Svfoe and the characters in this fanfic do not belong to me. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Star's POV

I woke up to the sunlight streaming down on my face. I could hear the birds chirping in the distance on this quiet morning.

I frowned, it was really quiet, a bit too quiet. I quickly went over and woke up Marco.

"What is it Star? We've barely slept at all last night", he said while rubbing his eyes, disoriented by being suddenly shaken awake.

"Something's wrong with the town, just look", I replied

We looked out of the window at the town below. There was no smoke or any of the usual morning noise.

"What's wrong? Everything seems just normal.", He replied, confused.

"Exactly, it's way too normal. Shouldn't there be atleast some noise of people working? It's almost 9 and there's not a sound from anyone", I said.

"Wait what! It's 9 already?" Marco said, panicking. "But then what about my alarm"

We looked over to his alarm clock, which had stopped working. I went over to it and looked more closely, the clock seemed to have gotten stuck at 4am.

"Huh, that's wierd. I changed the batteries just a few days ago",Marco said to himself.

"Get ready quickly Marco, we gotta go check this out, we haven't got much time to waste",I told him.

"Sure, I'll be out in a minute", He replied.

I could see that he still didn't get what had happened, but atleast he trusted me enough to follow me.

We made our way out of the castle and onto the streets of Mewni. They were deserted, with not a soul in sight. We went towards the edges of the town, trying to find anyone.

I'd never thought I'd say so after all of Earth's noise, but for once I'd prefer if it wasn't this quiet, it was getting kinda creepy.

"Look",Marco whispered, pointing towards a building. "I think I saw something over there"

We quickly made our way over and saw a couple of monsters walking out of town.

"Hey, guys. Where is everyone?",I shouted out.

The monsters just ignored us and continued walking away.

I was about to rush over and confront them, but I was stopped by a hand on my shoulder.

"I don't think that's a good idea", Marco said. "Something strange is happening over here"

I looked around, only to see scores of monsters march towards the city gates from all around us, joining the two that we had already seen.

"They seem to be going somewhere",I whispered.

"Is this some kind of riot or what...",Marco whispered back.

I looked over at him, and suprisingly enough saw fear in his eyes. I gently entwined my fingers with his. "Are you alright? We've gone against bigger threats before Marco, we can handle this", I told comfortingly.

"Yeah I'm fine, just some old memories.", He replied.

I was unconvinced by his reply, but decided to question him about it later. After all,we had a situation to deal with.

Marco's POV

Star and I crept towards the monsters, who had organised themselves into rows. I tensed up, getting ready for a possible fight.

Suprisingly enough though, they started heading away from Mewni. I looked over at Star in confusion.

"What's happening here", I asked, hoping for some insight.

"No clue", came her reply, as we stared at the horde leaving the town gates.

"We should follow them",I said, causing Star to look at me questioningly.

I was also a bit surprised by what I had said, going after them would be dangerous and difficult, but as the pieces clicked together in my mind, it made more and more sense.

"The monsters were way too organised, way too disciplined for this to just be a random idea.",I said

"So someone has to be giving them orders which means this was all planned in advance. Whoever this is also has to be pretty powerful to have such a huge force.", Star continued,as realisation dawned on her face.

"And if they turn out to be an enemy, we might be Mewni's first and only line of defence",I added grimly.

"Well what are we waiting for, let's get going, we've got some butts to kick",Star replied with a confident smile. "Or has your karate gotten rusty?", She asked jokingly

I smiled back as I followed her out of town. Trust Star to always lighten up even the darkest of situations.

Some time later

It was almost noon when we finally made our way out of the Forests of certain death. The last few hours had been quite the journey.

Shortly after Leaving Mewni, we'd entered the forest. While the monster's trudged on with no care for the many dangers of the forest, Star and I had been confronted by various creatures, including carnivorous Venus man traps, the zombie zebras and the infamous money badgers. If not for our teamwork, we would have long fallen prey to this forest of horrors.

I wiped the sweat of my brow and looked ahead. We had arrived at the temple of monsters.

"Why the cornhusk would the monster's come here of all places, this place is an old ruin",I heard Star muse to herself.

I was busy staring at the temple itself. While I had been here before at night, seeing it in the daylight gave me a whole new perspective. It had two distinct architecture styles, as if parts of the building had been made later. The numerous columns and walls of this place, not to mention the ragged remains of fences. This wasn't a temple, it was a strong military structure, built to keep something out, or keep something in...

Star was about to walk ahead when I stopped her with a hand on my shoulder,"We need to be careful, this isn't any ordinary building, it's a fort", I told her.

"Relax Marco, we've been here before.", She replied and started walking.

She wasn't wrong. The building seemed to have long been decommissioned, and nothing bad had happened last time. That is if you considered a hulk with lasers as 'nothing bad'.

I quickly caught up with Star and we walked into the fort, hand in hand. The inside of the building was the same as we had seen last time, with the monsters nowhere in sight.

As our eyes adjusted to the dim light, I started looking around for anyone else in the cavernous chambers of this place. In the centre of the hall,ahead of us was a wooden chair with a dainty little woman on it.

I nudged Star to make her follow my gaze.

Looking at the woman, her eyes widened in shock,"Eclipsa...", she gasped.