Camo woke up on the third day to someone shaking her.
She shrieked, leaping to her feet and trying to figure out where the scuff she put her spear. However, it was an overreaction, since it was just Wendy. Right. Yesterday. Hideout. Yeah. All that nonsense.
She took a deep breath and tried to slow her heartbeat a little. "Don't wake me up like that," she told the older girl, annoyed.
"A monster's about to find the base," Wendy shot back, her eyes wide. Any remainder of sleepiness was gone in an instant. She reached over to the umbrella stand and pulled out her spear, holding it defensibly. Wendy brandished her crossbow. The two of them crept out of the hideout.
Camo stood with her back to the wall, looking at Wendy and ready to spin around the corner whenever she could. They exchanged a nod, and with a finger count of three from Wendy, they rushed around.
There it was, the most hideous monster she'd seen! Its face was horrible, and its nasally shriek when Wendy shot a crossbow bolt into its shoulder was even worse. And that moustache—!
Oh, no. That was no monster.
Camo facepalmed and moaned, "Toby Determined? Really?" Should she stab him anyway?
"Aah!" he shouted, shying away from them. "Teenage girls!"
She looked up at Wendy, unimpressed. "Can I stab him?"
Wendy looked like she wanted that, but the older girl sighed. "I mean, I did just shoot an arrow in his shoulder . . . come on, Toby, we'll fix you up."
"Not we," Camo corrected. "You. I'm gonna go look around for some more food."
Wendy rolled her eyes but didn't complain.
Camo stalked off to go find something, climbing up the cracked column leading to the second floor. There was nothing of use around here, she knew, so she coiled up her jacket like it was a rope and threw one end up high. It missed by a mile, though she couldn't say she was surprised by that.
She huffed. How else was she supposed to get onto the roof? An eye-bat flew by, and a thought occurred to her. She grinned impishly, then called out to it. Even though it didn't seem to have ears, it heard her and flew over. She closed her eyes, tried not to think about how dumb this was, and jumped up on the eye-bat when it was within range.
It shot her with its beam, but it hit her clothes and not her, so she was fine. She managed to wrangle herself on top of the eye-bat, and she steered it through its fear of her and leaning in the direction she wanted to go.
"To the roof!" she declared with a grin, and the eye-bat flew her upwards before dropping her down. Then, when it tried to turn her to stone, she rolled her eyes and stabbed it with her spear. With a definite sense of reluctance, it flew away despondently.
She sighed with contentment, staring out at the ruined town of Gravity Falls. The barrel factory had finally stopped burning in last night's blood rain shower, it seemed. Everything was crumbling, and the sky was still neon, the ground was still that weird orange-brown.
Everything was normal, for Weirdmageddon. She smiled.
She wasn't sure how long she stayed up there. A while, she guessed. However, the eye-bat came back, with a couple of its friends, and she huffed, dropping through a broken section of glass. She fell further than she expected, however, and she landed roughly on her ankle.
She shrieked, clutching it. Ow. Ow. Ow! Every movement hurt, and a horrified expression filled her face. Had she seriously broken her ankle during the apocalypse because she was an idiot?
Yes. Yes, she had.
Eye-bats. She cursed and rolled along the floor, towards the wall, and, with difficulty, she pulled herself into the remnants of a shop. Her ankle protested, and she bit her lip, though that didn't stop her from whimpering. That hurt, like, a lot.
She examined it. No blood. Hopefully, it had been a clean break, though there was no way for her to know. She mentally cursed herself for being so dumb. Now how was she supposed to move around, with a broken ankle? She couldn't fight, and walking would be difficult . . .
Uuuuuuuuuuuuugh. She was so dumb sometimes.
After the swarm of eye-bats left, she crawled out of the shop, wincing every time her ankle shifted around. There was her spear. With it and the help of the railing, she pulled herself to her foot and used it as a cane, hopping alongside the railing. This time, she used the crumbly stairs, like a normal person, and she hobbled to the base.
"Wendy," she moaned, leaning against the wall so as not to put herself in any more pain than she already was in. "Help." When nothing happened, she called again, louder, "Wendyyyyyyyy."
The metal pulled up, and the annoyed face of Wendy popped out. "What?" Then she noticed the tears prickling at Camo's eyes, her bleeding lip from her biting it so hard, and the way she favored her foot. "Oh, no. What did you do now?"
Camo went red. Wendy sighed. "Come on."
She sat with her foot up, eating nachos. Thankfully, there had been some weird goop that hardened on her foot like a cast after Wendy had set the bone, hopefully properly. So now her right foot was entirely encased in this sparkly purple crystal-like stuff that reminded her of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. (However, she hoped this would come off as soon as her foot healed.)
At the moment, she'd have to use the wall for balance and her spear as a makeshift crutch. At least her ankle didn't flare up with pain every time it shifted. She might even be able to quickly hobble away from whatever nightmare creature chased her.
Wendy came back in, and she gaped at her. "What are you doing? Those are the trap nachos!"
"Uh, no. You are not trapping delicious nachos. These are the me nachos," Camo corrected, munching on them some more. "Do you want some?" Wendy facepalmed, and she shrugged. "Your loss."
"Now what are we going to use as a trap?" the older teen asked.
She thought for a moment, intent on figuring something out. Then she just shrugged again. "I dunno." An idea came to her, and she swallowed down her bite of chip. "You know, there is something I've wanted to try for a while . . ."
Dipper hid under a trash bag.
It was hardly the most heroic thing he'd done, but you did what you had to do to survive. The eye-bat passed over him, having sated its need for humans with the now-stone pizza guy hovering in its beam. Once he was sure it was gone, he pushed the trash off of him and climbed back up to his feet.
However, there was another eye-bat behind him, and its red beam nearly got his sneaker before he'd noticed it. He yelped and ran, jumping over a nearby fence and hiding for cover. Once the red light passed, he pulled out his walkie-talkie and, once again, tried to contact Mabel.
"Mabel, it's me. So far, I've eluded capture, but I haven't been able to find you, Stan, or Camo anywhere. I don't know if you can hear me, but wherever you are, whatever happens, I'm going to find you." It felt hopeless, but he couldn't give out hope. Mabel was strong. She was going to be okay.
And he would find her.
He heard a loud caw, and there was a pterodactyl, on top of the mall. It pulled off the A and flew away, and his eyes lit up. "The mall! Maybe they're hiding in there."
There was a loud bang, and he ducked. But, it was just this head with an arm sticking out of the top of it, pulling itself along the ground. After it had passed him, he ran as fast as he could over the parking lot and to the mall. However, he slammed into the glass (what was he, a bird? of course there was glass, Dipper, pull yourself together) and the head thing heard it.
"Hey," it said. "Hey, you." He turned to look at it. "Hey, I wanna talk to you." It spun itself around and started coming towards him. "I wanna talk to you about going inside my mouth. I think you wanna get in here. Hey, you! Hey, I'm talkin' to you!"
Panic flooded him as it moved closer, and he was still stuck against the no-longer-automatic door. "You don't have to make a big deal outta this," the head continued. But, he did. He desperately tried to ply apart the doors. Camo probably could've done it pretty fast, but he wasn't Camo. It took him a second, but he managed to pull it open enough for him to pop through. Thank goodness he was small.
"Why are you just ignoring me?" the head asked him. He flipped himself over and backed up just in time to avoid the massive hand coming through the doors. "That's seriously rude to just ignore someone like this!"
He decided to leave the hand to its groping around, so he backed up into a column. The mall was in shambles. Still, he called, "Stan! Mabel! Camo!"
A light in the food court flickered on, over a solitary table. On it was a sheet of paper. Cautiously, he stepped towards it and read what it said.
If I can trust you are who you look like, tell me: what is my real name? ~Hidden Person
What? Hidden Person? Who was that?
He bit his lip. A puzzle. He was pretty good at those, sometimes. (No, the Whattheheckahedron did not count. That . . . aw, man, even a pig was better than him at that.) Hidden Person, Hidden Person, Hidden Person . . .
Hidden Person . . . H . . . P. That could be shortened to HP. Did he know an HP?
A thought occurred to him. Yes, he did know an HP: Camo HP. That was what she went by! And what hides someone? Camouflage, or camo! Plus, Camo was exactly the sort of person to leave a cryptic message in the apocalypse.
"Camo," he said aloud. No, wait, her real name. What had it been again? "Er, Chamomile . . . Hibiscus Persephone?"
A person moved in the shadows. "Eh, close enough," a familiar voice said. "It's Hydrangea, actually. You can come out, Wendy." Camo came into view, though he had no clue why she was dressed the way she was. Sure, she usually wore some weird stuff, but . . . She held up a finger. "Don't even mention the clothes, buddy," she warned him. Huh. She had a . . . a floating top hat.
"How is the hat—"
"Floating?" she asked, then sighed. "I had a run-in with Bill. I think I'm some sort of narcissism doll, or something, to him. Anyway." She looked pointedly at a potted plant. "I said, you can come out."
A familiar head popped up out of the plant. "Ah, whatever," Wendy said rolling her eyes.
Dipper stared at her, aghast. "Wendy? Oh, no. You've been transformed into some sort of tree monster!" he yelped.
Camo burst into giggles, practically rolling on the ground. Even Wendy let out a bark of laughter. "It's just camouflage." (Next to him, Camo wheezed. Ah, yes. Camo, camouflage, he could see how she thought that funny.) Wendy stepped out of the pot. "My dad made me and my brothers do apocalypse training every year instead of Christmas. Guess it's sort of cool their paranoia paid off."
"I'm staying at your house for the holidays," Camo declared.
A bat flew by, and Wendy promptly shot it with a crossbow bolt. "Nice! Bat meat."
However, Dipper ran forward and hugged Wendy instead of Camo, since she was still on the floor. "I'm so glad to find you guys. I thought everyone I knew was gone."
"Hey, hey, it's okay," Wendy said, crouching down and touching his shoulders. "We have each other now. And Toby Determined, who I accidently mistook for a monster."
The ugly man said, "This just in: this arrow in my shoulder!"
Camo narrowed her eyes at him. "I still want to stab him." Dipper gave her an alarmed look, but she just shrugged it off with a grin.
"We shouldn't stay out in the open for too long. Let me show you my—er, our hideout." Both Dipper and Camo nodded, and he noticed her having difficulties moving around. For the first time, he noticed the hardened goop on her foot, and the way she was holding a . . . a spear? What had happened to her?
Right. He'd ask later.
Camo sat on the floor, her leg awkwardly out in front of her. Dumb ankle. Wendy was roasting the bat over the garbage fire, and it smelled . . . decent. She was just glad she'd eaten the trap nachos, especially since her idea with the puzzle had worked.
"We were playing Truth or Dare in the cemetery when it happened," Wendy was explaining to Dipper. Obviously, Camo had heard all this this morning. "The eyeballs froze Nate, Lee, Tambry, and Thompson." She opened the cash register she was sitting on and wiped off a bead of sweat with the money. "Robbie almost got away, but had to pause to take a selfie. What about you?"
"I was in a fight with Mabel when it happened," he informed them. Camo winced at the memory. "Uncle Ford asked me to be his apprentice after the summer was over. But that would mean I wouldn't go back home. It would mean growing up without Mabel."
Wendy looked appropriately concerned.
"Mabel didn't take it well, and she ran off into the forest," he concluded. "She couldn't even look me in the eye." His voice started to break, and he hugged himself. Camo put a comforting hand on his arm, and he looked down at her. "What about you, Camo? Weren't you at the Shack?"
She nodded, trying to look optimistic. This conversation was getting her depressed. "Oh, yeah. I spent the first day at the Shack with Stan—he's fine, the unicorn voodoo worked—then I left after a little bit. Spent a while helping random people, until I was a dummy and broke my ankle this morning." She gestured to the surprisingly heavy goop with a frown.
"Come on," Wendy suggested, "let's get some fresh air. Toby, you watch the camp."
He threw open the tarp, revealing himself wearing all sorts of dumb goth stuff that did not work for him, like a bright blue mohawk. "Don't call me Toby anymore. Call me Bodacious T."
Camo shuddered. Really, why wasn't she allowed to stab him? "No one will ever call you that," Wendy deadpanned, and the man whined.
Before long, they were up on the roof, and Camo was really glad that they didn't take her route up, since that had ended with her breaking an ankle. Instead, they stood on solid concrete, staring out at the shambles of the town. "The end of the world. Man," Wendy said. "Those death metal album covers got it shockingly right." She took a drink of her soda.
Dipper looked down at his own. "You know, I used to think I could get out of anything. But this? The Journals are destroyed. Ford is captured, and I can't find Mabel anywhere. Even Stan is all the way at the Shack." He walked away to dramatically look up at the floating pyramid. "Bill said it himself. There's no room for heroes out here. We lost."
Camo scoffed. "Yeah, right. I'm out here, and Soos—well, last I saw of him, he was being pretty heroic." Dipper looked like he wanted elaboration, but she was too busy glancing down at her broken ankle. "But yeah, heroes do get it tougher than everyone else."
"Look, dude, it's not over yet," Wendy reminded him. Both of the girls had made their way to standing next to him, even though Camo was doing so with some level of pain. "You've beaten Bill twice before. Why is this time any different?"
She looked away. Both of them knew why, though Dipper was the one to voice it. "'Cause then, we had Mabel," he said sadly.
"Then you need to get Mabel back. Look, this summer, I've seen some amazing things, but nothing as amazing as you and your sister. I don't know if it's dumb luck, or yin and yang or whatever, but when you two work together"—Camo reminded herself that this was Dipper's pep talk, that she didn't need to be included—"there's, like, nothing you two can't accomplish. You just need to make up and team up, and save the universe."
"But how will we ever find her?" he asked, which was a good question. She'd been over a lot of the town at this point, and she hadn't even heard rumors about where Mabel had gone, much less seen her. She was pondering over this when a weirdness monster came and ripped up the Pitt sign in front of them.
It revealed a dark sphere, glowing with pink light from inside and covered by a chain. On the front, there was a shooting star picture. Naturally, she'd seen it before, from down in the town, but she'd never found it significant. Not until Dipper gasped, "The shooting star from Mabel's sweater! She's in there. I know it."
"Whoa, is that like twin ESP?" Wendy asked.
"No, we don't have that," he admitted. "But we do have this thing where our allergies totally act up at the same time." He sneezed, just like a kitten, and Camo smiled. "Mabel needs us," he said determinedly.
She opened her bag just enough to see the sweater inside. Now they knew where she was, so it was just up to getting there.
"How are we gonna get out there without being caught?" Dipper asked, staring at the mass of eye-bats and weird colorful bubbles she hadn't dared touch.
"I have an idea," Wendy said, and she was looking down at Bud's car shop.
They hid behind the fence. That had been Dipper's idea. If it had been up to Camo, she would already be inside, hijacking a car. Instead, she was pouting while Wendy looked with binoculars. "The abandoned auto mart." Was there anywhere that wasn't abandoned at this point? "Free cars, ripe for the hot wiring. We just found our ride to Mabel."
They all jumped the fence. Dipper, Wendy, and Toby all made it without trouble, though Camo, unfortunately, had some moments of struggle as she tried to get over without hurting her ankle. After a second, though, she was limping after the others with her spear.
"Wonder if they have a tank," Wendy was saying. "I've always wanted to drive a tank."
She ran off, and Camo caught up to Dipper. "I can't believe this place is just abandoned," he said softly.
She shrugged. "Lots of places are. Not much you can do with this many cars when debris covers half the streets." They continued looking around for the perfect car, and though Camo was dead-set on this dark green truck, the others had some reservations about it.
Suddenly, Toby fell to the ground, covered in tranquilizer darts. Camo suddenly realized she had a bagful of those things that she literally hadn't used once. "Oh, no! Tony!" Wendy shouted. "Was it Tony?" she asked after a second. "I can never remember his name."
Headlights turned on, and the three of them shielded their eyes from it (in Camo's case, eye. Yes, she was still salty about that.) Lots of people laughed around them, and one of the guys said, "Well, well, looks like we got ourselves a group of ground walkers."
"Ha ha, ground walkers," another one jeered. "Ain't got no wheels."
They all laughed again, and Camo tried to balance on one foot as she pointed her spear around threateningly. "Listen, discount auto warriors," Wendy ordered angrily.
"We just wanna make it to that bubble out east," Dipper told them. "We have no quarrel with you."
"Yeah, what they said," Camo added helpfully.
Another guy, standing in the shadow, said, "Oh, but that's where you're wrong." He was clearly using a voice filter. "Hands where I can see 'em." He pointed at them with a big muscly arm. He had on a cowboy hat. Dipper and Wendy thrust their hands in the air, and Camo tried to, though she fell over rather painfully on her butt. "Y'all fellers ain't goin' nowhere."
"Y'all?" Wendy asked, confused.
Dipper, with equal confusion, said, "Fellers? Wait. Gideon?"
The lights turned on, revealing the ten-year-old standing on the head of a big guy, holding a microphone. "That's Sherriff Gideon," the gremlin said. Under the authority of Bill Cipher, I place you three under arrest. Oh, hi, Wendy. Have we formally met?"
They were led to some weird face-off thing, the guys pointing their spears at them. Camo hated those things. They were so unoriginal! And they took hers away, leaving her with nothing to balance with. They were thrown down in front of Gideon.
"Look who the apocalypse dragged in," he laughed. "Y'all are in a 12-piece bucket of deep fried trouble now. Ghost Eyes, spittoon." He snapped his fingers and spat out his gum.
"Ugh, it's Gideon," Dipper groaned.
"And he's gotten folksier," Wendy commented with disgust.
The kid loomed over them. "My old pal Bill figured you might try to rescue Mabel, so he appointed me master of these wastelands"—that Soos was (probably) patrolling right now—"and keeper of the bubble." He squeezed his hand around where he perceived it to be. "My sweet, precious Mabel's trapped inside, and I have the only key wrapped around my . . . well, I wouldn't call it a neck exactly. Wrapped around this little pocket of fat under my head."
"Gideon, you have no right to keep her in there," Dipper told him, glaring at the kid. Camo wore a matching expression.
"Bill explained it to me nice and simple. She was always destined to be mine, and now that I have her in a cage, she'll learn to love me." He pulled out a newspaper article and stroked it creepily. "I have an eternity to wait."
He missed how furious Dipper was getting. Camo scooted away from him a little bit.
Gideon snapped. "Ghost Eyes, ready to escort our friends to Bill's dungeon?" The beefy guy in question walked over and grabbed Dipper and Wendy, though he seemed confused on what to do about Camo. He ended up slinging her over his shoulder, so she kicked him with the hardened goop on her foot. Which turned out to be a bad idea, as a flare of pain went through her foot, and she whimpered.
"This isn't gonna work, Gideon," Wendy told him.
"Oh? And why's that?"
"Because after I break Ghost Eyes' arm, and steal that key from your neck, I'm gonna wear your butt on my foot like a rhinestone slipper," Wendy threatened. The goons were laughing, though a grin was breaking out on Camo's face. Not that anyone could see, since she was facing away.
Gideon joined in on the mocking laughter. "And what makes you think you can do all that?"
"'Cause I'm a flippin' Corduroy!" she screamed, and before Camo knew what was happening, she was on the floor and Wendy was on Ghost Eyes' back, holding onto his arm. She must've done it, because the guy fell over. Dipper got to his feet and then helped her hurry along after Wendy, who stole the key from around Gideon's flab and held him in front of her like a meat shield.
"Get back!" she shouted. "Get back, or I will drop-kick him, I swear!" They ran over to a car, Dipper and Camo doing some sort of three legged race, and Wendy broke the window and tried to unlock it from the inside.
Gideon, who was being held by the teen by his belt, told them, "You'll never get away with this, you hear me?"
She got it open. "Guess what? We already did." She drop-kicked him with the last word, and Camo cheered when he fell into the other goons. Then they all climbed in the car, Camo reluctantly taking the middle of the backseat since they were up front already.
"Wendy, you're the coolest person I know," Dipper said in awe. Camo gasped, offended, but no one cared.
"I know, dude. Tell me about it later." She pushed on the gas and drove out. Before long, Gideon had his goons chasing them. (It wasn't "Gideon and his goons" because that little guy was so short he probably couldn't reach the pedal).
Dipper, who now had the key, laid it out. "Okay, all we have to do is outrace Gideon's henchmen, unlock the bubble, save Mabel, save the world." They ran into a mailbox that blew past them. She couldn't see his face, but she guessed he was looking disturbed. "Quick question: did you ever get your driver's license?"
"Definitely not. Arm!" Camo was confused until she realized there was a massive arm in the road. They swerved past it, and through the back window she could see it was that head thing that had stalked the outside of the mall for a while. She watched it shove a car in its mouth, gleeful in a somewhat bloodthirsty way.
Up ahead, there was a maze of colorful bubbles that did not bode well. "Watch it! Go around that bubble field," Dipper suggested.
"No way around," Wendy shot back. "Hold on! We're goin' through."
Camo yelled "WHAT?!" at the same time Dipper shrieked, "What's even in there?"
Everyone screamed as they went into the bubble. It felt like her guts were being melted, and then, before she knew it, everyone had bird heads and wanted worms and was squawking. Then it was over, and she was laying in the backseat, clutching her stomach, and coughing up feathers.
"Oh, that was horrible," Dipper said.
"I never want to go through that again," she moaned.
Wendy warned them, "Here comes another one, dudes. Brace yourselves!"
"WHAT DID I JUST SAY?!"
They went through three in quick succession. I'm not really sure what happened in the first one, as I was screaming the whole time. Eramthgin sdrawkcab eht hguorht demaercs osla ehs. For the last one, when she looked at her hands, they were all bubbly and cartoony and weird, and she only had four fingers. Where was her other finger?! Dipper and Wendy were cartoony too! Everything was! What was going on?!
Then it ended, and she had her fifth finger again. She sighed in relief.
At least until one of the trucks caught up with them and rubbed up against them. It broke the driver's side windows, so Wendy was covered in broken glass and Camo, who had far too much experience with broken glass, scooted over to the other side of the backseat. It probably wasn't smart to not be wearing a seatbelt while in a car chase, but whatever.
"Guys, we're almost there!" Dipper shouted, pointing. "We just have to make that jump."
"Total lack of driver's training, don't fail me now," Wendy said urgently.
Camo shrugged. "Well, you're still better than Stan."
She changed the gear they were in, and they pulled ahead of the other truck. They sped towards the gap, and Camo made a last-minute decision to buckle up. The lock had just snapped into place when they soared into the sky. For a moment, they were weightless, and then they hit the ground roughly and rolled over. It was painful and crazy, but all of them survived, and none of them were paralyzed.
When the dust settled and they came to a stop, both she and Dipper flung open their doors, though he was the first one to actually get out, since she had to deal with a broken ankle. When she looked out, though, she saw a familiar black-robed person, and a grin split her face. "Soos!"
"Heya, guys! How's it hangin'?" he asked, flipping down his hood. Dipper looked shocked, but she was just trying to free herself of the backseat. After a moment, she flung out onto the rough ground, though not without a stabbing pain to her ankle. She winced and held it comfortingly. "Handyman of the apocalypse, at your service. Oh, by the way, Camo, thanks for the meat. Really helped."
She gave him a sort of weak thumbs-up.
"Soos, how'd you . . . where'd you . . ." Dipper tried to ask, clearly very confused.
He went to Wendy, who was very beaten up. "I've been wandering the plains like a desperado, helping strangers. I guess there are some folk songs about me now."
"Are there any about me?" Camo asked hopefully.
"Oh, yeah, I think I heard one. 'Dressed like a servant of Bill, but going against his will' . . . wasn't half bad." She grinned. "Let me see what the damage is here," he told Wendy, inspecting her arm. "Ah. Well, the good new is, your arm is okay."
Dipper put on his hat. "So what's the bad news?"
"Bad news is, we're surrounded, dudes." Sure enough, the surviving goons were around them. Wait. Why weren't their cars all screwed? That was unfair.
"Oo-whee," Gideon said as he pulled up. "I daresay you almost had the jump on me there for a second. But this ain't your Gravity Falls anymore. Out here, I win." He clapped his hands, and a horn was thrown to him. He blew it, and a massive swarm of eye-bats came towards them. "Bill's hench-bats will be here any minute to retrieve y'all. Mabel's mine now!" He cackled.
Dipper looked at the key in his hand. She could see the idea brewing. "Is she?" he asked.
"Well, yeah. I have her trapped. Ergo, Mabel is mine."
He stepped forwards. Camo just sat on the passenger seat and watched. "Gideon, listen to me. If I've learned anything this summer, it's that you can't force someone to love you." Aw, he was looking at Wendy when he said that. He was so sweet sometimes. "The best you can do is strive to be someone worthy of loving."
"Oh, I'm worthy of lovin'. These prisoners love me." The goons cheered.
"But Mabel doesn't, because you're selfish. But you can change. Bill thinks there's no heroes in this world, but if we work together and fight back, we can defeat him. You wanna be Mabel's hero? Stand up to Bill and let us save her."
Gideon looked afraid, which meant he was listening. "That's crazy. You know what Bill would do to me if that happens?"
Ghost Eyes asked, "What, are you scared of Bill?"
"No, I ju . . . it's a complicated situation."
"Look inside, Gideon," Dipper continued. He was wrapping it up, she could tell. "If all this is for Mabel, then ask yourself what Mabel would want you to do." The gremlin—no, the kid looked behind him, at her bubble, deep in thought. He pulled out his newspaper article and looked at it closely.
When he looked at them next, there were tears in his eyes. "Dipper, will you tell her what I did?"
"O-of course."
"I hope you're right about this," he said quietly, clutching the article to his chest. "Guys, new plan. Bill's minions are gonna be on us in seconds. But I'm not gonna let that dumb triangle be the warden of me. Y'all ready for a good, old-fashioned prison brawl?"
Ghost Eyes pulled on a chain. "We're behind you for life, brother."
"Fighting children is boring," another goon said. "Fighting a chaos god sounds fun."
"Let's do this! Henchmen, roll out!" And they all rode into the distance, cheering, leaving Dipper, Wendy, Camo, and Soos standing there, staring at the retreating cars.
Soos sighed in relief. "And I thought I was gonna have to throw down."
Camo elbowed Dipper with a smile. "That was one heck of a pep talk. You did good."
He smiled back up at her.
They stood in front of Mabel's bubble, with its triangular lock. Of course it was a triangle, and the key hole in the circle made it look like Bill's face. She shuddered slightly, though no one else seemed to notice.
"Okay," Dipper said. "Remember, guys, this is a prison bubble designed by Bill. We've gotta prepare ourselves for what we find in here."
"Whatever it is, we'll do it together," Soos said, because he was sappy like that. "For Mabel," he added, putting his hand out.
Wendy added her hand. "For Mabel."
Camo joined in, hanging onto Soos because of her ankle. "For Mabel."
Dipper was the last one. "For Mabel." Then he stepped forward with the key and unlocked the bubble. The chains fell off and to the ground. They all held hands, because they were apparently all sappy like that, and stepped into the bubble.
The world faded to white.
And we're back to canon stuff! I don't know if you guys liked the last two Weirdmageddon chapters, but these are significantly easier to write, since I don't have to come up with as much stuff.
We're drawing to a close on this fic. I swear, I will explain everything related to Camo being here, there is a really good reason, but that isn't until the end. (Fortunately, you don't have to wait very long lol.)
Hang in there!