Up in the Mystery Shack's attic, Dipper sat alone comfortably on his bed with a pen in hand, writing away in his journal. He held the pen up to his bottom lip momentarily, tapping it a few times as he gathered his thoughts before pressing it back against the page and continuing.

"Hey, Dipper!"

He looked up at the door, watching as Mabel came busting it wide open as she ran inside. She excitedly threw herself onto her knees right beside the nightstand. The palm of her left hand was immediately pressed against the top, showcasing her five newly bandaged-up fingers. In her other hand, she held a pencil readily.

"Check this out. I've been practicing this since yesterday!"

Turning straight toward her left hand, she proceeded to perform a speedy round of Five Finger Fillet on it with the pencil point, hitting the nightstand's surface between each of her fingers dangerously fast. After about ten seconds of doing so, she pulled her hand back only to slam the pencil point straight into the nightstand itself where her hand last rested. The pencil itself stood upright as its point remained stuck within the wood.

"Bam-o!" Mabel whooped with a proud smile before looking back at her brother. "Eh? Ehh?"

"So that's why your fingers are bandaged," Dipper said. "I just thought you did your nails again."

"I did this morning, actually!" Mabel nodded. "Yeah, Soos just brought me back from the hospital."

"Understandable."

"Anyways, pretty impressive stuff, huh?" she asked before pulling the pencil out from the nightstand. "I like to think it makes me seem… intimidating."

Dipper gave her a look. "I can't really say I see what's so intimidating about nearly cutting your own fingers off."

"Well, who wants to mess with someone who's that good at not hitting their fingers with a sharp object?" she asked. "Imagine how good they'd be at actually trying to hit something with that same sharp object!"

"Mabel, you're using a pencil."

"And I could probably do it with a knife!"

"Please don't."

"Maybe once these puppies heal," Mabel said while wiggling her bandaged fingers around. "Anyway, what have you been up to all day?"

"Eh, not much honestly," Dipper said with a shrug. "Just been here writing in my journal, thinking… healing. Also, I got bitten by an ant earlier today, so I think those guys are still mad at us."

"I'll say! A bunch of them took over my lunch in the kitchen yesterday!" Mabel said before frowning sadly. "I bought sushi…"

"Hmph. Guess we should tell Soos to spray the place later to be safe."

"And what were you thinking about?"

"Lots of things, I guess," Dipper said before putting his journal down. "You know, we're nearly halfway through summer, and it's just dawned on me that we're going to be seniors this school year."

"Heck yeah, we are!" Mabel cheered excitedly. "And it's going to be so much fun! I especially can't wait for spirit week because it'll finally be our turn to dress up as senior citizens!"

Dipper smirked. "But didn't we already dress up as senior citizens for Summerween?"

It took Mabel a minute to catch on, but she soon smiled with great amusement. "Ohhh, I see what you did there, you! Yeah, dressing as Stan and Ford probably did already fill our quota for the year."

Dipper chuckled a bit before getting lost in his own thoughts again. "But man, we're really almost halfway through our second summer here, huh?"

Mabel laid back on the floorboards as she thought about it too. "Yeah, I guess so. Time flies by, huh?"

"How do you feel about this summer so far?" Dipper asked. "Compared to last time, at least. I mean, I know you were worried about things being different and all at the start."

"Well, one of my main worries going into the summer was knowing there was a new worker at the Mystery Shack. Fast forward a few weeks later, and now I'm dating him." She grinned. "So all things considered, I think this summer's been an improvement!"

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I should've figured."

Mabel looked up at him, noticing a less confident look on his face. "Why? You don't think so?"

Dipper rested his head back in his bed while staring up at the ceiling. "I don't know. I feel like we still have a ways to go," he admitted. "I guess I just wish we didn't need to spend so much time worrying about Bill."

"Yeah… that's probably been the biggest downside," she agreed, looking to the side a bit uncomfortably at the thought. "But hey, he's gone now, so therefore, onto new adventures we go!" She suddenly shot back up to her feet with a wave of newfound energy. "What's next on the agenda, bro-bro? The day's still young! We could probably launch a surprise raid on the unicorn base and be back before supper!"

Dipper raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. "As fun as that would be… for you… I'm still recovering from nearly getting killed by mummies, so I think I'd rather take it easy tonight."

"Aw, booo!" Mabel said disapprovingly. "You see Dipper? Your stupid decisions do affect others!"

He rolled his eyes as she skipped over to the other side of the room. "Believe me, I more than get it by now."

It had barely been two days since going into the alien mummy tomb with Pacifica. Thankfully, the worst of the aching pain was already behind him, but he still felt a level of soreness through his body that discouraged him from taking on any new, potentially heavy-load adventures. Guilt may have also played a part in it considering he still felt bad about directly opposing Ford's warning regarding the tomb. Nearly dying several times during that adventure was also something he had not forgotten either, nor had he fully recovered from mentally.

As such, taking the last few days just to ease back and take things slowly at the Shack was very much preferred. Having time to actually think over his decisions among many other things offered some level of catharsis. But it also allowed him to start thinking over things that he hadn't previously offered too much of his mind toward since the summer began.

"Actually, with senior year coming up, I was thinking that it wouldn't be a bad time to start applying for colleg-"

"MOVE OVER!"

"AH!"

Without warning, Mabel had come charging back toward his bed from across the room with a few giant books in hand. He immediately jumped to the side of his bed, giving her just enough room to come crashing down as she threw herself on top of it.

As he looked over at the books she held, he quickly realized it was a bunch of her old scrapbooks, each of which she happily spread out over his bed.

"You bringing up senior year got me all nostalgia-y for the old days, so I whipped out the scrapbooks!" she said.

"Nostalgic, Mabel. Just say nostalgic," Dipper corrected with narrowed eyes. "But, uh, sure. You haven't shown me any of your progress on the new one yet."

"That one still needs work," she admitted while pulling one of the scrapbooks to herself. "Also, I'm still waiting for my pictures with Ryland to come in. We, uh… we took a lot of pictures." Without elaborating further, she flipped open to a random page in the scrapbook. "Flip!"

As the page flew open, Dipper looked down at them and immediately realized this was just the original scrapbook from their first summer in Gravity Falls four years back. It was probably the one the two of them revisited the most for obvious reasons, but never did they not get some kick out of revisiting those particular memories.

"Ooooh, look, Dipper!" Mabel said, pointing a finger around at the various pictures. "Remember that party we threw at the Shack? Where you were going crazy with a plan to try and dance with Wendy? Remember that? That lil' crush thing?"

Dipper caught her cheeky grin and immediately shot her an unamused look.

"Over it. Next page," he bluntly told her.

Despite her amusement, she complied and quickly flipped to the next page. Immediately, Dipper's eyes grew amused while she started to frown instead.

"Oh, hey! It's our first encounter with the gnomes!" he said somewhat mockingly in return. "Remember when your first boyfriend, Norman, was actually a bunch of gnomes who kidnapped you? Remember that?"

"Over it. Times two," she said, cringing at the memory.

She flipped the page again, to which her smile quickly returned.

"Hey! Now, here's a good memory!" she said. "These are from when we snuck in to see Pony Heist!"

Dipper eyeballed a particular picture on the page which was taken of a security feed monitor that displayed a younger Thompson drinking a whole jug of popcorn butter. Mentally comparing him to the Thompson he knew now, he could only cringe at the memory.

"Man, I like Thompson. I really do. But downing the popcorn butter like that? Yeesh."

"Yeesh indeed," Mabel agreed with a wince. "Oh, well. He's doing better now at least."

She flipped the page once again, opening it up to a display of many black-and-white profiles of various townspeople. Many of the people in the profiles were recognizable, such as Tyler Cutebiker, Robbie Valentino, Old Man McGucket, and the Free Pizza guy. Still, as Dipper looked at these pictures, all he found himself wondering was the purpose of them.

"Hey, what's this page again?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah! These were from your old suspects' board of people who could've cut off Wax Stan's head," Mabel said. "After we melted all the wax figure guys, I just took the board down and repurposed the pictures into scrapbook memories!"

"Why didn't you just throw them away?"

"Whaaaat? But they're good pictures!" She pulled a picture from the page and held it out for him. "You see? Look at Manly Dan here waving at the camera!"

The picture she held was certainly of Manly Dan, only he just as certainly wasn't waving as she said. Instead, it looked rather like he was angrily trying to shove the camera out of his face at the exact moment the picture was taken… which was probably what it actually was.

Dipper looked back down at the rest of the pictures. Glancing through them, one particular person caught his eye.

His eyes widened a bit. "Oh, wow. I almost totally forgot about this guy."

He pulled the picture out from the page and held it up for her. In the picture was an apparent side profile of a heavier bald man wearing a pair of goggles.

"Oh yeah! The time travel guy!" Mabel realized. "What was his name again? Blando? Brendan? Bleyoncé? Pretty sure it started with a B…"

Dipper tapped his chin as he thought about it. "Blake?"

"Yeah, probably," she nodded.

"It's been a long time since we heard from him."

"How do you think he's doing?"

VYOOM!

At that very moment, a bunch of glowing blue figures suddenly spawned in surrounding the twins on the bed. The figures quickly materialized into a bunch of tall, bulky men wearing the same uniform - armored black suits, armored black pants, a dark gray belt with a yellow buck, yellow gloves, and black boots. Additionally, each of them had apparent targeting systems over one of their eyes.

But on every single suit was a yellow hourglass symbol over the right pec of their chest pieces.

"I'm going to take a guess and say… not well," Dipper said to Mabel as they sat completely still on the bed, processing the fact that time travelers now surrounded them.

"Cuff them," commanded a dark-skinned time traveler.

As ordered, a bunch of the other surrounding time travelers moved in on the twins, aggressively grabbing a hold of them by their arms, and pulling them up onto their feet as they were moved toward the center of the room.

"Hey! Get away!" Mabel demanded.

"Ow! What the hell?!" Dipper shouted.

Once moved to the center of the room, the twins were each put into a pair of futuristic handcuffs that were tied together not by a chain, but by a stream of purple electricity. Once both of them were cuffed, they were forced down to their knees as all of the men surrounded them again.

"Suspects detained," said a time traveler.

Dipper and Mabel looked around in utter confusion. But Dipper glanced up ahead at two of the time travelers that stood over them. One of them was the dark-skinned time traveler who ordered their detaining while the other one was a light-skinned man with short dirty blonde hair and bangs.

"Wait a second, I remember these guys," he realized as he glanced between them. "Lolph?! Dundgren?!"

"Oh yeah!" Mabel said as she made the same connection. "Don't worry, Dipper! I got this!" Her head turned immediately toward Lolph, whom she greeted with a warm smile. "Lolphie! Long time no see! How's your, uh, Gam Gam doing?"

Lolph narrowed his eyes at her. "She's dead. She's been dead for a very long time now."

Mabel sat silently for a moment. "Wow, why did I think that would be a good opener?"

"Guys, what's going on? What's the meaning of all this?" Dipper asked.

"Dipper and Mabel Pines of Dimension 46'\, under orders of the new Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron, you two are under arrest," Dundgren announced.

"WHAT?!" the twins shouted in unison.

"Under arrest?!" Mabel repeated.

"For what?!" Dipper questioned.

"For crimes committed under your association with a time traveler," Lolph said.

"But we haven't had anything to do with time travel in four years!" Dipper defended. "We've been set firmly within our own time this whole…. time."

"Heh, good one," Mabel chuckled.

"That was unintentional."

"But yeah! The last time we saw you two was the last time we even time-traveled! So what are you bagging on us for?" Mabel continued.

"Yeah! And where's Blake?" Dipper added.

Dundgren raised an eyebrow. "Blake?"

"Yeah, Blake," Dipper repeated.

"Stammers a lot, really weird, kind of annoying voice, not very competent…" Mabel listed.

"You mean Blendin," Lolph corrected.

"Wait, it's Blendin?" Dipper asked. "Damn, I was way off."

"Blendin's the reason you two are even in this mess," Dundgren said.

"What are you guys talking about?" Mabel asked.

"He's gone completely off the time grid," Lolph revealed.

"For years we've been searching for him throughout the time stream," Dundgren continued. "But all traces of his chrono-signatures have long since dissipated. We haven't had any luck in finding his whereabouts or whenabouts."

"Until we found this."

Lolph reached from behind and pulled out a folded letter that he held up in front of the twins. Without being able to see the contents of the letter itself, they could tell right away that the paper itself was old and dirtied, likely belonging to an older time.

"An old-timey letter?" Mabel questioned.

"It was encoded," Lolph continued. "Luckily, our technology was able to easily decipher it, and we learned it was a message from Blendin addressed to you two!"

"Wait, Blendin sent us a letter?" Mabel asked, raising an eyebrow.

"But we never got any letter!" Dipper said, shaking his head. "At least, we don't remember ever getting one…"

"Then how come we found it tucked away in one of your great-uncle's journals you threw into the bottomless pit?" Lolph asked interrogatively.

Dipper's eyes widened with a sudden realization. "Wait… you guys have the journals?!"

"That's not what you should be thinking about right now," Dundgren dismissed. "Instead, why don't you tell us why Blendin's last resort was to contact you two while on the run? Especially when he betrayed our whole force by lending his body to Bill Cipher!"

"I-I don't know!" Dipper stammered cluelessly.

"We're telling you - we never knew about any letter!" Mabel asserted.

"Lie detector?" Dundgren called out, turning to one of the other time travelers.

The time traveler tapped away on some type of holographic tablet before turning his serious face back toward Dundgren. "It appears they're telling the truth, sir."

"You see? Innocent as can be!" Dipper declared.

"Now let us go!" Mabel demanded.

Dundgren narrowed his eyes as he glanced between the two skeptically. "Hmph."

"Sir?" Lolph prompted.

Dundgren looked back at him for a moment while pondering the next move. "Well, we still have our orders. And Blendin Blandin still needs to be retrieved and returned to the future for interrogation."

"Okay, so go deal with that yourselves and leave us alone!" Mabel demanded yet again.

"Unfortunately, we have other pressing matters to tend to, and we can't allow this situation to be put off any longer," Dundgren continued as he turned back to the twins. "Therefore, we're assigning you two to the task of retrieving Blendin and returning him to the future for us."

"What?!" Mabel questioned.

"You can't put that on us!" Dipper affirmed.

"Actually, we can," Dundgren asserted. "Even if we don't necessarily want to."

"Official's orders," Lolph said.

"But that's not fair! You can't just wrongly accuse us and then force us to do your dirty work!" Dipper said angrily.

"Yeah, and Blendin's our friend! So you can just tell Time Baby to take a hike!" Mabel refused.

"Look, kid. We know you two think you know better than anyone else, but the truth is, you don't," Lolph said sternly as he kneeled in front of the two. "The Time Baby is gone, and us Time Police have been under a new order. The future and time itself are in a very shaky place right now and our responsibilities have tripled. And so whether you like it or not, you two are going to assist us in tracking Blendin down under the direct order of the Time Titan."

Mabel raised an eyebrow. "The Time Titan?"

The name made Dipper equally as curious too. He remembered the Time Baby, but never had he heard of the Time Titan before. Regardless, it wasn't the most important thing on his mind at that moment.

"And what if we say no?" Dipper challenged, narrowing his eyes as he leaned up in Lolph's face.

"Then you can take it up with the Titan himself," Dundgren cut in as he stood over them. "Though if I were you, I'd just do as you're told. That is if you have any desire to make any new summer memories again."

The twins glanced at one another with fearful eyes amidst their reluctance. As tough and strong as either of them wanted to be in that moment, they knew they were in a losing position where they currently were. They were already stuck in future handcuffs and surrounded by a dozen buff time travelers whom they knew had way more power than either of them could risk fighting against.

Although neither of them wanted to play their game, it was clear they were outvoted and had no choice but to play along.

"Where… or… when did Blendin even go?" Dipper asked as he looked back at Dundgren.

Dundgren tapped on the wrist of his glove, projecting a small hologram in front of him which he read. "According to the letter, he took refuge in 1883. Old West era Gravity Falls."

"He's living in the Old West?" Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow.

"What in tarnation?" Mabel said, which prompted an immediate glare from Dipper. "Sorry, couldn't help myself."

"We'll explain things to you two more when we get there," Dundgren said as he continued to tap buttons on his wrist, changing the holo projection in front of him.

Dipper sighed irritatedly. "So much for taking it easy today."

"I'm really starting to believe in the laws of jinxing," Mabel said with growing dread.

VYOOM!

The twins and the time travelers were all suddenly covered in intense, glowing blue lights that radiated momentarily before poofing away with a futuristic hum. The twins' room was left completely empty without a single trace of their presence left behind.

From inside the room, footsteps could be heard approaching from the hallway through the room's open door.

"Kids, you wouldn't happen to know where Soos keeps the bug spray?" Stan's voice called out. "For some reason, there are ants all over the-"

As Stan walked up to the doorframe, he stopped himself once he looked into the room. He raised an eyebrow in confusion upon realizing no one was there.

"Kids?" he called out again to no response. "Huh. Coulda sworn they were home."

"Stanley, did you find the spray yet?!" Ford's alarming voice called out from downstairs.

"No! I don't even know where Soos puts it!" Stan shouted back behind him. "And the kids ain't even here to help me either!"

"Well, get a broom or something! They've infested the whole kitchen! God, how are there so many of them?! It feels like they're multiplying!"

"Calm down, Poindexter! They're just ants! What's the worst they can do?" Stan said as he left the twins' open door to head back down the hallway.

[Gravity Falls, 1883]

VYOOM!

Four blue figures phased into an apparent alleyway between two wooden structures. After a few seconds, Dipper, Mabel, Lolph, and Dundgren warped into their places.

Amidst their travels, Dipper and Mabel's handcuffs had vanished, allowing them to move their arms around freely again. Additionally, as they looked around, they noticed all of the other nameless time travelers surrounding them were no longer present.

"What happened to those other guys?" Mabel asked.

"Don't worry about them. They suck," Lolph said bluntly.

"Anyways, we're here," Dundgren announced. "Gravity Falls, 1883."

"When in 1883?" Dipper asked. "Did you guys just pick any date and hope for the best?"

"We did a scan of the letter's ink to determine the time when it was written," Lolph explained. "We're here exactly twenty-four hours after Blendin wrote that letter. September 2nd."

"So I don't get it then. If you guys know he's here, why don't you guys just find him yourselves? Why drag us into this at all?" Dipper asked.

"Yeah, you guys didn't have much issue tracking us when we time-traveled to get away from you all those years ago," Mabel reminded.

"Tracking you two back then was easy because of your chrono-signatures," Dundgren said.

"Chromo-huhnustur?" Mabel attempted to repeat.

"When any entity freshly warps through time, it radiates a series of invisible particles. We can trace these particles as chrono-signatures," Dundgren explained.

"Chrono-signatures fade and dissipate the longer an entity has gone without time traveling," Lolph continued. "Blendin's time travel activity has read as dormant for years now, therefore we can no longer easily trace where or when he is without aid."

"What a shame," Dipper sarcastically remarked. "And once again, why is this our problem? You guys are the time travelers! This is your thing, not ours!"

"Because Blendin knows and trusts the two of you enough to inform him of his location. When you find him, he'll be more likely to comply rather than flee," Dundgren said.

"But we're cool with Blendin! We don't want to bring him in like this!" Mabel continued to reinforce.

"Well, you don't have a choice, 'Gam Gam'!" Lolph scolded while pointing an angry finger at her.

Mabel stood back with her hands raised defensively. "Okay. I can see I reopened a wound with that one."

"And like I said, we have other business to tend to back in the future," Dundgren reminded.

"And what type of business would that be?" Dipper asked.

"That's none of your business," Dundgren said before pressing a button on his wrist. "Here, take these."

As he pressed the button, a set of advanced watches suddenly formed around Dipper and Mabel's left wrists. Both of them looked down at theirs curiously.

Mabel's eyes lit up excitedly. "Woah! This looks like that smartwatch I asked for my birthday last year! The one neither Mom or Dad got me…"

"Dad literally got you a new phone to replace the one you broke. Why are you still complaining?" Dipper asked, narrowing his eyes at her. "Meanwhile, all I got was new clothes."

"Can you two shut up and listen?" Lolph impatiently ordered. "These are time navigators. We use them to navigate across time."

"Probably could've figured that," Dipper remarked.

"They're more precise and feature-ridden than the time tapes you've used before," Dundgren further explained. "Yours, however, are both heavily modified for this mission. You only have one destination available and that's straight to the future, where you will drop off Blendin once you've retrieved him."

"And if you come back empty-handed or try playing any stupid tricks that we catch onto…" Lolph began.

"…then you'll both be eliminated on sight," Dundgren finished.

"Alright, alright, we get it! Geez!" Mabel said dismissively. "You know, you both seemed way less angry the last time we saw you guys."

"And what about if something happens to us, huh?" Dipper asked. "You two just sent two teenagers back to one of the most dangerous, ruthless periods in our history. What if we die out here or something?"

"Then don't," Dundgren said coldly. "We've uploaded the decoded letter's information to your navigators to assist you. Once you've found Blendin, simply activate your navigators together to meet us again in the future. We'll take things from there. Good luck."

Dundgren tapped a button on his wrist and immediately warped away, leaving the twins with Lolph.

"We'll see you in the next minute," Lolph said before growing an impish smirk. "Might be longer for you two though."

Lolph pressed the same button on his wrist, warping away as well and leaving the twins to their own, much to Dipper's immediate dismay.

"Hey, HEY! Is that seriously all you got for us?!" he shouted as he clenched his fists frustratedly. "What a bunch of useless…!"

"Dipper, look!"

Dipper turned around to see that Mabel had made her way toward the other end of the alleyway, where she was looking out into the broad daylight from the shadows. He caught up to her position and joined her, only for his mouth to hang open as he looked outside the alley as well.

It was Gravity Falls in 1883 - the Wild, Wild West. On the streets before them was less of a pavement and more of a sweep of loose gravel where horses road across carrying various townspeople. Others rode on stagecoach wagons that creaked and clattered as the wooden wheels spun with the horses' pull.

The vibe was folksy as could be with nearly every man in sight wearing some combination of overalls, handkerchiefs, work shirts, trousers, and boots with spurs. Many also wore hats, mostly variations of the traditional cowboy hat, but many also wore coonskin caps. On the other hand, some of the wealthier-looking men wore classier attires and top hats. A lot of them also sported long mustaches or stylized beards for the time.

As for the women, many of them wore large bonnets over tied-back hair while sporting long work dresses with aprons. Similarly, wealthier-looking women wore way more fancy and luxurious Victorian-era types of dresses, some while carrying matching sun umbrellas.

Lastly, there were plenty of youthful, energetic kids who ran around through the streets as happy as could be. Some looked to be on their own, while many seemed to tail alongside elders. Many of them dressed in similarly raggedy work clothes as many of the low to middle-class townspeople did.

Looking at the views outside the town, the two could make out many of the defining features they knew Gravity Falls for, such as the distant waterfall, hanging cliffs, and the surrounding forests that looked even more full with the town not having expanded as much as it would by later centuries. Still, it was a sight to behold and a fascinating one at that.

"Woah… late nineteenth-century Gravity Falls. The Old West…" Dipper said in awe.

"It's like Pioneer Day, but… every day!" Mabel said with a wide smile.

"Man, and I'd be so much more fascinated seeing all of this if it weren't under these conditions," Dipper said, immediately frowning upon remembering why they were even there.

"Why do you think those guys even want Blendin so bad anyway? I thought they hated him," Mabel said.

"I don't know. It sounded like they were really ticked about him making that deal with Bill. But still, why do we need to be involved in cleaning up that mess? We already defeated Bill twice!"

"So what now? Are we really gonna listen to those guys and hunt down Blendin for them?"

Dipper sighed. "I don't think we have much of a choice. We either find Blendin so we can go home, or we're stuck here forever."

Mabel pulled out her phone from her back pocket and checked the screen. Aside from the fact that her phone's date and time were having a freakout at that moment, her reception was nonexistent.

"What year does cell service get invented again?" she asked.

"Probably at least another century for anything efficient."

She sighed. "Yeah, we need to go back…"

Dipper held up the time navigator on his wrist and inspected it. "I guess we should get started checking out this letter then…"

Dipper curiously pressed a finger on the navigator's screen, which instantly projected a blue holographic image in front of him. Before he even had a chance to read it, a passing townsman on the walkway in front of them stopped in place as he bore witness to the futuristic projection. His eyes shot open widely in sudden fear.

"AHH! ALIEN WITCHCRAFT!" the man screamed fearfully as he pointed directly at Dipper. "TWO WEIRDLY DRESSED KIDS OUT HERE PRACTICING ALIEN WITCHCRAFT! AAAAAAHHHH!"

The man turned right back around and took off while screaming for his life. As he did so, several other passing townsfolk turned their attention from him toward the twins as they stood frozen in front of the alleyway. Several eyebrows raised and mouths dropped as they eyeballed not just the hologram, but their atypical outfits for the time.

Though it took a moment for him to realize, Dipper soon cupped a hand around his wrist to hide the projection. Only a few seconds later, he bolted back down the dark alley with Mabel following right behind him. The two turned an eventual corner in the alley that connected to another part of town further down. Once they realized they were alone, they stopped in place to catch their breath together.

Dipper took off his pine tree cap and looked at it before glancing down at his red hoodie and jeans.

"…right after we get a change of time-accurate clothes," he finished.

Mabel smiled. "To the store!"

At the town's general store, Dipper stood in a corner adjusting the shirt of his new outfit. To blend in with the populace, he opted for a white work shirt with rolled-up sleeves, a brown vest, black pants, and a pair of brown boots. To top it off, he had a brown cowboy hat that sat firmly on his head, while a black bandana hung from his neck.

While Mabel occupied the store's only dressing room and only mirror, he used a nearby reflective pan to look at himself. While the outfit wasn't anything close to what he was used to wearing, there was a somewhat prideful feeling that built up inside as he looked at his reflection.

He smiled, tipping his hat at his reflection. "Howdy, pardner," he said with an attempted southern twang. "Or is it partner? Partner, pardner, partner, pardner… pardiner?"

Turning his head to his left, his eyes lit up as he stiffened. Off to the side was a teenage girl with dirty blonde hair wearing a royal purple Victorian-era dress, who simply stood by looking at him weirdly. Dipper realized that she had to have caught him while he was talking to himself, much to his embarrassment. As he looked back at her, he could only respond with an awkward chuckle.

"Heheh… uh, howdy, miss," he greeted sheepishly.

Her weird glare quickly went unimpressed as she drew out a flowery hand fan and spread it open, shielding her view of him before doing an uptight and prissy walk away from him.

"Aw, seriously?" he said with a slightly dejected frown.

Having already been rejected less than an hour into his time in the Old West, his patience was already dwindling. He walked back up to the dressing room door and gave a few firm knocks.

"C'mon, Mabel. What's taking so long?"

"Just about ready!"

SLAM!

Without warning, Mabel kicked the dressing room door straight open with full force, smacking it right in Dipper's face and causing him to stumble back dizzily. She took a few hard stomps out as she spread her arms and feet apart like a readying gunslinger.

Similarly to Dipper, she donned a white work shirt with rolled-up sleeves, a brown vest, and brown boots. However, she wore cow print pants, unlike Dipper's black pants. She also wore her own brown cowboy hat, as well as a bright red bandana hanging from her neck.

"Check me out! I'm Mabelton Pines! The rootinest, tootinest cowgirl in the West!" she declared before hacking and spitting violently on the floor. "Also a world-class spitter!" She did a twirl as she looked over her outfit admirably. "What do you think, bro-bro?"

Dipper's eyes glanced her up and down with uncertainty. "Uhhh…"

"What? You don't like it?"

"Well, it's not that I don't like it. It's more like… you're the only woman I've seen on the whole block who's wearing pants."

"I know, right? How progressive!" she said while looking over her shoulder at the dressing room mirror with further admiration.

"You know what? I'm sure no one will notice," he dismissed before pulling up his navigator again. "Let's just check out this letter those time guys were talking about."

Dipper pressed on the navigator's screen again, pulling up the holo projection from before. As he looked at it, he realized it was a series of cipher translations from Blendin's decoded message. Parts of it appeared to be blacked out, but other parts of it were clear to read. His eyes glanced over every bit of legible text as he read them in his head.

"So what we got?" Mabel asked as she looked over his shoulder.

"So in his letter, Blendin says he got stuck here after his time tape got destroyed by a train," Dipper said amidst his reading. "Damn, and it sounds like he might've sent it off the rails too."

"Huh. I think I know where Greasy's got their train parts from," Mabel realized.

"Anyway, he says he managed to blend in with the people here and works as a pocket watch repairman now. Huh. Well, that narrows things down for us."

"So all we gotta do is ask around for the local watch repair guy and we're golden!"

"Yeah, sounds easy enough," Dipper said as he turned off the navigator's projection. "We just gotta be careful. Even with these clothes, we need to be sure not to draw too much attention to ourselves while we're here. Especially after that whole witchcraft scare."

"Did somebody say witchcraft?" asked a familiar voice.

The twins turned around, looking back toward the store's counter. There, a strangely familiar elderly man stood with a bushy gray mustache and thinning hair. Though there were a few notable differences, the voice and face bore an awful resemblance to a familiar townsperson back in the Gravity Falls they knew.

"Woah… Farmer Sprott?" Mabel realized as she looked at the man.

The man raised an eyebrow. "Farmer? I ain't no farmer. The name's Shopkeeper Sprott. And my urge to take out my pitchfork went up as soon as I heard someone mention witchcraft."

Dipper's eyes widened anxiously. "No, no, no! We didn't say witchcraft! We were saying… uh…"

"Bitchcraft!" Mabel finished, which got yet another immediate glare from Dipper. "What? We're in the Old West. Is swearing not normal language around these parts?"

Sprott simply eyeballed the two weirdly. "My urge to take out my pitchfork has not decreased."

"Look, no witchcraft or anything is going around," Dipper clarified. "We're just a pair of happy customers who came to check out the local store."

"Oh, well, have yourselves a look around!" Sprott said, face lightening up as he gestured around the shop. "Whatever you need, I probably have it! I got guns, provisions, guns, hunting gear, guns, ammunition for guns, guns for your guns, more guns, and pitchforks if y'all are also looking to fight back against witchcraft."

Mabel walked up to a store shelf and picked up a can. She squinted and pursed her lips as she read the label questionably. "What's off-al?"

"It's offal," Sprott corrected.

"Awful?" Mabel repeated.

"That it is!"

Dipper glanced around at all the various shop items wondrously. "So you run this whole store by yourself?"

"Yes, siree, this be my store," Sprott nodded. "Been moved into it only a few years now."

"Oh, you mean you moved to Gravity Falls somewhat recently?" Dipper asked.

"Yes, the wife and I had to flee our last town when it got overrun by Wild Eyes Joe and his gang. Had to leave my old shop behind and everything," Sprott told them. "Thank goodness for Gravity Falls though. Most good folks heard of this town starting up in the valley a few decades back and came moving right in. If you just ignore all them crazy urban legends you be hearing 'bout… and the cholera outbreak… you actually got yourself one heck of a town!"

"Mabel, don't eat or drink anything while we're here," Dipper immediately warned.

To his right, Mabel held an open can of offal she was preparing to pour right into her mouth before stopping at his warning.

"Aw man!" she said as she tossed the can aside disappointedly. "I was getting curious about that offal."

Dipper tapped his chin as an idea came to mind. "Actually, Shopkeeper Sprott, while we're here, we've been meaning to get a pocket watch fixed. Do you know anywhere or anyone in town who specializes in such?"

"As a matter of fact, I do!" Sprott nodded. "There's a small pocket watch repair shop further down right across the street. Run by some feller named Blake."

Dipper stared at him blankly for a moment. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Yes, siree. Opened up quite recently too," Sprott added. "Just be careful. From what I hear, the man's a bit of a weirdo! But I reckon he could get your pocket watch fixed up faster than I can get rid of my hives."

"Ew. We did not need to know that," Dipper said disgustedly.

"No, I mean I got literal yellow jacket hives up in my attic," Sprott clarified. "I can't check inventory without getting stung. I tried twice today."

Sprott held his arms out in front of him, allowing the twins to see a bunch of big, painful-looking red bumps scattered across both forearms, much to their displeasure.

"You might wanna get some ice on those, man," Dipper simply told him before turning back to Mabel. "C'mon, let's get going."

"Bye, Shopkeeper Sprott! We hope you buy a farm in the future!" Mabel waved cheerily as she followed Dipper out the shop doors.

Sprott happily waved back as the two left his store. "What nice kids!"

He sat for a moment at the counter, staring at the shop door in silence.

"They didn't pay for them clothes, did they?"

As Dipper and Mabel walked through the gravel streets of Old West Gravity Falls, they looked around wondrously. Particularly in the directions of the several various people calling out different things into the streets.

"Extwa, extwa! Wead all about it! Last week's gweat twain cwash is making histowy!" shouted a young paperboy who bore a resemblance to Gorney.

"Open your eyes, people! Nathaniel Northwest is a FRAUD! He is not the true founder of Gravity Falls!" an older disheveled preacher shouted to a nonexistent crowd. "There was a man in his place before him who was robbed of his due respects! Someday, all of you will know the truth!"

"Buffalo Bill's Wild West is coming 'round Gravity Falls soon!" a devilish-looking carny called out with pamphlets in hand. "Learn about when and where y'all can get your tickets to see good ol' Buffalo Bill! He's coming for y'all!"

Despite everything she had already witnessed, Mabel's excitement exploded most with every passing horserider. She could hardly contain herself at that moment as she watched another man pull his horse from a hitching post to hop on and ride off.

"Dipper, this is amazing!" she exclaimed happily. "There are horses EVERYWHERE!"

"Yeah, I can tell from the smell alone," Dipper said as he scrunched up his nose.

"This takes me back to that country phase I had in fifth grade. You remember that, don't you?"

"About as well as I remember your boy band phase in seventh grade, your musical theater phase in ninth grade, and your goth phase in tenth grade when you shaved off half your head."

"Heh, yeah. Took me a year to grow that back," she said with a chuckle as she reminisced.

The two continued walking until they reached a lowly little wooden shack near the end of the street. A sign at the front windows read "Blake's Pocket Watch Repairs + Moar".

"Alright, here's the repair shop," Dipper said, stopping in front of the door. "Like I said, easy enough. Seriously, how did Lolph and Dundgren spend years trying to find this guy? Even now, it would've taken them like two minutes tops."

"They did say they had a busy schedule," Mabel said.

"I'm not sure I buy that, but who cares as long as they send us back to our time as soon as we're done here."

Dipper put his hand on the door handle and pushed the door open. As the twins slowly walked inside, they were immediately caught off guard by how unorderly the shop was. Wooden shelves were destroyed or collapsed while various pocket watch parts and pieces were scattered among the floorboards.

The two tip-toed around many of the parts as they walked through, eyebrows raised somewhat curiously as they looked around the seemingly empty shop.

"Hellooo?" Dipper called out. "Blendin? Blake?"

"It's Dipper and Mabel Pines!" Mabel announced. "The two that ruined your life but then made it better until you went and ruined it again!"

Following a moment of silence and peeking around the small shop, the two concluded they were the only ones present.

"Hmm. No one's here," Dipper said as he walked over to a sign on display at the front window. "Shop hours are 11 to 7."

"Out to lunch maybe?" Mabel suggested.

As Dipper glanced around the shop again, something caught his eye from the side. He squinted in the direction of the doorway leading into the shop's backroom, where he noticed a back door next to a window. As he walked over toward it, he looked around at the floor and narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"Mabel, come check this out."

Mabel soon joined him in the backroom, immediately being met with the same sight he focused on. Pieces of tiny glass shards scattered on the floor leading up to the window, where there was a giant shattered hole in the bottom corner of it right beside the doorframe.

"What happened here?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Dipper kneeled down to inspect the trail of glass more closely. "Look at these glass shards and how far they reach from the window. Almost like something outside forcefully broke it inward".

Mabel's boots stepped around the glass shards up to the back door and pushed it open with ease. "Back door's unlocked too. It wasn't even fully closed."

"I'm not seeing any signs of bullets, so I don't think the window was shot," Dipper said while scanning the floorboards. "But maybe it was punched in so that someone could reach their hand inside to unlock the door."

"You think someone broke in?"

"I mean, look around," he gestured. "The place is a mess, the window's broken right next to the open back door. If someone wanted to break in secretly, they surely wouldn't go through the front."

Mabel tapped her chin at the thought. "That does make sense."

"We need to keep looking for clues."

The two spent some time looking further around the shop for any additional signs of a break-in or just anything that may relate to Blendin's disappearance. While Dipper checked around and under the collapsed shelves and displays, Mabel took a look back behind the front counter where the register sat.

She found nothing particularly notable for a good moment as she inspected the counter and its drawers. But as her eyes glanced at the ground for a second, she looked on more closely as she found a slip of paper lying on the ground. Picking it up, she read through its text as her eyes widened somewhat worriedly.

"Uhhh… Dipper?"

Dipper looked up at her and noticed she was holding the paper out to him. He walked over and took it from her hand to read it over himself.

"This is a receipt," he said as he analyzed its contents. "'Sold To the Account of… Wild Eyes Joe?!'"

"Isn't that the name of one of the outlaws that Sprott was talking about?" Mabel asked.

"Yeah, it is…" Dipper said, looking up from the receipt nervously. "Mabel, I think Blendin might be in trouble. If he's tangling with outlaws, who knows what they might've done to him? Or even what he might've done to even set them off."

"His stammering voice is pretty annoying."

"We need to look further into this," he asserted.

Mabel gasped excitedly. "So does that mean…?"

"Yep," Dipper nodded. "This is a job for the Mystery Twins… Wild West Edition."

"Wild West Edition!" Mabel enthusiastically repeated. "So where do we start?"

"We need to ask around about Wild Eyes Joe - find out where he is and find out for sure if he's got Blendin or not," Dipper said, stroking his chin as he mentally plotted. "We could start by asking folks on the street, but I think it might be best to narrow our search down to one place of interest. Somewhere where folks are most likely to know about outlaws. Tough folks. Angry folks..."

At that very moment, a scream was heard from across the street as a man was tossed straight through the glass window of what appeared to be the town saloon. The man's body itself landed in the gravel streets, where he lay motionless. All the while an apparent bulky bar patron stood inside at the window itself, angrily huffing while staring down the thrown man's body before walking away.

Dipper and Mabel witnessed the whole exchange from the window of Blendin's shop, looking on somewhat uneasily.

"How about the saloon?" Mabel suggested.

Dipper casually shrugged. "Yeah, that works."

To be clear, The Curse of the Time Pirates Treasure is largely non-canon to the show and thus, this story. However, if you've read it, you may notice I've taken a number of cues from the Wild West section of the story for this episode, but with my own spins thrown in alongside, of course.

Anyway, I'm having a lot of fun writing this story again. I can only hope it's still just as fun to read.

-Absolute Rift