What's up, guys? 087-B here, bringing to you the fourth chapter of Beach Bandits!

In the previous chapter, Pacifica showed up, giving the gang a new lead on where they should go next to find clues on the whereabouts of the sand, and now they're off to The Lakes! In this chapter, once the gang arrives…then what?

As I've said before, the first major story arc begins now, and it'll be filled with action (maybe), romance (nope), and mystery (definitely)!

Now, on with the show!

Chapter 4

The Lakes Arc – Part 1

"A Fence Too High"

Hours had passed as the gang of four had finally made it.

The bus exited the tunnel and pulled into the cement parking circle outside the gated entrance of The Lakes, stopping at the small wooden bus stop and opening its doors, where the group then exited and watched the bus start off around the circle before exiting through the tunnel from which they had come, then they looked around the place. Paths lead up the more mountainous areas, with vines extending down from the tall rock walls and pikes. Some trees littered the small grassy hills, and near the gate was a decently sized log-cabin area, a sign above a glass window reading 'RECEPTION – CLOSED'.

This was it; The Lakes.

They started off towards the entrance gate, looking up at the large, iron bars, completely still, looking near indestructible, even though they probably weren't. They stood silently for some time, before they all realized that most likely nothing was going to happen.

"Um…so how do we get in, exactly?" Wendy asked.

"Hmm…it seems we might have to sneak in." Soos rubbed his chin, squinting his eyes in thought as he inspected the bars. "Anyone see any good spy movies lately?"

Mabel beamed and chimed in. "Oh! I saw the one with the lady and the kids and they–"

"Guys! Focus!" Dipper exclaimed. "It's pretty obvious what we have to do here. You just wait here."

"What? How will waiting solve anything?" Wendy asked, crossing her arms.

"I'll get this thing open as soon as I can." Dipper looked around and started exploring the area. "If I can't go through, I'll just have to go over…somehow."

"Good luck, dude." Soos smiled and gave him the thumbs up, to which Dipper returned the gesture.

"And be careful!" Wendy called. "If this place is being run by Tech, then he might have some actually harmful robots around!"

Dipper stopped and thought. She was right. How would he be able to defend himself?

"…what do I do in case I run into one?"

"Just…I dunno…find a viable weapon of some kind." Wendy shrugged, leaning against the wall of the closed reception shelter.

Dipper nodded and looked around, grabbing a long, slightly thick wooden stick. He beat it against the tar a few times, and it seemed to be durable enough. He held onto it and looked around.

Then, he ran off towards the ivy covered, rocky hills, having an idea.

Though, he didn't get far, as he found himself staring at a strange, octagon-shaped metal panel, one with an orange center, sitting next to a dirt path leading up a slope. He stared at it for a moment, filled with confusion. "What…what is this thing?"

Then a bright light formed over the panel, and he shielded his eyes. When the light faded, he found himself staring at a robot.

It was shaped like a half-circle, with its head being detached from its body, looking more like a pump, with the lower half of it appear like a large disc. Its wheels were conveyer belts, and from its sides emerged small, pump-looking devices. It made constant whirring noises, and rotated around in full circles before noticing Dipper, stopping and staring in his generally direction.

The boy's eyes widened. "Holy–"

He didn't even get to finish his sentence as multiple bursts of a bright energy substance shot out from the pumps at the boy.

Dipper let out a cry of agony as the bursts took him by surprise, striking his chest and lower abdomen. He felt a strong electricity and large amount of pain surge through his entire body as he fell over onto his back. He coughed and looked up, feeling weak already, as he noticed the robot charging at him. Trying his best to make a move, he grabbed his stick and jabbed it at the robot, striking its surprisingly flimsy metal disk and piercing through. He removed his stick as it started rotating in circles quickly before wheeling away from the boy and exploding into metal bits and pieces, leaving only scorch marks on the ground beneath it.

"Whoa…" Dipper panted. He wiped sweat from his forehead before glancing at the robot's 'spawner'. "If that thing came from that sheet of metal…I better destroy it."

He ran over and stabbed his stick into it. He jumped back after electricity sparked from the machinery, before it exploded in a similar fashion.

Though he noticed, before the robot and machine had exploded, that they had a familiar logo on them; the logo of EcoTech.

"So Tech really is behind this. We were right." Dipper started off towards the ivy again and began climbing. It seemed like a long way over the fence, but if he was right, the geography of this place should easily allow him to get over.

Wendy let out an overexaggerated, exasperated sigh, as she flopped onto the grass below. "This is taking foreeeeeeverrrr…"

"How long have we been waiting?" Mabel asked, flopping over beside Wendy.

"An hour, actually." Soos checked the watch he wore. "That lil' dude is taking his time…"

"Where is Dipper, anyways?" Mabel sat up and asked.

Wendy sat up as well, about to respond, before she closed her mouth as her eyes widened. Then she sighed and stood up, starting to walk away. "Oh my god…"

"What is it, dude?" Soos stood up as well and started to follow her, Mabel getting up and sprinting alongside them.

Wendy stopped and didn't respond, crossing her arms and glaring up at a pipe hovering high over the road that connected to a waste-filled quarry on one side, and a small clearing on the other; the clearing happened to be on the other side of the gate. The pipe was most likely used to transfer water to prevent the lakes from ever overflowing. But it wasn't the pipe that she was glaring at.

"Dude, that has to be, like, the most inefficient way to get over a fence ever."

It was Dipper, who cautiously clung to the pipe, easing his way across it slowly. He looked down below to see the other three below him. "Hey! There's no other way, alright?!"

"Seriously?! This is your plan?!" Wendy shouted back.

"Well it's safer than those robots I had to deal with!" Dipper argued, continuing to slowly clamber his way across the pipe.

"Huh?" Mabel cocked an eyebrow. "You mean, you actually found bad robots?"

"Yeah, I did." Dipper nodded. "They were shaped like thick disks and had conveyer-belt wheels for movement, and they shot weird…energy pulses or something at me, and they…well, they really hurt, to say the least.

"But that's not the worst of it; they had the EcoTech logo, and they came from these weird octagon metal sheet things that kept producing them every minute or so…" He finished.

Everyone else had gone completely silent, trying to comprehend what Dipper had said. Sure, they thought about hostile robots, but…they did have slight doubts and hoped there wouldn't be. And now, here the capped boy was, confirming the existence of the violent technology; now they wondered what other kinds of hostile robots were around, if any other types existed.

Though, they thought back to the trash can type robot they saw back in Gravity Falls. Such a thing seemed so useless at first, but now they thought about its possible purpose; to transport the sand. Now they thought about the two potential robot types; transport, and hostile. If any other types existed, they certainly had yet to encounter them.

"…well, be careful, and try not to run into more." Wendy said. "And just…get over there and open the gate, alright?"

"Will do, be careful yourselves." Dipper nodded and crawled along again. The three nodded back and started back over to the locked gate.

The boy slowly slid down the remainder of the pipe until he was on the other side, landing safely on a grassy plain near a small hill that lead up to a park bench, and to his left was the road into The Lakes. He sprinted towards the main building to open the gate and grabbed the doorknob. He turned it, pushed, pulled, but nothing worked. The door was simply locked. Sighing, he looked around for any alternative, before noticing the window nearby that was opened slightly. He placed his hand beneath it, gripping tightly, and pushed up, opening up a new space that was small, but big enough for him to crawl through. Smiling, feeling successful, he clambered through the open window.

Now he was in the small building, as he landed on the wooden plank floor carefully. He looked around, his only light being the sunlight beaming in through the windows, though it was enough to help him locate the switch on the far end of the room. It was one of those large levers with a red sphere on top to help grasp it more easily by the bar that connected it to the floor. He sprinted over and grasped it, pulling on it with all the strength he had – which was a miniscule amount, for a boy like him. Though, he managed to do it, though the force of pulling it back had sent him reeling into a cabinet behind him. He landed on the floor with a grunt as the doors to the cabinet opened slightly, something falling out beside the boy.

Four hockey sticks.

"Hmm…these might make okay weapons for now." Dipper said to himself, grabbing hold of the four sports equipment pieces and starting to leave. He wondered why there were even any hockey sticks in here in the first place. But he decided not to dwell on it once he noticed a small, plastic bin attached to the wall that was labeled 'Maps'.

"That'll come in handy!" He smirked and reached into the bin, grabbing a map for the four of them to use to easily navigate the area. Then he carefully set everything down, unlocked and opened the door, picked everything back up, and stepped out.

As he did, he looked over at the metal gate and saw it still moving into the ground, before it was entirely submerged, allowing the other three to enter.

"Sweet! We're in!" Mabel cheered, before Dipper surprised her by giving her a hockey stick, as well as one to Wendy and one to Soos.

"We can use these as weapons to fight off any robots we find." Dipper explained. "I mean, I used a regular stick to take out one, so I'm sure a more durable piece of equipment will help us."

"Sounds good, dude." Soos smiled and gripped his new weapon, swinging it around for a bit to get a feel for it.

"Let's hurry then." Wendy said. "Who knows what the rest of the place is like if those robot freaks are roaming around."

"Alright. I also found a map, so I think we'll know where to go." Dipper added, as he and the others took off down the road.

The somewhat curvy road had gone on for a little while, though with zero navigational struggle, they took a rather leisurely pace, continuing down to the area where the central lake would be located. No more robots had appeared on the way down, and they hadn't seen any signs of any employees, rangers, or even any authority; no police, no news anchors, nothing.

"According to the map, the entrance leads to the largest lake, which stems off into other, somewhat smaller, but still pretty big lakes." Dipper explained. "I wonder how much of this place we'll actually have to explore. I don't think my calves can handle this whole place…"

"It's kinda hard thinking of a giant lake without any water in it." Soos said.

"Yeah, it's just not something you, you know, ever see, or decide to think about, really." Wendy added with a nod. "What I'm struggling to wrap my head around is how there are no cops or anything around. I mean, you'd think something like this would attract a lot of police dudes and press coverage, am I right?"

"Yeah, that…is kinda weird." Mabel agreed. "And if Tech is behind all of this–"

"Which he is." Dipper interrupted, looking over his shoulder at Mabel, firming his gaze. "After all, I found those weird robo-pump things and their 'spawner' doohickeys, and one tried to, ya know, kill me, and they had that EcoTech logo on them."

"Right, yeah…" Mabel nodded. "But…why would he need all this water? And the sand?"

"Well…anyone here see any movies where the bad guy steals either of those things?" Soos asked, though nobody raised their hands or said anything.

"I don't think a movie like that exists, actually." Wendy sighed. "I wish one did, though; it'd help us a lot."

"Definitely." Dipper agreed. "If we knew his plan, we'd know how to counter it more easily, efficiently, and effectively."

"But how do you know if the plots would be the same?" Mabel asked.

Dipper opened his mouth to reply, before stopping and thinking over what she had said. Mabel was right; if a scenario like that were to be the case here, it'd only be by a slim chance that the plans would be the same. Before he could respond, though, he and the others stopped, as his eyes widened.

"Whoa…Pacifica wasn't kidding…" He muttered.

In front of them was the central lake, and it was completely drained of all of its water.

-(End of Chapter)-

And that's a wrap for this chapter! Not the most interesting start to a story arc, but now we've confirmed that EcoTech has hostile robots, and that the water from The Lakes has actually been drained! What will our heroes encounter next? Where did the water and sand go? Is Eric Tech really planning on creating a private beach? Find out next time!

Anyways, I hope you have enjoyed this chapter, as well as the start of the next arc, reviews are highly appreciated, and as always…

Stay Tuned!

~087-B