Authors note: So here's a new chapter… oh boy. I got something special I've planned for quite a while. Slegs may be the main antagonists of this story, and you got a taste of Xon in the last chapter, but I guarantee that there really are some things just as bad as Slegs, if not, worse in other ways. I won't go too much in detail this chapter, but I will in the future sometime. There's also some stuff about the rebellion at the first half, but you'll learn more about that later on as well. Other than that, enjoy the new chapter and review.

P.S. - Today is my B-day, so it makes me happier that I uploaded a chapter today. It's my personal birthday gift.

Chapter 12: The Journey begins

O-O-O

Gravity Falls, Oregon, June 28, 2022

So much has happened yesterday. In one moment, it was another typical day in hell, the next moment, I was breaking out of that same hell with an old friend/former crush, Wendy, Who I haven't seen in eight years.

To think that all of this started because Mabel got into a tussle with a CSF officer, only for me to step in and almost get myself killed. Thankfully, my sister killed him before he could choke me out, it wasn't an easy thing to do though, taking another person's life, even if it was CSF. I still don't know why Mabel even agitated the officer, but I know that whatever the reason was, it had something to do with what happened at work yesterday. I'll ask her what happened when we get to somewhere safer than the wilderness, most likely at the "base" that I heard about last night.

I still wish Stan was with us. He was the only one that didn't make it out, the one that I felt should have been the first to leave. Stan's been through a lot over these years, and to think when he could have finally had some peace, he just… died. I didn't see it happen, Wendy told me that, and although it's not usually the best choice to trust what someone says instead of seeing what they're talking about for yourself, I knew that I could trust Wendy. She's always been honest to me before she was sent away eight years ago, and she's still honest now. Besides, I didn't want the image of my Grunkle's corpse to be the last thing I remember him by.

After Stan's death, the rest of us managed to get out of the town by using a secret tunnel complex by the Society of the Blind Eye, this weird cult we disbanded ten years ago, crazy right?

Gravity Falls always did amaze me, even now it still had some tricks up its sleeve, so it was hard to leave the town despite the current state it's in now. But I have to move on from it. To stay strong and look ahead, because I have a new journey to follow now, and I have this feeling that it's going to be the most scariest and interesting thing that will happen in my life.

I'll try to update this journal more often. If I don't update it by tomorrow, that means I'm probably dead. Hopefully I'm wrong.

End of entry.

-Dipper Pines.

O-O-O

Dipper closed his journal when he finished writing, luckily he could write something since he always kept a pencil in his pocket, and he didn't know why he had that habit, but it was useful to him when he wanted to write down his thoughts. Dipper was the first one to be awake, mostly because he had a hard time sleeping this night, not really used to sleeping out in the forest instead of a bed at the house he and his sister had been staying at before. So he kept himself busy by writing down the entry he just finished, besides, it was early morning anyways.

The sun had just risen and was actually visible this time around, today was only partially cloudy so the sun would have a chance to shine today and looked like it was going to stay that way for the rest of the day. Considering that the sun had just risen, Dipper guessed that it was probably seven o clock right now, which sounded like a good time to leave, and everyone got enough sleep to last the day. Dipper turned to look around his surroundings as he put his journal away into his hoodie to see Lee still standing guard, sitting on a nearby tree stump with his rifle in his arms, but Dipper heard snoring from the blond so he was not very guard like. Nate was lying against the tree close by the horses, who were also awake with Dipper, their reigns still tied on the low tree branches but they seemed to have a good night's rest despite that.

Dipper then noticed Wendy starting to wake up, and started to exit her sleeping bag across from Dipper.

"Morning sunshine." Said Dipper, making Wendy smirk in response.

"Up already?" Asked Wendy as she stretched her arms and yawned.

"No one else was up." Answered Dipper, as Wendy looked at Nate and Lee and sighed.

"Wake up the others. We should also have some breakfast before we go too." Said Wendy as she got up and walked to the horses.

Dipper then got up and went to wake up the others, Mabel being the first since she was the closest to him, while Wendy went through the saddle bags of the horses to take out some cans of food for the group to eat.

"Mabel?" Said Dipper softly, slightly shaking Mabel to wake up.

That was all it took to wake his sister up, as Mabel opened her eyes to see her brother next to her. "I'm supposed to wake you up first." Said Mabel, drowsily smiling at Dipper.

"Well, not this time." Said Dipper smiling back.

Soon, everyone else started to wake up themselves and Wendy passed each person with a can of beans and a spoon, which made the twins frown at the sight, since these beans reminded them what happened yesterday. While everyone else was buy eating, Wendy took notice of the twin's expression as they stared at the can of beans they had in their hands.

"What?" Asked Wendy, with her mouth full of beans as she chewed. "You don't like beans?"

"You could say that." Responded Mabel, sadly staring at her can as did Dipper with his, which confused Wendy.

"It's all we have to eat." Said Wendy as she swallowed her fill. "But we should have enough to last the trip."

"You could have had some more variety." Said Dipper, who now started to eat the beans since it was either that or starve.

"Well, tough shit." Said Wendy more sternly. "Besides, beans are not so bad."

Dipper looked over to Mabel, who nodded in response and began eating her breakfast as well, which was surprisingly better than the beans she had for breakfast yesterday, she assumed it was because the food that the CSF distributes always had a more bitter taste, mostly due to the fact that they gave citizens the oldest cans of food they had, all for the sake of keeping the better food to themselves. Once everyone was done with their fill, they cleaned up and rolled up the sleeping bags, strapping them back on the horse's saddles to prepare for their journey ahead.

The group had four horses, two with bay coat colors, one with a chestnut coat color, and the last with a grey coat color, each one carrying supplies on their saddles and are in perfect health for travel, they were truly majestic creatures. Everyone loved the horses, but Mabel loved them the most, she had always wanted to see them up close, and now she was going to ride one, she felt like a kid again.

"Let's mount up." Ordered Wendy as everyone picked their horse to ride.

Nate and Lee chose the two bay horses to ride, while the rest of the group had to share the last two with another person. Soos went with Mabel to the chestnut horse to ride, mostly by Mabel's insistence since that horse was her favorite, letting Soos take the reins and Mabel rode behind Soos, While Wendy and Dipper chose the grey horse, with Wendy taking the reins and Dipper in back.

"You know how to ride a horse? "Wendy asked Soos, who just shrugged in response.

"Nope. But it shouldn't be too-

Soos then accidently pulled the reins too hard and made the horse rise on its back legs as it whinnied, making Wendy smirk at Soos's overconfidence as he barely managed to hold on.

"I meant to do that." Said Soos, getting the horse under control while Wendy stifled a giggle. "This is why I prefer driving."

"Well, riding a horse is kind of like driving. You just move the reins in whatever direction you want the horse to go. The harder you whip the reins, the faster the horse goes, and if you want the horse to stop, just pull back the reins. Just don't do it too hard or else the horse will throw you off." Said Wendy, explaining horse riding 101 to Soos.

Soos nodded and thanked Wendy for the advice, who made her horse go forward as the others followed close behind, ready to ride ahead to where they needed to go.

O-O-O

The group was now riding along an empty road, no cars, no people, and no Slegs. It was peaceful too, the morning sun had now completely risen, birds were still chirping their songs, and there was no CSF to ruin it for once. Dipper, Mabel, and Soos hadn't experienced this for ten long years, the calm mornings for them usually involved working 24/7 without any sort of break, always being harassed and beaten, all for the sake of amusement for CSF officers, but they could leave that behind now.

"So Wendy. What's all this about?" Asked Dipper, eager to clear things up with Wendy about his earlier questions. "The gear, the base, everything."

Wendy looked behind Dipper and prepared to answer his question, taking a deep breath to calm her nerves. "Okay, you guys deserve to know after all this, so… Nate, Lee, and I are part of the Freedom Fighters, a resistance movement against the Sleg government."

"Well… shit. I kind of thought that was the case but, the resistance was only talked about in rumors." Said Dipper, somewhat surprised that there was actually a resistance movement after all these years. "They don't tell us much at Gravity Falls."

"I can see that." Said Wendy, turning back to the road ahead. "But the rumors are true. There's still people out there that stand up for freedom, and we're part of it."

"Are we part of it too? Because I wouldn't mind that." Asked Mabel, wondering if being saved by Wendy and going to the rebels meant her, Dipper and Soos joined them.

"Not really. You need to take an oath to swear your allegiance or something like that, IF we decide to accept you." Answered Wendy, whose answer made Mabel disappointed. "But the Sleg government most likely branded you as rebels, so there's that."

"I hope we get to actually join. We can do cool rebel stuff like make graffiti and talk back to the man." Said Mabel enthusiastically to her brother, still reluctant to join the rebels. "We could be like, the most badass twins ever. Solving mysteries and kicking butt."

"While trying to avoid getting our brains blown out by the Slegs." Responded Dipper, who did not sound as enthusiastic as Mabel. "Doesn't sound very badass to me."

"You get used to being shot at." Said Wendy, assuring that the bad part wasn't getting shot. "Besides, the resistance has your back."

"That's another thing. How strong are you guys anyways?" Inquired Dipper, curious to know more about the resistance movement.

"Well for starters, we can't take on the Sleg military directly with the resources we have right now, so we use stealth and guerrilla tactics against them, that way we can hit them when they least expect it." Explained Wendy. "Using the environment as cover and camouflage or hit and run attacks against their forces are a few examples."

"But how do even get the resources to do any of that?" Asked Dipper curiously.

"We mostly scavenge for them. A lot of our resources are things that the Slegs overlook and consider them useless because they don't need it, but we have plenty of skilled members that know a thing or two on how to make seemingly useless things, well, useful. Such as scrap metal, which we use to create most of the equipment we need." Answered Wendy. "There's also all kinds of military equipment that belonged used to belong to the U.S. military that we saved from destruction, such as guns, radios, body armor, and even vehicles. That way, we can go for more risky targets."

"Risky?" Asked Mabel. "How risky?"

"Does raiding supply convoys against the military sound risky?" Quipped Lee. "It may risky, but it pays off since we can get our hands on Sleg technology. In fact, why don't you tell them about the last raid Wendy?"

Wendy smiled as she remembered the victory of her last raid. "Oh yeah. A few weeks ago before we got here, I led a raid against Sleg convoy. The info I got said that the supplies were newly issued weaponry for the Sleg soldiers to use, a few explosions later and we got the entire shipment and never lost a single person."

"That's pretty hardcore dude." Said Soos, impressed with the guts that the rebels had. "Crazy, but hardcore."

"It sounds like it isn't your first raid." Assumed Dipper, mostly due to Wendy's lax attitude about the raid.

"I'm pretty famous in the resistance movement and the Sleg government for this kind of stuff. I do a lot of aggressive tactics for the Freedom Fighters, so I gained a reputation of being a badass, at least to the rebels." Said Wendy before going into a more serious tone. "The Sleg government thinks differently."

"How so?" Asked Dipper.

"They consider the Freedom Fighters terrorists for what we do, and have branded us that way as a method of control over people. They've also heard of my exploits and are so intimidated by them, they put a bounty on me and gave me a nickname." Said Wendy as she shook her head when she remembered the name. "They like to call me, "the Red Devil."

Dipper chuckled at the name, not believing that the same government that caused him and his loved ones pain, would actually be this intimidated by one person. "Red Devil?" That's ridiculous."

Wendy frowned and sighed when she heard her nickname. "It's really stupid, and I think they call me that because I'm ginger, so it's offensive too, and let's not forget the bounty on my head either."

"I think they're just jealous of you." Said Mabel in her cheerful tone to Wendy.

"Then the Slegs are jealous of every Freedom Fighter." Agreed Lee. "We all have a bounty on our heads. I think it was about a thousand credits for each one of us dead, but Wendy has at least eighty thousand on her."

"Goddamn Wendy! You must have really pissed them off." Exclaimed Dipper, shocked at how high the price on his friend's head was.

"Relax. The bounties don't matter to the military, it's the mercenaries that I'm worried about." Said Wendy with a grim expression. "Hopefully, we don't encounter them along the way."

"Mercenaries? I thought a chance encounter with the military would be the worst thing to happen." Said Dipper, making Wendy sigh.

"Like I said before, Gravity Falls is nothing compared to what we'll see along the way."

O-O-O

A few miles ahead the road that the human group was travelling on, there was a CSF APC driving on the road to their destination, this particular squad had been ordered by their new police chief to secure a road tunnel underneath a mountain, not only to cut off escape to the fugitives CSF were hunting down with military assistance, but to also investigate the tunnel itself for any signs of a missing convoy. There was supposed to be a convoy of new citizens coming from Los Angeles through the tunnel to Gravity Falls, but the last contact that anyone had with the convoy was under the tunnel before they went dark about two days ago, so it was up to the CSF SWAT team, two Guanians and four Geckens, to investigate and search for anyone part of the convoy in the tunnel.

When the APC got to its destination and parked by the edge of the tunnel entrance, there was already something off, the tunnel was completely dark on the inside, no lights were on and all that could be seen was the furthest corners of the tunnel lighten up by the sun, revealing a mass of abandoned and broken cars which looked like they were cleared out of the way to the sides of the road inside to make room for passing vehicles, the Slegs never bothered to clean up the car pileup, but they wouldn't just turn off every light in the tunnel.

As the SWAT team got out of the APC and geared up, they formed up at the tunnel to prepare for their search.

"Listen up team." Said a Guanian team leader. "We have orders to secure this area to prevent possible escape routes for the fugitives, but first we are to move in the tunnel to search for a missing convoy. We don't know what happened to it, but last contact with the convoy was made when they went inside this tunnel, so it's up to us to find anyone still around and solve this case. Let's move."

The SWAT team cocked their guns, all armed with long range sub machine guns while one Gecken and Guanian were armed with a pump action shotgun, and procceded to enter the dark tunnel, turning on their flashlight attachmets under their guns while the APC's driver opened the door and locked his APC, leaning on the front door as he took out a cigarette to smoke.

The SWAT team continued to advance deeper inside the tunnel, shining their flashlights to reveal anything important for their mission, yet there was nothing besides the empty cars along the far sides, no person, no convoy, not even a body, just a long road that led to more darkness and silence. The silence was what got to the Slegs the most, the only noises that could be heard were the sound of their footsteps and their vocoder chatter whenever they spoke, but there was no other noise to be heard.

Eventually the team found the convoy they were looking for, three armored trucks that looked similar to a SWAT APC but were larger and longer, and were designed to hold as many people as possible, yet when they got closer to the convoy, it opened more questions.

There were signs of a firefight in the convoy's surrounding area, there were bullet casings on the floor along with the guns that they were fired from, CSF sub machine guns like the SWAT teams, there was also dried red blood splatters from multiple places on the floor and the trucks, and the trucks looked like they were pounded on their sides with noticeable dents and scratches, the windows of the vehicles were either cracked or shattered, and yet there were no bodies to be found in what looked like an intense fight.

The SWAT team investigated further, looking more closely at the firefight to notice some strange discrepancies. The damage done on the transport trucks did not look like it was caused by gunfire, closer examination showed that it was caused by someone or something banging on the vehicles from the outside, the back of the trucks had the doors torn off, with no signs of blood from the back at all, while the blood splatter on the ground looked like it was not caused by gunfire, so rebels couldn't have been the cause of this. Then the team leader noticed something off about some of the blood on the ground, bending down to take a closer look, the team leader noticed that not only there was red blood, but there was also traces of green blood with some of the red blood splatter, and the team leader noticed the same pattern of red and green blood across from the convoy, possibly what the convoy's guards were shooting at, yet those bodies were gone too.

"Where are they?" Asked one of the SWAT officers to his team leader. "We should have found someone by now."

"Or something." Said the team leader, standing up to face his fellow officer. "We may have a bigger problem than rebels."

Before the officer could respond, loud bloodcurdling screeches could be heard from deep within the tunnel, getting the entire team's attention to see where the noise came from, pointing their weapons and shining their lights at the noise's direction.

The lights shined on figures that appeared to be the missing people from the convoy, human and Sleg alike, but there was something seriously off about them. They appeared to be shambling towards the SWAT team, twitching at the sight of the bright lights, as the figures screeched even louder than before out of rage and fury, the figures came in the numbers of dozens, most of them being humans while a small handful were Slegs, gathering in a large horde as they shuffled closer to the SWAT team.

"STOP! OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE!" Shouted one of the SWAT officers, the whole team pointing their weapons at the horde.

The horde did not listen to the order and continued to get closer to the SWAT team, who got a better look at the horde in front, confirming the team leader's fears when he saw what they looked like.

Most of the horde's clothing was torn and bloodied, some had wounds that were bloody gashes or scratches, those wounds may have been caused by the dark red three inch claws on each of their hands, some still covered in fresh or dried red blood, and their skin was pale and stained with red blood which covered the rashes all over their skin, they had bloodshot eyes staring at their supposed saviors, revealing their yellow sharpened blood stained teeth as they growled and hissed viciously and began to screech once again, this time it was more bloodcurdling than before and signaled the horde to charge at the Slegs.

"ENGAGE! ENGAGE!" Ordered the team leader, as the team opened fire at the charging horde.

While the team hit their targets accurately, only a few of the horde were knocked down and killed when a few bullets penetrated their skulls, revealing the weakness that now the entire SWAT team knew, they knew at this point what they were dealing with, and that they found out too late, for the horde did not take long to close in on the team, all they could do is accept their fates and face their bloody end as they unloaded every bullet they had.

The last thing the driver outside the tunnel could hear were the pain driven screams of his Sleg kin as he quickly ran inside his APC and turned around, leaving his former passengers to their fates as he also heard the bloodcurdling screams of the horde, knowing that there was only one kind of terror behind all this.

An old foe.

O-O-O

Disclaimer: I do not own Gravity Falls, but I do own the Slegs and the new enemy that I will go in further detail later on.

Hint: They may sound like zombies, but they're far worse than that.