Gravity Falls – Return to the Falls
Chapter 1 – Introduction
It's been only one year since last summer's adventure, one whole year after they defeated Bill and took back the falls, yet here they were, returning to Gravity Falls for another summer. It seemed like it was just last week that the twins had saved the world as the memories of the adventure kept coming back throughout the year they were away, these memories being good or even nightmares.
The bus made its way through the road as the tall pine trees passed by with the twins looking through the window, waiting to reunite with their friends once again.
"We're back huh? It's almost as if it was yesterday..." Dipper said with a book in hands.
"The first thing I'm going to do is give Grunkle Stan a big hug of course, and then set our stuff in our room and then..." Mabel kept on talking as Dipper just smiled knowing that his sister was just as excited as him.
"You think Ford will be there?" Dipper asked.
"What? Oh Grunkle Ford! Yeah! He MUST be there! He HAS to!" She said.
"Where eles would he be right?" Dipper said as they were interrupted by a snort.
"Waddles! You woke up! Look!" Mabel said lifting Waddles to look at the Gravity Falls sign approaching. "We are almost there! Get ready for remixes and disco dances!" She continued hugging the pig.
"Next stop, Gravity Falls." Dipper said.
The bus continued until reaching the final stop: Gravity Falls. There, nostalgia hit both of them, as if they were still 12 and they had just got to Gravity Falls for the first time. These thoughts were interrupted by Stan who waved at the kids from a short distance.
"Grunkle Stan!" Both screamed as they ran to him with a hug.
"Kids! You took long enough!" Stan said, trying not to give away how he missed them.
"Good to see you too Grunkle." Dipper said as both let go while Waddles jumped on Stan throwing him on the floor and licked his face.
"Agh! Good to see you too Waddles..." Stan said wiping his face from saliva.
"Hang on hang on!" Mabel said taking a small pink notebook from her pocket and checking the 'hug Grunkle' box.
"You wrote a list?" Dipper asked.
"It's an idea I got from you, when you have many awesome ideas like I do, you need them organized!" She said with a proud smile.
"Sure... hey where's everybody?" Dipper asked.
"Huh... they must be back at the Shack..." Stan said walking with them through the city as they saw and talked to many familiar faces.
"Hey grunkle Stan! Don't you have something to talk about? Huh? Like... I don't know..." Mabel said putting herself against Dipper's back. "Huh? Huh?"
"Hum... Yeah, you did grow up a bit... that's nature for you kids" Stan said, walking ahead.
"Probably it was expect too much" Dipper said, looking at Mabel.
"Not really" She said, already cheking the 'witness grunkle's normal behavior' box.
"What eles do you have on that list?" Dipper asked.
"It goes with me to the grave" Mabel said hiding the small notebook as they followed Stan.
Finally back at the Shack, Stan and the kids looked at the house that was a nest of adventure one year ago, and none of them had actually seen it since they parted ways, after all, Stan had just gotten to the city as well, so he wouldn't know.
"Well! Good old Shack... good to know Soos didn't actually burn the place down! It's just like I remember it!" Stan said giving a light punch on the wall, making the letter 'S' fall down once again.
"Now that's how I remember it!" Mabel said.
"Well let's see what's what." Stan said going in.
As Dipper and Mabel prepared to go in, they were stopped by someone picking up their luggage. As they looked back they realized it wasn't 'somebody' but 'some people' and people they knew too well.
"Heroes of the falls coming back to save the world once again from boredom!" Wendy screamed.
"Hey there dudes!" Soos said with their luggage in hands.
"Soos! Wendy!" Both screamed as they hugged their friends after one whole year.
"Great to see you guys again, hey where do I put these? Oh, and Waddles!" Soos said
"You can just come with me upstairs and tell me everything Mr. Mystery!" Mabel said pushing Soos to the door and winking at Dipper.
"Oh I get it ok! Catch you later bro" Soos screamed at Dipper vanishing with Mabel through the door.
"Good to have you guys back man, this would just be one boring summer without you guys..." Wendy said.
"Hehe... Yeah..." Dipper said.
"And you did grow up a little bit, that's cool!" Wendy said.
"Yeah, but not too much and Mabel still has like... 1 milimeter above me." Dipper said crossing his arms.
"And the letter? Did you open it?" Wendy asked.
"Oh I did, that was really cool of you guys, Mabel had it glued to her photoalbum with huh... lots of glitter" Dipper said as Wendy laughed.
"Yeah that sounds like her alright! But hey... there's something different about you now... what could it be..." She said walking around him.
"Is it like... the good kind of different or the bad kind, because if it's the bad kind I have a good explanation for it" Dipper said, a bit nervous.
"Found it." She said taking off the cap he was wearing and returning his out blue and white pine cap. "Now it's Dipper alright" Wendy said extending her fist to him.
"Hey thanks, it means a lot" he said bumping his fist on her. "Can't say I missed this though, these caps are so..."
"...Itchy" both said at the same time before laughing.
"Good to have you back man... now I'm going back inside or else my job?" she said before making a fart noise with her mouth. "Don't waste your time outside with the mosquitoes man" Wendy said going inside.
"Yeah..." Dipper said taking off the cap and adjusting it to his new size before going inside.
Going inside, Dipper saw Stan, Soos, Wendy with a cake written 'Welcome Back' as Stan pushed Waddles away from the cake.
"Come on Dipper! It's CAKE!" Mabel said checking another box in her notebook.
"Really?" Dipper said not believing she had 'eat cake' there.
After a good small celebration, things had to be taken care of, for example, the Shack itself.
"Alright how's it gonna be Soos?" Stan asked.
"Same thing Mr. Mystery, kids up there, you and your room and I get that weird room I found last summer"
"What about your abuela?" Dipper asked.
"Oh, she understood the need and she moved out, don't worry dude she'll be back. Eventually." Soos said.
"And I'm hired for the Summer right?" Wendy asked.
"Yup, Melody had to visit her parents in Portland and she's going to stay out for some time, probably the whole summer I guess... so yeah, welcome aboard again."
"Aye Captain!" Wendy said.
"We have to unpack Dipper!" Mabel reminded him as she was about to check the 'remind Dipper to unpack' as he held her hand with the pencil.
"Please don't, let's... just go." he said.
"Well, best thing of this is that I don't have to work with it so I'm trouble free" Stan said sitting on his chair.
"Oh about trouble... Where's grunkle Ford?" Dipper asked.
"Heh, he said he should be back by the middle of the summer, after going to all of these weird places with him? I am just fine with being home and relax." Stan said.
"Really!? What did you see?" Dipper asked, again.
"Tomorrow kid, its been a tiring day... now shoo, go unpack or... I don't know, create conspiracy theories..." Stan said with a small tone of annoyance making Dipper give up and go up the stairs to unpack.
Reaching his room, he was almost overwhelmed by so many memories of last summer, Mabel had already unpacked and wiped the dust of her old sound table as she prepared for yet another great remix with Waddles.
"Alright! Testing, testing... I think it works!" Mabel said.
"Oh great, but can't you guys do that like... tomorrow or something?" Dipper asked.
"We could, or we could throw the biggest welcome party of the Shack!" She said turning the stereo on. "Let's go Waddles!"
"Ugh... I'll be right back" Dipper said leaving the room as Mabel didn't even notice him leave.
On the roof, everything looked the same, same old spot to flee from whatever, the safe spot Wendy showed them one year ago. Dipper sat on the chair looking up and remembering all the adventures he had and the breaks he would occasionally have up there, sometimes even with Wendy. Gravity Falls was a weird place alright, but the view was still nice.
"Dipper..." A voice called from inside the woods.
"What?" He said looking around. "Must be... my imagination, yeah, I'm tired and I don't even notice that I am." He continued.
"Dipper... find me..." the voice said once again.
"Who's there? Grunkle Stan? Soos? Mabel?" He asked.
"Dipper..." the voice said once again now showing the way as a golden sparkle pointed him where to go. With no delay, Dipper got up, took the flashlight and went downstairs where Stan was sleeping on the chair making weird noises.
"Still wishing I hadn't known about that..." He said quietly before leaving through the front door to the glowing sparkle.
As he made his way through the woods, the voice would only get higher until he saw it. The old body, and now, a statue of his old enemy Bill Cypher.
"Bill!?"
"Hey what's up Pine Tree?" The voice from the statue said as the surroundings got a bit shadier and Bill left the statue.
"But HOW!? We erased you inside Stan's mind! How are you back!?" He quesitoned.
"Relaaaaax kid, you know, I can't say that it's a pleasure to see you again because... well it isn't, now thanks to you guys I'm trapped in this statue. No powers, no nothing, so yeah! Good old Bill here. You never got my birthday gift did you? Here, a knife that stabs by itself!" Bill said snapping his finger as a Knife appeared and continued to swing against Dipper as he dodged.
"Hey! Cut it out!" He screamed.
"Ok ok that's enough" He said, as the knife disappeared. "Boy do you look different!" He continued floating around Dipper. "Look you weren't there to see the final moments of our fight... But your 'grunkle' is smarter than he looks, but as you all know Bill is always one step ahead, so I hid part of my essence inside my actual body! This stone here" He said pointing to the statue.
"Serves you right to be trapped here Bill! After everything you did..." Dipper said.
"Woah Woah Woah hold it pine tree, the adult is speaking." Bill said, clapping his hand making Dipper lose his voice. "The thing is pine tree, had I not invoked the ancient powers to return before he almost shattered my existance, I wouldn't be here at all. But what comes next is more important, which is my return! And I only need one deal" he said as his hand engulfed into blue flames.
"What's more important than that is the fact that since you guys 'defeated' me together, I realized that the one thing I did wrong was to not look for help! That's why I present you my BROTHER!" Bill said clapping his hands as an upside down blue triangle appeared from behind him.
"Hey there kid, I've heard lots of stories about you and your family! LOTS OF 'EM!" Bill's brother said in a menacing tone of voice.
"Oh sorry you can't scream in despair without your cracky voice! Here let me fix it for you!" Bill said snapping his finger giving Dipper his voice back.
"BROTHER!?" Dipper said almost immediately.
"That's right Pi- What do you call him again? Pine Tree! Name's Ben, Ben Cypher! Everything Bill knows? I taught him." Ben said coming closer to Dipper.
"Ben!? There was nothing about you in the Journals!" Dipper said.
"What Journals?" Ben asked.
"So you remember when I told you about that 6-fingered-human that was helping me build a portal to this dimension? Well turns out this kid is his nephew" Bill said.
"Oh right! The know-it-all! I remember him! I might be late to the party like what...? 15? 16 years? I don't believe we ever met!" Ben said.
"And this know-it-all wrote about me and how to summon me and everything, next thing I knew? I was here, but that's not important." Bill said.
"Gotcha!" Ben said pointing at Bill and turning to face Dipper just too close to him as his one eye turned red. "Now listen here kid, I'll break it down to you as easy as I can: Bill here is supposed to rule over this place! And he needs a deal! So what do you say you give up your life force for him so that you can be useful and favorable to our bringing back the Weirdmageddon? There's only one correct answer!" He said with his menacing tone of voice back.
"I'm not scared of you Ben! You all know the rule! You can't touch me out there!" Dipper said.
"True True, but there are all kinds of people at the city that would gladly give anything to have EVERYTHING!" Ben said. "And mark my words Pine tree... When I find this someone, I'll be here with Physical Form! You think what Bill did last time was crazy? Just wait until you know what's inside Ben's mind!" Ben said.
"Hate to bring you these news Pines, but Ben is even more insane than I am!" Bill said getting closer to Dipper. "And when I come back, you can say your family, friends and your very own life GOOD BYE!" Bill said as Dipper fell on the floor looking at both triangles.
"So remember! The clock is going tick-tock Pines, and when this clock stops prepare yourself because no magic or weirdness or pit is going to save you all..." Bill said.
"FROM US!" Both said.
"Hey time's up, back to rock it is" Bill said. "Carry on brother" he continued as he vanished. Ben just floated there and said nothing until he turned to Dipper one last time.
"Hey wanna see my impression of you in about 6 seconds?" Ben said before screaming with his arms up, and just like that, Dipper woke up in the middle of the forest panting after the message from the brothers but satisfied with the prediction being wrong.
"I have to warn everyone!" He said running before running off a ledge and sliding down screaming with his arms up until he reached the bottom. "Ugh... 5 seconds..." he said running back to the Shack from another direction to give them the news, but how were they going to react to these news?
To be continued.
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