Chapter Two: Back To The Falls

It had been three days since the move and everything was already unpacked back home. Apparently, Dipper and Mabel's punishment for ditching their parents after five seconds was that they were stuck at home to help with unpacking in anyway they could while their parents saw about employment in town. At least thanks to that, Mabel had been able to better hide her new grappling hook from them, but all that was over and school was only a few days away, which meant one thing for Dipper and Mabel; hard core adventure.

"Alright, no more journals can only mean one thing today." Dipper said, walking confidently into those familiar woods, followed by Mabel. In his backpack was an assortment of items such a rope, a first-aid kit, his own, mostly blank journal, a packet of new pens, and a sack-lunch each.

"Wingin' it?" Mabel asked, holding a camera and eyes glittering with excitement.

"Wingin' it." he confirmed.

"This is gonna be so cool!" Mabel said with an excited hop. "What're we looking for?"

"Anything out of the ordinary." Dipper answered. As he took out his journal and a pen, looking ready for anything. Dipper's journal was blue with a golden pine tree in the center – as the six-fingered hand had been on Ford's old journals. It had been a birthday present from Stan and Ford, as had been Mabel's camera, which she clutched happily and was ready to snap anything. Only a few of Dipper's pages were filled in, having served as a short-lived diary for maybe a month after they got home. Dipper had chosen to preserve it for if they ever had the chance to return to Gravity Falls.

The pair's optimism slowly waned over the next hour or so, as nothing seemed to be going on today. Eventually, they made it out of the woods and to the edge of the lake. Across from them, the cliffs overlooked the town and the falls fed into the lake.

"Good a place as any to stop for lunch." Mabel said, plopping down on a rock and taking her lunch out of Dipper's backpack. Dipper, not really seeing any reason not to, took off the backpack and followed suit after putting the journal and camera away. About mid-way into their meal, something finally happened. A loud screech filled the air as Mabel took out an apple, and she screamed as she was suddenly dove at by what looked like...

"Giant bat!" she screamed as the thing landed before her and tried to snatch it out of her hand.

"It's okay!" Dipper called to her. "It's a fruit bat! All it wants is the apple!"

"No, it's mine!" Mabel said, holding the apple in one hand and her other pressing on the bat's the furry neck, keeping the fruit out of the reach of it's snapping jaws. She yelped as the thing scratched her across the face and the impact pushed her to the ground, but she refused to let go of the apple.

"Give it up, Mabel!" Dipper yelled, getting up behind the bat and trying to pull it off of her. It began flapping it's massive wings and fluttered maybe a foot off the ground. Dipper wished he had a taser right now. "It'll go away if it gets the apple!"

"Dipper!" Mabel whined, still refusing to let go of the fruit when the bat took a hold of it with a clawed foot. It was her lunch, and her's alone.

"Mabel!" Dipper shot back, wondering when exactly she'd become so stubborn.

They both found themselves hanging on tight, though, as the bat flew higher, taking them with it to the very center of the lake, too far out to swim back on their own. Somehow, they ended up like this: The fruit bat had the apple in his mouth and was trying to shake off Mabel, who was dangling by one hand from the apple, the other holding Dipper who'd slipped off the bat's back. The bat won; he shook off the pesky humans and devoured his prize as they screamed, plummeting into the lake with a loud splash.

The cool water surrounded them and while Dipper's vision was blurry, he quickly found Mabel, as she did him, and they swam towards each other, clasping their hands. Thankfully, they weren't too far from the surface, just upwards a few feet.

The fall must have knocked air out of them because they were already running out of breath. Dipper's mind went into a panic as he frantically tried to make the surface. Mabel went along with it, but she could have sworn she heard something weird. It sounded like a mixture between laughter and a horses' neigh. Neither of them noticed the water pulling away from them until a bubble of air was formed around them; not even their clothes were wet. Dipper gasped and they both broke out into coughing fits.

"What happened?" Dipper asked when his coughing subsided enough. He and Mabel looked around in wonder; they were at the bottom of the lake. The muddy ground, the underwater plants, the small schools of fish.

"It's a bubble." Mabel said slowly.

"Hello." a warbling voice said, sounding strangely clear underwater. Whatever those things were in the distance, they were coming closer. As the figures came closer, they revealed themselves as large seahorse-type creatures. They looked like horses, but their whole backsides were large fish-like tails and in place of hooves were smaller fins at the ends of their legs. Taking a closer look, one was shimmering bright pink with a blue mane that flouted everywhere like hair underwater. Another appeared to be white based on how the scales subtly changed with surrounding colors, with a mane of bright yellow. The final creature was deep blue so that it almost blended into the water, and it's dark green mane looked like seaweed.

"Hippocampai?" Dipper questioned, his eyes widening in wonder.

"They're like merhorses..." Mabel sounded hypnotized and soon she had a huge smile on her face and stars in her eyes.

"It appears we have visitors." the white one warbled in a sweet voice.

"How did you land-dwellers get down here?" the blue one asked.

"Coral, don't be rude." the pink one scolded. "Hello, there. My name is Shelly. This are Rain and Coral. Yourselves?"

"Uh...I'm Dipper." Dipper said uncertainly. "This is my sister Mabel. We were dropped by a giant fruit bat." he said, only just realizing how bizarre that sounded.

"Well, this is no place for you two." Rain said. "You'd run out of air within a minute. Just a moment, friends. Coral, do you mind?"

Rain and Coral bowed their heads and touched their muzzles to the bubble, lifting it. The bubble was somehow solid enough to keep the water away from Dipper and Mabel. The seahorses took them to the surface and the bubble dismantled in the air. A pair of muzzles pushed the kids onto land – they were back at the edge of the lake.

"Are you alright, Dipper and Mabel?" Shelly asked.

"Yeah, we're fine." Mabel said.

"Thanks a bunch." Dipper said, getting back to his feet, reclaiming his forgotten backpack and thinking maybe it would be smart to make a map in the future.

"If you need us again, you can call us." Coral said as Rain ducked down into the water and popped back up a moment later, propelling herself fully out of the water, and smacking something with her tail, which Mabel caught. It was a small seashell.

The kids looked at the shell for a moment before Mabel put it in her pants pocket. They looked back in sync at the lake, seeing only three sets of ripples in the lake, but no seahorse things. Dipper sat down and immediately took out his journal and a pen, jotting down all he could remember about the encounter.

"You okay, Mabel?" he asked as he got up and they set off for home. He eyed the long scratches on her cheek. "That bat really got you good."

"I'm fine, but I don't think we can hide this from Mom and Dad." Mabel said, looking nervous.

"Won't that be fun?" Dipper rolled his eyes, not looking foreword to it. Would they understand? Would they forbid them coming out here again. He hoped not. Didn't his dad say that he came here as a kid, too? Maybe he'd be able to convince them it was safe, but how could he do that with his sister's cheek all scratched up? Dipper spent the whole trip home torturing himself with thoughts like these.

"Ow! Owowowow!" Mabel's voice came from the kitchen. Dipper sat on the couch in the living room with Kristen, trying to calm himself down from those thoughts.

"Mabel, you're fifteen; quite being a baby." Joe's voice said, also coming from the kitchen.

"It burns!" she whined.

"And was this worth it for an apple?" her father asked.

"...No." she said, sounding defeated.

"Alright, you're done." he said. "Now come into the living room. We need to talk about this."

Dipper's fists tightened in his lap. His parents would never allow this! He forced himself to calm down when his sister and their father came into the room. Mabel sat beside him, a bandage on her cheek with a smear of faded pink under it. When Joe looked at him, Dipper refused to let the silence build; there was too much on the line.

"Dad, it was a fluke." he said out of nowhere just as Joe sat down.

"Dipper –" he started.

"It's not dangerous!" Dipper carried on, speaking over him.

"Dipper." he repeated.

"It's fascinating out there!" Dipper went on. "This is why we love it here! There's all these creatures, adventures and amazing –"

"Dipper!" Joe shouted, finally silencing his son. "Listen." Dipper finally calmed down, but still felt very nervous. "Remember, your mother and I know everything. The weird things, the bizarre creatures, everything." Dipper held his breath. " Now, we'll let you keep exploring or do whatever you were doing."

"Yes!" Mabel cheered, and Dipper let go of his breath in relief.

"Hold it." Kristen said. "We're setting some ground-rules, though."

Neither of the kids protested, they simply looked at their parents silently; this would be worth-it if it meant they would be allowed to continue exploring the town's secrets and not have to lie to their parents about it.

"First," Kristen said. "school's starting in a couple of days. No exploration on school nights; no exceptions."

"Second," Joe continued. "one of you gets hurt like this again, and your both in for the night."

"Finally," Kristen said. "if anything important happens, tell us. We're not going to be kept in the dark while our kids are in trouble."

"Okay." Dipper and Mabel nodded together.

"Alright." Joe said. "It's late. No more exploring for today."

"Hey, did you guys get your jobs today?" Dipper asked, eager to get away from the subject before it was put into jeopardy again.

"I got a job at the high-school. I'm a new English teacher." Kristen smirked at the twins as they looked at each other in horror; they would be starting at that same high school in a few days. There would be no escape.

"And I managed to find a programming job at a reputable place." Joe said. "I start tomorrow."

"Great." Dipper sighed, relieved that at least one of this parents wouldn't also be his teacher. "I'm going upstairs. I need to think about things."

"Dinner's in an hour." his mother called after him.

Dipper passed Mabel's room on his way to his own. It was still covered with posters and stuffed animals, but it wasn't the world of pink one would think. Dipper's own room had a large desk and a bookshelf apart from his other furniture.

The boy collapsed onto his bed and stared at the ceiling. Between the adventure today and the emotional roller-coaster he'd put himself through afterwords, he was completely tiered out. He'd have to make a map, there were seahorse-type things in the lake, and his parents knew about and allowed their expeditions. Dipper Pines loved this place.


Call upon the sea-ponies, they'll see you to shore~! And I'm on the fence about it, but I'm thinking of having an over-arching story with some otherworldly villain, like the show had with Bill Cipher. Review.