Sunday 6:00 AM
Saturday was spent recovering / grounded for Star and Marco. Sunday would be spent doing much of the same. One of them was going to die tonight, and it would probably be Marco.
Sunday was usually used as a rest day for Marco, since not much usually happened on Sundays, no matter the time line. Toffee was finalizing all his plans, Star was usually finishing her homework, at least, what she considered finished so that she wouldn't fail and could stay in Marco's classes. His dad was making something or other in his art studio and his mother was working.
Normally he would hang out with Ferguson and Alfonzo on Sundays, maybe even catch a movie with them or Star if they were up to it, but having lived through this Sunday so many times made him want to relax, really let everything go before he died.
He was about to sit down and binge an entire short Korean anime when Star decides that she wants to be in his room.
"Marco?" She asks hesitantly, "I seem to recall you shooting me in the back of the head."
Marco nods, "Yeah. It's weird that you can remember stuff like that. I mean, you were dead before you even knew I had a gun, and yet you remember. I remember stuff like that too, it's gives me the heebie jeebies."
Star sits down on his bed, looking surprisingly at home there, "I was wondering where you got that. I don't remember your parents owning any weapons. Could you show it to me?"
Marco thinks for a moment. He had nothing better to do, really, and he knew that the house would essentially be empty for the next couple of hours. Also, if everything went pear shaped, as it is wont to do, he might need a quick 'escape' route.
"Yeah, follow me." Marco lead Star down into the basement. It was a bit disorganized but things were packed away in fairly neat rows. In the back corner there is a safe which Marco knew the combination for.
Inside is a medium sized wooden box. Marco pulls it out and walks to a nearby folding table. He sets it up with two folding chairs across the table from one another. Opening the box he reveals the two antique pistols and various tools for cleaning, repairing, and loading the weapons.
Marco begins speaking as he lays out twelve dome shaped metal slugs and an equal number of papers. "I learned about these sometime around my fortieth loop. I had talked to you, your mom, your dad, Glossaryck, hell, even Tom once. You guys weren't much help, you just kinda took everything in stride. Well, except your mom, she was worried that you would be pulled in with me and demanded that I send you to her during every loop. I didn't, obviously, and I guess she was right."
Star stuck her finger in her mouth and made a popping noise, "Yeah, mom's like that, can't have anything fun or exciting happen to the future queen of Mewni." She sighed, "But then what happened?"
"Well, I decided to talk to my dad. At first he was skeptical, but after a few runs I could predict everything that he was going to say word perfect for the first minute of conversation. He believed me then. I learned later that it's a lot easier to get mom to believe me than it is to get dad to do so. I think mom just assumes that since we have a magical princess living here that anything could happen and that she should just go with the flow.
"But after that he believed me pretty readily. So I told him what I was going through. The pain of dying over and over. The stress of trying to find out what was happening and how to fix it. How frustrated I was that you and your family didn't take me seriously. I was in a pretty dark place. I had killed someone. Ludo, or maybe it was that giraffe guy, I can't remember, I ended up killing them all eventually.
"Anyways, so I'm talking to my dad and he says to me, 'Mijo, there is something I would like to show you.' So I follow him down here and he shows me these. Shows me how to load them and everything. While he does this he tells me something. Something I think is important. Something I want to tell you now. Maybe it's just the act of loading these things." Marco gestures with the black powder flask, "But it puts you in a story telling mood."
Star has her head in her hands, watching Marco as he dexterously rolls the paper into a powder filled tube capped off with the slug, "Teach me Sensei."
Marco chuckles. "Dad says, 'Mijo, listen good and listen well, I'm showing you this for one reason and one reason only, because I trust you and I trust that you will only use them in the most dire of circumstances. I know that I won't remember giving you this talk, but I know that you will remember, and a man's conscience is his greatest bond.
"'Now, when your grandfather showed these to me and when his father showed them to him he told him of the six questions you needed to ask yourself before you fired this revolver. You won't find them in any book, and you probably won't hear them taught in any school, but they are more important than nearly anything that you will learn when it comes to fighting.'
"Then my dad held up a bullet, like this." Marco holds up one of the paper tubes, "'The first question is this.' Dad said the next part in Spanish but I'll translate for you. 'Is this worth your time? There is no point getting angry or upset at most things. Before you decide on anything you need to ask yourself if what you are about to get angry at is even worth being angry about. The chances are that you will answer yes, but think about why you are answering yes. More often than not the problem is simply that you did not like what someone did and you might not even be able to do anything about it, so don't get angry. It isn't worth your time.'"
Star spoke up, "That's pretty smart sounding but I don't know if I could just not get mad about something. Like, what if someone took my milk, I mean, I have a right to get mad about it."
Marco smiled, "I think he was saying that you can get mad, but it's just not worth the effort. It's something I noticed in older people, especially in grandpa, if you don't have to move, or speak, or even think, don't, it's not worth the energy. Maybe it's because they don't have a lot of energy. They need to ration it, y'know?"
"Yeah, I guess. What's the next question?"
"The next question is: is it worth your breath? Pretty much, is it worth talking about? I think he was maybe talking more about relationships at this point. I think my grandpa sort of used it as a life lesson more than an actual set of questions you should ask yourself before you kill someone. Maybe he was trying to say that you should try to talk your way out of a situation before you fight your way out."
"That's no fun." Star commented, "I like beating on bad guys."
"This is from a human perspective remember, and an old timey one at that, when any little bar fight could turn into a shooting match if someone decided they wanted a bloodbath."
"Ugh, do you humans always go for the lethal option. That's dumb."
Marco shrugged, "It's just how we are. At least over here in America. European foreign exchange students generally say that this kind of stuff is generally unknown over there. But then again they've had a few more centuries to figure things out than we have."
"Do humans just discard all their knowledge when they move to a new place?"
Marco shrugged, "Maybe, I dunno. But back to the questions. The third question is: Is this worth your wealth? Pretty much, can you buy off this person, or can you use money to make the problem disappear. In the case of, for example, your kid knocking up your neighbors daughter, can you go ahead and give them a shotgun wedding."
"What's a shotgun wedding? Sounds awesome."
"It's not that awesome, and I'm not sure that's a good way to translate that, but it's sort of the point. But the real point in the first three questions is can you find a way that isn't fighting in order to solve your problems, because you should probably do those first and I completely agree. Heck, not having a problem in the first place is my motto."
"Oooo, does that mean we're going to get to the good stuff? Bang bang pow pow?"
"Yeah, I guess you could say that. The last three questions are what you need to ask yourself once you're sure that a fight is going to happen. The first is: is this worth your health? You're probably going to get hurt if you get into a fight. That could mean time off work, that could mean that you can't provide for your family, that could mean that you can't protect your family if this guy decides he has a grudge against you. You need to decide if you're willing to risk that. If you are, fight, if you aren't, run for your life."
"Sounds like the cowards way out." Star said, but not completely unkindly.
"Maybe, but cowards are still alive, aren't they? The next question is: is this worth your life? This crosses the boundary between fighting for yourself and fighting for something you believe in. Is what you're fighting for worth dying for? If it is then you need to be ready to die for it."
"Now them's fighting words!" Star beamed, "For Queen, for country, for glory!"
"Yeah, yeah, I see what you're doing there. But there is one last question before you draw your pistol, and it's the most important one."
"What's that?"
"Is this worth your mind?"
"... I don't get it."
"I didn't either, but then I thought about how I had changed after I started killing. I got depressed. I lost my appetite. I might have killed myself if I thought it would do any good. Killing someone changes you. Well, if you're a good person it changes you. Even if you were entirely in the right, even if it was kill or be killed, you still feel bad afterwards. Heck, I bet that I'd feel pretty bad even after killing Hitler, and he was Hitler!"
"Who's Hitler?"
"Yeah, let's not get into that, you might just wipe the human race off the face of the planet after learning what we can do to each other. The point of this question is to ask if you can go through for killing someone and the consequences of doing so for what you're fighting for. Because some people can't, some people, in some situations, would rather die than take a life. Even an evil life."
"Yeah, I think your family has a really weird way of looking at it. I mean, we hang people all the time in Mewni. Traitors, murderers, rapists. We can't just have them running around after all."
Marco looks down at the rolled cartriges. "The questions aren't really meant to dissuade you from killing someone, I don't think. You're supposed to think of each one while you roll up a bullet and slot them in to the chamber." Marco began inserting the rolled up bullets into the six chambers of one of the guns. "It takes a long time to load one of these things up. Let's you stew about who you're going to kill and why. It's not something you should do lightly, or without forethought if possible.
"When you kill someone you should mean it, really mean it. I guess that's sort of the reason that my family encouraged me to get martial arts training. I have a lot of non-lethal ways of stopping someone from hurting me or the ones I love and I can and will use them. But this," Marco gestures with the heavy weapon, "This is for when there are no other options, when the dice are rolled and there's no going back." Marco placed the weapon between them.
"Oh wait!" Marco grabbed a small tin, "Can't shoot this baby without the caps. Forgot them the first time and boy did I look dumb." Marco slipped the tin into his pocket.
Star was looking at the weapon in awe and puzzlement. "Can I touch it?"
"Go ahead, it can't fire right now unless something goes really, really wrong."
Star picks it up and examines it, "It's pretty heavy. We have cannons in Mewni and we know that you can make this sort of stuff but we've had armor that repels projectiles for a while, so it never seemed worth it to make." She hands the weapon back to Marco. "But you could always put a few holes in that lizard snake alligator dude."
"You sound like you're ready for some action."
"You're damn right!"