Dipper and Wendy announced the good news immediately. Stan nearly choked on his coffee.
"WHAT?!" he exclaimed. "You're actually having a kid?!"
"Ha! You owe me five dollars, Grunkle Stan!" said Mabel.
"But…I thought Wendy has cancer!" said Stan.
"I do," said Wendy. "There's a surrogate involved."
"Who?" asked Soos.
"Grunkle Ford," said Dipper.
There was a long silence.
"Are you pranking us?" asked Mabel.
"That's not funny, Dipper," said Soos.
"It's not a prank," said Wendy.
"I don't believe you," said Stan. "I told my brother after Weirdmageddon not to do anything dangerous."
"It's true, Stanley," said a voice from the doorway. Everyone jumped, startled.
"You're in on this, too?" asked Stan.
"I would like to believe you…" said Mabel. "But isn't this, like, impossible?"
"Not at all. It became possible when he made a life changing deal with Bill," said Dipper.
"Oh…" said Mabel. "I believe you now."
Everyone silently agreed. Wendy and Dipper smiled.
"Isn't this dangerous?" asked Stan.
The room was silent for a few seconds.
"I'm not sure," said Dipper.
"It's probably not going to be very bad," said Ford calmly.
"Is there something you want to share with us, Grunkle Ford?" said Mabel, switching the subject.
"I want to show you an interesting thing. Would you like to see something cool?" asked Stanford.
Everyone nodded their heads. Ford held up a shiny metal cube with 9 runes on each side.
"What is that?" asked Dipper. He had an angelic glow in his eyes.
"It's a portal to the Void," said Ford.
"What's the Void?" asked Mabel.
Ford's face became serious. "It's a dimension of despair and torture. A horrible goddess lurks there, and she will be able to access our dimension if this portal breaks."
"So it's basically another Rift," said Dipper.
"Yes, but something much more horrible will happen if this breaks," said Ford.
"Why are you you showing this to us?" asked Soos.
"I am showing this to you so you know not to break the portal," said Ford. "If you break the portal, our dimension will be destroyed and we will all die. Please don't break it."
"We won't break it," said Mabel.
Ford was relieved. His family knew about the danger of this portal, and they would stay away from it. He didn't have to worry about it anymore…he could finally focus on Wendy and Dipper's baby.