I started writing this in English class and I couldn’t stop. Spoiler’s for ‘Not What He Seems’
The portal whined and spat sparks of blue fire. Its center was a ring of bright colors spinning so fast they blurred into an discernible blaze of light, filling the bunker with a unearthly glow. Stanley’s skin prickled with goose bumps and fear at the aura of certain doom the swirling vortex gave off. It was all so familiar to him, the smoke and destruction. But unlike thirty years ago, he wasn’t the one facing a door to another dimension, mere seconds away from disappearing for what could have been forever. It was Dipper and Mabel in that position, his two grandchildren whom he had only known a little over a month.
He saw them standing by the portal’s control panel, Dipper fussing over the remaining buttons and cracked screens. He noticed the scratches and bruises that covered their arms and legs, the gashes and rips in Mabel’s sweater and the tattered mess that was Dipper’s vest. Stanley’s eyes softened and regretted ever building the portal, knowing that without it, the scratches and cuts would have never existed.
He climbed through the rubble of the bunker that held a good two years of his life work, thinking that one month was far too little. Brown eyes steeled themselves behind a cracked pair of glasses. Stanley was going to make sure that he would know his grandchildren for much more than a single, measly month.
That was his mantra of sorts as he maneuvered through the falling ceiling and broken machinery. He made it to the twins in a matter of seconds, and a small part of him wished that he could have done that in eighth grade P.E.
“Dipper! Mabel! The portals gonna tear this place apart!” The twins looked back from the panel in surprise. “Come on! We’ve gotta go!”
“But Pap Pap!” Mabel yelled over the portal’s constant whine. “We’ve still gotta stop it! If it keeps going like this, it’s gonna blow up everything! Then it’s gonna merge the mindscape with the real world and everything is gonna be all mindescape-y and really, really bad because Bill said so and now we’ve gotta stop it or you know, BOOM!”
Mabel threw up her arms in the best explosion mime she could manage in the situation. Stanley would have loved to smile and call her cute for doing it, but not right now. No, trying not to panic and helping them stop the portal was the better choice in this case.
“Alright then. I saw that Cipher already busted the first emergency shutdown mechanism. So, what’s the plan?” Stanley thought it a bit strange to be asking twelve year olds what the plan was, but at the moment he was at a loss at what to do.
“Um, I was looking at the code up on this screen,” Dipper pointed to a black screen with seemingly endless scrolling across it. He recognized it as the secondary override system Fiddleford decided to install when Cipher became more of a threat. Sadly though, it was Fiddleford who encrypted it and kept the key solely with himself.
“And I first thought it was A1Z26.”
Stanley nodded, looking at the numbers himself and trying desperately to think of what McGucket would have set up as the decoder.
“Hm, yeah but a couple of them don’t fit into that. That middle section is gibberish when you only apply A1Z26.”
“Only A1Z26. What if one was to apply another cipher to A1Z26. Like the Vigenère cipher.” Stanley was impressed.
“Ok, but then you still need the decryption key.” Dipper nodded and pointed to an old and rusting name plate that sat on the top of the control panel.
“ ‘Made by F’. Fiddleford McGucket, right? There’s only one thing that I know that old man McGucket would have used as the key.” Dipper reached for the small keypad just under the screen and typed in two words.
“Blind eye.” Stanley watched with wide and prideful eyes as the numbers spun into the message Fiddleford had left thirty years ago. It read:
Now accessing manual override. To proceed with override, enter the decryption key once more.
Mabel let out a whoop and hugged her brother.
“Not awkward cause your brother just saved the world sibling hug!” Dipper chuckled embarrassedly and hugged her back.
“Yep. Definitely not awkward.”
Stanley smiled and ruffled the boy’s hair.
“Knew you could do it.” he said. And he meant it too.
Dipper beamed at the compliment.
“But,” suddenly a loud crashing sound filled the bunker as a good chunk of the ceiling caved in. “You might wanna type that key in first, then we’ll congratulate and hug and all that.”
The twins nodded and Dipper poised his hand to type it in again, though before his fingers could touch the keys and suddenly Stanley’s vision went white.
As quickly as it came, the white splotched away into blurred color with tiny black dots that buzzed like insects. His head was throbbing, his ears ringing and he could’ve sworn someone had taken a mallet to his back. He groaned and blinked a bit, the blurs now focusing into more definable shapes and people. He first made out the bright yellow sweater that was his granddaughter. She was only a few feet away from him, her eyes closed and a trickle of blood running down her forehead. His breath hitched for a moment and tears threatened to bubble up, but they were stopped by the steady rising and falling of her chest. Stanley then breathed himself, relieved that Mabel was still alive. Unconscious, but alive non the less. After lingering for a moment, his eyes made their way to Dipper who was currently looking at the one who had started it all.
“How’s it going pine tree?” Stanley heard the dream demon ask his son. He clenched his fist until his nails dug crimson lines into his palm. Cipher was the source of this mess, the reason for the hellfire and insanity that plagued the dimension he’d been in for thirty years. He was the cause of a lot of pain, and it hurt still not to be able to run up there and punch the monster in his isosceles face.
“Bill! It’s over! I’m only one word away from stoping the portal and ruining your plan for good. Face it, you’ve lost.”
Bill chuckled dryly, twirling his cane as if he expected this all along. Stanley frowned when he realized that he might not be far from the truth.
“You said it yourself pine tree. You’re only one word away.” The demon suddenly closed in on Dipper, leaving only inches between their faces. “So all I’ve gotta do is stop you from typing in that word.”
And then Bill was gone and seconds later, Dipper was on the floor screaming as blue flames ran across his body. Stanley could only watch, his body heavy with pain and the horror of watching his grandson burning alive. He heard him shout a few things, mumble in loud whispers as he writhed and blazed. Suddenly the flames died down to a low roar, and Dipper hoisted himself up from the floor to the key pad. Stanley was surprised to see that his skin looked unburned and totally healthy save a few scratches here and there, though his eyes were a familiar pale yellow, the pupil slit and thin. Stanley could still remember the time when his own eyes were like that, but they weren’t his eyes though, and they certainly weren’t Dipper’s.
Bill in Dipper’s body raised his hand, grinning widely as he made a fist and swung it down in hopes of crushing the key pad and with it any chance of ruining his plans.
His fist stopped before it could touch the keyboard. One finger pried itself from his hand and pushed down on one key.
“Stop it.” Bill’s voice trembled with what Stanley could only describe as fear.
Dipper’s finger wavered before pressing down again.
“SToP.” Bill gripped the out of control hand and tried to pull it back, leaving marks that were sure to become bruises.
Another key was pressed.
“Ị̯͕͎ͅ’̮̙̰L̸͎̹̙͉̯͙L̺̬̟̕ ̼͇͈̬͢K͖̻I̮͉L̠̺̖̫L̖͉͇̥̫̖ ̦̞̩̗̜͙ͅH͡E̱̭ͅR͍!̕”
A sickening crack was heard as Bill’s grip snapped through Dipper’s wrist, but it was too late. A bright yellow message flashed on the black screen.
Manual Override activated. Portal shutting down.
“No, you won’t.” Dipper, the real Dipper who’s voice cracked more than the sidewalk, said.
“N̵̴O̢͠!̴̛͠” The whine of the portal dulled down and the glow faded. Bill’s plan had failed. Suddenly, Bill grinned and looked at the dying portal with something awful in his eyes.
“Gotta go out with a bang though, don’t we pine tree.” Stanley watched with terrified eyes as the portal brightened, gaining speed and the life it should have lost.
Error. Error. Power overload. Destruction of portal in 5.
He struggled with moving his body, his arms and legs feeling like lead.
4.
He somehow made it to Mabel, her eyes still closed in a forced sleep.
3.
He tucked her into his lap and brushed away the streak of blood on her forehead.
2.
He ignored the insane laughter and blinding light that began to fill the room, the portal’s whine even louder than before.
1.
Stanley Pines kissed his granddaughter on the forehead and pressed her head into his shoulder.
“I trust you too Pap pap.” he heard her mumble into his shoulder. He felt tears soak through his cotton black shirt, and was surprised to find that they were his.
He looked to the silhouette of his grandson against the harsh glow of the portal, and for a second he saw it flicker into someone tall and elegant with what seemed to be small wings at his tailbone. He dismissed it, though something about that small glimpse made him have hope in getting more than that one month.
“And I trust him.”
0.
The world turned white once more and magic swept across the earth and her creatures, soaking into her core and bringing about a new era that many referred to as the Transcendence.
At the same time, a small tourist trap known as the Mystery Shack exploded in a flurry of blue flames and magic.
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