His stomach groaned. He hadn't eaten all day, but he didn't want to have to stop and waste time. He sighed and shook his head. He had to eat, if he didn't go and eat, he wouldn't be able to function well for long. "You know where Greasy's Diner is?" He asked his cab driver. The driver grunted an affirmative. "Could you head there?" Another grunt. Dipper leaned back, trying to calm his racing heart.

After waking up, he had scrambled to pack a backpack with what he needed, anything that could help him find Mabel. He knew the police in Gravity Falls wouldn't help, they could barely even help themselves.
After packing his backpack, he had payed for a week's stay at the hotel, so that he wouldn't have to worry about most of Mabel's belongings.

"The hell...?" The cab driver muttered. "Huh? What is..." He trailed off as he looked out the window. There was Greasy's Diner. And around it, three police cruisers, lights shining red and blue, and a news van. As soon as the cab pulled to a stop, Dipper paid the driver, and got out, barely even muttering a bye. There were a couple of officers milling about, along with a reporter and cameraman. He decided they'd be easier to talk to than the police. "Uh, excuse me," he called, walking up to the reporter, "what's going on here?"
"Murder." Was the curt answer that he received from the cameraman. "W-what...? W-who?" He asked. Then, his heart sank. What if it's Mabel? His eyes widened.
"Lazy Susan, poor woman... Sounds pretty gruesome, from what I heard from the cops. Burning grease..." The man sighed, and shook his head. Dipper gulped. "Plus the killer left some sort of note, supposedly, written in blood, addressed to someone named kid or something. Least, that's what I overheard." Dipper stared blankly at the cameraman for a moment before saying, "uh, wow, thanks... I'm gonna go see what I can learn for myself..." He quickly walked away from the cameraman who seemed to know a bit more than he should, and towards the police line. It had to be related, it just had to. He looked over at the cruisers and just now noticed that only one of them was from Gravity Falls. The others must of been called in to help out, nothing like this had really happened in Gravity Falls and the incompetent police force would need a lot of help, he reasoned. "Hey!" He called, trying to signal to the nearest officer that he wanted to talk. After a moment, someone began to walk over to him. It was definitely someone from out of town. "What is it?" The man said as he walked over to Dipper. He gulped. He had hoped that someone from the Gravity Falls police department would talk to him, they'd be a lot more easy to convince. "H-hi, I'm ... I'm an amateur reporter, and..." He gulped again,"and I have a report saying that some sort of message was left at the scene... What did it say?" He raised an eyebrow.
"It, uh, look, you're a bit young for all this stuff, aren't you?" Dipper sighed, and shook his head, "no, I'm not, now, please, what did it say?" The policeman sighed, and shook his head, "there'll be a press–"
"Now, please, it could be vital to, uh... public safety," Dipper nearly winced at his inability to think of the right words. "Yeah, okay..." He sighed, "look we're no letting people in, and I don't have it committed to memory. Please, we'll be releasing a photo of the message at the press conference at 5:00 tonight." Dipper thanked the man, and began to walk away from the diner, basically giving up on the prospect of learning what that message was, when he saw the cameraman and the reporter talking to someone, while looking over something on a piece of paper. Dipper crossed his fingers, as he walked over to them. The cameraman noticed him, and introduced him to the reporter, and the officer that was showing them a piece of paper. "Supposedly it's the message, transcribed to look how it looks in there and all," the cameraman said. Dipper stared at the piece of paper for a few minutes before starting to fumble around, trying to get out a piece, "do you mind if I write this down?"
"Not at all, go ahead."
"Thanks..." Dipper took off his backpack, fished a notebook and pencil out, and wrote down the whole message, trying to make it look as close as he could to the transcription.

Hey, hey, kid. Looks like you were a bit later than I was hoping. Hope you get this though, you'll be screwed without it. So, welcome back. Hope you're having a good time.
Ymnqx'e vgef ruzq 12
I'll be seeing you soon, kid.
But I'll leave you with this,
Its so lonely here
Xfqk dlwp mpfg cheyp xhlbo cfkl pyid xfq pyfqeyp, vhpy mqsy i bikel yqcid kfoldp.

Dipper sat on a bench just a little way down the road from Greasy's Diner. He had his notebook resting on his legs and his pen in his mouth, as he stared at the message left for him. He had the first one done, the 12 at the end was more than helpful. It was likely only to prevent the police from trying to tie the name Mabel with someone. It was a major relief for him to hear that she was fine, though he wondered if her kidnappers could really be trusted.
The other one had him stumped for the moment. It had nothing to do with the other, trying to use that to help crack this one resulted in nothing but gibberish. Then something occurred to him, what if something within the message was the key to this one. He grinned. Itsolneyhr he scrawled and started to scribble down letters.

He still couldn't make sense of it. He had deciphered it, but what did it mean by rodent? He sighed. Where was his next stop? Mabel and I were supposed to go and meet up with Soos... Dipper's heart stopped as he leapt up from the bench.
"Oh god! Soos!"

Dzh gszg gll tivzhb uli blf?

AN: Hey again, thanks for reading chapter 2, hope you enjoyed it. And, if you did, please, fav and follow. If you have any suggestions for me, want to praise me, or want to tell me what you don't like, please leave a review, I'll try and improve as best I can. Also, sorry the messages at the end haven't meant much, there's not much that I can think up for them in terms of plot points/hints right now. Thanks again.