Gideon's Fall
The Mystery Machine raced up the winding mountain road, with the Gideon-bot in hot pursuit.
"Don't worry," said Fred. "I'm an expert in evasive driving. This is just like when we were chased by Baba Yaga's house."
"You were chased by a house?" asked Dipper.
"Yeah, like, a house on giant chicken legs," said Shaggy. "Scoob and I were able to trip it."
"Reah, re ripped it," said Scooby.
"Let's do it," Mabel said. "I've brought along my trusty grappling hook."
"Probably we can," said Fred. "We just need time and space to maneuver."
They rounded a bend and there was a sign: "Road Closed."
"Zoinks! Like, out of time and space to maneuver," said Shaggy.
"Ruh-roh," said Scooby.
The Mystery Machine crashed through the sign and Fred slammed on the brakes, skidding the van to a halt on the brink of a huge canyon overlooking the town, with an old railroad bridge just below.
"I've got you now," said Gideon through his bot amplifiers.
"Not quite yet," said Fred. "We can jump this canyon."
"What?" cried the others in unison.
He pushed a button on the dashboard and enormous springs shot out of the bottom of the Mystery Machine, propelling it into the air towards the other side. The leap went up, up, up... and fell just short of the other side.
"Yaaah!" cried the others in unison.
The van landed on the rickety old railroad tracks, facing a sign that said "Dead End." The springs now stuck through the gaps in the tracks, pinning the car in place.
"Piece of cake," said Fred.
The Gideon-bot leaped down onto the tracks, making them sway dangerously.
"Now you've got nowhere to run," said Gideon. "Surrender Book One or else I'll push y'all off into the abyss."
Dipper and Mabel came out though the skylight onto the roof of the Mystery Machine.
"We don't have it," said Dipper. "You took the only book I ever found. I don't even know what you want them for."
"Gideon, take me and spare my brother and my friends," said Mabel.
"I like that offer," said Gideon, grabbing Mabel in one giant robot hand. "I'll find the other book myself and then I'll rule Gravity Falls, with you as my queen."
Professor Pericles flew up beside Dipper and spoke softly in his ear. Dipper ducked back inside the van.
"You seem to be plotting something," said Gideon. "I have an alternative offer: I'll take Mabel and the rest of you can drop dead, literally!"
As Gideon bent down to push the car off the tracks, Dipper shot out of the top of the Mystery Machine like a cannon, using the passenger ejection seat that Pericles had modified and aimed.
Dipper crashed through one of the robot's eyes and into the cockpit, where he began fighting Gideon hand to hand. Every move Gideon made was transferred to the bot though the motion sensors on his outfit.
"Watch out in there!" Mabel said.
Dipper grabbed Gideon's fist and punched him with it, making the bot punch itself. Gideon fell, and as he did the bot fell off the tracks. Mystery Incorporated watched in horror as the figures of Mabel and Dipper separated from the bot and fell through the air together.
In desperation, Fred pressed the button to force the springs to retract and shoot out again, popping them free of the track. As they began to fall, he deployed an emergency parachute.
"We'll land all right, but Dipper and Mabel..." said Fred.
"Like, they're goners," said Shaggy.
Scooby whined.
Clang. Something struck the bottom of the van. The gang looked out and saw Dipper and Mabel dangling below, holding on to the grappling hook gun. They had attached the hook to the Mystery Machine.
Far below, there was a huge blue explosion from the fallen bot.
Once on the ground, things happened very fast. Dipper got his journal back. Gideon accused Gravity and Mystery Incorporated of attacking him and blowing up his statue with dynamite. They would have been arrested if not for Gruncle Stan driving up and exposing Gideon as a fraud who used hidden cameras to spy on the town. Gideon was arrested instead, and Stan was celebrated as a local hero.
"The Mystery Shack is back in business, baby. And I did it all without any help from any meddling tourist kids," said Grunkle Stan.
"Like, except for helping defeat a giant robot and saving the lives of your grand niece and nephew," said Shaggy under his breath.
The twins huddled for a minute with Mystery Incorporated before they left for home.
"Whoopie! We get the Mystery Shack back, and Waddles, and we get to keep Leb– I mean, we get to keep living with Gruncle Stan," said Mabel.
Velma looked at Mabel with an eyebrow raised.
"Don't forget, our work here is not completely done," said Daphne. "We have to stay until we uncover the deeper mysteries of Gravity Falls."
"Tonight we celebrate," said Mabel. "We'll paint Soos like a pinata and have Silly String fights with Wendy."
"And tomorrow we'll have a ton of work getting the Shack opened again," said Dipper.
"We'll, like, come and buy lots of snacks," said Shaggy.
"Rots of racks!" said Scooby.
"We'll get busy on the mysteries the day after that," said Fred.
The night after the grand re-opening, Dipper and Mabel told Gruncle Stan about Book Three. He laughed about it and borrowed it, saying it would give him ideas for the Mystery Shack.
Later that night, he took the book down to his secret basement rooms. He put together their Book Three, Gideon's Book Two, and his own Book One open to the portal diagram pages.
"After all these years," Stan said. "Finally, we have them all."
With the codes entered, the machine began to hum and light up.
"It's working!" Stan said.
He ran into the other room and threw an enormous lever. The portal glowed.
"Here we go!" he said.
Then he yawned, his head nodded, and he fell asleep on his feet.
An evil laugh was heard in the room, though nobody was visible except for a triangular shadow.
"Bill is watching," said the voice. "Heavy is the head that wears the fez."
"Did you hear that noise?" Dipper asked Mabel.
Something in the atmosphere of the place had made them restless tonight. They had dressed and gone outside to look around.
"I heard a sort of rustle in the bushes. Do you think Gruncle Stan is sleepwalking again?" asked Mabel.
"No, I hear more of a deep humming sound. It seems like it's coming from underground," said Dipper. "Listen."
They both put their ears to the ground, listening hard. Because of this they were unprepared when hooded figures emerged from the bushes, threw sacks over their heads, and carried them away.
Gideon Gleeful sat in his prison cell, far from gleeful. Everything possible had gone wrong, and it was all the fault of the Pine twins and his old enemy, Stan. Plus those meddling kids and that mangy mutt.
Flames lit up the cell, rippling around a black triangle with single white eye, as the rest of everything became gray. The triangle shifted to yellow, becoming a floating yellow being with a black top hat.
"Hi Gideon, Bill's back," said Bill Cipher.
"What are you doing here?" asked Gideon.
"Fulfilling our deal, kid," said Cipher. "Stanford Pines just fell asleep, with nobody on guard. If I hadn't gotten so angry the other night I would have remembered that all I had to do was go to his memory of falling out of the Bottomless Pit. The safe combination came right out with him. Here it is: 13-44-6-18."
"What? That's no use to me. The safe doesn't exist anymore. I blew it up, and got the deed myself. Not that it did me any good," said Gideon.
"Our deal wasn't for me to do you any good, just to steal the combination," said Cipher. "Now that I've done it, you owe me."
"That's not fair," said Gideon. "And how can I do you a favor, anyway? I'm in prison," said Gideon.
"Oh, jail is the least of your worries, kid," said Cipher. "My favor is: let me into your mind."
"No, I don't wanna," said Gideon.
"I always hold people to the letter of their deals," said Cipher. "I'm like my brother Lou that way."
"Lou Cipher," said Gideon. "Lucifer? Oh no!"
The yellow demon rushed forward and merged into Gideon. His eyes filled with the triangular image of Bill.
"Now that I have your physical body, we have places to go and things to do," said Gideon/Cipher.
He raised a hand crackling with electricity and blasted a hole in the cell wall. He floated through it with an evil laugh.
The sacks were removed from Dipper and Mabel's heads. They found themselves surrounded by hooded figures wearing blank fezzes on top of their hoods, in a large room with a zig-zag patterned floor. Dipper recognized it.
"We're in The Club, where I met Gideon to tell him you were breaking up with him," he whispered to Mabel.
"Silence," said a deep-voiced hooded figure at the front of the room, with a large barn owl perched on his shoulder. "The meeting of the Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel, Blindeye Branch, will come to order. First order of business: the disposal of those who have aided our enemy."
Gideon came down to earth in the woods near the Mystery Shack. Bill Cipher came out, leaving his host with a wrenching sensation.
"Hey, that smarted," said Gideon.
"Get used to it, All-Seeing Pentagram," said Bill.
"What do you want with me? What are we doing here?" Gideon demanded.
"The portal is about to be opened, and I need my own team of four mystery-solvers and a talking animal to be present in order to release my Master," said Bill.
"What Master? What talking animal?" asked Gideon.
"I could use my familiar, Gompers the goat, but I have another idea," said Bill, ignoring the first question.
"What about the four mystery-solvers?"
"The leader, the brainy one, the rebel, and the chick," said Bill. "All have been chosen to fit the profiles I require, to uncover the mysteries of the Mystery Shack. Just for fun, I will call you Mystery Shack Incorporated."
"So, I'm the leader?" asked Gideon.
"Guess again," said Bill.
"The brainy one?"
"Down-to-earth, practical, full of book-knowledge, and associated with the element of earth. It's Fez Symbol, of course."
"Stanford Pines? I don't want to work with him," said Gideon. "I hate him."
"Too bad, so sad," said Bill.
"Then I'm the rebel?" asked Gideon.
"The profile: runs and hides from danger, has an irreverent attitude, has stubs of whiskers on his chin, eats anything (like lollipops stick first), and is associated with the element of water. The kid you killed a year ago and made into a zombie: Stitched Heart."
Robbie stepped out of the woods and nodded at Bill, "Yo."
"You... I created you to attack Stanford Pines but you never followed my orders," said Gideon, shrinking back in fear.
"Zombies don't follow orders, dweeb," said Robbie.
"Unless those orders are backed up by extreme power," said Bill. "And unless they've been corrupted by dabbling in the dark arts, like using the mind-controlling music disk I gave you."
"Didn't do me much good. Wendy came back to me for a little while, then dumped me when Dipper squealed on me about the backwards message," said Robbie.
"Like I told All-Seeing Pentagram, I never promise my deals will do you good," said Bill.
"So, who else is in this Mystery Shack Incorporated group of yours?" asked Robbie.
"There's the Chick," said Bill.
"Wendy?" asked Robbie.
"Ice? You wish," said Bill. "Here's the profile: cute, rich, a fancy dresser, hot-tempered, supposedly romantically linked with the leader, and associated with the element of fire."
"I know," said Gideon. "It's Pacifica Northwest."
"No, you," said Bill.
"I'm no chick! Wait... romantically linked with the leader..." said Gideon.
"Supposedly," said Bill. "The leader is brave, silly, clever at trapping monsters, has an absurd fashion sense, and is associated with the element of air. Here she is now: the Llama."
A brown-haired girl with braces stepped out of the woods. She was wearing a light brown sweater with a llama on it. The llama faced left, like the one on Cipher's wheel.
"Mabel!" said Gideon.
"Think again," said the girl with a smirk. "Remember me? Mabel's mirror doppelganger you brought to life as a backup girlfriend, until I escaped your slimy clutches?"
"Lebam," said Gideon.
Author's note: credit for the idea of Lebam goes to The Sqoou, who published theories about her on You Tube.