Episode:
16: Get Me Out of Here

With tension between Adam and Star at an all-time high, Dark Star's past is revealed. The two friends are swiftly placed in the firing line.

Sometime later, Dark Star broke through the dark shackles blanketing her mind. Of course, the moment she was under its effects, she recognised it immediately as the Dreamless Sleep spell. It kept her mind chained down, unable to escape within the recesses of darkness. Lesser beings would be traumatised. Only her mother would have the audacity to cast this kind of spell on her, especially in her sleep. She suspected this may have been some kind of test, or a punishment for ignoring the meeting with the Magic High Commission to go on a date with Tom. It would explain why the spell was so exceedingly difficult to overcome than she expected.

Difficult, but not impossible. Child's play, in fact. It wasn't an elaborate spell, just extensive. Rather than a complex lock on the door, it was more like having hundreds of basic locks on the same door. Dark Star could break through locks as easily as shooting fish in a barrel. It just took some time to go through so many of them.

Nevertheless, Dark Star did not appreciate the brazen act of casting a spell on her in her sleep. As such, the moment she escaped from the clutches of Dreamless Sleep, the princess was not pleased.

From the second she opened her eyes, she was met with dingy yellow light and bland grey walls. Her eyes focussed, and soon she found herself in the most unlikely of places: a prison cell. It didn't appear like the dungeons at the Butterfly Castle, so she suspected it was some kind of test.

Being thrown in some dirty, dingy cell was frankly quite insulting. Dark Star knew this was beneath her, and her mother most likely knew that. This was her way of disciplining her, by challenging her to "overcome her snobbery", or something, in order to figure out a method of escape from this disgusting animal enclosure.

The feeling of cold, dull metal against her skin became more apparent. Looking down, she noticed the bulky cuffs immobilising her limbs. Magically binding cuffs, preventing her from using her magic. Now this was typical of her mother. Only the Red Queen would have the gall to snatch away the divine right of magic from the foremost matriarch of the Butterfly Empire.

If Moon thought she was going to get away with this for very long, then Dark Star was going to claim that title of "Malevolent" for herself.

'Are you sitting comfortably?'

The owner of the voice was not Moon, but it wasn't a stranger. It was someone she knew. Looking up, Dark Star spotted the one person in the multiverse she was not expecting to see.

'Adam,' she identified, smirking. 'What a lovely surprise.'

'Didn't think this was possible, huh?' he retorted, folding his arms proudly.

'Congratulations, you actually kidnapped me,' Dark Star sneered. She narrowed her eyes at him. 'So…how'd you get here? Finally figure out that Multiversal magic, huh?'

'We're the ones asking the questions, not you.'

She raised an eyebrow.

'"We"?'

It was then that somebody else stepped into the room. Someone quite surprising: herself. A 1:1 replication of herself stood in front of her, striking a confident pose that eerily mirrored her.

'Interesting,' she said, although her tone sounded derisive. She sniffed a few times. 'Glamour. Of course.'

Seeing the illusion had been detected, Adam cancelled the Glamour spell on Star and himself. His cheek marks appeared, while Star's appearance quickly shifted back into her true form.

'Ah, my frailer counterpart.' Dark Star grinned. 'How's life treating ya? How's that boyfriend? Ooh, sorry!'

'Shut up!' snapped Star, only scarcely being held back by Adam. Dark Star sniggered.

'Sore subject, then,' she supposed, shrugging. 'So, I take it that you two are those "illegal sorcerers" the MHC have been prattling on about. Heard about how you beat Omnitraxus. Impressive, I suppose. Rebooting him took Lekmet few tries. Yes…the one fatal flaw of Mother's lobotomy on him was that, well, he lacks the personal autonomy to improvise. Can't say I judge him. He isn't allowed to think until he's told.'

Star wrinkled her nose in disgust. 'How can you…dismiss him like that? Omnitraxus was a living, breathing person! What you did to him…it was cruel. Just plain cruel.'

'But effective,' she argued. 'According to Lekmet's calculations, that experiment increased his efficiency by one-hundred-seventy-six percent. Seems worth it to me.'

'If we could get back to the point,' interjected Adam, before Star could vociferously object. 'I'm sure you want to know why you've been kidnapped.'

Dark Star rolled her eyes.

'Naturally. I have to admit, I'm surprised you haven't killed me yet. So go ahead. Make your demands.'

'We need information from you,' he told her, stepping slightly closer to her. 'Weak points in space-time. You know all about them. I need you to give the location of one.'

Dark Star frowned wryly at the request.

'What makes you think I'm going to tell you anything?'

'You think I don't know how to hurt you?' he spat. 'I have access to dozens of torture devices. I'll make you suffer in ways you couldn't even imagine.'

The evil princess took one look at his serious face, before bursting into raucous laughter.

'You? Torture me? Fat chance,' she scoffed. 'The last person who tried that ended up letting me go after a few months out of sheer boredom. I know numerous techniques to suppress pain. You could cut off my arm and I wouldn't even flinch.'

'She's bluffing,' said Star, staring straight into her deep purple eyes. Dark Star rested back against the stone wall.

'By all means,' she encouraged, 'torture me. See where it gets you.'

'I can force it out of you by other means,' he threatened. 'I made spells for this. The Truth Binding and Dream Entrapment spells.'

'Really?' Dark Star doubted, thinning her lips, unimpressed. 'I'm insulted you would think such parlour tricks would ever work on me.'

'That Dreamless Sleep spell seemed to do the trick.'

'For fifteen minutes, maybe,' she argued. 'Why would I even think about telling you anything, Adam? The second I do, you're just going to kill me.'

'We'd never do that!' Star cut in. 'We're not like you. We just want information out of you. After that, we'll let you go.'

'Star,' Adam whispered in her ear. 'Can we talk? Outside?'

The princess frowned at the request but ultimately nodded. She followed him out the door and into the hallway. On their way out, Dark Star smiled wickedly to herself.

'What's the problem, Adam?' asked Star, as they shut the prison cell door and walked out of earshot of Dark Star.

'Look, there's no point in trying to convince her she's safe,' he warned, turning to face her. 'She's not stupid. She isn't gonna buy it.'

'Buy what?' she asked, before thinking for a moment. 'Wait, you mean about killing her when we're done with her? Well, we're not gonna do that anyway! I can't believe she really thinks we'd do something that deplorable. Actually, it's really the kind of thinking you'd expect from the Negative Multiverse, right?'

All the while, Adam was staring at her with a blank expression. When she finished ranting, he raised an almost comical eyebrow.

'Oh no, she's 100% correct,' he stated nonchalantly. 'That's exactly what I'm gonna do.'

'WHAT?!' Star practically yelled. 'You…you'd really execute an unarmed prisoner?'

'Even while imprisoned, Dark Star is a grave threat,' he reasoned. 'We can't just let her go, right when we have her dead to rights!'

'If you kill her, you're no better than she is!' argued Star. 'We should be showing some compassion here! We're better than this!'

'Compassion?' Adam snarled. 'Why should I show compassion to somebody who murdered Janna?! And Beru?! Her mother murdered my entire family, Star! She is a merciless, psychotic, insane murderer, not the fucking Christ Almighty. The world would be much better off without her. She deserves to die for what she did to me, and I'm not letting anybody get in the way of my revenge.'

'This isn't about you, Adam!' Star insisted. 'Your quest for revenge is self-centred, narrow-minded and ultimately pointless! Do you think killing her is going to bring them back?'

He nearly exploded right then and there, but he took a few deep breaths.

'Need I remind you,' he addressed, 'you are nothing more than a stupid, naïve princess with delusions of redemption for a murderer who will immediately turn around and stab you in the back.' He sighed. 'I am going to look for some of the Dímios's old torture devices. I want you to try and snuff anything out of Dark Star that you can. Capisce?'

'Fine,' she spat, as Adam stormed off down the hallway. The princess let out a loud, drawn-out sigh before returning to Dark Star's cell.

Sure enough, the evil princess was still sitting in the same position as when they left. She was staring silently at the ground, an unreadable expression on her face. It was eerie, really, for Star to herself sitting there. It made her wonder how things had gone so badly for her.

After a long silence between them, Star finally spoke up.

'Why are you like this?' she asked tentatively, unsure if she would even get a response. The prisoner said nothing for a while, but finally, she looked up at her.

'I wasn't always.'

'What do you mean?'

'You should have seen me when I was a kid,' Dark Star recalled, smiling slightly to herself. 'Dad was never around; he was always out hunting. Yet…I was the happiest kid in the world.' Star's pupils dilated in surprise. 'But my mom hated me. I never really knew why, but…she was determined to stamp out any ounce of happiness I ever had. She really pulled out all the stops. Abuse. Neglect. All those mind games. Everything. Drove me crazy, but it never worked. She couldn't stop me from being happy.

'Until one day, when I was eight, Mother decided she'd had enough of me and my "compassion". Tired of the constant bubbly attitude. So she locked me in one of the castle towers to teach me a lesson. No food; no water. All I had to drink was the dirty rainwater running down the gutters. And the only thing I had to eat…were the rats. After a while, I began to notice something. The rats…they must've run out of their food source, because they started getting hungry. Hungry and desperate. And what did they do? How did they survive? Simple. They started to eat each other. They feasted on their own flesh, dined on their own children. And eventually…eventually there was only one of them left. Out of all of them, only one rat made it to the very end. Only one was strong enough to survive.

'And that's when it all made sense. That's when I understood. Only the fittest of us all are strong enough to survive. Only a single cell in a billion is fit to be nurtured. All others will die, either by my hand, or their own. Natural selection.' She smiled widely to herself. 'It's the cornerstone of all creation. With it, life becomes clay in our hands, something you can create...or destroy. From then on, I knew...I knew the truth. Weakness is a sign that natural selection has chosen you...and Mother Nature has chosen me as her champion, to eliminate you from the gene pool. Mother taught me an important lesson, and I never forgot it.'

'How…how could your own mom…do that to you?' she stammered, holding a hand over her mouth in shock.

'I was never the same after that,' Dark Star continued, ignoring the question. 'I survived the week, I got out. And for the first time ever, Mom was…actually impressed with me. Not sure she ever knew what I had to do to survive, but…she was happy with me. That's all I cared about.'

A long silence brewed between the pair of them. Star had no idea what to say. For the longest time, she had been wondering what kind of childhood Dark Star had to go through to mould her into such a cruel, cruel person. Now she knew…and she wished she hadn't. She wasn't always this evil; once upon a time, she was just like herself. She strayed from that path a long time ago, but it was proof that path once existed.

And it still might. There might be a glimmer within that darkness, a possibility of a small diamond within the roughness of evil. She should have known that already. People couldn't be born evil. They were raised that way, moulded into shapes based on what their parents needed them to be.

Killing her? That would just be confirming it. It would confirm to Dark Star that the side of good was never attainable. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

'You said you needed a weak point in space-time, huh?' uttered Dark Star, after that long, terrible silence. 'Well, I…I know one.'

'Tell me. Please.'

'I will…' she promised, 'just…don't tell him about…what I said. He…he wouldn't understand.'

'I won't.'

'Thanks,' Dark Star said sincerely, smiling at her. 'In the Valley of Secrets, beyond the Gates of Elysium, you will find a schism in the fabric of reality. Your…friend…will know where it is.'

'Thank you, Star,' she appreciated. 'Really. I appreciate it.'

Before Dark Star could air her earnestness, the cell door swung open with a loud slam. Adam walked into the room carrying a wheeled drawer cabinet containing various torture devices.

'Alright, I found a few tools,' said Adam, seating the drawer in the corner of the room.

Star shot up. 'No need! I managed to get Dark Star to give us the location of a weak point!'

'Really?' exclaimed the warlock, drawing back in surprise. 'Where?'

'The… "Gates of Elysium"?' she recited, glancing over to Dark Star for confirmation. She nodded. Adam frowned in curiosity.

'The Gates of Elysium houses a space-time fracture?' he gawked. 'Of course! Why didn't I think of that? I guess it makes sense.'

'I don't understand. What're the Gates of Elysium?'

'I've never been totally sure, it was only ever a rumour,' Adam admitted. 'But the Gates of Elysium is said to be the repository of the darkest and most twisted creations of the Dark Butterflies. Especially Moon; she's an accomplished Dark Transmutationist.'

'Oh, well that just sounds awesome,' Star deadpanned.

'If it contains a weak point, then it must be able to open some kind of portal,' speculated the Mewman.

'Indeed,' said Dark Star, announcing her presence in the room again. The two sorcerers looked at her with wildly different expressions. 'It's a gateway to another dimension. Saw inside once. Gave me the creeps.'

She looked up and realised Adam was just staring at her with a flat expression on his face. Dark Star frowned.

'What?'

'Why are you helping us? What's your angle?'

'You wouldn't understand,' Dark Star muttered, looking away.

Adam's hands began to glow with ominous green energy. 'D'ya know what? I don't care.' He stepped towards her threateningly. 'How's it feel, huh? All this time, you lord over us peasants like you're so superior. Well, who's the "pathetic weasel" now? Now you're the one who gets to suffer. You know, I'm really going to enjoy this.'

Dark Star strained against her shackles.

'I knew it would come to this!'

'Congratulations, you're a prophet,' he sneered, raising his hands.

'NO!' someone cried.

Before he could finish casting the spell, Star jumped in front of him and held her arms to block him. Adam glared at her.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?!'

'We can't just kill her!' she argued. 'She helped us! She could be, I dunno, rehabilitated.'

'You've seen the things she's done,' Adam scoffed. 'You're insane if you think she can be redeemed!'

'Yeah, and how many people have you killed?' retorted Star. 'Or did you lose count?'

'That's different, Star!'

'No it's not,' she stated matter-of-factly. 'Look, if you knew the kinds of things Dar–Star went through, you'd have a different opinion. She's suffered just as much as you have.'

'What makes you think I give a shit about how much she's suffered?!' he rebuked.

'And yet you think we're so different,' Dark Star stoked, perking up an eyebrow cheekily.

Adam rolled his eyes.

'Everybody here has suffered, Star,' he insisted. 'Who do you think was the main instigator of that?' He pointed angrily at Dark Star. 'Her. Her and her whole crooked family. She deserves to die for that. For all the suffering she's caused. All the suffering she's caused me.'

'Adam, she told us what we wanted willingly,' Star pointed out. 'We should return the goodwill!'

Adam took one look at Dark Star before shoving Star aside.

'After all these years, my revenge.'

Star's back hit the stone wall with a thud. She glared at him, clenching her fists until her hands shook with fury. Finally, all the mounting doubts she had been having about Adam bubbled to the surface. She could not contain the ultimate rage that burst free from its cage within her heart, exploding into the righteous fury.

'All this time, I thought you were different!' she snapped, jumping in the way of his path. 'But you're no different than her. You're a cold-blooded MURDERER!' She prodded him angrily on the chest. 'All you care about…all you've ever cared about…is REVENGE! From the second you murdered those guards right in front of me, I knew…I just KNEW…the kind of person you really are. I should have seen it before. How many times? How many times have you been arrogant, self-righteous, deceptive, stubborn and…just downright mean? You didn't tell me about the magic rain, or the lapisnakes, or the deadly plants, or the murdercrows; you refused to help the people of Polaria until the very last minute, when it was already TOO LATE! You lied to me about working with Eclipsa, and about the Seal of Arybailos, and your use of the Dream Entrapment spell; you couldn't even swallow your pride enough to admit you were overworked! And then you go on and act like your "rules of survival" are so iron-clad that my opinion is irrelevant. If you could just, for once in your life, treat me with some respect, instead of just being mean, we wouldn't even be in this mess!'

'Murderer? Really?' rebutted Adam. 'I'm a killer, not a murderer. I've never murdered innocent people. Guess who has: SHE has! And you're DEFENDING that! I may be a killer, but do you think I had a choice? If I hadn't taken lives, Star, I wouldn't be alive. Like with those guards – that was in self-defence –'

'They were UNARMED!'

'They were going to report us to the Empire!' he yelled back. 'If the guards had reported us, we'd almost certainly be DEAD! You know how powerful the Butterfly Kingdom's military is? Well, the Empire's is about ten times that. If it wasn't for me keeping you safe, we would be dead. EVERYTHING I've done whilst we were trapped here was to keep you safe. I even gave you extra food for crying out loud! And I did tell you about the dangers of the Negative Multiverse, many times over the past several months. It's not my fault you weren't listening.'

'Oh, I'm so sorry I didn't listen EVERY SINGLE TIME you mentioned the hell-hole you call your home! Besides, I don't recall you saying anything about the acid rain, or the murdercrows, or the lapisnakes!'

Adam rolled his eyes.

'You wanna know why I "didn't tell" you about those things? I didn't tell you about the magic rain because I didn't realise the Storm changed patterns. If it hadn't, my original plan would have kept us out of its way. Then hopefully you wouldn't have needed to know about it. Look, the deal with the lapisnakes and the murdercrows is…lapisnakes are super rare. How was I supposed to know you'd stupidly walk into one? And if you'd listened to me, and STAYED PUT, you never would've run into the murdercrows to begin with!'

'You really thought that I would just "stay put" when I wake up to find you're gone?' she bickered, folding her arms. 'Besides, when you "stayed put" in Polaria, everybody DIED!'

'Are you really bringing up POLARIA right now?' Adam sneered. 'You were depressed about that for weeks. You even admitted to me that I was right about not getting involved! Look, I really don't think what happened was entirely your fault, but what happened there is EXACTLY why I don't get involved. It always gets worse. Oh, and by the way, if you're just gonna list all the times you and I didn't get along, you might as well forget it! I'm not here to waste time gaining your approval on everything. I don't need it. Yeah, I didn't tell you about Eclipsa, or being overworked, or the Seal, or about every little thing I do, but I don't have to! And if you really wanna know, the reason why I act like my "rules of survival" are iron-clad, it's because THEY ARE. How far do you think you'd have gotten without me, huh?'

'Ugh, why do you have to be so arrogant?' groaned Star. 'There's never another option for you! It's always Adam's way or the highway! Well, why don't you stop for a second and consider that MAYBE you aren't always right?! You were wrong about me, you know! You don't think there's a chance you're wrong about her?'

'HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU THINK SHE'S KILLED?!' he shrieked. 'You think that I'm a murderer, but have you seen her?! I watched as she PUNCHED A HOLE through my best friend! Beru's own BLOOD splattered on MY FACE, and I had to watch as all his guts came spilling out as he choked and suffocated on his own BLOOD. I watched her INCINERATE Janna without so much as a THOUGHT. I saw it! Her skin MELTED OFF HER FLESH, Star! NOTHING BUT BONE WAS LEFT as her clothes, skin and muscles were VAPORISED! Do you understand what that was like?! To have to see that?! DO YOU?! I was POWERLESS to stop it! When have you ever felt powerless in your life?!'

'Oh, fuck you! You know I have!' cursed Star, glaring into his big, stupid face. 'I saw Janna die too, you know! It TRAUMATISED me!'

Adam groaned.

'Star, I'm only going to say this once,' he warned calmly, but gravely. 'Get. Out. Of my. WAY.'

'Don't make me do this,' she said tearfully, producing her wand from her handbag and pointing it at him. 'But if you keep going, I'll have to stop you.'

'Star. Are you absolutely sure about this?'

She sniffed.

'No.' She choked on air. 'Narwhal Blast!'

Star projected a bright cyan stream of narwhals that slammed into Adam immediately, sending him smashing through the door wall and into the dungeon hallway.

'I'm sorry Adam, but this is for your own good.'

'I've waited my whole life for this,' he said, getting up from the corridor wall. 'Nothing is going to stand in my way. Least of all you!'

He raised his hands and then shot out several Chains of Captivity on the ground. Lasers shot out from the metal discs and latched onto Star's limbs, pulling her down to the floor. The princess strained her arms and legs against the force of the chains, which only seemed to increase as she pulled against them harder. She didn't recall Adam's Chains being this powerful before, which made her worry just how much he held back during their sparring sessions.

'I don't wanna have to hurt you Star,' Adam admitted solemnly.

'The feeling's…mutual!' yelled Star, as she pulled with all her might against Adam's Chains of Captivity. Finally, it snapped, and she was released from her imprisonment. 'Rainbow Fist Punch!'

A bright rainbow-coloured fist shot out her wand towards Adam. Unimpressed, he raised a purple forcefield, blocking the blow with ease.

'You really need to stop calling out your spells before you cast them!' He pushed the forcefield back and smacked Star up into the air. 'It makes you hella predictable!'

He conjured his Ropes of Binding and caught her in the air, before yanking her back towards him.

'Don't tell me what to do!' cried Star, pointing her wand at Adam's feet as she was pulled towards him. 'Bunny Rabbit Blast!'

Star fired an explosion of bunny rabbits that knocked Adam off his feet, dissolving his ropes, and reversing her fall. She flew backwards and landed on the ground in front of Dark Star. Adam jumped to his feet.

'ENOUGH!' he growled. 'Calysto Beam!'

'Omega Blast!' Star yelled back, praying to herself that it wouldn't hurt him.

Star's ruby Omega Blast collided head-on with Adam's cyan Calysto Beam, releasing a powerful shockwave that rumbled throughout the Dímios Headquarters' dungeons. Their beams met at a near stalemate, pushing desperately against one another. However, ultimately Adam's Calysto Beam, and its magically-draining properties, was able to prevail.

The cyan beam soon overcame the red one, and Star was hit with the full force of the incapacitating spell. She tried to create a pink forcefield to block it, but the Calysto Beam smashed through that too, and quickly sapped her of her magic.

'Stay down,' ordered Adam. Star ignored him, prying herself up off the cold, stone floor.

'I don't need my full power to take you down!' she insisted, gearing the strongest superpowered punch she could muster with her drained powers.

Swiftly grabbing her arm, the warlock used his Mewman strength to slam her on the ground. She groaned, and shifted upwards, but Adam delivered a strong enough punch to the side of her face. Star fell to the ground, unconscious. She wouldn't be down for long, but long enough.

The narrow victor, Adam staggered backwards, panting in exhaustion. He looked down at Star's unconscious form and glanced away solemnly. He never wanted things to come to this. Except, this was always what it came to. Him fighting for what he believed in, whether it meant fighting friend or foe. Speaking of –

Adam's thought tracks were interrupted by a rough blow to the head. He fell to the ground, but he had enough of his mental reserves left to blindly punch whatever had hit him. His fist connected with something, something that then grunted in pain and hit a wall. He staggered back and steadily refocussed his thoughts, until he could finally see what was going on.

Dark Star was standing with her back against the wall, free from the chains against the wall. She was still bound by her cuffs, which forced her to lean over to counteract their weight. Adam dug through his left pocket for something.

Before Adam could say anything, though, Dark Star snatched the closest tool available from the cabinet Adam had brought in. It was a small battle-axe. She charged at him with it, as he tried to catch his breath.

Adam raised a hand and shot out a small Black Widow Calamity Cobweb. It hit her axe-wielding hand, slamming her back into the wall with her arm pinned by the cobweb. If Adam hadn't already been so dazed and exhausted, he might have been able to incapacitate her fully, but right now, he could barely think.

'Don't think this is gonna hold me!' Dark Star screeched, pulling against the cobweb with all her force. It only took a second before the threads snapped, and she was released from the spell. 'AAAAAAH!'

Dark Star came charging at him again. Faster than lightning, she was on him with her axe swinging down at him. Adam caught the handle of the axe, but her strength steadily proved too great for him. He used all his strength from his right arm to push against the axe blade.

'Aren't you PERSISTENT?!' she mocked, pressing the blade closer and closer to his shoulder. 'I can't wait to rearrange all your limbs into a fort!'

Adam failed to stop it as the sharp blade of the axe inched towards his shoulder, and less so when the blade finally dug its way into his flesh. He cried out in pain as it sliced through his skin and reached his muscles, creating an eruption of blood that stained his clothes.

'Just give up, little weasel!' sneered Dark Star, as she gleefully pressed the axe further. Adam mustered a smile through his pain.

'I never give up,' he wheezed, raising his left hand.

Dark Star looked down at his left arm, which up until now he had left as an unused closed fist. He opened his palm to reveal something. Four vaguely cylindrical, bioluminescent objects warbled and pulsed in his hand. Dark Star immediately recognised them.

Sonar bugs.

The sonar bugs took one look at her, before unleashing an ear-piercing, spine-rattling subsonic scream. Dark Star and Adam both cried out in pain as the horrible shrill reverberated through their ears at a high pitch. Dark Star's grip on the axe immediately collapsed, and she staggered backwards with her hands pressed against her ears. Adam had enough wherewithal to throw the sonar bugs at her, intensifying the noise in her ears.

Dark Star fell to the ground before the sonar bugs. She smashed them angrily with all her might. The vociferous screeching ended, but Adam was still on the ground, groaning in pain.

He tried to get up. He really did. However, Adam wasn't able to do anything before Dark Star was on him once again. She threw the chains between her cuffs around his neck and pulled as hard as she could.

Adam began to choke as his air supply was unexpectedly cut off completely. He gasped and gurgled for air, but the metal against his jugular made him want to vomit.

Unbeknownst to either of them, Star began to stir from her unconsciousness as Dark Star was strangling Adam. She was able to just about hear and see through the white noise blanketing her mind, enough to see that Adam was engaging in a struggle against Dark Star.

'I have to say, getting you to turn on each other was child's play!' mocked Dark Star, tightening the chains around his neck. 'Thank corn you and my goodie two-shoes doppelganger are such idiots! Leaving her with me for even a second was such a mistake! Bet you didn't think she was so EASY to manipulate!'

Adam managed to pull on the chain to slightly open his windpipe. He pointed a free hand at the wall behind him.

Solarian Blast!

A bright green laser shot out his palm and hit the wall behind them. It bounced of the reinforced brick and struck Dark Star on her back. She screeched in pain at the intense heat of the laser. [40]

Dark Star's grip loosened. Adam was instantly provided with the perfect window to grab the chain and pull it over his head, before using its pull to slam her onto the ground in front of him. He fell onto his hands, panting and choking desperately for breath.

'I'm not done with you yet!' screamed Dark Star, grabbing her discarded axe and swinging it down towards him.

However, she was stopped when she was hit by a stream of sharp crystal daggers. She was sent flying into the wall, the axe clattering the ground. She looked up to see that Star, hobbling on her two feet, was pointing her wand directly at her with a fiercely hurt expression on her face.

'Ow!' moaned Dark Star, picking out one of the crystal daggers from her arm. 'Those things hurt, you know.'

'Was everything you told me…just a lie?' she asked, her voice quivering unsteadily.

'No, everything I said was true,' claimed the princess, wiping away some blood from her lip. 'You were just dumb enough to think I was "redeemable" just because I shared a bedtime story with you!'

'You tricked me!'

'Get used to it.'

'Omega Blast!' cried the enraged princess, pointing her wand front and centre. She produced a brilliant beam of energy that shot towards the prisoner at great speed. Dark Star held up her metal cuffs to block the strike.

The moment the Omega Blast hit the cuffs, it split into several smaller beams firing off in random directions. The beams began to burn through the walls. Concerned, Star stopped firing the spell.

Dark Star stood still for a moment, staring at her cuffs. Star remained frozen, unsure what to do. Then, one by one, cracks began to appear across Dark Star's magically-binding shackles. Inevitably, the manacles shattered into a million pieces, slipping off her wrists and becoming nothing more than absent debris on the cold stone floor.

'Right on time,' Dark Star mused. She beamed sadistically at Star as she raised her hand. 'Incineration Disintegration.'

A dark, crimson inferno erupted from her hands. Star haphazardly produced a pink forcefield of Instinctive magic, narrowly blocking the fire as it pressed against her. She skidded back against the force of the magic, and she could feel the heat of the flames behind her barrier.

'Stop this!' pleaded Star. 'I could help you!'

'Nice idea, but how about instead I rip your arms off and shove them down your throat?'

Cracks immediately began to form in the forcefield. Star knew she couldn't hold this up for much longer. Her mana was rapidly draining, and she was on the verge of collapsing.

Unexpectedly, she felt someone grab her wrist. She turned to see Adam standing next to her, dimensional scissors in hand. Without so much as another word, he opened a portal to parts unknown and tossed her through it. Dark Star's Incineration Disintegration smashed through the forcefield and through the wall, exposing the dirt and earth behind it.

Adam spotted a glare to Dark Star before leaping through the portal.

'NO!' Dark Star exclaimed, pouncing after him. However, the portal shut before she could reach it, leaving her to crash onto the ground. She sat up and slammed the ground with her fist, causing the stone to crack.

Star landed on the ground first, but she was already unconscious. Adam arrived immediately afterwards, meeting the grass with a loud thud. His heart racing, and his adrenaline fading, he shakily rose to his feet. A sharp pain pulsed in his shoulder, urging him to clutch it by instinct.

He looked down. Blood was still seeping from his shoulder. It stung with pain intensely. Adam staggered backwards, until his back hit a tree. He hovered a hand over his wound, and a yellow bubble of magical aura encompassed both his hand and his wound.

Adam was sure to take several deep breaths as the wound was slowly healed. He thanked his lucky stars that Moon had chosen to teach him Restoration magic so recently, otherwise he'd almost certainly bleed out. His breaths were shallow and weak, but persistent enough.

He missed his chance to take out Dark Star. He knew that the second she got free from her magic-sealing cuffs. Not only was he injured, dazed, and running on pure adrenaline, but Dark Star was practically at full power. The only play they had, the only advantage they had over her, was the ability to open portals, using Hekapoo's dimensional scissors.

So their only option now was to keep going. To make it home. Now he just had to wait for, ugh, Star.

Great. This day just kept getting better.

[40] If Adam hadn't been forced to lower the power of the spell, so that it could bounce off the wall, he could've incinerated her with the attack. He was also heavily weakened already.

And there we have it! The backstory for Dark Star, and the fight between Adam and Star! Thanks for reading, everyone!

I'm glad I finally got around to divulging Dark Star's backstory! Honestly, it was a long time coming, perhaps too long. But it's here now. Of course, I didn't share every single detail, but I shared some of her motivations and the reasons behind them. Dark Star as a child mirrored Star in many ways, but Dark Moon was abusive and cold towards her, which gradually led to her adopting some of her traits of mercilessness and cruelty. Of course, Dark Star could never be a carbon copy of her mother, because that punishment that Moon gave her, which instilled in her beliefs in the necessary slaughter of the weak, and an unparalleled hunger for power. Dark Star is obsessed with natural selection, and culling the weak, because of how she witnessed how those rats went to desperate lengths to survive, but only the strongest succeeded. She also felt validated when her mother was pleased with her for surviving the punishment intact, so she took what she learned to be gospel.

Meanwhile, the tension between Adam and Star has been boiling for several chapters now. It has been building since Chapter 32 (or potentially before that) has finally reached its cap. Which led to a fight over Dark Star, because Star is largely against killing, and Adam isn't. There's also the story that Dark Star told her, which made her feel bad about killing her. And of course, when Star finally reaches her breaking point, she unleashes all of her pent-up frustrations about him, including stuff from the very beginning. She's not still mad at him about Eclipsa, or the Seal, or his general arrogance early on, but she was simply pulling upon every little negative thought she has had about him to fuel her rant. You can get the impression she's been repeating that speech in her head a lot. Adam's none too pleased about Star, obviously. He believes she's being naive, and that Dark Star is a life that needs to be taken, in stark contrast to Star's Batman-esque ideals about never killing.

Of course, I am trying not to take sides in the argument. Neither of them is totally in the right. Star's being a little naive in thinking Dark Star can easily be redeemed, and a little petty in airing all their dirty laundry in front of Dark Star; Adam is being arrogant in his staunch defense of his ideals, and he refuses to listen because he's blinded by his lust for revenge. It's up to you to decide who to side with, and I want to remain as neutral as possible on the matter.

Eagle-eyed readers might recall that the Gates of Elysium was briefly mentioned a few chapters ago. And now it turns out that the Gates is where Adam and Star will need to go to get back home, which was foreshadowed when it was first brought up. Next chapter will be all about their attempt to get back, using the Gates of Elysium. From the description given of its purpose, you can imagine it's going to be an all-out war. The creatures inside the Gates would very much like to escape.

Next chapter will be the last of the Lost in Negative arc, and Adam and Star will finally return home! After that, there will be two more episodes, which will then lead into the six-episode finale. So we're not far from the end, now. Maybe around 20 chapters. Most of which will be taken up by the six-part finale episodes.

And don't worry, we'll see plenty more of Dark Star. Also, yes, the chapter title is a reference to the Anthony Trollope novel of the same name. Thought it was a decent enough title.

Also also, happy 5000 views, and happy 300k words! Kinda incredible that so many people have viewed this story now, even if such a thing would be inevitable given I've been posting this for two years now. But it's still awesome. Thanks everyone for your support, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!