Dipper and Mabel lead them into the shop, where Wendy sat behind the counter idly reading a magazine. The redhead glanced up and blinked. "Whoa. Sure is twins in here."

"I know! Isn't it great?" Mabel, as usual, made no attempt at all to hide her enthusiasm. "We're best friends now." She slammed her hand over Dipper's mouth when he opened it to protest. "Shhhh, bro. This is happening. It's happening."

He thwacked her hand away. "Of course it is."

"Who's this?" Sue asked, indicating the redhead.

"What's up? I'm Wendy. I work... uh, I'm employed by Mister Pines." She chuckled a little at her correction. "You're the new girls, right?" Something told her this wasn't the right word – they looked older than the redhead, although that might have been a function of their intimidating stature. They were certainly taller by an inch or two. Maybe more.

Winnie nodded while looking around the shop. "Mm, that would be us."

"Cool. Welcome." She doffed her hat for a moment to scratch. "Let me be the first to assure you that this place is about as strange as it gets in Gravity Falls. At least I'm pretty sure." A beat passed. "Actually, uh, there's an abandoned store in town called the Dusk 2 Dawn. My advice is to like, never go there. Seriously." A shudder took her. "Geez. I still have nightmares."

Sue gave her an inappropriately bright smile. "We'll keep that in mind."

The grin was returned – although awkwardly – as Wendy went back to her reading. "Heh. Nice colored contacts, by the way. Makes you look like a demon."

"Huh? Oh." She pulled at her cheeks to make her eyes look wider. "It's the only way people can tell us apart besides our hairstyles. And my voice."

"Sue was always the optimistic one. You can literally hear it." Winnie had been wandering through the shop as her sister chatted, examining items at random. "I seem to have found a jar of eyeballs." There was an uncomfortable look in her eyes.

Mabel darted over to her, but didn't notice the expression. "Ooo, I love those! Waddles fetches them for me! Most of the time."

"And by fetch she means he eats them," Dipper added. "Waddles is her pet pig, by the way."

This information caused Sue to cock an eyebrow. "There's a goat and a pig?"

He nodded. "Yep. Who knows how long he's been hanging around, but he eats anything. Between him and Waddles I'm surprised there's a Mystery Shack at all."

Mabel was looking displeased. "That sweater-eating little creep. I should train Waddles to fight him. Hiyaaaaaa!" she yelled, karate chopping the air. "Attack Pig!"

Sue chuckled at her antics. Winnie's reaction was limited to a smile. "Is this place actually a museum?" the blue-eyed twin asked. "I can't figure out where you would fit one now that I'm inside."

"Museum is way too much of an overstatement." Dipper waved them all toward a door with an 'Employees Only' sign. "Come on, we can talk in here. If Stan sees you guys in the gift shop he won't stop until you buy something." Through this portal was the living room. The three ladies sat at the round table. "You two want a soda? We've got about seven cases worth of Pitt."

"Yes!" Winnie said, for once sounding as enthusiastic as her sister. Her brow furrowed when Sue giggled. "Yes."

"Aw. You guys are adorable together. As is right and proper for twins." Mabel looked between them. "So, whatcha think about the town, huh? Is it as... I dunno, whatever Iowa is. Flat? Tornado-y?" Winnie's eyes narrowed at the last word. "Whoa. Uh. I guess that was a nerve I just stepped on."

Sue decided to speak for them both, and in the process change the subject. "It's a lot like home. More trees. More cliffs. We didn't have a lake with a waterfall, though."

"Good! I'm sorry I didn't really do any guiding for you yesterday. If I hadn't caught that bus I was seriously going to die to death in the heat trying to walk home. You understand." She flashed a metallic smile at their nods. "Cool. If you want, we can do the tour thing now! Of Gravity Falls, I mean."

"We sort of walked around this morning to find things," Winnie replied.

Crestfallen, Mabel crossed her arms and pouted. "Aw, man. Well, Dippingsauce and I could show you the other stuff!"

The identical twins glanced at each other again. "What other stuff?" Sue asked.

"Oh man, there's too much to name. Like the dinosaurs in the old mine. There's tons! Like a Puh-terodactyl that tried to kill us, a tyrannosauruseses, a..." She paused to yell into the kitchen. "Hey, Dipper! Hurry up with the soda! I need you in here to say big words for me!"

"Just a second!" He returned at last with four cans of Pitt. "Sorry, I had to open a new case." He made sure Winnie and Sue got the cold ones. "Here you go."

They both took a drink and had only one thing to say: "Peachy."

Mabel couldn't help but snicker. "Pff. You guys are the cutest."

"Nobody has ever called me cute before," Winnie noted between swallows. "What other things happen around here? Besides the dinosaurs, I mean."

"Wow." Dipper looked at the ceiling and tried to gather his thoughts. "Well, there's a lot of weird stuff in the lake. An island tried to eat us."

Mabel groaned at the memory. "Yeah, that wasn't very fun."

"Uh huh. And the pit you guys were looking at? One hundred percent bottomless." The twins' blank stares made him think they thought he'd gone off the deep end. "I swear! We've fallen in it. We've personally tested its bottomless-ness."

Mabel snorted lightly. "Grunkle Stan tested it twice!"

Sue was having a hard time with the concept. "But how can a hole have no bottom?"

"It's Gravity Falls, man! This place is the weirdest. Kinda numbs you after a while because you're like 'oh well the local psychic just built a huge robot to destroy us' and then you're like 'which is only the 57th most whacko thing that's happened to me this month'! I ain't even kidding, man. The place is a weird sandwich with strange chips and a what-the-heck soda." To punctuate this, she took a drink from her actual soda. "For real."

Dipper suddenly looked cross. "We could show you more, but Grunkle Stan's got my journal."

This drew their interest, Winnie's especially. "You wrote all this down?"

He shook his head. "Not me. Somebody wrote at least three journals detailing all the insanity that happens around here. Whether or not the first one still exists I don't know, but I had number three and our mortal enemy had number two before he got sent to prison. No idea where that one went either. They're full of notes and diagrams about stuff you can't even imagine."

Again the twins shared a look. "We'd very much like to read these," Sue stated. "What did your... um, Grunkle... do with number three?"

"No idea. I ask for it back and he tries to whack me with his cane."

"Which, by the way, is absolutely as hilarious as it sounds." Mabel ignored his unhappy expression and kept drinking. "You guys interested in this stuff? Most people don't seem to notice it. Honestly I think they're too dumb." Her eyes dropped to the table. "That's mean of me to say. But dang. They are dumb."

Winnie crossed her arms and glared off into space. "We've been through too much to be closed-minded."

Now it was the Pines who were exchanging uncertain glances. "Uh, do you guys need a hug?" Mabel asked.

"No, I'm fine." The blue-eyed twin didn't really look fine, but her tone was a distinct shade of 'back off, please'. "I find this hard to believe. Why hasn't anyone else noticed all these things?"

Mabel sighed and played with her hairband. "Dude, I told you. People here are box-of-rocks dumb. I mean d-to-the-u-m-b dumb. It's like there's some sort of brain-suppressing stupidity field or something."

Dipper hopped into the old yellow recliner and nodded. "No joke. You guys say you're not closed-minded? Well almost everybody here is. Especially Grunkle Stan. I guess he's gotten so jaded he doesn't believe anything anymore. And he freaking fought the dinosaurs! How can he keep blowing this stuff off?!"

Sue slouched back in her chair, then exhaled long and low. "If we can't talk to anyone... maybe we should look around for ourselves?"

"I feel like I should warn you that most of the stuff we've run into has either kidnapped us or tried to kill us."

The twins looked over at him and blinked. "Oh?" Winnie rubbed her chin and looked contemplative. "We'll be careful. Just point us in the right direction."

"Whoa whoa whoa. We're not going to send you to your deaths! Who do you think we are, Gideon?" Mabel's face went blank when she saw her comparison fail. "Oops. Forgot you don't know who he is."

Her brother rolled his eyes. "If only we were so lucky. All you need to know is he's in jail and far away."

She thought for a moment and shrugged. "I'm fine with this. Still, though, it'd be kinda bad if we told you to check something out and then you got murdered in the face."

"We will certainly do our best to avoid being murdered anywhere," Sue assured her cheerfully. "But we're really... curious about this place. It seems so odd."

Winnie's face indicated she was feeling grumpy. "Odd is a nice way of putting it."

"Hrm. I mean, you guys look like you could bench press a Buick and all..." Mabel made a few 'hrmph' noises as she considered her next words. "Ah, why not. I'm sure you guys could get away from anything bad."

"Seriously, please don't get killed," Dipper added. "Hey, Mabel, what's the safest thing we could send them to check out? Like a Gravity Falls beginner course."

"Uh... good question." She hopped out of her chair and began to walk around. "Not the gnomes, probably. Island lake monster head thing is a no-go. And I never want to see those stupid crystal things again."

Sue raised her hand. "I want to see the dinosaurs."

Mabel turned to look. "I don't think you can get in there anymore. There was this really old church over the entrance and when we escaped it kinda exploded like kapow!" She added some more explosive sound effects for several seconds afterward.

"And also it's insanely dangerous," Dipper advised. "I'm glad that hole is sealed over."

The red-eyed twin kept prodding. "Where's the hole?"

"In the woods." He drew back in the face of Winnie's icy stare. "What? There's a dirt road in the woods that leads to the church. That's all I've got. And that's all I'm going to give you because you'd be nuts to try and get into the mines."

Mabel blinked a few times. "Wait, we went into the mines. What does that make us?"

He didn't really have a good answer. "Uh... heroic?"

"You know what? I accept that."

"Very well." Winnie rose and started toward the gift shop door. "We will find it ourselves."

"Oh dear." Sue gave chase, but stopped to say goodbye first. "Sorry. She's a little antsy. Thanks for the chat." After a little wave, she was gone. She only caught up after reaching the front yard. Off to the left, Stan was arguing with the tour group about a rock that looked like a face. "Sister! Wait!"

"I need to walk around for a while or punch something," she hissed.

"Then let's take a walk." After she fell in with Winnie, the twins entered the forest. They moved in silence for a few minutes, passing through an endless clump of evergreens until reaching a stream that they decided to follow. The air was tense. It bothered Sue to see Winnie like this, but she lacked the strength right then to address the actual problem. Instead, her mind went to the possible task at hand. "I've got a question, though," she blurted out.

Winnie kept her face forward. "What?"

Sue looked over anyway. "What is a 'dinosaur'?"

Three hours of walking had gotten them only a change in the kind of trees that blotted out the sun. Now they were in a stand of immense sequoia, so broad and tall they could no longer see the forest for the trees in a very literal sense. Winnie had been quiet most of the time. Sue had finally gotten tired of it.

"Talk to me!" she demanded, fists clenched and voice bouncing harshly off the mighty trunks.

Her twin came to a slow halt before turning around. "What do you want me to say?"

Sighing, she leaned against one of the great trees and patted idly at her red dress. "Anything. There's no point in being quiet. Not even the sun can find us here. There are no ears to hide from."

Confronted with this logic, Winnie relented. "I haven't had a very good three days."

"Why?"

"You know why." She turned her back again and stared off. "I'm having to hide myself all over again. You never had to experience the fear."

"I... I guess not." Sue walked over and poked her in the side. "You're terrible at expressing pain, you know?"

Winnie frowned and swatted at her finger. "Of course I am. You're more complete than me."

"Yes. But she offered to finish the process. Why didn't you take her up on it?"

Groaning, the blue-eyed twin turned away and walked a few steps. "After all she's done to us? I never want to see her again. I'm surprised you did."

Sue understood this feeling; a vague version of it lurked in her heart too. Unlike her sister, however, it never really had time to settle. To harden. "Maybe I won't either, eventually. Do you hate her?"

"I don't know how I feel, to be honest."

Despite her non-committal answer, the tension was broken. Seeing no reason to pursue the conversation any further, Sue moved on and waved for Winnie to follow. "Come on, we have vacationing to do. Do you smell the air?"

"Like pine-scented corpses. A smell I never thought I'd have to face again." Her eyes went to the canopy, where only small flecks of sky could be seen.

"Me neither. I guess I see why you're a little testy."

"Mm." They crested a hill and tried to get some sense of direction. "Where are we?"

"Who knows. As far as I can tell it's forest all the way to forever." Something up ahead got Sue's attention. "Wait. There's a gap in the trees." They had been split by a dirt path, wide enough for a car and curving off into the woods in both directions. The twins hopped down an embankment to reach it. "This must be our dirt road in the forest." She kicked at the trail and watched puffs of dust float away. "Which way should we try first?"

Winnie was looking at her phone. "No idea. And no signal. I suppose we'll just have to pick a direction and go." Left won. The path swayed to and fro like a drunk, forced to curve around redwoods that stood scarred and victorious over innumerable axes and chainsaws. Off in the extreme distance they heard the babbling of a creek but couldn't even get a glimpse of it. All her phone was good for now was keeping the time, and about twenty minutes of it passed before she noticed something white and shattered coming around a gentler bend. "Look." Her left arm raised. "See it?"

"Yes!" They broke into a run. The road died at the foot of an obliterated building, whose scraps had been launched several yards in all directions by some force. Bits of stained-glass windows littered the soil and grass. "Huh. Does this look like a church to you, sister?"

"Based on the ones I've seen. They tend to have some sort of colored glass windows." Winnie picked up a few shards and peered at them. "What happened here? It's destroyed."

"Maybe it was a dinosaur!" Sue was a bit too excited about the prospect.

"Oh, sister." Winnie rolled her eyes and tossed away the glass. Together they approached the church and, after some effort, found a way to slip into the rubble. At the back was the opening that lead into the earth. "I think we've found the hole." She noticed a coiled-up rope on the ground next to something spewing clouds of steam. "I suppose we have to jump."

Sue nodded. "Okay. Ready when you are." They dropped into the void, falling feet first and slamming onto the gray rock, where they crouched upon landing to dissipate the energy with a dreadful pair of thuds. Aside from the dust they kicked up, which caused a cough or two, neither woman seemed affected by the hundred-plus feet of air they'd just covered. A massive tunnel with a narrow-gauge track leading into it caught their eye. The red-eyed woman sucked in a deep breath. "Smell the air. It's so empty now."

"Yes, I noticed. Let's try the big tunnel first." Winnie lead the way, using her phone to provide light. Her brow furrowed abruptly. "And that's another thing. I'm tired of having to hide my hands again."

Sue looked at her own, skinned in peachy porcelain and seemingly unremarkable from fingernails to wrists. "Why? The people here don't know any better. It's safer for them that way."

"That's the point."

"Wow." Almost helplessly, she stopped and watched her sister walk ahead. "You really do need to punch something, huh?"

"Yes. I hope dinosaurs are durable. I have a lot of..." Winnie fell silent as the tunnel expanded into a large hollow full of columns of yellowish, translucent material. In many of these slept some awful reptile from the distant past – but more than a few of the columns were ripped open and empty, with little globs of melted liquid tracing paths away between massive footsteps. "I believe we've found them."

"Huh." Sue darted over to a stegosaurus and looked it over. "I didn't know lizards could get this big. This place is exciting!"

There was a smooth sarcasm in her sister's reply. "So very exciting." Before she could say more, a strange sound reached their ears. It was angry – and sort of screechy. "What was that?" There was no time for a guess. Out of the darkness charged a Utahraptor, thundering at the twins with fearsome strides. It was heavy enough to make the ground shake. Winnie tossed her phone over to Sue and prepared to defend herself as the creature arrived, mouth open and filled with pearly daggers to tear her asunder. She ducked under its lunge and shot through its rear legs, glancing at the massive upraised claws on each of its feet. When it turned to track her, she slammed a fist into the side of its jaw. A mighty crack echoed through the cavern, followed by a screech of pain that faded as the beast ran away from them. "Do I look like a snack to you?" she hissed lowly, smoothing her hair back down.

"Sister!" Sue popped out from behind a triceratops and frowned. "You didn't have to hurt it..."

"I should have torn its head off. Give me my phone." Once she had it again they pressed on, entering a corridor that lacked wooden braces and seemed natural in origin. A louder roar flowed from the opposite end. "Here we go again."

A much larger room awaited them, dome-shaped and full of giant skeletons. Fresh ones. The space was so big it ate the phone's light after a distance, making it impossible to get a true sense of its size. Another roar came, far louder and clearly coming from some other part of this cave. Heavy, rhythmic vibrations seemed to indicate something much larger than the raptor Winnie had just fought off. Those vibrations were getting stronger. Sue came to a stop, trying to pierce the darkness with her sight. "Um... Winnie?" She looked up as a pale glow lit a tremendous beast that towered above them. "Sister..."

Winnie was more resigned than surprised. "I see it."

The tyrannosaur let rip with another guttural cry and bent down to take a bite. Just as its snout reached the top of Winnie's head, it stopped – and despite incredible struggling could drop no further. Sue was under its mighty jaw, pushing up and holding it there with both hands. "This is a big one!" she yelled through clenched teeth. Confused and angry, the beast lifted up and gave chase as Winnie began to run. Sue avoided its ponderous gait and climbed up onto its back to ride it. "I'm riding a dinosaur!"

"Good idea." The blue-eyed woman jumped when the beast attacked again, then ran up the bridge of its nose to join her sister on its shoulders. "What do we do with this one?" It was quite displeased and started whirling about in circles. The twins slammed their palms down onto its leathery skin to stay aboard. "Well?"

"You stay here. I'll knock it out." Sue took the phone to light her way and dropped off, skittering across the stone like an insect – which, relatively speaking, was more or less what she was. It chased her vigorously, but she had better acceleration and left it behind. Once there was enough distance between them, she slid to a stop and let it charge her, loading up her right hand as it covered yards with each stride. Waiting until she could almost count the teeth in its mouth, she fired her ready punch and made contact between its nostrils. Its momentum was almost stopped cold; Sue slid back as the creature's inertia went to her, but it was mostly stationary – until it fell over onto its side with a wispy groan and went limp.

Winnie slid to the floor and walked over. "Good shot."

"Oops." She stooped and looked at the results of her strike. Considerable streams of red were pouring from the beast's nose. "I think I accidentally killed it."

"I'll pause for a moment of silence later." She waved off Sue's attempt to return her phone, and instead reached into the tyrannosaur's mouth. Her hand came out with a huge tooth. "Yes, it's probably dead."

"Huh." Sue looked at her hand and frowned. "I think I understand why you're so big on restraint."

"Mm." Another sniff of the air made her frown. "Let's go back up before something genuinely threatening finds us. I'll certainly keep this place in mind the next time I need to vent."

Souvenir in hand, the twins made their return trip. This went without incident and soon they were in the gray cavern once more, looking up at the hole. There was no discussion about how to get back, no planning and in fact, no speaking at all. They simply jumped, reaching the broken floor of the church with hardly any effort. Winnie put her phone away and eyed her toothy prize, but a sound from beyond the rubble made them pause. "I hear someone calling us."

"Mabel?" Sue emerged first and saw the Pines a little ways up the road, exhausted-looking and yelling their names. "Here we are!"

"Oh my gooooosh," Mabel wheezed. "Dipper! Here they are!" She greeted them with a weak wave and noted the dirty nature of Sue's red dress. "He was freaking out that you might have actually gone through with it. I guess he was right."

"We're fine," Winnie assured her, tucking the tooth out of sight as Dipper arrived. "Why did you come looking for us?"

His reply was breathless but didn't lack conviction. "Because I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I didn't make sure you were okay."

Sue gave him a happy pat on the hat. "How nice of you!"

"Hey, you got something." Dipper had noticed the tooth despite her best efforts to hide it. "Wow, big one. You guys find it in the church?"

Winnie brought it around front and held it up. It was obviously fresh, but the kids were too tired to notice. "No."

Mabel came over to look at it. "Fossil?" Her head tilted. "Wait, why is it red on the not-pointy part? I'm confused."

"I pulled it out of the mouth of a live one that tried to kill us." She nodded at her sister, then up the road. "Come on, let's go. I want to take a shower and look around town some more."

Her initial answer didn't sink in with either of the Pines because of their weary state, but long after the goodbyes had been exchanged and the identical twins were gone, they'd had a chance to catch their breath and steady their minds. "You know, they seem pretty nice. Could be good to have around if Bill comes back," Dipper noted, wiping sweat off his brow and getting ready for the walk back to the Mystery Shack.

"Yeah, I agree. And that tooth was awesome! I wants me one." Winnie's statement registered at last. Her eyes slowly widened. "Wait, did she say she pulled it from a live one that tried to kill them?"

"Huh? No, she said she pulled it from a... live one... that... wha?" His vocal cords gradually disconnected from thought as the realization reached his brain too. They looked at each other, sharing an equal amount of confusion and shock.