Chapter Text
Dipper reached his hands out to his sister to help her up from where she’d fallen. There was a small scrape on the back of her leg, and damp pine needles stuck in her curly hair. She looked a little dazed.
“You okay?” Dipper asked, but while there was some concern in his face and in his tone, he also seemed very distracted. He seemed to be almost buzzing with some sort of energy.
Mabel nodded and smiled to show that she was fine, brushing the clinging pine needles from her hair. Although she was a little interested in the events that had just transpired, she wasn’t as invested as her twin brother. Plus she’d hit her head when she’d fallen. Mabel didn’t think it was a bad bump, but it was still a little concerning nonetheless.
Dipper had been out on one of his usual cryptid hunts, and had managed to encourage Mabel into joining him on this one. It was a particularly damp and foggy evening, giving the whole woods around the Mystery Shack an even more eerie vibe than they usually had. Then, just a few minutes ago, what looked like a boy just a few years older than her and Dipper had wandered across their path. He didn’t notice the two at first, even as he looked around, biting his lip with a worried expression on his face. It was only as he turned to fully face the twins that he realized for the first time that they were there.
There had been a weird flash of bright green light, and then the boy had suddenly become a spectre-like figure with pure white hair and luminescent acid-green eyes. Dipper had very obviously panicked, letting out a small shout and throwing his flashlight at the- ghost? Boy? Whatever he had been. The white-haired spectre had then flinched, putting out a small pulse of electricity as he fled. A couple droplets of a thick, glowing green substance had dripped onto the carpet of pine needles on the ground as he flew away. Dipper had seemed fine, but Mabel had been knocked over by the energy pulse. And now there they were.
“What do you think that was?” Dipper asked Mabel excitedly, flipping through the journal he held in his hands. “Grunkle Ford hasn’t documented anything like that before!”
“I dunno, bro-bro, but he was kinda cute,” Mabel responded in a slightly joking tone.
Dipper rolled his eyes, shutting the journal he was holding.
“I think it was a . . . a ghost,” Dipper said after a short pause, leaning over to pick up his flashlight from the ground.
“No way! I’m pretty sure ghosts don’t bleed.” Mabel picked the last of the pine needles out of her hair, flicking it onto the ground.
“What?”
“Y’know . . . that green stuff that fell onto the ground. It’s, like, blood.”
“Whatever. We should follow it!” Cried Dipper, pointing into the distance vaguely with the heavy flashlight in his hand.
Mabel made a skeptical face, but followed her brother into the misty woods as he set off anyway. The sun was starting to go down, sending blood-red beams through the swirling mist that was gradually getting lower to the ground. Dipper clicked on the bright flashlight, sweeping it from side to side in front of the twins. The journal was tucked safely under his arm, and Mabel could see that he was getting that determined expression he always had once he’d really set his mind to something.
“Dip . . . I don’t think we should be out after dark,” Mabel said a little nervously, listening to the sound of some animal crying out in the distance.
“Mabel, it’s fine. Anyway, I’m sure we’ll find this ghost boy soon,” Dipper responded, his look far away as he scanned between the trees. Mabel shuffled a bit closer to him, her breath fogging a little in the cool dusk air.
Just then, something moved near a juniper bush to their right. Dipper jumped a little, swinging the beam of the flashlight around to the bush. A pair of eyes reflected back silvery in its light. The twins both froze, Mabel whispering “I told you so” repeatedly under her breath like a chant.
There were several moments of frozen silence, then the eyes moved as the boy from earlier stepped out of the bush. The soft breeze stirred his white hair and his eyes glowed in the darkness, an almost creepy fluorescent green. He squinted at the twins for a second or two, frowning lightly. Mabel quickly noticed that he didn’t seem to be injured anymore.
“Uh . . . how old are you guys?” He asked, and Mabel couldn’t help but feel relieved at how normal his voice sounded, just like any other teenage boy. His lanky frame almost reminded her of Robbie.
Dipper looked like he was starting to get defensive, so Mabel cut in before he could speak.
“We’re thirteen,” she blurted.
There was another pause, then the boy spoke again.
“Don’t you guys think that you should be inside, now that it’s dark? I haven’t even been here one night and I can already tell that it’s not a great place for kids to be walking around. ‘Specially at night.”
“We’ve been here a long time! We know our way around,” Dipper retorted. Mabel sighed. She’d been right; Dipper was getting defensive. She put a hand on his shoulder.
“Calm down, bro-bro. He’s just tryin’ to help us.”
The white-haired boy nodded, rubbing his hands over his face afterwards in a slightly exasperated gesture.
“Uh . . . there was a little cabin awhile back . . . I could get you guys about that far, but then I gotta go,” the older teen said, glancing over his shoulder briefly. “Come on.”
He started walking ahead. The boy’s pace was fast, but it wasn’t too fast for Dipper and Mabel to keep up with. Dipper stayed quiet for the whole walk, alternately flipping through the journal he held in his hands, muttering to himself, and squinting at the teen with suspicion. Mabel rolled her eyes to herself. He was definitely being ridiculous.
Speeding up her pace a little so she could walk beside the white-haired teen, Mabel looked up at him curiously.
“What’s your name?” She asked, her voice as bright as usual and completely devoid of the suspicion that Dipper was obviously showing.
“It’s, uh- Danny,” the teen said after a moment of hesitation, glancing over his shoulder again. His eyes widened slightly, and he muttered something quickly under his breath. Danny stopped, leaving Dipper and Mabel to walk a few steps before they caught on and stopped as well. Leaving the younger teens behind him, Danny let the slight shock that came with firing up his powers go through him.
A dark form stepped out of the shadows of the forest, holding a pistol-like weapon in front of him. The Pines twins recognized the red turtleneck and chipped glasses immediately.
“Grunkle Ford!” They yelled in unison, Dipper surprisingly being the first to run out from behind Danny.
“Kids? Are you alright?” Stanford Pines looked at the twins as they came over to him, pointing the weapon he was holding away from him but not lowering it.
“We’re fine! Danny helped us!” Mabel turned back to the teen who’d been leading them through the forest, but he was gone by the time she looked. The only trace of him left was a couple drops of some thick, slightly glowing green substance on the ground. Mabel looked around in confusion.
“Oh- where’d he go?”
“Must’ve flown off,” Ford said, finally lowering his weapon to his side. “Kids, you shouldn’t have gone wandering off like that at night. There’s a lot in these woods that you don’t know of yet, and you could get hurt.”
“Grunkle Ford, what was that- thing?” Dipper asked, his eyes fixed on the spattered drops that glowed on the ground.
“Probably a ghost."
"But ghosts don't bleed."
Mabel looked at the drops on the ground and rolled her eyes. Apparently this one did.