I'm going to be honest with you folks. At this point, I'm just trying to finish the story for myself. Start the fic.
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The next morning...
Young Pacifica walked into a room with a large television monitor. It was playing the same scene over and over again. It was Young Dipper, throwing himself into the eye of Gideon's giant robot followed by the chaos that ensued.
"How did I never know about this?"
Pacifica found out from the other residents of Gravity Falls that Gideon had been spying on the town with camera pins. 'The little creep!'
"What else has he done that I don't know about?"
"More than you think!" announced a second voice.
Pacifica jumped and turned around only to see her future self.
"What're you doing here?!"
"It occurred to us yesterday that the Shapeshifter is probably after you and the younger Dipper so your safety has moved up on the priorities list."
Young Pacifica rubbed her arm. "Yeah, that's not a scary thought at all."
"Exactly why we need to wrap this case up and kick this crook to the curb! Your Dipper has friends surrounding him who notices if he even goes into town let alone goes missing."
"I don't understand though, where's YOUR Dipper?"
"He's out trying to get his gun fixed."
"Really? How?"
"He's visiting an old friend..."
Gravity Falls Junkyard...
"No really! I need you to look at this gun! I know coming to you isn't the brightest idea but I don't have a lot of options! Can you help me?!"
"Yeehaaaw! I'm Old Man McGucket!"
McGucket does a dance on top of a broken old truck.
Dipper sighs heavily. "This was a bad idea..."
Since Old Man McGucket was the inventor of Dipper's gun he thought perhaps he could help fix it.
"Listen to me! You were once a scientist! I need you to be one again! Look at this gun! This is YOUR gun! Fix it!"
The hillbilly stopped doing his jig and looked upwards into the sky.
"People from beyond our dimension keep writing stories about me! This... doesn't feel like the first time I've said something like this either... I'M OLD MAN MCGUCKET!"
"ARG! This is pointless!" Dipper turned and stormed out of the junkyard. "McGucket doesn't have all his memories back so he's still nothing but a crazy old hillbilly!"
Not even half a block away Dipper stopped and slumped forward. "I really am going to have to handle this mess myself!"
He looked to the horizon, the sun wasn't even fully up yet.
"I'm going to need to find a quiet place I can work, a place that has tools I can use..."
Dipper sees a hardware store and grins.
"Time for a little community policing."
Northwest Mansion...
"How did you even get in here?" asked Young Pacifica. "What about all my servants and junk?"
"They're all busy digging the third pool. You know Mom and Dad are over seeing that! Making sure it has those mirror like tiles on the bottom so we can see our reflections and check our hair underwater."
"That adds up."
"Come on, time for another play date with Little Dipper. Don't tell MY Dipper I called the kid one that. He hates that nickname."
"Any other flaws?"
"Don't let him borrow your pens, like, ever! Not unless you want them all chewed up!"
"Pens? Really?"
"Yep. Back when I was your age, I would have loved them to see them back in Gravity Falls for good... but now that I'm an adult, getting either Dipper or Mabel to even consider coming back is basically a fight. You'll miss them, both of them. Mabel to a certain extent but definitely Dipper. Treasure your time with them, it'll be time for you to grow up without them before you know it."
"So... Dipper and I don't have a lot of adventures as kids?"
"We have had a lot of adventures as adults though. Like when we had to fight this witch Edna and her stone minions. Then there was the adventure when we were naked together... okay, I'll move on to a different adventure so long as you stop making that face together. Good! Then I had this magic flu where he had to tend to my every need, not really an adventure but I still enjoyed it. Then we fought a vermin dinosaur and after that we had a train adventure. And after that there was..." Adult Pacifica blushed for a moment. "The Love Bug adventure... We uh... ahem... sort of let it all hang out in that one. Before that one though, we investigated this town where a ghost and a little girl were bounded together, they turned out to be great friends. And we arrested this weird crystal orb guy in tights who was stalking this teenaged girl (pretty sure he's still locked up). We also helped out these elf folks who were being harassed by a lumber mill. And there was this one werewolf football player we met in a high school. That was a nice guy, Timmy Dinkins I think was his name. Yeah, him and his best friend Milton were a big help against this lizard thing. We also had this western adventure in Texas with this ghost town, where Dipper had to have a shoot out with this cowboy ghost that was his ancestor's arch enemy. I actually got to try on this mint condition saloon dress. And then there's Lenny! He's not so much an adventure as he is an occasional nuisance we have to put up with. Oh! And then there was the time we had to fight a time traveling Black Beard and his ship of cutthroats while riding a river steamboat filled with civil war weaponry on the Mississippi river! That was a fun one!" (A/N: I have too many adventures in mind for these two. Somebody please help!)
"... Did you make that last one up?"
"It happened. And now that I have told you about it, it will never be brought up again."
"... Never?"
"Never ever."
"That's a pity."
"There was also this one where I shot down a count vampire."
"Well of course you did! Because..."
"What's the point of being hot forever if you can't see yourself in a mirror!" both Pacificas stated in unison.
The two gasped at each other in joy.
Adult Pacifica hugged her younger self. "Finally, somebody who understands. Even if it is myself."
"What is happening right now?"
"Just hugging my inner child."
Hardware store...
Dipper was hard at work on his gun. Thankfully a quick flash of his badge, too quick for the employees to make out details, was all he needed to commandeer the shop and it's goods.
He managed to open it up and found a complete mess inside. One of the ice balls had sprung a leak and got into some the circuitry, the barrel looked like it had never been clean (it had but if you hadn't know before hand you wouldn't have guessed), and there was goop everywhere else.
"Well no WONDER this thing isn't working right! I'm going to need to do a complete overhaul!"
"I could help with that!" a new voice cracked in.
Dipper turned to see his younger self in the store.
"Oh! Hello me. How am I doing today?"
"Ah... Good. Good! Glad I asked! So... Promise not to be mad."
Adult Dipper narrowed his eyes at the youth. "Why? Why you would you ask that of yourself?"
"Well you see it started out innocent enough, I was heading into to town to meet up with you but I got a little tail gunner."
"What? Did Mabel decide she needed to hit on some town boys?"
"Dipper," called Wendy. "Where'd you go, dude?"
"YOU BROUGHT WENDY?!"
"It just sort of happened! I'm not as quiet as I think, remember?! I'm sorry, I didn't know what else to do!"
"You gotta get rid of her, man! I need to fix this gun and I can't do both that and focus on keeping my cover!"
"Right, I'll get right on..." *DING! *"And she's already inside the store!"
Adult Dipper face palmed
Wendy saw Adult Dipper and almost immediately recognized him.
"You!"
"Uh-oh!"
"Listen pal," Wendy stomped over to Adult Dipper. "I don't care if you're with the government I..."
Wendy stopped in mid-sentence as she got a good look at Adult Dipper's face.
"Wait a minute... Now that I'm seeing your face up close, there something about you that seems really familiar! Have you come to town before?"
Wendy was getting closer, Adult Dipper was leaning back helplessly. He had no way out of this situation.
*BONK! *
*BONK! *
*BONK! *
Adult Dipper and Wendy turned to the source of the noise and what they saw was certainly odd.
Mothman was repeatedly hitting his head against the store window. Young Dipper was over by the door mimicking his future self with a face palm
"Mothman?" Adult Dipper whispered. "I don't remember meeting you when I was a kid! What're you even doing here?"
"WHAT IS THAT HIDEOUS THING?!" shouted Wendy.
*CRASH! *
Mothman shattered the window and fell through on to the floor. He slowly rose to his full height, rubbing his head painfully. He then realized he was still being watch and jumped a little.
"Oh! I am the Terrifying and Not-Actually-All-That-Hideous (Come on, be nice!) MOTHMAN! And I... I... Uh..."
He looked down at Young Dipper. "Take... child?"
He picked up Young Dipper and hopped out of the window to the street.
"Dipper No!" shouted Wendy. "You put him down, you ugly butterfly wannabe!"
"Oh *CLICK! **CLACK! **CLICK! **CLACK! * YOU, LADY!"
Mothman spread his wings and took off into the sky like a shot.
"DIPPER!"
Wendy jumps out the window to try and chase down Mothman on foot.
Dipper on the other hand, was still processing everything that had just happened in basically under five minutes.
"I knew Mothman when I was a kid? I don't remember him at all! How come he never said anything?! Sigh. Problems for later... I need to fix this gun, and there's only one place at this time period I can get the materials I need. Time to pay the space ship a visit!"
Northwest Mansion...
The two Pacificas were walking towards the front door of the mansion which was taking a little longer than they thought since the place was so honking huge. They were nearly at the garden when Adult Pacifica motioned for them to stop.
"What's wrong?"
"Do you hear that?"
"I don't hear anything."
"Exactly! Where are the peacocks? They're always sqwaking something!"
Then a single peacock feather fell from above. Looking up they saw the Shapeshifter perched on top of one of the stone pillars. He gulped down something green with feathers and then grinned at them with a razor fanged smile.
"Hello, ladies. Turns out what I really needed to begin my path to recovery was a good meal. Not at one hundred percent yet but on the right path towards it!" He looked at Young Pacifica. "Turns out healthy appetites are important for healing!"
Adult Pacifica had placed herself in front of Young Pacifica.
"Is this the part where you try to kill my younger self?"
"Yes, but I know you aren't going to let that happen. So I may as well start with you!"
Shapeshifter lunged at them but Adult Pacifica quickly pulled Young Pacifica out of the way.
"Why aren't you using that Magnet Gun Thingy?!" shouted Young Pacifica.
"I let my Dipper borrow it!"
"What?! Why?!"
"His own gun was on the fritz! You can't have an unarmed officer!"
"Then what do you have?!"
Adult Pacifica held up her umbrella. "I have THIS!"
"An umbrella? Great. Great! We'll be covered if it, like, rains!"
Shapeshifter took another lunge towards Young Pacifica only to be met with a red wall.
"An umbrella that can create a force field! Pretty cool huh?"
Their enemy refused to be slowed by this new tactic. He leapt up and landed on the roof of the umbrella; because he was feeling a little better he enlarged one of his claws and struck down.
Mabel had designed the umbrella to be puncture resistant, but puncture resistant and puncture proof were two different things. The roof of the umbrella was torn apart and Adult Pacifica was forced to throw the umbrella away.
Having thoroughly destroyed the fabric, he turned his attention to Young Pacifica.
"Okay, what do we do now?"
"...Run!"
"What?"
"Run!"
Young Pacifica yelped as her adult self grabbed her by the hand and ran off.
"I thought you were some kind of badass superhero! Why aren't you fighting back?!"
"Without a weapon?! No way! Between the two of us, Dipper is the fighter!"
"Then what's the plan?!"
"Keep running until we find something useful to help us!"
"That's it?!"
"It works better than you think!"
Spaceship...
Deep under the town of Gravity Falls, was a space ship. A space ship which might have been responsible for the weirdness of Gravity Falls but was definitely responsible for the tech McGucket and Stanford built.
They built their circuitry based off what they found here so logically there had to be something down here that Dipper could work with.
He had no old man guide to escort him this time, now he was walking on his own two feet. He used Pacifica's magnet to make the leap, he even said "Ha!"
He landed and heard the echo it made throughout the ship.
Then he sighed. There was something about doing this alone which was both good and bad. He liked that he was independent enough that he could pull this off solo no problem but without Pacifica he was starting to feel lonely.
"I don't like being apart from Pacifica for this long!" Dipper mused. "I can't help but feel like I should be doing this with her. This place would blow her mind!"
Dipper's exploration of the ship was tragically uneventful. Ford was right, eventually the knowledge of space aliens and the exploration of the ship had just become sort of 'Meh.'
This brought up some old memories of Ford.
He looked in the corner where he and Ford looked for the adhesive to seal up Bill's rift. Tears fought to make their way out but Dipper managed to suck them up.
"Damn it, Ford...why couldn't you have just supported my decision?"
He steeled himself and went back to his search. He needed to finish fast, who knows what was happening to the other three.
Elsewhere...
Mothman and Dipper were flying through the air.
"That was a close one with the red head huh?"
"Where are we heading anyways?" asked Dipper.
"Northwest Mansion, your blonde girlfriend is waiting for us there!"
"She's not my...well..." Dipper looked away. "Maybe she will be one day."
"It's okay to have feelings for her, but it's also okay not to rush anything. You're twelve for pity's sake!"
Northwest Mansion...
Both Pacificas were running through the halls of the mansion with the Shapeshifter right behind them.
He was significantly bigger now, his size filled up the hallway, his claim about a good meal didn't appear to just be bragging.
Fortunately, bigger also meant slower in this case. A sharp left around the corner and Pacifica found what she was looking for.
"There! The painting!"
"What about it?!"
"Buckle up kid, you're about to learn some family history!"
Instead of crashing through the painting like she and Dipper did when they were twelve, she quickly tilted the painting to the side revealing the opening.
"What is..."
"No time to explain!"
Adult Pacifica pulled her younger self through the opening, fixing the painting afterwards.
Shapeshifter rounded the corner but because he didn't seem them, he took a right turn leading himself back outside.
Back behind the painting the Pacificas took a moment to catch their breath.
"That was some Ghibli Studio level stuff back there!" noted Adult Pacifica.
"Where are we?"
"Oh right, I didn't learn about this room until my ghost adventure with Dipper."
"My Dipper?"
"Well techni... You seem awfully interested in him all of a sudden."
"No, I don't!"
"Did he turn your head?"
"No."
"He did! Didn't he?!"
"No!"
"You're crushing on him!"
"Stop it!
"That is so sweet! My feelings for him must run deeper than I thought!"
"Quit embarrassing yourself! Literally!"
"Okay, we've had our fun."
Young Pacifica shot herself a dirty look.
"We should get out of here."
"But I haven't even taken a good look at the place!"
"Exactly! Listen Princess, I only remember coming in here twice and that was on the same night I thought I had my first childhood solo adventure with Dipper. I don't remember coming in here before that so time to face facts! Something had to erase ours and Dipper's memory of this adventure; right now that might seem like a bitter pill to swallow but if it means preserving the life I have with him now then it's worth it."
Young Pacifica wasn't so interested in the room anymore. The idea of suddenly losing everything she had just recently gone through with her Dipper? Well... There was no nice way to put it... It hurt.
Adult Pacifica leaned the painting open to the side, checking to see if the coast was clear.
"I mean, like, he and Mabel don't come back when summer ends but I wouldn't trade the life I have with him now for anything in the world."
"I grow up without him?" Young Pacifica squeaked.
The adult version of the heiress froze, she was pretty sure spoilers counted as polluting the time stream. 'Screw it.' thought Adult Pacifica. 'If I'm going to give spoilers I might as well not hold back.'
"Well... yeah. The Pines Twins impacted this town in such a positive way that everybody felt hurt when they didn't come back, including us." She motioned for younger self to follow her through. "Everyone was so, like, down that I had to do something about it. So I used the example they set for me and threw a fancy little cotillion for everybody in the town square. It helped, at least a little bit."
They were out in the hallway again and as Adult Pacifica was about to enter a room she was halted by the hand by her younger self.
"No! Not here!"
"Huh?"
"This room has my parents' favorite carpet pattern! Remember?! They'll blow a blood vessel if we go in there!"
Adult Pacifica smacked her forehead. "Right! I used to think that stuff was super important!" She picked up her younger self and carried her under her arm.
"Well good news, Kiddo! We're going to play a game we never got the chance to in our childhood!"
"Really? What's it called?"
"It's called: The..." Adult Pacifica jumped onto a side table. "Floor..." She jumped onto the couch. "Is..." She ran along the couch to the edge and leapt off into the next room. "Lava. That was actually a lot of fun! Look forward to it!"
"I'm a kid! Why didn't I ever think of that?!"
"You're more sheltered than you think."
"Like, really?"
"Yeah, which is why Dipper kind of becomes important. He sees the girl behind our Northwest mask, and smiles."
"Okay, okay." Young Pacifica twidled with her index fingers. "You've convinced me, alright? Cut yourself some slack, I'm only twelve remember?"
"Sorry about that. For now though, I think I might have an idea on how to deal with the Shapeshifter."
She pressed her foot into the bottom of the wall activating a button.
"You have to be kidding me, a secret door?"
"I'm afraid there's secret places all over this mansion. This one leads to Dad's secret garage."
"I didn't know he had a secret garage."
"Of course you didn't! Otherwise it wouldn't be a secret now would it?"
"Does Mom know?"
"No. Kind of pointless though, she ends up loving his secret motorcycles and jeeps."
"Our Dad? Jeeps?"
"Now you know why it was a secret."
Spaceship...
Adult Dipper grumbled to himself bitterly. He was able to fix his gun faster than anticipated but it had been such a long time since he had been in the spaceship he had gotten turned around. He thought the spaceship was only under the valley which was shaped like the saucer but at the rate he was going the thing must've been under the entire town.
"This is ridiculous! This place is a hundred times bigger than what Ford said it was. All of Gravity Falls must be under this thing!"
He came across something that resembled a ladder and went up it until he hit something. This wasn't like the rest of the ship though, he knocked on it, it wasn't metal.
"This is concrete!"
Dipper pulled out his gun and set the dial to the laser.
"Okay, I've had enough of this wondering around! I'm leaving now!"
Dipper cut himself a circle and with a hefty push, pushed it out of the way.
He climbed through and he found...
"A garage?"
Dipper had thought he solved all the mysteries of Gravity Falls but having an alien corridor lead to a garage was something to look into. The garage was lit and there were cars everywhere, expensive looking ones too.
"Where am I?"
Gravity Falls was a place where the strange, odd, and absurd were the norm. And Dipper was reminded of this as he was greeted with the sight of his partner Pacifica chasing after the Shapeshifter in a large SUV.
"What the crap?!"
"HA HA! NOT SO FUN WHEN YOU'RE THE ONE BEING CHASED HUH?!"
The Shapeshifter ran to the far end of the wall, he looked desperately to his right, then to his left. There was nowhere to run to, it was a dead end."
Pacifica jumped out of the vehicle, but because she wasn't still in the vehicle to press down on the gas the car started to slow down. Not soon enough though as he hit the Shapeshifter dead on pinning him to the wall.
Young Pacifica had been watching from a safe distance up until now. She ran over to her future self obviously impressed.
"Here's a tip from your future self. When in doubt, hit'em with the vehicle!"
"Really?"
"It works better than you might think." Adult Pacifica pointed to the pancaked Shapeshifter. "Case in point."
"Well aint this a fine How-Do-You-Do?" announced Adult Dipper.
"Dipper!" Adult Pacifica ran over to him with a skip in her step. "How'd you get here?"
"Well Sweetheart, it's a complicated story involving a spaceship under the town."
"There's a spaceship under the town?"
"I never told you that?"
"No!"
"Seems weird, I could have sworn... we'll talk later. For now, looks like you've taken of our job yourself."
"Not by myself, I had myself! Right self?"
"That's right!" cheered Young Pacifica.
"And where's my..."
*GROAN! * *SCREEEEECH! *
The Shapeshifter pushed the car off of himself and fell to the floor.
"Okay...Maybe bigger isn't better."
*CLICK! *
The Shapeshifter looked up to see Dipper's gun staring back.
"By the authority granted to me by the Time Police I hereby place you under arrest!"
"Other Dipper is never going to believe this!" declared Young Pacifica.
"Wait! Where is my bright eyed self?" asked Adult Dipper.
"Don't know, he was supposed to be here!"
Roof of Gravity Falls' Laser Tag...
"Out of all the excuses I've given for being late, this has got to be the lamest. How could you stop for lunch?!" shouted Young Dipper.
Mothman was eating a mattress happily.
"Can't fly on an empty stomach and this place is the best! Flashing lights AND tasty meals."
"Sigh. At least we lost Wendy."
Back with the others...
"That's not good I... Hey! Where'd the Shapeshifter go?!"
It was true, the hulking beast was absent from where he was.
"This is bad! He could be anywhere!" shouted Adult Pacifica.
The sound of metal rolling caught all of their ears and they darted their eyes to the entrance where a hubcap was rolling towards the entrance.
"YOU'RE NOT FOOLING US, MONSTER!" shouted Dipper.
The hubcap sprouted legs and ran out the door.
"QUICK! AFTER IT!"
Omake
All three of them were chasing the Shapeshifter up the tunnel the Pacificas had come down. Both of which were having a quiet little side chat, speaking a volume just low enough that Dipper couldn't hear them.
"So, like, in the future does Dipper do anything romantic for me?" asked Young Pacifica.
"Well there was this time when we were both under the effect of this, like, love spell thing. It was starting to wear off but not entirely. Anyways, he actually tried to serenade me."
"Really? What song did he use?"
Flashback
Dipper was outside the RV facing the back of it, Pacifica was inside combing her hair.
"Saturday night is a night alright. Time to groove til the morning light. Your bell-bottoms on, your hair unfurls. Youuuuu are the disco girl. Everyone gasps when you hit the scene. *Gasp! * Who's she? People say you're a funky queen. It's you! Spinning around like a disco ball! Who's the Honey who's got it all? Disco Girl! Coming through! That girl is you! A ooh! A ooh! It's the year 1972 and that girl is you! You can sing! You can shimmer! Love's on the menu and disco's for dinner! Disco Girl! Coming through! That girl is you! A ooh! A ooh!"
Pacifica opened the back window and poked her head out.
"That has to be the lamest song in all of history!"
"...Oh."
She went back inside and Dipper sadly kicked a rock. Then Pacifica poked her head back out with a loving smile on her face.
"I didn't say 'stop'!"
"She's got sass for miles and miles! DISCO WILL OUTLAST ALL MUSICAL STYLES! Disco Girl! So wild and true! That girl is you! A ooh! A ooh! Strutting down, that avenue! That girl is you! A ooh! It's youuu! Our Eurovision application is under review! That girl is you!"
Pacifica poked her head back out.
"I love you so much right now!"
That's it for now. Are you guys having fun with this story? Because I'm having fun; perhaps too much fun, this chapter was supposed to be shorter. I wanted Adult Pacifica to spit at that portrait of her parents in the hidden room but it didn't seem organic anymore. How'd you like that list of adventures Pacifica peeled off, bet three years don't sound that farfetched now huh? Seriously though, I have too many ideas for this couple.