#dipper goes hey wait a minute and looks at the journal

[theyhitthepentagon]

WENDY: im a lesbian im going to the gravity falls pride parade later [CAMERA FOCUSES ON BACKGROUND WHERE DIPPER IS PEEKING THROUGH THE DOORWAY INTO THE GIFTSHOP] DIPPER TO MABEL: mabel mabel did you hear that? wendy said shes a "lesbian"! maybe if i become a lesbian ill have a chance with wendy! i might be able to find something about this in the journal MABEL: Dipper come on you dont have a chance with wendy and also i dont think you know what a lesbian is. (slaps progress pride flag sticker on Waddles's face and he oinks) DIPPER: shut up jesser i found something! the author talks about a secret boon found in an ancient witches cottage turned him into the beautiful "butch lesbian" he always wanted to be. all i need to do to get with wendy is find this boon! mabel lets go!

[SUBPLOT]

SOOS: (wandering into a crowded part of town) woah where am i theres so many acceptably-clothed-but-nearly-naked people here BACKGROUND FEMME LESBIAN: (emerges from crowd) wowie a hot butch! come here handsome! SOOS: woah ladies, one at a time! [HARDCUT TO FACE] hark! my optimized aura is irresistible to women. (holding up carabiner with a shti ton of keys hooked on it) maybe spending my paycheck on this fancy carabiner was a good idea! (he is dogpiled by hot scantily clad dykes)

[thegrimreaper-probably]

Hii! if you still take requests then can I request a dipper x reader? gender neutral or female whichever is more comfy for you, and for the age you can decide that too, it's alright if you don't wanna write it tho ^^

Thank you for the request!

Dipper Pine x Gender Neutral Reader, Age around 16-17

Summary: Dipper has a feeling that something is happening in the woods. He sneaks out of the shack and follows his gut.

“Hey Mabel have you noticed anything?” I ask as the tv goes to an ad.

“Uh noPe.” She says with popping the p out. “But now you’re asking, something has to be happening! What is it?!”

“SHH! Nothing happening, I just been feeling funny.” I say.

“Well if you find anything let me know.” The tv goes back to ducktective. After an hour I head upstairs to bed. I get dress and lay in bed.

“Maybe I should ask Ford about this feeling… No, he’s probably busy.” I turn on my side and fall asleep.

“Ugh.” I wake up from a bright light. I turn around and see a paper? I grab it and start to read it.

Dear Dipper Pines

You’ve been invited to the show. Tonight, 1:15 am. It might explain the feeling you’ve been having. Wear something nice. We trust that you bring no one, or else. Follow the light to come.

Sincerely, No one :)

After I read it, it disappears I look over to Mabel to see her dead asleep. I grab a pair of shorts, red shirt and a blue zip up hoodie. I grab my Journal and stuff it in my hidden pocket. I leave a note for Mabel if I’m not back. I put my hat on and walk downstairs. I see no one and walk quickly and quietly out the door and lock it.

I see the light and follow it as it zips off into the woods. I look back at the Mystery Shack and grab the baseball bat. I run to follow the light.

After about ten minutes of walk the light stop.

“Are we here?” I ask it and it nods? I look around and see a weird patch of a clearing. I walk towards it, the light follows me.

“Hello? I was invited to a show of some sorts.” I say out loud. I turn to the light and it pushes me to the ground, thinking I was going to land on the ground but I land on a stump. The light disappeared as music starts to play.

“Welcome one and all to the show!” A voice says, I look around for anything or anyone. Seats began to appear, rows of stomps or logs as chairs, a stage appears with people sitting and waiting for the show. Then some of the trees have some sort of lights similar to the one I had followed. Some white others purples and blues and one f/c.

“Now everyone it’s time we’ve all been waiting for! The one and only me!” A tall monster that had a seven foot frame, a top hat that had antlers glued to it, big red colored eyes, a suit and seemed to have a female frame.

“Before I start the show, there’s rules. You must follow them!” It say in a dark voice as everyone backs up a little bit from.

“Don’t worry! Simple rules! Don’t get up unless told to. Don’t switch seats, never tell anyone about the show, and of course if any are broken… You won’t want to know.” It says as the little dim and it leaves.

“IN COMING!” It says and I duck covering my head. I wait but nothing happens?

“Hello! I’ll be your guide.” What the?

“Didn’t the guy just say don’t leave your seats?” A girl says.

“We like to make it a surprise!” He says.

“Excuse me? Where are we? Why was I invited?” I ask the guy.

“Ah, Dipper Pines. Mr. Pines your all here for different reasons, some for better reasoning other not so much. Though if you could follow me, you might find out.” He starts to walk away and we all follow. I don’t understand this place, they might be hiding something. No, they are hiding something. What type of place would say not to tell anyone about the place?

“This is are first stop. Meet Grim, the monster behind the glass. Grim is one of the monster you’ll be seeing today. Grim is a Cerberus, also what humans call a dog. Though as you can see it’s a three headed dog!” He says, there’s more monsters in Gravity Falls? I mean it makes sense but still.

“Billy why don’t you go in?” Wait people are going in?!

“Okay!” Billy says and opens the door. The dog? Dogs? Grim stares at Billy, a huge bone is dropped in from the ceiling. Billy picks it up and throws it to Grim. They start to play together.

“See not that bad. Though this one is tamed. Never go near one in the wild, though there’s very few out there. Mainly Hades the Greek god was known to own one and they’re very, very, very violent. Let’s continue!” After a few monsters like, Cyclops, Naga, Werewolf, Werecat and a Ogre. We finally stopped with only me and one other person.

“I believe it’s your turn Dipper.” I look over to him and back to the glass front.

“Don’t worry. It’s a vampire, simply to talk to. They won’t bite, already feed. Though I wouldn’t get a nose bleed.” He and the last person walk away as I walk toward the iron door. I look around and open my journal, I flip to a page. I read the vampire page that Ford wrote. Maybe I should break my bat so I can stab them if it goes bad. I break the bat and hide everything. I sigh and open the door.

“Hello?” I say as the door opens. A teenager around my age walks in.

“Uh, hi.” He says.

“My names y/n, what’s yours?” I ask he looks sweaty.

“Dipper, Dipper Pines.” I nod my head to his question.

“You won’t hurt me right?”

“No of course not. I prefer to not hurt humans when I can. I already eat today so I’ll be good for a while.” He then leans against the wall far this away from me. Which is next to the door.

“I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have.” I say as I sit down on the white padded floors.

“How old are you?”

“118, how about you?”

“16. Do you have any vampire type powers?”

“Uh yeah. I’m stronger then a human and if I wanted to I could fight a bear. I have super speed but it’s not like the Flash, I’m around the speed of a dog. I hear pretty well too, oh I don’t get cold or hot. Fast healer too.” He nods and pull out a journal with a pine tree on it, it matched his hat.

“Are you like a sappy vampire teenager movie?” I laugh and he joins in.

“No of course not. I’m not a glitter monster, and no soulmate stuff.” After a while of talking and getting to know each other, he starts to open up more but is still closed off.

“Beep.” The speakers go off in the hallway, a little muffled but with my hearings it’s not to bad.

“As you’ve all met the monster of the show, it’s time for one of you to be free! Though only one of you get to go home with a fun monster, maybe you could pay for one! Anyways here we go! The winner is…………” It says.

“Winner?” Dipper asks.

“This has never happened and I’ve been here for years.”

“Number 11! What a lucky little thing you are! Now LEAVE! THE SHOWS OVER!” It says, we cover are ears.

“Who’s number 11?” Dipper ask.

“I think that’s me? I mean the doors open, let’s go through.” Before we go everything disappears, no box that I called home, no monster out, no humans, just me and Dipper.

“What just happened?” I ask Dipper.

“Honestly, not sure. It’s almost sunrise, I got to go home.” He walks but pause as a thought comes into mind “Wait do you have anywhere to go?”

“No, I haven’t seen the world since 2017. I don’t need to sleep so I guess I could just walk around.” I shrug.

“Follow me and fast I need to hurry home before Mabel wakes up.” He start to run and I speed walk after him. We made it to a shack and stop.

“Here’s the plan, you turn into a bat and hit that window.” He points to the triangle window. “Give it till the sun is fully up and then hit it, then me and my sister will find you. After that we’ll take care of you. I’ll try to find a house or a job you can get till you have enough money to buy a house or something. Okay I’ll see you in a few, bye!” He says fast and runs in the shack.

I turn into a bat and wait in a tree. Once the sun goes up I fly toward the window and hit it with my stomach. I “fall” down and lay there. I here the door open and see what I assume to be Mabel come over to me.

“Dipper, what are we going to do? Is it dead!? GRUNKLE STAN! GRUNKLE FORD!!!!” Mabel screams. Dipper cover his ears as more people show up.

“What is it?”

“Mabel are you okay?” They say.

“I am but look!” Mabel points to me.

“What? The bat? Meh, feed it to the pig.” Mabel scream no at the thought. I’m literally sitting, I’m not dead.

“Well what happened?”

“It hit the window. It’s probably just needs to sleep it off.” Dipper says.

“I’m not have another pet. Waddles still isn’t wanted, just smash it with a shovel or something.”

“GRUNKLE STAN!! We aren’t killing Dracy!” Mabel says.

“Mabel it’s a girl..” Dipper says.

“Kids calm down. I’ll check if it has anything broken then we can just keep it in a box till it’s night time and can fly off. And question?” Ford I’m assuming says.

“Is it a vampire?” They all stare at Mabel with a shut up look.

“No question great. Dipper do you mind if you could get me a gloves and a box?” Ford ask as Stan goes back inside. Dipper nods and grabs the box and gloves.

“She isn’t shy. You think she’s a pet?” Mabel asks.

“Possibly but that’s illegal. Oh there’s Dipper.” Ford says, after he check me out and feels that I’m okay he puts my in a box and closes it shut.

“She’ll probably just go to sleep then we can let her go at night time.” I open the box and look at the twins. I fly over to Dipper and land on his hat.

“Aww!!!! She loves you!” Mabel says.

“Um, what now?” Dipper ask, Ford shrugs and goes back inside.

“Aww! I’ll go get Waddles! Maybe they can be best friends!” Mabel walks in.

“So can you talk in that form?”

“Yeah. So what’s the plan now?”

“You can stay with us till I come up with a plan. Probably could stay as a bat till I tell the family.” Dipper says, I fly down to his shoulder and hug his neck.

“Thanks you.” I say.

And done. I don’t know how many word this is but uh, request are still open! Also I don’t know if I got the character right to the bone, but I tried. If any writing errors let me know or you want a part two. Byebye

[seaofghouls]

Gravity Falls Iplier AU [ Dark x Reader ] Part 6

Hello! It’s the first encounter with the dorito! Taglist: @a-frozen-bag-of-corn @crazy-obsessed-fangirl @lunariasilver Episode: Dreamscapers Dark, Y/N, Mabel, and Soos were all walking in the woods, laughing, when they heard strange things. 

Running over to the direction of the noise, they found Gideon summoning a demon, using a summoning spell. He seemed to be in immense pain.

Y/N bit their lip nervously, as they knew that once a summoning started, it couldn’t be interrupted. 

Everything was grey and time seemed to slow. A triangle figure lit aflame and started to laugh maniacally. “Gravity Falls, it is good to be back!” He exclaimed.

He flew in front of Gideon. “The name’s Bill Cipher! I take it you're some kind of living ventriloquist dummy? Kidding! I know who you are, Gideon.” 

“What are you? How do you know my name?!” Gideon exclaimed.

“I know lots of things! LOTS OF THINGS!” Bill said.

“Listen to me demon! I need you to enter the mind of Stanford Pines and steal the code to his safe!” Gideon ordered. 

“Hm, Stanford Pines. Ah! I’ll help you kid! As long as you give me something in return! Deal?” Bill stuck his hand out, blue fire coming from his hand.

“Deal!” Gideon said, shaking the demon’s hand.

“Welp! Time to go invade Stan’s mind! Remember, reality is an illusion, the universe is a hologram, buy gold, BYE!” Bill said before vanishing.

“It worked!” Gideon laughed before taking off.

“What are we going to do??” Mabel asked.

“The only thing we can do. Face the triangular demon.” Dark said.

Y/N nodded, sighing.

“So, we gotta enter his mind and go after that dorito?” Y/N asked.

“Yeah. Let’s get Dipper, as well. He’s got the journal, so he’s our best bet. Besides, this is his uncle we’re talking about.” Dark said.

Y/N nodded as they walked back to the shack.

Mabel and Soos explained the situation to Dipper, but he wasn’t the most willing. 

“Why should I save him from a demon? I’ve done nothing but work for him all day.” Dipper groaned. 

“Please, Dipper. This is a demon we’re talking about. We need your help.” Y/N said.

“..Fine.” Dipper sighed. 

Dipper recited the incantation to enter Stan’s mind and they all blacked out. When they woke up, they were in Stan’s mind. 

“Ugh..” Y/N groaned, rubbing their head.

It was a grey version of the Mystery Shack, just like how it was when Gideon summoned Bill. 

“Remember guys, we gotta look out for the triangle guy.” Mabel said.

“Yeah, look out for the triangle guy!” Bill copied.

“It’s him! It’s the guy!” Soos said. 

“You leave our uncle’s mind alone!” Mabel cried before trying to tackle Bill. It didn’t work.

“Ah, Stan’s family and friends.” Bill said.

“Shooting Star, Question Mark, Pine Tree, Mirror, and Darkness.” Bill recited.

Bill went on a tangent about how he needed the code to Stan’s safe to complete his deal with Gideon.

“Well, guess we better get to the code first, eh?” Y/N said after he left.

“Yes, that would be wise.” Dark said.

They searched through the memory doors for what felt like hours.

They eventually found the code to the safe, but unfortunately they didn’t realize that Bill was disguised as Soos until a second Soos walked in.

“Hey guys! I just found a memory of Stan roller skating and wearing short shorts! Wait a minute, something weird is going on here.” Soos said.

Bill laughed as he transformed back into his original form.

Looking over at Dark, Y/N knew he was beating himself up for not being able to find Bill out.

They took his hand, attempting to comfort him.

“It’s funny how dumb you are.” Bill said.

He ran off and Y/N ran after him.

“Y/N!” Dark called out, following them.

The rest soon followed after, after a confrontation from Dipper.

Mabel waited until Bill was distracted on a call with Gideon to shoot the combination into a bottomless pit.

“No!” Bill cried.

“Yes!” Y/N cheered.

“You! You have no idea what you just cost me!” Bill started to turn red.

“Do you have any idea what I’m like when I’m mad?!” He seethed.

He used his powers to lift everyone into the air on top of a monument.

“Woah!” Y/N cried.

Bill grew 100 times his size.

“Eat nightmares!” Bill cried.

He ruined Mabel’s cuteness and summoned a british bulldog for Mabel and Soos.

When it came to Y/N and Dark however, he summoned an illusion of Actor.

“Please! Anything but that!” Y/N shook, while Dark tried to stand his ground.

“Ah, hello old friends! You’ll be wonderful subjects in my story~” He laughed, in a distorted tone.

Y/N couldn’t move out of fear.

“Hey Bill!” Dipper called out.

“What?!” Bill cried.

“Nice bowtie!” Dipper used laser eyes to incinerate his bowtie.

Dipper explained the powers of the mindscape while Bill was down.

Mabel and Soos attacked Bill with their powers, he was eventually forced to retreat.

“Enough!” Bill cried, turning everything white.

“You guys have impressed me. You’re a lot smarter than you look. You might come in handy later. Just know, I’ll be watching you~” Bill said, vanishing again. 

The white faded out and Y/N and Dark shot up in their cabin. 

“We.. we did it!” Y/N exclaimed. 

They hugged Dark with a grin.

Dark hugged them back, with a smile of his own.

Walking outside, Y/N’s smile dropped.

Gideon had the deed and was destroying the Mystery Shack as the Pines family stood outside with shock.

“There goes my job.” Y/N frowned.

“How are we going to be able to pay for rent now?” Y/N said sadly.

“Don’t worry, dear. We’ll figure something out. We always do.” Dark tried to comfort them.

“Even in the darkest hour.” He sighed.

...

[fallen-gravity]

Fightin’ Back Chapter 6

Chapter Summary:  Seeing Stan's memory erased is the only time any of us have ever seen Ford cry.

Chapter Notes: and this chapter makes six! I would like to give a personal thank you to every one of my readers who has stuck with me through this story from the very chapter, and all of my friends on discord for encouraging me to keep writing in times where I thought I was going to give up. 

This story marks the first multi-chapter fic I've already sought through to the very end, and it makes me so, so happy that all of you are here to experience it with me. Thank you once again for taking this journey to me, and we're wrapping up this arc with Weirdmageddon 3.

The soft, desperate sound of choked sobs is unmistakable as it slices through the quiet night air like a knife. Dipper’s eyes pop open at the sound, and he sits up in his sleeping bag in the living room. He hadn’t been crying in his sleep, had he? He brings a tentative hand to pat as his cheeks, but no, they’re perfectly dry.

But…if that hadn’t been him, then…

He turns his glance towards Mabel’s sleeping bag beside his. She sure looks like she’s asleep, but she’s got her back turned towards him, and he knows for a fact that’s usually a sign that she’s hiding something.

“Mabel?” he whispers loudly. “Are you okay?”

She jumps, but when she shifts to face him she doesn’t look like she’d been crying either. “That’s not you?” She squints towards him as she sits up. “I’ve been sitting here for like, five minutes trying to figure out how to wake you up without scaring you”

“But…” Dipper shakes his head. “What else could it be?”

Mabel scratches at her head. “Maybe the unicorn barrier broke and the shack itself is crying?”

Dipper shakes his head. “Couldn’t be. Grunkle Ford said that if everything reset after Weirdmageddon then the unicorn barrier should’ve come back too”

“Not everything” she murmurs into her sleeping bag, and Dipper sighs as he turns his glance towards Stan’s recliner.

Which is…empty.

When it hadn’t been when they fell asleep.

Dipper’s up to his feet before he knows it, and between one blink and the next Mabel is on her feet too. “Where do you think he could’ve gone? Do you know how dangerous it is for Stan to be wandering around town like this? At this time of night?”

He doesn’t realize he’s pacing back and forth until he feels Mabel’s hand gently gripping at his shoulder. “Woah, take it easy there, bro-bro. I’m sure we’re just overthinking things. I mean, he couldn’t have gone that far in two hours, right?”

“Mabel! You’re not helping!” he starts pacing back and forth again. “He could be anywhere! He could walk right into the lake and drown, or into the manotaur cave, or-”

“In the kitchen?”

“What?”

Mabel points towards the kitchen lights that’ve been flicked on. Dipper takes her hand in his own and runs towards the kitchen before she has time to protest. Stan’s nowhere in sight, but Ford is sitting at the table with his head buried in his arms. At first glance, Dipper would think he must’ve fallen asleep writing additions in his journal again, but at a second, closer look, he can see that his shoulders are trembling. If he really listens, he can hear the hitched breaths barely escaping him.

Dipper takes a cautious step towards him. “Grunkle Ford?”

Ford bolts upright, messily scrubbing at his eyes. “Dipper?”

“And Mabel” Mabel waves hello, and takes a seat at the table beside Ford. “Is everything okay, Grunkle Ford?”  She places a gentle hand on his arm, and a broken sigh escapes him as he reaches a hand to hers and squeezes it gently. He squeezes his eyes shut, like he’s milliseconds away from breaking down again.

“I’ve tried everything,” he swallows. “I’ve tried reverse engineering the memory gun, I’ve tried showing him pages from our old high school yearbook, I’ve even tried…” he exhales sharply. “I’ve even tried bringing him downstairs to see if…coming into contact with any of the portal remains would be enough to trigger a tactile memory, but nothing’s working.” He buries his face back into his arms, muttering an indecipherable self-deprecating comment into the sleeve of his sweater.

Dipper takes a seat on the other side of Ford, and shares a melancholy glance with Mabel. She nods, and he places a gentle hand on Ford’s shoulder.  He doesn’t flinch, but he doesn’t reciprocate the gesture either. “Hey, Grunkle Ford? What if Mabel and I took over for a little bit?”

“We ate a ton of Grunkle Stan’s apocalypse meat before we came to rescue you from the Fearamid, and we’ve been asleep for the past two hours. Now, I may not have been turned into a gold statue myself, but it didn’t look to me like you were getting any sleep when you were petrified in place for like, three days”

A soft chuckle escapes Ford as he sits up and wipes at his eyes with his wrist. “Thank you, but…” he shakes his head. “It wouldn’t be fair of me to ask for your help” He twines his hands together. “You’ve already been through enough as it is because of me”

“Nonsense,” Mabel insists, standing to tug Ford to his feet. He complies, and she begins dragging him towards Stan’s bedroom. A quick glance over her shoulder at Dipper, and he’s standing to his feet to take Ford’s unoccupied hand in his own. “You take the night off. Dipper and I can take over and sleep in shifts until you’re rested enough to take over for us”

“Are you sure?” Ford frowns as he steps through the doorway of Stan’s bedroom. “I’d hate to burden you with such an emotionally tolling responsibility”

Mabel pulls her hand away from Ford’s to pull back the blankets on the bed and pats at the pillow. Ford’s lips twitch downward like he doesn’t think it’s a good idea, but his exhausted body moves on autopilot and makes that decision for him. He practically flops over on the bed, and Mabel smiles as she covers him back up with the blanket.

“You can never be a burden to us, Grunkle Ford” Mabel whispers, and leans to plant a soft kiss on his forehead. “Besides! Dipper and I are used to this. We’ve been taking care of Grunkle Stan and keeping him out of danger practically all summer.” She delicately reaches to remove his glasses for him, and places them on Stan’s nightstand. She places a gentle hand on Ford’s shoulder, and turns towards Dipper.

“You think you can take the first shift with Stan? Something tells me he won’t fall asleep unless someone stays in here with him.”

Dipper’s glance turns to Ford. His eyes are still red and puffy from crying, and there’s a miserable expression plastered to his face. His chest is rising and falling in a scattered pattern, like one poorly-phrased sentence is all it’ll take to push him over the edge again.

“Sure,” Dipper replies, placing a gentle hand beside Mabel’s on Ford’s shoulder. “I’ll yell if anything goes wrong, okay? Where is he?”

“In my study room” Ford’s reply is muffled by his pillow. “I was going to bring him in here, but...” he squishes his face even further into the pillow. “I just didn’t have the heart to step foot in here alone”

Oh.

Dipper sighs. “I get it. I don’t think I would’ve had the heart to bring him in here either,” he takes a knee so he can make better eye contact with Ford. “But honestly, from me and Mabel both, thank you so much for what you’ve already done for him. I think he appreciates it a lot”

The laugh that escapes Ford’s lips is cold and bitter. “Thank you,” he echoes. “And here I thought those words couldn’t possibly hurt me any more than they already have”

Dipper’s sure Ford probably hadn’t meant to say that loud enough for him to hear, so instead of responding Dipper leans forward and throws his arms around Ford in a hug. Ford doesn’t reciprocate, but he doesn’t quite pull away from the gesture either. “I’ll come back to see how you’re doing in a few hours if you’re still awake, okay?” he whispers as he gives Ford an affectionate squeeze before he stands to his feet. Without waiting for a response he knows isn’t coming, Dipper turns heel and walks out the door.

Stan’s sitting up straight with his hands folded neatly together when Dipper steps into the room. “Hey!” he flashes a grin, but it quickly falls when he struggles to come up with a name. “…Where’d the tall guy go? Y’know, the guy who looks like he hasn’t slept in years?”

Dipper can’t help the laugh that escapes him. It’s reassuring that his sense of humor is just as harsh as it’s always been, that’s for sure. “Just fell asleep, if you’re willing to believe” he steps forward and takes a seat beside Stan on the couch. “He thought it’d be a good idea if someone came in and checked in on you, though”

“Oh.” Stan’s lip is a tight line, like he knows Dipper isn’t telling him the complete truth. “I dunno. Think I’m starting to get a headache from all these questions. Was gettin’ close to playing along and pretending I knew what he was talking about before he suddenly stood up and walked out of the room without a word about where he was going”

“I see…” Dipper’s voice trails off awkwardly, and he shakes his head. “Okay, but what about…physically? Is there anything I can help you with in that department?”

“Oof,” Stan practically collapses back against the couch, like just asking was enough to make every muscle in his body ache at once. “Was starting to wonder when someone would ask. S’kinda awkward to ask for a cup of water when you’re surrounded by people who start sobbing every time you make eye contact with them, am I right?” He gently nudges Dipper with his elbow, but his expression falls when Dipper does not start laughing with him.

“Right, I can imagine,” Dipper flashes him a fake smile to spare Stan’s feelings, and stands to his feet. “Anything else, while I’m already out of the room?”

“Medicine, if you’ve got any” Stan groans. “I’ve had a killer headache for the past hour. Feels like I’ve been shot to the head” he dramatically brings his wrist to his forehead, and Dipper tries his hardest to choke down the sob that builds in his throat at his choice of phrasing. Turns out it didn’t matter either way, because when he notices the horrible burn marks all over his wrist and hand the sound escapes him anyway.

“Oh my gosh, Stan, your wrist!” Dipper cries, collapsing to his knees at the sight. He reaches for Stan’s wrist, pauses for a moment, but decides it’d probably be better to leave them alone. “No wonder you have a headache! Anyone else would’ve passed out from that kind of burn ten minutes ago!”

“My wrist?” Stan stares at him blankly for a moment, before pulling his wrist from his forehead to look at it. “Huh,” he says nonchalantly. “Guess I was too busy being interrogated by the guy in the red turtleneck to notice”

Dipper stands to leave, and pauses in the doorway. “I’ll be right back, okay? Don’t move”

Stan huffs. “I don’t have that many options as far as places to go, kid”

“Right, right…” Dipper murmurs, and pats the doorframe as he rounds the corner. As he walks towards the kitchen, he nearly collides with Mabel slinking her way out of Stan’s bedroom.

“How is he?” she asks, folding her hands together.

Dipper scrubs a hand down his face. “Just as bad as Grunkle Ford said. How’s Grunkle Ford doing? I thought he didn’t want to be alone”

“Oh, he doesn’t! I just wanted to get him an extra blanket and Waddles to keep him extra company”

Dipper smirks. “I don’t know how comfortable he’d be with a pig crawling into bed with him”

Mabel gasps. “Waddles is a gentleman! Don’t knock cuddling him to sleep ‘til you try it. Besides, if Waddles already loves Stan, I’m sure it’s only inevitable that he’ll love Ford, too!”

“Yeah, well good luck convincing Ford of that”

“Will do!” she grins, and bounces off in the opposite direction.

Dipper rolls his eyes affectionately, and makes his way towards the bathroom to grab the burn cream and ace bandages. Dipper knew that Bill’s hand always became engulfed with blue flames each time he shook hands with somebody to make a deal, but he never knew those flames could ever cause any real harm to those who shook his hand. Even when he shook Bill’s hand the morning of Mabel’s puppet show, the flames to him felt ice cold, as if he were coming into contact with a ghost.

Though, Dipper recalls with a shudder, that very well could’ve just as easily been the feeling of his own soul being ripped from his body.

He shakes that thought off by slamming the medicine cupboard shut. No, that’s not important right now. He’s got plenty of time to have an existential crisis about that later. He pockets the medicine and bandages and slams the bathroom door shut on his way out for extra measures.

“Took you long enough,” Stan smirks when he comes back into the room. “Was starting to think that you fell asleep on me too”

Dipper hums in acknowledgement, and takes a knee again. He pops open the cover of the burn cream, and wordlessly offers out his hand to Stan. Stan frowns, but complies and places his hand on top of Dipper’s. For a few moments the two of them sit in silence as Dipper covers the worst of Stan’s burn in cream, until Stan suddenly clears his throat.

“Hey…” he pauses for a brief moment. “…Dipper, thanks for uh, helping me out. Don’t mean to come across as aggressive. I make jokes when I’m uncomfortable.”

Dipper’s about to brush the comment off with a quick “It’s fine, I get it,”, but his heart nearly stops in his chest when he fully processes what Stan just said.

“What did you just call me?” he asks, and can’t seem to keep the shake out of his voice.

“Dipper?” Stan shrugs, and taps at his own forehead. “Y’got a mark on your forehead that looks like the big dipper, I figured that’s an easier nickname to remember then just calling you kid”

“…Oh” Dipper’s half-smile slips off his face, and Stan’s expression falls as well.

“What, do kids at school bully you with that nickname? There something else you want me to call you instead?”

“No!” Dipper nearly shouts, and his cheeks tint pink as he clears his throat to correct himself. “I mean no, Dipper’s fine”.  He clicks the container of the burn cream shut, and places it down on the ground beside him as he begins wrapping Stan’s wrist with the bandage. “Kids at school tend to call me everything but Dipper. I’m just lucky my sister is less afraid of getting detention for punching a kid in the face then I am”

“Hah!” Stan barks, slapping the armrest of the couch with his uninjured hand. “That reminds me of a story from when I was a kid. Y’see-” he starts, but as soon as he shifts his position to get more comfortable he’s overcome with a sudden violent coughing fit. He curls in on himself, and Dipper doesn’t miss the way he’s tightly gripping at his chest.

…What was that advice Stan had given him about rib injuries earlier this summer? Dipper scratches at his head, looking around the room for some sort of reminder, and his eyes fall on a couch cushion that’s been kicked to the ground.

That’s right.

“Here,” Dipper hands him the cushion. “Someone told me that holding these to your chest while you cough will make it hurt less,” he says, and gestures with a thumb towards the kitchen. “I’ll go see if the fridge is still working so I can bring you an ice pack”

Stan raises an eyebrow, but takes the cushion from Dipper and places it against his chest. “What, you some kind of doctor in training or somethin’?”

“No,” Dipper shrugs as he backs out of the door. “Just learned from a pretty great caretaker, is all”

As Dipper rounds the corner towards the kitchen, he notices the door to Stan’s bedroom is cracked open. He peeks his head inside, and sure enough, Waddles is curled up on the bed, fast asleep underneath Ford’s arm. Mabel is sitting in a chair that she pulled up beside them, her eyes interchangeably fluttering open and closed.

He knocks lightly on the doorframe so as not to wake Ford. “Pssst, Mabel!”

She jumps, rubbing at her eyes. “Dipper? Is it time to swap shifts already?”

“Not yet,” he shakes his head. “But I need to talk to you.”

“Oh,” she hops off of her chair, and closes the door gently behind her as she follows Dipper into the hallway. “Okay, but make it quick before Waddles senses I’m missing and wakes Grunkle Ford”  

“That’s just the thing,” Dipper whispers. “It’s about Grunkle Stan”

“What?” she whisper-shouts. “What happened to him? Is he okay?”

Dipper raises his hands in the air defensively. “Nothing! Nothing happened to him, he’s fine” he rubs at the back of his neck. “Better then fine, actually.  I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but I think he’s starting to get his memory back”

Mabel’s eyes go huge. “Really?” she nearly shouts, before slamming her hand over her mouth. She grabs Dipper’s hand and drags him into the kitchen. “Really?” she asks again, quieter this time. “That’s great! What makes you say that?”

“Well I can’t say for sure,” Dipper opens the freezer door and feels around for a bag of frozen peas. “But…he just called me Dipper” he tosses a half-empty bag back and forth in his hands to judge its temperature. “And I think he was going to tell me a story about Grunkle Ford just before I left the room”

“That’s great!” Mabel grins. “How’d you get it out of him? I thought Grunkle Ford said he’d tried everything!”

“He did,” Dipper takes a seat at the table. “That’s why I don’t want to get my hopes up. All I did was just…let him talk” he sighs. “I want to be just as excited about this as you, but…I don’t want it to turn out to just be one big coincidence”

Mabel takes a seat at the table beside him. “There must be something we’re missing. What did Grunkle Ford say he already tried?”

“He showed him every page of their high school yearbook, Mabel, I’m not sure we can get any more direct then that”

“Hmmm…” Mabel taps at her chin, taking a glance around the room as if the answer’s going to be right in the room with them. A minute passes before she stops, and turns to Dipper in the arm. “That’s it! Dipper, I’ve figured it out!”

“You have?”

“Yeah!” She beams. “Dipper, don’t you see? The reason nothing worked with Grunkle Ford is because it was too much! Reading him an entire yearbook? Bringing him downstairs to the lab and rambling on about an interdimensional portal? It’s no wonder Stan hasn’t been able to pay attention! He needs to figure these things out one at a time, not all at once!”

Dipper gasps. “That’s why he kept complaining about having a headache! He was processing too much information in one go! Mabel, you’re a genius!”

“Pssh,” Mabel waves a hand in the air. “I know”

Dipper hops down from the chair and walks to open the pantry door. He pushes aside what’s left of the canned meat and the boxes of pasta, and grins when he finds what he’s looking for. “Aha!” he beams, pulling an unopened bag of toffee peanuts and a can of Pitt Cola out of the pantry. “Thanks Mabel!” he shouts, and grabs the bag of frozen peas off of the table as he sprints back to Ford’s study room.

~~

“Hey,” Dipper says as he pushes his way back into Ford’s study room. “Sorry that took so long, I was trying to multitask and get you some food, but this is all we could find”. Dipper drops the bag of peas onto the couch carelessly, and offers the bag of toffee peanuts and the can of soda directly to Stan.

Stan’s eyes go wide at the sight, and he snatches the bag out of Dipper’s hand, ravenously tearing it open. “You kiddin’?” he shovels a handful of toffee peanuts into his mouth. “I’d kill for these things. Haven’t had ‘em since…” he pauses, the bag dropping carelessly to his lap. He scratches at his head, his face scrunching up in a blend of concentration and confusion, before he sits back against the backrest of the couch. “…Since I was a kid, at least”

“Yeah?” Dipper sits on the couch beside Stan, handing him his makeshift ice pack. “What was that like?”

Stan snorts. “What, the last time I had toffee peanuts? Surprised I remember them at all, since Pa always said no when I asked for ‘em. How am I supposed to remember how I felt when I always had to sneak my allowance out of the house to buy ‘em at all?”

It’s working.

Dipper laughs, shaking his head. “I meant your childhood, but if you want to go into the minute details, then be my guest” He shifts in his seat to turn towards Stan. “What about the story you were about to tell me before I left the room?”

Stan grins, and he shifts in his chair too, careful to keep his ice pack in its place. “Well, I took a lotta boxing classes as a kid, y’see? Pa thought it would be good if I learned to defend myself, ‘cause he was sick of seein’ me come home with black eye after black eye. But what Pa doesn’t know is that the reason I was comin’ home with them at all is because I was already defending myself plenty.” He puffs out his chest as best he can. “All those classes were doing was teaching me how to throw even harder punches at those bullies. But wouldn’t ya know it? I didn’t tell a soul at school I was takin’ those classes at all. So one day when I was about eleven years old, Crampelter and his gang were harassing my brother, so I-”

The cocky grin on Stan’s face falls off of his face and shatters to the ground in thousands of broken pieces. His face goes through about a dozen different expressions in a number of seconds, and his eyes are darting around the room like he’s looking desperately for something that isn’t there.

“My-my brother, he-” Stan stutters, tightly gripping at the cushions of the couch. “Years later, he sent me this…this postcard, and I-” he holds his hands out in front of him like he’s holding the ghost of it in his hands, and violently shakes his head. He turns his gaze towards Dipper again, and his chest is rising and falling rapidly like he’s in the midst of a panic attack. He holds out his hands, and they’re trembling.  “Wh-what’s happening to me?”

“Woah, woah, Stan, you’re okay! Everything’s okay” Dipper grips his shaking hands. “Just…keep going. Keep telling me about your brother”

Stan sighs. “He’s more than just my brother, kid. He’s my twin brother. He sent me this postcard telling me to get to his place as urgently as possible, but then there was this big fight, and…” his voice drifts off. “It’s all my fault,” he whispers urgently, dropping his head in his hands.

Dipper frowns, unsure what to do. He knows he can’t just wake up Ford and bring him in the room, because that’s just going to cause Stan to panic even more. He’ll think he’s dreaming, or that Ford is some kind of guilt-induced hallucination.  The most he can do is get Stan to keep talking, because if he keeps talking and keeps remembering it’s only inevitable that he’ll remember Ford is okay too.

Dipper scooches closer to Stan on the couch, and gently places a hand on Stan’s leg, wordlessly encouraging him to continue. Stan flinches at the gentle gesture, but messily scrubs at his face with his wrist as he clears his throat. “He got sucked into this…portal…thingy. I tried for hours to turn it back on, but nothing budged.” He shakes his head. “So I had to resort to the only option I had left. He’s a scientist, y’see? And he kept all his research in a series of journals. I figured he had to have the blue prints for the portal somewhere in those things.  So I searched, and I searched, and I put the thing back together with what I had, but…” he trails off. “I haven’t seen him since”

“Well…” Dipper starts, trying to encourage him to keep remembering. “What’ve you been doing since? You can’t just be spending every day trying to get it to work, right?”

Stan raises an eyebrow. “Whaddya take me for, some kind of hermit? I still gotta earn money to feed myself somehow, and if my time living in…” he pauses. “Uh, acting…college. Yeah. If I’ve learned anything from acting school, it’s how to con suckers out of their money. So I turned my brother’s house into a tourist trap to scam the suckers who live here into paying my bills for me.”

He shakes his head, and a warm smile overtakes his face. “It was gettin’ real monotonous, lemme tell ‘ya. Then wouldn’t you know it? Just as I was starting to give up hope, I get a phone call from a hospital in California telling me to get down there as soon as I could. Figured I had nothing left to lose, so I closed down shop for a few days and made the eight hour drive to California myself.”

Stan’s tearing up again. “And wouldn’t you know it? My niece-in law had twins. A boy and a girl” he nudges Dipper. “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say they’re about your age, kid. Wonder if you’d get along with them. Now, they named the boy Mason, but they didn’t call him that when they were talking to family. They wanted to distinguish him from his sister, y’see, and he had a real funny looking birthmark on his forehead, so they called him-”

And all at once, he’s going through the same motions he had when he’d first mentioned Ford’s name. His expression is changing, and twisting, and his eyes are darting around the room until they land on Dipper. He opens his mouth to say something, closes it, and opens it again. He sits there for what feels like minutes, looking like a fish out water.

But then the fog clears from Stan’s eyes, and Dipper is suddenly crushed in such a tight hug that he can’t breathe.

“Dipper!” Stan shouts. “You crazy, stubborn maniac, you’re okay!” He barks loudly in laughter, and squeezes Dipper even tighter. “I can’t believe it! I’d thought I lost you for good! There was blue fire everywhere, and then a flash of bright white, and-”

He jumps to his feet, knocking the toffee peanuts and the ice pack for his chest to the floor. “Mabel!!  Mabel was there, in-in this forest clearing, asking if I was okay, and-” he freezes. He turns back towards Dipper, and takes a knee. “and Ford! Where’s Ford?”

Dipper laughs. “Fast asleep, if you’re willing to believe,” he says, and before Stan can stand to his feet or do anything else spontaneous, he throws his arms around Stan’s neck, clinging to him tightly.

“Heh,” Stan laughs, and brings his arms around Dipper to return the hug. “I missed you too, kiddo,” he whispers, and pulls away to ruffle up Dipper’s hair. “Feels good to know you’ve been taking care while I was gone”

Dipper doesn’t respond to that, just chuckles wetly before throwing his arms around Stan once more.

[deuynndoodles]

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suspicion increase by deuynndrabbles and @whimsicalweast chapter summary:

Three kids have a sleepover. One word- Mabel.

“Seriously, Mabel?” The boy groans, and looks at his sister with The Look.

“Yes, seriously,” she says, in a tone that is anything but serious.

3k | ch. two

Danny is currently curled up in a rainbow blanket (given to him by the boy, but he mentioned it was knitted by Mabel- he doesn’t necessarily need it because of his ice powers, and therefore likes the cold, but he figures it’d be weird to refuse) in the attic, aka the twins’ bedroom.

He glances over to Mabel, who is currently laying on her bed coloring in a coloring book on her belly with her feet in the air, her tongue sticking out playfully, he starts to reflect on what landed him in this spot in the first place.

(Danny accidentally mentioned he didn’t have anywhere to go that night, and Mabel had none of that and scooped him up, dragging him to another room in the Mystery Shack and asking her great uncle if Danny could stay over for the night.

The older man didn’t seem to care all that much, only giving them a few warnings such as “Don’t stay up too late”, and “Never let Mabel have any Smiley Dip”, and “Don’t raise the dead again”.

Danny found everything he mentioned fairly standard sleepover rules.

The two children thanked the man, one certainly more enthusiastic than the other, and Mabel rushed up the stairs, hopping each stair two at a time, gripping Danny with her right arm.

Mabel’s brother didn’t seem quite as eager to have Danny over as Mabel was, but remained quiet throughout the process for the most part. Well, he did reprimand his sister for inviting over a stranger, which was a reasonable response. But. He was right here, jeez.

All Mabel did was blow a raspberry at him and told him not to worry, but her brother didn’t calm.)

Still feeling the kid’s gaze focused on the back of his head, Danny pulls out his phone and dials two very familiar numbers, one to a specific techno-geek and the other to a goth activist, but is only met with “The person you are trying to reach is currently unavailable, please call back later or leave a message at the beep.”

He sighs, dropping his phone back into his jeans pocket and gives the twins a smile, saying, “I’ll try again in the morning. It is kinda late, anyways. And who knows how late it is for them in Illinois.”

Mabel gives him a wide grin and nods her head, but her brother just gives him an uncertain glance before returning to the journal in his hands. It looks fairly odd to Danny, a red cover with a six fingered hand slapped on the front and a bold number 2 in the center. But he’s not one to judge.

(So now here he is, kidnapped by a thirteen-year-old girl, staying in the attic of a tourist trap wrapped in a multitude of blankets in between two twin beds.)

He still feels as if he’s gotten whiplash from this whole scenario. But he just pulls up the blanket draped around his shoulders to cover his cheeks, content with the situation as well as he can be.

Mabel is now laying on her back, placing her bare feet on the slanted ceiling. Her brother is still scouring his journal, with two other identical covers sitting on his bedside table. He’s chewing on the end of the pencil he holds, occasionally pausing to write a thing or two in the margins. Their pig, deemed ‘Waddles’, is snuggled up to Mabel on her bed.

Danny himself is in a make-shift nest (no matter what you call it, Mabel will say it’s a bed, but Danny will call it a nest) surrounded by a various amount of blankets and pillows.

“By the way, what do ya like to do, Danny?” Mabel says, her tongue stuck out quite dorkishly and she grins a wide brace-filled grin at the boy.

Danny blinks, and then the audio forms itself into words in his brain. “Video games, I guess?” He says, tilting his head slightly and the blanket falls back onto his shoulders. “I don’t have a whole lot of free time.”

(Danny doesn’t share the reasons for this.)

“Cool!” Mabel draws out the syllable, and flips over onto her belly again and props her arms up on her pillow. She turns to glance at her brother. “Hey, bro-bro? Do we have any video games in the shack?”

The small teen furrows his brow. “I don’t think so,” he mutters, setting the book in his lap aside on his bedside table to join the two other identical volumes. “Soos probably has some, but for now I think we just have board games downstairs in the gift shop.”

Mabel gasps, and smirks. “How about Candyland?” Mabel grins, and her brother groans.

“Fine,” he says. “You okay with that, Danny?”

Danny shrugs, and says, “I don’t really care, to be honest.”

Mabel takes the neutral answer and grins even wider, sliding off her bed with an “oomph” and trotting downstairs to retrieve said board game.

The brunet on the bed sighs and looks over to Danny, who simply blinks at him in confusion. “What?” Danny says, and the boy tentatively offers a slip of paper attached to a clipboard along with the pencil he was chewing on to him.

“Can you write some things down on Phantom?”

(Danny is suddenly reminded of the fact that he had agreed to hunt essentially himself- his brain hasn’t quite caught up and he’s sure he’ll bolt up in the middle of the night and go “I’m hunting myself with two thirteen-year-olds”.

But he hasn’t quite comprehended this fact yet.)

Instead, Danny grimaces at the chewed and slightly wet pencil, but takes the clipboard and starts to write in slanted print anway.

After a few minutes, he offers the paper back to the boy, and he starts to read the text out loud. Danny rolls his eyes at this. (He knows what the paper says, thank you very much.)

“Phantom’s a pretty friendly ghost. He’d save people from oncoming ghost attacks back in my hometown. Nobody really knows where he’s from or how old he is-”

(It’s not like Danny’s going to go and share his life story to this kid he doesn’t even know the name of. Besides, it’s technically the truth. Excluding a certain trio, a sister, and a whole world of ghosts.)

“-or how he died, but they never can find out because Phantom is fairly elusive. He typically stays in his own haunt, so it’s unlikely you’ll see him anywhere else.” The boy pauses his reading, glancing up from the paper to meet sky blue eyes with hazelnut brown. “This is all you know?” He says, shaking the scrap of notebook paper.

The door is slammed open to reveal an excited Mabel with a decorated cardboard box in her hands. (To be honest, both boys had pretty much forgotten she was downstairs.)

“Who’s ready to play Candyland?” She exclaims, and doesn’t wait for an answer before she plops down on the wooden floor and sets up the game.

“I get red!” Mabel says, and picks up the piece that is now ‘hers’ and sets it by the start. She grabs a blue and sticks it by the start as well. “Danny, which color do you want?” She shakes the green and the yellow gingerbread man figures, a wide grin still adorning her face.

“Green.”

Mabel shoves the yellow one back in the box. “Poor yellow guy, he’ll be all lonely in there. Well, we’ll make it quick!” She grins, and offers the deck of cards over to her brother who shuffles and sets it down next to the board.

The first card is a purple, and Mabel decides that she goes first and moves the red figure. Danny goes next, and takes an arm out of his blanket nest and moves his character five blocks forward.

Approximately fifteen minutes later, the yellow man is reunited with his best friends after Mabel yells “I win!” and flips the board over in victory.

(For a quick second, Danny is reminded of when Sam would brag whenever she’d win the round of Doom they all played together, slamming the controller down on the couch and announcing her victory to two sour boys.

Though of course, this girl is the complete opposite of Sam so he isn’t really sure why he thinks of her.)

“Seriously, Mabel?” The boy groans, and looks at his sister with The Look.

“Yes, seriously,” she says, in a tone that is anything but serious.

Danny snickers, and stops as he sees Mabel’s wide grin as she believes Danny is on her side.

(He’s neutral.)

-

“Anyway, let’s focus on Phantom,” Dipper says, and pulls out the slip of paper that Danny filled out. He reads it out loud again to his twin, and she smiles as she listens.

She seems to almost deflate like a balloon when he mentions that they might not see Phantom, but when Dipper thinks of that night last week of seeing a bright light above the trees at just before sunrise-

He’s pretty sure they’ll see Phantom.

And besides, Danny’s parents are ghost hunters so he knows a couple things. They’re bound to find something.

“Though you guys could probably find a bunch of animal ghosts and stuff in the woods. Seemed pretty supernatural to me,” Danny throws out, and glances up at the twins.

Suddenly, Mabel’s balloon is filled with helium again and she sits up straight with an excited expression. “That sounds sweet,” she says, drawing out the last syllable annoyingly long and Dipper groans on the inside.

But he can’t say he isn’t excited, because he definitely is. He just doesn’t show it as much as the girl does. His heart is still beating fast, and a grin adorns his face. He just doesn’t flail his limbs around like Mabel is currently doing, hammering questions about ghosts at Danny, while the boy looks at the floor and responds with short, concise answers.

‘Yeah,’ Dipper thinks. ‘Let’s do this.’

And then Mabel hits him over the head with a pillow from Danny’s nest, knocking his snapback off his head and he turns to glare at her.

“C’mon, lil’ bro! It’s sleepover time! We can focus on those ghostie thingies tomorrow!”

Dipper abstains from responding, but he thinks ‘You were just asking Danny a bunch of questions about them’ as Dipper tugs his hat back on.

“Now, let’s paint your nails, boys!”

She lifts a few bottles of nail polish in her hands and a smirk adorns her face.

Danny groans, and says, “Ugh, fine. But I want black.”

(He’s still thinking of Sam and Tucker.)

Dipper soon has rainbow nail polish smothered over his fingers, carefully painted and Danny has all black nails and toes. (Danny found it hard to object to that puppy-dog-eyes face when she begged to paint his toes.)

“Who’s ready for makeup?” Mabel smiles, opening a drawer.

“Uh, no,” Danny deadpans, “I didn’t agree to this.” Dipper falls over onto his bed with a groan.

-

If Mabel didn’t notice her brother’s clear discomfort from this entire situation, she’d call herself blind.

She believes that she knows Dipper better than he knows himself, and now is just proof of that. Danny’s examining his makeup in the mirror, and Mabel watches Dipper fiddle with the pen in his hand unconsciously, spinning it around. He stares down at the hardwood floor as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world with brown hair falling into his eyes.

Dipper has a tendency to avoid things that makes him uneasy, so it makes sense he’s quiet throughout the sleepover. Not that he was ever really that loud in the first place; Dipper usually waits until attention is diverted away from him so he blends into the background when he’s wary of anything.

Or anyone.

Dipper has never been a social butterfly like Mabel, and she doesn’t blame him for that. He still tries. . . Well, at least he used to. Ever since their last summer at Gravity Falls, he seems so different, so closed off.

With everything that occurred last summer, he’s grown even more distrustful of people in general, and she can’t blame him for this either. (She still feels guilty about what she said to him when they were trapped in that ideal world, paradise, but was really just a trap. She was too blind to see, and she has Dipper to thank for ever getting out of there.)

It makes sense, after all.

(A small part of her blames this mysterious town for what it’s done, who’s really responsible for this shift in Dipper’s personality, and Gravity Falls no longer has him haunting the streets but that voice still echoes in her brother’s head.)

Mabel knows that Dipper doesn’t particularly trust Danny yet. She’s still trying though, okay? Games, makeovers, icebreakers; nothing seems to work for them. The two could get along so well if they just talk to each other! (Danny seems down to get to know her brother, but it doesn’t go the other way and she hates it.)

It really irritates her, how she can’t do anything to get Dipper to trust Danny.

She huffs to herself, pulling out another packet of blush and sticking it in the other makeup she holds in her arms.

Mabel knows that she can’t force him to get closer to the teen, or Dipper’ll just shut them both out, which wouldn’t do either of them any good. He may not be sure of Danny, but Mabel just knows he’s nice.

Mabel likes to think she’s a good judge of character, and she’s gotten better at it in the past year. Danny has yet to make her suspicious, so that’s positive!

Besides, there’s no way he’s one of those annoying gnomes, or a vampire, or anything else. He wouldn’t have been able to get through the weirdness barrier if that was the case.

(Though she knows this, she finds herself checking his eyes as she smothers makeup over his face. Just to make sure.)

She definitely cares about her brother, there’s not doubt about that. But Danny had nowhere else to stay! She couldn’t just leave him to the wolves, or even worse, the crazy town members. After Danny mentioned he had to go, he just seemed so lonely and that wouldn’t do!

Even if Dipper doesn’t like Danny, he has to understand why she’s doing this.

She does want them to get along, but she can’t just throw them into a closet together. (last time she did that with Dipper- well, there were some unforeseen occurrences.) She can’t force them to be friends. So for now, she’ll just try to lighten the mood. Try to have fun, it is a sleepover after all!

There has to be some way to get them to talk to each other and she’s gonna find out how.

-

“Hey, Dipper, you good?”

Dipper has a full face of makeup, the makeup surprisingly working pretty well on both Danny and himself. “I’m fine,” he says, and it’s true. Mabel can be annoying at some times but he still loves her.

“Dipper?” Danny questions, and Mabel immediately responds.

“Yup! It’s his nickname because of a birthmark he got on his forehead!” She gets a little closer to Danny, and stage whispers, “It's the Big Dipper.”

“Mabel!” Dipper exclaims, feeling his ears reddening.

“What?” Mabel shrugs. “He was wondering.”

“No, I was double-checking to see if that was his name.”

Dipper turns to glare at Mabel, and then calms. “Yeah, uh, my name’s Dipper.”

“Do you really have the Big Dipper on your forehead, though?” Danny asks, and it’s a fair question, but it still slightly irritates Dipper.

Dipper nods, and wipes the makeup off his face and grabs his cap from the ground (Mabel had thrown it off to make it easier to apply makeup), steadying it on his head once again.

“Cool,” Danny says, sounding genuine, and Dipper pauses. He was almost expecting him to laugh at Dipper for it. “Space is awesome, I think it’d be cool to have a space birthmark or something.”

“Um, thanks.” Dipper says, and glances at the floor. 

(He thinks of how familiar Danny feels, not for the first time that night. He still can't place why, though.)

Stan pops in, slamming the door open. “Kids, get ready for bed. Your Grunkle wants to be able to watch babies fight without the ruckus above his head.”

Dipper finds himself yawning, and nods in agreement.

“C’mon, Grunkle Stan! It’s a sleepover,” Mabel argues, and Stan shakes his head, arms crossed.

“Lights off in five,” Stan says, and it sounds odd coming from such a gruff voice.

“Okay, Grunkle Stan,” the twins say in unison, Mabel’s in disappointment and Dipper’s with agreement.

Despite her craziness a few minutes ago, as soon as Mabel’s head hits the pillow she’s out like a light. Dipper watches Danny curl up in a ball on the floor, his head facing away, and his eyes start to droop.

He falls asleep.

-

Danny is left the last awake, with Mabel snoring and Dipper exhaling softly on his bed. He’s curled into a ball, The blanket essentially a cocoon around him, and he gazes out the open window. The window lets in soft chilly air from the summer night, but Mabel and Dipper are both curled up tight in their blankets so they don’t notice.

Danny slides his blankets off, instead settling them into a mattress shape and curls into a ball again on the fluffy floor.

He still gazes out the open window, watching the waxing moon gently shine through the panes of glass and make pretty shapes on the floor. It’s serene, and there’s no sound except for breathing in the room.

The halfa sighs, tracing a circle in the floor as a stim as he watches the moon. He isn’t sure how he’ll get home if he can’t contact his friends, but he hopes they’ll be awake in the morning.

He finds himself yawning, and eventually drifts to sleep.

[wendip-week]

Of Masks and Men: Part 4

Abel's eyes widened at the abrupt end to the moment he seemed to be having with his horticultural aunt and uncle. What Grunkle Mason had implied; he didn't like the sound of that. "W-what do you mean? What are you going to do with me?"

"It's just how it sounds, Abel. You know too much, and that, unfortunately, puts our entire race and secret-society at risk," Mason replied, a serious expression etched on the monster's face. "From Dana, to tourists, to the occasional paranormal-investigator looking to leave his mark in the world of science, one little slip-up could be the end of us."

"That means we're going to have to take drastic steps, I'm afraid," said Wendy, somberly shaking her head, a slight rustle sounding from the leaves in her red-hair. "One way or another, you can't be allowed to give us away."

Abel quickly replied, "I won't tell anyone. I swear!"

"First, we don't allow swearing in our house," the plant-woman said.

"And second," Mason continued, removing a rubber glove (one made to resemble a human-hand) and revealing a brown, wooden hand resembling the end of a tree-branch. "that's a chance we just can't take." The male Pistachion stretched out his exposed hand, which disassembled into vines and extended past his human nephew towards a nearby desk. To Abel, that would have been really cool in a movie. A moment later, he retracted it, carrying what looked an old-timey laser with a big light bulb.

He held it up for Abel to see. "Do you have any idea what this is?"

Abel stared a moment before a look of recognition crossed his face. "Wait a minute, isn't that one of those memory guns or something from the Journals?"

"Yes. This gun is designed to erase specific memories from the target. We could erase this entire afternoon from your brain. You wouldn't feel a thing, and by morning, it would seem like just another day."

"Well..." started Abel.

"There's just one problem, though," Wendy said, cutting the boy off. "There's a pretty high chance it might cause mental-issues, especially if you do that more than once. Not exactly something you might want; and nothing we really want to put up with. Plus, how would we explain that to your grandma?"

"Then there's Option 2," said Mason, looking toward the tarp his nephew was tied up in front of. "This." His wife reached over and pulled it off, revealing a more modern interpretation of a ray gun. "It's one of the MULCH devices we use to convert humans who would benefit us or learn something they shouldn't into plant-people like us."

"Oh, crud! No! Please, just no!"

"Of course, there's still the issue with my sister. I doubt, even with a rubber costume, you'd fool her, your grandfather, or your sister for long."

"And we're really not in the business of turning family, anyway," the female Pistachion interjected. "We didn't do it with Mabel, and we aren't about to start now."

Abel's great-uncle stepped forward, looming over his nephew, now looking rather somber. "Sadly, if we can't do anything that'll leave you living with some kind of permanent effect, there's only one option left."

"Mason, wait. Are you sure there's nothing else to be done? He's our nephew; Mabel's grandson."

"I'm afraid not, my love. Either he knows, or he gets changed somehow. But this way is our only choice. This kind of thing happens all the time around here. And Mabel wouldn't suspect a thing," the scientist reasoned.

The pistachio-headed redhead had a despairing look on her face before turning away. "Okay," she whispered. "But you have to do it. I-I can't bear to watch."

"I understand. I'll tell you when it's over." The male-Pistachion turned back toward his great-nephew.

The young pre-teen started thrashing real hard, struggling to break his bonds (to no avail). Finally giving up, he stared back at his former-hero. "Grunkle Mason, please don't!"

"I'm sorry." The Pistachion slowly reached forward, just beneath Abel's head. Too frightened to look, the boy closed his eyes, ready for the end. He felt the wooden fingers brush against his neck. He felt a snap...

Only to feel the vines tying him to his chair slacken significantly. His eyes shot open. Abel looked down and discovered they had fallen off. And the humanoid pistachio-tree that was his great-uncle wasn't reaching toward him anymore. Abel looked up; the man had his arms folded, and he was... grinning?

"W-what is this? What's going on?!" You didn't need to see to realize that confusion and exasperation were on the young man's face.

"We're letting you go," the Pistachion replied simply.

"What? I don't... what?" He heard giggling to the side. He turned to see his great-aunt with her hand over her mouth, trying and failing to suppress her laughter. "Aunt Wendy?"

"Sorry, but what did you think we were about to do? Hurt you? We're your family, dude."

"But I... I thought... Wait, was letting me out the plan the entire time?" Abel asked, still trying to wrap his head around these developments."

"Basically," Mason said with a shrug.

"But-but why all the tricks and tying me up and stuff? Couldn't you have just let me go, or maybe tell me you're going to after you're done talking?"

Wendy rolled her red eyes. "Yeah, like you'd buy our story. 'The pistachio-monsters cornered their human-nephew... to talk to him!!! Dun-dun-duhhhhn!' We had to get you to listen somehow."

Abel groaned as he stood up. "Point taken."

Mason patted him on the shoulder. "Welcome to Gravity Falls. Believe it or not, this is nothing compared to what we've been through, even at your age."

Wendy: "He's right. When I was a human-teenager, I once got turned into a tapestry. Needless to say, when you're not even a person, you kind of appreciate the simple things in life. Well, once you're a person again and actually alive and sentient enough to appreciate life, anyway."

"The nightmares from that..." Mason reminisced. "Anyway, I bet you're still trying to make sense of all of this. Got any more questions?"

Abel looked thoughtful for a moment. "Actually... this explains a lot of things. This is why we don't see you that often, isn't it? You're trying to hide your secret."

"Well, I suppose that's part of it," said Mason. "We do live in another State you know. Plus, our work does sometimes require travel."

"Plus, man, we really don't like leaving Gravity Falls."

"True. You've read about the weirdness of Gravity Falls itself. Right, Abel?"

"Sure. Something about it being a magnet for that stuff?"

"Yes. The valley seems to draw in weirdness. It's essentially the highest-concentrated source in the world. Wendy and I... we basically feel drawn to it. Of course, we called this place our home long before we were MULCH-ed, and we aren't bound inside the weirdness-barrier surrounding the valley, so whether that's a contributing factor is debatable."

Wendy nodded. "And as far as weirdness goes, we're basically a 6 or a 7 on a ten-scale. Anyway, enough about that. What else makes sense to you?"

Abel smirked. "The nut-puns." His aunt and uncle just stared quizzically. "Seriously, 'nut-jobber'? Or how about Aunty Wendy saying how you've always been nuts for her? And there's that joke Grunkle Dipper always says while you're out of earshot."

"What joke?" the redhead asked.

"Wait, maybe we should change-"

"Oh, no. I wanna hear this," Wendy said, not giving her husband a chance to finish that sentence.

"That you're a nut with a rubber bu-"

"Next question!" Mason almost shouted, clearly embarrassed.

"Then there's the thing with Dana's soda and her music..."

Wendy sighed. "Yeah, sorry. Certain soda-brands are potentially lethal to our kind. We're not taking any chances with something unfamiliar. Trust me, she'll get it back later. As for her songs, I just don't like Straight Blanchin' and Chop-Chop. Sue me."

"Okay... I guess this is also why you two lock your bedroom door every night: so Dana and I can't see you without your masks on."

"Yes!" Mason replied (rather quickly, too). "Let's just go with that!"

"Uh, agreed!" said Wendy. "Anything else?"

"Umm... actually, something is bothering me. I'm not complaining, but you said I know too much. Why would you just let me go? I could expose you."

Mason gave a toothy-smile. "True... I guess we're just going to have to trust you with our secret."

"But we really can't have you telling anyone," said Wendy. "And we mean ANYONE."

"Even Dana?" Abel asked?

The Pistachion spouses looked at each other for a moment. Mason turned back to his nephew. "Listen, we're not trying to drive a wedge between you two, but this is strictly need-to-know. My great-uncle Ford trusted me with a secret once that I couldn't share. While that was logical, there was some disdain in there for family due to old, untreated wounds. This isn't like that; we just can't risk anything. We're asking you not to say anything to anyone. Please."

Abel paused a moment, seemingly mulling over all of this. He looked at the two. "I promise," he said with a sigh.

"Excellent," his aunt replied. "And hey! Next time your sister has a slumber party, maybe we can invite the family over and you can see us as we really are."

"Really?" asked Abel. "Man, I think the way I see the world has changed. I have got so much to think about this summer."

"Well, you can start that thinking in your room," said Mason. "You're grounded for the rest of the day."

"Wait, what?"

"Dude, you pulled your uncle's hair. Imagine if it had been real. And even if it was a regular toupee, that would have just been disrespectful."

"But it was Dana's dare!" the pre-teen boy argued.

"And she's grounded, too, as soon as we find her. Take the elevator up and go home. Don't tell the Ramirezes what went down just now. They think you were treated for an alien disease," said Mason. "Your aunt and I will follow; we need to get our masks back on."

"Fine..." he said, defeated.

The two Pistachions waited for their nephew to get inside before they replaced their masks.

"Well, that was something," said Wendy.

"Yeah," her husband replied. "Do you think we're doing the right thing by letting Abel in on this? There definitely is a risk, even if he has no intention of betraying us."

"Well, you said we should make it a point to reconnect with the family outside of the Falls. In fact, isn't that the reason we agreed to look after Abel and Dana? To bond with them? What better way is there than to show that we trust them?"

"But what if Dana finds out? Will that hurt our bond with her or her bond with her brother?"

"If she finds out, she finds out. It'll be alright. Whether things get tense or not, it'll be alright. You and Mabel always seem to hammer things out. Heck, Stan and Ford managed to find that old brotherly-bond they lost years ago. And that's just sibling-bombshells."

Mason chuckled. "You always know what to say, don't you?"

Wendy smirked. "Better believe it. The same way you always somehow give me faith in general just by being you... Dip." She gave the her nut-like spouse a peck on the cheek. "Now straighten your mask and get moving! I'll follow in a bit."

Mason looked confused. "Why?"

Wendy folded her arms. "You think I'm going to give you an opportunity to look at my 'rubber-butt' as we walk home? Forget it, Mister."

Mason gave a half-amused groan. "I'm in the doghouse, aren't I?"

"Pretty much… at least until you make it up to me."

"Well, I'm sure I can think of something."

The End

//

Well, that's the finale. I hope you all enjoyed this. And if it wasn't clear, yes, this is technically a crossover, or rather a sequel to a crossover, with Milo Murphy's Law, which I wrote for Wendip Week. Take care.

[andrewmoocow]

Fooly Falls 2 Ride on Shooting Star chapter 5: Ex-Partners in Crime (originally posted on May 30, 2019)

AN: And now the end is near. And so we face, the final curtain. My fans, I'll say it clear. I'll finish this tale, of course I am certain. I've wrote this sequel, I improved the source with my own flair. But after all of this, the climax is getting there. WKUHH ERBV, ZLWK GLVFRUG XQZDQWHG WZR ROG IULHQGV, ZLWK SDVWV IRUHYHU KDXQWHG RQH PDQ, DQ DQVZHU PDGH KLP GDXQWHG GHVWLQB OHIW WR EH DQVZHUHG, DQG WKHB'UH JRQQD EH HAKDXVWHG

--

In the style of an old black and white film, an assembly of giant irons stood perfectly single file before the setting sun. Gwen quietly watched before turning away and picked a bottle up off the ground. She then discovered a dejected worker sitting in front of a campfire with his hardhat the only splash of color. Gwen examined the sight before her when she also discovered the outline of a skeleton beneath her feet, where she placed the bottle in the center of its chest. Just then the girl dropped to her side in pain, discovering a small disk stuck in her foot that she gave to the skeleton to serve as an eye. As a nearby engine roared, steam from a structure decorated with irons covered the monochrome land like a sandstorm, sweeping her up along the way. When Gwen opened her eyes, she laid in a colorful body of water with her beanie in hand. Then the world suddenly turned greyscale as she excitedly ran along the shoreline while the Medical Mechanica factory continued to stand upright.

-- Ian whistled a familiar tune while tuning up a large computer monitor nestled within Ford's study. "Ride on shooting star. Yabba dabba doo, somethi-ing." he quietly sang while making a few final touches and dismounted from his maintenance creeper. "Okay, main screen turn on?" "Yeah, main screen turn on." Dipper answered turning to a certain someone tied up and fast asleep in a chair. "Rise and shine old friend." he announced placing a freshly cooked chicken leg under Haruko's nose, and the delicious scent wafting into it finally woke her up. "W-what happened?" she asked slowly beginning to wake up. "Last thing I remember was working on something before there was this napkin that covered me and-hey!" "There's no escaping this Raharu. You will give us the answers on your past that we've been searching for!" Ford declared dramatically stepping out of the shadows. "And perhaps some clues on what you're planning this time. Kanda?" "Will do." Tsukata replied hooking the Vespa Woman up to the machine with a helmet resembling a strainer and the monitor finally activated. "This was originally built to defend minds from the dream demon known as Bill Cipher, but now it's been rebuilt to simply read them and view the memories within." "This could be it everyone, our biggest breakthrough!" Dipper cackled joyously as it began booting up. "You okay there Dipper? You've slowly grown more unhinged." Ian asked nervously placing a hand on the older man's shoulder before he was slapped away. "I'm not going unhinged, I'm just excited to finally see through her lies once and for all!" Dipper continued lighting up a fifth cigarette. "So much so that I've literally cut my smokes in half!" "Yeah, he's officially snapped." Kanda commented taking a puff of his own cigarette and sitting down next to Haruko. "Oy, a bunch of losers the lot of you." Haruhara japed with a grin. "You've all become conspiracy theorists who'd resort to kidnapping an expecting mother just to prove a point. And since when did you take up smoking?" "Since I failed to quit." the agent muttered. "And I've been doing it to help me calm down." Dipper added taking a break from his mini-celebration. "Augh, my back." Haruko groaned struggling to reach for her back. "Must be the ropes getting a bit too tight, or you're just getting old." Kanda commented. "Naw, can't really age." the woman responded. "I've been 19 for what feels like ages now." "How many years exactly?" Ford asked writing in a new journal. "Hell if I know, probably ever since I met you-know-who." Haruko answered. "The summer I turned seventeen, was when I took up smoking for the first time." Kanda explained. "Sort of the same with me, only I took up smoking to deal with becoming a father." Dipper replied just as Project Mentem started acting up. "Oh my God, it's finally time!" "Can't believe it took one conversation for it to get started." Ian remarked pounding at the machine. "Well, let's get cracking." After a few moments of static, a full image revealed itself as a slightly younger looking Haruko dressed in drab work-clothes with a familiar iron in the background. "Wait a minute, is that-" Dipper exclaimed while his eyes widened. "Yep. Haruha Raharu, ex-factory worker." Raharu groaned in resignation over her past. "And it was back when Medical Mechanica had control over my planet too." As the younger Vespa Woman continued trudging about her day, Ford lost interest. "Let's just skip to the interesting stuff." the scientist declared fast-fowarding through the memory until it stopped at Haruha rocking out on some equipment as a makeshift drumkit. "Now that's the little devil we know!" "Hey, keep it down in there Haruha!" a strict, snarly voice cried out to her barging into the room. He was a tall, robust figure with a thick mustache, very long nose and a comically large cigar in his mouth. "Ah, good ol' Heinzenberg. A real J. Jonah he was, really miss when he would scream like crazy at everyone." Haruko reminisced on her former boss. "Either stop those abominable sounds or I'll do it for you!" Heinzenberg screamed pulling out a laser blaster and firing, but his rebellious employee swiftly escaped. "Try and catch me brushface!" "Wow, seems like everyone hated your guts." Dipper remarked as the fight between Haruha & Heinzenberg tore the workplace apart, to the ire of everybody else. When the dust settled, the area was in shambles and Heinzenberg was completely furious. "HAAAAAAA-RUUUUUUU-HAAAAAARAAAAA! YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUU'REEEEEEE FIIIIIIIIIREEEEEEDDDDD!" "Was he really that loud?" Ford asked as the Haruha on the screen was dragged away by security robots. "Yep, to the point where one had to add extra letters to whatever he was screaming." Haruko cackled before her smirk turned into a frown as Kanda fast-fowarded to the biker's home life, where she was being harshly scolded by a man presumed to be her father. "Do you realize what you've done Haruha?!" "Abusive parent, correct?" Ian interviewed their captive. "Oh you better believe it. The old man was a completely irredeemable piece of shit who loved drinking more than his own family." Raharu declared morosely, turning away from that ugly part of her past. "And as for my mom, pretty sure she got killed by him in a drunken rage. But who knows, I barely knew her." "Your slacking off and playing that infernal music nearly got us all in trouble!" Mr. Raharu drunkenly shouted after smacking his daughter across the face. "Either behave like every other girl on this godforsaken planet or never show your face around me again!" Just then, the cruddy former apartment home of Haruha started rumbling and a loud voice bellowed "SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT! I WANT TO SEE WHAT YOU GOT!" The ceiling began falling to pieces little by little, all capped off with a steel girder losing its support and falling right over Haruko's father. "WHAT THE FU-" was all he could scream before the girder reduced him to a puddle of red. "The Cromulons!" Ford exclaimed fast-fowarding to Haruko on stage before the giant planet-sized heads gazing down on her. "PLANET WASPRUS, SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT!" the Cromulon boomed. "So what, do they go around screaming at planets?" Kanda asked. "And what do they want to be shown?" "The Cromulons are a race of giant floating heads who force the inhabitants of planets to perform in their own musical contest show." Haruko answered. "My planet frowned upon any form of creativity, but I just loved sticking it to the man." "Aw shitballs you guys, we gotta run!" the belches of a middle aged man sounded as he and his two companions, a stonefaced bird person and a catlike creature, ran for the hills to a hijacked cargo ship. "Hey, the old gang!" Haruko chirped excitedly. "Wait, the what?" Ian asked staring at the screen. "Those my boy, were the Flesh Curtains." Ford stated putting a hand on the eldest Ramirez's shoulder. "A band consisting of Rick Sanchez, an old frenemy of mine; and his two weird comrades Birdperson and Squanchy." "And it's not just them. Look." Birdperson announced pointing upward to a giant red phoenix that warped itself over Wasprus. "IT SEEMS WE HAVE A SPECIAL GUEST DISQUALIFIER!" the Cromulon boomed. "LEGENDARY PIRATE KING ATOMSK, SHOW US WHAT YOU GOT!" While Rick and his posse urged the younger Haruko to not give in, she was utterly mesmerized by Atomsk's might as she slowly stepped towards him. "Don't do it babe, that's Atomsk! His power will seriously screw with your head!" Rick warned, but Haruha didn't listen and reached out to the giant bird while her hair turned into its trademark pink. A large chain wrapped around the Pirate King's neck attached to the girl's wrist and she pulled it with all her might, eventually breaking it in two. Just as Atomsk screeched, Raharu was dragged away by Birdperson and raced to the cargo ship, escaping the doomed Wasprus in the nick of time when it completely exploded. "Welp, there goes that gig." Rick groaned in defeat taking a chug out of a flask. "How's our extra cargo doing?" "Still out squanch from Atomsk." the cat-person stated checking for a pulse just as their passenger came to. "Oh geez, what happened?" Haruha moaned rubbing her head when she took notice of the old man, the bird and the cat surrounding her. "Where am I, and who are all of you?!" "Well I can assure you miss, I am not a man in a suit that will teach you the alphabet." Birdperson answered. "You may call me Birdperson. These two are my bandmates Squanchy and Rick." "Okay, we played the name game. But where's my planet?!" Raharu shouted grabbing the two animal-like creatures by their collarbones. "Well funny story babe, might wanna squanch around and see what happened." Squanchy suggested trying to break free and the future Vespa Woman took his suggestion, gazing out the back window to find what was left of her home planet. "My home's all gone." Haruha muttered shedding a few tears, but those tears were soon replaced with a celebratory manic grin. "I'M FREE!" "Whoa now, aren't you the least bit torn up about everyone you ever loved there now pretty much dead?" Squanchy stated. "I don't care, cause no one felt that about me either!" the Flesh Curtains' passenger whooped. "No more shitty dad, no more boring job, and no more stifling of creativity!" "Hell yeah, now you're speaking my language!" Rick replied merrily. "Hey, didn't get your name lass. What do they call you?" he asked putting a microphone to the girl's mouth. "I'm Haruha Raharu." she introduced herself. "Hm, doesn't roll off the tongue as much." the drunken traveler commented. "You ever tried picking up a name like the ones in the comics like Peter Parker, Reed Richards, Billy Batson or Fred Flintstone?" "I don't believe that last one came from a comic." Birdperson tried to correct his bandmate until he was shushed. "I got a great one! How about Haruko Haruhara?" Sanchez announced pretending to knight the girl with what would become her famous Rickenbacker bass. "I like it, really does sound like those old comics!" the newly renamed Vespa Woman exclaimed. "So where to?" "Wherever the hell we want to!" Squanchy answered pointing onward before the fond memory paused itself. "Ah, the old gang. We were kinda like the Fab Four back then. Rick was Paul, Birdperson was Lennon, Squanchy was Ringo and yours truly was George." Haruko thought back to happier times with a smile. "The four of us were unstoppable! Traveling the multiverse, playing gigs, sticking it to the man, making crossovers and just having fun regardless!" Haruko managed to sneak her foot out of one of her boots to fiddle with Project Mentem and fast-forwarded through many events during her travels with Rick. In particular were running from an angry mob of robots resembling ones & zeros in a city within a computer, holding a concert for tons of excited colorful fans with gemstones on their bodies, playing with a golden snail that had a phone attached to its shell which led to an entire island being destroyed, defacing a money bin and all other sorts of mischief. "But then everything went horribly wrong when we planned what I call 'The Mechanica Mission'." she stated sadly stopping at the four nomads looking over current plans. "-ere's what we're gonna do. Haruko will infiltrate the Brotherhood and rise through their ranks so she can allow us to find Atomsk." Rick explained. "Afterwards, Squanchy will break into the Medical Mechanica factory where our contact has stated he's being held in while Birdperson & I form a distraction." "So even being a first-class space patrol officer was part of your scheme as well?!" Ford exclaimed. "To be honest, I don't know what I expected." "Don't wanna delve too much into it but in a nutshell, everything went to shit." Haruko regaled forwarding faster to a standoff between her and Rick in front of a Medical Mechanica factory with armies of insectoid aliens & Medical Machines on either side, their bandmates hovering nearby on another hijacked ship and Atomsk appearing out of a giant wormhole. "So all this time, we were just being used so that you can have sex with Atomsk?!" Rick screamed as he felt betrayed by his partner. "Pretty sure his pecker is way too big to fit in your hive! And I'm really going to regret those puns!" "But wasn't there ever a time in your life where you sought after ultimate power?!" the Vespa Woman responded sadistically. "Bitch, I've been possessed by those types before! But did I use those to turn on those I legitimately care for!" the alcoholic nihilist shouted preparing to attack with his guitar. "It's no use Rick, get back here before the portal reaches maximum instability!" Birdperson cautioned his bandmate. "I'll be back in a bit you guys, gotta settle the score first." Sanchez snarled mounting what would become Haruko's Vespa scooter and charging at her with battle cry and bass. Raharu would do the same and then, the video faded to snow leaving the four men utterly flabbergasted. "So it all makes sense now." Kanda declared shutting it off. "Or at least, as much sense as a person like Haruko can make it." "Other dimensions? Wait til the others hear about this!" Ian added excitedly. "Maybe I could pitch this to whatever big Hollywood director hasn't had their reputation ruined." "At least we finally got our answers Dipper." Ford said to his greatnephew, but he received no answer. "Dipper?" Dipper on the other hand stared emptily at the blank screen contemplating over everything they just watched. Her home planet, that crazy man, the multiverse, Medical Mechanica, Atomsk. In the time he knew Haruko, her past was a total enigma with the exception of how she was a space cop gone rogue, but even that was all a sham. He began lightly snickering while clutching his head. "Ha." he flatly laughed. "Ha ha ha. Ffnk, ahoo. Ahoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo." Dipper's sanity began tumbling down even faster before his chuckling turned into full-blown insane cackling. "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" "Dipper, stop laughing and answer me!" Stanford demanded his now completely insane apprentice. "IT WAS ALL A LIE! IT WAS ALL A LIE!" Dipper screamed merrily continuing his mad chortling and smashing the screen. "YOU ARE TEARING ME APART LISA!" "Uh, has anyone seen Haruko?" Ian asked pointing out the empty stool spinning in a circle. "It seems Dipper's little episode here has given her an opportunity to flee." Ford observed on the verge of coming to a shocking conclusion. "But where could she be off t-Oh no." Just as fast as he made his realization, Ford bolted out of his study and went up the elevator to follow the lying motorist. "Where's he off to?" Kanda asked Ian. "Stan is holding a little wake for Jinyu," the eldest Ramirez son answered. "And I don't want to know what Haruko will be up to."

--

A small drum accompanied a confused rabbi singing for Julia Jinyu in front of the equally unaware attendees who are staring at Stanley and wondering among themselves why they're attending a funeral for someone who was basically unknown to them. "We have no idea who the deceased is, but I can promise she will rest in peace. May He take good care of this woman, and continue to watch over us all." the rabbi chanted before clearing his throat, switching his Jewish dialect for a growling Midwestern accent. "All right Pines, pay up!" he shouted holding out his hand and expecting cash. "Haven't got all day, have a wedding in Alabama to preside over." "Who's the lucky underage victim and their offender?" Stan asked fishing a wad of thousands out of his wheelchair. "Don't want to get anyone here mad, but it's a juicy one!" the rabbi replied with a smug grin. After snatching his bills from the old man's hand, he wordlessly allowed the audience to give their condolences before leaving. First came Senator Gideon Gleeful. Although he and Stanley made amends, there was still a friendly contempt between the two. "So how's that conspiracy against President Kitaki going?" the con-artist asked his old enemy. "Moving along quite nicely Pines. Already got the Fundshausers on my side." Gideon replied turning to Grenda & Marius with a wink and a grin. "Can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm probably going to being voting for you." Stan admitted. "The less we need of that old hag trying to ban the possibility of intergalactic travel, the better!" Next came Masurao. "Hey I know you! You're that guy from Little Asia!" the great-uncle exclaimed. "I am sorry for your loss sir, but I'm on borrowed time." Masurao apologized before scurrying outside. "What's his deal?" "So the damn thing stood up? And it's also getting foggy." Masurao stated spying on the upright iron from below with Eyepatch. "It'll go away when the sun reaches its peak." Eyepatch responded. "Did we really need to make a pitstop at the Shack on our way there?" "Even if it doesn't have a fraction of the power it once had." his partner remarked gazing upon Canti's head while Aiko spied on the two men without their knowledge. "Don't worry, just forget about it." Eyepatch assured him before they departed in a pickup truck carrying the Medical Machine's remains while the funeral continued on as normal. Eventually the two made it to an orbit elevator area in Portland where a doglike man waited for them. "Hey champ, you training hard for tomorrow?!" Eyepatch greeted the worker with a fistbump. "Oh you know, just trying to save my money." the other man replied. "Feel free to just head on in, warehouse should be up ahead." "Good on the money sport. It's important to make plans for the future y'know." Eyepatch complimented, which warranted a grumble from Masurao. When the worker tried to pick up Canti's head, it suddenly turned on for a split second. "Hey, watch how you're handling that thing Mutt!" Masurao ordered. "It's like, vintage!" "Yeah, this is pretty heavy. My bad." Mutt quickly apologized. "That thing's a piece of junk anyways champ. Hakuna matata as they always say!" Eyepatch casually stated which earned him an earful from his younger companion. "Are you insane?! Do you have any idea how much that-" "I totes got it sir." Mutt assured them. "You know, I had a hard time throwing away my first cellphone! Sentimental value is sometimes worth the most." "You don't understand at all!" Masurao continued shouting before the other two men laughed. -- Back at Jinyu's funeral in Gravity Falls, Arnold grimly faced the wall while Juan & Jorge tried to apologize. "Please, you gotta forgive us Arnie!" the twins cried bowing to the floor in shame. "We'll do anything to make it up to you! Would you like to come with us to that new amusement park opening up?" "I'd rather go with someone who won't deliberately leave me to die just because of their manliness obsession." Arnold glowered not ever taking his eyes off the wall. "But if we bring girls with us, we'll get a hefty discount! Like 99% I heard! Aiko asked me to come with her!" Juan tried appealing to their sullen friend, but he still received no answer even as Gwen entered the room. "Fine, be a jerkass for pretty much barely any rhyme or reason for all we care!" Suddenly, Haruko abruptly barged into the living room riding on her scooter and wearing Jinyu's shades, interrupting the funeral and enraging Stan. She slammed her hands on the coffin to speak to the audience. "So listen up everybody, cause I have an important announcement to make! Kay?" Haruko declared. "I am, um, gonna get married!" she announced switching into a wedding dress to everyone's bewildered cheering. "And everyone is invited! Yes I mean everyone!" "I congratulate you on your marriage madame, but this is a place of mourning. Please save your speech til after the wake." one of Gideon's bodyguards with long hair stated. "Do we have visual on crazy pregnant biker that just interrupted a funeral?" "Noted. Prepare for detainment." his black jerry-curled partner replied swapping the burger he was eating for a cattle prod. "Oh wait wait wait, you can't inflict violence on an expecting mother & housewife like that!" Haruko exclaimed turning into a homemaker with a creepy baby doll on her back. "Now let me tell you all the tale of how my husband and I, fell. In. Love." "So my hubby and I met at an amusement park in Portland, and I was there during sunset." the so-called mother narrated through children's crayon drawings. "Clumsy ol' me was about to get hit by a roller coaster when HE swept in to save me like I was a damsel in distress! It was MY HUBBY!" The final drawing depicted Haruko kissing a humanoid red bird which struck a chord in Gwen, as if she had seen him before. "So remember everyone, amusement parks are a paradise!" the Vespa Woman preached. "Forget this sobstory, let's go have so-" "HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-RUUUUUUUUU-KOOOOOOOOOOO!" Stan screamed as loud as his nearly eight decade old lungs could cut his former friend off. "Oh hey, didn't see you there Stanley! Thought this was your funeral." Haruko remarked finally realizing who the funeral was for. "Oh, for Jinyu? You guys barely even chatted!" "Don't play coy with me Haruko! You know I'm being serious since I'm not calling you Raharu!" Stan screamed while Soos & Mabel tried to hold him back. "This will be the chapter where I'll get payback for what you've done to my family all those years ago!" "Okay I just started caring, what?" a plaid-shirted man with some grey in his brown hair & goatee asked. "The rest of you get on outta here! This is between me and her!" Stan commanded and the funeral attendees ran outside just as the coffin was opened by Sammy Determined, a tanned, geeky young man with large glasses and a beauty mark on his chin. "I've been stuck in this coffin pretending to be a dead body for like half an hour. Can I go home now?" "You're excused Sam." Stan politely accepted and Sammy raced out the door within half the blink of an eye. "Anyway, I challenge you to a little standoff sweetheart! You and me, Gravity Falls pool, be there or be half of a square!" The grunkle was just about to leave when he made a mechanical arm appear to grab Arnold. "And you're coming with me Arnold, since you're just as much of a victim here." "Help me." Arnold whimpered as he was taken outside just as Ford and Tsukata burst into the living room. "Oh lord, I'm too late!" he shouted racing around the area for any sign of his brother. "I knew this would happen, I just knew." he groaned pinching the bridge of his nose when Gwen spoke up. "What would happen Greatkle Ford?" "I just knew Raharu would purposefully cut off this funeral to get Stanley's goat." Stanford answered. "Though I'm pretty sure she's lying about being pregnant." "Hey, have you seen Dipper anywhere? Haven't seen him since you kidnapped Haruko." Mabel asked for her brother while the Vespa Woman flipped him off behind her. "We just did some digging through her mind and what we found just...broke him." Kanda answered mournfully. "Who do you think is still available right now?" "Mom and Tyrone are. They're having a mother-son day in watching bad movies." Gwen answered. "Well what are you waiting for dudette? Call 'em!" Soos urged the girl. "Hey Gwennie, wouldn't you rather go to the amusement park instead? You're the one that I wanted to go." Haruko tried to make her change her mind. "I'm not going miss." Gwen quietly said picking up her phone. "GWEN-NIE!" -- "Ha ha ha ha, now I look like an even bigger idiot!" Tyrone & Wendy monotonously cackled in unison in response to the horrible costume worn by the leading man of "Invasion of The Bear-Eating Man Family" while Tyrone knitted a new sweater for Stan. "Wow, Joel Nelson clearly had no idea what made good costuming!" he laughed. "Still slightly better than the outfit he made Michelle Hodgson wear." Wendy replied. "Or lack thereof." Just then, the phone rang. "I got it!" Tyrone shouted racing to the phone, but his mother was also focused on answering which resulted in a play-fight that her son quickly won. "Pines cabin, Tyrone speaking!" Tyrone said. "Ty, thank goodness I can reach you." Gwen sighed in relief. "Listen, has Dad come home recently?" "He's holed himself up in our room a couple minutes ago after getting a can of Willy-Nilly's Coffee beans and a knife." Wendy answered. "I'm getting really worried for him. Tyrone honey, can you go up to check on your father?" "Will do Mommy!" Tyrone accepted with a salute and merrily made his way upstairs, but his cheerfulness quickly turned into dread the further he got. When he opened the door to his parents' room, there Dipper was emptily gazing at an old Petra the Pterodactyl video while munching on raw coffee beans and squeezing a Petra plush and his son's beloved stuffed pig Waddles II in his arms. "I'm asking you for a survey Nilly, do you like Willy-Nilly's Coffee?" Dipper asked through Petra to Waddles II. "No, no I don't." Waddles II replied before Petra suddenly held a knife in its tiny three-fingered hand. "Well survey says everyone does. Because anyone who doesn't gets shanked." Petra revealed about to stab the pig before Tyrone performed a diving save on his pig. "NOOOO!" "T-T-Tyrone? What are you doing?!" Dipper shouted even more neurotically than usual. "No, I wanna know what are you doing! You tried to stab Waddles daddy!" Tyrone cried hugging his father worriedly. "I'm so sorry sport, I've just been going through some things lately." the older male responded hugging him back. "Just some...revelations making me go cuckoo for cocoa." "Like what?" his son asked. "Well for example, Raharu actually came from another dimension where she met this scientist who behaved an awful lot like Stan." Mason explained. "They went on adventures across the multiverse together, playing music and causing borderline madness. Eventually they formed a plan to steal the Pirate King Atomsk from Medical Mechanica but that went south and then everything after that was just white noise." "Wow, that sounds even cooler than what you did with her Dad!" Tyrone exclaimed in awe. "Cool, kinda. Healthy, no way in Hell." Dipper concluded putting a hand on his youngest's shoulder. "We gotta find and stop her at once. Where's your sister and cousin?" "Arnold got taken by Greatkle Stan to participate in his little feud with Haruko and I'm not sure what's up with Gwen, but I really hope everything will turn out okay!" Arnold declared with optimism, blissfully unaware of the oncoming chaos while a faint knock on the door was heard. -- "I won't let you involve my family in your schemes anymore!" Stan shouted to Haruko from the other side of the empty swimming pool. "And I don't want to be involved here!" Arnold cried begging to be let go. "Please Stan, Pacifica will kick your ass hard when she hears about this!" "Oh? You think I'm the bad guy for getting your family all tangled up in my schemes, pyon?" Haruko playfully mocked standing on the other side with her red jacket over a blue one-piece. "For a wannabe white knight, you sure are quite the hypocrite." "Arnie, bass." Stanley commanded his great-great nephew as he pushed a button on the armrest of his wheelchair that transformed it into a miniature exoskeleton to help him walk properly. "Wait, since when could you do that?!" Arnold exclaimed in shock while unveiling a certain Jazzmaster for his great-great uncle to use. "There are tons of things about my wheels that you never knew about, and some you'll never know about." Stan stated taking the guitar and slinging it over his shoulder with both hands. "Well what're you waiting for? Come at me!" "Okay. Let's do this." Haruko chummily declared just as her former friend angrily charged, but she quickly blocked the bass with just her feet. "I know you're super old, but you really got no talent nya." she groaned in disappointment. The wasp continued blocking all of Stan's attempts to land a hit and when it seemed like he was finally about to score one, instead came being kicked into the pool shed. "You learned how to fight with your back, right? Cause it seems like time has made you forget!" Stan was just about ready to surrender until he spotted Arnold nervously sitting on a deck chair and got an idea. "Tag me out kid! Tag me out!" he called for the boy while reaching out his hand. "Wait, you're serious? You want me to fight her?" Arnold said curiously. "Well, this could be a chance for me to be manly without a certain duo threatening my life." The pair high-fived and Arnold picked up the Jazzmaster to use. "I'm the boss, I'm the boss, I'm the boss, I'm the boss!" he quietly chanted to himself while charging forward and preparing a mighty swing, but Haruko then swiftly dodged it. "Whatever you wanna do blondie, you gotta do it with strength!" she announced sticking a perfect landing. Arnold however remained resolute and began muttering "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!" "This is where Stan wanted to fight Raharu!" Ford explained to Gwen & Tyrone while the three arrived at the pool but instead of seeing the other grunkle fight her, it was instead Arnold taking off his sweatervest and trying to swing again. "Use your hips, arms relaxed, chin tucked in." Haruha instructed her opponent after yet another nimble avoidance, but Arnold simply didn't listen and escaped from her grasp. "You're no good m'boy, no good at all!" "JUST STAY AWAY FROM MY FAMILY!" Arnold howled rigorously trying one last time to smack her, but was knocked down with a small tap and a declaration of "Oint." "Stan, do you have any idea what in God's name you're doing to Arnold?!" Ford hissed from the other side of the chain fence to his brother. "Don't go accusing me, the kid's just as much a victim as the rest of us!" Stan replied with a holler. "Okay, maybe I am partially to blame." "Go get'er cuz, show her what we've taught you!" Tyrone cheered for his cousin before he suddenly realized that he cheered a bit too late. "Oh right, you're down for the count. Sorry!" "If strength was measured by the hits one took, then you wouldn't be considered such a loser." Haruko said to Arnold while her bracelet began tingling once again. "To be honest, I thought you'd be better given your heritage. That's why you were taught all those things, to increase your manliness I heard. But I guess all those were for nothing because you know just about as much." As Gwen watched, something in her began trembling and her hat glowed faintly. "That's where you're wrong Raharu. You don't know anything either." Arnold argued bravely to her confusion. "The truth is, I'm completely unsatisfied!" This angered Haruko before she decided to remove her jacket right on top of the boy, which finally made Gwen go berserk. The force given off by her beanie blasted the door away and rapidly sucked Arnold inside her head. "Wait, what's going on!?" "He was right. Pacifica's gonna put all of us in the morgue." Stan regarded fearfully realizing his huge mistake when the absorption concluded leaving everyone shocked. All that was left was a bizarre black cutout with Arnold's Northwest ring on the finger. "Uh, my bad! Things will probably get worse than usual this time around." Haruko sheepishly apologized before mounting on her Vespa and preparing to take off. "I'll be waiting. She zoomed off leaving the four Pines and what was left of Arnold at the pool. "Hey, get back here you bitchy bassist! We still haven't settled our score yet!" Stan cursed angrily shaking his fists at the clouds. Gwen in comparison was utterly heartbroken by what she did to her cousin. "Oh I am so sorry about what happened to Arnold little lady." Ford said trying to comfort her. "You know, this reminds me of my Backupsmore days. Our school just won a cross-country event and we decided to celebrate by tearing everything apart. You should've seen the pool! They flipped the bitch!" "Where were you during that time?" Tyrone asked. "My roommate and I didn't want to take any part in the riot for safety reasons, so we went out for Italian." his genius great-grunkle answered. "I only wanted to lighten the mood after what happened just now, but I'm not sure how it'll work." -- Across town, business was booming at the amusement park with dozens of excited visitors of all ages stampeding through the entrance, most of them being couples. The Ramirez children were among these couples most notably Leia & Ezra, leaving Ian to watch over Juan, Jorge and Abby. "Does anyone have an idea on where Imelda is?" Ian asked his younger siblings while taking a bite out of some confectionery treats from the food stands. "She said that she got a part-time job here but hasn't come back." "While I'm just as concerned for Mel, all I want to know is WHERE IS AIKO?!" Juan cried out furiously typing on his phone. Elsewhere in the park, Tonkichi quietly observed two men fighting for the love of a girl and accidentally getting caught in each other before a red force took over their heads. "Excuse me sir, how much longer will this test ride go on?" Imelda asked Tonkichi. "Oh not too much longer." the theme park owner assured the seven-year-old. "All you gotta do is just stay right there my girl." As for Masurao, he was currently examining the park's webpage with Eyepatch. "Wait, hold on. Not that one." his senior citizen superior stated. "What? I thought it was Mr. Dodo." Masurao replied. "Don't you forget that we're dealing with super top secret stuff here, so that means we must activate the hidden communication mode." Eyepatch advised the younger male. "Go to the shopping section and push the little kiwi strap." "Which one?" Masurao exclaimed trying to find that strap. "The fluffy one right down there." On Eyepatch's commands, Masurao clicked on the image of a kiwi that led the two to a dining menu page. "Are you sure? The link went to a menu." he muttered in confusion. "Now just push She's So Chicky Wings." When he clicked on the menu item, it then guided to an article on one of the rides. "The Icarus Fall is the world's third-fastest falling ride?" "Wait wait wait, go back up!" Eyepatch shouted. "That's gotta be it, the falling one!" he added excitedly. "Uh, they're all falling." Masurao responded not knowing what his boss just said. "The one with the little emu!" "But which one?" "The one with the fluffy wings!" "You have to be more specific!" "THERE!" With a smack of his cane, Eyepatch made Masurao tap the emu which made Tonkichi appear on a video screen in his dodo costume. "Hello there, it's Mr. Dodo!" he merrily greeted them. "It's me." Masurao stoically greeted. "Don't be so sorry. Sometimes a kid will come calling me." the receiver grimly replied when another child greeted him. "Hi Mr. Dodo!" "Hey kid!" Tonkichi waved his wing at the passing child before returning to his teammates. "And any updates from Kanda?" "Nothing yet, though he has promised." Masurao answered. "But we did see the recently installed viking ship. We'll also have to deal with Immigration matters, but I don't want to rush you too much." "And what of the flower pot? Is it complete yet?" Tonkichi continued asking. "Uh sure. It can be activated at any time." Masurao muttered nervously. "The plant is online, alright!" Eyepatch declared, but their partner was too busy trying to greet a pair of girls who didn't want to be near him. "Can you please focus on your real job and see the data I sent you?" the younger redhead groaned incredulously. "This is a real job too!" Tonkichi argued. "Don't you know that this park helps fun-" "Do you think we can make do without that pot?" Eyepatch asked his colleague as the latter closed the video on Tonkichi and Aiko overheard their conversation. "I doubt it." Masurao groaned in defeat. "If you can't activate the flower pot, any backup plans we come up with will be useless!" "Shut up, I know that!" Aiko's father exclaimed while his daughter went upstairs to look for money she made off her dating service in a jack-o-lantern situated in her closet. "Aiko." Masurao called for his daughter while she frantically closed the closet door. "What is it?" the girl asked and her dad just looked down for a moment. -- "So which one of us do you think Pacifica will kill first?" Stan asked while Tyrone helped put his wheelchair back together, Gwen examined the balloon that was once her cousin and Ford collected some leftover pool water that he put into a beaker. "Personally, I'm betting on you poindexter since you started all this by bringing Gwen here." "I started this?!" Ford shouted angrily. "You're the one who's fostered this animosity with Raharu for literally twenty years ever since she first left us!" Still fuming, the scientist examined the beaker he had just used along with four others containing radioactive waste, soy sauce, machine oil and a strand of pink hair. "And what are you up to?" Stan asked gazing at the beakers. "Just been experimenting on some substances to make a superhuman formula. Just got some pool water from here, soy sauce from Little Asia, radioactive sludge from Scuttlebutt Island, machine oil and some of Raharu's hair." "How is that going to do anything of substance you nerd?" Stanley hissed. "Well, other than probably give you a killer stomachache." "It's still highly experimental brother, so maybe there is a chance of a killer stomachache." Stanford agreed before the two great-grunkles gazed at Gwen holding the balloon in her arms. "S-so thirsty." a familiar voice croaked through Arnold's ring. "W-water." "Great Caesar's ghost, he's alive!" Tyrone exclaimed while his big sister took the balloon to the pool showers. "Hey, put on a smile sis! Arnold's still out there!" he tried to cheer her up when the showers seemingly activated on command. "I don't want to remember what happened this morning." Gwen monologued reminiscing to earlier that day in manga form. -- "Oh good morning Gwennie!" Wendy greeted her daughter coming down the stairs. "Check it out, Jinyu left us so many clean & unbroken plates." Gwen however wasn't interested. "Something the matter my little pecan pie?" her mother asked. "I'm just back to my normal self, that's all." "No, you seem eerily different." Wendy said concernedly just as her daughter stepped outside and she realized something. "I've...changed?" Gwen stuttered going back inside to find her mom packing some small boxes. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Just...have fun at the Shack little dude. And tell Stan I send my condolences." Wendy said trying to dodge the question. "And also tell Arnold his aunt says hey!" "Seriously mom, why are you packing? Are we going to move?!" Gwen shouted suddenly getting angry. "I thought Dad wanted to stay here to catalogue all the weird crap going on here and hang with Aunt Mabel!" Wendy frowned to herself over her daughter's feelings before turning back to her. "I think it's time we try something different. Y'know, I always wanted to live in Portland." That was when Gwen's beanie beeping began to coincide with her bursting into tears. -- Returning to the present, the shower stopped and the balloon began to inflate in Gwen's arms. "Hey, is this about losing Jinyu, Greatkle Stan getting mad at Haruko, or losing Arnold?" Tyrone tried to console the older girl. "I'm here for you if you wanna shoulder to cry on." The balloon reached its maximum size and drifted to the ceiling above the kids. Taking a poolstick, Gwen grabbed it and took it outside where it was properly able to ascend. And then, as her beanie began blinking once again, she made a miniature crater beneath her feet which horrified her present family. "Find, the others, now." Ford muttered. -- "Hi, I'm Mr. Dodo!" Tonkichi greeted the happy couples in his mascot costume, but none were paying attention. "Looks like everyone's having a great time, am I right? Hey! Boys and girls!" he exclaimed while a group of employees armed with firearms assembled behind him. "You're all just little brats who still don't have all your hair down there! Sorry, but you're all pretty much useless!" The employees then aimed their weapons at the unknowing parkgoers on command. "FIRE!" Tonkichi ordered. "Sorry, wrong voice." he realized clearing his throat and switching to a deeper voice. "FIRE!" The weapons launched a series of red beams that tagged everyone and making the same red force appear in their heads. "THIS IS WHY I DON'T TRUST THEME PARKS!" Ezra screamed in pain as he and Leia became victims as well. "If I don't make it out of here alive, I want you to know Leia that I really do love you, and I'm basically a tsundere!" "Ha, called it!" Leia chuckled before she went back to screaming and gazed terrified at her brother. "Ian, get the kids away and we'll all catch up later! You four are the only single ones here!" she shouted to Ian. "Right! Juan, Jorge, Abby, come with me!" "But where do we find them? Where do we find Mommy and Daddy?!" Abby cried as Jorge took her arm. "Not sure, but they're probably just as lost as all the other couples here are!" Juan exclaimed racing off. The energy collected from the visitors soon filled up all the big rides at the park and caused them to lift themselves out of their supports. "They started already?!" Masurao shouted watching the chaos from afar. "I have to warn the Pines." Tsukata declared gazing through his binoculars. The attractions gathered around the big castle at the center, including the viking ship that Imelda was trapped on, and formed into a giant robot. "Captain, I don't think we'll make it!" one of the employees shouted. "We've got to do it! No matter the cost, we'll show them all!" Tonkichi declared bravely as the castle bot faced the upright Medical Mechanica iron. "They may smooth out our brains, but they'll never smooth out our freedom! START THE ATTAAAAACK!" The castle robot launched everything it got at the giant iron, but nothing worked and the factory in turn blasted a giant laser that instantly burnt the opposing machine to cinders. -- Far above Earth, Arnold's inflated husk drifted out of the atmosphere and towards an Immigration Control Center satellite storing lost items. A mechanical hand snatched the balloon and tossed it down the chute to be scanned & later dumped into the old Gravity Falls junkyard which attracted the attention of a familiar-looking robot dog. "Well I'll be. Aren't you just the cutest little thing?" Older Man McGucket greeted the little mutt. "Hey I know you! You're that spindly johnny who followed the kids around!" The genius hillbilly scooped up some of the trash from the box it was dumped in, including Arnold's remains, and put it in a dog bowl for the canine machine to eat. "Eat up now little feller!" -- Back at the amusement park, Haruko was spectating the whole battle when she felt her stomach return to its normal size. "So they're still doin' it, huh?" she mumbled getting back to her entertainment when she saw a few familiar faces. "For the record, we already knew something was up long before you warned us!" Ford shouted to Kanda when he spotted Haruko. "Raharu! Can't believe I'm saying this, but we got a problem!" Along with the Stans, Tyrone, Dipper, Mabel, Wendy, Ian, Leia, Juan & Jorge, Abby, Ezra, Soos, Melody, a very angry Pacifica preparing to use a broken bottle as a shiv and Kanda was a now cybernetic Gwen glaring furiously at the Vespa Woman. "Lookin' good Gwennie!" Haruko complimented with a wolf whistle and a nosebleed. "You're really killing it!" Gwen didn't reply with her words, but instead with a gold battering ram launching from her robot arm. "Just so we can all reach a compromise, all of you are to blame for this!" Pacifica shouted tranquilly. "Whoa, hold on all y'all!" Haruko exclaimed avoiding the younger girl by jumping on the roller coaster tracks. "Stop it, I didn't do nothing wrong!" "BULL-FUDGING-SHIT RAHARU!" Stan cursed as Gwen followed his former partner preparing to use the other Mustang to help his great-great niece. "All I did was give you all a little nudge, reignited some old passions, helped you with your dreams, s'all!" "Give him back! Give Arnold back!" Gwen screamed continuously attempting to hit her. "Wah-ho! Guess the Pines still have quite a lot of fight in them!" Haruko exclaimed before she found Dipper, Mabel and Pacifica right behind her. "Give me back my son or else." Pacifica hissed arming herself with Jinyu's Jazzmaster. Before anyone of them could fight, Haruhara surfed away further up the coaster rails. "In the end, you're no different from the rest of us!" Gwen snarled leaping away from her family to give pursuit. "It's all because you're in love with that weird bird, right? You're just another girl stupidly in love!" "See, like I kept telling you Raharu! You can't force someone to love you!" Dipper agreed with his daughter. "Oh quit parroting Mason or I'll shove crackers down your throat to shut you up!" Haruko shouted to the Pines father before she noticed her bracelet starting to react to something amiss. "Huh?" "Uh, dudes!" Soos exclaimed gazing up at the reddening sky. "Is the multiverse going all kaput or am I thinking of some other cataclysmic event?" he asked cuing the others to look up as well. "No. Way." Ford & Kanda boomed in shock. Soon everybody important to the story gazed up at the sky and Haruko realized just who it was. "It's Atomsk." -- AT LAST, IT IS DONE! I started kinda late on this chapter, but it was all worth it to finally beat my deadline. What will become of the Pines family and friends? Will Haruko finally control Atomsk? Why does McGucket recognize that oddly familiar dog? Join us next time for the final chapter of Fooly Falls 2: Ride on Shooting Star and be sure to read my other works for more!

[i-love-schmaltz]

Magic Masonry: a Gravity Falls Fic

Prologue

It’s soothing. The combination of the rumbling engine and hiss-like sound of the bus tires on the pavement. Dipper would have fallen asleep himself if it hadn't been for his excitement to finally be back home after a nine hour bus ride. That and the fact that Waddles demanded almost constant attention.

He looks to his left. Mabel’s still asleep on his shoulder. She had been asleep all day, thankfully. She was not a very good road trip partner. She would eventually get bored of just sitting there and would make up odd driving games that the parents would always join in on. It isn’t long after that they’ve arrived at the bus station. Dipper wakes Mabel and they make their way off the bus. They find their parents in what can only be described as the lobby.

“OH! Is that a pig”, asks a startled Mom.

‘Oink’

“Yeah, I know! Isn’t he great? His name is Waddles”, Mabel nearly yells.

Mabel hugs the pig, who happily oinks.

“Mabel where did you get a pig”, asks Mom.

“Hehe, I found him at the fair! He was just sitting there all lonely and junk, I had to have him!”

“Mabel, can you take care of a pig? We won’t help you”, says Dad.

Mabel equips a smug grin, “Psh, relax Dad, I’ve been taking care of him all summer.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Pulling into the driveway, Dipper sees the familiar shrubbery. Hopping out of the car, he, Mabel, and of course, Waddles, make their way up the walkway and into the house. Dipper takes a deep breath. Smells like home sweet home.

“Gravity Falls was great, but man is it good to be home”, he says.

Mabel throws her arms around him from behind and says, “I know, right? I can’t wait to see my friends!”

Mabel along with the pig, sprint up the stairs to their room. Dipper on the other hand makes his way to the kitchen. It’s been a long trip, so he could use a snack. After spending a minute or two searching through the pantry, he decides on a bowl of cereal. Normally, his mother would tell him not to spoil his dinner with breakfast but, it’s so late in the day that it shouldn't really matter anyway.

As he finishes with his bowl of cereal, he sets it in the sink and heads upstairs to unpack. What he finds is a disaster. Scraps of paper, ribbon, sewing supplies, rhinestones, and various other arts and craft materials littered the floor. Dipper sighs a long exasperated sigh.

“Mabel, please! If you’re going to make sweaters for everyone in the neighborhood at least keep the bezazzler off my bed.”

He sweeps rhinestones onto the floor from off his bed, where he puts his backpack.

“Sorry, Dipper. It’s just that, I haven’t made anything in a long time. My creative juices were about to just burst out of me, y’know?”

She does her best to clean up Dipper’s side of the room as he empties his backpack onto the bed. His clothes, check. His toothbrush and toothpaste, check. His letter from Wendy and all his friends back in Gravity Falls, check. The Journals, check.

Wait.

The Journals?

Uh oh. Dipper hadn’t realized that he still had the journals in his backpack. Oh man, Grunkle Ford is going to be so mad. Eh, no big deal, he can always just mail them back. Or maybe Grunkle Ford will let him have them till he comes back next summer. He decides to reread the for the umpteenth time. He hears Mabel gasp.

“Dipper, why do you have the journals?”

“It was an accident, Mabel. Chill out. It’s not like Grunkle Ford is going to miss them. He never even added to them, he just set them aside and didn’t even touch them from, like, the third or fourth day he was back from the portal”, he explains.

Mabel seems to be satisfied with this answer as she says, “Ok, I guess so. So what are you going to do with them?”

“The same thing I did every night, Mabel”, he says, “I’m going to read through them again and see if there’s anything I missed from the last time I read them.”

And he does just that. Reading through and reading through some more. It’s about 45 minutes until he actually notices something that he hadn’t before. A slight discoloration in the paper, that seems to be in the form of writing. Maybe it’s the old fashioned lemon juice invisible ink trick. Dipper goes down the hall to get the hair dryer. He plugs it in and uses the heat from the ‘hot’ setting on the pages of the journals with the discoloration. Sure enough it was invisible ink made from lemon juice. Dipper can just barely make it out.

‘It seems that you don’t need to be full blood elf or gnome to use magic. In fact, you don't even need to be a hybrid. Even humans, with their limited capacity for magic have the ability to produce vast amounts of powerful magic, much to the chagrin of the elves. Despite the fact that a human’s blood does not contain magic, we have the ability to use it.’

He continues reading until he hears footsteps coming up the stairs. He quickly hides the journals in the cabinet in his nightstand.. It’s Dad.

“Hey buddy. I just got off the phone with your great uncle Ford. He wanted me to ask you if you had ‘the journals’. Do you?”

Dipper nods in confirmation and pulls out the three journals, “Yeah, I do. I accidentally brought them with me on the way back.”

“Ok, good, says his father, “Ford wants me to mail them to him, would you mind if i took those from you?

“Yeah”, says dipper, “let me just take some pictures of some of the pages.

Dipper was determined to read all he could find having to do with human magic. Because he knew that once he got it… Well, he doesn’t quite know what would happen when he was able to use magic. But he was sure going to find out.

[videogamelover99]

The Pine Tree

A/N: Heyyy guys long time no see? Yes, writing this latest chapter was like wresting a rattlesnake while balancing a few ceramic plates on top of my head, but here it is! Plus I already started working on the new one, so hopefully it’ll be out relatively soon. In the meantime, enjoy this small detour before the plot rears its ugly head again. 

Au by @doodledrawsthings, based on Flat Dreams by @pengychan.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

“Hey, who’s the new guy? He’s kinda cute.”

Dipper tore his eyes away from the book he was reading to stare at Wendy in mute horror. She was glancing from the corner of her eye at Bill, who had taken the opportunity to rearrange all the snow globes on the shelves as a petty way to spite Grunkle Stan. Why they even let Bill into the gift shop was anyone’s guess. So far, all he managed to do was to scare away customers and give everyone a headache. No one recognized him so far, which was a good thing, but most of these people were just passing through the town anyway, and had no idea about the disaster that took place last summer.

Wendy had just come back from a hiking vacation with her family, and since nobody expected her to be back so soon, they had no idea what to do with Bill. Dipper assumed they would have to tell her eventually, seeing how she was a regular employee, and was definitely smart enough to connect the dots by herself at some point. Better to warn her ahead of time than to wait until she dragged in an exorcist or something. Not that Dipper though it would work. At all.

But Hearing his past crush call the devil in disguise “cute” was something vaguely traumatic. And it showed, because Wendy suddenly looked concerned. “Hey Dipper, are you okay? You look like you’ve just seen Stan in his underwear again.”

“I-uh.” the boy cast a look at Bill, who was now stacking the Mr.Mystery bobbleheads into a pyramid, humming something under his breath. He would have to tell Wendy. Better do that sooner than wait for her to find out on her own. “Wendy, I gotta tell you something-”

“HEY RED! PUMA SHIRT OR PANTHER SHIRT?” Dipper froze.

Wendy turned to look at the demon, who was now wrestling two hangers in his hands, and squinted a bit. “Dude, just buy both. That’s what the mayor did.” The teenager turned back to look at Dipper, then did a double take. Her eyes traveled from Bill to the bobblehead pyramid he constructed, then back to Bill.

Dipper grew more worried, hoping to stop, or at least control the train of thought the girl was aboard. “Uh, Wendy? I gotta-”

“Sorry Dipper, you can tell me your thing in a sec.” she looked as pale as a sheet, and before Dipper could stop her she leaped over the checkout booth, a murderous glint in her eye. Oh boy.

There was a scream, followed by lots of yelling, cursing, and flying merchandise. Dipper winced, hiding behind the cash register just in case.

…

“So you don’t know why he’s like this?”

“Dipper, if a month ago you would have told me Bill Cipher would be living under our roof, I would have had an aneurysm.” His great uncle pushed up his glasses, a habit that Dipper had learned was a pondering one. Then he frowned, his his gaze distant. “Did, did she tell you anything? Any information about this situation we have?” Dipper sat up straighter.

“Uh, no?” he answered, shrugging uncomfortably. “I mean, she told me a lot about how her stuff works. And to be honest, it kinda looked like she wanted to...get rid of us? Not in a bad sense!” he corrected himself at the scientist’s questioning expression. “Just, I kinda think she wanted to...talk to Bill? So she sent us off? I mean, from what I could tell it looked like the two had history. And knowing Bill, it probably wasn’t good. So, uh, yeah?” The teen fidgeted in his seat, staring at his unfinished cup of tea in silence.

“I see. And the scissors?” Grunkle Ford looked deep in thought, chewing on one sparkly pens Mabel had gotten him for Christmas.

“Mabel has them. You gotta ask her.”

“No no, that’s quite alright. She can keep them for now.” Stanford stood up, the unfinished tea, which had probably cooled by now, still in front of him. “Well, if there’s anything concerning you, feel free to share it with me. For now, I feel like it’s about time I graded some papers.”

Dipper hopped off his chair, straightening his hunting hat. “Same goes for you, Grunkle Ford.”

“Of course, of course.” The man gave him a forced smile, and Dipper had a feeling Grunkle Ford was just waiting for him to go. Far from being offended, the boy kinda understood. Sometimes a guy just needed to think, and other people tended to distract from that. Dipper turned to leave with a parting wave, and had just reached the elevator doors when he heard a familiar, yet very unwelcome voice echo through the wide expanse of the room.

“Wow, this place is a mess.”

How had Bill even gotten down here without running into Dipper? Was he like, lurking in the shadows? Because that was seriously creepy.

“What do you want now, Cipher?” Grunkle Ford sounded tired. Dipper probably shouldn’t be hiding around the corner, spying on...whatever was happening. But curiosity was a temptation Dipper could never resist, so he stayed anyway.

“Like I need a reason to visit an old friend.”

“Have you forgotten the part where you betrayed me and tortured me?”

“Huh, kinda. But considering that you literally set me on fire,” there was a loud creak as Bill sat down in the chair Dipper had been occupying not even a minute before. “you could say we’re kinda even.”

There was a long lasting silence as Stanford glared at the man across from him. “Have you come here just to bother me? Or is there something you want?”

“Hey, what’s with the cold shoulder, Fordsy? You’re actin’ like I just threatened your friends and family right in front of ya.”

“Cipher.” there was a dangerous tone in Ford’s voice, something that even made Dipper have chills down his spine. In a flash, Bill’s whole demeanor changed, the causal, teasing mood replaced by something much more serious.

“Fine. Where are the scissors? I need them.” So Bill wasn’t lurking around during their conversation. That was good, at least.

“What for?” the dangerous tone was still there. “And if you think we’d just let you go prattling into another dimension, you’re greatly mistaken.”

“Wow, haven’t slept in weeks, and you still manage to sound all heroic and stuff? Kudos to that.”

“What do you want them for?” Stanford tried again, this time sounding a bit more forceful.

“Noneya business. But I’m guessing you don’t have them.”

“If you’re thinking you can just-”

“Well, BEEN NICE TALKING TO YA. Even WITH THOSE AMATEUR PRYING EYES RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER.” Bill jumped off his seat, and Dipper scrambled for a hiding place. Seriously, how did Bill do that? The boy scrambled behind a tower of dirty cardboard boxes, hoping they were enough to cover him up. He watched Bill pass him buy, and the demon suddenly shot a wide grin in Dipper’s direction, his eyes boring into the teen’s. And then he was gone.

Dipper breathed deeply, trying to calm down his racing heart. It was fine, Bill was just messing with him. It’s not like the demon could actually hurt him. The guy got decked by Wendy a few days ago, if that didn’t say something. Nevertheless the boy shot out of his corner, rushing to get to the elevator before Grunkle Ford saw him, and planning to get far far away from the Shack for a while.

...

Dipper chewed on his fifth pen for the day in frustration, glaring at the makeshift web he had drawn in his journal. The boy adjusted himself so that the ridges of the birch tree he was sitting against weren’t digging into his back, and crossed out a few lines. No amount of thinking could calm down his bundled up nerves, beacause nothing about their current situation made sense. Okay, so Bill Cipher was back. Great. How? Just a few weeks ago he was a piece of rock in the middle of the woods. Now he was alive, not only that, but a human, stealing their soda and sabotaging the Mystery Shack on a daily basis. Hanging around...around...

The boy’s fist clenched the pencil a bit to hard, making the fragile wood crack under his palm. Mabel. It was pretty obvious that Bill was trying to manipulate her, to somehow get the more trusting twin on his side. Dipper had absolutely no idea what the demon had planned. But whatever it was, he would make sure Mabel wouldn’t be a part of it.

The boy turned the page of his journal, his eyes falling on his newest illustration. Seven eyes, drawn in black ink, stared right back. There was the other mystery that needed solving. Meeting Jheselbraum the Unswerving made Dipper understand even more why his great uncle was so fond of her. It was hard to pinpoint what exactly she did with just one journal entree at hand, but visiting the dimension below the mountain gave both of the twins, along with a bagpipe, a discovery of something much more interesting, interesting enough to even warrant a fall into the bottomless pit.

All the natives they had talked to turned out to not be natives at all, but refugees from other dimensions. Or, more importantly, the dimensions that Bill took over previously. And all of them had absolutely no idea where their oracle had come from, only that she was the one to take them in and care for them. The oldest one, a creature who looked like a cross between a lizard and a bird, claimed to have been there for several thousand years, and still could not give them any new info about who exactly his caretaker was, only that she had welcomed him and had been nothing but kind. As far as this old geezer can tell, he had said, she’s been there since the dawn of this place.

Well, that was all nice and good, except that Dipper still didn’t know who or what the being that saved his uncle’s life was, and how exactly she was connected to Bill. And there was definitely some kind of connection.

Dipper slammed the journal shut, getting up to stretch from the uncomfortable position he’d been in for the last hour. The twin made a glance toward the birch tree he had just been sitting against, shivering as he felt the eyes that littered the white cracked bark stare silently back at him. Of course, Bill couldn’t spy on them anymore, not when he was in this state, and yet the eye-shaped ridges still gave Dipper the creeps. The boy quickly turned away from the tree, heading deeper into the woods, away from any sign of the demon. He needed to think, and recently he found out that walking aimlessly through the shrubbery was a good way to do just that.

The younger Pines twin tripped over a couple of roots, jumped over a small stream, and chased away the hungry mosquitoes aimed for his face. Okay, so maybe nature was just as friendly as he’d remembered it, but at least there was no-

Dipper froze in his tracks, the blood freezing in his veins as he realized what clearing he’d stumbled upon.

There, across the small patch of grass, it stood there like some sort of twisted monument, just as overgrown as it’d been before. Dipper wanted to turn back, to run toward the shack as fast as possible, because no matter how ridiculous and creepy the Bill Cipher there was, this one was just plain terrifying. It didn’t matter if the statue was just a piece of rock now, something in Dipper’s instincts just screamed danger about it. Maybe it was Weirdmageddon taking a toll on him, or maybe it was some other, supernatural reason, but what the Pines twin needed to do right now was get as far away from that thing as possible, and the sooner, the better.

But there was the other, slightly more familiar part of him that wanted to come closer. Because as far as Dipper knew, that statue could explain everything. Why, and how, Bill survived, the Oracle, and maybe even why his uncle was acting so weird lately. Somehow, simply by shaking his hand, Mabel had managed to bring Bill Cipher back to life. But that made no sense, there had to be something else at work than a stupid handshake, something-

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

The unmanly, high-pitched squeak that tore out of Dipper’s throat was something he would later deny he ever let out. The nearby resting birds flew up into the air in a crying swarm as the boy jumped, spinning around to face the creature he’d not so long ago wracked his head over. “B-Bill, I, what?”

The demon grinned back at him, looking strangely cheery despite the deep, sleepless bags under his eyes. “Pine Tree, Pine Tree, Pine Tree. Finally, someone I could count on to be an obsessive nerd over just about, well, anything.” Bill strutted over to him, and the boy shivered under the piercing gaze, struggling to keep his heartbeat under control.

“B-Bill, uh, what are you doing here?”

“Coulda asked the same thing, but then again, can't really blame ya.” The demon moved away from him, and the lack of proximity helped Dipper calm down a bit, which he was pretty thankful for. Bill pat the statue fondly, before leaning on it with one arm, the ever-present grin still on his face. “So what got ya poking around my dead body?”

“Your-” Oh. Right. This was the body Bill had created for himself, wasn’t it? The one he left behind when he died. Gross.  

Bill scowled at Dipper’s silence, flicking his hat to the side. “Houston, we've got a problem, Pine Tree’s officially lost in the exosphere! What's with the blank look kid? Not gonna lie, kinda miss those times where it's a look of pure terror instead.” The demon leaned on the statue once again, his fingers tapping lightly against the stone. “So what's got those cockroaches in your head running around?”

“Why are you like this?” Dipper blurted.

Bill rolled his eyes. “Ha! If I had a negative twelve dollar bill every time somebody asked THAT I would have owed-”

“No! I mean why are you a person?” Was he a person? It was kinda hard to tell, considering that most of Bill consisted of nightmare fuel and dead baby jokes. And okay, asking outright wasn't really the best strategy, but what was the worst that could happen? Bill refusing to answer, spouting some nonsense?

Dipper missed the way Bill suddenly stiffened at the question, too busy running scenarios through his head. When the demon answered his voice was a lot less bombastic than before. “Why? Why are you?.”

Dipper blinked. “I- because I-”

“Exactly.” Wow okay.

Bill’s attention was now turned to the stone hat, which he tapped on absentmindedly. “Man, kinda miss the hat, not gonna lie.” The demon finally noticed Dipper’s stare. “What?” His hand left the statue as he folded his arms over his chest.

“You’re patting your own- you know what, nevermind. This isn’t the weirdest thing I’ve seen.”

Bill took a moment to look offended. Then he straightened up, no longer leaning on his statue, and strolled right past Dipper, not even bothering to glance back. “HAVE FUN WITH THAT, KID. And if you’re here too break it, good luck! I’ve tried already.”

The boy turned around to Bill’s retreating back, his train of thought once again disrupted. Why would Bill want to break his own statue?

“BY THE WAY!” The demon called out once again, his voice echoing from somewhere beyond the tree line, “16 °C to 18 °C, NO HIGHER THAN 24 °C, SEE YA!”

...What.

…

“Candy! What do you think?” Mabel held up a black and white flannel shirt.

“I think you should get yellow.” the girl answered, squinting at the apparel in thought. Somehow, through his sister’s amazing talent of conviction, Mabel had not only told her friends about the demon living in the Shack, but also convinced them that going clothes shopping for Bill Cipher was somehow a good idea. Dipper needed to know what mind controlling powers his twin possessed, because there was no other explanation to how come Candy and Grenda were not running away in terror from the creature that had destroyed their home town only a few months ago.

Speaking of which, where was Bill? The boy swallowed down the brief panic at the image of some poor store owner set on fire, and frantically searched for the subject of Mabel’s fashion spree.

He found Bill leaning over the counter, harassing the poor cashier girl manning the register. “So that’s why clothes made for human females have no pockets!”

The girl, who looked a few highlights away from being crowned queen of punk rock, stared at him open mouthed. “Holy shit. And here I thought it was for some horrible design choice or something. Joke’s on them, I’m sewing my own damn pockets.”

“Atta girl! Don’t let those corporate idiots control your consumerist needs! THROW THEIR OWN DISGUSTING MASTER PLAN BACK IN THEIR FACES.”

“Yeah!” the punk rock girl suddenly took out her purse, throwing it on the ground viciously. “Screw you, Coach, for making me buy your horribly overpriced purses!”

“Uh…” Dipper wondered what the probability of Bill somehow finding someone just as insane as him in a mall full of normal people was.

“Could have done without the dramatics, to be honest.” the boy jumped at the new, yet strangely familiar voice next to him. Dipper looked up to see a young, dark haired woman somewhere in her early twenties. She was staring at the scene before them with something between amusement and annoyance, and he couldn’t help but think he’s seen her somewhere before. The woman then looked at him, and the uncomfortable amount of perception in her gaze gave Dipper involuntary shivers. It was like she knew something he didn’t, something important, and was letting herself be slightly smug about it. The boy looked at the ground, searching his memory for where he’s seen her before, because the feeling of deja vu was not leaving him alone. Dipper turned back to ask-

The woman was gone.

That...okay that was seriously creepy. Even for him, and Dipper dealt with the supernatural on a daily basis.

“DIPPPERRRR! Where’s- oh. There he is.” The boy jumped as Mabel suddenly leapt at him from behind, yelling excitedly in his ear. Dipper rubbed his forehead as the girl rushed past him, capturing Bill’s arm and dragging him to one of the changing rooms, the demon expressing only slight protest at being manhandled. That was also weird, how easily Bill got along with Mabel now. Dipper decided to dismiss it as Mabel’s magnetic personality, and worry about other things instead. Like how to prevent all of them from wreaking the store.

...

“Soo, what do you think?” Mabel asked, watching Bill stare at himself in the mirror.

“Still a horribly limiting fleshsack.” the demon responded, fidgeting with the buttons of the bright yellow cardigan he was wearing. “This needs a bowtie.” he decided, and Mabel groaned behind him.

“No it doesn’t! Stop ruining my masterpieces with your awful fashion sense!” Bill had the nerve to look offended.

“It looks good.” Candy said thoughtfully from Mabel’s side, hand on her chin.

“TRIANGLE MAN IS FIXED NOW.” Genda whooped, patting his sister on the back.

“I was never-” Bill’s rant was cut off as the three girls shoved more clothing in his hands, pushing him toward the dressing room.

Dipper had to admit, he wasn’t feeling very sorry for tagging along after all. Watching Bill Cipher get manhandled by a bunch of teenage girls was hands down a highlight of the summer. A few customers gave them odd looks, and as Dipper spotted a few familiar faces, suddenly his mind was on something else completely. His paranoid, overly nervous brain took care to remind him of the one giant problem that was now arguing with his sister over ties.

While the Mystery Shack took the demon’s return relatively unscathed (scathed, but relatively un), the town would not be as okay about it. Or at all, to be honest. If any of the townsfolk found out Bill Cipher was not only back, but camping out in the Shack, it wouldn’t matter if Stan was the town hero or not. They would come running with torches and pitchforks, ready to get rid of that yellow menace for good.

And judging by how easily Mabel and her friends managed to subdue him, the demon wouldn’t even stand a chance.

Bill and Mabel were looking like they were about to tear apart the whole accessories section. Candy and Grenda weren’t much help, observing the argument at a safe distance, eating the stash of chocolate his sister had given them as a reunion gift. They weren’t the only spectators. Seems like security finally noticed the disturbance in their store. “Oh man,” He needed to get over there and prevent any further disaster from happening. And quick.

Dipper narrowly missed running into a coat rack, and ran as fast as he could to the source of the chaos: his sister, and the murderous entity they had somehow brought back from the dead.

“We’re not buying a bowtie for you, Bill!”

“You’re limiting my freedom of self expression. How’d ya like it if I burned all your sweaters, huh?”

“First off, leave my sweaters out of this! At least they’ve got a whole lot more pizzaz in them then you ever will!”

Bill’s eyes flashed dangerously, and Dipper would have been a heck of a lot more frightened by that if what he was angry about hadn’t been that ridiculous. “Shooting Star, do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”

“Someone with like no taste.”

There was a quiet -ooooh- from Grenda, and Dipper had a feeling that if he didn’t defuse the situation fast enough, the whole mall would probably go up in flames. “JUST LET HIM KEEP THE STUPID TIE AND LET’S GO.”

…

He collapsed onto the bench in exhaustion, watching as the group made their way to the food court, and rubbed his eyes, exhaustion creeping into his limbs. Dipper hadn’t even realized how little sleep he actually got, at least not until the caffeine he had consumed during breakfast had run out of his system. The sleepless nights were all Bill’s fault anyway. That stupid riddle, if it could be called that at all, would just not leave him alone. What turned out to be Dipper’s best effort to ignore something that seemed like just a jumble of nonsense had quickly turned into a burning curiosity because what if it somehow made sense. Probably not, because expecting Bill to give straight answers was like expecting a penguin to learn to fly. Yet there he was, trying to figure out a puzzle which probably had no answer in the first place.

“Mind if I join you?” Dipper jolted in his seat, earlier frustration momentarily forgotten. The woman he saw a few hours earlier, the one that mysteriously vanished, was now looming over him, something between amusement and awareness in her gaze. The boy spent a few more seconds picking his jaw up from the floor, swallowing thickly. “S-sure! I mean, I don’t mind? I mean-”

The woman laughed lightly, nothing mean spirited about it at all. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

She sat down, and Dipper shifted in his seat awkwardly, trying his best to avoid her gaze. “So, uh, what’s up?”

The lady smiled. She seemed to smile more with her eyes than her mouth, something the Pines twin found strikingly familiar. “Nothing much,” she glanced to the side, “Just came to visit an old friend, that’s all.” Her eyes were focused on something that completely escaped his vision, and Dipper was getting that itch, the tingly feeling in the back of his head that told him that he was dealing with something supernatural. The woman looked convincingly human, but the more he observed, the more he started to realize that something about her appearance was off. It was like watching someone put on a fancy suit, yet completely ignore all manners. Like the time Mabel tried to dress up as a mermaid for halloween, but the elastic fishtail she had shoved over her legs did nothing to disguise the fact that those were still legs under it.

It was like the stranger next to him was dressing up as a human, but didn’t necessarily know how to act like one.

“Friend huh?” The boy’s voice came out a bit too high. “Not from around here then?” Please tell me she’s an alien and I’m not just crazy.

“You’re not just crazy, Dipper.”

“Oh thanks I- what?” The boy scrambled back onto the edge of the bench, pressing himself against the potted plant next to it, the wide, bright green leaves blocking the edge of his vision. “How did you, are you a-?!”

“-Mind reader? No.” Then she winked, and Dipper had definitely seen that gesture before, not done with two eyes, but…seven.

“Jheselbraum?”

The woman winced slightly. “That’s actually not how you- nevermind.”

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, you, why are you- how are you-?”

“Why I am here is because your uncle requested I come. I believe he requires my help on something urgent, and I’m more than happy to comply.” She smiled, her gaze so calm that Dipper found himself relaxing a bit more. “As for my appearance, I doubt humanity would be thrilled in seeing an alien species walking down the street. Especially after what happened in this town last year.” Her tone darkened slightly. “So I asked for a small favor.”

“A favor.” he echoed, “So you’re not a shapeshifter?”

“Oh, of course not.” the woman sounded a bit indignant. “I’m an oracle.”

“Yeah, okay.” Dipper frowned, looking away. The thrill of meeting the extra dimensional being again was slowly fading, and the boy found the situation getting more awkward than anything else. “Wait, why would Grunkle Ford-?”

“Well, well, look who the frilly salamander dragged in.”

Bill’s voice cut through the crowd, as unpleasant and unwelcome as it usually was. Dipper watched as Jheselbraum’s expression instantly turned stone cold.

The two beings just stared each other for several seconds. The Oracle’s air was still unreadable, but harsh. Bill, for his part, still had that sarcastic smile pasted on his face. Dipper felt the tension in their little corner flare up, something unspoken once again rearing its ugly neck between these two. The twin was ready to excuse himself, and run as fast as he could toward his sister, where at least he wouldn’t feel like he was sitting on a ticking time bomb.

“So what happened, Seven-Eyes? I thought you were pretty clear on the whole ‘never wanna see your face again’ thing.”

“I never said that. Or anything like that, really.”

Bill looked away. “Nice makeover, by the way. What, did the giant pink know-it-all decide to curse you too?”

“I forgot how unpleasant your voice is.”

Bill stiffened, looking ready to fire back another retort. Just then, thankfully, Dipper’s sister chose to demonstrate her impeccable timing. “Hey guys! Why the heck are you all over- oh.” Mabel froze, standing dead still between Dipper and the two interdimensional beings that were busy having one of the most intense staring contests both twins had ever seen. Nora was the first to break it, turning to the newcomer with a sudden pleasant smile on her face. “Mabel, it’s nice to see you again.”

Dipper could visibly see the gears in the girl’s head turning. “Wait, hold on…” His sister squinted at the Oracle suspiciously, before something clicked, and her face split into a giant excited grin. “It’s about time you showed up! Grunkle Ford’s been getting reeeally paranoid, you know. ‘Cause of this jerk over here.” She pointed her thumb at Bill, who by some miracle remained silent throughout the exchange.

Jheselbraum raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been expecting me?”

“You promised to visit.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Wait,” Bill interjected loudly, “Why the heck are you-”

Nora cut him off. “I believe your friends are waiting for you two.”

Mabel and Dipper whirled around, spotting Candy and Grenda, who slowly made their way towards them, pushing aside shoppers and stepping on heeled toes. The two girls came to a stop in front of Mabel, both breathing heavily.

“Where did you go?” Candy asked, straightening her glasses. “We were looking all over for you and-”

“Oh my gosh guys you have to meet someone. This is-” Mabel turned around, gesturing at- empty space. Dipper blinked.

The Oracle was gone again.

“Alright, have to give credit for that disappearing act.” Bill muttered under his breath.