AN: Well hello again! There was a request for Scary-oke redone at some point, and while it's not gonna be the same sort of thing as Before the Storm was with the Season 1 finale, I hope this will be just as good (and easier for me to manage; I had to type alongside a lot of the episode and it was very tough when I was writing Before the Storm.)

So enjoy! :)

(Also heck, more than 1000 views? Woah!)

Song for this chapter: Midnight by Coldplay

"Hey Mabel?"

"Hm Drei?"

"Where Dip?"

"I dunno, sorry!" Mabel was currently helping Soos stack Stan-shaped piñatas into a vaguely triangular arrangement. Soos was sneaking the candy out of each one he touched, stashing some in his cap and eating the rest on sight.

"Sorry dude," Soos said through a mouthful of gummy koalas. "Dipper ran off about half an hour ago. Dude looked real determined and all."

"Soos you're gonna eat it all!" Mabel complained, though her words lost their power through a laugh. "You can have some of the extra cookies I baked instead!"

Soos's face lit up and Drei laughed. "You're a genius, girl-dude." Soos followed Mabel back into the Shack with Drei bringing up the rear. He was walking with a slight limp, not because he was hurt, but because he was stuck wearing shoes.

Stan had insisted, claiming that no 'barefoot hooligans' were allowed at the Mystery Shack Grand Re-Opening Party. "No shirt, no shoes, no service!" he'd said as he rushed around getting things ready. Not before lightly bopping Drei's head with a rolled-up newspaper, though. "Mabel will take ya into town 'n get ya some. Just ask, okay, kiddo?"

Drei knew that Stan was being harried not only by the party but by the portal project too. Still, he couldn't help but scowl at the man as he walked away. Then he'd gone to find Mabel, who indeed had taken him to the mall to buy not only shoes, but an outfit appropriate for the party. Of course, getting him into the mall with no shoes was a struggle (and involved Stan's slippers) but they did it.

A few hours later they left with a pair of red Converse-type sneakers and nicer jeans than the ones she and Stan had originally bought Drei. After much deliberation, Mabel had decided that Drei could just wear the sweater she had made for him. It would look nice enough, and since the town was coming to the event he needed long sleeves to hide his tattoos.

This is what he was now dressed in, and ugh were the shoes annoying. He'd found himself hissing under his breath about them more than once.

"Mabel, cans I has some cookies too?" he asked hopefully, ignoring his discomfort for the moment.

"DREI there you are!" called a slightly exasperated but mostly relieved voice. "I was looking everywhere for you, man!" Dipper had come up behind Drei and the latter whirled around, almost tripping in his new footwear.

"Dip? I was heres the whole time!"

"Ugh, I must've kept missing you." Dipper looked excited and nervous now, grabbing Drei's hand and dragging him down the driveway of the Mystery Shack. "C'mon, there are some people who need to meet you!"

As Drei was led off, he cast a look back over his shoulder at the doorway through which Mabel and Soos had vanished and thought longingly of how much he'd just wanted a cookie.


"Agent Powers! Agent Trigger! Here he is!" The agents looked at each other skeptically as the kid they'd spoke to over the phone ran up, pulling a small teenager behind him. "Guys this is Drei. He holds a ton of secrets of this town, trust me." He nudged Drei forward.

"Kid, this is a teenager, not this 'magical construct' we were promised."

While Drei was rather frightened, he didn't like the way this mustached man was talking to his friend. "Hey! I is too magical construct, leave Dip alone! He don't lies!"

When Drei began to speak their doubts grew; the teen couldn't even speak correctly. Then they noticed his pupil-less eyes and sharp teeth and the tattoos on the back of his hands. Maybe… Maybe there was some element of truth to this?

And then Drei had rolled back his right sleeve to display the changing tattoos on his forearm and they'd gasped. "What is this?" Agent Powers muttered, leaning closer to Drei. It took most of the bravery the young construct had to not back away, to stand his ground for his best friend. Unfortunately, though, the marks showed the rather ridiculous drawing of the lepricorn.

"What the… Oh come on, that has to be fake," Powers said with a shake of his head.

"Yeah, not funny," Trigger confirmed. "So maybe he's a bit magical but if that kind of stuff is what he has for secrets…"

Dipper's eyes widened. "What?! No it's all true I swear!" He looked frantic, fingers threading into his hair under his hat, about to tear it out.

"Think your uncle was right about that overactive imagination," Powers said, looking disappointed.

"Wait!" Dipper pulled Drei aside. "Give me a spell to read, man! I need to prove that this information is real!" Drei gulped and the first thing that came to his mind rippled into existence on his arm. Without reading what the spell was for, Dipper began to chant in what he recognized as ancient Latin. He couldn't understand what he was saying, however.

Drei could, but it was a short spell and he didn't recognize it in time. "Dip, DON'T!" still escaped his mouth, but too late. A crack opened right behind him and Drei scrambled away as it separated him from Dipper.

"Oh yeah the zombie spell!" Dipper said with a grin, not looking worried at all by the copious amounts of green smoke pouring from the fissure. "I forgot about that one!" He turned to the agents just as a humanoid eldritch horror began clawing its was out of the ground.

"See? An actual zombie! My magic construct best friend is full of very real information." He smirked, not noticing how worried Drei was looking.

"Sweet mother of all that is holy!" exclaimed Powers as he backed off, pulling Trigger with him.

"What, it's just one zombie," assured Dipper with a laugh as he dodged a swipe of the decomposing upper body. The agents continued backing off, gaping. Trigger could only stammer.

"Kid," Powers began. "We've been chasing the paranormal for a long time, but nothing prepared us for this!" And they hadn't; they were usually two people on surveillance or reading over notes from the lab, not directly in the field. This was only their third field mission, and the other two had ended up with the agents chasing after some faked anomaly.

"Pfft I can get rid of it. Drei can you come show me the zombie section again?"

"D-Dip, I… I DON'T REMEMBERS HOWS TO FIX IT!" he wailed, and suddenly more cracks broke open all around him and he staggered back. More and more of the undead monstrosities lurched toward Dipper, Powers, and Trigger, much more dangerous because these had legs. Powers smashed the closest, the original, over the head with a rock, then he and Trigger fled into the woods, leaving Dipper to dash to Drei and drag him back to the Shack.

"What… Do you mean… You don't remember?!" Dipper huffed as he ran. The ground was shaking again, and he could hear the newly arrived partygoers at the Shack screaming… The screaming was getting fainter as the patrons fled back towards town, thankfully in the opposite direction…

"I means I don'ts know!" Drei cried out, dragging Dipper now since the twelve-year-old had shorter legs.

"DIPPER!" Mabel shrieked once they came into view, looking furious. "What's the one thing I asked you not to do tonight?"

"Raise the dead," he mumbled, thinking back to the previous conversation they'd had on the subject, earlier that day, about him not spoiling the party. It seemed bitterly ironic now.

"And what did you just do?"

"He raiseded the dead," Drei answered helpfully, just as the groaning of zombies drew closer.

"Stay back dudes!" Soos jumped in front of the three as the horde shambled into view. "I've seen enough zombie movies and played enough games to be, like, a pro at this. We gotta get to the golf cart–" And that was wrecked by five zombies all at once, as if they'd heard and understood. "And there goes that idea, whoops," said Soos. Even he looked nervous now.

And the zombies kept coming, not just moaning now but snarling and frothing like rabid dogs, yellow eyes gleaming like a feral version of Drei's. "Get behind me," Soos said. "I got… OW!" And he got chomped on the shoulder while the twins and Drei gasped. He managed to pull away, but the large man had gone extremely pale and his eyes were now glowing too.

Mabel, Dipper, and Drei finally screamed.

The trio bolted away, Dipper clutching a shovel and Mabel dragging the karaoke machine after her.

"Stop running, dudes! Only makes your brains look tastier!" Soos called from around the corner.

"Where do we go, where do we go?!" Dipper was hyperventilating as he whacked at a zombie with the shovel. Even with his weak arms he managed to knock it over and subsequently bash its brittle head in. Mabel took out the next by smacking its head clean off with the karaoke machine.

"This thing makes a good weapon!" she yelped as they backed towards the Shack.

"Waits… DOOR!" Drei felt the handle of the gift shop door pressed into his back and opened it. The three tumbled inside and Drei sprang up to slam the door so hard a crack webbed across the glass. "Let's gets to attic!"

His zombielike eyes were wide and full of fear; this was far, far worse than when he had been scared of rain. But Dipper dropped the shovel with a clang and they pelted to the stairs.

"Aw c'mon, guys! I just let these dudes into the fuse box, I'm like, a genius among them. Go get those brains, dudes!" Soos's haunting words echoed through the hallways along with shattering glass as the lights flickered out. Drei and Mabel and Dipper had made it to the living room when the karaoke machine got caught on something and Mabel tripped. Dipper bent down to help her up, and when they both stood…

A skeletonized hand clawed right through the wood of the living room wall and grabbed Dipper's arm near his shoulder, hoisting the small boy right off his feet and eliciting a shriek from him, his sister, and his friend.

"Oh no, no no no!" Dipper screamed as he thrashed around and was maneuvered ever closer to the gaping jaws and void-like eyes. "Mabel! Drei! HELP!" His head was small enough to fit in that mouth with its snakelike, dislocated jaws and he squeezed his eyes shut and waited for sickening pain–

It never came. Instead there was a snarl and a red blur flashed by and bit down on the zombie arm, spluttering at the bad taste. "NOBODY HURTS THEMS!" Drei screeched as he did his best to rip the zombies to pieces. Those wings they had only seen once before had reappeared, flapping madly as their owner subdued the struggling foe. When the zombie was once again dead, Drei whirled on the others, green streaking his face and hands.

Dipper had scrambled back up and was clinging to Mabel, who clutched him back, in shock. Drei saved his life. The construct had torn through three more zombies with tooth and nail, though he was grimacing at the taste.

"Woo go Drei!" called Mabel weakly. They probably should have ran to the attic, but they couldn't, under any circumstances, simply abandon Drei to fight alone.

Which turned out to be good when one of the abominations sunk its teeth into Drei's forearm, calling forth the black blood. Drei screamed, a terrible sound, as more hands clawed at him and he tried to tear his arm free.

"No!" Dipper cried out. It was over. Drei would become a zombie and he'd kill them all, with his speed and sharp teeth. But he hadn't changed yet…. Never-the-less, Dipper tried to run to his friend's aid, but before he could… A figure swinging a baseball bat crushed the monsters' skulls into dust, leaving Drei to drop in a heap on the ground, cradling his injured arm close, sweater sleeve drenched in black.

It was Stan. He had been taking care of Zwei when he heard the commotion and had barricaded the room so the unholy terrors couldn't get to the injured man. Then he'd gone after the others.

"Kids! Attic! Now!"

"B-but Drei!" Dipper said in a terrified squeak, eyes not moving from his best friend.

"I said NOW, kid! I got Drei!" And he hefted the stunned teen over one shoulder, fending off the horde with the bat with the other hand. Dipper and Mabel took off for the stairs, and Stan followed as close behind as he could. He was still swinging at zombies when they closed and barricaded the door.

They were safe for the moment, the room suffused with an eerie purplish glow from the spare blacklights cast about the floor. Stan moved so he was cradling Drei in a more comfortable position and the teen whimpered. His wings had wrapped around his stomach, trembling slightly.

Why hadn't he turned into a zombie? Was it because he was a magical being, because he didn't have human blood? They didn't know, but the twins were grateful. Stan laid him on Dipper's bed and the boy pulled the first aid kit out from underneath it. Working together, the old man and the not-quite-teen cut the sweater sleeve off at the elbow and disinfected and bandaged the wound.

Mabel guarded the door, listening intently to the two working behind her. She held a golf club aloft, and Waddles stood next to her, oinking intently.

"Damn!" came Stan's exclamation when he noticed black leaking sluggishly from one of Drei's ears. The screams must have reopened the wounds from two days previously. Stan had thought the teen would be okay; both he and Dipper were healing nicely.

"Grunkle Stan, language!" said Mabel reflexively.

A few tense minutes passed and then Stan stepped away from the woozy figure in the bed. He and Dipper then further jumped when they got a big surprise. Mabel whirled around.

The weird, almost alien light had hit Drei's huddled form and the results were shocking. His eyes were no longer yellow but pure white, no iris distinguishable from the rest. More tattoos, layers over the old ones, could be seen glowing purple, shifting as the black marks shifted. He apparently had invisible ink tattoos. His teeth glowed. The wings hugging his midsection gave off a faint luminescence as if each hair was tipped with glowing paint.

"Drei. You're glowing." Mabel was the first person to speak.

"Ohs. I forgets I did this," came his weak voice as his bright eyes wandered over his form. Then his eyes widened. "I remembers now! Dip, come!" he beckoned to the boy, and Dipper immediately moved to his side. "Dip, there a way to beat zombies here! No remember without blacklight. Look!" He reached up with his non-injured left hand and tapped his right cheek. A tattoo, the one he'd seen before about zombies, shimmered into existence. "Hold up light!"

And Dipper did.

The answer was revealed. "Three part harmonies can shatter the skulls of zombies!" Dipper yelped. "That's it! Drei you're amazing!" He wondered why Drei could only remember his secret entries when the blacklight shone on him, but now wasn't the time to ask. "I have a naturally high-pitched scream," he offered.

"I can make weird noises with my body, sometimes even on purpose," Stan said with a tired shrug.

"Boys, you're missing the obvious solution here! Karaoke!" Mabel still had that infernal machine, they saw, sitting next to Waddles.

"No way," Dipper said, shaking his head.

"But it has to be a harmony, meaning we all have to do the same thing at the same time in different matching pitches! What do you call that?" She looked annoyed.

"… Singing," Dipper sighed.

"I can sing insteads of Dip," Drei offered, propping himself up a little. Stan sighed.

"Sorry kid, but you're injured. Also… Don't get, y'know, offended by this, but… Since we apparently all need to, ugh, sing the same thing at the same time… The way you speak wouldn't allow that to be real possible, you know?" Stan looked guilty.

And Mabel looked sad. "Drei, you gotta stay here and protect Waddles for me. That's a really, really important job." She walked over and settled the pig next to the bed. "And after all this, I'll teach you to sing if you want. And I'll knit a new sleeve for your sweater. Promise!" She smiled down at him, and he smiled back. Then she held out a tentative hand to one trembling wing, as if waiting for permission.

In response, the wing moved up to brush her fingers, and she pet it gently. "Tickles," Drei said with a slight laugh.

"So fuzzy," Mabel giggled in response.

"We'll be back soon, kid," said Stan with a smile of his own. Dipper set the blacklight on the nightstand and looked at Drei.

"I promise we'll be right back." He squeezed one of Drei's hands gently, and the teen watched as Mabel used her grappling hook to get them out the window and onto the roof. He listened with a soft smile as they made the announcement to their 'listeners' and as Mabel announced them as 'Love Patrol Alpha' and Dipper called "I did not agree to that name!" He recalled an argument about that when they were setting up for the party.

He ran his hand down Waddles' back as he heard them singing. Mabel was pretty good, and regardless of what the twelve-year-old thought of himself, Dipper wasn't bad either. Stan was… Stan.

But they did it. They saved everyone.

Except…

Except Soos.

And as the Pines came back into the room through the window, they seemed to realize that. Drei heard Mabel mumbling about Soos and looking a little haunted after the carnage she'd just witnessed. Dipper was silent but looked no better. Only Stan didn't realize that Soos had become a zombie.

He seemed pretty happy as they unblocked the door and guided Drei down the stairs to properly clean up his arm.

"We showed those undead freaks, huh kids?" he said with a big grin. They were sitting at the kitchen table inspecting the ragged bite marks in Drei's skin and debating whether he needed stitches.

"I think we're okay with just bandages," a subdued Dipper said in way of reply. Stan's face fell.

"Okay, fess up you two. What's wrong? We won and you still look like zombies are gonna take over Gravity Falls."

Mabel's eyes began brimming with tears. "I-it's Soos, he was turned into a–"

"Hey dudes you got any brains I could eat?"

Stan jumped and threw a chair to block Soos's path. "KILL IT KILL IT!"

"Waits!" Drei yelped. "I have un-zombification solution recipe! We can saves Soos!"

Everyone froze. "What, really?" asked Dipper, a grin coming back to his face. Drei nodded, calling up the potion list on his face since his usual spot was obscured in bandages.

Mabel jumped up and down happily. "Ohmygosh we can get Soos back!"

"Hehe this chair is annoying," laughed Soos, not able to maneuver past the obstacle. "I really want those brains. Bet you taste delicious, dudes."

"Yous guys sure didn't taste good," Drei said, wrinkling his nose. "Zombie taste bad. Like moldy cookie. But worses."

Even Stan had to smile, after he stopped clutching his chest. "Okay kids what do we need?"

Dipper leaned closer to Drei's smiling face.

"Well, first of all, a lot of formaldehyde…"

AN: Whee there we go!

I wouldn't normally tell you guys what's up next, but to get the hype going… Hopefully it's gonna be a darker version of Sock Opera! The fact that Drei is a person really opens up the idea that the episode would be a lot darker… It's gonna be great! That might not be directly next, but it'll be coming up soon!

I might choose to do a shorter one-shot first though, I'm not sure!

There is also a planned Drei's Birthday Special in the future. He actually has a true canon birthday, and the first person to get the date right can request a scene they want to see in that one-shot! :D (The other two brothers won't be in it, alas.)

Wheee this is all gonna be great!