Star and Marco vs Evil Book 2

XIV

"How the hell, exactly, did we get into this?" Jackie asked.

Star, Marco and Jackie sat in a dimly lit booth, in a rough dive-bar, in another dimension. All three wore dark gray cloaks with hoods up, to reduce the chances of drawing attention. They sat watching Janna come on to a buff patron sitting at the bar. Unlike her friends, Janna was not wearing a cloak, flaunting her body in very tight fitting, and revealing, cloth and leather armor. Jackie wondered just how the heck Janna managed to move in such minimal clothing without showing any glimpses of her various intimate lady parts.

Janna was being Janna, making use of all her mental and physical assets to ply the bar patrons for information. It was a shock to Star and Jackie seeing Janna in action; Marco had seen Janna do it on several occasions, but she seemed to be outdoing herself this day. Jackie, in particular, was surprised; she knew her friend had embraced her feminine side, but hadn't believed the girl who had once hated contributing to gender stereotypes would abandon those scruples so completely.

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Two days earlier...

Marco surveyed the huge pile of adventuring equipment lying on the floor of Star's room. He judged everything necessary for their weekend trip was there, except for one thing. "One last item," he said, opening a dimensional portal with his scissors, then reaching in.

When Marco turned back to his friends, he was holding four fanny packs ... which Janna promptly smacked out of his hand. "Ow, rude," he complained.

Marco picked up one fanny pack, saying, "Jackie, this could be a life saver in the wilderness." Jackie responded by smacking it out of his hand.

A red-faced Marco picked the fanny pack up again, appealing to Star, stating, "Star, you know the value ..." He was interrupted by Star smacking it out of his hand.

"Fine," Marco muttered, "it will all end in tears because we don't have our fanny packs."

"Anything else?" Star asked. "I mean, anything useful?"

Marco pouted, shaking his head.

"Cool." Star cast, "Stuff It In Your Back Hole!" All the equipment was stuffed into magical backpacks. Jackie tentatively lifted one of the packs, surprised that it didn't weigh a ton. She looked quizzically at Star, who shrugged and said, "Magic's weird." The four friends shouldered their backpacks.

Star, Marco and Janna had a rare weekend when all three were free from duties and obligations, and the Diaz family lunch had been cancelled, so they decided to go dimension hopping. Jackie and Chloe had their own obligations, with jobs and preparing for college, so it was looking unlikely that all their schedules would allow for Jackie's and Chloe's extended Mewni vacation. Star and Marco decided to invite Jackie and Chloe in case the vacation didn't happen any time soon, and as a makeup trip for their last, disastrous, outing. Chloe couldn't make it, but she insisted that Jackie go.

Tom had been invited via text, but he had been strangely absent in the days since he tricked Janna into removing all her surveillance paraphernalia. Marco figured Tom was hiding from Janna; while she had taken Tom's explanation in good humor and didn't seem angry about it, he knew, and figured Tom knew, Janna would still get Tom back, somehow. Taking her revenge would not be over being tricked into destroying her beloved spying network, she actually respected that, but because Tom did so in a way that made her feel like things were out of her control, that she was helpless. Marco thought she would mete out a good deal of punishment ... then, realizing what "punishment" generally meant to those two, he quickly took his thoughts elsewhere.