Author's Note: So, in honor of the new Gravity Falls episode tonight, I'm going to start posting my Gravity Falls fanfic. Credit for introducing me to the show and helping beta read this so that the plot bunnies didn't complete take over and destroy grammar and sense goes to snowcloud8. I own nothing you recognize from Gravity Falls.
Contrary to popular belief, this mess did not begin with Stanford Pines. He might have been the one to open the portal, but we demons had our own machinations in place long before he discovered how to open a portal to another realm. Still, without Stanford Pines creating the portal, it would have taken us much longer to escape. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I cannot tell you my name, for it was lost long ago when the great library of Alexandria was burned to the ground. The last records of my existence were wiped away by the flames, erasing the chance of anyone accidentally summoning me from the other side. That was fine by me. I was a very new demon at the time and avoiding being called to the human realm where my meager power supply waned. Over the centuries I lurked on the other side, growing my power and learning what I could.
Demons are not particularly good teachers, but they do have certain rules that govern them, many of which have to do with their offspring. Demons do not, in any way, reproduce. Instead, to grow both their power and their ranks, they must create new demons but, in doing so, they gain certain obligations. One of which is to instruct the new demon on how to utilize their newfound powers. I did not blossom under the rough instruction I received, but I did learn. My power grew, slowly and awkwardly, until it reached a point where I felt I would be able to linger in the human realm for an extended amount of time without being weakened almost to the point of being erased from existence.
It was then that I began to plot my escape. By this point, the demon that had created me had seduced another to join the host of those bound to him, and was focused on training up the newcomer. That was around the time Stanford Pines opened the portal for the first time, with the help of a friend. I saw my chance and seized it, escaping in the body of a human. Once outside of the demon realm I could have slipped free from the confines of flesh and taken my own form but instead I chose to lurk. After all, I hadn't been in the human realm in centuries.
Stanford Pines eventually realized what was happening to his friend and, using knowledge he had gained while studying the oddities of Gravity Falls, drove me out. I expected to be returned to the demon realm, locked away again for centuries, but he had other plans. Somehow he managed to assign a name to who I was, as true a name as I had anymore, and bound me to the last of his journals. He then charge me with their protection and, for years, I lingered on earth near its hiding place, until a twelve year old boy named Dipper Pines stumbled upon its hiding spot. That's when things finally started to get interesting.
Dipper Pines stumbled through the woods, several signs for the Mystery Shack tucked under an arm. Trees groaned ominously in the wind, fog shifting like water around him. "Ugh, Grunkle Stan," the twelve year old muttered under his breath, approaching a large tree trunk and dumping the signs to the ground. "Nobody ever believes anything I say." He grabbed a sign, positioning it so the arrow was pointing the direction he'd come from, and began to nail it to the tree. He smacked the hammer on the nail and then paused as if made a strange, metallic sound.
Dipper dropped the sign and tapped the tree trunk with the hammer directly several times, more metallic sounds issuing from it. Frowning, he dropped the hammer as well and began wiping dust from the tree trunk, revealing a small door built into the trunk of the tree. Dipper cautiously opened the door to reveal some kind of mechanical control box with two switches on it. The first one, when he flipped, did nothing, but the second one did something that made Gompers, Grunkle Stan's goat, bleat and flee deeper into the forest. Dipper spun around at the noise and his eyes widened at the hole which had opened up in the ground.
"What the?" he mumbled, stepping cautiously towards the hole and crouching next to it. There was a book inside, covered in a layer of dirt and dust. Dipper lifted it out and glanced around, wary of watching eyes. Every time he set foot in this forest he felt like someone was watching him and the last thing he wanted was for someone, or something, to spy on his discovery.
Satisfied that no one was around, Dipper blew the leaves, dust, cobwebs, and dirt from the cover of the book to reveal a six fingered golden hand print with a black number three in the middle of the book. He opened to the first page, leaned a little closer, and began to read aloud. "It's hard to believe its been six years since since I began studying the strange and wondrous secrets of Gravity Falls, Oregon." Dipper mouthed the words strange and wondrous, trying to fit creepy old Gravity Falls where he was trapped for the summer into those words. Curious, he quickly skimmed through the pages, taking in the mythical creatures sketched in and surrounded by words. "What is all this?" he asked in a low voice, pausing on a page towards the end that said, TRUST NO ONE.
"Unfortunately, my suspicions have been confirmed," he read. "I'm being watched..." He trailed off, hearing a second voice reading the words with him, but when he looked around there was no one there. After a moment he turned back towards the book and continued reading. "I must hide this book before he finds it." He stopped reading, again hearing another voice, but this time instead of silence, the feminine voice continued as his head whipped around, trying to locate the source of the voice.
"Remember," it said, as if reading directly from the book. "In Gravity Falls there is no one you can trust." There was a pause, followed by a dark, rich laugh, and then silence.
Dipper shivered and closed the book, only to almost fly into the sky when his twin sister, Mabel, yelled, "HALLO!"
"Ah," he yelped, almost throwing the book in a panic.
"Whatcha reading?" Mabel asked, jumping over a fallen tree trunk. "Some nerd thing?"
"Uh, it's nothing," he stuttered in response and heard that ghostly laughter again as he quickly tucked the book behind his back.
"Uh, it's nothing," Mabel repeated, imitating him and then giggling. "What? Are you actually not gonna show me?"
Dipper deliberated, remembering the book's warning. While he thought, and Mabel waited, Gompers made a return and began nibbling on the edge of the book. Panicked at the thought of losing this new source of knowledge that confirmed his suspicions about the town and surrounding area, he jerked it away from the goat, revealing it's existence to his twin. Mabel turned expectant puppy dog eyes on him at the sight of the book and Dipper sighed, turning his head to glare at the goat before turning back to Mabel and saying, "Let's go somewhere private."
"Okay," Mabel agreed cheerfully, slipping her arm through his and practically dragging him back towards the Mystery Shack, the two of them abandoning the signs on the ground. Neither one was aware of the wine red eyes watching them or the slim shadow following them from between the trees.
Despite Dipper's numerous glances backwards, he didn't catch a glimpse of his new shadow, nor did he hear the murmur of, "Well that's interesting" when he and Mabel broke free of the trees to hurry towards the front door of the Mystery Shack.