"...so, with the cyclops defeated, the elf village dubbed me Marco the Magnificent."
"Wow!"
"Cool!"
"Awesome!"
"Way to go, Earth Turd!"
Marco smiled as he took in the praise. He and the girls were currently seated in Star's bedroom, in the middle of another sleepover. In the background played an Anthony Mackie movie; Marco had tried to get them into it ("he spends half of it shirtless"), but they'd tuned out half-an-hour in and instead resorted to telling stories. Currently, Star, Jackie, Starfan13, and Pony Head were enjoying his tales from the Neverzone. Janna, however, appeared to be less impressed.
"Seriously, Marco, I can't believe you actually did all that," Jackie said.
"Sixteen years of questing all by yourself," Starfan13 added.
"And all without magic," Star finished.
"Hey, I said I wouldn't stop until I got Star back those scissors," Marco said proudly, "so I didn't. No matter how crazy things got, I never gave up."
"So...," the Filipino girl finally spoke up, capturing their attention. Her signature sly look was spread across her face. "you NEVER got scared?" There was tease in her voice.
Marco crossed his arms and confidently replied, "Nope."
Janna snickered, clearly not convinced. After staring the boy down for a moment, as if pondering her next move, her smile grew wider and her eyes narrowed.
"I bet you did," she said, her tone dripping with mischief.
"No, I didn't," Marco replied, now sounding more insistent.
"Yeah, you did," Janna purred.
"No, I didn't!" The boy repeated, now on the verge of anger.
"You totally did."
"I did NOT!"
"Yeeeees, you did," Janna sang, her voice on the verge of cracking. "And I'll bet you cried for your mommy."
Pony giggled and Marco's fist clinched. "Janna!" He growled.
"You were totally scared and you cried for mommy," Janna declared, pointing a finger at him.
"I DID NOT!" Marco yelled, looking like he was about to lunge at her.
"Okay!" Star quickly got up in between them. "I think we've heard enough stories for now. How about some games?"
A quick glance was shared between Janna and Pony before the horse head spoke up. "Yeah, how about some Truth or Punishment?"
As the other girls all cheered in approval, she pulled the glowing cube out of her pouch and placed it on the ground. Unlike the one from the last game, this one appeared different, boasting a darker blue color scheme than the first.
"And check it, this is the special-edition version."
Using her mouth, the horse head switched the settings on the side, going from "party" to "super-secret party." The cube began to glow and then rose into the air. In a deep voice, it proclaimed:
"Deceit and fables; lies and fiction; strong is the tongue that guards restriction. To breach the lock for all to see, my untapped power I grant to thee."
The other girls looked confused.
"That's not what it said the last time," Jackie said.
"Yeah, that's what I meant by "special-edition," skater girl," Pony explained. "Instead of asking questions itself, it grants the power to each player, allowing them to ask their own questions."
She shot a smirk to Janna, who looked delightfully at the magical item and then over to Marco. There was a hint of unease on the boy's face, thus bringing a smile to her own.
The cube formed a mouth. "Pledge an oath of truth. Pinky swear to me!"
One by one, the girls all submitted their pinkies and promised the truth.
"Marco?" Star asked when it got to be his turn.
The boy hesitated, his eyes looking around at the girls. This only made Janna's smile grow even wider.
"Do you not want to play?" Jackie asked, sounding a bit concerned.
After a moment of awkward silence, he sighed and rather reluctantly offered his pinkie. "The Truth."
"It's time for Truth or Punishment: The Special Edition," the cube announced as they all gather around it.
"The first question shall go to-" The cube rotated to face, "Star Butterfly."
After several rounds of the teens asking and answering embarrassing questions to each other, it finally came time for the final question.
"The final question shall go to...Janna Ordina."
Now rivaling the Cheshire Cat in terms of slyness, Janna looked towards Marco, who glared back at her, knowing what she was going to say.
"Marco," she said slowly, loving the power she had over him, "during your quest in the Neverzone, did you-"
Her grin was so sharp, it could cut paper.
"-ever get scared and cry for your mommy?"
Pony giggled as the boy's eyes went wide. Glancing around at the girls, he looked back to Janna, crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and rather bluntly said, "No."
The room instantly went red.
"Somebody is lying!" Announced the cube. A burst of lightning erupted from it, making all the teens burst out into laughter.
"M-M-Marco!" Star cried between laughs.
"I'm-hahahahaha-telling the truth!" The boy sputtered, only for his face, as well as the faces of the others, to start swelling up.
"Your lies are ugly, just like your face!" Cried the cube.
"Come on, Earth Turd!" Pony yelled, her head (and by extension, her whole body) morphing into a disgusting shape. "Spit it out!"
"Ehhhhhhh!" Marco groaned, both from the stress and the pain of his transformation. Just before the group could become unrecognizable, he finally screamed, "OKAY, I DID!"
"Truth!" With that, the teens all reverted back to normal. "Game over!" With a flash, the cube went silent and still, the room around it returning to it's state before the game. Marco turned away from the others, his face reddening and filling with shame.
"Marco..." Star asked.
"Details, Earth Turd!" Pony said. "You gotta tell us now!"
"I actually want to know too," Starfan13 added. "Sorry Star."
"Cat's out of the bag, Diaz," Janna's grin was toxic. "Might as well spill the beans."
"Guys, come on," Star said. "Let's just leave it alone."
"Yeah, if he doesn't want to tell us, he doesn't have to," Jackie agreed. She and Star turned to the boy, placing hands on his shoulders in attempts to ease him.
"Marco?" Star said.
"Ignore them," Jackie said, "You don't-"
"No, it's...it's fine," Marco muttered, turning back to look at them all. He sounded as defeated as he looked, but nevertheless sighed and put his hands together.
"Okay...sooo, it was about a month after Hekapoo challenged me..."
A dirty and disheveled Marco is shown pushing his way through a thick jungle. His signature hood is wrinkled and frayed, with several cuts and claw marks. His arms and face show similiar signs of wear, particularly his eyes, which are rather black and baggy. Around his waist is a madeshift belt with a tooth-bladed knife. He breaths heavily, sounding both tired and alert. His hands are covered in madeshift bandages.
"I'd tracked one of her clones to this jungle dimension, not the one we've been to Star. This one was WAY off-course."
Marco looks around, hearing many different sounding birds and animals. Eyes sprout from the sea of trees in front of him. Some look curious, others timid, but MANY bare looks of hunger. A deep, gutteral growl echos through the brush, making them all scatter. The boy himself also takes to the sound with caution, gulping as he runs off in a new direction.
"Nothing, but trees and monsters as far as the eye could see. Practically impossible to navigate."
Marco is shown climbing a tree, grunting as splinters make fresh nests in his wounded hands. Ignoring the pain, he presses on up, eventually reaching the top...only to see nothing, but indentical-looking treetops all across the horizon. He sighs, but perks up when he hears what sounds like the echo of snark laughter somewhere ahead.
"Hekapoo," he growls.
The trees rustle and a giant tentacle shoots up from the canopy, smacking him off his perch. He screams as he plummets to the ground.
"I knew she was here,"
Marco is running through the jungle, moving so fast that the trees turn to grey streaks at his side. He hears laughter, catches glimpses of Hekapoo's shadow as it stays ahead of him.
"and I knew I had to find her,"
He closes in on her shape, only to feel the ground fall from under him, having ran off a cliff. Once again, he cries out as he violently falls deeper into the jungle. "Ow. Ouch! Ow! Oof!"
"but every day, things just kept on getting tougher."
He lands facedown in a pool of mud. Looking up, the boy groans, his face engrained with liquidifed dirt, his body sore and beaten.
"And messier."
"Okay, enough with the nature show," Pony said, "Get to the crying!"
"Pony!" Star and Jackie snapped.
Marco's face got even redder, but he went on. "Okay...so one day, I was looking for food..."
Groaning, a worse-for-wear Marco stumbles upon a clearing, one hand on his growling stomach.
"I'd made it so far on nuts and berries, the ocassional bug for protein."
His eyes lighting up at the sight of what looks to be a bright purple clump of berries. Licking his parched lips, he grabs them and chomps down, savoring the sweet tastes and feel of liquid on his parched lips.
"But I ended up choosing a bad batch."
His eyes widen as he finds his vision starting to turn hazy and the colors of the jungle starting to melt and swim. He staggers forward, struggling to keep his balance on ground he can barely see, each jerky, uneven step leaving him teetering on collapse. Eventually, his feet hit air and he finds himself once again falling, hitting outcrops of rocks and thorn bushes on the way down, before landing roughly on his back on a hardened dirt plain.
"Ugh," Marco looks up, his vision still muddled from the berries...but clear enough for him to realize that he's landed in the middle of a sleeping panther family.
"And ended up paying for it."
He gasps and the entire group suddenly wake up.
Jackie and Star let out cries of shock.
"Did you fight them off?" Star asked.
"Hi-ya!" Marco kicks a pounching panther. He hits another with a swift one-two, then sends a third flying back with a spin-kick.
"I tried."
A panther claw rips through the front of Marco's hoodie and a second one across his back, both tearing the fabric and skin like paper. Marco screams as a third bites his leg. More close in, mauling the boy with their claws
"Eventually, all I could do was run."
A bloody and battered Marco runs from the underbrush, being chased by the hoard of panthers. His leg throbs and burns as the terrified boy is forced to put weight on it. Shadows from the nearby trees silence any cries of pain his throat tries to give as his vocal cords tense up in fear. Eventually, he finds himself entering a clearing and arriving at the base of a craggy mountain, the path on either side blocked.
"And then, I climbed."
With nowhere else to go and the swarm closing in, Marco digs his fingers into the rocky dirt and pulls himself up, using the outcroping rocks as footholds. By some miracle, he manages to climb out of the panthers' reach in the nick of time. Below him, the creatures growl and roar, but the boy continues on. Grip by grip, step by step, he ascends the rocky terrain. The bones in his sprained leg scream as they are forced to endure his weight. The tears in his skin cry as his muscles pull and tug them further and further open. Marco is almost overcome with pain and exhaustion, but he doesn't dare loosen his grip; a single glance back letting him know he will not survive the fall. As if nature couldn't be further against him, the skies darkened and it started to rain, quickly turning to a downpour that soaks the boy's body.
"Finally, I stumbled upon a cave."
Marco pulls himself up onto a ledge, where the mouth of a cave greets him. Desperate for shelter, he pulls himself up and steps over the threshold...only for a deep roar to greet him.
"Of course, it was occupied."
A mountain lion emerges out from the darkness, rushing towards the intruder. Marco screams and dives back under the cliff, just barely missing the swipe of it's claws.
With newly aquired strength, he shimmies down the mountainside until finally finding a new source of shelter in the form of a small rock alcove, just large enough for him to fit into.
Crawling inside, Marco curls up into a ball, the recession offering little room to stretch his throbbing leg, much less protection from the rain. Lines of rainwater drip off the curved ceiling onto the back of his head and the rock floor is cold and clammy. The only source of warmth being the tears forming in the boy's eyes.
"I didn't know what to do, where to go. I wasn't couldn't even think about Hekapoo or the scissors...or Star at that point. I was just...scared, and hungry, and tired, and cold. I...I wanted to go home."
"I...I want to go home."
The boy sighed, his face bright red as he forced out the next few words. "I...I wanted Mom."
"Mama," he whimpered, "MAAAAAMAAAAA!"
The thunder screams into his ears, mocking his cries with a demonic rage that would have made Tom seem mild. Burying his head into his hoodie, Marco screamed back, matching the fury of the weather with sobs of anguish and pain. The sobs of a boy who just wanted his mommy. To be home and safe. To be that safe kid all over again.
Dejected, Marco turned to look at his audience.
Star and Janna were both on the verge of tears, with Starfan13 not too far behind. Pony looked like she wanted to laugh, but had something jammed in her throat. Janna seemed to be enjoying it, though to a much less extent than the boy would have pictured.
"Wow," the morbid girl mused. "Heavy stuff, Diaz. Heavy stuff."
Star sniffled, wiping her eyes. "So...how'd you get out of it?"
Seeing that he wasn't getting as scathing a reception as he'd feared, Marco kept his face to the audience as he continued.
"I just...started thinking."
In his little cave, curled up inside his hoodie, eyes shut tight, Marco felt the noises of the wind and rain and the pains of his leg and chest fade away as he let himself fall into the resources of his mind, filling his senses with sounds and sights and smells from his past.
"Of my family, my friends, my life. All the good stuff that made me happy."
Some of it were cool stuff; the first time he'd ever tasted nachos, the first time he'd seen a Mackie Hand movie, the first time he'd ever seen Jackie Lynn-Thomas. He could even recount the tiny little buterflies that had formed in his tummy.
Other stuff was much more personal and intimate; being comforted by his mother after a bad dream as a tot, being cheered on by his dad while riding a bike without training wheels, being cheered on by both of them as he won his first karate match. While they weren't the most close-knit family in the world, his parents had still always been there for the times he'd needed him. They'd even geared up in knights armor to help storm Toffee's castle when he'd been kidnapped by the dastardly lizard. They'd respected him and supported him throughout all his dreams and desires...as few as the boy honestly ever remembered having. Even now, as he was conflicted over what and where his future would lead him, he knew in his heart that his folks would still always have his back and be there to help him (even if he didn't necessarily want their help). In fact, there was only one other person who he knew he could depend on more and that was-
Star.
The weird girl he'd at first wanted nothing to do with when she'd arrived, but had soon won him over with the thrills of fighting monsters. The girl who'd introduced him to real magic and taken him to worlds unknown, far beyond his own comprehension. The girl who'd helped him finally step out of his comfort zone and experience a thrilling, more exciting side of life, not to mention FINALLY get a chance to not only talk to Jackie, but to actually date her and become her boyfriend.
The girl who would always have his back.
The girl he knew he could trust more than anyone.
The girl who had blown up half her magic wand and risked destroying the universe in order to save him.
The girl who had no idea where he was at the moment and wouldn't ever see him again until he got back those scissors.
Marco felt his spirit lift up a little as that particular moment came back to him.
"And that just gave me strength."
Taking a deep breath, his brow furrowed with determination, Marco pulled himself out from that hole and faced up the mountain side. The rain was still coming and the thunder loud, but he was no longer afraid. He dug his hands into the rocky skin of the cliffside, the added weight from his rain-soaked clothing tugging down at his body. With adrenaline flowing through his veins and thoughts of life and love in his mind, the boy began to climb.
"The strength to keep going."
"Mom," he groaned, pulling himself up one step. "D-Dad." He pulled himself up another. "Star." With both hands, he threw his body upwards. "J-Jackie." His one good leg pushed with the strength of two.
"Mom, Dad, Star, Jackie!" Grip after grip, step after step, the boy once again made his way up that mountainside. The jungle still loomed below, but the boy wasn't afraid of it anymore.
"Mom, Dad, Star, ugh, Jackie!" The cave was coming up. Marco knew what was inside, but he was ready. Even with his bad leg and cut chest and aches and pains, he was ready to fight.
"Mom, Dad!"
After all, how hard could one lion be to a boy who'd fought monsters twice it's size and come out unscathed?
"Star!"
Okay, still pretty hard, but when had Marco Diaz ever backed down from a challenge?
"Jackie!"
With one final pull, Marco was back on his feet, standing at the mouth of that cave again. In the light of the overhead moon, the lion was once again up and active, growling as it faced it's returning intruder.
"The strength to fight."
Taking a breath, Marco got into a karate pose, putting all his balance on his good leg as he readied himself. The two opponents stared each other down, the lion's golden eyes reflecting off of Marco's brown ones. A crack of lightning broke the silence, with the responding thunder ordering them to battle.
With a roar, the lion charged forward and leaped. Marco jumped to meet it.
The girls (sans Janna) all screamed. For the first time that night, Marco felt a smile come across his face as he spoke.
"The strength to win."
Marco turned his knife over the orange flame, watching as the tender meat skewered on the blade cooked. The storm still raged outside, but between the fire and the mane of the lion, Marco felt toasty warm. He sighed with happiness as he brought the meat to his lips, relishing the glorious taste of cooked food as it filled his mouth for the first time in weeks. After filling his belly, he lay back on the beast's limp, but warm body, covering himself with the shaved mane as a blanket. He drifted off to sleep, the memories of his family and friends bringing a smile to his face.
The first in a long time.
"So...what happened next?" Star asked.
Stepping out onto the ledge of the cave, newly-made crutch under his arm, Marco watched as the morning sun lit up the jungle below. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted what looked to be rising smoke.
"Well, it's like they say: At the end of very storm, there's a rainbow."
After a day or two of hiking, Marco stumbled through the entrance of a native village. The residents all stopped what they were doing at the sight of him. More specifically, the lion mane drapped over his shoulders like a cape.
"Turns out slaying a cave beast is sort of a big deal in those parts."
Marco is shown eating heartily with the villagers, getting his wounds stitched and bandaged, and training with a bow and arrow.
"The locals patched me up, took me in, even gave me some hunting lessons. Really paid off in the long run, I'd say."
Now fed, mended, and prepared for the future, Marco settled into a nice, cozy bed inside a village house. Tomorrow, he'd be off back on his quest. It would be long and treacherous, but he was ready. He had to be. For the sake of everything he hoped to see again once it was all over.
"So yeah, I did cry, Janna. And I even cried for my mom at one point. However, like I originally said, I never gave up. Not when I had so much at home to keep fighting for." With a huge breath of relief, the boy relaxed, feeling that huge weight leave his shoulders. "So, that's my story."
The girls all started clapping (except for Pony) as his tale came to an end.
"Happy now, Janna?"
The morbid girl gave a sly grin, twiddling her fingers. "Ooooh, I guess you could say that."
"Uh, Marco," Star said after they all had settled down, "Hate to ruin things, but...when I met you at Hekapoo's cave, you were all about adventuring. You didn't even care about your family and friends until I reminded you of them."
Marco's smile faded a little, but he saved it with a shrug. "Eh, that was fifteen years later, Star. People can change a lot in that amount of time."
"Touche," Star yawned. "Now, I don't know about you guys, but I'm pooped."
"Right behind you," Starfan13 piped up. "And great story, by the way."
"Not bad, Earth Turd," Pony grinned. "Not bad at all."
"Jackie, you with us?" Janna asked, settling into her sleeping bag as well.
The girl responded by getting up and putting an arm around her boyfriend. "I think I'll walk Mr. Magnificent to his room, if that's okay."
The two ventured out into the hall, heading for Marco's room.
"That was a really great story, Marco," Jackie said. "I know she can be kind of crazy sometimes, but that's just Janna being Janna. Try not to let her get to you."
"It honestly wasn't her i was so worried about," Marco admitted.
His girlfriend paused. "Oh no, don't tell me you were scared of me finding out." Marco nodded and she jabbed his shoulder. "Come on, you know me better than that. Remember the giant, talking wart that was on your neck when we started hanging out?"
"Naysaya?" Marco chuckled. "How could I ever forget?"
"If I can handle that, I can handle you admitting to crying for your mommy," Jackie promised.
"Then you should have seen me after that shark movie," Marco quipped.
Jackie laughed. "Okay, scaredy-cat." She gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I'll see you in the morning."
Marco returned the kiss. "Night."
As he went into his room and got into bed, Marco thought back to his time in the Neverzone. Star was right, he had become addicted to questing after sixteen years of that stuff. However, for all the wonders the multiverse had to offer, there would always be one thing right here for him on Earth.
With thoughts of his best friend in mind, Marco difted off to sleep.
THE END