Hello there! This is the first chapter of my Season 3B fanfiction. It picks up a week or so after the events of 'Stump Day'. This story will be released in an AB episode format. For example, 'Sweet Dreams' is 10A, 'Lava Lake Beach' is 10B. There will be 8 of these or a total of 16 chapters. It will be quite canon divergent, as I came up with this before Season 3B aired, but there will be some similarities. This is my attempt at balancing shipping/character development and plot. I will try and update weekly. Enjoy!

There was a winter chill in the air on Mewni. The feeling of familiar January cold washed over the five shivering teenagers outside, not that they cared

Marco Diaz was wearing his hood, something that was very unusual for him. His teeth were chattering, as he finally decided to speak up. "S-Star when you said you wanted to explore the library for information on your family history, I thought you meant at the library in the castle! Ya know, the nice warm, toasty castle!"

The girl in question dismissed his concerns with a wave of her hand. "Pfft relax Marco, we're here anyway." Star had enlisted the help of her friends to dig up more of her family history. After the bomb dropped at the disastrous party, she had more than a few questions, that she wasn't confident her mother would answer truthfully. Star still hadn't brought up her revelation to her parents.

Tom seemed to sense her worry because he grabbed her hand and squeezed it in comfort. She smiled at the gesture. He was so sweet. Tom really had changed for the better.

The moment was interrupted by Marco clearing his throat loudly, more than once. Pony Head looked over to Marco in confusion. "Okay, what Earth Turd?"

Marco frowned at the old nickname and was about to speak when he was cut off by someone else.

"I think Marco wants to know where we are and when we're going in", Janna said making her presence known. Kelly was shivering next to her.

"This is the Library of Secrets. It's the center of all knowledge on Mewni. Anything you need to know, history, the secrets of the universe, the latest fashion trends, it's all here."

Marco blinked. They came all this way to go to what sounded like a glorified public library. But he knew better than that. What Star learned at the party, stunned her. All she had wanted was to unite Mewmans and Monsters and she had learned her family had a secret that had been kept hidden for hundreds of years. She was questioning everything and came here for answers. If it was important to her, it was important to him.

Star entered first, the others in tow. What she was looking for, it had to be here. Information on Meteora was probably censored or removed from all other libraries, but here- it had to be different.

Inside the the library was gigantic. The building had a velvet carpet that stretched across the entire room. The ceiling was high, allowing for rows and rows of tall bookcases to be packed in, as far as the eye could see. All the children were in awe of the library's size.

Janna smirked. "I just found a new place to get my books on necromancy."

Pony Head looked over at Star. "What now B-Fly?" She knew her friend was going through some heavy stuff so she decided to at least try and be more serious. Well at least by her standards.

Before Star could speak, the group was approached by someone. It was a short, pudgy woman. She had long gray hair and emerald green eyes. She wore thick rimmed reading glasses that seemed to enlargen her eyes. She looked like your stereotypical librarian.

The woman looked dumbfounded at seeing them. "P -Princess Star Butterfly? What are you doing here?"

Star laughed nervously. "What? A princess can't come and visit the library from time to time?"

The old woman had tears in her eyes. Marco backed up a bit, slight uncomfortable with the display.

Tom looked at her with slight concern. "Are you okay?"

She nodded, wiping her eyes. "It's just, no one ever comes to the library! I'm so happy to see you young people taking the initiative and coming out here and-"

"Mhm, mhm sure lady. Now where's the info on the Butterfly family tree?", Pony Head said, growing impatient.

Marco and Kelly both facepalmed at her bluntness. The lady raised an eyebrow.

"That information is restricted. Off limits to everyone. If I may ask, why the sudden interest?"

Star again laughed nervously. So far, this was not going well. "Um well I-" She tried to think of something on the fly. Lying had never been her strong suit. "Like studying dead people." She flinched at how creepy that sounded. Janna gave her a thumbs up in approval.

"Hmm interesting but I am afraid I cannot grant you entry, sorry Princess. You and your friends are free to browse however. I am Ms. Roseweather but you can call me Greta! Let me know if you need anything!" She skipped away happily, still glad to have visitors

"Man we've gotta get that woman a hobby", Marco muttered. He had his hands in his pockets.

Star turned to the group. "All right guys. Let's split up, we'll cover more ground that way."

"I'll go with Star.", Marco and Tom said in unison. For a while, there was a thick, awkward silence that hung in the air. It was the boys way of seeing who would blink first. While the two had made up after the fight on Stump Day, there was still a small level of hostility present.

Finally, Marco relented . "Oh sorry Tom, you go with Star. I'll go with-"

"Me." Kelly finished for him without hesitation. This caused Janna to look at her with a smug expression.

Tom nodded. "Now that we've got that figured out, let's go. If you find anything, just scream. In a library, like that's normal." He took Star's hand and they walked toward the back of the library. Janna and Pony Head went to the right and Marco and Kelly went into the left. They six had a lot of ground to cover.

Pony Head couldn't hold back her snicker as she and Janna looked around at the unrelated subjects. "Man does Kelly have it bad for Earth Turd or what!?"

Janna nodded. "I'm glad someone noticed. Marco never notices things like that."

"Well duh. That's why he's Earth Turd, so oblivious.", Pony Head said as she checked a bookcase. Janna did the same.

"Ugh, we're gonna be here forever!"

Star and Tom were looking around a large bookcase, having no luck in finding anything. Tom chuckled as he saw some of the strange topics.

"What to Do If You're a Vampire in the Daylight, Mewman Squirrel Picture Book."

Star said nothing, just continued to look for stuff on her family. She had to focus, she couldn't afford distractions.

Tom was confused with her lack of response and frankly a little concerned. "Come on Starship, you love this stuff. What's wrong?"

Star looked at him as if he had grown another head. "What's wrong!? Tom, I told you what happened at the party. I don't even know my own family anymore. If Meteora is Eclipsa's daughter, how do I know if Mom's side of the family is legit? Am I a fraud?"

Tom looked down. She sounded hysterical, distraught. He didn't know what to do, how to comfort her. What do you say to someone who had their world ripped out from under them?

Star punched a bookcase in frustration. "Ah! We'll never find it. Everything is probably locked up in some restricted case or something somewhere!"

Tom put a hand on her shoulder. "Star..."

Suddenly, a bookshelf began to shift and turn after a particular book was moved. The book shelf moved to the side, like a revolving door. It revealed an old stone door, with a huge lock on it. Star's eyes widened and she felt an involuntary smile form on her lips.

"Bingo.", she said, walking up to the door. Tom followed her.

"How do we open it?"

Something was glowing on the door, words. Star wiped away the accumulated dust and it hit Tom in the face. He began coughing uncontrollably.

Star looked back at him with concern. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. What does it say?"

Star took out her wand and began to read. She then noticed something. "These words, they weren't meant to be here, they were roughly carved in."

"Which means someone left this for someone else to find." Tom inquired.

Star nodded and began reading. " Ignorance is for the weak. So give to me the knowledge I seek and allow me to sneak a peak." The wand glowed as the lock broke off the door and it opened.

Star walked inside. There was a stack of books on a desk, face down. Star walked over to the desk, her wand illuminating the dark room. There on a map of old parchment, was the Butterfly Family Tree. Star picked it up, frantically searching for Eclipsa. Sure enough, Eclipsa had married twice. Once to a Mewman named, Alexander Demeek and a monster named...Nirobus. Finally some answers? The princess sighed with relief, she wasn't a fraud. Meteora had an older sister, her ancestor Festivia. At

Star was in disbelief. "So my line is legit, but so is Meteora's."

Tom didn't say anything, he just stood at her side. It was good seeing Star ease up a bit, now that she knew her bloodline was true. She haspd so ,uch on her plste recently and things just seemed to be piling up. He wsnted to help any wsy he could, snything she needed him to do. Maybe then, things betwrrn them could ge likr they were doing the summer. Just the two of them, no worries, no Eclipsa, no Heinous, not as much Marco. It wasn't that Tom wasn't glad he got to see his friend more often, it was just that the problems in he and Star's relationship started arising after he moved to Mewni. He spent so much time around her, and while he trusted the both of them, something about that rubbed him the wrong way. The fact that Star used to have a crush on him didn't exactly put his mind at ease either.

A sudden viice interrupted their discovery." What are you doing in here?"

Star whipped her head around, only to see Greta at the doorway, tears in her eyes.

Star hid the document behind her back. "Greta! I can explain-"

"You betrayed me! You gazed upon the forbidden texts! Now you must be destroyed!" Her arm extended into claws and she charged at them.

Star drew her wand. "Narwhal Blast!"

Marco and Kelly had been looking around elsewhere for quite some time. Kelly was a pretty cool girl and it was nice to have someone to talk to in spite of...recent events.

"Tad still hanging around?" He asked, remembering seeing him on Stump Day.

"Eh he comes and goes. I'm letting him stay until he can find his own place."

The boy nodded in understanding. Kelly and Tad broken up for the last time recently, pretty close to when Jackie broke up with him. There was a mutual bond, an understanding between them, two heartbroken kids, although it wasn't the breakup that was the source of Marco's pain.

Kelly bashfully tucked some of her long hair behind her ear. She broke the comfortable silence. "Marco I-" She was cut off by the sound of a blast or something like it.

It was a sound Marco recognized almost instantly. He had heard it thousands of times. It was the sound of Star's wand.

"STAR!", Marco yelled, running off towards the sound. She had to be in trouble. The rapid sounding blasts of her wand signaled that.

Kelly chased after him. "Marco! Wait up!"

Marco ran as fast as his legs could carry him. Please be okay, please be okay. She had Tom with her but that didn't easy his worry much. He had that drive to save her, the same one he had when she got stuck in that weird dimension with the unicorns. The Latino was so out of it, he ran right into Janna.

"Ow! Watch it would ya?", she said, rubbing her head.

Marco pushed himself up and looked at Janna and Pony Head. "Where's Star?

"We don't know, we were on our way to look for her!", Pony Head exclaimed. "B-FLY!", she called out to her best friend. Her cries seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Suddenly Star and Tom came running towards them, panting and out of breath. Marco let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. She was alright, he could breathe easy.

Kelly looked at the pair. "What are you running from?"

"It's Greta! She-"

The once sweet librarian came charging at them. Her head still looked normal. The rest of her body however, was something out of a nightmare. It seemed to be the body of a wolf, furry and black. Her hands were claws, long and sharp as swords. The six teenagers ran through the rows of bookshelves, trying not to get lost in the perpetual labyrinth. No one dared look back, for fear of how close she was.

Marco looked back and saw she was gaining. "We gotta get out of here!"

Greta clawed at them, while screeching. Star ducked but a bookcase began to fall. She knew they didn't have a chance of out running the falling case. "Everyone grab on!", she ordered.

Marco grabbed on to her by the waist, Tom grabbed onto his shoulders, Kelly did the same, followed by Janna and Pony Head grabbed onto her shirt with her teeth.

"Fantastic Exit Beam!" Star shot the spell and the group began moving backwards rapidly. Greta knocked down another bookcase behind them, causing them to ram into it. Star dropped her wand and the tree, which floated back into the middle of the floor. Star was not going to let it go, after everything she went through to get it. Everything she went through to learn her family's shameful secret. She ran out in front of Greta to get it.

"STAR!", Marco and Tom yelled in unison again. Both boys got up and rushed to aid her. Neither could believe how reckless she was being.

Star dived under the outstretched claw of Greta, narrowly missing getting stabbed in the head. She grabbed the paper and tried to get to her feet.

Greta had her cornered. Star was trapped against a bookcase, with a dead end, no way out.

No, no, no, no, Marco thought. The boy was out of options. Star couldn't- the very thought of losing her made him sick to his stomach. It was the same feeling of helplessness and fear that overcame him when she was trapped after sleep-portaling. Whatever this feeling was, he didn't like it. It was powerful, it was empty, it was saddening, yet empowering. Empowering, that was it.

"Return what you took deary and I won't rip out your organs," Greta said both sweetly and sinisterly.

"Never!", Star said defiantly.

Greta barreled towards her, claws raised, ready to strike. Star felt her heartbeat quicken. She didn't have enough time to move. The girl was a goner. It was fitting how she would die, breaking the rules, like the rebel code she had always lived by.

RAINBOW FIST PUNCH!" In a flash of colors Greta was knocked into the back wall. Star looked up to see Marco, holding his version of her wand, his cheeks clad with glowing yellow crescent moons. The boy had imitated the spell he had seen Star use over and over. "Tom, now!" Just as Greta got up, Tom shot a fireball at a bookcase, knocking it over on top of her back, with a loud crash. It was poetic irony in a way, the librarian done in by books.

Marco tossed Star her wand back, which faded back to normal upon her touch, just as Marco's cheek marks faded. The group took the opportunity to escape, bolting out of the library door. The freezing Mewni air hit them in the face, not that they cared.

Pony Head was panting and out of breath. "Is everyone okay?"

Kelly nodded. "I think so."

Janna groaned. "Stuff like this, this is why the internet was invented."

The group let out a collective chuckle. Star had the family tree, clutched tightly in her hand, she turned towards Marco, wearing a dazzling smile. She ran towards him, her eyes shining. Those beautiful ocean blue orbs, he had grown to love staring into. Like the sea, it was so easy to get lost in them. Marco had been in this situation before a million times before, he spread his arms and closed his eyes, bracing for the coming hug, a hug that never came. He didn't feel Star's familiar warmth and opened his eyes, confused. He turned around and his eyes widened, Star had ran right past him and launched herself at Tom, pulling him into a tight embrace.

Marco stood there for a moment, not blinking. The boy's hands balled up into fists. A few months ago, that would have been him. What had changed? It certainly wasn't Marco. He felt anger, at Tom AND Star. Tom took away HIS Star from him. Wait did he just call Star his? What was going on with him? The blistering anger fizzled out and was soon replaced with that sinking feeling he felt when he ran away from Tad and Kelly at Lava Lake Beach, what he should have realized all along, when he saw them kiss. Marco bit his tongue. Star was happy now, who was he to ruin that? Especially since she had to suffer seeing him with Jackie. Things really did come gack full circle didn't they?

Pony Head soon cleared her throat and Tom and Star let go of eachother, both blushing. As the group began the walk back to the castle, Star grabbed Tom's right hand, carrying the family tree in her left. Pony Head and Kelly were chatting excitedly behind them, while Marco hung out in the back with the same crestfallen expression on his face. This went unnoticed by everyone, except one. Tom and Star were far too preoccupied by each other to notice, neither Pony Head or Kelly had known Marco long enough to read the expression, only one person could. Janna had known Marco since they were little and recognized the look instantly. Jackie had never told her exactly why she and Marco split, but how she knew. For once she decided to leave the Latino alone, which would be a mistake in the long run.

Star sighed happily, content. There was still anxiety about her family, yes but she had at least found the truth. Everyone had made it out of the library by the skin of their teeth. Thanks to Marco's mysterious magical abilities once again. She'd have to look into that. She gripped Tom's hand tightly, enjoying the feeling. Speaking of Marco, she looked back to check on him, he seemed a little shaken up, but alright. He caught her eye and gave her a small smile. Something told her to go talk to him, but she shrugged it off, deciding to put it off for later.