One question that has probably been on your minds since day one, even though no one has asked yet, is with Toffee as Moon's husband and Mavis as the bad guy, where is River? Well if you didn't read the previous story to this you will get your answers in this chapter.
Marco biked home from his karate class, still in his karate gear and green belt with two stripes, smiling to himself over his date later today with Jackie. They were going to the movie theater to watch a new installment of a long series of comic book movies that connected together into a single universe. He was still shocked at how far the series had come after watching the first one that had come out in 2008. After the movie they planned on going out to a small restaurant before going to the local park to just walk or maybe skateboard through the area for a while. He breathed in and out relishing the fact that he had gotten this far with Jackie and felt happy, just happy. When he got home he put his bike away and went inside seeing a note on the kitchen counter from his mom to him. He picked it up and read it blushing at the message telling him to bring Jackie in for a baby picture showing of Marco.
"MOM!" Marco shouted in frustration with his voice ringing throughout the house.
"Mirror mirror on the wall, call anyone." Oskar spoke with the mirror responding.
"Calling anyone." Star and Alfonzo giggled to the side as Oskar took up a pose. He was wearing a purple cape with a gold painted cardboard crown atop his head and some small things to make him look like royalty. Star was wearing a brown heavily patched up frock like particularly poor peasants might wear and Alfonzo was wearing a superhero's costume that looked like batman. The mirror was picked up by some sort of humanoid who appeared to be made of green slime with the slime coming off in parts as drips. It looked confused and spoke with a masculine voice,
"Um, hello?" Oskar took a pose and held his keytar out like it was a scepter.
"Hey man, I am the son of Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin of the kingdom of rock and I wish to extend my family's warmest vibs to you." Oskar smiled at him with the guy looking around nervously before responding.
"Umm… is this a prank?" Star and Alfonzo giggled some more as Oskar continued in character.
"No it is not man. We wish to test you out with our B.A.S.S. to see if you have what it takes to participate in the land of rock and roll." Oskar strummed his keytar with Star and Alfonzo continuing to giggle and Star cutting open a portal to where she was pretty sure the guy was. The guy looked around even more nervously and spoke.
"Um, I don't know about this." Oskar smiled clamly trying to put the guy at ease.
"Don't worry man; it will be just a quick test. Starting… now!" Alfonzo dropped a fish through the portal landing on top of the guy's head prompting Oskar to smile. "So, how do you like our bass?" The guy immediately hung up with Star giggling, Alfonzo rolling on the floor laughing, and Oskar chuckling non-stop. "Man, this is fun no matter what you use to call people. And to top it off it does no actual harm." Star spoke up stepping to Oskar.
"My turn." Oskar nodded and stepped aside as Star stepped up to the mirror in Star's room. "Ahem, mirror mirror on the wall, call –"
"MOM!" Marco's voice rang out from the kitchen before Star could finish speaking with the mirror dialing.
"Calling, Tom." Star's eyes immediately went wide.
"No no NONONO." But the call was picked up by a pale grey skinned guy with pink colored hair done in a flame fashion on his head with two horns poking out of it. He also had three red eyes, one of which was on his forehead, and was wearing a dull red shirt with a deep red circle on his chest and a light red star in the center of the circle. The minute he saw Star his eyes lit up but had a touch of concern to them.
"Star! Wait, are you ok-" Star cut him off.
"No no, this was a mistake." Tom interjected quickly,
"But you're wearing rags that even the poorest don't use Star. And since we are here now, do you want to-" Star spoke quickly again.
"No I do not; this is prank call that back fired. Hanging up." Star pushed the hang up button as flames leaped up behind Tom, his eyes going a solid orangish-red with his voice getting deep in an intimidating manner.
"Star, don't you dare hang up!" Star hung up gritting her teeth slightly and shivering a little. Once the bout of nervous anger passed she looked up to see Alfonzo and Oskar looking at her oddly. Star sighed and spoke,
"He is an ex-boyfriend, and he was the best of the bunch to give my dating life perspective." The two looked at Star in concern moving in for a group hug which Star accepted. As they did so Marco walked in to see them and just stared for a few seconds.
"Ummm, what is going on?" the trio parted and looked at each other giggling slightly. Alfonzo spoke up,
"We were just making some crank calls Marco, want to join us?" He pointed at the mirror with Marco's eyes lighting up.
"Oh yeah I do." Marco stepped up to the mirror with the other three moving to the sides to watch. "Mirror mirror on the wall, call anyone."
"Calling anyone." The group giggled but instead of a ringing the mirror made a strange disconnected noise. As the group looked at the mirror in concern a turquoise skinned blue eyed humanoid with bright purple hair done up in curls and wearing a purple suit appeared in the mirror. She spoke in a soft professional manner,
"I'm sorry, but you have exceeded your minutes; your mirror service has been temporarily suspended. Please visit our office in Pixtopia to settle your bill." With a light chuckling the pixie hung up. Star immediately began to panic.
"No nonono, I need to call my parents tonight. They are going to be so mad when they realized I spent all my minutes; especially on crank calls." Star grabbed her tail holding it nervously as Marco stepped in.
"Will it really be that bad if we don't tell them it was crank calls?" Star grabbed Marco and pulled him in close till they were face to face.
"My dad finds out about these things, you can't hide anything from him if he wishes to find out about it. And when they do… well my mom might be ok with it but my dad will not at the very least. We need to solve this now." Star cut open a portal to Pixtopia and began stepping through it only to be stopped by Oskar who spoke in a calming manner.
"Star, we encouraged you to do this; we are coming with you to help settle this, right?" he looked at Alfonzo who nodded happily and then looked at Marco who was giving him a confused look.
"Um, I didn't contribute to this except for the final call." He then looked at Star again seeing her nervousness and sighed heavily. "But I'll go anyways; however we need to be back before 4pm so I can get to my date with Jackie." Star nodded smiling,
"Don't worry, I know the king and queen of Pixtopia; this should be a breeze.
Star stepped through the portal as did Alfonzo, Oskar, and Marco with their various clothes still on as the portal closed behind them with. As they stepped through they saw the woodlands they were in were brightly colored with lots of toadstools and ancient willow trees everywhere. Scattered everywhere around them were small fields of brightly colored flowers and crystal clear pools of water surrounded by picturesque cattail plants. Even the air felt different smelling like it had just rained in a high mountain pine forest in spring, smelling of new growth and an excessive amount of life. As they looked around they were beset on all sides by bluish colored pixies about 6 inches to one foot tall who literally swarmed them just to welcome them.
"Welcome to Pixtopia." The group of friends looked around seeing them all begin to dance around them as one strummed a lute speaking to them.
"In Pixtopia, we love everything." A group dancing near them sang sweetly,
"With our pixie hearts and our pixie wings." One flew down to hug a frog close while singing.
"We are friends with every frog we meet." One also flew and landed on a random flower before singing.
"Even our bathrooms smell so sweet." The flower closed up with an almost cute sounding fart coming from the flower as she sang. Marco looked around and began speaking,
"I haven't felt this type of environment since I've been to Disney world." Star smiled with a sigh before turning to the other three.
"Come on; time to show you a couple of friends of my mom and a non-earth friend of mine." Star rushed forward eagerly with the others following her but getting side tracked occasionally. Marco actually had to stop Star to point out Alfonzo was obsessing over how small the pixies were and Oskar for trying to play music to them. "Guys, you can flirt and make friends with the pixies later; Marco and I need to get back before 4 pm." Oskar nodded smiling and left the pixie group with Alfonzo looking on sadly calling back to the pixies.
"I'll be back guys, I swear it." Marco shook his head looking around as pixies continued to watch them. 'I wonder what strange thing will happen next?' He then knocked on a random willow tree hopping he didn't just jinx their group.
Marco, Alfonzo, and Oskar looked up in awe at the living structure that was coming up in the woods. Up ahead was a tree that would dwarf a Sequoia in size that seemed to have been carved or shaped by magic in such a way that it turned into a single living structure. Along the branches and coming out from various holes that looked like owls would roost in came twinkling green, blue, and purple lights. Light filtered down through the leaves of the tree casting the area beneath it into a calming perpetual twilight that was made even more magical by a soft sweet music coming in from seemingly everywhere. Pixies fluttered in and out of it in spots all over the surface sometimes carrying items or, even in one or two cases, living struggling people of various sorts. Marco turned to Star asking her,
"Is this the pixie equivalent of a royal palace?" Star stared up at it smiling with her eyes going back to the beautiful shade of purple-green Marco had only seen in the Forest of Certain Death.
"Yes." Star inhaled and exhaled softly at complete ease. "Come on, we need to get this phone bill out of the way so you can go on your date with Jackie. Be lucky I know the king and queen, if not we would be dumped in the crystal shard mines until our debt was paid off." Star skipped off with Marco shuddering slightly before following her.
The quartet entered the surprisingly human sized hallways of the tree through a large hole in the tree that looked like badger hole and went down into the earth for a little ways. They moved along at normal speed through the tree for a short distance until they got to some sort of elevator with the buttons for it looking like acorns. Sitting in front of it at a desk was what appeared to be the pixie equivalent of a secretary writing something out when she noticed the group.
"Oh hello there, do you have an appoint-" She then noticed Star and her eyes went wide. "Star Butterfly, what brings you here; and in peasants garb?" Star smiled and spoke calmly.
"I am here to see Tempest and hopefully his mom and dad. Are they in?" The secretary nodded eagerly.
"Step right in, they should be available in a few minutes." The secretary gestured to the elevator and hit some sort of button on her desk. "Your majesty, Star is here to see you."
Star hit the button on top and the elevator opened near immediately with Star stepping in beckoning everyone else in. Marco stepped in, Alfonzo followed, and Oskar tried to get in but had to squish everyone to the sides of the elevator because there just wasn't enough room to stand comfortably. They did manage to get the doors closed as Alfonzo spoke,
"Umm, is this thing going to be able to hold all our weight?" As if to answer him the elevator started moving upwards without pause. Star smiled and said,
"Never doubt magic people, it will work; except for when it doesn't." The trio turned to look at Star with eyebrows raised. "What, nothing is perfect ok." They group nodded in confusion as the elevator quickly took them up with Oskar suddenly giggling slightly.
"Hey man, I'm flattered you view me that way but could you guys not tickle me in here; especially around my thigh." Alfonzo blinked in shock replying,
"Um, I'm not..." Marco and Alfonzo looked at each other like at a western shoot out until Marco felt the tickling too.
"Um guys, I feel it as well." He then made connections and leapt to a conclusion turning to Star. "Star, is your tail acting up on its own?" Oskar and Alfonzo turned to Star who blushed pulling up her tail from below with effort.
"Sorry sorry, not used to confined spaces." At that the elevator dinged as it stopped with the door opening knocking everyone out into a pile. The group looked up to see a throne room made from living wood with two thrones at the far end that were currently empty. The group got up looking around as Star spoke, "They should be here in a minute, a king and queen have more important things to do then sit in a throne all day after all." The trio of boys walked around the room taking a close look sound just taking in the strangely druidic and fey power the room exuded. Marco ran his hands along the wall feeling every little carving that had been put in there through one means or another.
He spoke his thought aloud, "I keep on being surprised at how intricate and beautiful many things wind up being across the dimensions."
"Indeed, tis always a humbling sight. Now what is a robed monk, a king of music, a caped bat like person, and a "peasant" girl we know so well doing up here?" Marco jumped at the new voice and turned around to see coming from a side passage three figures.
One was around four feet tall or so and had a long glorious blond beard with hair to match with sharp but friendly blue eyes; looking rather ripped in a blue open vest and pants that he saw male pixies had been wearing earlier. To his right was a female pixie around eight inches tall with blue skin and loose flowing purple hair wearing a purple dress that appeared to be made of an alien form of leaves clinging onto his arm. To her right was a male figure somewhere between two and half feet and three feet tall with pointed ears that seemed to be a mesh of the two figures. He had purple and blond striped hair and white skin with bluish-green eyes that appeared almost too big for him with a pair of Dragonfly wings on his back allowing him to hover like the other pixies. He was wearing a green and purple open vest and pants revealing he was built strongly like the man but incredibly lean like the pixie. 'If I had to guess, he is their son.' Marco thought as the pixie called out to them.
"Star, it's always nice to see you around these parts. Oh, and you brought friends as well." She immediately fluttered away from the man and looked them over. "Who are all of you?" Marco spoke up first.
"I'm Marco Diaz, Star's bestie from earth." This got a pleased reaction from the parents and son trio.
"I'm Alfonzo, one of her friends as well." Marco glanced out of the corner of his eye to see Oskar was blushing slightly as he gazed at the son.
"Um… I'm Oskar man." The trio laughed and began introducing themselves as well.
"Well I am king River of Pixtopia friends of Star." The short man spoke smiling at them all in a very jolly manner.
"I am Bonibell, Empress of Pixtopia." The pixie spoke immediately going back to River's arm.
"My name is Tempest, and I'm Star's bestie from Pixtopia. Nice to see you made new friends hopper." Star smiled profusely clasping Tempest in a hug which he returned eagerly. "So what brings you all to Pixtopia?" Star got off of Tempest with her eyes turning back to their normal green color and looking a little nervous. Marco stepped up to the plate,
"We accidently went over the minutes of Star's mirror service by making crank calls. Is there a way we can repay it without going into the shard mines?" River, Bonibell and Tempest looked at each other for a second and smiled chuckling slightly turning back to the trio with River speaking.
"Actually, how well can you fight?" The quartet of friends looked at each other in confusion before Star answered.
"Well I can as you know all too well." She winked at the family and pointed to her friends. "Marco is actually a pretty fearsome warrior himself capable of taking down half a dozen forest barbarians with his bare hands." The family oohed in awe as Star pointed towards Oskar. "He has a bird of prey pet almost the size of this throne room that could be helpful." The family nodded with Tempest showing particular interest in Oskar now making him blush even more. 'OMG he is crushing on Tempest so HARD right now.' Star thought in glee smiling slightly looking at Marco who smiled back knowingly. Before Star could move on to introduce Alfonzo he stepped up.
"Um, what exactly will we be doing if we can fight?" River and Bonibell looked at each other in concern before Tempest spoke up.
"Well, recently a strange race of beings that we have never heard of arrived in our woodlands and started attacking us without provocation. They are attacking one of our biggest exports, Keebler cookies." Marco, Alfonzo, and Oskar blinked in shock looking at each other as Tempest continued. "They are destroying our storehouses and bakeries devouring all the cookies in the land and anyone one that gets in their way. We have tried to reason with them nearly a dozen times but…" Tempest then stopped for a second hanging his head at what had happened to them before continuing on sighing heavily. "We have the forces to hold them off for the most part, but we need a big win in order to bring these guys down to size and show the people they have nothing to fear. Will you guys help us turn the tide against these creatures?" Tempest looked at them pleadingly with Star and Oskar answering simultaneously.
"Of course we will." Marco nodded agreeing to it with Alfonzo looking nervous at what he had just signed up for unwittingly. River smiled profusely and started thanking them.
"Thank you so much for doing this for us. We of course have a plan in case if you are wondering which I will be leading-" The instant River mentioned he would be leading Bonibell immediately turned on him.
"What!? I thought you said you were going to let someone younger then you lead the defense?" River faced Bonibell stoically as he replied.
"Sugar wings, you know I am the best one to lead considering where the other generals are needed. And besides, I need moments like this to get my blood running." River took a heroic pose with Bonibell face palming as she replied.
"You have been taking too much influence from Moon haven't you?" She sighed and looked back up. "I just worry for you meat muffin." River put out his hand and rubbed his wife's cheek with her folding into his hand somewhat.
"I get that sugar wings I get that." He smiled as she seemed to calm down. "Because of that I'll only let Tempest come along if you agree to it." At that Tempest looked up in shock.
"Dad, I thought you said that was going to be our secret?" River chuckled turning to his son replying in a jolly manner.
"Change of plans my boy. Bonibell is technically the boss around here." Everyone looked at Bonibell who seemed conflicted for a second before nodding to Tempest speaking slowly.
"Go on ahead; you would likely sneak out to join them. I might as well make sure my meat muffin is overseeing you." Tempest cheered with Star and River joining him. Marco stepped up to Bonibell and spoke to her.
"Don't worry, I'll help keep him safe just like I do for Star." She giggled at Marco before replying.
"Thank you boy with the cute mole." She fluttered up and poked him on the mole making Marco blush slightly. "Say, what is your bat like friend good for in combat?" Marco opened his mouth to answer but realized Alfonzo had no combat abilities.
"Well- ummmmmm…"
Some of you might have a certain question involving Oskar and Tempest which I will answer in an "unusual" way. Writing a homosexual romance is no different then writing a heterosexual relationship and honestly I'm surprised this hasn't been done more frequently in a "non-mature" setting. I may be giving stuff away, but hey I've given away a lot in the past, this isn't that important a give away.
*hears a soft rumbling that grows in power until I look up to see a hoard of yaoi fan-girl artists running in my direction like the stampede in the Lion King* Excuse me while I run for my life. *runs off screaming like a little girl*