Before we begin, let me just apologize for how the last chapter took longer than anticipated. I was dealing with a dry spell in my writing, and I tried to work through it by working on other fanfictions.

Oh and I've edited the last few chapters so Mabel's clock sweater is explained sooner. Also the F in future Mason, and Pacifica is now turned to a lowercase, (unless the word starts a sentence). Just makes more sense in my opinion.


Fallen Pine Trees

Chapter 16: Welcome to the Future Part 3

In the previous chapter Mason, Mabel, Soos, and Wendy began to learn a little bit about the future, including how Mason and Pacifica had a son named Tyrone. When Tyrone was introduced to the gang, he didn't recognize Mabel at all. And when Soos identified her as his aunt, Tyrone's response was…

"Since when do I have an Aunt Mabel?"

"WHAT!?" Mabel shouted angrily.

"SERIOUSLY!?" Wendy shouted before smacking her hand over her face in utter failure.

"NO DUDE! NO!" Soos hollered out with tears streaming from his eyes. The whole point of this mission was to show Mason and Mabel that in the future, they'd eventually mend their ways and become best friends/best sibling again. However, it was clear that this didn't happen if Mason's own son didn't know about his father's twin sister. Unless of course…

"Did Mabel change her name?" Soos asked.

"What?" Future Mason asked, confused?

"Well maybe if Mabel changed her name before Tyrone was born than obviously, he wouldn't know her old name," Soos explained.

"Augh Soos," Wendy groaned while once again smacking her head, this time because of how dumb Soos's idea was.

"No Soos. Mabel didn't change her name," future Mason answered. "And before you ask, no she's not dead. We just lost touch some years ago."

"Define some?" Wendy inquired.

"About nineteen years ago."

"WHAT?!" Shouted Wendy, Soos, and Mabel in shock before turning their heads leftwards to look at young Mason angrily.

"Don't give me that look. I can't be the only one responsible for this. I mean surely Mabel had some part in this as well," younger Mason said in defence.

"He's right," piped in future Pacifica. "Mabel had multiple opportunities to make things right with Mason, but instead she messed up every single time." Looks towards Mabel before she continues. "Your actions resulted in the extinction of an entire species, ruined one of our best chances of discovering the author's identity; not to mention you almost destroyed our relationship, turned most of your cousins against Mason, and were somewhat responsible for the death of…"

"Whoa, whoa, wait. Hold on a second," Tyrone interrupted. "That was her? Are you telling me that this the same girl from your childhood, who had no common sense or fashion tastes whatsoever? The one who messed with your lives so many times; and on top of that, is your," points his right index finger towards future Mason, "twin sister?"

"Sigh, yes son, Mabel is my twin," future Mason verified. "Though as I already said, we lost touch years ago when I began dating your mother. You see when Mabel found out about our relationship, she got really mad because of how she and your mother are, basically, sworn enemies. She refused to support it, claiming that I wasn't being a good brother by dating her enemy. Though this wasn't the only problem: at this time I was beginning to lose my cool with Mabel's silly behaviour since it kept messing with my goals. The breaking point occurred when her silliness wiped out the entire Vampire Skull race, ruining my, (at the time), the best chance of discovering the author's identity. Afterwards, we got into a massive fight, which ended with both of choosing to stay out of each other's lives, rarely speaking to one another. At this time I had gotten accepted into Golden Eagle Academy, which made things easier for us to avoid one another. Unfortunately though, our parents, Grunkle Stan, and those two," points towards Soos and Wendy when saying this, "tried so many times to get us to reconnect; each attempt ending in utter failure. They continued this for nearly a year till Weirdmageddon happened, where we were forced to work together; and as you already know, two very important people died during our confrontation with Bill. We couldn've defeated that triangle demon if Mabel hadn't been her usual, annoying, immature self. Anyways, after the catastrophe ended everyone realized that the sibling bond between me and Mabel was completely dead, and gave up trying to fix it. This, (combined with what happened during Weirdmageddon), caused some tension to develop between us, our friends and family. Though these tensions began to fade away when your mother and I got married fourteen years ago. In the end, Mabel and I have completely stayed away from each other. Only interacting with each other whenever I have to meet with her husband, Mermando Pines, (aka the ambassador of the merpeople).

So you see son, the reasons why I didn't tell you about my twin were because we basically weren't family anymore, (hell I didn't even invite her to me and your mothers' wedding), and I didn't feel that there was any need to include her in your life. Besides, from what your uncle Soos has told me, Mabel hasn't changed, (personality wise), since we were kids, and I didn't want her corrupting your mind."

"HEY!" Mabel shouted, feeling offended.

"Nevertheless," future Mason continued, "I'm sorry for never telling you about your 'biological' aunt."

"Eh, I can understand father. Heck, I'm glad we're not family." Tyrone said in response.

"WHAT?" Mabel shouted, again.

"Well if you were part of my family than I'd be a laughing stock, not to mention I'd have to deal with you trying to get me to wear all sorts of ugly sweaters; not only that but then your kids, Maxwell and Marilla, would be my cousins. Augh, I can't stand those twins. If their father wasn't an ambassador I'd have them sent to the artic, (along with their parents as well)."

"Um son, you know that your grandparents, (my parents), would never forgive us if you did that. And I've already lost enough relatives, (thanks to Mabel). The last thing I want is for my parents to hate me. Capeesh?"

"Argh. Yes, father, I get you. Though in my defence I wasn't actually planning on doing it."

"Noted. Now if you don't mind, your mother and I still have much to discuss with our guests from the past."

"So why don't go play in that new arcade we got you for your birthday last month," future Pacifica added in.

"I'm into that. Farewell, mother, father," Tyrone said before walking out of the room. Leaving his parents alone with the guests of the past. Once he'd left, the gang began to simultaneously ask their hosts questions.

"What was the Weirdmageddon?"

"When did I marry Mermando?"

"What does Bill have to do with this Weirdmageddon?"

"Who died?"

"You bought your son an arcade?"

"Why do my cousins hate me?"

"Can my kids switch from human form to merpeople form?"

"Did you ever discover the author's identity?"

"How could Mabel have caused to people to die? Are you sure it wasn't Thompson?"

"What about Mr. Pines? What's he doing these days? Is he still running the Mystery Shack? Did he retire? If he did retire, then did he leave the Shack to me?"

The last few questions caused future Mason to snap, "ENOUGH!"

Everyone immediately stopped talking, now looking a bit terrified, (including younger Mason), as they just sat there for a couple minutes while future Mason regained his composure.

"Look, I'm sorry about that. It's just…well…maybe we should go down to Mystery Shack where Mr. Mystery and I'll explain everything. Who knows, maybe we'll see Wendy there; well the future Wendy to be more exact. Last time I heard, she was planning on coming down for a couple of weeks. Whaddaya say?"


And so the gang plus future Mason, (Pacifica had to stay behind and do some work for her family's company), sat in a luxurious limousine as it drove towards the Mystery Shack. During the ride, future Mason refused to discuss anything relating to what had been mentioned or asked about earlier at the mansion. Instead, however, future Mason bragged about how he'd graduated from both Golden Egal Academy and Harvard University high honours, received thirteen doctorates, (aka P.H.D.), from subjects such as the supernatural, archaeology, etc. Then after graduating university, Mason went on to continue the author's work, unlocking all sorts of secrets about the world, discovering the existence of bizarre species, and finding ways to bring all these discoveries into the modern society that they were in now. In the end, all of Mason's hard work had paid off as he'd become one of the most successful scientists/explorers ever known, received thirteen Nobel prizes and was up for a fourteenth.

Mabel refused to listen to her brother's future self-brag about his accomplishments, still feeling hurt from what had been said at the mansion. Mason, on the other hand, was completely amazed by what he'd become. Thinking that none of this may have happened had Mabel still been a part of his life.

Wendy was feeling a mix of emotions: she felt annoyed by future Mason's bragging, but, at the same time, impressed by his accomplishments, and concerned since now that younger Mason knew how successful he'd become without his sister by his side, how could she, Soos, and the rest of the Pines family possibly get him to forgive Mabel and accept her back into his life? She also knew that Mabel was extremely hurt from the way Mason and Tyrone referred to her back at the mansion. Which definitely wouldn't help to motivate Mabel to forgive him. In short, this plan wasn't going the way they'd hoped it would.

Soos hadn't paid attention to what future Mason was saying at all. He hadn't since they'd left the mansion, when future Mason refused to answer any of his questions about Mr. Pines, himself," referring to Soos", or the Mystery Shack, (the only thing he did know was that the Shack was still running in the future). Now that was all he could think about, as he went over all the possibilities that ended with him either being dead or his relationship with Mr. Pines as dead as Dipper and Mabel's was. Though this wasn't usually like Soos to worry about stuff, (except that time when he was looking for a date to his cousin's engagement party), always preferring to remain positive about everything.

Eventually, the limo finally came to a complete stop. Truefully, the guests were all expecting to see the Mystery Shack completely the same as it was in the past. Knowing Stanford, they knew he'd never try to upgrade the shack do him being a cheapskate. So when they looked out one of the limo's windows, they saw something they'd definitely never expected to see. Outside the could see the one and only Mystery Shack, looking like the cruddy old tourist trap from their time. However, in front of the shack stood a massive, ten-foot tall, golden statue of Stanford Pines, who appeared as if he were running while holding a cash register in his left arm.

Getting out of the limo, everyone went over to the statue to get a closer look at it. When they did, they saw an inscription at the base of the statue that said the following:

Stanford Pines

June 15, 1930- August 1, 2013

Founder of the Mystery Shack

A Lying Backstabbing Jerk

Saved Gravity Falls twice

A Hero who will forever be missed

No one could believe what they were seeing. But they couldn't deny the fact, especially with the evidence in front of them. Well, Soos could.

"No, no, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Tears bursting from his eyes, Soos grabbed future Mason and began to shack him back and forth while saying, "This can't be happening, this can't be happening. Please tell me this is some sort of joke older dude."

"Oh, it's happened younger dude," chimed in a new/familiar voice.

Everyone turned towards the sound of the new voice. Seeing that it belonged to an older version of Soos who was coming out the Mystery Shack, making his way towards his younger self. Older Soos wore an outfit similar to that of his deceased boss. This included a black suit, (though it wasn't buttoned up), brown shoes, an eye patch, a maroon coloured fez, shoulder pads that could be seen, (despite being covered by the suit jacket). He even held an eight ball cane in his right hand that was identical to the one owned by Stan. The only difference from older Soos's outfit and Standfords was how the former wore a big, maroon tie with a gold coloured question mark symbol on it. He also had a goatee on his face in comparison to Stan, who had a five o'clock shadow on his.

As soon as he was standing only a few inches from his younger form, older Soos began to speak once again. "I'm sorry dude. But it's happened. Standford Pines is dead."

Dun, Dun, Dun!

TO BE CONTINUED...


Yep, it's true. Stanford Pines is indeed dead. His death will be explained in further detail during the next chapter, but I think that this one gives some basic idea of how it happened. Oh and just so you all know, before A Tale of Two Stans, Stan Pines was in his eighties when the show took place. I've decided to use that just because I prefer it.

Now for anyone who's wondering when did Stan Pines save Gravity Falls, I'm referring to when he exposed Gideon for being the fraud that he is, and during Weirdmageddon. Though my version of Weirdmageddon is different than that of the one that is in the actual show. I will eventually be writing a story about, which will include Stan's death.

Just so you all know, the whole Mermando and Mabel having twins thing were inspired by a fanfiction, and some images I saw on deviant arts.

F.Y.I. I was originally planning to just write P.H.D. instead of using the word doctorate, (but with the added as to signify plural). However, every time I saved it onto this site, the word would somehow get erased. I don't know why.