The Mystery Shack was on fire. And not a 'stamp it out with your boot heel' kind of fire either. Curling tentacles of smoke wrapped around the front door, and the gift shop glowed the orange of a day ending. The Mystery Shack, a life assembled one taxidermied oddity at a time, was burning down.

Stanley Pines took off his Fez and held it over his chest.

"Grunkle Stan!" Mabel ran up beside him panting and looking singed around the edges.

"Grunkle Stan! Dipper is in there! We have to help him," she shouted, running toward the smoky porch. Stan ran after, scooped her up and handed her off to Soos.

"Get her out of here," he shouted.

Soos nodded and carried Mabel away.

Stan ran into the shack and looked around. Dipper was curled up behind the counter next to the window. He was almost a teenager, but looked so small. Stan hugged Dipper to his chest and then set him down again. He hefted the antique scuba helmet on the counter and smashed the little window. Through the woolly smoke rapidly replacing the air and light of the gift shop Stan couldn't see if anyone was outside. He dumped Dipper unceremoniously out the broken pane, then turned back to make his own way out. Stan heard a crack and a crash as everything went dark. Then he heard only the hiss and roar of the fire, shouts from outside, and faintly, Bill's electrostatic laugh.

Dark.

Velvet dark.

Velvet darkness and silence interrupted by a bloom of red cascading into a harsh white.

Stan opened his eyes. He was surrounded by a harsh flickering instead of the honeyed sunlight of late summer Oregon; breathed in stale, dust laden air instead of the verdant humidity of Gravity Falls. His face was smashed against cool cement rather than the worn pine floor boards of the Mystery Shack.

"Kids!"

Stan sat up abruptly, head throbbing like an alarm. There was a lump on his head and his fez was missing.

A fleshy greyish blob loomed over Stan and as his eyes adjusted to the fluorescent glare the blob resolved into a slight old man, arms crossed, scowling down at him.

"The ki…urrrpp…ds are fine Stan."

"What the…? Mabel!? Dipper?!"

Stan looked around frantically. The other old man studied his bitten down fingernails, bored.

"I said they're fine. Never mind them, they're not important. You're dead anyway, asshole, so who cares."

"I…what?" Stan tried to get up off the floor; his head throbbed harder and he sank back down.

"You're dead, alright? You're dead. Are you even listening? Well you were almost dead, but against my better judgement, I rescued you. I have an important thing to ask you, maybe *the* most important thing. How the hell did you get one of my portal guns?"

"Portal gun?

"You," the old man said, emphasising the pronouns as if speaking to a small child "sent shit through my portal. The one I built for my private use. You sent a coffee cup: it had your DNA all over it. What the fuck did you …urrrpp... do to that cup?"

The old man weaved back and forth while he talked and waved his hands. The frenetic movement made Stan dizzy.

"The point is I know it was you fucking with my p…urrrpp…ortal. I want to know how you did that. Who else has access to my portal? It's password protected. How did you break into it? What were you going to send through it next? Some kind of demon corn chip army?"

He grabbed Stan by the lapels and leaned in close, snarling like a feral dog. The smell of alcohol and desperation washed over Stan.

"Nobody fucks with Rick Sanchez."