Svtfoe: Tower Chapter 1

Vacations are always a good way to unwind, provided if you aren't in charge of the attached expenses, and ignore the pressure of trying to make the best of your limited free time. Thankfully for a pair of cross-dimensional besties getting to a super awesome theme park was as easy as cutting a tear in reality. "Dreamer's Park" was what one could best describe as "the best place in the multi-verse". Every attraction and ride imaginable could be found here, all made from the collective consciousness of 'you know what would be awesome!?" Improved versions of pre-existing rides from other worlds; curvier loops, taller drops, rib cracking speeds. One could even find rides that never made it past the planning stages let alone the confines of their creators' mind. Stage shows were of an unreal quality rivaling that of award-winning performances. It was likely that all the enjoyment was an elaborate illusion made by brain-sucking elder gods, but patrons are too busy having fun to care of such conspiracies. Unlike the parks on Earth, everything's free and the line's are close to non-existent despite the eternally tourist-packed roads. Star and Marco could barely decide which speeding metal death trap they wanted to ride in first, with the exception of one infamous ride called 'Micky's dick smasher'. They settled on the closest one and worked themselves up from there. Unfortunately, the same happened to Marco's breakfast.

"I should've brought the ginger pills" retch-croaked Marco before shoving his head back into the trashcan to continue vomiting. His best friend rubbed her hand up and down his back to help ease the nausea. After he was sure the trashcan had its fill of the best meal of the day he gave Star a weary smile, she returned it. A bit of hand sanitizer and deep breaths, and he was ready to continue their little vacay. "So where to next?" Marco pointed towards the east at an especially high tower "Triple 6 death drop?" then he pointed towards a winding assortment of tracks that rumbled with speeding carts each containing riders fighting over one large steering wheel, "or 'Try not to crash'?"

Star eyes lit up more at the latter option, but she cringed when she noticed that Marco still had a tint of green on his features. "Maaaaybe" the heightened pitch of the first syllable gave her time to think, "we should try one of the more easygoing attractions?" To her relief, Marco agreed with a nod. She appreciated his new found boldness, but not to the extent that she wanted his common sense and rationality to be stamped out of existence. She's the foolhardy one that leaves chaos and destruction in her wake, not him. Marco's the guy that tries and fails to prevent it, rolls with it, and then spins it to be less severe after the damage is done. Like when she almost let her mom know about their antics away from Mewni.

They entered an indoor amusement ride, of the 'cute' variety called "Adora-topia", an obvious pick from Star who immediately hugged the costumed ride manager.  The large plush..rabbit(?) Returned her hug, though it seemed devoid of any warmth, just a stilted wrapping of limbs around another body. Marco mentally questioned if it was a robot or just a disillusioned teenager. An easygoing boat ride on rails, the start was a little shaky, but not so much that it would re-activate Marco's motion sickness. If anything were to make Marco barf again now, was how sickeningly sweet the whole thing was: neon bright colors, and 'cute' characters whose joyful expressions seemed to verge on the creepy side. "A smile should not have that many teeth" he said looking away from what he assumed to be an alien beaver. These things he was sure were animatronics from the repetitive, 2-3 frame motions.  Star on the other hand was humming along to the ride's incessant theme song. At least one of them was having a good time here.

Suddenly, the boat lurched forward, then snapped backwards with a load hiss. When the teens recovered from the resultant ache in their necks, they realized that the ride had suddenly stopped. Everything else seemed fine, as the lights and music were still on, and the robots were carrying on with their automated roles. Marco leaned back and closed his eyes, content with just waiting it out. But when he peered over to his best friend, he couldn't ignore the devilish grin on her face. "Let's exploooore" she shoved him, and his body went further back than she intended, but he re-balanced himself quickly like one of those boing bop
balloons.  Reassured that she hadn't accidentally hurt him , Star giggled and immediately started undoing her safety belt. The boat shook with Star's bouncy excitement.

Marco reached over in an effort hinder her escape. "Star no, you know how many people di--" before he could recall the exact statistics she had already undone his harness, and pulled him out of the boat in one great leap. Star's feet did a perfect landing, while Marco had to flail his free arm to make sure that more than just his right toes made it onto 'Adora-topia'. Just as he was about to either drown, crack a skull on barely submerged tracks or get electrocuted, or all of the above, Star pulled him forward. He breathed out his gratitude for what was probably the thousandth time she's saved his life. "Aaaw, it was nothing..." she trailed off realizing that this was completely avoidable, and entirely her fault, like a bunch of other things that threatened her best friend.

Star's eyes had found themselves staring at the fake grass below them, she held his hand tighter. Marco didn't pull away, instead returning the effort to crush the other party's metacarpal bones. Despite being the one against the initial idea, he lead their way around this 'mystical land' of steel monstrosities shoved into fuzzy cloth skins. Soon, Star was hugging as many of them as she could, while poking their over-sized eyes, and other notable features. It took interferance from Marco to prevent her from doing the same with their constantly song spewing, pearly white snapping jaws. Marco got caught up in the excitement as well, doing small talk with the non-singing animatronics that were content with popping in and out of burrows, monotonous chores, and/or waving...just waving.

One pair of wavers caught his eye. They were extremely tall, maybe around eight to ten feet, with eight limbs whose hands were covered in the sort of gloves one would see in a classic cartoon. Most of the height was in their torsos, which were in a constant rhythmic wriggle of the top three pairs, the fourth acted as their legs. Considering this movement, Marco figured they might have actually been much taller than he originally assumed, which sent a shiver up his spine. Unlike the other animatronics, who were mostly naked save for their fur, and the occasional cute accessory like a hat or tie. These 'brothers' had matching, nicely tailored brown suits; awfully familiar brown suits. Their heads were large and round, the circumference was a few good inches wider than the body. The faces were consistent with the rest of the place's art direction: saucer-plate eyes, and big toothy smiles that conquered the entire southern region of the character's face. At the center of each of their features were round noses, similar to a clown's, and their 'skin' just as pale.

He opted to ignore these well-dressed clown-bug-centipede-things, thinking that they might've been one of the more notable characters in the attraction. It's not like either he or Star bothered to research the place. It didn't take long for Star to notice them too, and found them unnerving as well. It was thanks to the princess that Marco was given reason for recognizing the suits--St.O guard uniforms. Granted, Star said "THAT PLACE" instead of any clear cut descriptors aside from the familiar lose in composure. It was then that it dawned on Marco that the place she had spotted them was not the same as his sighting, and he shared this fact with Star. Rationality argued that there was probably replicas, placed in separate spots of the ride. Their expedition did prove that certain characters had clones as well, proving that even interdimensional places can cut corners.

But in their guts,  instincts roared otherwise. The words "Hey, are you getting a bad feeling?" left their mouths in unison and the pair bolted in the opposite direction. Neither one bothered to look back, running in erratic patterns that they hoped would throw their assumed stalkers off. In no time they were back where their boat was, drenched in sweat, and gasping for air. Marco surveyed the space behind them, while Star focused on the front, neither direction showed a glimpse of the robotic twins. After catching their breath, the friends looked at each other. Star was the first one to laugh, while Marco was the first to vocalize their thoughts.

"We just let our imaginations get the better of us didn't we?" The caution still evident in his tone, as his voice cracked on some choice spots. Marco kept looking around; he even gave the ceiling a quick glance before deciding it would've been too tall to leap towards, let alone climb. The two abominations couldn't hide anywhere, they were easily the tallest characters in the ride.

"Hahahahah, yeah" Star's agreement coming out more like sigh of relief than one of self-deprecation. One of her hands was over her chest, begging for her heart to calm down already. Once the organ cooled its tits, she hopped onto the boat's bow, and Marco followed suit, it sunk a bit from the sudden weight, but remained sturdy. They climbed into the seating portion and with a ding the speakers announced a continuation of the ride, apologizing for the inconvenience. Star barely registered the rant her best friend was going into concerning the park's neglect. What did register was her body weight leaning further back into her seat, the sudden absence of Marco's voice told her that he had noticed too. Their center of balance fell victim to the upward tilt of the ride's bow, something unseen tearing the carriage from its track. Childish music was drowned out by the auditory bombardment of bent steel, fasteners popping out of their places, and sloshing water. Before they could be drowned under the weight of the capsizing vehicle the dynamic duo kicked off of their respective backrests, and climbed the ever steepening bow, taking a leap of faith once they reached the top. The water wasn't too deep, reaching up to their waists, and thankfully it only hid the tracks so there was no threat of electrocution.

Great news considering that it gave Star zero distractions from doing the first thing that came to mind when turning back towards the ruined boat. "Cupcake blast!" she screamed with the usual twirl and pizzazz that accompanied her  magic casting. If it hadn't been obvious before, the spell impacted onto one of the clown-like bug bots square in its gangling chest. But instead of the usual explosion the spell just seemed to cause icing and cake to splatter all over its nice suit. There wasn't even any force in the spell as the weird animatronic stood its ground. She wrapped her wandless hand around Marco, who took note of the family artifact raised overhead and held her back. She swung the wand downward "Rabbit Rocket Blast!"

The magical launching spell would give them some much needed distance and out of the mobility hindering water. Except all that happened was the heart breaking squeaks of partially drowning bunnies. The two immediately picked up as many as they could to transfer them onto dry land. An endeavor that proved more distracting for the panicky Princess than Marco who saw that both clown-bugs were slowly approaching. He sped up the lagomorph rescue the best he could; by throwing them like balls. "Sorry bunnies!" he cried out as he took the few in Star's arms to roughly toss them onto the astroturf. He did it so quickly that Star hadn't the time to scold him, instead focusing on catching one that fell short. She was too focused on cupping the frightened fuzzball in her hands to avoid the six mechanical arms that grabbed her from behind. Marco was clutching onto his attacker's bulbous head for what could either be seen as an intense hug, or a vain effort to twist it off. He frantically kicked his legs around, as one of them was caught in a gloved vice-grip. "Star!" a panicked whine escaped his lips when he saw Star getting pulled downward into the depths. He repeated her name with new found annoyance when he realized that she was prioritizing gently placing the rabbit onto a friendly animatronic's head over freeing herself.  For a brief moment it's jungle vines ensnaring his limbs, and she's reaching for a sandwich. He tried to elbow his captor's face, but the repeated blows just caused the bulbous nose to obnoxiously honk on occasion.

The remaining bunny wriggled its nose as it made itself cozy in the spot Star placed it. "So cute!" she whispered excitedly before getting completely submerged. The area where they were was effervescing with unseen conflict. Periodically, parts both
mewman and robotic would raise up into visibility before sinking back below the surface tension. But to Marco's horror not once did those mewman part's involve Star's face, the violent bubbling was quickly subsiding for obvious reasons. Marco took a chance to try leaping off of his attacker by kicking off its head with his free foot, hoping the sudden motion would allow the other to slip free. But the animatronic kept its composure and instead turned its wrist to twist the boy's ankle.

Marco let out a yelp that would've been adorable under regular circumstances, his limbs instinctively re-wrapped themselves onto the robot's head knowing that keeping with the leap would've only led to a fall into the water.  But the evil robot let itself fall forward while the Hispanic teen still had his mouth open. He could feel the rush of unclean park water rush down his airways from the sudden plunge and he blacked out. "Dang," he thought. Marco hoped to put up a better fight than that. . . All that remained ahead was darkness and silence. The water bubbled, then went still, a calm that was quickly interrupted by the twin bots resurfacing with their respective targets cradled in their arms. The non-cradling hands put some pressure on the ribs and water was coughed up, organic mechanics cooperating with the artificial. The exhausted teens quickly slipped back into unconsciousness, and they were carried away through the 'employee's only' door.

To be Continued...