Author's Note
Hey guys! Man this week has been crazy, that's why it's taken so long to get this chapter up. Hopefully once everything calms down again I can start posting more regular updates. Also I watched the season finale and IT WAS AWESOME! What a way to end the season, I can't wait until the next one! But I guess for now fanfics will do. Speaking of fanfics here is the next chapter of The Diaz Family Road Trip! This one's a three parter (woah!) because it's all about Ludo's plan! I hope you like it, see you at the bottom!
Star's blue eyes reflect the blue haze they opened to. She goes to take a breath and pool water rushes into her mouth. Realizing she is about to drown she claws her way through the water to the surface of the pool. Star bursts out of the water's surface, gasping for air.
"What the..." Star says looking around.
She pulls herself out of the warm water and steps onto solid ground. She's standing by a rippling crystal blue pool. The tiles are a dusty brown colour and the whole are is surrounded by mosaic sandstone walls. Desert sunlight flitted down through the open skylight and strikes the water's surface.
She lets out a painful moan, her lungs hurt her eyes hurt and most of all she has a splitting headache. What she needs is someone to share her misery with, Marco would do.
"Marco my head hurts! And where on mew- I mean earth are we!" She demands.
But no answer came, not even a peep.
"Marco..?" she asks the silence quizzically.
Star begins to look around for her best friend, she spends the next hour searching for him in the sun lit pool area, change rooms and up and down the hotels hallways (she had deciphered that she was in a luxury hotel through her exploring). But for the first time since she arrived on earth Marco was nowhere to be found, not even a hint on his whereabouts.
Something bothering her even more is the fact she can't remember anything. The last thing she can recall is singing in the car with the Diaz's, after that nothing.
"Where is Marco?" Star grunts with an undertone of worry.
She begins to head back to the pool that she woke up in, maybe Marco had turned up there to and just maybe he knew what was going on.
As Star walked she admired her surroundings. The hotel itself was beautifully built with rich stained wood furnishings and exquisitely carved sandstone walls polished to perfection. Under foot was a browny-beige carpet ordained with many intricate patterns and desert imagery. They certainly had spared no expense when building this place. One thing the builders did forget to do though was add and exit to the hotel... strange. As it seemed they didn't want her leaving. But indeed the question is who exactly are they? *cough* Ludo *cough*
The heavy door to the pool swung open and to Star's amazement Marco was in his bathing suit relaxing on a lawn chair as if everything was normal.
"MARCO!" Star screamed
She jumped and tackled him in a massive bear hug. But something was off, he wasn't hugging back. The whole hug was feeling very uncomfortable which bothered Star, not enough that she would let go though.
"Ummm can you uh let me go... Miss?"
Star's eyes shot open and she released her vice-like grip. Miss. Marco never calls her Miss, maybe Miss Butterfly on certain occasions but not just plain old Miss.
"It's me Marco, your bestie Star?"
Marco got up and began to brush himself off.
"I've never seen you once in my entire life." He stated mater-a-factly.
Star laughed "Come on Marco stop messing around!"
"No seriously I've never seen you before and my names not Marco it's... huh... I don't really... remember."
Star looked at him with her mouth agape and eyes the size of basketballs.
"You don't even remember your own name or more importantly, me? You know the magical princess from another dimension!"
Marco burst out laughing.
"I'm pretty sure I would have remembered a ridiculously gorgeous crazy girl who thought she was magic and on top of it all was my best friend!"
"Crazy! Marco you have seen me use my magic! We... wait did you just call me gorgeous?"
"Well yeah you are quite good looking, but hey what do I know I can't even remember my own name."
Star's face turned vivid pink and her heart fluttered. Marco was way too casual about admitting this; normal he would be a awkward ball of nerves but for some reason he acted as if it was just a normal conversation.
"Anyway your magic you were telling me about?"
Star shook off the blush and cleared her throat.
"Behold... my magic wand!" Star said holding her wand high in the air, reaching for sky.
Except there was no wand and her hand was empty. Marco snorted "Magic, suuuuure."
Star stared in shock at the spot her wand should be.
"WHERE'D MY WAND GO?" Star finally screeched. "WE NEED TO FIND MY WAND!" She darted around the pool area desperately trying to find her wand.
"Woah calm down there Miss Magic, why don't you just relax here with me, get to know each other a bit if you will, I'm sure you'll find your wand or whatever later."
"NO YOU DONT UNDERSTAND IF I DONT HAVE MY WAND LUDO COULD-"
"Shhhhh, you're going to be fine just take a seat." Marco said patting the chair beside him.
"No no no this is bad, Marcos gone all weird, I don't have my wand and I'm stuck in some hotel prison!" Star said pacing around the pool, completely ignoring the fact that Marco (her best friend) was clearly hitting on her.
"Weird? As if!"
"Ugh you're no help at all!" She said dismissively.
Marco shrugged and Star sighed in annoyance.
She ditched Marco and began to frantically look around for her wand. She just knew Ludo had a hand in this! Star ran up and down the halls and this time even went into each room but it was nowhere to be found, just like the non-existent exit. On yet another note she also had no idea where Mr and Mrs Diaz were either.
"Ugh what's going on?" She moaned dejectedly.
But as she went to rest she accidentally placed her hand on a laundry chute and fell through.
"AHHHHHHH!" Star screamed whilst plunging into the darkness.
Star shot out of the cold steel chute and landed with a thud, not in laundry but a filthy old mattress. She pushed herself up off the dusty old thing and took a look around. It was pitch black.
Suddenly the darkness was banished by a light and in front of her stood a shadowy female figure. She was wearing dirty all black clothes and wrapped around her waist was a ratty old utility belt.
"STAR!" The figure yelled out in excitement while running over and hugging the life out of her.
Star knew that peppy voice all too well...
"Mrs Diaz?!" Star exclaimed
The figure took off the hood to reveal like Star had guessed, none otter then Mrs Diaz.
"Yes Star it's me!"
Star wrapped her arms around Mrs Diaz and hugged back, right now she was the closest thing to having her bestie around.
"How... where... what's going on!" Star asked while the two parted.
"I will explain everything just come with me."
Mrs Diaz led Star through a small ventilation shaft until they reached a well lit room of steel siding. The floor was cold concrete and large spot lamps hung from the ceiling, it was basically a bunker. On the wall were hundreds of notes and plans and in the centre of the room was a scale map of the hotel made of old garbage and bits of wood.
"What is all this?" Star said looking around the mess.
"I've been stuck down here trying to find a way to save you guys." Mrs Diaz replied dimly.
"Save us? From what?"
"From uhh what's his name, the little skinless bird man who tries to steal your wand."
"Ludo?"
"Ya him! He put all of you in a trance like state so he could get your wand, I managed to escape though and have been living down here ever since trying to find a way to save you, Marco and Mr Diaz."
"LUDO HAS MY WAND?!"
"Calm down! Yes he does have it but he can't use it, he has a crystal at the top of tower by his throne that shuts down all magic in a couple miles radius. That's how he caught us in the first place."
"What do we do? Marco and Mr Diaz are stuck it that trance and Ludo has the wand!"
"Maybe if we can find a way to save Marco and my husband, together we could get your wand back."
"Well let's go save them!"
"That's the thing I don't know the cure, I've tried everything, hitting, scaring, last night I tried splashing Marco with water and that didn't work either!"
They two paused for a minute under the fluorescent glare of the hanging lights until Star spoke up...
"Well I woke up in a pool which might give us a clue..."
"A pool? But normal water doesn't wake you up, unless..." Mrs Diaz said pausing for dramatic effect. "That's it!"
"What's it?" Star said turning away from looking at the miniature map of the hotel.
"The cure! The chlorine in the pool water must have woken you up! You probably slipped and fell into it while in a trance, your own clumsiness saved you!"
"YA!" Star yelled proudly. It was not often her rambunctious and clumsy behaviour paid off.
"Now we just need to come up with a plan to save the others..." Mrs Diaz said and the two turned to the table, set out on saving Marco and Mr Diaz.
Meanwhile at the top of the hotel in Ludo's thrown room...
"What do you mean Star is out of her trance!" Ludo squealed in rage.
"Well... Uh... Sir I mean Star is out of trance..." The two headed monster muttered nervously.
"AHHHH! You idiots are screwing up my most brilliant plan yet! You know how much this cost to pull off!"
"No sir I don't kn-"
"A LOT of money!"
Ludo jumped off of his throne and started to pace around.
"It's a good thing I came up with a backup plan, I knew you morons would screw up the first one!" Ludo mumbled.
"Tomorrow we pay Star's precious karate boy a visit..." He said laughing evilly to himself.
And that's part one! Sorry if this chapter seemed a little... I don't know... dry? It's mostly just setting up for the action and espionage planned for the next two! See you guys in part two (which will be hopefully up a lot sooner than this one was!).