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She was gone.
She had a crush on him.
She only wanted him as a friend, not as a hero.
She had a crush on him.
She only wanted him as a friend, not as a hero.
She was gone.
Marco stands before the empty room, the magical enhancements brought by Star Butterfly having dissipated before his very eyes. He vaguely hears Janna and Jackie’s voice in the background, calling out his name and begging him to come out. The door’s locked, and Janna will likely try and pick the damned thing, but something in Marco’s mind knows she won’t have any luck this time. How exactly, a vague voice in the back of his head wonders, would that be possible?
He pays no mind to it.
She had a crush on him.
The exploding billboard, the Song Day concert, it all makes sense now. Hindsight is 20/20, as many people say; Marco rues the fact that foresight and insight rarely seem to be that precise. How could all of this have happened on his watch?
She only wanted him as a friend, not as a hero.
She had a crush on him.
She was gone.
They’re besties, aren’t they? They’re supposed to talk about these kinds of things, to trust each other not to freak out if something weird happens, not to simply leave the other at the lurch after saying something this serious. They’re friends that way—fine, Marco would have likely freaked out in his own little Safe Kid way, but he’d always lend a helping hand if it meant Star managed to sort things out and make everything work for the better, right? Right?
Right?
No, that wasn’t how things turned out, was it?
Marco, I have a crush on you, but I know you’re currently dating someone else at the moment. This is going to be totally awkward for the both of us, so I’m going to leave Earth and go back to Mewni. Sorry, and thanks for everything—
No.
Yeah, he can see how that could totally not be awkward. Damn it.
But couldn’t she have told him anyway?
The conflicting messages echo in his mind, the voices from outside joining in to form an impenetrable, maddening din as Marco feels the widening chasm in his heart where Star once was. A part of him knows where things usually go from here—the household is covered in gloom for a good month as their guest’s absence is felt. Tears occasionally fall, and a slightly depressed Marco walks across the house and amidst the hallways of Echo Creek Academy. But the months pass, and time goes on. People move on, and while the exchange students do pass on letters and postcards from time to time, slowly they decrease in number: every week, every month, every year, until one day they’re simply faces and images of a time long past—a vague memory one brings to mind while silently contemplating the times that have gone by.
The thought of Star simply receding into the background, another photo on the family wall—
No.
Tears threaten to stream once more down Marco’s cheeks, the human realising the severity of his actions or inaction may have damned his friendship, irreparably dooming it to become another faint recollection—
No.
—another name, another image, another simple photo to be merely dismissed, brushed off as if yes, she did stay over with us once—
No.
Marco’s face hardens.
No.
After everything the two had been through together, one doesn’t simply vanish into the unknown like that. Something clearly exists between the two of them—Marco can’t quite define or decipher what it is, but something within him knows it for what it is—and no capricious Scissors Enforcer, no scheming Lizard lawyer, and no angsty Demon Prince can ever break that bond.
No.
Not a single damned thing.
It’s then, amidst the surge of emotions that swirl in the human’s mind, overpowering all logic and reason in an overwhelming surge of grief, a numbing sensation of terror, a blinding blast of sheer unadulterated anger and rage at Moon, at Jackie, at Janna, at Tom, at Star, at Hekapoo, at every single damned person that had brought him, had pushed him to where he was—
No.
Marco snaps.
And in an instant, the room explodes in a violent flash of blue light.
Star and Toffee are frozen to the spot in shock, having watched the wand fly out of the princess’s hands and soar in the air towards the Septarian. But it wasn’t the lizard’s hands that claimed the prized Butterfly wand; it zips past Toffee’s head, narrowly grazing his jaw before slamming into something soft.
A clenched human fist tightens on the winged device.
Marco’s livid eyes glow and flicker, blue fire surging from his eyelids and a pair of azure crescents glowing blindingly on his cheeks. His ragged, bloodied hands, white and convulsing from sheer pressure and overexertion, twist upon the handle of Star’s ancestral contraption as it shifts and contorts into a new form; with a dramatic flash, it reveals itself—spiked and winged, a small Lincoln green compass held aloft by a great spear, a purple crystal embedded at the center. Marco’s palms radiate energy, foreign magic clearly seeping from within the human into the device through sheer force of will; the wand becomes luminescent, ready to explode into the fray with a jaw-dropping burst of raw power. The human turns to look at his companions, and what they see standing before them, his teeth bloody red as he savagely grins, waiting in anticipation for his next kill, makes them both shiver.
There’s no middle-aged kid here on the fields of Mewni. A thirty-year-old Marco Diaz, Warrior of the Neverzone stands forth before his foe, armed to the teeth, his heart on his sleeve, and his soul hardened and ready for war.
Toffee screams and begs, but it is many agonising hours before he finally dies—a fried, charred corpse that once killed a Queen and brought her kingdom to its knees. For the first time in a long time, Marco truly smiles.
Star’s not entirely sure it’s the human she knows who’s smirking back at her. She suppresses a shudder as she hesitantly smiles back, not wanting to provoke whatever it is that has seemingly possessed him.
Something is terribly wrong with Marco Diaz.