Mabel Pines was never one to shy away from strangeness, especially if it was the interesting kind, which in Gravity Falls it almost always was.
Strangeness was undoubtedly a dangerous occupation however and often lead her 'into trouble', to put it vaguely enough; fortunately her brother was usually there to bail her out of said trouble (and vice versa half the time) it was as close to a norm as she would allow, and that was because Mabel did indeed enjoy these strange things, in fact, she found them such a welcome part of her life she did her best to fill her days with as much strangeness as possible: an endeavour that would tire most others out but not Mabel, who just seemed to naturally exude her own brand of inexhaustible kookiness.
Coraline had said once that even if Gravity Falls weren't as wonderfully extraordinary as it was, Mabel would've probably found a way to make it so.
So, in roundabout conclusion, Mabel liked strange things, even though she was accustomed to strange things bringing her trouble.
What still wasn't used to, despite all that had already happened over the summer was being genuinely… unsettled when things got strange; oh she was used to fear and panic and confusion but there was something about being afraid and uncertain about it that caught her off guard.
Add on top of that, nobody else was with her this time, for better or for worse she wasn't quite sure but she'd decided long ago that being alone was always something to be avoided on any kind of adventure so she wasn't at all happy about it.
This clumsy narrator should probably explain: it had all started on that very morning…
Dipper had once again found himself another mysterious curiosity to chase after in his never-ending fascination with the unexplained: another strange book in this case (much smaller than the prototypical mystery journal), bound in something rubbery and sealed with a bronze letter/symbol type thing that was something resembling a cross between a pine tree, a Menorah and an Elvin Sigel from Lord Of The Rings.
He'd explained it at a hundred miles an hour (everything except where he'd found it) and rushed off towards the forest with a big gleeful smile that had made Mabel proud. The two of them had walked and hopped and danced (in her case) until the sun had begun to set and Mabel had grown concerned with her brother's uncharacteristic quietness. Dipper's bowed head never left the book unless it was to mark their progress on a map, otherwise she had to take his elbow and steer him clear of rocks and trees. Occasionally he'd linger on a page as if to confirm something he'd misread before writing something down in jottings on squares of paper that were held by his thumb against the opposing page, his face scrunched up in several different ways as he worked and muttered to himself.
Despite her efforts Dipper hadn't said anything, he'd only asked Mabel to trust him before giving Norman (who the others had asked to follow them) a file of paper notes which Dipper said was a transcription of the bits of the book that he couldn't figure out himself; he'd then told Norman to run back to the mystery shack and see if there was anything interesting to be gleaned from them and to return with help if they didn't come back before too long; Norman had been confused and apprehensive but he'd done as he'd asked after a bit of kitten-faced pleading.
Mabel made her protests and suspicions known but Dipper was as stubbornly set on his way as she'd ever seen him and so, as any good twin sister would, she followed him into the broadening, blackening trees with a torch and a snap'n'spark glow stick and an ever-increasing sense of trepidation, hoping that they wouldn't run into anything too unsavoury (that wasn't a vampire).
Eventually, after what felt like hours, they'd found a split in the path in the form of a pair of dirt lanes that lead into a grand cathedral of dead trees that had been rent and weaved together until there weren't even any of those little white spaces that shine through all those tiny gaps between the branches in the daylight or when the moon was behind them.
Dipper asked them to split up, one to follow one path and the other – you get the point.
"Now hold on a minute!" Mabel loudly exclaimed. "…I can take you not telling us what's going on and making me miss lunch and wearing your shirt on backwards but are you seriously asking me to go into a place I've never been for a reason I don't know from a book you can't read in a part of the forest I've never seen before?"
"Huh?" was his articulate reply.
Mabel wasn't used to taking charge like this, usually it was her brother that did all the planning but he seemed to be having an off day – night… whatever. "You can't seriously think that splitting up, in the dark; in the middle of a big, spooky forest to go into a pair of big, spooky tunnels will lead to anything good!"
"It's worth the risk" he was looking at her like she'd said something in another language.
"Mabel, if I'm right about this, it could be one of the most important discoveries we've ever made! We could get our names on one of those cryptozoology or parapsychology books you see on record store bookshelves occasionally or – like - that place in the library that all the crazy people go that's dark and kind of smells like old taffy"
"Whatchoo talkin' 'bout Dippa!"
"Weren't you listening this morning when I explained this to you?" The expression on his face told her that he knew it was a stupid question. He sighed. "This book here… the translated pages anyway…" he turned it around to show wrinkled, coffee-stained parchment covered in intricate, indo-European lettering, ancient maps, occult symbols and detailed sketches of large, wolf-like teeth and claws "...talks about the last remnants of actual werewolves in the world going extinct long ago in Gravity Falls; it says that once the last of them were hounded here they were killed in a huge battle and their bones were buried in shallow graves super close to where we're standing right now; if we can find the gravesite and prove it exists, we'll be paranormal legends!" his eyes were gleaming in the moonlight and his big smile was back.
Mabel raised a bemused eyebrow and spoke softly "Since when has being famous mattered this much to you?"
Dipper looked incredulous. "What? Mabel, we're not talking about some kind of obscure lake monster or pseudo... mountain... hobo thing or whatever that no one's ever heard of before; werewolves are one of the most famous monsters in the entire world and we might have scientific proof of their existence right here! Plus, it's just a graveyard: no undead guards or evil curses or strangely coloured lights to make things complicated: everyone we might have had to worry about is already dead and gone and so are their killers, we have literally nothing to worry about. There isn't even anything about this stuff in the mystery journal, which means that it was never a problem" Dipper's smile shrunk a little when Mabel still didn't smile back, "Okay I'll give you that but don't you think the guys might found out about this and be a little upset that you didn't tell them? Y'know, since we're supposed to be a team...? The Mystery kids... (Trademark)?"
Dipper's eyes left hers and jumped to a small rock beside her feet; his smile was gone, now he mirrored her worried expression with one of his own.
After a moment he answered reservedly. "I'll... find the site then mark it down on the map so we can go back and get the others over here; they can help us investigate the place... in case I miss anything or whatever" Mabel let out a relieved breath that sounded much too weighty for her.
"So... where is it?" she asked.
"Well the book says that the graves were marked by the slain werewolves' teeth and claws since apparently werewolf bones don't even fossilize without some pretty serious damage, and since the soil here is pretty soft..." here he stomped his foot and was rewarded with a muffled thump "...I don't think that's a danger"
"So you don't know where it is exactly is what you're saying"
"...Yup."
Mabel groaned in exasperation and slapped her forehead. Thankfully she'd gotten enough of her spunk back to hold up an auspicious smirk. "Good thing I brought these, then," she removed a pair of yarn balls from her sleeves: one bright red and the other a pale shade of purple.
"I figured since we were going to a place we'd never gone before I'd take a page out of your book, pun intended, and prepare" It was Dipper's turn to feel proud. "Good thinking! I'll mark our current location so we can find our way back in case the gravesite's a little further away than I'm guessing." He pulled up a large, dry stick and stabbed it into the ground where it stuck out between the prongs in the path.
The two of them nodded an affirmative at the plan, saluted comically with their respective yarn balls and want into each separate tunnel after having tethered their threads to the twig and a few stubborn thorns in the entranceways to be safe. As she walked however Mabel suddenly wished she'd packed an extra flashlight, the glow stick just made everything look distorted and creepy.
The darkness felt teeth-clenchingly heavy: it clung to the insides of the tunnel like a sweaty bed-sheet around her ooze-green light. Mabel's eyes started seeing things in the gangrenous shadows: thorns became claws; thin branches shuddered at her like outstretched, emancipated limbs. She huffed and pushed on through her jitters, the thought of her friend's determined faces in the same situation. The light at the end of the tunnel was a vague singularity of dull, tainted silver and didn't seem to offer much in the way of pleasant hope but it was better than nothing.
The moonlight trickled down through the waning thickets as she came closer to what she could guess now was a chamber of some sort, she felt moderately less unsettled as things became definable again.
The ceiling of this 'chamber' was roofed with decaying bracken and thinned enough that Mabel could see the stars and the full moon, which made her feel much better, especially when she imagined the moon with a big, smiley face. "Dipper, can you hear me?" She called. "Yeah, I can hear you!" he replied, now sounding much further away than she'd expected and yet nowhere near as nervous as her.
"Are you alright? What do you see?" Mabel squeaked as her shoe crunched on a dead twig.
There were a lot of dead things in here: in fact the soil appeared to be utterly lifeless, there was nothing green or crawling for as far as she could see, (which wasn't very far to be fair), nothing but crumpled, grey leaves and dry, twisted mush strewn across the ground…
"Wait… what's that?"
She spied a small pallid lump about as big as her heel that practically glowed in the pale light; it was joined by several others. "Dipper, how will we know when we've found the graves?" he didn't answer her. "Dipper…?" Her eyes returned to one of the almost-glowing white things poking out of the ground; apprehensively she made her way over, checking her yarn to ensure it hadn't been severed.
As she drew closer the thing started to look more and more like a bone as opposed to how much it already looked like a bone: it gleamed unnaturally, like a polished knife and gave off a distinct aura of extreme potentially… not-goodness.
Still, Mabel made her way over and bent down until she was able to brush off the dust with her sleeves to reveal a very large and pointy thing, which she plucked delicately between her thumb and forefinger by the tip. Held up against the sky it was about as large as her whole hand, not including the root, which covered her wrist.
"Whoa"
Her eyes scanned the rest of her find, which turned out as an entire crown of these pointy things.
"Egad," she gasped, "these must be werewolf teeth, I must be close. Dipper will want to see this," she proclaimed dramatically while she pointed upward at nothing in particular.
She pocketed the tooth, turned about and followed her yarn back through her tunnel much more quickly than she'd entered, winding it up as she went until she'd found herself back at the crossroads and following her brother's trail.
He had said to return to their meeting point and wait for him but she was getting a little nervous and impatient and this would save them a bunch of time. Dipper's tunnel was either much less threatening or Mabel was getting used to the resident b-movie horror vibe.
"Dipper?" There was no answer.
"Dipper!" Still no answer.
"Dipping sauce?"
"Dippy Doo?"
"Dipples?"
"Dipplication?"
"Little Di- you know what? Forget it!" Mabel pinched her brow together and tried to think of adorable, positive thoughts in an effort to ignore how very cold and misty it was getting.
Coming out the other side she could see that this part of the cathedral had lost most of its roof, the remains of which presumably were what now comprised the utter catastrophe that was the floor and walls. The entire place was a veritable massacre of dead flora: mostly the collapses of trunks and branches of various bushes and young trees, which had crumpled and splinted over what was presumably a long time, making the whole place look ancient and deadly, especially with those jutting spines fringed by the moonlight as they were.
Mabel had to shimmy and dig and climb and clamber everywhere she went; she slipped and gagged into the pungent stink of rot once; several times she tripped on something sharp and obtrusive and scraped herself on something equally so until her socks were nearly unsalvageable. By the time she'd reached the other side: sweater town was in ruins, her shoes had lost their colour to the mud and her hair was more tangled and smothered with dirt than Wybie's after a rainstorm, with twigs and dust nested into and out of it.
"I'll find a way to make this work," she assured herself as she dusted her clothes off and soured at an errant curl drooped over her eye that was more muck than hair.
"Mabel?" It was a faint call but it was enough to lift her spirits.
"Dipper! Where are you?" she shouted back, running towards the passageway where it sounded strongest.
"Mabel, come look at this!" He sounded excited; as she charged into the final tunnel she used that fact as a buffer to ignore her unease.
"Dipper, I was starting to worry!"
"I thought I told you there's nothing to worry about here." He still sounded quite far away. Mabel kept running until she could see once again and then she skidded to a halt.
"Dipper…?" she called breathlessly, apprehension dropping into her gut like a stone. "What?" He replied, sounding no closer. "I think I've found what we're looking for!" He didn't answer.
"Dipper?" Still no answer.
The eerie quiet was the only sound she could hear… no, wait, there was something else; she strained to pick it up but when she did her veins turned to ice and her legs began to quake.
The sound whispered on the wind, it sounded like it was coming from all around her and yet she could hear it as though it was right beside her ear. It grew louder, louder until she felt like she could make out bits and pieces.
"St…. st… ooop… you…. You…y… lea… zzz… r-runnnnn…" the barely intelligible voice sounded like it came from a mouth being dragged through the mud; there was a smokiness over it that made it sound old and yet it was high pitched enough that she couldn't make out it's gender at all, (if it even had a gender).
"Rrr…uuu… nnnn" okay, she understood that part.
She ran until she couldn't hear it anymore and when that finally happened she looked up from the fog pooling at her ankles and all she saw was death: big, spiky, monster-skeleton death, jutting out of the aforementioned blanket of fog like a giant maw of… teeth… in fact it looked like they were all teeth… and claws. Hadn't Dipper mentioned something about that and how they'd been used to…? Oh, "is this a good or a bad thing?"
And thus you're all caught up… kind of. Her brother wasn't with her and she wasn't sure if she was actually in a tight spot, yes she'd been scared but she hadn't been directly attacked, just startled.
"Dipper! I really think I've found what we're looking for this time! Oh, man… now what?" Mabel grew hushed and started to think. Was that voice spooky in and of itself or had it just sounded spooky? Maybe Norman could make sense of it: she at least guessed the voice to belong to a spirit of some sort, some poor soul who'd been stuck behind as a warning perhaps or just from bad luck.
"…"
Eh, she'd figure it out after she'd had a look around, she was beginning to remember how much she adored it when things got this strange, this exciting. Then she remembered that Dipper hadn't answered her for a while.
She removed the tooth out of her pocket and made her way over to the closest jaw, kneeled down and placed her specimen next to its. Perfect match 'of course' Mabel thought, feeling quite chuffed that she'd found the place Dipper had been looking for first. As she rose back to her feet however something became tangled around her ankles and sent her tumbling forward, she reached out her hands instinctively and yelped in anticipation of a gored palm.
The good news was her hands weren't speared; the bad news was they were still close enough for the serrated edge one of the teeth to scrape a sharp line into her wrist. Wincing, she clutched her forearm and hissed at the burning pain; small, hot tears smarted in her eyes.
"You!" she cried, gesturing wildly at her subject "Why did you betray me? I gave you my trust!" The shredded ball of yarn string had no answer.
Dipper Pines glared forlornly at the split threads of his yarn trail; a backward glance showed him that he wasn't going to find the rest in all that mess before the night wore out, not without backtracking more than his splinter-scratched legs were willing. At least he could still find the graves and go home a future celebrity: he had the means in his hands and Mabel wouldn't need to come looking for him because he'd be back at their meeting place before she had reason to come looking for him; he had more than enough string left to make sure he'd come back to a something recognizable, so things were still under control…
But which path to choose now?
From what he could see there were four in total: each almost indistinguishable from each other with frames carved by wards of a sort he faintly remembered.
The conspiracy buff in him postulated that the werewolves themselves had clawed them out when they'd lived here all those years ago: going by their pointy, linear shapes that bore a striking resemblance to marks on trees he'd seen used as scratching posts for bears and mountain lions, but more structured and cohesive.
He picked the one that looked the most dilapidated and therefore probably the most used: a flimsy conclusion, yes but his evidence was meagre to put it mildly and it was either this or going back to base empty-handed until someone started asking questions and the truth about his initial intentions came out.
He'd preferred to hold off on that little drama while he still could.
The previous skulk had been unpleasant but this tunnel was flat out disconcerting, even with his flashlight: he felt like the walls were about to close in on him; the shadows stretched and contorted into monsters with gnashing teeth and creeping, feely hands; Dipper was reminded of several close shaves he'd had with the less savory residents of the Gravity Falls' forests and he shuddered involuntarily for another reason beside the cold.
It would seem to have been worth the discomfort though: Dipper felt his jaw drop and land somewhere on the other side of the world at the sight of four great headstones, planted in an uneven crescent, almost three times taller than him; dressed with stones, necklaces and dead, drooping flower heads: their stony faces appeared to bear the same dialect as the one from the book; some had large chunks torn out of them while others were marred with massive claw marks so that Dipper couldn't make out most of it.
He reached into his coat-vest and pulled out the book, which he opened to the appropriate page, skirting through the chapter that may have perhaps mentioned other graves besides the werewolves' and periodically looking back up to confirm his findings.
It seemed that the hunters had found themselves accidental subjects of the werewolves' curse after all was said and dead and had seen only one way out of becoming what they'd sworn to destroy.
He found himself wishing he could speak to the people likely buried here but if he'd suspected that there'd be ghosts with unfinished business from such a… complete event he would have brought Norman with them. He'd never considered that they might be his only ticket to knowing what exactly they'd wanted people to see after they were gone.
Wybie had said once that Dipper had way too much trouble considering circumstances that disagreed with his wants and preconception and Dipper was inclined to agree at this point.
Suddenly he heard a wiry snap behind him, as if from someone stepping on a twig and swerved around instantly. There was nothing there… as expected.
"Mabel?" Maybe she was pulling a prank?
Dipper was beginning to reconsider heading back.
"Dipper! Where are you?" That was Mabel! Her voice was faraway and sounded concernedly anxious; Dipper felt a pit of worry drop into his stomach at the thought of his sister scared and alone.
Maybe coming here hadn't been such a good idea after all; perhaps Mabel was more right than she realized: he should have just gone back and got the others to come with him.
…He sighed. It was too late, he was here now and he might as well make sure he didn't waste his ill-gotten time.
"Mabel, come look at this!" He shouted through his curled hands, making sure to put in as much enthusiasm as possible. "Dipper, I was starting to worry!" She shouted back, still too distant for comfort.
Dipper winced but didn't lose his vigor.
"I told you there was nothing to worry about here!" He said through a very wide smile.
It would take her a short while to reach him so he turned back to his work and furrowed his eyebrows in refocus. There was something about the text on the tallest headstone that was troubling him, there were several unpleasant connotations from the few words he'd been able to make out on sight (most comprising synonyms for death and pain and cursed etc.) but there was a lot of standard wear and tear with chips and scratches and age that left the rest completely incomprehensible.
In the end all he could glean was a disjointed, incoherent mess.
An unpleasant weight grew unsettled in his chest and he pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "Dipper…?" Mabel actually sounded further away now, far enough that he had to strain to recognise his name. Dipper felt himself become more and more worried. "What?" Her response was too far-off to hear properly anymore, but he could tell it felt too quick, like she was moving away.
"Mabel?" No answer.
"Mabel!" Still nothing.
Dipper's concern blossomed into churning worry. He closed the book, shoved it back into his coat-pocket and started to sprint hurriedly back the way he came.
He'd forgotten to chastise her for not following the plan but then he finally remembered whom he was expecting this from and then there was a scream that sounded ('like, only like') Mabel, he felt his adrenaline spike into overdrive.
The sun was just starting to set by the time he made it back and Norman Babcock was beginning to feel like everyone was ignoring him again. Dipper was always a bit absent when he came across something exciting but was it really too much to ask for him to explain it to his friends even when they asked nicely. Though he had to give him some credit, Dipper really knew how to be charming when the situation called for it.
…Had the situation called for it?
"Norman!"
Norman looked up to a smiling Neil waving and a surprisingly belligerent-looking Wybie crossing his arms at him in the warmly lit doorway of the Mystery (Kid's) Shack, they were both looking tired and expectant, he wilted at the thought of disappointing them.
"You okay?" Asked Neil, he nodded automatically.
"What's Dipper up to this time?" Norman shrugged at Wybie. "He just said that it was too small to involve the whole team and that he wanted me to find a way to translate this," he held up the packet of notes he'd been clutching between his small fingers and watched as both boys adopted bemused expressions. "I thought we'd agreed to let the team decide what was too small for the team"
"We did that never"
"Well I think this proves it needs to be done"
"Dipper isn't coming back anytime soon is he?" Neil toned it more like a statement than a question but his subtle smile hinted at his understanding (and his exasperation). "I think so yeah, sorry," Norman resigned, feeling deflated but more collected than he'd expected to be. "It's not your fault, I guess," groaned Wybie, who seemed to have taken the responsibility of both of his friends' frustration. "Let's see what they've dragged us into this time" he sighed as he swiped the notes out of Norman's grasp and turned back into the building, muttering grumpily as he made his way upstairs.
Norman and Neil smiled at each other sympathetically and followed after him, both silently prepared for a happy foray into the sort of trouble they were accustomed to at this point.
"Coraline, Norman's back!" called Wybie.
"Just Norman?" She answered.
"Yup!"
There was a determined pause "…Okay!"
Wybie led them both into the attic while Neil explained that Coraline had arrived a few minutes after Norman had left (though he didn't know her reasons for coming in the first place, nobody had called her) and from the irked scowl she was sporting and the way she kicked her feet into her hiking boots she'd probably intended to go after all of them herself once she'd got a hint of what was going on; her irritation noticeably lessened at the sight of the three of them walking in however and she greeted them all amicably with a punch to the shoulder, an eccentric handshake and a quick hug respectively.
"So, what do we know?" her snark was lopsided and her eyebrows were down: half part anticipation, half part pique. From the looks of the room, she was fully expecting a late-night rescue operation: she'd stashed several packs of assorted gear, rations and the mystery journal into three beaten-looking backpacks and placed them near Dipper's bed.
Wybie explained the situation and Norman filled in the blanks, which Coraline occasionally grumbled and rolled her eyes at. "So I guess we're going to have to find them, huh?" she huffed noncommittally and shook her head. Wybie had brightened in the company of someone who sounded like they knew what they were doing. "I'll get our bikes" he informed and turned to waddle back down the stairs "Oh, I almost forgot... here, Jonsey, we do have something to go on" he turned back and handed her the notes "Dipper said he thinks we'll be able to make some sense out of them". Coraline took them and thumbed through the small pages, her nose wrinkled and her eyes narrowed. "I'll be here if you guys decide we need any more help" added Neil, good-naturedly.
After the last bout of adventure the kids had been on that had wound up putting him in A&E Neil had reluctantly assigned himself to a support role: keeping 'headquarters' in good condition and offering words of encouragement and wisdom.
He followed Wybie down the stairway, presumably to man register and by extension phone, ready to call Raz and Lili just in case things got especially serious.
In the meanwhile Coraline hummed in thought, he could see the gears turning in her head and the ambivalence growing on her face.
"What is it?" Norman felt like he was a passenger on a train at this point, with no say in where it was going.
Whatever Dipper was investigating was very probably something dangerous with whatever said it was dangerous taking the form of a tidbit he'd missed in his enthusiasm, it was just their luck that he'd leave little to no clues.
Norman moved over to the pack that had a summerween ghost sticker taped on it and rifled through the supplies Coraline had arranged for him: there were several energy bars in a plastic bag, a pair of red, woollen gloves, a blue scarf and an old kitchen knife amongst other things. "Expecting trouble?" he asked. "Always" she answered without looking up.
"Do we know where they went this time?" he could hear the acute grin in her voice, in the sound of her stubborn confidence he found himself smiling as well.
"Heh, no; he just said he had some important things to do and then he gave me those notes and asked for us to see if there was anything he'd missed"
"Sounds like he was just trying to get rid of you"
"...Yeah..." Norman felt that a worrisome thought and Coraline seemed to notice it on his face because what next she spoke, she spoke quickly "What about Mabel?"
"I don't think she knew what was going on either but he didn't try to get rid of her"
"Bet she gave Dipper an earful when he dumped this on you," Norman chuckled "Yes but it didn't help" Coraline looked genuinely surprised at that, even a little worried.
"Dipper seemed really excited about that book, maybe we can find out where he's gone if we look at those?" Norman pointed softly at the crumpled paper in Coraline's hand.
She huffed exasperatedly. "Probably, but I doubt our computers are going to be much help here"
"Why?"
"Well for one thing this stuff is written down on scrunched up paper so we can't exactly scan them in on any old photo, plus I don't think babelfish has this in its translation library"
So, they'd need something to scan in the letters and translate them accurately to even have a guess of where Dipper was headed, there was only one place they were going to find the technology capable of something like that, he saw that they were on the same page then.
"Neil!"
"Yeah?"
"Get Raz and Lili on the phone, we've got a situation"
"Yessir, ma'am!"
Lili Zanotto was bored, more so than usual; she was incredibly bored in fact, unnaturally bored if one wanted to be dramatic: she was reclined in a comfortable, expensive leather chair, she was dressed in a stylish, purple uniform and her hair was as clean and smoothly combed as you please yet she still found herself feeling completely unsatisfied.
Across her drooping eyes swam a long, dull list of holographic tech manuals: tips in the proper use of psychic techniques (several of which she and Raz had posted themselves) a long, long list of spam, which she swiped away with all the motivation of a very unmotivated person and hourly situation updates from agents deployed and yet-to-be deployed.
She'd already read every single existing issue of 'True Psychic Tales', sifted through the status of every ongoing mission that she had access to (along with a few that she didn't) and still nothing more exciting than the usual. Besides the boredom, the fact she had nothing worthwhile to do with Raz with him on his break had her dwelling on the possible reasons she and her boyfriend still weren't taken seriously by the greater psychonauts collective.
Okay, maybe that was a slight hyperbole: they'd been given appropriately high stakes missions and other agents saluted and addressed them like any other high-ranking adults whenever they were on-assignment but off the field of mental warfare, when things got calm and brains weren't being stolen or presidents kidnapped there were people who would either look at them confusedly or with poorly veiled disdain; not everyone, not the majority, but still just enough people to get her thinking. When she'd asked for his opinion about it Raz had smiled proudly and affectionately at her and boisterously proclaimed that these people were merely insanely jealous of them for advancing so far at such a young age.
Lili sometimes wished that she could be that optimistic, that invested in her job-identity.
Raz was a psychonaut, through and through; heck he was more of a psychonaut than many of the higher ups in the chain of command that she'd seen: he was patriotic, outspoken and astoundingly brave, always finding happiness in his work; he was living his dream and loving every second.
Lili wasn't quite so fulfilled.
Now that's not to say that she didn't enjoy or take pride her work, she did indeed: she'd wanted so very badly to be a psychonaut too; she'd at least wanted to be some sort of heroine since the day she could talk, she'd wanted to save the world from megalomaniacs and psychic criminals and eventually have legions of attractive boys swoon over her.
She got everything except that last part: the psychonauts being a much more introverted organization than their portrayal in the media might suggest meant no individual was ever explicitly mentioned by name often, which subsequently meant no screaming fans. It was only later that she learned how much of a good thing that was.
On a tangent it turned out the purpose of True Psychic Tales was as a subtle way of acclimating the rare psychic kids who got genuinely interested to the idea of becoming something more than freaks, (she still remembered the day she found out that Sasha Nein and all his written adventures were real and not just comic book fictions; she'd nagged and pleaded like she never had before to be sent to whispering rock).
Then Raz had saved everyone, and then she'd saved the grand psychonauts chairman (who happened to also be her father). Some called them heroes, others called them crazy or stupid but they'd proven themselves in the eyes of the people who mattered and earned their status as the youngest psychonauts in history.
Life was good for a few wonderful months.
Until recently...
Suddenly most of the big missions they were getting used to taking care of went to other, older people; there were several attempts to split their professional partnership up, citing complaints that their relationship was unprofessional and causing improper conduct in their peers. This continued until they were no more utilized than other agents half their rank. They'd agreed and determined to face this problem alone, they were both much too stubborn like that, eventually however some of the people from whispering rock somehow caught wind of it; then Sasha, Milla and Oleander found out from them and together gave the higher ups an earful that spread and threatened to send the entire agency into disrepair. Despite their protests that they could handle it, Raz and Lili were largely ignored despite being the unwilling subjects of the debate.
By the time Ford Cruller finally caught wind of it and discovered what was really happening the damage was done, Raz and Lili had always been troublemakers but now they were inconvenient to some very influential people, not even Truman himself could guarantee them protection, so the noble psychomaster devised a plan to keep them away from the those who wanted them kept down and undisruptive while at the same time giving them a place where they could deal with important and dangerous things like psychonauts are supposed to.
The decision was revealed to them in person: transference to the secret psychonauts outpost at Gravity Falls, Oregon.
The preceding briefing had gotten them both excited: Gravity Falls was reputed by the psychonautical archives to be one of the most frequent and intense subject of extraordinary, paranormal happenings in the western world; the agents posted there before Raz and Lili seemed glad to be rid of the position, calling the strange goings on utter bogus.
It had only taken a day to see how wrong they were.
Lili had already gathered so many fond memories of this place that she fully expected to stay with her for a long time but that didn't change the fact that she was outrageously bored and had been assigned to the back end of nowhere for no other reason than to keep her out of harm's way.
It can't have been their relationship alone that got them into so much trouble, there were some serious players trying to get them ousted last time she checked. Someone really wanted her and Raz gone and only bad guys or really stupid people wanted that. Lili was planning full well for a personal investigation once their mission here was over but her plat had hit a few roadblocks hence the final reason once again she was bored with nothing to do.
Raz came in from the hall on his levitation ball and Lili inwardly praised his timing as he took off his goggles to reveal his oh-so-green eyes. "Hey, are you feeling alright? You look like you're ready to light someone on fire… more so than usual I mean" Lili shot him a withering expression. "I thought you wouldn't be back for at least another half hour"
"I decided to finish early, figured you might be getting bored considering how quiet it's been lately" She was unable to restrain a pensive snort. "I was just thinking… about some stuff," She must have sounded dejected because Raz softened at her and knowingly smiled in a way that was decidedly unsuited to his usually bright face. "I know you want to find out the truth and we will, I promise we will, but sulking isn't going to help anything and you know it" She sighed resignedly but brought out a warm smile for his thoughtfulness "I hate it when you get all dorky and reasonable like that" Raz smiled genuinely then and reached out a gloved hand, which she allowed him to take her into the next room with.
The study's walls were covered with pictures, notes, maps and memoirs, accumulated collectively from their lives, starting with the few childhood photos they weren't ashamed of and ending with their most recent escapades in Gravity Falls. Raz hadn't exactly been fantastically organized when he'd put it all up but there was some method to the madness that she could see. "And besides, we've got this" he gestured to all of it, particularly the parts involving their friends. "We have a good thing here" Lili's smile was full again and she gave him a peck on the cheek that left him bashful "You can be such a ham sometimes" she teased.
"Hey, I'll have you know I've been inside the mind of one of the greatest actresses of all time, I happened to learn a thing or two while I was in there" he clutched his chest, reached out a pleading arm and lowered his voice comedically "To be or not to be, that is the question!"
"Do you even know what that's from?"
"Of course not"
"Good, neither do I"
Their laughter was suddenly interrupted by a call: not the rich, orotund pulse of the psychocom, (as Raz had insisted on calling their official link with HQ) for this was no mere psychonautical matter, it was coming from the antique telephone that sat rather unassumingly on the table of the desk sitting in the very study they flirted in. It was a means of communication exclusively reserved for members of the Mystery Kids; which meant there were only eight people on the entire planet that knew its number. It was reserved for only the most grievous emergencies and it was ringing.
Lili wasn't sure how Raz was feeling about this but in her eyes it was like a prayer had been answered.
She tore it off its stand, readily ignoring how she also tore it off the desk and scattered documents everywhere. "What is it?" She voiced sternly, with all the bravado and determination she could muster; her mind was swimming with visions of fiery battle and her prone hand aggressively outstretched towards a legion of nameless horrors endangering the poor, unsuspecting civilians of Gravity Falls.
The voice on the other end of the line however was neither as professional nor as frantic as she was expecting.
"Hi, Lili!" She was troubled for a moment "N-Neil?"
"Yup! How are ya?" Neil's cheerfulness had her blinking owlishly. "I'm… fine"
"…Good. How's Raz?" Lili blinked and shook her head: she felt like she should be feeling angry but all she felt in that moment was confused.
"Neil, has something happened?" There was a pause. "…No, not yet at least I don't think."
"Then why are you calling me?" she might have sounded a little harsher than she'd intended. "Oh, right, sorry! Dipper and Mabel have… um… well"
"Yes…?"
"Well it's mostly Dipper I guess, I dunno, I don't think any of us know the full story but Mabel's out there as well so…"
"Out where?"
"The forest" That got some of her attention. "This late? By themselves?"
"Yup"
"...Why?"
"We don't know but we need you're help cuz we don't have a clue where they are right now"
"What's going on?" Asked Raz, Lili shushed him.
"Neil, can you start from the beginning please?" There was another pause on the other end of the line; Neil shouted something that sounded like a question before he came back on. "Well, Dipper found this book and um… I wasn't around for most of it but he'd had it for a while and this morning he said he was going into the forest with it, well he didn't say he was going in with it but he said he was going into the forest and he had it with him so I assumed…" Lili stopped him there. "Neil, can I talk to the other guys please?"
"You wanna…? Okay" Neil shouted again and not long afterwards she heard a pair of boots heavily stride down the stairs before the clacking of a phone passing from one hand to the other heralded a lower, sterner voice addressing her.
"Hey, Lili" Lili grumbled away from the mouth of the phone.
"Hey, Coraline" she replied stoically.
Lili and Coraline were both headstrong people: when things got dangerous they lead the charge, when the mystery kids had to dig their heels into the mud and hold their ground they brought the hurt and subsequently both felt like they should be the ones running things; this rivalry had started early in the team's formation and only seemed to have gotten stronger as time went on: when Coraline wasn't butting heads with Dipper over what mystery they should chase after she was either insulting Lili's wardrobe or offering begrudging praise to her when something nasty and snarling caught fire.
In all honesty Lili had never had someone she could consider a true rival in the way she felt Coraline was, it was something she closely cherished but of course would never admit.
Under most other circumstances Lili would expect a scathing jab right about now but Coraline sounded serious and Lili wasn't about to let a petty rivalry keep her from extending appropriate courtesy. "Mabel and Dipper went into the forest this morning and, a few minutes ago, sent Norman back with a bunch of sticky notes covered with weird writing. We need to use your computer to see if we can translate it" jeez, listening to Coraline wax professional was like listening to one of Oleander's speeches if he had Sasha's sense of humour.
"Can't you just use your own computer?"
"You know we can't" Lili sighed openly. It wasn't like she had anything better to do.
"Just get over here, Caroline" with that she hung up without another word.
Coraline Jones was trying very hard not to groan in frustration: in all honesty she felt like she deserved commendation for holding onto her temper for as long as she did given the circumstances.
She was reclined in a tall, leather chair clearly meant for an adult and had the heels of her swampers crossed on the foot of the console Raz was working on. Multi-coloured rectangles of data flew across her vision in lines and processions; she saw on what she gathered to be the main screen: a picture of the runes and characters Dipper had written down, scrutinised by prodding lines and boxes of text.
A limb would surround a strange letter and draw an image of it off to the side in a separate window where it would be matched with other equally strange letters.
Throughout this process Raz wore a contemplative scowl on his face. "I'm not getting any match…" there was a moment where he hummed and stroked his chin with a gloved finger. "Hold on a sec, what if…" He widened some nondescript bar in the corner of the screen and in a sudden instant the entire feed was covered in text. "Well I'll be…"
"What? What is it?"
"Norman, Dipper told you the language in the book was a medieval, Indo-European dialect, right?" Norman shuffled uncertainly "I-I think so"
"Well the computer says that none of what he sent back is from that region or even that time period, so I broadened the search and it would seem that whoever originally wrote that book in the first place wasn't the only one who got their hands on it. It actually looks like it went through quite a few owners before it came to Gravity Falls, almost like it was passed down as inheritance" He pointed to a body of writing, which Dipper had drawn next to an example of the original text; there were arrows and symbols connecting the former to the latter. "Do you see the way the it's structured like an annotation?"
"I think I can," said Wybie who, though fully enraptured as usual by all the advanced technology, was trying much too hard to look knowing.
"Do you think you could find out what it says?" Coraline asked bluntly. "It'll take a minute or two but I don't think it'll be too much trouble" Raz went back to work.
"Great, so what do we do until then?"
Coraline mulled over this for a moment before hopping off the chair and giving their findings a long, hard look. "Norman, did Dipper give you any clues as to what the book was about?" Norman looked apprehensive "I-I can't be sure but I think he was looking for… werewolves" That got everybody's attention; even Raz broke his concentration and stopped to listen.
Under any other circumstances with any other group of people Coraline knew that Norman would've been lying to keep the uninitiated amongst his company safe but they were the Mystery Kids: they'd all seen things that made werewolves sound downright reasonable and he knew it. "He didn't say anything about it exactly but I caught a glimpse of one of the pages of the book and there was a drawing of a werewolf"
Lili and Wybie then both moved to say something but were interrupted by a noisy beep.
"Ah-ha! There we go, see I told you it wouldn't take long" Raz pulled up the translated document with a confidant gesture; Coraline was getting the distinct impression that Raz wasn't even worried.
"You're awfully calm" in an instant he grew a serious but easygoing expression "Guys I know you're all worried, I am too, but the twins have always been able to take care of themselves and if they are in any trouble we'll get them out of it like we always do" Raz's unrestrained confidence was downright contagious; Coraline could practically feel the spirit of the room lifting.
Raz grinned auspiciously back at everyone once he got affirmatives in the forms of emphatic nods or collected hums "Alright," he cracked his knuckles, "let's see what we've got here"
The information was organized into walled columns and read at once by a computerized voice.
"When he was still human, his eminence once declared this page be disregarded on the grounds of it supposedly containing grievous blasphemy, why he did not also order its removal is beyond me… I confess I spied on his venerability, I could sometimes hear him sobbing and muttering in his study about how he would be able to save us if only he could decipher this chapter… it eludes my teaching as well so far but I cannot afford surcease, I'm the only scholar left, these people's lives are in my hands now… they'll be here soon…"
"They came in the night, beasts as filthy and vile as sin… coats of thick, shuddering muscle and fur, like a wolf's, matted with dried gore and offal, the hosts of hell's hounds"
"They know we have the book! They're supposed to have regressed to animals by now, that's what the last chapter told us… how could they remember after so long? I know it in my bones that this verse would tell me, if only I could read it" "I had to cut down my children when they turned, they asked me to make the pains top before their pleas turned to snarls. I keep asking myself if there's a cure somewhere in this volume, something I failed to see, I keep asking myself if I could have saved my husband from his daughter's fangs… it doesn't matter now, I can hear them scratching on the walls, the bolts won't hold much longer, at least I won't have to smell their bodies anymore… Jupiter protect me"
"Our prayers remain unanswered, this book is our only hope, if only I knew how to read these parts…"
"Why is this happening, almost everyone's dead, there aren't even bodies left to burn… is God punishing us?"
"…The lucky one's died before they had their throats and hearts torn out and eaten…"
"We are close together now, we've made an oath, beheld I did a lilting sea, we swore for revenge, for an end to this… all the impure slain here have been burned but we didn't get them all, we have to find them, have to kill them before it's too late"
"…It's too late…"
"The original writer was a fool, this isn't our doing… it's Allah's plan, I can see that now, those who come after me should as well: these creatures never meant to hurt us, only drive us out of where we never belonged."
"Don't listen to the ravings of the rest of my unworthy predecessors, the monsters can be beaten, I've killed three so far, they seem to be vulnerable to silver so I've loaded my musket with the stuff. The remaining tribes that haven't fled have regressed into their instinctual pack mentality, they've started to fight amongst themselves… this lack of solidarity will make them much easier prey I think…"
"They are not invincible, the whispering rock does to them what it does to all the uninitiated, they are simple hunters but they are not complete animals the side of them that is still man knows to avoid the agony of madness. We've driven them off, only to doom others I fear, but what good would pursuing them do anyone if all we accomplish in open battle were to give them more bodies to pervert? I can hear them screaming and cursing at us in our dreams, like wounded wolves… they're all crying out at us, at themselves, at him…"
"The bones carry the contaminant, even after all this time. I cut myself in a slip of carelessness and… turned, almost killed my partner. She was able to sever my Achilles' tendon with a silver knife. I'll pass my findings on to my students before they're forced to kill me, they must complete my work. If only I could read this part… what did all those other notes before these ones even say? Half are in languages I don't even recognise and the rest is fanatical gibberish… if only the original writer had transcribed his works into pictionary…"
"I've almost got the whole thing written down, I'm putting the major clauses in a common code, so others may come to understand as I have; as an undertaking it would still take a mind greater than the ones that hunt me to understand… throughout my travels I oftentimes wonder how this curse came about? It's much too virulent to be naturally occurring, I would usually rule out the subtleties of black magic in the influence of an enactment so barbaric but perhaps some clumsy genius spawned it in an endeavour to revenge upon a dog-hating neighbor and poured too much of his malice into the cup…"
"I think her majesty is a werewolf…"
"I can scarcely believe we're so close to the end, after all this time, all the cruel deception, all the savage killing, we've done it, all the other sites of infection have been cleansed. We've finally run the very last of them to this… this remote place. It's all so horrible to me still; even after all I've seen, all I've done in the name of the cause."
"They were once human, right?"
"I suppose it doesn't matter anymore, they cannot be saved, we would have found a way by now if it was possible... but at least it'll be over soon… it still feels unreal, as if I'm only dreaming of our coming victory."
"I wonder who came upon it first after its author disappeared? How did they know it would help them in the days when it had no reputation?"
"The hypothesis is that the author was able to pass on his knowledge to a successor, that they in turn were inadequate, unable to update it properly before its format became obscure. Perhaps whatever strange towers they held court in crumbled before they could make it comprehensive to the commoners."
"The people who had this book before me were unprepared, they died and turned in swathes; they made notes, comments, annotations, trying desperately to unlock the book's secrets as their colleagues spouted profusions of abstract prayer, as the brave were sacrificed to hold off… all those teeth, only for the threat to grow exponentially the very next month… my God, the nights must've seemed like the end of the world."
"How they must have sickeningly feared, how they must've studied this book scrupulously, all of them, all victims of the same abject devilry, hoping blindly to one day understand what they'd found, what they'd fought so desperately against."
"'Who wrote the book in the first place' is the question I fear may never be answered, every page has been read and understood except for these last few, they're are unlike anything of the sort he wrote before, if he indeed wrote them himself. There are times, when the wee hours of the morning set me adrift in delirium and I wonder if the culprit of this ancient, sordid affair was in our hands all along…"
"I don't think any of these people are in the right order, the languages and even the subsequent dialects all seem to be… out of chronological order"
"Here you may know our great failing, how we lost ourselves, where we'll be buried, no one can find us, it's too dangerous to risk anything lingering in spirit"
"…Huh…" said Raz
"Fantastic…" sighed Lili.
"Oh," breathed Norman.
"Let's go," said Coraline.
-End.