Chapter Twelve: Crash Site Omega

Author's Notes: This chapter's quite long, but I'm sure where I wanna go with the next chapter, so it must be done soon!

I hope you enjoy this chapter!


Clifford landed on the floor of the spaceship from the last step of the ladder he'd installed upon the entry himself – so many years ago. He was quite surprised the steps hadn't rotten or gotten torn or broken apart by now. He then pulled out his second journal from one of his pockets, just as he heard his nephew landing on the ground as well.

"This is so cool!" Dipper said and then Clifford heard the flash of a camera.

"Cool indeed." He said, looking through the pages of his journal. "I used to study the languages these scripts are written in. You took pictures of those scripts, I assume." He added and looked at his nephew, who was following right behind his back. He nodded. "Those aren't really picture-worthy. I even wrote in my journals using this script." And he went back to finding a specific entry in his journal.

"That's why I found it interesting, that it's actually some sort of alien handwriting. It's so cool!" He said enthusiastically.

"I will teach you how to read those scripts if you're so interested in it, but, my boy, we have much more amazing items to look for today." He said and found the page he was looking for, then showed it to the twelve year old. "Such as this unearthly substance."

Dipper took the journal and read the notes about what his uncle had called the Alien saw a drawing of a hexagonal object with a liquid substance inside it, and a smaller drawing that seemed to be the same hexagon, but closed instead. At the other page he saw another drawing, of a planet broken in halves, being brought together by the adhesive.

"This adhesive can glue any two things together; from two pieces of wood to a planet." Clifford explained to his nephew. "just one drop of this adhesive is enough to seal the rift for good. If we can find the glue and make the rift glued, it won't break even if it's fallen off a cliff." He stated. "But, it's just theory. I didn't say that." He then added and took the journal. "We need to go a couple feet below. Did I give you a magnet gun?" He said as he put the journal back in his pocket.

"Yes, but it's so heavy!" Dipper said and pulled out the magnet gun.

The old scientist pretended not to hear the last part. "Good. We need to use our guns and go down this column." He said and pointed at a huge, metal column in front of them. "Follow me!" He said and jumped at the column, used his magnet gun to stick to it and went down in a spiral shaped path, same as his identical self had done hundreds of times, thirty years ago.

The underground floor was, of course, dark. So he needed to find his flashlight, both to have vision at the underground floor, and so Dipper could see where he was.

But he seemed to have trouble finding his flashlight.

Come on, I'm sure I put it in here… he thought as he checked his inner pockets, where he'd usually put such tools in. The old scientist had no idea how far he could have scared his nephew.

"Great Uncle Ford! A-A-Are you-"

"Yes, my boy. I'm safe and sound. All I need is to find the flashlight to show you- Here it is!" He said as he finally felt his flashlight. He instantly turned it on.

"Your turn!" He said and pointed the flashlight upwards. "Say 'Ha!' it helps!" He added and waited for his nephew to join him.

But he didn't hear or see any sign of him actually jumping for a few seconds, until he finally heard something.

"Little help?"

The old scientist then remembered of his identical self's first try, as well as Fiddleford's, then regret how he hadn't given any advice to him before jumping.


"Something up, dawg?" Soos asked as he stopped by the Chiu's house, looking at a very thoughtful Mabel. "You thinking so deep, dude."

"Huh, me?" The preteen girl said as she stopped her train of thoughts. She hadn't even noticed that they had stopped. "Nothing. Just remembered of… umm…" She noodled around with her hair for a moment while thinking whether she should tell his big friend about what was bothering her or not.

"Hey. Don't worry dude, I'm sure your friends are totally gonna-"

"Dipper's nightmare." She said in a low voice. "He had one last night." She added.

"But, I didn't hear you dudes talking about nightmares this morning." Soos said innocently. Mabel didn't seem to be bugged by the fact that their big man-child had overheard the in the morning, either. She was more in thought than to notice such a detail.

"He woke up midnight." She explained with a shade of dread in her voice. "He woke me up too, and he told me about it." She added.

"That's nothing to worry about, Hambone," He said and smiled at the girl in her Happy Birthday sweater. "You know Dipper has a really overactive imagination – just like me. Plus, he's been through a lot lately, you know." He added and made Mabel smile as well. "whatever he dreamed of, don't let it bother you. Let's just give your friends some invites, huh?" He reminded her of her original plans, and thankfully, it didn't disappoint the man-child to make her beam up and feel better.

"Of course! What can be better than Candy and Grenda at my birthday party? Let's go!"

"We're already there. Give 'em those invites, dawg!" He said and Mabel noticed the Chiu's house right next to them. She felt so happy she couldn't help but to jump out of the truck and to her friend's house.

Soos, of course, stayed behind the wheel and watched Mabel run to the front door of the house. Her two friends showed up at the front door, and she showed them the invites. So far, so good.

But, by what he saw, things didn't go as fine afterwards. He saw the three of them sharing looks of frustration and sorrow, then have a group hug and Mabel leaving towards the truck with her walkie-talkie in her hand.

Then Mabel sat at the right seat of the truck and sighed sadly. She seemed so sad it even struck Soos.

For a few minutes, the two were both silent, Mabel in thought of how horrible her day was going and Soos in thought of what to do so Mabel could feel better.

Then the handyman finally broke the silence, "Hey, don't let it get to ya, dude. Whatever it is, can't be worse than my twelfth birthday, right?" but it didn't help him at all to comfort his little friend. "Am I right? You do know what I'm talking about, right?" He said again, but Mabel seemed to be too sad to respond to him.

But she was also drowning in thought again. She didn't dwell on how horrible her day was happening to be, because whatever she tried to think of, she'd soon be thinking of what she'd been told by the Fords, and how Dipper's nightmare seemed to be a glimpse of the horrible possibility of his uncles failing – what their work was about, she didn't know. What if the nightmare was somehow a glimpse of the future?

Never had she taken the supernatural so seriously before. She had never thought about it when it wasn't happening at the moment or when she could be busy doing something other than drawing some creature they'd seen. But the matter of a world ending was definitely more serious than a bunch of gnomes. Much more serious than a bunch of gnomes.

Again, she was thinking of how her day had gone just against her plans. She thought if this could be part of the process of the world ending, everything being horrible to everyone. She wondered if her own brother was enjoying his mission at all. Would he and Great Uncle Ford(s) be the saviors of the world? Or would everything go wrong and whatever happened to Dipper in his nightmare would happen in reality?

She didn't even know what his brother had seen in his nightmares, but thinking about the world coming to an end, like she'd heard happening in horror films, chilled her bones in fear.

"So, where do we go, dude?" She suddenly heard Soos' voice and was snapped back to reality from her thoughts. "Oh, I… I don't…" She began to say, but felt like she was unable to talk as soon as she was reminded of how summer was ending, how high school was probably much less exciting than she'd thought and how two of her best friends couldn't be in her birthday party. She felt miserable again for it all.

Soos seemed to understand her, since he gave her a tissue. "It's okay if you wanna cry, dude. I know what it feels like." He said comfortingly, and Mabel got the tissue. She simply stared at it for a second, before she sobbed and covered her nose with the tissue.

Soos waited patiently for Mabel to cry herself out, patting her back. He didn't know what to do, since he'd never comforted anyone when they were sad, so he just waited until the twelve year old was done.

It took Mabel a few minutes until she sniffed and asked Soos where to put the wet tissue.

"Put it in the tiny trashcan next to your seat, dawg." He said and pointed at a small can, which Mabel hadn't noticed before.

"Oh, didn't know you had a trash can in your truck, Soos." She said as she put the tissue in the can, which was almost full of empty popcorn bags. "When did you put it there?"

"I've had this in my truck for two years. It goes unnoticed most of the time." He explained and started up the engine. "So, where do we head now?"

"I don't know… the shack, maybe?" She said hesitantly. "I'm kinda hungry."

"Maybe we could get some ice cream, y'know." Soos offered her, then chuckled. "Actually, I'm hungry too, Hambone. What do you think?"

"Why not?" Mabel said, much more enthusiastic than mere seconds ago. "How can I say no to that? Onwards and upwards!" She added and Soos chuckled.

"Nice! You got your seatbelt on?"


"Whew! Thought I was gonna be stuck up there for the rest of my life!" Dipper said and wiped his brow. He'd just been saved by his uncle, who was checking his pockets for some of his accessories at the moment. "Thanks, Great Uncle Ford." Dipper said.

"You're welcome, my boy." He said and smiled. "Fiddleford got stuck up there once as well. He pointed the magnet gun upwards, instead of towards the column, so he was stuck to the ceiling – exactly what happened to you. That's why I could get you out of the situation you were facing."

Dipper felt slightly ashamed of himself for making that mistake and causing his uncle some trouble, no matter how little it was. Clifford seemed to notice it from his nephew's expression.

"Don't dwell on it, my boy. The first time I came down here, I made the same mistake too. It was nothing pleasant." He added.

"Really?" Dipper said, clearly shocked.

"Everyone makes mistakes, my boy. And this has not been my biggest one." He explained, thinking of a certain, triangular being and how he – Stanford – used to think of him as a friend.

But he then noticed where they had come upon in the meantime. "We're near where I first found the adhesive. We just need to get past this small walkway, and we will find where the glue should be. Follow after me, Dipper." He explained and took off into a big passage, with the twelve year old following not far after.

Dipper noticed some skeletons around the passage, some of which still seemed to be sitting on their chairs. The skeletons did seem to be the long-dead aliens' remains, since they were in an alien spacecraft, but this somehow scared Dipper.

What if there were alien ghosts in the UFO and they could haunt them? Those aliens were a civilized species, so the thought of them having spiritual-lives made sense.

He decided to share his fears with his uncle. "umm… Uncle Ford…" He began to speak his mind, "…Nevermind." but decided against it. Hell, even if those aliens did have a spiritual form, and even if they were still in this spacecraft, not anywhere else, they would give up on haunting the place after billions of years of having no visitors – except for a few crows, who'd built their nest in the spacecraft. Plus, if there were such ghosts (the sound of an alien ghost seemed ridiculous to Dipper now) really existed, Great Uncle Ford would have written about them, or warned him of their existence. So why worry?

They then reached a circular door with a triangular shape on it – which, Dipper thought, looked much like the portal that used to be in the underground lab. Clifford read the inscriptions on top of the door to make sure they were in the right place.

"Look at the scripts above the doors, Dipper." He said to his nephew, who looked at the said scripts right after. "It says 'storage room', which is where I first located the adhesive, thirty-odd years ago. It should still be right there." He added, and opened the doors from the middle afterwards. Dipper went in right after his uncle, leaving the doors open.

"Everything here's been busted up for centuries. Go on and press any key, flip any switch, use any device…" Clifford said, knowing fully well that Dipper had to be curious enough to want to try every button in his sight.

And Dipper did. He pressed a button a few times, thinking what it was supposed to do, if it were still functioning. He then flipped a switch next to him, and again, nothing happened.

"This place used to be heavily secured by many different types of droids, millions of years ago. Right now, everything is defunct." The old scientist stated. "Just as defunct as all of those buttons you touched."

"So, we have nothing to worry about, right, Uncle Ford?" Dipper asked with a shade of fear in his voice.

"Absolutely nothing. I've been here countless times thirty years ago, and have never come across a security droid that actually worked. I did study a few of the defunct ones I found, though." The old scientist assured his nephew while walking further and further into the storage facility.

"You studied them?" Dipper asked curiously. "How do they function? Can you tell me more about them?" He added, clearly excited to hear more about the droids.

"I would give you a good deal of information about those droids if we weren't this close to finding the adhesive, and it takes major priority at the moment." Clifford said, bumming his nephew in the worst way. "Actually, we're right there! See the holes on that panel, my boy?" He said and pointed at a certain panel in front of the pair. Dipper nodded in response. "What are those?"

"They contain loads of hexagonal metal containers – like the one I'd drawn on my journal and showed you earlier. The adhesive has to be inside a few ones of them, so we will have to load all of them up and check them for the adhesive." He said and loaded up the hexagonal containers. So, Dipper walked to where the other whole was, across the panel, and loaded the pieces up the same way his uncle had.

He then tried to open one of the containers to check what was inside it, but didn't find a place to crack it open. The entire container seemed to be one, solid piece. What kind of a container could it be, then? He thought, then went to his uncle to ask him.

Then he noticed how the old scientist wasn't even cracking the pieces open. He was simply picking them up, then tossing them aside, as if he'd denied the possibility of the adhesive being inside them.

"Umm, Uncle Ford, what are you doing, exactly?" He asked his uncle, unsurely.

"I'm checking these for the adhesive." He answered his nephew, straightforwardly.

"How?" The twelve year old asked, quite confused.

"By how heavy it is. If it contains the adhesive, it's a bit heavier." He explained as he threw another piece aside. "Plus, the glue – by a very high chance – eats away on the layers of the container, so you can see it if it's inside the container." He added.

"Oh," was Dipper's only response. "What does the adhesive look like, anyway?"

"It's a glowing, pink substance, but has a shade of green as well. It looks somewhat iridescent." He described the glue, then went back to his own job of looking for the adhesive.

Dipper also went back to his own side of the panel. He then started to check the pieces by their weight and toss them away if they had the same weight. He then went on to the next ones and so on.

The rest of the process was spent in silence, not a voice being heard. The only sound that could be heard was the clinging sound of them tossing the hexagonal pieces aside. This was not as interesting to Dipper as they'd thought it would be. He wondered if his uncle was feeling the same way.

After a few minutes of not finding anything, the twelve year old got bored. But he couldn't think of anything else to do, either. Maybe he could talk to Mabel with his walkie-talkie? But he couldn't, not from one hundred fifty yards beneath the hill. He couldn't talk to his great uncle, either. He seemed much more serious about his job of finding the adhesive than Dipper did. He then thought of trying to make some shapes with the pieces he'd thrown away, just to pass time. He couldn't do anything else, anyway.

Meanwhile, Clifford was in thought, and it wasn't the thought of the consequences they'd have to face if his work failed. He was thinking of what his identical self – Stanford – had asked him to do, other than to seal the rift. Stanford had been thinking about making Dipper stay in Gravity Falls and become his sidekick instead of going to school, like every other kid his age did. Clifford thought that if he was going to tell Dipper about it, now would be the best time, but he wasn't for the idea. He didn't feel it was the right thing to do. The two of the kids had a long, wonderful life in front of them, in which they could be by one another's side. He'd hate himself if he separated them in any way, for any reason.

"Umm, Uncle Ford…" He was drawn out of his thoughts at hearing his nephew. "Isn't this…" Clifford turned back, only to see his nephew holding a hexagonal piece of metal with a glowing, pink substance on it. "…the adhesive?"

"You did it, my boy! This is it!" Clifford said and burst with excitement and relief, forgetting how badly he was stressed out about the apprenticeship. "Now, this is picture-worthy! Take out your camera-" He said, but was cut by a high-pitched, alien noise.

Clifford was fully alert and picked up his magnet gun as soon as they heard that noise. Dipper, on the other hand, freaked out. "Great Uncle Ford, you said this place was dead, right?" He asked, sounding afraid.

"Yes." Clifford replied quietly. "Unless somehow we reactivated the… Security system!" He added with a shade of worry in his voice, as two sphere-shaped droids appeared at the entrance of the storage facility.

"Good thing they're just security droids. It could have been worse." Clifford said under his breath.

"What do we do?" Dipper said quietly.

"Listen, Dipper. These droids only detect the amount of adrenaline in your blood – Don't think about how they do that – to detect your fear. If they don't detect any fear, they won't detect you at all." He explained, keeping his calm.

But it didn't do him any good to help the twelve year old.

"What? How on earth do I…"

"Simple, Dipper. Think that they aren't going to hurt you. Just take a deep breath, calm yourself down and control your fear."

But, once again, his words didn't help Dipper at all. He panicked and got confused, while the old scientist kept his calm and pointed the magnet gun at the droid which was ahead of the other, while it seemed to analyze them.

Then the droid shot fire at Dipper, with Clifford saving him. "Get down!" He yelled and jumped at his nephew, pushing him out of the direction of the shot. He then tried to send the droid a magnetic shot, but he felt… weak.

He then felt pain in his foot and looked at his feet, only to find a sizable hole in one of them.

Wasting no time, he shot one of the droids with his magnet gun before falling flat on the ground, which sent it flying back with a noise of a short circuit happening inside it. That droid would likely never work again, but they had another one of them to worry about as well.

But the old scientist couldn't stand up again. His foot was hellishly painful. He felt like he was losing control over his body, for his hands would only tremble if he wanted to move them. His vision became quite blurry, he didn't feel his feet, nor any other part of his body anymore.

"OH NO! GREAT UNCLE FORD!" Dipper shouted as he saw his uncle fall on the ground. He almost forgot about the droid that was locked on him as its target, ready to apply what it was programmed to do.

Dipper saw his uncle whispering, so he bent over to hear him more clearly.

"Get the rift out of my inner pocket, my boy. You'll have to do this without me. Take the rift and adhesive with you." He said, and then closed his eyes. Dipper then noticed that he was still breathing, and instantly found the rift inside his uncle's pocket and picked it up. He then wanted to put it inside his backpack. But the next thing he knew, a robotic arm was wrapped around his small, weak body, dragging him towards where it had come from; the droid.

"Oh, No! Wait!" Dipper shouted, keeping his grip on the rift, while trying to keep from being dragged inside the droid with his other hand on the ground. "LET GO!"

But it was no use. The droid's arms were much stronger than his, and they were pulling him right inside the security droid, which looked like a demonic ball, its mouth open, ready to swallow him and never let him get out.

All the twelve year old could do was scream until he was finally locked inside the security droid, which had a transparent layer, through which he could see outside. He watched his uncle's unconscious body on the cold ground of the spacecraft, as the droid launched, moving away from where it had locked its prisoner up, slowly, swiftly leaving a blacked out Clifford Pines alone in the dark, cold corner of the storage room…