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minijenn · 8 years ago

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Universe Falls Chapter 31

Ah yes! I’m back kids after my short little hiatus to bring you this: one of the funnest chapters I’ve had the chance to work on yet! So I hope you all really like this, because I certainly do! Enjoy!

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/157783843269/universe-falls-chapter-30-part-2

Chapter 31: Scary-oke

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Gravity Falls was as peaceful as ever under the cover of nighttime darkness, the stars hanging over the slumbering town in a moonless sky. While most of the townsfolk were fast asleep in these late hours of the night, this didn’t exactly ring true for everyone. Specifically, Steven and Greg were still wide awake, nestled into the blanket fort the young Gem had constructed in the former rock star’s van as their ongoing monster movie marathon continued. Neither of them were paying too much attention to the clock however; after all, it had been quite a while since they had spent some quality father-son time together. And seeing as how things had been generally relaxed and quiet as of late, they decided that now would be as good a time as any to do so.

Steven let out a small gasp as the hero of the movie they were watching landed the finishing blow on the monster of the flick: a zombie. Greg couldn’t help but crack a small grin at how engrossed his son was with the film, even though it was quite old and rather cheesy. Still, the young Gem beamed in satisfaction as the protagonist embraced his love interest and kissed over their triumph as the credits began to roll.

“Oh man, that was the scariest movie we’ve watched tonight yet!” Steven exclaimed, propping himself up from his pillows a bit. “I wonder if real-life zombies would be as terrifying as that one.”

“Eh, probably not, kiddo,” Greg shrugged, smirking. “I mean, that zombie was pretty slow. The guys in the movie probably could’ve easily outran him if they had gone at more than a light jog.”

“Oh yeah? And how would you know?” Steven asked with a faux challenging chuckle. “Have you ever outran a zombie, Dad?”

“Can’t say that I have, Sto-ball,” the former rock star laughed. “And I can’t say that I’d really ever want to either.”

“Well what about any of the other monsters in here in Gravity Falls? You’ve lived here for a super long time-”

“I’ve only been here for 26 years, Steven. Then again, I guess that is kind of a long time…” Greg frowned. “Yikes. I’m getting old.”

“Yeah, but still,” Steven interjected. “You’ve been around long enough to see all the cool stuff here. Have you ever been chased by gnomes? Or have you ever high-fived a manotaur? Or hugged a werewolf?!”

“O-oh well, uh, I don’t know about all that…” Greg frowned apprehensively. “Your mom and the Gems usually would handle all that supernatural stuff. I’ve always figured it’s best not to get involved with it.”

“Aw, but you could have totally helped them, Dad!” the young Gem exclaimed enthusiastically. “It would be so cool to see you fighting alongside me and the Gems using—wait for it…” Steven paused, tapping the side of the van to create a dramatic drumroll. “The power of music!”

“Heh, well, I’m not really sure what good the ‘power of music’ would do against a werewolf or a zombie,” the former rock star chuckled. “Still, it’s good to know you still think your old man cool enough to keep up with the best of them.”

Steven laughed warmly as his father pulled him into an affectionate headlock and noogie. The playful moment was soon interrupted however, as a bright flash of light from outside flooded into the van through the windows. It only lasted a second, but that startling second was enough to catch both Steven and Greg completely off guard. “Whoa!” the young Gem exclaimed, breaking free from his father’s embrace as he ran to the back window, peeking out of it to find nothing but the Gem temple the van was parked in front of. “What was that?!”

“Eh, it must have just been a flash of heat lightning,” Greg shrugged with a casual grin, glancing out the front windows himself. His smile faded however, upon looking down the hill to the Mystery Shack, noticing as another sudden burst of blue light pulsated from the ramshackle building. The former rock star knew exactly what this meant, but even so, he had made a promise not to get involved in it. And that was a promise he was honor bound to uphold to his former boss. “U-uh, hey, Steven!” Greg quickly quipped, forcing a tight grin onto his face as he turned towards his unknowing son. “Hows about we pop another one of these movies in, huh? This next one has a mummified cow on the cover.”

“Oh! You mean The Cowwy!?” Steven grinned, plopping back down in his spot beside his father. “That’s one of my favorites! Put it in! Put it in!”

“Way ahead of you, kiddo,” Greg smirked, putting the tape in as Steven settled in to watch it. However, as he turned to sit down once more himself, he happened to steal another look at the shack, which was still lightly enveloped in an ominous pale cobalt glow. A years-old fear started to fill the former rock star, especially as his mind turned back to the warnings Rose had whispered to him long ago, warnings that even the Gems themselves no longer had. Greg had hoped that Stan would have given up on this risky pursuit by now, but if the conman was nothing else, he was persistent. But even so, one thing was clear: the once-forgotten ghosts of the past were still very much present now. And given how much things had changed since then, getting rid of them would be far more difficult this time around.

Light continued to pour through seemingly every crevice and cranny of the Mystery Shack, flickering on and off as it appeared to grow stronger and more powerful with each passing minute. Still, Dipper and Mabel hardly noticed it as fast asleep as they were in the attic, a fortunate fact for Stan as he worked in the basement far below them.

Ever since obtaining all three journals, the conman had been hard at work configuring the massive machine, inputting whatever code or instructions the trio of books had to offer him concerning it. It was certainly laborious, heavily taxing work, but regardless, Stan kept at it, undaunted. After all, he couldn’t dare to think about turning back now that he was closer to his ultimate goal than he had ever been.

“Thirty long years and it’s all led up to this. My greatest achievement!” Stan grinned broadly as he basked in the intense light the machine was putting off. His smile faded however as he paused, glancing down at boxers. “Probably should have worn pants.”

Since the machine was still relatively unstable after being reactivated after so many years, it was to be expected that it would act up a bit. The conman let out a frightened cry as it spit out a small burst of flame, one that struck him in the shoulder before he quickly patted it out before it could really burn him. “Feisty… I like it!” he smirked as he headed back to the control panel, pressing the appropriate buttons and switches in the right order. For a moment, Stan paused to read the readouts on the monitor above him, each scan passing by in quick succession as all of them turned up negative. Still, that wasn’t a huge problem. He hadn’t expected to get any tangible results so soon anyway and as far as he was concerned, he had plenty of time left. So long as nothing went awry, of course.

“If I finally pull this off, it’ll all have been worth it…” Stan said to himself as he took a seat at the desk. His excitement turned to smug satisfaction as he happened to flip through journal 3, landing on a page that had an image of Rose upon it. “Hmph. And you said I wouldn’t be able to do it,” the conman remarked with disdain for the pink Gem. “Shows what you knew, pinky.” The conman only lingered on that page for a moment more before turning it back to the blueprints he needed. “I just have to play it cool; I’m already dodging a bullet with the Gems being clueless about this, but if any of them, or anyone else for that matter, ever finds out about this…” Stan trailed off, frowning as he glanced to the picture of Dipper and Mabel that he kept positioned on his desk at all times. A brief bout of worry filled him, especially as he glanced over their bright, innocent, smiling faces, but even so he quickly shrugged it off. “Yeah, right. I’ve come this far. Who could possibly catch me now?”

His confidence renewed, Stan pulled on the nearby glove sitting on the desk, its extra finger dangling freely as he pulled the machine’s switch down to maximum power. The massive influx of energy that burst from the machine not only flooded the basement with light, but its affects were apparent throughout the rest of the town too as a momentary power surge ensued, one that most of its residents missed in the midst of their peaceful slumber.

Yet while the townsfolk didn’t know it, this powerful spike of energy was noticed even far beyond the borders of Gravity Falls itself.

The small monitor glowed red as a single line ran across it in quivering, pulsating waves. The two agents sitting before the screen aptly spotted this sudden spike the moment it began, and, confused by it as they were, had spent quite some time theorizing what it could be.

“See, there! There it is again!” the first agent exclaimed to his partner, pointing to the surge.

“Incredible…” the other agent mused. “We haven’t seen readings like this for thirty years!”

“This is different from that smaller spike we had a few weeks ago… Is it coming from deep space? An enemy weapon site?”

The veteran agent frowned coldly as he zoomed in on the coordinates they had just received, going deeper and deeper until he pinpointed the general source of where these troubling readings were coming from. “Just as I suspected,” he concluded before turning to the rest of his team. “Gentlemen, we’re going to Gravity Falls.”

As he had done many a night over the past thirty years, Stan had stayed up most of the night with the machine, monitoring it and checking over various things as the journals advised. Of course, as the hours wore on long and lonely, it was no surprise that the conman eventually ended up falling asleep against the desk unintentionally. He had only been napping for about an hour, however, when his alarm went off, abruptly startling him awake.

“Huh?!” Stan darted up right in his seat, his glasses askew on his face as the alarm clock continued to blare loudly. “Oh, right,” he yawned, letting out a long sigh as he turned the alarm off and steeled himself to face the day ahead. “Showtime.”

Fortunately, the conman had mastered the art of putting up a completely inconspicuous front to practically everyone around him, and this would be no exception. Really, it couldn’t be, since so many eyes would be on him today. In both a celebratory and publicity move, Stan had decided to have a public-reopening for the Mystery Shack, which had been closed the past week so it could properly recover from the damage Gideon had left on it. It had taken quite a bit of work to get everything back up to shape, but with the Gems and Steven having volunteered to help, they had gotten it all done in record time. And now, with the shack restored and Gideon behind bars, both the Pines and the Gems had more than enough reason to celebrate their hard-earned victory.

Since Stan had made sure to widely advertise the grand reopening all over town, quite a large turnout had shown up for the event. The gift shop was packed with people, far more than it usually saw on an average business day, all of them eager to hail their collective group of heroes. While the Gems weren’t used to such adulation from humans, word had gotten around about their triumph over the Gideon-bot, and the townsfolk showed their appreciation for protecting them from such a protentional threat well. Garnet remained as stoic as ever as she calmly signed any autograph book presented to her, and while Pearl humbly and awkwardly tried to play all of the praise they were receiving off, Amethyst soaked it in, gleefully crowd surfing as the kids watched on nearby.

“Oh my gosh, that looks like so much fun!” Mabel quipped brightly, ignoring the look of confusion Dipper sent her. “I wanna try!”

“Me too!” Steven whole heartedly agreed as both him and Mabel started off towards the crowd, only for them to be stopped by Stan.

“Hold it, you two,” the conman rolled his eyes, shoving them both back as he stepped into the gift shop. “There will be plenty of time for throwing yourselves at random strangers later. For now, it’s time to humbly accept the praise and adoration of all these good people.”

“Why do I get the feeling like Stan won’t exactly be ‘humble’ about this?” Dipper whispered to Steven and Mabel with a smirk, eliciting a chuckle from them both. But even so, the conman stepped up onto the counter as the Gems also came forward, knowing that it was time for the festivities to begin.

“Welcome, everyone!” Stan bellowed boldly before the crowd. “To the grand reopening of the Mystery Shack!” The conman grinned widely as the audience cheered their rousing support, something that he admittedly wasn’t very used to after years of being seen by the townsfolk as a sham and little else, but something he was more than happy to soak in now. “We’re here to celebrate the defeat of that skunk Lil’ Gideon!” Stan announced holding up a plushy of the now-jailed child physic. Remembering well how Gideon had unlawfully spied on all of them, the townsfolk erupted into a round of boos and jeers. “Please, please,” the conman interrupted. “Boo harder!” The crowd did so, even as Stan tossed the plushy to Amethyst, who casually tore it in half with a smug grin.

“But I didn’t catch that porkchop all alone,” Stan continued, affectionately wrapping his arms around the twins. “These two scamps deserve some of the glory.” The conman was prompted to correct himself, however, after Mabel playfully elbowed him in the gut. “Okay, okay. Most of the glory.” Still, the twins weren’t about to let Stan get off the hook without giving full credit where credit was due. Dipper made sure of that as he cleared his throat and nodded towards the Gems, who likewise looked to the conman expectantly. “Fine,” Stan rolled his eyes, though he was grinning nonetheless. “I guess the Gems helped too, if you wanna get specific about things.”

“If by ‘helped’ you mean squared off against a massive deadly automaton, then yes, we ‘helped’,” Pearl remarked with a joking smirk. “And then some, actually.”

“Yeah, we almost died,” Amethyst said, embellishing the details a bit for the sake of garnishing even more adulation from the crowd. And indeed it worked as the audience let out a collective, impressed gasp before applauding once again at the Gems’ heroinism. “But we’d totally do it all again to save you all from certain doom or whatever.”

The crowd continued to cheer in gratitude as Toby Determined squeezed to the front, his “camera” raised as he prepared to take a photo of the triumphant group for the town paper. “Smile for the camera!”

“Your camera’s a cinder block, Toby,” Stan deadpanned dryly.

“I just wanna be a part of things…” Toby frowned, lowering his cinder block in disappointment.

“Smile for a real camera,” Shandra Jimenez cut in, arriving with her news crew.

“Everybody say something stupid!” Mabel exclaimed as the entire group crowded together for the photo. The Gems remained in their place in front of the counter, though Amethyst hoisted Steven up onto her shoulders as the twins stayed on top of it with Stan. Once they had each taken up silly, lighthearted poses, everyone flashed the biggest smiles they could before the camera flashed.

“Something stupid!” all of them quipped brightly as the photo was taken, leaving them to share a warm laugh over it afterwards.

“And don’t forget to come to the after-party tonight at eight!” Stan proclaimed, holding up a poster for said party.

“It’ll be wild!” Amethyst added with a brazen grin.

“But not too wild,” Pearl interjected cautiously.

“You’re both kind of right, actually,” Garnet noted vaguely, her expression somewhat serious, though she didn’t bother to elaborate at the moment.

“No matter how wild the party’s gonna be, you won’t wanna miss it!” Mabel quipped to the engaged crowd excitedly. “We’re doing a karaoke bonanza, people! Lights! Music! Enchantment!” To add extra emphasis to her point, she blew the pile of confetti on her palm into the audience. “And an amazing karaoke performance by our super-huge, super-awesome band: Love Patrol Alpha!” With a proud grin, Mabel held up her artistic rendition of said band, that included not just her uncle and brother, but Steven and the Gems as well, all of them clad in rather flashy sequin jumpsuits.

“Oh wow! I can’t wait!” Steven exclaimed, completely delighted at the idea. “I love karaoke! And what could be better than singing it with some of my favorite people in the world?”

“Absolutely nothing!” Mabel readily answered, smiling just as widely as the young Gem, even if no one else was equally as enthused. “Isn’t that right, you guys?”

“Uh, I don’t know about that…” Dipper frowned apprehensively.

“I never agreed to that ever,” Stan remarked plainly.

“Hm…” Garnet mused stoically, not completely on board with the idea herself.

“Do we really have to wear those outfits?” Amethyst asked, cringing somewhat.

“Goodness, I hope not…” Pearl muttered discreetly.

“Too late!” Mabel grinned victoriously. “I wrote all your names on the list! It’s happening!”

Before anyone could really protest, Wendy burst into the shack, blowing an airhorn to catch the crowd’s attention. “Buy a ticket, people! You know you don’t have anything going on in your lives!”

Eager to attend the aforementioned party, all of the townsfolk were quick to follow the cashier outside, leaving the Pines and the Gems behind and quite satisfied over the successful grand reopening. “Ah, this is the life,” Stan sighed contentedly, hopping off the counter. “The town loves us, we finally got that Gideon smell out of the carpet, and everything is finally going my way.”

“I have to say it is a welcome change of pace,” Pearl agreed with a small smile. “It’s hard to believe we’ve gone over a week without facing any deadly threats or dangerous monsters. Everything’s been so peaceful lately!”

“Ugh, but it’s so boring,” Amethyst groaned. “It kinda makes me wish something crazy would finally happen, ya know?”

“Seeing as how you three are basically disaster magnets, we probably won’t have to wait too long for that,” Stan remarked with a joking grin.

“I can’t say you’re really wrong there,” Garnet noted casually, eliciting small laughs from her teammates, and even a small chuckle from the conman himself. The ongoing comradery between them all had been going strong for over the past week now, to the point that Stan hardly even minded having the Gems down at the shack and the Gems didn’t complain over coming. It was as though all of the former disdain between them had faded after the tumultuous threat Gideon had posed to them all was now said and done. And in place of that disdain were surprisingly good feelings, feelings that the kids had all easily taken notice of and rejoiced in. After all, they couldn’t remember a time when their respective guardians had all gotten along so nicely, and if things continued as well as they were going, then that was something that showed no signs of ending at all.

And yet, despite the elation and revelry going around, Dipper found that he wasn’t able to take part in it as much as the others had, mostly for the sake of one thing that had been on his mind consistently over the course of the past week. And seeing as how Stan was in as pleasant a mood as he would ever be, he figured that now would be as good a time as any to bring it up to the conman. “Uh, hey, Grunkle Stan?” Dipper began somewhat hesitantly, having put quite a bit of thought into how he wanted to pose his request. “Now that we have a moment, I’ve been meaning to, um, maybe ask you for my journal back?”

“Wha-? Journal?” Stan raised an eyebrow and for a moment, Dipper feared that he was going to say no, but instead, the conman did the exact opposite. “Oh!” he exclaimed, cracking a sardonic smirk as he reached under the nearby counter and pulled the journal out from under it. “You mean this old thing! It was so boring, I couldn’t even finish it!”

“Aw, what?” Amethyst asked with slight disappointment. “You mean you didn’t even get to the pages about us in there? Come on, Stan. There’s some pretty juicy tidbits about Pearl in there, if you know what I mean…”

“Amethyst!” the white Gem huffed in aggravation.

“Amethyst’s right, Mr. Pines,” Steven added. “There’s some really neat stuff about the Gems in the journal! And the pictures of them in it are super fancy and realistic! You should have checked them out!”

“Meh, I might have glanced over them for a minute or two,” Stan shrugged, handing the journal back to Dipper, who could only take it in bewildered silence. “I dunno. I honestly don’t really remember or care.” The conman made sure to remain as even and unconcerned as ever as the Gems shot him a brief questioning look, but sure enough, they bought his innocent font. And fortunately so too, seeing as how, in reality, he had poured over the Gems’ pages in particular for anything Rose might have possibly slipped into them to throw him off course. Of course, Stan also failed to mention that he had made meticulous photocopies of the journal in its entirety, just in case he would need to call upon the information contained within it again, which he very likely would.

“Wait,” Dipper spoke up, looking over the cover of the journal in complete confusion. “You’re just gonna give it back to me? Just like that?”

“What else do you want?” Stan asked, smirking. “A kiss on the cheek?”

Dipper didn’t answer as he instead looked between his uncle and the journal once again, unsure of what to make of this unexpected turn of events. He hadn’t really known what Stan had wanted with the journal in the first place, but he had figured that the conman would pass it off as more than just mere folklore and fable upon actually looking through it. But, instead, Stan seemed to shrug it off completely, just as he did with almost everything else. And even though Dipper knew that this wasn’t unusual for the conman, something still wasn’t adding up all the same.

“Uh, I… I gotta go!” he quickly exclaimed, holding the journal as he started to run out, though not before briefly stopping first. “Steven, Mabel, you too!”

“Huh?” the young Gem frowned as him and Mabel exchanged a confused glance.

“We do?” Mabel asked, just as puzzled.

“Yes! Now, come on!” Dipper urged, grabbing them both by the wrist and pulling them upstairs.

“Hm… I wonder why they’re in such a hurry…” Pearl mused curiously.

“Who cares?” Stan asked dryly as Soos stepped up beside him.

“You know, I wouldn’t mind a kiss on the cheek,” the handyman offered ambivalently.

“Not gonna happen.”

The moment the trio made it to the attic, Dipper made sure to slam the door behind them and lock it tight in the hopes that neither Stan nor any of the Gems would think of eavesdropping but fearing it nonetheless. Steven and Mabel only grew more confused as they watched Dipper scramble around the attic in a paranoid rush, pulling the shade over the window down and turning the heads of all of his sister’s stuffed animals away, just in case.

“Uh, Dipper? Is everything ok?” Steven asked with apt concern as him and Mabel took a seat on the bed.

“Are you kidding me? Of course not!” Dipper exclaimed somewhat frantically, gripping onto the journal tightly. “Guys, we need to talk. Almost losing my journal made me realize that we’re already a good ways into the summer and I’m still no closer to figuring out the big mysteries of Gravity Falls. Gideon almost destroyed the town to get his hands on this journal, but why?” Steven and Mabel exchanged another worried glance as Dipper started to pace as he usually did when he was stressed, but even so, he continued. “The Gems were nearly ready to burn the journal without a second thought because of what’s written inside of it, but even they don’t know any of the answers to the big questions about it. Who wrote it? Where are all the other journals? What was Bill talking about when he said everything will change? There’s something huge going on right under our noses, and it’s time we stopped goofing around and got to the bottom of it!”

“Bro, you’ve looked at that thing like, a bazillion times,” Mabel pointed out, passing her brother’s concerns off as mere paranoia. “There’s nothing left to discover! Half the pages are blank, remember?”

Dipper sighed in frustration as he remembered just how true this was, especially as he flipped through the disappointingly empty second half of the journal. “But there’s still so much we don’t know about the town, the Gems, everything,” he said, still far from content at this gaping lack of knowledge. “I feel like I’m just one puzzle piece away from finally figuring it all out…”

“Don’t worry, Dipper!” Steven encouraged with a bright smile. “I’m sure you’ll get to the bottom of everything eventually. And until then, you can always count on us to help you out, right Mabel?”

“You bet!” Mabel chimed, grabbing Waddles as he passed by. “Lord Mystery Ham is on the case! ‘I play by me own rules, wot, wot?’” she mimicked a British accent, holding the pig up while she pantomimed.

“Aw, we should make him a little detective’s outfit!” the young Gem exclaimed, charmed.

“Funny you mention that because I’ve been working on one!” Mabel grinned, holding the half -finished costume up. “Isn’t it adorable?!”

“Oh, totally!”

“I don’t know why I tell you guys things,” Dipper deadpanned, sighing in exasperation as he shut the journal. He knew that Mabel and Steven tried their best to offer support, but it was still rather frustrating to know that he was really the only one who took such important matters seriously. Stan clearly didn’t care, and while Dipper would have gone to the Gems for answers, but knowing how secretive they often were, he really didn’t expect to get much help from them. Regardless though, he was determined to finally uncover the truth behind the journal and the mysteries contained therein, even if he had to do most of the work himself.

And, ironically enough, a party seeking to do the very same thing was arriving at that very moment.

While the townsfolk were busy buying their party tickets on the other side of the shack, a mysterious black vehicle pulled up into the parking lot. Two imposing figures emerged from it, their expressions hardened and stoic as they marched up to the tourist trap.

“Hey, Mr. Pines?” Soos frowned, glancing out the gift shop window and noticing the car, particularly the “U.S. Government” label on the side of it. “What’s the code word I’m supposed to yell when I see a government vehicle?”

Stan didn’t really catch this question at first, seeing as how he was in the midst of a friendly arm wrestling match against Garnet. While the conman was clearly losing, Amethyst still cheered him on from the sidelines as Pearl watched in muted amusement. However, the moment Stan heard Soos mention the government, he froze, allowing Garnet to easily slam his hand down into the table with a triumphant smirk.

“Wait, what? Government vehicle?” the conman asked, startled as he stood and rushed over to the window, his eyes widening as he saw said car.

“The government?” Pearl whispered to Garnet anxiously as the Gems also rose to their feet. “What are they doing here again?”

“Yeah, I thought we smooth talked them outta here years ago,” Amethyst scowled petulantly. “You think they would’ve gotten the memo that there’s nothing here for them to see.”

“Just remember what Rose always told us about dealing with the government,” Garnet advised calmly. “No mentioning magic or Gem history. We keep our powers under wraps and refuse them access to the temple, no matter what they say. Until they leave, we’re to blend in, pass ourselves off as normal humans the best that we can.”

“Way ahead of you, G,” Amethyst smirked, seamlessly transforming into her idea of a tall, astute business woman, bun, glasses, briefcase and all. “How’s this for a boring, average, unassuming human?”

“Humans don’t shapeshift, Amethyst,” Garnet reminded firmly, crossing her arms.

“Ugh, fine,” the purple Gem rolled her eyes, assuming her usual form. “But the minute these guys leave, I’m gonna shapeshift into them just to make fun of them.”

While the Gems discussed their plan of action, they hardly noticed Stan’s sudden panic over the government’s arrival himself. Acting fast, the conman pulled the shades down over every window of the gift shop before running to the intercom and shouting to his lingering patrons through it. “The Mystery Shack is now closed! Everybody out! I will not hesitate to use the hose on the elderly!”

A mummer of confusion ran through the customers, but nonetheless they complied as they started to file out of the shop. In the midst of this chaos, the kids hurried down from the attic, curious to see what all the fuss was about.

“Grunkle Stan, what’s going on?” Mabel asked the conman worriedly.

“Yeah, you never shut down the gift shop,” Dipper added, just as puzzled.

“Oh no!” Steven gasped, suddenly concerned as he turned to the Gems. “Are we under attack by some sort of invisible Gem monster or something?”

“Steven, shh!” Pearl quickly quieted him, glancing around apprehensively.

Likewise, Stan was also quite nervous as he paced around the gift shop, until a round of heavy knocks finally sounded on the door. Still, he made sure to put on the flashiest grin he could muster as he went to answer it, hoping that he would be able to feign innocence believably enough.

The conman opened the door to reveal a pair of tall, broad-shouldered men, both clad in sharp black suits as they held up their IDs, showing that indeed, they had been sent from the U.S. Government itself. But even so, Stan spoke up first, allowing his usual knack for showmanship to guide him as he flashed the agents a smile that was a bit too big. “Welcome to the Mystery Shack, gentlemen! What can I get you? Key chains? Snow globes? These rare photos of American presidents?” the conman’s grin grew a bit more anxious as he pulled a $5 out of his sleeve, hoping it would work. Unfortunately though, these stoic agents weren’t the kind to be driven off by a mere bribe.

“My name is Agent Powers and this is Agent Trigger,” the senior agent introduced himself and his partner. “We’re here to investigate reports of mysterious activity in this town.”

“Activity,” Trigger added for extra emphasis.

“Mysterious activity?” Stan laughed nervously. “In the Mystery Shack? You gotta be joking!”

“I assure you I’m not,” Powers affirmed dryly. “I was born with a rare disorder that makes me physically incapable of experiencing humor.”

The conman chuckled once more, thinking that the agent had merely been joking, but Power’s impassive expression remained unchanged. “I don’t understand that sound you’re making with your mouth. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re conducting an investigation.”

“Investigation!” Trigger exclaimed, pointing a threatening finger at the conman.

Stan could do relatively little as the agents pressed right past him into the shack, much to his chagrin. The Gems stiffened up a bit upon seeing the agents, but even though, they did their best to remain as coy and disinterested as they could as they stood casually near the counter, as not to arouse any sort of suspicion. Still, despite their best efforts, the agents were rather quick to notice the trio as they took a cursory look around the gift shop.

“Ladies,” Trigger gave the Gems a terse nod as him and Powers passed by them.

“Agents,” Garnet greeted just as sparsely, her arms still crossed. Amethyst and Pearl hovered close to her, the purple Gem keeping her sour gaze to the ground as the white Gem stood erect, her hands held tightly behind her back and her expression awash in hidden dread.

“You three look somewhat familiar…” Powers noted, looking them up and down suspiciously. “Have we met before?”

“Can’t say that we have,” Garnet shrugged, still doing most of the talking seeing as how she was clearly the most levelheaded out of the three of them in this situation.

“Y-yes, I think we would have remembered encountering such… esteemed members of the American administration as yourselves,” Pearl added with a forced smile. “Don’t you gentlemen agree?”

The agents exchanged a tentative glance, but fortunately, they bought the act of innocence. Still, they weren’t quite done with the Gems yet. “If you don’t mind me saying so, you three look a little… out of place in a small town like this…” Trigger noted with a skeptical frown.

“Oh, that’s because the Gems are from spa-” Steven tried to interject before Pearl quickly slapped a hand over his mouth, much to his confusion.

“Spain!” the white Gem exclaimed in a panic, her eyes wide as her nervousness got the better of her. “W-we’re from Spain! R-right, you two?”

“Sí,” Amethyst shrugged, though she didn’t say much else since her Spanish was a little rusty. Fortunately, Garnet had it covered.

“Es precioso allí en esta época del año,” the Gem leader said quite fluently. Fortunately, this was enough to finally get the agents off their tails. With a simple nod of acceptance, they moved on, allowing the Gems to breath a discreet sigh of relief, even as their young ward looked to them, befuddled.

“What gives, you guys?” Steven asked with a frown. “Why did you just lie to those agents like that?”

“Steven, we-” Pearl began with a sigh, though she was quick to stop herself upon noticing one of the agents glance back at them over his shoulder. “We’ll tell you later.”

“But-”

“We’ll tell you later,” Garnet echoed, much more firmly, her tone telling the young Gem that she was not about to budge on the matter.

The agents didn’t get much further along in their inspection before they were interrupted once more, this time by Dipper, who had been beyond intrigued from the moment he heard what the agents’ mission was. After all, it was the very same mission he had been working on all summer. “Wait!” he exclaimed, running up to the agents. “Did you guys say you’re investigating the mysteries of this town?”

“That information is classified, but yes,” Powers acknowledged, kneeling down to the boy’s level. “Look, between you and me, I believe there is a conspiracy of paranormal, or perhaps even extraterrestrial origin all connected to this town. We’re just one small lead away from blowing the lid off this entire mystery.”

Stan’s eyes widened a bit as he overheard this, briefly fearing that he had somehow been sloppy and these agents were onto him. Likewise, the Gems exchanged a worried glance, all of them alarmed at the prospect of the very same thing only for themselves. Still, Dipper hardly noticed any of their concerns as he grinned excitedly over the idea that someone else was finally as interested in these mysteries as he was. “No way! I’m investigating the exact same thing! I found this journal in the woods which has almost all the answers. If we work together, we could crack the case!”

The agents looked to each other somewhat skeptically, unsure of what to make of the boy’s clear enthusiasm, but even so, Powers handed him an official-looking business card. “If you have evidence of these claims, we should talk.”

“We could talk right now!” Dipper offered zealously. “Please, come in! I have so much to show you!”

However, before Dipper could really lead the agents into the den, Stan finally cut in, stepping between his nephew and the pair of agents with a forced laugh. “I’m sorry, agents,” the conman said rather dismissively. “The kid has an overactive imagination. And like, a sweating problem.”

“Ha! Zing!” Mabel quipped from the other side of the gift shop.

“Paranormal town stuff is just part of gift shop lore,” Stan continued. “Sells more tickets, you know?” With a snap of his fingers, the conman wordlessly instructed Soos to equip the agents with complimentary Mystery Shack memorabilia.

“Bam! Swag!” the handyman exclaimed, slapping fake antennae on their heads and bumper stickers on their chests.

“Stan is absolutely right,” Pearl pointedly agreed as both Garnet and Amethyst nodded their assent. “There really isn’t ‘paranormal’ a-and there certainly isn’t anything ‘extraterrestrial’ here in Gravity Falls. It’s a perfectly normal little town!”

“That’s right,” Garnet remarked rationally.

“Yeah, nothin’ to see here,” Amethyst added with an awkward laugh.

“C-certainly nothing that would warrant any looking into!” Pearl quipped before the purple Gem sharply elbowed her in the knee. “Um, I m-mean, nothing at all!”

Powers and Trigger exchanged another caustic glance at this, but even so, they seemed to take Stan and the Gems’ word for it, at least for the moment. “Regardless of whether or not that’s true, we still have other spots to investigate,” Powers said as stoically as ever as they both turned to leave. “We’ll be on our way.”

“I’m confiscating these as evidence,” Trigger said, grabbing a large armful of Mr. Mystery bobbleheads on the way out.

“Smart move.”

“No, wait!” Dipper called, running after the agents, distraught over how Stan and the Gems had practically destroyed his credibility with them. “We have so much to talk about!”

“Hold it, kiddo,” Stan was quick to stop his nephew at the door as it closed behind the agents. “Trust me, the last thing you want around during a party is cops.”

“Seriously, those guys were total buzzkills,” Amethyst remarked, making good on her word as she shapeshifted into Agent Powers and threw her voice to mock him. “‘Oh, blah, blah, blah, we’re investigating weird stuff, blah, blah, conspiracies, blah, blah, paranormal, blaahhh.” The purple Gem groaned as she shifted back into herself. “I’m glad they finally left. They were putting me to sleep!”

“So… why didn’t you guys let me tell them you’re from space?” Steven asked the Gems, still quite confused. “I mean, all of us know about it. So what’s the problem with telling other people?”

“The problem, Steven, is that we’ve lived in Gravity Falls a very long time,” Pearl sighed. “Long enough that the people of this town have gotten used to our presence here and think little of it. But outside of Gravity Falls… well…”

“People out there don’t adapt as well to the unknown as they do here,” Garnet said. “Especially to things like the supernatural.”

“Yeah, or aliens,” Amethyst added.

“But you guys are aliens!” Dipper exclaimed, aptly frustrated.

“And your point is…?”

“The point is those agents have no business sticking their noses around here,” Stan concluded firmly. “Which is why I’m confiscating that card.”

“Hey!” Dipper protested as the conman swiped the card the agents had given him, adding it to his already quite full box of contraband items.

“Now how’s about you try being a normal kid for once,” Stan said as he started to head for the den, taking the card with him. “Flirt with a girl, steal a pie off a windowsill or something.”

“But Grunkle Stan, you don’t understand!” Dipper pleaded, desperate not to lose this once in a lifetime chance.

“And don’t go talking to those agents!” the conman ordered as he left without sparing another word and leaving his nephew very disappointed.

“Ugh, that could have been my big break!” Dipper exclaimed, turning to the Gems in the hopes that they would see reason where Stan didn’t. “You guys can’t be serious about all this.”

“We’re completely serious,” Garnet confirmed, irresolute.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we’re with Stan on this one,” Pearl remarked. “Having those agents poking around in matters they have no business investigating will only unnecessarily complicate things. And honestly, the same thing goes for you kids.”

“But they could help us finally figure out why Gravity Falls is so weird!” Dipper argued insistently.

“Or they could totally ruin everything,” Amethyst said, exasperated as the Gems started to take their leave as well. “Listen, dude. We got a sweet deal here. Everything’s finally chill for once. Why risk shaking it all up for a few lame old mysteries that don’t even matter?”

“They do matter!” Dipper stressed, thoroughly aggravated over how even the Gems refused to take him seriously. “You guys know they do! You can’t just shrug all of this stuff off like it’s nothing!”

“And we’re not,” Garnet replied calmly. “But there are a lot of things that take priority those mysteries. And making sure we can continue to protect this town uninterrupted is one of those things.”

“Uh, speaking of which…” Amethyst interrupted as she stood in the doorframe leading outside. “We got agents at the temple…” She nodded to the government vehicle which was now parked before the temple statue.

“Ugh, we should have expected as much,” Pearl groaned in annoyance as she began to head out. “They just don’t know when to quit. I suppose we’ll just have to trick them into leaving just like we did the last time the government decided to pay us a visit.”

“Looks like we’ll have to break out the smoke machines,” Garnet noted dryly.

“And the crossbow!” the purple Gem smirked mischievously, running out the door. “You know what, this just might be fun after all!”

Dipper didn’t really get much of a change to further debate with the Gems as they left, but Steven and Mabel could clearly see that he was still fuming over how both them and Stan had so easily dismissed him and his search for the truth. Likewise, the young Gem wasn’t in full approval of his guardians’ actions either, especially seeing as how they had slowly started opening up more and more over the past several weeks. But now, their recent, almost suspicious behavior seemed like a regression, one that Steven couldn’t say he was too happy about, seeing as how there was still a lot about the Gems he didn’t know himself.

“I still don’t know why the Gems are so worried….” Steven mused with a frown. “I mean, what’s the worst that could happen if they let other people outside of Gravity Falls know about all the brave stuff they do to protect the Earth every day?”

“I know, right?” Dipper huffed in frustration. “Those agents have the experience and resources that could help us solve everything, but it’s like they just don’t care! What are the Gems and Stan so afraid of anyway?”

“Boys, boys, boys,” Mabel cut in, shaking her head with a grin. “You’re both so worried about all this heavy stuff, but maybe Grunkle Stan and the Gems are right. We’re throwing a party tonight! Dipper, can’t you go one night without searching for bigfoot or raising the dead or whatever?”

“I’m not gonna raise the dead,” Dipper scoffed. “I just need a chance to show those agents my book…” he said, pulling the journal out of his vest.

“Trust me, bro, the only book you’ll need tonight is right here!” Flashing a wide grin, Mabel held up a book of karaoke songs that she intended on utilizing to the fullest at the party later on.

“You know what, Mabel? You’re right,” Steven agreed with a smile as he leafed through the karaoke book. “We’ve waited this long to look for answers; I’m sure we can wait just one more night. Besides, I can’t wait to jam out to every song in here tonight!”

“That’s the spirit!” Mabel chimed brightly, even if Dipper sighed in aggravation over Steven apparently giving up so easily. “When I say kara—, you say —oke! Kara—”

“—Oke!” the young Gem readily exclaimed, stars in his eyes.

“Kara—”

“—Oke!”

“Kara—” Mabel started again, pointing to her brother this time, who only gave the pair a disapproving scowl. Yet even so, they shrugged his pessimism off, just as they usually did. “We could do this all day.”

Even though any guests had yet to arrive for the party, the exterior of the Mystery Shack was already alive with an air of festivity. A generous snack table had been set up courtesy of Soos, who discreetly took a few of the treats for himself as he laid them out. With his work at the car wash done for the day, Greg had volunteered to come by and help set up for the party with Steven, which is exactly what the two of them worked together to put up decorative lights.

“You should have seen those agents, Dad!” the young Gem exclaimed as he recounted the events from earlier that day to his father. “They were so tall and serious. I don’t think I saw either of them smile once! And the Gems were really actually kind of freaked out by them. Isn’t that weird?”

“Eh, not really,” Greg shrugged, his smile somewhat apprehensive. “You mom really was no fan of the government back in the day. She said it reminded her of-” The former rock star abruptly cut himself off, his eyes suddenly wide as he glanced down to his curious son. “Uh… it reminded her of... Huh, what do you know? I d-don’t really remember what she said about it after all! Sorry, kiddo.”

“Aw, really?” Steven frowned in disappointment, still wanting answers. “Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl really weren’t that clear about why they don’t want those government guys to know about them… Do you think it was because of whatever Mom said?”

“P-probably,” Greg nodded, sucking in an anxious breath as he quickly tried to change the subject. “But you don’t need to stress yourself out over all that stuff tonight, Sto-ball. Just cut loose and enjoy the party!”

“Hm… yeah, I guess…” the young Gem agreed half-heartedly, even if he was still pondering over it all internally. He couldn’t help but feel as though his guardians were still hiding something from him, from everyone really, something that they were afraid to let anyone else be a part of It wouldn’t be the first time, of course, but still, Steven had thought that the Gems were starting to become more trusting and open. So why then, were they still hiding themselves behind that same old veil of secrets that should have been lifted by now?

“Well, I think we’re just about done hanging all these—whoa!” Greg was abruptly cut off as a blast of confetti suddenly struck him, startling him but thankfully not knocking him off his ladder.

“Sorry, Mr. Universe!” Mabel called from the nearby porch, lowering her confetti canon with an awkward smile. “But hey, at least we know the confetti canon works!”

“It better for as much as I’m paying to rent that thing,” Stan remarked as he stood nearby, overlooking his party checklist.

“Oh! And the karaoke machine has all the best songs!” Mabel exclaimed, turning to said karaoke machine and switching through its offerings. “‘We Built this Township on Rock and Roll’, ‘Danger Lane to Highway Town’, ‘Taking Over the Stars’ by &ndra!”

“Oh my gosh, I love that song!” Steven gasped with a huge grin.

“Me too!” Mabel agreed just as zealously. “And we’re all gonna sound so great singing it tonight!”

“Listen, kid,” Stan interjected. “You do not wanna hear this voice singing. Trust me.”

“Grunkle Stan, karaoke isn’t about sounding good,” Mabel encouraged. “It’s about sounding terrible together. Right, you guys?” she called to the Gems as they arrived to the party.

“What are we talkin’ about?” Amethyst asked somewhat obliviously.

“We’re talking about how we’re all gonna preform karaoke together later!” Steven quipped. “It’ll be a great bonding experience for all of us! Maybe one that could help us all open up about ourselves a little more?”

“Oh right,” Pearl said, partially disinterested. “The singing thing.”

“I figured you three would be a little more excited for some karaoke action,” Greg noted with something of an awkward chuckle. “You know, seeing as how you guys love to sing.” The former rock star continued laughing for a moment or two, hoping that the Gems would join in, though they only met his humor with dry, deadpan stares. “Heh, woo boy….” he muttered with an anxious frown as the trio moved on, knowing that his attempts to strike up a comradery with the Gems were usually just as futile.

Dipper gave the Gems something of a discreet distrustful glance as they wordlessly passed by him and Wendy while they were putting up posters on the side of the shack. He was still admittedly quite upset with them as much as he was with Stan for undermining him in front of the agents earlier, especially since they had never really tried to discourage him from mystery hunting before. But now it seemed as though they were readily dismissing all of the oddities of Gravity Falls that they knew well and good existed, all for the sake of protecting their own hides. From what, Dipper wasn’t exactly sure, but nevertheless, it immensely irritated him that out of anyone, they were the ones who, along with Stan, wouldn’t allow him to peruse what could have been his best lead yet.

It didn’t take long for Wendy to notice how apparently perturbed Dipper was, and while she knew a little about the situation, she decided to try and lighten the mood a bit nonetheless. “Check it out! These black lights make my teeth looks scary!” she grinned standing in the glow nearby neon light. “It’s like a crime scene in my mouth! C’mon, you know you love it.”

Instead of being amused by this, Dipper simply let out a frustrated sigh, unable to think of really anything else but what had happened earlier. “It’s not fair. Finally, I meet someone who can help me solve the mysteries of this town and what happens? The Gems just drive them off while Stan confiscates their card from me.”

“Dude, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this,” Wendy began, lowering her voice so her boss wouldn’t overhear. “But I’m pretty sure Stan hides like, everything in his room. If that card you want is anywhere, it’s gotta be in there.”

“Really?” Dipper asked, his tone suddenly hopeful though it was quick to fade. “But wait… if I go into Stan’s room, I could get in so much trouble.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Wendy acknowledged before breaking out into a mischievous smirk. “That’s what makes it fun, dummy!”

Without really needing any further convincing, Dipper readily agreed to this daring escapade and the two began quietly plotting their raid of the conman’s room. Fortunately, no one too much notice as they finished the last of the preparations for the party just as the first round of guests were starting to arrive.

“Aw man, I can’t wait to smash these Stañatas!” Soos exclaimed excitedly as he finished setting up a table stacked with piñatas shaped like the conman’s head. However, the handyman didn’t have very long to admire them before his hard work was abruptly ruined.

“Smash!” Grenda shouted as she body-slammed into the table, breaking it cleanly in half and sending the Stañatas flying. “Grenda has entered the party!”

“Stan’s brains look delicious!” Candy remarked, scooping up some of the treats left from the ruined piñatas.

“Girls!” Mabel cried gleefully, running up to her friends and wrapping them both in a tight embrace.

“Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh, Mabel!” Grenda yelled, her eyes wide with wonder. “Is that a boombox sweater?!”

“See for yourself,” Mabel grinned proudly, nodding down to her latest sweater.

“Poke!” Grenda tapped the play button on the sweater, which immediately started flashing and playing upbeat music. Delighted, all three of the girls started to freely dance to it, laughing brightly all the while.

Steven chuckled himself as he stood a few feet away and watched, though oddly enough, he didn’t join them as he usually would have, seeing as how he was still quite distracted with his musings over the Gems. In fact, he was only broken out of his thoughts upon noticing the hand that Connie was waving in front of his face.

“Hello? Steven?” she asked with a bemused grin. “Anybody in there?”

“Oh! Sorry, Connie,” the young Gem grinned bashfully as he turned to her, his smile widening upon noticing the simple, yet festive red party dress she was wearing. “Wow! You look great!”

“Thanks…” Connie blushed somewhat shyly before quickly changing the subject. “So… why aren’t you joining in on all the fun?” she asked, nodding to Mabel, Candy, and Grenda, who were still having the time of their lives dancing.

“Well… I would,” Steven admitted. “But… well… I’ve just been… doing some thinking instead…”

“Oh really?” Connie asked curiously, noticing how strangely serious Steven was. “Thinking about what?”

The young Gem was more than prepared to answer her, but ironically enough, his guardians arrived and interrupted him before he could. “Hello, kids,” Garnet greeted with a warm smile.

“You guys ready to PAR-TAY?!” Amethyst asked boisterously.

“Y-you bet we are!” Steven quickly exclaimed with a forced laugh. “In fact…. We’re so ready to party that we’re gonna go get a head start on it over here! A-and we’re totally not gonna talk about anything we shouldn’t be talking about, so uh…. Yeah! Bye!”

Before the Gems could question their young ward’s odd behavior, Steven was quick to grab Connie by the hand and whisk her away out of the trio’s earshot. “Well, that was strange…” Pearl noted with a concerned from. “But I’m sure it’s nothing we need to be concerned about.”

“You’re right. P. The only thing I’m concerned about is that snack table over there,” Amethyst grinned, licking her lips hungrily as she rushed over to it.

“Amethyst, wait!” the white Gem called, running after her as Garnet hung back stoically. “You can’t just eat all of those snacks! Oh, at least use a plate, for crying out loud!”

As 8 o’clock rolled around, the main influx of party guests started to arrive, and they were certainly plentiful in numbers. No one wanted to miss what was set to be one of the biggest celebrations the town had ever seen, which was why folks of all ages were showing up for it.

“Aw, I thought this was gonna be a rave…” Thompson frowned in disappointment as him and the other teens arrived.

“Thompson! Take off your shirt and make it a rave!” Nate shouted with a daring grin.

“I’ll do anything for your approval!” Thompson cried, ripping his shirt off wildly.

“Ooo! Now it’s a real party!” Jenny laughed as Sour Cream pulled out a glow stick and started waving it around.

Of course, no more than a second later, Tambry snapped a photo of the now-shirtless Thompson with her phone, much to his embarrassment. “Aw, come on!”

“I promise I won’t send it to anyone,” Tambry remarked dryly, only to do the exact opposite and send the picture out to all her contacts.

As guests steadily continued to pour in, Stan stood at the admissions table with a proud smirk, more than ready to take their money as Greg helped him count it all up. “Whoa, Mr. Pines, you’re making a killing tonight,” the former rock star remarked, impressed.” Who knew that so many people would be willing to spend $10 to come to a party that they could have otherwise gotten into for free?”

“Tell me about it,” Stan grinned broadly. “The whole town is showing up! And no sign of those pesky agents either.”

“Oh yeah, Steven was telling me about them,” Greg frowned, lowering his voice a bit. “So, uh…. What are you gonna do if they find out about-”

“They won’t,” the conman said, his tone suddenly cold and hard. “I’ve gotten this far without anyone finding out about it. I’m not about to let two crackpot government crooks ruin everything.”

“Ironically, the Gems are apparently on the same page as you are about them,” the former rock star said. “Though they’re worried for totally different reasons, I guess.”

“Pfft, whatever,” Stan scoffed, crossing his arms. “Let them be skeeved out by those dumb agents. As far as I’m concerned, they’re not gonna find out about it, and you’re not gonna tell them, right Greg?”

“Hey, I’ve kept that promise for over twenty years now,” Greg assured. “I have pretty much no reason to break it now.”

“Good,” Stan nodded tersely, moving away from the subject as he briefly glanced over his shoulder. “Wendy, Dipper! How are those posters coming along?” Upon not receiving a response, the conman turned fully to see neither his cashier nor his nephew were still working on putting said posters up. In fact, they were nowhere to be seen, something that instantly made the conman aptly suspicious.

Having managed to successfully sneak away from the party, Dipper and Wendy soon found themselves standing right outside of Stan’s room. The door in and of itself was somewhat foreboding, heavily tacked with warnings clearly meant to keep the twins, or more specifically Dipper, out.

“I’ll keep an eye out for Stan,” Wendy said as Dipper stepped up to the door. “You go rustle through his weird old man biz.”

Dipper nodded as he took in a deep breath and grabbed the door knob, only to find that it wouldn’t budge. “What? It’s locked!?” he asked, dismayed. “Seriously?!”

Before he could even begin devising another way to get in, a certain purple Gem happened to drop down from the ceiling right in between him and the door. “Boo!” Amethyst shouted with a rouge grin as she hung from the support beams. She laughed in amusement as Dipper stumbled back, startled, before dropping to the ground. “Ha! You should have seen the look on your face, dude! It was classic.”

“A-Amethyst?!” Dipper exclaimed, quite alarmed. After all, the purple Gem could certainly stand to throw a wrench into things if he wasn’t careful. “What are you doing here?”

“Eh, just hangin’ around,” the purple Gem smirked, shapeshifted her arms long so she could hang from the rafters again. “I think the better question is what are you guys doing trying to get into Stan’s room? What, are you gonna try and see if he has any cool weird stuff in there?”

In a burst of sudden fear, Dipper was more than prepared to shake such an accusation off, but Wendy ended up speaking up first. “Yeah, maybe,” she shrugged, as calm as ever. Dipper sent her a panicked glance at this, but she was quick to reassure him with a discreet wink. “Why? Are you gonna tell Stan or something?”

“Pfft, why would I do that?” Amethyst scoffed with a smile. “I’ve broken into Stan’s room plenty of times just to tick him off. In fact, here’s a bit of advice. He keeps the key on top of the door frame.” The purple Gem gave the door a sudden kick, which sent the key hidden above it tumbling down into the palm of her hand. “Here ya go,” she said, handing it to Dipper.

“Whoa… uh, thanks, Amethyst,” he said, taking the key with an inconspicuous grin.

“No prob, dude,” the purple Gem remarked as she started to head off. “And if you find anything creepy awesome in there like a dead body or a week-old sandwich or something, let me know!”

Both Dipper and Wendy released a shared sigh of relief the moment Amethyst was out of earshot, knowing that all could have gone so much worse. “Ok, that was way too close, dude,” Wendy said with a worried frown. “You might wanna get in there and get out before someone like Garnet or Pearl shows up. Chances are they wouldn’t be as easy to get rid of as Amethyst was.”

“Good point,” Dipper noted, turning back to the door and quickly slipping the key inside of it before heading on in.

As Dipper had expected, the interior of Stan’s room was rather poorly lit and musty, perhaps even moreso than the rest of the shack was. Still, he didn’t bother to take too long to get a good look around; after all, he was only here for one thing, which was why he didn’t hesitate to start searching for it.

“Alright, Grunkle Stan, where did you hide that card?” Dipper muttered to himself as he began by checking the nearby drawers. Of course, all he found upon an initial inspection were old copies of Gold Chains for Old Men Magazine, boxing gloves and brass knuckles, photos of Stan and Amethyst’s various Revenge Trip escapades, and disturbingly enough, catalogues for women’s clothing and swimwear. “Ew!” Dipper cringed with disgust upon seeing them, only imaging why the conman might have had them. “Pretending I never saw that!”

Moving on from the drawers, his next stop was in front of the large, self-adulating portrait of Stan hanging from the wall. Dipper initially didn’t think much of it, but upon a second glance, he happened to notice that something was rather odd about how it was hung. “Wait a second…” he mused, pulling up a stool so he could properly push the portrait aside. And sure enough, a secret compartment was hidden in the wall behind it, and contained in that compartment was the conman’s infamous contraband box. “Yes!” Dipper exclaimed with an wide smile, easily finding the agents’ card tucked inside. “I got it.”

Not wasting a single moment, Dipper rushed for the phone resting beside Stan’s bed and quickly dialed the number on the card up, anxiously holding his breath as it rang for a moment before someone finally picked up. “Agent Powers,” the senior agent greeted dryly through the phone.

“Hi! This is Dipper, th-the kid from the Mystery Shack,” Dipper began, trying not to let his excitement get the better of him. “The one with the, um, ‘sweating problem’? B-but anyway, I have that journal I wanted to show you!”

“And you’re certain this ‘journal’ will help our case?” Powers asked, somewhat doubtful.

“I’m a hundred percent positive,” Dipper replied firmly, believing that the agents would certainly be convinced the moment they saw the journal.

“Very well,” Powers assented tersely. “We’re on our way.”

Dipper started to thank the agent, but before he could even get any words out, the line abruptly went dead. With a surprised gasp, he turned to see none other than Stan standing over him, his finger on the phone’s receiver and a rather irate scowl on his face.

“Sorry, Dipper!” Wendy called from behind the conman. “I got distracted…” she frowned, holding up her phone to show the picture of Thompson Tambry had sent her.

“Kid, why did you call those agents?” Stan asked Dipper, his tone exasperated as he took the phone away from him and hung it up. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times! The only weird thing in Gravity Falls is the Gems, and even then they’re not that weird when you come right down to it. But aside from them, there’s nothing ‘supernatural’ in this town.”

“Yes, there is!” Dipper exclaimed, beyond frustrated by the conman’s denial of everything he knew to be true. “After everything that’s happened, you have to know that by now!”

“All I know is that your dumb obsession is gonna get us all in trouble someday,” Stan remarked coldly, shoving his nephew out of his room. “Now go enjoy the rest of the party. ’Cause when it’s over, you’re grounded!”

Dipper wanted nothing more than to continue arguing with Stan over the matter, but the conman’s hardened expression alone was enough to tell him that he’d get nowhere with trying to discuss this further. And really, it didn’t matter that much anyway, seeing as how he had successfully gotten in contact with the agents after all and they were indeed on their way. So instead, he simply left, though not before sending the conman a brief angry glance as he walked away.

Stan let out a long, tired sigh as soon as Dipper was gone, his cross scowl fading into slight regret. In all honesty, he really didn’t want to be so hard on his nephew over this; after all, he was simply curious and the conman couldn’t exactly fault him for that. But at the same time, Stan knew well just how dangerous such curiosity could be. He had seen firsthand what looking into these dark mysteries could end up doing to a person, and the last thing Stan ever wanted was for that to happen to someone as young and innocent as Dipper.

Still, the conman couldn’t dwell on all that now. With the agents no doubt on their way, he had to ensure that the basement would be removed from their notice, least everything fall apart completely. Which was why Stan made a beeline for the gift shop, or more specifically the vending machine as he input the familiar code into it. Since everyone was preoccupied with the party outside, fortunately there wasn’t a soul around to see him enter the hidden door to the basement so he could get to work.

It didn’t take too long for the party to get into full swing, and once it had, no one was enjoying it more than Mabel. As bouncy dance music flowed through the event, she made sure to immerse herself in it, not just through her moves, but through her mingling as well. After all, Mabel prided herself on being a spectacular hostess, and she had every intention on showing her social skills off with every one of their guests.

“Looking good, Mr. Fryman!” Mabel called to the fry shop owner as he busted freestyle moves before both of his quite embarrassed sons. “Gorney! You clean up nice!” she grinned, passing by the cheerful young lad. “Mr. Poolcheck! Move those crazy legs!” she encouraged, walking a bit faster past the high-strung pool manager. “You—you weird pool man.”

Mabel stopped short as she came to Sherriff Blubbs and Deputy Durland, neither of which looked too amused or enthralled as they looked over the wild festivities. “What’s the problem, officers?” she asked with a charming grin. “Did you catch my face going ninety smiles per hour?”

“We’ve got complaints about the loudest party in town,” Durland remarked coldly.

“Three words,” Blubbs said, his tone dead serious. “We want in.”

Mabel was quick to comply by inserting party horns into both of their mouths before lowering her voice down to an excited whisper. “Welcome to your dreams!”

As the party heated up even more, the Gems were mostly content to stand on the fringes of it, making sure that its guests stayed safe while also indulging in it a bit themselves. Amethyst had no problem moving to the music as freely as she wanted, and while Garnet and Pearl were a bit more reserved about their levity, they still smiled and tapped their feet to the beat nonetheless. That is, until Greg happened to pass by.

“Uh, hey, you guys,” he greeted with something of an awkward smile. “How are you three liking the party?”

For a moment, the Gems gave the former rock star a bit of a dry glance before Garnet answered with a shrug. “It’s alright.”

“Heh, yeah,” Greg laughed halfheartedly. “You know, Mr. Pines asked me to play a few songs from my old set later on. You guys should come check it out. They were some of Rose’s favorites.”

“Oh really?” Pearl asked, her tone somewhat cold as she crossed her arms.

“Y-yeah,” the former rock star blushed, realizing that his attempts at small talk were quickly floundering. Which meant that now would probably be a good time to bail. “So um… have any of you guys seen Steven around lately?”

“Nah, not since him and Connie ran off earlier,” Amethyst remarked, shoving a handful of chips into her mouth. “They’re probably playing spin the bottle or whatever.”

“Amethyst!” Pearl scolded as Greg’s eyes widened a little upon hearing this.

“What? It’s probably true.”

As it turned out, the purple Gem’s assumption wasn’t exactly true. Indeed, Steven and Connie had gone off to a more quiet corner of the party, but only so the young Gem could fill his friend in on his guardians’ odd reactions to the agents’ arrival.

“And when I asked them why they lied to the agents, they just said something about how people don’t adapt to things like them outside of Gravity Falls,” Steven explained with a fretful frown. “But I still don’t’ get it. I’m sure if people knew about how hard they work to protect the earth, then they wouldn’t be afraid of the Gems! They’d love them, just like people here do!”

“Well, I don’t know, Steven…” Connie said thoughtfully. “Maybe the reason why the Gems are so afraid of the government is because they’re not from Earth in the first place.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” the young Gem asked, confused.

“I’m just saying, from what I’ve heard, the government doesn’t really react the best to aliens,” Connie remarked with a shrug. “Haven’t you ever heard of Area 51?”

“Area 50-what?”

Connie raised a confused eyebrow at this, but even so, she prepared to explain, only to be interrupted by Mabel. “There you guys are!” she exclaimed brightly. “The karaoke extravaganza is about to begin! You gotta come watch. It’s gonna be karawesome!”

“We’ll be there in a second, Mabel,” Connie assured with a smile. “We just gotta—whoa!” She was abruptly cut off however, as Mabel grabbed her by the wrist and excitedly began leading her off, unable to wait.

“Come on, Connie!” Mabel encouraged as the others simply let out an amused chuckle at her enthusiasm. “You too, Steven! We’re gonna miss the first act if we don’t hurry!”

“Don’t worry, I’m coming!” Steven laughed as he stood and prepared to follow the girls, only to be stopped again, this time by Dipper.

“Wait, Steven!” he grabbed the young Gem by the arm, glancing around briefly before whispering something in his ear.

“Whoa, really?” Steven asked, impressed by what Dipper had just told him.

“Yeah, and I’m gonna need your help,” Dipper nodded, knowing that Steven could certainly assist him when it came to the Gem side of things. “Now, come on!”

Before anyone, particularly Mabel, Connie, or the Gems, could notice, the boys hurried off, slipping away from the party and heading out to the path between the shack and the temple, where conveniently enough, the agents had arrived not too long ago. Powers and Trigger awaited as stoically as ever, glancing down at their watches a bit impatiently as Dipper and Steven hurried up to them.

“Hi!” Steven greeted the agents brightly. Dipper was quick to lightly elbow him however, silently reminding him that they were supposed to be taking this meeting very seriously. “Oh, I mean… good evening,” the young Gem turned his excitement down a bit, standing up straight to come across as sincere.

“Alright, boys, let’s make this quick,” Agent Powers said, his tone already quite bored. “We don’t have all night.”

“Don’t worry; you guys won’t regret this,” Dipper assured. “Working together, we can crack all of the big questions of Gravity Falls! Trust me, this book is the lead you’ve been looking for.” He paused as he pulled the journal out and handed it to the agents so they could look through it for themselves. “So I’m thinking we do a full scale investigation; forensics, researchers… Do you guys have a helicopter? Oh, I’m sorry, helicopters.”

“I wanna ride on a helicopter!” Steven exclaimed, his usual excitement returning. But even so, the agents weren’t quite convinced.

“Kid, I’d love to believe you, but this just looks like more junk from your uncle’s gift shop,” Powers scoffed, holding the journal up and pointing to one of its sillier entries. “I mean, a Leprecorn? I can’t be the only one who thinks that’s not funny.”

“I can confirm,” Trigger shook his head. “Not funny.”

“No, no! It’s real, I swear!” Dipper protested, suddenly panicked at the idea that even the agents wouldn’t hear him out on this. “You should ‘send it to the lab’. Am I saying that right?”

“Your uncle was right about that overactive imagination of yours,” Powers said dismissively, handing the journal back to Dipper. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we have paperwork to do.”

“Boring paperwork,” Trigger emphasized as they both began to head back to their car.

“But wait!” Dipper called after them, desperate not to lose this change. “What… what if I told you we have real, actual aliens right here in Gravity Falls?!”

The agents merely rolled their eyes as they continued on their way, clearly not buying this. Fortunately though, Steven was quick to vouch for this claim. “He’s right!” the young Gem exclaimed. “They’re called the Crystal Gems and they’re from a planet called Homeworld, way out somewhere in space! And believe me, I should know. I live with them! In fact, I am one of them!” With a hopeful smile, Steven lifted his shirt to show off the gem on his stomach, something that did make the agents stop briefly in their tracks upon seeing it.

“Kid, I’ll level with you,” Powers said, clearly uninterested. “That thing looks more like sort of tacky decoration anyone could buy at the local dollar store than anything even remotely resembling an alien artifact.”

Steven and Dipper exchanged an alarmed glance at this, knowing they were quickly losing what little ground they had. But even so, they weren’t about to give up yet. “B-but its true!” Dipper stressed fervently. “The Gems really are aliens and they can do magic and—Steven! Quick! Show them your shield or your bubble or-”

“I think we’ve heard enough,” Powers interrupted fully turning away. “Like I said, we don’t have time to entertain flights of fantasy like these.”

“No, wait!” Dipper cried, distraught enough to really do anything to convince the agents at this point. “I can prove that all this stuff is real!” Acting fast, he opened the journal and frantically flipped through its pages, looking for something that was immediate and poignant enough. “Come on, come on,” he muttered to himself anxiously, not even paying any mind to Steven, who was curiously looking over his shoulder at the book as well. “Gnomes… cursed objects… Gem stuff… spells, aha! Listen to this!” he shouted after the agents before reciting the incantation on the page before him, not really paying much mind to what exactly it was for. “Uh… Corpus levitus! Diablo dominus!”

“Um… Dipper?” Steven spoke up worriedly, especially as an unsettling breeze began to blow through the trees above them. But even so, Dipper largely ignored him as he shouted out the final phrase of the spell, far too provoked to stop now.

“Mondo vicium!” he finished loudly, his final word echoing through the forest as the winds picked up a bit. Steven sucked in an anxious breath as the ground suddenly started to tremble under their feet, and Dipper’s eyes widened as he snapped the journal shut, unsure of what exactly the spell he had just recited really even was.

The agents’ full attention and alarm was now gathered as the localized earthquake grew violent, to the point that after mere seconds, it managed to tear a large and lengthy crack into the earth itself. Fortunately, Steven was quick enough to pull Dipper onto the safe side of the steadily growing rift along with him, especially as a sinister green light and ominous dark smoke stared pouring out of it. Everyone watched with ever increasing fear and dread as a hand abruptly shot out of the crevice, preceding the appearance of the being that slowly pulled itself up out of the depths of the earth.

Upon a first glance, it was vaguely humanoid in appearance, though as it stumbled out of the fog towards the group, it was clear to see that this creature was far from a living person. Rather, it was a dead one, a zombie to be exact. Its form was tall, gangly and heavily decaying, grisly flesh rotting from its bones, one of its eyes hanging limply from its socket just as much as its jaw was. The reanimated corpse let out a low, feral groan as it slowly sulked towards the group, obviously hungry to feast on warm human brains.

While everyone else could only stare at the approaching zombie in fearful disbelief, Dipper let out a small laugh of satisfied relief, knowing that his spur of the moment plan had worked after all. “Ha! A zombie! A real, actual zombie! See? Spooky journal. 100% real. Now can we work together?”

“Mother of all that is holy!” Powers gasped, his usual collected demeanor completely broken at such an alarming sight.

“What do we do?!” Trigger exclaimed, taking a step back as the zombie gradually drew closer.

“It’s just one zombie,” Dipper remarked, hardly concerned as he began leafing through the journal for a solution. “Trust me, we see things like this all the time here, right Steven?”

“Uh, y-yeah…” the young Gem said with a nervous grin. “If worse comes to worse, we can always find them Gems and have them—AH!” Steven let out a frightened cry as the zombie suddenly lurched towards them, ready to attack. Throwing his arms out wide on instinct, he somehow managed to form his bubble around himself and Dipper right before the corpse could smack into it seconds later, clawing and beating against it in an attempt to get to the terrified boys. Fortunately though, Agent Powers reacted accordingly by bashing the zombie on the head with a large rock, easily knocking it out cold. “Whoa…. That was a close one…” Steven muttered, staring at the now downed zombie with wide eyes.

“W-what is that?!” Trigger asked in awe as he looked to the pink bubble surrounding the boys.

“Oh this? It’s my bubble,” the young Gem said as though it was obvious.

“See? We told you guys!” Dipper exclaimed with a proud smirk. “The Gems really are magical aliens! Now you have to believe us, right?”

Of course, the agents could only really gape at each other in shock, completely dumbfounded by everything they’d seen. The boys also looked to each other with slight concern, fearing that perhaps they were overwhelming the agents with too much at once. “W-well, hey, at least we only had to deal with that one zombie, huh?” Steven asked in an attempt to lighten the mood. However, this quickly proved to be frighteningly ironic as the ground started to tremble once more.

Without any provocation or warning, more and more zombies began crawling up from the still open crevice in droves, their eyes shining with a haunting yellow as they began to go after the horrified group. “Uh, you know what? F-forget I said anything!” Steven exclaimed fearfully as his bubble unfortunately burst at just the wrong time.

“Oh my gosh!” Dipper gasped, instantly deeply regretting ever reading that spell. “Y-you guys can help, right?” he asked the agents pleadingly.

“Kid, we’ve been chasing the paranormal for years but we have never seen anything like this before!” Powers remarked, backing away from the still approaching zombies fearfully.

“Get down!” Trigger warned his partner, but it was ultimately too late. Before either of the agents knew what was coming, a pair of zombies beset them both from behind, pulling them both down to the ground violently. The boys managed to jump away before the zombies could grab onto them too, but even so, there was nothing they could do to help the struggling agents as the reanimated corpses began to drag them both off into the darkness of the forest until only their terrified cries could no longer be heard.

“Oh man, what have I done?!” Dipper exclaimed, finally realizing the full extent of the disaster he had just inadvertently started. He had been so desperate to finally convince someone that the oddities of Gravity Falls were real and valid that he had failed to even think about what the consequences might be. But now, it was clear that his persistence had ended up creating an incredibly dangerous situation, one that he had no idea how to solve on his own.

“Dipper! Look out!” Steven abruptly broke him out of his thoughts however by pushing him out of the way before another zombie could pounce on them both. The boys barely had time to pick themselves up off the ground before the army of the dead was upon them again, intent on making them both their next meal. “We gotta get out of here! Come on!” the young Gem shouted warningly. Dipper didn’t disagree as they both took off, narrowly avoiding the reaching hands of the zombie horde as they hurried back towards the shack as fast as they could, lest they fall victim to a terrible fate, just as the agents had.

Regardless of the danger awakening within the nearby woods, the party at the shack was still quite lively and festive, mostly because no one knew of the trouble coming. The stage was open for anyone who wanted to take it and preform karaoke for the rest of the guests as they danced and cheered along. Currently, Blubbs and Durland were at the height of their improvised rap duet, one that the excited crowd was certainly getting into.

“What up, fools, its Blubbs and Durls,” Blubs rapped, moving to the beat with his partner.

“Makin’ all that money and getting’ them girls!” Durland shouted the next part before Mabel took the mic to pump the crowd up even more.

“Is this party legendary or what?!” she called with a huge grin. “When I say ‘Mabel’, you say ‘Pines’! Mabel-!”

No more than a second later, of course, the earthquake that had rattled the forest finally made its way to the shack, striking fear into the hearts of all of the party guests as they felt it. A round of frightened screams rose up from the crowd, especially as the shaking grew more intense and violent, but even so, Mabel just assumed it was a show of merriment from the audience. “Mabel-!” she tried her call and response again, only for someone in the crowd to let out another horrified shriek.

“We’re all gonna die!”

“Why does that never work?” Mabel frowned, only to finally feel the ground trembling beneath her for herself.

“Whoa, I think it’s an earthquake!” Wendy shouted in alarm, quickly blowing her airhorn to alert the terrified party guests. “Hey, everybody! We gotta get outta here!”

Without needing much further provocation, the guests all started making a break for their vehicles, none of them too keen on sticking around in such hazardous conditions. Connie gasped as she tried to remain steady on her feet, her eyes wide as she glanced around at the horde of fleeing guests for one particular young Gem. “Steven!” she called, realizing that he was nowhere in sight, and neither were the Gems for that matter, something that was quite alarming considering what was happening.

“Connie, you gotta escape while you still can!” Grenda shouted as she ran by, Candy tucked safely away into her backpack as they made their escape.

“But what about-” Connie was abruptly interrupted as the ground jolted once again, this time knocking her to the ground completely. Immediately after picking herself up, she found that she was unable to do much to prevent herself from getting caught up by the bulk of the crowd as they ran off in a desperate panic. “No, wait!” she cried, trying to break free from the throng, though she was ultimately unable to lest she get trampled by them completely. “Steven!”

“Wait! Don’t leave!” Mabel also shouted out after the escaping guests, quite dismayed over how the party was falling apart so quickly. “We haven’t even done our dual family karaoke song yet!”

Still, Mabel didn’t really have time to chase the fleeing crowd down as Dipper and Steven returned to the party in just as much of a hurry as the guests were running away from it. The boys did stop as they made it to the stage, both of them quite out of breath as they tried to regather their bearings for a brief moment.

“Guys, what’s going on?!” Mabel asked them with increasing worry.

While they were both still rather breathless, Steven was the first to speak up, even if any information he tried to get out came in short, exhausted bursts. “W-we…. agents…. woods… journal… spell… zom-”

“Zombies!” Mabel cut him off with a frightened gasp as the army of the dead started emerging from the woods in pursuit of the boys. However, her fear only lasted a brief moment before turning into frustration. “Dipper, what’s the one thing I asked you not to do tonight?”

“Raise the dead…” Dipper said with a remorseful sigh.

“And what did you do?”

“Raised the dead…”

“S-so, uh, what are we gonna do?” Steven asked worriedly as the zombies menacingly approached them. “There’s so many of them, and only three of us!”

“Make that four!” Soos exclaimed as he heroically rushed forward, placing himself between the kids and the corpses to protect them. “Stay back, dudes. This is about to get intense.”

Of course, the zombies were hardly deterred as they instead surrounded the group and knocked over the nearby snack table, essentially surrounding them on all sides. With their backs pressed against the side of the shack and the zombies starting to close in on them, all they could really do was let out a round of shared frightened screams, that is, until Soos interrupted it. “Sorry, one second,” he said, taking his phone out and snapping a picture of the zombie horde, much to the kids’ disbelief. “Come on, you gotta admit this is pretty cool.”

“W-we gotta find the Gems!” Steven cried, glancing around desperately for any sign of his guardians.

“How are we supposed to do that?!” Dipper asked incredulously. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re totally surrounded!”

“Duck!” Mabel warned just in time as one of the zombies swung its disembodied head towards them widely. Fortunately, they all managed to evade it, and better yet, this gave them all a small window of escape, one that they were quick to take as they rushed through the wall of reanimated corpses.

“Dudes, stay calm,” Soos cautioned breathlessly after they had put some distance between themselves and the zombies. “I’ve been training for this moment my whole life. With all the horror movies I’ve seen, I literally know everything there is to know about how to avoid zombies.”

Ironically enough though, no sooner had the handyman said this than a zombie just so happened to come upon him right from behind, sinking its teeth deep into his shoulder before he even realized what was happening. The kids let out a unified gasp of horror as Soos’ skin paled, his eyes instantly taking on the same empty golden glow as the other zombies, a sign that he had indeed become one himself. “On second thought,” the handyman said, his tone still amicable as he turned to the kids. “Gonna flip the script. Can I… eat your brains? Yea or nay? Seeing some yea faces over here.”

Unable to really do anything else at this startling turn of events, the kids all prepared to make a panicked escape, only to find that, once again, they were cornered by another wall of zombies, all clamoring to get their hands on them. Terrified beyond measure, the trio crowded together closely, hoping that either a spur of the moment plan would come to one of them, or that a miracle would happen.

And fortunately for them, the latter hope came true.

Without warning, a large table suddenly crashed into the zombies to the left of the kids, mowing a several of the zombies down instantly. Seconds later, a familiar white spear skewered through several more of the corpses while a whip coiled around several more of them, squeezing them together tightly until their brittle bones finally snapped.

Steven, Dipper, and Mabel all let out a collective sigh of relief as the Gems seemed to drop down from the heavens before them. Their weapons were drawn and ready for attack as they stood their ground against the still converging zombies, not about to back down, despite the great threat. “Ugh, zombies,” Amethyst groaned with disgust, lashing her whip out at a corpse that got a bit too close for comfort. “Man, it’s been years since we’ve beaten some old dead heads in. Heck, it’s been so long I can barely even remember what happened last time.”

“Kids! Are you all alright?!” Pearl asked, turning to the still fearful trio behind them anxiously. “What happened?”

“Dipper accidentally summoned the zombies to try and convince those government guys that all the weird stuff in Gravity Falls is real!” Steven quickly explained, much to Dipper’s immediate protest.

“Steven!” he snapped in apt disbelief over how the young Gem had just unintentionally outed him to the Gems. After all, there would be no way that they would take something like this lightly.

“Oh, was I not supposed to tell them that?” Steven asked with an awkward frown. “Sorry!”

“You did what?!” Pearl asked Dipper harshly, her jaw dropped in appalled shock.

“Dude!” Amethyst scolded as she fought to break the end of her whip away from a zombie.

“I-I didn’t mean to!” Dipper quickly tried to defend himself. “I was just-”

“There will be time to talk about this later!” Garnet shouted over the din of the groaning corpses. “For now, you three need to get inside! We’ll deal with them.”

None of the kids were really in any position to argue with this plan, which was why they took off through the clearing the Gems had created through the zombies earlier. At the same time, the Gems themselves properly leapt into action, launching their first attacks against the army of the dead without delay.

As a pair of zombies lurched towards Garnet, they were instantly met with her fists to their guts as the heavy blows from her gauntlets practically snapped their spines in half. Amethyst summoned another whip from her gem, swinging both weapons out widely and allowing them to coil around the zombies closest to her. As the purple Gem threw her whips together, the groups of corpses rammed into each other, their skulls breaking and their limbs going limp in defeat. Pearl went wide with her approach, leaping high into the air and tossing a spear at several of the zombies that had started going after the kids. Her attack stabbed the creatures through cleanly as the white Gem landed, but before she could summon another spear, a zombie managed to latch onto her arm before chomping into her upper arm hard.

“Ow!” Pearl cried, swinging a fist out and punching the zombie directly in the face, knocking it away from her. Fortunately, since Gems were constructs of light rather than flesh, the bite had no effect on her, but even so, the wound still hurt quite a bit. “Ugh, I forgot how annoying these things were!”

“Yeesh, just how many zombies did Dipper summon?!” Amethyst exclaimed, backing up a bit upon noticing that the influx of corpses showed no signs of stopping.

“Stand your ground, Gems!” Garnet ordered, her fists clenched tightly as they all found themselves backed against the shack. “Don’t let them overwhelm you!” she shouted as the zombies seemed to do just that.

At the same time, Dipper, Mabel, and Steven continued to rush for the nearest entrance to the shack, only to of course be intercepted by a group of zombies, headed by none other than Soos. In an attempt to clear the way somewhat, Dipper grabbed a nearby shovel and swung for the nearest zombie, somehow managing to cleave it cleanly in half. Unfortunately, one of the other corpses managed to pry it away from him, leaving the kids seemingly defenseless and trapped once again.

“Quick! The golf cart!” Dipper exclaimed, pointing to the cart, which they could hopefully make good use of to outrun the dead horde. However, before the kids could even start making their way towards it, another faction of zombies pounced upon it, knocking it over as they began mindlessly biting it. “Oh come on!”

“Hoo, that’s a bummer,” Soos remarked with a grin, still rolling with his zombie pack. “Good news for me though.”

“Soos!” Dipper scolded harshly.

“Sorry, dude, I just really want those brains!” the handyman chuckled, not halting his pursuit as the rest of the zombies did the same.

Once more, the kids found themselves pressed against the shack, still too far away from the nearest door to try and break through the horde to get to it. “What do we do now?!” Mabel asked fretfully, as the army of the dead started to converge upon them.

“Uh… maybe I can try summoning my shield?” Steven suggested nervously, not entirely sure that it would work, knowing how fickle the weapon was when it came to appearing. Still, he tried nonetheless, lifting his shirt up and focusing all his energy on getting the legendary shield to materialize over his gem. “Come on! We could really use you right about now!” he pleaded with his gem, which, unfortunately, gave him no results.

“Stay back!” Dipper shouted to the zombie horde, throwing the nearest thing he could find at them, which happened to be a small disco ball. Of course, instead of actually hitting any of them, one of the zombies somehow managed to catch it in its mouth, swallowing it whole. Trapped inside the corpse’s exposed stomach, the ball emitted an array of colorful lights through its ribcage, which flashed brightly as the zombies merely continued their advance.

“Give it up, dudes!” Soos encouraged, leading the pack. “Your fighting only makes us look more rad!”

“Oh man, it’s like things just keep going from bad to worse tonight!” Steven cried as him and the twins huddled together once more.

“W-what happened to the Gems?” Mabel wondered worriedly, noticing the trio was nowhere in sight. “And where’s Grunkle Stan?”

“How’s he supposed to help?” Dipper asked caustically. “He doesn’t even believe in the supernatural!”

As it turned out, the conman was actually completely unaware of the complete and total disaster going on outside as he had instead been sequestered deep within the basement for the past hour or so. Stan assumed that everyone, including the kids and the Gems, would be distracted with the party for quite some time, meaning that no one would really notice his absence as he continued his work at a steady pace.

Yet even so, Stan let out an exasperated sigh as he went through another set of buttons, watching with disinterest as the machine on the other side of the glass flashed its usual bursts of light. While he had hoped that his work would distract him from how he had snapped at Dipper earlier, but even so, he could hardly think of anything else. The conman knew he had to walk a fine and careful line with the twins, now more than ever, for the sake of protecting their entire family really. The only problem was that he couldn’t very well tell them why without undermining everything he had been working so long for. Of course, he did plan on telling them eventually, when they would all be more prepared for such an earth-shattering revelation. But for now, Stan had every intention of staying the course and remaining as discreet as possible. After all, he theorized, it would be better for them all this way.

But even still, that didn’t mean that a wrench hadn’t been thrown into things.

“Those agents could ruin everything,” the conman remarked to himself disdainfully as he picked up the first journal from the table. “Darn kid! He has no idea what he’s messing with. He’s stubborn, that’s his problem.” Stan paused as he glanced down at the journal, catching his own reflection on the golden six-fingered hand on its cover. “Sorta like me, I suppose…” The conman shook his head, knowing that he really couldn’t be called anything else but stubborn. After all, who else would have dedicated 30 years of their life to something this risky, something this challenging? Something that could very well be nothing more than a pipe dream in the end?

“Ugh, I’ve got too much on my mind to worry about those kids right now,” Stan said dismissively, putting the journal back down on the desk as he went back to work. “Now, let’s see here…”

Of course, as the conman was preoccupied with the machine, he failed to notice the security feed coming in through the monitor on the dash behind him, which showed the twins and Steven still in the midst of fleeing from the zombie horde. They had decided to try and go around wide in an attempt to make it to the front door, only to be cut off by a single zombie as they rounded the corner. Fortunately though, Mabel took the offensive this time.

“Take that, suckah!” she shouted, swinging her karaoke machine wide at the corpse. The heavy machine landed a rather brutal blow, one that was enough to send the zombie’s head flying off and its body collapsing in defeat, much to the kids’ shared amazement. “Huh, this thing’s a surprisingly good weapon!”

Yet even still, the zombies kept on coming, relentless in their pursuit and uncountable in their number. With the path to the door finally clear, the kids charged for it, only for it to suddenly fly open right as they made it there, resulting in them all falling against each other in their rush.

“Kids?” Greg asked as he looked down at the trio with apt concern. “What’s going on?”

“Dad!” Steven gasped, hurrying to his feet as the twins did the same. “No time to explain! We gotta get inside, now!”

Before the former rock star could ask any questions, the kids had managed to push past him into the shack and close the door tightly behind them. “Quick! We need to board up all the windows!” Dipper exclaimed, already hurrying to gather what he could to do just that.

“W-what for?!” Greg asked, alarmed at how apparently panicked the kids were.

“K, so long story short, there’s like a ton of zombies out there,” Mabel quickly explained, nodding to the window as the dead army inched towards it. “So we’re just hiding out in here, trying not to get eaten by then, you know, normal party stuff.”

“Z-Zombies?!” the former rock star exclaimed fearfully. “I’m in the bathroom for what, five minutes, and suddenly there are zombies running around? W-well…. Where are the-”

Greg was abruptly interrupted as the door slammed wide open again, and for a moment, everyone feared that the zombies were already upon them again. Thankfully though, this was far from the case as the Gems rushed in, making sure to shut the door once again and lock it up tight this time. All three of them looked clearly worse for wear as they leaned against the door, panting out of apparent exhaustion. Their clothes were torn, hair disheveled and they were all sporting more than a few bruises and zombie bites, though they were fortunately free from their transformative effects.

“Guys!” Steven cried, running up to his guardians with deep worry over their respective conditions.

“There’s too many of them,” Garnet reported tiredly, adjusting her cracked shades. “Even for us.”

“We barely made it in here alive!” Pearl exclaimed, standing upright as she looked over her various injuries. “These zombies are so much more aggressive than the ones we’ve dealt with in the past! One of them nearly ended up cracking my Gem!”

“And they just don’t know when to quit either!” Amethyst growled as she shoved a plank of wood in front of one of the windows, blocking a few zombies from entering. “They’re easy to beat, but so dang hard to get rid of!”

“S-so what do we do?” Dipper asked, hoping that the Gems of all people would have a solution. However, the trio merely exchanged an uncertain glance, they expression alone giving away the fact that they really had no idea what to do to save the day this time.

Still, no one had any time to fret over this, especially as the zombies beset the barred off windows, beating against the planks of wood until they all too quickly shattered, granting them access inside. “Hey, dudes!” Soos greeted brightly, leaning in the window as his zombie compatriots started pouring in. “By the way, I taught the zombies how to get into the fuse box. To these dues, I’m like, a genius or something! Get those brains, dawgs!”

No more than a second later, all of the power in the shack instantly shut off, casting the darkness and dim lights from outside into the shack and making things seem all the more like a living nightmare. Despite their weariness, the Gems summoned their weapons once more as they stood between the zombies and the kids and Greg, knowing well that this could be their last stand.

“Stay strong,” Garnet commanded, her fists tight as the zombies lurched towards them. “And if we go down… we go down fighting!”

“Right!” Amethyst and Pearl nodded in unison, launching themselves at the creatures, weapons blazing.

Seeing as how they could do little to help, Greg was quick to take the initiative in keeping the kids safe by finding what he hoped could be their escape route. “Quick!” he shouted to the terrified trio, grabbing his nearby guitar. “This way!” The former rock star shoved the door to den open, only to find a zombie standing right behind it. Acting on impulse, he swung his guitar at it, knocking it out cold, though there were still plenty more where that one had come from. And while the Gems were trying their best to keep the other corpses at bay, it was becoming increasingly obvious to the kids that there was no easy way out.

“Dipper, isn’t there something in the journal about defeating zombies?!” Mabel asked anxiously as they all crowded into the corner, zombies pushing past the struggling Gems just to get to them.

“No!” Dipper exclaimed, frantically flipping through the book only to come up with no real results. “There’s nothing in here about their weaknesses!”

“S-so is this…?” Steven trailed off, pressing against his father, who kept a secure hand on his shoulder in the face of this grave danger.

“I… I think so…” Dipper lowered the journal, the stark realization of the severity of the situation finally settling in. And indeed, it really did seem as though there was no hope. The zombies continued pouring into the shack without end, and it was clear that they were easily overwhelming the Gems. They had already pinned Amethyst to the ground, had cornered Pearl against a wall, and had grabbed Garnet by both of her arms, effectively restraining her from fighting back. And if even the Crystal Gems themselves couldn’t prevail over this deadly threat, then who could? “This can’t be happening…” Dipper shook his head in stunned disbelief. “I wanted answers so bad that I put everyone in danger. Now we’re toast, it’s all my fault, and no one can save us!”

No sooner had Dipper finished saying this, however, than a nearby zombie suddenly grabbed his arm tightly and quickly hoisted him up, more than ready to devour him without a second thought. “Dipper!” Mabel and Steven cried in shocked, horrified unison. Likewise, upon noticing this, the Gems fought harder than ever to break free from the zombies surrounding them, though it was painfully clear that they wouldn’t be fast enough to save him, no matter how hard they tried.

“Whoa! H-hold on!” Greg exclaimed, drawing his guitar back to swing towards the offending zombie. “I’ve got-” Before the former rock star could send his instrument reeling forward however, another zombie latched onto it from behind, forcing Greg to pull back against it, lest he loose his only means of defense. “Hey! Let go of that!”

“N-no!” Dipper shouted, struggling against the zombie still clinging onto his arm like it was a vice. Still, as the create began to draw in close, it was becoming increasingly obvious to him that there would be no escaping or rescue from this. Still, he knew he could only really blame himself for his own inevitable demise. After all, he had been warned time and time again to be careful, to not dig too deep too fast. But in the end, he hadn’t listened to any of those warnings, and had instead perused dangerous answers to dangerous questions, answers that were now very much proving to be not only his own undoing, but everyone else’s as well. “Mabel! I-I’m sorry!”

“Dipper!” Mabel practically sobbed, hating how completely helpless she felt in this situation, especially as the zombie opened its maw wide, pulling her brother in even closer. All three of the kids let out a unified terrified scream over what was happening, none of them able to stop it or the fact that they were all about to meet their own respective deadly fates.

Or so it seemed, until at last, a miracle finally happened.

Right before the zombie could manage to sink its teeth into Dipper, something slammed hard against the back of the creature’s head, sending it falling forward. Its grip instantly loosened, allowing Dipper to fall to the floor mostly unscathed as Mabel and Steven both rushed to him to make sure he was ok. As all of the zombies were distracted by this sudden change, the Gems took their change to break free from their hold as well and Greg even managed to reclaim his guitar. Still, no one knew quite what had happened until the zombie’s head was firmly and abruptly crushed under Stan’s foot.

The conman stood firm and strong in the door frame, his fez missing, his hair askew, and his suit filthy and tattered from fighting through the zombie horde. Fueled by adrenaline, he was panting as he gripped a baseball bat tightly, though nothing was more frightening than his completely livid expression as he looked down at his nibblings. “You two! Attic! NOW!” he shouted harshly, his tone fiercer than the twins had ever heard it before.

“Grunkle… Grunkle Stan…?” Dipper asked in breathless disbelief, but even so, Stan was having none of it at a moment like this, especially as the zombies started crowding once again.

“I said NOW!” the conman barked, pointing to the stairs. “And that goes for you two too!” he yelled to Steven and Greg, who, much like the twins, were in no position to argue with him. Without any further hesitation, they all rushed for the stairs, encountering a stray zombie or two on the way up, though the former rock star managed to make quick work of them with his guitar.

“And what are you three looking at!?” Stan asked the Gems with a cold scowl, clearly not in the mood to deal with them in light of the ongoing fray. Regardless though, the trio could only stare at the conman with shared shock, their jaws dropped in amazement over what had just happened. “Haven’t you ever seen a man beat a zombie’s head in before?”

It took a moment for the Gems to regather their bearings, but when they did, Amethyst was the first to speak up. “Woo! Heck yeah, Stan!” she cheered, summoning her whip with renewed verve as she rushed to his aid. “Let’s show these dead creeps who’s boss!”

“What is this world coming to…?” Pearl muttered, her eyes still wide with astonishment. “We were just rescued by… Stan of all people… I can’t believe it…”

“Believe it,” Garnet replied with a shrug, summoning her gauntlets as she knocked a round of zombies out. Likewise, the white Gem was quick to shake most of her awe away as she took up her spear, spinning it widely at a group of incoming courses.

“All right, you dead jerks,” Stan snarled at the zombies surrounding him and Amethyst as they stood back to back, ready to fight. “Are you ready to die twice?!”

“Yeah! Let’s get ‘em!” the purple Gem yelled boisterously, lashing her whip out and cutting several zombies down.

Stan beat a few away from him with his bat as the brawl was pushed into the living room, him and the Gems along with it. “The only wrinkly monster who harasses my family is me!” the conman growled, swinging his impromptu weapon out wide. “And the Gems, every now and then.”

“Hey!” Pearl protested crossly, sending Stan a disapproving glare.

“Behind you,” the conman nodded to the zombie coming up on the white Gem. With a startled gasp, she quickly spun around and stabbed it cleanly through as Amethyst let out a wild chuckle.

“Dang, Stan! You are on fire tonight!” the purple Gem hooted excitedly.

Still, Stan didn’t have much time to respond as he rammed the side of his bat into a nearby zombie, only for the corpse to latch onto it and bite it cleanly in half. The conman was hardly deterred however, holding his own right alongside the Gems as he cleanly clocked the zombie in the jaw with a brass-knuckled fist. “Anyone else wanna piece!?” he challenged boldly.

“Looks like they do,” Garnet replied dryly as the horde started to easily outnumber the four of them, especially as they began pouring in through the front door. “This way! Quick!” the Gem leader pointed to the stairs Greg and the kids had just hurried up, knowing they would be relatively safer up there. They still continued to beat zombies back as they made a beeline for the stairs, and after they had all made it to the top, Stan pushed the nearby grandfather clock down the staircase in the hopes that it would buy them at least a little time.

At the same time, the kids and Greg rushed into the attic, slamming the door shut behind them, though it was only seconds later that someone started pounding against it, no doubt the zombies arriving to finish them all off. “S-stay behind me!” the former rock star warned the kids, his guitar raised to strike. Fortunately he didn’t have to use it, for instead of the undead army, Stan and the Gems all burst into the room instead.

“Ugh, ow!” Stan groaned, letting out a cough as he tiredly leaned against the door for a moment. “Everything hurts.”

“Bar the door,” Garnet ordered, gently pushing the conman aside as Pearl jammed her spear into against the handle to keep the corpses from coming.

“Yeah, and put that thing down, Greg,” Amethyst scoffed in amusement, noticing the former rock star still wielding his guitar like a weapon. “What, are we gonna defeat the zombies with the ‘power of music’ or something?”

“Hey, you can’t blame me for being a little tense,” Greg remarked, lowing his instrument. “We are dealing with actual flesh-eating zombies after all.”

“Just like in the movies!” Steven exclaimed with a small smile in an attempt to lighten the mood a little. An attempt that really didn’t work, all things considered. “O-ok… so maybe not just like the movies…”

“Grunkle Stan, that was amazing!” Dipper exclaimed, thoroughly impressed by the conman’s heroism. “Are you alright?” he asked with apt concern upon noticing just how weary his uncle looked. Still, Stan only met this worry with a caustic look, one that all three of the Gems shared as they looked to Dipper for an explanation he didn’t really have. “Heh, w-well… at least you can’t deny that magic exists anymore, right?”

A beat of silence past as the conman looked away from the twins, his expression darkening as he stood up a bit straighter. “Kid, I’ve always known.”

“Wait… what are you talking about?” Dipper asked, quite taken aback by this revelation.

“I’m not an idiot, Dipper!” Stan exclaimed, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “Of course this town is weird! And the one thing I know about that weirdness is its dangerous!”

At this juncture, a zombie’s hand abruptly broke in through the door of the room, prompting the entire group to quickly back away, but even so, the conversation continued. “And that danger is exactly what we’ve been trying to warn you kids about!” Pearl interjected, rarely agreeing with Stan. “But did you listen to us? Of course not! Otherwise we wouldn’t be surrounded by an innumerable number of reanimated corpses right now!”

“Ok, I’ll admit that what I did was really dumb,” Dipper said with clear remorse.

“Really, really dumb,” Mabel added for good measure.

“Not helping!” Dipper gave his sister an aggravated glare before turning to Stan. “But that still doesn’t explain why you’ve been pretending like none of this stuff exists all summer!”

“Oh really? Because I think it’s pretty obvious,” the conman replied pointedly. “I’ve been lying about it to try and keep you away from it. To protect you from it!” Another zombie happened to break in through the window at this, though Stan was quick to send it plummeting to the ground far below with a single brutal blow. Still, as he stood at the window, he could see the mass of corpses still vying to get into the building as they began steadily scaling it, meaning that they wouldn’t have much time left. “Looks like I didn’t lie well enough…”

“So… what now?” Greg asked apprehensively, looking to the Gems. “You guys have a plan, right?”

The Gems merely exchanged a desperate glance at this before letting out a unified defeated sigh. “We don’t…” Garnet admitted, looking to the ground. “Not this time.”

“B-but we have to do something!” Steven urged fretfully. “We can’t just let them climb up here and eat all our brains! I’m still using mine!”

“Well, normally the journal would help us,” Dipper began, pacing around the room as he usually did in stressful situations like these. He took the book out one last time, glancing over the zombie page yet again only to find no aid from it. “But there’s nothing in there about defeating zombies! It’s hopeless!”

“Wait!” Mabel gasped as Dipper held the journal up over one of the black lights lying on the floor. “Look at the text! It’s glowing in the black light!”

“What?” Dipper frowned in confusion, grabbing one of the lights and holding it over the journal as everyone curiously gathered around to see. And sure enough, the moment the neon struck the brittle pages, it illuminated countless glowing notes and images, all of which had been completely invisible to the naked eye before. “No way!” Dipper exclaimed in stunned disbelief, instantly realizing just how much this revelation changed everything. “All this time I thought I knew all the journal’s secrets, but they were hidden in invisible ink this whole time!”

“Invisible ink?!” Stan muttered incredulously, his eyes widening upon seeing the hidden notes for himself.

“Wow!” Steven quipped in amazement. “And just when I thought the journal couldn’t get any cooler or more mysterious, it does! This is awesome!”

“Should we be concerned about this?” Pearl whispered to Garnet worriedly, thinking specifically of the pages detailing themselves.

Before Garnet could reply, another zombie managed to make it to the window, though a quick jab from the Gem leader resulted in its immediate defeat. “We’ll have plenty of time to be concerned about it later,” she remarked to the white Gem quickly, knowing that there were much more important matters to be dealt with now.

“This is it!” Dipper exclaimed after briefly skimming the newfound secret notes the zombie page had to offer before reading it aloud. “Zombies have a weakness! Previously thought to be invincible, their skulls can be shattered by the combination of a stringed instrument and a perfect several-part harmony.”

“A stringed instrument, huh?” Greg asked, grinning at his guitar. “What do you know? Looks like the power of music might just save the day after all.”

“Yeah but how do we create a several-part harmony?” Dipper wondered, looking over the journal once more. “I have a naturally high-pitched scream…?”

“I can make noises with my body,” Stan offered. “Sometimes intentionally.”

“Boys, boys,” Mabel interjected with a satisfied grin. “I think you’re both missing the obvious solution here.”

“Yeah! We gotta sing!” Steven exclaimed with a smile just as large.

“Sing?” everyone else asked in bewildered unison, none of them completely convinced of this idea.

“Uh, I don’t think we’ve ever used singing to beat monsters before…” Amethyst said incredulously. “Most of the time we just beat them up till they go away. But since that isn’t working for these guys…”

“I suppose we don’t really have any other viable options…. But could something that simple even work?” Pearl asked skeptically, looking to Garnet for answers.

The Gem leader simply shrugged as she nodded towards the window, reminding the group that they had no time to lose. “It’s worth a shot.”

By now, the number of zombies surrounding the Mystery Shack was easily in the hundreds, maybe even more. While plenty of them had been taken down, it was still barely enough to put even a dent in how many of them there really were. By sheer brute force alone, the ravenous corpses had pushed their way into the shack, all of them mindlessly eager to feast on any flesh they could get their rotting hands onto. However, they were finally deterred in their mission as the sound of a microphone screech suddenly rang out through the building. Intrigued by this noise, the zombies started congregating towards its source, including Soos, though he was ultimately distracted by the TV as he passed through the den.

“Ooh! Gossiping Housewives is on!” the zombified handyman exclaimed with a grin, taking a seat on the recliner. One of the zombies groaned, beckoning him to join them as they continued their way outside, but even so, Soos merely shrugged them off. “Eh, I already sat down.”

Soon enough, the majority of the zombie horde had gathered outside, all of them quickly noticing the group standing on the roof awning high above them. Mabel had made quick work of setting the karaoke machine up, and Greg already had plugged his amp into it as he started testing a few scales to make sure everything worked properly.

“Ok, Pearl, it’s 56383,” Steven read the number of the song from the karaoke book.

“56383…” Pearl repeated as she punched in the number once again, growing increasingly frustrated with how the machine refused to cooperate with her.

“Uh, sometime tonight, Pearl?” Stan urged caustically, glancing down at the audience of zombies below them.

“I’m trying!” the white Gem snapped, clearly stressed over the pressure they were under. “Steven, are you sure that’s the right number? I keep typing it in, but it doesn’t seem to be playing!”

“Oh, you need to hit start,” the young Gem informed her.

“Ah… I see.” Pearl did so, and at once, an upbeat pop backtrack began playing from the machine, one that Greg easily picked up on and started strumming along to.

“Zombies and gentlemen!” Mabel shouted over her microphone. “I’m Mabel, they’re Dipper, Stan, Steven, Mr. Universe, and the Crystal Gems, and together we’re Love Patrol Alpha!”

“I never agreed to that name!” Dipper quickly clarified, already quite uncomfortable with this embarrassing situation in general.

“Uh… kids? Our lives may not be worth this,” Stan said with dry concern.

“Stop whining,” Garnet interjected firmly. “Just sing.”

“Hit it, Steven!” she encouraged, pointing to the young Gem as the words to the song appeared on the karaoke machine’s screen. Not that he really needed them in the first place.

“We can’t help it if we make a scene,” Steven began boldly, strutting across the stage a bit as a sign that he was clearly invested the number already. “On Friday night in our hot pink limousine…”

“Partying till dawn,” Dipper shakily picked up where Steven had left off after the mic was passed off to him. “Got my favorite dress on?! You guys, this is stupid!” he huffed to Steven and Mabel who were both having the time of their lives, despite the danger they were up against.

“We’re rolling to the party, turning heads stopping traffic,” Mabel sang brightly, swaying freely along to the beat. “I just keep dancing, posing, joking, laughing-” She was abruptly cut off as a zombie finally made it to them, lashing out towards her with a hiss. Fortunately, it was intercepted by a kick from Stan, but even still, it had served as a grim reminder that this was no game. “Guys! We have to sing together or it won’t work!”

“Way ahead of you!” Amethyst grinned, getting into the song herself as she sang the next part. “I’ve got a pair of eyes that they’re getting lost in!” she belted, playfully bumping up against Pearl and prompting her to sing along with her.

“Who cares what they say? We keep on walking,” both Gems sang, easily harmonizing before Stan begrudgingly picked up the tune.

“The boys are dazzled but they’re all just bores,” the conman sang, cringing at the sound of his own gravelly voice. Fortunately though, Garnet continued on clear and smooth.

“When I point they look, just show them the door!” the Gem leader was quick to motion to everyone else to gather around her, especially as Greg began strumming harder while the chorus approached.

“Ohhh, haven’t you noticed, girls are what we are?” the entire group sang together, harmonizing as best as they could. However, it seemed to be working as several of the zombies below let out high-pitched screams of pain, covering their ears in an attempt to block the melody out as several of their heads even happened to explode altogether. Encouraged by this, everyone continued with the chorus, much more hopeful about their chances this time around. “Ohhh, we’re taking over the stars! Ohhh, haven’t you noticed we made it this far? Ohhh, girls are what we are!”

At this break in the song, Greg strummed a loud riff on his guitar with an excited smile, one that brought several more of the zombies on the ground to their knees. The entire group exchanged exhilarated grins, all of them completely into their performance by now. “Oh, everybody needs a friend,” Steven, Dipper, and Mabel sang in unison, creating a miniature harmony of their own.

“And I’ve got you, and you, and you,” the Gems answered melodiously, spinning together as they pointed to the laughing kids.

“So many, I can’t even blame them,” Stan and Greg sang together, jamming out to the beat before everyone else chimed in.

“We’re queens of the disco! We’re too famous!”

With as much fun as they were all admittedly having, none of them were paying too much mind to the zombies, who were all quickly falling in quick succession. As the song continued, the corpses’ heads caved in, unable to handle the harmony the group was sending out quite powerfully. But even so, they kept it going, unable to stop such a stellar performance at its very height.

“Ohhh, haven’t you noticed girls are what we are?” the gang launched into the chorus once again, huddling together over the same mic. “Ohhh, we’re taking over the stars! Ohhh, we’re coming into view as the world is turning! Ohhh, we’ve made it this far!”

Before they could move onto the final lines of the song, one of the last remaining zombies managed to scale onto the roof, catching Steven and Dipper off guard as it towered over them. However, before it could attack, it was squarely met with a burst of confetti courtesy of Mabel’s confetti canon. As the disembodied head landed in the punch bowl down below and the sun started to rise behind the shack, the group regathered to bring their number to an energized end.

“Now everyone can see us burning!” the Gems, Stan, and Greg sang together, all of them smiling brightly as they handed the next line off to the kids.

“Now everyone can see us burning!” the trio harmonized again before the others joined them for their epic grand finale.

“Now everyone can see us burning!”

With one more riff from Greg’s guitar to finish things off, the group couldn’t contain their elated cheers and laughter for very long. “Thank you!” Mabel exclaimed, blowing a kiss to the yard full of now-defeated zombies before them. “We’ll be here all night!”

“Deal with it, zombie idiots!” Stan laughed triumphantly.

“We’re all karaoke beasts!” Amethyst howled, pumping her fists excitedly.

“I have to give you some credit, Greg,” Pearl remarked with a begrudging smile. “You really came through for us with that guitar, against all odds.”

“So, thank you,” Garnet nodded, her tone sincere as she addressed the former rock star.

“Aw… well…” Greg blushed, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’re welcome. That really means a lot coming from you guys. You know, I-”

The former rock star was suddenly cut off as the karaoke machine started playing the song they had just preformed again, much to everyone’s shared confusion. “Uh, Pearl?” Dipper asked with a frown. “Exactly how many times did you enter the song before hitting start?”

“Probably about 15 times,” Pearl replied, quickly realizing her error. Regardless, Steven and Mabel let out delighted gasps as they looked to each other, stars in their eyes as they jumped on this opportunity.

“Encore!” they shouted in cheerful unison, and as pumped up as they all already were, no one was really in any position to disagree as they started their song all over again.

After capping their repeat performances at five, the group carefully descended from the roof, the Gems going out first to make sure no zombie stragglers remained. The entire area surrounding the shack looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie, with the withered bodies of the decaying dead laying battered and broken at nearly every step. The building’s interior didn’t fare much better, as the zombies had clearly ravaged nearly every room, flipping over furniture, breaking windows, and tearing nearly anything they had touched to shreds. And yet, for as horrific of an experience as the zombie attack had been, no one was really that shaken by it, largely because they were all still on the high of their victory, even as they surveyed the damage.

“I’m really sorry about this, guys,” Dipper spoke up, looking to Stan and the Gems in particular. “I totally ruined everything.”

“Dipper, are you kidding me?” Mabel interjected with a grin. “I got to sing karaoke with some of my favorite people in the world! No party could ever top that!”

“Yeah!” Steven readily agreed. “That was seriously the funnest life-threatening situation we’ve ever been in. And I think we’ve been in enough life-threatening situations by now to know.”

“Still…” Pearl cut in rather pointedly, crossing her arms as her and her teammates gave Dipper something of a disappointed glance. “I do happen to recall a certain someone telling us that he would be “super careful” with a certain journal… don’t you, Dipper?”

“Right…” Dipper took in an remorseful breath, avoiding eye contact with the Gems. “I guess I sort of broke that one, didn’t I?”

“Sorta?” Amethyst scoffed. “Dude, you summoned a whole army of zombies. ‘Sort of’ doesn’t come anywhere near close.”

“Ok, I get it, you guys are mad,” Dipper said, his tone quite apprehensive as he still tried his best to play it all off regardless. “Which is understandable. But… you’re not gonna make me hand over the journal or anything, are you?”

The Gems simply looked to each other at this, their expressions hard at first before finally softening up a bit. “We can’t very well do that,” Garnet admitted. “After all, we already told you that you could keep it. But we do expect you to start using more responsibly from here on out.”

“Well, after what just happened, I really don’t think you’ll have to worry about that,” Dipper said with a small, relieved smile.

“We better not,” Garnet advised rather stoically. “But in the end, whether or not you get to keep that journal isn’t our call. It’s Stan’s.”

The conman raised an eyebrow upon hearing this, admittedly surprised, but even so, he met his nephew’s pleading gaze evenly. “Kid, listen,” he began with a tired sigh. “This town is crazy. And if you wanna know exactly how crazy, just ask the Gems, because they’ve been here way longer than I have. But still, you need to be careful. I don’t know what I’d do with myself if you got hurt on my watch. I’ll let you hold onto that spooky journal, as long as you promise me that you’ll only use it for self-defense and not go looking for trouble.”

“Okay…” Dipper tentatively agreed, knowing that this really wasn’t much different from what the Gems had asked of him. “But as long as you promise me that you don’t have any other bombshell secrets about this town.”

Stan set his jaw upon hearing this, knowing that he couldn’t in all honesty deliver on this promise. Which was why it was a good thing he wasn’t that entrenched in the practice of honesty in the first place. “Promise,” he nodded tersely, hiding his crossed fingers behind his back.

“Promise,” Dipper also agreed, doing the exact same thing, unbeknownst to the conman.

With all this talk of secrets and promises going around, Steven couldn’t help but frown a little as he glanced over at the Gems. He still felt as though they were keeping something from him, something big. Whatever that something was, he was certain it had to do with why they had been so anxious about the agents finding out about them. The young Gem had a sense that there was more to it though than just his guardians nor originating from Earth; this was deeper, more integral, darker. And while Steven desperately wanted to know exactly what it was, he felt as though he wasn’t really ready to pose such a question to the Gems. At least not yet.

“Yikes, we have got a lot of damage to clean up,” Stan remarked as he glanced around the wrecked living room. “Where’s my handyman at anyway?”

As if on cue, Soos wandered into the room, somehow still zombified as he let out a ravenous groan. “Brains…. Braaains…”

“Holy Moses!” the conman exclaimed, startled as he grabbed a chair to hurl at the zombified handyman.

“Aw, geez! Another one?!” Amethyst asked in dismay as all three of the Gems summoned their respective weapons.

“No wait!” Steven cut in before they could attack. “It’s just Soos!”

“Oh…” Stan and the Gems mused in realization, even if they were all still admittedly confused.

“Good thing there’s a page in here about curing zombification,” Dipper remarked, pulling the journal out and flipping through it. “It’s gonna take a lot of formaldehyde.”

“Ooh, and cinnamon!” Mabel exclaimed, reading over her brother’s shoulder.

“Come on, Soos, let’s fix you up,” Dipper began using the chair Stan had dropped to prod Soos into the kitchen, even if the handyman lamely struggled.

“Brains… Brains…” Soos groaned, reaching out in an attempt to get the kids, who were hardly phased, mostly since the Gems were sticking close behind them just to be safe.

“Soos, cut it out!” Mabel scolded petulantly.

“Yeah, everybody knows its super rude to try and eat peoples’ brains,” Steven added blithely.

“Heh, sorry dudes!” the handyman chuckled, unable to resist his zombie instincts.

As the others headed on into the kitchen, Dipper hung back a bit, taking out the black light he had saved before flipping the journal open again. “I can’t believe it!” he exclaimed to himself with an excited smile, briefly glancing over all of the previously undiscovered entries and passages, each one more interesting than the last. “All this time the author’s secrets were hiding in plain sight! A whole new chapter of mysteries to explore…”

As morning fell over the forest near the shack, a sort of calm had fallen over the area, a sign that the danger had passed and peace had been restored. Still, this stillness only lasted for a moment or two, before two disheveled, exhausted figures pulled themselves up out of the crevice the zombies had emerged from. Fortunately, they weren’t corpses themselves, but considering the night both agents had had, they had gotten dangerously close to becoming ones.

“That was insane!” Trigger exclaimed breathlessly, brushing the filth off his suit as he rose to stand. “I’ve never seen anything like this! Zombies, aliens, magical books! Who do we even report to?”

Powers’ expression was as unmoved as ever as he pulled the skull of the zombie that had bitten his suit off, watching as it crumbled to dust in his hand. “This is bigger than we imagined,” he said with cold resolve. “We need to bring in the big guns.”

“But they’ll never believe us!”

“Then we’ll make them believe us,” Powers asserted, taking a tentative glance up to the Gem temple in the distance. “This is the town we’ve been looking for.”

Despite their verve, both agents were caught off guard as Toby Determined, who still thought he was at the party, happened to wander by, blind-folded and wielding a stick that he swung about in an attempt to strike a piñata. “Ah! Another zombie!” Trigger cried, reaching for the gun on his belt.

“Drop your weapon!” Powers demanded, doing the same as they both aimed for Toby. “Drop your weapon!”

Upon hearing this, the reporter finally paused and lifted his blindfold, looking to the two agents with apt bewilderment. Realizing their error, the agents lowered their weapons.

“Oh… it’s just… who is that guy?” Trigger asked, confused.

“Just a very ugly man,” Powers responded, aptly relieved over how it had, miraculously enough, not been another brain-hungry zombie. But even so, the agents succinctly nodded to each other as they began to head back to their car, their mission to dig deeper into the secrets of this odd little unknown town.

And as far as they were concerned, they weren’t going to leave until they had gotten to the bottom of it all, supernatural and extraterrestrial alike.

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