Disclaimer: The views and opinions in this story are not intended to be viewed as those of the author. The following is a fan-written fiction. Gravity Falls, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Kim Possible, and Big Bad Beetleborgs are property of their respective owners, creators, and publishers. Please support the official releases.
TW: This story will contain references to physical and psychological abuse, murder, and torture.
|Escalation|
Outside of the cafeteria, staying out of sight from the street, Misao sat with her back to the wall, enjoying the very warm afternoon. She was on her phone, reading the news for any sign of Shego and Señor Senior Junior, and give her eyes a much-needed break from Brittney's choice in decor. Though she wasn't so engrossed that she didn't notice Trip and Van approach her–the latter of the two looking like he wanted to punch someone more than she normally saw of him.
"Misao Darlian, FaithfulPony371, right?" Trip asked as they reached her.
Misao looked up at the two and stood up, lowering her phone to her side. "Ja? What do you want?"
Van glowered at her. "Is Pine Tree taking Jackie Lynn Thomas to Homecoming?"
Now she quirked an eyebrow, wondering what this was about, and shook her head. "He is not even going to the dance."
Trip turned to Van. "I told you."
And Van turned to his brother with an aggression she didn't think he'd hold towards his sibling. "I saw him flirting with her this morning!"
Trip palmed his face. "Can you honestly imagine that loser flirting with any girl in this school, let alone one of the best?"
Misao rolled her eyes, choosing to hold her tongue when the perfect and most unpleasant retort (for them) threatened to spring off it. Giving them more of a reason to hate Dipper–or more specifically act on the hate they already had–wasn't something she was in the mood to do.
Wir brauchen unsere Schlachten nicht komplizierter, richtig? She thought unpleasantly.
"You weren't there," Van insisted, "He was making her laugh and everything."
Trip's exasperation grew. "She was probably humoring him. You know, pretending to be nice? She's so out of everybody's league that all she can do is pity them."
Misao took offense to that. "Do not assign people your garbage worldview, you garbage human being."
Trip lowered his hand and glared at her. "Watch who you're talking to."
She pointed her phone at Trip's face, stopping it centimeters from his nose. "Watch who you are talking to, walking pile of vomit. Jackie is a kind girl, as much as Dipper is a kind man. You will not insult them to me."
Trip's gaze darted from her phone to her face. With a disgusted grunt, he turned and stepped away from her. "You have really crappy taste in men."
"Were that the case, I would be dating you," she snapped back.
Trip sneered. "Please, I'd never go for a fat chick."
Misao's expression darkened. Trip's sneer turned into a very haughty smirk at her reaction, while Van shot him a very nasty look.
Instead of an eruption of foul curses in at least four different languages, Misao calmly spoke in a firm monotone absent of even a hint of her bright cheer, replaced with her heavy contempt. "I know that you are paying people to harass Dipper, all of us do."
Trip stopped smirking.
Misao looked into his eyes with a steel, unblinking glare. "The only reason you are not in the hospital now, broken, is because you are pathetic in every way–the beating you deserve is not worth our time."
Van shook his head at his brother, only to be met by Misao's glare as she turned to look at him. "But you can keep bothering me, and we will set aside all the time we need. It will not be long."
Van grimaced and stalked off. "Whatever."
Trip was more hesitant to shuffle off with his tail between his legs. "Paying people? Why would I spend money on anyone I don't like?"
Misao did not hesitate. "For the same reason I would."
Her reply had him pulling back from her slightly, as she raised her free hand, rubbing her thumb across her index and middle fingers to drive the implication home. "English is my fourth language, but I am more fluent in what talks in this country than you are."
The message was received. Glaring at her intensely, Trip turned and followed his brother–flipping her off as he left.
She watched them leave, and looked down at her phone, as she reflected on this enraging encounter. Komplikationen müssen dauerhaft beseitigt werden.
The bang of the cafeteria's door opening, drew Misao's attention, and she crept around the corner to see a seething Jo emerge like she'd been wronged. Roland was by her side, with a look of particularly unsympathetic vindication.
Eine weitere Komplikation, die verschwinden muss.
Misao refrained from approaching them. As nice as Roland was, she wasn't going to waste her breath for Jo any more than she had for the Vanderhoff brothers.
"Jackie Lynn Thomas though," Roland said, and Misao perked up.
Sie hat es auch herausgefunden.
Jo shot him a look that would kill if he hadn't been on the receiving end of worse.
He dismissed her glare with a wave of his hand. "Ay, this is exactly what I was talking about."
As she looked away, he elaborated. "Do you honestly think that acting like a jackass to all the other girls Dipper knows is going to magically make him like you?"
Jo let out a short sound of disgust, then spoke. "Of course not, I'm not stupid."
Misao looked off to her left away from them, letting a snort of doubt out.
"Then what's your endgame, man? Because I do not see you starting beef with Jackie Lynn Thomas over Dipper going down any better than Star's with Brittney."
Jo hitched her shoulders. "Shut up."
"All this is doing is pissing everyone off, and it's going to make fighting the Magnavores harder."
"Like any of them except for Star are actually that important," Jo snapped back. "Heck, if it weren't for her magic, she'd be as useless as the rest of them.""
Misao slowly looked back at Jo, her gaze once again hard.
Roland groaned. "Dude, Misao is probably the only person who knows how to operate the Beetle Battle Base, and Mabel is his sister. Why do you have to start with all of them?!"
"Because they act like a bunch of dumb immature girls!" Jo hissed back.
Roland stared at her. "Like you are? Starting shit with three girls over a boy?"
Jo opened her mouth to shout him down but stopped.
Star exited out of the cafeteria and walked to the front lawn of the school, the sound of the door banging interrupting Jo and Roland's argument. Mabel was right behind her, saying nothing as she followed Star all the way to the school's sign.
Coming to a stop, she took several deep breaths as she gripped her wand so hard it'd have broken were it made of anything less.
Mabel joined her. "Star, hey…"
"She…" Star said without looking back at her. "Brittney really hates me."
Mabel's first instinct was to reassure her, but the venom that Brittney hocked at Star had been so strong that there really wasn't any other way to slice it. "… Yeah, she does."
As Dipper walked outside–followed by Marco and Jackie–Star looked at her wand, then up at the sky.
"… I really hurt her."
Jo and Roland both were given pause when they heard Star's admission. It stayed the others from calling out to her as well, particularly Dipper.
"Star…" Mabel began.
"I've been straight up horrible to her. I ruined her game… I ruined her birthday party…" Star looked down at the ground. "I never apologized for it, once. I just did whatever and ignored her when everyone else was laughing and cheering."
Jackie spoke up. "Yeah, well Brittney's a bitch."
Star finally turned to her and the others, revealing the tears running down her face. "That's no excuse for me!"
She stopped after her shout, then looked down. "I messed up. That's all there is to it…"
Jackie paused, bringing a hand to her heart as she saw just how much this was affecting Star. Dipper frowned too, while Roland gave Jo a scathing side-eye, and she averted her gaze.
Marco pursed his lips and walked forward from Jackie and past Dipper to join Star's side. "Star…"
As she looked up at him and he opened his mouth to speak, the building sound of the approaching Magnavore Jet Fighters filled the air. Roland and Jo both looked up and searched the sky, as the sound grew. Dipper turned towards the west and saw the fighters cruising over the hills low and fast, headed not towards Hillhurst, but straight at them.
"Guys…!" He shouted as he pointed skyward.
Mabel, Star, and Marco all turned and looked up at the incoming fighters–just as they nosed up slightly and the lead of the four opened fire. In a split-second chaos broke lose, as the lasers lanced through the tail of the blimp orbiting the school advertising spirit week.
"Oh no…!" Marco groaned as the blimp began falling and dumping water to keep from plunging straight away into the ground.
Jackie's hands flew to her mouth as she watched the Blimp turn for an emergency landing, then the jet fighters coming back around. "What are those things?!"
Knowing what they were, Marco had a more urgent question. "Why are they coming here?"
He received his answer courtesy of Typhus' jazzy baritone. "Because where else are annoying kids gonna be, baby?"
Marco shot into a fighting stance, and Star turned around to join him as Typhus appeared in the street, and over a dozen Scabs joined him in bursts of flame. Brandishing his Bone Sword, he pointed it at Marco, Mabel, and Star as he broke into a smile that was hard to differentiate from his normal toothy grimace.
Star bristled and brought up her wand, a green glow coming from its half-star. "I really, really don't need this right now!"
Typhus saw Star's tears and chuckled. "Gonna cry about it?"
Lunging forward, Star ignored Mabel and Marco's shouts and ran at Typhus. She was greeted with a gauntlet of Scabs, swinging their short swords to chop her up or impale her. She ducked under several blades, weaved around two thrusts, and leap-frogged over an entire Scab to jump up above Typhus with her wand above her head.
"No, but I'm gonna make you die about it!" Star's cheek marks lit up as she aimed the wand down at him. "LASER BEAM BLAST!"
Instead of a shining white laser, however, a gurgling beam of green sludge fired from the wand and splattered all over Typhus with enough force to send him stumbling back.
"Aw man, I know I'm a grody guy, but this is gross, baby!" Typhus complained as he tried to use his cape to shield himself from the gunk.
The recoil of her failed spell sent Star falling back in surprise, and straight towards the raised blades of the Scabs. Before she could fall upon them, Marco jumped into the crowd of Scabs first.
"HEYAH!" He roared as he performed a flying spin-kick that scattered the Scabs away from him. Landing, he caught Star and helped her up.
"Your wand, what happened?" He demanded before he stopped the slash of another Scab and punished its effort with three quick punches then a kick that knocked it into the crowd.
Star shook her head. "I dont know!"
She used her wand to block another Scab's sword, then twirled in place to clock it across the side of its head and push it back. Aiming the wand she fired off another spell. "Rainbow Fist Punch!"
Instead a clump of green, gooey glitter in the shape of a fist flew at the Scab and was slashed away before it could hit.
Watching the fight quickly unfold, Jo went to go for her Beetle Bonder. "Go time-"
Roland stopped her. "Hold it. We can't."
Jo looked at him. "What? Why-"
She stopped and realized it. "Ohhh… we're in public, and they'd know we're here. That's probably why they even attacked the school, to flush us out!"
By the time she finished, she was standing in front of Hillhurst. "… Huh."
Roland appeared beside her, holding Misao in his arms. "I'm really glad you're the genius of the group, Jo."
Jo scowled at him. "Then here's my next insight–Drew left the school with Heather, and he doesn't have a phone. How are we going to get a hold of him?"
"He'll figure it out," Roland argued back.
As he set her down, Misao huffed. "Prepare yourselves to deploy in your AVs. I will be down in the Beetle Battle Base being useless."
Jo recoiled as Misao walked to the front door. It swung open and a red-carpet rolled out for her, and Flabber stood in the doorway with arms spread in greeting.
"Hey guys, I thought I'd give you the red carpet treat-!" His cheeky pun fell short as he noticed Misao's unpleasant scowl rivaled by only Jo's glare at the back of her head. "Oh dear…"
Misao greeted Flabber with a curt nod as she went straight to the Organ Room and then began the walk down to the Beetle Battle Base. He turned back to Jo and Roland, as the former quickly turned away and transformed into the Red Strikerborg.
Jackie was too distracted by the fighting breaking out to be really cognizant of Roland and Jo suddenly disappearing from the face of the Earth. She peered around Dipper, watching as Star and Marco battled the Scabs surrounding them on all sides.
Star backflipped from the lashing strikes of a Scab, then jumped and twirled over two more trying to grab her. Rather than a spell, she swung a kick into the head of one, and used the force of the blow to turn and swing her heel down onto the top of the other's head. Somersaulting through the air, she landed on her feet and used her wand's wings to catch the sword of her previous attacker when it came for her. Grabbing its arm, she turned and threw the Scab into four more–while the two she clocked with kicks dissolved away from their colossal damage.
As Star plunged back into the melee, Marco jumped and delivered a barrage of kicks into the chest of another Scab.
"HAA!" He yelled as his bicycle kick had the Scab stumbling backward, before he twisted himself around and performed a crescent kick that wrenched its head at an awful angle.
The Scab dissolved in a flash, and through the cloud of dying wasps Typhus emerged, his clawed arm turning from green to red as he prepared to punch Marco into a fine mist.
His swing came, but Marco jumped to the monster's left, and used the air displaced by his blow to get back from him.
It still felt like he'd nearly been hit by a train, though.
"Where are your Beetle Buddies, baby?!" Typhus asked as he swung his arm to try and clip Marco, then swung down with his sword in his other hand.
Marco again hopped back and used the draft of his overpowering strike to avoid the followup blow. "Don't worry about them, worry about what's gonna happen to you for stepping up onto my block!"
"Your block?!" Typhus swung a horizontal slash with his sword.
When Marco ducked the blade, he brought his clawed fist down on his head. "This is my hood!"
Marco side-hopped the hammer-blow then uppercut Typhus, lifting his head back. He then front-kicked the monster in the chest, a loud thud echoing from the force of the blow.
"Marco, down!" Star shouted as she broke free of the fight, and Marco instinctively ducked. She flew over his back, did several flips, jumped and spin-kicked Typhus in the left side of his head, knocking him off the same foot.
She aimed her wand at his face. "Green Glittery Goop Blast!"
And Typhus' face was full of the sticky, stubborn sludge.
As the monster struggled to get the mess off his face and the Scabs closed in on Star and Marco again, Jackie looked over to Dipper as she realized he was walking them back from the fight.
"Dude, I've seen Star and Marco fight monsters before, this is different," she said, her voice betraying anxiety.
Dipper didn't sugarcoat it. "Yeah, these guys are trying to kill us."
Jackie watched as the flame-shaped blade of one Scab came close to cutting Marco's throat as he used that overreach to slam the back of his fist into the side of its head twice, then weave his arm around the Scab to flicker jab his face until it came apart into a swarm of wasps.
"… Dude…" She just never imagined she'd see this kind of violence.
Mabel spoke up. "And we need all the muscle we can get to win."
Dipper turned to her and nodded. Tossing him her phone, Mabel turned towards the fight–and began stretching like she was in an 80s exercise video. "But first, it's time to limber up!"
As she grunted from her effort, Jackie and Dipper looked from her to one another.
Typhus finally got his face clear of the mess and roared as he barreled towards Star with his sword raised. He used his monstrous arm to smack aside two of the Scabs trying to surround her and swung down. When she used her wand to block the sword, the audible clang left her ears ringing.
She looked up at Typhus, grimacing under the weight of his press as he leaned forward.
"Ain't got no magic, ain't got no chance, baby!"
"Don't call me 'baby!'" Star seethed, before she heard Mabel yell.
"Hey, face-face!"
Mabel's outstretched arm caught Typhus at his neck, and the monster was dragged away by her running lariat and thrown to the curb opposite of the school.
Lowering her arm, she glared at him as he got up. "You wanna see what five years of Family Kickboxing Classes does to an already violent maniac?!"
With a growling laugh, Typhus started to get up, but Mabel and Star both were not having it.
"Stomp both of his ugly faces in!" Mabel yelled out before she jumped and heel-dropped Typhus's head, forcing it back down. Running up on him next, Star punted him in the stomach, lifting him up off his knees and leaving him open to Mabel's roundhouse kick straight across his nose, throwing him onto his back.
The remaining Scabs bore down on them, one trying to shank Mabel in the side. She leaned back, the blade passing just below her chest, and she shoved her elbow into the Scab's face.
"You got a bad aim to miss a target this big!" She side-kicked it, putting it on its back, then switched legs to hook the neck of another going for Star.
"Hey Scab, look at this cool bug I found!" With a twist of her hips and swing of her leg she drove the Scab's head into the pavement, shattering the monster mook's dome.
The Princess had her own attackers, and she danced and turned out of their wild swings then unleashed a cloud of sludge from her wand and left them struggling with it.
The Scabs' sacrifice was all the diversion Typhus needed to kick up onto his feet, but Marco's flying punch smashed into his jaw before he could get his balance. The blow sent him into the path of Star–who swung her wand like a golf club and connected with the dead center of his face.
Typhus went back and was kicked in the back of the head by Marco and went forward into another swing from Star. Stumbling to the Princess's right, Typhus roared and turned his arm red to swat both down, before he was drop-kicked by Mabel.
"Don't let him move!" Marco shouted as he parried a Scab and used the little breathing-room he had to karate chop Typhus in the throat and push him back into the barrage of hits from Star and Mabel.
"We weren't-!" Mabel shouted as she elbowed Typhus in the jaw.
Star got him again with her wand, hitting him across the other side of his face. "Going to!"
Jackie watched with growing awe as Star, Mabel, but more importantly (to her at least) Marco laid a beating on Typhus. Even with his henchmen around, while two were dropping hit after hit, the third would lash out at attackers and keep them at bay until Typhus was thrown back to them.
They were all amazing, but Marco… she just couldn't tear her eyes away from him, sending a Scab flying with a vicious combo of palm thrusts before properly punching Typhus back into Star and a blast of gunk from her wand that coated his face and kept him struggling.
"… Dude… that is so cool…" Jackie breathed.
Dipper nodded. "Right?"
Then at the same time they said it.
"Marco is amazing."
Jackie's mouth fell open, and she looked up at Dipper, her mint green eyes widening in both surprise and understanding.
Mabel's phone buzzed, and Dipper looked at it.
Janna Banana said:
I'm with Dr00 and Heather, we're going after the blimp.
Misao said:
Roland brought Jo and I to Hillhurst, we are deploying the AVs!
As Jackie noticed the messages, he sent his reply.
Mabel said:
Make sure the blimp crew is okay, then tell Drew to come here as fast as he can, Typhus is at the school and Star's wand is malfunctioning!
By the time he sent the message, Dipper realized the fight had gained a sizable audience–numerous students that had been drawn out by the racket were watching the fight, many with cellphone cameras pointed at it.
And from the heart of this crowd, Brittney emerged in a rage that no one was listening to her demands. "Move aside you clods! You're blocking…! Get out of my…!"
She forced her way to the front, Sabrina and Chantal behind her–and her already red-faced rage turned a crimson when she saw Star beating on Typhus repeatedly with her wand, before Marco followed it up with a flying kick into his chest that pushed him into a haymaker punch from Mabel that sent him crashing into the arms of his remaining Scabs.
The three teens lined up, with Star at the point, Marco on her right, and Mabel on her left. The exertion of the extremely physical fight was apparent, makeup was running in the sweat, knuckles and knees were bruised and bloodied, and all three were panting for breath.
Slumped into the arms of his soldiers, Typhus hung his head low and chuckled. "Man… I haven't been jumped like this since before I met my friends."
The chuckle turned into a laugh. "I love fighting you brats… I could do it all day, baby!"
He pushed himself up to his feet, and whatever injuries the three were able to inflict on him were gone. "Even if you can't!"
Marco and Mabel both glanced towards her and saw Star's cheek marks begin to glow.
"Star…?" Mabel asked.
Marco understood what was about to happen. "Be careful."
Star only nodded back, her gaze not leaving Typhus and his few Scabs as the same light in her cheek marks filled her eyes.
"WHATEVER YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOU'RE GOING TO STOP!"
The glow disappeared, and Star looked back with everyone else, Typhus included, as Brittney stormed across the front lawn of the school. With fire in her eyes and her fists clenched, she marched past Dipper and Jackie, past Mabel, Star, and Marco, and walked right up to Magnavore Commander.
Reaching Typhus, she raised a hand and jabbed him in the chest with her index finger.
"You need to take your ugly Beetleborgs cosplay, and your weirdo friends and march back to your mom's basement or whatever manchild cave you crawled out of, got it?!"
Behind her, his opponents shared his surprise at the sheer nerve of the girl.
"Uh… Brittney, that's not cosplay! That's an actual monster!" Marco called.
Brittney rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, even I've read those stupid comics!"
She turned around and slapped Typhus upside the head. "Are you paying attention, moron?! You need to go; you're disrupting my school!"
Typhus reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Man, the attitude you kids got, you'd all make great Magnavores."
He then raised his hand to swat Brittney aside. "But we ain't takin' applications, baby."
Star, Marco, and Mabel all lunged to save Brittney, when a shadow passed over them and the street directly next to Typhus shattered from the force of a massive object smashing into it. Brittney and everyone behind her threw their hands up as the wave of dust and debris washed over them, and when she lowered her hands, she was the first to make out the massive shape in the dust cloud.
Just beside ground zero, Typhus tried to move his hand, but found it in a fearsome grip, one stronger than anything that had him since he got here. "Wh-what the heck…? You're strong as a troll, baby!"
The dust cleared, and the first thing he saw was long, vibrant red hair, and then the gnarled, green-skinned face of a she-troll, her yellowed eyes glaring death at him, and her turquoise lips pulled back to bare her fanged underbite. It cleared further, revealing her entire body rippling with tensed muscle under a deceptive layer of fat, wearing a purple shirt, gray pants, and a pair of pumps.
Marco's guard dropped in relief when he saw her. "A capable and responsible adult!"
Star couldn't help herself. "After a fashion."
"If you really wanna flatter me, beefcake…?" Miss Skullnick, Star, Marco, Jackie, and Mabel's homeroom teacher, spoke with a surprisingly level tone that conveyed to Typhus the sheer depth of her anger.
"You're gonna leave my students alone and not come back here… or I'm gonna hurt you."
Typhus stared at Miss Skullnick's face, looked at Brittney, then Star, Marco, and Mabel, then back at her. His gaze fixed there for a few moments, before he relaxed his arm, freeing it from her grip, and slowly stepped back from her.
"For you, baby? Anything." He folded his arms, nodded, and vanished in a flash of flame–taking his remaining Scabs with him.
"This was not on my monster fight bingo card," Dipper admitted.
Jackie put on a relieved smile as she nudged his side. "You can't argue with the results, right?"
"Oh, no, I'll take this!" Dipper quickly assured her.
Mabel sighed in relief. "Thanks, Miss Skullnick!"
"Yeah," Marco added, "You literally saved us a lot of trouble."
The troll teacher turned on them. "Kids, I know you're probably in the middle of some crazy magical adventure or whatever…"
She began chopping her right hand into her left as she spoke, for firm emphasis. "But you can't be doing this stuff during school hours!"
Miss Skullnick gestured back to Brittney. "What if she got hurt, or goodness forbid any of you? Whoever that guy was, he was strong, and he does not need to be coming back here!"
"We'll make sure he doesn't," Marco promised.
Mabel let out a chuckle. "But I think he got the message already, right Miss S?"
She leaned over towards Miss Skullnick and winked. "You she-devil, you~!"
"Mabel, please do not ship her with the bad guys," Marco warned with a flat expression.
Star agreed. "We already went down that road; we DO NOT need to take a second trip."
"What happened to my blimp?"
It was a question that reminded everyone of the gravity of the current situation. The blimp that the Jet Fighters had hit, it was no longer in the sky. The only sign of it was a billowing pall of smoke rising from the LA River, and the ominous shapes of the Magnavore Jet Fighters circling it.
Brittney was staring at the smoke. Everyone could see her hands clenching and unclenching, and the slight tremors that ran through her body, but aside from that the girl was stock still.
And then she wasn't. She turned around in place so fast she could've just flipped around. She was staring directly at Star, her eyes growing bloodshot and her face twitching from the corner of her lip up to her eyebrow.
A chorus of blaring tones from Mabel's, Marco's, Miss Skullnick's, and Brittney's phones interrupted the tense moment. The same tone swept among the other students, and Jackie grabbed her phone to look at the message that came with the tone.
Dipper saw it on Mabel's phone and frowned.
"It was only a matter of time."
A/N: The revolution will not be televised, but it will be live-streamed on the web.
