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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
- 23
- 24
- 25
Chapter 24: Each Alone
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/
Not a smut chapter. But updating here synchronously nontheless.
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Star Butterfly sat atop her pink flying cloud. It was wider than usual, because it had to accommodate more people than usual. Around her laid Marco, Tom, and Jackie too. They were all naked, while Star wore the Countess disguise Sam had given her. They were all happy, they did as Star wished, as her mind commanded. A thought, and Tom began massaging her back. A gesture, and Marco leaned in to kiss her. A nod, and Jackie fed her some grapes.
She was dreaming, of course, Star knew that. It was a good dream.
Below her was the city of Dis, or at least her mental image of it. Its narrow streets looked like those of Mewni, except they were submerged in rivers of flame, and there, covered up to their waist in burning oil, were the damned. There was Ludo and his monsters, except Buff Frog, of course, who was nice. There was Toffee, for sure deserving of any and every torment hell could dish out. There was Princess White, and that snake monster thing that had lived inside Tom's vase. There was the green phantasm that pretended to be, but certainly wasn't, her mother. There was Brittney, because why not? And Ruberioth, because of that stupid song. Sam was there too, and he was in pain, for all that it made no sense. Yeah, it was the people who had wronged Star that now suffered in hell. Their cries were music to her ears.
"Oh dear," spoke a voice above Star. The princess looked up to see Eclipsa descending slowly, floating in mid air by holding on to a large purple umbrella. As soon as she matched Star's altitude, she stopped there in place. "This is certainly some interesting imagery, don't you think?"
"Meh, it's just a dream," Star shrugged. "Dreams are weird."
"They most certainly are," Eclipsa agreed, with a twinkle in her eye. "They can also be rather insightful."
The older Butterfly glanced meaningfully at Marco, and suddenly he was wearing a pair of square glasses. Still deliciously buck naked, mind you, but with glasses.
He cleared his throat, "Well, obviously a power fantasy, with some cathartic revenge imagery, and rather blatant sexual overtones. At the same time, having all three of us tend to you, represents..."
"Sssshh," Star brought a finger to the boy's mouth as she silenced him. Then she turned back towards Eclipsa. "Ok, I get it: Bad dream about being bad is bad. 'Dark queen' ascending, yada yada..."
"Do you feel... dark?" Eclipsa asked, gently.
"No!" Star shouted. Green lightning sprouted all around cloudy, the flames below rose and roared furiously. Eclipsa lifted an eyebrow. "Okay. Yes. Yes I do. I mean, I don't think I am doing evil things, not exactly. I mean, seducing Tom... if you can even call it that... was... bad... and maybe I owe Marco a huge apology... But, on the other hand, is not like that qualifies for 'great prophetic evil' bad, does it? And I do want to destroy the thing that killed my mom, I really do, which is sort of a dark thought to have. But that doesn't mean I really want to cast Ruberioth or Brittney into the fires of hell! I think I still know the difference there..."
"Sleeping with a demon and using the dark arts to vanquish your foes... I was condemned for lesser crimes," Eclipsa pointed out. "But as you say, that alone perhaps didn't truly make me evil. It did make me a Dark Queen, however, in the eyes of many. So, I think what you need to ask yourself is, what are you afraid of? That you will be called evil? Or that you will do something you yourself think of as evil?"
"I..." Star thought about it. She thought really hard. "I am afraid I will change the definition. That I will do things that are evil, and not see them as such."
"For example?" Eclipsa pressed on. "Torturing the songstrell?"
"No! Of course not!" Although, a part of Star genuinely wanted to, which scared her enough. "For example: sleeping with Tom. For example: hurting him, even though he said it was ok... I don't think I would have done it, you know, before. Isn't wanting to hurt people, like, in general, evil?"
Eclipsa shrugged. "Don't look at me. Figment of your imagination, after all. I don't think the real Eclipsa could answer that for you either. Only you can answer those kinds of questions as they apply to yourself."
"Gee, thanks! Super insightful dream and all!" Star grumbled. "Couldn't we go back to the version of the dream that involved shoulder rubs, kisses, and fruit?"
"Well, Star," spoke Jackie, tentatively. "I think, and I might be wrong, but I think, that you could do that easily, if that dream hadn't been making you feel so incredibly guilty."
Star groaned in frustration.
"Word of advise, Princess Butterfly," came a smug voice arising from the flames below. "Guilt is overrated."
Sam, or Star's dream of Sam, to be precise, floated up from the sea of flames. His body still burned, even in mid air, but it seemed not to faze him in the slightest.
"Oh, sorry... I meant: Oh. Ouch. It burns. I am in pain," he added in a monotone. "Better?"
"Oh, right," Star muttered. "Here it comes: the "go ahead and just be evil!" speech, as delivered by myself through the most unsubtle dream spokesperson imaginable!"
"Now, now, that's not what I said," Sam remarked, with a mock pout. He held both his palms up. "I said guilt is overrated. Not goodness. Not principles. Not morality. Guilt."
"Isn't feeling guilty a sign that I did something I shouldn't have done, though?" Star asked. Involuntarily, she looked at her dream image of Tom. But he was immobile, looking down. So were Marco, and Jackie. Even Eclipsa had been frozen in mid air.
"Perhaps. But, well, did it stop you from doing it? Did you not know, as you were doing it, that it was the wrong thing to do?" Sam asked. He motioned all around them with both arms, "You know, there are a lot of people that say that the reason souls end up in hell is that they crave the punishment, that it is their guilt that drags them here, not their actions."
He smiled, a mirthless knowing smile.
"They are wrong, of course, but the point is still rather poetic," the devil clarified. "You make no one's life better by feeling guilty once you have picked your desired course of action. Self-flagellating is not going to heal Tom's flesh, or undo having fornicated with him, or clean up your betrayal of those you think you love. However minor those sins might be in the cosmic scale, they are now your own, whether you regret them or embrace them. Feeling guilty will certainly not revive those you will kill, or undo the dark magic you have summoned. It will not protect your friends of the harm you already know you will likely inflict on them, either, and it has not prevented you from putting them at risk. You agonized many many times about scrying on them, and yet you never stopped, nor told them about it, until you got caught." He paused then, letting Star digest all of that. "You see how guilt is useless, or very nearly so? My point is not about what you should or shouldn't do, then. But if you are going to sin, at least own the sin! Enjoy it!"
Star felt Tom's hands back on her shoulders, Marco's palm rubbing her arm. Jackie, like a clockwork automaton, began moving again, feeding Star once more.
"Have your fantasy, Star! Be loved, served, feared... forgiven. Watch me burn and whimper inside your mind! Do as thou will, and once done, don't give yourself hell about it. There will be time enough for that! Do good, or do evil, or both, or neither, but don't waste your time yelling at yourself inside your skull for what you did or know you will do anyways! Regret makes you no more virtuous than satisfaction." Sam grinned wildly and then began truly yelling in agony, crying even, quite convincingly, as he fell back towards the burning city below.
It was only much later, long after she'd woken up, that it occurred to Star that, while nothing Eclipsa, Marco, or Jackie had said were things Star didn't know on some level or another, that whole anecdote about why people thought they went to hell was not something that would normally occur to her.
----
Marco Diaz looked down at the girl lying asleep in front of him and sighed. He had covered her with the remains of his tattered red hoodie. She needed it more than he did, after all; winters were brutal in Ennio, and a roof over their heads was a luxury neither of them might ever know again. He leaned against the huge stone walls that enclosed them all, more a pen for wild animals than a prison for humans. Then again, many would dispute that those housed there were human in the first place.
The girl herself had narrow snake-like slitted pupils in her eyes, vaguely batracian looking limbs, and bat-wings for ears. What did the guards see when they looked at her? A freak? A monster? An abomination? Or just a poor damned soul with a deadly disease to be contained? Yet, as Marco watched her sleep, as he saw her shiver in the cold winter night, as he remembered her lost scared glances a few hours ago - when she was lowered down inside the great walled circle that was Ennio Prison - he could not think of her as anything but a scared little girl. More human than those who patrolled above the walls.
She was very young, perhaps younger than Marco had been when he began his quest to hunt down Hekapoo and her clones. How long ago had that been? Seven years? Eight? Nine? He wasn't sure. There were known gaps in his memory, after all. Either way, he was older now, well into his twenties. He was much tougher, harder, that he used to be, and yet, apparently, not entirely disabused of misguided compassion.
He sighed. Allion would have yelled at him for being such a fool. Why did he do this to himself? He knew the girl would not make it through the week, with or without his assistance. That was half the reason he hadn't bothered to ask her name yet. This place was not made for little lost girls. This place was hell.
"Hey pretty boy, how about you hand that sweet little thing over? Doesn't seem you are making much use of her," Marco heard. He raised his eyes to find himself looking at another prisoner, a burly 'freak' who was giving him a particularly nasty grin. Case-in-fucking-point.
The man was huge, taller than people had any right being and twice over as broad. His entire body was this amorphous blob of swollen human flesh covered in gray protrusions of some metallic mineral formation. His right arm was solely made of the same seemingly inorganic substance, and ended in sharp knife-long metallic claws. He had one good eye and a rocky spike protruding out of the socket where the other one should have been. Saying he was merely ugly would have been a feat of politeness, and a misdeed of dishonesty.
"What it looks like is none of your business, bud," Marco replied, without so much as a shrug. "She is with me. Save yourself the trouble and move along."
"Now, now, we are both reasonable individuals. Surely she is not worth much trouble to you? After all, we all know you only have eyes for one girl in all of this joint," the stranger remarked with a snickering laugh.
Right, he probably meant Hekapoo. Why was it that they always mistook his quest to extinguish the clones' flames for some sort of bizarre romantic pursuit? Couldn't a guy voluntarily lock himself in a hellish prison as a way to get close to a woman, and have that just be a purely platonic assassination attempt?
"Whereas me, well, I haven't had myself a birdie like that to warm me at night in quite some time. You know how few of them last even the first day here," he explained, as if he was just haggling over yet another piece of salted beef from their morning rations. "So, I reckon... there is quite a bit of trouble I am willing to get myself into for a succulent little morsel such as her..."
Well, that, right there, was the problem with people arriving to Ennio every single fucking week. Stay out of trouble long enough, and your reputation melted away, and then trouble found you. If this asshole thought Marco was just going to hand him a teenage girl to rape, in order to avoid a fight, then his reputation had surely decayed. If he thought he had a chance in hell of intimidating him, or taking her by force in front of him, then his reputation had most certainly all but vanished by now. When had this imbecile been captured? Not this week, too cocky for that. A month ago? Two months? Three? ... No, not three, Marco had roughed up seven members of the Primal Growl Gang three months ago, people would surely remember that.
"Fine," Marco sighed and stood up. "Let's get this over with. Last chance to walk away, you walking mountain of Osacontt's dung. Don't say I didn't warn you."
He always did. They never listened.
The other prisoner charged at Marco. Literally charged, like a bull or a rhino, using his bulk and potentially superhuman weight in an attempt to bulldoze his opponent. This guy put the brute in brute force! Marco had seen more fighting skill out of fresh cadets in his early days as a soldier for the guild in Zonst. Normally, he would dodge, but if he did, then he wasn't sure this idiot wouldn't just trample over the sleeping girl.
Instead, he brought his palms together, rapidly executed a sequence of twelve hand gestures as he repeated as many words in the old tongue of Riradesh. He felt the ritual warm him up, despite the icy wind around them, he felt his muscles strain to contain the power, his bones rattle under the magical fire coursing through his veins. Swiftly, he jumped over the girl's body, and raised a single hand in front of him. His palm made contact with the iron-like skin of the lowlife's right arm, effortlessly stopping his momentum.
"What the hell?! How did you..." the thug started to ask.
Marco simply smiled and drove his other fist right into the soft fleshy bits of the deformed man's stomach. He probably shouldn't have felt so great about hurting the poor bastard. Everyone in Ennio was a victim first and foremost, reacting inhumanly to inhuman circumstances. Yet, there were those in here that he couldn't truly muster compassion for, no matter how sad their own fate, because of the pain they so readily inflicted on others. This animal was clearly one such case. Marco tried to compensate for the effects the ritual had on his mind, but, honestly, he didn't try too hard. He didn't think he would mind hurting this bastard even in his unaltered state. Right now, high on the side-effects of the spell, he relished causing him pain.
The massive prisoner clutched his stomach with his left hand, then clawed at Marco's face with his right. Once again, it was trivial for the young man to block with his left arm, holding onto the crushing weight of the metal appendage by its tree-thick wrist. The Fierceness Ritual didn't just make him a hundred times as strong, it also made him at least ten times as nimble. His opponent had lost the fight as soon as Marco had completed the gestures involved. He squished the iron until he heard the bones beneath crack.
"Augghhhh!!" yelped his opponent, tears of pain falling from his good eye socket. Marco had an idea right then, a delicious idea. He knew it was the ritual talking, but, well, he was listening. There would be time for regrets later. He pulled the mountain of a man down by tugging at his broken arm, moved his hand along the limb towards the thug's face, placed his thumb right in front of his remaining eye, and pressed down, hard.
The shout that followed was one of primal torment.
"There, there, don't cry," Marco chided, cheerfully. "Now, what were you saying about her being worth the trouble?"
"I... I... I was wrong... I am sorry... sir," the giant spoke through the pain. Marco was half impressed by that, most people would not be able to do much more than howl in agony after a broken arm and a freshly ruptured eyeball. "Please, let me go. You'll never see me again, I swear..."
"No, I won't. No one will. Now, what did you call her? 'A succulent little morsel'?" Marco pondered as he moved his right arm back once more. Slowly, the limb began turning a dark shade of purple. It became sinuous and pliable. The tentacle appendage kept growing and changing, until it had taken the distinct form of his demonic colleague. "I suppose you are going to be much less appetizing than that, but my pal here is not a picky eater... Kar, it's supper time, Bon Appetit."
"Oh boy! Have I mentioned how infinitely more fun you are to be around when you do the whole bad boy power-up thing, kid?," spoke a toothy mouth in the middle of his very own monster arm. "You should really do it more often!"
It was just a demonic curse that Star had casted on Marco by mistake, back a lifetime ago, before Hekapoo's quest. It was alive and intelligent, and an altogether vicious asshole, with a taste for human entrails. It turned out he had a name too, or had given himself a name: Kar'Margorach. Most days, Marco wished he could get rid of the damn thing. But sometimes, Kar came in handy. He had been useful in getting Marco 'admitted' into Ennio and its deformed crowd. And right now, he was making quick work of devouring the stupid bully in front of them. It had started with the prey still alive, but that, of course, did not last long.
Marco felt satisfied, happy even. Sure, most of it was the side-effect of the ritual. It made him... less squeamish than he would otherwise be, perhaps a tiny bit callous, 'bloodthirsty' might not be entirely incorrect either. He knew he would hate the way he was acting now, the very thoughts that crossed his mind, as soon as the spell wore off. He would be sick to his stomach. But, right now, all he could think was that after something like this, surely his reputation as someone not to be messed with would last more than a few couple months.
His thoughts, and Kar's meal, were interrupted by a high pitched yell coming from behind him.
He turned around to see the young girl fully awake, crawling her way along the wall, away from the fight, away from him. She dragged herself, half limping, as if still unused to her new anatomy. His own hoodie laid discarded on the floor.
"Oh, you are awake," Marco remarked. "Sorry about that. Don't worry. You are safe now."
He gave her what he intended to be a friendly smile, and waved a bloodied left hand at her. Behind him, there was the sound of bones breaking and Kar burping loudly.
"Oh god! Oh god!! S...Stay away from me!!" she yelled, and broke into a run.
Marco woke up sweating.
----
Jackie opened her eyes. She could feel the clumps of straw in her hair, the harsh material scratching her skin even through the tattered fabric of her costume. She was lying on the same pile of straw that Sam had arranged to be her bed, in the same clothes he had assigned to her. But she was no longer in her cell, no longer in Sam's castle, no longer in hell. At least, not in the literal kind.
Around her, and her small pile of hay, was the open courtyard of St Olga's, where she had once fought princess White. Marco was nowhere to be seen. Nor, for that matter, was anyone else, until...
"Wow, shit! We look like crap!" came a voice from right behind her.
Jackie turned around and found herself face to face with, well, with herself. But while she was wearing the rags of the slave costume, the other version of her, the one standing tall above, giving her a pitying look, was dressed in bright golden armor. The same armor she had worn back when she last was here. The armor she fought a duel in. Prince Jack's literal (and figurative) knight in shining armor outfit.
"Who? How? Why?" the girl managed to ask, still disoriented.
"You, a better you, the version of you as you wish you truly were," answered her mirror double, as to the matter of who she was. She then proceeded to address the second and third questions, as well: "How? In a dream. Why? Because we need to talk. Oh boy do we need to talk..."
A dream? That, that made sense. It was as good an explanation as any. Better than just assuming she had completely lost her mind!
"About what?" Jackie asked, cautiously, as she sat up to face her doppelganger. She was still not sure this was what it seemed. She had never had a dream like this one before. But, then again, was that not true of most dreams?
"About how disappointed we both are with, well, with ourselves," the other Jackie replied dryly. "I mean, just look at us. We went from this," she motioned her hand over her own form, then, in a swift movement, she unsheathed the golden magic sword and drove the point forward, stopping just in front of the Jackie's true nose, "to that!"
"Oh, come on, that's not fair," Jackie pushed the sword aside with her hand. "Ok, I don't like this stupid costume, obviously, or else we wouldn't be having this chat. But is what we need to wear to get through this crazy costume party. I think I can deal with that for two days, and then we are rid of it. Big deal."
"That's not what we meant," Prince Jack shook his head. "Think, Jackie! Of course we need to wear the damn thing, you know... out there. But this is a dream, we can look however you want! And yet you chose to keep the rags on." He sighed. "You want to know why? Because that's how we see ourselves now. And I am here to vehemently protest that!"
Jackie froze on the spot. How she saw herself now? That couldn't be right! This costume was all a cruel prank, after all, from some demonic asshole no less! It was a disguise that she would endure with grace and as much dignity as humanly possible, but not one that she would chose for herself. Not that she really saw her, permanently, as the haughty Prince Jack either, but...
"You are so full of shit, dude!" Prince Jack interrupted her thoughts. "It is how we see ourselves: weak, broken, defeated."
An image flashed before Jackie's eyes: Her, charging valiantly with a sword, a sword opaque rather than shining golden. She heard an exasperated, dismissive voice, 'Oh, for corn's sake.' She saw herself being kicked away, her sword broken in half, and her body doubling over to vomit.
"Now, Jackie, answer me: Did that look like me? Or like you?" Prince Jack asked coldly.
"Well, easy for you to say it!" Jackie retorted angrily. "We were powered up by Star when we were you. We were stronger, faster, not to mention magically protected from harm. I can't do the things you could, not without Star!"
"Yes, true. And it eats at us, doesn't it?"
Jackie had no answer. No honest retort.
"It eats at us that whatever we are is either a foolish dumb girl with a skateboard, or just whatever Star lets us be," Prince Jack smirked. "You know, like how she lets you play at being Marco's girlfriend too?"
"What?! Hey, wait a minute! I was Marco's girlfriend before Star," Jackie protested. Feeling foolish for arguing with herself, specially about something like this. She felt like she was crazy just for having this conversation. Perhaps she was. "I mean, I opened the relationship to her, because I knew Marco liked her and she liked him too, but none of us are pretending anything. We are both Marco's girlfriends, and it was mostly my doing... or, you know, our doing... ugh... this is so confusing!"
Prince Jack walked around her, sword still drawn.
"Oh, yeah, right! How noble of us!" she scoffed. "Listen, we both know they would have ended together, sooner rather than later. You know that, right now, if he had to choose, he would choose her. You know it because: He. Told. Us. So."
Jackie looked down, it was hard arguing with herself, unfortunately.
"And we both saw what Star did, right? And Marco still defended her! 'Oh, she is going through some really harsh stuff. I'll try to talk to her tomorrow.' She cheats on him, and yet he would still rather have her than you!"
"That's not how it went! We both agreed Star is not herself these days! That what she did was shitty, really shitty, but that is better to ask why she did it, given what she is going through. And seriously, we are in some sort of hellish night-stop with an immortal sadist, forced to play some bizarre role-playing game we only half understand, and being pursued by a glowing horror of green fire who killed her mom!" Jackie yelled back at the golden prince. "Honestly, focusing on this type of drama only makes us kind of petty, dude."
"You said it, not me." Prince Jack grinned. "But we do care. We care a whole lot. Or else, I wouldn't be here, reminding you about it. We care about this, and about her spying on us, and about the fact that despite it all, if Marco had to choose..."
"But he doesn't have to choose!" she cut him off, annoyed. "We made it so he didn't have to choose, back when we opened the relationship. We... we could as easily not have pushed him to date Star in the first place... but, but, I didn't want him to... we didn't want him to... well, to not have that..."
"What, you are asking for a cookie for not getting in the way? Like you even could!" Prince Jack scoffed. "Face it, Marco and Star were going to end together whether you opened up the relationship or not. And we knew it. That's why we did it! It was not an act of selfness but of self-preservation."
No! That wasn't right. Was it? She had told him to date Star for him, no? Because she wanted Marco to be as happy as he could be, to share in on the happiness!
"You know, Jackie? Normal people accept when their crush doesn't like them back, or doesn't like them anymore," Prince Jack spoke softly, putting a firm compassionate hand on Jackie's shoulder. "They don't do this whole 'sharing in on their happiness' thing. Are you sure is not an act? A psychological defence mechanism? It's not yours to share anyways. Frankly... it's kinda creepy."
Was that it? Truly? Was that all her feelings were about, when looked at with cold detachment? A response to feeling not good enough? Insecurity masquerading as selflessness?
"No, no, I don't accept that!" Slave Jackie spoke. "I am happy that Marco likes Star. I genuinely truly feel that way. And yes, I would be sad if he didn't like me anymore, or didn't want to be with me anymore. But how much he likes Star and how much he likes me are two separate things! I can be happy about one, at the same time I am worried about the other. I can have gripes about some of the things Star does, and some of the things Marco says, without hating either of them, nor hating the way they love each other! It doesn't mean that I was wrong to open up the relationship. This is who I am, how I chose to love. Not just Marco, but anyone whom I might love in the future. And yes, his happiness is mine to share... for as long as he wishes to share it with me!"
She tried to stand up then, and noticed the crushing force of her counterpart's hand on her shoulder. She looked up. Prince Jack was still smiling, but his was a nasty cruel grin. He was still in armor, but it was black now, rather than golden, with pointed spikes sprouting from the dark metal. He was wearing not his own outfit, but that of Princess White.
"Sure, girl, keep telling yourself that," Jack mocked her. She heard her own shoulder bone cracking. "You can pretend you are OK with them, that what you have now is all you ever wanted. But the reality is you wanted to win, you wanted to be the one that mattered the most. You are just lying to yourself. Masking insecurity as some noble code of ethics! You are no knight in shining armor. You are a farce and a wreck! You simply don't fully realize it yet! Tomorrow, you'll learn to see things my way..."
----
Jackie woke up then, crying. She looked up to see Marco. He was also weeping, quietly, as he leaned against the cell's stone wall. Neither said a word as they hugged, hesitantly. Eventually, they fell again into an uneasy but dreamless sleep.
----
Janna did not sleep that night. She hardly had gotten any sleep last night, either.
Turns out that when a horror of darkness and flame makes an attempt on your life, you are likely to feel somewhat jumpy for a time. It actually surprised her a smidgen that none of her friends had thought to check up on her regarding that. But she supposed that they all had their own traumas from that night, and their own concerns about the path ahead.
The witch knew she was 'safe' in Sam's palace, as safe from any other threat as she was likely to be anywhere in the multiverse, and yet, she couldn't fall asleep. She was tired, and she was cranky, and she was mad at one particular mewman princess above all else. She was mad at Tom too, and mad at herself. But, well, first of all: Star.
The girl needed to put her thoughts in order. A lot had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
She jumped down from her mid-air lotus sitting position, wrapped her blood-stained cloak around herself, and headed out of the lonely room she had been left in. The whole place was a horror show, and yet, compared to the night before, she would almost describe her current situation as cozy. If not for the overwhelming rage, of course.
She was mad at Star, truly mad, since yesterday's night. Mad, not jealous. There was a difference. She had been jealous - envious, technically - for much longer, and that part was not really Star's fault. She got that it was not the princess fault now, now that she remembered the truth. But, regardless of that, after the attack of "will, unbending", she was mad, fully and throughly furious. Rightly so, as far as she could tell!
She had let Star know that she was mad at her as soon as the episode ended. Janna had spoken even as the princess held the unresponsive body of Tom in her arms.
"Star! What in the name of all that's unholy was that thing?!" she had shouted at the mewman, almost twenty-four hours ago.
As she remembered the words, Janna's body tensed. She began walking faster and faster, along the twisting corridors of Sam's infernal palace.
Star had struggled to explain herself, back then. Mostly, she'd defaulted to say that she wasn't sure. It eventually came out she had apparently been seeing those evil green ghosts for a week, and yet neglected to tell anyone! Then, of course, one of those things eventually tried to kill her friends, because, well duh! Namely, it went after Janna herself.
Star had, in her defense, noted that Janna had called her for help, and that she had come, and that Janna would be dead if not for her, and why wasn't she thankful? To which the witch had retorted that she would not have been in danger if not for Star in the first place, that both her and Tom almost did truly not make it out alive, and that, in the end, it had been Tom and not Star who defeated the threat. Apparently, whatever that thing was, it was after Star to begin with. But, at the same time, it wouldn't hurt her, only her friends... which was great, really fucking great. Thank you oh so very much, Star!
Janna begun walking down a long set of stairs then. All along were floating black candles, the flames burning at the end were ocean blue, and permanently formed into the shapes of ghostly human skulls.
The princess had even brought up Midra'Apep last night. The snake monster had indeed been Janna's fault and had, like Star's green fire ghost, threatened the lives of others. Which ok, that was a fair point, but is not like Janna sat on the information for weeks, and not like she didn't apologize about it many many times since! The thing yesterday, at any rate, was way more terrifying than any giant snake. They were, quite frankly, past making the mistake of not letting each other know about that kind of trouble.
Eventually, the whole argument had all degenerated into a shouting match. Star brought up her dead mom, and when Janna pointed out that was not really an argument, she just threw a fit, climbed up the top of Tom's hearse and left the rest of them to deal with the fallout from her decisions, as usual. Star had, not too long ago, been her friend, and she was Marco's and Jackie's still. But it really rubbed Janna the wrong way how the princess seemed to assume friendship automatically implied that they should all risk their damn lives to help her get revenge for her dead mother!
The stairs ended, flowing out to a huge ballroom. It was outfitted with twelve long tables along the walls and a large empty space in the middle. The floor was a mosaic of marble and obsidian, representing scenes from a fight between winged beings. Angels and demons, it would seem, although some of the angels were depicted stabbing one another.
Tom had followed suit on that whole "risk his life for her sake" deal, because he loved Star. He would love Star until she really did kill him. Meanwhile, Janna was just this... toy that he used to pass the time. I mean, wasn't that their original deal? Maybe it was Janna's fault for not waking up sooner, and getting the here away from him, and from Star, both. She sighed.
Janna always considered herself to be very much not a moron when it came to understanding other people's hidden motives, their true thoughts behind whatever lies they told themselves. But she suspected that, given the available evidence - that Tom had left their mutual room at 9pm, looking for Star, and that he was very much still not back by 4am - even a bona fide moron would figure out what had happened. If they hadn't slept together, and they most likely had, they had at least gone to sleep together. A betrayal either way, as far as she was concerned.
The dark haired girl sat down on one of the chairs along the huge tables, in the head position. To her side was a velvet curtain, covering a gargantuan window. In front of the curtain was a small desk, and atop it, a large ornate porcelain vase of marvelous craftsmanship. It was adorned in gold and meticulously painted.
Then, of course, there was Princess Snow-bloody-White, and that only complicated things.
That afternoon, on the way here, Marco had mentioned having missing memories, and that sort of... made Janna uncomfortable. It took her a moment to realize that there seemed to be a hole in her memories as well, right around the time her feelings about Star became the most spiteful. A hole that seemed to coincide with the hour or so that she had spent waiting for Tom and Star to have their little chat in St O's.
Earlier that same night, she had told Tom to leave her alone in the room for an hour or two. Partly, it had been to see what he did, to get it over with and done. He had been obsessing over Star since forever, bending over backwards to help her in her quest, going to Sam, despite his abject terror when it came to the older devil, all in order to help his dearest princess. And last night, Star had jumped to hold him between her arms. Honestly, Janna saw it coming a mile away, and the longer it took, the worse it was going to be for her.
But she had had a second motive for wanting Tom gone tonight in particular. She needed the quietness to go back into her own mind, to pull back what had been robbed from her: that hour of her memory. Eventually, she managed to recall the vampire's transparent deception, and her insidious comments.
Janna would love to say it was her newly found skill in magic that allowed her to recover those sealed memories. In truth, it had been a more mundane sort of magic, one she knew even before she met Tom: self-hypnosis. She had managed to put herself in a trance-like state, and, after some effort, break through the block the vampire had put in her mind. It had been a humiliating, and bothersome, revelation. Mostly because now she understood her mind had been warped to put her against Star.
And yet, by cold slow logic, she still arrived at the conclusion that Star had knowingly put Janna's own life in danger, that she and Tom were likely together now, in the middle of the night, and that she had reason enough to be mad at the princess with or without White's interference. The problem was separating how mad she was supposed to be, from how mad she felt given the old vampire's insidious mental suggestions. How much of her hate for Star was Janna's own, and how much had been forced on her?
Then again, White herself, or at least Janna's encounter with her, was also Star's fault. Hers, and that of Tom's unhealthy obsession with his royal ex. If they hadn't had to go to St O's to look for Star, the troublemaker girl would never had met the vampire princess. So why not add 'accidentally exposes friends to mind rape' to the list of charges against her former friend?
The evil princess had destroyed Janna's remaining friendship towards Star. But did that make her see the mewman's actions less or more clearly?
"Sam!" Janna finally shouted, tired of walking around looking for the devil, "I know you are everywhere around this place! Show yourself... please."
"Everywhere?" came the response immediately, and two bright gleaming stars appeared floating in mid air, on the other side of the table. Slowly, Sam's entire form emerged from the shadows, and those bright points became his blinding blue eyes. "You flatter me, J-flame. Omnipresence is part of a skill set somewhat beyond my own."
The witch made her best effort not to flinch as the devil manifested himself. Without answering just yet, Janna stood up, and walked slowly towards the nearby desk, as she pondered how to word her proposal.
She admired the vase atop said desk. It was a work of art, albeit one with terrifying implications: the edge was adorned in gold and the relief sculpted on the metal started abstract and geometric but, as it flowed down the length of the piece, those shapes turned into winged humanoid figures. Eventually, the gold stopped, and painted china showed a different set of figures, beautiful and angelic near the top, but becoming ever more twisted and monstrous as they fell down the length of the vase. Yet, near the very bottom, stood one final perfectly angelic winged form, receiving the fallen with open arms.
"A representation of the fall, and the likeness of the Morning Star," spoke Sam, following her gaze.
"Valuable?" Janna asked.
"Yes," Sam agreed. "And no. Like all else."
"Sam, can I ask a question?" she asked. "Does it violate your kind hospitality if I do so? Given it is a delicate question..."
She wasn't sure that she being out at this hour, or having called him like she did, didn't constitute a violation. But the fact that she was still alive seemed to hint that either it did not, or that the devil was waiting for an specific offense.
"You may ask all you like, J-flame," Sam conceded generously. "Tonight, albeit not tomorrow, and with no guarantee of a response, of course. There is a question I am somewhat curious about, myself, and I think we both know I'll see it answered soon."
"Did Tom and Star..." Janna begun. She felt like a little girl for even asking, for wanting confirmation.
"They did," Sam answered, with a smirk.
"How do I know..." she tried to find an out.
"I swear it," Sam shrugged. "On the name of the Brightest Light of the Morning, I swear your fears are the truth, and the two of them have known each other tonight once more, in a rather biblical sense. They did so of their own free will, and in whichever way I might have foreseen or facilitated it, as you did foresee and facilitate it as well, I did not force them to do so. Now, Janna, knowing this for a fact, will you do what you came down here to do?"
She ran a finger along the edge of the vase. Clearly, Sam was ahead of her, as always. It shouldn't even surprise her. "Don't you know already what I am going to do? Didn't you plan this from the start?"
Sam laughed at her unnerved, sleep-deprived, yet hardly unfounded, paranoia. "J-flame, you and old Tommy boy have qualms with this world mainly because things often fail to turn out the way you expect them to. My usual complain, instead, is the opposite. For me, they very rarely turn out otherwise. But I confess, I don't know for a fact whether or not you are going to break that vase," he pressed the tips of his fingers together, expectantly.
"If I do, what will happen?" Janna had to ask.
"Exactly what you suspect," Sam replied calmly. "I'll consider it a violation of my hospitality, and revoke my protection upon you all. After all, breaking my stuff was among the conditions you yourself named."
"Then?" Janna pressed on, putting just the slightest pressure on the vase.
"I'll do what you hope I'll do. I'll murder Star Butterfly," he smiled ever so slightly. It was a friendly smile, almost warm, and the contrast between the words and the casual tone in which they were spoken only made it worse.
Janna hesitated. Hearing it stated in such unvarnished words made her feel almost scared of herself. But well, she knew why she had asked, and Sam knew too, apparently. Her hand didn't leave the vase.
"And Tom?"
"I do consider Tom a friend, in as much as the concept makes sense given the difference between our natures," Sam remarked. "He will be angry, and I might have to... dissuade him. But he will survive this plot of yours."
Janna thought about asking about Marco and Jackie, but honestly, she was beyond caring. She also didn't really need to ask about herself, except... "Will you kill me before or after Star?"
After all, what was the point if she wouldn't live to see it? If she didn't get to watch?
Sam seemed to think for a moment. Janna knew it was most likely a ruse, but she still had to wait patiently for his response.
"J-flame, let us make this whole thing more interesting," Sam finally replied, in a cheerful tone. "I once promised to give you my fairest deal, and I shall do so once more: If you do this, I will not kill you. After Star dies, I'll send you and your other two mortal friends back home. I'll make it so they, and Tom as well, forget that she ever lived. All of you will be spared, all except the princess. You will be with Tom. But he will no longer have Star in his mind to compare you against. You will remember it all, or none of it, your choice."
'I'll give you everything you ever wanted, if you betray the friend that betrayed you, the one you already wish to enact revenge on, with all your heart,' was the offer, in essence. No catch. No one would know or remember. It would be between her and Sam, and if she ever felt bad about it, well, she could just as easily pretend to herself that Star had never existed in the first place, no one would contradict her. She could even get herself to forget doing this. Even her conscience would be none the wiser, if she so chose.
Janna didn't even need to ask the devil why he was willing to give her that offer. She was sure it would amuse him to see her be the one to condemn her former friend, to know how twisted she really was, when no one else was watching.
"Finally," Sam added, "know that I expect my hospitality to be breached, no matter what you do tonight, before midnight tomorrow. When that happens, my protection is gone. The rest of the offer, however, is only for this moment, and this specific transgression."
So, essentially, if she didn't do this, Star was almost certainly bound to die either way, and then, probably so was Janna herself. Strictly speaking, taking Sam's deal would lead to the best outcome for all. Janna would be saving Jackie and Marco, along with herself. Star was the one that had dragged them all to the mouth of the wolf, and she was doomed either way. By that logic, Janna was not only justified in her wish for revenge, she was actually being the hero.
Who was she kidding? That was a load of crap! It was not her real reason. It was not like she could not spot when she was lying to herself. Her wish in the matter was anything but noble, it was an ugly sick venomous thing, and yet...
She pressed further, and the bottom of the vase lifted from the wooden desk. She held onto the edge, as the whole thing came to balance on just a small corner of its base. She didn't even need to push now. If she simply let go, or if she tilted her grip slightly to the left or slightly to the right, the vase would tumble from its precarious perch. It would hit the ground, it would shatter, and soon after, so would Star.
Janna closed her eyes. The image of Star and Tom naked together, resting in bed, popped into her mind. But it wasn't really about Tom. It wasn't even about Star putting them all in danger, not if Janna was completely honest with herself. It was about power.
The demon prince himself had sworn, long ago, that Janna would never be able to match Star's power. That Star would always win, not just in his heart but in the world at large. "You could spend your entire life practicing this sort of thing and you will never be able to call forth one tenth of the power Star could summon the second she got her magic wand. You are a regular human and she, well, she is something quite rare and quite extraordinary in this universe," had been his words.
Well, right now, in this instant, she could direct the course of powers greater than Star could comprehend. She could end her life, if she so wished! She could erase her memory from the minds of everyone! It was the most pure form of victory, the most definitive! She could win the contest that Tom had said she would never win!
Janna pushed, and let go. The worst part was, the witch knew she was smiling as she did it, genuinely looking forward to seeing her former friend dead.
The vase fell fast towards the ground... 3... 2...
It held in mid air. Slowly, it floated back up, until it was once more atop its previous resting spot in the small wooden desk. Gently, Janna let go of her levitation spell.
"Thanks for the kind offer, Sam, but, well, no deal," she frowned as she sat back into the table. She should have felt so much better about having done the right thing, about knowing this about herself. That she was capable of honor, even when no one would see or know it had been her. In reality, she didn't feel good about it. She had really considered going through with it. She knew Star, and now maybe all of them, might die tomorrow anyways, and the only consolation would be that she could claim it wasn't her fault. Still, maybe it meant something nonetheless. "Guess I am a better person than we both thought. Surprised?"
"J-flame, I have asked this question many many times before, and when I do, I really don't know the answer ahead of time. How could I? When you yourselves know not," Sam smirked, amused. "I have had those who took the deal, and I have had those who refused. A thousand times each. Neither answer is much of a surprise anymore, and neither ever changes anything of consequence, of course, but I'll take whatever little amusement I can get. Refusing makes you no particularly noble, acceding doesn't make you that much more villainous than just getting to the point of asking the question. But if you wish to think highly of yourself for this, then go ahead, it makes no difference to me."
The girl frowned. Sam was right, of course. The fact that she considered doing a horrible deed and then decided in the last minute not to... well, it hardly made her a paragon of virtue. Then again, what would Star have done, if the roles had been reversed? If revenge for her mother's death had been on the table as well? What would Tom have said, about trading Janna's death for Star's unconditional love?
"Is there a deal you can offer by which we all make it out of here unharmed?" Janna had to ask.
"You have it already," Sam retorted. "Stick to my hospitality, and I will not, cannot, harm you."
"But you expect we will fail to do so?" she asked.
"Yes."
Janna sat there, in silence. She glanced back at the vase, at the depiction of the fall. Was Sam there? Among the angels, or among the monsters? Or was he something else altogether?
"J-flame," Sam interrupted her thoughts. "There is another deal we could strike, unrelated to the fate of your friends, or Star."
She knew she shouldn't ask, but she did, "What deal?"
"Well, you want power, do you not?" he asked in return. "Power to match that of Star? And you can no longer rely on Tom to draw your magics from, amusing as your methods might have been to you, before."
He paused for an instant, letting her ponder his words.
"What if I could find you an... alternative source? One all of your own?"
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Note: References in the Marco flashbacks are to the amazing (non-R rated) fic A Habit Hard to Break (http://archiveofourown.org/works/9982967). Hopefully it is possible to follow this fic on its own, but I still very much recomend Habit.
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I Summon the All-Seeing Eye