Short and concise author note. Yes. That's what I will try to do here. Let's see how that goes.

Okay, so what to expect from this fanfic you may ask? Good question and the answer would be: a part novelisation, a part rewrite and a part original content, largely depending on whether or not the Muse of Fanfiction Writing will bestow upon me a blessing of creativity. As much as I like a main plot of this series, the sides ones are... mhm... not as good as I would like. I will try to do something with that, hopefully with some success.

It is my first time writing SvtFoE fanfiction and first time when I toy with an episodic story, so it will certainly be some fun. I hope.

Few setting details will be changed in this one, just for you to be warned. Most importantly – a special significance will be put on the cheek marks, which will only come in four types (clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades) and not in bajilion that fanbase had already came up with. On the flip side - what you have on your cheeks is going to be very important.

Well, I think that's all for now. Without further ado, I present to you the first chapter...

Chapter one - Star vs the Student Exchange (part 1)

"No-ho-oooo!" Star Butterfly, the crown princess of Mewni dropped on her knees crying. "I can be good! Please! Don't send me to Saint Olga's School for Wayward Princesses!"

She then started to shrieking, as visions of elegant tea drinking lessons and poised walking training filled her mind with crushing force, threatening to drown Star in imaginable darkness full of…

"Sweetheart, we are not sending you there," River Butterfly interrupted his daughter reassuringly.

"Oh!" Star raised immediately switching back to her usual energetic mood.

"Yet," Moon added sending Star a heavy glare, that turned down girl's enthusiasm a little bit.

"We're sending you to train in a safer dimension," River explained. "A place called Errrth."

"Ea'Rth?" Star asked surprised, as she had never heard about such a place before.

"Yes." Moon shoved her daughter into the carriage impatiently and followed her inside.

"Manfred, open the portal!" River shouted loudly.

The blades of Dimensional Scissors cut through the delicate fabric of the universe, creating a small crack in it. With the move of his hands, the servant moulded it into the house-sized gateway.

The carriage moved swiftly, with Star looking through window at the castle, that was slowly becoming more distant. She sighed deeply.

"Goodbye, Mewni." With those words the vehicle crossed the portal, taking princess to the new land.

No soul, either from the royal family, or their servants had spotted a frog-like monster lurking in the bushes. He laughed to himself menacingly, looking at the place where portal had faded away.

"Sooo…" Principal Skeeves looked rather suspiciously over the two people standing before him in the clothes straight from a different age. "You say you're from another… dimension?"

Star, utterly disinterested in her school enrolment, played with the light switch, turning the lamps in room on and off quickly, clearly fascinated by the device.

She turned to her father with squinted eyes and a mockingly accusatory voice. "And you said there was no magic on Ea'Rth."

"Yeah…" Mr. Skeeves said slowly, looking away from the strange girl and turning back to her parents. "This isn't gonna work."

He had clearly underestimated Butterflies' negotiation prowess. An enormous treasure chest that River had brought, full of gold and jewels did miracles when it came to the principal. They could almost hear dinging in his head when he enthusiastically shouted: "She is gonna love it here!"

Skeeves got the chest in his hands and lights once again started blinking, causing Moon to sigh a little bit.

"She is going to need a guide." Moon stated firmly. "A girl, necessarily. Somebody responsible, who will teach our Star about Earth and keep her out of the harm's way. Keeping her safe is the highest… Are you listening to me, Mr. Skeeves?"

"What?" The man unglued his eyes from the egg-sized emerald, that he had dug out of the chest. "Yes, of course. 'Safe', I heard you. I have a perfect candidate in mind."

"Great,' Moon said, albeit not without a doubt in her voice. She dusted her dress from a non-existent filth and looked at her husband. "See to the 'exchange student' procedure, River. I must return to Mewni now."

"Of course, my dear," the king replied in an enthusiastic way, not really hiding his satisfaction with his wife entrusting him with such a responsible task.

The atmosphere during Miss Skullnick's lesson was… drowsy. At best. Half of the pupils were sleeping, the other half were either daydreaming or looking mindlessly at cracks on the walls. One boy, however, was stepping out of the line, tirelessly trying to solve the problem on the blackboard, long forgotten even by the teacher herself.

Suddenly a voice from the PA sounded in the classroom:

"Marco Diaz to the principal's office." The speaker demanded. "Marco Diaz to the principal's office."

The scribbling boy straightened in his chair, proud as peacock. With a smug smile on his face, Marco raised and made a few steps to face the rest of the class.

"Oooh, looks like someone's in trouble." He started, attracting the attention of exactly nobody.

"So, this bad boy here…" still overly self-complacent, Marco pointed his both thumbs at himself. "…is going to get punished now. And you know what, I am not afraid at all. Because…" he lowered his voice to a whisper. "… I am a bad boy."

"Do I need a hall pass.?" The last question was for Ms. Skullnick, who was looking at Marco from behind her glasses.

"Would you just go already?!" The fat woman replied angrily, not for a second interrupting her carefully planned toe nails painting procedure.

As soon as Marco found himself on the corridor, his self-confidence evaporated. As he started to move in the direction of principal's office, his knees started to tremble and his teeth started to chatter. The dark fear gripped his tummy as he moved slowly with every step closer to his destiny.

Marco knew why he was going on there. He DID stick that chewing gum to the urinal. And now the authorities had tracked him down and a punishing hand of justice was hanging above Marco's head, ready to condemn the wrongdoer he was. Whether the boy was ready for it or not, his fate has already been decided.

A cold sweat wetted Marco's forehead as he stood before the Mr. Skeeves' doors. With his shaky hand he had turned the doorknob and entered the office.

Before the door even closed behind Marco, he had already dropped at his knees screaming:

"Yes, it was ME! I CONFESS. I am ready to take any punishment you… eh?" His apologetic speech was kind of interrupted, when Marco's eyes got a hang of the room before him.

Principal Skeeves sat with his head in a treasure chest. Next to him was a short man with beard as long as he was tall and in kingly attire. As if it wasn't enough, a blonde, stranger girl stood next to the window and was apparently trying to eat a ballpen. With a disturbing degree of success.

"Ah, Marco!" Mr. Skeeves dived out of his treasure. "I want you to meet our new exchange... aah?"

He stopped talking as the boy in the red hood was already standing next to Star and right now he was vigorously patting her back.

"Spit it out immediately!" Marco demanded, shoving a clean tissue under Star's mouth. "Artificial dies. Heavy metals. Preservatives! Do you have any idea what is in this ink?!"

"Blagh?" Star asked eloquently and tilted her head surprised, but obediently spitted out the rests of plastic. "You mean it's not a candy?"

"Whaa?" Marco raised his brows confused, not even noticing River's interested gaze on his person. "Of course it's not! It's a ballpen!"

"Bol'Pehn?" Now Star was confused. "What's that?"

"'What?' Wha…" Marco glared at her, angry and puzzled. "How can you not know what a ballpen is?"

"Yes, about that." Principal coughed in his palm. "Marco, meet our new exchange student – Star Butterfly!"

The blonde girl waved to the boy enthusiastically and Marco started to think he is in some sort of a hidden camera.

Mr Skeeves continued: "I need a responsible, never-take-chances type to keep an eye on her, and who better than you – the Safe Kid?"

"What?" Marco looked at the girl, who was currently smiling so widely he could easily see her ink-tinted teeth. "No, no, no, no! I'm completely wrong for this. I'm a misunderstood bad boy. I… I stuck the gum in the toilet yesterday!"

"You're adorable." Skeeves pinched boy's cheek playfully. "Everybody makes a mistake once in a while. I'm sure you didn't mean to do that!"

"I didn't.. pfft… mean… What?!" Marco shouted devastated, as his chances to gain an opinion of a problem kid had drifted away once again.

"Now, now." The principal patted his head. He took the chest, closed it and went to the door. "I'm off to the ice-cream shop. Daddy's getting all 52 flavours today!"

And with this words he had left the room.

River looked at Marco with squinted eyes.

"Errrth girls are strange…" He came closer to Marco, taking quick glances at his short hair, red hoodie and sport shoes. His face was so close to the boy's one, that Marco started to lean backwards.

"I am not a…Ugh!," Marco started, but was interrupted by an sudden, encouraging hit on his back.

"Ha!" River shouted contentedly. "I like you. Take care about my daughter, will you?"

"But…" Marco wanted to protest, but the older man has already left the room. Through window.

"Bye, Dad." Star waved him through the shards of broken glass, leaning on the windowsill. "Tell mom I love her!"

"Of course, sweetie!" Marco heard his muffled answer and then horses neighing. For a moment the horseshoes were clicking against the street, and then the silence set in.

It is definitely not my day. Marco thought looking at the girl, who in return was staring at him and were jumping in place excitedly.

"What is this?"

"A door?"

"And this?"

"That's Mr. Stacker, janitor."

"And thiiiiis?" Star put her face to the red box on the wall.

"That's a fire alarm." A resignation could be heard in Marco's voice as he was 'touring' the girl through the school, additionally serving as a walking, talking dictionary.

"Wow." Star was now staring blatantly at the girl with pink hair and punk clothing. "Everything is sooo… AWESOME here!" She jumped around Marco, who only rolled his eyes. "Thanks for showing me around Safe Kid!"

"What? No! Argh!" Marco clenched his fists in anger and growled. "Whatever you heard about me isn't true. I don't know where do people get the idea I'm so safe! Watch your step, loose pile!" He gently guided Star around the obstacle.

"It's ridiculous!" He waved his hands to the ceiling, as if complaining to the gods themselves. "Watch out!" He quickly dragged Star away from the guy that rode on roller-blades through the corridor. "You wear helmet in the gym shower once and you are labelled for life! Broken glass!" He grabbed Star and basically lifted her over the rests of the bottle.

"Frankly, I like taking risks, and I would welcome a little danger in my life." He shoved fist into his palm, flexing his muscles and making a face, that, at least in his opinion, was very macho.

In this instant a butterfly flew next to him and Star looked at it with a way too big smile on her face.

"Fluffy Monster Upgrade Beam!" the girl shouted from the top of her lungs aiming the wand. A stream of light shot out of it and stroke the bug, resulting in an explosion of colourful smoke.

Enormous, hideous, though admittedly fluffy, moth replaced the butterfly. He roared scared Marco in the face and then flew away, kidnapping one of the students in process.

A moment of silence followed, until Marco, hidden behind Star, shouted: "What… the heck was THAT?!"

"Haha, oops," Star said sheepishly. "I thought you wanted a little… dangahh."

Marco looked at her as if he saw her the first time. "Who are you?

"I am a maaagical princesss, from another dimension!" Star answered melodiously, waving her wand and creating a rainbow above her. A rainbow that immediately self-ignited.

"Welp," Marco said, seemingly was unmoved by this manoeuvre. "That's the end of our tour. I'm going home now!"

He turned and walked away hastily.

"Bye, new friend!" Star waved to him. "See you tomorrow!"

Marco quickly put on his hood, trying to behave as if he had nothing in common with the girl, whose burning, magical rainbow was just setting fire to the nearby building.

"Bye. Bye, new friend, see you later!" Star was still shouting loudly, completely oblivious to his reaction.

When Marco finally got to his home, his little temple of (relative) calm and (even more relative) normality he wanted only one thing - to go to his room and forget about what had happened in school.

Marco's hopes however, were once again crushed, as closing to the doors he had heard a loud laughs coming from the inside. Laughs of at least three people. Full of the worst feelings he had entered his house.

Star Butterfly, the princess of all-things-that-Marco-didn't-want-to-see-in-his-house was sitting on the couch with his parents next to her.

They were just laughing from the joke, that's punchline went something like 'but he was a Mewnicorn all along'. They didn't know what Mewnicorn actually was, but who cared at this point if the joke was sooo good.

"Oh, Marco!" Ms. Diaz shouted excitedly, turning to the boy and filling his heart with dread. "Come meet the new exchange student who's gonna be living with us!"

"Wha… W-Wha?" Marco stood in the doors shocked, with one hand still on a doorknob.

"What!?" Star looked on Ms. Diaz surprised and then run to Marco. "I had no idea these were your parents!"

Star dragged Marco to the salon, not interrupting her flow of words: "I just assumed everybody on Earth had the last name 'Diaz'."

Marco wanted to remark that it was an assumption at least stupid in its nature, but his brain temporarily refused to cooperate.

"Won't it be nice to have Star's upbeat, lively energy around the house?" Ms. Diaz said happily, apparently already one hundred percent sold on the idea of housing the strange girl.

Marco looked at Star, then at his mother and said:

"We could have gotten that from a litter of puppies." Marco subtly tried to signal his mother that he didn't exactly agree with her.

The idea backfired, gently speaking.

"Puppies!" Star's eyes lighted up, when she pushed away Marco and grabbed her wand in two hands. "I LOVE puppies!"

She waved her hands and a stream of light hit the carpet, exploding into … a litter of yipping puppies.

A long 'Awwww' came from Marco's parents as they saw little cutie pies lying in front of them. Their raves were too early though, as puppies suddenly started shooting lasers from their eyes, making a quick work of trashing Diazes' salon.

Star looked apologetically on Marco, who right now was making his best to drill a hole in her head with his stare.

"Uh, oh," she mumbled with an apologetic smile, taking one the puppies in an attempt to stop their charge through the house.

"We-he-he-ll," Mr. Diaz tried to stay positive and also lifted on of the little dogs. "They are really cute. Ha, ha, ha, h.. Ayyy, my eye!" he shouted when the puppy shot a laser beam right into his eyeball. Somehow he was able to remain positive and laughed at that too.

"Marco, why don't you show Star her new room?" Ms. Diaz suggested.

"Yay!" Star instantly jumped to the stairs, leaving the boy with her heavy luggage-chest, that he started to drag upstairs, resigned.

Little did they know, that through the window a frog monster from before observed the Diazes' home, sitting on the branch.

Once again he had laughed menacingly and with the pair of Dimensional Scissors he cut the portal, that he immediately crossed. A portal leading to the headquarters of the Forces of Evil...

Continued in part 2...