Done writing this story, but not done posting - not by a long shot!

Thanks to abbydoobie for the Fav! You're the first person who's done that in a while!

Chapter 21 — Pines Birthday, part 2

Vash was absolutely amazed at how quickly the townsfolk came together, as well as how adept Stanley was at his work on the grill.

"How often does this kind of thing happen? Is it once a year or—"

"Trust me, summer is the time for parties," Stanley replied with a grin. He flipped a few hamburger patties and practically threw them onto waiting open buns held out by some of the townsfolk.

"Thanks, Mr. Mystery!" a kid said excitedly. He ran off towards one of the tables that Vash had helped set up earlier, covered in things called "ketchup" and "pickles," among other things.

"If you'd been here in July you would'a seen how crazy things get," Stanley added. "This is us celebratin' the twins birthday, an it's the last hoo-ha before all the kids get stuck in school, so everybody's lookin' fer an excuse ta hang out an' not worry about work and stuff."

"Oh! So are children homeschooled here, or does the entire community take care of that?"

"We got a school buildin' fer kids, an' a school buildin' fer the teens." Stanley gave him an odd look. "What, nobody where yer from go through school like that before?"

"Some places had something like that, I think, but for the most part…." Vash scratched his head. "Yeah, for the most part everyone was home schooled. Not a lot of people could afford putting together a proper education building."

"Perhaps it would be wise to look into this one," Knives said from behind the two of them as Vash put more patties on the grill.

Vash looked back at his brother. "What, because you want to see how things are run here?"

"Something like that."

Vash could tell that Knives didn't want to give away everything that he had planned yet, so he let the matter drop — for now. With school apparently starting in a day or so, he might have to keep Knives from doing something that could end in disaster.

He sent his brother a pointed look, which Knives simply rolled his eyes at.

"Hey."

Vash turned at the voice and blinked when he saw a familiar face. "Hi, Wendy!"

"Hey, man." Wendy offered a smirk as Stanley dropped a hamburger onto her plate. He looked a little disgruntled and muttered something about how she should be helping him instead of taking advantage of the food. "Stanley rope ya into this or—"

"Well, he asked for help, so I figured I'd assist." Vash grabbed another bag of hamburger buns and put it on the card table next to the grill. Man, all the food was going fast — even with four different groups grilling! "It's giving me a chance to meet everybody in town, anyway, so I'm really glad for that."

"Yeah, gatherings like this are usually the best places to meet people," Wendy agreed. "Where's Maria, anyway?"

"She's apparently manning a fire pit." Knives motioned in the direction of Mizar's home, which was only now starting to get a small crowd. If the plume of smoke rising from the front of the house was any indication, it was clear that there was something happening. "She came by a couple minutes ago and informed us that she was smoking chickens."

"Ooo, that's gonna be good. I might have to swing by and check it out later." Wendy paused. "Is, uh…is he with her?"

"As far as I know, yes."

Vash knew who they both were referring to. His mouth pressed into a straight line out of worry, but he didn't say anything to add to the conversation.

Wendy nodded, looking serious. "Well, I hope she knows what she's doing." Her expression brightened a moment later. "Well, I'll see you guys around then." She turned and walked away, waving back at them loosely as she made her way to one of the condiment tables.

"This is gonna be an interestin' day," Stanley muttered.

"No kiddin," spoke up a similar voice from the porch. Crescent was leaning against on of the pillars holding the roof over the porch. He gave a lazy sort of wave as a few more people passed by. "How do ya think people're gonna take all this?"

"Not well." Stanley's mouth pressed into a straight line. "Not well at all."

Vash exchanged looks with Knives, both keeping their expressions guarded. They'd spent some time talking to Maria about what it was that was going on with Sixer, and had heard about how Fiddleford had reacted to the news a few days earlier.

Worry and possibly panic when people learned about the fact that they had less than a year to prepare for a Cipher coming in wasn't something that either one of them was looking forward to. Especially considering what Stanley and Stanford had told them about the last time that Cipher had come through.

Which, taking into account all the mixed-up memories and everything else, had only been two years ago.

"Think there's anything we could do to soften the blow?" Vash asked.

"In my experience, tryin' ta do that only ends up makin' everythin' worse," Stanley replied. He looked away from what he was doing for a moment. "Just stick aroun' here an' help me out; if someone comes up askin' me about Cress over there, we'll take care of it. Besides, it's the kids' birthday today; everybody's gonna be distracted with helpin' 'em celebrate, not askin' about where our new buddies came from. We'll be fine."

"Usually, someone says that and then—"

"That's an interestin' fella there, Stanley!" A skinny man with a white sash that clearly read "MAYOR" in bright red letters came up to the grill. "I don't think I remember seeing him around before; is he new?"

Stanley looked like he'd just swallowed a piece of Tomas meat without chewing and was in the process of either waiting to choke or could feel it slowly moving down towards his stomach. "Uh…hey, Mayor Tyler. Yeah he's — he's pretty new. Came in around the same time these two did." He motioned to Vash and Knives with his spatula, then quickly went to work flipping burgers.

The lid of the grill closed over the spatula handle, just missing Stanley's fingers. "An' we've already established that these two young men aren't from around here either, correct?"

"No, we're not." Knives stepped forward as Vash shot him a wary look. "My name is Knives; this is my brother, Vash. Am I correct in assuming that your 'Never Mind All That' Act would cover the circumstances of your arrival, as well as the events that may or may not have caused us to arrive in Gravity Falls in the first place?"

Tyler blinked in surprise. "That — that —" He quickly recovered. "That only deals with specific events that have taken place in town that you have not experienced."

"What if we're aware of them because we come from a dimension that was able to observe those events?"

Tyler stared at Knives with an incredulous expression. "Impossible."

"You can go talk to Maria about that for confirmation." Knives motioned towards the shack that also functioned as a library. "I'm sure that she would be more capable at filling you in on the events that have taken place here in the last week, because it covers both our arrival and the arrival of the fifth Pines family."

Tyler looked over in the direction Knives was pointing, then looked back at Knives and nodded before he started over to the plume of smoke that was rising from the fire pit.

Stanley quickly opened the grill and pulled the hamburgers off and onto a pile on a nearby plate; they looked a bit crispier than intended, but still edible. "How mad's she gonna make him?"

"I believe that Maria will speak things plainly, and that she has a habit of trying to present evidence gently," Knives replied. "She will do far better than I would. Or Vash."

Stanley snorted. "Keep an eye on 'em. If they need help explainin' things, ya can jump in if ya think ya need ta. Just be careful how ya mention you-know-who."

"Got it." Crescent stepped down from the porch and followed after Tyler at a leisurely pace.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Vash asked.

"Consider it extra proof. Things'll probably be a bit bumpy, but it's gonna be fine. Now keep helpin' me with these burgers, will ya?"

Vash nodded hesitantly and kept going, glancing back at Knives as he did and nodding meaningfully in the direction of the slowly gathering crowd over on Mizar's side of the clearing. It definitely didn't look like they were going to be handing out presents over there, either — there was a table in the middle of the clearing piled high with them already.

Knives rolled his eyes in response, then huffed and started across the clearing.

"I don't think they're going to handle this well," Vash said as Knives walked over to the crowd. Others noticing the gathering commotion were starting to head over as well. "They lost to the person you beat, and now he's coming here?"

"We'll figure something out," Stanley replied. "Don't worry over it; things'll work out."

"…if you say so."

Meanwhile, Knives had joined the gathering crowd right when Maria started to speak.

"Sixer and his family come from a dimension where they lost to Cipher. All four of them have been through some tough times, mostly because Cipher's been using them as puppets and walking weapons of mass destruction."

Gasps rose from the crowd; Knives looked around at those near him at the sound. Alarm was clearly on their faces, and it looked like some were quickly growing pale. Clearly, they had not expected to hear this today of all days.

"We've rescued them from his control — myself, Stanley, Sphinx, and Mizar — but there's still damage that needs to be undone. Cipher…he did something to their souls. It's left them dependent on directions from the people who were able to rescue them. I have to tell Sixer to do things to get him to do things he might normally do on his own. It hurts to admit that."

As expected from Maria; not even the shake in her voice was surprising. Knives knew that she disliked being used for the plans of others, especially when she had told them she had lost control of her own body more than once.

Dark Arms. Wily. Nearly to Brainiac, and a few others that she hadn't wanted to mention. Maria had been around for a long time and seen many things; it wasn't surprising that there were a lot of events where she had found herself trapped for one reason or another.

It explained why she had been so angered at him for using her cousin in the way he had.

"And we have another problem," Maria continued. "Their Cipher is coming here at the end of next summer."

If anyone else had been speaking, they fell silent at Maria's statement.

"How?" spoke up a teenage girl. Knives didn't see her from where he stood. "They're not making a portal, so—"

"I got this." That was a Stan's voice but — no, that was Crescent. He had been sent over to see if there was anything he could do to help. "He likes usin' the four of us as some kinda anchor or somethin'. I'm no expert on physics, but its like we break down the walls between dimensions just by brin' here. Used ta take him a week, but after a bit it started ta be two weeks, then a month, then two months. This is the first time it's taken a full year."

Knives looked over the heads of the humans as Crescent looked over at Maria. So they had done this before. He had been given the impression that this was the first time — or, he didn't know if they had any experience in this. It sounded as though they had done this plenty of times.

"It's the first time someone's pulled a stunt like this, too," Crescent added. "People have tried yellin', implorin' — everythin' except breakin' an' enterin'."

Knives raised an eyebrow. Maria had seriously been the first person who had managed to break them out of Cipher's control? Unusual. While he was familiar with Maria doing things that caught others by surprise, this took the cake.

Surely others had thought of this solution to that family's problem.

"Poor dears," said a woman in the crowd.

"Stanford said he was gone for good," spoke up a man's voice — the mayor, Tyler. "Why—"

"The one that hounded him was gone for good," Maria corrected. "This dimension isn't supposed to get involved in anything else involving those events. It's just that one got greedy."

Crescent nodded.

"This is…this is terrible. I — I thought we'd put that all behind us an' now you bring another one to our doorstep?! Do you realize what you've done?!" Tyler — Knives could see him at the front of the crowd around the fire pit now — pointed at Sixer accusingly. "You're bringin' the end of the world on us again!"

Sixer said nothing, instead bowing his head as Maria scrambled for a response.

"Hey! He isn't at fault for this! He couldn't—"

And then Sixer interrupted her. "I was incapable of fighting back."

Maria cut herself off and looked at Sixer in surprise.

"Cipher made us puppets to his will. I could do nothing but obey his commands."

Knives blinked. This was old news to him, but the way Sixer said it wasn't.

He sounded like the humans who had been beaten down and enslaved on Gunsmoke. The ones who had accepted their fates as the ones who did all the hard labor, and received nothing in return.

The hush that fell over the crowd made him wonder if the people here were coming up with a similar conclusion.

Maria reached up and rested a hand on Sixer's shoulder, causing him to look at her.

"You're with me now," Maria said seriously. "And I'm gonna do what I can to make sure you recover from this."

Sixer blinked blankly; Knives wondered how much of that had gone in one ear and out the other. Or if he was retaining anything of Maria's words that she might say were "encouraging."

Maria squeezed Sixer's shoulder — likely meant to be a reassuring gesture — then looked at the townsfolk. "Fiddleford already knows about what's going on; I told him when he came over earlier. As far as I know, he's making machines already. We have a year. We have time to prepare that you didn't have last time. I intend to help where I can, and right now I'm planning on helping Sixer and his family recover. They need mental rest. What you do is up to you."

the crowd exchanged looks at Maria's words, and Knives decided to put in his own two cents. "I would recommend you take the time to prepare. Train so that you will be able to survive in whatever is coming until the danger is passed. If you do not have a weapon, get one."

Crescent nodded. "We know the demons he's got at his disposal; we can tell ya what ta expect an' how ta prep."

The townsfolk murmured, exchanging looks. Knives saw that Maria was nodding, as well as some members of the crowd.

"We'll get through this," Maria said. "You've all survived an attack like this before; you can survive it again. You know what's coming this time. You're in a better position now than you were then. So we use that to our advantage."

"And how do you know this will turn out better than it did last time?" Tyler demanded.

"I don't. But we have to try."

Maria said it with conviction, but Knives knew it was easier said than done. Vash had "tried" to stop him from eradicating the human race for a century and half; he had still nearly succeeded.

If Maria was getting involved here, the results might be nearly the same.

"We don' have ta worry about gettin' weapons yet," spoke up a voice with an accent Knives didn't recognize. "We got some birthdays ta be celebratin' today, remember? Dipper and Mabel are turnin' one year older! I don' think they'd want us ta be scared or sad today, do ya?"

Knives caught sight of an old man with a rather large, floppy hat standing near the edge of the crowd. He thought he had seen Stanford speaking with him earlier…was that the 'Fiddleford' he had mentioned?

There were some murmurs of agreement, and the crowd dispersed. The people near Knives tried to put on happy faces, but he could tell their hearts weren't in it.

Not with a death threat hanging over their heads.

And as Maria got Sixer to help her with clearing the steaks off the grill covering the fire pit, he could tell that she was thinking.

Whether or not that thinking was going to lead anywhere, he had the feeling he would have to wait and see.