The recording 'blinked' with a flash of white light as the laser melted Ripper's head clean off.
"Here I thought it was faking yet again. I've never face a creature that could move as fast as a shape-shifter and Ripper had more experience than any other I met." Dipper recalled the first time he met one and the memory still brought on shivers and a cold sweat.
Leanne watched the recording with a morbid fascination, even after two hours she could hardly pull her eyes away from it. Dipper narrated as much as he could and answered any and all questions she posed, but there were moments when all he wanted to do was to look away. The final battle between the three of them had been a brutal one and utterly exhausting, and perhaps the damage was more than just physical. Yet again.
"Ford asked you a question that was not on the list you two agreed to, why?" They had reached those last few minutes of the recording with the 'Pacifica' moment. "This is a clear break from protocol."
"Yes it is..." Dipper thought about it for a moment, "Ripper wasn't like the others, he was a true genius and changing the question was Ford's way of keep him of balanced. I believe that he knew I would catch on and answer truthfully." So here it was; an official admission of his bond with Pacifica.
"I see..." Leanne narrowed her eyes and waited until the recording ran out. She was quiet for a long time and Dipper hoped she'd want to stop and grab something to eat; he was getting hungry and needed a break from re-living all that chaos. But Leanne kept her eyes focused on the space where the holographic recording ceased to exist. Her red hair fell about her shoulders and partially obscured her face, and again Dipper was transported to that summer with Wendy. His feelings began to play with his mind and he had to look away to keep from reaching for her.
"Do you love her?" Right to the point. Dipper had to blink away his memories before he answered.
"Yes, yes I do." There was no turning back now.
"In that case I don't understand something. Why did the TC make you a Master and give you a Commission?" Leanne looked puzzled. "From what you just said and what I have seen, you're obviously Temporally Entangled to Pacifica; this doesn't make any sense." She got up off of the bench and started to pace. "I was told to investigate and assess to see if you are compromised by an entanglement and you just proved that you not only are, but that the TC knows about it! What is going on?" Frustrated and deep in thought, she sat back down beside him and pulled her knees up to her chest.
"You know, ever since Gruff came to the Med-Centre to talk to me, I've been wondering the same thing. So when I went for my debriefing I hoped to get some answers but they cancelled that and instead sent you to test me. Now it looks like we're both in the same boat." The TC had played them both and as Dipper looked at Leanne, he realized that she had now taken this mystery on as her own and not just his alone. But why would the TC hold back information from one of their investigators, and what role did Leanne play in all of this?
"Maybe we're wrong..." Leanne looked earnestly at the ground, as if she expected the answers to grow amongst the grass. The Time Commission took loyalty to its cause very seriously, so Dipper knew that Leanne would find it hard to accept this discrepancy. "Could there be something we're missing, something you're missing? Maybe it's something from your past with Pacifica?" Now her scrutiny fell on him and her eyes studied his face intently looking for answers.
"Yes, I thought about that too, but there is nothing from what I remember that could explain why the TC agreed to promote me." He looked away from her penetrating gaze as memories of that summer flooded his mind, the mysteries with their dangers and the excitement of the search for the journal's author. After that, the phone calls and the time spent during March Break and the following summer vacation.
"But how did you get together, as far as I know you two hated each other?"
"True, but everything changed when I went to help her family with a ghost problem."
"Yes I read about that; you sure gave a lot of detail on how to fight a category eleven specter. All that running around and looking for a silver mirror when all you needed was to convince one of the Northwest's to open the gate." Leanne smirked.
"Yes, well they sort of lied to me about what the ghost wanted." Dipper tried to leave much of what he and Pacifica did that evening out of the report. "It wasn't until the ghost himself told me, that I finally found a way to defeat him, well actually it wasn't me but Pacifica who did it."
"Ok yeah, but what changed that evening? Your report does not mention much about your relationship."
"I know I sort of left that part out."
"Why?" Leanne looked confused, full disclosure was something the academy taught all of its recruits.
"Well, because I knew what it meant and I would have lost the apprenticeship if I told them everything. This meant a lot to me, I was finally going to work with Ford and see and experience all the things that he did." Dipper actually spent very little time at the academy; most of his time was with Ford and in the field, because becoming a Master was more of a hands-on work rather than a classroom kind of experience.
"Ah yes, of course, silly me." She turned away sheepishly and then came back with a question. "So what did happen between you two?"
Dipper took a deep breath and accepted the obvious need to explain the depth of his relationship with Pacifica. "That was the evening that we saw a different side to each other and gained a new perspective on our relationship. I learned that she wasn't all that, well, nasty and I guess something in me captured her eye." Dipper recalled that first hug, it was the first time that he felt strangely at ease around a girl so close to him. "But that evening was hardly a beginning; our relationship didn't grow any more until several months later. Wierdmaggedon was over and we were back home, but the horrors of it came back to haunt me. I started having nightmares and well... hallucinations."
"I don't blame you; you were just a kid back then." Leanne's voice was sympathetic, she looked genuinely concerned.
"You know, I'm not that much older."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I'm only sixteen."
"What?! That can't be true, you don't look sixteen and they wouldn't put a teenager through what you just showed me." Leanne looked shocked and agitated by this news.
"Oh, they put me through it alright and a lot more. I was only fourteen when I joined, but you should know this because you obviously read my file."
"I read it twice and had to study Wendy for a month, but nowhere in there is your age given. I found it odd at first but I ignored it because I had so much work to do. Now I see why they left that out, you're the youngest master on record, I'm not even sure if that's legal." There was admiration in her eyes and something more, something that made Dipper a bit concerned.
"That makes this an even greater mystery, doesn't it? Why would they want me to become a Master at such a young age?" Leanne just told him something he didn't know before, young teens of sixteen did not become masters. "What could the reason possibly be that they would break so many of their rules to make me a master?"
"I don't know, but continue your story maybe there is something there that'll show us." Leanne made herself comfortable on the bench and was ready to listen attentively, but Dipper was tired or at least tired of re-living his past.
"Listen, how about if we take a break and get something to eat, we've been at this for over three hours and I'm getting hungry. Say, a dinner break?"
"Ok, your treat!" Leanne said it with a big smile and jumped off the bench with enthusiasm. This sudden change surprised Dipper. He had begun to learn that Leanne's behaviour was as unusual and unpredictable as some of the creatures he chased. This made her even more appealing and dangerous.
"Sure thing, where to?" It's been a while since Dipper spent more than a day in the city; it had changed a lot in two years. Some places he recognized but new buildings replaced old familiar ones and the constant change made it look almost brand new.
"Well, I need to go home first to change, how about you?"
"The uniform will do for me; I can customize it to look like civilian clothing, I think I can blend in without a problem." Dipper was thankful that the master's uniform was designed to be functional and adaptable. Everything he needed was in it, including hidden weapons.
"Suit yourself!" Leanne laughed at her own pun, and then took off running across the green field towards the monument. Dipper sat for a moment and watched her run; her hair lifted into the air and caught the setting sun, she looked like a red fiery shooting star. It was then that he realized he was in trouble; it had been two years since he last saw Pacifica and he could feel a pull towards Leanne. This was not going to be an easy evening, not by a long shot.