Star vs The Forces of Evil: When Dimensions Cleave

Part 4: Conspiracies Afloat

The group all helped sit Star and Marco on one of the sofas to rest. Both appeared clearly winded and worse for the wear after mysteriously collapsing on the floor. "Are you alright, lads?" River asked them.

"What the hell was that!?" Janna added.

"I...haven't the foggiest idea." Marco admitted. "One minute we were talking, the next I felt like something punched my heart and it stopped a-and I fell to the ground...and that was it. What was even-"

"I think I know." Solaria interrupted. "It was a spell I was crafting on my own during my reign to aide in the fight against monster kind. I call it the Torture Spell. It directly attacks the hearts of my enemies, slowly weakening them and ravaging their bodies until the heart gives out." The explanation horrified everyone in the room. "Thing is, though...I never perfected it. I could never get it perfect to use in combat. And I never shared this secret with anyone else, not even Glossaryck."

"So it's like the Solarian wound that Mina inflicted on me?" Globgor asked.

Solaria sighed. "Not exactly. The spell was never fully developed. At full strength, it would instantly stop one's heart and kill them on the spot. I only ever got it strong enough to weaken it and have it kill the victim slowly."

"I guess that answers the question of "did someone get their hands on the magic." Tom interjected.

"But to do this it had to be someone with enough training to conjure the strength and posture required to pull this spell off. It would take someone immensely talented..."

"Or angry." Star and Marco exchanged looks and silently agreed with each other. "Mina." Star clutched her chest in slight pain. "So...w-where do we even go from here?"

"I wish I had that answer."

"If I may..." Glossaryck interrupted. "Shortly before you set out to destroy magic, I did some investigating of my own. That toxic waste that plagued Solaria's people in her reign as queen? Well...not only did the Magic High Commission - in their infinite wisdom-" He said those last two words with gritted teeth. "-not clean up their mess, but it appears that've settled on doubling down. Not only have they created more, but now it's self-regenerating as well." Everyone in the room gasped. "The only problem is, at the moment, we can't prove it."

"They need to be confronted with the hard truth." Solaria continued. "But I'm not prepared to do that until I have all the evidence I've collected of their misdeeds."

"You investigated them?"

"Informally. And behind their backs. Before I went to destroy the waste I spent most of my spare time investigating them and collecting evidence, and then I scattered all of it across the multiverse. This way if they ever caught on and discovered they were being probed, they'd be unable to cover their tracks."

"But what about the other magic? If Mina is the one that found it and she's come back..."

"Then we'll have to deal with her as well." Glossaryck said. "Curing Star and the Earth kid are the priority."

"But there's no reverse spell that goes along with the Torture Spell."

"True, but..." He snapped his fingers and made several pieces of paper appear out of thin air; they fell to the floor in a perfectly neat stack. The top paper showed a picture of a red/white liquid potion inside of a pitcher. The rest of the papers were a list of ingredients needed and the list of cooking instructions detailing how to make the potion. "There is this. It's a special, highly rare, ancient potion that acts as an all encompassing healing spell. It'll work on anything and everything...except Solarian warriors, that is. It can't cure them of their pledge to the Solarian life. But it can cure the kids of the effects of the Torture Spell."