver a light-hearted jab at his former ex. "Isn't that supposed to be Janna's job now?"
"Between you and me, you're better off having me as your protector than Janna."
"She's not wrong!" Yelled Janna from across the room, resulting in the two breaking out into laughter before the girl embraced the demon boy once more. The others swiftly finished setting up the new arrangements before rejoining them.
"Hey..." Tom knew he had to be careful with Star. She still wore her heart on her sleeve, especially when it came to him. "I'm gonna be fine. I'm not in any danger or anything, this is all just a really bad inconvenience."
"Yeah yeah I know, but...you can't blame me for worrying, can you? Things are finally stabilizing around us a bit and I want us all to be around to see things grow into a beautiful world. It wouldn't be as fun if you weren't around."
"Star...I'll be fine."
The girl loudly sighed and turned to her boyfriend, who was, as always, prepared with a comforting hug. "I know."
"You'll let us know if you need anything?" Marco asked his friend. "I mean it, doesn't matter what it is or what time it is up there, let us know. We're here to help you."
"I will, but I promise you all I'm fine. I'm good here. Come on, guys, get out of here."
"Alright, ladies, you heard him. Let's skedaddle." Janna insisted as Star handled the dimensional ray-gun that has become quite handy for them post-magic and zapped them all into a portal leading back to the surface world, leaving Tom to his own devices. His first act of business was to...turn on one of his brand new heaters to warm him up. Unfortunately, in everybody's haste to help their friend in need, nobody considered the possibility that Tom would have trouble doing the simple task of turning one of them on. Luckily for him, one of his dear friends - Janna - remembered that this might be a possibility, and thus she asked Star to briefly send her back to Tom's room in order to offer a "helping" hand. "You have to push this button to turn it on, then use these buttons to determine how strong the heat comes out." She explained in about as bored of a tone as one could. "Pretty straight forward."
Tom found himself chuckling at the prospect of his own girlfriend taking time out of her day to return to his room & provide further help. "Thanks, g-friend." He playfully snickered at her just as another portal reappeared next to Janna, courtesy of Star.
"You know I hate when you give me pet names that weak."
Tom smirked back at her. "That's why I'm doing it."
Janna shrugged & finally called it day. "Fair enough." She stepped through the portal & left Tom again to his own devices. So this was now a new problem they had to deal with. Hopefully it could be contained to just this one scare...
End of Episode 5!
You have those chapters that you just know in your pits aren't the best but also scrapping it & starting over isn't an option since it's been a while since your last update? Because same. In all seriousness, I'm always proud of every chapter I put out there, even if some are obviously not as strong as others. And I'm not forcing myself to make every chapter 7-9K words long just for the heck of it.
Things in personal life have gotten hectic lately. Aside from my ongoing Total Drama retrospective - which as of this writing is up to Pahkitew Island - I've always decided to take the plunge into something I've been throwing around for years: writing an actual book! I'm not saying anything more than that because I don't want to get people disappointed in case if fizzles out, but I've got nothing to lose by trying. So if updates for this fic start becoming more sporadic going forward those reasons are why. But I'm not giving this up anytime soon, so rest assured there's plenty more coming.
As for now, please remember to read & review! :)