Episode:
14: Warpshift

Armed with new knowledge and a glowing review from a flying magic cat, Adam presses forward with a risky attempt to shut the space-time fracture once and for all.

In the dead of night, Moon the Malevolent, also known as the Red Queen, calmly trudged down the steps immediately in front of her. Her dear River had been concerned for her health, to be up on her feet so soon, but the Queen did not need her frailer partner to lecture her about her duties. She loved her husband as much as any queen should, but King River could barely tell his arm from a leg of lamb. Or a blunt broadsword.

Whatever the case may be, Moon found herself marching through the halls towards one particular room. She was especially annoyed to have been disturbed, but she recognised that the Magic High Commission would not call for her attention without proper reason. Besides, this one was no simple alert. This one concerned an individual whose concerns were of something that the entire Butterfly Empire was a shareholder.

River hadn't been interested in attending even after the MHC had specified to whom the emergency meeting concerned. He was far more invested in the next round of pillaging parties, and their targeted attack on a group of dissident Mewmans. Whilst she respected his endless thirst for war, Moon was smart enough to know that the thrill of battle was an addiction that she could not afford to fall to. As the reigning monarch of a vast empire, the queen was well aware that crushing rebellions wasn't the only way to remain in power.

Even if stamping on ants was an extremely enjoyable past-time.

Moon arrived at her destination not long later. The destination in question was a bare stone room in the castle, so large that it could easily occupy an entire wing of a hospital. The walls were constructed of fine stone brick, not the most expensive one on the market, but suitable. There were no large windows considered typical of most castles, instead there were vertical rectangular slits in the walls that allowed arcs of pinkish-red light to shine into the room. The floor was comprised of wooden floorboards, which Moon had installed in place of stone so that the remaining budget could be reassigned elsewhere.

All members of the current Magic High Commission were present. Lekmet, Omnitraxus and Hekapoo were standing in the centre of the room (or resting on a table in the case of Omnitraxus). Curiously, Rhombulus was sitting in a chair at the very back corner of the room, with his arms folded tightly to his chest. Moon wasn't sure why, but she suspected she was about to find out.

'Your Highness,' Hekapoo greeted, with a small bow.

Moon hummed discontentedly to herself, not pleased with the level of respect the demon was showing. Hekapoo hid her flustered disposition and bowed again with more depth. Moon did not have any discernible response. Instead, her eyes snapped to Lekmet, who baaed worriedly and bowed hyperbolically. Before her gaze even met Omnitraxus, he looked like he was ready to collapse the stars themselves just to bow to her. When she did look at him, the ubiquitous deity nodded pensively to indicate some form of respect.

'Hekapoo,' the Queen replied evenly. 'I trust there is a reason for you to call me down here at this hour?'

'Y-yes, sire,' she stuttered. 'A-As we said in our message, this status update is concerning your daughter.'

'What of her?' Moon asked, batting an eyelid noncommittally. 'She was born merely two days ago, what could you possibly have unearthed in that time?'

'It is best you see for yourself, your Highness,' claimed Omnitraxus Prime, earning a glare from the queen. She would not be lectured on such trivial matters, especially not by lesser beings. Nonetheless, her concern for the future of the Butterfly Empire eclipsed her moderate irritation.

Moon nodded and walked over to where Lekmet and Omnitraxus were placed. They were circulating a medium-sized cot, their eyes wandering in that direction every few seconds. The cot itself was modest and unassuming, designed to avoid attracting attention from the wrong crowd. Peering inside, Moon spotted her daughter, Star Butterfly. She was shifting uncomfortably in her sleep, letting out a low wheeze every time her tiny mouth opened. Young Star truly was tiny, no bigger than a large potato. Moon had seen prettier potatoes than this one.

Hekapoo took out a small wooden device, shaped much like a curved letter T. It was a wireless Magical Barometer, only this one was specialised for Dark and Light magic, rather than mystion potency. Curious, but also concerned, Moon's eyes flickered between Star and the Alignment Barometer.

'We ran some tests on her magical instinct,' Hekapoo explained, gesturing vaguely towards the sleeping baby. 'Her potency was beyond anything we've ever seen for her age…but that's not why we brought you here.'

'Enlighten me,' the monarch prompted. Hekapoo responded by holding out the Alignment Barometer in front of the young Butterfly. The device immediately picked up a reading, ticking like a Geiger counter. Moon inspected it carefully, and her annoyed expression quickly turned to concern.

'It's completely in the Light,' Hekapoo explained. True to her claims, the pointer underneath the glass hovered comfortably in the far end of the "Light magic" section. 'Not a hair in the "Dark" direction. It's making me sick just looking at it.'

'That's why we should throw her to the tiger-wolves!' Rhombulus hollered angrily from the back. He harrumphed and folded his arms exasperatedly. Moon rolled her eyes. She could see now why he had been relegated to the corner.

'What is the cause of this affliction?'

The members of the MHC all stared each other warily. A great silence washed over them, which was altogether bolstered by Moon's hawk-like eyes. There were a few seconds of the queen simply staring expectantly at the four of them, even Rhombulus in the back. A cold shiver ran up Hekapoo's back, while Lekmet uttered a few baas that were untranslatable. There was hardly a noticeable reaction in the floating emerald mist that constituted Omnitraxus Prime, but there was a definite twitch in his eyes. Rhombulus, someone who definitely didn't understand subtlety, was currently sweating pearls under Moon's gaze.

'…Well?'

'The thing is…and I mean no disrespect, your Majesty,' Hekapoo stuttered. 'We…we just don't know.'

'What do you mean you "don't know"?!'

She looked away nervously. 'S-Such a thing hasn't happened in hundreds of years, your Majesty.'

'Then there is only one solution,' Moon said. 'Terminate this one. We will make another.'

'Wait, you misunderstand, Your Majesty!' Omnitraxus interrupted. The Queen's glare intensified a hundred-fold.

'What did you just say?'

'Star's readings are off the charts,' Omni informed her. Moon's gaze softened. She nodded for him to continue. 'By all accounts, she is radiating magical energy. She possesses potential like we have never seen…surpassing even you.'

'Interesting…' she hummed. 'It would be a waste to terminate such power.'

'Your Majesty,' said Hekapoo. 'Perhaps the child could be…moulded. She may have Light in her by nature, but if we raise her properly…she could become a matriarch of the Butterfly Empire.'

Moon considered the idea for a moment. She rubbed her chin whilst the Magic High Commission waited with bated breath.

'Yes,' the Queen ultimately concluded. 'You are right, Hekapoo. The child could be bent towards the Dark.'

'I assure you, Your Majesty,' Omnitraxus reassured, 'that your work will not go to waste.'

Indeed, Queen Moon was certain to raise Star Butterfly as ruthlessly effective as possible. Some might have called her abusive, but Moon called it pragmatic. Not that Star ever understood why Moon was so apprehensive about her. Her status as the Lightest Butterfly Ever was tacit among the members of the Magic High Commission, who kept a close eye on the princess to ascertain her alignment. None of them were entirely sure whether Star truly belonged to the Light or the Dark, no matter how many atrocities she committed.

Moon forbade any of the Magic High Commission from ever telling anyone the nature of Star's birth. It was a well-kept secret within the walls of the Butterfly Castle, so much so that the tale never left Mewni. The greater Butterfly Empire only knew of Star Butterfly's brutality, and fierce loyalty to her family.

Nobody could know.

Truth be told, Adam no longer saw the point of this inspection. In fact, he was sincerely hoping it would conclude sometime soon. Moon's insistence for him to be magically tested had gone on delayed long enough; Adam could no longer postpone it with claims that he was busy with things.

'Now that we are finished with the academic portion of this assessment, it is time to move on to the practical assessment.'

Adam looked up. A floating cat with light turquoise fur clicked the end of her pen and wrote something down on her clipboard. Her cute green eyes belied her strict evaluation of him. Lesser individuals would be fooled by her soft-spoken, sickly-sweet voice, but the Mewman could tell she was being ruthlessly fair with her judgment of him.

To most people, being assessed by a talking, flying cat would be more akin to a fever dream than reality. For him, this was just a normal day at the office.

Nodding, Adam stood up from his desk in his bedroom. He handed the floating cat his answer sheet. She snapped her fingers and the paper disappeared in a flash of light.

The warlock folded his arms impatiently. 'Alright, so what do you want me to do?'

'What do you think you should do?' responded Baby, her emerald eyes twinkling.

'I don't know, that's why you're testing me,' Adam deadpanned cynically. Baby hummed and wrote something down on her clipboard.

'Interesting.'

She zipped around him and took special interest in his right palm. Curious, the flying feline inspected his star-shaped scar. Adam flinched as he felt her tiny paws tracing the outline of the burn mark.

'Your wand is very similar to Star's.'

'My wand?' he questioned, frowning. 'It's just my hand. It's like a wand, sure, but it's…just a hand.'

She flew up to the side of his face and hummed a concordant tune. 'Would you prefer "wand-hand" or "hand-wand"?'

'Is this…part of the practical assessment?' Adam asked warily. 'Because I haven't actually cast any spells yet.'

'Well, then, Adam, how is your spellcasting?'

'My spellcasting? Uh, fine. I've made quite a lot of spells, but I like to use the spells from the Magic Instruction Book, too. Why make a spell where one already exists, right?'

'Hm, I see,' Baby commented, still maintaining her cute, high-pitched voice. She wrote something down on her notepad and looked back up at him. 'Interesting. And what would you say is your most powerful spell?'

'Light or Dark?'

'I have no concept of that,' she said brightly. 'I simply want to know the most powerful spell you have created.'

'Well…I suppose it has to be a tie between the Seal of Arybailos and Calysto Beam,' he said, rubbing his chin in thought. 'The power of the Seal is uncountable, really – it gives you power. How much power you get depends on how powerful you already are. And Calysto Beam is a really strong offensive spell. It can temporarily drain a target's mana or weaken object enchantments. Packs a punch, too.'

'Interesting,' muttered Baby, scribbling into her notepad. Adam rolled his eyes. How many times was she going to say that? He was beginning to think she only spoke up when it became necessary to acknowledge she had heard anything at all. 'Now: would you kindly bring me that apple, please?'

Adam frowned.

'Apple? What apple?'

She snapped her fingers, and a rosy-red apple appeared on the table in a puff of smoke.

'That one,' Baby said, her polite smile forever unflinching. Adam frowned incredulously. Bring her an apple with magic? Was that it? Seemed easy enough.

Adam pointed at the apple, and it was instantly encased in a blue mystical aura indicative of Levitato. He lazily levitated the apple telekinetically across the room towards the impassive flying cat. It shot towards her at breakneck speed, prompting her to transform into a purple mist and devour the apple in half a second. She returned back to her cat form and wrote something down on the clipboard yet again.

'Again, please,' she requested, conjuring another apple. Adam sighed.

'Why? I already did what you asked!'

'Again, please.'

'Fine,' he groaned.

At the snap of his fingers, Adam duplicated the apple a dozen times and hurtled them at the annoying feline. Nonchalant, Baby zipped around the apples in her mist form and consumed all of them in an instant.

Adam gave her a cynical smirk. 'That enough apples for ya?'

'Nope!' exclaimed Baby excitedly, snapping her fingers. Yet another apple appeared on the table.

'Are you kidding me?!' He aimed a hand irately at the apple. 'False Deployment!'

A series of eight duplicates of Adam appeared in a row across the room and rearranged themselves. Only one of them was the real one. All the others were holograms, mirages that were, for the most part, indistinguishable from the true counterpart. Illusion magic was something he had seldom delved into besides the Dream Entrapment Spell, but this particular one was a Light spell.

All of the clones walked over to the table and swiped up an apple, although only one of them picked up the real one.

'So, Baby: which apple is the real one?' chanted all the Adams in chorus, holding their apples out in front of her.

'Hmm…' hummed the cat, floating down the line of Adam clones. She came to a stop at the clone third from the end and nonchalantly plucked it out of his hand, devouring it whole. 'Easy peasy.'

All of Adam's clones flashed and faded away back into the real Adam, who was currently bemoaning in frustration. He couldn't tell if the issue was that the spell wasn't convincing enough, or Baby was simply too smart for him.

'More food, please.'

He scowled. 'What? No!'

'MORE FOOD, NOW!' Baby yelled abruptly, her face contorting into unbelievable, unadulterated apoplexy. Hardly intimidated, but nevertheless exasperated, Adam rolled his eyes.

'Marco!' Almost instantly, the squire burst into the room, carrying a huge platter of his Super Awesome Nachos.

'Tuck in, Baby!' he exclaimed. Baby transformed into her purple trail and swiftly breezed through the platter, almost knocking him off his feet. She returned to her cat form next to Adam, licking her paws clean.

'Thank you,' she acknowledged politely, before immediately using her magic to telekinetically slam the door shut in Marco's face. 'Okay, I think I have seen all that I need to see.'

She turned to leave.

'Wait, but I didn't even get to show you my most powerful spells!' complained Adam, holding out a hand to stop her from leaving. 'I only got to tell you about them!'

'The Magic High Commission and I are well aware of your magical accomplishments,' Baby informed him, floating towards the window in his bedroom. 'We are also aware of their basis in Dark magic.' Adam's breathing hitched. 'However, the Magic High Commission have reached a majority decision to allow your continued practice of the Dark Arts, given that you have used your talents to save the life of the princess, as well as the rest of the Butterfly Kingdom.'

Adam let out a sigh of relief, but his look of relief was supplanted by a frown a moment later.

'Wait, if you already knew about my…feats, in magic, what was the point in testing me?'

'Queen Moon requested a more academic opinion on your magic,' explained Baby, raising her little eyebrows. 'She wanted to evaluate your magical aptitude to see how it compares to other Butterflies.'

It didn't escape Adam's notice that she used the word "other", as if to imply that he was a Butterfly himself.

'Uh…well, how did I do?'

Baby responded by flicking through several pages of notes. Once she reached the end, she clicked the end of her pen with a tone of finality.

'You passed.'

'Oh! Um. Great!' he stuttered in surprise. Baby smiled at him, before disappearing out the window in a flurry of purple smoke.

Adam was left wondering what exactly Baby thought of his magical aptitude. She certainly didn't seem the forthcoming type. He was almost tempted to use the All-Seeing Eye to check, but he felt Baby might know he was watching.

What did you think, Baby?

It did not take very long for Baby to find Moon in the castle; she was sitting at a meeting table with the rest of the Magic High Commission, as well as River adjacent to her. Once Baby entered the room with a puff of mist, Moon looked up at her with a polite smile.

'Ah, Baby. I take it you have completed your evaluation?' asked the Queen. Baby nodded.

'How did the young man do?' enquired River.

Rhombulus shot up from the table. 'Tell me we can just crystallise him!'

'He is…interesting. Most interesting indeed,' said Baby, looking over her notes once again. 'Master Butterfly is perhaps the most interesting Butterfly I have ever assessed.'

Moon cocked her head to the side. 'He is not a Butterfly.'

'Neither are you,' she replied unflinchingly. Moon wasn't even going to attempt to question how she knew that. 'It is simply a matter of making it official.'

'I can't do that, Baby,' the Queen stated flatly. 'Can you imagine how many nobles would be outraged if someone were inexplicably elevated to royal status, despite having no claim to it?'

'Well, everyone in the castle knows his name,' said Hekapoo, flicking a bit of earwax out of her ear absentmindedly. 'It's only a matter of time before the rest of the Kingdom finds out about him.'

It didn't surprise Moon that Hekapoo was so nonchalant about granting a commoner royalty. She did the same with Festivia, after all!

'My decision is final,' Moon rebuffed, turning back to Baby. 'So, what was your assessment of Adam?'

'Well, he lacks imagination,' the flying cat replied coolly. 'It is much more difficult for him to create spells than other Butterflies. If a spell exists which fits the situation, he will use it. Rather than create his own – which is something I would expect from your daughter – he will instead take a spell from his Magic Instruction Book. I think it is quite telling that his two most powerful spells involve altering the magical power of someone or something. In terms of potential, he seemed the lowest I had ever seen.'

'Ha! Called it!' Hekapoo declared excitedly. 'I told you months ago, Moon. Exceptionally low potential.'

'If you would let me finish,' snapped Baby, her blissful smile and ebullient voice turning passive aggressive. 'It seemed he possessed a low potential. That was until I witnessed his magic for myself. Despite his lack of imagination, his application of his current magic is exceptional. His magical potential easily rivals Eclipsa's, and Star's. In fact, I would go as far as to say that, in many ways, his skill level exceeds yours, Queen Moon.'

'Mine? You mean my skill level at his age?'

'No, my Queen,' she replied, shaking her oversized head. 'I mean your current skill level.'

A series of gasps from the seated Commission permeated the air. The only person who did not gasp was Omnitraxus, whose skeletal face was forever unflinching and unfazed.

'I was already aware,' Omnitraxus claimed. 'I can read his magical signature. Baby is correct.'

'And that's not all,' Baby continued. 'His study into the field of intermultiversal travel is truly revolutionary, and his aptitude for Dimensional magic is nothing short of exceptional. He is surpassed only by Hekapoo, but their magic is kindred.'

'Well, duh,' the demon in question said, relaxing in her chair. 'He ain't got nothing on me!'

'When do you expect Adam to reach his full potential?' queried Moon, straightening in her chair.

'I don't know,' she confessed, fluttering her wings and landing on the table in front of her. 'I do not think his magic has a limit. However, I have noticed that there appears to be something holding him back. After sufficient time with his magic, he has begun to take it for granted, using it for menial labour. Perhaps, he does not yet truly understand the true magnitude of his magic, so cannot fully apply it. Should he reach past that barrier, it is entirely possible that he could become one of the most powerful sorcerers in the known multiverse.'

'Fascinating…' Moon mused, rubbing her chin pensively.

'Sounds dangerous,' Hekapoo commented. 'If it weren't for him saving the entire kingdom, I would probably be yelling with Rhombulus to crystallise him.'

'He's dangerous,' Rhombulus advised, surprisingly not yelling for once in his life. 'If you refuse to crystallise him, then we should at least put him on our watchlist.'

Not too long ago, Moon would have wanted him crystalised, too, just like they did Eclipsa, for his excessive use of the Dark Arts. Part of her still did. However, ever since Moon uncovered the true nature of Meteora and Festivia, with Eclipsa, shortly after Adam had gotten her to see the error of her ways about the Queen of Darkness, her opinion had started to shift. It was much harder to trust the judgement of the Magic High Commission knowing that they so casually lied to her family for generations.

At least Hekapoo had seen that Adam truly had good intentions. She seemed to have taken a bit of a shine to him since he saved Star. Not that she would ever want to admit it.

'We will not do anything of the sort,' decided Moon.

'Like Hekapoo said, he saved the kingdom!' added River. 'He should be given a warrior's reward, not be encased in crystal!'

'He has been trained by Eclipsa,' Omnitraxus pointed out. 'She is his mentor. How do you know he will not turn out like she did? How do you know for certain he has not been corrupted by Dark magic?'

'And what if Eclipsa didn't turn out as badly as we previous thought?' suggested the Queen. The Magic High Commission gasped at her claims. Even after the trial, they refused to see Eclipsa as anything other than the Queen of Darkness.

'Such a suggestion is blasphemy!' spat Rhombulus.

'Blasphemy? Against whom?' Moon criticised. 'Do you consider yourself gods? Or that your word exceeds my own?'

'What he means, your Highness,' Hekapoo interjected, 'is that Eclipsa is considered evil by many for a reason. Like it or not, she married the Monster King – a man who ate Mewmans by the dozen. If she can enable that, what might her favourite student become under her tutelage?'

'I have been watching him, and he is not evil,' the Queen reasoned. 'And Hekapoo, you spied on him for several weeks. Did you find anything substantial to suggest that his Dark magic has "corrupted" him in any way?'

'No,' confessed the infernal demon, quietly under her breath. 'We've lived our lives for many centuries condemning Dark magic. It's…difficult, to see Dark magic as anything other than evil.'

'Your feeble constructions of Light and Dark magic are largely subjective,' chimed Baby. 'Magic is magic. Nothing more or less than how you perceive it.'

'Then perhaps the best course of action is to simply watch Adam from afar,' Moon said, exchanging glances with the other members of the Commission. They all gave reluctant nods, even Rhombulus.

'It would seem so,' Baby agreed. 'I am certain of one thing, Moon: we can expect many great things from Adam Butterfly.'

Speaking of Adam, the roguish would-be Butterfly was gathered with his four assigned Ambassadors for Magic down in the Butterfly Crypt below the castle. The Ambassadors had been waiting for him to arrive, which meant he had to explain why he was fifteen minutes late. Explaining that a talking, flying cat burst in on him to assess his magical powers was not a fun conversation.

He'd been at this for weeks now. It had been over a month since Moon had introduced him to the space-time fracture, and progress had been slower than expected. That being said, it was still quite a steady pace. He started changing the times of the meetings to later on in the day. Instead of 6am, it was a more comfortable 9am. On Saturdays, this also meant he didn't have to worry about missing the Royal Family breakfast meal at 9:45am, since that was only on weekdays.

Adam was close to figuring this whole thing out. He just knew it. The key to intermultiversal travel was on the horizon. After eight months spent studying and inventing the magic behind the multiverse, he was finally going to achieve his long-time goal.

Following the failed experiment just prior to the Entrapment Crisis, as it had been dubbed, Adam devoted a lot of time trying to figure out the cause behind its failure. Eventually, he realised that the reason it didn't work was because he needed to supply a constant shockwave of magic–anti-magic feedback straight into the heart of the fracture.

The only problem was, he had no idea how to cause a continued shockwave like that. When the positive feedback of magic occurred, when combined with high-energy anti-magic, it only ever produced a single shockwave. From his standpoint, it was impossible to continually produce a shockwave like that.

Or rather, that was what he had thought. Until now.

'I know what we need to do,' Adam announced, standing in front of the fracture before the Ambassadors for Magic. 'I want all of you to hit me with everything you got. I will open a portal to the Realm of Magic and use it as a relay, to create a constant wave of energy.'

It was the same trick that Blue Glossaryck had used a couple weeks ago to spread the Dream Entrapment counter-curse throughout the kingdom. That was where he picked it up. It worked for that counter-curse, so there was nothing to say it couldn't be used in other ways. Maybe that was Blue Glossaryck's intention.

'We've got your back, Adam,' Astoria assured him, earning an appreciative smile from the Mewman.

It still surprised him that a woman so much older than him would show him so much respect as a leader, but he guessed he had earned their respect when he won the War Games and secured peace for the next generation of the Mace Kingdom. Regardless, there was still a lot that he could learn from her, considering she had much more experience than he did.

Adam nodded. 'Okay, are you guys ready?' Colton, Trent, Astoria and the fourth Ambassador, Seymour, nodded at him confidently. He nodded back and executed a series of circular hand movements, before pulling apart his fingers as though he was straightening frayed piece of string.

A dazzling, shimmering golden portal to the Realm of Magic puckered open into a powerful relay. It looked quite similar to the usual portals Adam opened, or the ones Star opened in her Full Butterfly, but commensurately, exponentially larger. It was almost beautiful, in a sense, and Adam could see why it was so attractive. It was a lot of power, concentrated in one place.

Not that this dimension was the location that Adam drew power from. In actuality, he drew power from the Realm of Magic in the Negative Multiverse; its reach extended beyond its own multiverse, likely due to the dimensional bridges connecting the two multiverses.

'Okay, give me everything you got!' Adam yelled over the noise of the portal. He heard all of them chant the same incantation.

''''SOLARIAN BLAST!''''

That was the main offensive spell that they knew, taught to them by Adam. Ambassadors weren't trained in Battle magic all that much; that really wasn't in their job description. They knew the basics, but the Solarian Blast was the most powerful and most versatile one on offer.

Adam winced as he felt the initial brunt of the four Solarian Blasts hitting the portal in front of him. He doubled his resolve and felt his mana slowly whittling away. For a moment, he was tempted to use the Seal, but he knew he could maintain the portal without it.

When the warlock decided there was enough energy, he snapped the portal shut and spun it around, reopening it. Nonchalant, he cast an anti-magical Solarian Blast straight into the portal.

'Get back!' Adam instructed the Ambassadors, jumping behind the portal with them and pointing it at the fracture.

A massive shockwave of energy exploded out of the portal. A second later, another wave followed it, and then another and another until there was a near-constant stream of interdimensional energy flowing out of the shimmering golden gateway.

Adam watched the fracture with a keen eye. Slowly, but surely, the glassy fissures began to seal themselves back up, like windscreen cracks being coated in resin. He allowed himself a small smile as the cracks began to disappear, but he chose to err on the side of caution and avoid getting his hopes up.

'Now!' yelled Astoria.

In bated breath, Adam deactivated the portal, and one final shockwave of energy violently shook the crypt. A bright explosion of light cascaded from the fading fractures, prompting Adam to hold up his forearm to block it out. When the light died down, the Mewman tentatively lowered his arm, unsure what he might find.

A thousand-kilowatt smile shone on Adam's face when he saw that, at last, the space-time fracture had fully dissipated. The fabric of reality stabilised; the weakened walls between the multiverses closed.

For about three seconds.

After which, several gleaming glassy cracks ripped through the air, spreading farther and further than before. The smile on Adam's face dropped instantly. The fracture was now the twice the size it was before.

'Everyone,' he announced, clenching his fists. 'I think this session is over. You all may leave now.'

'Adam –' Astoria began.

'Now.'

Three of the Ambassadors shuffled out the room through portals on his command. Astoria hung back for a moment, wavering in the event horizon of the portal, but ultimately, she chose to follow her fellow Ambassadors. The portal snapped shut a second later, leaving Adam alone with the space-time fracture.

Once he was on his own, the teen began pacing about the room with his teeth clamped.

'DAMMIT!' yelled Adam, kicking the side of a stone coffin. He marched over to the centre of the fracture and grabbed it with his hands. The fracture lit up in response to his touch. 'Why won't you close?!'

Not thinking straight, he began blindly tearing apart the fracture. The cracks split apart, widening at the seams. It didn't occur to him what he was doing, only his brazen anger at the heart of the fracture. When he was finally done, a luminous white vortex swept through the crypt.

Adam threw his arms down, unleashing the full brunt of his frustration on the space-time vortex. He didn't know what spell he was casting, or where it came from. All that the warlock understood was that he was pouring all his mana into a massive, black beam of energy straight into the soul of the fractured vortex. It was power beyond anything he knew that he was capable of casting, and probably the most powerful spell that he had ever seen.

Certainly not a spell he could control. He was sent hurtling into the back wall of the crypt, knocking the anger out of him in an instant.

'Oh…that hurt,' he groaned, rubbing his head. He looked up groggily, and what he saw woke up him immediately.

The shimmering glassy cracks in the fabric of reality broke down and collapsed into a crackling, ominous purple and black portal. Webs of black energy spread out from the event horizon, intensifying the portal. It grew larger and larger, until it filled the whole wall of the crypt. It began to suck the fragments of rock around it.

'Shit!' cried Adam, as he felt his traction on the ground slipping. 'Calysto Beam!'

The cyan beam of light he produced was quickly and easily swallowed by the thunderous wormhole. It faltered for a second, slowing down almost inconceivably, before it continued its pull on him.

'Hey Adam…' a voice called from outside the crypt. Hardly paying attention to anything, Star Butterfly walked into the room with her eyes transfixed on a box of cereal she was holding. She threw one of the pink flakes in her mouth. 'Marco told me to share some of Captain Blanche's Sugar Seeds with you, and –'

A brief but powerful earthquake shook her off her feet. Half the pink contents of the cereal box were dumped onto the ground, scattering across the concrete floor. Star immediately jumped down to scoop it all up. 'No! My Sugar Seeds! Argh, it's all hairy and dusty now…'

'STAR!'

'What? It's not my fault –' she began, before she finally looked up.

Adam was currently hanging by his Ropes of Binding around a stone stature, currently stuck mid-air against being sucked into a swirling purple portal.

It only took a second before Star felt her feet slipping. Alarmed, Star took out her wand.

'Bunny Rabbit Blast!'

A stream of bunnies hit the ground, for a moment, pushing her away from the portal. However, the suction force of the singularity overcome the force of the spell, drawing the beam of the spell away from the ground. Several rabbits were pulled into the event horizon of the wormhole.

Widening her eyes, Star transformed into her Full Butterfly form and batted her wings. She flew over to where Adam was clinging onto his Ropes for dear life.

'What in the name of pegasus feathers did you do?!' she demanded.

Star felt the mounting pressure of the portal pulling against her, forcing her to flutter her wings as fast as she could. Even that wasn't enough, and she began to get pulled towards the singularity. Fortunately, she was fast enough to grab hold of Adam's leg and prevent her fall.

'What the hell happened?!' she yelled, just over the noise of the whipping winds of the portal.

'I'll explain later!' Adam exclaimed. 'Right now, I need your help! Throw everything you've got at that portal, and I'll combine it with my anti-magic!'

'Okay, got it!'

'On my count!' he ordered. 'Three, two, one…now!'

'Omega Blast!'

'Calysto Beam!'

Star's six ruby red Omega beams combined with Adam's larger cyan Calysto Beams and struck the edges of the portal. For a moment, the portal failed to absorb it, and the force it exerted began to loosen. Adam knew not to get his hopes up by now, and he was proven right when, eventually, the bright blue colours were subsumed by the black and purple wormhole.

Things got somehow even worse, though. Adam suddenly felt his Ropes of Binding being pulled taut, and his grip began to slip. The strength of the portal had doubled, almost as if to antagonise him.

Cracks began to form in the statue the ropes were wrapped around. Small chunks of stone snapped off, hurtling past them into the portal. Star and Adam exchanged a brief look of concern before the smashing of stone echoed throughout the room.

The remains of the statue that Adam reluctantly relied upon flew past them, and with it, the disintegrating remains of his Ropes of Binding.

Neither of them had much time to process this; it all happened so fast. One moment, the two of them were clinging on as though all life in the universe depended upon it, and the next, the pair were sent hurtling towards the portal. Black and purple colours swallowed them whole, like a jagged mouth clamping its jaws around them.

The Positive Multiverse was ripped out from under them, and the crackling dimensional bridge yanked the pair towards a place far more negative.

On a quiet and peaceful evening, or as quiet and peaceful as one can expect around here, you would be forgiven for thinking there would be no surprises. The grass stood tall and bent, the flowers withered, and the wicked trees shook softly in the warm breeze. In the sky, a vast super-storm remained fixed in its path around northern Mewni, unconcerned, with its thunderous winds torturing the land below. As the sun was slowly bleeding into the inky night, descending below the horizon with grace, it was perfectly reasonable to assume that the static danger of this dimension would not escalate anytime soon.

Obviously, you would be wrong.

Out of nowhere, a dark purple portal opened eight feet above the ground. Assorted fragments of stone were thrown onto the thin grass below. A teenager was dumped onto the ground with a thud, yelling all the while in flight. A moment later, another teenager followed her, discarded onto his back as he was trying to get up.

'Sorry…' Star mumbled, pushing herself off of him. She looked up. The portal began to flicker, but before it closed, it sputtered out a box of Captain Blanche's Sugar Seeds straight onto her head. The rest of the contents of the cereal lay scattered across the floor beside her. 'Aw, c'mon! That was my favourite cereal!'

'Star!' A voice complained behind her. She turned to see that Adam was standing over her, arms folded. 'I think we're beyond cereal right now!'

'Where…are we?' asked the princess, rubbing her head. 'Is this…Mewni?'

Adam looked around for a few seconds, before he spotted something in the distance and his eyes widened.

'Shit.'

He looked up and around him, expecting a portal to open up somehow and offer them quarter. 'DAMMIT!'

'What? What is it?'

He swallowed a gulp of air.

'We're in the Negative Multiverse.'

'How…can you tell?' stammered Star, getting up off the ground. Adam pointed to something off in the distance. Curious, she got a look at what he was indicating at.

Off in the distance, a twisting dark purple vortex of clouds hovered above the land, dominating the clouds. Green lightning flickered through the purple clouds, creating flashes of blue hues. It had to have been hundreds of miles in diameter, generating a threatening magical aura that rattled Star's spine and sent shivers down her back.

'The Great Solarian Storm.'

'Woah,' she remarked, staring at it next to him. 'What is it? What caused it?'

'Nobody is quite sure,' the warlock replied. 'It's been waging for hundreds of years. It was created by Queen Solaria Butterfly, by accident. Nobody knows the exact reason why, but it's believed she was trying to purge Mewni of its remaining Monsters. Instead, she created a vicious storm that will forever mar the surface of Mewni. The Storm is so powerful that it killed Solaria, herself. Since the person who created it died moments later, it's pretty much permanent.'

He sniffed in indignation at his own description.

'It's mostly just an environmental hazard,' he elaborated. 'The Great Solarian Storm is pure and bred evil, but it has circulation patterns. If you pay close enough attention, there are regions on Mewni where it never touches. Butterfly Castle's one of them, and where we are right now…this is next to my old bunker.' He briefly cast Octarinis on the area around him. 'Nothing…damn. Looks like Gloss's wards have gone down. It's probably too dangerous for us to stay here. Still…we should keep out of the way of the Storm. It has…strange effects on the wildlife. Turns plants wicked, mutates animals, blocks out the sun…and you stand too long in its presence, you get smited.'

'Uh, it might not be so easy to stay out of its way.'

Adam blinked.

'Why?'

Star pointed warily towards the Storm. 'It's…it's coming towards us.'

'Pff, no way,' he scoffed, giving a cursory inspection. However, his jeering demeanour fell when he noticed it. Indeed, the vortex was twisting in their direction, moving slowly, but surely, towards them. 'That's…that's not supposed to happen! It's never passed through this part of the Farlands before.' He gulped. 'We need to get out of here. And soon.'

'Easy peasy!' Star exclaimed, transforming into her bright Full Butterfly form in an instant.

'No, wait, Star –!'

'And open!' She waved her hand in front of her. Nothing happened. No portal. No nothing. 'And…open!' Nope. Still nothing. 'OPEN! Uh, why isn't this working?'

'Change back, now!' Adam ordered. Star blinked and turned back into her normal form. 'You can't open portals around here, Star. Ever since I stole the royal dimensional scissors two and a half years ago, the Butterfly Empire started enforcing tighter restrictions on dimensional teleportation. I don't know how, but they made it so you can't open portals anywhere in the multiverse, unless you're a part of the Royal Family or a member of the Magic High Commission. Or you're Glossaryck.

'Glossaryck managed to put some wards around my bunker that allowed me to bypass it and open portals…but now, his spells have collapsed. We're back to square one. Well, actually, the pure dimensional scissors that Hekapoo makes are able to bypass the restriction field, but good luck finding one. They're rarer than anti-matter. Dimensional scissors are illegal and only the pure ones will work.'

'Well…what happened to the scissors you stole?' Star asked hopelessly.

'I left them in my drawer in my bedroom back in the castle,' Adam replied, folding his arms. Star glanced away for a moment, before another thought came to her.

'Wait, you said Glossaryck cast a spell to bypass the field, right? Can't we replicate that?'

'Ha! Not a chance,' he retorted. 'That was magic that only he understood. It isn't something either of us will be capable of. Besides…don't use too much magic around here.'

'Why not?'

'Star –'

'Stop right there!'

Adam and Star turned to see that a group of Mewman Knights were approaching them from atop the hill behind them.

Crap, Adam thought. A scouting party.

'Wait a minute…' the leader of the knights uttered in realisation. He stared at Star. 'Princess Star? What are you doing out here?'

'Oh!' chirruped Star, almost having forgotten what she looked like. 'Um…well, I was just out, um, hunting. Yep. Hunting.'

'Well, if that is the case then…' his voice trailed off when his eyes fell upon Adam's purple cheek marks. '…who is this individual with you? He possesses the mark of a Butterfly! He has stolen magic!'

'No, no, no! It's fine,' the princess pleaded. 'He's, uh, he's a relative. From the, uh…the, the Mace Kingdom!'

'The Mace Kingdom?' the Knight Commander repeated, a dubious look on his face. 'The Mace Kingdom hasn't existed for decades, young lady. They were conquered and subsumed into the Empire long before you were born. Princess Star would not know of them, so how exactly do you?'

'Well, uh…I, um –'

'Impostor!' accused the knight. 'She purports false claim to the throne! A heretic in the night! Men…charge!'

On his command, the five knights drew their swords and charged towards the two of them.

'Narwhal Blast!' cried Star, taking out her wand and pointing it at them. A stream of cyan-coloured narwhals shot out her wand, slamming into one of the charging knights. 'Narwhal Blast!' The other four knights were quick enough to dodge the second blow, which was slightly troubling for Adam. What was more troubling for him, perhaps, was how much the princess kept spamming that spell at them in some vain effort to hit them.

'Star! I said not to overdo it on the magic!' he warned.

'But why?'

'I'll explain later!' Adam growled irascibly. 'Melting Point!'

The mud and grass below the knights began to warp and liquefy, becoming something akin to quicksand. Slowly, but surely, the knights began to sink into the ground, slowing their movements to a crawl. They visibly struggled to move against the tide of the melted ground, becoming sealed into the mud as it hardened around their joints.

Irritated, Adam clenched his fingers, as his hands began to glow with purple energy. Raising his hands, he caused the knights to be ripped out of the ground and held, immobilised, in the air. Thrusting forward his arms, Adam unleashed a rippling wave of purple energy and sent the four conscious knights flying back. Each of them crashed into the ground with a loud thud and rolled back down to the base of the hill alongside the fifth knight.

The warlock turned to Star.

'You need to be more careful, Star. It's –'

'Aaaaaaaah!'

Adam turned around to see that one of the knights was doing one last, mad dash at him, flailing sword in his direction. Unimpressed, he knocked him out with one swift Solarian Blast.

However, as he did so, he noticed that the Knight Commander wasn't unconscious. Rather, he was lying on the ground, trying to seem innocuous, as he was bent over and trying to hide something from him.

'Hey!' Adam called, raising his hand and causing the Knight Commander to float up into the air, encased in a purple aura. 'What do you think you're doing?'

A small black device slipped out of his hands and fell onto the floor. Curious, he picked it up and inspected it. His eyes widened when he realised what it was. A radio. Adam held it up to his ear.

'Your request for assistance with trespassers is currently being processed,' replied the radio. 'Your location: Farlands. Estimated response time: fourteen minutes.'

'You…you sent word back to the castle, didn't you?' Adam realised, staring owlishly at the commander. The knight smirked.

'Try…argh…dealing with the rest of us, prick.'

'Shit!' he exclaimed. 'I can't have you blabbing to the Empire about us!'

Adam threw his right arm forwards between the group of five knights. A bubble of magical energy appeared around their head, and soon, they were all hoisted into the air by the mystical aura. Without batting so much as an eyelid, he twisted his wrist around one-eighty degrees.

In one smooth motions, all five of the knights' necks were snapped. A sickening crunch of bone rang through Star's ears as their dead bodies slumped to the ground, unthinking and unfeeling.

Gone. For the rest of eternity. Cursed to a realm of deafening silence, in an absence of existence until the end of time.

'We don't have enough time to hide the bodies,' said Adam, his sharp voice cutting through the silence. 'Come on. Let's go.'

As Adam turned to leave, he inevitably noticed that Star wasn't following him. Rather, she was standing completely still, her eyes staring, petrified, at the corpses of the Mewman Knights.

'Star…?'

'You…you killed them,' she sputtered. 'You killed them!'

'I didn't have a choice, Star,' Adam responded flatly. 'If I hadn't, they would have told the Queen about us. We need to lay low, not draw attention to ourselves.'

'How can you say that?' Star balked. 'You always have a choice!'

He groaned. 'Ugh, not this again.'

'Yes, "this again"!' she yelled. 'You could have at least tried to reason with them! You didn't have to kill them!'

'Oh, please!' Adam scoffed. 'This isn't the world that you know. You can't solve all your problems in fifteen minutes with a few kind words and a wave of your magic wand!'

'But…those people had lives of their own. Don't you care?'

'Of course I care! What makes you think I wanted to kill them?' He scowled at her. 'Look, Star. If you're gonna survive in my world, you play by my rules. Kill, or be killed. Got it?'

Star gulped down the lump in her throat. She mustered the strength to tear her eyes away from the bodies and look at Adam. She nodded meekly.

'Come on,' the more forceful Mewman instructed, walking off into the nearby Forest of Certain Death.

Star remained still for a moment, staring in his wake. A gasp quivered in her throat, seeping out her lips like air escaping through holes in a balloon. Reluctantly, she chased after her supposed friend into the twisted forest. She caught up to him as he was wading through the sharp thorns.

'So…what actually happened?' asked the princess, after a long silence. 'How did we end up here?'

'You didn't notice the massive fucking portal?'

'Ugh, yes,' Star groaned. 'You know what I meant. How did it get there?'

'I…I caused it. It was my fault,' he confessed, catching her by surprise. 'I was trying to close the fracture. I was getting close, too! I got mad and…accidentally ripped up the fracture. And a portal opened.'

'So how do we get back?'

'I don't know,' Adam replied guiltily, as the two of them trudged deeper into the forest. 'The only way to open intermultiversal portals is by using ancient dimensional bridges that connect our two multiverses. I only know the one…and I could only access it from the fracture. Until we can figure out a way back, we just need to find some shelter. Somewhere far enough away from civilisation. It'll be safer to find supplies in the morning.'

All the while Adam was explaining this, Star was only listening intently for the first half. As they were passing through a rock bed, a bright pretty light caught her eye. She turned and bent down to inspect a small nest of stone, wood and twigs, curious. A gentle stream of luminous green insects, no bigger than a cockroach, crawled peacefully out the rocks and up a nearby tree.

'Woah…' she remarked in wonder. 'Pretty. Maybe this place isn't so bad.'

Enamoured entirely by their beauty, Star tentatively reached out to touch them on their bioluminescent backs.

An ear-piercing, debilitating subsonic screech wracked her ears. Without question, it came from the glowing bugs. Star covered her ears with her hands by instinct, desperately trying to push the deafening noise out of her eyes. She fell to her knees, practically incapacitated. She reluctantly removed one hand off her ear, suffering the consequences, in order to take out her wand.

'Hyper Inferno Death Blast!' cried the princess through the noise, summoning a huge maelstrom of burning pink flames. She threw down her wand and set half of the tree alight with magenta fire. As the bugs burned and died, the sounds fell to silence.

'Ugh, Star!' Adam groaned, appearing behind her. Rolling his eyes, he produced a sharp gust of wind, snuffing out the magic flames in an instant.

'What the…HELL…were those things?' Star complained, rubbing her ear out with her pinky finger in pain.

'Sonar bugs,' he explained, helping her to her feet. [35] 'They release a sonic scream whenever they feel threatened. It's a defence mechanism.'

'Yep. Got the sound part…'

She beat her ear to soothe the last vestiges of pain that pulsed through her eardrum.

'What did I tell you about using magic?' Adam warned irritably, as the princess just about recovered from the pain.

'You still haven't told me why.'

'Omnitraxus Prime,' the warlock replied. 'Omnitraxus can easily detect the disturbances your magic causes. Even the slightest ones. You need to be careful.'

'Yeah, well…you seem to be quite liberal with your magic.'

'That's because it isn't magic,' he reminded her. 'Technically, it's anti-magic. Around here, my magic is normal, so it blends in with the rest. Omnitraxus wouldn't notice anti-magic, but he would notice magic. Until further notice…put your wand on low power. It's the only way to be safe.'

Star nodded and adjusted the crystal gem at the base of the Royal Magic Wand. The glowing crystal in the centre panel died down, and the usually jovial red hearts darkened to a shade of wine-red. As for the rest of the wand, the saturation decreased, like all the colours had been sucked away from it in an instant.

To Star, it looked profoundly less interesting now, but, as much as she hated to admit it, Adam had much more experience in surviving this place than she did. If he was so adamant that they were in danger whenever she used her wand at its base power, then perhaps there was some merit in considering his suggestion. After all, the only way they were going to survive – well, if she was going to survive – was if they worked together.

'Star?' Adam called. She looked up and realised he was already far ahead, on the other side of a river crook. 'There's a cave entrance nearby. We can stay the night there and wait for the Storm to pass. Follow me!'

[35] It took me over 217k words, 658 pages, 26 chapters and 12 episodes to finally pay off Red Glossaryck's mention of sonar bugs way back in Chapter 6. It was always my intention for it to be paid off in a later episode where they are on Negative Mewni, but it's almost unbelievable that I actually got there!

I apologise for the particularly abrupt ending there, but this chapter was getting long as it is, and I needed a place to cut it in half. But overall, this chapter has been an absolute blast to write. This plotline, where Adam and Star are trapped on Negative Mewni, was something I had conceptualised from the very beginning. You can see that with the mention of sonar bugs in Chapter 6.

Spending more time on Negative Mewni has been important to me from the start. I mean, the story has Negative Multiverse in the title! However, with Adam being trapped on Positive Mewni, I had to build up the way there.

That ended up taking over 200k words, but I got there! Exploring this hell-stricken world is going to be fun. It's a lot of stuff from my own imagination, especially regarding the various creatures created by the Great Solarian Storm, or by Dark Moon. I'm also going to be driving home the building tension between Adam and Star that started last episode. I'm not going to spoil too much, but this is going to be a major contributing factor in this three-episode arc.

I'm also going to warn you all now: this arc is going to be particularly traumatic. Just a fair warning. Star and Adam are not going to have an amazing time. However, I will be delving more into the lore and history of Negative Mewni, and it feels like now is the time.

As for this chapter itself, there's a lot going on. I very much wanted the flashback at the beginning to be in this chapter, at the very start of the arc, even though it doesn't really become super relevant until towards the end. I felt it made things more cyclical and tied things together. It did mean I had to cut the end short, of course.

The assessment by Baby at the beginning was something I devised of last-minute before I started writing. It will become important for the final arc, so it's not just extra detail about Adam that Chapter 9 of Volume I did not reveal. It IS important, I just put it in here rather than later. I watched the Baby episode recently, so that's where the idea to bring her in for this chapter came. Adam has the potential to match Star and Eclipsa, because his magic has unlimited potential, but he isn't quite there yet. He can stalemate Star in a fight, but Star has always been more powerful than him, whilst Adam is smarter. There's a lot of hurdles he will have to jump to in order to reach his potential, something that Baby hinted at.

I also introduced a new spell: False Deployment. There's also just a general show of how Adam has advanced in magical skill since the very beginning. It's been about 8 months since Adam first arrived on Positive Mewni. The line about Adam "exceeding" Moon's skill level doesn't mean he's stronger than her necessarily. Baby specifically said, "in many ways", in reference to his accomplishments/talents in Alteration magic (Seal of Arybailos), Dimensional magic (portal creation), Multiversal magic (self-explanatory) and Illusion Magic (Glamours/False Deployment). Moon still exceeds him in several other respects, in case you think Adam's power level is inconsistent.

Anyways, I can't think of much else to say other than a thank you for all my readers' supports. I will never cease to mention my appreciation for it. The next chapter is called 'A Day in the Life', so I think you can imagine what that is all about.

See you then!