"Ugh, kids, why'd you have to bring them here?" Stan groaned as the four approached him inside the makeshift building he had the titan in. How he'd managed to capture it, Levi couldn't figure out. It was chained up and secured to the ground with lots of pegs. Clearly Stan had some understanding about how dangerous titans were. That or he was dead-set on it staying put. Levi figured either option was plausible
"Because what you're doing is wrong, Grunkle Stan!" Mabel said. "This thing shouldn't be chained up. It could really hurt people if it got loose."
"Yeah, and so could half of the things at the Mystery Shack. If they were real. But look, this is going to make us a fortune," Stan argued.
"Sir, you really shouldn't have this here. It's better off dead," Petra told him. "It could easily kill or maim someone."
"It's not going to. I'm going to build a cage around it so it can't get away," Stan said. Levi gave him a dark look and drew his blades.
"I've had enough of this shit. Get out of the way. I'm taking that thing down," he growled, moving towards the titan. Stan threw himself in front of it, arms spread out as far as they could go.
"Wait!" he cried.
"I don't have time for this," Levi replied, swinging his blade back. Before he could pull it back down Petra grabbed his arm, forcing him to miss Stan. What the fuck does she think she's doing?! Levi hissed at her, giving her a dirty look. She ignored him.
"We can't stress enough how bad of an idea this is, but clearly we aren't going to get through to you," she said to Stan before turning to Dipper and Mabel. "Be on guard, you two. If something goes wrong find Levi and I, all right?" She pulled on his arm and dragged him out of the enclosure.
"What the fuck was that?!" he seethed, ripping his arm away from her grasp. "You're putting those kids and their lackwit of an uncle at risk. If you think for a moment -"
"We weren't getting through to him, Levi. He was dead set and there was no point of killing him to get to the titan," Petra replied heatedly.
"I would've gotten rid of the problem, wouldn't I?" he demanded.
"If you killed him then who would take care of Dipper and Mabel? And what would happen to us if someone found out you killed him?" she pointed out. "The consequences would have been bad. What we need to do is go back tonight and kill the titan when no one's around."
"We can't wait until tonight. That gives the titan too many chances to escape. We need to do this now," Levi argued.
"Look, I don't like waiting either," she said, giving him a stern look. "But there's nothing we can do. Our best bet is sneaking into the enclosure and kill the titan."
"But when are we going to get that chance? We can't do it tonight; it'll be too dark," Levi pointed out.
"Perhaps early tomorrow morning?"
"That's gives the titan an even larger time frame of escaping."
"Well, maybe it won't. Stan seems to have it well restrained. And besides, we should go out and look for some more portals. For now, let's just assume this one is taken care of. We need to go look for a way home."
"What's the point of looking for a portal when it'll close up in minutes? We need to make sure all of the titans are gone before we leave."
"Our portal stayed open for weeks. We might find one that's the same," Petra said. Part of Levi didn't want to go look for a portal. He wanted to figure out how to take out the titan and (although he'd never admit it) a small part of him wanted to stay in Gravity Falls. But Petra had a point; they'd be wasting their time trying to kill the titan and they needed to find a way home.
"Good point. Let's go," he said.
The forest was alive with noise as Levi and Petra made their way through the trails, eyes peeled for portals. Since they had arrived they hadn't found any new evidence of more portals popping up and the idea that they may be stuck in this world forever scared and excited Levi. We need to go back home, he thought as he pushed away from branches and went off-trail. We don't belong here. We don't have a way to live well here.
"Have you found anything yet?!" Petra yelled from somewhere down the trail.
"No!" he shouted back. "Tch. We're going to be here all night if we keep this up," he added as his blue eyes flitted up to the darkening sky.
"We should go back to the cabin. It's getting dark," she said.
"We still have some daylight left," he argued.
"But do we want to stumble back in the dark?" He groaned and went back to the trail.
"All right. We'll call it quits for the day," he gave in. They started walking back towards the trail that led back to their cabin. Levi was sure it'd be dark by the time they got back anyway, but at least they spent a good few hours looking for a way back home.
"Hey, Levi?" Petra asked, breaking the comfortable silence between the two.
"Yeah? What is it?"
"What are we going to do if we can't get home?"
"We're going to get home eventually. But in the meantime, we -"
"It's not guaranteed we'll get home. We don't know if another portal will show up and it's possible we won't even know about it if it does," she pointed out. "I think we need to have a backup plan in case we have to stay here for much longer. We can't keep living like this."
"The hell we can't. We don't have any papers, Petra. We can't live in this world and we don't belong here. We belong back home and I'll be damned if I don't get us there."
"This isn't something you can accomplish. We're completely dependant on some random force of nature. No matter what you do, you can't make a portal appear and you can't get us home right now."
"What, so you just want us to quit looking?! You want to give up?!"
"No, that's not what I said. I meant that we need to start making a backup plan. We should still keep looking for a way home but in the meantime we need a plan."
"I hate it when you're right," he groaned. "So what, we find a forger and get some fake papers from him?"
"I guess. That or we try applying for citizenship, but I don't think we'd get far," she said.
"Forgery is probably our best option. From there, I think we'll just have to wing it. Find jobs, stay in the cabin until we can legally get a place, and -"
"'Get a place?' You want to live together?" Petra asked. Shit, did I really say that, he thought.
"I just figured it'd be better money-wise for both of us," he quickly defended himself.
"Levi, you're a terrible liar," she laughed. "I don't mind living together. I like it, actually."
"I do too," he said. Maybe with a normal life we can forget about the past and move forward. I'd like to go into the future with her.
The twins were sitting on the couch as Levi and Petra got home. Mabel hopped off as soon as they were in the door, rushing to Levi and grabbing his sweater.
"Grunkle Stan is unveiling the titan tonight!" she exclaimed. "We tried talking to him, but he won't listen to us!"
"What makes you think he'll listen to us? He already made it clear he doesn't give a damn about our opinion," Levi said, grasping Mabel's hands and gently pulling them off of his sweater.
"We were thinking maybe we could distract him and you could take care of the titan," Dipper suggested, joining everyone by the door.
"I don't think we're going to be able to kill it tonight, but . . . we might as well go," Petra shrugged, glancing at Levi. "Who knows what'll happen. Maybe we'll get our opportunity."
"We better. I don't want this to drag on for much longer," he said. "We'll go, but we can't promise we'll be able to do anything."
Despite the fact Stan seemed like a complete con artist and it would have made sense for no one to trust his crappy promotional flyers, a flock of people showed up at the Mystery Shack, all lined up outside of the small enclosure to see the titan. Dipper and Mabel were collecting money from the prospective customers while Petra and Levi hid in the bushes until Stan moved out of the area.
"Come on, old man. We don't have all day," Levi growled, watching as he milled about conning people for more money.
"Normally I'd say you should be more patient, but I'm ready to go back to the cabin," Petra sighed. "I really want to take a bath."
"Once Stan leaves we'll go in for the kill," Levi said.
"That'll be great once he actually leaves," she replied, making him snort.
It all happened in a flash. The sound of clanking metal rose above the din of conversation outside of the enclosure and before Levi and Petra could process what the noise was, the titan, chains still wrapped around its arms and shoulders, stepped out of its makeshift home.
"Shit!" Petra cried, getting to her feet and running towards the titan, Levi right beside her. God damn it, we warned him, Levi thought, pushing people out of his way. We told him this would happen. If someone dies because of his stupidity . . . Thankfully everyone had the sense to run away and the titan was moving slowly. Hopefully it'd be easy to take down.
"Go somewhere safe," Petra instructed the twins as they approached her and Levi.
"But we want to help!" Dipper said.
"You can't help with something like this. But here, have these in case something happens and it gets near you. Hold it down here," Petra instructed, handing them each a blade. The titan smash a window, reaching into the Mystery Shack. Shit, someone must have hidden in there, Levi thought.
"Petra! Disable it any way you can!" he shouted, eyes searching for any straggling spectators. Dipper was stationed on the porch and Mabel was hiding behind a tree near the forest. Not the best places to hide, but it was better than nothing.
"I'm on it!" She engaged her gear and soared into the sky. Her blades cut into one of the titan's arms and sent it sprawling back towards the porch.
"Dipper!" Petra cried, changing course and zooming towards him to get him out of the way. But the building was faster than Petra anticipated and it promptly collapsed over her and Dipper, the titan falling down on top of the overhang. Time seemed to pause for Levi. There was no movement from underneath the broken boards and the thought of Petra dying made every horrible emotion possible bubble up violently in his stomach.
"Hey, you big dummy! I'm over here!" Mabel screaming brought him out of his reverie. She was yelling at the top of her lungs, waving her blade around wildly and running towards the titan. The titan moved its head and started towards her.
"Mabel, get away from it!" Levi yelled, springing into actions. He could mourn later. RIght now he needed to protect Mabel and everyone else. He anchored his hooks into the titan's shoulder and he zoomed into the air. But before he could kill it, it grabbed his wires and threw them off, sending Levi flying towards the collapsed porch. Pain shot through his body upon impact, but he tried to ignore it. Shit, why does she have to be so stubborn, he thought as he saw Mabel. She was running towards the titan and Levi's gear wasn't moving fast enough. She was right under the titan and she swung her blade, severing its heel in half. "That's for hurting my brother!" she yelled Good girl.
The titan stumbled and started falling as Levi anchoring his gear into the titan. "Go check on Petra and Dipper!" he commanded her before delivering the fatal blow to the falling titan. Blood spurted from the nape, coating Levi in the disgusting fluids. His handkerchief was out and wiping the blood off of his face as he hurried to help Mabel dig Petra and Dipper out of the debris. Dipper had a deep cut on his forehead and he was coughing. Mabel uncovered Petra, who seemed to have gotten the brunt of the collapse. Her face was cut up and her shoulder looked dislocated, not to mention her clothes were torn and stained with blood.
"Petra!" he said, sitting in the debris beside her and helping her sit up.
"I'm fine," she said weakly and relief immediately flowed through his body. She was alive and that was all that mattered. "Did you get it?"
"Mabel and I killed it," he informed her. She grinned and gave a small nod.
"Good."
Thankfully, the Mystery Shack didn't sustain a lot of damage besides the porch and the broken window. At Mabel and Dipper's request they came to help rebuild, although they made it clear they were still angry with Stan. Petra handed Levi more nails as he fixed a broken beam on the porch. He'd done this enough in the past, fixing up the old hovel he lived in with Isabel and Farlan. A smirk graced his lips as he remembered scaring Isabel that one night when he fell through the ceiling. It had been unintentional and painful, but the look on her face had been pretty hilarious.
"I need a few more," he said, reaching down towards Petra. She gave him a few others.
"I never knew you were so handy with this kind of thing," she said, watching him work. "Maybe we can fix up that cabin once we get the money."
"Wouldn't you rather have an apartment?" he asked.
"I would like to be closer to town but if we gave the cabin some TLC it could be really cute. Not to mention we're already comfy living there," she pointed out.
"True. How about we keep our options open?" he suggested. She laughed and playfully squeezed his leg.
"That's what you say about everything," she said. The porch door opened and Mabel and Dipper walked out.
"Dipper and I made some grilled cheeses!" Mabel announced, raising up her large platter of somewhat burnt food. Levi put the nails and hammer down and climbed down the ladder, more than ready for lunch. Petra and Dipper spread out a large blanket on the grass and got started on eating, not waiting for Stan to join them.
"Have you guys decided what you're going to do," Dipper asked. "Are you going to stay here longer or go back?"
"Well, without another portal, we're stuck here," Petra answered. "We'd like to go home but realistically, we can't."
"I know it's not much, but I could get you some fake papers and fake letters of reference so you can live here and get jobs until you find a way back," Stan offered and although Levi hated this man, he felt excitement at the prospect at being able to truly live in a world without titans, although part of him felt guilty for not trying harder to return home to the walls.
"You'd do that for us?" Petra asked.
"Think of it as a thank you for protecting the kids and helping us rebuild the Mystery Shack," he said.
"Thank you, sir. We really appreciate it," Petra told him. Her gold eyes glanced over to Levi, a large smile on her lips. He knew she was just as excited as him to be able to start a new life here.