The town awoke in confusion. Confusion and fear. With so much of Gravity Falls reliant on sleeping medication since the events of Weirdmageddon, it was perhaps of little surprise that the simple folk of the township's population had, by and large, missed the chaos of the night and had instead awoken to a scene of devastation. Devastation that smelt like freshly cut pine, splintered wood and vengeance.
Wooden framed houses were gnawed. Planks had been ripped from fences. At least twelve novelty lawn flamingos had been rendered into fluorescent pink plastic chipping. Truly, it was a dark time.
The shack was gnawed into an even more precarious form of its already ramshackle self. The old Blandin clock repair shop was almost entirely ravaged, and the office of the Gravity Falls Gossiper was sagging after the consumption of its outer frame.
Splinters peppered every street.
It seemed entirely random - a spontaneous path of nibbling, gnawing and petty, beavery vandalism that had no clear justification. For the town's authorities, it was a particularly difficult situation.
At 8AM, Tyler surveyed the disaster with a stern, sombre tone. His cowboy boots clumped across the wood-filled streets, his earrings jingling with every step like the spurs of a poncho wearing has-bin from the 50s. His hands were fists, his brows lowered, his moustache twitching.
Blubs and Durland followed behind him, equally puzzled by the town's latest affliction. The miniature posse, intensely scrutinising though it was, failed to make hair nor hide of the situation. It was a mystery to all who hadn't already unlocked it.
Blubs bent down to pick up a piece of the ranger station, with a grunt of exertion. "Whadya think we got here, Mayor?"
"Something big, Daryl. Something big."
"I don't think I've ever seen so much woodbearing carnage."
"We need an expert." Tyler said. "A man who knows his wood."
"Corduroy?"
"Corduroy." Tyler nodded, sternly. "Go get 'em."
The two policemen nodded and ran off to their patrol car, while Tyler held the lapels of his mayoral blazer and clicked his tongue. It was a hard life, being the man in charge. If it wasn't factories collapsing or Geron street being destroyed, it was being told that an airbrush mural on the side of the Town Hall was 'unfitting' and 'not a good idea'.
They didn't appreciate airbrush art, clearly. He had drawn up concepts for giant paintings with wolves, panthers and mountains, and it was 'not a good idea'? He was the mayor!
Hmph.
And now, this. A considerable scene of disarray, of distress and damage that peppered the place he knew and loved so well. He looked down at his feet and shook his head slowly. Was this what Befufftlefumpter had dealt with? It all seemed so overwhelmingly strange that he couldn't believe that his predecessor hadn't known about the town's innate oddity.
He wished there had been some sort of handover document rather than a collection of stale English digestive biscuits in a frame.
...Befufftlefumpter had been alone for a long, long time.
Oh yes. For Tyler, it was fair to say that Summer was proving particularly rough. Truth be told, one of his most troubling times in office. No matter how hard he tried to run things properly, it seemed like they went wrong. Monsters, gas explosions (that he still felt strangely… suspicious about), storms, power outages, fires, strange honking echoing across the cliffs - and now this?
If the sash wasn't so fabulous, he'd be tempted to pack it in. But the satisfaction of a job well done - and enough money to buy a puma fountain in his front yard - was, he supposed, a decent incentive. Almost enough to justify the fact his streets were filled with more sawdust than a Northwest Industries Food Ration Pack.
His first instinct, whenever something strange happened, was to call upon the Pines - to get them investigating. To see their view of things. Of course, there was always a chance it was a rational situation, too…
No, this time he would see what happened. If anybody could explain wood damage, it was a Corduroy.
Manly Dan arrived with a collection of tools and a pocket full of jerky, his familiar ginger brows furrowed over his disproportionately small eyes as he stepped out of the comically small patrol car. "WHAT'S GOING ON HERE, TYLER?!"
"Oh, Daniel, you came!" Tyler giggled, skipping to the burly lumberjack and holding his trunk of an arm. "Well, we've just got the messiest little thing I've ever seen."
"I DON'T DEAL WITH MESSES, TYLER. I DEAL WITH LUMBER, LUMBER, AND MORE LUMBER!"
"That's why it's so perfect for you! Look at what's happened to the lumber!" Tyler replied, taking Dan's leather-gloved hand and pulling him over to the jetty. "It's all been nibbled up!"
Dan pulled up his breeches, took a deep breath and grabbed his lumberglass - a bit like a looking glass, but intended strictly for inspecting lumber. If there was one thing Dan could take seriously - one thing he would be intensely quiet and studious with - it was his precious wood.
He crouched down and began examining the jetty wordlessly, running his fingers across the delicate grain, bringing the sawdust to his lips - it was, for lack of better term, an artiste at work. Perhaps not a delicate one, certainly, but an artiste all the same.
Tyler watched, typical smile on his face, hands on his hips, gum in his mouth, waiting eagerly for the town's most eligible and terrifying bachelor to come with his diagnosis.
Dan continued his inspection, walking to the piled remains of the ranger station and pulling up some of the destroyed joists, inspecting the wood with growing interest. He raised an eyebrow, then, wordlessly, lumbered down the street (no pun intended) - inspecting the fence posts, the shop facades, the shacks and buildings affected by the onslaught of wooden ruin and wrath. The tension was palpable. The leviathanesque lumberjack gave no outward reaction - if he was shaken, or shocked, or worried, he didn't display it. It was a display of pure professionalism, like a detective at the scene of a murder.
He clicked his tongue as he folded his lumberglass back into his pocket, cracked his knuckles and huffed. "SURE IS A PUZZLE. LIKE IT'S ALL BEEN CHEWED."
"See, I knew it was nibbling." Tyler nodded enthusiastically. "You are so right, Daniel."
"SOME KINDA FURRY LITTLE THINGS WITH TEETH. REALLY BIG SQUIRRELS OR ORDINARY SIZED BEAVERS."
" Mysterious beavers?"
"VERY. ORGANISED ONES. AND WHATEVER THEY WANT, THIS LUMBER AIN'T CUTTING IT. THEY'RE SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING."
Blubs blinked and gestured towards the disarray that peppered the street - the remains of the ranger station and jetty. "You can tell that jus' from this?"
" NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A LUMBERJACK, SHERIFF." Dan barked, as he straightened up. " YOU WANT MY ADVICE, YOU NEED THE PINES."
"Now hang on here, just a minute." Blubs huffed. "We're the investigators around here. Not no city family."
Durland was eager to jump in. "We don't need no help from a city boy, do we Blubs?!"
"Nu-uh. No way, no how. Durland an' I are the best detectives in town. We've kept this town safe for years!"
"An' we look mighty fine doin' it!" The lanky Deputy added.
"Best lookin' force in the state." Blubs nodded.
Dan and Tyler looked at eachother uncertainly.
"Now, you boys are great, honestly." Tyler ventured carefully. "But you must admit the Pines have done far more saving us from weirdness than-"
Dan was not a man with any great command of subtlety. "I'VE SEEN YOU PICK YOUR TEETH WITH THAT BADGE MORE THAN YOU'VE USED IT FOR AUTHORITY, SHERIFF!"
"Well now, I happen to eat a lot of red mea-" Blubs snapped his tone faster than his collection of 90s bracelets. "Th-that ain't true! We're the protectors of this town!"
"Dang good protectors, Blubs! Dang good!"
Tyler and Dan looked at eachother, clearly unconvinced, as the two police officers stormed back to their patrol car and drove off.
"WHERE ARE THEY GONNA GO?"
"To their thinking spot."
"HOO-HA'S JAMBOREE?"
Tyler nodded and patted Dan's back. "Sure must be nice, havin' someone to spend your time with, huh, Daniel. You… uh… you wanna go get coffee?"
"I WANNA GO BACK TO MY LUMBER."
The diminutive mayor's face dropped. He watched as the oversized lumberjack cracked his neck and started his way walking back into the forest, like a giant hairy Cryptid returning to its red-haired nest.
He stood, solo, in the middle of his dishevelled streets. It was a lonely old game, this mayor stuff. Hard not to be a recluse, shutting away from it all.
Maybe that was how his predecessor lasted so long.