Even though I was only running for a moment, I felt out of breath once I stopped. I looked back; the creatures were charging towards the now open gate. People of all genders and ages came running past me and to the gate; four got on either side and began to push it closed. Even with the great amount of support on each side, the gate was closing at a crawl compared to the now not-so-distant creatures. Thankfully, the gate shut with a slam just before the creatures would have entered. It was so perfectly timed that you could hear a few bangs come from the other side as the creature's heads hit into the gate. A little girl hopped on the shoulders of an incredibly buff man before sliding the lock to the gate over.

The man who had killed the wolf walked past me and up to the group of people; I must have looked stupid considering that I hadn't moved since I got in there. The man helped the girl off the shoulders. "Everyone okay?" he asked. Everyone nodded as he put the girl on the ground. "Good. Now get back to your stations."

Once it was clear the man wasn't going to speak, everyone scattered away from each other. A few climbed up the ladders and onto the bridge; they were armed with a variety of primitive ranged weapons. Others grabbed hoes and began to plow at the plots of dirt-like material around the place. The man looked back at us. "Looks like we saved you guys in the nick of time," he said with a grin.

"Yeah," Marco said. He took a few deep breaths as he brushed off his pants. "You could say that again."

The man brushed off his hands. "Well, anyway..." He approached us. "Welcome to Icota. We aren't the most civilized town, but we sure do know how to plant!" Now that we weren't in high paced action, I could actually see what he was wearing. It wasn't much; just a tore up cloak, an unrecognizable shirt, a pair of jeans, and an eyepatch across his eye. He had jet black hair.

I rubbed my face before looking over at Kate. "What's happening?" I asked in a whisper.

She returned my gaze. "I think we were just chased by a wolf made of clothes."

I nodded my head. "Yeah. Sounds about right." I looked back over at the man. "So... could you tell me where we are exactly?"

The man raised an eyebrow. "You don't know?" He stared at me for a few more seconds before examining my body. "Oh! You must be new to these parts." He walked past us and started to walk down a path. "Follow me. I'll tell you everything you need."

Marco shook his head a few times. "This is crazy," he said before following the man. It didn't take long for me and Kate to follow in his footsteps.

Buildings were on either side of the path; they ranged from simple huts to complex buildings. They were made out of a variety of materials. Walls surround the town; they didn't look nearly as strong as the gate though. A few kids ran by us. Their clothing was similar to the man's (minus the cloak and eyepatch) and they were all covered in dirt. Despite that, they seemed to be playing like any other kids would. Some of them gave me weird stares as they passed us; I awkwardly stared back. A few of the complex buildings had porches; people were on them. Some were sitting, others stood.

The man went up to one of the complex buildings and knocked on the door; it sounded almost metal. Unlike all the other buildings, there were no windows. It also looked like it was made out of a much stronger material than the other buildings. An old man sat in a rocking chair near the door; I swear he stared at me out of the corner of his eyes. A bar on the door slid out of the way revealing a pair of eyes. "Password?" A man asked, his voice sounded like a cat scraping on a chalkboard.

The man sighed. "Black Hawk." The bar slid shut and was followed by the sound of a few dozen locks unlocking. The door, scraping across the floor as it did, slowly opened. The man stepped inside and looked back at us; he gestured us to follow. We all looked at each other before quickly following.

The first thing we were greeted with was a tight hall. Candles sat on tables dimly lighting the place. The man who had opened the door stared at us as we tried to catch up to the man. We eventually did. "It's been a long time since anyone new has come," the man said without looking back at us. "So I wanted to make sure you were prepared."

We reached the end of the hallway; a moderately sized room greeted us. Makeshift furniture sat around the place and the room was only barely lit up by candles. A variety of swords and ranged weapons sat on the walls. From primitive guns to bows. A woman leaned against the wall; she had a small dagger in her hands. Not too far away from her, a buff man and a fat man sat on a makeshift couch playing some card game. The little girl from earlier was coloring on a table; it seemed she was making a flower. The man walked into the center of the room. "Everyone!" he semi shouted. The inhabitants of the room looked over at him. "We have new fallen ones!"

The woman jabbed her dagger into the wall. "New fallen ones?!" she said as she got off the wall. Her voice sounded like what a tough gym coach would have. "There hasn't been one of those in years!"

The fat man looked up from his cards. "Are you sure they're new?" he asked.

The man stepped out of the way to show us. "Look at their clothes! They're still brand new!"

Marco sniffed his hoodie; a face of disgust followed. "Would not call that brand new," he said. He was so disgusted that it looked like he was very close to ripping off his hoodie.

The people in the room acted like Marco never said anything. The little girl looked up from their doodle. "They do look pretty new," she said. Her voice matched her body perfectly. "They don't even have any scars."

Without any warning, the buff man playing cards threw his deck against the table. "Dammit!" he shouted as he stood up and punched a hole in the nearest wall.

Everyone, even us, stared at him. "What's wrong, Pat?" the man eventually asked.

Pat ripped his hand out of the wall, a few pieces of it coming out with him; his hand was somehow unscathed. He pointed at the fat guy, tears welling up in his eyes as he did. "He Played A Plus Four Card!" he shouted at the man in a whiny voice. "I Even Had Uno!"

"Wait..." I said as I squinted at the cards. A big, fat UNO sat on the back of them. "You guys have Uno?"

Like they did with Marco, the people ignored what I said. The fat guy leaned back into the couch. "That's what you get for bragging."

Pat looked like he was about to lung on him. He put his hand out and squeezed as if a throat was there. "Why! I oughta-"

The black-haired man jumped over the table and landed in between the two. He pushed Pat back. "Fellas, fellas. You're making us look bad in front of our guests!" He had a calm demeanor despite the person he was pushing back being three times his size. After the fire behind Pat's eyes seemed to diminish a bit, the man walked back to the center of the room. "I just realized. We haven't even introduced ourselves yet!" He looked at the rest of the room. "Who wants to go first?"

Silence followed as everyone in the room glanced at each other. The man sighed. "Alright then. I guess I'll do it." He turned to us and pointed to himself. "I'm Ned. Some people like to insist I'm the leader even though we don't have one."

"Pfff! Yeah right!" the woman with the dagger chimed up. "You're the one they listen to! Hell, they even call you The Black Hawk! None of us get cool nicknames."

Ned rolled his eyes. "And that wonderful lady is Raven. She's our hunter and or scout."

Raven returned to leaning against the wall. "I'm a lot more than that."

He looked back at her. "Those are your main roles, okay?" Ned looked back at us before turning to the makeshift couch. "You already met Pat. He's the muscle of the town." Pat didn't say anything, but he did put his hands on his hips and gain a proud smile. He looked down at the fat guy. "That's Ben: the brain of the group."

Ben slightly waved at us. "Sup," he said.

Ned turned over to the little girl. "And finally, this is Olivia. She gives us all of our ideas."

Olivia moved her head down but used her eyes to look at us. She smiled. "Hi."

Ned smiled at her before turning back to us. He rested his hands on his hips. "And that's everyone!" He paused for a moment. "Well, everyone of importance anyways." He looked at all of us. "So, what about you guys? What're your names?"

We all looked at each other; it looked like no one planned on answering. After a few moments of nothing, I decided I'd end the silence. I sighed and put my hand on my chest. "Landin," then I pointed at Marco, "Marco," then I pointed at Kate. "And Kate." I returned my gaze back to Ned. "We don't have any roles."

Ned nodded his head a few times. "Okay. That was... brief."

Before Ned could continue, Raven's voice began to boom out. "Ugh! I'm tired of waiting!" she shouted as she yanked her dagger out of the wall. Even though she was quite some distance away, when I blinked, a dagger was to my throat and her face was in front of me. "Where are you from?" she asked in a cold, raspy voice.

Everything that had just happened hit my brain like a truck as I jolted back. "Ah!" I shouted as I fell to the floor. I looked over at Kate and Marco; they looked like they were about to help but then they jumped back, remembering the dagger in Raven's hands.

Raven looked like she was about to pounce on me, but before she could, Ned pulled her back. "How many times do I have to tell you not to threaten our guests?!" he shouted.

She tried to get out of his grasp. Thankfully, she failed. She looked back at him. "How do we know we can trust them?" she asked loudly. "We don't even know where there from!"

Ned sighed. "If you would've given me five more seconds, I would have asked that." He somehow still had a calm voice.

Once Kate knew she wasn't going to be stabbed if she tried, she came over and started to help me up. I smiled at her, trying to silently give my thanks; she seemed to understand and smiled back. Pat came over, picked up Raven like she was a sack of feathers, and held her away from Ned. "You guys need to stop fighting all the time!"

Raven squirmed in his grasp. "Let go of me you stupid brute!" she shouted. Pat frowned but otherwise didn't seem to react. "How can you even defend these outsiders?!" She yelled at Ned.

Ned looked like he was going to answer, but Ben's voice had already come out. "He wasn't, you ignorant buffoon. He was trying to get information before you did your little stunt!"

I looked over at Olivia; she had stopped coloring and was staring at the entire scene, tears in her eyes. If this was a daily occurrence, I could only imagine what she had been through. Marco saw her too and that seemed to draw the line for him. He turned to the group. "Hey!" He shouted. The action stopped and they looked over at him. "We come from Earth, okay? Just stop fighting!"

If there was any noise in the room before, there certainly wasn't now; just the sound of the flickering candles. Ned stared at us with blank eyes. A few moments passed before he said anything. "Earth?" he said. "You didn't come from Mewni?" Mewni? I thought. Is that what Star meant when she said Bewni?

Pat was giving us the same stare. Apparently, he had also loosened his grip because Raven had vanished from his arms. I glance around the room with panic. By the time I found her, she was already too close for me to do anything. "Why me?" I said as the dagger went up to my throat once more.

"I told you we couldn't trust them!" she shouted at Ned without looking at him. "This so-called Earth is probably a war filled dimension. These guys are barbarians!"

"What?" Kate said. "No! You're completely wrong." That seemed to get Raven's attention since she turned her head to her. "Earth is a very peaceful place. There hasn't been a war in decades."

Ned came over and pulled Raven off of me. "If you guys aren't from Mewni, then how did you even get down here?" he asked.

"Could you tell us how you got here first?" I asked.

"We all worked for the king and queen of Mewni," he said. He looked over at Raven, "Well, besides her." He looked back at us. "Some of us, like Pat and myself, were knights. Others, like Olivia and Ben, were just normal servants. One day, we were all ordered to clean out the princess's closet."

Marco raised an eyebrow. "Why did they need knights for that?" he asked.

Ned sighed. "It had been years since her closet had last been cleaned out, and she had reported seeing animals in there. We were simply there to make sure the servants wouldn't be hurt." Marco nodded his head before Ned continued. "Somehow, there was a hole in the floor that lead to this place. By the time we had realized that, we had all already fallen down it."

How did no one noticed they were gone? "Did no one come looking for you?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Oh, no. People did look. Just most of them fell down here with us."

"Doesn't the queen care if her servants and knights start disappearing?" Kate asked.

"There's hundreds of us. A few of us being missing doesn't really change things," he said. A few moments of silence passed before he continued. "Now you know how we got here. The least you can do is tell us the same."

Silence lingered as Ned looked at us with eager eyes. I sighed. "It's a bit complicated," I said. "Basically, a person from a different dimension moved in with us and we fell into their closet. They also fell into it too."

Ned stared at us for a few seconds before rubbing his chin. Moments passed before he looked up at us, his eyes lit up. "Was the name of your roommate by chance Star Butterfly?"

I gave him a weird stare as I slightly nodded. "Yeah... how'd you know that?"

If I thought his eyes were lit up before, they were as bright as the sun now. "You're telling me Star Butterly is here?!" I could only nod before he turned to everyone else in the room. "Did you hear that?" he asked. Everyone gave him a blank stare. "Star Butterfly Is Here!" he shouted. "We Have Been Rescued!"

"Yippee!" Olivia shouted as she threw her crayons into the air.

Ben shot up off the couch. "Wait, really?" No one could answer him before he began tearing up his deck of cards. "Bye-bye makeshift Uno!"

Pat ran over, picked up the couch, and chucked it towards a wall; it went straight through it. "No more sleeping on old clothes!" he shouted.

Raven glanced over at everyone. "I guess I get to return to my bandit camp," she said as she looked down, a hint of sadness in her voice.

Chaos continued to unfold in front of us as Ned turned to us. "Where is she?" he asked.

Marco cringed. "That's the problem. We don't have a clue. We just know she's somewhere down here."

Ned's eyes dimmed slightly, but the light they lost quickly returned. "That's fine! We'll just go look for her!"

"Wait," I said. "We could've just left?"

Ned stared at me with squinted eyes. "Yeah. Did you think you were forced to stay here?"

"No, I thought there were big ass monsters out there!"

"Oh, there is. It's just really easy to kill them."

I sighed and rubbed my face. "Okay, fine. How are we gonna find her?"

After a while of discussion and planning, Ned decided that the best thing to do was to split everyone in the entire camp up into groups of four. There were a lot more people in the camp then I thought; at least thirty. Me, Kate, and Marco with the addition of Ned were put into a group while everyone else's seemed to be random. We had been walking for a while at that point with minimal encounters from the "clothes monsters," as I've come to call them. Ned told us stories during the walk; from the time before he fell, to present. He had interesting stories but I'd be lying if I said I listened to them; I was only focused on one thing. Finding Star.

Eventually, after what felt like decades of walking and dozens of stories later, we ran into something; or, rather, we heard something. "Heave!" A bunch of men shouted in the distance. Ned looked back at us. "You hear that?" he asked as the men shouted "Ho!"

"Yeah," Kate said. She pointed in the direction of the men. "I think it's coming from over there.

Ned stared out for a few moments before running towards it. All of us tried to catch up with him, but he was just too fast. The closer we got, the more I recognized the voices. I couldn't quite put my finger on where I had heard them before, but I most definitely recognized them. After a few moments of running, we found a path of sorts. It was carved into a mountain of junk and went straight through it. We were just fast enough to see Ned disappear into it. Marco pointed in there. "It's coming from in there," he said. We gave each other quick glances before running in Ned's footsteps.

The path was long, a lot longer than you would expect, but we did eventually reach an end. What greeted us was Ned, eyes wide and his body taken aback, staring at Star. She sat in a makeshift chair and had some weird brand of soda in her hand. Her chair was pointed away from us and at a bunch of men; they were the producers of the sound. They were the source of the noise. "Come on guys!" Star shouted at the men. She took a sip of her soda. "I know I have another pair of scissors in their somewhere," she said, soda still in her mouth.

By the way Ned's jaw was moving, it looked like he wanted to say something, but clearly his vocal cords had different plans. Mine, on the other hand, had no problem cooperating. "Star?" I said.

She looked back at me from her chair. "Oh, hey Landin!" she said like I had run into her at the mall. Her eyes darted over to Ned. "Is that you, Ned? I thought you went missing."

"He did," I said for Ned. "In your closet, or my closet now, I guess.

Star sipped on her drink. "Nope, it's still my closet."

I shrugged as Marco walked past me and up to the men. "Who the hell are these guys?" he asked while pointing to them.

She turned to Marco. "Those guys? They're just the mice I was holding earlier."

I looked over at Kate; judging by her face, she was just as confused as I was. "What?" she eventually asked after a while of staring.

"Yeah, the mice I was holding. They're my own personal moving crew." Now that she had pointed it out, I could clearly see all the men were wearing the same tank tops that the mice and moving crew did. "My mom gave them to me for stuff like this."

They continued to heave and ho. I remembered the entire reason all of this had happened. "So... did you find what you were looking for, or was all of this pointless?"

She took something out of her star purse and wiggled it in front of me; I think it was a really expensive pair of scissors. "Yep! Turns out that thing I grabbed wasn't them though." She pointed at a shoe that was near her. "It was just a shoe. So I had to get these guys to search for a bit."

Marco was still looking at the men. "Well, if you found what you were looking for, why are they still digging?" he asked.

"Oh. I just thought I had another pair somewhere." She stood up and stretched. "But if you guys wanna leave, I'm fine with leaving them."

I looked at everyone. "I don't know about you guys, but I want to get the fuck out of here," I said.

Marco looked away from the men. "Yeah. I feel the same." He shivered. "It's scary knowing a wolf could jump out at you at any moment."

Kate shrugged. "I mean, this place is pretty cool, but I'd prefer to be home right now," she said.

"Okay!" Star said. "Home it is!"

I glanced over at Ned, he was just as awestruck as before. "What about Ned?" I asked.

Star nearly facepalmed. "Oh yeah! How could I forget?" She opened the pair of scissors and dragged them through the air. Unlike a typical pair of scissors that would do nothing, this pair seemed to almost "cut" the air; a tearing sound followed wherever the blade went. Once she was finished "cutting," the purple vortex from the other night opened. "Here, Ned. This is a portal straight to Mewni!"

Ned seemed to finally come back to life as his jaw shut. "Thank you, princess," he said before running in the complete opposite direction.

I looked at him, almost feeling like I needed to chase him. "Where are you going?" I yelled at him.

He looked back at me, still running. "I'm going to tell everyone else!" he shouted back before disappearing from view behind a pile of clothes.

Star stared out for a few moments. She eventually turned to Marco. "How many people have been stuck in here with him?" she asked.

"Much more than you'd expect," Marco said as Star returned to staring out.

A few seconds passed and she shook her head. "Anyways," she said as she faced us. She presented the magical pair of scissors to us. "These are Dimensional Scissors. They give the wielder the ability to travel across dimensions, maybe even universes." She turned to the side and closed her eyes. "All you have to do is think really hard about the place you want to go..." she dragged the scissors through air, the tearing sound followed. She stopped and put the scissors in her bag; the portal opening as she did. Her eyes popped open and she presented the portal to us. "And voila! You got yourself a portal to anywhere in the multiverse!

Kate stared at the portal, her eyes gleaming slightly. "That's pretty cool, I guess."

Marco glanced at Kate before staring back at the portal. "You guess? This is fucking amazing!"

I nodded my head a few times. "Yeah, it looks pretty."

Star smiled at all of us before stepping in front of the portal. "Well then, come on!" She raised her foot up and put half of it in before taking it out again. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot." She pulled her wand out and aimed it at the men who were still heaving and hoeing; a bright blue beam came out before hitting all of the men. A bright flash filled my eyes as I attempted to shield them. After a few moments, I felt like I could open them. The men had completely disappeared, replaced by a bunch of mice wearing tank tops. She bent down and put her hand out. "Come on, little guys!" The mice scurried over and into her hand.

Kate looked at her with blank eyes as she stood back up. "So, let me get this straight," she said. She took a deep breath. "You have a magic wand that people into mice..." She looked down at scissors. "And you need a pair of scissors to travel across dimensions?"

Star thought for a moment. "Yeah, that sums it up pretty well!" She turned back to the vortex before Kate could say anything. "See you guys on the other side!" she said as she jumped in. A sound resembling a "plop" came from the portal.

Moments later and no one else had walked up to the portal. "So..." Marco said as he glanced at all of us. "Who's going first?

After I didn't say anything, a long sigh came from Kate. "I will," she said, making her tone obviously annoyed. She walked up to the portal and looked back at us. "You big babies," she said with a smirk before jumping in.

The "plop" sound came out as I looked over at Marco; he looked at me as well. "Well," I said. I gestured over to the portal. "Go ahead."

"What?! Why me?"

"Because you're the younger one and, you know what they always say..." I grinned. "Youngest goes first."

Marco almost looked taken aback. "Well... I... uh..." the words he was trying to get out never came. Eventually, he sighed. "Fine. I guess I'll go." He walked up to the portal and looked back at me. "But you owe me," he said as he walked in.

I took deep breaths as the "plop sound came out." I felt James appear as he walked in front of me. "You shouldn't be so worried," he said. "I don't think Star would mislead you."

I sighed. "I know." I gave the portal a death stare before slowly approaching. "It's just scary walking into a vortex." As I approached it, I stepped on something hard. I looked down, a pair of scissors stared back at me. I bent down and picked them up; they were a mixture of red and green and had diamonds scattered about on them. "I guess I found the pair she was looking for," I said as I continued to examine them.

James squinted at them from a distance. "You should keep them, " he said.

I stared at my reflection in the blades. "Nah," I said as I shoved them in my pocket. "I'll ask Star." And with that, I took a few deep more breaths before walking up to the portal and entering it.

A/N

Welcome, welcome, welcome! Thanks for reaching the end! My excuse for updating so late? Don't have one. I just felt too lazy to get up and write. But hey, I'm happy with this chapter, so I think the wait was worth it. I didn't introduce these side characters for nothing, so try not to forget about them. Don't got much to say besides stay clean! See ya later.