(This chapter was edited because some text got messed up and squished. Hopefully it won't anymore.)

A/N: Before you say anything, yes, I know it's been a while. And yes, I'm very sorry for that. I don't really have an excuse for it other than that I had to take some time to focus on some personal issues, but still. I'm sorry for the long wait. I'll try not to let it happen again, and I hope this chapter is at least somewhat worth the wait.

Before I go onto the chapter though, I just want to say thank you to everyone who's favorited, followed, reviewed, or read this story. I know it sounds cliche but, really, thank you all.

Anyways, here you go, the next chapter. Hope you enjoy. (Also, I did change the cover for this story. It might take a bit to show up, but just want to let you know.)

Crash Site Omega was quiet.

It was usually quiet anyways, but this time, the quiet felt... wrong... somehow.

Mabel was fully aware of this fact. It was almost like the universe was holding its breath as she ran down the hallways, wiping any stray tears away.

I have to find Ford, I have to find Ford, I have to find Ford! she thought, most of her mind a jumbled mess of thoughts and ideas, all consumed with a looming sense of worry.

She rounded a corner, skidding to a stop a second before she almost ran straight into someone.

Stan.

He must've noticed how fast she was breathing, and he must've seen the radio she was holding to her chest, clutching it like her life depended on it. He looked like he was about to say something, but Mabel beat him by a heartbeat, her tone thick with an alarming and indecipherable array of emotions.

"Grunkle Stan! SomethinghappenedandIdon'tknowwhatbutDipper'sindangerandIdon'tknowwhattodoa-andtherewasthisgrowlandstaticandI–"

"Woah, woah, you're going to have to slow down there, pumpkin, I can't understand a word of what you're saying," Stan interrupted, though, upon realizing the intensity of his niece's frenzy, his expression had morphed to one of worry, his brows knit together and a frown pulling at the corner of his mouth.

Mabel swallowed, this time attempting to slow her words so they actually made sense.

"I... Something happened to Dipper, and I don't know if he's okay."

As it turned out, that was all she needed to say before Stan's face lit up with realization.

The bad kind of realization.

He should've known sending that kid out wasn't a good idea.

As soon as Stan and Mabel had informed Ford of what'd happened (and after he'd been snapped out of his panic upon hearing of his nephew's disappearance) he'd rounded up a search party of sorts. In the time that took, what with everyone getting ready for searching and making sure everyone who was staying knew what to do while they were gone, the sun had gone down.

Dipper was supposed to be back before the sun went down.

This shattered Mabel's small sliver of hope that maybe something bad didn't happen. That maybe she'd been dreaming that conversation over the radio and that maybe he would be back by now...

But this was happening. This was really happening. And Mabel was going to find him.

"Dipper!" Mabel called, a flashlight in one hand and the other held to her mouth in a measly attempt to make her voice louder. "Dipper!"

And with each call she made, she listened for any sort of response. But one never came, and each time her call went unanswered, she could feel part of heart being torn apart.

Behind her, her two Grunkles called out as well, along with Wendy and Soos. If Dipper were anywhere near, surely he would've heard their calling by now? It was pretty loud, if she were being honest. Nobody in the group cared that they might attract some unwanted attention with the volume of their voice, and especially not Mabel.

All that mattered to her at that moment was finding Dipper. She wondered if this was what he was feeling when he'd been trying to find her, back at the start of Weirdmageddon. Hadn't he been trying to find her for three days or so...?

She'd been so caught up in her thoughts that she was legitimately startled when she felt a six-fingered hand on her shoulder. The group had stopped, every flashlight but hers pointed at something in the center of a clearing they'd stopped at the edge of.

She lifted her gaze to see what it was.

At that moment, she could feel her fast-beating heart shatter, more worry and fear than she could ever remember having in her life shadowing her face.

It was Dipper's hat, blood surrounding the space around it.

But no Dipper.

Nobody said a word. Nothing made a sound.

...the forest was quiet.

...it was usually quiet anyways, but this time, the quiet felt... wrong... somehow.

You promised, Mabel thought, holding a closed fist to her mouth to try and contain a choked sob. Dipper, you promised...

Mabel navigated the forest as if she had a thousand times before, dodging conifers and leaping over fallen trees as she ran, even without the aid of her flashlight. Somehow, she had perfectly memorized this part of the woods, even if she'd only been here a few times before. Every few seconds, she would glance around into the darkness of the night to make sure there weren't any red or yellow glowing eyes watching her. She didn't exactly fancy being attacked by a demon, though, at least this time, she'd remembered to bring her gun instead of going out without it.

The meeting with Dipper's clones from yesterday's night was still fresh in her mind. She remembered what they'd said almost right before she'd left. "There's a lot you need to know." What could it be? She hoped against hope that it would somehow be something that would help her in getting her twin back, or at least more information on, well, anything that was going on right now. Really, information on either Dipper or Weirdmageddon would work. (She found herself hoping it was the former of the two, though.)

After a much shorter time than she thought it'd take (although the time might've seemed to pass quicker since she'd been lost in thought), she'd arrived at her destination, breaking through a line of trees; the cave that the clones had been in last time. And she was immediately reassured that that night wasn't a dream, since the two were waiting outside, one of them pacing in circles and only looking up when he realized that Mabel was there, and the other already having been alert and giving her a tired wave when she approached. She was about to ask which clone was which since she still couldn't tell them apart, but as if he had read her mind, one of them, the one that'd been pacing, spoke up.

"I'm Quattro, that's Tracey," he said, pointing to the other clone. "If you need to tell us apart, Tracey's the one with the duct-tape around his chest."

Mabel nodded, wondering how she didn't make that connection before. "Good to know," she breathed, and after a short pause, continued, "Now, I-I think you guys need to tell me a few things, right?"

The two clones exchanged knowing glances. "Yes," Tracey muttered, "yes we do."

After the trio had gotten settled, or at least as settled as you could be in a cold, dark, and rocky cave, and after a flashlight was turned on to provide some light, Mabel was more than ready to get to the bottom of this.

"Do... you wanna start?" Tracey asked his counterpart.

"Not really, but I will," Quattro sighed, wincing. He turned to Mabel, who was growing increasingly curious and impatient with every passing second. "So, uh, I guess I'd better start somewhere, huh? Guess I'll start at the sort-of beginning then."

"Go on."

"Well, it'd been a few months after Weirdmageddon started. Me and Tracey were... confused... to say the least, when the sky started vomiting nightmares, but I mean, Gravity Falls is a weird place. By then, we were familiar to the weirdness waves, and especially the new, demonizing ones. Believe me, we ran into our fair share of demons. But uh..." he paused, as if he didn't quite know how to put his thoughts into words. "One day..."

"One day we were trying to find a safe spot to rest," Tracey continued, upon taking notice of Quattro's hesitance. "Nowhere was really... safe anymore, so we usually had to move around a lot. A weirdness wave went over that day, but we didn't think much of it. I mean, they'd gone over plenty of other times, this one didn't seem much different. So we were walking through the forest, when all of a sudden we just heard, like, radio static."

"Radio static?" Mabel tilted her head, somewhat knowing where this was going.

"Yeah, radio static. We decided to check it out. Don't remember why. But, we did. And..."

It was Tracey's turn to pause, although this time it seemed to be because he just didn't want to go on, not that he didn't know how to. Quattro didn't make a move to continue, so for a few seconds the cave was plunged into silence.

A silence that quickly got on Mabel's nerves, a burning impatience in her chest. "Can someone please just continue?" she half-demanded and half-pleaded.

"Right, right, sorry," Tracey said hurriedly, shaking his head to himself. "We finally got to the part of the forest it was coming from. And, well…"

It was almost night.

The now crimson sky was turning darker, and it was getting colder.

"I wonder who got caught in the wave this time."

Quattro glanced warily over his shoulder to Tracey, whose gaze was on the ground instead of anything else.

Only a few minutes ago, another weirdness wave had gone over. They didn't know what caused them or where they came from, only that they came soon after the sky ripped open and spat out ungodly beasts and hellish creatures. Originally, the waves weren't this much of a worry (they'd only really been turning inanimate objects alive, and while that was rarely dangerous it was more annoying than anything), but then they'd started doing... more than that. They started messing with people's minds and with their bodies in ways that seemed irreversible, but most importantly, dangerous. For the person caught in the wave, and others.

"I don't know," Quattro said after a while, "but we should probably pick up the pace. At this rate it's gonna be pitch-black before we find a place to rest." They were trying to find some place to stop and rest before night came in its entirety. If there was one thing they'd learned throughout this weird apocalypse thing, it's that night was dangerous.

So the two started to walk faster, listening for any sound in the unnaturally silent forest. Half because they didn't want anything to sneak up on them or try and attack them, and half because the forest was just… too quiet. It was setting them on edge.

It was a good thing they were listening, then, because after a while they could hear a sound cut through silence.

Static, like a cracked TV or a broken radio…

...apparently the latter, since when the two let curiosity get the better of them and lead them to where the sound was coming from, a ring of trees surrounding a relatively empty clearing, one of the first things they noticed was the dark gray radio in its center. It wasn't hard to tell that that was where the sound was coming from.

The two advanced upon the scene, wondering why the item was just lying in the grass. And upon inspection, they started to wish they'd just ignored the static.

There was blood. Not so much that the whole area was red, but that some blades of grass and glimpses of dirt were speckled with dark red. Less worrying (or maybe more?) was the blue-and-white hat sitting only a short distance away from the radio. It's definitely Dipper Classic's, Quattro thought, telling from the pine tree instead of a number on the front. But… what's it doing here…?

Ignoring his instincts that were telling him to leave and run as far away from this place as possible, Quattro picked up the radio first, fiddling with the knobs and buttons to see if he could get it to work and stop playing that awful static, but it seemed like it was fried for good. He threw it onto the ground a few feet away, before directing his attention back to the blue-and-white hat laying on the ground. The blood around it was enough to suggest that something had happened here, something that wasn't at all in Dipper Classic's favor, if the theory that was already started to form in his head was correct. But what was it? Rouge survivor? Some horribly mutated forest creature? Or one of those demons…

As if on cue, they heard a low growling from the dark woods. It sounded close… way too close for comfort, and with night closing in, Quattro couldn't see a thing past the clearing now. Wherever it was coming from, he couldn't see it. He took a step back from the broken radio and the now partially red hat to stand next to Tracey, who was glancing wildly around trying to find out where the sound had come from. Their gazes met, both lit with pure, unadulterated terror. They should've left when they had the chance.

A growl could mean any number of things, but none of them were good.

Attempting to swallow back his fear, Quattro leaned over to Tracey, whispering as quietly as he possibly could. "W-we don't happen to have any weapons on us, do we?"

The growling was louder now.

"N-no, no we do not."

Louder.

"Alright… then when I say run, we run, okay?"

Like it was closer…

"Alright."

...or right behind them.

"Ru—"

"Look out!"

Quattro barely had time to process anything before Tracey was forcing him to the side, narrowly out of the way when claws swiped just where he'd been seconds before. The already faded sunlight made it somewhat of a challenge to see, but there was enough light, some coming from the red glowing eye that was now staring deep into his soul, so that he could make out what, or, more terrifyingly, who, it was that had apparently just tried to either kill or seriously harm him.

"D-Dipper?"

Despite the obvious physical changes, it was still clear that this person was their original. They quickly pieced together that he must've been unlucky enough to be caught in the previous wave, but… something was off.

Only one of his eyes was red. The other was strangely normal, and unlike the other that just looked like an endless pool of anger and hatred, something in it looked like a silent plea for help.

Still, Quattro took a fear-filled step backwards, Tracey following suit. He knew that he should probably run and never look back, but it felt like he was rooted to the ground now.

Contrary to the immediate and infinite aggression they'd seen from other people who'd fallen victim to one of those strange waves, Dipper did the same, taking a step backwards, although it was more like stumbling. His movements were noticeably shaky, and it looked like he might fall over at any moment. He was holding one of his arms, like he was trying to restrain himself...

"Are you able to talk?"

Quattro shot a glance at Tracey, about to ask something like "what kinda question is that to ask a demon," but his expression resolute, leaving Quattro to trust that he knew what he was doing.

It seemed like Dipper took a moment to process the question, but after a brief hesitation...

"Y-yeah…"

There was a strange, faint echo to his word, like a darker undertone bleeding into his voice.

"Can you think clearly?"

That took a longer pause, longer than comfortable, before Dipper gave a weak shake of his head. Quattro still didn't understand Tracey's train of thought, but he didn't make a move to interrupt it.

"A-are you okay?" Tracey asked, even if he already knew the answer.

And Dipper didn't answer. He didn't need to.

Of course he wasn't.

A/N: Oops, what's this? Me, ending a chapter, like this? Yes. Yes it is. Don't worry, I'm already getting started on the next chapter. Hopefully it won't be such a long wait next time, and until next time, have a good day/night.