"Fillin' the woods with m'signs, doobity-doo, it'll take Sixer years to remove 'em all…"
Stan cheerfully sung to himself as he came back to the Mystery Shack from another round of late evening sign-hammering out in the woods. Or at least, it was a convincing imitation of cheerfulness.
He knew there was little point advertising the Shack since it wasn't going to exist anymore by the end of the next week, courtesy of Poindexter downstairs. But he'd been doing this for 30 years; old habits die hard. Then he realized that if he kept putting up signs, tourists would keep coming to the Shack long after it had closed, giving Ford no shortage of grief. Then Ford would have to explain to them what he'd done. Kids would cry, parents would yell in his face, or write letters of complaint, or maybe even punch him.
The thought made him grin. Yes, it was petty, childish, immature, and so on, but he didn't care. He was about to get evicted from the only true home he'd known for 30 years. He'd take whatever small comforts he could get.
And right now, what he really wanted was a stiff drink.
As he walked over to the fridge to retrieve a cold bottle of Root™-brand Beer (not to be confused with the non-alcoholic drink also called root beer), he noticed he had a guest. Who for some reason was tied to a chair in the middle of the room, with the curtains shut and a bare lightbulb swaying from the ceiling, like any second now some maniac in a bloodstained military uniform was about to come in and start torturing the poor guy.
The guy in question was a stocky, almost-bald man in a grey jumpsuit, and from the looks of things someone had already been roughing him up; his nose was broken and covered in dry blood, with only a bandaid slapped on it, and he was missing a tooth.
"Oy…" Stan went, moving in to get a better look at him. "Uh… you okay there, buddy?"
The stocky guy groaned, stirring, and slowly raised his head. Then he gasped and opened his beady eyes as wide as he could, not that it made a huge difference.
"Huh? Wh-wh-where am I?! What's going on?!" he asked, frantically looking around the room. Before Stan could even begin to think of an answer, he started violently squirming in his seat like a hyperactive child.
"C'mooooooon, what is this?! Oooooh… w-w-wait, this is about- oh, time-damnit, I am dead, I am SO dead!"
"Ugh…" Stan grunted in annoyance, turning back to the fridge. Whatever this was, he wasn't sure he wanted to get involved. Part of him said he should just leave, clearly this was Ford's doing. Who else would drag this squeaky-voiced sap here? But another part of him said he should stick around, find out what this guy's deal is. He'd been tied to a chair and beaten once, he could relate. Ford wouldn't be happy, so… good!
Deciding he might want to save getting tipsy for when Ford came back and explained what cloak-and-dagger super-nerd stuff he was up to now, he settled for taking out a Pitt Cola instead.
The guy in the chair gasped again. "DEAR TIME BABY, NOT THE TIME-CAN! D-DON'T OPEN IT, PLEASE, I-I-I-I'LL TELL YOU ANYTHING YOU WANT TO KNOW!"
Stan's brow furrowed in confusion.
"You uh… kinda twitchy, huh? ...Yanno, this, uh… 's just a drink."
"You can't time-psyche me out! That's obviously a device that, when shaken, produces a temporal stasis field that- NOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAA-"
He screamed before finishing his sentence as Stan casually cracked open the can, as though this nerd mechanic-looking guy wasn't even there.
"-AAAAAAAAAAA-ohhhh-kay, I guess it… really wasn't…" he sheepishly admitted seconds later, coughing awkwardly.
Stan sighed before taking a swig of his cola and pulling up a chair, sitting down in front of the guy. "Look, buddy, you ain't makin' this easy for me. I'm just as in the dark as you 'ere. But somethin's clearly goin' on. Both my great-niblings have run off, one of 'em's pretty much broken, the other's in way too deep with my nerd brother, an' said nerd brother has obviously dragged you in 'ere but don't trust you enough with all his weird technology to bring you down to his stupid basement lab, so he turns my kitchen into freakin' Guantanamo Bay! An' there's no way he's gonna tell me what this is about, so…"
"A…" the guy made a noise, looking incredulous. "A-are you even listening?! I-I-I said I'd tell you anything! Aw geez, they didn't tell me how to resist torture in employee time-orientation… if I make it outta this, I'm filing a complaint with the time-union!"
"Good to know. Start with yer name, what is it?" Stan said, slouching in his seat, one arm dangling behind the back.
"Blendin Blenjamin Blandin, Time Anomaly Removal Crew, Year Twenty-Sñevety-Twelve!" he said with confidence - clearly that's the one thing they had trained him to do. Besides… removing time anoma-whatsits.
"So… time traveler, huh? Screw it, why not? There's every other form o' Weird garbage in this town as it is, might as well add time travel to the pile. Actually…" Stan stopped to think, scratching his stubbly chin.
He remembered what had happened a few minutes ago; that twenty-something rosy-cheeked woman in pink boots who claimed to be his niece-in-law, banging on the door, asking where Dipper and Mabel were and then running off into the woods while yelling something about robots.
Stan had suspected who she really was. She had the same face and voice as Mabel, she called him 'Grunkle' and 'Stanley' (his 30-year switcheroo with his twin still wasn't common knowledge around town), and she was just as bad at lying as her, too. Besides, it's not like the Sauvageons were in any hurry to get to know him before, why the hell would they start now? The possibility that she was literally an older version of Mabel somehow seemed like the most sensible option.
In hindsight, he wondered if perhaps he should have gone after her, but he'd been too blindsided by her rapid-fire words - another Mabel-like thing - to do anything but stare. Hearing time travel is an actual thing that has been invented… or… will be invented, or whatever… just confirmed his suspicions.
He clicked his fingers, pointing at Blendin, or Blarblar, or whatever he said his name was. "Yep, that'd explain a lot."
"It would! I-I mean, would it? Wh-what do you mean?!"
"Just a few minutes ago, this weird lady came up to me. Pretty sure she was my great-niece Mabel, from… I dunno, ten, maybe twenty years in the future? She kinda reminded me of my aunt Shprintze. Big gal. Liked a cuddle. Must run in the family."
"Your M-M-M-M-Mabel? Wait…" Blendin said, glancing at the floor, clearly puzzling something out in his mind. Then he snapped to attention.
"AUGH, of course, OF COURSE! Mabel Pines, Stanford Pines, Pines this, Pines that, PINES PINES PINES!" he ranted, spraying spittle in Stan's face. "Why is it that whenever I get mixed up with your dumb family, I-I get thrown in jail or humiliated in front of thousands of time-citizens or possessed by extradimensional entities or knocked out and tied to a chair l-l-like a… l-like a… SOMETHING YOU TIE TO A CHAIR! We don't tie things to chairs in my time, n-not since time-rope went obsolete!"
"Woah woah, 'old up one sec, baldy-"
"BLENDIN! AND I'M NOT BALD ANYMORE!"
"Whatever," Stan waved him off, taking another swig of his cola. "You know Mabel? And Ford?"
"Um… aren't you Stanford Pines? I-I-I mean, you look exactly like the picture Bill showed me…"
Stan raised a finger, about to correct him, but stopped himself before the words came out. He'd been pretending to be Stanford for years, what would the harm be in doing it some more? If it meant he'd get an inside line on his brother's antics. How else is he gonna find out just what he's been up to?
"Yep, that's me, Stanford. The brother I was talkin' about before, that was just Ford. On its own. Stanford and Ford. Our pa had zero imagination," he said matter-of-factly, taking another swig. That last part wasn't even a lie. "Ya might need to jog my memory on a few things, I think I hit my head on the ceilin' when I got outta bed this mornin'. Who's Bill?"
Blendin's mouth hung open for a moment, before he bit his lip, making a slightly pathetic whining sound, as though he'd just realized he said too much.
"...B-Bill Cipher, he was the triangular extradimensional entity that stole my body! I-I-I was having a bad day, and Time Baby kept making fun of me, a-and I was kinda just regretting my life choices in general, a-and he came to me in a dream and said he could help me out, if I helped him get even with… w-well, you! He told me you made a deal with him thirty-something years ago to h-help him build some portal so Bill could come visit this dimension, but you screwed him over, but it didn't matter 'cause some fat numbskull switched it on a few weeks back and left some interdimensional rift, and he wanted me to get it for him! I-I-I-I swear, that's all I know!"
Stan's eyes slowly widened the longer Blendin's explanation went on for. He remembered seeing the name 'Bill Cipher' before, in one of Poindexter's precious journals, next to drawings of some cartoon triangle guy. He knew Ford had been up to something with this guy - apparently he was his 'muse' or something - but they had a falling out, and then Ford went a bit nuts and scribbled all over some of the pages. 'MY MUSE WAS A MONSTER', 'F WAS RIGHT', and so on.
Stan had no idea that he'd built that stupid portal for him, though. Now this 'Bill' was back and causing trouble for his family? And possessing people, apparently, if that comment about stealing Blendin's body was true. Stan assumed that the 'fat numbskull' Blendin mentioned was him - figures, he's become so cemented as 'the dumb one' that even freaky triangle demons see him that way - so him turning on the portal and bringing Ford back created a… what was it again?
"Uh… I gotta be honest," he said, dishonestly, "I been drinkin' a lot over the past thirty years an' I think my IQ's dropped by about five million points. Yer gonna have to remind me what an… interdimensional whatsit is."
Blendin swallowed. "I-it's like a… a tear in the universe. Or something. Bill said he could use it to visit this dimension and do...wh-whatever! Hnnnng, I don't know, I studied time-physics, not space-physics! N-not that it's done me any good! I-I-I-I never even wanted to be on the Time Anomaly Removal Crew, anyway! I wanted to design amusement park rides, but my stupid close-minded dad kept telling me there's no Time-Credits in amusement parks anymore! H-he didn't even listen to my 'Line-Skipping Machine' idea! Long lines are the number one reason amusement parks declined, so just jump forward to when you're at the front of the line! I-I-I'm stunned no-one's done it already!"
Stan tuned out the latter half of Blendin's next rant; he leaned back into his chair, sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Okay. So his brother made a deal with some evil triangle dream demon to let him into their world, and he'd been keeping a tear in the universe in the Shack's basement. That little nugget of information would have been really useful to know 30 years ago. Or, not even that, when he'd come out of the portal would have also been nice.
"Ford, Ford, Ford, you idiot…" he muttered under his breath. Now he felt it was the right time for a stiff drink.
That just left a big unanswered question - why the hell wasn't he told about this? The only reason Stan could think of was… oh, who's he kidding, it's obvious why. Ford thought he was an idiot who's only good at breaking things. Just like his stupid science project from 40 freaking years ago. Probably too full of himself to admit he was duped, too; and he says Stan's the petty, self-centred one. Stan grimaced; he had half a mind to kick him right in the nuts for keeping this from him.
Just then, Soos wandered in from the living room, tapping away at his computer-phone. Heading for the fridge, he casually turned to face the kitchen's two occupants, not even caring that it was like a scene from Basin Puppies in there.
"Hey, Mr. Pines. Hey, Blendo-matic."
"IT'S BLEEEEENDIIIIIIIIIIN!" the irate time-traveler screamed at him, making Stan clutch his ear in pain. At that frequency, he was surprised he hadn't broken his hearing aid. "WHY DOES NO-ONE REMEMBER MY NAME?!"
Soos opened the fridge and started rummaging around it. "I dunno, dude… I mean, no offence, but you're kinda bland," he said, emerging with a Pitt in his hand. "Like… Bland-in. Woah, that's, like… a pun!"
"BLANDIN IS MY TIME-SURNAME, YOU ILLITERATE TIME-BARBARIAN!"
"AAAGH!" Stan grunted in pain as Blendin shrieked right next to his ear again. Angry enough with life in general as it is, he grabbed Blendin by the collar and got right up in his face.
"WILL YOU SHUT YER TIME-YAP?! BAH, NOW YA GOT ME DOIN' IT!" he bellowed, pointing at himself.
Blendin swallowed hard. "S-sorry, sir…"
Stan sighed again, collapsing into his seat. "'Ey, Soos. Couldya get me a Root™ Beer? ...Actually, make it two, one fer me an' one for Tweak over here. He seems like he could do with a depressant in his bloodstream right now."
"Oh! Um… I-I-I appreciate the gesture, but, I dunno if you noticed…" Blendin said, squirming again to emphasise that his hands were bound.
"Right, right. Get 'im a straw, too."
Once they'd finished up at Greasy's, Mabel paid for everything with some of her 2022 money - claiming it was a misprinted bill and that Susan could probably sell it online for fifty times its listed value (Stan had rubbed off on her) - and they made their way to the Mall. They could have just headed to Soos' truck, but she promised she'd show her kid self the Mabel-Mobile.
It was right there where she'd left it, under the tarp. Going from the way Past Mabel's pupils grew and her mouth dropped, if there was any lingering doubts in her mind that she wasn't dealing with her future self, all that evaporated the moment she saw it.
The Mabel-Mobile (also known as the Pain-Bow, the Shooter Star 5000, and the Pink Russian) was her pride and joy - 2800 kilograms of raw sparkly road-struction! It was originally some old Soviet-era military surplus transport she'd bought back in Russia, kinda like the classic hippie van's warlike Eastern Bloc brother. It used to be all dull green, which just wouldn't do - her first priority had been to paint it hot pink. Then over time she added to it, until it barely resembled what it once was.
There were fake eyelashes attached to the headlights, graffiti on the sides - including a huge shooting star mural with 'TASTE THE PAIN-BOW!' written inside it - and the back was covered in bumper stickers of every colour of the rainbow, with such phrases as 'Honk If You Think I'm Cute!', 'Why You Drivin' So Cray-Cray?', and of course, 'GRAVITY FALLS - Never Mind All That!' (which forced Mabel to explain to her kid self what the NeMAT Act was, since it would hopefully never be passed in this new timeline).
Mabel had to admit to herself, sometimes she didn't show the Mabel-Mobile the respect it deserved - even after only two years of use, it was dirtied and beaten-up. The passenger-side door had even fallen off after she and Dipper pulled off Operation: Saving Private Stan in Mexico (those pug-smuggler guys had no appreciation for art!), forcing Mabel to shop online for a mismatched replacement she hadn't gotten around to repainting yet. But she could say with confidence that there was no other inanimate object she'd rather bring back in time with her.
When it wouldn't start again after she'd first made it back, she feared the worst - only the mission to avert Weirdmageddon stopped her from staying behind to bring it back to life. Turned out she needn't have worried - McGucket's prototype was just giving off a residual electromagnetic disruption field that messed with the core battery packs. By the time she made it back, it started with no issue.
"Future Me, did you just… did you just use nerd-speak?" her past self had asked after her explanation, dumbfounded.
"Um… yeah, I guess I did."
Past Mabel gasped with obviously fake horror, slapping her palms on her cheeks. "Oh NO, I'm gonna turn into a nerd! Get me in front of a TV, stat, I need to kill some brain cells before that can happen!"
"Nuh-uh, no way, I'm no nerd! There's a spectrum! I'm like… just below the 'nerd' threshold! Barely!" she stopped to think, scratching the back of her head. "...Okay, maybe I'm a bit of a nerd, so what? D, D & More D is actually an ultra off-the-wall fun time if ya give it a chance!"
"Ugghhhhh…" Past Mabel slid her hands down her face, "I can't believe I just admitted to liking Homework: The Game…"
"Ya think that's bad, just wait 'til you see my glasses!"
"UGGHHHHHHHH…"
It wasn't long before they got the Mabel-Mobile rolling, and they were on the road. The traffic in town was much lighter now than it had been when Soos drove her to the Shack earlier, and so it only took five minutes to get out into the woods. Past Mabel had spent those five minutes playing Car Seat Treasure Hunt, not finding much besides stitches, duct tape and 'all the stains', until the sight of the woods made her settle into her seat.
"Sooooo, just wonderin'," she said, folding her hands on her lap, her tone very quickly going downhill from that cheery opening, "when I see Dipper… what should I tell him? Like, the whole reason all this happened was because I was mad at him for accepting Grunkle Ford's offer. I-I mean, that's pretty much his dream. I should have been happy for him, but instead I threw a tantrum and made it all about me. He probably thinks I'm a big jerk now…"
Mabel swallowed hard, gripping the steering wheel tight, trying to focus on the road. She hated how eerily similar her past self's situation was to her own, and all on the 10th anniversary of Weirdmageddon, to boot.
She looked back at her past self - again, she was staring at her, looking increasingly worried the longer the silence went on for. She sat up straight - she'd been dancing around the issues all night, the least she could do right now was give her kid self a straight answer - and the answer she'd have given her past self whatever year it was.
"If I were you… I'd tell him that no matter what he chooses to do, I'm happy with it, because he's the bestest bro-bro anyone could ask for, and I love him and I care about him and nothing will ever change that."
Past Mabel nodded, permitting herself a little smile. "Yeah… yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking of."
"Glad we're on the same page," Mabel said as she took the Mabel-Mobile down a smaller side-road into some deeper woods. "You know he won't leave you forever even if he does accept it, right? Like, I don't see my Dipper literally all the time, but we chat online at least once every week, usually more than that, and we try to see each other when we've got time off from our usual beeswax. When you get older, time passes way faster, anyway. It's like, you'll be on the bus back home to California, and then 'zhwoop', that's one year of school just gone!"
Past Mabel chuckled, idly playing with her hair. "Hehe… yeah, I know… say, random thought… what does he look like?"
"You know what he looks like, silly! Kinda like you, if you were a sweaty, nervous boy in a pine tree hat!"
"No duh, I meant your Dipper! In the future!"
"Oh, right. Doi!" Mabel said, slapping a palm against her forehead. "Hang on, I got a picture of 'im somewhere…"
Mabel took one hand off the steering wheel to rummage around for her phone. Looking through her gallery, she found her most recent photo of 22-year-old Dipper - him standing on a rock overlooking San Francisco bay, with his hand held over his eyes, like some old-timey sailor.
He was much taller now, of course, and he had a little pudge, but he was still smaller and skinnier than Mabel. He had that trademark square jaw that all Pines guys seemed to develop, along with bushier hair and a bit of scraggly stubble on his chin. Mabel had to admit, his fashion sense had improved (or worsened, depending on who you ask) since he was 12 - he used to just throw on whatever clothes he could find, now he takes pride in wearing his dorky forest-patterned jacket. Still liked wearing a hat, though - always with some sciencey thing on it - and with his glasses on he looked uncannily like a young Grunkle Ford.
Mabel handed the phone to her younger self, who immediately gasped at the sight. "Ooooh! Somehow he got even nerdier, but in, like… a cool way? He looks exactly like that guy who shows up in every sci-fi disaster movie, yanno, when the evil military guy is like 'grrrr we must drop a nuke on the asteroid monster!'" she said, putting on a gruff, growly voice, "then there's always a geeky science guy in the room who's like 'nooooo we must learn to understand them! With math!', that's him, that's Dipper!"
"Hahah, yeah, he totally does…" Mabel weakly responded, knowing how accidentally accurate her past self's assessment of his latest career choice was.
As she glanced out the window at her broken side-mirror, out of the corner of her eye she could see another car parked at the side of the road behind them. It appeared to be an old-fashioned black limousine, with the letters 'N W' in its tall grille.
"Wait, is that Preston Northwest's limo?!" she blurted out.
The entire van lurched suddenly as she slammed her foot on the brakes, her past self only avoiding getting shoved off her seat by her seatbelt. "Oof!" she grunted as it dug into her chest. Their ears were consumed by the sound of squealing tires, and the faint scent of burning rubber filled the air - she really needed to seal up her windows again.
Finally, the Mabel-Mobile came to a complete stop. Mabel immediately scrambled to undo her seatbelt.
"Um, what's going on?" her past self asked, rubbing her bandaged head.
"Wait right there, I just gotta do something real quick! Be back in a jiffy!"
With that, she clambered out of the van, slamming the door shut behind her. With a grin she'd admit probably made her look evil, she began jogging back down the road to where the Northwest limo was parked. She noticed that not only was the limo there, the man himself was standing around behind it, dressed in one of his usual Suits of Rich Guy Jerkitude, pacing up and down and yelling something over the phone. That'd probably explain why he hadn't noticed her yet. The limo seemed to be missing a wheel, but with no sign as to what caused it.
"Well, move the helicopter with your bare hands, man! We have three helipads for a reason! And be quick about it, I'm stranded out here in the woods like some medieval peasant, because that gangly Corduroy girl mistreated my wheel! We only have enough Blue Label whiskey to last me, my family and my chauffeur for an hour, so you'd better hurry up and untangle those helicopters! I have a hunting rifle in the car, you know; if you dawdle about for much longer, I will resort to practicing my aim on the chauffeur out of starvation and/or boredom!"
"'EY, PRESTO! I wanna word with you!" Mabel called out to him as she walked by the car, briefly offering a glance inside - Priscilla and Pacifica were both in there, though only the latter acknowledged her presence, with just a subtle twitch of the eyes.
Preston didn't bother to look back at her, but Mabel caught his body jerking in her direction, as though he was forcing himself not to turn around - it was obvious he knew she was there.
"NORTHWEST! Look at me when I'm talkin' to ya!" she called out again, now right next to him, reminding herself of her Grunkle Stan.
"Grrrnnnnghhhh…" he growled, finally turning around, placing a hand over his phone. "What on earth do you want, you whale of a woman?! Are you from the caterers? If this is about that 'avocado sourcing' business, I'm not interested. Now make yourself useful and prepare us some hors d'oeuvres, we're going to be here a while."
Preston turned away and went back to his phone, as though he thought the matter was closed. How wrong he was.
"Oh, I can do ya one better! How 'bout a knuckle sandwich?"
"I'm sorry, what?"
Before he could fully process what Mabel just said, she grabbed him by the collar, forcing him to look back at her - and giving him a front-row seat to Mab-Punch: The Movie! , running time: half a second, and ending with the titular fist right in his face.
"AUUUGGGGHHHH" he screeched as Mabel saw one of his teeth fly out, and he turned around, collapsing onto his knees. His phone fell to the ground, shattering. She wanted to say he was just playing up his pain, but considering what she'd done to Blendin earlier, if anything she probably went easy on him.
Shaking, he covered his bloodied mouth with his hand. "MMMGH, MM TOOTH! YUH HPPH ANY IDEA HOW MUCH IPH COSPHH TUH GEHPH THAT WHITENED?!" he tried to rant at her in a muffled voice.
Mabel simply bent over and picked up his tooth from the road beneath them. Feeling a sense of hot fury inside her that she'd been saving for years, she scowled at him, glaring daggers at his eyes, trying to invoke the same kind of fear that Bill had struck into him on the first day of the apocalypse. Going from the way Preston's eyes went wide, she seemed to have succeeded.
Why had she done that? Well, there were a lot of reasons, probably too many for her to list, and since Weirdmageddon had been averted, he wasn't going to face karma for his part in it - so a nice, meaty punch to the face was the next best thing.
"THAT'S FOR TREATING YOUR OWN DAUGHTER LIKE A DOG, YOU BAD-MOUSTACHE-HAVIN' JERKASS!" she bellowed at him, pointing at his face, well aware that Pacifica was in earshot.
She had been about to turn on her heel and stomp back to the van, but at the last moment she turned back and gave him a hard kick in the ribs, knocking him onto his side. "AND THAT'S FOR ALMOST GETTIN' YOUR ENTIRE STUPID PARTY BURNED ALIVE BY A GHOST!"
With her fists clenched at her sides, she marched over to the limo's open back window, to see Priscilla and Pacifica staring at her, stunned and speechless. Mabel wiped the look of fury off her face, replacing it with her usual jovial smile almost unnervingly quickly; she made the two of them recoil just by looking at them.
"Hey, Pacifica! Just so ya know, I'm from the future! When ya get older, invest in woodchip recycling, trust me, it'll work out!" she said to her, before turning away. Before she could leave, she turned back, remembering to add something. "Oh, and yes, that just happened! Probably went a bit overboard, but he had it coming!"
She might have just been imagining it, but she could have sworn Pacifica's lip twitched upwards, for just a second. Mabel figured she'd be shocked that her father was now lying bloodied on the road behind them like roadkill, groaning through having one of his teeth knocked out, but… surely she must be finding some catharsis in that. The guy conditioned her to obey a bell. Who the hell does that?
Mabel finally jogged back to the Mabel-Mobile, clambering back inside to find her past self rummaging around inside her glovebox.
"Hah! Sorry, Past Me, I always wanted to do that!" she admitted, as she got the Mabel-Mobile going again.
She briefly admired Preston's tooth that she'd brought along, before stuffing it in her pocket. "I am definitely getting that encrusted into a nice ring for Pacifica's 23rd birthday. Or maybe a tasteful pendant…"
Past Mabel was so deep inside the glovebox, Mabel couldn't see her head.
"Uh, didya see what I just did? I punched Preston Northwest in his dumb face!"
Past Mabel gasped and very quickly shot out of the glovebox, hitting her head on the way out. "Ow! Aww, poop-darnit, I missed it! I was too busy admiring all your future glovebox junk!"
"Uh, you okay? Ya kinda hit your head again," Mabel pointed out - sometimes she had to remind herself that her past self still had a bandage around her head. She wasn't shaping up to be the best caretaker right now.
"I'm fine, I got a tough noggin! Anyway, what's this?"
Past Mabel proceeded to pull out a gadget she'd found in her future self's glovebox - it resembled a futuristic rifle-sized harpoon gun, made of a dull alloy, complete with blinky blue lights, and with 'McGucket Labs' printed on the side. Past Mabel hit a button, making a sharp 'pwing!' sound as four prongs at the tip of the device extended out, resembling a grappling hook; appropriately enough, since that's what it was.
"Oh, that! I was gonna show ya that! Dr. McGucket calls it the Heavy-Duty Interdimensional Magnetic Cabular Anchor Mark III, but I prefeeeeer… Grappling Hook 2: Electromagnetic Boogaloo! The cable's rated for hauling space debris, and it's magnetic! In more ways than one, everyone digs it!"
"Oooh, neato! Can I play with it?"
"As if you even had to ask! BUT NOT IN HERE!" she cut in, noticing her past self was about to aim it out the window. "Bad idea, super bad. I used it in here once, and… well, that's why your door is a different colour."
