Chapter One: The Biggest Act
If you were approaching the recluse town of Gravity Falls, you would see a huge brown circus tent with yellow balloons tied to the top of it. At the very top of the tent, you would see a wooden question mark. This circus tent was home to the most unknown and possibly underrated circus in the world. It went by the name of "Stan Pine's Mysterious Circus."
Stan Pines was a notorious scammer known by many names. In his youth he would travel around America and would attempt to scam thousands of innocent and foolish people out of their money using cheap gags, fake appliances, and what might be his most famous scam, The Mystery Shack.
The Mystery Shack was a tourist trap that would attract the most dumbest and easily manipulative people in both Gravity Falls and the poor tourists that would wander into the town expecting a normal or even a pleasant experience. For years and years, the Mystery Shack was infamous in the town of Gravity Falls, but soon enough, people began to see through the fake artifacts, the fake proof of mystical creatures, and they began to not approve of Stan Pines basically insulting their intelligence.
The fact that Stan Pines was beginning to run out of ideas didn't help matters either. He soon began to realize that his creativity, for the Mystery Shack at least, was fading away and it wouldn't be long before he was tired of it all. That day came in the month of October in 2015. People started to stop showing up to the Mystery Shack, and Stan couldn't blame them, the Shack had a good long run and he was proud of it, but it was time to put the old girl to rest.
On November 1st 2015, The Mystery Shack was officially closed down for good.
Dipper and Mabel Pines, Stan's nephew and niece, were former employees at the Mystery Shack (not by choice) and were quite sad that it had to get shut down, but on the bright side, they no longer had to work eight hours in the damned tourist trap the next time they went to visit their Great Uncle for the summer, but to the surprise of the twins (and everyone whoever visited the The Mystery Shack), their good old Gruncle Stan was far from out of the scamming business.
When the twins returned to Gravity Falls, they were shocked to see that Grunkle Stan had made another amazing tourists trap. He called it, The Mystery Circus. The concept was simple, it was just like any other circus, except with a twist. All the acts were a mix of dark humor and regular fun humor.
Per example, one of the most well known acts in the circus was the 'Dead Baby'. The act started off as any regular circus act, a couple of clowns came out to entertain the crowd. Everything was going great until one of the clowns pulled out a dead baby from his shirt and bit it's head off. You see, the twist were that the clowns were actually cannibals in disguise. It shocked and even terrified a lot of people, and that's what made it great.
People began to look forward to the shows every Saturday and week after week ticket sales for the The Mystery Circus increased dramatically. People loved the dark twist that would happen in every act, it was the perfect mix of great entertainment and dark humor.
Just like their experience at the Mystery Shack, Dipper and Mabel were forced to work at the circus, and as Stan Pines would tell anyone that listens, that was one of the greatest decisions he had ever made. The twins were allowed to come up with their own act, and they decided to call it, the "Murderus Twins."
The act had a simple premise, Dipper and Mabel would come out and entertain the crowd and then Mabel would harm Dipper in some over the top way and Dipper would become in raged and shoot Mabel out of cannon, all while laughing like a creep. The girl would always disappear in the sky with a twinkle. Sure she would always come back covered in ash, but it was worth it to see the reaction of the crowd. The crowd loved it and some even went to congratulate the twins on a great show. From that day forward, thanks to the twins constantly shaking up their material, the Murderus Twins became the most popular act in the entire circus, earning Stan Pines more than he ever got in the Mystery Shack.
Things weren't always luxury for the twins though because on top of planning new things to put on their act, they also had to clean up after the shows, which would normally take two hours at the very least.
After one successful show, the twins were cleaning up the bleachers. The bleachers were covered in soda, popcorn, gumdrops, cotton candy, and other circus sweets. Dipper Pines hated cleaning the bleachers. Every five seconds we would step in a mess some irresponsible kid left behind. Mabel on the other hand, loved cleaning the bleachers. To her, it was like getting a free snack.
"I swear to God Mabel, if you like the sids of the bleachers, I will clean your mouth out with this mop.", Dipper said to the older twin as he continued to clean.
Mabel paid her brother no attention as she continued to scavenge for snacks. "Y'know", Dipper began, "We would get done a lot faster if you would actually clean up instead of eating of the floor like an animal."
Mabel gave her brother a sneer, "And maybe we would get done a lot faster if you would stop nagging me like Mom does Dad."
"I wouldn't have to nag you if you weren't as dumb as a bag of potatoes.", Dipper mumbled.
Unbeknownst to him, his sister heard his insult and became extremely annoyed. She collected a bunch of popcorn she found on the floor and threw at her brother. I he popcorn hit Dipper directly in the face and the butter burned his eyes causing him to scream out in pain.
"Ow! Fucking hell that stings!", Dipper said as he shielded his eyes from any other possible assault his sister had planned for him.
"That's what you get for falling me dumb", Mabel said handing Dipper a napkin. As Dipper took the napkin, he grabbed Mabel's hand and spit in her eye.
"Ew!", she cried out, "I can't see anything now!"
Dipper wiped the butter out of his eyes and pushed Mabel out of his way as he went to get his mop, "Here, let me help you with that." Dipper began approaching Mabel with the mop, and the girl wisely began to run. The two siblings have chased each other on the bleachers a bunch of times before, so the dangers of falling and injuring themselves didn't concern them.
Just like all their other arguments, the twins forget that they were angry with each other and had begun to have fun. The two siblings, though close as Siamese twins, fought sometimes. Even going as far as to call each other horrible and disgusting words, but give them an hour to cool down, and they'll be laughing and playing with each other.
"Can't catch me!", Mabel teased as she sped away from her brother.
"We'll see about that soda breath!", Dipper said as he started to pick up speed.
Just as he was getting ready to hit Mabel extremely hard with the mop, both of the twins were startled when they heard their Grunkle Stan shout, "Hey, kids!"
Dipper was caught off guard by the yell and it caused him to trip and fall and hit his head. Mabel erupted with laughter as she saw her brother face plant on the bleachers.
"Kids! Where the hell are you!?", they heard Grunkle Stan yell one again. Mabel began to ran to the source of the sound and Dipper leisurely followed, rubbing his aching head as he did. The two twins entered Grunkle Stan's office. The old man was in his office chair counting his money while giggling like a little school girl. This is something the twins have gotten used to seeing.
Stan noticed the teens and smiled, "Great job out there you little gremlins", he said, "The audience was practically begging for an encore. If you keep this up, we'll all be filthy stinky rich in months!"
The thought of being rich filled Mabel with excitement and joy, while Dipper didn't show any emotion on his dirty face. When it came to Stan and Mabel's ridiculous hopes of being rich and retiring young, he didn't get his hopes up. He was one of those people who expected the worse and hoped for the best, and in this case, the best seemed to be the out of reach dream of his sister and uncle.
"You okay, Dipper?", Mabel asked seeing the emotionless look on her brothers face. Dipper merely nodded. He was tired and he wanted to go to sleep.
"You seem tired Dip", Grunkle Stan said, "Well don't worry, this meeting won't take long. Everyone in my office!"
At the sound of the old man's booming voice, two other employees entered the small office. All of the main circus performers had already gone home for the day, leaving only Soos and Wendy to answer Grunkle Stan's call. Soos was in charge of cleaning after the animals if they poop on the ground. Soos' originally plan was to be a stay at home dad, but he decided to get this job so he would have money to treat his small family (consisting of only him, his wife, and his son) to a nice day out every once in a while. Stan was happy to give his old employee the job.
Wendy was in charge of selling snacks and souvenirs to the costumers. She only accepted this job so she could earn some money to help her get through college. Oddly enough, she was studying to become a teacher, which is something nobody saw coming. It was a pleasant surprise. In Dipper's opinion, she was way to smart to be working where she did, even if was just for a little pocket money.
"Good job out there everyone!", Grunkle Stan said, "I'm super proud of you all."
Everyone noticed that Stan was unusually happy, maybe even joyful. It was really odd, especially since there was no object of ridicule in sight.
"You seem happy Stan, what's the occasion?", Wendy asked.
"I'm glad you asked Wendy", Stan said with a smirk, "You're all familiar with the Northwest, right?" Everyone nodded. "Well guess what, those rich idiots have decided to donate money to the circus!" The Northwest were the richest family in Gravity Falls. The twins have had some choice encounters with the Northwest, specifically, Pacifica Northwest.
Their first few encounters with Pacifica were not pleasant at all. It seemed like she and Mabel were destined to become enemies. They were polar opposites. Pacifica was 'well mannered' and didn't like Mabel's odd and silly behavior. This didn't go unnoticed by Dipper of course, seeing as Pacifica made fun of his sister, the girl had found herself on Dipper's 'You're a piece of shit' meter. The twins and Pacifica kept up their hatred for each other until Dipper was asked to help Pacifica and her family get rid of a ghost that was haunting their mansion.
After (just barely) disposing of the ghost, Dipper and Pacifica became friends, therefore ending the petty hatred between Pacifica and Mabel. The twins hadn't seen or even heard of anything involving Pacifica since they returned to Gravity Falls, which made the fact that they were giving money to the circus even more of a shock.
"Why are they doing that?", Mabel asked.
"Who cares?", Stan said while shrugging, "Free money!"
"So is some of that money going to our paychecks?", Wendy asked. It was the question everyone had on their minds.
"Sadly, yes", Stan said his expression had turned into one of annoyance, "I have been told that I am obligated to give you all a share of the money in your pay. So your pay will increase by six percent."
Everyone smiled at the news of their raise. Sure it was only six percent, but when you work for a man like Stan Pines, you take what you can get.
"Alright everyone", Stan said calming everyone down, "Preston Northwest and I have discussed this with each other and tomorrow him and his family will visit the circus to see if it's worthy of their money. All I need you guys to do is not be yourself."
"Easy, I've been doing that for years now", Dipper said causing the others to laugh.
Stan rolled his eyes, "Very funny Dip, I'm serious though, I never thought I would say this, but I need you all to be on your best behavior. I don't wanna risk losing all that money just because you people can't act normal."
"But not acting normal is what we do best", Mabel said with legit despair.
"Not to mention it's literally what we get paid for", Soos said.
Stan chuckled and gently touched Mabel on the shoulder, "I know it sucks not being able to be yourself sweetie, but just think about all the money we will get if this deal goes through. Our circus will be an even bigger success than it is. Maybe we'll finally be able to take this dump on tour like we always planned. We could be famous and loved worldwide."
"A simple donation from a rich bitch and her family wouldn't necessarily guarantee all of that", Dipper said, but his words fell on death ears.
Mabel smiled and said, "That would be incredible."
Grunkle Stan showed his confident smirk, "Well it all starts tomorrow when we get this money."
Though the thoughts of fame and fortune sounded like heaven to Mabel and Stan, but to Dipper, it didn't sound like anything too great. Everyone knowing who you are, everyone wanting to hang out with you, and millions of dollars in your back pocket alone. Anxiety always filled him whenever the idea of fame and being known for being apart of a circus just didn't appeal to the young lad, and he believed it never would.