Dipper paced in his and Mabel's room. It was once an attic, and Stanford had let the two decorate their sides however they wished. He helped Mabel install color-changing lights above her bed and block off a reading nook for Dipper so he could keep theorizing deep into the night. Stanford originally had planned for each twin to get their own room on the first level, but when the twins had asked for one, he had quickly cleaned this place for them. It was a cozy, if creaky, room with all the twin's added decor. The only thing Stanford was insistent on was a dreamcatcher above each bed. Something Dipper had thought odd since their uncle had been such a scientifically minded individual. Now though…
In Dipper's hand was the worn journal, a reminder of how much he didn't know.
"Just show it to Uncle Ford," Mabel said from her bed. "He could tell you instantly if it was his and what it means."
"I can't just whip this out! You saw how he evaded the forest incident." Dipper said, his stomach twisting as he remembered his great uncle's frown.
"What's the worst that can happen?" Mabel asked.
"Great Uncle Ford, I found this journal in the woods. Is it yours?" Dipper would ask.
"Dipper, that is not a moth. And here I thought we were bonded by science. I'm very disappointed in you." Stanford would then throw the book into the ocean and laugh at Dipper for believing in the supernatural.
Dipper held the book to his chest. "I can't…" He continued to pace, thinking and rethinking his strategies. Dipper then hit upon an idea that made him perk up. "I know! I can catch one of the creatures in this book. If I show Stanford the journal and the creature, he can't wave that away!"
Mabel's unimpressed expression didn't change. "Ooook. Well, you can look for monsters when I go out tonight!"
"Tonight?" Dipper looked out into the moonless night. He could only barely make out the outline of the forest from the square window between their beds. Stanford had flood lights to illuminate the yard and attract moths, but past that, it was pitch black.
"So, it's time to spill the beans." Mabel looked around her but then snapped her fingers in disappointment. It looked like she had forgotten something downstairs. "Uh, anyways. I'm going out on a date with Norman tonight."
"Now? When it's so dark?" Dipper asked.
"Boom." Mabel pulled out a light-up sweater she had recently made from under her bed. She then gave Dipper a flashlight and the end of a bunch of sheets tied together. "Hold onto that as I descend."
"Wait! This seems unnecessarily dangerous. We can just go out the front door. It's not like Stanford trapped us here. But why do you have a date in the middle of the night?!"
Mabel sighed and hid her bed sheet escape rope for another time. "I didn't think I'd have another chance. Norman really wanted to hang out yesterday, and he was crushed when Uncle told us to leave. Crushed!"
Dipper couldn't remember the boy's face changing all that much during the meeting. He just kept blankly staring forward (a fly may have even landed on his eyeball).
"So I told him to meet me here tonight. He already wanted to hang out in the forest, so what better way than the hiking trails?"
"Do you remember that thing we saw out there today?!"
Mabel waved his comment away. "I actually asked Norman about that. He said he had lived in these woods his whole life and never saw anything bigger than him. I think a hunky local knows more than we do. It probably was some machine."
Before Dipper could argue, a pebble hit the window. Mabel squeaked as she climbed the desk under the window and peered out.
"It's Norman! So dreamy, saving a princess locked in her tower." Mabel sighed. "Huh? Hey! It's that cashier from the gift shop. She's down there too."
"Where?!" Dipper scrambled onto the desk and peeked over.
Sure enough, Wendy was standing next to Norman, that same trouble-causing smile on her face. It even looked like she was the one who threw the pebble.
"Oooh, man. How did she get here? I offered a property tour but didn't know she'd be coming tonight!" Dipper gasped as his chest seemed to squeeze him.
"Hey, it's fine, Dipper. Ford's already asleep and never said anything about having company over."
"Probably because he never thought anyone would come out here."
Mabel ignored his comment. "We are going to go out, I'm going to be charming, you're going to be… you. And we are going to make some memories!"
Mabel turned on her sweater, blinding Dipper, and ran out of their room. Dipper took a deep breath and forced himself to follow her down the stairs.
The main floor was a massive space that used to hold nothing but electronics, chalkboards, and papers. But it had all been pushed to the sides to make a more livable space for the twins. Mabel recognized the mismatched discount furniture sets that now comprised the kitchen and living spaces. Something Stanford must have bought in a hurry when he realized the twins were staying with him this summer. But even if it wasn't designer and the machines now pushed to the edges were pretty weird, both twins found it rather homey… when they weren't stuck in it 24/7.
Stanford had gone to bed early as he always did, and at this hour, neither twin worried about waking him. His room was one level below and wasn't even the lowest in the house. He had an actual elevator to go down to his room and the laboratory below. Stanford once brought the kids to the lowest level to show off his work. With a name like Laboratory, Dipper had expected more exciting things to be in it, but no. Just preserved bugs, shelves of numbered journals, and tracking equipment. Oh, and one annoying radio that Mabel couldn't make play anything other than 50s rock.
The twins raced through the shack and out the front door. The two stopped in front of the taller kids. Mabel had her hands up in a showmanship display, and Dipper was fighting with his vest pocket, trying to put the journal away.
"Hey, thanks for coming, guys. This is our summer home." Mabel announced as she gestured to the yard and shack. "How do I look?" she said more pointedly to Norman.
Norman's eyes were watering, thanks to the bright sweater. "Shiny." Almost as if they were agreeing, two moths started flitting around Mabel and her glow.
"So this is the mad scientist's home?" Wendy said with a whistle. "I heard Dad talk about it once, said it was some of the weirdest construction he ever had to do. But he's proud of it all the same."
"Yeah, it kinda is weird," Dipper said, sweat beating down his neck. What should he say? What should he say!?
"Well, surprise, I guess. I'm here tonight." Wendy continued, "I heard your sister whisper to this guy here that she wanted someone to break her out tonight. I could also tell you two hadn't been allowed out all summer. I thought I might as well come along to free you, too, if you wanted. My friends were already coming to the hiking trails to summon demons or something to scare each other."
"You-your friends?" Dipper asked.
"Yeah, they're just back on the trail a bit. They might be a little intense for a kid, but with how controlling your great-uncle sounded at the shop, I thought you'd like a chance to get away."
Dipper's brain was currently stuck on the word "kid." It made him stand straighter (and puff up like a pomeranian, as Mabel would later describe).
"We're not kids. We're 13, so technically a teen. And I'd love to give you guys a tour tonight."
Mabel glanced sideways at him and then looked back at Norman, who was much taller than her. She shrugged and let the lie slide.
"So, Mabel, do you want to, I don't know, hold hands and stuff in the woods?" Norman stuttered. Even the nervous Dipper felt a little empathy for the guy. He was clearly just as anxious as Dipper was. It honestly looked like he was about to fall apart.
"Of course!" Mabel grinned as she took Norman's hand and started for the forest.
"Mabel…" Dipper petered off, not knowing how else to stop her. This situation felt wrong. But before thinking about it more, he heard cheering from the forest.
"Thompson! Thompson!"
"That's my gang. Let me introduce you." Wendy said as she started for the forest path.
Dipper went with Wendy onto the hiking trail and traveled until the shack's light disappeared. He turned on his flashlight, and three teens in the yellow beam were cheering as another teen ate pinecones nearby.
"Meet Lee, Nate, Tambry, and Thompson. Usually, there's another guy here called Robbie, but he got busy today with his parents' business." Wendy said. Dipper wanted to make a good first impression on these obviously cool kids (even the one eating the pinecones), but nothing came to his head. He could only awkwardly wave as Wendy continued. "Dipper here is the great nephew of Doctor Mystery. He said he'd show us around."
"Woah, really?" Nate asked
"Um, yep. Stanfor- I mean, Doctor Mystery won't bother us, so I'm sure I can show some of the stuff he has around the yard." Dipper tried.
"Ha, I wonder what horrors he has on his land. You think he'll turn Tambry into a robot?" Lee laughed.
"She practically already is with her cell phone attached to her," Nate said as he nudged the girl, still looking at her phone screen.
"Shut up," Tambry said with an eye roll. "I'm final girl material. You're all being turned into Frankensteins."
It took every cool bone in Dipper's body to stop himself from correcting them about Frankenstein being the scientist, not the monster.
"Uh, so yeah, spooky tour…" Dipper said as he tried to think of something to keep their attention.
Stanford mostly filled the lawn with high flood lights, moth traps, lock boxes beside those traps, and a great antenna that was supposed to pick up radio frequencies. It was not interesting in the slightest. Nate and Lee were already yawning as they looked around the area. Dipper winced but knew where he had to take them.
In the back, next to Mabel's craft shed, was a junkyard of sorts. Behind a chain link fence was a massive broken pile of failed experiments and other odds and ends (as Stanford had called it). The twins weren't allowed…or, rather, "expected" to play in this areas of the Science Shack. But when they were building their catapult, this is where they got the metal to do so.
Dipper turned to the bored teens and held his hands out wide. He felt stupid doing that, so he quickly picked up a nearby branch. He picked it up and used it to point dramatically at the back dump.
"And this is where Dr Mystery keeps his darkest secrets." Dipper declared. He used the branch like a fancy cane to accentuate his showmanship display and push the gate open.
"A dump?" Wendy asked.
Dipper was sweating through his vest, but he nodded.
The teens cheered as they burst through the gate into the trash yard without hesitation. After breathing for what felt like the first time in hours, Dipper joined in.
Though the yard was not massive, it felt like a maze of trinkets and gadgets. Each teen had more than enough to mess with: barrels of dynamite, levitating robot spheres, massive magnets, a sponge that never got wet but always soaked up water (Thompson was dared to spit into it till it got damp. He was still going strong even after the others lost interest), and much, much more.
"Your uncle uses that for moths?" Wendy called.
Before Dipper and her was a great steel cage with tools locked on top. The bars were coated in hardened crystals Dipper had never seen before. The cage was ripped open and now lay useless.
"Uh…Bigger…Moths?" Dipper answered, his answer petering off.
Thompson was still going strong on that sponge, Tambry was rapidly texting about every new item, and Nate and Lee were throwing the levitating spheres at each other. Each time the robot was about to hit them, they would make a fizzling sound and stop mid-air before falling uselessly to the ground.
"What is up with this thing?" Nate said as he kicked his sphere.
"Hey, you want to try making that hoop?" Lee asked as he pointed at a pole in the center of the area. At the top was a strange circular device, the perfect size for one of the spheres to go through.
Dipper heard metal scraping and breaking. He turned to see the two smashing the spheres into the pole with every missed toss. What was worse was that the hoop they aimed at began glowing the closer the spheres got. It even pulsated with an annoying pressure when the spheres nearly touched it. Dipper grimaced and sped over, wiping the sweat off his hands.
"Hey, dudes!" Dipper squeaked. When he wasn't noticed, he banged on his chest and cleared his throat to summon the man's voice he had within him all along, "Hey, broskies!"
The baby bunny squeak alerted the two to Dipper's existence.
"Hey! It's our tour guide!" Nate laughed.
Lee gave Dipper a smack on the back, "Tour guide, Little Mystery! Whoo!"
Dipper almost crumbled at the slap of teenage validation, but he held himself well. With a puffed chest, he coughed, "Yeahh! Little Mystery here! Uhm, whatcha guys doing?"
"Trying to make a hoop here," Nate said as he tossed another sphere. It broke into two separate pieces on the pole. "Woot! Extra points!"
"Uh, maybe we should try something else. You're running out of spheres here." Dipper tried. He really didn't care about the robots since they were obviously thrown away. But the pole and device on top were still working.
"Ha! Bro, you got to chill. It's a dump, right? Who's going to care if it's broken? It's not even dangerous." Nate said.
Dipper ignored the pile of dynamite in the back.
Nate and Lee returned to tossin' the ole sphere at the pulsating ring of unknown origin. Dipper tried not to freak out, but with each close call was another weird pulse.
"Man, that thing is giving me a headache! Come on, guys. Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!" Wendy began chanting.
When Wendy started chanting, everyone joined—making the boys more interested in killing what could be his great-uncle's life's work.
"Uh, I'm sure there's an off switch. We don't have to do this, guys-" Dipper tried to pipe up."
"Kill it!"
"Kill it!"
"Man, Nate, come on! Maybe you should actually jump next time instead of hopping like a kitten!"
"Shut up, man! Whatever, you want to see jumping? I got you!"
Dipper saw it in slow motion. Nate put everything into his jump. This ball was going to hit. Before Dipper's need for validation could stop him, he dove into Nate right when he shot the ball.
Dipper's collision sent the ball into the pole, breaking the pole and launching it towards the shack. The robot ball bounced off the top of the fence and flew back right through the flying ring. Both items fell to the ground outside the junkyard.
Nate angrily shoved Dipper off, "What's your problem!?"
"Dude, a kid knocked you over!" Lee mocked.
That made Nate angrier and broke Dipper's hopes of being cool at the tag "kid."
Nate got up and shoved Lee, who pushed him right back. Before a fight could start, though, the other teens gathered around and cheered.
"Hey, man. Dipper helped you get that hoop!" Wendy said.
Dipper was staring horrified at the broken pole and sphere outside the fence. How was he going to gain Stanford's trust now?
The floodlights around them turned red as alarms rang out.
"Scatter!" Wendy yelled as everyone booked it from the junkyard and into the woods. Dipper ran with them, unsure of what else to do.
When the teens left the yard, the alarms stopped, but the teens certainly didn't as they went deeper and deeper into the forest.
Eventually, they stopped running when they met back up with the hiking paths that twisted through this part of the woods. Most began laughing at their great escape. Dipper even nervously chuckled, the adrenaline still running through him. Nate and Lee were hollering over their great shot when suddenly they were surrounded by blue light. They paused just enough to notice each other glowing before their legs suddenly lifted, swinging them upside down as they floated up into the trees. Everyone screamed as they stared at the two floating boys.
"Is this one of your uncle's inventions?" Wendy asked.
"I don't think so!" Dipper gasped. The taller kids could keep the rising teens in their vision, but Dipper had to crane his neck to follow their path. He took a nervous step back and accidentally fell into the bushes.
"Quiet! Intruders! Thieeeves!" A snarled voice came from the trees. "You have tread on my land! And for that, you will be doomed forever to stay!"
There was more screaming as the teens attempted to run. Dipper witnessed from the bush as the blue light stopped all forward momentum. Slowly, the aura surrounded all the teens and lifted them into the air. Dipper threw himself flat to the roots, waiting to be captured in blue light. But he was not moved.
Dipper peaked between the leaves to see Wendy and her friends high in the air in various random positions. The voice didn't seem to care about the blood rushing to Thompson's head. Nor did it seem to mind the floating teens bumping into each other or the trees. It was Wendy getting stuck in pine branches above her, and the voice growling in frustration as it tried to maneuver her out that made Dipper realize. This power wasn't that well controlled, was it?
An annoyed growl and a sudden shift in some higher branches freed Wendy. Her blue aura lit a squat, dark creature sitting above her. This creature was holding a glowing blue stone in its clawed hands. Once Dipper saw it, he pulled out the journal, and, by the luminous blue light of the floating teens, he read the pages. Soon, he found a silhouette similar to the shadow.
Goblins: trouble-causing tree-dwellers. Their massive eyes help them move in the dark but blinds them to bright lights. Their juveniles often look for cursed artifacts for some social renown known as "clout." This habit makes goblin adults rare, and why goblin crossbreeds are more common than pure goblins.
Dipper raised an eyebrow. Nothing here talked about telekinetic powers. He glanced back at the laughing creature and knew the little silhouette couldn't be anything but a goblin. The only thing out of place was… the blue amulet.
"What's your problem?!" Wendy yelled.
"You came into MY wood. So now, you will be part of my friendom! Forever by my side!" The voice laughed.
Dipper used its distracting monologue to climb the pine trees, staying on the side facing away from the goblin. He eventually got to Wendy, who was floating the lowest.
"Psst."
Wendy turned, eyes wide and unable to find him, until he slid forward onto a nearby branch. Dipper handed her two pinecones. He then silently pointed to where the creature was. Shadows nearly hid it, the teens' glow moving away from it. Dipper then pointed at his left hand, then the beast again. It took Wendy a bit in the dark, but she soon saw the glowing amulet in the creature's left hand. Dipper showed his unlit flashlight and pointed at his own eyes, then the monster's. He then mimed throwing. Wendy didn't need any more than that.
"Hey! Look over here!" Dipper jumped further onto his branch and began wildly waving his arms.
"What? Oh, more views!" The creature screeched.
Dipper felt the weightlessness start to surround him. With a click, the flashlight lit up the creature. Wendy didn't hesitate and lobbed the pinecone.
"Ouch!" The voice said in a much higher, less menacing tone. It tried to simultaneously cover its eyes and rub its head, with little success.
The amulet dropped from the goblin's hand. Everyone heard the thing shatter below. With a gasp, the teens fell, too. Wendy tumbled gracefully, grabbing nearby branches and forcing them to slow her fall. She landed on her feet with Dipper, not nearly as spectacularly, landing beside her. Their teen friends could only groan on the ground as they all looked up at the goblin.
"My new amulet! My clout!" The figure moaned. Wendy then hucked another pinecone at it. With a satisfying thunk, the figure fell from the tree and landed in the same bush Dipper had hidden in. Up stood a little green figure with massive ears.
"Uhhh." It moaned as it rubbed its head.
Tambry, Thompson, Lee, and Nate yelled as they came face to face with the green monster. Dipper could tell they took no real damage from the fall as they immediately booked it down the hiking path. Wendy was about to follow when she saw Dipper not running. Instead, he slowly made his way over to the creature.
"Dipper, what are you doing?" Wendy yelled.
Dipper gripped his flashlight tightly, wondering how hard he could swing it. He advanced despite shaking like a leaf with every step.
"Urg…" the goblin continued to moan. In the light beam, Dipper could see long, dark, scraggly hair from the goblin's head and ears, with one white stripe going through it.
"What did you w-want with us?" Dipper demanded. He hoped his voice sounded strong and that no one noticed his voice crack halfway through.
"Wha? Ow, stop shining that in my eyes!" The goblin hissed, but now that Dipper saw just how much shorter the goblin was to him, the hiss sounded more like a cat's than anything threatening.
"Not until I get answers."
"Fine, fine! I wasn't going to hurt you guys! I just wanted to scare you so you'd know how cool my new amulet's power was. Then maybe you'd want to see more of its power and trespass again. Then I could show you my other cool stuff, maybe even start a Gootube channel together?"
"Wha-Why?" Dipper stammered
"I'm… I'm kinda lonely." The goblin gingerly tapped its long fingers together.
"You attacked us because you're lonely?" Wendy stormed right up to the monster.
"Well, it worked for my mom. It's how she got my dad and how my aunt got her best friend and-"
"So you just want some company?" Dipper asked.
"Will you give it?"
"No!" Wendy said as she was about to stomp away when Dipper once again stayed.
"Look, I don't know about being best friends forever, but could you hang around here until morning so my great-uncle can see you?"
"Morning? I don't know… sun bright."
"Ok." Dipper began to walk away. "Coming, Wendy."
"Wait! Ok, Gobi will stay awake till morning and meet the grandest uncle. She loves meeting grand humans. We can talk about forever friendom later."
"Yes! Woohoo!" Dipper cheered. Only Wendy, staring dumbfounded at him, stopped him from doing a little dance.
"Why do you want that exactly?" Wendy asked.
"To prove to my great uncle that- never mind. Family stuff." Dipper said as he tried to put the journal away. But it slipped out from his hand and fell on the ground, pages fluttering open.
"You were using that to figure out Gobi, weren't you?" Wendy said as she bent down to look at the open pages better.
Dipper sighed and put the flashlight's beam on it. "I found this book filled with information about monsters that supposedly live here. I don't know how true they are."
"It seemed to work perfectly fine here. Saved us from being forced into- what did you call it again?" Wendy asked, looking back at Gobi.
"Forever friendom!"
"Yeah…" Wendy handed the journal back to Dipper.
Dipper was about to take the book when he gasped. The journal fumbled between the two and tumbled once again. It fell open to a page labeled "Undead."
"What's wrong?" Wendy asked, giving Gobi a side-eye. Gobi could only shake her head as she held her hands out in innocence.
"That… That looks a lot like Norman." Dipper said as he lifted the book and pointed at the drawing depicting a hunched figure in dark clothing.
"What? No way." But as the two read the pages, the closer the two leaned in, their eyes growing bigger with every sentence. "How well do you know Norman?"
"I don't know him at all! Mabel literally just met him. How do you know him?" Dipper asked.
"I don't! I thought he was a cousin of Robbie's since we'd seen him hanging around the… graveyard all week… But! He rode in the minivan on the way here with us and didn't try to eat our brains once. He just…had a hard time staying upright in his seat, didn't know how to put on his seat belt, and smelled of dirt…"
"Mabel!" Dipper yelled as he took off into the pitch-black forest with only a flashlight and a journal.
"Dipper!" Wendy ran right after him.
Gobi stood unsure of where to go. She could just leave, but she was comfortable here, and this mysterious 'uncle' was supposed to see her. Maybe she could make a forever friend out of him. Or prank him for the Gootube channel.
…
It had been a fantastic night for Mabel. This was technically her first date, and Norman had been nothing but a gentleman. They held hands and frolicked just like in the movies. At one point, when Mabel was about to walk over a puddle, Norman wanted to throw something over it for her but found he had nothing. So he threw himself into the puddle—everything Mabel expected on a first date.
However, the frolicking tended to be stopped by Norman falling into holes and clawing at the earth to get back out. And the two hadn't talked about anything other than how nice the forest was. But that didn't bother Mabel; she was on a date!
The couple came to a clearing surrounded by glowing mushrooms. Mabel gasped as she looked around. She thought only fantasy had such fungi.
"Hey, Mabel." Norman breathed out a nervous breath. "I think I should… I need to…"
"What is it, Norman?"
"Listen, this date has been nice. Usually, I would've liked to wait a bit to really get to know you, but we-I've! I've been waiting too long for someone like you. I have something you should know."
"Oh, Norman, you can tell me anything," Mabel said. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered the journal and began to hope that the page on hot undead wasn't fake.
"Ok, just be cool," Norman said, gripping his jacket zipper.
…
Dipper and Wendy were running, but neither had any idea where they should be going. The forest was much too dark to see anything. But Dipper refused to stay still. His sister's brain may be on the line!
The two burst out of the bushes in a large open field. It would have been pitch black without the headlights of the many golf carts scattered around the field. At the center was Soos, sitting in one while reading a comic.
"Soos!" Wendy yelled as she and Dipper went to him.
"Hey, dudes! What are you doing out here?"
"A zombie has my sister!" Dipper yelled before he could think about his words.
To both teens' surprise, Soos put down his comic, his eyes focused and understanding.
"Where?" His tone was dead serious.
"Have you seen a girl that looks like me or a tall, pale dude walk through here?"
"No, but I did hear teenage giggling over there. That was only a few minutes ago."
"Great!" Dipper was about to run in that direction when Wendy stopped him.
"Can we borrow one of the golf carts?" Wendy asked.
"Oh, I don't know. My boss really doesn't like it when they come back scratched up." Soos said.
"Well, that's her fault for having you drive them out at night!" Wendy answered.
They all froze as they heard a girl's scream from the forest. That sound alone made Dipper's face go white, every nerve on edge.
"Get in, dudes! No one eats brains on Soos's watch!"
The two hopped into the cart (put on seat belts), and Soos stomped on the pedal. The cart bucked beneath them and zoomed into the forest.
…
Mabel was sitting in stunned silence. Norman was talking, trying to explain things to her. Well, it really wasn't Norman talking. Under Norman's jacket was not a glistening chest as Mabel had hoped, but a bunch of gnomes puppeteering limbs. The head was named Jeff. He awkwardly explained how their colony needed a new queen and something about how the moths chose her, Mabel, to be that queen.
"...So we had been waiting in the Gravity Falls cemetery because that's one of the only places that moths come out during the day. But, like, meet cutes in a cemetery is apparently a mood killer for you humans. We've waited so long that we thought we must take drastic action. We were traveling around the forest doing that when we saw you with your moth swarm…"
Mabel wasn't listening very closely as she was dealing with embarrassment and horror. The journal had been right, very right.
"…it was so lucky we saw you again when we ducked into that shop for jam. So… what do you say?" Jeff finally ended his rambling explanation. He then stomped on the gnome he was standing on, making the whole collective get down on one "knee" and present her with a ring.
Mabel knew her answer right away. She couldn't be locked away in some woodland tower. She prepared to let the gnomes down gently when she noticed, in the light of her sweater, just how desperate the collective looked. Their sharp teeth glistened in the yellow glow of her sweater. They all seemed to be shivering in anticipation.
"I, ah…" Mabel faltered as she realized just how bad of a situation she was in. No one knew where she was, in the middle of a dark forest, surrounded by desperate little men. "Wow, guys. You've really… Thought this out." Mabel said as she walked around the collective. They moved together so cohesively that they could easily keep her in sight.
"Yes, we've been waiting for someone like you for weeks. So won't you please take all our hands in holy matrognome-"
"You don't have to continue." Mabel cut in. "You guys have been so nice to me, and I know there's someone out there for you," Mabel noticed how hard each of their beady eyes got at those words. Yep, she was in trouble. "But I am not the girl for you!"
Mabel swung her leg up and kicked between the two pillars of gnomes to hit the center torso gnome. He shrieked a high girly scream as the whole collective fell forward.
Mabel sprinted like she had never run before, followed by more gnomes materializing out of the forest.
…
"Get off my sister, you zombie!" Dipper yelled as he hung out of the side of the cart. He had pulled a branch from the foliage after Wendy had done the same, though she was much more threatening with it than he was. Dipper was expecting to have to crash into the zombie to get it off his sister. Instead, in the headlights of the golf cart, Mabel came running out of the forest, brain intact.
"Norman turned out to be a bunch of gnomes!" She yelled as she ran to the cart.
"Gnomes?" Wendy asked.
Sure enough, a mob of little bearded men pelted out of the forest.
"Wow, we were way off," Dipper said as he pulled out the journal to look at the gnome page.
"Give us back our queen! Don't make us do something crazy-!" A brown bearded gnome yelled before Soos swung the cart around so Wendy could club it. The little guy went flying as the gnomes gasped. Without their leader, they froze momentarily, giving Soos time to stop.
"Get in, get in, get in." Dipper pleaded as Mabel hopped into the cart
"You came just in time." Mabel breathed. "Oh, I haven't met you two. Hi, I'm Mabel."
"Wendy."
"Hey dog, Soos."
"Nice to meet you. Oh, I love your hair."
"Aw, thanks."
"Now DRIVE!" Mabel screamed.
There was a great shaking in the forest. Soos stood on the pedal and rocketed out of there. But a familiar shadow fell over the headlights. The massive thing the twins saw earlier in the forest was now in front of them. The lead gnome was piloting a mass of other gnomes into one giant monster, still in the shape of a gnome.
Soos swerved around the creature, nearly tipping the cart, but managed to maneuver around it. The monster roared deeper than any one gnome could and tore after the cart.
Soos drove the cart on the most straightforward path in the woods, the hiking trail. This path led them to the clearing with the other carts idling. When it couldn't catch up to them, the monster reached out, picked up the grazing golf carts, and hurled them at the teens.
"No! Old Joe!" Soos screamed as he dodged the cart. Thanks to the darkness, they could only see the cart from the small radius of the headlights as it crashed nearby.
"He's out to pasture now," Wendy said as they passed the wreck of old Joe.
Soon, other carts began flying by. Soos could name every one of them as they dodged and weaved through the woods. Dipper did not miss the tear in Soos's eyes as he forced himself to keep driving.
They were nearly out of the woods when the monster ran out of carts to throw. So, it started throwing itself. As the teens crested the forest edge, a swarm of thrown gnomes fell upon them. Wendy and Dipper started batting them out of the air (Wendy being surprisingly adept at hitting flying creatures.). However, some still fell on the roof and started tearing it apart. One eventually broke through and latched onto Soos.
"I got you!" Mabel yelled as she started punching the gnome on Soos's face. Both men groaned under Mabel's assault, and the cart's wheels spun out of control.
A massive crash shook the Science Shack as the golf cart careened into the clearing and dumped the teens onto the yard. They all groaned as they soon found themselves surrounded by the tiny forest men and the shadow of the remaining beast.
"Mabel will marry us!" The lead gnome yelled from on top.
"Give it a break, Jeff," Mabel mumbled. She and Dipper slowly got to their feet as the monster slammed its multi-gnome fist into the ground.
"What do we do?" Dipper whispered. He had looked through the pages regarding gnomes, but the journal had no known weaknesses.
"I think I have to-"
"I said find your queen somewhere else!"
Everyone, including the gnomes, jumped at the voice. They all looked up to see Stanford standing on the shack's roof, holding what seemed to be a futuristic plastic gun.
"You!" Jeff screamed as he had the monster reach forward to grab Stanford. A blue bolt blazed out from the apparently not plastic gun. It hit the monster right in its gnome eye. The thing bellowed as Stanford slid down the shingling of the roof, firing off more shots. When he got to the end, he flipped off and landed on his feet. He only stumbled for a moment before he kept running.
"Did you know Ford could do that?" Mabel asked, awe in her voice.
"No…" Dipper answered, equally shocked.
Wendy and Soos gradually stood. Even injured, they couldn't help but cheer for the action scene going on in front of them.
"Woo! Go Doctor Mystery!"
"This is just like one of my comic books—but real!" Soos said, and more tears came to his eyes.
"You! You are the reason our last queen died!" Jeff shouted as the gnome monster desperately chased after Stanford, clawing and wildly swinging at him.
"She was the one who refused to stop eating pounds of sugar! It was inevitable her sweet smell would attract some predator!" Stanford shouted back, still shooting at the thing. But for every gnome he shot off, another from the woods would rejoin the undulating mass. It no longer looked like a perfectly shaped gnome but a monster it was all the same.
"You swore you'd protect her!" Jeff screamed as the mass charged at the trees above Stanford. It managed to topple a pine, cutting off Stanford's path. "Yet, all you did was give her an invincible box and say to stay in it."
"I never swore. I simply said I'd help! And she didn't even try the sugar-free diet I suggested-" Stanford had gotten cornered. He could have made a break for the shack, but he didn't seem to want to bring the gnomes back towards the kids. He fired as many shots as possible, but the monster grabbed and hefted him high. His gun fell to the ground.
"No!" Mabel gasped.
Dipper was frozen. He didn't know what to do to save his uncle. His heart fell with the utter uselessness he felt.
"Hey, dudes. Bad time, I know. But, who's that?"
The three turned to see Soos pointing into the woods beside the shack.
…
Stanford continued to struggle in the great Gnome Conglomerates' grip. The gnomes around him tightened, and some even bit him, but he refused to stop.
"It's funny," Jeff said from the top of the mound. "With one of your relatives being our queen, maybe you'll actually try to protect her this time."
Stanford only paused momentarily as pure horror swept across his face. He then fought even harder. The gnomes around him were losing their grip, and he began throwing them, but more kept replacing the losses.
"Hey, Jeff!" Mabel's voice barely made it over the commotion Stanford was causing. Little men were screaming as they flew by, and Jeff could no longer taunt him as he had to focus on giving orders to the swarm. "Hey! Hey, over here? Potential gnome queen talking!"
No one stopped to notice Mabel. The Gnome Conglomerate flipped Stanford upside down, and his head smacked against a tree (making a surprisingly metal sound.) Stanford rubbed his head and finally saw Mabel.
"Mabel! Don't come any closer!"
"Mabel?" Jeff and the collective turned to her, but Stanford used the distraction to climb up the gnome monster's arm and try to get to Jeff. The gnomes screeched and converged on Stanford again. The fight began anew, and Mabel was once again forgotten.
"Stop distracting them, Uncle Ford! We have an idea!" Mabel called.
"Get away from here, kids!" Stanford yelled as he kept fighting. But he was slowly sinking back into the great collective's grip. "I can handle this. Just run!"
Dipper then ran up, wiping flower petals and pine needles off his hands. "You have to trust us, Stanford!"
Stanford paused for enough time to look into their eyes. He had seen their determination in one specific, equally frustrating man.
With a sigh, Stanford stopped fighting and was gripped tightly in the reformed Gnome Conglomerates' grip.
…
The beast stood tall over the twins, holding their great uncle high in the night air.
"Mabel! Have you come to accept our proposal?"
Dipper gave Mabel a supportive arm squeeze as he backed. She took in a deep breath and glared up at Jeff.
"I'm sorry, Jeff. It's just, you're a gnome, and I'm a girl…." she began. The gnomes all muttered, the grip on Stanford tightening to the point his face was turning red.
"Mabel, dear." Stanford coughed out.
"But, I have found something even better for you. We didn't spend enough time together for you to know this, but I'm something of a matchmaker back home."
Dipper knew this was not the time to point out that every one of her matches either failed or had to be taped together. He simply kept smiling as he backed up to where Wendy and Soos were. Each was now covered in flower petals, pine leaves, and glitter (which they had grabbed from Mabel's craft shed.) Each smiling nervously wide as they held the cart's tarp, spread in the air. They wiggled it mysteriously, hiding the secret behind it.
"And I have the perfect queen for you!" Mabel announced as she gestured to the three by the shack.
The teens pulled the tarp away to reveal Gobi covered in glitter, a flower crown, and given massive eyelashes from the pine needles.
Stanford was finally able to breathe as the gnomes all shifted to look. The gnomes stood silently, looking over the goblin. Gobi took so many eyes on her well, as she… uh, Dipper thought Gobi tried to blow a kiss at them like she'd seen humans do, but all she did was pat her face a few times and blow air in the direction of the gnomes.
"A goblin?" Jeff asked.
Dipper perked up. Jeff didn't sound offended; in fact, he sounded slightly interested.
"Yes, of course!" Dipper said. "Gobi has so much to offer your society. She…" Come on, Dipper, think of something.
"Is great at finding cursed artifacts." Wendy jumped in.
"We'd find so many treasures together," Gobi said.
"And she…" Dipper continued. He found the branch he had used earlier as a showman's cane and picked it up again, using it to point to Gobi. "Is very feisty! Predators can't just eat her. She will defend herself." The gnomes murmured in agreement with this, spurring Dipper to continue. "Not just that, she-"
"She's just a straight-up catch," Soos said as he lifted the goblin so the gnomes could see her better. "Just look at her!" Of course, at this moment, Gobi chose to lick her eyeballs clean. But this only seemed to make Jeff blush.
The gnomes continued to mutter amongst themselves. Some of them were beginning to smile when someone from the hoard yelled, "But has she been chosen by the moths?!"
"Oh, for Pete's sake," Mabel muttered as she went over to Gobi. Soos put the goblin down so Mabel could remove her light-up sweater (she always wore an undershirt. The juice incident in 5th grade taught her that well) and shoved the shirt over Gobi's massive head. Mabel then ran to the trees to pull a moth trap and run back. She broke the trap above Gobi's head and let the sugar water cover the goblin. She then pressed the shirt to its highest setting, just about blinding everyone.
Gobi raised her hands with a victory screech and accepted the moths that swarmed her, covering her head to toe.
The gnomes were dead silent.
"Queeeeen!" A yell came from the hoard, soon followed by the rest of the swarm's cries. Stanford was unceremoniously dropped as the hoard crashed over the kids and the shack, but neither humans nor building was touched as the gnomes lifted their new queen above them. Gobi smiled wide at the crystal ring on her finger as the swarm began heading for the woods.
"Bye, friendoms! I can't wait to tell others I'm a queen! This will sooo make Gideon jealous." Gobi waved as she and the gnomes disappeared into the woods.
After ensuring the gnomes were gone, Dipper and Mabel ran to Stanford. He was woozily getting to his feet when the two nearly knocked him over with their hugs.
"I haven't seen a better sales pitch than that in 25 years!" Stanford smiled as he hugged the twins back.
"Are you ok?" Dipper asked.
"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Mabel yelled. "All this time, I thought you were too old to do anything cool, but there you were, shooting and doing flips! And and and-"
"Hey," Stanford said as he ruffled Mabel's hair. His smile was tight, but he continued with honest pride in his voice. "I should be saying that about you two! I wake up to find on my security cameras you guys dodging attacks in a golf cart, of all things. Then you go and outsmart the gnomes! How did you even know what they were?"
Dipper nervously pulled out the journal. "Uncle…I found this in the woods when we were looking for moths." Wendy and Soos came closer, and they all looked at Stanford. "No more dodging the question. What is out in these woods? And why do they seem to know you?"
Stanford's eye widened in disbelief as he stared at the journal. He gingerly took it from Dipper and began flipping through the pages. "I… I haven't seen this in years." A nostalgic mist came to Stanford's eye as he lovingly felt the pages. He then glanced back at the teens, and the mist disappeared. He snapped the book shut with one hand and held both hands behind his back.
"You are right. There is more in these woods than nearly anywhere else in the world. I have been studying much more than moths... I thought I could protect you from it, but it is clear that anyone who is around me will get caught up in it. It was selfish on my part to bring you two up this summer and put you in such danger. I am sorry. I'll call your parents in the morning."
"No!" the twins yelled.
"You can't do that, Uncle Ford! Not when we saw such amazing things!" Dipper said.
"Yeah, I can't go back to Piedmont without a summer adventure!" Mabel added.
"This place is everything I've been hoping for as I read all my cryptology books and dreamed of filming!"
"And the town here seems so nice, minus the gnomes, but they were just love-sick, like me! How can I find my true love if I don't continue putting myself out there? And you! The gnomes would have crushed you if we weren't here."
"Stanford, you come back hurt nearly every day. You need help, and we can do that for you! I-uh-we can be your assistants or something." Dipper tried.
"And don't forget us." Wendy stepped forward. "We just saw all the same things, and I'm not forgetting it anytime soon." Stanford raised an eyebrow at that statement, but Wendy continued. "You have to explain at least what was going on with those gnomes!"
"I agree." Soos nervously raised his hand. "We got to know. At least so I can explain to the Boss why all her carts are destroyed."
Stanford found himself surrounded on all sides and no way out. His grip tightened on his journal, but slowly, he released it.
"You're right, you're all right. You deserve to know. And by how you all carried yourselves back there under pressure… I know you can handle this. But can we save this for the morning, at least? True, it is only a few hours away, but the principal stands."
"Oh yeah, my friends!" Wendy said as she slapped the side of her head. "They must still be waiting in the van for me."
"Friends?" Stanford said in a low voice. "Are they nearby? Did they see anything supernatural?"
"Uh, yeah. But not the gnomes. Gobi had them floating with some amulet she had. They went running off a while ago."
"Straight into the town boundaries?" Stanford said with a rising pitch.
"Probably? I hope they at least waited for me. I have no ride home."
Stanford's mouth fell into a thin line. He went to one of the metal boxes around the shack and unlocked it. He pulled out what looked kind of like a handheld radiation-measuring device Dipper had seen on TV. "Are they parked at the hiking trailhead?"
"I think." Wendy shrugged.
Stanford went to the forest edge and began walking down the path to the trailhead. After a bit, the device started beeping. His expression twisted into one of resigned frustration. "I am sorry. I don't think your friends even remember why they went out tonight."
"What?!" Wendy gasped.
"There are two dangers that plague this town. Monsters… and the humans of Gravity Falls."