Authors note: Hey guys, the second chapter is here now. I was originally going to reveal the Kajiu that will be the main characters with the human main characters, but I decided to save it for the next chapter, but I won't leave this chapter without having some kind of Kajiu appearances, you'll probably know who these Kajiu in this chapter are if you know Godzilla well enough. Other than that, I hope you enjoy and review if you please.
Chapter 2: Cave Spelunking
O-O-O
After the twins had finished unpacking their belongings and furnished their room, they went downstairs to catch up with the rest of the old Mystery Shack crew. Dipper decided to meet up with Wendy first since she was waiting for him by the counter while Mabel met up with Soos who just finished cleaning the dreaded outhouse. It may had been only two years, but two years was enough to feel like forever, so everyone was glad that the Pine twins were back again.
Dipper walked in through the gift shop door to see Wendy, who just dealt with the last customer in the shop that walked past Dipper and outside to leave.
"Thirty bucks for this snow globe was a good idea!" Said the gullible tourist walking out, shaking the snow globe for his amusement to see the small "snowflakes" shake around the globe.
Dipper just raised an eyebrow at the strange sight as walked up to the counter to greet Wendy.
"Did that guy really just buy a snow globe for thirty bucks?" Asked Dipper.
"That's nothing. You should have seen this lady that bought complementary stickers for fifty bucks, just because there was a cat sticker on it." Said Wendy, amazed at the stupidity of people. "I could get those for two bucks if I just walk a few blocks down a corner store."
"Easy there, my sister would die for those kind of stickers." Said Dipper, walking around the counter next to Wendy, while pulling up an extra stool to sit on.
"I think I would die if I saw the price tag." Quipped Wendy, making Dipper chuckle at the quip. "Like those ghosts we found at that haunted continence store."
"Oh yeah, those guys!" Said Dipper, remembering the two ghosts. "That was a… interesting experience."
"Yeah, it was." Agreed Wendy, remembering one particular moment in that store. "I still remember that dance you did to save my life."
"Oh uh, you do?" Asked Dipper, still a bit embarrassed by that moment. "That was just something really dumb."
"No way, dude. The fact that you saved my life with that dance makes up for the rest of the dumb stuff." Wendy chuckled at Dipper's embarrassment, not believing him on what he said. "Besides, I thought it was adorable."
Dipper blushed slightly out of embarrassment. "Heh, thanks. I think."
"You're doing that dance for me when my birthday comes." Said Wendy smiling, which made Dipper put on a serious look on his face, not very willing to do the dance again. "It'll make up for my crappy birthday last summer."
"Really?" Asked Dipper, wondering what Wendy meant by that. "Why was it crappy?"
"Well… I didn't cake because my brothers ate it all, a tree fell down on our car that was supposed to be mine to drive, and the best gift I got that wasn't broken was a new axe, which broke after the first swing." Said Wendy, summarizing her birthday experience which shocked Dipper at the bad luck. "But that wasn't the worst part."
"How come?" Asked Dipper, wondering what could be worse than that as Wendy sighed.
"Because you and your sister weren't there." Said Wendy sadly. "If I had a crappy birthday with you guys, I would have been happy."
Dipper frowned, feeling bad for not coming last summer. "I wanted to come last year but, you know how family can be, wanting to spend time with you and all."
Wendy nodded understandably. "True, but still."
Dipper then thought of something he knew would cheer Wendy up. "You know, Mabel and I are gonna go on a mystery hunt later. I was wondering if you wanted to come with us."
Wendy's eyes then lit up with joy. "Heck yeah, dude! Of course I'll come with you guys."
"Consider it an early birthday gift, and as a make-up gift for not being here last summer." Said Dipper humbly, smiling at Wendy's joyful reaction.
The two friends shared a moment of silence before Wendy broke it. "I missed you, Dipper. I really did."
"I missed you too." Answered Dipper.
The two friends smiled warmly at each other, happy to see each other again after the two years apart, as they began talking about countless other topics as the day went on, laughing at the crazy things they told each other about their lives as they began reviving the bond they shared before.
Little did the two know that the slim figure from earlier was watching them through the window, smiling evilly as he talked to himself.
"Laugh while you can, meat bags. But I'll be the one who gets the last laugh." Said the slim figure, as he started laughing to himself. "HAHAHAHAHAHA! See that? I got the last one."
"Uh, dude? What are you doing?" Asked someone behind, who turned out to be Soos. "Are you laughing evilly to yourself?"
"What? No, of course not. I was just- LOOK, A BEAR!" Exclaimed the slim figure, tricking the handyman to look behind him as he ran away into the woods. "Later, sucker!"
The slim figure then tripped on a small rock he failed to see, falling down and twisted his ankle.
"HAHA, OW! Twisted ankle, funny and painful, Ow." Cried out the figure, getting up and disappearing into the woods, leaving Soos scratching his head in confusion.
"He seems like a suspicious person… oh well." Said Soos, shrugging his shoulders as he went to fix the Mystery Shack's gutter.
O-O-O
While Dipper was busy chatting with Wendy, Mabel searched the house to find Soos who just finished cleaning the outhouse, though she didn't really know where he was now, so she went to see if Grunkle Stan knew, as she toured the old museum in the Mystery Shack to find him, and saw the old man lead a group of tourists out of the curtain into the gift shop.
"Be sure to buy our new merchandise on your way out, even memories have a price." Said Stan to the tourists walking out, as they looked around the gift shop just like Stan knew they would do. "Ha! Suckers."
"Still ripping off tourists?" Asked Mabel, getting Stan's attention as he turned to face his great niece.
"It never gets old, and I'm eighty two." Said Stan proudly. "I still got it."
Mabel smirked at the comment. "It's good to see you Grunkle Stan."
"Same here, you little munchkin." Said Stan, glad to see his great niece back.
"By the way, have you seen Soos? I wanted to ask him something." Asked Mabel, trying to figure out where Soos is.
"He's outside fixing the gutter. Who knew those darn squirrels could cause so much damage." Said Stan.
"Jeez, tell me about it. There're so cute but so vicious at the same time." Agreed Mabel, thinking back to her last experience with squirrels. "I know this from experience."
"Then I got some advice for you kid. Shoot on sight." Advised Stan. "I tried negotiating like you told me to and all I got were bites."
"Grunkle Stan!" Exclaimed Mabel, shocked at the harsh statement as Stan laughed at Mabel's reaction.
"Relax, kid. I'm just pulling your chain." Said Stan, assuring Mabel it was fine until briefly going into a serious expression. "Seriously though, be careful. Squirrels are like piranhas with legs, and they're furry."
Mabel nodded as she exited the curtain to go see Soos. "See you later, Grunkle Stan!"
Stan waved back to Mabel as she left the museum, as Stan frowned to himself at seeing her leave and sighed.
"See you later, kid." Said Stan softly, as he prepared himself to greet the next batch of tourists.
O-O-O
As the day went by, not much happened today for the first day back in Gravity Falls. It was surprisingly quiet with nothing strange going on today, besides Soos telling the others about some skinny guy watching Dipper and Wendy through the window, with Wendy's response being that he was probably some pedophile to look out for, but other than the possible rape alert, nothing too mysterious.
It was now six in the afternoon, the sun was beginning to set, and the Mystery Shack closed down early since all the tourists for the day had arrived and left with as much cash gone from their wallets as possible, as Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy were now waiting for Soos in the living room after Mabel convinced Soos to join along for the mystery hunt, as Dipper tapped his foot impatiently for the handyman.
"What's taking him so long?" Asked Dipper, wondering why Soos wasn't here yet.
"Probably cleaning out that gutter still. He said he found a bunch of dead birds in there." Said Wendy, making Mabel gag in disgust.
"Eww." Said Mabel, shuddering at the fact that dead birds were in the gutter. "I know Stan isn't much of an animal person but… just eww."
When footsteps could be heard from across the living room, the three friends assumed it was Soos, but were disappointed when it turned out to be Stan instead, who came into the living room wearing his usual boxers and tank top when he wasn't working, and looked at the three oddly.
"What are you kids doing? Especially you, Wendy. You're supposed to be gone by now." Asked Stan, wondering why the three were just standing there.
"We're just waiting for Soos." Said Mabel, not telling Stan about what they were doing.
"Why would you want to wait for Soos out of everyone?" Asked Stan. "There's a reason why he comes to work earlier than usual."
The three couldn't just say to Stan that they were leaving to go in the middle of the woods to a dark and scary cave, Dipper knew that Stan wouldn't let them do something like that, so did Mabel and Wendy when Dipper told them about how Stan felt about that kind of thing, so he had to find some kind of excuse before Stan got more suspicious.
"Because we want to do… umm, teenage stuff." Said Dipper nervously, trying to come up with a reason for the wait. "And we want Soos to come along cuz you know, he's Soos."
"I didn't know Soos was a teenager." Said Stan, suspicious of the trio as they tried coming up with a better excuse.
"That's because we're gonna do like, crazy teenage stuff unless someone dosen't watch us." Said Wendy, making up an excuse. "And we need someone to watch us so we don't get into drinking and smoking pot."
Stan just lowered his eyes at the trio until he sighed. "Kids these day. At least your brain cells work."
Stan just sat down on his chair and turned on the T.V. while at the same time, Soos appeared by the living room to the trio, signaling the trio to come to him.
"Okay Stan, we're off to do our crazy teenage stuff now. Said Dipper. "We'll be back by ten."
"Fine. Just make sure you stay away from the hard stuff. I know that from experience." Warned Stan, as he glued his eyes on the T.V. screen while the group exited outside the Shack.
"Make sure you watch Waddles for me, Grunkle Stan!" Exclaimed Mabel, before shutting the door behind the group.
Waddles then walked up next to Stan and oinked at the old man.
"Same to you, pig."
O-O-O
"Sorry I took so long, dudes." Apologized Soos."There were just so many dead birds, I had to get a trash bag to clean it all up."
"Soos. TMI." Said Mabel, sick of hearing about dead birds.
Dipper then took out his journal, going back to the page where it showed the cave, luckily the directions on how to get to the cave weren't gone, the main problem however, was that it would be a long hike to get to their destination, as the group walked through the woods to the right direction.
"Okay, from what I read, we just need to keep going straight here and we should get to the cave in no time." Said Dipper. "But except this place to be a long hike from here."
"How far is it?" Asked Soos.
"About an hour and a half from here." Answered Dipper.
Wendy whistled surprisingly. "We'll be pretty far into the outskirts of town."
"That's why I wanted to leave earlier." Said Dipper, putting away the journal. "So we could have enough time to explore the cave and go back.
"Speaking of the cave, you never said too much about it." Said Wendy, wondering about the cave. "What's so special about it?"
"That's the thing, I don't really know." Said Dipper, not really sure what else to say. "There was only one page in the journal that said there was a cave out there and the directions to it, but nothing else. Any other information about the cave was torn from the journal."
"Sounds like the author doesn't want anyone knowing what was inside." Said Wendy, before a question about the cave popped up in her head. "But why didn't he tear off all the pages?"
"Maybe the author didn't tear off the pages?" Guessed Dipper.
"Either way, we're going to a scary cave in the outskirts of town. Totally not dangerous." Said Wendy sarcastically.
"We've been through worse." Said Soos, confident that whatever could be in that cave wouldn't be so bad.
"It's not the first time we went somewhere that we have no idea about and almost died at." Pointed out Mabel, remembering the adventures the group used to have. "Good times."
They really were good times, the memories that the group shared with each other would never be forgotten, such as the underground bunker or the secret society of the blind eye to name a few adventures, those summer memories were fun times, and the group was sure that this hiking trip to the cave would be another cherished memory.
As the group hiked onward, it felt like they were walking for hours to where they were going, though it was quite the peaceful hike. The sounds of nature accompanied the group, filling a peaceful atmosphere as the setting sun gave off a beautiful to see, still shining in the sky despite getting closer to setting, it reminded the twins how beautiful the woods of Gravity Falls, yet another thing that they missed from Gravity Falls.
By the time the sun had almost set, making the sky darker with each second that passed, getting ever so close to emitting a starry night, the group managed to reach the cave Dipper spoke about, which was so far from the town, they couldn't even see a single sight of it when they turned back, not just because the woods behind them locked their view, but also because they were nowhere near any of the ordinary supernatural sights Gravity Falls had to offer, except this one cave in front.
"Here we are." Said Dipper, as the group walked close to the cave entrance.
It was unusually large for a cave, it reached dozens of meters in length and width, the rocky formations of the cave were unusual as well, since they appeared to be created by something instead of being formed naturally, and it didn't help that with the setting sun the cave was as dark as night, which made Dipper take out five flashlights.
"Why do you have five flashlights?" Asked Mabel.
"I've seen horror movies involving caves. People always bring only one flashlight to a dark cave, and the light always breaks on the wrong time." Explained Dipper, handing over a light to each person in the group, while keeping the last light as a backup. "So now we have-
"Opps." Said Mabel, accidentally dropping the flashlight on the rocky surface of the cave, while Dipper pinched two fingers together by his forehead.
"Really? We're doing this again?" Asked Dipper, frustrated after remembering the last time this kind of thing happened, as he gave Mabel his spare flashlight. "Don't. Drop. The light."
"Okay, okay. Jeez. I just had butterfingers." Said Mabel, as the group turned on their flashlights and began their descent into the unknown darkness.
While the group went inside the cave, they failed to notice the slim figure watching them from behind, as he grimed evilly when they went inside and spoke to himself.
"A shame they don't know about the local natives."
O-O-O
The interior of the cave was much larger than the outside, it felt cold and dank inside, with stalagmites on the top dripping water down to the group, splashing on a small pond close by, as the splashes echoed across the cave, while the group just went further inside, slowly walking further in the cave as it got darker and darker, eventually going so far into the cave, no splashes of water could be heard, giving off an eerie silence while all the group could see were rocks and an endless rocky passageway to go deep in the cave.
"This place is really creepy." Whispered Dipper.
"I know, right? It's like a horror movie." Whispered Wendy.
"Why are we whispering?" Whispered Soos, not sure why everyone was being so quiet.
"Dramatic effect, dude." Whispered Wendy.
"Okay, maybe we don't have to-
"BLARGH!" Shouted Mabel, shining her flashlight at her face in front of Dipper.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Screamed Dipper, getting the living daylights scared out of him as his scream echoed throughout the cave, making Mabel laughed at her brother's scream. "Why!?"
"HAHA! It's just a joke, bro bro." Said Mabel, catching her breath from her laughter. "You got to admit, I got you good."
"She did get you." Agreed Soos, as Dipper looked at Wendy for what she thought.
"Would have gotten me too." Said Wendy, trying to be gentler about agreeing with Mabel.
"What if there's some monster living down here?" Warned Dipper.
Mabel brushed off the warning. "Oh, come on. We haven't found anything here except rocks. What's the worst that could happen?"
The group then looked around themselves, shining their lights around their general area if anything was coming.
"Okay." Said Dipper, relieved that Mabel didn't jinx the group. "We should-
"SCREEEEEE!"
A loud high pitched screech could be heard, echoing loudly throughout the cave, while Dipper gave Mabel a stern look, making her scratch her head out of embarrassment. Before Mabel could say sorry, the group could hear the screech again coming from behind, as they turned around to see a giant praying mantis, having a purple and brown like color to it, reaching to be about forty meters high as it stared at its human prey with its round yellow buggy eyes, raising its spiked claws to prepare to hunt down its prey.
"RUN!" Shouted Dipper, as the humans ran as fast as they could from the giant mantis, who gave swift chase to catch its prey.
There was not much cover in the cave to hide from the mantis, neither was there any way for them to take on a forty meter tall mantis, so running was the only option left. The mantis was fast for its size, able to catch up to the humans as they sprinted as far as they could until coming across a deep pit downward. The group stopped in place, almost close to falling as Dipper accidently dropped his flashlight into the pit, revealing only but lit darkness as it fell, along with some kind of giant figure that Dipper just missed that appeared to be slowly climbing up.
"What do we do?" Asked Mabel, wondering how to get over the pit while the mantis got closer with each step it took.
Wendy then spotted a small ledge at the end of the right side of the pit, which was the only way to get across the pit. "Follow me!"
The group followed Wendy to the ledge as she began slowly inching forward, hugging the cave wall as close as possible while trying to not look down into the dark pit, with the group not far behind as they all managed to inch forward as fast as possible, while trying to keep their balance and not fall.
"Just don't look down." Said Wendy, as Soos looked down to see the dark pit, and quickly looked up again in fright.
"Oh jeez, dude. I looked down." Said Soos, making Mabel look down to see what the fuss was about and looked back up again.
"Okay, now I'm really scared." Said Mabel frightfully.
The mantis tried swiping its claws at the group to catch them, but they were too far by just a few inches, sending chills down Dipper's spine at how close the mantis was at grabbing him. The group managed to get to the other side with no problem, while the mantis screeched at the humans from across the pit.
"Ha! You can't get us now!" Taunted Wendy, but it didn't take long for the mantis to figure something out, as it opened its wings and prepared to glide across the pit to its prey, making Wendy frown in disappointment. "Never mind."
However, before the mantis could properly land on the other side, large, arachnid legs appeared from behind it, revealing itself to be part of a giant spider, colored black with yellow patterns, as the forty five meter arachnid grabbed the mantis from behind, sinking its venomous fangs into the mantis as it screeched in pain before being dragged down to the dark pit, making itself become the prey for another predator.
The human group just stared in awe and amazement from what they had just witnessed.
"You want to keep quiet now?" Dipper asked Mabel.
"Sorry." Whispered Mabel softly.
"I should have brought bug spray." Said Soos.
"I don't think bug spray is gonna stop something like that." Said Wendy, referring to what she just saw happen. "We should keep going."
The group agreed as they shined their flashlights ahead of them, noticing the rocky floor was now descending downward, as they carefully watched their step while keeping extra quiet, not wanting to alert another mantis or spider to their presence.
Little did the group know that were being watched by the two small women that observed the intruders carefully.
"Should we reveal ourselves, sister? I feel as if the strangers are trustworthy." Asked one of the sisters.
"Not yet. They must arrive at the nest first, then we will appear." Answered the other sister.
The sister nodded in response, as they vanished from where they were, waiting for the strangers to arrive at the nest they spoke of.
O-O-O
Disclaimer: I do not own Gravity Falls or Godzilla.