Old Man McGucket? The Author?
Hey~ So~ how's it going? Still trying to keep your sanity? These tough times are starting to take it's toll on all of us. Sorry I haven't gotten around to update this story for a while, but now is the time for the new chapter to begin.
'Bill thinking'
'Dipper thinking'
"Bill mind talking" 'thinking'
"Dipper mind talking" 'thinking'
It's been a week so far since Dipper and Bill fused together, just the other day Stan drugged a traveler late at night and tell fake stories to the guy in order to get him to buy something from him, but got ended up as a attraction called the cheapskate. Luckily, Dipper/Bill made a deal with the guy that if he let him go he wont report this incident to the police. The guy knows how to keep his lips sealed shut.
During their training that week, Bill told Dipper, who then told Mabel when they're awake, that he had sense a strange presence in their souls. When the spoke or take action at the same time, thinking that it could be connected to Xal's doing of merging them together.
Now, Dipper/Bill took out a sheet of paper with a shape of an upper half of a person on it with a question mark in the middle, sticking on the board and circle it with a blue ink pen. The board was clues and possible links to the identity of the author of the journals. "Okay Author, who are you? Who are you-"
Dipper/Bill was gnawing on the pen too hard, it broke and all of the blue ink went into his mouth. "Ugh!*cough! cough!*" Dipper/Bill tossed the broken pen into his pile of broken thinking pens, "Not again. You've got to stop that habit of yours, Pine-Tree."
Mabel comes into the room and jumps on Dipper/Bill's bed, "Hey, bro-bro. Look what I got!" and wave around an object in her hands in the air. Dipper/Bill said with fake enthusiasm "Yay, a filthy green bottle."
His twin sister corrected him "It's a bottle message from Mermondo! Remember? He was part fish, part shirtless guy. *Gasp!* What if he want's us to get back together again!?"
During their time in the dreamscape, Bill look through Dipper's memories his time in Gravity Falls hoping to find something that would jog his memories. As he swam through those memories, he found lots of things that happened to Dipper due to Mabel's actions, and the 'Mermondo incident' was one of them.
"I wouldn't get your hopes up, Mabel." said Dipper/Bill, but Mabel didn't listen and scream giddily "Too late! Hopes are way, WAY up!" with a squeal of excitement, Mabel opens the bottle and reads the letter out loud.
"'Dear Mabel,' so far so good. 'It is with a heavy heart...' So far so good. 'That I must inform you...'" The next sentence left Mabel in shock. "'I'M GETTING MARRIED.'?!"
"And... There it is." said Bill & Dipper, Mable continues to read the letter. "'In order to prevent an undersea civil war... arranged wedding... Queen of the Manatees?!'" The letter came with a photo of Mermondo looking miserable next to a manatee in a pink dress and a crown on it's head. "And she's so beautiful! This can't be happening!"
Mable starts crying her eyes out while Dipper/Bill tries to reassures her, "Oh, Mabel. You'll get over him eventually." but Mable said "You don't understand, Dipper. On my first day here, I made this page for summer romances. Look at my luck." She pulls out her scrapbook and opens to a page filled with all of the guys she went out with this summer, and points to each one she listed off. "Turned out to be gnomes, child psycho, made out with his own hands. And now..." Mable takes a red marker and writes "FAILED" at the top of the page that's titled "SUMMER ROMANCE" and said dejectedly "I wish I could just forget about them forever."
Bill was about to take in control but Dipper said 'Bill, no. Let's not make a deal with Mable.' 'Fine.' Bill replies, 'But if she ask, we're not backing out.' Dipper/Bill went back to talking to Mable, "Hey, if it's any consolation, one of my summer missions isn't a huge success either. I'm still trying to find the author of this journal, but with this laptop smashed, I've lost any lead in finding him."
Looking at the broken laptop with guilt as a reminder of her failure as a sister, Mable notice something in the broken up parts. Taking the green bottle to her eye she look closely just to make sure she wasn't imagining it. "Wait a minute." She wasn't and quickly hands the bottle over to Dipper/Bill "Dipper! Look!" Dipper/Bill raised an eyebrow "Through your bottle?" Just do it!"
Taking the bottle from Mable, Dipper/Bill look at the back of the laptop that had a yellow plate that reads. "'McGucket Labs.' Wait, Old Man McGucket? Specs?" said Dipper/Bill then Bill/Dipper, "Dipper, Bill, you don't think?..."
Dipper felt lost at the very thought, "Couldn't be... Doesn't make any sense, unless..." Dipper/Bill starts connecting pictures by tying strings that links to the author. "This matches with this... This goes over here... And then the name... So that would mean... Old Man McGucket wrote the journals?! AAAHHHH!" Dipper/Bill cried as he grasp his head in agony and falls to his knees. "Dipper!"
Bill/Dipper groan in pain as foggy images clouds his mind, a man talking or working on some kind of machine. Shooting his eyes open Bill/Dipper turn to Mable and said "Shooting Star, I think a small piece of my memory has came back to me." And with that, the Pines twins ran down the stars to the Mystery Shack's gift shop.
Meanwhile
"Am I blanchin', Girl we blanchin', I live up in a mansion Am I blanchin', Girl we blanchin I live up in a mansion" The boombox in the shop boom out the music through the speakers while Soos was sweeping up the floors singing along to the song "Am I blanchin', Girl we blanchin', I live up in a mansion."
Wendy, who was restocking up the t-shirts on the racks, groans in frustration and grasp her ears as she spoke "Ugh! I can't get that terrible song out of my head." Soos stops his sweeping and singing to say, "Oh, you mean "Straight Blanchin'" by 'Lil Big Dawg? It's the catchiest song of the summer." Wendy then ask, "What is "blanchin"? Rappers can't just make up words!" Soos retaliates, "Rappers are visionaries, Wendy. If they told me to eat my own pants, I would do it." The next lyrics in the song came saying, "Eat your own pants. Eat your own pants, yeah!" Soos shrug his shoulders and said "I guess I have no choice." as he unzipped his pants and sings " Doot, do-do!"
Thankfully, Dipper/Bill and Mable came barging in before he could remove them, "Wendy, Soos, we need to go see Old Man McGucket!" Dipper/Bill said in panic out of breath, while Mable exclaimed "We'll explain on the way!" as she grabs Wendy's hand and pulls her to the door with Soos fallowing behind. Still trying to get his pants off.
Stan saw them leaving and yelled out to them while raising his fist at them. "Hey, what about work? Kids!" He stops for a moment and raised a question, "Why is Soos eating his own pants?"
One drive to the Gravity Falls Junk Yard (it's a real dump!) later
"So you two think, that crazy old guy is the author?" Wendy ask, as she and everyone else got out of Soos's truck. "It's quite possible, Red. My memory is still foggy but I saw Specs in there." "Dude, does that mean you worked with the author!?" Soos ask, Bill/Dipper pause for a moment, not really thinking about that big information. "I guess I did, but I just can't rack my mind around it." Bill/Dipper replied "Bill, I know you are a meanie-bow-beanie guy, but I do hope that you would remember something out of this."
With that said, Soos holds up the loose wired fence for Dipper/Bill, Mable, Wendy and lastly himself as they wonder around to find the town's local kook. Dipper/Bill call out "Old Man McGucket, are you here?" While Bill/Dipper called out, "Come on out, Specs." Soos even called out like a person calling their pet to come out, "Here hillbilly-billy-billy-billy."
Dipper/Bill stop everyone, because they weren't the only ones here. They saw Lee and Nate spray painting on a junk hut that reads "McSucket" "That's good." Nate commented, "Took an hour to think of this, but it was worth it." The two teens hi-fived, until the Old hermit came out, saw what they had down and chase them with a stick. "Get outta here, you salt lickin', hornswagglin!... McSuckit, they got me good." The old man said dejected, he then notices Dipper/Bill and friends.
"Visitors! Come, come." McGucket greets them and welcome the youngsters into his home, which really is a old dump hut with little things to call house furniture's. A broken bed, rag sheets and blankets, rusty pots, pans and buckets, and a few other items that some would throw away or got lost. "Pull up some rusty metal. You're just in time for my hourly turf war with the hillbilly what lives in my mirror." The hillbilly that lives in the mirror was just McGucket's reflection on a large metal bucket tub that was used as a bathtub in the old days. "Quit starin' at me when I bathe!"
'Man, Specs can't even tell that's reflection he's talking to.' Bill/Dipper thought, as Dipper/Bill took over, "You can drop the act, McGucket. I know you're the author. You studied the mysteries of this town and wrote this book." he pulls out the journal from his jacket to show to the crazy old man.
"Dude, you're the genius Dipper's been searching for all summer!" said Wendy, as she pulls out the busted laptop from Dipper/Bill's backpack and shows it to McGucket. "Uh, genius? I'm no genius." He turns away from them dejected at how bad his life is. "I've never done nothin' worthwhile in my life. Everyone knows I'm no good to nobody. I can't remember what I used to be, but I must've been a big failure to end up like this." The Newspaper that shows him eating a dead racoon and his son stating no comments hangs in a frame on display in hope for the old man's memories to come back.
"But the laptop has your name on it." Soos points out, Dipper/Bill then opens the journal and at a steady pace, he flips through the pages. "What about this book? Are you sure you didn't write it? Here, look closely." "I told you, I don't recall. Everything before 1982 is just a blur." '1982?' "Just a hazy..." McGucket trailed off when he saw the next page.
It has an image of Bill's eye crossed out in an 'x' drawn in red. The image reflects in McGucket's irises, as the old man shrieks. "Ah-ah! The Blind Eye!"
McGucket falls back on his butt and scoots away little crying out. "Robes, the men, my mind! They did something!" Dipper/Bill closes the book and ask "Who did?" The old man tries to think but all he could say was "I...Oh I don't recall."
Mable felt so bad for him, "Oh, you poor old man! No wonder your mind's all.." she blows a raspberry and jabs her thumb down, indicating that his brain's gone down the toilet "You've been through something intense." a thought just occurred to Dipper/Bill, "What if McGucket learned something he wasn't supposed to know, and someone, or something, messed with his mind?"
All three of them turn to him, Dipper/Bill felt a bit off but came to a conclusion that their looking at Bill not him. Which is weird now sense they are one and the same person. "Hey, My memory is gone too, but it's coming back. It's still foggy, so until I get my mind back don't just assume it's my fault." Bill/Dipper said.
Dipper/Bill took over, "Okay let's try to focus at the topic at hand. We've got to get to the bottom of this." Dipper's right, now's not the time to jump to conclusion without any proof or evidence. Wendy ask old man McGucket "Think, dude. What is the earliest thing you can remember?"
McGucket looks around his home before he takes down a newspaper article of him waking up outside in front of the town's History Museum. "Uh, this is, I think." "The history museum!" Wendy exclaimed, 'We got our lead.' "That's where we're going." said Dipper/Bill, as he and everyone headed back to Soos's truck to head to that location with McGucket riding in the open air trunk.
The ride would have been better if it weren't for the music playing "Am I blanchin', Girl we blanchin', I live up in a mansion." "Ugh, Soos!" Wendy cried out, before slamming her fist at the dash board ejecting the CD out and whisking it out of the open window of the truck.
Realizing what she has done she quickly said to an upsetting Soos, "I'll buy you a new one."
And that's it. The next chapter will come up soon, and trust me Bill and Dipper will use more of their power in the fight scene. Not only that but we'll get to see a different side of Bill that not a lot of fans get to see or use in their own fan work.
Ja ne.
