To say Gravity Falls was picturesque wouldn't do the sleepy town justice. Just to arrive there, the small group had to drive between two large cliffs with gaping maw-like crevices carved into their sides. Cascading down the face of one of them was a massive waterfall which poured into a beautiful, shimmering lake.
"Man, I can't believe I've never heard of this place before," Arnold said, gazing out the passenger window as their car rolled into town.
"Yeah, you'd think a town named 'Gravity Falls' would catch your eye," Gerald noted from the backseat. "Maybe it's an all sights, nothing to do kind of place?"
"You'd think someone would make something to do then - like build a five star golf resort or something," Helga pointed out from behind the wheel. "Guess they just don't want to deal with tourists."
"Yet they're fine with making tourist traps," Phoebe said, eyeing a large billboard ahead. It featured chubby, goofy looking young man wearing a red fez posing below a simple title: 'Mystery Shack'.
"Hah! Might as well say 'Welcome to Oregon'," Helga laughed. "Discount Ripley's Believe it or Nots grow like weeds around here."
"Make a left ahead," Arnold interjected, gazing at the directions on his smartphone. "Should be right down this road on the right."
"Thanks, Garmin," Helga said, smirking at him, to which he merely rolled his eyes at.
Just as he said, the orphanage was tucked in between two larger buildings in a small residential area, a great forest extending from behind it. It was a humble building, and like most of the buildings in town, seemed to have been renovated as of recently. A large patch of roofing wasn't matching the rest of it, as if a hole had been blown through the original and then patched up.
"Yikes, wonder what happened to this place?" Gerald said. "Looks like the whole town's been hit by a mega hailstorm or something lately."
"Wonder if it has something to do with why Frisk ran away?" Arnold pondered.
"Something to ask her if she's here, maybe?" Phoebe said.
Arnold shook his head. "Naw, I don't think she'll want to talk about it. Let's try and stay on the monster topic, okay?"
"You're the people person here," Helga smiled. "You take the lead."
And so they exited their car and made their way into the building. Inside was a small lobby area with a red-headed teenage girl sitting casually at a desk. Fitting the cool autumn weather and the rustic area, a worn bomber hat sat clumsily on her head.
"Hey there," she said, her voice matching her relaxed posture. "What can I do for ya'?"
"Uh hi," Arnold said, clearing his throat. "We're here to visit someone."
"Oh?" the girl said, eyeing the quartet suspiciously. "Don't often get people here for that, unfortunately. Specially not people my age."
"Look, we're not creepers or anything," Gerald stated, scratching the back of his head. "Just kind of a weird situation."
"Weird, huh? Whelp, you came to the right town," Wendy chuckled.
Helga raised an eyebrow. "Hey, how'd you know we just got here?"
"Have you met anyone here?" she said, still bemused. "Normal people stick out like sore thumbs - normal city people even more."
"Damn," Gerald said. "She's good."
Phoebe let out a grunt in protest. "Hey, I'll have you know we can be plenty weird!"
"Yeah, we once had a 'Geek Party' on this dude's roof," Gerald said, nodding Arnold's way.
"Oh yeah, I remember that," Helga laughed. "Damn, your granny can play a mean piano, you know that?"
Arnold sighed whimsically. "Good times."
The girl blinked. "How'd you get a grand piano on your roof?"
"Good question," Helga added.
Arnold simpered. "Well, grandma couldn't get it through the door, so she just paid a crane operator to… put it up there."
There was a beat of silence before the red-headed girl broke out laughing.
"Alright, alright, 'one of us' and all that," she giggled, standing up from the desk. "Let's start over. I'm Wendy. So, who are you here to see exactly?"
"A young girl - Frisk's her name. We uh… don't know her last name."
Wendy's eyes widened briefly, before her look grew solemn. "I'm afraid I can't help you there." She gestured towards a wall with a missing person's poster hanging on it - an image of a sad looking Frisk front and center. "She's been gone for months now."
"You mean… she's not back yet?" Phoebe asked trepidly.
Wendy shook her head. "No, I would have known." She glanced away from the quartet, before throwing them another suspicious yet strangely hopeful glance. "Wait, 'back yet', what do you mean? Have you seen her or something?"
"Well, yeah, but-" Gerald said.
"But what? Where'd you last see her? When?" Wendy insisted. "Listen, I know the cops say they're still looking for her but I'm pretty sure they've dropped the case. Who cares about a little orphan girl? But if they had a solid lead on where she could be …"
"I take it you two were close?" Arnold said.
"Well, sort of. I've only been working here since last summer," Wendy admitted. "Thought, 'hey, I'm good with kids, could be fun,' and it has been. They've all been great, the few that are here. However ..."
A few months prior …
"Frisk though, Frisk was special …"
A young boy sat gloomily on the steps of the orphanage, looking as if he hadn't slept for days. Wendy looked on from the window, about to approach him, but before she could, Frisk appeared by his side, offering him an icecream sandwich and a soft smile.
"She was just such a sweetheart. Honestly, I've only met one person who could make friends faster than her."
"Yoooo random person!" a young, excited teenage girl said, running up to Frisk in the middle of a sunny park. She was followed by Wendy… and a pig wearing a hand-crafted tuxedo. "Do you think Waddles looks handsome enough to find a Mrs. Waddles?"
"Mabel, meet Frisk, Frisk meet Mabel," Wendy chuckled. "So what do ya' say, Frisk?"
Frisk looked over the pig for a moment, before shaking her head.
"Whaaaaaaat?!" Mabel said, looking as if she was about to tear up
"Though with the help of some unusual… abilities?"
"Ouch, Frisk," Wendy winced. "Little blunt, don't you think-"
Before she could finish, Frisk pulled pig-sized bow-tie seemingly out of nowhere and placed it on the pig's front collar. "Now he definitely does."
Mabel's eyes nearly sparkled upon seeing her new and improved pig. Without much of a warning, she wrapped her arms around Frisk in a hug. "You fashionista, you! It's perfect! Welcome to *mah tribe*!"
Frisk merely shrugged, happily returning the hug. Wendy merely shook her head with a smile.
"Underneath it all, she was hurting, though, I think."
As rain poured outside, Frisk sat in an empty room on the top mattress of her bunk bed, gazing intently at a postcard with the title, 'Mt. Ebbot'.
"Who could blame her?" Wendy explained. "Found out later that she never knew who her parents were. She was dropped off too young. I think that might be why after… certain events, she just disappeared."
Helga glanced away from her, then glanced at Arnold, a knowing look on his face. "That… that sucks."
Wendy nodded. "So if you know anything … Did you see her with anyone? Her parents, maybe?"
"Not her parents," Arnold said, shaking his head. "Well, at least not her uh… biological parents."
Wendy furrowed her brow. "You mean she was with someone?"
"Hoooo boy," Gerald sighed. "This is gonna be fun."
"Go ahead, tell me everything, I've got time," Wendy offered.
"Yeah," Arnold coughed. "About that … it's a bit of a weird story."
Wendy gave a curt laugh. "Oh trust me, I've got a few of my own. Hit me with your best shot, sucka!"
"Uh, should we really-?" Phoebe interjected.
"No, might as well go all in," Arnold continued, before clearing his throat and beginning with, "It all started with a science project we were doing …"
"Annnnd that's how we wound up here," Arnold finished nearly 30 minutes later, taking a deep breath afterwards. He then gazed towards Wendy with a look filled with apprehension.
In turn, she merely glanced away from him, looking as if she was in deep thought.
"So this is the part where you tell us to 'get some help' followed by 'get out', right?" Gerald said.
"If she doesn't straight-up call the cops on us," Helga mumbled, folding her arms.
Instead, she merely smiled. "If you told me all this a few years ago, yeah, it'd go down that road, but now… heh. 'Never mind all that', as they say. Honestly, I'm just happy Frisk isn't hurt."
"Wait, so you believe us, then?" Phoebe said, half-shocked.
"I'm leaning towards it," she shrugged. "After last summer, I'm ready to believe anything."
"What happened last summer, anyway?" Arnold said, squinting slightly. "This doesn't have to do with all the weird damage around town, does it?"
"Oh, never mind all that," Wendy said, smiling innocently.
Helga rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, the place looks like it got hit by a meteor shower. You mean you don't got anything to say about that?"
"Nope, never mind all that," Wendy repeated yet again.
Helga gave her a deadpan look, to which Wendy grinned at.
"Haha, naw, you guys are weird enough that I might let you in on some town history one of these days, but first… I think there's someone you should meet."
"Wendy, I have to say I'm glad you brought them to meet me."
The quartet, Wendy two older men and the same goofy looking younger man the former had previously seen on the billboard advertisement for the 'Mystery Shack' stood in the gift shop of the aforementioned building. Naturally, they were surrounded by the numerous 'oddities' (cheap forgeries) on display, such as a 'unicorn' bear wall trophy, the horn being an obvious paper mache cone glued to its forehead.
"Eh, it was nothing," Wendy shrugged, facing one of the two older men. "Figured if we were dealing with monsters you might know something, Mr. Pines."
"Please, Mr. Ford or Ford is fine," he said. "Having two Mr. Pines around might get confusing."
"Hah, like it isn't already," the other older man said, chuckling to himself. "Though I gotta say… ya' really wanna get mixed up in this stuff again right after our trip, Ford?"
"If it was any other circumstance, Stan …" Ford sighed. "Trust me, I'd love to have a breather. I have a lot of research notes to compile on our findings."
Stan gave him a look.
"Annnnd some well deserved R&R to catch up on - been wanting to see the last few seasons of Cheers for a while now."
"Hah, now that is what I'm talking about!" Stan cheered.
"Yoooo, when are you gonna tell us about what went down in the arctic, anyway?" the young, goofy man stated. "Please tell me you at least saw a couple of penguins. Maybe brought a few home… ?" He tapped two fingers together in hope.
"Ugh, not now, Soos," Stan moaned, silencing him. "That's gonna be more than a five minute story."
"And we shouldn't beat around the bush; a kid might be in danger," Ford pointed out.
"Wait, danger?" Arnold said. "The monsters were treating her more like family than anything … We're more worried about what the government might do."
"That's precisely what I mean," Ford nodded. "Like I've said, I've been researching these kinds of things my whole life, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's the government, or should I say, governments, are not fond of any evidence of paranormal activity leaking to the public. I'm honestly surprised they let you go with such a flimsy cover story, but I suppose they must have underestimated you."
"Wait, 'governments'?" Helga said, her eyes widening. "Are you saying there's some creepy new world order crap going on?"
"Oh, nothing like that," Ford said, waving the idea off. "It isn't even exactly the governments themselves doing much of the coverups, it's more like-" He paused, glancing away from them. "Actually, I should stop talking. The less you kids know about that the better."
"Don't want to end up…" Stan shifted his voice into a mock, spooky tone. "Redacted."
The quartet gulped.
"Annnnnyway," Ford said, shifting the subject. "To answer your earlier question, yes, I think I might know a thing or two about what you saw."
With that, he pulled out an old, dusty journal from his trench coat. It was fairly ornate and customized, with a six-fingered hand imprinted on the cover, a number '0' on top of it.
"Woah, I didn't know you had another journal," Stan said, blinking. "Why'd you never tell me about it?"
"Just wasn't relevant at the time," he shrugged. "This one doesn't have much about Gravity Falls in it - I actually started it when I was researching anomalies around the country before I came here."
"Hey, wait a minute," Gerald said.
"Oh, question, young man?" Ford said with a hint of enthusiasm.
"Just been biting at me," he said. "If you know so much about the paranormal - like *real* paranormal stuff, and this town is a hot spot for it… how come this shop only sells fake stuff? Why no Bigfoot fur coats or anything?"
"Woah, dude!" Soos said, pretending to be offended. "I'll have you know all of this stuff is perfectly genuine-"
"Eh, don't bother, Soos," Stan said. "These kids aren't dumb enough to fall for all that. Yeah, the stuff here's fake. Why? Lot of reasons, but the big one is I was too old to go around looking for fairy dust to sell when I ran the place, and I'm pretty sure fairies won't go within five miles of Soos."
He gazed at a fly swatter sitting near the young man.
"Hey, they started it!" Soos said defiantly. "A couple of them just kept following me around saying, 'Hey, listen! Hey listen!' over and over and over. It was self-defense for my sanity!"
"Soos!" Wendy said, giving him a shocked look. "Aren't fairies supposed to be intelligent creatures? How could you just go swatting at them?" She turned towards Ford. "They are intelligent, right?"
"Ehhhh," Ford said, tilting his hand back and forth.
"Hooray, validation!" Soos cheered.
"Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute: are you saying there's *fairies* in this town, too?" Helga said incredulously. "Like tiny little winged people?"
"Hey, you said you wanted to learn more about Gravity Falls," Wendy said, turning to her. "Told you it was weird."
Gerald cleared his throat. "Just when you said 'weird' we thought it was more like, 'We occasionally do road-kill cookoffs,' or something like that. Not 'hey let's give people existential crisises' kind of weird."
As he spoke Helga briefly whispered to Arnold, "We're sure these guys aren't just screwing with us right? Or worse, a bunch of yahoos?"
Arnold merely shrugged as if to say, " Let's just go with the flow. "
"Trust me, you don't know the half of it," Stan groaned. "We've been keeping you kids in the shallow end of the pool so far."
"Oh yeah, dudes," Soos said, shivering slightly. "Heck, I still have nightmares about that triangle guy and-"
"Yeah, maybe we shouldn't go there just yet," Wendy coughed.
"We'll be happy to tell you more about Gravity Falls as time goes by," Ford said. "However, you didn't come here to learn about us, you came here to find out more about Mt. Ebbot, right? Well, the first thing I can tell you is that both it and Gravity Falls used to be similar in many ways."
"They were both covered in pine trees?" Soos asked.
"Soos, I'm pretty sure they're both still like that," Stan pointed out.
Soos nodded. "I figured - I just wanted to contribute to the conversation."
"Pinaceae observations aside ..." Ford started, flipping through his notebook. "Like Gravity Falls, Mt. Ebbot used to be a heavy hotspot for anomalies. Native American legends of the region talk about how long ago, humans weren't the only sapient creatures living in the area."
"The Chinookan people, right?" Phoebe said. "The people living in the region?"
"Hah, yes," Ford said, giving her a nod of approval. "Glad to see Dipper isn't the only kid keeping up with their studies these days."
"Hey, I study!" Soos protested.
"Spending hours on doesn't count as studying, Soos," Wendy noted.
"Yeah, well I betcha can't point out Ensemble Dark Horses out of a group of people," Soos smirked, before whispering loudly to her. "Your friend Robby's one of them, I think."
"I have no idea what you're saying," Wendy blinked.
"But wait," Phoebe said. "The Chinookan had no advanced written language - how were you able to find any of this out?"
"Ahhh, never make the mistake of underestimating the indigenous people's capacity for recalling their history," Ford said. "Their ability to accurately pass things down from one generation to the next simply through the spoken word is uncanny to say the least. Once I got a whiff of the past weirdness of Mt. Ebbot, I began travelling to reservations, talking with descendents of the people who lived there.
They revealed that apparently not only were there non-human sapients living in the area, but hundreds of types of them: big and small, from animal-like to downright bizarre. Sound familiar?"
The group merely stood motionless, stunned.
"Most Natives simply referred to them collectively as 'monsters', though I've also heard them called 'Born from Magic', loosely translated from their language. What that means specifically I'm not sure, but whatever their true nature is, I learned from early cave paintings that they may have been here before even the first humans crossed Beringia into North America over 15 thousand years ago. Yet despite the obvious difference between them, the humans and Natives seemed to have gotten along quite well over that long period of time - living, trading, and perhaps even, uh, intermingling… with each other."
"Yeah, just gonna get that image out of my head," Gerald said, wincing slightly.
"Never miss a detail, eh, Ford?" Stan smirked.
"A gift and a curse," he said, merely shrugging. "Anyway, it seems they lived in almost total peace with each other until suddenly, seemingly out of thin air, a conflict erupted between the two groups, the details of which I've yet to figure out. I heard brief words about the monsters being 'trapped' somewhere, but until now, I wasn't sure what that could have meant." He then smiled, glancing towards Wendy. "However, I think your missing child may inadvertently have solved that mystery."
Wendy gazed at him wondrously. "Are you saying Frisk must have found a way into these uh, 'monsters'' prison or whatever?"
"Perhaps," Ford said, bobbing his head back and forth. "I'm working on a few theories here or there, but honestly, I do my best work in the field."
He gazed towards a set of keys dangling on the wall.
"Oh shoot, is it on?" Soos said hopefully. "It sounds like it is on."
"On like Donkey Kong," Ford said.
The group gazed at him blankly.
"Is that uh… something kids still say?"
A beat.
"Ah, whatever, I'm bringing it back, then!" he announced triumphantly, his eyes narrowing in determination and a look of pure intrigue overwhelming his features. "Come on, we're not going to find answers here!"
"Come on, we're not going to find answers here."
A mile away, in an unmarked black van, a stern looking man stared intently ahead as he listened to the conversation with a pair of headphones.
"Well, looks like Colonel O'Neill was right," he said, nodding to his partner. "Call it in, Agent Trigger. We're not messing around when it comes to Gravity Falls again."