Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Monster falls

The Mystery Shack was finally re-opening. After Little Gideon’s… scheme, it had taken a while to get it back into good shape, but, the day had finally arrived, the grand re-opening.

“Welcome! To the grand re-opening of the mystery shack” Cheers followed this first statement by “Grunkle Stan” as he was known by his great niece and nephew, Mabel and Dipper. “We’re here to celebrate the defeat of that skunk Little Gideon” he said, pulling a doll of the offending irritatingly small person. The crowd boo’d. “No, please, please, boo harder!” he goaded the crowd, and they boo’d harder. “But I didn’t catch that pork chop all alone, these two scamps deserve some-“ at this he was elbowed in the gut by Mabel. “Most, of the glory”. Toby determined, the man who nobody really wanted to be associated with for the reason of being so… indescribably horrifyingly ugly [the show’s technical words, not mine… though he is kind of horrifying] came up to the stage with a cinderblock with a black circle sloppily painted on.

“Smile for the camera” he said, holding it up.

“Your camera’s a cinderblock Toby” Grunkle Stan pointed out in his rough voice.

“I just wanted to be included” Toby said, sounding almost depressed. Shandra Hemenez then appeared from the side, camera crew included.

“Smile for a real camera” she said.

“Everyone say something stupid” Mabel said, fingers on her cheeks.

“Something stupid!” The three of them exclaimed, posing as the camera flashed.

“And don’t forget to come to the after-party tonight at 8” Stan said, holding up a flyer.

“We’re doing a karaoke bonanza people! Lights, music, enchantment, and an amazing karaoke performance by our family band, LOVE PATROL ALPHA!” Mabel cried, pulling the karaoke machine onto the stage and a sheet of paper with the ‘family group’ on it from her pocket. Dipper and Stan both made noises as though they were completely rejecting the idea.

“TOO LATE! I put your names on the list, it’s happening.” She said.

Wendy burst in through the door with an airhorn, letting the sound loose and saying, “Buy a ticket people, you know you have nothing better to do!” She led the crowd out. Stan sighed contentedly.

“Ah, the town loves us, we finally got that Gideon smell out of the carpet, everything is finally going my way” he said, tenting his fingers. Dipper spoke up.

“Hey, Grunkle Stan? Now that we have a moment, could I please have my journal back?” he asked.

“Wha? Journal? Oh, haha, you mean this old thing? It was so boring I could barely get through it” Stan said, pulling it from beneath one of the displays. What Dipper didn’t know was that Stan had in fact been photocopying all of the pages.

“Wait, you’re just gonna give it to me? Just like that?” Dipper asked.

“What else do you want, a kiss on the cheek?” Stan asked semi-mockingly.

“I- I gotta go” the boy said immediately, pulling his sister away.

“I wouldn’t mind a kiss on the cheek” Soos said,

“Not gonna happen Soos.” Stan said grumpily. Dipper took Mabel upstairs, turning off the main light, turning around all of the stuffed animals and closing the blinds. The turned on a small electric lamp.

“Mabel, we’ve gotta talk. Almost losing my journal made me realize that I’m halfway through the summer and still no closer to figuring out the big mysteris of gravity falls. Gideon almost destroyed the town to get this thing, but why?” He said seriously. “Who wrote it? Where are all the other journals? What was Bill talking about when he said everything was going to change? There’s something huge going on right under our noses, we need to stop goofing around and get to the bottom of this” he said, indicating to the book. Mabel stood up.

“Bro, you’ve looked at that thing a bazillion times, there’s nothing left to discover, half the pages are blank, remember?”

“I just feel like we’re missing something, one small thing that’ll solve everything”

“Don’t worry Dipper, Lord Mysteryham is on the case” she said, holding up Waddles, the pig she’d won at a county fair [yeeeeaah, most of this chapter you can just skip, I’ll put where it gets interesting in bold, actually, nah, I’ll just skip to the interesting part, besides, I don’t want to get caught in an accidental lawsuit with Disney somehow]

That night, the party began, after the conversation dipper had had with Mabel two government agents had arrived, supposedly investigating mysterious activities in the towns. Dipper had been a bit enthusiastic about meeting them. He’d been reprimanded by Stan directly after they’d left. He’d promised to not raise the dead after Mabel had said to take a step back from the paranormal stuff.

The music was a bit of a combination between techno and rave. Wendy and Dipper were setting up the posters along with blacklights.

“Yo Dipper, check it out, these blacklights make my teeth look scary” Wendy said, turning on one of the blacklights to reveal her teeth glowing. “It’s like a crime scene in my mouth. Come on, you love it” she finished. Dipper sighed in frustration.

“It’s not fair, finally I meet someone who can help solve the mysteries of this town, and stan confiscates their cards.” He said, slapping a battery into one of the lights. Wendy leaned in conspiratorially.

“Dude, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’m pretty sure Stan keeps like, everything in his room”

“Ugh, if I go into Stan’s room I could get in so much trouble” Dipper said, scratching the side of his face like he was thinking of something.

“Yeah, you’re probably right, that’s what makes it fun, dummy” she said, putting a party hat on his head. Grenda and Candy, two of Mabel’s friends arrived, Grenda destroying the table with the precariously balance ‘stañatas’, Candy picked up some of the sweets on the ground. Mabel hugged the both ecstatically.

Wendy’s group of friends arrived soon after, and, in true fashion, they made Thompson take off his shirt in an attempt to make the party into a rave. The picture got shared to everyone. A steady flow of people were arriving, Lazy Susan, Wendy’s father, the infamous lumberjack, that one guy that everyone knew that said “get ‘im, get ‘im”. Wendy and Dipper were meanwhile at Stan’s room, dipper searched everywhere, in the drawers, the closet, even the treasure chest which seemed to contain exclusively magazines with pictures of women [*gags*]. He soon found the card and called the number. The one with the inability to laugh picked up. Dipper explained that he could show them the journal. They were on their way. The phone call was effectively ended by Grunkle Stan slamming his finger down on the button that would end the call. Wendy had been distracted by the picture of Thompson with his shirt off. To be fair, it is pretty distractingly funny. Stan reprimanded dipper again with Stan saying that Dipper would be grounded after the party was over.

Mabel was going around the party complimenting everyone she saw. The police of course showed up, buuut, with this being Blubs and Durland, they just wanted in. The agents arrived. Dipper was ecstatic to see the agents. They flipped through the book. It didn’t look good, so Dipper did the only thing he could think of. Read one of the spells, of course!

“Corpus Levitus, Diablo Dominus, MONDOVISSIUM!” he cried, his voice echoing ominously on the last word. The ground cracked, lime green smoke [if there’s one thing Disney has taught me, is that lime green is the colour of pure, unadulterated evil] spewed out of the chasm. A rotted hand forced its way out of the hole. The zombie growled threateningly.

“HA! A real, zombie, an actual zombie, see? Spooky Journal, 100% true. Now can we work together?” Dipper asked hopefully.

“Mother of all that Is holy!” the agent with the inability to laugh cried.

“What do we do!?” the other asked.

“It’s just one zombie, trust me, I see stuff like this, all the time” dipper said casually. He wasn’t so laid back later, when the zombie reared itself into his face. The agent with the inability to laugh [that is exhausting to type over and over again] quickly smashed its head in with a rock. Dipper sighed and exclaimed

“Phew, good thing it was just that one” [oh my poor sweet dipper, don’t you know to never say things like that? It just tempts fate to screw you over]. As if on cue, more cracks appeared, zombies spewed out, eyes aglow. The two agents got dragged into the forest by the horde.

The party was going great. Blubs and Durland were on karaoke, people were dancing, until the ground started shaking. Everyone started to panic, everyone started to run. Dipper rounded the corner, sprinting, he stopped, hands on his knees, breathing hard.

“Dipper, what’s the one thing I asked you not to do tonight?” Mabel asked furiously [the mabel equivalent of furiously]

“Raise the dead” Dipper said dejectedly.

“And what did you do?” she asked

“Raise the dead” he repeated in the same tone. They both gasped as the zombies rounded the corner. Soos tried to act as a human shield. He ended up getting bitten. Because he’s Soos.

“Second thought, gonna flip the script” he said, turning to them, eyes glowing, “Can I eat your brains? Yea or nay” he asked, “I’m seeing some Yea faces here.” The twins screamed and ran to the front of the house to see if they could use the golf cart as a way to escape. They could not. Dipper hit one of the zombies in the mouth with one of those multi coloured light discoball things. The zombie swallowed it and got lit up in bright colours from the inside.

“Give it up doods, your fighting only makes us look more rad!” Soos proclaimed, heading the horde [to be honest, they do look pretty sweet]

“What do we do? Where’s Grunkle Stan?” Mabel cried.

“How’s he supposed to help?” Dipper asked. Stan, as it turns out, was in the basement tending to the interdimensional gateway. The kids ran to the other side of the house, Mabel knocked the first zombie that tried to attack them head off with the karaoke machine. Turns out, it was a surprisingly good weapon. The other zombies rushed forward, Dipper and Mabel ran inside, Dipper yelled “We need to border up all the windows!” [yeah, hi, me again, this chapter is basically going to be leading up to the discovery of the whole, monster river thing (that’s kind of a prominent thing in monster falls) so you can just skip this chapter if you like, I’m going to finish it]. They rolled whatever they could move in front of the door, the cupboard, the weird mayan face thing which Stan had for some reason, but, to no avail, the zombies forced their way through the window. It was Soos.

“Hey doods! By the way, I taught the zombies how to get into the fuse box, among these dudes I’m like a genius, hehe.” A zombie crawled past him into the dark of the house. “oh yeah, get those brains dawg!” he encouraged the horde. They were forcing their way in through every exit and entrance by now, Dipper looked in the journal as much as he could to no avail, there was nothing about weaknesses. But, just as he thought that no-one could save them, Stan swung a baseball bat at the zombie holding dipper by the shirt, killing it and stepping on its head, the light behind him creating a new ethereal glow. His overshirt was ripped with claw marks and zombie slime.

“YOU TWO. ATTIC. NOW!” he yelled pointing to the stairs. The twins complied immediately, running upstairs to the space they normally slept in, a blacklight precariously laid on the floor, it’s ghostly purple light lighting up the room. The twins waited a few seconds until they heard a banging on the door. When I opened it revealed their Grunkle, looking exhausted, wearing a pair of brass knuckles. He shut the door behind him.

“Grunkle Stan that was amazing, are you alright?” Dipper asked. He chuckled nervously “hehe, well, at least you can’t deny magic exists anymore, right?”. Stan sighed.

“Kid, I’ve always known” Stan admitted. Dipper was taken aback.

“Wait, what are you talking about?” he asked

“I’m not an idiot Dipper! Of course this town is weird! And the one thing I know about that weirdness is that it’s dangerous.” He didn’t get the chance to completely finish the phrase because a zombie punched its hand through the wall and started grabbing at the air. They all stepped back, “I’ve been lying about it to try to keep you away from it! To try to protect you from it!” a zombie crashed through the triangular window behind them. Stan punched it back down into the crowd. It’s head came off with a sickening crack when it hit the ground. The other zombies looked up.

“What do we do, what do we do?” Mable asked, panicking.

“Normally the journal would say something, but it doesn’t say anything about defeating zombies” dipper said, walking to the right, opening the journal to show that it didn’t show anything, the pages illuminated by the blacklight. In the purple light, luminescent writing appeared. “It’s hopeless” he finished.

“Wait wait wait, the text” Mabel cried, pointing to the glowing white letters. “It’s glowing in the blacklight!”

“What?” dipper said quizzically, turning the book to face him. He held the pages in the blacklight’s illumination. “All this time I thought I knew all the journal’s secrets” he said, flipping through the pages to reveal more information in the glowing ink. “but they’re written in some kind of invisible ink!” he said, the pages he flipped through were covered in information, on one of them, a map with the words ”Fluvius Cantatis were scrawled, the ink pointing to what seemed to be a stream. Dipper took note of it in his mind, that could be important, seeing as Gravity falls was going through something of a dry patch at the moment.

“Invisible ink” Stan echoed, his mind working furiously to think of the secrets he might have missed out on, the possible notes on the interdimensional portal. Dipper flipped back to the zombies page. The white text read

“Zombies have a weakness! Previously thought to be invincible, their skulls can be shattered by a perfect three part harmony” Dipper read this out.

“Three part harmony, how can we create that? I have a naturally high pitched scream” he offered.

“I can make noises with my body, some intentional” Stan said. Mabel cut in.

“Boys, boys, I think you’re both missing the obvious solution” she said. She brought the strangely powerful karaoke system outside. “Hello, hello? Is this thing on?” she said into the microphone, getting the zombies’ attention. They all clambered outside, except for Soos. Soos got distracted by the TV (that our Soos! *sitcom theme plays*). 80s synth started playing on the karaoke system.

“ZOMBIES AND GENTLEMEN!” Mable cried, “I’m Mabel, they’re dipper and Stan and together we are LOVE PATROL ALPHA!!!”

“I never agreed to that name” dipper said instantly. Mabel pointed to the karaoke system with her microphone.

“Hit it!” she ordered. The song “Taking over midnight” started playing. [I am not writing down all of the lyrics to that song.] the singing was ocassionally interrupted by Dipper and Stan griping. Needless to say, the combination of 80s synth and a three part harmony with a yelling 12-year-old girl, a 70 something man and an awkward 12-year-old boy caused mass zombie headsplosions.

Afterward, while they were cleaning up the mess, Dipper said

“I’m sorry about this guys, I totally ruined everything”

“Dipper are you kidding me? I got to sing Karaoke with my two favorite people in the world! No party could ever top that” Mabel said comfortingly. Stan put a hand on their shoulders.

“Kids, listen this town is crazy, so you need to be careful, I don’t know what I’d do with myself if you ever got hurt on my watch. I’ll let ya hold on to the spooky journal, as long as you promise me to only use it for self-defense, and not go looking for trouble.” He told them.

“Okay, as long as you promise me you don’t have any other bombshell secrets about this town.” Dipper replied. Stan held his hand against his back and crossed his fingers.

“Promise” he said.

“Promise” dipper replied, also crossing his fingers.

“Man, we have got a lot of zombie damage to clean up” Stan said, rubbing his head with his hand. “Where’s my handyman anyway?” he asked. Soos stepped out from behind the door.

“Brains, brains” he moaned

“HOLY MOSES!” Stan yelled, picking up a chair. Dipper stopped him before he could kill Soos.

“There’s a page in here about curing zombification” Dipper said, flipping through the book. “It’s gonna take a lot of fermeldahyde” he said, hand on hip. Mabel looked at the page.

“Ooh, and cinnamon” she said.

“Come on Soos, let’s fix you up” Dipper said as Mabel forced Soos out of the room with the chair.

“Brains, brains!” Soos continued to moan

“Come on dude, cut it out” Mabel said, trying to get him out of the door.

“hehe, sorry dood” he replied jokingly. Dipper looked at the book, blacklight in hand.

“Wow, all this time, I can’t believe the author’s secrets were right beneath our noses” he said, turning to the page with the map on it, he made out the words, “change” and “south of the shack I bought”. He’d have to investigate this Fluvius Cantatis thing later. “a whole new chapter of mysteries to explore” he muttered.

Unbeknownst to our main characters, the agents who were dragged off into the darkness of the forest survived, climbing out of a shallow pit.

“That was insane, I’ve never seen anything like it” said the one with the ability to perceive comedy. The one without the ability to perceive comedy, [you know what, screw it, I’m calling the one that can laugh bob and the one that can’t George. If I forget those names I’ll start referring to them as their actual names] “Who do we report to?” he asked, George plucked a zombie’s head off of his shirt.

“This is bigger than we imagined, we need to bring in the big guns” he decided

“But they’ll never believe us” Bob said.

“Then we’ll make them believe us, this is the town we’ve been searching for.” George said, just then, Toby Determined, still holding a bat, still blindfolded, stepped into view,

“AAH! Another zombie!” Bob yelled, pointing at the man.

“Drop your weapon, drop your weapon!” George yelled. Toby removed the blindfold and the agents sighed a breath of relief.

“Oh, it’s okay, it’s just, that guy” Bob said

“A very ugly man” was all you could perceive of George’s sentence at the very end as it overlapped Bob’s.

Chapter Text

Ch.2 To the river

Sometimes you find a movie that’s just so bad that it’s unintentionally hilarious (for examples, stay as far away as you can from M.Night Shyamalan’s films). This was the case with ”Nearly Almost Dead But Not Quite!”, the move that Dipper and Wendy were watching together. One of the main characters, a quote-unquote helpless girl by the name of Trixandra asked the other main character Chadley,

“What do we do Chadley?! I thought they were dead!” she cried in fear.

“Far worse Trixandra, they’re, nearly almost dead but not quite!” He said, his actor obviously trying waaaay too hard to sound dramatic. Trixandra screamed on the screen as the title card got covered by a splatter of blood.

“Man, these movies are a lot less scary when you’ve faced actual zombies” Dipper said, munching on popcorn.

“They’re slow! Just power walk away from them!” Wendy all but shouted at the screen. Dipper elbowed her to get her attention,

“How much you wanna bet that guy dies first” he said jokingly. As if on cue, a chomp sound comes from the screen as Chadley gets eaten.

“Aah, my face is being eaten a lot!” Chadley says directly afterwards. They both burst out laughing,

“Chadley ain’t pretty no more” Wendy muttered, shaking her head. Her phone vibrated for attention, she was getting a call.

“One second” she said, pulling out the phone. She flipped it open and groaned,

“ugh, another text from Robbie” she said.

“oh-ho yeah, Robbie how’s uh, how’s all that goin?” Dipper asked, his voice betraying a hint of nervousness. He shoved a fistful of popcorn into his mouth.

“Ugh, I’m over him, I just wish he was over me” wendy said, turning the phone to dipper, “Just look at these texts”, on the screen is a text from Robbie, ;(. “Winky-frown? What does that even mean?” she asked. Dipper looked away sheepishly.

“And you’re not” he coughs into his hand, “not like, seeing any other guys, or”

“Of course I am, meet my new boyfriend dude” she says, pulling over one of the stuffed animals on her bed, a plush walrus with a top hat. It squeaks when she pulls it close, totally poker-faced. Dipper laughed nervously.

“Haha, right right, so, whew, you know I was wondering if maybe you wanted to, I mean, if-if you and me would ever, I mean if maybe you,” dipper begins, but he loses all of his courage and sighs “maybe wanted to come with Mabel, Soos and I to this river I read about in the journal, conspiracy stuff, plus the town’s been pretty low on water recently so… yeah” he said, eyes downcast.

“yeah dude, I love doin junk with friends” she said, oblivious to dipper’s seeming disappointment. “Yo Chadley watch out!” she yelled at the screen, a girlish scream comes from the tv’s speakers. They both laugh, Dipper sounding a bit sheepish.

“yep, ‘cause that’s what we are.” He said, pulling a folded piece of yellowed paper from his pocket, it was a note admitting his feelings for Wendy “that’s all I’ll ever be” he says quietly. He crumples the note into a ball and stuffs it in his pocket. He flops backward onto the bed. “Friends”

“Dude, you’re laying on my bra” Wendy said, Dipper reacted as I picture most 12-year-olds reacting, he all but jumps off.

The Mystery Shack was getting rebuilt for the second time in a month. The zombies had done pretty substantial damage to the place.

“Hey be careful with that, that’s genuine plastic!” Stan yelled at the construction workers as they hauled up the totem pole. “And re-pave the cracks in the parking lot while you’re at it, I don’t want my car falling to China” he said, looking into one of the leftover cracks from the zombies.

“Mr Pines, what exactly caused all this damage?” The man leading the construction asked Stan, holding a clipboard. “I need to write a report” he said, clicking the attached pen.

“Uh, big woodpecker.” Stan said quickly. The entrance to the gift shop promptly collapsed. “Keep the change” he said, holding up a wad of money and stuffing it into the supervisor’s pocket. “I’m winking under my eyepatch” he said, pointing at the piece of leather over his perfectly functioning eye.

“Works for me” the supervisor said, walking away as Stan moved the patch upward so that it didn’t cover his eye anymore.

“Now where did those kids run off to?” he asked to the air.

Meanwhile, deep in the woods, by a babbling brook three quarters of a mile or so south from the Mystery Shack, Dipper tapped a pen on the side of his lantern.

“Alright people, this behind us is the Fluvius Cantatis. According to the journal, it’s waters can change the form of things based on their personality. However, this effect is only achieved if enough of it is consumed in one go, or if it were to flood or… something” Dipper said, raising his voice slightly in order to be heard over the rushing waters.

“So why are we here then bro-bro?” Mabel asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Yeah dude, I don’t like the sound of that, doesn’t really sound like something we should be drinking” Wendy said, looking concerned. Dipper waved his hand in a dismissive fashion.

“Pshhh, it says that this’ll only happen if too much is consumed at once, a small dip should be harmless, besides, it’s boiling today” he said, turning to the water and grinning. Wendy, Mabel and Soos all looked at each other, this was not like Dipper at all. He never dismissed something potentially dangerous like that. And yet, there he was, standing at the bank of the river, looking out at it, grinning, nearly maniacally, his lips stretched over his teeth. The colour drained from the world, turning everything black and white. They looked around in horror. They heard maniacally familiar laughter coming from Dipper’s direction. A familiar yellow triangle demon materialized above Dipper’s head. Bill.

“What’s up, shooting star, question mark, red?” He asked them, twirling his cane nonchalantly. They all took a step back.

“Bill. What did you do to my brother!?” Mabel yelled, looking as if she would like nothing better than to rip out Cipher’s eyeball right then.

“Woah, calm down Shooting Star, I’m just borrowing Pine Tree over here, it’s only a partial possession, I can do it to nearly anyone, i'm just using him while he's asleep. I’m going to take this opportunity, I wasn’t able to find the Fluvius Cantatis for so long, but now, thanks to you meatsacks, you lead me straight to it.” The triangular dream demon said. Dipper was standing there like a marionette with the puppeteer having put his strings on a stand, just… hanging there.

“So? What do you want with the stupid river?” Wendy growled.

“Oh, I’m just going to flood then entire town so you can never show your faces outside of Gravity Falls again.” Bill said. The next few minutes passed in a blur. The colour returned to the world, and Dipper/Bill started started to chant the words “fluidus momentum! Aqua resurgemus! Flumen Redundantiam, Flumen Redundantiam!” could be made out as the river started to flow faster and faster, and after a few seconds a muddy wave rushed through the forest and town. The water level sank, and Bill/Dipper stood up, soaked through. He removed his shirt. He searched for Wendy’s unconscious form. He found her axe. He snapped the blade so that it looked more akin to a knife. He held the knife to his own chest and carved a triangle with an eye in the center, laughing all the while. Pain is hilarious after all. But he wasn’t done yet. He then pulled out the journal, blood flowing freely down his torso. He dipped his finger in the blood, opened the book to the page containing the zodiac used to willingly summon the dream demon. His finger started moving with staggering speed, making drawings in the book, superimposing the images over the already existing ones in the zodiac. The question mark, replaced by a dripping faucet, the ice bag, replaced with a howling wolf’s head, the symbol on Stan’s fez, replaced with a demonic wing, the pine tree, replaced by the head of a stag, the pentagram with an eye in it replaced with a bat, the six fingered hand got covered by a six clawed paw, the llama covered by a snake’s tail dropping off of the page, the shooting star got superimposed by the tail of a fish, the heart with a stitch in it got replaced by a vividly detailed bleeding skull, finally, the spectacles, overlaid in blood by a feathered wing. Bill finally released control of the boy and his body slumped to the ground. The buildings remained undamaged. The only things affected by the raging waters were the people of Gravity Falls.

Chapter Text

After the flood

The people unconscious by the river were found soon after by people foraging and searching for any possible fatalities. There hadn’t been any fatalities, but they saw that the boy was bleeding, a symbol of a triangle with an eye in the center carved into his chest. They were taken back to the place where people knew they lived and worked. The Mystery Shack. The water from the flash flood had gotten everywhere, even inside the Northwest mansion. But, strangely enough, the mysterious flood hadn’t damaged any property, no paintings ran from the walls, no food got soaked, nothing, it seemed to have only affected the people, the only evidence the flood had even happened were the people, most of the lying unconscious in the street, some still conscious, all were soaked.

The boy’s wounds were wrapped heavily in bandages. Little did the town know what would happen next would change everything.

Hours later, the unconscious woke up. Dipper snapped to consciousness. His mind flashed back to the feeling of Bill using his body like a puppet against his will. He frowned, that wasn’t how possession worked, was it? Something felt off about his body. He tried to roll out of the bed. He tried to swing his legs over the edge of the bed first and instead fell to the floor with a heavy thump.

“Ow” he groaned, rubbing his head. He looked down at his legs. All four of them… That was when he started screaming. He tried to crawl away backwards, the deer legs just thrashed, the weirdest part of it was that he could feel the floor beneath the cervine body, the fur on which was tawny with white spots in the same pattern as his birthmark, the big dipper, only without the lines. He held his head in his hands, breathing rapidly. This couldn’t be happening, what had happened by the river? Bill had overtaken him, that much he knew, then the details started leaking back into his memory. Bill had made him flood the town. He looked around wildly, standing himself up on his hands, he spots the journal on the bedside table. He grabs it and flips the pages, murmuring to himself,

“where is it, where is it?” he found the page he was looking for, the page with Bill’s diagram. The symbols were painted over in blood. His ears flicked in irritation. Wait, what? His hands slowly moved up his neck, up to his ears. They were long, soft, covered in fur, and highly mobile. Somehow this didn’t surprise him as much as it should have. The surprise was probably blocked out by the fact that he was now some sort of centaur. Dipper decided to stop touching his ears, he turned his attention back to the book. Strangely enough the pages didn’t seem to be damaged by his blood, it had stayed on one page in a fashion similar to the ink. He furrowed his brow. Had Bill done something to his blood to change its consistency? Things to be investigated later, for now he had to a) check on his sister, and b) try to walk. He turned his head to look at the other bed. Mabel did indeed lie in it. He breathed a mental sigh of relief. He focused on her ears, they were pointed, large and slightly purple at the tips. There were small slits in her neck which Dipper recognized as gills. He blanched, she wouldn’t be able to breathe like this. He channeled his mental energy toward commanding his legs to move properly. He managed to stand himself up. His hooves clopped on the wooden floor. He took a few experimental steps. He walked over to his sisters’ bed, removing the covers, there were similar slits on her torso. He hooked his arms under her body, ignoring the long fish-like tail she now had instead of legs. He hoped that the water would revitalize her. He carried her to the bathroom and turned on the shower at full blast. The tub beneath filled quickly and he dumped her in with a splash. Her eyes snapped open. She took a deep “breath”.

“Dipper? What’s going on?” She asked drowsily, poking her head above the surface. He hugged her tightly. He released her awkwardly, her expression was quizzical, more serious than usual. She looked around.

“Why are we in the bathroom?” She asked. She then saw what used to be her legs. She squealed in joy. “OH MY GOSH I’M A MERMAID!!!”. A typical Mabel-esque reaction. Evidently Stan had heard both the sound of running water, Mabel’s squeal and Dipper’s new hooves. They weren’t the only ones that had changed. A grey form moved into the bathroom, a being of stone with glowing yellow eyes, a familiar undershirt, familiar boxers and a familiar gravelly voice.

“What’s going on- woah, what happened to you two?” the voice said. The twins yelled in fear, the being in the doorway had very sharp teeth. He clutched his ears, wincing. “Shaddup will ya?” the gargoyle roared. They shut up.

“Grunkle Stan?” Dipper asked, voice high with fear.

“Yeah, what’s it to you? Why do you have two torsos kid?” Stan asked.

“Have you seen yourself?” Dipper asked sarcastically.

“Yeah, I was made of stone when I woke up, how could I not notice what happened” Stan said.

“It must have been the river, the journal doesn’t say anything about any witches with enough power to do this, what was it called again? Fluvius Cantatis? What does that translate to” Dipper murmured.

“Fluvius Cantatis translates to The enchanted river, kid, did you seriously go to that hoaky river?” Stan asked.

“Grunkle Stan it’s not his fault, Bill-” Mabel started

“BILL? DID THAT LITTLE DORITO DO THIS??!??” Stan roared. Dipper cowered. Stan seemingly calmed down. “Sorry, but that makes sense, only he’d be powerful enough to do this” Stan muttered.

“Wait, you know about Bill?” Dipper asked in amazement.

“Kid, I read that entire journal, plus, that little demon was in my brain when Gideon stole the deed to the Shack, of course I know who he is” Stan said, it was really difficult to know who exactly he was talking to, his eyes were solid orbs of glowing yellow. His body really was huge, his wings filled the doorway, his tail tapping against the floor in irritation. Dipper’s mind slammed to a halt.

“Wait, what about Soos and Wendy? Are- are they-”

“They’re… mostly fine. It seems that none of us were spared from the effects of the water.” Stan said, reassuring the boy.

“Where are they?” Dipper asked.

“They’re downstairs, they’re still unconscious. It’s… it’s not pretty” Stan said, head sinking, eyes down in shame. Dipper stepped toward the door.

“Could- could I see them?” he asked.

“Dipdop! Get the fishtank!” Mabel called as Dipper stepped out of the bathroom, squeezing his way past his Grunkle who’d movewd out of the way once he asked if he could see his other friends in the Shack. Before the boy could go down the stairs Stan called

“Kid, put on a shirt, those bandages are unpleasant to look at”. The boy blushed sheepishly and pulled a shirt from the floor with a little difficulty. His spine must look like a jigsaw puzzle. He looked down the stairs. He put his hand under his chin as if he was scheming. How do quadrupeds get down stairs? He experimentally put a hoof on one step. Then he put another on the next step. He moved his forelegs on the steps in sequence, when his hind legs met the stairs he did the same. He moved down the stairs smoothly. He got to the bottom floor. Wendy and Soos were sleeping on couches. Stan had been right, it was not pretty. Soos looked like a blob in the shape of Soos, he looked slimy, almost rounded at the edges, like he was softening. Dipper walked over to him and touched his stomach hesitantly. His finger sank in slightly, leaving a small dent. The texture was indescribably strange, Dipper would have to do some research later. He turned to the other couch. Wendy at least still had two legs. And a tail, and paws, and a snout, and crimson fur all over her body. She looked like she still walked on two legs, only while looking like a giant wolf. Dipper felt awful. This was his fault. He was the one that’d found the river in the book, he was the one that had gotten possessed, he was the one that had incited the river to flood. He had at least been able to influence it so that it would fuel the town’s drinking water, but that hardly outweighed the fact that he’d caused… this. He was dimly aware of picking up the fish tank and hauling it up the stairs. Mabel had jumped into it as soon as it was filled with water. Stan carried her downstairs. Mabel had squealed when she saw Wendy and Soos. She was definitely the literal image of an eternal optimist.

“Ohmygosh, her fur is so soft!” She cried, scratching Wendy behind the ears. She started to growl in the back of her throat in contentment. Mabel’s gaze snapped to Dipper’s own fuzzy ears. “Dipper, get over here” She said. He clopped over.

“Yeah?” quick as a flash, she reached out of the tank and secured her hands behind his ears. She started to move her fingers. And he collapsed, eyes glazing over in contentment. As suddenly as it started she stopped, laughing so hard she flopped back into the tank, some water splashing over the side, onto the carpet. Dipper pulled the journal from his jacket after standing up and clopping over to the other side of the room, he needed to concentrate. He flipped through the book, he found pages, cervitaur, gargoyle, slime, werewolf, mermaid. He read up on the various species of “monster” which he suspected the rest of the townsfolk had been turned into. He stopped turning when he saw a drawing of a seemingly inconspicuous tree. He narrowed his eyes and pulled out the blacklight. The blacklight revealed what looked like a staircase spiraling around the trunk, leading into a cavernous area with the words prepare for the end written in it, including a drawing of a stick person in the middle. A bunker maybe? He at least now knew what he was going to do tomorrow. He announced these plans to Mabel and Stan. Mabel, with her current leg situation, wouldn’t be able to go with them, but Soos, Wendy and Stan should be able. They roused Wendy and Soos to consciousness. They both agreed.

Chapter Text

Into the bunker.

Dipper stood once again with a lantern, clicking a pen on the side of it to get attention, it was night this time, a new moon in the sky. This was nastily like the river… he shook his head to get the thought out of his mind. He looked to the small gathering in front of him. A slime-man, and his great uncle the gargoyle, the anthropomorphic wolf that used to be his crush wasn’t there yet. He looked down at his own cervine legs. He hadn’t gone into town yet, he wouldn’t be able to face everyone for a while yet. They were by the tree where he’d first found the journal, how long ago was that? (I’m genuinely asking, does anyone know?).

“Thank you all for coming,” He started.

“Kid, get to it already, I don’t exactly have time to waste ‘till sunrise” Stan said impatiently, the old gargoyle was right, if the sun touched him he was stuck as a statue until nightfall.

“Yeah dood, I can’t wait to get into this bunker” Soos said, wobbling with excitement.

“We’re here to solve the number one mystery in Gravity Falls. Who wrote this journal?” He asked, pulling the book out of his jacket. Little did he know that Stan was thinking Man, that kid really does take after you pointdexter, should I tell him that you’re not down there? Naah, let him have his fun, Dipper continued “30 years ago the author vanished without a trace, but according to this new clue we may have found his secret hiding place” He said, shining the ethereal purple light over the page with the tree on it, we find that author, we learn the answers to everything, we just need to figure out a way to get down there.” He said. A shadow loomed behind him.

“Chop it down dudes!” The shadow said and Dipper jumped about five feet into the air, emitting an embarrassing bleat of fear. He turned to look at the wolf, he hadn’t even smelled her coming, impressive.

“Not funny Wendy!” he yelled. The wolf was practically rolling on the floor.

“Yes it was!” She wheezed. The others were clearly suppressing laughs of their own. Once the laughter had subsided she stood up straight. “You know I love going on adventures with you guys, beats picking up after my dad at home, seriously, he’s a freaking minotaur or something now, his horns have already made like, six holes in the floor. Anyway, I brought my axe just in case of something like this dude” She said, pulling an axe from its holster on her belt. They looked up the tree. Dipper still looked hurt. Stan pulled him aside while Soos and Wendy tried to figure out how to get underneath the tree.

“Kid, listen to me, I’ve seen how you look at Wendy, is there something you wanna talk about?” He asked sincerely.

“It’s just… that thing was going nowhere before, and look at it now, she’s a wolf, I’m basically a deer, there’s a risk of her eating me when the full moon rolls around, heck, we don’t even know if she goes berserk with the full moon, I just… it’s complicated Grunkle Stan” The boy said quietly. He didn’t notice Wendy’s ear perk up, advantages of lycanthropy, lupine hearing. She looked away in shame. Her nose picked up a faint metallic scent on the wind. She closed her eyes and directed her snout upward. Stan stood up straight and focused on one of the higher branches.

“Hey kid, doesn’t that branch look like it’s made of metal?” Stan asked, pointing to said branch. Dipper squinted in the darkness.

“Wait, how can you see that?” He asked.

“I’m a creature of the night kid, I can see well in the dark” Stan said pointedly.

“but how do we get up there?” Dipper asked.

“I think I could stretch my body up there dood” Soos offered. He started to stretch his body elastically. He couldn’t reach it, but he reared up to a good 13 feet or so in height, albeit thin. Dipper looked at Stan.

“You have wings, could you fly up there?” He asked.

“No kid, I got these thing less than a day ago, you think I know how to use them?” The gargoyle said sarcastically. Wendy was the one who had the solution in the end. While Dipper and Stan were bickering she tied her belt around the trunk of the tree and leaned into it, providing support for herself. She removed the leather blade guard from the axe. She spun it around in her hand a few times and whacked the branch. It was indeed made of metal, and it was a secret lever.

“Boosh” She said, looking down at them, a cocky grin on her face.

“Woah” Dipper and Soos said simultaneously, Stan just whistled appreciatively.

“Yeah, my dad used to make me compete in these lumberjack games when I was a kid, guess I kind of ruled at it” She said as the tree began to rumble. “Woah, woah, what is that?!” She cried as her belt tore, she plummeted to the ground, landing on a bush. They dragged her back from the ground receding around the tree, forming a pit with strange metal nubs in a corkscrew pattern going downward and after the ground stopped shaking planks of wood shot from the nubs, forming stairs, with a hydraulic hiss a section of the tree slid upwards to reveal a shadowy place which they couldn’t see.

“Alright guys, this is it, remember, whatever happens down there, we tell no one” Stan nodded, Soos saluted so hard that his hand melded with his head and Wendy made a zipping gesture across her canine lips. “Now who wants to go first?” he asked, holding up the lantern.

They walked down the stairs in single file, Soos at the back, preceded by Stan, preceded by Wendy, with Dipper in the lead. Going was slow due to… bodily complications. These included some of Soos almost falling off him and dripping into the darkness below them, Stan’s wings and tail, Wendy’s tail and claws and Dipper’s hooves. They got to the bottom of the stairs eventually though, they opened into a large room with gas masks, lockers and a poster saying Warning – Fallout Shelter on it. Stan’s face was impassive.

“Woah” Dipper remarked

“Cool” Soos said

“Dude, this is so stupid cool” Wendy chuckled.

“It’s like a fallout shelter or something” Dipper said softly

“Kid, it is a fallout shelter” Stan said, holding his tongue before he could blurt Stanford must have made it before he made the portal

“Right, it must have belonged to the author” Dipper said, somewhat sheepishly. Wendy ripped the fallout shelter poster from the wall, dusting it off with her hand.

“Welp, this is goin over my bed” She said happily. Stan peeked into one of the barrels and recoiled. It was filled with caterpillars.

“This is incredible, it’s like he was preparing for a disaster, but what kind of disaster would need supplies for 60 years?” He asked, looking up at the rows of boxes with dates marked on them, going from 2010 to 2070. Soos opened the cabinet marked “Weapons”. He gasped

“Oh my gosh” He said, looking past the knives, axe, machete, pistol and shotgun and several tons of TNT, he reached in and pulled something out, a cuboid plastic container with the head of a dog on it. “A SMEZ dispenser, I remember these things!” he held the contraption close to his ear “what’s that? Yes I will have some of your old timey face food” He said, flipping the head upward, dispensing one of the small pink candies. He put it into his mouth where it was instantly encompassed by slime. His body rippled as he recoiled in disgust. “Ew, dusty” He said, taking another.

“Wait, guys” Dipper whispered, picking up a can of beans from the floor. “I think this can was opened recently.”

“The author might still be alive down here!” Soos said, hopes clearly rising. It was all Stan could do to not cram his fist in his mouth to stop himself from speaking.

“Wait a minute” Wendy said, sniffing. Her nose lead her to a map of the town, there was a breeze moving it from behind. She tore the map off the wall to reveal an access hatch with the words Caution – stay out Stenciled around the bit that turned to unlock it (anyone know what that’s called?). She pulled it open. “I think I know where he might’ve gone” She said, smiling devilishly. Dipper recoiled slightly at the sight of her canines (does that count as a pun? I don’t know whether that counts as a pun). They all said “Woah”, even Stan! Crawling through the pipe was… challenging, for the same reasons as the stairs. It was easy enough for Soos and Wendy, She was flexible and thin enough to easily crawl through it and Soos just sort of… flowed through it. For Stan and Dipper though, their extremities made small spaces difficult. Turned out, Dipper’s spine could go completely straight, his legs weren’t quite as flexible, but he made it through. For Stan though, his large wings and long tail meant he was constantly bumping against the walls of the pipe. The pipe ended in a large cubic room tiled in rusty squares. It clearly hadn’t been disturbed in a while.

“Oh man, was this place built in the past or in the future?” Wendy asked incredulously, stepping over the tile with the triangle on it. Soos scooted around the tile. As Dipper and Stan left the pipe they looked around warily.

“This room is way creepy” Soos remarked.

“Not as creepy as the kid’s internet history, yeesh” Stan said, pushing the boy forward, laughing. That turned out to be a mistake as one of Dipper’s hooves landed precisely on the tile with the triangle on it. The tile sank, a button, and the pipe’s entrance slammed shut. The sigils on the tiles lit up with an eerie red light, Stan started to look around in a panic, recognizing one of the symbols, the one in black on his wing twinged painfully. They all started panicking, looking around as some of the tiles began to extend, starting to make the room even smaller that it already was. They tried to push against the extending blocks, their movement was relentless.

“DIPPER! What do we do?!” Stan yelled. He flipped through the pages nervously, landing on one that said “Security room”, it looked like a layout of the room they were in. He pulled out the black light, four of the sigils were illuminated in white ink. He showed them to the rest of the group.

“Find these four symbols, quick, everybody step on one!” He cried. They started to look around. Soos found the first one, punching it, it sank and turned blue. Wendy found the next, jumping on it. Stan found the third, whapping it with his tail, Dipper looked around furiously for the fourth, he saw it, it was almost covered by another two blocks, he managed to hit it just in time, the door on the other side of the room unlocked and they all rushed to get through it. They were all still in one piece.

Sixer, what were you thinking? Why did you have that as a security measure??? Stan thought furiously.

“That was, whoo, that was nuts!” Wendy said, adrenaline still pumping through her veins. She punched Dipper in the shoulder, “You ruled back there man” He laughed nervously,

“hehe, thanks” he said sheepishly.

“Get a load of this crazy surveillance room” Wendy said, walking deeper into the room. Soos walked over to the shelves filled with flasks. He squished parts of his face into them.

“Hey guys, check this out” He said, turning to show them that he’d squiged his eyes into the flasks, he opened his mouth (I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE ONOMATOPEIA IS FOR THE SOUND THAT HE MAKES!!!!) and made a strange gargling sound with his tongue. It was hilarious. Wendy pointed at him.

“Soos. Soos. That is hilarious”

“Kid, you forgot your vest” Stan said, walking over to the door which was sealed with interlocking bricks of metal. He yanked it free and a small crumpled ball of paper fell out of one of the pockets. He bent down and picked it up, uncrumpling it. It was Dipper’s confession to Wendy. He gasped. Then thought about it. It was kind of obvious to Stan. While he was thinking though, he felt something prodding at the back of his mind. He recalled something he’d read in the journal, something about gargoyles being territorial or something, he could feel that something, or rather, someone, was missing. Mabel. She’d somehow managed to get off the property. He turned back to the door, still sealed shut. He swore in his brain, what’d happened to her?

Mabel, had managed to get off the property by putting wheels under the tank and rolling herself away with a stick. She had someone to find. Or rather, two someones. She went into Gravity Falls. There were still people roaming the streets. She was amazed at the sheer variety of transformations, Lazy Susan was now some kind of cat… thing. Mabel had to actively resist the urge to go up to her and see if the scratching behind the ears thing worked on her like it had with Dipper and Wendy. She shook herself and started rolling slowly but surely to Grenda’s house. She knocked on the door. Her friend answered it, it was… semi-inexplicable, she was some sort of octopus from the waist down, human from the waist up. She looked down and saw Mabel in the tank. She reached in with a squeal (as best as Grenda can squeal) and hugged her friend closely. (sorry, I got distracted by what Mabel would do in this situation, now, back to the story)

While Mabel was rolling herself to Grenda’s house, Stan shook his head, clearing it. He looked back down at the note. It was… pitiable to be honest, the kid was terrified of admitting his feelings. Stan pulled the boy aside.

“Hey kid, look what I found in your jacket” Stan said quietly, holding up the note. Dipper gasped quietly.

“Ah, what are you- give me that” He said, tearing the note away from the gargoyle’s claws.

“Yeesh kid, you really couldn’t have been more obvious, I’m like, 63, I see things, and I’m not deaf, I hear you muttering to yourself. You’re not over her at all, are you? When were you planning to tell her?” he asked. Dipper sighed.

“ I was going to tell her before we went to the river but I lost my nerve. It was a bad idea, I’d just embarrass myself and then I’d be just another guy she hates like Robbie.” Dipper blurted.

“Who’s Robbie? Is that that kid who tried to hypnotize her? Anyway, kid, you need to tell her, otherwise this’ll just eat at you, and I don’t mean in the way that she could eat you, heyoo!”

“Look, Grunkle Stan, I can’t tell her, no matter how much I want to, so just… drop it, please” Dipper said, turning away. The gargoyle shook his head yeesh, this is just sad, I can’t let the kid beat himself up like this. I need to do something about it. Sure, it might destroy his trust in me forever, but, I’m his Grunkle, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t trust me anyway He thought.

After Dipper turned away from Stan, Wendy called him over to this closet-ish space she’d found. Soos was spinning on a chair. Because soos.

“I am a robot. I have a metal closet. Beep, boop” Wendy said in a robotic voice, standing in the “closet” and moving like a robot (?) (writing is tough sometimes, okay?).

“Coming!” Dipper called. He turned back to Stan.

“This conversation never happened” he whispered to Stan. Stan then had a thought. I should push him in (Stanley pines, ladies and gentlemen). As Dipper was walking toward the small space, Stan came up behind him and put his hand on the boy’s (I swear, I will start referring to him as the cervitaur in the next chapter)shoulder.

“Kid, whatever happens, I just want you to know something. This is for your own good” Stan said, and before Dipper had time to question him, Stan pushed him into the space and closed the door.

The space, oddly enough, was very tight, Dipper was forced to stand on his hind legs just so that his bottom half didn’t fold. He didn’t notice his hooves digging into Wendy’s torso. Rather painfully, as a matter of fact, deer hooves are sharp! He tried to pivot his body around to get to the door, Wendy was wedged between his back and the wall now, at least the hooves weren’t stabbing her now. Dipper started pounding on the door.

“Grunkle Stan! Let us out!” Dipper yelled.

“Oh I’ll let you out Dipper, just as soon as you tell Wendy that thing you’ve been meaning to tell her!” Stan yelled through the door. “You’ll thank me for this later!” He added, Dipper rested his hooves against the door and sighed.

“What is he talking about?” Wendy asked, leaning in next to Dipper’s ear. He jumped, not literally, since space was so tight in the closet, but he was still startled.

“Oh you know, just… old man stuff, he’s probably losing his marbles” Dipper said nervously. On the other side of the door Stan huffed.

“I might lose my glasses sometimes, but that doesn’t mean these marbles have rolled away kid” He said through the door. Dipper pounded on the door.

“LET ME OUT RIGHT NOW!!!” He yelled.

“Okay, dude, real talk, your body is seriously getting in the way right now, I’m going to turn on the lights to see if we can get out of here from the inside” She said, pushing his away slightly, noticing the hanging chain thing in the middle of the closet, almost like one of those pull to turn on light things. It was not. When she pulled it, water sprayed from the ceiling, soaking both of them. They both cried out in shock. After the water subsided a blast of hot air shot from the nozzles on the doors, pushing them against one another. There was a low beep, accompanied by a red light, the source of which was a sign above the door which said ‘decontamination complete’. The door on the other side, slid open to reveal what looked like a subterranean lab, large glass tubes cracked open. The lights flickered ominously.

“Woah, a hidden lab” Dipper said, extricating himself from the closet and walking forwards . “Maybe the author did experiments down here” They looked around, the walls were covered in holes leading to tunnels.

“Huh, what do you think made these?” Wendy asked, crouching till she was level with one of the holes.

“Let’s hope we don’t find out” Dipper said, doubt in his voice. Then, from all or one of the holes in the cave wall opposite them, a strange gurgling, bellowing sound was heard. An insectoid shape, a head complete with antennae slowly started emerging from behind one of the stalactites. It was massive, which made the ensuing screams all the more reasonable. They ran back to the decontamination room and resumed pounding on the door.

“Grunkle Stan! Open up, for real, there’s a monster in here!” Dipper yelled.

“Nice try kid, the only monster in there are your own inner demons.” Stan called back.

“That is so wise” Soos said, nodding sagely. The shape was emerging from one of the tunnels.

“Dipper, just say whatever Stan wants you to say so he’ll let us out!” Wendy implored him.

“Come on kid, now’s the time!” Stan said through the door. Wendy looked at him balefully.

“Wendy, I, I, I’m gonna find another way out” He said, grabbing her wrist, almost considering throwing her onto his back but thought better of it because, well, his lower half was that of a fawn, maybe one that was almost onto maturity, he wasn’t sure, but there was no doubt in his mind that his spine wouldn’t be able to handle the wolf’s weight. He lead her away, her protests falling on deaf ears. The creature was following them now, it’s legs scuttling along the ground, it’s bellows could be heard through the entire cave, but were blocked by the heavy iron door leading to the observation room. They ran until they met a dead end. They were gasping, sweating

“What do we do?” Wendy asked, clearly panicking.

“I don’t know” Dipper said, equally scared. They could see the creature’s full shadow now, it reared up on many legs, ready to turn the corner. But, just in the nick of time, a figure seemed to attack the creature, jumping on its back, punching it repeatedly, soon thereafter ripping out its tongue. It shrieked as it retreated back down the tunnel.

“Back, back you heinous beast!” The figure yelled after the retreating creature. The figure rounded the corner, boots heavy upon the ground. The man was wearing a brown trenchcoat, with a reasonably well shaven chin and a moustache, hair all grey. He was panting, the creature’s tongue in hand. “Welp, I just ripped out a monster’s tongue” He threw the organ on the ground with a wet splash, it was still oozing green mucus.

“It- it’s you” Dipper said, incredulous.

“Hurry now, I scared it off, but it’ll regenerate.” The man said, running down the tunnel. They decided to follow. The next area had a shallow layer of water which splashed around their ankles as they walked.

“I wasn’t expecting guests” The man said, “I’ve been down here for a very long time, years” He said, turning around to face them on the last word. “Weeks maybe, I miss orange juice” he said

“You don’t understand, you’re the guy I’ve been looking for” Dipper said, ecstatic.

“he’s the guy?” Wendy asked.

“Wendy, it’s the guy!” Dipper cried.

“The guy?” The man asked inquisitively.

“I’ve got like, a million questions. Why did you write the journals, who was after you, why did you build this bunker” He spouted questions incessantly.

“Heh, my boy, I’d love to discuss this in time, but we have more pressing matters. It’s one of my experiments” The ‘author’ said. “A shapeshifter, able to take the form of anyone or anything it sees, it broke free from a cage of solid steel, I’ve gone half-crazy trying to catch it alone” the man said, pointing to a broken cage. “But now you’re here” He said, the tone of his voice brightening. “Will you help me catch it?” He asked the cervitaur, raising his goggles. Dipper gasped, pupils widening till they filled like, three quarters of his eyes.

Stan and Soos were still in the observation room. Soos pulled on a lab coat.

“Sure are taking their time in there” He observed. He picked up a briefcase. “Hey, Mr Pines, do I look smarter with this coat and briefcase? I feel like I look smarter” He asked Stan.

“No” Stan replied. The gargoyle wandered over to one of the control panels. He looked at the screen. He frowned, pressing one of the buttons. The screen was occupied by one of the tubes, when he pressed the button, the tube seemed to fill with ice. He pressed the button experimentally. When he pressed it the second time, the tube emptied instantly. How did you even get this to work pointdexter? Stan thought. He looked next to the button, a clipboard saying

Experiment #210 – “The Shape Shifter” – became too Dangerous! - placed in cryogenic stasis

“experiment number Two-Ten, the Shape Shifter” The gargoyle read aloud.

“The shape shifter. Uh, Mr Pines, didn’t Dipper say there was a monster in there with them?” Soos asked. Stan blanched, well, as well as he could, the stone that constituted his face turned slightly paler. He poked around in the back of his mind again, it seemed he could keep tabs on everyone that was regularly in the shack, he could tell whether they were in danger, or safe. He knew this because he could distinguish between Soos, Himself, Mabel (who, while she had gone off the property, didn’t mean he didn’t know her “danger status”) who were all safe, and two other signals, Dipper and Wendy. They were both in immediate danger.

“Damn it, I thought the kid was joking!” He cried, standing.

“YOU KNOW DIPPER’S JOKES ARE TERRIBLE!” Soos cried, rolling over to the door and trying to force it open. It went straight through his hands.

On the other side of the door, within the caves, the man who identified himself as the intrepid author, pushed aside a raggedy sheet which served as a curtain,

“Come in, come in” He said breezily. “I apologize for the state of things. I don’t get many non-mole people visitors nowadays” He said, Dipper hanging on to his every word while Wendy inspected a water pipe. “Now, the beast must have some weakness that we can exploit” The author said, his body language pointing toward “thinking”. He motioned to the two of them, “I used to have my research on him, but alas, I lost my journals so many years ago.” He said, hanging his head in shame.

“Wait, did you say journals?” Wendy asked.

“Dude, I found one of them, it’s how we found you!” Dipper cried, reaching into his vest.

“What!? Could it be? Heh, my boy, I can’t express my gratitude” he said, turning away from them, pages open. “Oh yes, after all these years” He said.

The decontamination room door opened once again and Stan and Soos burst out, going as fast as they could.

“WENDY!” Soos cried

“KID!” Stan yelled. No answer to either.

“Aw it’s so dark, how will we ever find them?” Soos asked, looking around the darkness. He then noticed a source of light not a metre next to him. Stan’s eyes. The two glowing yellow orbs slightly illuminated their surroundings.

“Mr pines, your eyes-“

“Yeah, I know, they glow” Stan growled. “Come on Soos, follow me” the gargoyle called to him, starting to run ahead. Soos followed as fast as he could, body turning into a slimy ball and rolling after.

“We’re coming for you doods!” Soos cried.

The man who called himself the author turned the pages of the journal.

“yes, yes, it’s all here” he muttered. Wendy and Dipper were sitting a ways behind him.

“Wendy, isn’t it amazing we’re actually meeting the author?” Dipper whispered. Wendy gasped, she’d picked up a can of beans.

“Dipper” She said, voice choked from the effort of staying quiet. “look” she said desperately, shoving the can before Dipper’s eyes. The image on the can, was the man standing meters away from them, nose shoved into the book. Dipper looked up at her disbelievingly.

“Uhh, you know what? We should probably get going” Dipper said, standing and walking over to the ‘author’ who they now suspected was not who he seemed. “Can I have my journal back?” Dipper asked. The man looked up. He blinked, eyelids the wrong way. His head rotated with a sickening grinding of bones, a full 180 degrees.

“you’re not going anywhere” He said, pupils slits, voice distorting more and more with each word. His body crawled up the wall on all fours, neck extending. Spider legs burst from his torso before he roared, an awful, keening, almost alien screech, his eyes glowing white spheres. Dipper and Wendy screamed in fear (very reasonable, the first time I saw this I was like “KILL IT WITH MUTHFUCKIN FIRE!!!)

The shapeshifter finally assumed its true form, (look it up on google images, it’s… impossible to describe with words) “How do you like my true form?” It asked them in the same voice it had assumed before it revealed itself in all its horror. “go on, admit it, you like it” he said.

“You!” Dipper yelled, pointing a finger accusingly. “What did you do to the real author” he yelled.

“You’ll likely never find him, that six fingered nerd hasn’t been himself in 30 years. But I do thank you for bringing me his journal, he used to write it while I was in my cage. So many wonderful forms to take” it said, flipping a page with its tongue. It shifted into the Gremgoblin, a knome, laughing in a high nasally voice, the hide-behind, laughing in a demonic voice.

“We gotta get that journal back” Dipper whispered out of the side of his mouth.

“Hey body snatcher! Snatch this!” Wendy yelled, chucking the can of beans at the creature. It turned into some sort of three eyed giant frog thing. The can hit it in the head, it whipped out a longue elastic tongue at Wendy. She picked up a piece of metal, not an instant too soon, the tongue hit the metal and retreated back into its owner, taking the piece of corrugated metal with it. The metal slammed into the creature at full speed. It dropped the journal in surprise. The journal hit the floor. Dipper rushed to pick it up and yelled

“RUN RUN RUN” Once he had. They ran as the creature dropped to the floor with a resounding thud. It shifted to its original form, then to its human guise, then to the millipedal creature that had been stalking them earlier. It let out an alien shriek as it rolled into a ball and charged after them.

Dipper and Wendy ran down the tunnels, flashlight in hand, desperate to escape the creature, it was hot on their tails, Wendy dropped to four legs, Dipper pounded his hooves into the ground to escape. They came to a fork in the tunnels, Wendy hid in the tunnel to the left and Dipper threw their torch into the tunnel on the right and then joined Wendy in the left tunnel. The creature arrived at the split, saw the light bobbing in the tunnel to the right, shrieked, and rolled after the light source. Wendy and Dipper continued to run through the left tunnel, the earth sloped upward, they collided with a mass of stone and a mass of slime. Soos and Stan! Wendy actually went into Soos, who quickly spat her out apologetically. Dipper didn’t manage to get past Stan, crashing into the gargoyle and falling over, groggy.

“Doods!” Soos cried

“Kid, Wendy!” Stan said, sounding almost jubilant.

“Grunkle Stan, Soos! Wait, careful, how do we know they’re not the shapeshifter?” Dipper said warily, holding Wendy back. He edged backwards. Soos gasped.

“Maybe I am. Mr Pines, inspect my shape!” Soos said, pulling up his shirt.

“No” Stan said grouchily.

“It’s definitely them” Dipper said, lowering his arm. He glanced at Wendy’s legs. The fur was soaked red on her knee. “Oh my gosh, Wendy, you’re bleeding!”

“It’s cool, it’s cool, don’t freak out, it’s just blood man” She said,

“what happened” Stan growled.

“We got attacked by the shapeshifter” She said angrily, taking off her plaid green overshirt, revealing the tank top beneath “It broke out of its cage, pretended to be the author, and wants Dipper’s journal” She tore off the sleeve with her claws.

“Imagine if he escapes into town, we could never trust anyone ever again” Dipper said,

“Kid, literally everyone in town is a different kind of monster. It wouldn’t be all too hard to find two of one person” Stan pointed out.

“But still, we wouldn’t know if one of those two is the shapeshifter or not” Dipper countered.

“Good point kid, so what’s the plan?” Stan asked,

“Well, he took us into his home, tricked us, and tried to destroy us” Wendy said, angrily tying the sleeve around her knee. “I say we return the favour” She said, narrowing her eyes.

The creature was still searching when the plan had been laid out in full. It shifted to its human guise.

“Dipper my boy” It called. It turned on the lights to the room with the cryostasis pods. “Come out” It said, spasming between forms, restabilising into the human guise. “I must speak with you”. Finally it lost control, it turned into a creature which appeared to have some sort of hand holding something for a head, lobster claws and 12 legs. “REVEAL YOURSELF, YOU SINGLE FORM HUMAN WEAKLING!” it roared, voice distorted. It slammed it’s fist-head into the ground.

“Oh boy Dipper, that book of yours sure does have some great monsters!” Soos said loudly as they walked into the chamber with the shapeshifter.

“There you are, Ooh, and a new one” It said, eye blinking sideways. It had their forms assigned to memory now. It shifted, first into Soos

“Should I be one?” It said, in Soos’s form. It shifted to Dipper.

“Or the other?” It said, voice remaining the same. “How about both?” It said menacingly, shifting into a horrifying amalgamation of the two of them with long spider-like legs, it’s body half dipper and half Soos (Another kill it with fire moment) It screeched through both mouths. Dipper and Soos yelled in fear, they ran into the tunnel they’d come from, pursued by the creature.

“Guys, he’s coming, he’s coming” Dipper said breathlessly as they neared Stan and Wendy by the water pipe. “Now now now now now!” He said desperately. They started turning the red (what is the word?) Wheel piston thingy (that’s the term for now). The creature stomped into the tunnel. It reared the Dipper side of its body, lashing out with a tongue that wrapped itself around the journal in Dipper’s hands. Dipper struggled to keep it from retracting with the book and Wendy ran to his side, gripping the book in an attempt to wrestle it from the creature’s tongue.

“You leave him alone!” She cried. Dipper lost his grip and the tongue retracted, with both the book and Wendy attached. Wendy decided to lash out. The creature’s tongue was still firmly wrapped around the book. She was about to bite its tongue off, but Stan shouted

“Enough of this thing!” And slashed at the pipe with his claws. Water came pouring out in a torrent which threw off both Wendy and the shapeshifter. Her axe lodged itself into the ground. More water poured out in a wave which carried away everyone else, Soos managed to retain his mass while Grunkle Stan sunk to the ground, being made of stone and all. Wendy tumbled around in the current, getting her head slammed into a rock, knocking her unconscious with a whine. The water slowly sank. Soos was semi-puddled on the floor, Stan was still standing, albeit a bit shellshocked. Dipper gasped for breath, he noticed the axe on the ground. He picked it up and walked to the precipice at the end of the stretch of ground they were on. It sloped deeply downward.

“Wendy!” He called, the sound echoing over and over. He ran down the slope, panicking. He looked around. The mist cleared, revealing her unconscious form. He dropped the axe in shock and ran over to her body.

“No no no no no, this can’t be happening, please be okay, please be okay!” he said, getting increasingly desperate, rocking her body back and forth in an attempt to get her to wake up. Her head slumped to the side. He gasped.

“Oh no oh no, this is all my fault, the river, this stupid bunker expedition, if I had told you when we were in the closet we wouldn’t be in this mess, but I was too scared and now you could be hurt or worse, and I never even got a chance to tell you I’m like, in love with you Wendy” The cervitaur said, tears welling in his eyes. He dropped his head in shame, hands covering his eyes shadowed by the brim of his cap.

“uhh, Dipper?” Wendy asked uncomfortably from behind him. He almost jumped a foot in the air. He looked up, turned around and started stammering.

“w- w- Wendy? W-wait, then who’s-” he started before “wendy”’s body got on all fours, growled with the shapeshifter’s voice, charged at Wendy and yelled

“Give me back that journal!” Wendy’s voice,

“Never!” Wendy replied, holding the book high, the creature only crawled up her arm, Wendy collapsed under its weight. The shapeshifter reached for the book. The real Wendy (I think) kicked her in the stomach. The fight continued as the two werewolves grappled with each other, both evenly matched, teeth gnashing at each other’s throats, claws delivering scything swipes, all of which missed. Dipper picked up the axe. The two were wrestling, the book in the middle.

“Give it back!” one of them yelled. “It belongs to Dipper” the other said through gnashed teeth.

“Hit her with the axe!” the one on Dipper’s right said.

“Don’t listen to her, Dipper” The one on his left said

“She’s the shapeshifter!” The one on his right said,

“Ah, ah, I- I don’t know who’s who! Give me a sign!” He cried. The one on his left winked with a grin. The one on the right said

“You’re deer torso keeps on getting in the way!” he knew immediately which one to hit. He swung the axe into the belly of the one on the left. It shrieked, bleeding green, it reverted to its original form. One of the few intact cryostasis pods behind the shapeshifter had a green flashing light above it with the word ‘ready’ in the middle of it.

“Push him in!” Dipper yelled, they both charged at the creature, forcing it backward into the pod, it flipped it’s torso over with a growl and pounced at the two of them, only to be blocked by a wall of glass which came slamming down, sealing off the pod. The pod started to fill with a white, opaque mist. Stan had his finger securely on the button to freeze the pods.

“no” the shapeshifter said, shifting into a creature made of stone, pounding at the glass with boulder-sized fists. This proved ineffective. It changed into a creature of fire, ineffective. It shifted into its human guise, “Let me oouut!” it cried. It changed back into its original form as ice crystals began to form on its body with an audible cracking. It was no longer visible behind the mist.

“We are leaving. Now” Stan snarled. They started to walk back towards the observation room. A low laughing from the pod followed them. They stopped dead in their tracks. The shapeshifter pressed it’s lamprey mouth against the glass. They gasped.

“You think you’re so clever, don’t you dipper” The creature said mockingly. “but you have no idea what you’re up against” it said threateningly. “you will never find the author, if you keep digging, you’ll meet a fate worse than you can imagine. And this will be the last form you take!” It cried, shifting into dipper, rearing up on his hind legs, screaming in fear. It froze then, with an echoing finality. Then, it’s form was obscured completely by the fog. All Dipper could see was his reflection.

“hehe, good luck sleeping tonight” Soos said, breaking the silence. The tree grinded back into place after they got back above ground. “Dude I think I’m all adventured out for a little while, my face hurts from doing this all day” He said, face forming a mask of terror.

“Soos, you don’t have muscles, your face can’t hurt.” Stan pointed out, ever the realist.

“Still. Anyway, I’m going into town to get some breakfast” He said, rolling away. As Wendy started walking Dipper started speaking.

“Look Wendy, about earlier, in the heat of the moment I might have said some dumb things, and can’t we just pretend that none of this ever happened?” He asked, face burning with embarrassment. Stan stood to the side and nodded. Wendy put her paw on his shoulder.

“Dude, it’s okay, I always, kinda knew” she said, looking sheepish (I think I just subconsciously made a wolf in sheep’s clothing joke). Stan barked a short laugh.

“Wait, you did?” Dipper asked incredulously. Wendy laughed.

“Yeah man, I mean, you think I can’t hear that stuff you’re constantly whispering under your breath? Especially now that I have literal canine hearing? Oh man, dog whistles are going to be hell now” She said, realization dawning in her eyes, Dipper groaned, covering his face with his hands, stepping backwards, feeling like an idiot. He sat down as well as he could, he discovered that sitting like a dog was surprisingly comfortable with deer legs.

“aw man” He said through his palms. Wendy sat down on a log next to him.

“Listen, Dipper, I’m like, super flattered, but, I’m too old for you, I mean, you know that, right?” She asked him.

“Ugh, Stan said to just confess or it’d eat me from the inside out and that confessing would make me feel better”

“Yeah. I heard that by the way” She said pointedly. Dipper went even redder. “well? How do you feel?” She asked kindly.

“Anxious, confused, kinda hating myself ‘cause I got the town turned into monsters, scared, kinda itchy” He listed. Wendy chuckled.

“dude, don’t be itchy, besides, it wasn’t your fault, it was that little nacho demon’s fault” She said lightheartedly. “let me tell you something, this summer was suuper boring before you guys came along, I have more fun with you than like, half the guys at school. Plus, fur is pretty neat” She admitted, “and if you ever stop being my friend, I’d eat you and then throw myself into the bottomless pit”. Dipper decided to ignore that whole “eat you” part.

“So things won’t be too awkward now?” He asked.

“I just wrestled myself dude, that was awkward. If you can handle that monster, you can handle a little awkwardness” She said, smiling.

“Friends?” Dipper asked.

“yeah dude, friends” She said, pushing him over.

“Dipper down, dipper down!” He said, panicking. Wendy put him upright before bursting out laughing, doubling over.

“Oh, and hey Dipper, See you for movie night tomorrow. Your place this time, okay?” she said, dropping to all fours and padding away in the direction of town, leaving Dipper sitting alone next to a log with a gargoyle in a suit by his side. The gargoyle patted the cervitaur on the shoulder.

“You did good kid, SOOS! YOU CAN COME OUT NOW!” The gargoyle yelled. The slime man poked his head up from behind, or rather, inside a bush.

“Grunkle Stan? How can everything be so amazing an terrible, all at the same time?” Dipper asked. The gargoyle sighed,

“Sometimes that’s just how things are kid.” The gargoyle said, sitting on the log. Soos rolled onto the log as well.

“I’m still bummed that we’re no closer to finding the author yet. At least we got his science briefcase tho” Soos said, pulling the briefcase, somehow dry, from inside his mass. It flipped open. It was a laptop of sorts, with the words Property of F stickered on the top.

“What the-”

“Soos, that’s not a briefcase, that’s a laptop” Dipper said excitedly.

“And a really busted up one too” Stan followed, the gears and pistons in his brain firing.

“I could probably get it fixed up in a few days, but it’s gonna take a looooot of duct tape”

“This could be out next clue!” Dipper exclaimed.

Later that night, Dipper and Wendy were sitting in the space behind the Mystery Shack gift shop.

“Is it just me or does Gravity Falls TV only have the worst movies?” Dipper asked, munching on some popcorn.

“You’re watching the Gravity falls bargain movie showcase, coming up next, the Widdlest Wampire, the Planet People of Planet Planet! Help! My Mummy’s a werewolf!” the Voice on the TV said

“I take offense to that!” Wendy said, they laughed, the TV continued

“The man with no taste! Ghoost Turtle! Help! My mummy’s a werewolf 2: This again!”

“you wanna never watch this channel again?” Dipper asked.

Chapter Text

The golf war.

At the mystery shack, we find a cervitaur, curled up with a pig in his “lap”(?) watching the tv and munching on a bowl of cereal. A gargoyle rounds the corner.

“Who wants stancakes? They’re pancakes but I think they have some of my dust in them” Stan said. It had been a week since they’d gone into the bunker, a thankfully quiet week.

“Pass” Dipper said. Mabel burst through the door in her tank, there’d been some modifications made by Soos, It now had semi remote control wheels which could be directed from inside the tank, it had a long lasting battery and could go pretty darn fast, plus, the wheels could be swapped for caterpillar tracks. Mabel had used this setting in combination with the caterpillar tracks to burst in from outside, the stairs were difficult to navigate with the ordinary wheels. She held a newspaper above the surface of the water. She yelled in delight,

“It’s here!” as she rolled around the living room. “I’ve been waiting all morning and it’s finally here!” She said, flinging herself out of the tank and onto the dinosaur skull next to Dipper’s usual chair. “The Gravity Falls gossiper printed my article about summer fashion tips for squirrels!” Mabel said excitedly. It still shocked Dipper how quickly life in Gravity Falls had returned to “normal”. Dipper had gone into town two or three days after the whole… bunker thing, they didn’t blame him. They knew that he wouldn’t have had the power to do it, then again, if he’d told them they probably would have said something like that. He hadn’t had the courage to fess up that it had actually been him that had flooded the river. The townspeople didn’t know about Bill, but, the town had been mysteriously devoid of tourists as of late, the flood hadn’t seemed to reach the outside world. He’s considered calling his parents, but decided against it, they would have to find a way to cover up that they were actual monsters, maybe convince the world that they were all-year cosplayers? Mental note, run that by Mabel.

“My picture is gonna be in the newspaper!” she said, somehow sounding even more excited than she already was. She thrust the newspaper forward. “Check it!” she said, nearly triumphantly. The society column said greatest thing of the summer. The article was not what she’d expected. Stan read it out.

“Pacifica northwest declares v-necks the look of the season. What am I lookin’ at here?” The old gargoyle asked.

“Whoa whoa what?” she said, turning the newspaper toward herself in shock. There on the front page, was a picture of the gorgon. Pacifica and her family had all had similar transformations. Gorgons, the three of them. Pacifica’s mother became the petrifying type, her father the hypnotizing kind, and, like father and mother like daughter, she could petrify and also hypnotize people, she could control which she did. Her mother however, could not control when she petrified someone. Both could be reversed by the one who’d petrified the target. Her hair was now a nest of snakes, and her legs had been replaced by a snake’s tail. And yet, she was still the idol of the town, money helps with popularity.

“looks like someone bought their way to the front page” Dipper said in dismay.

“Is it even legal for a child to wear that much makeup?” Stan asked.

“Ugh, Pacifica, she always ruins everything,”

“Aww, cheer up Mabel, I mean, no-one even reads newspapers anymore” The cervitaur started before the slime crashed into the room, ignoring the door, flowing underneath it.

“Doods! V-neck season is upon us! Who wants to help me get ahead of the fashion curve?” he asked excitedly. He pulled a pair of scissors and a marker from inside his mass, physical injuries meant basically nothing to him now. “I’m takin’ it one step further with the w-neck” he said, tracing the lines necessary to transform his shirt into a w-neck. He insisted upon wearing clothes, most likely to feel just a little bit human still. They all needed that feeling in order to not go insane. He started cutting, the scissors half-way inside him. “must. Follow. Newspaper” He said, concentrating intensely. Mabel got back in her tank, her gills were feeling a little dry, usually she could breathe fine with only the torso set in the water, but she dried out quickly if both were out of water, and rolled over to the small table with a carton of orange juice on it. She poured it into the water, her gills filtered it out from the normal water as she took it into her mouth.

“I need something to get my mind off this” She said, sounding depressed.

“Looking for a distraction from your horrible life?” the TV blared.

“Why yes” Mabel said.

“Victory, honour, destiny, mutton, these old timey sounding words are all alive and well at the gravity falls discount putt hutt!” It continued. Then, “Warning, no mutton available at snack shop” it said, too quickly to process properly. An idea sprang into Dipper’s head.

“Hey, Mabel, you used to love mini golf” he cried. He grabbed a book from next to him, a photo album, and showed it to grunkle stan. It showed a picture of a nine-year-old Mabel holding a trophy and a putt club (is that the word?). “She’s been amazing at it since we were kids!” He said. “What do you say Mabel? We’ve had a stressful couple of days, how about we take a break, huh?” he asked.

“Would kickin’ all our butts at minigolf make you feel any better?” The gargoyle asked as he motioned to the door with his tail, mouth full of stancake.

“Maybe a little,” She said, rolling over to them.

“Come on Mabel! Victory!” the cervitaur cried, standing up triumphantly.

“Honour!” Mabel cried.

“Destiny!” Stan said, also standing.

“Mutton!” Soos said, they’d forgotten about his presence in the room, he was finished turning his shirt into a w-neck, his mass pushed the middle part of the w outward as he flopped over it a little bit.

“Victory! Honour! Destiny! Mutton!” They chanted, walking and rolling toward the door. When they were all out of the door Soos piped up.

“And the pig can watch the Shack!”. Said pig squeaked (oinked?).

They arrived at the Putt Hutt, Dipper extricating himself from the boot of the car, he hadn’t been able to fit into the back seat. Mabel’s tank had taken shotgun. Soos took up the back seat. Stan drove. They walked through the entrance, people were walking about, all were monstrous, the river hadn’t spared anyone. The holes were too numerous to describe from a single glance (writing is hard sometimes, okay?)

“Ah, minigolf, the sport of mini champions.” Mabel said happily.

“The grass might be fake but the fun is real!” Dipper said. He leaned down and sniffed the grass experimentally. “definitely fake” He said, a disgusted expression on his face. “There’s something here for everyone though” He said, joy returning to his face. Robbie, who’d turned into a zombie, how very apropos (the adjective), was graffiti-ing, of course, spraying the word “Wieners” onto one of the walls. When he turned they could see that at least half of his skull was visible. A squeaky (the voice breaky type of squeaky) voiced man-turned-human-sized-rat(?) in a mini cart yelled

“Hey, stop!” Robbie ran with a panicked yell, his foot fell off and he hopped away, carrying it under his arm. “Come back here!” the rat yelled, flooring it in the mini cart. It moved very slowly. Robbie removed one of his hands, holding it above his head with one finger raised. “Hey those are lude hand gestures!” the “king” said, going forward veeeeeery slowly.

Meanwhile, Dipper and co. were at the first hole. When Dipper swung he missed, the ball moving sideways into the water, seemingly under its own fruition. It hit the water with a “plonk”

“Don’t worry Bro-Bro, you’re still-” she slapped a sticker onto his flank, it had a picture of a dinosaur on it, “Ext-Roar-dinary!” she said as he tore the sticker off with a huff. “I’ll take what I can get” He then said, 180-ing in emotion. Mabel heaved herself out of her tank, resting on its side, they’d flattened the edges for stuff like this. She prepared her club. She hit the ball, not doing the hip wiggle since it could have moved her about in her tank. She hit the ball perfectly. It bounced through the obstacles, rolling over the bridge, going into the dragon’s mouth, all but launching itself out the other end (ew), phasing through McGucket, who’d become some sort of oracular spectre as they’d soon discovered when he possessed someone in public and they started spouting about the future (re. Spirit of Delphi), and landing in the hole. The ball didn’t even faze (ha!) McGucket, as if things passing through him was commonplace nowadays, all he did was look around in surprise

“how did I get here?” He asked the air. Mabel pumped her fist in the air

“yes!”

“Holy smokes! Someone in our family actually has talent!” The gargoyle exclaimed.

“Gargrunkle Stan, you ain’t seen nothing yet” Dipper said. Stan turned on him, growling.

“Never call me that again Deerper” he replied in a low voice. Then he realized what he’d called Dipper.

“We never speak of this to anyone” they both agreed silently.

They sailed their way through the other holes, Almost always getting a hole-in-one or two strokes. Finally, they reached the 18th hole, its flag fluttering in the wind. It was a windmill, its blades covering the entrance periodically. They’d gathered a small crowd.

“Guys this is amazing, if Mabel gets a hole-in-one here, she’ll beat her all-time record!” Dipper said quietly as to not break Mabel’s concentration.

You can do it Mabel, pretend the ball is that snakey girl’s face Mabel thought. She slammed her putt (I just remembered what it’s called, going to keep the word mistakes in there for comedic effect) into the ball with a surprising amount of un-Mabellike wrath. It skipped up the ramp into the windmill, Dipper ran to the other side of the giant windmill excitedly. It exited the giant structure in the second of three exits. It rolled right past the hole’s edge and into a scummy puddle that had gathered over time, the Fluvius Cantatis water had mostly evaporated, the puddles at least (just so that you guys don’t think it’s the fluvius water).

“Aw nuts!” Mabel cried, throwing her putt on the ground and sinking into her tank, arms crossed angrily. The crowd made disappointed sounds and dissipated. Stan bent down and picked up the ball, inspecting it.

“Ah don’t worry kid, the thing’s random” he said.

“Yeah, besides the bermuda triangle, how mini golf works is the world’s greatest mystery” Soos said sagely.

“As far as I’m concerned you’re still better than anyone else in Gravity-” the sound of a ball falling into the hole was like a church bell in volume to their ears. They gasped and turned. The northwests, snake tails coiled on the ground around them, leaning on their putts, the woman wearing sunglasses for… obvious reasons.

“Aww, would you look at that, I didn’t know it was hobos golf free day” Pacifica said.

“Pacifica!” Mabel said, a furious vengeance in her voice.

“Well, if it isn’t the Pines family, I’m going to need new derogatory nicknames for you, aren’t I? let’s see, fat, you’re now mucus, old, you’re now pebbles, lame, you’re now venison, and braces, you’re the cripple.” She said mockingly. Stan leaned into Soos’ ear.

“Soos, is it wrong to claw her eyes out?” he asked, flexing his fingers. Dipper held him back.

“She’d petrify you first, besides, I got this, hey Pacifica, how’s that whole, you’re family’s a fraud thing goin’ for ya?” Dipper asked, trying to apply salt to a wound.

“It’s going great actually, see, that’s the thing about money. It makes problems go away. Hypnosis helps though.” She said, the wound had evidently scabbed over a while ago.

“Well it can’t buy skill” Mabel said, poking her head up from her tank, motioning to herself on the last word. “You walked into the game of a mini golf champion” She said proudly.

“Ha, SERGEI!” she said, clicking her fingers. A banshee stepped into view, where had he been hiding? “This is Sergei, my trainer” she said, smiling coolly.

“the sportlympics have mini golf one time.” He said. He ripped open his shirt to reveal his chest. “I TOOK GOLD!” he roared, mouth unhinging. Pacifica looked at him, glaring daggers
“Sergei! Do I have to petrify you again” She said icily. He promptly shut up. She returned her attention to the Pines. “So if you don’t mind moving out of the way of the professionals” She said, humming as she walked over to the volcanic bonus hole. She put her ball on the tee. She hit it perfectly, it jumped up and off the ramp into the small entrance into the volcano. Fire plumed out with a klaxon sound. Pacifica’s hair hissed menacingly at Mabel. She removed her glove and handed the putt to Sergei. “Enjoy second place” She said, slithering off.

“Oh yeah? Well, I DEMAND A REMATCH! You- You SNAKE HAIRED WALKING VALLEY GIRL STEREOTYPE!” she yelled. Pacifica’s face turned into a mask of fury. She stalked over to Mabel, hair hissing violently. Stan stepped to intercept her path, growling menacingly. She looked into his eyes intensely. When nothing happened she looked perplexed.

“This usually works” She said, confused.

“I turn to stone when I sleep, you got nothing on me” Stan growled. Mabel rolled over and took his hand. She looked up at him reassuringly. He seemed to calm down, and stepped out of the way, glaring at Pacifica. The gorgon glared daggers at her.

“Like, let’s do this.” She said icily. Right at that moment a storm rolled in, thunder crashing above them. Clouds shadowed the park as the girls butted heads. The rat who’d been pursuing Robbie when he’d spray painted “weiners” on the castle was back.

“hear ye hear ye!” He said through a megaphone, riding in his mini cart (they see me rollin’, they hatin’). He crashed it against a lamp post. Multiple times until he eventually managed to do a two point turn to escape. “Stop at once” He said. “The park is now closed due to weather. The king of minigolf has spoken!” He shrieked into the microphone. He backed up into the post again, somehow flipping the vehicle. “Ah! King is down!” He cried.

“This isn’t over” Pacifica said, uncoiling a little bit to gain some height and stare into Mabel’s tank. She motioned to herself and Mabel. “You. Me. Midnight. We’ll see who’s best.” She said, acid in her voice.

“I’ll be here” Mabel promised angrily. Lightning lit up the clouds above. It started raining. The Northwests pulled out black umbrellas in sync and slithered off, the moisture having no effect on their tails. Sergei ran after them. Mabel was still halfway out of her tank.

“I’ll be here” She promised darkly, hair plastered to her face, she usually managed to keep it out with a hair pin, but it’d fallen out. Some of her hair got into her mouth. “pleh, pleh, hair in my mouth”.

They went to the nearest food establishment, the “Hermanos Brothers” Taco place. They sat in a window booth, Mabel stared out of the window sullenly. She’d had Soos haul her tank onto the bench. She opened her mouth. Dipper inserted a nacho which she bit down on sadly. She opened her mouth again. Dipper inserted another nacho. She sighed.

“ugh, guess it’s time to scratch mini golf off of my list of talents.” Soos got back to the table, he was wearing a trash can lining, filling it out nicely, his arms poking out of his face.

“aww, don’t give up Mabel.” He said, sitting down.

“Yeah, if you beat her at this, she could never rag on you again” Dipper pointed out. “imagine it”

(I am not going into Mabel’s mind, that place would be an inescapable hellscape for me. Too much… happiness). She imagined it in her own way, including the ever so “lovable” characters from one of her 80 synth cheese movies, Crad and Zyler (I hate these two… I just… despise them with a passion, I think they remind me too much of the French people I know). She stared into space with an ecstatic expression on her face for a solid minute or two.

“You’re right guys, I just need to practice a little more before midnight” She said, getting slightly more out of her tank.

“Go to the golf course after dark you say? I don’t know, we might have to break in and JUST KIDDING LET’S BREAK IN!” Stan said. They drove straight through the wooden bar with the word Stop Written on it in large red text. When they’d all gotten themselves out of the car Soos acted like a platform and lifted them above the fence, being able to change your body however you wanted was a handy skill. Stan was on lookout duty. Before her tank had gone over Stan had given Mabel one of her stickers with the words “You Da Best” Written on it with a trophy in the background.

“Knock ‘em dead kid” he’d said, his words still echoing in her mind. The hole that’d proved the most difficult was the 18th. The windmill stubbornly refused to put her ball into the hole. Dipper was watching on the other side, trying to figure out a way to make it work in her favour.

“I don’t get it, what is wrong with this hole?” He asked himself. He listened closely and heard the sound of gears and pulleys from inside the windmill. A thunk shocked him away from the thinnest patch of metal. “did you hear that?” He asked quietly as Mabel rolled around the corner.

“What Is it?” She asked him.

“Grab your club” He whispered. They both grabbed their clubs, moving toward the windmill at the same time. They nodded to each other when their backs were against it, Dipper removed the metal that looked like a bunch of wooden planks. What they saw inside was not what they expected. It was a tiny town. With tiny people with golf balls for heads. The town looked European… ish, it looked like what americans think Europe is, with the clogs and the thatch roofs, that sort of thing. It was surreal. Then the golf ball people noticed them. Then the screaming began. The entire village started to scream, this caused Mabel and Dipper to scream. Then the golf-ball-head people screamed again, then Mabel and Dipper screamed again, raising their clubs. Then the little golf ball head people bunched together at what looked like a well, cowering with fear. The twins lowered their clubs. The people stood stock still.

“We good? We good?” One of them panted. The twins nodded. The one with the blue golf ball for a head cleared his throat.

“Alright then, hi, hello, I’m Franz, and welcome to our home” He said happily.

“What is this?” Dipper asked.

“Yeah, are you guys tiny humans, or enormous mini humans (guuuuuuuuuuuuurl you cray cray)” Mabel asked.

“Neither, we’re Lilliputtians, lilli- pu- the name makes more sense when written down” He said, stuttering with the pronunciation. “And we control the balls” He said. “BEHOLD!” he exclaimed. The side of the windmill opened slowly, light spilling out. Franz rolled a ball in. (ugh, this is going to be hellish to describe, it’s a Rube Goldberg machine (look it up)). He rolled the ball up a corkscrew into a bucket attached to a rope which fed it into a gear, into a cup-ish thing which rolled it down a channel into a water mill moved by one of the lilliputtians, it then bounced off of two of them into another channel which led to a room within which a lilluputtian pulled a level directing it through a series of channels past the tiny house windows into the well-ish thing in the center of the windmill hole and out of the center exit, leading to the ball going directly into the hole.

“That’s incredible!” Mabel exclaimed

“And so needlessly complicated” Dipper said, joy on his face.

“Aw shucks, it’s only our life-long passion” Franz said. “Would you like us to elaborate through song?” He asked ecstatically as the “town” gathered behind him, two of them had those long horn things (I don’t know the names, I think they’re swiss in origin). He struck a note.

“Ehh we’re good” Dipper said hurriedly. He did not need to hear tiny people sing tonight. They all made sounds of admonishment, clearly disheartened by the prospect of not singing their song.

“So what are you hugelings doing here anyway?” Franz asked.

“We kind of have to play this golf tournament against my rival Pacifica” Mabel said casually. The Lilliputtians gasped, echoes of “rival” going through the tiny world.

“Oh we know all about rivals” Franz said, acid in his voice.

“PUT A CLOG IN IT YA WINDMILL LUBBERS!” a new voice shouted, sounding almost… pirate-ey. The hole centered around a pirate ship lit up in ominous red light. A Lilliputtian wearing a pirate hat, an eyepatch and a large beard (relatively speaking) Stood at the ship’s edge. “THESE FRILLY BOTTOM POPPYJAYS ARE TERRRIBLE AT CONTROLLIN’ THE BALLS!” he cried. He drew a large (relatively speaking) sabre out of nowhere and pointed it at the windmill. “WE ARE THE BALL MASTERS SAYS I!” he cried. His crew released “arr”s of agreement.

“Shut your mouths, you showboating pirates!” Said yet another voice, this time with a heavy French accent.

“Everyone knows the Eiffel tower hole is ze best” One of the Eiffel tower hole lilliputtians said, he looked disturbingly like Jim Carrey’s Mask. He wore a beret, handlebar moustache and a baguette. The blue one spoke up

“Je ne sais quoi Sacre Bleau au revoir!” Which in fake French translated to ‘I don’t actually know french’ (in reality those words, when translated literally mean “I don’t know sacred blue goodbye!”).

“Stay your comments, you scurrilous Frenchmen!” yet another voice said as the Camelot hole lit up. One of them removed his helmet to reveal maybe the most human looking lilliputtian they’d seen as of yet. He had the most chiseled chin you could possibly get, he also had the most luxurious hair. His voice was semi-stereotypically british. “None control the balls better than the knights of… Wiener castle? Who wrote this?” He demanded, seeing Robbie’s earlier graffiti.

“WE’LL SETTLE WHICH HOLE IS BEST! ATTAAAAACK!!!” Franz yelled, the lilliputtians of the windmill hole moved in rows, holding up tiny pencils like spears. They cried “CHARGE!” in their tiny voices.

“Ooh, I’m shiverin’ in me timbers, GET THEM!” the pirate captain yelled as his crew drew sabers and swung down to meet the windmill hole’s residents in furious, adorable combat.

“LONG LIVE THE MINI KING!” the lancelot lilliputtian cried as his knights, holding maces and axes rappelled down the walls of the castle to join the fray. The forces collided in adorable, bloody combat. Many fell into the water and a duck ate one of the windmill dwellers. ‘Twas a dark day for the lilliputtians.

“Haha, these guys are a riot” Dipper laughed, wiping a tear from his eye.

“Guys, guys, calm down, you’re fighting is inadvertently adorable” Mabel said, leaning over them.

“Adorable we are hugeling, but our tale less so.” Franz said, limping forward, face covered in bruises and both his eyes black. “Every hole in the park thinks they’re the best. From the coybows in the east, to the grimy miners in the south” He said sorrowfully. “If only there was some way to decide which side is best, with, maybe, an award, or, like a trophy or something?” He said, breaking the sad mood.

“But Franz! Look!” One of the French balls said, pointing to Mabel’s shirt. More specifically, the sticker. Murmurs of ‘the sticker!’ echoed around the lilliputtian numbers.

“The sticker! The sticker will decide!” Franz said, pointing excitedly.

“It does say, ze best on it” The French ball agreed.

“Decide for us hugeling, choose which mini kingdom to give the sticker to, and end our blood feud!” The lancelot looking ball said, kneeling reverently. Cheers spouted from the lilliputtians. Mabel was horrified.

“Uh, I dunno guys, I’m not sure I wanna get involved in your weird mini war thing,” Mabel said doubtfully.

“Psst, Mabel” Dipper whispered, turning her tank around so that the lilliputtians couldn’t hear what they were saying. “This is perfect, these guys control the course, just tell them we’ll give the sticker to whichever group does a better job of helping us win!” He whispered conspiratorially. Mabel still looked doubtful.

“I’m not sure Dipper, I wanna beat Pacifica, but, doesn’t this sort of feel like, cheating?” She asked.

“Pacifica’s rich, Mabel, she’s cheating at life” Dipper pointed out. He made a “what can you do about it” shrug. Mabel pondered this, and a few minutes later, Mabel had her tank balanced securely on the walls of the Camelot castle, Dipper’s body was too high to actually stand on it, so he just sort of… stood over it. Dipper blew the tiny trumpet. [just know, I was genuinely tempted to write trumpeter there] “Thanks man” Dipper whispered to the trumpeter, who bowed and walked away.

“PEOPLE OF THE 18 HOLES! WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A GAME OF MINI GOLF! AND WHOEVER DOES THE BEST JOB OF HELPING ME WIN, GET’S THE STICKEER!” she cried, holding out her arms to the crowd of tiny golf ball people.

“It’ll be us, lass, not these tulip munchers” The pirate captain said.

“I WILL NOT BE INSULTED BY A MAN WITH NO DEPTH PERCEPTION WEARRING EARRINGS!” Franz yelled, outraged.

“Just remember, as long as you’re helping me, no fighting” Mabel said, waving her finger. They all smiled wide, toothy smiles, looking at each other conspiratorially, arms behind backs.

Stan and Soos waited in the car. Soos was still cutting his shirts.

“Dood, I’m cutting Ws into all of my shirts. Gotta give the public what they want!” He said, evidently hyped.

“Well, the kids are takin’ their time” Stan said, checking his internal danger meters. They were both safe, edging into slight danger, barely noticeable. “Looks like it’s gonna be a while” He said, turning on the radio. While he searched for a station, Soos removed his shirt, he was evidently hiding a bit of mass under the shirts. Stan didn’t comment, no need to be overly rude. He found one playing music which can only be defined as “Waiting for your date on a fur rug in nothing but your underwear, holding a rose in your mouth while a fireplace roars behind you.” He leaned the seat back and started to glaze over. Right before the stone covering him could reach his head, effectively starting his sleep, he still wasn’t fully used to the feeling of turning to stone when he slept, but he was slowly acclimatizing, Soos leaned his chair back and turned his face toward the gargoyle. The stone halted at his chin.

“Sure are a lot of stars out tonight” Soos said. Stan just closed his eyes and prayed the stone would cover the entirety of his head soon. It did, and he was left only with the monitoring of the kids to disturb him if they got into trouble. Soos looked at the roof of the car sullenly and seeped out, he could use some air anyway. He went onto the front of the car and just looked at the stars. While this was happening, a markedly fancier car pulled up behind them. The northwests. The father was reading Afficionado Afficionado Magazine. He was the only one of the three with normal hair.

“Now remember Pacifica, winning is everything” He said, looking up from his reading.

“Oh oh, and also looks, winning and looks” The mother said, making sure that her sunglasses were secure on her face, she didn’t want to accidentally petrify her daughter.

“Dad, I’ve been practicing for like, a million hours, okay? I’ve got this” Pacifica said. “You’ll stay to watch right?” She asked.

“Pacifica darling, we need to think of excuses for our current appearance if we’re ever to go out in public outside of gravity falls again, we’ll just read about your victory in the newspaper” he said. Pacifica jumped out of the car, she clicked her fingers.

“Sergei!” She called. The tiny boot of the car opened and the banshee unfolded himself, pulling out a golf bag. Pacifica’s father poked his torso out of the car.

“Oh and, whatever happens, just remember one thing, you’re a Northwest, don’t lose” Her father intoned. His hypnosis was markedly weaker on his daughter, but it left a tiny echo in her brain which would remain for hours. Don’t lose . He slammed the door shut and the car drove away. She and Sergei walked into the golf course.

“How much you wanna bet they’re no shows?” She asked sarcastically. The lights in front of her turned on one by one. When they reached the end they lit up Mabel and Dipper, Mabel leaning out of her tank on her club, dipper standing with his arms crossed.

“Looking for someone?” Mabel asked triumphantly, the water in her tank all but glowing from the light.

“Wow, waiting in the dark? That’s not creepy at all” Pacifica remarked snidely. “Seriously though, I don’t know why you bothered to come, unless you’ve got something up your sleeve”

“Oh you could say we’ve got a little something” She said, nudging Dipper. Pacifica looked at Sergei in confusion. One of the lilliputtians from the windmill had somehow gotten into her sleeve, she forced him back in before Pacifica could process it. She laughed nervously.

“18 holes. Standard rules, winner lives in glory, loser wallows in eternal shame. On your mark, get set, MINGOOOLF!” he said, raising a pistol loaded with blanks (hopefully) and firing into the air. The sound made all of them except for Sergei, who could be louder than a mere gun, cringe in pain.

They went around the course, the lilliputtians impeding Pacifica’s progress the entirety of the time by slightly altering the course. They moved moveable objects, they poked up the grass, made her ball come out of the wrong hole. They helped Mabel however they could, nudging her ball along, or moving it juuuust a little bit when it was just on the edge of the hole. At the pirate hole, they launched Mabel’s ball out of the central cannon, straight into the hole. They launched Pacifica’s back at her face. She dodged it and it landed perfectly in her coiled tail. Then they got to the Miner’s hole. Mabel shot the ball straight into the geode lookin’ thing in the centre.

“I wander what cute, silly things are going on down there” Dipper asked. The things going on down there weren’t cute or silly. They were dead serious. The ball landed in the cart. The lilliputtians started to push it along the tracks. One of them yelled at them to stop.

“There’s been a gas leak! Anyone who goes in there will DIE!” He cried. The biggest of them, Big Henry, as he was known, stepped forth.

“I will take it” He said. (just a side note, does anyone else think he sounds like officer blubs?) Another one of them ran to him, tears streaming from her eyes.

“Don’t go Big Henry, we need you!” She said, but her complaints fell upon deaf not-ears. (THEY HAVE NO EARS! HAS ANYONE ELSE NOTICED THAT?!?!)

“Go home Polly.” The giant of a golf-ball-man said. He started to push the mine cart down the long track, prepared to face his death. He entered the gas, he started to sweat, muscles crying out for an ending to the effort.

This hole was notorious for taking a while with the balls that went into it.

Onward he pushed, sweat dripping down the dome of his head. Consciousness was a struggle to maintain. He slapped himself in order to stay awake.

“Come on Big Henry, you can do this” He murmured, breath couldn’t be wasted. He was approaching the end of the track. Every breath was a struggle now. He got the minecart into the lift and slammed his fist on the button. A klaxon rang out and it started to ascend. He lay down next to the lift, gasping. He pulled a small piece of paper from his pocket. It was a crude drawing of him and Polly. Tears welled in his eyes, and he smiled before his light extinguished.

The ball rolled out of the geode into the hole.

“AGH! NO!” Pacifica cried, throwing her club at Sergei. He caught it, completely pokerfaced. She stalked over to Mabel, evidently preparing to freeze her. Dipper stepped in her path defensively. She seemed to calm down a little.

“Sergei! Soda! Now!” She said to her trainer. They walked to the refreshments booth. Mabel lifted the top of the geode.

“Okay, guys, that was badonculous” She said to the miners.

“Hey hey, little high-fives everyone” Dipper said, reaching his hand into the geode. They all ran past his massive finger in a row, slapping it with their tiny tiny hands.

“I don’t wanna call it out early, but I think the miners might have one of these in their future” She said, pointing to the sticker. They all cheered. Little did they know that Franz, the one from the windmill, was watching through a tiny wooden telescope.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME!” he yelled, throwing his hat on the floor. “After everything we’ve worked for!”

“Calm yourself Franz, there may be another way to win the hugeling’s favour” Another lilliputtian said conspiratorially. “Knock on wood” He said quickly after. They knocked on their clogs.

Meanwhile, at the refreshments booth, Sergei got a Pitt Cola for Pacifica.

“There’s something going on here Sergei, I can feel it in my scales” She said, they were indeed tingling slightly.

“Maybe they have little people who control where the balls go” He said.

“Wow, we gotta get you English lessons, I mean, think about it, I’m globally ranked, it’s ridiculous that she’s beating me” she complained, unaware of the tiny people in the bushes behind her, she took a drink from the can of Pitt Cola. She spat out the pitt in disgust. “Ugh, Pitt Cola, I always forget about the pit.” She said in disgust. “Get me a different one Sergei!” She ordered, a tiny hand tapped her on the shoulder. Then an entire host of equally tiny hands grabbed hold of her hair, torso, arms and tail and pulled her into the bush. She didn’t even have time to scream. Just about then Sergei had finished getting a different drink for Pacifica. He turned to see her gone.

“This is bad” He said simply. Dipper and Mabel were waiting by the 18th hole, the windmill.

“I can’t wait to see Pacifica’s expression when we win, I’m thinking it’ll be like, heurgh” he said, pulling a face. “you know how she does that?” She asked Mabel knowingly. “heurgh”

“Dipper, is it bad that I feel good about her feeling bad?” Mabel asked, leaning out of her tank on her club.

“Eh, just enjoy your victory, Mabel. Trust me, Pacifica will be fine” Right at that moment their acute hearing picked up the very loud screams of a certain Gorgon. Completely tied down, so it seemed, as the lights turned on.

“What’s going on here? Let me go!” She yelled struggling. There were one or two lilliputtians either in a daze or as statues, they’d blindfolded her. Mabel and Dipper both screamed. The lilliputtian in her sleeve poked out and screamed also.

“LET ME GO YOU CREEPS!” she yelled, struggling against her bonds, even her tail had been tied down. Mabel’s own tail twitched in sympathy.

“Welcome twins, welcome. I can tell you’re loving this, right?” Franz said, stepping forward.

“What are you guys doing?” Mabel asked, you could almost see her scales get paler as the blood rushed away from them, but, maybe that was just a trick of the light.

“This wasn’t part of the deal tiny Dutchman!” Dipper said accusingly.

“Okay, so we saw you were favouring the miners, so we figured, what’s better than beating Pacifica? Pfft! Killing her of course!” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“As if! I’m calling my parents! Where’s my phone!” She cried. As it turned out, the lilliputtians had swiped her phone and were using it to send texts to her friends, one of them, Tiffany, had been turned into a Jiangshi (look it up) and they’d texted her with you look like a zombie and those clothes are so tacky. She’d evidently heard them say “send” and cried out in protest.

“So how about it hugeling? Who’d ‘Da best’ now?” He asked.

“NOT SO FAST LANDLUBBERS!” the pirate captain cried. He had Sergei on the plank over the water. He had a sword to his back. “If you’re goin to play dirty, so are we!” he cried. “Now give us the sticker or he walks the plank!” he threatened.

“NON! Give us the sticker!” One of the French balls yelled.

“The miners! Give it to the miners!” The cries came from all over the park, the lilliputtians were coming out in force, all demanding to be crowned the best. The cries assaulted Mabel’s senses, her pupils were widening, they were reptilian at the moment though, long vertical slits in her eyes. Eventually she snapped.

“ENOUGH!” She screamed, the word echoing around the park. It shocked the lilliputtians to silence.

“You know what? No one gets the sticker” she said, clearly furious.

“Sacre boooo!!” The French balls cried.

“No, no, nu uh, no booing stop, no, no one gets the sticker because you’re all being jerks. I mean, why can’t you just get along?” She asked.

“Because we hate each other!” One of the windmill lilliputtians (just know, that word is surprisingly hard to type) piped up.

“That’s kind of how rivalries work lass.” The pirate captain said.

“Well then maybe, maybe rivalries are dumb. Maybe you don’t settle them with petty competitions. Maybe the only way to be ‘da best’ Is by ending the fighting and working together!” She said, tearing the sticker off and shoving it in her mouth. It tasted horrid, but she was true to her word. She swallowed the sticker (god knows how many hazardous materials there are in that sticker.). All of the lilliputtians gasped.

“It’s so clear now, if we work together.” Franz started.

“Then we will cut open her belly and get the sticker!” The pirate captain yelled, swinging in on a rope. Various war cries of “get the sticker” were heard in various accents and voices. One of the windmill lilliputtians flipped a switch. The path leading up to the windmill started to move, moving Pacifica closer to the blades, which had started moving extremely fast. She thrashed as hard as she could, to no avail, the lilliputtians were surprisingly good knotters. She could hear the blades moving faster and faster until the cut the air audibly. She screamed.

“We gotta get out of here!” Dipper cried, pointing to the park’s exit.

“I have to save Pacifica first.” Mabel said. She leaped out of her tank with as much force as she could muster. She got to the line of fairy lights and hooked her club on them.

“Dipper! Bring my tank!” She said, as she ziplined along the lights. He nodded and picked up her tank, carrying it below her, the lilliputtians couldn’t do anything to him since his centre of gravity wasn’t particularly close to the ground. That and his deer legs were surprisingly tough. She landed in her tank with a splash, covering Dipper in water. He set the tank on the ground and she sped up the incline on the caterpillar tracks.

“Nyet nyet!” Sergei was yelling.

“Don’t freak out man! The water’s so shallow that it’s impossible to drown!” Dipper yelled back, trying his best to keep the lilliputtians away from his sister, downside of deer feet, not a lot of ground coverage. Can’t do a good low kick with deer legs. Sergei fell face first into the water. and he didn’t roll. you could see bubbles coming from his mouth, he was no doubt screaming into the water. “seriously?” Dipper asked, cantering over to him in order to prevent him from drowning. Mabel was trying her best to untie Pacifica.

“Ugh, took you long enough, and watch the earrings, they’re worth more than your house” She said snidely.

“You know, maybe I shouldn’t risk my life by having both sets of gills out of the water in order to untie you” Mabel pondered.

“Untie me! Untie me!” Pacifica pleaded.

“That’s what I thought!” Mabel cried, pulling the ropes away and removing the blindfold. Pacifica got the entirety of her body off of the moving track. The lilliputtians were waiting.

“We have ya at miniature pencil point! There’s no way out lass!” The pirate captain yelled. Mabel picked up her club,

“You ready to putt?” She asked Pacifica.

“I have a better idea. Get your stupid brother to close his eyes.” She said. Mabel understood her plan, jumped back into the tank and covered her eyes. Dipper was looking away.

Pacifica froze every single lilliputtian in one fell swoop. All eyes were on her and Mabel, so she exerted her power and her hair hissed, finally out of that suffocating ponytail. It all faced toward the crowd. And silence fell. They turned off the windmill and breathed a sigh of relief. They all started organizing the lilliputtians and putting them back in their holes. The cowboys went in the water tower, the miners in the geode, the Frenchmen in the Eiffel tower, the knights in the castle, et cetera et cetera. They walked, well, one walked, one rolled and one slithered out. Mabel looked at Pacifica. Sergei was nowhere to be seen. He’d evidently been looking at Pacifica when she’d frozen everyone.

“ugh, fine, I’ll unfreeze them.” She said. She closed her eyes for a second and her hair seemed to calm down, reassuming its natural shape. They could hear cries of confusion coming from the park. She turned to them, suddenly furious. “I don’t know what you did or what’s going on, but if you think that just because you saved my life i-“ she started to rant but was interrupted by Mabel pulling a sticker from her jumper. It had a picture of a cat on it and the text read I a-paw-logize .

“I’m sorry Pacifica. I shouldn’t have cheated, you totally would’ve beaten me fair and square” Mabel said humbly. Pacifica stuck the sticker on her shirt.

“You’re just lucky this sticker looks fantastic on me” she said. Just then they were noticed by Soos and Stan in the car, they drove toward the kids. Mabel rolled toward the front seat and Dipper moved dejectedly toward the back. Soos flowed into the back seats. She looked at Pacifica, she looked kind of pitiful, standing there alone. She leaned backward.

“Hey, your parents aren’t here yet, you want a ride?” Mabel asked.

“Ahaha, pal-ease, as if I’d ride in your-“ she was cut off by the sound of thunder. Soos shifted himself a little to leave room for her tail. Soon thereafter they were driving down the Oregon path (I DON’T KNOW AMERICA!!!), Stan singing absentmindedly. Pacifica was careful to not touch any part of Soos. Something about the slime… unnerved her. She did like his W-neck though. Dipper was foraging in the back. He pulled out two tacos.

“Hey, Mabel, I found two tacos, want one?” He asked. She leaned back and took the taco from his hand. She looked at him meaningfully. He rolled his eyes and offered one to Pacifica.

“Wait, you’re allowed to eat in the car?” She asked in disbelief.

“Pfft, yeah, the car’s where secret snack are found. So are you gonna take that taco?” She asked, eying the piece of food in question, munching on hers.

“Oh, I’m not supposed to take handouts” She said politely.

“Handouts? It’s called sharing! You do know what sharing is, right?” Mabel asked.

“Sh- shar-ing?” She asked

“Just take the taco” Mabel said. Pacifica took the taco from Dipper. They soon arrived at the Northwest mansion. Pacifica slithered out.

“Thanks for the ride or whatever” She said absentmindedly.

“Oh, and Mabel? Umm, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but, I had fun” She said, smiling. “And tell your servant I like his W-neck!” She called back to them. Soos pumped the air.

“YES!” He cried. Dipper leaned out of the back.

“So are you guys, like, cool now?” he asked Mabel.

“I think we made some progress. The important thing to remember at the end of the day is that she’s just a normal kid like us” She said. Then the mansion gates opened. There were peacocks, multiple fountains, a huge banner that lit up in purple light in the words congratulations Pacifica and to top it all off, Fireworks.

“We should have charged her for that taco” Dipper said immediately.

“Agreed” Mabel said cheerily.

“By the way, did you see that Sergei guy anywhere after she froze the lilliputtians?” Dipper asked.

“Eh, her parents will probably get her a new one. They’re rich, they can do that. Mabel replied

“Hey, you got anymore of those surprise tacos?” Soos asked, they laughed and drove into the sunrise.

[you might be wondering why franz isn’t on their car at the end. That’s because Pacifica froze all of the lilliputtians, and sergei. He’s still there, but I’m not going to do the whole “we control the balls” song.]

Chapter Text

A week or so after the occurrences at the mini-golf course, we find our favorite cervitaur and mermaid in the Gravity Falls library. Quite a bit had happened in that time, most prominently, the discovery of one hand witch living in the mountains, who, in return for them helping her get a boyfriend, had given Stan back his hands after he’d tried to steal from her, and, as an added bonus, had agreed to hold occasional magic lessons for them, more specifically shapeshifting charms, for obvious reasons. They were sat down in front of one of the library’s archaic computers.

“All right Mabel, today’s the big day,” Dipper started, Mabel interrupted.

“There are a few big days coming up brobro, you’re gonna have to be more specific” Mabel said, there were indeed multiple so called ‘big days’ in their near future, at least that they knew of. The first was the day they finally got to make the town some charms to put them back to normal, the second, which the twins do not know of, is the day where Stan finally gets the portal to work, but, neither of these were the one that Dipper was talking about.

“No, Mabel, Soos finally repaired the laptop!” he exclaimed quietly,

“ohh, that big day” she whispered. He pulled the laptop out of his bag,

“If this works, we could learn the identity of the author, and unravel the greatest mysteries in Gravity Falls.” He said, ears flapping around in excitement. “you ready?” He asked, grim determination plastered on his features.

“Oh. I’m ready baby,” She said seriously, pulling a book about babies from nowhere and opening a page with a flip up that had a picture of a stupid drooling baby on it. She made a “mama” sound in a high pitched voice while the baby was visible. Dipper chuckled and placed the ancient laptop on the table. He opened it, the screen dark, and he pressed the power button. Instantly, the screen lit up in an ethereal green light, words flashed on its face, the system was starting up for the first time in quite a while, it made sense that it’d take some time. A wireframe graphic that looked eerily similar to the portal in the basement spun across the screen. The word ‘welcome’ in bold green text above the image.

“IT WORKED!” Dipper cried, they did a handshake. A harsh buzz came from the laptop, the screen flashing red. ///unauthorized access forbidden/// said the words in bloody red. A password prompt box appeared in green.

“Ugh, of course, a password.” Dipper said in frustration.

“Don’t you worry brobro, with your brains and my laser focus there is literally nothing that can distract us from-“ she never finished the sentence because she was interrupted by music. It was a… a wooden guy? He looked like he was made of wood, kind of like Pinocchio in the old Disney movie, except with a lot more grain. He had a puppet on his hand, his voice was kind of echoey, as if inside he was hollow as a dead tree (there are vines that do that to a tree, they suck out its nutrients ). He was playing the notes on the keyboard. There was a puppet of a bee on his hand, small children were gathered behind a curtain with a few letters of the alphabet on it. He was singing, because of course he was singing, he had that kind of voice that makes you think of that one guy with a guitar at a party who just sings about his feelings because he has a guitar. Yeah, that kind.

“All my life, I’ve been dreamin’, of a love that’s right for mee [I legitimately hate this character, I love to see him suffer… imma make his life a living hell] and now I finally know her name and it’s, sing it with me kids, literacyyyy” [gags] he piped, the small children surrounding him chanting it in their high voices, they’d also been changed, their forms too numerous to list [I have to take a liberty or five sometimes, trust me, it’s for the best]

“I finally understand what all the buzz is about” His bee puppet ‘says’. “reading” It finishes. He gets another puppet onto his other hand, this one looks like a book.

“Gimme some of that honey” It says in a strangely effeminate voice, then he (for some sick, twisted reason) made the two dolls make out (?). He laughed, sparkles basically popping into existence around his face. His dumb, wooden, Pinocchio-ass lookin’ face. Mabel pulled another book out of nowhere. It was about the human body. She opened and closed it to the rhythm of her heart, the weird pop up heart appearing and disappearing in rhythm to her saying

“ba-bump, ba-bump”, Dipper looked mildly concerned behind her.

“Oh boy” He said, clearly recognizing a disaster waiting to happen.

[cue epic gravity falls opening sequence, with me frantically orchestrating like It’s bloody bach]

Mabel looked on at her next summer romance. He was modestly accepting the children’s applause.

“Just when I was getting over Mermando, of course you show up at my doorstep” She said hopelessly crushing on the guy. She was resting her elbows on the side of her tank.

“oh yeah, I forgot about mermando, did not, care, for, Mermando” Dipper said, looking for a book in the shelves. He picked one out, looked at the cover, and walked back to their desk. “Okay, this cryptology book says there’s 7.2 million eight letter words. I’ll type, you read, okay Mabel?” He said, nose already in the book. Upon getting no response he turned to look at where his sister’s tank should’ve been. It was not there. The puppet guy was mostly finished with his show, the song petering off into,

“that’s why we don’t stick our hands in, other people’s mouths” He sung, the children singing it along with him (I don’t know which is more worrying, the fact that that’s something that the kids need to be taught or the shocking implications of what might happen if they don’t learn it.) “Hey I’m Gabe Benson y’all, good night!” He said enthusiastically. The children left, taking their parents with them, leaving his alone in the room. “Hey, good job today you guys” He said to his puppets.

“You were a little late on your cue” The book said to the bee. [I can’t believe I just wrote that]

“What?” The bee asked, it was clearly the archetype of idiocy in this show.

“Hey, hey, be good to each other” He said, scolding them. That might be a sign of severe mental issues. I’d have recommended Mabel run. Run very far. But, alas, she can’t hear the narrator, so, she rolled in silently, lying on her side in the tank in a “paint me like one of your French girls” pose.

“Hey, guess who’s Mabel? I am!” She said, another one of her pickup lines which for some reason never work. “care to learn more?” She asked, wiggling her eyebrows. She rolled closer to him.

“Oh hey I’m Gabe, master of puppets” he said calmly. [NO! THOSE ARE NOT PUPPETS THOSE ARE SOCKS WITH TINY ARMS ATTACHED WHICH YOU CONTROL WITH YOUR FINGERS! REAL PUPPETS ARE STUFF LIKE THE MUPPETS! YOU ARE A PRETENDER IN THE FACE OF ACTUAL FUN EDUCATION WHICH DOESN’T TALK DOWN TO KIDS!!!] Mabel did a tiny handshake with the bee puppet.

“You’re amazing with those puppets,” Mabel whispered in awe.

“Really?” He asked enthusiastically. He turned away. “A lot of people think puppets are dumb or… just for kids and stuff,” He said dramatically. Mabel placed a hand on his shoulder. The wood was warm, not like a tree, more like planks had taken human form.

“Are you kidding me? I’m puppet crazy!” Mabel cried ecstatically. “people call me puppet-crazy-Mabel” She said. He turned then.

“Really? People used to call me puppet-crazy-Gabe!” He said, practically overjoyed. “So when’s your next puppet show?” He asked.

“My huh?” Mabel asked, clearly taken aback by this comment.

“I mean, you can’t truly love puppets unless you’re throwing puppet shows, right?” He asked. Mabel pulled at her sweater [yes, she still wears sweaters, why wouldn’t she? The water won’t stop her from wearing a sweater, this is Mabel we’re talking about here]

“um, yeah, I’m totally working on a puppet show” She said, stammering.

“What are the details?” He asked eagerly.

“There are, so many details” She said, nervous. Meanwhile, Dipper was trying to figure out the password. He tried password, the computer buzzed angrily. Mabel rolled up next to him.

“So, how’d it go?” He asked, only halfway focused on the conversation. He started typing the next potential password.

“Dipper, how hard do you think it would be to write and compose a sock puppet rock opera with lights original music and live pyrotechnics by Friday?” She asked. The computer buzzed as if on cue as Dipper looked up in shock.

“What?” He asked, astonished, his ears had perked straight up. “Mabel, are you serious?” he asked. She lunged out of the water and grabbed his vest. He could see her teeth, they were slightly pointed, how had he not noticed that?

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED!” she cried. She released him and flopped into the tank, “I GOT LOST IN HIS EYES AND HIS PONYTAIL AND I’M GONNA BE SO EMBARASSED ON FRIDAY IF I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING!” she cried, panicking.

“What about cracking this password?” Dipper asked, gesturing to the computer. “you know, mystery twins?” He said hopefully.

“If you help me with this for just a couple of days I promise I’ll make it up to you” She begged, clasping her hands together. “it’s for love” She whispered. He conceded, and she lunged out of the water again, this time hugging him tightly. She started loudly commending him, drawing looks from nearby library-goers. He shushed her and they walked off, talking in hushed tones, their shadows playing across a wall. A few seconds after their shadows had passed the wall, a suspicious triangular shadow floated after [bill no, bad bill].

Mabel quickly got to work, cutting fabrics and buying boxes upon boxes of used socks. Dipper tried more and more combinations for the laptop’s password. By the 12th, Mabel had started making the actual puppets, and was making good progress, using readily available, cheap materials, expertly using the sewing machines. Dipper got his sleeve stuck in the machine constantly, almost sewing his ear to the sock a few times. Dipper had lists upon lists of failed passwords taped to the wall, he was getting sick of hearing that constant buzz, he winced every time he heard it now, he was pretty sure it was starting a nervous reaction whenever he heard it, a slight twitch had recently appeared. On the 13th, Mabel had figured out how to make Grunkle Stan, using a paper bag. Dipper was toiling long into the nights, often collapsing from sleep deprivation and hours of trying. By the 14th, the house was covered in socks, they were even on Waddles, they floated around in Mabel’s tank, they were even on Wendy’s tail. Some of them were floating around in the air, doing pirouettes and such, Mabel needed to be able to control all of them at the same time, she figured the only solution was to use the magic she’d been learning to control them.

“Alright everyone, the play’s going to be called: Glove Story! A sock opera!” She said happily. “just a warning, people’s eyes might get wet from crying from laughing, from how tragic it is” She said melodramatically. Dipper was actively having to un-stick socks from his haunch, it was a little… embarrassing. No fur had come out yet. Wendy looked up from the sock she was drying with her hair dryer.

“Come on Dipper, you just gotta roll with Mabel’s craziness it’s what makes life worth living” She said philosophically. Mabel had leaned out of her tank and started mashing notes on a keyboard.

“Puppet boy puppet boy, you’re the boy I,” she sang, the rest of them joined in as she sang

“Loooove”, it was slightly, out of tune, but the effort was appreciated, Wendy took the cry of “looove” a bit too far with a howl. Everyone looked at her and she laughed awkwardly. Stan peeked his head round the corner.

“Two things, one, I heard howling, but, now I don’t know what to say anymore, I’m out, not even gonna ask” He said simply. Mabel put the puppets all around her bed, placing the ones of her and Gabe on the posts. She put the Gabe puppet on her hand and made it kiss the puppet she’d made of herself. A plaintive buzz came from Dipper’s side of the room.

“Ugh, wrong password, wrong wrong wrong, ugh!” Dipper cried in exasperation.

“Don’t stay up all night Dipper, last time you got this sleep deprived you tried to eat your own shirt” She warned him, not mentioning that the actual last time he’d been that sleep deprived was the time Bill had taken over his body and turned the whole town into monsters. Dipper was indeed trying to eat his own shirt, and he’d taken out a sizeable chunk so far. He spat out the strips of material and magicked them back together. Dipper’s magic was methodical, he used specific techniques and knew exactly what he wanted the magic to do in his mind. Mabel’s was more instinctual, relying upon her imagination.

“Just a few more tries” He said, determination in his eyes.

Hours later, he was sitting up on the roof of the shack. There were many cans of Pitt Cola scattered next to him. He got more wrong tries.

“Ugh, I can’t take that sound anymore” He said, clearly exasperated. “I. HATE. YOU. SOUND!” he said furiously, pounding his fists on the keyboard with each word. He yawned, rubbing his eyes. “There has to be some shortcut or clue, who’d know about secret codes?” He asked the air. The wind blew ominously, leaves fluttering past his face. He stood and turned, there was something strange about this wind, it didn’t seem quite… natural. He was correct in his presumption, as the moon grew a black, slit pupil and stared down at him with all the emotion of a telescope. A beam of light, as if the moon had turned into a giant spotlight shone down onto him. He gasped and turned, clutching the laptop close to his chest. Blue bricks span toward the moon, agglomerating into the shape of a triangle, and the world lost its colour in a flash. Bill Cipher floated in the air in front of Dipper.

“I THINK I KNOW A GUY!” he said, voice echoing. He materialized a cane and started twirling it.

“Well well well, you’re awfully persistant deer head.” Bill said, almost admiration in his tone. “Hats off to you” He continued, tipping his hat, and subsequently the entire dreamscape along with it. Because Bill makes the laws of physics his bitch.

“You again!” Dipper yelled, the scar on his chest twinging painfully, “You did this to me!” He said, gesturing to his lower half.

“Didya miss me? Admit it, you missed me” Bill said, ignoring Dipper’s comments, he said this in a voice which made him sound like a rambunctious scamp caught playing hooky by an old person.

“Hardly! For one you worked with Gideon and tried to destroy my uncle’s mind! AND DO I NEED TO REMIND YOU OF THE FACT THAT YOU TURNED THE ENTIRE TOWN INTO MONSTERS AND CARVED YOUR SIGIL ON MY CHEST!” Dipper yelled. Bill, once again ignored his comments about the whole, Fluvius Cantatis situation and floated behind Dipper, upside down.

“It was just a job, kid” He said, making excuses “no hard feelings” He said, amicably casual in his tone.

“I’ve been keeping and eye on you” he said, growing huge, red and his voice sounding like he was extremely angry upon saying the word eye. “Since then., I must say, I’m impressed, how are the venison legs anyway?” He asked, as irritatingly childish as ever.

“Really?” Dipper asked incredulously. Bill floated backwards, finger tapping against the area directly beneath his eye, as if he was stroking a beard.

“you deserve a prize, here have a head that’s always screaming” Bill said, switching from funny, to unnecessarily morbid in a picosecond. He clapped, and said head poofed into existence, it was indeed, screaming, and it was about the size of most of Dipper, Bill clicked his fingers directly after Dipper stepped back in shock and the head unraveled, layer by layer, skin, muscle and bone disappearing into the sky as if he was peeling an apple. Bill laughed. “The point is I like you” Bill said, he reached his arm around, above both of them and slapping Dipper’s rump (don’t question my decisions goddammit!) Dipper stepped back in shock, he had not been expecting that. “how about you let me give you a hint” Cipher said as he reeled in his hand. “I only ask for a small” He rolled his hand, suddenly opening his eye, it was blue and flaming “favour?” His hand was covered in azure flames, he clearly wanted to make a deal. “in return”.

“I will never do a favour for you!” Dipper said.

“let me stop you right there deer head, you feel that scar on your chest? When I invoke a deal around you, it becomes like a prophecy, the more you fight it, the more that that sigil will slightly alter probability so that you eventually make a deal with me, there are of course limits to its power, it only happens if it’s a deal that could potentially benefit you, for example, if I were to give you that password” Bill explained, his pupil replaced by the sigil he’d carved into Dipper’s chest.

“W- well don’t forget who defeated you last time!” Dipper cried, full of bravado. Bill phased through the roof behind him.

“Oh sure, you ‘defeated’ me” He said sarcastically, reaching his little arms into Dipper’s head and pulling out a ghostly blue brain, turning it into a blue ember which quickly flickered out, “Well if you ever change your mind, and believe me, you will, I’ll be here for you, ready to make a deal!” He said, changing his bow-tie into slots and miming his arm as the lever, the slots spun until they all landed in an image of a deer’s head, the very same image in the book over the pine tree symbol. “Heywannahearmyimpressionofyouinabouthalfasecond?” Bill asked quickly, then he screamed out of nowhere, flailing his arms. Then Dipper woke up, screaming and flailing his arms. It was day. He closed the laptop and went back inside.

Stan sat at the coffee table, tail tapping on the floor. He sipped his coffee as Mabel floated the puppet version of him into his face and made it move, making it say “Hey I’m puppet Stan” In a silly voice. Stan could almost see the faint green line connecting the puppet to Mabel, but he ignored it, as he did the puppet.

“Still ignoring this” He said. Dipper walked into the kitchen, yawning, the bags under his eyes especially dark. He looked off balance.

“Hey Mabel” Dipper said, the exhaustion evident in his voice. He yawned.

“Woah, bag check for Dipper’s eyes!” Stan cried, laughing at his own joke.

“Dipper!” Mabel chided him “I told you to get some sleep last night” She said, sounding almost disappointed. She grabbed the large jug next to her labelled “Mabel Juice”, “Here, wake up with some Mabel juice” She said helpfully. The plastic dinosaurs swirled around cheerfully. She shook the jug, expressing that particular fact in detail.

“It’s like if Coffee and nightmares had a baby” Stan said, eyes narrowing in fear and disgust. Dipper pulled Mabel’s tank out of the room.

“Mabel, listen, last night I had a dream with Bill in it” Dipper said worriedly. Mabel gasped.

“Wait, hold up, why aren’t you his creepy little sleep marionette right now then?” She asked, unusually serious.

“I think that I might have been in a particular type of deep sleep then, or maybe it was just him screwing with us, or something, but, Mabel, he said he’d give me the code to the laptop if I gave him something” Dipper said, leaving out the “prophecy” bit that Bill had mentioned. “like I’d actually trust Bill, Right?” He said, laughing light-heartedly.

“Don’t worry BroBro, today’s the day the mystery twins are back in action” she said optimistically. “I’ll help you crack that code, I just gotta hand off my puppet stuff to my production crew.

“Production crew?” Dipper asked. In the kitchen Stan looked up from the paper as he felt two people come onto the property. Mabel’s ‘production crew’ no doubt. It was indeed Candy and Grenda. Candy had, somewhat appropriately, been transformed into a Kappa, a creature from Japanese folklore which pulls children beneath the waters of rivers. Grenda, somewhat less fittingly, had been turned into a Cerulian sea witch (think Ursula from the little mermaid), her tentacles gripping various tools. They both had socks strewn on various parts of their bodies.

“We read the script, very emotional” Candy said, carefully adjusting her glasses, careful to not tip out the water in her newly bowl-shaped skull (look up the kappa myth, it’s actually fairly interesting)

“I cried like, 8 times!” Grenda said in her strangely gruff voice. Then Gabe arrived again. [juuuuuust peachy] He rollerbladed into the Mystery Shack parking lot, still wearing his ‘puppets’. He leaned against a post.

“GABE!” Mabel cried.

“I was just Bladin’ by” He said, sounding casually detached. “Helps me dry out my ponytail after a shower”, he said, and almost as if to prove it, he took off his helmet and shook his head… his hair did not move. “or at least it used to” he said quietly.

“Hubbity Bubbity” Grenda said.

“geileul mabel-egeseo humchyeo naeya hae.” Candy said menacingly (I translated “I must steal him away from Mabel” through google translate). Mabel rolled over to him excitedly.

“It’s so great to see you!” She cried. “I was just working on the world’s greatest puppet show, it has puppets!” Mabel cried enthusiastically.

“Your passion is so refreshing, Mabel, UN-like the girl from last night’s puppet show, single stitch on one puppet, cross stitch on another? I was like, uh-uh” He said, shaking his head for emphasis. If he’d had hair it would have flicked for even more emphasis but… wood.

“Cross stitch… huh?” Mabel asked under her breath, evidently confused.

“Naturally I deleted her off my cell phone contacts list” He said, nonchalantly. [gabe, if you hurt mabel, I will throw you in a woodchipper]

“Naturally” she laughed nervously. She sank slightly in her tank.

“I know you won’t let me down like that though, based on what you said the other day you must be a puppet expert” He said almost hopefully.

“You know Gabe, you look really sweaty, you should take your shirt off” Grenda called. A fruitless attempt. He can’t sweat. Gabe readjusted his helmet.

“Later ladies” He said, rollerblading off in the other direction. Mabel turned around so fast water spilled over the sides of her tank.

“AUGHGHG! We gotta up our game people! Did you hear that thing he said about the stitches!?!” She cried in desperation,

“Don’t worry Mabel” Grenda started, putting down the boxes to give her tentacles a chance to rest. She pulled out her puppet. It looked disturbingly like her, apart from the fact that it didn’t have a lower body. “Your crew can handle it” She finished, accidentally tearing the puppet in two. Candy held up a puppet with about 6 eyes too many.

“How many eyes does a face have again?” the Kappa asked. Soos had tied the set pieces onto the car with rope, trying to hold them down by spreading his mass over them. Unfortunately, they still fell, single focal point and all that. He reformed himself from the puddle that he’d become and scratched his chin.

“This could be a problem” He said.

“Okay, okay. Back on fabrication” Mabel said to herself, she rolled her tank over to the house as fast as it would go. “Get me my linch roller” She said, supporting a box of puppets haphazardly on top of her tank. Dipper stepped into her path. The box crashed into his torso. He grunted in slight discomfort, but stayed on the spot.

“Mabel, you just said you were going to help me” He said pleadingly.

“DIPPER, THIS SOCK CRISIS JUST BUMPED UP TO A COLD ARGYLE! ARGYLE, DIPPER! ARGYLE!” she cried. “THE LAPTOP CAN WAIT!” she said, reversing, box still on the tank.

“Mabel, do you seriously think that your random crush of the week is more important than uncovering the mysteries of this town?” Dipper asked. Mabel’s tail was slowly turning red with suppressed anger, “you’re obsessed” he said, Mabel turned, arms on her chest.

“I’m obsessed? Look at you, you look like a vampire, and not the hot kind” She said, pointing to the bags visible under his eyes.

“You said you were gonna help me today” He said desperately. She stuck her hand into a puppet and held it next to Dipper’s face.

“I can help you, with tickleess!” It said, nuzzling against his shirt [those are words which should not be in a non-smutty chapter]. He punched it down. Candy and Grenda were laughing. He pushed her tank away in anger.

“You know what? Fine, I’ll do it on my own!” He said, stalking back into the house, hooves almost breaking through the wood. He took his place in the attic, in front of the window with the triangle, muttering to himself as he tried more and more passwords.

“Mabel. Is. Useless” he said, each word punctuated with the machine’s plaintive *beep*. He yawned, eyes almost closed. A robotic voice came from the machine.

“ Too many failed entries//Initiate data erase in 5 minutes” The machine said, the timer appearing in blood-red on the screen.

“no! No No NO!” Dipper cried. “I’m gonna lose everything?” He asked incredulously. “I only have one more try!?!?” He asked the universe. The colour drained from the world again. He’d somehow fallen asleep again, he was in the mindscape. Bill appeared, silhouetted by the window. He was in a meditative pose, legs crossed, azure balls of flame burning over his… hand… things.

“Well well well. Told ya kid. Self-fulfilling prophecy. You’re lookin’ awful desperate” He said. Floating away from the window.

“I told you to leave me alone” Dipper replied.

“I can help ya kid, you just need to hear out my demands” Bill taunted. Dipper looked nervously at the screen. 4 minutes remained.

“What crazy thing do you want anyway?” Dipper asked. “To eat my soul? To rip out my teeth? Are you gonna replace my eyes with baby heads? Or are you gonna shuffle the functions of every hole in my face?” Dipper asked. Bill wrote the ideas down on a notepad.

“One, I love your ideas kid, and two, all I want is a puppet!” Bill said, laughing slightly. 3 minutes left.

“A puppet? What are you playing at Bill?” Dipper asked suspiciously, eyes narrowing.

“Everyone loves puppets, and it looks to me like you’ve got a surplus” Bill said, illuminating the pile of puppets in ghostly azure. 2 minutes left.

“I dunno, Mabel worked really hard on those” Dipper protested.

“Seems to me one little puppet is a small price to pay for all the secrets of the universe” Bill said, his body turning into an image of the far reaches of space. “Besides, what’s she done for you lately?” Bill asked, showing images of all the times that Mabel had gotten them in danger, the gnomes, “how many times have you sacrificed for her”, then showing Dipper pulling on the time-tape so that Mabel could get Waddles, “and when has she ever returned the favour?” He finished, showing the ending of the whole “Mermando” debacle. He looked out the window. Then at the laptop. 30 seconds left. “tick tock kiid” Bill said, replacing his eyeball with a clock, hand coated in azure flame.

“Agh, just one puppet in exchange for the password? Fine!” He cried, shaking Bill’s hand. The deal was made. “So, what puppet are you even gonna pick anyway?” Dipper asked.

“Hmm, let’s see, eenie meeny minie, YOU” Bill said, voice distorting as his eye turned blood-red.

“What!?” Dipper asked incredulously as Bill pulled, no, ripped, his soul from his body. Dipper floated in the air, fully aware, his legs had turned white below the knees. “This can’t be happening!” He cried, putting his hand inside his chest. He had sort of been expecting this, Bill being Bill after all, but this was the first time he’d witnessed being truly possessed, not just puppeteered while in an almost comatose sleep state. “Nonononoononono, not this again!” He cried. His body picked itself off of the floor, eyes obscured by his cap. He opened his eyes to reveal the reptilian slits of Bill Ciper.

“SORRY KID BUT YOU’RE MY PUPPET NOW!” he cried, picking up the laptop and throwing it onto the floor, then stepping on it with as much force as he could. The sharp cervine hoof went straight through.

“That wasn’t the deal Bill!” Dipper said, trying to catch Bill out.

“Oh right, the password was ‘Winnipeg” two n’s, capital w. Like I said deer head. Causality, it can make you do some weird things. also, the fact that pointdexter never actually programmed in a data-destruct function.” Bill said thoughtfully. Dipper was panicking as Bill stalked over to the mirror.

“Ohmygosh, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening!” he said in horror as “Bill” inspected his body. Bill seemed to take better to four legs than two… strange.

“It has been so long since I’ve inhabited a body. Let’s see, two arms, four legs, and some very nice extremities” Bill said, narrowing his eyes as if to feel every square millimeter of the body he inhabited. He slapped himself a few times, whooping with every strike. “pain is hilarious!” he said after 3 slaps. “And two eyes, man, this thing’s deluxe!” He said, holding up a hand between Dipper’s eyes.

“I don’t understand, why are you doing this? I thought we-” Dipper asked in desperation.

“Had a deal? Listen up deer head, I gave you the password, it was ‘Winnipeg’, the sigil nudged causality toward you having no other option but to make a deal with me. Besides, you were getting waay too close to figuring out some major answers” Bill said casually. “I’ve got big plans comin’ and I don’t need you gettin’ in my way” Bill said, sneering up at Dipper’s ghost. “Destroying that laptop was a cinch, now I just need to destroy your journal. Race you to the bottom of the stairs!” Bill cried, throwing himself off of the stairs. It was a miracle that Dipper’s body didn’t break a leg. Dipper threw himself through the floorboards. Bill was in the kitchen, fridge open, a can of Pitt Cola in hand.

“Human soda! I’m gonna drink it like a person!” He cried, pouring the substance into his mouth, then over his eyes, laughing all the while.

“So where do you keep that journal anyway?” Bill asked, sticking his hand inside a drawer, slamming it shut on the limb over and over again. “I mean, you gotta keep it somewhere” he said, still slamming the door on his arm. “Boy these arms are durable” He said. He removed his arm, forks sticking out of both sides.

“I’ve hidden it! Somewhere you’ll never find it in a million years!” Dipper cried.

“HeyDipperiborrowedyourbooktouseasapropformyshowandi’mleavingbeforeyouprocessthissentenceokaybyee!” Mabel yelled inside the door. Bill smiled manaically at Dipper.

“Sure thing Sis, I’ll see you at the show!” He called, walking off.

“Wait, no Mabel don’t listen to him, that’s not me!” Dipper cried. Stan hauled her tank into the shotgun seat of the car. “You gotta hear me, nono, wait stop!” Dipper cried, floating himself in front of the car. It passed right through him. Bill walked up behind him.

“Ha! Welcome to the mindscape kid” he said “Without a vessel to possess you’re basically a ghost” Bill cried.

“Oh hey Dipper, there you are” Said Soos from the patio, Wendy stepping down to meet Dipper.

“Soos! Wendy! Help me!” Dipper cried as he desperately tried to get their attention.

“We’re going to the theatre” Soos said, pooling out slightly.

“Want us to give you a ride?” Wendy asked, tail waving.

“Oho, anything for you red” Bill said. Wendy raised an eyebrow slightly, but didn’t say anything.

“I’m gonna stop you Bill! I’m gonna find that journal before you do and I’m gonna stop you!” Dipper cried as Bill settled into the boot of the other car.

“But how can you stop me?” Bill asked, turning his head. “If you don’t exiiiist?” He started laughing manaically. The boot was slammed shut. The car accelerated away, leaving Dipper floating in front of the shack.

Stan had a weird itch in the back of his mind, he knew the property was empty, but he felt as if there was something still there. He shook it off as old paranoia.

Dipper floated toward the town as fast as he could, not arriving before the sun had set. He floated in front of the theatre, the sign reading: “Glove story: A sock opera, by Mabel Pines”. He floated through the door, looking around in desperation. He heard Bill’s voice before he saw him.

“Aww, nothin’ like the theatre, eh toots?” Bill said to Wendy, tempted to scratch her behind her ears just to see what it would do. He didn’t like the look of those teeth however. “Hey Soos, wanna hear the exact time, date and manner of your death?” Bill asked, his fingers slightly sinking into the slime’s body. Mabel rolled up to the group excitedly.

“Hey guys you all made it!” She cried.

“Are you kiddin’ me? I would never miss… whatever this is” Stan said

“By the by Mabel, where’d you put my journal again?” Bill asked casually.

“I used it as a prop for the big wedding scene” Mabel said “I still need a reverend though” She wondered. Bill volunteered instantly.

“Hey, what If I play the reverend? Someone’s gotta hold that journal right?”

“Great! Let’s go!” Mabel cried, wheeling off to the right. Dipper rose from behind the seats.

“Oh no, Wait! Mabel!” Dipper cried as Bill ran up the stairs behind his sister. The curtain moved a little as Dipper passed through. Mabel poked her head out to see what had done it. She shrugged dismissively. Gabe had arrived in a suit. Puppets still on his hands. He sat and checked the time. The bee was wearing a bow tie and the watch like a belt. The lights flickered and Grenda’s voice boomed from the speakers.

“THE SHOW IS ABOUT TO BEGIN! PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONES! UNLESS YOU’RE TEXTING ME CUTIES!” she cried. People clapped as the curtains opened to reveal a cardboard mystery shack. Candy stood to one side, looking like David Bowie, behind a keyboard. A spotlight lit up her face.

“Gather round, and let us sing. About a girl, who had almost, everything” She said, voice echoing as the keyboard, and subsequently her, were wheeled off stage. Synth music started playing. A puppet Dipper sprang from one of the windows.

“Look it’s mabel!” It cried as a puppet version of Mabel sprang up from the center front with a flash of confetti.

“HEY THERE!” it cried. A puppet Soos emerged from the other window.

“Did you say Stable?” It asked as a puppet Stan emerged. It saddened them to see their human forms again, but the show was made by Mabel, so the optimism spread like the plague.

“No, he said Mabel!” The puppet Stan said in a gruff imitation.

“Okay! Hit it boys!” The puppet Mabel cried (fun idea for a drinking/suicide game, take a shot whenever you see the word puppet, also, I am not going to type the entire song, because that would murder my fingers. Hell, look up the songs if you want, I ain’t typing them)

Gabe leaned forward and started to nod in sync with his puppets to the beat of the song. The puppets that weren’t Mabel circled the puppet version of her. [this confused the shit out of me when I watched it for the first time, she only has two hands and feet, how is she controlling five puppets???] A mayor puppet burst out of the left window and sang

“I am a mayor, and here’s an award!”

“Thank you mayor, it’s true I’m great, but the perfect girl, needs a perfect maaaaaaate” The Mabel puppet sang. A Gabe puppet “stood” above the clouds, straw hands on hips.

“Hey what’s up I’m Gabe.” It said. The Mabel puppet’s mouth was agape with shock. Bill clopped up behind Grenda, looking rather dapper in his reverend costume, of course only the top part fit, but he still looked good..

“So hey, Grendo, where’s that book prop I’m using for the wedding scene?” He asked, as Grenda turned on her tentacles to look at him.

“It’s up in the wedding cake” She said, pointing with one tentacle. “but that won’t come down until act 3. Hold your horses” she said, “erm, deers” She corrected herself, glancing at his underside.

“Oh, I’ll hold my horses, I’ll hold ‘em reeeeeal good” Bill said, retreating into the darkness. “Ya freak” He said quietly once he was out of earshot. Dipper, still ghostly and very much ignored, floated down beside Grenda.

“HEY LISTEN, HAVE YOU SEEN MABEL??!” he yelled, but, in usual fashion, he was not heard, nor seen. Dipper held his hand to his temple. “What did Bill say? I can’t be heard without a vessel?” He asked himself. “Where would I find a-“ His eyes landed on the pile of discarded puppets next to the wall.

The opera went on.

“Finally, we’re together” The puppet Mabel said to the puppet Gabe.

“I’m sorry Mabel, but I have to go fight. IN THE WAAR!” he yelled, a tiny helmet falling onto his head. He charged into the battle, yelling loudly. The adversary appeared to be some sort of giant puppet monster(?), dramatic sound effects played. A spotlight shone onto puppet Mabel.

“I WILL WAIT FOR YOU GABE! I’LL WAAIT FOR YOUUU!” the puppet Mabel cried melodramatically as the curtains shut.

“OUR INTERMISSION HAS BEGUN! MILL ABOUT!” Grenda yelled over the speakers. People started to mill about and chat. Mabel rolled into her backstage room, exhausted.

“Whoo, okay, you can do this Mabel. Only 36 more musical numbers.” She said, splashing water on her face. As she took a drink from the fountain, something floated upward next to her.

“Psst. Mabel” The puppet Dipper whispered. Mabel spewed water like a geyser. She reeled in her tank, water splashing everywhere.

“AAH! IT’S COME TO LIFE! THE PUPPET BOOK DIDN’T WARN ME ABOUT THIS!” she cried, ineffectively throwing a fork at the puppet. It just got stuck in its eye.

“Mabel it’s me, Dipper! You need to help me!” The puppet Dipper said, flailing.

“Wait, wha- Dipper?” She started, then she gasped. “Bill possessed you didn’t he”

“He… might have persuaded me into making a deal with him so that I could get the password to the laptop in exchange for a puppet, he took my body and he’s after the journal, you need to find it before it’s destroyed by bill! It’s my only hope of getting back into my body!” He blurted.

“But my cue’s coming up any minute!” She cried as someone knocked on the door. It was Gabe [*points finger like evil closet monkey*]

“Hey Mabel, do you have a minute?” He asked, leaning around the door, which now hung ajar. She grabbed the puppet from mid-air, submerging it in the tank. She laughed sheepishly. “Mabel, it’s clear to me now that you really love puppets, I mean, you went whole hog! And if you stick the ending, then maybe, you could join me for biscotti?” He asked. She gasped.

“You drive a biscotti?” She asked in amazement. The lights flickered to signify the end of the intermission.

“I’ll be waiting, bye!” he called back, leaving.

“Did you hear that! HE LOVES IT!” she cried jubilantly. “This play has to be flawless, can’t we wait until after the show?” She implored Dipper.

“MABEL! DO YOU WANT ME TO BE A SOCK PUPPET FOREVER!?!?!” He yelled, the puppet’s mouth stretching to impossible widths [HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHA]

“I’m sorry, it, it looks funny when you’re mad” Mabel chuckled. The puppet’s face was scrunched up in pure, unadulterated fury. “Okayokayokay, just take over from me until I get back with the book” She told him. Back to the show. The Mabel puppet popped up in a cardboard hole shaped like a heart [AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHHAAHHA]

“Gabe! You’re back from the war!” It said, the voice changed since before the intermission, it sounded like a boy trying to sound like a girl and failing somewhat miserably.

“Yes I am, wanna kiss and sing at the same time?” The Gabe puppet asked, sitting in a wheelchair.

“Okay!” The puppet Mabel replied. The puppets started to suck face [there are these two people at my school, they’re just constantly kissing in the halls, it bother me so much, it’s like “ooh, look at how totally in love we are mwah mwah mwah”. If it isn’t clear, I hate both of those people.]. Dipper was orchestrating them, ghostly legs folded beneath him.

“Seriously?” He asked the universe at large. People were clapping loudly. Mabel was levitating her tank to the catwalk’s level, rolling over to the cake which hung suspended by a rope. The journal was inside. She smiled and leaned forward, trying to levitate it to her. She hung over the side of her tank, focusing intensely, Leaning closer and closer. She fell in, rope snapping, cake falling faster and faster toward the stage. Suddenly, it stopped. She sighed in relief as it started to rise. She opened the journal, flipping through the pages, looking for a way to get Dipper’s body back to him.

“Come on, there must be a way to get Dipper’s body back” She murmured.

“OH-ho, but why would you want to do that?” Bill asked. He had been the one pulling the rope, and she saw now the difference in her brother’s eyes. The pupils were vertical slits, the areas around them devoid of irises, the rest of the eye tinted yellow.

“Ah, Bill-Dipper. Bipper.” She said, eyes narrowing. He shushed her.

“Shh, you wouldn’t wanna ruin the show” He said quietly, motioning to the audience. He suddenly let go of the rope, the cake falling before he grabbed it again. “It’s slipping! How’s about you hand that book over” He said, grinning maniacally. Mabel was slowly running out of oxygen in her gills.

“No way, this is Dipper’s book, I’d never give it away” She said, clutching the book to her chest, simultaneously starting a spell that she’d been practicing in her mind. Bipper pulled the cake slightly higher.

“Hmm, you didn’t seem to have a problem taking it for your own play, or ditching him when he needed you. So come to your senses. Gimme the book or your play is ruined” He said harshly. Mabel sighed. She started moving to give Bipper the book.

“I mean, who would sacrifice everything they’ve worked for just for their dumb sibling.” Bipper said.

“Dipper would” she said determinedly. She pulled Bipper into the cake, no mean feat, he was heavy with his deer body. She also pulled her tank into the cake with them, she was nearly completely dried up at this point. She leaped into the water and sucked in a breath. The cake started to fall, just as the wedding scene was beginning. The sock Mabel was in a wedding dress, puppet stan acting as the pastor.

“I’m giving you away, you are a woman now. Waddles! The rings!” He called. The pig waddled over to the scene, holding a pair of rings in his mouth. Dipper heard the cake falling and the Stan puppet looked up. The cake crashed to the floor and shattered. Mabel’s tank was still intact thanks to her magic. Not that she was in it, She’d lept out and was fighting Bipper. The twins punched and scratched each other over the book.

“GET OUT OF MY BROTHER’S BODY YOU EVIL TRIANGLE!” Mabel cried. Stan held up a camera

“Woah, children fighting. I can sell this!” He said, completely ignoring the danger senses in the back of his mind. Mabel whacked Bipper in the face with the journal, disorienting him. He staggered to his hooves.

“You can’t stop me! I’m a being of pure energy with no weakness!” Bipper cried, jumping (it looked like he was prancing) At Mabel. He pinned her to the floor.

“True. But you’re in Dipper’s body. And I know all his weaknesses!” She said triumphantly, reaching behind Bipper’s ears and scratching. He flopped over, eyes dim with sheer pleasure. His pupils had gone slightly cervine (horizontal slits) with pleasure. She then tickled him under his arms. He started laughing, eyes sharpening again as he started writhing on the floor, legs thrashing, yelling,

“AAH! BODY SPASMS! WHAT ARE THESE!?” he cried in confusion. Mabel took this chance to leap back into her tank, holding the book above the water.

“Little note about the human body, you haven’t slept in over 24 hours, also, I got a full night’s sleep and I’m on four mega shots of Mabel juice!” She cried, driving the tank around the stage at the highest speed setting she could get it. Bipper’s stamina was flagging, his face was sagging, [MOM’S SPAGHETTI! [sorry]]

“What is this feeling?” Bipper wheezed “My body is burning! I can’t move these stupid twig legs! Curse you useless flesh sticks! Body! Shutting down. Must. Scratch. Mosquito Bites.” He staggered, swaying back and forth before finally falling, like a tree. Bill was forcefully ejected from the body, flipping end over end, through the “church” window. Dipper swooped back into his body. He groggily opened his eyes. Every inch of him was aching. He moved his fingers a bit, feeling the sensation of moving them again. He leaped to his hooves,

“Yes! I’m in my own body! And it’s just as underwhelming as I remember” He said, upper torso flopping downward as the rush of joy was quickly replaced with agonizing muscle aches. He struggled to lift his human half, arms on spine. “ooh, everything hurts”.

Bill’s laughter permeated the air. The twins both looked toward the source of the sound in shock. The Dipper puppet. Bill was using it to communicate to the physical world.

“This isn’t the last you’ll hear of me, big things are coming! Ya can’t stop me!” He cried through the puppet. Mabel rummaged around in her sweater and pulled out a remote that said “Big finish”

“I’m sorry Gabe” She said sorrowfully. She pushed the button. The entire stockpile of pyrotechnics exploded in a beautiful shower of destruction. The puppets burned, falling all around the room. Ave Maria played somewhere. Gabe shook his head in disbelief and sadness, tears of sap falling from his wooden eyes [SUFFER!!!]. Fireworks exploded everywhere, zooming over the heads of the audience. The Dipper puppet landed at his hooves and he stomped it beneath them. As they turned back to the audience a lighting fixture fell behind them. “Don’t worry, I’ve seen enough movies to know where this is the part that the audience thinks it was all part of the show and loves it. Cue applause!” She said optimistically. The room was silent. For approximately eight seconds. Then people started booing. And booing hard. They all left the theatre in anger, Manly Dan’s horns carving their path through the top part of the door. Gabe stood furiously.

“Gabe! Stick around for the rap party?” Mabel said hopefully. “We’ve got mini-quiches” She offered.

“Don’t speak to me Mabel” He said, turning away. “You’ve made a mockery of my art form. Let’s go my loves” He said to his puppets. He started kissing them [RAPE! RAPE!]

“Did he just make out with his puppets?” Dipper asked, as if he didn’t quite recognize what he was seeing.

“I might have dodged a bullet there” Mabel said. Candy chased Gabe out of the theatre

“jamkkan, gaebi! satang-eun yeojeonhi dangsin-eul salanghabnida!” The kappa cried (translates from Korean to “Wait Gabe! Candy Still loves you!”)

“Eugh, Mabel, I’m sorry about all this, it’s my fault your puppets got ruined” He said, the underlying apology for the river hung in the air like a noose.

“Well one of them survived, and she has something to say to you” She said quietly, pulling the slightly soggy Mabel puppet out of her tank.

“I’m sorry Dipper, I spent all week obsessing over a dumb guy, but the dumb guy I should’ve cared about, was you” It said, bapping him on the cheek as he smiled.

“Mystery twins?” Mabel asked

“Mystery twins” Dipper confirmed. They fist-bumped, something cracked in Dipper’s hand. “OW! What did Bill do to my hand?” He asked the air.

“Nothing a little sleep can’t fix” Mabel said, eternally optimisitic. “Come on bro-bro, let’s go home” She said, rolling off stage.

“Seriously I need to go to a doctor” Dipper said, sounding as if he was in serious pain.

Chapter Text

Soos and the Real Girl

The day begins as per usual in the mystery shack, Mabel rolling her tank toward the door, the wheels tripping up on a small crack in the boards and launching her, braces first into the screen door. The mesh got caught around one of her braces, not to mention that there was a serious risk to her health what with her gills being completely and utterly out of the water.

“AAAAAH! BRACES! BRACES CAUGHT IN THE SCREEN DOOR! GILLS OUT OF WATER!!!!” she screamed. “Someone dictate my will, I leave everything to Waddles!!!” She yelled. Soos rolled up behind her, pulled a screwdriver from inside his mass and wedged it between her brace and the screen door.

“Say AH dood” He said helpfully. Mabel complied, and the wire in the screen door snapped. Soos wrapped some of himself around Mabel and lowered her back into her tank. She gulped in water. Dipper stood by.

“SOOS! You saved me!” Mabel said joyfully.

“Hehe, just doin’ my job hambone. I’ll see you doods, tomorrow” He said, waving a hand and going through the wires of the screen door. The twins waved back. The various other employees, among which were a werewolf and a gargoyle, bade him good night. Soos rolled away to his car at a leisurely speed. An awkward silence followed inside the mystery shack.

“You ever wonder what Soos does when he’s not here at the mystery shack?” Mabel asked to no-one in particular.

“No”

“Not really”

“Not once ever” The rest of them chimed.

At Soos’ house, he was playing First person Puncher (should’ve been Fist-person puncher). Leopards jumped at the camera, the fists continuously punching them.

“Punch! Punch those leopards!” Soos said, enraptured. The egg timer next to him dinged. “Highlights are done! You’re gonna make the other grandmas at the bingo hall, so jealous” He said, pulling the strips of foil off of his grandmother’s hair. She was reading a letter.

“Just a minute mijo your cousin Reggie is having an engagement party next month” She said, handing him the photo that had come with the letter. Soos’ body rippled in astonishment.

“Wait,wait, Reggie’s getting engaged?!” He asked, “But he’s like, the poor man’s Soos” He said, turning back to his grandmother.

“Soos, I do not want to pressure you, but you are a man now, in a way, it’s time for you to start meeting girls, I would like to see you settled, before I ascend to heaven and live with the angels” She said, an ironic statement, since the Fluvius Cantatis flood had turned her into something of a demon.

“And with grandpa” Soos chimed in.

“No. He is… not there. Please find a girl to bring to Reggie’s engagement? For Abuelita” She said, caressing his cheek with her hand. She walked away.

“Heh, no problem, I’m great at fixing stuff, playing video games, I could totally get a date in a week” [I didn’t include the “sort of a mustache” thing because now that he’s a slime he can’t really have a mustache… or any sort of facial hair] He said, melting slightly as he leaned into the couch. “Totally… piece of cake” he said, sounding slightly nervous. The game flashed red as the character ran out of lives.

“You’re Dead!” It said on top of a red splatter. Soos’ body rippled [he ripples a lot] in dread.

“I’m dead” he repeated.

The next day, back at the mystery shack, a child, a two-tailed cat, was walking, flipping a penny [big mistake kid], as he approached the exhibit with the covering on it, the gargoyle also known as Grunkle Stan appeared from behind a rack of postcards.

“Hello!” He cried. The child made a lout cat noise in response, sort of like when Dipper bleats sometimes. “Please, don’t let my horrible elderly face and my terrifying teeth and claws and pupilless eyes frighten you, don’t you wanna use that nickel to get a nugget from old goldie?” He asked, whipping off the covering, revealing a terrifying bronze statue of someone panning for gold. The child’s expression curdled, his tails curling up behind him. Stan leaned in close “Watch this” he said, inserting a nickel into the statue’s mouth. It made a grinding sound, raised its arm, lifted its hat, its eyes fell out and it started screaming the sound of a man in extreme pain, oil leaking from its various facial holes. The child teleported away, crying.

“Okay, seriously Mr Pines” Wendy interjected, fur on end, ears down, shaking slightly. “It’s time to throw that thing out, its face reminds everyone of the inevitability of death” She said.

“WHAT? Sure, he’s a little rusty round the edges, but old goldie’s a classic showstopper like me” He said, tail waving around absentmindedly and slipping into old goldie’s mouth [that is waaay too much like a “that’s what he said” moment, that I’m just going to leave it alone]. The exhibit’s teeth clamped on the appendage. His eyes widened in sudden pain, he flailed his tail, roaring in pain. “AAH! KILL IT!” he yelled, slamming the statue on its pedestal.

Soos was busy putting shirts back onto the rack when he turned and spotted a woman, she appeared to be some sort of badger. She was inspecting a snow globe meticulously. He gasped.

“A w-homan.” He seeped down into the circular rack of question mark shirts. “All right Soos, you can do this.” He said quietly to himself. “Just use your mouth to say words that makes romance happen”. He rose from the rack slowly. “Your face is good. I’m a Soos.” He said. The woman twitched and teleported away. He sank back into the rack. Dipper noticed and clip-clopped over. He moved the shirts with a leg.

“Soos?” He asked. “What was that all about?” He asked.

“I- I think I was flirting, but I’m not sure” He said. Mabel, who had apparently learned to disguise her tank as other objects through magic, popped up from what appeared to be a barrel of keychains, a mile-wide smile on her face.

“Did someone say flirting?” She asked excitedly. Soos stood.

“Well, I sort of promised my grandma I’d get a date by the end of the week. But I’ve never actually been on a date before.” He said awkwardly. He ripped the out of order sign from the vending machine. “You belong on me, out of order sign” He said, dejected. He sighed.

“Finally” Mabel said, having reverted her tank to its default form, “My prayers for a chance to matchmake this summer have been answered!” Mabel said reverently.

“Soos, a little advice, you need to get rich, or lie about being rich. Outside of that I don’t like your chances” The old gargoyle said. Wendy huffed.

“Don’t listen to Stan dude” The werewolf said, “you’re a sweet guy with a steady job and a pickup truck” she said encouragingly.

“Would you date ‘im?” Stan asked.

“Ohh, would you, look at that” She said awkwardly, holding up her issue of “avoid eye contact monthly” Dipper chimed in then.

“Soos, you help us so much it’s time we help you dude. We’re gonna get you that date” he said positively.

“We’re taking you where romance lives, and fashion styles die” She said reverently. “TO THE MALL!” she cried.

“I’m gonna go find a replacement for old goldie” Stan said once they reached the mall. “Babysit Soos while I’m gone” he told the kids. Mabel looked around, the sheer variety of forms was truly impressive, it was hard to tell which were female and not, but, clothing did reveal some aspects, as did head hair. There were too many to describe, [though I feel like I’m going to have to describe all of Soos’ attempts].

“Alright Soos, ready to drop a charm bomb on these unsuspecting ladies?” Mabel asked.

“uuh, but what If I embarrass myself again?” He asked nervously.

“Eh, you can’t be any worse at this than Dipper” Mabel said, putting her hand on Diper’s flank.

“Yeah!” Dipper agreed enthusiastically. “wait whaaat?” He asked shrewdly. Mabel blew on her whistle.

“Ready? Aaand FLIRT!” she called. The attempts and subsequent failures began. Mabel’s first bit of helpful advice [oh my sweet summer child] was on an attempt with a woman who had a huge spider body for legs, [hereby dubbed an arachnotaur [or an Arachne]] was to maintain eye contact. Soos rolled up to the woman.

“I’m not scared of your eight composite eyes at all” He said awkwardly. “I’m gonna look at them” He continued, pulling some of the slime away from above and below his eyes. The woman hissed and skittered away, up a wall and over the balcony. Soos flowed upward to follow her. A faint yell of “eye contact!” could be heard. Mabel’s next tip was conversation. They decided to try this on an Oni woman eating a large piece of pork, tusks ripping into the meat. Soos rolled over to her.

“Huh. You know, I’ve actually been trapped in a pig’s body” He started. “Did you know pigs have a hard time walking backwards? Hehe” He said sheepishly. The Oni slowly backed away. “Not you though. Not that I’m calling you a pig [yeah, most of the forms in this chapter are going to be from Japanese mythology. You have been warned], where are you goin?” Soos asked, starting to elongate towards her as she inched away. Mabel’s next tip was confidence. They decided to try this on a Tengu of indeterminate gender standing in front of the Edgy on Purpose store, wearing only black clothes, the only splash of colour being their mask-like face with the long nose, staring disapprovingly at the slime.

“so you’re probably a girl, right?” He asked He narrowed his eyes, leaning in a little closer “wrong?” He asked suspiciously. He laughed, “No, I was right the first time”, he narrowed his eyes again, leaning in once more “wrong?”. Meanwhile, Stan was putting the terrifying statue into a nearby dumpster. You might be asking yourself why he hasn’t turned to stone yet, the witch who was training Dipper and Mabel in magic had burned a sigil into his other wing which allowed him to be in the sunlight for short periods at a time, short periods having been defined as about an hour at a time, after an hour, if he didn’t get in a shadow within a few seconds he’d be turned to stone. Fortunately, it had a short recharge time.

“Tossing away garbage, in a garbage can” Stan sang to himself, pushing the statue further into the pile. “whew” he said, wiping his brow by sheer force of habit. He focused on the statue again, it seemed to be looking at him imploringly. “Ah, don’t look at me like that” The gargoyle said, looking at the statue guiltily. “This is how it’s got to be!” he said. A single tear of oil seeped from the statue’s right eye. Stan shuddered in disgust, slamming the lid of the dumpster down on the unholy statue. A group of kids nearby laughed as they walked into a door, accompanied by a woman who was presumably taking care of them, hopefully not planning on murdering them and stuffing them inside the animatronics on the pizza restaurant. Stan walked in after them. Immediately he focused on the cartoonish stuffed bear head on the wall. He looked around the room, further seeing a child with pizza dripping from his mouths, the poor child had been turned into a smaller species of hydra, playing an arcade game, a ticket machine shaped like a pizza wearing sunglasses. Stan walked through the restaurant, he hesitated to call it so, so we’ll call it a trash heap.

“What is this living nightmare?” He asked himself, feeling the slight tingle of the sigil on his left wing as it recharged. “Why do kids love it so much?” he asked as he neared the stage. On the stage was a collection of animatronics. The lead seemed to be an anthropomorphic badger wearing seriously outdated clothes. He thought back to the badger woman who’d been in the mystery shack the other day, noting the similarities. The badger hit a power chord on his guitar.

“who wants to get badgeeeerred?” It asked the audience of enraptured children (that sounds so wrong). Someone nudged stan, a Hihi wearing a cowboy hat and a lanyard that said the name “Gary” in large red capital letters.

“Oh yeah, that’s Will E. Badger” He said, pointing to the stage. “He opens for Hoo-Ha and the Jamboree” he explained to the still bewildered Stan. The badger was doing some sort of dance on the stage. The children were screeching their adoration. Stan suspected that at least one of them was a Banshee, they were relatively common, he could feel the creeping paralysis of its screams in his stone. The badger had pulled a hat out of nowhere in the meantime and proffered it to the children.

“Now give me your money!” He said. The children were throwing fistfuls of cash into the hat.

“Hoooooooooooooo” Stan cried, eyes zeroing in on the moneymaking chance. “sir, I would like to buy that badger” Stan said, pointing to the object in question. The Hihi laughed and shook his head.

“hehe, you’re in over your head gramps. Animatronics is a young man’s game!” He said condescendingly. “You couldn’t handle the hardcore life of a pizza robot manager” He said, flexing suddenly. Stan was unfased, he’d seen more intimidating displays from Dipper. Somewhere else in the trash heap, a child vomited. “hey you, barfing in the ball pit. Gary’s on the case” He said, pulling a sponge out of his belt, boots clinking as he walked away. Stan narrowed his eyes in fury, the light intensifying in his rage.

“I’m gonna get that badger” He said through gritted fangs.

Dipper, Mabel and Soos had finished a tirade of attempts and were now outside of a game shop. Mabel got a plastic capsule from one of the… things (I don’t know the name) and was trying to twist it open in her tank.

“Don’t worry Soos. You’ll find the right girl” She started, pulling a neon green stretchy hand out of the capsule. “You just need to stick with it” She said, flinging the hand at soos. It sank into his mass. Soos sighed.

“Aw, could this day get any worse?” He asked the universe [oh Soos, don’t you know? Ask and ye shall receive!]. he spotted his cousin walking past with a woman who he presumed was his fiancée. He was glad to see that he’d gotten off worse with his transformation, he was a golem made of wax, whereas she’d turned into an Iyaya [you might need to look some of these up]. “Oh no, it’s cousin Reggie!” He cried as Reggie turned to his fiancée, holding up an arm.

“Feel it, it used to be muscle” He said. She squeezed it, fingers sinking slightly into the wax. Soos recoiled, shrinking into himself.

“He can’t see me like this” He said, frantically flowing into the game shop and fleeing to the back. He pooled on the floor next to a rack of comics and a shelf unit of video games. “This is it Soos, a lifetime of loneliness” He said dejectedly. He pulled some of the video games off the shelf and holding them up. “You’re the only ones that could love me, Fighty Hogg, Dr. Punch head, MD.” He noticed something colourful in the reflections of the plastic wrapping of the cases. Something in a box with a sale<\i> sign in it. He grabbed it and brought it to his face. Its cover said Romance academy 7<\i>, the mascot being an anime girl wearing a bow comprised of 2 HDMI cables [at least, that’s what it looks like], “Huh. Never see that one before” He said, rising slightly from his puddle. He read the caption. “Virtually improve your dating skills,” He turned it over. “9/10 basement dwellers recommend, This is perfect” He exclaimed. Dipper and mabel appeared behind him, they’d been listening the whole time.

“Well, I guess you are better at games than at flirting” Dipper pointed out.

“Anything to get you out there Soos” Mabel said optimistically. The shop employee, a Jibakurei unfortunately bound to the building, drew in a breath.

“I’m not sure you want to buy that game sir, this is the third time someone’s brought it back, and there’s a note on it that says destroy at all costs” She said. Dipper flipped the box over. There was indeed a small sticky note saying those exact words. Further back in the shop, Soos was attempting to chat up a cardboard cutout from a game that was going to come out soon.

“So hey there. What’s you deal?” He asked it, poking it tentatively. It fell over. “Oh she’s dead!” He cried. Mabel returned her attention to the shopkeeper.

“We’ll take our chances” She said. Much, much later that day, after Mabel and Dipper had said their goodbyes and Soos had returned home, he was up in his room, inserting the CD into the computer with as dry a finger as he could manage. A company logo came onto the screen with a zoom sound, it said “year 2000 electronics”, with a CD behind it.

“Man, I can’t wait for the year 2000” Soos said optimistically. The screen turned white as a menu popped up. It was bright pink, with a techno theme playing in the background as large letters said “Romance Academy 7”. There were lilies in the bottom right corner and 3 menu options. The first was “start”, the second was “quit” and the third was “Shizenhakka”. Soos selected start. A cheesy theme whined as text in Japanese and English appeared on the screen.

“When the cherry petals of magic romance academy are in bloom…” Soos read, “Anthyding can hadplen” the words finished. “That is so true” Soos said sagely. The scene cut to a classroom, the only character on screen being the one on the box art, the girl with the HDMI cables in her hair.

“Oh, Hi, there” She said, the space between her words being far too long. “My name is Giffany” She continued, her voice sounding more like a program like Siri. She pronounced ‘Giffany’ with a hard ‘g’ sound, “I’m a school girl at school university, will you help me carry my books?” She asked as 3 menu options appeared. The options were:
1) Yes of course!
2) I am impatient! Date me now!
3) Hey look a squid!
“I’m really feeling number 2 here” Soos said, clicking the second option. A buzzer sounded and a broken heart appeared next to the option. “Ah, I messed up!” Soos exclaimed, mass rippling in frustration.

“That’s okay” Giffany said, “Try again” She continued. Soos clicked a second time, this time selecting the first option. Pixellated money dropped from the game ceiling and ‘100 love points’ appeared at the bottom of the screen.

“Wow I’m learning!” Soos said proudly, unconsciously shifting his mass to be more compact. “And games are making it fun”

“What would you like to talk about?” Giffany asked, 3 more options appeared. They were:
1) Your interests!
2) Samurais!
3) Squids!
“I’d rather just click your face” Soos said, doing just that. Giffany laughed.

“Ha ha. You are so funny” she said.

“Man this game is amazing!” soos said, grinning widely. “I don’t know why anyone abandoned it” He said, taking his hands away from the keyboard, leaving it spattered in slime [there’s an extremely obvious and immature joke there that I’m not going to make. Do with it as you will]

“And I’m sure you’ll never abandon me, new boy friend” Giffany said, enunciating the words ‘boy’ and ‘friend’ strangely.

“Boyfriend?” Soos said. “Oh my Giffany, it’s almost like you’re actually alive” He said, chuckling and pointing at the screen.

“Yes, almost” She said, looking away surreptitiously. She laughed then, strange computerized laughter coming from Soos’ speakers. The computer was unplugged.

“Oh man, you have such a nice laugh” Soos said. The next day at the mystery shack, the gargoyle was trying to lecture the werewolf at the counter with why the badger he’d seen the other day was far superior to damn near anything else in the mystery shack.

“You don’t understand Wendy, this animatronic badger sings, it dances, it’s the perfect money taking attraction!” He ranted, wendy had her snout in ‘avoid eye contact Monthly’, so she didn’t notice the gargoyle’s tail whipping about until it thumped against the counter and made her fall off her chair with the force of the vibration. He turned to the fallen werewolf, “but he won’t sell it to me” He finished, helping her onto her paws. She stretched her back irritably, tail swishing as she gave the gargoyle a dirty look.

“This is literally too dumb for me to care about” she said, standing her chair upright again. Dipper clopped in, the bell above the door ringing over his hoof-beats.

“Hey, have you guys seen Soos?” He asked, looking confusedly at the werewolf picking up the chair she usually lounged in. A fish tank rolled in behind him, containing a mildly distressed mabel. “We’re supposed to help him with matchmaking today”

“Yeah!” Mabel cried out, poking her head out of her tank. “I wore my motivational sweater and everything.” She said, pointing out the letters stitched onto the pink fabric, spelling out ‘U can do it Soos”. The second O was slightly overlapping the last S, but it was otherwise a sweet gesture. She pointed to the overlapping letters, “I messed up that part”

“He didn’t come in today” Stan said, walking over to the twins, claw on his head, scrunching his ear awkwardly. He hadn’t felt Soos on the property at all. “It’s the first time he’s missed work ever” He said in disbelief. He didn’t feel any sort of danger warnings from the alarms in the back of his head, so he guessed that Soos was fine. The twins glanced at each other worriedly. The twins decided to check Soos’ house. They were let in by his grandmother, she remembered them from the escapade with Gideon, they went straight upstairs and opened the door a crack. Dipper went in first since Mabel’s tank was too ungainly for the door without it opening wider than she could reach. As his hooves thumped slightly on the carpet, both he and Mabel saw Soos, the majority of his mass on the floor, with only his torso at level with the computer screen. He was laughing.

“So that’s basically my entire life story, now you tell me a thing about you” he said expectantly.

“Every time you compliment me, I get another highlight in my eyes” Giffany said, eyes sparkling artificially.

“Ah, you’re pretty” Soos said, Giffany’s face filled the screen, with her eyes being about quadruple the size of her mouth. “And pixelly” Her eyes got shinier, “And so agreeable” Small cats and planets filled her eyes. “Yes!” Soos cried, pumping his fist into the air, making his entire body ripple. The twins stood just inside the room, Mabel having navigated her tank to fit into the door.

“Uh, Soos?” she asked. He turned.

“Oh, hi dudes, come in” He said happily, turning back to the screen. “This game is amazing, I’m making eye contact, going on dates, and I haven’t seen any natural sunlight for 13 hours” he said. His slime was looking a little paler than usual. Dipper took a step forward and accidentally crushed a Pitt cola can. There was a can or two floating inside Soos’ mass as well.

“Soos, maybe it’s time to apply these skills with real girls” Mabel implored.

“But, I’m about to meet her parents” Soos said. He turned his head 180 degrees. “Her dad is an octopus man” He whispered. Dipper, having walked to the blinds, yanked on the string, forcing the blinds upward. Soos’ entire body convulsed as he flowed quickly into the soothing darkness under his desk. Mabel grabbed one of his arms, poking her head out of the water. She started reversing her tank.

“We’re going back to the mall, man” Dipper said, watching in approval.

“You need to unplug” Mabel finished, pulling him out from under the desk, bit by bit. He extended some of his mass to grasp the table, moving his face up the tendril until he was looking at the screen again.

“I’ll see you later Giffany” He said, a sort of wanton desperation in his voice. “I’ll be back I swear” he finished as Mabel pulled too much of him out of the room and his face whipped to join the rest of his body with a snap. Mabel laughed.

“Haha, Soos, you don’t have to wish her goodbye” She said. “It’s just a game” She finished as Dipper closed the door.

“Yeah, besides, it’s not like it’s going anywhere” He finished, walking to keep up with his sister and the slime.

“Yes, it’s not like I’m going anywhere” Giffany said with no input, almost as if she’d heard the cervitaur speak. Her image flashed on screen as it converted to pure energy, hopping from a small stuffed toy with some machinery inside to the alarm clock, travelling up the clock’s power chord to the main lines outside. Soos’ grandmother walked in then.

“Hello?” She asked the air. She could’ve sworn that she’d heard something up here after the centaur and the mermaid had pulled her grandson out of the house. She looked around. “Time to read Soos’ diary” She said to herself, walking over to the desk and opening one of the notebooks he kept on it. Meanwhile, at the mall, mabel was looking through binoculars the wrong way round, surveying the area from her tank. Dipper and Soos stood next to her. She finally gave up her scan, putting her arms to her sides,

“Dang” She exclaimed, “Where all them sweet honeys at?” She asked. “I’ll check the ladies bathroom” She said, rolling her tank to the room in question, charging in with a megaphone, screaming “IT’S LOVE TIME GIRLS! GET OUT THERE, NO TIME TO WASH YOUR HANDS!” She screamed. Women came charging out in a mad panic until only Mabel was left inside, yelling “IT’S TIME TO DATE, DATE, DATE!” into her megaphone. Bulking forms stuffed into uniforms lumbered toward the door.

“Aaaand here comes security” Dipper said, sighing, “I’ll deal with this, stay here and practice on some real girls” He said, clopping toward the security forces, already preparing a calming spell to make them forget about the blatant shattering of the peace. Soos picked up the potted plant they’d been hiding behind and stealthily peaked out from behind the escalator. He started rolling backwards in dismay.

“These girls have so many dimensions, and no explanationy menus” He said in horror as he bumped into an itsumade. Smoke billowed out of its beak as it cried out in shock, dropping her purse.

“Ah, my purse” She cried. Soos backed away, instinctively moving his fingers to where the ctrl and z buttons should’ve been.

“Oh no, undo, undo!” He cried. The Itsumade narrowed its eyes.

“You can’t unto who you are” It snarled, Soos hid behind a pillar and stretched his body as flat as it would go to draw as little attention to himself as he could. In the store window on the other side of the pillar was a pile of TVs, evidently on sale. “Oh man, this is the worst” He said, slime rolling off of him in rivulets. “I wish I was back home with…” One of the TVs turned on. It showed an image of Giffany,

“Hi Soos” Said her irritatingly cheery voice, hearts radiating from her image.

“Giffany!” Soos cried out, abject relief causing himself to relax a bit, returning to a stretched facsimile of his usual self. “Oh man I’m so relieved to see you” He said, mushing his face into the store window. “Although, sort of confused” He added, frowning slightly.

“Oh, Soos” She started, displaying another image of herself on a different screen, “I am not an ordinary game” She started again, turning on another screen by a robotic dog toy, “I am special” she said, turning on the dog with a flick of her finger. She showed an 8-bit informatic animation on one of the screens. “The programmers tried to delete me” She said, showing of a grid field of people sitting at screens, one of them in red, “So I had to delete them” She finished, zooming in on the person in red, binary code flowing across their screen, before it flashed red and the words ‘accidental artificial intelligence’ flashed on the 8-bit screen, a query of ‘delete’ showed up next. The person was zapped by electricity before he could confirm the deletion order.

“Wh- what did you do to them?” He asked nervously. The rest of the screens on the left lit up, all showing separate images of Giffany gazing at Soos,

“That’s not important” They chimed, the screens on the other side lit up, showing the same image, “What’s important is you don’t have to talk to real girls ever again, you and me can be together” she finished before making all the screens show a collaged version of herself holding her arms out to Soos, “FoReVeR” She all but thundered, voice becoming distorted by the amount of speakers.

“Wow that’s awesome” Soos said blindly, returning completely to his usual form. “Sort of a red flag” He said, consideringly, “But mostly awesome” He concluded. “So, what do you want to do now?” He asked.

“Anything you want, Soos” She said, leaning forward on the screen closest to Soos’ face. His mind reeled at the possibilities.

At the Kidz Zone, a large slime man was slightly spilling over the sides of a small train. He was laughing.

“hehehehe, choo-choo” He said, mimicking the action with his hand. On the screen, Giffany piloted a larger locomotive with a bunch of small animals in the back. The screen suddenly went dark.

“Please insert 50 cents to continue” The machine said.

“Aw man” Soos said, looking up from the screen. A woman could be heard laughing, the sound ending in an avian choking sound. Soos looked over. A harpy was managing the ‘Meat Cute!” Stand. She looked almost entirely human, with the exception of the large wings that took the place of her arms. She was wearing shorts, Soos could see her bird-like legs.

“Oh, I’m sorry” She said, walking out from behind her stall. Similarly to Dipper, she seemed to have gotten used to her animalistic legs in the time since the river incident. “Dude that’s awesome that you’re a grown man riding a little train like that, you’re totally like owning it!” She said in a friendly tone.

“Huh?” Soos said. “Oh yeah, I’m like, if it’s fun, do it” He said, clearly panicking slightly, as shown by the rippling of his mass. “you know?” He said.

“Exactly” The harpy said. Her expression suddenly became serious. “Being an adult is the worst” She said. “Skewering meat, remembering to pay bills” She said, counting the grievances on her fingers. “I just want to ride tiny trains all day” She said, smiling.

“Well at least you get to work at meat cute” Soos said, pointing to her apron. “Extreme lunch meats are the food of the future. Plus they’re really easy for me to eat, being a slime and all” he said.

“I feel the same way. I’m Melody by the way” She said, offering a wing. Soos tipped his cap, shaking the wing with a shapeless limb as not to be rude.

“I’m Soos. I tell you, if you like robots for kids, you should check out the best restaurant of all time” He said,

“You mean…” She started.

“Hoo-ha Owl’s Pizzamatronic Jamboree!” They said simultaneously.

“What? You’ve heard of Hoo-Ha owl’s?” She asked, running a wing/elbow through her ponytail, leaving a feather or two in the hair. How she’d managed to wrangle it into a ponytail was a mystery to Soos. “I loved that place when I was a kid.” She said.

“Oh, yeah dude, there’s one right in this mall” He said excitedly. “I should show you sometime” He said

“I’m free around eight?” She said, the question clearly subtextual.

“Boom. Done.” Soos said, not noticing a slight ripple in the air behind him and a slight whine of motors.

“Perfect” She said, fishing 50 cents out of her pocket and depositing it in Soos’ hand. How she had gripped them with her wings was another mystery to Soos. “I’ll see you then” She said, walking out the door, waving as she did so. Soos waved after her.

“What a nice lady” He remarked before turning back to the train. “Well, back to riding this tiny train for children” He said before Mabel tackled him from her tank, screaming while she did so. He quickly recovered from the shock and deposited her back in the tank. Dipper clopped up soon after. Mabel was celebrating.

“Soos!” She writhed in his grip, inhaling before yelling joyously some more.

“We saw the whole thing, Soos, that was amazing” Dipper said, straightening up to the slime’s eye level. “You talked to a real girl! And you got a date!” Dipper said joyously.

“I did?” Soos asked in bewilderment. Mabel was still making Mabel sounds in her tank.

“THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!” she cried. She panted in her tank, slightly exhausted.

“You were in the zone, you made eye-contact” Dipper counted on his fingers. “it was like you’ve done this a million times before!” he grabbed the slime’s shoulders. “Don’t you see? That game really worked” Mabel reared herself up out of her tank, also grabbing Soos’ shoulders.

“You don’t need it anymore” She said, hugging him fiercely. “you can toss it out”

“Toss it?” Soos said this as if the mere idea of the action was preposterous. “But I like Giffany” He said, backing away from the twins. “She’s good to me, she’s predictable” He said, chopping his right hand with his left and making a wet ‘slap’ sound.

“Soos. Can a computer game go to Reggie’s engagement party with you?” Dipper asked, a look of concern on his face. Mabel went back into her tank to breathe, looking with concern from Soos to Dipper. Soos rippled.

“Uh…”

Later that night, he was sitting in front of the computer screen again, Giffany’s classroom scene on the screen. “Hey Giffany? We-uh, we got to talk” He said.

“Of course, I’m programmed to find everything you say interesting” She said, gazing at him with her lifeless eyes.

“Well, have you ever had to choose between two things you like, but don’t know which one is right for you?” He said. Oh Soos. You have chosen the wrong person to confide in about this. “I mean, I’m just thinking long term. Maybe I should be with someone a little less… Beep-Boop, you know?” He asked, making robot motions when he beeped. Giffany’s avatar looked angry.

“I don’t think you know what you are saying. Soos” She started, pointing at him furiously, “No one loves you more than me” she screwed her eyes shut “The girls out there will just make fun of you” She said. Soos looked hurt, rubbing his arm.

“You really think so?” He asked quietly. She jabbed her own chest.

“I know so” She said stubbornly. “Besides. We had a deal. You bought my game, you held my books. You are my boyfriend” She said, sounding more and more vindictive. She pointed to the chair. “Now sit down in that chair” She ordered. [*quietly hums random encounters’ ‘just monika’]

“I don’t think I like the way you are acting” Soos said, sounding slightly scared. Monika, sorry, Giffany, pressed her face against the screen, her teeth had gotten sharp. She pounded a fist against the fourth wall.

“I WON’T LET ANOTHER GIRL TAKE YOU AWAY FROM ME SOOS!” she screamed. Soos attempted to calm her. It fell on deaf ears. “YOU ARE MINE SOOS!” she screamed as he looked at the controller. He stumbled with the buttons for a second.

“pause” He said as he paused the game. She halted, mid screen bash, a shocked expression on her face. “Woah, that got intense” Soos said, rubbing the back of his head. He removed the disc from the computer, the image still on the screen. A small spark of static jumped from the disc to the computer, turning the light from red to blue. “Maybe having a cursed robo girlfriend wasn’t a good idea” He said, turning off the screen. He stuffed the disc into his pocket. “I’m taking you back to the video game store after my date with melody” He said, walking out of the room. Once the door closed behind him, the screen flickered on, an image of giffany in a vengeful pose on it. As she raised her head, only a single eye could be seen. Electricity crackled out from the screen, slightly breaking the glass. Back at the mystery shack, Stan opened a brief case. It contained gloves, rope, a radio, a torch and binoculars.

“Hello old friends” He murmured. He pulled the glove over his claw, the grey nails poking out, tearing the fabric. “No more Columbian nights” He said after he’d gotten both gloves on. Wendy stood in the door, ears pressed against her head in typical canine worry.

“All right stan, this is weird even for you” She said. “You need to talk?” she asked.

“Nothing you can say will change my mind, Wendy” Stan said, he cast an imposing figure when he stood, wings slightly extended. He walked to the window. “Sometimes, a man has to steal an animatronic badger to stay in this crazy game called life” he said, fiddling with the window lock.

“Or you could just not care” Wendy suggested. Stan finally got the window open.

“It’s about the principle” He said. “No-one tells Stan pines he is out of the game” He said angrily. He stepped out of the window, spreading his wings and flapping into the night sky. Wendy rolled her eyes. Meanwhile at the mall, Dipper and Mabel were prepping Soos for his date. Mabel’s tank was on the food court table, Dipper rubbing his shoulders to loosen him up.

“You can do this Soos” Mabel said, grabbing his face between her hands. “Just remember what your love crew taught you” She said. Dipper looked over Soos’ shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “How does she look!” She asked suddenly.

“nice!” He responded

“What are her stories?” She asked.

“Interesting” He replied.

“And who’s gonna pay for dinner?” She asked, raising out of her tank a bit. He suddenly threw the top half of his mass into the air.

“SOOS IS!” He cried. Dipper smiled behind him.

“Now Date!” He cried, blasting an airhorn. He cringed slightly at the sound. Soos charged forward, screaming. Mabel looked at her brother.

“They grow up so fast” She said softly. Just before Soos arrived at the jamboree, Melody was standing in front of it, waiting and trying furiously to scratch an itch on her right shoulder. She noticed him approaching and stopped.

“Oh, hi soos” She said.

“Melody” He exclaimed, “Are you ready for a-“ He looked at his hand, narrowing his eyes. “Date with me?” He asked. She laughed,

“I totally am” She said after she recovered from her fit of the giggles. Behind the restaurant, Stan was trying to jimmy the door open with a credit card. If you looked at him from the side, illuminated only by a dim light above the door, he looked extremely suspicious. He heard the distinctive click of the door unlocking. It opened slightly. The Hihi rolled the animatronic on a dolly. It was tied with ropes, clearly powered down.

“Good show man” The baboon spirit said. “Way to warm them up” He said, patting the animatronic on the shoulder. “I wish I was more like you” He said, sounding crestfallen, before kissing the animatronic on the cheek. Stan’s tail whipped from side to side in anticipation. Inside the restaurant, Melody and Soos were sitting at a table. Soos took up approximately a quarter of the curved booth seat. Melody sat perched on its edge.

“Man, I could go for some complimentary bread sticks right now” She said, looking around excitedly. Soos laughed nervously.

“One time I was so hungry I ate the decorational bamboo in a Chinese restaurant.” He said, upon seeing no reaction he sang “like-a big old paanda” he played his stomach like a drum in beat with the words. Melody laughed, the laugh ending with a squawk-like choke. She cleared her throat.

“You’re hilarious” She said. Soos laughed nervously.

“Hehe, well, you know, I just sort of say whatever pops into my-“ He started before he noticed something further back than melody’s head. Giffany stood on the screen of one of the arcade machines. Her form flickered slightly before I zoomed on her face. A dialogue box appeared.

“YOU PAUSED ME?” It read. Soos rippled in shock, accidentally spitting out the water he’d been drinking. He started coughing.

“Soos are you okay?” Melody asked, reaching over in concern. He looked up suddenly, fear in his eyes.

“No, I’m fine, everything’s fine” He said quickly. Screens above their booth read

“YOU LEFT ME FOR HER???” on the left and right. An arrow facing downward showed on the center screen.

“You are spitting an awful lot” She said, brow furrowed in concern. An image of her head with a red X over it showed on the screen next. He was dropping rivulets.

“uh, could you sit tight?” He said, drawing in his mass and standing up. “I have to go to the bathroom for a long time” He said. “Not in a weird way” he said, before shambling in a panic to the direction of the bathroom. The twins were sitting in a booth near the pair, in the direction of the bathroom as to not look suspicious. They had a box of pizza between them. Soos flowed into the seat, wiping droplets of slime off of his brow,

“Soos, what are you doing out there?” Mabel asked, picking up a slice of pizza.

“I got a big problem guys, I am being stalked by Giffany” He said, looking at the twins with genuine terror in his eyes.

“Giffany?” The twins asked, raising their eyebrows.

“Soos, get a grip on yourself. Giffany can’t stalk you because she is not real” Dipper said, crossing his arms. He barely finished his sentence before the screens above their booth lit up with Giffany’s face. Giffany saw the trio at the table. Soos was highlighted, the word “TARGET” next to him. The twins were highlighted separately with the words “TINY ENEMIES”. Options and weaknesses scrolled on her vision, along with the words, “GET BACK” below Soos’ target designation.

“Uh-oh” Mabel said, Dipper already lowering her tank to the floor. He looked sideways to Soos.

“Take it from someone who brought an arcade game to life, this will not end well” Dipper said, ears flicking back and forth.

“Don’t worry” Soos started. “I’m pretty sure she’s stuck on TV screens” He said confidently. Just at that moment, a crackle of static travelled along the wires to the arcade machines, entering one and moving from each to the next. Giffany slid across the screens like a painting in Hogwarts. A massive image of her face dawned over the horizon of “fight fighters”.

“Ah, a new challenger approaches” Said the fighter on screen. “Prepare to be-“ He started before lightning shot from Giffany’s eyes, electrocuting him before she moved on. She moved along the entire row of arcade games, the static finally arriving at the stage. The stage light lit up the curtain.

“Oh boy” Soos said forbodingly. He returned to the table with Melody. “So hey! Anyway, you want to move this date to the forest far away from all electronics and people?” He asked quickly.

“What? But the floor show’s about to start” Melody said, turning to the stage. The lights dimmed, the curtain rose to reveal a set of four animatronics. A bear playing a pizza-shaped guitar, an owl playing a square banjo, a beaver girl playing a regular banjo and a frog playing bongos. All were dressed like rednecks. Animatronic rats occupied the barrels to either side of the stage. The owl’s head rose slightly from his body.

“who who whoooo wants to hear Hoo-Ha the owl!” It asked. Its voice slowed down, mechanical eyelids slamming shut on soulless eyes. A crackling line of static jumped from the owl to the beaver. It started playing its banjo forlornly, closing its eyes.

“Hello friends.” It said in Giffany’s voice. “Hoo-Ha the owl is dead” as it said this, the lights turned blue. Slow country music started playing. “This next song goes out to my forever boyfriend, Soos” It said, calmly. Melody looked confused.

“Soos, what’s going on?” She asked.

“No time to explain” He said, leaning forward, “We got to get out of here” He said, pointing in the direction of the exit, pulling Melody by the wing, making sure to be as careful as time allowed, the twins followed him, Mabel’s tank rolling deftly through a maze of legs. The beaver dropped her banjo, holding out her arms.

“The only way out Soos, is in my arms!” It cried, eyes turning red. It somehow snapped its fingers, causing a spark to jump from its fingers to the owl and the bear. “CAPTURE THEM!” It cried. They raised their heads, eyes already red. The rats, eyes also red, rose out of their barrels, revealing arms that ended in knife-clawed hands. They roared, terrifying the other patrons. A small banshee boy screamed, the sound ringing through the restaurant, temporarily stunning everyone in the room. This only lasted a few seconds though. The animatronics leaped off the stage, zombie walking toward Soos, Melody, Mabel and Dipper. Meanwhile, behind stage, Stan, was busy tying up the badger.

“Done” He said smugly, starting to wheel the animatronic away. “Out with the old, in with the new” He said to himself before something occurred to him. He’d flown here… he couldn’t fly with the heavy animatronic dangling beneath him. He pulled out his phone and called Wendy. He knew Soos had that dating thing tonight, the twins were helping him, (he somehow didn’t notice the danger alarms in the back of his head start to tingle slightly) and Wendy was the only other person he knew that had a driving license. She picked up the phone.

“What?” She asked pointedly.

“I need you to drive behind the restaurant with the animatronics” He said.

“Why?” She asked, bewilderment in her tone.

“Because I can’t fly with this huge thing beneath me” He said. He could hear her stifling giggles.

“Why should I?” She asked after regaining control.

“I’ll give you the day off tomorrow” He offered. She immediately accepted and said she’d be there as fast as she could. He hung up. “I feel invincible!” He said, despite feeling his danger senses start to tingle slightly harder, as well as feeling sleep creeping at the edge of his mind. The static reached the animatronic, activating it and making its 90s visor light up red. It punched the gargoyle. Hard. He grunted in surprise and pain. Rage overtook him as he leapt at the badger. He blacked out. Meanwhile, in the restaurant proper, the other people had managed to escape, but the steel door slammed shut when The twins, the slime and the harpy tried to leave. They pounded on the door, Dipper even reared up on his hind legs and kicked it as hard as he could. He left a dent, but the impact went shaking up his bones, rattling his skull.

“Sorry Sooooos” Giffany toned behind them. “But you can’t run away from our relationship.” She said as the bear walked to capture them. Static buzzed on the game machines. They started launching balls. Soos pulled down an arcade machine. They cowered behind it.

“So, about all this, I may have purchased a dating simulator that attained sentience and went crazy” He explained quickly to Melody.

“Oh I am crazy” Giffany said, her image appearing on the arcade machines she walked past. “Crazy for you Soooooooooos” she said, firing bolts of electricity at them. Dipper cast a shield that gave them time to hide behind the machine.

“I’m so sorry melody, I’ll fix this” Soos said. “It’s me that she wants. I’ll distract her while you keep Dipper and Mabel safe” He said.

“Soos, I won’t be able to make another one of those shields. If you go out there, you go out there unprotected” Dipper warned, panting slightly.

“It’s the only way!” Soos cried, a ball getting lodged in his stomach as he climbed over the machine.

“Soos, these are children” Melody pointed out.

“The only waaay!!!” He cried, more balls getting lodged in his mass. They poked their heads out over the machine to watch the charge of the Soos. He grunted slightly as some of the balls went into his face.

“STOP!” She screeched, directing the ball machines to launch at Soos. He picked up a stray serving tray and used it as a shield. The two rats intercepted his path, knife-claws outstretched. They went right through him. He left a tiny bit of slime on the blades as they left his body. The rats looked at their claws in confusion as Soos went into the kitchen. Giffany threw the doors open and ran in. Behind the machine, Dipper was making a strategy.

“on three we split” He said. “one, two-“ before he could finish, the animatronic bear karate chopped the machine in half, clipping one of Melody’s wings in the process, she cried out in pain, nursing the presumably broken limb with the other. They all screamed and split up, Mabel staying near Melody and starting to cast a healing spell. The limb was bathed in emerald light as the tissue started to knit. Stan returned to consciousness. He was dazed and bruised. He looked at the wooden floor in front of him. The badger animatronic was in several pieces. He walked outside and waited for Wendy, his brain too addled to notice the danger signals blaring. Inside the restaurant, the rats were chasing Melody and Mabel. She rolled her tank up the slide while Melody, her wing having fixed, perched on the ceiling, gripping one of the beams with her talons. She bat her wings furiously at the rats, generating a decent gust. They just walked through it, attempting to enter the slide.

“I’m gonna eat your face like pizza” The bear said to dipper. He yelled and ran, the bear, in trying to break his face pressed the ‘win’ button on the machine that Dipper had had his back to. It laughed and clapped as a tinny song played, tickets spewing out of the side. Melody swooped down on the animatronic, raking her talons across its eyes. She proceeded to slowly disassemble it with those same talons. While she was killing the bear though, the rats sneaked up on her. Just as the light in the bear’s eyes faded, she heard them snarl behind her. She cried out in shock. Meanwhile in the kitchen, Giffany was closing in on Soos.

“I have got you surrounded Soos” She said as the slime tried to inch backward as she advanced. Soos could see through the kitchen window, the frog had captured Dipper, making sure to stay far away from his bucking legs, a nasty dent in its chest. One of the rats held Mabel’s tank, the other held up Melody by the torso, her wings batting it harmlessly. “There is no way ouuut” She toned as he looked.

“Please, let my friends go” He begged. “I’ll do anything you want, I promise” He said, desperately bargaining for their lives. She walked toward him slowly as he approached the wall.

“I seem to remember someone promising he will be my boyfriend” She said pointedly, launching a bolt of static toward the kitchen TV, showing her image on it. She pressed against the screen, smiling innocently. “Think about it, real girls are unpredictable” She started, showing a series of images of judgy women turning their noses up at Soos. “They judge you”, next, she showed an image of melody, looking seriously peeved with her arms crossed. “You really think Melody is going to take you back after this awful date?” Giffany asked, showing a pixelated version of Soos offering flowers to Melody. The pixelated version slammed the door on him. He looked away with a doubtful expression. “I can download your brain into the game with me” She said, a USB emerging from a finger. She pointed it at Soos. “And we’ll be together. Foreeeverr” He exclaimed in shock. The USB finger crackled with static, extending toward soos. “Come on, Soos, don’t make me Delete you too!” She threatened, voice rising. She tilted her head as he felt the disc in his pocket. “What do you say?” She asked, extending the USB further. It made contact. Nothing happened. She took the USB out and examined it. “Wait, why didn’t that work?” but before she could figure it out, Soos opened the oven and threw the disc inside.

“I say game over Giffany!” He yelled over her screams as her data was deleted. The plastic skin on the animatronic hosting her melted, revealing a terminator-esque endoskeleton. It collapsed, her voice distorting before the eyes flickered out. The eyes on the other animatronics also flickered out as they released their captives. They all fell into the ball pit. Wendy arrived outside the store to pick up Stan and the animatronic. She only saw stan, sitting against the wall. He got up and trudged toward the car wordlessly. Before she could ask about the whereabouts of the animatronic he just said.

“Animatronic was defective. Had to kill it”, and got in the passenger seat, staring out the window. She just shrugged and drove him back to the mystery shack. She did indeed get the next day off. Meanwhile, inside the restaurant, it was a sight of carnage. An eviscerated bear animatronic, the rats lying comatose beneath rubble of the ceiling, the owl lying dead on the stage. Soos and Melody sat to the side on what remained of the ball machines, staring forward. He sighed.

“I’m sorry for all this” He said, looking apologetic. “I honestly remember this place being a lot more fun when I was a kid” He continued. Melody looked to the side.

“Believe it or not, I’ve been on worse dates” She said.

“Really?” Soos asked, looking to her. She made a finger gun.

“Never date a magician” She said.

“Ew, why would i?” He asked in disgust. She laughed and patted him on the back. “Oh, hey, you wouldn’t maybe be interested in going to my cousin Reggie’s engagement party in a week? I promise there’s like, zero robot badgers” He said, making a scout salute, Melody laughed.

“Yeah, I’ll still be in town then” she said.

“Still be in town?” Soos asked.

“I’m going back to Portland in a few weeks” She said, “but we can video chat if that’s okay with you?” She said, looking up at him. A thought occurred to her. “Then again… I can’t really go home looking like… well. This” She said, motioning to herself.

“Don’t worry about it” He said, comforting her. She smiled at him. Dipper and Mabel observed from the ball pit. She raised her arms to the sky.

“SPIRIT OF LOVE! We did it” she exclaimed. Soos’ grandmother popped up from the ballpit.

“Yes, yes, I’m so happy” she said.

“Have you been following us all day?” Dipper asked, looking around.

“Soos’ life is my soap opera” She said.

END OF CHAPTER/EPISODE

Chapter Text

A few days after Soos’ cousin Reggie’s engagement party, Lazy Susan, the owner of greasey’s diner, who’d been transformed into an anthropomorphic cat creature by the river, was sweeping up some of her own fur off the floor of the kitchen while locking up the place for the night. She sang to herself as she did so. Her singing halted as some possums chittered on a pile of dishes. She shoo’d them away with a claw, pursuing them out of the restaurant. She’d found that with her new form came a certain enjoyment of meat. It no longer mattered what it came from, if she was hungry, she was going to eat something. This was also noticed by some of the other carnivorous members of the town. She silently cursed the possums for escaping her, but she locked up anyway, she was pretty sure she’d gotten rid of all of the fur on the floor. She resumed singing to herself, bidding goodnight to the diner, the trees, the group of tiny men stealing her pie off the window sill. She backpedaled upon seeing the aforementioned tiny men.

“Wait, what!?” She cried, turning to face them.

“Lift with your knees. No, your knees” One of them said. This one had a brown beard, he was the only one without any others on his shoulders. Three others were stood on each other, struggling to lift themselves to the window. “If I go one more hour without eating I’m gonna resort to cannibalism” He said angrily, glaring at the gnome on the bottom. They then noticed the giant cat lady. The lead one tipped his hat. She yowled in terror, running to the nearest phone. The phone had an image of a crossed out eye drawn faintly on the side. She dialed 9-1-1.

“Yes, hi, I’d like to report something” She said as soon as the operator picked up. “I’m at greasey’s diner, you won’t believe what I’ve witnessed” She said, whiskers vibrating with the slight disturbance of the air behind her. She ignored the 3 hooded figures walking up behind her, the same sigil emblazoned on their cloaks. A beak poked out from the bottom of one hood, a nose from another. “It’s unbelievable, it’s indescribable, it’s-” she was cut off by a bag being forced over her head. She screamed, mostly in terror, somewhat from pain, it was crushing her ears and whiskers quite a bit. She screamed as she was dragged off. As they dragged her past a pair of pine trees, a hooded figure stood between them, decreeing, a snout could be seen in the light on his face, but nothing else.

“it is unseen” he said as he fled to the shadows, revealing yet again, the sigil of the crossed-out eye. The gnomes, meanwhile, had succeeded in their mission to retrieve the pie, one of them holding it high.

“Well, back to pie” Said the leader. A slice fell out of the tin as they ran off. “I was this close to eating you steve” Said the leader.

At the mystery shack, a cervitaur pinned an image of a silhouette with a question mark on the face to a cork board, circling the image in a blue pen. The board was Dipper’s collection of suspects for the identity of the author. He was sat on his bed, pen in his mouth.

“All right author, who are you?” He pondered, chewing the pen. “who. Are-“ He was interrupted by the pen’s breakage, spilling ink into and around his mouth. He choked slightly, the acrid taste of ink flooding his senses. He threw the pen into a box marked ‘thinking pens’, “Not again” He said despondently. Mabel decided to wheel into the room a few seconds later, holding a bottle proudly out of the water.

“Hey bro-bro, look what I got” She said excitedly. Inside the bottle, a rolled up piece of paper marked with Mabel’s name could be seen, she snapped him out of his stupor with a well placed tail-slap.

“Yay, a filthy green bottle” Dipper said, trying to sound excited and failing miserably. She reared herself out of the water, leaving only her chest gills in the water so she could hold the bottle up to Dipper’s eye level.

“It’s a bottle message from mermando, remember?” She exclaimed excitedly. “He was part fish, part shirtless guy” She said, she suddenly gasped, “What if he wants to get back together?” She asked. Dipper wanted to say how that was most likely impossible since if she went into the sea she’d suffocate on the salt water since her tank was filled with river water, but he decided not to rain on her parade.

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up Mabel” He said, holding his tongue on the saltwater issue.

“Too late! Hopes are way way up!” She cried, wrestling the cork off the bottle. She leaned on the side of her tank as Dipper leaned in to get a good look at the letter. She squealed excitedly as she unraveled the scroll. She started reading. “Dear Mabel, so far so good” She started, “It is with a heavy heart, so far so good” She continued, “that I must inform you I’m getting Married?!” She read, expression souring with every word.

“aand there it is” Dipper said, frowning.

“In order to prevent an undersea civil war… arranged wedding… queen of the manatees” She speed read, only saying the necessary words out loud. She stared at the included picture, depicting mermando holding a trident, looking extremely uncomfortable next to a manatee in a dress. She ran a hand down the manatee. “And she’s so beautiful” She said, tears welling in her eyes. She threw down the letter and the picture, they floated on the surface of the water in her tank. It seemed they were waterproof as Mabel sank to the bottom of her tank in despair. “This can’t be happening” She said, starting to cry.

“Oh, Mabel, you’ll get over him eventually” Dipper said, brow furrowed in concern.

“You don’t understand Dipper” She said, surfacing again to facilitate speech. She picked up a discarded pink scrap book, the cover said ‘Summer memories’. She continued speaking as she opened it, “On my first day here, I made this page for summer romances, and look at my luck” She said, pointing to the photo of the guy who’d turned out to be gnomes. “Turned out to be gnomes,” She moved her finger to little Gideon’s photo, “Child psycho,” she moved to a photo of Gabe, the puppet guy, “Made out with his own hands”, she taped the mermando picture to the page. “And now…” She said, grabbing a red marker out of nowhere, adding the word ‘FAILED’ in big red letters above the pink title of ‘Summer Romances’. “I wish I could just forget about them forever” She said wistfully.

“Hey, if it’s any consolation, my summer mission isn’t a huge success either” Dipper said, getting to his hooves and stepping off the bed and across the room, hooves clopping loudly on the wood floor. He turned, grabbing the journal and showing it to Mabel,

“I’m still trying to find the author of this journal” He said. He closed it again, replacing it on the shelf, and moved slightly to the right, revealing the broken wreckage of the laptop. His distinctive hoof-print was visible in the cracks, “With his laptop smashed I’ve lost any lead in finding him” he said. He suddenly looked at the ground shamefully, “not to mention that I got everyone turned into monsters” He finished quietly. Mabel inspected the laptop closely through the bottle, using it as a makeshift spyglass. She gasped.

“Dipper look!” She said, holding up the bottle.

“Through your bottle?” He asked dubiously.

“Just do it!” She insisted. He caved and put the bottle to his eye. It proffered a magnified view of the machine’s inner workings. He noticed a small metal plate screwed into a panel. He focused on it. It read ‘McGucket Labs’. He read it out loud.

“Wait, old man McGucket?” He asked the air.

“Dipper, you don’t think…” Mabel said

“Couldn’t be” He said, putting his hand to his forehead. “Doesn’t make any sense, unless…” He said, he started mumbling to himself as he wrapped strings around pins. When he backed away every string pointed to the picture of Old man McGucket. “Old man McGucket wrote the journal?” He exclaimed. In the gift shop Soos’ radio was blasting a tune that had recently become popular. Soos sung along as he rolled around the shop, dust clinging to his mass.

“Am I blanchin’, girl we blanchin’, I live up in a mansion” He sang, coming up behind the shop’s werewolf. Her ears twitched in annoyance. She growled in frustration.

“Ugh! I can’t get that terrible song out of my head! I can hear it from several different sources at a time and it is killing me!” She exclaimed. Soos stopped his route around the shop to look at her.

“You mean ‘straight blanchin’’ by li’l Big Dawg?” He asked “It’s the catchiest song of the summer” He said, smiling.

“Not to mention the most overplayed” She growled, “What is blanchin’?!” She asked. “Rapper’s can’t just make up words” She said pointedly.

“Rappers are visionaries Wendy, if they told me to eat my own pants, I would do it” He pointed out, just at that moment, the lyrics switched to “eat your own pants, eat your own pants”, “I guess I have no choice” Soos said, sliding down his trousers [must maintain… integrity… must. Not. Write. Non-canonical nudity]. As he undid the fly, a muffled clopping of hooves could be heard behind the door. Mabel and Dipper burst through.

“Wendy! We need to go see old man McGucket!” Dipper exclaimed.

“We’ll explain on the way!” Mabel said, dragging Wendy by her tail. Dipper noticed Soos taking down his trousers and felt a strange twinge in the back of his mind. He shook his head and followed them out the door past a bewildered Stan. Soos continued pulling down his trousers.

“Hey, what about work?” He called after them. “Kids!” He yelled. He felt them clamber into the car and speed off the property. “Why is Soos eating his own pants?” He asked in bewilderment. Dipper was screaming internally the entire ride to the dump, until Soos had managed to pull a new pair of pants out of thin air and put them on. The twinge in the back of his mind ceased immediately [the sharp minded among you can see what I’m insinuating]. They walked through the fence after Dipper had managed to extricate himself from the back of Wendy’s truck.

“Old man McGucket! Are you here!” He yelled.

“Here hillbilly, billy, billy, billy” Soos called as if trying to summon a dog. When they finally arrived at McGucket’s shack, it was being vandalized by what looked like a jaguar in a similar situation to wendy, and an ice giant. They’d spray painted the words, ‘McSuckit’ on the wall.

“Took an hour to think of this, but it was worth it” The ice giant said. They high-fived. Mcguckit phased through the wall. He’d had a turn of bad luck when it came to the river, he’d been turned into a spirit, whenever he possessed a person they’d start spewing random gibberish about the future that no-one had been able to decipher, which was quite an unpleasant experience for the unwilling oracle, he was fortunate in that he could still hold things, if it did take a bit of concentration. He saw the graffitied wall and lunged for the jaguar. The teens managed to get out of his range quickly, they’d both heard rumours of how it felt to be used by Mcgucket. He murmured obscenities at the teens as they ran, chortling to each other. He shook his fist.

“hornswagglin’… Mcsuckit. They got me good” he said dejectedly. He turned and noticed the group. “Visitors!” He said joyously. He beckoned them inside, floating through a wall. “Come come, pull up some rusty metal” He said welcomingly. They each pushed aside a thin piece of fabric. Dipper’s hooves made hollow sounding ‘thump’ sounds on the ground as he walked. “You’re just in time for my hourly turf war with the hillbilly what lives in my mirror” He said, looking at his reflection on a washbasin. “Quit starin’ at me when I bathe!” He yelled, shaking his fist. He’d turned red with rage, he tended to do that, with his form taking on different hues depending on his emotions. Blue for sadness, green for envy, orange for neutral, yellow for joy, white for fear, purple for confusion, he’d also been seen to disappear when he well and truly didn’t want to be seen out of sheer embarrassment, he’d once been seen turn a deep pitch black when he got really steamed at the northwest family. His eyes had turned red then too, normally they were just white circles.

“You can drop the act Mcgucket” Dipper said, pointing at him accusingly. He pulled the third journal out of his jacket. “I know you’re the author, you studied the mysteries of this town and wrote this book.” He said. Wendy piped up.

“Dude, you’re the genius Dipper’s been searching for all summer” She said, eyes wide. Soos had pulled up a backpack, Wendy reached into it while speaking, pulling out the laptop, or at least, what remained of it. He floated forward, turning purple as he studied the laptop, being careful not to touch Wendy.

“uh… genius?” He said. He shook his head. “I’m no genius” He said dejectedly. He turned to look away from the group. He levitated to an upturned bucket and sat. “I’ve never done nothin’ worthwhile in my life. Everyone knows I’m good to nobody” He said sadly, turning up his palms. He glanced at the newspaper page framed on the wall, the headline reading: Local Coot continues downward slide, showing an image of his consuming a racoon. “I can’t remember what I used to be. But I must’ve been a big failure to end up like this” He said, looking away from the paper in shame.

“But… the laptop has your name on it” Soos pointed out,

“What about this book?” Dipper asked, stepping forward a bit and opening a few pages, “Are you sure you didn’t write it?” he asked as he showed the page with TRUST NO ONE scrawled on it. He flipped to the ‘Truth Telling Teeth’, the gnomes, continuing to flip pages as Mcgucket said

“I told you, I don’t’ recall.... Everything before 1982 is just a blur” he said, narrowing his eyes as Dipper turned to the hide-behind, the gremgoblin, a diagram of a pressure guage, finally finding the page with the crossed out eye. “just a hazy…” he started, the page coming into sharp focus. Memories snapped, he shrieked, turning a bright white, “AAH! AAAH! THE BLIND EYE!” He floated backward in a haze, glowing brighter and brigher, “ROBES! THE MEN! MY MIND!” he yelled, clutching his incorporeal head. “THEY DID SOMETHING!” he exclaimed.

“Who did?” Dipper asked, frowning in concern and snapping the book shut. Orange started to return to Mcgucket’s spectrum.

“I… oh, I don’t recall” he said, rubbing his temples. Mabel’s heart ached for him.

“Oh, you poor old man” She said, rolling slowly toward him, almost touching him, retracting her hand at the last second. “No wonder your mind’s all Phtbbt” She said, blowing a raspberry at the end. “You’ve been through something intense” she finished, rolling backward slightly. Dipper’s mind was whirring.

“What if Mcgucket learned something he wasn’t supposed to know?” Dipper offered, “And someone, or something, messed with his mind” He finished, glancing from Mabel, to Wendy, to Soos. “We’ve got to get to the bottom of this” He said.

“Think, dude. What is the earliest thing you can remember?” Wendy asked. Mcgucket looked at another paper clipping on the wall. His hand phased through it as he tried to grab it. He resorted to pointing as Dipper tore it down.

“Uh, that is, I think” He said as they read the headline. Disoriented man found at museum, showing a picture of Pre-hat mcgucket with a pigeon on his head.

“The history museum!” Wendy exclaimed.

“That’s where we’re going” Dipper said confidently, stamping a hoof on the floor. They rode fast beneath a grey sky, Blanchin’ blaring in the car. Soos was vibrating along to the song, Wendy flattening her ears against her skull, Mabel staying submerged in the water of her tank, Dipper covering his ears in vain and Mcgucket staying outside the car, floating alongside. Eventually Wendy grew tired of the repetitive song.

“Ugh! Soos!” She yelled, punching the console of the car, making it eject the CD and throwing it out the window. Soos looked at her in irritation. She realized her mistake, her ears perking up. “I’ll buy you a new one” She said apologetically. They soon arrived at the museum, Soos having to carry Mabel and Dipper inside, Wendy climbing inside via the window, Mxgucket phasing through the wall, careful not to touch anyone.

“Hello? Anyone here?” Soos called.

“Alright, keep your eyes peeled for anything suspicious” Dipper warned, stepping as carefully as he could to try to silence his hooves, they still made tiny clops on the floor, Wendy noticed something off about Mabel. She was sighing wistfully.

“Mabel, are you okay?” She asked as Mabel rolled past a stuffed lioness. “You just walked past a cat without petting it” Wendy pointed out.

“Oh Wendy, everything I look at reminds me of my failed romances.” She said sadly. “That formaldehyde heart” She pointed out, she then turned, “That romantic diorama”, pointing to a pair of statues, a man carrying away a women as she struggled, “Even this poster of my most recent ex-crush” she finished, pointing to a conveniently placed poster of Gabe. She tore it from the wall, revealing a Sev’ral timez poster, “Aw come on!” She cried in exasperation, rolling up the Gabe poster and storing in the corner of her tank.

“So your last memory was here” Dipper confirmed with Mcgucket. “Anything coming back?” He asked. Soos looked around, down the corridor. There was a cloaked figure hurrying into a room on the right.

“Guys look!” He yelled. They chased after the figure, Dipper reaching the room first to see eyes everywhere. They all entered the room, looking around in bewilderment at the sheer amount of ocular limbs.

“Well kettle my corn.” Mcgucket said, “He vanish-ified” he continued as Dipper looked around some more, his hooves making no sound of the heavy carpet.

“It doesn’t make sense” He said, putting his hands to his waist. He noticed something strange about the eyes. They were all looking in the same direction. Mcgucket noted as such, standing in front of a chunk of stone with an eye inscribed on it, staring straight ahead with two lines coming out. The eyes indeed seemed to be focused on that point. Mcgucket moved aside as Dipper stepped forward and pressed the tablet. It sank into the wall. They heard a grinding behind them, the fireplace moving to the left, revealing a hidden tunnel.

“Jackpot” Wendy exclaimed to Soos,

“A secret passageway” Dipper said excitedly.

“We’ll have to be stealthy” Mcgucket said resolutely, already turning translucent. “I’ll hambone a message if there’s trouble.” He said, slapping his thighs and arms rhythmically. The message translated to Coyotes are coming for our sweetbreads

“I have no idea what that means” Dipper said in confusion. They crept down the stairs, illuminated to torches in sconces on the wall. They eventually reached a curtained off area, an ominous chanting emerging from behind the curtain. They peeked through, seeing a circle of people in robes around a pedestal with a chest on it, muzzles and beaks poking out of some of the hoods. The figures were chanting in Latin. They all laid paws, claws and wings on the box. One figure stepped forward, a leonic muzzle poking out of his hood, clearly the leader of the group, his hood was pointed up whereas the others were all pointed down. Granted, there were some who had the distinctive bumps of ears making a slight incline on their hoods, but not to the extent of the leader.

“Who is the subject of our meeting?” He asked the group. The kids gasped softly. Two more robed figures appeared, holding Lazy Susan between them, her tail flicking furiously from side to side. The bag was still on her head.

“Lazy Susan?” Mabel whispered as they strapped her into the chair.

“What is it that you have seen?” the leader asked, his fingers tented. The group bade her to speak.

“uh, well, uh, I was leaving the diner and I saw these little bearded doodads, and I was like ‘RROW!’” She made a feline sound at the end to indicate her shock. [you try to translate that into cat terms]

“There there” The leader reassured her, opening the chest. “You won’t be ‘like rrow’ for much longer” He promised, pulling a strange device from the chest. The robed figures shut their hoods, muzzles and beaks still emerging, but eyes covered.

“What is that gizmo?” Susan asked, “It looks like a hair dryer” She commented as the leader put in, ‘little men’ on the input, “Are you guys barbers?” [susan… no…] the leader took aim and fired the device, a bright blue beam of energy blazing toward Susan, impacting her head. She screamed, the sound initially in the human range, but eventually turning into a feline yowl. The beam shut off, leaving her expression blank, pupils thin.

“Lazy Susan, what do you know of little bearded men?” The leader asked her.

“My mind is clear” Susan droned. “Thanks to the society of the blind eye” she continued looking straight ahead, her brain rearranging bits and pieces.

“IT IS UNSEEN!” the robed congregation chanted.

“Oh my gosh” Dipper whispered, “they erased Lazy Susan’s memory” he said in shock. Mcgucket phased through the curtain, slapping something in hambone which translated to Oh, &!#@$ Lazy Susan made confused noises as they unstrapped her.

“Guys, are you seeing this?” Dipper whispered, still peering through the curtain. “They just wiped Lazy Susan’s memory” he continued.

“heh, they should’ve wiped off that awful mascara” Soos commented, full volume. One of the robed figures’ bat-like ears pricked up.

“Dude, that’s her normal fur colour” Wendy commented in a loud whisper.

“I think she looks beautiful” Mabel said.

“Woah… touched a nerve there” Soos said, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Lazy Susan. How do you feel?” The leader of the group asked.

“I feel great!” She cried, ears fully out. “I can’t even remember what was wrong! Or what I’m doing here, or if I’m a cat or a dog, or a man or a woman” She rambled as she was led away.

“Your memories will be safe with us, buried in the hall of the forgotten” the leader reassured, opening the capsule on the strange contraption, scrawling her name on a paper slip in marker.

“Into the hall of the forgotten! Into the hall of the forgotten!” The congregation chanted as the leader put the capsule into a wall bracket, sending it shooting off to parts unknown.

“Good chanting boys, have you been practicing?” The leader asked the congregation cheerily. “Meeting adjourned” The leader said, spreading his arms.

“Unsee you later” The various members of the group bade each other goodbye, one of them going off with the leader. The one with the bat ears. Once they were out of sight, Dipper motioned for the group to move out. He moved as silently as he could, his hooves making the slightest noise on the stone floor. He walked over to the strange contraption.

“Amazing” He commented. “A secret society of evil mind erasers” he said, gears turning in his mind. He turned to Mcgucket, “I’ll bet they erased your memory a long time ago” he said, “If we could find where your memories have been hidden, it could be the key to unlocking all the mysteries of gravity falls!” Dipper cried. “All right, Mabel, Wendy, you two stay here and make sure those robe guys don’t come back” Dipper ordered,

“Whoo, girls club” Wendy commented, tail wagging furiously.

“Soos, you, me and Mcgucket are gonna go find the hall of the forgotten.” Dipper ordered. Soos unfortunately, stood too close to the intake vent of the tube, and managed to get himself sucked in. They could see the Soos coloured mass moving down the transparent tube. Dipper blanched. “Follow him!” He cried to Mcgucket. They raced after Soos, following the tube up the stairs, through the main exhibit and around a corner until they heard.

“Halt!” It was the robed figure with the bat ears. “Is someone there?” He asked, motioning to another member to follow him down the corridor.

“Aah! What do we do? Where do we go?” Mcgucket panicked. Dipper thought fast. He saw a nearby statue of a deer, decapitated it with his magic and stuck the head in front of his torso, making his clothing less conspicuous with more magic so he looked like a child riding a deer, Mcgucket went inside the nearest statue of a prospecter, copying its pose as well he could, a tiny part of him sticking out with the eye. The hooded figures rounded the corner. They closely inspected Dipper. He tried not to breath. One inspected the statue of the prospector. He tried to correct the eye. This just happened to be the eye which Mcgucket was sticking out of. Upon contact with the oracular ghost, he was possessed. He stumbled backward, eyes glowing a ghostly white. He started chanting, his words mangled and chaotic.

t̶̛͚̭̪̬̠͚̼̋̐ͦ͑͌ͬ̄̓ͩ̽̌ͭ̅ͤh̷̖͉̥̙̠͇̝̖͛͌͐̀ͭ͒̏̎̃͌ͧͤêͭͫ̿ͤ͋̓͌ͧͥ̓́̏͏̧̛̺͇̳͍͇̖͖̺͓̞̫͓͇̫̙̹͢ ̶̤̣̟͇͈̲̺͙̹̜̺̘̱͂̄͊͌͜ͅc̴̸̹̺̺̤̜͔͖͕̙̘̮͖̳̪̬͕̦͍̾ͥ̎̏ͮͦ͡ḧ̢́͒̈ͩͩ̓̏̀͊͋ͣ͂ͯ̅͐̒ͦͥ̚͢͏̴̲̻̫̼̬̲̟͔i̷̛̙̬̣̹̱̳̲̯̖̭̮̅͊̄ͫ̄l̾̇̀ͫ̽̈ͭ͋̎҉̵̶̷͓̰̹͇͍͙̩͈d̴̡͇͙̞̟̮̪͖͕̬̲̞̟̟̣͊͊͗̄ͭͭͨ̽͡ ̵̯̥̝̞̖͚̩͖͉̩̺̜̠ͧ͊͛̊ͤ̑̎̇̑̍͂̊͝͡ŏ̪͇̭̮̻̝̮̺̭͈ͬ͑̓̊ͪ̕f̸̞̼͚̫̭̫̲̼͙ͯ̐̍͌̾̂̒̏̓̃͊̀͊͜͟ͅ ̪̖͓̺̰̱̱̩̳̘̫̮̤̲͙ͯ̇ͭͩͭ́ͪ̆̍̊̕͝͠ṯ͙̳̤̯͖͍̯̦̺̹̭̜̓͌̐̉͋̎ͦ̇̄͌ͩ̄͡i̽̉̃͗͐̒̒͏͏̴̺͎̱̮͙̳̙̫̤͙̪̘m̶̸̢̛̦̬̲̱̣̭̼̗͙̱̜͓̘͖͗͆ͨ̎ė͉̱̖̗̟̣̞̦̞̺̬̹̘̠̘̪͈̮̓ͪͦ͋ͭ̇̎̐͑̔̆͂͞͡ ͋ͩ̏̀ͭ̔͒̎̉̇ͯ̐ͦͫ̃̔̚̚͞͞͏̸̞̥͍̯͚̲̖̩̤͍͙͚̫̦͠ͅs̢̤̞̻͐̿̈́̿ͭͯ̃ͧ̓̋͊ͧ̍͠ḩ͉̞̤̰̟̞̻̳̹͚̱͈̹̠̣̀̌̓̇̌͂ͪ̅̿̆͆̈͌͛̽͌ͮ͛̏͝a̢̠͖̼͖̺͍̭̣͍̫̹͈̹͇͓̠͇̤ͤͫͩ͐̌̔̄ͯͮn̸͇̫͇͚̫̦̞̗̫̺̖̗̔͌̃̓͜'̡̢̭̘̙̼͓̺̼̩̞̞̤̻͗̔̉͑̇̆͊̃ͪ̋͆̂ͧ͐͒̎̀̚t̞̠̳̺̳̼͋ͯ̓͒̉ͦ̊͊̌̂͟͢ ̴̡̛̛̜̭̟̬͉̖͛͗̎̅͋̐̈́̄͒ͭ͗͌͋̚͘s̎̐̿̏̉ͫ҉̢̭̞̙̞o̷ͪͫͦ͐ͤ̅̊̃̾́̓͐̄̆͋̚͠͝͏͔̲͈͚͎̰̗̗̹̱͉̥͓̮̼lͬ̓̆̈ͮ͋̐̈ͨͧͤ̚͏҉͠͏̹̲̝͍͎͔̺v̵͂̆̊͋̽̔ͯͤͫ̿̔҉̷̧̯̙̯̯̲̹͖͔̱̭̼͎͞e̷̸ͣ̆͐̆̎ͭ͂̽̉ͦͥͪ̚҉̙̠̜͎̥̼͈̲͚̩ ̡̤̹̞̠͉̘͎̖̪͖ͣ̂͑̋ͮ͛́ͦͮ͟͡ͅy̶̌̓̏̿ͪ͞҉̗͓̘̘̝̟̦̻̠̠͖̥͓̘̘̘̲̰o̶̺̬̞͍̙ͦͧ̌͋̈́̑̅ͅu̶̡̨̧͕̟̗̺͚̰̜͖̯͈̱̍ͩ͋̓̇̃̓͘r̨̭̗̮͓̥͕̮̩̯̹̪̩̤͔͇̤̟͐́͂̑ͩ͆̈̆̈̾ͯ̚̚͠͝ͅ ̷͍̼͎̜̞̳͍̭̥͍ͮ̐͛ͪ͌̐̔ͬ̅̂͂͆̋͢ḯ̶̸͂͐͂̓̿̌ͭ̆̔̅́̆̋͛̏̂ͬ̿͝͏̞͈̺̠̗̯s̢̛͖̻̠͈͉̖̣̘̞̻͚͒ͩͤ͌̓ͯ̈ͪ̓̊̾̎̉́̉̀͗̓ͪ̕͢͠ş̸̥͇͚͉̈̔̊͂̑͟͝͠ú̶͐͑́ͩͣ̄̽ͩ̉҉͖̟̩͍͎͓̠̻̫̝e͚̩͎̱̱̳͓̳̭͙̲̗̮͗͋͊̐̽͟͟
̶̭̩̩͚̖͊̈́̂̈̾̇͜͢͡t̸̶̜̭̰͕̳͉̦̪̖̹̙͇̯̖̩͓͛͋̌̀ͧ̋ͣͥ̽̓ͦ̀͒̿̓̚̚͟͝ͅͅh̵̲̲͍͙͉͕̀ͭ͊̌͆̾ͧ̈̃͒́ͬ̋̈́ͮ͌̚e͓̲̭̘̬̲̝ͮ̾͗̏͠ ̶̡̮͈̻̱̫͙̻̭̩̂͛̂ͩ͗ͭ̔͜r͊̈́̎ͨ̽̐̇ͤ̆ͮ̄̾͜҉̬͕̪͉̼̼̯̳͖̦͔͇̦i̸̷͎͖̮̒͂̆ͣv̢̨͈̻̜͌ͩ̾ͧ̂̏ͥ̌̅̽̍̃̔̂̄͟ͅè̶̙̯̮̰̲̠̩̗̙̮͍̱̗̳̤̻̞̟̻̊͗̄̊ͮ̉͌͘͜r̰̼͚̫͉̻̱̪̻̯͈̪̬͔͆̆͗ͦ̊ͬ̐̔̄̒̉͐͜ ̶̱̜̞̔͆̈̑ͧ͊͆͂͗͐͜͡c̢̢̩̯̗͉̥̘͇̞̭̮͙̭͚̟͌͂̌͊͑̑ͪͯ̉̅̐͌̽͆̎́͟ŏ̸̴͓̹̳̩̼͕̼͈̱̣̣͖̮͈̹̙ͦ̉̈́ͅm̴̴̡̞̰͇̖̫̭͕̱͍̝̞̖̐ͣͥ̌̋̅̏ͧ̋́͆ͯ̍ͧ͑̓͗̚͘͢ẹ͔̠̘̮̳̦̖̮̘͈̝͙̎ͭ̋ͩͧ͜͡s̴̴̵̠̥̟̗̻̩ͣͥ̐ͦ͊̂ͩͯͮ̇ͨͯ̏͐͗̓̂̚ ̭͚̺̼̘͒̄ͣ̍ͧ̂͝a̴̧̧̦̪͈͔̪̗̘ͣ̔̆̉͑ͩ̐̌ͫ͗͑ͣͥ͌ͩ̈͛̍͢n̨͕̟̪͈̹̘̥̭͇̩̍̇̅ͥͥͩ͒͛̇͋͋͌͡d̂ͣ͂͑͗͒̋͟͡͡҉̴̣̤̳͉͍̞̳̜ ̬̦̩͍͖͖́̑̂̉͒͆ͮͬ̋̿̐ͭ̿̆ͫ͆ͧ͟͟c̛͇̬͙̙͒̎͋͋̐̊͛͐͆̓̏͟͡͝oͬ́̌̏̒̓̿̏ͯͧ̐̏͛ͦ͒̀̒́̚͏̧̢̭̣͕̺̳͔͘͟m̴̵͚̭̲̬̮̼̖̥̼̭͎̤̬͖̠̥͓͎̐ͯͤͫͬ̍ͫͬ̐̾̋̌ͣ̍̈̍̂̚ę̩̳̥̮̙̘̠͎͎̩̘̂͌ͣͨ̾̄ͩͨ̀̐ͣͫ̿̒̆͢͟ș̺̠̥͈̪͎͇̰̞̦̤͕̜͔̟̞̊ͮͬͨ̓̓ͥ̈́̚͞͝͠͡ ̡ͩͨ̓͋̐̄̾̃̾̈́̓͛̌ͤ͐͡҉͉̱͖̩̝͇͍̦̖̥̫̺͇͝a̵̧̨̜͇̺̲̭͉̫̱̘̞̮͓͋ͮ̅́̊ͭ̑̆͢n̷̴̢͙̯͈ͪ͋̐ͩ̄̊̂̑̂͊͆́̄̆̐̂ͬͅd̻̯̤̜̙̱̦̝ͤ̌ͤ̅ͣ̽ͭ̿͝ ̩̪̣̺͔̻̗̬̈́ͭ́̈͆ͦ͜c̢͙͇͉͍̼͖̱̲͎̥̱͔̥͇̝͍̳̑̃ͥ͂ͬͯ͌͆ͮͪ̓̍͋̌̾ͯ͜͞ͅỏ̧̤͕͈͎͔̳̼̹͖̥̲̿͂͢͝m̸̷̧̛̻̯͎̤͇̱ͮ͊ͬ̄͞ͅe̸̮͚̲͙̞͉̱͉̯͓̟̬̍̔͋ͪ̇͐̊͒̑̒̕ş̵̖͓͈̼̜̺̖̠̮̣͓̺̟̱͕̘̽̅ͮ̋ͭ̈̍ͭ̉̇̇͆ͣͫ̚ͅͅ
̶̢̘̱͖̱͇̙̼̩̝̮̰̖͍̯̰̜̤̃̄̍͊̔̆ͅṭ̭̱̦̪͎͚̬̼̳̩̤̣̘̤̈̓̒̿̿ͦͮͧ͟͡ͅȟ̃̃ͪ̌͐́̈̅̂ͩͨ̊̃̊͢҉̨҉̙̫͓͍̳̩̙̫̼̯͚͔͕̪̻͔̻͙ȅͨ͋ͩ̇ͣ̔͊̈͐͛̚̚͏̴̸̢̹͚̺̩̠̤ͅ ̬̘̯̥̼̝̰̗̯̮͚͍̘͍̦͎͐ͭ̐ͬ̑ͭ̋̃ͥ͑͑͂̐ͥ̏͑̅̚ͅţ̸̫͈̞͕̺̯̆̌̓ͥ̅̈́̅̐̂͆ͤ̇͒̚͡h͚̮̣̲͉̙̥̀̋̈̿͂͛͆̈̄́̒̈́ͧͯ́̿͆͋̚͞ṟ̛̙̪̘͕̲̲͚̫͎̭͑̉̊ͯ͑̃̓ͫͦͣ̓ͤ̈͗͑̿ͅę̷̸̛̥̪̮̲̖͖̬̪͕̰͈ͣ͛͐̌͂ͦ̉̅̔͊ͣ̑͗̈͌ͦ̿̑͝ȩ̵̛̭̳͖̯͕̠̬̜̥̘̰ͧ͗ͣ̄ͦ̓ͭ͂ͦ͞͠ ͪ̇̍͊̽ͮ̽̓̎̍̎̚͠͏̫͕̪͉͚̹̠̣͔͢͝ș̙̗̰͒ͦ̃͟͝͡i̦͔̲̮͕̲̻ͦ͂͆̈́̊̑͋̏̔̽̅ͨͩ̒́̂̾̓̕͘ͅḍ͔͉͓̞̗̳̰͉̻̻͇̰̥̥̗͚̳̲̇̓ͧͦ̒͘͟͝ễ̛͂̅͋̽̃̔̓͗̄̑͋͗ͬ̐́͆͂͞҉̭̦̖̻̞̥͉̮͇̻͈̼͖͘ḓ̵̦͖̜̦̗̝̭͚̼̥̦̠͋̎ͦ͒ͫ̂̿ͮ̅̓̄̋ͮ͞ͅͅ ̴̵̬̪̣͖̫̫̻͖͈̖̣̹̭̍̀ͧ̚͜͠c̤̠̱̗̘͇̺͉̲̝͖̤̲̯̝͈̟͑̀̿ͣ͊̌̎̒͒͟r̸̡͎̗̯͖̗͔̩̋̎̏̆͐͂ͪ̏ͨ͆̏̍̓ͤ̅ͧ͢e̡̫̪̳̝̹̺̞̯̲͎̳̤̮̥ͨ͊ͧ̎ͭ̒̓̉̕͢͢ą̴̵͕̗̥͉͇̩̼͕̩̫ͪ̈́̾̄̓̐͂͘͜t̸̡͗ͥ̄́ͪͤͮͯ̏͌ͪͮͯ͒͜҉̠͈͕̮̖̝̣̩ũ̂͋ͮ̊͏̢͡͏̣̳̫͙̝̦͎̱̻̥͝r̶̢̬̮̯͔̘̠͖̙̯̗̣̩̥͎͈͍̱͐̾ͪ͠eͮͯͪͯ͊҉̸͕̙̰̘̝̭̗̼̼͇ ̷̮͓̪̫̰̻̥̫̦̮̣̲̭͍̰̗̖̾̆̋ͫͫ̊͊ͯͤ̇̄ͣ̑ͤ͡ͅǫ̬̹͇̪̲͇͍͗ͪ̌ͨͩͬͤͪ̋̓̐ͫ̇ͪͧ̈́̎f̵̴̆͐̊̋ͫ͊̄̍̚͏͓̺̫̲̖̱ ͐͑̋̓̆̐̅̀͗ͭ̋̿͑̎ͣ͢҉̵͔̜̣c̷̴̫̫͕̩̮̙̦̹̊̏̓ͪ͗̃ͣ͗h̶͓͔̬͙͇͈̪̠͉͔͈̙͙̋ͬͩ̊̃̑̎ͧ̓͛̋̌ͭ͞͡ͅą̝̗̝̦͕͔̺͓̼̣͇̦̦͈͍̟̈̐̿̓̍ͦ̌͑̈̋ͨ̃̈ͩ̍ͭ͗ͪ̕͘o̴ͧ̋ͪ͋̉̍́͒̓̌ͣ͊͆ͬͩͥ̋̓҉̱̗͇ͅs̟̙̤̟̣̲̘̖̖̻ͮ̓̔̅ͪͨ̂̄̀̍̂͗̌͌ͣ̓͂̕ ̠̱͔̪̜͍̳̝̩̩̠̭̗͍̱͓̘̹̓̓͋ͩ͟͠a̶̵̴͙̜̘̥͈̭̻̹̺̭̳͈͓̣̅̋̅̆͒̓͂ͬͭ͗̈͋̈ͧͯ̇̈͂ͯ͡p̈͐ͧ͗͂ͧ̇̈́̎̾̐̊ͩ͠͠͝͏͇̮̣̼͙͉̠̻̘̙̯p̶̨̲͓͎͓͖͒ͦ͊̃ͬ̿́͗̒ͧͫ͐͋͡ȩ̵̝̫͇͖̼̾ͦͦ̉ͦ̐̓͋ͦͤͪ͘a̢̧͖̩̮̮̟ͭ̒̐ͯͯ̓̐͑̚͜͠r̸̘̫͖̦̪͖̪̦͖̺̿̊̓́̔̍ͅs̴̵̴͍̝̞͈̲͉̮̩̘̾ͫ̉̿͌ͫ̇̂̕
̧ͪ̔͐̀̈ͫ̉ͥͨͭͪͭͥ͗̅̊ͪͨ̚͜҉̥͍̟̞͍̘͈̩̯̱͔̦̩͇̹̺ͅͅl̵̸̟̗͇̖̻̹͎̗̖̞͖̫̖̯̺̟̺ͥ̎̽ͩͯͤ̎ͅe̘̯̞̫̰͎̞̔̓ͫ̿̇̆ͨͫ̓̕͘ț͕͕̫̩̥̺̺̭͕̝͈̞̲͇ͯͮ͗͒ͩ̄ͫ̈́̅ͪ̌̓̋̓͐ͧ̔͟ ̸̵̧̛͍͕̝̲̞͖͍͖̝͉̜͇̟ͮͩͫ͛͊̈́̔ͅt̵̴̫̰̟͉̠̩̹̠̘͌͌͐̃̈͗̑̋̇ͫ̕͡͝h̺̳̹̞̩ͨͣ̃̍̌ͫ͛͞͞e̵̍ͥͤͪ́ͪ̋ͦ̄͑ͫͮ̑̃͆̓̈́̕͏̵̴͉̜̪͓̗͕͓̞ ͎̭̭̫̭̺͎̰͖̫̻̑ͫ̏̑ͩͫ̈ͪ̐̽̋̓͊̉͒̋͌͑͘͢͢͡͠e̎̅̾͊̍̾̓ͥͫ͡͠҉̣̣͖̳͓̟̬̟̥͍̭̟̤̲̤̲̘ņ̶̵̢̜̦̭͓̫̲̯̘̥͎̺̺̰̥̒͛͑̎͋͋̾͒ͣͩ̊̉̈́͢ͅd̶̢͉͓̼̞͉̯̤̖̗͎̘ͫ̎͑͌̀̈̊̿̏̀̅̔͊̎̑͝ͅ ͛̈̄͗ͩ̊̉ͪ͏̦͍͍̘ͅc̷̛͕̱̘̣͈͖̙͈̥̞̻̪̪̉͑̆ͯ̄̐ͯ̈̈́ò̐̔ͭͤ̇̃̽ͧͬ̂̈ͮ͌̚͏͈̲̟̭̠̻͟ͅm̵̡̍̐͒͂̋͋͘͏̯̥̭̮̺̘̲͕̞̹̪̫m̧̛͇̬̘͔̮̮̹̐̈̍ͥ̓̀͊ͧ̿͛̌ͬͫė̵͋͐ͧ͑̽̽̃ͧ͋ͥ̿̊̉̃̍̾͂͘͠͏̨͍̤̱̹̟n̒͋ͮͫ͌̒ͭͨ̽̏҉̫̜̘͔̩̭̮̖͍̦̼̪͙̩̰̘͉͜c̴̡̯͔͕̙̘͎̻̙̮̞̩̯̘̝̼̤̮̀̊̊̈́͊̎̾ͥ̏̍eͮ̾̈ͦ͏̥̻̼̫͇̟̞̮̘̙͟͜

it was indecipherable, only lasting a few seconds, Mcgucket flying out of the unwilling possessee at the end, looking disoriented. Dipper took advantage of the confusion and cast a distraction charm on the other figure. He overlooked the orange ghost, picked up his gasping colleague and walked off, looking for them elsewhere. They exhaled nervously. Dipper panted from exertion, doing that much magic in such a short amount of time had drained him. Soos had managed to keep himself above them through sheer force of will and now allowed himself to be taken by the air flow, taking a sharp turn downward as the duo raced after him. He went down several floors, Mcgucket phasing through the floor and Dipper nervously sliding down the tube as if it were a pole, was once again perpendicular to the ground and found himself going through a large door with a hole in it, an eye embossed on the wood, a large red X in the center. Dipper kicked the door open, it swung outwards on creaky hinges. Soos spilled out on top of a statue of a man with his arms outstretched, flowing down to avoid the carefully arranged capsules of memories. The room’s ceiling was thick with pipes, more capsules piled at the room’s sides.

“Honey Fogelin’ salt lickin’ skullduggery” Mcgucket exclaimed. Soos chortled.

“Man, you have got to teach me some of those old-man swear words” he commented. Wendy and Mabel were still in the large chamber, bored out of their minds. Mabel sighed loudly.

“I just don’t get it wendy” She started, “I hug a lot, I can burp the alphabet, I can do magic, I have scratch and sniff clothing when they’re dry, why does every boy leave me?” She asked wistfully.

“Pfft, who cares? Boys are the worst” Wendy commented, leaning back on her paws, “You shouldn’t get hung up man” She said sagely.

“Maybe I come on too strong, you know?” She asked, furrowing her brow.

“Well, what’s your opener?” Wendy asked, adjusting her hair and forcing it into her cap. “Pretend I’m a boy” she offered. Mabel jumped up in her tank

“Hi. I’m mabel! I’m twelve and own a pig! Wanna get married?” She blurted loudly. Wendy laughed, not unkindly.

“Honestly? That was perfect, if not a little high-frequency for my ears” She said. “You should just forget about guys, man” Wendy advised. Mabel got an idea.

“Wendy that’s it! Forget about guys” Mabel exclaimed, rolling toward the chair. [red flag RED FLAG!] “I just need to type ‘summer romances into this thing and I won’t feel bad about them anymore” She said, acting as if it was a great idea. This raised several red flags for Wendy.

“Whoe, hold up Mabel. We don’t even know what that thing does” She warned, ears flat against her skull. “You could accidentally erase, like, learning to read, or breathe or being human, or-“

“Or one of those terrible summer songs you can’t get out of your head?” Mabel interrupted, glossing over the human bit. This struck a chord with Wendy. Meanwhile, with the guys,

“Look at all these tubes” Soos said in amazement, tossing one behind him. He had a part of his mass in every pile, sifting through the capsules one by one. “People must’ve been getting their memories erased all over town” he commented. Dipper picked one up from his pile.

“Whoa, look at this” He said, the capsule was Robbie’s. He inserted the tube into the receptacle on the screen at the room’s center. Video started playing. It was of Robbie, still human.

“Yes Robbie, what is it that you have seen?” The leader asked the angst-ridden youth.

“So I was attacked by this magic kung fu guy, that was throwing, like, balls of fire at me.” He described when Dipper had summoned a video-game character from a fighting game. “I kicked his butt though”

“Robbie, speak honestly” The leader chided.

“I was saved by a 12-year old boy” He said ashamedly. Dipper paused the video.

“Why are they erasing people’s memories? I still don’t get it” Dipper commented, hand to chin.

“Hey fellers lookie over here” Mcgucket cried, his torso halfway through the statue. “It’s those words people sometimes call me” He said, pointing to a tube with his name on it.

“Oh dude, your memories, we did it!” Soos cried, reaching out and taking the tube. A small device beeped when they removed the tube, unheard to the group. “Got it” Soos confirmed, holding the tube in a slimy tentacle. The stone at the top of the arch grinded as it turned, lighting up scarlet, glaring at the tube. Meanwhile, on mabel’s end, she was typing ‘Summer romances’ into the memory-eraser.

“I don’t know Mabel, are you really sure this is a good idea?” Wendy asked nervously.

“All ideas are good ideas!” Mabel cried as she pointed the device at her face. A loud beep suddenly rang around the room, causing wendy to clamp her paws to her head. A red light was going off above them. An alarm. The alarm rang with a klaxon in the tube room.

“The alarm in my brain is a-ringing again.” Mcgucket screamed, turning to see the glowing scarlet capstone. “AH!” He cried, jumping from shock. Hooded figures rushed into the room and Dipper and Soos scrambled to escape. Mcgucket phased inside the statue to hide. One of the figures yelled at them to return. Mcgucket emerged slightly from the statue. “Oh, you’ve really tarred it up now Fiddleford, this is all your fault” He said, clasping his head in his hands, looking down at his beard. “Why does my beard have a bandage?” He asked himself, holding up his magnificent facial hair. “Does that even make sense? Why has no-one pointed that out?” He asked. The robed figures ran past a trio of Egyptian exhibits, behind which Soos and Dipper were hiding. It was surprisingly roomy back there.

“Okay I think we’re safe” Dipper whispered as two pairs of hands emerged from the shadows behind them, clasping over their eyes/

“We playing guess who?” Soos asked, moving his eyes from beneath the hands to look at Dipper. “oh” He said before they were dragged away, Soos had to be restrained with a clear plastic parachute of sorts to prevent him from going through the hands. Later, they were all tied up, Wendy and Dipper chained with chains to prevent them from damaging their way through ropes, Mabel’s tank in the grasp of a trio of congregants, her tail and torso similarly restrained, and Soos in a large plastic bag, also tied up with chains. His digestive enzymes could apparently deal quite efficiently with metal. Living things, not so much. Not alive and inorganic things, he apparently could, except for plastic. The society of the blind eye was chanting, surrounding the group. The leader snatched Mcgucket’s Memory tube away from Dipper. They were in the hall of the forgotten.

“You shouldn’t have come here” He said menacingly. “We do not give up our secrets lightly”

“Who are you bathrobe wearing freaks?” Wendy demanded, struggling against the chains.

“Why are you doing this” Dipper asked, his cervine body awkwardly pinned to the pillar.

“What’s with your creepy British accent?” Mabel asked, barely lifting her head above the water.

“Well, I supposed we are going to erase your minds anyway” The leader conceded, nodding to the other congregation members [oh boy here we go]. They removed their hoods one by one, Toby Determined, now a large gremlin, still horrifically ugly, Bud Gleeful, a living puppet man similar to Pinocchio, that farmer guy who’d given Mabel her pig, now a bat-like creature, he still looked a little dazed from Mcgucket’s possession, the guy with the tattoos, now a gargoyle, that creepy guy who married a woodpecker, now a large anthropomorphic woodpecker coincidentally. Soos asked how the marriage was going.

“Oh, great, great” He said happily. [oh god the implications]

“And you’ve never met me before” the leader said, revealing beige-furred paws to pull down his hood. “And if you had, you wouldn’t remember!” he said, pulling down his hood fully. He was a Lynx, a scar over his right eye, markings on the fur on his head separating it into sections. “I am blind Ivan” He said, “And we, are the society of the blind eye!” He cried, spreading his arms like the statue behind him. The members behind him made a sweeping motion with their right arms, swishing it in front of their face with a serious expression. “Formed many years ago by our founder… our founder… does anyone remember who he was?” Ivan asked, looking around.

“We’ve been usin’ that ray on our own brains an awful lot” Bud Gleeful laughed, his mouth clacking as it moved.

“But why would you do all this? What do you have to gain?” Dipper asked, looking perplexed. “Especially now that everyone’s some sort of monster? Lazy Susan probably won’t remember Toby now” continued.

“As you have no doubt discovered” Ivan said, ignoring Dipper’s last comment. That was happening an awful lot. “Gravity falls is a town plagued with supernatural strangeness” He described, stopping suddenly. “oh… right. Everyone’s somewhat supernatural now… I’m… I’m going to finish my speech and then consider my life choices” He said, “Anyway, no one knew how to stop the things that went bump in the night-“

“Until they became the things that went bump in the night” Dipper interrupted. Ivan looked at him angrily.

“Right, Gag him” He ordered. Bud pulled a roll of duct tape from the depths of his robes and sealed Dipper’s mouth. So our founder invented the next best thing.” He continued. “A way for us to forget. We took it upon ourselves to help the troubled townsfolk by erasing the memories of the strange things they’ve seen” Dipper tried to say something through the duct tape, only muffled hmms could be heard. “now the people of gravity falls go about their lives ignorant and happy thanks to us” He finished with a sanctimonious grin on his snout. And as a perk, we help ourselves forget things that trouble us. Everyone has something they’d rather forget” Ivan accused. “in fact, your own sister was about to use that ray on herself.” He pointed out. “Isn’t that right” He said. Dipper turned to look at his sister and tried to say something. “Oh, right, ungag him” Ivan ordered, the gag was ripped off of Dipper’s face roughly.

“Mabel? Seriously?” He asked his sister. She raised her head above the water.

“Ha-ha… maybe” She said ashamedly.

“Don’t you see? This is ruining lives!” Dipper cried. “What about old man Mcgucket?” Dipper asked. “He lives in a hut and talks to animals! Thanks to you. Don’t you feel bad about that?” Dipper pointed out.

“Mmm, maybe a little.” Ivan said, pointing the ray at himself, blasting his head. “But not anymore” He said, grinning maliciously. He keyed in ‘summer’ on the ray. “You won’t be telling anyone else what you’ve learned here” Ivan said menacingly. “Say good-bye to your summer” He growled.

“Guys, if we’re going to forget everything, I’ve got some stuff I wanna get off my chest” Soos said, his voice slightly muffled by the plastic. “Mabel, for half the summer I thought your name was Maple, like the syrup, No one corrected me!” He confessed.

“I only love some of my stuffed animals! And the guilt is Killing me!” Mabel cried,

“Sometimes I use big words and I don’t actually know what they mean. I mean, I’m supposed to be the smart guy, If I’m not the smart guy, who am i?” Dipper cried, having a minor existential crisis.

“Okay I’m not actually laid back, I’m stressed like, 24/7, have you met my family? My dad’s a minotaur and my brothers have this weird alpha thing going on, YOU TRY TO STAY CALM IN THAT SITUATION” wendy cried, They all started talking at once, some confessions, some admissions of how much they’d miss one another.

“Oh stop being a bunch of babies” Ivan said in exasperation before a pan hit the hand holding the ray, also dropping the memory tube for Mcgucket. They both hit the floor, somehow staying intact. “Owie” He cried as Mcgucket charged into the room, his incorporeal arms full of supplies. His face was screwed up in concentration.

“Mcgucket?” They all cried as he broke Wendy and Dipper’s chains with a pickaxe. He dropped the mining tool, throwing it at Soos’ plastic bag. The rest of the equipment fell through his arms as he lost concentration.

“I raided the mining display for weapons, Now fight like a hillbilly Fellers!” He cried, picking up the pickaxe again. Mabel’s tank was on the floor, safely landed on its treads. Wendy picked up a banjo in one hand, readying her claws on the other, Dipper stamped his hoof as he picked up a stuffed raccoon on a stick, Soos picked up a display of Dysentery.

“Oh nobody better mess” He said, holding it in front of him.

“They know too much. Don’t let them escape!” ivan ordered,

“Get this song outta your head!” Wendy cried, smashing the banjo down on the bird man’s head, twanging a note as she did so. She turned and whacked another, changing her grip on the banjo to both hands, she didn’t want to hurt anyone… fatally at least.

“Dysentery’s gonna get you dawg” Soos threatened someone with their hood still on, a canine snout pushing through the hole. He ran, Soos in hot pursuit. Dipper spotted something on the floor.

“Mcgucket’s memory tube!” He cried, running over to the tube as fast as he could, his hooves finding unfortunately little purchase on the wood. He picked it up reverently as the gargoyle man shouted

“Oh no you don’t” As he brought a stony fist in Dipper’s direction. Dipper shrieked and put the tube into the air tube, sending it whooshing to the other side of the room. The gargoyle’s fist going through the wall.

“Mabel, Catch!” Dipper cried as the memory tube arrived next to mabel. Unfortunately, the bat grabbed it first,

“I’ll take that thank you” He said as he took it. He encountered Soos as he was running. “Give it up boy, you’re no match for the unstoppable power of…” He was interrupted by Mabel sucking away his robe with the air tube, revealing that he was wearing only underwear under his robe. “That’s right. I don’t wear nothin’ under my robe. I got fur for a reason” He said, almost sounding proud. They all exclaimed in disgust. Soos pointed the memory gun at himself.

“Welp, time to erase that forever” He said, eyes burning. Ivan grabbed the gun from him.

“Give me that tube” He ordered Dipper.

“Never!” Dipper cried, throwing it upward into one of the transport tubes. They raced after it, Ivan’s foot pads finding more purchase on the ground, but Dipper wasn’t constrained by the robe, they were neck and neck as they raced after the tube. “That memory belongs to Mcgucket!” He cried,

“The society’s secrets belong to us!” Ivan countered as they approached the end of the alcove, Ivan tripping Dipper, sending him sliding along the floor to crash into a wall, sending tubes flying everywhere. Ivan sifted through the tubes for a few seconds before standing triumphantly with Mcgucket’s in hand. “End of the line” He snarled, aiming the memory ray at the group. “By tomorrow this will all seem like a bad dream, say good bye to your precious memories” He finished with deathly spite in his voice. The ray lit up and fired just as Mcgucket appeared in front of Dipper. The ray dissipated inside him, his eyes unfocusing slightly.

“Mcgucket, you took a bullet for me” Dipper said in astonishment. Ivan fired again. “Oh my gosh! Are you okay?” Dipper asked in concern. Mcgucket blinked.

“Okay as I’ll ever be” He said, laughing manically.

“What” Dipper said in confusion.

“Why. Isn’t. This. Working!” Ivan cried, punctuating each word with a shot from the ray. Each dissipated inside Mcgucket, only causing his eyes to go a bit crossed every time.

“Hit me with your best shot kitty! But my mind’s been gone for 30-odd years” Mcgucket said, walking through the shots as if they were nothing. “YoU cAn’T bReAk WhAt’S aLrEaDy BrOkEn!” He cried madly, slapping the ray out of Ivan’s hands. He put all the concentration he could into his forehead. “Say good night sally!” He cried, headbutting Ivan as hard as he could. Ivan fell atop the pile of tubes, thoroughly unconscious. Mcgucket’s memory tube rolled to a halt in front of Dipper. A smile spread across his face. Soon they had the entire society tied up against the pillar in chains.

“Unhand us!” Ivan yelled angrily.

“It’s not so fun being tied up, is it?” Wendy asked, squatting in front of him.

“Wanna draw on their faces?” Mabel said, pulling a marker pen from nowhere.

“What?” Ivan asked as Mabel drew tiny smily faces in his fur, writing ‘butts’ in various segments of his markings. “That’s not funny!” Ivan said angrily.

“It’s pretty funny” Dipper said,

“It’s like, objectively funny” Soos said. Ivan scowled.

“We’ll have our revenge” He promised. “We’ll never forget what you’ve done” He said as dipper keyed in ‘the society of the blind eye’ on the memory eraser.

“Oh, I think you just might” He muttered.

“Wait! What about the tourists, you’ll need someone like us to wipe their memories, otherwise the government might come” Ivan said, grasping at straws.

“Mabel and I have something in development for that, tell me, have you ever heard of, cosplay?” He asked Ivan before blasting him and the other members of the society with the ray. They all walked out of the museum with confused expressions on their faces, putting a few dollars into Mcgucket’s hat. “Thanks for visiting the museum for gold miner appreciation night, don’t forget to tip your hillbilly” Dipper said cheerfully.

“I’m sorry, but what’s my name?” Ivan asked, now dressed in a red shirt and blue shorts. “Where am I?” he asked. “What am I?”

“ohh, might have overdone that one” Dipper said.

“Your name is Toot-Toot McBumbersnazzle, you’re a local lynx banjo minstrel, with a song in your heart, and funny markings on your head” Mabel told him, handing him a banjo.

“yes. I am Toot-Toot McBumbersnazzle. Cheers!” He said, walking away and strumming his banjo. They returned to the hall of the forgotten, turning on the screen.

“All right Mcgucket, are you ready to see your memories?” Dipper asked him, “Find out who you really are?” he asked. The ghost looked nervous, almost scared as he held the memory tube.

“I’m not so sure” He said, “What if I don’t like what I see?”

“We’ve come all this way. Go on” Mabel encouraged. Mcgucket inserted the tube into the receptacle. It showed a much younger man, behind him, charts relating to quantum physics showed some sort of failure probability. Day 1 was embossed in the lower corner of the screen,

“My name is Fiddleford Hadron Mcgucket, and I wish to unsee what I have seen” The man on the screen said. They all gasp.

“Sweet sasparilla” Present Mcgucket said. The past Mcgucket grabbed his hair in his hands.

“For the past year, I have been working as an assistant for a visiting researcher” Past Mcgucket said, “He has been cataloguing his findings about gravity falls in a series of journals” He explained, Dipper held up his journal in shock, turning to the page with the portal diagram, “I helped him build a machine, which he believe had the potential to benefit all mankind. But something went wrong!” Past Mcgucket cried [bit of an understatement, but go on] “I decided to quite the project, but I lie awake at night, haunted by the thoughts of what I’ve done!” [also seeing into a dimension of true chaos] he said, putting his arms behind his back. “I believe I have invented a machine that can permanently erase these memories from my mind” He explained, holding up the memory ray and keying something in. “Test subject one: Fiddleford” He said, blasting himself with the ray.

The yellow text in the bottom corner of the screen now said ‘Day 5’ after a second or so of static.

“I worked!” Past Mcgucket exclaimed joyously. “I can’t recall a thing!” The film filled again with static, the background degrading, charts covered in the symbol of the blind eye, the blackboard, instead of being occupied with formulae and space diagrams, now held only the symbol. The text said, ‘day 22’

“I call it the society of the blind eye” Past Mcgucket explained excitedly. “We will help those who want to forget by erasing their bad memories!”

It fast forwarded again, the background deteriorating more, the walls falling apart, the word HELP scrawled in large red letters in the top right. The text read ‘day 74’, Mcgucket’s hair was now disorganized, stubble on his chin.

“Today I came across a colony of little men, very disturbing” he said nervously, “I would like to forget seeing this” He said, blasting himself, yet again.

Day 189, his arm was in a sling, his hair turned gray, nose red, bandage on his neck.

“I accidentally hit another car in town today,” He said, sounding more and more like present Mcgucket. He was missing teeth, eyes wild. “I feel terri-bibble… terrible” he said, “I’ve been forgetting words lately, I wonder if there are any negative side effects…” he started, cut off by the static.

Day 273, his hair completely, gray, a crack in his glasses, a beard growing from his chin, eyes wilder, he was in a motel room.

“I saw something in the lake, something big!” He cried, tearing out chunks of hair from the side of his head.

Day 618, his beard was longer, more teeth gone, “My hair’s been a-fallin’ out, so I got this hat from a scarecrow” He said, tipping the hat, “Hey are my pants on backwards?”

Day ???, he was laughing maniacally, speaking in gibberish, jumping about a scrapyard. He made a triangle around his eye before the static took over the picture completely. They stood before the screen in horror. They felt like they’d just watched a man die.

“oh, Mcgucket, I’m so sorry” Mabel said, rolling up beside him. Mcgucket removed the tube from the device.

“Aw, hush, you kids helped me get my memories back, just like you said” He said thankfully.

“But… did you want those memories back?” Mabel asked.

“after all these years I finally know who I am” He said. “Maybe I messed up in the past, but now that I seen what happened, I can begin to put myself back together again” He said, putting the tube into a pocket in his ghostly trousers. It floated there, bathed in his orange light. He hamboned, Thanks for opening my eyes .

“Still don’t know what that means” Dipper said, he furrowed his brow. “So wait, you weren’t the authot, but you worked with him?” Dipper asked. “Do you remember who he was?” He pushed.

“It’s beginning to come back, but I need more time” Mcgucket said apologetically. “And readin’ glasses heck!” He said, taking a small pair of glasses from the table which the screen rested on, affixing them to his face. They turned ghostly orange, becoming part of his spirit. One of the lenses fell out, falling throught he floor. He spat into the spittoon on the floor. “I got some rememberin’ to do” He said inanely. Wendy grabbed the eraser ray from behind her back.

“So, Mabel, you still wanna erase those failed summer romances?” She asked. Mabel looked sadly at Old man Mcgucket inspecting the tube.

“You know, no one likes having bad memories, but maybe it’s better to remember the bad things and learn from them, than to go all denial cray trying to forget” she said.

“That’s some mature junk right there, Mabel” The werewolf said, nodding. Mabel puffed out her chest as best she could in her tank.

“Yep, miss mature, that’s me” She said proudly. She pulled up the gabe poster, only slighty soaked. “Hey, you wanna help me vandalize this picture of my jerky ex-crush?” She asked the group at large, pulling out some more markers. They voiced their assent to the idea, scrawling all over the poster, giving him buck teeth, an eyepatch, a soul patch, and writing that he made out with his puppets. They happily made their way back to the car.

“Hey you know what?” Wendy told Soos. “Going on this big adventure actually made me get that stupid song out of my head.” She said. As Soos turned on the car, the radio started blaring,

“Am I Blanchin’, Girl we Blanchin’ I live up in a mansion”

“Aw COME ON!” Wendy yelled, pounding her fists against the dash. Dipper, his body compressed in the back as it was, was flipping through the journal with Mcgucket over his shoulder.

“It’s almost like I can remember.” The oracular spirit said, looking at an image of a guage. Unbeknownst to them, an old gargoyle was carting barrels of radioactive waste into the basement, pouring the contents into the tank of the portal.

“All right, you’re getting closer” He said, the portal bathing him in light, his fez resting lightly on his head. He also held a mug of coffee and a notepad, pen behind his ear. “Every day it’s getting stronger.” He said just as the portal’s gravity yanked the notepad, pen, coffee and fez from him. He barely managed to catch the fez, intercepting it with his wing. He jammed it back on his head. The three objects flew into the portal, ending up on a world populated by creatures that mumbled inane things all day every day, just as a squad of the same man showed up, looking for another version of himself. Stan stepped back.

“Ha ha! Yes!” he cried, raising his arms and wings in triumph. A pipe flew by and grazed his hand, breaking the skin. He exclaimed in pain. He wrapped the scrape in bandages. “I don’t care if it’s dangerous. I don’t care how long it takes. I’m gonna pull this off, and no one’s gonna get in my way” He said confidently. He was wrong. There were 2 people that would get in his way. But that’s a story for another time.