Alfonzo looked around himself smiling at the event and then heaved a tired sigh walking through the area holding onto a candle he made himself at one of the areas. His friends had split up to enjoy the day as Oskar went with Tempest to perform music, Marco was taking Jackie out on a 'date' in potential compensation for the evening, Janna and Ferguson had gone off to only they knew where to do 'spooky magical' stuff, and Star had to help manage the event. It was at times like these that he wondered where exactly he fit into the group of friends. It's not that he didn't like the fact that others did stuff without him but… As he mused his attention was gotten by a piece of crumpled up paper rolling into his path. Blinking in confusion he picked it up and unfurled it to see a surprisingly well done picture of a warrior in some sort of hybrid of a medieval knight and Samurai armor. Blinking in confusion he turned towards where it had been thrown and saw the girl he recognized as Chloe Park drawing with some annoyance in her eyes. He also noticed Chloe sitting in front of some sort of suit of armor that appeared to be a 16th century full plate 'knight in shining armor' type but with a helmet, face mask, shoulder Greeves, and a type of plate kilt protecting the thighs that were clearly taken from Samurai armor that matched the drawing he had just picked up. The plates appeared to be covered by black lacquer, likely to protect against rust, with the only notable features on it being a pair of deer antlers on the helmet and the face piece looking like some sort of demonic cat.
"Well I knew the knights that served Star's family would have worn armor but I never thought it would be like this." Alfonzo thought aloud making Chloe look up from her work double taking at someone just standing there. "The appearance works even though it looks off for some reason. Makes sense considering this is another dimension and all that." He looked over at Chloe and smiled standing next to her. "I honestly think you did a decent job with this drawing and got the basic image of it down if you want my opinion." Chloe chuckled before replying.
"I'm not just trying to get the basic idea down, I'm trying to envision these warriors in poses or in battle to get a feeling of what they are like. That is a lot harder than you might think. Especially since it feels like I'm pushing together two completely separate cultures when drawing this." Alfonzo nodded giving her that point and sat down next to her speaking again.
"Well perhaps you just need to get an idea of what the kingdom and world it comes from is like. I mean this is from another dimension entirely right?" Chloe nodded with Alfonzo gaining some concern in his voice. "You aren't alone as well today are you?" Chloe froze for a moment before nodding and replying.
"This is by choice though, I recently went through something that… made me question who I was and I needed distance from people." Chloe looked like she wanted to say more but then another voice called out.
"Oh it's 'Batman' nice to see you again." They both looked up to see Alexis Avarius walking up to them smiling slightly at Alfonzo. "Despite claiming you had no combat abilities whatsoever you did pretty well against those cookie beasts eh?" Alfonzo blushed slightly as Chloe stifled a giggle and spoke.
"Is this a friend of yours?" Alexis spoke up again before Alfonzo could.
"I would say so, a friend of Star is a friend of mine." Alfonzo noticed Chloe wince ever so slightly as Alexis sat down next to them. "Say, you wouldn't by chance be drawing that armor over there would you?" Chloe nodded looking a little nervous at Alexis's straightforwardness and spoke.
"Yes, but I'm having trouble getting it right because it just feels weird looking at armor like that." Alexis blinked in confusion with Alfonzo speaking up.
"On our world it looks like you combined two armor styles from opposite ends of the world." Alexis nodded showing she understood completely with Alfonzo getting an idea. "Say, if you're not busy would you mind helping her figure out how to make sense of this and join us for the day?" Chloe looked at Alfonzo in shock as Alexis smiled broadly and replied.
"And here I thought I was going to be wandering aimlessly due to losing my uncle and Star and Tempest being busy; sure friends. Say are you a friend of Star as well?" Alexis stared at Chloe who nodded softly with Alexis clasping her in a tight hug. "Excellent, then we can be friends. The name is Alexis Avarius of the house Avarius." Chloe gulped slightly as Alexis pulled back and spoke softly.
"Chloe Park is my name uh friend." Alexis smiled even more widely and went to lead Alfonzo and Chloe around the event while speaking.
"Well where to begin? Should I get to know you guys better first or talk about what Chloe needs help with? Well how about I mix it up in a wide array of…" 'Well, this got interesting… I think.' Alfonzo thought to himself as Alexis spoke.
"Shhh, will you be quite. People are going to notice if a skeleton head starts talking." Ferguson spoke in a whisper as Janna groaned in annoyance turning to him.
"Well you are gonna attract attention by saying it out loud dumbass. Just keep it cool and we could get some new ingredients to match those I swiped from that museum. We are gonna be a genuine witch and sorcerer with these." Janna was nearly jumping from foot to foot at the thought of it when another voice popped in.
"Mon, you be familiar wit the tail of the girl spillin milk and not gettin a dress." Janna calmed herself down with Ferguson nodding in agreement. Janna then spoke to the skull that was currently hiding in her backpack.
"Sorry Janjak, but this is closest I think anyone on earth has come to genuine magic in years, perhaps decades; and we are the ones about to seize it." Janna looked to Ferguson who had out a sheet of paper with what was close to a shopping list on it.
Janna and Ferguson were not actually going to get very much here, it would make no sense looking for stuff here as this wasn't a store for magical supplies, but all things considered every little bit counted. Ever since they got that chapter of magic from Star's book and aided by Janjak as well the duo had been scouring everywhere for ingredients for magic spells and magical supplements. There were actually a surprising number of items that could be found in stuff you could buy from the super market. Goat's cheese was actually a vital ingredient and was just as good or nearly as good as many other items that were hard to find. Some however were rather unusual, ducks feet, rare, hummingbird saliva, couldn't be found on earth, Hydra poison, or couldn't be found anymore, pure breed American chestnut blossoms. Fortunately Janjak had developed a sense while he was in the museum that could tell when something would work as a spell ingredient even if he couldn't tell how effective it would work until tested. However, it was kind of hard to just drag a witchdoctor skeleton around with you in daylight, especially when he could be wanted for escaping the museum. So to compensate Janna had to take his skull around to help them look for things, speaking of which…
"I sense an alternative to dried bat wings, to the right." Janna and Ferguson turned and went a short distance to find a stand with someone working some type of leather while he explained to some students how it was traditionally done.
Looking at each other the two acknowledged how much like a renaissance fair this event was as Ferguson went to join the crowd ready to distract the man while Janna snuck in around behind the stand. Their method was actually well practiced, Janna would sneak in and gather what was needed and if someone was catching onto her Ferguson would make a distraction. Usually it involved hitting on a girl with his belly and keep on doing so to every girl in the area or making his belly sing a loud and obnoxious song. Janna admitted that while it was effective it did leave Ferguson a might bit humiliated leaving Janna feeling slightly guilty even though he claimed he was fine with it. Wasting no time and hoping to avoid doing that Janna snuck in following a strange beeping noise Janjak made that increased in tempo the closer Janna got to the object. After a minute of searching Janjak stopped his beeping indicating Janna had gotten to the object which seemed to be a few small yellow hides of some sort.
"Let's see… eenie meenie minee…" Janna spoke before just grabbing all of them and throwing them into her backpack with Janjak speaking up his voice muffled by the hides.
"Eh mon, take them all and you might be noticed." Janna smirked coming out from behind the stand to join the crowd while whispering to Janjak.
"Well I don't know when I'm getting mo… what is that?" Janna asked louder pointing to where Floyd was flapping along with a crowd of school girls following closely chanting something along the lines of 'Yaoi! Yaoi! Yaoi!' This caused the whole crowd watching the leather worker to immediately burst into laughter which intensified when they saw Tempest and Oskar on Floyd's back. Ferguson made his way over to Janna holding himself as he couldn't stop his laughter from coming out.
"It seems Tempest and Oskar are a couple now. *Ha ha ha ha* man this is too awesome!" Janna was on one knee as she tried replying through her laughs.
"Man *haha* they are never *haha* going to live *haha* this one down!" As they laughed however Janna bent forward a little too far and the stolen leather fell out in front of everyone. "*hah-* Oh that's not good." The worker immediately yelled out at them.
"Give me back my tanning materials thieves." Janna and Ferguson immediately scooped up the dropped materials and made a break for it with the still laughing crowd acting as a decent screen for them.
They ran through the stalls quickly hoping to get some good distance to put the stuff away and hoped no one would call them out on it at a later date. As they turned their third corner however they ran head first into a very tall entity in a trench coat of sorts head on. The duo dropped their leather and the figure collapsed revealing itself to be three short people stacked on top of each other. The two groups picked themselves up and stared at each other for a minute with Ferguson speaking up.
"Um… who are you and why are you stacked on each other like a movie cliché sneaking into the theater?" One of the trio answered quickly.
"We just wanted to see how many people were fooled by this disguise before we really tried it out." Janna's eyes narrowed as the answer had been 'too' fast for comfort and seemed to remember seeing them from somewhere before.
"Say, you guys look familiar. You wouldn't happen to know Star would you?" The three looked at each other in concern with Ferguson now looking suspicious. "Because I think I saw you at Brittany's birt-"
"I know you're here somewhere." Janna and Ferguson froze up as they recognized the leather worker's voice with Ferguson speaking up.
"We didn't see you if you didn't see us?" The trio nodded. "Ok, let's get going." The two groups passed each other going in their original directions with Janna stuffing the hide into her backpack before they continued to zigzag hoping to avoid capture.
"…so then Star shot a 'Raspberry panzer blast' and destroyed the tower and the Tremorfidian crystal allowing us to gate out. But not before we witnessed the princesses having a victory party as they were winning." Jackie chuckled at Marco's words while suppressing a sigh and responded.
"It's nice that you have helped Star out so much. You are one of the nicest guys I know to do all this for your best friend." Marco chuckled and rubbed the back of his head before speaking.
"Yeah. I like helping Star out because… she needs me. She's a fantastic person and friend and I want everyone to see her the way I see her. If only they could see her and not the 'Monster' that many project onto her all the time." Jackie took Marco's hand and kissed his cheek making him smile while she repressed another sigh.
Their entire 'wind down date' as Marco put it had been less than satisfactory for Jackie simply because Marco had been talking mostly about Star. He didn't do it intentionally but she could clearly see where his attention was and she was questioning once again if their relationship could work. Don't get her wrong she loved the time she spent with Marco; he was so thoughtful and considerate and went so far for her simply to see her happy. But he spent less time with her then he thought he did and he went 'too' far in trying to make her happy when they were together at times. She would have approached him outright about these issues to resolve them but… she has seen the way Star looks at him at times and even once saw carefully concealed pain in her gaze when she saw Marco and Jackie kissing once. Jackie wanted to be sure it would work with Marco by letting him act naturally before approaching him even though it might only hurt their relationship. 'God why is this so difficult; why didn't I just wait for the next day to make my move?' Jackie thought as Marco looked ahead in confusion and spoke.
"A… Mewman Star?" Jackie looked up where he was looking and saw a stand with merchandise of some sort that looked like Disney princess stuff. "No wait Star has hearts on her cheeks not diamonds." The two walk up to the stand to see some sort of goblin like creature pop up and look at the two before speaking.
"Hello there, here to buy merchandise?" The two look at each other in confusion as the Goblin waits for their response with Marco stuttering one out.
"Um, who are you and who gave you permission to set up this stand?" The goblin chuckled and spoke.
"I am Troblin the Goblin, catchy name isn't it? And Star Butterfly gave me permission in honor of her mother, Moon the Undaunted." The goblin held up one of the action figures on the stand showing a silver haired girl with light pink diamond cheek marks wearing battle armor with a smile on her face.
"Wait, Moon…" Marco looked at the figure for a second as he finally recognized her. "That's Star's mother?"
"Indeed." Marco, Jackie, and Troblin looked over to see Alexis had spoken with Chloe and Alfonzo coming up alongside her. "Queen Moon has gathered a large fanbase after the War of Moonlight Shadow due to her rebellious nature and fair rule. This led to a large stream of merchandise like that you see here now." Marco and Jackie looked at each other in confusion as Troblin stepped in.
"Even now it inspires many a rabble rouser to find a righteous cause and throw their weight behind it to make the world a better place." At this Alfonzo spoke up.
"Wait, Star's mom gets merchandise for fighting a war?" Alexis nodded and spoke again.
"Yeah. How else do you think Moon paid for war reparations after the war was done?" The four kids looked at each other a shrugged at this with Chloe stepping forward to the stand.
"Um, how much do they cost?" Troblin chuckled and spoke up professionally.
"Well about 10 'dollars' as you folks would put it… no wait… 12 'dollars'. Your currency is a bit wonky on exchange rates." Chloe turned and ran speaking up.
"I'll be right back, I left my purse in my locker." Marco went to speak up but Chloe was a lot faster then she looked and was gone before Marco could get a word out.
"Man she's fast, like a professional athlete or something." The group nodded as Marco reached into his hoodie. "I was going to get something for all of us but I can just wait until she gets back." He pulled out a stack of bills from underneath his hoodie catching everyone's attention with Jackie speaking up.
"Um, how much money is that?"
"Six hundred and fifty dollars." Everyone blinked in shock at Marco's words with Alfonzo speaking up first.
"Wow, your babysitting jobs really paid of-" He was cut off however as Janna and Ferguson came rushing around a corner and stopped next to the group panting heavily. "Um… are you guys ok?" Ferguson nodded and spoke through his breaths.
"We just *pant pant* wanted some *pant pant* spell ingredients. *pant pant* Before Marco could speak a similarly out of breath person who looked like the leather worker came around the corner speaking up.
"*pant pant* Finally I *pant pant* found you. *pant pant* Now give *pant pant* up the *pant pant* stolen leather." Marco turned back to Janna and Ferguson his eyes narrowing.
"Janna, what did you take?" Janna composed herself as best as possible and spoke as best she could.
"We found something that could work as a substitute for bat wings, *pant pant* so we just thought a few bits of hide wouldn't' be missed. *pant pant* Right?" Out of everyone it was Alexis who spoke up first with a disappointed tone of voice.
"Don't you know this is how this person makes a living? It's like shoplifting except this guy has no fall back wealth. Either pay him back or give him back his leather." Janna and Ferguson looked at each other in worry before going through their pockets with Ferguson speaking up first.
"I got this partially eaten jaw breaker but I was saving it for later."
"Ew gross." Alfonzo, Jackie, and Marco spoke simultaneously and Janna smiled devilishly.
"Oh Marco, will you pay for the leather? In exchange you'll get your house keys back." Janna dangled a set of keys in front of her making Marco groan in frustration knowing what would be easier in this situation.
"Fine, how much does it cost?" Marco turned to the leather worker who, after a quick deal with Marco, got 50 dollars in compensation as well as agreeing not to tell the principal of what happened. "Next time, don't steal from these people Janna; they're a lot less forgiving then people from earth." Janna shrugged and sat down taking a breather.
"Well I know I should be more careful one way or another." Janna grinned evilly at him making Marco groan.
Jackie chuckled at this and thought to herself, 'You know, even if it doesn't work between us, being just friends with him would be great.'
Star brushed herself off after stepping out of the bathroom and walked back at a relaxed pace thinking of how well everything had gone so far. Even Lancer and Helsinki had struck up a conversation on crossbows of all things giving her a strange sense of ease. 'For once, everything is going just fine.' Star thought to herself before tapping on some random wood. She heard it was an earth tradition to ward off bad luck when you say something is going really well or think of the only thing that could ruin it. As Star turned a corner she say Chloe Park pull a purse out of a locker and close it rushing away quickly with nervous looks over her shoulder. Star blinked in confusion and brushed it off passing by the locker but stopping three lockers down as she remembered whose locker it might belong to.
"Wait… is that the locker of…" Star thought for a minute before speaking. "No no it can't be… right? She would never give her combo out and even Janna can't get into these lockers easily due to the tough combinations. But then if that was the case…" Star looked back knowing one way to confirm it but not wanting to go there. "I'm not a snoop, I am a princess. I should not go…" Star debated with herself internally before finding herself drawn to the locker to confirm suspicions. "Just a quick peek perhaps." Star pointed her wand at the locker. "Gumdrop Unlock Combo!" A shot of light and the door fell open undamaged allowing Star to confirm whose locker it was… with her mouth open in shock and speaking quietly. "Great Sparks of the Dawi Zharr! It can't be!"