Reversal of Fortune: Prologue
Note: Reposed from Ao3.
This wasn't right. He shouldn't be here. These were just a few of the thoughts going through Mason Gleeful's mind as he awoke. While there was nothing intrinsically wrong with falling asleep on a long bus trip, he had this nagging feeling in his mind that something wasn't right. He knew who he was, Mason Gleeful, intelligent, charming, and apathetic towards most . if he can stand your presence for more than a week, he might bother to learn your name. He had no illusions as to what he was, more than willing to lie, cheat, or kill to get what he wants, skilled in both magic and manipulation, he was a psychotic monster. A keystone in the weirdness surrounding Gravity Falls.
Which is why it was so surprising that when he looked down at himself, he wasn't some well dressed performer as he remembered himself being. Instead he was dressed in casual attire, nothing but a plain t-shirt and shorts with no distinctive style underneath a plain vest jacket. He could also feel the hat and hair covering his distinctive birthmark from which he took his stage name.
"Hey, hey, sleepy-head!" Mason snapped out of his confused state, seeing that the girl beside him was clearly looking at and addressing him.
Sitting beside him was a girl he almost didn't recognize. It was his sister, but also not. His sister was a stone cold bitch who always seemed to be plotting some nefarious scheme to gain even more power over the town. A fellow monster, sociopathic in nature, cruelty was her favorite pastime, loving every second of watching others writhe in pain and humiliation. The Mabel that sat beside him was not that girl. The girl beside him had a bubbly personality, and by the way he addressed him, he imagined she had a personality to match. She looked like she was the textbook definition of a cinnamon roll, wearing a bright pink sweater and skirt as opposed to the elegant ensemble he remembers his sister wearing, never wanting to dress as the common folk did. Now that he looked closer, she reminded him of someone else in fact, however no matter how hard he tried he couldn't visualize that person in his mind as he did with himself and his sister.
"You okay, Dipper? You've been staring into space for a while now."
Dipper? She's only ever called me that on stage. Living in Gravity falls for years now, you'd think I'd be used to weird shit happening to me, but this is new. If I had to guess, this is probably some sort of dream manipulation. I told Mabel to stop experimenting while I'm asleep. Damn it. Alright, I'm not doing this. Time to nip this in the bud. All I need to do is wake myself up and I should be able to pull myself out.
Mason reached forward, pulling a pin off the front of the backpack that was presumably his, in front of him. Placing the pin against his palm, and the front against his fingers, he squeezed as hard as he could. He didn't wake up. A sharp pain followed by a feeling of warm liquid filled his palm. Dark red blood began dripping from his clenched fist. Huh. So, not a dream then. Fuck that hurts.
"Dipper! What the heck is wrong with you!" Mabel quickly reached into her backpack, pulling out a spare T-shirt of hers, unclenching his fist and wrapping the fabric around his hand. "Keep pressure on that. We should be there soon. We can clean it up when we get there."
Mason looked at her for a hard moment. "Mabel," It felt weird saying that to someone, who to him, was a complete stranger, " Where are we right now?"
"We're on the bus to Gravity Falls, Oregon. Mom and Dad said we should spend more time outdoors, so we're spending the summer with our Grunkle Stan. Did you hit your head or something?"
"I'm good, I just wasn't thinking. Thanks." Mason gave his best fake smile, "I'll be fine until we get there. It's not like it's that deep anyway."
"Okay, If you say so." She still seemed concerned, but seemed to let it go when the driver called back saying they would be arriving at Gravity Falls within the next few minutes. Grunkle Stan. The name rang so many bells in Mason's mind, and yet he couldn't recall a thing. Strange.
Mason was actually relieved when he finally met this "Grunkle Stan" of his. He was remarkably similar to the great uncle Stan of his memories. Besides some aesthetic differences as well as being significantly less charming, this Stan shared many of the same traits as the one from his memories. Both were obsessively greedy, but while his uncle was more of a shrewd buisman type, his new Grunkle was more of a conman than anything else, willing to con people out of even the most trivial amounts of money. That's saying something considering Mason had learned all of this within ten minutes of meeting the man.
He had been ten minutes late picking them up from the bus station, and it then took another ten to reach his home. The bleeding had since stopped, but when Mason saw it, he became unexplainably irritated. The Mystery Shack, a shitty tourist trap that he would be stuck at until he could figure out what the hell was going on.
The exhibits were weird, not an interesting kind of weird, but the kind of weird that was cheesy as well as slightly off putting. "Behold! The Sasqroch!" It was literally just a gorilla mannequin in human underpants, and yet flocks of dumb, hillbilly tourist came to take pictures. Another trait this Stan shared with his own, was his ability to unabashedly exploit the minors under his care. So now, Mason was stuck working in the hellhole, stocking shelves, performing menial labor, and working the register, answering stupid customers even stupider questions, all without pay no less. He now knew what he'd be doing in hell.
The rest of the day was dreadfully slow, with none of Mason's memory returning until a large rotundus figure entered through the doors of the Shack. He was a large man wearing one of the gift shop's shirts and a pair of cargo shorts. When Mason saw him, something clicked in his mind and he was able to recall the version of the man from his memories. Soos. Mason never actually bothered learning his name beyond that. All Mason could really recall about the man is that he was a thug that Mabel would pay to rough people up occasionally, but beyond that the two never really had and relationship to one another
Soos saw the twins at the cash register and waved as he walked over, "Heya, Dudes."
"Hello, what's your name? I'm Mable!" Mable stuck out her hand, she had been doing that to every person who came within ten feet of the cash register, and it was becoming more and more irritating as every single time, she would draw him into meaningless conversations with the equally irritating customers. As the two continued to converse, Mason was deep in thought.
I don't get it. I'm not in a dream, it's too realistic. Where the hell am I? Why can't I remember anything? Think dammit! I can't even remember my magic. Fuck! Alright, calm down Mason, just think of it like a game. The first thing you need to do is figure out the rules. So far the only way I've been able to recover memories is by seeing people I recognized from my life. Maybe if I encounter more of those people, I can piece together what happened to me. It's not much, but it's a start. If I'm going to do this I can't show my hand just yet. I need to act like people would expect this version of "Dipper" to. Mason took a long look at Mable. She's likely my best resource for learning more about this world's version of me, but I'll need to be careful, she's also the most likely to notice I'm a different person than her brother."
"You okay, my dude?" Mason stopped spacing out when it became clear Soos was now addressing him.
"Yeah. Sorry just spacing out for a bit. Sorry if I missed anything important." Mason rubbed the back of his, pretending to be embarrassed and giving his best apologetic smile.
"Ha, it's no problem dude. I do that too, probably too much for my own good. Haha. Me and your sis were just introducing ourselves. I'm Soos." He held out his hand for a fistbumb.
Mason glanced at Mabel for less than a moment before going back to Soos and giving a friendly smile, returning his fistbumb. " Hey Soos. You can call me Dipper, it's nice to meet you."