One day, I was awoken by the sound of Marco screaming. My eyes snapped open, I leapt out of bed, and I took off down the stairs. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I noticed two things. First, someone had turned the living room of Marco's house into a jungle and second, that some kind of giant cat was attacking Marco. Thinking fast, I pulled out my wand and shouted "Mega, Explosive, Crystal, Laser!" This unleashed a beam from my wand that very quickly got the attention of the monster attacking Marco. It tossed him aside and pounced at the spot where the laser impacted the ground. Swinging the beam around, I lured the monster out of the little clearing as I cooed "Here kitty, kitty."
"Whoa, thanks for saving me… again" said Marco as Ran to check on him. Pulling out a pen and notepad he continued by saying "That makes it twenty-eight saves for you, and four for me… but who's counting?"
Looking around at the renovated room, I said "Wow Marco, I just love what you've done with the place!" At that point, a purple and green owl looking creature flew over and landed on my head. It let loose a squawk and started pecking my forehead as I said "Awww, so cute."
"What? I didn't do this!"
"Well somebody did."
"Somebody?" said Marco as he looked at me disbelievingly, "Birds and rainbows and whatever that is."
The weird creature Marco pointed to looked like a poodle, but then had a human torso and was eating a bag of chips. When Marco pointed to it, it said "Sup."
"This has to be you" continued Marco.
"Sorry, wasn't me" I said as the bird continued its adorable pecking on my forehead.
With a stoic look, Marco reached to his side, grabbed a vine, and pulled. It brought down a host of other vines, revealing a ten foot tall carving of my face. Marco simply looked to me for an answer.
"Eh, looks more like your dad's work" I told him.
Sliding from the carving's mouth, hammer and chisel in hand, Mr. Diaz said "This was my work. The rest of this, no."
Smiling at Marco I turned and walked to get some food for breakfast, ignoring the friendly scowl aimed my way.
That night, the strangest thing happened and I awoke to the sound of Marco calling my name. With a yawn, I opened my eyes to see I was standing in the middle of my room and said "Morning Marco, morning beanbag chair monster."
Then I realized that it was not morning and Marco was under attack. He was caught up in a paper tornado while being attacked by both my lamp and my beanbag chair. Snapping to full alert, I readied my wand and cried out "Marco! Lightning, Twinkle, Rescue!" and with a blast of magic, everything reverted to its inanimate form.
Marco let out a yelp as the magic struck, but as things returned to normal, he just stood there panting. After a pause, he pulled out his pen and pad and said "You saved me, that's twenty-nine to four, huh."
Crouching down, I scooped a miniature, sleeping, adorable narwhal off the floor where a pile of them lay. Turning to Marco I said "What happened?"
"You were spelling in your sleep!" With a yell, Marco kicked my lamp across the room, still afraid it would attack him. "That must be why you don't remember turning our living room into a jungle!"
"Oh no! You gotta fix me Diaz" I cried, not wanting to seriously injure anyone I shouldn't.
With a gasp and the most adorable doe eyed look, Marco said "Now's my chance to save you… with psychology!"
"Psychology?"
"Psychology!"
"Yeah! Psychology! What is it?"
"Psychology is like karate for your mind"" explained Marco. He reached out and grabbed my head as he said "I'm gonna dig deep in your brain to see what makes you tick."
"Oooh. Yeah, we have something like that on Mewni" I said, describing to him our practice of launching people from catapults to help cure them.
When I finished explaining, Marco just looked at me and said "Yeah, this is pretty different. Now, before we start, I must transform myself."
"Transform?"
Without explaining, Marco crossed his arms over his chest as he began to spin quite quickly. Coming to a stop he started pulling items out of his pockets as he said their names. "Glasses! Paper! Clothes! Book!" I'm not sure exactly where he got it all from, but it was quite cute to watch as he put on the costume and said "Dr. Marco, PHD!"
"What does PHD stand for?"
"Pretty handsome dude" said Mrs. Diaz, walking by the entrance to my room. Smiling, I couldn't help but agree, it was quite the handsome look on Marco.
"Mom!" cried Marco in protest, "Go back to bed!"
Taking me to the living room, Marco led me to the couch and together we extracted it from the jungle. Marco had me lay on it while he went and got a chair from his mother's study. Rolling up beside the couch, Marco said "Alright Miss Butterfly, I'm going to administer a series of psychological tests yo uncover what's bothering you."
"Oooh, tests! Sounds fun! Oh wait, no it doesn't."
Undeterred, Marco wrote something on his pad and revealed it as he told me what it said "Test number 1, role playing! I want you to pretend to be someone close to you."
That one was easy. With a quick blast of magic I was decked out in ponytail, red hoodie, and skinny jeans. Hopping up from the couch I did a little jig as I said in a poor imitation of Marco, "Hi I'm Marco! My skinny jeans are awesome! Oooh, here comes Jackie-Lynn Thomas, I'm gonna impress her with my karate! I got this cute little mole."
With a grunt, I saw Marco write something on his pad before saying and revealing "Test number two, art therapy!"
I had changed back into my pajamas and moved back to the couch, making a mustache with my hair as Marco talked. Suddenly he thrust a paintbrush at me and said "Paint me a picture of your childhood."
He guided me to an easel he had set up and sat me down with paints and brush, all of which he got from his father's workspace I assumed. I started painting and immediately thought of a warnicorn, there were plenty of those in my childhood. Next I painted the heads of Ludo and two of his minions. After the heads were completed, I connected them all to one lizard body. It looked really cool. Next up I painted myself holding out my wand. But it looked boring so I painted a snake coiled up around me. When I got to the snake's head however, I swapped it to be a snaky version of my mother. Finally I painted the ground and sky, complete with rainbow, to finish it off.
As I went back to touch up the monster, Marco said "Such depth, so many symbols, what does it say about your childhood?"
Turning, I told him unapologetically, "I was just drawing unicorns and monsters cuz they're cool."
With a small roar, I swiped at the canvas, letting my imagination run free. Marco facepalmed as I continued to let out sounds. Suddenly he exclaimed "Test three! Ink blot test!"
Pulling up a second chair and a pile of papers, Marco flipped up the first one and said "Tell me what you see on this paper."
"An ink blot! I win!"
After resting his forehead in his hand he gestured to the paper which had the mess of ink on it and said "Okay, no, no, no. What does this remind you of?"
"A fat porcupine!"
"Oh yes, that's good" said Marco as he flipped to the next image. "What about this one?"
"A little alien guy in a gnome cap" with a gasp I asked him "Maybe I'm sleep spelling cuz I'm secretly a little alien guy in a gnome cap."
"Uh, no" said Marco, flipping to the next page. "Now what about- ugh, wait, hold on this is a mistake."
I wasn't listening though as the shock of what it reminded me of temporarily shut down my brain. Without thinking I said "That reminds me of my overbearing mother suffocating me with all the duties of becoming a queen for the rest of my life."
Marco sat there shocked for a moment as I snapped out of my trance. That psychology stuff was spooky. Marco set aside his papers with a happy look on his face and said "I think we may have found the root of your problem. You have mother issues!"
"Yay! I have mother issues!" I exclaimed, smile on my face and clapping my hands.
"No, that's bad."
"Aww, I have mother issues" I moaned, slouching forward.
"It's okay Star" said Marco, "Identifying the problem is the first step to recovery."
"Recovery!" I said, excited to be fixed.
That night was the worst wake up of them all. I woke from my sleep spelling when Marco fell on top of me and we crashed to the floor. From on top of me, Marco let out a moan as I saw something float down in front of me. I looked closer and said "Undypants? Oh no, Marco's naked!"
"No! I'm in my jam-jams" Marco said as he climbed off of me. Pointing he said "Look!"
Standing over us was this purple elephant looking person. She was about twice as tall as me and was easily four times as thick. As Marco and I looked at her she yelled "I want your face!"
"Oh! You weren't sleep spelling, you were just defending yourself against that sleep goblin… elephant…" Marco said, petering off at the end.
"Wow, I'm hardcore!"
"I came here for your face!" she yelled, cutting off any further conversation. "To steal your face! You hurt me in my butt!"
She turned to show us her butt. Even through her dress we could see the bumps left by my attacks and there was a narwhal still embedded too. Shuddering, I looked away as Marco almost dry heaved next to me. I asked her "Could you stop yelling?"
She paused for a moment, looking at me like I was crazy before she yelled "Well I'm sorry, I don't have any ears. Camera phone." She randomly pulled out her phone, posed, and took a picture of herself. Then she sidled up to the window before continuing as she explained. "I'm on the run from St. O's!"
I told her "Well you can't stay here, I don't wanna go to St. O's!"
"Oh you're going to St. O's. You see, we're both big girls. We got the same highs and lows, the same east and west! You can hardly tell us apart, Except for in the face. Camera phone." She paused her explanation to take another picture of herself for no reason I could see. "So I'm gonna laser finger your face off of your head. Oh you can have my face. See I'm gonna wear your face and you can go to jail, cuz you look like me! It's just a classic face switch scenario."
I looked at Marco when she finished talking and after a brief pause we both busted out laughing. Marco managed to get out between gasps for air "Oh that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard."
"It's not funny" she said, unamused. Then without warning she reached out and grabbed me. With a yelp I was pulled off my feet and took off running.
"Star!" yelled Marco before running after me. "Don't worry Star, I'll save you!"
My captor hopped onto the railing when she got to the stairs and slid down it with Marco right behind us. We popped out into the jungle through the mouth of my carved head and she took off running again. She paused to sit on the couch we excavated earlier and pulled out a newspaper. On the cover was a picture of her face. Clamping my mouth shut with her trunk, my captor started reading the back of her newspaper as Marco ran past us.
After a moment, Marco walked back up to the couch and cleared his throat. Lowering the paper, we all looked at each other for a quick moment before my captor grabbed a hanging vine and swung away. Moving quickly, Marco grabbed his own vine and swung after us.
With a thump, we slammed into the wall of the roof and crashed through it to the outside. Crawling to her feet, my captor said "Camera phone" and snapped a picture of herself. After the picture, she took off running with Marco right behind us. As she ran past the antenna, it caught in my hair for a brief second before snapping back into Marco's face, causing him to let out a yelp of pain.
Running to the tower, my captor jumped up and suctioned onto the overhanging section of the roof with her trunk and said "Nose Grab!" before hoisting us up and starting the climb to the top. Making it to the top of the roof, she cut open a portal with her dimensional scissors and let out a maniacal laugh.
Before she carried me through the portal, I heard Marco yell "Stop!"
Looking over, we saw him making his way across the roof as he struggled to maintain his balance. Leaning over, my captor yelled out "Be careful on this roof! It is slippery from the evening dew!"
Sensing her grip relaxing, I kicked out at her, trying to get away. Unfortunately her arms were long enough that she managed to retain her hold on me and I screamed "Let me go you wierdy weirdo!"
Pulling me back in, my captor said "Is Marco small or is he just really far away? I can't tell. Laser finger." Saying that, a beam shot from her finger and onto my forehead. It didn't hurt but I was no less worried for my face.
Whimpering, I yelled out for help "Marco!"
With a heroic yell, Marco leapt for the roof but was unable to make the jump and fell back onto the roof with a thud. When he landed, Marco's glasses fell from his pajamas and looked at them for a second before snatching them up and leaping to his feet where he yelled "Glasses! Paper! Clothes! Book! Dr. Marco, PHD! You don't have to do this, I have an A in psychology! I can help you!"
"No thank you!" yelled my captor, turning to go through the portal. As I was carried away, I looked at Marco pitifully, knowing it might be the last time I ever see him and yelled "Use your mind karate!"
"Listen to me!" he cried.
"I already told you, I don't have any ears" said my captor.
Running to the base of the tower, he yelled "Well maybe that's why you're in this mess!"
Pausing, my captor turned around and deactivated her laser finger before saying "Okay, I do have ears… but I don't use them… to listen to people… The only people I listen to… is… my mind." I looked up at her, feeling a little bit of sympathy. "And right now… my mind is telling me… to steal her face." And the feeling was gone.
Undeterred, Marco took off his glasses and said "But you can't keep running from your problems, when you steal other people's faces, all you're really stealing is your future."
"But I like my future."
I smiled, hoping everything was resolved and that I could go free. After a short pause however, my captor exclaimed "I don't like my future! Camera phone!"
My look of hope turned to one of terror as my captor reactivated her finger laser and backed into the dimensional portal while laughing maniacally. At that point, Marco gave up on reasoning and threw the book at her. Smacking her in the forehead, I was dropped from her grasp and she fell over stunned before falling to the ground below.
Grabbing Marco's book, I hopped down onto the roof beside him and looked for my old captor. She had landed right next to the giant cat monster that had terrorized Marco that morning and when she saw it she let out a yelp of fear. Wincing, Marco and I watched them fight until the robots from St. O's showed up to take her away. They quickly took down both cat and woman, restraining my old foe and escorting her to the portal leaving Earth.
When they had left I turned to Marco, placed a hand on his shoulder, and said "Wow Marco, you really saved my face."
"Yes! Finally" said Marco as he put another check in his notepad.
"I don't get it" I told him, "Why is this tally thing such a big deal to you?"
"Uhhh, I don't know" admitted Marco, "I guess you're this magic princess from another dimension, and I'm just…"
I would be lying if I said my heart didn't melt inside my chest from how great Marco was. Telling me he thought so much of me and viewed me like that made me the happiest girl around. Smiling, I picked up his glasses, put them on, and said "Star, PHD. Marco, you are awesome. We don't need to get caught up in who saves who, all that matters is that we have each other's back."
"Yeah" said Marco with a smile. Then, jumping to his feet and pointing at me Marco said "But this time, I totally saved you!"
With a yelp, he slipped and started sliding down the roof, only stopping as he grabbed the gutter. When I got down to him, he said "You're right, we shouldn't keep track anymore!"
Reaching down I pulled him back up onto the roof and with a quick hug of appreciation we climbed in one of the windows of my tower and went to bed.
