The Stranger in Blue

Gravity Falls, Oregon – February 17

Melody and Soos' screams cut through the air as the ground they were standing on gave way beneath them. Snow, earth, and the pieces of the wrecked support beams of the Portal room joined the couple in their descent to the cavern below.

Moments before they fell, Soos had managed to grab hold of Melody's hand. He was still holding her hand as they fell into the chamber, his last thought was wishing that he could fly and get them away from this danger…

"Tula sinome!"

Soos and Melody went "OOF", their fall abruptly cut off by some kind of force (Melody would later describe it like landing on a pillow made of air). The next thing they knew, they started going up, like someone caught them in an invisible net and started reeling them in. Soos looked down and realized that he and Melody were a few feet away from making impact with the floor of the old Portal room.

And then Soos realized what was happening.

"My near-death wish came true!" he cried, twisting himself and Melody around so that he could copy the Superguy pose and fly them out of the cavern. "Up, up, and up there!"

Despite Soos' best efforts, that didn't make them fly out of there faster. They still kept to a moderate floating speed.

"Soos," Melody said, "Is this the anti-gravity thing you told me about months ago?"

Soos looked around them. "This feels like it, but we're the only ones floating."

Melody looked up. "What the…?"

The couple reached the mouth of the hole, which had become bigger after they fell in. A tall, slim figure stood near the mouth of the hole, standing on the metal disc that hovered a foot off the snowy ground. Once they were level with the figure, they realized that it was the one wearing the blue robes, and they were pointing a long blue stick at them. Melody, who was nearer to the stranger, could not see the other person's face, as the hood and light blue scarf covered their features, though Melody thought she could see a pair of eyes from under the hood. Even the hands holding the long stick were covered in gloves of the same light blue hue as the scarf.

The couple were still floating up (Soos forgot to stop doing the Superguy pose) and after reaching a certain height above the hole, the stranger twisted to the right. Melody and Soos cried out in surprise as they felt themselves move in the same direction. They moved several feet away from the hole, and Soos finally stopped doing his Superguy pose to turn around and see that the stranger was also moving away with them.

If anyone decided to choose that time to drop by the Mystery Shack, they would be quite surprised to see two adults floating to the front lot of the Shack, seemingly pulling a floating cloaked stranger with them holding a long stick in their direction. And then that hypothetical person would start running away screaming and round up the townsfolk to form an angry mob. As it was, there was no one else outside the Mystery Shack that afternoon.

The stranger muttered something, and the next thing they knew, Soos and Melody were dropped into a big pile of snowdrift. They scrambled out of the snow, spluttering and shivering and brushing the snow off them. Soos looked around and saw the blue-robed stranger look around the premises.

"Thank you, mysterious hooded stranger!" he said loudly and with great relief. This seem to startle the stranger, who whipped around to look at Soos, pointing the stick at them, making Melody gasp in surprise. It was then that they noticed that the stranger was wielding a very strange-looking stick. The part the stranger was pointing at him looked like a big knot of tree root, but it was powder blue.

After a tense moment, the stranger let out a long breath and lowered the staff. Melody moved to stand beside Soos and asked, "Who are you?"

The stranger responded by pulling down the scarf and lowering the hood, exposing a tumble of dark red hair and the pale oval face of an attractive woman who looked to be in her forties. She looked tense and somewhat abashed.

"My apologies, good people. It has been a very trying day," she said. She spoke with a deep, pleasant voice that had a trace of an accent that neither Soos nor Melody could recognize. She raised her staff in the air and continued, "Greetings! I am Maegella of the Blue Guild. I have entered your world in order to save mine."

Soos clapped his hands to his face. "Holy Toledo, you're a Hoodsassin!"

Maegella put her staff down and stared. "What?"

Melody felt bad for Maegella, who looked thoroughly confused, and intervened. "Sorry, he thought you came from a computer game!"

Maegella's expression did not change when she looked at Melody. Then she surprised the younger woman by smiling in relief and exclaiming, "Thank goodness, a Guild-sister! What a relief to find a friend on this strange plane of existence!"

Now it was Melody's turn to say "What?!" as Maegella zoomed towards Melody on her floating disc and hugged her tightly. "Wait, I'm not from the Gill—Guild, ma'am!"

"Melody, I think it's because of your jacket," Soos said, looking at the scene in placid wonder. To Maegella, he said, "'Scuse me, Miss Mage ma'am. My girlfriend isn't part of your Guild group. She's a member of Earth, like me!"

The older woman pushed Melody away from her and gave the smaller woman a critical look from head to foot. "I see, I should have known; the robe she wears is insufficient in length!" Maegella exclaimed.

Melody looked down at herself: she was wearing her thick, bright blue jacket over her Mystery Shack uniform (moss-green shirt with a darker green question mark in the middle and blue jeans) and looked at Maegella's long flowing blue robes.

Before Melody or Soos could say anything, Maegella let go of the younger woman and looked around and then up at the sky. "I have lost his trail," she muttered angrily, placing her hands on her hips and scowling. Maegella walked away from the puzzled pair as she started to take off what looked like a dark blue backpack hanging off her shoulders (Soos and Melody only noticed it now when she took it off her shoulders) and proceeded to open it and search for something inside.

Melody and Soos looked at each other.

"Uh, pardon me, Miss Mage…" Soos began.

"Maegella," Maegella corrected him, not looking away from her search of the contents in the bag. "Oh, where is it?"

"Okay," said Soos. "Well, would you mind answering a few questions? Like, where did you come from? How did you get here? And who that other hooded dood was you were arguing with before Melody and I dropped into that hole?"

"And what is in our world that you need to save your world?" Melody added worriedly. She had good reason to worry; when she came back from Portland and went to work at the Mystery Shack, Soos told her about everything that happened during the strange and nearly cataclysmic phenomenon that occurred in Gravity Falls back in August, and she sensed that they were witnessing the beginnings of another event like it happening again.

"There it is!"

Soos and Melody jumped as Maegella suddenly straightened up. She stepped off her metal disc and into the snow, leaving the metal disc to float in place. In the palm of her hand, Maegella held what looked like a plain white teacup saucer. She placed a lock of wiry black hair in it, picked up her staff and said, "Manke naa lye autien, Worgel?"

After saying the strange words, she tapped her staff hard on the ground.

Soos and Melody gawped as the saucer started to emit a bright blue light. When the light ebbed, the hair disappeared, but there were now bright blue symbols on the saucer, which seemed to make sense to Maegella, who looked up and turned to the direction of the town.

"There you are, Worgel," Maegella muttered, tucking the glowing saucer into an inner pocket of her robes. She closed the backpack and then hoisted it on her shoulders as she stepped back on the floating disc. She wrapped the scarf around the lower half of her face, put on what looked like thick glasses and pulled her hood over her head.

"Where are you going?!" Melody asked in surprise.

"Can we come with you?" Soos asked hopefully. "We can help!"

Maegella looked back on the pair with a steely gaze. "Please stay here. You need not involve yourselves with this!"

With that, Maegella tapped the floating disc with the heel of her staff and zoomed out into the darkening skies, towards the direction of the town. Soos and Melody looked at each other.

"I'll go get my truck!" Soos yelled as he turned around to get his keys from the Shack.

XXXXX

Before she made it halfway to the destination shown on the Spotting Saucer, Maegella had to land at the edges of the town. The strong icy winds were making flight on the disc impossible to endure and dangerous. She didn't like the experience of being tossed around like a leaf.

She looked down at the Spotting Saucer; she was homing in on her target. It seems that Worgel had gone past this strange-looking village and was heading for the outer edges. Maegella peeked over the disc and looked out at the town of Gravity Falls. These people seem to be fond of block buildings, she thought. Where are their domes?

She shook her head and focused on her mission and her destination. She looked around at the snowy landscape, thinking fast.

"Yala onna lossë lobros!"

In front of her, the snow began to move and shift, rising and forming the shape of an enormous and extremely muscular horse. The snowy beast whinnied and trotted away from a large patch of snow-free earth towards Maegella. The woman grinned as she tapped the disc with the knob end of her staff, which made the disc shrink until it was the size of the palm of her hand. She stuffed the disc into her robes and clambered on the snow-horse.

"Yah!" she yelled, and the great white beast started to gallop. She directed her steed to steer clear of the town, keeping to the margins.

XXXXX

Meanwhile, Soos and Melody were trying to follow Maegella. They were inside Soos' old pickup truck, which had been given a snowplow upgrade thanks to McGucket. The genius hillbilly just appeared a few days ago on the steps of the Mystery Shack with his son Tate.

"Mornin' Soos! What say I go and fix up yer ol' truck before you fellers get snowed in here?"

"Gee, Mr. McGucket, you don't have to…"

"TOO LATE! I done already did it!"

And then McGucket stepped aside to show Soos his newly upgraded truck. The upgrades included the snowplow in front, giant snow tires, and what looked like two flamethrowers on the sides.

"WOW!" said Soos in awe. "My truck looks amazing!" He turned to smile at the bearded old fellow. "Aw, shucks Mr. McGucket. You didn't have to do this."

Old Man McGucket smiled up at Soos. "T'weren't nothing, Soos. I have to do this 'coz I have to watch out fer my friends!"

"Where could she be?" Soos asked, driving as carefully as possible through the storm.

"She looks like she's heading for the outskirts of town," Melody replied, peering out of the window. "Hey, look at that!"

Soos stopped the truck beside the area that Melody was pointing at: among the piles of snow in the general vicinity was a large patch of bare earth and several trees with a suspiciously thin layer of snow. Soos and Melody looked at this patch, then at each other.

"We're getting warmer, dood," Soos muttered as he fired up the truck. "Let's do this!"

They moved on and reached the town. Very few people dared to venture out around this time; Soos started the line of investigation by stopping near Lazy Susan to ask, "Excuse me, but have you seen a blue wizard-lady pass by here on a shiny Frisbee?"

The bewildered woman replied with a "Whaaat?"

"Uh, never mind, sorry!" Melody yelled, and she reached over to close Soos' window. "Let's go ask that guy!"

Soos looked over to where Melody was pointing. "Tad Strange? Sure, why not?"

They drove over to the other side of the street to where Tad Strange was standing. He was wrapped up in a thick black jacket, a thick scarf wrapped around his neck, and wore black earmuffs. In one black-gloved hand, he was holding a bag of groceries.

Melody rolled down her window. "Excuse me, Mr. Strange. You wouldn't happen to have noticed a person wearing a lot of blue pass by here?"

The enigmatically normal Tad smiled up at them and replied, "Actually, I haven't."

Melody frowned.

"But I did see someone wear a lot of black pass through town earlier while I was walking to the grocery store!" Tad continued in his monotonous and cheerful tone of voice. Melody and Soos looked at each other in surprise.

"Did you see where they went, Tad?" Melody asked Tad excitedly.

"And was he riding a Frisbee?" Soos added.

"And are you sure it wasn't the Valentino kid?"

"They went that way," Tad supplied helpfully, pointing to the other side of town. "I don't know who the Valentino kid is, but they look like they were riding on one of Mr. McGucket's inventions. Did you know he invented a rocket-powered sled?"

"Rocket-powered sled?" Melody repeated, confused.

Tad nodded. "It was quite amazing! It looked like a regular snow sled! But it seems like the rocket is Earth-friendly: there wasn't any smoke coming from it! Isn't it exciting?"

Soos and Melody looked at each other. Then they looked out onto the street: the roads were snow-free but shiny, like a layer of ice had formed from the melted snow.

"Uh, that does sound exciting!" Melody said. "Anyway, thanks Mr. Strange!"

"My pleasure," said Tad, waving at them as they drove carefully away. "This has been an eventful day for Tad Strange!"

XXXXX

The outskirts of Gravity Falls

Nearly an hour later, Soos and Melody had reached the end of the half-frozen, half-melted trail on the other side of town. Fortunately, the storm seems to be getting weaker as the sun was setting.

"Aw, man," said Soos. "Where could they be?"

CRASH!

Soos and Melody yelled in surprise as a tree crashed in front of them. Soos frantically turned the steering wheel to turn to the right and hit the brakes.

They just barely hit the fallen tree. However, the proximity to the tree and the parallel position of the truck next to it meant that Soos could not get out from his door. Before they got off the truck, Melody and Soos added a few more layers: gloves, wooly hats (gifts from Mabel last Christmas, along with the sweaters they wore under their jackets) and scarves (also from Mabel). From under the seat, Soos pulled out two baseball bats. He gave one of them to Melody, who took it with a grim expression on her face.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

Melody opened the door and stepped out into the chilly air. After a lot of scrambling over the stick shift, Soos jumped out of the truck. Melody took a flashlight from a pocket of her jacket and turned it on.

ZAP!

A few feet away from where the fallen tree once stood, strange zapping sounds were heard. For every zap, the trees beyond were illuminated from behind. From the red-yellow glows on some parts of the woods, it seems that the fight had ignited a few trees.

"This is not good," Soos said, shaking his head. "They're gonna start a forest fire, Melody!"

"Let's go try and stop them!" said Melody. She and Soos started running towards the fight behind the trees. As they got closer, the zapping sounds and accompanying lights got louder. The voices of the combatants were also becoming more audible.

"You cannot stop me, woman!" a thin, somewhat nasal male voice cried out. "You cannot stop the inevitable!"

"Worgel, you must stop!" yelled another voice, and the Mystery Shack couple recognized Maegella's voice. "The path you and your master follow will lead to our destruction! Think about the consequences!"

ZOW!

Something blasted the top of the thick tree where Soos and Melody were hiding behind. Soos grabbed Melody and pulled her away as a flaming piece of tree crashed down. They landed on the ground, the thick layer of snow cushioning their fall. Looking up, Soos realized it was a spot where there was a large gap between trees. Beyond it, two robed people were fighting in a clearing: one of them was Maegella, her hood off her head, maintaining a fighting stance and holding her blue staff in both hands. The other one was the black-robed man they saw earlier. The one called Worgel also had his hood down. He was shorter than Maegella; he sported a hatchet-shaped face with eyes nearly obscured by impossibly thick eyebrows and his neck-length black hair looked like it wasn't washed regularly. Like Maegella, he also wielded a staff, which seem to be of a dark brown color.

The combatants were so focused on each other, they weren't aware that Soos and Melody were watching them.

Worgel spoke again: "I trust Master Durok. His reasoning is sound! It will save us, not destroy—aaagh!"

While the nasal-voiced man was talking, Maegella had muttered something under her breath and made circle motions with her staff. The snow underneath Worgel started moving up his legs; manacles made from snow shot up from the ground and grabbed his wrists. Worgel started to struggle.

"That is so cool!" Soos proclaimed as he and Melody started to stand. While they were awkwardly trying to gain a foothold, Soos stepped on a stick, unseen under all the snow. CRACK!

The sound distracted Maegella, making her look away from her magical entrapment of Worgel. She spotted Soos and Melody near the trees. "What the-?"

FOOM!

"Aaaaaaah!"

Worgel had thrown something on the ground; a cloud of dark purple smoke erupted between Maegella and Worgel. The thick smoke moved away from Worgel to cover Maegella, forming a cocoon around the woman and making her cough and flail. The only parts that could be seen of Maegella were her feet and the tip of her staff as she struggled to get away from the blinding smoke.

The snow manacles dropped off his wrists as Worgel stepped out of the pile of snow around his feet and turned to look at Soos and Melody, who backed away slowly, raising their baseball bats. The black-robed man grinned, showing off yellowing chiclet teeth. He raised his black staff at them; Soos and Melody dropped their bats as they turned extremely hot. When they dropped to the snow, they caught fire and made the snow around them sizzle.

"Thank you, you strange clumsy people," Worgel said as he waved his staff in the air. Somewhere behind him, a metal disc came flying and zoomed to a spot next to his feet. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go and continue on my mission."

He stepped on the disc beside him and tapped the surface with his staff. The disc began to rise, and when he cleared the tree tops, Worgel zipped out of sight.

XXXXX

Author's Note: This fanfic is turning into an amalgam of other fictions. Maegella's spells are Tolkien Elvish (my apologies to Tolkien fans if they are bad). And no, Tad isn't a secret member of a Guild. He's just regular Tad Strange.