It's come to my attention that I've been spelling Brittany's name wrong this whole time, so I went back and fixed it in all of the chapters where Brittney appears.

Brittney's Party, Part 2

The first activity on the agenda for Brittney's party was karaoke.

Unfortunately for the guests, the birthday girl couldn't carry a tune if it had a handle. As Brittney continued to sing a very much out-of-tune song at the top of her lungs, almost all of the guests were cringing, grimacing, and covering their ears. Bucky was one of the few who managed to remain passive, his expression stony except for the twitch in his right eye.

Meanwhile, Marco was trying hard not to vomit, and Star happened to notice that his face was more green than brown.

"Are you okay? You don't look so good," she noted.

"I told you...*ulp*...I get motion sickness!" Marco grunted in reply, swallowing the bile rising in his throat. Looking around frantically, he spotted a stool and sat down. "I'll be fine. I just gotta sit here, stare out the window, and never turn my head."

"Alright, homie, you do that while Bucky and I get this party started!" Star told him and slapped him on the back. Marco shrieked as Star's gesture made the seat of the stool spin around.

"Who puts a swivel chair on a bus?!" he complained when he came to a stop. Then the bus hit a small pothole and jolted, causing the swivel chair to start rolling to the side. "With wheels? Seriously?!"

CRASH!

When the wheeled, swiveling stool fell over and unceremoniously deposited Marco on the floor, he decided to fight against his nausea the only other way he knew how: by doing push-ups.

"Uh, Marco? What are you doing?"

Marco froze when he heard the voice and looked up. He had been doing push-ups at the feet of none other than Jackie Lynn Thomas, who stared back at him with a raised eyebrow and a hand on her hip, wearing a purple V-neck T-shirt and dark skinny jeans that both clung to her hourglass figure.

*Gasp* It's Jackie Lynn Thomas! Play it cool, Diaz! Play it cool! Marco thought to himself. As he tried to reply to her, the bus hit another pothole, which kickstarted his motion sickness all over again. Jackie's eyes widened when she recognized what was wrong with him. Taking swift action, she grabbed the front of Marco's hoodie, hauled him to an unoccupied corner of the bus, and shoved his head out the open window. Marco promptly emptied the contents of his stomach onto the road, feeling better once he did so. The stream of fresh air against his face also helped to soothe his delicate stomach.

"...thanks, Jackie." Marco muttered once he pulled his head back into the bus, his cheeks now turning red.

"Anytime, dude. Trust me, I've been there," she assured him.

"Really?" This time, it was Marco who had a raised eyebrow.

Jackie blew a stray hair out of her face and said, "Oh yeah, all the time. Like, I'm fine on a surfboard, but put me on a boat, and it's like, cleanup on aisle EVERYWHERE!" That elicited a small chuckle from the Hispanic boy. "What are you doing here, anyway? No offense, but you're not the type of person Brittney typically invites to her parties."

"It's, uh...it's a long story," Marco sheepishly admitted.

"Does it involve Brittney's crush on Bucky?" Jackie guessed. Seeing him jolt in astonishment, Jackie explained, "I'm pretty sure everyone knows about it but the big guy himself. Seriously, how ignorant is he?"

Meanwhile, the Butterfly siblings were discovering that nothing about the party was actually fun. Rather, Brittney was acting like a total control freak, uncomfortably reminding them of certain relatives of the Butterfly family.

"What do we do, Bucky? These people are miserable!" Star asked.

"Well...nobody knows how to party quite like you do," Bucky pointed out with a wink. "Just don't do anything too crazy, alright?"

"No promises, bro," Star coyly stated, returning the wink before walking over to Brittney. Bucky couldn't hear what they were saying, but assumed Star was trying to impress Brittney by summoning a miniature hat identical to the one the birthday girl was wearing. Brittney only huffed and walked to the middle of the bus.

"Now to my invited guests...who wants to watch me open my presents?" Brittney announced. When nobody answered, she frowned and said, "I'm waiting." The other guests took the hint and started cheering, so Brittney sat down at the back of the bus and was handed her presents one by one.

"When I give the signal, conjure a big block of ice. I'll give her my present, then you can do the rest of the razzle-dazzle," Bucky whispered to Star as they stood in line, to which Star winked.

"Ugh! It's not designer!" Brittney groaned and threw away a leather purse in disgust. The rejected present hit the original owner, Sabrina, right in the face, giving her a black eye.

"You're welcome," the girl squeaked, her face drooping. Jackie, who happened to be hitting next to her, patted her back sympathetically.

Brittney went through her presents until it was finally Bucky's turn.

"Please forgive my last-minute planning; I didn't know anything about you or your interests, so I didn't know what to get you," Bucky began by apologizing. "On that note, I hope what I have to offer is unique enough for your preferences." He nodded to Star, who twirled her Wand in the air and summoned a gigantic block of ice as tall and broad as her brother was. Bucky then took out his pair of daggers and spun them between his fingers with dazzling speed. His hands were a blur as he rapidly chipped away at the ice with his still-spinning daggers, causing snowflake-like shavings to fly in all directions.

In less than a minute, Bucky had carved an exquisitely detailed ice statue of Brittney doing a cheerleading routine.

"Ooooooooooooooooo," adored the teenagers with sparkling eyes. Brittney was also impressed, although she didn't outwardly show it.

"My turn!" Star declared. "Hi, everyone! I just wanted to let you know that I can make little hats..." She conjured another Laser Puppy with her Wand and held it up for everyone to see. "...and also dogs!" Sabrina yelped in pain when the Laser Puppy fired a crimson bolt from its eyes that hit her in the shoulder. "Check this out!" Star lifted the Laser Puppy over her head and gave its chest a small squeeze, causing it to form a color-changing laser projection that spelled HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRITTNEY!

Similarly to Bucky's ice statue, everyone was impressed by Star's handiwork, with one of the boys even commenting that he wished his dog could spell that well.

Brittney wasn't impressed; she hated dogs, and animals in general. As such, she gave the puppy her signature hair-whip, knocking it out of Star's hands and sending it flying out the window. Before something gristly could happen to it, however, Star gave the Wand a little wave, causing the Laser Puppy to dissipate into the pure magic energy she'd made it from.

"That. Is. IT! Driver, pull this bus over at once!" Brittney ordered, angrily storming to the front of the bus.

"Lady, I can't. We're in bumper-to-bumper traffic," the driver replied in a disturbingly squeaky voice, gesturing to the stock-still cars surrounding them on all sides. "You're gonna have to wait." Brittney groaned in frustration and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"This is why I wanted a party jet," she grumbled and walked away.

"I can't drive a jet," the driver replied, unaware of her absence.

"This party is a disaster!" Brittney griped as she flopped back into her seat.

"Maybe you'd have more fun if you'd just give Star a chance." Brittney turned her head to see Bucky sitting a few seats away. "She means well, you know. She just wants to make this experience enjoyable for everyone after she and I have been forced to sit through too many of the snooty, stuffy, uptight parties our mom organizes for the nobility of our kingdom. You see, here on Earth, the two of us have certain freedoms that we were never granted back home on Mewni, and she wants to enjoy them while she can before we have to go back." Bucky turned to look at her. "I don't know what Humans think being royalty is like, but it's not what it's generally cracked up to be. You have to be the model for everyone else to follow, so rules apply double to you. With the way we're expected to behave at all times, especially when we're entertaining guests, you'd find more cheer in a graveyard than in our castle. Let that sink in; maybe then you'll understand why Star acts the way she does."

Bucky stood and walked away, leaving Brittney alone with her thoughts.

...

After some intense internal debate on her part, Brittney decided to loosen the reins on her party and reluctantly announced that Star would be taking over the entertainment.

After giving Brittney a rib-cracking hug in gratitude, Star promptly cast a spell that turned the inside of the bus into a bouncy house. Everyone enjoyed it (except for poor Marco, who was once again trying not to vomit). Even Brittney had to admit that she was having fun despite her reservations.

Meanwhile, the bus driver finally got them out of the traffic jam and was driving along a street just outside Echo Creek. Suddenly, a gigantic figure jumped in front of the bus. The driver's eyes widened, and he slammed on the brakes to keep from ramming into the figure.

Everyone screamed as they were sent sprawling by the sudden stop, with a few of the teenagers being flung all the way to the front of the vehicle. Those that ended up in the front included Star, Marco, Bucky, and Jackie.

"Oh, thank you...thank you!" Marco cried in relief, viewing the stop as the end of his motion sickness. Standing up, he pried the double-doors open and took a deep breath through his nose. "Ah, fresh air! Smells like..." Marco took another whiff, and his eyes snapped open in surprise. "Monsters?!"