THE DIVIDED

Written by TheCanadianInfernape

AU concieved by moringmark

Disclaimer: So yeah. I felt like I should start working on another fanfic, so while The Fall going through several plot rewrites, I decided to distract myself with another story in the meantime.

- This is based off of moringmark's Ship War AU, and I was focused on keeping it as close to his original idea as possible. All credit to the lad. Some of the scenes are based off some of the comics he drew.

- I obviously don't own any properties or characters from either the Ship War AU or from Star vs. the Forces of Evil. (It would be cool if I did though)

CHAPTER ONE: SECRETS

In just a matter of years, the city of Echo Creek, California became unrecognizable by any travellers who dared lurk into the city boundaries.

Dust rattled in the air, with varying sizes of dust clouds hovering above the ground. The gravel roads were deserted with cars scattered unorderly on the roads, and fire arising from the engines. Off the streets, small store buildings were abandoned, with windows smashed and cobwebs forming on the interiors. Not a living person was to be seen.

Yet through the dust and isolation, a young teenager approached one of these stores. The man was dressed in a ragged and torn purple robe and bandages wrapped around each of his arms. His face was unrecognizable, with green-tinted goggles covering his eyes and a purple cloth covering his mouth. His hair was a luscious shade of brown, a sea-green highlight coloring a small strand of his hair. What was most notable was his large brown sack burdening his shoulders.

The boy entered the run down store with a red-lettered banner with several red letters faded to the point that the sign read "ECHO CR-K CONV-NI-C-". He removed his bandana and goggles, revealing his shade of bright green irises. The boy's parents called his eyes the most beautiful thing they've seen since the disaster.

The disaster in question, the event people around him called Stapocalypse, happened about a decade and a half ago. The boy's parents were apparently just two years younger than his current age, sixteen. It was the day when monsters rained down from a red crack in the sky and a bubble formed around the city's boundaries, preventing any travellers who dared enter or exit the city. It was the day that many had to retreat in an underground shelter to survive.

It was the day that the boy lost his freedom.

The boy looked around the the small store. It was run down with cracked tiles littering the floor. Large amounts of dust were scattered throughout the store, and the boy even had trouble breathing from all the dust in the air. After taking a second to cough everything out of his system, he kept calm and level-headed as he paid attention to a nearby shelf.

The boy found a large orange bag of Golden Crispz potato chips and opened the bag up just slightly, not to expose the chips to the near-toxic air around him. The boy quickly looked around him, then grabbed a small crisp and silently chewed on it with his mouth. After a few bites, the boy's eyes widened and he winced. He spewed the chewed remains out onto the floor and rubbed his hand on his tongue, trying to diffuse the awful taste.

He should have known better, anyways. It had been about several years since the beginning of Stapocalypse had occurred. The chips would more than likely have expired by now.

The boy cursed to himself, not just in mere frustration and stresses that the apocalypse had brought, although such an outburst would've been justified. Rather, the boy cursed with the thought that, if he couldn't find any sources of food here and now, he would have to look someplace else for something to eat. And who knew how long another trial, like that, would take.

He turned his attention to the freezer. The freezer was still cold after all these years, even though the electrical circuits powering it would definitely have been dead for a while now. Inside of the freezer, the boy found a few bottles of orange liquid. He took the first bottle and tasted it. It was definitely lukewarm, but unlike the chips he encountered before, it was at least consumable.

Jackpot. He took a few of the remaining bottles and stuffed as many in his bag as he could muster. He thought about his family, and how excited they would be that he had brought something home for them.

He looked around for a few more supplies, rummaging through the many shelves. Of the supplies he gathered, he gained a small lighter, a pack of old chewing gum, and a small pack of batteries, just in case.

The boy decided to stop and rest in the shelter for a minute, keeping his guard up against any threatening monsters. He closed his eyes and thought about stories. In particular, the stories that were once told to him by his father, who loved to tell him stories of what life was like before Stapocalypse.

The boy remembered being told about how the blue sky was covered with white clouds, which the boy could now only see on a lucky day that did not include significant dust-storms. The boy was also was told about the green grass at Echo Creek Park, and the trees standing upright, with leaves as bright of a green colour as his own eyes. Now, the park was enveloped by dried-up brown grass and the trees stripped of their green natural leaves.

The teenager now dreamt of running in the park, playing catch with his younger sister while his parents were watching from ontop of a hill, their bodies laid on top of a red and white cloth with a picnic basket. These were the thoughts that the boy could never experience. He even had trouble picturing these dreams, only remembering by the mere stories he was told.

Just as he had finished his casual fantasizing, the boy heard a growling noise from not too far away. The boy looked confident enough, but deep down he knew that he jumped out of his skin. With a quick reaction, he rummaged quickly through his sack and pulled out a dark laser rifle. He wrapped his brown cloth and goggles across his face, preparing himself to step out of the store.

Looking out of the store, the dust-clouds started to rustle through the deserted town as much as ever, which was a common occurrence when the day wore on. Even with his night-vision goggles, the boy's vision was still very limited. Still, the growling noises were now closer than ever.

Staying silent and listening carefully, the boy crouched on one knee for the growling. The purring of the nearby threat befuddled him. From what his father had told him after years of self-defense training, the boy knew that merely listening would allow the boy to anticipate where his enemy would strike. And, alas, anticipate he did. This little trick allowed him to pinpoint where his enemy was. He kept clear vision of his own attacker and watched his right side.

Sure enough, a black werewolf-like monster with a large and hairy black chest pounced from his right hand side. His quick reaction allowed the boy to quickly hold up his blaster and aim. A blue beam of light struck the werewolf right in the arm as it stumbled out of its pounce and toppled to the ground.

For a second the boy got ready to aim again, but this werewolf was certainly not a pushover. The werewolf clutched its injured arm for a second before striking to attack him again. The boy tried to aim again but the black monster struck the blaster right out of his arm. The blaster hit the pavement with a clang, but the dust was so opaque by this point that he didn't even have any time to rummage around through it.

The boy instead braced himself for the creature to attack, and attack it did. A large swinging punch was enough to let the helpless teenager fly backwards, falling onto his back as he lay paralyzed, victim to a very agitated and bulky monster.

Letting out a hideous roar, the monster struck Jam's face with yet another punch to one of his eyes. As the boy closed his eyes, anticipating the punch, he heard a shattering noise with a rough feeling towards one of his eyes. To his disbelief, the werewolf had cracked one of the fragile green lenses on his pair of goggles. Now one of his eyes was heavily exposed by sand.

Covering one of his eyes with his hand, the boy was helpless. He felt significant pain with every blow the furious werewolf laid upon him, and he was running out of options quickly. Getting up on his bum, the boy found a dusty metal exhaust pipe lying on the street, which he deduced came from a car that was ripped apart by monsters during Stapocalypse.

The boy reached for the exhaust pipe with his hand, and adjusted it in his hand so he could prepare his aim. He had never been taught how to javelin-style throw a spear before, but, for the boy, it was better to take an effort at it than to get mauled by a heavyweight werewolf. Chucking it, the tip of the pipe struck the chest of the giant monster as it stumbled backwards. The moment the werewolf stumbled the boy started his counter attack. Lunging towards the large hairy body, the boy shoved him down to the floor. Now the tables have turned with the body of the werewolf on the floor, the boy standing above his attacker.

The exhaust pipe gave the boy an advantage over his adversary, allowing him a wider range covering his attack. The dust was raging on, but the black body illuminated through the storm. With several blows, the boy whacked the monster's face from side to side, knocking it unconscious.

Panting and out of breath, the boy sat in the middle of the duststorm, still covering his exposed eye, recollecting himself from the ordeal. He scrambled around the area and found his blaster rifle, luckily unscathed from any damage.

The dust was getting worse by the second, and the boy persuaded himself to finally return home.

The boy entered a rocky cave in a large cliff at the outskirts of the city. On the way there, he had to keep his guard up, trying not to fall victim to any more monsters lurking about. He looked at the wall and pressed a bright red button. From the ground, a loose metal elevator popped up and he stepped inside.

Descending down to the underground, the boy breathed and thought of the same thoughts that he had before. He also thought about his young sister, mother and father living in a small house together, like the townhouses that his father would tell him that people used to live in. The boy felt a plethora of cycling emotions. Hurt, trapped, confused... These cycled around his mind, and he always thought that staying quiet was the best way to keep these in check.

The elevator door opened to reveal a stone sanctuary, where many Echo Creek citizens resided in different rooms. After much exposure from his sixteen years of his life, the looks of these people after he got used to these sights. A kid he walked past was playing with a dead rat. An old man lay asleep against the wall, clothes tattered in torn rags.

He walked back to his small apartment in his own sanctuary and opened the stone door. The door creaked open and his mother, with her bright blonde hair and green eyes, looked up at him in surprise, while his father looked at him sternly. His sister's eyes lit up.

After a brief moment of silence, his mother immediately went over and hugged her son.

"Where have you been, Jam," his mother asked, nearly breaking down in tears. The boy, Jam, could barely even speak. The only thing that he could do was return the hug.

When he broke away from the hug, Jam took out his brown sack and presented the group with his supplies, along with small bottles of the orange liquid. His mother and sister's eyes lit up upon seeing the stash of drinks that he had returned, likewise, his father was rather dissatisfied.

"You went above ground," the father replied.

Jam looked up to his father. He knew that he was angry. He probably shouldn't have done it, anyways. His father told him to never go above ground to fetch for supplies alone. He wouldn't dare oppose his father.

Not when his father was the trusted leader of the Echo Creek Rebellion. Not when his father was Marco Ubalbo Diaz.

"I-I just wanted to fetch something. I was starving," Jam stuttered, trying to explain himself.

"...And so you thought that this was a great idea to try to fetch supplies on your own," Marco's voice rose steadily, pointing at the orange bottles, "And you risked your life trying to get this-this... this freaking junk for rations. It probably wasn't even worth it to begin with, is that right, Jam?"

Normally, Jam would usually argue his father's case. His parents always did call him the rebellious one after all. Seeing his father was angry enough, he chose not to anger him or raise his temper.

"No, father," Jam winced, "I shouldn't have gone out. I'm sorry."

His father turned to leave the apartment. But as he past his own son, he scolded, "You're grounded for a month."

Grounded was one word that Jam refused to hear. That word represented an isolation in his home, unable to leave the perimeters of his own house. This was the rock that broke the camel's back. Jam stood right up.

"I was trying to help, Father," Jam said, raising his own voice. "You won't let me go out at all. I was trying to help us!"

His father turned back to him slowly just as he headed out the door. He was fuming.

"Listen to me. Listen to me," Marco prompted fiercely, grabbing his son tightly by the wrist, pointing to an imaginary object, "You think you'll be the legendary hero who will liberate us all? You think you'll die for a cause? Out there, out that door, is known as the real world. Those monsters will maul you and eat you up so quickly that you'll earn a free ticket to the afterlife faster than you can say 'don't eat me'."

"I'm sixteen," Jam replied. "You even taught me how to defend myself! I think I'm old enough to make decisions for myself, don't you think, Father?"

"Not old enough for me," Marco shouted back, before letting go of his son, closing the door behind him. Jam, in frustration, slammed his fist against the wall and let out a shout. His mother looked right at him as he allowed his eleven year old sister to drink one of the orange bottles. As Jam kept punching the wall, his mother, the stunning Jackie Lynn Thomas, looked in his eyes and got him to stop.

"Hey... hey," Jackie cooed, cupping her son's face in her hand, "Don't worry about your father. I'm pretty sure deep down, he's thankful for what you did. He's just kinda- stressed about this whole Stapocalypse."

"Mother, he's been like this to me for a long time," Jam snapped, turning to face his mother. "

Jackie took a while to recollect her son's thoughts inside her head. Finally, she spoke.

"When you were born," Jackie recollected, "Stapocalypse had already been occurring for several years by then. But the whole fighting stood still on the day I was going to give birth."

Jackie looked up at the stone ceiling for a second, and then continued her story.

"Grandpa and Grandma Diaz was in the room along with me and your father. When you eventually came out of the womb, everyone was so happy. In fact, I was shaking so much that I thought that I was going to drop you. So your father took you first and hummed you your first lullaby. He was so happy. Even through all the sadness and depressing times, we felt a loving time had come once again, a time when we were all happy and carefree before the apocalypse, and that was when you came."

"Yeah, what happened to Father," Jam asked sarcastically, "Did he fall into an early midlife crisis or something?" Jackie frowned at her son's sarcasm, but continued her story.

"Thing is," Jackie replied, "You're father's always been a worrywart. Do you know how many elaborate plans he had to hatch just to get a date with me? The thing was that, since Stapocalypse occurred many years ago, Marco actually lost one of our best friends in the ensuing rush to safety. I'm not sure if you'd believe this but... this girl was a magical princess from another dimension."

Jam nodded, in shock but not surprised by this revelation. Monsters lived on the surface of the Earth now, so what's to say that something like that would happen?

"So what happened to this girl," Jam asked, his curiosity beginning to pique, "and what happened to him?"

"Nobody knows, but some say that the girl started to get sucked into the red crack in the sky while monsters came to Earth. She was never seen again. Marco never forgot her, and blamed himself for the events of Stapocalypse."

"Why? What did he do?"

Jam stayed silent as Jackie walked over to the makeshift kitchen with a portable stove on top of a makeshift stone table. She started boiling water.

"I don't believe that now's the best time to tell you the story, Jam. When you're older and understand more things about life, I promise that I will tell you."

Jam didn't believe that, and he was angry that he was yet again being restricted once again by his age. He was sixteen years old already, for goodness' sake. Jackie put a hand on her son's shoulder and reassured him,

"Your father has always loved you, but he has his own special way of letting that known. Just be patient and give your father some room to breathe. I think he should do the same for you too, sometimes,"

Jam smiled at his mother, confirming that her reassurance was definitely felt within him. As he felt rather tired from the day's events, Jam kissed his mother and sister goodnight and headed off to his makeshift bed, which was a small mattress that he would lie on and share with his sister, Grace.

Even though he was tired, he couldn't sleep as a long pile of questions entered his mind: Who was this magical princess? What did Father do to cause the massacre? What magic powers did she possess?

Even more importantly, why was everyone keeping secrets from him?