Vestiges

"Are you sure you didn't want some? You've been giving me 'the eye' ever since I started drinking."

Jackie blinked, now self-conscious that she had been staring at the woman drinking volcanic alcohol. "Nah, I'm taking a pass on the lava. Hard pass." Flipping open the book, a picture fell out from between the center pages. Hekapoo's eyes widened when she realized what it was, and made a wild grab at it before Jackie noticedthe image. Being just a little bit quicker than she was, Jackie took it up from off of the ground and gaped at it in shock. "I thought you said that you DIDN'T take a picture of him naked!"

Trying to play off the situation, Hekapoo averted her eyes as she grinned into the cup she was drinking from. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Now let's wrap up this little story."

(Author's note – This is actually two chapters-… Enjoy)

21. Insurgent

At some point, Hekapoo had passed out in his lap, and the human could only watch her fire which burned between her horns with some apprehension. Snow constantly fell down from above, and he could feel it coat the top of his head like a cold cap. He had to shake his head every now and again to clear it off. However, in Hekapoo's case, the snow would on her and melt almost as soon as it touched her, but he noticed that the heat reaction was slowing down.

After a time, it seemed that the snow would settle on her for a little while before slowly melting, but this was even more apparent for her fire. A decent amount of snow would perhaps fall right into where her flame burned and it would sizzle and sputter out. However, soon, like a trick candle, it would reignite but the automatic process was becoming slower each time it happened.

Like he was before, she was close to her limit, but he was more than well enough to actually get up, and get going. To him, it felt wonderful enough to the point that he believed that his hypothermia was obliterated, but it was disconcerting that Hekapoo seemed to actually be suffering from a variation of the very same illness. Perhaps her healthy level of temperature had to be higher than his, and she expended her own body heat in order to raise his own.

They needed to get out of that hole.

He had only entered the hole for hardly any reason except to see Hekapoo in her final hour. He had long known that he would never make it to the castle that her clone was in, and he'd only left the cave in order to perish without her treating him like a stray animal-... the humiliation was more than he could stand.

But now, she wanted to live. She wanted him to LIVE.

So what, was he supposed to oblige her? And even if he even wanted to renew his efforts, would he even be successful? To think, his greatest difficulty wasn't a vicious and powerful person, nor was it a ravenous and dangerous creature. Instead, his encounter with death would be at the hands of an illness brought on by low environmental temperatures.

Didn't she understand? He'd come here to watch her die firsthand… he wanted her to know, personally, why he hadn't tried to fish her out of the hole. In his mind, there was still another way to get out, and he still had no motivation to leave. He was still angry with her, and since he was already doomed, he was seeking some sort of karmic downfall happen to her as well.

And what of that little talk she'd given him? Just so that he rouse himself up and leave? Did she tell him that just so that he'd save her?

She would have to try harder than that-

That was when he felt it. He felt even warmer all of a sudden, almost to the point that he could easily convince himself that he was in a summer paradise. However, upon resting her arms as if to pry her off, her arms felt cold to his touch.

It was when he realized it. She hadn't just been sharing her body temperature with him-... she had been GIVING all of it to him, even more than what he needed to the point that she was starving her own body of even keeping a necessary amount to keep her alive.

If she was doing that… didn't that mean that she didn't care if she herself died, but only if he had a chance of staying warm enough to make to shelter?

"Hekapoo?" He called her name softly, trying to wake up the demigoddess. She stirred but was only barely even conscious enough to even listen to him properly. "That's enough. I don't need any more of your body heat. Just keep it to yourself. You know that I'm not taking the quest anymore."

Her sole visible eye blinked slowly as if she was about to lapse off again, and he snapped his fingers in her face. "Hey, are you hearing me? Keep your heat to yourself-"

And she was gone again. It was no use. Either she was stupid for slowly killing herself for a life that did not even matter anymore to its owner, or she was just too repentant for what she'd done to him. Marco slowly grasped that it was the latter-... he realized that even if he felt that his life didn't matter anymore to him, if even the person who had put him through hell valued it, then he had a duty to live. He had a responsibility to preserve his life.

Even hers too.

Marco laughed bitterly. "I was ready to die… hell, I wanted to see you die. Instead, now you're killing yourself to make sure I live, even if you know that I wouldn't last long when you die." His words were brave, stalwart, but they started to crack… no, HE broke down as he held the demigoddess a little tighter as if to reassure her. "We're going to LIVE." Getting up and standing strong on his feet, he shifted her to his back in a piggyback carry, letting her arms dangle over his shoulders while he supported her by angling his left arm beneath her bum for her to 'sit' on.

In his right hand was a small hatchet, and he chopped at the snow close to the base of the hole to let it destabilize just enough to allow a large pile of snow to cover where they stood. Uprooting his legs from where they had been partially buried, he then stood on the now elevated ground with his improvised snowshoes. Repeating the process again of chopping the snow at the sides, he allowed even more of the snow to fall down, before lifting his legs again to stand up again on the once-more elevated ground. He'd now risen by a total of two feet; by sheer height alone, he knew that with his current slow progress, Hekapoo would die before he even reached the top, much less get to shelter.

Despite the horrid situation, Marco had a determined smile on his face as he kept on working. Now having established a rhythm, he began to work quickly and more quickly. The tiny fur coat he'd spent six months trying to make was now lying under a heap of snow, but a new 'coat' rested on his back, always providing heat to stave off the biting cold. Her fiery red hair had come undone from its style, and draped around his shoulders and even over the front of his body. Unbelievable as it was, it helped to further insulate him from the freezing temperature, but the human's smiling visage was his most clear feature as he toiled.

"It's been ten long years, I know that. So why stop now?"

Though barely conscious, Hekapoo smiled when she heard his words.

"So he got back into the swing of things, huh?" Jackie asked rhetorically. "That's good to hear. But wouldn't you still be stuck in that dimension? How'd you get out of it without scissors?"

"Don't rush me, I was getting to that!" Hekapoo snapped.

With his passenger in tow, Marco walked briskly in the most hazardous places, and outright ran when the snow was packed tightly in others. Soon, he could see that the castle now loomed even closer than ever before. Usually, he would've had to turn back by now because of the distance out-spanning his body's tolerance of the tundra, and Marco would've laughed in glee had the situation been less serious. He didn't, because time was elapsing faster than he could get Hekapoo out of the cold before her body temperature dropped to terminal lows. It stood to reason that she'd 'commanded' her body to give him heat so long as she was in touch-contact with him, but he couldn't just leave her behind or she would still die.

It was dependent on how quickly he got to the castle. With this in mind, Marco began to run, running faster than he'd ever done before even when on solid ground, and made it to the castle just a few minutes before Hekapoo would've surely perished from exposure. With the high snow on a level with a castle window, Marco jumped through to enter it and ran into the deeper reaches of the castle in order to find a warm enough place for the demigoddess.

Having found such a room in what was actually the living room of the royals that used to reside in the castle, he quickly rested Hekapoo on the couch. Her skin nearly felt like ice to his touch, and he panicked when he thought that she'd already died, though the assumption was incorrect when he noticed that her chest was moving.

She was breathing.

Right. So she was alive. Now, what did he have to do to make sure she stayed that way?

As if she had read his mind, she motioned with her hand to beckon him to come closer. Leaning down to listen closely, all she managed to whisper was:

"Fire. I need FIRE…"

Then unconsciousness took her again.

Checking her again, he realized that she had lapsed again; it dawned on him that it would be for the last time unless she got the help she needed. Worst yet, he had barely any idea what she meant by desiring fire. Did she mean lava? He knew that she loved to drink the stuff. What was he supposed to do, find a nearby volcano, collect some lava and bring it to her to drink? There was no possible way of that ever happening.

Fire? Did she EAT fire? Was he supposed to set her on fire? Already trying to make do on that and hoping that would work, he looked around for something to burn. There was still a large amount of wooden furniture in the room that he could burn, not to mention the rugs and curtains, but he had no decent fire-starter to the items in question, not to mention the fact that every aspect of the castle was frigid to a certain degree, seeing that it had been located within a tundra for years. The flammable materials such as the wood were cold, and the curtains and rugs were too thick to coax a fire with only a flint.

"Wait, where's the Hekapoo clone? I bet she can start a fire if she wanted," he reasoned. Yelling for her to come help, he wasn't surprised to hear her footsteps in the castle seem to run away and become distant as if she was fleeing from him. Turning back to the original Hekapoo on the couch, he kissed his teeth. "She's just like you. Running away when you hear me coming."

Trying to clear his mind, he took the time to think, all the while the silence being broken by Hekapoo's slow breathing. Finally, his mind passed on his sweater, the very same that he had on when he came from Earth. At present, he wore the threadbare sweater around his neck like a scarf; he'd kept it for sentimental reasons, even though it couldn't fit him anymore. It was all he had left from Earth… everything else was aged, destroyed and stolen… all he had remaining…

With barely a second thought, he ripped off the sleeves, broke off a nearby chair leg and started to strike his flints to make a fire. Soon, he had a torch, and he began removing everything flammable in the area and piled it around Hekapoo on the couch, almost as if he were making a funeral pyre.

Methodically, he lighted the wood around her at the base, blowing on it to ensure that it caught on fire. With it done, he ran through the castle, pulling down curtains, swiping carpets, even beds and tables and books. He returned to the room with them, tossing them all on the fire, braving the smoke and the heat to make sure that the fire was concentrated around her. There was no danger of the stone castle burning down, and with this in mind, he kept fetching more and more stuff to fuel the flames, making sure that the doorways and windows remained open to allow the conflagration to feed on oxygen.

Soon, the entire room was nothing but a sea of fire around the demigoddess. Almost all at once, the blaze seemed to get drawn in towards her, almost as if she was assimilating of it into herself, the sound of it nearly audible. In the space of a few seconds, all of the fire in the room was completely absorbed, until the room was nothing but a mess of hot ashes and blackened bits. It was in this state of affairs that Hekapoo finally reopened her eyes, and the flame between her horns re-ignited.

Getting up off the ashes and metal frame that used to be a couch, Hekapoo dusted herself off and left the room, walking past a jaw-dropped Marco with an amused smile on her face.

"...Wow…" Marco breathed.

"Quit your gawking. We don't get to leave until you defeat my clone. You know that an automatic portal will form once she's gone, so get to it. Chop-chop."

Marco clamped his mouth shut in embarrassment before walking after Hekapoo, now disbelief at her nonchalant behavior after everything that had just happened-... not that he'd done it for a 'thank you'. "Can't you just do that yourself? I'm EXHAUSTED."

"There's no rest for the wicked, and the good don't need it."

"Oh?" Marco cocked up an eyebrow."And which one am I? Wicked or good?"

"Figure it out," Hekapoo smiled. On this note, she urged him once more, and watched him charge off somewhere into the castle. It wasn't too long before Marco was calling for her to come to where he was, and she followed the sound of his voice. Once there, she saw him standing close by to a fiery portal, and he had a self-satisfied and triumphant look on his face, the very same one that she used to hate seeing. "What are you looking so smug about? As of last year, it'd only take you five minutes to blow out a flame, but this time, it took you fifteen. What took you so long?"

Before he could respond, she held up her hand and stopped him. "I'm kidding. Good work… in fact, I told her to make it even harder for you. I'm actually surprised you blew out her flame within the hour… It shows how extraordinary you are."

"Thanks for the compliment-"

"You won't be thanking me for long. Every single remaining clone just got that memo. If you think that it was hard before, it's going to be twice as bad now." Marco frowned at this, but before he could complain, she continued. "Don't get me wrong… I got you into this mess because I didn't want it to get out that a human could easily beat my challenge. But after this, no one can say that this was a fluke, that you passed on luck or any of that bullcrap. I know that you can do it."

Stepping forward to the portal, she held out a hand to it and willed it to change exit locations back to her workshop. Reaching an arm through it, she retrieved a book which she handed to Marco. After opening it and skipping through it, all he discovered were symbols of flames that were crossed out with 'X's. They were more than half of the flames marked out like this, and it took Marco a while before he realized what it was.

"This is the book I use to track your progress," Hekapoo commented. "You're more than halfway done, so why stop now? Do you still want to quit? I can still send you home from here with this portal."

Marco was silent for a minute as he thought over the situation. He still wanted to go home. He still wanted dimensional scissors. He still wanted to give up.

And despite the fact that she just told him that her clones would be making it harder on him, he knew that she wasn't doing it to make him miserable or to get him killed. He considered himself a good judge of character, and he could tell that she had changed for the better. If anything, this was to demonstrate that he was able to pass a trial by the harshest fire.

"I want to go home," he began, disappointing her, though his expression was light. "But I want dimensional scissors too. I guess I can get them both when I finish the challenge, right?"

"Yes? That's a yes?" Hekapoo asked hopefully.

"It's a yes," the Diaz said with a grin as he gestured to the book. "Can I have this to track my own progress?"

"Sure." After thanking her, he hesitated a while with the notebook in hand, but soon flipped to the final page and tapped the last flame icon. She understood perfectly what he meant, and favored him with a wide grin. "Saving me for last, huh? A'right. I'll be waiting, and I look forward to seeing you when that day comes." Once more, she altered the destination of the portal to the next chapter of the challenge, and waved him on to enter it. "But for now, watch out for the army of wolf-bears, and don't spend the nighttime on the ground or they'll eat you alive in your sleep."

"Thanks for the advice, Hekapoo." With a noted sluggish stride as if he didn't want to leave, he entered through the portal. Just before he was gone completely, she called him again.

"Hey, human…" Seeing him frown, Hekapoo rectified herself. "I mean… Marco Diaz… thanks. And take care."

Hearing that, the challenger smiled. For some reason, he knew that she didn't begrudgingly say his name, but out of respect. It sounded perfectly fine, but in a way that he knew she would never speak ill of him.

"Just Marco is fine," he remarked, giving her 'permission' to be casual with his name. In the same second, he thought that he could be the same. "Bye H-Poo! You're my favorite one!"

Then he was gone.

She didn't know at the time that he had christened her with a nickname, and it was already attached to her; he'd use it again and again when they would inevitably meet in the future repeatedly. With a small sigh, she altered the portal yet again to take her to her forge, which she entered and closed on the other side. Resuming her work, she thought of her scissors (the one with the red handles) that were lost in the snows of Dimension X-105. Using her magic and her pyrokinesis, she forged a new pair of scissors with a different design in mind, that of an orange-colored one that she could perhaps fight with. At present, Marco was in Dimension X-104, and it was only a matter of time before he arrived in X-103 where she was. If humans, particularly Marco, were stepping up in advancement, then she needed to up her game too.

At last with a new pair, she returned back to the cave where Marco had been originally stranded in, and picked up her entry book before returning with it back to her workshop. Once there, she began to write her final entry. By now writing her own private confessions, the entry book had essentially become a diary, but she liked it better this way.

With this written, Hekapoo closed the entry book and went over to her bookcase. While looking for a place for the entry book, she realized that she had no more space for it. Regardless, without a second thought, she took out her favorite contemporary romance novel, instantly incinerated it and then placed the entry book there.

There, she kept her new favorite book.

"And that's all she wrote," Hekapoo lauded, though the phrase wasn't quite in context. "Now you know why we're both stupid people. I allowed myself to get close to a guy who's going to die and turn to dust for at least centuries… maybe a millennium before my first hair strand starts to even tint to gray, and why that guy would even do the same. Why would he try to keep emotional ties to someone who's virtually immortal, when he's going to age to death when I barely don't. Why do it when I'm also his enemy in the grand scheme of things. But…" Her voice dropped. "Why not? That was just the beginning of how we got closer but damn, if I have to get to the point, I WANT him. Sure, I know all about love. I've been in and out of love before… or at least I think it was love. It just doesn't help matters when you outlive all of your lovers, all the people you cherish. At this point, it's almost as if falling in love is just a way to pass the time. And I'm tired of it."

"Are you saying you don't want to fall in love with Marco because you're basically immortal?" Jackie asked. "Or are you saying that you don't want to be immortal anymore?"

Hekapoo didn't reply. But she didn't have to. Jackie could see the answer all over her face. Hekapoo disliked her own life's longevity because it was keeping her from having the relationship she wanted with Marco.

"How are you even be so sure that you're in love?" Jackie argued. "It's not just being the wife of the guy you think is Mr. Right-"

"Being in love is having the right fantasy," Hekapoo answered shakily. "You don't just dream about the person having their lips on yours. You don't just dream about sharing your bed with them. You don't lie awake at night, fantasizing about their mouth worshipping and trailing all over every nook and cranny of your body. Instead, you fantasize about the little things." Hekapoo drew a deep breath, trying to steady herself. Jackie gave her a moment, as she herself wanted to know what defined the woman's perception of love.

Finally, it came.

"You dream about the little things. You dream about what your first kiss will be like, and hope that you never have a last one. You don't think about which extravagant gifts to give, but instead just giving that person your attention when they need it. Your imagination mish-mashes and tries to figure out what your children will look like. There's a lot of happiness to be had just by holding hands, cherishing the time you have. Even their way of saying your name is different, and you look forward to hearing the next time they say it. That's love."

Jackie, who was now realizing that she had hadn't quite met those defining criteria now felt even more dejected and knew that she had indeed made the right decision when she broke off the relationship she had with Marco. If people felt the way Hekapoo did, then standing aside was the best thing she'd never done. "But you're immortal, almost perfectly immortal. Isn't that what's stopping you from having the relationship you want with Marco?"

"It's not as if there isn't some competition for Marco," Hekapoo mumbled sadly when she thought about Higgs. "But it's the immortality that's the big issue." In her own mind, this was yet still only a part of the whole issue. It was in fact magic that was keeping her from having a relationship with Marco. Magic was fuelling her with immortality, but it wasn't only that-... magic had made her sterile. Being made from magic and involuntarily pulling on the Wellspring's power for it, she was doomed to never have children, something she had always wanted.

With this in mind, finally, the Rook made up her mind and chose her side.


Insurrection

Rook

"Matters of love aside, do you know why I'm really here, sitting on this busted bench?"

"No, I don't-"

"This is Sienna's bench." Hekapoo interrupted. "But you know her as 'Higgs'. That's her last name, and the name almost everyone knows her as."

"Oh? This is the bench that her family and friends would've sat in at her ceremony?"

"That would be the case, but there was no one in it. She's an orphan, and her peers would've been apart of the ceremony, like the other squires. So basically, Marco's her only friend, and they were hand in hand when it came to that mess a couple days ago. If she's willing to kill knights and such just for Marco's sake, it should give you an idea of how she feels about him, and how far she's willing to go to stay by his side. Imagine her, and who knows WHO ELSE helping Marco, especially if they're like Toffee, who nearly put Mewni through a meat grinder last year."

"I'm guessing that you're giving me a warning not to trust anyone?"

"You're not going to be here to 'not trust anyone'," Hekapoo remarked. "Earlier today, it was as if Marco was going through some sort of self-crisis. He's wanted me to tell all of his former friends and everyone working under the M.H.C. to stay out of his way because he's not going to hold himself responsible for any harm that comes to them, or at least he doesn't want to. I'm guessing that he's gonna raze Mewni, or maybe his cohorts are going to do it. If Mewni burns, I guess it doesn't really matter who lights the fire."

"But why'd he say something like that?" Jackie demanded.

"Are you forgetting the high casualty count from a few days ago?" Hekapoo glared. "He wouldn't have a problem doing it, but maybe his conscience is starting to finally act up, or it's because of something else. You know how everyone has been reacting to what happened to Janna. Whatever energy that was in his sword is still inside her body, and it's responsible for keeping her dead when a normal time-rewind would've brought her back to life. Maybe he feels sorry for actually killing someone he knows personally and he's advising that everyone stay out of his way so that he can keep his conscience clean?"

"'Maybe'? You're not sure if he feels sorry?" Jackie murmured.

"I'm damn well sure that I'm not a psychologist," Hekapoo retorted. "But I came here to send you back to Earth."

And so it happened again. She was going to be left out of the matter again. Before Jackie could put up a protest, Hekapoo laid her hand on her shoulder, as if to warn her that she had something grave to say.

"Marco wants you to give Janna's parents his condolences… and he wants you to tell his mother that he's not coming back home."

Jackie's jaw dropped. "What?"

Hekapoo wasn't going to repeat herself. Removing her scissors whilst getting up, she stabbed them into reality and opened a portal. "Imagine that very same girl, Sienna, who was tearing through knights like they were nothing… And a lizard who can regenerate and heal from almost any wound," the demigoddess instructed, "then imagine potentially others just like them, stronger even. The real war hasn't even started yet, and it's obvious that Marco doesn't want you around when the shit hits the fan. From what I can tell, he's prepared to bloody his hands with the death of people in his way, but he knows that he won't be able to re-join society with that kind of guilt riding him. And what's more, he knows that he could die too. So you need to go do as you're told."

"But…" Jackie felt her heart weigh down heavily in her chest. "Doesn't this mean that I failed to stop Marco? That Janna and I failed? That we all failed? None of what we tried was worth anything?" For the first time, her usually chill attitude wasn't enough to fight off her growing depression about the entire situation. No, the depression was always there, but she had done her best to ignore it. She and everyone else had been convinced that they could stop Marco from going down this road-... Now, they had fallen and scattered like autumn leaves. "Am I just supposed to tell a waiting mother that her son isn't coming home? That's a load of bullcrap!"

Regardless, she knew she was going through that portal. She knew that it wasn't her place to stay, even if she wanted to. Her last job, as Marco's friend, would be to tell his mother some unwelcome news. Apparently, there was nothing left for her to do. In the last moment, Jackie turned and looked at Hekapoo in mild curiosity, and voiced her suspicion.

"You mentioned that there would probably be others like Marco and Sienna who would be fighting alongside them. It sounded like you were talking about yourself."

Hekapoo didn't flinch at the accusation.

The portal transported the sole person to their destination, and when Jackie had departed, Hekapoo closed the portal. For a moment, she wondered if she herself should teleport to her next location, but decided to walk instead.

Whether that was a choice from now becoming a part of Marco's dogma or just feeling like stretching her legs, she wasn't sure. As she walked through the castle, Hekapoo started to scratch at a symbol on her neck on that remarkably looked like a small black tattoo of a rook.

She didn't know about it, not yet at least. But if there was one thing was sure, it was that she knew that the true insurrection in Mewni was about to enter its season.

King

The knight tightened his fist before punching Marco once in the jaw, then again on the other side. Marco's eyes were still closed throughout it all, and the knight's annoyance grew.

"Goddamn it!" Losing patience with the situation, he put his gloves back on with the armored plates and nailed Marco again.

Now, Marco snorted once in his sleep as he continued to snore. He was still unharmed, and worst yet, getting punched in the face wasn't even enough to wake him up. It was either that, or he was faking it. He was very unimpressive-looking at present, given how he was essentially crippled in all of his limbs, and could only sit or lie in any position Hekapoo set him in. For now, he 'sat' on his cot with his back leaning against the wall, and was apparently napping.

"How do I get this heretic to wake up?" the knight fumed to the only other man in the room, who was holding the lantern; the only thing keeping the cell from looking like midnight in a mineshaft. "Should we water-board him? Lighting a fire under him didn't even work last time."

"We could kill him and say it was an accident," the second knight remarked carelessly as he continued to stand guard at the doorway. "I wouldn't mind repaying him the way he did to everyone at the ceremony." Trying to think of a few ways of which to do so, the first man realized that he had no means of doing so without being blameless. Failing to punish Marco (he wanted to make sure that Marco's stay in his cell was very uncomfortable), he and the other guard retreated back outside in the corridors, closing the door behind them.

"We can't. It's not possible, and our heads would roll for violating orders. Why the princess wanted to spare his life, I have no idea, not to mention that I've been hearing things about Hekapoo having some history with this brat. Can we really trust the M.H.C.'s judgment if one of them has a soft spot for him? Sure, this kid helped fight Toffee, but Toffee's back, and he was working with the brat to kill so much of us at the blasted knighting ceremony!" Looking down, disappointed that they had so little resilience against the insurgents, the knight continued to say his piece. "You think Toffee was right? That we're just too weak? I mean, look at the elites. I've never even seen Lady Whosits lose a fight before. In fact, she nearly got her throat cut if that Janna girl hadn't distracted Marco. That same guy nearly put Sir Dashing in a coffin with just one punch to the gut, and that fucking Higgs killed Sir Stabby."

"What's your point?"

"Those people are still out there, and god knows who else. They'll be back for Marco if he's really their leader and even if he dies, imagine what they'd do if it became personal. Have you seen the storybooks of Mewni's history when it describes the knights back then? Even if their size and skills were exaggerated, we don't even come close to measuring up to them."

"So what? You're gonna quit because the enemy is formidable? We've got the numbers advantage-"

"Are you fucking blind, man? The lucky ones of us got healed, sure, or Rhombulus froze a few men by accident… I just happened to survive that shitty situation because of Rhombulus's friendly fire. To see them fight…" the knight mumbled slowly. It wasn't like a hundred knights against three. It was like ZERO knights against three. We didn't even stand a decent enough chance; that's how skilled and powerful they were. In fact, the only reason we've caught this brat was that he was piss tired, weakened by blood loss and ganged up on by the ENTIRE Magic High Commission. There's a rumor floating around that the insurgents are only interested in getting to their objective, and will fight only the people in their way. If we knights aren't ordered to fight by the Queen, we won't end up being a bloodstain when this is over."

"You think the Queen would order us to lay down arms to these insurgents? We've got them on the run now, don't we? Besides, I damn well took an oath when I became a knight, and I'm gonna keep it 'till I die."

"That's your say? I think the M.H.C. alone should tackle this mess. It's out of our league!" the first man exclaimed.

"So what?"

"What do you mean, 'so what?'"

"T'was not me who said that." The second knight said. Looking back through the view-slot in the door at Marco, they were both surprised to notice that Marco was now awake, but their expressions reflected stress as the only thing visible in the dark of Marco's cell was the blazing green of his eyes.

The teen was the one who had apparently spoken, and he wasn't done yet. "So you want to quit being a knight, huh?" Marco said lamely. "Then I guess we only have to wait and see what the Queen will say in response to the declaration. It's a war against the M.H.C. and their supporters. Everyone who fights with them or in the name of defending the Wellspring… is no friend of mine."

Bishop & Knight

"So we're awake now, are we?" Toffee commented when he noticed the girl's breathing become a little more paced. "It's about time… we're about to move."

"Move?" Sienna asked dumbly as her eyes scanned the room for the nearest potential weapon. Looking around what she thought could pass for a royal bedroom had no such 'weapons' in it. While searching with her eyes, she also came to notice that Marco wasn't in the room and before she could ask, the Septarian informed her that he was the very reason why they were to leave. "Why is he the reason? Does he want us to go somewhere? To get something?" Thinking back to what had happened before she'd passed out just after exiting a portal with Toffee, she looked around the room and sadly realized that the boy she loved was nowhere in sight; did he manage to escape on his own? Was he captured? Killed?

Seeing her dejected look, he shook his head to answer her unspoken worst fears. "No. We're going to go liberate him. He was taken into custody by the M.H.C." After buttoning his shirt, he then began to polish his shoes. "Fortunately, he was not harmed. I have reason to believe that they're keeping him alive because they can't quite understand a particular conundrum. A girl that Marco killed hasn't been returned to life by a magic spell, and she's actually dead and alive at the same time; something that is troubling them greatly for some reason. They've been trying to get Marco to undo what he did in order to bring her back to life fully… he's either unable to, or refused to."

"Is that all?" Higgs grumbled. "What with all that happened at the ceremony, you'd think that the M.H.C. would just kill him, and not care if the girl lives or not."

"They would." Toffee began to button up his loose shirt as he continued to dress himself. "But lately, things have been getting… how to put this… weird and wild? It could be because of what happened to the girl." He marched up to the window and threw open the curtains, showing Higgs the vista beyond. She could see the moon, and the sun, both in separate corners of the sky… but the sky was purple with thick streaks of green. Even as she watched, she could feel the ground trembling a bit, and it was with alarm that she realized that Marco's suspicions about the apocalypse were, in fact, going to happen sooner rather than later.

"Holy shit!" She tried to get off of the bed she had been lying in. After doing so, she had to rub the soreness out of her limbs and realized that she was no longer injured. She gawked at her belly and saw that the life-threatening wounds she had were completely healed. In fact, there wasn't even a scratch on her, and her clothes were also in a perfect state. "Whoa… did you-?"

"No. It was Eclipsa-… the Queen. She took a risk by using magic to heal your injuries, what with the usage of magic speeding up the apocalypse deadline, though it's a form of magic that is powered by her own life energies. I doubt that she would have done so had Marco had not insisted that we do all we could to preserve your life. Perchance… the boy is very fond of you if he's willing to go against doctrine and allow magic to be used for your benefit. Although I cannot say that we all feel the same way about each other, we're all here to accomplish one thing-… that is, the demolishing of the Wellspring. That said, it's time we left. You want to 'save' him, correct? The longer he waits in custody, the more liabilities we'll have."

"I'm already rearing to go. Say… where's my knife?" Pointing it out to her, she went over to the table where it was and picked it up. She easily noticed that it had been meticulously cleaned, though, in her mind's eye, she could still see the blood of those she had killed with it. She paused for a moment, and Toffee asked her if she regretted anything.

"No. I've learned to block it out."

"Block it? Like keeping your conscience out of your actions? How did you wrangle that? As a matter of fact, something like that shouldn't be possible for one who looks as young as yourself. Even your skill level with your particular fighting style that I observed in the hall is rather commendable."

"I'm actually thirty-three years old. I spent eighteen years in Dimension X-103 chasing Hekapoo for a pair of dimensional scissors. Feeling for her secret holster, she was pleased to find that her own warp tool was still there. "I can't say that I honestly earned this, but I properly learned how to fight. I ran into a warrior for hire who had mastered the usage of every part of his body; he's even sharpened his reflexes so much that I can't even fight him in his sleep. Everything can be controlled by the mind, you know."

"I see, but judging from the way you described him, it would seem that you don't consider yourself as proficient."

"Only got as far as mastering hormone control, and a few other things. So, Toffee…" her voice trailed off. "Marco mentioned taking down Rhombulus as if it was a chess move. He called you a 'Bishop', you called him 'King', and I'm a 'Knight'. Just now, you just called Eclipsa the 'Queen'. Is that what all of this is? An elaborate game of chess?"

"It's symbolic." Toffee said after a moment's hesitation as if he wasn't entirely sure. After putting on his jacket, he opened up the door and motioned for her to follow him. "Shall we go?"

"Go?" She looked through the doorway and recognized the hallways. "We're still in the castle?"

"We never left. We've been hiding in Eclipsa's room under their very noses." Toffee remarked with a chuckle. "They've been ripping Mewni apart looking for us, even looking in caves and under rocks. The irony has been entertaining to watch. Rather strange, if I must admit it."

"Strange? That's not strange. 'Strange' is a Septarian lizard dressed up in a three-piece suit as if he's going to work," Sienna said carelessly.

"My dear…" Toffee picked up an axe that rested on a hook on his way out the door. "This is work."

Queen

Moon sat impatiently while she waited for any new findings to be analyzed. Watching Baby look over a comatose Star in her bed, she broke the dreadful silence that hung over them. "Well, is there anything we can do about Star? She's been like this for two days now."

"It is a coma."

"I know that-"

"Do you really know that?" Baby said in a hinting tone, "It seems as if you're expecting me to say 'wake up' Star, and she'll wake up."

"There's no need to be sarcastic, Baby, I just want to know-" Moon paused, re-thinking the situation. "Right. There's nothing you can do. But do you know of any magical spells that could possibly wake her up, or even spells that do other things, with the possibility of waking her up as a side-effect?"

"… Or we could just wait."

Moon growled a little in her throat. Reaching for the wand on Star's bedside table, she picked it up, she herself wondering if she should experiment and try a radical new spell in order to wake Star. The floating magic evaluator stared at Moon for a good minute, before the Queen grew uncomfortable being under her gaze.

"Interesting…" Baby murmured.

"Yes?" she said irritably. "What is it?"

"What are you going to do with that fake wand?"

"Fake?!" Moon boggled in alarm as she waved the wand towards Baby. "There is no possible way-" Interrupting her in mid-line, the door opened suddenly and the two occupants turned to see Eclipsa walk in with a small handbag over her shoulder.

"Pardon!" the woman called almost cheerily. "I should've knocked first."

"Eclipsa!" Moon exclaimed in alarm but calmed down almost immediately. Truth be told, she had half-expected some irate noble to come barging in, or even one of Tom's parents. Even as far as worrying that Sienna or Toffee would show up, perhaps, but seeing Eclipsa was especially welcome at this time. She could use someone who shared the same responsibilities as her at one point in her life, not to mention that she had to have a multitude of experience and a decent measure of empathy. Ever since they'd gotten on good speaking terms, she felt like she could rely on Eclipsa for certain things, and this felt like one of those times. "I'm glad that it's you."

"Were you expecting someone else?"

"I was afraid it was someone else."

"Such as? King Pony Head, perhaps?"

Moon rolled her eyes in uneasiness before she allowed herself to relax with ease of conversation. "Or heaven forbid, the Lucitors. They insist on getting Marco's head on a pike, and I'm tempted to do it just to sate them and leave me alone. Marco and his cronies have done wanton mass murder and extensive damage and frankly put, if I were to take a knife to him and give a piece of him to everyone, I'd still be cutting him until now."

Eclipsa took a seat in the chair by the bedside next to her fellow queen. "Then why haven't you?"

"Star wanted him captured. I made an agreement with Star, and if she was willing to take quite a beating just for that outcome to be accomplished, then it only increases my obligation. It's for that very reason why I haven't have had a council as yet for all the parties of the different royals involved, seeing that they claimed to have been trying to do what Star told them. Doesn't stop them from harassing me behind closed doors, though."

"Seems like you're under quite a lot of pressure, Moon," Eclipsa observed.

"I am, and River's in the same boat. He's actually been the one running Mewni's current affairs of late; those are largely my responsibilities, but he isn't doing a bad job of it. Ever since Marco talked to him about being a 'proper' King-" Moon paused, and clenched her fists in anger as she thought of the Diaz. "Marco. He's the one who caused all this. How could he have fallen so far? He's doing nothing but repay us with nothing but bloodshed and pain. I thought that he as a problem was solved when he was banished back to his home, but the fact that he's returned shows that he has nothing but evil intentions!"

"Evil, hmm?" Eclipsa said with a frown. Moon realized her faux pas and hastened to apologize, knowing that her fellow queen was a bit touchy around the word. "Don't worry about it. War isn't anything new to Mewni. Perhaps you could even compare war to the concurrent feud between Mewmans and monsters. As I've said before, war is old news."

"You seem rather comfortable with this," Moon replied with an accusatory tone. "Anyone would think that you're supporting Marco's standpoint-"

"If you say that, then you're saying that I support what he did to Star," Eclipsa stated. "Personally, I think that Star is a wonderful girl, a bit naive at times, but pure and innocent. She didn't deserve what happened to her, and neither did anyone else who lost their lives or loved ones at the ill-fated ceremony. But if one thing is sure, it's that many people are starting to question whether or not they're truly fighting for the 'right' side; there's too much doubt. I mean, have you looked out a window of late, Moon? The sky looks absolutely chaotic, and the all the dimensions are feeling the earthquakes, not just Mewni. A certain boy who preached about the apocalypse is starting to look better all the time, regardless of those he's killed."

"What are you saying? I can't decide if you're secretly supporting his views, or not! It's just a coincidence!"

"Moon?" Eclipsa said severely. "Aren't you tired of being stupid?"

"Excuse me?!"

"Fine. Spell the word evil. Come on. Spell it. Humor me."

After a huff, Moon spelled out the letters. "E-V-I-L. Evil."

"Wrong," Eclipsa lectured. "It's spelled N-E-C-E-S-S-A-R-Y. Necessary. There will always be pompous, self-righteous people who think that they are always right, infallible, and incorrigible. You see the signs of the apocalypse, and dare to deny the truth? And for what? A mere convenience?"

"Is that what you think magic is all about?" Moon retorted in anger as she gestured the wand towards Eclipsa, though alarm bells were ringing in her head. "A mere convenience? It has done nothing but be a tremendous use, powering Mewni, facilitating transportation, medical services, even saving lives!"

"And so we bend the laws of reality to our own gain." Eclipsa's gaze wandered to Baby, who stared back. "Baby? Why is Queen Moon waving that fake wand at me?"

"Fake? You too? The wand isn't fake-"

"It must've been truly heartbreaking," Eclipsa said lowly, as if she was in sore regret of something, "for Star to try to change Marco back to the way he was with a wand that would never work… all because the wand was fake. Not that the spell would've worked anyway. Marco didn't know that the wand was fake either, but that didn't stop him from trying to stop Star with all of his might, even going to great lengths to exercise brutality. The fake wand had two purposes. The wand with a fake to keep Star from foolishly abusing it to buy time to halt the apocalypse. It was also a test to see how dedicated Marco was to fight someone who was really unarmed… and if he's willing to do whatever it takes... why not I?"

Moon's eyes widened in alarm. "Oh my god. You… you're a facilitator in all of this?!"

Reaching into her handbag, Eclipsa withdrew the real butterfly wand, the magical item transforming into her own as she did so. In the end, it fully turned into what looked like an umbrella with a planet and ring crest at the spike, and dark magic imbued through it flashed like ominous lightning. "Using magic is traitorous to our cause, but not if it's fuelled by feeding off of my butterfly energies and life force-... an evil committed against oneself. But as I said, 'evil' and 'necessary' are spelled the same."

"Wait-" Moon tried to get away as she recognized the wand about to emit a powerful spell. Before she could even properly get on the defensive against the person she had trusted, Eclipsa casually opened the umbrella and pointed its face at Moon, a sinister-looking butterfly blazing there.

"Midnight Shriek."


Now we know why the wand didn't work for Star. That's my take on the magic that Eclipsa uses. That's how Hekapoo finally chose to join the Black Insurgency-... I was using Jackie in a final role to help H-poo fully realize and come to terms with how she feels about magic and Marco. Now, everyone's getting ready to move to protect the King in check.

As for the romance, it comes as it becomes apparent.

I've been careful as to try to utilize different plot points/holes from the show so that it's easy to follow now, and even in the future if/when Nefcy decides to blow everything out of the water. I mean, she killed so many ships in season two… :(

Ah well, tell me what you thought!

Valete!