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iamdunn · 3 years

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Miraculous Flash Forward Part 16: Familiar Enemies

A Miraculous Fan-Fic

Written By

AJ Dunn

It had been years since the four of them had done this, it made them all feel like children again as they walked around Paris looking for Andre. The sun was beginning to descend casting hues of pink and orange across the blue sky.

“It’s the most romantic time of day.” Marinette said. “I bet we’ll find him by the Seine.”

“I agree, Andre never could miss a romantic opportunity.” Alya agreed. Nino took her hand as they ran like children towards the bridge. This was where the Liberty used to dock all the time. Adrien remembered when all of their friends would gather on this bank to eat Andre’s ice cream and listen to Kitty Section. He had always wanted it to be Marinette that he shared an ice cream with, but she always denied having feelings for him, no matter how hard he fished for it. He smiled down at her as they waited behind Nino and Alya to get their ice cream for the first time.

“Uhh… Marinette, what a vision of perfection, and Young Adrien is a man fit for her protection…” His face seems more delighted to see them together than pretty much anyone else. “Mint for his emerald starre, Black Cherry for the beautiful lives you will share, Your love is as destined as the stars astuc upon the sea. You two were always meant to be.” he handed Adrien the cone as Marinette and Alya giggled. They sat down by the Seine for old times sake as they reminisced.

“Wait, you finally proposed?” Nino wasn’t quiet. “Did she say yes?”

“Well, no, she kinda just babbled for a few minutes until I just kissed her and that was the end of it.” Adrien looked at her cheeks now flushed then spooned a bite of ice cream into her mouth.

“Do you guys hear that?” Alya said as everyone quieted to listen. There was music playing nearby, band music. They all stood up and headed down the bank of the Seine until they found the source.

“The Liberty.” they all shouted in unison as they ran towards it. The gangplank was up and they could see their old friends playing. Luka and Julek on guitars. Ivan on the drums. Mylene, and Zoe, seated on actual seats rather than box’s. There were two small square tables now on the deck with four chairs each. Mylene and Zoe were seated at one table. The song came to an abrupt end as Adrien crossed the gangplank with Marinette’s hand in his. They were following Alya and Nino, but when the song ended it was the moment Luka’s eyes caught Adriens.

“It’s about time.” Luka set his guitar down and ran to the couple. He threw his arms around Adrien’s neck pulling him tight into a hug. They were nearly the same height but Luka was still rather thin compared to the musculature tone of Adriens chest and shoulders. “I knew you two were roommates, and there had been rumors that you were more.” he said as he pulled away. The turned his attention to Marinette giving her a hug, stooping to reach her shoulders.

“Adrien...Adrien...Adrien.” the band called to him urging him to join them on stage. Adrien blushed as he pulled out a seat for Marinette. Alya and Nino sat down at the empty table with Marinette. Zoe and Mylene moved their chairs and pushed the two tables together so they could all sit together. Adrien stepped up to the keyboard.

“I haven’t played in so long.” He confessed. “But uh, can you guys do this.” he hit a few notes mimicking a tune for a song.

“Bad Romance, hell yeah.” Luka said.

“I don’t know the words to that one.” Rose said, as she was the main singer.

“Let me handle this one.” Adrien smiled. He looked over at Marinette. She hadn’t been listening so he started playing out the tune. The audience stopped talking and watched. The upbeat music took over as Adrien began to sing the lyrics. Juleka almost missed her beat as she was caught off guard. Rose stood quietly listening to him before she too began to sing, didn’t know all of the lyrics, but she knew the harmony.

“Adrien, I always knew you a lot more rock & roll and a lot less piano solo.” Luka smiled. “Another one?” Adrien smiled at Marinette who’s eyes locked on his. Adrien nodded. Adrien started playing a tune, Luka recognized it and began playing along with Juleka as Ivan stilled his drums to watch.

Adrien's voice rose up as he sang a song that often played in his mind when he was with Marinette. It was Perfect, by Ed Sheeran. The crowd awed as the words slipped softly from his lips as he played his eyes lost in hers. He watched her face glow. Her hands folded together under her chin. He almost lost his words as her eyes twinkled with the love he felt for her. When the line about having children came, she blushed and turned her eyes away. He hadn’t gone that far with her, not yet. He wanted to, so badly it hurt, but he was holding on to the one thing he had never given anyone, he wouldn’t give it away that easily and he was sure she had never experienced it either.

The night out on the town had been a well needed break from the twins. They were spending the night with Tom & Sabine, in Marinette’s old bedroom. They were happy to get to bake cookies and Tom was excited to teach them. Adrien mused over what it would be like to have grandchildren and this was his trial run.

Adrien and Marinette made transformed into Cat and Ladybug for a high rise tour of the city. A means to get back to the people they used to be. This time, as they ran from rooftop to rooftop with Adrien’s cat puns and jests, Marinette returned his jokes with snarky playful comments in response. Adrien was happy she had stopped shutting down his playful side and let herself enjoy it. The one hesitancy he had to let her have all of him, was her inability to accept all of him. He had worried that she only saw the sunshine boy that his father had made him out to be, and that she wouldn’t accept him for who he really was.

“I hope you can love this side of me,” He said as he collided with her in mid-air. He hung by one arm suspended under a street lamp as he clung to her with the other. “Because this is who I truly am. Not that.” He looked up to see an old poster of him from his modeling days sprawled out on a street advert. It was from his fragrance commercial. Suddenly and before their eyes, the images changed to photos from the days his father made him pose with Lila. She was kissing him, but he never kissed her on the lips. A pink heart was around their faces as the close up showed them locked in a loving embrace.

“What the…” Adrien lost his grip on the lamp post as he and Ladybug slipped to the street below.

“Adrien.” Marinette said, staring at the image. “You and Lila?”

“I never have,” he said angrily. “This is fake. But how.” Ladybug swung her yo-yo angrily at the poster knowing that vandalism was a crime didn’t change the ache in her heart. The image dissolved into smoke and an image of Kitty Section took it’s place.

“A mirage.” Ladybug said.

“Vulpina?”

“But how, Hawk Moth was the only way she could receive her powers.” Ladybug thought for a second. “Trixx.” She called Alya,

“Do you have Trixx, are you still wearing your…”

“Slow down girl, yeah of course. Why?” Ladybug sighed and told her about the mirage. They heard a maniacal laugh coming from the rooftops and quickly descended, letting her phone call go. They scout the town until they saw her coming towards them. It was Rena Rouge.

“I came as quickly as I could.” Rena said. “Where…” they could hear the laughter again coming from an adjacent rooftop.

“You will never be as powerful as me, Rena Rouge.” The voice came from the supervillain Vulpin.

“You’re just a bad copy from an old book.’ Cat yelled back. The three stood on the rooftop ready for whatever she would send their way.

“Hawk Moth will give me any power I want,” She sang into the air.

“Hawk Moth?” the three said together. In an instant, the maniac was gone. She was just another illusion. The three separated, agreeing to meet up later to discuss what just happened.

“Felix?” Marinette asked as they sat on the couch in his room. “I hate to think he is Hawk Moth, but…”

“It fits. I mean he was the last one to have the broach, he disappeared before the end of the tempest battle, and…”

“He’s been missing ever since.” Marinette finished.

“I uh, had someone make up the next room for you…”

“OH…” Marinette folded an arm over her chest draping her hand on her shoulder. “Okay.”

“I mean, you said…” Adrien scratched the back of his neck for a minute as he stood up looking at his childhood bed. They had slept together before, but it wasn’t a regular thing. He stripped off his t-shirt and tossed it on the floor. Looking back down at her as she sat on the couch. Her face slowly turned up as her eyes traced the lines on his belly to the lines on his chest. Her face glowed brightly until they locked eyes.

“Well?” He offered her his hand. She took it as she stood up. He guided her to his bed. He pulled back the blankets on the side she normally slept on and pulled her to it laying her down. They had already put on their pajamas, however, he liked to sleep with as little on as possible when he slept alone. However, with her in his bed, he didn’t trust his own self-control without a few layers between them.

She clung to his hand as he stood at the side of the bed. He dove over her making the bed bounce. She giggled as he playful rolled around messing up the blankets. She scruffed his wild blond hair before he straightened himself laying his head on the pillow only centimeters from her face.

“Silly Kitty.” Marinette rolled to her side and faced him.

“I hope this doesn’t BUG you.” he played.

“You’re imPAWsible.” she giggled. He loved it when she used cat puns. He kissed her lips as his hand weaved through her hair. He pulled her into him as her hands wrapped around his waist, throwing one leg over him. She maneuvered her body till he was on his back with her straddling him. He shuddered as he felt her warmth on him. Her kiss, hungry for his.

His hands held her at her hips as her chest lay flatly on his, her hands now in his hair. Oh, if only he had his Cat suit on. It enhanced all of his senses and was the kind of protection he needed right now to give him the resolve to not go too far. He twitched his fingers into her sides tickling her in hopes of breaking this hold, knowing he didn’t have the will to stop it. She began to squirm on him. Her hips moving from side to side as they rubbed on his…. He gasped. Had he known she would move like that he would have thought twice about it.

“Adrien.” She stopped to look at his face. She must have seen the look on his face as she settled down putting all of her weight onto his hips. Suddenly she shot up on her knees lifting her weight from him. He gripped her hips so she wouldn’t go too far.

“Shh.” He brought one hand up to her face cupping it gently before bringing it to meet him. Their lips locked again as she settled herself back down to his hips. Her face had brightened to a red he had never seen before and it broke him, he didn’t think he had the will to stop. Suddenly there was a noise at the window. They both jumped from bed to see what it was. The light in the bedroom blocked out the view of the darkened city outside. Adrien ran to the switch, turning the light off. There was a figure standing on the rooftop across the street, someone was watching them. They ran to the window but the figure ran from the rooftop.

Marinette sat on the bed shivering. Adrien put his arm around her trying to comfort her.

“Someone was watching us.” She squeaked embarrassed at the compromising position they had been seen in. “Were they taking pictures?” That is certainly what the sound was, a camera click without a flash. Adrien often kept the window open but he closed it and set the lock. He noticed something attached to the window. A note. Attached to a suction dart clung to the window.

‘Enjoy what you have now

Before I take it all

YOU WILL BE MINE!

“What is it?” Marinette asked from the bed. He handed her the note. She dropped it the instant her eyes saw the words. A shriek left her mouth. “Do you think it was meant for you or me?” Adrien looked back at the window.

“If it was Vuplina.” He paused.

“Then it was meant for you.” Marinette finished. “Lila has always wanted you, and would do anything to get rid of her competition.”

“What do you say? We check out the room across the hall, the windows there are less visible to outsiders.” He took her hand and led her across the hall.

Marinette left the house before Adrien woke up. She had spent all morning searching the internet for someone. Alix wasn’t in France anymore, in fact she was participating in extreme sports in Florida. Marinette pulled out the horse miraculous and merged it with Tikki. She used a portal to plop herself into Alix’s bedroom. She was still asleep but at least she was alone. Pegabug woke her up. Alix sat up rubbing her eyes trying to make out the figure before her.

“Is it time?” Alix asked as she sat up.

“I think it is, Someone has the Butterfly Miraculous, and now Vulpina is back.” Alix was suddenly awake. She remembered how much chaos the illusionist caused especially during Heros day. “I think you will know when to use this.” She handed her the pocket watch then went over the instructions for how to use the Kwami’s power after introducing her to Fluff again.

“Should I come back to Paris?” Alix asked.

“I think you will be fine, better safe to keep your distance, just monitor everything from here.” Pegabug then made another portal. Good thing she had built up the strength to use her power more than once before needing to recharge. She returned to the manor and found Adrien standing in front of her.

“Did you give Alix the bunny?” He asked. Pegabug released her transformation and nodded. “Good, we need to call Luka.” He said picking up his phone.

“NO, we need to call EVERYONE.” Marinette said. “NO one but us can know about Alix. and only because you have known as long as I have that she would one day be Bunnyx.” Adrien called Luka while Marinette and Alya. They were calling a team meeting at the one place Lila didn’t know about. The Barge.

The band was playing by the time Adrien and Marinette arrived. They had to stop by the bakery to make sure the girls weren’t causing too much trouble. Luka, Juleka, Rose and Ivan jammed out a beat as Mylene, Zoe, Alya, Nino, Max, Kim, and Kagami, sat at the tables. The music died down as the band set their instruments aside.

“Shall we all go downstairs.” Luka walked everyone inside. The Living room area was large enough for the whole group with a large sectional style couch wrapping around the wall leaving a large enough area for the band to practice if they chose too. Everyone but Marinette and Adrien sat down.

“We have an announcement to make.” Adrien started, his arm around Marinette’s shoulders. “We are getting married.”

“Finally.” the whole group said together as they all began to mutter amongst themselves about how long it had taken for them to finally see the moon through the stars. Something that was so obvious, that everyone else seemed to know but they were always too blinded by the stars to see it. Adrien could feel the heat in his cheeks as a shy smile spread on his face. He was still kicking himself for being so oblivious of Marinette in high school. He knew she liked him, but thought it was only his model status and her desire to become a designer, nothing more. She never thought she was good enough for him.

“That isn’t the only news.” the crowd hushed as Marinette spoke up. “Mylene wasn’t the first of us to receive the Mullo, the mouse miraculous, I was.” Marinette confessed. Alya, Luka and Adrien were the only ones to know the truth of this group. So keeping Ladybugs secret was imperative.

“And I am Aspik, I held Sass before Luka did.” He said with a shy smirk. “I wasn’t very good at it, but I am close friends with Chat, we play video games together and…”

“Talk about how horrible the rich boy's life is together?” Luka jokes. “You rich boys were probably skiing in the Alps.”

“Wait, Cat Noir is rich?” Ivan asked.

“Richer than I am.” Adrien confessed scratching the back of his neck.

“Ladybug and Cat Noir found us this morning, they had followed a suspicious person to our window. Where they found this.” Marinette helped up the note.

“So it was Vulpina.” Alya said. The group began to mutter worried about the illusions that nearly ruined everything for everyone.

“Who is Vulpina anyway?” Kim asked.

“Lila.” Marinette said. “The master of Lies and illusions.” Shock fell on the faces of the group. They had all believed her lies and coddled her even against Marinette who they all agreed was the most honest of them all.

“We will all stand together again.” Luka stood up putting his fist into the center of the room. Zoe and Juleka joined him. Kim, who was always up for a competition, was next. Soon everyone stepped in as Adrien and Marinette refrained. “Get in here.” Luka smiled knowingly at them. They added their fists to the bump.

#miraculous fandom #ladynoir #miraculous chat noir #adrienette #miraculous ladybug #marichat #miraculous world #felix graham de vanily #adrien agreste #Adrien Graham De Vanily #vulpina #hawk moth #miraculous luka #luka couffaine #rose x juleka #king monkey #purple tigress

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minijenn · 7 years

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Universe Falls, Chapter 43, Part 1

God I still can’t believe I decided to split this one up but here we are. And I am HYPE BECAUSE AUGHGHGHGHG FUCK ITS THE BIG ONE KIDS! SOCK OPERA HAS FINALLY COME TO FUCK WITH OUR HEARTS AND MINDS AND SO WITHOUT ANY FURTHER ADO, HERE WE GO!

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/166151506804/universe-falls-chapter-42

Chapter 43: Sock Opera

Part 1

ZS EVSWOC LC UOW ONV OWVR ZWU KFQKOFH GIW VG NWONC AB HVSHVOJM, FOUSRDACP, KFR NSWG FYF'H VKCS JSK RGKDG QB HZCI ZWU QSAGC GF CVD MQE CBQG UCWVV UQ EH WP PDOOOK

With all of the recent chaos and upheaval brought on by the invasion and everything that sprung out of it afterwards, it had been quite some time since the Mystery Kids had come together to solve a genuine mystery, Gem, paranormal, or otherwise. But that was about to change as the four of them gathered at the Gravity Falls library, all of them acutely mindful of the momentous task that lay before them. Or rather, mostly mindful.

“Alright, you guys,” Dipper began with firm resolve as they claimed a table near the back of the library to themselves. “Today’s the big day.”

“Big day!” Mabel chimed in with blithe excitement.

“Super big!” Steven added enthusiastically, though his expression fell into confusion a beat later. “Uh… what’s so big about it again?”

“Come on, Steven,” Connie said with a small, good natured chuckle. “We’ve been over this several times today alone!”

“Yeah, well… one more refresher couldn’t hurt, could it?” the young Gem blushed in slight embarrassment over his own apparent obliviousness.

“No, it couldn’t,” Dipper interjected as he carefully lifted the old laptop they had found in the bunker a few weeks ago up for everyone to see. “Soos finally finished fixing up the laptop. If this thing works, we could learn the identity of the author and unravel the greatest mysteries of Gravity Falls, and then some!”

“Oh, that’s right!” Steven face palmed with a small laugh. “The laptop! You know, it’s been so long since that whole bunker thing that I nearly forgot all about it!”

“Same here,” Mabel agreed just as brightly. “But I guess there won’t be any forgetting about this nut if we manage to finally crack it! And I mean that figuratively, since the laptop’s not a nut, it’s a laptop! But you know what I mean.”

“I can’t believe it!” Connie exclaimed zealously. “After all this time, the answers to all of the questions we’ve been asking this entire summer could be sitting right in front of us! This could be our biggest break yet!”

“That’s what I’m counting on,” Dipper nodded fervently as he opened the dented, patched-up laptop up. “Especially since the author seemed to know so much about Gem stuff. Now, there isn’t a whole lot in journal 3 about fusions, but I’m willing to bet he might have kept some research about them here on the laptop, maybe even something about how to split them up. And if he did…”

Steven filled in for where Dipper had left off with a sudden gasp, his eyes lighting up with newfound hope as he gathered what he was implying. “Dipper… you don’t think…?”

“I do,” Dipper nodded with just the hint of an assured smile. After all, from the moment he remembered the laptop the other day, he couldn’t shake the thought that, perhaps, this could finally be the chance to help the blue Gem he had been looking for. And that alone was more than enough to get him to pursue that chance as soon as possible. “I think this laptop could be the key to helping us separate Malachite and save Lapis.”

“Well, then what are we waiting for?!” Mabel grinned eagerly at such good news. “Let’s get this baby going!” To punctuate her point, she held up a popup book she had found about where babies come from, her smile widening as she opened it up to a colorful picture of a baby.

“Then here goes nothing,” Dipper said as he flipped the laptop’s switch on. All four of the kids held their breaths in anticipation for a moment, before simultaneously letting them out in relief as the primitive machine slowly rattled to life. Given its age, the only color its display was capable of showing was green against black as its surprisingly elaborate startup and welcome screens appeared after likely decades of being dormant. “Yes! It works!”

“Oh my gosh, this is so exciting, you guys!” Steven cheered as he pulled Connie and the twins into a sudden, warm embrace. “Here we all are, solving another mystery together! It’s just like the good old days!”

“Uh, by good old days, do mean last week before this whole Gem invasion thing happened?” Connie asked with a tentative smirk of amusement.

“Heh, yeah…” Steven glanced down, his smile fading just a bit. “Still, I have to admit, this is a really nice change of pace from how intense things have been these past few days.”

“It’ll be even better once we find something useful on this-” Dipper was cut off by the laptop itself as it suddenly emitted a sharp warning beep. Confused, the kids glanced over at it again, only to find it flashing with the message “//UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS FORBIDDEN//” before switching over to a password input screen. “Ugh, of course! A password!” Dipper groaned in frustration over this newfound roadblock.

“I guess we should have seen this coming,” Connie mused. “After all, if the author really did kept all of his deepest secrets on the laptop, then it only make sense that he’d take every measure he could to protect them.”

“I wonder what that password could be…” Steven said curiously as he looked over the password screen. “Hm… eight letters, huh? What words have eight letters…? Oh, I know! ‘Password’! Bam, eight letters! Mystery solved!”

A beat of stilted silence passed as Dipper and Connie both looked to Steven incredulously at this suggestion, while Mabel nodded her silent but cheerful agreement over it. “Uh… Steven? That’s… not a very secure password…” Connie noted with a frown.

“…Well, at least it’s easy to remember!” the young Gem pointed out blithely.

“But I seriously doubt it’s the kind of password someone like the author would use,” Dipper remarked dryly as he began flipping through the journal in search of some kind of clue. “I mean, for all we know, the password might not even be a word at all. It could be some kind of code or a series of numbers or literally anything else! Where do we even start?!”

“Don’t worry, bro-bro,” Mabel reassured with a broad grin as she put a supporting hand on her brother’s shoulder. “With you and Connie’s brains, Steven’s enthusiasm, and my laser focus, there is nothing that can distract us from… Do you hear that?”

Ironically enough, everyone’s attention was diverted away from the laptop as the sound of light piano music wafting through the library from nearby. The source of the gentle melody came from a blonde pony-tailed young man who was entertaining a group of spectating small children with a cheery puppet show musical, one that he smoothly yet passionately sang all of the lyrics to. “All my life I’ve been dreamin’ of a love that’s right for me, and now I finally know her name and its… sing it with me kids:”

“Literacy!” the crowd of children chimed in enthusiastically as the boy continued his show, this time speaking through his book and bee puppets.

“I finally understand what all the buzz is about!” the bee puppet quipped. “Reading!”

“Give me some of that honey!” the book puppet exclaimed before the two puppets smashed into each other into something of a “kiss” as the boy laughed warmly at this odd display he was creating.

“Uh… is it really ok for him to be making those puppets, um… kiss like that in front of all those little kids?” Connie asked, somewhat disturbed as her and the others observed the show from afar.

“Yeah, now that you mention it… that is kinda weird…” Steven frowned rather uncomfortably. “I mean, puppets are neat and everything, but maybe he should sorta, I dunno, tone it down? Just a bit?”

“Ugh, who cares?” Dipper rolled his eyes, already tired of this diversion as he turned his attention back to the laptop. “We have way more important things to do right now than watch some weirdo’s dumb puppet show, right, Mabel?” Upon receiving no response from his sister, Dipper did briefly glance away from the laptop and over at her, only to find that she was already completely enamored by the young puppeteer, stars in her eyes as she stared at him, completely lovestruck. To hammer in her newfound crush, she opened up the baby book again, only this time to a popup of a large romantic heart, a huge, infatuated smile spreading across her face. “Oh boy…” Dipper sighed, already knowing exactly where this was going.

“Uh, Mabel?” Steven asked, concerned as he noticed how visibly besotted she was. “Are you ok?”

“Oh, I’m better than ok, Steven,” Mabel sighed contentedly as she continued looking to nothing else but the newest object of her affections as he continued his puppet show afar. “I’m amazing! Just when I was getting over Mermando, of course, that dreamboat shows up at my doorstep!”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about Mermando,” Dipper remarked, completely unenthused as he retrieved a book on codes from the nearby shelf. “Did not care for Mermando.”

“That wouldn’t be because of that little CPR incident, would it, Dipper?” Connie asked with a wry, knowing smirk.

“Pfft, no,” Dipper countered defensively, even if it was clear that he was rather embarrassed by the recollection of it as he sat down again. “Besides, none of that matters right now. We have to get back on track with this laptop! According to this cryptology book, there are approximately 7.2 million eight letter words, so we’re going to have to work together to get through them all. Now, let’s see here…”

Mabel rolled her eyes impatiently as Dipper began to detail his complex password decryption strategy, one that she hardly listened to as she glanced over to the handsome puppeteer on the other side of the library once more. Overwhelmed with excitement over her newfound infatuation, she decided that she might as well act on it as soon as she could, lest he slip away from her like all of her other summer romances had so far. “Steven,” she whispered, discreetly pulling on the young Gem’s arm as her brother continued detailing his plan. “I need you to come with me and be my wingman while I flirt with that cute puppet guy.”

“Ok, but what’s a wingma—whoa!” Before Steven could even finish his question, Mabel whisked him away just as Dipper wrapped up his lengthy explanation.

“Ok, so I’ll type, Connie, you keep track of the words we’ve already tried, and Steven and Mabel, you guys can take turns listing off words from the-” Dipper cut himself off as he looked over to where the pair was sitting, or rather, where they had been sitting. They had both taken off, rushing to the other side of the library with Mabel brazenly leading the way towards her newest crush, leaving only Dipper and Connie behind to continue with their original mission. “Ok, seriously?!” Dipper groaned in frustration at this, knowing that Mabel was wasting their valuable time on mere frivolities. Time that, as far as he was concerned, would be put to much better use in trying to unlock the laptop and the secrets that it contained, especially if such secrets could potentially lead the way to freeing a certain self-imprisoned blue Gem.

Still, for as resolved as Dipper was to reach his goal, Mabel was just as resolved with accomplishing hers. Before they had even made it over to the puppeteer, she had already made sure to fill her “wingman” in on exactly what he was supposed to do and say to help her impress her new crush from afar. Steven agreed, even if he was still rather confused and oblivious as to what this was supposed to accomplish, though Mabel assured him that it would all turn out according to plan as they finished discreetly making their way over to the puppet show, which was just about reaching its conclusion.

“And that’s why we don’t stick our hands in…” the puppeteer trailed his song off as the chorus of kids gathered in front of him joined him.

“Other people’s mouths!”

“Hey, I’m Gabe Benson, ya’ll, good night!” the puppeteer coolly bid his young audience farewell as their parents came to collect them. “Hey, good job today, you guys,” he remarked to the pair of puppets on his hands with a proud smile. “You were late on your cue!” the book puppet accused its partner harshly. “What?!” the bee scoffed before Gabe quieted them both down. “Hey, hey, be good to each other. We’re all stars.”

“Whoa! Oh my gosh, Mabel!” Steven suddenly spoke up rather overtly as him and Mabel still stood apace away from Gabe, just close enough so he could easily overhear them. “You sure do know a whole lot about puppets!”

“Oh you know I do, Steven!” Mabel placed her hands on her hips as she shot him a triumphant wink upon seeing that she had garnished her crush’s attention. “In fact, you might even say I have a passion for them!”

“Oh really?” Gabe interjected at this, looking to Mabel with an intrigued smile. “Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear your zeal for the fine art of puppetry. Is it true?”

“You could say that,” Mabel shrugged with a nonchalant, flirtatious smirk. “I’m Mabel. Care to know more? I bet you do. You like to learn.”

“I’m Gabe,” the puppeteer introduced himself casually. “Master of puppets. Nice to meet you.”

“Your puppets are really cool,” Steven remarked with a smile. “Mind if I see one for a-”

“No!” Gabe cried, pulling his puppets close to him in a protective embrace. “These puppets are made with the best fabrics and googly eyes available! Only professionals like me can handle them without sullying their perfect forms!”

“Uh…. Ok then…” the young Gem frowned, backing off as he was rather weirded out by such an unexpectedly panicked response.

“You’re amazing with them…” Mabel mused, her tone dreamy as she looked more to Gabe than his puppets.

“Really?” Gabe asked, still clinging onto his puppets carefully. “A lot of people think puppets are dumb, o-or just for kids, or something.”

“Well, I don’t!” Mabel quipped boldly. “I’m puppet crazy! People call me Puppet-Crazy-Mabel!”

“Wait, they do?” Steven asked.

“Yes!” Mabel quickly snapped, her smile ridiculously wide by now in an attempt to keep her ruse up.

“Oh, no way, people used to call me Puppet-Crazy-Gabe!” the puppeteer exclaimed. “So, when’s your next puppet show?”

“My… huh?”

“Well, you can’t truly love puppets if you’re not throwing puppet shows, right?” Gabe asked as though it were obvious.

“O-oh, yeah! I-I mean, I’m totally working on a puppet show!” Mabel professed, hardly even thinking at all about what she was saying. Something that would more than likely come back to bite her before it was all said and done.

“Wait, you are?” Steven questioned, more confused than ever now.

“Yes, I am, Steven!” Mabel replied sharply, her smile so huge now to the point that it almost hurt. “I’ve just been keeping it a secret until now!”

“Ooo, keeping things under wraps, I like it,” Gabe nodded, impressed as he sent her a rather coy look. “Still, you wouldn’t mind sharing a few details with me… would you?”

Mabel couldn’t repress an absolutely lovestruck blush at this, one that she forced away with a small, thoughtless wave of her hand. After all, if a puppet show was what it took to land her that long-awaited summer romance, then she was more than willing to put forth the effort. “There are so many details…” she replied, albeit quite nervously. Still, she was prepared to fabricate whatever she had to for now, in the hopes that it could become a reality that was sure to win her new crush’s heart some way or another. And as far as she was concerned, there was nothing in the world that could stop her from doing just that.

While Mabel and Steven continued chatting the puppeteer up, Dipper and Connie unanimously decided to get started on the laptop without them, though making any real progress took a good deal longer since it was just the two of them working on it. So far, none of the words that Dipper inputted as Connie read them aloud showed any signs of even come close to being correct, but even so they kept going, knowing that they had literally millions of unused possibilities to sift through and so little time in which to do it.

“Ok, so the next word, ironically enough, is ‘password’,” Connie reported, going through the seemingly endless list.

“Seriously?” Dipper asked incredulously before shrugging in defeat. “Eh, it’s worth a try, I guess, considering nothing else has worked yet.” Of course, the moment he typed the literal password in, the laptop beeped in rejection over it once more, just as it had with every other word they had tried thus far. “Called it.”

“Well, Steven might be a little disappointed then…” Connie remarked with a small, bemused grin.

“Disappointed with what?” the young Gem asked as him and Mabel returned to the table as if on cue.

“The password, ironically enough, wasn’t ‘password’.”

“Aw, man!” Steven frowned. “And I thought that was a really good guess too!”

“So, how’d it go with puppet guy?” Dipper asked the pair dully, not really paying too much attention to anything other than the laptop as he continued trying other passwords.

“Dipper…” Mabel began, biting her lip anxiously as she prepared to lay all her cards out on the table at once. “How hard do you think it would be to write and compose a sock puppet rock opera with lights, original music, and live pyrotechnics by Friday?”

Dipper aptly froze upon hearing all this, the laptop buzzing with yet another failed password guess as he looked to his sister in startled disbelief. “What? Mabel, are you serious?!”

“Yeah, she kinda is…” Steven admitted, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “It’s a long story…”

“I don’t know what happened!” Mabel groaned, pressing back into her seat as she covered her eyes with her sweater sleeve. “I got lost in his eyes and his ponytail and I’m gonna be so embarrassed on Friday if I don’t have anything to show for it, which is why I need both of you guys’ help!” she implored Dipper and Connie. “Steven’s already on board, right, Steven?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” Steven shrugged, though this was really the first he had heard on the matter of him volunteering for this endeavor. “I mean, puppet shows are already a lot of fun to watch, so I’m sure putting one together will be even more fun, especially if we all work on it together!”

“Well… I suppose making a few sock puppets shouldn’t be too hard, right?” Connie asked effectually signing herself onto the project as well.

“A few?” Mabel asked, shaking her head. “Oh, no, no, no! This can’t be just some plain old sideshow puppet show. This is gonna be epic, with huge, elaborate sets and a whole menagerie of puppets acting every single, heartfelt, suspenseful scene out! If I really wanna impress Gabe with this, then we can’t spare any expense, and that includes time.”

“But what about cracking this password?” Dipper interjected, knowing that it was by far a much higher priority than trying to appease his sister’s latest crush. “We have to figure this thing out, especially if it could end up helping us save Lapis!”

“I know, that’s really important to you, Dipper,” Mabel agreed earnestly. “A-and it’s important to me too! But if you help me with this for just a couple of days, then I promise we’ll all pitch in with the password! Please! Pretty please! It’s for love, Dipper!”

Dipper took pause for a moment at this, initially ready to adamantly say no seeing as how this entire puppet show fiasco was likely going to all be for naught anyway. Still, as he looked to the pleading, almost desperate expression on his sister’s face, echoed, albeit less so in Steven and Connie’s expressions, he found that there was really no way he could say no. Even if he largely wanted to. “All right, fine-”

“YES!” Mabel cheered before he even had a chance to finish, pulling him into a tight hug that she soon extended to Steven and Connie as well. “Thank you guys so much! Everyone hear that!” she shouted to the rest of the library. “These three! They’re all the best!”

“The best?” Steven gasped with a delighted smile. “Aw, thanks so much Mabel! You’re the best too!”

“No, you’re the best!” Mabel countered just as cheerfully.

“No, you are!”

“No, you!”

“Ok, guys, shh!” Connie cut in, quite embarrassed over how everyone nearby was staring at their loud, happy display. “We’re still in a library, remember?”

“Not for long!” Mabel hopped out of her seat as she prepared to take her leave. “We gotta go get some socks, and a ton of them!”

“Oh! I think Amethyst has a bunch of old socks in her room that she’d let us borrow!” Steven suggested. “She always keeps stuff like that around, though I’m not really sure why… Still, we should go ask her for some.”

“Then let’s get going,” Dipper said, letting out a small sigh of disappointment as he closed the laptop and headed out after the others. “After all, the sooner we get this whole puppet show over with, the sooner we can all focus our attention on the laptop full time. We’re close to discovering something big here, I can feel it…”

And so the group left the library with two missions in mind now as opposed to just one. And yet, as caught up in both thoughts of password decoding and sock puppeteering as they all were, none of them caught sight of the ominous, triangular shadow that slowly and silently drifted along the wall right behind them, a shadow that had intentions all its own…

Needless to say that, amidst relaxing in the living room, none of the Gems were expecting to see the kids suddenly burst into the temple, Steven and Mabel quite frantically as they rushed in with Dipper and Connie trailing after them much more calmly.

“Hi, guys! Can’t talk! Gotta get craft supplies!” Steven called to his startled guardians as he hurried up to the loft to do just that.

“Amethyst!” Mabel rushed over the purple Gem without hesitation. “Do you have a whole bunch of socks I can borrow? And by borrow, I mean have since I’m gonna glue hair and googly eyes onto them?”

Amethyst only paused for a moment, briefly taken aback by the strangeness of this question before she simply shrugged nonchalantly. “Sure. How many you need?”

“As many as you got!”

“On it,” Amethyst simply complied, hopping off the couch and making her way towards the temple gate.

“You’re not even going to ask what she needs so many socks for?” Pearl asked, raising an eyebrow at this.

“Meh, whatever,” the purple Gem shrugged once more. “I just like to roll with stuff like this, P. Besides, it’s not like I’m ever gonna wear any of them anyway.”

“Well,” Pearl remarked as Amethyst entered the temple. “If she’s not going to ask, then I will. Mabel, what in the world could you possibly need so many socks for? In case you don’t know, Amethyst has hundreds of them in that disaster of a room of hers. And the last time I checked, you only have two feet.”

“Oh, the socks aren’t for my feet, Pearl!” Mabel replied with a small chuckle. “They’re for this huge sock puppet show I plan on producing so I can impress this guy I just met like an hour ago! His name is Gabe and he’s a total hunk who’s totally into puppets, so I figured I might as well give him what he likes, you know?”

“You might want to consider another option,” Garnet spoke up rationally.

“Oh… uh, why? Do you see a future where this turns out… I dunno, badly?” Mabel asked rather hesitantly.

“No, actually,” the Gem leader said, her frown deepening as she realized she actually couldn’t see too many possibilities for this scenario at all. And the few that she could see were all muddled and blurry, a phenomenon that she certainly wasn’t used to and found very odd. Still, she decided to keep this bizarre anomaly to herself, at least for now. “But I do know that trying to win someone’s affections by trying to impress them isn’t always the wisest idea, especially if you want to form a genuine connection with them.”

“Oh, but I already did form a connection with him back at the library when we talked about puppets and I stared at his beautiful ponytail!” Mabel nodded vigorously. “I’m just trying to make that connection with him a little… deeper… if ya know what I mean…”

“And you intend to do that with… socks?” Pearl asked, still quite confused. “I’m not sure if I understand how that’s going to work…”

“Don’t worry, Pearl, you’re not the only one,” Dipper interjected rather dryly, rolling his eyes as Mabel playfully stuck her tongue out at him in retaliation.

“You guys should definitely come see the show on Friday!” Steven exclaimed as he hurried back downstairs with a large box of various art supplies, from glue to glitter and everything in between. “It’s gonna be great! Especially since all four of us are gonna be working on making it happen!”

“Then we’ll be there,” Garnet confirmed with a small smile that was quick to fade. “But just remember, Mabel: going all in for someone you barely know isn’t as important as going all in for someone you do.”

“Uh… ok, thanks?” Mabel frowned, somewhat bewildered by this cryptic advice. Still, she didn’t have much time to ponder over it before Amethyst emerged from the temple, toting a pile of socks that was larger than she was, with several of them falling out of her grip the moment she attempted to pull the load through the temple door. “Oh my gosh, yes! Those are perfect! Steven, help me pick out the best, most puppetey ones!”

“Ok!” the young Gem chuckled, already having fun with this project as him, Mabel, and Amethyst essentially leapt into the massive sock pile, spreading them out even more.

“Oh, for crying out loud, you three!” Pearl huffed in disapproval. “You’re making a mess!”

“I really hope we don’t have to make puppets out of all of those socks…” Connie remarked, her eyes wide with amazement over just how many of them there were. At the same time, however, Dipper turned his attention away from the socks and back towards his overall goal, which was of course, the laptop tucked under his arm.

“Uh, so…” he addressed Garnet and Pearl somewhat hesitantly, knowing how talking to them about things like this usually went. Still, the Gem leader had been there when they had first found the laptop, so he hoped that would make this a little less difficult than something like the journal had been. “Garnet, you remember the laptop we found in the author’s bunker, right?” Garnet simply nodded in response to this, not offering much more of an answer as she silently prompted Dipper to continue. “Well, I’ve been trying to see what’s on it, but all of its information is blocked off with a password. And while you guys apparently didn’t know the author per se… he did know a lot about Gem stuff, so… I was wondering if maybe you guys might have an idea about what it could be?”

“A password?” Pearl asked, curiously looking over the laptop as Dipper opened it up for her to see. “Well, given the author’s apparent comradery with Rose,” the white Gem let out a rather harsh scoff at this before continuing. “I would suggest it possibly being ‘Rose Quartz’, but that has ten letters, not eight.”

“Yo, what if he made the password my name?” Amethyst called, poking her head out of the sock pile. “Ya know, cause I’m so awesome and everything.” Seeing this as a viable possibility given it appropriate number of letters, Dipper input the purple Gem’s name, only for the laptop to reject it, just like everything else. “Aw, boo!” Amethyst jeered upon hearing the machine’s denying beep. “Author guy totally missed out on a great opportunity there.”

“Do you have any guesses, Garnet?” Dipper asked, hoping that the Gem leader’s clairvoyance might provide some much-needed assistance in the matter.

“Hm…” Garnet mused thoughtfully for a moment before shaking her head, her future vision still rather foggy as she tried to find the password with it. “Sorry, but no. Still, that doesn’t mean you should stop looking for it, Dipper. Especially if whatever’s on that laptop can finally provide all of us with some answers.”

“Yes, like who that mysterious author is,” Pearl nodded in firm agreement.

“Or how he was so tight with Rose and not with us,” Amethyst added.

“Huh, you guys are being… surprisingly supportive of this whole laptop thing,” Dipper noted, somewhat taken aback considering how harshly they usually received anything having to do with the author or the journal.

“Well, of course, why wouldn’t we be?” Pearl asked intrinsically. “This whole journal mystery has been baffling us for weeks now! And with the threat from Homeworld is, er… neutralized for the moment, I’d say there’s no better time to solve that mystery than now!”

“Pearl’s right,” Garnet affirmed, rising to stand. “And Dipper,” she continued as she placed a steady hand on his shoulder. “You’re the closest to solving that mystery out of all of us, so keep at it. But like I told you about the journal, be careful; as you saw in the bunker, looking for these kinds of answers can lead to some dangerous places. And those are the kinds of places that you should never let yourself go into alone.”

“Don’t worry, you guys,” Dipper assured all three of the Gems confidently. “Once we unlock this laptop, the truth behind all that stuff will be as good as revealed. Besides, all we really have to do is figure out this password, which should be easy-”

“Yeah! Just as easy as turning all these groady old socks into puppet superstars!” Mabel interrupted as her and Steven hurried for the door, both of them carrying huge armfuls of socks each. “Now come on!” she called to Dipper and Connie, who could both only shrug in acceptance as they followed after them. “We’re burning good puppet-show-preparation daylight!”

As it turned out, the next several days were spent making very good use of puppet-show-preparation daylight as Mabel began building up her puppet show up from a mere concept into a full-fledged script. The moment she finished laying the treatment for her show out, she had gotten to work on the bulk of the project which, by far, was puppet and set production. Mabel had already recruited Dipper, Steven, and Connie to help her in this regard, true, and while they were sufficient enough at stitching tiny clothes onto the socks and drenching them in copious amounts of glitter, she also managed to rope Soos and Wendy into helping out as well. Their base of operations varied between the shack and the temple, and today it was the former as everyone gathered together in the den, socks and art supplies strewn about everywhere as work steadily continued on the quickly approaching puppet show.

“Alright, everyone!” Mabel chimed, gathering the group’s attention as she played a few loud, random notes on the keyboard Soos was letting her borrow for the show. “This is gonna be called Glove Story: A Sock Opera! Steven came up with the Glove Story part, while yours truly thought up the Sock Opera half.”

“Get it?” Steven whispered to Connie with a wide grin. “Glove story? Cause sock puppets are kinda like gloves? It’s a pun!”

“Heh, yeah, I got it, Steven,” Connie chuckled in amusement as she finished off another puppet.

“Just to warn you all, people’s eyes will get wet,” Mabel warned dramatically. “Cause they’ll be crying. From laughter! At how tragic it is!”

“Ugh,” Dipper groaned in annoyance as he struggled to pull a glue-covered puppet off his face. “Yeah, uh, that… that sounds great…” he remarked, quite unenthused, especially as he inadvertently coughed up a few pom poms. Really, if there was one word that could sum up how he felt about Mabel’s puppet show agenda, it was aggravation, aggravation that he had no qualms about showing every chance he got. Though really, his ongoing surliness could easily be attributed to his ever-growing exhaustion. With so much of the past few days devoted to helping prepare for the show, Dipper found that the only time he really had to dedicate to unlocking the laptop was at night, namely when everyone else had long since gone to sleep. Pulling all-nighters really wasn’t anything new for him; after all, over the course of the summer alone he had already had several sleepless nights with the journal serving as his only companion. But never before had he gone without sleep so consistently, as he was going on four nights now without getting any real form of rest as he tried and continually failed to decrypt the laptop’s password. Still, despite the fact that he was wearing himself out with this endeavor, he knew he couldn’t stop now, not when he was so close to finally obtaining not only the answers he had been seeking for so long now, but when he was on the verge of possibly finding a way to helping Lapis. And really, that alone was reason enough to motivate him to keep pushing forward. Even if it was tiring beyond all reason.

“Come on, Dipper,” Wendy encouraged with a broad smirk. “You gotta roll with Mabel’s craziness. It’s what makes life worth living.”

As if to prove that very point, Mabel had already cheerfully launched into a rendition of one of the many songs she had written for her show, a puppet on one hand as she followed along on the keyboard with the other. “Puppet boy, puppet boy, you’re the boy I-”

“Loooove!” everyone else chimed in, seeing as how they all knew the lyrics to every song in the play front and back thanks to Mabel. Of course, in the midst of this brief rehearsal, Stan happened to pass by the den, though he stopped short upon seeing the noisy, haphazard mess of both puppets and people before him.

“Not even gonna ask,” he remarked dry before tersely moving on, leaving the kids to their puppet pandemonium.

After what seemed like countless hours of hard, colorful work, the big day was almost there. The script was written, the sets built, the theatre booked, and the puppets made. Now all that was left was the long-awaited, much-anticipated “sock opera” itself. And seeing as how her possible future romance hinged on the show’s success, Mabel simply couldn’t wait to see all of her arduous efforts finally come together in an epic display that would certainly impress Gabe, if not then some.

“Good night, my babies,” Mabel grinned blithely as she organized her rather extensive puppet collection around her bed as she settled in for the night. She took a moment to grab the puppets she had made of herself and Gabe, her grin widening as she pulled the two of them together in a kiss as she sighed contentedly. “Soon, Gabe Benson… Anyway, you still there, Steven?” she asked, reclaiming her phone as she continued her last-minute collaboration with the young Gem.

“Yeah, and uh, I’ve been looking over the script again…” Steven replied on the other line, his tone quite bewildered. “I’m just a little confused about this part with the killer whale and the fireworks... Are they supposed to be coming out of the whale’s blowhole instead of water, or did I just misread that part?”

“Come on, Steven, I need to stay with me here,” Mabel urged. “The fireworks are the water. Only sparkly and fiery instead of wet and watery! That way everybody can be totally amazed by-”

Mabel was abruptly cut off by a familiar blaring beep, followed by a loud, frustrated groan from Dipper as he glared down at the laptop in front of him. His bed as a mess of notes and papers covered with all of the passwords he had tried thus far, all of which had wielded no results whatsoever. “Ugh! That one was wrong too, Connie!” he exclaimed disparagingly as he conversed with her on the phone. “Just like all the rest of them, what else is new?”

“But we’ve already tried hundreds of words and letter combinations,” Connie mused much more calmly. “Maybe there’s something we’re still not seeing here…”

“Yeah, and I know what that something is: the password,” Dipper remarked dryly.

“Well… we can always work on it some more tomorrow after the puppet show,” Connie said reassuringly. “By then, we’ll have Mabel and Steven back to help us, so maybe that’ll make things easier.”

“Sure, it will…” Dipper deadpanned, glancing over to Mabel as she used one of her puppets to bid Steven farewell. “But in the meantime, I think I better keep working on figuring this password out myself.”

“Don’t stay up all night, Dipper!” Mabel cautioned brightly as him and Connie exchanged goodbyes and ended their call. “Last time you got this sleep-deprived, you tried to eat your own shirt.”

Upon realizing that he was absent-mindedly doing just that, Dipper promptly spat his shirt out, letting out another disgruntled sigh as he looked to the laptop and its empty password screen once more. “Ugh, just a few more tries…”

“Come on, bro-bro,” Mabel rolled her eyes as she sunk down into her covers. “You and I both know that ‘a few more tries’ is gonna turn into a lot more tries.”

“Yeah, well maybe one of those tries will actually be the one,” Dipper muttered dourly as he collected the laptop and a few other supplies together. As already aggravated as he was, he didn’t really spare his still quite cheerful sister another word as he took his leave to head up onto the roof, knowing that he had likely another long sleepless night ahead of him.

It was only as Dipper stepped out into the crisp night air on the roof that he realized the last time he had been up there had just a little over a week ago. Despite everything that had happened since then, that really wasn’t a remarkable amount of time, but what was notable was the fact that the last time he had taken up a perch here on the roof he had done so alongside Lapis. In fact, as he quietly took a seat, he couldn’t help but remember that somber, but hopeful conversation they had on the eve of the disaster that had torn them apart. “You know, if there’s one good thing to come out of any of this…” she had begun, her voice soft and bittersweet as she looked to him, uncertain. “It’s that I got to spend more time with you. I think that’s what I’m going to miss most if… if, well, something happens…”

“Don’t worry,” he had naively assured her, completely blind to what could of and what had indeed happened. “Once all of this blows over—and I know it will—then we’ll have even more time to hang out together. But since we won’t have to about Homeworld invasions or anything like that, then it’ll be even better.”

She offered him a weak smile at this, one that hadn’t reached her eyes, almost as if she had somehow known about what was soon to befall her. “Yeah… even better…”

Except no, things hadn’t gotten even better. They had gotten worse, a fact that Dipper knew all too well. Still, they wouldn’t stay that way for long if he had anything to do about it. Certainly, the laptop would be able to provide him with some inkling about what to do to help the blue Gem. Even if that inkling was just a very small, minute one, it would definitely be better than the nothing he currently had to go on. After all, Lapis had been willing to take a chance for him, a chance that had cost her so very much in the end; which was why Dipper was more than ready to take whatever chance he had to to pay her back in full for such a heavy sacrifice. The only thing he had to do was figure out that elusive password, which, as much as he hated to admit it, was starting to become quite a frustratingly difficult task. With no way of gaging how close he was to finding the right password, he only had his own guesswork to rely on, which was getting him nowhere fast. His steadily growing fatigue certainly wasn’t helping things; if anything, it was only adding onto his increasing aggravation over his own inability to solve this mystery, something that rose once again as he tried another failed password attempt.

“Oh, come on!” Dipper shouted at the laptop, glaring fiercely at it as it emitted its jarring rejecting buzz or what seemed like the thousandth time now. And given all of his previous password guesses, it could have very well been. “Give me a break already! I can’t take that sound anymore! I—hate—you—sound!” he growled, punctuating his anger by carelessly beating against the keyboard, not even caring as said sound blared out as if in defiance each time he did.

Given his palpable frustration, Dipper decided to give himself just a brief mental break, knowing that there was absolutely no time at all for a physical one. In something of an attempt to restore his taxed resolve, he found himself pulling out one of the several photos him and Lapis had taken during their painfully brief time together out of his jacket. A small, sad sigh escaped him as he took in their shared, bright, cheerful expressions, captured in a moment of peace and levity that they had both taken for granted as it had happened. As much as Dipper hoped that the laptop could finally provide some much-needed answers about the journal, the author, and Gravity Falls itself, he would be perfectly content to wait on those answers if it got him just a little closer to freeing the blue Gem instead. Which was exactly why he was being so adamant and persistent with this self-imposed mission, to the point that he was denying himself necessities as important as even sleep. He wouldn’t rest, he couldn’t rest until he saved her, just as she had saved him. “Don’t worry, Lapis…” Dipper muttered to the photo, sighing solemnly once more as he put it away. “I’ll figure something out…” He paused, letting out a long, tired yawn as he looked to the laptop and its almost goading password screen again rather bitterly. “Maybe Connie was right…” he noted to himself thoughtfully. “What if I am just missing something? There has to be some kind of shortcut or clue… Who would know about secret codes…?”

Almost as soon as he had voiced this question, Dipper instantly noticed an abrupt breeze start to pick up, one that quickly turned into a full on, admittedly ominous gale as it whipped through the trees. Somewhat unsettled by this, he pulled his jacket tighter around his shoulders as he securely grabbed the laptop and braced himself against the sudden chill, only to realize that the light of the full moon in the skies ahead of him was starting to change as well. Slowly, a long, slitted line began to draw itself over the moon, splitting it cleanly in half as a series of initially transparent, glowing blocks began to gravitate towards it out of seemingly nowhere. Dipper gasped, alarmed by this bewildering phenomenon as he leapt to his feet, taking a nervous step back as he stared towards the moon with wide eyes, only for it to stare right back at him. The bright blocks continued stacking against the moon, forming a distinct triangular shape as the winds picked up to near hurricane levels. And then, as they finally all joined together in a bright, practically blinding flash of light, the world bled of color instantly, turning into a full, frozen greyscale scape as cause of all this strangeness finally made his appearance:

Bill Cipher.

“I THINK I KNOW A GUY!” he proclaimed boldly, his distinctively pitchy voice echoing harshly throughout the colorless woods. In light of this completely unexpected, unprecedented encounter, Dipper was effectively stunned into frozen silence as he stood in the dream demon’s massive triangular shadow. Still, Bill hardly seemed to notice or care as he drew in closer, his manner just as casual as ever as he circled the dumbfounded human before him. “Well, well, well. I gotta admit, you’re awfully persistent, Pine Tree. Hats off to you!” At this, Bill took his top hat off and tipped it, the entire world seeming to abruptly tilt along with it.

Dipper let out a startled gasp as he struggled to maintain his footing on the roof as it slipped sideways, though fortunately it leveled itself once more moments later. As it did, he was quick to regain his composure for the sake of putting on an air of brazen defiance to the crafty dream demon, remembering well how much trouble he had caused during his last appearance. “You again!” he exclaimed crossly, holding the laptop a bit tighter as Bill calmly glided past him. “What do you think you’re doing here?!”

“Oh, just checking in,” Bill shrugged coyly. “Did ya miss me? Admit it, you missed me.”

“Hardly,” Dipper scoffed, rolling his eyes. “You worked with Gideon! You tried to destroy my uncle’s mind! Oh, and not to mention that you constantly terrorized all of us while we were trying to save him, what with you stealing Steven’s gem and shooting a whole straight through my chest. Need I go on?”

“Geez, it was just a job, kid!” the dream demon countered defensively. “No hard feelings! Besides, since then, I’ve been keeping an EYE on you!” At this, Bill instantly shot up to a massive size, his voice ominously deepening and his eye turning pitch black as he peered at Dipper piercingly. “And even if you are a bit rough around the edges, I must say I’m impressed!”

“Y-you are?” Dipper asked, unsure of what to make of that. After all, he really didn’t see anything particularly good about garnishing the interest of a being like Bill Cipher, especially given the countless warnings the journal gave against him.

“Sure am!” Bill agreed brightly. “In fact, you deserve a prize! Here, have a head that’s always screaming!” With a mere snap of the dream demon’s fingers, a disembodied head appeared, one that, sure enough, was crying out in shrill, endless agony as it fell onto the roof. Dipper gasped in fearful disgust as he flinched away from it, only for the head to begin to peel itself away layer by layer, from skin, to muscle, to bone, before it disappeared entirely as Bill simply laughed in sadistic amusement all the while.

“Augh! What’s wrong with you?!” Dipper exclaimed at this, appalled by such a twisted, demented display.

“Ain’t that the question of the millennia!” Bill chuckled carelessly as he floated down to take a seat on the edge of the roof. “But the point is, I like you, kid! And I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve been having a hard time with that crusty old laptop there, so how’s about you let me give you a hint, huh? I only ask for a small FAVOR in return.” As the dream demon said this, both his hand and his eye lit up with an unnatural strain of blue fire, his manner still incredibly casual, even despite the immediately harsh rejection his offer received.

“Are you kidding me? I’d never do a favor for you!” Dipper exclaimed adamantly, unable to believe that the dream demon would even have the gall to propose something so outlandish. “Don’t forget who defeated you last time!”

“Right, you ‘defeated’ me,” Bill rolled his eye as he disappeared into the roof, only to come rising up out of it behind Dipper just a second later. “Still, seems to me like you’re passing up a great deal like this pretty quickly, Pine Tree. Kinda ironic when you think about how Water Wings didn’t hesitate to take up Stripes’ deal to save you…”

Dipper was completely caught off guard by this, especially as his picture of him and Lapis came flying out of his pocket to hover over the dream demon’s hand. “Hey! Give that back!” he protested, reaching for the photo only for Bill to teasingly pull it out of his reach.

“Whoa, hold your awkward, pre-pubescent horses for a sec, kid, and think about this,” the demon contested coolly. “Do you really think you’re getting anywhere by making all those shots in the dark about that password? You think you’re not just wasting your time out here while Water Wings has a non-stop, all-out brawl with Stripes at the bottom of that lake just so she can keep you ‘safe’?”

“S-stop,” Dipper muttered, his hands clenched tightly at his sides as he tried to block out what Bill was saying, even if he knew it was all true. But of course, the dream demon simply ignored him and kept going with his sly, almost cruel form of manipulation.

“Wouldn’t it just be so much easier to get just a little help, to get just a tiny bit closer?” Bill kept the photo positioned right above Dipper as he talked, deceptively close but still so far out of his reach, much like the blue Gem herself was at the moment. “Wouldn’t that make whatever small thing I want from you worth it just to bail her out?”

“Stop,” Dipper said a bit firmer this time, sending the dream demon a fierce warning glare as he tried to remind himself that he wasn’t going to take this deal, he wasn’t going to give Bill what he wanted, whatever that was. Still, that didn’t mean his appeal wasn’t starting to become the least bit tantalizing.

“After all,” Bill continued callously, clearly taking pleasure in how uncomfortable his truthful words were making Dipper. “Water Wings sure thought it was worth it to bail you out, didn’t she?”

“Stop!” Dipper finally shouted, unable to take any more of this, lest he actually give in under the pressure. A beat of heavy silence passed as he stared the dream demon down, his heated anger cooling just a bit, even if it was still very much on the surface as he offered a firm, but surprisingly tranquil response. “I don’t need your help.”

“Oh, suuuuure you don’t!” Bill deadpanned, rolling his eye once more. “After all, you already have Shooting Star and Rosebud to help you out with this, so why would you need me? Oh, but wait! They’re busy with that little puppet show of theirs, aren’t they? Oh, well, you can always ask those Crystal Chumps for help, right? I’m sure Fuse Box, Half-Baked, and Bird Brain know all there is to know about that laptop, almost is if they didn’t mysteriously lose all their memories on that journal of yours!”

Dipper stilled at this, hating the fact that, once again, the dream demon was right on the mark with such claims. With Steven, Mabel, and even Connie still distracted by the play and the Gems as clueless about who the author could be as they were, he was really the only one who could put the time and effort into this mystery that it truly deserved. And, so far, trying to tackle it completely on his own had gotten him absolutely nowhere at all. Still, to accept help from Bill, of all sources, would definitely be asking for trouble, trouble that, after all of the disasters of the recent invasion and its brutal aftermath, Dipper certainly didn’t need right now. “I said,” he began again, squaring his shoulders as he glared at the demon unrelentingly. “I don’t need your help!”

“Eh, well, then have it your way,” Bill shrugged, seemingly unconcerned by this refusal. “But if you ever change your mind, I’ll be here for you, ready to make a deal!” To punctuate his point, a slot machine appeared on his flat surface, all three wheels stopping right on the pine tree symbol. “You know, now that I’ve brought it up, maybe I’ll go pay your pal Water Wings a visit down at the bottom of the lake and let her know all about how her precious little Pine Tree doesn’t care enough about her to lend her a hand! I bet that would a lot of fun!”

“W-wha—no!” Dipper exclaimed, his calm manner all but gone at the idea of the dream demon tormenting the blue Gem. As if she wasn’t being tormented enough by being fused with Jasper alone. “Leave Lapis alone!”

“Boy, you sure are easy to rile up, Pine Tree.” Bill laughed twistedly, finally letting the picture fall back into Dipper’s hands. “It’s hilarious, almost as funny as you thinking you can guess that password on your own! Oh, speaking of hilarious, wanna hear my impression of you in about three seconds?” At this, the demon let out a loud, fearful scream, one that Dipper ended up inadvertently echoing only seconds later as he found himself abruptly pulled back into reality. Bill was fortunately, finally gone and color had returned to the world as the skies filled in with the breaking of dawn, a calming sight after the still, lifeless void he had just been in.

Still, Dipper was hardly relieved by any of this as he let out a tight, somewhat shaken breath, unable to deny that he was deeply unsettled by his bizarre, unnerving encounter with the dream demon. While he was still completely resolved to accomplish his goal without accepting any sort of help from him, Dipper still couldn’t help but wonder what Bill could possibly have to gain by offering to assist him with the laptop? What was the demon really after? Why had he decided to make a sudden reappearance now, of all times? And while Dipper didn’t really even want to entertain the thought, what would Bill have even asked of him if he had for some inane reason agreed to collaborate with him?

All the same, he was quick to shake such inconceivable thoughts from his mind as he steadily regained his composure. As he had told Bill himself, he didn’t need his help. Theoretically, he didn’t need anyone’s help, though he still hoped that Mabel, Steven, and Connie would be provide him with a much less dangerous, more reliable kind than whatever kind of assistance the demon had planned on offering. Still, Dipper was certain that he could do this; he could crack the laptop’s password, he could learn all of its likely many secrets, he could discover who and where the author was, and most of all he could save Lapis. And he could do it all without having to make some kind of unknown, ill-conceived deal with Bill Cipher.

Or at least he hoped he could.

“Hey! I’m puppet Stan!” Mabel quipped as she blithely waved the paper bag puppet she had made of her uncle in his face at the breakfast table. Needless to say that her excitement was running as high as her energy was in anticipation of her sock opera that afternoon, which she was confident would be more than enough to make Gabe fall head over heels for her, just as she had already fallen for him.

“Still ignoring this,” Stan remarked, deadpanned as ever as he took a sip of his coffee, not even paying the puppet any mind as Mabel continued playfully parading it about. No more than a second later, however, a succinct knock on the door sounded out, followed by Steven and Connie’s entrance right after.

“Today’s the big day!” Steven exclaimed cheerfully as he bounded into the kitchen to greet Mabel. “Who’s ready to put on the best puppet show ever?!”

“I am!” Mabel proclaimed, hopping to her feet and bringing several puppets along with her. “But of course, I can’t do it without you guys, which is why I’m super glad you got here early! Thanks so much!”

Unable to contain her elation, she pulled them both into a sudden tight hug, one that Steven readily reciprocated, even if Connie was surprised but amused by it. “Heh, you’re welcome, Mabel,” she chuckled as the hug disbanded, though a look of concern filled her features a moment later. “So is Dipper up yet? Last night he sounded like he was starting to get really frustrated with this whole laptop thing.”

“Frustrated is kind of an understatement…” Dipper remarked dryly as he walked in, letting out a long, exhausted yawn as he did so.

“Yeesh, bag check for Dipper’s eyes!” Stan joked upon noticing how visibly tired his nephew was, letting out a sardonic laugh that no one else joined in on. “Oh come on, nobody?”

“Whoa, Dipper, you look so tired!” Steven exclaimed, both surprised and worried. “And by that I mean even more tired than you usually look, because you usually do look at least a little tired all the time, no offense.”

Of course, Dipper was largely too exhausted to really make much sense of what the young Gem had just said, which was why the most he could do was stare at him blankly for a beat. “…What?”

“Dipper, I told you to get some sleep last night!” Mabel scolded with a fretful frown. “Here, wake up with some Mabel juice!” she held up a pitcher of bright pink liquid with glitter and various small toys floating around in it. “It has plastic dinosaurs in it!”

“Is that stuff even… drinkable?” Connie asked, concerned by this presentation.

“Hardly,” Stan remarked, cringing. “It’s like if coffee and nightmares had a baby.”

“I… think I’ll pass,” Dipper shook his head, his manner suddenly turning serious as he briefly glanced between Stan and the others. “Uh, can I talk to you guys in the living room for a second?”

Steven, Mabel, and Connie all nodded in agreement to this, Stan hardly paying them any mind as they slipped away into the other room. As soon as he was sure they were out of the conman’s earshot, Dipper turned to face them, keeping his voice low as he really didn’t want too many others finding out about what had happened the previous night. “Guys, listen,” he began tersely and anxiously. “Last night I had a dream with Bill in it.”

“Bill?” Connie asked as Steven and Mabel let out a shared surprised gasp, both of them remembering well their first and last encounter with the dream demon. “Wait, isn’t he that triangle guy you guys told me about? The one you fought inside Mr. Pines’ mind?”

“Y-yeah…” Steven nodded somewhat fearfully. “He was really scary. When we were in there, he took my gem and then he made these really mean versions of the Gems appear and say that I wasn’t one of them! B-but still, I thought we beat him last time; what did he want in your dream, Dipper?”

“He said he’d give me the code to the laptop if I gave him something,” Dipper explained, scoffing as he crossed his arms. “Like I’d actually trust Bill, right?”

“Well, don’t worry, bro-bro!” Mabel assured, throwing an arm over his shoulder. “Today’s the day the Mystery Kids are back in action! We’ll all be free to help you crack that code just as soon as I hand off my puppet stuff to my production crew.”

“Production crew?” Dipper asked, almost too afraid to find out what his sister had in mind for this one. Though he was quick to find out just a few minutes later as Candy and Grenda eagerly showed up outside, both of them bright-eyed and covered in socks as Mabel and Steven both happily greeted them.

“We read the script,” Candy reported, adjusting her glasses. “Very emotional.”

“I cried like eight times!” Grenda exclaimed boisterously.

“Well, hopefully the audience will too once they see the emotional passion I’ve poured into this show!” Mabel grinned proudly.

“Oh! Maybe we should hand tissues out to people at the door!” Steven suggested. “That way they’ll all have something to try into!”

“Oh, good idea, Steven!” Mabel nodded in agreement. “See, this is why I named you my co-producer! Because you’re always think of everything!”

“Aw, well I don’t know about everything,” the young Gem blushed in slight embarrassment. “But I try.”

The conversation was soon cut off, however, as none other than Gabe himself pulled up to the group on his roller skates, both of his hands still covered with his puppets from the previous day as he offered a cool greeting. “Hey, ladies.”

“Gabe!” Mabel exclaimed with a delighted gasp as she ran over to him. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just blading by,” Gabe shrugged casually as he removed his helmet and shook his hair out. “Helps me dry out my ponytail after a shower.”

“Hubbity-hubbity,” Grenda remarked, eyes wide with amazement at the sight of the puppeteer. “What a hottie!”

“Maeibeur'i hante Gaeibeu'eul humchyeohagetda…” Candy muttered in envious Korean, making her affections towards Gabe quite clear as well.

“Ok, am I the only one who doesn’t get what the big deal about that guy is?” Connie whispered to Steven and Dipper, far from impressed.

“Believe me, you’re not,” Dipper remarked, crossing his arms as he rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“It’s so great to see you!” Mabel quipped to Gabe with a wide, charming grin. “I was just working on the world’s greatest puppet show! It has puppets!”

“Your passion is so refreshing, Mabel,” Gabe complimented. “Unlike the girl from last night’s puppet show. Single-stitch on one puppet, cross-stitch on the other? I was like ‘uh-uh’!”

“Cross… huh?” Mabel frowned, not having the faintest idea about what he was talking about.

“Naturally, I couldn’t afford to associate with such an obvious puppet novice, so I deleted her off my cell phone contacts list.”

“Oh! Uh, naturally!” Mabel laughed, trying to play her confusion off, even though her worry was starting to grow in light of this.

“But I know you won’t let me down, Mabel,” Gabe smiled smoothly. “Based on what you said the other day, you must be a puppet expert.”

Mabel froze at this, partially regretting the complete and utter lies she had fed him at the library, lies that had led to the formation of a puppet show that she now feared wouldn’t actually be enough to impress him. Which, considering how gorgeous and charming she found him to be, was quite an unbearable thought.

“You know, Gabe, you look pretty sweaty,” Grenda spoke up with an eager grin. “You should really take your shirt off. Right? Aren’t we all thinking that?”

A beat of awkward silence passed at this, though it wasn’t long before Gabe put his helmet back on and prepared to take his leave. “Later, ladies!” he called as he began to skate off. “See you tonight, Mabel.”

“Y-yeah!” Mabel shouted after him with a forced laugh. “S-see you… t-tonight!” The instant the puppeteer was out of earshot, she spun around to face her motley crew, her eyes wide in absolute panic as she realized just how severe the situation had gotten. “Augh! We gotta up our game, girls! Did you hear that thing he said about the stitches?!”

“Don’t worry, Mabel! Your crew can handle it!” Grenda assured, though she was quick to contradict herself by accidentally ripping the arms off of the puppet she was holding. “…Oops.”

“How many eyes does a face have again?” Candy asked as she held up a puppet she had glued countless googly eyes to.

“Ok,” Steven spoke up, having pulled his ukulele out as he strummed along with several of the complex melodies him and Mabel had written for the show. “So I think I just about have this song memori-” He cut himself off as one of his ukulele strings suddenly snapped at the exact wrong moment, leaving the instrument completely unusable for the time being. “Oh… Well, uh, I guess the ukulele accompaniment is out then, huh?”

Mabel’s jaw dropped in horrified shock over just how much suddenly seemed to be going wrong all at once. Yet still, things got even worse as the mountain of sets and supplies Soos and Wendy were trying to securely tie on top of Stan’s car suddenly fell loose, the bulk of it coming crashing down on top of the handyman, essentially burying him in a scattered mess of props and puppets.

“Ah!” Mabel gasped in apt alarm, realizing that her time to pull all of this together was running dangerously short. “Ok, I’m back on fabrication! Someone get me my lint roller, STAT!”

“Whoa, hold on!” Dipper interjected, grabbing her as she ran past him. “I thought you said you were going to help me!”

“Dipper! This sock crisis just bumped up to code argyle!” Mabel protested hotly. “The laptop can wait!”

“It can wait?” Dipper scoffed in disbelief at how she was simply putting him off yet again. “Mabel, do you seriously think that your random crush of the week is more important than uncovering the mysteries of this town? You’re obsessed!”

“I’m obsessed?” Mabel countered just as adamantly. “Look at you! You haven’t slept all week! You look like a vampire, and not the hot kind!”

“Guys, come on!” Steven finally cut in as he noticed the quickly building tension between the twins. “Don’t fight! Both the laptop and the puppet show are really important, so we should-”

“Uh, no, Steven,” Dipper cut him off, sending a cross glare Mabel’s way all the while. “The laptop is important, yeah, but this dumb puppet show thing isn’t. I don’t get why you’re going so crazy on this anyway, Mabel. I know how you are; you’ll be into this guy for a week, maybe two, and then you’ll get bored with him and move onto someone else. You’re putting all this time and energy into something that won’t even matter in the long run!”

“It does too matter!” Mabel protested, clearly offended by such a spiteful accusation. “It matters to me! Why can’t you understand that?! Oh yeah, I know why, it’s because you’ve been burying your head into that stupid old laptop all week! Don’t you think it’s time to give it a rest already? Just wait and see, your body’s gonna end up quitting on you if you don’t give it some sleep!”

“I don’t need sleep!” Dipper argued fiercely. “What I need is to figure out this password! And this laptop isn’t stupid! For all we know, it could end up helping us figure out a way to finally save Lapis! Which, in case you’ve forgotten, is way more important than any pointless puppet show is!”

“I-I haven’t forgotten that!” Mabel shook her head. “But that’s just it, Dipper, you don’t know if that laptop will even be able to help Lapis at all. You could be doing all this work for nothing and you wouldn’t even know until you’ve wasted so much time and energy on it that you have nothing left at all!”

“I’m not wasting time! You are, Mabel! Why can’t this puppet show thing just wait?!”

“W-well, why can’t your laptop thing just wait?!”

“Because I’m doing it to help Lapis! Which, like I said, is the most important thing right now!”

“No, it’s not!”

A sharp gasp escaped both of the twins the moment Mabel said this, though she was clearly more horrified by allowing it to slip by as she covered her mouth in immediate regret, knowing that she had crossed the line. For a moment, all Dipper could do was stare at his sister in appalled disbelief over what she had just implied, and even Steven and Connie looked to her in apt surprise for her immense tactlessness. Still, despite her already heavy remorse for what she had just inadvertently said, Mabel still made a meager, hesitant attempt to make things right. “D-Dipper… I… I didn’t mean-”

“No,” Dipper cut her off, both his expression and his tone ice cold. “You know what? Fine. I’ll do it on my own. It’s not like it’ll be any different from how it’s been anyway.”

“Oh, Dipper, wait!” Steven urged earnestly, still wanting for there to be peace between the twins, even if such a thing seemed largely impossible now. “You don’t have to do this by yourself!”

“Yeah,” Connie agreed with a small, reassuring smile. “We’ll all help you just as soon as-”

Dipper put up a hand to interrupt her, his shoulders rigid as he turned to leave. “Like I said, its fine. I can handle this by myself. You guys just keep working on the puppet show. I’m sure it’ll be just as over the top and gaudy as everything else you do is, Mabel.”

Mabel couldn’t even find it in her to be angry over such a callous remark as she instead watched Dipper head inside the shack in guilty silence. She understood well and good exactly why he was so insistent on unlocking the laptop, as well as what end he hoped it could possibly lead to, which was an end that she truly wanted to see herself. And yet in the moment, despite how bad she felt for what she had said, she knew that she couldn’t completely admit that he was right; after all, she had put far too much time and work into this show now to simply curtail everything right before its opening. Still, that didn’t mean that she didn’t want to at the very least try and make peace with her brother in light of the uncalled for slight she had made against both him and the blue Gem.

“Steven?” she hesitantly spoke up, gathering the concerned young Gem’s attention. “I, uh… c-could you maybe go talk to Dipper for me? You know, tell him I’m sorry for, um… well, for what just happened?”

“Sure, but… why can’t you go talk to him yourself?” Steven asked, rather confused.

“’Cause he’s probably in no mood to listen to me right now…” Mabel frowned, glancing down apprehensively. “But maybe he’ll hear you out instead! In fact, Steven, you have my full permission to utilize Stepper if that’s what you need to do to get him out of this salty mood of his.”

“Mabel, for some reason I feel like Steven forcing Dipper to fuse with him isn’t really going to solve this problem…” Connie remarked rather dubiously.

“Oh, sure, it will,” Mabel assured with a wave of her hand as she prepared herself to continue working on fixing the kinks in her show. “After all, it worked last time he got all obsessy like this, so why wouldn’t it work again?”

“Uh, well… I-I’ll see what I can do,” Steven assured, largely agreeing to go in Mabel’s stead for the sake of making peace between her and Dipper more than anything else. “I’ll be back in a bit!”

“Ok, good luck,” Mabel waved him off absently, distracted by fixing a tattered puppet as Connie, Candy, and Grenda lent a hand in helping her reorganize her supplies. At the same time, Steven turned to follow after Dipper inside the shack, more than eager to help foster reconciliation, though completely unaware of the much more serious, daunting task that he’d actually spend the afternoon doing.

A rather bitter scowl rested on Dipper’s face as he continued typing away at the laptop up in the attic, unable to let go of what Mabel had said just a few minutes ago. The fact that she had even so much as dared to imply that her silly puppet show was more important than rescuing Lapis practically infuriated him, to the point that he hadn’t even been able to properly show his anger with her at the moment for such a remark. And even if she hadn’t fully meant it like that, her refusal to help him with the laptop alone was more than enough to show Dipper where he currently stood with Mabel on this, and it was certainly not on the same side.

“Passwords… passwords…” Dipper muttered to himself, still seething with annoyance with each new failed entry. “Mabel—is—useless…” He paused for a moment, only to let out a very long, very exhausted yawn as he tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. With each passing hour, he was finding that trying to stay awake and active was becoming more and more of a challenge, a challenge that he knew he couldn’t very well overcome forever. But all the same he had to stay awake, he had to keep at it with the laptop until its password was finally found and its secrets were finally uncovered. To remind himself of this resolve, he had decided to all of the photos he had of him and Lapis on hand, largely out of his lingering frustration over how Bill had used one of them to taunt him last night. The small stack of pictures currently rested right beside the laptop, and while Dipper had hoped that they would fill him with a renewed sense of motivation, the only thing they really did give him at the moment was doubt. He had been working for so long and so hard now at trying to crack that password, and all he had to show for it were heavy bags under his eyes and a severe irritation with his sister.

And really, there was still a pretty good chance that Mabel could be right, as much as he hated to entertain the thought; even if he did manage to unlock the laptop, there was always a chance that its information would be completely useless in helping Lapis out of her current dire plight. He could very well set himself on a fool’s errand, one that might end up meaning nothing at all when everything was said and done. And if that really did happen, what then? He’d be right back to square one, with no leads, no hints, no clues at all about how to rescue the blue Gem.

Perhaps trying to save her was a longshot in general. After all, she had locked herself inside of an intense, monstrous fusion born of nothing but the sheerest hatred and spite, with said fusion itself being literally chained to the lakebed beep below. And really, as much as Dipper wanted to save her, he was just one person, a kid at that, who painfully lacked the strength, resources, or even the information needed to even come close to dealing with something like this. The truth was that, when it came right down to it, he had no idea about what to do to fix this. And to Dipper, that fact as almost as bad as the reality of Lapis being trapped in the first place.

As caught up in his steadily increasing worry as he was, he hardly even noticed as his hands gradually slipped away from the laptop, his head leaning against the side of the window alcove as his eyes began to gradually drift shut. With his lack of sleep finally catching up to him, it took a mere matter of seconds for him to nod off, though his brief bout of sleep was anything but restful when he opened his eyes and found himself standing on the lake shore, of all places.

Needless to say that, upon seeing the shore surrounding him alight with green fire once again, Dipper was completely taken aback, though nothing could have prepared him for the sight of the familiar figure that stood only a few feet in front of him. “L-Lapis!” he exclaimed, awash in both relief and disbelief as he instantly rushed forward to her. He stopped dead in his tracks, however, as the blue Gem abruptly snapped a partial glance back at him, her expression cold and her gaze piercing as she spoke in a low, almost hollow tone.

“Dipper…” she began, her expression unchanging, even if her voice carried just the smallest hint of hurt betrayal in it. “Why…? Why haven’t you saved me yet?”

“I-I… I’m trying!” Dipper protested, flinching at her icy stare. “I really am, Lapis, you have to believe me! It’s just… taking longer than I thought it would…”

“The only reason I stayed here on this miserable planet was because of you,” Lapis’ shoulders seemed to tense as she said this, a certain harshness entering her tone. “And look at where that’s gotten me. I’m trapped here with… with her, and you won’t even do anything to help me!”

“N-no!” Dipper shook his head, not even noticing the tears starting to well up in his eyes at such a brutal accusation. “L-Lapis, you don’t understand! I’ve been doing everything I can and working really hard to help-”

“You’ve been working for nothing,” Lapis sighed sorrowfully as she finally looked away from him. “You can’t help me. No one can.” Without so much as sparing another glance back at him, the blue Gem began to step forward into the lake, only offering him one final, bitter, hopeless farewell as she steadily walked deeper into her watery prison. “Goodbye, Dipper...”

“Lapis, w-wait!” Dipper shouted in a sudden panic, desperate not to lose her again as he ran into the water after her. “Please! Don’t go!” By now, the blue Gem was already quite deep in the water, but Dipper didn’t care. He was going to get to her, he was going to help her, no matter what he had to do. “I can figure out some way to save you, I know I can, I just need more-”

He was sharply cut off as a huge, momentous slash rippled throughout the lake the moment Lapis fully submerged herself. Dipper was knocked back quite a bit by this, giving him no time to react to the imposing Gem who had risen up from the depths to take Lapis’ place.

“Well, well…” Jasper smirked haughtily, her eyes wild with a lust for vengeance as she towered over the small, frightened human before her. “If it isn’t Lazuli’s precious little pet human…” Needless to say that upon being face to face with the fearsome orange Gem once more, Dipper’s flight instinct instantly kicked in as he tried to scramble to his feet and flee. However, Jasper easily stopped him before he could get anyway, grabbing him by his vest and hoisting him up by the front of his shirt, her twisted grin deepening as she watched his futile attempts to struggle against her firm hold. “Trying to run away, hm? Just like she did…”

“L-let me go!” Dipper contested desperately, still thrashing about in the orange Gem’s grip as he was well aware of how incredibly violent she was, especially towards humans.

“Why should I?” Jasper scowled, glaring at him with nothing less than absolute ire. “After all, you’re the reason why she has us both trapped down here! Why every second of our existence together is nothing but a fight neither of us can ever win! And for what? Just so she could keep you safe? What a waste!”

The orange Gem scoffed as she finally let Dipper fall out of her grasp, though she was quick to restrain him before he could slip away by pinning him to the ground with a heavy foot pressed against his chest. “Do you really think you’ll ever be able to ‘save’ her? Because if you do, then that makes you the stupidest human I’ve ever met, and believe me, I’ve met plenty of your kind. You’ll never be able to split us up and free her, and do you know why?” In an act of mere cruelty alone, Jasper pressed her foot down harder, to the point that Dipper essentially had to struggle to even breathe, much less escape as the orange Gem continued, her tone dripping with clear hatred. “Because you’re just a weak, pathetic, little human. That’s all you’ve ever been and that’s all you’ll ever be. You’re not strong enough or smart enough to even come close. You-” Jasper cut herself off as she finally stepped away from him, walking backwards towards the water as a sinister grin spread across her features, the gemstone that was her nose illuminating her face ominously. “Are-” Her voice rose as she prepared to submerge herself, just like Lapis had, though not before finishing off her vicious string of insults. “Nothing!”

As Jasper plunged herself into the darkened depths, Dipper only had time to let out a terrified gasp as a much more massive, monstrous figure pulled herself out of the lake after her: Malachite. The fusion leered high over him, all four of her eyes glaring down at him relentlessly as she raised one of her huge fists up with the intent of crushing him right where he stood. And seeing as how Dipper was far too stunned, distraught, and most of all, guilty to even so much as think about moving, he simply braced himself for what would be an incredibly painful impact. An impact that amazingly never came as he was ripped out of one nightmare—

And dropped right into the middle of another.

“Wakey, wakey, Pine Tree! Time’s ticking away! Not that I care, seeing as how time’s just one big, elaborate hoax anyway!” the shrill, grating voice of none other than Bill Cipher himself was what ended up snapping Dipper awake from the rather horrific dream he had just had. It took him a moment to calm himself down from the rush of intense emotions he had received from it and regather his bearings, and once he did, the first two things he noticed was that the attic was now completely devoid of color altogether, and that the dream demon was casually hovering just a few feet away. “Yeesh, took you long enough to wake up from that little catnap of yours! Still, I gotta say, that little nightmare you just had cracked me up! Stripes may be just as boring as all those other space rocks out there, but the way she scared the daylights out of you split all three of my sides! Ha! What a riot!”

Upon hearing this continued callousness, all of Dipper’s frightened surprise at Bill’s second unexpected appearance was replaced with all of his former bitter aggregation, largely since the dream demon and his incessant prodding and goading was the last thing he needed at the moment. “Ugh, give it a rest already!” he exclaimed crossly, hating just how constantly calm and composed Bill always seemed to be, even in the face of outright rejection. “I already told you I don’t want your help! Why can’t you just take a hint and leave me alone?!”

“Because you won’t take a hint, kid,” Bill countered easily. “Though you might want to, seeing as how you’re on a bit of a tight schedule now.”

“What do you…” Dipper trailed off as he looked over to the laptop again, only to see something that made him gasp in apt alarm. The password screen had been replaced with a warning red message, one that read: “Too many failed entries. Initiate data erase in five minutes”, accompanied by a steadily ticking countdown, one that was getting smaller and smaller with each passing second. “W-what?! No!” Dipper exclaimed in newfound panic as he gripped the laptop tightly, reeling with what this potential erasure could mean. “I’m about to lose everything?! I only have one more try?!”

“Well, well, well…” Bill spoke up in smug satisfaction, floating to the other side of the room. “Someone’s suddenly looking a lot more desperate…”

“Stay out of this!” Dipper snapped, refocusing on the laptop as he tried to force his exhausted mind to come up with something, anything that could work in this moment of truth. And yet, despite the fact that this guess would be all or nothing, he only drew a complete and absolute blank as the countdown continued winding down, reminding him of just how quickly this one lone chance he had was slipping away from him.

“You know…” Bill interjected coyly upon noticing Dipper’s nervous hesitance to make that final guess. “I can help you, kid. You just need to hear out my demands!”

Dipper flinched at this, quickly looking between the laptop and the dream demon and disdainfully realizing that Bill had him exactly where he wanted him: distressed, clueless, and without any other options left to speak of. Of course, his first instinct was to harshly tell the demon off once more, to adamantly refuse to make any sort of deal or contract with him for the sake of solving this mystery on his own. And yet… that didn’t really seem like a luxury he could afford anymore, especially as the laptop steadily continued ticking down. Dipper was all too painfully aware that this laptop was the sole possible lead he had, not just to discovering the author’s identity, but to saving Lapis from her watery prison. Could he bear to let that only lead, that one small but still bright chance, be wiped away forever, all because he refused to swallow his pride and take a chance, no matter how risky and detrimental that chance might be?

“Ugh, what crazy thing do you want anyway?” Dipper finally asked, making sure to keep his guard up. After all, Bill was an absolute wild card, one that couldn’t possibly be genuinely trusted under any means. Still, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t at least offer some form of assistance, for the right price. “To eat my soul? To rip out my teeth? Are you gonna replace my eyes with baby heads or something?”

“Yeesh, kid, relax,” Bill remarked with a hint of amusement in his tone. “All I want is a puppet!”

“A puppet?” Dipper repeated with a confused frown at this surprisingly simple request. “What are you playing at?”

“Everyone loves puppets!” Bill exclaimed brightly before pointing over to the mass pile of sock puppets Mabel had accumulated over the past several days. “And it looks to me like you’ve got a surplus on your hands here! Just one of them isn’t too much to ask for, is it?”

Dipper raised an incredulous eyebrow, still not following the demon’s bizarre logic, or lack thereof. “But what are you going to do with a-”

“Dipper!” the conversation was abruptly interrupted by a sudden knock on the attic door, followed by Steven calling out along with it. “Are you in there?”

“S-Steven!” Dipper gasped in surprise at this unexpected near-intrusion. “Uh… Y-yeah, I’m in here! Give me just a second!”

“Oh, uh, ok,” Steven consented with a frown as he stood on the other side of the door. “It’s just that Mabel wanted me to come up here and check on you. She seemed kinda upset about what happened earlier…”

“Uh hu, y-yeah, sure,” Dipper replied absently, frantically looking to the laptop again as its timer only showed that he had about three minutes left before the dreaded data erase. “Like I said, I’ll be out in just a second!”

Still, as distracted as he was with both Steven and the laptop, Dipper failed to notice Bill himself seize up just the slightest bit over Steven’s unforeseen arrival, his eye widening first before twitching red with a years’ old fury. “Ugh! Darn Rosebud, always sticking his gem in places where it doesn’t belong! Just like his rockheaded mom used to do! Well, not this time, ‘Quartzy’…” The demon petulantly grumbled to himself for a moment, though he was quick to collect himself, calmly readjusting his bowtie as he rushed to regather Dipper’s split attention. “So, Pine Tree, before we were so rudely interrupted, where were we? Oh, that’s right! You were gonna hand over a puppet while I give you a clue about that laptop! So chop, chop, time’s a-wasting!”

“I-I don’t know, man…” Dipper hesitated, taking a brief anxious glance towards the door in the hopes that Steven couldn’t overhear any of this. “Mabel worked really hard on those puppets… I don’t know how she’d feel about me just giving any of them away…”

“How ‘she’d’ feel?” Bill reiterated with a callous scoff. “That’s what you care about right now, when you’re about to everything you’ve worked so hard for? Wow, kid, you really need to get your priorities straight. Seems to me like one little puppet is a small price to pay to learn all the secrets of the universe!”

“Dipper?” Steven knocked on the door once again, growing somewhat concerned by the wait. “I-is everything ok in there?’

“Yeah, Steven, everything’s fine!” Dipper called back, growing somewhat annoyed by the young Gem’s persistence. Still, he didn’t dare open the door, not with the laptop nearly out of time and the only one who could possibly salvage it giving him an ultimatum like this.

“Besides,” Bill continued, refusing to let the young Gem steal his thunder. “What’s your sister done for you lately? How many times have you sacrificed for her, huh?” The demon glided down to Dipper’s level, several retrospective images of such sacrifices flashed across his flat surface. “And when has she ever returned the favor…?”

As much as Dipper hated to come anywhere close to admitting it, Bill certainly did have a point with that line of reasoning. So many times, not just in this summer alone but throughout their entire lives, it always seemed like he was the one giving what he wanted up for Mabel’s sake, and never the other way around. For the longest time now, he had always just accepted that as how things were: Mabel always got what she wanted while Dipper rarely ever did. That was just how it worked. But now, with stakes higher than they had ever been before, he was starting to finally realize just how incredibly unfair that was. Why should her puppet show go off without a hitch while his laptop plan fell through completely? Why should she get to impress her frivolous crush while his hopes and aspirations were erased altogether? Why should she always get to win while he always had to lose?

Bill could tell that his crafty manipulation was working perfectly as Dipper stole a glance out the nearby window, his expression darkening as he spotted Mabel out in the yard, still blithely planning her puppet show without a care in the world. But even so, the dream demon decided to take his appeal just a step further, knowing that he had the windup, he just had to go for the pitch. “But you know who has sacrificed pretty much everything for you?” he began, hands held behind his back as his tone remained smooth and level but conniving all the same.

“Don’t-” Dipper muttered morosely, not wanting to hear this agonizing argument again, but even so Bill callously continued.

“Ding! That’s right! Water Wings!” he remarked effervescently, almost teasingly. “After only a week or so of hanging out with you, she was willing to trap herself at the bottom of a lake with a big ol’ brute like Stripes for the rest of eternity! It’s so sweet that I would gag if I actually had a stomach or a mouth! But the point is, she’s locked down there, having just a grand old time duking it out with Stripes and her spending every waking moment in an endless sea of misery and torment, and its all—your—fault!”

“I… I know…” Dipper sighed in defeat, unable to even think of any arguments to this because there were none. Lapis had pulled herself and Jasper into that lake for one reason and one reason alone: to protect him. He had been carrying the guilt from that on his shoulders from the moment she first disappeared into the depths, and ever since it had only grown heavier and heavier, to the point that it had finally become more than he could bear. In fact, as he glanced over to the stack of pictures of them once more, he was so weighed down by that guilt that he didn’t even hear Steven pound on the door for him once more.

“Dipper! I-is someone else in there with you?!” the young Gem exclaimed, his worry rapidly growing. “I thought I heard another voice talking in there!” And it was true, though Steven really couldn’t make out whose voice it was or what they were saying. It couldn’t have been Mabel or Connie, seeing as how they were still outside, and it didn’t sound like Stan, Soos, or Wendy. Rather, there was an ethereal but still rather familiar quality to it, one that set Steven on edge for reasons he really couldn’t explain but ones that brought fear to nearly every fiber of his being all the same.

“A single puppet in exchange for saving one of the only beings in the universe who really listens to you and understands you,” Bill remarked, ignoring the young Gem outside completely now, just as Dipper was. “Sounds like the fairest price you’re gonna get, Pine Tree. Unless you don’t want to ever see Water Wings again and wouldn’t mind if she slept with the fishes until the Earth inevitably burns up someday way after you’re dead and gone! Either way, kid” The dream demon paused, offering his hand out as it lit up with a burst of blue flame. “It’s all up to you.”

That was by far the most correct thing the demon had said thus far and Dipper knew it. It was all up to him. The laptop and its secrets, Lapis’ long-awaited freedom, both of those things rested entirely in his hands now. They both rested on a fine line of finally being in his reach to being lost entirely. The deciding factor was his choice and his choice alone. And, with only thirty short seconds left on the countdown, it was a choice he had to make far too fast.

A puppet for a password. On the surface, it seemed deceptively simple, and in many ways it was. Giving Bill what he wanted would be so easy, so easy in fact that Dipper was admittedly surprised that he was even thinking twice about it. After all, Lapis had given up everything, her form, her freedom, every part of herself, just to ensure his safety. How could he possibly hold back something as wildly pointless in the grand scheme of things has a mere puppet while she struggled and suffered and sacrificed all for his sake? How could he even begin to claim that he cared about her, that she was one of his dearest friends, if he didn’t go through with this, if he didn’t cross this line and make this deal, no matter how it might turn out in the end? When it really came right down to it, he had no choice, not really. Because much like Lapis had known what to do to when Jasper had presented her with a hopeless ultimatum, as Bill offered him a relatively much more hopeful one, Dipper knew what he had to do as well.

Still, before he could even reach his hand up, he was distracted once more by Steven’s almost desperate pounding on the door. “Dipper, come on!” the young Gem cried, his unknown fear starting to overwhelm him as he pushed against the door hard, not noticing as its hinges started to bend against the pressure he was putting on it. “S-something’s wrong! Open the door, please!”

Dipper turned briefly, ready to give the young Gem another brief reassurance, though Bill cut him off before he could. “Tick, tock, kid!” the dream demon reminded, his eye now a steadily rotating clock as his hand continued burning blue. “Rosebud can wait; but you and I both know that Water Wings can’t…”

With the laptop at only ten seconds now, Dipper squared his shoulders, taking just the smallest glance towards the photos once more as he affirmed his resolve. Maybe it was desperation, maybe it was guilt, or maybe it was his own complete and utter exhaustion, but he was going to do this, as absolutely insane and nonsensical as it was. But he had to; for Lapis. “Just one puppet?” he asked, taking in a deep breath as he finally reached his hand up to shake the demon’s, the slightest sense that there was no turning back now coming along with it. “Fine! It’s a deal.”

The very instant their joined hands went down in a solidifying shake of this deal, the attic door came crashing down, Steven falling along with it. The young Gem didn’t have a chance to be surprised at his own strength as his shock was completely reserved for the unbelievable sight in front of him. After all, the last thing he had ever expected to see was Dipper shaking hands with Bill Cipher, with their aforementioned hands both alight with the heatless blue fire that told of a newly-formed agreement. “D-Dipper…” Steven barely breathed in horrified bewilderment, his eyes wide as he absently pulled himself to his feet. “W-what’s-”

“Steven! I-I can explain!” Dipper tried to rationalize, though Bill gleefully cut him off before he had that chance.

“Glad you could join us, Rosebud!” he greeted mirthfully, an edge of twisted triumph in tone over the fact that the young Gem could do nothing to impede his plans now. “You’re just in time to see me pick out my puppet Pine Tree here promised me! Now let’s see here… Eenie, meenie, minie…” He trailed off, his eye turning a dark shade of warning red as he looked back to Dipper. “YOU!”

“Wha-” Dipper cut himself off with a sharp gasp, a painful tug suddenly rippling throughout his entire body. It only seemed to intensify as the abrupt pull soon turned into an agonizing tear, almost as if something was reaching deep inside of his very being for something, its vicious, greedy search seeming to ensnare violate him completely. And once it found that something it had been looking for, it violently ripped it right out of him, until he could no longer feel anything at all.

“Dipper!” Steven’s absolutely terrified cry was what first tipped Dipper off to the fact that something was gravely wrong. Though as he opened his eyes only to look down and see what was, without a doubt, his own body lying prone and seemingly unconscious against the alcove several feet below him, then there was simply no denying that things had taken a horrific turn for the worst.

“W-what’s going on?!” Dipper exclaimed with an aptly shocked gasp as he looked down at himself as opposed to his now seemingly unoccupied body. His alarm only grew as reached to touch his now apparently transparent form, only for it to pass right through it, confirming that he was indeed somehow both intangible and incorporeal. “What is this?! What did you do to my body?!”

Only now did Dipper realize that Bill, whom he correctly assumed was responsible for all this, was nowhere to be found. Though he soon received an answer as the dream demon’s demented, chilling laughter began to ring out across the attic, and, strangely and frighteningly enough, it was coming out of his mouth, of all places.

Not having the faintest idea about what was going on but immensely concerned and afraid all the same, Steven hurried over to Dipper’s manically laughing body, only to be roughly shoved to the ground as Bill started to pull his newly-stolen body up to stand. When is eyes opened, both Steven and Dipper gasped in shared appalment to see that they were now only long yellow slits against a bright, almost glowing yellow, a further sign that the demon had claimed this vessel as his own.

Bill said nothing at first, but instead only laughed twistedly as he grabbed the nearby laptop, its countdown finally hitting zero as he did. At the same time, he also made sure to grab the photos of Dipper and Lapis sitting right next to it, though he brought the laptop down first, tossing it to the ground hard and cackling wildly as he stomped on it, breaking it into nothing more than scattered bits and burnt out circuits. To add insult to injury, the demon then proceeded to cheerfully rip all of the photos into small, unrecognizable scraps that he let fall onto the laptop’s ruined remains. It was clear from his sickening snickers alone that Bill was taking sadistic delight in seeing the absolutely distraught look on Dipper’s immaterial face as he realized all at once that he had just lost everything: the laptop, its secrets, the pictures, the chance to help Lapis, and now, even his own body. “Sorry, kid!” the demon grinned remorselessly, relishing in his triumph as both reeled in terror over the nightmarish twist that had just unfolded, one that had just changed everything in one horrific instant. “But you’re my puppet now!”

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