CHAPTER SIX: Fortune Cookies

So I'm trying really hard to write an actual book? What? What even is wrong with me? I dunno. It'll probably never happen lol. Haha. I am not a fan of myself right now.

Bigmike33321: Of course! I haven't had a lot of time in the last few days, but I'll get to it as soon as I can! I'm so sorry!

Godzilla2915: Oh don't worry, it's getting finished.

Ghost: Descendents was a surprisingly good movie, and I can see where you would get that impression.

MariposaFalls11: That's a pretty good laugh too.

Liliana Dragonshard: Toffee is providing everything to him (although as you can see, it's the barre minimum, if that).

I don't own Star vs. the Forces of Evil.

And yet, it almost felt right.

GENERAL POV

"YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO GO NEAR HER HOME!"

Marco shrank underneath the enraged gaze of Toffee, trying to hide his trembling hands. "What was I supposed to do?" he shot back feebly. "Tell her that my adoptive demon father doesn't want me being spotted by more people than necessary before I destroy the kingdom of Mewni?"

Toffee's glower softened ever so slightly and he stepped back a little, making Marco breathe a sigh of relief. "No. I suppose not. But this is the last time I will tell you: you are not to go in that house."

Marco frowned, crossing his arms. "Why not?" he demanded. "Don't give me the 'too many people will see you' excuse, either. The entire town has basically seen me."

Toffee faltered, which Marco didn't miss. "Yes," the demon murmured, "but if her host family sees you, and she goes missing, chances are they'll point fingers at you."

"So what?" Marco retorted, feeling confident all of a sudden. "You made Star's friend Jackie forget they were friends, right? You could just make her host family forget about me if that ever happened."

Toffee hissed. "NO. You will not go in that house, do you understand me?"

Marco narrowed his gaze, sliding his hands into his pocket and pulling out his dimensional scissors. "Yes. Now are you going to tell me if you made the deal yet or not?"

The lizard gritted his teeth. "No. The imbecile has yet to search for new help, and I cannot simply barge my way into his domain. I will let you know when I have. It should be soon, however."

Marco nodded. "Okay," he said softly, ripping open a portal next to him. "Just tell me when."

He vanished back to Earth, leaving Toffee to break his usual stoic character and shout in frustration, slamming his claws into a nearby lounge chair and shredding the stuffing out of it. "That boy," he growled, trying to control his outrage, "will be the death of me."

"We'll hope so, now won't we?" murmured a voice from behind him.

Toffee spun to find the fortune teller standing in his doorway, her scarf pulled around her and a folded piece of paper in her hands. He was on her so quickly that she didn't have time to blink, and his trembling hand closed around her throat.

"What could you possibly want?" Toffee spat out, tightening his grip on her leathery skin.

The teller smirked, red eyes flashing with smugness that was not common among people being strangled in the grasp of a reptilian demon. She held up the slip of paper tauntingly. "Your opportunity….has arrived," she choked out, her voice rasping as her throat closed off.

Toffee let her go immediately, snatching the paper from her talons and yanking it open, scanning the words with greed. "Perfect," he purred. "That fool will be out of his castle in less than two weeks."

"If you get the job," the teller snickered softly, readjusting her scarf.

Toffee turned to her with a smile that was more horrifying than his scowl. His hands clenched around the paper and he slowly advanced on her until she was forced to move backwards out of his home.

"Oh, I will," he promised her with a hiss. "And I promise that when I start my reign, you'll be the first to know."

With that, he slammed the door and headed for his wine cellar. West Mewnian Swamp Water would be perfect for this event.

"I'm serious, Marco. I want to go on a hunt for him, make the Diaz's feel better. Some information is better than no information," Star said as they headed for the Chinese restaurant.

Ever since coming to Earth, Marco had developed a particular love of exotic cuisines (at least, exotic to Americans). His two favorites were Chinese cuisine and Mexican, and since there was nowhere nearby he could think of to get Mexican food, after they had defeated Ludo's monsters for the umpteenth time Marco had suggested that he and Star go out to eat.

She had been rambling about her host family's missing kid for the last five minutes, and Marco was frankly ready to tell her to stuff it and then stuff her down a storm drain. That would probably blow his cover, though, so he feigned listening, nodding and murmuring words of agreement as she spoke.

"Marco, are you even listening?"

The boy turned to find Star staring at him impatiently, and he rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah," he defended. "You wanted to find your host family's kid. Star, if he was a baby when he was stolen, who's to say he's even still alive?"

Star winced and glanced down. "I dunno. Hey, you guys have the same name. Can like, Earth people sense other people with the same names?"

Marco frowned ever so slightly. He didn't think Earth people could do that. "Of course not. That's not how it works," he decided, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. She pouted, and Marco chewed on his lip. "Maybe you could like….search for him on the Internet."

He didn't know much about Earthly technology, but he did know that the Internet was an easy way to find people, and Star apparently knew it too, because her eyes lit up at the suggestion. "Oooh, good idea Marco! Hey look, Chinese food!"

He followed her pointing finger to see that, sure enough, they had arrived at the only Chinese restaurant in town. Marco pulled the door open and walked inside, Star following him, and they got a table.

Star didn't shut up for the entire meal, and no matter how hard Marco tried, he couldn't change the topic. He was very much tempted to shove an egg roll in her mouth and enjoy the silence, but truth be told he kind of wanted to eat his egg roll. Luckily Star's idiocy kicked in about halfway through the meal as the waitress gave them the option to use chopsticks and she grew fascinated with the wooden sticks.

"I love eating with these tiny wands!" Star exclaimed with a squeal, making Marco mentally gag in annoyance. "Pew, pew!"

He sighed with relief as the waitress dropped off the check and their fortune cookies, and Star shrieked with delight on seeing them. God, she was loud.

"I don't like the filling," he heard her say as he cracked open his cookie. He looked up and nearly guffawed at the sight of her sticking her tongue out with the fortune on it. Moron.

"That's not filling," Marco explained, pulling out his paper. "They're fortune cookies."

A sly smirk came to his face and he leaned forwards. "They can magically predict the future," he lied, wiggling his fingers for magical emphasis.

Her eyes widened in shock. "No way," she protested around the paper.

Marco shrugged and glanced down at his fortune with a grin. Oh, way too easy. "A friend will greet you with a smile," he read off.

"Awwww," Star cooed, leaning over and smiling. "How sweet!'

Biting back a laugh, Marco looked at her in shock. "See?"

As she went through the motions of being her usual airheaded self, Marco sat back in satisfaction. If this girl would believe that cookies could predict the future, what else would she believe? Though he had to admit, there was a place on Mewni with calzones that told people how they would die.

Marco shuddered as they left the restaurant. He never planned to go there.

"Ooh!"

Star's continuous squealing interrupted his thoughts and Marco glanced sideways at her with a raised eyebrow. "What's up?"

"I wonder if these cookies could tell me how to find baby Marco?" Star wondered, tucking the bowl under one arm and cracking open a cookie with her free hand before he could even respond.

"The truth is closer than you might think," Star read thoughtfully.

With no warning, she shoved the bowl of cookies into Marco's hands. "Here Marco, hold these. The truth must be lying around here somewhere," she muttered, getting down on her hands and knees and beginning to search through the shrubbery at the side of the road.

Marco rolled his eyes and set the bowl down. "I actually can't, Star, my uh….my dad wanted me to come home as soon as I got back from eating lunch with you."

Star looked up with a frown. "When do I get to meet your dad?" she asked, momentarily forgetting her search.

Marco hesitated. For some odd reason, he really wanted to tell her the truth: that his parents were dead and he was a demon being raised by another demon. What came out of his mouth, though, was: "One day. He works a lot, so he's not home that much. Gotta go, see you!"

He darted away before she could respond and the second he was out of sight he cut his way back into Toffee's house. Somehow-and he would never figure this out-his cellphone had been able to connect to his magic mirror that he had at his house on Earth, and Toffee had called while they were at the restaurant.

"Toffee?" he called out, glancing around.

"Marco."

The boy spun around to find Toffee stepping from the shadows, and he put a hand over his pounding heart. "Hey. Sorry, I was with Star. What did you want?"

Toffee studied him closely, his eyes narrowing. "I have been able to make the deal I needed to get Star's wand."

A smile slid across Marco's face. "And then I can destroy Mewni and get payback, right?"

Toffee waved a hand. "Right, right. Listen, I have word from someone that Star believes her fortune cookies really predict the future?"

Marco's smile faltered. "Uh, yeah…how did you-?"

"Never mind that," Toffee snapped. He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a fortune cookie, handing it over to Marco and closing the teen's fist around it. "Go back to the restaurant when Star runs out of cookies, and make sure this is the last one she opens. When the monsters come, pretend to fight them. She will stop you; don't resist. Understand?"

Marco tilted his head, nodding. "Yeah….what does the cookie say?"

"You'll find out when you need to," Toffee said, stepping back. "Now go. I will call for you when I have another assignment for you to complete."

Marco clipped open another portal back to Earth and, with a hesitant glance over his shoulder at Toffee, he jumped through and headed for Star's house.

He arrived to find Ferguson, a chubby kid that was on somewhat decent terms with him and Star despite what the rest of the school thought, leaving the house with a plate of what looked like nachos. The two nodded to each other as they passed, but didn't speak.

He stopped on the front walkway, staring up at the house with a lost look in his eyes, his gaze drifting towards a window on the second floor. His heart had climbed to his throat in the few seconds he had been standing there, and Marco was visibly relieved when Star whipped open the front door and ran down the steps, two fortune cookies clutched in her hand.

"MARCO! I'm almost out of fortune cookies! I need more," the girl yelped.

Marco immediately steered her away from the house and started for the restaurant, rolling the fortune cookie Toffee had given him between his fingers inside his hoodie pocket. "Okay. Let's….go get more then."

"Wait," Star demanded, pausing to crack open one of the last two. "Follow your heart's desire. Okay, cool. Cookie it is."

Marco rolled his eyes but didn't protest, following her to the back alley area of the restaurant, where they came across two figures having what appeared to be a dance off. Marco instinctively knew that this was a distraction, and he used it to swiftly change the cookies, slipping the one Star had been holding into his own hoodie.

"I think they're about to throw down," Marco commented to the girl, glancing around just as the monsters appeared from nowhere.

As he got into a fighting position, he heard the distinctive cracking sound of a fortune cookie and looked over to see Star holding the one he had just slipped into her purse, the fortune situated between her fingers. "Love is always the answer," she read firmly.

Marco raised a slight eyebrow, but still dove at the monsters, only to have Star throw a hand in front of his chest. "No, Marco. Love is always the answer."

"What?" Marco asked, flabbergasted.

The next thing he knew, he had been chucked into a dumpster, the dark confines made worse by the fact that it reeked of old food and scraps, and probably a couple of dead animals. Was this Toffee's plan? Those monsters would maul her, and he wouldn't get the chance to do it himself.

He heard the unmistakable sound of Ludo's squealy voice and managed to get to his feet, slamming his head into the top of the dumpster before he was able to get over to the edge and push the top up to look down on Star, who looked like she had just been told that her puppy had died.

"You know what this means, don't you?" he asked, assuming that Ludo had botched his own plans and told Star that the fortune cookies were a lie.

"Yeah," Star said in a slight daze. "Love is never the answer."

Marco raised a slight eyebrow, a smile twitching on his lips. "Aww, I wanted to say it."

Seeing the look in her eyes, he ducked back into the dumpster and shut his eyes, listening to the sound of her wand going off. Somewhere out there, he could feel, Toffee was waiting. But at the moment, Marco wasn't concerned about him.

In the brief moments while he waited for Star to finish up with the other monsters, Marco flashed back on the look in her eyes when she had said that love was never the answer. It had been so angry, so enraged…he didn't see her like that often.

He kind of liked it.

Marco shook the thought away instantly and popped his head out of the dumpster as the blasting sounds vanished, clambering out and jumping to the ground next to Star. "Well," he said, not really sure what to say. "That was…."

"Yeah," Star muttered, tucking her wand back into her purse.

They both turned as the back door to the restaurant opened and the waitress they had seen earlier stepped out. "Oh, weird cookie girl. I have some more cookies."

Star squealed and darted over, yanking the bowl from the woman's hands. Marco stared at her with a mixture of shock and disgust, and when Star caught his look she grinned. "What? They might not be real fortunes, but they are real cookies."

A smile twitched on Marco's lips and he accepted a cookie from the pile, watching as Star cracked one open. "A new evil has been unleashed," she read off.

Marco nearly choked as Star giggled. His gaze drifted towards the corner of the restaurant, where he spotted Toffee watching them with a menacing gaze. The reptile gave Marco a stern, almost disappointed look, and then vanished from sight.

"I should…probably go," Marco stammered out, taking a few stumbling steps away from Star.

The girl barely looked up, intent on her cookies. "Okay. See you at school tomorrow."

Marco murmured his acknowledgement of her comment and then speed walked as fast as he possibly could towards his Earth house. On the way there, he shoved his hands into his hoodie pockets and felt a small crunch.

The cookie.

He had almost forgotten that he had put Star's last cookie into his pocket, and now he pulled out the crumbled remains and dropped them to the ground, keeping a hold of the fortune in his fingers out of pure curiosity and glancing at it as he mounted the steps to his house.

Everything you know is about to change.

Good thing Marco doesn't believe in fortune's from fortune cookies….right?