Riiiiiiiiiiiiing, riiiiiiiiiiiiing, riiiiiiiiiiiiing, riiiiiii-
"Hey, Mabel. What's up? I didn't expect you to DistantChat me at this hour." Dipper's voice came through the laptop speakers.
"Dip-dot, I was just wondering, remember that weird code on that map?" Mabel asked as she sat down on her bed with the slightly-worn piece of paper.
"Yeah?"
"Did you ever figure out what it said?"
"No. Why?" he responded, concerned.
"My gut is telling me that something's wrong, and I think that has to do with it."
Now, Dipper was in his bedroom, with a certain coded phrase written on his notebook.
Olxzgrlm lu Hsvinzm Krmvh. Hfhkvxgvw gszg Kzxrurxz rh z hortsgob zogvivw tvmvgrx xolmv lu LD.
"Maybe Bill knows." the teen simply said, and walked out.
Since they had left Gravity Falls a couple of months ago, Dipper was the mind behind the gang, the intelligence. It was rare that Wendy or Robbie didn't let him help them in their investigations, because he often quickened the pace with his critical thinking skills. Bill had also solved his problem with the government, so he didn't have to hide his identity anymore as Bobby Campbell either, especially since Sherman was gone.
Bill seemed to know a lot about ciphers, so he figured, why spend 15 hours trying to decode something from a book when you could get it done in 5 minutes from this guy?
What? You're telling me he's half-assing it? Hey, it's called working smarter, not harder!
Anyway - I'm going to ignore what you, the reader, just said, and continue on with the story.
"Hey Bill?"
"Hm?" he hummed across the room, not looking up from a manila folder he was holding in his hands. For some reason, the Radicals seemed to be piled up in work recently. The tab on it read Preston Northwest. He didn't know why he was reading up on him when he'd been sent to jail and imprisoned.
"Uh… You're not busy, are you?"
"Nope." he said, despite all the paperwork that was stacked up on the desk.
"O-kay…" he said suspiciously. "Could you decipher this for me? Mabel brought it up yesterday and I think it's important to at least know what it says."
Immediately the file dropped from his hands and he grabbed Dipper's notebook. "Sure!" he said in a chipper tone, grabbing a nearby fountain pen. He looked at it for a few seconds before writing something down.
"Oh good glory of triangulation." He sounded worried.
"What is it?!"
Bill handed him the note, and his eyes scanned over the lower half of the paper with the deciphered meaning.
Location of Sherman Pines. Suspected that Pacifica is a slightly altered genetic clone of OW.
"Pacifica?!" he yelled. "Clone?! Of Olivia?!"
And that right there, ladies and gentlemen, was how Dipper Pines, Bill Cipher, Wendy Corduroy and Robbie Valentino ended back up in Gravity Falls during Christmas. It normally was around the 30's or 40's this time of year in Oregon, but it was abnormally warm. Like, 60's warm.
Of course, they had to stop at the Mystery Shack first, which meant-
"Dipper!" Mabel cried, running outside and attacking her brother in a hug.
"Mabel, you're c-choking me…" he said weakly, and his sister let go, grinning from ear to ear.
His Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan stood by the doorway. "Didn't expect to see you come back this early, Cipher." Ford said.
"Yeah, well… things happen." Bill said. "You two head upstairs, me and Sixer gotta catch up."
Soon enough, the two twins were in the attic bedroom.
"So, let me guess, you two found out what that code said, and now you're back to save the town again?" Mabel joked.
"Yeah," Dipper laughed lightly. "Something like that. It said something about Pacifica being a clone of Olivia."
"Whaaaaaaaaaaat?!"
"Yeah, pretty crazy." Dipper looked out of the triangular window. "He was looking at Preston's file this morning, I don't know what's going on but it's not good, like you said."
"Huh. Well, we've defeated Sherman's forces once! We can do it twice!" Mabel yelled triumphantly, holding a hand up.
They high-fived each other, cheering "Mystery Twins!" in unison.
But inside of Dipper's mind, he held doubt as he continued to stare out of the window.
Yeah, he thought. Things happen.
Bad things.
Cliffhangers. I love them.
Sorry not sorry.
:)