The creature was almost too horrifying to look at; an incomprehensible tangle of tentacles risen from the ocean depths. It battered the Stan o' War relentlessly, having already destroyed almost half of it. Stan shouted a battle cry as he ran at it, slashing and stabbing with the harpoon. He must have hit a soft spot, because his stab drew an ear-splitting scream from the thing. He lost his weapon as he covered his ears and dropped to the deck, barely avoiding another tentacle swipe.
"Damn... Ford! You got that repellent yet?" He shouted to be heard over the beast and the storm that came with it.
Ford's words were scrambled, but he was running up from below with a vial of something bright yellow. Stan quickly got up to continue wrestling with the thing. He tried his best to keep it away from his brother. Ford probably had some ingenious way to beat it, smart guy just needed some time. That was always the deal: Stan punched monsters in the face until Ford finished whatever magic/science/alchemy he needed to resolve the situation.
Stan was usually pretty good at it. Which was why he was surprised to be knocked down. Darn thing fought dirty. A sharp pain shot through his side when it made contact with the deck. "My hip! I can't- Ford!"
Ford was running to him, but was caught by a slimy appendage. Stan struggled to get back up, to grab his brother.
"Stanley!" Ford called as he was dragged into the ocean.
"Stanley!" as he was pulled through the air toward the dimensional portal under the Mystery Shack.
"Stanley!", as Ford shrank away in the distance, trapped by Bill's prison.
"Stanley?"
Stan immediately sat up in his bed, grabbing the man in front of him "No!" His eyes took a moment to focus, "Ford? You're a-" Stan's eyes darted around, he relaxed his grip on his brother, and spoke more slowly, "…here… Why are you in my cabin?"
"I heard you talking in your sleep," Ford explained, "I thought you were having another nightmare."
Stan grumbled under his breath "So what if I was?", he stalked to the dresser to dig out his clothes for the day, "It's ok. I don't need you to keep mothering me, Ford. Everything's fine."
Everything was not fine, and they both knew it. Ford knew better than to comfort his brother directly, though. He just watched him, frowning slightly, eyes soft.
"Yeesh," Stan turned around and started to get dressed, "you look like you're about to cry." When he finished, he found Ford in the same place, making the same face as before. They just stared at each other for a while, in a silent contest. It was a mental fight over who would have to talk first, or leave the room.
Finally, Stan sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "OK. Ford, I don't think we can keep this up. It's a young man's game, and we're… well … not."
Ford looked down at his hands, shakily flexed and extended his fingers. He winced at the small pain it produced. Having extra fingers didn't help one avoid arthritis. "You may be right. But… we can't just give up."
Stan knew what Ford's objections would be, and so jumped right into them. "'What about our dream to sail around the world, and look at everything left to learn', right? Well that don't mean squat if one of these excursions ends up with you dead. You're the only brother I got, I don't wanna lose you AGAIN" they shared a look. They'd been through enough to know every possible meaning of that phrase, "This time, it'd probably drive me completely insane."
Ford let out a small chuckle, and after a moment of thought, his eyes glittered, and he smiled a wide grin, "I think I may have an acceptable compromise."
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
"Where do you think you're going?! I'm not done arguing with you."
"Yea, well, I'm done with you." he pulled out a wicked looking pair of scissors and cut into the air.
"Marco... I..." the princess of Mewni frowned, her eyes filling with tears, her cheekmarks fading to gray.
Marco didn't turn around, just stared at the swirling vortex before him. It was different from the other's he'd made, but he didn't notice, he wasn't really looking at anything. It was as if he couldn't see anything. He only spoke one word, quietly, "Goodbye." and stepped through.
More out of habit than any urgent necessity, Marco closed the portal behind him almost immediately. When he looked around, he found himself in the middle of a forest.
"Where am I?" no one answered, the only sounds were birds and wind, "At least I've got the space I wanted..." Marco sighed, picked a direction, and started walking. The portal should have taken him to Earth, so he wasn't worried about monsters or demons coming out of nowhere. He just needed to get away from all the ... Mewni.
An hour later, Marco was still stomping through the forest, grumbling about an inconsiderate, ungrateful, magic princess. He barely noticed the shadows lengthening, and the forest getting darker. Whimsical tweets and woodpecker knocks were slowly replaced by snarling and chattering noises, owl hoots and distant howls. "Creepy," Marco shivered, rethinking his idea to 'just start walking'. He got out his phone, maybe he could just call someone, or use the GPS.
A nearby bush began to rustle before he could check. Strange growls got steadily louder as the rustling intensified. Marco got ready to run or fight, it could be anything.
A rabbit hopped out from under the foliage, and Marco sighed in relief. "Oh yea," he said, a little embarrassed, "Earth doesn't have evil monsters." he crouched down to inspect the fluffy thing, "Hey little guy,"
Suddenly, the rabbit grew huge, and snarled at Marco, showing all of it's large, pointy teeth. It was so surprising, Marco shouted and fell over backwards. He instinctively got back up to fighting stance, watching the creature closely. He was ready to redirect it, but the rabbit was caught mid-leap by a gray blur.
It was hard to see through the confusion and fighting, but Marco was pretty sure that was a man-sized wolf clawing and biting at the rabbit monster. Before Marco could fully process what was going on, a high screech echoed through the trees. It seemed to force everything to freeze, rabbit and wolf included. The wolf raised it's muzzle, sniffing the air, then turned his glowing gaze to Marco. "RUN"
Marco didn't think, he ran. It barely felt like a voluntary decision. He bolted through the forest as questions ran through his mind. 'Earth doesn't have monsters, how did they get here? where am I?' he slowed down, as he began to wonder if he was truly on Earth.
He stopped by a tree to catch his breath, trying to think. He didn't see anything following him, and the creepy noises were far off. "That's it, this place is too weird." he took his scissors out, "Do I need to be more specific with you?... ok, take me home."
He cut open a portal and jumped through, only to be thrown back out. He tried again, and was thrown back again. He opened three portals at once, and none of them worked. Each time he tried, his frustration and confusion grew. "No no NO! Why isn't this working?"
Finally, he got tired from trying, exhausted after falling backwards and shouting at the sky about five dozen times. He leaned against a tree and slid down to the ground. "As if things couldn't get worse. Now I can't even go home. ... Why are you broken!?"
... ... ... ... ... ... ...
"We're close. Get ready."
The strange voice woke Marco from his nap.
"You sure you don't want to wait?"
Two people, probably hunting for something, probably not expecting to find him there. Marco took a few seconds to decide on a hiding place before hustling up the tree. Below, he saw to people, kids about his own age. They looked very much alike, aside from the girl being several inches taller than the boy. The boy was carying some kind of tablet. "I don't understand," he said, "It should be right here."
The girl looked relieved, and heaved a big sigh, "See, everything's fine. No weird weirdness, just... normal... weirdness."
"I dunno... We should check around. If there's a chance of more dimension rifts, we could have another Wierdmaggedon on our hands, or worse!"
The girl looked terribly serious then. Marco hadn't noticed how bright she was until that light dimmed. Like Star... He almost let them move on, but he had to at least find out where he was. "Wait." he called as he dropped out of the tree, "It was me."
The boy stepped forward slowly, looking from the tablet to Marco and back again. Now that he got a closer look, Marco noticed that had extra bits and antennae attached. The boy studied the display a little longer before speaking "Who...or what... are you?"
Surprising, but not the most surprising thing that had happened to Marco that day. "Um... well, my name is Marco. I'm a human... from Earth"
The two kids looked at each other, the girl shrugged, and the the boy asked "You said 'it was me'. What do you mean? How did you get here?"
"You were tracking down dimensional portals, right?" he pulled out his scissors, "I came here from Mewni, and I've been trying to get home, but these don't seem to be working right." The kids still looked confused, so a demonstration was in order. He tried to focus on where he wanted to go, the same way he did every other time, and cut a portal open. "Maybe.. 61st time is the charm?" He stepped through, only to be bounced back again, with a big frown.
The response from the other two was more than wide-eyed surprise, they were afraid. Marco'd never seen anyone this terrified of dimension-jumping. He quickly closed it, "See? Broken. Been closing them anyway, can't leave these things unsupervised, y'know... like toddlers."
The strange boy nodded, and held out his hand, "I understand. Can I see those?"
Hesitantly, Marco handed them over. If they didn't work, there wasn't any point to holding on to them. "Uh... okay... So, where am I anyway? and who are you?"
"Ooh! Introductions!" the girl squealed brightly, "My name's Mabel, and this is my twin brother, Dipper. This is Gravity Falls."
"Gravity... Falls... ok... either of you know how I can get back to Earth?"
Mabel snickered, and an 8-bit tune sounded from Dipper's pocket. After checking his phone, he put everything, including Marco's scissors, in his backpack. He grabbed Marco's arm before he could protest.
"We need to get back to the shack, sort this out later," he turned to Mabel, "They're here."
