Hey, guys! Sorry it's been a while - I got hit with inspiration for another fic that I'm trying to get done, so I got pulled away for a bit.

Thanks to Saul'keth, Mando artist and writer, NBoss01, MaddySan5926, ElfArmyGrace, Jackie-Chaos-Bunny, PrincessRainbowSparkles, KarolynneWolfHeart, Blookybax, dragon77888, and Bells041700 for the Favs and Follows!

Mando - Yay! I'm glad you like it! :)

Dip - I'm glad you liked the slower pace of the last chapter - I figured that I'd need to let things sink in a bit, so having Stan reveal a little about himself to the Mystery Crew worked out well enough for that. And it certainly does count as something happening, but it's not as big as Ford's reveal was. :)

This chapter - if the title's at all familiar to you - we get to meet someone who is very near and dear to many a fan's heart - and it's the only reason I got my sister sucked into Gravity Falls in the first place. :) I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 6 - Land Before Swine

"So, what do you guys want to do today?" Dipper looked around at the group. "I mean, we've got the day off; there's got to be some kind of anomaly we can investigate, right?"

Wendy sighed, resting her elbows on the table and resting her head on her hands. "I wish. Six years of poking around doesn't leave much left for us to explore, and if we can't get close to the lake, we can't really do much with that floating head."

"I'm sure it'll be okay soon," Mabel spoke up. "I mean, you guys said it's just got a toothache, right? That'll go away eventually."

Nate snorted. "Yeah, but who says that we're going to be able to get anywhere near it after that?"

"It is starting to get warm again," Candy commented.

"It's summer, though." Mabel frowned. "Doesn't it always get hot?"

"We get hot and hotter," Lee replied in a deadpan tone. "The heat waves up here can get to be really nasty some days – you're not going to be wearing that sweater for long, Mabel."

Wendy perked up instantly. "Oh, yeah! We should probably check the mine and make sure that the stuff down there isn't going to be causing any trouble down the road."

"Mine?" Dipper blinked. "There's a mine?"

"An ABANDONED one." Grenda grinned. "It's got all kinds of cool stuff down there!"

"Do you think we could get Pacifica to come down and explore down there, too?" Mabel wriggled in her seat eagerly. "I wanna get to know her better, and going mini golfing with her and the Lilputtians is starting to get boring when we get holes-in-one on everything."

"It's hard enough to get Pacifica out of the mansion for those kinds of dates, and she's only really interested in what happens in town." Wendy shrugged. "Probably the only times we get to go to her house are if there's a ghost harassing her family or if the gnomes are still trying to get her to be their queen – which they do every few months or so, when her family holds some big party and accidentally lets one or two of them in."

"Oh." Mabel's shoulders sagged in disappointment.

Dipper cleared his throat. "So, what kinds of things are down in the mine that makes you guys want to go back and check it out?"

"There are dinosaurs encased in amber down there." Candy smiled slyly. "And they are alive, too."

"Six years ago a pterodactyl got loose," Wendy explained. "We haven't seen it since it flew off with its kid to the south somewhere." She paused. "It might have started taking people and eating them, but we haven't heard anything like that on the news around here."

Mabel and Dipper exchanged looks.

"Did I hear something about an extinct dinosaur?" Stan sauntered over. "You kids are really planning on unearthing that thing again?"

"Well, why not?" Wendy grinned. "I mean, these guys haven't seen the mine yet, and it's part of everything that's going on around here, too. Besides, it's not too hot yet, so the amber shouldn't be melting anytime soon."

"Yeah, well, make sure you kids watch your back, all right? I don't want to hear that you kids got chomped on by a T-Rex or something."

Nate waved Stan off. "It's not that warm yet; I'm sure we'll be fine."

Stan grunted in response. "Still, make sure you're careful, all right? I don't want to see another one of those flying freaks hanging around here tearing the roof off cars or something."

"The pterodactyl did that six years ago?" Dipper's eyebrows shot up.

"Yeah. The cops had fun pretending they had a brand-new convertible, but they did have to get the roof replaced after a downpour that turned the car into a portable swimming pool."

"A portable swimming pool sounds cool," Mabel commented. "I mean, you could take it with you wherever you go."

Stan scoffed. "Yeah, but it'd ruin the upholstery in the car and do who-knows-what when it seeps into the engine. At least they were smart enough to get the car repaired before they would have needed to get a new one. Just make sure that you kids get as far away from that place as possible if one of those dinos breaks loose."

"We will." Wendy gave Stan a thumbs-up. "We've done this stuff before, remember? We'll be fine."

"Yeah, yeah." Stan grunted, then headed back behind the counter, ruffling Mabel's hair with a chuckle as he went past her. "Have fun, and don't get your head bitten off."

"We won't!" Mabel chirped in reply.

Stan gave her a smirk as he slipped around the counter and disappeared into the kitchen.

"Well, no point in hanging around." Wendy rose up from her seat. "Come on – let's go get Soos and head over there; at least Stan won't be bugging us about older adult supervision, then."

"Do you think he'll come with us?" Dipper followed the redhead out of the diner, followed by Mabel, Grenda, Lee, Nate, and Candy.

"Well, yeah – I mean, he helped us out of the mess with the pterodactyl, so I don't see why not." Wendy shrugged and smirked. " 'Sides, today's his day off, and he hasn't been able to go exploring with you guys."

"Do you think he'd want to?"

"Sure! Besides, somebody's gotta give us a ride to get there, what with Thompson taking the van who-knows where."

Time Break

It turned out that Soos was more than willing to come with them to the mine, and his pickup had more than enough room in the truck's bed for the crew to fit.

Dipper winced as the truck went over a boulder. "So the mine's out in the woods? Why's it out here?"

Nate shrugged. "No one knows. All we know is that the place has been abandoned for years. Nobody even knew that there was a mine out there until the heat wave six years ago."

"How did you guys miss it?" Mabel frowned.

"The entrance we found was under an old abandoned church." Robbie grinned and wriggled his fingers sinisterly. "Maybe people thought the place was haunted or something – who knows? The entire thing's collapsed, now, though, so if there were any ghosts there, they're definitely long gone."

"Ghosts?" Dipper looked up at Robbie in surprise. "Have you run into any actual ghosts?"

Wendy groaned. "We've run into ghosts all right. And we're never going into Dusk 2 Dawn ever again."

"Why not?" Mabel cocked her head to one side.

"The ghosts there hate teenagers. Technically, we're not anymore, but they still remember us from when we broke into their shop six years ago." Wendy rubbed at her forehead and sighed. "We are not going there."

Dipper and Mabel exchanged looks and decided against asking Wendy what exactly had happened.

The pickup bounced again, then came to a stop.

Soos opened the driver's door and stepped out, followed shortly by Tambry from the passenger's side. "We're here, dudes!"

Dipper stood up in the back of the pickup at the same time that Mabel did, leaning against the edge of the truck in order to catch himself after having been sitting and moving at once. He looked around the clearing as the others started to climb off, and as he did he caught sight of what looked like a large pile of rotting wood. Even as he was looking at it, a portion of the pile suddenly collapsed in on itself.

Dipper frowned, then started climbing out of the truck. "That doesn't look very safe."

"The entrance to the mine is in there?" Mabel jumped off the tailgate as Dipper's feet hit the forest floor.

"Yup." Nate gave the two a thumbs-up. "There's a big hole where the altar used to be – it's probably gotten bigger since we were last here, though."

"I'd expect that, considering the state of disrepair that the church is in." Tambry frowned at the remains of the building, her hands on her hips. "We're going to have to be careful going down into the mine."

"I was thinking of splitting up." Wendy grabbed the coil of rope that was sitting at the bottom of the truck bed and threw it over her shoulder. "Some of us'll go down with Dipper and Mabel, and some of us will stay up here in case something happens to the rope or something."

"I'LL GO DOWN!" Grenda raised a hand and waved it, grinning widely. "I wanna see the dinos again!"

"As do I," Candy agreed, nodding.

"Don't count me out of this one either, dudes!" Soos jabbed himself in the chest with a thumb, grinning. "Somebody's gotta be on pterodactyl watch!"

"And I'm heading down there, too." Wendy gave a wink and a thumbs-up.

"I-I think I'll stay up here this time," Robbie said quickly. Nate and Lee nodded in agreement.

Tambry rolled her eyes with a snort. "Well, I'm not about to leave them alone up here." She held up her phone. "Make sure you call up in case anything happens, all right?"

"Sure, Tambry." Wendy gave her friend a lazy salute before she started towards the collapsed chapel, Dipper, Mabel, Grenda, Candy, and Soos following after her.

"You said the dinosaurs are encased in amber, right?" Dipper looked at Wendy with a curious expression. "What kinds of dinosaurs are down there?"

"All kinds – mostly big ones, though. I think I saw a frozen T-Rex the last time we were down there."

Dipper's eyes widened. "A T-Rex? Seriously? That's dangerous!"

"Yeah, we know. But it hasn't gotten out, and it probably won't anytime soon." Wendy shrugged. "I mean, it's stuck in a cave. The only way that it'd be able to get out is if it learned how to climb or something. Besides, it's not hot enough out here for the stuff to melt and let it out."

Dipper let out a sigh of relief as they reached the collapsed chapel, which really didn't look at all stable – the walls and roof had completely collapsed in on themselves, and the wood was clearly ready to fall into smaller pieces at any moment, making walking on it rather treacherous. And at one end of the collapsed church, there was a large, gaping hole in what used to be the floor.

Mabel peered over the edge of the hole as Wendy uncoiled the rope and started feeding it down into it. "We're gonna go down there?"

"That's the plan," Wendy replied. She looked around for a moment, then moved over to a nearby tree and tied the rope around it before moving to the edge of the hole. "Come on."

Wendy disappeared over the edge of the hole. Dipper and Mabel exchanged looks as Grenda and Candy followed after her.

"Go on, dudes." Soos gave the twins an encouraging grin. "Wendy'll catch you guys if you end up falling off."

Dipper and Mabel exchanged looks again before Dipper moved over to the rope and grabbed it before starting down. Mabel and Soos followed after him moments later, and they were soon down on the cave floor.

Dipper looked around as he left go of the rope. "Wow. What kinds of flowers are these? They look like something out of prehistoric times." He started to move towards a clump of plants that clearly didn't belong in the present day.

"Don't get too close to it," Soos warned. "I made that mistake the last time I came down here – lost my sense of smell for a while." He rubbed his nose, wincing at the memory.

Dipper backed away from the flower, surprised. "Thanks for the warning."

"No problem, dude."

"Hey, this wasn't down here before…."

Dipper turned when he heard Wendy's voice, and he saw her standing in front of what was probably the entrance to the abandoned mine, hands on her hips as she frowned at the stone wall to the left of the entrance. There, on the gray rock, was a green, six-fingered handprint that was glowing faintly.

"What is it?" Mabel moved over to stand next to Wendy as the others joined them.

"It's a marker of some kind." Candy adjusted her glasses.

"Yeah; they're scattered all over Gravity Falls if you know where to look for them." Wendy nodded.

"Really?" Dipper gained an interested expression.

"Look! It's got six fingers!" Grenda pointed at the symbol. "What kind of monster would have six fingers instead of five?"

Mabel and Dipper exchanged looks at the question, thinking back to the night that they'd spent in their Grunkles' house.

"Do you think—"

"Probably." Dipper cut his sister off, nodding.

"Well, it's not lighting up like a Christmas tree, so that means it's probably safe to go in there." Wendy turned to look at the others.

"Do you have any idea what it's doing there?" Dipper asked, nodding to the handprint.

Wendy shrugged. "Not really. I mean, they started popping up six years ago after we started exploring and looking into what was living out in the woods. All I know is that if they're glowing brightly, then it's dangerous to be in the area." She jabbed a thumb back at the handprint. "It's not glowing enough for there to be a dino on the loose, so we're probably okay with going in there and checking things out." Wendy started into the mine. "Come on!"

Wendy led the group into the mine, pulling a flashlight out of a pocket in her jeans and flicking it on as the tunnel became darker. Dipper considered pulling out his journal, but there wasn't enough light for him to see properly in order to write – he was going to have to write about all this later, when they'd gotten out of the mine and gone back to either Soos' house or the diner.

Dipper cleared his throat as they left the tunnel and entered a large cavern. "So, uh, when are we going to see the dinosa…." His voice trailed off in shock.

The cavern they had just entered was filled with large columns of a sticky orange substance – amber, or at least tree sap of some kind. Contained in most of the large columns were large, lizard-like creatures that Dipper had only seen in biology books and history museums – triceratops, stegosaurus, and even some of the more dangerous carnivores.

"…oh, wow." Dipper's eyes promptly lit up. "This is incredible! They're so well preserved!"

"Yeah, and you'd better be careful with coming down here on a hot sunny day." Wendy pointed her flashlight at one of the columns of tree sap – there wasn't a dinosaur encased there, but there was a clear indent saying that there used to be something encased there. "That's where the pterodactyl used to be, and there's scarier monsters around here than that one to worry about."

There came a faint, echoing, snuffling noise from somewhere nearby, causing the group to stiffen and move a little closer together.

"Wh-what is that?" Dipper asked nervously.

Wendy's eyes narrowed. "I don't know, but it could be anything. We'd better be careful or else—"

A small shadow moved around one of the tree sap pillars closest to them, and Wendy cut herself off in favor of moving into a half-crouch, ready to lunge and attack the oncoming creature at any moment. She flicked her flashlight's beam in the direction of the shadow and—

Mabel let out a loud squeal. "Oh my gosh! A PIG!" She ran ahead of the group and grabbed the small, pink animal and picked it up easily, swinging back and forth in excitement. "It's so cute! Oh my gosh!"

Wendy relaxed out of her stance, blinking in confusion and surprise. "What's a pig doing down here?"

"Maybe it wandered into the woods and fell down here?" Candy suggested.

"Maybe." Wendy scratched her head. "Seems kind of odd, though – there aren't very any farms that are near here."

"I'm keeping him!" Mabel declared as she came back to the group. "And I'm going to name him Waddles!"

"Uh, Mabel? Are you sure that Mom and Dad are going to even let you keep a pig when we head back at the end of the summer?" Dipper asked. "I mean, we've already got a cat."

"I'm sure we'll figure something out," Mabel chirped happily in reply. "I mean, look at him! Do you really think that Mom and Dad will be able to say no to this face?" She held the pig up in Dipper's face, making him step back a bit when their noses almost collided with.

"She's got a point there." Soos nodded knowingly.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Dipper opened his mouth to argue with Soos, but paused. "Hey. Do you guys hear that?"

Mabel stopped nuzzling Waddles and looked up at the question. She blinked a couple times, frowned, then nodded. "What do you think it is?"

"I don't know." Wendy started walking forward. "So let's go find out."

The group cautiously moved towards the column of tree sap that Waddles had come around, Wendy in the lead. Carefully, they peered around the column as Wendy moved her flashlight to face where the noise was coming from and—

"Gideon?!" Wendy exclaimed in surprise.

The white-haired, blue suit-wearing teenager turned in surprise upon hearing Wendy's voice, a hammer and what looked like a large nail in his hands. The tree sap column behind him looked like it had some chips taken out of it, but not enough to free even a claw of the dinosaur trapped inside.

"What do you think you're doing?" Wendy started towards Gideon, followed closely by the others in the group.

"Well, I found out about this place recently, and I thought I could make off with a couple smaller ones," Gideon replied lightly, not at all bothered by the fact that he'd been found. "I'm sure they're pretty harmless."

Dipper eyed the dinosaur that Gideon had started working at freeing. "That's a velociraptor, Gideon. That's probably the most dangerous dinosaur down here besides the T-Rex."

"YEAH!" Grenda yelled in agreement. "Didn't you watch Jurassic Park, ya moron?"

"Jurassic what now?" Gideon chuckled, although he sounded nervous. "I'm too busy for that sort of thing." He looked the group over for a moment, and his expression brightened as soon as he caught sight of Mabel. "Oh hi, Mabel! Fancy meetin' you down here! How was your trip into the woods the other night?"

"Fine," Mabel replied tersely. She hugged Waddles closer.

"Is that a pig? I'd thought I'd heard somethin' snufflin' around down here. Are you plannin' on havin' a ham dinner toni—"

"NO!" Mabel glared at Gideon. "Waddles is my soulmate! I'm not going to eat him!"

The exclamation threw Gideon off, and he blinked in surprise. "Uh…"

Wendy groaned and rolled her eyes. "Come on, let's get out of here before Gideon decides to break out the V-raptor and we all get torn apart and eaten." She stomped over to Gideon, who tried to turn and flee only for Wendy to grab the back of the collar of his shirt and lift him into the air.

"H-hey! Put me down you backwater lumberjack!" Gideon threatened. "I'll sue!"

"No you won't," Wendy replied without missing a beat. "Tambry's still got your amulet, remember? You do anything to us, and she breaks it."

Gideon let out a hissing sound like a cat trapped in a human body, but he stopped struggling against Wendy's grip.

"Now, come on – let's get out of here." Wendy started back towards the entrance, then paused. "And let's seal this place up, too – don't want any dinos getting out, or people getting in and letting them out."

"What?!" Gideon gained an expression of horror. "Why would you do that? You could make so much money just by bringing people down here and showing this place off as an exhibit!"

"And when it gets really warm out and the T-Rex gets loose and eats the tourists? No thanks; I'd rather work at my cousin's logging camp for the summer."

"B-b-b-but –" Gideon turned his attention to Mabel. "Mabel, sweet peach, help me out here! Wouldn't people love to see this kind of thing? It could be a romantic restaurant with beautiful candlelight reflectin' off the amber –"

"With the chance of that stuff melting? No thanks." Mabel turned her nose up and looked away from the boy with a huff. "Besides, I wouldn't come down here with you, that's for sure."

"Ah, come on! Just one widdle old date, please?"

Dipper rolled his eyes and shook his head while Mabel refused to look at Gideon. It was clear to the both of them that Gideon wasn't going to give up, but their will wasn't about to waver, either.

"So, how are we going to seal this off?" Dipper asked as they came to the entrance they'd come through again. "I mean, are we going to need to go find some old dynamite or…?"

Wendy shot him a grin. "I think we've already got everything that we need right here."

Time Break

"So the dinos are basically trapped down there if they ever wake up, huh?" Stan nodded. "Smart move. I've been wanting that to happen for a while after what happened six years ago."

"Well, six years ago we didn't have Grenda's freakish strength to help me take care of it." Wendy nodded to Grenda, who gave a broad grin and puffed out her chest at the praise. "At least Gideon's not going to be doing anything stupid down there now."

"Good. I don't want to have to deal with dinos running around on top of everything that lives in the woods already." Stan held out a fist. "Good call."

Wendy tapped her fist with Stan's, grinning. "Thanks. Anything to keep a Jurassic Park incident from happening here, y'know?"

"Heh heh. Yeah, definitely." Stan put his hands in his pockets. "So, got anything else planned?"

"Not for today, anyway. I'll have to think of something else now that we've sealed off the mine." Wendy shrugged. "Got any ideas?"

"Eh." Stan shrugged. "I'll let you know if anything comes up."

"Mr. Pines, do you know anything about the six-fingered handprints?" Candy asked innocently.

Stan stiffened a little at the question. "Why do you want to know about the handprints?"

"We wanna know what kind of MONSTER would leave them AROUND!" Grenda replied.

Stan's expression darkened as Mabel and Dipper exchanged looks.

"That's going into talkin' about what's livin' in the house in the woods, an' I already said that I'm not talkin' about that," Stan said seriously.

"That's a pretty heavy accent, old man," Wendy commented. "Where are you from? Brooklyn?"

"New Jersey," Stan grunted in reply. "It's been years since I've been there, though, and I'm never going back." He paused. "Look, if you kids want to find something to do, I'll probably be able to think of something you haven't done yet. Something that won't get you killed by the end of the day."

"I'd appreciate a little bit of a challenge," Wendy replied with a confident grin. "Thompson's going to be working one of the days that I'm off. Maybe some of us could get a closer look at that gremgoblin."

"Oh, no. That thing nearly took me out when I first got here – I'm not letting you anywhere near it on purpose." Stan shook his head resolutely, then paused and gained a wicked grin. "Leprecorns, on the other hand, are fair game. I'm sure the Gleefuls would have a horrible time trying to root those things out of their yard. I'll show ya where to find those little buggers tomorrow."

Grins that matched Stan's instantly crossed the faces of the Mystery Crew. This was going to be a very, very fun day.

XD Gideon, you really need to pay more attention to what's popular.

I hope you guys liked this one! Next chapter's gonna be an even more fun one. For we are going back to the Mystery Shack for some Ford-and-niblings-shenanigans!

See you when I get the chapter done!