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I Summon the All-Seeing Eye	By : all_possible_worlds Category: +S through Z > Star vs. The Forces of Evil Views: 29523 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Vs. the Forces of Evil or its characters. I made no money from writing this story.

Chapter List
- 19
- 20
- 21
Chapter 20: Paved with Good Intentions
Note: Please review if you enjoyed. Constructive criticism very welcome! I respond to reviews here: http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/topic/64957-review-responses-and-open-discussion-for-i-summon-the-all-seeing-eye-star-vs-the-forces-of-evil/

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"You know, Marco, when you said you wanted to hang out today, this is not what I had in mind," Tom spoke, irritated, as he guided the other boy lower and lower through the deepest reaches of his corner of the underworld. He led through black decrepit stairwells, through stone bridges over burning lava pools, through pitch-black tunnels full of nameless horrors. By all rights he should hate the human, see him as a rival, and dispose of him at the earliest opportunity. That was his nature.
"What did you think I was going to ask you then, Tom?" Marco retorted, as he nervously scuttled through the narrow downwards ledge, a bottomless abyss extending ominously to his right. Well, not truly bottomless in the literal sense, Tom knew. But the thing at the bottom would devour you before you realized you had reached the ground, so it might as well be endless, really.
"Honestly, I thought you were here so I could destroy you at some other game. I am still trying to beat my record, you know? Pulverize you sixty to zero, or better, at something. Come on, I know we both can do it!" He laughed and gave Marco a playful pat on the shoulder. The human yelped in terror as he lost his balance, nearly falling to his demise. But Tom held him back with an outstretched arm. Nature be dammed, he had grown to like the whelp. Not enough to know what Star saw in him, but well, that was none of his business. "But seriously, Marco, why do you want to see it?"
"Well, Tom, I don't know what you have heard about Star's speech, yesterday, at her mom's wake..." Marco began. Tom smiled bitterly to himself.
"All of it, Marco," he replied with a shrug. "I was there too."
The look of confusion in the human boy's face was absolutely worth it. "Wait, you were there? I didn't see you there. Star didn't see you there either, I think."
"I know," Tom replied with a smug grin. 'Point, Tom', he thought to himself with some satisfaction. Then his expression went far more serious for a moment. "I didn't want to scare the locals too much. They know me, but that doesn't mean they aren't afraid of demons showing up, specially at funerals. Given the fright Star was putting them through, I didn't think it was a good idea for me to make an appearance. Thanks for trying to stop her, by the way, not that I expected it to work."
"Yeah, neither did I," Marco admitted.
"She just does whatever she wants," both of them intoned in unison and chuckled nervously.
They fell into a short but uncomfortable silence, as they made their way through a cave with teeth-like stalagmites, which might or might not have once been something's real teeth. Marco was the first to speak. "Do you think she is right? To seek vengeance for her mom, I mean."
Tom shrugged. He truly didn't know. His heart told him yes, while his mind, and Brian, would have said no. It was a treacherous road Star was taking, almost like the volcanic maw the two of them were now descending into. In the end, though, it was her road to take or not take. Tom harbored no illusions that he could influence Star's decision there. Maybe Marco could, but he doubted even that.
There was an island inside a hellish caldera, reachable by a lead boat rowed by faceless demons. On the island stood a tower, and there, down in its bottommost basement, the room Marco had asked about.
"You know Star has one of those too, right? In upper Mewni," Tom pointed up. In fact, Star's maps room was far easier to access than his. What was with demons and placing all their important rooms in the deepest and most remote corners of their domains? He would have to ask his mom someday. There were some things of demon tradition that truly didn't make sense to him, even now.
"I don't want to tell Star about this, not until I know I am right," Marco answered firmly. "If I am not, I don't want to give her false hope. And if I am, well, I still don't know whether or not I should tell her..."
"Marco, you need to let Star make her own decisions here," Tom replied solemnly. His words were met with a raised eyebrow and a quizzical stare on the part of the boy. "Fine, call me a hypocrite! Doesn't mean I am wrong, Marco."
Marco nodded, "No, Tom, you are right. It is just... If she ends up hurting herself, I don't think I could forgive myself."
"I won't forgive you, either," Tom said in a joking tone. It was no joke, and he hoped the human knew that.
"Thanks," the boy replied, with an eye roll.
A long beat of silence as they started descending down the final flight of ebony stairs.
"Marco, you know you are an infuriatingly lucky bastard, right?" Tom said. In truth, he wasn't even thinking of the boy's human girlfriend, though well, that too. He meant because of Star. That was luck enough for anyone. "Just want that to be clear."
"I know, man, I know," he replied earnestly. Then, with a grin, "and you are dating Janna... my condolences."
"Oh, come on, she is not as bad as you think," Tom retorted as he pushed the heavy iron doors. He smirked at Marco. "She is way worse!"
The human boy's incipient laugher was cut short at the view of the Room of Maps. It was indeed a sight to behold, Tom had to admit. The floor was crystal glass, perfectly transparent and hard as diamond. Underneath, carved on black volcanic stone was a perfect representation of the ten thousand domains of hell: islands of ebony rock, each detailed to perfection, connected by narrow bridges that would probably not fall to the lava below until the day of judgment itself. The endless pool of magma, underneath it all, represented the domain of The Morning Star, the core of hell, and it showed no known or fixed features. The ceiling of the cavern reflected the light through a series of golden inverted spires, only partly approximating the alien geometries of the heavenly dimensions. In between those two, floated maps of every known world.
Parchment balloons and flying leaflets hung in mid air, magically suspended. Each of them was a map of the dimension it represented in the larger arrangement. If you were to look at the globes floating above the stretch of volcanic stone that mirrored Tom's own domain within hell, for example, you would find the disc-shaped map of Mewnie, right above the miniature of the Lucitor palace. You would also find there a floating leaflet for the tiny dimension hosting St Olga's, and a globe representing Earth. If you unrolled the later just the right way, it would give you a map of the broader universe of Marco's home dimension, with all its stars, planets, and galaxies, updating in real time as their relative positions changed. Those were only a few of the dozens of dimensions that floated above Tom's family lands, the ones to which his carriage could travel unimpeded. Then again, even all those were only a handful among the countless dimensions floating along the nearly infinite room.
"Well, Marco," he chided his companion, who was still staring dumbfounded at the place. "Good luck finding anything in here. Let me know when you start going mad!"
To his surprise, Marco just grinned. "Tom, did I ever tell you about the time I spent sixteen years chasing Hekapoo to get a pair of scissors?"
"You did not," Tom replied. Sixteen years? Marco wasn't even fifteen years old! Was that a joke? He tried not to have his own confusion show, but Marco's smug look told the demon prince he had not succeeded in that. 'Point, Marco', whatever!
"I was older back then," Marco shrugged. His tone of voice had changed: more confident, more mature. Would almost have been hot, if Tom were into that. "I learned a lot of things chasing H-poo. Magic of my own, I believe. Nothing like Star, a few spells here and there, always with a price. But when I got back, I slowly began to forget. I think I needed to forget. Would have been too damaged otherwise. But I had a dream, two days ago. I dreamed of Hekapoo, and I think she was really there, and when I woke up I still remembered a bit of who I was during that dream, of my older self... I remembered a spell, a spell to find things."
"So," Tom commented, still unsure whether he believed the other teen. "You are going to use that spell to locate Moon's killer? To help Star take revenge?"
Marco shook his head. "No. The spell can only locate things I can name, in the language of the spell itself. I remember about fifty words right now, from the dream, twelve are part of the spell itself. Even if I was fully fluent in Riradesh again, I don't think I would know the name of the thing King River described."
"Then?" Tom asked, curious.
"I think it can find Hekapoo," Marco suggested.
"Marco, isn't Hekapoo..." Tom began. Hekapoo was dead, and Marco might be already mad with grief; just as affected as Star was. Tom shuddered.
"I don't know. I don't think she is dead, or not completely dead," Marco said. "If the spell works, if the dream was real, then she must be out there, somehow."
"Ok," Tom reasoned. Nothing lost with trying. "Let's try this spell of yours then."
"Well," Marco seemed nervous. "Remember when I said there was a price for every spell I knew? This one's is bad. For everything found, I forget something of the same kind, Tom. So to use it to find a person means forgetting someone. I don't think I lost anything when casting it in a dream, but if this works... What if it's Jackie? What if it's Star?"
Tom shuddered, understanding. So it was that kind of magic. The demon prince was starting to believe, despite himself, that Marco wasn't entirely talking out of his ass. It fit too much with what he knew of certain magics to be a complete fabrication. Still, this was to help Star. Tom would have happily traded turning Marco into a vegetable to help Star get what she wanted, and he might even do the same to himself.
"Look at the bright side. It could be Janna," the demon prince joked. A pang in his chest reminded him that he himself would never want to forget Janna, no matter how annoying the girl was sometimes.
Marco chuckled. "If I forget you, do I also forget Naysaya?"
Then, with a look of determination suddenly taking over his face, Marco began intoning a litany of twelve words in a language even Tom didn't recognize, and he spoke over a thousand. Golden light steamed from the human boy's breath over his closed fist, and he began drawing a complicated script in the air, one that expanded from the center and towards all sides, without the single line of the word ever being broken. The demon prince recognized a few glyphs, like fire, which was similar to the equivalent in the ancient tongue of the lower planes. The more complicated parts were unknown to him. Clearly Marco wasn't kidding when he said he could cast magic. Better never tell Janna of this.
The script coiled into itself, became a sphere of brightness and... fizzled in mid air. Marco looked puzzled at his hand.
"Well, that looked magic to me," Tom shrugged. "Maybe you got the name wrong?" He hoped Marco wouldn't lose any memories for a miscast ritual, but he wasn't sure.
"No, Tom," Marco replied. "The name is right: 'She who owns the blade of fire that crosses the empty place between places; Hekapoo'. Maybe... maybe there is not enough of her for the spell to recognize her," he clenched both fists and looked down in despair.
"Well, Marco," Tom drew closer and rested a hand on the boy's shoulder. "It was a long shot anyways, right? Star will find another way."
"No. Wait!" Marco's eyes lit up again. "I know where to find Hekapoo, if she is to be found anywhere, and she has to be, otherwise she would not have sent that dream!"
Tom let go of Marco as he began the spell anew. The Lucitor prince wasn't sure the dream was truly a vision now, even if the magic was real. How likely was it that Marco had just gotten a normal dream that jogged back some old memories? Or that whatever had sealed those memories inside him, possibly for his own good, had died with Hekapoo? But he said nothing, and let Marco try again.
Once more the boy drew fire, and blade, and many more glyphs the demon did not recognize. But then, around what he swore up and down was Hekapoo's name, he drew the crown of thorns, the twelve pointed circle, Arus'Morgáth. Tom's eyes went wide with surprise at the fact that the boy knew that symbol, "Marco, what are you trying to write?"
"Just 'Hekapoo's dimension'," he replied absently, his concentration elsewhere, going into the spell.
"That doesn't mean dimension, Marco," Tom clarified, unsure if the other boy was listening. "I think you just wrote 'Hekapoo's domain'."
"Yeah, sure, that," replied Marco, missing the significance of the fact. As he said that, the words in the air coiled around themselves and became a ball of lightning. It began moving around the room. Tom and Marco followed. As they moved, maps moved out of their way only to return to their places a second after. Eventually, the sphere came to rest inside a cluster of maps: three large parchment spheres and dozens of smaller strips. It divided into many lights, illuminating the whole set of charts and globes.
"Tom?" Marco asked, without looking away from the constellation of maps. "Can you take us here?"
Tom looked at the path below, the geography of hell that connected his own domain with that of the Forger of Scissors. There was a path, many even, but they all passed through the same place: the huge citadel in the middle of the floor, all claw-like castles and needle-like spires. It was a place of countless terrors, even to a prince of hell. He should have known. After all, in hell, all roads led to Dis. To Sam's domain.
"It is not going to be easy, Marco. Not like going to St O's, or Earth, or Mewni," Tom shuddered. "There is someone I need to ask for a favor. It will cost me greatly, it might cost my family greatly too. And it will be dangerous, for all of us."
"More dangerous than Star finding this same path and going on her own? Or that any other thing she might try?" Marco asked, his features harder than the demon had ever seen them before.
He had to admit the boy had a point. It was not like him saying no at this point would stop Star from trying. Tom shuddered at the thought of the princess trying to forge a way through Dis by force. Even having Marco keep quiet wouldn't deter her from finding a way eventually. Maybe she would even try to punch a hole into the fabric of the multiverse by force of will alone. Without scissors, going through Dis, dealing with Sam, might in truth be the safest path, even if it was anything but safe.
"No, probably not," he replied finally. He was also, to his annoyance, beginning to understand what Star saw in the other boy. "Alright, Marco. I'll do this, for Star. On one condition: you are all in, no hesitations, no divided loyalties. We both do this for Star."
----
Marco had been thinking of Tom's final admonition for hours by the time he reached Earth. He had asked the demon prince for one of his suit jackets, a bit of hair gel, and to borrow his royal carriage for the rest of the day. It turned out driving the hearse was easier than the boy had suspected, you needed only to say where and the undead horse did the rest. Marco talked to the horse for a while, as he sorted out his conflicted feelings. The skeleton was still bitter that nobody had told it of its demise for years, Nonetheless, it did his job without complaint. What it definitely wasn't, however, was any sort of particularly insightful audience for the human's personal troubles.
As the vehicle materialized in front of Jackie's home, Marco looked at the bouquet of roses in his hands, unnaturally red and with a light all of their own, as if flame burned beneath the petals. Hell flowers. Tom had given him his word that they were safe, but the Earth boy still had his doubts. This would be hard enough without his gift trying to eat them before they could talk, or burning his girlfriend's house down.
He walked out and rang the doorbell. Jackie opened up, looking amazing. She looked at him up and down, and burst out laughing, "Hahaha Marco, you look so... fancy?" She paused for a moment, looking behind him. "Sweet ride, though!"
"Okay, okay," he conceded, taking off Tom's jacket and tousling his hair back to normal. Jackie was right, this wasn't him. He just had wanted to make their last date special. "Jackie Lynn Thomas. I am here to take you, on the ultimate date!"
Jackie looked at him puzzled, then a little bit sadly. A flash in her eyes told him she was reading more in his expression than what he wished to show. Jackie always kept talking about them reading each other's mind, and Marco was often half-convinced she could do that to him already. She took the bouquet and motioned him over, "Marco, come on in."
Marco followed her sheepishly, and a bit disappointed. He had wanted to treat Jackie today. It might be the last time he saw her for a while. She deserved better, of course, so much better, but a great date was all he could give her now. Maybe, if he survived, he would one day be able to make it up to her. Was there an easy way to tell your girlfriend you had to go away, for months at least, possibly forever, to cross the depths of hell with your other girlfriend?
"What is this really about, Marco?" Jackie finally broke the silence, as she put the roses in a vase. The water under them heated immediately to a soft boil, and stayed there, bubbling slowly. "No offense, but with that face you look less like you are asking me out, and more like you are on your way to a funeral."
"Remember the dream I told you about?" Marco begun. He would have wanted to give the two of them a few more hours together, before he had to explain. But it was clear his heart wouldn't have been in it anyways. This was already too painful for him, and in a minute he might cause the same pain to Jackie. That idea felt even worse than his own misery. "I went to visit Tom. We found a lead. I am telling Star."
"Are you sure you should be telling her?" Jackie asked pensively. "Marco, you know she is in grief, right? Not thinking straight. This whole quest of revenge thing could be the worst decision she makes in her life..."
"Yes, Jackie, I know," Marco admitted. "And no, I am not sure. But if I don't help her, I think she will do it anyways. I want to be there, to protect her if I can. If not, then at least to support her. And I want to help her honestly. It would be one thing to tell her not to do it, another to withhold this information from her."
"Yeah, because she has always been so forthcoming with the truth..." muttered Jackie. She shook her head. "No, dude, you are right. Telling her is the right thing, just promise me you will try to stop her from doing something really stupid."
"I will," Marco swore. Then he looked into Jackie's eyes, sadly. "Which is why I need to be going with her."
"Well, duh, of course," Jackie replied with a wave of her hand, completely missing the point. Marco gulped.
"It is a long journey without the scissors. I don't know when, or if, we will be back," he finally admitted. It hurt to speak, he felt tears welling inside his eyes. "Jackie, I love you. But it wouldn't be fair for me to ask that you wait until I return. I think... I think we should break up!"
They stared at each other in silence for a while, then he continued. There was a lot he wanted to say, and yet nothing that could be nearly enough, "I love you, like you have no idea! But, well, Star needs me now, and... you don't. If I do come back, and you are free then, and still want to... maybe... no, lets leave it at that for now. I am sorry."
Oh god, he felt like such an asshole. Jackie didn't deserve this. But he had to be there for Star. Jackie was strong. She would do alright. And she was kind. She would understand. Still, Marco felt oh so very small at that moment. Jackie simply stared at him and blinked.
"Marco, I love you too, but sometimes you are kind of an idiot," she stated calmly. It was like a slap to the face.
"I know," he agreed. He began walking back towards the door, shoulders hunched, deflated.
"Not what I meant, Diaz!" Jackie shouted. "The reason you are an idiot, is because it is obvious I am going with you two, dude!"
When Marco turned back, Jackie was smiling, and still shaking her head.
"Wait! Jackie, no, that's even worse, I definitely cannot ask you to..." he began.
"You are not asking, Marco," she retorted. "And I am not asking you either. Even if you do go ahead and break up with me right now, I am still going. Star is still my friend too, despite that stupid voyeur spell, you know?"
"Jackie, no, this is going to be really dangerous!" yelled Marco. He couldn't bear the idea of Jackie dying or getting hurt, and the hard truth was that it was not an improbable outcome in the least. "I mean, the way Tom spoke of the way there... we are going through the bowels of hell, literally! And, well, at the end there is this... this thing that was able to overpower Hekapoo and Star's mom. We could die. You... you could die."
"Shhh, Marco, it's ok," she said, walking towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder, wiping a tear from his face. She flashed him what he had begun to call her 'Prince Jack' grin. "I will protect you."
They kissed. Or Jackie kissed him. Marco was grateful, and guilty. He couldn't help but think that he was still the one dragging Jackie into all of this, putting her at risk. But on the other hand, he didn't know what he would do without her support, without her strength. He could try to be there for Star but, without Jackie, who would be there for him? He couldn't ask her to do that, of course. But he was weak enough not to push her away, if she insisted.
"So, Marco, are we still together?" Jackie finally broke the kiss and asked him. "Because, honestly, I would prefer that, if we ever do break up, is because one of us no longer cares for the other, not because you are silly enough to think I won't follow you into hell."
Tom was right, Marco thought, he was an infuriatingly lucky bastard.
"Jackie, I truly couldn't ask for a better girlfriend," Marco admitted and nodded.
"No, you couldn't. Now, go deliver your other girlfriend the news, dude, before she does something crazy...er. We can do your fancy date when we are all back, I sort of need to pack now. How do you think is the weather in hell?" Jackie laughed and pushed Marco out of the house. Then, turning serious for a moment, she added, "By the way, if you don't come back for me, I'll ask Janna. I know Tom is going after Star, and Janna practically lives with him now. And if you make me go down that route, Marco, I am afraid I will have to kick your ass when I do get there."
----
Tom marched back towards his room, his promise to Marco weighting heavy in his mind. Sam was an old friend of the family, and he had a strange, sometimes disturbing, fondness for Tom. But having Sam's friendship was like having a pet viper; that it didn't bite you didn't mean the venom wasn't there, always at the ready. Sam was ancient when Tom's oldest ancestors were young, and powerful in a way that only the Astray One himself could top. If the other demon decided to hurt Marco, or Janna, or Star, well, there was nothing Tom could do to stop him.
"Shadow chains!" cried a familiar voice as the prince Lucitor entered his own chambers. Black ribbons of living darkness coiled around his arms, tying them behind his back. On his bed, naked underneath her open black silk robe, legs crossed, Janna sat grinning. Strewn around her were half a dozen books. Ancient tomes of power older than the Kingdom of Mewni itself.
"Where did you get those?" the demon inquired. He tugged at the arcane bindings holding him. They were strong, much stronger than he expected from Janna. But not nearly strong enough. His eyes lit red and he burned through the conjured restraints with ease.
"Come on! You could have at least pretended those worked," Janna pouted. "It took me hours to get that one to work!"
"You really are taking this seriously, aren't you?" Tom replied, somewhat impressed. Even without much natural talent, the human girl practiced magic with a diligence he had seldom ever seen in anyone. After the trip to St O's she had, if anything, redoubled her efforts. "Still, Janna, you didn't answer. Where are the books from?"
"Your family library, duh," she shrugged. It was not an apology.
Tom raised a hand and all tomes floated gently to a nearby bookcase. He was beginning to learn it wasn't even worth it getting angry at Janna's antics, and anyways he had more serious worries in his mind right now.
"Next time, Janna, ask," he scolded her, uselessly. "There are books there I really wouldn't want to have you damage... and books that are more likely to damage you instead." The flesh-eating ones were among the least dangerous in that later category.
"Aw, someone looks sourer than usual!" the wannabe witch observed. "Heard Marco was visiting. Jealous much?"
"No! ...maybe," Tom hesitated. "But anyways, that's not the point. There is a call I have to make, it is a delicate one, something that could help Star..."
"It is always about Star, isn't it?" Janna grumbled.
"Janna, she lost her mom," Tom observed, glaring back at her. What was with Janna and Star recently? The troublemaker girl had always resented Star on some level, both for her magic and, if he was honest rather than humble, for what she meant to him. But lately it was worse than ever. She bristled at every mention of the mewman princess, and had even refused to attend Moon's wake. "I thought she was your friend too!"
"A friend?" Janna raised an eyebrow. "Is that what she is to you Tom. Really?"
"Yes," he replied annoyed, a few sparks of fire dancing through his fingers. "Yes, that is what she is to me. What I am trying to be to her, Janna. I am trying to be the friend she needs now."
"Sure, sure," Janna nodded. "Not like you are trying to take advantage of her grief to fuck her again, right?"
The demon prince's eyes glowed red at that comment. A strong wind filled the room, coming out of nowhere. Tom's hair flew around him, his body rising into the air as flames exploded below. A guttural voice replacing his usual boyish tone. "NO. I am honestly trying to be a good person, and it hurts, and it is hard, and it is driving me absolutely insane! But by Satan and Belial, I am going to do the right thing this time! And I would appreciate that for once, you didn't imply that I have to be the bad guy!"
Janna smirked, and got up from the bed. She let her black cloak hit the ground, exposing her naked body. "Ah, but Tom, I like it when you are the bad guy. If you are not going to be bad to Star, then how about being bad to me?"
Wait, was that what this was about? A come-on? Tom didn't have time for these games. There was so much he needed to do, so much to arrange. Star needed him! And, at the same time, he couldn't help but notice the moonlight allure of the witch's pale naked body as she reflected the fires of hell. The playful spark dancing in her eyes. The demon prince realized at that moment how, ahem, frustrated he had been this past week, worrying about Star, burying down feelings of his own that the mewman definitely shouldn't have to deal with. That he managed to be a decent person didn't mean the feelings weren't there. That it didn't hurt to be around his ex. Janna offered him an outlet.
"Fine!" he shouted. Honestly, he needed to unwind. If he called Sam in this state, who knows what might happen.
Tom raised a hand and Janna's body began floating up towards him, like a marionette pulled from strings. She delighted in her helplessness, a grin like that of a mad woman. He moved his claw across the air, and a whip of fire lashed at her from nowhere, hitting her arm, burning the skin. She moaned. She fucking moaned of pleasure like if he had just given her the most sensual caress. Janna was a freak. It was perhaps her best feature.
She lifted her own hand, and Tom felt himself being yanked towards her by some unseen force. He could have resisted it, of course. He didn't.
His body smashed against Janna's and she wrapped her legs around him. The demon prince controlled the flames, made them vanish before he seriously hurt the human girl. No matter how fast she was improving, he didn't trust her to put up her own defenses. She craved the pain a bit too much sometimes, it made even Tom uneasy. But right now, as she began unbuttoning his coat and then his shirt, the Lucitor boy could almost forget the burning signs of unhealthiness in what they were doing.
He kissed her. Then, in an impulsive decision, he bit her lower lip and pulled back. A metallic taste filled his mouth as he drew a single drop of blood. He looked down into her eyes for signs of fear or distress. What he saw, was hunger. A hunger echoing his own. Janna was the only person he knew, that didn't recoil of Tom's darkest impulses, who didn't want him to suppress them. She fetishized his darkest side; embraced it. It wasn't exactly healthy and it wasn't exactly safe, but it felt good. It felt good to let go; and to be loved for it.
She traced a line through his pants with her finger, a thin tendril of blue flame burning away at the fabric. The demon's skin barely felt her weak spell, but the clothes ripped and smoldered nonetheless. Soon they were embracing naked in mid air. Tom dug his claws into her back. She whimpered appreciatively. "Tom, damn it! Fuck me!"
He did. He plunged into her. Gently at first, but deep. She clamped her legs around his waist and begun her own hip motions. Tom took the invitation for what it was and began to thrust hard and fast. He could feel her heart beating even through her howling in his ear. Lightning and fire danced across her skin as she drank deep from his own demonic power. It was monstrously dangerous, but the demon prince dared not interrupt her. It was not clear to him which sensation was the most intense for the witch, the sex or the magic, or if there was indeed a difference between the two.
They floated down towards his bed, all around them a rapid twister of red flames and dark-blue bats made out of raw magical energy danced, following the rhythm of their mating. Janna's eyes were blank. She was in trance, faded away into a realm which words or reason would not reach, only raw sensation. Tom forced himself to keep conscious, to reign himself in even as he wanted nothing more than to let go. He grunted and gasped, but stayed afloat, trusting into her with wild but conscious hunger. He knew the girl below him was too fragile for him to completely lose control. Yet he edged towards brutal abandon, and towards his own climax.
Janna's body tensed as she arrived to her own orgasm. Her walls around Tom's cock clenched violently, causing him to burst as well, emptying into her. The troublemaker girl's hands stretched out towards the ceiling, and lightning crackled all around the room, flowing out from the tips of each of her fingers.
They fell silent for a while, relaxing into each other's arms. Tom's muscles had turned from the hardness of stone to the softness of wet earth. Janna literally glowed, a soft reddish afterglow of the powers that had just flowed through her.
"See, Tom? I told you this way was better than the books," she whispered, softly.
"And I told you, it was like trying to be a lightning rod," Tom replied. Some measure of worry in his voice. The girl was playing Russian roulette with energies too destructive for her body to contain. And he kept allowing it, because it helped him to let his own frustrations out, and because it distracted him from Star. Was he still the bad guy then, after all?
----
"I call the darkness unto me, from deepest depths of earth and sea, from ancient evils unawoken, to break the one who can't be broken," intoned Star. It was not even the words of the spell that terrified Marco as he approached the princess, nor the dark clouds that seemed to gather around her as she spoke them. It was the cold fury in his friend's eyes.
He had never seen Star so focused, so determined. Even when she had broken Toffee's glass prison, seemingly so long ago, she didn't look nearly as threatening. In front of her was a stone statue, crude in its shape and features, but clearly representing a tall faceless female form with six arms. "To blackest night I pledge my soul, and crush my heart to burning coal, to summon forth the deathly power, to-see-my-hated-foe-devoured!"
A beam of inky purple darkness exploded out of Star's wand, as she stammered the end of the spell as fast as she could. The crystal half-star turned pitch black as the power its owner had summoned passed through it, venomous and corrosive. The ray of death hit the center of the rough statue, right in the middle of its torso. With a horrible rumble, the form cracked and exploded, fragments of rock flying in every direction. Marco jumped to evade one such projectile, while those headed for Star bounced away in mid air. Waves of purple magic flashed all around the princess. They looked very much like the golden waves of the magical armor that had protected Jackie in her duel with Princess White.
Star closed her eyes and lifted her left hand from the wand. She made a fist in mid air, and opened her eyes. They shone with blinding green light, a brightness that extended to the heart marks on her cheeks as well. The next moment, a new statue sprouted out from the ground itself, crude but fully formed, right beside the one Star had just destroyed. Marco noticed then the many piles of rubble around the courtyard where Star stood. It was obvious she had been doing this for a while.
"Hey Star," Marco drew attention to himself, trying the best to sound casual. Honestly, he felt more than a bit unnerved by what he had seen so far. Star never took practicing magic this seriously before, and although her magics were often violent, there was something different about these spells.
The way the princess turned her sight towards him - quick like a cobra, fixing those incandescent green eyes on his own - did nothing to make the boy feel any less disturbed. He had to remind himself that it was only Star, his best friend, his girlfriend. She would never hurt him.
"Marco?" she blinked, and her eyes went back to their normal cerulean blue. Her expression softened. She even smiled, as much as he had seen her smile since they arrived back from St. O's at least, which was not much of a smile at all. "What are you doing back on Mewni?
"No, that's not it," she muttered quietly, to no one in particular, glancing at the empty space to her right. She frowned. Slowly, she turned back towards Marco and lowered her wand. "Don't worry, I am not leaving yet. I said I'd see you before then. Is not like I am going to forget that, Marco."
"Well, that's the thing, Star," the boy spoke, walking towards her, across the pilled up debris covering her improvised training grounds. "I am going with you. Or well, we are all going together. I have a lead on Hekapoo, I think she is alive, or partly alive, and she can help us find the thing that... well... the thing that..."
"Killed my mom?" Star finished the sentence, unflinching, a quizzical but dispassionate look directed at Marco. It was frankly more unnerving than any other reaction he could have expected. "You can say it. I do know she is dead, you know?"
It was then that Marco noticed the blackened tendrils expanding out from Star's hands, covering the entirety of her palms and stretching as far up as the elbow. "Star, what happened to your arms?!"
"Oh, right, those," she shrugged. "Is just the spell, Marco. Just a minor side-effect."
She inhaled and blinked. Her eyes shone green again. Slowly, the tendrils began shifting and blurring, the darkened flesh seemingly vanishing into thin air. Soon, the skin and her hands had recovered its rosy color. "See? Nothing to worry about. So, you were saying, Hekapoo is alive? Are you sure?"
"Ah, well, that," Marco stammered, still off balance. "She appeared to me on a dream and told me where to go, or at least gave me a clue. I know how that sounds like, but I swear it is not just wishful thinking. It was really her!"
"Marco, I believe you," Star smiled. "I know she can visit you in dreams. Wonder why you and Jackie don't consider her a creep too, but I suppose that doesn't matter much now."
"Wait, what?" Marco looked at her best friend, both perturbed and confused. Then he thought of a couple other dreams he'd had before involving Hekapoo. In one of them, right before he started dating Star, he had dreamed of the mewman girl too. Except now he wasn't entirely sure it had been a normal dream. He even remembered seeing that scene again, briefly, back in St Olga's, through the All-Seeing Eye spell. In the confusion of that horror show, and the fight that followed, he had almost forgot. "Star, that night, when I dreamed... that I was with you, and Hekapoo. That was real? You were there?!"
The mewman blushed slightly, but did not avert her gaze from Marco, nor did she apologize. She simply nodded. "... yeah."
Marco had literally no response to that admission.
"So, where are we going?" Star eventually changed the subject. Marco finally figured out what was creeping him out. It wasn't that Star seemed scary, or angry, it was that she seemed muted somehow, distant, uncharacteristically devoid of emotion. "And why is it that you are helping me, Marco? I thought you didn't approve of revenge."
"Star, we are all going to hell!" he shouted, angrily, trying to elicit at least some sort of reaction. She smiled lazily back at him, awaiting any further explanation. Not that it was too surprising that she was unimpressed about that, after all, given her ex. "Tom is arranging a way to get to Hekapoo's old place as we speak, seems like our best bet so far. Apparently it is a bit outside of where he can take us himself, though, so it might not be that easy to get there."
"I see," Star muttered. "Is that all?"
"No, Star, that's not all!" Marco shouted, advancing towards her, trying to grab her arm. For a second, he made contact with the hardened air, as a flash of purple waves stood between his fingers and the princess' skin. She glanced at him with detached curiosity. Eventually, she nodded and the barrier fell, allowing him to grasp her. "Seriously Star, you are scaring me out of my skull right now! I thought seeing you mad the other day was bad, but this is way worse. You seem cold, your arm feels cold. Like, ice cold, seriously! No matter what color you make it be. I know your mom just died, I know you are partly in shock. So please, talk to me! If there is anything I can do, any way I can be there for you..."
"Marco," Star stopped him, putting a finger to his lips. "That's why I don't want you coming with me. I know you don't want to see this, I didn't want you to see this. But it is what I need to do. To avenge my mom, and to be alright. I will be back, I promise, from the thing I promised to do, and from all of this as well. But right now, I need this, I need to master it, I need the power. So many things I didn't learn before. So many tools I might need, that my mom didn't have, that Hekapoo didn't have. All knowledge is good knowledge, I think. I know how this looks, but I am not going to be the 'dark queen ascending', Marco, I promise. I'll stop before that point."
Marco nodded sadly. Then he leaped to hug Star. She tensed for an instant, as if ready to strike back at the contact, and then she let herself be embraced. For a long time neither of them said anything, they just held one another amid the ruins of so many consumed statues.
"Star, I am going with you, we are going with you," Marco finally spoke. "You are right, I don't like seeing you like this. But I think I would like even less to sit back on Earth while you do this, just wondering what is going on with you. I'll be there to be your boyfriend, to be your best friend, Star, no matter what. And if you do go dark, just know that you are taking me with you as well. Jackie too, apparently. It is not what I would prefer, so please keep that in mind, Star, but if you go dark, we are going dark together!"
The princess hugged him back. Her breath suddenly erratic. She was sobbing, and yet she smiled.
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I Summon the All-Seeing Eye