Mabel failed at hiding her amusement at her brother's self-inflicted dilemma. He sat there across the room, huddled on the edge of his head, half his head buried in his hands as he gawked at Wendy reclining by the window where he himself would spend hours mulling over mystery after mystery.

"So, yeah, my dad's pretty much like, 'you're eighteen now so you can move out' and I'm like, 'not just yet!'"

"And here you are," Dipper maundered.

Wendy smirked. "Hey, come on now, dude. I'm good company. I promise I won't fiddle with your journals."

"I hid them."

Mabel only grinned, flashing her retainers against her brother's face as he tried to look comfortable with that statement. "You still like her. Right, bro-bro?"

"Mabel, please—" Enough with the infatuation, already, Dipper wanted to say. He was over it. Right?

"Trust me, dude. I won't infringe on your territory." Wendy held up her hand to reinforce her point. "As long as you don't cross into mine."

Dipper could only stare as his two close friends laughed. He was fine with Mabel's glitter and sparkles and paint littering every corner back home in Piedmont. The same was true over here in Gravity Falls. With Wendy, though... He recalled that he had been to her place a few times to watch movies and even he couldn't get used to her stuff lying around. Now he had to deal with this for three months? "You could've at least e-mailed us about...this."

Wendy shrugged. "Sorry but it was all of a sudden, y'know? The house got trashed like a couple days ago. And you know how hard it is to get a good signal up here. Just ask Tambry."

"Trashed?"

"Was it some kind of monster?"

The redhead took in the pairs of glazed charcoal pupils that bore into her. She glossed over Dipper's expression of half-surprise and half-confusion, contrasted with the budding curiosity on Mabel's. "One that made me move in with you guys. But that's a good thing, right?"

Dipper groaned as he took a soft jab to his arm. "You're not going to make this easy for me, huh."

"Aww, broseph, we're not that cruel." Mabel snuck in a wink at Wendy before loosing another chortle. "Besides, we love you."

"Yeah, yeah." Her brother pointed to the laundry basket pressed against the corner. "Just keep your clothes over there, please." If anything, he wouldn't want to find female underwear in his bedsheets. Being fifteen was not easy now that he had to share living space with a girl he used to crush on. But that was years ago. He was long over it. Right? Right.

Wendy stooped over and picked up an article of clothing behind Dipper's bedpost. She held it up against the sunlight beaming through the window, waiting patiently until the little mister Pines went steamy red. "Forgot my bra there by your headrest. Sorry 'bout that."

"This'll be an awesome summer!" Mabel rasped. Lingerie flew across the room and landed in the basket. "Three points for our MVP Wendy Corduroy!"

The redhead angled her head at the male twin. "You do know how to keep your hormones in check, right?"

"Did you have to ask that!?" Dipper bawled, hands sweaty for the first time in a long time.


The squad car pulled up to the dirt path that served as the driveway to the Corduroy home. The three officers made their way across the open yard, passing what remained of the family's RV—now crumpled like a crushed beer can—and rounding the half of the lodge that had been reduced to splintered rubble. They found the hulking lumberjack halving blocks of wood against a weathered stump.

"Mister Corduroy?"

Daniel 'Manly Dan' Corduroy rested his axe over his shoulder as he wiped the sweat off his forehead. "Officers. Didn't expect you to pay me a visit," he boomed.

Deputy Vernon Stonewick flashed him a quick smile. "Well, we're going to need your help if we're going to catch that thing that did this to your house."

Manly Dan glanced at the cop's two subordinates shifting their gazes away from him. If they were intimidated, they were good at not showing it. "Seems like your lackeys are less interested in being here."

Stonewick craned his head behind him and chuckled lightly. "Don't mind them. They're still settling in, after all."

"So how can I help?" the lumberjack offered dryly. "As you can see I'm rebuilding the guest room."

"I thought that was your daughter's room."

"It's the guest room," the lumberjack coolly corrected.

The senior officer had already whipped out his notepad, pen hovering over the citrine page. Might as well ease in slow and steady; Manly Dan looked like he could take all three of them down with his bare hands. "Can you tell me more about this so-called 'Grass-Man'?"

For a moment, Stonewick could read the hints of annoyance on his interviewee. It was brief but two years of police work in Portland made him catch the slightest detail. At least Mister Corduroy was more receptive this time. "What can I say that you don't know?"

"Just your personal observations. Details that you think no one else seems aware of."

"Other than the fact that it has been tearing apart homes that are too far from the main square," Manly Dan spat. He wedged the axe into the ground and sat on the stump. "I don't know what it is. Dead leaves, branches, twigs—hell—maybe even timber that hasn't been chopped up. It's made up of those bits, walking around with legs covered in dry leaves, two arms turning into six on a whim. And it doesn't like people going into the woods, as far as I can see. One mean scary bastard, if you ask me..."


Stonewick was rifling through his notepad when he reached his squad car.

"Well, boss?" Hector Vanchetti asked, square chin up and eyes weighted by lack of sleep.

"Best lead we got."

Horace Benning snickered. "You keep saying that, sir."

Vernon tucked his pages into his front pocket and zipped up his jackets all the way. Even with these boa lining on the sleeves and collar, the air felt a little too chilly for the onset of summer. Weird. Everything in this town was weird. He exhaled and almost caught a breath condensing into vapor off his lips.

"So far, the Grass-Man only hits isolated targets. Homes that are far from the town proper. Usually ones high up, secluded, surrounded by trees. And it uses whatever piece of nature that isn't tied down to wreak havoc."

"The monster's made out of foliage?" Horace mused. "How can you kill that?"

"Fire?" Vanchetti shrugged when the other two threw him glares. "What? Everything can be killed with fire."

"Let's not get too excited here, boys," reined Stonewick. "Stick with what we've got and what we've got is a potential weakness for our woodland terrorist."

"We still don't know what it wants or why it's rampaging around like that," grounded Horace. He paused then simpered at his contemporary. "You think it's related to New York, Heck?"

"I'd rather hope not. Best keep those nut-jobs buried where they fell," came the quick answer.

Vernon eyed his subordinates. "What makes you think there's a connection?"

Benning raised three fingers. "One: the weirdness going on around here; two: that triangle statue that we found on our first week; and three: that underground complex under the town museum. Sir, I suspect there is—or was—a chapter here."

"A chapter of what?"

"The damn cultists," Hector spat.

The deputy circled the vehicle and flicked the keys on the ignition. The engine came to life just as Vanchetti and Benning slipped into the back seat. "Alright. How bad was New York?" he asked over the gravel crumpling underneath the tires.

"It was supposed to be a routine SWAT bust—"

"Damn it, Horse, it wasn't 'routine'!"

"Alright, SWAT was supposed to take down this group. Really peculiar group. It didn't go well."

"Pyrrhic mission," Vanchetti mumbled.

Horace leaned against the mesh separating them from their supervisor. "Sir, it's pretty obvious that Sheriff Blubs is keeping us in the dark here. Everyone from Lazy Susan to the damn mayor is in on this and I don't like it one bit."

"And that triangle statue?" Vernon pressed.

"Boss, that thing—whatever that creepy illuminati crap is—was in New York. We saw it there." To Stonewick, this was the first time he heard the normally brash Vanchetti sounding so shaken. "And it's here chiseled into some kind of sick bust. I'm thoroughly creeped out and if ever that thing is going to come alive—and I've got no doubts that it will—I'm going to blow it up with every stick of dynamite in the evidence locker."

The squad car was silent for a full minute. Vernon thought it through. When they were called to help exterminate some unusually large rodents infesting the town museum, they had to track them to the basement where they had discovered pressure tubes lining the walls and hallways that extended past storage units for relics. Hell, they even found dirty old scarlet robes and a bunch of other odd paraphernalia relating to some mysterious forgotten order.

"This town has a fascination for eyes," he mouthed.

Hector heard him and sounded even more worried. "Is that what everybody's fetish is? Wide-eyed illuminati crap? 'Cause there was a lot of it in New York and it was on a damn triangle."

"With arms, legs, and a top hat," Horace completed.


Vanchetti groans as he pushes the wooden beam off his body. "What the hell..."

"Heck? Heck! Is that you, buddy? You okay?" Benning calls from nearby.

Hector waves away the wisps of smoke and crawls over the unresponsive forms of his fellow SWAT operatives. He picks out Horace's form hunched against the cobbled archway leading to the sanctuary.

"Horse—damn it—what the hell happened?"

"I don't know but everyone's down. Tac is gone," Horace recounts as he grips his silenced carbine hard enough to make his knuckles go pale.

"Radio command. God, are we the only ones..."

"I think we are. Sarge is down. Entry point is blocked. No word from Bravo team. We're trapped in here, Heck."

Vanchetti coughs and waves away the smoke seeping through the cracks above the rubble behind them. He drags his shotgun off the floor and checks the chamber. "We're trapped in here with these lunatics. We're on our own."


ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 19, 2017

LAST EDITED: February 25, 2017

UPLOADED: February 25, 2017

NOTE: Thanks for giving this story an eye. It's mostly inspired by a series of Let's Plays of an old game called SWAT 4. The premise has been juggling in my mind for years until I finally put it down here. Hope you guys are liking this. Constructive criticism is all the more welcome because I'm trying to expand my English vocabulary here.