One day, I was strolling around the Diaz's home, singing to myself, and passed the open door to Marco's room. As I did, I saw him almost kneeling with his back to the door. Stopping myself, I looked in to see what was going on. Marco has some strange white outfit on with a green belt around his waist as he stood above a piece of wood suspended on some blocks.

With a mighty yell, he raised his arm up and struck at the wood, breaking it. I called out to him, "Whoa! You hate wood too? Yeah, crush that wood! Wood is the worst!"

"No, I'm practicing for my upcoming Tang Soo Do tournament."

"Oh." I assumed it was his karate thing but was more focused on the fact that Marco did not share my hatred of wood.

"You see Star, martial arts is all about honor and discipline" he explained, seeing that I was lost. "Which is why… I'm gonna kick Jeremy Birnbaum's butt!"

"Jeremy Birnbaum? Isn't that the talking bear that used to rummage through my parent's garbage?"

"He's just this creep in my dojo who's only any good cuz his rich parents buy him fancy equipment and private lessons!"

Wow, Marco must have some serious beef with this guy.

"But Saturday, he's gonna get a taste of this!" Marco exclaimed as he reached down and placed three planks where the one had sat prior. Marco let loose a scream as he swung down to chop the boards. When he connected however, it wasn't the boards that broke, but Marco's arm. He let out a wail as I went to go find his parents.

"So it turns out the Earth Medicine is very different from Mewni medicine" explained Star.

"How so? Our's seems to work."

"Well on Earth, what they did was put Marco through this machine which the Diaz's tried to convince me wasn't going to eat him and had to hold me back from running in to save him. When he came out, the doctor had pictures of Marco's bones."

Ruberiot raised his hand.

"And no I don't know how it works."

Ruberiot lowered his hand.

"They say there is no magic on Earth, but I am not sure. Anyways, after this 'x-ray' the doctor took Marco away to get a 'cast'. When Marco returned, his arm was in a huge, hard bandage."

"Well isn't that strange, did it work?" asked Ruberiot.

Smiling sheepishly, Star answered "Eventually."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see soon enough."

The entire ride back from the doctor, I couldn't stay off of him. I was incredibly interested in this cast and was bombarding him with questions as I attempted to poke it. By the time we arrived to his home, he was thoroughly tired with my questions and had me go get some markers. When I returned, he explained to me that I could draw on the cast due to the hard outer shell. Well, that shut me up for quite a while and let me get over my curiosity at the same time. He knows me so well.

As I went to go play with my hair, Marco came and laid on my bed, right where I sleep.

"Ugh! This is a nightmare. If I can't fight Jeremy, he'll say I wussed out and he'll never let me live it down" he said dejectedly.

I on the other hand was in high spirits as I swapped between hair styles. "Pigtails? Ponytail? Pigtails? Ponytail?" I asked, half listening to his woes as I used my wand to swap between the two styles.

"Wait a minute! You have a wand!" exclaimed Marco suddenly. "You can just fix my hand!"

Turning to face him, I tried to explain why that was a bad idea, but nicely. "You know, that sorta spell's not really in my comfort zone. But if you like, I can give you a pretty wicked set of pigtails!"

"Pigtails!" Marco sighed as he flopped backwards onto my bad again.

I had thought it was a great idea, he'd probably look great in them. Or maybe a ponytail. Yeah, defiantly ponytail for Marco, I needed to save that idea for later.

Glancing around, I tried to come up with some way to cheer him up. I couldn't leave my besty all sad. Then I remembered my spell book! It had to have something in it to help.

"I could look up a bone healing spell in the magic instruction book that came with the wand" I told Marco. I ran to where he lay and thrust his legs apart where they dangled over the edge of my bed. Reaching down, I grabbed the spell book and dragged it out from under my bed into the middle of my room.

"What? This whole time you had a magic instruction book?"

"Yup! Whenever a previous owner of the wand mastered a spell, they scribbled it down in here!" I reached around to the clasp and loosened it as I opened the book to a random page. Dust and bugs flew out of it as I did, causing me to cough a little. "But it's a complete, disorganized mess. It's gonna take me forever to find- Oh, here it is!"

Talk about luck, I had found it after flipping only a page or two.

"It's in an ancient language." I explained to Marco as I looked at the page. I didn't know what it said, but the pictures looked like a bone was being healed, so it must be right. I prepared to cast the spell by learning the pronunciations and charging the magic into my wand.

"Releasio, Demonius, Investica!" I exclaimed as the magic spiraled out from my wand into Marco's arm.

"I can feel it working! My fingers are tingling!" shouted Marco as the spell took hold. In a flash of light, the spell completed. When the light faded, Marco's arm was no longer broken. Unfortunately it had also turned into a tentacle.

"Don't worry!" I told Marco as he screamed at his new appendage. "There must be a spell in here that can change it back!"

I started frantically flipping pages, skimming for some way to fix him. Marco meanwhile sat staring in horror at his new arm. Suddenly the arm whipped around and hit the spell book. It was sent flying out the window.

I took off to go find the book, leaving Marco gaping at his arm. By the time I found it, it was late at night and it was even later by the time I dragged the massive thing back to my room. Marco hadn't moved. When I returned, I told him "Go to bed, you look traumatized and exhausted, I'll have a spell for you in the morning."

Nodding numbly, Marco walked off to his room with the arm flailing about everywhere. Cracking open the book, I got looking for some way to fix him. The night stretched on as an answer eluded me. Half the spells were in other languages, making the task all the slower. If only I had spent more time learning from the book before this emergency.

By the time the sun rose, I was dead tired and no closer to a solution than I had been when I started. After getting dressed, I made my way downstairs for breakfast and to see if Marco had gotten control of the monster arm. There was a mess everywhere and Marco looked decidedly unhappy, so it looked like it was still pretty independent.

I sat down in front of my food and with a yawn said "Morning Marco, morning monster arm. I was up all night but I haven't found a way to reverse the spell."

The monster arm slammed down on the table in front of me and grabbed my drink. Picking up the glass, the arm upended the drink over Marco's head, soaking him.

"So breakfast isn't working, do you want to just head to school?" I asked.

"Yeah" Marco said with a defeated sigh.

"Ok, I'll go get our bags."

As we made our way to school and even throughout classes, the monster arm wouldn't behave. It didn't destroy anything like it had that morning, but was constantly getting in the way of everyone, especially poor Marco.

By lunch time, he had gotten better at predicting its mischief and was constantly moving his lunch tray out of the way of the tentacle, an annoyed look plastered on his face. We suddenly heard the deep voice of the bully Lars ring out across the lunchroom as he tormented his latest target.

"Hey kid! I gotta joke for you. What's the most important meal of the day?" he sneered, leaning over a smaller kid. Smashing the lunch tray from the kid's hands, he shouted "its breakfast!"

"That's a good one Lars" said the other kid, chuckling along to placate the bully. As he reached down to pick up his food, Lars slammed his face down into the mess and started laughing again.

Enraged I started to channel magic into my wand, but due to my exhaustion, it was slow going. Before I could blast the bully, Marco's monster arm lashed out and struck Lars across the face. Everyone watching the scene gasped. I lowered my wand, the magic forgotten in my shock.

"Who did that?" growled Lars as he spun around.

Marco pointed to his monster arm and stuttered, sure he was about to be beaten senseless.

Readying a fist, Lars growled at Marco "No one hits La-"

His threat was interrupted as the tentacle slapped him again. Before he could recover, the tentacle struck another time, and then again. After hitting Lars another five or six times it stopped. Reaching up to where he had been struck, Lars burst out into tears before running off.

The previously destructive monster arm then extended itself as it reached out and picked up the victim of the bully. Setting him on his feet, the arm wiped the mess from the kid and flung it aside.

"I sir am in your debt" the kid told Marco with a small bow.

Slamming him aside, Ferguson ran over to Marco and exclaimed "You're a hero!"

The cafeteria broke out into cheers as Jackie Lynn Thomas asked Marco if she could check out his arm.

"Uhhh, sure" he said nervously as he extended it towards her and her two friends.

"I want it to be my boyfriend!" said Janna excitedly.

"Me too" said the other girl as they moved closer to inspect it.

"High five!" said Jackie as she played with the end.

Marco's discomfort visibly turned to joy as he relaxed and started to enjoy the tension. I however had a horrible twisting in my gut, the monster arm needed to go.

With his newfound hero status, Marco spent the rest of the day surrounded by classmates as they looked over the arm. The feeling of dread was still there for me and I knew I needed to stay close to make sure nothing went wrong. I was too tired though from the night before and ended up spending the rest of the day either napping or trying to stay awake in class.

After school when I had Marco to myself again, I had him go lay on my bed where I could keep an eye on him and the tentacle while I looked for a solution. It was late into the night when I found what I was looking for, the moon well above the horizon.

"Ah ha! I found it! A reverse tentacle spell… I think."

"Uhhh, maybe you should practice on something first." Said Marco as he played with the tentacle. It had been behaving since the incident at lunch, but I still wanted it gone, there was just something about it that I didn't like.

"Way ahead of you" I said as I reached beneath my table and pulled out a plant to try the spell on. Channeling the magic for the spell, I cried out "Returnio, Armius, Normalmiticus!"

Is a flash of light, the magic covered the plant. When it faded, all that was left was the stalk and a skull in the smoke rising from the remains. Marco and I had similar looks of terror plastered to our faces, imagining what might have happened if I had just tried to use the spell on him.

"Uh, I'm going to bed now" said Marco, unease evident in his voice.

It was probably for the best, I was going to be at this for a while and he didn't need to see any more failures. I watched with concern as he almost fled the room. Pulling out another practice plant I called out "Don't worry, I'll get it! Returnius, Armius, Normalritti!"

This time the plant exploded, my face of concern transformed into one of fear. I knew I had another long night ahead of me. Grateful for the bits of sleep I had gotten at school, I pulled out another plant.

"Returnico, Armius, Normalico!" I cried, hoping for a better result. It was worse.

I worked through the night, trying all kinds of variations of the spell, sure I was just off by a syllable or two. By the time morning rolled around, I had had some pretty spectacular failures. I had turned one into a head of some sort, I think, another was a bunch of hands, sprouting from the palm of the hand beneath it. One had turned the pot itself into a leg. Another had made fingers sprout from the center of flowers. All better than my initial attempts, but none good enough. I was nearing the limit on my exhaustion, but Marco needed my help and so I powered on.

"Returnio, Armius, Normalrino." I mumbled, barely awake. With a blast the plant vanished, and from the soil rose a normal hand. I gasped at the hand as it rose and once it reached full height, it gave me a thumbs up.

"Marco!" I shouted, running off to tell him I had succeeded. I stopped to turn and grab the success, bringing it with me to show him.

Rushing into his room, I held the plant out before me, "I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it!"

Marco was balancing on the monster arm as it held him up in an impressive display of strength. "Hey, I think this monster arm might actually help me take out Jeremy" he said, hopping down to his feet in front of a large pile of boards.

With a scream, Marco brought the monster arm down on the boards, not only breaking them, but also the blocks holding them up. Marco stood panting, a feral look on his face.

"Wait, you're gonna fight with that?" I asked, holding up the potted arm, it helpfully pointed to the monster arm. "That sounds kinda unfair."

Marco whipped his head around and stared at me angrily before stalking towards me and saying "Oh, funny how you never have a problem using your magic when it benefits you, but as soon as it gives me an advantage, you wanna take it away!"

I was too tired to go into all of the details of why he was wrong, plus I knew that that wasn't Marco speaking. Instead, I cut to the heart of the matter, the monster arm. "Marco, I think that arm is a bad influence on you."

"And I think you should go."

"What?" I exclaimed as the tentacle spun me around, pushed me out of Marco's room and slammed the door in my face.

Steaming, I took the arm plant and stalked back to my room, if he didn't want my help, then fine, he could keep the arm. I went to my room so I could nap before the tournament. Everyone else might like the tentacle, but I knew it needed to go. Marco wasn't going to the tournament unsupervised.

With a start I rose to the sound of my alarm. I was running late and Marco had already left. I hurried as fast as my exhausted feet could carry me to the dojo, the place Marco trains, and made my way to Ferguson and Alphonso in the stands.

"Are you okay Star?" asked Alphonso when I finally shouldered through the crowd. It seemed like a lot of our classmates wanted to see the monster arm in action again.

"You look terrible! And I have very low standards." said Ferguson.

I felt terrible. I leaned on the person next to me for support, the run over had taken a lot more out of me than I had anticipated. Stretching, I explained "I've been up for two nights tryin to fix this monster arm, then he gets mad. Then I gotta come here and watch him karate."

"Allow me to introduce our first competitor, Jeremy Birnbaum!" said the man who appeared to be Marco's teacher as he gestured to one side of the fighting area.

The person was tall and shrouded in a cloak, a butler serving him water while another rubbed his shoulders. With a cry, he threw up his arms, throwing both cloak and servants to the ground. The person underneath turned out to be a scrawny little kid, standing on a stool.

"That's Jeremy!" I exclaimed. I couldn't believe it. Marco was worried about someone half his size. This was the same Marco who had fought a band of monsters with me and easily defeated them. All of that trouble for this runt. After my initial shock wore away, I realized I simply too tired to care anymore.

With a start, I jolted awake as someone threw water into my face. I heard Marco yelling my name and I quickly took stock of the situation. I may not have been a master of magic, but I had been battling my whole life. I saw Jeremy passed out on the other side of the room as everyone watched Marco fight his monster arm in shocked awe.

I had been right, I knew it needed to go. Scrambling, I reached down and picked up my wand and shouted "Returnio, Armius, Normalrino!" firing the spell at Marco.

Before it hit him however, the arm dragged itself and Marco out of the way, causing it to hit a punching bag behind them. Taking aim, I fired again, and again the spell was dodged. I refused to be deterred, Marco needed me, and kept firing with no success.

"I could do this all day!" taunted the monster arm.

"He's too wiggly!" I cried to Marco in frustration.

As I watched, I saw an idea form in Marco's eyes. He leapt off the ceiling where the monster arm had him hanging, and threw himself to the floor where many hand form my misses reached up towards him. When he thumped to the ground, the arms from my misses latched on to the monster arm, holding it in place.

"Now!" cried Marco.

"Returnio, Armius, Normalrino!" I cried, leaping into the air and firing off the spell.

This time the spell hit, and the arm started to change back. As it did, it cried out its final words "You'll never get rid of me! I'm part of you now! You can treat the symptoms but you'll never cure the virus!"

"Ominous" observed Ruberiot.

"Quite" Star agreed. "I've been keeping an eye out for it, and the spell ready just in case it ever comes back."

"And it hasn't?" asked Ruberiot.

"Not yet" explained Star, "I hope to keep it that way."

When Marco's arm finally returned to normal, he laid on the ground and groaned as Alfonso, Ferguson, and I ran over to check on him.

"Marco, are you okay?" I asked when we got to him.

Marco held up his arm and examined it before proclaiming "My arm! My beautiful arm! Its back to normal!"

That was when we learned that it was still broken. Marco groaned as he bent over, clutching it to himself.

"Broken arm? Ha! Well it looks like I win!"

Oh lord, it was Jeremy, finally recovered. I was about to blast him, as much for my sake as Marcos, when suddenly something fell out of his gloves.

One of the many hands I had created earlier picked it up and held it up in front of Sensei. Pushing it out of the way, he turned to Jeremy "Brass knuckles, seriously?"

"Pft, brass? They're gold." Said Jeremy, no apology evident.

"You boys have brought shame and dishonor to this great and noble sport. Tis a sad day for strip mall dojo's everywhere" said Sensei before stalking off angrily.

Kicking aside some of the appendages scattered about, Jeremy followed Sensei. His parents stood at the door and his mother was clapping encouragement. Stopping, he looked at her and said "I wish I could fight you Mom" before stomping away.

"What a turd." Said Ferguson as we all watched him leave.

"Sorry. I shoulda listened to you Star" Marco told me, regret showing clearly.

"I know." I reached over and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, pleased that he was back to himself.

"Hey, um, when the monster arm said he'd be back, that's nothing to worry about right?" asked Marco with a nervous chuckle.

"Uhhh, probably not?"

He didn't seem to like that answer.