*Dodges bricks* Sorry for the late update! I found a really good fanfiction (Be Careful Making Wishes in the Dark by Jaywings; it's Gravity Falls/Invader Zim), so I wasted several hours of my free time reading that, and work and school were also issues. I'm really sorry!

Piper hung behind Hazel and Jason, walking next to Frank. She had the feeling that the kid, Dipper, didn't like them too much for their abilities. Every time she or Frank had said something, a dark look passed over his face, and he shot a glare at them.

Frank whispered, "This has got to be the weirdest mortal I've ever met. Immune to Mist, able to resist charmspeak, and you said he somehow got rid of those monsters that you couldn't even kill with Imperial Gold or Celestial Bronze?"

Piper muttered back, "To be fair, he was all strung up when we found him at first, so we technically saved him once. But, yeah."

They both looked back to the kid. He was flipping through an old dusty red book and muttering to himself. Finally, Piper couldn't take it anymore. "What's that?" she asked, desperate to break the tension.

He stopped and turned around, almost making Jason smash into him. "You can't have it," he told her, not even answering her question.

Piper resisted an internal groan. "I don't want it. I just want to know what it is."

He gave her a distrustful glare. "Last time I let someone see it, they almost killed me and my friends trying to get it from me."

Frank spoke up. "Why would you think we're the same way?"

"Oh, I don't know," Dipper answered sarcastically. "Maybe because… THEY WERE A SHAPE-SHIFTER!" He turned his back venomously on them. "C'mon, we have to go this way." He gestured to a tiny, barely visible path leading further up.

Piper caught Hazel's eye and gestured to the kid. 'You try,' she mouthed.

Hazel got the message. "Is it a map?" she asked.

Dipper gave her a sideways glance and slipped it back into his vest. "You know what? Let's not talk about it anymore. All you need to know is that you can't have it. Like, thanks for the weird burn stuff and all," he said, waving his bandaged hand, "but I still don't trust people who try to charm me."

"Geez, paranoid much?" Jason grumbled quietly.

"Or people who can fly," Dipper added, not turning around. "So far, it seems like… um, your name was Hazel, right?" Hazel nodded. "Is the most normal one of you!" he told them.

Hazel rubbed her hand on the back of her neck. If they wanted this kid to trust them, they couldn't exactly tell him that she had died once and could summon jewels.

Speaking of jewels, as they walked along, Piper noticed little crystals stuck in the ground. They were small and white. The weird thing was the light filtering through them was always blue on one side and pink on the other.

Hazel knelt down to get a better look at them. "I've never seen anything like these before." She was about to pull it out of the dirt, but Dipper noticed.

"No, no, no!" he exclaimed. "Don't touch that!"

Hazel stopped her hand an inch away. All four of the demigods gave him a weird look. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He pushed aside a fern and grabbed something from underneath. Holding it in cupped hands, he brought it over. "This is what happens when something gets too close to one of those." In his hands was a living, breathing, tiny white-tailed deer three inches long.

"Whoa!" said Frank, backing away, and pulling Hazel back with him. "What the heck?!"

After placing the miniscule deer gently on the ground, he answered, "This whole town is crazy. And that's why I don't trust anyone."

The demigods exchanged glances. That really wasn't something a twelve-year-old should be saying. Or anyone.

A rustling in the brush broke the silence. The quintet's heads shot up. The demigods drew their weapons and stepped in front of Dipper, who started murmuring softly under his breath. "Please don't be Jeff. Or a gremgoblin. Or the stomach-faced duck. If it's real."

Whatever Jeff or Gremgoblin or "Stomach-faced-duck" was, the creature that appeared was much, much, much more terrible.

It looked as though someone had ripped all the appendages off several grizzly bears and glued them back together on one body. It was limping and had several wounds on it, but it still looked plenty dangerous

Dipper gasped behind them, and the demigods charged forward.

"Wait! Wait! Stop!" Dipper yelled, running in front and spread his arms out like a human shield.

Jason pulled his sword away in the nick of time. Even though it wouldn't have hurt him at all, it would have shattered the almost non-existent trust he had him them.

The bear lifted its biggest head and turned to face the much smaller child. "Dipper?" it asked. The demigods tried to contain their surprise, though, it wasn't the first monster they'd seen talk.

...

Dipper turned around, relieved. "Multi-Bear! I thought you were a bad monster and..." he took in the cuts, badly twisted limbs, and burns covering his body. "Oh my gosh! Are you okay?!"

The multi-bear lay down on the ground. "Wounded, but I'll heal."

Dipper turned back to the teens. "Guys, this is the Multi-bear. He's one of the few, actually friendly monsters living in the woods."

"'Sup?" Jason said meekly.

Dipper patted one of the lesser heads gently, making it growl in contentment. "What happened?" he asked, gesturing to the scars.

Multi-bear frowned. "I was just listening to Babba's greatest hits, when these nasty giant bird things came. I've never seen them around before. If it was just one, I'd probably be able to kill it, but there were four of them, and I still only have one body, even if I have six heads."

"Wait… Did you say four?" Dipper questioned in alarm.

"Yeah. Why?" he asked.

"Oooh, my gosh…" Dipper moaned. He looked back to the teens. "Weren't there only two?" They nodded. He took a deep breath. "Don't worry Multi-Bear; we'll get your cave back. These guys know how to kill them."

The Multi-Bear sniffed and gave them a dark look. "Thank you. Just follow the trail up and you should be able to reach it." As Dipper started to follow them, the multi-bear pulled him back silently.

"Dipper," he muttered to him, "be careful around those kids. They don't smell quite right. And when you're an animal, you always trust your nose. And your ears, when trying to figure out the best Babba song."

A shiver went down his spine. "I-I'll remember. Thanks," he replied, voice cracking slightly.

He trotted to catch back up to the teens, leaving the multi-bear settling down in the leaves and dirt for some rest.

...

"S-so..." Frank began, making Dipper start slightly. "You're friends with that bear... How'd you meet?"

Dipper looked at him skeptically, but replied after a second. "I, uh, wanted to be a man, so I asked some... other monsters that lived in the forest how to be one. They... taught me a lot, like how to climb trees really well, and how to not be a wimp to pain, but... they asked me to kill the multi-bear, and I would have, but... I don't know... I realized he wasn't a bad guy, and maybe that you shouldn't listen to someone who makes you do all these hard, terrible things just because you think you're helping yourself."

Dipper was looking at the ground, so he didn't see Frank and Jason exchange a look of pain. They sometimes wondered themselves why they did all the hard and painful things the Olympians asked them to do.

After walking in silence for about half-an-hour they reached the mouth of a cave. Dipper held out his hand to stop. "Okay, what's the plan?"

The demigods exchanged a look. "We can't bring you in. The phoenixes will automatically go after you."

Dipper cocked an eyebrow. "Why?"

"We can't tell you," Hazel replied. "It's just important that you don't go in."

"Well," he replied, getting defiant edge to his tone, "then you really don't have a good reason. I'll just go in by myself, if I have to."

"Don't!" Frank told him. "You're dead meat if you do."

"Then let me come in."

Jason sent a pleading look to Piper, who just shook her head. Charmspeak was out, and Hazel's Mist wouldn't work.

"Fine," Jason agreed. "But you have to stay behind us until we tell you to come out."

Dipper looked like he was about to argue, but then thought better of it. "Okay." Jason held out his hand to shake. Dipper just pulled down his cap and turned away.

Hazel looked to the mouth of the cave. "Well, what is the plan?"

Jason gripped the hilt of his sword. "There are four of them and four of us. While we're distracting, you can grab your sister. Then, run down to the base of the mountain with her. We'll take care of the monsters."

"That sounds like an idea that will get you dead," Dipper replied, crossing his arms. "But that's your problem. All I want is my sister back."

Frank tried to ignore the chilling vibe this kid gave off. Like he'd seen death up close and personal. (Frank, for one, actually had, and did not act this creepy.)

"Then I guess we're all in agreement?" Piper said uneasily. The group collectively nodded. "Let's go then."

….

True to his word, Dipper did stay behind the teens, who ventured forward with their swords. He gripped 3, ready to pull it out if he needed to say a spell quickly.

Peering out from behind the leader guy, Jason, Dipper looked around the cave, desperate to look for the familiar color of fluorescent purple that was his sister's sweater. And strangely enough, there it was. She had her back turned to them, so they couldn't see her face, but Dipper's twin sense was tingling, and he knew it was her. He ran towards her, forgetting his deal. The teens followed right behind, telling him to stop. "Mabel!"

She whirled around. "Dipper?" She then gasped. "Don't come any closer! It's a trap!"

Too late. The four bird monsters leapt out from the shadows, somehow able to extinguish their incredible brightness for the moment. Dipper grabbed the collar of Mabel's sweater and dragged her back towards them.

When he had almost gotten back, one snapped at him, almost taking a chunk of his vest. He expected it to be the end, when he heard a feminine voice command, "STOP!"

The birds hissed but lowered their heads, and simply took to surrounding the group. Mabel and Dipper hugged each other for protection. "It's not the phoenixes you have to worry about," Mabel whimpered, "it's…" She pointed to the ceiling of the cave.

Dipper followed her gaze and gasped, yet at the same time, it started to make a little bit of sense. A transparent pale figure floated at the top. A ghost.

Dipper couldn't make much out from the distance, but it looked as though it was maybe about seventeen or eighteen.

She looked down at Mabel. "Well, you were right about your brother coming, but it looks like my prey was dumb enough to come, too."

She drifted down till she was about ten feet from the ground. "Hello, demigods. I think that you'll be joining my phoenixes for dinner."

And so, more will be revealed next chapter.