Life can be strange. One day you’re just a regular teen, doing regular teen things. Then, you get your hands on an ultra-rare comic book, get chased around by lawyer-friendly parodies of Universal Pictures monsters, free a magical phasm from his prison, and get granted superpowers from him.
Everything’s well and good, but then a magical princess from another dimension is pummeling you, your sister, and your best friend with a barrage of conjured narwhals.
Wait. This is completely insane.
“Hey! Argh! Knock it off!” Drew shouted over the assault from the order Cetacea that took out the front window of the house.
“We’re not the bad guys!” Roland shouted right before a particularly large narwhal impacted his armored belly. “OOF!”
“Blue on blue! Blue on Blue! And Red! And Green!” Jo called out.
A Narwhal hit Roland in the head and got caught between the horns of his helmet. “Oh, what the helll–?!” He was hit by another. “Come on!”
The curtains covering the windows, shredded by the attack, broken wood, and the shattered glass, were blown in by the breeze rolling off the San Gabriel Mountains, revealing Star standing on the porch of the house with her magical wand aimed inside
She lowered her weapon and looked to her right. “Hey, aren’t they the guys from the comics your Mom and Dad read?”
Princess Marco jogged up the stairs. “Star, I told you to hold on!”
He reached the doorway and looked inside. Doing a double take, he stared at the Metal Heroes standing in the living room. “Uh… what the heck?”
Dipper got up, holding one of the thankfully deflected Narwhals by its tail fluke. “Mega Narwhal Blast… so it really does just fire Narwhals at people.”
Mabel hugged one, and it happily snuggled into her embrace. “They’re so cute!”
Drew faced Princess Marco, cleared his throat, and tried to be as adult and heroic-sounding as he could. “Uh, you have nothing to fear, ladies, the situation is well under control thanks to us.”
Marco’s head tilted ever so slightly in confusion. “Hah?”
“Yes, these two civilians are under our protection!” Jo’s attempt at sounding like a superhero was similarly bad.
“Why are you talking like that?” Star asked.
Marco looked around. “What happened to all that weird and evil stuff? The sky turned black, strange sounds came from the house, and then we were told that there were monsters in here eating people?”
“By who?” Dipper asked.
Janna poked her head in the door. “Oh cool, you’re alive.”
She looked at the Beetleborgs. “… Sick cosplay.”
“Thanks, it’s not,” Jo snapped.
Janna rolled her eyes, dismissing Jo’s nasty tone. “Okay?”
Dipper stepped forward. “Thanks, everything’s under control now.”
It was nice to think things, such as the thought he also had. As long as these guys have superpowers, the situation is going to be bad and get worse unless this literal genie is crammed back into the bottle.
He looked around, but Flabber was missing. Great, where did he run off to?
“Oh my gosh!” Mabel weaved around the Beetleborgs to get to Star. “You’re the real live Star Butterfly! That was amazing, this Narwhal is amazing, you’re amazing!”
Star smiled. “No, you’re amazing!”
Mabel squealed. “I’m also Mabel, I’m going to your school Monday! Do you want to be friends?”
Roland looked at her. “Yo, what?”
Star’s smile grew even bigger. “I love making friends, so yes!”
Dipper sighed. “The roller coaster has no brakes.”
He turned to the Beetleborgs. “So, can you guys change back?”
“Yeah, but not in front of people,” Drew replied.
Jo agreed. “We want to keep our identities secret, you know?”
Dipper shook his head. “Whoa, no. This is not going to be a thing! We need to talk to Flabber and get this undone!”
Marco walked over and gestured to the Beetleborgs. “Get what undone, this?”
“They made a wish to become superheroes,” Dipper explained to… wait, who was this?
Marco looked at the Beetleborgs. “Wait, really?”
“Yeah,” Roland said with the McCormicks.
“That’s bad,” Marco looked back at Dipper. “Anytime you make a wish like that, it goes wrong.”
Dipper sighed in relief that there was someone else sane around here. “Thank you!”
Jo placed her hands on her hips, which just looked strange as an armored warrior. “Ugh, we said we can handle this!”
Drew groaned. “We’re not doing this again.”
They didn’t have to, a piercing shriek made everyone stop and look towards the front door.
Mabel gasped. “Misao!”
Dipper bolted out onto the porch, fearing the worst… and jogged to a halt.
“… Oh wow, my expectations have been wildly surpassed.”
Marco came out next, followed by the Beetleborgs–who stopped short. They all saw Misao sitting on the ground, scrambling backward from three wildly dressed monstrous figures who were slowly advancing upon her.
“Look what we found guys, a human!” Noxic said while he, Typhus, and Jara advanced upon the frightened girl.
“She’s so small, and fat!” Jara said. “And what is with that trashy hair?”
“Hey don’t body-shame, baby,” Typhus said. “Besides, think of all that meat on them bones.”
Jara grunted. “Ugh, I don’t eat meat that screams.”
Noxic shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t worry, it’ll stop in a second.”
Jo shook her head. “Are… are you serious?”
“The hell are the Magnavores doing here?!” Roland shouted out.
The trio had arrived at the place Noxic had recorded the incredible power and came across Misao hiding in the vineyard. Naturally, none of them could resist an opportunity to freak one of the locals out, so here they were bullying her.
“Don’t eat me!” Misao pleaded.
“Hahaha! Hey, I’m not gonna eat ya!” Noxic assured her. “I’m a robot, see?”
He reached up and removed his face, revealing a mass of gears, wires, and moving parts writhing, turning, and clicking around an unnervingly human set of eyes and lips.
Her eyes growing wide and the color disappearing from her face, Misao fainted on the spot.
Noxic laughed. “Ha! What’d I tell ya?!”
“Misao!” Mabel cried in alarm.
Marco looked at Star. “Hey, we gotta do something.”
Star agreed and gripped her wand. “Let’s go!”
As they began running towards the monsters, Roland turned to Drew and Jo. “Wait, hold on a sec… did they come to life when we made the wish?”
Drew stiffened in place.
Jo shook her head. “Oh man, I hope not!”
Dipper hated, hated being right at times like these. “Do you see, now? This is why you don’t wish to become superheroes, because then you have to be superheroes!”
Drew’s mind raced. No... the Magnavores spread across any world they touch like wildfire and can conquer it in days…
His swordless hand shot up to the side of his head. He was starting to hyperventilate. This isn’t what I wanted…
His thoughts returned to the comic shop: Trip and Van mocking him, Dipper taking the entire confrontation against Trip into his own hands, Jo deriding him for not being able to talk to Heather… and finally himself staring at the poster of Blue Beet.
I wanted to be a hero, so I could stand up for myself and talk to Heather…
Drew looked at the Stinger Blade, then at the Magnavores circling Misao like vultures.
Well... I’m a hero now.
He took a deep breath.
“Okay then.”
He walked past Dipper, who looked from the Magnavores to him.
“What are you doing?” He asked.
The Blue Stingerborg raised his right arm out at his side, the Stinger Blade gleaming in the afternoon sun. “If I have to be a superhero, then I’ll be a superhero.”
“That’s really cool, but you probably have no idea what you’re doing!” Dipper yelled before Drew shot forward, blowing past Marco and Star with such speed that they stopped in surprise.
The light gleaming off the blade caught Typhus’ attention, and he turned to look over as Drew came down and landed in front of them. “Hey, who’s that?”
Jara and Noxic both looked at him, the latter shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know, but he looks like he means business.”
The former pushed past him, drawing from her hip a red jitte-like weapon that resembled the handle of a whip, with a yellow blade spiraling around its shaft like a drill. “Whatever, he will be ez work.”
She pointed the weapon at him. “Now then, how about putting down that blade and telling us-”
Drew brought the Stinger Blade against his chest then launched himself at Jara. “YAH!”
Jara raised her weapon as Drew reached her and began to swing his arm out. With an almost casual motion she stepped forward and stopped his swing before he could complete it, sparks flying from their blades meeting. “Ugh! How rude!”
She kicked Drew’s right leg at the knee, making his foot slip, slashed downward across his chest with her weapon, then cut upwards. The second blow launched him onto his back, sparks and pieces of metal flying from his armor.
“Ugh!” Drew hit the ground and slid back.
Dipper grimaced. “And there it is.”
“I guess we turning up, then!” Roland shouted and blasted off towards Jara.
“Wait up!” Jo called, following.
“Stop! That is the king of bad ideas!” Dipper yelled after them.
Jara turned towards all the shouting and saw the Hunterborg coming at her with the Strikerborg right behind him. “More of these metal weirdos?”
“Hey, I take offense to that!” Noxic yelled.
Roland lunged with the Hunter Claw, to close it around her neck. “You don’t slump my mans like that!”
Jara deflected the claw and sidestepped to his right.Turning to face him she evaded a sloppy swing and slapped him across his helmeted head with her weapon.
“Urk!” Roland staggered forward and took another slash across his back for good measure. “Ahh!”
Instead of going down, Roland turned around and once more lunged to grab her with the claw, but Jara moved inside his lunge with ease. “The hell?!”
She bopped him on the forehead with the hilt of her weapon, stunning him, and kicked him onto his back. “You fight like baby.”
Star winced. “Oh. Wow. That is embarrassing.”
“Dipper, she’s kicking their butts!” Mabel said.
He sighed. “… Yep.”
Jo stopped short of the fight and aimed the Striker Plasmar. Okay, fighting her up close won’t work! I’ll hit her from here!
“Hey,” she shouted, “That color looks terrible on you!”
Jara faced Jo. “You are the last person to talk about fashion, metal freak!”
Noxic brought a hand to his chest and took a dramatic step back. “Wow, Jara, I thought we were friends!”
Jo opened fire, red beams of energy racing towards Jara. The masked woman took her cape and swept it in front of her to take the brunt of the blast and scatter the bolts to hit Noxic and Typhus behind her, knocking them both to the ground.
Jo was dumbfounded. “Jara’s cape can’t do that in the comic!”
Sweeping her cape aside so it flowed behind her, Jara pointed her weapon at Jo. “I have form and function!”
A red beam of light shot from Jara’s weapon and with a flick of her arm it became a whip that lashed around Jo and wrapped her up tightly in several coils.
“Ugh! Wh-what is this?!” Jo demanded, struggling in vain against the energy whip.
Jara didn’t give her an answer, she yanked on her weapon, lifting Jo off her feet towards her. Once in range, Jara deactivated the whip and leaped at her.
The two red warriors passed one another, Jara holding her blade forward while Jo stumbled to a stop behind her.
The Magnavore sneered. “Feh, Amateurs.”
Multiple red lights slashed across Jo’s armor, and with several small explosions, she fell flat on her face.
Janna whistled. “Wow, that was cool.”
“No, it’s just bad!” Dipper corrected her, before Flabber grabbed him by the shoulder, startling him. “Ahh!”
“Hey, Pine Tree? I think we have a problem.”
Dipper faced the phasm. “You! Yes we have a problem!”
“What?!” Flabber followed where Dipper pointed to the Magnavores and winced. “Ooh… that. Yeah.”
He held up the comic up to Dipper. “I thought about what you said, and I was going to take the wish back and offer something else. You know, a dirt bike, a treasure chest, maybe an iguana? But… something happened with the book. I can’t work my magic on it anymore.”
Dipper took the comic. “You can’t take the wish back?!”
“I used the comic book as the focus. I pushed my power through it to send the wish to the kids. Normally all I have to do is pull the power back through the focus and that’s it… but the focus… lost its focus.”
Dipper stared at the book and turned it over in his hands. “How could it lose its focus? What’s so special about-?”
He saw the seal of authenticity and went almost as pale as Flabber.
“… Oh. Oh shit.”
Jara stepped on Roland’s back with one foot and pushed him down, pinning him to the dirt. “Now, what was all that about? If I like your explanation, maybe I won’t throw you into scrap heap.”
Noxic got up and dusted himself off. “Could you be a little more careful, Jara?!”
“Yeah, that was cool and all, but you zapped us too, baby!” Typhus complained.
“Oh, do ot whine,” Jara snapped back, before she dug her heel into Roland’s armor.
“Also, we’re gonna have a serious talk about your thoughts and feelings towards the mechanical race!”
In spite of his armor, Roland could feel Jara’s weight pressing him down, keeping him from moving. “Lady… you’re heavy!”
“And now you mock my weight?!” Jara raised her weapon. “Nevermind, I’m using your head to store bottlecaps.”
A fist made of rainbows slammed into Jara’s face, and the Magnavore warrior was thrown through the air past Jo. She hit the ground tumbling, end over end, like a race car that missed its turn.
After three rolls she jammed her blade into the dirt and carved a long fissure into the ground to stop. “Rrrr… who dares…?”
“You ready to throw down, Marco?” Star asked, twirling her wand at high speed like a big iron on her hip.
“It has been too long since the last time,” Princess Marco said as he rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles.
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Dipper looked at the two, then back to Flabber. “You need to fix this, or people are going to get hurt!”
Janna interrupted. “Nah, they got this.”
Dipper grabbed his hat in frustration. “What is with people vastly underestimating what they’ve got?!”
Jara was of the same thought as she got up and readied her weapon. “Is this a dimension full of masochists? Fine then, I will indulge you, but I won’t stop if it hurts too much!”
She raised her weapon to ignite her beam whip, but Star was quicker on the draw. “Strawberry Annihilation!”
Jara hesitated in surprise at that critical instant. “Wait, what?”
A berry bright beam of light smashed into Jara, blasting her back and scorching her armor. Startled, Jara looked down at her pauldrons, then up just in time to meet the sole of Marco’s sneaker.
“HEEYAH!” His flying kick hit almost as hard as the spell itself, but Jara recovered again and readied her weapon. Landing and waving his arms, Marco widened and lowered his posture, before bringing his arms to halt in a Tang Soo Do front stance.
Jara clenched her grip on her weapon, and assumed her own combat stance. “You have made a very big mistake!”
“You wanna talk about mistakes, how about stepping up to me?” He attacked, launching a flurry of lightning quick jabs that put her on the defensive.
With sharp movements of her hands, she parried his strikes, before she thrust her blade forward to drive Marco back. The blow missed when her fast and surprisingly pretty opponent weaved under it and capitalized, catching her arm. “Eh?!”
Jara struggled to break free of Marco’s grip, but he turned around, pulling himself against her and driving his elbow into her stomach, the blunt force going clean through her armored corset. “OOF!”
I… I felt that! A second elbow to her gut derailed Jara’s thoughts, followed by a third.
As she doubled over, Marco used the motion to hoist Jara up and throw her down into the dirt. “HEEYAH!”
“Whoa, did you see that?!” Noxic cried out to Typhus.
Typhus did but he wasn’t sure he could believe it. “Yeah, is that one a human too?”
Dipper didn’t know what to think anymore. “They’re… good.”
“Really good!” Mabel cheered.
Janna smirked. “Told you.”
Laid out on her back, Jara looked up to see Marco coming down on her and rolled out of the way of a stomp that left a web of cracks on the ground. Back onto her feet, her cape unfurling behind her, she glowered at the human in front of her.
What is she? She thought, before a flicker of blonde hair entered her field of vision.
She looked left at the Magical Princess aiming her wand. “Dagger Crystal Heart Attack!”
Jara grabbed her cape and swung it around herself to defend against this ray, but while the energy scattered, the razor sharp crystalline hearts tore through her mantle and slashed across her body. “ARGH!”
She stumbled back, looking from her damaged cape to Star. Seeing her clearly, she tensed up for a second as she studied her face. Those marks…!
Marco came down on her with an ax kick but missed as Jara ignored him completely and rushed straight for Star, blade glowing threateningly. “Whoa! Star, look out!”
Star heeded the warning, ducking under Jara’s first swing, and back flipping from the following blow. Landing on her feet, Star used her wand to block Jara’s next swing, energy crackling from their respective weapons before Star parried Jara upward. She twirled to the left to evade Jara’s furious lunge, but before she could utter another spell, Jara came around and forced her to block another slash with her wand.
Holding back the glowing blade, Star twisted the handle of her wand and pointed its face at Jara. “Laser Beam Blast!”
The wand went off, the beam of energy it fired knocking Jara back from Star and creating the opening Marco needed to connect his flying kick–launching Jara off her feet and to the ground in front of her allies.
Growling, the Magnavore warrior got up and screamed. “Noxic! I need Scabs!”
Noxic looked down at his hands, then at Jara. “I don’t know if I can even summon ‘em here!”
“Do it if you’re not going to fight yourself, coward!”
Marco looked at Star. “Wow, you really ticked her off.”
Star nodded, as she tossed her wand to her other hand. “Yep!”
Typhus smacked Noxic on the shoulder roughly. “You better do something quick.”
“Hey I’m workin’ on it!” Noxic held his hand aloft, arcs of electricity jumping up his forearm and between his fingers. “Here goes! Hey, you Scabs, time to break up this strike!”
On the porch, the comic grew hot in Dipper’s hands. “Ah! Ow!”
Dropping it to save his fingers, he jumped back in time to avoid over a half-dozen jets of flame that shot from the book in every direction. “Whoa!”
Flabber jumped back from the jets of flame as they shot around the porch. “Goodness gracious great balls of fire!”
Janna ducked under one of the flames. “The comic responded to that guy!”
The flames shot towards Noxic, landing in front of him and Typhus. Strange faceless humanoids wearing yellow and black armored bodysuits that invoked the image of an angry hornet appeared from the flames, the loud buzzing they let out as they readied wicked red-hot blades made the frightening comparison more apt.
“Get in there and help Jara take care of those brats!” Noxic shouted, and the Scabs charged at Star and Marco.
He turned to Typhus. “You wanna get in there too, man?”
“No way, I never fight with a hangover,” Typhus answered, “Only when I’m sober or drunk, baby! Hahaha!”
Noxic slapped his forehead. “Remind me to get you all of the booze, so we don’t have to do this again!”
“Kill the girl with the ponytail!” Jara yelled at the Scabs. “The other is mine alone!”
Star grinned. “You really want a piece of me, huh?!”
“As many as I can hack from you, magic girl!” Jara yelled, shooting ahead of the Scabs for Star.
Marco got ready. “Here we go, then!”
Star raised her wand. “Shooting Star Explosion!”
Extending her beam whip, Jara slashed through the spinning stars the wand fired, and lashed it at both Star and Marco, scattering them.
Landing away from Marco, Star flipped and danced around the undulating beam whip to strike her with another magical blast. “Stardust Daisy Devastation!”
The red-clothed warrior scattered the flower beam with her cape as she closed the distance again. “This will be the end for you!”
Rolling up onto his feet, Marco faced the Scabs and ran to meet their charge. Jumping over the first one’s horizontal slash, he landed on its shoulder and kicked off it. Arms out, he front-flipped over the rest of them, avoiding the reaching, sloppy swings of their jagged weapons.
He touched down behind the last one, dropped down, and performed a quick sweep, sending it to the ground with a thud. The other Scabs scrambled and swung their weapons down to chop up Marco, but he rolled back and jumped onto his feet.
A Scab broke from the crowd and thrust a blade for his head. Marco weaved left of the stab and punched the Scab in the gut, the blow lifting it off its feet and leaving it open for a spinning high kick into its side. “HIYAH!”
Janna blinked in surprise as the Scab was thrown a considerable distance. “… Whoa.”
Dipper agreed. “Yeah, she’s really good.”
Marco hopped back from the blades of the other Scabs, ducking under a stab to kick the attacker upside its head. When another tried to pounce on him from his left, he caught and hip-threw it into two more trying to flank his right.
When he got back up, he noticed Misao still fainted near the edge of the battle. “Star, I need some cover!”
Star ducked under a particularly vicious swing from Jara. “You got it!”
“Oh no you do not!” Jara’s next blow was much faster, and Star barely blocked it. “I will not let another cheek-marked girl get the better of me!”
Another cheek-marked girl caught Star by surprise, but she really didn’t have time to dwell on it. “You just did! Cupcake Blast!”
Realizing that the wand’s face was again pointed at hers too late, Jara couldn’t stop the magical cupcake beam covering her mask in a fluffy and creamy magical confection.
Jara stumbled back, trying to wipe it off in vain. “What is this?! Why is it so aggravatingly delicious?!”
Glancing back at Marco and the Scabs, Star skipped, hopped, then kicked off Jara’s face to leap high in the air above his fight. At the top of her flight, she thrust her wand above her head.
“Supersonic Leech Bomb!”
Bright cyan beams became glowing cyan leeches that stuck to the arms, legs, and torsos of the Scabs. Marco turned and scooped up Misao, running as fast as he could as the leeches beeped in rising frequency. After a final beep, the leeches grew brighter and exploded, tearing the Scabs apart.
Star landed in front of the cyan-colored explosion with her back to it. Her eyes and the hearts on her cheeks glowing faintly as the blast cast her in silhouette.
“Ohhh… yeah!” Star said between pants to catch her breath. “My wand works!”
“She is so cool!” Mabel cried out as Marco reached Dipper and set Misao down at his feet.
Dipper looked at him then quickly looked back up at the fire and smoke rising from Star’s explosive attack. “Are you guys doing all right?”
“Oh, we’re doing fine. We do this kind of stuff all the time,” Marco insisted. “You might want to get inside before stuff really starts blowing up…”
Dipper picked up Misao. “Okay, uh… be careful.”
Marco threw Dipper a casual salute as he ran back to rejoin Star. “Will do, thanks!”
Mabel watched Dipper watch Marco run back to the fight, and smirked. “Amazing, huh?”
“Yeah…” Dipper trailed off when he noticed the mischievous grin on his sister’s face and rolled his eyes. He turned and took Misao into Hillhurst. “Now is so not the time for this, get inside the house!”
While everyone at the house was well-impressed, Drew couldn’t really appreciate the display.
All we did was annoy her, they’re actually taking her on and doing damage.
He looked down at himself.
Oh… that’s why.
“Damn, she strong,” Roland said as he got up.
Jo was furious. “What happened?! We wished for their powers and their weapons, why can’t we fight them?!”
Drew looked at her. “We didn’t ask for their skills.”
Jo recalled the specifics of the wish. “No, we wished for their powers, weapons, and…”
“Whoa, no! We don’t want to become them… literally… we only want their powers and equipment. That stuff.”
“Yeah, don’t change us into the actual people themselves.”
“Argh, come on!” Jo hated feeling like an idiot, but who didn’t? “Now what do we do?! All of this stuff’s junk!”
“It’s not junk,” Roland said as he finished standing.
Jo got up. “It is! We’re powerful but it doesn’t mean crap if Jara can dance all over us! It wasn’t even fair! We may as well be throwing rocks at her!”
Drew was about to agree with Jo there, but stopped. “Wait, that’s it.”
Roland and Jo looked over, as Drew dispelled the Stinger Blade–he wasn’t going to need it. “We may not be able to fight…”
Reaching to his leg, he unholstered the Input Magnum and raised it. “… But you don’t need to be a martial arts master to shoot a gun.”
Jara’s whip cut through the billowing smoke of the explosion, revealing all of the Scabs were back on their feet and regenerating. Their blown apart bodies being repaired by what looked like tens of thousands of wasps that lay inside of their bodies. The Scabs themselves staggered and twitched as they repaired their damage, advancing slowly towards Star.
“Ooh, that’s weird,” Star whispered.
The nearest Scab finished its repairs and rushed towards her in a jerky, zombie-like fashion. It swung and she smartly caught and guided the weapon away to her right with her wand. When it brought it back to decapitate her, she flowed under it with the grace of a ballet dancer, got behind it, and twirled around to point her wand at its back.
“Stardust Daisy Devastation!” She cheered and blasted a hole through the Scab. Marco followed up landing a flying kick into its chest and sending it staggering back into the arms of the other Scabs.
“Star, are you okay?” He asked.
He saw the holed Scab repairing its damage, the countless wasps buzzing as they resealed the wound. “What the…?”
Star twirled her wand. “Gross, right?”
Having cleaned her mask off, Jara cracked her whip. “Our Scabs can repair any damage. I can only hope you are not nearly as durable!”
Just as Star and Marco prepared to take her up on that challenge, Drew shouted out to them. “Get on the ground, quick!”
Marco went to look back, but Star tackled him to the ground, as yellow beams lanced through the air above them and shot through the heads of the Scabs, destroying them with bright flashes and puffs of blue electricity. This time, they didn’t get up, instead slowly starting to decay into their dying individual wasps which themselves turned to dust.
Star and Marco both looked, and saw the Beetleborgs training their Input Magnums on the dissolving Scabs.
“No!” Jara snarled.
Noxic jumped in surprise. “H-hey, no fair! How’d you know their weakness?!”
Drew aimed his blaster at her, Jo and Roland following suit. “It’s your turn!”
Jara quickly drew her cape around herself as Drew fired repeatedly. The beams traveled in wild arcs and angles away from Jara, just like before.
Beside him, Roland and Jo pulled back the slides of their Input Magnums and entered different codes on their weapons’ keypads: 010 and 818 respectively.
“Get her!” Drew commanded.
“You need to cool off, trick!” Roland shouted, unleashing an icy blue beam from the Input Magnum.
The beam crashed against Jara’s cape but didn’t scatter. From the point of impact ice quickly formed, freezing Jara’s cape against her skin.
With a cry of shock, Jara stumbled back. “What?! Ah! C-Cold! Cold!”
While the Magnavore tried to pull the cape from her skin, Jo lined up her Input Magnum and fired. “Let me help you with that!”
A stream of bright red and pink flame leaped from her Input Magnum’s barrel and engulfed Jara. From freezing to flaming, engulfed head to toe in fire, Jara flailed around screaming.
“Everything is burning!”
Noxic raced over to Jara, Typhus hot on his heels. “Whoa! Stop drop and roll! Stop drop and roll!”
Roland pointed his Input Magnum at the two of them. “You’re next, Magnacreeps!”
Noxic knocked Jara down and began stomping on her to put out the fire. “Creeps?! Hey, I take offense to that! I’m a weirdo, not a creep!”
“Yeah, me too! I respect women, baby!” Typhus also corrected them while kicking dirt on Jara's face. “Quick, rub her face in the ground so her hair don’t catch.”
“I hate all of you!” Jara shrieked up at them.
The fire quickly put out, Noxic and Typhus both helped her smoldering body up, and faced the Beetleborgs.
“Just you wait, we’ll be back you jerks!” Noxic shouted at them.
Typhus shook his fist at them. “Yeah, when I get over this hangover you’re all goners, baby!”
All three vanished in a swirl of esoteric flames. Already destroyed, and without their masters around, the remains of the Scabs quickly crumbled to dust, and blew away with the wind.
@@@@@
The battle, it seemed, was over. A few seconds passed, and when it looked like nothing else was going to happen, Dipper sighed in relief. “I think that’s it for now.”
Janna peered out of the doorway. “Shame they didn’t finish off that red chick.”
Mabel leaned out over her. “We’ll get her next time.”
Dipper didn’t like that there would be a next time. A groggy groan from Misao brought his attention to the young woman cradled in his arms.
“Ugh… are those monsters gone?” She mumbled.
Mabel turned to her. “Oh, it was amazing, you missed the whole fight!”
Dipper set her down and helped her steady herself. “Yeah, the Beetleborgs, Star, and that girl chased them off.”
Looking up the path, Misao gave a start when she saw the Beetleborgs in their gleaming armor. “Whoa.”
Star stood up, followed by Marco. “That was awesome.”
Marco smiled at her. “I know, right?”
The two high fived. “Fighting monsters is back on the menu!” They shouted together.
Drew somberly holstered his Input Magnum thinking to himself. Okay, we won the battle… the first battle.
He was thankful the helmet hid his face, and turned to Star and Marco, his friend and sister following. “Thanks… you saved us back there.”
Marco nodded to Drew. “Don’t worry about it; nobody’s hurt?”
“Just my pride,” Jo grumbled.
“You know what? I think Jara would’ve needed to do a lot more damage to actually hurt us,” Roland realized as he checked his suit’s systems. It was indeed the case; damage was light, just the exterior-most armor having the worst of it.
He looked at the Magical Princess and her friend. “But you two… what the hell was that?”
“Yeah, it was like you weren’t even trying,” Jo added.
Marco could not resist the buff to his ego. “Well, me and Star fight monsters all the time.”
Star agreed. “Oh yeah! I’ve been trained to do it since I was three, and Marco’s a karate master.”
Roland, Jo, and Drew looked at Marco. “Marco?”
Star lit up and pointed her wand at Marco. “Oh yeah! Radiant Shadow Transform!”
In a flash, Princess Marco was simply Marco Diaz again, the long flowing hair, makeup, and fluttery eyelashes disappearing in an instant. He felt his face with uncertainty. “Huh… I still feel stunningly beautiful. I kinda like it!”
He smiled at Star. “Well, if all the explosions and beams didn’t confirm it, your wand’s definitely working.”
Star clutched her wand to her chest, her smile glorious. “I know, it’s so great!”
Marco’s abrupt and unceremonious transformation surprised Dipper as he arrived with his sister, Janna, and Misao.
His gaze lingered long enough for Marco to notice and look back towards him. “What?”
“Huh?” Dipper said quickly after him.
Marco’s right eyebrow rose. “Did you want something…?”
Dipper raised and waved his hands in a nervous gesture of reassurance. “No, I, uh, was surprised, that’s all.”
Marco flushed a little. “Oh, okay.”
Dipper looked away, his cheeks a bit red. “Yeah, okay.”
Mabel saw all of that and bit the inside of her cheek to repress a high-pitched squeal.
Marco turned from Dipper to the others. “So, what’s going on, are we turning these guys back to normal or what?”
“We need to, right now,” Drew said firmly.
Jo turned to her brother. “What?!”
“Nah!” Roland exclaimed.
Drew gestured to the scorched ground the battle just took place on. “Our wish brought the Magnavores here. If we undo the wish, the Magnavores will go back too, right?”
Roland stopped. “Yeah, I suppose that would be the case.”
Dipper, his flush clearing up, delivered the bad news. “Except you can’t undo the wish.”
Drew felt cold inside his armor. “… What?”
Jo bounced on her feet. “Really?”
Flabber appeared on her shoulder, barely six inches tall. “I’m really sorry guys, but I can’t take it back.”
Drew recoiled a full step back. “What? Why not?!”
“I have some theories,” Dipper said, “But I need to do some research and figure out what exactly Flabber can or can’t do with the book.”.
Drew’s shoulders sagged. “Then they’re just out there, liable to do whatever.”
Nothing about that sounded good to Roland. “If someone gets hurt, or try to take over the world…”
Janna, who’d been paying attention, said it flat out. “Then it’ll be all your fault.”
It felt like Janna drove a spear into Drew’s heart.
Marco looked at her. “Janna, not cool.”
Janna gestured to Dipper. “Hey, you both did say this was gonna happen.”
“Well yeah, but you didn’t need to put it like that.”
Drew brought his hand to the crown of his helmet and turned away, shaking his head. “No… the Magnavores are the cruelest, most evil creatures to ever exist in the comic. Here in the real world, they’re going to cause havoc like nothing anyone has seen before.”
Misao gasped. “They’re that bad?”
He turned to face her. “You have no idea. If they aren’t stopped, they’ll destroy all life on the planet!”
Star struck out at that hysteria. “Then we’ll stop them!”
Drew shook his head as everyone looked at her. “Wait–”
She cut him off. “It’s not like we can’t do it. You guys have that tough armor and cool blasters. With you, Marco, and I? We can kick their butts!”
Jo nodded enthusiastically. “You’re darn right; we have the powers so we may as well do something with them!”
Dipper protested. “It will not be that easy.”
Roland wasn’t sold on it, either. “Yeah, in case you missed, we got our asses dog-walked.”
“You sure did,” Janna agreed.
Misao hadn’t seen it. She looked at Janna. “How bad was it?”
“It was cringe.”
Dipper confirmed this with a grim nod, and Misao winced. “Oof.”
Drew hung his head. Star was right, so was Jo. We have powers now, and it’s our responsibility to use them… but…
He looked up. “We made this wish, so we have to fight them, even if we’re no good at it.”
“If we’re bad at fighting, we have to get better at it,” Jo said, “And the only way we’ll get better is with experience,”
“And~ with training from a too cool karate master!” Star added. She twirled around and gestured with both hands to Marco.
“Allow me to introduce to you, Marco Diaz.”
Marco recoiled. “W-what, me train them? I’m not a teacher… I mean, I’ve helped other students at the dojo, and I’ve learned basically enough that Sensei Brantley lets me run classes for him when he can’t…”
“That sounds exactly like you should be able to train them,” Dipper pointed out.
Mabel clasped her hands together. “Could you please? You saw it, they need help.”
“Please,” Drew joined in, “We need to be able to do more than just shoot at them.”
Marco held up his hands. “Yeah, but I can only teach so much. I mean, this sounds like you need actual military training.”
Star leaned against Marco and flashed him an encouraging smile. “I can do that! I’ve been trained by the Mewni royal guard since I was three, remember?”
“Star, medieval combat training isn’t the same thing,” Marco said. “I think they need something more modern.
Mabel chimed in. “My Sherpa can teach them that!”
Drew turned to Mabel. “Old Man Pines, really?”
Dipper grimaced. “I don’t know…”
“Uh, doi? He’s a veteran from like four wars!” Mabel revealed.
Jo then spoke up. “Hold it, we can’t go telling everyone we’re Beetleborgs!”
“As long as we don’t tell him why they need the training, it’ll be fine,” Mabel reassured them. “In the business we call that lying by omission.”
Dipper shook his head. “We won’t need to lie to him. We’ve talked to our Grandfather about way weirder stuff than this, and he understands. Right now, let’s worry about if he’ll say yes at all.”
Roland tilted his head away from Dipper. “Weirder than this?”
“It’s a long story. It’ll take hours to explain it.”
Drew was happy that Dipper was going to try. “I hope he does–we need all the help we can get.”
In spite of his reservations, Marco wasn’t going to actually turn these guys down, especially since they were so bad at fighting. Of course, he couldn’t say no to an opportunity to fight the Magnavores either.
“Don’t worry, I’ll teach you everything I know–and back you up against the Magnavores,” he promised.
Mabel gasped and hugged Marco into her chest. “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Uh, thanks…” Marco mumbled back, enveloped by the taller girl.
“You’re the best!” Star joined the hug, trapping Marco between both girls.
“Hey, that call for help ain’t limited to non-Phasms, is it?” Flabber asked from Star’s shoulder now.
She pulled back from the group hug and flashed him a big smile. “Of course, it’s not!”
Dipper hesitated. “I’m not sure…”
Flabber insisted. “You don’t need to worry about me Pine Tree, I’m really sorry about this, so I’ll help anyway I can! Whatever you need, you can count on the Flabster!”
“I don’t see a problem,” Marco said.
Dipper looked at him. “Huh?”
“Really?!” Flabber asked.
Marco looked from Flabber and Star to Dipper. “If he’s serious about helping out, we should give him a chance. Besides, you said you need to research what he can or can’t do, right?”
Flabber nodded fast. “I’m a Phasm for the Forces of Good, you know? If this is my boo-boo? Then I want to help kiss it better.”
Dipper saw the others agreed, and conceded. “Well, you can start to help by never calling me Pine Tree again. We can figure out where to go from here next when I get my research equipment.”
Flabber cheered. “Flab out! You got it! I think we’re gonna get along great… uh...”
“It’s Dipper,” he said.
“Honestly my next guess was going to be Mason.”
“That’s definitely not it!” Dipper snapped, earning a giggle from Mabel.
Drew was relieved. “Thanks.”
Jo clenched her hands into fists, excited she would get to be a Beetleborg for another day. “Yes!”
“Cool!” Roland cheered.
Dipper turned to Drew, Jo, and Roland. “I guess if we’re all on the same page then, it’s fine to transform back.”
The Beetleborgs looked at each other, and after a moment of silent debate all came to an agreement. Drew stepped forward and held out his hand. “Back Blast!”
Light swirled around Drew like a whirling tornado, and the Blue Stingerborg armor was gone, coming together into the form of a rhinoceros beetle-shaped device that landed in his hand. He looked at it in surprise, the wings opening to reveal a miniature figurine of the Blue Stingerborg inside.
Jo and Roland transformed back themselves and held aloft their own similarly styled Beetle Bonders.
“Huh, the old-style Beetle Bonders,” Roland realized.
“It’s really straight out of the book, the new bonders weren’t available until the 20th anniversary issue in 2010,” Jo said.
Drew had a thought about that. “Huh.”
“What?” Dipper asked.
Before he could elaborate, the sound of sirens approaching from the distance filled the air, and Flabber brought his fingers to his lips as if to chomp on his nails. “The cops, and they’re heading this way!”
“Someone must’ve heard the fight and called them,” Roland realized.
“We need to go,” Misao suggested.
Janna agreed. “Yeah, we should not be hanging around a freshly broken into abandoned house that looks like a battlefield.”
Flabber nudged Janna. “Don’t you worry about the mess, I’ll just use a little of the Flib Flab Spic’n’Span to clean up around here, nobody’ll be the wiser.”
“Yeah, but how are we going to get out of here without the cops seeing us?” Roland asked.
Star quickly pulled out a pair of red-handled scissors. “Don’t worry, I got it! Where are we going?”
Mabel gasped. “The Dimensional Scissors!”
“The what?” Misao asked.
“Zoom Comics,” Roland answered Star.
“Where’s that?” Star asked
Marco took the scissors. “I know where that is.”
When Marco dug the scissors into the air and sliced upward, carving open a literal portal in reality, Misao’s mouth fell agape. “Ach du lieber himmel…”
“Flab out!” The phasm exclaimed. “Those are some snappy snippers!”
As Janna jumped through the portal first, Marco stuffed the scissors into his hoodie pocket. “Hey, let’s mosey.”
Jo and Roland didn’t need to be encouraged further, following Janna through the portal. Mabel went next, with a still astounded Misao right behind her. Finally, Drew, Dipper, and lastly Marco stepped through the portal, and it sealed up.
The portal closed, Flabber vanished in a swirl of colorful, cartoonish light just as the first fire truck and police cars came around the bend–to find a serene and untouched vineyard that hadn’t been the site of a battle and a house that hadn’t been blasted with narwhals.