DISCLAIMER: This chapter has absolutely nothing to do with the previous, as stated by...the previous chapter. Therefore, it is all the more natural to find fundamental differences, so please don't hate. This might seem redundant, with the previous warning and such, but nonetheless, I am not taking any risks with the Internet. As always, enjoy!
The two returned to the same room, they left a bored and baffled Marco, still mindlessly watching a bland and repetitive slideshow.
"Shouldn't you solve that dimension-thingy you talked about?" Star asked clueless and curios.
"Umm…sure. For the record, it's not a dimension, it is more like… Imagine that I put a blanket over a parrot cage. The parrot sees nothing but the pitch black dark you forced it to see, while the outsiders still view the contraption as a covered cage. So, I just have to remove the blanket. Nothing involving the ripping of any universe fabric." Scott replied calmly.
With, seemingly no action whatsoever, Marco, who was completely oblivious of the duo's stepping through the portal, finally realized they were in the room, so he decided to ask:
"Does this thing even prove anything?" in an annoyed and bored to death voice.
"It does, Marco, it does. Now, I've gathered all the information needed for devising the training plan. I still need to ask a few questions, then we're good to go."
"Good to go, as in you leave and never come back kind of good to go, or you'll stick along until the dawn of time as Glossaryck's replacement good to go?" Marco tried to sound impassable, but failed completely.
"The latter," he swiftly replied while catching his breath, as if he was preparing for a memorably long line of speech. "Now, sit down. I want you to be comfortable so that this doesn't seem as much of a nuisance as it may be." After the last word got out of his mouth, two amazingly fluffy armchairs appeared behind them, which slid towards them, forcing them to fall on them. After, summoning a notepad and a pen as well, he started speaking, in the voice a well-renowned psychiatrist would.
"Okay, after your spell-book has been stolen, did you meet him again?"
"Nope, never," Star rushed to answer.
"Perfect, it means he is still learning how to use it. Next question… How much of Eclipsa's chapter have you studied, so far?" His gaze appeared to subtly tell her, to leave out the obvious spell.
"Absolutely nothing."
"How about the chapters of your mother and great grandmother's?"
"I didn't quite study them…as I, umm… passed through them?"
"I see. Now, would you mind making a list of your three-four favorite spells?"
"Well, Narwhal Blast is up there, surely," she started, trying to remember whatever her imagination spewed up. "Then, there's the Warnicorn Stampede… probably the Rainbow Fist Punch…"
"Okay, I get it, that is enough, thank you. Now, you won't be hearing from me for the rest of the day, I'm going to gather some things."
"What things?" Marco asked, not caring for any sort of privacy whatsoever.
"All in due time," he said while conjuring a portal. "You'll be hearing me say that a lot, by the way," he added, one step inside already. "So brace yourselves…" And then he disappeared, going to an unknown place, leaving the two alone, to do…whatever they do on a Thursday morning…Oh yeah, they go to school, because imminent interdimensional danger, never absolves you from education. Therefore, since it was already late, they left for the amazing, joy-filled place called Echo Creek School.
School, had always been boring for Star, and a very…weird place for Marco, as it generated a lot of mixed feelings. On the one hand, there was that joy he had while learning, which albeit sounding nerdy, was genuine. On the other hand it was a known fortress of fear, a symbol of hopelessness embodied in a building. It is also the site of most social interactions for him. It is also worth noting it is the only place where he can actually speak to Jackie, without his nervousness coming into play…as much as it usually does. Come to think of it, he hadn't spoken to Jackie after that faithful night, that pretty much lead to all these events and to Scott seemingly blinking into existence. Come to think of it, he didn't really think through all these events, and now it was the time to reflect, given that literature is basically a skipped class. Without anything else to do, unlike Star who was laughing her socks off alongside Janna in the back of the classroom, he grabbed his notebook and a pen and started theorizing.
He didn't know much of this elusive character, Scott. His origin was unknown, but he'd say, since he had the ability to cast spells and conjure portals from thin air, that he was most certain of Mewnian origin…or in the very least, he was a magical being, not from Earth. Next up, what did he know about his abilities? Well, he could pull off the same things Star could, but without a wand. That was surprising and not surprising as well, because she had also been able to free him from her closet while her wand was inspected by Glossaryck. Yet she only did that once and with enough effort, while Scott does it without even breaking a sweat. This guy must be much more powerful than Star, and maybe even the Queen, whom he saw blasting all her family… Now, coming to think of it, he had yet to see him attacking. He saw him only creating portals and conjuring items, things that actually Star can do…Humph, he might not be as powerful as he had been given credit for, but still, it was something to be keeping an eye on. Now, the elephant in the room was his intentions. According to him, he came to teach Star how to get better at spell-casting, literally taking over Glossaryck's old job. But, unlike the old magical being, he had gone straight to business, which was all the less suspicious. From what he had gathered for the past half a year, most of Star's world was built upon snarky, overbearing, gleeful, yet sometimes serious beings. But no one was as cynical, cold, distant and set in his ways as Scott was. It was clear to him that he was something else, not evil, though… he was kindhearted and strangely patient and somewhat warmer to Star than to anyone else (although the only degree of comparison he'd have is his attitude towards himself). But even though his rather warm side, he was still the trench coat wearing, textbook villain. He was somewhat balanced in his ways, contrasting the one-sidedness him and Star, on one side and Ludo and Toffee, for example on the other side, stood for. Maybe this was his actual intention… To come in and change the way the two of us view the world? But still… he seemed to know about past events in their lives… Ever since that strange sleepover both of them had second thoughts about how they felt about the world. Even stranger is that the most one-sided of all, Star, had actually turned their views around…Now he had something else debunked…His intention here was still a mystery. What if it actually was to help her get better at spell-casting? What if he was actually a no-sided force who was bound to an object or to a law, and had no choice but to serve that who possessed him?
Marco put down the pen, all of a sudden. The bell rang, and the class was over and students flooded the exit, struggling to get out and socialize. He went to his locker to get the textbooks for the next class. He met up with Star and Janna on the hallway.
"Hey, Marco, what were you doing the whole class?" Janna asked, smirking as she seemed to know about his activity.
"Yeah, you were all focused and analyzing…at literature class," Star yelled the last bit to accentuate the so-called gravity of the situation. "It's the only time at school, when we can have fun with words!"
"Oh, it was nothing really," Marco defended himself, swiftly trying to stick his notebook in his locker, but realizing that he didn't have it in his hand anymore. Looking to his right, Janna stole it already and was looking through it.
"Woah, Marco, you were really busy," she remarked easily fending off his attempts to recover the notebook. "Who is this Scott dude, you wrote five pages about? Is he your alter-ego or something?"
"No, Scott is a guy who was sent by my mom to teach me magic," Star nonchalantly answered.
"So he is, like a teacher? What a bore. He seemed like a cool guy, based on what you wrote about him."
"Oh, he is. I mean the guy can make things out of thin air and teleport without a wand! He's amazing!" Star shouted, trying to counter Janna's opinion on the guy. "Let me see what Marco says about him!" she said reaching for the notes, but Marco was ready for this. When Janna let her guard down, he snatched the notebook, threw it inside the open locker and smashed the door shut.
"Aww, why did you do that for?" Star asked visibly upset.
"I don't want you to worry about useless things."
"Here you go Starfly," Janna said, throwing his notebook at her.
"What…how did you? I gotta change my lock combination…for the twenty second time."
Star didn't really read anything in depth, she just flicked through the pages, but she seemed to grasp the essentials. Still, with a smile, she commented simply on what Marco wrote:
"You don't have to worry about him, Marco… He is cool and all, but you're my best friend still," she ended hugging him. "Now come, we're gonna be late for Maths and Miss Skullnick is going to flip!"
It's important to note that math is not Star's favorite subject. And, Miss Skullnick hates students who do not pay attention and have fun on school grounds. Add those two up and you can see how Star was called to the board to solve an immensely complicated math problem… Marco was looking helplessly through his notes, trying to find an answer, when he noticed something off. The corner of some pages were bent, thing that didn't happen once in his entire life as a student… The bending stopped at one point on a blank page, where a black spot was corrupting the whiteness of the paper. As Marco grabbed the eraser, that dot, started to spill, forming…letters. The handwriting was impeccable, calligraphy being the strong spot of whatever force was driving the ink around… A sentence was created…
"Hello, Marco." The letters started rearranging before his very eyes, creating a dialogue between that entity and him. "Don't freak out, as you're about to, this is Scott. I am waiting in line for some magic artifact and…let's say that pixies are not a race to hurry up. So… what are you doing?"
Marco didn't know how to talk back. Plus he still wasn't comfortable speaking to him, as if he was speaking to a friend. But nonetheless he tried to answer by writing back. From Ms. Skullnick's perspective it looked as if he was taking notes.
"Sitting in class, watching Star trying to solve a math problem. What artifact?"
He waited for an answer for a while." Must be hard moving in single file," Marco thought.
"All in due time… Wait…Star is about to solve a problem, regarding…the circumference of a circle?"
"Yeah, why?"
After this, a portal opened in front of Marco's desk, and Scott stepped out of it, but the second he looked at the black board, he shook his head and looked down.
"What's happened," Marco asked.
"Nothing, actually. I was just hoping to prevent a redundant event. Star won't be able to solve it, and will be extremely reluctant to try…This causes the destabilization of this timeline, because all the other versions of her had easily solved the problem… It eventually leads to her learning that she can't avoid doing the things she doesn't enjoy, and sometimes you have to take the high road."
"Say…what?"
"Look, I'm going to put you in a time bubble so you won't be affected by any of this ruckus that's about to go on. Don't worry about the test, that's just an anomaly, caused by Star. Nothing to worry about. Look, I gotta get back in line. Time flows differently in the dimension I'm waiting in line in, so unless I want to lose my place and lose another two hours of Earth time just so I can advance one position."
And with that he disappeared, but right after the portal closed another…immense sentence appeared on the "communication page."
"You know, I saw what you wrote about me…You know, instead of wasting time asking me a lot of useless questions, you could've been… a lot more eloquent and actually ask for my intentions, my powers, my person… I am unfortunately, as you have so cleverly guessed, bound to an universal law, which…inconveniently forbids me to disclose information, but you have one question… Be wise about it."
Marco was befuddled by this offer, partly because it was so sudden and partly because it was too good…almost sketchy. Still, he decided to ask away, and fuel his curiosity.
"Why did you come here, on Earth? And be honest, I'd realize if you'd lie…" The answer was quick to come.
"I am here, because I was announced that Glossaryck was kidnapped by Ludo and Star needs to have a teacher to help her understand the real depth of her powers. The old man was the best teacher there is combining snark and valuable lessons in the perfect proportion. I was chosen, because Star is the owner of one of magic's most valuable object and someone magic has to watch over her. No, she couldn't have been sent back, even though Baby's evaluation showed that she didn't learn anything. Evil had corrupted Mewni and the Council knows it, so I had to be sent in here. I hope that is a complete answer."
That was actually, perfectly valid and raised no other questions… And Marco was pleased with this answer, for the first time since the two had met. Maybe, Star was right. It wasn't anything but petty jealousy that got between them. Starting on the wrong foot just because of envy was not… right. Now he felt sorry for this…and felt like a huge jerk.
It wasn't long until Star's adventure had finished, and school ended as well. Back at the house, the two were waiting for Scott to return with his prized artifact. In the meantime, idle chatter was a great filler.
"So, how was school?" Marco asked seeming a bit distracted.
"We take the same classes, silly," she answered jokingly. "Now that we're playing the question game… who did you speak on the phone with earlier?"
"Oh, it was Jackie… she was worried about not understanding the problem you tried to solve today, so she called to ask me for help. I'm going over to her place later today."
"Ooooo, look at you, mister all helpful and going-overy stuff," Star smirked at him.
"Yeah, "he nervously scratched the back of his head. "But, I am worried about this…"
"Why?" Star asked, her eyes glimmering with a strange hope.
"Well, can I tell you something?"
"Sure, that's what besties are for," she said punching his arm.
"You know, ever since that ball, I didn't quite talk to Jackie…"
"Yeah…?" Star tenaciously asked, persuading Marco to continue, seemingly a bit faster.
"And even though, the dance was a success and the quote unquote date afterwards was amazing…"
"Yeah…?" She asked repeating her tell.
"And even though we shared a kiss…"
That was the moment that earth seemed to come crashing down on Star, but only on the inside. Given her history of hiding things like that, it was no surprise that she could not show any emotion, but…there was something about Mewnians, that Marco didn't know and Star didn't have a very clear grasp of… Still, even though shook, she kept the same tell as earlier.
"I still don't think she's into me…It's the same thing from the sleepover… I don't know what I actually feel for Jackie… I like her, I like her image that I hung on the wall of my mind, it's such a maze, I can't quite make up my mind as to… where do I start? It feels like I am lost in a swamp, and Jackie is and isn't there to come rescue me. I know that she deserves someone who wants to know her better, and when I tried to do that at our date, it kinda blew off. With a few forced topics, I got nowhere…"
Unaware, Star's head slid softly and subtly on his shoulder. Neither of them noticed and it wasn't uncomfortable at all.
"Marco, you gotta stop worrying about this kind of things. You can't and mustn't watch life as a one way road. It is so much more than that, but you choose to see only the main road of it… sometimes you have to take the dark and abandoned alleys…"
With that said, Scott fell through the ceiling breaking the coffee table in front of the sofa the two were staying on. His trench coat had a few burned patches and a lit flame was still dancing on the tip of his collar.
"Okay, life-lesson, never try to bargain with pixies… they do not take it well."
"You can say that twice, "Star nodded understandingly.
"Marco, shouldn't you be going? Jackie won't solve that problem all by her own, right?" Scott awkwardly remarked.
"Oh… yeah," Marco got up hurryingly, his worry settling in again, right after it vanished earlier.
And with that, he left…just as anticlimactically as you could envision it… It is not surprising that Star looked at him, looking as if she was trying to strangle some sense into him.
"You'll thank me later, Star…"
It is about midnight. A shadow is crawling its way out of the house, silent as a monster is evil. With two swift movements, it conjures a portal and steps through it, leaving no trace behind. The other end is no different from where he left: dark, pitch black, the moon providing the only source of light. It was a bedroom, with an immense king-sized bed dominating the room. It seemed very, bulky, the room. Probably because of all the stone used to accentuate the majesty of it. A strange silhouette contoured on top of the black pillows… despite its green, glowing eyes it still remained covered in shroud.
"How is the chore going?" a hard, determined voice asked.
"According to plan, my liege," the younger and softer voice answered.
"Make sure you don't…mess things around, human. Last time I trusted someone else to do the job, I lost a finger…"
"It won't happen again, I guarantee it."
"For your well-being, I'd hope so. Now off you go. You chose an unfortunate time to bother me…"
A moonbeam entered the room, shedding some light on the shrouded faces of the elusive interlocutors. One was a small, avian like monster, while the other was a young boy, wearing an old trench coat, with a severely burned collar.