To say Dipper was anxious would be the apt word for what he is feeling, it has been some time since he and Wendy become a thing with both being in their 20s, yet he felt as if he rather fight on some monster cryptid instead of what he was doing, which is packing his things for survival and mountaineering since he was going to go on a winter apocalypse survival training with his soon-to-be fiance and her family. His girlfriend's father is the well-known Manly Dan who if rumors are believed was trained by Manotaurs since he was a teen and is strong enough to snap a person like a twig, that's a person he didn't want to be on his bad side, it was Wendy's idea to spend the Christmas with her and her family in the armageddon training instead of the couple go to some Christmas attendance or party to get his blessing so Mason agreed to it.
"Relax dude, my dad likes you, he just isn't very good at showing it." Wen comforted his boyfriend as she and him all packed up and walked to the Corduroy Cabine.
"Wendy, that man once tried to roadkill me and my sister in the agent's car when she told him that 'Sev'ral Timez' sucks." He blandly informed her.
"Yeah…he has a bit of a temper." she admitted.
"A bit is putting it lightly." he responded sarcastically.
"But, he knows about you so he is willing to give you the chance."
" *sight* fiiine."
"Trust me, you won't regret it." she assured him.
Outside of the cabin, the rest of the Corduroys were busy being ready for the journey with their packs ready, and behold it was the man Manly Dan checking his supplies and preparing for the trip which he is going to have this time not just with his kids but also with the boyfriend of his only daughter. Honestly, he didn't know how to feel about her only daughter dating Stan's Great-Nephew, on one hand, he iscertainlya far cry from Wendy's previous flings and boys he hangs around which is a plus on itself and is the town's hero, while on the other hand, he isn't exactly a 'Manly' man, the first time he met him he thought he was girl, heck even his sister had more muscular than him! sure it was years ago and since then he gained some muscles and his arms were no longer noodly, even then he wasn't exactly the ideal future Son-In-Law he had imagined; however, since he had many times proven himself as a brave individual, Wendy seems to be more active when she is around him(not even working in the Mystery Shack could get her out of her laziness before the Pines kids showed up), and as mentioned before is very different compared to the boys her daughter used to spend time around who were rude, cowardly and insecure(which he internally sighed in relief) he is willing to give him a chance and that says a lot because he hated all of Wendy's exes even from the first glance out of fatherly instinct and their mere look and cocky attitude, the fact that his fatherly instincts proven right all those times so as the superficial observations certainly didn't help either. His sons had a variety of views on Wendy's current boyfriend, Kevin was simply indifferent, and Gus liked him in contrast to Marcus who looked at him with suspicion.
"Hi, guys! Sorry if I'm late!" She greeted her family.
"What's your nerd boyfriend doing here?" Marcus inquired, before Dipper could answer her girlfriend did.
"He is coming with us, I thought to show my boyfriend the Corduroy ropes."
Dan let out an accepting grunt "Fine then, everyone check your belongings, we move the next 10 minutes." He walked inside the house to make sure nothing was at the miss.
"Ya, sure he can handle it? Looks a bit squeamish." he mocked Kevin snickering, before Dipper could bite back Wendy came to his defense.
"Then perhaps I should bring Mabel instea-"
"NOOOO!" All her brothers responded simultaneously in alarm, hence Wendy and Dipper smirking, they met Mabel for the first time when she was in her Boyz Crazy phase, and let's just say she was too much for them to handle even after she grew out of her phase.
"I mean…sure your boyfriend can!" Kevin spoke for the boys as he and they shuddered at the recall ofthe glitterincident.
Years ago….
There it was Mabel in a monstrous glitter-matched sweater which written 'I'm the trouble' in the Corduroy Cabin looking at the shaking Corduroy boys like a piece of meat "Who wants to read my sparky vampire fanfics?" She grinned maliciously with eyes sparking with madness.
Or at least that was the interpretation of that fateful event. Since then, Mabel had a restraining order to never be near Corduroy's cabin to her dismay, not the only time she got a restraining order thanks to her completely disastrous pursuit of a romantic life mind you, and not for the lack of trying.
"Glad we reached an agreement!" She accompanied Dipper and strolled with him.
After the 10 minutes were over they began their journey to the woods which were covered in snow. During the travel Dipper faced difficulties thanks to the eldest brother of Wendy, he gave him a hard time like one time when he intentionally stole his pillow during a night's sleep which forced him to use a rock instead or the constant ridicule he and cold shoulder he gave, to Dipper's credit he didn't snap as he wanted to be liked by his girlfriend's family, though this feud hasn't been unnoticed by Wendy who during twilight when the group was moving pass a river she chose to finally settle this as she left the formation and came near Marcus.
"Is it necessary to give him a hard time?" Wendy said sternly, deciding to finally confront him.
"I don't trust that boyfriend of yours, he and his family are like magnets for trouble, everyone knows that, I just don't want you to end up with a broken heart again." he reasoned.
"Oh, that's so sweet and considerate of you…if only you showed the same concern you had about my dating life before!" Wendy snapped at the startled Marcus.
"Hold on a moment-" he was cut short before he could come up with a retort.
"The tattoo guy, that jock from 10th grade, Robbie THE Edgelord! I literally was a magnet for dregs of Gravity Falls, where wasyourconcern when I dated them!" she pointed at him accusingly, he opened his mouth to say something but got cut off again.
"Oh, that's right! You didn't care! You all have been too busy trying to impress father the 'Manliest Man in Gravity Falls', And now, I finally have a boyfriend who isn't some edgy manchild or has a stick in his butt then suddenly you care?? Dipper is more honorable and manly than half the lot of you! While you were busy trying to catch a fish with your fist he facedliteralmonsters that would reduce you into a gibberish mess! And FYI this is mine to deal with, your problem is you don't know when to shut up spewing crap! You see this face?" She points at her angry face "THIS will always be the face that means shut your bullcrap!"
"I-" put more emphasis on her own face with both of her hands.
"Er-" her frown got even deeper.
He grunts in defeat, knowing it is a losing battle, and after that, his sister moves away furiously.
Just then Kevin moved near him "Wow, she shut your trap real good." he commented, prompting Marcus to push him away in annoyance which caused him to snicker.
As night came, a blizzard of snow, even with their equipment they couldn't continue in this weather unless they wanted to die of hypothermia so they tried finding a place to settle.
"KIDS! OVER THERE! WE SETTLE THERE!" Daniel shouted at the group and pointed at the entrance to a cave, so they ventured inside.
"Wohoh, even in gloves my hands were feeling numb." Kevin looked at his shaky hands.
"Spread out! There could be an animal here so we better search the place before settling in. The boys minus the Pines whined, yet they followed his command and brought their flashlights to check the place. After minutes of searching this place, they found nothing but bones.
"ALL CLEAR DAD! Let's camp!" Wendy shouted, so she left her backpack and started making a campfire with the rest looking for wood or anything to use as fuel for the fire.
*Clicking sounds of stones*
"What's that?" Gus heard the sound as if something was walking, he looked over the source of the sound; nevertheless, found nothing but darkness.
*clicking*
He heard that sound again so he ready his knife from his left hand with the other hand holding his source of light, he slowly walked and narrowed his eyes to make anything. He thought it was just some rat and how he wished that was the case when he lost a year of his life in shock at what it revealed to him.
"Aeeeeha!" A pale-skinned humanoid with milky eyes, dirty and half-destroyed clothes so decomposed that it is unrecognizable what style it used to be, and sharpened mole rat-like teeth appeared without warning in a low screech in front of Kevin from the dark, being startled and terrorized he dropped his flashlight and prior he had the chance to scream his right hand with long fingers and nails covered his mouth from screaming with while the other hand holds him on shoulders in place "ehheeheee!" Kevin was petrified in fear, Dan looked around instinctive and saw one of his sons in the mercy of a thin-pale skin humanoid whose limbs were longer than its body, with no time to waste he jumped and brought his ax down on the thing's hand which grabbed Gus from the neck, the hand got cut and fell with black blood oozing from the screaming creature as it backed away, quickly Dan grabbed his kid from the back of his collar and moved him away, the whole thing was enough to grab everyone's attention, soon they sprinted and joined with the father of the Corduroys, unluckily the screams of the pale thing was heard by his kin as well as more and more member of its kind came some crawling from the roof others from the ground like lizards.
As the group made a protective circle and lit the place using flashlights more humanoid monstrosities came and surrounded them, Wendy with an ax, Marcus with a hunting rifle, Gus with a small needle knife, Mason bringing his hunting knife from his backpack, and Daniel with a waterfowl shotgun.
"What the hell are they!?" Marcus exclaimed with his hunting rifle pointed.
"Wendigos…" Mason informed him with his hunting knife ready, he wished he had brought high-tech weaponry if it weren't for the insistence on using low-tech tools for the winter apocalypse training, as he noticed one of them seemed to be the alpha of the pack which noticeably had red archaic lines across its body with the skull of deer with huge antlers which it wears like a helmet, all it was visible of his face under the skull was glowing white eyes which reminded him of predators with night visions he once saw in a nature documentary.
"You are a monster expert! How do we kill these things?" Gus questioned in urgency.
"Fire is their weakness, grab anything flammable and use it!" Before anyone could act the alpha screeched which commanded the pack to swarm on them so they used their weapons, Wendy managed to take one by axing on the attacker's skull which rained black blood out of it till he took the ax off to fight off the others, Dan shot two of them bullseye and used his gun like a sledgehammer when one of the abominations came near him with Gus behind him, Dipper sprinted over and grabbed a large bone from the ground and then covered it's head with dirty remained patches around it, next one of the attacking wendigos jumped at him and tried to take a bite at him with Dipper struggling to keep the monster away from his head.
"HEY! Off my boyfriend! Get your own!" Wendy aided Mason by slashing the wendigo's head into a flying head.
"Thanks Wen." Dipper thanked and finally took his lighter to light it up, using his torch he shooed the screeching man-eaters and even set one on fire as it vocalized an unholy shriek before it died.
Another of those pale cannibals caught Gus off-guard and nearly got its sharpened claws approximately on the shocked kid until his father came and shield himself between his son and the thing, a slashed crimson mark near his left shoulder across his arm, and then punch the abomination on the face with its teeth flying over.
"Are you okay boy?
"Yes, Are you!?" he asked incredulously.
"No!" He shouted as he tried to stop the bleeding from his wound near the shoulder.
Seeing that, Marcus tried to get his hands on his lighter till one of the hordes took him by surprise, tossed his lighter away, and before he could use his rifle to smack on it the cannibal threw him like a ragdoll. "WOOOAH!" he crashed into the cave's wall and moaned in pain. " Ow! These things are becoming a pain in my aAAAA!" he yelped due to the beast which threw him away now racing toward him and jumped with his fangs and teeth tearing him a new, he would have been slashed into a grizzly end if it weren't for a flamer aimed at the attacker from a flame gun belonged to Dipper, the entity fell near Marcus as it burst to flame with it screaming until it was nothing but a chartered corpse, Marcus looked in amazement to the boyfriend of his sister who simply nodded and used his torch to send more of the assaulting horde on fire while also being careful to not get sliced by them.
By then, the Corduroys followed Dipper's advice and used whatever flammable things they could get their hands on and touched them to shoo and send the wendigos on fire some did some ingenuity to their credit like Kevin using his secretly-stashed sprayer which he smuggled, and a lighter together to have his flamethrower, more and more of them got burned or died by other means until no more of them came, all that remained were their corpses either by fire, bullets or axes and knives.
Marcus panted heavily "I think that's all of them." he kicked one of the dead bodies.
"No it's not, look, the one with a deer skull is not anywhere." Wen reminded them, so they stand alert trying to find where the pack leader went with Dipper this time arming himself with brass knuckles, a gift from Stanley on one of his and his sister's birthdays(though, they had to keep that a secret until now that they were in legal age and only used it for emergency). Unfortunately for the Corduroy's patriarch, the last wendigo was up on the roof using the darkness as camouflage coming toward him slowly and slowly with its hungry maw opened dripping with saliva for its prey.
"BEHIND YOU!" the Pines boy cried out to Dan who in turn back, before he could react the anthropophagus with one of its hands slammed him on his face, for a skinny creature it was surprisingly strong, the rest of the group hurried to aid him; however, it was too late as the thing took a bite from Dan's right arm between his shoulder and wrist.
"NOOOOO!" They screamed as they ran with Wendy who was the nearest giving a kick to the anthropologist's head which resulted in it jumping back to the roof at much distance and hissing.
"DAD! You okay?" Kevin questioned in urgency.
"I'm fine! I dealt with worse, although I felt a bit dizzy…"
"That's because that thing took a chunk out of your flesh you testosterone-drunk bear!" Wendy snapped at his denial, indeed the abominable humanoid ripped a part of its flesh and now it was bleeding, whilst others didn't take their eyes off the cannibalistic monster which they could swear looked a bit smug as it chews and swallowed with his tongue licking its lips clearly enjoying the taste, Wendy used her emergency kit to disinfect her father's wound and stop the bleeding.
"You like my taste skinny?" Manly Dan roared at the gazing creature "Then it's a good thing that I'm…ABSOLUTELY DRUNK WITH CORDUROY'S SPECIAL MOONSHINE! HAHAHAHAHA!" Manly Dan cackles madly as the wendigo which took a bite of his flesh starts to look disoriented with its eyes dilating.
It took the other in surprise before Dipper blinked and registered "That's…that's ingenious! You have poisoned yourself with a high dosage of arsenic as a safety precaution!" impressed, ignorant of the obvious.
"THAT IS DEFINITELY WHY I DID THAT!" Daniel with his still gritted teeth said in a mix of pain, embarrassment, and a sense of schadenfreude for giving the wendigo 'screw you in the most ironic way, Wendy almost rolled her eyes if it weren't for the urgency of the situation, in one desperate move the pack leader tried to move away and then in as an act of intimidation it sharpens its claws and hanged his long skinny arms around like wings in an act of intimidation until it dropped to the earth so as it's bony helmet away from him.
"It's vulnerable now! Now it's the time!" Dipper called everyone.
"You heard him! Let's kill the bastard!" Marcus concurred.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH-!"the boys and the girl roared with every breath of their lungs and raced toward the now intimidated Wendigo which didn't know what it should do or react other than making a weak Howell, it didn't get the chance to decide once the Pines and the Corduroys attacked with their weapons and beat the crap out of it, brass knuckles, axes, knives, punches, kicks all falling on him non-stop till it was nothing but a bloody pulp and died.
"You mess with a Corduroy, you mess with all of us!" Gus spits on the beaten dead body in spite.
"Not that I'm not proud of y'all are a show of brutality, but can you please bandage me up before I die from blood loss?" the patriarch gestured with his eyes to his cut.
"Right! Right!" Wendy returned to him to bandage his injury, whereas the rest collected themselves with Marcus walking toward Mason.
"Hey Pines!" He called him which got his attention. "I'm not good at apologies and thank you so I will make it quick." he scratched the back of his head in nervousness "Sorry about giving you crap and thanks for saving my ass."
"No problem, Water off the bridge, I have a sister too so I get it." He shrugged, accepting his apology.
Gus moved toward the fallen deer skull, after which he took it and checked it around "Wow, a cool trophy! we now ha-" Dipper snatched the skull before he could wear it on his head and threw it hard on earth, resulting in it shattering into a million pieces.
"HEY! That was-"
Without alarm a surge of black magic in black came up and turned into smoke which grabbed their attention, there was an awkward moment before someone finally said something.
"You're welcome." he nonchalantly said and moved past his girlfriend's youngest brother who was still looking at the pieces dumbstruck Wendy's oldest brother considering his soon-to-be brother-in-law just saved a member of the Corduroy family again.
Minutes later the fire was made in the middle of the cave a bandaged Manly Dan with the rest of the group circled around using the heat to warm themselves and cook their meals on sticks, the corpses of the massacred wendigos were being used as fuel for a separate campfire so that they won't have to deal with their stinky rotten stink.
"Man, if this is what it is like being in one of your adventures, no wonder why our sister is always eager to spend time with you." Kevin with his almost cooked marshmallows commented.
"To be fair, this one just came out of nowhere, it's not like any of us had a way of knowing it," he remarked.
"Bah! Who needs Christmas when you can commit a massacre on man-eating abominations with your family guilt-free!" She nodded to the burning pile of wendigos, Gus looked at her weirdly as Kevin until they made eye contact with each other and shrugged.
After a few moments of silence just looking at the fire and processing the ordeal they fasted before Mason finally dared to slap his hands together to ask Wendy's dad the question "So…Me and Wendy were thinking since we have been a thing for some time if we can have your blessing in me becoming her fiance-"
"No." he gave a fast nonchalant answer that surprised everyone including the dumbstruck Pines.
"bu-but …" Dan's soon to be son-in-law stammed.
"Not until you drink one coup from my family's special moonshine." he grabs his flask and pour the liquid into a metallic mug and then gave it to him, Dipper hesitantly looked at the poured mug, it smelled like death and gasoline having a baby, his nose pinched in recoil. He looked back at Manly Dan whose look told him to drink it, he let out a breath and drink it which felt like bile in his throat, after drinking it his face expressed in pain, trying very hard to not throw up with the rest of Corduroys looking at him grinning.
" *BLAH!* it-ts…the absolute foulest thing I ever put in my mouth…" Now he felt a burning sensation in his stomach while he spoke weakly with his mouth tasting like octane, the Corduroys laughed at his misfortune.
"Welcome to the family, son!" Daniel gave his blessing and gave a hard affectionate smack on his back in mirth which nearly caused him to fall.
"I-i-feeeel…trippy..~" Mason fell unconscious when the effects of the drink came, alarmed his girlfriend came to check him with the Corduroy boys now laughing like hyenas.
"DAD!" she roared back at her father.
"I DIDN'T MEAN FOR THAT TO HAPPEN!" He defended himself.
"I TOLD YOU HE WAS A LIGHT DRINKER!" Wendy's fiance was still sleeping like a sleeping beauty as the only daughter of Manly Dan chewed her father up with the boys still laughing hoarsely, he was now rather dealing with the wendigos than his enraged daughter.