*Psst, there have been a few edits to this chapter as I didn't like how it was made; sorry for the abrupt changes towards the end. ;)*
"Woo-hoooo!" Marco held onto Jackie's waist as they soared through the air on the back of the flying manta like creature.
Marco looked down seeing the other kids interacting with all sorts of things with various results. Oskar found a strange guitar and began playing it only to summon some sort of flying monster the seemed to be made of spaghetti and was wearing papal clothing. He saw another boy leap into some sort of portal and was spilt apart into four different versions of himself with three of them screaming and the fourth just looking disappointed. He saw a girl try to punch some sort of statue only to have it punch her in the face sending her flying 15 feet. He even saw Sabrina trip over her own feet climbing onto a box made of a constant set of stairs and as she began falling continuously with no end in sight he chuckled at just how ridiculous it was.
"DUCK!" Marco looked up, like an idiot, as Jackie called out while ducking to avoid the bar that hit Marco square in the face making him fall 20 feet to the hard ground below. "You ok Marco?" Marco got up wincing at the sting of falling as Jackie pulled the manta down close enough she could jump off and help him up. "You took a hard hit there twice." Marco brushed himself off smiling as he spoke excitedly.
"Gonna take more than that to beat me down; I've taken far harder hits then that." Jackie smiled in relief as they heard Janna speaking not a few steps away.
"Hey guys, check out the new friend we made." They looked up to see Janna and Ferguson standing next to some sort of movable glass show container with some sort of living skeleton inside. It appeared to have vampire like fangs, dreadlocks, glowing red pupil cat eyes, and a set of ankle manacles that glowed with power rooting it to the floor of the container. "He is an actual hoodoo witch doctor from the 16th century Marco!" Janna was excited the way a 5 year old would be jumping up and down excitedly as Ferguson spoke doing the same thing.
"Really man, this guy is awesome!" They leaned in close holding out their phones to take selfies with the skeleton speaking as it held its hands up in twin devil horns like death metal rockers sometimes did.
"Eh Mon." Marco shuddered at the skeletons gravelly Jamaican accent as it sent shivers up his spine.
"Cool man, creepy but cool." Jackie spoke in a laid back fashion before turning in shock at someone screaming.
"Help, this book is trying to eat me!" The group turned to see Chloe Park running away screaming as some sort of furry book chased her with Alfonzo running behind them shouting.
"You just need to pick it up and stroke its spine; it works every time!" The group laughed at the situation knowing it would be resolved without issue with Marco speaking up.
"Say I saw Sabrina falling down a strange stair cube thing, should we go help her?" Jackie and Ferguson nodded with Janna looking torn as to whether they should leave the skeleton guy.
"Eh, go help your friend. I'll be right here for you to free mon." The skeleton seemed to smile and gestured for Janna to go making Marco shudder as they moved and spoke to Janna quietly.
"Don't free that guy Janna, I got a bad feeling in person he's not as cool as he sounds." Janna shrugged unconcerned as they walked miffing Marco a bit. As they got to the cube however Sabrina was nowhere in sight. "Hey where is Sabrina; I swore she was here 10 minutes ago." Marco looked around seeing no one around. "In fact where is everyone? There's no one around." Marco turned back to his group to see all here of them looking up in concern behind him with Marco speaking in a deadpan manner. "There is a big scary creature behind me isn't there?" Marco felt an arm as thick as a tree trunk and twice as tough pick him up around his neck with an all too familiar voice speaking.
"Oh indeed Marco, I'm around." Dumnorix smiled with his one good eye glinting as the other forest barbarians surrounded the remaining trio with Mavis stepping forward and speaking up.
"Foolish for you to leave your princess's side, but more so for you then her it seems." The group chuckled as the other kids gave up without a fight for now. "Now to leave a message for Star as to what might happen should she not accept our invitation." Marco would have fought back but knew it would have been fruitless to do so as Dumnorix had beaten him in every engagement they had.
"Well jokes on you Mavis, Star doesn't even know we are here." Marco spoke up getting a laugh from the group with Selene replying.
"Then explain why she is in the 'Walking with Trolls' exhibit with your teacher." Marco couldn't help but gulp with worry bringing a smile to Selene's face. "Skipped out on your companion to enjoy life eh; well the joke is doubly on you then you pathetic excuse for a guardian." Marco opened his mouth to reply but no words came as he had no response for that.
"Trolls are one of only a few species known in the cosmos as Ultra-super-centenarians. That means they can live for a really really really really long time." The spider holding the megaphone who just spoke climbed up a line of web leaving Skullnick to blink in confusion for a second looking at the 400 year life-span she was now going to have.
"I thought I was in my twilight years, turns out I'm a teenager again!" She smiled with Star smiling at how overjoyed the teacher seemed before speaking.
"Oh, come over here to find out another advantage." Skullnick came over and listened as Star pushed for another audio in front of a suit of armor.
"Trolls are abnormally strong as they are able to lift 100 times their own body weight. This made them fiercesome warriors during the time of The Trollica industrialization-expansion period during the third nebulic millennium." Skullnick blinked in confusion and flexed her own arm blinking in disbelief as powerful muscles bunched up giving her an obscenely body-builder style look.
"Did you two see that?" Skullnick asked looking at the spider and Star who both nodded before the spider crawled back up with Star speaking.
"I myself came to this dimension to learn more about my Monster half as even my dad didn't know all the details. Turns out Septarians are pretty dang cool when you go into details." Star smiled with Skullnick nodding before asking as they began walking along.
"So, what are some special abilities of Septarians?" Star chuckled before replying.
"Well we can…" Star was interrupted when she snatched a paper airplane that would have hit her in the forehead and opened it up to look at it. "Huh, what is… oh no. Not good." Star read, with Skullnick looking over her shoulder, what appeared to be a ransom note telling Star to bring her wand or the class would perish. "Why do they keep on doing this? Ok Skullnick, time for me to save the class and to insure that Marco lives long enough for what I have planned for him." Star growled but was interrupted by metal clanging making her turn to see Skullnick putting on the Troll armor and hefting an over-sized and heavy halberd before speaking.
"Not without me you aren't. That is my class and the fact that I didn't rush to them when we got to this world makes their lack of security my fault. Now let's get the class back unharmed so I can deal out what I have in mind for Marco too considering he likely organized all this." They nodded to each other and rushed out of the exhibit into the 'outside' area and began looking for the Forest Barbarians.
Lord Mildrew smiled as he watched Star and Skullnick rush out of the 'Walking with Trolls' exhibit and turned moving fast. He got to where they were supposed to meet and exchange the wand but knew Star wasn't going to go there. From what he had heard of her she seemed to have less fire but the same tricky spirit her mother had back long ago. Memories from before his time in the caves after he was tossed off the battlements by Toffee seemed fuzzy and blurred but he could remember that much; including the burning hatred he had for the lizard that took his eye. He growled to himself thinking on how sweet it would be to take Moon as his woman next to Toffee's lifeless corpse when the time came. He wasn't sure what he would do with Moon afterword, kill her or keep her, but he wanted that much at least as payment for what had happened to Mewni. He got to the meeting place where two men stood at the ready with a third next to a glass box with the sign 'The cosmos's most dangerous creature' wielding a hammer ready to smash. Inside of it appeared to be some sort of yarn creature that was kitting and looked absolutely adorable which made the group even more nervous.
"Warriors, change in plans." The three looked up as Mildrew spoke. "Star is moving to look for where we are hiding them and she has a warrior troll accompanying her now. You need to go and warn Mavis of what is happening now, I'll catch up." The group nodded and ran off. As they got out of sight he chuckled at turned to the container making a strange sword materialize in his hand getting the creatures attention. The sword looked to be made out of Obsidian with a platinum hilt and the pommel being a dragon's head holding a brightly glowing ruby twice the size of a human eyeball. "I have a service for you and you are going to help me." He held up his sword with the pommel capturing the creature's gaze seemingly hypnotizing it. As he began to speak however he blacked out with his good eye going a strange solid glowing yellow color with his voice becoming deeper and more guttural.
"Mavis cannot succeed; insure that the kids get away with Star's wand still in her possession." The yarn creature nodded with Mildrew breaking the glass allowing it to slither out in a long line of yarn. As he chuckled at this his eye and voice returned to normal with Mildrew fainting in the process.
"Warchief, warning from Mildrew!" Mavis looked up in concern as three warriors rushed in who were supposed to be waiting at the meeting point. Mavis and the rest of her group were in a cave replica with the kids tied up along a wall and several of them harassing Marco. "Star is not going to the meeting point she is coming here." At this Mavis heard the familiar voice of Star cry out.
"And thank you for leading me here." Everyone turned to see Star standing there with some sort of troll warrior standing right behind her bearing a vicious looking halberd. Mavis stared at them in shock before turning back to the three.
"You didn't even check to see if she was following you?" The three looked down in shame and she slapped all three of them across the face at once in the three stooges' fashion. "Don't just stand there everyone, take her down!" The barbarians leapt at Star and Skullnick as one with the duo fighting back.
Star shouted "Monkey Hunger Gremlin" shooting out a group of strange goblin like creatures that grappled two warriors bringing them into a pile. As the others formed into a solid line of shields to counter Star's spells Skullnick raised up her halberd and swung it into the formation HARD. Three warriors were thrown back through the air with the formation falling apart giving an opening for another spell. "Stone Locust Swarm" A swarm of stony locusts sprang up and began pestering 4 warriors making them swing at the air uselessly. Skullnick swung her halberd around in a whirlwind fashion and, while only knocking one aside, cleared a path for Star to proceed. Star and Skullnick went back to back with the warriors surrounding them with Dumnorix, Selene, and Mavis stepping to the fore front; but were stopped by a hissing noise from outside the cave.
Everyone turned to see a gigantic scorpion like creature that appeared to have been made out of blue yarn. It had a pair of glowing red eyes as it crawled in slowly looking at everyone as if eager to torment and cause pain. The barbarians chuckled in triumph parting to give it a clear path to Star and Skullnick; but it ignored them and went straight for Mavis. As it swallowed Mavis whole the other barbarians fell back in an attempt to regroup with Star and Skullnick looking at each other in shock with Star speaking.
"Well, that was easy. Let's get everyone out of here." Skullnick got up in front of the kids acting as a guard with Star shooting a light line of magic out saying. "Ropes to snakes!" The ropes holding the students together turned into snakes making some people shiver in fear but what might happen to them if they got the attention of the yarn monster kept them quite. "Now get going people, there is a portal in the 'Walking with Trolls' exhibit that will get you out of here." Everyone nodded and ran with Marco speaking up.
"But I have the dimensional…"
"No you don't." Star looked at him annoyed and held up the scissors making Marco pat his pocket in shock. "You will get these back when I can trust you with them, not before." Star turned back to see the yarn creature fighting off the barbarians fairly easy allowing her and Skullnick to back away without much of a fight. As the group ran Janna was sidetracked by the hoodoo skeleton guy calling out to her.
"Take me wit you mon, I been stuck in this box for two centuries!" Janna looked back and forth between her and where everyone else was going and sighed.
"I can't pass up an opportunity like this." She ran back and used a glass cuter she had on her and cut it open enough so that he could squeeze out. She picked the locks on the manacles fairly easily as they were an old model allowing them to join everyone as they entered the exhibit.
"Say mon, why do you have that stuff?" Janna smiled and replied to the skeleton guy.
"Oh you know a thief and witch in training needs all sorts of things." He looked at her approvingly as they joined the students going through the portal.
As the students piled through the door quickly Star and Skullnick stood in front of the door for minute to make sure no one had followed them. When they were thoroughly convinced that they had made it out they went through the door and closed it behind them returning back to the museum of paperclips on earth. Star locked the door making it return back to its liquid state and leapt into the little glass flask Star had allowing Star to recork it. Everyone let out a cheer for Star and Skullnick and Janna, with Ferguson's help, now trying to hide the skeleton from Star and Skullnick's sight. Marco stepped forward and began speaking immediately holding up a tuning fork like item.
"Look Star, I left a spell in the dummies to insure that if Mavis and her cronies came to earth I could leap back and…" A solid smack sound emitted where Star slapped Marco throwing him into the wall of them museum making everyone fall silent and just stare at the yellow-eyed Star who was bursting with fury.
"THAT'S not what concerned me!" Marco looked up in shock as Star continued. "You put everyone's lives in danger not knowing what could exist in that museum just to get out of a boring field trip! What's more you left me out of it when I could have told you how to get through there safely and even could have acted as a distraction for Ms. Skullnick." The whole class, including Skullnick, gasped at this. "What you thought I wouldn't have 'gone along' with it just because I'm safety conscious? Marco, if my parents knew half the things we had been involved with they would have taken me straight home." Marco went to answer but Star continued. "Don't treat me like a stick in the mud and… you know what go hang out with whoever it is you are with when not around me, I'm not going to lecture you about including me if you excluded me after knowing myself as well as you do." Star walked away with everyone silently watching them and Marco having a hurt look in his eyes. He didn't sit like that for long however as Ms. Skullnick came up and began dragging Marco as she began speaking to everyone.
"The lot of you go through the museum quietly. If I have to come back inside to deal with another one of you I'll be using this on you." She hefted up the halberd making everyone duck their heads. She pulled Marco out of the museum making him face her. "As for you Marco, you are going to tell me the names of the people you conspired with and then you are going to be in detention for a very long time; got it?" Marco was about to respond but hesitated as he looked past Skullnick seeing Star pull out some sort of cigar looking thing making the fight go out of him.
"Yes Ms. Skullnick. The others were Janna and Ferguson who created the dummies and helped me execute the plan, no one else. I'll be in Saturday morning at 8am sharp." Ms. Skullnick blinked at the fact that Marco had not only given away the names of the other kids but had agreed to the worst possible detention right off the bat without a fight.
"Um… ok. Go sit in the bus and don't move a muscle." She let Marco go and watched him go into the bus looking defeated and turned back to stand near the entrance of the museum awaiting the other kids to come out.
"We can't beat this thing, it can't be hit!" Dumnorix turned to the warrior who said it and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck.
"Nothing is unbeatable, now get back in there!" He threw the warrior into the fight only to have him be thrown back by the yarn-scorpion into one of the walls. "Well, that's not good." Selene came up to him and yelled up.
"Toss me at him, I'll cut him up from the inside!" Dumnorix nodded and picked Selene up only to be stopped as the creature began shrieking.
It swayed and staggered on its 'feet' as it seemed to be clawing at the air for some reason. As everyone watched it tried changing forms but failed to do so as bits of yarn came floating off of it to the ground. After about a minute of this everyone leapt back into the fight and began hacking at it as best as possible trying to bring it down. Dumnorix then tossed Selene into the creature with her cutting a hole into it. After a few minutes of this the creature finally collapsed into a pile of cut up pieces of yarn with Mavis and Selene limping out of it. As the group cheered in triumph Mildrew finally showed up looking flustered and exhausted as if he had been running a long distance.
"Mavis, *pant pant* I could not *pant* control the…" Mavis cut him off speaking as calmly as possible as he composed himself.
"No need to explain. Alright comrades, today we nearly got victory; I say that is worthy of a celebration." Everyone cheered at that with Mildrew looked both shocked and relived as Mavis cut a hole back home.
As the group of students moved through the museum silently Janna and Ferguson noticed that the skeleton guy had disappeared somehow. As they looked around quietly Janna felt a tap on her shoulder and tensed up, but relaxed as she heard its voice.
"Eh mon, I be invisible for now so no problem." Janna gestured for Ferguson to come over as she spoke to him.
"Say, considering you don't have anywhere to go in this world, and how many people would kill you on the spot given how creepy you look, would you mind staying with me or Ferguson?" After a brief moment of silence he spoke up again.
"Why are you lettin me stay wit you? I got this feelin that there is more behind dis then jus because you like me." Ferguson chuckled and responded.
"Well you might not make it in this world, a lot has changed in the 200 years you've been locked up. Also, we want to learn more about this kind of stuff you know. As a sorcerer and witch in training it would be nice to get some pointers from a genuine hoodoo witchdoctor you know." The two then stared at where they thought he was with big eyes until they heard a reply.
"Hehe, ok mon; I will teach you what I know about te hoodoo ways an much more. All dis in payment for breaking me out and letting me get use to this new world. Hold out your hands." They did so and felt something grab and shake them. "Now you are sealed wit me Janjak whether we wish to be or not. Now, what be dis marvelous invention that I be seein all around me?" the duo groaned as the witchdoctor noticed
"Cheers." Mavis clinked her glass with Lord Mildrew's. "This is the second closest we've ever come to taking the wand all thanks to you." Mildrew chuckled as he drank before speaking.
"Sorry about the beast, I wasn't able to properly control it and all that nonsense." He looked out over the celebrating warriors with Mavis retorting.
"Nonsense, we've all made mistakes here. We aren't the first to fall to the Butterfly's wits and magic you know. But tomorrow is another day and we will win eventually." Mildrew nodded and smiled feeling a dull throb at the back of his head that felt like how laughter would feel if it could be felt.
'Why do I suddenly have a bad feeling about this?' He thought to himself.
Star laid under her heat lap in her underwear doing Zen time as she ate BBQ wings and read Manga letting the sweet soothing music fill her head on Saturday morning. Smiling in peace she thought over the maid outfit she had made up for Marco to wear when he came home from detention and chuckled. His parents had grounded him for a week and decided to include Star's suggestion into their consideration allowing Star to poof it up on him. Strangely enough though Marco just seemed to accept it with a sad nod as if he thought he deserved all this from how he acted. 'hmm, guess he does feel regret for that.' Star thought to herself as she munched silently on her food. She was interrupted however by the ringing of her mirror and picked it up to see Janna had sent her a recorded message from her smartphone.
It read "Was cleaning up the school as punishment after Marco ratted me out and overheard this. You NEED to listen to it." Star blinked in confusion and listened to the recording.
Marco Diaz: … I just don't want to talk about it as it would do no good.
Ms. Skullnick: You have been sighing and doing your work in a depressed state ever since you got here. Either you are going to tell me what is going on or this punishment is going to get far worse.
MD: I'm ok with that.
*Silence*
MS: *In a quiet voice* You can't just hold onto it like this Marco, you need to get it off of your chest before if begins to hurt you. Now what's wrong?
MD: *Sigh* I messed up with no excuses for it whatsoever, I left Star behind just to have a fling with my other friends in another dimension. I knew how sensitive Star was to that kind of stuff and left her behind without a second thought and only now realize I did something wrong. I mean, after our adventure at a place called St. Olga's she began taking anxiety medication, which is not a problem, but she began hiding it from me and outright lying about it when I asked her. She is trying so hard to be viewed as a nromal girl and I'm still not treating her like one. Now our friendship could be in danger because I didn't stop to think about her for a few seconds. I'm an idiot, a jackass, a jerk, an inconsiderate douche…
S: Stop right there. You made a mistake and came out the bad guy because of it; so what? People make mistakes and look like jerks because of it all the time since they didn't think things through. The fact you feel regret for it tells me that you are not a bad guy, just a 14 year old kid who acted like an idiot to have fun.
MD: *sniff* Really?
S: I was 14 too once, and I made plenty of bad mistakes. I can't give out much advice but I can tell you to confront Star about your ineptitude and tell her the truth that you know about the medication, it will make things work out better for you.
MD: I can't do that for the latter, she'll just get mad that I'm looking at her as if she was made out of glass.
S: Then let her get mad. Let her scream and curse until she gets it out of her system but you need to tell her the truth to get your friendship back on track. From what I can tell you need to stop distancing yourself from her and tell her that you wish to get your friendship on track no matter what and do whatever it takes to do so. *pause* So, feel better yet?
MD: *sniff* Yes actually, thank you.
S: My pleasure. Now get back to work.
Star held her mirror as the end tone ringed signaling that the recording was finished. 'Marco is afraid our friendship is in danger because of this and was reduced to tears because of his guilt?' Star thought to herself over that and realized how strange the situation was. Here she was mad at him for leaving her out but also happy that he was so eager to make things right and embarrassed that he could see through her lies and knew about her sneaking behind his back. 'He was an incosiderate jer but he actually wants to make up for it because he cares about me so much.' *Throb* Star felt that sensation that had grown familiar and realized what it meant; and didn't like it in the slightest.
"Marco's my guide, therapist, and guardian as well as my best friend. *Throb* I can't go for him as I am a princess and no one would accept him as he is the equivalent of a peasant. *Throb* He has a girlfriend. *Throb pang* No… nonononononononono girl NO, you know better than this!" Star looked up at her mirror taking a good look at her body, her grey and unappealing lizard like tomboyish body. She knew she would be a bombshell one day thanks to the time dimension but in her current state… "Even if he didn't have a girlfriend or found me physically attractive… he just views me as a friend; it would never work." *Throb* Star grabbed her tail holding it in close and wrapping a fluffy blanket around her as tears came to her eyes. "Why… why do I have to develop a crush on my best friend?"
Well... I did not expect this to get this dramatic when I started and that was a lot to unpack. Honestly, I didn't like this chapter that much but couldn't think of a better way to make it work. I know what many of you people would say "get an editor to help you" but I like working alone and honing my skills through feedback from mistakes as that is how I learn best. *Psst, I edited this from an earlier stage after I published this because I haerd of a better way to do this; sorry for the people who read it before I edited it and thank you SugarQueen97 for the suggestions. ;)*
Thank you for all the support and ideas throughout the months I've been making this. As for the next epis... wait that's an original one, as is the next one! Well... based off of some "Collateral damage" done and the time when some "Friendenemies" got together. See you soon.