Episode:
12: Of Mice and Mewmen

Marco brings Adam and Star to some kind of baby-washing party, but being around large crowds of people has never been Adam's forte. Naturally, he wanders off and gets kidnapped. Because of course he does. But there's something strange about his kidnapper...

For Adam, this was probably the most important thing ever for him to get right. For Eclipsa, it was probably half that. Not that Eclipsa didn't care, but Eclipsa was simply better at this than he was. Maybe Adam should have practiced more in his spare time. Unfortunately, he'd been neglecting it for a while now, which meant his abilities had waned. Arguably, this neglect wasn't his fault, given the War Games a few weeks back had drained most of his energy and left him too tired for this sort of thing.

'So, you do Em/B twice and then E minor three times, and then repeat once before just hanging the Em. Like this. Got it?'

Eclipsa nodded and adjusted her guitar in her lap.

'I think I understand, dear,' she confirmed. She began to play a few notes based on what Adam had told her. 'How was that?'

'Perfect,' he complimented, smiling. 'And I wouldn't say it's an easy song, either.'

'It's merely the intro, Adam,' Eclipsa reminded him, chuckling. 'But thank you.'

Eclipsa was progressing quickly with learning this song. Faster than Adam had expected, certainly. Of course, the song in question was Adam's recurring favourite, No One Knows. It was a song that Negative Janna and Adam would frequently listen to, whenever they hung out. Rock was Janna's favourite music genre, after all. Of course, when Adam inevitably found out that Eclipsa played the guitar (he was wondering how he was only just learning this now), he immediately wanted to play with her.

They'd been practicing for a little while now, but they hadn't managed to get past the intro. Not because Eclipsa was bad at this, but because Adam wanted to get it absolutely perfect. Perhaps too perfect. Adam was certain he could be a little less annoying. He kept stopping the very second that she played a chord even slightly out of tune.

'Yeah…just-! Not-!' he reached out to her guitar, as if to correct something, but recoiled at the last second.

'Adam,' Eclipsa stopped him. 'I can play guitar quite suitably, thank you.'

Adam's shoulders sagged. 'Sorry.'

'Why are you so determined I get this right?' Eclipsa asked him. 'I've never quite seen you so…passionate, about a song.'

'It's just…important to me,' he said. Eclipsa merely raised an eyebrow. He sighed. 'Janna and I…my Janna…we used to listen to this song a lot together. It was her favourite.'

'I see…' she said. 'I'm sorry, Adam. You must miss her greatly.'

'Every day,' he answered sullenly. 'She didn't deserve to die…least not because of me.'

'What happened, exactly?' enquired Eclipsa, somewhat curiously.

'Star happened.' He cleared his throat. 'Dark Star, I mean.'

'How?'

Adam began to explain, in detail, the circumstances regarding Negative Janna's death. He hadn't described these events the last time Adam explained his past to her, and he was starting to wish that he had. The only thing she knew already was that Dark Star had been the culprit. To Eclipsa's credit, she remained silent the whole way through and didn't make any judgemental remarks once.

When he finally got to the end, explaining how Dark Star incinerated her in cold blood, Eclipsa spoke up.

'Adam…it wasn't your fault.' Her voice was soft. As soft as silk. 'There wasn't anything you could've done.'

'I know it's been over two years since it happened, but…I never really got over it,' he admitted. 'I just keep thinking…you know, what if –'

'No. If you keep asking yourself that…you'll never escape.'

'You sound like…you're talking from experience, Eclipsa,' Adam noticed. Eclipsa smiled sadly.

'Very observant,' she somewhat praised. Grief welled in her eyes, glum and overcast. 'Well…you know I married a Monster. And that I ran away to be with him. What I didn't tell you was that the Magic High Commission found me. Rhombulus encased my husband in his crystals. I…haven't found him yet. I was trapped in the Crystal Dimension for so long, I don't even know where he is.'

'I'm really sorry, Eclipsa,' he apologised. 'Well, once we take the Dark Butterflies out, I'll help you find him. And then maybe there's a spell in the Magic Instruction Book you can use to break the crystals?'

'Well, I thank you for the offer,' the former Queen replied, smiling. 'Although…I looked in your version of the Book. Strangely, no such spell exists to pulverise crystals. It definitely exists in the version from this multiverse, but…not yours.'

'Whose spell was it?'

'My mother's. Solaria's.'

'Well…in my world, Solaria died after she created the Great Solarian Storm. Perhaps…she died before she could make the spell.'

'It would make sense,' Eclipsa concurred. 'But the point I was making, is that I spent a lot of time wishing I had done things differently. Wondering why I couldn't have done this; why I didn't do that…but it got me nowhere. It didn't help me move from it…it only hampered me.'

'I see what you're saying,' Adam replied, humming in contemplation. 'I just…I wonder a lot, why did it have to be her?'

'I don't know, Adam. Nobody does. We cannot control the hand that we are dealt.'

'Maybe you're right.'

A brief silence permeated between them. Adam simply went back to playing the song on his guitar, before unhappily adjusting the tuning. Eclipsa took up her bone guitar and practiced the intro that Adam had taught her. Truthfully, she thought it was quite a neat song, and catchy, too. Eventually, the silence ended when Eclipsa came up with something to ask him.

'How have things been coming along with intermultiversal travel?'

Adam placed his guitar down at his side. 'Close. Really close.'

Eclipsa nodded for him to continue.

'I've managed to figure most of it out, mainly using previous knowledge,' he explained. 'The Mace Kingdom's magic library has been a big help. They just seem to view magic differently to us. Really put things into perspective, y'know? But…I've hit a wall.'

'How so?'

'In order to actually sustain the portal, I have to make a super long dimensional bridge,' he enlightened. 'The problem is…I don't have the right source to power that. It requires a lot of energy to create a dimensional bridge.'

'Why don't you just create one from your own mana reserves?'

'I tried. It's simply too much mana. I'd have to maintain the bridge constantly until it fully forms, but every time, the bridge almost instantly collapses. It's like using the wrong battery in an electronic. Not even the Seal of Arybailos could boost my mana enough to make it sustainable.'

'I see your problem,' Eclipsa commented. 'I'm not sure we could manage it even if we all combined our mana together. Perhaps –'

'ADAM!' The door to Eclipsa's tower was instantly kicked open, allowing entry to the owner of the voice.

'Star!' Adam groaned, sighing in frustration. 'What do you want?'

'Marco'sgonnavisithisparentsonEarthandIjustwantedtoknowifyouwantedtocomewith!'

'Woah, woah, slow down, Star,' Adam pacified her.

Star blinked, before adjusting her posture and clearing her throat. From what Adam could tell, she had run up the entire flight of stairs leading to Eclipsa's chambers. Why she did that, instead of simply opening a portal and teleporting to the top, Adam had no idea.

'Well, Marco's gonna go visit his parents on Earth,' the Butterfly explained. 'I'm gonna go with him, and I sorta just…wanted to know if you'd like to come with us. Thought you might appreciate being included.'

'Uh…I dunno,' he responded warily. 'I'm just a…stranger, to Marco's parents. And I'm sure visiting his parents is important to him. I really wouldn't want to get in the way of that.'

'You wouldn't be intruding!' Star insisted. 'I asked Marco. He said that he's fine with it.'

It actually surprised Adam that Star had even bothered to ask Marco before inviting him. Maybe he should give her more credit. Nevertheless, he was still really unsure about it.

'I…' he stammered nervously.

However, when he looked up at Star, he could not help but feel encouraged by her bright smile and boundless enthusiasm. He glanced at Eclipsa, who smiled at him reassuringly. He shrugged his shoulders.

'Alright. Sure,' the warlock ultimately decided, rising from his seat.

'Yay! C'mon let's go!' The Butterfly Princess exclaimed excitedly. Adam turned and gave a respectful nod to Eclipsa, who returned it. He followed Star out the door. 'We won't be there too long. Marco's got this party for royal squires that he really wants to go to. I dunno. It's a squire thing.'

Adam opted not to question it. He looked at Star with interest. He was honestly surprised she was still standing.

After the War Games, Adam eventually decided to come clean to Star about the events surrounding Eclipsa's trial. Truth be told, Adam rarely saw Star get that angry. He couldn't blame her. She'd found out that the Magic High Commission, a group she largely respected, had been deceiving the Butterfly Family for hundreds of years. It had taken all of Adam's effort to stop her from trying to beat the living daylights out of each and every one of them.

Despite that, Star had taken the news better than he expected. He wasn't mad at her for not telling her until now, because she understood that he didn't want to inundate her with such news while she was depressed. However, she did begin to question why her family should be ruling the kingdom when they have no actual claim to it, and she was not royal in her blood. Fair point to make.

Adam still disagreed with it. Sure, supplanting Meteora with Festivia and not telling anyone was deceptive and underhanded. However, he did not think this meant Star and Moon were no longer fit to rule. Long-time exposure to magic through the Royal Magic Wand gave her bloodline the same Butterfly magic that Eclipsa's bloodline had. The fact that they weren't genetically or biologically related became irrelevant, because magically they were related. Star seemed to accept that explanation for the most part, but she nevertheless was intensely bothered by the lie that had been told to them for so long.

One question still remained: what happened to Meteora?

Red Glossaryck told him later that Meteora was fated to return, but not anytime soon. That put him at rest for the time being, at least.

For now, Adam was somehow going to visit Earth with Star. He still didn't know why he agreed to it, but well, there was no going back now.

Marco, Star and Adam soon made their way to the Diaz Household on Echo Creek. Along the whole way from Star and Adam finding Marco to heading to Earth, Star kept ranting and raving about Marco's parents and how awesome they were. Much like her Negative counterpart, Star was banished to Earth and sent to live with Marco, which was of course how they met. However, in Star's case, she was there for around a year before she left, whereas Dark Star had stayed with them for a mere two months.

Marco, Adam and Star popped out of a portal onto Earth, right outside the Diaz house. Adam considered making the portal himself, but Marco opted to use his dimensional scissors instead. That was probably better, since Adam had no idea where Marco's parents' house even was.

Upon arrival, Adam immediately noticed the balloons decorated the front lawn. He frowned. Marco had mentioned he got an invite, which prompted him to visit, but never elaborated about what the invite was for.

Some kind of party?

'Alright, we'll just pop in and pop out real quick, cos I got that royal squire mixer this afternoon,' Marco spoke up. Obviously, Adam wasn't aware of this "royal squire mixer", because Marco definitely hadn't mentioned it a hundred times before this.

'AH!' A voice squealed excitedly. Curious, Adam and his friends turned to find the source of the voice. A woman came running out with some kind of diaper on her head, decorated with pink bunnies. She was flailing a flag made out of the same material. 'I-GOT-THE-BOUQUET-I-GOT-THE-BOUQUET-I-GOT-THE-BOUQUEEEET!'

Adam managed to catch sight of a sash she was wearing, which read, "Diaper Queen" on it.

Was Earth usually this weird, or was this just Marco's family? Either way, Adam had no idea what to make of the event, no less what it meant.

'So…what kind of party is this?' Star enquired in confusion. Marco looked around the garden for clues. Bizarrely, his eyes rested on the bird decorations on the lawn, which had plastic bags in their beaks.

'Birrrd…Bird Day?' he said dumbly. 'Bird Day? Is that a thing?'

'Bird Day?' parroted Adam. 'Do you guys…celebrate birds…on Earth? Man, you guys are weird.'

'Doesn't it say on the invite?' Star asked, swiping it from Marco's hands.

'I'm a squire of Mewni,' Marco declared proudly, walking suavely towards the front door with his arms in mid-shrug. 'I don't have time to read invites.'

'Seems to be some kind of…kid-washing party,' said Star, catching Adam's attention.

'Yeah, a "baby shower",' he read, frowning. 'Why would you celebrate showering a baby?'

'Eh, I guess someone's having a baby,' the squire said flatly.

Adam frowned. 'What's that got to do with showers?'

'I guess it's a dirty baby,' Star presumed, receiving an abashed shrug from Adam. 'Seen as though they're gonna wash it.'

A woman with long brown hair popped her out from the open door.

'Marco!' she greeted.

'Hey mom!' Marco replied brightly. 'So…who's having the baby?'

'Can't you tell?' she teased, revealing her baby bump. Star jumped excitedly up and down. Marco gasped instantly.

'MOM?! You're gonna be…a mom!? When did this happen?!'

'Oh, when you were out on Mewni,' said a large Latino man who stepped out onto the front porch. Marco's dad, Adam presumed. Adam vaguely remembered Marco mentioned his name was Rafael once. He was holding something in his hands. 'Say hello to your hermanito – Marco Junior!'

Looking closely, Adam could see it was an image of a foetus, presumably in the womb. How on Earth they'd managed to obtain it, Adam would never know.

'Oh-my-gosh, oh-my-gosh, oh-my-gosh, oh-my-gosh!' Star squealed excitedly. Adam really didn't know how to respond to this.

'Wait, what?' uttered Marco. 'You're naming him Marco Junior?'

'After you,' his mom – Angie, right? – responded simply.

'That's not how it works!' he complained, frowning his arms up in protest. 'You don't name your son after your son!'

'But he's got a little mole, just like you, Marco Senior!' She insisted, pointing to the relevant information on the diagram.

'Wow…a brother!' Marco stammered. 'How have I not heard about this until now?'

'It's okay, you've been busy,' she reassured, putting a hand on his shoulder. 'Point is, you're here today. Now: give your mom a hug.'

'Yeah, okay,' Marco responded half-heartedly, giving her an even less-hearted hug. She merely stared at him and glared.

'I spent thirty-seven hours squeezing you out of my body, and this is what I get?'

'O-Oh, I just didn't want to –'

'Give your mother a hug.'

'Okay...'

At least this time Marco gave her a proper hug. Then again, with how scary Angie was there, Adam was certain even Dark Star would have peed herself at that. Marco had never said she was so frightening before.

'Now come on!' Rafael announced suddenly. 'We have a baby to shower!'

I still have no idea what that means, thought Adam.

As he began to approach the house, however, he noticed the sheer volume of people in there. He really should have known that already; it was a party, after all. Some kind of baby birth celebration ceremony, too. Yet, Adam hadn't realised there was going to be quite this many people. And he really didn't like being around this many people. Not complete strangers in a place where Adam really didn't want to make a bad impression.

And so, Adam did something he was probably going to regret later. He slipped away at the earliest convenience and instead wandered down the streets of Echo Creek.

Maybe it wasn't the best idea, especially since he didn't tell Marco or Star what he was doing. It would be fine, he told himself. Marco and Star were preoccupied with the party, and Adam could open a portal at any time and go home. It was of no consequence to him if he got lost on Earth. And he wasn't going to get lost, because he was feeling drawn to a particular place.

Janna had told him stories about her time on Earth with Dark Star. Dark Star dropped out of the sky one day, and everybody was sort of just told to get used to it. Marco was assigned as her watcher, and his parents as her guardian, and they weren't really given much choice in the matter. Janna told him once that she thought Dark Moon might've "coerced" Angie and Rafael into taking care of Dark Star. By "coerce", obviously, she meant "threatened". This really didn't surprise Adam much. Dark Moon was known as the Malevolent, and the Red Queen, for a reason.

As for Dark Star, well Nega-Marco was forced to be her friend immediately. The guy certainly had some complaints about that. He generally hated people, and the only person he could stand was Nega-Janna. However, when a magical princess from another dimension, who could incinerate you with a thought, appeared before you, what choice did you have but to do what she said? That being said, it didn't stop Nega-Marco from pulling pranks on Dark Star (as he did to many other people), just for fun. For his own amusement.

Janna spoke a lot of the first few days after Dark Star arrived on Earth. She was wary when she first heard about her from Marco, and as such she avoided her wherever possible. However, Janna from the Negative Multiverse got around more than her Positive counterpart: she was a secret member of the Resistance. Janna never told him how she met the Resistance, but she implied she met them when she was very young.

Regardless, Toffee, the leader of the Resistance, learned of Dark Star's presence on Earth and instructed Janna to get close to her so they could obtain information from her. It was a novel idea, but incredibly risky. It meant that she had to frequently travel between Mewni and Earth, all under Dark Star's nose.

It was a dangerous, dangerous thing to do. Truthfully, Adam didn't know if Dark Star ever found out that Janna was a member of the Resistance, but she probably wouldn't care if she did.

Dark Star's stay on Earth came to a swift end when the princess finally got tired of Nega-Marco's antisocial behaviour. It really seemed like an inevitability. The arrangement between them was a ticking time bomb, and the fact Dark Moon thought it would ever work was truly absurd.

Perhaps more absurd was Toffee's plan to bring down Dark Star. He "kidnapped" Janna to draw Dark Star to Castle Avarius. To assume that Dark Star would even care if they killed Janna was a bit of a leap in of itself. Nevertheless, she eventually did go to Castle Avarius, where she was shown a feed of Janna being held captive. Toffee simply wanted Dark Star to relinquish the wand, and he would let Janna go. Dark Star, being of sound body and mind, complied with the demands, and handed over her wand…

…Before immediately casting the Whispering Spell at full power and annihilating everything in a five-mile radius, besides herself. Not only did she rip a hole in the space-time continuum, but she destroyed her wand – only for it to reconstitute itself afterwards.

And that was how the Resistance died.

In one swift, downward motion, the Resistance crumbled. The few remaining members went into hiding, or, in Janna's case, were left stranded on Mewni [29]. A thousand souls burnt that day…and of course, Dark Star survived. She survived without so much as a scratch on her perfectly porcelain skin. She survived and received a medal of honour for it. Celebrations thrived throughout the Butterfly Empire for days to rejoice the twilight of the Resistance.

Fate certainly enjoyed playing games in the Negative Multiverse.

For a moment, Adam wondered where exactly he was going. He hadn't been sure for a while. Looking up, he scanned the streets of the Californian suburbs. The streets were barren, with only the occasional car passing by to keep him company. A strange hum of nostalgia welled within his stomach. Yet, he didn't seem to recognise these streets.

That was until he turned the corner, and there was something he did recognise. He stopped at a large set of gates bordered by an archway. The words inscribed above said, "Echo Creek Graveyard".

A place he couldn't seem to escape. Adam trudged past the gates into the decrepit old graveyard. The bright morning sun seemed somewhat dulled in this part of town, not that Adam understood why. His boots stamped through the soft mud, making a squelching noise as water was squeezed from the ground. Adam looked around pensively as he walked towards the top of the hill.

It was hard to pinpoint, but something about the graveyard in this multiverse was different from the one that he knew. Tiny details diverted from the way he remembered it, but most were too subtle for him to identify.

Slowly, he reached the spot where it all happened. Where it all happened in his world, of course. This graveyard was untouched, unscarred, clean from all evidence of murder. If Adam closed his eyes, he could picture it…picture Janna's skeleton, fused with the mud. Adam hoped it was painless, being incinerated by a Solarian Blast. He guessed he would never know, and he supposed he didn't want to find out either.

Adam invariably noticed were much fewer graves in this multiverse's graveyard, too. Perhaps they were luckier in this world than they were in his. No doubt, there would be more graves there since he left.

Did Janna get a grave?

She should have gotten one, at least. Adam didn't know the circumstances following Janna's death, because he never went back to Earth after he left. He never wanted to. Never wanted to visit that horrible place. He didn't know what he would find there…didn't want to face that horrific truth ever in his life.

Adam bent down to inspect a nearby grave. The gravestone had a large engraving of a clown on it, with the words "Bon-Bon the Birthday Clown". Interesting. In this multiverse, Bon-Bon was a real person, as opposed to a fabrication by an imaginative Janna in trying to draw Dark Star to the graveyard. Tentatively, Adam reached out to touch it.

He instantly retracted it when he heard squelching mud behind him. Adam stood up and turned around, scanning the area for a possible for a source.

Right as he opened his mouth to call out, everything went black.

Star smiled as Marco embraced a hug with his parents. It had been a relief that Marco had now returned to his proper appearance. And certainly not the ugly, Golem-esque look that Cobalt had given him. Magical portraits were a frustrating business.

'I guess we have some catching up to do,' Angie realised, smiling semi-contentedly.

'My beautiful son is all grown up!' exclaimed Rafael, desperately trying to keep a tear from leaving his eye.

'I should have visited more,' Marco admitted sincerely. 'I don't want Marco Jr. growing up without knowing who I am.'

'Visit anytime, sweetie,' said Angie. 'I mean, those scissors work both ways, right?' She did a scissoring motion with her fingers. 'Snip, snip?'

'This is a beautiful family moment,' Cobalt stated flatly, hovering in the air behind them. 'And I just happen to be runnin' a special on family portraits…'

Marco gave an immediate response. 'Uh…that'll be a no!'

'Suit yourself…' grumbled Cobalt.

'Well…we should get back to the party,' Star decided, nodding to Marco. Marco dug through his pockets and produced his trusty dimensional scissors. He swiftly opened a bright portal to Earth, and all four of them stepped through.

They returned to the Diaz Household, although by this time it was empty. The decorations, plates and party favours were strewn about the room, ghosts of the happiness that once permeated the room. There had been little thought put to the cleanliness of the home, which was not surprising. Party guests rarely remembered that someone actually lived in the place they were irresponsibly trashing.

'Why can't we just have a normal day?' Star complained, collapsing onto the nearby couch. She dumped her face into a cushion. 'I'm ready to drop…'

'I think you ate too much cake earlier,' Angie said, chuckling heartily.

'Uh…Star?' Marco prompted fearfully, looking around worriedly.

'What…?' she mumbled tiredly through the cushion.

'Where's Adam?' he asked.

Star instantly jolted upright. Her head snapped around the room, eyes searching desperately for an Adam-sized silhouette. When she could not find anything, Star immediately jumped off the couch.

'Oh no…no…oh corn!' she ranted, frantically searching every nook of cranny of the house in search of him. 'Adam?' Not the kitchen. 'Adam?' Definitely not under the dining table. 'Adam?' Not in Marco's old bedroom. 'Adam, where are you?'

'Adam…he was that friend that arrived with you, right?' Angie recalled, frowning in contemplation. 'I think he left just after you walked in…he walked off down the street somewhere.'

'Not an hombre de la fiesta,' said Rafael, as he and Angie walked away into the kitchen.

'Oh no, Marco…what are we gonna do?!' Star yelled distraughtly, appearing in front of him. 'I can't find him anywhere!'

Marco responded by placing two hands by her shoulders comfortingly.

'Stay calm, Star,' he soothed. 'He can't have gone far. We can ask some of our friends here if they've seen him!'

Star took some deep breaths and nodded.

'Okay…okay, okay, let's do it,' she agreed. Marco smiled. Star fumbled through her purse to look for her compact. Pressing a few buttons, she held It against her ear. 'J-Janna? You there?'

'Star? Are you okay?'

'Yeah, um…you're on Earth, right?'

'Yeah?'

'Have you seen Adam around?'

'Not since yesterday. Why?'

'He's gone missing.'

'Crap. Well…I'm not sure where he might've gone. What were you doing before he went missing?'

'We just got to Marco's parents' baby shower, before –'

'You took him to a party? Full of crowded people? Why would you do that?'

'We invited him…and he said yes.'

'To save face. Adam doesn't like being around a lot of people; it gives him anxiety. Especially when they're all strangers!'

'What am I supposed to do, then?'

Janna sighed. 'I don't know, Star. I don't know where he is, sorry.'

'It's okay, Janna. Thanks anyway. Bye.' With that, she hung up. She hastily dialled in the next number she could think of and held the compact against her ear. 'Jackie? You there?'

'Hey Star! What's up?'

'Um…have you seen my friend Adam?' she inquired tentatively. 'He's tall, dark, kinda handsome, black hair, grey eyes, wears Mewman clothes. See anyone like him walk by your house?' [30]

'Uh…no, I don't think so. Sorry.'

Star sighed. 'I just really hope I haven't lost him. Keep an eye for him, okay?'

'Of course I will, Star. I'd like to meet him, too.'

'Thanks, Jackie. I'm sure you'll get the chance sometime. See ya.'

Star ended the call and looked worriedly at Marco. Marco gave her an optimistic smile, which warmed her cheeks. She nodded back and appreciatively and began typing in the next phone number.

'Hey, Anna –'

'IT'S STARFAN13!'

'StarFan13…' she corrected herself, sighing. 'I'm looking for a friend…Adam. Tall, dark, looks like a Mewman.'

'Ohmygosh! So he WAS a real Mewman! I knew it!'

'Wait, so you saw him?!'

'Did I ever! How could miss such hotness?!'

'Where'd you see him go?'

'Well, I was making my Star-shaped cookies and then I looked out the window and there he was! Strong, cute, and SO Mewman! Reminded me of you! He looked lost, I thought about going over and introducing myself…but y'know, nerves and all. Anyway, so –'

'Anna!' Star snapped, instantly silencing her. 'This is important. Please, tell me where you saw him go.'

'Sorry Star…I, um, I saw him heading into Echo Creek Graveyard.'

'The graveyard! Ugh, I should have known! Thank you,' she stressed. The princess took a breath. 'I'm sorry for yelling. Thank you…StarFan13. I really appreciate it.'

'Anything for you, Star! Don't mention it.'

'Thanks. Bye!'

'Bye!'

Star pressed a button and ended the call. She looked up at Marco.

'Anna said she saw him walking into Echo Creek Graveyard. The graveyard! Can't believe I didn't think of that!'

'Why the graveyard?' asked Marco.

'Marco…the graveyard…' she stuttered. 'That's where…it's where Janna died. Adam's Janna.'

'Oh.' He bit his chapped lips.

'I gotta go,' said Star, halfway out the door. 'Stay here in case he comes back!'

Star was already a quarter of the way there before she remembered that she could simply teleport there. As such, she transformed into her Full Butterfly form and opened a bright gold portal directly to the graveyard. After all, she couldn't afford any time to waste when something could have happened to Adam. Star couldn't take any chances.

Naturally, when the princess arrived in the graveyard, it was empty.

'Adam?' she called. 'Where are you?'

Star looked around the gravestone of Bon-Bon the Birthday Clown, but she found nothing. However, she did notice a pair of footsteps in the mud, leading from the entrance to the gravestone. Curiously, though, the footsteps stopped here. Star glanced around the mud, trying to see where Adam might've gone.

'Adam?'

'I'm here.'

Nonplussed, the princess spun around. Adam, apparently, rose up from behind a gravestone at the back. She frowned.

'Uh…you okay?' Star asked him.

'Yeah, yeah,' he claimed. 'I…just needed to clear my head.'

Star frowned and looked him over. 'Uh…why are you wearing that weird cosplay?'

He was wearing a black vest protected by Kevlar chest plate. Star guessed that such reinforcement could withstand a whole host of spells. Although she knew Adam to be quite tactical, she never knew him to wear something like this. His boots were thick and heavy, possibly bulletproof. Two lightweight steel plates were attached against his shoulders, which connected to a collar on his chest plate.

'Oh! Um, well, I fell over in the mud, so I popped back to Mewni to change my clothes,' he claimed. 'I was just about to head back.'

Star frowned again and muttered under her breath, 'weird clothes to change into.'

It didn't look to Star like something you'd throw on haphazardly. In fact, the way the armour connected struck her as some kind of uniform. She definitely recognised it, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was a uniform for, exactly. Regardless, it was too coordinated to be random. Right? Not to mention, if he really did just fall in the mud, how come his hands and legs looked completely untouched?

'Hmm…' Star mumbled suspiciously. 'Alright!'

Adam blinked. 'Alright?'

'Alright,' she repeated. 'C'mon. We should get back to Marco.'

He nodded, and the two of them walked down towards the gate. However, when they were halfway down the hill, she stopped.

'Hold on…I've got a back itch,' she claimed, reaching behind her back. Adam stopped and turned, folding his arms impatiently.

Unfortunately for him, he wasn't fast enough to react when Star abruptly pulled out her wand and knocked him out with a Cupcake Blast. The princess walked over to his unconscious body, smoking wand in hand.

'Now…what to do with you?'

A dazzling light show of phosphenes skated across his vision. He groaned, although it sounded much quieter than it was, somewhat muffled, in fact. Aside from the disorienting flashes in his vision, all he could see was darkness. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure whether his eyes were even open or not. Something warm ran down his nostrils into his mouth onto his tongue. It tasted metallic, which certainly tipped him off that it was most likely blood.

Another groan of pain escaped his lips.

Adam looked up and around; this time he was sure his eyes were open. He heard his joints cracking. Everything was dark, but not too dark. All he had for a light source was a tiny orange bulb hanging from the ceiling. It was barely able to illuminate things from so much as a foot away. He could just about make out the walls of the room, a few feet in front of him. If he were to estimate, he'd say the room was large and square, probably a few square meters for its area.

Where am I?

He closed his eyes and tried to cast a spell. Something…anything. He could feel that his mana reserves had been drained from him. Trying to move his arms and legs, Adam found that they had been bound by metal cuffs.

Magically binding cuffs, he quickly realised. Whoever had taken him must have been prepared.

There was a loud whining noise and a door opened in front of him. He shuffled in his chair against the metal chains, grimacing at the bright light shining in his face. Someone stepped into the room, but Adam couldn't quite make out who it was. Adam wished they'd just shut the door and stop letting all the light in. That was until they turned the rest of the lights on. Several strip lights built into the wall flickered on a bright white, momentarily blinding him.

'Don't bother trying to get out of those cuffs. They cut off all magic.'

Adam blinked and looked up. All he could do was glare at the perpetrator. He shouldn't have been surprised.

'Tom,' he spat.

'Hi Adam,' the demon replied aggressively. 'How've you been? Because I've been great. Great since you ruined my relationship with Star!'

'Ruin? I didn't ruin anything! You did that yourself!'

'You snitched on me!' accused Tom, pacing angrily about the room. 'You just had to tell her, didn't you? Why couldn't you have kept your mouth shut?!'

'Am I supposed to feel bad for you?' Adam derided cynically. 'The way I see it, the prince of nothing got what he deserved.'

Tom responded by punching him in the face. A stream of blood ran down his nose and overwrote the previous one, which had almost dried. That familiar metal taste seeped through his lips into his mouth.

'SHUT UP!' he bellowed, a fiery aura enveloping him. 'If you don't do what I say, I will let you die more painfully than you can imagine.'

Adam merely laughed. 'And you wonder why you and Star broke up. When you're like this.'

Tom sighed loudly.

'Look. I need your help.'

'Is that why you had me kidnapped?' surmised Adam, with an aggressive tone persistent in his voice. 'What do you expect me to do?'

'Well…I learned of a certain Dark ritual from my family's library,' he explained, instantly catching his attention. Adam's face somehow hardened even more than before. 'It can erase thoughts, feelings…even whole memories, with pinpoint accuracy. I tried doing it myself…but I couldn't. The spell was too complex, too high mana, beyond anything I could do alone. So…I paid the Dímios to have you kidnapped, and brought here, to their headquarters. After all, you're the only one I know who could do it. Other than Star, but y'know…I'm not gonna try that.'

'So, you sent lackeys to do your dirty work,' he said. 'Too scared to take me on yourself?'

To his surprise, Tom actually laughed at him.

'I got to pick the assassin who went after you,' the demon prince told him. 'And I chose the perfect person to do it.'

Adam's eyes widened slightly. His tone turned quietly serious. 'What do you mean?'

'I need your help to carry out this ritual,' Tom said, ignoring the question. He folded his arms.

'Not happening.'

'If you don't help me, I'll make sure you burn in the Underworld for all eternity.'

'You really need to work on your intimidation tactics.'

'Fine!' he snapped. 'If I can't convince you, then maybe these assassins will. And trust me, they won't be as nice as me.'

'Okay, you're getting better,' Adam mocked. 'Keep this up and you might actually hear a gasp out of me.'

The prince angrily sighed at his lack of progress. He gritted his teeth and glared at him.

'You want to get back home, right?' he threatened. Adam raised an eyebrow curiously.

'Well…I bet you put a lot of research into that. It would be a shame if something happened to all that work.' To emphasise his point, he conjured a flame and played with it between his hands. 'So, are you gonna help me, or are you gonna let me destroy your only chance of returning to the Negative Multiverse?'

'Ugh, fine,' Adam groaned. 'I'll help you.'

Tom smiled maniacally. 'Thank you.'

Adam was tempted to spit in his face just for that, but he opted not to.

Star shook her head and rubbed her brow stressfully. She was currently standing outside a cell in the castle dungeons, trying desperately to explain herself.

'I told you. He's not Adam!' she insisted. 'He's not anything like him. He only looks like him!'

'Really?' Marco doubted, frowning sceptically.

'Look, if you don't believe me, why don't you go in there and see for yourself?'

She jerked her head over at the door. Marco, still unconvinced, reluctantly edged closer the door. Still eyeing Star suspiciously, he wrapped his fingers around the handle and slowly pushed open the door. Marco ducked his head inside and got a good look of the contents. Not-Adam was sitting on the floor in chains, clearly discontented. The prisoner looked up at Marco as he looked in on him curiously.

'What do you want?' he demanded bitterly. 'Can you shut the door? You're letting the light in.'

'Uh –'

'Uh, what? You swallow a fly or something?'

Marco ducked out of the cell and shut the door behind him.

'Not sure he's so different from our Adam, Star,' the squire stated flatly. Star rolled her eyes.

'Well, you didn't get a clear look at him,' she claimed persistently. 'He's different. Not just in personality, but…looks. Sure, he looks a lot like our Adam, but not…not exactly. He's a little younger. I can tell.'

'Okay, Star, let's say I believe you,' Marco prefaced, folding his arms. 'If he's not Adam, who is he? A clone?'

'No!' she shot down in disbelief. 'C'mon, Marco. There's only one explanation. This is the Adam from our multiverse.'

'That's a bit of a leap, Star.'

'Adam told me once that the Negative Multiverse runs two years ahead of ours. And well…he looks two years younger to me.'

'So…what, they kidnapped Adam, using Adam?' Marco asked, receiving a nod from Star. 'Okay, but…why would anyone want to kidnap Adam? He's practically a nobody to anyone who doesn't know him personally.'

'Then it must have been someone who does know him personally,' Star concluded. She glanced back at the cell door. 'The only person who can tell us anything is this…bad Adam – uh, Badam. Let's call him Badam.' Marco smirked at the nickname. 'Problem is, I already tried to get some information out of him. He refused to say anything.'

'Hmm…' Marco thought aloud. 'Wait, if you wanted to find Adam, why don't you just use the All-Seeing Eye?'

'Of course!' Star exclaimed, slapping herself on the forehead. 'Why didn't I think of that?'

She hastily took out her wand and spoke the words to the All-Seeing Eye spell. Predictably, a purple mist of flames appeared out of thin air, from which the burning yellow eye appeared. The eye changed channels on command.

What they saw was peculiar: it was not one image, but two.

One they could determine perfectly was Badam sitting inside his cell, somehow looking aggressive despite being completely still. The other was that of a dark room, the contents of which were largely undeterminable, aside from a solitary figure in the corner of the room. Star immediately knew that this had to be Adam, and wherever he was. Unfortunately, she could hardly discern anything about his location from the image, both due to the darkness and the constant interference from Badam.

Star sighed in frustration. The Eye wasn't going to be much help this time. They were going to have to think of something else.

'I have an idea,' she spoke up, after a brief silence. 'But…to be honest, I really don't like it. And neither will you.'

'Not like we have any other options,' Marco pointed out. Star nodded in agreement.

'I was thinking, we could use that Truth Binding Spell that Adam made a while back. That way we can force Badam to give up Adam's location.'

'Weren't you, like, super against that, last time?' Marco recalled, sceptical.

'Yeah, I was,' Star freely admitted, somewhat guiltily. 'Maybe he had a point…about it sometimes being necessary.'

'I dunno…' he stuttered cautiously.

'You said we had no other options,' the princess pointed out, although her wariness betrayed her words. Marco shook his shoulders acquiescently.

'I've got your back whatever you choose.'

She hugged him appreciatively.

'You go tell Mom what happened,' she instructed. 'I'll go find Adam's personal spellbook.'

You see, although Adam had the Magic Instruction Book, he knew it was an incredibly favourable target for theft. After that run-in with Dark Star around a month ago, Adam had taken to writing his own book of spells, much like Star had. It made sense. To him, it was a strategic advantage as Dark Star wouldn't get her hands on his spells, and he would also have a back-up of them if she ever succeeded in stealing the Magic Instruction Book. Personally, Star thought his way of putting it sapped all the fun out of writing your own spells. Star did it for fun as well as to replace her destroyed Book of Spells, but Adam didn't see it the way she did.

Regardless, the notebook would contain every spell that he had ever made, even the ones that he had decided not to use. Anytime he devised a spell, it was put in there, even if he hadn't properly tested it. The Dream Entrapment Spell was one such example, for Adam had created the spell but never managed to find a willing test subject for it. It was on good authority that Star presumed the Truth Binding Spell would also be in there, despite Adam having decided months ago not to use it. Maybe his trauma from his bout with Arybailos had been what fuelled that decision, and his more logical mind took over and wrote down the spell afterwards anyway.

Whatever the case may be, Star was hoping the spell would be there. Any other time, she would have been mad at Adam for writing the spell down despite swearing off it. However, this time she really, really needed it.

Adam's spellbook was located in his room, in one of his drawers. Star was fortunate that Adam had decided not to put any Locking Spells on it, perhaps because he trusted her with it. Adam's Locking runes had always been really difficult for her to break, and she doubted she could do it on a time crunch. Flipping open the book, she read the first page. It was a title page, with the words "Adam's Book of Spells". What she did notice, though, were the words on the top, "KEEP OUT, STAR!", accompanied with a cartoony drawing of her likeness, crossed out by an x.

Rolling her eyes, she ignored the warning and flicked through the pages until she reached the letter T. She found it as the fourth spell in that letter category. [31]

Veritas, she read. That was the incantation.

Adam had written a comprehensive set of notes on the spell, but Star hardly bothered to read it. The only thing she noticed was the "Known Practitioners" section (which was blank), where Star hastily wrote her name down. She put the book down and filed it away back in the drawer.

When Star returned to the cell, Marco had not returned. That didn't really surprise her; after all, Marco couldn't create portals out of thin air. She let out a breath of air, squeezed her eyes shut, and prepared herself.

Star swung open the door to Badam's jail cell and flicked the lights on. The prisoner groaned in displeasure at the sudden influx of light. She shut the door behind her and leaned on it.

'The clothes you're wearing…they're a uniform, aren't they?' Star recognised, folding her arms. Badam said nothing. 'You work for the Dímios, don't you?'

Badam looked up at her, simply to glare. He gave no other response, but Star presumed that his scowl indicated she was right. However, silence wasn't exactly the most helpful form of communication.

'Okay, who hired you? And why?' she asked him. Again, the prisoner offered her absolutely nothing. Not even so much as a glance, or even a microexpression.

Star frowned pointedly.

'Okay, how about…if you talk, I talk,' she offered. 'I'll let you know why your target looked exactly like you.'

'I don't care,' Badam spat.

Star blinked. 'What? You're not the least bit curious?'

'They don't pay me to ask questions.'

'You're a good soldier, aren't you? You come when you're called?' Star mocked. Badam had no discernible reaction to her attempt at ridicule. 'Well, the reason why is because he's you. You from a parallel universe.'

A look of surprise flashed across his face. That definitely seemed to have provoked a reaction from him. Star hid a smirk. Maybe the princess was finally getting somewhere with the prisoner.

'How did you end up an assassin for the Dímios, anyway?' she enquired, raising an eyebrow.

'Why do you care?'

'Just curious,' she claimed, shrugging her shoulders.

'You just want to know how different I am to your Adam,' he quickly deduced.

Star waited for him to answer the question, but he never did. She sighed; she was just about ready to take out her wand cast the spell, when she heard him say something.

'If you really wanna know, I've been like this all my life,' he muttered, just loud enough for her to hear. 'I grew up with them. They found me when I was a baby.'

Star recalled that Adam had told him a similar thing; his parents abandoned him when he was very young as well. Except he was found by Monsters, rather than the Dímios. And he was a young toddler at the time, not a baby. Perhaps that was for the better, given how this version of Adam turned out.

'Now that we've got to know one another,' she began, biting her lip nervously. 'Maybe you'd like to tell me where you took my friend? Or who paid you to do it?'

Badam barked a laugh. Star shivered uncomfortably.

'You thought–you really thought, just because I told you a bit about myself, that I'd just betray my family?' Each pause was punctuated by a snarl of mockery. 'You're even dumber than I thought! If I must state the painfully obvious, I might look like your friend, but I'm not your friend.'

Star threateningly took out her wand.

'What, are you gonna torture me?' he derided sardonically. 'Who's the bad guy now?'

The magical princess tried and failed to hide her exasperation.

'Look, I know a spell that will force you to tell me the truth,' she stated bluntly. 'I will use it if I have to.'

Badam's eyes darted about the room with worry.

'You're bluffing,' he dodged apprehensively. Star's eyes narrowed. A smirk slowly condensed across her face. She began to wave her wand.

'Veri–'

'FINE!' Badam snapped angrily. 'Fine. I'll tell you what you want to know. Just…don't point that thing in my face.'

Star smiled and put away her wand.

'First question,' she prompted, 'where did you take Adam?'

'To the Dímios Headquarters,' he answered. 'I was ordered to kidnap your friend, bring him to HQ, and then return to the graveyard to impersonate him. After that, I was to await further instructions.'

'Who paid you to kidnap Adam?'

'I never caught his name; I never saw his face,' he replied. 'He liked to stay in the shadows. I caught a glimpse of him at the Headquarters when I was leaving, but…I don't know who it was.'

So, the culprit visited the Dímios Headquarters, presumably to see Adam. They must have some kind of personal vendetta against him, to go to the lengths of locating and entering HQ.

So…if I find the Dímios's Headquarters, I find Adam.

'How do I find your headquarters?'

'Good luck with that,' Badam responded cynically. 'Our central headquarters is hundreds of feet underground and warded against every form of dimensional travel that I know of.'

'So then…how do you manage to travel so easily to and from your HQ?'

'Ugh…okay, look, I have specialised dimensional scissors that let me travel there and back. That's the only way to get there.'

'Then give me the scissors,' she instructed, glaring at him.

'No way in hell am I doing that,' Badam immediately disagreed. 'You might be able to make me tell the truth, but you can't force me to do anything else. Besides, you're never gonna find out where HQ is. Even if I told you.'

What did that even mean? Maybe he was implying the location was so covert that she could never find it from description alone. Or…maybe he meant that the answer to that question could be so vague, that the Truth Binding Spell could be narrowly bypassed. It wasn't a lie to say that their headquarters was underground, it just wasn't very informative. Star didn't know which one he meant, but that didn't mean the Truth Binding Spell wasn't still a suitable threat.

'If you don't, I'll use the Truth Binding Spell on you,' Star threatened. 'Then you can tell me where you put the scissors.'

'No need,' he waved off. 'I have the scissors. But you'll have to pry them from my cold, dead hands.'

Star groaned.

'One way or another, you're going to cough up those scissors,' she told him flatly, as she opened the door behind her. 'I'm going to find Adam, and I'm going to stop the Dímios. It's only a matter of time.'

With that, she left Badam to his own wretched thoughts.

[29] Where she later met Adam, and eventually decided to resume spying on Dark Star, this time on Mewni.
[30] Although "Stump Day" did occur in this timeline, Adam did not attend so did not meet Jackie.
[31] In order, the three preceding spells were Tornado Torpedo, Towering Inferno and the Trace Spell. The Trace Spell isn't his, but Adam wrote it down anyway due to its importance.

Well, well, well, that was quite a doozy. Been a little while since I last updated, I know, but I got distracted.

So much happened in this chapter and there's so much I wanna talk about.

I finally got round to having Eclipsa and Adam play guitar together, that's something that I'm honestly annoyed at myself for not having done sooner. I liked writing that scene, we got to see a bit of Adam's obsessive nature, his persisting trauma about Janna's death and how it relates to Eclipsa's experiences, and a bit more follow-up on his progress surrounding Multiversal magic. He's getting really close; in a couple episodes from now, he's going to crack it.

When I first planned the concept for this episode, there were several things I wanted to do. I wanted to introduce Positive Multiverse version of Adam, I wanted Tom's redemption arc, and I wanted to show a bit of how Star has changed since the start of the story. Tying it into Season 3 with the Marco Jr episode was just the cherry on top, so that there was some consistency and further acknowledgement of the events of season 3 without just a paragraph of prose.

Finally brought in Badam! I've been wanting to introduce him since Chapter SIX, if you can believe it.

Remember when Moon mentioned that no profile matching his description existed on any public Mewnian census? Well, this is why! Positive Adam was inducted, as a baby, into the interdimensional assassin's guild the Dímios- which eagle-eyed readers will recall was mentioned in The War Games, Part 1. I felt like putting in a little teaser to give some background context for this story. Both versions of Adam were abandoned by their parents, although we probably won't find out why in this story. Maybe in a sequel.

This is the start of Tom's redemption arc, but at the moment, he isn't doing himself any favours. He's about to do something pretty terrible - erase everyone's memories and remove Marco from existence. Not a nice thing to do, but you'll see how it plays out. Hopefully, you all will enjoy it. Fingers crossed here.

As for Star, well, she's changed but she's still...Star. That's why I kept the dialogue from the original episode mostly the same, only altering things to accommodate Adam's brief presence. However, she was willing to use the Truth Binding Spell, something she was highly against back in Chapter 15. She's gone through a lot since then, mainly with Dark Star, and now that she's been face-to-face with the enemy, and seen the lengths Adam had to go to beat her and win the War Games afterwards, she started to think more like him. She's not full "ends justify the means", and she never will be, but she's come to accept that the enemy isn't gonna play fair, so neither should she. She's accepted that sometimes the more morally grey tactics are the only path to victory. It's not like she enjoys doing it.

But Star's gonna have to find SOME way of rescuing Adam. She has to know where he is, first, which is the primary answer that she's going to have to search for. How is she going to do that? Feel free to theorise, although I already know the answer lol.

Sidenote, but I hope people liked the bit of exposition about Janna. I figured the best time to elaborate on the circumstances surrounding her history was when Adam was walking towards the place where, in the other multiverse, she died. I feel like I wasn't clear enough on the details beforehand. Janna met the Resistance when she was young, through unknown means, and joined their ranks, although she remained stationed on Earth. Dark Star comes along, and Janna naturally wants to keep her distance. Toffee sees an advantage and tells Janna to make friends with her and spy on her. She does that. Dark Star later murders Marco and returns to Mewni, leaving Toffee without a way to spy on her. With the opportunity to dethrone her slipping through his fingers, he stages Janna's kidnapping with the hopes of luring Dark Star to Castle Avarius. Dark Star uses this to find where the Resistance's headquarters are so she can destroy them. Toffee tries to coerce her into giving up the wand, which she does, but then uses the Whispering Spell to destroy everyone. Janna survives inside her crystal cage, but gets trapped on Mewni, where she later meets Adam, who gets her to spy on her again.

I'm running out of characters. Thanks for the support, everyone! I'll see you in the next chapter, "Blood Money"!