Marco stood, alone, in the forest of certain doom. He had been attempting to find Buff Frog to persuade him to help raid Ludo's hideout. At the very least, he was expecting Buff frog to give him some info on the where the hideout was. So far, however, Marco had yet to find Buff Frog. He'd met several different plants and animals that had tried to make him their supper, but no Buff Frog. Frustrated, he sat down on a rock and moped.
"How can I find Ludo's place without Buff Frog's help?" He muttered bitterly. "I've got no leads or anything. I can't go back and ask Star, obviously, but I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do." He silently cursed himself for running off so abruptly. The smart and rational plan of action would have been to contact Buff Frog ahead of time and set up a plan with him. But Marco hadn't been thinking, and had just wanted to fix the problem as soon as possible. He usually wasn't one to run off without a plan, but it seemed like everyone was acting oddly that day. That didn't excuse him for being an idiot, though. It just explained why.
Marco sat on the rock, mulling over ways to find Ludo, when a large explosion of light and sound erupted fifteen feet behind him. He scrambled around, shocked. He ended up falling on his butt with his body facing the source of the din. A girl, riding a massive cog led by goat-sheep had come through a massive portal. She sat up straight, headstrong, and willful, ready to take on the world. When she saw Marco laying on the ground in front of her, she winced. Teenage awkwardness and guilt were added to her features. She quickly got off her giant cog and offered Marco a hand.
"Sorry, my bad," the girl said. Marco didn't take her hand. He just stared up at her. She was wearing a dark green dress that ended at her knees, pink stockings that went up through the dress, and boots that covered most of her legs. Her eyes were blue, her long hair brown, and her skin a fair tone of white. Overall, she looked like a nice fourteen-year-old. But there was something that caught Marco's eyes. On both of the girls cheeks were two, little, pink fleur-di-lis's. They looked remarkably like the signs of a Mewman Royal family member. She, in turn, looked a lot like his friend Star, except for the hair. And he hadn't seen the girl at the Royal Family get-together the month before.
"Uh, hello?" The girl asked, clearly weirded out by Marco's behavior.
Marco blinked rapidly, then shook his head. Distracted, he responded, "Sorry, I just- Your cheeks."
The girl inhaled deeply and blushed. "Oh shit! I mean, crap! Fsdfsdsdf…" She put her mouth over her hands and looked like she had done something horrible.
Marco's eyebrows rose. He'd met several strange creatures on his outings with Star. No matter how many trips he went on, however, no weird event ever prepared him for the next. "Who are you?" He interrogated, growing more suspicious then confused.
The girl closed her eyes. When she opened them, she looked composed and orderly. Almost queen-like. "Forgive me, d- sir. My name is Elizabeth Diaz Butterfly. I'm your daughter from the future, and I have terrible news."
Marco looked at the girl blankly, then amusedly. "Sounds like a ploy to get me killed," Marco said frankly.
The girls eyes opened wide, insulted. "Wha- What the hell? I'm not-"
Another large light show with spectacular sounds came out of the forest. Both Marco and Elizabeth looked up to see another teenager approaching them. He was dressed in cast-off clothes that looked mostly like a collection of old rags. His hair was brown, his cheeks covered in freckles and scars, his skin the same color as Elizabeth's, and his eyes- His eyes reminded Marco of Jackie.
"Oh, great," Marco muttered to himself. "Another one."
The boy nodded. "Sorry that I'm late, father. Time travel can be difficult to master."
Marco rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Of course you are," he replied dryly.
"Who the hell are you?" Elizabeth demanded, clear disgust on her face.
The boy looked equally as disgusted with her. "I'm Jam, the son of-" He was rudely interrupted by Marco, who'd given up on trying to take the world around him seriously.
"Wait, let me guess, you're the son of Jackie and myself, is that it?"
Jam blinked. "I, uh, yeah. Yes I am."
The girl narrowed her eyes at Jam while Marco simply nodded as though everything made perfect sense. "So you're the error in the timeline that Glossaryck was talking about," she stated, venom in her tone.
"Quite the contrary, Elizabeth," Jam replied, cool hatred on the tip of his tongue. "You are the mistake that needs to be fixed."
Elizabeth's eyes flared in outrage and she took out her wand. It was very similar to Star's wand, but Elizabeth's wand was complete and at full power. She aimed it at her counterpart, who'd already taken out his own weapon: a plasma rifle with the words "no magic" plastered on the side. Before any mayhem could happen, however, Marco put himself between the two of them.
"Hey hey hey," he said quickly, hoping to get their attention before they started shooting. "Let's be reasonable here. No one needs to die." He frowned for a second, then amended himself. "Yet."
"Get out of the way," the two teenagers responded. They responded at the same time, disturbing Marco and pissing off the other two.
Marco got out his pair of dimensional scissors and put them next to his pelvis. "If you two don't back down, I'll make sure neither of you exist!"
Both of his supposed kids went rigid.
"You wouldn't dare!" Jam said, incredulous.
"Dad, you can't!" Elizabeth complained.
Marco gave them both very hard looks. "You two are my kids from the future, huh? Prove it."
Both Jam and Elizabeth looked stunned. Jam finally said, "Well, when I turned twelve and puberty hit, you told me about how you had done your first-"
"That's enough, you pass," Marco interjected, blushing. He breathed in and out, then looked to Elizabeth knowingly. She gave him a silly smile.
"Glossaryck told me about when Star's wand got malfunctioned. You got hit by his book so hard it tore the clothes off of you."
Marco sighed, realizing that he had not been blessed with the troubles of nasty monsters or ludo's henchmen. The two teenagers were telling the truth. He had kids. From two different timelines.
He gave a wry smile. "Well, on the upside, you two prove something that I didn't think would happen."
They both looked at him, confused. "What?"
"I never thought I'd ever get laid."
Silence. Silence reigned for a solid ten seconds. The tension that had been rising since Elizabeth had revealed herself had been growing up to that point. And Marco had broken it with a stupid self-deprecating joke.
Jam giggled. Elizabeth snorted. "Wow, dad," they said in unison. "I knew mom said you were a dork, but-" They caught themselves and stared at each other.
"Yeah, creepy," Marco agreed. Now that they weren't trying to kill each other and he'd had time to look at them, he could believe that they were his kids. The brown hair was the biggest giveaway, but they both had his strong jaw and feminine body (although Jam had gotten more masculine, Marco noted dryly). The idea that they were actually his kids was starting to sink in. Panic overwhelmed his thoughts.
"HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING HERE? HOW ARE YOU FROM DIFFERENT TIMELINES? WHY ARE YOU HERE? DID SOMETHING BAD HAPPEN? WHERE ARE FUTURE ME AND FUTURE EVERYONE ELSE? ARE THEY DEAD? DO I DIE EARLY ON? WHAT-"
Jam smacked him upside the head with the back of his hand, shutting Marco up. He backed up a bit, reeling mostly in surprise. His hand instantly went up to his face. "Ow," he whined.
Elizabeth looked at Jam with mock horror. "Really, Jam? Was that necessary?"
Jam shrugged. "You had the same dad as me. We don't have time for him to ramble on about what might go wrong or be wrong."
Elizabeth waved her hand around, dismissing Jam's argument. "Not that, I meant how you bitch-slapped him. You should have just done a normal slap, like this."
She then proceeded to slap Marco across the face with the palm of her hand. Marco was no less prepared for the second hit than he was the first. "Ow, ow, stop it!"
They both gave him wide grins. "I don't know about Elizabeth," Jam explained. "But I don't usually get a chance to smack you across the face."
"No, no, Jam, believe you me, I've had just as few chances."
Marco scowled at the two. "Well, as long as you aren't trying to kill each other…"
"Only because you'd doom us both," Elizabeth explained.
"Otherwise, we'd be trying our hardest," Jam finished.
"Wh-" Marco stopped himself. He thought over his situation. Then he nodded. "You know what? I don't care why you're here. Not right now I don't. Because it doesn't matter."
His children looked inquisitively at him. "How can it not matter right now?" Jam asked, scoffing.
"Because right now we aren't going to worry about it," Marco replied. His eyes had turned sinister with a wild plan in his brain. "I need both of you to help me. Glossaryck and the book have been stolen. I need to find Ludo and get it back. And," he included before they could interrupt, "that is an order from your father."
Elizabeth scowled. "You can't tell us what to do, you aren't even really our father yet!"
"And I might never be if you can't help me," Marco replied. His tone was smug and rich but his face showed sober fear. "I'd probably die without you two. So help me. Please. You two can discuss your problem later, but for now I just need help."
Jam and Elizabeth shared a short, silent discussion on the matter, then looked to their father. They nodded.
Someone asked for me to give my thoughts on the story and stuff so I'm going to do that now.
I'll be honest, I only had the first chapter in mind when I started. It was tempting to just keep it was a one-shot, but cliffhangers are bullshit. I'm updating every Sunday, if it hasn't been obvious. I wanted to make a story that didn't just end with Jackie being shallow or Marco randomly admitting his love. When I finally have everyone get back together, the idea is to have the reasons for what happens feel real. Please give as much constructive criticism as you can, and I hope you have enjoyed this mess so far!