Marco and Dipper came back inside and sat in the kitchen. Mabel and Star followed from the stairs. "I thought I heard a girl scream." Mabel said, teasing her brother. "What happened?"

"He tried to do a knife hand." Marco said, taking a seat next to Dipper at the small kitchen table.

Dipper stuck his injured hand in the air. "Does it look swollen?" He asked Mabel.

"I don't know. Does it hurt when I touch it?" Mabel poked Dipper's reddened hand a few times. "Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke."

"Ow! Mabel, stop! You know it does!"

Mabel giggled and so did Star. "C'mon, bro bro. It can't be that bad."

"Not that bad? I can feel my hand throbbing."

"You'll live." Mabel argued, knowing Dipper was exaggerating. She went and pulled a bag of frozen peas out of the freezer and handed it to Dipper. He gladly laid it on his hand, feeling the heat of rushing blood becoming cooler. He felt instant relief.

"Don't feel bad." Marco chimed in. "I did that once, myself."

Star came in next, clearing her throat to get their attention. Everyone looked at her as she played with her wand and tapped it against her chin. "Doctor Star Butterfly, here!"

"No," Marco said. "Don't even think about it, Star. I still have nightmares about what you did to me last time." He got out of his chair and stood at Star's side.

"Awe, come on! It'll be easy. I fixed your hand. No harm done."

"Tell that to my hand." Marco stated, plainly. "Also, I'm pretty sure your wand has seen better days. I mean, just look at it! The star is...split in half."

"Get real, Marco! I mean, it works just as good as it-" While Star was busy waving her wand around, a magic beam swirled out and impelled right through the ceiling. Bits and pieces of wood and boards of the support on the shack fell to the ground and Marco and Star took cover. They both ducked.

"Uh, I'm fine. Thanks, anyways." Dipper said, settling the feud after what he had just witnessed. "Besides, I have experienced a whole lot worse. Ever accidentally gave your body to a dream demon, before?" Marco and Star exchanged confused glances. Star shrugged to Marco.

"But, we defeated him with giant cat heads - and tickles!"

Star approached Mabel with a chuckle. "You go, girl! High five!" They both shared a high five and Star cheered.

"It was more heroic than how she made it sound." Dipper said. "And still, the most disturbing thing I've seen that night was that Gabe guy making out with his own hand puppets."

"Ew!" Mabel laughed. "Don't bring it up, again!"

"Who's Gabe?" Star asked, making a face.

Mabel responded, "Nobody. Just a dumb crush I had."

"What?!" Star gasped and raised her hands up to the ceiling. "Do tell! Is he cute?!" Star's eyes glimmered and a smile was plastered on her face.

"More like was cute."

"What does he look like?"

"Had a ponytail." Whenever Mabel answered, she answered with embarrassment.

"And his eyes?!" Star was so overcome with excitement.

"Well, very blue."

"Holy pegasus feathers! I should totally hook you up!"

"Wait, holy what-what?" Mabel rubbed the back of her hands and laughed.

"Okay, Star." Marco squeezed into their conversation. "Arm spells are one thing, but matchmaking is another. Besides, you still think there are little, magical frost fairies in our air conditioner that makes it work."

Star let out a puff of air through her lips. "Well, then how does it work, Marco?"

"Gears. Very tiny gears."

"Wait a minute!" Mabel cried out loud. "Hold everything!" By this point, everyone was looking at her. "You're a matchmaker, too?"

"Oh, yeah. Totally! Marco and I are working on social skills with his crush." Star laughed while nudging Marco in the ribs.

"Hey," Marco said. "Not everyone can go up and talk to their crush, like you."

Dipper moaned, getting the attention of everyone else. "Tell me about it."

"I knew I wasn't alone." Marco chuckled.

"I always thought you needed some kind of plan that led up to talking to Wendy."

"Wendy, huh?" Star said in a playful way, making Dipper blush.

"Uh, I mean, it's nothing! It's no one! Just - never mind."

"No way." Marco replied in shock. There he was, a couple of feet away from someone who had been doing exactly what he was doing to get the girl of his dreams. He let out a hysterical laugh. "Where have you been all my life?"

"So," Dipper started. "Let's, please, change this subject."

For the rest of the day, Mabel and Dipper decided to show Star and Marco to the town. Mabel had a deep, urging desire to introduce Star to as many of the townsfolk as possible. "C'mon!" She cheered to Star, grabbing her arm and pulling her away from Marco and Dipper. The two boys watched the girls walk off to go meet Mabel's friends as they were left alone.

"So," Marco shrugged with his hands resting in his hoodie's pockets. "What have you got planned?"

"Oh, I have something even better." Dipper said, leading Marco to one of his favorite places in the town. The next thing Marco knew, he was standing in front of the arcade's doors.

"The arcade?!" Marco said with an excited tone. "Oh, man! No way! How did you know?"

Dipper laughed at Marco's amazed face. "Just a guess." He said, with a shrug. They entered the building and found one of Dipper's favorites - Fight Fighters. It was a surprise for Dipper to find out that, after bringing the game character to life, Rumble McSkirmish had returned to his own game when Dipper defeated him. "Behold." Dipper announced to Marco with a gesture at the game. "Fight Fighters - the game with the ability to bring its characters to life. Wanna play?"

"Awesome!" Marco exclaimed. He made his way to the controls and so did Dipper. The two of them played and laughed, until they got bored.

"C'mon. I have plenty more to show you." Dipper said as they headed out of the arcade. He figured if Marco loved video games as much as he did, than he'd enjoy looking around for games at the game store. As they walked there, they passed by the town's pool.

"Hey, Marco!" Star's eager and screaming voice yelled. Marco and Dipper stopped by the fence and found Star and Mabel with Mabel's friends, Candy and Grenda. They were all in bathing suits and enjoying the pool's refreshing water. Star, Mabel, and Candy were all wearing onesie bathing suits. As for Grenda, she was in a two piece swimsuit. Star had magically zapped on a green bathing suit that included a tiny golden star on her sleeve and wore a pink, flowered cap to hold in her hair. Mabel wore her all-pink bathing suit with a perfectly yellow star in the center.

Grenda stopped rough-housing and noticed Marco. Immediately, she roared at him with her deep, masculine voice. "Hubba, hubba! Hey, cutie!"

Candy cut Grenda's conversation short. "But, Grenda!" She said, throwing her arms up in the air. "You already have a-"

"Candy! Stop it!" Grenda roared once more. She used her strong muscles to plunge Candy's head underwater. Candy began to struggle to breathe and her arms were flailing above the water.

"Yeesh." Marco said.

"Yeah, I can't say that I'm such a big fan of them." Dipper commented.

"Move aside, girls!" Mabel called out to Star, Candy, and Grenda. She stood at the edge of the pool, on the diving board, getting into a diver's position. "I'm comin' in!" Just as Mabel jumped, Star used her magic wand to conjure up a dolphin into the pool. When Mabel came up, she was riding Star's dolphin, giggling. The waves of the ruckus made the elders in the pool almost fall out of their pool tubes and other relaxing floaties.

Dipper and Marco both continued on in the small town, making their way to the game store. On the way there, Marco would self-consciously watch Dipper walk too close to the road while he was on the sidewalk. Being him, Marco wanted to pull Dipper away from the edge of the sidewalk every time a car would drive by. Instead, he held back the urge and stuck his hands in his pockets to do so. Marco couldn't help, but realize that Star did the same from time-to-time.

For some reason, Marco found pleasure in keeping Star safe. Though Star didn't always take Marco's call if she was about to do something unsafe or risky. Marco was protective of Star. He found himself putting Star's needs before his own. He didn't understand why he always did that, however.

Ever since Marco met Star, he kept her safe, sometimes even from her own shenanigans. Though, he couldn't say that he didn't enjoy their dimensional-hopping together. It was as if Star showed Marco how to let his worries go and enjoy the little things. As for Marco, he taught Star how to think carefully before jumping right into a situation, which would keep Star out of trouble more often. Star and Marco were like Yin and Yang.

Marco came to save Star during the Blood Moon Ball. Marco saved Star from his own home's collapsing roof after she had blew a hole through the ceiling. Marco saved Star from a rebellious princess that wanted to steal her face. Marco made Star go first down the laundry shoot when trying to escape the guards of Saint O's before himself, which caused him to get caught by the guards. Marco made Star cross at the light of the street just to keep her safe. It was all for Star. And Marco wondered why as he walked along the sidewalk. He stared down at the ground in a daydream.

"Here we are." Dipper's voice said, waking Marco up from his sleep walk. Marco brought his head up and found the building of the game store in front of him.

As Marco and Dipper entered inside, Mabel and Star were leaving the pool. "Bye, girls!" Mabel said to Candy and Grenda as they all exited through the fence. Candy and Grenda parted ways from Mabel and Star. The two of them started walking back to the shack, letting the sun dry them as they did. Star pulled all of her hair over her shoulder to squeeze out excess water.

Mabel took her towel and slung it over her neck. They trudged on the sidewalk with nothing, but bare feet. Along the way, Mabel told Star about how she found her could-have-been boyfriend at the pool. When Mabel gushed about her kiss with her merman boyfriend, Star howled. "What?! Oh my glitter! That's so romantic!"

"Yeah." Mabel sighed. "Did I mention he was a prince?"

"Woah, royalty, like me?! How cool!" Star shook Mabel's shoulders and Mabel responded with a laugh.

"It's too bad, though. Now, he's engaged to a beautiful manatee princess. It was all part of the plan to prevent some kind of "civil war"." Mabel made air quotes with her hands as she said the last of her sentence.

"Oh." Star muttered, suddenly disappointed.

"So," Mabel began. "That's my story. Got any jerky ex-crushes?" She turned around, while walking, to face Star.

Star made a face before she told the younger girl. "Well, more like jerky ex-boyfriend. Sure, he was a demon with a short temper and anger issues, but he wasn't really a bad guy, ya' know?" As Star went on, Mabel listened, interested. "I guess..." Star waved her hands around, searching for the right words. "I was just flattered by his charmingness when I first met him. Now, our conversations are just really awkward. And, just so you know, breaking up with a demon is definitely not pretty."

Mabel and Star shared a giggle as they opened the door to the shack. Straight across from them was the living room where Marco and Dipper sat, opening a box they had bought from the game store. Dipper caught his sister in the corner of his eye.

"Mabel," He said with excitement. "Look what I found at the store! It's my favorite fantasy-talking, level-counting, statistics, and graph paper-involving game!" Dipper said all of this as he tore open the box and dug the board game out of the box full of styrofoam peanuts. "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons! Wanna play with me?"

Dipper held up the front of the cover to Mabel and Star. On it, were a bunch of unusual-looking characters. But the only character that caught Mabel's eye was an elf. "Well, I do like unicorns. And that hot elf looks promising. How do you play?"

"The rules are simple." Dipper said, glad to have his sister interested in the game. However, once Dipper picked up the rule book, Mabel's beaming smile faded. He began talking in, as Mabel would call it, Nerd Code. The rules were complicated and long. It was disgusting to her how her brother could make a brainiac's board game sound fun and then completely boring the next. Mabel's brain began to hurt as did Star's. Marco was trying to listen in the best to his abilities, but lost Dipper in the middle of his sentence.

Mabel moaned. "This is like Homework: The Game!"

"C'mon, Mabel. I need another person to play."

Mabel abruptly cleared her throat before pointing in the direction of Marco who was sitting on the couch and watching the scene in front of him unfold. Dipper turned his head to where Mabel's finger was pointing to and realized what Mabel was saying. Marco hopped up out of his seat to respond. "Oh, actually. I just remembered. I have to go, uh, somewhere that...isn't here. Yeah." He gave an awkward chuckle as he decided to hide himself in the kitchen. As he did so, Star followed along.

"Forget board games! I hardly understand why people on Earth go to school."

At that moment, Stan came in from the staircase. He noticed the game in Dipper's hands and commented. "Say, is that the game that involves math and writing and has nothing to do with the picture on the box?" Stan faked his excitement as he bent down to pick up the game, smiling. Dipper, thinking Stan was serious, asked him. "Yeah! Wanna play with me, Grunkle Stan?"
In response, Dipper got a laugh. "Look, kiddo. I prefer to do my dice-rolling in Vegas. Lemme see that." Stan proceeded to snatch the rule book out of Dipper's grasp. He began flipping through the pages until he said, "Check this out." He pointed at the page, letting out a chuckle. "When facing yon adversaries, shield thyself under an elfin buttress."

Mabel and Grunkle Stan shared a laugh together as Dipper stole back the rule book. "Laugh all you want." He said. "You guys just aren't smart enough to understand it."

For half of the day, Dipper went on to desperately searching for another person to play with him. Even Waddles rejected him to go play with the new laser puppy. It wasn't until Dipper heard a bleat from outside that he realized he had found someone. Though, Dipper knew how pathetic he was, he still needed someone - anyone.

Dipper sat outside, next to the shack's porch. He had the board game stretched between him and his opponent, Gompers the Goat. The 38-sided die teeter - tottered to a rough halt onto the board and Dipper got down to see the roll. "Nice! You rolled a seventeen!" He said to Gompers, who could only respond back with a bleat. It was at that moment that Dipper knew he had reached a new low, even for him. "And I'm playing with a goat."

Gompers reached down and grabbed the die with his teeth to chew on it. "Hey," Dipper cried. "Let go, Gompers. Give it back." As he struggled to get the die back, Gompers let go. Dipper flung himself back from the amount of strength he had gathered and the die went soaring. It didn't stop until it was under the porch and uncomfortably close to falling down a deep hole. Dipper let out an aggravated moan and got down on his elbows and knees to go after it. However, as he crawled underneath the porch, he was felt the ground give out beneath him and his body went plunging forward. Dipper felt the pain of his body hitting multiple floors until he finally fell face first onto the tough, stiff, cold, cement floor of the basement.

"Dipper!" A strict voice echoed from above. Dipper, peering around his shoulder while in the process of picking up the die, turned around in shock.

"Great Uncle Ford!" Dipper stuttered, trying to search for the right words. "I, uh -"

"What are you doing down here, boy? I told you. The basement shall not be-wait! Is that a 38-sided die from the board game, Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons?!"

"Wha-yeah! Y-you know the game?"

Ford reached down and took the die out of Dipper's hand to observe it. He let out a short chuckle as he said, "Are you kidding? I love this game! You know what this means, don't you, Dipper?"

The boy in the blue pine tree hat stood there for a moment, not sure what Ford was saying, yet, he practically could see the spark of excitement on his great uncle's face. Ford finished for him. "We must stop everything I've been working on and play!"

Now, Dipper was smiling.