II
SKY OF PINES
Timeline Summary:
Chapter takes place within the same time frame as Little Dipper, though plot points diverge radically from the episode's canon, as you will soon see.
Author's notes:
Rated 18+ for mildly suggestive humor.
SHOUT OUT to this story's favers/followers:
✨Car9723, CritterTheCryote, GunCon, johnnycatalina, LordStar8045, NVS Tobi, Obvious Ghost, Straightjacketed, Theory of Weirdness, William Easley✨
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... He remembers every excruciating experience of the last time-jump. It's been branded into his brain. All except one moment, and it's the one you'd think would be the most memorable.
When he and Mabel ran blindly off the cliff.
Oh, he remembers the time-flash before that, the brightness sunburning their corneas.
Remembers the helplessness of the fall afterwards, the all-encompassing loss of control.
"NONONO," he screams, voice managing to rise above the siren of the wind. "OMIGOSH THIS IS IIIIIITTTTTT!"
He remembers the adrenaline making his heart thunder so badly he feared his aorta would rip loose before he even hit the ground.
Remembers he noxious air slamming into their lungs. Remembers the tears from their burning eyes being sucked up into the whistling gravity.
Remembers his failure as her brother to protect her.
Then-
"DIPPER!" Mabel yells, pointing. "WHAT'S THAT?!"
He follows her finger to the object below. It's violet. Glowing. A sphere, perfectly suspended between the crumpled railroad bridge. His eyes widen like sunnyside-up eggs JUST LIKE THEIR BODIES ARE ABOUT TO-!
-He jolts from his sweat-stained bed. Blinking the sleep away, he looks around, the familiar paneling and rafters and mold spots telling him everything is OK.
It's okay.
He falls back into the mattress, cocooning himself in his blanket-womb, rolling inward onto his side.
"Ow!"
He rubs his now-throbbin' noggin'. Untangling himself from the covers, he rips off the bundled mass of fabric to find angular, equine features staring back at him with wooden, pupilless eyes because AH MAH GAH THERE'S AN ACTUAL HORSE-SIZED CHESS KNIGHT IN HIS FRIGGIN' BED!
He scrambles back, netting himself in the blankets and falling off the bed right onto his back. Bone, meet hardwood.
As pain involuntary peels open a twitching eye, he sees Mabel towering over him, arms folded behind her and an infuriatingly cheery grin on her face.
"Aw bro-bro, did you and the horsey trade long faces?" she giggles. "Well I know what'll cheer you up..."
Her arms explode outward, raining down...?
"COUGAR CONFETTI!" she proclaims, as bite-sized mountain lions shower Dipper, who screams as they claws his face like meowing fish hooks.
He gets on his hands and knees, scrambling for Journal 3 on the nightstand. Uses it to smack himself in the face to scatter the ant-sized kitties off. They fall after one or two (or seven) smacks, save for the one still sinking its fangs into his flailing tongue. He pinches its tail and gives it a couple'a tugs but it's deep in the meat.
"What's the matter, Dipper?" Mabel asks, her oversized sweater-sleeves failing to muffle her laughs. "Cat got your-?"
Dipper grabs the glass of water he'd left on the nightstand and downs it in one gulp. He sticks his now lonesome tongue out for inspection.
"... Don't tell PETA," instructs Mabel, who's aged ten years.
"WHAT THE HECK, MABEL?!" Dipper demands, slamming the journal onto the nightstand and using it to push himself back to his wobbly feet.
"I just wanted to make your surprise special!" she defends.
"What, by getting me MAULED when the HEART ATTACK didn't finish me off?!"
"A Mabel never reveals her secrets, not even if you catch me!" she teases, flicking his nose. "But try to catch me anyway!" she eggs, darting out the door.
"MABEL!" Dipper roars, shedding the bedding and bounding after her.
Coyote, Roadrunner. Even worse, actually. Mabel's sugar-fueled speed makes her a laser point. She's already at the bottom of the banister by the time he's at the foot of the stairs. Which he proceeds to trip on.
As he tumbles down, his spin-cycle vision catches a flash of a hairy ghost blob (Stan, that's absolutely Stan in his wife-beater,) an algae-covered elephant (Must be Soos in his work shirt, but why is he here at seven in the morning?) and a waterfall of red (WENDYNONONONONONO!) before he finally lands in a bruised puddle of throbbing joints.
Firm hands scoop under his arms and lift him up. For half a moment he expects Stan's bellow to grate right against his ears, but it doesn't. Stan's voice is five feet in front of him, asking Mabel why on God's green earth she went behind his back and scheduled Soos and Wendy to come in three hours before they opened for business.
Part of Dipper is thrilled when his brain connects the softness of the touch to the only Shack member he's seen use moisturizer.
His Euphoria gets into a boxing match with his Mortification as he remembers his entrance and realizes his clothing is more revealing than an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini. His shorts are mangled, hanging to him by one pant leg. (Was that what he slipped on?) His shirt has exploded at the left seam, dangling off him like a cropped hide for some kinda fashionista caveman.
Which is all a very roundabout way of saying the girl of his dreams is helping him to his feet after he's made an idiot of himself in his UNDERWEAR.
"... And Dipper, so help me," Stan yips on, "if you think you can milk a sick day out of a few cracked bones, take the next bus back to hippy-dippy Cali!"
The solace for Dipper is Wendy's eyes, staring at him with the same playfullness that promises never to sugarcoat or humiliate. "Nice try, dude. And I thought I took pains to slack off work-"
Wendy stops short.
Because Dipper isn't short.
They're both at eye-level now.
He's still baby-faced Dipping-Dots, replete with cracking voice and developing bird-bones, but he's now some kind of warped Fun House mirror, a human Laffy-Taffy unnaturally stretched to meet the already-above average height of the lumberjill before him, the purest testament of Man being but clay in the hands of the Almighty, it seems.
They both stare, dumbfounded. Mabel smiles, biting her lip next to Soos, who looks back and forth between the teen girl and Dipper with an increasingly furrowing brow. "Dood," the handyman breaks the silence, "let me grab my tape measure and confirm a suspicion here."
Wendy shakes herself out of her daze, sizing Dipper up as she circles him. "But- but how?"
"Oh, you know growing boys, Wendy!" Mabel laughs. "Shooting up like they're an upside-down graph of the 2008 market! Ha! I'm surprised I know that reference!"
"In one night though?!" protests Wendy. "I'm Paul Bunyan's kid, but I've never had this big of a spurt! What, did Stan put you on an all-caveman diet sandwich-wrapped in radioactive superhero comics?" She turns to the old man for support. "Mr. Pines, this- this isn't natural, right?"
Stan, who's expressed his surprise by gaping like the fur-trout on his wall, closes his dropped jaw. Slowly, his face collapses into a long and hard look at Dipper. Dipper meets his gaze, pulsing adrenaline raising mountains beneath his skin. Omigosh, this is it. Irrefutable proof of the supernatural right before Stan's eyes.
But then again, what will this do to Stan? It gotta be an absolute storm of cognitive dissonance in his mind. Can he even handle it? Or will it strike him down with a stroke?
If it is, Stan's smelling his favorite toast because his face splits into a stupid grin. "HA! Of course it's natural! How do ya think we got the name 'Pines?'"
"But-" Wendy protests.
"My gram-gram called it Thunderstrike Puberty, yesiree-bobbo! There's definitely a pinch of magic and mystery in our blood, otherwise I'd be in the wrong line of work! Ain't that right, Pine Tree?" he guffaws, locking Dipper in a noogie before tossing him aside. "Now get to work, the lot of ya! It's too early to open, so start polishing that new mirror maze in the entertainment lounge that I somehow inspired Soos to come up with, all on my own. And no kissing your own reflection, Mabel! It's creepy on more than one level and you know it!"
Mabel waves him off as she giggles. "That's what makes it fuuuuunnnn, a-doy! But don't worry, Soos will keep me, myself and I outta trouble!"
She grabs Soos by the hand and drags him down the hallway. "Mabel multiplied?" he wonders aloud. "I'm not ready for that responsibility!"
"Corduroy!" Stan barks. "You and Dipper are Team Two, let's go!" He drapes his arm around his grand-nephew. "This globetrotter will be there in a sec."
Wendy groans, following after Soos and Mabel. Once she's gone-
"Grunkle Stan," Dipper starts, "I-"
Stan spins Dip towards him, looking him dead in the eye. "You what, Dipper? Ate some magic beans? Peeved off a witch?" The old man's hard eyes start to widen and his large hands begin digging into Dipper's shoulders, a grip so tight the boy begins to wonders if his uncle's actually trying to hurt him. "T-Time Travel?" Stan suddenly chokes out, jaw quivering.
Dipper wiggles out of the death-squeeze. "I didn't do anything!" he protests. "It was- look, the best explanation is that it is something paranormal. Please, Stan, you can't honestly think it's anything otherwise."
Stan squints like Clint at him, before his eyes collapse in a massive sigh. When they reopen, they look older than the already-old man.
"'Course I can. Thunderstrike Puberty, slick."
"Seriously? Stan, how-"
"DON'T. QUESTION. GRAM-GRAM. Now let's get you clothed, Tarzan, and go help Wendy." Stan slaps the boy's shoulder. "Far as I've seen, you got nothin' to complain about."
Dipper stares at his grunkle, lips slowly parting, head slowly shaking, hope slowly draining. And maybe it's all the pent-up resentment, or maybe it's some subconscious confidence from his new height, but he shakes off Stan's hand before storming back up the stairs.
And Stan stares after him, hating himself more than than the boy will ever know.
A solid ten minutes later, Dipper enters the entertainment room, walking like a wooden soldier in a pair of Stan's old blue jeans. Covering his top-half is a longer orange tee underneath a red flannel shirt, all scavenged from the attic closet. (He opted out of the pair of cowboy boots strewn across the floor, in case, y'know, the Invisible Wizard has Athlete's Foot.)
He descends the stepway, entering the clustered labyrinth of old mirrors. Sees Soos gingerly kissing his own reflection, Mabel egging him on and snapping polaroids. He navigates the maze, finding Wendy in an alcove mixing vinegar and water into two spray bottles. She tightens the caps and stands up, handing one to Dipper, before she spritzes a mirror and lazily swabs it with a rag, Dipper awkwardly following suit. (Mirroring her, one might say, if one had no self-respect whatsoever.)
Wendy glances at him outta the corner of her eye, before shaking her head and sighing with an almost imperceptible grin. "Guess you're Big Dipper now, huh?"
Dipper says nothing, but smiles, apple-cheeked. Yeah, even without the boots... he kinda feels like a cowboy right about now.
Wall. Sturdy, reliable. Shelter from the storm.
Within that wall, in only an instant, all the fiberglass and gypsum plaster rip open as A FIST CRASHES THROUGH IT.
Throughout the room, there thunders a shrill yell of "GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The storm is coming from inside the house.
The Armageddon-inflicting arm heaves itself out of the wooden crater it's made, bleeding like a tribal sacrifice and throbbing with war-drum adrenaline.
It belongs to li'l Gideon Gleeful, who's more than a li'l frazzled and less than a li'l gleeful.
His home is a white-trash tornado of overturned furniture, shattered china, dented walls and broken clown paintings. A kinesthetic essay on Dysfunction.
And if it's an essay, Gideon's mother is nothing more than an illustration within it, rocking in a fetal position behind one-half of a sofa both overturned and bifurcated (don't ask.) Her brain is trying to twist itself out of the pretzel it's in. How is she gonna clean all this up? It's an ocean. And He broke her vacuum her vacuum HER VACUUM. She's lost at sea, without even a piece of shipwreck to keep her head above water.
Her wild, lost eyes latch onto a stain - no bigger than a button - on the wall beside her. Her buoy.
It's beyond the safety of the sofa half, but... but... if she cleans, everything will be OK. If she just had done a better job tidying up today, she's sure she could've prevented this! She has to risk it, even if she doesn't want to, because it's the only thing she can control here. Her trembling, white-knuckled hand clenches the cleaning rag and stretches out to wipe the stain. Salvation.
Her hand immediately snaps back to her side, a second before the last intact dish explodes against the wall.
"IT'S A SIN AGAINST NATURE!" Gideon proclaims, to an audience in his own mind. "How can that clown-nosed fenderhead beat me EVERY TIME?! I got the brains, I got the resources, and I still ain't having a LICK OF LUCK!"
He's more than a little sore - both emotionally and physically - about the failure of his termite plan.
Bud tentatively emerges from behind the TV, which is now skewered by his vintage cash register antique. "Now sunshine, don'tcha be too hard on yerself. Remember, that there Pines has a leg-up on you." And even in his varsity helmet and football gear, he's quick to wave his hands out in front of him. "In EXPERIENCE," he quickly clarifies, "Jus' experience! Nuthin' more! I mean, you don't live to look like a bowl of oatmeal without knowin' yer business."
Gideon glares, and looks as if he's trying to use his mind to peel his pops like a potato, before shutting his eyes and nodding to himself. "True, True. In hindsight, it should've been obvious that any shortcomings on my end were due to circumstances beyond my control." He pinches the bridge of his pug-nose. "If only you were as conniving as Pines, Daddy, then ya might've had some tricks up yer sleeve ya could've passed along. If there was ever a time for secret weapons, it's now."
The boy doesn't know he can't know steel yourself, Buddy. Bud uses the opportunity of his son's shut-eyed grimace to swallow hard.
But uh-oh. Gideon's eyes are still closed and he can see the boy beginning to grit his teeth. Bud desperately tries to maintain the present calm before another hurricane of fury strikes: "N-Now don't you spend your energy all in one place, Sugar Plum, you'll think of sumthin'! Ya always do."
A tense moment, but then Gideon deflates, sighing. He promptly turns, trudging up the stairs. "Of course, Daddy."
Bud collapses in his recliner, breathing deep.
"... And Heavens help whoever stands in my way," Gideon's voice wafts through the banister.
Bud's heart neglects a beat.
"This is making me thirsty and need to use the little boys' room."
Soos and Mabel are in the kitchen, filling buckets with suds and water. Their heads swivel as they hear the entrance bell ring.
Mabel rushes into the gift shop, finding Tambry standing at attention by the register counter, the teen's eyes in a make-out session with her phone.
"Hey Tambry! We're not open yet but we appreciate your enthusiasm!"
"As if I'm here to shop. Need to speak with Corduroy."
"Wendy's in the-"
"Don't bother." Tambry brushes past her. "There's already a track app."
"Try, uh-" Mabel sticks her head around the corner. "-to watch out for the other reflective surfaces down there."
Soos walks in, carrying two buckets in hand and clenching the handle of the third in his teeth. He bends down for Mabel to take it. "Whoa!" he exclaims, looking after Tambry. "First customer for the Mirror Maze of Maddening Multiples? We might have a Summerween hit on our hands already!"
"Summer-what now?" asks Mabel.
Soos chuckles. "Oh, that's right, you're technically a foreigner to the Falls! It's incredible, dawg. It's like Christmas in July, except in June! But with Halloween, not X-mas, ya down?"
Mabel nods sagely. "... My brain's doing yoga."
"Then don't think about it! There's free candy, an appropriate social setting to wear a wrestling mask, haunted houses, and FUN, dude! So - much - fun!"
Mabel can't believe what she's hearing! Her face lights up like the FOURTH OF JULY!... in, uh, y'know. In June.
Soon, she finds herself bursting through the entrance to the Mirror Maze's lounge, fluidly weaving through the collection of reflections.
"BRO-BRO!" she exclaims, locating him in the mirror cluster. "You'll never GUESS what amazing thing is going down in this town on the 23rd!"
"Summerween," Dipper affirms.
"Yes! Howd'ja know?"
"Easy!" Wendy answers, jerking a thumb over her shoulder towards Tambry. "We invited him to the party!"
"We?" drawls Tambry. "OOF!" she grunts next. That tends to happen when you get a javelin-elbow into your side.
"Party?" Mabel slaps her forehead. "Of course! Here I am, a Summerween amoeba, and you guys are already prepared to shake your tail-feathers! When and where are we having it? And can my costume include strobe lights if it's an indoor?"
"Summerween, 9:00pm, Tambry's house, absolutely zilcho adult supervision," Wendy spells out. "Strobes are mandatory. I'm making that a thing now."
"Coolio!" squeals Mabel, shaking Slendipper-Man's arm. "Man, Dipper, our first Summerween party! There'll be a whole market for candy swapping!"
"They'll be refreshments, what are you talking about?" Tambry casually challenges, before - in a most uncharacteristic moment of humanity - looking up from her phone. "WAIT. You guys don't still trick-or-treat, do you?"
"Are you kidding?" laughs Mabel. "Of course-!"
"-They don't!" Wendy finishes. "I mean, c'mon, Tambs, these are the same dudes who busted ghost-butt. They're hardcore."
"But-!" Mabel protests.
"-Busters we certainly are, HA!" Dipper frantically slides in. "Busting butt all the live-long day, yep!"
Tambry rolls her eyes, circling them back to her screen. "Whatevs. Interest lost. Just be there by nine. Later," she bids, scrolling through her feed and expertly maneuvering around the mirrors like some kind of Anti-MaGoo.
Wendy watches her leave. Before Mabel can speak, Wendy cuts the girl off: "OK guys, Summerween Social Survival Rule Numbero-UNO: Ix-nay on the T&T word, got it? They'll eat you alive for it."
"But," Mabel gestures between her and Dipper, "we rock at it!"
Wendy chuckles. "I bet. So what, did you guys do the twin combo or your own shticks?"
"Together, always!" Mabel clasps an arm around what she expects to be Dipper's shoulder but what is now his waist. "We're a team!"
"Right on, guys." Wendy pays tribute with a power fist. "But let's keep it on the downlow, 'K?"
The ginger zips her lips and tosses away the key. Dipper follows suit.
Mabel softly frowns, unnoticed.
"Well," the girl-Pines rejoins the convo, "anywho... I don't think there are snitches at the sewing shop, so let's concept-art at lunch and head over there after the Shack closes, Dipping-Dots!"
"Oh! Uh, I actually have plans after work," Dipper sheepishly rubs his head.
Wendy shrugs with a smile. "Yeah, sorry Mabes, we set up somethin' together just before you showed up."
Mabel's eyes bulge with hope and purity. WenDip... Wuz it habbening? "Wait- you- and Dipper-?"
Wendy nods. "Are helping plan Tambry's Summerween bash, yeah! It's only two days away!"
"Oh," Mabel wilts, before powering through and finding the bright spot. "Well, I can help! I'm a Party-Planning Queen Machine!"
"Sweet," exclaims Wendy, texting away on her phone. A ping sounds from Mabel's own, which she pulls out. "That's Tambry's address," Wendy explains. "We meet there at a quarter to seven tonight! Be there or be derp!"
"Mabel! Help!" Soos's sob echoes from somewhere at the entrance of the maze. "My reflection won't stop staring at me!"
Mabel waves, dashing away. "I will!" she promises.
And as she turns... she finds herself muttering another vow...
"... And I'll be myself."
The air whistles through her teeth as her trademark grin stretches her face.
She feels the strain in her cheeks fade as the smile wobbles, then falls.
The muscular fire returns as she forcibly plasters another on.
"Places, people."
However much of a flatline Tambry's vocal range is, the perpetual edge in her voice - given the right context - is naturally commanding. She need not repeat herself.
Everyone, including our favorite Mystery 'Twins' sit at Tambry's dining-room roundtable. Or, in Robbie's case, on the edge of her parents' kitchen island, where he very loudly, very noticeably cracks open a soda. Dipper's gaze shoots towards the goth. Robbie's eyes drill into him as the older boy savors a long sip.
"My 'rents are out of town for the weekend and my sis is working a double at the Superstore, so we've got 12 hours to cram as much edge and excitement into a party until we're sick. Ideas?"
Mabel hops on the table-turned-soapbox. "So you want excitement, eh? Intrigue? Something to push the envelope? Look NO FURTHER... than a Mad Hatter tea party!"
Dipper suddenly finds great interest in Tambry's venetian blinds, looking away. Which, coincidentally, shields Mabel's view of his face attempting Seppuku.
"We can dress up like Wonderland characters, play Pin the Tail on the Rabbit, and maaaayyyyyybbbbeeeeeee snack on some size-altering cookies," she finishes with a wink.
Lee raises his hand, which Mabel calls on. "Question," he asks, "are the cookies a front for my dad's blue pills?"
"I don't know what those are," Mabel wrinkles her face, "and I don't want to."
"Uuuuugggghh, really, kid?" Tambry whines. "That's the best you can come up with? That's a party for babies and like, the old lady from Titanic."
"Lay off, Tambers," Wendy curtly instructs, before turning to Mabel. "It's just... more of a tailored taste, Mabes."
Mabel looks down, deflated. Her eyes then crawl up to-
"Dipper," she asks, "what do you think?"
"Uh, wellllll..." the Doomed strokes his chin, "If, uh, y'know, we, uh... consider the philosophical arguments behind why 1930s-era China banned the original book-"
"China, pfffssshh," Robbie poo-poos. "Like they have any relevance in America. Now me? I've got an idea. I say we whip out a ouija board... and talk to the ghosts of serial killers."
Dun Dun DUNNNN.
Actually, the silence is longer than those three notes.
And so Robbie sits there, flashlight held dramatically under his face in a room with all the lights on, and no fishies biting.
"Because... why?" Dipper asks, some resentment bubbling up from their Dusk2Dawn fiasco, among other recent events...
"To, like, ask them stuff," Robbie sharply defends, "and whatever."
"Ask what, fashion advice?" ventures Tambry. "'Cuz you're already nailing that look."
Lee spits out his soda into Tambry's plant, laughing. He high-fives with Nate, then Dipper, who awkwardly joins in. Robbie glowers and crosses his arms, some actual blood in his veins as he flushes red.
"And what do you got, kid?" Robbie counters.
The group looks to Dipper.
"Uh... I dunno guys... How about black lights? It'd add to the atmosphere."
The group nods and murmurs agreement, with Wendy throwing out a "Nice!" Robbie grits his teeth.
"Not half-bad," Tambry admits. "With that, plus the mini-rave and Spin the Bottle, we're looking hot. Alright, let's split for supplies."
The group begins dividing as they head out the door.
"Dude, I cannot get over the new look!" Lee compliments, comparing his and Dipper's heights.
"Yeah," Nate says as he nudges Dipper. "You're more like, Witch-Doctor Funtimes!"
The reception to Dipper's growth spurt is far more favorable now than the gang's initial reactions, which involved a lot of horrified screaming and pointing and running around in circles. (Tambry had even backed herself into a corner, rocking back-and-forth like a glitching NPC. Apparently, she hadn't taken her eyes off her phone long enough at the Shack to notice the new inches he was touting.) Eventually though, Wendy was able to get everyone to chill da frack out.
That being said, Robbie ain't too thrilled about this new development. He scoffs at Nate and Lee. "Are you guys that dense? The kid's grandfather runs the Hack Shack, he's obviously conning you. I bet you he's standing on his tag-along twin's shoulders."
Wendy crosses her arms. "Mabel is literally right behind you."
Indeed Mabel is. And indeed it's awkward.
Robbie pulls his hoodie up. "Optical illusion."
Wendy rolls her eyes. "Cram it and let's van-it, Robbie. We still gotta cache your speakers for Saturday. See you guys then!"
Dipper laughs nervously, waving back at her. "If not sooner!"
Lee places a hand on Dipper's shoulder, nodding to Thompson's mom's van where Thompson and Nate are waiting for them. After the blond walks off, Mabel playfully punches Dipper in the waist. (Like, ow.)
"Easy there, Tiger!" she laughs. "We still gotta get our trick-or-treat on!"
Dipper looks down. "Um, about that, Mabel, I'm volunteering to set-up day of the party, too."
"No worries!" Mabel beams. "I've got that all planned out: We'll start at 6:00pm, navigate Westward and hit Tambry's block last at 8:00, giving you an hour to get your home improvement on!"
"Yeah, it's just that... this party is a whole new scene and I'd like to work on my talking points for an older demographic..."
"Classic Dip-dork, preparing for the preparation. C'mon, we can talk shop about all that jazz during our candy rampage!"
Dipper stops walking. "Mabel... I, uh... technically never committed to that."
Mabel crinkles her brow. "Well, of course not, but it's our favorite holiday."
Dipper stuffs his hands into his pockets, looking away. "No, no... that's Halloween."
Mabel studies him, scrutinizing, then-
"You're flaking," she realizes.
"No! No!" Dipper waves his hands. "Just..." He shrugs, smiling guiltily. "... clarifying?"
"I... I don't believe it! I won't believe it! This isn't my partner-in-broheim!"
He motions to his two-foot advantage over her. "Well maybe he left when you brought the Big Dipper into the picture!"
"Hey chief!" Lee sticks his head out of the van's sliding door. "What's the deal? Little sis holding you up?"
"NOT ANYMORE!" Mabel declares, marching off.
Dipper cuts in front of her. "Mabel-!"
And she pushes past.
Dipper stares after.
"CHIEF," Lee repeats. "We're gunning it for supplies. Ya in or out?"
... Dipper's brow caves in. "All in."
INTERMISSION