Miracle City, Mexico, was not the type of place Jake would call "traditionally friendly," so it really spoke volumes about his appearance that he could get around pretty much undisturbed. Grabbing a churro from one of the vendors near the park, he sat down on the bench nearest the fountain and waited, his face obscured by a black cloak he'd taken from his home.

Finally, after a few minutes of nothing, sirens began erupting all over the city, accompanied by a cloud of smoke billowing from the center.

"I swear you could almost set your watch to the crime in this city."

Following the trail of smoke into town, Jake soon ran into a crowd huddled around the Miracle City Bank. Watching from the edge of the group, churro still in hand, he had to fight back the urge to rush in him and handle the situation himself. "C'mon Rivera," he said, pulling the hood of his cloak back slightly so that he could get a better view of the building, "you couldn't have gotten this lazy already."

As if reacting to his thoughts, a massive explosion rocked the left side of the building, throwing a cloud of dust into the eyes of the spectators. Running through the debris, Jake caught the silhouette of a large figure carrying two large sacks. As he listened closer, he heard gruff laughter accompanied by a thick Mexican accent that trailed into alleys behind the bank. "Haha, you ain't ever gonna catch me, mang!"

"Wait a min- El Oso? Seriously Tigre? This guy's still running the streets?" Deciding to go after El Oso himself, Jake pushed through the crowd and ran into the alley he had disappeared into. As he squeezed between the fire trucks that had gathered on the scene to handle the flames, he finally found what he was looking, a brown and orange blur that followed the faint sound of a tiger's roar.

"About time, dude," Jake murmered to himself, "I was about to wonder if something had happened to you."

In a flash, El Oso toppled in the alleyway with a loud thud that seemed to echo throughout the city. "Seriously El Oso, don't you ever get tired of this?"

"I would say yeah… but I don't gots much else to do, mang. What about you, you bored'a this?"

"Punching bad guys and sometimes skimming off the top before turning them in? Nah, man, life's good."

Unbelievable, Jake thought as he pinched his forehead, you're still pulling these stunts, Rivera?

Unfortunately, Jake was so focused on watching Manny and El Oso, he had completely neglected the police cars that had gathered behind them, blocking off the mouth of the alley. "Aww man," he said, drawing his hood over the face a little more, "now the cops show up?" Pressing his back further against the space where he was hiding, Jake crouched behind a garbage bin to avoid being seen by the authorities.

"El Tigre! The jig is up! We know you've been working with El Oso, come out with your hands up and return what you've stolen!"

"Are you kidding me with this? I just stopped Oso from running off with the loot and now I'm being arrested for it? No respect in this town." Extending his claw, he gripped the edge of the building and hosited himself to the roof, ignoring the angry cries of the police below.

Once he reached the roof, Manny was surprised to see Jake already there, still cloaked for anonymity.

"Manny," Jake said, stepping forward to greet his friend, "it's good to see you agai-" However, before he could get two steps closer, Manny launched his fist and hit him square in the stomach, dropping him onto the cold hard concrete.

Using his hood to conceal his face from the oncoming news copters, Jake rolled into a crouched postition. "Okay, we so don't have time for this." Rushing towards Manny, he saw the faint look of realization on his face just as he tackled him. Expecting to feel the rough sting of cement when he landed, Manny gasped with surprise when he instead fell upon something marginally softer.

"Yo, is… is this…grass?" Manny asked, absent mindedly throwing Jake off of him so that he could examine the landscape. Positive he was no longer in Miracle City, Manny turned on Jake, growling and flashing his claws. "Alright, spill, who are you? What do you want with me? …and where'd you get the sweet cloak?"

"Dude, really?"

"El Tigre never jokes about the sweetness of cloaks!"

Pulling his hood off, Jake basked in the freshness of the bay area air and stared Manny down, enjoying rare moment of quiet that his revelation had brought him.

"But you're…"

"Nope."

"So the other's aren't…"

"Not even a little."

"So is Vlad still…"

"Oh-ho, big time."

"… Mi amigo!" Manny screamed, running to hug Jake, "You're alive! And you can teleport now…plus you have a sweet-ass cloak! Very nice…but, uh, a little confusing, so how about a little context here?"

"Put in Tigre terms? Vlad's gone nuts, Randy, Danny, and I are gonna stop him, a kid gave us magic berries so we can teleport, you and some other dudes are gonna help us, and it's either win of die at this point. Now come on, we need to get to Orchid Bay City."

"Ahh," Manny said, now out his El Tigre uniform and following Jake down the steep Californian hills, "calling in your favor from la Cebra, eh? Man, it really has gotten bad out there."

"You know she hates it when you call her that," Jake said, once again fading into the shadows of the alley, "and what's worse, she always blames me."

"Well, maybe for the price of a certain dragon's cloak, I'll be willing to keep my mouth shut."

Jake sighed and rolled his eyes, nearly stepping into traffic in the process. "Gahh, I bet Randy's not dealing with anything like this."

"I am not prepared to deal with things like this!" Randy screamed as he, Theresa, and the twins ran through the forest of Gravity Falls followed by the sound of snapping jaws and creaking pistons. He'd never liked to imagine that the fate of the world would rest in his hands, but as soon as he got Dipper's notes on Bill Cipher he realized that that was exactly what was happening.

"So wait," Theresa questioned as they ran around the moss covered tress, "you're telling us that the reason Vlad's so honkin strong right now is because he made a deal with…a talking magical triangle?"

"Yeah, that about sums it up."

"And that's not super weird to anyone else but me?"

"Theresa," Randy said, ducking a tree branch, "we go to a school that was built on top of an eight-hundred year old sorcerer who sometimes turns our friends into monsters, my ninja teacher is a book who for some reason insists on speaking in riddles, and we just teleported by eating magical fruit. Besides, if you keep hanging out with Jake and Danny long enough you'll get to hear way dumber things… like; I'm talking Box Ghost dumb things."

Catching up to the two teens, Dipper and Mabel pulled them into a grove of trees, pausing to catch their breath. "Guys, now is not the time to figure out which of our lives are more freak-tastic, because if you haven't noticed we're being chased by giant. metal. wolves."

"Right, sorry. So anything else you can tell us about this Cipher thing before we run off to try to kick its butt?"

"Seriously? The best advice I have for you is to avoid him at all costs." Dipper said as he opened his journal to a page he had bookmarked in red. "But since you guys seem to have a habit of gambling with your lives… I'd say your best bet is to try to out-think him…so yeah good luck with that."

Listening for the sound of grass being trampled by metal paws, the four of them let out a sigh of relief as the sounds began fading from behind them, indicating that the automatons had either found a new target or just gotten bored.

As she peeked around the tree, Mabel confirmed that the dogs had indeed left the kids alone. "Coast is clear folks, you and your girlfriend can take off now, we got it from here."

"She's not my girlfriend!" "I'm not his girlfriend!"

"Riiiggghhht, and I'm not adorable in this sweater."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, just get back to the shack," Randy said, noticing the drizzle beginning to fall, "Your uncle's probably worried sick about you guys. Plus, Theresa and I need to check in with Danny and I doubt these woods are any safer in the rain."

"Sure," Dipper muttered as they faded from view, "because obviously we're the ones you should be concerned about at this point."