I'm back, and with more Academia Falls! Hope you enjoy!
"A mission?"
"Yeah," Shouto admitted, packing a bag. "With some of the stuff that happened yesterday, Ford asked if I wanted to come along with him. I said yes."
"Do you want to talk about it?" Izuku asked.
Shouto considered this. "I do. But… when I get back, I think. I just need a bit of time. And… I think this will help."
His panic yesterday had cost them something they could've used for safety against Cipher. At the very least, he had a duty to help stop another mess from occurring.
"If you're sure," Ochako said. "You know we've got your back, Shouto. When you're ready to talk about it…"
Shouto found himself giving her a smile. "Yeah. And I will soon. Besides, you said you've got your own plans for today?"
"Well, Izuku does."
Izuku shrugged. "I heard something about a face-stealer from Soos. He wants to know if I could help get his abuelita's face back."
"Well, good luck with that," Shouto offered. "I'll be back in a couple hours." He put one of their shrink-grow lights in his bag, and headed outside to meet Ford.
Ford was waiting for him. He offered a smile as Shouto caught up. "Ready to go?"
"I am," Shouto confirmed. "Where are we headed?"
"Just outside of town. You'll see when we get there." Curious, Shouto followed Ford away from the shack and up into the mountains, higher and higher, until the town was visible beneath them. Shouto took a moment to stop and look over the entirety of Gravity Falls, before they continued.
Eventually, they reached a small clearing in the woods, and Ford turned to him. "Alright. In order to seal the rift, we're going to need an adhesive stronger than anything on Earth. Something extraterrestrial in origin."
"Aliens are-!?" Shouto paused, and actually thought about this revelation for a moment. "Of course. I've crossed dimensions and time traveled, and we're planning to stop an entity from another universe. Of course aliens are real." Honestly, he was more surprised that he hadn't guessed this beforehand.
Ford laughed at his remark. "Fair enough! Once you've seen enough things, aliens just don't stand out nearly as much as they would otherwise."
"Yeah." Still. Aliens. He turned to Ford. "So, are the aliens still alive, or are we just collecting from something abandoned?"
"The latter," Ford admitted. "According to my research, the entire valley of Gravity Falls was formed when an extraterrestrial object crash landed here millions of years ago. The aliens inside are all long dead."
"Is that why Gravity Falls is like this?" Shouto wondered. "Did the genius loci exist then as well?"
Ford shrugged. "Possibly. Alternatively, perhaps the strange properties of this place were what called the object here in the first place. The answer is still unknown."
"And the spacecraft itself?"
Ford grinned. Then he pushed aside a large rock, to reveal metal with a strange circular symbol underneath. "Sometimes, the strangest things are right under our noses. Or our feet, in this case."
He pulled a strange oval-looking gun out of his jacket and fiddled with it. "Now, you might want to step back. This magnet gun could pull the fillings out of a man's mouth from over a hundred feet." Shouto stepped back, and he aimed the gun at the sheet of metal, pulling it away from the rest of the ground, and revealing a ladder, leading downwards into darkness. "I used to raid this thing for parts for years. Where do you think I got the materials to build my portal?"
He tossed Shouto the magnet gun. "Take this, and let's get going."
Shouto followed down the ladder. "You don't need it?"
"Oh, I've got another one. This one is for you." Shouto nodded and paused to put the gun in his backpack before continuing downwards.
The small tunnel they were in opened up, revealing a massive, overgrown cavern, big enough that birds were flying through it, More metal symbols covered in plants and moss. A lot of the metal seemed to be falling apart, but after millions of years, Shouto figured that just spoke to how well constructed the spacecraft was.
Even though the words he'd said earlier were true, and the idea of aliens wasn't so far-fetched after everything else he'd seen, the ship still managed to take his breath away. Something about climbing down into ancient alien tech could do that to a person, he supposed.
"Fiddleford and I used to come down here all the time, to raid their tech and study their language," Ford explained, as they reached the bottom and stepped onto the ship proper. "The substance we need is an alien adhesive, strong enough to keep the hull of a spacecraft together."
"Especially after millions of years," Shouto agreed quietly, studying the writings on the walls.
"Indeed. Just one dollop of this should be enough to seal a crack in spacetime." Ford paused to take out his own magnet gun. "Also, if it touches you, it will seal up all the orifices in your face, so… try to avoid that." He charged up his magnet gun with a grin.
"Noted." Shouto took out his own magnet gun and charged it, watching as Ford jumped over to a metal pole, using the magnet gun to slide around it, further and further down, until he jumped off at the bottom.
Shouto paused to take a breath, then jumped forwards. The gun practically dragged him to the same pole, and his breath was nearly knocked away from him as he began zooming downwards. Coping Ford, he swung his feet around, causing the gun to spiral around the pole, easing his descent. When he got to the bottom, he turned off the gun and landed right next to Ford, who was lighting up some sort of flare.
"Nice work!" Ford praised. "You're a natural at this." Shouto gave him a nod, curiously noting the warmth in his chest at the praise, and they continued forwards until they reached a solid door, which had the symbol of a circle in a triangle.
Shouto's breath caught, and he forced down the uneasiness. Not all triangles with circles in them mean Cipher. It's fine. His heart still pounded away against his will.
"This place is their storage facility," Ford explained. "It would've been heavily guarded, but now everything's defunct." He gestured to some of the control panels. "Go ahead, flip any switch. They've all been busted for millions of years."
Shouto looked at the different buttons and switches curiously. "Thanks, but I don't really feel like taking chances."
Ford shrugged, accepting that. "Suit yourself. The glue should be around here somewhere, so keep your eyes peeled."
"What does it look like, exactly?" Shouto asked, scanning the hallway they were walking through for anything unusual.
"Purple and glowing. You can't miss it." They reached the end of the hallway, where a mess of strange hexagonal metal tiles with various symbols rested. "Most of the adhesive I've found has been on these strange tiles. It's best to start looking here."
Shouto nodded in agreement. While Ford started sorting through the tiles on the counters, Shouto rummaged through the ones on the ground, careful to not touch anything that might glue his orifices together.
Finally, he turned over a tile that had something purple and glowing on the back. Shouto stood and held it out to Ford. "Is this what we're looking for?"
Ford beamed. "That's it exactly! And more than enough to close the rift as well. Let's get-"
There was a loud groaning sound, like metal scraping against itself, and Shouto froze. Ford whipped out his magnet gun.
"You said everything down here is dead, right?" Shouto whispered, charging his own gun.
"Yes, and it is. We must've somehow reactivated the security system," Ford hissed back.
Out of the darkness, two strange, massive orbs floated into view, glowing triangles at their centers.
Triangles are fine. They don't automatically mean Cipher. Shouto pointed his gun at them, trying to convince himself.
"Listen to me very carefully," Ford said curtly. "I've studied these. They're security droids, and they detect adrenaline. If you can control your fear, they won't see you."
"Right." Controlling his fear. That was easy. He'd done it a million times before, at home. Even if this wasn't home, and he'd seemingly got worse at it, considering his breakdown yesterday. Which didn't lend itself too well to right now. But it was fine. He wouldn't have another panic attack. It was going to be fine. He was fine-
"Get down!" Ford tackled him, knocking him out of the way just as one of the droids fired. Ford fired back, the magnet gun shutting down the droid, but the droid had aimed well, knocking the gun out of his hands.
The other droid opened its sphere, and large wires shot out, entangling Ford and pulling him inside. Shouto got to his feet and ran towards him, but Ford was already being enclosed inside the sphere.
Useless, you're so useless-
"Shouto!" Ford slid the rift across the floor, and Shouto grabbed it, hastily putting it in his backpack. "You need to-!" The sphere closed before Ford could finish his sentence, and the droid started floating away.
Panicked, and out of reasonable options, Shouto found himself pointing the magnet gun at the droid.
It was a terrible idea. The other option was losing Ford, and that wasn't acceptable.
He fired the gun, and once again felt his breath being taken away as he zoomed forwards until the gun stuck to the edge of the droid.
The droid embedded itself into something sleek, metallic, and shinny, and Shouto felt himself being moved onto this new, more magnetic, object. Around them, the room glowed, flashing with alien symbols, before the tiny ship launched itself out of its port and through an opening panel in the roof.
Upwards and upwards they went, until the ship exploded out of the spacecraft and into the open air of Gravity Falls. It spun erratically, zooming around trees and doing flips in the air, making Shouto incredibly dizzy. Then it charged straight through a narrow hole in the cliff and through a waterfall, soaking him to the bone.
There was a loud thunk. Shouto looked down to see that Ford had been knocked unconscious.
At this point, they were going to crash into something that would kill them both. Shouto gripped the gun tightly and switched it to pulse mode. Blue circular waves surrounded the entire ship for a moment, before something sputtered and sparked, and they tilted downwards, heading for the ground at high speeds.
It was only luck that they landed outside of the forest. The ship skidded across the ground, leaving a long and deep upwelling of dirt in its wake. With the last bump, Shouto fell off the craft, hitting the ground hard and rolling.
He dragged himself upwards a moment later, groaning. His legs were quickly forming bruises, and his bandaged arms were aching and covered in dirt.
Ford. He ran over to the craft, prying open the sphere and pulled an injured Ford out of it. Ford groaned slightly and opened his eyes, causing Shouto to let out a sigh of relief.
There was a whirling noise, and Shouto spun back around to see the other security droid moving towards them. He set Ford down behind him and aimed his magnet gun, not trusting his fire in a life or death scenario like this.
In response, the droid whipped out a massive gun, longer than Shouto was tall, and pointed it back at them, starting to charge.
Shouto narrowed his eyes, feeling a burst of irritation. He'd been possessed, nearly killed by ghosts and dinosaurs and evil white-haired children and god-knew what else, and that was just in the past few months. He'd spent his whole life being beaten and terrified and if this fucking droid thought it would be the one to stop him, than it had another thing coming.
The droid retracted its gun, before sparkling all over and shutting down, dropping into the ground. Shouto let out a long breath, before turning to Ford, who was dragging himself to his feet.
Shouto helped him up. "Are you alright?"
"Just a bit bruised. I'll be fine," Ford assured him. "Shouto, that was amazing!"
Shouto shrugged. "Just did what I had to do, is all. Especially to make up for earlier."
Ford gave him a bemused smile. "I think what you need to do is learn to take a compliment, kid. Not many grown adults could do what you just did, let alone teenagers. It's something to be proud of."
…Huh.
This, Shouto supposed, was what parental affection was supposed to look like.
Shouto entered the attic looking scraped and bruised, but with a satisfied expression on his face. He set his backpack down next to Izuku's and flopped onto his bed with a groan.
"...How did the mission go?" Izuku asked tentatively.
"Good. Really good," Shouto admitted. "Gonna head down in a minute and finish things up with Ford. Then I think I'm just gonna go to bed." He looked up at Izuku. "And your own mission?"
Izuku smiled. "That went well too! We got Soos' grandma's face back. And a few other faces that the face-stealer stole. There's this whole underground section of Gravity Falls that's really neat, you wouldn't believe…" He trailed off, the memory striking him. "Oh wait, I forgot to give the game back to Soos! We thought we were going to have to trade it for his grandma's face, but we got to keep it in the end. I still have it! Hang on, I'll be right back."
Shouto gave him a tired wave as he grabbed his backpack and headed out of the attic, passing Mina and Ochako on his way down. He headed out of the house and through the woods, towards the town.
A strange jingle in his backpack made him pause.
"Hang on, what's…?" Opening it, he let out a small groan at the strange objects inside. Apparently, he'd grabbed Shouto's pack, instead of his own. Considering they looked the exact same and were right next to each other, it made sense, but now he was going to have to head back to the shack and trade.
"I-Izuku?"
"Hmm?" Izuku turned around to see Blendin, clearly just having landed in their time, fiddling with his device. "Oh, good to see you again! What's up?"
"I-It's good to see you too!" Blendin flashed him an awkward grin. "And I've got good news this time! Remember how I said I'd keep on the lookout for anything that could help you kids get back to your own world?"
A spark of hope flashed in Izuku's chest. "Yeah, I remember that. Then-?"
"I found something!" Blendin grinned triumphantly. "I-It took a while, but there's this - oh, h-hang on, let me just pull up an image…" He fiddled with his watch, and a familiar looking image of a snowglobe with what almost looked to be a galaxy inside appeared. "A-Apparently it's called a world rift, and if handled correctly, it can open a safe gate to whatever dimension you attune it to."
"That's incredible!" There was a pause as Izuku realized just why it looked familiar. "Hang on, I think I have that right here." He pulled the snowglobe out of Shouto's backpack, and sure enough, it was the same thing. If this is what Shouto and Ford had found on their mission, then that probably confirmed Blendin's speculations about it being able to help them get home.
"T-That's it!" Blendin fiddled with some sort of scanner. "Do you mind if I scan this for a sec? I'll give it right back afterwards."
"Sure." Izuku handed the world rift over, and Blendin stepped back, running a scan over it. Something on his scanner beeped in confirmation.
Then Blendin grinned, wide and unnatural, and Izuku's heart froze. He could see the man's hands shift, holding the rift up high, and he dashed forwards as the globe holding it fell.
He was a second too late. The rift shattered on the ground before his eyes.
Izuku only had a second to feel the swelling of horror as he looked up into Cipher's eyes before everything went black.
Shouto met Ford on the first floor of the Shack. "Izuku grabbed my backpack, thinking it was his. He's got the rift."
Ford blinked, then nodded. "Let's go find him then."
The two headed out of the shack, and something immediately felt wrong. That strange something, the Genius Loci, it almost seemed to be screaming.
Before he could voice this, there was a pulse, and the sky turned red. High above them, a strange X opened up, revealing yellows and oranges and greens and other strange colors.
A terrifyingly familiar laugh echoed throughout the valley.
Welcome to Weirdmageddon, everybody!
I know people were curious as to how any of the kids might be tricked into handing over the rift. If you'll remember the end of Chapter 13, Blendin did promise that he'd be on the lookout for anything that could help the Mystery Crew get home. Bill, of course, took advantage of that.
As always, I hope you enjoyed, and please leave a review! Your comments inspire me to write more of this story.