[MAY 2022 | GRAVITY FALLS, OR] and they're giving me hell back in hades

[mabeljuice]

♫ You Made Me Realize- Brad Breeck

Ten years ago, Bill Cipher attempted to turn the world into a heinous nightmare realm with the help of a broken and misguided Dipper Pines. The fight was brutal and lives were lost, but Mabel Pines, determined to get her brother back, managed to yank Dipper back from the edge of darkness and together, they supposedly banished Bill from this dimension permanently. 

The cost, however, was unimaginably high.

Dipper grew estranged from his family and his sister and Mabel, unable to truly face what that horrific summer did to her, suffered from a serious case of arrested development. As the twins grew up and went their separate ways, Dipper went off to college, and Mabel returned to Gravity Falls, out of fear of being alone. And so it went- Dipper studied the occult and distanced himself from his family so they might never get caught up in his problems again, and Mabel tried to make a life for herself without ever truly growing up.

But this could not hold. 


During the summer of 2022, exactly ten years to the day of their arrival in Gravity Falls, Stanley Pines has gone missing, leaving a series of cryptic codes in red paint. Determined to get her brother back to Gravity Falls to reunite the Mystery Twins and find their missing grandfather, she goes on a quest to find him, only to find him less enthused about recapturing the past. Things change, however, when Dipper deciphers one of the codes left behind and discovers it's a message from Bill- he's back and he's looking for Dipper.

With no choice left, the twins set off back to Gravity Falls, and Dipper is about to learn that the town has changed significantly in ten years.

+++

The forest hasn't really fully healed from the events of ten years ago. Passing the endless pine forests, there's still scorched gaps where the forest fires took out chunks of the vegetation and only the bare minimum seems to be returning its former glory. Up ahead, the water tower comes into view- repainted and no longer proudly displaying Robbie V's muffin-shaped mushroom cloud. The forest might be shabby, but the town itself seems to be flourishing far better than it was when the twins were here before- a sharp contrast to the fact that Mabel warned Dipper the town was weirder than usual.

"It's... a lot different than you remember, probably," Mabel says awkwardly, keeping her eyes straight ahead.

Comments

[lowvi]

Dipper snaps a picture of the finger print on his phone and straightens, frowning. "I haven't heard of any monster that this could be." Which is weird because Dipper's heard of pretty much everything.

He walks over to Wendy, peering over her shoulder. "How cool are we talking?"

[mabeljuice]

"I dunno. Looks like a janitor or something." She backs away from the window as someone opens the door. Mabel readies her fists, prepared for anything, but all the trio gets is a man of indeterminate age in coveralls and boots, staring at them with an eerily blank expression. (Mabel quickly drops her hands and hides them behind her back.)

Wendy, as the one closest to him, takes center stage. "Sorry, man. We're just checking the ventilation."

The man blinks slowly and shrugs one shoulder. "Funny. That's what I'm here to do," he drawls.

[lowvi]

"Double booking, I guess. You should talk to your manager." Dipper gives him a hard look, expression staying reasonably blank (bluff 17), before glancing back at Mabel for help. She's the one that's too charming to get in trouble.

[mabeljuice]

"You were late," she scolds, giving him a completely sour look. "We got here in five minutes, so we already did the prelims, buuut since you came all this way, we'll let you finish." Her ungodly diplomacy works wonders or possibly this guy doesn't give enough of a fuck to care. He moves aside to get closer to the vent, and Mabel grabs Dipper and starts ushering him towards the open door and back out into the parking lot with Wendy close behind.

(make a spot check)

[lowvi]

Dipper keeps his eyes open as they make their way out (spot 21), pausing to mutter, "Nice one," at Mabel as they make their way out. He wouldn't have even thought to use words like prelims.

[mabeljuice]

Mabel gives him a weak smile, but it's not enough to convince her all is forgiven. Meanwhile, as they step out into the late afternoon sunlight, Dipper can see that there's a slimy yellowish substance on the concrete in the shape of a bootprint.

[lowvi]

Well, she's not wrong. He still is going to have a talk with her. And he's still pissed.

When he notices the boot print, he frowns, halting in his tracks. "Oh, no." His wisdom check of 19 is enough that he connects where the boot print might have came from. Instead of sharing his knowledge with the class or anything like that, though, he turns around, bursting back into the room.

[mabeljuice]

"Dipper!" Mabel and Wendy don't have his keen eyes, and they follow Dipper back inside just in time to hear an awkward banging sound from inside the vents like someone climbing through them, which is... pretty unnerving.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Wendy balks.

[lowvi]

"Oh no, this thing is not getting away." Dipper grabs his bag and rifles through it, but he's not going for his crossbow this time. He pulls out a scroll of shocking grasp and squints, reading the text aloud in halting Latin (decipher script 31) then shakes it to try and activate the magic since he honestly doesn't know what he's doing, but it seems to work (use magic device 27). Then he smacks it down against the metal of the inside of the grate (atk 26, dmg 2).

"Magic meet physics," he grits out. "Let's see how this thing likes electricity."

[mabeljuice]

IT DOES NOT LIKE IT. The thing howls, humanlike, the sound echoing creepily from inside the vent, but since it's fairly deep in there, it's hard to say whether it actually continued on, injured, or is unconscious in the ventilation system somewhere.

Mabel and Wendy look at Dipper with awestruck expressions, once again. "You, uh... You can do magic now?" Mabel asks, a little bit awkwardly.

[lowvi]

Dipper looks vaguely satisfied that he's at least injured it, though the fact that it... is still in there takes some of the joy out of it.

"Huh?" He glances back at them and shrugs a shoulder, rubbing the back of his head. "Sure, if I've got the right scroll. It's not that hard, just a matter of saying the right words."

From what he's learned, there are people who can do it without scrolls. That's not Dipper. But this is close enough for him. He can keep up with the best of them, even if his magic's not coming from inside.

He frowns, glaring at the grate. "Too bad I don't have anything to see if it's still in there or not."

[mabeljuice]

"The vent has to lead somewhere..." Mabel peers inside of it, but it's dark and the metal shocks her a little when she grabs it, causing her to yelp and stick her finger in her mouth. "We could stake it out?"

Wendy pats her smock. "Cool. You two do that, while I go close up shop and head home. If you find anything, you better call me." Her patting gets more aggressive. "Aw crud. Where the hell did my nametag go." She brushes it off with a wave of her hand. "Probably left it at the shop. Anyway. See you dudes, later."

And off she goes, leaving the awkward Mystery Twins together in the hotel room with a monster either escaping or unconscious in the vents. Yay.

[lowvi]

"It's probably dead," Dipper shrugs a shoulder dismissively. "I guess we can hang out by the car or something just in case." That plan was a crit fail, so don't expect any bonuses. He turns towards the door abruptly, pushing past Mabel. He has to talk to her, but being in the same room as her without Wendy as a buffer is uncomfortable. He needs air.

[mabeljuice]

"What?" Mabel follows him out, sparing an awkward glance at the vent as she vanishes out the door behind him. "Ugh. Dipper, look. I get you're mad at me, but that was a lot of stuff to explain on a long car ride. I didn't wanna overwhelm you."

[lowvi]

"Sure, sure," Dipper rolls his eyes, tilting his head back, and turns to face her. "Except we both know by 'overwhelm' you mean 'scare me off'. You thought if you told me anything about the town before we got here, I'd change my mind."

[mabeljuice]

"You weren't supposed to have to get involved in this part." She crosses her arms over her chest. "But it might all be connected and ugh. I was never good at this mystery board thing, Dipper. All I get is tangled yarn and nothing that ever adds up, which may as well be the summary of my autobiography."

She slumps a little. "I just... hate that everything went so wrong that I couldn't tell you everything, because I was afraid you'd run away. And I thought... Maybe if you found it out yourself, you'd feel like a hero again. It's not like we know anything. We just punch monsters a lot and hope for the best."

[lowvi]

"Back in the day you had more faith than that." Dipper's lip twists bitterly. He's never been like that. He's never believed in much without proof, and certainly not other people. Mabel had believed in Stan against all logic. Why can't she do the same for Dipper now?

[mabeljuice]

Once-Brad Kane

Mabel looks like she's been slapped for a split second and then her resolve returns to her and she clenches her fists, brass knuckles still wrapped around her fingers. "Because you left me, Dipper. You left me when I needed you the most. Even when we were in the same room, you weren't there. How was I supposed to have faith in a ghost? What was I supposed to do when my own brother acted like he didn't want me?"

Ten years of bottled up emotions come to the surface as she shouts at him in the parking lot. She tried so hard to stay positive and show him she was getting on fine without him, but her immaturity spoke for her, and now here she is, laying out why.

[lowvi]

Dipper glances away, balling his hands into fists. His nails dig into his palms. The same instincts he's always had, the ones he's been doing such a good job of suppressing for the past ten years, flare up, berating him for not being there when Mabel needed him. What kind of brother wouldn't drop everything just for his dumb sister's happiness? What kind of brother wouldn't have even noticed?

"I wasn't there?" There's more anger in his voice than he expected or wanted. He was never good at balancing his needs and Mabel's. He was either sacrificing anything because she gave him that sad look or he was... making deals with demons. He was all there or he was a ghost. He couldn't take care of both of them.

"You acted like everything was fine! You kept talking about how you wanted to go back every summer!" He rubs his arm, trying to hold onto the anger, rather than the pain that threatens to break through and overwhelm him. "How the hell was I supposed to be there for you when you wanted to be in the one place I never wanted to come back to?" How the hell was he supposed to be there for her when he needed to lean on her just as much but didn't know how to ask? She might brag about being five minutes older, but Dipper's always been the one who acted older. She'd saved him from his own bad choices, but he didn't know how to tell her how lost he still was.

[mabeljuice]

"Someone had to, Dipper. Someone had to be okay, because I knew you weren't. I was so scared that I wouldn't be able to think positively or be able to help anyone if I didn't suck it up and pretend to be okay with everything. I just wanted everything to be normal."

And it's not. It never will be. She's still hunting monsters and he's still doing everything to make sure he never feels helpless again, and they've lost something and Mabel is so frightened she'll never get it back.

"I don't know what to do." Her fists unclench and she looks down at the ground. "I just want my family back."

[lowvi]

"We could have not been okay together!" Her being fine had only made things worse. "Things weren't going to be normal no matter how much you tried, and I couldn't pretend." He hadn't wanted to pretend. He didn't want to drag her down with him. He hated how okay she could seem with all of this and hated how he couldn't do the same thing.

He wraps his arms around himself, swallowing down the lump in his throat.

"I don't know what to do either."

It's not something he usually admits. Knowing what to do is sort of his thing. But when it comes to something like this? He's as lost as ever.

[mabeljuice]

Mabel ducks her head and rubs at her nose, shoulders shaking as she tries to choke back tears. Everything's screwed up and the town is worse than ever and she dragged him back without telling him everything, and all she feels right now is guilty and heartbroken.

"We sucked at this, Dip," she finally says. "But we have a chance to make it right. It's not too late."

[lowvi]

Dipper isn't sure if she's right about that. They will never be 12 and innocent again. And Dipper knows he won't be any better at forgetting 10 years of hurt than he is at forgetting anything else. He's not the one who has faith in people. He has enough trouble having faith in himself. He sees the distance between them and he doesn't know how cross it.

He misses her too. He misses trusting her. Having that person at his back that he could depend on no matter what. But getting that back is going to take a little more than wanting it. Not when she's already keeping secrets from him.

He sighs and slowly uncrosses his arms. It's harder than it should be, like peeling off a scab. Then he opens them a little bit more and gives her an uncertain smile. "Awkward sibling hug?"

[mabeljuice]

She looks up at him, eyes watery with unshed tears. She looks like she's waiting for the punchline, the swift kick that sends her sprawling, but when nothing comes to trip her up, she laughs, and steps into his hug. "Awkward sibling hug," she responds, patting his back a couple times.

Dipper hears absolutely nothing, because he's distracted by his emotions, but Mabel suddenly straightens and jerks her head towards the roof. "Oh crap. The guy!"

[lowvi]

"Damn, I had really hoped he was dead!" Dipper grabs his crossbow and starts moving, trying to get a clear shot. "Mabel, circle the other way, he has to come down somewhere!"