Hoo-ha's Jamboree was a place where even the most jaded law enforcement could get a spark of inspiration. The smell of grease-addled pizza with ungodly toppings, the dessert bar, ridiculously sweet salad dressings, those stale carrots that have been sitting around for a week…
The beep of arcade cabinets, the sounds of broken animatronics, waitresses sneezing onto people's food - it was a relaxing atmosphere for anybody suffering from a clustering of thoughts. An opportunity to look elsewhere and loosen up those tightening restraints on the brand.
And that dessert bar was only $6.99, with unlimited revisits and weird, misshapen fudgsicles that you can't get anywhere else.
Win-win, really.
For Blubs, however, this place of joy seemed soured. Sullied. The day's experiences had got to him somewhat.
Is this really how the town saw them?
Blubs tapped his spoon and plate together idly as he considered the subject, peering over his dessert bar creation and sculpting the ice cream into a melting approximation of his beloved badge.
After all of this time, Blubs was not a man who judged he and his deputy's abilities lightly. He was, after all, proudly touting some twenty years of experience in the little Oregon township, and had an utterly flawless arrest record.
Admittedly, the arrest record was only four people in the past two years, but that was something. This was Gravity Falls! You can't arrest every criminal! The town would be empty. More importantly, he and Durland would be out of a job.
"Blubs?"
"Hm?"
"You ain't hardly touched your third Sheriff's dessert salad."
"I'm sorry Durland. I know you like ta enjoy yourself here, but - man, I'm just not feelin' it. D'ya think we're really doin' a good job?"
"Blubs, y'all once said to me that as long as nobody starts no trouble, we're doin' good." His somewhat vacant deputy replied, patting his back. "We barely ever see people breakin' the law. We can't go arrestin' no beavers or gnomes! They ain't in our job description!"
"We have a job description ?"
"Sure, Ah had one. It was in the newspaper advert ah applied through. Y'all wrote mah application on account of mah not writin' so good." Durland gestured wildly with his kiddie's pizza fork. Barbecue sauce flew everywhere.
The portly sheriff twiddle his moustache idly and huffed. "Guess that's another thing I forgot."
"Daryl, this dang job has bin your dream since you an' I were kids. You can't lose track of that jus' become some lumberjack says those city kids can do better."
Blubs rolled his shoulders and took a fierce mouthful, beginning to feel reinvigorated. "You're right, Ed. But how are we gonna prove him wrong?"
Durland shrugged. "Guess we could do some investigatin'."
"You're addicted to your work." Blubs grinned. "What would I do without you to keep me on the straight an' narrow?"
He got back into his dessert special with gusto, feeling somewhat reenergised. Things would be better. And they would solve the crime of the week in style, before any city boy managed to get his fancy sneakers on.
"Do you guys know where my sneakers are?" Dipper asked, throwing items of clothing around as he dug for his favourite shoes.
"I don't even get why you still wear those ratty old things."
"Paz, they're my lucky sneakers. They've been through Weirdmageddon, Shapeshifters, Gnomes, the Blind Eye, Gooseliath, Dinkies-"
"If they were lucky, you wouldn't have been through any of that!"
He smirked and turned back to her. "They also saw me get you, didn't they?"
"Dipper, I promise you, your fashion sense was never, ever part of why I started liking you." She grinned, tapping his nose. "What's the rush, anyway?"
"It's like 9 and we haven't even seen the results of the beavers yet! We need to see what's happened!"
"Hon. Your Grunkles are like, passed out on the couch down there. You really wanna just storm out without them?"
"Paz, we gotta do something. If it turns night again without us preparing-"
"It's nine. In the morning."
"You wanna stay cooped up?"
"I want a cup of coffee, some breakfast and for you to calm down, Dip. The only thing more excited about rabid beavers is-"
There was a loud shout of "Eureka!", an excitable laugh and the sound of Mabel stomping down the stairs in a particularly triumphant manner.
"Yeah." Pacifica huffed. "She's been knitting a sweater since like, 6?"
"Nothing new the-"
"TADA!" Mabel grinned, her arms outstretched. "I knitted some redwood bark into my new sweater!"
The two exchanged a glance and looked at Mabel in confusion.
"Don't you see?! It's genius! I'll attract the beavers! It's the hunting sweater! This is science, people!"
"You want the crazy shadow beavers attracted to you…?" Pacifica asked. "They might have, like, fleas. Or scabies. Or rabies. Or-"
"They're also screaming things with sharp teeth." Dipper added. "That can't be anything you want near you."
"I can handle it." Mabel said, sternly. "I'll beat up their furry butts! I'll become their leader! Mabel Pines, king of the rabid shadow beasts!"
Her brother remained unconvinced, if mildly impressed. "Where did you even get the redwood?"
The somewhat over-enthusiastic Pines twin blinked. Her smile, for a moment, faltered. She twisted her foot awkwardly. "Oh, uh… y'know. Places."
Pacifica beamed. She knew that body language. Without a word of warning, she stepped closer and peered at her surrogate sister. "Is that a hickey on your neck…? You minx! Has Kevin been here?!"
Mabel rolled up the collar of her sweater and went a shade of red not dissimilar to the strips of bark woven into her new garment. "Y- you're crazy. Don't tell Grunkle Ford, okay? I just needed his help, he was only here for like ten minutes-"
The teenage socialite smirked as she pulled down the collar and examined the big lovebite on the side of Mabel's neck. "Jeez, you sure he isn't a vampire?"
"Wouldn't change him being perfect if he was." Mabel replied. "If anything he'd be even better."
"You need to delete your LibraryOfOurs account." Dipper said, wrinkling his nose.
"Says you, Dipper! I've seen your videogame OCs! By the way, your sneakers are in the living room. Waddles might have chewed them."
"Great. The pig's probably dead." Pacifica smirked. "Your mystery's solved, Dipper. Now how about the coffee?"
"Alright, alright… we'll wait for them." He replied. "But if we miss anything cool-"
"They don't even come out until night time, Dipper. You'll get, like, some chew marks on the Shack and maybe some stray claws."
"Yeah, but if… "
"Dork."
"Hey, I'm just saying!"
"Doesn't matter, you're a dork."
Mabel sniffed haughtily and pretended to look at her nails. "Surely if you're madly in love with him, you're a dork by proxy."
There was a pause as Mabel looked up from her nails, trying her best to keep a straight face and look her most fancy. Pacifica was the first to snort laugh accidentally - which was about enough to set the twins off.
The family had never really cooked their own pancakes before. Time to try it for the first time. It seemed like a decent idea…
… It was not a decent idea.
The screams could be heard all the way down in the laboratory, rousing Stan and Ford from their sleep to a scene of terror, burnt pancake batter and a broken window. When they had put the fire out and Stan had taken over, it wasn't so bad. But ultimately, a learning experience for all.
"Seriously, kids. The place has been chewed out more than I was during my last court case, and ya try to burn it down?"
"Is it bad?" Dipper asked, enthusiastically.
"Bad? Of course fire's freakin' bad. It's a log cabin, Dippy! Jeez, you turning into an arsenic?"
"Arsonist." Ford corrected, peering out over the stack of documents he had pulled from the archive. "And I think he meant the damage from the fog."
Dipper tried to peer over his Grunkle's shoulder eagerly, but had a damned difficult job trying to read it. He needed to start wearing those glasses.
"Is the Shack like… still safe?" Mabel asked with more than a touch of concern - while feeding a slice of toast to Waddles.
"Eh, it's not the worst it's been, Sweetie." Stan shrugged as he topped up Pacifica's coffee. "Few bits missing, the S has fallen off again and I'm pretty sure they bit the beak off of the totem pole. Rowdy teenager stuff."
"We popped out for a while when the sun was rising, just to check on things. Looks like the whole town has been hit in some manner." Ford added, sipping his coffee. "Going to be a busy day."
"Just for once, I'd like a not busy day." Stan grunted as he rubbed his back. "Not gettin' any younger."
"You're the most energetic overweight old grifter I know." Ford retorted, with a wide smile.
"I don't even know how to respond to that. Is that a compliment?"
"Just a factual statement."
"Jerk."
The family tucked into their post fire breakfast with a thinly veiled attempt at normality. Naturally, with the smell of smoke and burnt pancake pervading everything, it was a big ask. Not helped by the fact that it was a day they were planning to spend investigating a gang of rampant shadow beavers. Beavers that were apparently intelligent enough to organise themselves on vast wood testing outings every half century.
Regardless - there they were, crowded around the coffee table, trying not to think too much about what lay ahead.
Mabel, meanwhile, focused on keeping the tell tale mark on her neck covered and adding edible glitter to her apple juice. She was also wondering how ethical it was to give Waddles bacon.
The younger investigator adjusted his lumberjack hat, and peered again at his Grunkle's stack of prints and papers. "So you think we can beat it back? Like, find an answer?"
Ford rubbed his coarse chin. "I expect so, Dipper. We need to put together a map-"
"I hope the diner's okay." Pacifica said, quietly. "I think it's been 'almost destroyed' a few too many times this summer…"
"If it's any consolation, that joint's probably going to survive the next apocalypse." Stan said, ruffling her hair.
"Heh. I hope so. Wait, next apocalypse?"
"Force a'habit, blondie. Always expect another. What's uh… what's the map for, Sixer?"
It'll help us work out their rhyme and reason. A chart of the places they've hit, how badly, what wood the buildings were made of-"
"Why the hell would that matter? Beavers are as dumb as a post." Stanley said, crunching through a piece of badly scorched bread. "Ya think they're some kinda wood connoisseurs?"
"According to records I found," Ford replied, pulling a 1963 copy of the Gossiper out of his satchel, " The totally ungroovy fog beavers were, like, totally organised, man."
Pacifica cringed. "Did...did you just talk like that or did they write that?"
"They wrote it like that. Curzon has a lot to answer for when it comes to the Determined family." Ford replied. "Regardless, if we're to believe-"
"If we're to believe a group of 60s yuppies with a cheese plant habit?" Stan interrupted in his usual way. "Got it."
The pause was the sort that went on for uncomfortably long. Literally everybody was staring at Stanley, who continued crunching through his toast without the slightest inhibition. Even Waddles was offering a porcine, judgemental stare - and he'd just eaten a slice of bacon.
"... Anyway." Ford continued. "Everyone seemed to be of the opinion the beavers were focusing on a random chunk of the town. Testing the wood. Organised. If we can work out what it is they're searching for, we can start working to stop them."
"It seems like a bit of a stretch, Poindexter-"
"Let's face it, with this town, the most bizarre is usually the most likely solution, Stanley."
"Sentient, reverent-"
"Revenant."
"Beavernant!" Mabel piped up.
"Yadda yadda, beavers." Stan reaffirmed. " That's what we're up against. Vengeful spirit beavers."
"Kinda sounds weirder the more we repeat it." Pacifica said, an eyebrow raised. "So what, we gotta go out and make a chart?"
Dipper grinned. He did love his charts and lists. For his girlfriend, it was a prompt for some good old fashioned eye-rolling.
"Only you, your Grunkle and TV execs would get excited about charts." she smirked, stirring her coffee - not aware that Mabel had slipped a plastic dinosaur into the mug.
"Don't worry, charts can be fun once you get to know them!"
Pacifica remained unconvinced. But at least it'd be somewhat peaceful compared to the factory.
Right?
If she kept repeating that, maybe she'd start believing it.
She grimaced as her coffee fused into a purple-brown concoction of semi-solid plastic with a dinosaur head and promptly flinged it at Mabel, who squealed and pelted her back with a slice of bread. Dipper joined in with some pieces of cereal.
It quickly devolved into an energetic foodfight between the kids, while the Grunkles tried their damndest to avoid the matter and continue planning.
Soos soon appeared, leaning through the hole in the window as if it was a completely normal happenstance. "Dudes, I don't want to like - interrupt the battle, bro, but I just went out to town and like - it's been nibbled to hell, dawg. The only place that hasn't been chewed up is the freakin' diner."
"Oh, thank gawd!" Pacifica gasped in relief. Then blinked. "God. I mean thank God."
"Crazy as hell, bro. Even the Mystery Express has been gnawed at!" Soos said. "Abuelita's panicking! She says this junk has happened before-"
Ford perked up. "Does she remember it? Soos, can we see her?"
"Sure, dude. She's just vacuuming the car lot."
As it turned out, Abuelita's panicking basically involved her tapping her foot while she vacuumed, and whistling a slightly less jaunty tune.