Cough cough* Okay sooooo… surprise! Chapter 3 honestly really demotivated me halfway through, although I guess that's not really an excuse to have kept you wonderful people waiting, especially as we're on a UF hiatus, which is honestly probably another reason I'm really demotivated, not having new content for either show or its crossover (the three source materials) is really slowing my creative juices, honestly I could rewatch the shows or re-read UF, but I'm not sure how much that would actually help, especially considering how much of a commitment each one of those would need to be, and how long it would take now that only have like 2 free hours a day. Being honest, I'm waiting to get to a non-exposition chapter because these first few are heckin' slow, mostly because they're… well… exposition. Sorry if this one took a little bit of a dip in quality compared to the others as well. That's all I really have to say, (luckily I think the next two are going to be more interesting and less character interaction heavy… hopefully)(Caesar Cipher… you know the drill)

Arc 1 - Magic and Mystery

Chapter 3 - An Unexpected Meeting

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Taking the bus to the opposite side of the town, although it appeared to be the smart option, was very clearly not the correct one. The bus moved slowly down the boardwalk, basically at a complete crawl, which was a very good explanation as to why barely anyone aside from Connie and Steven were on it.

Connie was barely awake, and was trying as hard as possible to stay alert on the bus. Conversely, Steven was wide awake, finding random objects outside the window to point his crossbow at. Drawing the attention of the few people on the bus aside from the two of them.

Connie let out a light snore, which subsequently woke herself up from the light sleep she was in. Steven chuckled lightly at this while the dark haired girl blushed lightly in embarrassment. "Come on, Connie! You can't be falling asleep yet, this is so exciting!" he said to his best friend, filled with enthusiasm. "Have you been getting enough sleep at night?"

"Of course I'm getting enough sleep at night, Steven. Don't worry." Connie paused to let out a long drawn out yawn, which Steven believed to be intentional on her part. "I know I've sometimes not had the best sleeping habits, but I definitely got enough last night." Connie stopped talking for a moment as she rubbed her eyes. "I think I'm just tired from working at the shack, and almost getting shot, plus long vehicle rides always make me sleepy Steven. You should know that better than anyone since I slept the entire plane ride here."

Steven thought for a moment, "Yeah, you're right." he quickly agreed. "But still," he began to say, "you're clearly not getting enough, for now…" Steven trailed off as he reached into his backpack. When Connie saw this she immediately started feeling nervous, as this could only mean one thing. "You need some Steven Juice!" Steven exclaimed, pulling out a water bottle filled with a sparkly green substance, inside there appeared to be stars, glitter, and somehow a plastic dinosaur.

Connie cringed in disgust as she saw the cursed substance. "Yeah, how about no…" she trailed off, as she looked away from the bottle in disgust. "I'd rather drink 3 cups of black coffee back to back."

"You're just being dramatic," Steven said to her, "and at least if you'll be awake if you drink that."

Connie sighed as she raised her feet onto the seat and propped her back against the side of the seat as she stared out the window to the horizon.

Dipper and Mabel sat patiently, as they waited for their bus to arrive. Knowing how slow the bus moved, Dipper was debating whether or not they should just walk to the shack in his head, but quickly realized that he wasn very keen on the idea of walking all the way there, so decided against it.

Conversely, Mabel was thinking about what they were gonna do once they got to the shack. There were multiple options, they could go on a tour, hang out in the gift shop with Lars and Sadie, both, or even just sit outside and hang out on the beach and people watch.

As time ticked slowly by, the twins began to grow impatient. So impatient that Dipper tried to use his powers to figure out when the bus was going to get there. Unfortunately, since he had no control over it, it was to no avail.

While they sat, Dipper leaned his head onto the back of the bench and closed his eyes. He had been up most of the previous night reading, and didn't go to sleep until far later than he would like to admit, so he began resting his eyes to try to catch up on some of the sleep he had lost. Mabel took notice of this, and as she did, she began plotting her next course of action.

Mabel knew Dipper didn't sleep much the night before, as she hadn't either because of his excessive pen clicking. As she began plotting her revenge, she got up and began to walk down the boardwalk, looking for the perfect item to use for her prank.

As the bus stopped halfway to the duo's destination, Steven, impatient as ever, decided to get off and walk the rest of the way, feeling it would be much faster than remaining on the slow vehicle that was driving back and forth across town.

Steven took this opportunity to aim his empty crossbow at even more objects he spotted across the road, and although he was careful not to hit anyone with it as he turned back and forth, he was still freaking out several people they passed by, even stranger however is that most people just passed it off completely, as if they had just gotten used to the fact that weapons are a common thing in their town.

As he continued aiming his crossbow in random places, he failed to notice the person behind him as he backed straight into her. On instinct, he quickly turned around to apologize.

"Sorry!" They both said to each other at the exact same time, wanting to make a joke out of it, both of them immediately continued, "Jinx!" As a result of the coincidence, both start to laugh at the coincidental meeting.

The girl he ran into put her hand out into the air, offering a handshake. "Hi, my name's Mabel, nice to meet you." While saying this, she looked at the boy standing in front of her. His shorter stature paired with his stocky figure told her he was about the same age as her. He had short, curly, chestnut brown hair, and dark brown eyes. His sleeveless shirt had multiple colors spiraling around the star that was on the left side of his chest. To go with this, he wore khaki pants and bright pink sandals.

"Mine's Steven, nice to meet you too!" he said in response. As he reached out to shake the girl's hand, he looked her up and down. Her dark red hair and rosy cheeks matched her deep maroon eyes, which paired greatly with her bright braces he could faintly see in her smile. She was wearing a light pink tank top with a sun, moon, and star all embroidered on. Alongside this went two dark red bracelets, a crimson skirt with a matching headband, of which had a bow on the side, dark red sandals, each with three stickers on them, and darkly colored leggings. Steven couldn't tell if they were purple or red, but he liked them nonetheless. Finally, Steven took notice of her left hand, or more accurately, what was in her left hand. A round red gem about the size of her palm was embedded in her hand, the facet being cut into the shape of a square. "Whoa! You have a gem in your body!" Steven said in stunned shock. "Where can I get one!"

Mabel chuckled upon hearing this. "Oh this! I was born with it!" She paused to allow him to process what she said.

"That's so cool! I wish I had one!" Steven responded.

"Um… I'm not so sure about that." she said nervously.

"Why would you say that?" he questioned her.

"Well, while it gives me certain powers."

"Wait, it does!" Steven interrupted.

"Yeah, but, they're super hard to control, and we're under a lot of pressure to learn how to control them."

"What do you mean 'we'?" Steven asked her.

"Me and my bro. We both inherited one from our moms."

"Moms?"

"Yeah, we have two moms, they were just sort of, one bigger mom when we were born." Mabel was clearly frustrated trying to explain the concept. "Hold on, follow me."

At this, the duo walked down some stairs by the sidewalk onto the beach and began drawing in the sand with her finger, starting with two stick figures. "Okay so basically, our gems give us this super cool power to combine with other gems called fusion."

"Oh that's so cool."

"Yeah, and when my mom gave birth to me and my brother, she was one of these, a fusion of two different gems."

"Wow, that's amazing."

"Yeah, but since she had to give up her form to have us, both me and my brother have one of her two gems, and they allow us to do different things."

"Ooh, what does yours allow you to do?"

"Mine? Well, I'm not exactly sure, the only thing I know for sure is that I can make things super hot and maybe create fire."

Steven gasped upon hearing this.

"Yeah, but I'm not exactly sure about anything else, it's not like I can actually control any of it." At this Mabel looked down at Steven's hands, or more accurately, what he was holding in his left hand. "Why are you carrying around a crossbow?"

"Oh, my grunkle gave it to me yesterday as a gift, and I brought it to town because I wanted to show off my super amazing shooting skills."

"Awesome! So I'm assuming you have some of the arrows that it fires!"

"Yeah."

"Perfect! Come with me!"

When Dipper opened his eyes, Mabel was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't change the fact that the bus had arrived not long after he woke up. The bus was, well it was a bus, with unknown sticky spots on the floor and worn out blue seats. As he stepped onto it, he noticed a girl, around the same age as him getting off of it. He didn't think much of it at first, but as he was deciding the seat he wanted to sit in, he noticed a small backpack sitting in one of them. The bus was already moving at this point, and as he looked out the back window he noticed the girl running after it waving.

After he noticed this, Dipper quickly, without thinking, called out while running up to the driver. "Hey!" Stopping at the bus driver, who was an older man, "Can you stop the bus?"

The man complied, and as the bus heaved to a halt, Dipper grabbed the lone bag and quickly ran back out the door to the bus. As he got off, the girl that had been running after the bus had caught up and was breathing rather heavily. As she was recovering, Dipper took note of her appearance, she was dark skinned and wore a pair of pink glasses over what appeared to be dark brown eyes. She was also wearing a light blue shirt with light gray pants and bright pink sneakers. Her long black hair was placed in a high poofy ponytail and was long enough to reach her waist, paired with this was a light blue, pine tree shaped hair clip that appeared to be keeping her hair out of her face.

"Thanks." She said to him, still breathing rather heavily. As she said this, the bus closed its doors and departed from its place next to the sidewalk they were standing on.

"Don't worry about it." Dipper said quickly. "I was just trying to be polite."

"Well thanks anyways." She stood up straight now that she had caught her breath, taking in the strange look of the person who helped her. He had long snow white hair, reaching around his shoulders, in his hair was a singular bright blue streak that went down his bangs, which covered his right eye, the visible one on the left being a light shade of blue. He wore a dark blue jacket, the elbows, pockets, and cuffs all being a slightly darker shade of blue. His shorts were also blue, with darker pockets as well as dark blue snow boots.

Dipper studied the girls face, trying to remember her, but only ended up drawing a blank. "Are you new around here?" He asked her, still trying to figure out her name.

"Oh, yeah, my name's Connie, nice to meet you, I'm visiting this city for the summer with a friend of mine, a real, eccentric character he is."

"Just wait till you meet my sister." He said in response, letting out a light chuckle. "She's pretty out there as well." He paused for a moment before beginning to speak again. "My name's Dipper, nice to meet you." He said, holding out his left hand.

"Oh are you left handed? That's pretty rare."

"Actually I'm ambidextrous."

"That's so cool, and even more rare than just being left handed! I always wanted to learn how to do things with my left hand but it just seems so tedious learning how to do all those everyday things like writing, brushing my teeth, all that stuff all over again."

"Oh well, I just prefer using my left hand, because…" Dipper trailed off, seeming hesitant to say anything.

"Because what? Is there something wrong with your right hand?" she said, reaching for his other hand. Before she could grab it however, she was swiftly interrupted by a new voice coming from behind her.

"Aw what!" The voice was high pitched, clearly a young girl around the same age as her. "You've already woken up! I was hoping to pull a sick prank on you!" The girl said, walking up to Dipper.

"What! That's where you went! To get the stuff to prank me! I can't believe you!"

"Where did you think I went?"

"I thought you were walking to the Mystery Shack!"

"Ugh, why would you want to go to the Mystery Shack?" Connie chimed in. "Nothing there is actually real, you'd probably find something more interesting in the forest right behind it, or heck, maybe even down in the ocean! Just yesterday, I saw three women walk out of the water fully dressed and mid-conversation!"

"Oh, that's just the gems." Dipper said to the long haired girl rather casually.

"The...gems?"

"Oh, can I tell her about them!" Steven said appearing from out of nowhere behind Connie, scaring both her and Dipper, a lot more than either would care to admit.

After calming himself, Dipper prepared to ask who the newcomer to the conversation was, but the girl he had been talking with answered that question for him, as she addressed her best friend. "Steven, how would you know about the gems when I don't? We got to Beach City literally the exact same time."

"Mabel told me about them, duh."

"Mabel? Who's Mabel?"

"Hi! Nice to meet you! I'm Mabel!" the girl with short red hair chimed in, appearing from behind Steven. She then turned to Dipper. "Honestly Dipper! You make a new friend and you don't even tell her about your sister! The audacity!"

"I told her about you, I just didn't tell her your name, or what you look like."

"Wait wait wait… you two are siblings? But you look nothing alike!"

"We're siblings alright. Twins in fact." Dipper said to the girl with the long ponytail.

"And we've got the gems to prove it!" Mabel said to her as well, holding up her own left hand, as well as Dipper's right hand.

Connie inspected the hands of the alleged twins standing across from her, they seemed to be perfectly embedded into the hand, with about half of it exposed while the other half was hidden under the skin, and even though this didn't prove that the two of them were twins, Connie accepted the answer nonetheless, and decided to let them explain it themselves.

"You see, our mom, Garnet was a gem herself," Dipper began to explain, "after she got pregnant, she realized she'd have to give up her gems to the children she gave birth to, so she gave us one of her gems each. Mabel received Ruby's…" Dipper trailed off, as Mabel held up her hand again. "...and I received Sapphire's." Dipper finished, holding his right hand out in front of him as he looked down at it.

"Wait wait wait, I thought you said your mom's name was Garnet?"

"It was!" Mabel exclaimed, "But you see, our mom was actually a fusion of two other gems named Ruby and Sapphire!"

"For awhile all the two of us have wanted to do was fuse with each other to be like our mom, but we can't seem to do it." Dipper said, quietly, looking down to the ground.

"The gems back at the temple say we may not even be capable of fusion, since we're half human, but we still try to fuse pretty often, but we haven't succeeded yet." Mabel said, giving the other two a sad smile.

Connie thought for a moment, she then placed a reassuring hand on Dipper's shoulder, "I think you can do it." She didn't know him or his sister very well, but she could tell that the two of them worked hard to try and do this, even if she didn't understand how it worked.

"Yeah I think you can do it too!" Steven chimed in.

The twins looked at one another and slightly smiled at each other, they weren't as wide as they were before, but the duo of friends before them clearly cheered them up at least a little.

"So where are you guys staying? I'd love to spend some more time with you guys." Mabel asked the two of them.

"Oh! We're staying at my Grunkle Stan's place!" Steven said to them excitedly.

"Or as the people around town know it, the Mystery Shack." Connie said that last part in what could probably be described as a spooky tone, clearly mocking the establishment itself.

"Yes! I've been looking for an excuse to visit that place more often!" Mabel said enthusiastically."

"But wait…" Dipper started. "If you two are staying at the Mystery Shack, why are you on this side of town?"

Mabel gasped for unknown reasons, but that didn't stop what she was about to say, "Yeah! Isn't the Mystery Shack on the other end of the beach? What are you doing all the way down here?"

"Well we wanted to investigate that statue over there." Connie looked at Steven as she said this, looking back to the twins before she began to speak again. "Although, I'm assuming you could tell us all about that."

The twins looked at each other, smiled, and looked back at the other two, each with a raised eyebrow. As they knew everything was about to change.

To be continued…

Like I said, sort of character interaction heavy, especially because this is when the twins meet the… "Mystery Duo"? I dunno, I think I need to work on that, either way they're still a part of the Mystery Kids as a whole so I guess a name for just the two of them isn't really necessary. I'm sort of hopeful about the next two chapters not being exposition-heavy like this one, because honestly, exposition absolutely destroys me in terms of things like motivation, if I just had a good groove with a really intense or dramatic scene I feel like these things would move along a lot faster. Anyways I hope you enjoyed that one, again, sorry if it dipped in quality, and sorry if it was a little slow as well.Anyways, that was sort of long winded, I hope you all have a fantastic day/night and stay awesome. (Also, next chapter sometime in the future, I haven't given up on this I swear, I'm just a little slow to write.)