Chapter 1: Once In A Lifetime
Viewer POV
Dipper Pines sat on his bed with an ice pack to his cheek. He angrily stared at the floor until his twin sister, Mabel Pines, shows up. She brought a few sweaters with her, looking for her brother's opinion on them. She knew he didn't have THAT good of a fashion taste to her, but wanted to check with him anyway.
"Hey bro-bro! Which one do you think fits me better?" Mabel says as she puts a yellow sweater with a llama on the front and then switched it with a red sweater with a shooting star, with a rainbow following it, in the center of the sweater. She looks over to her brother, as he continues to stare at the ground angrily with bruises on his left cheek.
"Omigosh! What happened?!" She exclaimed while examining the bruises up close. Dipper sighs and looks at his sister sadly. "You REALLY want to know?" he says depressingly. "I'm your sister, Dipper! I've got your back so just tell me!" She ordered in a serious manner. Dipper sighs again as he stands up and looks at Mabel. "Alright. I'll tell you."
(Enter Flashback)
Dipper was walking with Wendy Corduroy, a tall, red-headed lumberjill. Wendy was dressed in a green flannel shirt, a tan lumberjack hat, blue jeans, and rain boots. For the longest time, Dipper had a huge crush on her until a month ago when they finally confronted their feelings for each other. While Dipper admitted to loving Wendy, she only thought of him as a friend.
They come to a stop at Wendy's house. "Hang on, Dipper. I gotta go get something." Wendy said as she walked away. While she was in the house, Dipper stood and went into a "deep thinking" mode. He thought about what Wendy said after they faced the Shapeshifter a month ago. More specifically, about how she said Dipper was "too young" for her. Too young; words that rang in Dipper's head ever since. He was 12 and she was 15. It was hopeless. And Dipper knew that. He hated the idea of never taking it "to the next level" with her. "It's hopeless, you know" said a familiar voice.
Dipper turned around to see Robbie Valentino, Wendy's ex boyfriend. He was dressed in his usual pants and black hoodie with a stitched heart in the center. "Why do you even try, kid?" Robbie asked rhetorically with a smug attitude. "Try what? To actually care about Wendy? Dipper responded with a similar smug attitude. Robbie, who's turned from smug to angry, as steps closer to Dipper and kneels down to his height. "I DO care, Dipper. The thing is I've actually had a chance with her and you haven't and never will." "And soon enough…" Robbie gets closer to Dipper's face. "…I'll do it again." he says as he walks away from Dipper. "I'd like to see you try" Dipper mumbles under his breath. Robbie swings around and decks Dipper in his face.
Dipper falls back on gravel and moans in pain as Robbie is seething with anger. "YOU DIDN'T THINK I'D HEAR YOU, YOU LITTLE BASTARD?!" Robbie screamed as he kicks Dipper in his shin and stomps on his back. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY YARD?!" Wendy screams as she throws Robbie off a writhing Dipper. She picks up a medium-sized rock and chucks it at Robbie's head as he dashes off. She then slowly picks up a wobbly Dipper.
"Thanks" Dipper says while wincing in pain and holding the left side of his face. "You want me to go get some ice for that?" she asks while keeping Dipper from falling over. "I'm good" Dipper manages to say over the pain of his face. "I might have a loose tooth, though." he says while trying to keep a smile on his face for Wendy. She covers her mouth with shock as she looks at Dipper's mouth.
Dipper looks confused until he feels extra liquid come from his mouth. Blood. "It's f-fine" Dipper barely manages to say before falling over and catching himself with one knee and his hand. That's it, Dipper. I'm taking you home" Wendy says as she picks him up and seats him beside her in a golf cart. She knew it was illegal to drive on the road with a golf cart, but she had to get Dipper home.
(End Flashback)
"Wow" Mabel managed to say while being shocked. She's never seen her brother been abused by that. By a human, anyway. "And when I see that…" Dipper said as Mabel looked on in confusion as her brother tries to say something. "…that JACKASS, I'll show him what for!" Dipper exclaimed as his sister sat in shock.
"Dipper! What did Grunkle Stan say about cursing?" Mabel questioned, trying to scold Dipper. "Who cares? He's out probably trying to negotiate/steal something that'll bring in more customers" Dipper says while looking out his weird window. "Hey! Even though that's probably true, you shouldn't talk about Grunkle Stan like that!" Mabel exclaimed but Dipper wasn't listening. He was too interested in being upset.
Mabel suddenly got an idea and smiled widely. Dipper glances over and immediately sighs. "No" he says, already having an idea about where this is going. "Aww come on, Dipper" she pleaded "This could be our only chance to have the house to ourselves! Let's go look in the attic for weird stuff!" She walks up closer to Dipper. "AND I bet if we look hard enough, we can find something that'll help you with your revenge against Robbie" Mabel teasingly said.
"Alright, I guess.." Dipper was interrupted by his sister tackling him. "Oh thank you thank you THANK YOU, Dipper!" She screamed excitedly while accidentally squeezing the life out of him. "Mabel!" Dipper manages to spit out before Mabel lets go and runs out of the room into the hallway. Dipper follows behind trying to cope with catching his breath and new back problems. He sees Mabel bring down a trap door on the roof and an old ladder extending along with it.
Dust follows immediately as Dipper stands beside his sister, waiting to go up the ladder. "Has *cough* no one use this *cough* at all?" Dipper questioned while wiping the dust of the ladder. Despite it being seemingly old and unused, it looked brand new! Mabel ignored this and began scaling the ladder rather quickly. "Come on, Dipper! There's tons of cool stuff up here!" She exclaimed as she disappeared from Dipper's sight. "I'm gonna regret this" he murmurs to himself as he slowly climbs the ladder.
They both make it to the attic and looked around at…a bunch of old attractions. While this was a killjoy for Dipper, this was a breath of fresh air for Mabel. Mabel already was already fascinated by the current, poorly-made attractions down in the shop, so this was like heaven in an attic for her. Dipper was the exact opposite of Mabel when it came to Grunkle Stan's attractions. He thought it was ridiculous that people actually fell for this stuff.
While he skimmed through the different attractions, he started to wonder why Mabel wanted to come up here in the first place. "Why are we here Mabel?" He questioned while Mabel was searching through each box. "I wanted to find a telescope so I could see the moon tonight!"
Dipper laughed at Mabel's statement. "Why do you need a telescope to see the moon?" he asked jokingly. Mabel looked annoyed at her brother's actions as she closed the box she was looking through. "Because the lunar eclipse is tonight and it's cloudy!" Mabel said annoyed. "Why would you be interested in science?" Dipper asked. "Because people say it's beautiful and I want a new design for my sweaters!" she exclaimed sounding annoyed by explaining.
"I'm gonna go downstairs to our room. Meet me when you find a telescope. Or when you get bored. Whichever comes first." Dipper says as he walks around to find the exit. He finds the ladder and begins to climb down when something catches his eye. A crystal-like shard poking out of a white box. Dipper climbs back up the stairs and pulled out the crystal. Apparently the crystal was a decoration on a gold, metal chain like a necklace. Dipper turned the necklace on the other side to reveal a code:
23-1-18-14-9-13-7 20-15 14-5-22-5-18 16-21-20 21-14-4-5-18 13-15-15-14-12-9-7-8-20
This code seemed familiar to Dipper but he couldn't quite figure out why. He searches the box for a decoder or instruction booklet and instead finds a small, but functional, telescope. "Hey Mabel!" He yells. Mabel turns around covered in dust and seems pretty upset. "What Dipper?" she asks while looking through another box. Dipper raises up the telescope to Mabel's delight.
"Thanks, br…" Mabel says happily before she is cut off by Dipper raising the telescope out of her reach. "I did what you wanted and now you do what I want." Dipper said and raised up the crystal, showing the code. "I'll give you the telescope if you help me crack this code. Okay?" Dipper asked knowing he would get a yes. Mabel sighs and says "alright." Dipper gives her the telescope,walk down the ladder, put the entrance up, and they walk to their room.
Dipper brings out his journal and sets the crystal beside it while Mabel changes into non-dusty clothes and sets up her telescope closer to the window and opens it. A draft comes in and it feels like December weather in summer. The pages of the journal flip on their own from the wind and it starts to annoy Dipper. "Can you help me like you promised, Mabel?" he asks in desperation. "Sure" she says in her usual giddy behavior.
She looks through the journal with her brother and looks at every code in it. She also sees descriptions of monsters that she and Dipper have encountered before like gnomes, dinosaurs, etc. and even monsters neither of them have seen before. They check through the book again but this time in ultraviolet light, but nothing helped. Eventually, Dipper got frustrated and put the crystal in the light of the streetlights to see if the answer to the message was in the crystal. Mabel stepped in to try and position it under the light at different angles.
"Maybe you have to read it for it to work" she questioned. Dipper thought "why not?" and started reading it. "23-1-18-14-9-13-7 20-15 14-5-22-5-18 16…" said Dipper as he stopped to look up at the sky.
At that very moment, the lunar eclipse could be seen through the clouds in all its beauty. "Wow!" exclaimed the twins as they saw a blood-like version of the moon. What they didn't know however was that their crystal they were holding was also starting to glow blood-red.
They didn't know until their hands were starting to tingle. They both look down in a mixture of confusion and fear. "What's happeni…" Mabel asks before a huge flash of red light bursts out from the crystal and both twins fall into a sleeping state. The crystal is dropped and rolls under Dipper's bed and fades back to a transparent state.
.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
A few minutes later, at 9:05 p.m., a elderly man in his late 50's or early 60's walks in. "I told you we should have just took it while we had the chance, Stanford." He says while a man who is practically identical to him comes walking in behind. "The whole place had security cameras! You might be used to staying in jail, but I have a reputation and would like it if 'being in jail' was kept off of it" said Stanford with a hint of grudge. Stanford had a more broad voice while Stanley had a raspier voice. "Whatever. Do you wanna check on the kids with me or not?" asked Stanley, extending his hand out to his twin brother. Stanford sighs and walks up the stairs with Stanley.
When they enter they see the kids asleep on the ground, Stanford's journal open along with an ultraviolet light in between the pages, a telescope, and Mabel's dusty clothes in the corner of the room. "How did Journal #1 get here?" Stanford asked while skimming through the pages. "Never mind that now. We gotta get these kids in there beds." Stanley demanded and put Mabel in her bed while Stanford put Dipper in his.
"Ugh. I'm getting too old for this." Stanley said while cracking his back. "Tell me about it" says Stanford as he picks up his journal and Dipper's ultraviolet light. "We'll talk to them in the morning about this. Let's just hope things don't get worse." said Stanley as he and Standford left the room.
(This is my first Gravity Falls fanfiction so sorry if it's a bit boring. Can you decipher the code? What will happen to Mabel and Dipper? Will Robbie ever stop being a douche? Where's Soos and when will he be relevant? Find out this and more in the next chapter! With just one comment including creative criticism or new ideas, you can prevent writers block from happening.)
(I do not own Gravity Falls or its characters and never will.)