The room was empty, she was gone. Marco couldn't believe it. His life had been something else because of Star and now she was gone and he was mundane again. He muttered "its over" into the emptiness of his new life.

He turned to leave, get back to the party, steeling himself for a life that was only ordinary. And there she was, a girl in a yellow dress with a flame sputtering weakly above her head. Marco didn't have time to say anything before Hekapoo tore into him. She slaped him across the back of his head and whispered "Marco Diaz, you are better than this, more than Star Butterfly. You won the scissors from me in a contest designed to get you to piss off as fast as possible. You fall back into this frail child's body and you forget so fast, a few months and you have stopped practicing the sword, you haven't come to see Nachos in weeks, but that was okay. Until we needed you"

Marco looked up, he had forgotten. It had been so hard to think about what he had been, how strong and capable so he had just stopped. Hekapoo dropped a ring into his hands. "this is a fragment of my dimension, it will let you have what you lost when you came back here"

Marco stammered, he didn't know what he felt about Star, he was in a good relationship with Jackie, they were good for each other. Hekapoo shushed him, "that's not important, duty calls Marco Diaz"

He slid the ring onto his finger, no puff or fanfare, he just was. Where a child had stood there was a man older and stronger, ready to face to a world of magic and monsters without Star Butterfly. Suddenly he ducked his head, "I can't" He said "I gave star my-"

She interrupted by pressing a length of cloth into his hands. He unwrapped the covering and found a length of sturdy steel. Hekapoo seemed to flicker, and in a rush she explained "The real me took a bad beating, me and this sword took all she had left. It can't know where you want to come out like a pair of scissors, but it will take you where you need to go". With that said she flickered out with a blowing like sand.

Marco hesitated, stepped to the door and then he realized he had nothing to say to Jackie or any of his friends. She was wonderful and great but it was a high school relationship. A thirty year man confronting his fourteen year old girlfriend, it was more that a little creepy. He took the sword in hand and it hit him so suddenly, the weight and balance the feel of the grip. This was a part of him. He lifted the sword and it jumped in his hand, an impossible motion that had no direction, and he let it fall. The portal was a dark hole in the air, with no light or hint of what the other side held. Marco rejected the thought that he should explain to his parents. It was indubitably wrong to leave without saying goodbye but he had no idea what to say the them, couldn't explain why he had to go, and was so terrified that he would be talked out of this. He stepped forward and into the unknown.