"Welcome aboard new passenger! I'm your conductor One One!"
The first thing that Stan was aware of as he stirred into consciousness, besides the weird voice talking to him, was how bright it was. Hadn't it been night a second ago? He blinked, trying to adjust to the light and focused on what seemed to be a TV screen in front of him, displaying an image of some kind of white ball? What was going on?
"Once you wipe those groggy little peepers, you'll probably have lots of questions. Like… Where am I? Why am I here?"
"More like where's everybody else?" Stan muttered, sitting up and looking around as his memories returned to him. He had bordered the weird train with his family and was now waking up in a weird… pod? And a quick glance around didn't show any pods nearby with Dipper or Ford in them.
"Are snacks provided? For those of you talking to me like I'm there in real life, I'm not! I'm a cold, steely, prerecorded video."
Stan couldn't help but chuckle a little at that. The ball may be weird, but at least it had a sense of humor that he could appreciate.
"And this is a train where you sort out your problems. How about that number on your hand, huh? Pretty cool and green?"
Stan blinked at that and looked down at his hand and sure enough, there was a number glowing green.
1673
Stan frowned and tried to rub it away with his other hand, but there was no effect.
"Every passenger has one. The numbers are made by the train based on your life in order to help you to have the most personalized experience we can offer."
Stan frowned at that. He didn't like the idea of some weird train digging into his past. How would even do that? Probably some kind of magic thing. Stupid magic… he didn't even know it was something that could cause him problems until he came to Gravity Falls all those years ago.
"If you want to go home, get your number down to zero. And poof! Away you go! I'm a zero…"
Stan glanced at the number in his palm before clenching his hand into a fist. Going home didn't matter right now, finding his family did. He'd worry about the number thing after he was reunited with the twins.
"But always remember there are lots of denizens along the way to help you on your journey. Don't be afraid to reach out. Unless the denizen is one of those monsters with more teeth than body."
Stan felt his heart skip a beat at that. There were monsters on the train? Granted the kids had handled their fair share of monsters at this point, but that doesn't make Stan worry any less. The twins had a terrible knack for finding trouble, the current situation an excellent example, and Stan's had to serve them more than once. This just made finding the kids even more important.
"Remember that you can't spell "escape" without "companionship"… Uh… companion-shape? Companion-scape? By watching this recording, you agreed to release the train of all liabilities…"
While Stan could respect a lengthy disclaimer, it was clear that he wouldn't be getting any more useful information out of the video and it was time to start his search. Climbing out of the pod, Stan really looked around the place he found himself in. He appeared to be in a large field of sunflowers with a dirt path only a few steps from where his pod sat. Stan decided to hurry along the path.
Luckily, it wasn't very long before he came to a red door just standing in the middle of the path. Stan eyed it suspiciously, walking a full circle around it before going up to it. He tapped it experimentally and with nothing weird happened, he grabbed onto the weird golden symbol in its center. The symbol turned easily and once it had been flipped around, there was a clicking sound and the door opened, showing what appeared to be a bridge to the next train car.
Instead of walking toward to the next car right away, Stan walked around to the side a bit and looked across the side of the train. There were a numberless amount of cars ahead of him, curving over far from him and beyond his eyesight. Looking behind him, he saw the same thing. For a moment, he felt his heart drop. How was he going to find his family in all this? It'd be impossible to search every one of them.
Stan angrily shook those thoughts away. He was Stan Pines! He didn't know the meaning of impossible. He spent thirty years working on a sci-fi portal built without the help of a demon to save his brother, having only a third of the instructions and not even a high school diploma. Anyone else in that position would have said it was impossible and given up, but he succeeded! After that, he wasn't going to let some train beat him. He'd either find his family himself or find that little ball and punt it around until it showed him where his family was.
Filled with renewed determination, Stan went to the car and opened the door. The sudden noise of a crowd cheering and bright lighting, caused Stan to pause as he took in the car's contents. It seemed to be a large stadium, filled to the brim with green-skinned humanoid fans. In the center was a boxing ring and a really big and buff green humanoid standing in one corner, boxing gloves on his hands and a big shiny belt around his waist.
"A new challenger has appeared," an announcer said as a spotlight appeared over Stan's head. "Will he be able to beat the reigning Champion: the Green Giant?"
Stan grinned and cracked his knuckles. A boxing match… now that was something he could handle.
Stan grinned as he adjusted the belt around his waist, the crowd's cheers and chants of his name cutting off as the car's door shut behind him. A little battered but feeling confident, Stan went to the next car.
Stan steadily worked his way through the train cars, keeping an eye out for the twins as he went. Some cars were easy to get through, like the rug car and pumpkin car, while others had puzzles to solve and others even dangerous. (If Stan ever got his hands on that little ball he'd punt it as hard as he could for creating something like the lava mole.) But despite all the cars he went through, he still hadn't found any sign of the twins and he was starting to get frustrated. He hoped he'd find them soon.
He had just entered the next car, one that seemed to have a deep canyon with floating and moving rocks to help cross it much to his dismay, when he heard a very familiar scream.
"I'd know that high pitched girly scream anywhere," Stan muttered before he took off running further into the car. "DIPPER!"
