Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Damn it”

The boy dragged his hands through his hair, noting the dampness of his locks. He tugged the short brown of it, leg bouncing in frustration, elbows rested on his thighs as he stared at the white tiled floor, pissed, but a little nervous.

He pulled his hands out of his hair fast enough though, remembering the dark liquid that stained it. He looked down at his hand, the bandages around his knuckles and fingers stained in red, the blood on it smeared from running it through his hair.
Damn it, its such a goddamn pain to get blood out of hair.

“Dipper…”
A voice called out to him, concerned. Dipper looked up from his hands and into the face of the girl beside him, sitting on the same plastic chair as he was. She had the same facial structure as he did, same eyes, same nose, but a different smile.

It was nicer than his was, even when concerned.

“Language” She said chidingly, trying to cheer up the mood.

Dipper winced, despite himself. “Sorry Mabel.”

His sister’s smile turned happier as she realised that Dipper wasn’t sad, he was just lost in thoughts. It then dipped slightly. Usually, she would try to joke around, make the mood lighter, but this time, even she was too exhausted to try to make a joke.

Sitting next to each other in front of the glass- wooden door of the principal’s office was something the both of them were used to, but were not willing to do again this year.

Ever since they were kids, the both of them were used to fighting. Dipper was usually the one who lost his temper first, but Mabel started fights too, to back up her brother and to hold some of her own (something Dipper didn’t really enjoy for… reasons)

The primary school that they had gone to had its torn-up reputation only because of the twins. The teachers had absolutely hated them, calling them out as menaces in front of their parents and loudly whispering about their horrible behaviour, even during class timings and attendance.

The twins beat up their upper classmates at even the slightest insult, earning their own reputation of being the two most dangerous people to mess with. Recess and break times were the worst for all the staff and administration, most of the fights happening there.

Some kid would be stupid enough to provoke the “Scary twins” and then reap the consequences as either one of them would ‘teach him a lesson’. The kids usually ended up with hard bruises and bloody noses, and their parents would yell at the staff, yell at the principal, yell at anyone they could find and deem responsible.

The twins’ parents were frequently called too, but they never seemed to want to discipline their children, always sweet and caring, sighing and calmly telling their kids that “oh sweethearts, we don’t hit other kids, alright?” and “oh shucks, I know they were mean, but what you did was wrong, ‘mkay?”

The principal silently wished that the kids would get out of his school faster.

Then came middle school.

The first year of middle school sucked, for everyone at it, some new, but most old, came from the same elementary.

The twins were now seen as dangerous, fighting now with cold accuracy rather than their brash movements. Loud bruises turned to broken noses and bruised knees, fights ending fast, but not fast enough not to placate the anger that was held inside the twins.

After multiple fights, the principal put her foot down. She wrote to the twins’ parents that if they were to continue this behaviour, the kids would be expelled from the school.
The twins were more careful after that.

Their anger still burned true, and they found that without a release, it was getting much harder to manage, each fight that called out to them a temptation that none thought that they could resist any longer.

Then Dipper thought of the school clubs. The perfect place to keep in shape, but also put just enough aggression to make the passion feel real. The place to drive their anger in a more positive way.

Mabel joined baseball, the availability of a bat and the ability to throw stuff as hard as possible an amazing opportunity in which she excelled in. Mabel had always been amazing in her aim and picked up techniques as fast as her brother did.

Her ability to both pitch accurately and bat strong enough to hold frequent home runs is what made her one of the strongest players on the team, despite being a first year in the main team of older girls.

Dipper joined soccer as he excelled in footwork and was strong enough to shoulder-push boys bigger than him to reach the goal. The freedom to shove people with his shoulders as hard as possible was extremely fun, and he secretly enjoyed the complicated strategies, nerding out over them at home- when possible, of course.

His strong footwork and technique along with his heavy kicks is what made him the youngest person on the school team.
They found the change amazing for both of them.

They both sparred at home of course, in the back yard or out on the streets behind their house, in the dark alleyways that no one dared to wander into at night. Crime is pretty common in their neighbourhood at Piedmont, so the fear of getting hurt drove the people off the streets, even though the crime was mostly limited to robbery and theft.

This was the perfect opportunity to try out all different styles of fighting and both Dipper and Mabel relished in their freedom. The spars never got too intense (they weren’t trying to make the other die), but were hard enough to bruise almost as much as their past victims.

They also practiced on the newly arriving stray gang fighters that tried to terrorise the neighbourhood. Those fights were more fun as the twins didn’t need to hold back, punches now strong enough to break bone and kicks hard enough to knock out. They even ended up with really cool looking scars, which made everyone in school afraid to test them.

There were a surprising many of them, and Dipper and Mabel both found that this was an amazing way to actually level up their fighting skills and provide actual entertainment, the thrill of a real threat making adrenaline run high in the kid’s minds.

It was exhilarating to actually fight back without consequences. While this was a way for Mabel to test out her creative new ideas, Dipper found that the level of control that he held to dictate the rhythm of the fight was a stark difference to the helplessness he felt in his own.

They cleaned up the streets pretty efficiently, but the crime didn’t seem to want to stop. Every new fight felt harder than the other, and the number of foes to take down were not getting any less. In fact, it felt as though people were challenging them, willing them to show their strength.

Whatever, it was a new reason to get away from home.

This week was bad, however.

It was their last year of middle school, and contrary to popular belief, the twelve-year-olds were actually sad to see the year end. The tournaments were over for the year, the school excelling in the inter middle school national sports events, securing gold in Baseball, Soccer and Basketball.

The twins were heavily praised by their coaches, those who had seen the twins grow from their first year to the last of middle school. Though they were secretly glad that the overwhelming talent that the both of them had was being passed onto high school, the coaches would secretly miss the hot aggression and the passion in which the kids played.
The kids were a menace to teach, but had earned their part as the MVPs of their sports.

It even made up for their lack of friends, within all their classes and even their clubs. The kids were afraid of them, and though Dipper didn’t personally mind it, being an introvert and all, Mabel absolutely hated it.

She was a social person to the core, but always ended up scaring people away or weirding them out with her passionate talks about the most random topics.

It was actually one of the main reasons that Mabel got into the fights that she did, refusing to be made fun of by people who thought that her interests “showed her brain-power. None!”

Dipper was always her backup in those situations, but through the distractions that the Winter, Spring and now newly finished Summer Tournaments and the various inter-school completions that they were invited to had provided, they didn’t really have the time to actually make friends.

Dipper was relieved, and so was Mabel, the loneliness being erased by the heavy practices, the thrill of the competition, and the smug victory that had the entire school celebrating them. It was more than fun, it felt was though the weight of the fear of not making friends had been taken off their shoulders every time they played.

It was also an excuse to be out for longer without their parents being able to object.

Then came the fight.

This one absolute douche bag thought it would be a cool end of the year to try to take on the “Scary Kids of Middle School”, and wanted to prove to the school that he was in fact cooler than the twins. He resented the pedestal they were put on, fear and awe of them not far from anyone’s gossip. He wanted to be the one that they all talked about in hushed voices, wanted to be the one who people looked at in terror, but in respect and awe.

He wanted what they had.

So, he grabbed his minions with his fat, stubby arms and went to try and win their legacy.

It was lunch by the time he struck, the busy cafeteria the perfect place to reach as many people as possible. Even more amazing, the twins weren’t even there yet.

He picked the centre table, grinning at his goons, and laughing obnoxiously as they recounted the plan to humiliate the twins. Just as the shit talking was coming to a close, the small boy at the end of the table pointed above the kid’s head.

“It’s them” the small kid squeaked, nervous.

The boy grinned. “Time to take these stupid shits on”

“Yo yo lessgo Mats!”

The boy looked back at his group; his grin turned to a snarl. “Never call me that.”

Unfortunately, the boy also looked like an overgrown walrus and even acted like one, with his dumb wit and really weird planning. It was hard to look at anyone seriously when they had a reputation of being the stupidest bully in the school.

But his group digressed.

“Sorry Matteo” The kid who shouted out spoke quietly, afraid. Mats looked at him, a smug sense of control filling his stupid body.

“Good”

When the overgrown troll- boy looked back in front of him, he realised that he was almost too late for the first phase of his plan. The table at which he had gotten up from had pathways from all sides that led directly too it, and Mats saw that Dipper and Mabel had already started walking away from him, looking at the empty table at the corner to sit at.

They were almost there.

Fast as possible for him, he set off, running at the twins, ready to make them lose. He ran straight at Mabel and came face to face with her right front of the table. He lifted his hand, and smacked the lunch tray right out of her hands. The contents crashed to the floor next to them, the loud noise startling most of the cafeteria, the children looking in the direction of the sound.

Mats grinned. This was exactly what he wanted.

“Ugh seriously?!” Mabel’s voice was annoyed, but still light as she sounded more irked than angry.

Dipper sighed. “Dude. Why?”

Mats was… surprised, to say the least. He expected an immediate punch or a harder retaliation, not a slightly annoyed duo. He didn’t know what to do next.

“Uh- uhm” Mats started. “You- you two suck!”

Mabel laughed, surprised at the sudden attack and found the little thought put behind it pretty funny. Dipper raised a single eyebrow, a slightly amused half smile playing at his lips.

“Okay, so?”

Mats was internally freaking out. His best insult, his best play, out in the open for everyone to see, and the twins just… ignored it? It was supposed to humiliate them! Why were they laughing?!

“You are the most horrible people in this school!” He yelled, loud enough for everyone in the cafeteria to hear.

Whispers erupted around the three, speculating, wondering, confused. Mats smirked, glad at this evolution and looked back at the table he was sitting in, raising his hands and calling his minions over, ready for the intimidation.

Dipper and Mabel watched as all the kids around the 12-seat table in the middle slid out of their seats and rumbled to where they were, moving to stand directly behind him.

“We have to make sure you pay for what you’ve done to us.”

“Uhm, what we did 2 years ago?” Mabel’s voice was still light, but she was confused at the sudden attack. Why were they talking about the events that had finished in the first year of middle school when they were at their last? Why not sooner? Why not even when it was happening?

“Well, a rotten apple only rots further!” A small timid voice spoke behind the bigger boy. Mats looked back, spotting the culprit. He growled.

“TIMMY!”

Timmy whimpered and fiddled with his large, round glasses nervously. “So- so sorry, s- sir!”

Mats turned back to the twins.

“Well, a rotten apple only… whatever he just said!”

Dipper huffed. This conversation was going better than any other he had, other than Mabel. The offending twin grinned, shocking almost everyone in the cafeteria, including the kids in front of them. Dipper rolled his eyes at their reactions. You start a fight, then all of a sudden, you are incapable of experiencing joy.

Mabel literally smiles all the time. People haven’t bothered to notice because the idea of the twins in their heads is horrible to start with. Dipper guesses that its because a reputation is hard to change once earned.

“And your (redacted) is small enough to be measured in negatives!”

Mabel’s joyful cry found its place in the cafeteria, causing everyone to start laughing. Mats grinned. He knew how to counter that.

“Yeah? And how would you know?”

The children in the cafeteria ‘ooh-ed’ at the comeback, waiting for the retaliation. Dipper didn’t make them wait.

“Your mom told me”

The cafeteria might as well have exploded as surprised screams and loud laughter yelled out in unison, and the children feared that they would never stop. Who knew that the scary kids of middle school were actually so funny?

Dipper turned to Mabel in the chaos, confused expression meeting a large grin.

“… my joke wasn’t even that good.”

“Just enjoy the moment, Dippin dots!”

Dipper sighed. This was tiring. After the amazingness of the events that went down last evening after the latest fight, all Dipper wanted was to sleep and recover from his bruises and knife cuts. ‘Hey’ he told himself, ‘At least I didn’t get hospitalised this time.’

Mats was furious, without thinking, he yelled, startling the children around him. He glared through the silence, but his gaze was fixed on the twins.

“Oh, you think you’re so cool, huh!? I’m sure even your parents think so!” Mats stepped forward “But unfortunately, they don’t understand the extent of your horridness. I mean,” He laughed, then continued when silence followed him.

“You live in the same house, stay in the same room, probably sleep in the same bed”

Dipper’s temper flared. He slammed himself a step forward, but kept a tight hold on himself. ‘You can’t keep hitting people’ he reasoned, hard ‘not even when you’re angry. Learn it’.

He took a deep breath. “Go bed your mom instead, since you’re so interested in someone’s sex life”

Mats saw red. He yelled as loud as he could and pounced at the twins, arms out in a punch. Dipper sidestepped, watching Mats stumble past him before slamming his fist into the boy’s back. Mats was hurled to the floor fast, a pained scream escaping his mouth before he laid on the ground, motionless.

Dipper winced. He went too hard.

The rest of Mats minions came fast, yelling as they approached. Dipper and Mabel charged back towards them, determined to end this as fast and as cleanly as possible.

Mable punched a girl in the stomach, then planted her hand on the girl’s back, putting her weight on the hand and jumping with the hand as her axis, slamming her leg into a boy’s face. He stumbled back, and fell as Mabel used the momentum to land on the other girl’s right before she whirled around, checking the damage she inflicted. Her shoe came up bloody.

Mabel sucked in a breath. She went too hard on the middle schoolers.

She looked at her brother, who looked back at her, both realising the same thing.

They were going to have to hold back as hard as possible to make sure they didn’t gravely injure the people of their school.

Dipper stuck to punches after that, reducing the power by a lot as he took them down, one by one. Mabel didn’t limit her moves, but instead limited the power output more than Dipper, making use of her flexibility to do all the work.

As hard as they tried, they still found blood on their hands and legs at the end of the fight. Thirteen students at their feet as they panted, not a scratch on either of their bodies. They panted, out of breath from holding back, but also trying to defend themselves. Dipper was considerably better at his control, but Mabel had found it really hard, and most of the more serious damage inflicted was by her.

The teachers found them after, and they were now stuck, waiting for their parents to come get them to go home.

Dipper and Mabel had already been told of their suspension, which carried to the end of school and finished on the first day of summer, making this the twin’s last day.

They were a bit disappointed to say the least. They had wanted to say their final Goodbyes to their coaches.

“Dipper! Mabel!” A woman’s voice was frantic and airy, and the twins tensed up, recognising it. They looked up to see a brunette woman with blue eyes walking towards them, slightly ruffled. She looked them over, the bloodstained clothes and limbs.

Dipper had blood in his hair and a small streak below his eye, but seemed unaware of the latter. Mabel’s shoes were covered in it, white stained with dark and now flaking red. She pursed her lips, then spoke quietly, her voice hard.

“Your teacher told me about what you both have done. I have the suspension slip. Let’s go home. We’ve decided your punishment in the car. “

Dipper’s blood ran cold. Fear sparked though his mind like lightning as he shakily drew a breath, terrified. Through the corner of his eye, he saw Mabel’s head whip towards him, eyes blown wide in fear.

They knew what was coming.

“Do I have to say it again?” Their mother turned to them, and saw both their heads shoot up at her, an unconscious movement that drew all their attention to her. She snarled.

“Move.”

The two moved out of their seats, not in a hurry, but in dread. Dipper shoved his arms into his red and white varsity jacket, gripping the insides of his jacket hard in an attempt to calm himself down. Mabel fiddled with the arms of the bright pink sweater tied around her waist, but was otherwise silent as they moved.

They followed their mom out through the corridors, and out of the school, watching the children around them who stopped playing to stare, whispering.

Dipper and Mabel matched each one of their stares with a half-hearted glare of their own, but the blood on their clothes made their deadly looks terrifying.

On reaching the car, their mom shoved the kids into the backseat before closing the door behind them, walking up to the side of the car and getting in, herself.

The car rolled down the road, and away from the school.

Mabel was almost in tears. In the backseat of the car, she really had time to think about everything that went wrong and everything that could have gone different, better even. Now she had to reap the consequences. It was fair, to an extent, but the punishment was something that Mabel was really dreading.

The car was silent.

Mabel turned to Dipper, who looked normal, hand on the small armrest of the car and looking out of the window. He seemed disinterested, but Mabel knew he was trying to block out everything that happened.

The utter silence in the car was certainly not helping.

Sometime later, the car stopped in front of a bus stand. Dipper and Mabel looked up, confused.

“You’re going to Oregon.” Their mother spoke, not looking at them.

“We have… things to talk about, and we were about to discuss it when we got the call from your school” Their father’s voice was nicer, but still strained. He hated conflict, but was never one to shy away from it, which in turn made him hate the source of the usual conflict at home- his kids.

“This is your punishment for being a fucking pain in my ass." She hurried, not wanting to talk to her kids any longer. "You’ll meet your Great Uncle Stanford in Gravity Falls.”

Shortly after, the twins were pulled out of the car, given two twin duffle bags along with Mabel’s suitcase and Dipper’s hiking backpack. Tickets were pressed into their hands before the car restarted and sped down the road, all before the twins even processed anything.

‘Wow, they must have been pissed if they actually agreed on something together.’

Dipper sighed in relief. This was the best thing that he hoped could have happened. But when he turned to Mabel, he was surprised to find her almost in tears.

“They don’t want us anymore” She spoke steadily despite her condition. “Why are they better off without us?”

Dipper put his hand around her shoulders, squeezing it slightly, wanting to say the right words to comfort her when the same wouldn’t comfort him. Did she not realise that the same was true for them?
Dipper looked around, realising the stares that they had gotten from the interaction. The people looked wary of the two bloodstained twins, and some were even pulling out their phone to record. Damn it, he didn’t want to get arrested or kicked off the bus stand.

Dipper turned to his sister.

“Let’s change first.” He spoke calmly, nodding to the washroom at the side when Mabel looked up at him. “Let’s figure out the rest after.”

Chapter Text

Dipper was finding Gravity Falls pretty unappealing since he arrived.

Through the bus ride to Gravity Falls, Dipper had been able to calm Mabel down from her almost breakdown, figure out how to get there, run through all of his and Mabel’s packing and somehow figure out where their supposed “Great-Uncle Stan” lived.

Needless to say, Dipper was exhausted, irritated, and in general, needed a good break. Luckily, he wasn’t too down, though, Mabel did well to keep both herself and her brother entertained, yelling and laughing, making jokes through the entire ride when Dipper was ruffling through their duffle packs and helping him keep them neat.

Mabel really had a way of cheering up the mood, even at home when everyone was being so negative that Dipper wondered if they'd ever be happy ever again. Mabel had a way of making him feel...calmer. Less on edge, and less sad in all. She was usually the one who comforted the other actually, but this time around, Dipper took up that role.

After her initial moment of sadness, though, she went back to her regular old self, chatting loudly about her excitement for an adventure and even happy once the twins found that it was very 'out-doorsy.' (He's sure that Mabel means that the place is more rural than what they're used to.)

Also, after the rest of the passengers had left (Gravity Falls was pretty unknown, who knew?) she almost threw herself out of an open window to look at the sunrise, only surviving because the fabric of her sweater got caught in the latch to close the window.

It was pretty funny to watch and increased Dipper’s mood a lot, much to the mock- frustration of Mabel.

They found their Great uncle’s house pretty easily, a simple ask from a random townsperson leading them in the right direction.

To Dipper’s dismay, it was in the middle of the woods, pretty rundown, and also a tourist trap. The Mystery Shack was a pretty big sham, with the main attractions being more crafted and merged together in sick looking corpses of creatures by their Great-Uncle Stanford than actual mythical beings.

Dipper thought that the real mystery was why anyone came.

From the goat in the attic where they stayed, to the fact that the kids had to work there, Dipper eventually found that it was not as bad as he initially thought. Sure, it was pretty boring, but the woods seemed fun to explore and hang out in, and everyone there didn’t just hate him because of his reputation, mostly because they were not aware of it.

Dipper thought, with relief, thar it would be different here, calmer, more peaceful.

That is, until one faithful day.

Mabel at that point was flirting with literally every single boy who she came across, much to the confusion and slight dismay of her brother, who was hoping that they would actually do more productive things than Mabel going through her ‘Boy crazy phase’.

He sighed, looking at his sister across him, at the counter “Mabel, I know that you may be going through your 'boy crazy phase'" Dipper air quoted it in his tone in a small hitch in his usual deadpan. "But do you not think that you may be overdoing it? Most of the people whom you have flirted with have not yet come back from wherever they had left to. You might be scaring them off from the Mystery Shack."

“Come on, Dipper!” Mabel gestured wildly, a stark comparison to her brother, “This is our first summer away from home! This is my one chance to have an EPIC SUMMER ROMACE! YEAH!!”

Dipper huffed, “Alright, but do you need to flirt with every single boy who crosses in front if you?”

Mabel laughed, really loudly. “Mock all you want, little brother! but I’ve got a great feeling about this summer!” She spoke smugly, grinning. “In fact, I won’t be surprised if the man of my dreams walked through that door right now!”

The girl gestured wildly behind her at the door to the ‘museum’ the place where most of the fake artifacts were kept. Though the door came Grunkle stan, letting out a burp that judging by the exclamations that followed, was pretty painful.

Mabel immediately changed her ways and decided that she would never jinx anything ever again. “Oh- WHY?!”

Dipper chuckled. "Please, do invite me for your wedding, Mabel."

"Shut up, Dipper!"

Grunkle Stan approached the duo, looking busy as ever, holding a bunch of yellow pieces of cardboard under his arm.

“Alright, alright, look alive people, I need someone to hammer up these signs in the spooky part of the forest.”

Almost immediately, Dipper responded. “Not it.”

Mabel jumped in right after, “Not it!”

The handyman of the shop looked up from his place on a wooden stool, where he was drilling screws into a new shelf, presumably to hold more Mystery Shack merchandise. “uh… also not It!”

Grunkle Stan looked pretty disappointed, slightly irked at the handyman. “Never asked you, Soos.”

“I know” Soos said. “And I’m comfortable with that” He pulled out an unwrapped bar of chocolate from… well, Dipper didn’t really know where, and started eating it immediately. Soos then smiled.

Slightly disturbed, but used to Soos’ antics, Stan looked away, then called out, “Wendy! I need you to put up this sign.”

The teenager who was supposed to be manning the counter, was relaxed, muddy boots on the table near the register and long red hair loose behind her chair and she was reading a magazine with the up-and-coming drink of the summer- Pitt Cola- on its cover page.

She didn’t look up, but responded either way, “Would, but I- ugh- can’t- ugh- reach it- ugh.” She groaned, as if trying but failing to do what had to be done.

“I’d fire all of you if I could”

Grunkle Stan shook it off, then continued.

“Alright, lets make it…” Grunkle Stan looked at his fingers, pressing both pointer fingers together and counting. “Eeny- meenie- miney- you” He pointed at Dipper who looked up, still deadpan.

“...seriously?”

“Why are you still standing here” Stan asked. “Shoo! Shoo!”

Fk qeb clobpq…

Dipper grunted as he struck a nail into a particularly hard tree, forever exasperated.

Sure, he was down to hitting things to remove the annoyance he felt dealing with annoying customers, but the woods made him wary. He always felt as if someone was watching him in the forest.

Dipper knew that he could probably punch or out-smart his opponent, but the warning sign with mosquito bites spelling the words “Beware” on his arm showed that there might be things more supernatural than he was used to.

He pulled up his arm, scrunching the sleeves of his jacket up to dry off the slick sheen of sweat covering his arms.

Cold wind had just started to blow, flying cool air onto the boy’s forearms and swaying the tops of the trees with loud intensity. He relished in the wind, waning to remove his jacket to feel the cold relief over his entire body.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, and the irrational part of him wanted to feel the safety of being buried in his slightly oversized Jacket. Dipper frowned at the thought. He’d grow into it.

Dipper looked up as the sunlight faded to darker clouds, and wondered if it would rain soon. He had a bad feeling about it, so he lifted his arm to hammer- ugh, why did the mosquito bites say “Bewarb”?

Dipper breathed, irked. Now he felt like an idiot. He struck the next tree particularly hard at the thought, only to hear a loud clanking sound. Dipper frowned, slightly surprised, but more confused. With a few more experimental taps, he found that the tree was in fact, entirely constructed of metal.

Rather, it was metal, only shaped to look like a tree. Dipper moved closer, running his hands over the grooves of the veins of the tree, finding it cold to the touch, but otherwise, feeling the exact same as a regular tree.

This was some really well done craftmanship.

Dipper found a particular groove that felt out of place, and pulled both his hands towards it. A secret window? He pulled it open with barely any difficulty, but knew that it was held too firmly in place to be an accident. A cobweb pulled itself free as he opened it, only to find a radio- looking, yellowed device of some sort, surrounded by wilted grass and small screws and bolts.

It looked old, really old, small screen cracked and buttons losing their paint. The levers at the top looked stuck in place, and didn’t even try to move as a rush of wind erupted from behind the boy who discovered this device.

Dipper looked back, feeling watched, but upon seeing that no one was there, he moved closer to the device and stuck his hands onto it, fiddling with both the levers, trying to make the needle of a compass like meter move upwards to show some sign of life.

A loud sound suddenly erupted behind the boy and he turned back, surprised to find the goat that Mabel had named “Gompers” scurrying off from what looked like a perfectly placed rectangular hole in the ground.

“What the- “

Dipper stepped towards the whole, finding a similar metal coating the walls of the hole to the inside of the fake tree. Cobwebs pulled into the centre of the box, connecting itself to… a diary?

Large green millipedes crawled out on either side of the hole. Ignoring the question of how they would have survived in the metal hole for so long, Dipper pulled out the book, holding the dusty piece of literature in front of him.

He dusted it off, exposing a pretty well-preserved cover, gold-coloured seals holding the cover together and accenting the binding of the book. In the centre was a traced gold paper with a six- fingered handprint, a large “3” drawn in the centre of the handprint.

Dipper moved to sit against the fallen tree in front of the hole, resting the book on his thighs. He pulled the first page open, finding a chit stuck to the first page saying “Property of-"

with the name torn off.

The bookmark seemed to be some sort of looking glass, and good for that, some of the print was too small to decipher. Dipper started reading.

“It’s hard to believe that it’s been six years since I began studying the strange and wonderful secrets of Gravity Falls, Oregon.”

Dipper flipped a few pages, looking at strange entries that spoke of floating eyeballs, gnomes and cursed doors.

Dipper frowned, slightly incredulous, but also intrigued. He flipped the pages again, stopping when large underlined words filled the screen, saying “TRUST NO ONE”

“Unfortunately, my suspicions have been confirmed. I am being watched. I must hide this book before “He” finds it. Remember, in Gravity Falls, there is no one you can trust.”

Dipper shut the book, the constant feeling of being watched turning from a little annoyance and anger, to full blown panic in his mind, alarmed. He was sure to read all of it later, in the ‘safety’ of his Great- Uncle Stan’s attic, but until then, he is going to be making sure that no one can watch him.

“No one you can trust…”

“HELLO!”

Without missing a beat, Dipper whirled around, using the momentum to aim a cross punch at the voice behind him, instinct driving his arms forward.

“Whoa!”

The book dropped from his lap as he stood up along with the punch, moving to counter the person who dodged, sun rays catching on the print along their maroon sweater- wait, Mabel?

Dipper stopped in his follow up, recognising his twin. “Oh, it’s just you.”

Mabel huffed really loudly, exaggerating herself. “Geez, Dipper, no need to get so cray- cray! Thought you’d be less punch-y, at least at me!

Anyway, what are you reading?! Some nerd thing!?”

Dipper looked at his sister, exasperated, but used to her antics. He wanted to tell her, but the new warning flashed deep in his head, and he hesitated.

“… it’s nothing.”

“wAh-Wah! iT’s nOtHinG.” Mabel mocked her brother’s usual deadpan crossing her arms like the deadpan weirdo that that she usually accuses him of trying to imitate. She then looked him in the eye, lightly hitting his shoulder (it was not light in any way possible) and smiled.

“C’mon Dipper, are you really not going to show me?”

Dipper sidestepped as Gompers tried to bite at his newfound book, lost in contemplation as he did. He looked back at Gompers, then back at Mabel, remembering the feeling of being watched.

“… let’s go somewhere private.”

Fk qeb Jvpqbov Pexzh…

Dipper stood beside his sister as the recounted everything he learnt of the diary, Jacket carefully hung on the back of Grunkle Stan’s chair. Mabel was sitting on the arm of it, listening intently in surprise and excitement of the unknown.

Suddenly, the doorbell rung, to the slight surprise and confusion of Dipper.

“Who is that?” A better thought came to his head.

“...Why did the person who knocked not just walk in? The Mystery Shack is in business.”

Mabel took no mind of her brother, checking the time… somewhere. Mabel then looked at her brother, excited anticipation colouring her features. She burst forward in her explanation.

“Well, time to spill the beans!” She reached forward an pushed over the empty can of beans on the table next to the chair. “Boop!” Mabel smiled mischievously, happy at what she’d done. "BEANS...”

“This girl’s got a date! HAHAHAHA- oof”

Mabel had fallen backwards, onto the chair. Dipper was a bit more logical, and more surprised at what Mabel had just said.

“...Let me get this straight, in the half hour I had left to put up the signs our Great-Uncle Stan gave me to put up, you had already found a boyfriend?”

“What can I say?” Mabel sat back up. “I’m just irresistible!” She pulled her arms inside her pink sweater, flailing it around for dramatic effect.

The doorbell rung again, causing Mabel to sit up straight. “Oh! COMING!”

As Mabel ran off, Dipper decided to follow close behind, a little worried and wanting to see who his sister was ‘going out with’.

He walked to the reception of the Mystery Shack, which doubled as the counter for buying the unreal artifacts. Unreal being the emphasis here, there was no way any of those were real.

The boy leaned on the counter next to Grunkle Stan, having left the journal on the side table of the chair Mabel was sitting on, a bit intrigued as to who Mabel had managed to convince to date her.

Mabel opened the door, letting in someone who Dipper couldn’t really see properly. Mabel greeted the boy, then whirled around in her usual unending enthusiasm, calling out to them loudly.

“Heyyyyy Family! Say hello to my new BOYFRIEND!”

The offending boy looked at the other two, black hoodie ripped and tree branches stuck into them. Brown hair covered one eye and there was a suspicious looking liquid on the boy’s cheek. He was tall, and looked like a punk, but Dipper decided that he should probably hear the teenage boy out before having any lasting opinions of him.

He and Mabel too, were called punks. At least the twins didn’t dress like one, though.

“Sup” The boy waved.

“Hello.” Dipper spoke.

“How’s it hanging?” Stan said, with less deadpan.

“We met at the cemetery” Mabel said, stroking the boy’s arm like she’d seen the kids in high school do with their own significant others. “He’s really deep.”

Mabel grabbed at the boy’s arm, but looked surprised. “Ooh, a little- there’s some muscle there, that’s- haha- I’m surprised.” She looked sheepish.

Sparing his sister, Dipper spoke. “What is your name?”

The teenage boy looked extremely shocked and surprised, a reaction which Dipper was not really expecting. The boy scrunched his eyes as if thinking before he stumbled out,

“Normal… MAN!”

“He means Norman” Mabel spoke for him, still clutching his arm.

“Are you bleeding, Norman?” Dipper asked, less judging, but more wondering if the teenager knows he’s alive. It would be a bit hypocritical if Dipper was the one to judge if Norman had blood on him.

“It’s… JAM!”

Mabel gasped loudly. “I love jam! LOOK. AT. THIS!”

“So, you wanna… go... hold hands, or something? Whatever.”

“Oh!” Mabel blushed, covering her mouth with her hands, “Oh my goodness! DON’T WAIT UP!” She called over to her family, then immediately walked out the door.

Norman flashed a finger gun, then banged into both sides of the doorframe before exiting the house, the door slamming closed in his wake.

Luckily there were no customers in the Shack, so his Great- Uncle stan was saved once more from getting sued.

Dipper walked back to the T.V room in the back of the house, grabbing the Journal and walking towards the attic, where he could probably find an explanation to the boy’s weirdness. There was something up with him that was different than what Dipper was used to, and it made him want to get to the bottom of it, fast.

He would make sure that no harm was to befall anyone because he chose not to act.

Ixqbo, fk qeb xqqfz…

“Zombies?”

Dipper shut the journal, red light from the window illuminating everything but the answer that seems to be right in front of him. He had spoken unusually loudly for himself, but for a good reason. This was beyond surprising, and really hard to believe.

Dipper swung his legs over to be dangling off the seat near the window, looking at his shadow over the edge of it.

“Is my sister, in all actuality, dating a zombie? I fear I might be am I overthinking this...”

“It’s a dilemma, to be sure.”

Dipper looked up at the Shack handyman- Soos- who was on a wooden stool fixing yet another light. “Sorry but, I couldn’t help but overhear talk loudly to yourself in this empty room.”

Dipper waved him off, “I heard you come in, it is alright” No one but Mabel could actually sneak up on him anyway.

“What do you think about the situation?”

Soos scrunched his eyes for a second, thinking. “Hmmmmm… how many brains have you seen the guy eat?”

Dipper looked straight at Soos, almost daring him to contradict him “None, but that does not mean that I do not have suspicions of him being one.”

The older man looked back at Dipper, reassuring him, “Look dude, I believe you. I’m always noticing weird stuff in this town. Like the Mail man? Pretty sure he’s a werewolf.” Soos pointed his screwdriver at the younger boy. “But you gotta have evidence. Otherwise, people are gonna think you’re a major league cuckoo- clock”

Dipper sighed. “You are correct, as always, Soos.”

“My wisdom is both a blessing and a curse”

“… sure.”

“Soos!” Great- Uncle Stan yelled from downstairs. Dipper tensed, but relieved his muscles when he found that it wasn’t him his Great-Uncle Stan was calling for.

“The portable toilets are clogged again!”

…Ew.

Soos fixed his cap dramatically. “I am needed elsewhere.” He then proceeded to walk backwards out of the room.

Dipper watched him go with both amusement and a new goal in mind. However, he continued to wonder why people even wore hats like that. Caps messed with him, sitting uncomfortably on his head and hindering his view, making him feel a little disoriented when he wasn’t in view of all of his surroundings.

‘That is not normal’ Dipper told himself the familiar statement, letting it sink in.

But either way, Dipper had more important things to do.

Ixqbo, fk qeb Jvpqbov Pexzh…

Dipper sighed. Nothing he had done had gotten anything from his sister. His side still hurt from where his sister poked him, she really didn’t know how to hold back when she was angry. He looked glumly at his camera, shifting through the videotapes that he captured.

Contrary to his belief, Dipper was stumped. He’d always been able to figure out anything that came his way, and his sister usually believed him, or understood that he might be worried about something rational.

But to be completely honest, the worry about Mabel was irrational, the pain throbbing in his side proved as much. But he wanted to help, he really did, but he can’t get it out of his head that something could be going wrong.

How would he explain to his sister that the thing he thought was bothering her was something that he himself was sceptical of even being real? He’d tried already, and it hadn’t worked, at all.

A single frame on his camera caught his attention.

Norman’s hands were over Mabel’s, but halfway through the video, his palm fell off.

Actually just fell off.

Dipper moved, sitting up straighter, adrenaline pumping through his veins at the sudden evolution. Norman turned towards the camera, looking around, but seeming not to notice it before picking up his hand and sticking at back onto the stump.

By this time, Dipper was already on his feet.

“Soos!” He called out, urgency darkening his words, fear not even evident in his tone. Great- Uncle Stan was working outside, and Dipper knew that whatever the urgency, Stan would not drop his acts. Dipper looked outside the window for a split second, looking at what Stan was doing.

Some sort of face rock?

No time, Mabel was most probably in trouble. As Dipper looked for the handyman, he tried to calm himself down. He knew that Mabel was capable of taking care of herself, being pretty good at offence and defence herself, but the irrational part of him screamed to get to her immediately. He never wanted a repeat of what happened that… time…

Never mind. He couldn’t find Soos anywhere. He needed some sort of escape or way to get there fast enough, but couldn’t actually find something to help him. He had wanted Soos for that, but the offending man was nowhere to be seen.

Looks like Dipper would have to find some other way.

Fk qeb clobpq…

Mabel sighed, finally free from everyone else. She loved her brother, she really did, but his paranoia over her really made her a little bit nervous sometimes.

She did think though that she’s been a bit too harsh. She wasn’t nice enough, and the message she sent across made her seem as though she didn’t heed any of Dipper’s warnings. She trusted her brother with these kinds of things, but he needs to learn that she can handle herself.

Yes, she knows that she doesn’t exactly have the best track record of handling things by herself, but she’s grown gosh darn it! She doesn’t still want to be treated like she’s a small kid anymore.

Looking at the forest in front of her, she breathed.

“Finally, we’re alone.”

Norman approached from behind her; face covered in shadow.

“Yes…” He spoke “Alone…”

Xq qeb Jvpqbov Pexzh...

Dipper needed an idea, and he needed one quick. Time was running out, and if he didn’t find the goddamn handyman of the Shack, he would RIP THIS GODDAMN PLACE TO SHREDS- oh there’s Wendy.

As Wendy pulled into the driveway near the Mystery Shack, she found Stan’s nephew calling out to her, running up.

“Wendy!” He moved up, urgent, but not unlike his usual deadpan self.

“I need to borrow the golf cart that you have driven up in right now, so I can save my sister from a zombie.” Dipper spoke in his usual monotone, but Wendy could hear an edge to his voice, a silent challenge to doubt his words or his seriousness.

Lucky for the younger boy, Wendy was pretty much willing to do everything for entertainment. She dropped the keys from her hand into Dipper’s outstretched palm, amused to find a barely noticeable flash of surprise flicking through his eyes. He was really closed up, huh?

“Try not to hit any pedestrians.” She finger-gunned him while walking away, leaving the kid to his own hands.

Dipper was relieved. He thought that Wendy would definitely ask him if he was old enough or challenge his statement. He was willing to waste maybe another minute arguing before just grabbing the keys and leaving, but this was nicer.

This was a lot nicer.

Dipper shifted the gear, slammed his leg on the pedal and sped backwards. Before he got far, though, he spotted the very handyman that he was trying to find for five whole goddamn minutes-

“Dude, it’s me, Soos. This is for the zombies” Dipper stopped internally seething at the sight of a pretty big shovel in Soos’ hands. He took it as it was handed to him, a little surprised at the thoughtfulness. “Thanks.”

“And this” Soos held out yet another weapon, a bat this time. “In case you see a piñata.”

Dipper, who made to take that one as well stopped in his tracks, confused at the strange request. Soos, seeing his hesitation, spoke gravely, “Better safe than sorry.”

Dipper took the bat, then rolled backwards in the golf cart, ready to take on the zombies.

Fk qeb tllap…

“Uh, Mabel,” Norman said to his girlfriend, turning away in what seemed to be embarrassment. “Now that we’ve gotten to know each other, theres…” He took a deep breath. “There’s something I should tell you.”

Mabel, who was initially confused, was now concerned.

If there was something that was bothering the older boy, Mabel knew that she could probably take it head on, but the intensity of how the boy said it made Mabel hesitate in her statement. It felt… strange, creepy at most.

Mabel’s instincts were finally going off, alarm bells ringing in her head. She shoved them off, rationalizing this by convincing herself that she was just nervous.

“Oh, Norman!” She sounded concerned. “You can tell me anything!”

‘Please be a vampire! Please be a vampire!”

Mabel also wanted him to be a vampire, which was another reason for brushing off the feeling of danger.

“All right, just… just don’t freak out, okay?” Norman spoke nervously “Just- just keep an open mind.” He grabbed at the zip around his neck to pull down his jacket. “Be cool”

Mabel, seeing this, couldn’t help but be excited. But as the black jacket fell down, Mabel gasped in alarm.

Norman was not a vampire. Not even close. In fact, he wasn’t even a ‘he’. He was a ‘they’.

But not in the way one might think.

Norman was composed of five gnomes standing on top of each other, the middle two holding long sticks as arms and the bottom two standing in a shoe respectively. The one at the top brushed brown hair from over his eye to behind his ear, looking nervous.

“Is- is this weird? Is this too weird? You need to sit down?”

Mabel.exe is not working. Please reboot and try again later.

“Alright.” The gnome sighed, as if tired of this situation. “I’ll explain.

“So! We’re gnomes. First off, get that out of the way.”

“Uhhhhhhh...”

“I’m Jeff,” The gnome on top points first to himself, then points to the rest, from the ones directly below his feet to the ones who were playing his feet. “And here we have Carson, Steve, Jason and- I’m sorry, I always forget your name.”

“Shmebulock.”

Jeff snapped his fingers in recognition, “Shmebulock, yes! Anyways. Long story short- “

Mabel sat down on a rock, slapping her hand to her head, wondering why she didn’t heed Dipper’s warning.

“Us gnomes have been looking for a new queen. Right guys?”

The rest of the gnomes made grabby motions at the preteen girl, squealing “Queen! Queen!”

Mabel found that really creepy.

“Heh” Jeff chuckled nervously. “So, what do you say?” He waited for a second before tapping his leg, the motion making the rest of the gnomes to move into a really strange looking proposing- stature, holding out a green box that’s lid snapped open to reveal a triple diamond ring.

“Will you join us” Jeff started, serious. “In holy matrignomy, matri-matrimony! Blah! Can’t talk today.”

Mabel sucked in a breath, feeling bad, and a little bit sad to be in this situation. She tried to let them down slowly.

“Look, I’m sorry guys, You’re really sweet, but, I’m a girl, and you’re gnomes and it’s like what?! Yikes!” Mabel looked away, feeling bad for the gnomes that she disappointed.

Jeff looked down, sad. “We understand. We’ll never forget you, Mabel.”

Mabel smiled softly, glad at the lack of extremity needed in the situation, happy that they didn’t freak out or start crying.

“Because we’re gonna kidnap you.”

“Huh!?”

Tfqe afmmbo…

Dipper slammed down on the accelerator, steady despite the slight jump that the cart took due to accelerating plain though a slope downwards that had been a slope upwards mere seconds ago, determined to reach his sister and fight off the zombies. He rolled through the woods at speeds that would give even the most drunk of drivers a heart attack.

A flash of bright purple caught Dipper’s attention and he skid to a right, somehow expertly moving though the gears and pulling the cart through a small route off the road.

There! It was Mabel surrounded by… a bunch of gnomes?

Jeff stood on a rock out of reach, trying to calm the screaming Mabel. “The more you struggle, the more awkward this is gonna be for everybody!” He called out, hoping to placate the young girl.

“Just… oh-okay! Just get- get her arm there, Steve.”

Needless to say, Mabel was not placated.

The bunch of gnomes trying to get Mabel surrounded her, grabbing at everything they could reach with all 10 centimeters of them. One, Steve, bit onto her arm, desperately clinging on as Mabel tried to shake them all of gently, afraid, but not wanting to hurt the tiny creatures.

Even if they were trying to marry her.

“Hey, let go of me!!” Mabel shook off Steve, launching him through the air and kicking off another one close to her. The gnome, Steve seemed to have a weak stomach, standing up immediately after he landed, only to lean against the bark of a tree and puke rainbows.

Dipper was… confused, to say the least.

“What the heck is going on here?”

The gnome shrieked next to him, baring its teeth, trying to scare the taller boy. Dipper raised one eyebrow at the tiny man.

“Oh, come on!” The gnome gestured, before grumbling off to where the rest of his… his… clan? (I have no idea what a group of gnomes are called).

Dipper shook his head, exasperated. The world has to be kidding him. There is absolutely no way that this scenario is not part of some weird and crazy dream.

“Dipper!” Mabel’s shout made Dipper look over at the older twin, watching as she flailed her arms over the gnomes’ heads, trying not to leave anything for them to grab onto while she explained.

“Norman turned out to be a bunch of gnomes! And they’re total jerk!” They grabbed at her hair, which caused her to startle, banging their little heads as softly as possible to get them out of her hair (literally, lol).

Dipper stared, incredulous. “Gnomes? That is interesting, I was way off the correct answer.”

Dipper pulled out his journal, looking through it to find the page he had stumbled upon a while back. He read to himself,

“Gnomes, Little men of the Gravity Falls Forest. Weakness: unknown?”

Dipper groaned. This was going to be a pain.

“Alright, you little misceant freaks!” Dipper called out.

The gnomes, who had successfully tied Mabel to the ground looked up at the boy, confused. Upon seeing the state of his sister, Dipper’s eyes hardened.

His glare made the magical creatures pee their pants.

“GET. OFF. MY. SISTER!”

Dipper ran forward with rage, dropping the punching the gnome on the rock who was the nearest to him, sending him flying into a tree at the back of the forest. The gnomes gasped at the sight, looking in fear at what had become of their leader who had slid down the tree, blood trickling down its face.

Dipper looked at the rest, blood dripping down from his knuckles.

“Move.”

The gnomes all scrambled apart, terrified. Dipper picked up the shovel and ran towards his sister, slamming it down on Mabel’s bounds, freeing her in a single slice.

The gnomes ran towards Mabel in disharmony, a half-hearted attempt to grab the girl, but Mabel launched them off as she ran towards her brother, grabbing his hand and pulling him forward, getting into the cart.

“No! He’s getting away with our queen!” Jeff coughed out from the stump of the tree.

Dipper shoved himself behind the wheel and looked at his sister. “Seatbelt.”

Mabel put it on as Dipper started driving, speeding off backwards, then whirling the cart around, driving it away from the now attacking gnomes

Jeff growled. “You’ve messed with the wrong creatures, boy. Gnomes of the forest, assemble!”

The cart thundered forward as fast as it could, Dipper’s foot firmly on the accelerator.

“Dipper! Hurry before they come after us!” Mabel’s voice cried out as she looked at her brother, then looked back behind the cart. Dipper wondered why Mabel was so terrified when dealing with the gnomes when she and Dipper both had dealt with adults four times their own size.

He was about to ask, but thought better of it, trying to reason with Mabel on the topic

“I wouldn’t necessarily worry about it. Their legs are too small to run fast enough to catch up to us.”

Suddenly the ground shook as if thunder struck the earth as it is, startling the twins. Mabel yelled in shock as she stared at the back of the cart. Dipper, still driving, risked a glance back, and saw something he never thought he would.

Mabel looked at Dipper, letting out a crazed laugh.

“Yeah! Cause of course with the giant gnome, this can’t get out of- HAND, DIPPER, HAND!!”

All the gnomes had now converged into one giant gnome, arms and legs writhing with actual beings. It yelled, loud, the voices of a hundred gnomes warping to make a hard, terrifying roar. It slammed its hand to where the cart was moments ago, the force of it crashing cracking the ground, sending gnomes flying off the makeshift hand.

The giant gnome continued walking as the gnomes that had fallen off regrouped, shaping the arm once again.

The cacophony of gnomes roared loudly again, and snapped its hand forward, launching the gnomes onto the cart.

The gnomes screamed in their shrill voices, ripping at the cart with ferocious intensity, teeth sharp as razors clawing into the fabric on top of the cart and ripping it apart,

They grabbed onto the support frames, dangling off the metal, and launched themselves at the twins.

“On your left!” Dipper called out to Mabel at a glance.

“Hiya!” She elbowed a gnome out of the way. “Seriously?!” She called out to her brother as he punched a gnome out of the way with one hand.

“How do we get rid of them?!”

“Bat!”

“Bat?!”

“Near the gear-stick!”

Mabel looked down at the gears, and sure enough, a bat sat next to the shovel that Dipper had used to cut her out. She grabbed it and turned back completely, finally able to see the dozens of gnomes that she had heard behind them.

She grinned, then swung her bat, launching a dozen gnomes off into the road behind her all at once. She would up her bat, ready to strike again.

Another launched at Dipper, who he caught as it struck, banging it against the steering wheel before throwing it away, too focused on keeping the cart straight than actually fighting.

He didn’t see the gnome directly behind him which charged at him, jumping onto his face, colliding with it, snapping the boy's neck back. Without hesitation, Dipper, on instinct, grabbed the clothes of the gnome with his teeth and violently shook his head, causing the gnome’s grip on the boy’s face to peel off. The boy then used that momentum to let go of the gnome as he swung, launching the gnome far away.

But the few moments of blindness had cost him greatly.

“Dipper watch out!”

The two screamed as Dipper saw a huge tree lying in front of the path. He shoved the steering wheel to the side, successfully bypassing it.

But as the cart turned, it skid greatly, all attempts by Dipper to stabilize it in vain is it hurled down the hill and finally crashed as a mess of parts in front of the Mystery Shack.

Dipper groaned, then pulled himself out, shifting through the wreckage before rolling onto the grass with a surprised oof. Mabel came shortly after, falling onto the grass next to Dipper with a similar groan, clutching at her hand in pain.

Dipper reached back with a pained grunt and pulled out the shovel, grabbing the bat too as he attempted to stand up, tossing the latter weapon to Mabel.

Blood dripped down over his eye, a gash at the start of his hairline wide and bleeding down the side of his face, covering the scar at his eyebrow in red. It throbbed in pain, felt shallow, making Dipper count himself lucky that the most severe of his scrapes and gashed were mere shallow (yet large) cuts. His bruises felt more severe, the entire side of his body where he landed throbbing in agony, and his arm sported a red mark that was slowly turning purple.

He panted, his body trying to recover from the horrible crash. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, but he found that he couldn’t move, leaning on his shovel.

Mabel was more vocal in her discomfort, groaning as she pulled herself up. She cradled her arm, which Dipper recalled she had landed on, but otherwise seemed to be doing better than Dipper, even with the scrapes they shared. The worst of her injuries seemed to be her hand, a dark red mark blotting from midway down her triceps and working to the centre of her forearm.

Dipper winced. The bruises were definitely going to darken later, but hurt hard.

The gnome had caught up to them.

A large shadow covered them from the evening light, the sunset covered by the huge monster. It looked red, it looked angry, roaring loud and wild as its stance threatened the twins. They both panted loudly, looking up at the ginormous beast.

“Where the heck is Grunkle Stan?!”

Dipper’s eyes were trained on the monster, but he answered nonetheless. “Do you really think that our Great-Uncle Stan will be able to defeat these creatures ?”

Mabel huffed in frustration "UGH! This is ANNOYING!"

The monster roared at them, rearing its ugliness at full height, standing over them as if sure that they would surrender. Jeff screamed at them from the apex of the giant gnome.

“It’s the end of the line, kids! Mabel! Marry us before we do something crazy!”

Dipper cracked his neck, rolling up the sleeves of his varsity jacket. Mabel took her purple sweater off, trying it around her waist, and lifting her hands up, tying the bright pink rubber-band into the high ponytail she was used to fighting it.

Despite their preparation, the kids seemed hesitant, wary of their own injured and tired state, taking in the gnome’s perfectly fine one.

Could they win this?

The siblings looked at each other for an instant before twin smirks grew on their faces.

Heck yeah, they could.

Dipper growled at the monster, familiar anger paining his fear red.

“Surrender. Or we will make you beg for mercy.”

The gnome was obviously shocked at that line of words, the giant of it even stepping back. The glare the twins held with Jeff held him in place, freezing him. They looked terrifying, they looked like they knew what they were doing.

They looked like they knew how to make someone writhe in pain.

Jeff tried to pull himself together. These kids were twelve. They had to be bluffing.

“Ata- attack!”

The gnome roared forward arms outstretched and giant legs moving, pouncing forward.

Dipper and Mabel yelled in unison, charging forward as well. They split, one moving left, the other moving right.

As Dipper had expected, the gnome went for Mabel, wanting to grab her to make her their queen. Dipper circled around the giant gnome’s legs before winding his shovel back and slamming it into the back of the gnome’s knee.

The gnome roared, spinning backwards with ferocious speed, flicking its hand and sending gnomes pouncing on Dipper.

The boy dodged, surprised at the sharp retaliation, and stumbled as he moved, slightly disoriented. A gnome on the floor grabbed onto his calf with its teeth, sinking them into his flesh. Dipper ripped the gnome off with ease, throwing it away.

He shook off the feeling and ran towards the giant gnome once more, ignoring the other ones that tried to trip him or bit onto him.

The gnome swept its hand at Mabel, but instead of dodging, she faced it head on, winding up her bat and slamming it into the gnome’s arm slicing it in half. The gnomes fell through the air in a now disorganised heap, casting a shadow over the girl.

Mabel yelped, but dodged as many as she could as they fell, some still striking her head arm or legs as she moved.

The gnomes off the giant one scrambled back together at a quick shout of their leader and held the hand up again.

Dipper was ready.

He ran over to the giant gnome. The gnome, seeing this swung his hands straight down onto the boy. At the last second, Dipper jumped backwards, dodging the attack as it hurled a bunch of leaves all over the boy. He smirked. This was exactly what he wanted.

Dipper jumped onto the gnome’s arm, stabilising himself for a second before racing up the gargantuan limb.

Jeff shrieked “Don’t let him get up!”

The gnome’s immediately sprung into action, grabbing at Dipper’s feet in a surprisingly disorganised manner.

they tore at the heels of his green shoes, but Dipper didn’t stop, running on top of flesh and hair, hearing light grunts of pain every time he placed his foot on the arm.

‘These creatures are living’ he reminded himself. ‘Of course, they’d feel pain when I step on them’

It didn’t stop the whole experience from being a really uncomfortable though.

Mabel swung her bat into the shin of the monster, blood splattering hard from the bat onto her hands, as she yelled into the ears of the gnomes above its knee, causing the giant to stumble as its leg was rendered completely useless.

“Whoa!”

Dipper wobbled as the gnome came crashing down onto one knee, but held his balance, tearing up the gnome’s arm once again, finally reaching its shoulder

“Arm!” Jeff yelled desperately, and the giant gnome’s right arm came swinging into the shoulder where Dipper was.

Dipper launched off the shoulder just as the arm smashed into the other, raising himself to the level of the giant gnome’s mouth.

He would his arm back for a second before pulling it forward, hunching his back for more power as he swung his shovel through the mouth of the gnome.

The giant gnome yelled in agony as the gnomes that had been hit directly with the shovel were launched back, catching at the sharp edge of the shovel and splattering blood onto the boy’s hands, torso and face.

“…Shit, I went overboard.”

Stumbling backwards, the upper jaw separated from the rest of the body, gnomes falling out. The top part of the gnome crashed onto the ground while the main body wobbled, unintentionally stepping backwards.

Dipper reached the ground by this time, tucking and rolling to minimise the damage that could be caused due to the fall and coming up standing. He turned towards the giant gnome, just in time to see it fall over, the sound of it tearing through the jungle in a bang almost as loud as the roar.

It stayed like that, slumped against the bark of one of the bigger trees, motionless.

Mabel ran over to him, a bit frazzled, but happy nonetheless. “We did it!”

Dipper smiled, but just as he was about to agree, but a loud shriek cut his thoughts in half.

“Come on!” Jeff’s voice cracked.

“Together! NOW.”

The gnomes startled at the sudden malice in his tone, lightning pulsing through their tiny bodies in fear. They all stumbled, bloodstained, injured and almost out of energy, into a ginormous pile. Much slower than last time, they assembled, falling and crying out, but still following the orders.

Mabel winced at the sight, staring in horror at the sheer brutality of their leader. Dipper grimaced at the sight, wondering why they were bothering to get up when they were all so badly injured.

Mabel clutched her arm, panting, scrapes from the crash bleeding, and red skin turning to purple as bruises began to form, both from the gnomes that crashed into her as they fell and the crash.

The blood that dripped down the side of Dipper’s face was now successfully in his eye, rendering it useless. His calf throbbed where that one irritating gnome had bitten into it, the flow of blood sluggish, but still there.

They both panted, exhausted, irritation grabbing at their minds as they realised that they had found a foe that would fight till it died. Jeff was at the top of the gnome, wiping blood from below his nose from the second nosebleed that dipper had given him.

“FASTER!” he yelled, his hard leadership shoving into the rest of the gnomes like large spikes, desperation not allowing the gnome to see what had become of his subjects.

Dipper scowled at the sight, understanding that the twins had to end this fast.

He looked at the still forming pile of gnomes, almost wanting to pull down the leader and make him pay for making the other’s fight through their pain.

Wait…

“Mabel!” Dipper called out to his sister. “The leader! Could you get him?”

Mabel looked at Dipper, startled at the sudden request. “Jeff?”

“What?”

“His name’s Jeff.”

Dipper shook his head, throwing off the confusion. “Yes, him! He is the only thing holding the creatures together enough to fight!”

Mabel grinned, newfound determination coursing through her body. “On it!”

The giant gnome, by this time, had fully reformed. It stumbled slightly and let out a much weaker roar, one that made Mabel wince in sympathy and guilt.

Darn it, she didn’t want to actually hurt them this badly!

“Mabel.”

The offending girl turned to find her brother, in all his injured glory, looking at her with a slightly crazed expression. He was on his knee hands clasped to each other and was a little way in front of his sister. He smirked.

“Need a hand?”

Mabel grinned, then spun around completely, running towards her brother with full force. She reached him and slammed her foot down onto his clasped hands. Dipper pulled his hands up, standing as he launched his sister towards the giant gnome.

Mabel landed on top of the giant gnome’s hat, and slipped, falling onto the creatures at the top before wildly lashing out, trying to grab something to hold. She then grabbed a few gnomes near her, staying in place long enough to find her balance and her footing. She stumbled up, sinking her legs into the gaps of the gnomes to keep her steady.

She stumbled around to face her brother, laughing in a little annoyance. “Whoa! Dipper, you didn’t tell me they were slippery! I don't have your freaky balance!”

Dipper looked up at his sister. “…Sorry?”

Mabel found her footing, then turned, looking for the leader of the gnomes. She spotted Jeff on the apex of the gnome’s hat, just sitting there, looking murderous.

Mabel was a bit shocked to find him not doing any work at all, only bossing the people around him. It irritated her that the gnome would be so horrible to its own people.

“You messed with the wrong creatures!” Jeff yelled loud enough for even Dipper to hear. “You- hey! Hey! Put me down!”

Mabel turned once more to face Dipper, grinning this time.

“Wanna do the honours?”

Dipper smirked. This was gonna be fun.

“Throw him!”

"No- please, don't AAARGH-!"

Without a second thought, Mabel launched him through the air in a wide arc, right to where Dipper stood. He smirked, letting his practice take over.

As the gnome fell, Dipper caught him on his foot, slowing down the momentum to a stop. He then launched the creature into the air, with his foot, earning him a yell from the smaller person. When the gnome was high enough, Dipper spun into a kick and kicked the gnome as far as possible, over the trees.

Meanwhile, within a few seconds of their leader being absent, the gnomes making up the giant gnome had collapsed into a heap. Mabel had stuck her head out of the mushy pile to see what Dipper would do.

The older twin made a face at her brother, walking towards him and scrunching it in fake irritation, not noticing a bunch of leaves in her hair from where she landed. “Ugh, your such a big show off!”

Dipper only smirked. “You let me do the honours.”

“Who’s giving orders!?” A gnome yelled in confusion. “I need orders!”

“Hey!” Mabel called

The twins had moved their attention to the rest of the gnomes, who were still in little piled around the site.

“Anyone else want some?” Mabel threatened intensely, eyeing the rest of the gnomes. Dipper cracked his bloodstained knuckles to his palm, levelling the gnomes with a similar glare.

They all yelled, scrambling apart and nearly falling into the woods. They scampered off like dogs, on all fours, terrified of the twins. One got stuck in plastic, which was promptly picked up by Gompers the goat who then scampered off, a screaming gnome in tow.

Mabel winced at a reaction she hadn't gotten in a while. Did they go too hard?

She turned to her brother, who had a similar expression of guilt.

“Hey Dipper?” Mabel spoke, catching the attention of her younger twin. “I- uhm… I’m sorry for ignoring your advice.” She looked down. “You really were just looking out for me. I know that you really try to, and I was a bit stupid today, I didn’t take your warnings seriously and I made a huge mess which you had to help me clean up.”

Dipper waved her off. “It is alright. I understand that I am more at fault here. It did not make me comfortable to see you move into your own battles without me as I thought that I always had to protect you, which I was proven extremely wrong today. I deeply apologize for trying to force you into taking the same decisions that I do. You are your own person, and I need to understand that and be alright with it.”

She smiled at her brother’s sincere apology. He really did think about this as hard as she did. She still sighed, disappointed. “I’m also sad that my first boyfriend turned out to be a bunch of murderous gnomes…”

“There is always a brighter side to every event” Dipper spoke softly, trying to comfort his sister. “Maybe your next boyfriend will be a vampire?”

Mabel broke out into a grin “Aw, you’re just saying that!” She punched her brother playfully, but still heard the tell-tale “oof” as her fist connected with his stomach.

Huh, she really needed to pull her punches.

Nevertheless, she saw her brother open his arms a little nervously. “Awkward sibling hug?” He spoke tentatively.

Mabel smiled. She really did have the best family she could want. “Awkward sibling hug.”

The two twins embraced.

“Pat. Pat.”

The door of the Mystery Shack opened with the familiar sound of the bell ringing. Stan looked up from his hands, where he was counting money, onto the two twins’ bloody, bruised and leafed up state.

He stared at the two, shocked. “Yeesh! You two get hit by a bus or…”

Dipper and Mabel took no heed of their Grunkle Stan, walking past the counter, tired and ready to crash.

As they walked past, Stan caught sight of Dipper’s Jacket and Mabel’s white shirt. Two bloody handprints etched themselves on their backs.

Stan was… surprised, to say the least.

He looked over at their retreating figures, a small frown drawing itself on his features. Mabel and Dipper were his first family to visit in a while, and all he had done was make them work for his own profit. He realised that he hadn’t really done anything to meet either twin’s wishes, and they were probably getting tired of their Great-Uncle.

Would they try to leave like the rest of his family did?

Stan didn’t want to find out.

“Uh- hey!”

The twins tensed, whirling around, confused and slightly on edge.

Stan scratched the back of his neck, a little sheepish.

“Uh, wouldn’t you know it? Um, I accidently stocked some inventory so…uh…” He sounded more confident after that.

“How’s about you each take one item from the gift shop, eh? On the house, you know?”

Mabel turned back completely, stars in her eyes. “Really?!”

Dipper was less accepting. “What is the catch?”

Stan decided the best course of action was to act busy, pulling his money together and talking fast.

“The catch is to do it before I change my mind. Now take something.” He waved them off with his palm, putting

The twins shrugged, then walked towards the gift shop, looking around. Dipper found a few hats with a cool-looking pine tree symbol on it. He felt drawn to the symbol somehow, but didn’t want a hat, he kind of hated those.

Dipper found himself being disappointed as he pulled away, really liking the pattern on the hat, almost wanting to fight himself for hating hats.

‘Is this what Mabel means when she said she was drawn to shooting stars?’ Dipper wondered. He then decided not to take heed of it, shuffling through the gift shop for something interesting. While looking, he stumbled on something.

Looking down, he found a box of patches, those which can be sown onto a jacket. And sitting right on top, was a circular, white patch with a blue pine tree in the centre.

Dipper smiled, irrationally happy that he found something he’d really like. He pulled it out of the box, determined to sow it on when before he goes to sleep.

Mabel rummaged through a few boxes on her own after looking through the shelves, grabbing through the boxes before finding the perfect one.

Mabel grinned as the device caught her eye. This would come in handy.

Mabel pulled it out before stepping back, loudly announcing what she would get.

“I will have a…”

(drumroll please)

“Grappling hook!”

Mabel grinned, looking from her brother’s unsurprised but amused deadpan to her Grunkle Stan’s obvious confusion.

“Yes!”

Stan met Dipper’s eyes, trying to convey his confusion. “Wouldn’t you rather have… like… a doll or something?”

“My sister usually does these kinds of things”

Mabel grinned, firing it upwards, having it latch onto one of the supporting boards of the Shack with her near unreal aim. She had a crazed look on her face as she was pulled upwards, knocking down a large package that said ‘fragile’ and causing a shelf to fall onto it with an eerie glass shattering sound.

…It’s probably fine.

“Grappling hook!” Mabel took no mind to the mess she caused, as she is awesome, and I hope she never changes.

“Fair enough”

Lxqbo, fk qeb xqqfz…

Dipper sat in his bed, clothes changed and wounds treated. Lucky for him, their mother had packed him with some bandages and antiseptic, so he only had to steal (borrow) a few pieces of cotton and tweezers to look over his and Mabel’s wounds.

He looked over the journal once more, flipping through the pages. Half the pages were empty. Dipper traced his hands over the rims of the pages, contemplating. However interesting the author of the journals had discovered, it seemed that it was wildly dangerous, and that the author had either gone into hiding, or actually just disappeared.

He’d have to tread carefully with these new findings.

Speaking of slightly-less-interesting new findings, Dipper had wanted to put the patch on that same night, but as soon as he saw his jacket covered with bloodstains, he immediately took it off before submerging it in a bucket with soap, a similar thing happening with one of Mabel’s shooting star tops.

There had been 6 buckets in total, three for Dipper’s jacket, loose, sleeveless black shirt and brown shorts respectively, and the other three for Mabel’s shooting star shirt, shooting star sweater and purple skirt.

They had taken it out of the buckets now, scrubbed the clothes nicely and hung them out to dry, lucky that it would take only overnight.

Mabel was on the other twin bed in the attic, previous exhaustion forgotten as she bounced up and down, grabbing her stuffed toys with her grappling hook.

Dipper looked back at the blank pages of the journal and decided.

He was going to finish what the author had started.

Dipper reached at his bedside table, grabbed a pen and flicked to an empty page a few ways into the journal. He wanted to show a discontinuation from the original author and himself, also why he used his blue pen.

He decided to introduce himself as the new author first, then writing down the contents of the strangeness of his life, before writing the complete story, albeit with a few new questions such as “how do they choose a leader? Is it just the one who takes charge?” and writing new points such as “Not averse to destroying themselves to get what they want”

At the end, Dipper decided to write a note for the journal, maybe if the next person was to find it, like he did. Dipper wrote,

“No matter how insane the contents of this journal are, due to a few events that have taken place recently, I am obliged to believe that everything that the original author of the journal says is completely true.

The research in this book has not reached its completion, and I have taken it upon myself to complete it. I will make sure that whatever research that the author has left, either on accident, or on purpose will be put to good use, to protect the people of Gravity falls, Oregon.

There are facts to recheck, and questions to answer.

Rest assured, I will do my best.”

Dipper turned to his sister, looking at her, before thinking over the next few words to write. It clicked, and he turned to the book, writing fast.

“This journal had told me that there was no one in Gravity Falls I could trust. But when you battle a hundred gnomes, side-by-side with someone, you realize that they have probably always got your back. Do not take heed of the warning that one must always be alone. Sometimes the closest companions are the ones who are drawn tp the mysteries faster than you may be.”

Dipper looked up, satisfied with the entry.

He flipped through the pages as Mabel continued to be Mabel, still hopping up and down and playing with her grappling hook.

Before Dipper could forget, he quickly turned to the page with the entry of “Gnomes” writing down their weakness, which he figured out in battle

“Weakness: Unable to function without a leader”

Finally satisfied, Dipper shut down the journal, placing it on his bedside table and placing his pen on top of it, snuggling into his bed.

He smiled. This was nice.

“Hey, Mabel?”

The offending girl looked over at her brother who looked really cosy under the blankets.

“Could you please turn of the attic lights?"

Mabel grinned. “I’m on it”

Without further ado, Mabel launched her grappling hook at the light, smashing it out of the house through their window. The twins laughed at it, Mabel as she always does, and Dipper at the randomness that he’d been used too since birth.

“Heh… Grappling hook.”

However weird and strange this place was, Dipper knew that he could trust his family.

Jbxktefib, tfqe Pqxk…

Stanley Pines snuck back into the Mystery Shack at night, holding a lantern.

He walked up to the ‘Employees Only’ door but hesitated as he was about to go in. He then turned to the vending machine next to him. He held up his hand, punching in what seemed to be a code.

The door hissed open, bright blue light illuminating a stairway leading down… somewhere.

Stan walked into it, pulling the vending machine onto himself. With one final glance to make sure that no one was coming, he pulled it shut, descending into the secret room.

Stan would do anything for his family.

Pqxk fp klq texq eb pbbjp.

Chapter Text

It was early, the sky barely recovering from its shade of blue, the sun still yawning up its sleepy wake. The birds had just started chirping, and a woodpecker sounded particularly loud in the quiet of the air.

It was a stark contrast to the inside of the Mystery Shack.

“Are you ready for the ULTIMATE CHALLENGE?” Mabel brandished her syrup bottle at her brother, her usual loud enthusiasm sounding throughout the house.

“I was born ready” Dipper deadpanned, but had a challenging look in his eyes as he stuck his own syrup bottle out at his sister.

“Then you know what this means…!”

“SYRUP RACE!” The two yelled, but Mabel was far louder than her brother.

She stuck out her tongue as she flicked open the syrup bottle, turning it upside down, and making a loud “aaah…” sound.

Dipper was a little bit more reserved in his syrup race simply opening his mouth and holding up the syrup bottle up to the level the both of them had agreed upon to make things fair. Like Mabel ever actually played fair.

“Go Sir Syrup!” Mabel yelled happily, cheering on her syrup bottle.

“Mountie Man, if you are to fail, I will end you.”

“You’re really dramatic, Dipper.”

Mabel shrugged off her emotion, instead focusing on her own syrup bottle. She would win; she was going to make sure of that.

“GO, GO, GO!”

Mabel saw that her syrup bottle was losing, the syrup closer to touching Dipper’s mouth, and she knew what had to be done.

She cheated.

She quickly brought her hand up, tapping the bottom of the bottle, causing the syrup to successfully land into her mouth. “YES!”

She then stated hacking loudly as a whole bunch of syrup had just dropped into her windpipe.

Dipper looked at his sibling, absolutely heartbroken. He mock-sighed loudly and looked down, though he knew that he had lost unfairly. Eh, he’s used to this. Nevertheless, Dipper wanted to have fun with it, an opportunity usually missed when their parents were awake.

“Mountie Man, you have betrayed me. Now prepare to meet the doom you have brought upon on yourself-”

Mabel coughed extra loudly at that exact second, interrupting Dipper's dramatic speech.

Dipper looked away sighing, and put down the syrup bottle. He then looked at the magazine next to him, picking it up once more as Mabel thumped her chest with her arm, trying to stop choking.

…She’d be fine.

A news article caught Dipper’s eye.

“Mabel, look at this” He showed Mabel the magazine.

Mabel gasped, finishing the last of her choking, then looked down at the article, absolutely elated.

“A human sized hamster ball!? I’M HUMAN SIZED!”

Dipper looked at the page next to the one he was referring to. Sure enough, there was indeed a human sized hamster ball.

‘I wonder what they use that for. Surely no sane human being would actually make that for fun’

Dipper shook off his confusion, but pointed his sister in the right direction.

“No, Mabel, this.”

Dipper pointed towards a “Monster Photo Contest” which showed a surprisingly tame looking monster and a really creepy looking photographer, which on further inspection, seemed to be last month’s winner.

The best part was the prize, which was 1000 dollars.

‘It had to be real’ Dipper reasoned, even with the unreasonable amount of money that flashed him. ‘The last year’s winner had to prove it. They probably wouldn’t risk a lawsuit showing an actual winner if it was fake.’

Dipper spoke aloud. “We see stranger monsters than this on a daily basis. We didn’t get any pictures of those gnomes, did we?”

Mabel chuckled at her brother’s dramatic English.

“On A dAiLy bASiS” She mocked her brother in his dramatic deadpan. “But nope! Just memories”

“And this beard hair!”

Dipper looked at his sister, unamused, used to her antics but still confused by them.

“...why would you keep hold of that?”

Mabel shrugged, happy as ever.

“You are stranger than the drunken fits of our mother.”

“You’re almost as boring as dad!”

Stan yawned as he entered, drawing the attention of the twins, who tensed, but relaxed as they took in their Grunkle’s own relaxed state. Dipper silently cursed himself for putting his guard down, and instead worked at staring rigidly at his Great-Uncle Stan, wondering if he heard any of their bickering.

Actions had consequences, and there was no way in ever that Dipper would forget that.

“Goodmornin’ knuckleheads! You two know what day it is? Dipper, you weirdly silent child, you go first” Stan pointed at the younger boy, making him look up, a little in surprise.

Dipper relaxed as he found that his Great-Uncle Stan did not react to anything the twins had said, therefore proving that he didn’t hear.

Dipper then scrunched his face, processing his question, looking though his memories for anything that Great-Uncle Stan had told them before.

“Happy anniversary?”

Dipper didn’t know his Great-Uncle that well.

Mabel grinned, knowing the answer. “Mavel tov!”

Stan grunted, attempting to hit Dipper with his newspaper, but Dipper caught it with one arm on instinct, gripping it's sides, not even looking up from the magazine, from where he was looking through the details.

‘Only one picture, huh? Are monsters really that rare?’

Dipper then realized.

He froze, his blood running cold as his entire body tensed. Oh shit, he just caught the newspaper that was supposed to hit him. Dread creeped into his mind, but he forced it down, making sure to keep his actions passive. If Stan didn’t realize, it was for the best.

Stan looked at the newspaper, a little in surprise, then looked at Dipper.

The boy winced internally, anger flaring in his body, training it at himself. Damn it, it was such a stupid mistake.

Stan grumbled something about insolent kids before withdrawing his newspaper, but still grabbing the twin’s attention. Dipper actually looked up from his magazine, surprised that his Great-Uncle didn’t try to hit him again to save his ego.

Damn.

“It’s family fun day, genius!” Stan spoke, before talking to the both of them, but turning around, looking through the fridge. “We’re cutting off work and having one of those, you know.” Stan picked up a carton of milk, sniffing it before deeming it undrinkable. “Bonding… type… deals…” He finished, a little disheartened.

Dipper put down his magazine, looking at his Great-Uncle Stan, quiet. Mabel did not share his sentiment, but looked a little nervous.

“Is this gonna be anything like our last family fun day?” Mabel asked, a bit hesitant, not really sounding like herself.

Stan, on the nudge, remembered the last time, a few days ago, where he had made the kids make fake dollar bills. Mabel was actually pretty good at it, but Dipper’s Benjamin Franklin looked like a woman. The interaction was cut short by the cops showing up.

Mabel seemed to be stuck in the same thought, shivering at the memory that came after. “The county jail was so cold.”

“At least they didn’t beat us up this time.” Dipper popped in, hoping to bring up her spirits, a bit calmer now around his Great-Uncle Stan.

“Yeah!” Mabel brightened.

“Piedmont is the worst! I thought that they had junev-junevile- junev- I don’t know how to say it- jail for minors, but I guess that was wrong! It was pretty boring there though, isolation is creepy after all the screaming and crying we heard from the others”

Mabel sighed. "At least we didn't scream and cry. Maybe the other should have gone to jnuven-junelvi-junev-junevile-nope! I give up, forever!"

“Juvenile”

"Oh... yeah!"

“What- “

Before Stan could complete his question, he thought against it, moving to his own topic. “Alright, maybe I haven’t been the best summer care-taker, but I swear, today we’re gonna have some real family fun!

“Now who wants to put on some blindfolds and get into my car!?”

Mabel looked the most excited that she’d ever been, throwing her arms up into the air. “YAY!”

Dipper huffed, amused, and wallowing the request over before looking at Mabel, looking for her opinion and if she actually thought it was a good idea.

Mabel caught her brother’s eye and grinned reassuringly.

“Well, Grunkle Stan can’t possibly drive worse than mom!”

“LET’S GO!” Mabel yelled.

Ixqbo, lk qeb olxa…

It was a peaceful day in the woods.

Before the car came through.

A deer, who would usually stare at headlights, had the sense to run out of the road as a bright red car came barrelling through.

Stan looked over, before finding something interesting on the floor next to him, before bending over to pick it up, causing the car to swerve wildly.

“Whoa!” Mabel yelled with joy, falling over.

She was really excited, as she normally was, but even wore her exclamation mark sweater around her waist, a sign that showed just how excited she was. It was going to be so much fun!       

Dipper, surprisingly, didn’t even move, fixed in his position, arms crossed over his body. The car righted itself as Stan looked back up, causing Mabel to go back into her original position, and she swung her legs, excited.

Dipper sighed. “Blindfolds have never led to anything good.”

“Wow!” Mabel exclaimed, looking down at where she felt her arms would be, completely different from her brother's deadpan.

“I feel like all my other senses are heightened! I CAN SEE WITH MY FINGERS.”

Mabel reached towards where she instinctively felt her brother was, attempting to poke his face. Dipper, this once, caught her arm before it makes contact with his face, seemingly bored, but still amused that Mabel would still try to do so,

The car lurched again, this time downwards before righting itself, causing all its passengers to lurch up and down.

“Grunkle Stan, are you wearing a blindfold?” Mabel asked, genuinely wanting to know.

Stan laughed, and waved off his grand-niece before realising that said child probably could not see his arms.

“Nah, but with these cataracts I might as well be.” Stan squinted, leaning over the steering wheel to look in front of him, trying to make out the object in front of the car.

“What is that? A woodpecker?”

They crashed through a fence that served as rails to make sure cars wouldn’t skid off into the woods at a turn.

They didn’t turn though, and kept riding through it, yelling.

Ixqbo, xq qeb Doxsfqv Cxiip ixhb…

“Okay, okay!” The twins, who had gotten out of the pretty much ruined car, tensed at the sound, but relaxed as they found that it was of their Grunkle Stan coming back towards them.

Mabel stood, almost bouncing in her blindfold, wondering where they were with excitement as she always does. Maybe this time they’d go shoplifting! Ooh! Or maybe Grunkle Stan could teach them tax evasion!

Mabel was super excited to do anything with her two favourite people.

“Open them up!”

Mabel and her younger brother took off their blindfolds, looking at their Grunkle Stan.

“Ta da!” Stan yelled, standing in front of a large blue lake. There were two wooden logs held up behind him, with a sign that said “Fishing season” and below it, “opening day”

It’s fishing season!”

“Fishing?” Mabel asked, before looking onto the scenery behind her Grunkle.

People were fishing in their little boats and looking all happy. There was a bait shop on the side of the lake, where people were also fishing.

Huh, everyone really liked to fish. Mabel grinned.

Heck yeah! People here liked to fish!

Dipper, after looking at the view, turned to see the state of the car. He winced at what he found. Scratches peeled the paint off in silvery streaks, and dents made themselves visible as they crashed though the sides, the back and even the front of the car. Branches stuck out of it, leaves stuck to the nameplate.

Why did the nameplate say “STNLYMBL” though-

“Sound fun!” Mabel said enthusiastically, startling Dipper out of his thoughts. 

“Where are you going with this, Great-Uncle Stan?” Dipper, ever suspicious, spoke to the old man, completing what Mabel wanted to say.

Mabel sometimes wants him to calm down, not be so alert all the time. Sure, it’s probably because of everything they’ve dealt with in the past, but Gravity Falls is different! Maybe Dipper should see that.

Mabel knows that in the end, she’s always been a little more relaxed than Dipper, usually relying on the other to have her back. Is that why she’s more excited?

Mabel loves surprises, even with everything that’s happened before with them. She feels as though its only true because she knows that she has Dipper with her every time.

But why can’t he see that it’s different out here? People here actually care about what happens to anyone. It even makes Mabel a little nervous sometimes.

But Dipper’s instincts are almost never wrong.

“You’re gonna love it!” Grunkle Stan continued, as if he didn’t hear the twin’s worries. “The whole town’s out here!”

Sure enough, the whole town was out there, from Lazy Susan to Tyler Cutebiker.

“That’s some quality family bonding!” Grunkle Stan looked on a particularly interesting scene where Dan Corduroy had snatched a fish out of the water with his bare hands before throwing it onto the deck of his boat where the rest of his family sat next to him.

Except Wendy for whatever reason. Mabel wondered where she was.

Dan was smashing the fish to a pulp with the rest of his family cheering loudly.

Was this what Grunkle Stan meant by family bonding?

Mabel thought it would be weird if she judged him though, it isn’t like Mabel hadn’t bonded with Dipper over punching people.

Or maybe she was overthinking everything.

She decided to leave the overthinking to her very willing brother.

Said brother spoke, confused. “Great-Uncle Stan, why do you want to bond with us all of a sudden?”

Stan looked down for a second, his resolve flickering. He quickly recovered though, pushing forward towards the twins and speaking optimistically.

“Come on!” He said, “This is gonna be great! I’ve never had fishing buddies before.” Grunkle Stan turned angry, “The guys from the lodge won’t go with me. They don’t-” Grunkle Stan made quotation marks in the air with his hands “-actually like me.”

Mabel looked at her brother, saddened by her Grunkle’s words. “I think he actually wants to fish with us!” She said, trying to make her brother see reason.

Dipper didn’t respond, but Mabel saw a look of contemplation in his eyes. He was listening to her, like he always did. At least Mabel had that to get hope for.

“Hey!” Grunkle Stan looked at the twins, grinning. “I know what’ll cheer you sad-sacks up!”

Grunkle Stan pulled out what looked to be two homemade straw-coloured hats. “Pow!” He held them out at the twins. The twins both stepped back as soon as he did, looking over the hats, before taking them out of Stan’s outstretched hands in unison.

There were hooks imbedded in the rims of the hats, and at the front was what looked to be cloth letters sown on.

“Pines family fishing hats! Uh,” Stan looked at the twins’ expressions. He then stumbled over his words, now a little nervous to be bearing his soul so clearly. “That- that’s hand stitching, you know!” He covered, sounding a bit more desperate.

Mabel felt really bad about their own apathy towards their Grunkle.

"Thanks, Grunkle Stan! These look great!" She said, as cheerfully as she could, looking over the hat, catching Stan's relieved expression with a relieved one of her own. The letters of Mabel’s name were unevenly cut and coloured, the “E” on backwards and the “L” falling off slightly.

Mabel looked over at Dipper’s hat, finding that though no letters were backwards or falling off, the hat just said “Dippy” instead of “Dipper.”

Mabel snickered, looking at the hat, and then her brother.

“Dippy, hehe” she said, smirking.

“Shut up.” Dipper deadpanned.

Grunkle Stan ignored their comments on his hats, opting to speak as optimistically as before.

It’s just gonna be you, me and those goofy hats on a boat for ten hours.”

“Ten hours!?” Dipper finally spoke, shocked. There was absolutely no way that their Great-Uncle Stan was being serious.

Grunkle Stan grinned. “I brought the joke book.”

“NO!” Mabel yelled, loud and dramatic. The horrible situation called for it.

“Ahhh!”

An old-sounding voice yelled loudly, panic evident in its voice.

Mabe tensed, whirling around to find a really old man who wore torn brown overalls and a brown, chewed up hat. The man’s eyes were blown open in panic and faced two different directions, three teeth (one of them gold) stuck out like sore thumbs inside the man’s otherwise empty mouth, and had a heavily bandaged foot.

The main thing that caught her attention was his huge beard that covered his entire front, a pale, skin-coloured Band-Aid stuck onto it.

Mabel wondered why it wasn’t brown like the rest of his clothes.

“I seen it! I seen it again!” The man screamed, pushing past two people to come to the forefront of the dock. He then ran past them onto shore, flipping a bait table and smacking a ginormous sandwich out of another person’s hands as soon as he was to eat it.

“The Gravity Falls Gobblewonker!” He yelled, grabbing a younger, but much more muscular man and shaking his shoulders with a heavily bandaged arm. He then threw the younger man to the side with surprising strength before yelling loudly, still in a panic. “Come quick before it scrab-doodles away!”

The old man started dancing, and Mabel looked at him, amazed and happy, finding the scene adorable

“Awww” She looked at her brother as he walked up next to her, interested in whatever the old man was doing. She smiled. “He’s doing a happy jig!”

“No!” Mabel saw the old man coming, and let him grab onto her shoulders, Dipper close behind to make sure nothing happened.

“It’s a jig of grave danger!” He shook Mabel violently, which made the offending girl laugh in glee at the feeling, and Dipper lift an eyebrow, confused.

“Hey, hey!” A man walked out of the bait shop, green shirt tucked into brown pants, with a green cap on top. He brandished a spraying bottle with what Mabel thought to be water (or maybe some other fluid? Exciting!), and looked angry from what she could tell, as his green cap covered his eyes.

The old man screamed and let go of Mabel, making her stumble slightly as Dipper caught her.

The old man took no care of this, scrambling away as the younger man drew towards him, spraying the man with whatever was in the bottle (special bait juice, maybe!?) and scolding him sternly.

“What did I tell you about scaring my customers?” He sprayed the old man twice again, much to the dismay of one person looking, but the interest of another standing and watching.

The old man flinched as he felt the water on him, and the younger man yelled. “This is your last warning, Dad!”

Mabel startled. Dad? Was this guy really just treating his dad that horribly in front of everyone? Mabel looked on, a sharp frown piercing her features.

Her dad wasn’t the most amazing person ever, but she wouldn’t wish this upon even him, the cruelty of the situation getting to her. Irritation was one thing, but public humiliation was another. It really messed with a person, as Mabel had seen with her own eyes, and really hurt their feelings.

What was that guy doing?

“But I got proof this time, by gummitty!” The old man said, emotion covering his voice, pulling Mabel’s heartstrings. Was this fully grown man really being this horrible to his own father?

Mabel exchanged a glance with Dipper, who seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

This was messed up.

The old man hopped and stumbled out towards another dock, audience in tow. He dramatically pointed to a broken ship at the end of the dock in the water, yelling, a warning in his tone.

“Behold! It’s the Gobble-dee-wonker what done did it!”

The old man started gesturing wildly in his explanation, the cops nearby still on the lake watching with interest.

“It had a ling neck like a gee-raff, and wrinkly skin like… like...!” The man wildly looked around, grasping for a way to explain.

He spotted Grunkle Stan, who was cleaning his ear with his finger. “Like this gentleman right here!”

“Heh?” Grunkle Stan looked at the older man from where he was zoning off, flicking a piece of earwax off his finger.

“It chawed up my boat to smitheroons and shim-shammed over to Scuttlebutt Island!” The old man pointed to what seemed to be a deserted island in the middle of the lake. He then grabbed his son, desperation colouring his voice.

“You gotta believe me!”

“Attention all units!” The cop on the police boat called all of their attentions. The officer smirked, as if about to make the funniest joke in the universe (Mabel was excited to hear it).

“We’ve got ourselves a crazy old man.”

Mabel’s face dropped as the punchline hit, and everyone but her, her family and the old man’s son pointed at the offending elder, laughing loudly. The man’s son looked down, embarrassed, shaking his head in disappointment.

“Aww, donkey spittle! You’re a banch of… boly…” The old man walked off, the crowd following him as he tried to get away from them.

Mabel felt herself get angry. She looked at Dipper and saw a similar expression on his face as he glared down the townsfolk’s backs.

Would she really take that? Would she really turn her back on a person so heartbroken?

No, she wouldn’t.

“Hey!” Mabel called out to the townsfolk, making the offending people turn around.

“I believe him!” Mabel yelled confidently, one hand on her hip and one pointing her thumb at herself.

“What is she doing?” Mabel heard Grunkle Stan ask dipper, as if embarrassed by her opinion. Dipper looked at him, a look of irritation flashing through his eyes.

“The right thing to do.”

The old man’s son looked at Mabel, confusion lifting his gaze. “Ain’t no reason for that-“

“Oh hickle-dee-doodle! That’s what's don be good to me!” Mabel smiled and put her hands on the old man’s shoulder.

“Yeah!” She cheered.

The old man seemed to get crazier by the minute. “It’s just over there!” The man did another jig, but wasn’t too exaggerated, letting Mabel keep her arm on his shoulder.

“Over at Scuttle-doo-butt Island!” He yelled, happy.

Dipper reached forward, wanting to, but hesitating to try and placate the old man.

“We know” He said, at a loss at what to do.

“Hot cowbody tongue! I left my nose hair at home!” The man screamed out of nowhere, then violently shrugged off Mabel’s hand, and ran off on all fours like a dog.

That was a suitable reaction.

Mabel turned to Dipper, who seemed hesitant to say anything as he watched the old man run away.

“Well, that happened.” Grunkle Stan said, struck at the weirdness of the situation. He then shrugged it off and jumped into his barely working wooden boat, with mold growing on its edges and cracks letting water into the vehicle, even with them being patched up with boards of wood.

It even had what seemed to be words on its hull, “Stanowar” written in black marker in a child-like scrawl. Mabel thought the name was pretty cool.

"Who was he?" Mabel asked, turning towards her Grunkle, confusion evident in her voice.

Grunkle Stan grunted. "That, there, was Old Man McGucket. He's crazy."

“Now let’s untie this boat and get on out on that lake!” He reached for the yellow string that connected to one of the supports of the dock.

Dipper turned to look at Mabel. “The elderly man said that there was a monster on that ‘Scuttlebutt Island We could snap a photo of it and split the prize equally between us.” He pulled out the magazine, showing Mabel the same one he had shown her at the breakfast table earlier that morning.

Mabel gasped. “That’s a lot of money!” She grinned looking up at her younger brother, who was lightly smiling in agreement.

“Just imagine what you could do with five hundred dollars.” Dipper smirked, looking at his sister, knowing that would sell the deal.

Mabel grinned, lost in fantasyland.

A large pink human sized hamster ball! She stood in it, excited beyond belief, covered on all sides by the plastic pink material. A tag hung off it, exactly five hundred dollar! She grinned, glad that she could afford it and turning to her daydream-hamster, who was in a similar but smaller pink hamster ball on a table.

“Not so high and mighty anymore!” She yelled in her dream.

The hamster whimpered sadly and placed its tiny brown head into its paws, heartbroken as its only leverage upon the species that destroyed more than it gave- turned to nothing.

The gift meant only for his kind now struck into the hands of the greedy.

The selfishness of the human race proved to be the one thing permanent on this dying earth. The hamster contemplated with sick amazement at the sheer brutality of the human nature.

This was all there was.

There will never be an after for the sins of humanity.

“Ah-ha!” Mabel laughed in the tiny creature’s face, unaware of its thoughts. She continues laughing in glee, speeding off in one direction before changing her mind and running the other way, crashing through the walls of what seemed to be a really empty version of the Mystery Shack, breaking through it and leaving a ball sized hole in her wake.

It was suddenly outside on a city road.

Two extremely, overwhelmingly, insanity-inducingly hot men drove their gorgeousness to a stop sign. They wore sunglasses, but that could never take away from their attractiveness, not even a little bit. The blonde guy wore pink rimmed glasses like an absolute baddie and the blue haired one’s matched his hair colour. Their red car flashing in the sunlight as it came to stop

The red means “I love you.”

“Hey boys!”

The two turned to the voice, pulling down their sunglasses in shock. There stood Mabel, leaning on a…uhm… a (I have no idea what that thing is) and looking at the boys, smirking.

“You can look, but you can’t touch!”

The street-light had finally shaken off their daze from the sheer hotness of the two men and turned blue, allowing them to go. Mabel took it as her cue to leave, running on all fours and chanting “Squeak, squeak, squeak” as the boys stared at her.

They looked at each other, elated. “Awesome!”

“-Abel.”

Mabel got back to the real world by a few snaps near her ear, which she immediately dodged with an “Ack!”

“Dipper.” Mabel said seriously, talking to the person who had just snapped in her ears.

“Yes, Mabel?” Dipper asked, as serious as she was.

“I am one million percent on board with this.” Mabel said, gravely. Pink human sized hamster balls were not to be joked around with.

“Grunkle Stan!” She called out to her Great Uncle, walking up to him and slinging an arm around his shoulders, giggling.

“Change of plans! We’re taking the boat to Scuttlebutt Island, and we’re gonna find that Gobblewonker to get Pink HUMAN SIZED HAMSETR BALLS!”

“Monster hunt!” Mabel started a chant, running back to her brother to share the moment, to which Dipper joined in immediately, ablet with less overenthusiasm.

They heard a third voice join them, so they turned back, stopping their chant, only to see Old Man McGucket come back, chanting “Monster hunt” with full force.

“Monster hunt! Monster… eh…” The old man found the twins staring at him, one in amusement and one in glee. For whatever reason, that seemed to discourage him.

“I’ll go.” He cried, weeping as he left, leaving the twins surprised.

“What?” Dipper asked, confused at the extreme reaction.

Mabel thought that he had left the stove on at home.

A loud honk startled the twins out of their daze, and Mabel looked up, tensing, only to see a metal boat with a fishing rod stuck to the rear end of it, lights on inside the small red box-like opening where the steering wheel was, and lights on top.

There was even a safety railing at the forefront of the hull, preventing anyone from falling off. It looked like a pretty sweet ride.

Driving it was… Soos?

“You dudes say something about a monster hunt?” Soos asked, smiling as always.

“Soos!” Mabel screamed in joy, happy to see the child-man.

“Wassup, hambone?” He asked as he moved closer to the rear of the ship, raising his hand in a fist bump which Mabel gladly obliged to, jumping up to reach his hand.

“Kapoosh!” Soos said as Mabel said her own little “Pow! Boom! Explode!”

The two relaxed. This was fun.

“Dude, you could totally use my boat for your hunt.” Mabel grinned at Soos’ words. Yes!

“It’s got a steering wheel, chairs… normal boat stuff.” Soos completed, and while Mabel didn’t really understand where he was coming from, it was still cool.

“All right, All right.” The twins turned to their Grunkle’s voice, finding him outside the boat and on the dock next to them, trying not to look to disappointed.

“Let’s think this through. You kids could go waste your time on some epic monster finding adventure, or, you could spend the day learning how to tie knots and skewer worms with your great uncle Stan!”

The twins hesitated, looking over to Soos, who was dancing robotically to music that just randomly started, and then look back at Grunkle Stan, who was back in his beat up boat, wriggling his eyebrows, and then sniffing his armpit.

The twins then looked off into the distance where the island stood, hazy in the fog, but clear in its rewards.

It was settled.

“So, what do you say?” Grunkle Stan spoke confidently, only to see Dipper and Mabel had already clambered onto Soos’ ship and had started their journey with a honk and laughter.

“We made the right choice!” Mabel yelled in glee, the last thing Stan heard before they were out of earshot.

Stan looked at their retreating forms, a growing sense of familiar loneliness settling in his chest. He turned angry.

“Ingrates!” He shook his fist at them. “Ah, who needs them?” He dismissed, sitting back down and talking to himself. “I’ve got a box of creepy fishing lures to keep me company.”

He looked down at a blue-green box with an assortment of tiny dead fish that was already attracting flies. He groaned in disgust before shutting the box.

Mabel grinned as she stood at the front of the ship, one leg bent on top of the railings, looking past on the distance as they travelled. Mabel felt cool, like the boss of this ship.

Her brother seemed to have the same idea. Dipper called out, jokingly, “Your orders, my captain?”

Mabel grinned ear to ear, playing along. “Hoist the anchor.” she called out dramatically. Soos lifted up the anchor from his place behind the wheel, grinning at the twins’ antics.

“Raise the flag!”

Dipper lifted up a flag that Mabel had painted herself, a large purple one with four horizontal pink stripes wearing the edges and a huge “FUN” painted in the top centre, a yellow sun with black sunglasses below it, smirking.

Mabel thought it was one of the coolest things she’d ever done.

“We’re gonna find that Gobblewonker!” Mabel sounded loud and determind, Soos and Dipper matching her enthusiasm, but unable to yell louder than the girl herself.

“We are going to win the photography contest.” Dipper spoke, an intense look of determination clouding his face in terrifying conviction. Soos looked at Dipper, scared at the intense glare that the younger boy didn’t even seem to notice he was giving. Mabel shouted loud in appreciation.

“Do any of you dudes have sunscreen?” Soos asked, the thought suddenly popping in his mind.

“Yes, I do.” Dipper spoke, pulling out sunscreen from a pocket in his varsity jacket.

“Nice!” Soos yelled, taking it from his hands and lathering it on his body.

Mabel laughed maniacally. “NEVER UNDERESTIMATE DIPPER’S PREPARDNESS.”

The two others cheered loudly. This was going to be really fun!

Ixqbo…

“Alright.” Dipper caught the other two’s attention on the boat, sitting on a railing, more relaxed than normal, but still keeping his thoughts sharp. “If we want to win the Photography Contest, we have to get a few components right.”

He looked to Soos and Mabel contemplating, thinking as to how to make them understand where he was coming from in the most practical way. He then spoke.

“What is the number one problem when most people go hunting monsters?”

Mabel usually did know, but this time, she didn’t really. The monster hunts that she and Dipper had gone to in the forest outside their Mystery Shack went pretty well, a lot more blood on the opposing side than their own.

But there was that run in with that one fairy…

Soos chimed in confidently next to Mabel, seeming to know everything. Soos is the coolest, most trustworthy adult Mabel had ever met. Maybe also because he thought the same as her, but that is a debate for a later time.

“You’re a side character and you die in the first five minutes of the movie.”

Mabel stared at Soos, surprised at the gruesome answer. Huh, maybe he wasn’t as readable as Mabel thought.

Mabel then zoned back into the conversation.

Soos was panicked. “Dude, am I a side character? Do you ever think about stuff like that?”

Mabel looked at Soos, staring at him in fear. Was it true? Was she a side character? Will she die that close to what could be the beginning of a story? Will she never be more than a stain on the ground, a warning to the protagonists and a threat that seems real?

“No, Soos” Dipper said, trying to placate the older man and snapping Mabel out of her daze.

‘Blaargh’ Mabel thought. ‘Leave the overthinking to Dipper.’

“It’s camera trouble. For example, if bigfoot shows up in front of you. There are multiple things that can go wrong with one’s camera, even if they are completely prepared. You might run out of film, or not be able to find your camera fast enough.”

Mabel nodded, understanding. Kind of. Make sure your camera is always available? Why do they even need a camera though? Shouldn’t memories be enough?

“No, Mabel, remember. The photography contest?” Dipper reasoned as she murmured out loud.

“Right.” Mabel said, sheepish. Darn it, why did she forget that too?

Dipper continued speaking unfazed. “That is the reason why I have brought seventeen disposable cameras.”

Mabel blanched. “SEVENTEEN!? Dipper where did you get the-!"

“I stole it, Mabel.” Dipper deadpanned. “I am not spending that much money on anything.”

Dipper continued once more, used to the interruptions. He showed off the camera placements. “There’s two in my sock, three in the pockets of my jacket,”

Dipper held out his hands, making Mabel and Soos reach over to take the “Four cameras for each of you,” As they pulled back, Dipper continued speaking, pulling out a brown bag from his light green one. “Three extra ones in this bundle, and one somewhere you will never find.”

Mabel grinned, up to the challenge.

“Is it in the fishing hat?”

Dipper sighed his ‘you know me too well’ sigh and Mabel instantly knew she was right. He pulled out the fishing hat that Grunkle Stan had given both the twins, unwrapping it and showing off his last purple and blue disposable camera.

Mabel grinned. She really did know him too well.

“There is absolutely no way that we can miss an opportunity to click a photo now.” Dipper spoke, confidence evident in his otherwise monotone voice. “Alright” Dipper jumped of the railing, landing in front of the two others, completing the little triangle.

“Let’s test these cameras out.”

Soos clicked his curiously, not knowing that it was the other way around. And that flash was on.

“Ah!” He yelled, throwing it behind him into the lake.

Dipper sighed, unamused and unsurprised. Soos was amazing, truly, but c’mon. Dipper can get frustrated sometimes.

“Do you see? This is exactly the reason why we need backup cameras- Mabel duck!”

An unrealistically big bird swooped down and would have taken Mabel’s head clean off had she not listened to her brother’s command, dropping down as it swooped dangerously low over her head.

“Ah! Bird!” She cried out as it passed overhead, darting fast as lighting across the lake. On instinct, she chucked the object she was holding- Dipper’s camera- and it connected with the bird’s neck, making it fall through the air like a glitter bomb, but sunk inside the lake with a thump.

Mabel looked at the two others. “It’s resting.”

Dipper let out a quiet chuckle, sighing in relief that his older sister was okay. Mabel caught this and put her thumbs up, showing Dipper that she was a-okay.

He worried too much sometimes (for good reason) and Mabel did have to prove to him that she was okay.

“Wait, lose the cameras?”

“Don’t” Dipper said, saying the keyword loudly for Soos to understand his irritation.

“Dude, I just threw two more cameras overboard.”

Dipper took a sighed, trying to calm himself. “Alright. We have thirteen cameras.” He smashed at the table in front of him lightly, shaking off extra aggression. He winced as he felt plastic break beneath his hands, a particularly large piece sticking into his hand.

He looked down and- yup. He had broken a camera.

Dipper took a deep breath, stepping away from the table, holding his injured hand to check the damage. “Sorry” he said, breathing out.

“Hey!” Mabel said comfortingly, but still optimistically. “Cheer up! We have twelve more.”

Dipper cleared his throat, going back to his normal deadpan. “Right. Okay.”

“Mabel,” Dipper spoke to his sister. “You can be lookout, Soos can man the helm, and I can be the captain.”

“Aww what?” Mabel said, sad by the fact that she couldn’t be one. “Why do you get to be captain? What about Mabel, huh?”

She grinned, pointing her thumbs to herself and chanting, “Mabel! Mabel!”

“I do not think that’s a good idea” Dipper said truthfully.

“What about co-captain?” Mabel said, looking on the bright side. Anyway, having two roles is cool enough on its own.

Dipper shrugged. “I’m alright with that.”

Mabel grinned, happily punching her arm into the air.

“Can I be associate co-captain?” Soos suddenly spoke up, moving from the steering wheel to the two twins.

“As co-captain, I authorize that request.”

“Well then” Dipper plays along. “As first co-captain, I declare that our first order of business is to lure the monster out with the huge carton of fish food.” He gestured to it, but then saw a drop of red fall onto the deck.

He looked confused for a second, but then looked down at his hand and realised. “...I should probably clean this up.”

Dipper went to the helm, looking for bandages, leaving Mabel and Soos together on the deck. Soos turned to Mabel, a grave expression on his face.

“Permission to taste some?” Soos asked, pointing at the fish food.

“Permission co-granted” Mabel looked at Soos curiously, figuring him out. Was he actually going to try it? Or was he just pretending to ask to lighten the mood-? Oh, never mind, he ate it.

Immediately Soos started hacking and coughing making disgusted noises, banging against the side of the ship and then stumbling back away from it, sticking his tongue out and cleaning it with the both of his hands.

Mabel burst out laughing, heavily amused at the older man’s actions. Dipper came out that exact second, arm bandaged, smiling lightly, amused. “You really just did that?” Dipper asked, finding the situation extremely funny.

“Dude, I don’t know what I expected that to taste like.”

“Oh Soos!” Mabel yelled, laughing.

Stan looks back at them as he fishes, eyes narrowing into slits as he refuses to let the loneliness take over.

“Traitors!” He yells loud enough for only himself to hear. “Ah, I’ll find my own fishing buddies!” He speaks, determined to be true to his word.

Stan looks around, trying to find someone to fish with. He the spots a couple in the far distance, so far in fact that they’re barely more than a shadow. Stan grins wide. “Ah!” He guns the motor loudly and sets off in their direction. “There’s my new pals!”

The man in the boar looks down at a red box, nervous, as his girlfriend stares out of the boat, daydreaming. He opens it to reveal a diamond ring with gold around the ring itself.

He closes the box nervously, looking away and closing his eyes, steeling himself. He takes a deep breath. Here goes nothing.

“Now that we’re alone…” his girlfriend looks up, confused at the man’s sudden statement. “Rosanna, there’s a burning question which my heart longs to ask of you!”

“Oh, Reginald” Rosanna says, tears welling in her eyes

“Hey!”

The two startle as Stan comes up next to their boat. Rosanna’s confused, not knowing what to do. She hugs Reginald tightly as they both look on, mildly uncomfortable “Wanna hear a joke?”

Reginald looks at the man, “Uh…”

“Here goes!” Stan speaks anyway. “My ex-wife still misses me.” Stan then grins pumping his hands up and down. “But her aim is getting better!”

Silence.

Stan tries again. “Her aim is getting better!”

Silence.

Stan laughs, trying to diffuse the tension and also explaining the joke. “You see it’s- it’s funny because marriage is terrible!”

Reginald lets go of Rosanne, reaching for the oars before rowing the both of them away from Stan. Stan, by this, is pretty confused.

“What!?” He asks as they move, irritated.

Ixqbo, tfqe Afmmbo, Jxybi xka Pllp…

The trio had entered the dense fog over the island, the trees dried out but moist and sunk into the riverbed. A few shipwrecks made themselves visible when they came close to it, Dipper helping Mabel out as lookout and pointing out the debris to avoid.

Soos shoved the bait overboard with timed intervals by Dipper’s request, hoping to bait the giant monster to come closer so that either one of them could photograph the monster.

Mabel was clutching a pelican by its beak, grinning.

She turned to her brother, giggled, then looked back at it, asking the bird a question.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

Mabel responded in a deep voice, pulling the birds beak up and down, speaking for it. “It’s going awesome! Bow-bow-boo-bah-bow!

“Mabel” Dipper sighed, amused, but feeling bad for the bird. “Leave the pelican alone, please.”

“Aww, I don’t mind none!” Mabel said again in her deep voice, moving the bird’s beak up and down, making it speak.

“Hey look!” Mabel called out to Dipper in her usual voice, catching her brother’s attention. “I’m drinking water!” She yelled pointing to the glass of water in hand which she stole from Soos.

‘Soos has a lot of things in the place near the steering wheel’ Mabel thought, but continued to do what she wanted, grabbing the beak of the bird again, who seemed to be okay with his new life.

She chugged the water, moving the beak of the bird as she started singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ before she stopped in the first three words, choking on the water, dropping the rest of the water and the glass into the lake.

Dipper huffed at her antics, finding it funny, "That is extremely amazing, Mabel." He deadpanned, as usual

"Shut up!" Mabel said, still coughing.

Dipper found himself relaxing, something he hadn't done for a while. Soos, as always, was amazing, but there was no way that Dipper could be this free around people who weren't Mabel, and the free space now to do so was a lot more freeing than in school.

Being here in Gravity Falls seemed to be calming him down a lot more. Dipper didn't know whether to freak out about it or not.

He asked his question, shaking himself out of his unnecessary thoughts. They could talk about this later.

“You were supposed to be on lookout, were you not?” He asked, crossing his hands, smirking slightly.

“Look out!” Mabel yelled, throwing the white volleyball she found (again in Soos’ steering wheel area) before throwing it at Dipper. He caught it with one hand, looking unimpressed at Mabel.

Mabel herself laughed, her brother’s expression funny.

“But seriously” She giggled, “I’m on it.”

The ship lurched to a stop, making both her and Soos fall over, Dipper stayed upright and on balance, looking at Mabel with one eyebrow lifted, as if trying to say, ‘are you on it?’

The front of the boat had sunk into the mud, only the big spike at its highest point not touching the ground. The boat was also lifted slightly, the back portion of it not even touching the water. Mabel heard Soos groan at the back of the boat, maybe from the impact.

“See!” Mabel yelled, satisfied. “We’re here! I’m a lookout genius!” She stepped over the railing, trying to walk on the spike like a balance beam before jumping off it when the space became too thin.

Dipper jumped over the railing with a high hop, landing lightly on the mud, brandishing a lit lantern in the cool darkness of the fog around the island. Soos stared at the twins’ exits, surprised.

‘These kids are athletic’ He thought, before climbing precariously over the edge of the ship, landing behind Dipper in the mud.

Dipper looked back at Soos, giving him a nod. Mabel smiled at the handyman brightly.

They then started on their journey to look for the Gobblewonker.

Suddenly, a loud noise made itself heard over the trees, scattering the birds and halting the trio. Dipper and Mabel looked up, shifting their weight and bringing up their hands, ready for a fight.

“Dude, did you hear that?” Soos walked towards the twins, a little wary.

Mabel immediately responded. “What was that? Was it your stomach?”

“Nah,” Soos said, brushing off the accusation. “My stomach normally sounds like whale noises.”

“Ooooh” Mabel said, interested, walking towards Soos and putting her ear on his stomach. Sure enough, it sounded like whale noises. Mabel was mesmerized.

“So majestic!”

A possum half Dipper’s size shrieked near him and grabbed at the lantern in his hand, trying to pry it out of the boy’s hands. Dipper looked at it, confused. “…what is happening?”

Mabel looked at Dipper, then looked at the possum, eyebrows sinking in the realization that it probably needed it more than they did.

“Dipper, the possum needs the lantern!” Mabel walked towards the younger boy, placing her hand on its shoulder in mock graveness. “For its family!” She shook her other fist dramatically.

“Don’t you?” She talked to the possum in a baby voice before picking it up, cradling it like a child. In doing so, she accidently knocked over the lantern, glass shattering as it hit the floor, fire being put out by the damp grass.

The possum reacted at this by shrieking loudly and jumping out of Mabel’s arms, scampering away.

Dipper looked in worry at the shattered remains, then looked up through the fog, unable to see anything more than barely 6 feet in front of him.

“I can’t see anything.” He stated, deadpan, looking back at the two slightly obscured people along with him.

“Oh-oh my gosh- Dipper” Mabel freaked out. “I’m so- I’m so sorry-"

“It’s alright, Mabel” Dipper spoke as convincingly as he could, reassuring his sister. She freaks a little when she makes mistakes “It was an accident, I know. I’m not mad.”

Mabel breathed. “Yeah- yeah okay.”

“Dude, I don’t know man” Soos said, sounding nervous. “Maybe this, uh, maybe this isn’t worth it.”

“We’ve come too far to turn back now, Soos.” Dipper explained.

“Dude, it’s never too late to go back.”

Dipper didn’t respond, only looking at Soos, angry and wanting to argue, but knowing that the safest option was to keep shut. This wasn’t piedmont, where they had to come back home, and Soos wasn’t a stranger, where he could just punch his problems.

Soos didn’t move either, waiting for Dipper to back down so they could move out.

Mabel didn’t like the tenseness of the situation, the air eerily like the one before something… bad always happened. So, she spoke, diffusing the situation

“Hey!” She said, optimistically. “We’ve come so far! Soos! Imagine how cool we could be with a giant PINK HAMSTER BALL!? I can let you try it too, Soos!” Mabel yelled, excitement pouring out of her words.

Soos seemed to brighten at that, excitedly saying, “Dude that sounds amazing! Let’s go!”

Dipper smiled, happy that Mabel handled the situation. Mabel in turn, grabbed Dipper by the wrist and started running.

“Alright dudes, I’m coming, wait up!” Soos yelled, also starting to run.

Ixqbo, abbmbo fkql qeb fpixka…

Soos beatboxed at the end of the straight file they were holding, Mabel, in the centre, rapping happily.

“My name is Mabel!

It rhymes with table!

It also rhymes with… glable!

It also rhymes with… shmabel!”

Soos, to the relief of Mabel, stopped beatboxing. Mabel internally sighed. She was running out of things that rhyme with her name.

“Dude, we should be writing this down.” Soos said, in awe at Mabel’s raw talent.

“Shmabel? As in the granddaughter of Pop-pop?” Dipper asked, remembering the younger twins who he had seen when he and Mabel had gone to get groceries from the town.

“Oh yeah!” Mabel said, remembering. “Shmipper and Shmabel! I remember.”

“Did you not when you were rapping-?”

“Those are some weird names, dude.”

Dipper stopped as a loud growl caught his attention again. “Do you hear that sound?” Dipper asked the two behind him as the growl started again, startling the remaining birds out of the trees, them swooping down on the same path as the younger Pines twins and Soos.

Dipper looked up, anticipation thrumming in his mind. “This is it!” He spoke excitedly, walking with renewed vigor towards the sound. Mabel ran up beside him, hyping them both up as they walked in front.

Soos’ expression turned grave. He picked up a large stick, one end of it sharpened like a sphere. ‘Just in case’ Soos thought, before picking up the pace, joining the pines twins.

They ducked behind a log, behind what Mabel could make out was a large, almost like a Diplodocus dinosaur.

Dipper looked serious, his camera out in front of him. He spoke to the others.

“Soos, Mabel, make sure you have your respective cameras. Be sure to click as fast and as many pictures as possible.”

Soos held is one out, grim, and Mabel did too, eyes wide with wonder.

“Is everyone ready?” Dipper asked. They both nodded.

“Move!” He yelled.

Soos yelled as loud as possible jumping out from behind the log, clicking his camera wildly. Mabel followed closely, yelling herself, but just for fun and excitement, vaulting over the log and running towards the creature. Dipper went last, but caught up to Soos fast, years of running making him faster than the two.

He came to as stop, confused, and a little irritated at the sudden revelation.

As the fog mysteriously cleared, they found that the ‘monster’ was just an overturned shipwreck with beavers in it.

They squeaked loudly, two suddenly hugging, and one falling off the ship entirely.

Soos took a picture.

Dipper looked on, confused, dejected, disbelieving. “But- how did it growl? We heard a monstrous growl, right?

The loud growl started. Louder than before and both Dipper and Mabel flinched, looking to the side, towards where they heard it.

Dipper was almost irritated that he couldn’t sense that the monster was there, as he usually trusted his instincts to show where the threat was, but then looked closely.

Oh, it was just a beaver on a log, that somehow managed to switch on an extremely rusted chainsaw.

Dipper was more irritated by that.

“Sweet!” Soos said, snapping a picture. “Beaver with a chainsaw.”

Dipper sighed, disappointed.

Mabel, also disappointed, spoke, agreeing with her brother. “Maybe the old man was mad after all. He did use the word scrapdoodle.”

Soos was unaware of the twins’ disappointment, opting to click pictures of the beavers instead. Mabel sighed, sitting next to a dejected Dipper on the small cliff that had the lake a few feet below it.

“What will we tell Grunkle Stan?” Mabel said, heartbroken at the thought of the older man. “We ditched him for nothing.” She said, feeling really bad. She looked down at the lake, sad.

She knew that their Grunkle was really lonely, despite him trying to hide it. There was a reason that Mabel and Dipper had never heard of the man before, the family never ever talking about it.

Anyone who was staying in a town far away from all the family he had, those who didn’t even talk to him or about him would be heartbreaking, especially at an older age like their Grunkle’s.

She knew that all the work that he made them do was only so that they would spend more time at home, making the place livelier than before. She thought that one of the reasons he had started the fake attractions was to make his creepy house warmer with more people around.

And in the end, once more, his family- Dipper and Mabel- had ditched him for their own goals. That had to hurt, hadn’t it?

Suddenly, her reflection changed, large ripples distorting her features. A small vibration started making itself though the island, and Dipper stood up suddenly, along with Mabel.

“Dipper do you feel that?” Mabel asks, alarm colouring her words.

All of a sudden, the ground started shaking violently, and what looked to be a large fin slammed out of the water, then flopped back in, a long, wide body being pulled to the surface.

Dipper snapped out of his daze, pulling a camera from the pocket of his varsity, life jacket unbuttoned and on the floor. Dipper knew how to swim, and how to dive, and so did Mabel, her teaching him how to.

He didn’t necessarily need it, which made taking it off more thinkable for the safety-needing boy. He was now excited for the discovery of the large monster that swum away from the duo.

Dipper pulled the camera close, quickly snapping a picture as it descended, the monster being better than he imagined. Adrenaline pulled a smile across his face.

“This is it! This is our chance!” He looked back, only to see Mabel and Soos slowly back away, eyes trained behind him, above his head. He stepped towards them, not wanting to trail too far away, but also confused, wanting to hear what they had to say.

Dipper shook off the nagging sense of danger, looking back at the others, a little irritated. “What is wrong? What happened?!”

Mabel yelled all of a sudden, panic striking her voice. “Dipper, watch out!”

The boy whirled around in an instant, not taking Mabel’s panic lightly. In an instant, he saw a flash of green and he jumped backwards, dodging what looked to be a long green neck. The monster retracted, spilling slimy goo onto the cliff, then

He came face to face with a giant green monster.

Oh, that made sense.

The monster roared loudly in his face, fangs baring heavy sharp teeth, forked tongue slipping between its gaps. The large yellow eyes glowed in the fog, antennae bending down menacingly, long green neck curving downwards to threaten its prey.

Its intention was to kill and kill only.

But Dipper had come way too far.

He brought his camera up and snapped a picture, just as it roared louder than Dipper had ever heard it, the sound of a chainsaw slamming against rocks. It stared down at the boy, but never seeing.

It turned to Soos, whipping its head around in a sudden motion. Its beady eyes focused on the older man, and it immediately reared its head up all eleven feet of it, ready to strike.

Soos stared at the creature, terrified. Would it kill him?

Dipper was ready. He was usually all for protecting the endangered (he was an adventurer, not a hunter), and the only reason he had come so far was for taking pictures to sell them for those 1000 dollars.

But if it messed with his family?

It messed with him first.

Dipper’s feet slammed against the ground, and he found himself running, anger burning a path to the monster. He picked up speed, faster than the monster could comprehend, and reached the ledge of the cliff.

Dipper jumped.

His feet left the ground in a powerful leap, and suddenly, he was face to face with the creature, clearing almost six feet in his jump. He stared into the soulless eyes of the creature in anger as his eyes levelled with its, daring to hurt his family.

Dipper wound his hand back, and punched it in its face.

Dipper cried out, as a shockwave of agony travelled from his fist through his entire body. He drew his hand back, the impact slamming into him like a freight train. He vaguely heard the sound of metal breaking, but his vision swum and his head felt like static.

Dipper pushed down the pain, trying to focus on the situation at hand.

Mabel stared, long and hard at what had just happened. The long snout of the creature just… dented?

What looked to be a huge dent from Dipper’s left hook made the entire side of the monster’s face look as if it collapsed into itself, its left eye no longer glowing yellow, looking cracked and… broken? The monster roared loud, and Mabel saw that inside, the teeth from its left had bent inwards, piercing the other side of its face.

Mabel was used to this kind of vision (she had done some… stuff to people who messed with them) but one thing made her reel, confusion eating at her brain.

Where was the blood?

“Dude, how did Dipper jump that high?” Soos asked, extremely confused by the most random thing.

Mabel was more focused on the fight with Dipper, but turned from her place in front of Soos, wanting to protect the less fight-y man.

She waved off the question, answering it half heartedly. “Something about wanting to jump higher than everyone older than him in soccer- why isn’t the monster bleeding?”

If Mabel didn’t know any better, she would have thought that… no, it had too less glitter for that. She instead drew back, watching the fight, looking for an opening for her to join the fight if necessary.

Momentum threw Dipper forward, and he grabbed at the large fins around the monster’s face as a loud roar echoed through the forest. The creature reared back, swaying its huge neck, and Dipper desperately clung onto its fins, two hands gripping now turning to one.

Dipper was clinging on, but as he swung as the monster moved on his injured arm, Dipper found the opportunity. All its weak points were exposed.

Dipper’s hands were starting to hurt from the strain, and the monster’s desperate attempts to get the boy off by violently shaking its neck made Dipper’s job harder.

He was slammed into the monster more times than he could count, the cool shell of the monster pinned with hard and sharp scales, bruising and cutting at him with its iron skin. If Dipper didn’t know any better, he would have thought that the skin was in fact iron.

Dipper reached forward, and started rapidly slamming his hands into the monster’s neck. They made a dent, quite literally, but it wasn’t enough to slow it down. Not nearly enough.

The monster thew its head forward in a powerful motion, an arc with the boy at its end in the most extreme movement it did.

Dipper found his balance. He found that as the monster pulled its head down, it was going to slam him into its neck with a force that would crush even elephants to a pulp. Dipper wound his hand back, preparing for what he thought would be the most well-timed punch he had ever pulled off.

If, he didn’t die from the impact.

The neck was getting closer. Dipper was more prepared than ever, bracing his body for what he thought would hurt the most he had ever.

The last few feet between Dipper and the monster’s neck were erased. Dipper let go of the monster’s fin, and hurled his hand forward.

CRACK!

The loud sound filled the air, the sound of what seemed to be a bone breaking filled the air. Dipper cried out as another wave of pain washed over him.

But it was less of agony, and more of confusion, as the entire neck of the being seemed to be splitting open, almost beheaded by the boy. Dipper caught another fin a few ways down the neck, right above the impact. A sound like pressurised air hissed from the gap in its neck. The being stilled completely, and Dipper came eye to eye with a bright white light emitting from the wound, a single piece of… metal? connecting half the neck to the other half the neck.

The glow in its eye faded, and abruptly, the white light flickered out. With a loud groaning sound, the neck of the monster tilted, towards the island before picking up speed and seeming to be falling towards the two others on the island.

“Move!” Mabel yelled, shoving Soos backwards as half the neck came down on it, Mabel’s height worth of heavy metal came crashing down on them.

Along with Dipper.

As soon as the severed neck was about to crash, Dipper leaped off the being, before tucking into a forward roll, coming up standing, worse for wear.

The face of it slammed down mere inches in front of Mabel who had pushed Soos back and behind her, kicking up dust.

Silence settled as the dust tried hard to, flicking and flowing though the air. As Dipper panted, and Mabel stared, an eerie sense of quiet befell them.

The dust settled.

“It is not an actual monster.” Dipper spoke as he walked towards the other two, crouching down as he reached its eyes. Mabel stepped forward, crouching down next to Dipper, staring at the broken face.

“I thought it wasn’t gonna be.” Mabel said, looking at its busted eye and half blown in jaw. “But seriously, who on earth makes robots without even A SPECK OF GLITTER?”

Dipper chuckled, looking up at Mabel, then looking back at it, experimentally tapping its face. A loud clang! came back from the impact and Dipper continued to look at it.

Dipper looked into the inside of its mouth, staring at the smooth metal in the inside of its throat. It struck Dipper that the craftmanship was gorgeous. Every surface seemed to be covered in beautifully crafted scales, painted individually with varying shades of green. There were no patches or signs of repair, making Dipper even more struck at how realistic it looked.

He wondered how the person who made it had managed to automate it. Was it maybe the author? No, it looked to recent for that. He then frowned. Why would they install a light? Won’t that just waste more energy if it was automated?

A loud gurgle startled him out of his daze, and he turned back to see the monster finally sinking into the lake, large bubbles erupting from its blown open neck.

Mabel stared at it, confused, thinking along the same lines as Dipper as the last of the bubbles finally stopped, and it sunk into the lake.

 Why was there a light inside it? Machines don’t need light to function. The refrigerator functioned perfectly fine at home without a light, it doesn’t need it. Unless…

“The circuitry is not automated.” Dipper spoke, a sense of dread building in his mind.

Mabel looked back to her younger brother, eyes flashing in realisation.

“There’s someone in there!”

“Dudes, what do you mean that there’s someone in there?” Soos entered the conversation, confused.

But it was too late. Mabel was already up and running, tearing off towards the cliff. She pulled off the sweater wrapped around her waist before flinging it off and diving into the lake with a practiced motion.

Dipped sighed. “Damn.” He turned to the older man, knowing that Mabel has probably got the rescue in the bag, but the nagging sense of wanting to protect her wide in his mind.

‘She can protect herself.’ He tried to reason with himself, firmly looking away from the scene.

‘You failed to protect her.’ The voice in his head yelled back.

Dipper sighed, defeated. “Soos, wait here.”

“Dude-“

Before Soos could finish, Dipper had already clambered to his feet, tearing off to the cliff where Mabel had jumped from, pulling off his lucky jacket before jumping in.

Mabel was swimming, and swimming fast. She descended down fast with powerful strokes, eyes wide open and searching.

It had sunk somewhere around where she was swimming towards, but she couldn’t see it. Mabel dimly heard a splash somewhere behind her, but she took no notice, adrenaline thrumming in her mind at the fear of not being able to save whoever inside was drowning.

Suddenly, a particularly greener thing stuck out from the murky water. Bingo.

Mabel rushed towards it, kicking down deeper, swimming to its neck. She peered down the giant hole, in hopes to see something, but found that it was completely dark, blackness seeming to swirl in the darkness.

Mabel looked back, a small sense of disappointment making its way through her chest. Would she have to climb into it?

Mabel steeled her nerves, and just as she was about to climb into the opening, she felt a tap on her shoulder.

Mabel turned to find Dipper floating above her, hair swirling in the current. He motioned Mabel to follow him, and she did, kicking off behind the younger twin. He led her to the body of the machine. As she came close enough to reach it, she saw that at the centre of it, what seemed to be a handle was hidden amongst the scales.

Dipper reached down, planting both of his legs on either side of it, grabbing the handle and pulling hard.

It didn’t budge.

Dipper looked to be almost out of breath, motioning for Mabel to try before kicking up, probably to get a good breath. Lucky for her, Mabel could hold her breath for six whole minutes.

Mabel swam close to it, copying Dipper’s position, before tugging it upwards as hard as possible. A small movement made itself felt by Mabel. She tried again, harder this time, anticipation finally giving way to encouragement.

With two more tugs, the latch came loose, floating upward. Dipper had kicked back down withing this time, and without further ado, swam into the hatch, quickly followed by Mabel.

The girl, from Dipper’s shadow, almost gasped as what she had suspected came true. A hazy figure came into view. Without any further questions, she grabbed one hand of the person, Dipper grabbing the other as they kicked upwards in unison.

Soos was freaking out on the surface. Mabel had been down for almost five minutes, and only Dipper had come up for air, that too very far away from shore. To say that Soos was worried was an understatement.

Mabel had been down long enough for her to have died.

He was crouched on the edge of the cliff, trying to look for any sign of the twins, even Dipper.

It was nearing the six-minute mark that Mabel had been down there, and Dipper was nowhere to be found either.

Suddenly, three figures emerged quite a few ways into the lake, two latched onto the third one, and gasping for breath. The third one was motionless, either passed out or…

The twins reached the ledge, holding up the third unconscious body. Soos quickly grabbed him and pulled the person over the edge easily, watching as Dipper and Mabel pulled themselves up, panting.

As Soos stared at the unconscious person, he knew what to do. He had learned CPR from when he was a kid and his Abuelita had needed help reviving the person she had drowned.

As Dipper and Mabel finally climbed over the top, dragging over their discarded jacket and sweater respectively, they saw the person whom they had saved hacking and coughing, large white beard soaking water into the ground and- wait

“Old man McGucket?” Dipper asked, confusion wild in his tone, eyes blown open in surprise.

“Wha- you- you made this?” Dipper asked disbelief staining his features. The twins had found literally the only person whom Dipper had ruled out as the author- if the author was living. How did he make it? With what resources? Did he do it himself? Did he acutally make it?

“Why?” Mabel asked, equally surprised.

McGucket stopped coughing and randomly screaming “aww heck-duggedy” by the time Mabel asked the question and he looked up at the two.

“Well, I, I, uh,” McGucket looked down, pointing both his pointer fingers together, seeming sheepish.

“I just wanted attention.” McGucket spoke emotionally.

“Elaborate on how- that is if- you actually made that creature.” Dipper said, still confused.

McGucket seemed almost happy to oblidge. “Well, first, I just hootenannied up a biomechanical brainwave generator, then I learned how to operate a stick shift with my beard!”

“Okay, yeah” Mabel said, fiddling with the sweater that she had left at the cliff, still a bit confused. “But… why did you do it?”

“Well,” McGucket took off his moth-eaten brown hat (‘how?’ Mabel thought ‘It was literally stuck to his head when we pulled him out!’) and scratched his bald, stained heard.

“When you get to be an old feller like me, nobody pays any attention to you anymore. My own son hasn’t visited me in months. So, I figured maybe I’d catch his fancy with a fifteen-ton aquatic robut! MUAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHA- hah… hah…” McGucket sighed.

“Eh, in retrospect it seems a bit contrived.” He told the twins, who had sat down on their knees, listening intently with a hint of sadness.

McGucket continued.

“You just don’t know the lengths us old timers go through for a little quality time with our family.”

Dipper pulled out the fishing hat that his Great-Uncle Stan had made for him and Mabel, bright, blue and green letters that spelled “Dippy” suddenly a lot more appealing than he remembered.

Mabel was looking down at hers as well, and the both of them sighed, suddenly saddened at the fact that they had left their Grunkle all on his own.

“Dude” Soos said, looking at them gravely, shirtless.

“I guess the real lake monster is you two, hehe.”

The twins looked at him, sad featured looking up to Soos. Soos, in turn immediately felt guilty. “Sorry dudes, that just, like, boom! Just popped into my head there.”

“Why are you shirtless?” Mabel asked, looking up at the older man.

“Long story dude.”

“Wha-" Dipper started

“So…” Mabel interupted her brother, feeling extremely guilty, and needing to know “Did you ever talk to your son about how you felt?”

“No sir! I got to work straight on the robut. I made LOTS of robuts in my day!

“Like when my wife left me and I created a homicidal Pterodactyl-tron! Or when my pal Ernie didn’t come to my retirement party, and I constructed a eighty-ton SHAME-BOT that EXPLODED the entire downtown area!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA aha!”

Silence.

“Well, time to get back to work on my death ray!”

McGucket stood up immediately, putting his hat back on, and promptly running over to the cliff, and jumping off. He then started swimming ashore.

Mabel sighed. “Well, so much for the photo contest…”

“The people taking the pictures do not know that the monster is fake.” Dipper reasoned.

Mabel brightened up immediately. “Heck yeah! Hamster ball!” Mabel then sobered up. “We should meet up with Grunkle Stan…”

Dipper checked his camera, then turned to his sister. “Well, we have one roll of film left. What do you want to do with it?”

Mabel smiled thoughtfully. “I think I know.”

Tfqe Dorkhib Pqxk…

Stan sighed, the last one on the lake. It was sunset, the lake turning a gorgeous shade of purple, the mountains bathed in an orange-purple light, as the sun dipped into the lake, ready to settle.

Stan didn’t take in the sights, using his motor to steer himself ashore, ready to dock the boat. He really couldn’t make anyone stay, could he?

“Hey! Over here!” Grunkle Stan looked over his shoulder as a female voice called out to him. He saw Mabel and Dipper wave towards him in what looked to be the ruined remains of Soos’ boat, the man himself steering it towards the man.

Stan stopped his boat, and Soos’s came to a stop next to his, Mabel and Dipper smiling at the older man.

“What the… kids?” He said, looking closely at the two. “I thought you two were off playing spin the bottle with Soos.” He accused, angry.

“Well…” Dipper started. “We spent the entire day trying to find a legendary monster.”

Mabel smiled brighter, finishing her brother’s sentence. “But we realized that the only legend we wanna hang out with his right here. She grinned.

Stan didn’t take it.

“Save your sympathy!” Stan exclaimed, waving them off with an angry expression on his face. “I’ve been having a great time without you! Making friends, talking to my reflection- I even had a run in with the lake police!”

“But I have this ankle bracelet now, so I guess that’s pretty fun.”

“Soooo…” Mabel said, stretching out the “o”. “I guess there isn’t room for three more?”

Stan stared at them in an accusatory way, despite their sorry faces. Both Dipper and Mabel put their hats on, despite Dipper’s distain for them.

Stan looked back into his boat, contemplating, “…You knuckleheads ever seen me thread a hook with my eyes closed?”

“I bet you five dollars that you will fail.” Dipper said, lightly challenging the older man.

“You’re on!” Great-Uncle Stan grinned, and Dipper hopped into the boat.

“Five MORE bucks says you can’t do it with your eyes closed, PLUS ME SINGING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS!” Mabel yelled, grinning.

“I like those odds” Grunkle Stan challenged her back as she jumped into the boat, along with a shirtless Soos.

“Whoa.” Stan said, confused as the child-man wore only a child’s life jacket.

“What happened to your shirt?”

“Long story dude.”

“Alright.” Dipper said, pulling out the camera from his jacket. “Everyone, stand together.”

“Say FISHING!” Mabel yelled, as they all repeated the word.

“Dude, am I in the frame?

The camera snapped.

They had quite a bit of fun after that, snapping pictures with the remaining roll of film

One of Mabel climbing up onto Stan's back trying to shut her Grunkle Stan’s eyes as he cheated, looking at the hook he was threading when the challenge was to thread it without looking and Mabel singing in his ears.

One of Stan relaying all of his jokes from his “1001 yuk em ups”, Soos laughing almost maniacally as Dipper’s usual deadpan was more exasperated and Mabel was grinning (as always).

One when his Great-Uncle Stan told him about Manly Dan's cool encounter, telling him about how hard it would be. Dipper then caught a fish by the tail almost immediately after with his bare hands, holding it up with his deadpan expression, just saying “It’s not that hard.”

Another when Mabel tried to one up him, catching one with her mouth, much to almost everyone’s surprise other than Dipper, who just smirked and called her a show-off.

One when Grunkle Stan was putting his hand inside his jacket, standing like a captain with his one knee bent and the other hand on his hip.

One where Grunkle Stan held up Mabel as she cut off Shmabel’s fishing net, the offending child grabbing her pop-pop’s life vest as she complained, her pop-pop unable to say anything, looking distressed.

And the last one from the chase scene that followed, Grunkle Stan desperately thrumming the motor to full speed, Mabel grinning and yelling as Dipper caught his hat as it tried to fly away, letters flying off.

They all rode into the distance, appreciating the gorgeous view of the sunset in front of them. Warm orange bathed them in its light, illuminating the clouds in a watercolour of yellows and oranges, even purples and blues from above the sun.

Stan looked back at the kids and Soos. Maybe it hadn’t always been this much fun, or maybe not all of them had this much of a family before, but in the end, they had come back. That was more than Stan had realised would happen. They had come back, knowing he was sad, and hung out with him, reaching out to try and make a connection

They stood with him like he was worth it to try and make a connection.

It is always worth it to try.