Chapter Text
"Go! Mabel, press the red button! Shut it down!" My brother yelled as I ran over to the red button. I stared down at it.
"No, you can't !" My grunkle argued, shoving Dipper away. " You gotta trust me!"
I felt tears drip off my face as I looked anxiously between Soos, Dipper and Grunkle Stan. "Grunkle Stan.." I gulped. "I don't even know, if you're my grunkle! I wanna believe you, but--" My voice cut off.
"Then listen to me." He insisted. "Remember this morning when I said I wanted to tell you guys something?" I nodded.
T-Minus 20 seconds.
The portal lit up and flashed so brightly that I would've gone blind if staring into the sun wasn't a hobby of mine. I held onto the button as Soos, Grunkle Stan, and Dipper was shoved against the wall.
"I wanted to say that you're gonna hear some bad things about me," Grunkle Stan said. I had. I didn't even know who he was anymore, and I knew he could tell I felt some distrust. He looked down ashamed. "And some of them are true, but trust me. Everything I've worked for, everything I care about, it's all for this family!" I glanced over at Dipper for some sort of advice.
"Mabel, what if he's lying?" Dipper yelled. "This thing could destroy the universe! Listen to your head!" My head was telling me Believe your grunkle. He loves you. But my glitter-filled gut was telling me that I needed to listen to Dipper for once. I never listened to him, and he seemed genuinely worried now.
"Look into my eyes, Mabel! You really think I'm a bad guy?"
"He's lying! Shut it down NOW!"
"Mabel, please !"
10..
9..
"Grunkle Stan..." I began to say.
6..
5..
"I trust you." I let go of the button and floated upward as the portal lit up with a blinding light. I screamed, and I heard the others scream too. Until I didn't hear anything.
"Dipper? Grunkle Stan?" I called out. I opened my eyes. I wasn't in the Mystery Shack's basement. It looked less musty and dingy. However, in an unfortunate twist, parts of the ground around me started to disassemble.
"Ooh! A new playmate!" A voice sounded. They sounded like a child.. like me . I looked up. There was this floating child, with a face half yellow half blue, like they'd been given a lot of facepaint freedom. He looked like he was in pajamas. He was hugging onto this dog thing who clearly didn't seem to enjoy the hug.
"Collector, I think that girl is already a puppet." The dog thing said. His voice sounded familiar... like Bill's, and I knew that I did not like Bill, especially when he talked about puppets. But the dog thing seemed to be trying to help me.
“Oh, alright, King. Well, come along, Puppet!” The kid exclaimed, waving as they turned away. The dog thing gave me a look that clearly was shouting GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN . So, when the kid and the dog thing flew off, I ran off the platform and fell. I fished around in the pockets of my skirt for my grappling hook. Dang. I’d left it in the shack. Luckily, a tree broke my fall. I mean, it still hurt a lot, but I needed to find people.
I pushed myself off the grass. Apart from the dog thing and the floating face paint kid, this place seemed rather normal. Well,, more normal that Gravity Falls. There was a town ahead of me. It looked desolated, but as if it had been rampaged by me instead of something horrifically evil.
“Hey kid!” Someone yelled. I looked around. Staring down at me from the tree, was this boy. And not like a cute boy, but the cringiest teenage boy I’ve ever seen. He had a drawn on mustache and beard, and ripped up clothing. The only cool thing he had going for him was pointy ears like an elf. “You lost?”
“Uh, yeah.” I nodded. “Who are you?”
“Bigger question is who are you ?” He snapped back.
“My name’s Mabel… I got separated from my family in a portal, and now I’m here.”
“Did not ask for the long backstory, but okay.” I didn’t really like this guy much. “You’re in the Demon Realm now. My name’s Matt.”
“Demon realm? Like dream demons?” I repeated cautious.
“Oh. No ! Those would’ve been banished like the giraffes!”
“Giraffes?”
“Anyways, you should come with me if you want to avoid all of that puppet junk.” He waved his hand, as if shooing off the topic.
I had nothing else to do but trust him. So, like any emotionally intelligent person, I followed him.