CHAPTER EIGHT: Mewnipendance Day

BookWorm2the2ndPower: I already did. The story goes in chronological order.

Liliana Dragonshard: She just smells the monster arm part. Horse senses n'at.

Rayfe: I was so confused about the corn comment until I was going through the transcript for this episode lol.

Finnjr63: You'll just have to wait and see, now won't you?

Karly Kat 13: Well thank you very much! I'm sure you could do just as well, if not better!

I don't own Star vs. the Forces of Evil. Shit goes DOWN in this chapter. Not really. Kinda.

"And when you don't have him in your clutches, there is no possible way for you to prevail."

GENERAL POV

The moonlight shone brightly through the window, clouds occasionally filtering the soft beams through the window. The curtains rustled softly against the warm night air, and shadows danced through the room.

Murmured voices came from downstairs, soothing, calming, and lulling him to sleep.

Safety.

Cold hands. Colder eyes. Sharp claws prickling at his skin. A soft, murmured sound of comfort. Safe? Maybe.

Swirling lights, agonizing pain, screams of terror and then-

Marco sat straight up in bed, his heart pounding and his right arm throbbing with glaring agony. He winced and flexed the muscles in his hand, trying to figure out what was going on. His dream was already disappearing, and he could only catch smidgens of it.

A bad feeling sat at the back of his throat, but Marco pushed it down and slid out of bed, stumbling to the bathroom and staring at himself in the mirror for a long moment. Shaking his head, he wearily started to get ready for school before remembering that it was a Saturday and that he didn't have to be up at the crack of the dawn like usual.

As he trudged back to his room, the sound of his cellphone ringing caught his attention and he darted the last few steps to pick it up, seeing Star's name on the caller ID. "Hello?" he fumbled out, rubbing his eyes and looking at the clock.

"Marco? Come over! We have to celebrate!"

Marco frowned, trying to remember if it was Star's birthday or something. "Uh…okay. I'll be…over in a few….what are we um….celebrating?"

"Mewnipendance Day, silly! Meet in my living room!"

The dial tone rang in Marco's ear and it took all of his willpower not to snap the phone in his hands. His gaze skipped to the calendar on his wall and a growl rose in his throat.

Mewnipendance Day.

The day that the Mewman's destroyed the entirety of his family and left him stuck with Toffee and hanging out with a dimwitted clot of a princess.

The phone screen cracked before he remembered to put it back down so that he wouldn't have to explain to Toffee why he needed a new one. He had to go; there was no reason for him not to. He was already awake and if he skipped out on a day like this? Star would know something was up, even as dense as she usually was.

With a grumble, Marco tugged on clean clothes, ran a comb haphazardly through his mess of a tuft of hair, and clipped open a portal to Star's house.
It was only when he spotted Ferguson walking into the front door that he realized with slight dread the party was inside the house. The house that Toffee had forbidden him from going into. The house that made every single part of his body scream to turn around.

He pushed open the front gate and walked up to the door slowly, his knees shaking the closer he got. But as he watched another kid-Alfonso, he thought-run into the home without a pause, he realized he was being ridiculous. What could possibly be in that house that could be so life altering that Toffee would prohibit him from going in? They were just earthlings, after all.

He was so wrong.

"Okay, I assume you all brought your swords?" Star proclaimed, waving her wand around in excitement. She wore a normal dress, but a crown sat on top of her head that normally wasn't there, reminding Marco that the girl was indeed a princess.

He surveyed the room while the rest of the people in the room questioned Star, his eyes sliding over the worn but comfortable looking sofa and across a wall plastered with photos of various teenagers-the kids the Diaz's hosted, Marco figured. A staircase led to a second floor and a door opened up into what Marco assumed was the kitchen.

All in all, it was a cozy looking home.

So why was it sending chills down his spine?

"Marco! You get to be my general!" Star declared suddenly, clapping a hand on his shoulder and handing over a book. He glanced at the cover and had to stop the scowl before it slid onto his face as he saw that it was a book explaining Mewnipendance day.

"Thanks," he muttered, storming off and flipping through the book out of pure curiosity.

He realized with a start that the book actually illustrated how much bigger the Mewmans were compared to the monsters, that the book made it sound like the Mewmans were the ones who truly deserved the land instead of the monsters who had lived there first.

Marco growled and nearly chucked the book across the room, before realizing that everyone had trooped outside. He followed after only a moment of hesitation, stepping up to Star and opening the book to the pop up section with the monsters.

"Marco!"

Before he could respond, Star had blasted him with the wand and he found himself a good ten feet off the ground in a suit of armor much too big for him, struggling to hold onto the book. "Uh, Star?" he tried to say, gaining her attention. "I've been looking through…hold on."

He grimaced, realizing that his armor had made it impossible for him to speak, and he lifted the visor on the armor, sucking in a breath of air. "I've been looking through your book and something seems…off."

It occurred to him as he said it that maybe Star didn't realize how nasty her people had been to his kind. If this was how Mewman history was taught? It was like…like American students being taught that the Native Americans had willingly given away their land to the settlers (he was a history buff, okay?). None of them realized otherwise, and when they realized it as they grew up, the majority seemed appalled.

"What do you mean?" he heard Star saying. "Let me see."

Realizing that he couldn't bend over and hand her the book, Marco simply let the paper fall from his hands to the ground, where Star promptly lifted it to her face and looked back and forth between the "monsters" and the "Mewmans."

"Huh…" she mumbled. "I see. You're right Marco, I can't believe I didn't notice it before."

To Marco's utter disbelief (against all odds, he hadn't thought she was that stupid) Star went around making the monsters weaker and the Mewmans bigger and meaner.

"Star!" Marco protested, trying to swallow his anger. "I know…I know monsters are…bad," he spat out, "but doesn't this seem unfair?"

"Unfair…?" Star repeated, slowly, her eyes scanning the group.

Marco winced as one of the girls dropped an enormous mace straight onto Ferguson, making the boy scream in horror and writhe in pain. Alfonso yelped and knelt next to his friend. "Someone help him! He is writhing in pain!"

As the girl apologized profusely, Marco scrambled from his armor and darted back into the house to see if he could find some kind of first aid kit. As much as he wasn't a fan of Star at the moment, he didn't want the earth kids getting hurt.

He popped his head into the kitchen, glancing around and seeing no visible box for first aid before running up the stairs to where Star had pointed out the bathroom earlier for anyone who needed it.

"Seriously?" he grunted, digging around underneath the sink. "No first aid kit here, either? What kind of people live here?"

He stood up, bashing his head on the counter, and swung out of the bathroom, heading for the first room on the landing as he rubbed at his head.

When he twisted the doorknob open, Marco froze in the doorway, his fingers slipping from the knob as his eye gazed around the room.

It was a nursery. Or at least, it had been, if the baby pictures on the walls and excess stuffed animals were any indication.

The walls were painted a very pale maroon, and a bed was situated in the far corner,stuffed toys scattered over the top. Sunlight poured in from a window, lighting on a trunk off to the side of the room and making the glass that covered the photos on the wall glint.

Marco stepped into the room silently, his breath caught in his throat as all thoughts of Ferguson's injuries vanished from his mind.

He stayed away from the bed at first, moving to the pictures that were hanging on the wall. Each one consisted of a smiling, babbling baby, sometimes alone and sometimes in the arms of two adults Marco assumed were his parents.

The thing was, Marco felt like he was staring at himself. The eyes on the baby resembled his own, and the mole….

He reached out and pressed his fingertips against the glass where the baby's tiny little mole was, using his other hand to rub across his own.

Suddenly feeling panicked, Marco stumbled back a couple of steps, running into the bed and spinning around to grip the frame of it, his eyes taking in the cover. A single blanket was folded on the edge, the name Marco emblazoned across it in gold, which stood out greatly against the dark blue of the fabric.

"Holy…"

"Excuse me?"

Marco spun on his heel, grabbing onto the foot board of the bed again to steady himself. Behind him stood a motherly looking women, her eyebrows crinkled in confusion over dark green, curious eyes. She had a slim, hourglass figure, and wore a dress with a sweater tied around her waist. "What are you doing in here?" she asked, her tone somewhat accusing.

He could only stare at her for a long moment before swallowing and managing to stammer out: "I uh…first aid kit….Ferguson…."

The woman, who Marco assumed was Mrs. Diaz, nodded. "I know, I already gave it to him. Head back outside, okay?"

Marco fumbled his words for a second, trying to figure out what to say. "I uh…okay. Sure. Um…sorry."

Mrs. Diaz nodded and led him out, stopping Marco for a second in the hallway. Her eyes studied him for a long moment, gaze softening as she watched him. "Have we met before, dear?" she asked quietly. "Has Star had you over?"

Marco swallowed hard and shook his head. "I uh…no ma'am," he said politely. "This is my first time here."

Before she could ask anything else, Marco slipped under her arm and darted down the stairs, sprinting to the yard just in time to see the mace almost land on Ferguson again. As he suited up in his armor, he swallowed his paranoia from the last few moments and located Star up on her balcony. He managed to saunter over to her in the godforsaken suit and leaned on the railing of the balcony, more for balance than anything else.

"Hey, Star," he said, swallowing the slight tremble in his voice. "We're ready to start when you are, whenever you give the signal."

Seeing the look on her face, he hesitated, continuing the sentence. "Or…we could go inside to eat and uh…call it a day."

Star frowned slightly, her eyes locked onto the cosplayers on the ground. "No…it'll be okay," she said, obviously trying to reassure herself more than Marco. "It'll be fun…."

Marco could see that she didn't mean it, but turned anyway, calling the go ahead. Star said the opening speech, and then a massive purple skull burst into the sky.

From that point on, it was utter chaos. Ferguson vanished somewhere into the trees, Alfonso got thrown somewhere else by the warnicorn, and the students that remained playing the monsters were basically on the ground crying.

Marco felt utter hatred rise up in his chest at the sight of them on the ground and he spun on his heel to yell at Star that this was enough. His arm throbbed with power until he watched the warnicorn slam Ferguson-hadn't he been in a tree?-straight in the chest and send him flying to the ground.

"Ferguson!" Star shrieked, blasting her way down from the balcony and landing next to the groaning boy.

Except, Marco realized with a start, it wasn't Ferguson. It was one of Ludo's minions, and Star seemed to realize this too as the frog like monster stumbled away from them and ran from the yard.

Star raised her wand after him and Marco gritted his teeth, glancing away and waiting for the blast. When none came, he turned back to find that Star had lowered her arm and was watching the monster run off.

Letting him go free, Marco realized.

Because she would have been shooting him in the back. He wouldn't have been able to defend himself. And that wasn't fair. Star had realized that.

She hadn't….she hadn't shot the monster.

Marco looked from her back to the house and back again, his mind spinning as he tried to process everything.

Star hadn't shot the monster purely because he was a monster.

The Diaz's had a missing son who was now the exact age as Marco, with the same name, same hair, same eye color, same mole for Pete's sake!

Marco pressed a shaking hand to his forehead as everyone went inside for corn. Had Toffee been lying? Did the Mewmans really hate monsters as much as they said? Were all of them the same?

Most importantly….

Was Marco even a monster?

Toffee howled and spun around to face the seer, only to find that she wasn't there where he had left her. "NO!" he roared, swiping her crystal ball from the table once again and watching it shatter without even a fraction of smugness.

"HE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO KNOW! HE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO FIND OUT!"

Toffee tore the tent apart, searching furiously for the seer. "You piece of sniveling SHIT!" he sneered, panting and tearing his claws down the fabric of the tent. "Why didn't you warn me?!"

A single scrap of paper fluttered out of nowhere, landing ever so calmly on Toffee's snout. The monster roared and swiped it off, accidentally making himself bleed as his nails caught on his skin.

He held the paper up to his eyes, his eyebrows furrowing. "A fortune from a cookie?" he snapped. "What is that supposed to-!?"

Toffee scanned the words on it and fell deadly silent, the paper slipping to the ground slowly as Toffee started cackling, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes as he began formulating what his newest and best plan thus far was.

"You will regret this, woman," he snarled, stomping on the fortune as he strode out of the completely destroyed room.

The words "Everything you know has changed" remained furled up in the dirt, the dust slowly closing around it as the tent collapsed.

Hehehehehehehe.

Reviews?