Vestiges

Well, I've worked a little, exercised a little, typed a little fanfiction and read some too, laughed a little, played games a little (too much :P)… I guess I've been livin' a whole lot. Back to this, I reckon.

Alright, senpai...! It's my turn…

10.

He watched her enter his home and no sooner had she did was Higgs exploring throughout the house, almost as if she was checking for cracks, though she was merely doing so out of curiosity. It was eerily reminiscent of how Star behaved when she first came to earth… except for the fact that Higgs wasn't gnawing on a drinking fountain.

He had to grab her and direct her elsewhere as soon as he noticed the teen eying the radio with suspicion. "How the hell are voices and music coming from that black box?"

He racked his brain for a response. "Errm… It's because of science," he said lamely.

The squire cocked her head to one side, then the other as the word circled her brain; it was an expression that reminded of Marco of curious cats, and he found it rather cute. "'Science'? Who's that?"

Marco shook his head. That was ONE subject he didn't know how to explain in less than an hour. "Oh, uh, never mind the radio." He led her by the arm to each of the rooms in turn but by the time they ran into his parents in the kitchen. Cripes, he'd forgotten that they were home.

Not to say that he really wanted some time alone with Higgs, he thought to himself, though he would not have minded.

"… Hello… leaders of the Diaz… clan?" Sienna said awkwardly, only very barely realizing that they were his parents and leaders of his family, but not quite knowing how to address them. She did a bow at the neck, only serving to make Marco facepalm himself. "Did I do something wrong?" she hissed to him privately.

It mattered little. His parents were eccentric anyways; they weren't that easily fazed by awkward social graces, not to mention the fact that they had gotten used to a certain Butterfly's shenanigans.

Nothing fazed them anymore.

"Hello…" Rafael tried to remember the girl's name, only to finally realize that it was only their first meeting. "Hello, girl we haven't met before," he greeted brightly.

"Marco, aren't you going to introduce us to your friend?" Angie asked whilst she diced seasonings.

"Sure, sure. Mom, dad, this is Higgs-"

"Sienna," the girl interjected, trying to offer her first name instead. Both now recognizing a 'mistake' tried to rectify it by reintroducing the squire. "I mean 'Higgs-'"

"I mean 'Sienna'," Marco said at the same time. They shared a look of slight puzzlement before Higgs very nicely told him to 'make up his damned mind'.

"So which is it?" Rafael asked, "'Higgs' or 'Sienna'?"

"Any is fine," the girl hurriedly replied. The mother merely shrugged her shoulders a little before continuing.

"So, those clothes look…" Angie eyed the squire's blue tunic which had a few armored plates. "…foreign? Are you an exchange student?" she asked more excitedly. "Where are you from?"

"Exchange student…?"

Seeing her confusion, Marco came to her rescue. "She's not an exchange student, Mom, she's a friend and she's only spending... wait… how long are you staying?"

"Only one night 'cause I've got to get back by tomorrow evening," Sienna answered, "and as for the other question, I'm from Mewni." At this, his parents shared a look, but it was the same exact look that fans of a show had when it was a few minutes before viewing time. Almost immediately, his parents had practically cornered her, asking curious questions about Mewni, its occupants and its royal family were thrown out into the open. At first, Marco was actually concerned for all three of them, given the fact that Higgs somewhat had a lack of patience, or a 'didn't have a tolerance to bullcrap', as she'd mentioned once.

She didn't explode as he had expected her to, although he had (hypocritically) believed she would. 'Maybe spending eighteen years chasing Hekapoo helped her out with that.' While there was pride in the thought, his mind easily wandered to a certain demigoddess who had given the squire her scissors. To his own surprise, he realized that his musings on her weren't as harsh as all the others who dealt with him improperly on Mewni. Perhaps he did have some sort of 'soft spot' for her, although it was most likely because she had tried to defend him before he had his Inquiry.

Then again, she did laugh at him when he'd first explained the nature of magic. But what about when he wasn't forthcoming with information about Star when she was sleep-portaling?

But just before that, they got along so well...

Marco sighed. It was just too confusing. He supposed that he missed the earlier days when things made more sense and had a bit more light, rather than now. However, if one thing was certain, it was that she was still strict whenever it came to scissors overseeing. Yet, his primary question still remained.

"So why didn't you just take my scissors, instead of taking so long trying to earn yours?" Marco asked suddenly, the question wrenching the girl from the 'conversation' she was having with his parents. "You know where I kept them in my bedroom, and I guess that I wouldn't have minded if you used them."

Sienna regarded him with surprise as she considered his claim. At first glance at the situation, anyone would think it was alright; sharing was caring, right?

That was correct. Perfectly so. Especially given the fact that Marco did not care.

After his bombed performance at Star's birthday party, he took it rather hard that she was unwilling to accept any of the gifts he had offered her. In anyone's safe guess, although both gifts were acquired after carefully analyzing what she would want, find useful and wouldn't be able to get on her own, the sandwich was the emotional gift but the scissors carried far more sentimentality and gravity. He didn't just chase a demigoddess for a decade and a half. Higgs didn't fully understand back then, but she truly did now; like Marco, she sweated, bled and wept until she could no more while she was on the foray. Although she had been at it longer overall, Marco had endured his for sixteen years straight. The longest she'd ever gone was six years (that failed miserably), and could only respect his tenacity.

On the issue, the Diaz had essentially performed a virtually impossible toil, and it was all of that which had gone into earning his scissors. After working to achieve something which was then refused, he'd lost his care; he no longer lent it to anyone who'd asked to borrow it. Not even his friends from the birthday party had gotten to use it to return home-… that was all Star's doing. He essentially refused to use it and didn't permit anyone to use it either. Although he had never explicitly told her that she couldn't use his scissors (though she never tried to even ask), Higgs had thought that the rule applied to her as well.

This basically meant that he held her in a higher regard than all the others. That he trusted her.

That he cared about her.

Sienna nodded favorably with a smile. "I appreciate the thought, and I would've used them... Problem is, the Magic High Commission locked your room up, reinforced it and warded it to make sure that no one could get in. Even though I wanted to use your scissors, I couldn't. I had to go earn my own. The rest is history."

Marco felt his anger rise a bit knowing that everything was kept from him on purpose, rather than a simple lack of memory or bother. "Then how'd you get my scissors if my room was so heavily protected?"

"I…" Sienna decided that the truth was the best way to go. "Star got the key and went in. But she left the key in the door, and at some point exited through the window. When I got there and saw the key, I just pushed the key through the other side of the door, then I fished it out from underneath it."

"Star was in my room?"

"Probably dodgin' duties, or so I heard. The room looked tidy enough, but the bed looked like she'd been napping in it a few times," she explained. He asked her if she got his scissors after she had earned hers, but had to tell him that she used his scissors to earn hers.

"Oh man, you wouldn't believe it!" Sienna hooted, "I got the scissors, and I went back to challenge ol' Hekapoo."

Marco boggled, "You cheated by using them?" The squire's story took off on a tangent, explaining what she had done. She hadn't even gotten fully to the end before Marco was laughing. "She tripped? I wish I was there to see it!"

"You should've been there," she jibed with a good-natured grin, "so you could've taken a picture of how I beat her the quickest." Their chatter grew more excitable as they wandered off, and Angie smiled knowingly at her husband.

"Do you remember when we were like that?"

"Aye, sí. A bit more like rivals in high school before… your quinceañera," he replied before gaining a reminiscent look on his face. "I told you that your lips were sweeter than the candy."

The mother nodded. "Mm-hmm. You were being poetic. But have you noticed? Marco's laughing."

Rafael nodded. "It's been a while since we heard him laugh. They must have been good friends on Mewni, no?" he reasoned. "They sound very familiar with each other."

While an obvious point, Angie still agreed. What she was focused on was the fact that she knew her son was going through a particularly difficult stage in his life. At first glance, (and after a bit of internet research), she turned up the fact that he might have been becoming an 'Emo', and she wasn't quite sure if what he was going through was actually better, or worse.

Who knows? Perhaps he'd done something worse than start fights at school and she didn't even know about it. She would rather stay a bit ignorant to certain details like that and would focus on surrounding him with good influences.

And this girl who just came in… although she could hardly think of anyone she disliked, Angie decided that any positive vibes would be, reciprocally, positively welcomed.

"I like her."

"Sienna? Me too, me too," her husband agreed as he returned to helping her cook the dinner. In one of his rare moments of extreme foresight, he started to chuckle to himself. Of course, Angie asked him what was so funny, but he kept it to himself, mumbling something about giving Marco a 'talk'.

"Thanks for the dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Diaz," Sienna thanked graciously before Marco excused both her and himself from the table.

"Wanna go watch some television in the living room?"

"'Television?' You mean that box with the different pictures? Sure!" Marco internally sighed in relief. He believed that he'd been a good host so far; he'd actually panicked once he turned it on, hoping that the immediate program shown would be 'safe' to watch. The first time he'd shown the television to Star, there was a close-up of a villain's face as he announced his 'devious plans to take over the world'. After a narwhal blast, a warranty mix-up involving guarantees against magically created whales, vague receipts, and hours of apologies and varied attempts at fixing the television, the issue was solved. Star was finally able to fix the television with magic with no ill side-effects… except for the occasional night that Marco would wake up to discover the television in his room, realizing that it was literally watching him when he was asleep.

"You're not gonna attack the T.V., are you?" Marco asked bluntly.

"Why would I do that? I like it. This 'Science guy' who made it had some good ideas."

Marco tried his best not to laugh. "Oh, yeah… Science is a smart guy. Well, let's head to the living room then."

She did a double take. "A what? A 'living room'? You have a room especially used for living?" In a moment of panic, she asked him what the current room they were in was called. "Did you call this room the 'Dying Room'?!"

"It's called the 'dining room'! Because you dine in it. Eating? It makes sense."

"Then why is the other room called a 'living room'?"

"… I have no idea how to answer that."

"Well, never mind it. I'll just go take a bath. The room you do that in is still called a 'bathroom', right?" she hazarded. Seeing him nod, she then requested if she could get a 'night-shirt'."

"A night-shirt? Oh… to change into?"

"Of course. I'm not gonna sleep in my battle tunic," she answered matter-of-factly. Noticing him lapsing into a state of deep thought, she shook her head with a sigh. "You have a place for visitors to stay in, don't you? After all, the princess used to board here, didn't she?"

"Alright, fine. I'll get you a shirt., then I'll show you the guest bedroom."

"You now have your own scissors returned to you, yet you're still here on Earth. I trust that you haven't forgotten your mission?"

"Of course not. She says that she's leaving this evening so I'm leaving with her then."

Appendaxuz nodded, although Marco couldn't see it. "Seems acceptable enough. Anyone can see that you're attached enough, but take care that she's not a pawn against us."

"She's no pawn of theirs," Marco grumbled angrily in her defense, "but I've been meaning to ask you about that. Why the hell did you have everyone on your chessboard as pawns, even me? Am I a pawn."

"Of course not," Appendaxuz lied easily, "It was symbolic. I merely represented it so that you could easily understand what kind of situation you're in. You've played chess before, I'm sure? You should know what it's like to have barely any good pieces when the opponents are stacked both in numbers and strength against you. What is your plan once you get back to Mewni?"

"Find the Wellspring," Marco replied casually as if talking about the weather, "and destroy it. Look good while doing it, if possible."

"That's not a plan, that's a sketchy goal at best," the iniquity said with a harrumph. "You don't know where the Wellspring is, so you can't teleport there. You don't know what it's like, so you don't know what to expect. All you're armed with are your fists, and one cannot simply destroy a Siphon with their bare hands. You don't know who's there, what's there, when to get there nor how to get there. You only know WHY you need to get there, and that's not good enough." His reprimand was severe.

Marco approached his table which was underneath his bedroom window. Taking note that a new dawn was rising when the rays of first sunlight hit his face, he picked up his scissors and pictured the Wellspring in his mind; the same image that he'd seen when he'd contacted Star with the All Seeing Eye spell. With that done, he snipped open a portal which he then attempted to go through. For the first time, a portal truly didn't work, and it was the equivalent of trying to walk through a wall. "What the hell? I can't get through?"

"You'll need to go through a specific variety of places to get there, just as the princess had done unconsciously in her sleep. Either you do that, or you can suddenly become a princess of royal blood and go through a menagerie of coincidental growing pains. Obviously, you see the problem."

Marco blinked. "… Huh. That sarcasm was unnecessary, but yeah, I see the problem. So all I really need is the map Hekapoo made when she was tracking Star's portals-"

"Even if you got that map back, you'd only get halfway there."

"Oh… right. She didn't track her the whole way," Marco hissed his teeth in disappointment as he closed the portal. "And you say that I'm going to need a weapon to take down the Wellspring?"

"Not a weapon, per se. You only need a conduit that can channel my will perfectly, such as the Wards used to prevent the usage of teleportation. Acquire a potent amount of the element used to build that, make your way to the Wellspring, and the rest will simply be checkmate."

"Hmm… you make it sound easy?"

"Marco… anything that's worth doing is never easy," Appendaxuz remarked with a sigh. Before he could continue, a sudden knock came at Marco's door, pulling the teen's attention to it. In a brief episodic fit, Marco asked if it was 'Jackie' and 'Janna' at the door, but to his relief and embarrassment, it was his guest.

"Nope. It's me," Higgs called.

"There's a lot of people named 'Me' in the world." He went over and opened the door, regarding the squire when he saw her. Marco took note of the fact that she was wearing one of his white t-shirts and for some reason, he admired how it looked on her-… or rather how she looked in it. It was very casual, and it did very little to hide the fact that she was growing into a woman.

That particular detail reminded him of something… a somewhat risqué topic.

"Say, Higgs? I gave you the shirt last night since you wanted to change into something more comfortable to sleep in… don't take this the wrong way, but… errm…" Marco rambled awkwardly, "Did you happen to bring a pair of tights or something…"

"Nope!" the girl said brightly, although she had a rather coy look on her face. "Your mother mentioned something about a 'wash' machine that cleaned my clothes last night and dried them while I just slept in the t-shirt."

"I know you slept in the shirt, but I'm talking about what you wore with it-"

"Just… the t-shirt." The look he got on his face right then and there-… the flushed complexion of perverse embarrassment…- her ploy was perfect. "What are you imagining, Marco Diaz?"

Marco coughed briefly, trying to get his blush under control. "Stop messing with me."

"When it stops working," Higgs replied. "Sir Stabby gave me two days off, and it's my second day. I was hoping… maybe you'd show me some sights? Maybe?" she said unsurely. All of a sudden, she couldn't help but wonder why she had become so flustered. Perhaps her own teasing was a double-edged sword.

It was either that, she mused, or the object of her feelings might actually have some feelings of his own for her, and it was making her nervous.

"Higgs, this is a suburb. We don't exactly have any 'sights', or a rich culture. I suppose we can still hang out… or…"

"Or what?"

"We can go break in your new dimensional scissors," Marco suggested. "Go see the multiverse, what else would you use them for?" He sounded sincere enough, but Sienna had to silently question why he'd even tell her to do such a thing. Firstly, she knew that he was basically anti-magic now, but surely he knew why she tried to even get dimensional scissors in the first place, didn't he? She did it, all for him.

Sienna wrinkled her nose in confusion, gazing at the Diaz strangely. "Maybe later," she mumbled as she wandered off.

The squire's confusion persisted throughout the morning, even more so into the afternoon. She'd dawdled most of her time inside the house, trying to learn more about the dimension she was currently in, or at the very least, about Marco's general way of life. Somewhere along the line, she'd found herself sitting lazily in the couch with a dictionary close by that she offhandedly flipped through every now and again. The television was on, but Higgs was ignoring it in favor of focusing on her own thoughts.

Marco was primarily against the usage of magic. In all things considered, he wouldn't have even given her the proposition that she should use her dimensional scissors to simply tour the multiverse since it was achieved through magic. It sounded rather appealing, and it would be something that she'd do even if it meant absconding her post as a squire. That wasn't the point, however. Why would he tell her to do something so hypocritical?

Why would he give her the suggestion?

She could admit that when it pertained to certain things, Marco was sometimes more easygoing and tolerant when her views and wants clashed with his. It was possible that this was one of them, but this felt like the most serious breach of his creed since the beginning of their friendship, and it only served to make her thoughts more muddled. Absentmindedly, she flipped through the dictionary to learn the definition of the word 'science'. Finding it at last, she read it out loud to herself before sighing deeply.

"At least I know it's not a man… but now I gotta look up at least a dozen more words just to understand this definition. Damn."

Before she could go about doing so, the doorbell rang, signifying that someone was at the front door. The girl placed her book aside to go answer the door, but not before jiggling hilt of her weapon to loosen it inside the scabbard to ready herself for the smallest hint of conflict. "Who is it?"

There were some audible mumblings outside. Higgs took her time in approaching the door, and after unfastening the chain lock ever so gently, she opened the door with an abrupt wrench, startling the two girls outside waiting on the doorstep. Mentally kicking herself, she realized that she still hadn't lost some of her wary habits from Dimension X-103. Seeing them, the squire narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "Hello. Who are you and what's your business?"

The request sounded polite enough, although Jackie got the eerie familiarity to the point in time when she'd been getting a passport. "Um… who are you?" she asked back, wondering why there was a strange new girl in Marco's house. Before Higgs could think of a sarcastic comeback, Janna's mind finally found the memory of the instance of when and where she'd seen this person before.

"Wait… 'Higgs', is it?" she asked unsurely. "I remember that you came knocking at the door looking for Marco at Star's birthday party-"

"That was years ago," Sienna said with emphasis, "and I don't remember you."

"What?" Janna did something that she rarely did, and that was scratch her head in confusion, "it was only last December. But more importantly, that was on Mewni. On… Mewni…" Noticing her drop in tone, Jackie noticed that her companion had lapsed into deep thought. After realizing that the person was from Mewni (from all indications, even her clothing attire), Jackie's eyes widened. For the first time, she felt her mood spike as she became excited.

"You have dimensional scissors, don't you?"

"Um… duh?" Higgs said lamely. Before she could ask her earlier question again, the two girls introduced themselves properly and made it clear that they were Marco's friends. Higgs wasn't quite sure if that even meant that they could enter the house, yet they let themselves in anyway. She remained guarded as they made their way to Marco's bedroom; although the one that 'claimed' to have seen her (it was so long ago that she'd forgotten about ever seeing her) went up the stairs quietly, the other one was a bit inquisitive, especially about Star and the topic of her dimensional scissors.

Both topics weren't well received, and Higgs wished that the girl would take a hint from her silence that she didn't want to talk about it, especially with a complete stranger.

Janna knocked twice on the bedroom door and entered uninvited, catching Marco by surprise to some extent as he'd been expecting Higgs to enter. His face fell, "Oh, it's you two. What do you want this time? Preach to me? Or maybe try to trick me into going to a mental clinic?"

Higgs sighed as she listened to Marco's ramblings. "Friends do that to one another down here? Earth is weird…"

"Dude, we never did any of that!" Jackie protested. "Stop being so dramatic."

"Took the words right out of my mouth," Janna added. "But since it's a boring ol' Sunday, we figured that we'd ask you to come along to a pizza party at Ferguson's house."

Marco raised his eyebrow in suspicion. "A pizza party? On a Sunday?"

"Pizza doesn't care which day of the week it is."

"Pass," Marco said boredly as he went back to packing his smallish duffel bag with miscellaneous toiletries; it'd been packed with his clothes for months for when he needed to leave at a moment's notice. 'I should probably carry some more underpants. I'm not gonna trust myself to wearing any more enchanted underwear from Quest Buy.' Locked in thought, he'd missed what Jackie had said and asked her to repeat it.

"C'mon, when was the last time you socialized? It'll be fun. Good music, all the pizza you can eat…"

"Bunch of people, weird shenanigans, getting into trouble with his parents, getting into arguments with people who've touched your pizza slice…"

Janna gave him an unfavorable look. "… You're so negative. Would it kill you to realize that-"

"Pizza party?" Sienna asked out of the blue. "I'm not quite sure what it is… but can I come?"

The walk over to his old friend's house wasn't enthusiastic, especially given the fact that Marco didn't want to go in the first place.

It wasn't as if Marco hated socializing; rather, he was asocial because he merely preferred it that way nowadays. The last thing he wanted was to be mingling with people who'd long been looking at him with negative standpoints. For the most part, it was his fault-… of course, he knew about his own actions. He'd brought his disapproval and hatred of magic from Mewni with him, and lashed out against those who were ignorant of the things that had happened to him. He'd be better someday, he reasoned, after he finished his objectives and returned home.

As for now, however, he wanted to stay focused.

"You know…" Janna started after glancing behind her at the squire who was being 'taught' what pizza was by Jackie, "I bet you're only coming because your girlfriend is."

"She's not my girlfriend," Marco said easily as if he had rehearsed it, "she's a friend. That's all."

"Just like Star, hmm?" She noticed that the Diaz didn't react visibly, but the air did get a little tense. "Just like you did with Star, you tagged along with just because you don't want her being out on her own in a place she's not familiar with. It shows how much you care."

"I don't want her getting lost, much less hanging around with a couple of self-righteous girls. Not to mention, she does have to get home by a certain time."

"Papa's curfew? Looks like Marco's following da rules, hmm?" Janna lightly teased. Marco ignored it in favor of asking what the party would be like. He could tolerate some things to a certain degree, but if it was a home-wrecker of a party, he was returning home right then and there.

"Don't worry about it. After today, everything will be sorted out."

"Just from a pizza party? Your confidence isn't exactly contagious."

"And I hope your attitude isn't either. Get your mood out of the dumps and chill, man." Janna patted Marco on the back to show that she emphasized with him. "I know that we haven't exactly been supportive, but you've gotta understand that you're not really giving us a reason to be. The-"

"I'd rather not think about it anymore. I'm not sorry, you're not forgiving, so let's agree to disagree." They finally arrived at Ferguson's house, and Marco belayed the argument for a moment to listen carefully. "It seems pretty quiet for a party."

"It's about ready to start," Janna replied smoothly; she'd been expecting him to make that observation. "Just go on in." Taking her up on her suggestion, he walked up to the door, not even realizing that both she and Jackie had taken up places to stand just behind him. As he opened the front door, the first thing he realized was that the place was rather lacking in ambiance if it was supposed to be a party, or even in preparation. No chatter, no celebrations, no excitement, nothing. Furthermore, there was not a slice of pizza to be seen.

Only a group of people all seated in the living room, as if they had been waiting expectantly for him. They were all people he had 'lashed' out against, assorted friends and the like, and it didn't take a genius to figure what this was all about.

Marco looked at the intervention as if he was regarding a bear-trap.

"This is an intervention, isn't it?" he asked rhetorically. "Hell-no thank you." Marco turned on his heel and was about to make his exit even faster than he'd come, only to find the doorway blocked by Jackie and Janna. "Oh God, no."

"Marco, you've been at one of these before when Alphonso had his problems," Jackie disputed, "so you of all people should know that this is a good thing."

"For starters," Marco replied crossly, "interventions don't necessarily work. He still has those problems, just not in public. Secondly, interventions are for people with problems."

"You're saying that you don't have one?"

"The problems exist," Marco grunted, "and I intend to fix them on my own." Without any warning, he muscled his way through the two girls in his way roughly before calling out to Higgs who'd been waiting on the front steps. "We're leaving."

"Leaving? But what about the pizza party?-"

"They tricked us! There was no pizza party. It was the equivalent of an ambush." Marco went off swiftly, and she had to make an effort to keep up with him.

"So what now, then?" Hardly had she asked this had she noticed the two girls running to catch up with them. "Oi, you two!" Sienna shouted, "Can't you two harpies go bother someone else?"

Janna didn't pay the squire any mind as she grabbed the Diaz by the arm as soon as she got within reach. "Hey, what was that? You're being so damn difficult, Marco! Can't you see that we're doing all of this for your sake?"

"You mean making a fool out of me? I don't need any more of that bullshit, thank you very much." Before she could ask what he meant, he continued. "Magic is my problem, a'right! Everyone up there, they've been abusing it for an eternity, and it's gonna be the death of all us… but when I told them about it, they ridiculed me, and humiliated me to lower than dust! They barred me from even having my own belongings, refused me any rights and treated me as if I belonged in a straitjacket!"

"But what about Star?" Jackie asked hesitantly. She'd been hoping that she'd be able to 'fix' Marco, once she was able to get to use the squire's scissors to get to her. "What about Star? She's your best friend, and she wouldn't-"

"She wouldn't? SHE WOULDN'T?! Oh, but she's so damn perfect, isn't she?!" Marco roared. "A fat lot of help I got from her! We've always had our differences, but the one time I expected her to support me just like I supported her, she DIDN'T! She's the one who thinks I turned into a whack-job, she helped to convince everyone that I belonged in a looney bin, and she's the one with the wand that's spitting out garbage magical spells every two minutes. Who's going to be the death of me, of you, of all of us?! Star Butterfly, that's who!"

The three girls could only stare as the Diaz allowed himself to fall unto the grass by the sidewalk, resting his head in his hands. It was obvious that he was crying, as they seeped between the cracks of his fingers, but even so, the crescents on his face began to glow radiantly in response to his emotions. "I know we had our fights, but we always got past them. We had our disagreements, but we always got to a compromise. I loved her!" he bawled. "I did everything humanly and inhumanly possible to look out for her best interests, and I stuck through thick and thin for her! I gave up everything I had, I groveled at the bottom of the social order like an idiot, I pledged my life to her, to the princess who already had everything! We fought Ludo, we fought Toffee, Ms. Heinous and everything else the multiverse could throw at us...! But now… now we're fighting each other." His immense misery began to veer off into anger as he brushed away his tears in frustration. "And I intend to win."

The girls were horrified. "But I'm sure…" Janna's words died in her throat as he got back up, more in conviction than ever before. She tried to hold him back by the shoulder, but in a swift reflex, he grabbed her arm whilst turning on his heel swiftly and dash-stepped past her. In a single moment, he'd savagely kicked her legs at the ankles and forced her to her knees adjacent to him-… she barely even had the time to even look up before she saw his fist rapidly approaching her face with the force of a speeding truck.

His fist stopped just before it smashed into her temple. She didn't even blink-… she could only watch the Diaz wide-eyed as his hand dropped and he stepped backwards away from her. He'd finally come to see her for what she was underneath. She'd been hiding behind indifference and bravado for as long as he'd known her, and just this once, he'd seen that she was as vulnerable like everyone else.

"Sorry," he said plainly before he walked off without even so much as a backward glance. Sienna kept pace with him and left the two girls behind. They went back to his home quietly, no words passed between them. In fact, the awkward silence remained like that until he finished packing his duffel bag and just as he was finished and leaving his room, he bumped into his mother. Before he could say a word, the woman hugged her son tightly, as if she never wanted to let him go.

"So… you finally finished packing that bag?"

"Hmm?" he mumbled unintelligibly. "You knew-"

"I found it three months ago when I was cleaning your room. I always knew you intended to leave, but I never knew why."

"I'm gonna go save the Earth, mom. That's all." His mother laughed at his wit and kissed him on the forehead, before she finally released and looked him over, considering the young man that he was becoming. She saw a lot of his father in him, as much as herself. Even more so, she saw Marco in him-… he was growing more and more into his own each and every day.

"And look good doing it, I presume?"

"…" He gave her an incredulous stare before he chuckled. "I always knew I got that from one of you guys. Anyway… I should probably go tell dad-"

"I'll tell him when he gets home, Marco. I won't keep you anymore. Come home soon?"

"I'll come home sooner," Marco replied with a smile as he started to walk past her with Higgs close at his heels. "Goodbye, Mom."

"Goodbye mi hijo."

That was all. Such few words, yet such poignant and understanding emotions. Sienna didn't feel much except for a bit of jealousy, as she'd never known her own mother. In fact, she was already hesitant to leave, and Marco took notice when they made it to his front porch. "What's wrong?"

Instead of this, Higgs answered to the suggestion that he'd offered that morning.

"I understand, Marco. Although to be frank, I think you're more than just a little crazy to be leaving all of this behind-… family, friends, a good comfortable house in a nice community. You're ready to leave all of this behind just to make yourself miserable and do what you think is right?"

"I know it's right."

"You were asking me if I felt like checking out the multiverse. I realize now that you were testing me. I may be a squire, but I'm no lapdog that's gonna follow every dunce thing you say… but I'll stick with you." It wasn't hard for her to say… it felt rather appropriate, and Marco reacted favorably to it and thanked her. "Don't worry about it. I'm your friend, and I'll help you… even if I think you're a damned idiot."

Marco grinned to himself in understanding as he took out his dimensional scissors and opened up a portal. "On occasion. Let's go."


Well, I reckon that's it. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. As for the chapter title:

Xenophile- A person who loves foreign things, people and culture.

It was basically Higgs in this chapter, and I guess she was a bit like Star because of it, sans magic. I used it to help flesh out her character a wee bit more, as well as exploit it for a few attempts at humor, so I hope it was well received. As for what I said in the last chapter about Hekapoo, I meant that her relationship with Marco was what I'd work on next; sorry if you thought I meant that she'd show up in this chapter.

Well, senpai? How was it?

Valete omnes,

MRAY 4TW.