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minijenn · 4 years ago

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Universe Falls Chapter 79

Ayyyyyy its here fam, the chapter right before RMD is finally done which means I’m ALMOST ALMOST THERE AHAHAHHAHAHAH IM SO FUCKIN HYPE! But for now, enjoy this fucking preliminary angstfest, which I also really like even if it is a teeny tiny lil chapter. Just as well since RMD are all boutta be fucking monsters in terms of length. Anyway enjoy!

Previous: https://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/618035050504732672/universe-falls-chapter-78

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Chapter 79: Alone on the Lake

TN XBAVUSA SUL ZUSALLZF GSL ZLZBKX IFK AJUWLK DPNZ BWMSL LUZ OACM HV YW KLKHXJ GGBZ EKBIJK?

“Ok, Lapis, we’re almost there!”

“I think I’m starting to guess the surprise, you two,” Lapis noted with a small smile, still keeping her aquatic wings wrapped over her eyes as she followed Steven and Mabel’s enthusiastic lead.

“Your eyes are supposed to be closed!” Steven reminded brightly.

“Sorry,” Lapis chuckled, following his instructions this time as the pair continued to guide her onward. “Are you still back there, Dipper?” she called, glancing over her shoulder behind her, though keeping her eyes shut all the while.

“Hm?” Dipper looked up, his hands shoved away in his pockets as he kept pace quite a bit behind the trio as they traveled down the dock. “Oh, uh, yeah, I’m here.”

“Mind telling me where we’re going?” the blue Gem continued addressing him with a small, playful smile. “I have an idea, but these two aren’t giving me any hints.”

“Cause that would be cheating!” Mabel pointed out, resolute. “And it would ruin the surprise.”

“Speaking of surprises, wait here just a second.” Steven and Mabel both relinquished their holds on Lapis’ hands, running over to join Greg and Stan near the edge of the dock before unveiling what they had in store for the day. “Surprise!”

Lapis let her wings retract, opening her eyes to see something that she didn’t really know what to make of at first. The wide lay of Lake Gravity Falls spread out before the group from the small dock they were all on, its murky waters dully glistening in the mid-morning sun. And resting on that lake, tethered to a post, was a moderately large boat, one that looked rather fancy and modern, aside from the bizarre, out of place skull and crossbone flags draping from its sides and hanging from its flagpole.

“We bought a boat!” Steven proclaimed excitedly.

“Correction, we rented a boat,” Greg chimed in. “I may be rich, but buying a boat would be going a bit… overboard!”

“Ugh, please someone make him stop,” Stan groaned insincerely. “He’s been making lame boat puns ever since we picked this thing up from the rental place. I’d fire him for them… if he still worked for me.”

“What can I say, Mr. Pines?” Greg let out a small chuckle. “I just keep reeling ‘em in!”

Steven and Mabel were quick to join in on the former rock star’s amused laughter, and though it took Stan a moment, he ultimately folded with a bit of a wry smirk himself. “Uh… what’s with the pirate theme?” Dipper spoke up as he looked over the boat.

“Er, the rental place was out of the “Family Friendly Day On the Lake” boat package,” Greg explained. “All they had left was the “A Pirate’s Life for Me” package, which is really just those flags. Oh, and I think there’s a stuffed parrot and a set of decorative swords on board.”

“There’s also a bunch of peg legs, pirate hats, and eye patches stored under one of the seats,” Stan added dryly. “So, ya know, you kids can knock yourselves out with those.”

“Ooo!” Steven mused, intrigued.

“I call the eye patch!” Mabel quipped, raising her hand.

“Oh no, ya don’t,” Stan pulled said eye patch out of his pocket and slipped it on. “I already beat ya to it, pumpkin.”

“Aw, dang it! Not again!”

“Steven, Dipper, Mabel,” Lapis spoke up, glancing over at Stan and Greg, somewhat confused. “Who are these people?”

“Ah, Greg Universe,” Greg introduced himself, holding out a hand for her to shake. “You, uh, busted up my van trying to use the lake to fly back to your homeworld?”

“Lapis Lazuli,” the blue Gem offered him a somewhat awkward smile though she didn’t return his handshake. “Nice to meet you.”

“And Lapis, you remember Grunkle Stan, right?” Mabel asked as she came to stand alongside the conman.

“Oh right!” Lapis nodded. “You’re the guy who looks like Ford, but isn’t Ford.”

“Ugh, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that one when I was a kid...” Stan rolled his eyes, disgruntled.

“That’s ‘cause Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford are twins,” Mabel informed the blue Gem with a smile as she suddenly pulled Dipper close beside her. “Just like me and Dipper!”

“Ugh, Mabel! Knock it off!” Dipper huffed in annoyance as he quickly pulled away from her. He paid no mind to the curious looks the others were sending his way as a result of his sudden harshness as he instead went to take a seat at the far edge of the dock instead.

“Aw, c’mon, bro-bro, I was just… aw, ok…” Mabel sighed in quiet defeat as she watched him sullenly walk away.

“Yeesh, he’s acting even more Dippery than usual,” Stan remarked bluntly before oblivious moving on. “Anyway, we’d better get a move on. The ice in that treasure chest-shaped cooler on deck is only gonna keep those sandwiches cold for so long.”

“Good point,” Greg agreed, trailing after the conman. “Let’s get the boat started.”

As the pair headed aboard the rented vessel, everyone else hung back on the dock for a bit, particularly Lapis as she hardly even seemed to be focused on the boat at all. “What’s going on with Dipper?” she asked Steven and Mabel with newfound concern. “He seems… upset about something.”

“I don’t know…” Steven frowned. “Yesterday he seemed so excited about our plans to bring you out here to spend the day with you, Lapis, but now…”

“I-I think I might know what’s up,” Mabel said, glancing down apprehensively. “Last night I overheard him talking in his sleep--which he only really does when he’s having a nightmare--a-and it must have been a pretty bad one cause he said something about… a-about you know who…”

“No,” Lapis shook her head, confused. “Who?”

“Oooh…” Steven immediately understood, however, his expression quickly turning grave. “Again? I thought he stopped having those kinds of nightmares after we put up the unicorn shield around the shack.”

“The what?” the blue Gem tried interjecting once more, completely out of the loop.

“Yeah, well… you know Bill,” Mabel said, her tone and expression both taking on an air of disdain. “He never quits, even when he really should. And if he can’t mess with us for real anymore, I guess dreams are the next best thing for him.”

“Wait, slow down,” Lapis said, putting her hands up. “What are you guys talking about? Who’s this Bill person? Someone who’s been messing with Dipper?”

“Messing with all of us, actually…” Steven rubbed his arm. “He’s this really powerful, really mean demon who we’ve been fighting against all summer. We’ve been up against him a bunch of times, but the worst was when he-�� The young Gem stopped short at this, particularly as he met the sight of Mabel silently shaking her head, her lips pressed in a thin line and her eyes wide with worry. Steven was quick to understand her intent, however, when he happened to glance between Lapis, who was looking to him with expectant curiosity, and Dipper, who was still sitting alone, forlorn as he stared into the lake from the edge of the dock. “Uh… h-he, um…” Steven stammered, unsure of how to explain exactly what had happened what felt like ages ago now. Especially to Lapis, of all Gems, who cared so much for Dipper and had, at least in some way, been the very driving force for him striking the dangerous deal with the dream demon that he had back then. A deal that was clearly still leaving it’s heavy, painful mark on him, even long after it had ended.

“L-long story short,” Mabel cut in just in time with a brief, largely safe explanation. “Bill tricked Dipper into making a deal with him that went pretty sour pretty fast and it, uh… m-may or may not almost got him, um… k-killed,” she winced, a familiar pang of guilt filling her as she so much as said the dreadful word.

“W-what?!” Lapis exclaimed, aptly alarmed.

“O-oh, but don’t worry! It didn’t actually, o-of course,” Steven rushed to interject. “A-and my healing powers helped patch up everything else‒eventually. So, everything’s fine now! W-well… almost everything…” The young Gem frowned as he looked in Dipper’s direction himself, wishing there was more he could do to help heal what was an entirely different kind of wound now.

“B-but, I don’t understand,” Lapis shook her head, her expression awash in immense worry. “Why would Dipper make a deal like that anyway? Even if he was tricked, I know he’s smarter than to fall for something like that.”

Steven and Mabel exchanged an uncertain glance at this, knowing that the last thing Lapis needed was to know exactly why Dipper had taken a chance on such a risky bargain in the first place. “Uh… w-who can say?” Mabel shrugged, forcing out a harsh, fake chuckle. “It doesn’t really matter anymore anyway since it’s all said and done and we can forget about it and move on with our lives! S-so instead of talking about all that depressing junk, let’s talk about something way more fun instead! Like this boat! What do you think about it, Lapis?”

“Oh, uh… it’s… nice,” Lapis said somewhat absently as she finally pulled her gaze away from Dipper. “But... I don’t know…”

“Look, Lapis,” Steven took a deep, steadying breath, noticing the hesitation in the blue Gem as she turned her attention to the lake in particular. “We know you spent a really long time fused with Jasper at the bottom of the lake, but… you’re not Malachite anymore. And water is part of who you are. You can’t let one bad experience take that away from you!”

“It was more than one…” Lapis sighed, crossing her arms.

“Well… maybe we can turn all those bad times around and make a brand-new good time instead!” Mabel encouraged warmly. “We promise that this is gonna be the most fun you’ve ever had!”

“Thank you, but I… I don’t deserve this…” Lapis shook her head fretfully.

“Of course you do!” Steven insisted. “We even named her Lil’ Lappy!” He nodded over to the boat, where Stan and Greg were attempting to tape a banner with this new name to the side of the boat, only for it to slightly slip off to reveal the vessel’s true title: the S.S. Misery”.

Despite this, Lapis was unable to hold back a snort of an amused laugh at such a ridiculous sight, one that told just how hard the kids were working to put all this together for her. “Ok, I’ll give it a chance. But just one.”

“That’s the spirit!” Mabel beamed. “Now c’mon! We better get on board before Grunkle Stan hogs the rest of that super cool pirate gear to himself!”

“Too late!” Stan called from on deck, clad in the eyepatch, captain’s hat, and fake peg leg alike.

Even so, Mabel and Steven hurried on ahead to climb aboard, though Lapis stayed behind, largely so she could go over to join Dipper as he remained at the edge of the dock. Along the way, she couldn’t help but let her thoughts wander, both to the deepest concern for the boy himself, and quiet, yet fledgling fury for the mysterious demon who had apparently put him through so much lingering distress. “H-Hey,” she greeted him as casually as she could manage, despite all this. “Aren’t you coming along?”

“Oh! Y-yeah,” Dipper was quick to stand, though he made no move to go over to the boat as he offered Lapis a concerned glance instead. “Are… are you sure you’re ok with this? I tried telling them that taking you out on the lake might not be… the best idea, considering… well…”

“N-no, it’s ok,” Lapis assured him with a small smile. “I think it’s really… sweet that you guys went to all the trouble to put all this together for me. Even if it might be a bit… too much.”

“It’s always too much when Steven and Mabel are involved,” Dipper finally let out a small chuckle, one that set Lapis’ worries to ease as she hoped that maybe he wasn’t as upset as he seemed. At least for now.

“Need a lift?” she asked, summoning her wings as she extended a hand out to him.

“Sure.” With this, Lapis easily swept Dipper up off the dock, giving him an easy landing on board the boat alongside Steven and Mabel before she came down to join them herself.

“How do I say it again, Mr. Pines?” Greg’s voice echoed from the ship’s intercom on the bridge. “Mighties?”

“It’s ‘maties’, Greg,” Stan deadpanned, not realizing the mic was already on either.

“Got it; maties,” Greg actually turned to the intercom so he could properly address the group on deck. “Uh, ahoy, maties! Are ya scurvy land-lovers-”

“Landlubbers,” Stan corrected once more.

“...What the hey is a lubber?”

“Ugh, gimme that!” the conman promptly took over the intercom at this. “What he’s trying to say is, are you all ready to take off or not?”

“Aye, aye, captain!” Mabel and Steven proclaimed in unison, both of them presenting dramatic salutes.

“...Yes,” Lapis said simply as Dipper nodded his agreement as well.

“Good,” Stan said simply, hanging up the intercom line. “You do know how to work this tub, don’t you, Greg?”

“Uh… w-well… It can’t be that tricky…” Greg looked over the ship’s rather complicated control deck, though he did manage to find its starting clutch. “Aha! Full speed ahea-” The former rock star was abruptly cut off as the entire boat jolted hard as it began to take off, knocking everyone on board about. However, as it did, the force of the vessel’s abrupt movement suddenly ripped the post it was tethered to, one that neither Greg nor Stan had thought to untie it from before climbing aboard. “Aw, geez…” Greg shuddered upon glancing back to see the post skimming behind the boat as it ventured out onto the open lake. “You think anyone will notice?”

“You better hope no one does,” Stan remarked. “Trust me, Greg, you do not want a run-in with lake police. I learned that the hard way…”

Despite the pleasant, late summer weather, not too many other boats were out on the water, meaning the group largely had the lake all to themselves. As soon as the boat had settled into a more relaxed pace out near the center of the water, Lapis and the kids went to join Greg and Stan up in the bridge, largely to inquire about the wooden post still lagging behind the ship.

“Yeah, I-I think I did a number on that deck,” Greg scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Maybe someone else should take a shot at being captain instead…”

“Ya think?” Stan deadpanned.

“What do you say-” Greg grinned as he took his captain’s hat off and turned it over to Lapis instead. “Captain Lazuli?”

“I-I shouldn’t…” Lapis winced fretfully.

“Go for it, Lapis!” Steven encouraged.

“Yeah! You’ll make a great captain!” Mabel chimed in enthusiastically. “You can even use this spare eyepatch I stole from Grunkle Stan when he wasn’t looking!”

“Wha-” Stan took pause, reaching near his eye to find that his eye patch wasn’t covering it anymore. “When did you-”

“Don’t put me in charge!” Lapis suddenly snapped, agitated. She drew in a small, anxious gasp as she realized just how intense her refusal had been, to the point that all three of the kids were sending concerned looks her way.

“Lapis…?” Dipper spoke up, by far the most worried of the already very worried trio. And as soon as Lapis caught his concerned gaze, she made a very rushed effort at righting herself, more for his sake than anyone else’s.

“Oh, uh… s-sorry,” the blue Gem shook her head to clear it. “I mean… y-you shouldn’t trust me with the boat.”

“Uh, that’s ok,” Steven said, trying to brighten the tense mood once more. “Don’t worry about it. We can all be first mates, so there’s no pressure. Only fun stuff today!”

Lapis nodded, allayed by this plan, even if she was still discreetly trying not to pay too much mind to the wide lay of the lake all around them. “Lapis, you can still wear the hat if you want,” Greg held said hat out to her again.

“Thanks,” Lapis smiled. “But I’m not putting that on my body.”

“What about the eye patch?” Mabel asked, eagerly offering it to the blue Gem until Stan intercepted it instead.

“Give me that!” he swiped the patch, proudly placing it over his eye once more. “Ah, now that’s better.”

“Ok, everyone,” Greg grinned, putting the captain’s hat back on as he took the boat’s wheel once again. “Let’s set a course for fun!”

Though Lake Gravity Falls was quite sizable, it was still a rather small lake compared to the boat itself, which was why there really weren’t too many places it could go upon it. Still, that hardly stopped the small group aboard from enjoying themselves in whatever ways they could. They snacked on their small stash of cold cut sandwiches alongside a bottle of sparkling orange juice served in fancy glasses (a ritual Lapis didn’t quite understand and didn’t really know how to indulge in even as everyone else did). Still, Lapis watched on the sidelines as Steven and Mabel engaged in a pretend “pirate duel” with the decorative swords on deck (a duel Greg was quick to put a nervous stop to when he realized the swords, however dull they might have been, were still made of actual metal). After that, they all took a break to lounge out on the boat’s open deck, soaking in the rays of the warm summer sun, though most of the while, though Lapis found herself preoccupied with two other completely different sights instead. The first was the lake, its calm, quiet, cerulean waters practically taunting her with thoughts of the dark, empty prison she knew lay just beneath them. But then there was Dipper, who was hardly engaging in the activities Mabel and Steven had planned as he instead leaned against the boat’s railing to stare out at the lake himself. Lapis took a break from “sunbathing” to join him, hoping to ask him more about what Steven and Mabel had only hinted at before. And yet, before she could get as much as a hello out, the aforementioned pair rushed over to pull them both back into more of the “fun” they had in store.

That next bout of fun was up on the bridge, namely in the form of the ship’s pull horn. Though Lapis didn’t understand the appeal at first, she quickly did upon giving it a small, experimental tug, only for the horn to loudly blare out, echoing across the entire lake. The blue Gem couldn’t help but be completely charmed by the rather grating noise, letting out a full, genuine laugh as she pulled on the horn over and over again, much to the kids’ delight and Stan and Greg’s chagrin. Even Dipper couldn’t help but muster a small, warm chuckle upon seeing just how much Lapis seemed to be enjoying herself through something so simple, even if it wasn’t the easiest on the ears.

After about an hour or so, the nearly-nonstop bellowing of the horn finally fell silent, a relieving change of pace for Stan and Greg in particular as they continued fishing off the far side of the boat. “Oh thank god, they finally stopped,” the conman let out a sigh of relief as he uncovered his ears. “I thought I was gonna go deaf. Well, even more deaf,” he said, tapping his hearing aid.

Greg let out an amused laugh at this, though as he did, he happened to notice Lapis and the kids coming down from the bridge to join them. “Oh, hey, you guys!” he greeted them with a smile. “Finally get enough of that horn?”

“...WHAT?!” Steven shouted obliviously, his ears still still blaring with the lingering noise of the horn.

“What are you doing?” Lapis asked, curiously eyeing the pairs’ fishing rods.

“Catching fish,” Greg explained, casting his line out into the water once more.

“Or at least we’re trying to,” Stan grumbled, boredly leaning against the railing. “Those suckers just aren’t biting today…”

“Oh, maybe I can help!” Lapis volunteered, her tone surprisingly eager. Taking in a deep breath, she easily connected with the body of water before her, calling upon a massive swath of it just below the surface. Everyone else watched in apt awe as she easily pulled that swath up, an immense mass of water rising up into the air just above them, one that encased more fish than they could have ever hoped to catch swimming inside.

“Whoa…” Dipper said, quite impressed. “Lapis, that’s amazing!”

The blue Gem practically beamed upon hearing this, more than happy to meet the bright smile he was sending her way. A smile that she unquestionably treasured, yet unfortunately hadn’t seen enough of today, as much as she wished she had.

“That’s a pretty… uh, fancy way of catching fish…” Greg noted with a bit of a nervous chuckle.

“Fancy?” Stan scoffed. “Pfft, some might call it overkill.”

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel chastised, hoping that the conman’s rather callous remark didn’t offend the blue Gem.

“That’s ‘cause Lapis is supa strong!” Steven proclaimed with a dramatic flex.

“Well, uh… I appreciate the gesture,” Greg said, trying to be as tactful as he could. “But I-I think it would be safer to stick to the old-fashioned way of doing it…”

“Oh, uh… sure.” Flustered, Lapis was quick to pull her “catch” back down into the lake itself, creating a sizable wave in the process, one that shook the entire boat before the water settled itself back down. “So… how do you fish the old-fashioned way?”

“Oh, it’s pretty simple,” Greg reeled his line back in so he could demonstrate. “You start with a rod, and you put a hook at the end of your line. And then, when you feel a nibble, you reel it in. And there it is; you’ve caught yourself a fish to eat!”

“Or to sell if you manage to catch a peppermint angelfish or a freshwater polka dot stingray,” Stan piped up. “Those kinda puppies will land you the big bucks, whether you’re sellin’ em legally or not‒n-not that I would know.”

“But why would a fish ever bite a hook?” Lapis asked, confused.

“You got to bait it,” Greg said, reaching into his nearby tackle box. “Put something on it you know it wants, like a worm or a $20 bill.”

“Now that’s my kind of bait!” Stan grinned greedily.

“We’ll keep that in mind the next time we need to fish you out of a lake, Mr. Pines,” Greg chuckled alongside Steven and Mabel. At the same time, he cast his baited line out into the lake to properly show Lapis how fishing was usually done.

And like how fishing usually went, the group ended up waiting quite some time for even a nibble to become apparent. Stan had all but fallen asleep in his sunchair, his own fishing pole completely forgotten as Greg minded them both instead. Lapis and the kids lazily leaned against the boat’s railing, keeping an eye on the water, even if there was no sign of any sort of underlying fish to be found.

“So when does the fish part happen?” Lapis asked boredly.

“Well, sometimes it isn’t about the fish you keep, but the company you catch,” Greg said with a sly wink, though none of the others really caught his drift. At that exact moment, however, a sharp, sudden pull on his fishing pole caught the former rock star’s attention instead. “Whoa! I got a bite!” Greg tightened his grip on the fishing rod as whatever it had caught began to pull aggressively against it. “Lapis, here! Give it a try!” he offered the blue Gem the pole, and though she had her reservations, she took it.

“Like this?” she asked, starting to reel the line in.

“You got it!” Greg grinned as the kids crowded close to watch. “Looks like it’s a big one!”

Lapis set her focus on her rod as she continued to steadily reel it in, though whatever was on the hook quickly tugged hard on the line, abruptly yanking the blue Gem forward along with it. Lapis stumbled forward, but fortunately everyone else was quick to respond, calling out to her in concern as they hurried to help hold her steady so she could keep the struggle going.

“Y-You got this, Lapis!” Steven encouraged with a loud grunt as he and Mabel clung onto the straining blue Gem. “Reel it in!”

“It’s… pulling… so hard!” Lapis shouted, pulling back against the unseen fish or force that she was so, so close to landing. So very close to the surface, yet still so far away.

Just as Malachite had been all that time.

Lapis gasped just as the fishing rod suddenly snapped under the immense pressure completely. Its other half flew into the water as whatever it had caught got away, leaving everyone to run to the side of the boat to see if they could catch so much as even a glimpse of it. Lapis in particular kept a close eye on the lake as it calmed once more, her sudden panic starting to die down as she realized the only reflection she saw on the water was her own.

“Dang it, Greg!” Stan fussed as he finally awakened from his brief nap. “We weren’t supposed to break any of these!”

“Yeah…” Greg winced as he looked over the broken rod. “Looks like this pole rental just turned into a pole purchase. But, you did a great job tangling with that beast, Lapis.”

“Yeah! I totally thought you had it!” Mabel added, hands on her hips.

“B-but don’t worry about the one that got away,” Steven encouraged with a small smile.

Lapis simply returned their praise with a terse, unreadable nod as she realized that their party was now one short for some reason. Mostly since that missing one among them had quietly slipped away long before her fight against that unknown catch had even begun.

“Welp, that’s my adventure quota for the day,” Greg concluded as he began putting the tackle box away. “I’ll be at the controls. Holler if you need me.”

“And I’ll be raiding that cooler to see if there’s any of that fancy orange juice left,” Stan said as he also began to head out. “Fishing’s thirsty work; it’s got me parched.”

“But Grunkle Stan, you were just napping most of the time,” Mabel pointed out.

“Yeah, well napping’s thirsty work too.”

With the adults heading off to their own devices, Mabel and Steven were more than ready to keep their excitable plans for the day going, even if fishing had gone somewhat awry. “Ok, Lapis, what do you…” Steven trailed off as they both realized the blue Gem had also stepped away at some point. “Lapis?”

For her part, Lapis had returned to the main deck, where it didn’t take her very long to find Dipper. He sat on one of the lounge chairs, his chin perched against his hands as he silently watched the dark clouds that were starting to roll in over the lake. And as the blue Gem slowly came to take a seat alongside him, she noticed just how tense and apprehensive his expression really was. She had every reason to suspect why that was, and couldn’t help but feel guilty that she hadn’t done more to try and change that. Though still, she figured now was better late than never.

“Dipper?” Lapis spoke up, finally breaking him out of whatever thoughts he had been distracted by.

“Oh! Lapis!” he started, quickly turning to her as he put on a clearly fake smile. “H-how’d fishing go?”

“It… went…” the blue Gem glanced down. “Why’d you leave?”

“Ah, I-I… just wanted a little peace and quiet, is all,” Dipper said, offering an excuse Lapis could see right through the moment he said it.

“Oh,” she replied, though this time, she refused to simply leave it there. “Dipper, a-are… are you all right?”

“What?” Dipper blinked, caught off guard by the question. “Y-yeah, of course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be? Are you all right, Lapis?”

Lapis flinched, not wanting to face such an inquiry, especially as she accidentally stole another small glance toward the lake once more. “I-I… l-let’s focus on you instead,” she countered as evenly as she could. “You’ve been so quiet all day. I know something’s wrong-” she hesitated, not wanting to give specifics about how or what she knew just yet. “So… if you want to tell me about it, then I-”

“No!” Dipper said, a bit too fast and a bit too forcefully. “I-I… I mean, it’s… seriously nothing, Lapis. You don’t have to worry about it. It’s really not important.”

“It’s important to me,” Lapis said earnestly, knowing, practically feeling that he was lying to her. “If something’s bothering you, then… maybe there’s some I can help somehow. I want to help.”

For a moment, the most Dipper could do was look to her in disbelief before he shook his head almost bitterly. “Lapis, I-I appreciate it, but really, I don’t need any help. Besides, today isn’t supposed to be about me; this whole lake trip was supposed to be to help you.”

“B-but I don’t deserve help!” Lapis argued far more fiercely than she had meant to. “Everyone’s so worried about making me feel better, but we should be worrying about you! Especially after what you went through!”

“After what I-” Dipper stopped short at this, confused. “Lapis, what are you talking about?”

The blue Gem faltered at this, knowing that the last thing she wanted to do was openly bring up what was obviously such a painful memory, but she couldn’t help herself. He needed to know just how much he needed this. “T-the deal, Dipper! I’m talking about the deal you made with t-that… that Bill guy that almost got you killed!”

Dipper froze, completely taken aback, upon hearing Lapis mention that terrible deal. A deal he’d done all he could to keep her from finding out about ever since she returned, for more reasons than one. “W-what… h-how do you know about-”

Before he could even get another stunned word out, the entire boat was suddenly rocked as something seemed to crash hard into the side of it below the surface of the water. Just as the ship seemed to settle once more, it took another heavy hit, one that nearly knocked Dipper and Lapis off their feet completely as they wondered to themselves about what was happening.

Mabel and Steven wondered the same thing as they took a detour on their way back to the main deck to stop by the bride to check in with Stan and Greg. “I-is everything ok, First Mate Dad?” Steven asked, concerned.

“Shh!” Greg quieted, glancing up from the boat manual he’d been pouring over. “You hear that?”

The group paused to listen for any further disruption below the boat, but strangely, they were only met with silence on all sides. “Uh… no?” Mabel frowned, confused.

“Maybe whatever it was is gone now,” Steven theorized.

“Well, at least that’s one good thing,” Greg sighed. “I think something’s wrong with the boat.”

“Augh!” Stan growled, trying his hardest to move the boat’s otherwise stiff wheel. “Nope, something’s definitely wrong with the boat. The rudder won’t move for anything. Something down there must be throwing it off.”

Mabel let out a sharp, dramatic gasp at this. “Maybe it’s the Gobblewonker!”

“Or Mr. McGucket’s Gobblewonker robot!” Steven added just as zealously.

“Would you two pipe down?” Stan rolled his eyes as he began fiddling with the ship’s control panel. “It’s not a robot or some stupid lake monster. We probably just hit a rock or something. What’s that manual of yours have to say, Greg?”

“I-it’s really not any help,” the former rock star frowned as he flipped through the book. “It’s mostly just advice on sun tanning and what crackers go with caviar!”

“Well, what crackers go with caviar?” Steven asked.

“Water crackers!”

“Ayyyy!” the pair exclaimed, exchanging a set of wry, playful grins. The levity was immediately broken, however as the boat violently shook once more, this time accompanied by a small, yet prominent explosion from somewhere inside the ship itself. The group wasted no time in rushing down to the boat’s small engine room, though as soon as Greg pried open the hatch, thick, dark smoke immediately started pouring out from it.

“Oh, crud! The engine!” Greg exclaimed, distraught. “I-I don’t know anything about fixing an engine! Do you, Mr. Pines?”

“Er… I can take a swing at trying, but I can’t make any promises,” Stan said as he began looking over the busted engine. “But either way, we’re gonna be out here for a while…”

Mabel and Steven exchanged a fretful glance upon hearing this, but all the same, they left the pair to work on the engine so they could relay the unfortunate message to the boat’s other two passengers. In the aftermath of the explosion and how it shook but the boat once again, Lapis was in the midst of helping Dipper back up onto his feet, checking over him to make sure he was unharmed as Steven and Mabel arrived.

“Uh, guys?” the young Gem spoke up. “We have some… not-so-great news. There’s trouble with the engine and… it looks like we’re stuck out here for now…”

“Great…” Dipper muttered as Lapis let out a low, disappointed sigh. “As if anything else could go wrong today…”

“W-well, let’s try to look on the bright side!” Mabel chimed in. “At least it’s not raining!” Almost at that exact moment, however, raindrops began sprinkling down from the dark, dreary skies above, growing more steady with each passing second. “...How did I do that…?” Mabel wondered, amazed by her apt timing.

“I-I’m sorry!” Steven professed to Lapis in particular. “This whole thing is our fault! We just wanted you to have fun, but everything’s turned into a mess. We shouldn’t have made you come on this trip…”

“No,” Lapis spoke up, her tone cold as she turned to face the side of the ship. “It’s my fault. I’m the one to blame.”

“What?” the young Gem shook his head. “No, it’s not-”

“I’m really trying to enjoy it out here, but… I can’t stop thinking about being fused as Malachite,” Lapis confessed, not even noticing Dipper tense up beside her at the mere mention of the twisted fusion. “How I used all my strength to hold her down in the lake, and how I was always battling against Jasper to keep her bound to me…”

“Lapis…” Steven began, though Dipper was quick to interject before he could say anything else.

“W-what does any of that even matter anymore?!” he countered harshly, clearly agitated by the mere discussion alone. “That’s all over now! Malachite’s gone. You don’t have to be with Jasper ever again!”

“T-that’s not it…” Lapis said quietly, shame filling her expression as she finally glanced back at the kids behind her to reveal the horrible truth. “I… I miss her…”

“What?!” All three of the kids exclaimed, shocked by the very thought.

“W-we were fused for so long…” the blue Gem practically whispered, shaken as she wrapped her arms around herself tightly.

“But… she’s terrible!” Steven protested anxiously.

“I’m terrible!” Lapis argued, fully turning to the trio. “I did horrible things! I left Ford behind on Homeworld! I stole the lake! Go on! Tell me I’m wrong!”

Steven and Mabel were more than prepared to try and do exactly that, but once again, Dipper beat them both to the chase on a seemingly different tangent entirely. “You miss her…” he began, letting out a bitter scoff as he did. “Even after everything she put you through, after everything she did?! After everything I did to try to help you?!”

“Dipper-” Lapis tried to counter, though he was far too incensed to back down now.

“I know what you went through was awful, I get that. But you have no idea what I put myself through to just to get you back!” he practically shouted, outraged that she’d make light of all the sacrifices he’d made by so much as hinting that she wanted to go back to what he’d only barely managed to help rescue her from. “I was ready to do nothing else but sit on the shore for the rest of the summer waiting for you! I stayed awake for nights on end trying to figure out a way to help you! I risked my life several times against Malachite and you did basically nothing to stop her! And worst of all, you asked me about that deal I made with Bill earlier? Well, you wanna know why I even did that in the first place?”

“Dipper, stop-” Mabel tried to interject, especially as she noticed the growing, fearful alarm in Lapis’ eyes brought on by his outburst. Yet even so, he kept going with the truth he could no longer keep buried under the surface, even for as horrible as it was.

“For you, Lapis!” he finished, tears starting to brim in his eyes even against his immense fury. “I nearly lost my body, my life‒all because I wanted to save you! And what do you want, even after all that? To go back to being with Jasper, back to being Malachite, like the rest of us‒like I don’t even matter!”

For a moment, the most Lapis could do in response to such a harsh accusation was remorsefully accept it, largely because she had no idea how to argue against it. Because really, if all that was indeed true, if Dipper really had almost lost so much in a last-ditch effort to help her, then that was just another reason--perhaps the very worst of all--on the already substantial list as to why she didn’t deserve any sort of kindness or support at all after every terrible thing she’d done.

Once again, Steven and Mabel wanted to speak up to try and ease the heavily palpable tension between the pair, yet before they could, that tension was broken altogether by the boat heavily jolting once more. This time, however, the steady tremors didn’t stop as something heavy latched onto the ship’s anchor chain, lurching the entire vessel to the side as something, or rather someone, began to climb up it. For a few breathless, uncertain seconds, the group on board glanced around frantically, unsure of what was happening. That is, until that someone finally reached the deck itself, the last Gem any of them could have expected--or wanted--to see: Jasper.

The orange Gem easily heaved herself onto the boat, ignoring the shared gasps of shock from everyone else as she rose to properly stand, a wide, almost demented grin spread across her face as she set her sights on Lapis in particular. “Finally,” she said, a burst of heavy thunder crashing over the lake at the exact same time. “I thought I’d never catch up to you!”

“J-Jasper…” Lapis barely managed to choke, though at the same time, she instinctively held a protective arm in front of the trio of kids behind her. “You… you’ve been following us?”

“I’ve been following you,” Jasper’s menacing grin deepened as she took a bold step forward.

Lapis flinched back in apt fear at this, though Steven was the first to step forward, his shield already formed over his arm. “Stay back!” he shouted bravely as he came to stand between the two Gems. Likewise, Mabel brazenly joined him, even without her grappling hook (which she hadn’t brought along on the trip) in hand. Dipper, on the other hand, hung back behind Lapis, taking a small step backward as he watched the frightening situation unfold carefully, quietly. Just out of Jasper’s notice all the while.

For her part, Jasper let out a twisted, amused laugh as she glanced down at the young pair before her haughtily. “This dulled-down version of Rose Quartz works for you now? Along with one of her dumb human pets?” she sneered callously as she nodded back up to Lapis. “You’re pointing that shield the wrong way. She’s the one you should be afraid of.”

“T-that’s not true,” Lapis tried to protest, though there was no conviction behind her words.

“You can’t lie to me,” Jasper asserted. “I’ve seen what you’re capable of. I thought I was a brute, but you… you’re a monster.”

Lapis froze, terror filling her entire form, though it was hardly aimed at Jasper. Instead, it was fear reserved solely for herself, for what she knew she could do, what she had done. Fear that what the orange Gem had just said was true; that she really was a monster after all. “I-I…” she trailed off, unsure of how to argue against that blatant truth. Even if Steven and Mabel were more than ready to do that for her.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Mabel defended, resolute.

“Yeah! Lapis doesn’t want anything to do with you!” Steven added just as firmly as he held his shield steady.

Jasper let out a severe, aggravated growl at this show of resistance, one that she didn’t hesitate to remove from her path through sheer force alone. “This is between US!” she shouted, brutally lashing out at the pair. Fortunately, Steven’s shield took the brunt of the heavy blow, but it was still enough to send them both flying across the deck, resulting in them roughly landing quite a ways behind the orange Gem.

“Steven! Mabel!” Lapis anxiously called, aptly alarmed. Likewise, Dipper nearly made his first move to join the confrontation, though he stopped short upon seeing that Steven and Mabel were largely fine, if not a bit disoriented from the attack.

At the same time, Jasper stopped Lapis in her tracks, tightly grabbing her by the wrist with both hands as she fell to her knees before the blue Gem. And then, she looked up to her manically, almost desperately even as she made her horrific proposal. “Let’s be Malachite again!”

Needless to say, Lapis was completely caught off guard by such a bizarre, demented request as she practically felt the orange Gem’s obvious madness from the tightness of her clinging grip alone. “Why… why would you want that?!” she dared to ask, unable to imagine why anyone would willingly, eagerly desire to go back to being chained down and trapped like Jasper had been with her.

“I was wrong about fusion!” the orange Gem professed with an unhinged smile. “You made me understand! Malachite was bigger and stronger than both of us! We could fly!”

“L-Lapis!” Steven shouted as he began to help Mabel back up. “Don’t listen to her!”

“Stay out of this!” Jasper barked back at him as she stood once more.

At the same time, Lapis shook her head incredulously, her thoughts racing far too fast for her to even try to keep up with any of them. “I… I was terrible to you…” she began, her voice shaking just as much as her entire body was. “I liked taking everything out on you. I needed to‒I hated you! Malachite hated existing so much! It was bad!”

“I-it’ll be better this time!” Jasper argued, taking her hands once more, even as she tried to pull them away. “I’ve changed! You’ve changed me! I’m the only one who can handle your kind of power! Together, we’ll be unstoppable!”

Somewhere in the distance, thunder echoed off the lake once more, though Lapis barely heard it as she let Jasper take her hands once more. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as everything else grew hazy and distant, save for the orange Gem and what she was trying to promise her, what she was trying to get from her. And for the briefest of moments, that offer, that plea, almost sounded tantalizing. Because if Jasper was right about anything, it was that Malachite was powerful, that she had felt powerful while they were together. That, for the first time in centuries of being trapped and lost and alone, she had felt strong, she had felt like she had actually been in control of something, even if that something was a twisted, self-loathing mess of a fusion. It was an appeasing kind of control, even if it came at the expense of someone else and even herself. And for the briefest, tiniest of moments, she honestly considered taking that control for herself once more.

And yet…

“And what do you want, even after all that?” Dipper had asked her just moments ago, tears in his eyes and anger in his voice. Anger that made complete and perfect sense, all things considered. “To go back to being with Jasper, back to being Malachite, like the rest of us‒like I don’t even matter!”

Is that what she wanted? Did she really want to tear herself away from people who she genuinely cared about, who cared about her in return‒people like Dipper and Mabel and Steven‒just to go back to someone she unquestionably, deeply hated like Jasper? Was whatever kind of demented control she had as Malachite really worth it to betray their trust, to turn away from their kindness, to do the very thing Dipper had accused her of by making his own sacrifices for her completely meaningless in the end?

All it took was the smallest of glances at Steven and Mabel far ahead of her, and perhaps most importantly of all, the most discreet look at Dipper still standing behind her, for Lapis to make the choice she knew she’d always stand by from here on out. Because she knew, above all else, what truly mattered to her most of all.

“No!” she exclaimed firmly, tearing her hands out of Jasper’s as she glared up at her bravely.

“What?” Jasper hissed, narrowing her eyes down at the blue Gem.

“What we had wasn’t healthy!” Lapis said, resolved and unshaken. “I never want to feel like I felt with you. Never again! So just go!”

“But Lapis!” Jasper tried to argue, though she didn’t get very far before someone else stepped in between her and the blue Gem instead.

“She said no,” Dipper began coldly, sending a relentless glare up at the much larger orange Gem as he came to stand protectively in front of Lapis. “So leave her alone!”

“Dipper… I…” Lapis trailed off, unsure of what to say. Yet even so, Dipper briefly glanced back at her with a small, assuring smile, one that carried the promise that he was on her side, no matter what happened.

Briefly, genuine surprise filled Jasper’s expression at this intrusion, until sharp, sweeping rage rushed in to take the place of that surprise instead. “You again…” she growled hatefully, recognizing the continually interloping human before her immediately. “You always have to come to her rescue, don’t you? You may have ruined Malachite for me before, but I’m not about to let you take her away from me this time!”

In an instant, Jasper latched out, though this time, it wasn’t toward Lapis. Instead, she abruptly grabbed Dipper by the arm and roughly yanked him toward her, pulling him out of Lapis’ reach even as she made a panicked, yet failed attempt at saving him. Of course, from the very moment Jasper latched onto him, Dipper began struggling against her heavy hold, though all his attempts to pull away and free himself did little against the orange Gem’s immense strength as she found a way to turn the tables on Lapis completely. “Listen, Lapis, you “care” about this human, right?” she asked, sending a disgusted, disgruntled nod down at Dipper as he beat against her arm with his free hand as hard as he could. An effort that she easily ignored, despite how desperate it was.

“L-leave him alone!” Lapis begged, her hands held up in tight, shaking fists as she looked between Dipper and Jasper anxiously. “Please, Jasper, this is just between you and me. He isn’t part of this. Let him go!”

“I’d say he is part of this since he’s the reason you even agreed to fuse with me in the first place! And he’s gonna be the reason why we fuse again,” Jasper retorted, tightening her grip on Dipper’s arm to the point that it felt like it was going to snap right in two. Lapis winced as she heard him let out a small, involuntary cry of pain, one that shook her to her very core, especially as Jasper continued her cruel demands. “Either you form Malachite with me right here, right now, or…”

“O-or what?” Lapis practically whispered, her eyes wide with terror all the while.

“Or I take your precious human here somewhere you’ll never be able to find him,” Jasper finished, her tone deadly serious.

“Dipper!” Steven and Mabel both exclaimed, aptly horrified upon hearing this. Without hesitation, they both acted on the same beat, joining hands as they prepared to form Maven so they could take Jasper head-on and save him. And yet, just before they could, Dipper managed to glance back at them, the fear in his expression obvious, though something else was there too. A certain sort of steadiness that came paired with him putting a silent hand up to stop them, almost as if he was sending them the unspoken message that he had a plan. Which, by all accounts, he did, especially as he noticed one of the decorative swords that had fallen by the wayside earlier lying on the ground just a few feet away from him.

“I… you… you can’t do that to him!” Lapis shouted at Jasper, furious yet deeply afraid all at the same time.

“I can, and I will,” Jasper coldly assured. “It’s either gonna be you, Lapis, or your human. Your choice.”

By this point, Lapis was nearly on the verge of tears as she glanced down mournfully. Because without even thinking twice, she knew what she had to do. She had already made the choice against becoming Malachite again on her own volition, out of her own desire to. But if it was for Dipper, if it could keep him safe now just as she had once thought it had before, then she would gladly, readily make that choice to give up her freedom again for him. For him, she’d do just about anything.

“O-ok…” Lapis whispered softly, sadly, as she prepared to return to the prison she’d hoped she’d never see again. “I… I’ll fuse with you.”

“Perfect,” Jasper said with a beaming, leering grin. Lapis simply closed her eyes as Jasper extended her free hand out to her once more, and yet just before it could reach the blue Gem, her approach was brought to a literal swift stop.

It happened in an instant so quick that Jasper didn’t even catch it until after it happened. A blade that was otherwise completely dull came down on her hand with such a great amount of force behind it that it sliced through her wrist completely. Her hand instantly vanished into particles of the light her form was composed of, and as she let out a startled gasp by the unexpected amputation, her other hand just so happened to release its firm hold on her captive that had done this to her in the first place.

Jasper only briefly paid any attention to her now stub of a wrist as she instead noticed Dipper, now free and armed with one of the decorative swords, taking his place between her and Lapis once more. The orange Gem glared daggers down at him, but Dipper met her ire evenly with his blade in hand, ready to use it in an instant if need be. “You will never, ever fuse with Lapis again,” he told her, his tone icy and unyielding. “Not as long as I’m around to help her.”

Jasper let out a loud, infuriated shout at this, her helmet forming over her head as she easily reformed her missing hand. “Then I guess that means it’s time to get rid of you ONCE AND FOR ALL!” she yelled, raising her head to bring down a vicious attack. Yet it was one that never landed, even though Dipper was brazely ready to face. For instead, at that very moment, Lapis reacted to rush to his rescue instead, throwing her hand up swiftly into the air. Along with the movement, a massive, powerful fist of water also burst through the boat itself, breaking through the boards just under the orange Gem’s feet before striking her hard. The incredible force of the blow was more than enough to send Jasper flying, not just off of the boat, but away from the lake entirely as she was helplessly flung far away into the surrounding forest. Her threatening presence gone for now, but hardly forgotten.

In the immediate, newfound peace that followed, Dipper let out the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding in as he lowered his sword and turned to Lapis with a small, relieved smile. “Lapis, that was-”

She immediately cut him off as she swiftly pulled him into a tight, protective embrace, her form still trembling with remnant terror as she rushed to check over him. “Are you ok? Did she hurt you?” she asked him frantically, holding his face in her hands so she could inspect it for any sort of injuries.

“N-no, I… I’m fine,” he assured her, placing a comforting hand against her arm. Lapis responded by loosening her grip on him, letting out a small, tired sigh though she hardly returned his allayed smile.

“Dipper!” Almost out of nowhere, the pair was caught off guard as Mabel suddenly crashed into Dipper, wrapping him up in a tight, elated hug. “What you just did was totally awesome! I mean, cutting off Jasper’s hand? That was like the most metal thing I think you’ve ever done, bro-bro!”

“Heh, thanks,” Dipper chuckled somewhat bashfully.

“And Lapis, you were amazing too!” Steven chimed in brightly, beaming at the blue Gem. “The way you stood up to Jasper was so brave! Not to mention how you sent her packing at the end there.”

“Yeah…” Lapis frowned, glancing away in shame. “Brave…”

“I-is everyone all right?!” Greg called as he and Stan turned the corner to arrive on the main deck. They were quickly met with a surprising sight, however, as they noticed the gaping hole in the center of the vessel, one that was quickly causing it to sink lower and lower into the water with each passing second.

“Geez, I probably could have fixed the engine in like, an hour or two,” Stan remarked, hands on his hips. “You kids didn’t have to go and just trash the thing like this.”

“W-wha… what happened?” Greg asked, aptly distraught by the irreparable damage.

“Uh… It’s… kind of a long story,” Steven said, leading the way to the highest edge of the boat. Lapis was quick to create another large hand of solid water, one that most everyone was easily able to fit on for the ride back to shore. The blue Gem stopped Dipper short of hopping on it however, as she instead silently offered him a different mode of transportation as she summoned her aquatic wings instead. He took the hint and climbed on her back, holding on as she took flight and guided the watery hand she’d made for the others across the lake, leaving the now abandoned, defunct vessel behind as it sunk into the water entirely.

“I guess I bought a boat after all,” Greg sighed as he watched the boat disappear below the depths.

“Yeah, one you can’t even use,” Stan remarked. “What a ripoff! Oh well, at least I managed to snag the treasure chest-shaped cooler on our way out.” He grinned, holding up said cooler for everyone to see.

“Ooo, well that’s better than nothing, right, Dad?” Steven said with a small grin.

“Yeah… I guess it is,” Greg agreed, fondly ruffling his son’s hair.

It didn’t take long for Lapis to get everyone safely back to the dock they’d started from, though instead of landing upon it herself, she instead took flight once more with Dipper in tow. “Huh, I wonder where they’re going,” Mabel said as she watched them take to the skies. “Maybe we should follow them? Just to make sure they’re ok?”

“...I think they’ll be fine,” Steven assured, keeping his sights set on the pair as well. “Looks like they just need some time to themselves.”

At the same time, Dipper couldn’t help but glance back at the dock they were leaving behind from his spot on Lapis’ back. Instead, she seemed to be taking him up toward the falls above the lake, something that couldn’t help but confuse him given her relative silence since the boat had sunk. “Lapis, what’s going on? Where are we going?” he finally asked her a moment later.

“...We need to talk,” was all the blue Gem said as she kept going, not even bothering to so much as even look back at him. The rest of the flight was steeped in silence on both sides, even as they arrived at the top of the waterfall cliff. Yet almost as soon as Lapis set Dipper down on solid ground, that silence swiftly, suddenly came to an end.

The moment Lapis landed, she was quick to turn to face him, her manner and tone quite severe, even though the underlying hints of fear and worry were clear in both as she spoke adamantly. “What in the world were you thinking, Dipper?” she asked. “What you did back there… Standing up to Jasper like that… you could have gotten yourself killed!”

“W-what was I thinking?” Dipper countered in disbelief at such a question. “I was thinking about how I was willing to do whatever I had to to keep you from fusing with her again! You’d already told her no, but then, when she threatened me, it was like suddenly none of that even mattered anymore!”

“It didn’t matter!” Lapis shot back fiercely. “Why don’t you understand that all that matters to me is keeping you safe?! Why else do you think I even fused with her in the first place?!”

“Oh, so what Jasper said is true, then?” he countered angrily. “The only reason you became Malachite to begin with was because of me, right?!”

“Ye--no!” she quickly corrected herself. “No, of course that’s not true! I… I just…” she sighed, bitterly. “I fused with Jasper because I thought it was the only way I could keep her as far away from you as possible. That’s why I was ready to do the same thing again today. I… I don’t want you to get hurt; I never wanted that…”

“Well, it’s way too late for that,” he scoffed coldly, crossing his arms as he turned away from. “When you fused with her, when you trapped yourself at the bottom of the lake, it did hurt me…” He paused, shaking his head remorsefully as he tried his hardest to fight back tears. “It hurt me so, so much because I knew, right from the very beginning, that it was all my fault. You were gone, a-and I missed you, and you were just down there suffering non-stop and… and I couldn’t do anything to help you. A-and every time I tried… I… things always just got even worse…”

For what seemed like ages, Lapis was silent as she watched Dipper take a solemn seat on the edge of the cliff. Not knowing what else to do, she joined him, waiting an hesitant moment or two before posing a question she knew she shouldn’t even ask. “W-what actually happened?” she began slowly. “W-with that Bill guy, I mean. Steven and Mabel told me a little, a-about how he tricked you into making a deal to help me, but… I don’t know much else outside of that.”

Dipper let out a long, weary sigh, placing his face in his hands as he finally decided to come clean. “It was stupid…” he muttered crossly. “I was stupid. He promised he’d help me figure out a way to save you in exchange for a puppet. But what he didn’t tell me was that I was actually the puppet he had in mind. So he stole my body, took it for a joy ride, intentionally hurt it--practically killed it, and nearly did the same to Mabel and Steven too until they barely managed to kick him out of it so I could take it back. But even then, i-it’s taken me a really long time to recover, both inside and out. Sometimes I wonder if I ever really will at all”

Lapis didn’t initially say a word in response to this tale of incredible woe as she let it sink in, along with the heavy wave of guilt that came along with it. “Y-you… went through all of that… because of me…” she said, her voice barely a whisper, though it was heavy with shame all the same.

“N-no, Lapis, I… I shouldn’t have said that earlier,” Dipper quickly countered. “I-I didn’t mean it, I was just upset-”

“And you have every right to be!” Lapis interrupted sharply. “You were right, Dipper; you did so much to try and help me, a-and what did I do? I nearly went and fused with Jasper all over again like it was nothing!”

“But you were going to do it for me,” he retorted firmly. “And that’s not nothing.” Unsure of what else to say, he sighed once more, lying back to lay in the grass as his feet dangled over the edge of the cliff. It didn’t take Lapis to join him, and for a long, quiet, almost peaceful moment, the pair rested in silence, watching as the stormy clouds above began to clear out for sunny skies once more. “Isn’t that messed up?” Dipper finally said with a small, yet bittersweet laugh. “How we both put ourselves through something so terrible just so we could try to help each other?”

“Yeah…” Lapis muttered fretfully. “It is…”

“Maybe… maybe that’s not how this is supposed to be,” Dipper continued, his tone sincere. “There’s gotta be better ways to protect your friends out there than losing your body to a psychotic demon or trapping yourself in an unstable fusion deep below a lake.”

“Well, if there is, I’d love to hear it,” the blue Gem remarked as she rested her hands behind her head.

“...Sword fighting was what helped me,” Dipper said as he sat up once more. “It gave me a better way to keep the people I care about safe, a-and best of all, it finally helped me feel safe again when I wasn’t sure if I ever world. So… maybe we just need to find something like that for you too.”

“We could always start with fishing,” Lapis joked, eliciting a small, warm laugh from Dipper that she couldn’t help but join in on. Once the beat of much-needed levity passed, however, there were still hints of worry lingering in the air between them.

“Lapis…” Dipper began earnestly. “Are you alright after… well, everything?”

“Yeah,” the blue Gem nodded as she properly sat up herself. “I think I’ll be ok. What about you? Steven and Mabel mentioned something about you having… ‘nightmares’?”

“Oh, those…” Dipper frowned, wishing that the pair hadn’t been so presumptive, even if they were correct. “They’re just… I-I… I don’t know where they’re coming from. I mean, Bill is a dream demon so I guess it makes sense that he keeps showing up in my dreams, but, it’s not like he can really do anything since Grunkle Ford and I put that barrier up to keep him from getting into the shack. Still, I-I don’t know, it’s just… weird. Nobody’s even heard anything from Bill in a really long time and now suddenly, right out of nowhere, he keeps popping up in my nightmares again when he hasn’t in weeks? I know I’m probably wrong‒I hope I’m wrong, but… I can’t help but feel like something really… bad is about to happen soon…”

“Well, if this ‘Bill Cipher’ does show up trying to hurt you again,” Lapis began with a hint of firm resolve in her tone. “Then you better believe I’ll make sure he never gets the chance to again. He won’t mess with you again, not as long as I’m around.”

Dipper couldn’t help but smile upon hearing this, knowing that this comforting promise essentially echoed his own to the blue Gem. And perhaps, if the need ever arose again, then they could both find better ways to keep those promises than they had before, in the hopes that they would never need to be so cruelly separated as they’d been before ever again.

A beat of gentle, contented silence passed between the pair just as the late afternoon sun started to set beyond the distant cliffs. It cast a bright, almost golden glow upon the waters of the lake far below them, a lake that had once been a place of such strife for them both, but now, only seemed to radiate peace and tranquility instead. “You know,” Dipper said with a soft, easy smile as he enjoyed the view. “The lake really is beautiful from up here.”

“Yeah,” Lapis earnestly agreed as she gently, affectionately ruffled his hair. She had no doubts she’d always treasure moments like these, because even if they’d been so hard fought for by sacrifices and guilt and grief on both of their ends, they were moments they’d finally managed to somehow win at long, long last. “It is.”

#again pelase read this on ao3 or ff.net instead dumblr is blueh #jen writes #universe falls #steven universe #gravity falls #steven universe gravity falls crossover #crossover fanfic #au #alone on the lake #lapis #dipper #mabel #steven #jasper #greg #stan #alone at sea #keyword is fishing

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minijenn · 6 years ago

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Universe Falls Chapter 55

Meh so yeah another meh chapter but that’s fine. Its one step closer to the good stuff I know this arc has to offer. Either way I guess there are... decent parts about it... I guess. But whatever. Here ya go.

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/175344462879/universe-falls-chapter-54

Chapter 55: The Stanchurian Candidate

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Since he no longer had the portal to work on in secret each night, Stan had recently taken to falling into a much more regular sleeping schedule than he had been keeping for the past 30 years. Still, that additional sleep hardly did much to help his largely exhausted and aching bones, which was something he was acutely aware of every morning when he woke up, and this one was no exception to that.

“Ugh…” the conman groaned to himself as his eyes slowly opened. The comfort of his bed attempted to tether him down to it, but unfortunately he knew that with work to be done in the gift shop and the museum, he couldn’t just lay about all day, as much as he wished he could. “Alright, Stan, another day, another random body pain. Here we go…” With a steadying breath, Stan slowly lifted himself up out of bed, only to feel a rather tight arthritic ache in his back. Despite his small hiss of pain, the conman forced himself to move despite it, only to receive another unfortunate surprise in slipping into his bedroom slippers only to realize they were strangely soaking wet. “Augh! What the-”

Stan stopped short upon noticing the unmistakably colorful, glittery note lying on his nearby nightstand, one that just so happened to explain exactly how his slippers had ended up becoming saturated sponges: “Dear Stan, I needed something to carry milk in, so I used your slippers. Love, Mabel.” Somewhat disturbed by his niece’s unorthodox idea, the conman shuddered but still kept his milk-soaked slippers on all the same as he tiredly trudged to the kitchen to get some quick breakfast. He soon received another unwelcome surprise, however, as he flipped the kitchen light switch on, only for the bulb to bust out as soon as he did. With an exasperated sigh, Stan went to retrieve a replacement from the nearby cabinet, but instead of finding any lightbulbs, he only discovered an empty box and another note in their place. “Dear Stan, I used these to build a planetarium suit for Soos. Sorry! Dipper.”

Upon reading this, the conman couldn’t help but let out another angry groan as he crumbled the note, feeling quite inconvenienced as he prepared to head out to the store to buy new lightbulbs. Trying to make this trip out as short and painless as possible, Stan quickly retrieved a new box of bulbs and headed for the checkout, only to soon receive another aggravation in the form of the group of teens who had gathered in line behind him.

“Whoa, let’s not take this line,” Lee remarked to Robbie, Tambry, and the others in the group in a not very discreet whisper. “There’s an old person in it.”

“Pfft, yeah,” Robbie agreed, his arm slung around his girlfriend’s shoulder as he rolled his eyes. “He’s probably gonna pay with like, pennies, or war bonds.”

“Hey!” Stan snapped, fiercely turning around to face the impetuous teens. “For your information, I was gonna shoplift most of this!”

“Security!” the nearby cashier called out, having clearly heard the conman’s blatant confession. However, as far as Stan was concerned, he was more than ready for the trio of security guards already running his way.

“Ha! Smoke bomb!” he proclaimed, tossing one down that he always had on hand. However, the bomb didn’t end up erupting due to its long past 1996 expiration date, much to his continued frustration. “Aw, seriously?!” he exclaimed just moments shy of being tackled by the guards, who promptly forced him to pay for goods that would have been much easily stolen if not for his apparent tactlessness.

With the drive home being as relatively uninteresting as always, the conman couldn’t help but smirk even in spite of his earlier misfortune as he thought about his plans to tell Amethyst about the twins’ annoying shenanigans and his own failed attempt at shoplifting later on so that they could plot out a scheme to get even with those who had wronged them. However, those plan quickly fell through as Stan was hit was the all too harsh reminder that he hadn’t spoken with the purple Gem since the portal incident really. Based on the hints she had given him the last time they had seen each other, as well as what he heard from the kids, Amethyst was apparently still quite upset with him, but, for the most part, he didn’t quite understand. True, there had been plenty of times in the past when the two of them had had their petty differences, but never had the radio silence of anger lasted between the pair for this long. Of course, Stan knew that he could always follow up on the advice Steven had given him the other day and travel up to the temple to make amends with Amethyst himself. The only problem with that when it came to repairing their apparently tarnished friendship, the conman had no idea where to even start.

Even so, Stan put those thoughts aside as he arrived back at the shack, lightbulbs in tow and a small, relieved grin on his face as he headed to the kitchen once more. “Ugh, rough start to the day…” the conman remarked to himself as he looked down at the box of lightbulbs he was carrying. “But it’ll all be worth it when I fix that light bul-”

Stan stopped short in the kitchen doorway only to find the twins and Soos congregated around Ford, who was in the midst of, oddly enough, replacing the broken lightbulb. “Aaaaand… done!” the author proclaimed proudly, eliciting a round of relieved cheers from the kids and the handyman.

“Does anyone see this?” Mabel asked, throwing an arm out to Ford with a beaming grin. “This is what a true hero looks like right here!”

“I thought we were out of lightbulbs,” Stan noted, his already displeased frown growing at his brother’s apparent ‘heroism’.

“Oh, we were,” Ford acknowledged. “So I invented my own! It’ll last a thousand years and the light it emits makes your skin softer.” As the kids let out a round of impressed musing over this, Stan sighed in annoyance, something that the author didn’t seem to catch as he continued. “So anyway, where were you?”

The conman didn’t respond, instead making his disappointment rather clear as he dropped the lightbulbs he had just bought right into the nearby trash bin. A rather fitting place for them, he figured, since they were just as useless as he now seemed to be.

“Well, TV, at least you still appreciate me,” Stan remarked as he settled into his recliner before the television in the den. “Give me the good news.”

“This just in,” Shandra Jimenez announced on the news almost as soon as the conman turned the TV on. “The mayor is stepping down from office.”

“What?!” Stan exclaimed, startled by this very sudden news.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Dipper asked as him and Mabel entered the den, having heard their grunkle’s shocked proclamation.

“In a completely unexpected move, Mayor Dewey has officially announced his resignation this morning,” the news continued, showing the mayor himself give a speech. “In his lengthy tenure in office, Dewey was best known for the development of downtown’s “Dewey Park”, leading out in the “Great Handship Evacuation”, and putting town menace Gideon Gleeful behind bars, in actual adult prison. In his resignation statement, Dewey professed his belief that its time for Gravity Falls to be helmed under new leadership.”

“People of Gravity Falls!” Dewey proclaimed as delivered his speech to the rather bored crowd before him. “My family has been serving our fair town here for generations, ever since my great ancestor William Dewey pioneered himself as Gravity Falls’ very first mayor! His son followed in his footsteps, as did his son, and I followed after him to create the Gravity Falls we all know and love today! Now, I know how difficult it can be to say goodbye, especially to a mayor as charming and beloved as yours truly! But my days as your dutiful mayor must come to an end so I can really enjoy the finer things in life. Like spending my days practicing my swing out on the putting green or building expensive monuments dedicated to my legacy using tax-payers’ dollars. Speaking of which… I’m pleased to announce this!” The soon to be former mayor pulled the tarp off a nearby canvas, unveiling an artist’s rendition of a statufied monument featuring him and his trio of mayoral ancestors that had each presided over Gravity Falls in the past. “Mount Deweymore! Coming to a mountainside near you! Get your commemorative T-shirts, hats, and drinking mugs now!”

After this, the feed cut back to the newsroom, where Jimenez was currently leaning against her cohost, pouring out her joyous tears. “I-I’m sorry, its just… its been so long since we’ve had real news. I’m just so happy!”

As the anchor continued sobbing blissfully, her co-host was quick to fill in and finish the report. “There will be a town hall meeting this afternoon to discuss finding a replacement mayor.”

“New mayor, huh?” Stan mused thoughtfully, a smirk spreading across his face as a sudden idea came to him. One that could, perhaps, prove that he wasn’t so ‘useless’ after all. “Wonder who it could be…”

Like all news usually did, word of Mayor Dewey’s resignation spread fast throughout Gravity Falls, and as a result, most of its denizens turned up for the meeting in town hall that afternoon. By the time Stan, Dipper, Mabel, and Soos got there, there was hardly any place to sit in the rather tiny hall at all, though fortunately they found a seat thanks to Steven, who happened to notice them enter and immediately waved them over to join him and Greg.

“Hey, you guys!” the young Gem greeted the Pines as they sat down next to him. “Can you believe Mayor Dewey is retiring? It feels like he’s been the mayor of Gravity Falls since forever!”

“Well, ever since before I came here, at least,” Greg added with a small smile.

“Whoa… then that means he’s been in charge for a super long time, huh?” Mabel mused, aptly amazed.

“Uh… w-well not that long,” the former rock star chuckled, somewhat flustered by the implication.

“Dewey’s been the head honcho around here for too long if ya ask me,” Stan remarked, crossing his arms. “It’s about time someone else takes charge and starts running this town right for a change. And by right, I mean getting rid of that stupid van with that dumb giant head of his sticking up on the roof of it. Its literally the tackiest thing I’ve ever seen; and considering I run the Mystery Shack, that’s saying something.”

Almost as soon as the conman had finished his rant, Mayor Dewey took the podium up front to begin the proceedings. “Alright, everyone, settle down, its my turn to speak!” the gathered crowd quieted down at this, yet for some reason the mayor continued cautioning them to silence. “Ah ah ah! I said quiet down! And… thank you. Now, we’re here to choose a new mayor for the first time since I humbly took the position over from my father several years ago. I realize that the shoes I’m leaving behind are metaphorically very big ones, despite the fact that I personally only wear a size 8!” Dewey paused for a beat, waiting to get a reaction from the crowd to his joke, only to be met with awkward, understanding silence, prompting him to continue in exasperation. “A-anyway… According to the town charter,” the mayor pulled open a rather old scroll, one that released a good bit of dust and moths as soon as he unfurled it. “A worthy mayoral candidate is defined as anyone who can cast a shadow, count to ten, and throw his hat into the provided ring.”

Dewey motioned down to below the podium, where Sherriff Blubbs and Deputy Durland were placing a large hoop down onto the floor. Almost as soon as they put it down, however, the first hat fell into it, one that was boldly thrown in by a certain used car lot owner.

“Well now! I do believe I fulfill all the requirements!” Bud exclaimed, rising from his seat and surprising a good majority of the townsfolk by this unexcepted claim to candidacy.

“Wait, Bud Gleeful?” Dipper asked incredulously.

“As in, Gideon’s dad?” Steven echoed just as concerned.

“He looks good! Ya know, considering we threw his son in jail,” Mabel noted.

“That was a good day,” Stan remarked, leaning back into his seat with a satisfied grin.

“May I, Mayor?” Bud asked Dewey as he walked up to the podium.

“Be me guest,” the current mayor backed off, far more interested in selling his ‘commemorative mayor-mobilia’ off to the side of the stage than really spearheading this meeting any further.

“Now folks,” Bud began, addressing the crowd with a flair of southern sincerity. “I know our family’s had its fair share of whoopsie daisies in the past. But I’d like to make up for it by formally announcin’ my candidacy for mayor of Gravity Falls! Any questions?”

“Yes!” Toby Determined exclaimed, standing up with a microphone and notepad in hand. “Are you still in contact with Lil’ Gideon?”

“That’s a great question—I’m givin’ you 50% off a used car!” Bud quickly diverted, essentially taking all thought away from the Gideon question altogether.

“Fifty percent? FIFTY PERCENT!” Toby cried, ripping his notepad clean in half out of sheer excitement alone.

“In fact, everyone look under your seats!” Bud proclaimed as the townsfolk did so to find half off coupons placed under every one of them. “You get 50% off a used car! And you get 50% off a used car!”

“Wow, a colorful piece of paper?” Mabel remarked in amazement as she retrieved her own coupon. “He’s got my vote!”

“Guys, I’ve got a really bad feeling about Bud Gleeful as mayor,” Dipper said, rather aptly worried.

“I dunno, dude,” Soos remarked with a shrug. “Its not like we have a ton of good mayor options. Everyone in this town is a tad strange. Except, ironically, Tad Strange.”

“Hi, guys,” an exceptionally normal man sitting in the crowd greeted plainly. “Tad’s the name, being normal is my game.”

“Loving you, Tad!” Mabel exclaimed, pointing to him brightly.

“And I love bread,” Tad said, holding a slice of normal white bread up.

“Hm… oh! I have an idea!” Steven exclaimed, turning to Greg. “Dad, why don’t you run for mayor? You’re super wise and really dependable. I think you’d do a great job!”

“Aw, thanks, kiddo, but I don’t really know if I’m cut out for the whole mayor gig,” Greg said with a small chuckle. “Just cause I know how to play a mean guitar riff doesn’t really mean I know how to make budgets or pass bills. Plus, I don’t even have a hat to toss up there even if I wanted to.”

“Aw…” Steven sighed in disappointment. “Well… who knows? Maybe Mr. Gleeful really does just wanna make up for everything Gideon did and help the town out.”

“I doubt it,” Dipper remarked dryly. “It’s a shame Ford isn’t here. He’d run, and win! And be a great mayor!”

Up until this point, Stan really didn’t have too much to say about Bud’s unfolding, seemingly unopposed candidacy. However, upon hearing his nephew’s sentiment that his brother, of all people, would succeed at something like this above practically everyone else, including him, he found that he really couldn’t remain silent or inactive on the matter any longer. Especially considering the stakes at hand here if Bud really did end up winning after all.

“So, since everyone’s happy,” the car salesman continued with a warm, satisfied grin. “I’ll just take the oath of office now, sound good, Soon-to-be-Former Mayor Dewey?”

“Huh?” Dewey turned away from his cart of merchandise, apparently uninterested with the proceedings. “Oh, uh, yes, we’ll get to that in just a-”

The current mayor was interupted as another hat suddenly landed in the ring, a hat that was none other than an iconic red fez that unmistakably belonged to the conman who had just rose to the occasion. “Hold it right there, Bud!” Stan exclaimed boldly. “I’m taking you on!”

A collective gasp rose from the crowd at this, none of them having really expected any actual competition to come about, much less any from someone like Stan. Likewise, Dipper, Mabel, and Steven were perhaps the most surprised by this, all three of them knowing, despite the strengths that Stan did have when it came to things like showmanship, fraud, and lying, solid leadership didn’t seem to be among that list.

“Stanford?” Bud scoffed right off the bat as Stan marched up to the podium. “No offense, but you’re just some two-bit carnival barker! And your head is more ears than face!”

“Oh yeah?” the conman goaded crossly. “Well, your face is more fat… than… not fat!”

The crowd gasped once more upon hearing this slam, though needless to say that everyone present was quite engrossed in this newfound conflict for office, including Mayor Dewey himself.

“What do ya say, folks?” Stan turned to address the crowd brazenly. “Are we just gonna let Bud win? How about a real election for a change?!”

As opposed to a gasp, a rousing cheer arose from the audience, as several other townsfolk tossed their own hats into the ring just out of sheer excitement alone. While the conman doubted most of them would actually run, he was pleasantly surprised by the positive reaction, one that would hopefully continue as he set out on this daunting path to the mayoral office.

“Well, looks like we’ve got some competition here, folks!” Bud laughed, seemingly amicable. “Which I’m completely fine with!” However, as the crowd continued in their noisy frenzy, the car salesman’s tune quickly changed as he suddenly leaned over the podium and spun Stan around unexpectedly, his voice low and sour as he addressed the conman in almost a whisper. “I was gonna let bygones be bygones, Stan, but you just made a powerful enemy. I’ll win either way, and when I do, you might not like the Gravity Falls you wake up in!” Bud finished this rather ominous threat off by punching a hole right over the Mystery Shack in the large map of Gravity Falls hanging on the wall behind him. While Stan wasn’t that phased by this, the kids certainly were as they all let out quiet gasps of fear as the crowd began erupting into a round of wild, excited chanting.

“Election! Election! Election!”

“A-and don’t forget to buy your exclusive, limited edition Mayor Dewey pins on the way out!” Dewey attempted shouting above the crowd as they began to file out of the hall. “While supplies and my remaining tenure as mayor last!”

“Let the madness begin!” Sheriff Blubbs exclaimed as him and Durland set off the old, rusty canon near the hall’s entrance, officially signifying that the race for the next mayor of Gravity Falls had indeed begun.

“Wow, Mr. Pines,” Greg remarked, heading up to meet Stan up front along with the kids. “I never thought I’d say something like this, but good luck in running for mayor!”

“Luck?” Stan scoffed. “Please, Greg, I don’t need luck. I got plenty of charisma to carry me through this election. At least more than some obnoxious hick like Bud does.”

“Uh, Grunkle Stan, what are you doing?” Dipper interjected, getting right to the point of his lingering concern.

“Running for mayor!” the conman reiterated. “Did I… did I not make that clear?”

“Um… yeah, you did,” Steven acknowledged with a bit of an apprehensive, but still somewhat supportive smile.

“Grunkle Stan, its not that we think you can’t do it,” Mabel said hesitantly. “I-it’s just-”

“No, no, its ok, Mabel,” Dipper interupted before turning back to Stan and offering him the blunt truth. “We don’t think you can do it.”

Stan let out a bit of an exasperated sigh upon hearing this, but even so, he figured he’d be honest with his doubtful nibblings as he knelt down to their level. “Look, kids, Dewey randomly retiring like this got me thinkin’. I’m an old man, and I’m not getting any younger. My dumb brother’s research is probably gonna make him famous one of these days. And what do I have to show for my life? Do I really want ‘crooked grifter’ on my tombstone? How about ‘crooked mayor’!”

“Um, wouldn’t you want ‘honest mayor’ on your tombstone instead?” Steven asked rather tentatively.

“Come on, kid,” Stan rolled his eyes. “I may be a chronic liar while I’m alive but the last thing I want is to take a blatant lie like that to the grave.”

“Psst, you guys, we need to talk,” Dipper interjected, diverting Mabel and Steven as Stan continued detailing what few campaign plans he had to Greg and Soos. “I know Stan isn’t the best candidate. Heck, he’s even committing voter fraud right now.” He nodded back to the conman, who was currently trying to forcefully shove a large number of voting slips into the ballot box near the podium. “But Bud’s definitely up to something and we’re the only ones that can stop him.”

“You’re right, Dipper,” Mabel nodded affirmatively. “Besides, Stan has a kind-of charisma. How hard could getting him elected be?”

“Yeah!” Steven chimed in brightly. “Plus, who knows? Maybe Mr. Pines will actually make a really great mayor if he wins!” At this, the young Gem was met with a pair of very skeptical, doubtful glances from the twins, which was enough to quickly make him retract a bit of his idealistic confidence. “Or… maybe we could just get him elected and hope for the best from there?”

“That’s the spirit!” Mabel proclaimed, pulling out patriotic hats and stickers and slapping them on herself and the boys. True, getting Stan into the coveted mayor seat wouldn’t be the easiest task in the world, but considering the alternative, they had no choice but to try their hardest to see it happen all the same.

In only about one day’s time, the Mystery Shack had been completely transformed into the unofficial headquarters for Stan’s mayoral campaign. With ample help from Soos, Wendy, Greg, Candy, and Grenda the kids had produced a plethora of posters, buttons, stickers, signs, and flags, all of them bearing the same vibrant message of ‘vote Stan!’. A large part of the morning had been spent distributing these campaign promotions around town, but the afternoon had been reserved for something even more important than any of them: a radio interview that was set to be broadcast all throughout Gravity Falls. One that, if all went well, would give perspective voters the feel they needed as to what the conman was like and prompt them to lend him their much-needed support.

“Spread the word, pig!” Wendy quipped as she finished spray painting ‘Swines 4 Pines’ and ‘Bud’s a Dud’ onto Waddles.

“Come on, Lion, you gotta keep the hat on!” Steven urged his pink pet as he tried his hardest to position a campaign hat onto his fluffy mane. Of course, Lion hardly cooperated, instead opting to knock the hat off his head and bite down on it instead as if it were just a chew toy. “Lion, no!” the young Gem protested, trying in vain to pull it away from him. “Let go of it! We only had so many of those made. Lion!”

“Alright, everybody, eyes up here!” Dipper called, drawing everyone’s scattered attention towards the rather old document he had found for this exact purpose. “Ok, Gravity Falls’ elections are based on two events: the Wednesday Stump Speech, held on an actual… stump. And then the Friday Debate, wherein townsfolk throw birdseed at the candidate they like most. At the end, they release a ‘freedom eagle’, who will fly to the candidate covered in the most birdseed and bestow a ‘birdly kiss’ upon him, appointing him mayor.” A beat of confused silence passed at this as everyone took in the town’s rather bizarre election proceedings before Dipper finished, echoing their bewilderment. “I couldn’t make any of this up if I wanted to.”

“Man, who could have guessed that even the way this town elects is mayors is weird?” Greg remarked, somewhat bemused.

“Ok, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel exclaimed, beckoning the conman over to the phone she had just answered. “Are you ready for your first big radio interview?”

“I got my mouth, don’t I?” Stan deadpanned with clear confidence.

“Ok, you’re on with the candidate,” Mabel said to the radio station on the other line just as their segment on Stan began, one that Dipper, Steven, Soos, and Wendy were readily monitoring on the air all the while.

“You’re listening to Falls Radio: 24 hour news and bear rampage alerts,” the usual voiceover announced. “And now here’s the T-Man!”

“Hello!” Toby Determined greeted as awkwardly as ever before addressing Stan on the phone. “Candidate Stan, first question: How do you feel about the American flag?”

“Meh,” Stan shrugged with far too much honesty for the circumstances at hand. “I can take it or leave it, too many stripes. Next question.”

“What would you do to help educate our kids?” Toby asked next, carrying the interview right along.

“Ha, simple!” the conman replied with a broad smile. “Put them on an island and make them fight for dominance. Also, teach kids swears. That’ll bring them into the real world.”

Upon hearing this blunt tactlessness, just about everyone else in the shack looked to each other with apt worry, all of them knowing that Stan’s incredibly politically incorrect answers couldn’t possibly be helping to bolster his chances in the polls at all.

“What would you do about the crime in Gravity Falls?”

“Wait, do you mean crime in general, or just the specific crimes committed by m-” Stan stopped short as the line suddenly went dead as a result of Dipper cutting it just in time.

“Ok, interview’s over,” he said succinctly, knowing that he had just saved Stan from making things any worse in the nick of time. “Candy, what’s the damage?”

“Your approval ratings started at zero,” Candy reported, looking at a live feed of the polls on her laptop. “Now it’s a number less than zero.”

“You’re memeing fast and none of them are good,” Wendy added, holding up her phone to show a meme of Stan that read ‘one does not simply teach kids swears’.

“And the angry emails are already starting to pour in…” Steven noted, scrolling through his own phone. “Yikes, this one has just about every single word Pearl’s told me I should never say.”

“Look, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel began, calmly enough. “People are like smell markers, and you’re black licorice! Its not that you’re unsniffable. You just need to learn when to keep the cap on.”

“From now on, maybe you should just read our prepared remarks,” Dipper cautioned, handing Stan a short speech him and Mabel had collaborated on the previous night. However, despite their efforts, Stan simply laughed them off, pocketing the speech and dismissing it entirely in favor of his own charisma, or lack thereof.

“Heh, sorry, kids,” the conman remarked wryly. “I always say the words that come right outta my brain. If my head says that lady’s got an ugly baby, my mouth says, ‘hey, lady, you got one ugly baby!’”

“Oh boy… this is… pretty bad…” Mabel said to Steven and Dipper as soon as Stan had walked out of earshot. “At this rate, Grunkle Stan’s gonna lose for sure!”

“W-well, we can’t just give up!” Steven persisted earnestly. “Maybe we just need to come up with a new plan to help him win! Like getting some outside help from someone who-”

At that exact same moment, both Steven and Dipper gasped, their eyes widening in timely realization with two drastically different thoughts in mind. “I have an idea!” both boys exclaimed at the same time, both of them equally excited, though their hasty unison continued even still. “Oh! So do I! That’s great! Be back in a while! See ya!”

And with that, both boys ran off in opposite directions to enact their newfound ideas, leaving an aptly amazed Mabel behind in wake of their unplanned yet almost perfect synchronization. “…What just happened?”

“And he’s insisting on speaking his mind!” Dipper finished detailing the disaster that was Stan’s campaign so far to Ford, who had been leafing through one of his journals throughout most of the story, though he had listened intently all the same.

“So, this is an emergency,” the author noted, realizing the severity of the situation. After all, if anyone knew just how callous and loose with his words Stan could be, it was him.

“The Stump Speech is in a couple of days,” Dipper continued, not even hiding how worried he was. “And if he continues like this, we’ll lose to Bud for sure!”

“Hm… it’s a shame there isn’t some device that will allow you to control someone else and stem the tide of any offensive or uninformed remarks they could possibly make…” Ford mused before reaching a quick realization. “Oh, wait. Of course there is.” The author turned to the desk behind him and pulled out something that Dipper hadn’t really expected: a patriotically striped tie with a small golden dial attached to the front of it. “A long time ago, I designed a prototype for Ronald Regan’s masters,” Ford explained, handing the device over to his nephew. “Just get Stan to wear this, and you can make him a literal talking head.”

“Whoa…” Dipper said, astonished as he peered inside the tie to see a complex array of circuitry hiding within it. “This is amazing! And ethically ambiguous!”

Ford nodded, pulling out another, much plainer tie to go along with the mind controlling one. “As long as you wear the matching one, he’ll say and do whatever you want him to.”

“This is perfect!” Dipper exclaimed, excited at the new, much more safer angle they’d be able to take with this tie factored in. “Thank you, Great Uncle Ford!”

“Yes, yes!” Ford turned back to his work as he waved his nephew off, apparently unconcerned with the somewhat concerning implications of the device he had just given him. “Use it responsibly and all that.”

“And if we don’t help Mr. Pines win, then Gideon’s dad will be the new mayor! And who knows what’ll happen then!” Steven finished his own explanation of the recent happenings, his tone quite worried as he looked desperately to the Gem he had detailed this all too. Unfortunately, she seemed to be far from worried herself as she reclined on the couch, trying her best to block the young Gem out entirely.

“And I should care about any of this… why?” Amethyst asked, her expression set in a cold scowl as she kept her eyes closed and her manner bitter.

“I just told you why!” Steven pressed. “Gideon’s dad? Becoming mayor? Doesn’t that worry you at least a little?”

“Not really,” the purple Gem shrugged. “Besides, even if I did care, why would I wanna help Stan with anything anyway?”

“B-because you guys are best friends!” Steven implored, trying his best to hide the fact that his reasoning for asking Amethyst for help was twofold. Not only did he want to get some much-needed assistance in helping Stan win the election, but he knew that the pair had been at ends for quite some time now. And perhaps a chance to work together like the infamously well-suited team they were once more would be just what they needed to repair the usually strong bond between them. The only problem was getting Amethyst to agree in the first place. “I just think you’d make a really great running mate for Mr. Pines. I mean, you’re one of the Crystal Gems, a protector of Gravity Falls! A lot of people around here really do respect you guys and the things that you do. If adding you onto his ballot doesn’t help boost his ratings, I don’t know what will!”

“Ugh…” Amethyst groaned loudly, rolling onto her stomach. “Steven, this is a dumb plan, and its not gonna work. Nobody’s gonna wanna vote for Stan because nobody can trust him. I know I don’t…” she said in a rather low mutter. “At least not anymore…”

“But… b-but…” Steven stammered, stammering as he realized his ship was sinking fast on this and he had to do anything he could to save it. “But Mr. Pines could really use your help!”

“Oh he does, huh?” the purple Gem deadpanned harshly. “I guess that’s why he asked me to help him with that stupid portal, right? Oh wait, he didn’t. He didn’t even bother to tell me about that, did he? Cause why would he actually be honest for a change, even with me?!” With this angry exclamation, Amethyst rammed her fist into the wall closest to her, the bang rattling throughout the entire house and leaving a dense, anxious silence in its place.

It took Steven a moment to fill this silence, but when he did, his tone was solemn and sincere as he offered the purple Gem a sympathetic frown. “Amethyst… if all this is really about what happened with the portal… then why don’t you just go tell Mr. Pines about how you’ve been feeling instead of just staying up here by yourself and being angry about it? For you know, talking about it might help you both finally feel better.”

“What’s there to talk about?” Amethyst sighed, turning away from the young Gem. “Stan conned everyone for years, including me. ‘He’s the one person I really feel like I can be myself around’, ha, sure,” the purple Gem sardonically echoed what she had declared to her teammates in the portal room. “Problem with that is that he was never actually himself around me or anyone else for that matter. So why would he try and start being honest about things now, just cause he wants to be some big important mayor or something.”

“But he just wants to-”

“Forget it, Steven,” Amethyst huffed, hopping up from the couch to head into the temple. “I’m not helping him. Not now, not ever. I’m not as dumb as you think. I don’t need someone like Stan leading me on and lying to me and pretending like nothing’s wrong when just about everything is wrong. Especially now…”

Steven hesitated upon hearing this, a part of him wanting to leave Amethyst alone with her feelings that she clearly still needed to work through. But another, more persistent part of him had a feeling that getting her on board with this election campaign would help everyone in more ways than one. “Amethyst, I didn’t want to have to do this, but you leave me with no choice…” the young Gem began, his tone serious for a moment before he suddenly leapt at the purple Gem, clinging onto her leg and keeping her from making any further progress towards the temple. “Please help us!” he wailed, forcing tears as he kept his hold on her leg, even despite her attempts to shake him.

“Ugh, Steven, cut it out!” Amethyst exclaimed hotly. “Let go of my leg, you little weirdo! I already told you I’m not doing it!”

“But we need you!” Steven begged morosely. “If you don’t want to do it for Mr. Pines, at least do it for it for me, Dipper, and Mabel!”

“No, I’m not gonna do it for anyone!” the purple Gem argued back crossly.

“Pleeaaaaase?” the young Gem pleaded relentlessly. “I’ll do anything! I’m on my knees, begging for your help, and you’re the only one I can go to for this!”

“Says who?” Amethyst grunted, struggling to continue on to the temple.

“Says me!”

“Augh, Steven!”

“Amethyst!”

“Steven!”

“Amethyst!”

“Steven!”

“Amethyst!”

The purple Gem snapped around to fire another aggravated retort at the young Gem, only to stop short upon seeing the absolutely tearful expression on his face, one that made her anger start to melt almost immediately. “Oh come on…” she groaned, rolling her eyes. “You know I can’t say no to that dumb face…”

“So… you’ll help?” Steven ventured, still keeping the waterworks on for good measure.

For a moment, Amethyst said nothing, her scowl lingering as she crossed her arms and looked away. Steven briefly thought he’d have to resort to continued begging once more, but fortunately, the purple Gem’s ongoing resistance finally folded as she let out a deeply annoyed sigh of acceptance, knowing that, as far as the young Gem was concerned, she really had no other choice. “Ugh… fine… I’ll be Stan’s ‘running mate’, whatever the heck that means. But don’t expect me to be happy about it.”

“I won’t!” Steven chimed, instantly back to a wide smile as he jumped up off the ground, no signs of his former desperate tears whatsoever. “At least not at first. Who knows? Maybe that’ll change after you and Mr. Pines get back into the swing of being a team again.”

“Yeah, no, I seriously doubt that, Steven,” Amethyst remarked begrudgingly following the young Gem out the door to head down to the shack, though not before letting out a small, wistful sigh to herself all the same. “I seriously doubt that…”

“Make sure to get my good side, Soos,” Stan said as he posed for the array of campaign photos Soos was in the middle of taking. “We’re gonna need to show it off as much as possible since apparently the kids think I bombed the radio interview earlier.”

“I think you did a pretty good job, Mr. Pines,” the handyman said earnestly as he snapped another photo.

“You’re darn right I did!” the conman exclaimed. “Those runts don’t know squat about how a real politician gets it done. If the people want ‘honesty’ and ‘transparency’, then I’ll knock ‘em upside the heads with both of those things until they can’t see straight and they check my name off while they’re dizzy and voting!”

“Whoa… that strategy’s gotta be ahead of its time!” Soos complimented, duly impressed.

“You can say that again,” Stan grinned. His ongoing photo session was soon interupted, however, as Steven came bounding down from the temple, calling out for Stan all the while.

“Mr. Pines! I have some great news!” the young Gem exclaimed, coming to a stop beside Soos.

“I already won the election?” the conman guessed with a surprised smile. “Ha! I knew that bit about putting kids on an island to fight to the death would win people over!”

“Um… no, actually,” Steven frowned briefly before quickly perking up. “The good news is that I found a running mate to help you win the election!”

“A running mate, huh?” Stan raised a curious eyebrow. “Well… I guess that couldn’t really hurt anything at this point. Who exactly did you have in mind, kid?”

“Well, I-” Steven was cut off as Amethyst suddenly plopped down to the ground beside him seemingly out of nowhere.

“Yo,” she deadpanned, not to Stan, but more to Steven and Soos than anyone else. All the same, her manner was still annoyed and cross as she all but averted the conman’s rather surprised gaze.

“Aw, Amethyst! You ruined the surprise!” the young Gem pouted. “I was gonna make this big huge announcement and everything, but you came in too early!”

“Oh well,” the purple Gem shrugged, completely unconcerned as she crossed her arms and glared at the ground.

“Uh… h-hey, Amethyst,” Stan greeted almost hesitantly, offering her the sincerest smile he could muster. All the same, Amethyst didn’t really respond to it outside of a cold, apathetic nod, entirely rebuffing his meager attempt at friendliness and showing that she wasn’t really interested in it altogether.

“Um… w-well its really great to see you two talking to each other again,” Steven commented apprehensively. “The only thing we’re missing here his the whole… ‘talking’ part…”

“Steven!” Mabel suddenly interupted, poking her head around from the other side of the shack. “Come here! Dipper wants to show us something! Soos, you come too!”

“Oh my way, dude!” Soos called, already heading over.

“Me too!” Steven exclaimed before briefly turning back to Stan and Amethyst. “Um… why don’t you guys take some time to… plan out a campaign strategy or something like that? You know, maybe put that awesome teamwork you guys are so famous for to some good use?”

“Yeah, whatever, Steven,” Amethyst huffed dryly, not even paying the young Gem’s brief concern any mind as he hurried off to catch up with the others.

“So…” Stan began with a bit of an awkward cough after Steven had left. “The kid roped you into this whole election thing, huh?”

“Guess so,” the purple Gem shrugged again, still not meeting the conman’s gaze.

“Well, uh… glad to have you on board,” Stan said, trying his very best to not step on Amethyst’s toes, especially not now. “You wouldn’t happen to know a sure fire way to get people actually like me, would ya?”

“Not when it comes to you, I don’t,” Amethyst replied, her tone completely humorless when humor usually would have been.

Even so, Stan let out a small, anxious chuckle, one that was rather forced, even though he tried to play it off like it wasn’t. “Heh, r-right…” A somewhat lengthy, somewhat uncomfortable bout of silence followed after this, one that was more than enough to prompt the purple Gem to turn and leave for the time being. However, before she could really slip away, Stan happened to stop her really only on a whim and little else. “Uh, Amethyst, wait,” he began, hesitating as she stopped but didn’t turn to face him. While the conman wasn’t one to find himself at a loss for words that often, he certainly was now as he realized he had absolutely no idea how to convey what he’d been wanting to say to the purple Gem for quite some time now. So instead, he went with the only other thing he could really think of at the moment: callous humor. “Uh… you wanna teach some kids how to swear?”

At this, the purple Gem’s shoulders dropped as a result of not receiving what she wanted to hear and without another word, she left, leaving the still quite uncertain conman behind. “Oh, um… I-I… I guess not…”

“Whoa, thanks for the slamming tie, dudes!” Soos exclaimed to the kids as he unknowingly fixed the mind-control tie to the front of his shirt. “These stripes are so slimming!”

“So wait, I still don’t understand,” Steven remarked as the handyman walked out of earshot. “How is a tie supposed to help Mr. Pines win the election?”

“Like I said, Steven, it’s no ordinary tie,” Dipper reassured, handing its matching other over to Mabel. “Flip the switch and see what I mean.”

Mabel did so, putting the tie on and pressing its button. Almost as soon as she did, Soos seized up from his spot in the yard, his expression just about completely blank until his movements began to mimic Mabel’s just about perfectly, even as she decided to experiment a bit by breaking into song. “Oh-oh-oh! I’m a dancing dude!” she sang and the handyman sang right along with her, dancing perfectly in sync as she did. “I got some fancy moves and a bad attitude!” With this demonstration complete, Mabel flipped the tie off once more, laughing in apt surprise over how well it worked. “Ha! That was amazing!”

“G-guys!” Soos shouted up to the kids, back in control of his own body once more as he panted and sweated frantically from the prior experience. “S-something weird just happened! It was like I was outside of my own head! I’m really freaked out and-”

“I am Soos-tron,” the handyman quickly interupted himself, Mabel using the tie on him once again for another short test run. “Watch me eat this pine cone!” With that, she pretended to pick up a pine cone off the ground and eat it whole, something that Soos actually did until Mabel turned the tie off once more, resulting in the handyman going into a distraught frenzy once more.

“Oh my gosh!” Soos cried shakily, collapsing to his knees. “My entire life just flashed before my eyes! W-what’s going on?!”

“Wow! Mind control is awesome!” Mabel quipped, very impressed by incredibly technology.

“I know, right?” Dipper readily agreed. “With this, we can get Stan to say anything we want to. There’s no way we can lose to Bud now!”

“Um… I don’t know, you guys…” Steven spoke up hesitantly. “Using that tie to control everything Mr. Pines says and does… seems kind of wrong…”

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Steven,” Dipper countered evenly. “Letting Bud win that election. If he does, then for all we know, he could end up letting Gideon out of jail. And after the whole giant robot fiasco that nearly got us all killed a few weeks ago, that’s something I’d really rather not see happen.”

“Ditto,” Mabel added, sticking her tongue out at the mention of the child psychic who was likely still completely obsessed with her.

“I-I… I know…” Steven frowned apprehensively. “But I still think there’s gotta be a better way to get Mr. Pines elected than mind controlling him with that tie…”

“Well, I think we should use it.”

The kids all let out a shared gasp as Amethyst rounded the corner of the shack, her arms crossed and a hint of a sly grin playing on her expression. “A-Amethyst!” Dipper exclaimed, quickly hiding the mind control ties behind his back. “Uh… how much of that did you see?”

“Enough to get the gist of you guys’ plan,” the purple Gem remarked casually. “And I want in.”

“What?!” All three of the kids looked to her in surprise, none of them having expected her support on this idea given her usual camaraderie with Stan.

“B-but why?” Steven asked fretfully, alarmed that Amethyst would be alright with this.

“Cause its like you told me,” the purple Gem leaned against the side of the shack. “Stan needs all the help he can get to win this mayor thing, right? Well then, the way I see it, if ya got some weird tie that’ll take control of him and keep tabs on that runaway mouth of his, then we might as well use it.”

“That’s the whole idea,” Dipper nodded in stern agreement. “This tie is our best bet to getting Stan voted in as mayor. There really better route to go here, at least not one I can think of.”

“B-but-” Steven attempted to interject but Amethyst cut in first.

“No more buts, Steven, except Stan’s in that tie,” the purple Gem remarked dismissively, apparently seeing nothing wrong at all with wrenching just about all control away from her once longtime friend like this. “We’re goin’ through with the plan and its gonna work great.” Though Steven was still largely against the idea, Dipper and Mabel both let out excited cheers, relieved to know that they could save the sinking ship that was Stan’s campaign after all. As they celebrated, however, the purple Gem tucked herself back into the shadows, her brief smile turning back into a petulant scowl, one that hinted at her true intentions for agreeing to this scheme in the first place. “And who knows?” she muttered to herself. “Maybe it’ll finally be enough to get Stan to admit he was wrong… even if it is technically against his will…”

Since Gravity Falls had had few mayoral elections in general, much less any in recent years, it was no surprise that many of its residents showed up for the “General Mayoral Stumpston Speeches”, which, as the town charter dictated, were indeed held on a large stump near the edge of the forest. As the early proceedings of the meeting were underway, Stan gathered backstage with his ‘campaign team’ consisting of Dipper, Mabel, Steven, and Amethyst, who seemed much more eager about serving as the conman’s running mate as she inconspicuously handed the mind-control tie over to him.

“Here,” she said, practically throwing it at him. “Wear this. It’ll make you look less like a chump. Slightly.”

“Ugh, I dunno, do I really have to wear this?” Stan raised an eyebrow as he begrudgingly put the tie on. “It looks like a flag threw up on me.”

“Grunkle Stan, just trust your lucky tie,” Mabel assured with a sly, knowing wink.

“And now, Stanford Pines!” the call from the main stage, and with it, the twins were quick to push Stan towards the curtain.

“You’re on, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel encouraged. “Break a leg!” As soon as the conman had made his way up to the podium, she quickly slipped the other controlling tie on, though as the group had planned, she refrained from turning it on, at least for the moment. “Ok, we’ll only jump in if he starts doing badly.”

“W-well, maybe he’ll do fine and we won’t have to jump in at all!” Steven said, still clearly anxious about this plan as a whole.

“Hiya, there!” Stan greeted the large crowd before him a bit too casually as he leaned against the podium. “Stan Pines here. Let’s get real. Do you think the women of Gravity Falls wear too much makeup?”

“Y-yeah, no, jump in! Jump in!” Dipper quickly urged, especially as a round of disapproving mutters rippled through the crowd.

Mabel quickly did so, switching the controlling tie on and using it to turn Stan’s rather disastrous opening completely around. “Uh, what I meant to say is… you ladies all look great! And have you done something to your hair?” the conman pointed to a specific woman in the crowd. “Girl, you are workin it!” At this, the spectating women in particular nodded their approval of Stan’s apparently genuine compliments, none of them knowing that they weren’t exactly coming from him even as he continued. “Anyway, I’m Stan Pines. You may know me as the guy who accidentally let all those bees loose in that elementary school a few years back.” As a result in Mabel’s relatively tactfulness in revealing that alarming anecdote, Dipper was quick to take action and swipe the tie away from her, putting it on and giving Stan’s ongoing speech a much safer, more patriotic stance. “But I believe in things: America, freedom, Ameri-freedom!”

A few sparse applause came from the crowd at this encouraging statement, and by now everyone was at apt attention as Stan continued, or rather the twins continued for him. “Like my opponent pointed out, I may not have a pretty face, but if you want a candidate that will listen to you, well, I’m proud to be all ears!” The audience erupted into supportive cheers at this, ones that only amplified as Mabel in particular decided that Stan was going to give the crowd a show. “Now, watch me break it down!” From there, the conman busted into an impromptu break dance, one that got the crowd even more excited to the point that they continued cheering even as Mabel turned the tie off and Stan wandered behind the curtain in apt confusion over what had just happened.

“Grunkle Stan, that was amazing!” Mabel exclaimed as the group received him backstage.

“Uh, y-yeah, I guess it was,” Stan shrugged, still somewhat out of the loop. “I just… sorta opened my mouth and spoke from the heart, or… gut or something. And what’s that sound? Why are people jamming their hands together?”

“Uh, that’s applause, Mr. Pines,” Steven explained with a bit of an apprehensive smile. “It means that people like you and what, uh, you said…”

“They… like me?” Stan asked, peeking out of the curtain onto to find that the crowd was cheerfully chanting his name in nothing less than unbridled support. Support that the conman didn’t exactly remembering garnishing, but was more than glad for all the same.

“There he is!” Toby Determined exclaimed, running up to the group backstage with a camera in hand. “Mr. Pines, can we get a picture?”

“Yes, we Stan!” the group exclaimed in bright unison, all grouping together and posing for a photo for the paper. However, as soon as Toby had left and no other passerby were in the vicinity, Amethyst casually leaned over to Mabel and made sure Stan couldn’t hear her as she dropped her voice down to a whisper. “Yo, Mabel, lemme see that tie for sec.”

“Ok,” Mabel shrugged, seeing nothing wrong with letting the purple Gem test the tie out as she handed it over to her. A mischievous smirk crossed Amethyst’s features as she slipped it on, using it to instantly take control of Stan amidst his satisfaction for how well his speech had gone. And from there, the purple Gem saw no reason to hold back from the lowkey revenge she had been craving for quite some time now.

“Heya, kids! Its me, Stan!” Amethyst mocked and the conman followed perfectly along with her overexaggerated tone and movements. “I smell weird, my hair cut’s gross, and I gotta eat a ton of ‘fiber’ and ‘vitamins’ cause I’m super old and crusty and lame. I got a bunch of freaky secrets cause I think it makes me look cool but it really just makes me look like a shady creep.”

“Uh… Amethyst?” Steven attempted to interject, sharing a concerned glance with the twins at what they were hearing the purple Gem make the conman say, but she outright ignored their worry as she simply continued her string of outright embarrassment.

“And now its time for my shady old man dance!” Amethyst continued, barely holding back laughter as she guided Stan along in a haphazard, wild frenzy of a dance, one that was nothing really more than a reckless lash of limbs that ultimately ended in a jump that the conman likely wouldn’t have been able to pull on his own accord. But to the purple Gem, the best part of it all was the resounding rip that came from the conman’s pants as she made him land in a clean split, one that elicited a wild gale of laughter from her while also prompting the kids to intervene.

“Amethyst, what are you doing?” Dipper asked in apt confusion over the purple Gem’s odd behavior. “That tie isn’t a toy! We’re only supposed to be using it to help Stan win the election!”

“And we already did that, ya dork,” Amethyst huffed, her laughter dying down a bit. “Since it worked so well, I figured I’d just play around with it for a second. There’s no harm in that, is there?”

“Uh… there might be seeing as how I’m not sure Grunkle Stan can really move like that anymore…” Mabel noted with a frown, nodding towards the conman who was still in a controlled split much like Amethyst was.

“Amethyst, its bad enough that we’re using the tie to control Mr. Pines at all,” Steven said quite seriously. “But using it to make him say mean things about himself is even worse. You’re one of his best friends! Why would you wanna embarrass and hurt him like that?”

“I dunno, Steven, maybe cause I just do, ok?” Amethyst shot back crossly. “You guys need to lighten up. This is the most fun I’ve had since Garnet and Pearl got into that big Sardonyx fight. Everything’s been a total drag since then, and this is the only time I’ve actually gotten to enjoy myself since it did and I at least deserve that after all this junk’s been going down, don’t I?”

The kids looked to each other hesitantly upon hearing this harsh question, all three of them knowing that they couldn’t very well argue against her on that point. With Garnet and Pearl at continued ends as they were, Amethyst was very likely the one most caught in the middle of a conflict she really had no part in, and as a result, things couldn’t be easy for her. But as she playfully, albeit mockingly controlled Stan, it seemed as though she found some sort of odd catharsis, one that lifted her spirits higher than they had been in quite some time. Would it really be right of any of them to deny her the levity she so clearly needed, even if it was rather crass and shameless and questionable on all accounts?

“Uh… w-well, we-” Steven began, but once more, Amethyst was quick to cut him off.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she abruptly concluded before launching Stan into another round of embarrassment, this time in the form of using the tie to make him comedically walk into a nearby tree over and over again. All the while, however, the kids watched on in growing worry, all three of them sharing the slightest feeling that perhaps Amethyst’s sudden barrage of mind-controlled pranks on Stan had less to do with a sudden need for arcane fun… and more to do with something else entirely.

Throughout the rest of the week, the election continued onward, and with it, Stan’s popularity steadily rose as the twins continued using the tie to maintain every one of his public appearances. The conman’s ratings in the polls skyrocketed as the kids made him spout out patriotic and positive morale, morale that was more than enough to garnish the support of the somewhat dim-witted residents of Gravity Falls generously give him their unbridled support. While it was true that after each debate and speech was said and done, Amethyst always made sure to have her fun in using the tie to discreetly embarrass Stan in some way, for the most part the conman was none the wiser, and neither was anyone else for that matter. The uneasy start to Stan’s campaign was all but forgotten as he quickly took the lead in the election, and by most projections it was clear: the conman was going to pull a miraculous win and more likely than not become Gravity Falls’ new mayor. A very real possibility that some took much worse than others.

“Augh! Darnit! Gosh hand huckleberry honeysuckle darnit!” Bud shouted as he slammed down the latest newspaper proclaiming Stan’s growing popularity among voters. The other members of his campaign team sitting at the table around him were all rather startled by the car salesman’s frustration, though given his rapidly sinking chances, it was rather understandable. “Erm, excuse my language,” Bud quickly apologized, using a pamphlet he had on hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. “Oh, this is bad! This is real bad! I-I need to speak with my campaign manager, please excuse me for a moment.” With that, the car salesman hastily retreated into the other room of his lot, locking the door tightly behind him as he anxiously turned to face the bright television screen before him. “L-look,” he began nervously, gripping his hat tightly in his hand. “I’m sorry about all this. This is a minor setback, but… w-we’ll win. I’m sure of it.”

“Minor setback?!” Bud flinched as his ‘campaign manager’ on screen swiftly spun around to reveal none other than the incarcerated child psychic himself: Gideon. “MINOR SETBACK!? You listen, daddy, and you listen good! Prison is a nightmare!” He shouted petulantly, throwing his fist down harshly on the table before him. “I eat the same slop every day! They have no hair products in here! I can’t sleep cause my cellmate took my pillow for a wife! You think I’ve been havin’ fun in here?!”

“Hey, best friend!” another prisoner cheerfully greeted Gideon as him and another inmate stepped into the frame.

“Don’t be late for friendship bracelet class!”

“I have finger painting at the same time!” Gideon fiercely shot back, tossing a book on the table at the prisoners and prompting them to quickly flee. “The mayor resigning is my one ticket outta here,” the child psychic continued addressing his frightened father. “Which is why you’re gonna win this election, pardon me outta prison, and we’re not gonna let the Pines OR the Crystal Gems get in my way again!”

“B-but you don’t understand!” Bud protested earnestly. “Stanford’s doin’ great in the polls! Its almost like magic!”

“Hm… magic, you say…?” Gideon mused as a sly, sinister smirk crossed his features. “Well, maybe its time to fight fire with fire! I’ve been savin’ this for a long time…” The child psychic said as he pulled a withered old page out of his large pompadour, one that he had managed to hold onto from journal 2, even after the book had been confiscated from him at his arrest. The page itself was an ancient incantation for possession, one that would allow the one who spoke it to magically and easily take control of someone else entirely. “I’ve just been waitin’ for the right moment to use it…”

“Now, boy, we’ve discussed this,” Bud cautioned as firmly as he could. “No more spooky spells.”

“Well, Daddy, maybe you just need to have more of an open mind…” Gideon smirked, not bothering to hear any more of his father’s legitimate concerns as he began to read the incantation. “Lleps live ykoops, lleps live ykoops, live ykoops!”

As the child psychic continued chanting, not only did his volume steadily rise and his eyes start to glow stark white, but the lights in the room Bud was in began to ominously flicker on and off before the bulbs busted entirely, much to his alarm. “Boy, s-stop that!” the car salesman pleaded, though he was unable to really resist the spell as he fell back and grabbed his head in pain. “A-anything but that! Augh!” Unable to fight back against the possession his own son was pushing upon him, Bud’s eyes began glowing the exact same white as Gideon’s, one final fearful scream escaping him before the child psychic took full control, finally ready to exact his vengeance upon both the Pines family and the Crystal Gems once at for all.

“Alright, team, listen up,” Dipper began, his tone quite serious as he addressed Mabel, Steven, and Amethyst as they gathered at Greasy’s Diner for one final campaign meeting. “Today’s election day which means we have to be at the top of our game at the debate this afternoon. I was thinking that I start things off by appealing to the voters’ sense of logic before Mabel comes in with a round of encouraging promises and politically correct jokes.”

“Ugh, do we really need to plan all this junk out?” Amethyst huffed impatiently as she put her head against the table. “Stan’s basically already won, we got this in the bag. Why don’t you guys just let me have the tie and I’ll give that crowd a real show for a change?”

“Considering how you used the tie on Stan after yesterday’s speech and made him break a pickle jar against his head, I think that’s… a pretty terrible idea, Amethyst, no offense,” Dipper countered sternly.

“Uh… I have an idea!” Steven hesitantly raised his hand. “S-since this is the last debate, maybe we don’t have to use the tie anymore. Its like Amethyst said, Mr. Pines is already gonna win, so… m-maybe we could just… not mind control him against his will this time?”

“Oh what, so he can just be free to ramble on about how he thinks handicap parking spots should be outlawed or how he wants to round up a task force to run every 3rd grader out of town?” Dipper remarked rather caustically.

“We really should keep using the tie, Steven,” Mabel rationalized much more evenly. “Just to play make sure Grunkle Stan actually wins this.”

“And to make Stan shove a bunch of leaves down his pants,” Amethyst added wryly. “Cause that’s my idea of winning.”

Steven let out a small, disgruntled sigh at this, his general uneasiness towards the tie idea still ever rising as he received an all too blunt reminder that none of the others seemed to really care just how wrong this all was. All week long, they had been wrenching control that was rightfully Stan’s away from him, all without at least letting him in on the truth of their deceit, and in the process, they were tricking not only him, but the innocent voters of Gravity Falls as well. Their entire campaign was built on lies and facades that had only been accumulating more and more with each passing speech. And as a result, Steven was getting to the point that he could no longer idly stand by his friends and accept this trail of trickery. Yet as outnumbered as he was against the twins and Amethyst on the idea, the young Gem wasn’t sure if there was really much he could do to change their minds, or really even put a stop to it at all. Unless…

“Hey-o!” As if right on cue, Stan burst into the diner, clad in a more casual suit than his usual one as he sauntered in with apt confidence for a soon-to-be-elected candidate.

“Stan!” the diner customers all greeted him back brightly, his popularity among them needing no introduction.

“Now just the ladies!” the conman called playfully.

“Stan!” the women in the restaurant chorused warmly.

“Now just the ladies my age!”

“Stan!” a single old woman cheered, much to Stan’s chagrin.

“Woof! Never mind!” the conman cringed before taking a seat at the table where his campaign team was gathered.

“On the house, Mr. Big Shot!” Lazy Susan exclaimed sweetly, setting a pile of complimentary pancakes before Stan before heading off with a supportive salute.

“Now this I could get used to,” the conman smirked, preparing to dig in to his free breakfast before Mabel hastily stopped him.

“Grunkle Stan, what’s with the outfit?” she asked, noting that his tan suit wouldn’t easy be accompanied by the mind control tie. “You’re missing your lucky tie.”

“Power tie, gotta wear it,” Dipper added succinctly and seriously.

“Aw, come on, have you seen the polls?” Stan asked, rolling his eyes. “I could debate naked and still win!”

“Huh, now there’s an idea…” Amethyst muttered to herself with a mischievous smirk.

“Heh, seriously though,” Mabel countered with a nervous laugh. “We need you to wear the suit and tie, Grunkle Stan.”

“Suit and tie, gotta wear it,” Dipper punctuated once again, this time more insistently.

“Ugh, why do you kids have to constantly tell me what to do?!” Stan exclaimed hotly, clearly annoyed by their badgering. “You don’t see Amethyst doing that, and she’s my running mate, for crying out loud! Its basically her job to boss me around!”

“I’d try but its not like you’d actually listen anyway,” Amethyst remarked dryly, letting out an exasperated huff as she did.

“Besides,” Stan continued just as admantly as before. “Everyone in this town is finally showing me some respect! Maybe its about time you kids should too.”

“Well, maybe we’d respect you if you took things seriously for a change!” Dipper argued rather crossly.

“I am taking this seriously!” the conman shot back, slamming his fist down on the table. “If you haven’t noticed, everything that’s come out of this golden mouth has put us on top. With or without your dumb advice!”

“Uh, a-actually, that’s not… completely true…” Steven interjected, much to Dipper, Mabel, and Amethyst’s shared alarm.

“Uh… S-Steven? What are talking about?” the purple Gem said with a forced, anxious laugh, one that quickly turned into a disapproving scowl.

“Yeah, kid, what are you talking about?” Stan asked, raising a genuinely confused eyebrow.

For a brief moment, Steven hesitated under the scrutiny of the twins and Amethyst, but even so, he wasn’t about to harbor this immoral secret any longer, especially since he was actually under pressure to finally reveal it. “W-we’ve been using a special mind-controlling tie invented by Mr. Ford to control you during every one of your speeches and that’s how you’ve been winning so far!”

“Steven!” Dipper, Mabel, and Amethyst scolded in unison, their well-kept secret now completely out in the open.

“What?!” Stan exclaimed, looking to the trio with apt shock and dawning anger. “You mean to tell me that you four have been stringing me along like I’m some kinda puppet all week?! And you weren’t even planning on at least telling me about it?!”

“No, we weren’t,” Amethyst answered coldly and honestly. “At least until somebody decided to blab about it.”

“I’m sorry, guys, but Mr. Pines deserves to know,” Steven said, not regretting his sudden reveal. “I know you just want him to win the election, but what you guys have been doing isn’t right, especially you, Amethyst.”

“So I used the stupid tie to pull a few pranks,” the purple Gem scoffed. “Its not like its really worse than anything I’ve done before, right, Stan?”

“A few pranks?” Stan repeated, quite confused before he let out a gasp of realization. “Wait a second… that rip in my pants the other day… that pickle juice that got spilled all over my suit last night… that was you, wasn’t it, Amethyst?!”

“I dunno,” Amethyst shrugged, unconcerned by her mischief. “Might’ve been. It’s not like you have any proof.”

“I have the fact that you just up and admitted to it a second ago!” the conman exclaimed harshly, sending the purple Gem in particular a bitter glare. “You know, it’s bad enough that my own niece and nephew don’t have any shed of respect for me, but I never would have expected something like this from you.”

“Oh yeah?” Amethyst countered, sitting upright as her manner turned even more hostile. “Well I never would have expected you to keep so many huge secrets from me, so I guess we’re both pretty disappointing, huh?!”

“Yeah, I guess we are!” Stan shouted back, standing up from his seat.

“Well, if I’m such a disappointment,” Amethyst began, jumping onto the table so she could be face to face with the conman. “Then why don’t you just go ahead and find yourself another running mate?!”

“I might as well seeing as how you’ve done pretty much nothing to actually help me in this election or with anything else for that matter!” the conman exclaimed with brutal honesty before addressing the kids as well. “In fact, I don’t need any of you! You can tell that know it all Ford that he can keep his fancy light bulbs and magic ties! I’m gonna win this debate on my own, without any of you!”

As Stan began to storm off out of the diner, Amethyst hopped off the table, shouting angrily after him. “Yeah, go ahead and do everything by yourself without letting anyone else in! Its not like that’s a huge change for you after the past 30 years, is it?!”

“A-Amethyst, where are you going?” Steven asked with apt concern as he noticed the purple Gem beginning to leave as well.

“As far away from Stan as I can get,” Amethyst growled bitterly. “I hope he loses that dumb election for all I care. Maybe it’ll finally be enough to take him down a peg for once.”

And with that, the purple Gem made her exit, leaving the kids behind in a state shared of worry and dread over just how sour things had turned, not just between Stan and Amethyst, but for their hopes of salvaging the election as well. “This is bad…” Dipper remarked with an apprehensive frown. “Really bad.”

“I know! Amethyst and Mr. Pines were really upset with each other,” Steven said fretfully. “I’ve never seen them yell at each other like that. It was terrible!”

“No, not that,” Dipper shook his head before pausing for a beat and correcting himself. “Ok, yeah, that was bad, but I’m talking about the election! If we want to beat Bud now, then we’ll need to find another candidate, fast!”

“What we need is a blank slate,” Mabel mused. “Someone totally suggestive! An empty piece of clay we can mold to our whims.”

“Hey, a little help, dudes?” Soos interjected as he came out of the nearby bathroom, a large sweater stuck to his head by the sleeve. “I accidentally got my head stuck in my shirt sleeve. Guess this is my life now.”

Upon the handyman’s entrance, both Dipper and Mabel exchanged a knowing grin, confirming that they had indeed found their new impromptu candidate to take Stan’s place. Steven, however, was not so immediately on board with this idea. “Uh, hold on a second, you guys,” he cautioned earnestly. “Before we repeat this whole mind control tie disaster, I think we should at least let Soos in on the plan first.”

“What plan?” Soos asked curiously as he peeked out from his sweater at the kids.

“We wanna use this mind controlling tie on you so we can make you say what we need you to so we can beat Gideon’s dad in the mayor election,” Mabel explained plainly and succinctly, holding said tie up.

“Is that all?” the handyman asked rather casually. “Sure, I’d be down for that, dudes.”

“Wait, really?” Dipper asked, exchanging a confused glance with Steven.

“Yeah, I got nothin’ else going on today,” Soos shrugged. “I could spare a little time to become the new mayor.”

“Uh… well, its… good that you’re ok with it, I guess,” Steven said with something of a relieved, albeit bewildered smile. Really, all three of the kids were quite relieved to have found a spare candidate at such a short notice to fill in for the now rouge Stan. Only time would tell if Soos would actually be enough to carry them to the sought-after victory that, by all accounts, they needed to get.

In order to capitalize on his currently under construction “Mount Deweymore”, Mayor Dewey had ordered that the final election debate would be held directly under the progressing monument. The soon to be former mayor himself was in the process of selling commemorative merchandise for the half finished mountain while other preparations for the debate were underway. Voters filed into the stands, picking up handfuls of election birdseed on the way in that they would eventually throw at their favored candidate to guide the ‘mayor picking eagle’ in deciding who would win and who would lose.

Among this large group, Amethyst discreetly slipped into one of the higher stands, making herself rather scarce as a result of not really wanting to be seen here. In truth, the purple Gem wasn’t quite sure why she had even bothered to show up to watch the debate in the first place. She honestly had very little investment in the election as a whole, and after her recent falling out with Stan, she really had no interest in offering him any signs of her support, at least not outright. At the same time, she hadn’t really shown up to watch his entire campaign inevitably crash and burn as a result of his own infamous tactlessness either. The reason for her attendance here was really just as much of a mystery to Amethyst as it would have been to anyone else, but she had shown up all the same which meant that the most she could really do was wait and see whatever was about to unfold here, however successful or disastrous it might be.

“Welcome to the final debate in what is sure to be, on a cosmic scale, a forgettable blip in human history,” Shandra Jimenez began to announce the debate both live and to her camera news crew. “Here come the two most popular candidates!”

Sure enough, both Bud and Stan climbed up on stage and to their respective podiums, the latter’s manner oddly cutesy and charming, even as he brightly addressed the conman next to him. “Oh, hello there, Stanford! Long time, no see! Tee hee!” he chuckled, playfully nudging Stan with his hip.

“Don’t you ‘tee hee’ me,” Stan scowled coldly. “I’ll debate you into the ground.”

“Oh, but I have a widdle twist up my sweevy-weeves,” Bud remarked coyly, his eyes glowing the faintest blue though the conman didn’t really notice.

“You are making me very uncomfortable right now,” Stan remarked, eyeing his opponent suspiciously.

“But what’s this?” Shandra Jimenez questioned as the crowed ‘ooed’ in interest. “One new candidate has entered the ring!”

“Wait a minute, what?” Stan turned to see Soos sauntering up onto the stage, the mind control tie fixed around his neck as he blankly smiled and waved to the audience. The conman stole a brief peek backstage to find the kids there, obviously using the other tie to control the handyman just as they had been doing with him thus far, much to his fury, especially now that they were using it against him like this. “Why, those backstabbing little-”

“Let the debate begin!” Shandra announced, ringing the nearby bell as the open round of questioning began.

“First question,” Manly Dan said as he rose to stand. “What’s your opinion on axes!?” The lumberjack paused, squinting to read what was on the question card before correcting himself. “Wait, I mean… taxes?!”

“Easy,” Stan began confidently enough. “Taxes are the worst! I propose we stimulate the economy by waging war on neighboring cities. We have the canons!” Upon hearing such an unsavory idea, the crowd wasn’t afraid to show their disapproval of it through a round of loud booing, much to the conman’s worried confusion. “Uh, I-I mean…” he trailed off, looking through his notecards for help only to find none as the crowd continued reacting coldly. From her high up seat, Amethyst cringed somewhat at the poor reception, shaking her head as she realized that Stan really was quite terrible at this on his own. Not that she had expected him to be that great at it in the first place, but still, he had apparently surpassed even her own low expectations.

“I don’t know much about taxes,” Soos started next, the kids taking turns controlling him backstage. “But I can promise you a kitten in every pot. That doesn’t make any sense, Mabel. You don’t make any sense, Dipper! Guys! Stop fighting!”

Though a ripple of confusion filled the crowd at this bizarre display, Bud was quick to fill it with a much more appealing rhetoric. “Friends, friends!” he addressed the crowd warmly. “Can’t you see what’s happening on this stage? These ‘politicians’ are dancin’ around the issues! Well… I can sing around the issues!” With this, the car salesman tore his normal clothes off to reveal a loud, sparkly leotard underneath it, one that had a small screen bearing the American flag attached to it. With a showy flare, Bud caught the guitar that was thrown to him and quickly jumped into an upbeat song and dance that easily garnished the excitement of the crowd. “Oh crime is bad! Crime is oh so bad! Vote for Bud and there ain’t gonna be no crime! Crime’s bad! Vote Bud!”

As the car salesman ended his song with a flashy wink, the crowd cheered happily, throwing their round one birdseed right into his bin, showing their approval, much to Stan’s concern, as well as the kids’ backstage as the debate went into a short intermission. “We’re getting eaten alive out there!” Dipper exclaimed fretfully, pacing in front of Mabel and Steven. “Since when is Bud… creepily adorable?”

“And how did he come up with a such a catchy song?” Steven wondered, just as bewildered. “Seriously, that’s gonna be stuck in my head all day.”

“It doesn’t make any sense…” Mabel mused thoughtfully. “He’s almost acting like… like-”

“Widdle ol’ me.” All three of the kids spun around with a gasp to find Bud standing right behind them, completely out of it as a result of the child psychic on his screen, who was controlling his every word and action even as far away as his prison cell. Gideon smirked smugly as he regarded the trio, all three of whom were immediately on guard as soon as they caught sight of him. “Aha! Hello there, Pines twins, Universe. Long time no see! Except in my revenge fantasies where I see you three on an hourly basis.”

“Gideon! I knew you were somehow behind this!” Dipper exclaimed admantly. “You’ve been controlling Bud!”

“And it seems you’ve been controlling Stanford!” Gideon countered knowingly. “I figured it was the three of ya. You’ve gotten much eviler since the last time I saw you.”

“Uh, just for the record, I really never approved of the whole mind control plan to begin with,” Steven said with an earnest shrug.

“Well, regardless of whose idea it was, I’m sorry to tell ya’ll that it ends right here, right now! Daddy!” Gideon snapped his fingers, ordering his possessed father into action. Before any of the kids could even have a chance to flee, the surprisingly strong car salesman rounded all three of them up, securing them tightly in his hold and toting them to the service elevator that led up to Mount Deweymore. Despite their cries of protest and intent attempts at struggling to break free, Steven, Dipper, and Mabel were unable to do so as Bud tightly tied them up together inside the hallowed out center of Mayor Dewey’s part of the statue, which just so happened to be where a majority of dynamite intended for the mountain’s construction was stored.

“Behold! Your grand view of the debate!” Gideon proclaimed smugly, commanding Bud to back away from the trio as they still continued to try and escape the ropes wrapped around them. “Once I win this election, I’ll finally rule this backwoods town!”

“You’ll never get away with it, you creepy little dork!” Mabel shouted fiercely.

“Oh, I’d be happy to spare you, Mabel,” Gideon said, sending her a flirtatious smirk. “If you agree to be mine. I even made you this wedding dress in crafts class!” The child psychic held up something that vaguely resembled a dress, though it could have easily been mistaken for anything else given its incredibly shoddy craftsmanship. “Don’t ask what its made of.”

“Ew, I’d rather die, you creep!” Mabel cringed, her longstanding disdain for the child psychic just as apparent as it had always been.

“Fine, have it your way!” Gideon exclaimed, resuming his formerly triumphant attitude. “Once I win, they’ll hit the plunger for the fireworks display, finishing the mountain’s construction and trappin’ ya’ll inside. I’ve been trapped behind concrete all summer; now let’s see how YOU like it!” The child psychic let out a sinister laugh as the kids let out a shared gasp of fear over the very present danger they were in. Say hello to the next mayor of Gravity Falls!” Gideon proclaimed with a final wicked laugh as he commanded Bud to leave the kids to their grisly fate. A fate that, by all accounts, they had no idea how to escape from, at least not on their own.

Everyone down at the debate itself, however, was completely unaware of the trio of trapped kids far above them, including Stan as he tried his best to salvage what little goodwill he had left with the visibly displeased crowd. “A-and that’s why, um… the Statue of Liberty is our hottest landmark,” he ventured, only to receive a resounding boo from the audience. “Alright, alright, she’s kinda manish. What do you want from me?”

As a result of Stan’s plummeting approval, the crowd readily tossed even more of their birdseed into Bud’s bin. The car salesman sent a smug smile at the conman, who still had no idea as to who was really pulling the strings behind his opponent’s campaign whatsoever. Even so, Stan let out a worried sigh as he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, wiping the sweat from his pocket as he took a much needed breather. “Ugh, you’re dying out there, Stan,” he muttered to himself, knowing that the chances of him winning now were next to none. He did take pause for a moment to look towards the audience again, hoping for any single show of support at all, only to find none.

Or at least, none upon a first glance.

Because as the conman looked again, he happened to spot a certain purple Gem who had almost managed to blend seamlessly into the crowd. In fact, he only managed to notice her due to the solemn, almost sympathetic look she was sending him, one that startled Stan quite a bit given how harsh their falling out earlier had been. Amethyst was quick to look away upon being spotted however, crossing her arms and glancing down with renewed bitterness and also what appeared to be a hint of embarrassment, though it was hard to say given how far away she was. Even so, Stan sighed again, finally realizing just how much of a mistake he had made in his own stubbornness and folly. Because certainly, without the aid of the kids or even the purple Gem, there would certainly be no winning this election on his own. “You kids were right all along…” he remarked to himself, looking down at the speech the twins had written for him. “I should have listened to you when I had the chance. To all of you…” His expression was a bit sadder as he looked up towards Amethyst again, who actually managed to meet his glance with slight confusion, but plenty of sadness and remorse all her own.

However, whatever moment the pair might have had was abruptly interupted as a familiar, frightened cry suddenly rang through the air. “Help! Help us!”

“W-what the-?” Stan was the first to hear this cry that conspicuously sounded like it had come from Mabel. The conman swiftly spun to face the mountain towering over the debate, only to have his worries confirmed when Dipper cried out next.

“We’re strapped to a bunch of fireworks!”

“A-and they’re about to go off!” Steven added amidst the trio trying their hardest to shuffle out of the mountain cave through the one opening in the floor they could find. However, unbeknownst to them, it was actually one of the statue’s nostrils, and below it was nothing but a massive drop to the ground far below them. They were quick to discover this however as they slipped out of it, only managing to remain tethered to the inside of the cave by the rope that had tied them all up, though it was clear that it wouldn’t support their shared weight for too long. The townsfolk watching the debate were quick to notice the kids’ peril high above them as a round of fearful gasps and screams rose up from them all, including Stan and Amethyst.

“Kids!” the pair exclaimed in horrified unison at the very obvious danger the trio was in. Danger that was only amplified as the rope holding them up continued to whittle down more and more, much to their immense fear.

“L-Listen, everybody!” Stan quickly turned back to the tense crowd before him. “This debate is over! I gotta go save my family!”

“N-now calm down, everyone!” Bud tried to smooth things over, “Those, uh… those are just some… demolition dummies! Nothing to see here!”

“Can it, Gleeful!” Stan shouted harshly, fiercely tearing the sleeves off his suit jacket as he let out a fearless yell. Without a second thought, the conman rushed backstage, but he was soon stopped by none other than Amethyst as she raced behind the curtain after him.

“Stan, wait!” she exclaimed, every bit as worried as he was. “What the heck’s going on?!”

“It’s it obvious? The kids are in trouble!” Stan pointed up at the trio hanging by practically a thread above them. “Now come on, we gotta go save them!”

“…We?” Amethyst took pause, raising a suspicious eyebrow at the conman. “What, you mean you actually want help this time?”

“Ugh, seriously, Amethyst?” Stan groaned in exasperation. “We don’t have time for this!”

“No, of course, you never have time for this,” the purple Gem huffed, crossing her arms. “But you always had time for lying and sneaking around and pretending to be something you’re not, huh?”

“Uh, Amethyst, we can’t be doing this right no-”

“I just wanna know why,” Amethyst continued, growing steadily more incensed by the moment. “Why you thought it was ok to keep the whole twin brother—fake names—portal thing from me all these years! Did you really think I was like the kids and I couldn’t handle the truth? Because you and I both know I know a lot more messed up things than that. Did you even once think about telling me, or did you just plan on keeping me in the dark forever like I’m some dumb old rock who doesn’t deserve to know what’s really going on?!”

“Of course, I thought about telling you the truth!” Stan countered with equal harshness, knowing that he simply couldn’t let such an accusation go. “A bunch of times! You were the only person I ever even considered telling everything to before that portal opened! But… I couldn’t risk it.”

“Couldn’t risk what? Me telling Garnet and Pearl? You really think I’m that stupid?!” Amethyst was shouting by now but she hardly cared. She had been bottling all of this anger up for far too long now and it desperately needed to finally come out. “I wouldn’t have told them, you know I wouldn’t have! I kept our Revenge Trips a secret from them and from Rose for 8 damn years! And during all eight of those years and even up until just last week, I was dumb enough to think that you were the one person who actually played it straight with me, who didn’t leave me out of the loop or who didn’t lie to me around every turn. But it turns out I was wrong about that too since you were the one who lied to me more than anyone else.”

Stan was silent for a moment upon hearing this outburst, a small, remorseful sigh as he tried to think of some way to respond to it. In the end, however, he decided to go with the best thing he could think of: the truth. “I meant… I couldn’t risk putting all that on your shoulders.”

Amethyst flinched at this, not having expecting such rare sincerity from the conman. “H-huh?”

“Like I said, there were a bunch of times I had thought about telling you the truth,” Stan explained. “About the portal, about the fake names, about Ford, about everything. But… I knew you had lost your memories about all that stuff, and even if I didn’t know how or why, I guess… I guess I just… thought you were better off not knowing. That if you learned about all that, then… you’d fall apart, just like I did back when I first lost Ford. And after a while of running the road and wreaking revenge with you, I guess I thought that you just… didn’t deserve to carry the same weight around that I’ve been lugging for years. I’ve gotten us into a lot of messes over the years, but this was one mess that I wanted to keep you out of.” The conman shook his head morosely. “Guess that didn’t really work out the way I wanted it to in the end though, huh?”

“No, it didn’t,” Amethyst remarked, her tone still bitter though it softened up somewhat upon hearing Stan’s genuine, almost caring explanation. “Because now, everything’s even worse than it was back then. We finally got our memories back only to find out we made this huge mistake that was so bad that Rose pretty much had to take it away from us to help us survive. And then Garnet and Pearl get into it because neither of them knew how to handle the truth and now they won’t even talk to each other! And I didn’t even mention how I basically fought against both of them just to protect your sorry ass! It’s awful at home! I feel trapped and the worst part is it’s like there’s no way to escape it all! And its all your fault for keeping this whole damn portal thing going to begin with!”

The purple Gem finally let several of her pent up tears of bitter anger go at this, a harsh sob escaping her as she kept her gaze hard on the ground. Once again, Stan hesitated, immense guilt filling him as he realized just how much his own effective mountain of mistakes had ended up hurting one of his closest friends. For years, he had never even considered the possibility that the secrets he had kept so well guarded would have harmed Amethyst so much and so deeply. But clearly they had, in more ways than he could even really count. And while he wouldn’t have put forth the effort for too many others, Stan knew that he owed it to Amethyst to make amends. If that was even a possibility at this point. “A-Amethyst, I… I’m sorry…” he said, his tone deeply earnest and apologetic.

“W-what?” the purple Gem glanced up, quite surprised to finally hear what she had been looking for from him for quite some time.

“I’m… I’m sorry about all the lies,” Stan sighed, rubbing his arm remorsefully. “And about making you choose between me and your friends in the heat of the moment. A-and for what’s been going on between you three ever since all this mess happened. I really didn’t expect any of this to junk to happen, and I’m sorry that its put you in such a rough spot. Believe me, I know more than anyone else what that’s like and, well… it sucks, plain and simple.”

“You better believe it does…” Amethyst sniffled, wiping her tears away as she sent him a terse glare.

“You know, I don’t expect you to forgive me right away,” the conman shrugged fretfully. “Honestly, I probably wouldn’t either after all the shit I pulled. But if you ever decide you want to, well… I’d… i-it… it mean a lot to me. I-I guess,” Stan finished with an awkward cough, trying to off play his sentimentality as much as he could. Amethyst, however, didn’t respond with the laugh or smile he had been expecting, but rather a pensive, uncertain look, one that the conman found admittedly hard to read. And in the end, her response was every bit as cryptic as well.

“I… I dunno,” she remarked, looking away from him briefly as she shook her head. “I’ll… have to think about it. But, uh, for now? We should probably get back to saving the kids!” The purple Gem quickly picked up her tone as she glanced upwards to see that the rope the trio was dangling by was just about to snap in two.

“Amethyst, you know what to do!” Stan shouted, getting back into action as the purple Gem nodded sternly.

“Right!” she exclaimed, recalling a move they had pulled off a number of times. In an instant, Amethyst shapeshifted herself into a large slingshot, one that Stan swiftly loaded himself into as the purple Gem took aim at the hole in the mountain that the kids were about to fall out of.

“Ready?” Stan asked, preparing himself for the launch with fierce determination to save the endangered trio. “Fire!”

Amethyst did so with a loud shout, shooting the conman straight upward at an alarming speed. As soon as she shapeshifted back into her normal form, she followed after him with a bold leap, ready to help the rescue effort in any way she could. The spectating crowd below quickly caught sight of the conman as he seemed to soar up the mountain on his own accord, prompting a round of very impressed cheers from them as they began tossing their support and their votes in birdseed toward him without a second thought.

“Augh! No, stop it!” Stan shouted as the seeds pelted him on his way up. “Thank you, but stop it!” As a result of the birdseed being thrown on him, a flock of stray eagles began to crowd around Stan, pecking at him as he zoomed upwards towards the kids and no doubt slowing his momentum as a result. “Augh! Get back, you terror birds!” he exclaimed, fiercely punching at the eagles until Amethyst came to his rescue, finally reaching his level and shapeshifting her hand into a large flyswatter to swat them all away. Stan offered her a thankful nod, which she returned just shy of them making their harrowing, but ultimately safe landing in the hole just above the kids. The trio themselves were in a state of paralyzed panic, unable to do anything else but scream in apt terror as the final strands of the rope suddenly snapped, leaving them to freefall to their dooms. That is, until Stan and Amethyst both grabbed onto it in the nick of time.

“Grunkle Stan!” Dipper and Mabel exclaimed, relieved as the pair began pulling them up to solid ground.

“Amethyst!” Steven cheered just as happily. “Wait, you guys are… working together again?”

Stan and Amethyst exchanged a brief glance, seizing each other up for a moment before the purple Gem shrugged in acceptance. “Yeah, I guess we are. N-not that that’s a big deal or anything.”

“Y-yeah, don’t read into it cause its really no big deal,” Stan said, just as flustered as Amethyst was. “A-anyway, I’m sorry for being so stubborn, kids. I guess being the town hero wasn’t enough. I wanted to be yours too.”

“Aw, we’re sorry too, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel said, sincerely apologetic. “We should have supported you, win or lose.”

“Probably lose,” Dipper deadpanned truthfully.

“Hey, I can still drop you, ya know,” Stan remarked, though of course he didn’t as him and Amethyst finished pulling the kids up to safety. As soon as they were up, the pair didn’t hesitate to pull them into a tight, secure hug, glad to see that they were all unharmed. It didn’t take long for the pair to untie the kids’ ropes, finally freeing them and allowing the group to venture out on top of the statue’s nose so the townsfolk could see that they were all alright. The audience erupted into a frensy of relieved and excited cheers, all of them liberally tossing their remaining birdseed into Stan’s bin on the stage until it had easily beaten out the amount Bud had previously accumulated, much to a certain child psychic’s fury.

“No! No! No! No!” Gideon shouted through his possessed father, quickly utilizing his control pull out the primed remote detonator he had managed to get his hands on earlier, just in case. “Time to take care of you, once and for all!” With that, Bud pushed the remote, prompting the fireworks inside of the monument to begin to tick down from thirty seconds, much to the alarm of the group standing on top of it.

“Oh no! We have to get out of here!” Steven shouted fearfully, especially as the time on the countdown ticked away ever faster.

“Pfft, that’ll be easy,” Amethyst remarked confidently. “Though, it may involve one of our more… daring stunts, Stan. If you’re up to it, that is…”

“You know I am,” the conman countered wryly, though his daring did decrease somewhat upon seeing just how high up they really were. “Kids,” he addressed the twins, his tone suddenly solemn as a result of the stakes they were facing. “If I die, make sure I get a bigger tombstone than Ford.”

While slightly concerned, Dipper and Mabel nodded nonetheless as Stan pulled them and Steven into his arms. With another nod of confirmation, Amethyst hopped up onto his shoulders, holding onto her perch tightly as Stan rushed forward, leaping right off the statue just as the timer ran out. In a massive, singular blast, all of the fireworks denoted at once, completely destroying Mayor Dewey’s section of the statue, much to the current mayor’s abject horror.

“No! My statue!” Dewey cried, only for his terror to spike as a large piece of the statue��s rubble landed squarely on the memorabilia cart behind him. “My merchandise!” he sobbed as he collapsed to his knees in misery. “My legacy!”

As other pieces of the statue’s remains began raining down, the crowd scattered out of fear, none of them really noticing as Amethyst shapeshifted into a large parachute, one that allowed Stan and the kids an easy landing into the huge pile of birdseed accumulated on stage. At the same time, another large rock landed right next to Bud, knocking him to the ground and breaking both Gideon’s screen, as well as his possession over his father, much to his severe outrage.

“No!” the furious child psychic screamed from his prison cell, tearing the journal page on possession in half as a result of his failed revenge. “NO!” He shouted once more, grabbing his own receiver screen and tossing it across the room in his continued temper tantrum that lasted quite some time while his fellow prisoners watched on in apt alarm.

Back at the debate, however, things were only just starting to settle down from the explosion, and with the calm down came the release of the freedom eagle. The great bird readily soared out of its cage, not wasting any time in regally settling down near Stan, who was practically submerged in the pile of birdseed along with Amethyst and the kids. Even so, the eagle made its choice, gently kissing the conman’s forehead before flying off into the sunset, having preformed its duty in picking Gravity Falls’ newest mayor.

The townsfolk were quick to catch onto the eagle’s choice, one that they all easily supported in light of Stan’s blatant show of heroism in rescuing the kids. In fact, even as him and Amethyst were pulling the kids out of the pile of birdseed, their joyful shouts of “Mayor Pines!” rose up into the air, rising even over the sound of the remaining fireworks launching into the air from what was left of Mayor Dewey’s ruined statue.

“Well, I guess we know who won,” Dipper noted, sending the conman a satisfied smile.

“Congratulations, Mr. Pines!” Steven chimed in warmly.

“Heh, guess I actually gotta start ‘respecting’ you now, don’t I?” Amethyst remarked, her tone genuinely playful as she elbowed Stan in the knee.

“You haven’t before and I don’t expect you to start now,” Stan countered just as sardonically before both of them shared a much needed laugh. True, it didn’t mean that everything between them had repaired itself just yet, but even so, it was a start. And for now, a start was more than enough.

All the same, the crowd continued their show of overwhelming support for their new mayor elect, who had managed to claim the most unlikely of victories out of what had seemed like a certain loss cause. Even so, Gravity Falls seemed ready to receive its new mayor in Stan, or at least it would have been if not for one minor, or rather, major complication.

“This just in: Stanford Pines LOSES!” the news reported that night, its headlining story showing that Stan had somehow been disqualified from the election altogether, even after his triumphant turnaround victory. While most of Gravity Falls was surprised by this news, none were more shocked than the Pines, Steven, and Amethyst as they gathered to watch the official results of the election at the Mystery Shack later that evening.

“What?!” the group exclaimed in startled unison, all of them leaning in to hear exactly why this was.

“Despite winning an overwhelming 95% of the vote,” Shandra Jimenez reported. “Election officials had to disqualify Stan due to the discovery of an extensive criminal record.”

“Ohhhh, ok, that makes sense now,” Amethyst concluded, sending the conman a knowing look.

“Oh boy…” Stan sighed, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Grunkle Stan, what did you do?” Mabel asked, bewildered.

“What didn’t I do?” Stan remarked, nodding back to the TV.

“Said crimes include shoplifting, teaching bears to drive, a new crime he invented called… ‘burglebezzelment’?, first degree… llamacide?”

“That llama knew too much…” the conman growled darkly.

“Due to this shocking development and the fact that none of the other candidates properly filed their paperwork, acting Mayor Dewey has decided to resume his mayorship position for the foreseeable future, rendering this entire election effectively pointless.”

From there, the shot cut to Dewey, back on his old podium before the new ruined Mount Deweymore as he delivered a mournful speech. “Since my… b-beloved Mount Deweymore is no more and it’ll take quite some time to accumulate the funds to rebuild it, I have no choice but to step back into my former role as your mayor… and to sell my once-commemorative merchandise at half price since none of its worth anything anymore…” At this terrible thought, the mayor broke down into another round of miserable sobs as he leaned against his podium, his aids giving him comforting pats on the back before the newscast cut back to Shandra in the studio.

“We will dedicate the rest of this broadcast to listing Stan’s crimes,” she said before she began to read off from an extensive stack of papers detailing the conman’s various misdeeds. “First degree thermometer theft, pug trafficking, snacks evasion, pickpocketing…”

As the list continued on, the group watching quickly turned out, all of them knowing more than well that the conman’s crimes were quite numerous indeed. “Whew, well, at least they didn’t list any of the bad ones,” Stan remarked casually. “On an unrelated note, I have a lot of cheap pugs and I need to move them fast.”

“Hey, you know I’m always down for some illegal pug selling,” Amethyst remarked, elbowing the conman with a grin. “Or anything else you got up your sleeve for that matter, old man.”

“Y-you… you really mean it?” Stan asked, understanding what the purple Gem’s teasing was really shorthand for.

Amethyst hesitated, blushing somewhat before finally letting out a relenting sigh, knowing that harboring her anger towards Stan really only harmed herself in the end. After all, if nothing else, then it would at the very least be a welcome change to finally have someone to talk to openly and honestly in light of the ongoing schism between her teammates. And Amethyst could think of no one else she’d rather confide it all in than Stan himself. “Y-yeah, I guess so… but only if you start playing it straight with me. For real this time… ok?”

“I think I can manage that,” Stan smirked, knowing that he didn’t really have any more secrets left to hide. “Only if you don’t use any mind control ties to make me run into trees again.”

“Oh, yeah…” the purple Gem chuckled awkwardly. “Sorry about that… Like I said, I was… kinda ticked off at you. But I probably won’t do anything like that again. Probably.”

“Fair enough,” the conman accepted with a warm nod, the longstanding bond between them at long last repaired, much to the relief of the kids who had happily watched the entire exchange.

“Aw, this is so sweet!” Steven chimed brightly. “Still, it’s a shame you didn’t actually win the election, Mr. Pines.”

“Yeah, we’re sorry, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper said sincerely. “I actually think you as mayor would have been fun.”

“Eh, maybe its for the best,” Stan shrugged. “I got close to the dream though, so that’s enough.”

“Hey, uh, I knit you something,” Mabel interjected with a small smile, pulling out the knitted sash she had been holding behind her back, one that read ‘Our Hero’ in colorful letters. “It’s not official or anything, but… I think it fits.”

Upon receiving such a genuine memento from his niece, the conman couldn’t help but tear up ever so slightly, his heart warmed by the sentiment, not that he’d ever really admit it. “Grunkle Stan, are you crying?” Dipper asked, having noticed the building tears all the same.

“Ha! He totally is!” Amethyst goaded with a laugh. “Aw, Stan, ya big softie!”

“Hey! I’m not a softie!” Stan protested, though it was clear from his tone that he was indeed a bit choked up as he stood and put the sash on. “I just got campaign confetti in my eyes. Come on, kids. Wanna go vandalize Mayor Dewey’s house?”

“Yay! Vandalism!” the kids and Amethyst cheered in unison, all of them more than ready for a bout of wild and reckless fun. As the others ran out first, Stan took pause for a brief moment, glancing down at his sash with a satisfied smile. True, he hadn’t won the election, but what he had gotten far surpassed any office or title. He had solidified the admiration of his nibblings, had salvaged his treasured friendship with Amethyst, and, perhaps had gained a bit more self respect in the process. And in the end, despite the win and loss and ups and downs, that was all the conman could ever really ask for.

In light of his most recent failure against the Pines and the Gems, Gideon found that he really had no other plans for his evening other than arts and crafts with the other prisoners. Though the rowdy gang of crooks and criminals all deeply respected the child psychic and did just about anything he asked of them, Gideon himself often found their adoration annoying and suffocating, especially at a moment as low as this.

“I’m sorry the election thing didn’t work out for you, bro,” one of the larger prisoners, a man with bizarrely empty eyes who, coincidentally enough, went by the moniker of Ghost Eyes, said with sincere sympathy as him and Gideon crocheted together. “But if it makes you feel any better, we’re gonna throw a riot tonight! Does someone wanna throw a riot?”

“Thanks, Ghost Eyes,” Gideon sighed tiredly. “But I’m just not in the mood…” With this, the child psychic got up and headed back to his cell for the night, lying on the hard slab that was his bed as he stared up at the pale, moonlit ceiling. While most in his position probably would have given up hope for revenge and retribution, Gideon wasn’t one to let things like this go so easily. Especially since he still had at least one more trick up his sleeve.

“This poster is the only thing keepin’ me goin,” the child psychic remarked to himself, glancing over at the motivational poster on the wall beside him that depicted a cat hanging from a tree and read “hang onto that branch or die, cat!” And while its message was darkly encouraging, it was what lay behind the poster that was of the most importance to Gideon.

Upon making sure no one was watching him, the child psychic tore the poster off the wall, revealing the chalk drawing he had been harboring behind it for weeks: an elaborate effigy of two interconnective wheels, each wheel bearing ten symbols each, some of them recognizable and others not. The center of the inner wheel itself was empty, but Gideon was quick to fill it with the drawing of a familiar triangular being, one that he had worked with before, and for the sake of finally vanquishing his enemies once and for all, he was more than ready to work with again.

“I’m finally ready to make a deal, Bill…”

#jen writes #universe falls #steven universe #gravity falls #crossover #au #stanchurian candidate #stan #dipper #mabel #steven #amethyst #gideon #bud #mayor dewey #soos #wendy #fanfiction #keyword is burglebezzlement

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