Closer Than Ever Before
Author Note:
Sorry for the delay. I had final exams (aced them), then I needed to apply to BYU, and also for scholarships, so that took up a lot of time. Hopefully this chapter is worth the wait.
The action is picking up, even if this chapter does parallel a canon episode more than the previous ones did. I promise plenty of things are different and lots of important stuff happens here.
To anyone waiting for updates on One Day Reunited…sorry, but I'm putting it on hiatus. Torches and pitchforks down! Please hear me out first. I've hit a substantial roadblock with the parallel to Episode 4, but the ideas are really flowing for Closer Than Ever Before story right now. I've decided to focus on it for the time being.
Also, just so no one gets onto me about this, I went back and made a little change to Chapter 3 with how Dipper and Mabel distinguish who's talking, so it's easier for me to write and think about. All that's different now is that when the hat's facing forward, Dipper is talking, and when it's backward, Mabel is talking.
Now that's out of the way, so let's get on with the show!
Oh, right. The code. Well… this should look familiar.
18-5-22-5-18-19 20-8-5 3-9-16-8-5-18-19
Chapter 5: Subita Nexus
July 28
"Come on… come on… just another minute."
Thunder rumbled in the gray sky overhead as two boys sprinted down the street toward a decrepit convenience store. After helping each other over the fence, they ran around to the side and climbed onto a dumpster next to the wall. One boy then climbed on the other's shoulders to get onto the roof, then reached down and pulled his companion up. They wasted no time in climbing to the top and diving one after the other into the busted grate of an air–conditioning unit. Just as they got inside, thunder boomed again, and raindrops began to fall. "That was way too close," the boy in back said, breathing hard as they crawled through the ducts. "I swear, that's the last time we trust the Gossiper for a weather forecast."
"Well, I told you we should have taken the raincoats just in case," said the second boy, his slightly scornful voice echoing strangely in the confined space.
"You always say that, even when there's not a cloud in the sky!"
Reaching an already smashed–in vent, the boys dropped into the store. Among a detritus of food wrappers and spilled drinks, smashed shelves and machines lay haphazardly all over the place as if they'd somehow been lifted up and dropped from the ceiling.
"Well, excuse me if I don't want to gamble with our lives!"
"Then why are we back in here? This place is haunted!" the second boy said, fear plainly audible.
"It'll be fine. Think about it: we're even further from being teenagers now, so the ghosts won't care," said the first boy. "Besides, this is the perfect hideout: plenty of food if we want it, no monsters, no rain, and best of all, no one else will ever come in here, especially not him."
This seemed to assuage the second boy's fears somewhat. "I guess that's true. Once it stops raining, we can go get our stuff from the campsite and bring it here."
Smiling, the first boy opened his arms. "Awkward sibling hug?"
"Awkward sibling hug," the second boy agreed, and hugged his brother. Each of them patted the other twice on the back.
"Pat, pat."
The Mystery Shack
July 31, 9 AM
While eating breakfast the next day, Stan, Mabel, and Dipper had agreed that even if they were eventually going to tell the kids' parents everything, it probably wasn't a good idea to spread it all around town. They were still trying to think of a way to avoid this when Wendy and Soos arrived for work. Wendy immediately came up with a solution.
"Dude, it's obvious. Just pretend Dipper's got the flu or something," she suggested. "Are you telling me neither of you has ever tried to skip school before?"
"Dipper's too much of a nerd for that," Mabel laughed, then flipped around the pine tree hat they now wore everywhere.
"Mabel tried a few times when we were little, but she always gave it away by giggling too much," Dipper said. "Later, there were, uh… other reasons."
–Like keeping me safe, for one.
Can't let those stink faces make fun of my best bro–bro, can I? Only I get to do that! And Wendy, I guess… and Grunkle Stan…
Though his facial expression didn't change, Mabel got the distinct impression of Dipper glaring at her.
Hey, I just call it like I see it, Dippingsauce!
After a bit more discussion, they decided that if anyone asked, Dipper was in bed with the flu, which he'd allegedly caught by falling asleep on the roof after several nights of sleep deprivation (some of that was true, at least). This also provided a convenient excuse for his strange behavior at the theater while possessed by Bill: a fever-induced hallucination. Of course, this meant they had to keep up the pretense of everything else being otherwise normal. Fortunately, Stan was well practiced at keeping huge secrets, and Wendy and Soos knew their jobs were on the line (though even without that, they had no problem keeping a secret to protect and help their friends).
Once that was settled, they finished cleaning up and opened the Shack to the first group of tourists. Stan scammed tourists and made a small child cry, Wendy ran up purchases, and Soos fixed things, while Mabel and/or Dipper kept things marginally clean and stocked the shelves. In other words, business as usual for the Mystery Shack. That is, until Soos said something to a woman that caused her to drop the snowglobe she was holding and run screaming from the gift shop, breaking a shelf off the wall on the way. Dipper (who was in control at the time), asked Soos what was going on.
"I–I think I was flirting?" the heavyset handyman answered. "But I'm not sure."
Did someone say FLIRTING?
After Dipper conveyed Mabel's question (though not in those exact words, much to her disappointment), Soos proceeded to explain that he'd promised his grandma to get a date for his cousin Reggie's engagement party next week, but that he'd never actually been on a date before. Soos sighed and stuck an "out of order" sign from the nearby vending machine/secret door onto his chest. Knowing Mabel could handle this situation far better than he could (and beginning to get a headache from holding in her emotions), Dipper pulled off his hat and returned control to her.
"Finally! My prayers for a chance to matchmake this summer have been answered!" Mabel exclaimed, falling to her knees in a pose of exultation.
Less-than-encouraging responses from Stan and Wendy did nothing to dampen her enthusiasm… but the other presence in her mind did.
"I should probably stay here though… to help Dipper get, uh… better," she said, face falling. We're still not even halfway through the other two Journals… she thought, dreams of matchmaking seeming to flutter away out the window.
–I think you should go for it.
Wait, REALLY!? Mabel's face lit up.
–Sure. Soos helps us out so much. Like returning my vest last night. Or two nights ago… he and Wendy took… Well, they carried out my last request anyway, even if it didn't really work out. It's time we did something for him.
You don't want to stay here and read the Journals instead? … How sure are we that you're actually Dipper and not some brain-monster friend of Bill's or something?
–I can tell you're still exhausted from the past couple of days, and this is the perfect opportunity for a short break. Would a brain-monster care about you like that? And I see what you're planning to do with Soos. We can bring the Journals with us and look through them in our downtime.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! … It's too bad I can't hug you right now.
–That's okay. Save it for our dreams tonight.
Apparently, sharing minds also meant sharing dreams, allowing Dipper and Mabel to actually see each other within the Mindscape, just as they'd done when Dipper first entered his twin's mind. Unfortunately, like with any dream, remembering what happened there was rather difficult.
Mabel jumped for joy and bolted up the stairs to get her brother's backpack and the Journals. At Dipper's request, she also packed his pocket knife, some pens (after promising not to chew on them), and a notepad. Just minutes later, she was back downstairs telling Soos "never mind, Dipper will be fine. We're going where romance lives, and fashions go to die…"
"To the mall!"
–Did you seriously stay completely silent for twenty minutes just for dramatic tension?
Yes. Yes I did.
–That's…impressive
Stan had left Wendy in charge of the Mystery Shack so he could come with them, a move which shocked all of them, but none more than Wendy herself (she actually fell off her stool behind the counter when he said it). According to Stan, this was so he could follow her advice and find a replacement for one of his now–broken creepy sideshow attractions. He left them at the entrance, telling Mabel to "babysit Soos" until he got back.
–Since when does Stan take suggestions from Wendy of all people, let alone leave her in charge? Yesterday must have really rattled him…
But Mabel wasn't really paying attention to the voices in her head. She was in her element, and immediately began assessing the dating potential of every woman who looked reasonably close to Soos's age, as well as several who definitely did not.
"Alright, Soos," she said, "You ready to explode the charm-bomb on these poor unsuspecting ladies?"
"Uh…but what if I embarrass myself again?" Soos said nervously, sweat rolling down his face.
"Hey, cheer up! You can't be any worse at this than Dipper!" Mabel replied, tapping her forehead, where Dipper's birthmark was just barely visible behind her hair.
–Yeah!…wait, what?
"Ready, set…and FLIRT!" Mabel yelled, blowing a whistle.
The next few hours consisted of Mabel advising Soos on various points of flirting, and him attempting to implement that advice without much success, though it was pretty funny to watch. Dipper was meanwhile looking back through all his memories of attempted "romance" with Wendy in a new light. Had he really been this obvious and awkward? Sure, Wendy herself had apparently heard all the stuff he'd whispered under his breath, but she was…well, Wendy. Was he really just a big joke to everyone else?
Mabel finally responded to this train of thought while she and Soos sat on a bench in front of BeeblyBoop's Videogames.
Of course not! I mean, yeah, it was funny, but most boys are hilariously bad at flirting. You should have seen Grunkle Stan try it with Lazy Susan!
–...Okay, I did not need to see that.
She pulled a rubber stretchy hand out of a plastic ball from the prize machine next to them.
"Don't worry, Soos! You'll find the right girl. You just need to stick with it! Haha!" Mabel encouraged, emphasizing the point by stretching back the hand and releasing it to stick onto Soos's face. It did not appear to work in terms of cheering him up.
"Could this day get any worse?" Soos sighed dejectedly. He happened to look toward the mall entrance. A man who somewhat resembled Soos, but with a fancy black mullet-like hairstyle, had just walked in, arm in arm with a short, pretty, dark-haired woman.
"Oh, no! Cousin Reggie! He can't see me like this!" Soos panicked and ran into the video game store behind them.
Mabel followed and found Soos crouched at the back of the store, holding a game called Romance Academy 7, which featured a winking pastel-colored anime girl on the front cover.
"This is perfect!" said Soos, looking upbeat for the first time that day.
–Well, I guess he is better at games than at flirting…
"Anything to get you out there, Soos!" Mabel said. Soos handed her the game.
"I'm not sure you want to buy that game, sir," said the store clerk, "This is the third time someone's brought it back, and there's a note on the back that says 'Destroy at all costs!'"
Mabel turned the box over to find just such a note, accompanied by a table-flipping emoticon.
–I don't know, Mabel. There's something weird about this…
Behind them, Soos was attempting to flirt with the woman on an advertisement for the latest Pit Spelunker game.
"Ah, she's dead!" he said when the cardboard cutout fell over.
"We'll take our chances," Mabel told the store clerk.
After Soos paid for the game, they found Stan pacing outside a children's arcade while muttering under his breath. He drove them back to the Shack, dropping Soos off on the way.
Wendy did not appear to have trashed the gift shop in Stan's absence. According to her, no additional tourists had shown up, but a tour bus was scheduled to come in soon, so Stan started getting ready. Unfortunately, she brought another problem to their attention in the form of yesterday's newspaper, which had been delivered that morning after they left. (The Gossiper's delivery schedulewas rather erratic, as the paperboys Toby hired tended to quit after about a week of working with him.)
"LOCAL HERO DEAD!" proclaimed the headline. Beneath it was a black-and-white picture of Mabel holding Dipper's bloodstained, lifeless body under the water tower.
–He must have been hiding in the bushes and saw the whole thing.
"It's the Gossiper, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said, "Nobody said anything about this to me at the mall, so they probably just think it's Toby making things up again."
–That photo's pretty convincing…but you're right, no one seemed to notice anything today.
Stan gripped the paper so hard it crumpled at the edges. "If I ever get my hands on that little rat of a reporter… and right when we're so close…"
"We'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it," Mabel sighed.
Indeed, no one else seemed to think anything was out of the ordinary. Granted, no one who actually knew the twins personally came into the Mystery Shack for the rest of the day, but it was still extremely strange. Like no one remembered the night of the puppet show at all…
Soos didn't come in to work the next day, which made it a momentous occasion for the Mystery Shack. Though Stan was slightly preoccupied with ranting to Wendy about an animatronic badger he'd seen at the mall, he still acknowledged the extreme strangeness of the devoted handyman's behavior. Apparently, Soos had never missed a day of work since Stan hired him, not even for a sick day. But today, even two hours after opening, not only had Soos not shown up, he hadn't even called in to explain. Stan sent Mabel and/or Dipper to investigate while he and Wendy handled the day's tourists.
They found Soos holed up in his room with the blinds drawn, surrounded by empty Pitt cans, having clearly been playing Romance Academy 7 all night. After some persuasion, encouragement, and forced sunlight exposure, Mabel managed to (literally) drag Soos out of the house while he yelled "Goodbye, .GIFfany! I'll come back, I swear!"
"It's just a game, Soos," Mabel snickered. "It's not like it's going anywhere."
Back at the mall, Mabel was having a surprisingly hard time locating any women for Soos to practice his allegedly newfound flirting skills with. "Dang! Where all them sweet honeys at?" she wondered. "I'll check the ladies bathroom."
She ran across the hall towards the nearest women's restroom, but Dipper could see what his sister planned to do and instinctively tried to stop her. Amazingly, it worked. Just before Mabel reached the door, she stopped mid-stride, and would have tripped had she not steadied herself against the wall.
–Mabel, no.
"Mabel, yes!" she said, reaching for the door, but her arm moved jerkily, halting completely an inch from the handle.
Dipper, what are you doing? I gotta get Soos some real girls to practice on! Also, HOW are you doing that?
Mabel was now completely immobile, save for occasional twitches as she continued to try opening the door. A painful ache began to build in their head.
–First, this is not a good idea. Second…I don't really know. I guess we've become more equal over the last couple of days.
Whatever you're doing, stop it! Let me go!
–Not until you think about this. Scaring everyone out of the bathroom will just bring mall security to throw us out. Then we won't be able to help Soos at all.
Unable to move, Mabel was forced to calm down and acknowledge the unviability of her plan to scare all the ladies out of the bathroom. Leaving aside potential security issues, most of them probably wouldn't be of the sort Soos could reasonably date, whether because of age or other reasons. Also, this headache was starting to make her vision blurry.
Fine, she sighed. We'll try something else.
Dipper released whatever effort he was exerting, and the sudden shock caused Mabel to stumble to the side and collapse against the wall, strangely tired all of a sudden. Just in time, too, as they would have been hit in the face a second later when someone came out of the restroom. The pain in their head didn't completely disappear, but it did die down to a dull ache. Once they'd caught their breath and looked around though, Soos was nowhere to be seen.
It took them about a half-hour to locate him, laughing as he rode a tiny mechanical train in the "Kidz Zone." Dipper wanted to immediately grab Soos and get back to the plan, but Mabel mentally shushed him and pointed out the woman peeking from behind a nearby kiosk. They proceeded to watch as the tiny train ran down and the woman giggled, catching Soos's attention. She walked over and they struck up a conversation.
Mabel's excitement grew as Soos talked to the woman just like any other person, getting not just her name (Melody), but even proposing to take her to a restaurant later that evening! She agreed, handed Soos a couple of quarters, and walked away while waving goodbye.
Once Melody was out of earshot, Mabel wasted no time in tackling Soos off the tiny train with a scream of delight. Sensing that Mabel was having a joy overload and therefore unable to control herself enough to actually communicate right now, Dipper managed to go one step further than what he'd managed earlier, and took control. Previously, he'd only ever had control when Mabel gave it to him, but in her current emotional state, Mabel did not even appear to notice.
"We saw the whole thing, Soos!" Dipper exclaimed, climbing off the handyman's back and kneeling in front of his face. Some of Mabel's uncontainable euphoria made it into his voice, though honestly, Dipper was plenty happy for his friend, so he didn't care. "You talked to a real girl, and you got a date!"
"I did?" Soos blinked, looking confused.
THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE! Mabel screamed inside their head, before once again descending into incoherence. Well, Dipper supposed that was the answer to the question of what made Mabel happiest: making other people happy.
"You were in the zone, you made eye contact… it was like you'd done this a million times before," Dipper counted off Soos's accomplishments on his fingers. "Don't you see? That game really worked!"
Since Mabel appeared to be winding down a bit now, Dipper quickly flipped the hat back around, hoping she wouldn't notice what had happened.
"You don't need it anymore," Mabel said. "You can toss it out!"
"Toss it?" Soos suddenly looked apprehensive and stood up. "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?" Mabel asked. This time, some of Dipper's cynicism came through in her voice.
Soos didn't answer, but he did drive home to get ready for his date with Melody that evening, leaving the twins to walk back to the Shack from his house.
7:57 PM
A few hours later, Mabel and Soos were in the mall's food court. The former now wore a sweater with vertical black-and-white stripes like a referee. She'd wanted to also buy a hat with a heart on it, but Dipper talked her into just sticking with his pine tree hat instead. As for Soos, he'd changed into a nice shirt and pants, a blue sweater-vest, and a red bow tie.
"You can do this, Soos! Just remember what your love crew taught you!" Mabel said, kneeling on the table behind Soos and rubbing his back while she quizzed him on dating etiquette. "How does she look!?"
"Nice!" Soos answered.
"What are her stories!?"
"Interesting!"
"And who's gonna pay for dinner?"
"SOOS IS!" he yelled, jumping up from the chair, now fully pumped.
"Now… DATE!" Mabel said, blowing an air horn right behind him. Soos ran across the mall toward Hoo-ha Owl's.
"They grow up so fast," Mabel said.
–Alright, phase 2 is complete! Time for phase 3: observation.
Once set up at their pre-reserved table with a large pizza in a box as a disguise, they proceeded to observe Soos and Melody's date. At first it seemed to be going well. Both adults were laughing as they waited for the animatronic floor show. But then Soos did a huge spit take right in Melody's face. A minute later, he slid into the booth next to Mabel.
"Soos, you're doing so well!" Mabel said. "What's going on?"
"I've got a big problem, guys!" Soos explained. "I'm being stalked by .GIFfany!"
".GIFfany?" Mabel said, rather confused.
"Or maybe it's pronounced 'jiff-fany?' I was never really sure," Soos said, scratching his chin in thought.
Dipper was rather exasperated with Soos. On the one hand, he had thought there was something vaguely ominous about the game store clerk's warning and the "Destroy at all costs!" note on the game box. But on the other hand, Soos had been up all night playing a video game (something Dipper himself had done quite often), so more likely this was the result of his losing touch with reality just like when they'd found him this morning. At his request, Mabel flipped their hat around so he could talk some sense into their friend.
"Soos, get a grip on yourself," Dipper said. ".GIFfany can't stalk you because she's not real."
Suddenly, .GIFfany's massive face appeared on one of the screens hanging from the ceiling, staring angrily right at them. Nope, unbridled paranoia wins again!
Uh-oh, thought Mabel.
"Take it from someone who brought an arcade game to life: this will not end well," Dipper told Soos.
Two minutes later, he was proved right when .GIFfany took control of the band's animatronic beaver to serenade her "forever boyfriend." Soos wasted no time in pulling Melody toward the exit, and Dipper followed.
"The only way out, Soos, is IN MY ARMS!" .GIFfany said, the eyes of her mechanical host glowing bright red. She snapped her fingers and the other five band robots stood up and roared, their eyes glowing as well. "Cap-ture them!"
Now all of the other restaurant patrons screamed and ran for the exit as well, realizing that this was not in fact a new version of the floor show. The crowd outstripped Soos, Melody, and Dipper, pushing them aside. Right as the three of them reached the doors, they slammed shut and were covered by a metal barrier, which they pounded on uselessly.
"Sor-ry, Soos!" .GIFfany said. "But you can't run a-way from our re-la-tion-ship." She blasted the skee-ball machines with electricity and they immediately started firing plastic balls everywhere. Dipper, Melody, and Soos screamed and tried in vain to cover their faces, but they didn't get any relief until Soos pulled over a Fortress Fort arcade cabinet.
"So about all this…" Soos tried to explain to Melody once they had taken cover. "I may have purchased a dating simulator that attained sentience and went crazy."
"Oh, I AM cra-zy," .GIFfany said, slowly advancing forward. Her three targets peeked over the edge of their shelter. "Cra-zy for you, Soos!" She shot more lightning and they barely managed to duck before it hit the pitted metal barrier behind them.
Meanwhile, Dipper had given control back to Mabel so he could concentrate on trying to think of a solution. How could they defeat a murderous artificial intelligence in control of deadly robots? He'd noticed that despite mostly working and speaking through the animatronic beaver, .GIFfany's anime girl image still appeared on the game monitors next to it. That must be significant somehow…
"Oh, no! I'm so sorry, Melody!" Soos said, helping her pat out a small fire in her hair from .GIFfany's last lightning blast.. "I'll fix this! It's me that she wants. I'll distract her while Dipper and Mabel keep you safe! It's the only way!"
"Soos, this is a child. One child." Melody said.
Yelling "THE ONLY WAAAYYY!" like a battle cry, Soos charged into the storm of flying plastic balls and right past his insane AI ex-girlfriend. "Over here, .GIFfany!"
She tried to stop him with the barrel-rats, but Soos had grabbed a pizza tray and used it to slide beneath their claws and into the kitchen, where .GIFfany followed him.
Back behind the Fortress Fort shelter, Mabel knew they still needed to evade the other robots. Fortunately, the skee-ball machines appeared to have finally run out of ammunition, and just in time too. The rotund beaver robot had found them and karate-chopped their improvised shelter apart. Mabel and Melody ran in different directions while Soos and .GIFfany faced off in the kitchen.
Pursued by the fat beaver, Mabel managed to dodge another karate chop so it hit a button on one of the few games not under .GIFfany's control. The robot was distracted long enough by the flashing lights and sounds for Melody to come up from behind and smash its head off with a chair, but she was in turn grabbed from behind by the frog drummer. Mabel herself weaved throughout the room to evade the rats, making a complete circuit back to the slide. That would be a good place to hide! She scrambled up into it before remembering her shoes and was about to go back and take them off when her body froze up again.
–REALLY, Mabel? What's more important right now?
Right, right, escaping evil robots. Sorry, I've just been yelled at so much about wearing shoes in those places that it's a reflex now.
High up in the indoor playground, they had a moment to catch their breath and survey the situation. Melody had been captured and was struggling against the frog robot. The now-headless fat beaver had fallen into the ball pit and the rats were still trying to reach Mabel, but their barrels were too big to fit through the tubes. Hoo-Ha the Owl himself had been smashed up right at the start when the fat beaver charged past. And though they couldn't see into the kitchen, .GIFfany's confrontation with Soos was loud and clear over the intercom.
"I've got your precious 'Mel-o-dy,' Soos. There's no way ou-ut."
Though Dipper and/or Mabel were still free, what could they do against four superstrong robots? Looking around the room again, they saw a purple spot on the floor.
–What's that?
Squinting, Mabel could just barely make out words on the thing: Romance Academy 7.
That's the game disc .GIFfany came from! Soos must have been planning to return it after the date, but it fell out of his pocket when he slid past those rat-bots!
–Of course! Dipper thought. .GIFfany might be able to control robots and stuff, but at her core, she's still a dating simulator! She's programmed for romance!
In the kitchen, Soos offered to do anything to save his friends.
"I seem to re-mem-ber some-one prom-is-ing to be my BOY-FRIEND!" .GIFfany said as she slowly advanced, forcing Soos back toward the pizza oven.
Up in the relative safety of the playground, this gave Dipper an idea.
–Boyfriend! That's it! If we find .GIFfany a different boyfriend, she'll leave Soos alone! Mabel, are you ready for another round of matchmaking?
Always, bro-bro, but who would fit well with a sentient one-track-minded video game character gone crazy?
–A good fit for an obsessive virtual girl? How about an obsessive virtual guy?
A grin spread across Mabel's face. They were perfect for each other, and even better, he was already right there in the arcade. Time for the power of Mabel to work its magic.
.GIFfany projected herself onto a screen next to Soos and showed a procession of catty, judging women.
"Real girls are un-pre-dict-a-ble. They judge you. Do you rea-lly think Mel-o-dy will take you back af-ter this aw-ful date?" An image of Melody glaring angrily at Soos and slamming a door in his face.
"I can down-load your brain in-to the game with me, and we'll be to-geth-er FOR-EV-ER…" .GIFfany sang, extending what looked like a USB jack from her finger toward Soos.
"Stay back!" the handyman said, panicking and throwing whatever he could reach as he backed away…until he couldn't anymore, cornered against the pizza oven.
"Come on, Soos. Don't make me del-ete you too!"
Soos reached into his pocket, not knowing what he'd do with .GIFfany's game disc…but it didn't matter. The disc wasn't there; it must have fallen through that large, ragged tear, probably from the rat-bots' claws.
"What do you say?" .GIFfany asked. When Soos didn't answer, she advanced the last few steps and grabbed hold of his vest with her free hand.
Mabel slid down the nearest slide and yelled "HEY, ROBOT LADY! If you're looking for romance, Mabel the Master Matchmaker can set you up right!"
She was grabbed almost immediately by the rat-bots, and though .GIFfany didn't let go of Soos, she did stop and turn to look. "I al-rea-dy have a boy-friend," she said, and lightly shook Soos, still keeping her USB thing pointed at him.
With Dipper trying to keep the fear out of their voice (not what he was best at, but better than nothing, even if it did make that headache even stronger), Mabel took a deep breath and continued.
"Soos is a great guy, but I don't think he's really your type."
"What do you mean?" .GIFfany asked.
"There's this guy I know…kind of a friend of my brother's, and I think you two would be perfect together! I might be able to introduce you if you let me and my friends go."
.GIFfany dropped Soos and retracted the USB thing, then had the rat-bots put Mabel down as well, though the frog still held on to Melody. "I'm list-en-ing."
Arms now free, Mabel picked up the fallen Romance Academy 7 disc and walked over to the Fight Fighters arcade cabinet, with .GIFfany following. Once the animatronic beaver was in front of the machine, .GIFfany's real form appeared on it as well. Mabel pointed to Rumble McSkirmish. "That's him! A woman like you deserves a boyfriend who's just as strong and independent as you are."
Rumble tried to shoot a fireball at .GIFfany's giant avatar, but missed because she was in the background. She in turn blasted him with lightning (again), but he just shook it off and said "A worthy challenge! Come and face me, woman warrior!"
.GIFfany stared at Rumble for a few seconds. Then her on-screen avatar broke into a huge smile.
"He's PER-FECT! Thank you, Match-mak-er Ma-bel. How can I ev-er re-pay you?"
"Nothing comes to mind right now, so how about you just owe us one?" Mabel said, holding out her hand to the horrifying robot. She felt a spike of fear from Dipper, but before he could do anything, .GIFfany shook it. A bright blue spark ran from the beaver girl up Mabel's arm, across her chest, and down into the disc held in her other hand, then jumped into the Fight Fighters game, causing an almost-painful tingle along its path. Mabel's headache throbbed, her vision briefly flashed black and white, and she thought she saw blue flames around their clenched hands…but that was probably just all the electricity.
All the robots slumped over, their eyes going dark. On the Fight Fighters game screen, .GIFfany's giant background form dissolved into pixels and re-formed at roughly the same size as the excessively muscled, equally pixelated man beside her. They immediately began blasting fire and lightning at each other, happy as two over-the-top digital personalities could be.
A few minutes later, Soos came out of the kitchen and sat down next to Melody, who wore an expression of mixed shock and relief which Mabel had become very accustomed to seeing this summer. After apologizing for the .GIFfany situation, Soos had secured a second date (to Reggie's engagement party). They also made plans to stay in touch over video-chat, especially once Melody went back home to Portland after the summer.
"Spirit of love!" Mabel exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air in celebration. "We did it! Twice! I knew my matchmaking would come in handy this summer!"
Suddenly, Soos's grandma popped out of the ball pit. "Yes, yes. I am so happy," she said, completely unfazed by the scene of total destruction that filled the restaurant.
"Have you been following us all day?" Mabel asked.
"Soos's life is my soap opera," she replied. Then, her tone unchanged: "And I wish the two of you blessings in fixing your little problem."
–HOW? How does she know?!
Dipper, I'm pretty sure Abuelita knows just about everything that goes on in this town. She's probably one of those people who sees the future and stuff, like what Gideon pretended to do.
–A psychic? That…actually makes a lot of sense. It would explain why she's never surprised by anything…
After locating Stan in the back parking lot (holding that awful gold-miner statue and singing a strange song about "cash money" and "getting married"), they got in Soos's truck and went back to the Shack.
Since they hadn't gotten much research in the Journals done today (he'd looked a little after the thing with the newspaper, but didn't find anything), Dipper wanted to look through them with the blacklight Soos had returned to them. He promised Mabel that it would just be for a few minutes before they went to bed. She agreed, as long as it was only a few minutes. Up in their room, Dipper pulled the blacklight out of his old tattered vest. He switched it on, then pulled out Journal 3, but fumbled and dropped it on the ground, where it fell open to the page with the plans for the top-left corner of the portal. That's not what Dipper was looking for…but the blacklight revealed an incomplete message scrawled across both pages in large, frantic-looking capital letters:
The machine was meant to create knowledge, but it is too powerful! The device, if fully operational could…
"Could what? Something tells me this is what Stan was afraid of us finding in here…"
With some trepidation, Dipper retrieved Journals 1 and 2 from the nightstand and opened to their respective blueprint pages, lining the books up to form both a complete picture of the portal and the rest of the message, continuing from the Journal 3 page:
…tear our universe apart! I was wrong the whole time. I was deceived, and now it is too late. It must not fall into the wrong hands! If the clock ever reaches zero, our universe is doomed!
The last page had a picture of the Earth split in half like a melon above the words Total Global Destruction!
Dipper started pacing back and forth.
"Is Grunkle Stan insane? How can he keep that thing running when he knows it could do something like this?"
Duh, he told us why! He's trying to save his twin brother!
"That thing could destroy the entire universe, Mabel! Besides, the Author's probably dead by now anyway if he's been in some weirdness dimension this whole time!" Dipper nearly shouted at himself. "We need to confront Stan about this! Either he shuts it down, or we do it for him!" He ran through the open door and started toward the stairs…but froze right at the top with a hand on the rail. Their headache intensified.
"Mabel, let me go!" Dipper demanded.
NO! Grunkle Stan has been working for thirty years to save his twin brother! We can't keep them apart!
–Yes, we can, when it's between them and the entire universe! Concentrating as hard as he could and shuddering with the effort, Dipper forced Mabel's right foot down onto the step.
–Stop fighting me, Mabel!
I WON'T! She mentally screamed, making the headache even worse. Tears gathered at the corners of their eyes. Dipper's apparent lack of appreciation for her sacrifice, in the face of Stan's willingness to do the same, was heartbreaking. How can you of all people not understand what Grunkle Stan is trying to do? I'd give up everything to save you…and I DID! It's the least we can do to let Grunkle Stan do the same!
–It's not the same! You saving me only affects us, but that portal could destroy literally everything! The Author wouldn't want to be saved if he knew what was going on here!
The twins continued to struggle for control over Mabel's body as Dipper tried to go down the stairs while Mabel tried to stop and pull them back up. If not for their iron grip on the railing, they definitely would have fallen over. But Dipper had the advantage. Mabel may have been physically and socially superior to him, but this was a battle between minds. Even though Mabel wasn't any less intelligent, self-control had never been one of her strengths, and Dipper's determination and strength of will were ever so slightly stronger.
Still though, with Mabel fighting against him, it was like trying to walk through syrup; taking two steps back for every three forward. Slowly and awkwardly, he reached the second-floor landing. By now, Mabel's mental strength seemed to be flagging even more, causing Dipper to redouble his efforts and stumble quickly down to the bottom floor, nearly tripping at least twice. He tried to call out to Stan in the living room, but with most of his strength spent preventing Mabel from pulling them back upstairs, all Dipper could manage was an incoherent scream.
"AAAAGGGGHHHH!"
Stan heard the tortured sound and jumped up from his chair, brass knuckles ready to hammer whatever was harming his great-niece. But he saw only Mabel herself, face shining with sweat, twitching and jerking around as if having a seizure.
"Kids? What's going on?" he said, starting to panic as he remembered what had happened the last time one of the kids had acted strange.
While Mabel didn't regret accepting Dipper into her mind, She was beginning to realize that there was such a thing as being too close, even for twins. At first, this closeness after nearly losing each other had itself served to ease the stress and strangeness of sharing a body, but no longer. It was literally impossible for either of them to have anything resembling privacy, and now it seemed that if they didn't agree on something, one of them could simply refuse to do it and freeze them up until the other backed down. With hurt and anger on both sides, their negative emotions only fed off one another and grew more intense. Taking heart (or perhaps just desperation) at the sight of her great-uncle, Mabel managed to seize control of their voice for a moment.
"If it weren't for me, you'd still be a sock puppet right now!" she shouted.
Dipper's anger flared, giving him strength to take back their speech centers.
"Oh, really? Well, if YOU had just helped me with the laptop, then maybe I wouldn't have been desperate enough to listen to a freaking DEMON!"
Like a dam breaking, something had given way in whatever tenuous metaphysical barrier separated Mabel and Dipper's respective consciousnesses. All at once, the feelings of anger, frustration, hurt and betrayal Dipper had subconsciously suppressed over the last week crashed into Mabel's psyche as an unstoppable avalanche of raw emotion.
They were no longer aware of their surroundings; of Stan watching their internal struggle manifest outwardly as a spasmodic fit of random, jerking movements. No longer did conscious thought hold sway. There was only rage and pain.
Dipper's voice began to distort into something deep and frightening. Almost like Bill's had when Mabel stopped him in Stan's mind…
"If you'd actually kept YouR proMise insteAd of obsesSIng OVer a dUMB boy LIKe ALWAys, MAYBE I'D STILL BE ALIVE!"
Their headache intensified one last time into a white-hot spike of sheer agony, as if their skull were being split in half. Body finally overwhelmed by the strain, her eyes rolled back, and like a puppet with its strings cut, Mabel collapsed.
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