Chapter 2: Deep Cover in the Unknown

-Rana POV—

I'm finally in Gravity Falls. My family and friends are all a world away. I still can't believe that Mrs. Matthews just decided that I only need a day to get ready. I haven't had enough training to come here yet. I'm only a kid! No. Mrs. Matthews knows what she's doing. She sent me to Gravity Falls because she thinks I can handle it.

It was true, too. As long as I could keep him in check, this mission is going to be simple. I just needed to keep the twins occupied.

I took a look at my surroundings. The portal had opened onto the bus to Gravity Falls. Luckily, I didn't think that the driver saw. There was no one else there. It was just the oversized, bald driver, and I. I suddenly realized that I was in the middle of the aisle, and the driver was currently looking at me like some kind of criminal.

I sat down, my cheeks turning a little red. I saw that we must've been a few stops away from where the twins would soon get on. The next thing I did, and I know that this isn't very exciting, I simply waited. There was nothing else for me to do until the twins arrived. I went over my cover story a million times as I sat.

Stan and Ford were going to be coming back for the summer, too, so I used them a little in my cover story. Ford currently thought that I was coming so that he could help me learn more about Bill Cipher. My family had been tormented by him for the past few years and we simply wanted Ford to help us defeat the stupid, annoying triangle once and for all.

This was partially true. My family had been tormented. I was planning on defeating that stupid demon this summer. I just didn't plan on letting anyone help. I also had to, all the while, make sure that he didn't go after the twins again.

The bus doors opened, and the twins climbed in. It was time. Dipper saw me, and looked a little confused. He walked up to the seat across from me, absentmindedly. The poor kid was trying to avoid eye contact. Mabel, on the other hand, immediately looked at me and smiled. She headed straight for me.

"So, where are you going?"

I looked her up and down. This was really happening! Mabel Pines was actually talking to me! I made sure that this was really her. Yep. It was the same brown hair, the same weird attitude, the same style, her pink shooting star sweater, with a pink skirt. She was talking to me, and more, she wanted to know about me.

Oh. She wasn't supposed to know that much. I gathered my thoughts, and got ready to tell this poor, innocent little girl a few lies. There would be plenty of truth, just lies interlaced inside of them.

"I'm going to Gravity Falls, with you, I'm guessing."

As I spoke the town's name, Dipper looked towards me, too. He looked just like his sister, except you could tell how serious he was, but that he could be just as weird as his sister if he wanted to. His stare was curious. The idea that this coincidence was occurring seemed to be urging him to find out why. Then, suddenly, he looked more confident, like he'd just figured out the answer to some huge question, and, to him, he had.

"Oh! You're Rana! You're supposed to be coming to talk to Ford about Bill! Oh. You're having Bill problems. Hey. I've been dying to ask you about that. I thought Bill was dead? Didn't we defeat him?"

His face went from confident to concerned so quickly. Mabel's face did the same. Stupid Ford! I thought. When did you forget how to keep a secret? I had to think a little bit about it, before getting ready to answer to all that he had just said and asked.

"Yeah, I'm Rana. It's true, Bill has been tormenting my family for a lot of years. Actually, he's mostly been tormenting me. It's no biggie, though, he's weak, he can only talk to me in dreams."

I didn't even flinch at my lie. He definitely could talk to me outside of dreams. The stupid demon was always talking to me through my thoughts. Sometimes I couldn't even distinguish his speech from my real thoughts. There was no more time to dwell on that lie. I had way more of them to tell. Despite my plans, Dipper responded before I could continue.

"Okay, well, how did Bill come back to life, then?"

He didn't even know that Bill had only become a statue, once defeated. This was going to be a tough one to explain. Hopefully, that was another lie in itself.

"He was never dead. When you defeated him, he became a statue. He was left somewhere to rot in the forest. Some idiot must have found him and freed him. Then, I don't know why, but he came and started torturing my family. We've got him mostly under control, but he's still an annoying little thing."

I actually did know why he came to my family. He wasn't freed by some idiot, he was freed by Rayla. Rayla was another demon. She was different from Bill, though. She was a shape shifter. She could very much be seen, but only when she wanted to be. Rayla set him free, but sent him to a different time, when I first started training at the agency. He immediately took an interest in me, and when he started attacking me in my dreams, instinct kicked in. I simply trapped him inside my mind. There was space enough in there for the both of us. Okay, also a lie. I put him inside a prison that I figured out I could form inside my mind. He couldn't take up too much space, but he could definitely annoy me whenever he wanted to.

Rayla found a way to get through a portal and back, just quick enough to bring Bill back and send him to me. That's the true story behind the whole Bill thing. Not that the twins were ever going to get to know. The rest of what I told them was pretty much true. At the moment, the stupid triangle really was just an annoyance. He was never dead. He was a statue.

When I looked up from the deep thought, Dipper and Mabel were both staring at me, with concerned expressions on their faces. Then, Dipper spoke again, every word questioning.

"I thought you said he's been tormenting you for years?"

Oh, right. I had forgotten that little detail. Then, I remembered a key detail that was about to save my cover.

"You know as well as I that time travel is quite possible."

The three of us sat there for the rest of the ride in silence. There was nothing left to say. A couple of hours later, the bus came to a screeching stop. Dipper and Mabel looked at each other, then at me, and then we all smiled. We might not have had an easy summer ahead of us, but it was going to be a great one.

As we stepped off the bus, I stopped them. I needed to say one last thing before the summer really started.

"Dipper? Mabel?'

They turned towards me, waiting for me to say something.

"I need you to promise me something."

The twins looked at each other, then turned back and nodded. Dipper looked slightly suspicious, while Mabel just looked her happy self again.

"You need to promise me that you won't get involved in the "Bill" thing. This summer is all about you. You two just focus on having a ton of fun!"

Dipper nodded, with a slight smile on his face. Mabel's smile simply grew even brighter as she nodded her agreement as well. Then, Mabel asked a pretty interesting question.

"Wait a minute. With Bill gone, and Weirdmageddon over, will the weirdness still be there?"

That was a question that I had feared. I didn't want to deliver the bad news.

"Actually, from the research that I've done, most of the weirdness will be seriously decreasing. He wasn't the cause of it, but he made it stronger. Without him still having tons of power, a lot of the Gravity Falls magic will be lost."

The twins looked a little bit disappointed at that. We still weren't going to let it stop us from having an amazing summer, though. Anyways, there was still going to be a little bit of weirdness left over from last year.

As the three of us leaped onto the ground and then into Stan's car, one by one, I only knew for sure about one thing this summer. It was going to be amazing.

A/N: This chapter was a little bit sad, I know. I already warned you that there would be plenty of emotion. There will be more tears shed as the story moves on. My goal is to make you all cry at some point. If that's not what you're going for in reading this, then this is not the story for you. Unless you're heartless. This is the only case in which you will not cry. Keep reading, keep reviewing, and don't be heartless. Please tell me what you think of my story, and feel free to criticize! I want to make my story better as it progresses, I don't want to let it get stale. I hope you all stay for the next chapter, A New Kind of Weirdness.