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Smooshed, or, The Nine Wives of Marco Diaz	By : GeorgeGlass Category: +S through Z > Star vs. The Forces of Evil Views: 15416 -:- Recommendations : 7 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Vs the Forces of Evil or its characters. I earned no money from writing this story.

Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
Chapter 17: And Here They Come
“Gone?” Jackie exclaimed. “How can our weapons be gone? We just practiced with them yesterday!”
“Someone must have taken them,” Arms said.
“Someone,” Hekapoo added, “who knew the invasion was going to happen today.”
“And who had the combo to the vault!” Brittney added. “Or else knew how to hotwire it or something.”
“That’s a lot of big, pointy metal things for somebody to just walk out with,” Janna said.
“Yeah,” Marco agreed. “I mean, even if we were…distracted…the guards or the servants or somebody must have seen something.”
“Unless the guards or the servants were in on it,” Hekapoo said.
“Or one of us was in on it,” Higgs replied.
Star flashed back to her dream from two nights earlier, warning that someone was going to betray her. Maybe this was how. But she pushed the thought aside.
“We don’t have time for this!” Star shouted. “The invasion is happening now! Marco, you’re the king; what do we do?”
Marco thought fast. “Look, we may not have our weapons, but we’re still the only people in the world who can resist being Possessed—which everyone else in this dimension is going to be if we don’t do something fast. So let’s grab whatever weapons we can find and do what we can.”
“The guards have their own armory,” Star said. “We can get weapons there.”
The group hurried to the stairwell and went down one flight to the set of apartments where the palace guards were quartered. One apartment now served as an armory, full of halberds, bows, and other weapons.
When Marco and the girls arrived. Several guards were standing in the middle of a pile of broken weapons. The guards were just breaking the last of them.
“What are you doing!?” Marco shouted. “We need those weapons!”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” the guard captain said, “but after the Oracle warned us what would happen when the invasion came, we made a plan to destroy all of our weapons the moment the enemy arrived. This way, if we become Possessed, we will be less of a threat to our King and Queens, as well as our fellow citizens of Earni.”
“Mewth,” one of the other guards insisted.
“Rudolfo,” the captain said to the guard, “I’ve told you-”
“Stop!” Marco shouted. “It won’t matter what this dimension is called if we lose it! Now, are there any other weapons we can use?”
“Your Highnesses!” Wigburn said, appearing out of nowhere. “The Oracle and the others from the commune have arrived, seeking refuge.”
“Let them in,” Marco replied, “but hurry. The Possessed are going to be charging the doors any minute.” Wigburn hurried away, and the guards, on the captain’s order, jogged double-time to the stairwell to get down to the lobby.
“So what the flaming heck do we do now?” Arms asked, clenching her four fists. “Without the special metal in those weapons, we’ve got no way to un-Possess all those Woolettes. And without any weapons of any kind, we don’t stand a chance!”
“She’s right,” Kelly said. “Woolettes love two things: a good hair day and a good fight. Most of us start combat training as toddlers. You don’t want to go up against those guys unarmed.”
“Even if we were armed to the teeth,” Brittney cut in, “there are thousands of Possessed out there. How much good could the ten of us even do?”
“I don’t know,” Star said, “but…there’s something that might be worth one more try.”
She turned and hurried up the stairs. Marco followed Star, and the other girls followed Marco.
“Star,” Marco asked, “what’s your idea?”
“What if all those nightmares about the magic dying weren’t just about me feeling guilty?” Star replied. “What if they were trying to tell me something? The way the nightmare about us being betrayed was trying to tell me something?”
“Maybe, yeah, but what were they trying to tell you?” Marco asked.
“I don’t know. But I think I need to take one more look for the chunks.”
“The chunks?”
“In the hobo gravy.”
“That clears up nothing at all.”
Star continued up the stairs until she reached the door to the roof. She went outside into the breezy air, took a deep breath, then clenched her fists and closed her eyes.
“Dip down,” she said in an urgent whisper. “Dip down, dip down, dip down, dip down…”
Jackie looked at Star with concern. She’d seen her try this once and fail. Did Star have any reason to think this time would be different, or was this just a sign of how desperate the situation—and Star—really was?
Chanting faster now, Star continued to murmur, “Dip down, dip down, dip down, dip down…Aaaah, damn it!” she screamed, opening her eyes.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Jackie said, putting a hand on Star’s shoulder. “I know it was a long shot.”
“I’m so stupid!” Star said, tears welling in her eyes. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I can’t bring the magic back, I don’t have-”
“No!” Hekapoo shouted, startling everyone.
The horned woman strode up to Star and grabbed her hand as she said, “Don’t you dare give up! If anyone can bring magic back, it’s you! No, it’s us!” Then she stretched out a hand to the others. “Everyone, come on!”
Marco grabbed Hekapoo’s hand, and then Jackie grabbed Marco’s, and soon, all ten of them were holding hands in a circle.
“Everyone just close your eyes and focus,” Hekapoo said. “Look down inside yourself, deeper than you ever have.”
“What are we looking for?” Jackie asked.
“It looks different to everyone,” Hekapoo replied. “But hopefully you’ll know it when you see it.”
She shut her eyes and began to chant, “Dip down, dip down, dip down, dip down…” And in a moment, the others had their eyes squeezed shut and were chanting along with her, even as the battle raged below them.
After half a minute of chanting, Brittney abruptly stopped.
“What…?” she murmured. “What is…that?”
She opened her almond eyes, let go of the hands of the girls on either side of her, and raised her hands in front of her. When she spread her fingers, electricity began crackling between them. And when Brittney looked more intently at her hands, an electrical arc leaped blue-white between her palms.
“Lightning…” Brittney gasped, moving her hands farther apart and watching the arc between them grow longer and more powerful. “I’ve got lightning!”
Suddenly, Janna’s eyes popped open and the girl shouted “Whoa!” as a pair of huge, black, bat-like wings unfurled from her back. “What the hell?”
Janna could feel the wings as though they were as much a part of her body as her arms and legs. And when she moved and flexed them, she quickly got a sense of what they could do.
“Guys, check this out!” she called. Then she lashed out with a wing, grabbed a flowerpot off one of the outdoor-eating tables on the rooftop, and yanked the pot into her hand—accidentally pulling the table over in the process.
“I guess the wings don’t come with built-in finesse,” Janna said. She retracted the wings until they vanished, then added, “But they’re still friggin’ awesome.”
Hekapoo was looking at Brittney and Janna when Marco suddenly pointed at the top of her head.
“Hekapoo!” he shouted. “Your flame!”
“It’s back!” Star cried.
Indeed, flame was burning brightly above Hekapoo’s head. Hekapoo couldn’t see it herself, but she could feel it. More importantly, she could feel power flowing through her—power she hadn’t felt since before the Smoosh.
“It’s back,” she gasped. “My magic is back.”
Star’s eyes went even wider than they had been. “Does that mean…?” she murmured.
She ran to the edge of the balcony and looked out at the vast army of Possessed below. Then she made a quick series of whole-body movements and shouted, “Warnicorn Stampede!”
Over the sounds of battle, a massive thundering of hooves sounded from somewhere on the edge of town. And then there they were, dozens of warnicorns, charging into the mass of Possessed and knocking them around like bowling pins.
“All right!” Star cried. “Way to go, Chad!”
“Chad?” Marco said.
“I’ll explain later,” Star replied. “Right now, we’d better get downstairs and defend this place.”
“With frickin’ magic!” Janna cried excitedly.
“Um,” Amanda said, “I’m not sure I have magic.”
“Yeah, me neither,” added Arms.
“Or me,” Kelly chimed in.
“And I don’t feel any different,” Marco said.
Star replied, “Maybe you guys’ magic just isn’t obvious.”
The roof door burst open, and out ran Beryl—one of the senior palace servants, who reported directly to Wigburn. Right behind her was Brigid, who was obviously walking faster than she was used to.
“Your Highnesses!” Beryl shouted. “The Possessed are trying to break down the main doors!”
“Once they get in,” Brigid puffed, “it will only take minutes for anyone they come in contact with to become Possessed.”
“Then we’d better get down there,” Marco said, looking around at his brides. “Even if we didn’t all get powers, we still have the power of kicking butt.” He glanced at his ninth bride and added, “Well, except you, Amanda. Your weapon was delivered right before the wedding; you haven’t had any chance to train.”
“And,” Higgs added, “we can’t be sure you’re pregnant. I only got my positive pee-test this morning.”
“So,” Marco finished, “I think you’d better stay here.”
Amanda felt crestfallen, but she knew Marco was right. The last thing she wanted was for Star and the others to have to worry about her when they needed to concentrate on saving the world.
“All right,” she said.
“Okay,” Star said. “So let’s- Jackie?”
The green-eyed girl had opened the door to the balcony and was outside on it. Shouts, cries, and the clang of clashing weapons rose up from the street. But Jackie wasn’t looking down; she was gazing into the distance, as though she were looking at something at ground level miles away.
“Jackie,” Star said, approaching her, “what are you doing?
“I think…” Jackie replied slowly, “I know where our weapons are.”
“Seriously?” Arms replied. “We should go get them!”
“Yeah, but we also need to protect the palace and everyone in it,” Marco said. Then, looking at Janna, he asked, “Can you fly Jackie there with those wings of yours?”
Janna unfurled her huge black wings again, then gave Marco a wicked smile.
“You know it,” she said. Then she pointed to her back as she looked at Jackie and said, “Climb aboard.”
Jackie got on Janna’s back, and the two of them took off and flew away. Then Marco, Star, Arms, Kelly, Hekapoo, Brittney, and Higgs ran to the hallway. For the sake of speed, they piled into the elevator rather than going down twenty flights of stairs.
“I figure,” Marco said as they began their descent, “the Possessed will try to break down the main doors so they can swarm the place, Possess everybody, and capture the Oracle—‘capture’ being the better-case scenario. If Brittney can zap the Possessed with lightning and Star can Narwhal-Blast them, it’ll drive them back from the doors and make at least some of them drop their weapons, which the rest of us can grab.”
“Good idea,” Star replied. “Since we’re fresh out of weapons here at the Palace.”
***
In his rooms in the servants’ quarters, Wigburn opened his armoire and dug behind the hanging servant-uniform jackets, pants, and shirts. From the back corner, he pulled out a basket-hilted sword with a long, slim blade.
“Ah, very good,” he murmured to himself. Then he walked swiftly out the door.
***
The elevator was between the eighth and ninth floors when it suddenly jerked to a stop. The car’s overhead lights went out.
“Oh, no,” Marco said. “The Possessed must have cut the power to the building! Why didn’t I think about that? Now we’re trapped in here!”
“Normally,” Arms said, “I wouldn’t mind being stuck in a tight space with you guys, but this is kind of a bad time.”
“I think I can help,” Brittney said.
She put her hand on the elevator’s metal control panel and closed her eyes. Within moments, the overhead lights started to glow dimly, then came back up to full brightness. The elevator controls lit up, as well, and Brittney used her other hand to push the button for the lobby.
“Are you powering the elevator yourself?” Kelly asked Brittney as the elevator resumed its descent.
“I totally am,” Brittney replied. “Guess I’ll never have to worry about charging my cell phone again.”
***
In the sky above Echo Creek, Janna’s big black wings were beating hard against the air as the girl tried to keep both herself and her passenger aloft.
“You doing okay back there?” Janna asked Jackie.
“Yeah!” Jackie replied. “This is amazing!”
“It sure is! And those big titties against my back are giving me ideas.”
“I love that,” Jackie replied, “but can you fly any faster? If I’m right about the weapons, then we need to get them back to everyone as soon as we can.”
“Uh, you know those jahoobs don’t exactly make you the lightest load, right? I’m having to work my wings pretty hard just to keep us in the air.”
“Oh. Right.”
During their flight, Jackie had become acutely aware of the movement of the air around her as they passed through it. She was starting to believe that awareness meant something.
“Maybe I can help you,” Jackie said.
She closed her eyes and let herself feel the air moving beneath them. Then, somehow, she swept the air upward against Janna’s broad wings, and the two girls began to rise.
“What the- Are you doing that?” Janna exclaimed.
“Yeah,” Jackie replied simply.
“Well keep it going!” Janna shouted, and began to propel them forward faster.
***
When Marco and the six brides accompanying him reached the ground floor, the lobby was a madhouse. Guards were piled up against the front doors, trying to keep the shouting, howling, surging crowd of Possessed Woolettes outside from bursting in. To Marco’s surprise, a familiar triangular-eared dog was standing behind the guards, growling at the would-be invaders outside.
“Willoughby?” Marco exclaimed. “What are you doing down here?”
“Lydia—excuse me, the Oracle—sent me to help. She says I’m immune to Possession, for the same reason I’m immune to the Spirit.”
“Well, glad to have you on the team,” Marco said, even as the guard captain rushed up to him.
“Your Highness! Thank goodness you’re here! We don’t know how much longer we can keep them out!” Then he looked at Marco and the brides and asked, “But where are your special weapons?”
“They got stolen,” Marco replied. “But we’ve got another option now.” He looked behind him. “Star, Brittney, get in position.”
“I’m always happy to get in position for you, Marco,” Brittney replied.
“Not the time, Brittney!” Star barked.
The two girls moved to a spot about six feet behind the line of guards who were holding the door. Then Marco came up next to the guards.
“On my signal,” Marco commanded, “move away from the doors—fast. Then run for the stairs; we don’t need you guys getting Possessed. Ready?”
In near unison, the guards shouted, “Ready, Your Highness!”
“Aaaaaaand,” Marco said, “now!”
The guards let go of the doors and dashed toward the stairway. The doors burst open, and the front row of Possessed Woolettes started to charge in.
“Narwhal Blast!” Star shouted, slamming them with a wave of magic and horned whales.
“Lightning bolt!” Brittney cried, unleashing arcs of electricity at the Possessed and making them dance and convulse. “Okay, technically I don’t need to do a callout,” she noted, “but it’s more fun that way.”
“Marco,” Arms said, “this looks cool and everything, but it’s not gonna work.”
Marco could see what Arms meant: The crowd of Possessed trying to get through the doors was so huge that the ones in the front, whom Star and Brittney were blasting repeatedly, simply had nowhere to go. The Narwhal Blasts and lightning bolts were only stunning them and knocking them into the Woolettes directly behind them. And Star and Brittney weren’t going to be able to keep this up forever.
But the magical attacks were at least keeping the Possessed from flooding into the lobby. What was more, Brittney’s lightning bolts had caused several of them to drop their weapons. Hekapoo snatched up a pair of daggers and turn to face the horde of invaders.
“You all might as well turn around,” Hekapoo said. “None of you are getting past me.”
“Ha!” one of the surging Woolettes replied. “You and what army?”
Hekapoo smiled at them wickedly as she replied, “I’m so glad you asked.”
Suddenly, Hekapoo seemed to be moving left, right, forward, and back all at the same time as two dozen copies of her emerged from her body. They formed a double line behind Star and Brittney and, as one, raised their daggers in a combat-ready pose.
“I think,” Brittney panted after hurling her dozenth lightning bolt, “I’m running out of gas, here.” She took a moment to catch her breath, then said, “Good thing I’ve got one other superpower.”
Brittney used both hands to simultaneously pull her crop top up and her short-shorts down, flashing the Woolettes in front of her. They all stopped their onslaught and looked at her agape.
Higgs, who was standing next to Marco, looked at this scene and tried to think of what she could do to help. Brittney was tapped out, Star looked like she was going to run out of mojo any second, and it didn’t look like even twenty-five Hekapoos would be able to stop the massive horde that was going to storm the lobby as soon as the Narwhal Blasts ceased. Higgs growled in frustration.
“I’m a freaking knight, and here I am in the battle of a lifetime, and I’m useless!”
Marco didn’t look away from the battle, but he put a hand on her shoulder and said, “You know why you like being treated like garbage? Because deep down, you know for a fact that you’re not garbage. You’re strong, and you’re brave, and you don’t need to prove anything to anybody. Powers or not.”
For a moment, Higgs looked at Marco and nodded slowly. Then she turned her head to look at the enemies at the door, and the expression on her face became pure aggression. Starting to breathe harder, she dropped down into a crouch like a football player preparing to charge the defensive line.
“Um, Higgs?” Marco said, his eyes flicking back and forth between the surging enemy and the redhead, who was putting one foot forward and looking at the Possessed through narrowed eyes. “Just, just hold on a sec! I didn’t mean to pep-talk you into killing yourself!”
And then it was like a kind of aura built up around Higgs—a distortion in the air that surrounded her, growing stronger and more visible every moment.
“What the hell?” Marco murmured.
With a yell, Higgs took off running, charging straight at the crowd of Possessed as the area of distortion around her grew larger and stronger with every rapid step she took. Star, Brittney, and the Hekapoos quickly dodged out of her way.
Higgs plowed into the crowd with the force of a wrecking ball. The impact shoved the Possessed aside in waves, and those who were directly in front of Higgs were sent flying.
“Holy crap!” Arms shouted.
Seeing Higgs find her power made Arms realize that she was perceiving something now that she hadn’t perceived when they were up on the roof. Whatever it was, it felt like it was flowing between her body and the ground beneath her. Like she was communing with the earth and stone itself.
Arms hurried into the doorway. Just outside, the Possessed were getting up off the ground or otherwise recovering from Higgs’ massive blow. And more Possessed were heading toward the building.
“Here goes nothing,” she said.
She turned all four hands palm up and slowly raised them. Pieces of the concrete street and sidewalks broke away and rose up, coalescing into two rough, parallel walls that were nine feet high and that flanked the doorway, forming a corridor and excluding all of the Possessed who weren’t directly in front of the doors. But the twenty or so Woolettes who remained looked to Arms like they, having few other options, were preparing for a charge.
Arms looked past the Possessed in the alleyway she had just created and saw Higgs on the sidewalk across the street. The redheaded knight had grabbed a dropped sword and was fencing with two Possessed who had just gotten up after her charge knocked them down.
“Hey Higgs!” Arms shouted. “Do you like bowling?”
Higgs got the idea almost instantly. She made a sweeping strike at her two opponents’ necks, forcing them to step back; then she turned and charged down the alleyway Arms had made. Every Possessed in Higgs’ path was thrown against one wall or the other and got knocked out. Higgs skidded to a stop next to Arms.
“Oh man,” Higgs panted. “That’s really fun, but it takes a lot out of me.”
“Yeah,” Star said as she and Brittney approached them. “I’m all out of juice, too.”
At this point, Hekapoo, Marco, and Willoughby were the main ones guarding the doorway, helped by the fact that Arms’ concrete walls allowed the enemy only one direction to approach from. Kelly snatched up a dropped Woolette sword and joined them in holding the line.
“You want me to seal the door off?” Arms called to Marco when the Possessed they were fighting pulled back to regroup. “I could put a wall right in front of it.”
“No, this is perfect,” Marco replied. “This keeps their focus on getting through the doors instead of looking for other ways in, or attacking civilians in the streets.”
“Good point,” Arms replied. “Except there are so many of them, I’m sure they’re doing those things anyway.”
“I know,” Marco said. “What we’re doing here isn’t enough; we need to take the fight to them.”
“But without our weapons,” Kelly said, “I don’t know what difference we can make out there without killing a whole lot of Woolettes.”
***
“There!” Jackie shouted, reaching one arm over Janna’s shoulder and pointing down at a bend in Echo Creek’s concrete-lined river. “Put us down there!”
Janna descended at an angle toward the riverbank, flapping her wings to slow down. Too late, she realized that she hadn’t flapped hard enough; when her feet hit the ground, she pitched forward, landing painfully on her hands and knees on the concrete. Her discomfort was not helped by Jackie landing on top of her.
“Sorry,” Jackie said, quickly getting up off Janna and offering the girl her hand. “Are you okay?”
Janna accepted the hand and stood up. “I think so. Still not bad for my first landing, especially with you and those big milkers of yours on my back. But how come you wanted to land here?”
“I can feel the river flowing around something down there,” Jackie said. “Just like I could feel the air moving around us when we were flying. Which means that maybe, I can…”
She closed her eyes and focused. Then she heard Janna gasp at the sight of a gap opening in the river, the water flowing around one spot as though an invisible oval-shaped barrier were shunting the flowing water around it. Nestled in the silt at the bottom were two big canvas bags.
Janna didn’t waste any time; she lashed out with one black wing and then the other to grab the two bags and haul them out of the river. Then, as Janna unzipped one of the bags and found the weapons inside, she heard Jackie exhale, and the gap in the river closed.
“All right, mount up!” Janna said, bending forward. She chuckled and added, “I never thought I’d be saying that to anyone besides Marco.”
***
Despite the Possessed’s superiority in numbers and armament, Star thought that she, the other brides, and Marco were doing a fine job of defending the doors and keeping the enemy out. But she knew it couldn’t last, because now she was starting to see Possessed outside who weren’t Woolettes. A group of armed monsters, humans, and Mewmans had just appeared at the far end of Arms’ concrete alleyway, all of them with that sickly green glow in their eyes.
“Oh, man,” Star said. “We really need our weapons.”
“Yeah,” Marco replied, even as he fenced with the Possessed Woolette in front of him. “We can’t keep this up forever. And there are tons of- OOOOF!”
Star watched in shock as Marco was knocked to the ground—not by his opponent’s weapon, but by the pommel of a big, glowing green sword that seemed to be made of energy and that had hit Marco in the back of the neck from behind. But even more stunning than this sneak attack was that it had been made by a girl with big green hair and a striped sweater.
“Kelly!” Star exclaimed. “What are you doing?”
Star had rarely known Kelly to be ironic. So the green-haired girl’s voice sounded almost alien as she replied, “Oh, is it not obvious enough? Let me help you with that.”
As Marco looked up at her from the floor and the others watched in horror, Kelly’s eyes turned from dark to sickly green, and her skin became tinged with green, as well. The Woolette attackers stopped fighting, some of them looking on smugly while others seemed surprised.
“What the actual fuck?” Higgs blurted.
“That- That’s not possible,” Marco gasped.
“How can you be Possessed?” Star cried. “You’re carrying Marco’s baby! There’s no way that could happen unless…”
Star looked up at Kelly, her eyes wide. “…unless you were already Possessed when you got pregnant. Which means you were Possessed before you even came to this dimension. You…You’ve been working for the bad guys this whole time!?”
“Suppressing the green-eye thing,” Kelly replied, “felt like holding my breath—holding it until my lungs burned. It feels so good to finally let it out. Although the really hard part was pretending to be high on your lame Spirit, and faking being all lovey-dovey with Marco and the rest of you.”
“How…How can you be one of them?” Star breathed.
“I was the very last Woolette to become Possessed,” Kelly replied.
“You fucking liar!” Arms spat. “You didn’t escape from Woolandia; they sent you here!”
“Yup,” Kelly replied. “I got to be the first Woolette to see your messy, mixed-up new dimension.” Her fists tightened. “And now, I get to help destroy it.”
“Kelly,” Star said, “you have to fight the Possession. This isn’t you, this is-”
“Oh, it’s definitely me,” Kelly cut in. “I may be Possessed, but I’m still running the show in here,” she added, tapping her temple.
“Then why?” Star cried, her blue eyes growing wet. “What did we ever do to you that would make you turn on us like this?”
Kelly’s composure vanished, and her face turned red with fury. “What did you do? What did you do?” She pointed a finger at Star and cried, “You BANISHED me!”
Star looked at her wide-eyed. “Wh- What?”
“You sent me back to my dimension with no warning, no way to get back, no way to talk to any of you!” Kelly yelled.
She took a breath and continued, “I didn’t even know what happened. I was just stuck there in Woolandia. And when the Possessor—that’s what we call it—came and started taking Woolettes left and right, I fought it as hard as I could, with the few friends I had left. But I couldn’t reach any of you to ask for help, so one by one, we all got caught.
“The others didn’t get Possessed right away. They just got locked up, so that when the Possessed finally caught me, they could make me watch when they took Possession of Tad, then Jorby, then my dad. I had to stand there and see the people I loved disappear, and watch something else take their place behind their eyes.
“That was when the Possessor told me what happened. That my so-called friends on Earth and Mewni had thrown me out in the cold and changed the locks.
“And here you were on your new world, living your best lives, with no idea what was happening in mine. Just the way you wanted it.”
Star was as pale as Marco had ever seen her as she replied, “That…That was never what I wanted. And if the Possessed were so horrible to you, why are you working for them?”
“When there’s no right side in a fight,” Kelly replied, “you pick the side that’s going to win. Most of your guys are total noobs with magic, but the Possessor gave me all the knowledge I needed to use mine. Just put it right into my brain. And on top of that, it charged me up with some of its own power.
“Not to be childish, but my Oracle is better than your Oracle. She saw this moment coming and made sure that I would wield more power than any of you. More power than all of you.”
She swung her green energy-sword at Star. The blonde girl tried to dodge backward, but the sword was so long that the end of it caught Star in the side and sent her flying into the wall. Then Kelly turned on Hekapoo’s clones, and one clone after another vanished with a poof as Kelly’s sword cut them down like weeds.
***
Amanda sighed as she looked down at the battle in the streets below. In the city blocks around the palace, police, knights, and even a National Guard platoon were fighting the Possessed, but they weren’t faring too well; many had gone into battle with minimal armament in case they became Possessed, and now, as they fought, some of them were starting to succumb and turn against their companions.
I feel so useless, Amanda thought. All those people down there need help, and here I am on this balcony, doing nothing.
A strange feeling came over her, and Amanda found herself looking inward—not into her mind, as she had when Star coached her and the others to “dip down,” but into her body. She wasn’t even sure how she was able to do it. But what she saw deep inside made her smile.
And then, the next thing she knew, she was climbing over the balcony rail and diving off the roof.
***
Brittney and Arms had gotten their second wind, and now the two of them were defending the doors from yet another wave of Possessed, Brittney hurling bolts of lightning while Arms used her new-found powers to launch loose bricks and hunks of broken sidewalk at the onrushing invaders.
Inside the lobby, Star, Marco, Hekapoo, Higgs, and Willoughby were all engaged with Kelly. Their superior numbers were doing them little good: Kelly’s glowing green energy sword seemed to be able to parry anything from a sword strike to a Narwhal Blast.
“All right, you asked for it!” Higgs growled at Kelly.
Higgs dropped into her one-foot-forward crouch and charged at Kelly, who was just dispatching another of Hekapoo’s clones. Even though Higgs was coming at Kelly from behind, the green-haired girl seemed to sense her; she spun to the side like a matador and whacked Higgs on the back with the flat of her sword blade. Higgs smashed into the wall and was knocked out, lying among bits of plaster and drywall.
***
“Hey, look,” Janna said, pointing at the trough-like walled avenue in front of the palace’s doorway as they soared toward it. “Somebody made us a runway.”
Jackie looked down at the many Possessed in the trough and replied, “Yeah, but how are we going to get down there without getting attacked by a swarm of- What is that?”
Janna looked where Jackie was pointing and saw a soaring condor with a wingspan almost as large as Janna’s. The bird swooped down until it was just above the crowd of enemies; then the condor transformed into a jaguar and landed on one of the Woolettes, digging its claws into the pink-haired man’s shoulders and making him scream.
“That oughta distract ‘em for a sec,” Janna said. “Whatever that is.”
Janna swooped down like the condor-turned-cat had. When she and Jackie were close enough to the ground, Jackie leaped off of Janna’s back and literally hit the ground running with the two big canvas bags in hand. Brittney shouted, “OMG!” and stopped hurling lightning just long enough for Jackie, Janna, and the jaguar to get past her. Then the jaguar transformed again—this time into a girl.
“Amanda?!” Brittney exclaimed.
With a shy smile, Amanda replied, “Marco said I could be anything I wanted. Turns out he was right.”
“But you shouldn’t be here,” Jackie said. “What if you’re not pregnant?”
“I can sense everything going on inside my body,” Amanda replied. “And there’s a baby getting started in there.”
“Jackie!” Marco shouted. “Kelly’s been Possessed! We need those weapons, pronto!”
Jackie pulled her blade-board out of one of the bags, dropped the board on the ground, and began racing around the room on it, tossing weapons to her fellow queens. When she gave Brittney her two pom-pom-like flails, the cheerleader shouted, “Go team!” and lit up the metal chains with electricity before wading into the crowd of invaders and zapping one after another. Some of the Possessed were more than just stunned; punctured by the flails’ spikes made from Buff Frog’s special metal, they fell to the ground and writhed.
“Marco!” Jackie shouted, and tossed him his katana-like sword.
“All right!” he exclaimed, brandishing the weapon. “Time to get Kelly back!”
Wisely, Star, Hekapoo, Higgs, and Willoughby had surrounded Kelly, forcing her to defend herself from all directions. Marco ran toward her, then dropped to the marble lobby floor and slid past Hekapoo and Higgs’ legs to cut at Kelly’s exposed calf, knowing that was all it would take to de-Possess her.
But the blade, despite being extremely sharp, didn’t cut Kelly in the slightest. The edge just slid along her skin until Marco came to an awkward stop on the floor in front of her. Everyone around Kelly froze in disbelief.
“Sorry, Marco,” Kelly said, looking down at him with a sinister smile. “I made my skin impenetrable.”
Marco felt a stab of fear. Getting their weapons back had been his one hope of saving Kelly from Possession, and now that hope was gone.
“Now,” Kelly said, “excuse me for a sec.”
Kelly leaped out from the midst of those surrounding her, landing by the unconscious Higgs. Then Kelly used her energy sword to smash a big hole in the wall that Higgs had damaged with her charge.
Outside was a horde of the Possessed. As Marco and the others watched, they parted, creating a path for a four-armed, bespectacled Woolette whose pink hair was in a bun. She strode forward and then into the palace.
“Kelly,” the woman said, “it seems that everything is going according to plan. Except that you haven’t killed any of these so-called royals yet.”
Marco pointed at the woman and said, “Hey, I know you! You’re that psycho librarian that tried to kill Kelly over an overdue book!”
“I was,” the woman replied. “But now I am the Oracle, and I speak for the Possessor. Now, Kelly, be a dear and use your powers to bring down this building. That seems the most efficient way to kill everyone inside.”
“No problem,” Kelly replied, hefting her energy sword.
Breaking through the wall had partly exposed one of the building’s support beams. Now, with a mighty downward diagonal stroke, Kelly sliced through the steel beam. Using sensory abilities granted by her new powers, she quickly located the other support beams and headed for the next closest one, swatting Star and Arms away when they tried to stop her, then smashing through a marble barrier that Arms erected in front of her.
Marco was frozen as he watched this. But although his body would not obey him, his mind was in overdrive.
I’m the king, Marco thought. Which means I have to make the hard choice, like Star did. I have to sacrifice the few to save the many.
“Guys, we have to stop Kelly!” Marco said.
It felt as though something broke inside him as he finished, “Whatever it takes.”
The girls all looked at him, and from their faces—variously grim, stunned, and horrified—they clearly understood exactly what Marco was asking them to do.
“He’s right,” Hekapoo said. “We have to take the gloves off. Or else this is the end of us. And then the end of everything.”
***
Wigburn had descended several flights of stairs with a dozen servants in tow. Fortunately, they’d had a couple of minutes to catch their breath before a group of Possessed came up onto the landing below theirs. Manfred was in the lead.
“I suspected,” Wigburn said, “that you had taken steps during your previous incursion to ensure that you could still infiltrate the palace via this stairway on the day of the invasion. Planning to assassinate the Oracle, were you? Such treachery would suit a betrayer of the royal household.”
Manfred glanced back at the ten armed and armored Woolettes behind him, then at the servants—most of them carrying improvised weapons and wearing nothing more protective than an apron—and sneered at Wigburn.
“It’s amusing that you see any point in resisting,” Manfred said. “In three minutes or so, you will all join the ranks of the Possessed.”
“On the contrary,” Wigburn replied. “In two minutes, you and your fellow traitors shall be dead. And in two and a half minutes, we all shall lie dead beside you.”
“Once the Spirit has been eradicated from this dimension,” Manfred said defiantly, “that child you call your king shall be king no more. Do you really want to lay down your life for him?”
“For our King,” Wigburn replied, “and for our world.”
“For Mewth!” Geeda shouted, brandishing a cleaver.
“For Earni!” one of the liveried valets cried.
Wigburn raised his sword in front of his face, so that his two eyes looked at Manfred from either side of the blade as he said, “En garde.”
***
Kelly was getting frustrated. She’d managed to cut another support beam, but now much of the royal family plus Willoughby were attacking her all at once, from every direction. They couldn’t take her down, but they were keeping her too busy to complete her task. Now it was a question of who would wear out first, and Kelly didn’t feel like waiting that long.
“Everybody hold it!” Kelly said, raising her hand. “I want to make a deal!”
When the others stopped their attack and looked at her, she continued, “Okay, Marco. How about we make this just you and me? No allies, no magic, no weapons. If you win, we’ll call off the invasion and go back to Woolandia. And the Possessor will release everyone it has taken in this dimension.”
Marco was surprised. Even though this deal would leave Kelly and all the other Woolettes Possessed, it was still a much better offer than he would have expected Kelly to make.
“And what happens if you win?” Marko asked.
“Then your side surrenders, and we complete our takeover of this dimension,” Kelly replied. “And I’ll have defeated this world’s One True King.”
“Kelly,” the librarian barked, “what are you doing? You have every advantage! Just kill him!”
“I’m about to,” Kelly replied.
“Marco,” Star said, “I don’t like this.”
“It could be a trick,” Hekapoo added.
“Who knows if she’ll keep her word?” Arms asked. “She’s been lying to us ever since she got to this dimension.”
“True,” Marco replied in a low voice, “but Psycho Librarian is right: Kelly has every advantage here. And look at the way she’s been acting since she got here, wanting us to hurt her, like she wants to be punished. I think some part of her is still resisting the Possessor, and that part of her wants us to win.”
He turned to Kelly and said, “Fine. You and me. Mano a mano.”
The invaders whom Brittney and Arms had been holding off stopped their attack, and the two exhausted girls did, too. A circle of observers formed around the edges of the room. Marco put down his sword, Kelly made hers vanish, and they both moved toward the center of the circle.
“I’m a little surprised you agreed to this, Marco,” Kelly said as they closed. “You must not be much of a chess player. Exposing the king like this is usually a big mistake.”
From the sidelines, Arms retorted, “You’ve seen the king a lot more exposed than this! And you loved it!”
“Yeah!” Brittney threw in. “Don’t tell us you were faking all those screaming orgasms!”
The librarian eyed Kelly, whose cheeks turned a bit pink.
“I might have fucked you,” Kelly said as she glared at Marco, “but now I’m gonna fuck you up.”
She sprinted a few steps toward Marco, then launched a flying kick at his head. Marco dodged to the side and turned around in one motion. Kelly landed, whirled around, and threw a punch at Marco’s face, making him raise his arms up and take a step back. Both actions positioned him perfectly for Kelly’s roundhouse kick, which landed hard against his ribs. Marco heard a faint cracking sound, and suddenly, it hurt a little to breathe.
Rookie mistake, Marco thought, backing rapidly away from Kelly’s follow-up punches to reset his position. But at least now I know that Kelly isn’t taking it easy on me.
Kelly came at him, and Marco snapped his forward leg up in a defensive front kick. The green-haired girl managed to stop her advance just outside the range of his kick, then moved in as he dropped his leg. He ducked her hook punch to his face, then put both hands on her shoulders and used his whole body to shove her, making her stumble back.
“A push? Seriously?” she said as she recovered her balance. “I thought you’d use the fighting skills you learned at your lame Earth dojo, not your kindergarten.”
With a sideways skipping motion, Marco came at Kelly with a side kick aimed at her midsection. Kelly dodged sideways so that she would be right behind Marco when he finished the kick, but Marco—who would have done the same thing in Kelly’s position—stopped short, whipped around, and snapped a backfist at Kelly’s head. When Kelly blocked with her forearm, Marco grabbed it and twisted Kelly around so as to seize her from behind.
He tried to step back to pull her off her feet, but his twisted body position made that awkward—giving Kelly a split second in which to drop into a crouch and throw Marco over her shoulder. Marco rolled out and came to his feet unharmed.
“Sorry, Marco,” Kelly said. “I’m not in the mood to cuddle.”
The snide remark made Marco realize something. I know she’s not going easy on me, but she doesn’t know that I’m not trying to go easy on her.
Marco circled left. There was no tactical reason to do it, as Kelly could easily turn to stay face-to-face with him. It was just a way to appear hesitant.
“C’mon, Marco,” Kelly said. “Come at me. Don’t you want to finish this, one way or the other?”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Kelly,” Marco replied truthfully.
“I know,” Kelly sighed. “It’s pathetic.”
She charged. Marco didn’t move; he just watched Kelly come toward him, and it seemed as though he could hear the tick of each millisecond that passed.
Wait for it, he thought.
She leaped at him, snapping her leg forward in a jumping front kick. But instead of dodging, as Kelly probably expected him to do, Marco swung his arm up and around to catch Kelly’s kicking leg from beneath. Her eyes met his for a fraction of a second, and Marco could see her surprise—right before he twisted his body hard and punched her square in the chest.
Kelly might have been resistant to cuts and punctures, but she could still get the wind knocked out of her. She gasped futilely for air as she fell backward, and Marco used her imbalance and distraction to slam the heel of his hand into the side of her jaw. Her head snapped sideways, and then Marco snaked his right arm all the way around her neck and put Kelly in a headlock.
Marco leaned back enough to pull Kelly off balance and put some of her bodyweight on her throat, pressing it against his arm and thus choking her. He also used his free left arm to grab Kelly’s, leaving her no limbs with which she could hit him with any real force.
“Kelly,” Marco panted, “you give up?”
Her voice literally strangled, Kelly replied, “No.”
Oh my God, Marco thought. She wants me to kill her. No—she needs me to kill her. That’s why she made me promise to give her what she needs, even when she can’t ask for it.
Marco leaned back farther. Her air cut off completely, Kelly began to struggle futilely and make gurgling sounds.
He couldn’t look at the others; he couldn’t focus on anything except squeezing the life out of the one who had betrayed his whole world, betrayed him, betrayed his love for her. A love he still felt, which made it all the more agonizing to hear every horrible sound she made as he strangled her. He hated her for that, too—for making him kill her. For making him live with that forever.
Marco shook, hating Kelly, hating himself, but he did not stop squeezing her throat as hard as he could. He saw drops of water splash on Kelly’s upper back and realized that they had come from his own eyes.
Someone was shouting, but Marco scarcely heard it. Until a hand seized his shoulder and another hand reached around him from behind and tried to pull his arm off Kelly’s neck. Marco reflexively elbowed his attacker in the face.
“Ow, damn!” Tom shouted, staggering back. Then, both hands over his nose, he shouted, “Marco, let her go! I can save her!”
“No you can’t!” Marco shouted, still strangling Kelly. “No one can! And you don’t have powers anymore!”
“I have one,” Tom answered. “It’s called transferable immunity. Please,” he begged, “let me try it.”
All of this was too much for Marco to handle. His body went slack, and he let Tom pull Kelly out of his grip. Then, to Marco’s great surprise, Tom seized Kelly’s face in both hands and kissed her hard.
Tom pulled his face away from Kelly’s. She was unconscious but breathing, and Tom gently lowered her to the ground. Then he and Marco both watched in amazement as the green glow faded from the girl’s eyes.
“NO!” the librarian shouted. Then she pointed at Marco and the girls and shouted at her troops, “Kill them all!”
“Hey, we had a deal!” Marco objected.
“Your deal was with Kelly,” the librarian replied. “And she’s not one of us anymore.”
Possessed flooded in through both the main doors and the hole in the wall. Arms managed to seal up the hole before more than a dozen or so Possessed made it through, but this took a lot out of her; when she tried to erect a marble wall to block the doors, as well, she could only raise a few inches of wall before she was exhausted. The Possessed stepped over the short barrier as they charged in.
Star stunned the front-liners with a Narwhal Blast; then Hekapoo, Brittney, and Higgs laid into them with their weapons, cutting or jabbing them and making them fall to their knees as the Possessor was forced out of them. At the same time, Jackie hopped on her blade-board and raced around the room, aiming for the ankles of the Possessed who’d made it in through the hole in the wall while they were busy evading whip-like strikes from Janna’s wings and the fangs of Willoughby and Amanda, who had transformed into a big white wolf.
“Tom,” Marco said, “watch over Kelly. I need to deal with all this,” he finished, gesturing around the room.
“How am I going to protect her?” Tom asked. “I can’t just kiss anyone who comes at me.”
“I’d lend you my sword,” Marco said, “but then I’d need another weapon.”
And then a huge green energy-sword appeared in his other hand.
“What the- I’ve got the same power as Kelly?!” Marco shouted. Then he handed his special-metal sword to Tom and said, “I guess I’ll roll with it.”
Marco leaped into the fray, swatting Possessed left and right with the flat of his sword. Jackie zipped by and cut each of them with her blade-board.
The librarian had been watching all this action from behind her troops. When the ones in front of her fell, she let out a growl of anger and frustration and pulled out, seemingly from nowhere, a rocket launcher. She lifted it onto her shoulder and fired it at Marco.
“Look out!” Higgs shouted, hip-checking Marco out of the rocket’s way and pushing herself in the opposite direction. The rocket flew between them and exploded against the far wall. Before the librarian could reload, Jackie hit her with a blast of air that knocked her down.
“Thanks!” Marco shouted at Higgs. Then he looked at his empty hands. “But where’s my sword?”
Unfortunately, the explosion had created a new hole in the wall, which the Possessed outside the building quickly spotted and headed for.
“Super Strawberry Shake Quake!” Star shouted, knocking the onrushing enemy back with a tidal wave of strawberries.
When more Possessed appeared, Star followed up with a Crystal Cupcake Blast and a Syrup Tsunami Shockwave. But it seemed like for every Possessed she knocked down, three more appeared.
“Okay, these guys are really ticking me off,” Marco growled.
“Big time,” Higgs snarled.
Marco didn’t even know why, but when Higgs dropped down into her foot-forward crouch, he dropped down alongside her. Then he noticed an energy aura forming around him just like the one growing around Higgs.
“Omigosh!” Marco exclaimed. “Now I’ve got your powers!”
“Then let’s hit ‘em!” Higgs shouted.
They charged forward, straight into the crowd of invaders, and the massive double impact sent Possessed flying everywhere. But Marco and Higgs only had a moment to high-five before more Possessed came after them, forcing them to retreat back the way they had come.
How did I get Kelly’s powers? Marco thought as he ran. And then how did I lose them and get Higgs’ powers instead?
Just as Marco and Higgs got back inside the lobby, the door from the stairwell opened, and through it came Lydia and her entourage, along with Wigburn, his band of servants, and the palace guards who had fled up the stairs on Marco’s order. The guards and the servants looked a bit worse for wear, and Marco guessed that there had been a fight in the stairwell.
Lydia gazed at the librarian through her thick-lensed glasses and said, “You cannot succeed here, Sister, Brother, Sibling. King Marco and his brides will stop you all, regardless of your numbers.”
“What nonsense,” the librarian spat. “You have been the weaker virus since the beginning. Even those who are infected with you cannot resist my Possession.”
“Strength and weakness,” Lydia replied, “are often a matter of perspective, viewpoint, vantage. You may have greater control over those you occupy, but you have invested so much of yourself in Kelly and this librarian-” Lydia pointed at her while giving Marco and the girls a meaningful sidelong glance “-that if you were to be banished from the librarian’s body as well as Kelly’s, you would lose control over the others you Possess.”
At that moment, Marco had a revelation. Before the librarian could even blink, he ran up to Janna’s side, clapped a hand on her shoulder, then lashed out with a long, black bat-wing and seized the librarian. Then he shouted “Yoink!” as he pulled her over to his side of the room.
Everyone raised their weapons to cut or jab her. But it was Kelly who suddenly appeared behind the librarian and shallowly slashed the woman’s upper back from behind with her special-metal sword.
“Nooooooo!” the librarian screamed. As the green glow faded from her eyes, she moaned, “Nooo…” and passed out.
The Possessed around them slumped to the ground, as well. And so did every Possessed for as far as the eye could see.
Kelly gazed down at the fallen librarian with grim satisfaction. Then she looked up at Marco and Star, and her mind and body were suddenly flooded with more emotions than she knew what to do with.
She fell to her knees, bawling. Star came down in front of her and held her tight.
“I’m sorry, Kelly,” Star murmured in the girl’s ear, tears starting to drip from her own eyes. And then the other brides and Marco were all around them and holding them both.
- 16
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Smooshed, or, The Nine Wives of Marco Diaz