You know when I said that there would be one-sided romance with fan characters? This is the only chapter where it's relevant. Don't worry, the character's main purpose is to make Twilight jokes.

The mystery of the vampire species was wrapping around Dipper's head, and he knew he wouldn't be able to face Dave again until he had answers - and whether or not he faced Dave armed with a stake would be an excellent question, too. He and Mabel wound up in the library, after coming to an agreement that there would be an answer in a book or online.

"Why do you need to use the library computer?" Mabel asked as she followed her brother through the 'horror' section. "I thought you had a laptop."

Dipper held up his computer bag and pulled out a messed up metal box. "I did," Dipper told his sister, "until Ford borrowed it." He opened the metal piece of junk to reveal a charred keyboard and a sheet covering the screen.

"So why didn't you ask McGucket to fix it?"

Dipper took off the sheet to show the cracked screen, with a big question mark drawn on the side. "He didn't understand how modern computers work without building them himself, I guess."

Mabel cringed, but decided against arguing. "Then I guess we're doing research the old-fashioned way," she admitted. "You do the internet stuff, I'll find books."

"Why can't I find the books?"

"Because I'll just end up on some other website and not paying attention to vampires at all." She shrugged. "I'm over that phase, why would I remember to look stuff up properly?"

Twenty minutes later, Mabel struggled to keep from dropping the stack of books she had found. Grumbling about how Dipper should have dragged "stupid old six-fingers" into this obsessive project (and forgetting that Ford was currently attempting to get more information out of Dave) and how it wasn't fair that she was trapped in a library when she was originally planning to make a purse out of old neckties, it wasn't long before she bumped into someone.

The books fell from her arms, as did those the boy had chosen. As they both scrambled, apologizing together and attempting to pick up their own stacks, their hands touched briefly.

His hands are warm, Mabel thought to herself, as she quickly pulled away to look at the boy's face. She immediately decided that he was not particularly attractive, but not entirely ugly, either.

Gray eyes staring from behind black-framed glasses, a round, pale face, and even less muscular than Dipper. Not her type, but not the worst.

The boy picked up one of the many vampire books, and held it out to her. "You seem to be really interested in vampires," he noted. "Is it because of that new movie coming out next week?"

"Um...no, not really." She brushed her hair over her shoulder, hoping it would go unnoticed. "It's for my brother and great-uncle. They're paranormal investigators, and I got dragged in, I guess."

"Paranormal investigators?" the boy repeated, tilting his head like a confused dog. "I thought they focused on ghosts."

"Usually," Mabel said, rolling her eyes. "But Grunkle Ford decided ghosts were kid stuff and Dipper's been following in his footsteps since we were twelve."

"And you're letting your brother and great-uncle go up against vampires?"

"They won't listen when we try to tell them otherwise. Some guy in town got them interested, and now they're on the hunt."

The boy smiled a little, and picked up a few of her spilled books. "I'd like to help. My name's Phil."

Mabel grinned. "Mine's Mabel. Sorry if I don't stay," she added, gesturing down at the enormous stack in her arms. "My brother's waiting for me to get back."

Phil looked at the titles again. "And does he know you're giving him a stack of young adult romance novels?" he asked, almost regretting it as soon as he said it.

Mabel laughed, the loud sound not bothering to get shushed by the nearly-empty library. "He'll know better than to trust me with serious research after this, right?"

And, with that, the hushed conversation ended.

"Why isn't this working?" Dipper complained under his breath, clicking through yet another useless page. He'd typed 'vampire information' into the search, and got results ranging from Halloween costumes all the way down to an animated character from a show with a shape-shifting dog. All of it boring, none of it relevant.

That's what he got for trusting Dave. He'd probably refused to give up vampire secrets just to give them more headaches.

"Hey, Dippin' Dots!" Mabel hissed in his ear, causing him to squeak in unmanly surprise as he spun around.

"Don't do that!" he hissed back. "It isn't funny, and I could have died!"

"Sorry." Mabel dropped the book stack onto the table next to him. "Here's the books you wanted me to get. This was the best I could do, and let's face it, I'm surprised this town even has a library this well-stocked."

Remembering all too well the average sanity levels of the townspeople, Dipper had to agree, but that didn't mean he had to accept whatever his twin had brought him. "Girly young adult romance novels, Mabel?"

"Like I said, the best I could do." Mabel grabbed one of them off the top of the pile. "And unless you can find information on real vampires through your magic picture box, these are the best we've got."

Dipper grumbled but switched off the computer, turning his attention to the pile of monstrosities in front of him. "Well, I guess this isn't completely useless," he admitted. "All myths have to have some kind of truth, right?"

Mabel agreed, but it was at that moment that she got the strangest feeling that she was being watched. Turning around, preparing herself for a repeat of the gnome incident, all she found was Phil, who gave her an innocent smile and returned to reading something about space. She couldn't see the title from this distance. It was probably nothing.

She'd still have to ask if she could borrow a certain six-fingered electrical glove. Just in case.

Pacifica Northwest woke up at dawn the next morning, and for once, she realized she had nowhere else to be.

Her parents were gone, but they had left a note saying exactly what they expected to hear she'd been doing. This was her favorite kind of day, the ones where she could make a brief appearance around town and put in just enough effort to let people know she hadn't died.

Even though she had nowhere she was supposed to be, she knew at once where she'd end up going. Mr. Pines and Mr. Pines were always begging to be mocked, and they both flung insults right back at her, not caring one bit who she was or how easily she could buy them off. It was almost refreshing, and it sure was fun to pick on a pair of old men. Of course, hearing that Dipper and Mabel were back in town was always another opportunity.

She'd never let the twins know she'd missed them, of course. Pretending to be just investigating rumors of their return would be her first course of action, followed by seeing exactly how much they'd changed...call Dipper a nerd, maybe tease Mabel...

Or, she thought, burying herself even deeper under her thick pink blanket, she could just give it another half hour.

When she walked into the Mystery Shack six hours later, she was surprised to find that she wasn't the only visitor. There was a boy with glasses standing by the door, clearly worrying about if he should go in. He must have been new here.

"I know the owners of the place," Pacifica said at once, before she could stop herself. "The old geezer behind the gift shop will probably charge you more for loitering than he would for any of his merchandise, and his brother's working on combustible lemons or something stupid like that in order to keep potential thieves off of the property. I'd bail if I were you."

"That is a stupid idea," Stanford's voice said from behind her, and the boy looked a bit surprised when he counted twelve fingers on the man's hands. "The dumbest you've ever had. I'm vampire hunting, Northwest. That's much more important."

Pacifica didn't flinch. "Whatever. I'll just have to pay some engineers to make them for me, so I can burn this eyesore to the ground."

The old man seemed to be used to such blatant disrespect for the place, which cemented something in the boy's mind. "You wouldn't be one of the owners of this place, would you?" he asked, and Ford stopped listening to Pacifica's suggestion of combustible garlic.

"What's it to you?"

"Um, I was told that Mabel was here...?"

Pacifica and Ford were suddenly unaware of the other's presence, too caught up in their own shock. Pacifica's thoughts were Mabel has a boyfriend now? Ford's were closer to Wait, this is Mabel's type?

Ford recovered first. "Stan has her working the register today, but that means nothing. Go in and buy something, he'll let you talk to her then."

The boy didn't waste a moment, disappearing into the Mystery Shack. Pacifica looked up at Ford.

"We're going to spy on him, right?"

He shushed her and slowly opened the door to the Shack, letting Pacifica duck under his arm to get the best view. There was the boy, looking around at the Shack's collection of oddities, and behind the counter was Mabel, sketching something out on a spare piece of paper. Finding a rock that looked vaguely like the Bat-Signal, he checked for his wallet and headed for the counter.

Mabel looked up as his shadow fell across her drawing, almost scared at first but quickly melting into her pure happiness. "Oh, you're that guy from the library! What was your name again?"

"Um...Phil," the boy said, adjusting his glasses nervously. "My name's Phil. And yours is Mabel, isn't it?"

"Mabel, rhymes with table, not quite maple..." She stopped, looking Phil up and down slowly. "You don't live here, do you? You seem way too smart to buy...I mean..." She gestured to the rock. "You seem to be pretty interested in that. Why?"

Phil looked down at the rock in his hand, then back up at Mabel. "I know it's junk, but the odds of finding one shaped like this are too low for my taste. My parents and I are spending the summer here, and what spells 'tourist' like unimpressive souvenirs?" He had a point there. "We're just trying to blend in with the crowd, but I guess that's harder than it sounds."

"You don't know the half of it," Mabel agreed, rolling her eyes. "That's why my brother and I gave up years ago."

"You live here, don't you?"

"Nah. We're just here for the summer, like you. We've just been here before." She looked at the rock in his hand. "That it, then?"

Phil looked back at the rock, as if surprised he was still holding it. "Um...yeah." He put it down on the counter for her to ring up, and then blurted, "You wouldn't know where to find the best pizza in this town, would you? I mean, maybe we could go, um, together?"

Mabel lit up immediately. "Oh, yeah! We can totally do that! And we can bring Dipper and Candy and Grenda, and any friends you made already besides me, and we'll just -"

"Actually," Phil interrupted, "I was kind of hoping we'd do this as just you and me."

Mabel's smile cracked. "Oh," she repeated, her enthusiasm slipping just slightly. "Sorry, but I don't think I'd be able to do that. I'm sure you're a nice guy, but I don't want people getting the impression that it's a date."

"That's...cool," Phil said with a strained smile of his own. "I just thought, you know, since we're both here for a limited time, and I'm not good with meeting a lot of new people at once..."

"Oh, we'll do something," Mabel promised. "I don't have to work tomorrow, so maybe I'll introduce you to my brother and you can help us with our vampire research."

"We'll see," Phil said, putting the money down on the counter and shoving the stone into his pocket in one motion. He said a pleasant goodbye and left, walking quickly into the woods.

Pacifica didn't even wait until he was out of sight. "That guy is really bad at getting dates," she commented, unaware of the old man's flinch beside her. "If he wants to ask a girl out, he should start by telling her she's pretty."

"That itself doesn't always work," Ford corrected, almost as if he had experience with this himself. "Human females are one mystery I never solved."

Mabel laughed out loud. "Come on, Ford," she said with a grin. "You're never gonna figure women out, because we don't know half of this ourselves." She turned to the blonde with a signature Mabel smile. "Right, Pacifica?"

Pacifica shrugged. "Whatever you say. I only came here because I wanted to see if the rumors were true."

"Yes, we do have vampires here," Mabel said as her great-uncle started moving back to the 'house' section of the Mystery Shack. "One vampire, really."

Oh, so now the town had a vampire? She really shouldn't be surprised by that. "I was talking about hearing rumors of a different Thing 1 and Thing 2 hanging out here."

"Aww, you missed us!" When Pacifica huffed and turned to leave without a goodbye, Mabel cut her off. "Since we didn't exactly start off right three years ago, why don't you come with me and Dipper and Phil? It'll be like a double not-date, just four pals hanging out..."

"I'd rather take cyanide pills." Pacifica didn't seem to mind the idea too much, though, and Mabel was surprisingly perceptive on that. "I just came to prove I'm not dead and threaten the old guys with buying this place."

"You haven't changed much at all, have you?"

For that, Pacifica had no answer. How could she, when she had two very different, and equally correct, answers?

There were werewolves here. He really should have known. He'd never seen the mailman on a full moon, after all. He refused to admit that a nocturnal life meant that he very rarely saw the mailman, anyway.

It didn't matter to him. Dave was not a believer in the whole fur-vs.-fang argument. He was indifferent to the entire concept, as most vampires and werewolves were, knowing that newbloods just had negative reactions to the scent that werewolf blood carried. Half-human, half-animal...he wasn't really a fan, either, but he had learned to ignore it. But it was harder to ignore the destruction a pack could cause if left unchecked.

"What the fudgeballs?" Not really his first choice of words, but he couldn't swear in front of Mabel's innocent ears. Dipper and Mabel were standing with their great-uncle Ford, who was paying no attention whatsoever and instead looking at the upturned tree that had nearly fallen on his house.

Dipper was only half-present, it seemed. His body was here, but his mind had wandered away entirely. "What kind of monster could have done this? Was it in your journals, Ford?"

"It didn't leave any prints," Ford admitted. "I can't tell unless I find the scratch marks..."

"No need for that," Dave cut in, jumping lightly onto the tree and scrambling through the branches. "It cut itself on a broken limb, and took it out on the poor tree. Or maybe it cut itself taking something else out on the tree. I know a werewolf when I smell it, but this is a strong one. Probably an adult."

"The mailman?" Mabel asked, remembering what Soos had told her years ago.

Dave shrugged and swiped a finger across the blood left on the branch. "It could be," he said, as if that was his exact theory. "We need more evidence. It could be that Dan guy. He's the big lumberjack, right?"

Mabel shook her head. "I am..." she took a moment to think. "95% sure he's not a werewolf. Wouldn't that mean his kids were, too?"

Dave made an unconcerned sound, playing with the blood still on his finger.

Dipper took the time to speak up. "Do vampires have werewolf pets?" he asked Dave, but Ford was the one with the answer.

"Werewolves are nobody's pets, Dipper. They fight too much, and for most of the month they're people. My question is, why would a werewolf climb a tree?" He looked down at the near-damage, and bit his tongue before he could add something about destroying his house to the mix. "They keep fragments of their mind when they transform, enough to only attack in self-defense and recognize that their friends won't hurt them, and can switch off the transformation when at peace - unless there's a full moon interference, but that's next week. Some even respond to their human names. Most of them are smarter than this."

"I was going to suggest that maybe they found a cat up there," Dave added, and didn't flinch at the old man's slow head turn.

"You're new to this investigation thing, aren't you?" was the only thing Ford said to that.

Their vampire accomplice didn't have a comeback, but he was probably holding it back. There were, after all, more important issues at hand. "Mabel," he finally said, "you called because you think I can track the thing that did this?"

"You have Dave's phone number?" Dipper asked before she could get an answer in.

"I did call for that," she answered, "using the number that Dave left behind for you and Ford, in case either of you wanted to help him investigate the truth behind the myths of his people. I figured if we promise to help him, he'll help us."

"You don't make deals with mythical creatures," Ford warned, and Dave brushed it off.

"Oh, I'm sure the girl knows that trusting me is a horrible decision she's bound to regret. But you seem to lack the understanding that she has. Unless you have some form of supernatural detector, I'm the closest you're going to get."

Ford started to protest that he could easily invent something of the sort, but Dave was already back to searching the branches for an update. "He's still not completely trustworthy, Mabel."

"Kind of like you, huh, Ford?" Mabel grinned at her great-uncle's face, reassuring him that no harm was meant. "Give him a chance, he might be useful."

Dave found nothing particularly credible. Not a scrap of clothing from the creature's human form, not a shed piece of hair or fur, or even a broken claw. But he promised that the blood was enough, and if they gave him until the full moon, he'd be able to figure out the general location of the beast they were searching for, if not the identity.

Ford didn't want to wait that long.

"We'll find the werewolf," he promised. "With or without his help."

"But won't that just make him worthless in the long run?" Mabel asked, tapping her chin. "I mean, what if the werewolf doesn't want a stereotypical crazy old man pointing out his or her identity?"

"I'll confront the werewolf privately," Ford tried protesting, but Mabel shook her head.

"Dave's already on the case. Besides, I promised Phil that Dipper and I would take him on a monster hunt, and maybe he'll turn out to be the werewolf that knocked over the tree."

"You really think that's going to happen? This Phil isn't an adult. No teenage werewolf can take out a tree that big."

"But who do you think it can be, Ford?"

Ford had no theories of his own, but he couldn't tell Mabel that. "If Phil is a werewolf," he finally said, "keep an eye on his parents, too."

Mabel grinned and pulled a blue, ribboned hair tie from her bag. "I've got to see if he's one, first," she teased as she twisted her hair up. "Well, I've got a friend-date and I'm taking Dipper with me. If we get mauled, it's because Phil really is a werewolf."

"Take silver bullets," was the immediate reply. Mabel knew that this was Ford's way of telling her that he cared.

Phil and Dipper had hit it off pretty well, all things considered. Phil asked if Dipper had any leads on the vampires, and reacted with the appropriate sounds when he'd explained that his only lead (neglecting to mention Dave by name) was off on a mission trying to find out what had nearly crushed his great-uncles' house.

Phil nearly choked on his soda at that. "Wow," he finally said, pushing his glasses closer to his nose. "I knew this town was weird, but I never thought that monsters would be attacking houses."

"You get used to it," Dipper told him. "Sad but true."

"So how long have you guys been coming here?" Phil asked, pretending to be indifferent when the Mystery Twins could see right through it. "Investigating vampires, drawing fictional creatures to you...you must be completely adapted to this strangeness."

"We adapted when we were twelve," Mabel replied at once. "We got into trouble with monsters every other day, pretty much. That's how Dipper got involved with Grunkle Ford in the monster-hunting business."

"Ford," Phil repeated, uncertain. "He's the one who comes up with the explanations for all the garbage in the Mystery Shack, isn't he? Told my parents that of course the 'Girafro' was a real magical creature and not to bug him anymore."

"That's Ford for you," Dipper cut in. "He never tries."

Phil wisely chose not to comment. "You said you adjusted when you were twelve, but you had to have been staying with your uncles before then, right?"

The twins made brief, awkward eye contact, before Mabel started blowing bubbles into her soda through the straw and Dipper taking a long, slow pull from his. That was enough for Phil, and he barely stopped himself from pulling a spit-take.

"Really?"

"We'd hardly even met Grunkle Stan before that," Mabel explained. "Then Ford came back about halfway through the summer, and we started kicking butt as a family."

Phil remained impressed, as if he'd never seen a family working together to stop evil before. "But you were kids, and they're old..."

"Age means nothing," Mabel said happily. "Dipper even took out a ghost without help from me, Stan or Ford!"

"That was Pacifica. I just pushed her in the right direction." She'd needed it, but she'd turned out to be stronger than he could have hoped for.

Phil knew better than to ask. "This town has a lot of interesting people. Maybe my parents and I will fit in after all."

"You have a weird family, too?" Mabel leaned across the table, unaware of the action. "What's yours like?"

Phil immediately leaned away, his face turning red at the closeness. "It's not...um, we're not...well..." He pulled off his glasses and focused, taking deep, calming breaths. "My parents like puns. It gets old fast, but when they heard how strange everything got in this town, we packed up to spend the summer here. I never knew the place had vampires."

"And werewolves," Mabel finished for him.

Phil nodded. "And werewolves. My point is, this town has weirdness all over it, and I want in."

They told him that they had to ask Stan and Ford, first, but they were positive that they wouldn't say no. After all, the more the merrier.

"Absolutely not."

Well, that hadn't played out at all like the twins were expecting. They'd assumed that Ford would be more than willing to have another admirer for his research, and having the instant rejection came as a shock.

"Why not?" Mabel demanded, throwing her hands in the air. Glitter fell from her sleeve, sprinkling the wood floor with tiny yellow sparkles, but nobody seemed to care. "We're already keeping Dave!"

"We are not keeping anybody!" Ford finally looked back to the twins. "Dave's like a stray cat, he can come and go as long as he's not hurting anybody. I wouldn't trust him with a turkey sandwich, and yet you want to invite this Phil kid?"

"I wasn't talking permanently," Mabel protested. "Just with the werewolf. He said he wants in."

"And that could mean any number of things. If he's the wolf, he could be attempting to cover his tracks. If he's not, I don't want to have to explain his death to his parents."

"And if werewolves are after the Shack," Stan added, picking up a gun, "it's for the best if we use 'em for display."

"Put the gun down, Stanley. We'll find out if Phil is the wolf, first."

"First?" Dipper repeated, not sure if he liked the thought of anyone ending up dead. "What do you mean first? You just said -"

Stan caught on, at least. "If your friend's a werewolf, we'll take precautions."

No mention of what precautions would be used, but it was better than nothing.

Looking back, Dipper suspected that he should have backed out when he had the chance. He kept going only because he knew that somebody would need to go and tell the rest of the family what had happened if wolf-Phil ended up tearing Mabel's face off or something.

And, to be perfectly honest, Dipper believed that there was a strong chance of Phil being the wolf. It was exactly the type of cliché that might be expected, having a vampire and a werewolf in the same supernatural-infested town. All he needed was Dave to have a teenage nephew or brother show up and it could turn into the plot of a bestselling teen romance novel...

He shuddered. No, Mabel had an entirely different kind of strangeness. She might be open with her dating pool, but even if she did have a vampire or werewolf for a boyfriend, she wouldn't accept a love triangle. She'd try to set the other one up with Candy or Grenda or Pacifica.

"You guys wanted to talk about something?"

Dipper wasn't sure if the yelp of surprise came from himself or his sister, but it had Phil entertained. "Come on, guys, I won't hurt you. You trusted me enough to meet me alone in the dark. You should know I'm almost completely harmless."

"Yeah," Mabel said, nervously pulling her sleeve down. "Look, Phil, I have a few questions that you have to answer if you want to be part of our little Mystery Gang. Consider it a job interview."

"I've never been good with those," Phil admitted, and Mabel tried to look reassuring.

"I don't think any of us are, but we're young. We have time to get better." She pulled a tiny pink notepad from her pocket, flipping it past the sketches of dresses, lists of potential birthday gifts for her brother, her own birthday wish list, and drawings of small fluffy animals before finally finding what she was looking for. "First question: Before you came to Gravity Falls, did you ever come face-to-face with a supernatural creature?"

"More than once," Phil said instantly. "The ghosts haunting my aunt's house, the zombie turkeys last Christmas..."

"Zombie turkeys?" Dipper cut in, momentarily forgetting that the interview was staged specifically so they could ask if Phil was a werewolf. "How did you end up with zombie turkeys?"

Phil must have been looking forward to telling this story for a long time, as he jumped right in with no hesitation. "This witch two towns away came home from college and decided to try to reanimate her dead canary," he explained. "Instead of just the one, the spell affected every bird that died in the county over the past two years, and since my family likes meat we got headless skeletons all over the place. It made the supernatural news, once the girl cancelled her spell, but I think they tried passing it off to normal people as something in the water making them hallucinate."

"It wouldn't be the first accidental zombie apocalypse," Mabel said, giving her twin a look that proved she had not forgotten the karaoke experience. "Except he brought humans back from the dead."

"I said I was sorry!"

"A zombie apocalypse was caused by Dipper?" Phil looked Dipper over again, as if trying to see something he'd overlooked before. "It takes either a really powerful spell or really strong magic to do that by accident. Are you a witch?" Then he stopped, his eyebrows scrunching in thought. "A wizard? Warlock? Jeez, I forgot what the proper term is..."

"I found the spell in my great-uncle's book, and he says he found it somewhere. It was probably the spell itself." Dipper didn't dwell on the question, though. "How do you know what made the supernatural news?"

Phil shrugged, dropping the mental search for the time being. "My family keeps records."

Dipper gestured for Mabel to move on to the next question. Mabel, though initially not comprehending, quickly made the connection and returned to her notes. "Um, so, moving on. Would you be able to provide any sort of assistance in the search for answers to vampire mythology?"

"I'd say I can. Next question."

"Are you a werewolf?"

Was that her Plan? Just asking him? Why would he just tell them about it? Dave hadn't even admitted being a vampire without the mirror story, and Phil was just staring blankly at Mabel, shifting his stare to Dipper, and turning slowly back to Mabel.

"I didn't knock the tree into your house," he finally began, but Mabel impatiently tapped the notepad.

"I never said you did. I asked if you were a werewolf, not the werewolf."

"Oh. Then, yeah, I'm a werewolf." He must have taken their surprise at how quickly he'd admitted it to be surprise at the revelation. "It's kind of expected, with the vampires and the werewolf attacking your tree right after you guys met me and all. Sorry about that, by the way, my dad found out that your uncle ripped him off and reacted badly. And my name's Phil Moon, so that was another clue..."

"It's not that," Dipper finally said, shoving his surprise behind him so the fellow visitor wouldn't dominate the conversation. "You just bluntly admitted it, we didn't have to threaten you with anything -"

"Your name is Phil Moon?" Mabel cut in, over whatever her brother might have added. "What kind of people are your parents? Were you just some kid with a punny name that got unlucky and survived a werewolf attack?"

"I wish." Phil shook his head sadly. "No, I was born a werewolf, it just kicked in once puberty slowed down. You guys have seen some weird stuff, so I thought I should warn you before the full moon hits in a few days. Just in case I escape confinement and you need to tranquilize me."

Mabel wasn't letting it drop. "Your parents knew what you were going to end up, and they named you Phil Moon."

"Yes. Yes, they did. I thought it would be the whole 'monster' thing that threw you guys."

"We've seen stranger," Dipper promised. "And it's not like we haven't heard pun names before. Tad Strange, Toby Determined..."

"But this one is a giveaway!" Mabel complained. "Who names their werewolf baby Phil Moon?"

Phil rolled his eyes to the back of his head. "I'll tell you what, Mabel. I can introduce you two to my parents after the full moon, and you'll see exactly what kind of people they are."

"That would be great, actually." Mabel muttered "Phil Moon" again, but turned to her notepad, ready for the final question: "Would you be willing to degrade yourself to 'tracking dog' if that meant we'd pay you?"

That one took Phil a few moments. "Why not?" he finally decided. "How much?"

"You'd be an honorary Mystery Shack employee, so...eh, I'm sure Dipper and I can give you part of whatever our uncles pay us."

Dipper gave his sister a meaningful stare. "You mean stickers, food and whatever Ford has in his pockets?"

"I'll work for food," Phil said quickly. "My family's here for vacation, they might not react well if I tell them I've got a job."

"We can't tell Ford yet, he kind of said no." Mabel smiled nervously. "You'll just be the emergency contact."

"Will you make it worth my time?" Phil teased, and Mabel went stiff. "I mean, a friend-date. I'm fine with being friends, if you're not thinking..." he made a gesture.

Mabel didn't answer. Dipper decided that it was better for him to get a question in than to wait. "You mentioned something about confinement. What do you mean by that?"

When their great-uncles noticed that Dipper and Mabel were unusually smug, they each tried to get the other to make the first comment. Neither needed to. The moment Mabel realized that she and her brother had their attention, she announced, "We were right, Phil is a werewolf. His dad got upset that Stan ripped him off and took down the tree, and Phil and his mom had to track him down and turn him back to his human form. You might want to look out for them, guys."

Stan was momentarily distracted. "So you went up to this guy and asked him if he was a werewolf?"

"And he told you?" Ford was more amazed than angry. Sure, he didn't want them to die, but he figured that since both were clearly in one piece, he could afford to postpone the punishment to get the whole story. He wasn't a parent, after all. "How did you convince him to do that?"

Mabel shrugged. "We talked about the supernatural aspects of Gravity Falls before, he didn't seem to freak out, and then we talked a little more when we confronted him."

"She mentioned that time I raised the dead," Dipper added. "You're going to tell us all about how you discovered the zombie weakness sometime."

"Don't try to distract me." He knew it might actually work, and then how would he get the younger twins to help him investigate the reality of horror movie monsters?

Contrary to his brother, Stan had gone unnervingly calm. "Well," he said, distracting Dipper and Mabel from their punishment-avoidance plan. "You're not grounded, you're probably safer from him than we are -"

"For now," Ford interrupted.

"Whatever. Point is, you're lucky your parents don't know about the supernatural garbage, because if they were staying here, too..." He tipped his fez back into place. "Missing a party would be the least of your concerns."

"Missing a party?"

Stan held two small envelopes over their heads. "Northwest decided to invite you to a Summerween party. Soos caught her slipping these under the door when you were gone, probably hoping we'd never see her. Figured putting yourselves in danger means your friends should get used to not seeing you."

As the twins accepted their fates and retreated to another room, taking the invitations anyway, Ford seemed almost impressed. "Since when do you read parenting books, Stanley?"

Stan didn't question how his brother came to that conclusion. "Dealing with teenagers is a war zone waiting to happen," he said, not providing an explanation. "Ticking time bombs, all of em. Girls even more than boys."

Ford suddenly had a vision of sweet, innocent Mabel screaming nonsense like a banshee, and immediately shoved it from his mind. He'd rather take the banshee. He knew how to deal with those. "You know they're going to the party anyway, right?"

"I'm not an idiot, Stanford. I won't stop them, Summerween's still a few weeks away." He chuckled and opened a soda. "We'll just have to make them work it off as attractions in the Shack."