Dipper watched the cops and agents drive off as if everything was fine. Before they left, Dipper tried to make out muffled voices from where he sat in the window seat.

"...false alarm?... where are we?...forget...happened..."

Dipper, himself, had some questions about this odd scene. "What? But...how?!" He raced down the stairs, coming face to face with an empty gift shop. He took three more steps before he felt a hard object crunch under his shoe. Picking it up to observe it, he found out it was a hard drive. What really appalled him was when he saw "Pines" written on the other side of it. The boy gave out a short hysterical laugh, still in disbelief. "Unbelievable." He said to no one in particular.

Marco wandered around the basement, looking at all the strangely awesome machines. He stopped at the nuclear waste tubes, tapping one of the tube's glass. Quickly hearing the tapping of Marco's finger on the glass, Stan turned his head halfway to warn the curious kid.

"I wouldn't play with those if I were you. There's nuclear waste in there. Then again, I'm not your parent and I'm not in charge of you."

Star's attention was caught by Marco's actions. She skipped her way over to where Marco was, copying him with more tapping. As the girl was in awe, Stan cautioned them again. "If you want your faces melted off, then I suggest you keep tapping the glass, until it actually breaks."

Star, at a halt from tapping to listen to the man, continued tapping with more speed. She hoped that he was right and her face would soon be blasted with the mesmerizing green substance inside the tube. Stan gave an irritated sigh and tried to reason with the kids.

"Hey, look. You said you were going to help me fix this thing back up, right?" Mabel sat in the corner of the room, watching the two teens nod their heads in unison to her Grunkle's question.

"Well right now, you aren't really helping."

"What are we supposed to do?" Marco asked. "You are aware you're working with a bunch of kids?"

"Don't blame me. You're the ones who said they'd lend me a hand here."

Marco corrected Stan. "Then also don't blame me. Star was the one who made me go through with this."

"Here." Stan said, handing Marco a pile of wooden boards and Star, a hammer and nails. "Go make yourselves useful.

Star observed the hammer, a bit confused to what it was exactly.

"How is this gonna help you with the portal?" Marco questioned.

"It won't." Stan answered, plainly. "But it will get you off my back until I actually need your assistance. Now go board up some broken windows in the gift shop or whatever."

As Stan shunned away Marco and Star, he got straight back down to business.

Star skipped into the gift shop, transfixing her attention on all the beautiful items that the shack possessed. Her eyes shimmered with delight, making her way around the entire room, picking up the stunning merchandise she found. She smiled at anything and everything that her eyes put in front of her. She soon forgot why she came up from the basement in the first place.

Marco raised an eyebrow at the disturbing gift shop items. He failed to understand what Star saw in her eyes. To him, the shop was disorganized and an eyesore.

"Do people actually buy this worthless junk?" He said, examining what appeared to be a fish head glued to a squirrel's body.

"Unfortunately, yes." A voice responded from Marco's left side. He turned to find Dipper, leaning against the doorway frame. "The people in this town are not the brightest. Lucky for Stan, they'll buy practically anything you throw in their faces."

At that moment, Star spun around to face Dipper and Marco. She was holding a small, red box with a question mark on it.

"Marco!" She cried out. "Can I borrow some of your emergency cash stash? Please? I need this box!"

"What, why?"

Star held out the question marked box. "I need to know what's inside!"

Dipper intruded. "Don't get your hopes up. It's probably something dumb and useless like a rock."

Star's eyes grew. "A rock? A fuzzy rock? A smooth rock? A hard rock? Or maybe a-" The girl gasped, excitedly. "A magical rock!"

"Oh no." Marco sighed, knowing Star was going to like whatever was in the mystery box. He took out his stash of money that he tucked in his shoe and gave it to Dipper, who put the money in the cash register.

"Is she always like this?" Dipper asked Marco.

"Most of the time." Marco said, shrugging. "But I don't mind. In fact, it's kind of..."

While Marco searched for the right word, he watched the blonde tear open the box, revealing a rock with googly eyes glued on to it.

"...fun." He finished.

Marco was reminded of Star's first day on Earth. Though he did need time to get used to Star living with him, Marco finally warmed up to her. He loved the way she was able to push him a bit out of his comfort zone and take him to extraordinary places he has never been to. So in a way, Star was the candle on his cupcake. He really liked Star, as a best friend.

Dipper looked at Star, but only saw Mabel. It was funny how similar they were. Even though Star was blonde and Mabel was brunette, their personality traits were spot-on.

"She reminds me of my sister." Dipper stated, in a bit of a sad tone.