Episode:
12: Of Mice and Mewmen

As Adam tries to convince Tom to abandon the dark ritual, Star takes a trip into Positive Adam's memories in hopes of learning the location of the Dímios Headquarters. Instead, she gets far more than she bargained for.

Unsurprisingly, Tom wasn't particularly forthcoming with details regarding Adam's kidnapping. Whoever he picked must've been a master of stealth, and scarily efficient at that. Either that, or Adam was just really stupid. Although, perhaps being stupid would have helped him more, as perhaps Tom wouldn't have assumed he could do this spell. Unfortunately, Tom already knew he could read, and he'd brought along the book he found the ritual in. As such, when the demon finally set him free of his restraints, he really had no other option but to help him.

Currently, Adam was preparing a potion that served as the first part of the ritual. He was currently crushing mallowberries to release the Essence of Mara, which he carefully squeezed out into his cauldron. He glanced over at Tom, who was drawing the outline of the ritual circle in wraith salt. If he could stall him for as long as possible, maybe Star and the others would be able to find him in time.

'You know, this isn't going to make Star love you.'

'That's exactly what it's going to do,' said Tom, offering him a cruel glare. 'Star won't remember that we broke up, or why.'

'Assuming Star ever loved you in the first place,' he taunted, smirking. Before he knew it, Tom appeared before him and punched him in the stomach. Adam keeled over and groaned in pain, but nevertheless managed to keep the smirk on his face.

'You better shut your goddamn mouth,' Tom spat, his voice scarily calm. 'Or I will end you.'

'Heh. You know, on someone as powerful as Star,' he began, still holding one hand on his bruised stomach. 'This spell probably won't last long. She'll eventually get her memories back. And if she doesn't, Marco, Janna, Moon, River, everyone, will remind her. You can't win.'

'That's where you're wrong.' He shook his head. 'The spell erases the memories of everyone apart from the caster. And that's not all: it can also erase people from existence. And who better than Marco?'

Adam's eyes widened.

'Tom…if you do that, you won't simply be killing Marco. It'll be worse than that…he'll be trapped in limbo, forever.' He began to add chopped three-leaf clovers shakily to the potion. 'He'll be…condemned to deafening silence, in…an absence of existence until the end of time. Trapped in an eternity of isolation; that's…that's enough to drive anyone mad.'

Tom stayed silent at that.

'You and Marco are friends.' He pursed his lips. 'Or you were, at least.'

Tom looked away. 'It's him or me.'

'Do you really believe that?' Adam asked him sceptically, as he poured a vial of shadestream, followed by an ounce of voidmatter, into the potion.

'I used to hate Marco, like, a lot,' he reminisced. 'I guess he's not so bad, but…I've always hated how close he's gotten with Star, without even trying. It's not fair.'

'You still don't get it,' derided the Mewman. 'You don't get to control who she spends time with. This kind of jealousy is exactly what drove Star away in the first place! The way I see it, you've only got yourself to blame.'

'Well, I blame YOU!' he bellowed, fire burning in his eyes. 'If you hadn't told Star, we'd still be together! Why couldn't you have just kept your mouth shut?!'

Adam folded his arms. 'She deserved to know! Besides, it's not like your relationship would have lasted long. Your days were numbered.'

Tom slammed the table with his fist.

'We were perfect together!'

'If you were perfect together, you wouldn't have a thousand problems to spout off to Dark Star,' he pointed out. 'Couples in healthy relationships talk, Tom.'

'Yeah, and what do you know about healthy relationships?'

'I know that having a ton of problems with your partner is usually a bad thing.'

Tom opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. Because no words could accurately disprove his statement. Adam certainly noticed; he noticed Tom had given up on that side of the argument. He dropped a few ravenclaws into the broth.

I might be getting somewhere. Gotta convince him not to do this spell. And soon.

'Tom, this spell is too dangerous,' he cautioned. 'Dark rituals almost always have some kind of drawback. Drawbacks that you can't possibly account for.'

'I can handle whatever the magical forces throw at me,' the prince responded arrogantly.

'Can you, now?' the Mewman enquired sardonically. 'People who underestimate the forces of magic often end up destroyed by it. And with a spell with this much reach…you're tempting fate here, Tom.'

'Just get on with the spell and quit stalling,' growled Tom.

Adam rolled his eyes added a few drops of Jarrin blood to the cauldron. The contents of the cauldron hissed resplendently. The potion was now complete, in terms of ingredients. All it required now was some heat, so the Mewman moved the cauldron on top of a tripod. He cast Crimson Comet to light the heater underneath the cauldron, producing a brilliant blue flame.

'The potion's done,' he announced. 'Just needs to heat for a few minutes.'

Tom didn't answer verbally, only eliciting a hum of acknowledgement at his words. Adam tried to read his expression, but he couldn't discern much from him. It was like he was…hiding. Hiding away from the truth.

'Look, Tom, you don't have to like me –'

'You got that right.'

Adam clenched his jaw to satiate his frustration.

'Whatever. The point is, whether you like it or not, I'm the only one right now who can stop you from doing something you'll regret.' Tom didn't have anything to say to that, so he kept talking. 'Look, even if Star loves you like you think she does, she's very close with Marco. You said that yourself. No amount of magic can completely remove that kind of connection. If this spell succeeds, Star's definitely going to notice something's wrong. She might not see it, not right away, but she'll feel it. I doubt she'd ever be able to ignore it.' Again, the Prince of the Underworld did not respond. 'Tom, if you really, truly, cared about her, you'd understand that Marco makes her happy. And she has a right to be happy, doesn't she?' When the demon still refused to speak, Adam's voice became much lower. 'With this spell, you'd be living on borrowed time. I wonder…how long can you live a lie, before it destroys you?'

Tom let out a short, curt sigh.

'I-I–!' He swallowed a gulp of air as he glanced at the ground. Hesitantly, he finished drawing out a pentagram in faerie dust for the ritual.

However, Adam didn't miss just how much his hands were shaking as he did it.

Star resisted the urge to pace around the room exasperatedly. She managed to remain seated, however she simply couldn't remain still. Hopefully, her constant fidgeting wouldn't be too annoying. She glanced over at Marco, who was leaning on the wall at the other end of the room. He looked just as nervous as he did. Next, she looked to Eclipsa, who was sitting on her bed in her tower. The senior Butterfly didn't seem too bothered, and far more prepared to listen to what she had to say.

More than Moon, that's for sure. Star had asked her mom for help, but she didn't offer much in the way of advice. She just told her that the Magic High Commission were working hard to find Adam, meanwhile Star should stay put. Star was planning on doing anything but stay put. Regardless of whether she thought the MHC would find him – which, by the way, she didn't – Star would much rather take things into her own hands. That was her modus operandi.

'I'm just so lost, Eclipsa. He's just as stubborn as our Adam.' She dumped her head on the table. 'Talking to him is just…freaky. He looks so much like Adam, yet he…just isn't. I guess now I know how Adam felt when he met me.'

'He said it was weird being friends with you,' recalled Marco.

Star sighed.

'I really wanted to use the Truth Binding Spell on him, but I…I couldn't. Am I being selfish for that?'

'Not at all, Star,' Eclipsa reassured her. 'I would have been very tempted to use the spell as well. In fact, I likely would have. I understand why you don't want to use it, but it seems you have very few options, my dear.'

'Then what should I do?'

Eclipsa hummed in thought.

'Perhaps...' Star instantly looked up and straightened her posture expectantly. 'There is another way. But I don't think you're going to like it.'

She stood up. 'Tell me!'

'Can't be worse than what we've already tried,' Marco said, shrugging his shoulders.

'Well, maybe you can use the Psionic Wandering Spell,' suggested the former Queen. 'That way, you could enter his memories, and uncover the location of the Dímios Headquarters. It's harmless, and effective.'

'I dunno…' the princess uttered warily. 'I mean, it's…still an invasion of privacy.'

'You don't have to see anything you don't want to,' Eclipsa pointed out. 'A skilled caster of the spell can control the memories they see. Regardless, if you don't do something…Adam is as good as dead. And I cannot allow that. If you do not want to cast this spell, then rest assured, I will instead.'

'I s'pose…it is less harmful than the Truth Binding Spell.'

'Wait a minute.' The two Butterflies turned to the only human in the room. He looked at Star. 'How would knowing where the Dímios HQ is help us? Didn't you say before that you needed dimensional scissors to get there?'

'Dimensional scissors?' questioned Eclipsa, raising an eyebrow. 'Why would you need dimensional scissors?'

'Because the Dímios HQ is enchanted with dozens of dimensional protection charms,' Star explained, folding her arms. 'There's no other way of getting there.'

'What about your Full Butterfly form?' Marco said. 'Can't you use that?'

'Dimensional protection charms, Marco,' she repeated.

'No, Marco is correct,' Eclipsa told her. 'Your Full Butterfly form grants you unrestricted access to every location in the known multiverse. Your portals can bypass dimensional protection charms, because those charms are not designed to account for Butterfly magic.'

'Well…that makes this a lot easier,' admitted the princess, relieved. 'I just have to use this spell…'

'You don't have to if you don't want to, Star,' Marco comforted, putting a hand on her shoulder. Star smiled at him but shook her head.

'Actually, I do,' she replied. 'When the tables were turned…Adam didn't rest until he found the truth; until he found me. If it weren't for him, I would be dead. I owe him my life. I could at least return the favour.'

'Good luck, my dear,' Eclipsa bid, beaming encouragingly at her. Star nodded at the pair of them and took in a deep breath.

In a bright dazzling flash of light, Star transformed into her Full Butterfly appearance. As always, her hair was done in elaborate frills that defied gravity, and her dress was now an ebullient yellow. Her six arms were certainly impressive, no matter how many times they appeared. Her translucent yellow wings fluttered responsively, ready for her next journey.

Star held out her arm and opened a portal in the air beside her. She stepped through and appeared in Badam's cell.

The assassin in question was immediately caught off-guard. He recoiled away as far as his chains would allow him. He curled up slightly against the corner of the cell, as if that would somehow offer him more protection from the Butterfly.

'Hey, get back!'

'Look, if you're not going to give me what I want, then I'll dig for it myself.'

'What do you –'

'Wand of magic, turn the cog,' she began, pointing her three right arms at him. 'Find the way through this fog. Make our minds open and free. Show me now what I must see!'

There was a stunning blast of white light, and Star's entire vision was engulfed, until she could no longer see.

A scream ripped out of her lungs as she plummeted helplessly to the ground. There was a loud thud when she finally landed. Star groaned. There didn't seem to be any broken bones, or perhaps you couldn't break bones considering this wasn't actually real. She righted her posture and sat up. Fragments of rock slipped off her back. Looking down at her lap, she patted herself down to remove the rocky ash. She had been reverted to her normal Butterfly form.

Steadily, the princess rose to her feet. A burning white sky hung overhead, a constant colour gradient that seared into her very eyeballs. The terrain around her was grey and rocky, dusted with ash. Gravelly hills stretched out for miles, retreating into a white mist that perfectly blended in with the scorching sky. There was no horizon possible in this world.

Additionally, all the colours had been drained from the world. The only thing had retained colours other than grayscale was Star, who stuck out like a sore thumb. It was as though she was the only thing that had not been corrupted by the infinite monotony of Badam's mind.

Is this a memory? She absentmindedly wandered. When she turned around, though, another thought came to mind. No. It definitely isn't.

Not unless it was typical for someone to witness a giant floating old house in their lifetime. Constantly shifting, the house was constructed of rotting, dilapidated wood and dirty, broken glass. Large debris of rock, wood and glass, floated around the building, as though it was suspended in jelly. Its workmanship truly defied all laws of physics.

This definitely wasn't a memory; this was Badam's mindscape. This is what happened when you used the Psionic Wandering Spell without a clear idea of what memory you or the target wanted to see. Adam had mentioned it to her one on occasion when they were training together.

I guess I'll have to look for the memories, then.

Warily, Star approached the mysterious house. There could be anything in there, and with someone who had such a clearly chequered history as Badam, it could be dangerous. Nevertheless, she knew she had to keep going. The thought of Adam being tortured in a dark hole somewhere fuelled her every step across the uneven terrain.

As she neared the base of the house, stray pieces of wood and rock abruptly moved towards her. They smashed together at her feet, snapping together to form a crude pathway leading directly to the slate grey entrance. Star gingerly placed a foot on top of it, eventually building up the confidence to rest her entire weight on it. She was surprised by how well it held.

Oh, right. This isn't the real world; real-world rules don't apply here!

Even with that admission, the princess was still wary of her surroundings. After all, this also meant she wasn't able to cast any magic. Badam's mind didn't helpfully provide her with a fence to quell her anxiety, but helpfulness was hardly what Star expected anyway. Once she reached the end of the bridge, and onto the patio, the doors to the house flung open by themselves.

Hesitantly, Star peered inside. It was a simple corridor, wide but crooked. The instant her foot stepped onto a floorboard inside, there was a loud creak. Almost every step she took as he walked inside made creaks of varying volumes; she feared the floorboards might, at any moment, snap like twigs under her weight. All the cracks and hairline fractures across the wood grain did not serve to give her any confidence; Star had to keep reminding herself that this wasn't real.

Rays of scorching light shone in through the windows, like torches on full power. Specks of dust floated in the beams of light, shifting, twisting and turning. A light breeze cursed the house with a constant swaying, wrought with uncomfortable creaking. Navigating this building would be no easy task.

Why IS Badam's mindscape like this? How fragile IS he?

Star walked to the end of the hallway and opened the door. The next room she entered was strange, to say the least. Strange in the sense that it was upside-down. The ceiling stood at her feet, and the floorboards above her looked like they might fall down upon her at any moment.

As she walked down this inverted corridor, she kept an eye out for any indication for a memory-door. Assuming she understood what kind of indication would be. If Star were being honest, she was just making this up as she went along. All the doors that she chose the check were locked, and the ones she didn't bother to check had a particularly blatant padlock on them anyway.

The end of the hallway broke into an intersection. She had three new hallways to choose from. The one to her right was sideways, the one straight ahead was diagonal, and the final, more favourable corridor, was the correct orientation. Star took the hallway to her right, which led to a set of wooden double doors.

Cautiously, the princess hovered her hand over the handle to the door. Before she could muster the courage to open the door, someone interrupted her. A black silhouette sped past her, ripping the door open and knocking Star onto her knees.

'H-Hello?' called Star, almost by instinct, as she rose to her feet. Why did she even bother? She was the only real person here.

Patting herself down, the princess inspected the room through which the double doors now revealed. It was a rectangular foyer, complete with a hanging chandelier above. To the right, two large bookshelves stood tall, with books practically hanging off them. A gap between them led to a hexagonal observatory room, although the windows had been smashed. On her left, there were similar bookshelves, although the gap between them led to some steps. Star's eyes wandered up to the second row hanging up to the left, overseeing the floor below. Strangely, the stairs that connected the second row to first were disconnected at the back, rendering it architecturally impossible to reach the second floor. Star frowned, wondering if there was supposed to be some kind of deeper meaning there, or Badam was just a cornhead.

'Adam…'

Star turned away from the peculiar stairwell and towards the source of the ghostly voice, which she faintly identified was coming from behind the archway at the end of the room.

Approaching the archway, she looked around the corner where she was sure she had heard the voice. Built into the wooden wall was a strange door, almost perfectly blended in with the engravings on the wall. Star reached out shakingly towards the rusty round door handle.

'Angel…' a voice whispered straight in her ear.

Star spun around, expecting to catch something of anything. However, there was nothing behind her. An abrupt thud caused her to jump in fright, until she realised it was just a stray book that had fallen off one of the bookshelves. She fell back against the wall in relief, before turning back to face the door.

Only to find that the door no longer existed. In its place, was a perfectly standard wall, identical in design to the door that had been there moments ago. Star blinked.

Weird, she thought, stepping away from the house.

As if to answer her, the unmistakable noise of a baby crying echoed through the house. Star found herself drawn towards the source, her eyebrows furrowing in concern. The princess walked through the archway into the next corridor, only to find a foyer identical to the previous one.

Identical in almost every way. The only noticeable difference was that the stairs were actually functional this time. Star supposed that was helpful, given that the baby's crying was definitely coming from the upper balcony.

The crying had not ceased even as Star was trudging up the stairs to the balcony. However, the noises briefly stopped when she actually reached the top. Star absentmindedly peered over the railing, hoping that somehow the answer to Adam's location would somehow present itself. To that end, she sharply followed the crying sounds, the second they resumed.

Sure enough, they led to a door on the left, at the end of the hallway. She inspected it curiously first. Cobwebs covered at least half of it, obscuring part of the top hinges. A rough, blunt piece of medal is what passed for a doorknob on this particular door. The wood looked aged and decrepit, somehow more than the rest of this dreary, grey house. She wasn't even sure how it managed to remain on its hinges, because the whole surface was covered in large fissures and crooked holes.

Star's hand hovered over the door handle. She sighed and closed her fingers around it. No point in hesitating now. It was either go through this door or leave Adam to be tortured. The princess had a pretty good idea which one she preferred.

Turning the doorknob, Star stepped through the door, only to be engulfed in a bright light. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the light to die down.

Once the bright light went away, Star opened her eyes. Her new surroundings were a lot less alien to her. She found herself in a creek, just by a softly flowing river in the middle of a forest. Tall birch trees stood strong as sentinels, guarding her and the numerous animals populating the area. Above her, she could make out the pinkish-red sky through the tree canopy. One of the moons in the sky was visible behind the wispy clouds.

She knew this place. Without a doubt, she knew where she was.

This is Mewni. It was in the Forest of Redoubt, just next to the Waterfolk Kingdom. Not too far from the Butterfly Castle, but nevertheless it was still a fair distance. Why here?

'For the record, I still think my plan was a better idea.'

Star jolted in surprise and instinctively jumped behind a tree. She remained hiding there for a second, before realising something rather obvious.

'Right…I'm not really here,' she said aloud, slapping herself dumbly on the forehead.

'Yeah, well, we're not the ones who make the plans.'

Star blinked and turned towards the forest. There was a clearing nearby, where the voices were coming from. She stumbled into the clearing and saw the pair of them. They were two humanoids, possibly Mewmans, wearing the same uniform Badam had worn. Dímios agents. Almost certainly.

'You're happy to be a good plank, aren't you?' the female agent criticised. If there wasn't a mask on her face, Star was sure she would see a glare on her face.

'Shut up.'

She looked around the forest curiously. 'Where is the lookout post, anyway?'

'Not far from here,' responded the male agent. 'Look, if we want to infiltrate the Pigeon Castle, then we can't afford to be spotted. The only way to do that is taking out their lookout.'

'If we went through Waterfolk Bay, then we could get in through the canals! Much less danger that way.'

'Are you gonna witter on about this all day?' complained the agent, almost growling. 'White was very clear about his instructions, Clayton. If you don't like it, take it up with him.'

'Cornhole,' she grumbled under her breath.

'Heard that.'

These two totally used to date. Or they're related. I hope it's not both.

'How much are we getting for this, Valentine?' said Clayton. 'Four thousand gold pieces. Four thousand! That won't even last me a week!'

'It's not my fault you're irresponsible with your money.' He stopped to fold his arms. 'Besides, I already tried to convince White to up the price on this assassination, but he was very adamant on four thousand. The contact wouldn't pay any more.'

Clayton sighed.

'Sorry,' she apologised sincerely. 'It's just that…well, my mom. It-It's getting worse.'

'She's going to be okay, Alice…er, I mean, Clayton.'

'She's got the Shivers.' She bit her lip. 'How many people do you know who survived that?'

'Okay, I'll admit it's improbable,' acquiesced Valentine. 'But not impossible.' He put a hand on her shoulder. 'I know you're struggling to make ends meet right now, but you've just gotta pull through. Just a few more ops and you might just be home free.'

Agent Clayton took in a deep breath and exhaled out through her nose. She nodded slightly. Valentine was probably smiling at her right now, but Star couldn't see it.

'Thanks, Alex. Um, sorry, I mean…Agent Valentine.'

Star breathed in pensively. There was a lot more to the Dímios than she had previously thought. She wished she'd paid attention to what her mom had told her about the Dímios, rather than regaling in her dad's tales of preventing various assassination attempts from the Dímios across the entire multiverse.

'Do you hear that?' Clayton looked off to her right. Valentine frowned.

'Yeah. What is that?'

Star heard it too: it was a baby crying. The same crying that she heard earlier. Clayton seemed to have realised that too.

'Crying!'

Before she knew it, Clayton ran directly through her, as though she was just a ghost. Because she was a ghost. Incorporeal.

A shiver ran down her spine, as she Star keeled over and held her hand to her chest in pain. Well, not pain exactly, but it felt something strange. Fuzzy, almost. Like someone had just walked over her grave. She never wanted that to happen again.

Star chased after Clayton further up the river creek. Valentine followed close behind, calling Alice's name and trying to get her to slow down. Clayton jumped across the rocks in the river to get to the other end. Star hesitated for a moment, before taking a leap of faith and rushing across.

'Alice!' Alex called, just stopping sharp of the slow-running river. He grumbled and grimaced for a few moments before he decided to run across the rocks after her.

Star almost tripped over a branch herself in pursuit of Agent Clayton, and she wasn't even really there. Alice – Agent Clayton – made it there faster than she did, of course, but Star wasn't exactly fast on her feet without magic. By the time she got there, Clayton was crouching down by the base of a tree trunk, inspecting something carefully.

Sure enough, it was a baby. Scarcely a year old, the little baby had nothing more than a small red cloth to keep them warm. Once they spotted Alice, they slowly stopped crying.

'Alice…' Valentine panted, bending over to catch his breath. He looked up and saw what they had found. He waited to catch his breath. 'Stay away from it.'

'It's just a baby!' argued Clayton, turning to glare at him. 'They're harmless.'

Valentine rolled his eyes.

'Well…what's its name?'

'Adam,' she replied, pointing to a tag on the cloth that bore the baby's name. Star wasn't surprised about that at all. Alice leaned into Adam with a big, gentle smile. 'What are you doing here, eh? Where are your parents?'

'It's a baby, Clayton. It doesn't understand you.'

Alice gave him a dirty look. She turned back to Adam (Badam, Star mentally corrected) and carefully picked him up off the ground.

'Someone's gotta do something.'

'Hold on,' halted Valentine. 'You're not actually thinking of bringing that thing with us, are you?'

'It's not a "thing", Alex. It's a baby. Have some empathy.'

'We're assassins, we don't do "empathy",' the agent pointed out, frowning. 'You should leave it. It's not coming with us.'

'He'll die otherwise!' she shrieked, shooting up. 'If we bring it with us, we can raise him! C'mon, think about it. If we have a born-and-bred assassin, he could be the perfect agent. Unquestionable loyalty; years of training, from a young age. Don't tell me you don't see the advantage here.'

'We don't even know what he's doing here,' said Valentine. 'If his own parents abandoned him, maybe they had a good reason.'

'Well, we're not exactly in danger.' She gestured about the forest to prove her point. 'If we bring him to our HQ, I doubt he'll be able to cause a huge problem. Not to mention anyone that comes looking for him won't be able to get past the bouncer.'

Agent Valentine sighed and assessed the situation for a moment. Star watched anxiously, despite already knowing what option they would choose. Valentine faltered for a moment, before bringing his index finger up to the comms device in his ear. He pressed the button.

'Sir? We've had a recent…development in the Pigeon Operation.'

Star could just about make out a radio response on the other end.

'What kind of development?'

'We found a Mewman baby out by the river. I don't know what it's doing here, but Agent Clayton seems to think we could raise it.'

'Hmm…most interesting. What's its name?'

'Uh…Adam.'

'Return him to base. I'd like to see it for myself.'

'But Mr White –'

'Do as I say, Valentine. I won't ask again.'

'Yes sir,' Valentine complied reluctantly. 'But what about the assignment?'

'I've already sent other agents in your stead to complete your task. We've decided this time to go with Clayton's plan instead.' Clayton smirked at him for that. She'd definitely be getting bonus to her salary for that. 'Your objective is now to return this "Adam" child as soon as possible.'

'Yessir.'

Agent Valentine closed the comms channel and stared at Clayton for a moment.

'Not a word.'

'Okay,' she said cheekily, keeping a smirk on her face.

The two of them journeyed back in the direction they came, disappearing past a white mist that signalled the borders of this memory. It looked like there was no way to discern the location of the Dímios Headquarters from this memory, but Star wasn't even thinking about that.

Depending on how she looked at it, Badam could be either lucky or unlucky that the Dímios found him. He was just a baby at the time, even younger than Adam was. That Agent Clayton woman seemed too keen to save the baby, perhaps out of empathy as she claimed, or maybe simply out of practicality. From what Star heard, it sounded like she cared more about when the next paycheck arrived than a human life. Sure, Badam would certainly have died if they hadn't saved him. However, he was raised to be an assassin, something that was arguably worse.

How different was it for Adam? To be found by Monsters wouldn't sound favourable at first, until you remembered that his parents were the nicest people ever according to him.

There was a creaking noise coming from behind her. Star turned around curiously. An incongruous wooden door, the same one she had entered through, stood in the middle of the forest. Fortuitous, she supposed, for the door to appear here. Or perhaps it was supposed to signal the end of a memory? She didn't know.

Star walked towards the door and opened it. Sure enough, it led back into Badam's mindscape. The princess exited

Strangely, she was no longer up on the balcony where she had entered the memory. Instead, she was now standing in the main foyer of the building. There was a railing at the top, where she stood. Two sweeping slopes of stairs descended down to the bottom floor on either side of her. A great big chandelier hung from the ceiling – well, it didn't hang, it floated from the ceiling without being connected to anything. Not only that, but where double doors logically ought to be – down below – were not present, as though someone had haphazardly deleted the entrance to the building and relocated it to where Star had entered.

Confusing architecture aside, Star needed to turn her mind to her objective. She needed to find another memory, hopefully one that would contain the precise location of the Dímios Headquarters. That was, after all, the reason she was here.

The oldest she could find led to the oldest memory Badam had. Perhaps…the older the door, the older the memory? It only made sense. Perhaps, if she could find a door that wasn't too old nor too young, she could pin down a memory that wouldn't too long ago nor too recent.

'Your next assignment awaits.'

Star spun around to face a corridor behind her. She only just caught glimpse of a silhouette shifting out of sight. The princess breathed deeply and reminded herself that the silhouette could not harm her. Reluctantly, she followed the flickering silhouette down the corridor. It seemed to shift just out of her peripheral vision every time she tried to approach.

The next hallway was longer and narrower. As Star walked down it, she felt an uneasiness in her stomach, bordering on queasiness. A headache pulsed through her temples. The very walls themselves seemed to elongate, and bend, as though she was viewing things through a kaleidoscope.

Inexplicably, Star hit her head on something invisible. She blinked, staggering back in confusion. It quickly transpired that there was not in fact any invisible object that she'd collided with, for it was entirely visible. Star leaned back in confusion.

The rest of the hallway was an illusion; a wall painted with the image of a receding corridor, but it was completely flat. Star could've soon that, moments ago, there was definitely a full hallway.

'This place is hurting my head,' she groaned, rubbing her brow.

Space and time didn't have much little meaning in this place. Only Star seemed to be practicing the belief that the natural, orderly laws of Euclidean space should apply here.

'We do not negotiate.'

Star spun around, and suddenly she found herself in a completely different area of the house. She was now in a bedroom, although it was cramped and claustrophobic. Looking about the room, the furniture in the room was inundated with cobwebs and inches of dust. The bed appeared untouched years, although the sheets were tossed and turned in all manner of directions. Star strongly suspected that the occupant of this bed seldom got any sleep.

Worst offending of them all was the closet at the back. Star could barely even tell it was a closet, because of the thick coating of dust, cobwebs and dead bugs that swallowed it whole. She was extremely hesitant to investigate it, but her mounting curiosity was becoming increasingly hard to ignore. Her arms twitched tentatively between reaching out and recoiling back, until she finally worked up the courage to grab the handle and rip open the door as soon as possible.

Star frowned. 'Wait, what?'

Inside was a massive trapezoidal metal weight, easily a hundred kilos in weight. It looked old and rusty, perhaps not touched in years. The word "GUILT" was engraved into the side, which Star supposed was to be some sort of bleak metaphor or something. Why Badam had chosen to store it here, in a bedroom, hidden underneath a mountain of age, she would never understand. What did he have to be guilty about, too? Was it everything he'd done, or something specific? She truly didn't know.

Someone put a hand on her shoulder. Star's skin went cold. Her blood instantly froze.

'Find Angel,' a silky voice whispered into her ear.

Star shivered and tentatively turned around. There was nothing to greet her aside from the light breeze on her face.

'Who's…?'

There was something amiss about this room since the last time she checked it. She paused for a moment to inspect her surroundings. Her breathing hitched when she realised it. Everything in the room had been reflected, flipped lengthways as through a mirror.

'Weird,' mused Star, as she walked over to the door, which was now on the right side instead of the left.

As she opened the door, though, she was blinded by a bright white light. A light that, to Star, seemed altogether too familiar.

Badam's baroquely barren bedroom melted away before her eyes. Something entirely different drained down the white canvas before her, a mixture of muted watercolours mixing together to form what Badam called a "memory". The image solidified, fixing into place, until Star's surroundings looked just as real as she was.

The first thing she noticed was the sheer number of people. She was in a hall, that much she knew. An extremely crowded hall, at that. Everywhere Star turned, there was someone towering over her. She felt like a toddler getting lost in a supermarket. A loud garbled cacophony of voices filled the room, like a thousand bees humming and buzzing all at once.

Something curious: all the people in the room were wearing the same thing. They were wearing a uniform – the Dímios uniform. That could mean only one thing. This place had to be their headquarters, otherwise it'd be pretty dumb to have all the operatives of a top-secret intermultiversal assassin organisation in one place at the same time.

This is their headquarters!

This was exactly what she needed.

Star spotted a set of double doors at the back of the room, not too far from where she was standing. If she could manage to explore some of this place, she might be able to figure out roughly where it was. The princess hurried through the crowd, dodging people left and right. In hindsight, she probably could have just run through everybody since she was incorporeal, but the deathly feeling it gave her put her off.

When the princess reached the doors, she put all her might into pushing them open. Surprisingly, the hinges were extremely stiff, in severe need of some oil. Abruptly, the doors gave way and swung open.

'Woah!' exclaimed Star, as she stumbled through the doors and skidded onto the floor. She groaned in pain and stood back up.

It became abundantly clear to her that this memory wasn't going to tell her much yet. In the hallway where she now found herself, she truly found nothing. Barren metal walls and the odd blinking light gave her very little in the way of geography. There was a tinny metal clutter with every step that she took, and the ground felt unstable beneath her feet.

At the end of the hallway, however, the world dissolved into a thick, impenetrable wall of white mist. Star frowned. She hadn't expected this memory to have such short boundaries. There was no way to travel beyond this crowded hall, and yet, there was no Badam in sight.

Maybe it would be better to just see where this memory was going. Perhaps then, she might be able to discern something of anything. Besides, it's not like she had a choice. This memory hadn't concluded yet; she had no way out until it did.

Then I can find this "Angel" person.

Star still had no explanation for the ghost in Badam's mindscape. Something was clearly haunting him, and she was just itching to find out what. If that massive closet was anything to go by, Badam was just as consistent at compartmentalising his feelings as Adam was.

As she walked back into the hall, she noticed that the loud voices had died down. There was a minute or two of shuffling, and all the Dímios operatives had aligned themselves into neat orderly rows. Silence fell at the drop of a hat. It was so effective that Star could probably hear her own thoughts echoing inside her head. Now that the crowd had moved aside, she got a good look at the other end of the hall.

There was a stage at the very back, with a curtain behind it to hide the backstage area. At the front, there was an ornate wooden podium with designs of flowers, leaves, swords and a few butterflies.

Behind the podium, there stood a tall, gaunt man in a chalk white suit. His face was bony, the flesh taut against his cheekbones. His skin was pastel white, almost as white as the very suit he was wearing. He had silvery grey hair, thin and wiry. There was something about his eyes, too. They were slate grey, eerily reminding her of Adam's eyes, but ice cold. There was hardly a gradient of colour across his entire figure. The only things he wore that wasn't stalk white were his shoes and gloves, both of which were jet black. He cleared his throat.

'We are gathered here today for a very special occasion.'

Star raised an eyebrow. She scanned the stage and, eventually, her eyes found something.

Four chairs had been placed evenly across the stage, each with an occupant. In the chair closest to the tall man, there sat Badam, looking entirely stone-faced. The boy looked young, scarily young to be an assassin. He glanced up at the man speaking and gave the slightest of nods.

'I must say, when Adam was first brought into our esteemed organisation, there were doubts,' said Mr White. 'My associate, Bones' – he gestured towards a portly woman seated to his right – 'had many reservations regarding Adam. She told me, and I quote, "this boy could never truly be one of us, not while his origins remain shrouded in mystery". She told me that Adam had no potential and could not be nurtured into a fully-fledged assassin. While we'll never know why his parents abandoned him, one thing is for certain: Adam has exceeded all our expectations.'

There was an applause among the crowd, but he raised his hands to quiet them down some.

'Indeed, Adam has gone above and beyond in becoming the youngest ever agent to complete his assassins' trials,' the man elaborated. 'He's progressed so quickly, and I could not be happier. That is why I am pleased to award Adam with full assassin membership within the guild, effective immediately.' There was another rapturous applause through the crowd of Dímios agents and trainees. He gestured to Badam to stand up, and he complied, walking over next to him. The man in the white suit bent down and pulled out a velvet cushion with something gold and metallic on it.

A pair of dimensional scissors! So, every assassin of the Dímios was given one as part of their induction ceremony.

'It is my honour to present you with your very own dimensional scissors,' he announced, gently resting the cushion flat onto his palms. 'Do you solemnly swear to uphold the Sacred Amendments to the best of your ability?'

'I swear,' said the child.

'Do you swear undying allegiance to the Dímios, in all aspects?'

'I swear.'

'Do you swear to forever serve the interests of the guild, over the interests of yourself?'

'I swear.'

'And do you swear to remain anonymous, never allow yourself to be exposed, and maintain the secrecy of the Guild in a manner befitting of an assassin?'

'I swear!'

'Then by the power vested in me, I hereby declare you a full assassin of the Dímios. May the sun glow upon you, my son.'

'Thank you, Mr White,' said Badam, carefully plucking the golden scissors off the cushion.

'You are welcome,' Mr White replied. 'But don't congratulate yourself too much. You still have a long way to go. Your journey…has only just begun.'

As if to prove his point, Star felt a sudden shockwave shaking her legs to jelly. Nobody else seemed to detect this very abrupt seismic tremor, so she guessed it wasn't from the memory itself. The princess nearly fell on her butt with the strength of the earthquake.

Star blinked, and everything changed. Now, she was somewhere else entirely, as if someone had changed the channel on a TV. At the moment, the princess had no idea where she was; all she could see was a dark warehouse, with only a tiny bit of moonlight let in through the windows.

'Where are you taking me?!'

Star turned in the direction of the voices.

'Hey! Tell me!'

The doors at the other side of room swung open, letting in a beam of light. Three silhouettes entered, consisting of what looked like two people pushing someone of smaller stature into the room. All the lights in the room abruptly flicked on, and Star got a good idea of what was going on.

Badam was being escorted by two Dímios lackeys into the room. Rather forcefully, at that, given how they kept pushing him forward every time he tried to resist. He looked up and his eyes widened at something behind her.

Star turned around. In the centre of the warehouse, there was a man forced on his knees. His hands were zip-tied tightly behind his back and a black bag obscured his face. The princess could hear faint, shallow breathing beneath the ominous bag.

Badam ripped his shoulder from one of the guard's grasps. He hesitantly inspected the man in the middle, cautiously curious. However, he recoiled away from the prisoner when he heard the sound of footsteps getting louder. Badam looked in their direction and saw them.

'Mr White?' he uttered, as the man in question walked into the room and stood behind the hooded man. 'What's going on?'

All semblance of ebullience had drained from White's face. 'Well, I hope you understand that that little ceremony was largely for tradition,' he said flatly. 'Your real initiation is now. There is one last thing you must do before I can send you out on your first assignment.'

'What's the point in a whole ceremony if you still don't think I'm ready?' he complained, letting his arms up in frustration.

'I understand where you are coming from,' claimed Mr White, although his voice lacked any sympathy. 'But you must consider. The Council was already wary about allowing an eleven-year-old into our ranks. I believe that you are already, but it seems we must do one last thing in order to placate them.'

Star nearly choked on the air. He was only ELEVEN when he became an assassin?! Her jaw had already dropped.

'I'll do what I must,' Badam said with a sigh. 'What do you expect me to do, Mr White?'

'Simple. Our friend here is no stranger to us. His name is Wilson. He's a disgraced agent of our Guild. Are you familiar with him?'

'Yes. Agent Alexander Wilson was among our top operatives, before he and Alice Blackley went rogue.'

He grinned thinly. 'Excellent. Very knowledgeable indeed.'

'So, what do you want me to do, then?' enquired the boy, his eyes flickering between White and Wilson.

Mr White didn't answer verbally at first. He simply walked over to Badam and reached behind his back to produce a strange, metal object. Badam frowned, clearly not recognising this piece of technology. Star, however, had watched enough action movies with Marco to know what it was. It was a gun. Mr White was giving a gun to an eleven-year-old.

'Our friends from Earth provided us with this unique item,' he explained coolly. 'I believe they call it a "pistol". It fires gunpowder in a metal casing, much like the muskets of our world.' He held the gun by the barrel and handed it over to Badam. 'Now: I want you to shoot him.'

Badam smirked.

'That's it?' he retorted. 'You just want me to shoot someone? Piece of cake.'

'Hmm.' White narrowed his eyes. 'But you've never killed anyone before. It's reasonable to assume you're not ready for it.'

'I'm ready for anything, Mr White.'

'Are you?' he challenged sceptically. 'In our line of work, murder is commonplace, and –'

'I know that already.'

'Don't interrupt me,' snapped White. 'You may be aware of the extent to which you must execute indiscriminately, but you will not truly understand the meaning of it, until you do it yourself. I want you to take this job seriously, Adam. Killing is not a laughing matter. It is not something I want you to derive pleasure from.' He tightened his fingers around the gun that Adam was now holding. 'Eliminate the target. Prove to the Council that you are more bark than you are bite.'

'P-Please…don't do this! I'm sorry!' Wilson cried.

'So desperate,' he mused. 'Take note of this, Adam. At the twilight of someone's life, their true colours will show. And Wilson has shown his true colours. A coward…a coward who failed to understand our true vision. Hiding behind that pointless crusade of yours, killing dozens of our agents!'

Badam appeared to ignore the exchange. He cocked the gun the way he remembered muskets being cocked. He slowly, ominously, began to point the pistol at the hooded man's head.

'No, please! It was the Shivers! I…I made a mistake. I don't deserve to die for it!'

'Quiet, blasphemer,' White silenced. 'Your death is sealed. And the Dímios do not negotiate.'

Mr White watched Badam intently, inspecting him for any kind of weakness. The boy trained the gun straight against Wilson's head, trying to keep his arm from shaking. White leaned into his ear.

'Remember, Adam: nothing is more important than the mission.'

Badam's finger squeezed shakingly on the trigger of the pistol. Try as he might, he couldn't click it into place. Maybe he didn't want to. Perhaps there was a tiny bit of humanity inside him was screaming at him that this was wrong. Desperately crying for him to stop himself before he went too far. Because how do you come back from this? Taking another life was a line that, once crossed, could never be uncrossed.

A poignant silence brewed throughout the room. Star looked into Badam's eyes, desperately hoping she would see some reluctance in there. When she looked into his grey irises, she saw something. She saw Adam. A small hint of her friend inside this dark counterpart, screaming to be set free. That ounce of humanity that you would never expect a Mewman to have. She was hoping Mr White hadn't noticed it.

Maybe…maybe he's not that bad. He's just a kid, maybe he can be –

Bang.

Star blinked.

Wilson slumped over onto the ground, dead. A pool of crimson blood started to collect around his head, dripping towards where Star was standing. No hint of life remained inside the empty husk that was once a person. Nothing left. No life. All death.

Badam stumbled backwards for a second. He dropped the gun and it clattered to the floor. Fresh gun-smoke rose up from the nozzle of the pistol, but it otherwise looked the same as it did before.

'I didn't doubt you for a moment, Adam,' praised Mr White, a bright, yet cold, smile on his face. 'Now the Council will not, either.'

He reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, causing the boy to release a breath that he wasn't aware he was holding. He brought him in a side-hug and walked him away from the body of Wilson. At the same time, White nodded to the two guards at the back, and they both left the room.

'You never forget your first kill.' The man hummed pleasantly to himself. 'And I believe you never should.'

Badam raised an eyebrow curiously. 'Do you…remember your first kill?'

'Oh yes,' White concurred. 'I had to carry out an assassination on a corrupt businessman on Atrios. Perhaps more high-profile than yours, but it shouldn't be considered more important.'

Badam a deep breath.

'I'm ready.'

White nodded, and the two guards returned with some papers. He took them from their hands and showed them to Badam.

'These are the details of your first assignment,' he told him. 'The first of many, I should think.'

The two of them walked away, leaving Star with the body of the late Wilson discarded on the floor.

Star couldn't bring herself to look at the dead body. There was just…so much blood. She was only watching, and yet she felt like she couldn't get the blood off her hands. So much blood, and to have been caused by an eleven-year-old. An eleven-year-old who looked almost exactly like Adam, to add insult to injury.

To have been forced to murder someone at such a young age was unfathomable to Star. It seemed like, for a moment, there was a wedge of redemption inside that kid, but she knew now that it had been ripped away.

All because of that Mr White. He seemed like Badam's main mentor, and perhaps father figure. Certainly not a good impression on the boy, that's for goddamn sure! This Mr White had taken an innocent baby and turned him into a cold-blooded killer. A person who doesn't think twice about who he has to kill, only how much he was gonna get paid while doing it.

Star stumbled backwards, almost tripping over the dead body. She almost fell over, but her back hit something solid and stopped her fall. Turning around, the princess realised this was the end of the memory – because the big wooden door she had entered through had now returned. It was standing incongruous to everything, plonked down like an afterthought.

As the princess shakingly reached for the door, the thought occurred to her that she hadn't seen much of HQ or learned anything about this "Angel". What little she saw had not been helpful, but perhaps with a little more information, she could open a portal directly there.

Star stepped out of the dreaded memory and escaped the horrific sight of a waterfall of blood on the ground. There was only so much she was going to take of this.

She had to push through. She knew it.

After all, this wasn't all about her. This was for Adam, and she couldn't let Adam suffer anymore because of her own incompetence.

Another day, another episode. What fun! I hope everybody who read this chapter enjoyed it. Sorry if you wanted Tom to be more of a focus, that's my fault for hyping this episode up as purely the redemption arc for him, when half of it is also dedicated to Badam's backstory. Because it was interesting to me, and I hope you found interesting too. It would be terribly counter-intuitive if I wrote it and people didn't like it.

I drew up multiple solutions to the problem of Star needing a way to find Adam. Originally, I was going to have her find the location to the headquarters and just walk there, but I realised that she probably couldn't get in anyway. Then I realised, the Dímios likely wouldn't know about the Butterfly ability to create portals (when in Full Butterfly form for Positive Butterflies) so their dimensional safeguards could not account for them, logically. Dimensional scissors designed only to access a certain location, or restrictions preventing other scissors from accessing it, were first established in Chapter 9 of Volume I when the royal dimensional scissors were shown to be capable of opening a portal to the Bureaucracy of Magic. I know that Hekapoo makes all dimensional scissors, but I'm pretty sure it's established in canon that it's possible to make your own, but they aren't "pure" like Hekapoo's scissors. I very doubt she made Rasticore's dimensional chainsaw, after all.

Part of Badam's mindscape is inspired by that one episode of Gravity Falls in which Bill first appears - where we see Dipper, Soos and Mabel go into Stan's head. The wooden house and the non-Euclidean space-time were both implemented here, but the idea of the house being broken, fragmented, and floating in the air was all me. You can go wild about the implications of Badam in that his mindscape looks like that, but I'm not gonna say anything. I know I have a tendency to lack subtlety, but even I know when it's best to show and not tell.

We're going to see two more memories before we get to the end. The third one, however, is a long one. I will say this: Badam has perhaps an even more tragic backstory than Adam. If that's possible. I intend for their lives to be parallels, of course, but whilst Adam can be an unlikeable guy, Badam is straight up a bad guy. He's an assassin who murders people indiscriminately, so he isn't going to get much respite.

I can't help but feel this story is just getting darker and darker as it goes on lol. I mean, this story was never on the lighter side, but having an eleven-year-old be manipulated into becoming an assassin is probably the limit. I mean, the only worse things are implied - Adam watched his parents be murdered when he was nine, and he saw Dark Star punch a hole through Beru when he was twelve. But you don't see that. I guess the darkest moment is really when Negative Janna died - THAT was pretty graphic. I've have to admit, my faithful readers, I have no intention of making the story less dark. I mean, I doubt it'll get darker, and there will be moments of levity of course. The episode right before the finale is gonna be mostly fluff.

I wanted this episode to be three chapters, honestly, but it'll probably be four. The third memory takes up a lot of the story, because it's a huge chunk of Badam's backstory. I can't really remove it, but I hope that it doesn't end up being boring. Being boring is the worst thing, man.

Tell me what you thought of this chapter, if you're so inclined. I love to hear feedback. Thanks to everybody who took the time to read this story.

I'll see you all next time for the next chapter of The Negative Multiverse: Volume II, entitled, "No Rest For the Wicked"!