"Thank you, your transaction has been registered and can be used as of now," the flying pony head at the booth stated.
Marco smiled and turned to Star, "Didn't mess-up this time."
"Oh," Star waved her hand dismissively, "you're just lucky they accept Equestrian bits."
"Or," Marco rebutted, "I just made a connection between the two worlds, and figured."
"Should I swap back to getting mirror service from Pixtopia?" Star threatened with a grin.
"Please, no," Marco said, holding up his hands.
It seemed like things were back to normal - or as normal as they could get with the presence of Star. Mirror service could resume as usual, with a significant backlog of messages from Star's mother that she would never intentionally check. Ludo's monsters were driven back for the moment and Star didn't have any crazy ideas derived from her misinterpretation of situations. Of course, it would never last, but Marco decided that rushing its end would probably be a bad idea by now.
"So," Star said as she flicked her dimensional scissors open, "wanna go to Equestria now?"
"Surprise!" Pinkie Pie shouted, the lights turning on cue. She then proceeded to throw her hooves in the air with hooves full of confetti. All this was done while multiple balloons and streamers floated up behind her.
"Oh, what did I expect," Marco said, rolling his eyes.
Sugarcube Corner was nothing short of exactly the kind of stuff that kept ponies coming back to her parties. Balloons lined each corner and a banner was hung on the wall with the words, "Welcome back to Equestria, Star!"
"A party,” Star gasped, "for me?"
"She did mention it when we left," Marco pointed out.
"But still," Star replied, "it is a really nice party - it’s got pretty much everything that I’d expect in one.”
"Really?" Pinkie Pie asked, "That’s great! I have a file on you, but these welcome parties are always uncertain - it’s super duper I got everything right this time."
"You have a file on her?" Marco asked more out of shock than for confirmation.
"Yep," Pinkie nodded, "I’ve got a file on everypony in town. That includes you too!"
Marco's dumbfounded expression only warped further, but he chose to ignore it and move on. As the two made their way to the center of the party, most of the ponies there didn’t look exactly the most amiable. Most of them were wary of them and awkwardly shuffled as the two approached, or stopped doing whatever they were doing. The opposite was true of a certain mint-colored unicorn.
"Are those two the humans?" a pony with a beige coat asked, "Should I do anything about it?"
"N-no, Swee- I mean Bon Bon," she replied, "I think I'll just, talk to them, learn more about them, touch their hands, y'know?"
Lyra failed to calm down her hyperventilation, but continued to attempt to do so. She wiped off a few beads of sweat from her forehead and approached the two humans.
"It's okay, Lyra," she thought, "you only have about three-hundred and twenty-seven questions to ask them, right?"
Star took a glance at her, then again, and finally turned to face her. Marco picked up on it as well, turning to her and stopping in his tracks. She finally managed to calm her breathing from psychotic to excited and trotted as normally as she could toward the two.
"So," Lyra awkwardly began, "I'm Lyra Heartstrings. I've always liked humans since I found out about th-"
"Obsessed," Bon Bon corrected.
"Yeah, yeah," Lyra said, wiping off a bead of sweat, "I have so many questions to ask you, do you have time now?"
"Kind of," Marco said, "but I would rather enjoy the party now, I should be able to answer some later."
"Well," Lyra continued, "I just want to ask, can I touch your hands?"
"Um," Star said, biting her lip, "sure?"
Lyra gently lifted her hand with her right hoof, and stared at it with eyes full of awe. She gently brushed her magical touch over it, as if it were a precious artifact rather than a body part that saw regular use for almost every practical purpose. She used magic to bend the fingers, the sudden loss of control making Star even less comfortable. Gently, she let go, and continued staring in awe at it for a few more seconds.
"Thank you," she muttered softly.
"You're..." Star replied, "welcome? Well, we can answer your questions later, bye!"
As the two started moving through the party again, Lyra continued staring at them. She suppressed the urge to teleport next to them and fire off several questions at once, and turned to Bon Bon.
"I don't really know what to feel," Lyra told her, "I have this feeling of euphoria and yet this feeling that maybe I was a bit too intrusive, she didn't really seem all that... comfortable."
"Hey," Bon Bon replied, "she took it better than most ponies have taken your obsession with humans. I'm sure you'll get to know her well enough in no time."
"I hope so," Lyra replied.
"Ugh," Ludo said for the umpteenth time, "will I ever get that wand? Now she always seems to be going to other dimensions where we can't track her down, making even less openings for us to attack!"
"Patience, my friend," Toffee said, his hired evil efficiency expert.
"Oh well," Ludo muttered taking a sip of his west Mewnian swamp water, "at least we've been doing better ever since you've come around. That time where we tricked her into thinking Oskar or whatever that boy's name was asking her to meet him in a dark alleyway - oh it was genius!
"It was mostly an assessment of her gullibility," Toffee thought, "I won't make a real move until I know enough."
Everything now was still fairly close to the usual, with Ludo generally being himself, and his monsters being incompetent. Any hint of how quickly Toffee intended for that to change was lost on Star and Marco. It was the most optimal situation that the enemies of Mewni had had in centuries, the wand bearer being inexperienced and mostly unguarded. Still, she was better at defending it than he had previously thought, and they couldn't just blindly rush in and steal it. Fortunately, he had a plan for just that.
"Impossible!" Rainbow Dash shouted, "There's no way you can pin the tail on the pony three times in a row without cheating!"
"You're one to talk," Applejack thought.
"Or," Marco said holding up his finger, "I may or may not have lined myself directly towards the pony, lined the tail exactly where I wanted it, and then went for it. Easy."
"Yeah right," she snickered, "So Pinkie, you have anymore punch?"
"Well," Pinkie said while scratching her chin, "The only bottle I have left is hard hard cider down in the basement."
Rainbow's jaw dropped slack, and then she narrowed her eyes, "Gimme."
"Please no, darling," Rarity said.
"You'll be hammered for the rest of today and half of tomorrow," Twilight stated.
"I'm going down there anyways!" she shouted as she bolted for the basement door.
"No you won't," an ominously familiar voice said behind her.
Rainbow Dash turned around to meet Fluttershy's gaze, and immediately regretted it. She knew exactly what it meant, and she knew there was no fighting it, although she didn't have enough control over her bodily functions to even sigh.
"O-okay," she spat out between ragged breaths, "f-fine!"
Fluttershy's gaze turned back to normal and she smiled, "Good."
Rainbow Dash uneasily slid back to the game, glancing back at Fluttershy every few seconds. The rest of her friends had stopped eyeing her with dismay, and Marco was twirling the tail around his hand and stared at her as if offering a challenge. She was more or less in the clear, and had little more to worry about.
"Hey, Pinkie," Star blurted out, "I think I could use my magic to make some more punch."
"Sure, go ahead!" she replied back, nodding with approval.
"Don't!" Marco shouted.
The latter's objection was lost on Star as she said, "Delectable Sparkle Blood Punch!"
The mostly empty bowl was promptly filled back up to the brim with punch, this time with the light glittering off of its surface. Rainbow Dash noticed and got closer, Marco did as well upon seeing no immediate flaws with the spell, and Rarity took a sip.
"Oh," she said, "it tastes simply divine, so many subtle flavors upon what punch usually tastes like. I would like to ask though, I can't pin down what the odor is and would like to ask you."
"Um," she said a bit reluctantly, "it smells like unicorn blood to me."
Rarity promptly spat out the next sip she took and blurted, "What?!"
"So," Pinkie Pie said, "Why exactly was there 'blood' in that spell?"
"I don't know," she replied, "it just came out that way!"
"Of course," Marco said, shaking his head.
"Oh well," Star said, "I guess we're going to have to go without anymore punch. Sorry."
"Oh it's okay," Pinkie replied, "we wouldn't have had anymore punch anyways. Now lets go have more fun together!"
"Strangers are just friends who haven't met, after all," Star claimed, trying to change the subject.
They returned to the game, Rainbow Dash going up next. She attempted to recreate Marco's method, lining the tail up to the precise height and location of the target, moved all the way back, and blindfolded herself. She bolted forward, hitting the board with a thump and knocking it over. As she took the blindfold off, she saw that the tail had missed the flank to the left by a few inches.
"What?!" Rainbow Dash said, "See, there's no way he can't be cheating."
"Or maybe I was more careful and didn't charge straight at the target," Marco rebutted.
"Twilight's next!" Pinkie Pie declared.
The argument was cut short as Twilight used magic to retreive the tail. She teleported over a meter stick, protractor, and began taking measurements. Upon finding the precise height of the optimal position for the tail, she lined the meter stick up with the protractor to a perfect ninety-degrees. After moving back with everything, she held the tail in the same position. First, however, she turned to Star and said:
"Now," Twilight asked Star, "why did I wake up last week with a sock in my mouth and a mustache on my face?"