Vestiges
I'm glad you all found my fic to be interesting enough to read (thus far) and in some cases, follow and add to favorites. Hopefully, I'll get you to use your keyboards, too. Hint-hint.
3.
Plodding through the snow-covered streets of the stump-paraphernalia themed village, Marco sipped his brew from his mug-shaped stump in between his undertone grumblings. The frigidity bit through his red sweater and skinny jeans, making him curse his own lack of foresight to dress warmer, though he had nothing else in his wardrobe. Taking a long swig from his mug, the swill inside that warmed his insides was imbibed altogether too soon, already leaving him to feel even more defenseless against the cold. He tossed the stump-mug towards a filled garbage bin, not even bothering to care if it fell on the bin or not; his own annoyances were already rubbing him the wrong way too much. It was Star's birthday and as far as he was concerned pertaining to gifting her, he'd come up short.
"Her fifteenth birthday? I can't even ask what she'd want. Not like I'd be able to get it in the first place."
No, no. The teen came to realize that the notion, while true, was unfair in accusation. He recalled his six-hundred-and-fifty dollars hidden in a book in his bedroom and shook his head. He'd spent far too much time the night before wandering the halls of Quest Buy for a gift he could present to the princess, ultimately failing to find anything even remotely good enough. He browsed for everything he had the time to peruse in other places as well and as far as Marco could tell, Star either had no use or had the ability to procure nearly any item in question.
She was royalty and as such, came from a family with a tidy amount of riches and assorted collaterals. There was also the matter of her being a magical princess at that, and with her wand, was able to conjure, summon or transmutate whatever she needed whenever she wanted. Marco knew he was in a difficult situation; what could you give the person who already had everything?
He had a few ideas, withstanding these fastidious odds. For one, all of her purchases were heavily monitored as of late to curb her overspending habits. Despite that, anything costing the amount of money Marco had, however, was well within that budget. Second, she wasn't entirely able to form anything she wanted out of magic. She wasn't that well versed, for starters, and Marco knew that while her capacity for conjuring and summoning were nigh-unlimited given her imagination, she had issues transforming things that followed her requirements.
With these things in mind, Marco thought of the possible gifts he could give. They were both things which were either proscribed and impossible for Star to create or summon, or unable to transform from common items. Not to mention, the more superficial of the items had to be procured as fresh as possible due to its short storage life. However, by the time everything would be said, given and done, however, Marco wondered if he'd have anything left to call his own.
He stopped walking through the snow. There was nothing to gain in the act. He'd stormed out of the castle after the knights had offended him; was he that easily upset? He'd requested a sword in the reasoning that he'd need to be able to defend himself from a monster. Much less to the fact that the boy would not even bring himself to leave the castle due to the sub-zero temperature, they were of the notion that he would only gain false courage from wielding a weapon and get himself killed trying to fight something far stronger than he. It was either that, Marco reasoned, or the petty basis that they did not want to share their weapons. He'd already established that they were haughty and a proud set. He couldn't do much about their views, nor against the force they presented.
He tapped at his belt, checking if his own weapon was there. It was hardly a sword, nor was it as sharp; the corn sickle he'd taken from a shed wouldn't serve him much in a conflict with a beast he was about to confront. It was all he had, Marco thought grimly, and he'd be better off with it rather than being bare-handed. In all things considered, however, he wasn't quite fully committed to carrying out his outing. The small voice in his head, he himself that is, reminded him that Star, with all her existing benefits, didn't deserve what he planned to give her. The other voice in tandem seemed to agree with him in its unintelligible murmuring.
Said voice was usually plain in what it said from time to time and save for the too-few occasions it tried to speak something else, was too vague. After trying to garner information from it recently, all Marco could gather was that the voice…- or whatever it was…- only appeared to be a distraction at the worst and in the best possible scenario yet, his own mind trying to inform him of something after all this time.
"Destroy… The… Wellspring…"
There it went again. Already ignoring it, Marco instead removed the dimensional scissors from his pocket, getting ready to open a portal.
"Make… All… Equal…"
Ah, this was new. Marco's ears perked up beneath his hoodie "Equal?" he asked eagerly. This sounded rather promising! Not much in the way of socialism, but more in the fashion that he'd stand on equal footing with everyone else, be it that they were brought to his level or he ascending to theirs. "Equal? All? You mean to make everyone equal? How?" His voice betrayed how excited he was, given this change of events. Whether or not this voice was actually sentient, what it'd just stated was rather enticing even though Marco hoped that he wasn't being baited. "C'mon! Keep talking…" the teen urged, "just spit it out!"
"Destroy… The… Wellspring…"
The moment was already fleeting, but Marco's mood didn't plummet as much as his anxious heart-rate. It mattered little; an incidence of the voice to even speak so frequently within a minute was a first all on its own and it made the Diaz sure that some progress had been made. Never before had he welcomed the presence of the voice this much, and unintentionally gave it a little more leeway by wanting to hear what it had to say.
"It… Creates… Disproportion…"
Marco raised his eyebrow at this, his body moving on autopilot as his mind ruminated on the disembodied voice's words. "Disproportion? That's like prejudice and social unfairness, right?" the boy said softly, thinking of his status. "Maybe this 'wellspring' or the whatchamacallit is actually a bad thing and I should destroy it. But no one knows where or what it is, not even the Queen and the Magic High Commision!" His deliberations were interrupted by his cell-phone that rang out in his pocket or vibrated as it were. (He'd deleted his inane ringing-tone a month prior.) Removing the cell to regard it, he saw that it was Star trying to reach him. After a moment of hesitation on whether or not he should answer, he dropped the call and further went on to turn the phone off.
"I'd better hurry up."
Jabbing the phone into his back-pocket, the teen then dug the scissors into reality and opened a portal, leaving Mewni behind.
…
"Did ya reach him?" Janna asked, taking a long drink from her stump-mug in an effort to get used to the taste of the concoction inside.
"No…" Star snapped her phone/mirror shut with a sigh. "That's the umpteenth time! He'd better not be outside. He could freeze in weather like this!"
Janna gave her a leery gaze. "Does he disappear often?"
"Um…"
"I'll take that as a yes. He's either got a girlfriend he's with, or he's dead right now. It's so ridiculously cold that it feels like Mewni's sitting in the back of a freezer."
"Janna!" Star chastised, "he's not dead, m'kay?" The punk teen merely shrugged in response as she tried to get comfortable on her stump, feeling another splinter of wood trying to stick her thigh.
"But doesn't that mean that you're alright if he does have a girlfriend? You're focusing on the bit about whether he's dead or not."
"He doesn't have a girlfriend." Janna noticed that the Butterfly sounded rather defensive, but chose not to comment on it. "Besides, if he has one, he would have told me…" Star began to consider Marco's standoffish behavior as of late and pondered if Janna's suggestion had any merit. "He would've, right?"
"Would he?" the emphasis furthered the girl's argument and Star's mood the wrong way. "And why are you asking me?"
Star had no reply. The blond walked away deep in thought and Janna could tell that she'd rattled her friend, although the reasons why it did was unknown to her. Jealousy, maybe? Insecurity? Second-thoughts about dating Tom? He was a cool guy as far as Janna decided, but everything was up in the air at this point. And Marco? What about him? Janna teen had only made her suggestion based on what she read about guys in her teen magazines and could be misconstruing what she thought about Marco. Marco was… Marco, in a sense. The 'safe' kid. A (nerdy) guy like that couldn't be that much of a romantic. Even if he was, Janna surely did not care. Did she?
"I wonder… did the ol' string-bean actually get a girlfriend?" Janna mused. "Hmm… nah. Maybe he-" A sharp knock came at the door, breaking her ruminations. Being seated closest to the door, she performed the expected obligation and opened the door. On the other side, there was a rather petite-looking teen who fidgeted nervously whilst drumming her fingers on a sword she had, giving Janna the impression that she didn't really want to be there. "Can I help you…?"
"Higgs!" The girl's outburst was over the requirement for the hinted need for an introduction and it was a fact she herself recognized. "Sorry. I… uh… stress," she explained lamely.
Janna studied the girl as if she were checking for cracks. "Okay, Higgs," she drawled, "what'cha want?"
Higgs didn't bother to go into specifics of the nature of her business, that is, to give an apology… among other things. "I came here to see Marco." Higgs tried to look over the girl's shoulder, trying to see beyond into the room to find her person of interest. "The knights said that he'd be here?"
"Nope. Wanna leave a message for when he gets here?"
"Nah. But I'd like to know where else I can find him-"
"Drew a blank on that one, friend. Try coming back later," Janna suggested. It didn't pass her notice that the girl's eyes fell in disappointment, comprehending that Higgs did not want to simply return later. Indeed, it could have taken all of the girl's resolve to even come here at all in the first place.
In the hours passing, long after Higgs was gone, Janna would come to believe that she was right.
"Maybe the string-bean does have some game after all..."
Marco ran gracelessly from the cave as he dropped the sandwich in a Ziploc bag he'd carried with him, hoping that the food would stay together. It didn't pass his notice that the sandwich had some sort of magical aura around it, but he had bigger things to worry about; point in fact, it was a bulky monster whose innards he'd stolen the sandwich from and it was none too pleased about it.
"R-R-ROOAAARRRR!"
Marco panicked a little when he nearly lost his footing as he ran. "Oh crap, the scissors!" Reaching into his pocket and pulling out the reality-warping scissors, he was already envisioning where he needed to go. Before he could even attempt to snip a hole, however, the behemoth caught up to him bucked at him like a bull, tossing him like a ragdoll to the side.
"Agghh!"
Everything went to hell in an instant. His body flailed wildly as he was absent from gravity for but a moment, before crashing in a tumble to the earth. The sounds of his items scattering about dimmed in comparison to the sharp noise of something breaking.
"Damn it!" the boy flinched, already feeling himself all over to run a quick diagnostic, and breathed a sigh of relief when he realized that what he'd broken was his cellphone. Despite the loss, his aches and bruises from the monster's charge, he counted himself fortunate; the sickle that had been affixed to his belt landed on the ground flat-first, allowing him to miraculously escape serious self-injury when he landed on it as well.
That was as far as his luck went, as he had to get up and dive out of harm's way when the monster stomped his location with a massive leg, puffing blasts of air in anger at its failure. "ROOO-AAARRR!"
Hurriedly getting back to his feet whilst entering a fighting stance with his sickle, Marco took stock of the situation. His scissors were the only way of fleeing the conflict but they were well out of his reach, lying at the edge of the cliff behind the monster. The sandwich was close by; a few steps to his right and it would be within arm's reach. Of course, the last time he was in a fix like this, he was with Star who had a magic-cure-all for her troubles, but Marco's priorities hadn't changed since then. His own life was obviously placed over food. Right at the top of his list.
Then why the hell was he looking at the sandwich as if he wanted to run to get it first?
"Just cut your losses, Marco," the teen mumbled as the beast stared at him, obviously wondering what the lad was up to. It showed that it had some measure of intelligence and… recognition? Or was it only a dumb pride contest presented by a territorial creature, deciding who would back down first? It was probably the latter; the sandwich was created in the monsters bowels as a sort of stored fat when it had plenty to eat and metabolized when there wasn't enough food to last it through meager times. Sort of like an energy bar from excess nutrients, and it was its prize to protect.
Blunt teeth… it was clearly a herbivore with limited means; it was far from a creature that would eat another, much less kill the boy if he didn't press on for trouble. Marco didn't know that if he had ignored the sandwich, the behemoth would've allowed him to leave peacefully. But Marco didn't when he dashed towards the victual, and the monster didn't let him depart quietly.
With a loud growl, it rushed him again with the intent to crush the Diaz, but the boy dove with a specific angling to keep the sickle pointing away from himself, and to snatch the sandwich with his free hand as soon as he hit the ground. Finishing off with a perfect shoulder-roll, Marco sidestepped the monster's foreleg which would have pummeled him and felt his heart begin to race, reminiscent of his arduous trials in Hekapoo's dimension. Hard-earned instincts firing on all cylinders, his mouth contorted in a roar of his own.
"Graaagghh!" The sickle pointed outwards, he slashed the sickle into the meat of the monster just above the offending leg with the might of both hands. Not stopping there, he raked it through the monster's side as he ran past it, gore and blood spilling as the sickle dug deeper and deeper as he maximized his efforts. The bellowing sounds of the monster's pained cries deafened Marco, but he paid it no mind as he finally tore out the farming tool when he reached the monster's hindquarters. He'd debilitated the monster enough, he thought grimly, hurting it sufficiently to make it want to leave him alone.
Sure of his victory but still taking no chances, he hastened to his scissors whilst re-hooking the sickle to his belt via the cord. Hearing a thundering behind him, the injured-yet-undeterred monster had just about caught up to the Diaz when the boy reached the warp-tool and grabbed it but was forced to leap over the edge as the monster was nearly upon him.
Both boy and beast bellowed in fear as gravity began tugging them to the far below, losing their minds in panic. In horror that he would die, Marco shut his eyes in expectation of death, waiting for the ground to rush up to him.
"Calm… Yourself… Use the scissors!" The voice that repeated the same odd phrase over the course of the month once more lapsed into different speech, although the exclaimed advice nearly served to unsettle him more. At last, Marco gathered his senses and took note of everything. He had everything. The sandwich was still in his possession, and the scissors were in his hands. He could still warp out of the situation, but the harsh reality was that natural physics would still kill him as the acquired velocity of his fall would follow him wherever he went.
"No… focus… where's the best place for the portal? A soft bed? Crap, no! The sea, maybe?" He could barely hear himself over the sound of the wind rushing past his ears.
He was about to become a stain; he'd been falling like a human-shaped rock for nearly too long.
"DAMN IT!" Marco screamed as he opened the scissors wide and slashed at reality below him, intently falling through the portal he made back-first. The monster wasn't quite that fortunate as its body had had too much force going over the cliff from the start; it fell over and missed the boy and his portal entirely, crashing through the trees that peppered the ground. With its sturdy frame, it normally would have survived the impact. This wasn't the case, as its earlier partial disembowelment and meeting the ground head-first only killed its chances of surviving, and its life along with it.
…
"Damn it!"
A warp portal opened up vertically to the street, and a teen came flying out of it at high speed. His limp body lightly skimmed the snow-covered ground at the same level for all of five seconds before gravity seemingly remembered him, and started to tug him down once more. It was safer but no less harrowing as the boy finally coasted down nigh-gracefully into the snow and slid backward into the icy natural cushioning. Marco didn't know how long it took for his body, along with his shock, to come to a stop, as he welcomed the black of unconsciousness long before then.
Lengthy note warning:
A little adventure? Okay. I wanted to make a bigger fight scene and to make a bigger cliffhanger, but I guessed that it would only bog the chapter down. Besides, I already had to split this chapter in half. I reckon I'll post it tomorrow, or the day after. It's the harder part, I tell you.
-The tag in the description once suggested that Marco was 'Evil'. I'm not sure if anything can be so black and white. Some might say his capacity is that of an anti-hero or someone who is doing the right thing in the wrong way. In that same sense, you could say that he's doing the wrong thing for the right reason. Hence, I've changed the tag to 'Dark', simply because his label isn't finalized as yet. But make no mistake-… he's definitely not the same Marco whose shenanigans you once laughed at.
-Timeline: I've actually followed the timeline loosely with canon, and kept the dates accurate. The fic starts immediately after the events of Monster Bash, as Marco had felt inadequate when helping Star.
(Obviously, Tom had Marco beat in that department. Mina, while a beast, made it look as if a confrontation between her and Marco would have been similar to the Hulk having a dispute with a grasshopper.)
Straightaway, he admits his feelings, and then we had a small 'Higgs' arc that lasted a month. Another week or two has passed and it's now Stump Day/Star's Birthday. After the next chapter, I'm ditching the canon timeline. Come retcon or Nefcy's plot-twists or high water, I hope this (AU?) fic will stand tall.
Subnote: I get the feeling that I don't want to create a shipping straightaway and yet I'm leaving certain doors open all over the place. Am I messed up in the head or what?
Valete omnes,
MRAY 4TW.
