Diaz Plan Chapter 22

The courtroom was an almost unimaginable din. Nobles screamed and clawed at each other in order to get away from the hellish light pouring through the windows. People were screaming, smashing into each other, stampeding. Knocked to the floor by fleeing nobles, Marco caught a brief glimpse of the Queen's blue wings unfurling above the crowd, and the growing blue glow of her magic.

Then, Captain TickTock appeared, throwing nobles bodily aside. He reached out with one metal claw, grabbing Marco. Holding the boy close, TickTock snaked his way quietly through the chaos, to a secret alcove in the courtroom. A small twist of a torch set in the wall, and a small door opened into a dark tunnel. TickTock slipped inside and shut the secret entrance behind himself. Marco was knocked around in the small secret hallway as the Guard Captain sprinted through it, going down, down, down. He squirmed and screamed, throwing himself against the walls, until TickTock finally dropped him. With a metallic hiss of frustration, TickTock scrambled about in the darkness until his arms closed around Marco again. "Boy, sit STILL," he snapped.

But Marco bunched himself into a small ball and lunged out as hard as he could, both legs catching TickTock square in the chest. The robot staggered back for a moment, and then the darkness fell away as his eye-lanterns landed on Marco. Seeing the tears running from Marco's eyes, he sighed and cut away the boy's gag. Marco spit blood at him. "You told me she was ALIVE," he sobbed. "You lied to me."

"She is alive," said Captain TickTock. "I lied to the QUEEN."

Marco felt the panic in his chest subside. "Why? Why would you lie to the Queen?"

"You don't need to know that."

Marco scrambled away from the robot as best he could, slipping back into the darkness. "How do I know you're not lying to me, right now? How do I know she's not really dead?"

"You don't," snapped the robot irritably, "other than to note for yourself that the only thing that I gain from lying to you now is your physical compliance, something I could gain just as easily by knocking you unconscious. Or breaking your arms and legs. I would prefer not to do that, but I don't have all the time in the world right now. So you can accept my word and stop squirming, or I can snap your limbs like twigs. What will it be?"

Marco kept his silence, and did not resist when the robot picked him back up. It wasn't much longer that they reached the end of the tunnel. TickTock pushed aside a stone door to reveal the dungeons. He strolled casually to a cell flanked by two guards and threw Marco inside.

As Captain TickTock slid the cell door closed, Marco scrambled to his knees as best he could. "The Princess is alive!" he cried to the two guards at the door to his cell. The guards looked back at him with utter apathy. TickTock rolled his eyes and began to walk away, but was stopped by someone advancing down the stairs.

It was a one of the Mewni nobles, a handsome young man dressed in green silks, flanked by two large guards that weren't wearing the colors of the Mewnian Castle guard, presumably some of his personal house guard. "Captain TickTock," said the young noble with a sneer, "I thought I might find you down here. Where is the boy?"

"The boy is imprisoned," snapped Captain TickTock irritably.

"Yes, just so," said the noble. "But we will be taking him. For execution. He was involved in the death of the Princess I was to court, and he must pay."

"No, you won't. He's still a valuable hostage for negotiation."

The noble snorted. "There will be no negotiation. The Queen is intent on exterminating this warlock and all associated with him."

Captain TickTock gave a sort of odd, twisted smile. "I mean, I will be the one using him for negotiations."

"Under whose authority?" demanded the noble. "I don't think I like the tone you take with your betters. Now be a good robot and-"

In a blur, Captain TickTock's metal claw lashed out and grabbed the noble by the neck, clamping down like a vice. Before the noble's guards could even move to help him, TickTock's sword lashed out and they stumbled away, clutching at the wounds bubbling blood at their necks.

"Not a robot," hissed Captain TickTock, lifting the noble off the floor. "And I don't have to sit by and take it anymore. Let's hear you say it. Let's hear you apologize."

The noble, turning blue, scrabbled at the metal claw closed around his neck. "You'll....hang for this," he wheezed.

Captain TickTock gave him a look of disgust, then tightened his grip until the noble's neck collapsed with a crunch. He flung the body aside. "Hide these bodies," he commanded the two guards. "And guard that boy with your life. We WILL need him for negotiations, if all goes to plan. Everyone else is marching out to battle, so you should be the only men here. You shouldn't have much trouble."

Then, with a flourish of his cloak, TickTock vanished into the darkness.

*********************************************

Star clung to the ruined stump of one of the tower walls, watching Mr. Diaz float towards the Mewnian castle, fire spreading beneath him. The inferno around her was whipping up a massive wind, searing her, sending her hair flying wildly behind her. This was madness. It had to stop. She couldn't watch her home burn down.

She went to Mrs. Diaz's side. Marco's mother was still weeping, her face in her hands, collapsed against the remaining stump of the wall. "Mrs. Diaz," she said, "Please...we have to stop your husband..."

Mrs. Diaz looked up, and Star was shocked at her normal kindly features contorted by grief and rage. "Why would I stop him?" she hissed. "Let this world burn. I don't care. My boy is dead."

Star was taken aback by her venom for a moment, but pressed on. "No," she said, "I don't believe it. My mother would NOT execute Marco. She may be strict, but she wouldn't kill Marco for no reason. Besides, it doesn't make sense. My mother usually takes advice from the King and Captain TickTock about this sort of thing. They DEFINITELY would have told her to use Marco as a hostage and trade him for me. There's no reason to have killed him. She didn't kill him! I don't believe it!" As she finished, Star became aware that she was shouting.

Janna and Mrs. Diaz were staring at her, tears still fresh in their eyes. "Can you be sure?" asked Janna.

"I...I won't believe he's dead until I see it with my own two eyes." Star turned to Finnegan. Mr. Diaz's informant was still staring into the sky in disbelief, watching Mr. Diaz bring Armageddon to Mewni. "You! Who do you get your letters from? Who told you Marco was dead?"

Finnegan removed his cap and sat down on the stone in shock, seemingly ignoring the Princess. "God, not like this," he said, eyes fixed on the black scar Mr. Diaz's flames were leaving on the landscape. "Not like this."

Star snatched the papers from Finnegan's hand, and began reading them. They had no signature, but the script was distinctive, and looked oddly familiar. All at once, she recognized it, those hard dashes, the incredible neatness of the letters. She had seen this writing before.

When she was young, and she had been so, so afraid of the giant metal man who led the castle guards. And he had immediately won her over by giving her her first wooden sword to play with, and on the hilt had been carved "To Princess Butterfly: may this sword serve you better than the wand will. TickTock." And from that moment on, she had called him Uncle TickTock. These were those same letters.

"This...this makes no sense," said Star. "Why would Uncle TickTock be informing the revolution?" But Finnegan, transfixed and overwhelmed by the hell on earth Mr. Diaz was creating, would not, or could not, answer. This was another shock Star could not wrap her head around. Was her Uncle, Guard Captain since before she was born, aiding traitors?

Star turned to Mrs. Diaz and Janna. She didn't know what this meant. She didn't know whether or not this meant Marco might still be alive. But she still refused to believe that her mother would execute him. A significant portion of her believed that, anyway. Another part of her just clung to that hope to keep herself from falling into screaming despair. "Listen," she said to Mrs. Diaz and Janna. "Please. I don't know what's happening. But my mother wouldn't kill Marco. But someone might want Mr. Diaz to THINK she did, to use him against her. We have to stop him. Please...don't let him kill my family," she said, tears forming in her eyes.

Mrs. Diaz's features softened into something more recognizable. "Oh, Star," she said. "I don't know what we could do. When my husband gets like this..." she gestured at the world of smoke and flame around them, "-there's no reaching him."

"I...guess I might have something that would help," said Janna. "I don't know. Maybe we could find something in here that would let us catch up to him?" She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a book.

Mr. Diaz's warlock spellbook.