4: How Heckapoo should have acted during 2.16.2
Marco pulled the scissors through the air like he had a hundred times before that day, but this time the portal was made of fire.
"What?"
A hand popped out of the portal and grabbed Marco by his hoodie and dragged him in roughly. Marco fell to the ground in a heap.
"Where did you get there?"
Marco looked up at the pale woman in a fire-colored dress sitting on top of the portal holding Star's scissors. She then jumped down in front of Marco.
"Seriously, fleshwad. Talk."
Marco stood up and rubbed the back of his head. "Um, well, I'm borrowing them from my friend Star, who got them from her friend Princess Ponyhead."
The woman took a thoughtful expression before hardening into a scowl again and making another portal before reaching in and pulling through Ponyhead.
"Hay now, what do you think you are doing? I was in the middle of my cardo." She then noticed who was in front of her and visibly began to panic.
"Oh, hay Hekapoo. How's it hanging girl!"
Hekapoo dangled the scissors she got from Marco from her pointer finger in front of Ponyhead while holding a blank expression on her face. Ponyhead looked down at the scissors before floating back to try and put space between her and the MHC member.
"Hay, I'll have you know that taking items that are left in the bathroom is definitely a legally binding way of giving someone a gift!"
"PONYHEAD!"
Ponyehad then turned to look at Marco. "Oh no you didn't narc on me Earth Turd! You are in for a world of hurt!"
"I'm in trouble! You stole dimensional scissors and gave them to Star! What if she got arrested?"
He then turned to Hekapoo. "I am so sorry about this, Hekappo was it?"
She nodded. "That's right—Hekapoo of the Magical High Commission. I'm the forger of all dimensional scissors. I am also in charge of all interdimensional travel, communication, scrying, and anything else that involves one dimension interacting with another."
Marco then paled so much that he looked like Freeze Miser, and then got so red with anger he looked like Heat Miser as he turned to Ponyhead.
"YOU STOLE FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND PAWNED THE EVIDENCE OFF ON STAR? That is it! If we both get out of this alive, I will kill you myself!"
Ponyhead immediately got all up in Marco's face to stare him down. "Bring it Earthturd. I can take you down with my horn tied around my back!"
Hekapoo then separated the two. "Break it up you two!" She then turned to face Marco. "Good news fleshwad. You and your friend are clear since Ponyhead here just confessed, so only she will be punished for the thief."
Marco sighed in relief and sat down on a nearby rock. "I am glad to hear that."
She then turned to Ponyhead and dragged her down to eye level by her horn. "As for YOU!"
"Hay! Watch the horn lady!"
Hekapoo just stared her down with no regard for what had been said. "You are hereby banned from all interdimensional activities such as travel and communications and will stay in the Cloud Kingdom until your trial. Expect to hear from me in 3 Mewni months. Got it?"
"3 MONTHS ON MEWNI WITHOUT BFLY? Have you ever heard about 'cruel and unusual punishments?'"
"That's why you have the trial to determine if it is for life or not. If it was just up to me, I would ban you from it and be done. But SOMEONE," she coughed into her hands while saying 'lawyer Lekmet' "made a massive list of things I still have to follow." She then threw Ponyhead back through the portal she pulled her out of and closed it with a snap of her fingers.
"Ok, that was so fun to watch. Once again, I am so sorry about this. If I had known they were stolen I would have contacted you right away and given them back."
Hekapoo then turned to face Marco, who at this point was standing shamefully while kicking the dirt in front of him.
"It's ok human. However you still did open multiple portals to the same dimension within a short distance of each other, so you will have to pay a $650 fine. After that, I can send you back to Earth."
He nodded pulled out a stack of dollars and handed them over to Hekapoo, who began to count them.
"What about the scissors? I know they're yours, but I borrowed them from Star. Is there any way I could get a pair myself so I can give something back?"
Hekapoo rolled her eyes before snapping her fingers and making a bright red crystal ball appear floating in the air in front of Marco. "OK then, look through the catalog and tell me which one you would like. There are multiple different kinds to choose from, each with differences in the number of uses, the number of dimensions you can reach with them, and how far or close in your dimension they can make portals. The fewer restrictions the pair has, the harder it is to earn them. I'll give you a 1% discount as an apology for taking your scissors away in the first place since I am a nice girl."
Marco shoved the ball to the side. "I'll go for the ones that Star already had!"
Hekapoo froze before collapsing to the ground in a heap, spilling the money out all around her while she laughed so hard, that she could only roll around while clutching her sides. Eventually, she was able to pull herself together enough to stand up and begin to pick up the money. "That's rich!"
Marco marched over and began to help Hekapoo pick up the money while holding an annoyed look on his face. "I'm serious! I'll have you know I have a red belt in karate!"
After they were both done picking up the money Hekapoo put it all in a pocket in her dress before turning to face Marco. "This should be amusing! Okay. All you have to do is blow out this flame." She then pointed to the fire on top of her head.
Star pulls in the laser puppies
"Oh, this does not bode well."
She then pulled out her compact and saw a new message on it labeled Hekapoo.
"Oh, this does not bode well at all."
She then pulled up the message and played it.
"Hi, Princess Butterfly! This is to let you know that the scissors you got from Ponyhead were stolen from me by her."
"WHAT?"
"Since You're boy toy Marco-"
"Not my boy toy!"
"-said you didn't know about this, and Ponyhead confirmed it, she will bear the full punishment. As such, she is forbidden from all interdimensional activities for 3 months until her trial. As such, if you want to talk with her, you will have to visit in person."
"Poor Ponyhead."
"As for the scissors, Marco said that he would earn you a new pair. Though he decides to be either a loyal boyfriend-"
"Not my boyfriend either."
"-or an idiot by trying to earn a pair of the same caliber that you already had."
Star's face paled at that.
"I left a portal open in Marco's room so you can come in person to either convince him to stop being an idiot or buy/earn a pair yourself. See you soon!"
As soon as the message ended Star turned to the portal. "I'm coming, Marco!"
Hekapoo's forge
Hekapoo was standing in front of a large bucket of molten metal, summoning a blob out of it before forming it into a pair of scissors.
SLAM
The door behind her was kicked open, revealing a tall teenager in a tattered red hoodie. His face had a hint of stubble on it, while his chest had the beginnings of abbs forming. Where before he was Hekapoo's height, how he was a full head taller (or the same height if you counted her horns). He began to talk in a deep voice.
"So, it all comes down to this. 16 months. A lot of clones. Seemed to go by…" He then snapped his fingers. "Like that."
Marco then walked up behind Hekapoo as she finished forming the scissors.
"I finally tracked you down Hekapoo."
"Yep, it's the real me. No more clones, so…"
Marco then lowered his hood. "Who's a little boy now?"
Hekapoo just smiled. "Still you, mister 'I'm 16 and a man now.' This is the part where you blow out my flame?"
Marco laughed and collapsed on the nearby couch. "Your clones are talkative. Every time I lost you I simply convinced one of them that I thought they were the real you and they would start blabbing on about where you were. After that, it was a simple matter of surviving the exploding plains of Flendar, the mist of the Neverzone, or even the Afflicted Forest right here to end up at your door."
Hekapoo rolled her eyes. "They aren't that dumb. I just made them at 99% of my capabilities instead of the usual 100% for this challenge. I was debating doing 99% of the number, but I thought dumbing the clones down would make a more noticeable difference than a handful less."
At that moment a Hakapoo walked in with her fingers in a Chinese finger trap. "Hay, you said you would wait outside until after I finished this!" She then went back to trying and remove it.
Both Marco and Hekapoo turned to look at her and then back at each other. "I think you lowered them a little more than 1%."
Hekapoo just sighed. "Well no matter how much it was, you did beat the challenge I set up. I am not going to make you suffer just because I messed up. That is not how I roll at all."
Marco stood up and smiled at her before blowing out her candle.
"All in all, not bad for a human." Hekapoo then gestured at the scissors, that then floated over and into Marco's hands before his name began to glow on them.
"I underestimated you."
SLAM
The door was kicked open by Star who immediately pointed her finger at Hekapoo.
"Hekapoo! Where is-"
She then immediately noticed Marco standing next to her. "Marco?"
"Star!"
Marco ran towards her and wrapped her in a massive hug. Star returned it after a few seconds, but then backed up out of it and just began to look him up and down with wide eyes.
"Marco."
"Oh, man, we have so much to catch up on. I've learned how to sword fight, I fought an army of wolf bears-"
Star had stopped listening to him and was just looking at his well-defined muscles.
"And then I jet skied off a waterfall. Isn't that cool?"
"What?"
"Oh, check it out. It took me 16 months, but I totally earned these H-1 class scissors."
Star just shook her head at that. "Wait, 16 months? Marco, you've been gone from Earth for, like, 8 minutes."
Marco just froze in place before he began to yell in rage. "EIGHT MINUTES?"
Hekapoo was just leaning on a table, enjoying the show. "Yeah, I forgot to tell you that I adjust the time dilation of this dimension compared to others during scissor trials. Not sorry, this is exactly why you should have read the catalog I gave you at the start."
Marco just shot her a dirty look while Star tried to play peacemaker.
"No, no, no. This is good. It means you haven't missed anything back on Earth." She then grabbed Marco's arm. "Come on. Use your new scissors to take us home."
Marco took a deep breath before turning to Star. "Ok, just let me square a few things away for Nachos and say goodbye to her and Hekapoo."
Star just blinked. "Nacho's?"
At that moment a knee-high dragon with wheels for feet rolled in and growled at Star.
"My Dragoncycle. She has been at my side for the last 15 months after I saved her egg from being eaten by a predator." He then cringed at the memory. "Granted I was doing it because I hadn't had anything to eat in 2 days, but I couldn't eat her after she hatched. I decided to raise her instead."
Star was just staring at the dragoncycle pup for a few more seconds before her eyes and cheek marks lit up and she squealed so loud that dogs within 5 miles were all reeling.
"You are so adorable!" She was squeezing Nacho against her chest like she was trying to crush her. Star then turned to Marco. "Can we bring her home?"
Marco just shook his head. "Bad idea. Thinks of all the problems of the laser puppies, but magnify them by 10. That is what Nacho's is like. She should stay in the Neverzone where her flying around and fire breath is less of a problem."
He then turned to Hekapoo. "Can you take care of Nacho's for me while I'm gone?"
Hekapoo just smiled at him. "She's in good hands."
Marco then bent down and took Nacho from Star's hands and kissed her on her head. "Adios, boo-boo."
Marco then set her down in Hekapoo's waiting arms. He then stood up and faced her.
"Well, old friend, you gave me a run for my money."
"Likewise, all $650 of it."
She then slapped the back of his head. "You're pretty cool."
Marco just rubbed the burned bald patch on his head. "Thanks."
He then went over to Star and used his scissors to make a portal next to Star that would drop them back into his room.
"Bye."
"Later, H-poo."
Both Star and Marco walked through the portal.
In Star's Room
Star jumped into her room and heard Marco land behind her. Strangely, he grunted in his 14-year-old voice instead of the deeper one from the Neverzone. When she turned around to look at him, she saw a 14-year-old Marco in his Neverzone clothes.
"No! My hot bod! Where did it go?"
Heckapoo then poked her head through the portal. "Oh, I forgot to mention this. The effect of making time go faster in the Neverzone while you were doing the challenge also causes your age to revert to what it was when you first entered the zone."
She then grew an annoyed expression. "And don't call me H-Poo!"
She then went back through the portal and closed it behind her.
Given that Ponyhead was the one who stole the scissors, she should have been the one to get in trouble. And since Marco doesn't like her, likes Star, and is honest, it would make sense for him to tell Hekapoo about where the scissors came from.
As for Hekapoo, I decided to expand her responsibilities to be all interdimensional magic. The compacts, the scissors, the crystal ball Omni uses for talking, and anything used to travel or communicate between worlds are under her domain. She can also prevent people from using them, but long-term ones require a trial.
As for the scissors, I decided to make it so there are multiple different types. There are disposable ones that only work 10ish times, low-power ones that only work between 2 dimensions specified when making them, and even ones that are essentially Portal Guns from Portal. The more powerful they are, the more expensive and difficult they are to get. Some can be bought in Quest Buy, while the more advanced ones have to go through one of Hekapoo's trials.
As for turning the 16 years to 16 months, that was to get rid of the issues that did to Starco and Marco not going through any of the issues that he should have gone through. The time dilations being turned on or off by Hekapoo was added to explain why the Neverzone is the only place that does this. Hekapoo's clones being lower quality was just made up to explain how Marco could get through the trial quicker. I also deaged Nachos for fun and used a MorningMark comic I remember seeing a while ago as the basis for their meeting.
NEXT WEEK: A return to the Owl House with Chapter 21/22 of "Luz's Crimes"
I decided for my New Year's Resolution to do one fanfic chapter a week for all of 2024. Who knows how long I will be able to keep this up, but next week's fanfic chapter is up on my . This is also being posted on , AO3, and Tumbler.
: /user?u=10132890
: s/14051718/1/luz-appreciation-week-2022-from-1228248
AO3: /works/52823413/chapters/133608991
Tumbler: blog/brianedner
I am also doing fanfic info dumps, think wiki articles that go one episode at a time with some compilations at the end on certain topics that are sorted by episode.
Fanfic info dumps here: 1228248/gallery