A/N: This is a longer chapter for you. Don't worry- I haven't abandoned Dæmons yet, I just needed to write this, and didn't have the time to work on that. Constructive criticism (and reviews in general) is appreciated. Enjoy!

May was sitting on the bus, staring out the window. When her friend invited her to her family's beach house over the summer, she accepted, thinking that it was going to be a normal vacation. But over the summer, her whole world had flipped. And that summer was one of the best summers of her life, despite the fact that she was getting nightmares after some of what they'd been through.

She felt kind of pitiful for Dipper and Mabel- they didn't get to explore the beautiful, odd town of Clora Clora. Instead, they had to go to the small, boring, and probably ugly borough of Gravity Falls. While she was fighting sea monsters and bleaching and dying her hair a nice ocean blue fading into blond, they were working at their great uncle's tourist trap.

May touched the pin on her shirt. As it turned out, she was the magical wielder of a magic sword and was fated to help defeat the Somanak, a giant sea monster whose life goal was to take over Clora Clora (and possibly the world). The thing even had an army!

The pin was the sword in disguise, so as to not attract suspicion. Lana had said that it was to protect her, just in case. But it couldn't protect her from the nightmares that came from as gruesome a battle as the one they fought.

But not only nightmares plagued May. The Somanak's last words also haunted her- they were clearly a prophecy, but what it meant, she didn't know. But she could still remember them clearly;

The Gemini, both young and old,

Shall come to defeat

The Beast with One Eye,

When the sky rips asunder.

And the fate of a bearer

Will be entwined with the young

And both shall vanquish evil,

Both of the forest and sea.

It had something to with one of the sword bearers meeting a younger set of twins who had defeated some kind of monster with one eye, and them defeating some kind of evil- that she knew. But 'when the sky rips asunder'? That made no sense. And what about the old twins? They had something to do with it. And 'evil of both the forest and sea' made enough sense- it just meant that the evil was from both the ocean and woods, but it made no sense other than that.

Overall, the summer was tiring. And Lana wouldn't be back for another week- she had to stay and make sure nothing horrible happened and that everyone would be okay. But it was amazing- May made new friends, gained more interest in life, and learned that it was okay if the most important people in your life didn't have to be your biological family.

Of course, she loved her family, but it felt like she always had to love that one great-uncle or second cousin once removed that she barely knew. Soon, the bus arrived near Piedmont. Her stop. She picked up her suitcases and got off the bus. After the bus puttered away, May stretched out her legs.

Turning around, she saw Dipper in a beige fur trapper's hat. At least, that was probably what it was. But the most surprising thing was the pink, squirming blob in Mabel's arms. "We'll think about it. But don't get your hopes up- you're fighting a losing battle," May's mother warned. "Hey, I want to keep the pig, too! You're the one fighting a losing battle, honey, admit it," her father said.

Then, Dipper noticed her. "Hey, who is tha- oh. May? What did you do to your hair?" Everyone turned. "Hey," May said. Her mother was on her in an instant. "Oh, sweetie, what did you do? It's pretty, but why?" Mabel dropped the pig and rushed over too. "Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh! It's so pretty! How did you do it!?" Her mother sighed. "Well, we should probably go home now. Between my younger daughter bringing home a pig and my older dying her hair crazy colors, I've had a long day."

During the drive home, May couldn't help but notice that something was different about the twins. They stared out the window, almost like they missed Gravity Falls. Nah, they were just sad summer was over. "So, you must have some stories to tell. After all, you did spend a while away. How about you tell us what happened?" Their mother broke the silence, her dark brown curls bobbing up and down.

"Well… the forest was nice. There were loads of trees, and I saw a few deer! I think I saw mountain lion roaming around, too!" Mabel remarked. "Yeah, and Grunkle Stan was a lot nicer than he seemed. Working in the Shack wasn't fun, but we did a lot of other stuff that was fun," Dipper added. "Well, what about you, May? You and Lana probably had lots of fun as well." May thought about it. Well, the beach was pretty, and she supposed she could say that without revealing that her summer was, in truth, really dangerous.

"The beach was beautiful. We swam in the ocean a bit. It was nice." Yeah, that sounded okay. A few more minutes of silence before they pulled into the driveway and got out to eat dinner. Once May was through the front door, she was hit by the smell of baked ziti and apple pie. She took off her shoes and raced to the dinner table, served herself some ziti, and dug in. It wasn't as good as Lana's grandmother's lasagna, but she was hungry, and it was still pretty great.

Mom, Dad, Dipper, and Mabel walked in to see May stuffing herself with baked ziti. May looked up from her plate. "Oh… Sorry? I'm just really hungry and this smelled good." "Don't worry. We're all hungry," her mother said.

Soon, they were all eating dinner. "I didn't realize how much I missed your cooking. Or how bad Grunkle Stan's is," Dipper commented. "Yeah," Mabel agreed. The pig scratched at Mabel's chair leg and oinked. "Oh yeah, you were on a bus for a few hours! C'mon, let's go before you pee all over the floor or something gross like that." Mabel skipped off with Waddles.

After Mabel came back, May asked, "Well, you've got a pig. Where did you get him? And, Dipper, what's with the hat? Last I saw you, you were still wearing that ol' camo cap from fifth grade." May was convinced that Gravity Falls was the most boring place on the great marble that is the Earth, but the twins had came back with a trapper hat and a pig. Of course, the hat could be explained- they'd gone to a logging town, maybe he'd gotten it as a souvenir because he'd outgrown his old hat. Yeah, okay. But what about the pig?

May was barely registering the story of how Mabel got Waddles and how Dipper got the hat. She was lost in her own thoughts and baked pasta. She was tired, and all she wanted was to eat some of the pie she smelled, take a nice, hot, shower, and sleep. Then dinner was over and they all went to take showers.

As May was taking her shower, she couldn't help but see the scars that littered her body. The fights she'd been in over the summer… weren't pretty. The time her sword slipped, when she got too close to that razor shark… May began mentally listing where she got each of her scars.

When May had finally gotten to bed, she was pretty sure that she'd be asleep by the time her head hit her pillow. Her bones felt like lead, and her brain was foggier than the middle of Niagara Falls. As she fell asleep, something deep inside her shifted, longing for the place it came from, knowing only that it didn't belong here…

Sara and Alex Pines laid in bed, holding the unrolled ancient parchment scroll between them. It showed a picture of a great six-legged beast about a hundred meters in height fighting a group of ten humans wielding wands. "You know we're going to have to tell the kids about magic and the supernatural someday, Alex," said Sara. "Yeah… but I still think they're too young. Also, look at what I found."

He waved his hand across the parchment, and the scene changed- now it showed five teenagers with swords fighting a giant sea monster. "Doesn't it only do things like that when good came close to losing?" asked Sara. Alex nodded. "Yes. And look at this." When he waved his hand across the parchment again, it showed a house on legs, a dinosaur trapped in amber as an arm, fighting what seemed to be a giant loaf of bread made of rock on legs. A floating pyramid loomed ominously in the background.

"Three times? The once was bad enough, then a second time and now a third? We really ought to prepare the kids for this kind of thing, Alex!" whisper-yelled Sara. Alex dragged a hand down his face. "I know, I know… Luckily, this the last one. But can we talk more about this subject tomorrow? I'm tired." Sara huffed. "Fine. But you're not getting out of this." Alex smiled. "Thanks, honey."

May stood on the porch overlooking the beach and ocean, Sword of Life in her right hand. The golden hummingbird-mockingjay-from-The-Hunger-Games-covers cross resting between the blade and hilt seemed to buzz with excitement- or maybe it was nervousness.

Lana stood on May's left, holding the Sword of the Sea with her left hand. "Well, this is it. The battle that decides the world's fate. And it's being fought by a bunch of teenagers. My mother always said that the future of the world was in our hands, but I didn't think she meant this," commented Lana.

May snorted. Leave it up to Lana to be ridiculous in the most dire of circumstances. "Well, I don't know about you, but I think we shouldn't hold this off any longer. I've been dying to work with these new flower powers," grinned May.

Then they were on the beach, the Somanak standing tall above them, his mottled gray skin looking like dark marble in the sunlight. The tide of battle turned quickly- why, May didn't know, only that it was, and that it wasn't in their favor.

May watched in horror as her friends were trapped, imprisoned in nets of sea water that Lana couldn't bend and that Amelia couldn't blow away. Then, the Somanak spoke. "Well, look at this! You couldn't save your friends, and now they have no chance!" May began to yell something back, anything, but a large fin slapped her. She coughed and saw blood and teeth. Lots of it, lots of them. Too much, too many.

She was dying. She didn't know how she knew. She just did. All of the fight came out of her as she dropped to the ground. "Well, now, that's much better, I'd think," the Somanak purred. "But I think that I should kill your friends before you die, make you pay for your actions a bit more before you die, hmm?" May closed her eyes, but she couldn't keep out the screams, the pain… She sobbed silently, knowing that the people she trusted with her life were dying because of her. And she couldn't take it. She couldn't take it, she couldn't take it, she couldn't take it…

"Well, that was fun! And now, I think I'm ready to make your death a bit more painful…" The Somanak's voice rang clear, and there lay May, silently sobbing, waiting for the pain to come…

…but it never did. May shot up in her bed with a shriek, heart pounding. She took deep, shaking breaths in a feeble attempt to calm herself down. It was just another nightmare, she reminded herself. She'd calmed down from these before. She leaned against the wall by her bed, trying to calm down. But… she could swear she heard something from the twins' room.

"No… no… kill me, not Mabel- I couldn't- I couldn't… please… no, no, NO!" She could hear Dipper screaming, and then sobbing as if the world was ending. That was weird.

May sighed. As much as the twins bugged her and could make her life miserable, she loved them, and wanted them to be happy. Silently getting up, May slipped out of her room, and tip-toed the fifteen feet to Dipper and Mabel's room. Luckily, the door was unlocked. May opened the door. She saw Mabel cradling Dipper in her arms, apparently comforting him. As the door creaked, they looked up, shocked to see her.

May leaned on the door frame, putting one foot on it. "So, Dipper. I heard you muttering to yourself. Unless a killer managed to somehow teleport here, then teleport away, I'd say you had a nightmare. Mind telling me what it was about?"

Mabel looked up at May. "Not unless you tell us what your nightmare was about." May furrowed her brow. How did she know that? "Why do you think I had a nightmare? I might've just been trying to get back to sleep when I heard." "I woke up to go to the bathroom, and when I came back, I heard you screaming and sobbing. I would've come and helped, but I had to help Dipper when he started having a nightmare," replied Mabel.

May sat down on Mabel's bed. "Well, I'm not telling you if you don't you don't tell me first." Mabel looked down "Promise you won't tell Mom and Dad?" asked Mabel. That was a bit concerning, but May didn't really want her parents to find out what happened, either. But she should still ask why. "Why? Maybe it's something that they should know." Dipper finally spoke up. "Because… the wrong person could get blamed for it, or maybe we would never get to go back to Gravity Falls."

Go back to Gravity Falls? Wasn't it supposed to be really boring? Sure, something nightmare-ish must've happened there, but the town couldn't have interesting enough to want to go back. And why were they scared that anyone was going to get blamed? Well, either way, if she wanted to find out, she had to promise. "Okay. I promise that I won't tell Mom and Dad. Now, can you tell me what the nightmare was about?"

Dipper took a deep breath. "Weirdmaggedon." May stared. That sounded a whole lot like "Armageddon", but different. So, it was an apocalypse, but that was all she knew. Why did no one notice? Why did it happen? How did it happen? Who caused it?

Dipper must have noticed her blank look, because then he said, "Oh. Right. You wouldn't know what that is. But you can probably guess that it's a really weird apocalypse. And you said that you would tell us what your nightmare was about?" Mabel nodded, agreeing. "Yeah. Can you tell us now?"

May really didn't want to tell them about it. But she could keep her word. She didn't have to say much- Dipper only said one word. "Giant sea monster," May eventually replied. They nodded. After a few minutes of silence, Mabel spoke up. "Wow. We both had pretty cray-cray summers, huh?" Dipper and May nodded. "I want to know how you met a giant sea monster," she remarked.

"And I want to know how you ended up in the apocalypse. How about this- tomorrow, we sit down and share what happened to us this summer. Does that sound okay?" Dipper nodded. "As long as we don't tell Mom and Dad." That sounded good to May.

They'd find out about the insane summer she'd had tomorrow.

Time to start unraveling it.

A/N: This took so long to write. Chapters this long probably won't be the norm. I'm not sure I could handle it. I also had to do a lot of revising. If you're wondering where Waddles is during that last scene, then he's lying next to Dipper and Mabel.