At their request, McGucket went back up the mouth of his robot, and a few seconds later the rest of their supplies (and Dipper's vest) were snatched in its tentacles and brought up to them. The trio was then placed inside the mouth, and together, somewhat gingerly, they made their way to the back of the throat, where they found an elevator that took them to what was presumably the "brain" area.

When the doors slid open again, it was to reveal a bright, green-lit control room.

Everywhere they looked there were tables covered in buttons, levers, switches and other thingies presumably required for keeping a giant mechanical eldritch abomination up and running. There were two big windows shaped like eyes, and McGucket sitting in a big black swivel chair, tapping frantically away at some of the buttons in front of him like a giant, elaborate typewriter.

It also contained a pair of big, chubby legs wearing familiar cargo shorts sticking out from under one of the tables, and a familiar voice saying, "Dude, I think I almost got it! Before you know it we'll have that problem with the portside tentacles all cleared up!"

"SOOS!"

There was a thump, a muffled "Ow!" and then the handyman himself slid into view.

"Guys?!"

Wendy and Dipper hurled themselves at him without hesitation; Dipper buried his face in the (slightly smelly and grease-stained, but still wonderfully familiar) question mark T-shirt, and reached as far around his pterodactyl bro as his tiny arms were capable of.

"Guys! Aw geez, I was so worried about you!" Soos squeezed them both as tight as he could, and Dipper couldn't bring himself to fight it. "I couldn't find you at the Shack, so I wandered around the forest looking for you for, like, ages, but then I got caught by some of the trees, because they were sentient now and had long sharp teeth made of bark and their branches had turned into arms. They were gonna eat me as some kinda revenge against humanity or something, but then Mr. McGucket saved me with this robot, so I technically owe him a life debt now which I'm tryna pay off by helping him keep this thing running smoothly-MR. PINES!"

Soos extricated himself from under his friends, and lunged to his feet while starting to lift his arms-but then he got a better look at Ford, and deflated.

"Oh, sorry. I thought you were Mr. Pines." He thought for a second. "I mean, technically you are, but you're not my Mr. Pines. I mean-he's not mine, but-you know."

Ford's hands slipped into the front pocket of his hoodie. "Yes, I understand."

Soos looked back to his friends worriedly. "Dudes, do you-do you know where Mr. Pines is? He's not in the Shack either, so I thought for sure that he'd be looking after you guys."

Even though he'd gotten the worst of it out of his system after it first happened, Dipper felt a lump grow in his throat. He swallowed it down enough to say, "...He got caught by Bill."

Remembering that time when Mabel had been boss for three days and her poor choice of phrasing had made Soos think that Stan was dead, Dipper expected him to immediately dissolve into a hysterical, blubbering mess.

Instead, Soos froze up-and then quietly sat down on the floor; other than his lip trembling for a second, his expression became very small, and very blank. Somehow, that was so much worse.

"Great Uncle Ford thinks he's still alive," Dipper quickly said, squeezing his shoulder. "We're planning to go rescue him and put a stop to all this after we get Mabel out of that giant pink bubble on the other side of this canyon."

Soos blinked, nodded numbly.

"Oh. I wondered what that thing was."

"Soon as we get this finished, we can give you folks a lift over there!" Fiddleford squawked. He had scrambled under the panel Soos was no longer working on, and a few seconds later there were some sparking noises and a small crunch.

"...This is gonna take a little bit."

Ford went over and knelt at his side. "...Is there anything I can do to help? My mechanical skills have improved somewhat since-well, they're better than they used to be."

"Nah, I think me an' Soos've got it jes' fine!"

"...Soos and I."

Fiddleford cackled warmly. "You ain't changed at all, Stanford."

Ford winced, but didn't reply.

Soos recovered from his numbness enough to get back to work helping Fiddleford. As they worked, Fiddleford told their guests that they could go down into the center of the robot to get some food if they wanted; Ford glanced over his shoulder at his charges, and remembered that yes, they were young children who had been living on saltine crackers and fruit snacks for the last day or two. So he quietly shepherded them back to the elevator, and pressed the button that had "Food Court" written on it in the clumsy scrawl of someone who was apparently re-learning how to form letters properly.

His heart sank; yet another person whose life he had inadvertently ruined.

Surprisingly, when they arrived at the food court (which was a room located, appropriately enough, in the stomach area of the robot) they found that Soos and Fiddleford were not the only people onboard: a full group were at a couple of tables that looked like they'd been grabbed from the high school, in the center of the room. Ford didn't know who they were, but Wendy and Dipper rushed to greet them. There was a trio of redheaded boys that resembled Wendy enough to probably be her brothers, who dogpiled her in a hug; a tall man with his hat pulled over his eyes sitting with his back against the wall, holding a magazine titled Stoic Monthly; a small Asian girl who he vaguely remembered to be one of Mabel's friends; and a blonde-haired girl who looked very out of place compared to the others, despite wearing what literally appeared to be a potato sack. When their eyes met for a brief second, she blushed and quickly turned to Dipper.

Ford decided to let the children get caught up, and went to see what the options were for eating. There was a makeshift fridge and some cupboards set up against one wall, and inside he found a collection of food that looked like it had been scavenged from the local grocery stores. Mostly canned things, but there were some apples and oranges in the fridge, next to what looked disturbingly like a charbroiled possum. Ford avoided the possum, but took some fruit and a couple of cans of meat, along with a bottle of fresh water, and brought them back to the tables.

"...pushed me behind a trash can just before the eyebats found her," the Asian girl was whispering as he came back into earshot. She hugged her knees. "She sacrificed herself to protect me. And that is where Mr. McGucket found me, after they took Grenda away."

Dipper put a hand on her shoulder, and squeezed it silently.

Ford sat down, and offered his nephew an apple; to his quiet relief, he accepted it with a nod, and then began to eat ravenously. Ford turned to Wendy, and made sure she got some food too, before touching a bite of his own meal.

As he ate, barely tasting any of it, he listened to the conversation going on around him, and registered that aside from the quiet man-who, come to think of it, looked an awful lot like Fiddleford; maybe he was his son?-these were all a bunch of frightened children.

Thank goodness Fiddleford found them. Otherwise they might have-it would have been very unfortunate.

Ford suddenly didn't have much of an appetite left. He forced himself to finish his apple regardless, and gave the rest of his canned chili to one of the boys, who ate it without protest.

Eventually there was a rumbling, and everyone braced themselves as the robot began to move.

"He really needs to install a 'Fasten Seatbelts' sign in this thing!" another of Wendy's brothers said as he held onto his chair.

"And maybe some seatbelts!" one of his brothers added.

The furniture all appeared to have been welded to the floor, so at least it wasn't skidding around, but it was still not the most comfortable experience of their lives. Ford fervently wished he'd thought to bring some rope with him.

Fortunately, though, the experience didn't last too long; after a few minutes the robot came to a stop, and a loudspeaker on the wall crackled before Soos's voice came rumbling through.

"All ashore that's going ashore!"

Ford looked at Dipper and Wendy. "...I don't suppose there's any chance I could convince you two to stay here while I go and fetch Mabel myself?"

The identical withering glares sent his way were answer enough.

The Asian girl stood up as they got to their feet. "I am coming with you."

"That is not-" Ford started to say.

Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses. "I have already failed to save one of my friends. There is no chance I am staying behind while you are rescuing the other."

Dipper looked up at him. "Candy's really smart, Great Uncle Ford. And she's good at thinking calmly in a crisis."

Candy? Who names their child Candy?

He still had some obvious misgivings about putting yet another child in potential danger, but Ford decided it wasn't worth arguing with them for the time being. And if push really came to shove, he could always just perform a nerve pinch and put her somewhere safe until it was over. "Very well."

And he strode towards the elevator, with the little group in his wake.

Back at the control room, Soos gave McGucket an uncomfortable look as he wiped his hands on a greasy rag.

"Um-I know I owe you my life and all, but I-well, I kinda wanna go help my friends save my other friend, but I understand if you need me-"

"Look, big fella, I keep tellin' ya I don't expect ya ta spend the rest of your life servin' me or whatever." McGucket put his bony hands on his hips.

"But that's the code of honor! You saved my life, now I have to work for you until I've saved yours, like in the Kevin Costner movie-"

"Just go help 'em."

"Yay thank you I'll be back as soon as I can!" He joined the group as they headed for the mouth of the robot.

Ford muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "Not another one," but then he just sighed and walked onto the tongue ahead of them, allowing himself to be scooped off it by one of the tentacles.

As soon as they were lowered to within reach of the lock, Dipper pushed the key into it and turned it.

"We're coming for you, Mabel," he whispered to himself.

A few seconds later they were surrounded by a blinding white light.

...Which quickly turned into a rainbow explosion that they were suddenly falling through.

Soos quickly grabbed onto Dipper, holding him tightly against him.

"If I'm gonna die, I wanna die hugging!" he proclaimed, while curling around him like some kind of giant hamster.

Through the strangulation Dipper managed to see Ford pulling Wendy and Candy against him, and then starting to dig through his hoodie in search of what was probably something to save them from landing on-

-On a surface that made them all gently bounce a couple of times.

"...I was genuinely not expecting this," Candy said at last.

Wendy tilted her head. "Do you guys hear eighties music?"

"And does the air smell like childlike wonder?" Soos turned and peered through the side of the bouncy castle; the others followed suit, and gazed upon a world that looked like Lisa Frank and a couple of toy shops had crashed into each other, accidentally pulling a yarn store and possibly some radioactive chemicals into the mix. And above it all there hung an enormous billboard, emblazoned with the words, "MABELAND! PERFECTION-BUT BETTER!"

Ford glared, and shielded his eyes against the blinding amount of light. "We need to find Mabel quickly."

"Agreed." Dipper frowned. "This is worse than the apocalypse."

The corner of Ford's mouth turned up a few inches as they made their way off the bouncy castle onto the street.

"Where do you think she could be?" Wendy asked, passing a group of multicolored penguins. "This whole place is basically her dreamland."

Dipper pulled a pen out of his vest, and began chewing it nervously. "It would be easier if we had some way to narrow it down, like everyone being gathered in a specific area, or the sound of her voice-"

"Or that she's coming down the street in a big sparkly car?" Soos asked.

"Yeah, like-MABEL!"

Sure enough, the gaudiest, pinkest car ever to destroy human eyes was slowly driving down the road. Sitting up front were two brightly colored, radical young men, and perched on the back like Miss America, complete with an enormous rainbow tiara and a bouquet of flowers on her lap, waving and smiling at every creature that passed her, was none other than the girl they'd been looking for.

"Mabel! Hey!"

The little group ran out into the road, frantically waving their arms.

"Whoa! There's people in the road!" one of the radical young men proclaimed. Just in time he managed to slam on the brakes, so that the car came to a stop inches from running into Soos's legs. It made an annoyingly adorable 'beep, beep!' sound.

Mabel lowered the heart-shaped purple sunglasses she was wearing, and then let out a delighted squeal.

"GUYS!"

She threw aside her bouquet and jumped right out of the car, running around it towards them.

"I was wondering when you'd finally get here! Now everything is-"

And then, just as suddenly, she skidded to a halt as she looked up at Ford.

For a second she just stood there, frozen.

And then, slowly, her eyebrows drew together, and her face contorted into the most frightening, angry look any of them had ever seen on her face.

"What's HE doing here?!"

I hope I did Candy justice; it's my first time trying to write her.