Chapter 137: A Cursed Relationship?

Summary:

Cause this was definitely forgotten

"You know, if it wasn't for Finn getting a friend with benefits with Huntress wizard, and Jake being hooked up to a unicorn, this would be a lot more awkward." Kelly said, staring at Marco and Star gazing into each other's eyes. They were just having a nice time at Kiki's pizza, like the good old days, and the two had yet to notice anything else.

"Glad to see you've built a tolerance, I'm still trying to build mine up." Steven grumbled.

"I think the main way to build tolerance is a desire for sanity combined with snark." She responded to the boy. "Combined with self realization of how bad Stelly was, and you have yourself an immunity to barfing when they kiss."

"Right now, the only thing keeping me sane is venting to Lapis and discussing wedding plans with Luz when our parents eventually marry." Steven said. "Oddly enough, the most romantic thing someone can plan gives me the creative structure I crave."

"You know, I've never actually seen a wedding." She commented. "I know about it and I've seen trashy tv shows portray it, but no actual experience with them."

"I've seen plenty of our cousins on the Johansion and Butterfly side marry…about half of them end with an angry mob running them out with pitchforks and torches." Steven snickered. "It's why I started my own secret planner since I was five."

"You know with our current friend group we will never have a single normal wedding, right?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Just let a boy dream, will ya?" He responded. "I will have at least ONE normal one, the rest can be as crazy as they want for all I care." He sighed. "Speaking of friend groups, anyone else you've met?"

"There was a couple of aliens." She responded. "Wander was a guy just like you, traveling the universe … apparently older than the Gems …" She muttered. "Then there's Sylvia, kickass horse girl. Lord Hater, a fun joke villain with lighting powers. Peepers, a sane henchman … and Lord Dominator." 

"She's the Toffee of that group, isn't she?" He guessed skeptically.

"Oh no … Toffee had a warped rationale." Kelly muttered. "She destroyed planets because she had fun watching people cry…because she was lonely according to Wander." She didn't know that you could pity a genocidal maniac, but she did. "Last I heard, she just stormed like a bratty kid in a bubble and hasn't been seen since."

"So it was a pre wand ludo and a wand ludo situation at the same time." Steven guessed again. "Both are immature, the latter just has more bite to the bark."

"Yep, that's how it is." She muttered. "I also fought off robot corporations, a lot of zombies, a couple time traveling vampires …. and the Litch ." She growled. "That guy was worse than Toffee and Mina combined, if you could imagine it."

"I can. Although, with how much we've all traveled the multiverse by this point, there's probably even worse still." Steven shuddered. "I've gotten a glimpse at Aku, the embodiment of the darkness before light existed, and the stuff I've heard about Bill Cipher and The Collector makes me shiver at night."

"We really need a deity hierarchy." She muttered, turning back to the kissing couple … under a red light? "Hey Kiki, I think your bulb is busted!"

"Ah…I don't think that's the pizza shop.." Steven pointed to the window..where the moon was suddenly out during the middle of the day

"Huh?" Star stopped her intimate moment, gazing at the moon. "... Didn't Anne say something about the red moon crashing on the planet?"

"No, she blew that up." Steven said. Kelly knew that girl was a badass, she just didn't know how much of one she was. "I'm pretty sure that's the blood moon"

"But isn't that supposed to be every six hundred years or something?" Marco asked as another light entered the room. "I know I was in the Neverzone for a while but I didn't think it counted to that."

"…Marco, since when do you have glowing crescents on your face?" Kelly asked, a bit freaked out. She would think a development like that would be first on the 'things to catch Kelly up on' list.

"I don't!" He shouted. "Well, there was that one time when I used the wand according to Jana, but I don't think I'm touching magic!"

"You've been constantly sucking face with Star almost every second you get even since we came back from homeworld." Steven deadpanned.

"No we haven't, and that wouldn't count. " Star and Marco said at the same time. "Whoa, freaky. Stop it!" The two shouted. " Peter piper picked a pack of peppered Pizzas!"

"Space unicorns were never ironic?" Kelly tried suggesting.

" Ironically cute!" Now she was really getting concerned.

"There's only one thing we can do." Steven picked Marco up, and tossed him out the door. "There, now we can eat in peace."

"Was that really necessary!?" The lovely couple shouted from both in and outside.

"..Knew I should've put him in another dimension." Steven snapped his fingers. "Okay, we're dealing with something weird, freaky, and supernatural. There's only one person I can count on when things get this weird." Steven began dialing on his mirror. "Ah..you might want to double down on the romance tolerance though."

"Yeowch, and here I thought you'd snag Jana." Kelly joked. "Don't worry, I'm sure there's a girl for you, Steven."

" Yeah probably.. " He muttered almost incoherently as the Mirror rang. Even if things were about to go off the rails quickly, she still enjoyed this moment of just being friends with the best guy she dated. Kelly wanted nothing more than for him to be happy, and she would help him no matter what it took.

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Tom warped through the circle of blood into Jana's room. "Alright, I have the ride set up so …" She looked at the group currently holding multiple books, staring at him. "... I'm gonna have to cancel our reservations, aren't I?"

"Sorry babe, they said something freaky was going on, and I couldn't resist." His girlfriend smirked cheekily.

"Wait, Jana's dating Tom?" Kelly (man it's been a long while) said with a baffled look. "How is that….actually, I can totally buy Jana being into him."

"Yeah, started off slow, built up when we weren't looking." Steven answered. "So Tom, you know anything about red moons making people talk in sync?"

"Red moons … oh right!" Tom exclaimed. "The Blood Moon curse!"

"..." Marco gave him the stink eye. "Between the Naysay and this, are there any other curses you've forgotten to mention?"

"I don't think so…unless I did go through with that wet sock one. I can't remember." He shook his head.

"Wait, wait, wait..what's this about the blood moon and curses?" Star asked. "I thought it was just an emotional bonding thing?"

"Right." He got back on track. "Well back when I was an emotional asshole looking for a way to keep you around forever, I looked for a lot of curses to keep us together. The Blood Moon was one that I learned from grandpa Ralacore." He explained. "Basically your souls have been melded together under its light, and are now completely inseparable."

"…. You we're planning to trick my sister into being brainwashed to love you!?" Steven glowed pink and cracked a few walls with his shout!

"It's not brainwashed." He responded with raised hands. "It's soul linking. Like you and Star's thing, but less platonic and more romantic." The spike came close to his face. "I've changed since then!"

"Wait." Kelly spoke up. "If Steven is connected to Star, and Star is connected to Marco … does that mean Steven and Marco …"

"No, that can't be a thing…can it?" Marco asked, slightly worried.

"I don't want to kiss you if that's what you're implying." Steven groaned. "Life is already complicated enough with one soul bonding in my life."

"Anyways, according to the curse, it completely shuts out anyone else that you might be interested in and destined you to be with who your bonded with."

"Did I lose Jackie because of the curse!?" Marco shouted in concern.

"Wait a second." Jana looked at him like he was somehow a moron. "Did you date Star knowing the curse would break you up?"

"I half forgot about it, and half thought our love would be strong enough to bypass whatever magic got between them….mostly the former though."

Steven sighed. "Just tell me you can break it."

"Yeah, we just need to wait until the next blood moon ball and we can break it there…oh wait, Marco and Star won't live that long."

"And you will?" Jana asked with a teasing smirk. "Don't tell me I'm dating a future male cougar."

"Ew, no. I was going to wait until your twentieth birthday if you wanted to have demon souls placed inside of you so you could live another five hundred years or so."

"Aw, that's the sweetest gift anyone's ever planned for me." Looks like his dating skills had definitely improved.

"Is there another alternative?" Star asked, holding back the raging Steven.

"Well there is Severing Stone … but that's a bit overkill."

"Severing Stone.. oh yeah, I read about that." Jana flipped open a book. "A stone so sharp that it cuts though any bond, physical, emotional, or magical."

"So what's the catch?" Marco asked. "Cause there always seems to be one when someone says 'overkill'."

"Well … besides the fact Star and Marco will lose the first memory of being in love with each other." He saw their eyes widen. "If the blood moon DID connect the three of you…the stone will cut away all spiritual connections." He glanced at Steven.

"Wait…so Star and I will lose our bond with each other too?" Steven looked worried.

"He said if, and it means probably not..right?" Star turned to him.

"Yeah…probably." Tom said, unsure of the situation itself. "I'm sorry that I put you guys in this mess, but you're happy now, right?"

"Well, yeah, but can we really say it's right if we were just…forced by the universe?" Marco asked. "Who knows how it could have been. Heck, do we actually like each other or was that fake too?"

"Hey, we were friends before the blood moon, I know that for a fact." Star stated firmly. "I just..even if we go through with this…I don't want to risk losing what I have with Steven…that's too much to gamble on.."

"But..can you truly say you'll be happy?" Steven placed a hand on her shoulder. "Remember when Mom told us about Rhina? About how she forced herself to love someone, and how it ended up?"

"Right, broken heart …" She sighed. "Come on guys, let's go grab the stone and figure out how to use it …"

"Oh, my grandpa Ralacore can take us there." Tom confirmed. "He'll have to guide us to the very bottom of the underworld though."

"A free trip to the depths of hell…wicked." Jana pumped her fist.

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Jana snorted as they entered the building. "You call him Granpapapapa. That's adorable."

"Oh, like you don't have cute nicknames for family." He shot back.

"I really don't." Jana countered. "Unless you count the watermelon Steven. The little gremlin already became the head honcho of his own gang." She wiped a proud tear. "Not even a year old and he's already hustling his first pharmacy."

"Jana, please be quiet before my conscience forces me to turn you in." Steven rolled his eyes. "I'm friends with way too many criminals."

"Not to mention the number of criminals in our family, or the fact we're on the run from Homeworld." Star grumbled. "If this all works out, maybe I can use this thing to sever my connection with Mewni."

"Let's keep it at baby steps before attempting something that big." Marco responded as his head was being plucked by Tom's grandpa. "Why is your grandpa sitting on my head again?"

"Kaaaaaaah!"

"He says he doesn't trust me to do something stupid after I messed things up with Blood Moon." Tom answered, nervously rubbing his head. "He's also warning us of the consequences, because the memories can't be recovered once the stone works it's magic." Tom sighed. "You'll remember what you did, but those feelings associated with it can't be brought back."

"We're not going to ask it to do anything complicated, just have it break our soul bound, which was done by the blood moon at the ball." Star reasserted. "And we didn't even dance under the light, everyone was more focused on Stelly's first fusion."

"If there's anything that I want to split apart, it would be me from that memory." Kelly winced before forming a snort. "Fusion's a lot more trouble than it's worth, am I right, Steven?"

"Yeah, totally messy.." The boy in question answered quietly and robotically. Guess things weren't so squeaky clean between the ex's.

"Do you think we'll end up like this?" Tom asked her.

"Nah, if Tv taught me anything, the beta couples with no focus have the most stable of relationships." She offhandedly answered. That was the plus side of being a side character. "And I'm guessing that's the room?" She pointed to the giant set of ornate doors with an ominous choir placed next to them.

"How much do you pay them to just stand around and play ominous music for days on end?" Marco asked.

"We don't. We just don't torture them." Her boyfriend casually explained. "They help keep the morale down whenever the damned get too hopeful or content with their position."

"Sometimes I forget this is legitimate hell." Star muttered. "… We should find Toffee's soul and gloat when this is all over."

"Let's think about the moral ramifications of that another day, is that the stone?" Steven pointed to a large white and shiny platform, where in the middle of it was a crystalized and jagged looking piece of rock that was presented before them on a small staff connected the the ground.

"Seems like it." Jana smirked. "I'll just go ahead and grab it real quick." She reached out to the object.

"Wait, wait, you're not supposed to grab it!" Tom cried out.

"Why, what will..?"

SHINK

Jana blinked at the feeling of her entire being being sliced in half, stumbling as she hit the ground. "That … was disturbing." She muttered, touching her chest.

"It's not meant to be touched by mortal hands, you could've split your entire body in half." Tom grabbed her hand and comforted her with a close embrace. "Just be glad there's no permanent damage.."

"RaaaaaH!" Tom's grandpa screeched out and pointed at her accusedly.

"…Scratch that, he says you just split your soul in half."

"Is that bad?" Steven asked with worry.

"No prob." She smirked. "Just means I've become a demon."

"I'm pretty sure that's not how it works." Marco said skeptically.

"Like you would know anything. I had one soul, now I have two." Jana laughed. "Easy as that."

"Can we figure this out later?! I've been out on the inside this entire time, and I just want to get this over with!" Star shouted, pointing at Tom. "What do we need to do?"

"You and Marco need to get on the platform and join hands while standing next to the stone." The demon prince guided the cursed couple into place. "From there, you'll both be taken to the moment your souls were bonded, and..poof, curse gone."

"Are you sure you still want to do this Star?" Marco asked her.

"Do we really have a choice?" She returned the question. "We spent almost a whole year of our lives dancing the 'will they won't they' routine, and I can't move forward with what we have…whatever it is, if I don't really have a say in the matter."

"Actually it's been two years." Tom spoke up. "The next blood moon ball is in a six hundred and sixty five."

"Two whole years since we met." Kelly muttered. "Time flies."

"My birthday's in like..two months by this point." Steven said. "And life only gets more weird and wild."

"You said it dude." Star sighed. "Okay, so we just joined up like.." Star and Marco held hands on the platform, and the stone began glowing a rainbow of colors before going red, freezing the two in place.

"So….how long is this going to take?" Jana asked.

"Shouldn't be that long." Tom shrugged. "It should just take them back to the ball, and that didn't last very long."

So now it was just the four of them…her boyfriend and her former crush along with said crushes ex girlfriend…Jana so didn't envy Steven's position now.

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Star awoke to a room of infinite mirror-like doors. "Hello once more … brain." She thought she finally got this place good looking with all the dream jumping adventures. "Now if I was a blood moon ball … where would I be?"

The stone was supposed to break her bind with Marco, which meant she could meet Marco there and get this whole curse thing done and over with.

 "I can't believe..could it have been just a curse this entire time?" She asked herself the dreaded question. The only bright side to the entire thing was that she couldn't blame herself anymore for messing with Marco's head while he was dating Jackie, and vice versa for when she dated Tom again.

"That also means…everything we gave up and built with each other meant nothing too." She pondered out loud. All those good times they had, the moments of relief and relaxation she had in these past few weeks…would they mean nothing?

"Will I completely think back on those memories differently? Will all the fun times we have…not make me feel good anymore?" A lot of the times she had fun with Marco were BECAUSE she had a crush on him, unrequited or not.

"No, no, stay focused, stay focused. Break the curse, and you and Marco can finally be free to be happy." She saw the memory of the blood moon. "Everything will be fine.." Who knows? After the curse, and a little time apart, they might be able to date again in the future, where there was a chance magic wouldn't get in the way.

She reached out her hand…only for some invisible force to pull her back. "Hey! What's going…?!" She couldn't finish as she was sent flying backward into another memory…one of school, where she was outside the principal's office. "Damn it, I'm not dreaming! Don't make me do boring stuff when I'm having a crisis!"

"You're not the only one." Marco spoke next to her. "I'm here too." He stated, looking around the hallway. "You know, it's funny how you can see stuff and not remember anything about it. They had a cooking club and I never noticed." He pointed to a flyer.

"It had been a while since either of us were here." Star said, while looking at the water fountain. "Hah, I remember this doohickey. I was biting it to get the water out." 

"Yeah, I remember …" Marco paused as a Star walked up to the fountain, poking it before trying to bite it outright. "Wait..this is the first day we met. You just came with your parents and I was called to the office.."

"And you were the boring boy that looked at me weirdly." She noted as the boy himself, the memory version, came in, making a joke with the vice principal as he took a seat, before staring at her memory self.

"Ah, Marco Diaz, just the safe kid I was waiting for." The principal came out of the door, an excited glint in his eyes as he carried a big chest of gold and jewelry no member of school faculty would normally get their hands on with a teacher's salary. 

"It's a real good thing Nana is firing that man." Marco nodded with a vindictive smirk.

"What!? Don't tell me that's how everyone knows me now!?"

"It was what you were voted for in last year's yearbook. You give the school safety patrol a run for their money." Something he unfortunately never got allowed to join, and now that one vote was ruining his life . "I need you to show our new student, Star Butterfly, around school." He looked over at the wild child with a raised eyebrow. He never heard of someone with a name … that was basically two objects.

"Again, may I remind you…you live in Beach Creek."

"It is a town name I'm proud to have.

"Oh hi, safe kid!" The girl eagerly shook his arm. "I'm Star Butterfly: Magical Princess from another dimension!" The girl waved what looked like some sort of toy in the air that somehow created a rainbow….that caught on fire. "Dang it, I thought I had that down by now."

"And just like Levitato, you never got it down."

"No, but I can use the rainbow fist to throw you into the sky just like Levitato can." Star smirked.

The quite frankly, freaky and bewildering sight made him want to run and never look back . "Did I get high without knowing it?" He could have sworn he didn't take anything from the stoner kids … or Jana.

"Admit it, I was your sexy danger awakening."

"You were charming in your confused outlook on earth life, I'll give you that."

"She's our foreign exchange student." He was pretty sure candyland was a board game and not an actual country, because that was the only logical explanation as to WHERE this weirdo came from . "Her parents paid us a lot of money, and now she's your problem." Somehow that made the most sense out of anything.

"So…you're some kind of magical girl?" Marco asked tentatively.

"Well I'm magic, and I'm a girl." She giggled . "My parents are under the impression that I'm too reckless just because I fight monsters and tame wild unicorns as a hobby, so they sent me here to practice magic in a 'safe environment'."

"And yet our mortality rate has doubled." Star nodded.

"And our future therapy bills keep tripling."

"Take that back!"

So basically they didn't want to deal with the fires and shoved it into someone else. "Alright, just got to deal with this for today." Just show the girl around the school and he'd never have to talk or look at her again.

"Oh, could you tell me where the 'Diaz' house is? That's where I was told I'd be living during my time here." ….Damn you, overly nice and welcoming parents! The one time he didn't bring his helmet to school too!

"And here we are, stuck together like glue." Star laughed. "I couldn't imagine that one day, this one moment changing our lives so much."

"Yeah..it's amazing…I'd never change a second of it." Marco said, nodding.

"Then why are we?" She asked. "Some crazy curse that makes us break up with other people … were we ever gonna be happy to begin with?"

"I'll be honest, in the neverzone…I didn't think twice about Jackie….when I came back…it was mainly…no…IT was solely because you would be there."

"Marco … do we like each other?" Star aske seriously. 

"You know me better than anybody…you've pushed me into being the best version of myself…and I know I would never be truly happy if you didn't come into my life." He placed her hand on her shoulders.

"And you've helped me even when it hurt you … so we've always had a thing for each other …" Star smiled as she watched her past self jump on the boy. "I'm glad it was genuine …" Then a laser blew their past selves to smithereens.

"What the heck!?" Marco screamed. "I thought it was breaking the curse?!"

"It's breaking the bond we have…shit, it's doing more than just the curse!" She yelled back. "It's severing our whole relationship! Why else would it break…break.." She stumbled. "What did it just break?"

"Then let's stop it!" He looked up to the stone. "We're done, stop this severing stone! Stop … breaking …" Some boy held his head. "What are you breaking … why am I mad?"

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Steven listened as Kelly chatted with Tom and Jana on biology. "So because both my souls are human, I'm still human?"

"Yes, what makes that so hard to understand!?" The demon shouted.

"Honestly, twice the humanity sounds superhuman." Kelly shrugged.

"But it isn't twice if anything if they're two parts of a whole. Breaking a vase in half doesn't give you two vases." Tom pointed out.

"Yeah … it gives you two sharp pieces of glass." Jana smirked. "So clearly I'm half human, half sword."

"You're just fucking with me at this point, aren't you?"

"Aw, it's cute you think there's a moment when I'm not trying to." Jana patted her boyfriend's head affectionately.

"Looks like those two are going strong." Kelly smirked at the sight of it while he was trying his best to get the day over as quickly as possible.

"Yep … absolutely compatible." He spoke. "So … the bond breaking is still going." It's been a while, he was starting to get worried.

"We are talking about an ancient blood moon curse, it's probably made of some strong mojo." Kelly shrugged. "Who knows, after they're down, I might use it to sever every bad memory I had with Jad."

"You want to forget about a guy who's name you can't even remember?" Steven asked.

"I know, it seems redundant, but just in case, you know? That way I'm never tempted to make a terrible decision ever again." The Woolet sighed. "I mean, wouldn't you want to forget about all the bad stuff Stelly did-"

"Never." He interrupted. "I would never want to forget about us, you were my first friend when Star left … I never want to forget about you."

"Really?" Kelly asked, looking bewildered at the idea. "But I did.."

"I don't care about the bad choices you made!" Steven inadvertently shouted.

"Um … should we leave or …" Jana asked hesitantly.

It was too late though. The flood gate opened, and he was letting it flow. "I don't care if there were bad times when we were together, because there were so many good times that they didn't matter!" He held on to her hands gently. "When you left, I was hurt, but I never stopped caring about you! I never stopped wanting to be with you! So please..will you..?"

Kelly's face was flushing red, trying to avert her face as she bit her lip. "Steven … I won't." She stated. "We're not … I'm now … I don't trust us." The love of his life told him. "On my journey I've seen lots of toxic love and people move on without it. I don't trust us to not get addicted to each other again."

She was saying everything that could've crushed his heart right now. He has to do his best to not cry, to hold in the pain..

Creak

"Aaaaaah!" Steven clenched his chest as it felt like a spear was being rammed into him.

"Steven!" Everyone shouted, Kelly rushing to keep him steady.

"What's wrong?" She asked. "Your marks..they're glowing."

He weakly lifted his arms to feel his pain, emotions of sadness and anguish flooding his mind. "It's … it's …" Severing pain "Star … she's in trouble."

"What?" Tom asked, a bit skeptical. "Even if that's the case, what can we do about it?"

"We can't do anything..but I can." He closed his eyes to focus. "I'm going to dream walk into their heads and see if I can fix whatever's happening inside

"Alright, we'll try and get help." Kelly nodded. "Jana, you're more familiar with the new friend group, is anyone reliable for this?"

"A few of them actually, but I'm not sure who can get here in time."

"Figure it out later, I'm going in!" Steven yelled.

"Dude, you remember what I said about it affecting your bond too, right?!" Tom warned. "Going in like this in the middle of a severing might do something really crazy and dangerous to you!"

"It won't. Me and Star are tougher than any weapon." He glared at the severing object in question. "And my mom's gem was tougher than any other stone."