The ground shook making rubble come tumbling down from the ruins of the former castle. Toffee kept on walking ignoring everything. It was of no interest to him. He had more important things to attend to. Especially more important than a mere quake. Besides, nothing could faze him now that he added another Butterfly royal to his kill count.
Moon and Marco though looked at the wand as it floated out of Moon's hand and went upward into the sky where it shattered in their horror.
Gold goop began to leak out of the remaining shards of crystal. The liquid then began to regenerate and pieced an entirely new wand back together again. The slime continued to keep leaking out to form hands that were grabbing the base and extended outward where they reconstituted into the basics of a simple body. Then the details came. Seams and lines of clothes made themselves noticeable. Hair poofed up on the back. Two Hearts formed an outline where the cheeks were as teeth and eyes formed. 2 extra set of arms appeared as soon as Star finally regenerated. And then wings grew out of her back as her hair styled themselves into a type of antennae. The light finally disappeared and allowed her to be seen without a struggle.
Moon and Marco cried out in happiness as they saw the princess they thought as dead come back. She greeted them but her voice was different and unsettled them both. Star then proceeded to head to Toffee who was now out of the cratered ruins.
"Where are you going so fast, Toffee?"
The voice both surprised and irritated Toffee. He spun around to face the newly reformed Princess of Mewni. She just couldn't stay dead. The magic realm he trapped her in was supposed to corrupt and destroy her, not supercharge her. This was going to be a problem. Setbacks were already foreseen. But he had to get to where he needed to be as soon as he could.
With a growl, he charged at Star. She extended her hand and shot a beam out of her palm. A guttural scream pierced the air as the beam slowly incinerated The Lizard general. Making him feel and suffer everything the magic did to his body.
Once the beam was gone, the lizard continued to stand. Well more like crawl.
"You really think you can kill a Septarian? Defeat their general? I'm the chess master. You can't defeat me. I plan for contingencies like these. I haven't remained the leader of my race for centuries for being nothing," he laughed.
His body was falling apart and he couldn't think clearly. Parts of his mind were gone, reduced to goop just like the rest of his body. But he was still trying to hang on. The insanity crawling over his mind and threatening to take control ebbed his cognition though. Septarians still needed a brain to function after all.
A gooed, tar hand raised up trying to reach Star. An eyeball was threatening to fall out of its socket creeping everyone out. Toffee just wasn't a pretty sight.
A marble column suddenly fell on top of the abomination crushing him. Out of the back, Ludo crawled out and started kicking the goop that remained.
"Take that. You stupid lizard. Who's better now, jerk." Ludo picked up a remaining eye and squeezed it to the dismay of the Butterflies and Marco.
Several months passed after the defeat of Toffee. The castle was rebuilt to be identical to how it was before and stood standing in all of its gloriousness to await its future destruction in the battle against Meteora. That structure had terrible luck. Being destroyed every year was going to be bad for its design.
Beneath the foundations of the building a terrible smell emanated. It could have been from the laundry room where Sir Lavabo worked in. But it wasn't the regular smell of unwashed clothes and dead Nuri-Raccoons that were scavenging the depths of the castle for food.
Instead, it came from a puddle of black tar that grew in size slowly. It was from a drop of Toffee's tar that the cleaning crew forgot to clean up. It had slowly seeped into the cracks of the castle floors making its way to the darkest place of the dungeon where it could regenerate in peace undisturbed. Where no one could smell the putrid aroma of the former dead. A smell that would send grown men running for the hills in search of flowers to wash the scent out of their nostrils.
As the weeks went by Toffee got stronger to the point where he could begin to reshape himself. But whenever he made an arm or a head, it would fall apart instantly. He wasn't complete. There was something missing. And until he could find that missing element, he would be trapped in darkness for eternity.
Luckily he didn't have to wait that long.
The castle had begun to quake. Each punch and vibration made by Meteora and Star's fight sent ripples in the puddle. Then a shout came before a gold wave of energy bubbled outward from the top of the ruins of the castle and washed over every nook and cranny of the kingdom. Even reaching the dark depths of the dungeon where it froze the movements of the Tar.
He was complete now. But he would not be able to move for some time. In the months following the reconstruction of the Butterfly kingdom, Toffee was able to test out his new regeneration. The first thing to come together was a finger. Followed by a hand and a torso. A few weeks would pass before he could grow eyes, a baby snout, and a tail. Soon he was complete. Nearly. His face was still in the process of coming together. And so was his mind.
Toffee still had the cunning mind he was infamous for. But there was a new found craze in there. Septarians were known for their regeneration. But it was far from perfect. Especially when it came to regenerating their mind. It would leave their psyche incomplete and in some cases completely different.
"I have a job to do," Toffee's eyes narrowed as he brushed his suit and left the room he once called a prison.