I DO NOT OWN SVTFOE, GRAVITY FALLS OR THE OWL HOUSE. ALL RIGHTS AND OWNERSHIP BELONG TO DISNEY.

(Marco's POV)

I fly through the air, the forest flying below me at a terrifying rate. I lean forward further, urging my palisman to fly faster and faster still. The air whips past me, causing my eyes to water, but i still need to go faster. Suddenly, just ahead of my, a wall of purple sludge materialises. I lean back sharply to slow myself to a halt, just barely avoiding a collision by a few millimetres. I wipe the sweat from my brow as Amity flies up alongside me.

"You were going so fast, I had no idea how I was going to catch up to you."

I turn to face her. "So you decided to help me then?"

"Not exactly." She looks down towards the trees. "Just land for a few minutes in that clearing."

"You won't convince me not to go."

Amity signs. "I'm not trying to convince you of anything, I just want to talk for a few minutes. If you don't like what I have to say you can leave."

I roll my eyes. She doesn't look like she is going to let up. I point myself towards the clearing and head towards it, Amity close in tow. We both land and get off of our palismen, holding them in our hands.

"So what do you want to say?"

"Marco, I get how you feel right now. You want to save Star. Her being in danger terrifies you. But Luz said that Daegel was more powerful than anything she had encountered before. Rushing in on your own is only going to get you killed."

I grit my teeth. Once again, Amity is underestimating my ability, my power. "I won't get killed."

"What do you plan to do? How will you defeat him?"

The anger in my heart rises and I snap. "YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT I'M GOING TO DO?" I raise my palisman, pointing it at a tree on the far end of the clearing. My body begins to glow slightly, the same colour my palisman is also glowing. "Cease."

An orb formed of what seems to be pure darkness, a lot bigger than I anticipated, engulfs the tree and a few of those surrounding it. It holds for a split second before collapsing in on itself so quickly you'd miss it if you blinked. The area where the orb was once is now nothing. The trees, the earth they sat on, all gone. There was no rubble, no smoke or fire, nothing to indicate that there were trees and dirt there at all other than the now lack of them. Even the air within the orb seems to have disappeared, the pull of the surrounding air rushing to fill the vacuum, knocking an unprepared Amity to her knees briefly.

I turn to face Amity and tell her that I am still going, but as I do, a sudden stabbing pain in my chest knocks the wind out of my lungs. I fall to one knee as a struggle to draw ragged breaths. Amity rushes over to me to try to help me to my feet again, but I push her hand away. "I'm fine," I say as I slowly regain my footing.

"You aren't. Your magic is blocked and you are forcing it."

I look at her, confused. "What?"

"I don't know about your Mewni magic, but Titan magic is very susceptible to emotion. You're scared, hurt, angry, and while these can be very powerful, your magic will suffer, and it will kill you in the end."

"I don't get what you are saying. You saw what I just did. I wouldn't call that my magic suffering. That was a spell for beyond normal capability."

Amity takes out her palisman and spins it, drawing a large spell circle in front of her. Purple sludge creeps out from the floor and seeps into the hole my spell left, remodelling itself into the shape of the ground and the trees from before. When the sludge had formed an almost identical scene, Amity taps her palisman to the floor, and the purple sludge falls away. In its place is the ground and the trees, almost identical to what they looked like before I cast my spell. "You don't think your magic is suffering. Destroying is easy, creating is hard. I just cast a spell more difficult than yours, and I haven't been knocked to the floor."

"I only need to cast one spell. That's all it will take to kill it."

Amity loses her temper, her face turning red as she starts to yell. "WHAT IF YOU MISS? HUH? OR MORE LIKELY, WHAT IF IT DODGES IT? IT'S MADE OF SMOKE, IT WOULDN'T BE HARD! WHAT IF A TINY PART OF IT SURVIVES AND IT REGENERATES? WE KNOW IT CAN DO THAT! IT WILL KILL YOU, AND YOU ARE WORTH MORE TO STAR ALIVE THAN DEAD!"

I'm taken aback, I haven't seen Amity angry before. It's quite scary.

Amity takes a breath and smoothes back her hair. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled." She places an arm on my shoulder. "I know you are used to protecting Star on your own, but you don't need to here. My friends and yours stand with you. What's more, you can't do it on your own right now anyway. If you keep casting spells out of anger, either your magic will be blocked and fizzle out, or you'll force it through, which will eventually kill you."

I can't speak. What Amity is saying makes sense, but my head is too full and hatred to hear it. If I were to speak now, it would just be to protest, but I don't even know what I am protesting anymore.

Amity looks back to me. "You just need a way to blow off some steam." A ding is heard from her pocket, and she pulls out a small round device with a screen. "And I think I have found the perfect way, come on."

Amity gets on her palisman and I do the same, her leading me back the way we came.

After flying for a while, we get where we are going, a stadium of some kind with a pitch in the middle. As we land, we see standing by the pitch are Zach, Dipper, Mabel, and Star. Star comes over to me and kisses me on the cheek. "You came back!"

I give an awkward chuckle. If Amity hadn't yelled at me, I don't know where I would be right now. Amity heads over to the centre of the pitch where Luz, Willow, Gus, and Hunter are standing. On the other side of the pitch, in the stands, sits Eda, V, and King. I yell from where the others and I are standing towards Luz. "What are we doing here?"

"After hearing from everyone about what you guys have been doing, and also after learning about your exploits on earth, we," she gestures to her friends, "decided that it would be fun to play a game of Grudgby."

We all look confused. "What's Grudgby," I ask.

"It's simple really, you put this ball," as she says this, a ball flies out from the ground below her and into the air. As it comes down, she catches it in one hand flawlessly, "and you put it in one of those triangles." She tosses the ball, the arc on it perfect as it goes through the triangle with seemingly no effort, making a satisfying swish noise as it does. "All powers on the table, no holds barred."

I look towards the others. "What do you guys think?"

"I'm all for it," Zach says, cracking his knuckles.

Everyone else nods their heads in agreement. I turn back to Luz. "Ok, it seems we are up for it."

Eda stands up from her seat. "I'll be the referee." She gets down from the bleachers and directs us all to our sides of the pitch. "Ok, I want a good clean game. No killing each other. Aside from that, no holds barred. Now will whoever is jumping for the ball step forward."

As the tallest member of the group, I go to step forward. However, a hand shoots across my chest, holding me back. I look across to see Zach beside me. "I got this."

I nod and step back, Zach stepping up to the centre of the pitch. Willow stands opposite him. Eda raises a whistle to her lips and blows it, a shrill shriek ringing out across the pitch. A hole in the centre of the pitch opens up, and the ball comes flying out of it. Suddenly, before I even see what happens, Zach is in the air and grabs the ball at its apex. He is in a new form, not quite a dragon, not quite human, all power. This moment is short lived however as Hunter, shrouded in a yellow light, dashes through the air towards Zach at a ludicrous speed.

Dipper waves his hands in the air. "I'm open." As I look at Dipper, for a second, I feel like I see a second figure, larger and more menacing, standing behind him. I blink, and the feeling passes.

Zach throws the ball to Dipper just as Hunter collides with him, causing the pass to be wide slightly. Yet, Dipper is in the perfect position. I could have sworn the pass went wide, yet Dipper catches it effortlessly. Suddenly, Dipper is surrounded. A hundred versions of Gus are guarding him, not letting him pass the ball. Star is positioned behind the hoard of Gus clones, but it would be impossible to tell if the real Gus is in place to intercept. Dipper's eyes turn purple as a mark on his hand I hadn't noticed before starts to glow. He readies the ball, and once again, I have the feeling there is a second figure. This time, the figure is just an arm, larger than Dipper's, and shrouding it completely. Dipper lets the ball lose the ball, which flies with insane speed and accuracy towards Star, slamming through a few of the fake Gus clones as it does. Star catches the ball, and I look back at Dipper, but his eyes have gone to normal, and once again the feeling has passed.

Star grips the ball tightly to control its power before tossing it up into the air. She grabs her palisman and holds it like a baseball bat. "Explosive Rainbow Flight," she yells as she swings her palisman towards the falling ball. A connection is made. An explosion of Rainbow colours blasts out from where the palisman hits the ball, and the ball goes flying towards the triangle, a rainbow trail coming off of it. I watch in baited breath as the ball nears the triangle, willing it with all my might to go through it. However, as the ball is a few moments from scoring, a giant hand formed of purple sludge raises in front of the goal. It catches the ball perfectly, reducing its energy to nothing in an instant. Bellow the hand is Amity, palisman in hand, a large purple circle on the floor in front of her.

"That was a good try. Now let us show you how it's done."

The hand lowers the ball down to Amity. Mabel, transforming to tiger form as she runs, attempts to tackle Amity, who effortlessly passes the ball off to Luz and uses the purple sludge to redirect Mabel back towards us. Luz starts to run towards the centre line. Everyone else is marking members of her team, leaving just me and her in a one on one. I ready my body, taking a deep breath. My earlier anger is still coursing through my body, but I am determined to push through this. As Luz reaches the centre line, she draws a spell circle in the air, this one a pure white light crackling with energy. She throws the ball through the circle, which imbues it with an incredible amount of energy. The ball streaks through the air so fast the friction causes the front of the ball to glow red. I barely have time to think before the ball is already nearly at our goal. I point my palisman at the ball, saying all I could think of quick enough. "Curve."

As I say it, my palisman begins to glow before spluttering. The ball flies past me and through the goal, slamming into a collection of vines that Willow had summoned from the ground behind it. The ball rolls down the vines and onto the floor, where Eda has walked over to pick it up. "One point to the Wild Witches, back to place one."

Luz and the rest of the Wild Witches retake their positions on the field, and I do the same, followed closely by the rest of my team. As I approach the inner circle, Zach puts his arm around my shoulder. "What was that man?" He whispers.

"Nothing, don't worry about it." I pull myself from under his arm. "Get ready to relieve the ball."

Once all of us had reset, the ball is thrown once again into the air, and the game pushes on. A spectacular rush down the middle by Zach, followed by a pinpoint throw from Dipper, gains us a point, and another sensational slam by Star puts us up one. But that was short-lived, as the Wild Witches continued the pressure, the ball flying from one side of the pitch to the other over and over. In the end, it was 10 minutes left with us down one point.

The ball flies into the air, Zach once again catches is gracefully but before he can pass it off, Willow is under him and has him by the legs, pulling his towards the ground with her vines. Hunter attempts to make a dash for the ball but is tackled by Mabel as they both tumble across the field. I rush up to Zach and take the ball off him, jumping on my palisman and pushing with all my might to fly down the pitch. Both Amity and Luz are hot on my tail, so I flick my palisman up, jumping to the ground and grabbing it at the base, allowing the ball to continue to fly upwards towards the goal. As both Amity and Luz zoom past me to get the ball, I point my palisman at it. But before I can even get the words out, I feel the faint pain of earlier, urging me not to do it. I dig deeper, my anger mounting over me, my need to win this dumb game so I can prove that I can protect Star, and I let out a pained yell. "CURVE!"

The ball, as if almost adverse to the laws of physics, stopped dead in its tracks and flew gracefully through the goal, Amity and Luz speeding past it helplessly. I try to celebrate, but before I can, I feel that same stabbing sensation in my chest, and I fall to one knee, grasping for breath.

"Marco!" Star rushes over to me and gets down beside me as Zach stands over us both.

"I'm calling a time out," he says.

Eda walks to the centre of the pitch. "Visitors call a time out, stop the clock."

Star looks over to me as she kneels next to me. "Are you OK? What's going on?"

I look to the floor, too ashamed to speak. Luckily, Amity breaks the silence as she stands behind star. "Do you want to tell her, or should I?"

I wave my hand towards her as I continue to take deep breaths. Star looks over to Amity as she continues.

"His magic is hurting him."

Star stands up. "But why? It never hurt him before, and it isn't hurting me."

"It's because he's angry."

"What?"

Amity looks at Star, then down to me. "He's angry that Daegel is here, he's angry at us for not letting him go and deal with him, and most of all he's angry at himself that he isn't able to protect you on his own. The anger is blocking his magic, and if it continues, then him not being able to cast spells is the best case scenario." Amity takes a breath. "In the worst case, it kills him."

Star kneels before me again, holding my head up to look into my eyes. "Is this true?"

I nod. Star slaps me. I turn back to face her, a hand on my face. "What was that for?"

"You listen to me, Marco Diaz. I understand you are angry, trust me, I am too. I'm angry and scared and confused, but you better listen." She points at me, her finger only inches from my face. "We protected each other on our own for years, but we haven't had to for a long time. We have had people we can count on to have our backs since we were teenagers, and nothing about this situation changes that." Star sighs. "You can't protect me from this on your own it's true, but no one can. This is up to us as a team. So no ifs ands or buts. If you are angry about this situation, then get that anger out by beating them at this game." Star points towards Amity and the others. "You hear me?"

I nod.

"Good." Star kisses me and then stands up. As she does, her words bounce around in my head. She was right. We have more friends now than we ever did before, and these friends have our back. It isn't up to me, all of us have a part to play. I stand up and head to the inner circle, my anger melting away. Zach attempts to take his position in the centre, but I grab him by the shoulder. "Let me take this one."

Zach backs away as I turn to the team. "Ok guys, we have 5 minutes on the clock and need one point to win. Zach, I want you to fly backwards on the whistle, play defensive, and wait for an opening. Dipper, I don't really know how you're doing all of this but you're doing it well, so continue to play on the outside, we'll get the ball to you and you need to find a way to get it forward. Star, you and Mabel are up front."

Mabel raises her hand. "And what about you?"

I turn to face the other team. "I'm just gonna wing it."

The whistle goes, and the ball flies from the ground. I Hunter dashes up for the ball as I tap my staff to the ground. "Blink."

Suddenly, I'm at the ball, Hunter bellow me. I throw the ball towards the ground, and it bounces up towards a waiting Zach, himself having jumped backwards at the whistle as I instructed. He scans the group and sees Dipper unmarked on the outer area, tossing the ball over to him just as a hand of purple goop slams him into the ground. Dipper receives the ball. He pulls back his arm, and for the first time, I see it, a dark purple figure clearly standing just behind him. As Dipper launches the ball forward, the figure does the same, mimicking Dippers movements, and as soon as the ball leaves his hands it flies faster then a bullet up the pitch, right passed a startled Luz and Willow. As they continue to run up the pitch, Star jumps off of Mabel's tiger back and expertly controls the ball, bringing it to the floor. As she touches down, I tap the floor with my staff again. "Blink."

Suddenly, I am above Star. "Pass the ball."

Star tosses the ball up to me, and I take aim at the goal. Between me is Luz and Amity. I throw the ball, and as I do, I aim my palisman at it. "Dodge."

Amity and Luz both go for the ball, but as if it had a mind of it's own it twists and turns through the air, avoiding each of them. I hit the ground and start to cheer as the ball gets closer and closer to the goal. Just as it is about to cross the boundary, a whistle rings out across the pitch. The ball stops in midair and falls to the floor, mere centimetres away from scoring us the winning point. Eda takes the whistle from my lips. "That's fall time. The score is a draw at 15 points. Now teams, shake hands."

We all dust ourselves off and all shake hands, remarking on how fun the game was. Amity finds me in the crowd and gives me a playful punch on the arm. "You had me worried there for a moment Diaz, didn't think you'd be able to get over your problems."

I look over to star who is talking to Luz excitedly, scanning the group who are all conversing with each other. "Yeah, I'm lucky I worked it out."

As we all regroup, a rumble is heard in the distance, and from atop it's unnerving noise, a voice is carried. "Well, hello again, everyone."

I don't recognise the voice, but Luz does as she turns stiff as a board. So do all of her friends. She turns slowly to the direction of the voice.

"Belos?"