The sound of the school bell resonated in Star's ears. The loud clanging of metal-on-metal jolted her awake from her state of half-slumber. Her last class of the day, English, had finally ended. She slowly and carefully stood up from her chair and made her way to the door before promptly walking out into the hallway. Marco was right behind her, and within seconds they were walking side by side on their way to their lockers.
"It's finally Friday!" Marco yelled while pumping his fist in the air repeatedly. "I thought I was going to die from boredom in there."
Star gave Marco a look of agreement before pointing down the hallway towards a girl on a skateboard. "Hey, look over there! It's Jackie Lynn Thomas!"
Marco gasped quietly in joy, as not to give away the identity of his crush to everyone in earshot. He couldn't help but smile as she whizzed by, with her platinum blonde hair and seashell necklace flapping around gently in the afternoon breeze.
"Hey, Jackie!" Marco shouted.
Jackie turned around and looked at Marco, her aqua blue eyes making contact with his.
"Hey, Marco." she said before skateboarding her way out of the school.
"Yes!" Marco whispered while blushing. "She talked to me for five days in a row! And twice today!"
Star laughed mockingly at him. "Well, I guess it counts. Even though, I don't think saying 'Hi' to someone really counts as talking."
"Well, for someone who's a relationship expert, I haven't seen you and Oskar talking very much," Marco retorted. "Maybe you become so lovestruck from hearing the sound of his keytar that you can't get the courage to go up and talk to him."
Star smiled and blushed a little. "Well, we talk occasionally."
"Occasionally?" nagged Marco as he closed his locker and walked out of the building with Star.
"Most of the time he just says 'Hi' and keeps playing whatever amazing song he's playing." Star cooed. "And then last week he—"
She was about to continue praising Oskar's "music talent", but then she heard a mysterious noise. It sounded like the noise a supersonic jet makes when it passes through the sound barrier. The noise sounded distant, but at the same time very close by.
"Marco, did you hear that?" she asked.
"Yeah." Marco replied.
They both looked into the sky, trying to find out what could have caused the noise. Yet as suddenly as the noise had happened, it faded into the distance and neither of them could figure out where it came from, or what caused it.
"Well Star, I think we need to get home and—"
Marco looked up into the sky once more, and what he saw shocked him. There were now small pieces of paper in the sky, and they were drifting down towards the ground. Several of the pieces fell down near the two friends. Other pieces were scattered in various places, such as the street, sidewalk, and the school lawn.
"This is really weird, don't you think, Marco?" Star questioned before picking up one of the paper pieces and handing it to Marco. He noticed that there was a single black line that ran across the paper piece that had been handed to him, but he was unable to figure out if the line had any significance.
"This is really weird," Marco noted. "At least to me, this looks like someone from another dimension did it."
"As in like, Ludo?" Star speculated.
"I don't know. As much of a danger Ludo is, he's more of an annoyance than a threat. Besides, his plans never change. He's never dropped paper from the sky before. Maybe this was caused by a yet unknown force of evil."
Star thought back to Monday, when she opened a fortune cookie that featured the ominous message "A great evil has been unleashed". She and Marco laughed off the fortune, knowing from Ludo's fortune cookie scheme that said cookies aren't actually prophetic. But could the message have been foreshadowing what was going to happen? Could it have been more than just a quirky, dark joke?
"Of course, we can't rule out Ludo as the cause of this unless we dig deeper," Marco admitted. "Is there anyone you know who could help us figure this out?"
Star chewed on the base of her wand as she tried to come up with an answer.
"Well..."
"Calling Dad." announced Star's inter-dimensional mirror.
"So your dad is going to help us figure out what happened?" clarified Marco.
Star smirked. "He's the King of Mewni. I think he's seen his share of magical stuff."
A few seconds later, King Butterfly appeared on the screen. He adjusted his crown before speaking.
"Star! How are you doing today?"
Star grinned nervously. "Uh, great Dad, just great..."
"Marco's here too! You must have had quite a day!" he deduced.
Star giggled. "We did. As a matter of fact, that's why we're calling you."
"You called to tell me that you had an awesome Friday hunting down monsters with your best friend?"
Star shook her head from side-to-side and groaned. "No. We're calling you because weird stuff happened today. Like, weird and wild magical stuff."
"Magic?" King Butterfly implored. "Why are you asking me? Your mother was the last owner of that magic wand, after all."
"The magical stuff that happened today wasn't anything Star did," explained Marco. "It just happened, all by itself. Like it was caused by someone from another dimension."
"That's strange. Could you tell me what happened?"
Star's eyes widened and she walked closer to the mirror. "Marco and I were casually walking when suddenly, there was this sound like thunder, and paper fell from the sky!"
"That sounds extremely unusual." King Butterfly noted. "Now that you mention it... I saw something strange earlier today as well."
"What was it?" Star shouted impatiently.
"About fifteen minutes ago, I was looking out of the window in the throne room. Suddenly, I heard what sounded like thunder and saw a brown object tumbling through the air. It was falling so quickly that I couldn't figure out what it was. I lost track of the box after it flew over the Forest of Certain Death and faded into the distance."
The hearts on Star's cheeks temporarily transformed into lightbulbs. "Dad! I think we might be talking about the same thing!"
King Butterfly scratched his head. "You really think so?"
"Yeah, because we both heard thunder and then something weird happened." Star inferred.
"Star, I think there's more to your dad's story. Remember how he said that a box tumbled through the air, and went over the Forest of Certain Death?" Marco asked.
"Yep."
"Maybe Ludo could be behind this after all," reasoned Marco. "I mean, who else could reasonably be behind this? Especially since it happened on Earth and Mewni?"
"It has to be Ludo!" Star shouted in realization. "But doesn't he always use dimensional scissors?"
"You're right." Marco sighed solemnly. "And that still doesn't explain the whole paper thing."
King Butterfly asked. "Still, Ludo might be to blame. Do we have any evidence that points towards Ludo as the cause of these events?"
Marco placed all of the paper pieces on the ground. "We might. At first, these paper pieces didn't indicate anything except that something was amiss. Then I looked at one of them and saw that it had a line drawn on it. These pieces, if they were put back together, might tell us something. If only putting torn paper back together was easy."
"Marco, I have a magic wand," said Star. "I think I can handle it."
Marco shrugged his shoulders. "Star, I'm not sure if this is going to work."
Star looked at Marco straight in the eyes and smiled. "You never know unless you try." she insisted as she pointed her wand down at the paper pieces.
"Mending Heart Hurricane!"
Instantaneously, a purple wave of energy and hearts shot out of the wand and bombarded the paper. The pieces were lofted into the air and began to spin rapidly. A second later, the pieces stopped spinning and reattached themselves perfectly, forming a symmetrical, rectangular sheet of white printer paper. Star grabbed the sheet while it was still suspended in air.
Star stuck her tongue out at her best friend in a teasing way. "Told you Marco!" she insisted.
"I wasn't sure if it would work!" he conceded.
"Trust me. Magic solves everything." the inter-dimensional princess teased as she shoved the paper into his face.
"So what does it say?" asked King Butterfly.
Star read the page's message aloud, so that her father could hear.
INSTRUCTIONS: Turn time circuits to proper time. Wait for the capacitor to work. Travel through time. Rinse and repeat.
The whole room fell silent as looks of complete shock showed upon Star and Marco's faces.
"S-Star..." Marco stammered, "This might mean that..."
"Ludo has a... a time machine?!" Star yelled.
"It might." Marco clarified. "This isn't good at all."
"Time machine?" King Butterfly implored. "What's a 'time machine'? You sound very alarmed about the possibility of Ludo having one."
Marco grimaced before explaining. "That's because if Ludo has a time machine, he could go back into the past and change it however he wants! He could even erase people from existence!"
King Butterfly's usual expression of patience and officiality was replaced by a frozen, bewildered gaze. Never before had his regal flair been so abruptly and quickly shattered. He twirled his staff around in his hand nervously as he contemplated the mere possibility of being erased from existence.
"How can we stop him from doing that?" King Butterfly asked.
"We'll just have to stop him in his tracks!" Marco reasoned. "The problem is, how are we going to stop him if he has a time machine?"
"Marco. Remember when I used a spell to create a 60 hour Freeze Day?"
"Yeah."
"I don't know for sure, but maybe there's a time travel spell somewhere in the Magic Instruction Book. Glossaryck might know."
Marco folded his arms in disdain. "You've gotta be kidding!" he grumbled impatiently. "After all I went through with him before? Is he really that useful?"
Star put her arm around her best friend in an attempt to reason with him. "Come on, Marco! It's our only chance! I mean, how else could we time travel?"
"Well," he reconsidered, "there's really no other way. There's no such thing as a DeLorean time machine in 2015. I suppose I'll give it a chance."
"Yay!" Star yelled while jumping up and down in excitement. "Dad, we promise we'll get to the bottom of this! I'll call you back when we've got ourselves a way of going back in time!"
"Okay then. Goodbye!" King Butterfly boomed before leaving the mirror's line of sight.
The image on the mirror slowly faded away until the only thing Star and Marco could see in it was the reflection of themselves.
"What are we waiting for, Marco?" Star insisted. "Let's get to it!"
"All right, Star." Marco affirmed as he walked with her across the room towards where the Magic Instruction Book lay.
"What do you mean that the paper went missing?" Toffee muttered.
"I don't know what happened!" Ludo protested. "All of a sudden, while I was coming back to the castle, the time machine started coming apart in mid-air! There were holes in the floor and sides, and it was rattling and tumbling all over the place. The paper must have been fallen out or something!"
Toffee glared back at his boss in a manner analogous to a death stare. "Do you realize the immense gravity of the situation we're in? There could be pieces of that paper in six different generations. The whole multiverse could be aware of your journey. This whole plan of yours could be falling apart."
"True..." Ludo conceded. "Then again, if the paper pieces are in multiple generations, wouldn't that reduce the chances of anyone figuring out what happened?"
"Yes, well, I suppose it would." Toffee conceded.
"What if," Ludo supposed, "all the paper pieces ended up in the same time and place, and somehow Star Butterfingers managed to get her hands on them. What are the chances she'd be able to make her own time machine from those instructions?"
"Zero percent." Toffee dictated. "She isn't sophisticated enough to understand how to make a time machine, let alone the mechanism that drives that magical stick of death she totes around. Our plan is foolproof."
Ludo stood up and walked towards a window. "One last question. How long's it gonna take for us to get the time machine back up and running?"
"Since this first one's fit for the dumpster, we'll have to build a new one. Which will take between six to eight hours," Toffee estimated. "The good news is that we kept the battery compartment intact, so we won't need to recharge it before our next journey. This new time machine will be larger, faster, more reliable. That way the whole army can come along."
"That's amazing." Ludo sighed, imagining how sleek and shiny it would look when it would be completed. "I can almost feel Star's wand in between my hands!"
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to help these cronies of yours build a time machine." Toffee muttered before adjusting his tie and walking out of the room.
Marco flipped through the pages of the Magic Instruction Book until he saw a page flagged with a blue bookmark; it was the same page that Star had used to find the Freeze Day spell. Marco sighed while staring at the pages of the book, which were covered from top to bottom in spells. Some spells were written in an ancient Mewnian language, others were written in a language that resembled Latin, and others still were written in modern English.
"Looks like time spells have been a theme since the dawn of magic." Star inferred hastily. "At least from what I can tell, this one doesn't quite belong with the others. It's written in some language I've never seen before."
She pointed to a spell at the very bottom of the page, which read: FBTZ QFBTZ UJNF FYQMPSFBTZ.
Marco knitted his eyebrows in confusion. "Uh, Star? I think that spell is written in some type of code. Like, as in, they didn't want anyone to find out about it and use it."
Star smiled and laughed. "Pfft. Relax, silly. I'm sure that Glossaryck will tell us all we need to know."
No sooner did Star call Glossaryck's name, he appeared.
"At your service, milady."
"Glossaryck. We found this spell in the Instruction Book that doesn't quite match the others. It's completely unreadable."
"Unreadable?" he inquired. "Nonsense. If the spell's written that way, then that's how you say it!"
"I don't think so." Marco grumbled impatiently. "Some of those words don't even have vowels in them. I'm pretty sure it's some sort of code. If we don't figure it out, the entire multiverse could be at risk. Maybe you could tell us what it means?"
Glossaryck slyly grinned at the teenager. "I usually don't make exceptions, but maybe we could work something out. Pudding. Get me some pudding."
Star sighed and opened her yellow, star-shaped purse, got out a cup of chocolate pudding and a spoon, and began to feed Glossaryck the entire contents of the container (making sure to scrape the sides when she did so; otherwise he might have been upset).
"Okay Glossaryck, you got your pudding." Marco said. "Now tell us your secrets."
"That spell was discovered centuries ago," informed Glossaryck. "It is, as you thought, coded. Now if we unscramble it, here's what it says.
The coded "words" that made up the spell changed into actual English words. The spell now read: EASY PEASY TIME EXPLOREASY.
Star smiled wide and cheered. "Excellent! Now we can—wait, what does this spell do?"
"This spell allows the user to explore time, in theory." Glossaryck explained. "It's never actually been done before."
"How could it have been discovered, then?" asked Marco.
"This particular spell has a troubling history," elaborated Glossaryck. "It causes the wand to charge up its power, but the spell itself doesn't work. We'll never know for sure why it does that."
"How do you know that for sure?" Star implored curiously.
"It appears that it has to deal with energy. If a spell would use more than eighty percent of the wand's power, the spell would automatically cancel. It's a fail safe of some kind."
"Maybe you could tell us more?" Marco suggested.
"I was specifically told by the spell's discoverer not to let anyone know anything about it, no matter the circumstance." Glossaryck protested.
"Why can't you tell use more?" asked Star.
"Otherwise, spacetime as we know it could see its end. Look what I've done! Thanks to pudding bribery, I've told you everything! I may have just sealed the fate of the multiverse! The secret is out, but there's still hope. If we are to live another day, I must speak of this spell no longer. Until next time, milady."
Star's eyes widened and she reached her hand out towards him. "But Glossaryck—"
He did not listen to her plea and returned to his resting position, where he laid flat against the nearest page and waited for further instructions. Star and Marco sighed dismally and closed the Magic Instruction Book.
"Marco, how are we going to use this spell if we can't get enough energy?" Star groaned.
"Forget about that wand needing energy," Marco muttered back. "I need energy, or I might not survive the night."
As if on cue, Mrs. Diaz yelled up the stairs urgently.
"Star! Marco! Time for dinner!"
"Actually, I am rather hungry," Star admitted. "We're all sorta in need of more energy around here."
Marco's face suddenly lit up. "That's it!"
"What's it?" asked Star.
"The reason the spell doesn't work is because your wand can't generate 1.21 gigawatts of power!" explained Marco.
"1.21 gigawatts?" Star screamed. "1.21 gigawatts?! How much energy is that?"
"More energy than you could ever imagine. Energy has a lot to do with everything, including time travel. There's a way we could make that time travel spell work!" Marco excitedly concluded.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's complicated and bizarre." Marco said. "It involves making a car generate 1.21 gigawatts of electricity so that we can time travel!"
A wide grin formed on Star's face. "We're going back in time? In a car? THAT'S AWESOME!"
Marco couldn't help but smirk back at her as they quickly ran down the stairs to dinner.