RAINFALL: the story of how Dipper and Bailey met
Rain cascaded down from the sky, spraying the ground relentlessly with its torrents. The sky was practically blanketed with dark grey clouds that choked out all the previous bright blue. All across the small town of Gravity Falls, Oregon, people were dragging kids inside and turning on the news, checking for word of tornado watch or flash floods. It hadn't rained this hard in years, and people weren't quite sure how to deal with it.
Somewhere in the woods pushed in the furthest corner of the town, a small rickety shack was barely surviving the weather. The rainwater flooded down the windows and into cracks in the walls, pooling on the floor. The roof was constantly dripping with leaks, and that had all the residents and workers of the shack running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to put a bowl or a can under each steady stream. At the Mystery Shack, construction error was pretty common. But as we said earlier, weather like this was almost unheard of. The wind was blowing tree branches all over the grassy parking lot and leaves could be seen gusting through the air like multi-colored tornados.
A certain red-headed teenage girl dashed to the cash register, quickly replacing an overflowing bowl with an empty milk carton. "Mr. Pines," she groaned, turning around to face the old man. "I don't think we can hold out much longer. We gotta patch up the holes before we run out of-"
"We. Are. NOT. Going to run out of bowls," Stan yelled. The rain had everyone stressing out, but Stan Pines was especially nervous that the rain was going to ruin the endless displays of fake cryptids he had set up. "Just dump them out in the sink and put them back!" Wendy groaned again, shuffling over to a jug that was now spouting water right back onto the floor through a hole.
Right then, two kids with matching shades of brown hair came tumbling down the stairs. "WE NEED MORE SHOES!" Mabel Pines yelled, frantically running outside and nagging three pairs of rain boots. Dipper headed in the opposite direction and began snatching Mystery Shack brand coffee mugs off a shelf and tossing them in a box he had tucked under his arm. "Hey!" Stan yelled, pointing at Dipper. "What do you think you're doing, kid?" Dipper tossed the last mug in the box and turned to run back upstairs. "Our room's turning into a lagoon, we need all the containers we can get!" he said defensively, not looking back.
Dipper's foot had just reached the first step when he felt a sharp tug on the box. He spun around to see Grunkle Stan pulling on it angrily. "That's merchandise we need to sell to people, not waste on holding water!"
The two of them were stuck in a weird sort of tug-of-war for a minute before Mabel suddenly came flying back inside, slamming the door behind her. "There's a whole TOUR BUS of people out there!" She squealed. "They're heading inside!"
Dipper, surprised, let go of the box and Stan triumphantly yanked it away.
As Stan began to re-stock the shelves, Dipper ran to the window to look outside. Sure enough, there was a huge blue-and-silver bus parked right outside. An annoyed woman was leaving the bus, marching through the rain towards the door. He stepped away from the window as the woman walked onto the porch, then opened the door. She was soaking wet from head to toe, and didn't look happy about it. She stood in the doorway for a moment, looking around with a strangely disgusted look on her face. When she caught sight of Wendy she walked toward her. "Do you work here?" the woman asked, and Wendy nodded half-heartedly.
Dipper frowned a little, wondering why the woman hadn't figured he worked there. He knew he was a little short for 14, but he should have passed the test.
"Our bus is lost, and we were just notified about a tornado warning. This was the closest public place we could find. Do you think your boss would mind if we crashed here until it blew over?" Wendy shrugged again, switching out a couple of bowls and dumping the first one into a half-filled shoe. "I don't see why not. S'long as they stay in the gift shop, we're having some, uh, water problems in the museum section."
Before Dipper knew it, the gift shop was crammed with confused teenagers. Most of them looked about his age, some a little older. It was really kind of intimidating. They seemed a little smarter than the average person you'd meet in Gravity Falls- he even caught a girl sitting in the corner doing some hard-looking math homework. Of course, as soon as Stan had caught wind of teenagers in the gift shop, he'd put Dipper and Mabel on marketing duty.
Dipper was mostly following Mabel around listening to her convince people to buy stupid merchandise. But as soon as she'd uttered the words "candy section," everyone seemed interested. Dipper ran to man the cash register as kids swarmed it.
He had just finished getting money from a guy buying 16 bags of sour-patch kids when he was approached by an indian girl with a long black braid. "Does this have artificial flavors in it?" she asked, pointing to a stick of rock candy. Dipper shrugged. "Probably." The girl looked at the candy warily, and another girl behind her laughed. "I thought you were vegetarian, Kira, not vegan." The first girl, Kira, crossed her arms. "I'm not vegan Bailey, I'm just picky. But we skipped lunch on the way over here, so I'm going to get it anyway."
Bailey stood to the side as Kira bought the candy, then the two of them (oddly similar dark braids swinging behind their backs) walked over to the corner where a couple more girls were waiting. Dipper leaned across the counter and watched as the kids wandered around the shop, catching a few complaints about marching band. He figured it was probably some high school band kids on a trip.
Suddenly, a huge blast of thunder ripped across the sky, making the merchandise shake on the shelves. Then, without warning, the lights flicked off. Mabel skipped over to the light switch and flicked it a few times, but nothing happened. Dipper glanced at the cash register, and the usual green glow of the numbers was gone. "Power's out," Wendy said from the living room. "Darn, I was watching the season finale of Steven Universe…"
Dipper glanced outside to see that the rain was coming down harder, if possible. Soos had come into the gift shop and was replacing bowls with vases. A couple of kids had screamed when the power went out, and were laughing now. Dipper left the cash register and had started to go upstairs when something caught his eye. There was a girl standing by herself by some magazines, her long, bright blonde hair dyed blue at the end. She wore a black jacket with a red heart on the back, dark skinny jeans, and white converses.
Dipper looked at the back of the girl's head for a really long time, slightly confused. There was something… a little strange about her. After staring at her for even longer, he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.
She turned away from the magazines, then looked him directly in the eye.
She was GORGEOUS.
She had big, lavender eyes and seemingly perfect features. She didn't wear any makeup, but she didn't need any. She just seemed to… glow.
Dipper found that he couldn't quite think straight.
Before he could really think anything else, he felt his legs carrying him over to where she stood. She watched him slightly warily as he walked over to her, but then smiled. "C-can I help you with anything?" he asked, silently cursing himself for stuttering. She laughed. Heck, even her laughs were pretty.
"I don't think so," she said. Turning back to the magazines, she let her hair fall over her face. Dipper peeked in between two locks and saw a small smile her her face. He felt his own face get hot.
"Um…" he began rocking back and forth on his feet. "Some weather we're having." He mentally cursed himself again. Weather? Seriously? How stupid was that?!
She laughed again. "Yeah. I hate storms. They're so scary, you know?" Dipper nodded so fast his hat almost fell off. "Y-yeah, yeah I do! Hate 'em." She grinned. "Really? Where I come from, not a lot of people agree." Dipper frowned. Who in the world wouldn't agree with this girl? "Where do you come from?" he asked, attempting to get on a conversation. The girl leaned against the shelves, glancing back at the group of girls in the corner. "Mississippi," she said. "North River High School. We're the band there. Well-" she flipped her hair and smiled- "I'm also in color guard. I also play the flute, clarinet, and sometimes I have dance solos in our show."
Dipper nodded, even more impressed. This girl sure was talented. She sighed, hanging her head suddenly. "But I'm not very popular here. People bully me because of-" she stopped, blushing suddenly.
"Because of what?"
"It's nothing. I shouldn't have said anything."
Dipper twisted his head around to look her in the eye. "Please tell me, I want to know!" She looked away. "I-I can't. You wouldn't believe me."
Dipper smiled. "Try me."
The girl looked up, then opened her mouth. Suddenly, sirens began to blare from somewhere above. Tornado sirens.
"Alright, everyone into the basement!" Stan yelled above the noise. Dipper was yanked out of the little world he had been in moments before, suddenly remembering that he was surrounded by people and in a really bad storm. Just before being separated by the crowd, Dipper turned back to the girl. "Wait, wait- what's your name?" he called above the voices.
"Kasani!" she called back with a smile before being swallowed by the crowd.
Dipper smiled and turned, following the large group of people into the basement.
The basement was crammed full. There were people sitting on tables and on top of each other. When Dipper walked up to Mabel, he expected her to make fun of him for talking to Kasani, but surprisingly, she didn't say anything about it. She was too busy talking about this one kid who could fit 78 and and a half gummy worms in his mouth ("when he tried to fit the 79th, they went spraying all over the snow globes! It was hilarious!").
Dipper realized after a minute that Kasani had never answered his question. He began wading through people, looking for her. He looked for about 5 minutes to no avail. He walked up to the nearest person and asked if they knew where Kasani was. The guy looked at him funny and shook his head. Dipper tried three more people, but nobody seemed to know who she was. Dipper felt himself getting more and more annoyed. Poor Kasani. She wasn't kidding when she said she wasn't popular.
Dipper finally approached the small group of girls he had seen earlier. "Hi, have any of you seen Kasani around?" he asked, bracing himself for any reaction. Three of them shook their heads, one raised an eyebrow and said "who's Kasani?" and one was totally silent. Dipper shook his head. "You know, Kasani? Kinda tall, blonde hair, plays flute, dances…?"
"Are you sure she's in this group?" Kira asked, looking slightly concerned. Bailey made a funny noise. She slid her backpack off her shoulder and fished through it, pulling out a notebook. She flipped through it, looking confused. She turned to a certain page and thrust it at Dipper. "Does she look like this?" Dipper looked at the drawing scribbled on the page.
Sure enough, there was Kasani, except she was dressed in a fancy costume-looking thing and appeared to be doing a grande jete. The likeliness was a little scary.
"Yep, that's her," said Dipper, looking up at Bailey suspiciously. Bailey looked extremely confused. The five other girls looked at Bailey curiously.
She looked back down at her notebook, flipping one page back and forth repetitively. Then she looked up at Dipper, her eyes narrowed.
"Did you take a page out of this?"
Dipper raised an eyebrow, suddenly very confused. "No?" he said, looking at her notebook. What on earth was she talking about?
"Well then how else do you know about her?" Bailey said, tucking the notebook back inside the backpack.
Dipper shrugged. "I was just talking to her in the gift shop, and she's gone now. Why is this so weird for you? Isn't she in your band?"
As the other girls shook their heads, but Bailey nodded, an increasingly confused and suspicious look growing on her face. The girls and Dipper looked at her, confused. "There's not a girl named Kasani in this band," one girl said, crossing her arms. Bailey shook her head. "No no, she's not in THIS band, she just- ugh. She- well- I made her up! She's an OC! She doesn't exist!"
Dipper frowned. "You shouldn't act like someone doesn't exist. She said you guys bully her-"
"-because she said she was raised by magic wolves," Bailey finished, staring annoyedly at Dipper now. "Are you sure you didn't steal that page? Because I had all that written down word for word-"
"I already told you, I talked to her in the gift shop! She said-"
"I know what she said, I invented her! You can stop now, I'm not falling for-"
"I'm not kidding! I'm not lying to you, you're lying to m-"
"I am NOT lying! You're pranking me and I want you to stop!"
"It's the other way around, you-"
"WILL YOU KIDS KEEP IT DOWN?!"
Dipper jumped, looking across the room. Grunkle Stan was holding two pillows over his ears, glaring at them. Bailey turned bright red and sank down against the wall. Everyone was staring at them now.
Dipper looked back down at Bailey, giving her one last glare before walking away. He wove his way through the crowd again, determined to find Kasani.
He stood at the top of the stairs, overlooking the crowd. There were a few blondes he spotted, but they were mostly boys. And there wasn't a speck of blue hair anywhere. Dipper frowned, thinking. He was Dipper Pines. He had solved countless mysteries before, and he was about to solve another one. He was going to find Kasani… even if it meant he would have to go outside into the storm.
He turned and ran out the door, shutting it behind him.
"Wowww Bailey, I've never seen you get so mad at anyone!" Olivia said, rubbing her dark-skinned arms in the cold of the basement. Bailey still had her arms crossed, the ghost of a scowl on her face. "Hey man, she's protective of her work," Ruby said, wagging a finger. "It's an artist thing."
"I've decided I don't really like Oregon," Bailey said, staring at the ground.
Addison rolled her eyes. "You say that about every place we go on a school trip," she said, sitting down. "And you're just saying that now because of the whole two people from Oregon you've talked to so far haven't liked you."
At that, Madison started laughing. "Man, that lady from the gas station was nuts! Did you see the look on her face when Bailey accidentally walked in front of her car? Did you see BAILEY'S face?" Madison slid against the wall, laughing uncontrollably. "Shush Madison, that wasn't her fault," Olivia said, patting Bailey's knee. Bailey frowned at Madison, who was unfazed.
"…but how did he get it?" Bailey said, staring at where Dipper had been standing moments ago. "My notebook was in my backpack the whole time, I never took it out. And I had my back to the wall almost the whole time, too! I would have felt it if he took it out and put it back in…"
"I think you just have bad luck," Madison said, shaking her head. "She can't have bad luck, he has to have gotten it somehow," said Ruby, sounding ticked. "Why would some stranger go through your backpack just to steal a drawing of some Mary Sue you made up?" Bailey shrugged, now looking more upset than mad. "I don't know. I guess there's not much I can do about it now."
Ruby wrinkled her nose at Bailey, then stood up. "No, no. I'm gonna go find that guy and get that paper. You can stay here and keep being a doormat." With that, she stood and began to walk toward the door. "Ruby, no!" Bailey yelped, standing up. "TORNADO warning, remember?" Bailey ran after Ruby, the two of them racing up the stairs and through the door.
When Dipper ran out the door and onto the porch, the first thing he noticed was that Kasani was standing there. The rain was coming down in sheets, waves of four or five at a time. She should have been soaking wet, but… her hair was blowing in the wind, gracefully and utterly dry. She held her hands up in the air, strange misty smoke rising from them and twisting around in the air, faster and faster…
And just there, whirling around chaotically, was a tornado.
Dipper yelled, but even HE couldn't tell what he'd said above the wind. Then, he realized with a jolt that the tornado wasn't moving. It was perfectly stationary. He looked bewilderedly at Kasani, who had turned her head ever-so-slightly to look at him. Her big lavender eyes were filled with worry. "I-I'm so sorry you had to find out this way," she said, turning back to the tornado. Trees were being lifted off the ground and being pulled into the force of the tornado, swinging around in circles along with countless other loose objects. Dipper had to dodge a random tire that flew past him that had been flung from the tornado.
"What are you doing?" Dipper yelled above the roaring wind and rain. "What are you sorry I'm finding out-?"
Kasani, looking grim, flicked her hands up into the air.
And just like that, the tornado vanished.
The rain continued to pursue, but Dipper stood totally still, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. Kasani turned on her heel and grabbed his wrist, pulling him inside. Once the door to the gift shop had shut behind them, Dipper whirled around to face her. Before he could say anything, she put a finger to his lips.
"I know it's a lot to take in," she said, still looking grim. "I am a guardian. I can control weather and other parts of nature." She sighed, looking at the ground. "I am the youngest of my kind, so they exiled me to live on earth instead of the planet where I was born. Please believe me, and don't bully me like those other kids!"
Dipper just stared.
Right at that moment, Ruby and Bailey burst through the door to the basement and the two of them hurtled into the gift shop. Bailey screeched to a stop but Ruby marched right up to Dipper. "Alright bud, give us that page or I'm telling one of our band leaders you stole from one of us. Or better yet-" she pointed her finger right in between Dipper's eyes "-your BOSS."
Dipper stared at Ruby's finger. Was she REALLY doing this? Did they honestly think he stole some lame drawing from some random girl? "For the last time, I didn't steal your paper!" He said, pushing Ruby's finger away. "Look, here's Kasani right here!" he pointed at the blonde girl, and Ruby followed his gaze. She appeared to be looking right out the window. "Where- what are you pointing to?" Ruby said, looking around and then back at Dipper. Dipper, annoyed, grabbed Kasani's wrists and swung them around in the air. "Her! This girl! Right here!"
Ruby rolled her eyes. "Dude, drop the act. It's getting really annoying and all you're doing is ticking me off." Dipper stared at her in disbelief. He looked at Kasani, who still just looked sad. MAN these kids were mean!
He looked at Bailey to see if she was playing along, but to his surprise, she was staring directly at Kasani with a look of pure confusion on her face. "What in the world…?" she whispered. Everything slowly just spun into confusion. Dipper thought the girls were just pretending to not know who Kasani was as a prank, but one look at Bailey's face told him otherwise. She was genuinely surprised to see Kasani.
"Don't worry too much about them, Dipper," Kasani said to him softly. Somewhere in the background, Dipper noticed that it had stopped raining. "Only other guardians can see me. Well…" she blushed. "That, and my true love is supposed to be able to see me." For a moment, Dipper was confused. That story didn't make any sense. It was completely different from the one she'd told earlier.
Then, the last few words processed in his head, and everything kind of blurred around him. True love? Kasani said Dipper was her true love!
It sort of felt like all his dreams had come true at once. He was vaguely aware that Kasani had taken a step closer, her lightning blue eyes locked on his. He felt himself take a step closer as well. Their faces were getting closer…
"Wait- wait STOP! STOP IT."
Dipper suddenly snapped out of it, everything coming back into sharp focus. His head hurt a little. He turned, expecting to see Ruby looking livid, but instead Bailey was holding him and Kasani apart. She had been the one who'd shouted.
"She's the real Kasani," Bailey said slowly, Ruby raising an eyebrow so high it disappeared in her hair. Bailey looked up, about at eye level with Kasani. "I thought it was a prank of some sort- until you changed colors."
Dipper suddenly stepped back in alarm. She was right. Kasani's hair had turned red, and the tips were no longer blue, but bright pink. Her eyes had turned from lavender to neon blue. Even her jacket had turned into a white tank top.
"This is another thing I can do," Kasani said, almost tragically. "I can change how I look. But sometimes it happens without me telling it to… when I'm in lo-"
Bailey slapped a hand over Kasani's mouth, stifling the end of the word. "Ok seriously, what is going on here?" Dipper suddenly asked, feeling around for the journal in his jacket pocket, pulling it out. Bailey looked at the journal warily, but shook her head. "Ok… I'm not sure HOW, but somehow a character that I made up got turned into a real person," she said, taking her hand away from Kasani's mouth slowly. "I made her to be a Mary Sue. That's like, a female character who's really overpowered and way too important or, like, is totally useless but is just there for romance. Or all four at once. They're usually just made up for fun, but…"
Bailey glanced at Kasani. Kasani smiled sadly. "I knew you would tell them that," she said. "Nobody ever believes me. That and I can tell the future."
Bailey raised her eyebrows. "I didn't… whatever. How are you… here?" Kasani also raised her eyebrows. "I was born on the planet called Sparkopolis. My parents…" she took a deep breath, then let it out. "My parents are- were- the queen and king. Yes!" she broke down sobbing on the floor. "I am the guardian princess! And my parents were killed for having the first female guardian! And I was sent to live in exile on Earth when I turned 16-"
"Hold up," Dipper said, still flipping through the journal to find something (anything!) about this planet. "You said earlier you were sent here because you were the youngest guardian thingy. Not female. Why does the story keep changing?"
Kasani stared at Dipper for five seconds straight before a surprisingly sparkly tear ran down her cheek. "I-I thought… you believed me! I thought… I thought we had something, Dipper!"
One look in those bright amber eyes, and Dipper felt terrible. Of course he needed to be supportive. At that moment all he wanted to do in the world was hug her close and tell her it would be alright-
Dipper felt something whip across his face. He blinked and backed up in surprise, looking around to see that Bailey had slapped him with the journal. Had he dropped it? And Kasani's eyes! They had changed colors AGAIN!
"Dude, she's a Mary Sue. She's *forcing* you to fall in love with her!" Dipper glanced back at Kasani, but Bailey stuck the journal in between their faces. "Don't look at her eyes," she said. "Every time you two make eye contact you zone out for like, five minutes." Dipper looked at Bailey in surprise. It did not feel like it had been that long. "Our love is nothing but genuine! Right, Dipper?" Kasani said firmly, linking her arm with his. Dipper stared at her arm for a few seconds. "Dipper," Kasani coaxed, her voice getting soft. "Right?"
Dipper fought the urge to look at her face. He had been through some weird crud in his life, but though he hated to admit it, nothing had ever been romance related. Well… some had been. But it had always been him having some hopeless puppy love with Wendy or someone. Never someone falling in love with HIM.
He just wanted to believe it was real.
But then a memory slowly seeped into his mind… earlier that day, when he'd seen Kasani for the first time… he'd KNOWN something was off about her. That was before he'd ever made eye contact with her. Then she looked him in the eye, and he never gave it a second thought.
He had to go with instinct.
He pulled his arm away from Kasani's, and she let out a small gasp. "No," she whispered. Then, without another word, she ran out the door. It began to rain just as hard once again.
There was a brief silence.
"I tried to tell you," Bailey finally said. Dipper raised an eyebrow. "And what exactly did you hope to accomplish if you knew I was magically in love with her?" Bailey frowned. "I didn't! I don't know everything. All I thought is that you were pranking me, it was an honest mistake."
"Why are you so slow to trust?"
"We just met! I have no idea who you are!"
"Well I don't know you either, so why are you so quick to blame me?"
"Because it takes a while for me to build trust!"
"See! What did I say! I tried to tell you!"
"Oh, just like I 'TRIED' to warn you about Kasani?"
"You didn't warn me about anything, just jumped to conclusions!"
"I was right to, we don't know each other!"
"Exactly!"
"You are so annoying, geez!"
"I'm not nearly as bad as you a-"
"Will you two SHUT UP ALREADY?!"
Dipper and Bailey turned around in unison to see Ruby standing there. They had both forgotten she was there. "Woah Ruby, did you just hear… uh, all that?" Bailey said awkwardly. Ruby, for the first time since Dipper met her, seemed a little lost. "Uh, all what?"
"All that, uh, talking. And…" Bailey trailed off, pointing to the door. "We had a whole conversation with Kasani. And she went out the door, did you see it open and close?" Ruby stared at the door, then at Bailey, squinting. "All I remember is coming up here, telling you to hand over the paper, and Bailey was like, 'what in the world!' and then I heard a door slam and here we are." Bailey blinked. Dipper stuck his hands in his jacket pocket and started clicking his pen rapidly, just like he always did when he was thinking. "There was at least fifteen minutes in between those two events," he said in confusion.
Ruby shrugged. "Whatever you say, dude. Did the problem happen to work itself out in those fifteen minutes?" She had asked the question sarcastically, but Bailey nodded aggressively. "Yes it did. In a way. Go back in the basement and tell the others we worked it out. I'll be down in a second." Ruby looked at Bailey extremely disbelievingly, but turned and headed back down the stairs.
Bailey exhaled, and Dipper turned to her. "What w-" before he could finish, Bailey pointed at her watch. "It was 6:12 when we came up here," she said. There was a short silence. "And…?" he asked, rolling his hand. Bailey rolled her eyes, then pointed at her watch again. Dipper, confused, took a closer look, then his eyes widened.
Her watch read 6:13.
"Kasani stopped time," Bailey whispered.
After a few minutes, Bailey headed back down into the basement in hopes that her friends wouldn't get suspicious as to why she was gone for so long. According to her, she'd never invented Kasani that she'd had time powers. In fact, at the very beginning, the only powers Bailey had given her was the ability to grow things. Dipper (who was still going through the journal to find ANYTHING about Mary Sues) told her that she could also control weather and nature in general, and Bailey had freaked.
"We have to get rid of her somehow," she'd said. "She's just going to get stronger and stronger the longer she's around. That's what Sues do… and, well, that's kinda what I made her like."
Dipper sat on the counter next to the cash register, still searching through the journal. It had never failed him before, and hopefully it wasn't going to now… though he was almost certain that he'd passed the same page three times now.
He groaned, leaning back and sitting against the cash register. There wasn't a word in the journal about any overpowered teenage girls. The dark sky outside seemed to reflect Dipper's mood.
He turned the page one more time, staring at a page about a duplicating mirror. He glared at the picture of the thing, willing it to reveal some sort of hidden secrets about magical girls. Nothing happened. He took out the blacklight and looked at it again, but all there was was information about where the mirror was and a bunch of measurements. Dipper sighed, closing the book.
And then he suddenly opened it again, realizing something.
According to one of the side notes, the mirror made a copy of whatever was reflecting in it, sort of like the copy machine in the attic. What if someone ELSE stole that piece of paper and put it in front of the mirror? It would have created whatever was on the paper!
But… why would it have made a copy of Kasani instead of the paper itself?
Dipper took a notebook of his own out of his backpack and began scribbling notes down. (1- Mirror of Noitcelfer responsible for Kasani? 2- How did it get the paper in the first place? 3- Why Kasani and not the drawing of her?) Dipper closed the notebook and stuffed it and the journal back in his backpack. The rain was still coming down pretty hard, so he figured he still had a while.
He quietly went down the stairs into the basement, shutting the door behind him. Everyone was pretty much where he'd left them. Mabel, Soos, and Grunkle Stan were all sitting on and old matted rug in the corner playing a game Dipper recognized as Kleptopia. Stan's favorite.
He spotted Bailey in the corner talking to her friends. He wondered if she was trying to explain the whole ordeal to them. He figured it was probably a little weird for her too, seeing as not much of this kind of thing happened in anywhere other than Gravity Falls. He walked over to where Bailey stood and tapped her on the shoulder, and she jumped. She spun around, then sighed as the other girls laughed.
"I'm going out to try and, uh…" Dipper looked back at the other five girls, who were listening with interest. "…try and solve our problem. I'll be back soon, I'll let you know how it went." Bailey nodded, looking at him with a funny expression. "Are you sure you can handle it?" she asked a little quietly.
Dipper blinked, slightly offended. "Of course I can!"
Bailey shrugged. "I'm just sayin'… extremely powerful being, one teenage boy, possible horrible death…"
"I've done this loads of times before."
"But you said you didn't know what a Mary Sue is."
"I mean other things. I've killed a giant vampire bat. And a bunch of gnomes."
"Bluff. That's a bluff."
"You're just saying that cuz you're jealous."
"I'm just SAYING it because-"
"Ok, seriously you two, I am going to SEPARATE you if you don't stop fighting."
Dipper cast Ruby a wary look before turning and heading over to Mabel. He plopped down next to her. "I'm going out to kill an evil teenage girl," he said off-handedly. Mabel tossed the dice and grabbed a blue piece, stuffing it in her pocket before moving her pink one three spaces. "Ok, have fun bro. Where you headed?"
"There's a cave near the bunker."
"Wait, what?"
Mabel spun around to face him, not noticing that Stan had stolen all the cards she had neatly stacked on her side. "I thought we were staying away from there! You said we were gonna stay away from there." Dipper shrugged. "Well, turns out there's this magic mirror thing I have to go destroy. And also it created something evil that I have to destroy as well. So I should probably go do that before it destroys us. Ok?"
Mabel mumbled something under her breath but nodded. "Please be careful, Dip," she said. He grinned. "Hey, you know me. Mister safety. I'll be fine."
As he turned away, he heard Mabel shout in defiance when she noticed her entire financial stock was gone. Dipper headed back up the stairs and into the gift shop, then up the stairs again and into his and Mabel's room. He began tossing random things into his backpack, grabbing a rain jacket and a flashlight on the way out. He skid into the gift shop, then opened the door and ran out into the pouring rain once again.
Bailey watched as Dipper walked out the door. Wondering for a second what he was planning on doing, she turned to look at the girl he had just been talking to. She looked a lot like him with light brown hair and big green eyes, aside from the fact that she was a whole different gender. Maybe they were related.
Bailey's curiosity got the best of her.
She left her friends and waded across the large group of teenagers to the other side of the room, where the girl was packing up some sort of board game. Bailey sat down on a box nearby, her shyness finally catching up to her. But the girl had seen her first and grinned. "Hi, I'm Mabel," she said, holding out a hand. Bailey shook it, wondering when the last time she shook someone's hand was. It had been a while. "I'm Bailey," she said with as much as a smile as she could muster. "Uh, just out of curiosity, are you and Dipper related?"
Mabel's grin widened, then she started laughing so hard that she dropped the box the board game was in and little plastic pieces and paper money went everywhere. Bailey and Mabel dropped down on the floor and began picking them up and dropping them back into the box.
"Yeah, we're related, we're twins!" Mabel said, straightening up holding the box. "Can't you tell?" Bailey nodded, dropping one last card into the box. The game was called Kleptopia. She was sure she'd heard of it somewhere.
"I saw him talking to you, and you two just looked really similar. I was just curious." Bailey shrugged, and Mabel smiled again. Did that girl ever stop? "Yeah, we get that a lot," she said, placing the box on the crate Bailey had previously been sitting on. "Except a lot of people don't believe it because we act so different. He's a nerd and I'm-" she twirled, tossing a handful of glitter into the air (where did it come from?)-"fabulous!" Bailey laughed, watching the shower of sparkles float down where they created a little ring around Mabel that would no doubt be hard to clean up later.
"So you know Dipper, eh?" Mabel said, sitting on the floor in front of her. "Do you know what kind of magical girl he's going to kill?" Bailey raised her eyebrows. So he HAD told her about Kasani. Well, at least a little. "Sort of. He's making me nervous saying that he can KILL her though," Bailey said with a shudder.
Mabel stuck out her tongue and tossed her hand out. "Psh, Dipper? He's killed a giant vampire bat. And some gnomes. He can handle it."
Bailey blinked. So he wasn't bluffing.
"Though I am a liiiiiittle worried," Mabel admitted, twirling some hair around her finger. "He said he's going to a cave near this thing we found once. There's this beast thing that lives there that kind of has it in for us. He tried to kill us and like, all our friends and family a few years ago." Bailey stared at Mabel, trying to soak in what she was telling her. "Isn't that a little… dangerous for a kid in their early teens?" Mabel shrugged. "Probably."
Bailey looked up at the door where Dipper had been moments ago, suddenly getting second thoughts about this whole endeavor. B-but it was fine, it was all ok, Dipper said he could handle it.
Bailey continued to stare at the door.
Then, without another thought, she pulled her raincoat tight around her and grabbed her flashlight out of her backpack. She dashed up the stairs and into the gift shop, trying to ignore the jar of eyeballs that had scared the pants off of her earlier that day. She took a deep, shuddering breath, then flung open the door and sprinted out into the storm.
Dipper cautiously approached the large tree that the bunker was located at. Nothing appeared to be afoot, so he walked past without a second thought. Located behind the tree was a hill, but this was no ordinary hill. There was a veil of vines that hung down from the top that covered the entrance to a cave. Honestly, Dipper had possibly seen the opening before but never had time to check it out. This is just where the journal said the mirror would be.
He had only just approached the veil when he heard loud footsteps among the rain and a voice calling his name.
"Hey, hey Dipper wait!" Bailey panted, finally catching up to him. "Dipper, I really don't think this is a good idea, don't you think we should go back and get someone else to do it?" Dipper raised an eyebrow. "No way, I already told you I could handle it. You were onboard minutes ago, what happened?"
Bailey shook some of the rain out of her hair. Dipper covered his face when water droplets came flying at it. "I was told that it's really dangerous over here. Like, easily life-threateningly dangerous. As in you could DIE. I think we need to find another way to handle it." Dipper frowned, annoyed.
"So? I already told you, I. CAN. HANDLE. THIS. I've done way more than just this, and now that there's a tiny sliver of a chance I could die, you want to quit?"
"Don't act like I'm the one being irrational, this is- like, uh- a suicide mission!"
"It's not that likely…!"
"Not that likely?! Are you really willing to take that chance?"
Before Dipper could spit a comeback, they were interrupted by the sound of an explosion. Both heads whipped around to look back toward the mystery shack- where the rainclouds had turned neon pink.
Without even looking at each other, the two took off running towards it.
After running through trees and hopping over bushes, the two skid into the clearing the mystery shack was settled in. There stood Kasani- well, not stood. Hovered.
She was flying about six feet off the ground, surrounded by a bright turquoise aura that kept changing colors. First blue, then pink, then black (?), then yellow…
The clouds changed colors with her, but that wasn't even the weirdest part. On her back were two huge pure white wings. They seemed to shimmer in the rain with sparkles that came out of nowhere. Kasani had her back turned to them, her hair (now golden and shiny) was flowing in the nonexistent wind.
"So you come back at last," she said, startling Dipper. She hadn't turned around yet. "I knew you would. They always do."
Dipper began to get very uncomfortable. What was she talking about?
He glanced to his right at Bailey, who was staring at Kasani in utter awe. "She really does keep getting more powerful," she whispered. Kasani whipped around, a huge smile etched on her face that seemed a little too… psychotic. "Come on, Bailey! You of all people should know that, seeing as you created me! It was your picture that went into the mirror of Noitcelfer, and do you know what the mirror does?"
Bailey and Dipper looked at each other, slightly confused. The smile on Kasani's face widened. "It reflects the true destiny of the object or person in question, isn't it obvious?" she shouted, her aura glowing only brighter. "The author of that journal didn't know it at the time, so he thought all it did was copy the object! Ha! I cannot be copied. My true destiny is sitting right before you- me!"
Dipper tried to follow everything she said, but then something stuck. "Wait, you know who the author is?" he called up to Kasani. Kasani only smiled, glowing brighter. Her eyes now appeared to be pure gold, her hair long curly locks of the softest pink, just like her skin, which glowed with the light of a thousand beautiful suns, and-
Dipper found himself slapping himself clean across the face. He really had to stop doing that.
Without another thought, he picked up the nearest branch that had been knocked off a tree in the storm and charged at Kasani with it, yelling. Kasani giggled, pushing it away when it got close as if he were trying to tickle her like some sort of cute little game. Dipper yelled, throwing the huge stick at her face. She caught it and it turned into a dove, flying away. "Nice try, Dip," Kasani said with a warm smile. "But you know I am a guardian. I can't be defeated that easily."
"That's because she can't be defeated at all," Bailey breathed, barely audible behind Dipper. He spun around, a look of pure disbelief on his face. "What do you mean?" he yelled, half whining. Bailey didn't reply. She just stared at the ground.
Then she looked up, her eyes wide.
Without a word, she began to run around, picking up rocks and stick and throwing them at Kasani. They would all disintegrate before even getting close to her. Dipper watched, his mouth hanging open slightly. What was she even planning to accomplish by doing this? Bailey chucked one last rock before Kasani finally spoke, laughing. "You two are adorable. Really, all you're doing is bothering me."
Bailey grinned, dropping the branch she had been trying (and failing) to lift.
"I'm sorry to hear that. You can't get rid of us humans, we're just like gum on your shoe, ya know?" Dipper only got more confused.
Bailey crossed her arms. "I swear the only way to get rid of people like us is to send us back in time to ensure we can't get back to you, because we'll be- um… three hours in the past! Heh, you know?" Her voice cracked on the last word, and Dipper saw that her legs were shaking. She must have been really nervous. What on earth was she trying to do?
Kasani smiled. "What a great idea!"
Dipper turned to look at Bailey, the anger practically leaking out of his ears. "What did you DO?" he yelled. Kasani held her hands up in the air, moving her fingers around. "Oh no, I wasn't serious!" Bailey yelled back up at her, clearly horrified. "Please don't-"
Before she could finish, everything vanished in a huge white blast.
When everything came back into focus, all Dipper knew was that they were in the exact same place. But the rain was a drizzle and Kasani was nowhere to be seen. It was still light outside. Before he could ask what was going on, he felt someone grab his arm and start running.
Dipper shook off the hand, spinning around to see Bailey standing a few feet away. "Come on," she hissed, gesturing to the dirt road.
Uh, what.
"What happened?" Dipper asked, but Bailey shushed him. "Be quiet, don't let anyone hear you! Follow me! I'll explain on the way!" She turned and began to run down the road. Dipper rolled his eyes, then began to fall into step behind her.
The two had been running for maybe five minutes before Dipper stopped, slumping against a tree. "Enough with the suspense, can you tell me what we're doing now?" he asked in aggravation. Bailey looked at her watch, pursed her lips, then sat down next to him.
"I got Kasani to send us back on purpose," Bailey said, a strange little smirk playing at her lips. "I had to make it convincing. She brought us back to exactly 3:14 in the afternoon earlier today. We're gonna make sure Kasani is never made."
Dipper blinked at her. "Please tell me you thought of more than that."
Bailey groaned, standing up again. "I just got a slightly evil overpowered teenage girl to send us back in time against her will to carry out a plan I made up in five seconds, and you're not impressed at all?" Dipper shrugged. "I've done time travel before. Been there, done th-"
Before he could finish, Bailey yanked his wrist so that he was standing and pulled him again so that the two of them were running down the road. She glared straight ahead and Dipper panted, catching up to her. "Geez sorry, just saying. Where are we going?"
Bailey was panting too, and he could see something showing up in the distance. The rain started coming down harder. "An obscure gas station," she called to him over the pounding footfalls and rain. "It's called 'Jonnie's.' It's also where my bus stopped for a bathroom break, right after I drew Kasani for the first time. We can probably get ahold of that page and make sure it never gets to the mirror."
Dipper nodded as the gas station came into view, a big blue and silver bus parked outside of it. There was a small group of kids huddled around the vending machine and another one of about three people walking toward the bus. Dipper and Bailey hid behind a tree, watching.
A fourth person came dashing out of the gas station behind the group of three people, clearly not noticing the car pulling out of a parking space right in front of them. They bumped into the fender, almost tripping over it. The woman driving, now illuminated by the headlights she turned on, was raving, flailing her arms around and yelling things at the girl Dipper now recognized to be Bailey.
Past Bailey took off running back toward the bus, looking embarrassed and scared as the car drove away. One of the girls standing in the bus doorway was laughing her head off.
Next to Dipper, present Bailey grumbled something about Madison.
She began to unbraid her hair, pulling it over her eyes. She reached up and snatched Dipper's hat off his head, stuffing it in her backpack where she also pulled out a pair of sunglasses. She put them on, looking at Dipper's face and giggling.
"We're gonna have to get in there. We need disguises." Dipper frowned as Bailey began to step over some thorny bushes toward the bus. "I don't! You'd never seen me at this point in time!" Bailey shook her head. "I WILL, though. i don't need to recognize that hat later."
As Dipper followed her toward the bus, he paused. "What's wrong with my hat?"
Bailey motioned for him to keep following her, so he did begrudgingly.
The two of them boarded the bus as inconspicuously as possible, Dipper scanning the seats for past Bailey. He spotted her in the back, sitting by herself with an empty seat behind her. Present Bailey shot Dipper a look, and the two of them headed towards it. Thankfully, past Bailey didn't even look at them. She had headphones in and was drawing something. Dipper and present Bailey sat down in the seats behind her, and Dipper glanced between the seats to look at what it was. It was the very same drawing she'd shown him earlier (later?) of Kasani doing a fancy ballet jump. She looked so innocent.
The bus began to move, and Dipper gave Bailey a startled look. She shook her head, pointing to the notebook. Past Bailey had just turned back the page to look at the previous one- a profile picture of Kasani with notes scribbled all around it. Dipper spotted one that said "guardian, banished from planet Glittertopia for being a princess (? think more about that later)" and another that said "is in a relationship with every boy in band." So he WASN'T the only one.
"Keep an eye on it," present Bailey whispered just as the real storm began. A huge crack of thunder broke, and the rain was coming down in buckets. Past Bailey, annoyed, looked up as rain began pouring through her open window. It was soaking the blanket she was tangled up in. She sat up, balancing the notebook on her knee as she twisted up to grab either sides of the window.
Just as she pulled the window down, a huge gust of wind blew through via another open window, blowing the pages of her notebook. The window came down on top of the open book, trapping one certain page underneath it. Bailey, not looking, had turned around to tell someone to close the other window as she yanked the notebook. The page ripped out on the other side of the closed window and floated away in the wind.
Dipper jabbed Bailey with his elbow urgently, and she nodded. "I know, I saw, I saw!" she whispered. The two of them pressed their faces to the window, but the paper was nowhere in sight. "What do we do, we can't jump out of a moving bus!" Bailey whimpered. Dipper looked around, then looked down. Emergency exit!
He yanked the red lever, and an alarm went off. The bus screeched to a stop. Present Bailey glared at Dipper. "You idiot, now we're going to get busted!" she hissed, but Dipper shook his head. He pushed open the window, grabbed Bailey's hand, and the two of them tumbled out onto the muddy road. It was his turn to take off running into the trees with Bailey on his heels.
The two of them hid in the bush, listening to the bus driver yelling. They only caught bits and pieces, but they got the gist. No pulling the emergency lever unless there is an emergency. Who was sitting behind you? No idea, didn't know them. Must have been stowaways. Might as well keep moving.
Miraculously, the bus began to move again, driving away and out of sight. "Nice move, but seriously that was close," Bailey said to Dipper, wringing her hair out and taking the glasses off. She stuffed the glasses into her bag and handed him his hat. He put it back on, grinning. "Thanks, I try," he said, leading her back onto the street and back the direction that they came from.
About forty yards away, they found the paper lying under a tree on the side of the road, wet and smudged but otherwise intact. Dipper had just caught a gnome about to pick it up, so he kicked it and it went running the opposite direction. Dipper picked up the paper, turning to Bailey. She was still watching the gnome running off. "What in SAM HILL was that?" she asked as it ran back into the woods. Dipper shook his head. "If you're gonna be in Gravity Falls, you gotta get used to weird stuff, ok?" Bailey nodded quickly, taking the paper.
"Time to stop everything I started," she said with a little smile, holding the paper on either end, about to tear. Her hand had moved ever-so-slightly before something very urgent occurred to Dipper. "Wait no stop!" he yelled, snatching the paper back. "How are we going to get back?"
Bailey paused, her eyes wide. "I hadn't thought of that."
The two of them stared at the paper for a second. "Maybe we can just wait it out?" Bailey said quietly. "I mean like, we've only got about three hours or so until it gets to be what time we left. Right?"
Dipper shook his head. "Then there would be two of us both. We need Kasani to get back to right where we left off. The timeline where we would have JUST left to come back here. You follow?"
Bailey nodded. "Are you saying we're going to make Kasani? Are we not here to get rid of her?"
Dipper nodded, thinking. Then an idea occurred to him. "I got something," he said, motioning for her to follow him. "Come on, I'll show you."
It didn't take them long to get to the cave outside the bunker, but the suspense made it feel like hours. Dipper held open the canopy of vines as Bailey crawled in, then he crawled in behind her. The two of them stepped into the dark and damp cave, looking around. Dipper spotted an odd magenta glow coming from somewhere ahead, so they cautiously walked towards it, flashlights guiding them around puddles and stalagmites.
As soon as they entered the small cavern, Dipper knew they were in the right place. Bright magenta quartz covered every inch of the walls and there, right on the other side of the small room among several strange craters, stood a tall mirror with a silver decorative rim. The mirror of Noitcelfer.
Bailey handed the paper to Dipper, and he approached the mirror. Careful not to stand in front of it for too long, he dropped the paper on the ground before it and backed away. The mirror began to glow, lighting up the quartz on the wall like tiny lava lamps.
Then, just like that, Kasani stood before them.
She looked exactly like she did the first time Dipper had seen her, with the black jacket and long blonde and blue hair. He assumed she had lavender eyes, but he never looked to check. "H-hello," Kasani said shyly, waving. "Who are you?" Dipper opened his mouth, then closed it. "We are a couple of humans who need your assistance," Bailey said, stepping forward. "Could you send us forward in time uh, exactly three hours and 44 minutes? To the timeline I'm thinking of right now?" Kasani stared at Bailey for a moment, then frowned. "How did you know I could time travel? And read minds? Are you with the-"
"No, no we're not," Dipper interrupted, glancing at the paper on the ground. "We just… reeeeally need your help. Really." Kasani frowned for a minute, then smiled warmly. Dipper was getting pretty tired of that smile.
"Of course I can. I love to help people, especially helpless little humans." She smiled in the most kawaii way, but Bailey shuddered next to Dipper. Kasani held her hands in the air, moving her fingers in the same way Dipper had seen her do earlier. Then, there was the familiar white flash.
Dipper blinked away the spots, then looked around. They were in front of the mystery shack. No Kasani. Even the rain was letting up a little.
Dipper glanced at Bailey, who had spun around to stare at him. "She's gone! What did you do?" Dipper held up the pen he'd had in his jacket pocket the whole time. "I added a little note to the paper," he said with a grin. "Kasani erases from the universe in every timeline after using time travel powers." Bailey stared at him for a full seven seconds before smiling bigger than he'd ever seen her smile. "Woah. Dude, that's smart! That way she had no choice! She was created that way!"
Dipper grinned again, walking toward the Mystery Shack. Mabel was so going to hear about this one.
After about thirty minutes, one of the bandleaders got an all-clear to keep traveling, so everyone was out of the basement and boarding the bus. Bailey, Dipper, and Mabel all stood on the porch. Dipper had finally finished explaining, and Mabel was bombarding him with questions. "How come you two could see her and no one else?" she gushed, kicking around the water in a puddle on the porch. It had finally stopped raining and everyone was taking advantage of it, running back and forth to put their stuff back on the bus and hang out with friends in the fresh air.
"Huh," Bailey said staring at the ground. "I'm not sure. The book thing Dipper has said that only the creator of the object/person can see the reflection, and that creator is me." Dipper blinked, thinking. Then it hit him.
"But I created her too!" he said, startling the girls. "I was the one who used the mirror to make her, not to mention I helped create her by adding an attribute to her description! We're both Kasani's creators!"
Bailey laughed, crossing her arms. "You're right, that's insane!"
Mabel looked out at the small area where Kasani had had a mini-battle with Dipper and Bailey. There were still branches everywhere, one of them having a dove sitting on it contentedly. "So she's gone? For good?"
Dipper nodded. "Thanks to yours truly."
Bailey frowned, turning to look at him. "Wait, why is she gone? Isn't this an alternate timeline from the one where we made her in the mirror and she died because she used time powers?"
"Well yeah."
"Well why is she gone then? In this timeline we never added that attribute!"
"I told you, I added that she would erase from every timeline!"
"Are you sure you said that? I don't remember you saying-"
"Well I did, so shut up."
"You shut up."
"You-"
"YOU TWO REALLY NEED TO STOP!"
Startled, Bailey and Dipper turned to see that Mabel and Ruby had yelled at the exact same time. The four of them laughed, and Dipper glanced up at Bailey. She had never re-braided her hair from earlier, and her hair was still wet from the rain. She grinned at him.
"The bus is about to leave," Ruby said, addressing Bailey. Bailey nodded, grabbing her bag from a nearby rocking chair and slinging it over her shoulder. She turned to look back at Dipper, still smiling a little.
"I guess I gotta go," she said, sticking her hands in her jacket pocket.
Dipper nodded. "Good job today, by the way. You did good for someone with no experience with Gravity Falls."
Bailey laughed, turning to go to the bus. "Thanks, Dipper. See ya…?"
The two of them looked at each other for a moment, and Dipper shrugged. "Hopefully if you ever come back to Oregon, we will see each other. You gotta come visit sometime when there isn't an evil Mary Sue rampaging the town."
Bailey laughed one last time before walking toward the bus. "Bye!"
Dipper watched as she boarded the bus, heading back to the very same seat she'd been sitting in mere hours ago, though it felt like days. Dipper waved at her in the window.
As the bus pulled away and drove out of sight, Dipper smiled.
He appeared to have gained a friend.