First, Stanley was aware of the hot sun on his face followed by a strange shuffling sound right by his ears, like a hedgehog was trying to get cozy in his hair.
He opened his eyes. Sure enough, sun. He squinted, raising a hand to block it, orange sand sprinkling from his sleeve into his face. Stan groaned and tried to prop himself up, disorientedly wondering why there would be a pile of sand in his yard. He'd have to get Soos to build a sand box and charge tourists to let their kids play in it. What a hassle.
His head swam a little as he sat up, the purple bloom from the sun clouding his vision. He turned his face to the ground to let his eyes adjust instead of craning his neck around blindly.
More sand- well, more like loose red dirt now that he looked at it. Had he passed out here? It was all over. It looked and smelled hauntingly familiar. Like money and old cars and painfully long nights. Spots be damned, he snapped his attention to his surroundings, which consisted of several large buildings across some kind of moat under a covered bridge. They were tall and concrete yet somehow unorganized-looking. A town, maybe? Some kind of modern company building?
Stan's hand brushed something heavy beside him as he reached up to rub his eyes. It was a helmet, old and scratched with something painted hastily on the front. He lifted if from the sand and shivered.
"What-?" he said out loud, turning the helmet around and puzzling the sight of a familiar hungry fish symbol. The rest of the helmet was nothing remarkable though he did not recognize it.
His eyes trailed down to his sleeves, which were long and red. He was wearing a uniform of some kind, he thought, with spats and a heavy belt and-
"Are these… no way," he suddenly felt the urge to crawl away from the two bright orange grenades strapped to his chest.
Stan ran a hand through his hair, knocking more dust out. Was he dreaming? Yeah, this was a weird dream. He must've eaten something bad and soon he'd wake up, probably go hang out by the toilet for a few minutes just in case and carry on. He crossed his arms as a light breeze picked up to wait it out and caught sight of something on his arm. Just like the helmet, his upper sleeves bore a yellow circle with a fish in the center. He cracked a crooked grin. Army of Stan, huh? Army of one as always.
"Stanley?" said a voice from behind him and his ears turned hot, though he couldn't tell quite why. He turned a little to see Ford staring at him, wide-eyed and slack-jawed in the doorway of one of several large buildings grouped together on this side of the bridge. These were wooden and looked like a barn designed by the world's worst farmer, the red paint peeling in the sun and the outer structure creaking long and slow in the wind.
"Ford. Come to tell me something I already know, I'm sure."
His brother quirked an eyebrow. He was wearing a long white lab coat and bright red rubber gloves (with the appropriate amount of fingers). On his sleeves were printed red circles, the middles of which were cut out in the shape of his handprint. Stan frowned a little.
"Oh great, another dream about your freaking ambition-" He raised his hands sarcastically. "Now he's a surgeon, we're so proud, woohoo."
Ford scowled, stepping down the ramp towards him. "This isn't a dream, Stanley. Get up." His brother seemed to be a little hot too, but just why Stan couldn't quite place.
"Then what is it? Why'm I dressed like it's World War II?" He stood slowly, taking the helmet with him and turning it around so the symbol was visible. "Look," he said, pointing. "Kinda specific, don'tcha think?"
Ford opened his mouth to say something and closed it again. "Come with me."
"Where are we going?" Stan asked as he was led down into the structure. The barn-from-hell outside, he discovered, was merely a facade, hiding the long, twisting concrete hallways and rooms beyond. "Where even are we?"
When Ford didn't answer, Stan grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around to face him. "What's going on?" he growled.
His brother shoved Stan's hand away and he wondered if he might be in for it. He contemplated raising a guard arm just in case, but instead Ford screamed "I don't know!" It was quiet between them for a moment, their gruff voices chasing each other in echoes around the room.
"I don't… know." Ford repeated softly. "I woke up here, just as you did. I've found Fiddleford, Dipper and the dead one-" He paused as Stan's eyes widened and waved his hands frustratedly. "Not dead! The- the one with the floppy hair."
"Y'mean Robbie?" Stan crossed his arms and smirked.
Ford ignored him. "And I've sent Soos to see if anyone else is out there." He motioned again for Stan to follow and they went a bit more slowly. "None of them know anything either."
"Are they all dressed-"
"Like us? Not quite. Fiddleford seems to be dressed as a construction worker and Dipper has on a baseball uniform and- Robbie, was it? I have no idea. He had-" Ford's eye caught the grenades on Stan's chest and raised his eyebrows. "Grenades, yes. I wonder if you aren't somehow similar. I'm a doctor of some kind, though not the right kind and Soos-" Stan listened to him drone on for another minute or two, letting his attention wander to the structure itself. It was slightly cooler down here and the various rooms they passed contained all kinds of strange platforms. Occasionally they passed a poster or bulletin board with notes pinned to it as though the place were active. Come to think of it-
"Hey, Ford?" Stan asked, tapping the edge of the helmet in his hands. His brother stopped mid-sentence and glanced at him annoyedly.
"Have you seen… anyone else? Anyone you didn't recognize?"
"No, have you?"
"Nope." They looked at each other with concern as they approached a door on the right labeled "Medic".
"Grunkle Ford! Grunkle Stan!" shouted Dipper from across what looked to be a lab or sick bay of some kind. It certainly smelled like one- Stan's nose wrinkled a little at the disinfectant that burned his sinuses. The boy ran to meet them, a look of relief coupled with that endless worry that hung over his head like a cloud.
"Ey, Kiddo!" Stan grabbed the whole top of Dipper's head in his hand and ruffled his hat, leaving him to readjust it and something else.
"What kinda baseball player wears a headset?" He asked.
"I just woke up with it!" he replied, fiddling with the knob on the side. "And this…" He retrieved a bag from a nearby chair and unzipped it, showing Stan the two baseballs, picture of a girl he didn't recognize and three cans of something called Bonk! soda. "It doesn't make any sense…"
Stan looked over the contents quietly, noticing the lines between his nephew's eyebrows.
"Hey, uh," he said quickly. "I dunno either, Kid, but you got free stuff. I got free stuff too, but I can't drink mine." He laughed, gesturing to the explosives.
Dipper nodded slowly. He was too young to be having looks like that already. Stan decided to turn his attention elsewhere for now. Ford was writing something down, as always, having some quiet conversation with Old Man McGucket. In the back corner of the room, he could see Robbie, who was curled up in another chair, his own grenades discarded nearby.
"Hey, Sixer," Stan interrupted. "You said there might be more of us? In that case I'm gonna go have a look around." He could see Dipper's expectant, almost frantic expression out of the corner of his eye. "Gonna go find that other gremlin."
Ford nodded distractedly. "I'll be around as well in a while-" his voice trailed off as he went back to scribbling.
"Dipper, I think they need your help here," Stan said, cutting off the request to accompany him that was very obviously sitting on the boy's tongue. "You're part of the Nerd Squad now or whatever you wanna call it." He smiled crookedly. "I've gotta make sure Mabel didn't get any freebie grenades, too. She'll go mad with power."
Dipper couldn't muster a smile. He sighed disappointedly but dragged a chair over to where they were now mapping out the parts of the building they'd been to and Stan slipped out into the deathly quiet hall.
Stan shuffled along another hallway, listening intently for the slightest sound. As far as they knew, they were alone but there was an itch in his spine that told him otherwise and made him wish he'd had a set of brass knuckles stowed away in one of the boxy pouches on his belt. He'd looked in them briefly, finding some lint and shotgun shells in one and an entire rolled-up piece of bread in the other. Had… he put that there? Now that he thought about it, he did feel a little hungry but the bread seemed to move when his hand got too close so he closed the lid, determining that it could wait til later when his head was clear. He didn't like the thought of a broken hand should he have to fight, but it was better than nothing.
Stan passed many doors, some of which had safety glass like the lab. Others were plain, sometimes with labels, sometimes without. Back here, the structure looked a bit different. Instead of nonsensical platforms, it was laid out like a bunker of some kind with a closed garage door around one corner and other break-type rooms elsewhere, including a kitchen. The rest of the doors were locked and, after pressing an ear to at least three and hearing nothing on the other side, he decided to continue until he found a key or some other method with which to open them.
Another hallway and then some stairs. He could tell he was making a full loop as the strange layout returned. Against his better judgement, Stan broke the silence.
"Soos! Mabel!" he called, following the steps down. His voice echoed back, deeper than he anticipated. What the hell was this place?
"Soooos!" he called again as he reached a small room full of strange vents and buttons with a door across from him labeled KEEP OUT in bold, red lettering. To his right, there was a long, dark tunnel full of water.
"Yeesh, a sewer?" he grumbled, though the smell was no worse than any normal underground water-filled pipe. Somehow this fact didn't make him feel any better.
"Hello?" he asked from the short steps leading down into the water, grimacing as he looked down into it. It was murky but not entirely so and that, at the very least, was comforting. Stan looked to his right down a second tunnel that stretched off into the dark as well and sighed, dreading getting his feet wet. He didn't even know if he'd find anything down here… Who would seriously even come down here in the first place? His eyes wandered as he thought and he noticed how the water lapped against the side of the tunnel on the left, kicking up brown sediment, then how the right side was perfectly calm and clear. Stan pinched the bridge of his nose and stepped carefully down, his boots squelching and started down the left tunnel into the dark.
"Only you, Soos, only you." Stan lifted his hands to his mouth and called again.
Barely a minute had gone by before the chatter started. First, a normal call, then several voices talking over one another, then the unmistakeable yell of his great-niece.
"Mabel!" Stan tried to pick up his pace a bit but the water was just high enough to make it impossible. From the echoes, it was hard to tell exactly what she was saying but she sounded all at once desperate and excited. The second, lower voice must have been Soos and the third- well, it was complaining, loudly. With a drawl.
"Who's there?!" wailed Gideon as the three silhouettes came into view as one three-headed beast. Stan took several steps back, uncertain of what he was looking at in the dark. He squinted, barely able to make out the forms of the two children riding on Soos' shoulders.
"Grunkle Staaan!" Mabel squealed, launching herself off of the handyman like a cat and nearly knocking Stan over as she landed squarely in his arms. He grunted then laughed, the tunnel filled to the brim with voices.
"Mr. Pines, are you okay?" Soos asked windedly. "How long've you been down here?"
"Just long enough to find you. Followed your dirt trail," Stan replied, slipping Mabel onto his own shoulders. "Ford said you were out here somewhere so I wanted to take a look around." He looked over his shoulder towards the light and motioned for Soos to follow. "Let's get out of the dark. This place is creepy as hell."
As they walked, Gideon put a hand dramatically to his chest. "Alas, Mabel, we were once so close."
"Can it, Shorty!" Stan patted Mabel's foot reassuringly and she huffed frustratedly, laying her arms over the top of his head. Soon, they'd found their way back to the end of the tunnel. At least, Stan thought, he was surrounded by familiar faces again.