Dipper Gleeful was pacing around backstage, fiddling with with his bowtie and gloves. He wasn't particularly obsessive about his appearance, but his sister certainly was, and she'd give him a hard time if a single thing was out of place.
When he had made sure that everything was in order, he searched around for his sister. She was likely in her own dressing room, but she was often unpredictable, and had a tendency to sneak up on him. After about a minute of searching, he saw a cloud of light blue smoke, sparkling and forming shapes of stars and nebula. With a smirk, he followed the trail of smoke until he came to the door of Mabel's dressing room, just like he had expected her to be.
Opening the door, he saw that Mabel was sitting in front of a mirror, brushing her long brown hair. She was in one of her show outfits, light blue and perfected down to the last detail. The source of the magical smoke was the very large and very fat navy blue cigar resting in its usual spot in the girl's mouth, the tip glowing light blue and constantly sparkling. This cigar was Mabel's preferred method of using magic, just as Dipper's amulet was his preferred way.
"The show's in ten minutes." said Dipper, approaching her. "I'd imagine it'll take you another thirty to get ready."
Mabel didn't turn around, she just rolled her eyes and said "Please. A big part of showmanship lies in appearance. You should've have figured that out by now, really. Do I have to be both the brains and the looks?"
She exhaled pale blue smoke from her nostrils, which quickly formed the shape of sparkling stars. A few of them burst in tiny explosions, shooting minuscule sparks.
Dipper sighed. His amulet glowed for a bit, and his twin sister's chair was spun around until she was facing him.
"Your hair looks fine already." said Dipper. "But you still haven't discussed your plans for the show with me."
He leaned forwards and pressed the tip of his index finger to the tip of Mabel's cigar, knocking some glowing ash loose and causing a sizzling sound. "Do you have any 'surprises' you're not telling me about?"
Mabel, though visibly annoyed from having her chair turned around, soon gave a sly smile and said "Why, of course not, brother. Am I really the kind of person to do that?"
"You are." said Dipper, flicking a bit of glowing cyan ash off of the tip of his sister's stogie and watching as it flew across the room like a tiny shooting star.
"Well, I suppose I am." said Mabel with a laugh. "But you'll be happy to know that there'll be no such surprises this time. We'll just do some of our regular acts, then of course end on the big finale."
Dipper stepped back a bit and said "Very well."
He thought a bit about the "big finale" Mabel was referring to, the one involving the gigantic blue cannon they kept backstage. "So, who's getting fired off to the cosmos this time?" he asked. The cannon finale was a constant in their shows, but the exact details were different each time, such as which one of the twins was getting shot out of it. Dipper wasn't quite sure why his sister picked him to be the cannonball what seemed like most of the time, since she seemed to enjoy it far more than he did.
"Why, that would be you, brother dear." grinned Mabel, taking the cigar out of her mouth to point it at him before blowing a massive cloud of smoke in his face.
Dipper didn't even flinch as the smoke was blown in his face. His sister was quite the cigar chomper, but even though he never smoked himself, he didn't mind his sister doing so one bit. It probable helped that the smoke didn't smell bad so much as strange, like it was made of pure magic.
"If you insist." said Dipper, watching the smoke form into shapes of things like triangles and cannons. If he had to be honest, while he didn't care for it, he didn't really mind being shot from the cannon to the stars time and time again. He'd mostly became accustomed to it more than anything.
Mabel smiled and put the cigar back into her mouth. "Have fun during your time among the stars." she giggled, before getting up and walking over to her brother. She looked down at his outfit and started to adjust various parts of it that were ever so slightly. "Sometimes I wonder why you bother dressing yourself if you always do it wrong." she said, patting out some wrinkles on his suit.
"You consider everything I do to be done wrong." said Dipper.
"Because it's true." smiled Mabel, blowing another massive puff of magical smoke in his face before stepping back. She picked a top hat, sparkly blue to match the rest of her outfit, and placed it on her head. She also put on a matching blue cape.
"Tonight's acts are on the wall over there." she said, pointing her cigar at a piece of paper by her mirror. Dipper quickly read over them. They seemed fairly standard, as far as their acts went. The twins had a wide variety of acts, and the ones they used in each show were chosen at the start of each month. They also had various entrances they used at the start of the show, each flashy and bombastic in its own way, perhaps excessively.
"Seems good to me." said Dipper.
"It better be." said Mabel, taking another drag as she straightened the top hat on her head. "One more question before the show, Dipper."
"Yes?" asked Dipper.
Mabel breathed out a small tornado of cyan fog that swirled across the room. It picked up various small objects, such as a pen, a bottle of perfume, and an ashtray, before moving back to just in front of Mabel. Mabel tapped her cigar against the ashtray, sprinkling some glowing blue ash into it. When she was finished, the tornado swirled back around the room, dumping each of the objects back to their original positions, before dissipating.
When that was all finished, Mabel said "Do you believe us to be successful? Moreover, do you believe us to be intelligent, resourceful, and cunning?"
"That's more than one question, but yes, I would say so." said Dipper.
"I would like to believe so, too." said Mabel. "I mean, I know that I'm all of those things, but I'm referring to us as a duo. The question is, though, if we are all those things..."
Mabel turned around and prodded her brother in the chest, while giving him a slight glare. "...then tell me why we've suffered so many unnecessary, and might I add humiliating, defeats and losses at the hands of that fat little porker and that flower-chewing hippie."
"I can't say I recall that." said Dipper. "Refresh my memory, please."
In truth, he remembered full well what his sister was referring to, he just liked hearing her rant.
"Certainly." said Mabel, stepping back. She started pacing around the room, periodically puffing on her cigar and blowing azure storm clouds.
"There was the incident just last week." said Mabel. "If you recall, we were attempting to harness the power of the ghosts haunting an old abandoned train. After a series of altercations, those two managed to cause a massive boiler explosion, launching us into the sky."
"Two weeks before that, they freed a certain creature we managed to capture. Upon being freed, its first instinct was to swallow the two of us whole." said Mabel, continuing to pace. "We spend the next three days in its stomach."
"That wasn't that bad." said Dipper. "The worst part was only having you to talk to for three entire days."
Mabel ignored him as she continued. "And ten days before that, we had grown a magical tree for the purposes of expanding our powers. Those two destroyed it, and since we had been standing right next to it, the resulting explosion blasted us clear out of Gravity Falls. Need I go on?"
"I think I get the picture." said Dipper.
"Well, I suppose now's not the time to get caught up in reminiscing." said Mabel. "We've got a show to put on."
With that, the twins headed out of the dressing room and made their way to a crawl space under the stage, where Mabel's large, sparkly blue cannon had been placed, pointing straight up.
"Ladies first." said Dipper, gesturing to the cannon.
"But if we went in at the same time, we could get stuck." said Mabel with a smug smile, the glowing tip of the stogie between her teeth lighting up the dark crawl space.
Dipper simply held his amulet aloft for a few seconds, using its powers to toss his sister into the cannon. With a slight smile, he took a match from his pocket, struck it, and brought it to the long rope fuse set on the ground. When it ignited, he blew the match out before climbing into the cannon, sliding down next to Mabel.
The cannon was rather cramped, to the point where Dipper's cheek was only an inch or two away from being burned by the business end of the cigar in Mabel's mouth.
"You know, now that I get up close to you, I've noticed something." said Dipper.
"Yes?" asked Mabel.
"You put far too much perfume on." said Dipper. "You smell like you bathe in it."
"Oh please, at least I bathe at all." said Mabel.
"I bathe, I just don't take ninety minutes to do it." said Dipper.
The twins continued quietly bickering as they felt the cannon rise through an open trap-door onto the stage. The audience was rather large, and they watched in anticipation as the cannon's fuse burned closer and closer. The cannon was pointed straight up at the open sky, the stars twinkling among the cosmos. If the audience members in the front seats listened closely, they could hear the twins arguing with each other from inside the cannon's belly.
The twins could hear a fizzling sound growing steadily closer, a sign that the show was about to properly begin.
Mabel smiled and blew a small puff of smoke, which hung right in front of Dipper's face and formed the words "Good Luck."
"You too." said Dipper with a slight grin.
As the sparkling fuse at last reached the cannon, It blasted the twins out in an explosion of blue, covering the stage in cyan smoke. The twins were fired off straight up into the sky at lightning speeds, looking like a pair of comets. The two rocket so far up into the sky that they were little more than specks, and it looked as if they would vanish among the stars.
Soon, however, the two specks began to fall back to Earth like twin falling stars. The pair landed back onto the stage feet first, a loud sound accompanying the impact, but they were both unharmed.
Dipper and Mabel smiled as they took a bow to the applauding audience, Dipper with a slight, somewhat smug grin and Mabel with a toothy, very smug smile.
"Good evening, everybody." said Mabel. "Welcome to the Tent of Telepathy."
With that, she took a drag on her cigar and blew a large cloud of smoke from her mouth, which mixed with the smoke from the cannon blast and created a nice fog effect along the stage floor.
Dipper said "We have quite a show planned for you all tonight. Me and my dear twin sister have quite a few acts of marvel and mystery we're planning to do."
"And the first," said Mabel, putting the cigar back into her mouth, "is the classic knife trick. However, this one as a rather interesting spin on it."
Dipper nodded as his amulet glowed, hovering a large box onto the stage. Using the amulet's powers, he lifted his sister into the air before using the same powers to open the box and lift a set of ornate, sharp daggers. Mabel was perfectly still as she floated in the air, arms held out and pointed diagonally downwards.
With a slight smirk, Dipper twirled a finger, causing a dagger to shoot across the stage, heading right for his sister. Gasps could be heard in the crowd as the knife sailed right past Mabel, coming within inches of hitting her. A thunk sound could be heard as it sunk its blade into a tree near the stage. Mabel didn't even flinch.
Dipper twirled his finger around some more, and more and more knives shot forward, just barely missing Mabel, who's only movement was a sly grin forming on her face. The smoke coming from the cigar formed sparkling rings which floated in her brother's direction. Dipper made a flicking motion with his finger, and the next few daggers shot right through the rings, past Mabel, and directly into the tree. With a sharp grin, Dipper opened his palm, causing the final knife to shoot across the stage in a streak of light, slicing the ash off of the tip of his sister's cigar and plunging itself into the nearby pine tree along with the rest of its fellow daggers.
Mabel floated to the ground and did a pirouette upon landing, as her brother telepathically dislodged each of the knives from the pine. When he did, the tree fell apart into a pile of twigs and twins took a bow as the crowed gave a round of applause.
"For our next trick," said Mabel, voice slightly muffled by the large cigar in her mouth but still loud and clear to the crowd, "I shall perform a high-dive into a barrel of water!"
Mabel did a spin and snapped her fingers, and a high-diving board rose out of the floor, towering over the crowd and the rest of the stage. Dipper snapped his fingers as well, and a simple-looking wooden barrel filled to the brim with water appeared onstage.
Mabel took a long drag on her cigar before blowing a thick cloud of blue smoke over herself, obscuring herself from the audience. When the smoke cleared, she was wearing a one-piece bathing suit, light blue like most of her clothing.
"And that's not all." said Mabel, taking a hands-free-drag on the huge blue stogie in her smiling mouth as she pointed to it. "Even though I'll be diving right into barrel full of water, my cigar shall not be extinguished!"
She made her way over to the high-dive board and started climbing up it, flashing a toothy grin to the audience. Meanwhile, Dipper took a step back as he looked up at his sister climbing up the absurdly tall ladder. The people in the crowd did as well, and soon she made it to the board.
Mabel bounced up and down on the diving board, springing higher and higher with every jump. Despite how high in the air she was, she showed zero fear as a smug grin grew even larger on her face. She did a few practice flips once she was bouncing high enough, the crowd turning their heads up to watch.
Mabel bounced high enough that she was well over a hundred feet in the air. She acted rather nonchalant about this, taking a mid-air drag on her huge stogie and blowing a sparkly cloud shaped like herself. She tucked herself into a ball as she flew high enough to touch even the tallest trees.
Mabel finally bounced off of the board and dived right down towards the barrel, a determined smile on her face as she made a trail of blue smoke with the cigar in her mouth.
With a splash, she landed right in the barrel of water, not hitting the sides at all. Just as she did, the barrel's lid glowed blue and closed the barrel with her still inside, much to the crowd's amazement.
Dipper held his glowing amulet aloft as he lifted the sealed barrel off of the ground. The barrel flipped and spun around in mid-air, and the sloshing of water could be heard from within. It was rolled along the ground back and forth along the stage at rather ridiculous speeds, Dipper watching seemingly without a care.
Soon, the barrel came to a stop, sitting upright in the center of the stage. Dipper gave it a knock and asked "Still alive in there, sister?"
The sound of water bubbling could be heard from inside. A few seconds later, there was a knock from within the barrel.
"Then I suppose I shall entertain the crowd myself until you come out." he said, reaching into his suit pocket and taking out a deck of cards. He took a seat on the barrel as he began shuffling the deck.
After a while of shuffling, he tossed the cards into the air with a flick of his wrist. The cards flew haphazardly before they all suddenly came to a stop, a blue glow surrounding each of them. Dipper's amulet glowed as he shifted his weight on the barrel, and the cards were arranged into a large square grid, floating in place for the audience to see. Dipper made a few subtle hand movements, and the card shifted into the shape of an origami crane. Another twirl of his fingers, and they became a rotating cube.
As he made the deck turn into more and more shapes, the barrel he was sitting on glowed a bright blue and slowly expanded. Dipper pretended not to notice, but he knew exactly what was happening. He had performed this trick countless times, after all.
The cards were now acting like a flock of birds, swooping through the sky and over the audience's heads. The barrel was starting to crack, and a pale blue light was shining outwards from the cracking wood.
The flock of cards soared high into the air before falling back down. Dipper extended a hand and effortlessly caught the entire deck with a sly grin before putting it back into his pocket.
Just as he did, the barrel he was sitting on exploded quite spectacularly, launching him into the sky. When the glittering smoke from the explosion cleared, standing there was Mabel, wearing her regular show outfit and with her lit cigar clenched between her grinning white teeth.
With out breaking eye contact with the audience, she puffed a cloud of smoke out of the corner of her mouth. Dipper landed on the cloud before stepping off as the two bowed to the audience.
"For our next trick." said Mabel. "We shall be doing some woodworking."
Mabel took the stogie from her mouth and used it to gesture to an empty space on the stage. Dipper nodded and held up his amulet. From backstage, a large plant pot, a see-saw, and a sparkly blue baton floated onto the stage. Mabel caught the twirling baton with a flourish as the see-saw and pot were set down next to each other on the center of the stage.
Dipper stood next to the pot, waiting patiently as Mabel walked over and took the huge cigar, which had only diminished in length ever so slightly since he had first seen her smoking it, out of her mouth to tap a few ashes into the soil before walking over to stand on the see-saw.
In an instant, a gargantuan pine tree sprouted from the pot, growing to full size in a matter of seconds. Dipper held his hand out, grabbing onto a branch and being carried up to the top of the tree. He climbed onto the top of the tree and stood on the highest branch.
"Whenever you're ready, brother." called Mabel from ground level, taking a few practice swings with her axe.
Dipper nodded. A few seconds later, he jumped down from the tree and onto the raised end of the see-saw, stomping down hard on it with both feet. Mabel was catapulted into the air, smiling as she raised her axe over her head with both arms. She flew high into the air, doing a few somersaults as she reached the height of her ascent.
As she fell right in front of the tree, she swung her axe down, cutting the tree in half vertically before landing back on her feet.
At first, it wasn't apparent that her axe had hit the tree at all. But, as she beamed at the audience and her eyes seemed to twinkle, the towering tree split in half, both halves falling to the ground.
"And if you liked that." said Mabel to the stunned crowd. "You haven't seen anything yet!"
With a wink, she took an extra long drag on her signature cigar, closing her eyes as the tip glowed a bright enough cyan to light up a room. She opened her mouth, and blew out a small smoke tornado which spun around across the stage, growing larger and larger over time. Eventually it swirled off of the stage and into the forest, growing ever bigger.
First, the tall pine trees started to shake. Then, loud cracking and splintering filled the air as entire fully-grown trees were ripped out of the ground and swirled around in the tornado. Eventually, an entire section of the forest had torn out of the earth and flung around in the cyan cyclone. In truth, quite a few of their acts involved spectacular destruction, and due to the fact that most of their acts were outdoors, trees were the most common target.
The massive tornado, carrying several trees, slowly started to make its way back onto the stage. As it did, Dipper began setting up fireworks around his sister, who twirled her axe around and puffed smoky bubbles.
The tornado moved onto the stage, nearly sucking in the twins and the audience before it dissipated. With the tornado gone, the trees began to fall back to earth. The crowd gasped, but Mabel simply laughed before quickly lighting all of the fireworks with her cigar. The fireworks shot up into the sky, each striking a tree with pinpoint accuracy.
A series of dazzling azure explosions lit up the night sky as the trees were blown to splinters. Mabel had to admit that this whole act was a bit overfly flashy, even for her. Still, she took a bow as embers rained from the sky, the crowd cheering.
It was finally time for the grand finale. The introduction for this was slightly different each time. Usually, Mabel would come up with some little narrative for the event, something to add something fresh for people who saw the show before.
"And now." said Mabel. "I have an announcement to make."
She gestured to her brother and said "My brother, as you probably know, is named after the well-known constellation Ursa Minor, or the Little Dipper as many know it."
She briefly removed the thick cigar from her mouth to point to the aforementioned constellation's general direction. Dipper stood next to her, a small smile forming on his lips.
Mabel put her stogie back in her mouth and said "I've always felt like my brother has belonged somewhere else. I now know where that place is. Among the stars, with his namesake."
"And I know just the way to send him there." said Mabel, snapping her fingers. In a puff of smoke, the cannon appeared on the stage, pointing to the Little Dipper constellation.
Dipper took a bow as the crowd looked at the cannon in wonder.
"As much as it saddens me to do so," Mabel said dramatically, "I shall take on the responsibility of sending my brother on his way to the cosmos."
Mabel's tremendous cigar bobbed up and down in her mouth as she said "Be cautious, dear audience, as you are standing in the vicinity of a very powerful machine indeed. This cannon is powerful enough to blast a person from one end of the Earth to another, and beyond. Some say there are legends told about it, others say it's been around longer than anybody remember. Whatever the case may be, it is truly a divine weapon."
She turned to her brother and said "When my brother is loaded in, and at last the fuse is burned away, he will travel so far that he will never come home again. His feet may never touch the ground again for as long as he lives. However, his new life need not be a lonely one. Perhaps I will find a girl his age some time soon, and fire her right after him to keep her company."
"I would like to join him as well." said Mabel, dramatically posing. "But alas, I must continue the show down here without him. Besides, my cigar would go out if exposed to the endless vacuum of space."
"So, brother dear." said Mabel, "Your new life starts today!"
She took his hand, and helped him into the cannon, watching him slide down the barrel. She eyed the fuse mischievously.
"Now, audience, you have understood why earplugs were handed out to you before the show." she said. "For when this magnificent machine fires, it will make a sound so loud that you may spend the rest of your lives telling stories about it. I myself will not be wearing any such protection. While the blast may deafen me, it's a sacrifice I am willing to make to help my brother achieve his destiny I suggest you put the earplugs in now, or you'll likely regret it."
To be honest, she was exaggerating to a degree. While the noise was quite loud, it wasn't to the extent she was building it up to be, and while she wasn't wearing ear protection, her ears had gotten used to the loud noise after countless firings of the massive cannon.
She looked at the barrel of the cannon and said "Now then, brother. The time is finally here. Are you ready?"
"Ready as ever, sister." called Dipper's voice from inside the barrel.
"Good to hear." said Mabel. "Now, do you have any last words before you depart from the earth and become one with your namesake?"
"No, I believe all my affairs are in order." said Dipper. "It's been a honor working with you for so long."
"Likewise, Dipper. Farewell." said Mabel. With that, she leaned down and gave the fuse a kiss with the cigar in her mouth. The fuse ignited in a flash of light, and began to burn away towards the base of the cannon.
The crowd watched in anticipation as Mabel stood next to the cannon. The smoking coming from the cigar started to from numbers counting down from "10".
As the "5" floating off into the air, Mabel gave the barrel of the cannon a kiss, her cigar dangling from the side of her mouth as she did so.
Finally as the cigar smoke formed a "1". Mabel merely stood still, the smiling on her lips growing ever so slightly.
The blast could be heard through the whole town as Dipper was fired from it in a cyan explosion that filled the area with smoke. The boy smiled as he shot straight above the trees, over the horizon, even past the moon. Finally, when he vanished among the stars of the Little Dipper, a twinkle shone in the night sky when he was last seen, accompanied by a ringing noise. The twinkled dimmed a bit, but stayed in the night sky for all to see.
Mabel, who had stood unaffected by the blast except for her hair being blown back and the ash being blown off of the tip of her cigar, said "And so my brother's finally become a star. Perhaps I'll join him someday."
With that, She took a bow to the audience, who started to applaud wildly. Then, with one last puff of smoke, she was gone.
She reappeared backstage and took a seat on a nearby chair as she listened to the crowd file out. She yawned and picked up a book.
After about an hour, she looked back up at the night sky. She giggled a bit. She might've played the last act a bit more overly dramatic, but she hadn't actually lied that much during it. While she wasn't telling the truth about firing him away forever (though the idea was tempting every now and then.), she was telling the truth about how far she had shot him.
Feeling it was time to bring him back, she took a long drag on the bouquet of magical tobacco (or whatever it was.) in her mouth and puffed out a big cloud of smoke. When it cleared, Dipper was standing there, covered partially in soot and with a charred outfit, but his expression still showed a slight smile.
"How was the flight?" asked Mabel with a laugh.
"Fine." said Dipper casually. "Though I did nearly hit a few asteroids. Polaris looked a bit brighter than I remember it"
"Perhaps I''ll aim for Alpha Centauri next time." said Mabel. "All in all, that was a good show. Made quite a profit. I think we should take the next few days off."
"Sounds good to me, sister." said Dipper.
"For now, let's get some shut-eye. I need my beauty sleep." said Mabel.
With that, the two headed home, Dipper watching the trail of sapphire stogie-smoke left by his chain-smoking sister. They'd never get lost in the woods, that was for sure.
As they made it to the front door, the two took one last look at the Little Dipper before heading inside.