Camo was sitting on the floor, reading her book, when Mabel came in, singing, and caught her braces in the screen door. She raised an eyebrow as Mabel screamed very loudly. "AAAH! Braces, braces caught in the screen door! Someone dictate my will! I'm giving it all to Waddles!"
Soos came over with his screwdriver and said, "Say 'ah', girl-dude." The younger girl complied, and the handyman easily freed her.
"Soos! You saved me!"
"Just doing my job, hambone!" He flipped his screwdriver into his back pocket. "I'll see you dudes tomorrow!" Everyone said goodbye except Camo, who merely waved goodbye and continued reading her book.
After a moment of everyone watching him walking away (Stan's new exhibit was looking super strange and badly created . . . she probably should've agreed to help him), Mabel asked, "You ever wonder what Soos does when he's not here at the Mystery Shack?"
Everyone replied in the negative, and they returned to what they were doing.
For all Camo knew, Soos could vanish into thin air whenever he wasn't at the Shack.
Stan was terrorizing children with Goldie again: the creepy old machine that leaked oil out of its eyes and short-circuited whenever you tried to use it. She shuddered in a kind of fascinated horror as it went through its freaky process. Wendy said it all: "Okay, seriously, Mr. Pines, it's time to throw that thing out. Its face reminds everyone of the inevitability of death."
"Yeah, and the smell of oil is enough to make milk curdle instantly," Camo added.
"What?" Stan asked disbelievingly. "Sure, he's a little rusty around the edges, but Old Goldie's a classic show-stopper like me!" He promptly put his hand on some oil and slipped on it. His arm went up into Goldie's mouth and he ripped it off, screaming, "Oh, kill it! Kill it!" and banging it into the base.
Camo raised an eyebrow and then rolled her eyes, wandering away to find the twins. They were usually pretty interesting and usually not quite as stubborn as Stan when it came to throwing out machines that came from the pits of hell. She eventually found Dipper talking to a concerned Soos in the green shirt rack, with Mabel in a barrel of keychains.
"Well, I sort of promised my grandma I'd get a date by the end of the week. But I've never actually been on a date before," Soos explained. He forlornly grabbed the out of order sign on the vending machine. "You belong on me, out of order sign." He taped it to his chest.
Camo felt like she was missing something.
"Finally, my prayers for a chance to match-make this summer have been answered!" Mabel declared, falling to her knees in joy.
Stan walked up. "Soos, a little advice: you need to get rich. Or lie about being rich. Outside of that, I don't like your chances."
Wendy scoffed. "Don't listen to Stan, dude. You're a sweet guy with a steady job and a pickup truck."
"Would you date him?"
She very hastily returned to her magazine.
"Soos, you help us so much, it's time we help you, dude," Dipper said. "We're gonna get you that date."
"We're taking you where romance lives and fashion styles die. To the mall!"
Before Camo knew it, they were at the mall. Stan was there, too, with the terrifying Goldie. She inched away, preferring to stand on the other side of Soos than next to that horrid creation. Build A Beaver. Overalls are cool now. What were these names? "I'm gonna go find a replacement for Old Goldie," Stan told them. "Babysit Soos while I'm gone."
She did a mock salute. "Yes, sir, babysitting commencing."
He rolled away Goldie McCreepyface, and she visibly relaxed, the tension leaving her shoulders. Mabel was looking for possible dates. "All right, Soos, are you ready to explode a charm bomb on these poor, unsuspecting ladies?"
"Uh, but what if I embarrass myself again?" Soos asked, visibly sweating.
"Don't worry about it," Camo reassured him, trying to pretend that she knew what she was doing. "Even if you freak out on the inside, they don't have to know that. If you just roll with everything that comes your way, then they'll never know that the conversation was falling to pieces. It's all about perception." She made a couple spy moves, though she wasn't really sure why.
Soos at least had the decency to look somewhat reassured.
The flirting did not work. He traumatized several poor women and overemphasized all the points Mabel was trying to teach him. About halfway through, she ended up wandering away. She'd brought thirty bucks, wanting to be prepared just in case she saw something she wanted. She visited the bookstore, but none of it caught her eye. Nothing in the video games, either, since she'd seen all the titles before, all of them having been over ten years old.
Finally, she found a trinket store and ambled around it, looking at various strange little things. A cool cord necklace, though that was out of her budget and wasn't her style anyway. Some little bobblehead that she didn't need and kind of reminded her of Goldie. A little hand mirror with some strange inscriptions along the side in no language she recognized. That was only ten dollars and interesting enough that she decided to buy it.
"Oh, are you sure about that?" the person at the cash register asked. His eyes were creepily wide open. "Well, if you're sure . . ."
She waltzed right out of there, holding the mirror in her hand because of the short industry's refusal to give girls pockets.
When she met back up with the rest of the group, Soos had a dating video game, and Stan was going on and on, muttering about some animatronic badger. She supposed she shouldn't've been surprised at this, but hey. There was always a fun group dynamic with these people.
The next day was the same. Mabel went into the bathroom to try and get Soos some dates, Dipper went to go stop security, and Camo had to keep the crazy old cat lady occupied by telling her stories of her own kitties and walking away from where the handyman was trying to get dates.
"Yup, he's really cute," Camo beamed. She glanced at her wrist, though she wasn't actually wearing a watch. "Oh, scuff! Sorry, ma'am, I have to go! Nice talking to you!"
She wandered back to where Soos had been, only to find that he had left. She found him on a little kid's train, talking to the lady who worked at Meat Cute. She didn't catch most of their conversation, but she heard him score a date, and she. Shipped. It. She shipped it so much that she was already looking off to her side to exchange an excited look with someone before she realized Mabel was there.
Together, the three of them (Dipper had come back too) tackled him and cheered at his getting a date. "Soos!" Mabel shouted, smacking his head like a monkey.
"We saw the whole thing, Soos," Dipper said. "That was amazing! You talked to a real girl. And you got a date!"
"I did?"
Camo grinned and lightly punched Dipper on the arm. "I can see why you're so jealous." He slapped her away, and she remembered a similar slap when he was invisible and possessing a puppet.
Mabel was screaming. "This is the best day of my life!" She fell off Soos's back and started to do something with the tree.
"You were in the zone, you made eye contact," Dipper listed. "It was like you'd done this a million times before!"
Mabel was running around and giggling. "Yeah," Camo agreed. "Nice job, Soos."
"Don't you see?" Dipper asked, as if she hadn't said anything. "That game really worked!"
His twin came over. "You don't need it anymore! You can toss it out!"
Soos looked horrified at that idea. "Toss it? But . . . I like Giffany! She's good to me! She's predictable!"
"Soos, can a computer game go to Reggie's engagement party with you?"
"Uh . . ."
They were getting Soos prepared for his date. He had a nice blue sweater that looked really good on him. Mabel had a referee shirt and a hat that mimicked Dipper's, but pink with a heart. Camo was standing in front of their friend and holding eye contact to make sure he could keep it. "You can do it, Soos!" Mabel said. "Just remember what your love crew taught you! How does she look?"
"Nice!" Soos replied dutifully.
"What are her stories?"
"Interesting!"
"And who's gonna pay for dinner?"
"Soos is!" Soos screamed, standing up and throwing his arms above his head. There was a sort of wild look to his eyes. Hopefully he didn't keep that during the date.
Dipper blew an air horn. "Now . . . date!" The handyman screamed and ran away towards the pizza place (she guessed—for all she knew, he could be going the wrong way).
"They grow up so fast," Mabel said adoringly.
Camo slunk off to follow him. She wasn't stalking, no—she just had the sudden urge for pizza at the exact place where Soos was going. She stealthily (nope, not stealthy, casually) walked up, seeing Melody giggling and the two of them walking in. She waited a couple minutes, then followed them in, scoring a table fairly close to the lovebirds. However, when she was ordering, Soos ran away for some reason.
She frowned and looked around, though she couldn't see where he went. Then she spotted him sitting with the twins and she wandered over. ". . . Giffany can't stop you because she isn't real," Dipper was explaining.
Then the lights ominously cut out. She yelped and dove under the table, glancing up at the screens, which held a furious pink, pixelly, anime face.
"Uh oh," Mabel said.
"Take it from someone who brought an arcade game to life," Dipper said. "This will not end well."
Camo added from underneath the table, "I second that. Possessive dating video game characters are usually pretty bad enemies."
"Don't worry, I'm pretty sure she's stuck on TV screens," Soos said. Just as he said that, the image of Giffany moved throughout the screens of the arcade games and made her way to the stage, where the lights turned on. "Oh boy." He ran back over to Melody. Camo heard their conversation because she was stalking them. "So hey! Anyway, you want to move this date into the forest far away from all electronics and people?"
"What?" Melody asked, bewildered. "But the floor show's about to start!"
The lights dimmer and the animatronics started playing their music with lights and stuff. Animatronics were creepy. Camo shuddered violently when she saw their faces. Reminded her of a Furby.
"Who wants to hear Hoo-Ha the Owl?" the owl one asked. Then it shut down, rather disturbingly. The spotlight shifted to the weird bunny girl thing.
It strummed its guitar in slower notes. "Hello, friends. Hoo-Ha the Owl is dead." It blinked creepily, at different times. The light turned blue, and the frog thing continued its movement. "This next song goes out to my forever boyfriend, Soos."
"Soos, what's going on?" Melody asked, rightly concerned.
"No time to explain!" he shouted. "We got to get out of here!" He ran away, pulling his confused date and tailed by Camo, who ran along behind and tried her best to explain.
"Hi, I'm Camo," she introduced herself. "I'm Soos's friend. So, Soos here bought a possessed video game to earn himself dating skills, but it came to life and now it's stalking him."
It didn't do much to alleviate her confusion.
"The only way out, Soos, is in my arms," Giffany said, the creepy animatronic's eyes going red. "Capture them!" She snapped her fingers, and all the other animatronics came to life and started chasing them with the same red eyes. Everybody was screaming and running away, and Camo felt inclined to join them. The five of them—Dipper, Mabel, Camo, Soos, and Melody—banged on the metal plate thingy that came down and shut them in the demonic pizzeria.
"Sorry, Soos," Giffany's creepy, lilting voice said. "But you can't run away from our relationship." Some more machines started shooting balls at them, so they screamed and hid behind the arcade machine Soos pulled over.
Soos tried to explain. "So, about all this—"
"It's fine," Melody interrupted. "Your friend here already explained." Camo waved sweetly.
"Oh." He looked a little crestfallen. "So you know she's crazy?"
The dumb pixelly voice came through again. "Oh, I am crazy. Crazy for you, Soos." She shot a bolt of lightning that caught Melody's hair on fire. Soos helped her pat it out.
"I'm so sorry, Melody! I'll fix this!" Camo supposed he was a handyman, so fixing things was his job. "It's me that she wants. I'll distract her while Dipper, Mabel, and Camo keep you safe. It's the only way."
"Soos, these are children."
She frowned at her. "Competent children." One of whom was from the future. They all watched as he ran forward under the barrage of balls and drawing the attention of Giffany.
Dipper, meanwhile, started their planning. "On three, we split. One, two—" He was cut off by the creepy bear smashing through their protection. They all screamed, and Camo tried to kick it in the face. However, she didn't do it very well, and she ended up not dealing much damage and falling on her butt. She scrambled to her feet to run, but another of the robots caught up to her and slammed her to the ground.
Ow. Ow. OW. She cried out as her face hit the floor. Her vision swam, but she clambered to her feet and sprinted away, climbing up the side of an arcade machine to get away from the monsters. It took her a moment to realize the world wasn't returning to clarity in her right eye. Confused, she pulled off her glasses—and then she gaped in shock.
The lens was missing, save for a few jagged pieces of glass left in the frame. The plastic had also cracked when she hit the floor, and she could feel a trickle of blood making its way down her face from her right temple. She groaned and shoved them back on her face, closing her right eye just so her vision wouldn't be confused.
She supposed it was a good thing she'd saved that pair of glasses that were in her room.
However, one of the animatronics grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her over to where the twins and Melody were captured. She fought and writhed, the fuzzy world around her dipping from shaking upside down. However, she did make out the large shape she supposed was Soos. "Please, let my friends go," he begged, his shape moving backwards. "I'll do anything you want. I promise."
"I seem to remember someone promising he will be my boyfriend." That was the yellow and brown blob mechanically making its way to him. Giffany. "Think about it, real girls are unpredictable, they judge you. You really think Melody is going to take you back after this awful date? I can download your brain into the game with me and we will be together forever."
The animatronic was doing something, but she couldn't make it out through her broken glasses and the tears welling in her eyes from the throbbing pain in her temple. "Come on, Soos. Don't make me delete you, too. What do you say?"
"I say, game over, Giffany!" He put something somewhere—a purply thing in the oven, she guessed—and Giffany screamed wetly on the screen, and she could make out the animatronic melting. Suddenly, she was glad she couldn't see well. That would traumatize her for life, probably. It fell to the floor with a thunk.
Camo and the other hostages fell similarly, though thankfully they went in the ball pit. She coughed and surfaced with difficulty. She and the twins watched from the ball pit. "Spirit of love, we did it!" Mabel declared happily.
Soos's grandma surfaced next to Mabel. "Yes, yes, I'm so happy."
"Have you been following us all day?" Dipper asked, which was a valid question.
Her only defense was, "Soos's life is my soap opera."
Camo frowned, a little concerned.
Camo and the Pines were at the Swap Meet, whatever the heck that was. Dipper was fine with a purple balloon, and Mabel was shouting, "Swap meet! Swap meet! Swap meet! Look at all there priceless treasures. Bobbly-heads! They agree with everything I say."
"Professor glasses!" Dipper said, putting on some. "They make me look like a genius."
Camo, who was now wearing glasses that weren't her own, pouted somewhat at his pointing that out. Still, she went over to a display that caught her eye, ignoring Dipper crashing into the glasses stand. "Wooden carvings! Custom made works of art!"
Stan made his way to some watches, though. "Look at these faux-gold beauties," he whispered reverently. Camo peeked from next to him. "They're mob-boss quality." He kneeled down and whispered to the kids, "All right, kids, prepare to watch the delicate art of the deal." He turned to the woman selling the watches and demanded, "Hey, hag-face! How much for the junk watches?"
"They are not for sale," she told him in a weird raspy voice. "Not for you, Stan Pines! The wind whispers your name!"
The wind blew roughly, and it rustled Tyler Cutebiker's chimes. "All right, I get it, you're creepy. Anyway, less talky, more watchy!" He slammed a buck on the table and grabbed for one of the watches. The lady grabbed him, however, shrieking like a banshee.
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY WATCH!" Her eyes went white and glowing, and Stan shrieked, pulling back his hand. They walked away.
Mabel, looking back, said, "Wow, someone needs to work on their social skills."
"And their observation skills. Boom!" He revealed the golden watch now on his wrist. "Good job, heisting hands." He proceeded to kiss them, and Camo shuddered.
"Grunkle Stan, are you seriously shoplifting from a witch?" Dipper asked. Of course, he would be concerned. "That sounded like a curse."
Stan mocked, "'That sounded like a curse!' Hey, anyone want to buy a wet blanket? We got a wet blanket for sale!" Everyone laughed except Dipper, though Camo did notice Toby Determined selling wet blankets.
The next day, Stan lost his hands to a curse and he and the twins had to renovate a hand witch lair. She wouldn't know. She'd spent the day reading in her room, oblivious to the world.
Reading was fun.