The clear blue sky, birds chirping happily, and cool breeze whispering through the redwoods might have marked that day as a peaceful one - were it not for the sudden, loud clang that echoed sharply through the forest.
The teenage boy gave a very ungraceful squeak of surprise as he found himself and his companion suddenly trapped in a metal box only barely big enough to fit them both. "What?!" he cried, burying his hands in his messy brown hair. "What is this, what happened, how did I get us into this, how do we get out, why -"
"Dipper." The redheaded young woman at his side patted his arm as if trying to calm a frantic animal. "Chill out, dude."
He turned to her with his amber eyes wide in panic. She hadn't even reacted at all to the giant metal walls rising from the ground and snapping shut around them, trapping them like animals in a cage! He ignored her entirely and whirled away from her, slamming his fists against their prison walls. "Hello?" he called at the top of his lungs. "Anyone out there? Anyone at all? Someone, help! Help!"
His companion rolled her emerald eyes. "Come on, we'll be fine."
He barely even heard her. "Oh no… Wendy, I'm so sorry, if only I wouldn't have gone this deep into the forest, if only you hadn't been following me… How are we gonna get out of here?!" He desperately slammed his scrawny body against the walls in a vain attempt to force them open.
"Seriously, calm down. Your sister's still out there, remember? She'll probably find us and figure out a way to get us out of here. No reason to freak out, okay?"
She was right. The teen sucked in a deep breath through his teeth and rubbed at his temples. "Yeah… sorry." He hesitated, casting a sidelong glance at her. He couldn't see too well in the darkness of the steel crate, but his eyes were beginning to adjust. Her arms were folded across her chest as she studied him.
"No more freaking out?"
He tried to paste a smile on his face. "No more freaking out. But, uh, what do we do while we wait? Guess we could shout until Mabel finds us." He took a breath to do just that - but Wendy's chuckle stopped him.
"We'll be fine, man. Just calm down and wait it out. And hey, when we get out of here, you should totally buy us both some Penta-grahams and pizza and then we can have a B-movie marathon." She nudged his ribcage with her elbow. "Or we could drive golf carts off ramps again."
"That sounds fun," he said as his smile turned genuine. "Except for the inevitable fact that Grunkle Stan will kill us both if we do that last one."
She smirked. "Not if he doesn't catch us."
"He always catches us."
"That's part of the fun, doofus," she laughed.
"I know… Ugh, we could be back in the Mystery Shack right now if I hadn't gotten us into this stupid mess." He pressed his forehead against the cold wall and heaved a sigh. "It was such a dumb idea to split up… Why did I even agree to do it?"
The young woman shrugged. "Hey, we covered a lot more ground that way."
"And then I got us trapped in a metal box," he groaned. "We should both call for Mabel. If we make a lot of noise, maybe she'll hear us. Wait, on second thought, we shouldn't do that; we might attract something we don't want to, like -" He stopped short, eyes darting nervously to the right. For a moment all was silent. Then he breathed, "D-did you hear that?"
She blinked at him in confusion. "Hear what?" She lowered her voice and strained to listen.
There, again! The sound was rasping and low... almost like a snarl.
Dipper's heart skipped a beat.
Neither of them dared to say a word or even move a muscle. They could only stand and wait, listening, utterly helpless against whatever fate befell them.
The snarl came again, alarmingly loud this time. It reverberated, grating and terrible, against the thick trees outside. Dipper bit his lip so hard it bled. As if sensing his distress, Wendy smiled at him - and patted the ax that was almost permanently strapped to her waist, as if saying, "Whatever it is, I can handle it."
He tried to take a deep breath. It was shaky and admittedly didn't help much to calm him.
Suddenly - something hit the outside of the metal box hard, the resulting sound ringing insistently through the steel crate. Dipper gave an involuntary yelp of fright. Wendy only narrowed her eyes and drew her weapon.
The beast, whatever it was, growled again. The teen boy clapped his hands over his ears in a desperate attempt to block the awful noise.
And then a huge claw tore through the metal ceiling, peeling it off as easily as if it were naught more than a piece of paper. Eyes widening in horror, Dipper looked up to meet the bright poison-green eyes of the monster - a horrid creature who towered over him and his companion on two legs, almost as tall as the trees, covered from head to toe in golden scales, draconic face twisted into an ugly snarl. A crown of sharp horns adorned its long head. Its muscular arms began to reach toward them.
"Run!" was all Wendy yelled before smoothly launching herself over the metal wall. Dipper followed in a much less graceful manner, clambering desperately up the wall as the draconic beast's clawed hand stretched toward him, and he landed in the grass on his back with an oomph. His companion grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet, not even waiting for him to regain his balance before she sprinted away, dragging a stumbling and nervously-blubbering teenage boy after her.
The monster released a thundering roar that shook the very earth. Then, narrowing its glowing eyes, it loped toward them.
"It's gaining on us!" Dipper said needlessly.
"We have to get to the car!" she shouted over the wind of their desperate flight. Forest floor blurred past beneath their feet.
"But - Mabel's the one who drove here, I don't have my license with me, I left it back at the Shack a-and it's illegal to drive without it -"
"Since when have we cared about breaking the law?" Wendy shot back, never once taking her eyes off the path she was weaving through the woods.
…She had a point.
They could feel the ground trembling beneath them with each step the monster took. Even as the two humans ran for their lives with adrenaline pumping through their veins, they began to realize they couldn't hope to outrun the creature pursuing them. Its legs were too long and its strides too fast.
"Where's the car?!" Dipper panicked.
Wendy didn't reply. Instead she focused all her energy on carving a zigzagging trail through the woods in a last-ditch attempt to get the monster off their tail. It kept doggedly chasing them without any signs of stopping.
Suddenly the young woman skidded to a halt at the edge of a steep cliff with a cry of surprise. Dipper, who had been casting a frightened glance at the ever-gaining beast behind him, didn't see her stop, and he crashed into her from behind. She released another wordless yell of fear. Her arms pinwheeled in a frantic attempt to keep her balance - but it was no use. She tipped forward, hanging dangerously far over the edge of the long drop.
The teen boy hurriedly stumbled backwards, heart skipping too many beats as he grasped her arms and tugged her back to safety.
There was no time to recuperate from the near-death incident. The beast crashed through the trees behind them, bellowing an ear-shattering victory roar as it noticed just how cornered its prey was. Dipper swore the large creature's lips split into an ugly grin of pure joy, revealing rows upon rows of gleaming dagger-like teeth. In response Wendy bared her own teeth. She hefted her axe, sun glinting off its sharp edge, challenging the monster.
Dipper had no such courage. The moment the beast's giant clawed hand thrust toward him, he lunged out of the way with a cry of fright.
His redheaded companion took advantage of the situation. As soon as the beast's hand was low enough to the ground, she leaped onto it, crawling up its arm with incredible speed. The monster snarled in displeasure and grabbed her axe with its other hand, flinging it out of her grip before she even had a chance to react. For a split second she faltered in surprise - and that one moment of hesitation was enough for the creature to snatch her off its arm and throw her aside as if she were naught more than a toy. She screamed as she flew helplessly through the air, sailing dangerously close to the cliff - but before she could fall over the edge, she crashed into a thick tree, sliding down its trunk with a pained groan.
"Wendy!" Dipper called, eyes wide, heart hammering in his throat.
She didn't stir.
His stomach dropped like a stone. The terrible creature snorted as if pleased with itself, and that one infuriating sound drove him over the edge.
His eyes narrowed. Without another second of hesitation, he decided to cast his fears to the wind and darted towards Wendy's fallen weapon. The monster's glowing green gaze turned to him as he ran, but he ignored the feeling of its eyes on his back, curling his sweaty fingers around the hilt and hefting the weapon - which was a bit heavier than he'd expected to be, he realized with a huff.
The draconic beast's forked tongue flicked out from between its sharp teeth to wet its scaly lips. And then it swung both its giant hands toward the teen, as if trying to capture him between its palms. Dipper ducked beneath the attack and clumsily swung the axe at his enemy's ankle; its hard scales barely even chipped beneath the sharp blade.
This might have been harder than he'd originally planned.
As he ran from another of the monster's attempted attacks, he surveyed its tall, muscular form, searching for any kind of weaknesses in its scaly armor. But there were none. He felt his hope of defeating the enemy slowly draining.
Wait. Its eyes. If he could somehow get to them… He glanced at the trees surrounding him, hurriedly formulating a plan as he tucked his redheaded companion's axe into his belt, and hoped he wouldn't regret doing that later. He jumped up to grab the nearest branch of a tree and clambered up the trunk as quickly as he could, arms trembling and palms sweating. As soon as he was high enough that his foe couldn't reach him, he took a deep breath - and stopped. Could he really do this? Could he honestly jump from the tree onto the monster's head? What if he fell? He wouldn't die from this height, would he? In the worst case scenario he'd break some bones, which meant that that it would be that much harder to flee from the draconic creature.
But he had to do something. So he drew the axe, and tensed in preparation to jump - but before he could, the draconic beast growled and curled its thick fingers around the tree, shaking it violently. Dipper yipped in terror and clung for dear life to the wooden limb beneath him.
"Hey!" a familiar voice barked angrily.
His gaze shot toward the source of the voice, eyes widening. "W-Wendy?"
She was on her feet, fists clenched tightly, but despite her attempts to stand straight and confident, she kept swaying unsteadily. "Don't you dare mess with him!" She jabbed a thumb at herself. "Mess with me!"
The beast turned toward her, long tail swishing back and forth in irritation. She reached for her belt - and realized, with her brows knitting together in confusion, that her axe was gone. "Where is it?!" she cried in sudden panic, searching the ground around her for her fallen weapon.
"Uhhh... right here," the teenage boy called sheepishly in response.
Her gaze landed on the axe in his hands. Immediately she groaned in frustration. "Dipper!"
"S-sorry! I thought you were unconscious!"
With a hiss, the creature took a step toward her, then another, and another, clawed hands reaching for her, driving her further back toward the edge of the steep cliff. She somehow managed to keep her cool as she usually did, constantly surveying the land around her, looking for any possible escape routes. But the monster was closing in. She was trapped.
Dipper couldn't bear to see her get hurt again. He gathered his courage - and leaped from the top of the tree with a shout. For a moment only the empty air surrounded him, dizzying and exhilarating all at the same time. Then, arms flailing, he crashed into the back of the creature's head, hands scrabbling desperately for purchase, eventually finding and clinging tight to one of its horns. The monster bellowed and thrashed. It reached toward the teen, but the boy desperately crawled out of the way just as its hands slammed down where he'd been not a second before. Dipper slipped down the creature's muzzle and onto the tip of its nose. He clung to his enemy's slick scales as best as he could, peering into its poison-green eyes, feeling himself slowly losing his grip - especially when the beast started to shake its head wildly.
He had to hurry.
Holding tight with one hand to one of the monster's scales, he raised the other high, axe clutched in his white-knuckle grip, ready to slice it straight into the bright green eye before him -
"Wait! Wait, wait, wait, please!" a terrified voice cried, loud and deep, ringing mercilessly through Dipper's head and making him flinch.
He blinked in confusion. Who…?
The draconic creature screwed its eyes shut. "Please don't hurt me!" the voice boomed again.
Oh. The monster.
"U-um," was all he could stutter, in spite of the many questions rushing through his head - It can talk? Why is it talking to me? Why was it trying to hurt us? Is it still going to try to hurt us? Is Wendy okay? At that last thought he cast a glance over his shoulder, only to see a very blank-faced Wendy staring up at him, mouth pressed into a thin, inscrutable line.
In the moment of confusion, the beast lifted Dipper off its nose and placed him gently on the ground with a loud sigh. It actually looked embarrassed, he thought in bewilderment.
"So," it said awkwardly, drawing out the word.
"…You were… trying to kill us," Dipper breathed in disbelief. "And now you're just… not?"
"Yeah, um, sorry about that." The tall monster averted its eyes and scratched its scaly arm, frowning like a guilty child who'd been caught stealing cookies.
Anger suddenly flared through the teenage boy and he didn't even bother trying to control it. He clenched his hands into fists. "Sorry?" he demanded. "You nearly killed Wendy and sorry is all you can say?!"
"Dude, I'm fine," the young woman beside him said with a nonchalant shrug.
The draconic creature sighed again, and lowered itself to the ground, sitting cross-legged before the two humans. "So, uh, lemme explain," it murmured shyly, scratching at its head with a claw. "I had this bet with my friends… they dared me to catch some humans."
"You kinda failed," Wendy needlessly pointed out.
The creature winced. "I know, I know… I should have grabbed you when I had the chance, but I wanted to scare you guys first! I was trying to be cool, but I guess that backfired. I'm still totally lame as usual."
Dipper buried his face in his hands and breathed an exasperated sigh.
"My friends are gonna hate me," the beast continued, staring at the two humans with a pleading expression in its eyes. "So I was thinking… if you let me capture you, even temporarily -"
"No," the teen boy interrupted hurriedly, shaking his head. "Look, just... no." He grumbled an unintelligible complaint about the utter insanity of Gravity Falls under his breath, then shuffled closer to Wendy and returned her axe, hissing out of the side of his mouth, "Can we please leave and find Mabel? Please."
The redhead shrugged again. "Yeah, sure." She waved a hand to the draconic monster slouching dejectedly before them. "Good luck with your friends. Later."
But before they could turn and leave - an excited figure bounded out from between the trees, amber eyes sparkling with excitement, nearly crashing into Dipper before she skidded to an abrupt halt. "Hiya, bro-bro! Hiya, Wendy! Why are you two standing so close to that cliff? Are you going bungee-jumping?" The newcomer turned to face the monster casually sitting amongst the green undergrowth, and she gasped. "Wow! Is that a wingless dragon? Where'd your wings go?"
The creature frowned. "Um, what? I… I never had any wings?"
"Aww… that's so sad! Are you like, the only one of your kind without wings? Where are the rest of you? Do they have wings? Can we ride them?" She lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, and scanned the cloudless azure sky above her.
"Mabel," Dipper whispered, nudging her with his shoulder.
"Dipper!" she giggled, nudging him harder in reply.
He groaned. Honestly, his twin could never take a hint.
The golden-scaled monster seemed to have given up trying to reply to the hyperactive teen girl bouncing up and down beside her brother - especially when she kept on blabbering, giving it no time to respond at all. "Sorry about the 'wingless' comment, I guess that might have sounded rude, but you're really pretty without them!" She rolled her eyes and dismissively waved her hand. "Psssh. Wings, who needs 'em? Especially when you have gorgeous golden scales like that, and your green eyes go so well with them! Can I climb your horns?"
As she talked and talked and talked, Dipper cast a sidelong glance to Wendy, watching as her eyes dulled for a moment as if in pain. He bit his lip in concern. "Wendy? You okay?" he asked quietly.
Immediately she plastered a smile on her face. "Yeah, I'm fine."
She obviously wasn't, but he knew she wouldn't admit it. He turned and grasped his twin sister's arm. "Mabel, seriously."
"…and that's how I baked my dragon plushie into a cake!" She glanced to her brother with her smile just as wide as ever. "Yeah, Dip-Dop?"
His shoulders slumped in exhaustion. "Can… can we please go back to the Mystery Shack now?"
Wendy sat at the kitchen table inside the Mystery Shack, pressing a pack of ice to her head, eyes half-lidded and dazed.
"You okay?" Dipper asked for what felt like the hundredth time that day as he sat beside her with brow furrowed in worry. He already knew what her response would be, but it didn't hurt to ask anyway.
"I'm fine, man, really. Chill," she responded, with the exact same words and the exact same tone he knew she would.
"Mabel juice is just the thing to make you feel better!" the brown-haired teen girl chirped happily, offering a glass of the unappetizing beverage to her redheaded friend, a plastic dinosaur floating within its mysterious pink contents.
"Yeah… uh, thanks, but I'm good."
Mabel looked disappointed, but she kept her cheery smile as she simply replied with, "More for me!" and downed the entirety of the liquid in one gulp. "Oh wow, is it already five? I promised Waddles I'd bedazzle him tonight!" Then with a wave of her hand, she bolted out of the kitchen.
Silence followed her departure. But it didn't last long until Wendy broke it. "You know, Dipper…"
He blinked. "Yeah?"
"I forgot to thank you. You know, for saving my life earlier."
He tried and failed to fight a blush. "Wh-what, I didn't even do anything, I mean…" He looked down at the rickety wooden table and nervously drummed his fingers on its surface. "You were the cool one. I was just kinda panicking."
She smirked. "Yeah, you were, but when it came down to it, you still picked up my axe and fought that dragon-y thing, whatever it was."
He flushed even redder, ducking his head in a desperate attempt to hide the fact. "Th-thanks… So, hey, you okay?"
"Dude, you've already asked that like a million times today."
He sighed. "I know, I just… I was worried, I mean, you weren't moving when he threw you, and then later you were at the edge of the cliff and I thought he might push you off or something and -"
"I'm fine," she interrupted him before he could get into one of his long, frantic rambles. "We both are. And it's all thanks to you, doofus."
He smiled.
A tall figure stepped into the room then, graying hair a mess atop his head and large glasses perched haphazardly on the bridge of his nose. "Dipper! There you are."
The teen boy glanced away from his redheaded friend. "Great Uncle Ford?"
The older man swept excitedly into the room, a lopsided smile on his face as he slammed a paper onto the table decorated with intricate markings and designs. "We're going dragon-hunting," he declared, not even waiting for his great-nephew's reaction before he plowed on. "Wingless dragons are extremely rare and extremely powerful, or so I've heard. Due to their lack of wings, they have other magic to compensate for it, though they hesitate to use it in the presence of mortals. But we are going to find one tonight, and we are going to see its powers, first-hand!" His smile split into a wide grin. "These drawings outline my plans for tonight. I've already set up a cage in the middle of the woods. It's extremely sturdy; think of it like a large steel crate. Once the dragon triggers the tripwire, four steel walls and a ceiling will snap shut around it, thus rendering the beast immobile. From there we can step in and -"
He stopped, noticing Dipper and Wendy sharing a knowing glance. The latter looked as if she were trying to fight back a laugh. The former heaved a great, tired sigh and turned to look at Ford once more.
"Great Uncle Ford, you're going to need a much bigger cage."
I usually just write for video games, but I friggin love GF. So here's my first foray into this fandom!