Like Father, Like Daughter
Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Star vs. the Forces of Evil
Chapter 27: School Troubles
Star wrapped her arms around Marco; she clung to him close.
They were ridding Nachos heading to school. Marco wanted to be alone with Star for a little bit, and this was his chance. Seraph was heading to school early as she wanted to work on an art project.
He thought this ride could help him break the ice with Star here. He'd notice her cling to him, to stay close.
"Star, can we talk?" Marco spoke, keeping his eyes on the road.
He knew nachos would course correct, but he felt he should pay attention.
"Uh, sure, what do you want to talk about?" Star asked him.
"How are you dealing with the dream you had because of the Dream Eater?"
Star flinched at the name; it wasn't too long ago that that Dream Eater arrived and messed with everyone's head.
Marco continued, "I know how he can mess with you. The first time I met him... Well, I had trouble sleeping for days. I know that the dreams he gives you can linger."
Star found herself clinging to Marco a little tighter.
In her dream, Marco never really left Hekapoo's dimension, not really. He settled down and married Hekapoo, and they had a daughter who aged typically. He rarely had time for her. It felt like Star was losing him.
It seemed so real, and now she was afraid she'd lose Marco for real.
"No, I've been sleeping all right," Star told him.
"You sure? Because if you ever need to talk I'm here for you."
"I know, I know."
Marco didn't exactly believe her, "You know besties can talk about anything."
"I know, thanks." Star smiled at him. "If I need to talk, I'll be sure to come to you."
"Okay," Marco said softly.
He only caught the end of her dream; he saw her as queen, and Marco assumed that it about her growing up and taking all that responsibility. He didn't want to press the issue as she hadn't told him anything, but he stumbled into her actual dream, and it felt like a violation of her mind.
Marco said one more thing, "Okay, I just want you to know that it does get better."
"… do the dreams fade away?"
"…No, not really, but you get used to them. You get used to them."
Soon they arrived at the parking lot at school. They got off Nachos, and Marco patted her head as he pulled out some jerky.
"Oh! Can I feed her?" Star asked him.
"Sure," He gave her the jerky.
Star took it and placed it under Nachos' mouth, the dragon quickly gobbled it up licking Star's hand and making her giggle.
Marco petted her again, "That's a good girl. Now, go home, and we'll see you later."
Nacho sniffed the air looking around.
"Everything is good, girl." Marco told her, "Go home."
Nachos growled before pulling out and spreading her wings. They watched her fly off the way home.
Marco looked at his best friend, "Okay, let's have a good day school."
"Right,"
0000
A five minutes later, Marco and Star were walking into the school to see Seraph in the middle of flaming chaos.
The ground around her was scorched, her eyes glowing with flames and the air around her shimmering with heat. Students all around were hiding behind pillars or anything they could. Lockers, walls, bushes, and anything unlucky not able to move seemed to be scorched or still on fire.
Brittney was running around with the tips of her long hair burning. Seraph's raged filled eyes seemed to follow the cheerleader.
No one around her seemed all that eager to help.
Marco took in the situation and quickly pieced things together.
"Seraph!" Marco's voice rang out all out the school as he rushed in, standing in between both girls. "Seraph Celosia Diaz, you stop that this instant!"
Marco was using his dad tone, snapping Seraph out of her fury based trance.
"D-dad?"
Seraph blinked and whimpered all the flames quickly died down, including the ones on Brittney.
Star quickly got to Brittney to make sure she was okay.
"What happened?" Marco's fatherly tone actually made everyone around them a little tense, as if they were all being scolded by their dads. "Why did you go berserk and try to set Brittney on fire?" His tone was quiet but upset. "We've told you how you should be careful with your powers, how you should be careful with your strength, especially with those weaker than you?"
"...Never to pick a fight."
"Then why did you ignore all that and suddenly attack."
Seraph was quiet and found it hard to meet her father's disapproving gaze.
Alfonzo and Ferguson rushed into the quad carrying fire extinguishers and sprayed them on Brittney, failing to realize they arrived a little too late.
0000
Minutes later, in Skeeve's office, the principle waited with Mister Candle next to him. On one side of the room was Brittney sitting in a chair with her butler standing by her side. He was a tall, thin older gentleman with a bushy mustache and wearing a traditional butler uniform.
On the other side of the room was Seraph sitting between Marco and Hekapoo. Hekapoo looked upset at her daughter; she arrived quickly enough when they had called her.
Skeeves took a deep breath as he looked at some notes. "Okay, let's start this. What happened?"
"Brittney started it!" Seraph was quick to yell out, which only started Brittney up.
"Girls!" Candle interrupted them. "Okay, Seraph, please start, but only tell us what happened. I don't want to hear accusations."
Seraph took a breath, "I was finishing something in art class and then went to go put my project in my locker. I was talking to Starfan about…."
"About what?" Skeeves pried.
"I was very proud of my project and how I wanted to show it to my parents. That was when Brittney interrupted and started talking badly about my parents. I got angry, I got really angry and the next thing I knew I was blowing up."
"Brittney, is this true?" Candle questioned the student.
She turned her head.
"Brittney!" Candle raised his voice; he was unusually firm today.
The startled cheerleader shouted, "Fine! Yes! I said her parents were just a bunch of loser freaks just like she was, that she and her parents brought in that thing, and that's why none of us could get any sleep! She's just a little useless mistake that brings trouble!"
Flames jumped from Seraph but were smothered by Hekapoo's power.
"Yes, we talked to some of the students who witnessed the altercation." Skeeves explained, "That is what they said, that Seraph minded her own business when she bumped into Brittney. Brittney started to insult her and her family, and you both started shouting at each other. Some of the students did manage to break you apart before anything happened, but Brittney said something which I won't repeat-"He looked at the two girls, "And Seraph started heating up, and flames erupted everywhere."
Candle sighed as he decided to continue, "I honestly wouldn't have expected the young Miss Diaz of all our students to do something so drastic. While it was a moment of passion affecting your powers, I noticed no one besides Brittney was hurt. The area was scorched, but the attack hit no one besides Miss Wong."
"I didn't mean to do it!" Seraph protested.
Candle held out a hand to stop her, "I believe you, it was a moment of passion as I said, I think you even subconsciously directed the flames away from everyone except Miss Wong. On an unconscious level, you did hope she would be hurt."
Brittney smiled smugly, thinking she won.
"You not Scott free," Skeeves pointed out, "You started this mess."
"What are you just going to blame me?" Brittney shouted. "She tried to set me on fire!"
"Oh, yes, she will be punished," Skeeves told her firmly. "But you are not without blame in all this, Miss Wong."
"She tried to set me on fire!" She repeated, holding out the scorched ends of her long black hair, "My hair is ruined!"
"Just cut the tips." Hekapoo spat out, "get some extensions if you really want it that long, otherwise just wait until it grows back."
"To her, that was the equivalent of punching," Mister Candle explained her, "you are lucky that she didn't land a direct blow. Though I doubt you'd be able to take an actual punch from her. This situation isn't much different from a fight between two students." Mister Candle rubbed his chin, "Things have been hectic, we're all on edge because of recent events."
"Ugh," Brittney reiterated, "because a big bad dream demon shot out of Seraph's mom's dimension looking for her father."
Skeeves coughed, Marco hated to admit it, but that happened, and everyone was on edge and likely because of those events. Marco could tell those events affected even Skeeves and Candle. Candle seemed unusually tired, and Marco could only assume that he had a lot of students talking to him about their dreams.
Brittney looked at Marco, "Why is he here?"
"He's Seraph's father," Skeeves answered that.
"He's still a teenager, shouldn't you have called his parents or something."
"He's still her father and has been nothing but responsible," Skeeves told her, not letting on he didn't even realize that was an option.
Marco turned to Seraph, "I'm going to make sure your grandparents hear about this too."
Seraph shrunk in her chair.
"And why is your butler here?" Hekapoo shot back.
The butler spoke calmly, "I am Miss Wong's guardian until her parents return from their work in Milan."
"When will that be? I might like to talk to them."
"Not for some undetermined time."
"Miss Wong," Mister Candle started got on point, "just because things have been difficult; it doesn't excuse your behavior."
"Ugh." She let out, "Fine, Sebastian, if you would."
The butler quickly took out a checkbook and filled it out and handed it to Skeeves.
"Oooh!" Hekapoo chuckled, "You want to do it this way?"
She pulled out her scissors and opened a portal, suddenly gold and jewels poured covering his desk.
"Little girl, I have a literal planet made of this stuff," Hekapoo said, closing the portal.
Brittney felt poor for once.
Skeeves cleared his throat, "Well, this will certainly … help and pay for damages and solve some issues but I still insist both girls be punished." Skeeves was very greedy, but considering the events of late, he wasn't willing to let both girls go without some sort of punishment.
"Might I make a suggestion?" Mister Candle asked.
"Be my guest."
"I would suggest that we have them work together to repair the damages to the school. Touch up some paint over burn marks, replace broken locker doors, and the like. We'll excuse them from their classes of course I doubt after everything that's happened today they'd be able to focus on their studies."
Seraph asked, "You really want us to lose a day of school?"
"You having to play catch up will be part of the punishment. Or would you prefer to be suspended for a few weeks and catch up to that."
"That sounds fine." Skeeves agreed, "But a few more caveats, your are both banned from after school activities that are to include both cheerleading and your art clubs, "He turned from to Seraph, "That will also include using the art class before school."
"For how long?" Seraph questioned him.
"I will decide at the end of the day, depending on how much you accomplish, I will decide how long you will be banned. If you finish the whole list of repairs, I will think to lessen the ban. I will have the custodian staff give you a list of the damages and bring over the supplies needed to repair."
"Fine," Seraph bowed her head.
"Whatever," Brittney scoffed.
"Good," Mister Candle smiled, "think of this as a chance for both of you to work out your issues and work together. Maybe even become friends." The counselor flinched as both girls glared at him.
0000
The group waited outside the office. Marco and Seraph scolded Seraph.
Marco told her, "You are grounded for a month, that means no going anywhere outside of school and home unless one of us or your grandparents are with you."
"That means no scissors too. Hand them over to your father." Hekapoo told her.
Seraph flinched, "But mom-"
"No, but, you know what having those scissors mean. I gave them to you because I thought you were responsible, and you know how to use your power properly. It seems I was mistaken. Until you prove otherwise, your father will hold onto your scissors and only given them back to you when he thinks you're responsible to have them again."
Hesitantly she handed her scissors over to Marco, who quickly pocketed them.
"Yes, while you're grounded you won't have any dessert, you can't ride Nachos by yourself, and I still expect you to do all your chores, your even going to have to pick up more chores."
Seraph wasn't able to look at her parent at the moment, Hekapoo said, "I'll be back after school, we are going to have a long talk about using your abilities more responsibly."
Marco sighed, "You know, we're not doing this because we want to, right? You did something wrong, and you have to be punished."
"It's one thing to use your fire powers to fight someone, but you really could have hurt that girl."
"But-"Seraph tried to start.
Marco stopped her, "I know she insulted us, but that doesn't mean you get to hurt her. We love you, but we're just disappointed in how you acted today. We expect better from you."
Brittney just watched them for a moment as Hekapoo and Marco scolded her.
Sebastian merely told her, "Miss Wong, I will be returning to your home. I will make sure your favorite meal is waiting for you when you arrive."
"Be sure that you do." She crossed her arms.
A moment later, Mister Candle and Skeeves stepped out. "Girls, follow me. I'll take you to get everything."
With that, they were dismissed and parted ways.
"Marco," Skeeves said, "I'll take you back to class."
"Can we just have a minute?" Hekapoo asked.
"Of course, Miss Hekapoo."
"It's just Hekapoo; it's just the one name."
Skeeves took a few steps away to give them some privacy.
"Sorry, we took you from what you were doing," Marco told her.
"No, don't worry about it," Hekapoo told him. "She's my daughter too, so I should be here for there things. Just a word of warning, be on guard."
"Why? Do you think Erebus is coming back?"
"No, he's not one to do a double show. Even if he only worked through agents or acolytes, he won't move so much. Most of the time, he's only showed up every few centuries even if he's started showing up every few months to mess with us; I don't see him acting so soon."
"Then what's got you worried?"
"The portals we opened when he fought the Dream Eater, it destabilized space around here. Space is healing as it should, but it feels off to me. It seems to be healing slowly; I think it has to do with how space was distorted when we opened those portals up. I wanted to ask, have you seen or heard anything odd going on since then?"
"No, not really, everything has been quiet."
"I see, that's good. I thought that maybe while space was weak here, something could have slipped into this dimension. Just keep an eye out and let me know if anything pops up. I'll show up and get it out of here."
"Okay," Though Marco wasn't that worried, if something did slip into the dimension, they would have noticed it by now.
"Okay, I'll swing by after school, and I guess we'll a long talk with Seraph about all this."
"Yeah,"
Hekapoo opened and stepped into to get back to work.
Marco walked along with Skeeves, "I honestly never thought this would happen with a child that was yours."
"What?"
"Mister Safety Kid having a daughter that would have an actual firefight never cross my mind. Plus, Seraph's been one of the nicest students we've had. She's been an absolute dear. Since this is the first time she's broken any rule, I am trying to go easy on her, but she was literally throwing fire, so I must make sure she doesn't try it again."
"No, I understand, and I do intend to talk to her after school."
"That's good," Skeeves did honestly feel for the boy, his life was crazy enough and having this situation thrown in wasn't going to be any easier.
"So, how did things go?" Janna met them in the middle of the hall.
"Shouldn't you be in class?" Marco asked her.
"Pfft," She held out a note. "I have a pass for the bathroom. So, is your kid being expelled?"
Marco quickly realized her real reason for being there, Janna was trouble sometimes, but she cared in her own way, especially since the nearest bathroom was not near the principles office.
"Oh, that would be far too much paperwork." Skeeves walked a few steps ahead of her.
"Okay, did you bribe him?" She asked Marco.
"…Ah," Marco started, technically they had.
"Gotcha!" Janna winked with a knowing smile.
"She's being punished I didn't feel that suspension was required for a first-time offense.
"Riiiiight, smooth," Janna kept at it.
As they walked down the way, they found two men in black suits walking down the hall.
"What's with the G-men?" Janna looked at them suspiciously.
"Gentlemen, can I help you?" Skeeves
Both men pulled out badges, Marco quickly noted the seal a bald eagle with a magnifying glass.
The older agent with a mustache spoke in a rather manly tone, "I'm Agent Powers, and this is Agent Trigger. Are you Principal Skeeves?"
"Ah, yes, what is this concerning?" Marco noted a bit of nervous tone as he spoke.
"We are here to investigate reports mysterious activity; most seem to focus in or around this very school."
"Mysteries? What kind of mysterious?" Marco could help himself from asking.
"That information is classified," Agent Power looked towards Marco, "between you and me, yes. I believe something is happening in this city of perhaps supernatural origin. Recently we detected strange anomalies on a massive yet focused scale erupt from this very school."
Marco paled, had the government detected the portal he and Hekapoo created.
"Have any of you noticed anything strange?"
"No!" Janna quickly told them. "This school is plain and booooring."
"Yes, we do try and keep this quiet." Skeeves smiled, wring his hands.
"Either way would like your permission to explore the school to make sure everything is up and up." The younger Agent Trigger pulled out a small device. A crackle like static buzzed from it as he waved it, it sounded loud when pointed towards the direction where Hekapoo left with the portal. Then they pointed it towards him, and it started to go off when it went over the pocket where he kept the dimensional scissors.
"Ah, well, I would be delighted to show you around." Skeeves quickly pushed his way between them. "I will have to ask you to go sign in at the office. I will be with you in a moment; I need to make sure these students return to class; I caught them ditching."
"Yeah, trying to skip out on class so we could make out." Janna grabbed Marco. "Needed me some of this." She rubbed his face.
"You know, young love and hormones dangerous combinations. I will be right back." Skeeves push the teenager down the hall.
As soon as they were a reasonable distance away, "Oh, we have to do something."
"Oh, no." Janna panicked.
"What?" What's going on?" Marco looked around, confused.
"Don't be an idiot, Marco! G-men have figured about magic!"
"Yes, and we will all be in trouble for it." Skeeves took a breath. "I have not been honest with the government…. on several things. I should have probably said something about a magical princess from another dimension, about one of our teachers being turned into a troll, or your daughter! Or any of the number of magical incidents I failed to report."
Marco started to panic, "Yeah, it's not like the government has a great track record with discovering things."
"Yeah, if they find out about this, they'll drag everyone into a secrets government facility," Janna said out loud. "Never to see daylight again."
Marco wanted to believe that wasn't the case, but he couldn't risk it if it meant Seraph or Star's safety.
Skeeves pulled out a notepad and wrote out two hall passes and handed them to the pair. "Okay, here's the plan, you try and keep everything magical hidden. I'll try to keep them distracted and away from anything magical."
"Wait, why don't we just tell Star and Seraph not to use any magic or anything?" Marco pointed out.
"They're not the best at keeping those things hidden. Star has wings, and Seraph has horns, I doubt they'd be able to hide them. That and they use their abilities very casually; Star still introduces herself with a flaming rainbow. I doubt even if we told them not to use their powers, they wouldn't do something unaware."
Marco thought about taking away from there, but if their device picked up on the scissors while not in use, they would certainly pick up on a portal forming. That and he'd preferred not to make them afraid of the government of the nation they lived in.
"Okay, let's do this." Marco turned to Janna. "You don't have to do this, you don't have anything at stake, and you could get in trouble."
"Nothing at stake? I don't want to lose Star or Seraph either." Janna smiled at him, "Besides it's not like your good at lying. You need my skills."
"I know they're schedules, so I'll try to keep the agents away where they should be. Just try to hide anything too obvious." He gulped, "The faster they're gone, the better it will be for all of us."
Marco and Janna ran off to try and hide any evidence to the magical without alerting the others.
0000
At the other end of the school, Brittney and Seraph were given a number of tools by the custodial staff. Most of the repairs were most of the stuff broken during the fight, but there were also several repairs of things broken during the last few days.
Brittney assumed they just wanted to punish them and not have to pay for the repairs.
The cheerleader was removing the remains of the melted the locker door and replacing it with a new one.
Seraph was plastering holes in the wall, most of them caused by her fireballs, with a lot of putty and smoothing it over. She was then to paint the walls, the entire wall to make sure it matched.
"I'm sorry." Seraph let out.
"What?" Brittney looked on, confused.
"I'm sorry for attacking you,"
"Why are you saying?"
"Sorry, isn't that what you're supposed to say when you do something wrong?" Seraph kept working. "I am sorry, I know I'm not supposed to use my powers on anybody, just people who attack me or my friends. Most of those things are monsters or things that take the hit, but you can't. I could have hurt you so sorry."
"You're just saying that because you got scolded by your parents."
"Yeah, I know what I did was wrong, but you're just so annoying!"
"What?!" Brittney said outraged.
"Oh, don't act so surprised. This can't be the first time someone called you out on being such a brat."
"Well, yeah, stupid jealous people."
"Jealous of what?"
"My good looks, my popularity, my money."
Seraph scoffed at it, "Okay, you're pretty, but so are a lot of girls. You're not that popular, people like going to your parties or things, but they don't really like you. And what do I care about money? My mom has money. Look at Star; her family is rich and has its own kingdom, but she's one of the sweetest people I've ever meet, and you are just ... bitter."
Brittney stared at Seraph, unsure of what to say.
In their silence, a small pigeon landed on the roof, it turned its head hearing shuffle but didn't react fast enough as a mouth opened wide around it.
A sickly crunch of bones was heard as a lizard with wings the size of a small dog chomped on its meal. Swallowing the bird, the scales on its body glimmered and blended into its background. Slowly it crawled towards the edge of the roof looking at the girls.
0000
Mister Candle looked at the door to his office; there was a long line of students waiting by it.
The dreams had affected everyone in the school, some did have a pleasant dream, but it seemed like the majority had been given nightmares. He had offered his services to any student who wanted to talk. It looked like a majority of the students had taken him up on it. He sat at his desk, pulled up his cup of coffee, and took a deep breath.
"Okay, I'll see the first student,"
0000
Seraph had a pretty easy time painting, this was far more repetitive and boring than her usual painting, but the movement was the same.
Brittney was huffing as she struggled to drive in one of the screws. It looked like they were just about finished with what they had to do here.
"Okay, I'm done with my part," Seraph told Brittney.
"I'm done too." Brittney slammed the locker door, which bounced off instead of locking.
Seraph just took a breath, "Here let me help you with that. My Abuelo taught me a little about this sort of stuff."
Seraph moved over to help and took the screwdriver from her. Brittney leaned back and just watched her work.
Something caught Brittney's attention, a lizard crawling down the walls. In Southern California, it wasn't all that uncommon to see a lizard, but this one was bright yellow with red stripes, and it was the size of a dog.
"Is that someone's pet?" Brittney let out.
Seraph turned to where Brittney was looking, and she paled dropping the screwdriver.
"NoNONONONONO!" Seraph jolted back to the wall trembling as she did.
"Huh, it's a big lizard," Brittney told her,
"Stay away!" Seraph shot balls of fire at the lizard.
Brittney jumped back to avoid it and just got a good shot of watching the lizard opened wide its mouth, and its tongue-lash the fire balls and suck them up.
It did so for every fireball like they were common flies.
"Please, don't eat me!" Seraph begged curling into a ball in fear.
"What's going on?" Brittney looked on, confused.
The lizard's flesh stretch and bubbled, and as bone creaked, it flapped its wing, and it grew larger. It was now the size of a small horse, and it opened it's maw wide as it smacked its teeth. It looked hungrily at the girls and took a step forward.
Author's Notes: Hey, sorry for the delays things have been coming up. I'm not going to get into it but some serious issues came up that stalled this story. All I'm saying is things have gotten better and we hope they stay that way.
But other news, my job is going to get busy for the next few weeks so I won't be doing a lot of writing. But with the holidays coming around I'll be distracted plus I got a time sensitive project in the works. This might be the last chapter for the year but maybe if fate allows I might get something done after christmas. Anyway, please leave a review. Let me know what you thought and what you liked.