In the alley behind Zoom Comics, a portal opened, and Drew, Jo, and Roland emerged. Star stepped through, and Marco followed after her. Looking back, Marco shook his head and whistled. They had to walk almost two kilometers away from the house before they could use the Dimensional Scissors, long enough for Star to regain faith in her legs and walk herself for at least half of it.

“That anti-teleport stuff is no joke,” Marco said. “There’s gotta be a way we can use it against them.”

“Right now we should just be glad we have it at all, and make sure we know how it works before we start messing with it,” Drew said.

As Marco agreed with him, Star watched the portal close. “That was still a long walk, though.”

Marco had an idea. “Hmm… maybe now’s a better time than ever to get my Driver’s license.”

Star looked at Marco. “License?”

Roland gestured with a raised hand. “I already got my learner’s permit.”

Star looked at Roland. “Learner’s permit?”

Jo nodded. “Then why not take your Driver’s test? I’m sure Nano has some old car she’d let you use. Then you can teach the rest of us how to drive.”

“Wait,” Star interrupted them. “Drive, as in like… drive a car? Like Oscar?”

Drew, Marco, and Roland all nodded.

Had Star not had a pounding headache, she’d be erupting with excitement at the prospect. Nevertheless. “Hey, can I learn how to drive a car?”

“I mean, yeah?” Marco replied. “You can even do it at the school, just talk to Ms. Minerva, the assistant gym coach.”

Jo huffed. “Though I can’t imagine you behind the wheel of a car.”

Star looked at her. “What, you don’t think I can do it?”

“Considering that wherever you go, something explodes or turns into something, or turns into something then explodes?” She shrugged her shoulders with a condescending toss of her pigtails. “Yeah.”

Star stared Jo down, her expression darkening slightly. She held up her hands, palms facing one another, about a foot apart, and waggled her left hand. “This is completely evil, like where your funeral would be the universe’s biggest party.”

She waggled her right hand. “This is completely good, like Marco’s Super Awesome Nachos, or laser puppies.”

Star moved her right hand about halfway towards her left. “This is where I choose violence.”

She moved it back, just an inch. “This is where you are.”

Jo’s gaze flicked back and forth between Star’s hands and her face, and in that brief moment, Star’s cheek marks had changed from hearts to skulls. “Do you have anything else you want to say?”

When Jo did not take her up on that offer, Star nodded. “Good.”

Snatching the Dimensional Scissors out of Marco’s hand, she cut open a portal and walked through it on her own without another word. Looking back and forth between the portal and the Beetleborgs with a neutral expression, Marco shook his head.

Jo gaped at the portal. Drew turned to his sister. “… Okay, what?”

Roland palmed his face and sighed. “You just can’t help your sorry ass.”

Jo let out an angry snort. “I guess my impulse control is as bad as hers.”

“I don’t want to be that guy,” Marco said as he stepped towards the portal, “But your attitude is going to make this real hard for me to teach you anything, or for us to fight. I like most of you guys enough to not want to leave you in a lurch, but Jo? You’re doing your best.”

He looked at Drew and Roland. “Anyway, text us if anything happens, and I’m sorry.”

He hopped through the portal, and it quickly closed up and vanished with a down-pitched digital chime.

Drew turned to face his sister. “That was uncalled for.”

Jo turned away from him. “Whatever.”

She started walking out of the alleyway. “I’m going to go read some comic books. Don’t bother me.”

Roland wore a rueful grimace. “Why is she acting up?”

Drew took a deep breath. “Last night was bad for me, and I guess it’s gone and spread like a bad fart. This is my fault…”

“Nah, man it’s not. You gotta stop beating yourself up when things go wrong, especially if she’s acting wrong.”

“I’m still her older brother, I need to act like it.”

Roland hummed. “Work on acting like a leader, first. Sort Jo’s shit out after that.”

Drew faltered at that. “Leader? I’m not the leader, Dipper’s obviously the leader…”

“Yeah, he knows his shit, but you’re out in the field calling the plays and he knows that. Shit, he already got mad respect, all us do after what you did today.”

Roland was right, now that Drew thought about it. “Yeah, I guess. Thanks.”

“You know I got you,” He slapped Drew on the shoulder, then gave it a rough shake. “Grin and bear it, cuh. We’ll all get through this.”

Drew smiled. “I hope so.”

“Anyway, let’s go talk to Nano about our alibis… and if you want to, ask to stay the night.” The two began walking towards the street. “I think you need a break from the fam.”

“Don’t you mean a break with my family?” Drew asked.

Roland grinned and laughed. “Yeah, you right.”

@@@@@

Star had brought the portal to the foot of her bed, so that the moment she stepped through it, she could drop face down onto it. She immediately regretted doing that because her magically soft pillows and bedding felt painfully mundane when a head-injury and anger is involved.

That or maybe the bed had lost some of the softness she normally enjoyed. She patted it a few times but didn’t come to a consensus before Marco stepped in and the portal closed behind him.

“Hey Star, you all right?” He asked, seeing her face down in her pillow.

“M’fine,” Star mumbled back.

He walked around to the edge of the bed, and she turned onto her side to look at him. “I’m doing better now.”

Marco sat down on the bed, and Star went still. She looked up at him as he leaned down and checked the bandages around her head, scanning carefully for any signs of bleeding or the gauze getting loose. Her breath caught in her chest, when his fingers touched just under her temple. She remembered those same fingers clenched tight into a fist as Marco faced down Jara.

“You touch her–and I will rip your arm off and beat you to death with it.”

Star watched his hand and hoped he didn't hear how loud her heart was beating.

“Try to take it easy, and don’t get too worked up about what Jo says,” Marco advised after seeing nothing amiss. “She doesn’t really know you yet, but she’ll come around.”

Star looked down at the mattress. “It’s not just what she said, she’s been doing it all day.” She looked back up at Marco. “And besides that, I don’t like it when people look down on me-”

“No one does.”

Star gently cut him off. “I mean… like… underestimating me. They think they’ve got my number, that they know what I can or can’t do and judge me for that. I can’t stand it!” She brought a hand up and lightly scratched at the bandage as she curled up a little. “My Mom does it so much and when anyone else does it, I feel like I’m right there with her, listening to her lecturing.”

Marco was not prepared for this level of… vulnerability from Star. Usually she was more nonchalant.

“Ugh! It tees me off.”

A flash of clarity struck him, and he remembered the first time that Star went off into town on her own, and what happened after. “… I’m sorry.”

She lifted her head. “For what?”

“Remember the Banagic Incident?” At Star’s short nod, he continued. “I said I’d underestimated you, and you knocked my ice cream out of my hands. I’d made you angry, didn’t I?”

Star shook her head. “I wasn’t mad at you, Marco!”

“No, it’s fine,” he insisted. “I don’t mind if you get mad at me for something that actually hurts your feelings. You’re my best friend, after all. Just let me know when I screw up.”

Like right now, Marco wasn’t sure, but he had a sense that something was off with Star… and he was searching for something other than Jo or a head injury that could have her like this.

Star, her eyes half-closed and shiny, laid back down. “Can I let you know when you’re amazing too? Because you were so cool today.”

Marco wasn’t a dense person. Sure, he was a little neurotic and struggled a bit to catch on to genuine praise… but he wasn’t so caught up in himself that he was slow on the uptake. That all said, finally recognizing the way Star was looking at him now, was a bit of a shock.

“Huh? You mean, with…” His face grew warm, as he realized just how he must have looked to Star after she got knocked down. “… Oh.”

“So cool,” Star repeated, closing her eyes. “Thanks for taking care of me.”

Marco smiled and rested a hand on Star’s cheek. He could literally see her cheek marks turn a brighter shade of red with her blush. “If anyone wants to hurt you, they’ll have to go through me, but I’ll go through them first.”

So cool. Star thought as Marco pulled his hand away and got up.

“I’m going to make you something to eat,” he said.

“Can it be nachos?” She asked.

“How about nacho soup?”

Star’s eyes threatened to fall out of her skull as she shot back up. “You can make nachos as soup?”

This. Changed. Everything.

“Give me an hour or two, and I’ll blow your mind,” Marco said with a knowing smile, before he headed for and out the door.

Star watched him leave, waited for the door to swing closed, and a few more moments after that. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her magic mirror compact, opened it and set it beside her.

“Call PH,” she said in a quiet voice.

“Calling PH…” The Compact chimed, before its glass surface flickered to reveal the face of Star’s best friend–a bright blue-furred disembodied unicorn head with a sparkling pink mane and stars literally in her eyes.

“Sup B-Fly!” Princess Lilacia Pony Head called out, full of party girl energy.

“Hey Pony,” Star replied.

“Girl, why you haven’t been calling me? I thought I was your bestie!” Pony Head demanded in a harsh tone, before she laughed it off. “Just kiddin’, but for real I heard some stuff went down, you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine.” Star only realized now that she hadn’t talked to Pony Head since before Toffee kidnapped Marco. “It’s just been monster drama mostly, it’s all good now.”

“Obviously, because if you wasn’t you would be like, dead.”

Star laughed. “Well… okay it’s not just been monster drama… uh… I think things have gotten… real?”

Pony Head stopped. “How real we talking?”

Star closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This was Pony Head, her bestie, she could tell her anything.

@@@@@

Inside of his mausoleum hideaway. Vexor assessed his three underlings. Jara was covered in burns, Noxic was missing pieces of himself and had a gaping hole blown through him, and Typhus looked freshly regenerated from a tremendous amount of damage. For all of the shape they were in, they brought him back neither Beetleborg nor Butterfly, and that really told him a lot about what happened today.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I doubt I could do anything to punish you for your failure that hasn’t already happened to you today, so I will not even bother.” He was going to give them much.

Jara, who had spent the last several hours breaking her rage before returning, was a little taken aback. “That is… generous of you.”

“Yeah thanks, baby,” Typhus grunted.

“Great, I don’t have to repair more than I already got to,” Noxic grumbled.

If Vexor had articulated shoulders, he would shrug them. He pantomimed the motion with his upraised palms instead. “Patience and tolerance are virtues successful villains live by. You have come back here alive, which means I can motivate you with a discovery I have made.”

Motivate them? That could mean a lot of things coming from their leader, or at least Jara thought so. “What is this discovery of yours?”

Vexor let out a dark, low laugh. “This.”

He held a clawed hand towards Jara, then raked it like he was slashing at her. Behind and below her, a portal opened, and she plummeted into it with a scream. Noxic and Typhus quickly rushed to the closing wormhole.

“Jara!” Noxic shouted before the portal vanished.

“What… where’d she go?” Typhus turned towards Vexor. “Hey, that ain’t cool, Vexor!”

Vexor chuckled and waved his other hand. Behind him, a scrying circle appeared and showed Jara falling through sunlit clouds. Noxic recoiled at the sight.

“Hey, where is she? What did you do to her, you-?!” He stopped when Vexor raised his hand to silence him.

Tumbling end over end, Jara stopped screaming and caught herself. Flipping over and over, she emerged from the bottom of the clouds and landed in a crouch on a polished marble floor. When she rose to her feet and looked around, she saw that she was on a gold finished platform of marble, surrounded by polished Greek-style pillars that thrust through the clouds around her. Beyond the far edge of the platform, she could see the clouds break to a calm sea, the sun setting on it.

“What… this is…?” She stopped and looked down at herself, and to her further surprise found that her injuries were gone. In fact, she felt more alive than she had in a long time. “What is this place…?”

“This,” Vexor’s voice boomed, “Is a reality that I have created to allow you to fight at your maximum ability. I call it the Gaohm Zone.”

“Gaohm?” Jara asked the voice.

“In this world your abilities are at your peak, your health is at its highest, and the world itself is yours to manipulate as you desire.”

“Mine to manipulate…” Jara looked around, then looked back to see a neat formation of two dozen women kneeling before her. They were dressed similarly to herself, though in red/pink bodysuits as opposed to her leotard and tights. Their white masks were all featureless, they wore long scarves instead of armored cloaks and pauldrons, and all were equipped with short swords on their hips and longer blades on their backs.

Jara stared at the warriors and felt a deep nostalgic pang in her chest. “… My…”

She froze, and shook her head. The formation vanished like it had never existed. “I see… this world is my desires made manifest.”

Noxic was floored. “That’s amazing! We can create whatever we want and do what we like there?!”

“Dang, I’m getting pumped up thinkin’ of the possibilities, baby!” Typhus said as he punched his palm.

“It will be the weapon we use against the Beetleborgs and any allies they have. Use it to capture and bring them to me,” Vexor said, before his hand plunged from the clouds and grabbed Jara. When it pulled her back, she was yanked bodily through the scrying circle and landed–once more in her injured state–next to Noxic and Typhus.

Jara grimaced, feeling her injuries hit her all at once. “Urgh…”

“Of course, when you are in better health,” Vexor added.

Vexor turned and walked/glided across the room towards the sarcophagus at the room’s center. He let out a gentle chuckle as he did and rested his hand on the Beetleborg comic lying on it. “But until then, may I recommend summoning some help?”

Noxic grumbled. “Yeah, more Scabs? No way! Those mooks could blast them without even trying, we’d need like a million of ‘em to replace any one of us!”

Jara got back up. “The Scabs aren’t that terrible. One of us is worth a hundred Scabs at least.”

Vexor laughed again. “Typhus, please come here.”

Typhus looked at Jara and Noxic, and did as told, strutting over towards Vexor. “Yeah, what’s up?”

Picking up the comic, Vexor held it out. It was the newest issue, part one of a two parter. On the cover, the Green Hunterborg and Red Strikerborg were back to back in a dark swamp, the head of a massive viper with its jaws wide open to strike looming behind them.

Typhus recognized the viper. “Hey, hey, hey! I know that guy! It’s Snake Head!”

Jara groaned. “Ugh, one of your science projects, Typhus?”

“Yeah, he turned out great when I was done with him. Wiped out the Great Horned Rat and all his nasty little ratties too, baby!”

Jara weighed on that. “Huh, then my opinion of him is only slightly higher.”

“If you would,” Vexor said to Typhus, “Summon him forth into our world much like Noxic did the Scabs.”

Typhus stared at the comic, then at Vexor. “What… am I supposed to just hold my hand out and say, ‘Snake Head, c’mon out, baby?’”

Soon as he said it, the comic flashed alight, emitting an eerie, flame-like glow, before the fire shot from the comic itself and landed besides Typhus and Vexor. Growing in size, the flame grew brighter and brighter–before a massive hulking form stepped from it.

It was a reptilian humanoid, with green scaly skin everywhere except for pale yellow diamond shapes along its sides, a matching color belly, and a bright red upper chest that looked like a snake coiled around its shoulders. Atop its shoulders and head was a massive snake that served as arms that dangled to the ground–the left side was where the snake’s body ended in its tail, and the right began as its head.

“Ssss… Where am I?” The beast asked with a very low and menacing voice despite the hiss.

“WHAT?!” Noxic yelled.

Jara felt sick on top of her injury and insult. “So disgusting.”

Typhus was overjoyed. “Snake Head, my man!”

Snake Head turned towards Typhus. “Sssss… Master! It has been so long.” The long tongue of the snake flicked at the air. “This does not taste of the Horned Vermin’s hovel. What is this world? And for what honor do you summon me to it?”

“I’ll explain it later, but we’re outta the Nightmare Realm, baby!” Typhus punched his palm and laughed. “And I’ve got some pests I need for you to hunt, you down?”

“Ssss… you summon me all this way for a good time? Hmhmhm… tell me who I am to hunt, and I will slaughter the prey as you desire.”

Typhus turned to Vexor. “Is this guy great or what? He’ll be on them Beetleborgs in no time!”

Vexor tilted towards him in a nod. “Very good. Bring him up to speed with regards to this world we’re in. Then send him out to capture our prey.” He looked to Jara and Noxic. “The two of you attend to your damage then meet with me. I will instruct you on all I have learned, and how you too can summon from these books.”

Jara nodded. “Very well.”

Noxic looked around. “Oh yeah, just repair myself. There’d better be an abandoned auto shop or a junk yard around here I can work with. Heck, I’ll take even an Infinite Ikea.”

Jara slapped Noxic in the side. “Come, let’s go foraging.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Both he and Jara folded their arms, nodded, and vanished in jets of flame.

As Typhus spoke animatedly to Snake Head about what was going on, the head dangling off his right side focused its serpentine eye on Vexor, who turned away to look at the still smoking comic book. The serpent’s tongue flicked out, tasting the air.

Vexor… how have you come to yoke my master…?

@@@@@

“All right, let’s do this one more time.” In a dark room, Dipper’s voice called out. “You ready?”

“Yep!” Mabel called back.

“Everything set to go on your end?” He asked.

“My finger’s on the button,” Janna answered.

“We’re ready here, then,” he reported.

Misao spoke next. “Then as the Lord said, let there be light.”

In the dark a lever moved, a dial turned, and a button was pressed. Seconds later soft blue-white lights illuminated a clean and sterile, hexagon-themed command center with numerous pieces of equipment meant for analyzing data, detecting threats, and communicating with the outside world arranged in a hexagon around a wide open floor area.

At one end of the hexagon, Misao stood in front of a large obelisk that generated a hologram screen that showed upward scrolling lines of data. Dipper was standing on the opposite end of the room, Mabel to his right, and Janna to his left.

This is so freaking cool. He thought as he looked around the machinery.

Her fingers working the keyboard at 208 words per minute, Misao’s eyes danced from left to right and back again. “Ja, ja… despite everything this is all very basic. Art Fortunes has a very amateur knowledge of computers and did most everything by hand-waving.”

“So what, it won’t actually work?” Dipper asked.

Misao looked back. “Oh, it will work. But it is programmed like it was done on a Commodore 64.”

She looked back up at the projector. “On the bright side, this whole system is very adaptable. I can replace it with something more functional if I have some time to do it.”

“So our Beetle Battle Base is literally from the 90s,” Dipper said.

“80s,” Misao corrected. “Not that it’ll interfere with how the base works. With all of the hand waving Art Fortunes did, it may as well be all magic, ja?”

“Anomalous computers…” Dipper murmured, trying to not get overly excited at the possibilities.

“So it just works?” Janna asked.

“Like King Crimson,” Misao replied. She turned around in her chair and struck a near backbreaking pose straight out of a French fashion magazine. “And yes, that was a JoJo reference.”

Dipper didn’t get the joke, because he didn’t use the internet. He just assumed it was something funny because of how loud Mabel laughed.

Misao swept back around and kept typing. “Let’s see. The Beetle Battle Base has a wide variety of defenses. There are energy weapon turrets that are dispersed evenly around Hillhurst, the anti-teleportation field…”

As she spoke and typed, images of the base’s defenses appeared. First a map of Hillhurst and the hidden weapons, then a diagram of a large circle with a two kilometer radius around the house, then images of the AVs popped up.”

“… The AVs or Assault Vehicles. There is also Gargantis the Mobile Attack Carrier.” With that the image of a very large Hercules Beetle Shaped mecha appeared.

Janna looked up at it, her eyes drawn to the large cannon atop the mecha’s head. “Dibs.”

Mabel snickered. “The cannon?”

“The cannon,” Janna confirmed.

Misao looked at the files on Gargantis. “It says it can only be operated by the Beetleborgs through the use of their Input Magnums.”

“I’ll make it work,” Janna said.

Misao shrugged her shoulders. “One less thing for them to worry about, I guess.”

“That’s right,” Dipper said, “We should be doing everything we can to lighten the load for them. Is there any other weapons or tools here that can do that?”

“I will have to look, the files state that there is more equipment spread throughout the whole facility, but data on that is corrupted. Which is just like in the comic where Janna got it from.”

“Yeah,” Janna said, “The Beetle Battle Base hasn’t been fully operational since it got destroyed at the start of the Split Up Arc years ago.”

Dipper remembered Drew, Roland, and Jo commenting on their Beetle Bonders. “Everything gets brought here in the state it was in the comics. Or at least the state it was when drawn.”

More things to test with Flabber. Sadly, the age of the Beetle Battle Base’s magical systems probably meant that it wasn’t good for anything outside of operating the base. Still, Dipper had to be sure.

“Can this thing connect to the Internet?”

Misao laughed. “Oh ja, here. Let’s look at Google’s home page.”

She hit a few keys, and a web page popped up. “It will load up in about five minutes.”

Dipper frowned. “Well, that answers that.”

Misao shook her head “I can’t use this equipment to stream at all.”

“We can’t use this place, but we do have an entire house a few stories up that we can use,” Mabel pointed out.

“Full of monsters that want to eat us,” Dipper said.

Janna let out a “Pssh!” and smirked. “Yeah, those guys don’t mind you if you’re a monster or weirdo yourself, but if you can’t convince them? They’re wusses, just beat them up and they’ll leave you alone.”

“Or we could leave dealing with them to Flabber,” Mabel also put forward.

Misao shrugged her shoulders. “Either’s fine with me.”

“We’ll talk with him when we’re done here, then.” Dipper leaned against the counter and looked out at dark windows along the back half of the command center room, showing the unlit underground complex where the AVs and Gigantis were stored when they weren’t being deployed.

Today was a day full of big wins and minor setbacks. Overall, Dipper could think of worse outcomes than this. He looked over at Misao, who was still browsing through the base’s databases.

“Hey, thanks by the way.” When she looked back, he nodded. “You didn’t need to do this.”

“Yeah,” Mabel agreed.

“That’s quite all right, I want to–and not because you rescued me.” Misao smiled back, then looked up at the projector. “From when I was very little, my Papa taught me that it was the duty of those with great ability or power to help those who were in need. It is how we all as people can advance together.”

She continued typing as she spoke. “Even if all I can do is try to make sense of these ancient magical computers, I will do it with all my heart so that every battle from here on is easier.”

Dipper broke into a big smile. “We all will.”

Janna looked out the windows and tried to make out the shape of Gargantis in the dark. “I’ll be doing my part.”

Mabel sidled over to Misao. “You look like you’re busy, can I cuddle you?”

Misao stopped and raised her arms. “Oh no, by all means go ahead.”

Mabel gladly took the invitation and scooped Misao up, hugging her. “You’re the best!”

“Deine umarmungen sind die besten. Ich liebe dich.” Misao cooed back as she snuggled into Mabel’s chest.

“Ohh oh~! Girls do what we like! Ohh oh~! We’re taking over tonight!”

Misao reached into the pocket of Mabel’s skirt mid hug and held up her phone. “You are having a phone call.”

“Wow, we have reception down here now?” Mabel asked as she took it. “Oh, it’s Sherpa!”

She answered. “Hello Sherpa!”

“I've been calling you kids for an hour, but I kept getting disconnected. You kids okay?” Shermie asked.

“Oh, we were handling some business, it’s good now,” Mabel said as Dipper and Janna walked over. “What’s up?”

“I got a call from a sphincter with a necktie earlier today. What's this about Dipper getting cold-cocked?”

Mabel looked at Dipper. “He’s asking about the fight.”

Dipper gestured for the phone, and Mabel handed it to him. “Hey Grandpa, I got knocked out by a steam locomotive brick house for no reason. I didn’t see anything after that, but I heard he got it worse than me.”

“I’ll say!” Shermie laughed. “Nano told me the kid looked like he got leveled by Rocky Marciano! Who hit ‘im?”

“The little McCormick, Jo, but that’s a kettle of fish we wanna keep closed. We had a more important dust up here over at Hillhurst.”

Shermie sounded plenty surprised by that revelation. “No kidding? Huh. I knew she was a spitfire, but I didn’t take her for a boxer. You want me to come get you?”

“Actually that would be great,” Dipper said, “We’re just about finished here and it’s a long way to the bus.”

“Room for one more on that ride?” Janna asked.

He nodded. “Our friend Janna wants a ride too.”

“Sure sure. Any friend of you two is welcome. Do you need me to call her folks for ya?”

Dipper looked at Janna, who shook her head. “Nah, I’m good.”

“Don’t worry about calling her parents,” Dipper paused. “And yeah, she’s in on our other business too, so we can talk about it with her.”

“All right, I’ll fire up the ol’ Shermie-mobile and be right over.” Dipper could all but hear his smile.

“See you soon, Grandpa.” Ending the call, Dipper handed the phone to Mabel, then looked at Janna. “Everything okay at home?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, my parents are cool. They’re just parents, you know?” Janna replied.

Mabel smiled. “They understand you’re a girl who’s out there and they just let you be you?”

“Yeah, kinda like you guys with your parents.”

“Yep.”

“Anyway, if we’re done here, we can go up.” Dipper looked at Misao. “Are we?”

“Ja, I just need to put it in standby and we can get going.” Wiggling free of Mabel’s embrace, Misao hit a single key on the console she’d been at, and both the projection and the lights dimmed down. “Done.”

“Let’s go, then,” Dipper said, as he headed towards the Command Center’s exit.

Mabel, Misao, and Janna followed. Moving up alongside him, Janna looked up at his face, searching for where he’d been punched. “So why did you get decked, man?”

Dipper shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno, do you know why Lars Vanderdud would have beef with a new student?”

“Whoa, Lars punched you? Okay, he definitely did it for fun–dude’s a total psycho.”

Dipper grimaced, remembering his bad joke after being punched so hard he threw up. “I got that vibe on from him.”

Misao huffed. “Well he got what he deserved.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Jo put him in the hospital,” Mabel added.

That prompted a new worry to spring up in Dipper’s mind. “A lot of people saw that.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about that. No one’s going to snitch on Jo or any of you for the sake of Lars Vanderdud. Everyone hates him and thinks he got off easy the last time when Marco made a fool out of him,” Janna assured Dipper.

“He fought Marco?” There was no missing the mystified disbelief in his voice.

“It wasn’t much, Marco slapped him a few times and Lars ran off crying.”

Dipper hummed. “Yeah, that’s about right… geez Marco’s so strong. Does he even realize how strong he is? The stuff he does is amazing…”

Janna broke into a smirk. Behind them, Mabel and Misao’s eyes gleamed.

“You know it’s 2014, right? You don’t need to be embarrassed about liking a guy.” Janna pointed out.

“Huh?” Dipper blushed again. “Whoa, I’m not-”

He could feel the gazes of his sister and roommate on the back of his head. He looked back, Mabel and Misao both had the same doe-eyed, expectant look on their faces, with their hands clasped in front of them.

He looked back down at Janna, who gestured to him. “Hey dude, there’s no judgment in the Jannasphere. Crush on who you wanna crush on, live how you wanna live.”

Letting out a sigh, Dipper rubbed the back of his head and looked forward. “It’s not that I’m embarrassed, I just… don’t have the best record with crushes, okay?”

“Dude, I can relate. Everyone I crush on is dead.”

Dipper recoiled. “Oh… I’m sorry…”

“Nah, it’s okay. It’s nothing a little necromancy can’t fix–soon as I get my hands on some…”

Staring at Janna and thinking about all the things he could do to tell her that such things were a bad idea–Dipper stopped and just smiled. This girl was weird, and pretty cool too.

“We didn’t mention it back at the shop but…” Dipper grinned. “Back in Gravity Falls, I once raised the dead.”

Janna did a double-take, her mouth falling agape and her eyes practically falling out of her head, they were so wide. “Shut! Up! You need to tell me everything! How’d you do it? What happened? Were any of them cute?!”

Dipper, Mabel, and Misao laughed. Janna’s sudden excitement was a delight.

“Dude, I’m serious!” Janna insisted.

“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you…” Dipper reassured her, before he set out to tell the story.