After Fluffernutter's little bombshell, it was more important than ever to get out there and find Dipper – before he could do something like disseminate into so many pieces, they'd never find them all.
In the end, they took two nightmares for each of them, with the rest agreeing to stay and protect the rest of the town. Something they probably only agreed to because Dipper loved the town so much, but it didn't matter what their reasoning was so long as they would do it.
So it was that the Pines family, augmented by Lucy Ann, Wendy, Soos, Melody, and Pacifica (all five of which they'd tried to talk into leaving behind and utterly failed, especially in the face of Soos' argument that "He's our family too, dudes. An' we couldn't help him last time, so we gotta now.")
The Ramirez kids, Pacifica's Theo, and Grenda and Marius' Hansel, Gretyl, and Mary all agreed to stay behind and help keep things under control at the community center. They weren't happy about it, but they agreed anyway.
Which meant that there were twenty six nightmares going out into their Master's mindscape, halving the Flock. They weren't very happy about it at first (they didn't trust the Dreams' safety to anyone but themselves, and grudgingly their Master) but when they saw the arsenal Candy had brought along and just how competently most of the town handled it...
Well. They didn't worry quite so much.
"Okay. So. Plan time," Mabel said, her hand on the door handle. "We find as many of Dipper's facets as we can, then take them to the Shack to put them together. There might be something there that'll help. You get separated, make your way to the Shack. Got it?"
Various nods and mutters answered her, and with a deep breath, Mabel shoved open the door.
The street was deserted and silent, a soft wind blowing through it, the colors a mix of over- and de-saturated until some spots stood out like neon against the greys of the rest without apparent rhyme or reason behind which glowed and which didn't.
The town was far too silent, the usual bird calls that should have been clear without the clamor of people gone, replaced by random bursts of static or muttered whispering or occasionally snatches of song in the wind.
More than once, as they made their way down the street, keeping an eye out for Dipper, they all heard their own voice, memories of snatches of conversation just barely audible.
Though none of them could quite decide if the occasional burst of Dipper's favored frothy pop bands broke the tension or just made things worse.
Unconsciously they drew closer together as they inched their way down the familiar yet unfamiliar street, the nightmares that had assigned themselves as their bodyguards drawing closer to their chosen humans until they were surrounded by the press of comforting wool.
The wind started to pick up and the nightmares pressed even closer if it were possible, bearing their teeth and claws and tails tipped with spikes or poison.
What hit them wasn't a monster, but it was more than wind, and it hit them like a freight train.
They fought to keep their feet, grabbing onto everything they could reach. Stan caught hold of a lamp post, hitching his legs around it and grabbing blindly for the kids, snagging Acacia by the arm.
Her flailing hands latched onto her sister, who already had a grip on their mom.
Wendy caught a mailbox and Hank, while Vivi braced herself behind Henry and Ford and Pacifica sought shelter in a recessed door. Soos and Melody hid behind the mailbox Wendy had grabbed, Soos holding on with Melody between him and the metal.
The nightmares dug in with claw and hoof, trying not to be blown away.
"Crap, look out!" someone screamed, impossible to tell just who over the screaming wind, and a pack of something inky black came barrelling up the street. Though they tried to keep their holds their grips were ripped away one by one by the force of the gale and they were swept away by the wind.
Mabel hit the ground hard, tumbling over and spinning madly until she finally skidded to a halt. Struggling to her knees, she coughed, wiping at her mouth as she levered herself to her feet with her bat.
There were thumps nearby and she swung to face the threat, lowering the bat as Fluffernutter and Waddles II scrambled to their feet, shaking their heads dizzily. They bleated happily and hurried over when they saw her, sniffing and nuzzling at her to make sure she was all right.
Mabel managed a laugh when they tickled her, patting Fluffernutter on the head as she looked around. No sign of her family anywhere near, which was disappointing (and worrying) but not as much a a surprise as it could have been. She'd landed near the old water tower, which was greyed out, but with Robbie's muffin cloud standing out in brilliant red on the grey wood, the graffitti that had been destroyed along with the tower during the Transcendence and never repainted suddenly back.
Her hand tightened in Fluffernutter's wool for a moment as she took a deep breath, reminding herself firmly that her family could take care of each other and themselves. Still, she wasn't going to stop worrying until she'd found them all and made sure of that.
Especially her brother. She loved that goober, and he was hurting, and if he hurt their family while he was like this...he was never going to forgive himself, at the very least.
Plastering on a grin, she shouldered her bat. Shack first, or find a bit of Dipper first...decisions, decisions. "Okay, guys. Time to find my family and get my bro-bro back together and all healed up. Let's try...that way!" she declared, pointing in a random direction. The nightmares crowding her baa-ed cheerfully, trotting at her side as she set off.
The mindscape kept changing around Mabel as she walked, and sometimes she only noticed it out of the corner of her eye as something bounded away, or when something had changed after she looked away and glanced back to find it different.
She paused, looking out into the woods as Fluffernutter and Waddles II bumped against her side and sniffed the grey vegetation around them, though they didn't seem interested in eating it.
"...hmmm," she said, eyes narrowing in consideration. If this was Dipper's mindscape, and she'd made those kittens earlier, than maybe...
She concentrated, squinting her eyes closed, until there was a burst of confetti, startling the nightmares.
When it had cleared, a Waddles large enough for all three of them to ride on stood there, snorting softly and pawing at the ground with one overlarge hoof.
"Yes! You really can change the mindscape here!" she cheered, climbing onboard.
The nightmares followed, a little more hesitatnly, and Fluffernutter baaed "I͞ am pret̷tỳ s̡u̴re͟ ͠y̕ou ́are̢ the o͡n̢ĺy ̡on͜e ̢ít wil̸l̡ ̶r͝esṕo͝n҉d͝ ̧t̀o. B͠etẁe̷én y͟our ̶i̡m̴a̛g͜in͞ation ͠ąnd t͝he Master's̨ l̢ove ̛f̛o̡r y̴óu.̴.."
Mabel smiled, the soft one that was usually reserved for family. "Yeah, broseph's a giant sap under all the spiky demony bits. So let's get him put back together! Onward, Waddles! Find Dipper!"
Waddles reared up, pawing at the air with his front hooves before setting off at a rolling lope that ate up the ground.
Waddles skidded to a stop by the bunker Ford had built so long ago, snorting and sniffing at the ground.
The tree had retreated, the stairs open and innocently leading down into the ground, and Mabel had a bad feeling about this.
Waddles II leapt to the ground and sniffed around himself, looking back up at Mabel. "T̵he ͞M̧ast͡e̕r is̷ d͘òwn ̴t͟here̸," they bleated, "o҉ŗ ̴a̷t̸ l̢ea̶s̴t̕,̶ ̕p͞art o͠f ̷h͠im͏ is͞.̕"
"Right," Mabel said, giving her arms a warm-up stretch before sliding off Waddles herself. "Time to get Dipper out of the creepy old end of the world bunker. Take five Waddles. C'mon, boys, we're going in."
The stairs were just as creepy as Mabel remembered them being, possibly even more so since she was by herself this time, with only nightmares by her side instead of her brother, Soos, or Wendy.
The cobwebs were thick and the air cloying, the webs clinging to her hair and sweater and the air sticking in her throat. It was hard to breathe until she made it to the bottom of the stairs, where it changed, no less cloying but more stale than unbreathable. Almost as if forcing her way through it had been the first test.
When they reached the bottom, the lighting, which had already been dim, flickered and threatened to give out. Mabel frowned and tucked her bat under her arm to clap her hands, grinning when a dozen little lights sprang into existence to brighten the lab in defiance of the buzzing, flickering florescent lights.
"You know, if it weren't for the whole chaos and emotional pain thing, and me being the only one getting the mindscape benefit, this would be awesome," she commented. "Dipper's gonna have to set me up when this whole thing's over. Onward!"
If Mabel hadn't already been fairly sure that her brother was down here, then she would have been convinced as soon as they stepped into the security room, the one with the blocky walls that needed symbols pressed to make them recede that had already been disabled.
The security room's walls began to close in on the three of them as soon as they entered, only to freeze and begin to retreat back into their positions as soon as they came close to trapping the threesome.
Mabel gave a sharp nod. Oh, her brother was in here, all right – and he was controlling this part of the mindscape, at least.
If he really wanted to hide from her, he should put a little more effort into it. Like, maybe, making her fight for it instead of pulling back the instant she was in danger.
"Dipper!" she called as the three of them walked deeper into the bunker. "Bro-bro, where you at? C'mon out and talk to me!"
"...g̕o ̷a͞w͠a͠y..." she heard, faint and soft, echoing around the bunker.
Mabel didn't put down her bat, since this was still her great uncle's bunker inside her 'demon – brother – who – was – currently – having – a – breakdown's' mindscape, but she did try to follow the voice. He might have been controlling it, and not want to hurt her, but accidents still happened. She knew better than most, accidents still could happen.
"Dipper, stop that," she scolded. "You didn't make me go through this kind of thing by myself, and I'm not doing that to you. Come on out and talk to me."
"...no..." she heard, a little louder but still as stubborn. She bit back a groan.
"I'm not leaving," she called back, just as stubborn. "We work best together, bro. I'm not going anywhere without you."
"You should," she heard, louder yet. There was a soft scraping noise from the ceiling, and she spun, bat at the ready, before she looked up and finally found her brother.
Dipper was sitting on the ceiling, curled up around his knees, hair and coattails hanging towards the floor. His eyes, glowing in the dim light with their own inner glow, watched her unblinkingly from over his crossed arms.
"You should go," he repeated, the reverb gone from his voice, leaving it flat, as if he were simply stating facts. "You should never have trusted me. I'm a demon, remember?"
The flat statement sent chills down Mabel's back, but she kept it off her face. Her brother probably knew anyway, but she wasn't about to show it. "You're being a big drama head again," she said. Pointing to the ground, she added, "Get down here and talk to me already."
Dipper's eyes, the only part of him she could see clearly, narrowed into two golden lines of light. Mabel added a "Please, Dipper," and he shifted, finally starting to move, grumbling.
Instead of just floating down, though, this part of Dipper she'd found crawled across the ceiling and down the wall head first, like an animal, a lizard, unnatural and wrong.
Mabel got the idea he wanted her creeped out and leaving, and let annoyance take the place of that fear. Her brother had another thing coming if he thought this was enough to make her abandon even part of him – they were the Mystery Twins and she wasn't leaving him here!
Besides, he should know by now it took more than that to get under her skin by this point.
"Dipper, you're being silly," she said when her brother stayed perched on the wall, refusing to come closer, head twisted up and around to look at her in ways a neck shouldn't be able to bend. "And you're not making any sense."
Dipper hissed, quietly. "You're the one not making sense," he replied. "Trust no one. Not even yourself," he added, the last part almost to himself. "Just go," he repeated, louder, still mostly in the shadows, finally dropping down to the ground and the darker shadows there. "I'm too dangerous to be around. Leave, before I fuck up and hurt you. Again."
"...is that why you're hiding down here?" Mabel said disbelievingly. "There's enough of you that believes you're gonna mess up and hurt us that you could make a whole facet of yourself for it?"
"Trust no one," Dipper repeated, backing away from Mabel. "You sound like Mabel, you look like her, smell like her...but are you her?"
He continued to repeat "Trust no one" softly, like a mantra. When Mabel stepped closer and he backed away, crouched like an animal, ears flat and buried in his hair, hands pressed to the sides of his head, curled around himself.
"Dipper," Mabel said, for once at a loss for words. Her brother shook his head fiercely, nearly toppling his little top hat.
"No! No, no," he whispered. "Trust no one. Not sister, not brother, not yourself, can't be trusted, I'll hurt them again, can't be trusted!"
He stood, an abrupt, almost inhuman motion, as if he had too many joints, had forgotten just what a human body should be, and turned. "Just...just go," he said. "You...shouldn't trust me. And I should never have trusted anyone else."
"How many times do I have to say this before I get it through your thick head?" Mabel said, finally starting to lose patience and to cover the sound of her heart breaking. "You even said it once – we work best together. I know you don't mean any of that crap you're saying. There's no one in the world we trust more than each other. We face things together, no matter how frightening it is."
"And we shouldn't," Dipper snapped, spinning back to face Mabel again, claws plainly visible as he gestured wildly. "I'm a demon, and trusting me is foolish! And me trusting someone else is asking to be bound again!"
The nightmares cowered away from the arguing twins against the wall of the bunker, watching them with heads that snapped back and forth between them like spectators at a tennis match.
Mabel started to tear up and took a deep breath. "Why? Why would you ever think...why would you think we'd want to hurt you like that? That I want to hurt you like that? Dipper, you're my best friend. You're my brother. I love you so damn much, why can't you accept that?"
Dipper, who had turned away to storm off (or go hide and sulk over how he should never be trusted or trust anyone), turned back to answer and froze at the sight of his sister's tears.
"No! No, I don't...I...Mabel, please. Please don't cry," Dipper said, rushing to hug his sister. "Please, I...shit, Mabel."
Mabel wiped at her eyes, the tears that hadn't yet spilled but had threatened, brought on by too many stresses, too many close calls of losing her brother, her family, her town, and now again she faced losing her brother. She returned the hug, fingers burrowing into her brother's coat and holding him tight.
"I get it, that you're not all of Dipdot," she said quietly, tilting her head to rest against her brother's. "That you're the part of him that's scared and hurting and doesn't think he should trust anyone or himself.
But we do trust you, Dipper. And we need you. We need to find all of you, to get you back."
She felt the sigh reverberate through her brother's body, pressed together as closely as they were. His cheek rubbed against her hair as they held the hug, parting reluctantly.
Carefully she took her brother's hand, smiling confidently up at him, wiping off her face with her free hand. She gave his hand a little tug, feeling a bit like a little kid with a balloon when he followed along with as much effort and enthusiasm as one, grateful he was at least doing that and not fighting her anymore.
"C'mon, broseph – let's get you put back together."
