"Come on Mabel, you can do this..." Dipper muttered, just loud enough so that Mabel could heard him.
His twin glanced back at him with an small appreciative smile, before turning her attention back to the target: a certain triangle carved into the bark of a tree. The gun she was holding was shaking slightly in her hands, and she shut her eyes tightly with a sigh. "Dipper, why do we have to do this every day?"
He crossed his arms over his chest, choosing to look at the ground instead of her. "I'm sorry Mabel, but Ford says we have to keep using these guns until we can aim perfectly. It's–"
"Yeah, I know," Mabel sighed. "It's 'for safety reasons'. But when would I actually need to shoot anything?" she asked, turning to him. Dipper lifted a brow, staring at her with an expression that just said really?
"Right, right, demons, monsters, a random person that might wanna kill me for some random reason, etcetera etcetera..." Mabel mumbled.
"Better safe than sorry," Dipper murmured, subconsciously rubbing his left arm with his hand. He then froze for a mere second before reaching to his own gun holstered around his waist as he heard a rustle in the bushes behind him. "Speaking of which..."
He whirled around, facing the source of the noise with his finger hovering over the trigger.
"Woah dude, don't shoot me."
Dipper lowered his gun, breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn't a demon. "Sorry Wendy," he laughed nervously, sliding his gun back into its holster, "I still can't tell what sound is an animal, what sound is a person..." He trailed off, shaking his head to himself.
"What do you want?" Mabel asked, tearing her gaze from the triangular target to look at the redhead. Her eyes widened, and panic crept into her tone as she continued, "there isn't weirdness wave, is there?"
"No," Wendy assured them, and both Dipper and Mabel's shoulders sagged with relief. "I just wanted to see what you two were up to. Plus, it's dangerous to be out in the forest alone like this."
"We were only going to be out for a few minutes," Mabel shrugged. "Dip-Dop here thought I needed to work on my aim again, but I'm the one who had a grapple gun and who has been using said grapple gun for a long time before you started using guns, Dip."
Dipper rolled his eyes, although he couldn't hide the small smile on his face. "First of all, Ford said to work on your aim, not me. Second of all, you've used a grapple gun but you were also, no offense, terrible at aiming it. I got hit in the head with that more times than I can count."
He took his gun out of his holster again, cocking it before continuing, "And third of all, yeah, I did only recently learn how to shoot a gun..." He lifted his arm to aim directly at the target, "but I can say with absolute certainty that I'm better at aiming it than you." He pulled the trigger, and the bullet hit the Bill-shaped carving in the center of its eye.
"You're such a dork," Mabel snickered. "But alright, I guess you win this round, broseph."
"I'll take what I can get."
Mabel knocked on the door to Dipper's room, hoping that he was in there and not in some random place in the UFO; she didn't particularly like going on a wild-goose chase every time she wanted to find someone.
"Who is it?" came her brother's reply, and she thanked some unseen entity that for once she didn't have to spend literal hours trying to find him.
"It's Mabel."
There was a small pause, before she heard a, "Come in."
She entered the room, closing the door behind her. Dipper was resting on the edge of his bed, writing in a journal; not one of Ford's, Mabel remembered Dipper telling her that those were burned to ash by Bill (even the thought of the demon made Mabel seethe), but one of his own. He'd taken to writing down what happened each and every day. She supposed it might've been out of sheer boredom, but there might've been some other purpose to it. She hadn't bothered to ask about it though.
He glanced up from his writing, tapping the pen to the spine of the journal. "Did you need something?"
Mabel leaned against a nearby wall, crossing her arms over her chest. "Well, I don't need anything, but Ford says he wants you for something."
"Did he say what?" Dipper asked, shutting the journal and finally paying full attention to his twin.
Mabel hummed, trying to recall whether Ford had said anything of the sort. "Uh, nope, don't think so. He just said to come and get you for something."
"Vague. Alright, where is he?"
Mabel opened her mouth to reply, but stopped herself when she remembered that... she didn't remember where Ford was now. She rubbed the back of her neck with an awkward laugh. "Somewhere in this general area...?"
"Ahuh..."
"Whatever, come on broseph. Even if I don't exactly know where he is, he's still going to be annoyed if we don't come back soon."
Dipper nodded slowly, still confused and intrigued, and after placing the journal in the pocket inside his vest, he pushed off the bed with a muttered, "Alright then, we'd better get going, I guess."
The twins walked through the many corridors of Crash Site Omega, not leaving a single hallway unchecked. They went to the main rooms that everyone else was usually in, but there was no such luck in finding Ford. Dipper kept casting glances over at Mabel as a silent way to ask her if she really didn't know where Ford was.
She didn't.
After a few more minutes, the two finally came across Ford in one of the rooms closer to the exit hatch. When Ford layed eyes on them, he pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. "That took longer than anticipated, but I guess this place is a labyrinth."
"What did you want?" Dipper questioned, his hand resting on the gun at his side. Mabel might've said he was paranoid for always having it with him, but honestly, in this insane world, paranoid was... kind of necessary.
"As you know, we've already used up all of the unicorn hair-"
"Actually, no, I didn't know that," Dipper interjected, and Mabel nodded along.
Ford mumbled something that might've been, "I could've sworn I told you," before speaking in a louder voice once more. "Well, we did run out, to get that out of the way. The unicorns we have here already have given us all their hair."
"What does this have to do with me?" Dipper asked, glancing over at Mabel, who just shrugged.
"Well..."
"You'll be safe, won't you?"
Dipper turned his head to look at his twin, wincing at her concerned expression. He waved his hand dismissively, trying to hide the fact that he wasn't any more happy about this than she was.
"Come on, it'll only be a few minutes, mkay?" Mabel didn't look convinced, but what did you expect when he himself wasn't. "Just a quick check around, see if there are any unicorns around, and I'll come back."
"I still don't know why I can't come with you..." she murmured.
"Well, somebody has to stay on the other end of that radio," he said, gesturing at the radio in her hands, "and with everyone else busy with other stuff..."
It was true. Somebody needed to stay on the other end of the radio at all times. It was a safety precaution; that way if anything bad happened (hopefully not), they'd know right away, as opposed to where, if nobody was on the recieving end, it would take who knows how long to know if something went wrong. And with almost everyone else in CSO busy with other things, Mabel was the only one who could be receiving at the moment.
The fact that almost everyone else was busy was also the reason that Dipper was going alone. Normally, a group of people, or at least two, would go out together at a time, at least until everyone got a little more used to the whole we-are-living-in-a-literal-apocalypse situation. The only reason Ford wanted him to go out alone now, and not waiting later so a group could go, was because the longer they waited, the higher chance of any unicorns that may be left being killed, and because it was only going to be a quick trip anyways. He wasn't going too far, only some ways into the forest, a quick look around, and come back before the sun went down. Simple enough.
The chance of anything really bad happening anyways was relatively small; sure, Dipper was only thirteen, but a thirteen year-old who could hold his own. Plus, it's not like he didn't have a gun, and it's not like he hadn't had to fight things off before, both after Weirdmageddon and before it. (He'd been attacked by demons... well... quite a few times now. Certainly more times than he'd have liked to.) And really, there wasn't much chance of a weirdness wave, either. It was two hours until the next, and again, he wasn't going too far.
Still, he couldn't shake off the feeling that something was bound to go wrong.
"I guess you're right," Mabel sighed, tugging Dipper out of his thoughts. His gaze fell to the ground for a moment, before looking back at her. He didn't have a chance to speak before she continued again. "Promise me you'll be safe, alright? That you'll come back?"
Dipper knew he couldn't actually promise that. Whether he'd actually be safe was out of his control. Still, though, he would do anything in his power to stay safe. Not just for himself, but because he knew that if anything happened to him, Mabel would be worried out of her mind. He supposed it was the same for him; if Mabel was in any sort of danger, he would give anything to get her out of it.
"I promise." He was somewhat surprised at how confident those words were, despite the fact that confident was anything but what he was feeling.
"Alright bro-bro. Have fun saving our butts getting some magic hair or whatever." She wrapped her arms around him in a hug, and he didn't hesitate to return it.
He tried not to think about how this might be the last time he would ever hug her.
He tried not to think about how this might be the last time he would ever see Crash Site Omega.
He tried not to think about it. Everything was fine, right? There was almost no possibility of something going wrong, and yet...
...he felt sure something was going to.
I know, I know.
It's been a while since I've updated. And for that I apologize, but here I am, back with another chapter that you just read. I'm tired, so I'm not going to do the bolded-letter-thing today, but maybe next chapter.
And yes, this whole chapter is a flashback. Why? Well, why not?
Anyways, sorry for the wait, and I hope to see you all again soon. (By the way, thanks for the favorites, follows, and reviews, everyone. It makes me happy that people enjoy something that I made. You guys are awesome.)