Vestiges
Hey. So, season four (and ultimately, the series) has come to a close. :(
Got lots of unresolved things, the climax was rushed, and Marco got frickin' stabbed in the gut by a (dark) unicorn that was also unexplained, only for him to panic about the wound that no longer existed, and… shit. We waited a long time, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm more disappointed than satisfied. I liked it, but we all could tell that this was rushed. Why? Why did they treat us like this? Don't we as the loyal fans for YEARS deserve better? You know what? FUCK that ending.
As per my tardy updating schedule, I guess I was stalling to see how much my fic deviated from what the show had planned and done and I'm happy that it wasn't that much. And well, the magic's gone. Good riddance, I guess, 'cause that means points for me. And there's a bunch of Youtube theory videos cropping up (a video analyzing Toffee's actions that helped set this into motion by 'The Next Big Thing' channel, to be specific) that pretty much affirms everything I've had in my notes since the end of season three. Maybe Toffee had only been an anti-hero after all. Oh well. All the fandom has left is fanfiction and fanart.
In any case, it's time to subtly remind you all that this is an AU fic…
-…Meanwhile, in an alternate universe…-
Read that again. Let it sink in. And… done. Like magic. See what I did there? Anyway, don't forget to drop a review if you like the chappie.
26.
Taking in a deep breath, she let it out in a deliberate sigh, glad that the air of the No Man's Land dimension didn't settle like crap inside her lungs. Still not feeling relaxed enough, Hekapoo repeated the breathing exercise and unintentionally made the flame betwixt her horns grow larger and blaze hotter. The immortal herself wasn't feeling conscious of this until she noticed that Marco was staring at it, finally became uncomfortably aware of the fire that was already dangerously close to the awning overhead. Before mentally conditioning the flame to subside, however, she observed how Marco appeared… hypnotized?
No, not hypnotized. He just had that thousand-yard stare as if he was now recalling a faraway memory but while she had the idea that it was specific to Mewni, she didn't quite know if he was thinking of it fondly, or rather as an open-eyed nightmare.
"What'cha thinking about?" Hekapoo asked almost inaudibly.
Bringing himself to look her in the face, he gestured up at her flame. "I never did get to tell you 'thanks' for ... um… back when I was locked up. Thanks for taking care of me. I really appreciate it. I know you didn't have to but… yeah." He made the moment awkward just for sounding like that, but Hekapoo smiled. No matter how rugged he got or how old he really was, he was still just a nerd, just like Higgs always said.
"I've done it before," the demigoddess said offhandedly, a slight slur giving her voice a bit of a drunken accent. "Back when you were trying to earn dimensional scissors-…" She stopped talking when he suddenly got up from his seat and moved closer to sit in the chair adjacent. To her surprise, he hugged her tightly; it was a tenderness that she returned in kind. "Not that I mind the sudden display of affection, but why?"
"I remember this feeling," Marco said lowly, "but not just from back then. It was recent too. The guards outside my cell were always talking shit about you, about how 'you liked me' this, and how 'you helped me' that. But the one thing that always got to me was how they kept chatting about how Omnitraxus zapped me into space, and you threatened him and went out into space to save me. I wasn't awake when that stuff happened, but I know that it's supposed to be airless in space, and cold. If someone like me can last thirty seconds in space, then you would only last about twenty, 'cause you need more oxygen. You need your fire to in order to live.."
Hekapoo was silent.
"It was worse for you, but you still risked your life for me. I wasn't awake as I said before, but I knew you were close by." He hugged her even tighter, practically snuggling with her at this point. "I could feel you." He missed seeing her drunken blush darken her daisy cheeks in a pleasant red tint as she thought about what he meant, but she got even more shy at what he said next, "it was kinda comforting."
"Comforting?"
Now, it was his turn to get shy. "Yeah. It felt just like back on my trial when we were in the tundra. I liked it."
"You did?" Hekapoo asked rhetorically. She knew what kind of fire he was talking about. It was rather ironic, she thought, that he liked that particular heat. How would he react if he knew where that fire actually came from? Hesitating only once, she gently took his hand and rested it against her bosom. Neverminding the fact that his hand was on her breasts, she could feel his hand tense up in her grasp and she smiled to let him know it was alright. Sensing that he was calming down, Hekapoo then waited patiently for him to make the observation she expected.
"Why does it feel like-…" Marco paused, trying to figure out why the demigoddess' heart was like this. The beat wasn't monotonous and certainly wasn't regular, either. Instead, it was fluctuating and beat to the sounds of what felt like… hammers striking in a forge? Shovels feeding coal to the grates? It even felt like the sound of weapons and tools being made in a hearth? "It doesn't feel like it's just beating? It feels like it's working. In fact, it sounds like when you're making dimensional scissors." Marco said in confusion.
"That's what created the fire you like so much. I call it my 'furnace'. It's supposed to be a heart but it doesn't feel like one, huh?" Hekapoo asked dejectedly. "Another one of dear old dad's practical jokes. You know what? Never mind."
"What?" Marco was flummoxed by the woman's mood swing. It felt as if she was about to make a point but suddenly derailed from it. He didn't even know what that point actually was- all she had successfully done was to make him confused. "Come on, talk to me. What are you trying to say?"
"I'm a goddamn freak…!" Hekapoo yelled suddenly, heavy with frustration. "I'm as white as chalk, I sound like I've got a damn coal-burning engine for a heart, there are two fucking horns sticking up out of my head and I'm a lav-alcoholic!"
The Black King raised his eyebrows in confusion and mortification at the unexpected (confessional?) outburst. He was unsure of how to react and said the first 'Marco-ish' thing that came to mind. "You being a lava alcoholic's not exactly news. You know… especially after how you tried to kill Higgs fifteen minutes ago," The glare she gave him in response let him know that he had just put his whole effing foot in his mouth. "Uhh, sorry about that. I… uhh…" Marco searched desperately for an excuse to save face, "I didn't know you felt bothered by this."
"So what? Because I've had thousands of years to get used to it?" She asked, her tone now dangerous. He could tell that she was about to rant — that much was obvious. She could be as temperamental as a shrew and he knew better than to pick up an argument with her especially whenever she got like this. Even worse, she could take out her anger on him; besides that, any conflict between groupmates was going to be detrimental to the calling they had. Before he could calm her, however…— much to his surprise—... she did so herself.
"Maybe I'm overthinking this," she mumbled. "But hear me out. If I stopped getting magic from the Wellspring and swore myself to you, do you think that I'd change?"
"Change? Change how? You mean look different?" Marco asked rhetorically, "I'm not sure. Sienna didn't change."
"I wasn't born naturally like her, born with a choice! I was birthed in its waters," Hekapoo insisted. "On top of that, being cut off from the magic could kill me! And I gotta have all of my powers since you're going need my help to fight Omnitraxus!" Almost immediately, she went off on another tangent. "But you said that you're going to be immortal soon, so maybe I should keep my immortality too so that we can be together… Wait…" She shook her head, not even noticing that she'd just offhandedly confessed to Marco, who was giddy from a mixture of happiness and embarrassment. "Since I'm still connected to the Wellspring, I'm sterile." Her face fell. "I can't have children."
"Whoa, slow down!" Marco admonished, finally bringing himself to speak again. "You're not making any sense."
Hekapoo stopped, took a well-needed breather to think. She was a kitchen-sink of emotions, utterly mentally drained and not knowing what her choice should be. "I have some hard decisions to make, Marco. This choice couldn't possibly be any shittier, believe me."
He'd grasped that much. However, despite his heightened capacity for learning being opened up by Appendaxuz months prior, he still understood too little of what she'd just said. Before he could get her to explain, a portal opened up close by; Marco noted that there wasn't any shaking or tremblings in the earth, meaning that the person using the scissors was doing so by using their own vitality. He was actually hoping that it was Eclipsa. Higgs, ever since their return a few hours ago, had started dropping the word 'cougar' around the demigoddess. One spilled lav-alcohol bottle, a heated argument about Hekapoo being a 'fucking drunk', a couple of dozen poorly-aimed fireballs and an earthquake later, Sienna had decided to just solo a mission to avoid Hekapoo for the rest of the day. 'I'll be back by nightfall', she'd said, though Marco was left wondering if that would be long enough before it was safe enough to show her face again.
Eclipsa and Toffee emerged from the portal (much to Marco's relief), and woman of the pair looked about the landscape that was even more scarred than the usual, with smoke still rising from black-burned rubble. "Marco, dare I ask why?" she said pointedly. "And since Hekapoo has the time and energy to spare on foolishness like this, I take it that she's sworn to you already?"
"Actually…-"
"I haven't," the demigoddess interrupted, not wanting Marco to speak for her. "No, that's not it. I'm… undecided."
"This isn't something for you to treat so trivially." Toffee's rebuke was stern, and gave no margin, "You either do or don't. Regardless, if you don't, then you are of no use."
"That's pretty harsh to say," Marco remarked. Marco wasn't the one being disrespected and considering how Sienna had insulted her and how Hekapoo had been beating herself up, even he was starting to feel personally attacked. Toffee threw the King a look of contempt and advanced his verbal aggression into something more understated and contemptuous.
"Of course. Regardless, she should know that a rook that doesn't move has zero value. They only serve as a liability, and liabilities have no place with us." Hekapoo gazed at the Septarian with disdain, as if he were nothing but a nasty mess that she had stepped in.
"Keep talking like that, you suicidal shit, and I'll char your blue scaly ass black until it looks better."
For a second, Toffee was prepared to let the insult slide; he was used to resentment and not getting people to listen to him like they used to. The uppity demigoddess standing in front of him was just another one. He didn't have to stoop to her level.
Then the second passed.
"We still need to get to the Wellspring." Toffee said pointedly, before snarling uncharacteristically. "Would you kindly open the next portal, Demigoddess of Interdimensional Travel?" Hekapoo faltered when she heard this, knowing that she couldn't open the portal. "Do it. We're waiting."
Hekapoo looked as if she was about to say something-… something witty, something disrespectful, something intimidatory. Nothing came. Knowing that she couldn't, she instead turned her back and walked away. Marco yelled after her, but she ignored his calls. In a fit, Marco turned on Toffee but before he could chew him out, Toffee kept up his verbal passive-aggression.
"If you tell me that I was wrong or lying, then we've already failed because you're not pragmatic or fair. If you acknowledge that I was right, then you know that if we kill her, an immortal demigoddess fueled by magic, we can buy even more time while we carve out the portals with scissors by ourselves. What say you?"
Marco stared at him as he took the scissors from him. "You're a dick." Eclipsa, who'd been silent for a long time as she watched the proceedings, frowned and went off in search for the Rook.
=X=X=
"He said what?!" Hekapoo couldn't believe it. No, wait… she could believe it. She could practically see him saying it. "Kill me just to buy time?! That lizard fuck! What did Marco say to him?"
Eclipsa delayed a bit, wondering as to how was the best way to put it. "Marco… um… he disagreed. You are going to undertake the ritual, aren't you? I came to ask. We have a lot riding on you."
Hekapoo squinted her visible eye at the Eclipsa, her sarcastic streak kicking in. "Because you're such a mindful queen, huh?" She paused for a moment and twitched horribly as a not-so-nice thought came to her. "What if Marco considered that Toffee was right?"
"Oh, calm down. He didn't."
"You don't know!" Hekapoo exploded. "I watched him killed Janna, and she was his friend! I watched as he ran her through with his sword, so you don't know if he didn't think about it for even a second!"
"She was pulling on the remaining magic to return to life when she had been killed by an Order! Her case was unique-!" Eclipsa tried to argue, but Hekapoo would have none of it; her exasperation had reached its peak. After the silence of a few minutes of silent drinking, her intelligence and psyche were, at last, being dulled by the alcohol she was indulging in and made up her mind to solve at least one of her problems. "Magic is life and life is magic, right? I wonder how much my immortality is worth? At least a hundred thousand sentient lives. Maybe a million? More, even?"
"All life is equal," the queen said with a high degree of sagacity, though it sounded hollow as if she herself didn't quite believe it. Noticing that something was off, Hekapoo asked the woman what was wrong.
"Nothing's wrong," was all she would say, and clamped her mouth shut. The demigoddess brushed it off as nothing before going on to make her point.
"Anyway, the way I see it, there's a dimension or two that I could sever from the Wellspring. We'd be able to use magic for a long time, and more importantly, we could get to the magic dimension a lot easier-" In an instant, Eclipsa had slapped her companion right across her face, hard enough to leave a red handprint on her cheek. Hekapoo stared at Eclipsa in shock and pain before screaming at her unintelligibly that the queen was a crazy bitch.
"If I'm mad? If I'm MAD?!" the Queen fumed back. "As if you don't hear your own damn insanity!" It was one of the extremely rare times when she was pushed to the point of swearing, and the woman had reacted in righteous anger. "You'd kill an entire dimension just so you can pursue a relationship with Diaz?"
"As if you're so innocent. You sold out Mewni to live with a monster," Hekapoo shot back, the liquor slurring her voice. "So you of all people should understand what I'm going through. And I'm not killing anyone. I'm just cutting the connection from the Wellspring, only until we're done. I can fix it when we're done, easy-peasy-"
"That is not how it works! Shut up. Just… shut up!"
Hekapoo glared at the woman in anger, upset that her lie had been seen through. "Alright, fine. So the dimension would end up going down the bloody toilet! But none of you can manage to open a portal up here because the magic cost is so high! You don't even have a clear mental picture of the next dimensions in the series! You're all lost without me so that gives me the most important role to play… and I say that I need to tank a dimension!"
Eclipsa was bitterly furious. "Defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Destroying the multiverse in order to save it? And what if the others should hear about this? What if Marco finds out about this? There's only so much he can take before even he decides that you're going too far!" Hekapoo didn't rise to answer immediately, but soon had a response that the Queen didn't expect.
"You've got the highest affinity to magic besides me, and if anything, you'd be the one to open portals using your life. Tell you what… hand over Marco's scissors." As soon as she presented them, Hekapoo grabbed them before flaring up a flame over the tool briefly and then returned it. "The next portal you open will be to the next dimension in No Man's Land. Why don't you try it, hmm?"
The scissors still warm in her hand, Eclipsa dawdled in uncertainty. At first, she realized the importance of Hekapoo's challenge; if she failed to open the portal, it'd mean that she (Eclipsa) was wrong. More importantly, it'd mean that Hekapoo was right and that they would need to destroy a dimension just to progress. The scissors seemed to grow heavier and The Queen of Darkness could tell that the enchantment on the scissors was extreme.
"You gonna do it or not?"
There was an astronomical amount of difference between risking her life to prove a point…- and risking her life to try to safeguard hundreds of thousands, if not millions and billions of lives who would never even know that their lives were in danger because of a mere challenge.
Eclipsa steeled herself and started to open a portal. She felt the familiar tug of her own quintessence being used to power the magic requirements necessary, mild at first. The scissors cut into the air as they always did and Eclipsa began to feel the drain, then terrified when she realized that her own life was bleeding into the scissors from the effort. In a single second, the small amount of skin exposed between her sleeve and her gloves now showed the dark taint to display that it was spreading, but she barely noticed that in between her gasps for breath before she collapsed, the scissors slipping from her slackened fingers.
In her dimming vision, she saw her portal of only one-inch diameter snap close again, and Hekapoo making some remark, probably a callous one, but Eclipsa didn't hear it.
"She's gone," the demigoddess realized, noticing that her companion had blacked out. "Damn, I was actually hoping that she'd be able to do it, but it's still too much anybody else." She hefted up the unconscious woman as best as she could to rest her into a chair. "Guess I'm doing this then, huh? Gonna need her help, though." Hekapoo grasped that this was a bad situation and a bad hand to play, but she was tired of being useless and being called out for it. There was also the fact that Omnitraxus could also destroy a dimension just to achieve this same effect, but he hadn't. Didn't that mean that he was in the right, and she was wrong since he hadn't already defected to this option?
This was where Marco had been. This was the position that Marco had lived in; having being made out to be evil, being accused of being evil. Here she was, ready to doom millions of people to an unfathomable demise and all because she wasn't quite ready to give up her immortality.
"I'm evil. We all are, aren't we?"
Glossaryck had granted her leave from the Magic High Commission, but she was still being forced to make the hard decisions.
The worst part, however, was that she'd made this hard decision before.
…
…
Eclipsa began to stir awake and coughed weakly into her palm, trying to gather her bearings. "Oh, Gods. That was-…" her eyes widened when she saw that her gloved hand was heavily speckled with blood and panicked. Checking herself hastily, she realized that had lost even more of her life trying to open the portal, and losing far more in five seconds than she'd lost in years of using powerful magic. She peeled back her sleeves to examine her arms, lifted her skirt to check her legs and looked down her collar only to discover that everything was darkened in most cases, and covered in horrendous zig-zags along her blood vessels in others.
"Um… before you strip any further to check out the damage," her lone companion quipped as she poured out a drink into a cup before she put the bottle to her lips and tilted it back—… very far back. She then pushed the cup forward to Eclipsa, offering it to her. "I'm still in here so have some decency. By the way, in case you need to forget… I've got a bottle of Forget-Me-YES right here."
Eclipsa paid the lava-alcohol no mind. "You're not a very nice person, Hekapoo," the irate woman remarked, upset that she had lost. She'd gotten a glimpse of what had been bothering the demigoddess all day and understood why she'd regressed back into a liquor bottle.
"Aww… I was sharing," the Rook mumbled before her expression softened. "Here's what's happening. I might not be able to nerve myself up to do it if this dimension doesn't absolutely-positively (-hiccup-) deserve it. I want you to go there and find ten people. Just ten goodpeople. Just use your head to determine if they're redeemable or not."
"No tests to see if they're evil? I've heard about that nonsense in the M.H.C.," Eclipsa said with a harrumph. She easily recalled how the Magic High Commission had ridiculous methods for determining if people were evil or not. "And why should I do this? Why not pick someone else? Higgs is more likeminded to you and less troubled by her conscience. Even Toffee, since he's pragmatic." The emphasis in this course was clear, and wasn't even very true in particular; Toffee was just willing to do anything so that he'd be able to get what he wanted later.
"Sienna and I aren't on speaking terms right now." Hekapoo shrugged as she stared at her half-drunken bottle, "and you already know that Toffee and I are obviously not getting along. Before you ask… I don't want Marco EVER finding out about this. I'd never hear the end of it… and he might not ever look at me the same again."
"I see. You're the kind of wretch who likes to hide things, hmm?"
"Wretch?" Hekapoo parroted dumbly, her voice notably cracked. "That's beside the point. Just find ten people. If you can, I won't be liable to waste that shithole of a dimension for their sakes." Eclipsa glared at Hekapoo, wondering if she was being set up for another challenge.
"I'll find a hundred."
"Ten is good enough," Hekapoo repeated intently as she tuned the scissors again that would alter the next portal Eclipsa opened before tossing it to her. "Take care… the folks there are liable to turn your asshole into a slack cavity if you so much as say 'hello' to them. Don't wander into lonely places, don't take solicitations, that sort of thing. Time dilation isn't working separately in the multiverse anymore, so… I guess I can give you three or four hours. That's plenty for the both of us."
Grasping the wand tightly, Eclipsa pondered the wisdom of her next action. She could scarcely comprehend that she was about to carry out this undertaking-… no, she could. Evil was spelled as 'necessary'. It was returning to stab her in the back, although she still refused to acknowledge that Moon had been right. Eclipsa still had little to lose; all she had to find was just under a dozen people to prove that an entire dimension was worth saving. Besides her conscience screaming at her about how she didn't have the authority to decide who was good or evil, there was also the concern that this could happen again. This was for their first obstacle… who was to say that this wouldn't happen again when they needed more magic to breach another dimension in No Man's Land later on?
Wait…
Eclipsa whipped around to Hekapoo, already drunk yet still continued to fall further into the bottle. "You've done this before? Destroying dimensions?"
Hekapoo didn't answer at first, still having the barest of mental cognition to realize what she was being asked. Soon enough, however, she ended up replying; fuck the consequences. "We have. The M.H.C on a whole, I mean. This whole situation that we're in… it's not something new, and especially not new to me. We obliterate a couple when this kind of destabilization in the multiverse happens. Overpopulation. We cut off some of the excess weight, then we recreate another one to keep the multiverse stable, give some people from the luckier dimensions a couple of scissors… then…" She trailed off, trying to pull her inebriated thoughts together but not noticing that Eclipsa was only being more horrified and repelled the more she heard. "They eventually go exploring to find new land, unoccupied land, adventuring, treasure hunting, whatever reason drives them. Couple thousand years, maybe ten thousand if we're lucky before the cycle repeats itself. Gotta wipe out another dimension, start all over. Start ALL OVER." Hekapoo swung her bottle around a little, swirling the liquid around inside. "You don't really have long, Queenie. You'd better get going…" The demigoddess looked up when she didn't hear a response. "Eclipsa?"
Eclipsa was already gone.
…
…
"Are you alright? You seem… diminished, somehow."
"I'm alright." Toffee scoffed to himself, not believing the dark Queen. He had been nursing his hurt pride by himself in the gazebo-of-sorts that Eclipsa had made earlier when she'd walked past, obviously distressed somehow. Normally, he wouldn't have paid much attention due to what they had witnessed earlier when hunting around for Omnitraxus, but the woman was physically troubled as well. She labored for her breath, and her face had gone as white as a sheet. Additionally, a portion of her teal-colored hair had gone gray in the short time she had been with Hekapoo but he decided against bringing it up. "Really, I'm alright."
"Clearly not. Have you eaten anything besides your paltry breakfast?" He knew that hunger made her weak but she shook her head to say that this wasn't the case.
"I have to find… good people to prove that a dimension is worth saving." She thought that the revelation would come across as shocking, yet, it wasn't. As per the usual, Toffee appeared nonplussed.
"So, I finally pushed her that far, eh?" To her credit, Eclipsa didn't react much and it only went to show how emotionally and mentally drained she was. "Before you ask… it wasn't entirely manipulation. It was either her life being used to open the portal, or she'd off a dimension or two in order to have enough magic available in the universe to open portals deeper into No Man's Land. In any case, I knew about the practice… I've lost people when they destroyed a dimension that some Septarians were on at the time."
Eclipsa gazed at the Bishop, wanting to ask something, couldn't. Settled on something else, "you wanted her to make this decision…!" Toffee leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table with his fingers interlocked as if he was about proposing a bizarre contention.
"I wanted her to still have all of her powers to fight Ominitraxus. We can't fight him, but she would have an idea how; they're kin, so she could even know his weakness. At the very least, she could at least help the King to overpower him. We had to run. You saw what he did to that Size-Shifter out in the wasteland… those monster are some of the most powerful, but he obliterated it."
"That Size-Shifter?" Eclipsa spat, hating the general classification that Toffee had used. "She could have been a relative of my husband… she could have been MY DAUGHTER! I was helping Appendaxuz… helping Marco… destroy the Wellspring so that my husband will be freed from his crystal prison but at the cost of losing my child?!"
"Be sensible. There was naught we could do about that monster," Toffee argued, "and we still don't know if the size-shifter is any relative of his, or of yours. Besides, he didn't kill it; he only teleported it away someplace." Toffee didn't mention that Omnitraxus usually got rid of his foes by exiling them into the far reaches of space where they would suffocate if they needed to draw breath, or simply die frozen if they were the more eccentric and exotic creatures in the multiverse who didn't need sustenance or oxygen.
Eclipsa looked about ready to collapse.
"Take heart," Toffee comforted, reluctantly allowing a fake smile to cross his face simply for her sake. "You might see her again when this is all over. You, her, your husband…" The woman regarded the septarian with eyes that exhibited skepticism, making the lizard raise an eyebrow. "What?"
"Humph. You're not the heartless, coldblooded monster that everyone made you out to be."
"Sad to inform you otherwise; I undeniably am the heartless, coldblooded monster that everyone believes I am. I mean what I said." He got up from his seat, not wanting to waste any more time. With his height, he easily looked down on her but instead of being intimidatory, Toffee seemed… protective? Perhaps like a child taking the time to regard the insects they usually stepped on, and helping one out for once. "You will see them again, be it in this life or the next."
There was a bit more weighty emphasis on her being successful. He was genuine in his words, and she realized, with shame, that Toffee had a family of his own long ago. She was hurting now but despite his advanced regeneration and immortality, ironically, he'd been aching for prolonged centuries. Eclipsa smiled sadly as she averted her gaze from Toffee but seeing the empty vastness of the dimension in No Man's Land reminded her of the task at hand.
How unoccupied it was. Devoid of life, save for a few fiendish monsters that were deterred by Marco's murderous aura, or were already killed.
"I almost forgot. I was supposed to find some people. Find… good people to prove that the dimension is worth saving."
"It's a win-win either way." Toffee grunted as he watched her open a portal; the magic entryway appearing blood-red, a hitherto unseen feature. "If we find enough poor souls worth existing, your conscience will remain clean. If not, then we simply get to watch some scum perish for the sake of everyone else who is worthy of life."
Toffee had a way of looking at things in his own idiosyncratic and pragmatic way and this time, Eclipsa accepted it. Easily recalling how she nearly came close to dying earlier, she realized how disastrous it'd be for a mortal Hekapoo to open portals leading to the Wellspring (ten times!). Furthermore, Toffee was right. There would be a far bigger benefit to keeping an immortal Hekapoo around, especially if she could help fend off Omnitraxus when he would eventually encounter them.
Then again, there was her husband and someday… finding her daughter, even if it was her that Eclipsa had helplessly watched get blasted by Omnitraxus's magic. If she was dead… then avenging her.
Eclipsa could scarcely believe it, and she couldn't even trust herself to say it. Toffee, however, saw that the queen wanted to say something and kept hesitating. It was an easy guess what it was, however.
"For the sake of your conscience, despite the fact that we're about to commit a complete dimensional genocide… I hope we don't find any good people either." With that, they entered the portal and closed it behind them.
=X=X=
It had a little over two dozen tentacles, each as massive as the trunks of full trees and slithered like independent muscly snakes. The main body was barely unstructured from which the tentacles extended, a rigid spine with no apparent rib-supported skeleton. It was like a badly-deformed squid, only it had a large grin full of serrated fangs coated with bluish-black saliva that dripped as it snarled. One of its tentacles brushed over a rivulet of blood, and the squid-like creature stopped its advance.
It ran the tentacle deeper into the blood and diverted its trail to follow the now-stagnant blood canal. It soon came upon the corpse of another slain monster, one of its own kind. Not seeing or simply not caring, its tentacles started latching to whatever it could and tearing apart the carcass with its limbs. As it tore, it ate, ripping into its dead brethren without abandon. The body was only a bit smaller from slight decomposition and limpness, yet the monster managed to break down to scraps and nearly consumed it all. Leaving behind little more than a darkened bloodstain where the worthless topsoil had turned into foul mud, the monster continued its approach, seemingly attracted to one thing, and a lone teen stood between that objective and the massive creature.
"I'm Death," Marco said to the creature as much as to himself, "and you're permitted to exist in this dimension. Anywhere else." It, due to its lack of ears, did not hear him and Marco doubted that it would heed him even if it did. This was due to the fact that almost every creature respected and feared death when they came into contact with his aura, yet this species of monstrous squid lacked a sense of basic self-preservation. He'd killed them whenever they came, and this was getting bothersome.
Wait, that wasn't right. It wasn't that they lacked the sense to want to stay alive. They kept heading in the direction that Hekapoo's large tent was in as if they were attracted to her or something else within and the magnetic bearing was stronger. He couldn't comprehend why. He decided to kill it and ask Hekapoo herself later; she had thousands of winters behind her, so she was bound to know why.
"That saith the King… Quod Inquit Rex…" he intoned, his cheek crescents glowing green as he drew out his sword and swung it horizontally. "REND!"
A visible arc of green light, vivid in the dusk of the day, flashed out of the sword and bisected the monster cleanly through its flesh and bones. Blood spurted through its back as the attack continued, starting from ten meters in width and grew with distance traveled. It sliced through a few more monsters a couple of miles away who were keeping their distance and from the sounds of things, Marco guessed that he'd cut through the distant mountains as well like a hot laser. Satisfied that he'd killed and scared off all the monsters heading to the camp, he held up his sword to observe it. It was now in even worse condition, new cracks forming and wide gaps in the edge. The nicks had widened out into large notches as if he'd been using the sword like a hoe in a field full of rocks.
Marco kissed his teeth whilst returning the damaged sword back to its sheath and turned to enter Hekapoo's tent, leaving the flaps open to allow outside light to illuminate the interior. She was the first thing he saw, lying on her belly. She didn't react to his entry; he guessed that she was sleeping, especially given her natural poise with her limbs slightly apart spread-eagled. In light of these, the most outstanding factor of her state was that she was unclothed, her skin laid bare with her voluminous fiery hair in a red swathe to the side. Her flame, a constant in motion, continued its burning at the peak where the horns and the scarlet began at the crown of her head.
He didn't move. Marco's breathing slowed, his wide eyes revering her. Her timeless marble-complexioned body, though a bit stocky by nature, was buxom and well defined with contours that had been implied—… yet hidden…— by her usual gown. He stood there staring, committing details to memory zealously but ashamedly. After too long, he heard what sounded like giggling, making him panic. Before he could back out through the exit behind him, she roused herself to sit up before him, bracing herself by propping herself up with her arms behind her. Her legs were ever so slightly apart, and Marco found himself struggling to keep his eyes above the threshold of her neck. This was both out of respect and shame, shame for having only stared and not tried to cover her up or simply leaving her to rest.
Then he was brought back to the fact that she was laughing. Her cheeks were dyed by crimson hues, and her lone visible eye was full of lackluster amusement. Marco's nose, now no longer being fully ignored, detected the scent of the demigoddess's favorite alcohol.
"You see," Hekapoo said at last, "the Mewmans have a law. See a girl naked, the guy's gotta marry her." Despite having realized that she was drunk, Marco still got roped into the woman's guileful topic.
"I wouldn't know about that, but I do know two things for sure. We're not Mewmans, and you're not a stickler for Mewni's laws anyway."
"True, true." Hekapoo nodded slowly, so languidly that anyone would start to think that she was drifting off to sleep. "So… you were there staring at me for a while. I have to know something…"
Now, he was sure that he didn't want to hear what she was about to say but prompted her anyway. "Know what?"
"Are you an ass man, or a tits guy?" Marco flinched as if he'd been hit in the face and as if Hekapoo didn't notice how uncomfortable he now was (or simply didn't care), she lifted her right hand to her bust and closed fingers around her breast, slowly circling it to massage it. Marco's blush had long since taken over his entire head, and he clenched his eyes shut, trying to calm himself before his arousal was made too obvious.
He took a deep breath, and finally steadied himself. "Hekapoo, you're drunk." After a few more seconds, he finally re-opened his eyes, only to see that her legs were now well open, far apart to allow him to see everything.
Again, he stared, much too ostensibly and a second too long for his own good. The demigoddess grinned widely in her self-satisfaction, having gotten the reaction that she'd wanted. "Hey, looks like Little Marco isn't little anymore…!"
Marco's jaw dropped, realizing that his erection had been made apparent. At this point, now humiliated, he turned on his heel abruptly quickly started walking out of the tent. Seeing that she had driven him away, it was now Hekapoo's turn to feel adverse to her own actions, grasping what she'd done.
"Wait, Marco!" Getting to her feet quickly, she used her famous speed and grabbed his arm in an instant. Feeling her grip and knowing that he could very easily shrug it off, he was about to but instead paused. He'd already lost a lot of face and his own self-respect; on the other hand, he had the distinct feeling that he'd lose out on a lot more if he fled. Gritting his teeth, he went as far as to close up the tent's zipper with his free hand. That way, it'd reassure her that he would stay and to furthermore darken the interior of the tent so much that he'd be unable to see her anymore. She let go of him when he finally turned to face her, only to realize that he'd forgotten about her intrinsic flame that continually burned at the top of her head.
The fire bathed her in a glow almost as warm as itself. As appropriate to its angle and much to Marco's relief, while dimly lighting up the tent, everything south of the mid-slope of Hekapoo's breasts was shadowed and kept from any further exhibition.
It was silent for a while before the Diaz ultimately had to urge her to speak. "So… what?"
Her visible eye was downcast in shame. "I'm sorry for hassling you like that. I just wanted to know if you still found me attractive."
Marco blinked. He didn't really know how this came about, but he had been aware of Hekapoo's recent dwindling self-esteem about her appearance because of their talk earlier that day. Understanding that both making compliments and asking questions as to why she felt this way was now out the window, he told her the truth. "I always have. But there was no need to show yourself off like that!"
"You're the one who came in," Hekapoo said simply, shooting down his weak argument and reminding him that he was the one originally wrong. "You could have left, but you stayed. When I sensed that you were in here, I woke up. You stayed in here like a perverted brat. But…" She, at last, looked up at him and smiled. "I'm glad you did. But why'd you come inside my tent for, anyway? I know you better than that… you wouldn't come in here if you knew that I didn't have anything on."
At this point, despite her being naked and it fast becoming normal to her and temporarily forgotten to him, Marco carried the conversation naturally. "I wanted to know why the squid monsters keep targeting your tent."
"The ones with that look like they're grinning?" Hekapoo asked in a way to suggest that she already knew why. "They attack uncertainty. Those things prey on creatures that are unsure and rickety in the head. They can telepathically sense this kinda thing for miles-"
"You're unstable?" Marco inquired, "why?" Too late in recognizing what she'd said, she declined to answer at first but soon gave in with the lesser cause.
"You know the answer. I said that it was because I figured that you didn't find me attractive-"
"Hekapoo." Marco's mouth was tightlipped, a sign that he was impatient, "that doesn't sound like the real reason."
Oh damn really? He chose now of all times to be more perceptive, she pondered to herself with irritation that soon quelled. "No, it's not. I just-…" The woman bit her lower lip, tentative about the subject. "I don't know if I should swear to you or not, Marco! I know that saving the multiverse should come first, but you're going to be immortal soon if you're not immortal already…!"
"What about it?"
Snapping her fingers, she was immediately wreathed in flames before it dissipated, leaving her in her usual attire. Hekapoo then lifted her hand and touched one of her horns with a small measure of distaste. "I can hate my looks as much as I want and whether I keep them or not, I'm glad that you think that I'm beautiful anyhow." Her eyes watered, the visible one was obvious, but her hair over the hidden one was matted, slightly dripping tears from the fringes to her chin. "I'm in love with you Marco, but I have to choose between spending eternity with you by ourselves, or leaving you and our children behind."
He understood now. Every piece fell into place now. She loved him. She was insecure about her looks. She was unable to decide if she would love him or their children more. She, his elder by an eternity, had always been alone outside of the M.H.C. and couldn't pursue relationships with mortals. World and cultures apart, she hadn't wanted to fall in love with him, but she had and didn't want any of them to be alone if either of them perished. Frustration and indecisiveness drove her to drink and everyone had poked their salty fingers into her wounds.
He hadn't given much thought about an eternity after saving the multiverse. Instead, it'd mainly been coming to grips that he'd be the embodiment of Death, killing everyone he'd saved one at a time, or leaving them to die natural deaths when appropriate. He'd never thought about being alone.
"Hekapoo, I-…" He choked, reality collided with him, about to grieve for the dead who were yet still alive. "…-I don't want to be alone."
Slowly, her arms encircled him, not wanting to chase off the vulnerable boy inside him. They brought him close and hugged him to her. He wanted reassurance, she saw, but knew not the method. Of all the actions she could have taken, perhaps even kissing him and seducing him to the point where he'd passionately yell her name, she only continued to hug him, two lonely immortals under a small forlorn fire.
They remained, long enough to ingrain the idea that though alone by themselves, they weren't in each other's company, even into the end should the multiverse's epilogue come to pass.
"And you won't be. I'm right here," Hekapoo whispered into his ear, before regretfully releasing him. "I'm here."
She dared not say anything more, should she compromise their future when it still hung in limbo. It had been enough. He smiled back at her warmly, and she could tell it was genuine; more than anything, she was glad that he felt better.
"Love you too, H-poo."
Hekapoo smiled in happiness. Leave it to Marco to just admit his feelings so lamely and candidly. "Man, that knight of yours is right. You're such a nerd!"
Scarcely after she said this, the teen heard his name being screamed out. Recognizing the voice, Marco turned around and zipped down the tent hastily and dashed outside, Hekapoo at his heels. There, he saw a portal open, with a battered-looking Higgs standing a bit unsteadily next to it. "Sienna? What's wrong?!"
"It's Star! She's in the Earth dimension!" Before he could even react properly to the news, another (blood-red) portal opened, and Eclipsa and Toffee stepped out, both with serious expressions. The demigoddess cursed to herself bitterly when she saw them, figuring out why Eclipsa had returned. The demigoddess had thought that she had more time.
"We were unsuccessful," Toffee stated, "and Omnitraxus Prime found us there."
Not understanding what was going on but still comprehending the gravity of both situations, Marco struggled to make a choice. Star, his complete opposite in standpoint, or Omnitraxus Prime. Marco guessed that his own expression looked about as confused as Sienna's.
But why did Hekapoo react so much to Toffee's and Eclipsa's arrival, even before they announced what they had to say? Nonetheless, he couldn't deal with both things at once. "Maybe we should all focus on Star-…"
"You go with Higgs!" Hekapoo exclaimed, making his choice for him by slightly pushing him towards his knight while turning to head in the other direction. "I'll go with those two to deal with my brother!" Already making good on her word, she approached the Queen and Bishop and entered the portal they'd come out of and soon, they too also made their exit through it before it ultimately closed. It took a minute more before it registered in his brain that Hekapoo had something going on that he wasn't aware of, but he couldn't focus on that right now. He silently prayed that she'd return safe, knowing how dangerous and powerful Omnitraxus Prime was.
Almost right then and there, he felt a niggle of sadness pass through him. Who, as the god of Death, was he supposed to pray to?
