A/N: Sorry this has arrived so late, ladies and gents; I'm still on the mend from whatever bug I picked up earlier this month, and my eyes are still recovering from my last round of overtime at work. Suffice it to say I'm still hurting, but I'll do my best to get chapters out in a timely fashion from now on as long as I'm not in danger of doing serious damage to my health.
Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is still not mine.
For hour after hour, Mabel walked.
She had no idea where she was going and no idea what the hell she was going to when she got there, but she knew she couldn't afford to stop. By now, the Forger Wasps were probably out combing the forest for any sign of her, and the Mabel who'd once been Grunkle Ford might very well already be awake. It was that thought – of a Mabel clone in Grunkle Ford's coat following her trail, sniffing the air and grinning like bleached bone in the deathly-pale moonlight as it hunted her down – that kept her moving.
More than anything else, she was hoping against hope that she'd never actually see the new Mabel up and about; given that she had the fate of the world in her hands, it was a little weird to think like this, but somehow the prospect of actually meeting the latest clone seemed worse than failing at this point. Maybe it was because it would bring the loss of Ford, Wendy, Pacifica and the others into sharp relief, maybe because it would mean seeing another one of her family reduced to a mockery of herself. Whatever the case, she didn't want to see that familiar figure in the oversized coat stalking her through the forest, didn't want to see that awful smile gleaming in the half-light.
She didn't want to meet Fabel.
So she kept on moving, even though she'd no idea where the mysterious Mr Grey could be found. She'd scanned the area a dozen times with the goggles that Grunkle Ford had given her, and she still couldn't find head nor tail of him, and after a while she had to stop using them or risk breaking them while tripping over the roots of the nearest tree.
At well past midnight, this was the darkest part of the forest, probably the darkest place in all of Gravity Falls apart from the caves up in the mountains… but out here, the canopy was so thick and the trees so densely-packed that it might as well have been a cave.
Even with the flashlight it wasn't easy to keep track of where she was going, and more often than not, Mabel kept banging her knees and bumping her shins on tree roots as she stumbled past; keeping the light angled at the ground might have solved this little problem, but that would have meant walking facefirst into branches or spiderwebs every step of the way, so she had to walk very carefully one way or the other.
It would have been a strange place to walk through even in the daylight, and to Mabel it felt all the weirder given that she'd never been here before – alone or in company. She'd never travelled this deep into the forests, not even on their mission to the enchanted glade, and she'd never seen anything of Gravity Falls quite like this: the eerie-looking trees and the cramped lanes between them were strange enough, but stranger still were the stray beams of moonlight that very occasionally filtered down from the canopy. On the rare points where there was enough light to illuminate a clearing, it made this stretch of forest – normally as mazelike and claustrophobic as a honeycomb of passages deep beneath the earth – seem more like a coral reef: maybe it was something in the trees or those strange mushrooms sprouting from the trunks, the light seemed almost blue, enough to make Mabel feel as though she was underwater.
However, the strangest thing of all about this place was how deserted it seemed. She'd been hoping to run into one of the forest dwellers at some point, maybe a gnome, a Manotaur – even one of the unicorns would have been welcome. True, there was no way of telling if they would have been any help against the Forger Wasps or Grey, but it would have been nice to have a little company. Either she'd blundered into a part of the forest where the magical critters didn't usually tread… or the wasps were already invading the forest and the gnomes and Manotaurs were being converted into fresh Mabels. Frankly, neither option seemed particularly pleasant... but still, Mabel had to keep moving on: she was still alive and still free, and as long as she remained ahead of the swarm, there was still hope.
And as long as she kept moving, she could almost believe it.
Perhaps two or three hours into the journey, Mabel caught a glimpse of light up ahead, too bright to be from the moon or even from the fungi glowing on the tree-trunks around her; she couldn't work out the source of it through the trees, but it had to be a spotlight at the very least.
Once again, there weren't many options to choose from: a) she'd somehow made it as far as the highway, b) she'd walked into a camp of hikers with a really good set of portable lights, or c) the Forger Wasps were seconds away from finding her… and so far, options one or two weren't looking all that likely. But right now, she couldn't be sure of what to do until she got a good look and what was going on; so, crouching down as low to the ground as possible, she crawled forward until she was close enough to get a good look at whatever lay beyond the trees, and peered out over the edge of the nearest barrier or roots.
Ahead of her, the forest had thinned into a clearing large enough to accommodate a decent-sized house, and in the middle of it, several large burrows had been dug in the earth, and some of the trees opposite bore tiny doors and windows. Mabel hadn't been around when Grenda and the others had gone looking for help among the gnomes, but from the description they'd given her back when that business with the unicorns was over and done with, this sounded just like the gnome settlement they'd visited.
It didn't take long for Mabel to discover the source of the light: several powerful floodlights had been mounted atop a small fleet of golf carts, all of them pointed in the direction of the gnome dwellings. And as she peered closer, she saw that the soil was covered in hundreds of tiny footprints, and judging by the occasional hat or boot trampled into the mud, this had happened very recently and probably in a hurry too – after all why would any gnome leave his hat behind? From the look of the tracks, they must have been trying to flee inside at some point... but since then, every single door and window had been either kicked in or ripped outwards.
A quick look at the tracks revealed that they continued through the forest for some distance, often passing other gnome buildings along the way – many them in even worse condition. And maybe it was just Mabel's fear-crazed imagination at work, but she swore she could hear screams in the distance.
Mabel couldn't tell precisely what had happened, but it was obvious that the Forger Wasps had come calling earlier that night. Maybe the survivors had fled to this last village on the edge of the thickest part of the forest with the Mabels following with bright lights, flushing them out of dark corners and crannies. And then, either the Mabels had dug them out… or they'd simply infested them and waited until the new clones flushed them out of their tunnels. Mabel shuddered, and tried not to imagine the last of the gnomes paralysed with terror in the spotlights as the wasps closed in them (without much success).
As expected, the gnomes were nowhere in sight, but neither were the Mabels. Either they'd simply abandoned the golf-carts here while they went on stalking the stragglers across the forest... or they were also hunting for her, and had left the lights just to make finding her a little easier. From the looks of things, there were other lights in the distance. Either way, Mabel couldn't afford to stay out here. As soon as the Queen received the last few minutes of memories, the rest of the swarm would be hot on her tail again.
Five minutes, she thought wildly. That's exactly how far ahead I'll ever be. Five to ten minutes before the Queen knows exactly where I am and what I'm doing. Actually, you might as well make it five minutes because Grunkle Ford never said it really was ten minutes so it's safer to say five because Grunkle Ford means what he says and is this what it feels like to have a nervous breakdown and aaargh!
Mabel took a deep breath. Okay, she thought, forcing herself to calm down. You've still got plenty of time; just keep moving and you'll be fine.
So, scuttling away from the light, she got to her feet and took off running as fast as she could – edging around the clearing for about fifty feet before plunging back into the welcome darkness of the forest.
At four-thirty in the morning, Mabel found the forest abruptly give way to a steep, rocky incline too steep to climb by hand. Peering up it she once again saw the distant glow of lights at the top of the hill – except these were clearly from lampposts. And from just past them, she could hear the roar of hundreds of engines rocketing past every second.
She'd reached the highway.
For a moment, Mabel had a wild fantasy of flagging down a passing car and hitchhiking to a town where she could find help: maybe there might be a way of getting proof of the outbreak to the local police, enough to warn the rest of the country, maybe even finding a scientist who could help create a cure.
She actually found herself following the hill, giddily hoping to find an easier route to the road, but after about fifteen seconds, reality caught up with her. In the end, the idea was just a daydream, a silly idea that wouldn't have worked even if she had managed to make it all the way to a working laboratory with proof of the outbreak. After all, how much time would she waste on running off to another town? She only had a week before all the infested victims were past the point of no return, and getting any help would take days at the very least… especially the matter of actually proving that the incoming invasion army of Mabel clones was real. And if Ford and McGucket – two of the greatest geniuses in the country if not the whole planet – couldn't work out a cure with a head-start and the best equipment in the multiverse, what luck could ordinary scientists have?
But that wasn't what actually stopped her in her tracks: what did was the sight of a small figure lurking on the hill above her, hidden in the branches of a tree on the other side of the guardrail. Mabel didn't need to see the permanent grin on the figure's face to recognize that it was yet another Mabel clone, and even from here it was plainly obvious that it was keeping a close eye on the traffic.
Either this sentry was here to make sure Mabel didn't try to escape by the road… or the Forger Wasps were getting ready to move beyond Gravity Falls. Hopefully they were planning on holding steady until they recaptured her, but frankly, that wasn't much comfort considering the situation was already as bad as it could possibly get.
Mabel didn't want to think about what might happen once this worst-case scenario, but her imagination had other ideas. Already, she could almost see it happening before her eyes: one word from the Queen, and the sentry would hitchhike out of town, shaking hands and exchanging hugs with every single driver she met, spreading the infestation along the highway until every city in the country had a Mabel on the street. And those Mabels would begin infesting people, and those Mabels would infest more, and those Mabels would infest even more… and long before new reports of the new epidemic hit the airwaves, a few of the Forger Wasps would begin stowing away aboard planes and cargo ships. Those ships would probably be completely infested and converted by the time they reached their destination, and every Mabel aboard would spread further.
And after that, all Mabel could think of was an extremely deadly version of multiplication tables that had annoyed her so much back in grade school.
Forger Wasps x Gravity Falls = invasion army.
Invasion army x the rest of Oregon = Mabel Plague.
Mabel Plague x America = Mabel Pandemic.
Mabel Pandemic x international travel = extinction of the human race.
All in all, Mabel reflected, as she hurried away in the opposite direction, the situation really wasn't looking all that hopeful.
The Grey Professional regarded the scene with growing apprehension as the two new arrivals hastily ducked behind the bushes and did their best to crawl out of sight.
This was most assuredly not part of the plan.
All his research suggested that Gravity Falls wouldn't be receiving any human visitors from the forest, much less campers. These were clearly not locals: the town was fully converted by now, and even if it hadn't been, the Queen would have noticed any absences from among the population and had Mabels ready to intercept them the moment they returned home.
So what were these two interlopers doing here?
Thankfully, he hadn't had to break his rules any further by alerting the Queen to the presence of the intruders: one of the patrols had already noticed the fresh bicycle tracks in the mud not far from here, and a squad of Mabels had arrived by golf cart to investigate... but they were looking in the wrong direction. They were searching northwards when they should have been looking southward, and it was taking all of the Grey Professional's willpower not to scream advice at them as they passed him by.
The campers had the advantage of an all-terrain bike and relatively even ground, so if they had a headstart, they might just be able to outrun the swarm. And if they could manage that, they could warn outsiders; one photo shared online and their zero-presence profile would be wrecked. True, it probably wouldn't be enough to stop the Forger Wasps, but it would certainly put a crimp in their heretofore flawless expansion plan and probably ruin Grey's chances of a bonus.
But why was this happening? Why hadn't his collected files mentioned either of these idiots? Why did they sound so much like Dipper? And why were they wearing raincoats?
What the hell was going on?
Sighing, he turned… and realized almost too late that, in his frustrations, he'd forgotten all about his primary target.
Mabel was nearby.
It was almost dawn when Mabel first noticed the subtle movements in the undergrowth.
In truth, she probably wouldn't have noticed it at all if it hadn't been for the first subtle hit of sunrise creeping though the trees, tinting the forest the dull grey-blue of early-morning twilight. The promise of daybreak was welcome enough, though that wasn't the point – after all, there wasn't much that could have cheered her up, under the circumstances.
By now, she'd been walking for almost five straight hours, only taking breaks for a minute every forty; she was tired, hungry, thirsty, cold, lonely and so footsore she thought her toes might be about to drop off in protest. So far, the only progress she'd made was to gradually move into the shallower end of the forest, and that would probably make it a lot easier for the Mabels to spot her I the worst came to the worst. All in all, she wasn't in any condition to notice anything, especially now that she'd realized that she'd spent most of the night playing into the Forger Wasps' hands; it had taken her a while to figure out what was going on, but she finally understood the truth.
All night, she'd been expecting the Mabels to try catching up with her, to use her newest memories to hunt her down, prepare an ambush or drive her into a trap. Only now, when it was much too late to make a different had she realized the simple and obvious truth: they didn't have to hunt her down at all; they could just wait until she was too tired to continue walking, then move in on her. Once Mabel was asleep – or unconscious – they could just follow the memories until they found her, and that would be it.
And the hell of it was, it was too late for her to do anything about it: she was already completely bushed, trying to hoof it any further would probably knock her out, she hadn't found any trace of Grey and she she'd already found a golf cart parked nearby; it was only a matter of time before the clones found her.
The Queen had already won and once again, it was all Mabel's fault.
And it was then that, just as she was about to give up entirely, she saw something flickering through the trees, the bushes and shrubbery shivering as it passed: a hazy, transparent shape rippling through the air like a ghost. It looked almost like a puff of mist flowing just above the ground… but then Mabel brought out the goggles and saw that this cloud of fog was registering a heat signature… and wearing a hat.
As if in a trance, she strode towards the figure, trying to look as casual as possible as she zeroed in on him. The plan was to bump into Grey as hard as she could and tackle him to the ground, then grab a vial of cure off him while he was still reeling.
Unfortunately, the plan hit something of a snag almost immediately: Grey was still in motion, and though he hadn't realized Mabel was following him, he was now moving fast enough for her first pounce to fall short by almost three feet. And judging by the fact that he hadn't even bothered to turn around, he hadn't even noticed she'd tried to grab him; on he went, floating calmly through the bushes without a care in the world.
Swearing, she started after him again, crashing through the greenery as quickly as her battered feet could manage. However, she soon found herself trudging through a thick patch of undergrowth, losing track of him in seconds; a moment later, she took a right turn in the hopes of escaping the maze of foliage – and promptly walked right into something very solid and distinctly human-shaped.
For one heart-stopping instant, Mabel thought she'd bumped into one of her clones and almost screamed – only for the figure to clamp a hand over her mouth and whisper, "Please don't shout, Mabel; we're both dead if you do."
Mabel blinked, suddenly finding herself staring into familiar brown eyes. For a moment, she swore her heart really did skip a beat or three as she took in the impossible features of the figure now standing before her.
"Dipper?" she whispered, as the hand withdrew. "But you were- how did you- what- why-"
But there were simply too many questions to ask at once; in the end, the only one she could finish was "Why are you wearing a raincoat?"
"It's a very long story," said 'Dipper,' "But first thing's first, I'm technically not Dipper: I'm Quattro."
"You're who?"
"She wasn't there for that half of the night, remember?" muttered another familiar voice from nearby. "You're going to have to go into more detail."
"I was just getting to that, Tracy…"
Dumbfounded, Mabel peered over Quattro's shoulder and saw another Dipper hiding in the bushes behind him. Like the first, he was dressed in a full-body rain poncho complete, but this one had his hood back – revealing that there was a large number three scrawled on his hat in permanent marker; a closer look at Quattro revealed that he had a number four drawn above the brim of his cap. And as she stood back and started taking the full picture into account, she slowly realized that the two Dippers looked curiously wan and washed-out, just a tiny bit paler than the real thing… almost like cheap photocopies.
Mabel almost laughed. "You're copier clones!" she exclaimed. "I'd almost forgotten all about you guys; I mean, Dipper said two of you came back and tried to live in the closet for a while, but I never thought I'd actually get to meet you!"
Tracy's eyes rose. "So Dipper told you about us, huh? I thought he'd want to keep a lid on all that stuff after what happened with Tyrone. I mean with all the-"
"Business at hand, Tracy," grumbled Quattro loudly, "business at hand..."
"Oh, right. Uh… anyway, something's seriously wrong out here, Mabel. We heard that nobody was getting in and out of Gravity Falls for the last week or two, so we came back here to see what was going on. Since then we've been seeing all these clones of you all over the place, but they weren't made with the copier – they were splashing through puddles and everything! And where have all the gnomes gone?"
"And why are they all so angry all of a sudden?"
Mabel opened her mouth to reply, to insist that she had to walk and talk while there was still a chance to catch up with Grey, only for another question to hit her side-on. "Hang on, what do you mean 'angry'?" she demanded; the notion of the clones being angry about anything sounded so alien to the eerily-happy Mabels that even Mabel herself couldn't quite picture it.
"Well, ever since they started patrolling around here, they've all been sniffing the air and growling – actually growling if you can believe it. They haven't said anything since then, but you can tell they're angry."
Briefly overwhelmed by curiosity, Mabel leaned forward and sniffed the air about half an inch from Quattro's face ("Don't sneeze," he warned). To her surprise, there was a distinctive scent about him, a smell reminiscent of warm paper fresh from the printer, tempered with the oddly soapy aroma of burnt electrical equipment. Mabel couldn't guess at how powerful the Forger Wasps' senses were, but she had to assume that they could recognize that those mingled smells didn't belong out in the forest. As for why they were angry…
"Oh, I see," said Mabel, her eyes widening in sudden enlightenment. "They can't convert you!"
"What?"
"Grunkle Ford told me the Forger Wasps can't stand robots and other things they can't take over: that's why they're hunting you down, Quattro – they know you can't be converted, because you're made of paper!"
"Hang on, how do they know that? They haven't even met us yet."
"Dipper's memories."
"What."
"They got Dipper a while ago, so now they have all his memories: he met you, he learned all about you and the other copier clones, and he probably even knows what you smell like, so all the Mabels know as well. So, now they're out hunting for you."
Tracy sighed. "You're going to have to explain things from the very beginning, Mabel, because this isn't making any sense at all."
"Look, it's really simple: just about everyone in Gravity Falls has been taken over by alien bugs from another dimension and transformed into clones of me, and now they're out to take over the world. Plus, they don't like copier clones, they get angry when their queen's in danger, and they were summoned here by some guy called Grey. Don't ask me why, because I've got no clue. Long story short, it's the second time we've dealt with clones and this time they've got nothing... to do... with the copier..."
She trailed off.
"Mabel, are you alright?"
"Is she a clone as well?"
"Don't be dense, Tracy. Mabel, talk to me. Come on, don't freeze up now, not when those things are right around the corner."
But Mabel wasn't listening: she'd just been hit by the biggest bolt of inspiration since her last experiment with wax sculpture. Unbidden, her brain was dredging up recollections of everything she'd seen and heard in the last day or so, flinging open the filing cabinets of her mind and rifling through them at a frantic pace in search of anything that could fuel this mad burst of inspiration: the time she had left, the clone frenzy she'd witnessed at Northwest Manor, the things that Grunkle Ford had told her in his final minutes, and even the glimpses she'd caught while travelling through the forest, all of them somehow overshadowed by the presence of the copier clones. And suddenly, Mabel realized that she didn't have to follow Grey after all.
For the most part, Mabel wasn't much for long-term planning: she was a doer, an improviser, a girl who thrived on being spontaneous – up until the aftermath of Weirdmageddon and the Forger Wasps had taken the wind out of her sails. If you wanted a big complicated strategy, you looked to Dipper; if you wanted an instruction manual, you asked Grunkle Ford. Even Stan had a wealth of experience in confidence scams and get rich quick schemes to fall back on. But now there was an idea forming in her head, a collection of facts and details that she couldn't help assembling into some semblance of a plan: it was a risky plan, an insane plan, a plan that could only have sung from a mixture of desperation, denial and misguided obstinacy… but Mabel had the most peculiar feeling that she could make it work.
And in that moment, for the first time in what felt like eons, Mabel felt her confidence roaring to life again. For too long, she'd been undermined by her own guilt and crushed by the rise of the Mabels… but now, with Ford's last words still ringing in her ears, two friends by her side and that mad realization fizzing through her brain, it was almost impossible to imagine feeling anything other than mad, self-assured excitement. Somewhere in the back of her head, an invisible band was playing her theme music, stoking her heart to a galloping pace as the rising tide of exuberance flowed through her.
She was ready to stop the Mabels.
She was back.
"Do you know how far from the Mystery Shack we are?" she asked, urgently.
"Maybe thirty minutes on foot; we got pretty far up until the Mabels showed up."
A demented grin crossed Mabel's face.
"Think you could make it in five minutes on a golf cart?"
"…maybe. What are you planning?"
"I'll explain on the way, but we've got to get moving fast. Now, come on! We've got a planet to save!"
A/N: Can you guess Mabel's plan?
This chapter's soundtrack is Awakened Forest by Nobuo Uematsu. And as for the code...
FMDZMGVW VOVNVMGH WVGVXGVW; VORNRMZGV ZG ZOO XLHGH!
