Star vs The Forces of Evil

The Ballad of Earth-Mewni

Disclaimer: Star vs The Forces of Evil was created by Daron Nefcy and is owned by Disney. I own no part of Star vs.

Episode 25: Mechanical Mockery

Episode Summary: Star becomes overwhelmed with nostalgia & decides to go on a dimension-traveling adventure with her friends, like old times!

Original Release Date: August 15, 2020

A little more than a week passed since the Monster Temple incident. Summer vacation was wrapping up, which meant all the kids & teens out of school would soon be returning to school. This meant all of Star & Marco's friends...but not Star & Marco themselves. Marco wasn't going back to school because he had already acquired his high school equivalent diploma while on Mewni, and Star wasn't going back to school because...because Earth high school was never meant to be a permanent fixture of Star's life. Plus, given the circumstances of how she left Earth abruptly and missed an entire school year's worth of work...it just didn't make sense, at least in the eyes of her family. But that was still being sorted out by them.

In the meantime, Star & Marco hung out on Marco's bed, resting comfortably with each other & Mariposa in between them. Star's boredom & irritability were paramount; Marco couldn't possibly ignore it. "You doing okay?"

She groaned, but a playful groan nonetheless. "I think I finally know what it's like to be a real teenager." Was her response.

"By that you mean...?'

"I mean that I'm bummed that summer's almost over." She nuzzled herself ever closer to her hubby-to-be. "Feels like it went by so far and dragged on so long at the same time. How does that happen?!"

Marco mustered the best shrug he could underneath the weight of his resting wife-to-be. "That's just the beauty of being a teenager, I guess."

"You know what the suckiest part of this all is?" She lamented. "All of our friends are going back to school and we're not and we won't be able to see them most of the time. They'll be busy with school work or something. We won't get to hang out as much anymore."

"Hey..." He sat up & met her lips, gently pecking them. "We still have some time before they have to go back to school. There's still time to hang out with them."

"That's true, I guess." She sat up as well, holding Mariposa in her hands. "Okay, we totally have to have another sleepover with them at some point."

"Uhhhh..." That gave Marco some pause. Sure, magic was gone - as far as they knew - but the memory of the Box of Truth and the trouble it caused them all. "You sure?"

She playfully glared at him. "Dude, come on. No magic, no Box of Truth, which means no magic weirdness to make things uncomfortable for all of us." Her logic was quite sound. "It'll just be a regular old sleepover."

"I guess you're right..."

"Plus..." She continued in a sing-song tone. "You'll get to see Jackie in her sleepwear again..." She winked; Star always had a blast teasing her boyfriend about his lingering sexual attraction to his former girlfriend, just as he did her.

"That is a big plus..."

"And it's just nice to have all of our friends with us, having a sleepover or...or..." Her mind started to drift, reminiscing on parts of her past; specifically, she reminisced about all of the interdimensional adventures she had with Marco.

"What?"

It was then, without prompt, that Star stood up off the couch, still holding a now-giggling Mariposa in her hands. "You know, it just occurred to me. Our friends never really joined us on too many magical adventures. Well, I guess Janna did, but those weren't really "adventures," those were menial tasks that I had to get done because the fate of my kingdom rested on my shoulders or some garbage."

"You're nostalgic for the old days?"

"Only for the days where we could go on insane adventures together and the only thing at stake was some stupid sandwich or something."

"Well, we still have that thing Tom's folks gave us that lets us dimension hop again." He got up & went over to his closet, pulling something out. Instead of it being the portal ray-gun device they had been using all this time, it was what appeared to be a mechanical knife, with buttons on its handle & a bronze blade. Yep, the dimension-traveling device had gotten an improvement. "And look...upgraded."

"It looks so coooool..." She gently took the blade and examined it herself.

"So any ideas?"

"Huh?"

"You know...for our adventure. Where do you want to go, what do you want to do, etcetera." A good question indeed...

Fortunately it didn't take Star very long to come up with an idea. Once she did, she found all of her friends - plus Kelly from her dimension - and gathered them into her room. "...Robots?" Janna raised an eyebrow as she patiently waited for Star to explain what the deal was.

"Okay so there's this dimension in the multiverse that's completely inhabited by technology. Sentient robots, machines, the works. Advanced technology is the staple of their world. No human life whatsoever..."

"Wait if there's no human life who the heck built all the robots? Who made the world like that?"

Star shrugged. "It's a mystery. I've actually never visited that dimension, but I've always wanted to. How could I not? Sentient robots? Sounds like the adventure of a lifetime!"

"This is what I get for not objecting to that robot apocalypse movie you had us watch for movie night..." Marco lamented quietly, though just loud enough for Star to hear.

"Hey it was my turn to pick, Diaz."

"So, what? Like, we just gonna drop whatevers we doin' just to go play with some fancy metal arms or whatever?" Pony Head scoffed with an obvious eye roll.

"Oh silly Lilacia...you really think I'd have called you all over here just to play with some silly arms?"

"Actually that's completely on brand for you." Tom interjected with a rather smug smile on his face. It took all of Janna's willpower to not start laughing maniacally at that remark. Star was not impressed.

"Thank you, Mr. Lucitor. That was very kind of you." But her annoyed glare evaporated almost instantly. "No, so there's this thing in that dimension..." She pulled out her giant "Atlas of the Multiverse" book, opening it up to the page talking about the Mechanical Dimension, the dimension in question. "It's called the "Hyper Cube." According to the book, the Hyper Cube can do anything..."

"Really? Anything?" Marco skeptically asked.

"That's what the book says. Anything."

Janna gasped, a light bulb going off in her head. "I could finally have my army of Ocrams!" Which caused everyone to cock their heads in confusion in Janna's direction.

"Ocrams?" Tom asked.

"Evil Marcos." And Marco was less than happy to fill them in.

"Mole on the wrong side and everything." Janna was rather enjoying her sudden fantasy of evil Marcos.

"Okay, but like...why though?" Kelly had to ask.

"Because she could." Both Marco and Janna answered simultaneously, spurring an unimpressed glare from her towards the boy.

"Think about this..." Star intervened to get the conversation back on track. "The Hyper Cube is so powerful and so technologically advanced that it could actually make other Hyper Cubes...you know, so we'd each have one." Now that seemed to get their attention, as they gradually built up to excited exclamations. "Right!? So, you want in?"

"Yo girl why didn't you lead off with that?!" Pony Head exclaimed excitedly. "What are we waiting for? Let's goooo, fools!"

Star used her new mechanical knife-thing to tear a hole in the fabric of reality, creating a portal to said Mechanical Dimension. "That's what I like to hear! Let's go!"

They all stepped through the portal and found themselves in what appeared to be a futuristic, machine-centric world. Every surface was covered in chrome, sentient robots with blinking lights were everywhere, and smog covered the sky. "Blech, this world looks, like, totally gross & whatever!" Pony Head exclaimed. "I demand to speak to the manager of this place!"

"Didn't Star just say there was no hu-" Any attempt by Kelly to talk some sense into Pony Head was quelled by Star herself. She was Pony Head's best friend, so she was best equipped to know when it was a lost cause to talk some sense into her. "So where's this "Hyper Cube" you talked about?"

Star playfully scoffed. "If it were that easy to find wouldn't somebody have found it by now?"

"Must you have a snarky response?"

"I'm me. It would be weird if I didn't."

As the group prepared themselves to mobilize, one of the far away sentient robots stopped what it was doing - scanning nearby trash cans for...some reason - and approached them...by zooming towards them & scaring the pants off of them. "[HALT!]" The robot bellowed in its synthetic, robotic voice. "[OUR RECORDS INDICATE YOU HAVE COME FROM OUTSIDE THE MULTIVERSE. STATE YOUR BUSINESS IN OUR DIMENSION PROMPTLY.]"

For the slightest second, none of them knew how they could possibly respond. All they had was this giant, cold, metallic robot figure with scanners in the place where its eyes should be staring them down like it was about to roast them. For having dealt with magic for so long, Star and her friends were unequipped to deal with advanced apocalyptic technology. "Um...hello...shiny friend..." Star said with an incredible amount of hesitation.

The machine responded by opening itself up to become an array of giant cannons all pointed at the group. "[INVALID RESPONSE. INVALID RESPONSE. PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED. IN 10...9...8...6...]"

"And that's our cue to run." And so they did, embarking on an escape just as the robot was about to fire its cannons. Bounds of flames came soaring from the cannons, scorching the grounds below where the kids just were. The machine then took it upon itself to go out and search for them, looking for another opportunity to blitzkrieg them. It scanned the area around but couldn't find them anywhere. Despite the fact that the teens were hiding - and poorly - behind some jagged rocks, the robot completely passed them. This was because the robots there were not actually programmed to detect non-robotic life on their turf.

"Huh, I didn't think we'd get away so easily..." Star remarked. Marco chose to focus on something less important.

"Am I the only one that noticed it skipped '7' when it was counting?"

Janna gave such a dramatic eye roll that it made Marco smirk. "No, but you are the only one that thought that was worth your time."

"How in the name of corn are we going to get past that thing?" Tom quietly shouted, eyeing the robot's every move.

"We gotta distract it and move somehow." Star commented, the gears turning quickly in her head. "We still don't even know where the heck this dang Hypercube is."

"Maybe we can get them to take it to us somehow?" Kelly suggested. "If it's, you know, this world's most valuable artifact or whatever, wouldn't it make sense that they would want to check in on their prized possession? You know, just to make sure it hasn't been stolen or whatever?"

"Oh, I see...so you're saying we should let ourselves get captured by that thing so that it'll take us to whatever main base exists in this world because that's obviously where they're keeping the Hypercube?"

For a second, the look on Kelly's face would make one think her brain literally broke in half as a result of Star's statement. "How did you get to that from anything I just said?"

"It's Star, why are you questioning it?" Janna responded, rubbing her temples. "Just go with it."

"So like if we're gonna get ourselves captured, let me take the wheel." Pony Head exclaimed. "If there's one thing I'm good at, it's sacrificing myself for the greater good! You know, like, when I took the fall so that you and your boy toy could escape from those copper people hunting you." She was referring to the events of her visit to Earth shortly after Star got banished from Mewni...and remembering them incorrectly.

"You were the one being hunted by them in the first place!" Marco rightly pointed out. "It wasn't a noble sacrifice!" He turned to his girlfriend, frustrated. "Tell her."

But Star reluctantly shook her head. "It's like talking to a brick wall, Marco. You know that."

"Hey, girl, I'm like, right here, you know!" Pony Head scoffed before readying herself. "Okay, so I'm gonna get that robot's attention and we gonna surrender to its awesomeness, and it's gonna, like, carry us unharmed away to whatever prison or whatever that they have, and then we'll break out and we'll find this silly Hyp-"

"What happened to imprisoning us unharmed, fool!?"

Unfortunately for everyone, Pony Head miscalculated. Yes, the robot did swarm them once they decided to put their...well, it wasn't really a "plan" so much as a 4-point shot on a basketball court...into action. And yes, they were captured & brought them back to what appeared to be a top secret lab. But the "unharmed" part did not pan out. No, there was pain & suffering, and plenty of both. The one robot called for other backup robots to assist it, and the lot of them unleashed absolutely hell on the teens, causing them injuries & disarming them before taking them back to the lab & shackling them up against a wall...and doing so rather poorly. No two teens shared the same shackled position, and Jackie was even shackled haphazardly, with only one leg shackled to a wall, allowing the rest of her body to dangle.

And then there was Pony Head. For reasons known only to extra terrestrials, the robots decided to put Pony Head in a cage dangling just above a boiling hot cauldreon. Sadistic much?

"Why did we agree to let ourselves get captured again?" Janna lamented, clearly unamused. Even Star had to admit that whatever "plan" Pony Head had in her...erm, "head" clearly did not work out.

"To find that Hypercube thing?" Star sighed. "But I don't see it anywhere."

"Me neither..." Jackie also piped up, the blood starting to rush to her dangling head. "All I see is that orb thing sitting over there on that pedestal..." Jackie pointed out into the distance; there was a lone pedestal standing up with a little black orb sitting on top of it. The uncertainty of the object's indentity, however, was not left up in the air for long. Two sentient robots came out of the shadows & approached the pedestal.

"[The prisoners have arrived.]" One of them said. "[We must rid this world of their presence.]"

"[Stay behind.]" The other one bellowed, turning to its fellow robot. "[Protect the Hypercube at all costs.]"

Yes, that black orb thing sitting on the pedestal? The Orb? It was the Hypercube. The book did not actually have a depiction of what the Hypercube might look like, so this revalation took everyone by surprise. "That's the Hypercube?"

The robot turned to the teens. "[Behold, you pathetic blood monkeys: the Hypercube. It is our world's greatest invention.]"

"So that's the thing that can supposedly do anything?" Tom questioned. "It's not even a cube, for one..."

"[Behold the mighty power of the Hypercube.]" The robot picked up the...um, "device" and held it up. "[Almighty Hypercube...enlighten us. Will the intruders be vanquished painfully?]" The robot then proceeded to shake the "device" and turn it around to its flat side, studying it for a brief moment before turning the flat edge to the teens; inside the flat edge were words that spelled out the message "Try asking again." "[The device is uncertain. We must ask again momentarily.]"

Yup, in case it wasn't obvious by now, the "Hypercube" was actually just an ordinary 8 Ball. For reasons known only to forces beyond the ordinary human's control, the most technologically advanced dimension in the multiverse deemed an ordinary Magic 8 Ball their most powerful device. "What the..."

"IT'S A MOTHERFRICKING MAGIC 8 BALL ARE YOU MOTHERFRICKING KIDDING ME!?" Janna was not at all pleased. In fact it looked like she was going to blow a gasket over this revelation. Star, still not completely versed in Earth culture, had her face light up in a rather negative way.

"Magic!? Oh no no no no nooooo thank you-"

"Not that kind of magic, Star." Marco said deadpanned. "Think the banagic wand."

"Ohhhhh, okay...fake magic..." And again for reasons unknown to regular people, this disappointed Star.

"It's official: there are no life forms in the multiverse worth saving." Janna was at her wit's end over these latest developments. The robot that was approaching them increased its speed, dashing up to them. If it were a human, it would be mad.

"[How dare you, blood monkeys, insult the power of our greatest creation!]"

"I'm betting five bucks right now that your kind didn't even build that thing?"

"[Allow us to disprove that henceforth.]" The robot turned to the other one, who lifted the 8 Ball once more.

"[Mighty Hypercube...are the robot overlords of this futile world responsible for your creation?]" A good shake of the ball and a look at the answer it gave. "[...The color of the day is four.]" And being a robot, it had the distinct ability to deliver that line completely deadpanned without an ounce of self-awareness.

"Oh, so not only is it falsely advertised, it's also defective!" Janna was even more frustrated now.

"Oh come on, Janna, don't be like that..." Star pleaded. "Defective toys are the most fun!" She turned to her boyfriend. "Right, Marco?"

...who proceeded to take it in the worst possible way. "Are you saying I'm defective?"

Poor Star, still struggling with her choice of words. "Nooooo no no no no that wasn't what I meant! No not like that!"

This, apparently, was enough to break Janna out of her bad mood, as she started cackling hysterically at the exchange. "Okay...okay that alone made this entire trip worth it. You guys are a riot, I swear."

"I just want to go on the record and, like, say that y'alls are dumb-dumbs and I'm never doing anything like this again with any of you." Pony Head said flatly. She, too, was mostly annoyed at the events unfolding. "No offense, B-Fly."

"Oh no. This is terrible. Whatever will we do without Pony Head tagging along." Marco's response was about as dry as one could make it, and the irony was not lost on the sentient horse head.

"[Enough insolence!]" One of the robots bellowed. "[Now we must decide what to do with you blood monkeys.]"

"Why do you keep calling us "blood monkeys?" Kelly asked; a good question indeed. "I don't even have a tail."

"[How shall we dispose of you meddling monkeys?]"

Jackie unconsciously scoffed. "Why don't you ask your silly "Hypercube?"

The two robots in the room slowly turned their robotic heads to one another. "[...Ask?]"

It was meant to be a sarcastic remark, but seeing the robots give serious contemplation to that idea made the wheels in Jackie's head start to turn. "Oh yeah, I'm sure that all-knowing cube-thing can help you decide what to do with us lowly humans."

"Um...two of us are decidedly not human." Kelly pointed out.

"Three, actually." Tom corrected. The brief silence that followed made Janna turn her head towards him; as it turned out she misinterpreted his statement.

"Okay, wow, dude, just wow. Way to diss me like that. Thought you actually had a thing for me but whatever I guess I-" It took Janna 15 seconds - 14 too long - to realize the third person he was referring to was Pony Head. "OH shoot my bad dude. I forgot she was even here, sorry..."

"OH SCREW ALL OF YOU, FOOLS!"

The robot looked at the 8 Ball, and then at Jackie. "Go ahead. What does your Hypercube thing say?" She taunted it again; this time it complied and looked down at the 8 Ball.

"[Almighty Hypercube, what fate should we bestow on our outside prisoners?]" The robot shook the 8 Ball and then waited for a response. Said response was... "[Do not drink milk after its listed expiration date.]"

Every second of this ordeal only left the teens more baffled. "N-No, that won't work. Try it again. Go on." Jackie was enjoying goading them. "Give it a good shake."

"D'aww, why did she have to say "good shake?" Star lamented quietly, her face turning a massively dark shade of red.

"Remember your breathing, Star..." Marco tried to keep her calm.

"[Almighty Hypercube, what fate shall we bestow on our puny prisoners!?]" This time the robot gave the 8 Ball an extremely violent shake. So violent, in fact, that it ended up shattered the 8 Ball, with the little die stored in in the ball falling out & hitting the ground. The robot that was closer to the teens turned & went over to the one holding the 8 Ball. The two of them stared at the die on the ground for a moment, making no noises or saying anything. This granted Jackie just enough time to play around with her shackle, freeing herself and then Kelly, allowing the two of them to free the others...all before the robots even detected what was happening. Once the rest of them were freed, they managed to free Pony Head from her cage before landing in front of the robots for a confrontation. "[Inconceivable. Their shackles have been breached.]"

"Sorry about your cube thing." Jackie bragged. "But I guess it wasn't as impressive as you thought it was."

Upon hearing this, one of the robots held up one of its arms towards her, an arm that quickly morphed into a laser cannon. "[Retract your statement, blood monkey! The Hypercube is this world's most valuable possession. It is a gateway to a greater world! A symbol of triumph!]"

"Wait, I thought they considered it a "technological advancement." Kelly pointed out. "Now they consider it a religious icon?"

"Welcome to the wonderful world of gaslighting." Janna said in such a deadpanned tone.

"Why do you always assume it's on purpose? Can't people just be stupid for the sake of being stupid?" Marco asked the frustrated girl.

"Who would program a robot to be stupid!? What purpose does that serve!?"

In the midst of their mini tussle, they failed to notice that the two robots in the room used their sensors to summon an extremely large army of robots to confront them with. "[For tampering with the symbol of our triumph...]"

"Oh my god enough with the religious allegory!" Janna muttered angrily.

"[You shall pay the ultimate price!]"

"You want us to pay? We'll show you "pay!" Pony Head's attempt at a threat was...less than successful. "Earth Turd, give them, like, monies or whatever."

"Not what they meant, Pony." Star monotonously replied, face-palming herself.

Finally, the robots made the choice to just start firing their cannons & weapons at the group, forcing them to go on the defense. Despite the onslaught of lasers and objects being thrown at them at ridiculous speeds, the group managed to come out of the first wave of firing mostly unscathed, with the exception of a few bruises from all the running & jumping they had to do. They decided that there was no way they would be able to actually fight the entire group of robots and make it out alive, so they decided that their best option was to just go back to Earthni.

"Let's blow this popsicle stand." Star said; while the robots all took a moment to reload their weaponry, Star reached into her pocket in an attempt to pull out the dimension-portaling knife they used to arrive in the Mechanical Dimension. Unfortunately, they ran into a hiccup. "Oh no..."

"What? What's wrong?" Tom asked.

"I-I-I don't have it."

"What!? What happened?"

"Dangit, I think they snatched it from me when they gave us that patdown before they shackled us." Star shuddered; prior to them being chained up & taken as prisoners, the sentient robots saw fit to shake the teens down and consifcate anything they deemed a weapon that could be used against them; the dimension-portaling knife was seen as a weapon & confisgated. "That was not a pretty ordeal." And apparently the patdown wasn't particularly pleasant.

"Oh come on, Star, I'm sure Marco's done way worse to you and you never complained with him." Apparently Tom decided now was the right time for his brain to stop working. Star was not amused.

"Um...yeah, he has. But there's a difference, Tom. Marco's my BOYFRIEND! What the heck, dude?!" The depths of Tom's naivity continued to blow Star & Marco away. Even Tom couldn't help but kick himself after he took a moment to replay in his mind exactly what he said.

"Dude, okay, so we, like, like you and all, but like, seriously...wow." Even Pony Head wouldn't let Tom live it down.

"Can we worry about this later? I'd like to go home." Kelly got the teens back on track. "Where the heck could they have put that thing anyway?"

"I'll give you one guess." Marco pointed deep into the distance, pointing out that there was yet another pedestal, this one holding up the knife upright. "Not even anyone or anything guarding it, it's just...sitting right there."

"I'm starting to remember when I never visited this dimension before." Star lamented.

"Yup, these guys haven't learned a thing..." Was Tom's comment, which piqued Star's interest.

"What does that mean? 'They haven't learned a thing?' Tom, h-have you been here before?"

"Um...yeah. On the trip. You know, the one we were supposed to go on. I didn't tell you about that?"

A brief moment of silence as the wheels in Star's head began turning...albeit a bit slower than in Jackie's head. "Actually, no, you didn't. You never told me anything. Remember? You broke up with me before you ever said anything about your trip."

He appeared flustered. "...I didn't? Huh, coulda sworn I...oh that's right, I told Janna!"

"He talked my ear off all about it while you and lover boy were on your little trip." Janna explained. "When he gets into it, he really knows how to hold a conversation."

Star couldn't help but tilt her head slightly at this revelation. "Really? Well, that would've been nice to know when we were dating, don't you think?"

He shrugged. "I agree." It wasn't intended to be a snipe at Star, but that didn't stop the girl from feeling a tad offended by the remark. But her annoyance was sidelined by Kelly, who took notice of the non-moving robots.

"Why aren't they doing anything?" Kelly asked, pointing out that the entire army of robots that had been summoned were not actually doing anything. They were merely standing in place, weapons at the ready. "They could've easily assimilated all of us by now but they're not. They're just...standing there."

"Oh great, another society of life forms that can't do the most basic of functions without its precious main object of power." Janna said coldly. "I wish this storytelling trope would just die already?"

"Can we, like, get the heck outta here already!?" Pony Head roared. "This place is making me uncomfortable and junk!"

Everyone seemed to agree, so they set off to retrieve the dimension-portaling knife from its pedestal...all while the robots still chose not to do a single thing to stop them. It was almost like they had become complete statues. But the teens decided they weren't interested in dwelling on this development. They were ready to go home, so Star wasted no time in cutting another portal - this one back to Earthni - and leading everyone into it to return home.

And home they returned to, as they all stepped through the portal & set foot on Earthni soil again. Or at least the floor of Star's bedroom. "I'm sorry, guys..." Star sighed loudly. "That didn't exactly pan out the way I thought it would."

"Hey, don't beat yourself up for that." Tom reassured her.

"Yeah, it was still a lot of fun!" Kelly joined in the reassuring. "It's been forever since I went dimension hopping."

"Now I totally get why you guys used to get a kick out of doing that." Jackie said triumphantly, having had a great time herself. "I wish I had gotten to join you guys on a few of these back in the day!"

Hearing Jackie lavish joy over the adventure got both Marco and Star to blush. "W-Well, we're happy to have you along!" Marco awkwardly blurted out, though Jackie lovingly laughed it off.

"Yeah so that was, like, fun I guess, but I gotta bail." Pony Head said bluntly. "I've had enough inter-travel-whatever shenanigans for one day." She hastily turned and started to float towards the door. Not long after, Janna & Tom followed suit. As did Kelly, with Star opening up a portal back to her world & helping her through it. That left Marco, Star, and Jackie in the room alone.

"Seriously, guys, that was so much fun." Jackie cheered again, putting one arm around each of them. "Must've felt like old times for you two, huh?"

The two lovebirds chuckled awkwardly as their blush grew stronger. "Y-Yeah, it does." Marco finally spoke. "But it was a lot better with you in the mix. W-We're just really happy to hang out with you."

She could see right through their weak cover up efforts, but she was still flattered nonetheless. "Aww, I love hanging out with you guys too. We totally should do it more often." It was then that a lightbulb went off in Jackie's head. "Oh, hey, we should have a sleepover!"

Star & Marco exchanged looks, as their minds suddenly went to earlier that day when they were discussing the possibility of another sleepover with their friends. "Oh, t-that sounds like a great idea! Heh, wish you had spoken up before the others high-tailed it outta he-"

"How about just the three of us. You, me, and Marco?" The three of them? Alone in a sleepover? Was anyone sure Jackie knew what she was doing?

"Y-Yeah?"

"Absolutely! It'll be so much fun! Let me use tonight to get everything ready. You and Marco come by tomorrow night and we'll have ourselves an awesome night of fun! Sound good?" Star & Marco rapidly nodded, their blush again growing stronger. "Awesome!" And she hugged the two of them again causing even more blushing. "See you guys there! I can't wait!" Without another word, Jackie turned & raced out of Star's room, excited for the event in question while leaving the two love birds to their own thoughts. For the longest time, neither of them could muster up anything to squeak out of their mouths.

"So..." Star finally said after what seemed like an eternity of silence. "We got a sleepover tomorrow. W-With Jackie Lynn Thomas."

"Yeah..." And poor Marco could barely muster up anything coherent. "Jackie Lynn Thomas..."

"The hottest, sexiest girl in the neighborhood..."

"By a country mile..."

Star slowly turned her head to Marco; the boy followed suit. "...should be fun though."

"Oh yeah, definitely!" They finished off the bit of awkward dialogue with an uncomfortable laugh between them. It did seem like a difficult proposition.

The good: a night alone with Jackie Lynn Thomas.

The bad: a night alone with Jackie Lynn Thomas.

End of Episode 25!

So a couple of things: first off, yes this chapter is shorter than past chapters. I realized the reason why Chapter 24 felt all over the place was because I fell into one of my old bad habits in trying to hit an arbitrary word count as opposed to just letting a story have an end point even if it's shorter. Hopefully this one feels more cohesive.

Secondly, yes the next episode is going to be a sleepover episode between Marco, Star, and Jackie. Which I'm looking forward to writing.

And this brings me to a bit of an awkward A/N that I need to spill out. So as most of you likely know, prior to completing "Unforgettable Getaway" and beginning "The Ballad of Earth-Mewni" I wrote a Christmas fic that was intended to be part of this canon called "Beautiful Christmas," which chronologically takes place approximately six months after the start of Ballad. Now, I am very proud of that story and I had a great time writing it, but it unintentionally put me into a box.

I feel like my story and characters are evolving in a way that could threaten the integrity of my timeline. I guess that's what I get for writing a story before filling in the in-betweens XD In any case, my point is I'm debating how I want to handle this. One of the options I'm considering is to "retcon" that story. But when I say that I don't mean "this story didn't happen at all." Rather I might just alter the writing of it in a way to fit more naturally in the timeline, and then ultimately add it into "Ballad" to make it more seamless, as opposed to having it just exist as a separate story.

Ultimately it is my work and I have the final say in how it turns out, but I am interested in feedback in hearing what my readers think of this dilemma. I'm not looking for anything to take as gospel or whatever, I just think a second opinion would be helpful.

And of course, as always, please remember to read & review! :)