Vestiges

Did you think that the title of the chapter was a coincidence? As I said before… the whole fic is planned, although some things are open for change, like what happens to Janna. Sometimes, that doesn't stop me from seeing a blinking cursor on an empty page like everyone else when writing blocks starts acting up. Anyway, let's see what happens. I hope you enjoy.

23.

There were sounds of hushed talking outside of the cell. Marco didn't pay much attention to it-… he had his own problems. He couldn't stop himself from crying, couldn't stop himself from being upset at himself for being the 'villain'. He looked down at his hands, and just like the time he'd beaten up the mugger, he couldn't stop seeing the blood all over them. But now, things were different. The mugger was alive. The knights weren't.

All of the knights he killed. The knights that he slaughtered like animals… all of their blood were on his hands. Thinking of Sienna, he felt a chill go up his spine. She was no different than him, but she was killing in his name… killing for him. The only thing was, she wasn't being controlled by mad anger caused by Appendaxuz, the person that Marco now believed was actually the god of Order.

Sienna had killed all of the knights, simply because she believed in him and his cause. Now, Marco wasn't so sure. Oh, he could tell that the end of the universe was real; he could sense the chaos just outside the walls of the castle, and the frequent earthquakes reminded him that the Universe was losing its stability. What he couldn't stand, though, was his inner conflict. The only thing that would make his and Sienna's actions forgivable was if the universe was about to be obliterated. But if it wasn't in danger, then it meant that they had committed wanton murder, and were only pawns in a sick and twisted game.

"I can't believe it… I actually prefer having the universe in danger to justify the killing's that I've done… the killings that WE have done," Marco wept to himself. "Oh my God!"

Hearing his own cries disgusted him… him crying out for a god. At least, he was the God of Order in training, and his mentor had died. Who was he supposed to cry to? Who was a 'God' supposed to cry to? Right as he was wondering about Gods, Hekapoo entered his holding cell. She looked like she had something important she wanted to say, but deferred to demanding why his face looked so scuffed up.

"Oh… the guards thought I was sleeping earlier and tried to wake me up," Marco said sheepishly, momentarily forgetting about his inner turmoil. "I guess I'm too durable to really feel it…" His eyes flashed green for an instant. "Or they were too damn weak!" As sudden as it came, his incensed mood swing left. He chuckled nervously, hoping that the demigoddess didn't think he was losing his mind. Well, if she hadn't already thought so, that is, considering all the outlandish things he'd done.

"You feeling all right, Marco? Maybe they knocked what little brains you had too far out of place-"

"No! I'm fine. Really." It was only a small fib, but Hekapoo could easily tell that he was lying, and told him so as she seated herself beside him on his cot. Even more so, she was seated against him, and he found this strange. Hekapoo usually put at least some distance between them ever since this fiasco started.

"Hmm… liar," she hissed gently. For a moment, the woman consciously realized that she was about to flirt with him, but remembered the time and place… then there was how distressed he looked. "I did your favor for you. I sent Jackie back home, and she'll carry your message."

"That's… nice," he said awkwardly, wondering how to phrase his next question. "You're a goddess, right?"

"Demigoddess," she reminded, "and I said before, flattery will get you nowhere." She cocked one leg over another coquettishly and it pleased her to no end when she noticed how he briefly stared for a second before consciously stopping. "But feel free to worship all you want," Hekapoo purred suggestively in his ear, making his entire face redden. Noticing how fidgety he became, now more conscious of her warmth next to him, Hekapoo cursed herself aloud in her own mind, internally yelling that she needed to curb herself just a little. The demigoddess realized that she had been thinking about this prospective relationship with Marco for quite some time now, 'some time' actually being years, maybe even decades. Sure, Sienna had been trying to get scissors to see Marco for eighteen years, but Hekapoo had lived through that instance as well, not fully grasping that she had also wanted him for herself. And what of the time that she and Marco spent together before that, including the period when the Diaz was becoming a man undertaking her quest? And the fact that she normally spent her days in her dimension with a dilated timeline?

She might not have realized her feelings, but it was obvious that her love for Marco had existed far longer than he had even existed.

At long last, Marco got his hormones under control after hearing what was only an innuendo. "Err, not the point, Hekapoo. But do you know of anyone else? Any other Gods or Goddesses?"

"No, I don't know of any… well, except Glossaryck. You know, since he created me and everyone else on the Magic High Commission. We basically run the universe. If there are Gods and Goddesses, we're basically them."

"I can't even tell if you're just full of yourself," Marco mumbled. "Have you seen Star in her Butterfly state? She's done a lot of stuff that not even you are capable of. Doesn't that mean that she's higher than you? Wouldn't that mean that she's the goddess, and you're not?"

"Or what if she's just juicing herself up more on the magic from the Wellspring?" the demigoddess pointed out, slightly irritated about the difference in power between her and the princess. "You don't really know. Besides, she's a deviant. There hasn't been a user of magic like her in centuries, and her capacity for spells are insane. Every other Butterfly before her hasn't even conjured as much stuff as her, just normal transmutation and manipulation spells." After her explanation, Hekapoo watched Marco carefully for signs for his unnatural anger, but found none. "You seem pretty calm about Star now. You're not mad?"

"No. The thing is…" Marco wondered how to phrase what he needed to say, but didn't know how to. "Just wondering how none of them have tried to stop the universe from ending. I could really use some help from them if they exist-"

"There's a demigoddess I know who wouldn't mind helping," Hekapoo cut in. Marco stared at her knowingly, and Hekapoo merely smiled sheepishly. "I know, I'm a part of the M.H.C., so it means that we're enemies-"

"You want something." Marco stated. "You hardly ever do anything for me without wanting something in return." Before she could protest, the boy went on, not knowing that he was putting his foot in his mouth. "For all I know, you could be setting me up."

"Why do you keep-… I'm not so shallow!" Hekapoo insisted with a roll of her eyes. "It's just getting harder to deny that you were right. It's a shitshow outside… my own set of dimensions aren't even getting their normal amount of time dilation. It's always been sped up to support the length of time it takes people to go through their trials, and for me to make scissors to meet demand. The fact that my dimensions are totaled is just a huge sign that there's not enough magic getting to it."

"So you want to help me just so that you can save your dimensions."

"Not only that," the woman sighed, contemplating how to convince him. They sat together in silence for a while, one stewing in his own thoughts while the other tried to gauge how to persuade her companion that she didn't really have any ulterior motives. "I'm a lot more trustworthy than Toffee, but instead of trusting me, you trust him-!"

"He's been trying to stop the usage of magic. He was trying to cut off the M.H.C. off from it," Marco interrupted with a knowing expression. "I kinda envy him. He's literally a cold-blooded warrior, and he's been doing this long before I have, without caring what anyone thought about him. I know that everyone sees me as a villain, so why would you want to join me? I'm not exactly a saint."

"So that's why you're still here. Because you think that you're a villain now." Hekapoo looked away from Marco, not wanting to meet his eyes. "You probably knew that I closed all of my portals I made in your body more than fifteen minutes ago while I was talking with Jackie… I was trying to help you escape, and then just tell everyone some bullshit excuse later on. I expected you to be gone by now, but you're still here... all because your conscience is bothering you. Of all the time for you to grow a conscience, you chose now?" she asked incredulously. "REALLY?" The more she accused, the more he seemed to shrink into himself, and she didn't let up, listing off the boy's deeds on her fingers. "You stabbed the knights, slit their throats, broke their bones, nearly murdered your friends, put Star in a coma, pushed Mewni into a State of Emergency, basically destroyed peaceful relations between at least three kingdoms, and you chose NOW to become a pussy?"

She had hoped to light a fire under him, hoped to nerve him up even if was only anger against her. If there was one thing she had observed in him, it was that he was fuelled by rage, as dumb and cliché as it sounded. But he didn't rise up to her chastisement. It was inexplicable, but Marco had never once raised his hand against her, never even wanted to enter arguments with her, notwithstanding the ones they had before they bonded on her given quest.

But now, there was another reason why he didn't react to her.

His eyes briefly flashed green, before going back to normal. Because of this, it was now for the first time that Hekapoo realized that his eyes were back to his original chocolate-brown color, and tried to get a feel for his aura. This was Marco, through and through. Not sure whether to appreciate the fact that he wasn't being guided by Appendaxuz or not, the woman smiled to herself.

"You're not angry anymore."

"I can control it… on and off. But I've got my conscience-"

"I'm glad," she interrupted, as if she didn't hear him. "I prefer your brown eyes instead." Hekapoo frowned when she grasped how distressed the boy really was, how he was, and why. "But I sincerely believe that the universe is in danger, and I know that you do too. I'm willing to put my beliefs aside, put my siblings aside, put my heritage aside…! I'm supposed to be a demigoddess of magic, but I'm willing to help you destroy what made me in the first place. There aren't any gods out there that are going to save the universe for us, and you don't want to take up your anger that makes you do things you'll regret later. But the universe needs people who'll do anything to save it-… the end justifies the means."

It wasn't a pep talk. It was the truth. Still trying to nerve up himself, Marco got up from off of his cot, wanting to find the conviction to push forward but failed. All he had left was the same righteous anger on standby, and he didn't want to have to resort to that… would he have to keep using that anger all the time, every time he needed to establish order in the universe even after it was safe? He looked back at the blacksmith, struggling to find the words that he needed to say.

"Hekapoo… when the universe is saved… if it's saved… I'm going to have to replace Appendaxuz as the new god of Order. That means that I'll be immortal. And no matter what you say, how you say it or often you say it… the means are what I'll have to live with." Never before had he regretted answering Appendaxuz's calls, opening the book of Spells, meeting Star Butterfly, not as much as he did right now. He couldn't change a damn thing about that, and all he had left were the sins he'd committed, and the many more, the thousands, the millions and billions, the infinitemore that he'd need to do to continue to regulate Order for the rest of his life, never allowing himself to die if he wanted the universe to be coordinated properly.

Breaking his train of thought were alarmed shouts raising up, a few just outside his door. There were now sounds of fighting beginning throughout the castle, and echoes of battle cries passing through the walls. Marco's head snapped up in surprise; he hadn't expected any more conflict, not like this. In his current fragile emotional state, he thought that his fellow comrades were once more shedding blood for his sake. They were like him. Toffee, Eclipsa and Sienna. Hekapoo now claimed that she was prepared to follow him down his dark road.

It was with a heavy heart that Marco realized that despite being the King, their leader, the one with the greatest strengths, he was the weakest. He always had to use a crutch of always being angry in order to get things done, no matter how bloody the methods were, no matter how evil.

His first of many more sins to come was waiting for him. Unlike how he had acted out of unnatural anger before, now, he was human and he had a conscience.

He had to kill Janna.

He looked back to Hekapoo, and without being prompted, the demigoddess stood up. At his new angle, Marco suddenly took notice of what looked like a tattoo on the woman's neck. Staring just long enough to burn it into memory, he got that it was a representation of a Rook; it was in a stark black against her alabaster complexion. It was strange, but he'd seen stranger things before.

"Say, Hekapoo?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you believe in destiny?"

"If destiny exists, then so do higher beings that cause it to happen," she replied after some thinking. "But they must be retarded if they haven't done anything yet about the current crisis."

A horrible thought came to mind for a brief moment, and Hekapoo saw a panicked look come over his face, before he began to tremble. She comprehended what he was possibly thinking about, and had to rib him in his sides to try to ground him in reality.

"Hey, if gods are causing this mess, then let's get 'em." This in fact had the opposite desired effect on his mood and Hekapoo was about to slap him. Instead of following through properly, all that really happened was her gently laying her hand to rest against his cheek, feeling the subtle shivers that coursed through him. Stroking lightly, she tried to calm him down, and only succeeded after what felt like too long, even though it was only a few minutes. "Don't worry, Marco. It'll work out." She smiled at him, receiving a small one in return. It was one of the few smiles she'd seen since he snapped last year; Hekapoo knew a good thing when she saw it, so she cherished it. She had a feeling that things were going to get darker with lighter times lesser and farther in between, so it only made sense that she did.

It did make her wonder about she could do to make him smile more. But those things could be saved for later. Before that happened, though, her duties to regulating the universe came first… even before her job as the Scissors-forger… and her brothers.

If they tried to stop her… she'd grieve for them after the universe was safe.

=X=X=

After the explosive force of the magic spell had blasted Moon into the wall, leaving her to sag unconscious, Eclipsa turned the wand to Baby, who merely stared impassively back at the fallen Queen as if she wasn't being threatened. After a tense minute, Eclipsa willed the umbrella to close and smiled at the mystical cat. "Hello Baby! How have you been?"

"Oh, you know. The usual." Looking aside, Eclipsa spied a bowl of fruit on Star's bedside table, before taking it and giving it to the cat as a sort of gift.

"How are you now?"

"Hmm…" Baby started to eat the fruits out of the bowl, faster than Eclipsa could keep track of."Better."

"…"

"I was the reason you came here, wasn't it?"

"Precisely. I could use a little foresight," Eclipsa said slyly. "About certain things…"

"Oh? Interesting. You wanted to use my oracle powers?" Baby asked rhetorically. "Like asking what? If you're going to die because of what you're doing? If you're doing the right thing? Whether or not you're being manipulated? Or how about if Marco kisses H-"

"Oh, hush up!" Eclipsa exclaimed, before grinning widely. "I just want to know where I can get a snookers bar! I ran out, and the castle doesn't have any more lying around."

Baby stared at the woman with a deadpan look. "You're one of the few people who know that I can answer nearly any question once every decade, and you want to know about where you can get an outdated brand of chocolate?" Seeing Eclipsa actually stop consider this for a bit made Baby slightly relieved. "Alright, now that you've thought about it, what's the question-"

"Where's the largest amount of nearby Snooker bars?"

It was only a tiny improvement, but Baby shrugged. It couldn't really bring itself to care anyway. "The nearest large amount is in the tavern in town. Vending machine. Forty bars inside… the owner prefers corn chips."

"I suppose makes sense," Eclipsa nodded. "I would only sell what I liked too, if I were him."

Baby gazed at the woman, its curiosity now piqued. "But why would you ask me such a farcical question? Have you no interest in current affairs? No interest in your state of affairs, if I have to put it bluntly?"

"There's no use," Eclipsa waved off. "I'll die eventually, that's a given. As for the possibility of being manipulated, everyone had a choice whether to believe Appendaxuz or not. Furthermore, we all had a choice to do what we did, and what we will do. In the meantime, I'll simply live life…" Eclipsa gave the creature a smug smile. "And indulge myself whenever I can. Wouldn't you agree that that's the way to live? If you don't enjoy yourself, what's the point?"

"I understand."

With a nod to the mystical cat, Eclipsa stood up, manipulating the top of her umbrella to form a spike before turning to Star who still lied comatose on her bed. "I know that you can't hear me, darling, but for what it's worth, I'm terribly sorry. We can't risk having you use magic should you wake up before we've succeeded; your Butterfly state poses too much of a liability. I myself…" Eclipsa hesitated for a moment as she positioned the spike over the girl's heart, doubting herself that she'd actually be able to kill the vulnerable girl. "I myself wish that I never left the imprisonment of the crystal." With that said, she drove it down, but to her surprise, the shaft slid off the girl as if there was some sort of invisible armor around her. Again, with less hesitance, she drove the spike down again, with the same failure occurring. She conjured up a plain knife and tried yet again, but nothing worked. "That's unusual."

"Must be a passive ability," Baby observed. She had silently watched as the fallen queen tried to murder the princess and that's all she did. It wasn't as if it was the first time they had seen this happen; she wasn't meant to be anything else besides tutoring magic to princesses when they came of age. "But was it always in effect? And if so, then how was Marco able to harm her?"

"It would impossible… and ironic if only Marco is able to hurt and kill her," Eclipsa agreed. "If so, then there's no time to waste. I'll need to fetch Marco and have him do instead. Better sooner than later." The Queen would have rather be the one to bear the burden of killing the girl instead of Marco being the one to do so, but perhaps things were better this way after all… since Marco appeared to lack a conscience anyway.

Without even another word, Eclipsa hurried out the door to find the King, not even realizing that forgotten about Moon, who was slowly regaining consciousness.

=X=X=

Marco looked back at Hekapoo who was still fighting at his side. "You all right?"

"I'm fine."

After another minute of fighting, he asked again. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Marco." She parried a knight's sword with her split-scissors, and kicked him away with a yell of effort. Meanwhile, Marco grabbed a knight's sword with his bare hands, and thrusted his fingers into the man's eyes. As the knight bawled, Marco thrust-kicked him in the belly and sent him flying into a group of his cohorts that sent them sprawling. For a moment, he thought of his missing sword and how much more effective he would be with it. Then his conscience pricked him again as he recalled how many people he had killed when while wielding it. Now, though, he kept holding back his supernatural strength, he kept pulling his punches, and the knights he was fighting kept getting back up. Reinforcements continued to back up those he fought, and to him, their numbers kept doubling.

And he had Hekapoo to think about. She was already forced to create clones to help hold off the oppressive men in armor, and they yelled obscenities at her in particular for betraying them to help their enemy.

She was far more willing to fight harder than him. But while he was more durable and resistant to damage, she was vulnerable. A single sword strike could kill her, he thought, and swords were all he were seeing now.

"You sure that you're all right?" he asked hastily.

"I'm al-fucking-right!" Hekapoo yelled, fed up with his annoying question. God, she loved how concerned and sweet he was and all that jazz, but he needed to get a grip, honestly. "If you're that concerned, could you actually make them stay down?! Stop playing with them!"

"I'm not playing, I'm fighting them-"

"Hit them harder, Marco!" she shouted, as if it was a simple solution. It was, but Marco was conscious of the fact that he was strong enough to possibly kill some of these knights with a well aimed punch, had they not been so heavily armored. If he had his sword, he could confidently invoke his title of being King and get rid of them…

Maybe he didn't need his violent side. If he could think like this when he was 'normal', then he was possibly naturally violent. Either that, or Appendaxuz's mental conditioning worked too well.

That was when a knight slashed at Hekapoo too close for her comfort, not heeding whether she was a reputed demigoddess or not. From the arc alone as well as his follow up thrust, the blacksmith could tell that he wasn't a mere grunt like everyone else. She immeadiately backed up a few steps to put some distance between them while creating clones that would fight him in her stead. She had created five clones, but they might as well have been made out of cardboard due to how long they lasted. And then there were the other knights to think about. They were practically fighting walls of steel in the corridor.

Oh, she had the urge to just use her dimensional scissors the way they were made to be used. She wouldn't even be having this fight right now. The knights would be running around like headless chickens in one of her dangerous dimensions, (like the dead-winter one), wondering about when and how they fucked up.

Hekapoo couldn't, though. It went without saying that she was anti-magic right now and although creating clones was basically done so with magic, she guessed that ripping open portals that defied every single logic about space was far more serious that creating a few clones. Marco wouldn't pester her if she was only defending herself, right? Maybe she should create a portal after all.

"You're mine, you backstabbing bitch!" the knight bellowed. As he flanked to her sides while his fellows destroyed her clones, he lunged his sword, confident that she wouldn't be able to defend it with her scissors. There was little room to outmaneuver him, and before he could stab her, she reflexively opened up a portal in front of her. The back part of the portal being the side that faced the knight like a screen, his sword slid off of it like a metal shield. "SHE-DEVIL!" the man cursed. Hearing one of her trigger words that reminded the demi-goddess of how much she looked like the opposite, Hekapoo screamed in her mind before creating a dozen clones at her sides, all of which surrounded the knight and started to kick the man and bludgeon the man with the handle-ends of their scissors.

They actually stopped just short of killing him, and to the rest that still thronged in the corridor, Hekapoo was still livid. In one of the few times that the bang covering her eye didn't hide it, both her eyes were alive with an orange fire, and Hekapoo angrily mumbled a fire spell which made her scissors light up in a glowing orange. Thrusting the scissors before her, a spiraling fire blazed out, big enough to cover the corridor like a fiery tidal wave. The knights at the front were almost instantly flash-cooked inside their armors, and so did most of the rest. The ones at the back managed to escape with only third-degree burns by running away to adjoining corridors at the intersections before the fire caught up to them, and didn't come back to finish the fight.

The fire lingered for another fifteen seconds or so before finally burning out; as it did, a small quake rumbled through the earth, making Marco grab Hekapoo by the shoulder. "What the hell was that? Did you just flip out and use magic just because he insulted you?"

She slapped his hand away; though her eyes had returned to normal (with her right one covered), she still managed to give him a cold glare of her own. "You could say that it sounds just like someone you know," she hinted, knowing that she was talking about Marco himself, "but it wasn't just that. Maybe if you didn't hold back, I wouldn't have had to use magic! We were stuck on the defensive, and what if Omnitraxus were to come and find us like this? We would've gotten wiped out like a chalk drawing! You need to get your shit together!"

Marco looked away, not able to stare her down when he knew that she was right. But in looking away from her gaze, all he could see were the charred bodies of the knights, almost all of their bodies scorched black, that being the ones in chain mail. Most of the others in full metal armor were also blackened, but with soot. The putrid smell of the burnt corpses was slowly-but-surely filling the air and with nothing more to say and not wanting to stand the sights and smells any longer, started to away to approach the large double doors that Hekapoo had been leading him to. As if it was some mysterious force still mocking him, it was past all the knights that Hekapoo had just killed.

Being in the lead, it was just as well that she didn't see the grimace on his face. Not wanting to appear squeamish, he simply held his breath as he navigated his way around the bodies while squinting his eyes to avoid looking at the bodies in all of their stark details. This didn't last long, as he crunched a blackened hand beneath his shoe, the owner was one of the more unfortunate chain-mail knights who took the full brunt of the blast. Marco paused to look down, and his eyes widened when he saw what was on the hand.

It was an engagement ring.

Right then and there, he couldn't hold his breath anymore. The smell of the bodies returned in full force, only this time, it clogged up in his nostrils, backed up with the internal tears that they had not killed faceless men, killing normal grunts with helmets and masks for indentities. They had not only killed men-… they had killed people…- people who had loved ones, people with families, people who had dreams and motivations, fighting for what they believed in.

Not being able to take it anymore, not caring if he was humiliating himself, Marco ran to get away from the scene. Hekapoo could only watch as her significant other fled to get to the door, knowing why he did. She didn't try to look away from the scene-… she was well accustomed to how a body smelt when it was burnt, and how it looked after making one when using her powers. It had been more than a human century since she had to do so, but never against people she had once called her allies.

"We're not allies anymore," she muttered heatedly, trying to take her mind off of it.

Still in his emotional fit, Marco got to the door and broke off the doorknob in his haste to get it open. On the other side, there wasn't a much better view. By the time Hekapoo caught up to him, she found her significant other staring at the girl whom he supposedly killed, standing in the middle of the room staring back at him.

Standing was a bit of a stretch; she was actually levitating, but the tips of her shoes (at the toes) were grazing the ground, as if the girl was trying to get back down to stand properly on the ground, fighting against the supernatural buoyancy that held her adrift. The bizarreness didn't stop there, either. Both the girl's eyes glowed brightly, one in a bright purple and the other in a vibrant green. Janna had a general purple aura around her as well, but the stab wound that Marco had dealt in her chest hadn't healed, and a green light shone from it. The light was even more pronounced from the wound that had claimed her life due to all the old blood that stained her cloths. At the very least, she hadn't rotted like dead people would, but the last thing that Marco expected was to see the girl greet him with a smile on her face.

"Janna?" Marco called unsurely. The smile that was on her face, only unsettling him the more he looked at it... it was the kind of smile she had whenever she teased him or thieved his stuff. "Can you hear me?"

She didn't reply, at least, not vocally. He thought that maybe he was only imagining that the smile on her face was starting to grow a bit, chalking it up as just his nerves. Maybe she really was dead after all. Averting his eyes, he scrutinized the room they were in, suddenly realizing that it looked like a sitting room of sorts, with an armchair here, a small bookcase there. Was all of this meant to somehow make Janna more 'comfortable' as she came back to life? Or was someone watching her, since the chair was facing towards her? He asked Hekapoo about it, but she only shrugged.

"I find a floating corpse waaay to creepy for my taste. This is only the second time I've been in here, the first time was when me and Omnitraxus put her in here. He mentioned something about Glossaryck, but I didn't pay attention. I had my mind on other stuff." She didn't specify what this 'other stuff' was, but Marco had a fairly good idea. He made a silent note to thank her in the future for taking care of him while he was imprisoned, but now just wasn't appropriate. Especially with the levitating dead body of his friend just a few feet away.

Still trying to get a feel from the room, he took notice of something shiny sitting on the table next to the chair, and looking more closely, saw that it was his sword. "… The hell? Why's this here?" He picked it up, feeling the cool handle in his hands. From there, all pleasantries ended, as the blade of the sword was heavily stained with the blood of those he had killed only a few days ago, with multiple jagged portions and cracks to show how heavily the sword had been misused. It was exactly as he left it, and he didn't question why the sword was there. He knew exactly what had been happening.

"Glossaryck's been in here, watching Janna and trying to figure out how and what I've been doing with the sword," he reasoned out loud, mostly for his companion's sake. Although it was convenient that he had his weapon in hand again, it felt heavier.

His guilt was all over it, every transgression adding thousands of kilos. He might as well have been holding up the castle itself.

The Diaz went back over to Janna again, and his heart dropped in his stomach. Before him was his friend, dead or not, and he still had the option of saving her life. The magical aura around her was powerful enough to save her, he could sense it! In the same breath, so was his own Order that lied inside of the girl's heart.

Janna continued to stare at him with her glowing purple and green eyes, waiting to see what he would do. A slight tremor in the earth acted up again as if to urge Marco to hurry and make up his mind. With hesitance, he angled the sword carefully until the point hovered above the girl's injury, and pushed it in. It was so agonizingly slow that it would have been torture if the person was alive. Marco screamed to himself that Janna was not alive, she was not alive, she was not alive-

He stopped. His sword had been here before, and he had stopped it just short of piercing her heart for the second time. It was the true point of no return, and he still had yet to make up his mind what he had to do. He could either remove the Order out of her body via the sword, or channel more into her body to overwhelm the magic that was still trying to bring her fully back to life.

"Why did you stop…?" Marco's jaw dropped in shock when he heard Janna's voice speak directly into his ear, and looked to where it'd come from. There was nothing there, and looking back up to her face, her mouth, though still smiling, was still closed. "Why'd you stop, Marco? You already left a hole there before."

Her mouth did not open, and she was speaking into his ears…?!

Marco gasped and released the sword, backpedaling away from her. "Holy shit, you were alive! Are you haunting me?!" He could hear her laughter, but it always sounded as if she was speaking directly into his ear, no matter which way his head turned as if he could find her by looking around. Meanwhile, the smile was STILL on her face while the sword was still sticking out of her chest, and if he wasn't terrified before, he was now.

"You already made your mind to kill me when you sent that message to Jackie," she said softly, "so how come you're hesitating now, huh?"

"If you're really alive, then…"

"In the fifth grade, a girl got her first crush, but didn't have the courage to ask him to come over to her house so they could play," Janna said, still speaking into his ear, "So she told her mother about it. The mother said that she should take something that belonged to him, bring it home, then tell the boy that she found something of his and that he should come over for it. She just used that excuse too many times, and it became a habit. It wasn't too long before the boy suspected her of being a petty thief, but she still didn't stop. She eventually got over her crush, but at least she had a friend. A really good friend."

Marco started to cry.

"…Didn't she have a friend?"

"I was your friend!" the boy bawled, not even able to form his words around the cringes his mouth were making. "But I killed you! You only wanted me to stop doing what I was doing!" He couldn't help himself, couldn't stop crying even as the snot began to dribble from his nose. "I killed YOU!"

"And I know that you're such a crybaby, and you'll always be sorry about it. But things are getting crazy, and I've seen what's happening on earth..." Janna paused, as if she was remembering something horrible. "Get up." She meant it as an order, and he obeyed. "Put your hands on the sword, and push it in."

Marco hesitated. "But you'll die if I don't pull back on my Order-"

"Do it."

With a grimace, Marco started to stab the sword forward, trying to ignore the sounds it made as it reentered her heart, and exited out through her back. "Oh, right. You want me to pull back the Order that made you be like this! You want me to save you-"

"I think I remember what you said. So repeat it after me," Janna interrupted. "Quod… Inquit… Rex…"

"Quod Inquit Rex," Marco intoned. He relaxed himself as he prepared himself to command that his aura return to him so that she could live. He was waiting for her cue, but no response came. He looked up at her still-smiling face, hoping to hear her voice again, but he didn't.

Then it came crashing down again. He knew why she didn't speak again. Janna had always hated goodbyes. She still didn't speak; it was still his choice to make. At the last, he allowed himself to go numb as his green aura began to cover him and his sword, wishing that the universe was really in trouble.

"That saith the King," he said normally, before repeating his clincher. "Quod Inquit Rex… DIE." Again, his aura surged inside the girl, the now copius amount of it is overwhelming the magic sustaining her. The purple glow in her left eye washed out and became green like the other, and both shone before their light died down. As he pulled out the sword and let it drop to the ground, the levitation holding up Janna's body lost effect, and Marco caught her before she fell to the floor. Her face wasn't smiling anymore.

All he shed now was a single tear, vainly promising himself that it would be the last one. If he was going to become the god of Order, he had better start getting used to death, even the death of his friends, his loved ones, his family.

He had better start getting used to being Death.


Oh, damn! :(

If you liked it, let me know. If you didn't, let me know and tell me how I can patch and improve.

And if you're one of the many that didn't know, I recently started up a small Miggs fanfiction titled 'STLTH 100'. It's not one of my customary long-shot fics, so feel free to swing by if you have a few extra minutes. It could use some love. Shouldn't be hard for you to find even by browsing, cuz I'm posting a new chapter for it at the same time as updating this one.

Take care.

Valete omnes,

MRAY 4TW.