Legends: A Story of Monsters [Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Gravity Falls, Big Bad Beetleborgs]

[Cain The Wanderer]

Holy schedule slip, Batman, I really let myself go! Oh well, let's rectify that.

= - = 10-3 = - =

|Public Perception|​

With the facilities of his scrap yard up and running, Noxic was able to repair his heavily damaged body much faster than normal. Despite being entirely devastated by Tara's blast the night before, he was already more than eighty percent repaired, which Barla found curious.

"Noxic," the Mercenary Warrior spoke. "Why do you not self-repair like your Scabs?"

Noxic, who was getting his armored body worked on by a few Scabs using everything from fine tools to soldering irons and welding torches, turned his head 180 to look at her.

"Scabs are too cheap! Yeah with the Vespbot core I can regenerate on the fly, but if something takes it out, that's it! I can't be giving myself a weakness like that!"

Typhus, who was standing off to the side, nodded. "Yeah. You see how fast those kids deal with 'em, baby. Even with numbers on our side, they've gotten real good at tagging them."

Barla folded her arms. "And you can't place the cores anywhere else?"

"Like where, center mass where they'll be easier to hit? Or on a limb that might get taken off fast?" Noxic asked. "The Vespbots only work if they're connected! If the core gets lopped off the rest of the body crumbles."

He had a Scab manipulate his right arm to hook a thumb at himself. "As long as my software's intact, I don't need to self-repair!"

Barla's brow knitted. "Your software?"

Typhus nodded. "Yeah, Noxic's body is just a body, baby! Inside that noggin of his is the real Noxic!"

Jara walked up. "A computer virus that is, for all intents and purposes, immortal—so long as his head survives."

"And there ain't a thing that can knock my noggin! Not even Vexor!" Noxic boasted.

Barla turned to Jara and saluted her crisply. "Jara."

Jara returned the salute and nodded to her. "I finished my reconnaissance. That anti-teleportation barrier is still interfering, but it doesn't appear that the human authorities are aware that the house is their base."

Barla smirked. "Not yet."

"Hey, speakin' of bodies," Noxic called. "What's the deal with that armor, huh? It's got more bells and whistles than I've ever built in a bot. It's probably more powerful than Death Launcher!"

Barla looked at Noxic, then down at her armor—particularly the dragon head that made up the chest plate.

"This armor is forged from the remains of a Black Star Eater that Jara and I slew."

"Yeah, you mentioned that," Noxic said, "The heck's a Star Eater?"

Typhus knew. "A pretty big deal, baby. It's exactly what the name says!"

Jara nodded. "Star Eaters are great space-faring dragons who feed upon stars. They are tremendously powerful, vastly ancient, and notoriously vindictive."

Noxic was impressed. "Whoa… those sound like bad news, and you two killed one?"

Barla gestured to her armor. "Yes. It was a very young Star Eater—a hatchling—but even then the hunt was perilous, relentless, and nearly killed the two of us many times over."

"It is honestly a good thing we were brought to this universe," Jara said. "If any other Star Eater came across us, it would not go well."

Barla laughed. "'Not go well' is a fabulous understatement! A proper adult would scour the surface of this planet clean in retaliation for killing one of its kin!"

"And chase us to the end of the universe," Jara chimed in.

"Physical and chronological," Barla finished with a nod.

"Yikes," Noxic said. "Just another reason to be glad we ain't in the Nightmare Realm anymore."

"That, and Macho Number 5," Typhus teased.

Noxic's head spun around twice before stopping to glare at Typhus. "WHAT DID I TELL YOU?!"

With a sudden burst of flame, Vexor abruptly appeared in the workshop, and the mood immediately chilled.

Jara and Barla stood at attention, while Typhus just let out a low growl.

Noxic would make a face if his wasn't mechanical. "Speaking of vastly ancient and notoriously vindictive…"

Vexor swept into the main area of the workshop, magnanimously choosing to ignore that. "Jara, your report?"

Jara turned to Vexor. "The authorities have not approached the house. They appear unaware that it has any connection to the Beetleborgs, Butterfly, and their allies."

"Curious," Vexor said. "I will need to gain more insight into this world's law enforcement, or—at the very least—this locality's law enforcement."

He turned to Noxic. "Would you be able to penetrate their communications networks?"

Noxic hummed in annoyance. "You think I ain't tried? Fun fact, I tried to set off this world's nukes as a gag, but all that junk's air-gapped! And there's a buncha quantumania with their high-level security, too. I can't bypass encrypts if the keys ain't even sure they exist!"

Vexor weighed this revelation. "Barla."

The Mercenary Warrior nodded to him. "Yes?"

"Do you suppose this world has police scanners?"

"I would be shocked if they did not."

"You or Jara, acquire one," Vexor said.

Both Mercenaries nodded.

Noxic grew indignant. "A police scan—why didn't you ask me for something like that?!"

"So I could get an honest explanation for your failure at cyber-espionage."

Noxic fell quiet. "Crab jerk."

Vexor chose to ignore that as well. It was simply blasé. "Is there anything else, Jara?"

"Yes," Jara said, "The enemy that attacked Noxic during his skirmish. I have identified them."

This was what Vexor wanted to hear. "Oh?"

"She officially goes by Major Blast II. She is a well-known, but controversial figure in this city and its surrounding lands. Despite claiming to be a hero… she seems broadly disliked throughout the city."

How interesting, Vexor didn't have to wait long. "Really?"

"No hero is without supporters, but it would seem Major Blast has a reputation for pursuing and driving off other heroes. This has made her broadly disliked among the public," Jara explained. "It would appear that she is exactly what you are looking for: someone whose pride will not allow them to be outshone."

"How fortuitous," Vexor said in contentment. "Someone strong enough, and with the exact mindset needed to be pitted against our other foes and drive them into a corner. All we need to do is give her… direction."

He turned to Typhus. "Can I entrust that to you, Typhus?"

"Yeah, that don't seem like a problem." Typhus turned to Barla. "Hey, Barla. You mind helpin' me out with that?"

"Of course. Do you have a plan in mind?"

"Yeah. Figure all I need are a few Jet Fighters and you. I'll draw Major Blast out, and give her that direction Vexor's lookin' for, baby."

Barla nodded, already understanding both Typhus's intent and the shape of the battlefield. "As you wish, you have my support."

Noxic was happy to assist. "I'll get those fighters set up for you real quick. You're gonna need a lot of 'em, I think Major Blast has something nasty up her sleeve with that suit of hers."

Vexor turned to Noxic. "Hm?"

Being surprisingly forthcoming, Noxic answered Vexor. "Yeah, there was somethin' about that beam blast that felt familiar. You get hit with enough magic nonsense and you start to be able to detect it, and that energy got the same vibe as that Princess' magic."

Jara and Barla were both surprised.

"You didn't think to mention this sooner?!" Jara yelled.

"Gimme a break, it ain't gonna change what's about to happen when Typhus is done with her!"

Vexor brightened. "Oho! A very interesting revelation. I dare wonder what the connection is, and sincerely hope that I will not wait too long to have my curiosity satisfied. I leave it to you."

With that, Vexor vanished back to his lair.

@@@@@​

Dipper thundered down the stairs of Shermie's home, rushed through the house, and burst out into the backyard, where Mabel and Misao were already waiting by the picnic benches set up in the yard. Star was with them, Dimensional Scissors in hand, and carving open a portal as an amazed Kelly Hamdon stared at the portal.

"No, but seriously… that is amazing? How do they work?" Kelly asked.

Star turned to her. "Magic!"

Kelly's face fell. "… Uhh… how does the magic work?"

Star waved her hand back and forth in a dismissive gesture. "There's a whole thing about sticking your hands in hobo stew, it's a whole complicated metaphor and I'm still running on vibes until I figure it out."

She looked at the door and saw Dipper. "Morning, Dipper! I'm going to grab Jackie then head to El Sereno!"

She jumped through the portal. "Bye~!"

Misao, eyeing Kelly's Shooting Star Special, just numbly waved after her. "… Auf Wiedersehen~"

Mabel held a hand over her eyes. "You're still in a Mabel Juice crash."

She turned to her brother. "Hey, Dipper, you won't believe this–"

"I read the message," Dipper said before he addressed Kelly. "Can you tell us about SheZow?"

Kelly stared at Dipper, mouth hanging open. "Uh…"

"Yes, he's a stud," Mabel said. "Tighten it up, Kells!"

Dipper rolled his eyes as Kelly snapped out of it and quickly shook her head.

"Right, sorry. I have had a lot thrown at me since I got to Zoom! Between finding out you guys really do know FaithfulPony371, seeing actual freaking magic portal stuff, meeting BIG NANO in person, and now I'm here and–"

She turned to Mabel. "Your brother is freaking hot, and oh my god the caffeine and sugar rush is hitting."

Mabel took Kelly by the shoulders, and pulled her into a hug. "Okay, take a deep breath."

Kelly, her face buried in Mabel's chest, took a long, slow, calming breath.

Misao, taking advantage of her and Mabel's distraction, appropriated the Shooting Star Special from Kelly.

Mabel looked down at Kelly. "You good?"

"… I am learning things about myself…"

"Girls always are with me," Mabel said before tightening the hug. "Take another deep breath and then we'll sit down."

Dipper chuckled as he walked over to the picnic table and sat down. There were worse ways to have his morning interrupted.

After a few more deep breaths, Kelly pulled away from Mabel and sat down across from Dipper with Mabel directly next to her. Misao sat down beside Dipper, drinking the Shooting Star Special.

Honestly, Kelly was fine letting it go.

"You're still in a crash," Mabel warned again.

"And this is the hair of the dog that bit me," Misao retorted.

Mabel stopped, surprised she just learned the whole saying like that.

Dipper shook his head before speaking to Kelly. "So… you're SheZow's sidekick?"

Kelly placed her hands on the table, and got down to brass tacks. "One of them, yeah. I actually came here to ask you guys what's going on—because it's causing SheZow to freak out hardcore."

Dipper tilted his head. "Freak out?"

"Yeah, SheZow has a power called She-SP. Basically a precognition for danger that can even cause SheZow to transform from their alter ego, and this has been going on for months."

"Months…?" Dipper repeated, before quickly understanding. "This power's been reacting to Star, too."

Kelly nodded. "Exactly. The first She-SP trigger went off not long after Star began vlogging. It's only gotten worse since."

She reached into her purse and pulled out her phone and set it down. A few swipes later, a spreadsheet was projected into the air above it, showing a timeline of Magnavore attacks correlating with the number of transformations and their duration.

"This past week alone has been crazy. It's been basically every day at this point."

Dipper was impressed at Kelly's organized data compilation. "That's a lot of data. Is this something you like to do?"

Misao set down the frozen cappuccino. "I think we're skipping past an important question. If SheZow is still around, what are they doing? We could really use the help."

Her question took the wind completely out of Kelly's sails just as she was about to explain her affinity for collecting and organizing data. Stopping, she looked down at the table with a sigh.

"Oh, yeah… believe me, I've been asking that since Star showed up," Kelly revealed. "But… SheZow doesn't want to go out and fight for personal reasons."

Mabel had to ask. "Is it because she's really old?"

Kelly went from somber to confused. "Huh? No, SheZow isn't–"

She stopped and her eyes widened. "Oh… you're talking about the previous SheZow. She passed away back in 2010."

Dipper, Mabel, and Misao gave a start.

"It was that long ago?!" Dipper asked.

"Yeah," Kelly said. "My Great Aunt Agnès Monroe, she was the previous SheZow."

"She was your Graunty?!" Mabel said in amazement.

"Believe me, it was a shock to us when we found out…" Kelly said.

"Then the SheZow who was driven off by Tara… that was her successor," Misao said.

"… Yeah…"

Dipper looked at Kelly's hands, and saw no sign of the ring on her fingers. "SheZow is someone close to you, another relative? A sibling?"

Kelly flinched, but took a deep breath as she realized she was going to have to talk about this. "… Yeah, my twin brother, Guy."

The Pines Twins and Misao were once again taken aback.

"A guy named Guy is the current SheZow," Misao murmured. "The irony there is cosmic."

"He wears it well," Dipper said.

Mabel gave Kelly a knowing, sympathetic look. "Let me guess—you found SheZow's ring, and Guy put it on before you could as a bit."

Kelly nodded. "That's exactly what happened."

"Just twin things, am I right?" Mabel asked with a sage nod.

"Just twin things," Kelly agreed. "Honestly, he's fantastic as SheZow. He did way better back then than I could've done with the ring."

"So what happened?" Dipper asked.

Kelly sat back and sighed. "You all probably know the story. SheZow's villains all broke out of confinement and went on a rampage. We all went out together and spent a week straight rounding them up, before Tara swept in with the cops and chased down SheZow to try to arrest him, too."

Misao spoke up. "And that was enough?"

Kelly shook her head. "No… there was something else that happened after, that made Guy quit… it has to do with our dad."

Something clicked in Mabel's head. "Hang on… is your dad… a cop?"

Kelly's shoulders dropped. "I'm pretty sure you've all met him by now."

"We have," Mabel said through her teeth.

Dipper could only imagine it. "It goes that deep, huh?"

Kelly nodded. "Yeah, Guy is afraid to show himself as SheZow again because of it. I've tried to get him to go back out there and be a hero but…"

She closed her eyes and sighed.

"Our dad's a cop, yeah, but… he's a really good dad. Guy and I really care about him and he cares about us. Shoot, he's been worried about how Guy's been secluding himself away from everyone and tries to talk to him, but how are you going to talk to your dad about the fact you're the person he hates the most?"

Misao gasped. "Oh no, it's like that…"

Yep, it went deep.

Dipper sighed and got up. "No, that's legit. We have it pretty good because we have adults we can talk to about the crazy stuff we're dealing with… so I can't judge. I can't even imagine going through that."

Mabel shook her head. "Me neither. I feel so bad for you all."

He took his hat off and rubbed the top of his head. "But even if Guy doesn't want to be SheZow, we need his help with something."

Kelly was grateful that they weren't upset about SheZow's absence. "I can talk to him and see if he wants to come out, but… what is it?"

Dipper put his hat back on. "What do you know about the previous SheZows? I mean… the ones that go way back?"

Kelly raised her right eyebrow. "Uhh… as far as I know, SheZow has been in LA since the 1890s. Why?"

Dipper brightened some. "Do you know what happened during the Los Angeles Oil War?"

Kelly shrank. "Erm… I know SheZow's been around for a while? But I don't know the details about past SheZows besides that. All that lore kinda… died with Aunt Agnès."

Dipper dimmed. "… Oh."

He shrugged. "That's fine. SheZow may be sidelined, but that doesn't mean Guy can't help us."

Kelly perked up. "With what?"

"There's something at Hillhurst related to SheZow from those old days… and his ring is literally the key to opening it."

Kelly tilted her head. "… Key to what?"

@@@@@​

Enraged could not begin to describe how Tara felt as she marched to the large green-and-magenta Toter-Hauled RV parked in the back of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office. Some nosy, obnoxious little weasel of a reporter had ripped the wind out of the sails of her debut and victory lap.

Worse, she had been forced to shut down all of her social media again over things that were not important and were none of their business!

"Robotics Gayly… the moment I find out who runs it, I will grind them into dust! They won't be able to breathe without a cop asking them about it!" She snarled. "Starting with that Maz Kepler brat!"

Tara was also annoyed that when Maz had been told to leave, he had immediately complied with the deputies on hand, and left without further prompting. She wanted to get him on something—anything—that would make him squirm! A weekend in county jail would've corrected his disrespectful behavior!

"I won't have my big push undermined," she declared as she reached the door. "My brand is on the brink of skyrocketing! Tara, the hero who saved Los Angeles from terrorists! I'll make national headlines!"

Just as she was about to open the door, a pair of men walked around from the front of the RV and toward her.

One of them, a clean-cut, photogenic man in his forties wearing a blue button-up polo and khaki pants, called to her. "A woman after my own heart. Agent Sanchez, is it really love at first sight if I've seen her on TV plenty of times?"

Beside him was a somewhat more serious-looking man wearing a pale blue shirt with a tie—but a similar pair of khakis. At the first man's question, Agent Sanchez shrugged as he sized up Tara and found her… wanting.

Tara stopped and looked at the two men, and she immediately recognized the photogenic man. "Steve Haines… you host Underbelly of Paradise."

"That's right," the first man said. "Special Agent Steve Haines, and this is my partner—Agent Andreas Sanchez."

Agent Sanchez nodded curtly, but said nothing.

Tara scowled at both men. "What are the feds doing, sending agents over to my task force?"

Agent Haines gestured to her. "A common goal—combating terrorism and protecting our shores from foreign infiltrators. You struck a pretty decisive blow, and Uncle Sam's decided that while the iron's hot… we're going to strike as hard as we can."

Tara's hands went to her hips, and she continued to scowl at both. "In other words, you're here to take command."

Agent Haines remained nonplussed in the face of her glare. "Not so much taking over. The FBI is joining the Magnavore Task Force and opening up the Bureau's wide-ranging assets to help round up and prosecute these terrorists. And I'm personally offering my own assets to help push the message—that America won't be pushed around by freaks in costumes who read too many comic books."

Tara sniffed—a wet, congested sound that made both men flinch slightly. "And I suppose you want a cut of my glory now that the Feds are involved?"

"Glory for glory," Agent Haines replied. "Let the Bureau have a little credit for taking down these sunbaked losers, and I'll cut you in on some of our action."

That gave Tara pause. "What kind of action…?"

Agent Sanchez glanced at Agent Haines, who smirked slightly.

"Some details on our Coyote hunt?"

Tara's brows shot up, and her hands dropped from her hips. "… Coyote is here? Has been here?"

Her curiosity turned to fury. "In my city?!"

Agent Haines raised his hands in a placating gesture. "The Pacific Standard heist and the Calipatria riot in June, and the Humane Labs fiasco in July. We might even have coyote tracks over at the Rodeo Drive heist a few weeks back, and if that's the case…"

He glanced over to Agent Sanchez, who finished. "… Then the Bureau will need additional firepower. Preferably the kind we don't need to go through Peregrine Law-mandated channels for."

Tara sniffed again. "And you can't just put together a Special Response Team?"

"By the time Washington gets off its ass to approve an escalation," Agent Haines continued, "Coyote might be off the grid again. We need rapid response, we need reaction, we need…"

Tara brightened, her lips curling into a smirk. "A hero to arrive in the nick of time."

She chuckled. "Throw in shutting down a newsletter, and I'm in."

Agent Haines smirked right back and extended his hand. "I'll add that to the pile."

Liking that, Tara took his hand and shook it firmly. "Major Blast, at your service, Special Agent Haines."

Agent Haines shook her hand with the same professional firmness. "Something big is coming to LA, Ms. Bouger. A lot of money is moving, and chatter on the backchannels is getting louder. With the Russians toothless and China in civil war, America is ripe for chaos next, and it's up to us to identify and eliminate the bad actors who'd make it happen."

"My money is on Brazil," Tara quipped as she let his hand go, then shook Agent Sanchez's.

"My money is on it being some connected mad scientist," the other agent said as he shook Tara's hand. "Brazil wouldn't dare try, they're soft."

Stepping back, Tara walked over to the door and grasped the handle. "I take it you'll be in touch, gentlemen?"

Agent Haines nodded. "As soon as Monday. Agent Sanchez and I still have to break the news to the other departments in the task force and establish the new hierarchy. I just thought you'd be first to know."

"You're so considerate," Tara said. "We should talk over lunch at the earliest convenience. Until then, boys~"

With that, she stepped inside her trailer and shut the door behind her.

Agent Sanchez looked at Agent Haines. "We're playing with fire, man. That bitch is deranged."

Agent Haines sneered as he turned to leave, gesturing for his partner to follow. "You don't get anywhere if you're afraid of a little heat, amigo. Now come on, we've got a house to clean."

Inside the trailer, Tara's own smile was gone as she marched down the length of the vehicle to where her Major Blast equipment stood, ready to be equipped at a moment's notice.

"Those fed bastards sent an obnoxious Hollywood E-Lister to be the face of my push?! Oh no, this is going to be over and done with before Monday, boys."

She raised her hand and snapped her fingers. The lights in the trailer immediately went out, and the gantry holding the armor hummed to life as holographic screens flickered on around it, displaying the powered armor's status.

Bathed in the green light, Tara stripped off her suit jacket and reached for her tie.

"By the end of today, those clowns and the wannabe brats playing hero against them will be history."

@@@@@​

Down in El Sereno, at the site of last night's battle, Officers Hamdon and Wackerman sat in their cruiser at one of the entrances to the cordoned-off Night Market. Officers from other agencies of the task force were standing guard at the rest of the lot's entrances, while investigators surveyed the site itself.

In the driver's seat, Boxter drummed his fingers on the cruiser's steering wheel as he looked out the window at the cars passing by on the road.

He had been slow to wake up today. He almost called off, that was how deep he was in his turmoil about those kids.

Next to him, Officer Wackerman was watching a clip of Tara's press conference. "Hey, Boxter. That kid who used to hang out with Guy, his name was what, Max?"

Boxter, who was lost in his thoughts, needed a second to realize his partner was talking to him. "No, Jeb, his name's Maz. Maz Kepler."

Boxter knew exactly who he meant, even though Maz had scarcely been around in years. For years, Guy and Maz had been the best of friends getting into all sorts of mischief.

Then one day, Guy announced that he never wanted to hear Maz's name spoken again, let alone see him. Boxter even tried to talk to his son about it…

That went about as well as expected.

"Guy? What's going on with you and Maz?"

"Don't you say that jerk's name around me ever again. I'm done with his crap."

"What…? C'mon, Guy, you two are best friends-"

"We're not. Just drop it, okay?"

And that was that. Boxter tried talking to Maz's parents about it, but they were just as confused by the switch-up. Maz told them that he and Guy simply had a fight… and they weren't friends anymore.

Though he was despondent, unlike Guy.

Every so often he'd catch Maz hanging out with Kelly, but she was just as ambiguous about it as both of them were. And Maz wasn't the same enthusiastic kid he remembered. He never looked in Boxter's direction when they ran into each other—and avoided eye contact when he had no choice but to.

"What about him?" Boxter asked Jeb.

"It's the craziest thing, he was at Tara's press conference as a journalist. He asked some questions that sent Tara into a rage and she had him thrown out. It has to be the same guy, how many people name their kids Maz?"

Boxter shook his head, and chuckled a bit. "I'm not surprised, he and Kelly really don't like her."

Though it did surprise him that Maz was apparently working for the press. As contentious as the media could be, he was proud of the kid for finding a job like that at his age.

"You remember that girl from the golf course who tore into us, right?" Jeb asked. "A lot of kids are still fans of SheZow—even though Tara's done more to put bad guys away in just four years than SheZow did in fifty."

"They don't care about what Tara's done, only what they see," Boxter said. "Yeah, she's got a bad temper and she does act like she's entitled to people's respect… but she's done actual good. Like finally putting away all the villains SheZow could never keep locked up."

Jeb nodded. "Yeah. She jailed Cold Finger, Mega Monkey, Mocktopus, the entire Pushy Pirate Posse, and Big Chow Slim—the actual guy who was using the refugees from China to stir up trouble!"

"They've all been imprisoned for years since Tara drove SheZow out of town, when SheZow could barely keep them in for a week!" Boxter said. "I swear. Besides Tara, CCI getting rated for supervillains was the best thing to happen to this state."

"Did you hear that they already sent Shego up there?"

"Yeah… and hopefully these alleged monsters will get tossed in, too."

Just outside the police cordon, a portal opened and Jackie stepped out, followed by Star. To their dismay, officers were standing guard at every entrance while investigators from several different agencies surveyed the site.

"Shoot, there's a lot of them out today," Jackie murmured as she handed the Dimensional Scissors back to Star. "You want to come back later?"

Star narrowed her eyes at the scene, then looked at Jackie. "Nope, I'm cleaning up this mess. I don't care who tries to stop me."

Jackie gave Star a small smile. "This is why you're so cool."

As they approached the nearest entrance, where Hamdon and Wackerman's cruiser was parked, Jeb noticed them.

"Hey, Boxter, look," Jeb said as he pointed through the driver's-side window. "Two of them are headed this way."

Boxter looked and grimaced when he saw the girls. "Stay in the car, Jeb. Let me handle this."

Squawking the siren to get their attention, Boxter stepped out of the cruiser and shut the door behind him as Star and Jackie walked up.

"All right, hang on, you two," Boxter ordered.

Jackie held out her arm to stop Star before she could answer. "Bro, chill. We're just here to clean up the mess."

"This is still a crime scene," Boxter said. "You can't just be walking around here–"

"Crime scene? This was a battlefield!" Star protested.

"And the only person who did any of the damage this time was Major Karen," Jackie added. "Look, we're not even going to be here long, just let Star do her thing."

Reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, Boxter sighed. "Come on—the last thing any of you kids should be doing is getting involved in this mess. It's too dangerous, fighting monsters, swinging around weapons, and don't get me started on that magic wand!"

Star looked at the handle of her wand sticking out of her purse, then at Boxter. "Huh? The only reason I'm on Earth is so I can learn to use my wand responsibly—or some junk!"

That threw Boxter off a bit. According to the information the task force had been given about the group, Star Butterfly claimed to be a magical princess from another dimension. Even the documentation Elise Dinkleman had provided corroborated the claim and insisted it was factual.

To him, it was just as likely that Star was just a girl who watched too much anime and was given some mad scientist's trinket to go crazy with it.

He could no longer reasonably deny that the wand did impossible things. That did not mean he had to believe the story about princesses and other dimensions.

So hearing her say something like that so naturally caught him between wondering if Star sincerely believed she was a magical princess from another dimension, or just that dedicated to the bit.

"Look, I can believe a lot of things—I've SEEN a lot of things. A super-genius chimpanzee, a mutant shark/octopus hybrid monster that ragebaits, and all of the ridiculous stunts SheZow could pull. But, listen to me… you're not a magical princess from another dimension. You're just a hyperactive teenage girl, who was given some kind of crazy idiot's superweapon, and all that anime you must've watched is paying dividends for you!"

Star and Jackie looked at each other then at the exasperated policeman.

"Dude, what?" Jackie asked.

Star was straight up offended as she held up the Dimensional Scissors. "Hello! These scissors let me travel between dimensions! You've seen me use them! If Elise hadn't told us we're not allowed to touch you? I'd be sending you straight to Mewni right now."

"It's more likely a mad scientist's portal device. Krei Tech was working on a portal machine a few years back!" Boxter argued.

That was news to Star. "Who?"

Jackie rolled her eyes before turning to her friend. "Star? Ignore this loser—he's just trying to make it make sense to himself."

Boxter quickly shook his head, realizing he misstepped. "I'm just worried about you kids!"

Both Star and Jackie stopped and stared at him.

Having their attention, Boxter took a deep breath. "I have two kids of my own, they're your age. The idea of them going out there and getting into danger like this keeps me up at night, and seeing you all fighting these monsters… and just how dangerous it is… I can't help but to be worried sick for you, too."

Jackie looked back at Boxter. "Dude… I get being worried. But when this crap started, my friends chose to fight those monsters."

Star put away her Scissors and pulled out her wand. "I've always been fighting monsters, even before I got my wand! It's practically my job!"

"I chose to fight these monsters, too. Just like how Kim Possible chooses to go out there and do actual good in the world. The only people who seem to have a problem with it are people like Tara, who is the world's neediest attention whore."

"And people like you," Star said. "People who immediately write us off as idiots who don't know what we're doing! I can't stand that!"

She turned and looked at the ruins of the Night Market, as her cheek marks began to glow.

"Everything that happened here—even though Tara caused it—is still our responsibility to make right. And as long as I have the power to do something to make it right, I will!"

Star raised her wand above her head as it too began to shine brightly.

"Because it's always the right thing to do!" Star declared as she swung the wand down. "Super Mega Cutie Kitten Clutter Cleaners!"

As with her previous casts of the spell, a veritable wave of civic-minded kittens in various adorable uniforms surged from the wand and raced across the entire ruined lot. Investigators at the scene jumped in surprise as the wave passed over melted ruins and exploded fuel tanks, leaving pristine market stalls and undamaged equipment in their wake.

Even the melted, ruined asphalt was repaired. The deep crater blasted into it vanished, leaving several surprised investigators who had been working inside it standing on smooth, level pavement.

Boxter stared in surprise at the sheer completeness of Star's work.

Yes, he'd seen the spell do this before, but this was so much more.

Jackie smiled at Star. "You could make so much money doing this."

Star turned up her nose. "Ah, but dearest Jacquelyn, this is merely the essential duty of royalty. To use our great power to help those in great need!"

Jackie let out a chuckle. "Noblesse oblige."

"Noblesse oblige!" Star said before quickly adding, "But, you know, for royalty."

"Right, right…!" Jackie quickly agreed as she giggled.

Before Boxter could say anything, a great commotion rose from across the street.

He looked back and saw crowds of people cheering wildly. Some stared in disbelief with cameras and phones in hand, while others had fallen to their knees, weeping with a mixture of joy, awe, and relief.

Just by looking at the crowd, he quickly realized who they were.

The people of the neighborhood. Local residents, vendors, and their employees—people who had come to behold the disaster and mourn the loss of the Night Market as they tried to figure out where they could possibly go from here.

Then, just like that, it was all back—their stands, their equipment… their entire livelihoods.

And Boxter felt it right in the pit of his stomach.

Tara had gone on television offering no real consolation or sympathy, celebrating her own achievement instead.

And these kids had come here just to fix what she broke.

As the crowd got ready to rush across the street to thank and praise Star, Jackie's phone rang and she looked at it. "We gotta go."

Star pulled out the Dimensional Scissors. "Yeah, we should get going before we get mobbed!"

Boxter turned back to them. "Hey, what? But you just…!"

Star opened the portal. "We can't stick around and bask in people's adoration all day! We've got stuff to do!"

"Yeah, dude," Jackie said as Star disappeared through the portal. "We're not actually in this for the clicks."

She followed Star through the portal, and it immediately vanished.

Boxter stared at the spot where the portal disappeared, then looked at Jeb as he stepped out of the cruiser and looked at the Night Market in amazement.

"Well, shoot," Jeb said. "If Tara was mad about how her presser went, she's going to be raging now."

Boxter blinked as it dawned on him… Jeb was right.

= - = 10-3 = - =​

Well, that's another series for the crossover lol

 

[Cain The Wanderer]

Oops, had a small error of continuity but I think I fixed it? I'm pretty sure I did.

Star never gave the scissors to Mabel back in Public Perception, she needed those to go to El Sereno, and for the following, lol.

= - = 10-4 = - =

|Take Me Out|​

A portal opened in Drew's bedroom, and he stepped out before he looked back at Star as she followed him through. "Thanks for getting me home quick, Star."

"No problem," she replied. "And have fun on your date, okay? Don't break Sabrina's heart, or Brittney will hate you more than she ever did me! No pressure, bye~!"

With that she disappeared back through the portal and it closed. Drew stared at the empty spot on the floor where it had existed, and swallowed audibly.

"Sheesh, no pressure much, Star?" he asked before he got ready.

Sabrina had texted him just as he got out of the shower in the dojo. She would be at his house in about ten minutes, with Dudley driving her.

Drew figured Dudley was a punctual guy, so he quickly changed out of his casual clothes and grabbed a nice dark blue pair of pants, a loose, light-blue, long-sleeved button-up shirt, and the blue Chuck Taylors he wore to the dance.

"First we're going to see a movie," he said as he pulled on the shirt. "Either Maze Runner or Boxtrolls."

He sat on his bed and pulled on a pair of white socks. "Then we have lunch and walk down Santa Monica Pier. Easy stuff."

Hopping around as he struggled to work a leg into his pants, he stopped when he noticed himself in the mirror set up on his door and examined his damp hair. "Huh…"

Drew nodded and used his telekinesis to make his hair look fashionably messy in that way that looked more stylish than lazy. "There we go. Today will go just fine."

Making sure he had his wallet, money, and his secret phone hidden deep in his pockets, Drew stepped out of his room, and into the hallway–

Where he found his father waiting at the top of the stairs.

"You need to stop sneaking in and out of my house like you can do as you please," Mr. McCormick immediately warned. "You're still grounded, remember?"

Drew narrowed his eyes. "Okay?"

His father looked him up and down. "Where are you going?"

"Out, with a friend," Drew said. "I'll be back in the evening."

"You're not leaving this house while you're grounded," his father replied.

Drew rolled his eyes.

"Do not roll your eyes at me." Despite the order, Mr. McCormick neither raised his voice nor changed his tone. "You are getting too big for those britches, and need to remember your place."

"I remember it plenty, that's why I'm going out," Drew looked at the path his father blocked, and strongly considered going back into his room and out his window. "How about you remember yours, and go back to listening to The Eagles while quietly seething over everything I do like I'm too embarrassing to look at."

He gestured to his father dismissively. "Because suddenly being on me for having a social life ain't it, Dad."

"I am not 'on you' for having a social life," his father replied. "You don't suddenly get one of those overnight."

"Well said by someone whose idea of a night out is collecting Eagles memorabilia with Mom."

"You are up to something, and I'm coming down on it before we have to pack up and move out again."

That agitated Drew something fierce. "The only kids who've ever messed with me here in Echo Creek moved out of town last week. I haven't been in trouble with anyone, and I have actual friends now. I'm not twelve anymore, Dad—not that I did anything wrong when I was twelve."

Mr. McCormick reached up and adjusted his glasses with his pinky finger. "What do you mean they moved?"

And there he went again, showing more concern for the people who tormented him than his own son. "Trip and Van moved out of town all of a sudden; their dad lost everything on the stock market, and now they're gone."

That appeared to genuinely surprise Mr. McCormick, the man's eyes widened behind his glasses. "Did they say where they were going?"

Drew tilted his head slightly, his expression blank. "Dad, why in the world would I care?"

He realized that Dudley was going to be pulling up any minute now. "They aren't going to harass me anymore, so I can focus on trying to graduate. If it bothers you that much, write them a letter or something. At least one of us would be sorry they're gone."

Mr. McCormick's composure returned. "You're still not leaving this house, and if you try? I will call the police to drag you back here."

Drew felt a flash of frustration rise in him before he had an idea.

"Okay, call the police, and on the ride back I can ask them about what happens when parents don't take their injured kid to the hospital, and somebody else has to after a few days."

His father visibly flinched. "No one would believe you."

Jo called from the bottom of the stairs. "Oh, but the fun part would be investigating who's telling the truth. And how would that look."

His expression tightened again, and he turned to look back at her.

"And boy, who knows what'll get dug up?" she finished before calling up to Drew. "There's a really expensive car parked outside, I think it's for you."

Drew blanched. "Crap, Dudley's here."

He took advantage of the gap his father opened and rushed past him down the stairs. "Thanks, Jo!"

"No problem, brotron," Jo said, patting him on the back as he passed her to head for the garage. "Have fun!"

"Andrew, come back here, right now!"

Jo looked back up at her father and let out a dramatic sigh. "Seriously, how are you gonna stop him, listen to an Eagles 'Best Of' as loud as you can? Just let him go, Dad."

Mr. McCormick walked down the stairs, lifting his glasses to squeeze the bridge of his nose. "Josephine, what happened to the Vanderhoffs?"

She shrugged. "They went broke and moved out of town in the dead of night because people were after them. At least that's what I read on the school Facebook group."

She folded her arms as he reached the bottom of the stairs. "Why? Isn't it a good thing that the jerks who messed with Drew are gone?"

Something was going on behind her father's eyes as Mr. McCormick walked past her. She couldn't put her finger on it—and she didn't like it.

"It's just unexpected," he said as he went to the chair and sat down.

Jo watched him. "What happened to calling the police?"

Mr. McCormick sat down. "Go to your room."

Letting out a huff, Jo headed upstairs. "I'm going to the library. Have fun wallowing in your impotence, Dad."

As his daughter retreated upstairs, Mr. McCormick sank into his chair and narrowed his eyes.

The Vanderhoff brothers just disappearing was unfortunate. No, it couldn't have been worse timed.

Now he needed to think of something else.

Jogging out of his garage, Drew found Dudley standing by the rear driver's-side door, to open it for him. "Hello, Dudley."

"Greetings, Master Andrew," Dudley replied before he opened the door. "Master Sabrina awaits."

Drew nodded in thanks and climbed into the car, where Sabrina sat on the other side of the back seat, trying not to fidget nervously. "H-Hey Drew!"

"Hey," he said as he buckled himself in while Dudley closed the door and walked to the driver's side. "You look… amazing."

Immediately Sabrina's cheeks turned red as she looked him over, then averted her eyes. "Thank you… um… you too…"

Right away she wondered if she said too much or too little. "I mean, you look great! Uh… amazing… yeah… ahh… good! You look really good!"

Drew smiled and let out a small laugh. "Thank you. And… it's okay, we both want to be here, right?"

Sabrina stopped and stared at him… before she smiled. He had a point there. "Yeah, you're right."

"So, we're off to the movies," Drew said. "What do you want to see?"

"I really want to see Maze Runner, what about you?"

Drew was a little relieved. "That sounds just fine. I was hoping for that, actually. So… how was your week? I heard you got caught up in like… two monster attacks?"

That he had his ear to the ground surprised her. "Y-yes! I was at Britta's and at the golf course."

She sighed. "Both times monsters chased after us, and Dudley protected us until help arrived. Noxic even zapped him…"

Drew looked over at Dudley. "… Are you okay?"

"Yes," Dudley replied. "I only needed a day's rest, and I was good as new."

After being shocked by Noxic? Drew was impressed—then again Brittney probably had a hand in it.

"I'm glad, thank you for doing this for us."

"Of course, Master Andrew."

"Luckily that was it," Sabrina continued. "The entire week has been pretty uneventful since the golf course."

She then brightened. "Oh, do you know who TC Darnell is?"

Drew had heard of him. "The artist who draws made-up faces and puts them on shirts?"

"Yeah, he just popped up out of nowhere right before Britta's was attacked, then split up from us. He even gave Brittney and me some t-shirts."

That surprised Drew. "One of TC's shirts goes for like two grand a pop. He just gave you them?"

Sabrina nodded. "Even crazier, after the fight he and I ran into each other again, and he asked if I wanted to be drawn on a shirt."

Drew went from surprised to shocked. "For real?!"

"Yep, ask Heather, she was there. Unfortunately, his agent called him and he had to leave. And… I think his agent is still looking for him, or the paparazzi are—because someone came right up to my house just this morning before Dudley arrived, asking if I'd seen him."

"Huh, does he disappear like that a lot?"

"Seems so, but my mom said that guy was probably just looking for a scoop on him. I don't know, though…"

Drew shook his head. "I guess with enough money, you can make anything disappear—even yourself."

"R-right?" Sabrina replied. "It's kind of scary."

Drew nodded. "It is very scary."

He shed no tears for what Misao's mother did to Trip and Van, but the fact someone could just wipe someone off even public records was haunting.

He smiled warmly at Sabrina again. "But hey, you had an exciting week, saw superheroes fight, and got a free t-shirt. So… a win's a win?"

"A win's a win," Sabrina chirped back. "How was your week?"

Drew chuckled. "Not really exciting. I spent most of the time hanging out at Zoom or with Roland and my sister—we missed most of the action."

He stopped. "Well, Tang Soo Do class was almost canceled because the Magnavores went after Sensei Brantley."

Sabrina gasped. "Marco's teacher?! I heard the Magnavores attacked there, but they went after him!"

"Yeah. Marco, Star, Sensei, and the Blue Stingerborg handled him pretty easily, though. We even had class after."

"Like right after?" Sabrina was astounded.

"Yeah, Sensei and Marco spent the whole class hyping each other up, and praising each other for their immaculate skills mid-fade."

Sabrina blinked. "I didn't realize you went to Tang Soo Do."

Drew chuckled. "I only recently started. It's actually really fun and I'm already learning stuff."

"It's really surprising. Kind of like finding out that Jackie Lynn Thomas is actually a really good martial artist."

"… Really? A chill girl like her?"

"Oh yeah! She was fighting monsters at Britta's and at the golf course. I was surprised that she was so good."

Drew had signed off on Jackie joining the team personally, but it still surprised him that she knew how to fight and could even hang with Marco.

"I guess you don't really know anyone just by going to school with them, right?"

"Yeah," Sabrina agreed. "That's, um… why I want to get to know you."

Drew smiled again. "Yeah, I want to get to know you, too."

Up front, Dudley took advantage of a stoplight to look back at Drew and Sabrina. With the faintest shadow of a smile, he looked forward and drove on—headed for the coast.

@@@@@​

At the Echo Creek Public Library, Roland and Marco led Jo, Dipper, and Janna up to the front desk. The woman behind the counter, in her early forties, brightened when she saw Roland and Marco in particular. She smiled warmly at the group.

"Roland—and Marco, too!" She greeted them.

Roland smiled back. "Hey, Ms. Honey. You good?"

"Of course!" The librarian replied. "I see you brought some friends along. Welcome to the Santa Catalina branch of the Echo Creek Public Library, please keep your voices down, and if you need anything, don't be afraid to ask."

Marco looked at Roland. "You're popular here, too?"

Roland nodded. "Nano donates extra books all over LA. Ain't a library in SoCal that don't know when we pull up."

Marco gave Roland a sidelong look that slowly turned into a smirk as Roland's wealth of connections reared its head again in real time.

"Ay, chill on that, cuh," Roland muttered back when he caught his gaze.

Dipper stepped forward, Roland and Jo standing aside for him. "Actually, can you tell us where old newspapers are archived?"

Ms. Honey brightened at the query before pointing to her left. "The newspaper archives are over there. We also digitized and catalogued them on the library's local network, if you don't want to search through the physical copies. Those are the computers right beside the archive cabinets."

That was convenient, Dipper thought. "We'll use both, thank you."

It was nice to see young people so interested in history. "May I ask—is it for a school project? The library has numerous other resources that may help."

"It is, actually," Dipper said. "We're researching the Los Angeles Oil War of 1899. You wouldn't happen to know anything about it yourself, would you?"

Over in the non-fiction section Principal Skeeves looked up from a book about financial crimes, and glanced toward the group. He gave a start when he saw them, but then adjusted his glasses and peered closer at them.

Once more the librarian was impressed. "That's such an obscure bit of the city's history, though in my opinion it should be celebrated more. The story of how the country's first female Oil Tycoon—and the granddaughter of one of the town's founders—changed Echo Creek forever."

Dipper wasn't sure how he felt about such glaze for an Oil Tycoon—since she was, after all, an Oil Tycoon. Still, the librarian seemed to know her stuff. "What do you know about the Oil War?"

"Well, personally not much," the librarian said. "But there's something curious about the Oil War that even most people familiar with it don't know."

The others shared looks before Dipper asked, "What?"

"Nobody knows how it started or ended."

That was interesting. "What do you mean?"

Jo spoke up. "So it wasn't anarchists or Dr. Hillhurst opposing the oil wells?"

"Exactly that," Ms. Honey replied. "Yes, there were a few incidents involving Ms. Blakesfield-Bonner and alleged anarchists, but October 1899 was much more than that. Whatever happened, a lot happened… and then, just like that, it was over and everything was fine. No one knows what actually caused it—or what brought it to an end."

Dipper was practically vibrating where he stood, and everyone could see it. "Whatever happened, the context of it all was stripped out."

The monsters at Hillhurst couldn't remember anything about that time around the Oil War. Dr. Hillhurst didn't even tell Flabber anything about it. The only possible record of it—Dr. Hillhurst's journal—was taken by that woman Flabber identified.

This was a coverup! A conspiracy to keep the truth about Hillhurst Mansion hidden that extended beyond the house itself!

"Thank you!" Dipper said. "We're trying to solve THAT very mystery, and maybe there's something in those records we missed!"

Ms. Honey was surprised by Dipper's excitement. "Oh goodness! Well, the archives are yours to peruse. Just, be careful with the physical copies and…"

She leaned in. "Remember that this is a library. Though, I really love that you kids are so determined to learn about the past. As long as it's not too disruptive, I'll look the other way on too much excitement."

Roland and Marco both liked that.

"Thanks, Ms. Honey," Marco said.

"I'll put in a good word for Nano to add more books to her donation next month," Roland added.

Jo immediately took the lead. "If this place is anything like City Hall, it shouldn't be too hard to look up where to begin and what to focus on."

Janna joined her. "October 1899, and at least three months afterward. Just see if anything lingered on."

She snapped her fingers. "Oh, yeah, obituaries."

Jo gasped. "Yeah! If people died during the Oil War, then their deaths had to leave some kind of record. We can look up arrests, court cases, any kind of land transfer as a result, too."

"Huh!" Dipper realized that there were plenty of avenues to cover. "It's not direct information, but it can add context. Good call."

As they made their way over to the newspaper archives, Marco got the feeling they were being watched and glanced back.

Principal Skeeves, just a little bit faster, ducked out of sight behind a book shelf.

When Marco turned away, Principal Skeeves peeked out to observe the group.

@@@@@​

Deep beneath Hillhurst Mansion, in the Beetle Battle Base's command center, Jackie and Star were snuggled against one another near the windows overlooking the underground hangar where Gargantis was stored. Jackie was leaning into Star, her head on her shoulder, and the fingers of her right hand interlaced with Star's left.

Both were looking over the various designs Star, Jackie, Janna, Mabel, and Misao had been cooking up for the armor Star wanted to make for all of them, as they levitated in front of them on Star's magic.

There was a smattering of designs, including Super Sentai-style body suits (Star's idea), modern battlefield-combatant-style armor (Misao's idea), extravagant and modern stylish suits with capes (Mabel's idea), darker and more esoteric hoods with a gothic edge (Janna's idea), and more minimalist, cyberpunk-esque streetwear designs, using bandannas, hats, and other low-profile pieces to obscure their faces (Jackie's idea).

"There's so many good ideas here," Star lamented. "I want to do all of them at once, but I feel like that would be too much. But then doing something individual for everybody would… I dunno… clash?"

Jackie laughed. "No, I get it. We wanna look like a team but not like with everybody looking the same. I don't think we should be too flashy with these fits, either. Especially if we got the cops up our butts."

Star sighed. "But even before then, I gotta figure out how to make the armor. The stuff my mom used for hers: Zidanium, moonglow stones, virgin kelp…? I don't think there's any of that stuff on Earth, and I know for a fact that Zidanium is really hard to find."

Jackie turned her head to look at her. "Virgin kelp, like seaweed?"

"Yeah. Do you have that?"

"I mean, sure, but… I don't think it's what you're looking for." The first thing that came to mind for Jackie was tall stalks of kelp waving in cold currents with seals, and sharks.

Star pouted. "I think I should make it out of materials on Earth. Misao says she has all sorts of ideas—but Kevlar and titanium sound so… mundane! No offense."

"None taken," Jackie assured her. "Plus, I'd feel better with something even half as tough as the Beetleborgs armor, or the Rainbow Sentai spell."

"In that case, I don't think there's anything on Earth that tough that I can make into armor," Star lamented.

Jackie gave Star a reassuring smile. "Hey, I'm sure we'll think of something. Misao probably has some huge connections for freaky experimental stuff, Dipper and Mabel might know about weird mysterious materials."

She gestured to the ceiling. "I mean, who knows? There might be something inside Hillhurst we could use."

Star smiled back. "You're right."

Leaning in, she pecked Jackie on the cheek. "You're the best."

Jackie blushed and chuckled. "Only the best for the best, babe."

The blast doors leading to the ramp up to Hillhurst from the base's command center, and Misao and Mabel walked in—followed by Kelly.

Mabel looked around, before finding Star and Jackie snuggling. "Oh, hey! Look who we brought!"

Kelly was gazing at the command center in wonder. "… Wow, you've got all of this? It's like the She-Lair, but the Cassette Futurism aesthetic goes hard."

She looked at Star and Jackie as they stood up, and flushed when she saw them holding hands. "O-oh! Hello again."

"Hey, there!" Star greeted.

Mabel gestured to her. "This is Kelly Hamdon! SheZow's sidekick!"

Jackie gave a start. "No way. I thought her sidekick was that dude who kept showing up dressed as Marvel heroes."

Kelly winced a bit. "Uh, that's her other sidekick. I was more of a behind-the-scenes sidekick."

Misao nodded. "The command-and-control—like Wade Load to Team Possible, ja?"

"Oh!" Star replied to the exchange student. "So like how Dipper and you have been!"

"Ja!" Misao chirped back.

Jackie turned back to Kelly. "It's so cool to meet you. I'm Jackie Lynn Thomas, I've been a huge fan of SheZow since I was little."

"Yeah, me too," Kelly replied. "I don't know if they gave you the heads-up, but the previous SheZow was actually my Great Aunt."

Jackie was stunned. "No way! Are you the new one?"

Kelly shook her head. Apparently, they hadn't been given the full story. "SheZow, the one from a few years ago that Tara chased off. That was my twin brother."

Jackie's eyes grew wide. "Wait… SheZow's a guy?!"

"In a myriad of ways," Mabel said, unable to help the pun, as Kelly nodded in confirmation.

Jackie thought about it. "He wears it well."

Star then cut in. "Does he still have the ring?"

Kelly turned to her. "Um, yeah? He can still be SheZow, he's just… unable to bring himself to."

"Well, good!" Star said. "That ring belongs to my kingdom and we need his help!"

Kelly froze, and her eyes grew wide. Dipper hadn't told her that.

"Wait, wait…" She sputtered. "The Glamazon Power Ring belongs to the Kingdom of Mewni?!"

"Yeah!" Star said. "Glossaryck, my magic instructor, says it's a powerful artifact granted to powerful warriors to protect the multiverse from evil!"

That stunned Kelly. "… Whoa. W-what else can you tell me about the ring? Or the Glamazons? Or the previous SheZows?"

Star's expression dropped. "Not much else. Glossaryck is kind of a jerk and doesn't seem really excited about telling everything he knows."

Jackie frowned. "He sounds like a tool."

"He literally is."

Star wasn't wrong.

Kelly walked back over to the computers of the Beetle Battle Base. "There's so much here… how do you manage it all? Does the base have an AI?"

"No," Misao said. "Because of how all this came into existence in the real world, everything in the Beetle Battle Base is based on the earlier Big Bad Beetleborgs books."

Jackie, who read enough comics to know, chimed in. "I think there was a point in the comics where the Beetle Battle Base had an AI, but it was corrupted by Noxic or something and they had to destroy it. Not that we need anything like that."

Star hugged Misao. "We have our own supercomputer, right here! Misao's crazy-smart and good and cute!"

"Hehe!" Misao giggled back.

Kelly nodded. "In the She-Lair, we had Sheila… but after Guy stopped being SheZow, he shut her down."

Misao stopped. "Wait, you have a supercomputer… with an AI?"

Kelly nodded again. "Yeah, but to be honest we're both worried about what'll happen if we reactivate her."

Misao clapped her hand to her forehead, and began cursing quite colorfully in German. Mabel hadn't even heard some of these yet.

"… What is it, Misao…?" She asked.

Misao then threw up her hands. "WHAT IF SHEILA KNOWS EVERYTHING WE'RE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT ABOUT HILLHURST MANSION?!"

Mabel, Jackie, Kelly and Star all stared at Misao, before the same realization clicked for all of them.

It was sometimes humbling to remember that they were all still teenagers who could overlook or miss things like this.

Kelly clutched the sides of her head. "Oh em five-gee to the power of twenty! You're right!"

Her hands dropped to her sides. "Even when we were using Sheila, we never ASKED about Aunt Agnès's time as SheZow, never mind anything before her!"

"Not that you'd have a reason to," Jackie pointed out.

"We actually did!" Kelly said. "But we didn't because stuff was so messed up!"

Kelly palmed her face with both hands. "Sheila might know stuff that could've helped us beat Tara back then!"

Jackie shrugged. "Dude, you were what—twelve? That's okay."

"We all mess up, especially when we're twelve," Mabel said. "Take me for example. I messed up so badly, it almost destroyed the universe. So don't feel bad."

Kelly turned to her, genuinely upset by how much information they might have been sitting on without ever using. "But…!"

Misao rested a hand on her shoulder. "There is no point in lamenting what has passed. We cannot go back, we can only go forward."

Mabel agreed. "She's right. Instead of being mad that we fumbled, let's pick up that ball and run to the end zone!"

Kelly calmed down some and looked between the other girls. "You're right… it's water under the bridge… I can't do anything about what happened."

She then looked at Mabel. "… But, destroyed the universe?"

Star leaned in. "Wait until you hear about Gravity Falls, it's a crazy story."

Jackie and Misao both nodded in agreement.

= - = 10-4 = - =​

Another ally joins the cause.

 

[Cain The Wanderer]

We're halfway through Volume 10! Let's keep it movin', movin'!

= - = 10-5 = - =

|The Chicken Bros|​

Nearly two months ago.

Though she didn't have any classes with him, Sabrina Backintosh was familiar with Andrew McCormick's deal.

He was the comic book nerd, the biggest in the school. He could name the title of every Big Bad Beetleborgs issue published since 2001, and knew enough about comics beyond that to probably write for the MCU.

Another thing she knew was that he was best friends with Roland Williams—someone she never really interacted with herself, but knew through Brittney that he had a lot of clout not just in school but all over town.

Thanks to Brittney, she had a good guess why he was in here without even having to ask.

"Um… hi," she said quietly. "… Are you okay?"

The fact that she spoke to him, even asked if he was all right, surprised him. He looked over at her as though he wasn't sure she'd actually been talking to him.

"I'm… fine?" He ventured. "Uhh… what happened to you?"

Sabrina gave him a weak smile. "Well, we were practicing in the gym, and they… dropped me."

Drew nearly blurted out, "From twenty feet?", but caught himself. "Oh… that's… messed up. I hope you'll be okay."

She shrugged, and winced in regret as her shoulder protested. "It's all right. The boys apologized like a hundred times—but it wasn't even their fault anyway. They got… distracted."

Drew tilted his head slightly, as if fascinated by her forgiving response. "… Well, I'm glad it was just an accident. Hopefully it won't happen again…"

She smiled a little more at his awkward but earnest words. "So… what happened to you?"

Drew's expression darkened a little. He looked away from her and took a deep breath.

"Van just threw a soccer ball at my face out on the PE field while I was running."

Sabrina's smile vanished. As she expected. "That's awful."

Drew was a favorite target of Trip and Van Vanderhoff… two extremely wealthy, entitled, and just downright mean boys who—according to Brittney—went to public school just to "flex on the brokies."

They were cruel in general, but Drew was their favorite target for some reason.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "The Vanderhoffs are the worst."

Her sympathy brought a bittersweet smile to his face. "Yeah, they are… but I'll be fine. High school doesn't last forever, right?"

He was right, but…

"Shouldn't high school be something we all enjoy?" She asked.

Drew's gaze lowered to Sabrina's injuries. "… Some of us just don't have that luck."

Sabrina followed his gaze and let out a sigh. "No, I guess not."

Another brief silence followed, heavy with the shared understanding that high school had found different ways to hurt them both.

The Present.

Down in Santa Monica, just a few blocks away from the Pacific coast, Drew and Sabrina walked out of the movie theater and into the mid-afternoon sun. The trip to the movies had gone great, and they were already deep into discussing the film as they walked together.

"Maze Runner was amazing," Sabrina said. "It makes me really want to check out the book."

She looked at him. "What did you think?"

Drew wasn't nearly as enthusiastic. "Honestly? I think it was a bit too much for me. I'm glad you liked it… but I guess post-apocalyptic stories aren't my thing."

Probably because he was fighting to avert an apocalypse, and the movie felt like what could happen if he and everyone else failed.

Yeah, that was the right vibe.

"Oh…" Sabrina dimmed slightly. "I'm sorry. Maybe we should've watched Boxtrolls…"

Drew smiled. "No, it's fine. I'm just glad I got to watch it with you."

She kept grabbing and squeezing his hand through the intense parts—and there were a lot of them—which was kind of nice.

Sabrina smiled back, and shyly let her hand drift toward his before taking it. "Thank you."

Drew squeezed her hand. "Say, are you hungry? Or was the popcorn a bit too much?"

"Actually I am pretty hungry," she said. "A bucket of popcorn is not enough for me."

It certainly wasn't for Drew. He noticed lately that he was getting hungry more often, and eating more to make up for it. Was this the result of being more active? A side effect of his powers? He hoped not.

As the two continued toward the nearby Santa Monica Pier, Drew and Sabrina both noticed there was a line of people waiting on the far side of the sidewalk. A line that went up the street and around the corner.

Seeing so many people lined up on a Saturday afternoon was surprising. Especially with so many other places around.

"What's up with that?" Drew asked.

Sabrina didn't have to guess. "I'm pretty sure this is the line to Los Pollos Hermanos."

Drew did a double-take as they reached the corner and saw the line went down an entire city block. He'd heard of this place. "This line is for a fried chicken restaurant?!"

It must've been something for it to be this long.

Sabrina nodded. "They opened a few months ago—it's the first location outside of the southwest."

"Must be some really good chicken…" Drew murmured.

Sabrina squeezed his hand as they walked down along the line. "It's better than KFC and Church's combined."

Drew let out a small laugh. "When did you have time to pick some up?"

Sabrina looked around conspiratorily and whispered to him. "My mom works there—she brings home a bucket for her and me to share every Friday."

Well, that was interesting! "Lucky… it's a shame the line's so long, I'd like to try it."

If they got in line now, Drew was pretty sure they wouldn't see the actual store until sundown.

Sabrina looked around and then whispered. "… Do you want to try some?"

Drew did a double-take. "Wait, you don't mind waiting in line?"

Sabrina looked around, careful to avoid alerting anyone in line, before gesturing for him to lean closer. "Because of my mom, we might be able to slip in the back… if… if you don't mind that…"

Drew wondered if that would be okay. Sure, it'd be trying some apparently really good chicken, but it'd be cutting ahead of all these people.

On the other hand, Sabrina was offering, and the line had definitely done a lot of advertising to him.

"I say," the Jo in his mind said, "Motherfucker let the girl FLEX. Be impressed. And thank her for the opportunity!"

Drew mulled that over. The Jo in my mind is way better at understanding girls than the Jo in real life.

"And what does that tell you?" the Jo in his mind asked.

The realization dawned on Drew, and he blinked in surprise. "… Huh."

Sabrina tilted her head slightly in curiosity. Drew looked at her with a conspiratorial smirk.

"Lead the way," he whispered.

Sabrina brightened, and took the lead. "Come on, we'll go around the back. This store doesn't have a drive-thru, so we should be all right!"

Together they hurried down the block and across two streets before reaching their destination—a medium-sized, adobe-style restaurant with red trim. Across the front of the building was a sign with two cartoon chickens with sombreros and traditional-looking Mexican attire standing back to back between the words "LOS POLLOS HERMANOS" in bright red letters.

Despite the length of the line, the customers were actually moving at an orderly, steady pace—and no one was leaving the store unhappy or empty-handed.

"Wow, this place moves like an In-N-Out…" He said before Sabrina pulled him toward the back of the building.

"Over here," she said as they rounded the corner into an alley toward the store's service delivery area. Right next to the double doors for service deliveries was a door marked "Employees Only".

Sabrina walked up, took a deep breath to calm her nerves, and knocked.

Not long afterward, the door opened and a young Japanese woman with her black hair done up into a pair of pigtails, wearing the store's signature uniform of a bright yellow shirt, black pants, and bright red Los Pollos Hermanos-branded apron and visor opened the door.

"Hey, if you're picking up or dropping off–" She stopped when she recognized Sabrina. "Oh! Hey Sabrina, what are you doing all the way out here?"

"Hi Kimiko," Sabrina said. "I'm actually on a… um… date…"

Kimiko's eyes darted between Sabrina and Drew as Sabrina skittishly answered, and broke into an excited squeal. "OH EM GEE!"

Drew and Sabrina both jumped in surprise.

Kimiko turned to call to the back of the restaurant. "HEY! SABRINA'S HERE AND SHE BROUGHT A DATE!"

A chorus of "WHAT?!" rose in response, and Sabrina's entire face turned nearly as red as Kimiko's apron.

The woman took both their hands and pulled them inside. "Come in, come in! It's an absolute nightmare back here, but we'll get you posted up in the Manager's office."

"Uh, okay?" Drew's head was spinning. He couldn't believe they got in just like that, even after her assurances.

Sabrina couldn't believe this was working either. "Mr. Scott's not in today?"

"He does nights on the weekend, you're good!" Kimiko said as she hustled them through a short hallway wrapping around the left side of the building. At the end was a small office with a desk and small file cabinet in one corner, a comfortable leather loveseat in the other corner, and a DDR-style two-player game in the corner across from the door.

"I mean, he wouldn't care anyway because your mom's mad chill, but don't worry about that!" Kimiko quickly said. "Girl, after your date, I need the deets. You two look so cute together, oh my gosh!"

She stopped and noticed a few of the cooks and at least one cashier were peeking in to get a look at the couple. "Hey, get back to work! We got a line out the door and halfway to the Palisades, c'mon!"

As they scrambled to flee, she went to the door then looked back at Drew and Sabrina. "I'll hook you up, don't worry about paying—just tell Marina later that she owes me."

"Thank you so much. Can we just get some of everything?" Sabrina asked.

Kimiko nodded. "Sure, one sec."

With that she left, and Sabrina went over to the loveseat to sit down. As she settled in and tried to stop herself from fidgeting, Drew joined her, looking around the office in awe.

"This is so cool," he said.

Sabrina was relieved and excited at the same time that he was enjoying himself. "I'm glad! I've never done anything like this—Brittney's usually the one doing all the flexing, you know?"

Drew chuckled. "You learned from the best, right?"

Sabrina couldn't help but agree. This was definitely something Brittney would do, but probably at a more expensive and exclusive place. "Right!"

She looked past him, at the arcade game, and his gaze followed hers.

The darkened cabinet was decorated with Japanese-style motifs and a torii gate-shaped sign over it bearing the game's title.

"Ninja Ninja Revolution?" Drew asked.

Sabrina nodded. "Yeah, it's like DDR, but instead of dancing you're doing ninja moves to avoid obstacles and fight other ninjas. I've played it a few times when I came to visit Mom."

That sounded way cooler than Dance Dance Revolution, Drew thought. "So it works?"

"Mmhm!" Sabrina nodded. "Mr. Scott lets people play it on their breaks because 'the food is free and those calories add up'. He even extends the break if they're winning."

Drew wanted to work here, now.

He smiled at her. "So… how good are you at it?"

Sabrina bit her lip slightly. "I'm not crazy good at it like Mr. Scott is, or even as good as my mom… but I can play it without tripping!"

Drew's smile grew. "… Want to play while we wait for our food?"

Sabrina tried not to look like her heart was racing. "Um… okay! Let me plug it in!"

As he got up to join her by the machine, Drew felt completely at ease. He was definitely having fun, and he was glad Sabrina was enjoying herself, too.

Then again, Sabrina had been enjoying herself nonstop. It reminded him that he still didn't understand exactly what she saw in him.

As Sabrina plugged the game in, and its startup screen appeared, Drew decided he'd ask later. They still had the pier to walk down, after all.

Plus, he had a good idea of how to end the day there. Even if it was a little stereotypical and obvious.

@@@@@​

Principal Skeeves remained on the periphery of Dipper, Marco, and the others, using the bookshelves to stay out of sight but close to Marco in particular as he and Dipper searched through the last month in the range Janna prescribed for their search. Sure enough, there was a preponderance of evidence that the last half of October had a tremendous effect on Echo Creek.

"Wow, there's so many building permits, zoning changes, and revisions that weren't even up for consideration before November," Marco said.

"Like the whole town had to be rebuilt from what happened," Dipper said.

Marco looked up from his papers. "Forget the mystery… I could spend all day reading about this. I love civic infrastructure and town management."

Dipper let out a small laugh. "It's wild how you and Star complement each other."

Marco paused. "What, with how she's a wild and crazy free-spirit, while I'm allegedly a studious 'Safe Kid'?"

"Allegedly?" Dipper asked while gesturing to Marco geeking out over civic infrastructure and town management.

Between Roland and Jo's jabbing at him being a Safe Kid trying too hard, and Dipper calling him out, Marco rolled his eyes and grumbled. "I'm not that much of a stick in the mud. You've seen me."

"I have, and I know you're not a stick in the mud. You're just a normal guy living with the wildest girl this side of Mabel."

Marco caught that. "You're not calling yourself the normal one between you and your sister, right? You're a paranoid conspiracy theorist and she's the girliest girl to ever girl."

Okay, Dipper had that coming. "Shoot, I am the crazy one, aren't I?"

"Yeah. You're just level-headed in your madness and she's really energetic in her normalcy."

Dipper laughed again. "Okay, you got me there."

Were Mabel present, she would happily confirm this to be true.

"But that's why we're a lot alike, huh?" Marco went on. "We're basically opposite sides of the same coin."

"It's why we get along," Dipper said.

Marco gave him the kind of side-eye Janna usually threw around. "Not just that. It helps that you have a crush on me, right?"

There was no malice in his jab, and the tease landed as Dipper's cheeks colored. "Oh… well, yeah…"

Watching Dipper's reaction, Marco hummed, actually considering what he and Star had talked about earlier.

With this whole poly thing Star pitched, Marco was certain he wanted to test the waters with Jackie. But Dipper?

Marco wasn't even sure how he felt about guys—at least until he was aware that one was attracted to him. Him and not Princess Marco, like… eugh… Trip (briefly) was.

The fact that Dipper was reliable, stepped up to be a pretty good leader, and was—again—pretty level-headed honestly mattered more to Marco than a guy being into him.

He gestured for Dipper to come closer, and when Dipper stepped closer, Marco spoke barely above a whisper.

"Hey, if Star said it was cool. I mean, if she said it was cool and even interested herself… would you be okay with going out with me? With both of us?"

Dipper did a double take. "Wait… if…?"

"Just asking, hypothetically," Marco assured him.

The blush on Dipper's face grew. "I mean… yeah? If everyone was okay with it, and we talked about it… I would definitely…"

Marco flushed a bit himself. "Uh… cool. I think we can talk about it more when things calm down a little. We've already got one of us off duty for a date today, you know?"

Dipper was surprised and definitely trying not to explode from excitement at Marco's offer. "Y-yeah… we're busy right now, after all."

In his mind he was already constructing some kind of hangout with him and Marco, and filing it away for at least after they solved the Barla problem.

Huh, I guess I share a lot in common with Mom and Dad, Marco mused as he worked through his thoughts.

Janna walked over. "Hey, we're about done on our end. You guys got something?"

She looked between the two and smirked at how close they were standing, and how red their faces were.

"Or should I give you a few minutes?" she asked.

Marco rolled his eyes. "We're about done."

Dipper placed a hand on Marco's shoulder. "Yeah, he really loves town management."

Marco snorted, but didn't brush him off. "And civic engineering."

"That sounds about right," Janna chirped back.

As the three headed over to the table where Roland was already waiting, Principal Skeeves—still undetected—peeked out to watch them. His eyes narrowing, he adjusted his glasses and hummed.

Behind him, her arms folded and a confused look on her face Ms. Honey stared at him with confused suspicion.

As the three joined Roland at the table, Jo was already arranging the spread of newspaper articles, defunct government documents, and other notes from more than a century ago preserved in plastic seals.

"Okay, what do we got, cuh?" Roland asked her.

"These," Jo said, "are all of the physical documents here, just at this library, related to the Los Angeles Oil War and the three months afterward."

She then dropped a small stack of freshly-printed paper beside the clips. "And this is the stuff I was able to print off the digital archive."

Dipper was impressed. "These are all the mentions of the incident? There's a lot."

"Mmhm! And it's kind of crazy."

She began in the top right corner of the table. "Because in my infinitely stupid curiosity… I had to look further down the road to see where Dr. Hillhurst comes in on all this."

Jo pointed at the first article. "June 1898, and there is an editorial in the Echo Creek Star, complaining that 'known confidence man, and charlatan, Aloysius Hillhurst' has not been arrested by the sheriff for harassing employees of the Bonner Oil Corporation while doing their prospecting work."

She pointed to an article to the right of the editorial. "In this same edition of the paper, there is a report of a brawl between Dr. Hillhurst and four men that ended with the four men being sent to hospital with debilitating injuries. It ends with a note that Dr. Hillhurst was able to convince the sheriff that he acted in self-defense."

Janna chimed in. "Dr. Hillhurst… was a badass."

"Sounds like it," Marco said as he picked up one of the pieces in the middle of the collection to read it.

"Badass isn't even the start!" Jo shouted. "This man was a hero. He was running the fade with the Bonner Oil Corporation because they were running poor, Native, and Mexican people off their land and it pissed him off!"

Marco winced at the particularly racist language in the editorial he looked at, criticizing Dr. Hillhurst for daring to defend non-whites "squatting on land that wasn't theirs".

"Sheesh," he grumbled, "they didn't hold back back then, huh?"

Roland took the piece from him. "They don't hold back now, cuh. You see how Tara moves."

Marco grimaced. "… Yeah… this is the lady people keep talking so highly about, huh? Stealing land and turning it into an oil field?"

"Oh, you have no idea!" Jo grabbed a picture from the stack of printed papers and showed them all. "This is what Echo Creek looked like in October 1899."

When everyone looked, they were shocked. It was a picture of downtown Echo Creek, but there wasn't a town. It was a few buildings, including the bank and the post office, surrounded by a forest of oil derricks and pumps.

"This is downtown. This very street!" Jo revealed.

Dipper rested his hands on the edge of the table, gawking at the picture. "There's so many…!"

Roland was disgusted. "Ain't no way…"

Janna sniffed. "Emily Bonner changed Echo Creek, all right."

"Obviously something changed, but what?" Dipper said as he scanned the articles.

A name jumped out at him, and he picked one up. "'Villain prevails. SheHaw, Sheriff clear Hillhurst of attempted murder.'"

Marco turned to him. "SheHaw?"

Dipper nodded. "According to this article, SheHaw is a local vigilante and bounty hunter who has a good relationship with the LA County Sheriff. She's even acted as an official deputy on several occasions."

"How times change, huh?" Jo asked.

"It was a different time," Marco muttered.

"Yeah, but get this," Janna said. "From the looks of it, SheHaw and the sheriff were why Dr. Hillhurst never saw the inside of a jail cell. They basically backed him up whenever stuff happened, or at least calmed things down without taking sides."

Dipper snapped his fingers and pointed at her. "Based on that, and the Armoire needing SheZow's ring to open? SheHaw had to be the SheZow of that era—and she and Dr. Hillhurst were friends. Probably close friends."

"That sounds about right," Roland said. "But what do Marco and Star have to do with this?"

Dipper hummed. "Their ancestors, most likely. When we were talking about the Warden's Ring with Glossaryck, he mentioned that one of the Queens of Mewni, Celena, visited Earth."

Janna perked up. "Celena the Shy, right? I saw her page in the Magic Instruction Book once. I dig her vibe so hard."

"If Star's ancestor was there, then okay," Marco then said. "But what are the cosmic odds that mine was there, too?"

Everyone looked at Marco. "I mean, because… my mom's side of the family all lived in the Midwest before her parents moved to LA, and my dad's side of the family all lived in Guadalajara until my grandparents, my dad, and my uncle jumped the border to LA."

He looked around. "Is this making sense? The door to Wolfy's room opened for me, too. Where do I fit in this equation?"

Dipper looked at the papers. "Well, we can only keep examining the record to find out."

Jo brought their attention toward the bottom two rows of their spread out papers. "The Oil War is all here, and… there's a whole bunch of stuff here that looks unrelated, but it's all connected."

She picked up the first article in the series. "'From the October 18, 1899 Echo Creek Star, evening edition. 'Anarchist attacks Echo Creek Oil Field, apprehended by SheHaw.'"

She switched it for the article directly next to it. "From the October 19, 1899 Echo Creek Star—this one is front page news! 'Ms. Blakesfield-Bonner attacked by anarchists, Hillhurst thwarts.'"

Jo moved down the line of articles. "October 23rd, 1899 Echo Creek Star, 'Windstorm destroys Echo Creek Arc Lamps, damages oil field.' October 24, 'Mass livestock attacked by wolves, Hillhurst saves ranchers.' October 26, 'Riot in downtown Echo Creek attacked by wolves, authorities suppress.' November 1st, 'Earthquake destroys Echo Creek Oil Field, no souls lost.'"

Marco was curious. "Wait… the riot was attacked by wolves?"

Roland leaned toward him. "What kind of wolves do you think?"

He gave a start. "… Werewolves…?"

Dipper saw the pattern. "Whatever happened… it really ramped up toward the end of the month."

Jo nodded. "And check this out."

She brought up one of the last articles. "November 6, 1899 Echo Creek Star. 'Emily Blakesfield-Bonner sells drilling rights to Union Oil, will rebuild Echo Creek.'"

"So she backed out of the Oil Business right after," Janna said. "And…"

"She changed completely," Jo said. "Basically from here on, Emily Blakesfield-Bonner becomes one of the most passionate advocates for civil rights and fighting the gilded age greed she was part of. The Oil War changed her…"

Jo tapped on the stack of papers she printed out. "Something happened to Dr. Hillhurst, too. He became more of a recluse. Sure, he'd pull up to champion his causes. Heck, he was always on the front line of the LA Water Wars, but… he never got up to the antics he did in 1898 and '99."

Dipper nodded. "Probably because he was taking care of Flabber and the monsters."

He looked back and forth between the others, who all nodded in agreement with his speculation.

Janna gestured to the papers. "This might be as far as the official details can get us. There's nothing that really tells us what the Oil War was like, or what actually happened."

Dipper nodded. "We're going to have to cite a different source, then. Flabber described a woman who took Dr. Hillhurst's journal with her. She had red hair, white skin, horns, and a flame-colored dress. I'm pretty sure she's someone from Mewni."

Marco pulled out his phone. "I'll ask Star about it."

He stopped. "Wait, Flabber mentioned her?"

Dipper nodded. "She showed up after Dr. Hillhurst died in the '30s. But since she knew to show up then, and specifically to take the journal—she had to know something about Hillhurst. So, yeah, she might be from Mewni."

Marco called Star. "Yeah, I'm asking her now."

Barely half a ring later, Star picked up.

"Marco! Oh my gosh, your timing is crazy!" Star said quickly.

Marco was curious. "Uh… huh? Before you say anything, Star, is there a woman in Mewni's history with red hair, white skin, and horns?"

Star stopped and grew alarmed. "Wait, who's asking about Hekapoo? Did you run into her?!"

Marco's brows furrowed. "… Who's Hekapoo?"

Dipper, Roland, Jo, and Janna all looked at Marco, then at each other in confusion as Star breathlessly answered.

"Never mind, Marco, I'll explain later. But if she shows up, don't let her find out we have the Dimensional Scissors, okay?! Now drop whatever you're doing and come back to Hillhurst, because the Magnavores are attacking again!"

@@@@@​

In the manager's office of Los Pollos Hermanos, Drew and Sabrina stood side by side on their respective control pads of the Ninja Ninja Revolution game. The pads were fairly simple, with two footprints in the shape of typical ninja jika-tabi shoes with an arrow in front of them pointing at the screen and an arrow behind them pointing the opposite direction.

Both focused on the screen, which displayed a pair of black-dressed ninja-trainees about to run down an obstacle course through a dense forest.

"Get ready!" The game said as the camera panned around to behind the two ninjas and showed the course ahead of them.

Drew and Sabrina both pressed their right fist to their left palm and gave short bows, before crouching lower in anticipation.

"Here we go!" The game declared as footprint symbols rose to the Step Zone. As soon as the first footprints overlapped they were off, running in place on the foot pads—Sabrina with her arms held out behind her as though she were a character from Naruto, and Drew rushing with his right arm held up at chest level, like he was holding the Stinger Blade across his chest.

With each step, like in Dance Dance Revolution, they were graded. Golden "PERFECT" messages bounced up with each step they took.

Their first obstacle, a chest-high wall, raced to meet them, creating a gap in the footprint icons. As they reached it, Drew spaced his feet off the pads to simulate his jump—while Sabrina actually leaped and timed her landing perfectly as her date simply stepped back onto the pads.

Sabrina was rewarded with a "PERFECT" for her bold move, while Drew received a mere light blue "GOOD".

The two kept running before exclamation marks flashed over their ninja and the first forward arrow entered the mix. Both Drew and Sabrina stomped forward with their right feet, hitting the arrow just milliseconds apart and their characters on screen narrowly avoided swinging logs.

Sabrina received a purple "GREAT" while Drew received a "PERFECT".

Locked in, both resumed running in place on the pads in ninja running poses before another warning flashed on the screen and this time they stepped back—to dodge ninja stars that flew past them.

"This is intense!" Drew said as he broke into a run again.

Sabrina, breathlessly replied, "And this is just the tutorial! Here come the jumps!"

Three jumps followed. The first was two feet down. The second was left foot forward. The third right foot back.

"It gets even harder really quick," Sabrina said as they ninja-ran on.

Hitting longer strides when the icons spread out before reaching the step zones, they were soon hopping back and forth between the arrows and footprints to assume different stylish poses.

"And the game rewards being as… cool with the ninja poses as possible… since it tracks your body, too!" she went on.

"So we've got to be extra Naruto with this game, huh?" Drew asked as they reached the end of the course and the final set of obstacles, a set of winding paths that required the players to switch pads.

"Combo!" the game shouted.

"Right!" Sabrina said before they reached the first switch.

Drew moved in tandem with Sabrina, moving behind her as she side-stepped in front of him. Three steps later, he went forward as she passed behind him, and both landed perfectly planted on the last footprints as they hit the Step Zones.

"Wow…" Sabrina said as the end-screen came up and she was rewarded with an SS-Rank for her effort.

Drew graciously accepted his A-rank. "Not bad for my first time."

Sabrina turned to him. "Yeah, the first time I played, I kept falling behind and got a C-rank. But I play it every time I visit so I've practiced a lot."

She idly sprang from one foot to the other, still feeling the energy from the run and her excitement to have done so well when it counted most.

It was absolutely adorable to Drew. "Even if I did well, I feel like if I had to play by myself, this game would kick my butt."

He looked at it. "Did they ever make a home version? I don't even have a console, but…"

"Actually, the developer Hinobi Games never had a console release for Ninja Ninja Revolution, and since it's an old game, the cabinets are super rare. Mr. Scott got this as a present for opening this restaurant from the president of the company himself."

Sabrina pointed to a picture on the wall next to the manager's desk, showing the company president and the store's manager standing in this very office, right in front of the Ninja Ninja Revolution cabinet.

The president was a thin, older, bespectacled dark-skinned Hispanic man wearing a yellow shirt with black tie, shaking the hand of a tawny-haired white man in his early thirties with dark, bushy eyebrows wearing an identical shirt and tie.

The older man was smiling at the camera with almost fatherly pride, while the younger man had the look of a deer caught in the headlights.

Drew gawked at the picture, recognizing the meme they recreated. "That has to be a bit."

"Mom says they did it on purpose, yeah," Sabrina confirmed.

Drew really wanted to work here.

Kimiko stepped into the doorway carrying a tray, having apparently been lurking just out of sight long enough to watch them finish their game. "Hey, lovebirds! I've got a bit of everything we're selling right now for you to try!"

Sabrina jumped and turned to Kimiko. "O-oh! Thank you!"

Drew was more relaxed, as he received the tray. "Yes, thank you."

"You two having a good time?" Kimiko asked like she hadn't been watching them play NNR together.

Sabrina grew more fidgety as she followed Drew over to the loveseat. "Y-yes, it's been very nice."

"Yeah," Drew said as he sat down and set the tray on his lap in the loveseat's close quarters. "Hanging out with Sabrina today has been amazing."

Sabrina squeezed in beside him, her face already red from the attention and his praise.

Kimiko set some drinks on the small table next to the loveseat. "Aw, you two! What else do you have planned for today? The Chicken Bros may be the best in town, but you can't just end the date on us!"

Drew agreed. "Yep. We're going to walk down the Santa Monica Pier after."

He nudged Sabrina. "Which I'm excited for, I never get to come down here."

"Thanks," Sabrina murmured, her blush deepening.

He then winked at Kimiko. "Plus, I had an idea for the best way to cap it off."

As if she read his mind, Kimiko laughed. "I mean, if you're going to come down to the pier, especially on a date, you have to do that."

Sabrina struggled to not cover her cheeks, as her heart raced in anticipation. She knew what they were talking about, too, of course… but she didn't think that they'd be doing it!

"Ah, it's so romantic. And the sun's gonna be setting soon? It'll be ah-may-zing," Kimiko said, before she said to Sabrina. "Hey, can I tag in?"

Sabrina immediately raised her face. "Absolutely n-not! You sound like my mom, Kimiko!"

Kimiko laughed, taking it as a compliment. "Then I've learned from the best!"

She headed to the door. "Back into the breach for me, but if you need anything? Just holler, have fun you two!"

Taking the door she closed it behind her, leaving the two of them alone in the manager's office. Despite how much quieter it made the room, both could still hear her shouting at the other employees.

"Hey! Don't crowd the door, leave 'em be! We still got a line out there!"

Drew laughed. "Everybody here really likes you, huh?"

Sabrina picked up a piece of chicken. "Yes, my mom's really charismatic with a big personality and I'm, well, me… so everyone kind of cheers me on."

"Kind of? Kimiko has a lot of big sister energy…" Kimiko reminded Drew of Mabel and Misao a lot. "And everyone's probably still trying to peek in on us now."

Likely to document Sabrina's date and make sure she was okay, he thought with confidence.

"Your mom sounds like an amazing person, if she's got everyone so invested in you," he said as he took a bite.

The flavor struck Drew like a wrecking ball, stunning him. He was expecting something like KFC or Church's. But the crisp, the savoriness of the spices, and there was even a small kick of heat. It was like biting into a crispy chicken burrito at Britta's Tacos, but the magic was in the crunch, the juicy chicken, and the spices—not Britta's secret sauce.

"Wow, this is the best chicken I've ever had," he murmured to himself in awe.

Sabrina didn't hear him, but did recognize his reaction to the flavor, and giggled as she finished chewing her own bite of chicken.

"Like I said, my mom is very charismatic," she replied to his musing about her mother. "She's a lot like Miss Nano, with how she can lead a room and get everybody talking."

She fidgeted. "I think if she and Nano ever actually met, they'd be best friends. If you ever meet her, you'll probably think the same."

Drew chuckled, knowing how much Nano loved to yap. "When I meet her, and yeah… you're definitely right."

Sabrina's blush returned with a vengeance, and she took a big bite of a chicken thigh with a loud mumbling. This was their first date and he was fine with meeting her Mom? She was about to faint!

Drew chuckled at her reaction.

"So…" Sabrina said after swallowing. "What about your parents? What are they like?"

That was like cold water on the date, but as he had to endure against Saberizer, Drew caught himself and weathered the hard question without giving anything away.

"My parents are both… pretty private people," he said. "My mother is a stay-at-home mom, and my dad works remotely as tech support for a farming equipment company back in Charterville where we used to live. It's… nothing really glamorous or standout."

"Oh?"

Relieved that she didn't seem to notice the shift, and realizing he still had to tell her something, Drew shrugged outwardly, but chose his words carefully. "Um… my dad is a big fan of The Eagles, they're this old rock band from the 70s…"

He thought about it. "I think they're older than him, actually."

When he turned his thoughts to his mother, he had to fight back a grimace. "And my mom is… well, she just does housework stuff. She makes a pretty good meatloaf, I guess."

Sabrina brightened. "My mom loves to cook, too! I mean… that's why she works here. She's always worked kitchens at restaurants, it's basically her passion… and how she gets ahold of secret recipes for home."

Drew blinked in surprise. "Wow, that's actually brilliant."

Oh thank God, we avoided THAT minefield, Drew thought behind his smiling face.

OH MY GOD, I ALMOST WALKED INTO A MINEFIELD! Sabrina's mind raced.

She had noticed.

"Speaking of, how's the food?" Sabrina asked.

Drew looked at his chicken. "It's a shame the only Chicken Bros. is all the way out here. I can see myself coming here every day like at Britta's."

Sabrina agreed. "I've actually tried some of this with Britta's secret sauce on it."

Drew did a double take. "Oh man, what was that like?"

Sabrina looked away in embarrassment. "It was… an experience…."

She turned back to him. "But the chicken has to still be warm! Like, less than an hour after the fryer, and the sauce has to be warm, too. You can't microwave anything, either."

Well, Drew knew what he was doing the next time he got ahold of the Dimensional Scissors.

He smiled warmly before he resumed eating.

Sabrina was a wonderful person, he thought. Whatever reason she had for wanting to spend time with him, he really hoped he earned it.

Just outside the door, Kimiko was standing guard as another cook from the kitchen walked over with a concerned expression.

"Hey, should we tell them?" the older Hispanic man asked.

Kimiko shook her head. "Unless one of them's a Beetleborg, just let them chill back here and don't spook 'em. Hopefully…"

She looked toward the front of the store, now packed with customers who had rushed inside for shelter. Outside, the enormous line was gone, its occupants scattering, many of them staring fearfully upward or pointing their phones toward the sky.

"… It'll be over before too long."

= - = 10-5 = - =​

The date is going very, very well. For more than just the date, I guess.

 

[Cain The Wanderer]

Thank y'all for reading. Be sure to leave a comment. I kinda like that kind of thing.

= - = 10-6 = - =

|The Deserved Hero|​

The whine of eight Magnavore Jet Fighters flying in four pairs of two filled the air above Los Angeles. The craft flew a wide circle over the metropolitan area, spreading panic wherever their shadows passed. Calls flooded 911 centers across the city. News reports interrupted weekend programming, social media filled with videos of the Jet Fighters overhead, and police scanners lit up like Christmas trees as emergency services scrambled to keep pace.

On the massive back patio of her estate, Brittney Wong stepped out into the afternoon sun and looked up at the circling fighters with narrowing eyes.

In her hand, her phone buzzed with a message from Dudley.

Looking at it, she sighed in relief before looking skyward again.

On the road in El Sereno, Officer Wackerman craned his neck to try to keep his eyes on the circling fighters. "Huh, they're just up there, they're not even attacking!"

Boxter looked around him as he raced through an intersection with lights flashing and sirens wailing. "They don't need to."

It was pure pandemonium on the sides of the street. Motorists abandoned cars wherever they could and ran for whatever shelter they could find.

"What the heck… is everyone really this afraid, now?" he asked.

At the LA County Sheriff's Office, Special Agent Haines watched the fighters through a pair of binoculars before lowering them with a raised eyebrow.

"Agent Sanchez, how are those things even flying?"

Agent Sanchez shrugged. "Nobody asks how Dr. Drakken makes his car fly, or Professor Dementor's giant airships."

"Those work using Super Science," Haines pointed out, raising the binoculars again. "These… I don't think they even have thrusters."

The whine of electric motors spooling up was joined by the rhythmic beat of helicopter rotors beginning to turn. Both FBI agents turned to see the QAH-50 Hammerheads that accompanied Tara the night before starting up.

"Looks like the hero LA deserves is on her way to save the day," Haines said with a smug sneer.

Inside her trailer, already adorned in her Major Blast II equipment, Tara opened her eyes and lifted her head, before she broke into a malicious grin as the roof of the trailer opened to reveal the clear sky overhead.

"Finally! I knew you wouldn't keep me waiting!" she shouted. "Time to teach you who the real hero here is, once and for all!"

Major Blast II shot from the trailer like a rocket, ascending skyward on a magenta trail of fire and smoke. Below her, the Hammerheads locked their two-bladed rotors into wing-mode, fired up their jet engines, and raced after her like interceptors.

In his bedroom, Guy felt the strong twinge of Tara's rocketing skyward. He had abruptly transformed into SheZow the moment the Jet Fighters appeared, his senses already telling him everything he'd been afraid of.

Tara's ascent only made the warning stronger.

"Great… another long day of this…" he grumbled as he peeked outside through the closed curtains of his bedroom window.

His phone lay face-up beside him, an empty message to Maz sitting beneath their most recent exchange from four years ago.

On the side of the road near Hillhurst Mansion, Maz sat at the open rear of his Subaru Impreza WRX wagon, watching the fighters circle overhead. He had been waiting for Kelly to call him over to Hillhurst Mansion and introduce him, but from the looks of things… his first meeting with these new heroes would be a bit more dynamic.

Pulling out his phone and seeing no calls from Kelly, he swiped away from an empty message to Guy's number and instead hit a different contact.

On the other end of the line, a woman with a lower-pitched voice spoke. "Hey, Maz, do you see what's happening in the sky?!"

"Hey, Ally," Maz replied. "Yeah, things look like they're about to get crazy. So… I'm gonna use the belt."

He heard a gasp on the other end of the line. "OH MY GOSH! Thanks for the heads-up, I'm gonna get Jess out of the shower and we're gonna start running telemetry!"

"Thanks, and uhh… I'll be careful."

"Absolutely not! Just send it, dude! Show those monsters from another world what humanity is made of!" Ally replied before ending the call.

Maz looked at the phone and laughed before standing up and looking at the shiny silver belt buckle with the word MARVEL emblazoned across it in the same style as the comics' publisher's logo. On the right side of the buckle was a small vertical black lever.

Maz rested his thumb on the lever, but did not activate it as he turned and watched Tara streak upward on a magenta contrail toward the circling fighters to intercept them over Echo Creek.

@@@@@​

"Zum Teufel!" Misao shouted as she took her seat at the Beetle Battle Base's console and began collating the cascade of data. "Everyone has gone mad!"

Mabel agreed. "Yeah, this is way crazier than it's been…"

Star used the Dimensional Scissors to open a portal, her Magic Mirror Compact held to her ear. "This doesn't make sense! Why do people care all of a sudden?!"

"It's because we're mainstream now, dude," Jackie pointed out. "Thanks to the news blowing our fights up and Tara's stupid ass, it feels more real."

Kelly agreed. "Exactly… it feels more real because they made it real!"

Dipper stepped through the portal, followed by Marco, Roland, Jo, and Janna. He was immediately startled by the deluge of information appearing on every screen in front of Misao and surrounding her station.

"What the hell?!" he shouted. "How bad is it?!"

"I can only confirm eight fighters for sure!" Misao said. "But I'm getting all sorts of other calls saying the Magnavores are attacking other parts of the city with Jet Fighters and Scabs—and I haven't detected any gravimetric disturbances from mass teleports!"

Dipper grimaced. "Crap… it's mass hysteria already…?"

Misao cursed. "There's too much information coming in at once, even I can't verify everything!"

Kelly looked up at the screen, and shook her head. "If we had Sheila, she'd be able to figure out what's for sure happening…"

Dipper turned to her. "Sheila?"

"SheZow's supercomputer," Kelly answered.

Mabel turned to him. "Turns out the previous SheZow had a whole supercomputer, but the current SheZow shut it down without her consent and now they're afraid to turn her back on."

Dipper recoiled. "… Oh… that's bad."

He then realized it. "Wait a minute, what if–"

Kelly turned to him. "If you want to risk a supercomputer made by a superhero crashing out, go right ahead, but let's focus on this crisis!"

Jo spoke up. "Regardless of the issue, we gotta go! If it's just the Jet Fighters for now, I got it! You guys figure out the rest."

Pulling out her Beetle Bonder, Jo held it up. "Beetle Blast!"

As Jo transformed, Misao quickly shifted to Battle Base operations. "I am going to raise the Beetle Battle Base and get the Red Striker AV ready! Roland, you go as well, but wait for more information!"

"Aight, cuh," Roland said as he produced his own Beetle Bonder. "Beetle Blast!"

Kelly watched the two transform, surprised they put the city ahead of their identities at this moment. "Huh… it would be Nano's grandson…"

Grimacing, Misao brought up the group chat window. "I'm going to call Drew as well–"

"NO!" Janna suddenly snapped.

"Hell no! Cut that shit out!" Roland chorused right with her.

Misao jumped and looked back at them.

Everyone else looked as well.

Janna, not even a hint concerned about having the spotlight, explained. "Sad Kid's in Santa Monica with Sabrina, remember? There's no point in interrupting the date right when the Magnavores attack."

Roland agreed. "Exactly—and if shit does pop off down there, at least twin can protect Sabrina."

Jo called back to Misao as she headed for the Hangar of the Beetle Battle Base. "Just send him a text and tell him to be careful. We can handle this!"

Shaken at first, Misao realized what all three of them were doing and smiled. "Ja, ja… my bad. I'll give Drew the heads-up, and leave the Magnavores to you."

"Hey, don't forget the rest of us," Marco said as he stepped to Star's side and nodded to her. "Star?"

Star nodded. "All right, who's going out there?!"

Mabel quickly raised her hand. "Ooh! OOH! Me! We can ride on the Hunter AV into battle!"

Jackie nodded. "Heck yeah, I'm going out."

Star grinned and held up her wand. "That's exactly what I like to hear!"

She raised the wand high.

"RAINBOW SENTAI BATTLE ARMOR!"

In a shower of light, rainbow-colored energy wrapped around all four of them, hugging their bodies as it had before.

Mabel looked at herself as she admired her new glow. "It may not be cool battle armor, but I will never get tired of being a true rainbow warrior!"

"That really is all of us, huh?" Marco asked with a quick glance at Dipper.

Jackie caught that, and smirked. "All of us?"

Marco blushed before taking the Dimensional Scissors from Star. "Let's go!"

Dipper missed Marco's glance because he was focused on the new barrage of updates. "Double-time it… Tara's already engaging them!"

@@@@@​

Directly above the town, two of the fighters detected Tara's approach and angled toward her. As their wingtip-mounted blasters began to charge up, the fighters immediately detected incoming projectiles from the two larger aircraft closing in with Major Blast II.

Both fighters immediately broke away from each other, splitting in opposite directions to evade the missiles.

The advanced air-to-air missiles turned with them, however, keeping their noses pointed ahead of the Jet Fighters until the final milliseconds, when they cut inward and merged with their respective targets.

Two bright flashes in the air were followed with telltale puffs of smoke. Outside of the Echo Creek Police Department, Detective Mirai Hashimoto gave a start when she saw the explosions.

One of the fighters fell toward the ground, disintegrating on its way, while the other kept flying despite its damage.

"Wait, wait… did she just fire air-to-air missiles over a populated area?!" she asked Detective Xavier Bishop, whose expression was one of deep disgust.

"That reckless psychopath…" Detective Bishop growled.

The damaged fighter managed to recover from its hit and, trailing smoke, turned sharply toward Tara and her escorts with a vengeance. Immediately it opened fire, red bolts lancing across the sky at the trio.

The Hammerheads abruptly broke away, leaving Major Blast II to face the brunt of the attack.

Juking and weaving, Major Blast II avoided each bolt, Tara sneering at the onrushing Jet Fighter as its blasters swiveled to tighten their convergence.

The damaged fighter fired, and this time the bolts struck true with an explosion that engulfed Major Blast II.

Racing past the explosion, the Jet Fighter rolled into a left-hand turn, seeking out the Hammerhead that broke to Tara's right. The second unmanned machine joined the pursuit, firing its chin-mounted chain gun—now fixed in the forward position for the helicopter's fighter mode, rather than swiveling.

The damaged Jet Fighter rolled over, then under, the bursts of fire before performing an abrupt right-hand turn on a dime to charge the Hammerhead.

Before it could open fire, a magenta beam lanced across the sky and melted a hole through the Jet Fighter—which exploded an instant later.

The smoke that surrounded Major Blast II cleared to reveal a shimmering magenta-and-yellow spherical barrier made up of numerous hexagonal panels. Several of the hexagons were absent where Major Blast's still-glowing right-hand energy cannon protruded through the barrier.

Behind her barrier, Tara laughed. "You didn't even scratch me!"

Both Hammerheads turned back toward one another, narrowly crossing paths as they looped toward Major Blast II. As they closed in, they let loose more air-to-air missiles toward her.

Surprised, Tara looked back as the missiles streaked past her. A second pair of Jet Fighters was closing in, their blasters blazing not at her or the Hammerheads, but the oncoming missiles. With bright flashes, both missiles were destroyed, and the Jet Fighters pressed their attack, converging on Major Blast II.

Tara sneered and held her left-hand cannon forward. The barrier unfurled from around her and flattened into a broad wall directly in front of her that easily absorbed the oncoming bolts.

"How pathetic!" she taunted as the Jet Fighters reached the barrier and broke away—one ascending above the barrier, while the other dove for the town below.

Back on the ground, Detective Hashimoto watched the two Hammerheads plunge after the diving fighter with alarm. "No, don't chase it down low! What are you doing?!"

Detective Bishop grimaced as Major Blast II dispelled her barrier and shot upward after the climbing Jet Fighter. "She doesn't care at all! Just like at the Night Market!"

Roaring after her target, Major Blast fired two bursts from her left cannon, then followed with three from her right.

The Jet Fighter rolled wide, avoiding the blasts by the narrowest margins. Rather than trying to turn, however, the craft flipped nose over tail in an instant and dove at her, aiming its blasters down at Major Blast and unleashing a deluge.

Major Blast II's barrier reappeared, blocking each shot until Major Blast II and the Jet Fighter screamed past each other. With lightning reflexes, Major Blast abruptly fired a snapshot from her left cannon, the beam sawing the diving fighter down the middle.

The two halves of the Magnavore Jet Fighter tumbled and disintegrated completely, like the others.

"Damn," Tara muttered, "they just completely turn to dust? I can't work with that!"

Searching the ground below she spotted her Hammerheads pursuing the second Jet Fighter at rooftop height, trying to box it in but not opening fire.

"Hey, what are you doing? You've got it dead to rights, shoot it down!"

A pair of windows appeared in her HUD, displaying the Hammerheads' points of view. Repeated warnings not to engage below a hundred meters were flashing brightly over the interface.

"God damn it, I knew I should've bought World Marshal instead of Hench Co! They don't do this safe engagement nonsense!"

Major Blast II threw herself into a dive toward the ground, a vapor cone coming off her domed helmet as she easily crossed the sound barrier. Racing above the rooftops, she tracked the Jet Fighter as it began to veer toward the San Gabriel Mountains north of town and turned up the boost.

"No, no… you don't get to run away! I want the whole world to see…!"

Passing between her Hammerheads, Major Blast II rose up and ahead of the Jet Fighter before aiming down at it, with the expensive neighborhoods of Upper Echo Creek directly beneath her line of fire.

"… MY HEROISM!"

Directly below, Brittney Wong watched with widening eyes as Major Blast aimed to take such a reckless shot at the Jet Fighter.

"Oh shit!" she gasped before a barrage of red bolts snatched Tara's kill from her.

An instant later, the Red Striker AV shot over the suburb in full afterburn before ascending into a climb.

Brittney regained her composure and smirked.

"Just in time."

Tara gave a start and looked in the direction of the Red Striker AV. "Wait, is that…?!"

Strikerborg did not leave her waiting. "Hey, Major Ass. You need help getting to Hell to suck that Dr. Zin dick?!"

The Red Striker AV looped from its climb and began to curve back toward Major Blast II. "Because I gotchu, bitch!"

Tara's incandescent fury manifested not as a scream, but as a murderous grin. "Are you assaulting a police officer?!"

"Are you trying to blast my town?!" Strikerborg shouted back as the Striker AV passed close to Major Blast II without attacking. "Because you could be the President of the United States for all I care, I don't give a CRAP! You hurt anyone in my town and it's on fucking sight!"

Tara aimed one of her beam cannons at the Striker AV. "Making terroristic threats is good enough for me!"

She fired a concentrated blast, but Strikerborg abruptly changed direction with the same finesse the Jet Fighters had shown earlier, slipping away before the beam could reach the Striker AV. Behind her helmet, her surprise turned into a genuine delight.

"Oh, so we are getting active?! FINE!" she shouted as she dodged another beam and zoomed toward Major Blast II.

As the Red Striker AV sped past Major Blast II, Dipper, Misao, and Kelly watched with alarm.

"She just opened up on her like that?!" Misao asked, shocked.

Kelly grimaced. "This is just how Tara is. All that matters is that she wins."

Dipper tightened his hand into a fist. "As long as she's shooting at Strikerborg, then she's not shooting at the town!"

Janna folded her hands behind the back of her head and took a deep breath while looking outwardly calm. "She's messing with the wrong hood…"

Dipper agreed, as he contacted Jo. "Under no circumstances do you shoot back, Strikerborg! We can't escalate things!"

Strikerborg rolled her AV, avoiding another blast from Major Blast II. "Dipper I love you, but we already crossed the Rubicon here!"

As she raced up the road toward Hillhurst Mansion, Elise noticed magenta flashes bracketing the Red Striker AV, and brought her van to a stop.

"Uh oh," she said before she went for her phone.

The Red Striker AV continued to dip and dodge Major Blast II's fire, the open back panels and the flaring exhaust from the AV's boosters making her machine look like a beetle in mid-flight hopped up on caffeine and the unyielding determination to defeat its enemies.

"You rotten little brat!" Tara taunted as she pursued Strikerborg back south toward Lower Echo Creek. "You can't even think of your own idea! You have to pretend to be a comic book hero?!"

Two beams nearly grazed the AV, but Strikerborg tilted her fans and shot straight up at a right angle—the brutal acceleration forcing her deep into her seat. Were it not for her super strength and the armor, she'd probably be paste in her suit!

"Oh that's rich coming from you, rebranding to the only supervillain Boss Awesome never beat!"

Alarms of incoming projectiles alerted her, and Strikerborg realized the Hammerheads were attacking her with their remaining four missiles. "Oh crap, those are 9Xs!"

Control of the Red Striker AV was abruptly taken from her. "Huh?!"

Strikerborg was tossed back into her seat as her machine rose into a tightening spiral, the missiles fighting to maintain their lead as the turn grew tighter and tighter, until their guidance finally broke.

The missiles shot harmlessly upward past the AV, their trajectories carrying them out toward the Pacific before they began to fall.

"Whoa…" Strikerborg gasped as she realized what happened. "Thanks, Misao!"

"Ja, ja! I believe that the Hench Co. Hammerheads are only armed with four air-to-air missiles in their cheapest configuration. They should not bother you with those anymore."

Strikerborg nodded. "I counted the same. We're good from here!"

Down below, Tara gawked at the insane maneuver. She could understand the remote-controlled Magnavore Jet Fighters doing that… but a machine piloted by a human?

She looked at her two Hammerheads. "Damn, I'm out of missiles, too. I should've splurged on the full air combat package…"

Both Hammerheads began a hard turn before the four remaining Magnavore Jet Fighters pounced on them from above, ripping one of the unmanned aircraft apart with their blasters.

Tara realized, in her horror, that she should've bought insurance for them, too.

The second Hammerhead, having avoided the assault, banked hard around and doggedly pursued the four Jet Fighters as they turned their attention onto Major Blast II.

Strikerborg reclaimed control after spotting them. "The rest of them are here!"

Keeping her boosters open, she dove toward the Jet Fighters. Two fighters broke from the formation to engage her, opening fire as they climbed.

With the bolts narrowly zipping past the hull and between the open, elytra-like booster covers, Strikerborg called out, "Misao, you've got my guns! Feuer frei!"

Misao did so with gusto. "BANG BANG!"

She dove between the two Magnavore Jet Fighters, which immediately flipped over to get on her six o'clock.

Only to find the Striker AV flipped over as well, its tilt-fans still driving it downward while its nose pointed skyward.

"BANG BANG!" Strikerborg shouted out Misao unleashed hell. Her deadly accurate fire danced over the fighter on Strikerborg's right, blowing it apart, before the stream slashed over the remaining fighter.

The Jet Fighter suddenly slid sideways to its left, passing between the bolts before racing off.

"Oh no you don't!" Strikerborg shouted as she flipped the tilt-fans forward and reignited her boosters to pursue the surviving fighter.

The two fighters that focused on Major Blast II opened fire with their blasters and just like before she withstood their assault with her barrier.

"You miserable drones are starting to bore me!"

Charging both cannons, she brought them together and fired straight through her own barrier, shattering it and completely vaporizing the Jet Fighter on her left.

The other Jet Fighter dove and banked to its right, and Tara dragged the surging beam down to try to catch it. She missed the Jet Fighter, and the beam slashed through a street already emptied of pedestrians who had fled for cover.

As the beam carved through an intersection, Boxter slammed on the brakes of his police cruiser with alarm, flinging Jeb into the dashboard, but he caught himself.

"Is she insane?!" Boxter yelled as he watched Major Blast II cease fire so she could get lead on the second fighter.

Detectives Bishop and Hashimoto watched with alarm as smoke rose from the distant street.

"This is too much…!" Detective Bishop snarled before he turned to the police department and rushed for the door. "I'm calling the Sheriff's office, she needs to be stopped!"

He looked back. "Mirai, keep your eyes on Tara! Record everything you can!"

Detective Hashimoto pulled out her phone and began filming, just as much of Echo Creek no doubt already was.

Overhead, the Striker AV's blasters found their mark and blasted the penultimate Jet Fighter from the sky.

"Got it!" Strikerborg shouted, before she saw what was happening below.

The Jet Fighter Major Blast II pursued was flying even lower than before, weaving around and over rooftops, treetops, and even under the occasional power line as it headed east. At this critically low altitude, the Hammerhead that rejoined Tara's wing remained unable to engage, while she continued to recklessly fire at it—alternating between her beam cannons.

"Are you kidding me?!" Strikerborg yelled before she dove in.

"Oh, now all you can do is run, huh?" Tara taunted as she fired another careless shot that blasted a cellphone tower and sent it toppling over in a shower of sparks.

The fighter then took a left and curved toward the mountains at the edge of town. Tara wasn't having that.

"Hey! My public is back that way!"

The thrusters on her backpack flared brighter, the flames turning from yellow to magenta. The acceleration threw her past the sound barrier, the resulting sonic boom shattering windows and cracking walls as she closed the distance.

"You're not allowed to leave, not when I'm at my most exciting!"

Without warning, a beam surged from the back of the Magnavore Jet Fighter toward Major Blast II.

The shot came too fast for Tara to raise her barrier, but her sharp reflexes let her roll clear. "Crap!"

The Jet Fighter spun like a top, turning around as it kept flying forward. Then it surged toward Tara, its blasters opening fire again.

This time Tara had time to recover, and raised her barrier to block the shots. "How'd it shoot backward like that…?!"

She trailed off when she saw a caped figure perched atop the back of the Magnavore Jet Fighter.

Gripping onto a set of reins to keep himself atop the fighter in his monstrous red left hand, Typhus aimed his shotgun-sword toward her in his free hand.

"What… he's… riding it?!" Tara asked in disbelief.

With a sneer, Typhus laughed. "Time to pay you back for Noxic, baby!"

He fired, the beam passing over the barrier and striking the Hammerhead that was still racing to catch up with Tara. Hit in its left wing, the Hammerhead rolled out of control straight for Major Blast II's back.

Looking back at the Hammerhead tumbling toward her, Tara wrapped the barrier around her in its sphere configuration.

On impact with the barrier, the Hammerhead exploded and its wreckage fell to the ground below. The largest piece of it crashed into a fire station, while the other debris barely missed several homes nearby.

As the smoke billowed around Tara, she let out a scream.

"THAT'S TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS, GONE!"

Two continuous beams surged from the smoke, violently dissipating it around an unharmed Major Blast II. Typhus's Jet Fighter stayed outside their firing arc, however, as it resumed its course toward the mountains.

Seeing that only made her angrier.

"DON'T FUCKING RUN AWAY FROM ME!"

As she rushed to pursue him, she saw something white gleaming in a valley the Jet Fighter was headed toward. Something that looked out of place outside the city limits.

"What is that…?" Her eyes widened, when she saw the Beetle Battle Base sticking out of the ground behind Hillhurst Mansion. "Hang on, that's…!"

She broke into a grin when she realized what she was looking at.

"That's their little hideout, isn't it?!"

Strikerborg pulled out of her dive after Typhus's counterattack and zoomed in on his Jet Fighter.

"Guys! Typhus is on that thing!" She then looked ahead of where the Jet Fighter was flying.

Behind her helmet her eyes widened.

"Shit, SHIT! He's leading Tara toward Hillhurst!"

Dipper slammed his hands on the console. "Great, this is exactly what we need!"

He opened a channel. "Everybody, get ready! Typhus is coming in hot!"

Outside, directly in front of Hillhurst Mansion, the Hunter AV sat ready, its blasters trained to the sky. Mabel sat on the Hunter Scissor on the AV's left side, while Marco stood on the right cracking his knuckles.

"I seen 'em, cuh," Hunterborg said as he sat in his machine's cockpit, his hands tightly gripping the controls in repressed anger. "I seen all of that."

"Yeah," Marco said, his own anger simmering. "We got something for her, too."

Jackie, standing on the Hunter AV's back, spun a spear Star provided her and took it in both hands. "There's only so much we can take."

Star, standing beside her, clutched her wand as Janna chimed in.

"Let show this tourist know how we do things in Echo Creek."

= - = 10-6 = - =​

The battle races to Hillhurst Mansion! Next time, Typhus vs. Tara!

 

[EvaUnit01]

Oh boy, I sure do hope that blonde bitch gets got.

 

[Delta/Soul]

Oh boy, I sure do hope that blonde bitch gets got.

Click to shrink...

Maybe she will be collected by the Magnavores and turned into a fodder soldier that gets merc'ed by the Beetleborgs.

 

[Cain The Wanderer]

Got a bit into writing Volume 11 lol, missed a few days here. That whole arc is going to be very heavy on Star vs. stuff, I love it. In the meantime, it's time for a big battle!

Fun fact, I use SRW Music sometimes for writing my fights, and I have a bunch of those songs assigned to characters.

= - = 10-7 = - =

|Biology is a Blast!|​

Drew wished he hadn't glanced at his phone when Sabrina excused herself to "powder her nose".

He saw the group message reassuring him that everything was fine despite the Magnavores acting up. But when he peeked out the door of Mr. Scott's office he could hear the commotion created by people sheltering in the store, while staff worked double-time to keep everyone calm.

If people in Santa Monica were freaking out, what was actually going on?

Looking at his phone, Drew sent a text to Janna.

Dr00:
Janna, is everything okay?

Janna Banana:
Really? Texting another baddie while on a date?

Drew grimaced.

Dr00:
Please, be serious! Is everything okay?!

It took a moment for Janna to answer.

Janna Banana:
Even if everything was going to hell here, which it's not, you need to be there to protect Tiny Deer. So don't even worry about it, and make sure that girl is safe.

Drew stared at the message, his expression softening at Janna's nickname for Sabrina, before his lips curled into a smile.

Dr00:
You're right. I'll sit tight over here and take care of her.

Janna answered almost instantly.

Janna Banana:
Sweet. Jo's already being a menace, and it looks like we're fighting Typhus with Tara as a special guest pack out. I'll send pics when we're done dog-walking these bitches.

Dr00:
Also… Mabel calling Sabrina a tiny deer really stuck with you, huh?

Janna Banana:
Well, is Mabel wrong?

Drew thought about that.

Dr00:
She's skittish, shy, and a little clumsy but… there's a lot more to Sabrina than just that. And I'm glad I'm learning more about her.

Janna Banana:


Drew chuckled.

Dr00:
I want to learn more about you, too.

Janna Banana:
You'll solve my mysteries soon enough, but don't go buttering me up while you're still on a date, Sad Kid.

Drew paled slightly and let out a sigh. She was right.

Dr00:
You're right. Be safe, all of you.

Janna Banana:
Bet.

The door opened and Sabrina slipped back into the room, looking nervous. "I heard that the Magnavores are attacking again. I hope everyone back in town is all right."

Drew held up his phone. "I just got a text about it, actually. It sounds like the Beetleborgs have everything handled."

Sabrina relaxed and sat back down with him. "I'm glad."

She then looked at him. "You're like… the biggest Beetleborg fan, right? How do you even feel about them actually running around fighting monsters for real?"

Drew stared at her, blinking, as he struggled to find his answer for a moment.

"Honestly? I was really worried at first. But now…?" he said with full sincerity.

"I think it's pretty cool."

@@@@@​

Looking back at the pursuing Major Blast II, Typhus chuckled as he realized she wasn't shooting at him anymore. She had clearly spotted the Beetle Battle Base, and that was much more important.

"Hook, line, and sinker, baby!" he declared before the Green Hunter AV fired on him from below and the Red Striker AV bombarded him from above. The criss-crossing bolts lanced through the Jet Fighter and lashed across Typhus's body.

Behind him, Tara gave a start at the immediate violence and brutality of the Beetleborgs' attacks. "Not even hesitating…?"

Explosions rippled across the Jet Fighter as streams of smoke poured from it, and the craft plummeted toward the middle of the vineyard that surrounded the mansion. Struggling to climb, the craft lost power and came down with a violent crash on the path leading to the house.

The fighter burst into a great cloud of dust. The millions of mechanical wasps that made it up—just like the Scabs—shut down and crumbled away all at once.

The roiling dust cloud rolled down the path, and from it Typhus emerged in a purposeful stride—hand gripping his shotgun-sword, green cape blowing in front of him over his right shoulder, and jewelry gleaming in the afternoon sunlight.

Directly in front of him, just outside Hillhurst Marco, Jackie, and Star glowered at him from their perches on the Green Hunter AV.

Mabel cheerfully waved.

The barrels of the Hunter AV's blasters swiveled to aim at him.

Typhus chuckled at the greeting. "Ay, what's happenin', baby?"

Star's cheek marks turned to skulls. "I swear to glob…"

The roar of thrusters filled the air before Major Blast II crashed to the ground in a crouch with such force that the dust cloud that had once been the Jet Fighter was blown away in every direction.

Slowly Major Blast II rose to her feet, and pointed her left beam cannon at Typhus.

"You…" she said, before aiming her right beam cannon at the Hunter AV and the teens perched on it. "… All of you…"

She smiled widely.

"Are under arrest!"

Down in the Beetle Battle Base, Kelly was trying to hold in her anger. Seeing Tara out there up close and not a chaos missile hurtling across the sky dug up painful memories.

"This is what four years of getting everything you want does to you, isn't it?!" she seethed. "Flying around, doing all the damage you want, and then talking about delinquent vigilantes stirring chaos?!"

Kelly shook her head. "And now you pull up, acting so smug, after everything you just did?!"

She wanted to go out there and punch Tara herself!

Janna put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, chill newbie. It's gonna be okay."

Kelly looked at her. "But you aren't even allowed to fight her! She's still a cop!"

Janna huffed through her nose. "Eh, we'll figure something out."

Jo radioed in as the Striker AV circled over the mansion. "Hey, I've got intel to pass along before crap pops off!"

"Ja, you're connected!" Misao said.

Back outside, Marco glared at Tara before he called her out. "Hey, Tara! You here to try to deport him, too?!"

Tara looked at Marco, then trained her beam cannon on him. "That fancy lawyer isn't going to save you now—I've got you all pinned to the wall!"

She tilted her chin up slightly. "And if you resist? Well, that just makes my job more fun!"

Marco shrugged. "You say that now."

He gestured to Typhus. "But ask this guy how we do things around here."

Tara narrowed her eyes at Marco before shifting her gaze to Typhus as he turned to her and swept his cape behind him.

"Heh… yeah, these kids love the fade, and don't even run the ones! They don't make 'em like they used to, and I love it!"

Tara laughed. "You have the right to remain silent, freak. I suggest you exercise it."

Typhus chuckled back. "I know my rights—but I prefer my lefts, baby."

The cannon pointed at Typhus began to charge. "Lefts? What are you talking about, you cosplaying weir–?"

In the next instant, Typhus bore down on Tara, the red racing up his gnarled left arm and spreading across his chest as he swung for Major Blast II's glass dome helmet.

On the other side of that glass, Tara's eyes went wide at how fast Typhus went from standing still to swinging on her.

All of Major Blast II's thrusters in her backpack and on the back of her legs swiveled and fired at once, sending her rocketing sideways out of the way.

As soon as she was clear, Marco and Mabel jumped off the Hunter AV's scissors as Hunterborg opened fire on Typhus.

The bolts crashed into Typhus' back, sending him stumbling forward. But the Synthetic Beast General was laughing as he staggered with each blast.

"Awwww YEAH!" He shouted as he turned to face his attacker. "This is what I'm talkin' about! WE DON'T DO THEM FAIR ONES!"

The second he did, Star was in mid-leap, swinging her wand like a hammer.

"RAINBOW ROCKET PUNCH!"

The wand created a sphere of energy around its bell that coalesced into the form of a Super Robot's right fist and forearm. A jet of rainbow-colored flame erupted from the back of the forearm, whipping Star into a high-speed spin before she smashed Typhus across the face and slammed him into the ground.

Typhus tumbled end over end, crashing into the start of a trellis row. Just as quickly, he rose—only for Jackie's spear to slash diagonally across his chest before he could fully straighten.

"Appreciate the glaze, dude!" Jackie said as she spun the spear over her head to bring it in a downward slash.

Planting the tip of the spear in the ground, she vaulted up, swung herself around it, and heel-kicked Typhus in his jaw.

The blow turned his whole body to his left, where he saw Star swinging a second Rainbow Rocket Punch down low, then into an uppercut that connected with his chin and launched him off the ground flipping end over end.

"But that doesn't make it sweet!" she called out.

He was intercepted in mid-air by Marco's favorite spinning back kick, which launched him between two trellis rows. "Thanks for the review, though!"

As he slid to a stop on his back, Mabel ran him down—jumping and using all of her weight to stomp on his head with both feet.

"And enjoy this complimentary five-star butt-kicking!" she taunted before she jumped off him.

As soon as she landed, Typhus flipped himself over, dug his left hand's claws into the ground, and lunged at her. "You ain't gotta say it twice!"

The Green Hunterborg burst through the trellis on Typhus's left, the Hunter Claw closing around his head. "Back up off my big homie, cuh!"

The two became a racing blur as Hunterborg barreled through the vineyard, using Typhus as a ram to smash through trellis after trellis before they reached the end of the back row. A second after that, Hunterborg was knocked flying back to the main path to the mansion, but recovered in mid-air and landed.

Typhus charged, swinging down the shotgun-sword, only for his blade to be parried by an upward swing of the Hunter Claw. Catching himself, Typhus went on the offensive and the two began crossing their unorthodox blades again and again with great showers of sparks.

As the two brawled, Marco, Star, Jackie, and Mabel moved to reposition themselves. To their right, Major Blast II stood among the vines on the opposite side of the path, watching Hunterborg and Typhus brawl in shaken confusion.

"What was that…? That freak just…"

The fight had started so fast! Typhus went from one-liner to trying to take her head off without even warning her to prepare herself!

She watched the monster battle the green Beetleborg, and realized that he was keeping pace with Typhus.

That could be hand-waved—but the rest of these brats being able to land hits on something that moved like him, too?!

"Are they actually…?" Tara stopped and shook her head. "Focus, Tara! This is your chance!"

When Typhus swung again, Hunterborg zipped around his flank, slashing across his stomach as he passed before raking the Hunter Claw across his lower back.

With a laugh, Typhus turned around to fire the shotgun-sword at Hunterborg, but Jackie's spear came down more like a hammer, catching and forcing the weapon down before she vaulted into a flying kick to the side of Typhus's head.

"Laser Beam Blast!" Star shouted, her spell passing just behind Jackie to hit and push Typhus up the path. Mabel ran along the left side of the spell and Marco on the right toward Typhus.

As soon as the spell ended, Typhus swung at both Marco and Mabel to carve clean through both—but they jumped above the slash.

"HEEEYAH!" Marco drove a kick into the side of Typhus's head, and he was knocked into the path of a haymaker blow from Mabel that knocked him off his feet.

"Mess him up!" Mabel shouted as Jackie dashed wide around her back.

Jackie turned on a dime, and streaked forward to drive her spear straight through his chest.

As Typhus staggered backward and reached for the spear with his free hand, Jackie released the shaft before she, Marco, and Mabel descended upon him. They struck from different directions and angles, landing sharp kicks, stinging chops, and thunderous punches when they weren't avoiding his wild counterattacks and attempts to break out of the dust-up.

Mabel's longer reach, especially with her kicks, allowed Marco and Jackie plenty of room to dip in and out between the taller girl's strikes.

Despite the withering assault, Typhus was still having the time of his life. "Y'all kids ain't never a dull time, baby!"

When Mabel connected an elbow to his face and Jackie darted in to attack, Typhus turned away to swing the shotgun-sword down on her. The Hunter Claw caught his arm before Hunterborg stepped in and shot Typhus repeatedly in the face with the Input Magnum in his free hand.

A magenta glow at the edges of their vision was the only warning they got, but Marco, Jackie, Mabel, and Hunterborg scattered all the same when Major Blast II opened fire on Typhus with both beam cannons—the large beam completely enveloping him.

"Looks like she rebooted," Marco said sharply after he landed.

"That's enough!" Tara shouted as the beam faded. "Cease your fighting immediately!"

"And loaded a save state right back into her bullcrap," Janna chimed in via Hunterborg's audio output.

"Hey, you could've hit us, you know!" Mabel shouted at her.

"And you would've deserved it!" Tara snapped back, as she pointed her beam cannons in their direction.

"You… all you are… are chaotic… violent little maniacs who think that because you have fancy toys, or can throw some punches, that you're actual heroes. Well guess what?! You brats aren't the heroes, here, I am!"

Star called over to her. "Lady, we're trying to fight a monster here! This isn't a popularity contest!"

"It IS a popularity contest, you idiots! And I didn't fight tooth and nail to become Los Angeles' greatest hero to have you UPSTARTS act all high and mighty!"

Dipper, Misao, and Janna stared in disbelief at the screen showing the feed outside.

"Was?" Misao asked in a stunned voice.

"Is… is this all this is to her?" Dipper asked.

Kelly—who had seen this all before—nodded slowly. "Yeah… this is why her crap sucks so much. Everything she's done? The people she's hurt? All Tara wants… is to be popular."

She looked down, seeming almost exhausted. "… And that's because when she was SheZow's sidekick… her actual superpower… was gross."

Dipper turned to her. "Actually… people have mentioned Tara being SheZow's sidekick before she sold out… but… what was gross about her?"

Kelly gave him a side-eye. "Do you remember hearing about a hero from back in the day who used to team up with SheZow… 'Snot Girl?'"

Dipper's eyes widened in recognition and disbelief as he turned back to Major Blast II on the screen.

"… No way!"

Janna snorted. "Oh, that makes all the sense, now."

Tara began to charge her cannons. "Now… move aside, get on your knees and put your hands behind your heads…"

She turned her attention to Typhus, who was regenerating his wounds from her attack. "And leave this freak for a real hero to handle."

Hunterborg stepped forward, ready to dash in and attack Typhus—before he stopped and let out a grunt.

"You know what? You got this, cuh."

He moved over toward Star. "We'll be right over here."

Jackie frowned and walked over to join Star—with Mabel and Marco following them.

"We're not actually–" Marco said.

Hunterborg looked at him. "Jo's been feeding intel, we need to strategize about how we deal with Tara when we deal with Tara."

Star nodded as the others reached her. "Ahhh! I see!"

Ripping out the remains of Jackie's spear, Typhus tossed it aside and chuckled as he closed and opened his clawed left hand. "You're a real prima donna, but that's okay! I gotta run it back for Noxic, baby!"

Tara aimed her left cannon at Typhus. At this distance, she'd have time to react if he dashed for her."I'll send you to hell to join your robot friend!"

Typhus lifted his shotgun-sword as Tara fired, his own weapon's blast colliding with it and creating a large explosion that buffeted Hunterborg and the others.

Major Blast II blasted into the air as Typhus scattered the dust cloud with his charge and swung for where she'd stood.

As he looked back and up at her, she fired off a barrage of magenta energy bolts that struck him and the ground around him in a cluster of explosions.

"Heh, unlike those brats, I can fly!" Tara taunted before she threw her arms outward, charged up a longer burst, and brought them together to unleash a full-output blast. "And you can't, freak!"

Typhus charged out from under the blast and beneath Major Blast II as her attack cut through the vineyard behind him.

Aiming the shotgun-sword skyward, he fired off scattering energy blasts that crashed against a half-sphere barrier that Major Blast II summoned beneath her.

"And your attacks are weak at this range, too!" Typhus fired a concentrated beam up at the barrier, only for it to splash harmlessly across its surface. "SEE?!"

"Jara's gonna love fighting this lady," Typhus said as he leaped to escape Major Blast II's return fire.

@@@@@​

The explosions and rumbling from outside drew Count Fangula to the front of Hillhurst Mansion, and he sighed in agitation.

"It's the middle of the day!" he whined when he found Mums and Frankenbeans were watching the TV. "What are those kids doing now?"

Mums gestured to the TV with a nonchalant grunt. On it was a live feed of Typhus and Major Blast II trading energy blasts just outside. A familiar voice was providing color commentary for the battle.

"Oh, and Typhus is on the run! Major Blast II is taking every bit of her altitude and defensive advantage to completely negate any strength he has!" Flabber excitedly narrated like he was covering a football game.

The Blue Pipe-ette chimed in as Typhus unleashed another, stronger beam blast from his shotgun-sword, but a more complete sphere barrier around Tara stopped it.

"It's hard to believe that just minutes ago, Typhus had this one shook with his sheer explosive power!" As she spoke, the action on-screen shifted to a split screen. In the new window, Typhus's opening punch played once, rewound, and played again.

Mums gestured dismissively at the screen. "How's this exciting? She's just up there taking potshots and talking crap!"

The Red Pipe-ette agreed as she spoke from the TV. "And what crap it is, Mums! Let's get some live audio right now!"

"Ha-ha! You can't touch me from all down there without your precious hunk of junk jets, huh, you ugly freak?! You're useless! You're worse than useless! All you're good for is being a punching bag for brats!"

The Green Pipe-ette then joined in. "Riveting stuff, we now go to the 'LIVE Teenagers With Attitude REACTION' cam!"

The instant replay window switched to a live shot of Marco, Star, Jackie, Mabel, and Hunterborg huddled off to the side, all looking fairly disgusted with Tara's antics.

Mums was right there with them. "How can anyone live with such hate in their heart?"

The Red Pipe-ette replied. "You hated those kids just as much before last week!"

"Well, the mermaid girl didn't hook us up with that premium zaza before last week!" Mums countered.

"Mean green lady sounds like Karen," Frankenbeans said glumly. "She needs manager."

Mums looked at Frankenbeans in surprise, then turned to Fangula. "Who taught him that word?"

Fangula cleared his throat and looked aside.

The Green Pipe-ette ratted him out. "Fangy's been watching Karen crashouts on YouTube and letting Frankie watch."

Mums was furious. "You know he shouldn't be watching that, it's a bad influence!"

"Coming from Mums, though…?" The Blue Pipe-ette asked.

Flabber appeared behind his "Hillhurst News Network" desk as the battle continued in a window to his left. Typhus was on the run, fleeing toward the far edge of the vineyard to a large boulder he dove behind. "Boys and ghouls, it looks like this battle is about to get crazy! Officials are calling foul!"

Outside, as Typhus took cover, Tara had received an urgent priority call directly to her suit.

"Who's calling me on my hotline?!" she snapped before she answered the call. "This is Bouger, I'm busy!"

"Bouger! What in god's name do you think you're doing?!" Detective Bishop yelled at her with an intensity she didn't expect.

Tara immediately did not like his tone. "What I'm doing is saving your town, Detective! Who do you think YOU are talking to me like that?!"

Down in Echo Creek, Detective Bishop was on his phone in the passenger seat of his unmarked cruiser, and Detective Hashimoto was behind the wheel as they led a wailing procession of emergency vehicles toward Hillhurst Mansion. "I'm Lead Detective, and you blew up part of my town showboating like an idiot!"

Tara looked at the call window projected on the inside of her dome, indignant. "Showboating?! I'm doing what I need to do to protect this city!"

"You could've hurt people, killed people with your recklessness!" Detective Bishop argued.

Punching into the boulder all the way to his left elbow, Typhus let out a sinister chuckle as the rest of his arm turned red—the color spreading across his chest, down to his knees, and into his other arm as he began to pull the multi-ton rock out of the ground.

"The only thing that matters is that I put these freaks away! And as long as I do that, you people will thank me later!"

The boulder came off the ground, and with a growl that turned into a roar, he spun around and threw the entire rock up at Tara.

The feat of strength surprised the kids. Typhus was strong, but they didn't realize he was capable of this!

As it hurtled toward her, Tara sneered dismissively. "Get with the program. Lead Detective! I'm Major Blast!"

Charging her right cannon, she fired a continuous beam she used to slice the boulder in half. "AND I AM LA'S GREATEST HERO!"

Right behind the splitting boulder, Typhus hurtled at Major Blast II in an arc. His left arm and torso completely red, he swung a thunderous punch down onto Tara's dome barrier directly over her head.

The sky lit up in a flash, Bolts of magenta energy surged from the barrier, arcing through the air and down to the ground like lightning. They ripped through and ignited the ravaged trellises and carved black scorch marks through the dusty ground.

When they passed close to Hunterborg and the others as they ducked down, Star's cheeks lit up unexpectedly.

"Huh!" Star looked up in surprise. "What the hey?!"

In the Beetle Battle Base, Dipper, Misao, and Janna watched Typhus's tactical maneuver in surprise.

Kelly was outright stunned. "Wow… these guys are crazy! Guy would love to fight them."

Tara cackled at Typhus. "You mindless, musclebound brute! You left yourself wide open!"

Several hexagons of her barrier disappeared as Tara aimed up at Typhus…

Only for him to shove the shotgun-sword in his right hand through the gap.

Tara's eyes flew wide as the barrel of the shotgun-sword pressed against her chest armor. "What?!"

Typhus laughed. "Just because I'm the Big Man don't mean I ain't slick, baby!"

He fired at point-blank range, the blast creating an explosion that blew the barrier apart and sent Major Blast II hurtling toward the ground.

The two halves of the boulder slammed into the dusty, burning ground of the vineyard, creating wide, deep craters. Major Blast II crashed down next, bouncing and tumbling backward with smoke trailing off her armor.

Typhus landed on the smoke and dust-wreathed path in a crouch, his cape flaring out behind him, before he slowly rose to his feet and let out a growling chuckle as the red receded back to his left arm.

Inside the mansion, on the TV, Flabber was holding the sides of his head and staring in open-mouthed shock at the camera as a Modern Warfare 2 "Round Winning Kill"-style replay of Typhus shooting Major Blast II played behind him, complete with the three-second countdown stretching out as the replay dropped into slow motion.

Mums pointed at the TV and then at Fangula and Frankenbeans. "Yannow what? If he wasn't trying to destroy the world, I'd smoke with him."

"He could still be trying to destroy the world—I'd do more than smoke with him," Fangula purred.

Mums hummed and really looked at Typhus as he rose from his flashy landing. "Eh… six out of ten."

"Solid eight!" Fangula corrected with faux-indignation.

Outside, the fire was taking hold of the dry, brittle kindling of the vineyard like it had only the week before when Goblin had set it ablaze. Jackie and especially Marco watched the flames as they were briefly reminded of that disastrous brawl, while Mabel and Hunterborg looked between Typhus and Major Blast II.

Star, however, scrutinized Major Blast II alone as she slowly, shakily pushed herself to her feet.

Panting heavily, with her hair frazzled and alarm symbols flashing across the inside of her dome, Tara stood up. She let go of the grips to her beam cannons and let them fold back to her hip armor as she patted herself on the chest plate to examine the damage she'd taken.

She froze when she felt it—a scorch mark that had burned nearly through the chest plate and reached the secondary armor layer between it and the tightly interwoven black mesh bodysuit underneath.

Typhus let out another low, satisfied laugh.

"Hey, we all get knocked down, once or twice. It's all in how we get back up, baby!" he teased as he brought his shotgun-sword up to rest on his shoulder nonchalantly. "And I hope you're gettin' up!"

Tara looked at Typhus, and saw that all of his injuries, every wound the kids—and Tara herself—had inflicted on him… were completely gone.

He had fully regenerated.

No… he was like new!

Her left eye twitched. This thing.

This freak.

It wasn't a robot… it wasn't some basement-dweller's cosplay or science project. Him… those fighters… what…? What was this?

What was this?!

Her breath came out shakier as she bared her teeth.

This was a comic book villain! The creation of some two-bit loser who draws cartoons all day! WHAT WAS THIS?!

Overhead, Strikerborg caught flashes at the edge of her vision and looked over to see the long procession of police and emergency vehicles coming toward Hillhurst Mansion.

"Guys, we need to wrap this up. Twelve's coming this way… and there's a lot of them."

Down in the Beetle Battle Base, Dipper cursed under his breath. Stepping up to the console, he leaned over Misao and pushed down the PA system call button.

"Tara."

Dipper's voice cut through the roar of the growing flames, and caused both her and Typhus to look toward the Beetle Battle Base.

"If this is going to end? We need to work together to actually beat Typhus down for good. Between all of us, we can definitely overpower him… and unlike the other times, he can't escape from here."

Tara slowly turned her head toward Hillhurst Mansion and the Beetle Battle Base, her eyes settling on the kids gathered between the two.

Typhus's gnarled grin grew at the prospect of fighting them all at once.

"Whatever happens after this, happens… but right now? Let's deal with him together."

Tara stared at the Beetle Battle Base and the kids for a long moment… then fully turned to face them.

"You want… to help… me…?" she asked in a shaking voice that would've been inaudible were it not boosted by her suit's speakers.

"As much as we don't like you," Mabel said, "Beating Typhus comes first!"

"I don't like it any more than you," Jackie assured her.

"I like it less than I like you," Marco added, his tone venomous.

Typhus couldn't help himself. "Well I love it! I'm fit to fight all of ya, baby!"

"Cuh, who asked?" Hunterborg snapped at him.

Major Blast II stood there, completely still.

Then an explosion of magenta light surged from every gap and line of Major Blast II's armor. With it, waves of force pushed everyone back as the ground began to violently shake.

Overhead, the surge of power caused the Red Striker AV to wobble in its flight, surprising Strikerborg. "What the fuck?!"

In the Beetle Battle Base, Misao, Dipper, Janna, and Kelly were bombarded with repeated energy spike alarms.

As Star shielded her face from the wind and light, she peered over the back of her raised hand—and her eyes widened.

Major Blast II's damaged armor was repairing itself, as Tara screamed like a banshee.

"YOU ARROGANT LITTLE SHITS! HOW DARE YOU THINK I NEED ANYTHING FROM YOU?!"

Her barrier appeared around her… and then broke apart. Each individual hexagon detached and began rotating faster and faster, until dozens of disk-like blades hovered around her in a deadly swarm.

Hunterborg tensed in his armor. "Aw… shit…"

Looking up and seeing the Red Striker AV overhead, Tara snapped her right beam cannon up toward it.

"I'LL KILL YOU ALL!"

The beam she fired was a much thinner, brighter shade of magenta than the previous beams. And when it struck the Red Striker AV, it sliced off the AV's left tilt-fan.

"Strikerborg!" Dipper and Misao yelled out as the others watched from the ground in shock as the damaged AV immediately tumbled toward the ground.

"Shit, shit!" Strikerborg said before she bailed from her machine. Strikerborg dropped toward the ground and drove a fist into the earth as she landed in a crouch.

Behind her, the damaged AV hit the ground and tumbled along like a tossed toy, but didn't explode.

Turning her attention to Typhus, she shrieked. "NOW IT'S YOUR TURN! KNOW YOUR PLACE, YOU MISERABLE MISH-MASH OF ORGANS! KILL HIM!"

She made a horizontal sweeping gesture with her left hand and a dozen of the barrier panels turned blades shot at Typhus, slashing across his body lightning fast.

"GRGH!" Typhus grunted as he was struck.

"I SAID KILL HIM!" Tara screamed.

Two dozen more of her Barrier Blades attacked, joining the first dozen in attacking Typhus from every direction, slashing him again and again, causing deep, messy cuts that sprayed monstrous ichor when they weren't immediately cauterized.

Re-equipping her left beam cannon, she pointed it at him.

"REGENERATE FROM THIS, YOU FREAK!"

Another dozen of the Barrier Blades positioned themselves around the barrel of the weapon, interlocking and forming an extension of the barrel before the cannon fired another beam.

As the recoil pushed Tara backward, the Barrier Blades squeezed down on the beam, intensifying it even further as it impacted and lanced through Typhus's stomach.

Typhus screamed, as he began to be pushed back by the blast, before the Barrier Blades around the beam cannon's barrel widened to let the wider beam surge out and smash into Typhus—sending him flying down range and into the distant edge of the valley.

"Holy…" Marco began.

"Mackerel…!" Mabel finished.

Major Blast II then turned her attention back to them, her Barrier Blades swept back and regrouped around her.

"Die."

Tara hissed through her teeth, before she screamed.

"DIE!"

The moment the Barrier Blades shot toward them, the Green Hunter AV's treads bit into the ground as it accelerated to position itself in the path of the blades.

Inside the Beetle Battle Base, Misao called out as she controlled the unmanned AV. "TAKE HER DOWN!"

Dipper agreed. Tara was too dangerous in this state! "AND DON'T HOLD BACK!"

As her Barrier Blades cut and gouged pieces out of the Hunter AV, its body turned on its treads a full ninety degrees to aim its suite of blasters at her and opened fire.

The Barrier Blades swirled into action, each snapping into position to intercept a bolt before repositioning for the next wave of fire.

Hunterborg was suddenly at Major Blast II's side with the Input Magnum, firing a beam mode shot for her dome that a Barrier Blade blocked, before several more blocked his lunge with the Hunter Claw and another dozen on top of that slashed across his body.

Major Blast II fired her right beam cannon as she swung it at him, slashing him with the beam and sending him flying in a shower of explosions.

"I'm stronger than you!"

When Strikerborg came down on her with a massive right haymaker, multiple Barrier Blades positioned themselves in layers to stop her punch before Major Blast II pointed her beam cannon at Strikerborg's chest and blew her away.

"I'm smarter than you!"

Mabel attacked from Tara's back, but her roundhouse kick was stopped by more blades, and when she tried to jump back, several homed in and struck her in the chest, knocking the wind out of her and throwing her onto her back as they damaged the Rainbow Sentai Battle Armor protecting her.

"I'm better than all of you in every way!"

"WINTER STORM HYPERBLOW!" Star shouted as she cast her icy spell.

Major Blast II brought her cannons together and fired into the spell.

There was a terrific explosion of steam that washed over both as Major Blast's beams struggled against Star's spell.

"I don't need the help of you shitstains! I don't need the police! I never needed SheZow! You all just slow me down or get in my way!" Tara screamed. "YOU'RE JUST PARASITES, TRYING TO FEED OFF MY POWER!"

As the wind buffeted over Star, her glowing cheek marks grew brighter and she poured more power into the spell.

"Ew! You're the parasite…" Star said as the glow filled her eyes. "… Because that power… isn't… even… YOURS!"

The Winterstorm Hyperblow began to creep closer toward Major Blast II, so close that the barrels of her beam cannons and her gauntlet-covered hands began to frost over.

Tara was having none of that. "HOW DARE YOU?!"

All of her Barrier Blades mobbed Star at once, but Marco and Jackie leaped in and tackled her clear of the attack. The Barrier Blades ripped apart the ground where Star had stood, throwing chunks of earth into the air before Tara's blast vaporized them.

The beam surged on, hitting the Hunter AV and pushing it into the front door of Hillhurst Mansion with a crash.

As the beam faded, Marco got up first and locked eyes with Tara.

Meeting his stare, she immediately shrieked.

"WHEN I'M DONE KILLING YOU, I'M FINDING YOUR ILLEGAL FATHER AND BURNING HIM OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH!"

Marco had been angry enough at this psychopath.

Now all he wanted was this bitch dead.

Watching him break into a sprint straight towards her, Tara broke into a furious laugh. After what she'd just done to the Beetleborgs and that bimbo of a girl, Marco would be better off taking his chances with Typhus. Was this kid stupid?!

Yes. He was. And she was going to savor this.

She summoned her Barrier Blades to her, the dozens of whirling projectiles sweeping around her into a position in front of her.

The moment the Barrier Blades appeared, Marco's gaze swept across the swarm. In an instant he registered each one as he drew in a deep, concentrating breath.

Tara lifted her chin as a haunting grin spread across her lips.

"Die."

The blades accelerated at Marco, and just before they reached him he suddenly darted left to avoid the first mass of them. The second made him slip right, the projectiles narrowly missing across his front and back.

Even faster, he zigzagged around and under the Barrier Blades, each one missed by a calculated margin that should have been impossible unless Marco knew where it would go before it moved.

Tara's smile fell off her face as Marco erased the distance between them, and she pointed her right beam cannon at him.

"I SAID DI–!"

Marco slid low, then launched into a flying kick that connected with Major Blast II's chest armor with enough force to lift her completely off her feet.

The clang that echoed from the hit had Jackie, Star, and Mabel looking back at the two in surprise.

Tara had no chance to catch her breath as Marco roared a kiai and proceeded to hammer the same spot with kick after kick as they traveled through the air.

Each blow felt like a punch to her solar plexus, winding her over and over to her complete disbelief.

How was this normal brat hitting so hard?!

"The only place you're a hero is in your own head!" Marco yelled as they reached the top of their gravity-defying ascent.

Hooking his left leg behind Major Blast II's left shoulder, he swung them both around until he was above her and she was below.

When Tara looked up, she locked eyes with Marco again as he wound up for a devastating axe kick.

But her attention immediately fell on the glowing yellow crescent-moon-shaped marks on Marco's cheeks.

"… Huh?" she gasped out.

"You're just a delusional narcissist!" Marco screamed as he swung the kick down, driving his heel into Major Blast II's chest armor and launching her into the ground like a rocket.

Marco dropped back to the ground, landing in a crouch as his cheek marks faded away. A second later, his face went blue. He coughed hard and began gasping for air.

At some point, he had stopped breathing and forgotten to start again.

He and Sensei Brantley were going to have words after this.

Major Blast II got up, Tara gasping for air herself as she managed to get back onto her feet. She was checking her armor.

It hadn't been broken. In fact, every system was optimal, running at a higher efficiency than ever.

"How did that little…?" Tara coughed, and stopped when she saw red flecks mixed in the spittle on the inside of her dome helmet.

With a scream of incandescent rage, Tara whirled around and fired both beam cannons at Marco at the highest output she could muster.

Marco raised his arms to block as the beams lit up the battlefield surging towards him. They impacted scattering outward like water from a hose smashing into a solid wall.

= - = 10-7 = - =​

For the Magnavores Jara, Noxic, and Typhus for example, I use the Inspectors' combat BGM "Violent Battle"